Jeffrey’s stepson, Arnold, is missing. Probably just at a friend’s or off playing somewhere, but they’re worried. The little shit is forever threatening to run away from home.
Audrey calls her husband, Chuckie, to tell him about the kid, and to tell him she’s going up to Jeffrey’s place to see if she can help. Chuckie decides to head back up too, if for no other reason than to see how yuppies react in times of crisis. He tells his wife, “I know those woods up around there pretty good from hunting. Maybe I can help.”
But Audrey doesn’t understand a word he says. Since the cancer, the operation last spring. Since they cut out his tongue—near total glossectomy—and replaced it with a slab of meat from his thigh, an unreasonable facsimile of a tongue, his speech is garbled at best. Dysarthria, they call it. It seems to him as though no one can understand a word he says.
Having no idea what he said, however, doesn’t stop Audrey. She answers as though she’s giving a perfectly logical response: “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but it’ll probably be late,” she says. “You’ll just have to fix your own supper. Ha ha.” The bitch. She has to know that her response has nothing at all to do with what he said, but she can’t take the time, can’t be bothered. She talks to him the same way she talks to Corkscrew, her cat.
Does she think he doesn’t notice? That it doesn’t piss him off?
And the ha ha. Fix your own supper. She doesn’t fix his supper anymore. Hasn’t in over a year. Ha ha. Hilarious. You’re a riot, Alice. Since the surgery, the radiation and chemo, he can’t eat, or drink, among other side effects. Everything goes through his stomach tube. Osmolite 1.5. Six cartons a day. He used to weigh a solid 225. Down now to 180. Even supplementing the formula with Old Milwaukee Beer, poured straight down his tube, hasn’t kept the pounds from trickling away.
Chuckie would kill for another taste of beer. Or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, for that matter. Oh, what he’d do for another taste of steak.
And what’s worse, it didn’t work. The cancer got the last laugh. The latest scan showed the creeping shadow. It’s back.
It’s enough to make a man throw up his hands. Throw in the towel.
Throw a grenade.
*
It’s a forty-minute drive from her office in Albany to Jeffrey’s place up in the Helderbergs, just past Thayers Corners. Audrey doesn’t have forty minutes. She wants to be there now. She speeds, fifty in a thirty-five, passes a slowpoke on a double line—not how she normally drives, she’s normally cautious. She’s had a few DWI’s—not that she’s had anything to drink this afternoon, not yet.
She rehearses a script for if she’s stopped: I’m sorry, officer, but my friend’s little boy is missing! I have to go help! No. How about: My little boy is missing! I have to go find him!
Arnold isn’t her little boy, of course. He’s Rita’s. Lovely Rita.
Where is Rita? Will she be there?
Audrey pictures how she’ll rush to Jeffrey, take him in her arms, hold him, hug him, comfort him the best she can. All she can. If she can. If no one else is around. If Lovely Rita isn’t there.
Rita is Jeffrey’s wife, his second wife. His trophy wife. Audrey has called her Lovely Rita, since before she ever laid eyes on her. Jeffrey seldom acknowledges the sarcastic nickname, lets it slide, as though he hasn’t heard it. His first wife—Barbara, Brenda?—died in a fire twenty years ago that destroyed his old house in Slingerlands. That was when he converted the barn up in the hills. Moved away from the bad memories.
He spared no expense. A gorgeous renovation. Money from Brenda’s (or Barbara’s) insurance settlement. A stray thought crosses Audrey’s mind: Do they have life insurance on Arnold? Then she wonders why she wondered, and shoos the thought away.
That was when Jeffrey first sought comfort with Audrey, when they first connected, when she fell in love with him, and he with her. They work together in the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, have for years, she a data analyst, he a supervisor. Hers, at one point. Such a gorgeous man, tanned, flawless face, wispy, light brown, angel hair, perfect, shiny teeth he shows often, to everyone, but especially to her. She sensed a bond, a connection, sensed him crying out to her for comfort, and the more she sensed, the more brazen her flirtation became, for she had all the comfort in the world to give. Chuckie wanted none of it.
First lunches, then movies, then motels. His place sometimes, when they could manage. When she could escape Chuckie.
