The Evening Hour (19 page)

“That's the truth,” Reese agreed. He went over to the stereo and took out the Lynyrd Skynyrd and put in some kind of techno music that pounded the walls. Then he began to dance, shaking his hips and fluttering his hands.

“Reese,” Cole said.

“How about a little dance?” he asked in a falsetto.

When Reese touched Everett's arm, Everett swung and busted his nose, blood spraying everywhere. Cole jumped up, but the other two grabbed him.

“I ain't got it,” Reese whined in a tone that was not unlike the one that Jody Hampton used. Cole had never seen him act like this, his toughness gone, nothing but a junkie.

Wes and Tommy held on to Cole, their fingers digging into his arms, and he stood as still as he could, watching Laura prance around, fingering Ruthie's candy dishes and glass figurines. “What a bunch of shit,” she said with disgust.

“Take the stereo,” Reese said. “The TV. Whatever.”

“I want the goddamn money.” Everett looked over at Cole and suddenly seemed to remember that they were not alone. “What the hell are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“You should've sent him out of here before you started all this,” Wes said, his voice right at Cole's ear, tickling.

“Shut up,” Everett yelled. Everyone was quiet but the techno music grew faster, wilder, the synthesizer beats like little flashes of light, a man singing “oh yeah” over and over.

“Cole, help me out,” Reese said.

“What?”

“Loan me the money.”

Everett, as if suddenly bored, turned to his crew. “Let's trash this place.”

“Fuck yeah.”

They descended on it like a storm, hurling Ruthie's dishes, overturning furniture. They knocked over the stereo and the music stopped. This was Cole's chance to run like hell, but he just stood there, watching.

“Jesus, stop it,” Reese said.

Then Cole saw the pistol. It was a .45. Everett pulled it from his waistband. “You think this is some kind of game, you fucking faggot?”

The gun seemed to bring Reese back to who he was, and instead of acting whiny and scared, he glared at Everett, unafraid even as blood gushed from his smashed nose. Cole breathed deeply, trying to gain control over his tongue, his mouth, his words.

“H-h-how—”

Everett turned the gun on him.

“How much does he owe?” he managed to ask.

He told him. “You got that?”

“I can get it.”

“Now.”

“I got it. I got most of it.”

Everett slowly lowered the gun. “If you're lying, I'll kill you.”

“I ain't lying.”

Everett sent Tommy to follow Cole out to his truck and he unlocked the glove compartment and blocked it from Tommy's view. He was too stupid to look. There sat the revolver. Unloaded. Cole left it and took out a roll of bills.

They went back in, and he handed Everett the money. “It's all I got.”

“Where's the rest?”

“That's it.”

Everett looked at Reese. “You're lucky, motherfucker.”

Tommy and Wes hoisted the TV, while Laura ran around taking random items. They smashed up and knocked over whatever else they put their hands on, plates, glasses, chairs. Everett held the gun on Reese, who did not look away, and Cole stood still and wished for all of this to end. Then, as suddenly as it started, it was over. They stood in the midst of the destruction and looked around them and Everett slid the gun back in his waistband.

“Let's go,” he said.

Reese mumbled something.

“What?”

“I said, now you can all go home and suck each other's dicks.”

Everett's gigantic fist shot out like a spring and cracked Reese's head back, but Reese didn't go down. He lunged like a wild dog, socking Everett in the eye. When Everett stumbled backward, Reese went for the gun, but the other two grabbed on to him. It was all happening so fast. Cole, hating Reese and hating all of them, pushed his way in and tried to tear Tommy off of Reese.

“You got the money, you got what you came for, just go,” he said.

But now he was caught in the mix of limbs. He landed one wild punch, then a pair of hands grabbed him and threw him against the wall. Everett, heaving like a bull, stood inches from his face. Reese had been wrestled to the floor by Tommy and Wes.

Everett pulled the gun out and Cole stared into the barrel and saw only darkness. “You queer too? You a faggot, a cocksucker?”

“No,” Cole said, feeling himself tremble. He closed his eyes. Trying to stop his shaking. His voice was locked up, his tongue felt torn. Everything in him was cold. When he opened his eyes, the gun was still pointed at him. “No,” he said again. “No I ain't.”

His voice was loud but sounded like it was coming from far away.

“Everett, come on.” It was the woman, standing in the doorway. “Let him go.”

