Small Blessings (45 page)

Russell touched the pistol. “I've got a gun.”

“I can see that. It's one of your Mortimers, isn't it?”

Russell smiled but said nothing.

“Is it loaded?” Tom kept his tone casual.

Russell looked sly. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”

“When did you get the ammunition, Russell? I remember you saying you didn't have any ammunition.”

“I lied,” Russell said, still sly.

“Ahh,” Tom said. “Well then.”

Russell picked the gun up and waved it vaguely in Tom's direction.

“She's mine,” he said. “You can't have her.”

Tom knew enough to grasp that arguing was not going to move things along. “Is that a party hat you have on your head?” he asked.

Russell had forgotten what was on his head. He reached up, touched it, and broke into a truly happy smile. “Yes. I'm having a party. For Rose.”

“Well, isn't that something?” Tom hoped he sounded impressed.

Russell immediately pointed the gun directly at Tom. “You're mocking me.”

Tom, in spite of his best efforts not to, felt momentarily afraid. Agnes was right. This wasn't his friend he was dealing with; this was a drunk with a gun. “I would never mock you, Russell.”

Russell wagged his head. “Would, too. Everyone else does.” He began to cry silently. Even from the bottom of the stairs, Tom could see the great drops rolling down his cheeks. One bounced off the Mortimer.

“No one mocks you,” Tom said, aware he might not be telling the truth.

“Do, too. 'Cept Rose. Rose is real.”

Tom spoke from his heart. “You do know I love her, don't you, Russell?”

“Too bad. You've got lots of other people to love. I've only got Rose, now that I haven't got Henry.”

Tom was careful to keep his voice cheerful and relaxed, an effort to project a calm decisiveness he didn't feel. “Look, Russ, it's hard work standing here, shouting at you, so I'm going to come up about halfway and sit down on a step. That will make it pleasanter for us to talk.”

Russ had retreated into dullness again. “Don't want to talk to you. Only want to talk to Rose.”

“Well, I'm coming up. Just halfway, remember. I'm not going to try to tackle you or anything.”

Russell waved the pistol. “Better not!” He sounded more like a child pouting than a grown man threatening someone with a gun.

Tom kept his eyes on Russell as he climbed. For a moment, he thought Russ might be falling asleep, but no.

“That's far enough!” Russell barked.

Tom was six steps below him. He held up both his hands in the classic gesture of surrender. “Sure. I'm just going to sit down now.”

He sat.

Neither said anything for perhaps a minute, during which Tom thought of Rose behind the locked door of her aerie. She was so quiet. Was she listening? Could she hear anything? Probably not. The Dome Room, as he remembered it, was one solidly constructed manifestation of architectural ego.

“So whaddaya want?” Russell demanded truculently.

The best thing to do, Tom decided, was to speak the truth. “I think what I want first is to say I'm sorry.”

Russell gazed down at him, scratching his head with the barrel of his Mortimer before he spoke. “What are
you
sorry for?”

The devil peered out from just behind Russell's left shoulder, daring Tom to tell the truth and shame him, big-time.

Or shame her, big-time.

Or it.

A bossy offstage voice piped up.
Will you for once get on with it, Tom Putnam?

“I'm sorry I was so preoccupied with my own business that I didn't notice how unhappy you are, Russ.”

Russell glowered at him. “
I'm
not unhappy. I have Rose. Up there.” He gestured upward with the Mortimer. “
You're
who's unhappy!” He smiled his sly smile again.

The same offstage voice spoke again.
Just tell the truth, and it shall set Rose free. Eventually, anyway …

“Look, Russell,” Tom said, “why are you doing this if you're not unhappy?”

Russell stared at him. After a moment he reached up to touch his head. When he felt the wilted paper hat, his face crumpled as Henry's had done not that long ago. “Rose doesn't mind things about me as much as everyone else.”

“What things?” Tom asked gently. “What things do other people mind?”

Russ looked around him vaguely. “Oh, you know. Things.”

