We Were The Mulvaneys

Stone Creek Road was empty of traffic in both directions, so far as Judd could see. He handed Patrick the ride in its canvas wrapper and Patrick exaimned it on his lap, behind the steering wheel. He stroked the polished stock and drew his fingers slowly along the long slender barrel. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder, aimed it beyond Judd's head, frowning through the scope. Judd steeled himself preparing for Patrick to pull the trigger. Who knew if Mike's old rifle could even fire, after so many years? Judd hadn't dared to test it, himself. Patrick had said he didn't want the rifle fired, no evidence of recent use, if that could be avoided.

  Weird: Pj. with a beard. How Mom would laugh. Though she'd say Patrick was handsome, too. Any new thing the brothers did, like Mike slicking his hair back oiled in high school, or P.J. getting his round wire-rimmed eyeglasses instead of those Morn had selected, she'd make a fuss initially, declaring she'd never get used to it, what an unsettling sight, then come around after a few days to marveling how handsome her sons were, after all. As if she'd made the choice, not them. And maybe she'd remember it, she had.

  Watching Patrick, Judd began to recognize something. Those bristly brown whiskers. The tight-lipped expression. Patrick reminded him of one of those Hebrew prophets from their Sunday school Bible cards! They'd been given so many of them, as children, at one or another of the churches their mother had taken them to. Judd's favorite when he'd been a little boy was someone named Amos because on his card, in bright primer colors, Amos was tall, manly, sharp-eyed and fanatic in his bushy beard and herdsman's clothes and the caption beneath his picture was The LORD will roar from Zion. Amos 1:2.

  Judd was saying, "I was worried I wouldn't be able to locate the key to the cabinet but it was in the kitchen drawer, Mom had tagged it. `Cabinet, family room.' Just like Mom."

  Patrick didn't reply. He was examining the rifle like a finicky customer. He'd opened it, peering at the bullets; extracted a bullet to hold it to the light. Judd saw, or believed he saw, that his brother's hands shook slightly. Patrick said, "Did you bring any more bullets?"

  Judd had forgotten; a box containing two dozen bullets, never opened, he'd found in one of the cabinet drawers. "Oh, yeah. Here."

  "I doubt I'll be using them, but-" Patrick smiled, taking the box from Judd, "-you never know. `Chance follows design' but not invariably."

  `Chance follows design'-what's that mean?"

  "You make careful plans, and `chance' seems to favor you. Things go your way that look to a neutral observer like luck. But it's luck you've engineered."

  "That sounds good."

  "But not int'ariably. Because design can collapse, no matter how carefully it's been planned."

  Patrick shut up the rifle, covered it with the canvas and laid it on the seat beside him; put the box of bullets into theJeep's glove compartment. His movements were brisk, methodical. He was preparing to drive away. They'd been together scarcely five minutes. Judd felt a stab of panic-wasn't there more to be said, explained?

  He thought If it's only a test it can end now.

  Patrick named another out-of-the-way location, about equidistant from Mt. Ephraim and High Point Farm, where Judd could retrieve the rifle the next day. This was the old abandoned cemetery on Sandhill Road, surrounded by a crumbling Stone wall where, at the rear, if you approached it from the rear, there was a niche the gun could be shoved into beneath the wall. Patrick said, "You'll be going to church with Mom? You won't be able to get away until later but pick up the gun as soon as you can. If there's any change of plans I'll try to call you. But it should be all over by then."

  How lightly it sounded on Patrick's tongue. But what did it mean, exactly?

  Patrick lifted his dark glasses to look at Judd. His eyes were startling-not eyes that went with the beard but young eyes, quizzical and alert. "How's the sale of the farm coming along? Any luck?"

  Judd shrugged. It was too painful to talk about somehow in the open air. "Mom says we can buy it back sometime. She says that at least once a day."

  "But is anyone interested in buying?"

  "Sure, people are interested. A doctor and his family drove out from Yewville last week. If we're home, the realtor tries to keep out of our way. Usually we're not home. Mom makes it a point not to be home. So weird to see people you don't know, strangers, being shown Judd's voice trailed off, weird was so juvenile and inadequate a word to express what could not be expressed but only endured.

  "How's Mom taking it?"

