The Rabbit Factory: A Novel

  So he rested his forearms on the top rope and drank a little of the water that Henderson gave him, and talked to him, and decided he could go about one more round and that would be it. Whatever they said. This was bullshit and he was tired of it.

  He leaned down to Henderson and gave him the water back and said: “One more round and let’s get our asses out of here. I’m about ready for that steak.”

  “It’s your call, Wayne.”

  When Montesi called time again, Wayne could barely hear it for the yelling. Johnson moved close to him and peppered him with jabs, and Wayne backed up and let him come on. The jabs were landing on his shoulders and his face and he knew his face was getting red. His breath was coming harder and his arms were getting heavy. His forearms were tight and his hands felt cramped. And then some sweat got in his eye and he got caught with a hard right hook on the jaw. It jarred his whole head. As hard a punch as he’d ever felt. He started to turn and jab back but a fluid feeling almost like heat passed across the back of his head. His vision blurred for just a second and he didn’t see the next one coming and didn’t know he was down until the canvas slammed him in the back of the head. Then there was a roaring in his ears and the next thing he saw was the lights overhead tilting and sliding and going out of focus.

  The steak house was dark and had the stuffed heads of longhorns on the walls and on all the tables there were little ruby glasses with candles burning. They were in a back booth and Henderson was sighing with pleasure as he mopped the last cool puddles of porterhouse juice from his plate with the last pieces of his Texas toast. He leaned back against the booth and chewed. The remnants of his wrecked baked potato lay on his plate. And it had been a big one. His salad bowl was full of empty cellophane cracker packs.

  “I don’t know where in the hell you put it,” Wayne said.

  “Hoo,” Henderson said. “Have mercy.”

  Wayne caught the waitress’s eye and held up his beer mug. He was still working on his T-bone, and there was a small nagging pain at the back of his head, but he hadn’t said anything about it. And Henderson hadn’t said anything about him getting knocked out. He was glad for that.

  He picked up his knife again and sawed a few more pieces away from the bone. He reached for the A.1. sauce and dribbled some of it over the steak.

  “What time’s your flight?” he said.

  Henderson had it memorized.

  “Ten-twenty. Flight two thirteen, Northwest. What time you got to catch the bus?”

  “Shit. Eight o’clock. I thought maybe we could ride back to town together but I don’t want you to have to leave early ’cause of me.”

  “I can come on in to town early. We can get some breakfast.”

  Wayne picked up a piece of steak and put it in his mouth. The waitress brought his beer and she was a cutie but not as cute as Anjalee.

  “How you guys doing?” she said. “Can I take that stuff for you?” she said to Henderson.

  “Yes, ma’am. Can I get a piece of that chocolate fudge cake with some vanilla ice cream on it?”

  “He’s a bottomless pie hole,” Wayne told her.

  She laughed and picked up Henderson’s plate and his salad bowl and went away to get his dessert. It was getting on in the evening and people were starting to clear out of the place some. Waitresses were setting up other tables. At the bar the bartender was wiping glasses and telling customers good night as they went out.

  Wayne ate two more bites and then pushed his plate back away from him.

  “I’m about to die,” he said. He picked up his beer and took a sip from it, then set it down and toyed with the handle.

  “Hey, man, I got somethin’ for you,” Henderson said, and reached into his pea coat, which was folded on the seat beside him. He took out an envelope and opened the flap and pulled out a small stack of pictures.

  The waitress brought his cake and ice cream and he looked up and said Thank you ma’am and she went away. He was going through the pictures, looking at all of them, taking his time. Finally he picked one out and handed it across.

  “Look here, man. This is my baby. I ain’t gonna give you a picture of me. I’m gonna give you a picture of her. And you stick it in your wallet or whatever. I don’t know when I may see you again.”

  Wayne took it and turned it around so he could look at it. She was sitting up on what looked like a piece of carpet and she had white barrettes in her hair and she was smiling a big smile for the camera. She looked like she was about two years old. Then the vision of her blurred. Just for a moment. But there was no pain. And then his vision was clear again. It hit him that the smart thing was to go to the hospital. Now. Tonight.

  “Okay, man. Thanks. If you’re ever in Bowling Green, Ohio, say, twenty years from now, come by and look me up.”

  They dawdled, talked. Henderson started in on his cake and ice cream. He never did tell him anything about Anjalee. It just didn’t seem to be the right time. Maybe it never would be. And he could always go home. There were some people who would be more than glad to take care of him for a while up there in Ohio. Yeah, but…

  88

  Penelope loved Merlot’s house at first sight. It was down on North Fourteenth, a quiet, narrow street where it looked like there wouldn’t be very much traffic. Probably a good place to raise a kid. They could ride bicycles. There were big trees all up and down it, but of course they didn’t have any leaves on them now. Merlot had said that his backyard was very shady in the summer and a cool place to hang out on a hammock and read and listen to the radio and cook out on weekends and the long summer evenings after school was over each May.

