On the drive home her cellphone rang and it was Harris.
“I just let him go,” he said.
“This isn't about that thing from last year, is it?”
“Come on, Grace.”
“Will you come over?”
“I'm not sure that's a good idea.”
“We'll be alone.”
“Grace,” he said. “Grace Grace Grace.”
“I didn't mean it that way.”
“Okay,” he said.
She drove quickly, she wanted to take a shower before he got there. Maybe she did mean it that way. Except they couldn't—it would be a dirty thing now. She felt herself tear up and blinked her eyes to clear them. Come on, nothing is fair. Don't get in a wreck. Eyes on the prize.
— — —
Twenty minutes later she was home, but no Billy. She undressed and tried to coax the shower into the position where it wasn't scalding and wasn't cold. Two years working at a hardware store, but Billy hadn't learned, or hadn't cared, to fix the faucet. Don't be mad at him now, she thought. But she was. She couldn't help it. Father's son, she thought. Your old mistakes setting up shop. Always knew it would be this way.
She soaped and rinsed quickly with no special attention. She appreciated her life, all the little things. Went out of her way to help others. That was all you were supposed to do—God was supposed to look after the rest. It had all seemed like it would work, Billy had been so close to leaving, so close to being away at college, a new life it would be hard to screw up too badly, but he had chosen to stay. Maybe that meant he had never been close at all. But still it had never made sense to her, he had loved the game, had a chance to keep playing it. Because he wouldn't have been the star, she thought. Because he knew he wouldn't be the big fish. It had to be more complicated than that. Football had given him a direction, something she'd never seen in him, it had made him question and push himself, but as soon as high school ended he was content to return to the way things had been since he was a child. Satisfied with things, satisfied with being taken care of. The same at twenty as he'd been at thirteen. Maybe she had always known.
Even as a toddler he'd been too brave, she could tell the difference between him and the other kids, by the time he was eleven or twelve she was sure of it, she'd come around the side of the house just in time to see him on his bike, barreling full speed down the hill in their yard, going faster and faster heading for the berm by the stream. At first she thought he was out of control but it quickly became clear he was doing it on purpose—the speed carried him up and over the berm and then high into the air over the stream, impossibly high, he let go of the bike midair and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, Billy was on his feet on the opposite side of the water, taking note of his torn shirt, collecting his bike and carefully straightening the handlebars. He crossed back over the stream, carrying the bike now, looking pleased with himself. Please God, she remembered thinking. Please God, look after my son. Meanwhile, Virgil didn't even want to take Billy's bike away. He wanted Billy to like him.
Now she managed to change into a skirt and put her hair up and get a little makeup on. A deep breath and she looked herself over carefully, deciding that with the fading light she looked more like herself. Had she really thought for a second about George Steiner? She took a deep breath. There was no point in giving up yet. Not on her son, anyway.
— — —
When Harris pulled up next to the house she watched him, the way he jumped down from the tall truck, he was over fifty but he moved like a much younger man, the sight of him was comforting.
She went out to the porch.
“Hi,” she said.
She was hoping he might come up and kiss her but he made no move to. He stood at the bottom of the steps. He seemed preoccupied.
“I was hoping to save you some worry,” he said, “getting Billy before the DA got to him.”
“And …”
“It's not good news, Grace, though something tells me you already know it.”
“He came home the other night hurt pretty bad.”
He shook his head. “The other guy got it a lot worse.”
“The homeless man.” She knew it didn't matter if the man was homeless or not, but somehow it felt like it might.
He nodded, looked beyond the trailer at something far in the distance.
“I've always tried to protect him. You know that.”
“Well you can tell them I did it. They can take me instead.”
“Grace. Poor Grace.” He seemed to want to come up the stairs, but didn't.
She crossed her arms, she could feel herself choking up. “I'm serious,” she said.
He finally came up onto the porch; unsure how to comfort her, he stood there. After a short time he opened his arms to hug her but she pushed him in the chest, suddenly she was very angry at him, his awkwardness, she didn't know why but she was.
“I've always done what I can,” he repeated.
“What about Isaac English? He was there with Billy.”
“He's not a suspect and it's better for now if the DA doesn't know about him. I'm going over tomorrow to talk to him.”
“Is Billy being charged?”
“They don't have his name yet, but they will.”
She felt herself fading away from him, like she was receding inside herself, like she was a stranger looking out through her own eyes.
“Like I said—”
“This isn't about you,” she told him.
“Alright, Grace.”
It felt like a pressure building up, she knew she shouldn't say anything but she had to let it out: “Putting in a word with the judge, your fishing buddy, isn't exactly bending over backwards—”
Suddenly he was angry as well. “It was a lot more than a goddamn word. He could have gone up for six, eight years for what he did to that other boy.”
“That boy had a goddamn bayonet, Bud. Off an M16.”
“That boy was on his knees, Grace.”
She glared at him, still didn't know if she was angry or just wanted to seem angry, but he was done with her. He brushed past her and went down the steps and back to his pickup.