  "She's all right. She's the one negotiating on the phone, mainly."

  "Does Marianne know yet?"

  "She must know."

  "I didn't tell her."

  "Well, she must know. Mom's always saying Marianne should be `realistic.'

  "And Dad, what about Dad? He's `realistic'?"

  "He's negotiating to move the business to Marsena, unless he's negotiating to file for bankruptcy. He isn't home much but when he is he's on the phone with lawyers."

  "Is he drinking, much? How's he behaving to Mom?"

  Judd thought What about to me?-the other day, he'd asked his father please not to shout at his mother and his father had come close to striking him in the face. "Look, Patrick, drop by and see us sometime. It's only ninety miles from Ithaca, it isn't the dark side of the moon."

  Patrick looked away. He said, quietly, "Not just yet. Not for a while."

  "Yeah. You said."

  "I can't forgive them, for Marianne. Him, especially. It's never going to be the same again and Mike feels the same way. I was talking to him a couple of weeks ago-he feels the same way."

  "Marianne forgives them. She isn't even thinking of it."

  "Of course Marianne is thinking of it! Don't be ridiculous," Patrick said irritably. "Marianne doesn't think of anything else."

  Judd said, suddenly angry, "I thought you said Dad and Mom were `casualties.' Why blame them for treating Marianne like shit if they're just-what's it?-frogs sucked to death by water spiders."

  "For the same reason Dad blames Marianne. You just have a gut feeling, you don't want to see too much of a person."

  "What about me? I live there."

  "You'll be leaving in a couple of years."

  "Going where?"

  "To college. Anywhere."

  "But it's our home. It's where we live for Christ's sake."

  "Judd, what the hell are we talking about? What's wrong with you?"

  Judd wiped at his eyes. He was losing Patrick, he couldn't help what he said. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I just don't want-any of of this. I wish-"

  "Sure." Patrick leaned over to touch Judd's arm. The touch was remarkable, as if it had materialized out of the very air. "Where do you and Mom go to church these days?"

  "Just this little country church in Milford. Church of Christ Risen. They used to be Methodists but broke away for some reason. They're nice people, good people. Mom mostly sits in the pew at services and prays. She sings the hymns, really loud. Like she's happy, and it matters to show it. Sometimes she cries a little. A hymn like `Tell Me Why' can set her off. It's like she has a breakdown every Sunday morning, then blows her nose and smiles and we talk awhile to the minister and his wife and some others and I drive us back home and that's Sunday."

  "Well. Tomorrow's Easter."

  "Sunday of Sundays."

  Judd was going to ask Patrick about the knife, had he brought the knife, but he couldn't summon up the words. And at that monient Patrick leaned over to shake Judd's hand. His handshake was strong, frank, unhesitating but his fingers were cold. Judd smiled, taken by surprise. It was the first time either of his brothers had ever shaken hands with him.

  They said good-bye. Turned their vehicles around to drive in opposite directions; Judd back to Eagleton Corners, Patrick to the far end of Stone Creek Road. Judd waved out the window at his rapidly departing brother. He wondered what Patrick would do between now and dark; between now and it. He told himself It was a test. It is! And almost over.

  THE BOG

  Chance follow
s design.

  He wanted to believe that. It did seem to be so, after his many weeks of fevered planning.

  Sitting now, at eleven that night, moon-bright Saturday eve of Easter Sunday, in his Jeep at the rear of the crowded parking lot of Cobb's Corner Inn where Zachary Lundt and three of his high school buddies had been for the past forty minutes. The Jeep's motor was off, no headlights. Beside Patrick on the passenger's seat, hidden by a strip of canvas should anyone pass close enough to glance inside (but no one did, or would: Patrick had parked just far enough away from other vehicles, partly on the grass) were Mike's.22-caliber Winchester rifle, several yards of rope, a roll of black duct tape, a powerful flashlight and a fishing knife with a doubleedged eight-inch blade acquired at a Sears in Whitney Point, New York weeks before. Except for the rifle all were anonymous items, randomly and anonymously purchased.

  You would not really use that would you Pj. The knife, or the gun.

  You would not be so cruel, or so desperate.

