Robert Crews: A Novel

  Crews was studying Friday again. “Okay, Ellen, what are you going to say?”

  She responded in anger. “What do you know about it?”

  “Come on, man.” It was Michael. “You can’t stay mad forever. We’re all out here together. I told you I’d make it good, and I will.” He seemed to notice Crews’s appearance for the first time, from hairy face to bare feet. “Do you live out here?” He shrugged his thick epauleted shoulders. His twill shirt-jacket had a special pocket on the upper right arm for sunglasses. “You must have been a godsend to El.”

  “I don’t get it,” Crews said to Friday. “Are you waiting for me to do it?”

  Tears blurred her eyes. “Oh, hell,” she cried softly. “Oh, the hell with you.”

  Crews was really fed up. “I meant what I said: I’m taking the canoe.” He turned and started toward the beach.

  “Now, just a minute, fella,” said Michael. “You—”

  Crews could hear nothing but Friday’s interruption, though it should properly have been less audible than her husband’s sudden bluster. “No,” she said, “you don’t want to do that. I’m getting ready. It isn’t easy, you know.”

  Crews came back. “I know. But you can do it.”

  She looked levelly at her husband. “You shot me.”

  The big man twisted his thin mouth in exasperation. “You know damn well that was an accident. God almighty, El!” He turned to Crews. “I was reloading the gun. She panicked. I couldn’t catch her. She ran like she was nuts.” To Friday he said, “I can see it must have been a shock, and that’s what you were in: shock. But Jesus, to run into the woods and get yourself lost? Come on, El! Shot? You say you were shot? I swear I didn’t know it. Why didn’t you say so at the time? How could I know? That makes it worse than ever. We had a first-aid kit, for God’s sake. So you run off when you’re bleeding? What kind of sense does that make? And you’re supposed to be the smart one?”

  Friday nodded judiciously. “That would explain why you didn’t ask me about the wound just now.”

  “Why, sure it would,” Michael cried, half-grinning back and forth between his wife and Crews. “How in the world could I have known about it if you ran away?”

  “You fired twice,” Friday said. Since wiping her eyes she had remained expressionless.

  “Oh, you’re wrong about that. If it was an accident, why would I keep shooting?” He smirked at Crews. “My finger got stuck in the trigger or something?”

  “I heard the two shots,” Crews said.

  “You? Where were you?” The big man looked as though he was about to become hostile, but then caught himself and whined instead. “You know how echoes sound across water.”

  “You saw me on the raft.”

  “Did I not just apologize for borrowing it? What more can I say? I wanted to make time getting to the other end of the lake. By then El had such a head start, and I was worrying about her getting lost. I didn’t know anything about her getting shot.” He stopped abruptly and raised his eyebrows at his wife. “I’ve been looking for you ever since! Are you giving me the works on this business? I mean, okay, so I deserve it for scaring you, maybe, but this is a serious accusation. And then, how do I know you were hit? Where’s the so-called wound to prove it?”

  Friday smiled genially at him. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, Michael, and I ask myself just what it is that makes you such a special case. For a while I thought it was stupidity. But then I realized that I must be dumber than you, because I’m the one who went camping, and I’m the one who got shot for my pains.”

  Michael was at last displaying some slight evidence of authentic emotion as opposed to the bogus, even feckless indignation he had shown thus far. His right cheek twitched as though he were trying to suck a fragment of food from between the underlying teeth. “You going to start that again? Leave it to you…. Do you mind not embarrassing this gentleman? We can go into all of it when we get home.”

  “We are not getting home together,” Friday said. “And I think I can speak for ‘this gentleman’ when I say he won’t ever be embarrassed by me.”

  Her husband glared at her for a moment, nose twitching. Then he looked at Crews with a stage sneer. “Him?”