The gun hovered in front of Cole's eyes. He heard Reese's muffled curses, saw him on the floor. Saw the skinny woman, like some apparition in the doorway. Saw Everett's empty eyes, the cords of his neck, a vein in his brow popping out.

He lowered the revolver. “Get the fuck out of here or you're gonna get hurt.”

Cole just stood there for a second, hearing the loudness of his own breath. Then he looked again at Reese, bleeding, his arms pinned up behind him. He started to take a step toward him, and Everett got in his face.

“Are you stupid? This is your last chance, asshole.”

Now Cole felt like everything was moving in slow motion. He went toward the open door. Toward the cold air. He looked at Reese and didn't know what to do.
I can't save you.
The thought filled him, repeated itself in his mind, calmed him. There was nothing he could do. He slowly backed out of the house. The woman was now outside, slumped on the porch swing, smoking a cigarette. Cole heard shouts, fists. He knew that the neighbors must have heard also but their lights were off; nobody would report this, nobody would help. Reese yelled his name, but Cole kept going.

“Hey,” the woman called after him.

“What?”

“They won't kill him or nothing. They're just cranked out.”

He didn't know what to do. He found himself in his truck, trying to start the engine, still shaking. He had a gun, but no bullets. Stupid. He didn't know where he was going. Felt like a pussy. What could he do? He couldn't call the cops. He drove around aimlessly, then pulled over at an old cemetery where high-schoolers liked to party. He zipped up his jacket and cupped his hands over his freezing ears, but he could still hear Reese calling for him. The night was dark, no stars, but the sliver of moon reflected a faint light on the leaf-covered ground. Beer cans, plastic flowers, crosses. He felt panicked and confused and angry. He walked over the dead and around the headstones that sprouted from the ground like white and gleaming stumps. He passed by a statue of an angel with folded wings, then went up a little slope to where some of the graves dated back to the 1800s. He couldn't save him, he thought, couldn't even save himself. He sat on the cold ground, leaning against a worn and shoddy-looking headstone, and thought about the bones all around him and underneath him turning to dust.

He finally started to calm down. Now he could feel the ache in his knuckles from the punch he threw, the tenderness of his jaw where someone had clocked him. He felt calmer. Not scared, just sickened. Jesus. He couldn't just sit here. He got up and hurried back to his truck. Dread spreading through him as he turned onto Reese's street. The trucks were gone, the house dark. Cole gently pushed open the door, hesitating. The three-legged cat brushed against him. He flipped the light switch. Broken glass and overturned chairs and splattered blood. He heard a groan.

“Reese?” he said.

He found him in the kitchen, crumpled on the linoleum, near a pan of spilled cat food. A long trail of blood was smeared across the floor from where he'd been dragging himself. Cole turned him over and his face was unrecognizable, blood, flaps of skin, bone. He ripped open Reese's shirt but didn't see a bullet wound; all of the blood was coming from his face. He tried to lift him, and Reese screamed. “My ribs,” he said, clutching onto Cole. Then, “No hospitals, man.” Cole knew the drill. No cops, no doctors.

He'd been beaten to a pulp, but was still conscious and breathing, and after he took a deep breath, he put his arm around Cole's neck. Cole half dragged him, half carried him into the living room. He moved the broken things from the sofa, then lay Reese down. For the next hour, he wiped blood from his face. He went over to Ruthie's side of the house and searched through over-the-counter and expired pills. Found iodine and peroxide, a couple of Ace bandages. He wrapped ice in a washcloth and placed it on Reese's face, and gave him whiskey and Oxy for the pain. As Reese bit down on the rolled-up
National Geographic
where Everett had cut the speed, Cole struggled to remove his bloody cowboy shirt. Naked chest, tattoos, dark matted hair. Queasy, Cole wrapped the bandage around him and taped him as best he could. When he was through he took the magazine out of his mouth and Reese let out a long sigh, then asked for a cigarette.

“You're gonna get yourself killed,” Cole told him.

“How come you left me?”

Cole fumbled with the lighter. Not looking at Reese, he said, “I had to. He had a gun.”

“We could have taken them.”

“He had a gun,” he repeated. He finally got the cigarette lit and transferred it to Reese's bloody mouth.

“You're a good nurse.”

“I can't do this,” he said. “I can't look after you.”

