Desperation Road(35)
Copies of these photographs had been stuck into the blond man’s pants as he lay halfconscious on the hood of the car. Larry held on to this set to take to his lawyer who had told him that if you don’t want her to get your money you’d better get some proof. He’d been meaning to take them to the lawyer for a week but hadn’t. His hate had been redirected with Russell’s homecoming and he was pretty sure he was about to goddamn explode. He stuffed the photos back into the envelope and the envelope back into the glove compartment and he slammed it shut.
He grabbed the crowbar and got out of the truck. He walked to the front of the house and attacked the windows, spraying the glass and wood into the house and onto the ground and he felt the sting of shards on his arms and face as he moved from window to window, each one suffering a more violent death than the one before as his blood roared with the destruction. When he was done he walked back to the sidewalk and turned and admired his work as he breathed heavily and swung the crowbar at his side as if he were getting ready to go again. He caught his breath and lit another cigarette and waited to see if Russell might poke his head out of one of the holes but he didn’t. He was for the moment satisfied and he tossed the crowbar over into the truck bed and climbed in the truck. He eased along the street at a walker’s pace, hoping that the racket would rise the neighbors to look out their windows or come out of their doors to fear what he had done.
23
WHEN RUSSELL TURNED THE CORNER OF HIS STREET HE SAW THE red taillights of the truck moving away from his house. Moving at a crawl. So he quickly turned off his headlights and waited for the truck to go away. Then he drove two blocks down and parked and walked to the house, leaving the shotgun in the truck. Passing someone’s garbage he noticed a metal pipe in a pile of stripped plumbing and he picked it up and walked with it on his shoulder like a batter walking toward home plate.
He eased around the side of the house and went in the back door. He didn’t turn on any lights and he walked into the living room, the glass crunching beneath his feet on the hardwood floor. He propped the metal pipe against the fireplace mantel. Put his hands on his hips. There was nothing to do but wait until the morning. He didn’t want to turn on the lights. Didn’t want the truck to come back and know he was inside. Didn’t want to be there.
He sat down on the sofa but got up again when a piece of glass stuck into the back of his leg. He looked out the broken windows into the front yard and he felt a headache settling in. Figured it was too early in the night to give up on them coming back. It was sit and wait or get the hell out.
He got back in the truck and stopped and bought a Coke and a couple of airplane bottles of Jim Beam and then he drove out to the lake. Boats filled the marina bays and lights gleamed on the slapping water at the boat ramp. He crossed over the dam and then there was only the dark and then the road led into forest that surrounded the back side of the lake, side roads here and there branching off into camping areas and another that led to the Bottom. It was unofficially accepted by the park rangers that the Bottom was the one spot where the kids could sit and do what they wanted as long as nobody was murdered and the trash was picked up. Russell drove into the Bottom and there they were. A circle of cars and a gathering of boys and girls standing around a fire, not too close, holding cans and cigarettes, the water behind them still and black. They watched him with firelit faces as he backed up and left.
Farther around the lake he found what he had been looking for. A dirt road that didn’t stop until it hit water. Barely wide enough for the truck to squeeze between the trees. His headlights shot across the water and he watched for a moment and checked for alligators but saw no knobby heads and bulging eyes. He then carefully backed between the trees and maneuvered the truck until he was able to get the tailgate toward the water and he stopped close to the edge. He took the Coke and tiny bottles of liquor and dropped the tailgate and sat down with his feet dangling at the water’s edge. Across the lake cabin lights spotted the bank.
The lake was always busiest leading up to the Fourth of July and then little by little the boats thinned out as the summer dragged on and the heat became tiresome. He remembered the Fourth of July two years ago when he had watched a gang of men stomp another man to death and call it fireworks. And then last year he had watched them do the same thing. The same men. He had watched because he needed to mark their faces. He had to know who they were and that was the best way to do it. To watch the evil so that you could stay away from the evil. As much as you could. Fireworks, they called it. It was an old man both times. Someone whose death wouldn’t call for revenge. He wondered how they picked who it was going to be. He wondered how long they had known who would be their fireworks. Or if they thought that far ahead. You had to watch. You had to know. You couldn’t look the other way.
He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else. Of Carly. Or Cameron. Or Caroline. Yeah, Caroline. That was it. Oh Caroline. Oh God yes Caroline. Got to find her again. Hope she’ll let me again. Caroline. Try not to forget.
He shook his head when he thought about his father and the woman. Her dark skin and black hair and broad shoulders and wide hips but somehow fitting nicely alongside his father’s straight frame. And he had noticed his father’s movements, more careful and concentrated than before. Almost frail in the way he fought with the stubborn catfish fighting on the end of the line.
He took a drink and was glad that he wouldn’t be around for the fireworks this year and he hoped that it wouldn’t be anyone he had known. Sometimes he wondered if there would ever be a time when he wouldn’t think of such things. Or perhaps maybe he’d grow to be an old man and those things would be gone out of his head like an old phone number or grocery list. But he looked at the sky and he listened to the night and he seemed to know the answer.