The cops liked to talk. They liked for me to talk. They loved hearing my story. Separately, they talked to Leonard too. They liked his story. We told it so much, I thought maybe we ought to work out a dance routine, so if we ever told it together, maybe we could do a few steps in concert.
But for now the cops seemed through with me. I had gone a few days without seeing their smiling faces, and I wanted it to stay that way. Without them, I could maintain my mind-numbing routine.
After the movie every morning there was lunch, usually a sandwich, or more cereal and coffee, then I'd go out on the front porch bundled up in a coat with my revolver and sit in my glider and listen to the rain until the cold got too much. Then it was back inside where I'd strip off and get under the covers again, and with my revolver on the nightstand, I'd crack open the book I was currently reading.
As I sat that morning with breakfast, I kept thinking in time I wouldn't feel the need to carry the gun with me everywhere I went, to sleep with it nearby, feeling greater comfort in it than I might a woman. But that beating I had taken with Leonard, and that night at the marsh with the Kluxers, had changed me and I wasn't sure there was any going back. I wasn't sure I could be Hap Collins the way Hap Collins used to be. I was still him, but I wasn't him, and I didn't know who I was or who else to be.
I thought about giving Leonard a call, but feared Raul would answer the phone. I'd heard he'd come back, and for some reason I didn't like the little sonofabitch anymore, though I wasn't sure I'd liked him in the first place. Fact was, all told, I had spent little more than an hour with him, so my opinion was bullshit anyway.
I was jealous. I had been Leonard's friend longer than Raul had been his lover, and when they split up and Leonard and I got together again and went to Grovetown, even with all that had happened, at least we'd had each other, and it was like old times. There had been that special warmth between us, that understanding, that lack of explaining, and now Raul was back and I had a robe to wear, a gun to tote, and my dick to jerk. I wished with all the blackness of my heart right then that Raul was forcing Leonard to watch the Gilligan's Island reunion episode, which I understood he'd finally acquired. I wondered whose dick he'd sucked to get it.
Goddamn, Hap, don't think like that. That's homophobic. That's evil. Just not nice.
No, hell, it isn't any of those things but the last. It's not nice. You're just mad so you're thinking mean and you better not keep thinking that way or you will be mean.
Why in hell had Raul come back anyway? I asked myself, and self answered: Because he heard Leonard was hurt and needed him, and he came back and things were all right now in their relationship. They were close again, and that was good.
Sure. Sure it was. It was good. Liver was good, if you closed your eyes and rinsed your mouth and ate ice cream afterwards.
Shit, don't think like that, Hap. You're being an asshole. Leonard's got his right to happiness, even if his boyfriend is as shallow as a saucer and likes Gilligan's Island. Who are you to stand in the way of Leonard's love life? Friendship isn't about that. It's about being happy your friend is happy. That's the true nature of friendship.
I sat and wondered if I could think of any more folksy homilies, but nothing came to me.
Me and my gun got us a cup of coffee and went into the living room and turned on the television and surfed the channels until we found an Audie Murphy Western.
The movie was coming to the end when I heard a car, got hold of the gun and took a timid peek out the window.
It was Charlie driving up. He got out, wearing a beige belted raincoat and a porkpie hat with a plastic cover on it. He was holding a black umbrella over his head, tiptoeing toward my door through puddles of water like a schoolgirl trying not to get her stockings wet.
I cut the television, stuffed the gun beneath a couch cushion, hoped Charlie would have good news about Hanson. Hell, good news about anything.
Chapter 25
I opened the door before he was on the porch. He smiled at me, closed the umbrella, leaned it against the porch wall and shook hands with me. "I see the squirrel's still hanging around."
"Yeah," I said. "He likes it here. I call him Bob. He calls me Mr. Collins."
Charlie took off his hat, removed the cover and draped it over the handle of the umbrella. He put his hat back on, took off the raincoat and stretched it over my glider. All of this was done very slow and precise.
When he came inside he tossed his hat on the couch, took off his cheap sports coat, hung it over the back of a chair, sat down beside his hat and smiled in that pleasant manner he has, loosened his threadbare tie, crossed his legs, wiggled a Kmart shoe.
"Are those shoes real plastic, Charlie?"
"You betcha. I don't stand for imitations."
"And that hat, isn't that like Mike Hammer wears?"
"I certainly hope so."
"Want some coffee?"
"You betcha."
I fixed us both a cup, sat back in my chair and stretched my feet out.
"Christ, Hap," Charlie said. "Put on some drawers, or cross your legs different. I don't want to look at your balls."
"That's not why you came out?"
"Come on, man."
I went and pulled on some faded jeans, but kept the robe on. I came back, recovered my coffee. Charlie was in the kitchen, pouring himself another cup. He went through the cabinets and found the bag of vanilla cookies I keep on hand for Leonard. He opened them, brought them into the living room, put the bag on the couch next to his hat and began eating the cookies.
"Want one?" he asked.
"Only if you're sure you don't mind."
"Not at all."
He held the bag out and I took one, dunked it in my coffee and ate it. Charlie said, "Nobody eats these with as much pleasure as Leonard."
"You're right."
"I like to watch him eat them," Charlie said. "He gets that look that cartoon dog used to get when he was given a dog biscuit. You know, the one hugged himself and floated up and then floated down, he was so happy. What was that fuckin' dog on? Quickdraw McGraw?"
"I think so," I said. "How's Hanson, Charlie?"
"Same."
"I think I'll go by and see him."
"Go by, or don't. He won't know one way or another. You come in there butt-naked with a feather up your ass, or dressed in your Sunday Go to Meetin's, it's all the same to him."
"What do the doctors say now?"
"Not much more than before, only they're less optimistic."
"I didn't know they were ever optimistic."
"You hear them now, you'll think before they were goddamn foolish with optimism."
"Shit."
"Yeah. Shit. Another week, they think he can go home. Might as well, he can hold down a bed there good as he can at the hospital. They'll send some tubes and pee-bags with him when he goes. Maybe, on good days, he can be used for a doorstop. Just roll him up to the door to hold it open."
"Who'll take care of him?"
"He's going home to Rachel."
"His ex-wife?"
"Yeah. Go figure. It was her idea. She and her daughter are gonna take care of him."
"I thought Rachel had a boyfriend or something."
Charlie made a patting motion at his shirt pocket, like he was looking for cigarettes, didn't find any, put his hand back in the vanilla cookie bag and pulled out a wafer. He waved it at me, said, "Did. And the boyfriend wasn't keen on the idea, but she sent him packing. Believe that? Hanson and Rachel. They haven't lived together since I don't know when, and now she's gonna take him home and empty his pee and make sure he's got gruel in his food tubes, washrag his balls and wipe his ass. I don't get it."
"Me neither. Must be the daughter's influence."
"Maybe so. Tell you something else, Kmart is all but gone. Another week, won't be nothing there but an empty building and the parking lot."
"So, that's why you came. You want to hold a little memorial service or something?"
"What I come to say is you and Leonard are in pretty good shape." '