Hap and Leonard

  “You know better than that,” I said. “Well, you’re right about the pussy part and life and all that. But you know what I mean. I’m trustworthy.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still a little jealous.”

  We had our coffee, then we got a few things together for Leonard. Toothbrush and toothpaste. Deodorant. Axe handle from the closet. A small handgun. That kind of stuff.

  “Be sure and not shoot anyone,” I said.

  “Gotcha,” Leonard said, got his keys, and drove his car away. I watched from the kitchen window until he was out of sight.

  “He gone?” Brett asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Great,” she said. “Let’s screw like mongooses.”

  We screwed like mongooses and one extra beaver and a water snake, and then lay in bed and watched TV. We watched Orpheus Rising on some movie channel. I wanted a cool jacket like Marlon Brando wore in that movie. I knew I’d never have one. Besides, I didn’t have anything against reptiles, and it was supposed to be made out of them.

  When the movie wrapped, another came on, and we watched part of that, but it wasn’t much, and we gave it up. I had a book to read and Brett had a biography. We stacked pillows behind us and lay there nude and read. It was one of our favorite things to do, following the whole mongoose thing, which got number-one rating.

  Three hours or so later, feeling lazy, I lay down and dozed. Brett woke me, freshly showered, dressed in blue jeans and a blue top, tennis shoes on her feet.

  “Baby,” she said, “you’re taking me out. Get up and shower.”

  I got up and showered, dressed, and we drove into town to a Mexican restaurant that served a good steak, better than average tacos, tamales, and the usual rice and beans, and so far no stomach poisoning. When it comes to good eats, nothing beats Mexican food, though Japanese is close. Sometimes I eat meat, I think about the poor cows, and then I think since I ate them, I might as well wear leather too. No use letting a discarded cow suit go to waste. But I wished I could just eat lettuce and tomatoes and tofu. Doesn’t work for me, though. I get sick. Hypoglycemia. I think about a lot of things on a full stomach. It’s easier to think about not eating something anymore when you just ate it.

  When we got back to the house, Brett pulled on the big loose shirt she had been wearing earlier in the day and, as a treat to me, left off the panties. I pulled on my pajama bottoms as a treat to her, and a loose T-shirt, and climbed in bed. This was my favorite kind of day. Lazy.

  I said, “You said you were jealous earlier, of Sharon Devon. You weren’t serious, were you?”

  “A little,” she said.

  “I’ve never known you to be jealous.”

  “I didn’t think I was. I guess it’s because I want to see this arrangement as permanent.”

  “I already saw it that way.”

  “I did too, but you know, there were doubts in the back of my mind.”

  “Because we’re not married?”

  “That was there in an old-fashioned way,” she said. “But I don’t think that really matters. Not really.”

  “But it is a braver commitment, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Look, honey,” I said. “I want to be with you. I’ll keep it like it is, or I’ll marry you. Whatever, baby. It’s you and me.”

  “You once said something to me about having kids.”

  “I was just in a mood.”

  “I think you meant it.”

  “I did mean it. But, you pointed out what should have been obvious to me; we’re a little too old.”

  “I’m younger than you,” she said.

  “Everyone thinks you’re twenty years younger,” I said. “And you look it. Pretty soon they’ll be thinking I’m your grandpa.”

  “That could happen,” she said. “But, just in case. I looked into fertilization drugs, you know, to see. Case I might need them.”

  “I wouldn’t want to have a kid just because you think I want one,” I said.

  “I know that.”

  “You are a mother, but I’ve never been a father. I figure I don’t become one, that might even be best.”

  “You do know things would change,” she said.

  I nodded. “I know. And what worries me is—”

  “You don’t know if you can really change.”

