Just After Sunset

  He paused. Far down the road, still mostly hidden by a shifting camisole of rain, was a blue sign.

  He considered, then said, "But even that wasn't the real point. You want to know the point? Her point? I was supposed to feel guilty for liking my job. For not drudging through my days until I found the right person to go absolutely fucking bombers with!"

  The hitcher stirred a little, probably only because they'd hit a bump (or run over some roadkill), but it made Monette realize he was shouting. And hey, the guy might not be completely deaf. Even if he was, he might feel vibrations in the bones of his face once sounds passed a certain decibel level. Who the fuck knew?

  "I didn't get into it with her," Monette said in a lower voice. "I refused to get into it with her. I think I knew that if I did, if we really started to argue, anything might happen. I wanted to get out of there while I was still in shock...because that was protecting her, see?"

  The hitchhiker said nothing, but Monette saw for both of them.

  "I said, 'What happens now?' and she said, 'I suppose I'll go to jail.' And you know what? If she'd started to cry then, I might have held her. Because after twenty-six years of marriage, things like that get to be a reflex. Even when most of the feeling's gone. But she didn't cry, so I walked out. Just turned around and walked out. And when I came back, there was a note saying she'd moved out. That was almost two weeks ago, and I haven't seen her since. Talked to her on the phone a few times, that's all. Talked to a lawyer, too. Froze all our accounts, not that it'll do any good once the legal wheels start turning. Which will be soon. The caca is going to clog the air-cooling system, if you take my meaning. Then I suppose I'll see her again. In court. Her and Cowboy Fucking Bob."

  Now he could read the blue sign: PITTSFIELD REST AREA 2 MI.

  "Ah, shit!" he cried. "Waterville's fifteen miles back thataway, partner." And when the deaf-mute didn't stir (of course not), Monette realized he didn't know the guy had been going to the Ville anyway. Not for sure. In any case, it was time to get this straightened out. The rest area would do for that, but for a minute or two longer they would remain enclosed in this rolling confessional, and he felt he had one more thing to say.

  "It's true that I haven't felt much for her in a very long time," he said. "Sometimes love just runs out. And it's also true that I haven't been entirely faithful--I've taken a little road comfort from time to time. But does that warrant this? Does it justify a woman blowing up a life the way a kid would blow up a rotten apple with a firecracker?"

  He pulled into the rest area. There were maybe four cars in the lot, huddled up against the brown building with the vending machines in the front. To Monette the cars looked like cold children left out in the rain. He parked. The hitchhiker looked at him questioningly.

  "Where are you going?" Monette asked, knowing it was hopeless.

  The deaf-mute considered. He looked around and saw where they were. He looked back at Monette as if to say, Not here.

  Monette pointed back south and raised his eyebrows. The deaf-mute shook his head, then pointed north. Opened and closed his fists, showing his fingers six times...eight...ten. Same as before, basically. But this time Monette got it. He thought life might have been simpler for this guy if someone had taught him the sideways figure-eight symbol that means infinity.

  "You're basically just rambling, aren't you?" Monette asked.

  The deaf-mute only looked at him.

  "Yeah you are," Monette said. "Well, I tell you what. You listened to my story--even though you didn't know you were listening to it--and I'll get you as far as Derry." An idea struck him. "In fact, I'll drop you at the Derry Shelter. You can get a hot and a cot, at least for one night. I have to take a leak. You need to take a leak?"

  The deaf-mute looked at him with patient blankness.

  "A leak," Monette said. "A piss." He started to point at his crotch, realized where they were, and decided a road bum would think he was signing for a blowjob right here beside the Hav-A-Bite machines. He pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the building instead--black cutout man, black cutout woman. The man had his legs apart, the woman had hers together. Pretty much the story of the human race in sign language.

  This his passenger got. He shook his head decisively, then made another thumb-and-forefinger circle for good measure. Which left Monette with a delicate problem: leave Mr. Silent Vagabond in the car while he did his business or turn him out into the rain to wait...in which case the guy would almost certainly know why he was being put out.

