The Ax (15 page)

The eddy that’s been named after Dyer is a small seasonal whirlpool in a little stream called the Pocochaug, a tributary of the Housatonic River. There are a lot of Indian names around this part of the country, some of them worse than Pocochaug.

This is the eddy’s season, springtime, with snowmelt and the spring rains. New Haven Road, the town’s main street, almost its only street, runs along the west bank of the Pocochaug, then angles right where the stream angles left, and that’s where the town is. Just above that, at the north end of town and just within the town limits, is the eddy, considered such a local attraction that there’s even a small parking area there, between road and stream. At the moment, midafternoon on a May Sunday, there are about seven cars there. I make it eight.

There’s a footbridge across the stream here, over the eddy, which is simply water behaving, in a somewhat larger fashion, the way it behaves when you empty your sink. Half a dozen people lean on the stripped-bark log railing there, looking down at the eddy, I have no idea why. Beyond them, the footbridge, which is wooden planks over a solid iron structure, curves down to the far side of the Pocochaug, where there’s a little park, some boulders sticking out of the ground, a few picnic benches, and a seasonal (like the eddy) snack shop.

It’s open. I don’t buy anything, but I walk around the little rustic building and the general area of the park. It’s so pleasant here, as though there are no problems in the world, as though there was nothing difficult I had to do, as though Marjorie had not delivered earlier today her terrible news. Walking here, among the trees, in the neat park, I am feeling relaxed. How long has it been since I felt relaxed?

I stand in the middle of the park and look back toward the stream, where people still lean on the railing to watch the water eddy. It looks to me as though some of them are the same people as when I first got here. Beyond them is the gravel parking area, and beyond that the lightly traveled road, and beyond that a couple of white houses and a road winding away uphill.

Footbridge. KBA’s address is Footbridge Road. That must be Footbridge Road right there.

A few houses are visible, uphill, through pine trees. Can I see KBA’s house from here? I’ve forgotten the number.

Tensing up, feeling excitement grow, I walk back across the footbridge. KBA’s house. Is he home? Can he be one of these people down here, looking at the eddy? Unlikely; the eddy will be old news to him.

Why don’t I walk up there? It can’t be far, and people are walking today, it’s a nice day. And it would be good not to drive the car past KBA’s house in its present condition.

I go to the Voyager and look at the resumé, to remind myself of the house number, and it’s eleven. I leave my cap on the car seat, and open my wind-breaker, and start to walk.

It’s a little farther than I expected, and certainly not visible from that park back there, but the road is a gradual slope, an easy climb, past well-cared-for New England houses, all of them cleverly fitted into the slant of the hill. Many retaining walls, the older ones of stone, the newer ones of railroad ties.

Number eleven uses railroad ties, and a lot of plantings. The house is on the left as I walk up, well set back from the road, the blacktop driveway walled on one side by the railroad ties, the mailbox built into the wooden post constructed at the road end of the ties.

I walk past, on the other side of the road, and as I get a little higher I can see them. Husband and wife. Digging in the garden.

Planting season. They have several gardens, all around the house, including this elaborate one on the uphill side, with a tall wire fence all around it. I look more closely, and see small green clumps growing in there, and realize those are different kinds of lettuce. A vegetable garden. They’re growing their own vegetables.

They’re both in blue jeans. His T-shirt is dusty rose, with words on it I can’t read from here, while hers is wordless and pale blue. They both wear sweatbands around their foreheads, his white, hers the same blue as her T-shirt. She’s wearing gloves, he isn’t.

They’re absorbed in their work, digging with trowels, inserting little plastic markers to show what they’ve planted. I look at him, as I walk by. It’s probably only the dirt streaks on his face, but to me he looks more than 50. If they think he’s lying at interviews…

No. That’s a powerful resumé. If there were jobs to be had, in our shared industry, he would have one. Before me, he would have one. He’s the most recent arrival among our group of unemployed, and even without my intercession he wouldn’t be with us long.

I know him now, know what he looks like. I walk on up the slope, and a while farther on it begins to get steeper, so I stop to sit on a stub of stone wall and look back down the way I’ve come, and think things over.

It’s just as well I didn’t bring the Luger today. I am
not
going to do anything while the wife’s around, period.

Rested, I walk back down the slope. I wonder, on the way down, should I start a conversation? Ask directions, something like that? But what’s the point? In fact, I’m much better off if I don’t talk to him. It was doubly horrible with Everett Dynes, having talked with him, gotten to know him, like him. I’m not going to let that happen again.

They’re still at work, struggling toward vegetable self-sufficiency. A black Honda Accord is in their driveway; I memorize the license number.

I continue on down to New Haven Road, and cross it to the parking lot, and a state trooper’s car is parked behind mine. When I get closer, a young trooper with cold eyes rises from inspecting the damage to the front of the Voyager and looks at me. “Sir? This your car?”

This far away, the alert has gone out. I’m surprised, but of course I don’t show it. “Yes, it is.”

“Could you tell me how you got banged up here?”

“I was just asked that question last week,” I say. “Over in Kingston, New York. What the heck is going on?”

“Sir,” he says, “I’d like to know what happened here.”

“Okay,” I say, and shrug, and tell him the story; the pickup truck backs out of the lumberyard in the rain, unavoidable collision.

He listens, watching various parts of my face, then says, “Sir, may I see your license and registration?”