  “I been trying so long now, that I’m starting to think the trying and not doing it is as much a part of who I am as what I actually end up doing. Which seems to be hitting people in the head, shooting people—”

  “And being their rescuer. Hap Collins, have I ever told you that all your doubts about yourself are none of my doubts? That I worry about you using my toothbrush instead of yours, and you sometimes pee on the floor, but as far as your worth as a person, even if you have done some things you consider dark, they do not faze me or concern me at all. Except if we have kids. And it’s not about what you’re doing, but about what it could do to a child.”

  “I wouldn’t want him or her to grow up like me,” I said.

  “I would want them to have your integrity,” she said.

  I started to say something, but it was like a fist was in my throat.

  “Let’s read,” Brett said.

  We read a long while, watched the late movie, and then we did the mongoose thing again before going to bed.

  When I woke up the next morning, it was to a knock on the bedroom door. I sat up. Brett was gone. Off to the hospital to nurse someone. Since I was upstairs in our bed, I opened my drawer and took out my revolver and lay back against my pillows.

  I said, “Who is it?”

  “Marvin.”

  “Come in.”

  Marvin opened the door. He hobbled in on his cane and found a chair in the corner.

  “How’d you get in?”

  “You gave me an emergency key, remember?”

  “Is this an emergency?”

  “No. But I thought I’d take advantage of my key ownership and see if I could get some coffee. It’s nine already.”

  I put the revolver in the nightstand drawer and pulled off the sheets and got out of bed, forgetting I hadn’t replaced my pajamas after mine and Brett’s mongoose moment last night.

  Marvin said, “Oh, the humanity.”

  Downstairs, with my pajama bottoms on, as well as a top, I started the coffee pot. I said, “You don’t have coffee at your house? The office?”

  “Actually, I forgot to buy coffee for either place. Wife is mad at me.”

  “Coffee is like a goddamn staple,” I said. “You don’t forget that. That’s just wrong.”

  “What my wife told me.”

  “So, what’s up besides you being here drinking my coffee?” I said.

  “Talked to some cop friends. They said Mrs. Devon reported her husband beating a boyfriend up, and the boyfriend, though he looked like he had been through a meat grinder, wouldn’t press charges. Told them he got that way falling down. They didn’t have proof otherwise. They think his masculine ego was harmed and he didn’t want to harm it any more by admitting he got his ass beat like a bongo drum.”

  “So, do the cops believe her ex is bothering her?” I asked.

  “They do, but they can’t spend all their time waiting for him to show up.”

  “Course, if he shows up and kills her, they can put their time into that,” I said.

  “Well, they’ll have a pretty good idea who did it. At least solving it will be easy enough.”

  “There’s that,” I said.

  “Here’s the thing, though. They told me if he bothers her, and you’re there, don’t mess him up too bad, ’cause then you’ll be up a creek.”

  “They know we’re watching?”

  “Not officially, just my contact at the cop shop. He knows, and he’s not telling. But, you mess this guy up too bad, they’ll have to look around, and you two may come up in the investigation.”

  “What’s the world coming to that you can’t just give a good old-fashioned ass-whippin
g anymore?”

  “He’s doing what they think he’s doing, they want you to whip his ass, just not so much he can make a good stink. If you can find him some place other than her place, that would be best.”

  “May not get to choose,” I said.

  About noon I drove over to Mrs. Devon’s house, and parked in the back behind the garage, next to Leonard’s car. We weren’t being wide open about what we were doing, but we weren’t being sneaky either. Sometimes a stalker isn’t a full-blown nut, and just the presence of someone who might embarrass them, or put a stop to their actions, can end the matter.

  Other times, however, it’s worse than that, and what it takes is kicking their asses up under their hairline. Then, sometimes that’s not enough. This situation was wide open.

  I had been inside the house about five minutes, drinking a cup of coffee offered to me by Mrs. Devon.

  I was sitting at the table with her and Leonard and the axe handle, which I had named Agnes.

  She said, “Really. I don’t want him hurt. I think you should just talk to him.”

  “That’s the plan,” I said. “This is just to dissuade six feet and three hundred pounds, if the need should arise.”

  “I really don’t think it will come to that,” she said.

