LaRose

I’m a lucky man, he said, looking them all over and meaning that sincerely.

Nola and Maggie gazed at him indulgently. In their script they often didn’t understand what he was saying but rolled their eyes away from him with the gentle exasperation of two mothers.

With just the right amount of oxy, Romeo looked at things as a movie drama where revenge was justice, saw himself outside of himself, even heard the music, furtive or swelling. And see? Peter was all dressed up in heroic clothing to act his part in a heroic portrait, thought Romeo. But a startling message approached.

Romeo made his way toward Peter Ravich, whom he’d spotted in the Alco parking lot. To keep walking, he had to keep arguing with Landreaux in his head. Still, still! Landreaux had never talked to Romeo about the old times, and was too high and mighty to give Romeo a sign he even cared one shit about the sacrifice that Romeo made, trying to save Landreaux, even to this day. Plus he was stealing Hollis and Emmaline and all that Romeo should have. Getting away with stealing these because they all believed in a false Landreaux, a saved and sober Landreaux, a Landreaux who could do the worst thing possible and still be loved. That Landreaux must fall.

I tried to warn him, tried and tried again.

Now Romeo stood before Peter Ravich.

Can I talk to you?

Peter vaguely remembers Romeo, but doesn’t know from where. Romeo himself does not recall that he once approached Peter while the man was pumping gas into his vehicle, and scammed him as he frowned at the whirring readout of numbers. He told Peter that he had lost his wallet and needed ten dollars’ worth of gas to bring his grandmother to the hospital. Peter had unfolded his lean wallet and given him five. Now, stooping and shadowy, Romeo cuts Peter away from his family.

This is private, he says.

Romeo’s skinny tail of hair is neatly braided, by himself, braided wet from a shower obtained by stealth from the casino campgrounds. He has broken into his supply of swag and wears a T-shirt stiff with newness, featuring a huge plastic press-on eagle, comrade to an Indian-headbanded turtle, both bursting fiercely through a dream catcher. A red bandanna is tied crisp around his throat, the indigo skulls peeping discreetly over the folded cloth. Romeo has clipped sharp the drooping wisps of his wisdom ’stache. His jeans are slung low, barely on his hips. He speaks calmly, though clearing his throat every other word.

Apologies, he says, this will only take a minute.

I’m supposed to be over there, says Peter.

I’m a friend of Landreaux’s.

Oh?

Well, not a friend, as you will see, but a former friend before I found out what Landreaux was up to.

Romeo pauses; he is proud of that as you will see, which Mrs. Peace once called foreshadowing. He makes a pious sorry-face, like he’s sad to give the news of Landreaux’s hidden character to one who believes in him.

In fact, feeling inspired, Romeo uses that line.

I know you believe in him.

I. . yeah, sure. . what’s going on? Peter glances at his family and smiles uncertainly, waves at their impatient faces.

You see, I am a hospital worker, says Romeo in a formal way. For that reason, I accidentally hear how things really go down from time to time in real life.

Peter feels the pull of where this is going and tries to extricate. But Romeo is an assured narrator and already has him with the suckage of story. Romeo puts his hand to his heart.

I apologize if this causes you to revisit trauma, says Romeo, but you weren’t told the truth. And I just feel — me being me — that you, as a parent, deserve the truth.

Now everything is very slow or even paralyzed, like time has quit its business and there is only Romeo, and only Peter, and dread like a gong in Peter’s head.

So that day three years ago, says Romeo.

Cut the shit.

Peter’s shoulders hunch and square, his chest expands, his neck swells, his heavy hands itch to grab that red bandanna and twist to choke the words off. This guy is slime. This guy is doing violence here. At the same time, this is something Peter can’t help coming to know. It will be there whether he hears it now or walks away. It will exist behind the sorry-to-tell-you mini-frown with the smugness boiling up behind Romeo’s unctuous manner.

It’s not shit, says Romeo, calm. He expected this resistance from Peter, so he goes in more slowly. Poor Landreaux. Romeo sighs. Sometimes he tries to self-medicate, you know? Looks like he tried to that day. I heard the guys who were on the ambulance crew that day. I obtained access to the coroner’s report.

Coroner?

Yes, nobody told you? Nobody gave you that report? You were perhaps unaware?

Peter’s legs go weak. No. Maybe it was filed away or burned. It had not occurred to him. The unthinkable had been, at least, straightforward. Peter had seen the tree where it happened. It had all made unbearable sense. He hadn’t wanted to know any details. He’d had his hands full, back then, with Nola spinning off in space and Maggie clutching him like she was drowning. Then fighting him off. Then clutching him. There was no sense in looking at the paperwork of death. It would not have brought his son back. Reports were the cold logistics of death and he’d been dealing with the hot truth of grief.

So, no.

I do have it here, said Romeo in a hushed voice, then repeating the TV phrase. I was able to obtain the file. I can tell you what it says, basically. Romeo’s voice is dry and competent. He marvels at how intelligent he makes himself sound — his brain though wormholed is a smart brain, after all.

It says that Landreaux’s shot missed Dusty’s head, heart, lungs, liver, aortic artery, femoral artery, and stomach. It says that Dusty was not killed by the shot but by the tearing shrapnel of the branch he was sitting on. Shallow wounds, sir. He bled to death while Landreaux was restraining your wife in the house. It doesn’t say this in the report, but the guys speculate Landreaux’s judgment — tragically! — impaired. If Landreaux had not run or panicked, but stopped to treat the boy’s bleeding, which as a personal care assistant he certainly knew how to do, he would probably have saved Dusty’s life.

And. . here Romeo embroiders for further effect. . and, if your wife had been allowed to run back there, even she might have saved the boy.

Peter feels the paper in his hands. He opens the thing, filled out in squirrelly handwriting. His brain will not read the phrases in sequence, though the words Romeo just used pop out here and there. The paper falls. Romeo picks it up and tries gingerly to press it back into Peter’s hand, but there is no response, so he steps back. Peter’s arm is long and now is the time Romeo might get slugged.

As Peter stares through Romeo his face goes fragile. Peter’s skin crinkles and lines form, flushed brown as old parchment, and he is suddenly very, very old. Romeo takes another step back from this amazing special effect. Then Peter’s daughter calls.

Daddy! It’s our turn.

Peter closes his mouth. His eyes focus. He walks past Romeo and goes to stand before the photographer.

At the end of his driveway, Peter. Motionless, balanced, hands dangling at his sides. He does not wave at or even see the few cars that pass, the ones that are not Landreaux. Behind him, the pickup, his hunting rifle in the gun rack across the back window. He’s wearing blue jeans, a shirt, his old red and black checked jacket. Head buzzing. Hollow roar of blood in his ears. Had he remembered to relock the gun case? He’d grabbed the gun so quickly. Yes he had, yes. He asks himself this question every three minutes. Part of him already knew what Romeo would say and had been waiting for this. It didn’t feel like news. It felt like corroboration. Every noise is magnified. The dog shuffling in the undergrowth. He watches the birch and popple trees. The leaves shiver with light. He cannot remember his son’s voice. He cannot call a happy image to his mind that is not a photograph. But he can see his son in the leaves, and where before Dusty was at peace, gone instantly in one shock, now his eyes are open, he is calling. He is afraid. Peter bangs the side of his head, trying for another image. The good times. Not a photograph. The real times. Why had he not memorized the moments?