Then, ten years ago, ten years after his first wife perished, Jeffrey married Rita.
(Perished. So much nicer than died. Was killed. Passed away, which sounds like passed the salt.)
He married her even though he and Audrey were still an item. Still are an item. His marriage didn’t change that. No one in the office knows for sure, although everyone suspects. She loves the way the women look at her when they think she doesn’t see. Puzzled. Envious.
She’s seen Lovely Rita only a few times: blond—of course—shapely, young, bedroom eyes, a cardboard cutout. Fingernails like red claws. Audrey is small, skinny, insubstantial, the color of a cloudy day. Big round eyes, bulging she thinks when she sees herself in the mirror. And don’t the other women wonder what Jeffrey sees in her.
She’d gladly have left Chuckie to marry Jeffrey, but for one minor obstacle: Chuckie. He would have killed her. And maybe Jeffrey, too. Jeffrey knew that. Which, in her mind, is why he never asked. Why he asked Rita instead. He knew—knows—what Chuckie is capable of.
Why can’t Chuckie just die? He wants to. He’s been trying to kill himself long enough, but he’s too dumb to get it done. Drinking, smoking, chewing tobacco, eating pepperoni, hot dogs, driving drunk, hunting drunk, standing on the top step of the stepladder, stretching out to reach the gutters. Throwing gasoline on smoldering coals to reignite the fire.
She was surprised he let them operate on his tongue, went through the radiation and chemo. Surprised he didn’t just spit in cancer’s face. Big, tough, macho man. He did it just to spite her. He’ll do anything to keep her from being happy.
She’s rooting for the cancer. Like rooting for Goliath against David. Or for the big, bad wolf against Little Red Riding Hood.
But she feels no guilt.
*
Dumb cunt. Chuckie is driving along, heading toward Jeffrey’s, carefully observing the speed limit—he can’t afford to get pulled over, especially not now—when Audrey passes him. In a no-passing zone. Just the sort of stunt that pisses him off any time, no matter who it is—he takes it as a personal affront—but what amazes him is that she doesn’t seem to have a clue who she’s passing. Doesn’t recognize his pickup. What an airhead. Wouldn’t you think she’d recognize the big, black Dodge Ram that’s parked in her driveway every day?
He doesn’t try to keep up. Can’t take the chance. He knows where she’s going.
Jeffrey’s beautiful barn. He knows where it is, the barn Jeffrey converted into a house, a typical, pretentious yuppie stunt. Jeffrey’s beautiful barn has been bandied about plenty. Probably cost more than a new house would have. Barns are for cows. And for barn cats and rats and snakes and spiders and other vermin—so maybe, Chuckie supposes, maybe a yuppie would feel right at home there.
He’s driven by it often, usually just to see if Audrey’s car is there. Seldom has he ever pulled into the driveway, though, and twice in one day is unheard of. Usually it’s just a drive-by. Usually for just that reason, day or night, to see if her car is there. He often hunts in the area, up around the hilltowns west of Albany, always makes it a point to drive by with his shotgun.
The rain has stopped. The overcast lingers. Some of the trees have leafed out already, most of them still only budding. The back roads, curves and dips, the yellow line like a squiggle painted by a drunk, little visibility where the woods crowd the roadside. Not safe to speed. The dumb cunt. Maybe she’ll get pulled over. He can honk and laugh when he goes by.
No. Can’t take that chance either. Especially not now.
She’s really anxious to get to Jeffrey’s. Hot to trot. Think she gives a fuck about Arnold, the little shit? For that matter, do you suppose Jeffrey does?
Jeffrey. Pretty boy. Wouldn’t have lasted a day at the quarry.
Chuckie misses the quarry. He was the boss, it was a good job, till the cancer forced him to retire. Hard to boss men who can’t understand what you’re saying. When you’re drooling like a fool. Hard to hold a team meeting. Excellent communication skills. One of the quals. Even if it was Must be able to speak as clearly as Donald Duck, he’d be out of luck.
Jeffrey probably gets manicures. Yuppie punk.
Probably gets his hair done, not cut.
