The River King

  All over Haddan, people were finished with dinner; as for Abe, he wouldn’t be able to eat another thing for twenty-four hours. It wasn’t only Mary Beth’s menu that had done him in, it was the queasiness he’d begun to feel when he spied the envelope in Joey’s grasp.

  “The town’s gotten plenty from the school, why shouldn’t we get something back?” Joey said. “Hell, they treat us like we’re their personal security department, they can damn well pay us for our services.”

  Abe truly did feel ill. He wasn’t used to rich food and even richer rewards. He liked things simple and plain and within the limits of the law. “Don’t show me what’s in that envelope. Put it away, man, otherwise I’m going to have to go to Glen on this.”

  “You think he doesn’t know?” Joey laughed when he saw the look on Abe’s face. “Wake up, friend. This has been going on for years. Since before your father retired. These services went on right under his nose, and he never knew the first thing about it.”

  “What exactly are our services?”

  “We don’t go digging around where we don’t belong, and that means when some Haddan kid kills himself, we let it be.”

  Joey got into the car and started it up. The idling station wagon sputtered and exhaust spiraled into the air. When Abe didn’t move, Joey rolled down his window.

  “Come on. You’re not going to be self-righteous like your old man always was, are you? That’s why Glen kept you out of this in the first place.”

  Abe decided he didn’t need a ride, not now. It was better to walk off a big meal; the exercise would do him good. When he started off, Joey shouted out for him and honked the raspy horn, but Abe continued on across the frozen grass. He left the campus, then turned onto Main Street. There were vines of woodbine and bittersweet twisted along the black wrought-iron fences and a glossy hedge of holly that was over six feet tall in Mrs. Jeremy’s garden. If today’s circumstances had been different, Abe would have stopped by to make certain that AJ was safely passed out in bed, but this was one holiday when Mrs. Jeremy would have to take care of her own family business.

  It had been a long while since Abe had been through the east side on foot, and he was as uncomfortable as he’d been back when he was a boy. The rattle of a trash can, the bark of a dog in someone’s yard, the slightest bit of noise and he was ready to run.

  There had always been divisions in Haddan, lines drawn between the haves and have-nots, and maybe some payment was long overdue. Who was Abe to judge Joey, or anyone else for that matter? He himself hadn’t always been on his best behavior, but even when he was the one breaking the law he’d known the difference between right and wrong. He thought of his grandfather, who’d truly believed a man’s highest calling was to serve his fellow citizens. Wright had plunged into the frozen river when most men would have been too concerned for their own welfare ever to have left the shore.

  As Abe walked home, he felt he, too, was stranded on that shore, unable to commit to a leap, as if the black Haddan mud were quicksand, pulling him down. The queasiness he’d begun to feel was growing worse, just as it had back when Frank died. It was the sense that he hadn’t really known his brother and that they’d all been living a lie that had been most disconcerting. Abe had always admired his brother, but had he ever understood him? The smartest boy who’d ever attended Hamilton High, who faithfully washed their father’s car on Saturdays and stayed up all night studying, was the same person who walked up the stairs and shot himself on that hot August day when Sixth Commandment Pond was perfect for swimming. How could he have given it all away, that dusty, torpid afternoon when they could have been fishing in one of the secret places their grandfather had shown them, the rocky ledges that overhung the deep cool pools where the biggest trout could be found?

  It was Frank who came down for breakfast every morning and Frank again who kept the shotgun under his mattress in the hours before his death, one and the same, just as Joey was not only the man who accepted a bribe, but the boy who stood beside Abe at Frank’s memorial service. It was Joey who’d walked all the way to Wright’s farm on days when it was so cold ice formed inside his gloves and he needed to stand in front of the oven to defrost himself. Once again, Abe had taken for granted that he was privy to all there was to know about a person, just as he knew the village itself, but as it turned out, he’d been wrong yet again. It was as if someone had taken all the streets in town and thrown them sky high, letting them fall wherever they might, in a jumble that was unrecognizable.

