Heroes (18 page)

Bayle's mother came downstairs with her own smaller load and told her still-staring son that they were almost done and that he could watch the game later. Bayle didn't share his revelation with his mother.

Bayle moved himself and all that remained of his cardboard-boxed father through the livingroom and out to the garage. There, he placed the boxes on top of a lidless other full of some of Patty's old things, the British Flag with the baseball-sized bleach spot in one corner that she'd brought home with such excitement from a yard sale years before neatly folded in four on top.

When he came back inside Patty was sitting staring at the bowl of plastic fruit in the middle of the the kitchen table. Her own box of their father's clothes sat on the chair next to her. Just recently post-radical-environmentalist but still preconverted Catholic, between their father's still-fresh funeral and the death of her most recent reason for living, Patty these days was into monosyllabic answers and sleeping a lot.

“That the last of the boxes?” Bayle said.

Patty stayed focused on the phoney apples and oranges.

“Hey, sis,” Bayle said, “is that —”

“Ask mum,” Patty said.

Bayle looked at Patty looking at the bowl of fake fruit. Looked and waited for his sister to break her stare. Waited, then waited some more. Eventually yelled upstairs to his mother that he had to go.

When she came down and asked him what was the rush and why he wasn't going to stay and watch the third period like he'd planned and have some of the McCain's chocolate cake she'd defrosted for all of them, Bayle said he'd forgotten all about some very important work he had to do for one of his classes. Tonight. He kissed his motionless sister goodbye on the cheek and his puzzled mother at the back door and went out to the garage. He stuck Patty's British flag under his coat and went and stood and waited alone by the freezing bus stop.

For years afterward the flag remained where he put it that night when he got home, folded in four, under his bed. Bayle
would occasionally spot the thing there when searching after a pair of underwear or an errant sock. Down on his knees, picking up the piece of clothing, Bayle would promise himself that one of these days he really needed to do something about all of those dust balls underneath there.

Davidson's bathroom door opened up. A little unsteady, but at least with his head out of the toilet bowl, he stepped out pyjamaed and ready for bed. His face was red-cheeked scrubbed, his stringy hair parted neatly to the side, but still, Bayle thought, someone who looked like he could use some immediate medical scrutiny. But what was he supposed to do, throw the old man over his shoulder and carry him to the hospital? He told himself that the time he would be sitting in Davidson's livingroom instead of in front of his computer back at The Range working on his article was sacrifice enough.

“Stupid for you to sit out here while I'm just going to be sleeping in the other room,” Davidson said, “but have yourself a belt if you want. You know where I keep the bottle.”

“Thanks,” Bayle said, “but I've got a lot of work to do later tonight after I leave here. I'm way behind as it is and I want to stay on the ball.”

“So go home and do it then, nobody asked you to stay. I already told you it's just a damn flu bug that I've got. Probably picked it up from one of the players.” Davidson shuffled across the hardwood floor hallway to his room and shut the bedroom door behind him, leaving Bayle by himself.

Bayle by himself, first he tried the T.V.

But the plot of “I Love Lucy” could not drag him in, the horrible anxiety Lucy seemed to experience over the expensive new hat she had bought and the prospect of inflaming Ricky's unpredictable Cuban temper simply unable to generate even the minimal amount of empathy needed for even half an hour of imbecilic escapism. He brought a dish towel back from the kitchen and hung it over the T.V. screen, changed the channel to complete snow, and turned up the
volume. He closed his eyes and leaned back in Davidson's armchair hoping for stormy soothing. He received only a static-smudged television station with the volume turned up. Wide opened eyes scoped the small room.

Bayle by himself, he picked up today's
Eagle
off the coffee table.

A fresh round of explosive destruction, this time inflicted upon the local art museum, had once again been claimed responsibility for by C.A.C.A.W., the justification this time being that “the American people have been slowly bled to death long enough so that the cultural elite of this country can indulge their appetite for outright moral depravity.” Bayle wondered who would get it next and how badly. More than the actual bombing, it disturbed him just how easily he assumed that there would be more attacks. He put the newspaper back down on the coffee table. Although no new retching sounds filtered down the hallway from Davidson's bedroom, at only a little after ten-thirty it was still too early to assume that he was out of the woods and head home.

