Preston Falls : a novel (11 page)

sary to place you in handcuffs. Which you'll also be charged with resisting arrest."

Willis feels suddenly weary. "Shit, do what you have to do," he says. "This is getting away from me."

He sees the cop's eyes narrow. A crazy man, about to go for my gun? Willis could almost smile at him in pity. This is that feeling you always hear about: the clarity you attain by submission. He's been fighting it all this long day, and it's the very thing he needed.

"Sir? I'm asking you very politely to come along. Now, are we doing this the easy way or not?" The cop hasn't understood; he's still stuck back in the thing they were playing out before. "I don't think you want to do anything foolish with your family here," he says. "And we sure don't want anybody getting hurt."

Willis sees the creases around the man's eyes, and the places he missed shaving: this sheriff's deputy, too, is a weary soul.

Jean says, "Officer, is there any way you could—not do this?"

"Not at this point, ma'am. I'm sorry."

"Oh God,'" she says. "We don't even know a lawyer up here. Where are you taking him?"

"County lockup. Basement of the courthouse."

"Listen, Calvin Castleman knows a lawyer," Willis says to Jean. "If you could get hold of Calvin."

"Great. He must be a—"

"But wait. The thing is, Calvin had his phone taken out."

"Well, then I can't call him, can I?"

"Let's get moving," says the sheriff's guy. "You're allowed a phone call at the lockup. You can work it all out then."

"Can I just give her the keys?" says Willis. "My dog is—"

"Don't go in your pocket, sir," says the cop. "Keep your hands where I can see them." And, at last, he touches the back of WiUis's arm.

"Oh fuck," says Willis. "Listen, where will you be later?"

"Taking care of my children," she says.

"Right," he says. "Okay. Got it." He wrenches his arm free of the cop's hand. "Come on, come on. If we're really doing this, let's do the whole fucking thing." He turns around, slowly, and slowly walks toward the lifeguard chair. He counts: eleven steps. If he gets shot in the back before he makes it there, fine. He puts his hands on a chalky white two-by-four. Spreads his legs, bows his head.

How could he have asked her to do this? Drive all the way back to Preston Falls, deal with the wood man, whom she's never spoken two words to, and then turn around and make the endless drive down to Chesterton? But what was she supposed to do? Just let him sit in jail? Which she actually should have done. Would have done, if the kids weren't with her. Or likes to think she would have done. So as Mel and Roger wait with Rathbone in the Cherokee, she finds herself knocking on the door of this trailer and asking this filthy man for the name and number of the lawyer who'd kept him out of prison.

The tv's blaring behind him in the dark, and he doesn't even ask her to come in. Not that she'd dream of it. She stands there on the cinder-block doorstep while he goes looking. Finally he comes back with a surprisingly white business card she's loath to take from his grimy hand. Philip Reed, Attorney at Law. She can just imagine.

Well, since they're here, why not go on to the house to make the call. And while she's doing that, might as well let Rathbone out to stretch his legs and pee; should give him some water too. When they pull in, Roger says he has to go to the bathroom, and then Mel gets out too and sits on the hood of the Cherokee, legs in full lotus. Jean goes into the kitchen (Willis left the door unlocked), calls the number, gets a machine and babbles a message, leaving the number in Chesterton and then the one here as well—just on the off chance he should call back in the next minute or two. Though actually, since they are here, doesn't it make sense to feed the kids now rather than stop at some awful place on the road? There's food in the cooler that's just going to go to waste, plus leftovers from yesterday in the fridge. {Yesterday} Amazing.) They could be on their way in an hour. Which would still get them home, what, probably midnight, a Utde after.

She goes out to the Cherokee, tells Mel the plan (zero response) and

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brings the cooler inside. She hears Roger flush, but no faucet running afterwards. When he opens the bathroom door, she asks if he washed his hands. "Yes," he says.

She starts taking stuff out of the cooler. Roger wanders into the dining room, probably headed upstairs, then she hears him yell, "Hey, Mom? What happened in here?"

"What?" she calls. He doesn't answer.

She goes in and finds the dining room crammed with furniture from the living room and the living room completely bare. There's plastic over one of the living room windows and a ragged hole in one part of the ugly old ceiling. He's taking out the windows? To paint them? The door to the front hall is leaning against the wall, the sofa's wedged in there diagonally and books are piled everywhere. "I guess your father started work," she says.

"Can you break handcuffs if you're strong enough?" says Roger.

"You'd have to be pretty strong. If you were Superman, I guess."

"I mean real."

"No," she says. "Somebody has to unlock them."