“Sure,” I say. While I’m getting them out, I say, “I sure wish I knew what was going on.”

He thanks me for the documents, and goes away to his car, which is blocking mine. I take off my wind-breaker, feeling warm from the walk, and toss it on top of the resumé on the passenger seat, with my cap. Then I sit behind the wheel, lower my window, and listen to the burbly rush of the water in the eddy. It’s soothing, and the air is sweet and not too warm, and I’m actually about to fall asleep right here when the trooper comes back, trying to be less cold and formal, which is rather like watching an I-beam try to curtsey.

“Thank you, sir,” he says, and gives me back my license and registration.

He’s about to go away, without another word, but I say, “Officer, give me a break, will you? What’s going on? This is twice now.”

He considers me. This is a need-to-know guy if there ever lived one. But he decides to relent. “A few days ago there was a hit-and-run,” he tells me, “upstate New York. This type of vehicle. We expect it’s got some damage on the front left.”

“Upstate,” I say. “No, I was in Binghamton. But thanks for telling me.”

Nodding at the front of the Voyager, he says, “You ought to get that fixed.”

“I’m taking it in tomorrow,” I promise. “Thank you, officer.”

For some reason, I seem to do all these things on Thursdays. I didn’t plan it this way, but with Marjorie working Mondays and Wednesdays, and only one car in the family, this is the way it’s been happening. I dealt with the first three resumés on Thursdays, and now here it is Thursday again, and I’m on my way back to Dyer’s Eddy.

Will I deal with KBA today? I hope so. Get it over with. Now that the car is anonymous again.

It wasn’t possible before this. Monday, after I took Marjorie to Dr. Carney’s office (I kept the radio on in the car, tuned to WQXR, the
New York Times
’s classical music station, to hide the silence in there with us), I went to the dealer where I’d bought the Voyager, five years ago, back when I was replacing my cars every three years, and I talked with Jerry in the service department. I’ve had the car serviced there every time since I bought it, because I have to keep it going for who knows how long, so Jerry and I know one another, and he has some idea of my financial situation. He looked at the car, and he looked at me, and he said, “Your insurance covers this?” This is the first time we’ve dealt with damage.

I’d brought along my policy, which I handed to him, saying, “Two-hundred-fifty-dollar deductible.”

He frowned over the policy. When he handed it back, he said, “Uh huh.” Giving nothing away.

“Jerry,” I said, “you know my situation. I can’t afford two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“This is a rough time, Mr. Devore,” he said, and he sounded sympathetic. “They just let my wife go at the hospital.”

I didn’t follow. I said, “What? She was in the hospital?”

“She
worked
at the hospital. X-ray technician. She was there eleven years.”

“Oh.”

“Some big health care company from Ohio bought them up,” he said, “and they’re cutting back. All the problems about health costs, you know?”

Funny; I don’t think of hospitals as being commercial institutions, bought and sold, belonging to corporations. But of course they are. I think of them as being like churches or firehouses, but they’re just stores, after all. I said, “So they let her go? After eleven years?”

“Boom, like that,” he said, and poked at his thick moustache with a knuckle. “They had nine X-ray technicians, now they’ll get along with six. To do the job nine did before.”

“Still,” I said, “that’s a skill, isn’t it? X-ray technician?”

He shook his head. “They’re all cutting back,” he said. “She thought it’d be easy, find another job, but the placement people told her they got more people with her training than they know what to do with.”

“Jesus, Jerry,” I said. “I am sorry. Believe me, I know how rough it can get.”

“I know you do, Mr. Devore,” he said, and looked around. “For all I know,” he said, “in some office somewhere, right this minute, they’re deciding this place only needs two service managers, not three.”

“They won’t let
you
go, Jerry,” I said, though of course they might. They might do anything.

He knew it, too. “Nobody’s safe, Mr. Devore,” he said. Then he lowered his voice and said, “We know each other, I can take a chance with you, help you out a little. There’s likely to be two different estimates, you know? One for you, one for the insurance company.”

“God, that’d be a help, Jerry,” I said.

“Take a seat in the waiting room,” he told me, “I’ll see what I can do here.”

I thanked him, and forty-five minutes later he gave me the two estimates, and grinned and said, “Make sure you send the right one.”

“Oh, I will,” I promised, and on the drive home I thought, I could have returned that favor by telling Jerry how to keep his job, if the crunch ever came. Just kill one of the other service managers. And if his wife had chopped three X-ray technicians before
she
got the chop, she’d still be working at that hospital.

But that’s not a thing you could say to anybody.

An hour after I got home, the mail arrived. I can’t help feeling a little queasy these days, every time I go out to the mailbox. I can’t help looking around for parked cars. I know it’s silly.

The mail included the accident report from the state police; very good. I phoned Bill Martin, my insurance guy, and he said to bring my paperwork right over, and I did, and we met in the office that used to be part of the built-in garage in his home. I gave him the police report and the estimate, the one for the insurance company, and he whistled and said, “Boy, you really banged it up, huh?”

“It wasn’t fun,” I told him.

“I’m sure it wasn’t.” He peered at me. “How are
you
, Burke? You okay? You didn’t get hurt?”

I laughed and said, “Should I claim whiplash, Bill?”

“No, for God’s sake,” he said, in mock terror. “They’re cracking down on fraud these days,” he told me, “and looking for it harder, too. Everybody’s squeezing a dollar.”