“I gotta get out of this place,” Reese mumbled.

“You could have not said anything,” Cole said. “You could have shut your fucking trap.”

Reese's eyes were black and swollen, his entire face one big cut and bruise, but still Cole could see the trace of a grin. “I ain't afraid of punks like that,” he said. “I'll never shut up.”

“You're gonna get yourself killed.”

Reese started to say something, but the pills and drink overcame him, and like a child, he was suddenly sleeping. Cole looked around at the mess. He was not going to clean it up. He was tired of cleaning up messes. Tired of taking care of people. Tired of sitting next to the dying and the sick and the broken. He switched off the light so he wouldn't have to look at any of it. “He's gonna get himself killed,” he said to the dark, then he said, “I'm gonna get myself killed.” He wanted someone to sit next to him, to watch over him through the night. He wanted a hand on his brow, someone to hold him. Maybe he could have had that. But he did not know how to start over, he did not know.

Chapter 14

Reese looked even worse in the morning light, his face swollen twice its size and bruised lilac and velvety blue. His puffy eyes were blackened, nearly sealed shut. He told Cole he wanted to see what he looked like.

“You sure?”

He said he was. Cole found a broken piece of mirror and held it up and Reese studied himself. “It's bad,” he finally said, “but I've looked worse.”

Cole had to go to work. He showered and tried to clean the specks of blood off his uniform. He left Reese pain pills, a pack of cigarettes. “I don't have time to clean up.”

“Hell no, you've done enough.”

As Cole started out the door, Reese called him back. “I was bad to her in the end.”

“No, you were all right.”

“Not in the end.” He sighed. “I'm gonna change. I'm not going to be like this anymore.”

“Just rest.” Cole locked the door behind him and stepped into the golden daylight and felt like he was going to be sick.

But he wasn't. He went to work and somehow got through the day, and afterward, he drove to Lacy's. He had nothing in his hands to offer her. He rang the bell and after a minute she let him in. They sat on the sofa, a noticeable space between them. The room was dimly lit, one weak lamp and a few candles, the flames flickering and throwing shadows across the walls. He wished she'd turn on more lights so he could see her eyes.

“Where's Sara Jean?”

“Over at Blue's, with Michael.”

He told her he was sorry that he didn't come over last night.

“I was waiting for you.”

He said that he'd been tied up at work and she stared at him and saw right through him and said to tell her the truth.

“I was at a friend's. He was in trouble.”

“Who?”

“Nobody you know.”

“Who?” she said again, her tone sharp.

He picked up one of the candles and watched the flame dance. “Reese Campbell.”

“We went to school together,” she said.

He put the candle down and turned and faced her.

“I know who he is,” she continued. “Faggot drug dealer.”

He was surprised by the meanness in her voice and he shook a cigarette from the pack and tipped it to the candle. “What about the faggots you hang out with?”

“Who?”

“Michael.”

“Cole, Christ. Michael's not gay.”

“Trip is.”

“That's not even the point. I'm talking about Reese. The dealer.”

“He's not really a dealer.”

“Addict, whatever. You're one too, aren't you? A dealer?”

He leaned back into the cushions and felt her waiting. He was tired of all the pretend. “I don't use,” he said.

“What do you deal?”

“Prescriptions, nothing big.”

For a long time they were quiet. He did not know what else to say. He reached out his hand and touched her leg. “Turn on that light so I can see you.”

The overhead came on and the magic of the candles disappeared. Her eyes were sad and scared, and he was sorry he'd done this to her.

“I'm a mother. I got a kid to worry about. I can't do this,” she said.

“I know it.”

“You've got a different life than me.”

He did not try to tell her that he could change, it seemed too far gone for that. He touched her face with the palm of his hand, and she jumped, as if it were on fire. “It's not your fault. I suspected a long time ago. I liked it, in a way, that you were so different,” she said. “But it's not right.”

“I don't think you ever really wanted me,” he said. “You just want Denny back.”

She looked at him with steady eyes. “You're wrong,” she said. “I think I could have loved you, but you don't want it. You really don't want it.”

