This is Just Exactly Like You (9 page)

He hangs on for one last beer, for the weather and sports. In minor league action, the Bulls and Grasshoppers and Warthogs all win. Smiles all around the anchor desk. At the round booth, the tank top woman gets up on her knees, pulls her shirt up in the back, shows her date a tattoo.
Don’t that look just like a world globe?
she’s saying.
Don’t it?
Jack looks, but not too long. It’s time to go. He pays his tab, leaves a big tip, walks out into the parking lot. He feels better. A burger and a beer. A night on the town, a calling card. He’s feeling better.

He knocks some of the mud from Canavan’s lawn off the front tires, climbs up in the truck. Maybe it was a half-stupid thing to have done. Maybe somebody who had it together better wouldn’t have done that. Doesn’t matter. It was at least a fierce goddamned show of force, is what it was. It was an update with scores and highlights. He gets the truck turned around without hitting anything, and drives out past a huge display of mahogany furniture sitting in a mowed field. There’s a long yellow banner that says REAL MAHOGANY. There are tables, some dressers, a four-poster bed, something that looks like a throne. It’s all been out here at least a year. Jack’s never once seen anyone looking at it, never once seen anyone who looks like he might be selling it. It just sits. Furniture in a field. He rolls down his windows, finds what he wants on the radio, drives home with the volume cranked up. On the way by PM&T, he slows down and takes a look. Everything’s still right where he left it: His plants, his office, his piles of mulch.

Beth’s sitting on the front porch, drinking coffee, when he gets home. Shit and shit. Yul Brynner’s out there, too, and the both of them look disappointed. And pissed. Jack hasn’t called about getting him shaved yet. Another failure. It’ll be 95 degrees soon enough, and the dog will lay around panting, miserable. Jack gets out of the truck, reminds himself one more time to call the vet.

The porch light’s on across the street. He moves slowly, buying time, trying to make every move look like he’s doing it on purpose. He does like her back over here, sitting on his porch. Their porch. She’s chewing on a strand of her hair. It makes her seem like a kid. He climbs up the steps, and Yul Brynner watches him. Beth doesn’t. Jack nods at the dog on his way by.

Inside, the house is quiet, but bright, all the wrong lamps on. He checks on Hendrick, who’s sleeping on his side, just like they taught him.
First, push your hand down on the bed. Like that. Push and roll. Great, honey, that’s great. That’s perfect.
Every new movement had to be taught, had to be broken down step by step. Regular kids don’t have to be taught to roll over. At the yard last week, Butner said,
He runs like a goddamn marionette, you know
. Jack didn’t know for sure that Butner knew what a marionette was. He grabs the last four of a six-pack out of the fridge, brings that back out on the porch with him. Might as well keep going. Yul Brynner’s staring out into the yard. Beth is, too.

“Beer?” Jack says.

Beth shows him her mug, says nothing.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Jack says, opening himself one. He sets the other three back behind him, up against the house. He scratches Yul Brynner behind the ears. “What’s he looking at?”

“I don’t know,” she says, her voice something dug out against him. “It’s out in the trees. It’s been out there a while.”

Sticks snap in the little stand of shrubs and ivy in the side yard. Yul Brynner starts to shake a little, vibrate, his version of being battle-ready. A possum comes wallowing out from under a bush, sits up, stares at them. It seems anti-climactic. It seems fat. Yul Brynner whines, then barks a couple of times, and it runs away.

“Possum,” Jack says.

“He looked smart,” says Beth.

“Smart?”

“Like he was looking at us,” she says.

“He
was
looking at us.”

“You know what I mean.”

The dog works his way through a series of more whines and growls. “Good boy,” Jack says, rubbing his ribs. “Good boy.”

“Put him on his lead,” Beth says.

“What for?”

“What do you mean, what for? I don’t want him going down there, chasing after that thing.”

“He’s fine,” says Jack. “Isn’t he?”

Beth gets up, gets the rope from its peg by the door, hooks one end to the porch railing and the other end to the dog.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Jack says, and Yul Brynner promptly gets up and runs for the shrubs, the rope trailing behind him. Beth steps on it some right before it goes taut, slowing him down enough to where he won’t hurt his neck, a trick they’ve learned from enough evenings out here with him. She looks at Jack a long time, proving something. Then she dumps out her coffee, reaches for a beer, pours half of it in the mug. She says, “Jackie, what in the hell is it with you, anyway, do you think?”

“What do you mean?” he says. He knows what she means.

She aims her mug at the truck. “How about this, for starters: What is that all over your tires?”

“Mud from the lot, I guess,” he says.

“Mud from the lot. That’s your answer.”

“Sure,” he says.

“You know what?” she says. “We heard you out front before you even did it. We heard the truck, Jack. We got up and came and stood in the window and we watched you do it.” She sits up straighter. “I didn’t think you’d do it. I told him you wouldn’t. But then you did.” She doesn’t sound all that impressed.

Jack reels Yul Brynner back in, hand over hand on the lead. The dog’s still staring out into the dark. A car horn goes off a couple of times out on the larger road. “I think the first time I saw a possum was in kindergarten,” he says. “They found it in one of the trash cans outside. Stevens Kindergarten. I was a Cardinal. Or a Bluebird.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They had us grouped off, named for birds. Maybe I was a Robin. We had Robins one year.”

“Was Hen still asleep when you went in there?”