“Wait,” she called after him. “I'm sorry.”
He shook his head and got into the truck.
She ran down after him as he closed the door.
“I'm sorry, Bud. I've been going crazy about this all day.”
He seemed not to hear her. After a few seconds he said, “It confuses me sometimes, why I do things for you.”
“I'm sorry.”
“You really have no idea.”
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't mean to be hard to deal with.”
“You know six or seven years ago, right after you and Virgil broke up the umpteenth time, I caught him blowing through a stoplight with Billy in the passenger seat and two big spools of copper wire in the bed that he'd stolen off a job site. Not even under a tarp or anything, just sitting out in the open, four- hundred- pound spools of wire. This is back when they were putting in that industrial park up in Monessen.” He shook his head. “Didn't even bother to put a goddamn tarp over it. So you can imagine what kind of position that put me in.”
“Bud,” she said quietly.
“I'll bet Virgil never told you about that, did he? And of course in hindsight, it might have turned out better for Billy if I'd locked his daddy up right in front of him.”
“I know I made a mistake.”
“That was when I started making phone calls to try to find you something somewhere else.” He looked at her. “That job offer in Philadelphia. Put my neck out and gave you and Billy a chance and you threw it in my face.”
“That wasn't what I was doing.”
He was on the verge of saying something more and she stood there, bracing herself. Instead he started the truck. “Well,” he said. “That's probably enough for tonight.” She stepped up onto the running board and reached through the open window and put her arm over his.
r /> “I didn't want it to go here,” she said. “This isn't why I wanted you to come over.”
“I know Virgil's back.” He seemed frozen in the seat, looking straight ahead out the windshield.
“He's out. He's gone, it didn't even last a day. It's over for good.”
Harris was quiet.
“I want us to go back to the way it was.”
“Not possible,” said Harris.
“We could just try being friends again.”
“Grace.”
“I know how it looks. I don't care.”
“You're definitely right about how it looks.”
“I'll call you.”
He shook his head and lifted her hand off his arm and she stepped off the running board. He turned his truck around and she watched as he disappeared slowly down the road.
8. Poe
It was daylight the next morning when Lee dropped Poe off at his mother's trailer, they said good- bye but he already felt distracted, he walked quickly to his room and changed into his work boots. After that he went down to the field carrying the sneakers he'd been wearing the night the Swede died, the box they'd come in, a can of gasoline. He doused the shoes and set them on fire. Maybe somewhere there was a receipt for them but no, he didn't save those sorts of things. Not that any of it would make any difference, if they had an eyewitness. He wondered if it was Jesús or the other one. There was no point thinking about it, he'd know soon enough.
He stood in the green field, waist- high in the goldenrod, looking out over things. The falling- down gray barn, way off on the far hill, he'd seen an old man go in it a few times, even glassed him through binocs once, but he'd never found out who the old man was. The man would be dead, probably, by the time Poe got out of prison, he would never see that old man again. He didn't even know the man, but it felt like a loss from his life. He wouldn't see the barn in the distance or these rolling hills either because if he went away any length of time his mother would sell the trailer and move. Things were changing right in front of his eyes, it would all stop existing, as far as he was concerned. He hadn't thought about it that way before. If they gave him the full sentence, he'd be older than his mother when he got out, twenty- five years from now anything could happen, civilizations on the moon, the prime of his life. Only the dregs left over and he had to be honest with himself, from what he'd seen the dregs were not good. No one then or now would want a forty- six-year- old man who'd spent half his life locked up. He would be alone. Of no use to anyone or himself Not to mention how quickly things happened these days, twenty- five years it would be like coming out of a timewarp, like the movie where they resurrect the caveman. Nothing would make any sense. That was if they didn't get the capital penalty. The injection. He didn't know. He needed to be clear with himself— going in for this, for the killing of the Swede, he was giving up his entire life. Those words, he thought, they sound just like other words, but you cannot even understand what they mean—giving up your life, there should be some other thing besides words that would describe it. A machine that would plug into your mind and give you the feeling. But it would be too much. No one would be able to handle it. You could only handle it little by little, you could not truly understand what that meant.
I am giving up my life, he said out loud. But still the words brought nothing to his mind, no description, only a very faint feeling, he might have been saying I would like a glass of milk.
He was not even the one that had killed the Swede. And the Swede had not even been doing anything, just standing there. If Isaac had killed the Mexican one, sure, maybe Poe could do time for that. But the Swede was just standing doing nothing. Except that was a lie. He was lying to himself. He was lying to himself so as not to go to prison, he knew that if Isaac hadn't killed the Swede then the other one, Jesús, would have cut his throat. There was no point pretending he didn't remember their names. It had come down to him or the Swede. Billy Poe or Otto Carson, a dead rotting body. Otto Carson's end being a necessary factor to his own continuation. Necessary condition, he thought. Meaning it is not on Isaac. It seemed hard to follow but it wasn't. He understood it better than he could say it. The words were no good; if anything, the more he thought about it, the more he talked with himself, the more he'd justify his way out of it. The truth, the truth that mattered, was that he, Poe, was responsible for killing the Swede. There were other truths too, things that were just as true, but this was the one that mattered.
