Souvenir (16 page)

The bed was a tangle of sheets, pants, lingerie, and her sea green skirt. Addy lay curled up next to Clay, her arm across his sweaty chest, one leg thrown over his as if she were wearing him. He watched her breathe, her chest filling, pressing against his side, her softness against his muscle and bone as she exhaled warm air out over his skin. Her cheek rested against his shoulder, inches from the knot of scar tissue that swirled out from below his collarbone, down the right side of his chest, disappearing between her breasts, shiny tissue marking a trail of pain that ended in the warmth of her flesh.

Clay tried never to touch it, but often found himself lying in bed, or standing in the shower, idly tracing it with his finger, running it up and down the scar, the odd rubbery, numb feeling strange even now. He fought to keep from raising his left hand to it, afraid to awake Addy, afraid of everything.

Clay wasn’t shy about it. He didn’t think of it as a disfigurement, exactly. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t as bad as some he’d seen. Guys with big holes in their legs or arms where flesh had been blown away, open wounds that still oozed years later. Or lumps of jagged scar tissue, mounds of it, the result of a rush job in an aid station under artillery fire. No, his was pretty clean, compared. A smooth, curved line from chest to ribcage, front to side. He’d take his shirt off at the beach, no problem. Some guy his age might ask where’d you get that? He’d point, and Clay could tell right away if the guy already knew it was from the war. A vet would ask where, meaning Italy or Okinawa or in The Slot or over Germany in a B-17. Clay would answer, in the Ardennes, and ask where the other guy had been.

Vets knew not to ask how, not to ask for a story. Stories told themselves, sometimes unbidden, playing themselves out like a movie you couldn’t get up and walk out on. Maybe over a beer or two in the backyard, the wives inside and the kids off somewhere. But the time and place had to be right, and the guy had to have his bona fides. If he did a lot of bragging and shot his mouth off about what a hero he was, Clay knew he was either an asshole or a liar, probably both. He might have been a rear area supply clerk who stole supplies headed for the front, the kind of guy twenty miles behind the lines, with a regular bed in a real house, who always had the latest and best cold weather gear and hadn’t fired his rifle since basic. But if a guy was quiet about it, and sought the company of others who were marked with a scar, walked with a limp, jumped when a car backfired, well, then they might talk, quietly one night, as the fireflies came out, empty beer bottles clinking at their feet, their wives glancing anxiously at each other and out the kitchen window, standing together at the sink stacking dried dishes with a quiet clatter, hoping their men would discover they weren’t the only ones who woke screaming in the night.

Clay closed his eyes, counting to six, then opening them. It was a trick, a magic trick that he used to travel in time, or rather, not to travel through time, to the past. Feeling the past come up on him, he’d close his eyes, count to six, and with any luck, here he was, in the present. If he wasn’t, he’d do it again. One two three four five six.

If the past came on as a tidal wave, blindsiding him, the counting wouldn’t work. But if it crept up on him, like a brushfire moving across a dry, grassy field, it worked just fine. At first it hadn’t, but that was because he’d only counted to five. Then he added six, and that did it. If he needed to add more, there were plenty of numbers. Sometimes he’d frighten himself, seeing an old man, counting forever, searching for that magic number. Then the old man would die, his last breath hissing out an unimaginably high number, the really magical one.

Eyes open, Clay brushed Addy’s cheek with his hand.

“Gotta go to work, honey,” he said.

Addy opened her eyes so quickly Clay wondered if she had been sleeping, or waiting for him to move first.

“Cigarette run today?”

“Yeah. Car’s all packed up. Did it last night at the tavern.” Clay swung his legs off the bed and started to get up.

“Clay?” Addy said, as she sat up, pulling the sheet to her chest and pinning it back under her arms. Clay turned, swiveling one leg back onto the bed and looking at her. The skin of her chest, just above the white sheet, was shiny with beads of sweat from where she had laid against him. She pulled her hair back behind her left ear, smoothed the sheet against her thighs, and Clay knew she was finally getting around to what she had wanted to talk about.

“What is it?” he said.

“I wish you didn’t have to be involved in that numbers business.”