  Only it wasn't a problem at all, he decided. There was no money in the car, and his personal luggage was locked in the trunk. There were his sample cases in the backseat, but he somehow didn't think the guy was going to steal two seventy-pound cases and go trotting down the rest area's exit ramp with them. For one thing, how would he hold up his I AM MUTE! sign?

  "I'll be right back," Monette said, and when the hitchhiker only looked at him with those red-rimmed eyes, Monette pointed to himself, to the restroom icons, then back to himself. This time the hitchhiker nodded and made another thumb-and-forefinger circle.

  Monette went to the toilet and pissed for what felt like twenty minutes. The relief was exquisite. He felt better than he had since Barb had dropped her bombshell. It occurred to him for the first time that he was going to get through this. And he would help Kelsie get through it. He remembered a quote from some old German (or maybe a Russian, it certainly sounded like the Russian view of life): Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.

  He went back to his car, whistling. He even gave the coin-op lottery-ticket machine a comradely slap as he went by. At first he thought maybe he couldn't see his passenger because the guy was lying down...in which case, Monette would have to shoo him upright again so he could get behind the wheel. But the hitchhiker wasn't lying down. The hitchhiker was gone. Had taken his pack and his sign and decamped.

  Monette checked the backseat and saw his Wolfe & Sons cases undisturbed. Looked into the glove compartment and saw the paltry identification kept within--registration, insurance card, AAA card--was still there. All that was left of the bum was a lingering smell, not entirely unpleasant: sweat and faint pine, as if the guy had been sleeping rough.

  He thought he'd see the guy at the foot of the ramp, holding up his sign and patiently switching it from side to side so that potential Good Samaritans got the complete lowdown on his defects. If so, Monette would stop and pick him up again. The job didn't feel done, somehow. Delivering the guy to the Derry Shelter--that would make the job feel done. That would close the deal, and close the book. Whatever other failings he might have, he liked to finish things.

  But the guy wasn't at the foot of the ramp; the guy was completely AWOL. And it wasn't until Monette was passing a sign reading DERRY 10 MI. that he looked up at the rearview mirror and saw that his St. Christopher's medal, companion of all those millions of miles, was gone. The deaf-mute had stolen it. But not even that could break Monette's new optimism. Maybe the deaf-mute needed it more than he did. Monette hoped it would bring him good luck.

  Two days later--by then he was selling the best fall list ever in Presque Isle--he got a call from the Maine State Police. His wife and Bob Yandowsky had been beaten to death in the Grove Motel. The killer had used a piece of pipe wrapped in a motel towel.

  -11-

  "My...dear...God!" the priest breathed.

  "Yes," Monette agreed, "that's pretty much what I thought."

  "Your daughter...?"

  "Heartbroken, of course. She's with me, at home. We'll get through this, Father. She's tougher than I thought. And of course, she doesn't know about the other. The embezzlement. With luck, she never will. There's going to be a very large insurance payment, what they call double indemnity. Given everything that went on before, I think I would be in moderate to serious trouble with the police now if I didn't have a cast-iron alibi. And if there hadn't been...developments. As it is, I've been questioned several times."

  "So
n, you didn't pay someone to--"

  "I've been asked that, too. The answer is no. I've thrown my bank accounts open to anyone who wants a look. Every penny is accounted for, both in my half of the wedded partnership and in Barb's. She was financially very responsible. At least in the sane part of her life.

  "Father, can you open up on your side? I want to show you something."

  Instead of replying, the priest opened his door. Monette slipped the St. Christopher's medal from around his neck, then reached around from his side. Their fingers touched briefly as the medal and its little pile of steel chain passed from hand to hand.

  There was silence for five seconds as the priest considered it. Then he said, "This was returned to you when? Was it at the motel where--"

  "No," Monette said. "Not the motel. The house in Buxton. On the dresser in what used to be our bedroom. Next to our wedding picture, actually."

  "Dear God," the priest said.