Chuckie saw him one time, actually witnessed with his own eyes Jeffrey leaving the Christmas party, getting into his car, craning his neck to see his pretty face in his rear-view, fluffing his hair with his fingers. Plumping it up to make it look prettier. Primping. His teeth: perfect rows of shiny baubles, too pretty to chew with. Chuckie’d like to knock them out. The few times they’ve talked, Jeffrey was charming, cheerful, friendly, you’d have thought they were old drinking buddies. All the while Jeffrey’s shitty brown eyes were looking down at Chuckie, even though he’s half a head shorter, looking down with disdain.
Elitist, pissant, white-collar, yuppie asshole. Other than that he’s not so bad.
Chuckie wonders if it’s only because Audrey picked him to have an affair with (he suspects the affair; he can’t be a hundred-percent sure, but, hell, he doesn’t have to be), the likes of him, that he’s lived on the edge of outrage for so long. Would he have been as pissed if she’d been fucking Luke, the ladies’ man at the quarry, or, say, Gene, his old hunting buddy?
Okay, okay, maybe. Probably.
Chuckie doesn’t like to think of himself as a wife-beater, although he has had to hit her once or twice. Wife-beaters are low-life assholes in his estimation, and he’s not making excuses—when he loses control he can sink to being as low-life an asshole as the next guy—but he was drunk, it was a long time ago, both of the times, all three of the times, and she did provoke him. She was the one who caused him to lose control.
There was the time she tried to lock him out of the bedroom. Big mistake. He broke in, shattered the damn door. Cost him over a hundred dollars and a day off work to fix it.
He’d hit her that time—that was once. He can’t remember how she’d provoked him in the first place, what triggered that fight, but trying to lock him out of his bedroom was enough. What was he supposed to do? Sleep on the couch like some sad-sack, sitcom pussy?
After that she was afraid of him. It was always there, in her eyes, a little tremble of fear. Since the cancer, however, since the operation, the fear in her eyes has been mixed with something much worse: Pity. Disdain. Annoyance.
Impatience.
When he sees it there, he’s infuriated. It’s enough to make him want to kill her. Sometimes he looks at her throat and feels his strong hands twitching, his strong fingers imagining throttling that scrawny throat. Why can’t she just die, save him the trouble? She doesn’t cook anymore. She doesn’t do anything for him anymore. It would be fine with him if he just found her dead someday, maybe face down in the litter box, drowned in shitty kitty litter.
He has more respect for Corkscrew the cat than he does for her.
Corkscrew has no fear of him. The cat stands up to him. Looks him straight in the eye, yawns, lifts his tail, sashays away. Haughty as hell. Come to that, he had more respect for Arnold too, Jeffrey’s little shit, than he does for her. Arnold could look him right in the eye and cuss at him like a sailor. Push him. Dare him. Call him nasty names. Bold as Corkscrew. Bolder.
There’s a flat stretch of road just before Jeffrey’s beautiful barn, a wide pasture and a tumbled-down barn to the left, mostly evergreens to the right. Chuckie pulls over, out of sight, to wait a few minutes. Who knows? It’s not likely that nobody else is there, that Audrey will pull in, get out, go inside and start fucking Jeffrey on the spot. And that Chuckie will tiptoe in and catch them in flagrante delicto, and mete out appropriate punishment.
(Mete out. Such a satisfying sound! Can almost hear the smack! Meat out!)
But who knows? If it was going to happen any day, today would be the day. Today is shaping up to be his lucky day.
*
Audrey starts to pull into Jeffrey’s driveway, but it’s full. She should have known—she would have known, would have expected it, if she’d thought it over, but her mind was too full picturing herself comforting Jeffrey. Wondering if Lovely Rita would be there.
She parks by the road behind another car. Makes her way toward the house through vehicles old and new, a rusty gray pickup with a green fender, a shiny red SUV, Jeffrey’s new sky-blue BMW, raindrops still beading on the hood. A raw spring day. It rained all morning, a soft, light rain. Old railroad ties line the parking area, moldering and soaked. She can almost smell the creosote, almost feel the stickiness on her fingers.
From somewhere in the woods comes a faint cry: Arnold! Arnold! A few seconds later another, a different voice, a different direction: Arnold!
