On the Loose (10 page)

"I wish you were the Almighty," she said.

He looked at her wonderingly. Yet he knew what
she was going to say.

"So you could bring her back, James."

On a Sunday afternoon Ben Sawhill and his
brother strolled the back reaches of his property.
Towering pines dropped golden needles, several to
a pack. A blizzard of birds flew overhead, swerved
in a great arc, and vanished into the blue. Ben said,
"Bobby's uncooperative. He's refused counseling.
Otherwise, Grissom says he's doing all right."

"How can he be doing all right if he's not getting
help?"

"One thing at a time, Harry."

"Why doesn't he want me to visit him? I'm his
father. You're his uncle. Why doesn't he want to
see you?"

"He needs time to adjust. Grissom says you
should write him once a week if possible, even if
you don't get answers."

"I wouldn't know what to say. On paper it's different, harder. The words become permanent.
Damn it, Ben, Bobby and I were never close. His
mother's death did something to both of us."

They approached the start of maple and oak
splurging colors. Leaves were trailing away, and
the woods were opening up, showing empty
shelves. Harry shuddered.

"Is my kid a monster?"

"Something's terribly wrong with him, that's
certain."

"My fault, Ben? Is that what people say?"

"Doesn't matter what people say. We're Sawhills."

"I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Trish.
How's Belle taking it?"

"She's still shaken, of course."

"The twins?"

"Hard to tell," Ben said. "They're still so young."

"Maybe they could write to Bobby."

"Maybe."

They skirted the woods. Once the area had been
all woods, the Heights not even a gleam in a developer's eye. In boyhood they had known all the
straying paths, the sudden openings, the secret
nooks, and could enter rooms of antique fern and
emerald moss, with pets in the corners, a fleeing
snake here, a chipmunk there. They were Boy
Scouts. Ben knew birds. The gold of a finch was
money in the bush. The tanager adored his mate.
Harry knew droppings. He knew a skunk's scat
from a possum's, and he knew the leavings of a fox
and the pellets of an owl.

"It's getting chilly," Harry said with a shiver.

Ben, gazing at the sun, didn't feel the chill. He
saw the sun as gold, the money that keeps the
earth alive. "Zip up your jacket."

Harry noted the shadows in the woods and saw
danger. Milkweed let loose parachutes. Sumac
blazed. He liked autumn but dreaded what would
follow. Too much isolating darkness and cold. He
hated the holiday season. Too much sadness.

"When we were kids, Ben, I was the boss. Now
you are. I take my cues from you."

"I don't see it that way."

"You always had more drive, certainly more
brains."

Ben sighed. "Let's not get on that subject, OK?"

I'm quoting the old man's opinion. He said he
didn't know how to deal with me."

"You going to drop it or not, Harry?"

"I'm scared, that's what I'm getting to. What
will I do with Bobby when he comes out?"

"That's a good while yet. We'll figure it out then."

They began retracing their route back to the
house. The sun was in and out, hunching behind
this cloud and then that one. Another storm of
birds appeared.

"Starlings," Ben said.

Harry zipped up his jacket. "I wouldn't know.
You knew birds, I knew shit."

On Bobby Sawhill's last working day in the toilets,
Duck said, "I'm gonna miss you. I never had a pal
before."

"Me neither." Bobby ran two scrub brushes together under running water to clean them. "We'll
still see each other."

"But not as much. Maybe you could ask to stay."

"It's already been decided. They're putting me in
the library."

"I'll always be in the toilets," Duck said and
made suds with a big yellow bar of soap. Then he
smiled. "Smells good in here, don't it, Bobby? I
keep it nice."

They were still at the sinks when they heard the scuffs of someone's heavy sneakers. In the mirrors
they saw the rangy snakelike figure of a bad character named Ernest, who was bare-chested in
sweatpants, olive-skinned, tattooed on one arm.
The tattoo was a skull and bones. He had a shaved
head and hooded eyes.

"You're not supposed to use these toilets," Duck
said into a mirror, his tone of authority tentative.
"You're supposed to use the ones for Dorm C."