  In the vodka days Crews would already have tangled with the man, whom he would have disliked on sight, and not necessarily for the best motives, and would very likely have been painfully thrashed by him, because say what you might, it was physically unreasonable that, barring elaborate conditions, he could have held his own against a healthy opponent six inches taller and at least fifty pounds heavier in what looked like only muscle. By now, Michael must outweigh him by a hundred.

  “He’s the finest man I’ve ever known,” Friday said fiercely. “Don’t you touch him.”

  As it happened, Crews had not been all that offended by her husband’s sneer, but he was humiliated by her defense of him. To maintain any semblance of pride, he now believed he might have to go up against this giant athlete who ran a gym.

  Michael displayed the palms of his large hands. “Far be it from me,” he said. “He looks like that guy who sleeps in the shoe-store doorway, down the street from my place. I give him a couple quarters every morning.”

  Crews must have shown some beginning belligerence even though he was not yet fully conscious of such, for Friday clutched him and pleaded, “Robert, don’t! He’s a black belt.”

  Now there was no doubt what Crews had to do. In a way, the two of them, husband and wife, were collaborating in his moral ruin. He undid himself from her grasp.

  “You have to let me do something here, Friday.”

  “What did he call you, El? What?” Michael was still on his second derisive “what?” when Crews stepped in and threw a punch with maximum force. The blow had been directed to the left side of the jaw, but the man reacted so quickly to the approaching fist that it missed all of his meaty face except the very tip of an earlobe.

  In counterattack he simply covered Crews’s entire forehead and nose with one big hand and pushed. Crews was projected backward too violently to keep his balance for long, and he sprawled on the earth.

  “Stay right there,” Michael commanded, but still in his jeering boyish tone. “Next time I’ll break something of yours, and you haven’t got anything you could afford to lose.” He grinned toothily at Friday. “Sorry, El. I had to touch him because he touched me first. It wasn’t any pleasure, I can tell you, but at least I avoided that scummy beard. But then I guess it’s not that repulsive to you, crummy as you yourself are, and by the way, you both stink. Fish and burned stuff and God knows what all else.”

  There was no way Crews could have taken this guy by legitimate means even on two months of square meals, daily showers, and nights on innersprings. In the current circumstances there was no reason he should try.

  Friday raised the hem of her shirt, the shirt Crews had given her. “I’ve got a wound where you shot a gun at me. If you do anything more to him, I’ll swear out a warrant for your arrest when I get to Fort Judson.”

  Crews climbed to his feet despite the warning. “Don’t make bargains with a man like that.” He was almost as annoyed with her as when she had first tried the mushrooms.

  Friday ignored him. “The canoe is on my credit card,” she told her husband. “It’s mine, and we’re taking it—or are you going to shoot me again?”

  Michael had hardly glanced at the scar below her ribs, but he did show some chastening. “You can’t get away with that. If I hit you at all—and you’ll need more evidence than that little scratch—it was an accident, and you know damn well it was. But how do I know this bum didn’t do something to you? Who is your bodyguard, anyhow? Somebody you found in a hobo jungle?” His laughter was a hoot.

  Crews was conscious of a loathsome desire: he wished he had a drink, in fact a whole bottle. Meanwhile Friday had stepped between him and her husband. He was in fact hiding behind a woman’s stained denim jacket and jeans, both much the worse for w
ear.

  “Get going,” she said, her head half turned, to Crews. “Go find the canoe. I’ll take care of him.”

  Crews was so startled by this command, and so frozen in shame, that for an instant he did nothing but watch her go into a combat stance, one foot forward, knees bent, fists raised.

  Her husband asked incredulously, “Are you forgetting who taught you karate in the first place?”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything,” Friday said. “I’m just surprised you haven’t gone and got your gun, yellowbelly.”

  Michael winced in exasperation. “You’re hooked on that gun.” He grinned. “You need it to prove your virility? … I’ll say it again: I don’t think you even got hit. Anyway, you certainly weren’t hurt badly, if that scratch is all. So kindly stop clowning and we’ll let bygones be bygones. Bright and early tomorrow morning we’ll head for Judson. If you owe this guy something, we’ll leave him a sleeping bag.”