Almost to the door she stops, cocks her head, puzzled, stares at the nearest railroad tie where an ant is crawling. The pickup. Didn’t she pass a pickup just a little ways back, a big pickup, big and black and ugly? Chuckie? Couldn’t have been. Was it a Ram, a Dodge Ram? Ram. Ram! Says everything there is to say about him. Surely she’d have noticed if it was him. Was there a tool box in the bed behind the cab? A big, silver, crossover tool box? Surely not. Couldn’t have been. What would he be doing up here?
She steps back out between the rusty gray pickup and Jeffrey’s BMW, looks up and down the road.
Nothing. All clear.
She raps on the door of the house, the barn, the beautiful barn, goes in without waiting, through the mudroom into the great room. Towering stone fireplace, massive barn beams overhead, high, wide, mullioned windows, light skidding off the hardwood floor. The driveway is full, but the house is empty.
Nearly empty. Jeffrey steps into view up in the kitchen area.
“Oh my God, Jeffrey. Are you all right?”
“No. I don’t know.” He looks around, peers over her shoulder as if Arnold might be trailing in behind her. “We can’t find him.”
“It’ll be all right. You’ll find him. We’ll find him.” He hasn’t moved. He says nothing, bewildered. She goes up the single step into the kitchen area, stands close, wanting to be closer.
“What can I do? How can I help?”
He’s already called Arnold’s friends—no one has seen him. Jeffrey’s ex-brother-in-law, his uncle, some friends, are all out in the woods searching. He stayed to answer the phone, to be there in case Arnold comes home (and to not muddy his polished penny loafers, she’s sure). He called the police. He hasn’t been missing long enough, they said. He’s probably out playing.
“How far down is the escarpment?” says Audrey.
The cliffs have hundred-foot drops in places. He frowns, musing, as if he hadn’t thought of it before. “Too far,” he says. “I think.”
“Where’s Rita?”
A fleeting cringe. “Shopping trip with her girlfriends. Boston. She said.”
“Did you call her?”
He rolls his pretty, elusive eyes. “She didn’t answer.”
“What a shopper,” she says. “Shopping her ass off. Shopping till she drops.”
Rita is cheating on him, but Jeffrey doesn’t want to know it. Refuses. Changes the subject. Does everything but hold his hands over his ears, close his eyes and hum.
“The last thing he said to me was call me a faggot.”
“What? Arnold? He’s eleven years old, for Pete’s sake!”
“Yeah. Precocious, isn’t he?”
She takes his hands. “The little shit. Why would he say that?”
A shrug. “He was mad I wouldn’t bring him with me to the salon. He’d have just been bored. Maybe I shouldn’t have left him alone.”
“He’s eleven years old, for Pete’s sake. He’s old enough to be by himself.”
Audrey can’t work up an excess of sympathy. How many times has Jeffrey had to cancel their plans because he had to watch Arnold at the last minute? Does Rita never watch him? How many times has Arnold completely ignored her when they were together, talking to Jeffrey as if she wasn’t even there? Little blond shit with a knot on his brow, glancing past her as though she were a dummy in a showroom window.
Jeffrey calls him honey. Probably doesn’t help. Can you turn down the TV, Honey? We’re trying to talk over here. And doesn’t the little shit turn it up.
“If something’s happened to him,” Jeffrey says, “Rita will never forgive me.”
She steps closer for a hug. Stands on her tiptoes to breathe in his fragrance. Familiar. He’s had his usual at the salon, haircut, hot lather shave, shampoo, eyebrow wax. She whispers, “God, your eyebrows look sexy.” One of their running jokes. She holds him closer, breathing deeper. A little lick to his ear. She feels the front of his pants come out to say hello. She coaxes him gently into the pantry, closes the door.
“Someone might come,” he says. Breathless chuckles. Another running joke.
“It’ll take about two seconds,” she says, kneeling.
