Authors: Benjamin Whitmer
Justin
Most of the time I can’t stop seeing your face. And most of the time I make sure of it. I write to you because it forces me to pull you up out of my memory and hold you in front of me. It’s that nightmare about looking for something that I can’t find and then realizing it’s you. I know that if I don’t keep writing you’ll sink down so far I won’t be able to pull you up anymore. You’ll go under for good and I’ll be left holding what everybody else has. A memory of a very nice little boy who is gone. But you’re not gone for me.
The only time I can’t lift you out is now. Right now. As we get nearer to the anniversary of your death I can’t find your face anywhere. It happens every year. It doesn’t matter how hard I grope around, you’re just not there.
But he is. Court is. Where I’m looking for you, I can’t help but find him.
The first anniversary, I thought I had to kill him to get you back. As we got nearer to the date and I couldn’t find anything but him in my mind, that’s what I arrived at. That the only way to clear him out of my head, to get you back, was to wipe him off the planet. And not with a gun, either. Nothing as neat as a bullet. I planned to beat him to death with my fists.
It was your mother who stopped me. It was a phone call with her. I told her the whole thing. How I couldn’t drive Court out of my head. How I could pick up a picture of you, stare at it, and then put it down and forget what you looked like in twenty seconds. How I couldn’t sleep anymore for being scared I’d forget you altogether.
She explained that it was happening to her, too. That it was the anniversary, that it was trying to bury our memories of your life with your death. She told me that she was sure it would pass. That the anniversary was like a moon drawing our memories in a tide, but that it would pass. She convinced me that it would be no different for Court. That there was nothing I could do to punish him worse than that itself. She convinced me to leave him alone.
56
shitass
T
he thing about going for three or four days without sleep at a stretch, running on cocaine and fumes, is that when sleep does finally hit, it hits like a sledgehammer. Which is how Junior ends up passed out behind the wheel of his car, parked on the street with a good view of Jenny’s house.
That is, until somebody slaps the window his head is rested against. Then he tries to jump in three directions at once, banging his head on the doorframe, then swatting away the cigarette that’s burnt down between his fingers.
When he looks out the window and sees Jenny’s face, he thinks about just putting his keys in the ignition and driving away. But he doesn’t. He rolls down the window and tries on his best grin. “How you doing, lady?”
“Unlock the door,” she says.
He reaches across to the passenger’s side and pulls the lock while
she walks around the car. “What are you doing outside my house?” she asks, stepping into the Charger.
He rubs sleep out of his good eye, then lifts his eye patch and takes his handkerchief out of his pocket and rubs at his bad eye. “Sleeping.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Junior,” she said. “Sure as hell not right now.”
Junior finds a half-f beer between the seats and takes a drink. It’s warm and flat.
“Don’t stall, Junior,” she says. “What’re you doing spying on me?”
He shrugs.
“Junior?”
He takes another drink of the beer. Gags on it a little, but swallows.
“Junior?”
“You want the truth?”
“I want the truth,” she says. “That’s all I want.”
“The truth is I got no idea.”
She nods. “I guess that’s about the only thing I’d believe.”
Junior knows he should keep his mouth shut. But he can’t quite yet. “Your boyfriend lives with his parents.”
She looks at him.
“That’s all I’m saying about it. If you’re gonna get yourself a boyfriend, at least find one who can take care of my daughter.”
“How do you think you’re doing at that, Junior? Taking care of your daughter?”
It’s Junior’s turn to be silent.
“I’m not gonna apologize, Junior.”
“I ain’t asking you to.”
“I mean it. Not for anything. Not for moving, not for getting a
job, and not for anybody I see. You ain’t got no right to say anything about my life.”
“I know.” He takes another drink of the warm beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “But you can do better than some shitass who wears his uniform pants on a date.”
“Jesus, Junior.” She just stares at him, her shadow-battered face bending in on itself in the street light. He tries not to look at her, but can’t help it. “What the hell are you gonna do with yourself?”
