Bad Man

  “Here!” Ben shouted, and flung the first aid kit from the second story. It smashed against the ground, sending its contents skidding across the concrete. “Help is coming!”

  Ben limped down the stairs.

  “Marty?” Ben’s voice cracked. But Marty didn’t answer. His face was white and lifeless.

  Frank held a roll of gauze in his shaking hands. The shirt he’d wrapped around Marty’s throat had soaked up a lot of blood.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Frank whimpered. The fabric sagged impotently. It was a sponge and nothing more, nothing that would help.

  Ben tried to tighten the slack and Marty’s head slumped. Frank made a noise like a nest of cockroaches had just scurried over his hands. Leaning, Ben lowered his ear to Marty’s chest, but he couldn’t hear Marty’s heartbeat over his own. Ben left his head there so he could pretend he was doing something. After about a minute he sat up.

  Frank and Ben sat silently. Ben tried to find a pulse in Marty’s wrist but wasn’t sure if he was feeling in the right spot. Frank held Marty’s head in his lap. Marty’s chin was red with blood and slouched against his chest. The rest of the boy’s face had no color at all. The baler hissed, its pneumatics resetting.

  They waited for what felt like much too long before the Receiving doors burst inward.

  Two men rushed into the room. Before Ben could say anything, the EMTs were shooing Frank and Ben away. They issued commands to each other that Ben didn’t understand.

  Frank had scooted backward. Now he sat awkwardly on the floor, wiping the blood from his hands onto his pants with a lightless look in his eyes.

  “Is he alive?” Ben asked the paramedics. The men continued talking between themselves, frantically swarming around and over Marty. Finally, they lifted his body and placed it on a gurney. They hurried back through the swinging doors. Once again Ben and Frank were alone.

  “He’s gonna be alright,” Ben said. Frank didn’t reply.

  Ben felt his vision blur as he stared at the baler. The red-tipped wire was still. Whatever menace Ben thought he might have felt was gone, like it had been discharged.

  Legs shaking, he walked toward the machine. He moved his fingers over the symbol that had been carved into the metal, relieved and nauseated that he hadn’t imagined it. Then he let his feet carry him out of the back room.

  There were no flashing lights. The ambulance was long gone. That was a good thing. It had all happened so quickly that Ben couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the paramedics had never come at all. That Marty was still back there on the floor. Had Ben even called for help? What were they supposed to do now? Finish the truck? Ben looked at his feet, looked at the blood he’d tracked onto the tile. He followed the trail back through the double doors.

  Frank hadn’t moved. Still sitting on his feet, he rested the backs of his hands on his thighs. He seemed to be staring at the blood that shimmered on the concrete. At the edge of the dark pool was a Zippo. It must have fallen out of Marty’s pocket while he kicked. Ben slid it away from the mess with his foot, then picked it up. He wiped it against his pants, then tucked it into his pocket.

  “Are you okay?” Ben asked. Frank nodded.

  It took just a few more minutes for the police to arrive. A deputy by the name of Green confirmed that Marty had been taken to the hospital, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t comment on his condition. Green didn’t do much of anything. He seemed to be waiting for someone, and it wasn’t long before Ben saw who.

  One of the doors swept inward, and Lieutenant James Duchaine walked into the room. He shot Ben a passing glance, then turned to his deputy. They exchanged quiet words.

  Duchaine’s black boots clunked against the hard floor as he walked. “You okay, son?” he asked Frank. He repeated himself when Frank didn’t answer, then asked Frank his name, asked him if he knew Bill Palmer’s phone number.

  “Nosir…but it’s wrote down on a sheet somewhere in Customer Service.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Can you stand? Why don’t you go with Deputy Green here and get it? Someone’s gonna have to give him a call.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Duchaine squatted in order to move closer to Frank. He tried to coax him away from the blood. Out of the room. Back to coherence. Turning his head to meet Ben’s gaze, Duchaine asked for help in getting Frank to his feet. He began asking about the accident, directing most of his questions to Frank but accepting answers from Ben when they weren’t forthcoming.