“No, I don't know. What things, Russ?”

Russ said something in such a soft voice that Tom couldn't catch what it was. “What was that, Russ?”

Russell put the Mortimer down beside him and sat there looking off into his past. This time, he spoke loud enough for Tom to hear. “My mother.”

“Oh? What about your mother?”

“You wouldn't understand.” Some of Russell's belligerence had come back. He leveled what Tom took to be a sneer down at him. “Your mother was so wonderful all the time, baking cookies and wearing the right clothes when she went out.”

“Wearing the right clothes?”

“Yes. Wearing the right clothes!”
Russell yelled. “What's the matter with you? Are you deaf?”

“No. I'm not deaf, I'm just trying to understand.”

“I know. I talk too much. I'm sorry.”

“There's no need to be sorry, Russ,” Tom said mildly.

“Talked about
you
too much,” Russell said, following some illogical train of thought.

“What's that?”

“To Serafine. Talked about you too much to her.”

Tom was immediate alert. “How do you mean, Russell? You mean you talked about me too much to Serafine Despré, Henry's mother?”

“Yes. Thass what I mean.” Russell's final
t
's were disappearing. “Serafine Despré, Henry's mother.
Bragging
about you.”

Tom was astonished. “Bragging about me? Why?”

“About how nice you were. How
normal,
and steady, and kind. Not like anyone else in this place, let me tell you! How you were married to Marjory all that time, only had one affair, years ago, with that poet Retesia somebody. Slam, bam, then back to Marjory!”

“What place?”

“Treatment center in New Orleans. What place you
think
I mean?”

“You were in
treatment
for alcoholism with Henry's mother?”

“Yes.” Russell had gone sly again. “Had sex with her, too, which was … like …
way
against the rules!” He was briefly proud, then collapsed into wretchedness again. “That's why I thought I was Henry's father. Not true, though, so I had to let him go. Luellen told me.”

“Luellen Mars?”

Russell wagged his head. “She's the one who did the test.”

“A paternity test? Is that what you're talking about?”

Russell frowned. “Henry isn't mine, isn't yours. Serafine just
wanted
him to be yours, because I told her you were nice. She didn't
know
anyone nice herself, so she had to go with
my
nice person.”

There was one big fat mystery explained. “I see,” Tom said. “Well, thank you for saying that about me.”

Russell had begun shaking his head like an old, sad dog. “Henry isn't mine, isn't yours, isn't
anybody's.
”

Even under these circumstances, Tom could not let this pass unchallenged. “As far as I'm concerned, Henry Putnam is my son. And that's the end of that.”

“Okay, okay. Don't get all steamed up about it.”

“I didn't get steamed up,” Tom said, even though he knew had. A bit, anyway. “I just wanted to be clear about Henry. You know, have things straight between friends.”

Russell peered down at Tom. “Are you really my friend?”

“Yes,” Tom said, in the same clear, firm voice he'd used to claim Henry. “I am your friend, Russell. I've been your friend for a long time, just as you've been mine.”

“I have?”

“Yes. You have. You've been a very good friend to me.”

Russell looked even more muddled. “Really?”

“Yes.”

The crumpling happened again. Only this time, Russell's whole being collapsed. “I don't know what's going on anymore. It's all broken. Please, somebody, help me!”

Tom crawled up the six stairs that separated them and put his arms around Russell much as he'd put his arm around Henry not very long ago.

*   *   *

When Tom brought Rose out there was a loud cheer from the crowd. Clarence and his force (three other school system retirees and one Marine Corps reject) attempted with middling success to hold back Rose's well-wishers sufficiently to allow her and Tom to make their way over to the command post.

Tom kept his arm tight around Rose as they pushed through the crowd. “I'm fine. I'm fine,” she kept saying, over and over. Which wasn't true—Tom could feel her shaking. Rose would
be
fine, of that he was sure. But right now, what she needed was a good dose of Agnes's no-nonsense care, a warm bath, and a stiff drink.