  Abe crossed the railroad tracks, taking Forest Street for a while before turning onto Station as dusk began to fall, like a curtain of soot. It was an especially dark sky on this holiday evening and people cherished the pleasures and warmth of their homes. Abe could see his neighbors through their front windows. He passed by Pete Byers’s place and Mike Randall’s neat cottage, far too small for his five children, but well kept up, with a new porch and fresh paint. He saw Billy and Marie Bishop at their big oak table, surrounded by half a dozen grandchildren. When he reached his own house, there was the cat, waiting, and he knelt to scratch its ears. Why, even this creature had a secret life, spending afternoons in the sunny window of the Lucky Day Florist, sharing lunch with Miss Davis.

  “I hope you had your turkey someplace else,” Abe told the cat.

  Abe knew how easy it was to break into a house, and that was why he never bothered to lock his own door. He had nothing worth stealing, anyway; his TV was on the blink and the last time his VCR quit working he’d brought it to the appliance shop in Hamilton and never bothered to return for it. Even his doorbell was busted, which was why Betsy Chase had to pound on the door when she arrived.

  It had been a day of surprises for Abe, but Betsy’s appearance was the only pleasant one. He had been ready to have a few drinks and crawl into bed, defeated and disgusted by the day’s events, but here was absolute proof that whenever a man thought he knew what his future would bring, something was bound to amaze him. He stood there looking at Betsy the way he had when they’d first met, causing the color to rise in her face. Every time she saw him she became flustered, as if she had no more sense than the girls from St. Anne’s.

  “I thought I saw you over at the school,” Betsy said, but that was a lie; in fact, she was certain of it. She’d seen him through the dean’s window, there beside the boxwood, wearing the same dark suit that still hung on his angular frame.

  Abe swung the screen door open to allow Betsy into the hallway. She had left her coat in her car parked in his driveway, and was wearing an outfit that had seemed well suited to the occasion of a dinner at the dean’s house, a black dress and a good pair of heels. Now, however, she felt awkward in these clothes, as if she were a stranger to herself. The hallway was so cramped they were forced close together. As if that weren’t difficult enough, her shoes were killing her; she thought she might actually topple over. She was probably crazy to have come, subject to the green river light that always confused her at this hour.

  “I brought over some photographs,” she told Abe in a businesslike tone. She tapped on her camera bag, which was draped over one shoulder.

  When they went into the kitchen, Abe realized what a mess his place was, with dishes stacked in the sink and newspapers on the floor. A basket of laundry had been left on a chair, unwashed and forgotten; Abe removed it so that Betsy could sit at the table. As she did, she pointed to the countertop where the black cat was parading back and forth, mewing at the cabinet where the canned food was stored. “That’s Helen Davis’s cat.”

  “Nope.” After getting two beers from the refrigerator, Abe took the chair across from Betsy’s. “It’s mine.”

  “I see it all the time on campus.” Betsy started in on her beer, not that she wanted it, and she drank too fast, agitated in Abe’s presence. His eyes were not unlike the ice that had recently formed in the shallows of the river, fluid and pale. Looking into them, Betsy had the sense that she could fall right through and keep on falling. She quickly
took out her folder of prints. “I wanted to know what you thought of this.”

  Abe began to look them over, distracted at first, then more interested. After developing the prints of the swim team, Betsy had gone on to take a series of photographs. In each there was a shadow behind Carlin, the unmistakable shape of a tall boy.

  “You’re good.” Abe fixed Betsy with those pale eyes of his. “These look real.”

  “They are real. It only happens when I use high-speed film. And when Carlin is around.”

  In one of the prints the shadow’s features were particularly clear: a wide mouth, a broad forehead, the sorrowful expression of the denied and the lovelorn. Even in the haziest of the images, the shadowy figure appeared to be soaking wet; there were pools of water in every picture, on furniture and floors alike. Abe returned the photographs to the folder. “The girl told me he’s leaving her things. Maybe he’s got some need to communicate, so he’s hanging around. Sort of the way you’re hanging around me,” he added.