  Even though Ben could see the value in what the man was doing, watching Duchaine deviate from the usual script of their short conversations made his jaw clench. Duchaine seemed engaged now. It seemed like he cared, like Ben wasn’t wasting his time. He kept asking about the accident, about how the wire snapped. Had it ever snapped before? Where was Marty standing? Where was everyone else? He seemed so interested. Ben looked to Frank, but Frank could only shrug his shoulders while tears welled in his eyes.

  Ben tried to respond intelligently to Duchaine’s inquiries, but all he managed to mutter was that a wire broke, which the officer already knew. What more was there to say? Why was Duchaine so engrossed in an industrial accident, of all things? The officer rephrased his question, and the sides of his lips turned up. For all Ben knew, the smile was meant to be comforting, but suddenly Ben was picturing Duchaine’s office, picturing that same stupid and handsome grin on the other end of the phone. Ben could hear him chuckling. Call from who? About Eric? He felt words filling up his own mouth like vomit.

  “Son,” Duchaine huffed in annoyance, “I just need you to answer my questions so we can figure out exactly what happened here.”

  “Wouldn’t that be somethin,” Ben snapped.

  Duchaine flashed another, now vaguely frustrated smile and tapped pen to pad. He was silent for a moment before continuing. “We can talk about Eric. I got no problem with that at all. But first we need to talk about that.” He pointed to the blood that still glistened on the concrete floor. Ben turned but quickly looked away.

  Duchaine waited another moment, then added quietly, “Everyone’s gonna say this lands on you boys. That this wasn’t on them or their equipment. Bill Palmer’s gonna blame you three. If he blames the machine, then whoever made that thing is gonna blame the three of you. The company that owns this store is gonna blame you. The maker of them wires is gonna be pointing at whoever tied it. Do you see what I’m sayin? No matter what, this is gonna bounce back. It always does.

  “I need this all wrote down in its full account. You understand? So that when it does bounce back there’s a piece of paper sayin, ‘Nosir, this ain’t on them boys.’ ” Duchaine lowered his voice and asked, “You wanna tell me off, or you wanna help your friend?”

  Ben answered Duchaine’s questions. Some of them seemed the same as earlier questions, just phrased a bit differently. But Ben still answered. Deputy Green walked Frank out of the room, presumably down to Customer Service to locate Palmer’s phone number.

  “Now, you were sayin something about some markings?” Duchaine asked.

  Ben walked the man over to the machine and gestured at the symbol scraped into its side. “That mean anything to you?” he asked.

  Duchaine leaned forward and seemed to study the shape intently. “It mean anything to you?”

  Ben shook his head.

  “Was you lookin at this when the accident happened? Distracted?”

  “No. Nosir,” Ben said, butterflies in his gut. “No, I seen it sometime before.”

  “So it’s got nothin to do with what happened here then.” Duchaine grunted. “Ben, whatever you might think of me or the kind of job I do,” he said, turning back toward the markings, “I can’t do it very well if people don’t talk to me.”

  Ben didn’t respond.

  “Anyway,” Duchaine said, standing straight, “from what you’ve told me h
ere, everything with this machine and that bale went normal and then the wire just popped. That sound accurate to you?”

  Frank reentered the room, and the officer escorting him nodded to Duchaine. Frank looked lost. Blood was caked on his hands like a dry riverbed, and some had smeared on his face and glasses.

  “Green, make sure to get pictures of that wire, wouldja?” Duchaine said. “The wire and the sides of the machine. Close so you can see all the drawings and such.”

  “It didn’t have nothin to do with…The wire just popped,” Ben said to Duchaine. The camera flash burst as Green took his pictures.

  Ten minutes later, Bill Palmer stormed through the double doors. Ben watched as he made what appeared to be casual conversation with Duchaine. How nice. Maybe they could become friends. Palmer shook his head when Duchaine pointed toward the camera nestled in the far corner of the room. The metal steps sang as Palmer ascended them as rapidly as his portly body could manage. He hardly even looked at Ben, and when he did, it was with annoyance, not worry or remorse.