“I know, but it’s good money, we’ve talked about this a million times—”

“No, let me start over,” Addy said, shaking her head. “I want you to get out of it. The money doesn’t matter, what matters is the example you set for Chris.”

“Addy, it’s not like I’m Al Capone.”

“That’s not the point. You could get arrested, go to jail. Doesn’t that worry you?”

Clay got out of bed and gathered his clothes. “No, and it shouldn’t worry you either. It’s not going to happen. Nobody goes to jail for the numbers.”

“Chris is old enough to know what’s going on, Clay. How do you think he feels, hearing his father is a small time criminal?”

“Where did he hear that?” As Clay closed his belt buckle his hands tightened and his words came out in a growl.

“In the grocery store last week. We stopped on the way home to pick up a few things for dinner. We met Mrs. McBride and Mary. In the check-out line we overhead her telling her daughter not to associate with Chris, since his father was a criminal, if only a small time one. I’m not sure which one she thought was the greater offense.”

Clay laughed a bitter snort and sat down on the edge of the bed as Addy drew her knees to her chest. Anger had grabbed him by the throat but the image of Mrs. McBride in the market couldn’t sustain it. Her husband ran a tool and die shop over in Milldale, paid the lowest wages around, and was being investigated for attempted bribery of state officials. He shook his head and looked at Addy. She covered her mouth and flicked her fingers at Clay, and he watched her try to maintain her composure.

“Okay,” she finally said, gasping out a laugh, “maybe that’s not a good example, but you know what I mean.”

“What did Chris say?” asked Clay.

“I think it was something along the lines of thank God for that.”

Clay smiled at the thought and clasped Addy’s hands as they rested on her knees. They sat in silence, and the silence was comforting. Everything outside was demands and unanswered questions. Here, it was just Clay and Addy, and he felt at peace with her, a calmness settling into his bones in her presence. He knew himself well enough to know that she made him a better man than he could ever be on his own. He wondered what he gave her in return, and felt a flush of shame run through his body at the thought that maybe it wasn’t very much at all.

“Addy, you know how much we have in the bank, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “We have a nice little nest egg there.” Addy kept the household checkbook and bankbook from Meriden Trust where Clay made regular deposits from the tavern receipts and his paychecks from Tri-State. After the expenses at the tavern, and money for household bills and spending money, there was still a nice addition to the balance each month.

“We can’t risk losing part of that, not now, anyway,” he said. “We couldn’t afford it.” Clay released Addy’s hands and busied himself putting on his socks and shoes. He knew what the next question would be, and that his answer would be the same as always.

“How would I know?” Addy said, not even bothering to ask directly. Clay never would answer her questions about how much the numbers brought in and how much the tavern did. It was one deposit, and he refused to tell her how much came from each.

“Let’s not start with that,” Clay said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “I know plenty of guys who don’t even tell their wives how much they make. They pay the bills, make the deposits, and give their wives money for the house. Your name is on the bank account, right with mine, you should be happy enough with that.”

“All right, all right,” Addy said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But let’s figure out a way to get around the problem. I don’t want to be arguing about this ten years from now.”

“So what’s your idea?” Clay asked, certain she had one.

“Let’s use some of that nest egg now. We could add on to the back of the tavern, put a real kitchen in, remodel the bar, and make it a restaurant. I could help, Clay. Chris isn’t home that much anymore, he doesn’t need me here. We could work together, make Jake’s Tavern a real nice family restaurant.” Addy was leaning forward, her hands gripping Clay’s arm, trying to force her enthusiasm into his body.

“And you don’t run numbers out of a nice family restaurant,” Clay said.

“No.”

He moved his hand over hers and Addy jumped, as if shocked by her own intensity. It all sounded so simple, a grand plan to change their lives for the better. How could he tell her nothing came that easily? Not a restaurant or retirement from the numbers, not a pass from Mr. Fiorenza, not even respect from his son. The only thing he could count on was money in his hand. Wads of cash, greenbacks from the thirsty and the dreamers. Nicotine, alcohol, greed. Guaranteed income. It wasn’t that he craved money, wanted it to spend on himself, buy anything fancy, other than a nice car for Addy. He craved security the way he craved time, things he’d felt the shortage of. He wanted life to go on smoothly, one day running into the next, money in the bank, pay off the house, retire, and then keep watching the morning sun over coffee. You needed money to do that, and he’d figured out a way to make plenty. Only now his plan had him by the throat. Addy wanted one thing, and Mr. Fiorenza was going to want another. It occurred to Clay that what he wanted hardly mattered anymore.