Tom had to work hard to keep the two of them moving. Rose kept stopping to defend Russell's actions to people. “He was just a little over
involved,”
she kept saying. And although this made no sense, people seemed to catch her meaning, which Tom construed as
don't be too hard on the man.

Then there was a sudden parting of the crowd, and Henry came scrambling toward them. The boy sparkled with joy, jumping up and down, hugging whatever parts of Rose he could reach. “Rose! Rose!” he shouted again and again. “My dad rescued you!”

Tom, in spite of four decades of entrenched modesty, could not stop himself from swelling with pride. Technically, at least, the boy was right—he had rescued Rose.

Tom allowed himself a second or two of macho satisfaction before he scooped Henry up and boosted the cheering boy onto his shoulders.

*   *   *

Iris slipped unnoticed through the crowd, made her way up the Dean Dome's front walk, and strolled in through the gaping front door. Russell sat on the bottom step of the grand curving staircase with what looked like a rumpled paper napkin clinging to one side of his head. Beside him were a megaphone and a bottle of Wild Turkey that looked to be about a third full.

Iris marched up to him and scooped up the whiskey bottle by its neck.

Russell roused himself. “What are you doing?”

“Pouring this down the sink.”

“Why?

“Because I might drink it.” Iris gestured with the bottle. “You got any more of these?”

Russell glowered at her. “No.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Are your pants on fire?”

Surprisingly Russell broke into a grin. “Thass funny,” he said.

Iris took the bottle into the kitchen and poured its contents down the sink. She chucked it, and two more empty bottles she found on the kitchen counter, into the trash. Then she returned to the foyer.

Russell hadn't moved.

Iris stood in front of him, arms akimbo. “Do you know who I am?”

Russell nodded but said nothing.

“Well then, who am I?”

Russell looked smug. “You're Iris Benson. You're a pain in the ass.”

Iris laughed. “You got that right!”

“Go' tha' righ'!” Russell echoed.

“Well then,” Iris said, “now that we're straight about that, I thought I might stay with you until you sober up. Then maybe we could go to a meeting together.”

Russell looked confused. “Meeting?”

“An AA meeting, you dummy,” Iris said without rancor. “You and I are drunks, remember?”

Russell peered vacantly up at her. “We are?”

“You betcha. You and I, buddy, we've gotta just say no to booze.”

Russell appeared to be trying to focus on something. “Yes,” he said finally. “I remember. Don't drink, and tell the truth.” He bobbed his head up and down and repeated what he had just said. “Don't drink, and tell the truth.” He looked up at Iris. “Nobody liked me in high school,” he said. “Thass the truth.”

Iris moved to sit companionably beside him on the stairs. “No kidding? Nobody liked me either.”

Russell reared back to look at her, shifting the paper napkin on his head to an even jauntier angle. “Really?” His surprise was overshadowed by his pleasure. “I always thought you were the club president or something.”

Iris decided not to say that she had, actually, been president of the NERD society (Nobodies Everybody Refuses to Date), which had consisted of her and three other angry young women. “Well then, why don't you and I just start our relationship over? Just as soon as you have a nap.”

Russell nodded. “Just as soon as I have a nap,” he repeated, as best he could.

Iris patted him on the knee. “You go lie down on that couch in that room over there while I go out and report on what's going on. Then I'll be right back in and keep you company.”

“You will?” Again Russell's surprise was obvious.

“Yes.”

Russell appeared to be thinking again, so Iris hung there, waiting to hear what he had to say. Finally he attempted a decisive nod of his head and looked up at her. “Does that mean you and I are friends, Iris Benson?”

Iris stared at him, momentarily flabbergasted by the question. Then,
What the hell,
she thought.
Why not?
“Sure. We're friends, Russell. As a couple of fellow recovering alcoholics and assholes, we need each other.”

It was only after she'd said it that Iris realized she was telling the truth.

 

chapter 21

“I suppose Russell will be in some sort of trouble,” Mr. Brownlow said.