Bayle by himself, he pushed eleven long distance numbers, leaned back on the couch, and waited for the other end to pick up.

If Bayle couldn't with all sincerity say that he'd missed Jane over the last week — that sort of Romantic idealization simply not the sort of thing their relationship was based upon, she never hesitated to point out — he couldn't even remember the last time he'd dialed up Jane's number with full intentions of actually speaking to her. For a change, he hoped he wouldn't get her answering machine.

He put his feet up on the coffee table, shoes covering up the C.A.C.A.W. story on the
Eagles
front page, and listened to the throbbing ring tone. His own feet in front of him unexpectedly leading to Gloria's feet in his mind — the long brown toes, the healthy cords of blue veins — Bayle surprisingly felt himself throb a little and then just a little bit more, the first time in who knew how long that that particular piece of equipment had itself managed to pick up.

Good: not the familiar clicking beginning of Jane's answering machine.

“Hello?”

Not so good: not Jane's voice, not even female, in fact. Male, young, almost yelling, trying its best to be heard over heavy beated dance music slowly pounding away in the background.

Obviously Bayle had misdialed. Apologizing, hanging up, he dialed again.

“Hello?”

Options. Bayle could: slam down the receiver, immediately followed up by broken-hearted wailing about the room; roar into the receiver (succeeded by identical broken heart and wailing); or, politely ask the young man who answered for Jane, patiently waiting while she got called to the phone.

“Yeah, just a second. Jane! Phone!”

An eared explosion of plastic colliding with wood said that the receiver had been dropped onto the night table beside Jane's bed where he knew that the phone was kept. Bayle's ear still smarting, the phone was picked up and more carefully set back down. A garbled conversation between a man and woman punctuated by the woman's throaty laugh and promise to “get back to this subject later,
much
later” floated above the music.

“Jane Warriner,” Jane said.

“Hi.”

“Hello?” she said again, louder.

“I said, 'Hi'.”

“Hello? Peter?”

“Christ, Jane, of course it's me, who did you think it was?”

“I'm sorry, it's just that it's a little loud here right now and The man's voice muttered something Bayle couldn't make out but of which he imagined the carnal worst.

“Are you having a party or something?” Bayle asked. He attempted to appear as casually informational as possible.

“What's that again?”

“Are you having a party?” Bayle shouted. He sounded like an angry parent.

“I'm having a friend over, Peter, if that's what you mean, yes. Is that all right with you?”

“No, no, I was just wondering if —”

“I take it it's all right for you to wake me up at two o'clock in the morning anytime you're drunk and feel like it, but if I decide to have someone over from the magazine for a few drinks to talk about next month's issue, I suppose that I need your permission.”

Bayle didn't answer, wanted the long distance hum between them to mend the misunderstood moment, to dissipate the thousand miles, to suck up the accumulated strain and mixed connections of the last year and a half. There was no hum, however; the loud music in the background would not allow it.

“Look, I really just called to let you know that my plane's supposed to be getting in tomorrow night around ten.”

“You're kidding. Has it really been nine days already?”

“It'll be nine days tomorrow, yeah. You sound like —”

“August, no! I am
not
having another Jagermeister! Oh, all right, put it down over there. I know I'm going to regret all this tomorrow. I'm sorry, Peter, what was that again?”

Bayle couldn't remember what he was saying, could only dizzyingly conjecture what a man named “August” might look like and what Jane's use of
all
implied. Instinctively he pulled out all the big guns he'd been saving up for when he was triumphant-news home-returned and once again Janeentwined. He let her have it all, unloaded the whole smiling story of his rosy professorial prospects and future, even briefly considering bringing up the long-awaited return of his below-the-belt reawakening (on second thought, though, deciding that the idea of announcing, “Hey Jane, guess what? There's this really hot woman down here who's given me my first boner in over a year!” probably not such a great idea after all).

