“Well, you’re doing something now.”
I watched the house. I felt the tequila pulling me downward and together, toward some yearned for but often evasive center.
“I feel that this guy, no matter where he lives, is going out tonight.”
“I hope you’re wrong.”
“Used to be nights like this, I’d go to the cave. The Horridus feels the same way. Like I do. He wants to bust out of his skin. He watches his snakes do it and it makes him want to do it, too. He wants to emerge fresh. He wants to start over. The reason he wants those girls isn’t only for sex. The sex is the drivetrain for what he does. It’s the fuel and the engine. But what he’s doing, in a bigger sense — is getting back at everybody who ever wronged him. First, he punishes the girls for what they make him feel. What he feels is wrong, and he knows it, though he can’t help it I’ve got to change. And he punishes them for what he thinks the world has done to him — they’re sacrificial. That’s what the mesh robes say to me, anyway: you are now an angel, so that I can change, because I’ve got to change. He was probably abused as a boy. Physically, sexually maybe, psychologically. That builds a lot of anger, and a lot of self-disgust. I’ve got to change. The closer he gets to taking one of these girls and doing what he did to Mary Lou Kidder, the worse he feels about himself, but he thinks that’s the thing that will transform him. He stopped for a year and a half. He gave it a try. But once you go off peaks like that, you don’t go back easily. He’s not going to settle for the bunny slope.”
Donna said nothing for a long moment. “Does he deserve to die?”
“He’ll die.”
“Early, in a gas chamber or an electric chair?”
“That’s God’s decision, not mine.”
“And if you were God?”
“I’d roast him on a spit.”
I took a nice long drink of the Herradura and ice, then ate another handful of popcorn. The minutes ticked by.
“I know I drink too much. I’ll stop when I’m ready to. But right now it fuels me and it contains the flame, at the same time. You drink some and it’s like adrenaline going down. Then you drink more and the adrenaline turns into something strong and inward. Then you drink more and the something strong and inward melts into your muscles, and for a while you’re one, whole, integrated unit. Then you drink more and your body gets heavy and your mind stays light. Then you drink more and you’re asleep.”
“It doesn’t sound all that exciting.”
“I’m just rambling.”
“You’re packing, too.”
“You weren’t supposed to notice.”
“I notice every single thing about you. And I like it when you let your guard down and ramble.”
“The alcohol, though. It’s not about excitement. It’s about... well, I’m not sure what it’s about, really.”
“Maybe what it’s about is about wanting to feel different than you feel. Getting around what’s happened to you. Getting around yourself, seeing around the corner of you. When I was a kid, my Uncle Pollard out in War, he’d drink in the tool shed because my aunt wouldn’t let the liquor in the house. When he’d gotten enough, he started calling himself Jonah. That’s who he was when he was liquored up — Jonah. Even walked and talked different. Wasn’t crazy or mean or sloppy or anything — just... a different guy.”
“Sounds great. But, what’s War?”
“Ah, just another little town in another little holler. West Virginia’s full of them. War, Left Hand, Big Isaac, Tad, Pinch, Ida May. They all got reasons behind the names. Like, Left Hand is on the left side of Left Hand Creek. Stuff like that. Anyway, real drinkers, be they in War or Orange County, are trying to drink themselves into being somebody different. Some of you get good results. I think Pollard did.”
I thought about that.
“You think I do?”
“No. I don’t think you’re much different when you drink. You just talk more and hurt less, I guess. Maybe you’re not drinking enough.”
We laughed at that.
I continued to stare out at the house. Nothing moved in the breezeless night. I waited for the feeling from Hopkin to come to me, but it didn’t. I realized there were still more houses listed for sale by women that I hadn’t even looked into yet. It’s a terrible feeling to realize you’ve been wrong.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked. “How come you never told me much about your boy?”
Oh, no, I thought. But I’d had enough tequila to feel honest.
“I didn’t want you to be a part of him.”
“I understand mat, but why?”
“Sometimes separation is good.”
“Understand that, too. But do you think that I’m somehow not good enough to be connected up with him?”
I felt a little lump way down below my Adam’s apple. Donna Mason’s deep and genuine humility never failed to surprise me. “No, it’s because I didn’t want you to be... ah... part of what happened to him. He ended in death and I want you to... not be affected by that.”
“Protecting me? Or just protecting your vision of me?”
“My vision of you.”
She was quiet for a long while.
“How come you ordered me not to look into his death when I was putting together our interview?”
“I didn’t order you not to look into it. I asked you not to pry into the particulars of his dying, is all. In front of thousands of viewers. Can you blame me for that?”
It was a very slick and very cool evasion of the truth. A lie of omission. But Donna caught it.
“I don’t think it had to do with viewers at all. I think it had to do with me.”
“No.”
She looked at me in the darkness for a beat. “I wouldn’t have done that anyway.”
I almost believed her, which meant I doubted her. I felt bad for not trusting her, but my sins against men, women and children have been far greater than that. “I know,” I lied. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Lies are walls; you hit them and hit them and nothing breaks but you.
“Maybe now you can explain that court date to me.
I didn’t lie about that. I just told her about the photogrammetry and what it might prove, if Donna was willing to tell the world what she was doing that January afternoon in the Marriott. She listened intently, and was quiet for a long time.
“Want to just quit?” I asked her. “You can walk, Donna, and you won’t have to explain a thing to me — or to any court in the land. There are decent odds that you’d be better off.”
More silence.
“Terry, why do I have to fight so hard to tell what’s generous in you from what’s insulting?”
“I don’t mean to insult you.”
“I love you.”
“I want you to. I’m just trying to find a way to make you.”
“That isn’t up to you. That’s the whole point. Don’t you understand? Just the basic things about me?”
She shook her head and sighed. “Well, then you let me know when you find that way. Meantime, I’ll consider myself on the edge of something about to crumble.”
“I don’t crumble.”
“Maybe you just should. Terry, love isn’t something you have to force. It isn’t that hard. It’s not.. something you strain to keep up, like a dumbbell with a ton of weight on it.”
I thought about that one.
“How come you put up with me?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I just can’t seem to scrape you off my shoe.”