Late in the Standoff Page 19

  “Friends, the devil owns several hundred acres in southeast Texas. Yessir, he’s the biggest jefe in these-here parts, and if he offers you any property—a pretty riverside home, a vegetable garden, a forbidden fruit orchard—take my word for it, don’t be tempted to buy. No sir. The mortgage is more than you can afford. And believe me, friends, he knows how to ruin a garden.”

  Danny switched off the radio and pulled over at a filling station just north of Paley. He bought ten dollars of Regular, a burrito, and a can of Coors, then pushed into the woods. Last night, at the Trail’s End Motel, a woman in the next room had sung, for hours, “Little Red Riding Hood.” Danny hadn’t slept.

  The sky looked bad. Boiling clouds. Wind jiggled the pines. He passed a sign that read RATTLESNAKES, FREE, TWO MILES. The Green Frog Café, long abandoned, a sign in its shattered window, WE NEVER CLOSE.

  In a grassy clearing he stopped the car, opened his door to stretch his legs, and sat behind the wheel, finishing his burrito. It was cold now. Cottonwood fuzz blew across the field. He tossed the food wrapper into some weeds, wiped his fingers on his pants, then reached into his car pocket. “Icy as a witch’s left tit,” he remembered his father saying as he gripped the hunting rifle all those years ago. Now, the Seecamp chilled Danny’s fingers.

  He walked to the clearing’s center, stickery stalks scratching the cuffs of his jeans. Green bugs ticked across his face. They were the size of the aspirin grains his mother stirred into warm water whenever he ran a fever as a child.

  He closed his eyes, pulled the trigger. Like a firecracker. His arm jerked with the “ree-coil.” A bitter, powdery smell, like Anna Lia’s apartment the morning the cops let him in.

  A scared gray cat dashed between two oaks at the far end of the field. Danny fired at it. It sprang into some underbrush.

  A jittery yellow leaf. Danny grimaced, tried to blow it away. A crooked sapling: that gimpy asshole, Smitts. Too far left. Too high.

  “Steady, steady, don’t rush it,” he heard his father say. But that was the old man’s trouble: all his life, he was too damn steady, while his bosses and his woman pushed him around. He even died steady, slumping in his chair at the supper table, politely clutching his napkin.

  Fucking loser, Danny thought. And I’m my daddy’s son.

  At the funeral the preacher had tried to buck him up: “Your father went gently into that good night.” But the whole point was not to go gently, wasn’t it? He remembered approaching the coffin, angry, not sad—furious that his dad lay there taking it, the way he’d taken everything. All those prying mourners gaping at him. It was humiliating. Danny didn’t cry. He refused to, he felt so embarrassed. For both of them.

  His hand shook.

  Anna Lia didn’t go gently. Oh no. Never. And I just watched her pull away, Danny thought.

  His eyes began to burn. He knelt in the grass and let the pistol fall to the dirt. His chest heaved like a tent in a storm, and he wailed to the tops of the trees. A bluejay answered him, sweetly.

  If it hadn’t been Smitts, she would have found someone else—like Capriati before him. Found another way to turn her passions on herself Danny knew this was the truth.

  He retched up hard little wedges of burrito. He hugged himself and sprawled on the ground. A yellow butterfly dipped above his head. The pistol nudged his shoulder.

  He sat up slowly. Purple clouds wrapped the sun. Breezes wheezed among the trees. He brushed off his pants and picked up the gun. You dumb-ass son of a bitch, he thought. If you’re going to shoot someone, you ought to shoot yourself.

  On her lunch break Libbie drove to Hugh’s apartment. No sign of his car. Last night he would have dropped off his daughters. He and Paula would have worked out a new monthly schedule for the girls. How long could that have taken? An hour? Two? Then what? Where could he have stayed?

  Surely he hadn’t gone back to her?

  No. If he’d strayed, it was with a new woman, Libbie thought, someone she didn’t know, a student, perhaps, an eager young thing lingering after class to discuss the Alamo massacre.

  Unless something had happened to him. She stood in the parking lot and cried.

