Good Neighbors (15 page)

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why was it a mistake?’

Thomas shrugs.

‘I don’t know. It was wrong.’

Then he glances over at Christopher, making his first attempt at eye contact since Christopher re-entered the bedroom; it’s a fleeting thing, and he almost immediately looks away, back to the baseboards. It’s strange that he’s never noticed how much dust they collect.

‘I’ve spent my entire life,’ he says, ‘trying to be normal. Telling myself . . . I don’t know . . . telling myself that I’ve simply never found the right woman. Telling myself . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m gonna have to quit the bowling team.’

He shouldn’t even be alive right now. If he’d killed himself when he’d planned to this never would have happened. He should have pulled the trigger as soon as he heard the knock on the door. He should have just pulled the fucking trigger. Christopher might have kicked the door in and found him but this never would happened and that’d be something at least. It would be better than this, better than what he’s feeling right now.

‘We didn’t do anything wrong,’ Christopher says.

Thomas takes a drag from his cigarette, then waves it over the ashtray, flicking his thumb against the filter as he does, dropping the spent bit into it. His lungs feel hot. He looks at the pile of ashes and butts and fingernail clippings in the tray.

Someone should invent a baseboard duster, something on a long stick so people wouldn’t have to bend down. Maybe someone already has. He’ll have to look into it.

‘Thomas,’ Christopher says.

‘What?’

‘We didn’t do anything wrong.’

Thomas scrapes a bit of dead skin off his lower lip with his teeth, gets it on the end of his tongue, and spits, as if it were a seed husk. He doesn’t see where it goes.

‘Would you tell anyone what we did?’ he says. Christopher doesn’t respond for a moment. Then: ‘No.’ ‘Why not?’

‘It would end friendships,’ Christopher says. ‘It would . . .’ and he trails off.

Thomas nods.

‘It’s shameful,’ he says. ‘How can something be shameful but not be wrong?’ And then answers his own question. ‘It can’t,’ he says.

He takes another drag at his cigarette and looks at the wall.

‘It’s shameful,’ Christopher says, ‘because we’re told to be ashamed of it.’

‘Maybe.’

‘How can something that hurts nobody be wrong?’

‘I don’t feel good about it,’ Thomas says. ‘I feel like I made a mistake. I feel like I’ve done something wrong.’

‘Because you’ve been told it’s wrong all your life,’ Christopher says. ‘So you feel bad about it, and since you feel bad, you think it must be wrong. But we didn’t steal anything. We didn’t hurt anyone. We simply . . .’ He coughs into his hand and looks away. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘right now we’re sending kids to Vietnam to kill people over ideas. We’re sending boys right out of high school over there to kill people who never threatened any violence against us simply because we’ve decided they think the wrong things.’ He laughs. ‘And yet it’s what you and I did here tonight that’s supposed to be shameful.’

‘I don’t know if it’s as simple as that.’

‘Maybe not,’ Christopher says, ‘but you get my point.’

‘I get your point.’

‘Good.’

Then Christopher reaches his hand out toward Thomas. He doesn’t touch him, but he reaches out his hand and lets it settle on the mattress near him.

‘I like you, Thomas,’ he says.

‘I like you too,’ Thomas says.

Then he looks up and makes eye contact again, but this time he holds it. He nods his head, as much to himself, he thinks, as to Christopher.

‘I do,’ he says.

25

The clock strikes five. The cow goes moo.

26

David is in the back with Mr. Vacanti while John drives the ambulance toward the hospital. Unconscious, Mr. Vacanti is strapped down on the stretcher, tied down tight – for his own safety, of course.

‘Slow down,’ David yells over the sound of sirens.

‘He’s got internal bleeding,’ John says. ‘He’ll die.’

‘Then he’ll die. I’ve got business with him.’

‘Take care of it, then, because I ain’t slowing down.’

David breaks a capsule of smelling salts under Mr. Vacanti’s nose and watches the brown paper surrounding the capsule turn dark, and the man inhales, gasps, coughs, opens eyes which momentarily roll around in his head like overgreased ball bearings. Veins are broken in his left eye, and it’s pooling with blood.

His eyes eventually find focus, and he looks up at David; and when he does confusion passes over his face like the shadow of a cloud.

‘Davey?’ he says with hesitation. ‘Davey White?’