For the next three days Cole hid in his trailer, calling in sick to work and turning down the volume on the answering machine. He listened to the blasting and the rumble of the coal trucks; he smoked; he ate stale bread smeared with strawberry jelly. Every day it rained. He did not answer the phone. He opened the safe and the Christmas tin and stared at the cash and the stolen jewelry and heirlooms and postcards. He sorted photographs. One of his mother, one of his grandparents. He pinned them on the wall with thumbtacks. He found a picture of Charlotte; naked and tattooed and smiling seductively. He pinned that one up too. He looked at the one of Lacy laughing and the one of him sleeping like someone innocent and young and the one where he had his arm slung around Terry Rose, and he pinned all of them to the wall next to his bed. On the third day he rose and went into the kitchen and scraped the last of the coffee into a filter and he looked at the nursing books and brochures on the table and he could not stand to look at them anymore. He carried them outside to the trash pit, and standing naked in the cold morning, he lit a match and watched as the pages curled into black snakes and the flames flickered, and then shivering and empty, he went back inside and crawled under the blankets and closed his eyes.

Someone was knocking. He waited, but it didn't stop.

“Cole, you in there?”

He pulled on a pair of Levi's and a musty-smelling flannel shirt and went to the door. His grandmother and mother were standing in the rain.

“What's wrong? Where have you been?” his mother asked.

“Here.”

“We tried calling,” his grandmother said.

“I haven't been feeling well.”

She put her hand on his forehead and said he did feel a little warm. He asked them to sit down, embarrassed by the messiness.

“Tomorrow's the big church meeting,” his grandmother said.

He looked at her blankly, then recalled her telling him something about it a few weeks ago. “The one in Bucks County?”

“We'll have to leave bright and early. You're still gonna take me, right?”

He looked at his mother. “Can't you do it?”

“I want you both to come with me.”

“She's got her mind made up,” Ruby said.

“I'm not feeling well,” Cole tried. “I've got a fever.”

“All the more reason to go, where the Holy Ghost can work on you. Anyway, I don't think you've taken ill. It's something else.” His grandmother said the preacher would be able to look at him and see what plagued him. “It may be that God is trying to tell you something.”

His insides felt scraped raw. “Grandma, it's been a long time.”

“That don't matter. Listen, I got a good feeling,” she said. “I think the Lord is going tell us what to do about the land.”

Cole sighed, but said nothing. Come spring, Heritage would begin working on the ridge behind them, taking it down even lower. Lacy had told him that there were more permits in the works. “We'll get it on all sides. They won't stop till they get every last bit,” she'd warned, telling him this one night, just after sex. He already missed the sound of her hard-edged voice, a fighting voice.

“I'm gonna pray on it and we're gonna see what God tells us,” his grandmother said. “Then everything will be clear.”

When Cole stood up, the room curved out of perspective, the floor tilting, and he held on to the chair for balance.

“Good Lord, what's wrong with you?”

He sat down, thinking how he hadn't eaten anything but bread for three days. “I guess I just got up too quick.”

“Well, you're coming with us,” his grandmother said. “I'll make you something to eat. I want you to be in good shape for tomorrow.”

He did not argue. Before he left, he checked his messages. Lacy had not called, but there were messages from Reese and customers and work. He erased them all.

At his grandmother's he ate chicken stew and biscuits, and took a long hot bath. After he was dry and warm, he went into his childhood room and lay in the bed and looked up at the ceiling and felt that he had nothing inside of him and that this was good: he was empty and untouched.

He waited for them outside, sipping steaming coffee from a travel mug, while his pickup idled, spitting out white plumes of exhaust. It would be long trip, two hours at least. His fever was gone, but he still felt shaky. He cracked the front door, yelled that they'd better hurry up. The rain had stopped, but the creek looked swollen. He worried about the roads turning icy.

“Y'all ready?”

“Heavens, I think so,” his grandmother said.

“We could have been out of here an hour ago, if Mama wasn't trying to tell me how to dress.” Ruby smoothed down the front of her below-the-knee skirt. “If they don't let me in, I'll just find a place that will. Hopefully somewhere where I can shoot a game of pool.”

She sat in the middle, her knee jostling the gearshift, and his grandmother sat in the passenger seat. The heat vents blew warm air over their faces, but it was still drafty and Cole wished he would have brought a blanket for his grandmother. He'd tried to block the hole in the floorboard, but a stream of air pushed its way through.