Ernest grinned. Dorm C was for youths no longer
boys, short-timers headed for a halfway house or
state prison. "I go where I want, Duck, always have.
I shit, you come wipe me, OK?" His grin widened.
"Or Sawhill can do it, if he's got your touch."

Duck changed color. "You're not supposed to
talk to us that way."

"That's right." Ernest ambled up behind them
and threw his torso close to Bobby's. "You're Dibble's boys. His little whiteys."

Bobby spoke to his own reflection. "I'm not so
little."

"But you can't stand up to me, can you? I could
slit your throat with my fingernail."

Bobby held his breath, and so did Duck. Laughing, Ernest sauntered off not toward the stalls but
to the urinals, which hung from the wall like giant
peeled eggs. Poised at one, legs spread, he pissed
mostly on the floor. Leaving, he said, "Clean it up,
Duck."

After several seconds passed and they were sure
he was gone, Duck said, "He's getting meaner.
Time's running short."

"He's getting out?"

"He's graduating. Going to the real place. He
won't be so tough there."

"Who'd he kill?" Bobby asked.

"His whole family. He was high." Duck carried
mop and pail to the urinals and began swabbing.
"How many did you kill, Bobby?"

Images working into the forefront of his mind,
Bobby held up a finger and then added another,
which stirred memories. The memories, like pages
in a coloring book, required crayons.

"I've never killed anybody," Duck said. "Don't
know if I could."

"It's not hard," Bobby said.

Mr. Grissom summoned Bobby to his office and
viewed him with an unsparing eye. "How's Dibble
treating you, Sawhill?"

Bobby smiled immediately. "He lets me call him
Dibs now."

"That says something. In fact, it says a lot. Anybody giving you trouble?"

"No, sir."

"Know when to be brave, know when to back
down. I like heroes, but I like smart cowards better, boys who know how to look after themselves.
You like your job in the library?"

"I miss the toilets," Bobby said.

Mr. Grissom let that pass. His active face
speeded up. "So far all reports on you have been
good, except for one thing. Why are you resisting counseling? I don't understand that. Aren't there
things you want to talk about, get off your chest?
Don't you want to be a happy person?"

"I am happy."

Mr. Grissom went silent for a few moments, the
movement in his face subsiding. "Something else I
don't understand. Why don't you want to see your
family?"

"You said I didn't have to."

"Doesn't mean I think it's right. Your uncle calls
every week to see how you're doing. Your father
got on the line once, and I talked with him. Don't
they mean anything to you?"

Bobby groped through a murk of feelings, careful not to vanish into an emotional sinkhole. "I
don't know," he said.

"I see you got a letter the other day. Who was
that from?"

"My cousins. They're twins."

"They mean anything to you?"

"They're just kids," Bobby said and prayed Mr.
Grissom would not delve deeper into his family.
He didn't want his mother's name mentioned. He
didn't want her memory disturbed.

.You can write to them, you know. Nothing
stopping you."

"Yes, sir."

"OK, Sawhill, I guess that's about it for now.
You keep your nose clean, a few months from now
you'll have treats."

Bobby brightened. "Treats, sir?"

"Dibble will tell you about it when it's time. You
keep quiet about it for now."

"Yes, sir."

"I like you, Sawhill. Already you're one of my
better boys."

Seated near a log fire, Ben Sawhill was engrossed
in a newspaper, his eye fastened to the financial
page. Seated nearby, Belle Sawhill used a magazine
as a lapboard on which she was trying to write a
letter to her sister in Seattle. The letter was an attempt to clear her mind, but each word was
forced. Finally she put pen and paper aside and let
the magazine slip between her knees.

"I'm worried, Ben. I'm worried about the girls. I
don't want them writing to Bobby anymore."

"What's the harm?" Ben folded his paper in half.
"We can't simply cut him out of our lives, pretend
he doesn't exist."

"That's exactly what I want to do. He's not your
son. He's only your nephew."

Ben stared quietly at the fire, tongues of flame
leaping up as if to tell a story. "I'll do whatever you
want," he said. "I worry too."