*
Swallowing her medicine like a big girl, she thinks, not for the first time, how easy it would be to poison Chuckie. Some kind of poison, some kind of deadly, liquid poison—does rat poison come in a liquid? What other kinds of poison are there? She can’t ask anyone, of course. Can’t Google it either. Don’t the police have ways to look up everything you looked up, even if you delete it? A library maybe. Good old brick and mortar. She could look it up there, go in wearing a disguise, into a library where no one knows who she is. Wear a hat, sunglasses. It would probably be easy to buy a syringe. She could drive to another town, to a big drug store—where do they sell syringes? No, she hasn’t thought it through, not yet, because of course it’s not something she would ever do. How could she? A respectable woman, an ex-Girl Scout, a Grade-18 Data Analyst in the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General. With a mother who’s still alive, 92, and still sharp enough that if her daughter was arrested for murder it would kill her. How easy it would be to inject poison into his Osmolite, into the little cardboard cartons they come in—she’d picked one up this morning and squeezed it, the tense, soft give of it, like the hot water bottle her mother used put on her tummy—and then just sit back and watch him pour it into himself. Watch him chase it with his Old Milwaukee. It’s not as though he could taste it. That’s the beauty of it. He can’t taste a thing now. But of course it’s not something she would ever really do. Not something she could ever really do. Like pushing Arnold, the little shit, off a cliff. It will not really happen. It has not really happened.
Watch him pour it in, watch him kill himself, like he’s been trying to do all along.
He’d probably thank me for it.
If Chuckie would just die, and if Arnold isn’t found … then—Audrey’s skin thrills with goosebumps. Elated, yet frightened at the same time. If, heaven forbid, Arnold isn’t found, or if, heaven forbid, he’s found dead somewhere, either because of an accident, such as falling off a cliff for example, or if, heaven forbid, someone kidnapped him, murdered him, then Rita, selfish bitch that she is, would absolutely blame Jeffrey. Just like he said. She’d never admit it was her fault, her own fault, leaving him alone to go whoring around, leaving him all alone—he’s her son, after all, not Jeffrey’s, not Jeffery’s real son—and not for the first time either. That would surely mark the end of Rita and Jeffrey, Jeffrey and Rita. It could be like it was before. No. Better. Much, much better. Just her and Jeffrey. Together. Nothing in their way. No Rita, no Chuckie. No Arnold.
It’s not that she would ever wish any harm to Arnold. Good God, no. Never. No harm to that precious little boy. Not to a hair on his precious little blond head.
But if it happened. Just if. A silver lining.
*
Chuckie stands just inside the entrance to the great room looking up at the high rafters, at the towering stone fireplace, wondering if the stones might have come from his quarry. He marvels at the incredible waste of space and heat. Not to mention money. No insert in the fireplace. Hot air rushing out to heat the great outdoors, hot air rising up to keep the rafters toasty. What a dumb fuck yuppie.
The dumb fuck yuppie appears in the raised area off to the right. The kitchen. Chuckie’s blushing bride emerges shrinking beside him. Chuckie approaches, his slow shamble, shoulders-first, shoulders still broad, but bonier, although what hangs beneath them is diminished, a phantom coming at them. His hair like a crop of thick dead weeds sprouting up through cracks in the sidewalk. Face rocky, lumpy, raw. Not as fearsome as he once was, maybe, though the glint in his eye doesn’t know it.
He says, “Did you find the little shit yet?”
Jeffrey shakes his head, as though waking up. “Pardon? Sorry?”
Steps closer. Slowly enunciates garbled words around his missing tongue, “Did—you—find—the—kid—yet.” Slobbery spittle. Like a big, dumb tourist trying to talk to a native; how—much—is—the—basket.
“Oh. No. Not yet. What are you doing here? Nice of you to come.”
Steps closer, spitting distance. Notices on the front of Jeffrey’s immaculately pressed and pleated khakis the wet splotch by his fly. In the shape of a heart. Chuckie stares at it with a snarl disguised as a grin. Beside Jeffrey, the face of his sweetheart turns scarlet, the red, red hue of a Valentine’s heart.
My funny Valentine.
A flutter passes through him. To Chuckie she appears in the fleeting moment like the hopeless, helpless waif he rescued. Sitting by him on the rug on the bedroom floor, so, so long ago, weeping, crying so softly she seemed to be melting, roosted up tightly under his arm as close as she could squeeze.
Just after they lost the baby. A bottle of gin in her hand.
Please don’t leave me. Don’t ever go away.
Why did she have to go and ruin it? Dumb cunt. They were happy, weren’t they? They could have been happy. It could have been good. Where did it go?