"Do they hurt?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't imagine they're too comfortable. Did it bother you, seeing that happen to Daddy?"

"No," he says.

"Well, it bothered me. And it made me angry"

Roger says nothing.

"I was angry at the poUceman for not Ustening to Daddy," she says. ''And I was angry at Daddy, for not staying out of trouble."

No go. Nothing.

"What are you thinking?" she says.

"About a frog."

"What? \^te about a frog?"

"They make you mad when you can't catch them," he says.

Jean tries to think how this connects up. The idea of getting mad, maybe. ''God you're impervious," she says. Should she be saying that? Well, most likely he doesn't know what it means. "But sometimes, when something upsetting happens, it's best to let yourself get upset, you know? "

"Can I turn on Daddy's computer?" he says.

"To do what?"

"Play Mortal Kombat," he says.

Well, maybe he'll process what she said on his own. "Sure, go ahead," she says. "We'll be eating in about ten minutes."

Jean goes back into the kitchen and looks out the window: the first stars have appeared. She finds herself saying Star light, star bright (she must be desperate) but can't honestly decide which one is the actual first star she sees tonight. Mel's still sitting out there on the Cherokee. Must be getting chilly. But maybe the engine's warm under her. Mel's already talked about what she's feeling: she's feeling that the cop was a pig. And she's furious at Jean for suggesting that Willis might also have been at fault. Jean gets out two skillets—one for the hot dogs, one for Mel's vegetables—and the double boiler for the leftover chicken and stuff. Mel will ask why she has to eat couscous that was in with chicken. Easy one: she doesn't have to.

The phone rings just as the hot dogs' skins are starting to split; Jean rolls them over with the fork, turns off the burner and gets the phone in the middle of the third ring, before the machine can pick up. It's the lawyer, Philip Reed, who actually sounds civilized. He's calling from California and will be flying in to Burlington late tomorrow night. He'll be glad to help out—based on what she's telling him, it's completely outrageous—and he'll see Willis first thing Tuesday morning. No, unfortunately, because of the holiday, that's the soonest anything could be done anyway. But what he will do, as soon as he gets off the phone, is send Willis a fax introducing himself and letting him know help is on the way. Sure, they've got a fax in the hoosegow—all the modern conveniences. Would she like the fax number? Got a pen handy? And how is she bearing up? Not to worry, this is all going to work out.

And again the kids surprise her. Roger comes downstairs the first time she calls him; Mel says the sauteed vegetables are yummy—they're not, so she must be trying to make up for sulking—and eats the couscous without remark. And thanks Jean for making dinner. Roger says, "Yeah, thanks. Mom," and pretends to vomit. These are good kids. You just have to know how to read Roger.

She feels like leaving the dishes for Willis—he'll get back here sooner or later—but she doesn't want to see herself as being that small a person. Though she does decide to let them dry by themselves in the dish drainer, just so he'll see them and know she washed up. She takes Philip Reed's card, on which she's jotted the fax number, and goes up to

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Willis's study, which used to be the walk-in hall closet. She sits at his computer (Roger neglected to turn it off), clicks out of Mortal Kombat and into Word:

WilUs,

Your friend's lawyer says he will be there on Tuesday morning to handle things. (He says he's faxing you, so maybe you've already heard from him. Anyway his name is Philip Reed.) Apparently nothing can be done until Tuesday (bail, etc.) because of the holiday. The children and I, and the dog, are driving back to Chesterton tonight (Sunday). I really don't know what to say, except that I would have never imagined you allowing a thing like this to happen. Whenever this is over, I would appreciate you not suddenly showing up in Chesterton, if that was your plan. As of now I really don't want any communication with you, though we will have to talk.

Jean

She prints the thing and feeds the printout into his fax machine. It's already creeping through when she realizes this last part is a fairly personal thing to be sending for everybody at the jail to read. But guess what: too bad. Now he can be humiliated, though it's not her actual intention.

At least when Carol gets here Jean won't have to try to hold all this together by herself. Not that she couldn't. Not that she doesn't. Let's see: it's Sunday. Carol was planning to arrive Tuesday, so she must be somewhere in the Midwest. Iowa, maybe. Nebraska. Jean pictures her coming to the rescue in her sporty little red truck, shooting along down a two-lane blacktop alley between green rows of tall corn. Though around Preston Falls the corn's already being harvested. And put away in silos. With tractors. Jean is so sick of country this and country that.