Bayle's appropriately edited tale told, “That's wonderful, Peter,” Jane said, “it really is. I'm happy for you. I really am.”

Bayle thanked her, told her that he understood when she said she had a late editorial meeting the next night and couldn't pick him up at the airport, and agreed to bring in his draft of the hockey story to the office sometime Saturday afternoon. Before hanging up, over top of the thumping music, Jane once again told him how happy she was that the trip south had worked out so well for him, that it sounded like he really was finally back on track. Bayle once again thanked her for saying so.

Resting the receiver back in place, the sound of plastic clicking to plastic the room's only sound, Happy for me? Bayle thought. Happy for us.

Davidson coughed twice from the other room.

Except that Jane couldn't stand loud music.

Davidson cleared his throat.

Except maybe a little reggae music when she felt like getting laid.

Davidson coughed one more time.

But-

The ring of the telephone drove Bayle's heart. He whipped the receiver back to his ear before it had a chance to shrill a second time.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Bayle?”

“Yes.”

“Bayle, it's Gloria. I've only got a minute. How's Harry doing?”

“Gloria. Where are you?” The sound of Gloria's voice kept Bayle's heart pounding.

“San Antonio, we just got to the hotel. Is Harry sleeping? Is that why you're answering the phone?”

“Harry. Right. Yeah, Harry's in bed. He turned in about an hour ago.”

“How's he doing? He drinking his tea?”

Bayle looked down the hallway at Davidson's closed bedroom door, his pair of worn, old man slippers set outside the room, side by side. The sound of static coming from the television set filled up the small room.

“Bayle? You still there? Bayle?”

“I'm here,” Bayle said.

“How is
Harry,
Bayle? You're not giving me any answers. What's wrong? Is something wrong there? I want to know if there is. I want to
know,
Bayle.”

“Nothing's wrong'” he said. “And don't you worry about Harry. Harry's going to be just fine.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

“Well, I guess I am.”

“You guess you are?”

“I mean I am. I am sure.”

“Uh huh.”

“Don't worry, you'll see.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am,” Bayle said, “you'll see. Nothing bad is going to happen to Harry. I'm going to make sure of it.”

T
HE ROUTINE
was, at times, tiring. Returning home to Davidson's place in the settling dim of early evening after finishing up at the
Eagle
whatever assignment he'd been given that morning by Wilson, the paper's sports bureau chief, and before getting around to making Davidson and himself a simple supper (scrambled eggs and toast, fish sticks and fries, grilled cheese and tomato soup), Bayle often found it necessary to take a short nap. He dozed for usually no more than half an hour in the same place where he slept at night, on Davidson's livingroom couch, too exhausted to dream, but one whole country and a million miles away from having no dreams at all. The difference was incalculable.

Taking over the old man's job until he was well enough to return had been Bayle's idea. “Well,” Davidson said, “at least if you're filling in for me I know I'll get my job back.”

Wilson and Davidson had started off as entry-level field reporters at the
Eagle
twenty years before and had been, up until seven years ago when Wilson married a local Baptist girl with two small children from another marriage and uncompromising teetotalling ways, fairly regular drinking companions. Energy heretofore given over to boozing it up with Davidson was rapidly transformed into dedicated
Eagle
ascending, the end result being Wilson becoming head of the paper's sports department by age forty and Davidson becoming one of his employees.

Wilson was also probably Davidson's only friend at the newspaper and had said nothing about the curiously quoteless Tulsa game report Davidson had turned in just before taking ill. He gave his former drinking buddy until the Warriors came back to town from their eight-day road trip to find out what was wrong with him and decide whether or not he thought he could continue on as the team's beat reporter, not to mention handle his other duties as one of the sports department's two full-time writers. Wire reports could suffice until the team returned home, but if he wasn't back on his feet by then, Wilson wasn't going to have much choice but to start looking around for a permanent replacement.