  Duchaine and Green talked quietly off to the side. Ben tried to speak to Frank, but it was no use. So they just stood there until Palmer lumbered back down the stairs, his eyes trained on Ben.

  “We’ll fax you a copy of the police report,” Green said to Palmer as he approached.

  “The fax machine hasn’t worked for two years. You can bring it to me yourself.” Palmer grabbed Ben’s elbow as he tried to move away. “There are bandages in front of the pharmacy.”

  Ben tore his arm out of Palmer’s grasp, annoyed and embarrassed.

  “Hey,” Palmer spat. Then the thought seemed to leave his mind as he grimaced. “Jesus, what the fuck is that smell.”

  The man followed Ben’s eyeline to the damages shelves.

  “What happened?” a voice cried. Beverly shuffled toward the group. “What happened here?”

  Ben shifted past her and pushed his way through the swinging doors. The time clock rattled as Ben slid his card crooked into the slot, printing the time illegibly along a line. So Ben pushed it in again. Then again. Over and over, until the card was mangled and unreadable, Ben’s knuckles red. He let the gnarled card fall to the ground.

  A frail hand gripped Ben’s arm. “Is he okay?” Beverly asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ben said a little too forcefully. “No. Probably not.”

  “Well, did you see him?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said harshly, exposing the red-stained palms of his hands to the woman, “I seen him. And he didn’t look okay to me. I dunno. I guess it depends on what the big grand plan is.”

  A pained smile moved across her mouth, and as her cheeks contracted, they seemed to squeeze tears out of the corners of her milky eyes. “I reckon it does.” Beverly turned and walked deeper into the store.

  Outside, the black sky had only just begun to give way to daylight. To Ben’s right, Frank sat quietly in one of the plastic chairs.

  “If we’d have made a bale before, when Marty said. Even the other day…”

  “This ain’t cuz of you,” Ben said. “I…it was my fault. I wasn’t payin attention. I saw…I should’ve…I kept holdin the button down.”

  “He wasn’t breathin. He wasn’t movin at all, man. What took you so long up there?” Frank tried to scratch some of the blood off his glasses with his fingernail and then gave up. “I’m gonna catch the six fifteen up to the hospital.”

  Ben checked his watch. “My pop will be driving by ’fore long. He won’t know what to make of all this. You can ride with us.”

  “That’s okay,” Frank said, standing. “I ain’t in no kinda hurry now.”

  “I’m sorry that it took me so long. I moved as fast as I could, faster when I heard you hollerin.”

  “Hollerin?” Frank turned his head, his eyes squinting with uncertainty.

  “When I was upstairs.”

  Frank shook his head softly as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “I don’t think I did.”

  Ben was going to argue the point, but instead he watched Frank walk away. Flashes from the previous hours kept looping in Ben’s brain. He couldn’t stop seeing Marty’s face. But Ben had seen other things, hadn’t he? Things seen in a blur as he tore through Palmer’s office. Things that hadn’t truly registered until he could spare the attention.

  When Ben asked if he could watch the other security tapes, Bill Palmer said there weren’t any.

  So why were there tapes in his filing cabinet?

  And what was on them?

  27

  Ben hung up the phone and turned toward his closet. Tucked back on the top shelf was a suitcase. It had been given to him by his grandfather when Ben was just a boy. The maroon leather was dark and smooth, bound to the stiff shell by a line of brass rivets that were only visible if the case was open and elevated. When it was new, the matching interior hinges were so polished and shiny they seemed to emit their own light.

  Ben’s grandfather had purchased the three-piece set from Montgomery Ward for eighty dollars in 1949. It was a gift to Ben’s grandmother, meant to symbolize that they were finished moving on the military’s itinerary. These were their bags; where and when they went was wholly up to them now.

  The pieces fit inside one another like nesting dolls, and when the couple came to visit Ben and his mother and father, for whatever reason children take to things, Ben took to the matching suitcases. At least once a day, they’d find Ben in their room playing with the brass draw bolts, amazed at how, with just one tease of the latch, the loop would become free and the trunk would spring open.