‘Except it’s David now.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Wrong question, Mr. Vacanti.’

‘What?’

David reaches out with two fingers and taps the shelf of glass jutting from Mr. Vacanti’s forehead as if it were a table top and he were making a point that needed emphasizing. The man yelps in pain. He tries to bat David’s hand away but he can’t move. David watches panic light in his eyes as he realizes he is strapped down. Strapped down tight. He looks down at his unmoving wrists and then back up at David.

‘What’s going on?’ he says. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I already told you that’s the wrong question, Mr. Vacanti,’ David says, and as he hits the last hard syllable he taps the glass shelf jutting from Mr. Vacanti’s head again. Another yelp. ‘The correct question is, what are
you
doing here. And the answer is, you were in a car accident. An ambulance was called. And I happen to be a paramedic. Unfortunately, your injuries,’ and he grabs the shelf jutting from Mr. Vacanti’s forehead and gives it a little shake, ‘are beyond my scope. And the hospital. Well,’ he laughs, ‘let’s just say I don’t think you’re gonna make it.’

David reaches into his hip pocket and retrieves a flask. He unscrews the top and takes a nip. It burns his throat and it feels good. He follows the first hit with a second. The liquid warms his insides. His chest feels as if it’s got a small fire burning inside it.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ Mr. Vacanti asks.

‘That’s a question you should have asked yourself decades ago.’

David takes one last swallow from his flask before twisting the cap back on and tucking it away. Twenty-six years he went without seeing this son of a bitch and he turns up like this. Twenty-six years. He’d almost been able to make himself forget. He’d only thought of him once or twice a year this last decade. He’d almost been able to forget.

‘Preventative medicine is the thing,’ he says. ‘I mean, if you had asked yourself what was wrong with you way back when, if you had been able to stop your sickness, well . . . my guess is you wouldn’t be dying today, Mr. Vacanti.’

Mr. Vacanti tries to pull himself out of the straps holding him down. He struggles, pulling hard, turning his hands purple, gritting his teeth, grunting, his whole body going taut, but finally – of course – giving up.

‘You won’t be able to forgive yourself for this,’ he tells David.

David nods.

‘That’s probably true,’ he says. ‘After all, I haven’t been able to forgive you. I guess I’m just not the forgiving sort, am I, Mr. Vacanti? But then, I’m not a predator of children, either. We’ve all got our flaws, right?’

He waits for a response but Mr. Vacanti only stares. It’s well enough; there’s nothing the son of a bitch could say anyway.

‘But here’s the thing,’ David says. ‘Even if I can’t forgive myself, I’ll be able to live with myself. I’m sure of that. I’ll be able to live with myself. What I can’t live with is letting you get away with what you did, not when this opportunity has been handed to me.’

He nods to himself.

‘I didn’t want to . . .’ Mr. Vacanti says, trailing off.

‘But you
did
,’ David snaps at him. Then he smiles and pinches Mr. Vacanti’s bloody cheek. ‘Just do what I say and it’ll all be over soon enough,’ he says. ‘Maybe it won’t even hurt.’ He scratches his chin where beard is growing in. ‘Do you remember that, Mr. Vacanti?’

After a moment’s pause, Mr. Vacanti shakes his head. ‘That’s a direct quote,’ David says. ‘Any guess as to who I’m quoting?’

There is a moment of silence.

‘Me,’ Mr. Vacanti says finally, not looking at him.

‘Bingo,’ David says, and taps at the shard of glass jutting from Mr. Vacanti’s head for emphasis. ‘Bing. Go. Got it in one guess. God, you’re sharp. No pun intended—’ looking at the shard of glass. ‘It’s no wonder you’re a teacher. Kids just have so much they need to learn, don’t they? And you’re just the one to teach them.’

They must be getting near the hospital. That can’t happen. They can’t get there, not with Mr. Vacanti still breathing.

‘Wait here,’ David says to the strapped-down Mr. Vacanti before heading to the front of the vehicle where John is busy driving.

‘Listen to me,’ David says. ‘I want you to pull over.’

‘He’s gonna bleed to death,’ John says. ‘I’m taking him in.’

‘You don’t understand this,’ David says.

‘I understand enough to know that I’m not stopping.’