He wanted to sit down awhile, memorize the view from the field, he had never quite seen things well enough, he was not like Isaac, and now time was short. He went back up to the house. He knocked on the door of his mother's bedroom. The room smelled of sleep and whiskey, she was lying on the bed in her nightgown, her thick legs slightly spread, the blankets twisted all around her. He rearranged the sheets to cover her more and then sat down next to her.
“Come here,” she mumbled. He lay down in the bed and turned his back to her and she hugged him like that. You're acting like a little kid, he thought. He didn't care. Then he must have fallen asleep because there was an insistent hammering sound that he didn't want to think about and finally someone pushed the bedroom door open. Poe opened his eyes and it was Bud Harris. He was leaning over the bed, he put his hand on Poe's shoulder and Poe flinched away from his touch.
“Come on, buddy,” said Harris. “Time to go.”
He could see Harris looking at his mother and he sat up immediately, then stood up so Harris had to move back and his view of Poe's mother was blocked.
“I've been knocking out there five minutes,” said Harris.
“Alright,” Poe told him. “I'll be out.”
He heard Harris go outside, the front door slamming, and he sat up and put his boots back on. There was no point in preparing—whatever he brought they would take. Maybe he should have taken a shower, probably be the last time he could shower alone, but there was Lee's smell still on him, he'd heard stories about men in prison, a guy's wife visiting and sticking her fingers down there and then offering the fingers to her husband to smell, or something like that, the closest the husband could get. He'd always thought those stories were exaggerated but now he could imagine that very clearly.
“You need to be getting ready,” said his mother. She was sitting up now in her oversize T-shirt. “You need to help him.”
“I will,” he said to her.
Outside, he found Harris was waiting by the Explorer.
“I'm ready.” But they couldn't leave until his mother came out and said good- bye, and he wanted to be gone, in the truck and moving, get it over as quickly as possible, he did not want to look at this place any longer, it would only make things worse, it seemed as if he might start crying at any minute and he didn't want Harris to see him that way. He tried to get into the truck but Harris said:
“Wait for your mother to come and see you off properly.”
He stood there, he tried closing his eyes but it didn't make it any better. Finally his mother came out in sweatpants and a coat and hugged him again and he closed his eyes to try to dry them.
“Listen to him,” his mother said to Poe. “Do what he says.”
Poe nodded and choked something down. Harris fumbled with something inside the truck, pretended not to notice.
“Take care of him,” his mother told Harris.
“Call me tonight, Grace,” Harris said.
Poe watched his mother look at Harris, something passing between them.
Then Harris motioned him into the front seat. They were nearly to the main road when he pulled the truck over.
“You'll have to ride in the back,” he said. “I didn't want her to see you like that but the staties might be waiting when we get to the station so I'll need to cuff you, too.”
Poe let himself be handcuffed and put in the passenger area of the truck, behind the partition. Somehow it calmed him down.
“You know how serious this is, right?”
“Yeah.”
&nb
sp; “Did that English boy have anything to do with what happened? I went over there this morning and his father told me he took off two days ago and they haven't seen him since.”
“Nah,” said Poe.
Harris shook his head. “This DA is gonna eat you up. Knows what you'll say before the words come out of your mouth.”
“I ain't dumb.”
“Actually” said Harris. “You are dumb. You need to remember that before this gets any worse, if that's even possible.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You should have come to me. None of this would be happening.”
He could see that Harris was angry. Then he was angry at Harris.
“I see you looking at me,” said Harris, “but if this witness gets you out of the lineup, and it sounds like he will, you're up shit's creek. Twenty- five years if you're lucky but like I said this DA is hot for a capital case to get his career moving and he's betting you might be his ticket. I'm not saying he'll get it, it'll be a hard sell to a jury but he'll push for it. Just so you know, this is a very smart man who's going to be working his ass off to get you into the death chamber.” He paused a minute. “You,” he said again. “Not someone else, but you. Billy Poe.”
“What's the witness saying?”
“That the little guy, who I presume is Isaac English, saw a fight brewing and took off. That you stuck around and started a fight and smashed the witness in the head and when he woke up you'd smashed his friend Otto Carson in the head, too, only a lot harder. His friend who is now dead.”
“What about the third one, who was holding the knife to me?”
“There wasn't any talk about a knife. And if there's a third one, he's probably in Kansas by now because there's not many people dumb enough to get mixed up in this.”
“His name was Jesús. Like I said, he put a knife to my neck.”
“Well that ain't what the witness saw.”
“Well what the witness is saying isn't what happened but I guess it's settled then.”
“For your mother's sake you need to talk to me, because that's the only way we're going to have a chance.”