He shrugs.
“What you’re doing ain’t working. Just so you know. I know you think it is, but it ain’t.”
Junior picks up the beer again as if to take another drink, but decides against it and drops the can out the window.
Her voice softens. “You’re welcome to be around as much as you want, Junior. I meant what I said. Once I start working I can help you find something else besides the driving. And you can see Casey, anytime.”
“How’s about if I want to just sit out here and watch the house,” he says.
“That, too,” she says. She reaches over and puts her hand on his cheek, and he bends his head into it. “We miss you, Junior. I don’t think you know it, but we do.” Then she opens her door and steps out, walks back toward her house.
Junior watches her go. Watches her all the way up to her door, to where she disappears inside the house.
And for just a second he thinks about following her.
57
almost
S
o Patterson hunkers by a neighboring gravestone and watches Laney and Gabe. Laney’s wearing black. Black jeans and a black shirt and a short black leather jacket, which does nothing but make Patterson realize that he isn’t wearing anything black at all. Justin’s stone is just on the edge of a small cottonwood grove, and even as thin and underwatered as the trees are, they tower over the small, plain gray marker.
Patterson didn’t have much to say about where they picked the cemetery. It was one in a hundred things that he didn’t give a shit about when his boy died. But he was glad now that Laney picked it where she did. He doesn’t think he’s ever been in the place when it wasn’t brown. The brown adobe walls around it, the brown iron gate, the brown halfhearted wood crosses that still weed the grounds, and the untended brown dirt in the place of grass. The Chinese elm shoots that have taken over half of Taos, even they’re brown. There’s something steadying about all the brown.
The fact is, Patterson’s having the old panic attacks again. Sweating, heart surging, vision slipping. It’s like no time has passed at all since Justin died, like it happened just today. He’s using every single trick he knows to create distance between himself and it. And not just all the distractions he’s created over the last month, all the distractions he’s always created. He dry-swallows two more Vicodin and rests his arm on Sancho’s back. Vicodin helps with that distance.
Laney’s saying something and holding flowers in both her hands that she means to place on the grave. Which makes no sense to Patterson. What boy wants flowers? Gabe, he seems to know better, and he has two comic books rolled up in his fist that he means to leave. For the first time, Patterson is thankful for the boy. Thankful and sorry for him, too, as he watches his mother begin to cry.
Patterson wishes he could do what Laney needs him to. Not for the first time, he wishes he could be someone other than he is. He scratches Sancho between the shoulder blades. The dog, who he knows is standing there solid because he knows Patterson needs him there. Holding on to Sancho, Patterson’s almost able to convince himself that he, at least, won’t do the one thing that he knows will make this harder for Laney.
Almost.
58
contracting
N
ights in Junior’s house are spent wandering the halls, pacing the living room and bedroom. Whatever cocaine he’s done coursing through his system, jolting him awake at the slightest noise. Even changes in the air currents in the house can wake him up, and he’ll try every spot he can to get some rest. Tonight it’s been the bed, then the couch, then the floor of the bedroom between the bed and the wall, where the hardwood floor is cool on his back. That’s where he is, on the floor of his bedroom, when he wakes with the feeling something has changed in the air outside the open bedroom door.
Then he hears the front door close very quietly, and he’s all the way awake.
One other thing about sleeping on the floor in his bedroom, it’s under his bed that Junior keeps his Mossberg autoloader. In his line of work, it isn’t as though he hasn’t considered the possibility of home invaders. He turns just on his side, so he can see the door of the bed
room, and eases the shotgun to his shoulder, sliding it so the ghost ring sights cover the bottom six inches of the opening into the living room. A pair of tennis shoes and about four inches of khaki pants appear.
The Mossberg holds seven rounds of 00 buckshot, each of them containing nine pellets of .33 caliber ball. Unlike a pump shotgun, the autoloader can unload those rounds as fast as Junior can pull the trigger.