  When they returned the next year, Ben’s grandfather brought the third part of the set. Identical in design to the other two pieces, this one was much smaller, only a little bit bigger than a shoe box. Ben’s eyes lit up when he saw it, and he immediately set to finding things of his to pack in it. For a while, he brought the suitcase with him on any outings the family took, full of all the necessary toys and crayons to get him through the day.

  As the years wore on, Ben’s grandparents visited less and less, until they hardly came at all anymore. Each year was the year, each holiday the holiday, but they never came. Finally, and to Ben’s astonishment, he and his baby brother were getting in the car and going to see them, even though it wasn’t a holiday. It was supposed to be a surprise.

  Ben tried to get Eric excited about meeting his grandparents, but the boy had no reference for what grandparents were. They played slaps in the backseat while their parents murmured to each other in the front. The rest of the long drive was passed with quiet dreams.

  When they arrived, the fighting began almost immediately. Ben’s father exchanged shouts with his own father, while Deidra tended to the horrible state of disrepair the home had fallen into. Ben saw his grandmother only once that trip. She lay supine in bed, frail and broken, already half a ghost. Ben didn’t understand. She’d been sick for so long, it was just a part of who she was. Before Ben left, he told her that he hoped she felt better soon.

  The next time Ben saw his grandmother was just a few weeks later. She looked more peaceful then, sleeping on white sheets, surrounded by the flowers arranged around her casket. There were no more tremors, no more moans. Ben was sad but didn’t cry. Before they left the funeral home, Ben’s grandfather led him to his car. It was a quiet walk. His grandfather eased open the trunk.

  “I want you to have this,” he said.

  The leather on the suitcase was still as smooth and rich as that on the miniature version Ben had at home. The brass closures were untarnished by use. Ben tried to refuse, but his grandfather simply said, “A suitcase can help you get to where you’re going, but only you can decide where that is, no one else.”

  The two hugged, and Ben realized that he’d get the third piece of the set one day. He could only think of how much he didn’t want it now. It felt so heavy in his hand,
too heavy for him to carry.

  A month later, his grandfather died.

  Eric had bounced around the room as Ben arranged his funeral clothes on the bed. With a heavy sigh, he pulled the dark leather case from his closet and set it beside his folded shirt and suit jacket. He released the latches for the first time since they’d become his. When the lid glided open, Ben could see why the suitcase had been so heavy: there was another one inside it. Sitting on his floor with his back against the mattress, he cried for the first time in years. Not so much for the deaths of his grandparents, but at the thought of a man who knew he wouldn’t need a suitcase anymore.

  Ben put the two larger suitcases back in the closet unused and never touched them again. The small one, however—the one that Ben truly felt was his—sat tucked away on the top shelf.

  Even as Ben got older, the most prized possession of his childhood remained the home for everything he held dear. There were two smooth stones that he had taken from the creek when he and his father went fishing, only to spend most of the time skipping rocks atop the barren water. There was a note that his first and only girlfriend had written him, full of salacious flirtations in the awkward phrasing of inexperience. Some Garbage Pail Kids cards. A silver dollar. The family photo scraps from Eric’s flyer photograph. There were even some trinkets in the suitcase that Ben kept even though he was no longer sure why they were in there. He figured he had nothing to lose by holding on to them in case he remembered one day.

  For a week Ben carried Marty’s lighter in his pocket, as if his friend might just show up to reclaim it. With the suitcase sitting on the edge of his bed, Ben held the lighter in his hand for a moment, before tossing it inside his maroon treasure box. Then, without any thought at all, he plucked up Eric’s defaced flyer and slipped it into his pocket.

  A shadow swept across the wall and Ben closed the lid to his secret box. His father stood in the doorway holding two boxes of candles, weighing them as if his hands were scale platters. Somehow, Ben had forgotten that Eric’s birthday was in two days. He smiled like he was happy.