  Maybe he’d met with Father Caskin. He’d told her once, “I’m agnostic, but religious rituals comfort me. I don’t see them as a declaration of belief so much as an admission that there are mysteries that still terrify us, and we need some kind of public something to acknowledge that.”

  Ever since then she’d tried to see St. Anne’s the way he did, as a sanctuary in the truest sense. Still, it struck her as a wealthy playground. Expensive green and purple windows, wasteful fountains.

  She got back in her van. Tiger, KKLT’s afternoon DJ, said that gusts of nearly fifty miles per hour were expected later today. “You gardeners take extra care tonight, and protect your tender little things,” he said.

  She drove to the cathedral and parked. Inside, a honeyed smell hung in the air—incense or someone’s old perfume.

  “May I help you?” said a gentle voice behind her. “Oh, Ms. Schwinn. Hello.”

  She turned to see the young priest, Father Grady. His slender, boyish shoulders and Elvis ducktail made her stifle a laugh. “I was looking for Father Caskin,” she said.

  “I’m afraid he’s not here.”

  “You haven’t … you haven’t seen my fiancé, have you?”

  The priest appraised her. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think so.” The Alamo massacre is actually very sexy if looked at from the point of view of passion …

  “Weddings can be stressful, can’t they? The church can be a great healer in moments of stress.”

  She had to get out of here. Too much thin, heavenly air. “I’ll keep that in mind, Father.”

  “If you ever need to talk …”

  Right. When you’re old enough to shave. “I’ll let you know,” she said.

  She couldn’t cancel the rest of her classes. She’d missed too much already. Before returning to school she drove home, pulled the box with her gown out of the back seat, and lugged it into the house. No messages on her phone.

  “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” she whispered. Bushes tapped her kitchen window.

  She hauled the box upstairs and was about to stuff it into her closet, but something in the light outside—a cloudy blue-green—intensified her sadness and made her prolong her wistfulness. She tugged the lid from the box and arranged the dress on her bed.

  Days ago, Hugh had made love to her here. To my body, Libbie thought. Not to me. And he knew it.

  Damn you, Anna Lia.

  The gown’s right arm reached across a pillow for the night table, the wine glasses. The dress lay empty, the faintest trace of who she’d meant to be.

  A hand-lettered sign nailed to a tree said CATFISH BATE. Danny stopped the car. His shirt was damp. He smelled like a swamp.

  An old black man sat on the porch of a little country store, strumming an unvarnished guitar. It looked like it had survived a dozen house fires.

  Danny shoved the gun into his pants, against his belly. “Got a bathroom?” he asked.

  “Out back.”

  “Thanks.”

  A small pine building with a leaky commode and a grimy porcelain sink. Danny washed his face, wetted some toilet paper and scrubbed his shirt. A cracked round mirror hung on the wall. He skimmed a hand through his hair. “Fucking loser,” he said, staring at himself. He didn’t even have the guts to do himself in.

  He walked back around to the store. Maybe a Coke would settle his belly. Behind a long, Formica-topped counter crowded with candy jars, a big, dark woman stood. She was pudgy but sweetly attractive, like Carla’s sister.

  He spilled some quarters onto the counter, then grabbed a can and popped it open.

  “You all right, sugar?” the woman asked him. Even her voice reminded him of Betty, childlike, innocent. Well, he thought, easy to be innocent in the woods.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks for asking.
”

  On the porch, the man picked out a blues melody on his guitar. The rhythm was like a boxer’s feint and jab, up and back, up and back. Danny stood behind him, feeling the wind’s chill. Clouds curled into fists. Pine needles filled the air, trailing behind them a dark, earthy scent. Sparrows gossiped in the trees.

  In spite of his failures and the weather, Danny began to relax. Funny how mournful tunes could lift a fellow’s spirits. Happy-golucky country folk. One of the oldest clichés in the book. Fuck, Danny thought. Then: What the hell. Bless them. Thank God they’re here.

  “Ain’t hurrican’ season,” said the man, still strumming. “But looks like we in for one.”

  “Might be,” Danny said.

  “I’d best batten down the hatches.”

  “You got a good place here.”

  The man laughed. “Oh, I s’pose.” He propped the guitar against a post.

  “Been here long?”