  I thought she was sounding a lot more confident today. Maybe it was just a good night’s sleep.

  The doorbell rang.

  Mrs. Devon looked at me and Leonard, and we looked at each other. I got up and went to the door and looked through the little square of glass. There was a guy there. He wasn’t big. He was carrying a briefcase. I didn’t take him to be Mr. Devon.

  I opened the door. The man looked at me in a kind of stunned manner. “Is Mrs. Devon in?” he asked.

  “Who’s asking?” I said.

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Devon said, came over, opened the door wider, unlatched the screen, and let the man in. “This is my lawyer, Frank Givens.”

  She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and led him into the house and to the table, where he took a seat. I locked the screen back, and then the main door. I sat down in front of my coffee again. Givens was staring at Agnes lying on the table.

  “I hope I’m not in the way, Sharon,” Givens said.

  “Of course not,” she said. “This is Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. They are protecting me.”

  “Has Henry come back?” Givens asked.

  “Not yet,” she said. “And if he does, my friends here hope to encourage him to leave.”

  “Being a lawyer I don’t know exactly what to say to that.”

  “We just want to talk to him some,” Leonard said. “We can explain someone’s position real good, we take a mind to.”

  “I bet you can,” he said.

  “They do look like gentlemen who can take care of themselves,” Mrs. Devon said, “but then again, Henry is someone who can take care of himself as well.”

  “Yeah, but there’s two of us,” I said.

  “And we have an axe handle,” Leonard said.

  “Its name is Agnes,” I said.

  “Have you seen him yet?” Givens asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Have you seen those old stills from the silent movie about the Golem?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But if I haven’t, I get the idea.”

  “Thing is, he really wants Sharon back,” the lawyer said. “Not because he loves her, but because he wants her back. He thinks he owns her.”

  “Me and Henry were all right for awhile,” she said. “I just made a big mistake.”

  “How long have you been married?” I asked.

  “About . . . what is it, Frank?”

  Frank looked as if the answer soured his stomach. “Almost four years.”

  She patted Frank, the lawyer, on the arm, said, “Me and Frank, we were married once.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “That was some years ago.”

  I looked at Frank. The look on his face made me feel that he might not think it had been that long ago.

  “We were married young,” Mrs. Devon said. “We got along fine, but the fire played out. And then I was on my own for awhile, a few years ago I met Henry. He was interesting. Worked in the oil business, and then the business played out, and so did we. I know that sounds terrible. Like it was the money. And maybe it was. We had a nice place, not like here. . . . Oh, I guess this is all right. But we had a nice place, and then the money was gone—”

  “And the fire went out,” I said.

  “Are you being judgmental?” she asked.

  “Quoting you,” I said.

  “You aren’t paying us enough to be judgmental,” Leonard said.

  “Please be respectful,” Givens said.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “I’m just saying the fire went out for you, but not for him. I can see you’re a woman that could have that effect on someone.”

  She smiled at me. “You think so?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  She looked at Leonard and smiled. “What do you think?”

  “I think heterosexual stuff is confusing to me. I like what men have in their pants, not women.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

  “That bother you?” Leonard said.

  “No. No. Not at all. I just didn’t know. I mean, you look so masculine . . . I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Yeah you did,” Leonard said, “but it’s all right. Look. The gay folk who fit your idea of gay folk are the ones that stand out. We come from both ends of the spectrum. Some of us even learn how to have sex with heterosexuals and fake a happy orgasm. Mostly those guys are preachers and politicians. Me, I’m a tough guy. Even us queers can make a fist. End of story.”

  “I assure you, I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said. “You come highly recommended. The both of you.”

  Looking at Mrs. Devon I had an idea then why Jim Bob wanted us to do this job. He probably still had the hots for her. She wasn’t only good-looking, it was the way she talked, the voice, the way her eyes half-closed when she was serious. I even felt a little sorry for Henry then, and Frank Givens the lawyer. I felt like she was a woman that could tell you a sincere lie.