And he does, pulling the trigger as fast as he can. The shotgun’s report is so loud it blows holes in his hearing, yellow punctures of sound and light. But Junior barely hears any of it once he begins shooting. Time slows and his vision narrows and the pellets drive smoke and tissue and blood and sock and khaki from the man’s ankles, from the bones. There’s something like a shriek, though Junior can’t hear well enough to be sure. Then the man’s falling, and Junior shoots him in the face. It makes a scooped bowl of loose gore of the top half of the man’s head, and Junior doesn’t bother firing again. There’s nothing of the man but a sack of blood emptying on the floor.
Junior grabs his Glock from the end table and waits. When his hearing finally clears, or at least calms to a dull ring, and he detects nothing else from the house, he steps out from behind the bed. The mess is incredible, blood and bits of the man coat the floor and the walls behind him. And the smell’s worse. Coppery blood and feces. Junior notes the tattoos, the black hair, the patches of brown skin on the man.
He walks to him, his bare feet slopping in the blood, and pulls his pockets. No wallets, no ID. Nothing but a little black leather book. Junior opens it, and even with his bad Spanish, he’s able to translate the passage: It is better to be a master of one peso than a slave of two; it is better to die fighting than on your knees and humiliated; it is bet
ter to be a living dog than a dead lion.
Junior hangs his head, squatting there in the blood. He sees the rest of his life like through a tunnel. And it’s contracting fast, shrinking so that he can see right through to the end. He has to put a hand down in the blood to steady himself.
There’s no way he’s getting away from this. Even in Junior’s neighborhood, emptying a shotgun in your bedroom will bring a phone call to the police. Meaning he’s got somewhere around twenty minutes to figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his fast-compressing life.
His first thought is to make a run for it. Maybe north, to get lost in Montana. Maybe south to Mexico.
His second thought is to make sure that those who’ve played fast and loose with the rest of his life, that they understand what that means.
59
gentle
“I
know it’s hard, honey,” Laney says to Patterson. Gabe is in bed. He’s fallen asleep on the car ride home, worn out from Laney feeding him stories about his brother.
“I’ll leave in a minute,” Patterson says. He’s tilting against Laney’s sink, drinking a water glass of bourbon from a bottle that he probably left there. The sink has dirty dishes and dead flies in it.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she says. She sits hunched forward on a cushioned chair at the small writing desk where she does bills. “I want you to stay. That’s what I want you to do.”
The whiskey is a small fire in his solar plexus. “I don’t know how you do it,” Patterson says.
“People survive, honey,” she says. “Why don’t you go in and look in on Gabe? Look in on him sleeping.”
Patterson finishes the bourbon. He knows it’s time to leave.
“Look in on him while he’s sleeping,” she says. “It’ll help.”
Patterson pushes off the sink. “I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t go.” She stands, steps toward him. Patterson puts the palm of his hand in the middle of her chest and pushes her back. He isn’t as gentle as he could be. “Patterson,” she says. She steps toward him again. He shoves her back again. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “Stay.”
He moves toward the door, but she’s there. He puts out his hand to move her aside. She slips it. “I’ve got to go,” he says. He hears panic in his voice. He shuffles to the side, steps forward. She’s there again in front of him. He shoves her out of the way. She bangs into the cupboard by the door. The dishes inside click together. “I’ve got to go,” he says again.
Her face blotches red. “You’re not going.” She slaps him on the forehead. She probably means to hit him on the mouth, but she’s out of practice. She tries again and gets him on the chin. He stiff-arms her into the writing desk. A cup of pens turn over, clattering out onto the floor. She pushes off the desk, swinging with her open hands. Right on his cheek, left on his jawline, right across his eye. Then she closes her fists and flurries him. She tires finally. She drops her hands and stands with her shoulders hunched, breathing hard like an animal.