  “Had folks on this land since slavery times, working for someone or another. Me and Angie, we opened up this grocery ‘bout ten year ago with help from her family and money we saved picking peaches. Rent’s too damn high, but we get by, we get by.” He stretched his legs and groaned. “You’self? Look like a city boy to me.”

  Danny smiled. “That’s right.”

  “What brings you out our way? Fisherman?”

  “Salesman,” Danny said. “Hospital equipment.” The words sounded odd, as if they described someone else. His head felt light. “And I guess it’s time I got on back. Phone?”

  The man nodded at the door. “Pay foam over by the beer.”

  The nice woman watched him fill the slot with quarters. His hand shook. If Carla didn’t answer, he didn’t know what he’d do. Somehow, he felt if he didn’t hear her voice right this minute, he’d never get home.

  Three rings. Four. He crumpled his empty Coke can.

  “Hello?”

  He said her name like a plea.

  “Danny! Danny, thank God, where are you?”

  He told her the story—again, as if speaking of another man. Some aimless fool who wouldn’t be missed. “I’m tired, Carla. I’m coming back now.”

  “I’ll get Libbie, okay? We’ll grab us some Mexican food or something, how’s that?”

  “Sure. It’ll take me a couple of hours.”

  “Come on by the house when you get to town. I’ll need to change. Danny? You be careful, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  He thanked the woman at the counter.

  “Any time,” she said.

  Outside, the man was pulling a blue tarp over a stack of wood. “Stay dry, Mist’ Salesman,” he called to Danny.

  “You too. I sure did enjoy your blues.”

  A few miles down the road, he pulled the car over. His chest throbbed. He’d been so tight, the expansion of relief—its slowness, its unfamiliarity—pained him. He walked a few yards into withered holly bushes, spilled the remaining bullets out of the Seecamp, and tossed them into an oak grove. Then he reared back and hurled the gun as far as he could into the trees. He didn’t hear it land.

  11

  Virgin of Guadalupe candles washed Chimichanga’s plaster walls in murky orange light. Libbie dipped a tortilla chip into a mulcahete brimming with green salsa. All evening she’d watched cooks step furtively through the restaurant’s back door with trays of beans and rice. Through a window lined with white light bulbs (shaped like laughing skulls) she saw them cross the parking lot, tap on the wooden shed out back, and hand in the food. Hugh had told her the place sheltered illegal aliens.

  She couldn’t believe Betty was sitting beside her. She wore a long red dress and pretty black shoes. In nearly twelve years, Libbie had never seen Betty in public. Earlier, Carla had told Libbie, “I don’t know how he did it.” Danny had met her at her house after phoning from the Thicket—“Some weird story about the woods.” When she’d gotten home after work, he and Betty were sipping tea, talking and laughing like old friends. “He asked her to come out with us and she said, ‘Yes.’ Just like that.”

  Libbie remembered how charming Danny had been, despite his loudness, when Anna Lia first brought him to the Warwick. An open-faced, good ol’ Texas boy. He listened well. Like Hugh, he enjoyed the company of women—a rare quality in Houston men.

  Carla said she’d pressed him about the gun. He swore he’d gotten rid of it.

  Now he was standing by the jukebox talking to Marie and her boyfriend Ricky, who was taking a break from the kitchen. Danny wore one of Edgar’s bright print shirts, flamingos and crabs. Carla said he’d been filthy.

  Marie said, “It’s forgotten. Don’t sweat it.” She patted Danny’s arm.

  “I like these chips,” Betty said. “They’re salty.”

  “That’s a very pretty dress,” Libbie told her. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Sissy bought it for me a couple of years ago.”

  “I tried to get her to go to the symphony,” Carla said. “She wouldn’t come out for me.”

  Betty giggled.

  Libbie ordered another round of margaritas. Carla kept an eye on Danny and her sister, while Libbie looked after Carla, who was depressed about her breakup with Edgar (“He’s a world-class prick. I should be happy tonight.”). Every twenty minutes or so, Libbie went to the pay phone to leave a message for Hugh or to check her machine.