  “Which also was rented on my credit card,” Friday said. Over her shoulder she cried, “Go on, Robert, find the canoe. It should be down there someplace.”

  “I saw it,” Crews said, finding his tongue. “Don’t worry about the canoe.” He stepped out from behind her. “Be reasonable, Friday. You’re not going to take him on.”

  “You might just be surprised,” she said. “For a change I want to be the one who hands out the punishment.”

  “You’ve certainly got it coming. But justice has nothing to do with these things. Believe me, not because I’m a man, but because I have experience at such matters.”

  “How about both of you at once?” Michael asked derisively. “And I’ll use only my left hand.”

  Friday launched her attack, a graceful-looking high kick, which missed, followed by a straight punch to Michael’s face. Without bothering to assume a karate posture, he deflected the latter so forcefully as to throw her off balance, then slapped her head with such violence that she was knocked to the ground.

  Before Crews could offer her assistance she was back on her feet. “Please stop it,” he said. “It’s not going to work.”

  “I don’t care,” Friday screamed. She lowered her head and shook it. She had taken a savage blow.

  “He’s making sense,” said Michael, standing away. “I guess I never made it clear to you that karate is effective when used by a smaller person on a larger one only when the larger person hasn’t been trained in it. Do you get it through your thick head, El? How could it work if the bigger fighter is himself a black belt?”

  “You’re going to fight me with respect!” Friday shouted.

  “No, I’m not,” Michael said, laughing, and stepped in with his usual blinding speed and slapped her again, this time with the left hand, then for good measure hurled Crews to the ground once more.

  Friday had not fallen this time. She was annoyed with Crews—so much so, he believed at first, that her cheek was suffused with blood. But then he recognized that the discoloration came from the second slap. She grimaced down at him. “Are you going to keep out of this?”

  “All right,” he groaned, laboriously rising. “But only if you quit too. He’s too much for us. We’ll end up getting hurt badly, and who needs that? Come on, let him go. Sometimes you’ve got to lose.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. Her husband said, “Hey, the old tramp knows what he’s doing. He’s not all bad. Just take him and leave while you both can still move. I was going to share my last food with you people, but I withdraw the offer. You’re filth.”

  Friday said to Crews, “I never thought I’d hear you talk like this.”

  “Kiddo,” Crews mumbled wearily, “the secret to successful survival is to know when to quit against overwhelming odds.” He avoided her importunate eyes. “He’s right: we should go while we can still walk.” He demonstrated the limp he had acquired already, which brought him to a collection of firewood that had obviously been chopped by Michael with the neat little belt-ax that lay nearby. Unlike himself, the man was well equipped for a sojourn in the woods.

  Crews seized the heftiest log, which must have required some muscle to chop through, and taking her husband by surprise while the strong man was still sneering at Friday, hit him in the side of the head with such force that a splintering sound was heard, whether from wood or skull. Michael toppled as though he were a tree being felled.

  Friday rushed to the fallen man, else Crews might have, animal-like, taken advantage of his opponent’s helplessness and done him further damage. Kneeling, she cried her husband’s name aloud. Michael made an incoherent noise.

  “Water!” she screamed at Crews. “Get some water!”

  The thermos hung at his belt, but why waste their supply? He looked for the expensive canteen the other guy was sure to have and soon found it hanging from the leading tentpole.

  When he returned with it, Friday looked up reproachfully. “Why did you have to be so rough?”

  Had she been one of his wives he would probably have pointed out that only a moment earlier she had thought him a coward. But he gave a rancorless answer. “With somebody his size, you’ve got to put him out of action as decisively as possible. He’s lucky I didn’t use the ax.”

  Friday unscrewed the top of the canteen and, having filled her right hand with water, patted Michael’s face. “He’s actually sort of fragile,” she said. “He gets lots of colds, and he always seems to hurt himself in odd ways, like when adjusting exercise machines.”