  The house itself sat back from the street with a small yard and a railed porch and a high peak on the left, old timey looking, blue with red trim, with that gingerbread-looking stuff on the front. It had a tall brick chimney with sharp stones set in the top of it, like teeth. Seemed like he’d said it had been built in 1948 but was solid, no termites in the foundation.

  He pulled into the black drive next to a silver car and shut off the Toyota. He opened the door and the light came on.

  “Well, this is it,” he said. He looked a little worried, and she’d noticed that the closer they’d gotten to town, the less he’d said. He had something on his mind and she wondered if it was because she was over here.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Whose car’s that?”

  “That’s Marla’s. The lady I told you about.”

  “She house-sits for you when you’re gone, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and pulled the key out of the ignition because it was making that particularly irritating Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! noise.

  “Thanks for doing that,” she said, and unstrapped her seat belt.

  “Should I bring my stuff on in?”

  “Whatever you want to do,” he said.

  She waited a moment.

  “Well. I guess what I was wondering was if I was going to spend the night.”

  “Spend the night?” he said.

  What was up with him? He was acting like half the people she stopped. Nervous.

  “Well. Unless you don’t want me to. But I guess you’ll have to take me home if I don’t. I’m not going to sleep on the porch, baby, it’s cold out here. Are you okay with this?”

  Merlot nodded rapidly and fiddled with the keys.

  “Sure I’m okay. You can spend the night if you want to, I mean it’s fine with me.”

  Only thing, it didn’t seem fine with him. It seemed like he was just saying that. She wondered what the reason was. She poked his arm playfully.

  “What? Are you afraid your house sitter won’t approve?”

  “Are you kidding?” he said, and unstrapped his own seat belt.

  “She’s a semiretired nympho.”

  She got out and reached for her little bag she’d packed in Natchez that had just a few things in it, her gun and a toothbrush and some underwear, and a gown in case she stayed. And she couldn’t think of an
y reason she wouldn’t. He was hers now. Wasn’t he? But there seemed to be something else on his mind. He looked like he was wanting to say something.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “I hate to say anything.”

  “Go ahead, baby.”

  He rubbed his chin.

  “Well. It’s just that gun. I didn’t have guns in my house when I grew up and they kind of make me nervous. Is it loaded?”

  “Yeah. You want me to unload it?”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “You’re mighty welcome. I’ll do it when we get inside if it makes you nervous. I just carry it out of habit.”

  “I know.”

  Merlot opened the door on his side and reached in for his stuff, got the straps over his shoulders, and closed the door. When Penelope walked back around in front of the hood, she could see some curtains hanging in one of the side windows, and past that there was a glimpse of a tall floor lamp and shelves of books. He was waiting for her in the dead grass of the yard but she saw that there was a little brick path. She looked up. There was a wispy trail of smoke coming from the narrow chimney.

  “You got a fireplace, huh?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s nice on cold winter nights like tonight.”

  She walked up next to him and kissed him and put her hand around his shoulder. When she pulled back, she was still very close to his face.

  “Is everything all right?” she said, and looked into his eyes.

  But he wouldn’t make very much eye contact with her.

  “Sure. Come on in and meet Marla.”

  “Okay.”

  She followed him up the walk and turned a tiny curve and went up the two steps to the porch. There was a swing with stuffed pillows.

  “Oh and you got a swing!” she said. “My mamaw’s still got one. I grew up swinging on a swing.”

  There was a screen door and he opened it and tried the knob on the door and it opened.

  “Hey, Marla! It’s me,” he said, going in, turning back to her for a moment to say: “Oh yeah. I sit on that swing and grade papers whenever it’s warm outside.”

  She held the screen door away from his back so that he could get in with his bags and she was looking around as she went in. There was a room to the left and she could see a nice black television and a stereo system against a wall that held lots of CDs on shelves. A couch and a long coffee table. The hall was wide and well lit and there was a coat tree with several coats on it, one of them a long flowery number with spotted white fur on the cuffs.

  “Come on in,” he said, and walked into the room on the right where his office was. There was a walnut desk with a computer and papers and books on it and the walls were filled with books on shelves but there was also a stuffed black fabric love seat and matching chair along with a glass coffee table where a tall vase of flowers was sitting. A crystal ashtray. An Ole Miss flag on one wall. Pictures in frames of some people she didn’t know. Even a picture of a dog. A boxer. And his house smelled good, like recent air freshener.