“It’s complicated, Addy,” he said. “Let’s talk about it more later, okay?”

Addy nodded her head, holding the sheet up to her chest with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. She looked like she was ready to cry, holding back tears until Clay was out of the room, his footsteps on the stairs echoing in the hall. He got up, shirt in hand, and walked towards the bedroom door. He stopped and turned.

“Really, I’ll think about it, and we’ll talk later, okay?”

Addy dropped her hand from her face, threw the sheet off and ran to Clay. Silent tears were streaming down her cheeks as she threw her arms around him, pulling him to her tightly, her chin tucked into his neck as she spoke in a whisper.

“Clay, I won’t stay with you like this. If you don’t leave the numbers and whatever else you’re involved in, I’m leaving you. You have to choose.”

Addy pushed her face into his neck, her cheeks damp against the warmth of his skin. She pressed her hands into his back, as if she were trying to hold him in place, to remember the feel of his body in her hands. Clay stood frozen, his arms still around her in the confused embrace he gave her when she rose from the bed and ran to him. He heard her words, but their meaning seemed far off, a distant menace that seemed impossible on a sweet morning spent with his wife, in their home, coffee and sex served up together in a steamy brew.

“What?” Clay managed to get out. Addy dropped her hands and took a step back, away from him.

“I’ve tried to tell you every other way, but you haven’t listened. I love you, Clay, but this is not the life I want with you. I will leave you if you don’t change it, and I will do it soon.”

Clay heard the words, saw Addy standing in front of him, naked and honest, unashamed, beautiful, brutal. He couldn’t tell if she was waiting for him to say something. His thoughts were fuzzy, his movements thick. He couldn’t figure out what to say, how to acknowledge what he heard. She turned, walked into the bathroom, slammed the door behind her. Lifting his hands to empty air, looking around the room for solace, Clay found none anywhere. He was startled when he came to his reflection in the mirror, holding his shirt in his hand. Compared to Addy’s nakedness, his clothing seemed unnatural, dishonorable, a covering for lies and deceptions. He felt that red-hot core of shame inside of him as he cataloged the things he’d kept from Addy, things she’d never guess at, secrets he couldn’t even imagine how to reveal. Watching himself, he put on his shirt, buttoned it, tucked it in.

The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Clay imagined Addy checking the water with her toe, swishing it back and forth, watching the steam rise up from the filling tub. The sound of Addy in the bathroom seemed alien and distant, separate now from him, the closed door too great a barrier to overcome. He left the room, shoes in hand, uncertain what to do next other than to sit on the stairs, put them on, leave the house, and go to work.

Chapter Nine

2000

Clay buttoned his raincoat up to the neck and glanced out the kitchen window one more time. It was raining, a steady patter of drops, not a heavy rain, but still he didn’t like it. Rain wasn’t good, it was slippery and slick, hard to walk in and worse to drive through. It turned the world gray and murky, and with each swipe of the windshield washer blade he had to readjust his vision, trying to interpret what he saw through the streaks. But, there was no getting around it. He and Addy had lived their lives around doctors’ appointments, and now he had to go it alone. Doctors were the new officers that commanded his time, and he lived under their coercion. The doctors were there for his own good, like the officers who were supposed to take care of their men. They were aloof and snotty in the same way, the sick and elderly something to be handled, processed, tested, manipulated, like G.I.s in basic or on the battlefield. Hurry up and wait. Stand in line. Be on time for your appointment then wait two hours. Fill in these forms. Take off your clothes. Boredom, embarrassment, pain and death were the province of officers and doctors. They were a separate caste, a closed society, always behind the desk or standing over you in uniform, telling you your chances of survival. The petty gods of his life.