  The big man’s eyes opened. He recovered so quickly that Crews could not believe he had been actually unconscious at any time. He sat up. “You,” he said to Friday, with venom. “I’m charging you and your boyfriend with assault with intent to kill.”

  “Let me hit him again,” Crews said, pretending to reach for the log he had tossed aside. He was not serious. He just wanted to see the man flinch.

  And Michael did so, but seeing that Crews did not follow through on the threat, became hateful to Friday again, stupidly rejecting the sympathy she had just bestowed on him. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you couldn’t have done so well at your company except on your knees, under the boardroom table.”

  Friday made no reply. She deposited the canteen at his side and stood up.

  Her husband made no attempt to rise. He addressed her back. “And as anybody can plainly see, you survived in the wilderness the same way.” Apparently his skull had not been seriously damaged: he had yet to finger the affected side of his head or favor it in any fashion.

  “You want to get your fishing rod?” Friday asked Crews. “I’m taking whatever food’s left. It’s mine. I’m paying the rental on the tent too, and the rest, but he can keep them. Tomorrow we’ll be in Judson.”

  “You two puny characters are going to paddle upstream?” Michael shouted derisively. “You got a sucker punch in on me, but you’re not going to put one over on Nature.”

  “I’ve been doing that for weeks,” Crews said. “There doesn’t seem to be much of a current. If it’s too strong we can always try poling, along the shore. I’m tired of walking.”

  The big man continued to rant, but he stayed where he was, sitting on the earth. Probably he had been hurt more substantially in the spirit than in the flesh.

  Crews retrieved the cased rod and tackle box from amidst the other things inside the tent, and then he went through the fancy backpack, with its aluminum frame, until he found the pistol and an accompanying box of shells, only a few of which remained. The weapon was of the six-shooter type and felt heavier than it looked.

  Michael was in the process of rising, but when he saw the gun in Crews’s possession he sank back to the ground and, cowering behind crossed forearms, cried, “Hey man, wait a minute. Don’t do it!”

  And even Friday, holding what looked like some kind of camp cooking kit, nested pots within a canvas pouch, recoiled and said, “Oh, no. Throw that thing away!”

  “Take it all,” Michael pleaded. “But don’t kill me. You got no reason to. I’m not
resisting! It would be cold-blooded—”

  “Will you stop sniveling?” Crews said. “Am I even pointing it at you?”

  “Please get rid of it.” Friday made forceful gestures. “I don’t want it in existence.”

  But Crews candidly defied her on this matter. “We’ll hold on to it, in case you need it for evidence. It’s insurance.” The pistol was too heavy for any of his pockets. Finally he put it and the extra ammunition on top of the gear in the tackle box, closed the box, and slung the strap at his shoulder.

  Michael now asked, in a howl, “You’re leaving me here, with no food and no means of protection?”

  Friday sighed and rooted in another canvas bag, coming up with a little pouch of shiny plastic. She read aloud the legend printed on it. “‘Chicken-and-noodle soup.’ Here you go.” She tossed it to him, but he refused to catch it, and it fell near his elbow.

  Crews was interested to note that when it came to violence or the threat thereof, Friday’s sympathy went immediately to the putative victim. But at other times she could be uncompromising.

  “So I’ve got a temper,” Michael wailed. “You ought to know better than to needle someone holding a loaded gun.”

  Crews asked Friday, “Is he still trying to explain how you got wounded?”

  “Yes,” said she. “And about that he’s right. I’ll never do it again.”

  “But you just took him on at karate.”

  Her expression was reproachful. “That was something else entirely. Can’t you see that?”

  “I’ll try.” The tackle box was growing oppressively heavy, with the added weight. He shifted it to his other shoulder and hung the rod case from the free one. “We’d better get going before it’s too late to see what we’re doing.”

  “Call me about your possessions when we get back to town,” Friday said to her husband. “I’m changing the locks at home. What you do with your car is up to you, but I’m not going to make any more payments on it.”