At the halfway point, he pulled over at a Sunoco station and filled up the tank and bought a few candy bars. While his grandmother was in the bathroom, he and his mother smoked furtively like teenagers; his grandmother did not want them smoking on this special day.

“You still seeing that guy?” Cole asked. “The Heritage dude?”

For a second, Ruby looked surprised, as if she had forgotten that he was there. She shook her head. “No, that didn't work out.”

“Oh.”

“You still seeing that woman?”

“Didn't work out.”

“Well, someone else will come along for you.” She looked away, distracted. Smoking. Thinking about something. “Listen, Cole,” she finally said. “Remember what I told you, about leaving?” She paused. “Well, I'm going to be heading out. Day after tomorrow. This time I mean it, I'm going.”

Cole took a long pull on his smoke. “Where you headed? Back to Pennsylvania?”

“No, hell no. I'm not sure yet. I got some friends in Michigan. There's maybe some factory work, I don't know.” She looked like she was about to say more, then sighed. “I can't believe I agreed to this. I never thought I'd step foot in a church again.”

“Maybe you'll get saved.”

“I've already been saved, I sure as hell don't need any more of it.” She nudged him. “What about you? You hoping to get saved?”

He flicked the cigarette across the asphalt. “I never even once spoke in tongues, and granddaddy said if you never spoke in tongues, then you ain't carried your faith far enough.”

“Damn, that old man messed you up pretty good, didn't he?”

As they got closer to Wildcat Run, Cole's stomach tightened and he let his foot up on the gas. Mountains rose up all around them, and the hollow was dark and cavernous.

“Turn right. Go on. Turn right.” His grandmother directed him the rest of the way, sending him on back roads until they reached an overgrown pasture that was already filling up with cars and pickups. Up on the hill, butted against forest, stood a rectangular whitewashed building with a yellow cross painted on the door.

Ruby patted him on the leg. “Come on, backslider.”

A crowd of about thirty congregated outside, shivering and blowing on their hands. The women wore dresses, long skirts; not a smudge of makeup touched their plain faces. The men dressed in jeans or khakis, long-sleeved shirts; hair short, faces shaved. Cole touched the ends of his bleached hair, pushed it out of his eyes. The majority were over fifty, but there were a few young families and a string of kids running around. He was surprised to see a black couple. The man saw Cole looking at him and smiled. “Hey brother.” Cole returned the greeting.

A guy who could not have been over twenty-five approached Cole. “You're Clyde Freeman's grandson.” He clapped him on the back. “When I was just a wee thing, I went to one of your grandpa's services. Brother, he could lay it down.” He paused. “I'm sorry to hear he passed on. But you know he's happy now. He's probably up there talking to my daddy.”

“Who's that?”

“Carl Cutter,” he said, smiling. “I'm Luke Cutter.”

Cole remembered hearing that Carl Cutter, an old-time preacher from Pikeville, Kentucky, had died last year. Throat cancer. Their church followed the signs, but did not mess with serpents.

“Sorry about your dad.”

Luke took Cole's hand in his own, the warm suede of his glove pressed soft against Cole's bare skin. “I'm glad you're here.”

Cole sat with his mother and grandmother toward the back of the church. Now even his grandmother looked out of place, with her short hair. The organist began pounding the keys, and Cole mouthed the words to an old hymn about meeting in the sweet by-and-by. A boy with an electric guitar led them through another song. His grandmother had said she missed loud churches, and Cole knew what she meant. In Charleston, he'd gone once to a church where the minister spoke in a gentle voice and the congregation was polite and quiet. He did not know how people could feel God that way, without the sweat and tears and shouting.

Luke Cutter ran up to the pulpit. He was dressed in jeans and a cowboy shirt with pearly snaps. “I'm so happy to see y'all here,” he started, flashing a wide, toothy grin. “Are you all happy?”

“Je-sus!” the old woman in front of Cole called.

“The Holy Ghost is here today. Do you feel the Holy Ghost?”

When Cole was a teenager, he'd wanted so badly to be saved. He'd think about Jesus, how they pounded nails through his hands, forced him to wear a crown of thorns. He had wanted forgiveness, goodness. The guitarist began strumming, and little kids jumped and danced. The congregation found its rhythm, raising arms and swaying. Cole had forgotten this, those times when his grandfather did not speak of burning but of happiness, when love dripped off of him, a deep and abiding love, which was here in this room, right now.