‘I’m asking you as a friend,’ David says. ‘We can slice one of the tires. We’ll say we got a flat. No one will ever fucking know. You don’t have to do anything but stop the ambulance. I’ll take care of the rest.’ He wipes at the corners of his mouth. ‘No one will know,’ he says again.

‘I’ll know,’ John says. ‘I’ll know that we killed a man whose life we were supposed to save. I don’t know what your history with him is but it’s turning you blood-simple and I’m not gonna be a part of it.’

‘Goddamn it, John,’ David says. ‘We’re friends. I’m asking you, please.’

‘We are friends. And in the five years we’ve worked together, I’ve never seen this kind of shit from you before, so I’m willing to bet whatever he did to you was serious, and I’m really fucking sorry for that, David. I am. But I won’t be party to killing him. I just won’t.’

‘Don’t you understand? I don’t want to kill him. I just don’t want to save him.’

‘It’s our job,’ John says. ‘People do jobs they don’t want to do all the fucking time.’

‘Not like this, they don’t.’

‘You can’t kill him.’

‘I already told you, I don’t want to kill him.’

‘Not saving him when you can save him is the same goddamn thing and you know it. Only it’s a coward’s murder. Now you listen to me, David. I’m driving this ambulance the rest of the way to the hospital without any fucking stops. If you got a problem with that man back there, it’s yours to deal with.’

David wants to make him understand, wants to say something so he’ll understand, but he knows that nothing he can say will change John’s mind.

David turns away from him and starts toward the back of the ambulance.

‘David,’ John says.

David looks at him.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ David says, and makes his way to the back.

27

Unable to walk, Kat crawls toward her apartment. She can’t be more than ten feet away, but even that short distance seems insuperable. She feels cold and weak. She has bled so much. It’s splattered across the courtyard. She can barely move – but she does move. One hand in front of the other, one skinned knee in front of the other.

Easy-peasy, she tells herself. Just move your arm six inches, press it against the concrete and pull yourself forward. Like pouring a drink. Like changing a tire. It’s a simple task – simple.

She crawls through the darkness of early morning and she tries not to pass out and she keeps telling that part of her that wants to let go, that wants to quit, to shut up, just shut up.

It’s so loud now, that part of her.

Just let the darkness come, it says. It’ll be easier. It’ll be easier, and maybe afterwards, when you wake, you’ll find this was all just a bad dream.

But she knows if she lets go, if she quits, if she lets the darkness come, she won’t wake. She’ll never open her eyes again. She wishes that wasn’t the truth, but it is, and she knows it.

She can still feel people watching her. She can’t see them now – her head is down and she doesn’t have the energy to look at anything but the tiny pebbles imbedded in the concrete she’s crawling upon, tiny smooth pebbles that look as if they’ve been polished in a riverbed – but she can feel them, those eyes, those people watching her. They don’t make a sound. But they’re there, and they do not help.

She pulls herself forward another six inches. She’s not going to die out here. She’s not going to allow herself to die out here.

Putting one arm in front of the other, sliding her body across the cold concrete being made warm by her heat, as her body is made cold by the night, pulling herself forward on her now raw arms, Kat manages to move herself five feet nearer her apartment. It is such an exhausting, painful, Sisyphean task that, though she halves her distance to the front door, getting that last five feet seems harder than getting ten feet did when she began.

She is so tired. She is so cold. She hurts so bad.

But she can see the keys now. She can see them hanging from the doorknob. From the doorknob in the closed door – closed.

How will she be able to reach the doorknob?

Three and a half feet off the ground, it might as well be ten feet off the ground – or twenty.

Why did the wind have to blow the door shut?

Why does God hate her?

What did she do?

What did she do to deserve this?

God damn Him.

God damn Him, why does He hate her?

Stop. Stop, she tells herself. You can’t let yourself fall apart again: it costs too much: it spends too much energy. You need all the energy you have left. You need all the energy you’ve got left, so just stop, stop now. You can fall apart later. Once you’re safe. You can slip into the warm water of a warm bath and you can fall apart then. But not now. Right now you’ve got to get to that door. You can do that much. Don’t worry about turning the doorknob yet; don’t worry about pushing the door open yet. Just get to the door, Kat. You can do that. You’re strong and you can do that.

Easy-peasy, she tells herself.