  “Oh, don’t you wish.” Betsy laughed and held up her hand, displaying her engagement ring to remind him of her situation.

  “You keep showing me that ring, but here you are.” Abe moved his chair closer to hers.

  Instantly, Betsy stood and collected her photographs. “You’re kind of an egomaniac, aren’t you? I thought you were interested in Gus Pierce.”

  She had already started for the hallway and Abe followed along. “I am interested,” he told her.

  “In the photographs?”

  “I’m more interested in you.”

  Betsy shifted her camera bag, so that it was directly between them, in self-defense, in self-denial. What was her situation, exactly? It was only days ago that she’d settled the dessert problem for her wedding with Doreen Becker at the inn. Doreen had been pushing the white ladyfinger variety, insisting that chocolate wedding cakes such as the one Betsy preferred always brought bad luck. It was said that several divorce lawyers in Hamilton ordered similar cakes delivered to churches and halls to ensure their continuing brisk business.

  “Do you tell every woman you bring back here that you’re interested?” she asked Abe now, realizing as she did that she didn’t like the idea of other women being here with him.

  “I don’t bring anyone here,” Abe said. “Let’s not forget, you came here all by yourself. And I’m glad that you did.”

  And because she knew this to be true, it was Betsy who kissed him first, there in the dark hallway. She meant for it to be just that once, but that’s not what happened. Later, she would tell herself that she got swept up, she didn’t know what she was doing; it was the beer she’d gulped down or her unpredictable reaction to holidays. No matter what the reason, she kissed him for a very long time, too long, even though she knew she was making a major mistake. She was reminded of lightning, the way it struck so suddenly a person never had time to get out of range until it was over and the damage had already been done.

  Betsy told herself it would only be one night, just a few passionate hours, erasable, forgettable, surely not meant to hurt anyone. She didn’t stop him when he pulled off the black dress she’d so carefully chosen for the holiday. It was thoughtless, and heedless, but she didn’t care. What was desire anyway, when examined in the clear light of day? Was it the way a woman searched for her clothes in the morning, or the manner in which a man might watch her sit before the mirror and comb her hair? Was it a pale November dawn, when ice formed on windowpanes and crows called from the bare black trees? Or was it the way a person might yield to the night, setting forth on a path so unexpected that daylight would never again be completely clear?

  * * *

  AT THIS TIME OF YEAR, THE LUNCH COUNTER at the pharmacy offered its famous Christmas muffins, an item added to the specials board every year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, expertly baked by Pete Byers’s wife, Eileen. This local treat, reminiscent of ginger cake, only richer and more dense, had become so desirable that several residents of the largest houses on Main Street, well-dressed women who ordinarily wouldn’t be caught at the lunch counter, arrived early in the mornings to buy half a dozen or more at a time.

  Although the lunch counter was crowded with Haddan School students in the afternoon, the mornings belonged to local residents. People discussed both old news and current events over coffee for hours, and by noon everything from wedding announcements to nervous breakdowns had been hashed over. It was here people began to wonder if something had happened to Abel Grey. He was never at the Millstone anymore, where he’d been a regular ever since he’d reached legal age, and several women he occasionally dated—Kelly Avon, for instance, from over at the 5&10 Cent Bank—hadn’t heard from him in weeks. Doug Lauder and Teddy Humphrey, with whom he often played pool on Saturday nights over in Middletown, had started to worry, and Russell Carter, who reported that Abe had stopped showing up to play basketball, was so concerned he phoned down to the station to make sure Abe was still alive.

  As single men, these fellows had always depended on Abe’s availability to play cards or agree to a fishing trip on short notice; now they couldn’t get ahold of him anymore. They had no idea that Abe could be found lying in the tall grass thinking about fate or that he’d been so shaken up by love he had lost the ability to tell time. He, who had always prided himself on being punctual, was showing up not just at the wrong hour, but on the wrong day, arriving to direct traffic outside town hall on Thursday mornings when everyone knew the garden club didn’t meet until Friday afternoon.