“Of course.” He gets the dog the rest of the way back up on the porch. “They took us all out there to see it. Lined us up and brought us out there. I don’t know what they were thinking. That thing could have come up out of there and bitten somebody.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

It’s a fair question. Maybe because he’s supposed to be telling her something, and this is what’s coming out. “Because of the possum,” he says. “It was a mother possum, in the trash can. With babies. I remember we looked in there and saw she had babies. She could have given everybody rabies.” Beth’s shaking her head. “Rabies babies,” he says.

“Jack.”

“What?”

“Are you drunk?” she says.

“I don’t think so.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“What?”

“Where were you? What is it that made you think you could just leave him here?”

“Because I could just leave him here. I didn’t think it. I did it. He’s fine. He was fine, right, when you got here?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“He was fine. You know he was.”

“That’s not the
point—
”

“Nobody could figure out how she’d gotten them in there,” he says.

“Gotten what in where?”

“The possum babies. They got the county extension or the nature preserve or something to come out and get them. They pulled up in the truck and we all watched. The guy got them out of there with this metal pole with a noose or something on the end of it.”

“The nature preserve came out to get possums?”

“Maybe it was just an exterminator, and they lied to us,” he says. “I don’t remember.” The idea that it could have been an exterminator brings a sadness down on him. Maybe he is drunk.

“Maybe it was one of those catch-and-release places,” she says.

“I’ve never believed those places actually do that. I always imagine them clubbing everything to death once they’re back at the shop. Like baby seals.”

“Jesus, Jack.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They don’t do that. They don’t club them to death.”

“They might.”

“They don’t,” she says. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter.” She slides a little away from him, stares at her feet. “Are you done?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“With your possum story. Are you done?”

“Yes.”

“Then is it my turn?”

“Sure,” he says.

“OK.” She leans against the railing. “Listen to me,” she says. “I’ve been here an hour and a half. What I’d like to know is, where have you been?” The dog rolls over on his side, offers up his belly. She says, “I mean, after you tore up Terry’s yard. I know that part of it. I want to know what it is you did after that.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“No, you’re not,” she says.

“OK,” he says. “You’re right.”

“You know what he’s doing right now?”

“Not you, I’m guessing.”

She ignores that. “He’s out there with all the lights turned on, with his car parked in the street with the headlights on, and he’s trying to see if there’s anything you didn’t destroy, trying to see if there’s anything he can salvage.”

“I didn’t plan it,” he says. “Really. It just sort of happened.”

“Why don’t you try that with the police? I tried to talk him into calling the police, but he wouldn’t do it.”

“What a stand-up guy your boyfriend turns out to be.”

“Jack, you want to know what’s going on? With me? With us? It’s this. This right here. The way you do things, the way you walk through the world and don’t pay attention to anybody else, ever. The things you’re capable of—”

“Wait,” he says. He’ll take some of this from her, but he’s got to draw a line somewhere. “You wait. How about let’s maybe not talk about what I’m
capable of
. Because between the two of us, you’re the one who looks a little bit more
capable of
something right now
—”

“Not to mention that you left him here alone, Jack,
alone
, for what, two hours? Three hours? What if something happened? He’s six years old!”

“I don’t need you to tell me how old he is, OK? I know how old he is.”

“Do you?”

He can feel the both of them starting to lose hold of the conversation. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What if something had happened to him?” she says again. “What if—”

“What is it you think could have happened?”

She looks straight at him. “Do you want me to make you a fucking list?”

“Yes, I do,” he says. “Go right ahead. You tell me what it is you’ve got in your head that could have happened to him.”

“Anything, you imbecile!
Anything!
He could have turned the stove on. He could have electrocuted himself when he decided he needed to touch the dryer outlet seventeen times. He could have crushed his head in the garage door.”

“He could have drowned in a teaspoon of water.”

“Oh, fuck you, Jack, alright? You know what I mean.” She says it again: “You know what I mean.”

“But that’s what I’m telling you. He didn’t do any of that. That’s what I’m always trying to tell you. None of that happened, because he was already down. Because I got him down. Because we went through the whole fucking thing, the whole song and dance. Just the two of us. We’ve done it every night. Every night. The faucets. The nightlight. The catalog. And he’s doing the windows in the French doors now, by the way. He has to run his finger around the inside of every single pane, which takes half a goddamned hour by itself. Here’s what we did tonight: We lined up the shoes. We read the stories. We did the doors. We did all that, and then he went to sleep, and that was it.” He reaches back, gets himself a new beer. “He was
down
.”

“You left him alone.” She says it slowly, quietly.

“To sit at the Brightwood for an hour and have a beer and think. That’s all.” He stands up. “
He. Was. Down
.”

“The Brightwood,” she says.

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t think here?”

“Who the hell are you to ask me that? You can’t do whatever it is you’re doing here, either, right? Right. Because Canavan’s not here to do, is he?”

“Do you think I wanted this?” she says. “Do you think this is the way I wanted my life to be?”

“Well, what do you want me to say, Bethany? I mean, Canavan? Fucking Canavan?”

“That’s not what this is about,” she says. “How many times are we going to do this? You know it’s not about that. You
know
it.”

“How is it not about that? In what way is any part of this possibly not about that? I swear to fucking hell,” he says, tensing, feeling like his head is about to come off his body, and without thinking it through, without thinking about it at all, he turns around, and from the bottom of the steps—he’s ended up out in the yard, somehow—he throws his beer through the living room window.

She’s up then for sure, coming at him, wild. She throws her mug at him, misses. It lands behind him in the yard. Lights come on next door. Something very definite is happening between them right here. Here is a discrete moment. He thinks she might try to tackle him, but she stops right in front of him, stands facing him, breathing hard. They stare at each other. After the crash of the window, things suddenly feel very quiet. Very still. She says, right into his face, “What in the hell is the matter with you?”