When she comes downstairs, Rathbone's lying on the couch in the hall. Mel's sitting, full lotus, in the middle of the empty living room. Roger's at the kitchen table, looking at the old Weekly World News Willis thought was so hilarious, with this badly faked picture of Hitler with lots of wrinkles; at age one hundred and something, he'd come out

of hiding in Argentina to help Saddam Hussein. Willis's riff about this is that it's great because the story's written absolutely straightforwardly, like a piece in the Times. God, a respite from Willis's riffs about things: there's that to be thankful for. Up and at 'em, she tells the kids, then whistles for Rathbone and puts his leash on him. She turns off the lights, clicks the lock on the kitchen door and closes it behind them.

As they go jouncing down Ragged Hill Road, she thinks, What if this is the last time? Which it could very possibly be, considering. Okay, well, what if. Before she even gets to the stop sign, she's gone through the whole thing: the divorce; the settlement leaving her the kids and the house in Chesterton and him the place in Preston Falls; Willis quitting work and moving up here and falling apart like his father and not being able to make his support payments; her and the kids ending up in an apartment, though maybe still in Chesterton so at least they won't have to change schools. Above one of the vacant stores on Main Street, maybe. Would that be depressing enough?

TWO

In his dream, they've widened the Tappan Zee—a dozen westbound lanes—but Willis still can't move for all the traffic. Then he finds a special exit ramp no one else seems to know about, and he's suddenly on a dirt road, passing weathered gray farmhouses with dingy white chickens pecking in the dooryards. This place, he understands, is Rockland. But now he's clipping by so fast he doesn't dare look away from the road, which begins climbing steeply uphill; off in the distance he sees higher hills and a gaudy blue-gold-orangey Maxfield Parrish sky As the truck melts away beneath him he shouts, "Oh yes, God!" and tries to soar, but it must be too soon and he wakes up.

He's in jail. Lying on a bench welded together out of steel laths, bolted to a cinderblock wall. His feet are cold because he's taken off his boots to use as a pillow. At the rear of the cell, a seatless toilet bowl and a sink, with a piece of polished metal screwed into the wall for a mirror; the front of the cell is bars. He looks up at the caged lightbulb they never turn off; it could be any time, any day. He closes his eyes and regards a throbbing black spot burned into the general redness. But let's not go back to sleep again. He's been here overnight and then all of Monday He knows this because he's had three meals: an Egg McMuffin and coffee (breakfast), a McDonald's hamburger, small fries and coffee (lunch), and a drumstick, mashed potatoes and coffee from Kentucky Fried (dinner). So it must be either Monday night or early Tuesday morning. He's been handed two faxes: one from a lawyer, saying he'd be here Tuesday morning, the other from Jean, telling him the lawyer would be in touch. And not to come to Chesterton. Weird that a prisoner could receive a fax. And a cop came in with the news that a gun had been found in his truck and a weapons charge would be filed. Is it actually against the law to have a gun in your truck? Shit, you always see these people with gun

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racks. Maybe it's against the law only if you're not really that kind of person.

So far he's done a good job of keeping himself together. He's tried remembering famous poems: "Stopping by Woods" was too easy and "Prufrock" too hard; he couldn't get past the patient etherized upon the table. The half-something retreats of oyster shells. He's figured out the changes to "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You" if you're in G, though he can't be dead certain until he gets an actual guitar in his hands. He's named all forty-eight real states, picturing a map in his head and counting on his fingers. He got down and did push-ups. Three, actually, which left him sweating and gasping, his chest pounding. Still, this could be a beginning.

Movies have turned out to be the best thing. Better than books, he's ashamed to say; Dombey, at least, should be fresh, but he can't remember the sequence after the mother dies and they get the wet nurse—^which is what, the first chapter? He's able to keep The Godfather going for a good long time. First the guy saying "I believe in America" and you find out he wants these guys murdered that raped his daughter and Brando does that thing where he brushes up at his jawline with the backs of his fingers and says, "That I cannot do." He's also holding a cat. Then something like "But let's be frank. You never wanted my friendship. And you were afraid to be in my debt."

He tries The Wizard ofOz, but it gets vague in the middle. The Man Who Came to Dinner, same problem. Ten minutes, Mr. Whiteside!

But good old North by Northwest: he can keep that one together, sort of. Someplace around where Gary Grant rear-ends the car and the cop car rear-ends Gary Grant's car or however it goes and the black Gadillac with the bad guys makes a U-turn and vanishes, he falls asleep again.

Somebody says "Hey" and he wakes up. Another of these cops or guards or sheriffs. "Your lawyer's here."

Willis gets his feet onto the floor and sits up, his forearms on his thighs. His head hurts and wants to loll.