He sensed that he might have hurt my feelings, so he slid right into his own shortcomings.
“Now you’re supposed to say, ‘What happened to your hair, asshole? And how come you’re wearing trifocals? And how come you’re all bent over like an old man?’ C’mon, give me some shit. I can take it.”
For a brief time there, he had me believing that his incongruous mood was for real. But as soon as he stopped talking, the fear was in his eyes. He glanced up at the wall clock three times in less than a minute.
And when he spoke, his voice was suddenly much quieter. “You pissed that I asked for you to do this?”
“More surprised than anything, David.”
“You want some coffee? There’s some over there.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“You go sit down. I’ll bring it over to you.” Then the eyes went dreamy and faraway. “I was always like that at the parties we gave, Susan and I, I mean, and believe me, we gave some pissers. One night, we found the governor of this very state balling this stewardess in our walk-in closet. And I was always schlepping drinks back and forth, trying to make sure everybody was happy. I guess that’s one problem with growing up the way we did — you never feel real secure about yourself. You always overdo the social bullshit so they’ll like you more.”
“You were pretty important. Full partner.”
“That’s what it said on the door,” said the bald and stooped impostor. “But that’s not what it said in here.” He thumped his chest and looked almost intolerably sad for a moment, then went and got our coffee.
The first cup of coffee we spent catching up. I told him about Nam, and he told me about state capital politics and how one got ahead as a big-fee lawyer. Then we talked about New Hope, and I caught him up on some of the lives that interested him there.
We didn’t get around to Susan for at least twenty minutes, and when we did, he jumped up and said, “I’ll get us refills. But keep talking. I can hear you.”
I’d just mentioned her name, and he was on his feet, going the opposite direction.
I suppose I didn’t blame him. The courts had made him face what he’d done, now I was going to make him face it all over again.
“Did you know she used to write me sometimes?”
“You’re kidding? When we were married?”
“Uh-huh.”
He brought the coffee over, set down our cups. “You two weren’t—”
I shook my head. “Strictly platonic. The way it’d always been with us. From her point of view, anyway. She was crazy about you, and she never got over it.”
We didn’t say anything for a time, just sat there with our respective memories, faded images without words, like a silent screen flickering with moments of our days.
“I always knew you never got over her,” he said.
“No, I never did. That’s why my wife left.” I explained about that a little bit.
Then I said, “But I was pretty stupid. I didn’t catch on for a long time.”
“Catch on to what?” he said, peering at me from the glasses that made his eyes flit about like blue goldfish.
“All the ‘accidents’ she had. I didn’t realize for a long time that it was you beating her up.”
He sighed, stared off. “You can believe this or not,” he said, “but I actually tried to get her to leave. Because I knew I couldn’t stop myself.”
“She loved you.”
He put his head down. “The things I did to her—” He shook his head, then looked up. “You remember that day back on Eagle’s Point when you almost pushed me off?”
“Yeah.”
“You should’ve pushed me. You really should’ve. Then none of this would’ve happened.” He put his head down again.
“You ever get help for your problem?” I said.
“No. Guess I was afraid it would leak out if I did. You know, some of those fucking shrinks tell their friends everything.”
“I blame you for that, David.”
His head was still down. He nodded. Then he looked up: “I had a lot of chicks on the side.”
“That’s what the DA said at the trial.”
“She had a couple of men, too. I mean, don’t sit there and think she was this saint.”
“She wasn’t a saint, David. She never claimed to be. And she probably wouldn’t have slept with other men if you hadn’t run around on her — and hadn’t kept beating the shit out of her a couple of times a month.”
He looked angry. “It was never that often,” he said. “Still.”
“Yeah. Still.” He got up and walked over to the window and looked out on the yard. The rain had brought a chill and early night. He said, “I’ve read where this doesn’t always go so smooth.”
“It’ll go smooth tonight, David.”
He stared out the window some more. He said, “You believe in any kind of afterlife?”
“I try to; I want to.”
“That doesn’t sound real convincing.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you can be real sure about, David.”
“What if you had to bet, percentage-wise, I mean?”
“Sixty-forty, I guess.”
“That there is an afterlife?”
“Yeah. That there is an afterlife.”
Thunder rumbled. Rain hissed.
He turned around and looked at me. “I loved her.”
“You killed her, David.”
“She could have walked out that door any time she wanted to.”
I just stared at him a long time then and said, “She loved you, David. She always believed you’d stop beating her someday. She thought you’d change.”
He started sobbing then.
You see that sometimes.
No warning, I mean. The guy just breaks.
He just stood there, this bald squinty impostor, and cried.
I went over and took his coffee cup from him so it wouldn’t smash on the floor, and then I slid my arm around his shoulder and led him over to the chair.
I had to get back. The team had one more run-through scheduled before the actual execution.
I got him in the chair, and he looked up and me and said, “I’m scared, man. I’m so scared, I don’t even have the strength to walk.” He cried some more and put his hand out.
I didn’t want to touch his hand because that would feel as if I were betraying Susan.
But he was crying pretty bad, and I thought Susan, being Susan, would have taken his hand at such a moment. Susan forgave people for things I never could.
I took his hand for maybe thirty seconds, and that seemed to calm him down a little.
He looked at me, his face tear-streaked, his eyes sad and scared at the same time, and he said, “You really should’ve pushed me off that day at Eagle’s Point.”
“I’ve got to get back now,” I said.
“If you’d pushed me off, none of this would’ve happened, Earle.”
I walked over to the door.
“I loved her,” he said. “I want you to know that. I loved her.”
I nodded and then left the room and walked down the hall and went back out into the night and the rain.
The next run-through went perfectly. We hit the fifty-one-minute mark right on the button. Just the way the textbook says we should.
Such a Good Girl
Nicole
Nicole Sanders went to the nurse’s office during third hour and put on a pretty good imitation of a genteel seven-teen-year-old girl down with the flu, genteel meaning a quiet, pretty girl who was still a virgin, had never tried drugs in any form, and read Cousin Bette for relaxation.
Of course, it helped that she was a good student (usually, a four point average), and generally perceived as a reliable girl. Nobody on the staff of Woodrow Wilson High School would suspect her of faking flu so she could get off from school. She had a near-perfect attendance record. She just wasn’t the kind to lie.