  “This is so nice,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  He dropped his stuff on the love seat and somebody at the back of the house spoke his name.

  “It’s me, Marla,” he called, and he started taking off his coat.

  She set her little bag on the coffee table and unzipped her coat. Just as she was coming out of it, footsteps came up the hall and a tall older woman walked into the room. Who once had probably been gorgeous. She had black hair that you could tell was dyed just because of her age, which had to be around seventy or somewhere. She was wearing a lot of makeup and a green gown with a high collar. And she had long black fingernails. But she had a nice smile and Penelope liked her right away. She came forward just as Penelope was putting her coat down next to his on the love seat.

  “You must be Penelope,” she said. “I’m Marla and I’ve been just dying to meet you.”

  “Hi,” Penelope said, and held her hand out, but was surprised when the woman threw her arms around both her shoulders and laid her cheek against her. The old lady was very skinny but very strong. Penelope wasn’t weak herself, and could manhandle a lot of men, and had had to do it more than once, but the old lady’s grip was like a bear hug, tight, powerful, sincere.

  Then she pulled back and looked at Penelope with that steady, strong smile. She had faint red eyebrows.

  “Welcome,” she said. “Merlot’s told me so much about you.” She turned her head to him for just a moment. “How are you, Merlot?”

  “I’m doing pretty good, I guess,” he said, and he still looked kind of worried or uncertain or scared or something Penelope couldn’t quite decide on. “How’s everything been around here?”

  “Kind of shitty if you know what I mean,” the old lady said, then stepped back. “Well. I must be off. It’s very nice to meet you, Penelope, and I hope you enjoy your stay. There’s cold beer in the fridge and a bottle of wine that’s been opened is on the kitchen counter. I set out some glasses. You’re almost out of laundry detergent, Merlot. ’Bye.”

  And she turned and walked over to the coat tree and pulled off the long one with the spotted cuffs and put it on and buttoned it rapidly while smiling steadily and happily and wrapped a scarf over her head and gave a quick wave and was out the door. Penelope looked at Merlot. He was acting really nervous now. Didn’t want to look her in the eye. Kind of shitty? He was shifting around like he didn’t know what to do with his hands and he took a couple of steps one way and then he stopped and looked toward the back and came over to Penelope. Outside, the car started and left.

  “Come on in the living room,” he said. “Well. Come on in the kitchen. Maybe we should go back there first.”

  “A glass of wine would be great,” Penelope said. “I want to see your whole house.”

  He gave her that look again. Then he nodded.

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Right this way.”

  Down the hall there were several Monet prints that had been framed and matted at no small cost. A wide pot about four feet tall whose neck narrowed near the top like a beehive held painted cattails and reeds, odd thin sticks of driftwood, a peacock feather. There was a closed door on the left and an open door on the right that showed a neat bathroom, towels hung on racks, a glass shower door in a clean chrome frame. But she noticed that the hall floor itself was very badly scratched. And there was a bit of a bad odor in the air right here.

  “I just love your house,” she said, lingering in the hall, wondering what was behind the closed door, wondering where his bedroom was, wondering what that nasty smell was. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “It’s back here,” he said. “I’m glad you like it. Come on.”

  She turned and pointed back to the closed door.

  “What’s that room there?”

  Merlot stood there for a second and looked at the closed door.

  “That’s the other bedroom,” he said. “I don’t sleep in there. Come on and I’ll get you that wine.”

  And he turned and walked on down the hall. She followed him. Maybe it was full of junk. Everybody had junk. He was standing back, facing her now in the hall.

  “Here’s my bedroom,” he said. He reached inside the door and flipped the switch and the lights came on. He stood aside so she could look in.

  “Wow. Very nice,” she said.

  There was a king-size bed with thick posts and a high headboard and a white knitted spread that filled up most of the room, and there was another television on a shelf with books and pictures of more people she didn’t know. A tall bedside table with a phone and a lamp. One reading chair with a lamp over it. On the dresser a small colorful globe of the world.

  “I like it,” he said. “You can watch television in bed. Or grade papers. Kitchen’s back here.”

  She liked it, too. She looked at it from beside the back door. It wasn’t big but it was very functional. It had gray marble counters
a knife wouldn’t scratch and there were plenty of cabinets and an old gas Chambers stove. You could do plenty of cooking on that baby. And once you walked in past the off-white refrigerator it was kind of small, but the white cabinets with their brass pulls wrapped around the dark green tiles on the floor so that there was a cozy enclosed space where you could sit on one of the three high stools and talk to somebody and have a glass of wine while they were making the roux and quartering lemons and getting the water ready to boil for the shrimp. She rubbed her hand on the marble top. There was a wide window with lace-trimmed curtains over the sink.