  "He could have gotten the address from my car registration when I was in the john."

  "And of course you mentioned the name of the motel...and the town...."

  "Dowrie," Monette agreed.

  For the third time the priest invoked the name of his Boss. Then he said, "The fellow wasn't deaf-mute at all, was he?"

  "I'm almost positive he was mute," Monette said, "but he sure wasn't deaf. There was a note beside the medal, on a piece of paper he tore off the phone pad. All this must have happened while my daughter and I were at the funeral home, picking out a casket. The back door was open but not jimmied. He might have been smart enough to trig the lock, but I think I just forgot and left it open when we went out."

  "The note said what?"

  "'Thank you for the ride,'" Monette said.

  "I'll be damned." Thoughtful silence, then a soft knocking just outside the door of the confessional in which Monette sat, contemplating FOR ALL HAVE SINNED AND FALLEN SHORT OF GOD'S GLORY. Monette took back his medal. "Have you told the police?"

  "Yes, of course, the whole story. They think they know who the guy is. They're familiar with the sign. His name is Stanley Doucette. He's spent years rambling around New England with that sign of his. Sort of like me, now that I think of it."

  "Prior crimes of violence on his record?"

  "A few," Monette said. "Fights, mostly. Once he beat a man pretty badly in a bar, and he's been in and out of mental institutions, including Serenity Hill, in Augusta. I don't think the police told me everything."

  "Do you want to know everything?"

  Monette considered, then said, "No."

  "They haven't caught this fellow."

  "They say it's only a matter of time. They say he's not bright. But he was bright enough to fool me."

  "Did he fool you, son? Or did you know you were speaking to a listening ear? It seems to me that is the key question."

  Monette was quiet for a long time. He didn't know if he had honestly searched his heart before, but he felt he was searching it now, and with a bright light. Not liking everything he found there but searching, yes. Not overlooking what he saw there. At least not on purpose.

  "I did not," he said.

  "And are you glad your wife and her lover are dead?"

  In his heart, Monette instantly said yes. Aloud he said, "I'm relieved. I'm sorry to say that, Father, but considering the mess she made--and how it's apt to work out, with no trial and quiet restitution made out of the insurance money--I am relieved. Is that a sin?"

  "Yes, my son. Sorry to break the news, but it is."

  "Can you give me absolution?"

  "Ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys," the priest said briskly. "The Our Fathers are for lack of charity--a serious sin but not mortal."

  "And the Hail Marys?"

  "Foul language in the confessional. At some point the adultery issue--yours, not hers--needs to be addressed, but now--"

  "You have a lunch date. I understand."

  "In truth, I've lost my appetite for lunch, although I should certainly greet my company. The main thing is, I think I'm a little too...too overwhelmed to go into your so-called road comfort just now."

  "I understand."

  "Good. Now son?"

  "Yes?"

  "Not to belabor the point, but are you sure you didn't give this man permission? Or encourage him in any way? Because then I think we'd be talking mortal sin instead of venial. I'd have to check with my own spiritual advisor to make sure, but--"

  "No, Father. But do you think...is it possible that God put that guy in my car?"

  In his heart, the priest instantly said yes. Aloud he said, "That's blasphemy, good for ten more Our Fathers. I don't know how long you've been outside the doors, but even you should know better. Now do you want to say something else and try for more Hail Marys, or are we done here?"

  "We're done, Father."

  "Then you're shriven, as we say in the trade. Go your way and sin no more. And take care of your daughter, son. Children only have one mother, no matter how she may have behaved."

  "Yes, Father."

  Behind the screen, the form shifted. "Can I ask you one more question?"

  Monette settled back, reluctantly. He wanted to be gone. "Yes."

  "You say the police think they will catch this man."

  "They tell me it's only a matter of time."

  "My question is, do you want the police to catch this man?"

  And because what he really wanted was to be gone and say his atonement in the even more private confessional of his car, Monette said, "Of course I do."

  On his way back home, he added two extra Hail Marys and two extra Our Fathers.

