Lee butted out the cigarette on the TV tray.
— You know what, buck, never mind.
Pete blinked sluggishly.
— What?
— None of that shit matters any more.
— I don’t know about that.
— I do, said Lee.
— So … Uh. I have to use your bathroom.
Pete went into the bathroom and closed the door and Lee could hear him dry-heaving and washing his face with cold water, and then Pete stumbled back into the living room.
He stayed the night at Lee’s. Lee set up the pullout bed and told Pete to sleep there. Pete was too drunk to argue. For himself, Lee aligned the couch cushions against the wall next to the television. But for a long time, while Pete groaned with the spins and tried to sleep, Lee sat at the window, watching the street. Remembering.
Nobody had bad blood with Joe Holmes, that was the hell of it. But the riot was a strange time. It brought out what was lurking in the hearts of a lot of men.
It lasted four days. By the end of it, the army had set up camp outside the penitentiary and had readied their machine guns. All they were waiting for was the order. Lee was up at the top of the dome, laying low. In the beginning he’d had a hell of a good time with everybody else, tearing it all apart, lighting fires. The best time in years. But then there were certain boys who wanted to talk about rights this and rights that. And there were other boys who wanted to hold court. What that meant was tying up all the rapists and perverts and snitches and going to work on them with fire and iron bars. One man who’d fondled some schoolkids had his eyeballs gouged out and his ears melted. Lee knew some of the boys holding court. Dave Dempsey was one of them.
When they were sure the end was near, boys in ones and twos and in groups were going out to give themselves up. Some were in bad shape. Hungry or beaten or dehydrated. About five in the morning on the fourth day, Lee came down to give himself up. He wasn’t interested in prisoners’ rights. He was even less interested in getting chewed up by a machine gun.
Down on the bottom tier it was dark and wet with piss and water. There were fires burning. There were some men who couldn’t move. Out of it there came Joe Holmes, huffing and puffing from the chronic lung trouble he had. He was making his way out.
And then out of nowhere, Dave Dempsey. What was he doing? It looked like he was hugging Joe Holmes from behind, hugging him, saying, How does that get you off, baby? Then he dropped something and in the firelight Lee saw it was a screwdriver red with blood, and Dempsey just turned and walked away same as if he was on the sidewalk doing his shopping.
Joe was down on his knees when Lee got to him. He was bleeding bad. He’d been stuck half a dozen times around where his kidneys were. His eyes rolled.
— Let’s get you out of here, Joe. Christ.
— It’s clear, said Joe.
— Come on with me.
— Can’t you see how clear it is?
After the riot Dave Dempsey and some of the others got packed off to the new super-max pen. If Dempsey ever had a reason for sticking Joe, he never said. Word got back to Lee that all Dempsey ever said was he should have stuck him in the neck. He laughed when he said it, Lee heard. Dempsey was a goof and full of shit. He got thrown off a tier a few years later, and was paralyzed.
Joe Holmes was in the hospital for a long time. Afterwards they had to commit him to a psych ward because he’d stopped talking. He just wandered around and never said anything. Joe Holmes who stole cars and went up and learned what it was to put something together with his hands. Joe Holmes who didn’t have bad blood with anybody.
You see that and you know for the first time what a thing of randomness is. You know how even if you have your affairs under control, there’s something else at work, something that’s aware of you. And it waits, until just the right time, and it steps out of the dark, just long enough to take shape and act and then disappear again.
In the early morning Peter drove them to the Owl Cafe for breakfast. Helen was not going to be working until later in the afternoon. Pete pushed his French toast around on his plate. He was in rough shape. At six-thirty, Bud’s car was outside. Lee clapped Pete on the shoulder, told him he’d see him again soon. He picked up his lunch pail and his tool belt and went outside.
Bud and Lee drove north to the public landing. Under a single street light, they could see Clifton waiting for them on the pier. He was not supposed to be at work with them today because of his niece’s wedding. Wally was nowhere to be seen.
They got out of Bud’s car. Bud locked it.
— Leland King, said Clifton. We have a problem.
Lee stiffened a little. Was this a problem with him? Did Clifton know, somehow, about Lee having some drinks again, or about the fight he’d gotten into outside of the poolroom? Warily, Lee said: What’s the problem, Mr. Murray?
— Our good pal Wally decided to forget what side of the bread is buttered. You hear?
— I’m not following you.
— Wally’s walked off the bloody job, Lee. You don’t just get paid to do odd jobs. You get paid to think.
Lee nodded. It was nothing to do with him, after all. He said: So you’re not going to the wedding.
— My faith can move mountains but there’s some things even out of my reach. This is your chance to make good on what you say you can do. I want the kitchen cabinets up before you leave today. Bud can do the piers. Understand?
— I understand. I’ll get them cabinets up. You’ll-
— At the end of the day I want the rest of the concrete mix and the mixer brought back. Jeff’ll be out here with a truck to pick it all up. You and Bud can help him.
— No trouble, Clifton.
— This is it, mister man. This is what I need from you. Get to it.
Bud had piloted the barge before, so Clifton gave him the keys. Bud perched himself behind the wheel. Then they were moving away from the pier while the sun rose behind murky clouds.
The island seemed particularly quiet with only Bud and Lee there. They got the generator going and started the cement mixer. They smoked with impunity. Bud disappeared under the building to work on the piers.
In the kitchen, the new counter was built but there were two cabinets that remained to go up. Lee found the cabinet plans and laid them open beside the table saw. It was cold but his palms were moist. He buckled on his tool belt and he took out his pencil and put it behind his ear.
Then he got going. He pulled sheets of pine and marked out lines and measurements. He measured twice. He labelled each piece. He set the fence on the table saw and then he threw the switch, listened to the blade spin up. He fed the first sheet through. The blade on the saw was new and the cuts it made were completely smooth. Lee cut out shelves and cut dadoes and rabbets for the joints.
Late morning, Lee went out to piss. It was still very cold. The house had been brought back to level by a collection of railroad ties and kickjacks while new concrete piers were poured. This was what Bud was doing. Underneath the house you couldn’t bend up higher than your waist and Lee didn’t envy Bud at all. He made sure Bud was okay for smokes and then he went back into the kitchen.
They had a quick lunch in the living room. Bud was surprised at Lee’s work. He said Wally or any of the other inside guys never moved that fast. Lee let the observation stand but he was secretly pleased.
After lunch he got going again. He put the carcasses together and put the shelves in. They fit smoothly. Wally had left a bottle of glue on the new counter. Lee took it and beaded glue where the shelves and panels fit together. He found a box of finishing nails and a punch. He tapped the finishing nails into the pine and then fingered putty into the holes.
The cabinets were to be hung on French cleats, which he ripped out from two-by-fours on the table saw. He fixed the first one up and checked it for square and levelled it. He stood back to look.