“Did your wife know?”
“She suspected something. Me going off on the weekends, saying I was hunting or fishing. I never came back with nothing. I didn’t even go to the fucking fish market and buy fish to bring home and fake it. It was like I wanted to be stupid. If I had gone to the fish market, I’d probably have bought fish sticks just so I could look even more stupid.
“Finally I robbed the payroll at the plant. It came in late one evening and I knew all about where it was kept by then, so I came back that night, beat the lock and the safe and stole it. One of the bosses just happened to come back for something and he saw me going out of the building. Next day it didn’t take them long to putem ed a two and two together. They let me off with giving the money back and firing me. They didn’t want any stink.”
“Sounds to me as if you were lucky.”
“That’s a way of looking at it. Anyway, you know the rest. I finally got in with some guys and did a job on a liquor store and that one cost me about twenty years. Jane tried to stay in touch, and for a while I answered her letters, but I wouldn’t let her come visit. I didn’t want her and Freddy to see me in prison. I still didn’t feel like a convict. I felt persecuted. Can you beat that? I kept thinking they’d come to their senses and let me out.”
“She sent me pictures of Freddy and kept me informed about what he was doing. Said he did well in school and played football and was a quarterback. Seemed to be good at everything. I was proud in one way, but in another I felt like the shit at the bottom of a dog pile. I even burned her letters and some of Freddy’s pictures. Decided to just let them go so they could build a life that was worth something. It was like I had gotten worse than empty. It was like the bottom had come out of me and there wasn’t anything on the other side of me, just a hole to nowhere.”
“What about your wife?”
“She hung in there for a long time. She loved me. I quit answering her letters and for a time she still wrote, but finally she quit. With the last she sent that picture of Freddy as a young man. I never heard from her again. I learned later that she died drunk in a motel in Dallas. I don’t know anything else about it.”
“Freddy?”
“No idea. But I made up my mind when I got out I was going to find him and make it up to him. I was going to mend the hole in me and fill it up with something. Then when I got out I was told he was killed, burglarizing your house no less, and there wasn’t just a hole in me, Dane, there was a vacuum that sucked out my soul.”
“And now that you know I didn’t kill him?”
“Maybe the hole’s closing up. I’ve got some hope. I don’t know who that sucker is in the ground out at the graveyard, but it isn’t Freddy. That means there’s a good chance he’s out there somewhere, and I want to find him and be some kind of father to him. Convince him that loving me is worth something. And convince myself that my life hasn’t been just a waltz of shadows, that it has purpose. Or can have.”
“I hope it works out, Russel. I really do.”
“I know you do.”
I ordered coffee, and we drank that and had another cup. I said, “You talked to Jim Bob?”
“Tried to, a couple of times. He’s not saying much. He told me to put my faith in the Lord and Radio Shack.”
“Radio Shack?”
“That’s what he said. He’s not going to say anything until he’s ready. I’ve known him a long time. He’s a lot smarter than you think he is. Don’t let that hick front and all those corny good-old-boy sayings fool you. Back when I was doing the robberies, he knew. He tried to straighten me out, give me some good advice. But-”
“You didn’t listen.”
“I knew he was making sense, and I still couldn’t listen. Same old story. Know better, but can’t do better.”
I looked at the clock on the wall.
“Damn,” I said. “We need to get back to work. I doubt James and Valerie would like the idea of me taking the hired help out to lunch and beers and chitchat while they’re building frames.”
I put down the tip and paid the check and we got out of there. Back at work I sat behind the counter and thought about Russel back there sweeping up; thought about what he told me about having a hole in him that made a vacuum that sucked out his soul.
26
It was a hot Sunday with a hot wind blowing through the pines like a diseased cough, carrying a hint of dead fish from Lake LaBorde. The birds were making small talk in the trees like it was more of an obligation than a desire; they sounded like they needed air-conditioning.
I know Ann and I did. We were taking turns leaning over the backyard grill cooking hamburgers and wishing we’d fixed tuna-fish sandwiches inside. Jordan was taking it well enough though. He was sitting on the patio playing with a toy car and making motor sounds.
I’d just flipped the meat when I heard the phone in the kitchen, and I went inside to answer it.
It was Jim Bob.
“What’er y’all doing?”
“Grilling some burgers, sweating like peasants.”
“Sounds good.”
“The sweating or the grilling?”
“Both, I reckon. I been in this damn room so much I need a good honest sweat. The bottoms of my feet are starting to grow carpet.”
“Well, come out.”
“Can you put up with Russel too?”
“Jordan’s here, and…well, you know what happened.”
“I know, but I’ve got something important to tell the two of you. Can you make some kind of arrangements? A baby-sitter?”
“It’ll be a little inconvenient, but I guess I can talk to the Fergusons. They still owe us a few babysittings.”
“Good.”
“This news you want to tell us. Is it good?”
“Good? Well, I don’t know if it is or not, but it’s news. I’ve made some headway. I know what happened to Freddy, and I know how to find him.”
“That’s good news.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Is he alive?”
“I think so.”
“Isn’t that good news for Russel?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“What’s all the mystery, Jim Bob?”
“It’ll be easier to explain when I get there. I’ll bring some beer.”
“Good enough. See you in a while.”
“By the way, I like mine well-done. When that sucker is smoking it’s cooking, when it’s black it’s done.”
“One hockey puck coming up.”
The burgers were done long before Russel and Jim Bob arrived, and we set them in the microwave until we wanted to warm them up again. We fixed Jordan his, and he ate, and I called the Fergusons and asked if it was okay if we brought him over. They agreed and Ann drove him there and came back madder than when she left-and that was pretty mad. She didn’t want Russel over for dinner. In her mind, it was like inviting Hitler. What she wanted was to jab him in the eye with a pointed stick and nail his head to a post. Maybe put turpentine on his balls and light it. Just to be contrary, she said we’d eat outside on the redwood table. She wouldn’t have that man in her house-again.
By the time they showed the wind had turned savage and stale and the mosquitoes, like bomber squadrons, had started to move out of the woods in search of prey. But it was getting late enough that the sun was moving westward and the grill had cooled, so it wasn’t as hot as it had been. Instead of quick frying, we were simmering.
I heard the Red Bitch come into the drive, and I went around and met them and led them around back. When Russel saw Ann he began having trouble with his hands. He didn’t know where to put them. He tried by his sides and in his pockets, but they didn’t seem to fit or hang right, mostly just fluttered about as if trying to escape from his wrists. I’d never seen him so flustered as when he was in Ann’s presence.
Jim Bob didn’t seem to notice. He held up a six-pack of Lone Star and Ann took it and put it in the fridge inside. She started the burgers microwaving. I had Jim Bob and Russel sit down at the redwood table, and I went inside and got the fixings and brought them out on a tray.