Worming my way out of there takes me right past the base of the wall, and I see where the man who built it—whoever built it—put a tradesman’s stamp in the stone. It’s a single word, colored in a deep somber red: JOY.
2.
The only suicide victims I find in Rotary are in a screened-in sunporch on Downing Drive: gunshots, husband and wife, a pitcher of lemonade on the glass-topped front-porch table between them, sugar crystals clinging to the sides, lemon wedges rotting at the bottom. The husband still holds the rifle, clutched between his hands, sunk into his lap. I get a quick read on the scene, instinctively, without even wanting to. He was the shooter, he killed her first, cleanly, and then himself; he took one high on the cheek—a first try, a miss—and then a second shot, under the chin and correctly angled.
I feel a quick swell of good feeling toward the dead man, the bottom of his face a red hole, for having honored their bargain. First his wife and then himself and he followed through, as promised. The lemonade pitcher buzzes with bees, attracted to the fading sweetness.
They don’t have a sledgehammer. I check their garage, and then even inside, in the closets. It’s just not a common household item.
Houdini and I step down off the porch on Downing Drive into a warm wafting smell, buoying up off the road and surrounding us, and I swear we look at each other, the dog and I, and obviously he can’t talk but we do, we say it to each other: “Is that fried chicken?”
Saliva fills my mouth, and Houdini begins whipping his little head this way and that. His eyes are shiny with excitement, like glossy marbles.
“Go,” I say, and Houdini bolts for the source of the smell and I bolt after him. We’re sprinting along a side street I had not yet explored, a long narrow one-laner dwindling westward off of Elm Street. More shuttered small houses, a filling station with the pumps torn from the ground. As I run after the dog my stomach starts to growl and I laugh a little, a little jagged riff of madman laughter, contemplating the possibility that this is some sort of desert-island mirage: the madman running for the hazy sight of water, the tall hungry policeman hurtling after an illusory bucket of chicken.
The road slopes upward a little, passes through a couple of stoplight intersections, and then to the right is a parking lot—at the center of which, disconcertingly, is the instantly recognizable form of a Taco Bell. The garish exterior in purple and gold, the cheap stucco walls, one of a million such small purpose-built structures that bloomed in the outskirts of small towns in the last half century of American civilization. But there is no question of it being cut-rate Mexican, the smell now billowing thickly around Houdini and me. It’s fried chicken, rich and smoky and unmistakable. I wipe my chin. I’m drooling like a cartoon character.
There’s music playing, too, that’s the other odd thing. We are crossing the Taco Bell parking lot, slowly, me first with gun drawn, Houdini behind me at my pace, inching forward at my feet, and we hear big beat-driven music blaring from the restaurant—from behind the restaurant, it sounds like—raucous music, fuzzy guitars, sing-shout vocals.
I stop moving and whistle sharply at the dog, and he grudgingly heels beside me. I take a good look at the building, smashed windows showing plastic booths inside, linoleum tables, napkin dispensers. The front doors are propped open by a telephone book.
It’s the Beastie Boys. The music, blaring from the other side of the parking lot. It’s “Paul Revere,” from that really big Beastie Boys record. The chicken smell wafts toward us on the breeze, along with the music.
“Sit.” I point at the dog. “Stay.”
He obeys, more or less, making small fidgety motions while I edge along one side of the tacky little building. “Hello?” I say, back to the wall, gun up, tiptoeing my way around. “Who’s there?”
Nobody answers, but I can’t be sure I’ve made myself heard above the music. I was never a huge Beastie Boys fan. I had a friend, Stan Reingold, who was into hip-hop for about a week in junior high school. A bunch of years ago I heard that he had enlisted and ended up in Iraq with the 101st Airborne. He could be anywhere now, of course. I raise the SIG Sauer to chest level, take a big step over the hedges and into the drive-through lane.
I no longer seriously suspect that this is a mirage. The smell of the cooking chicken is too strong, mingling with the gritty tar odor of the asphalt, damp from the rain. Maybe it’s some sort of a trap, someone luring unsuspecting passersby with party music and delicious smells and then—who knows?
My view of whatever is going on back here is blocked by a gigantic RV, twenty-five feet long, backed up to the rear of the restaurant and extending perpendicularly out into the parking lot. The massive boxy vehicle is up on blocks, doors all wide open, windows down. Articles of clothing are draped over the windshield and across the popped front hood. There are red stripes along the long tan sides, and the legend HIGHWAY PIRATE is airbrushed in fanciful calligraphy along the flank. The music is coming from inside the RV, it seems like. Houdini gives a small yelp at my feet—he gave up on waiting. I bend down and pat him on the neck and hope he stays quiet. He’s not really a very well-trained dog.
The music stops, there is a breath of silence, and then it starts again, Bon Jovi now, “Livin’ on a Prayer.” We keep moving, Houdini and I, we creep along the side of the RV, and when I come around the back of it I can see the parking lot, and there is a man there with a shotgun pointed at my head.
“Stop in your tracks, brother,” he says. “Quit movin’ and tell the dog to quit.”
I quit moving and thankfully Houdini does, too. There are two of them, a man and a woman, both half naked. He’s shirtless in boxer shorts and flip-flops, dirty brown hair in an overgrown mullet. She’s in a long, loose flowery skirt, red hair, black bra. Each of them has a beer in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
“All right, brother, all right,” says the man, squinting at me. Big sweaty biceps, ruddy forehead. “Please don’t make me blow your head off, all right?”
“I won’t.”
“He won’t,” says the woman, and she takes a pull off her beer. “I can tell. He’s a good boy, right? You’re a good boy.”
I nod. “I’m a good boy.”
“Yes. He’s gonna be real good.” She winks at me. I stare at her. It’s Alison Koechner. The first girl I ever loved. The lean white body, wild curls of orange hair like ribbons on a gift.
“I’m Billy,” says the man. “This one’s Sandy.”
“Sandy,” I say, and blink. “Oh.”
Sandy grins. That’s not Alison. She looks nothing like her. Not really. What is wrong with me? I clear my throat.
“I’m sorry to stumble in on you like this,” I say. “I mean no harm.”
“Shit, man, neither do we,” says Billy. His voice is warm and boozy, soaked in laughter and sunshine.
“No harm in the world,” says Sandy.
They clink their bottles together, both still smiling, both still holding their shotguns, raised and pointed. I smile back uneasily, and then there’s a long moment, everybody assured of everybody else’s good intentions, everybody nevertheless frozen with guns drawn. The way of the world. Behind Billy and Sandy, between their RV and the back of the Taco Bell, is the little private universe they’ve created. A big old charcoal grill, heavy and black and belching smoke like a steam engine. A rickety beer-making apparatus, a tangle of plastic hoses winding around cylinders and barrels. And there, behind a low wire fence, running around on a ragged layer of straw is a bustling tribe of chickens—rushing past and around each other on their weird alien feet, cackling like merrymakers on a parade ground, waiting for a concert or an execution.