  “I can see you’re well protected by these gentlemen,” Givens said. “That being the case, I’ll get right down to business. I have the divorce papers with me. They’re all set. He’s contesting the divorce, but at this stage, there’s nothing he can do to keep you from going through with it. All you need to do is sign.”

  “But he can be a pain in my ass,” she said.

  “That he can, Sharon,” Givens said.

  We left Givens and Mrs. Devon, who we had been told to call Sharon, sitting at the table discussing divorce plans. Me and Leonard went out in the backyard and stood around.

  “How about that, Givens is her ex-husband,” I said.

  “And he still loves her,” Leonard said. “And she doesn’t even know it.”

  “Oh, she knows it all right,” I said. “I think she’s something of a manipulator.”

  “Starting to doubt her stories about hubby?”

  “Not necessarily. I’m just saying she’s manipulative. I think she’s using Givens to get the kind of deal she wants for very little money. And she might be feeding him a little possibility, if you know what I mean.”

  “A chance to rekindle the fire.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do we stick with it?” Leonard said.

  “So far we don’t know things are any different than what she says. But I do have the feeling I’m in a play. A bit actor.”

  “I know what you mean,” Leonard said. “I feel a little played in some way, and I don’t even know what it is. But we’re getting paid.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “There’s that.”

  “Goes on too long we might have to ask for more money.”

  I nodded.

  “But, if she doesn’t offer us any more, an
d we haven’t discouraged her hubby—”

  “We’ll stay anyway,” I said.

  “Yep,” Leonard said. “It’s our way. It’s not a good way, but it’s the honorable way.”

  “And it’s just about all we got.”

  “Our honor?”

  “No. Our way.”

  What we decided was Leonard would stay at the house, as originally planned, and I would try and locate the husband. If I could catch him leaving his place, lurking around Sharon’s house, as soon as he acted like a threat, then I’d go after him. Probably after I called Leonard for reinforcements. We’re tough, but we’re not stupid. Double-teaming would be the best system. That way, we could possibly convince Henry the better part of being an asshole was staying at home and minding his own business, letting Sharon go her own path.

  Sounded and seemed simple enough.

  I had an address for him, and me and Agnes went over there and sat on a hill that looked down a wooded lane. I could see his driveway from there. I sat for a moment and got my shit together, then drove down and past his house and took a look.

  The house was pretty nice, but it wasn’t well attended. I could understand that. I hated yard work. The front yard was grown up and the trees needed trimming, and it stood out because the houses on either side of his were out of House Beautiful.

  He had an open carport, and in the carport was a not too old Chevy truck. I drove to the end of the street, to the dead end there, turned around, and went back up and sat at the top of the hill. Up there the neighborhood changed, and was not so nice. I parked in the lot of an abandoned laundromat. There were other cars there. It had become a parking spot for the chicken-processing plant on the far side of the highway that broke Haven Street, the street Henry lived on.

  I had a good view from my parking spot, and nothing was going on down below. I wondered if Henry had a job now that the oil had played out. I wondered if he had money. I wondered if he was as big as they said. I wondered why I was doing this.

  I had a CD player with me, and I listened to a CD Leonard had given me, Iris DeMent. It was good stuff. A few years back I wouldn’t have listened to it. When I was young I associated country with ignorance and backwoods. The music still carried some of that with it, but no more than what a lot of rap carried with it; when it was ignorant, it was urban ignorant. It always depended on who was doing it, and how it was done. I was thinking about that as seriously as if I were going to write a paper on it, when the house I was watching moved. Well, the door did. I saw a man big enough to eat the balls off a bear while it was alive and make it hold its paw against the wound walk out to the mailbox, open the lid, and yank out some mail. He was so big I was surprised he could get his hand in there. Frankly, I didn’t know people could grow that big. He may have been six-five or six-six, but in that moment he looked seven-six. His shoulders were just a little wider than a beer truck and he was about as thick the other way as City Hall.