  Ayana

  I didn't think I would ever tell this story. My wife told me not to; she said no one would believe it and I'd only embarrass myself. What she meant, of course, was that it would embarrass her. "What about Ralph and Trudy?" I asked her. "They were there. They saw it, too."

  "Trudy will tell him to keep his mouth shut," Ruth said, "and your brother won't need much persuading."

  This was probably true. Ralph was at that time superintendent of New Hampshire School Administrative Unit 43, and the last thing a Department of Education bureaucrat from a small state wants is to wind up on one of the cable news outlets, in the end-of-the-hour slot reserved for UFOs over Phoenix and coyotes that can count to ten. Besides, a miracle story isn't much good without a miracle worker, and Ayana was gone.

  But now my wife is dead--she had a heart attack while flying to Colorado to help out with our first grandchild and died almost instantly. (Or so the airline people said, but you can't even trust them with your luggage these days.) My brother Ralph is also dead--a stroke while playing in a golden-ager golf tournament--and Trudy is gaga. My father is long gone; if he were still alive, he'd be a centenarian. I'm the last one standing, so I'll tell the story. It is unbelievable, Ruth was right about that, and it means nothing in any case--miracles never do, except to those lucky lunatics who see them everywhere. But it's interesting. And it is true. We all saw it.

  My father was dying of pancreatic cancer. I think you can tell a lot about people by listening to how they speak about that sort of situation (and the fact that I describe cancer as "that sort of situation" probably tells you something about your narrator, who spent his life teaching English to boys and girls whose most serious health problems were acne and sports injuries).

  Ralph said, "He's nearly finished his journey."

  My sister-in-law Trudy said, "He's rife with it." At first I thought she said "He's ripe with it," which struck me as jarringly poetic. I knew it couldn't be right, not from her, but I wanted it to be right.

  Ruth said, "He's down for the count."

  I didn't say, "And may he stay down," but I thought it. Because he suffered. This was twenty-five years ago--1982--and suffering was still an accepted part of end-stage cancer. I remember reading ten or twelve years later that most cancer patients go out silently only because they're too weak to scream. That brought back memories of m
y father's sickroom so strong that I went into the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet bowl, sure I was going to vomit.

  But my father actually died four years later, in 1986. He was in assisted living then, and it wasn't pancreatic cancer that got him, after all. He choked to death on a piece of steak.

  Don "Doc" Gentry and his wife, Bernadette--my mother and father--retired to a suburban home in Ford City, not too far from Pittsburgh. After his wife died, Doc considered moving to Florida, decided he couldn't afford it, and stayed in Pennsylvania. When his cancer was diagnosed, he spent a brief time in the hospital, where he explained again and again that his nickname came from his years as a veterinarian. After he'd explained this to anyone who cared, they sent him home to die, and such family as he had left--Ralph, Trudy, Ruth, and me--came to Ford City to see him out.

  I remember his back bedroom very well. On the wall was a picture of Christ suffering the little children to come unto him. On the floor was a rag rug my mother had made: shades of nauseous green, not one of her better ones. Beside the bed was an IV pole with a Pittsburgh Pirates decal on it. Each day I approached that room with increasing dread, and each day the hours I spent there stretched longer. I remembered Doc sitting on the porch glider when we were growing up in Derby, Connecticut--a can of beer in one hand, a cig in the other, the sleeves of a blinding white T-shirt always turned up twice to reveal the smooth curve of his biceps and the rose tattoo just above his left elbow. He was of a generation that did not feel strange going about in dark blue unfaded jeans--and who called jeans "dungarees." He combed his hair like Elvis and had a slightly dangerous look, like a sailor two drinks into a shore leave that will end badly. He was a tall man who walked like a cat. And I remember a summer street dance in Derby where he and my mother stopped the show, jitterbugging to "Rocket 88" by Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm. Ralph was sixteen then, I think, and I was eleven. We watched our parents with our mouths open, and for the first time I understood that they did it at night, did it with all their clothes off and never thought of us.