Patterson smacks her openhanded on the side of the head. She cries out, curls her face into her shoulder. She swings tentatively back at him. He grabs her hand out of the air and hits her on the other side of the head. She flails with her free hand. Patterson catches it, shoves her backward into the desk again. The chair hits the floor, the cushion falling free of the seat. “I’m going,” he says.
“You better not go.” She’s breathing heavy. “You motherfucker.”
60
weakness
I
t’s early morning, but they’re in the garage with the door open, the heavy fan set into the wall pounding tirelessly at the acrid air. Eduardo’s under the hood of the Corvette and Vicente’s sitting at the chess table with one leg crossed over the other. He’s wearing a long underwear shirt covered in oil stains, drinking an espresso and reading the
New York Times
. He looks up at Junior and nods, but doesn’t say anything. He sips his espresso and returns his attention to the newspaper. The sun through the windows lies in dusty yellow blankets on the floor. Then Eduardo turns. “Hello Junior,” he says.
“A man came in my house,” Junior says.
Eduardo leans over and picks up a rag and wipes his hands. “A man?”
“A man.”
Vicente folds his paper and sets it down on the table. He places his espresso cup on top of it. “Did he mean you harm?” He asks it in a serious voice.
Junior nods. He starts to say something, but his voice thickens in his throat. Then he says, “I blew him inside out.”
Eduardo doesn’t say anything.
“I unloaded a shotgun into him,” Junior says. “By the time I was done you could’ve fit him in a dustpan.”
Eduardo finishes wiping his hands. He tosses the rag in the dirt. “Junior took his friend with him down to El Paso,” he says to Vicente. “Just took him along for the ride. This is what Carmichael told me.”
Junior pulls the little black leather book out of his front pocket and shows it to them. “This is one of their books,” he says.
“He is never sober,” Eduard continues. “He will have us both in jail or dead.”
“What did you do, Eduardo?” Vicente says softly.
“He is weak,” Eduardo says. “Not only weak. Weak and stupid. You think because he is charming, he is smart. But he is not.”
“Did you try to have this boy killed?” Vicente says.
“I am not the one to worry about,” Eduardo says.
“It was La Familia?” Vicente asks. “You contacted them.”
“This was a risk of working with La Familia,” Eduardo says. “I warned you of this, Vicente. I warned you of it and you let him into your house. He preyed on your weakness. Your considerable weakness.”
Vicente just shakes his head.
Eduardo holds his hands out. “Have you thought about what would have happened to us?” he says to Junior. “To Vicente?”
“I thought about it all the way over,” Junior says.
Eduardo opens his mouth to say something else, but Junior has his Glock out of his holster and does his best to put the bullet right down Eduardo’s throat. The hollow point round misses, but just slightly, catching him through the right eye. It expands, fragmenting in the tis
sue and skull, and everything to the side of Eduardo’s eye blows off his skull in a vapor. He staggers toward Junior. Juniors drops the front sight and fires three rounds into his chest. Eduardo crumbles forward in a heap. Blood spits from his head, from his mouth, from his nose.
Junior’s never heard anything like the sound that comes out of Vicente. It’s something like the scream of a monkey. He hurtles from his chair, his hands clawing at Junior’s eyes. Junior punches into his chest with the Glock, fires two rounds right into his sternum. Vicente’s nails rake Junior’s cheeks, taking chunks of skin and flesh.
Junior tries to move backward, to give himself some room. Vicente keeps coming. Junior stumbles over a toolbox. He falls, firing upward into Vicente’s body. Vicente jumps at Junior. His glasses are broken, blood frothing from the corners of his mouth and his nose. Junior slams the Glock into his side, under his arm, and fires twice more.
It’s the second round that stops Vicente. Junior doesn’t know what he hits, but Vicente’s face freezes and he stops moving, blood spilling out of the hole in his side. Then the muscles in his face slacken and he’s dead.
Junior grunts and shoves Vicente off him. He stands, looking around.