  Betty drank iced tea. Now and then she’d sip Carla’s margarita. “Christmas chips!” she said. “In cardboard boxes shaped like Santa’s boot! Isn’t that a good idea?”

  “If there’s one thing Texas doesn’t need, it’s another tortilla chip,” Carla said.

  “Just a thought…”

  Danny ambled back to the table. “How you doing?” he asked Betty.

  She beamed.

  “This isn’t too much like a party?”

  “Not yet,” Betty said.

  “Let me know if it gets hard.”

  “Okay. Danny, will you help me sell my Christmas chips?”

  “Sure.”

  Carla stared at the two of them as if she were watching an exotic magic trick.

  “So, you and Marie … you figure out the record store?” Libbie asked Danny.

  “I don’t know. She wants to keep it going, has some ideas for boosting sales. I could sell it to her, I guess. She thinks she could get a loan.”

  For the third time tonight, Betty reached across the table, touched Danny’s arm, and said, “It was so sad about Anna Lia.”

  “Yes, it was,” he answered patiently.

  A waitress arrived with chili rellenos, tacos al carbon. A doleful waltz poured from the jukebox speakers.

  “Libbie, if it’s not too much trouble, could you give us all a ride to the service tomorrow?” Carla asked. “You have the most room.”

  “No problem. Are you coming, Betty?”

  She glanced at Danny. “Maybe.”

  He ordered another Carta Blanca. He was drunk, but not bad drunk, Libbie thought—at least not yet. A pleasant tipsiness, with a hint of sadness underneath.

  She excused herself again. No answer at Hugh’s. “Me,” she told his machine. “Please please call me. I’m at Chimichanga now, but I’ll be home tonight. Any time, no matter how late. We really need to talk. I’m sorry, Hugh. I miss you.”

  A happy polka from the jukebox. She stood by the bathroom, wiping her nose with a Kleenex. Nearby, in the kitchen’s beaded doorway, one of the cooks told a short, stout man, “Three new families tonight. From Oaxaca.”

  “Go to the storage room. See do we have any more sleeping bags.”

  The city’s hidden stories. Libbie tucked the Kleenex into her pants. The cook noticed her, frowned, then vanished out back. Flamenco guitar. Shouts, glass-scrapes, a hiss of steam in the kitchen.

  Back at the table, Carla was sitting alone. Danny and Betty were dancing. “How you doing?” Libbie asked, rubbing her friend’s shoulder.

  “So-so. The tequila helps.”

  “Have some mo
re.”

  “You know what got me the most? His goddam arrogance. He flat-out admitted that Betty drove him crazy, so he’d yell at her. Flat-out said it. No regard for how it made me feel.”

  Libbie sipped her drink. It sent a chill through her head: a snowball melting in the middle of her brain. “He was a prick, Carla.”

  “I know.” She licked the salt off her glass. “But I sure do miss him right now. Hell of a week, eh? Nothing from Hugh?”

  “Nothing.”

  “He’ll turn up, sweetie.”

  “I completely ignored him—”

  “You had good reason. My god, he’s got to know that. He’s not the kind to disappear on you.”

  Libbie nodded. “You ready to say good-bye to Anna Lia?”

  “I swear, it feels like she’s here still.”

  “It does,” Libbie said.

  “Look at those two.” Danny twirled Betty, then pulled her back and caught her in his arms. “All our lives I’ve known her routines, predicted how she’ll think and act, protected her … suddenly, tonight, I don’t know who she is.”

  “Looks to me like she’s a woman having a very good time.”

  “Amazing.”

  “She seems to trust him.”

  “Well. To better times.” Carla raised her glass.

  Libbie clinked with her. Through the skull-lined window she saw an old beige station wagon pull up in the parking lot. Dark children stumbled out, wrapped in heavy blankets.

  12

  The phone startled her at dawn: Hugh, calling from his office. His nine-year-old, Elissa, had broken her arm on a jungle gym the day before. He’d been shuttling between the emergency room, doctors’ offices, work, and his ex-wife’s house.

  “Why didn’t you call me, Hugh?”

  “I knew you were wrapped up in your own thing.” His tone said, I didn’t think you’d care.

  “I’m sorry, Hugh. About everything. Really.”