The Dart League King (24 page)

The candlelight flickered across his glasses, and he tilted his head a little to one side and threw his single 20, and he did not know even as he raised the last dart in his hand that he would decide there was one more thing he could do for Russell Harmon, and for Russell’s friends who were gathered around him, and even for his own teammates, who had after all lived their lives in this town and for that reason did not want Brice Habersham to win. And he did not know that he would decide
to do this one thing for himself, for this one time at least—that he would toe the line and raise the dart and, at the last possible moment, close his eyes and take his chances.

It is midway through
the hours of a short summer night. The stars vibrate out the window of a truck headed south on Highway 95, across the Long Bridge over the shining water, advancing on the dark sky. Kelly Ashton rides in the glow from the moon coming in her window and she lets her thoughts go where they care to, too lazy for thinking, too broken down tonight at the core to see Tristan Mackey’s troubled gaze or hear him not speaking or see his fingers knotted on the wheel. And he looks up at the stars that have emerged from the distances of the sky and watches them vibrate to the beating of his heart and thinks of the girl there below the ground and how he and Kelly Ashton will be there soon. There is very little time for turning back now, although the road stretches on and branches in every direction like the veins of a leaf or of a hand—he could easily turn from this one, could turn onto that road or that one passing from the windshield to the rearview mirror, he could simply stay on this road and let it lead them south, leaving the girl to her silence, there underneath the ground with all her secrets. There are a lot of different choices in the world, and a lot of people making them. It is a wonder that the whole town doesn’t shudder beneath their weight.

Brice Habersham is home already, sitting on a sofa in the living room in the light of a single lamp. He is listening to Beethoven’s ninth and final symphony, the volume on the old record player low. He has not heard any movement from upstairs. Helen is sleeping soundly now, apparently. He feels a cord inside him tighten with love for Helen, love despite her bitterness and her anger and her neediness and her fear, and it does not feel to him like a naïve or hopeless love, based on some pathetic romantic impulse or internal weakness, but a love that has abided in his heart all the time and which has withstood the many trials she has put him through, regardless of whether she deserves this love from him, which she herself might say she does not. But the love feels real to him, and he imagines that there is a corresponding love somewhere deep inside Helen that it might be possible to bring out now after all these years, and yet he cannot make up his mind to turn off the music and climb the stairs.

Vince Thompson has arrived at his parents’ house, and he is performing the old reconnaissance again. It seems like he has been checking for danger his whole life. Bomber, his father’s black Labrador, has already approached the car, his tail wagging. Vince is familiar enough to him, though it’s been a while. Bomber has sauntered off, sniffing around the edge of the driveway for something, but he will return to the car door and start to bark if Vince doesn’t move. There are two lights on in the house, one upstairs, one down. The downstairs light is the kitchen light, waiting for his father’s return. The upstairs light is his mother, and he can see a blue flickering in the window from the TV. She is probably sleeping with the TV on again. His mother in her modest flowered gown, her silver hair on
the pillow. He gets out of the car and pets Bomber and fumbles for his house key.

Tristan Mackey puts on the turn signal, although he still can’t believe he will turn. There is a car in the opposite lane, and as the lights come faster he thinks he will abandon his plan, switch off the blinker and go straight, turn around in the parking lot of the lumberyard up ahead and take Kelly Ashton back to town. But now the car is past and he is turning. There are the fir trees towering above the headlights. There is the moon. Kelly Ashton is fighting back tears, but he doesn’t see them. She is not thinking of Russell Harmon and she is not even thinking of her decision to come with Tristan, though it already seems like a mistake, the truck so filled with silence. She is thinking of Hayley in her crib, her pink hand balled around a stuffed animal. What will happen when she wakes up and misses her mother? She wants to think of herself as a strong person, one who can face the obstacles she has presented herself in her own life, the ones that have been presented to her, and overcome them, but there is this weakness and this longing that won’t seem to go away, which she knows as she rides with Tristan Mackey in the pale light of the moon through the evergreens is connected to that image of her father, the possibility of a life that disappears, the possibility that she herself will disappear and her daughter come to forget her. Tristan Mackey is not thinking of Kelly Ashton any more than Kelly Ashton is thinking about him. He is watching the road spool under the tires and thinking how each short stretch, every curve, brings him closer to the moment of revelation, the body emerging underneath the shovel, the ground like a womb.