The words subdued her, made her rethink her
position without changing it. "Worst is the guilt I feel. After his mother died, when we had him with
us, I should have done more for him. Spent more
time with him."

"How could you? You had two newborns on
your hands."

"I had help. I could've made time, but I had eyes
only for my babies. They're so precious to me."
She cocked an ear. The twins were in their room,
doing their homework. "When they're alone together they become one. They're two heartbeats, a
single soul. When they stare at each other, I wonder what they see."

"We've been blessed, Belle. Harry hasn't. He's
had nothing but heartache."

"I know. Poor Harry. How's his drinking?"

"On and off. Thank God he has Trish, but I
don't know how long she'll put up with him."

"Quite a while, Ben, have no fear."

He gave her exceptional attention. "Why do you
say that?"

She rose and stood by the fire, her hands
pressed into the baggy pockets of a coat sweater.
Firelight streaked her black hair. "She's in love
with you, you know that."

"That's not my fault. I've done nothing to encourage her."

"Is she hard to resist?"

"Not in the least."

His words warmed her more than the fire did,
though she shuddered, as if she had survived a
dangerous moment. "I'm sorry, Ben. I'm being
silly, but lately everything's a threat."

"How the hell could I love anyone but you? Impossible."

She withdrew a letter from the right pocket of
the sweater, the handwriting on the small envelope
immature. "They've given me another one to mail,
but I'm not going to do it. Do you mind?"

"I think you're wrong, but I don't mind."

She tossed the letter into the fireplace and
watched it burn. The flames looked happy.

Harry Sawhill was drunk. In the dark a chair
swung in front of him and banged his knee. Reeling, he felt the edge of a table stab him. Trish,
reading in bed, heard a thump. Barefoot, she
rushed down the stairs, switched on the kitchen
light, and found him sitting on the floor, nursing
his wounds, and crying. His eyes swerved up.

"I'm no good, Trish No damn good."

Without saying anything, she tended to agree.
Leaning over him, she gripped him under the
arms. "Get up," she said.

He couldn't, or he didn't want to. His weight
was too much for her. She let go and staggered
back, her body big and busy in thin pajamas.

"Not my fault," he said. "I still don't know my
way around your house."

"Wouldn't have happened in your house, huh?"
Her voice was spiteful. Then it softened. "You
hurt?"

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "I
hate your house."

She hated it too. It was the fruits of a failed mar riage, part of a payoff from a man she'd always
known she'd lose. She had loved him too much.
Harry was another matter. Dropping to one knee, she
swept an arm around him. "Where do you hurt?"

"Everywhere."

She hugged him lightly, as if giving limited love
to a child not hers. His nose was running, needed
another wipe. Damned if she was going to do it.
"Get up, Harry. Don't make mama mad."

He shuffled about, drew up a foot, needed help,
more than she could give without more effort from
him. "You're everything to me," he said. "You're
the cream in my coffee."

"And you're the fly in my ointment. Come on,
Harry, give it another try."

He used brute strength she didn't know he had.
On his feet he tottered and grabbed the table edge
and then her arm for support. She threw her belly
against his to steady him. For an instant they
looked like dancers.

"You're not going to be sick, are you?"

"No, I swear," he said.

She helped him up the stairs, which involved
only a few stumbles. In the bedroom she undressed him and got him under the covers, where
he began to shiver. She didn't intend to join him,
but he wanted her with him.

"Hold me," he said.

She climbed into bed and did what he wanted,
the least she could do, part of the marriage bargain, wifely duties, motherly concerns. They all hit
upon her. His breath was in her face.

"Are you going to leave me?"

"No, I'll never leave you," she said and felt him
drifting into a stupor. When he began to snore,
she said, "And you're right, Harry. You're no good
at all."

They played poker in the fire barn, nickel and
dime, a quarter limit, a table set up near the
pumper. Malcolm Crandall, the town clerk, fluttered the cards and made them crackle and pop.
He was a serious player and a fast dealer. He shot
cards around the table, two down, one up. "Sevencard stud," he said unnecessarily. It was what he
always played. He disliked anything fancy or out of
the ordinary. "Your bet, Doc."