  Abe’s neighbors began to guess there was a woman involved when they noticed him out on his porch late at night, gazing at stars. They figured they had his number when he came into Selena’s Sandwich Shoppe whistling love songs and completely forgetting what he planned to order, when he’d asked for a turkey on rye for the last nine years. Some of the ladies from Main Street, to whom Abe had always been so helpful, patted him on the back when they saw him, pleased that at last he’d found love. Certainly, it was high time. Because of the lack of single men in Haddan—and no one counted Teddy Humphrey as such, since every time he got good and drunk, he begged his ex-wife, Nikki, to take him back—there were several women who were disappointed to hear that Abe was no longer available. A few, like Kelly Avon and Mary Beth’s cousin, the one who’d been unsuccessfully set up with him at Thanksgiving, tried to get the truth out of Joey Tosh, who insisted that his lips were sealed, although when it came right down to it, even Joey didn’t know much.

  Since their disagreement on Thanksgiving, Abe had avoided his old friend. He drove himself to work in his grandfather’s cruiser and asked for assignments no one else wanted, traffic, for instance, and domestic disputes, to ensure he’d be working alone. When both men happened to be at the station at the same time, Joey busied himself with paperwork or with the Haddan Tribune. He had a shielded look that was impossible to read, the same expression he’d had when Mary Beth was first pregnant with Emily and they’d decided to get married without telling anyone.

  Now and then, Abe caught Joey staring and one morning Joey stopped at Abe’s desk. “Man, you’re the early bird these days.”

  Funny that Abe had never even noticed that when Joey was upset he pulled at the right side of his face.

  “You keep it up, you’re going to make the rest of us look bad.”

  Abe sat back in his chair. “Is that what you’re worried about, Joe? Looking bad?”

  “That was my mistake on Thanksgiving. I shouldn’t have brought you with me. I should have kept you out of it, like everyone said to.”

  “Yeah? I thought your mistake was taking the money.”

  “You’re just pissed because I disagreed with you about the Pierce kid. You want me to say he was murdered? Fine, he was murdered. And maybe Frank was, too, while we’re at it. Maybe somebody climbed up through his window and shot him. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “If that’s what you think I want, then you don’t know me.”

  “Maybe I
don’t.” Joey was looking his age and he seemed tired, even though Abe had heard he’d quit his second job at the mall. “Maybe I don’t want to.”

  That was the way they left it, with the distance between them, as if they hadn’t been best friends their whole lives long. Now when people asked Joey where his buddy was, and why Abe could no longer be found at the Millstone on Saturday nights, Joey just shrugged.

  “I’m not his bodyguard,” he’d say when asked. “Abe goes his way and I go mine.”

  Joey would never have known that Abe was involved with someone if Mary Beth hadn’t informed him of the situation. She and Kelly Avon had sat down at Selena’s with a list of every unmarried woman in the village, thereby determining that the person in question wasn’t anyone they knew. People in town wouldn’t have figured Abe to go and find himself someone from the Haddan School. That’s the way things were in the village still, after all these years: it was fine for the people of Main Street to do as they pleased, and a few had gone so far as to send their sons and daughters to the Haddan School, but expectations were different for anyone from the west side. Though they owned the stores and supplied the other residents with their shoes and chrysanthemums and cheese, people were expected to stay on their own side of town when it came to personal matters. And if Joey might have predicted Abe would get involved with that teacher from Haddan, he would never have guessed how often Abe went to see her, always late at night, after curfew, when the girls at St. Anne’s were asleep in their beds and the hallways were silent and dark.

  Abe had become so familiar with this route that he no longer stumbled over the frayed carpet. He had learned to expect stray umbrellas and Rollerblades inside the doorway and was accustomed to the rushing sound of steam heat rising from the old metal radiators, as well as the scent of bath oil and musk, fragrances that might have caused a less experienced man to lose his bearings. Abe usually parked down by the river and walked the rest of the way, so that no one would notice his grandfather’s car, not that anyone attended to who was going in and out of the dorm. There was absolutely no security in the building, all Abe had to do was jiggle the knob and push his weight against the door and he was in.