Vince Thompson has passed through the kitchen now, and
the living room too, walking on the proverbial cat’s feet down the hall lined with photos from his father’s days in active service, into his old bedroom. There is the single bed, there the old cassette deck, there the baseball all-star trophy he received before Chuck hit him in the eye with the iceball. Here in the closet is the locked box. Vince Thompson has the key. He turns the key and lifts the lid and it is all there, the cash in fat rolls, secured with rubber bands. How many times he has imagined lifting this box from its position in the corner, carrying it out of the room. But he has never imagined doing it at night in an almost empty house, ghostly with a certain near silence, just the breeze in the maple out his window and a branch scratching the wall, the dim hubbub of the TV upstairs in his mother’s room. He has imagined confrontations and rage.

Tristan Mackey is, he estimates, halfway there, halfway from the turn to the lake house, and the idea looms in direct relation to the distance covered—it is twice as big. He thinks in terms of preparation. He will bring the whiskey bottle and the knife along, or maybe not the whiskey. He knows exactly where the shovel and the lantern are. He almost knows the number of steps it will take to climb the hill. He does not know what to expect from Kelly Ashton. She remains silent. They have not said a word. She is thinking that she will refuse to sleep with him. She is thinking that she will roll to her side of the bed and tell him that this is not what she wants, not what she wants after all, this strange loneliness that she feels only when she is with him, Tristan Mackey. Tristan. She almost says the name. It is a different thing in her head than it is in the person it belongs to. She does not know the person it belongs to, but she will tell him to sleep awhile and then drive her home. They are
almost there now. She remembers this place where the road turns to gravel. The crunching sound of the tires reminds her of bones.

Brice Habersham is in the bathroom. His heart beats irregularly. Helen is right there, on the other side of the closed door. He has not made a sound to wake her. He looks in the mirror and brushes his teeth. He is a nondescript man, could be described only as tidy in his appearance and habits. How could such a man hope to excite passion? Tomorrow he will announce his retirement. There—he has decided to do it, this thing he has been thinking about for some time now. The work never suited his temperament, not really. It has been a mistake to do it for so long. He rinses the toothbrush and places it carefully in the holder. He bears no ill will toward anyone. He thinks briefly of poor Vince Thompson and Russell Harmon. He hopes they are both safe and sound tonight, that Russell is enjoying his victory. He closes his eyes as he did when he made his final throw, and he holds his hand out in front of him. He opens his eyes and looks at this hand in the mirror. Small, soft, lined with veins that show his age. In just a minute he will place this small hand on the smooth skin of Helen’s belly. He does not know if she will scream.

There is something I need to show you
, Tristan Mackey says. She asks him,
How long will it take?
They are standing at the shed. The shed is like the road. It is another place where one might change course if he chose to.
A while
, he says. Is it important? Yes. Yes it is. Can’t it wait? No. What she would really like right now, she tells him, is a couple hours sleep and a ride back to town. There is the road forking; one way leads up to the house, the cool covers at the conclusion of a long
night, sleep, no secrets revealed, no changes. Maybe things can continue like they are, maybe no one will identify the young man in the library. And there is the other way, the objects in the shed, the walk up the hill, poor Liza Hatter who refuses to disappear, who won’t leave the minds of the ones who search for her or the one who knows she’s there. Not possible, he says. Not now. I am tired of assholes, she thinks. This is the very last time. Then there is a lantern, a shovel, a knife tucked in a belt loop that she can’t see. The light he left on in the house, casting shadows, beckoning her in.

