He was pleased to read in a longish article that the former football hero Ziegler was being charged with both assault and illegal entry. He paid fines to get out of the rest but his daughter Margaret, the legal tenant, had refused to open the door, or so she testified, saying that Ziegler and her brother saw Sky Blast standing behind her and broke down the front door. Ziegler threw the first punches, a critical matter in charging him, and Michael grazed him in the head with a bat, but Sky Blast was in fine shape with some martial arts training. Margaret knocked her brother over the head with a rolling pin which turned the tide as he had Sky Blast in a sometimes fatal choke hold from behind. Margaret had called the police and when they arrived Sky Blast was busy throwing both father and son off the front porch. All were arrested. Ziegler was a bloody mess from face punches and Michael had a minor skull fracture for which he would never forgive his sister. Sky Blast was put in a cast for a broken arm and knuckles but had clearly defended himself well against the two big bullies.
The real news was that a small town cop in the Bay Area of San Francisco had been surfing the Net and recognized Sky Blast’s photo as that of a man known locally as Roshi Simmons who had an open arrest warrant for embezzling a large amount of money from a Bay Area Buddhist organization. Extradition orders were being filed. So Sky Blast had feet of clay, Sunderson thought, a little embarrassed by his amusement. Ziegler would be happy about that no matter how badly he and his pride were injured.
Sunderson felt mildly suicidal, a new emotion for him as the least self-judgmental person imaginable. He had not been able to resist Barbara once, even looking at ten in the hoosegow. He decided to put off his departure one more day, wondering at the absurd mystery of love and lust and his own questionable behavior in the face of them. Helpless in the world, he thought. None of the pretty girls were available to him in high school so maybe he was living the unlived life. He knew even as he thought it that it was a lie. He’d never unlived life. Without Diane divorcing him none of this could have happened, starting with Mona. But his dad used to say, “No excuses” and there really weren’t any in this case. You walk away from something wrong in an ideal world. He hadn’t done so.
He was sure he had loved Diane during their more than twenty-five years of marriage. He had fucked up the whole thing with drinking and talking ad nauseam about the grim aspects of his work as a detective for the state police, the many wife and child beatings and sexually abused children. She simply couldn’t bear that dose of reality and it was sadistic of him to unburden himself because he couldn’t bear it either. The culture said it was very wrong to make love to his fifteen-year-old gardener. Making love to the married neighbor lady was not recommended either but was at least legal.
He awoke at 7:00 a.m. to an unpleasant call from Ziegler who demanded he drive to Ann Arbor and pick up Margaret.
“Have you forgotten you fired me?” Sunderson replied.
“You’re hired again. Go get her pronto.”
“Fuck you big shot.” Sunderson hung up on him.
The second call, to his cell, was far worse. It was his quasi-friend the prosecutor. He explained in painful detail that Barbara’s parents had taken her to a female shrink, new in town, and she had told her everything about her affair with Sunderson.
“She’s lying,” Sunderson said impulsively.
“Doesn’t sound like it,” the prosecutor said. “You got your ass in a sling. Come in to see me this morning.” He knew the prosecutor was bending the rules in that he hadn’t yet been arrested.
“I can’t. I’m at my cabin deer hunting.”
“I’ll give you until Friday. That’s four days. Be here. I don’t want to have to get a warrant and have you picked up.”
“Thank you,” Sunderson said. He hung up, then went into the toilet and puked up breakfast. Except for drinking, he hadn’t vomited since a bad case of Asian flu twenty years before. This was a special occasion.
He drove off for the cabin feeling as if he weighed nothing in the front seat of the car. He pulled off in an empty restaurant parking lot on the way west of town and called the bartender near the cabin, who looked after the place for him, to warn of his arrival. His mind was naturally jumbled and totally out of focus. He thought of Brazil but was not sure he was ready for such a foreign lifestyle. His other option was Nogales, Mexico, right across the border which he knew only required a driver’s license though they were becoming stricter. But then again there was no real fishing around Nogales except pond catfish. Brazil would be the safest place as they wouldn’t extradite him but whoever heard of jungle trout. The poignant fear was that if he went to prison at sixty-six years of age he likely wouldn’t get out until age seventy-six and by then he’d probably be too weak to fish and wade swift rivers. This put both stomach and brain in an ugly turmoil. What did he have in mind whazzing mere girls? Simple dumb lust whatever that was. He couldn’t pin it down. It was like a stomachache you never get rid of from age twelve to seventy-plus possibly.
There was a dusting of powder snow on the long two track from the main road back to the cabin. He wasn’t worried if it really came down, as they had instructions at the tavern to come tow him out if necessary. He had fenced about five acres around the cabin with barbed wire and watered the ground well from a pump next to the river. Despite the fence there were deer prints everywhere and evidence they’d dug down to green grass. It was beautiful to watch deer jump fences. They rarely failed and would right themselves with a somersault if their back legs didn’t quite make it.
The cabin was warm and cozy with a small fire in the fireplace started by the bartender and a nice stack of dry wood. He noticed that the television was missing, either thieved or borrowed, but he wasn’t concerned. Occasionally a local hermit, or so he thought, would break in and heat up a can of beans but would clean up after himself.
He poured a modest drink and sat in an easy chair staring at his beloved river. He had vowed to drink moderately in order to get up early and hunt if he so chose. Despite his happiness over where he was he could not lessen the knot in his stomach over fear of prison and missing ten years of trout fishing. It was unacceptable in his last years but what were the options? Facing the music, they called it. He would also miss the spring bird chatter he prized. If Barbara had told the counselor everything the woman was obliged to go to the prosecutor with this crime. The sex had certainly been consensual but that was irrelevant given her age. He was plainly and fatally cornered. He didn’t much care about the public shame though he was relieved that at least his mother was dead and wouldn’t endure the humiliation.
He grieved over the fact that Diane would have to see how low he had stooped. Also his only real friend Marion who had warned him to “grow up” and “pick on women his own age.”
The bartender, Eddie, came out with the television saying his own was on the blink and his kids howled over missing it. Sunderson said that he only needed it for two more days and then Eddie could have it. Eddie was delighted and Sunderson added that he was going to buy himself a small television that he had to squint at to discourage watching so much news. This was beyond Eddie’s comprehension but his thanks were profuse. Eddie said he rarely got more than a quarter tip at the bar.
Sunderson fried up a good rare rib steak with a glass of mediocre red that hadn’t survived very well after six weeks in the refrigerator though he judged it drinkable if barely. He stoked up the fireplace with two good-sized maple logs knowing he’d be up by 4:00 a.m. to add wood.