She couldn’t get drunk without going off the rails, without flirting, without dancing and carrying on with anything wearing pants. The time he caught her kissing that pimple-faced fuck Harold Ent. Couldn’t help herself, just couldn’t. Just had to be punished. Just had to make him punish her.
Made him a wife-beater. Made him be worse.
Chuckie answers the question. “I came to help you look for the little boy. I know the woods up around here pretty good from hunting.”
Jeffrey frowns deeply, turns to look at Audrey, who shrugs. Her face is a half shade less red, more like a hot pink now. They both stare at Chuckie.
“I said. To—help—you—look—for—the—kid.”
“Oh,” says Jeffrey, “no need. The police are on their way. But thanks anyhow.”
“I thought you said they weren’t coming,” Audrey says. “He hasn’t been missing long enough or something?”
Jeffrey takes a deep breath, raises one waxed eyebrow. “They said they’d come later. If he’s not back yet. He’s not back yet, so they should be here any time now.”
Chuckie says, “Why—don’t—we—go—look—till—they—get—here?”
Audrey turns to Jeffrey. “He said, ‘Why don’t—’”
“I got that one,” Jeffrey says. He blinks for a couple of seconds as though responding in Morse Code, then says, “I really should stay here in case someone calls—the police might call. I have to be here in case Arnold shows up.”
“I can stay here,” Audrey says, “if you want to go out and search.”
“Thanks,” he says, a new tightness to his jaw. “But you’ve done enough already.”
Chuckie says, “What has she done?”
Jeffrey says, “Did you say what has she done?” He looks at Audrey. “Did he say what have you done?”
“I think so, yes.”
“She’s been a big help,” Jeffrey says. He smiles a charming smile, a charismatic smile. Chuckie’s nearly blinded by the glow.
Jeffrey says, “Moral support. I don’t know what I’d do without friends like you. It’s friends like you a guy can always count on when the going gets tough. You,” he says, nodding to Audrey, “and you too, Chuckie. What would I do without you?”
Audrey says, “What has Chuckie ever done?”
Jeffrey ignores the question. “But I should really stay here—Arnold will want to see me, if he comes back. The police will want to talk to me.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” says Chuckie.
This Jeffrey understands perfectly. “I am,” he says. “I’m sure. I’m very sure.”
“Okay,” says Chuckie. “If you need me for anything, anything at all, just holler,” and he puts his hand to his ear, thumb and pinkie spread, like a phone, like he’s seen the yuppies do, and he turns to leave, his decision made.
His deer rifle is in the cab of his Ram, knives are in the kitchen, his strong hands are at the ends of his arms, hands that know what to do with an uppity yuppie throat. Too much trouble. No time for red tape, no time for jail, too soon to die just yet. Better to hang on for a while, watch and savor, allow himself to be comforted by the delicious misery of those who dismissed him as a pathetic, dying nuisance, a flea not worth scratching.
Relief leaks out of him like steam from a pressure valve.
Audrey calls after him, “Will you feed Corkscrew for me?”
Jeffrey shoots her a frown full of wonder. And disdain.
She has never felt dumber. Waves of dumbness ripple through her like air through an inflatable tube man dancing in front of Walmart’s.
Jeffrey, without a word, with a snort or a sigh or a marriage of the two, turns and goes to the sink, leans heavily on his arms and stares through the window at the raw day, across the dead, overgrown pasture, toward the sodden tree line and whatever lies within.
Audrey follows, unsure. “What has Chuckie ever done?”
*
Chuckie walks toward his pickup, stops, fills his lungs, pulls back his shoulders, and howls at the scowling sky. His howl is perfectly clear, unimpeded by want of a tongue. He thumps his chest for good measure.
He feels the tumor buried deep in his jaw breathing, pulsing, spreading.
His heartbeat creeps out of his skin disguised as sweat.
Making his way around the Ram, he grimaces at his tools laying exposed in the bed, wet from the rain. They’ll rust. He has to dry them off, put them away.
But first he has to take the shit out of the silver crossover tool box, so he can put the tools back into their snug, dry coffin.
First he has to unload the shit that’s in there now.
The little shit.