It is too dark to walk up the cliff. He goes ahead and lights the lantern, the gas making a soft hiss. He holds the lantern up, he holds the shovel in his other hand, he feels the knife secured against his belly. How can he do anything now but walk to the grave? What else would make any sense? He has narrowed his choices considerably.
Follow me
, he says.

Russell Harmon is home now, in his basement room. He has eaten the leftovers in the refrigerator. He is sated and sleepy. He takes off his sandals and his wet clothes. He puts on clean boxers and a T-shirt. He gets in bed and clicks off the lamp.

Helen Habersham lies in the dark, listening for some sound from the bathroom. She has slept well following the storm and there is no harsh light in the room and she is at this moment free of pain. She is not angry that he woke her. She feels, right now, a certain softness toward him. It has been so many years. Who was the man she loved so long ago, whose rejection of her had felt like death? She cannot even remember his name. She falls back toward sleep, hearing as if in some other time her
husband—
husband
the word goes lazily through her head—her husband pulling back the covers and slipping into bed, and there is still no pain from the covers moving against her nightshirt, and then there is the feel of a hand against her skin, and she is awake. She gasps. The hand begins to slide away, but with a quick, involuntary movement she grabs the hand and holds it where it is. There is something warm inside of her. She imagines the man the hand belongs to, can picture him perfectly there in the dark, his plain face and his neatly combed hair. It has been years since he tried to touch her in this way. She has wondered at times if he would ever do it again, but she has always imagined it happening in the midst of the pain, and at the moment there is no pain, and she tries to reach inside herself to find the reason for her ancient rejection, and she cannot find it. This is the man who quietly cares for her, who anticipates the variety of her needs, who bears the trials she knows she puts him through without complaining. The disgust she thought she felt for him, has felt for him in the past on these occasions, is not anywhere. What is wrong with the feel of his hand, with the picture of him lying next to her? With a slower, more considered movement, she interlaces the fingers of the hand with her own.

Vince Thompson sits on the couch with his box of money. He is waiting for his father to return. There are things to be said now, things he has harbored for years. He will have his scene. He has taken one precaution against his own anger, however. He has removed the Beretta from his pocket and placed it in the closet where the box used to be. Now he remembers the knife and he reaches for it to go put it away as well, but it isn’t
there. He remembers how he tried to attack Clint Harmon with it. It seems strange to Vince Thompson that he could have been that angry just an hour ago. It is even stranger to him how he feels right now, very cool and collected. He has only been imagining the possibility of his anger, out of habit. He feels no anger inside him anywhere. He has not felt this calm in many years. It will be strange to talk to his father without the anger. But Vince Thompson’s father is nowhere close to coming home. He and Clint Harmon have made their way back up the street to PJ’s. They still have an hour before closing time. Vince Thompson’s father does not think of Vince Thompson at all. He almost never does. And Clint Harmon is through thinking of his son, Russell. There was a moment back there at the 321 when he wanted to speak to him, wanted to acknowledge things officially. Look at how his son was the center of attention, look at how all these people were watching him. He had attacked that piece of shit Vince Thompson in a surge of pride. But then the hot girl had said the name. It was the name that always disgusted him somehow—Russell Harmon. The fucking nerve of his mother to give him that last name when she had never meant as much to him as the nail on his little finger. It had felt good to walk away from it again. Close call. Big mistake almost made. Things are good at PJ’s, where he and his buddy can talk in loud voices about the might of the American military, how since World War II it has never been unleashed in all its strength. It’s high fucking time, Clint Harmon says.

Kelly Ashton’s initial thought was to walk back to the truck and refuse to go with Tristan. Not once during the time she spent preparing herself in the mirror did she consider traipsing through the woods tonight. It is not what she dressed up
for. But now, even if a little sullenly, she has grown interested in the shovel and the lantern. Tristan Mackey is going to dig up something. It seems like an appropriate and hopeful metaphor.