Desperation Road(24)

“Used to be. Guess it is again.”

“Loaded?”

“Yep.”

Boyd scratched his chin. “How’s your daddy?”

“Still going.”

“Out there in the same spot?”

“The same.”

“You know you can’t have a gun. Shit, Russell. You ain’t even been home twenty-four hours.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you riding around with a loaded twenty-gauge?”

“It just worked out that way.”

“Not just a loaded shotgun but empty beer cans on the floorboard.”

Russell gave a big exhale. Shrugged his shoulders.

“Do me a favor and unload it,” Boyd said.

“All right.”

“And don’t drink no more right now.”

“Yes sir.”

“Look, between you and me plenty of those boys over there drive around looking to stick it to somebody. Might be why one is shot up. And don’t none of them really give a shit about fellas who already been in once.”

“I gotcha.”

“Okay. Take off now. Go on home.”

Russell nodded. He cranked the truck and backed away from the scene and then he was again alone in the dark. But he did not think of going home. Instead he opened another beer and drove slow, looking for a good side road. The shifting shades of dark as he put miles between him and the flashing lights. He found a road between two fence posts where a rusted metal gate was bent out of shape and wedged open. The truck just fit through the opening and he followed the bumpy road until it ended in the middle of a pasture. He shut the headlights and got out.

But he didn’t let down the tailgate. Didn’t sit on the hood. Instead he paced around with the high grass brushing his legs. His arms folded and his lips pressed together. The beer can sweating in his hand.

He appreciated what Boyd said but he wasn’t going to unload the shotgun.

There was a simplicity to Boyd that he admired. A wife and kids and a job with benefits and he couldn’t help but think of Sarah. He had told himself that her picture wouldn’t make it out of the box but she had made it to the mantel already. There had been no reason to bring her home with him. The memories of what had been had helped to sustain him while confined amid concrete and steel but there was no reason to bring her home. But he had. He thought he knew where she lived. He had the address from the last letter she had sent him six years earlier. I have to move on, Russell. He’s a good man, Russell. Nobody can help the way things turned out.

He wondered about the dead deputy. Wondered if his death had been merciful. Like the merciful death he had wished for so many nights as he lay awake, fearful of what might come the next day. To him or the man standing next to him.

Go on home, Boyd had said.

He shook his head. Figured Larry and Walt might be sitting on his front steps. Or the back steps. Or hiding in the closet. He kept pacing and drinking and thinking. Sometimes talked to the stars. Sometimes kicked at the grass.

He knew that sooner or later he was going to go to that address and find out if she was there and right now seemed like as good a time as any. He cranked the truck and swung around. Passed through the gate and lit a cigarette. And then he turned south on Highway 48 and made his way toward Magnolia.





18


IT WAS ONE OF THOSE SMALL AND PICTURESQUE SOUTHERN TOWNS that should have and might have been in the movies. Tall, Victorian houses. Grand magnolias. Turn-of-the-century streetlamps. Churches with steeples that reached into the clouds. He passed a row of shotgun houses. One blue, the next yellow, the next pink, the next white. He followed the highway into downtown and turned left on Jefferson Street and passed city hall. The courthouse stood at the end of the block and then he turned right and drove three streets uphill to where the road reached back around behind city hall and from your front yard you could look out across the town. He had the address memorized and he drove slowly along Washington Avenue looking for 722. He found it on the corner, a fire hydrant painted like a jockey at the edge of the sidewalk. He stopped the truck on the opposite side of the street.

It was a two-story blue house with a steep roof. There was an arched window on the second floor that looked like an upstairs balcony. Burgundy shutters. There were two chimneys and a porch that stretched the length of the front of the house and turned the corner and reached down the right side toward the backyard fence. A brick walkway from the sidewalk to the steps and then brick steps and terra cotta pots on each step. Yellow and white petals hung over the edges of the pots. At the foot of the steps a little red wagon was dumped over on its side. Wicker furniture on the porch and empty glasses on the table. Two cars were parked in the street along the side of the house. Something big and black with four doors and something sleek with round taillights. Alongside the house lay a soccer ball and a baseball bat. A plastic slide perfect for somebody small.

All the appearances of happiness.

He put the truck in drive and he drove into the night thinking about his life. With the effortlessness with which he had arrived at this moment. I got drunk and killed somebody with my car. That was it. He had marveled at the stories he had heard from other inmates. At the complications they had fallen into. At the opportunities they were given for things to go right but then they went wrong and it seemed like it was mostly the fault of others. He didn’t have that story. I got drunk and killed somebody with my car. It was as basic a story as you could tell. He thought of her now like he had thought of her so many times. Sleeping between soft sheets. Sleeping in a silent peace or sometimes turning and reaching for him. Maybe it had happened before but he couldn’t imagine it now. Not after seeing that house. Those toys in the yard. He saw her sleeping and her dreams filled with sand castles and birthday cakes and dinner parties while his dreams were filled with hand grenades. Filled with things he didn’t want to see any longer. Filled with things he wished he could forget.