  A half dozen times Patrick climbed out of the Jeep to stretch his legs, pace rest'essly about in the damp gravel. The parking lot was a busy place: vehicles arriving, departing. No one glanced at him, he might have been anyone. Older than twenty-one, probably in his thirties. The army fatigue jacket added bulk. The bristly beard was not a college student's beard. Patrick was restless but not at all an-uous. He might even have whistled to himself, through his teeth, thinly. Whistle while you woik! It was only practical advice to be cheerful, optimistic. That was Mom's fervent belief and Mom was the daughter of farm people, knew you had to persevere with a smile until you couldn't and then it no longer mattered, you're done. You're gone. But until that moment have faith. Patrick was surprised, he was so calm: his thoughts floated on a placid surface without ripples, no rough current, no urgency. He knew what he would do though he did not yet know when he would do it, what the exact steps would be. Chance follows desi-gn. A State of pure waiting, suspension-as before an exam for which you've thoroughly prepared and are anticipating now you'll be thoroughly tested, and excel.

  It was a clear, startlingly bright night. Smelling of Wet grass, gravel. Beery frunes and greasy cooking odors from a vent at the rear of the tavern. Earlier, Patrick had slipped inside Cobb's in the wake of a company of noisy young people, stood unobtrusively by the bar searching for Zachary Lundt. His nostrils pinched at the smells of beer, cigarette smoke, barbecue sauce, pizza. COUNTRY & WESTERN DISCO was advertised but there was no disco tonight, only deafening rock music from the jukebox. Was it Plastica? Patrick wondered, bemused. He wouldn't have known. Hadn't given Plastica a second thought. Rock bands all sounded alike to him, pulsing hammering thrilling noise that worked itself into your heart like a screw.

  Patrick knew that Zachary Lundt was at Cobb's. An hour before he'd telephoned the Lundts to learn the whereabouts of his friend Zach, "Don Maitland" just home from Owego, or was it Oswego, eager to join his friends for the evening, and Mrs. Lundt who'd answered the phone in a girlish voice had seemed to remember him, or maybe hadn't, in any case provided the information Patrick needed. Later, maybe the rest of her life she'd regret it but-who could have known, at the time? We never suspected. How would we have suspected! Mrs. Lundt had told him Cobb's Corner at ten, asked if he knew where that was, and Patrick said, "Know where Cobb's Corner is? Hell, Mrs. Lundt, everybody knows that."

  Patrick stood not quite at the bar, not a customer but just someone who'd strolled in looking for a friend. His wool cap pulled down low on his forehead, wearing now his daytime glasses, and the collar of the army jacket turned sharply up. In the beard that felt like thistles on his face, in his steely-blank expression, he believed him- self disguised. In fact, there was no one who looked at him for more than a glancing moment, not even one of the bartenders. There was no one in the tavern, so far as Patrick could deterrrnne, whom he knew, except, in a booth against the farther wall, Zachary Luridt and his friends. They were drinking beer, laughing together, smoking.

  It was the first time Patrick had seen Zachary Lundt since high school graduation. The day when, unable to avoid passing close by his sister's rapist, he'd fixed his gaze on Zachary's forehead, his face taut and expressionless as now. If the other boy had blushed, or stared defiantly at him in turn, Patrick hadn't noticed. So frequently had Patrick imagined Zachary since October, since his obsession had overcome him, be had to force himself to realize, no, he hadn't seen Zachary, not in person, since June 1976. And Zachary did look slightly altered: hair differently styled, face thicker at the jaws. Still there was the sly foxy narrowness at the eyes. The heavy-lidded eyes. Girls had found him attractive and Patrick supposed he could see why. Except how broken-backed Zachary appeared, leaning his elbows on the sticky tabletop, laughing his hyena-laugh with the others. He was smoking a cigarette, expelling smoke from his grinning mouth. Patrick remeinbered-hadn't he smashed his fist against those teeth, Once? Hadn't he drawn blood? Maybe not. Maybe it hadn't happened yet. He felt a thrill of excitement in the pit of his belly. In his groin. It was a sensation Patrick Mulvaney had never had before. Except possibly in his dreams.

  Zachary Luridt. Now a student at SUNY Binghamton, studying business administration. Out drinking with his old high school pals Ike Rodman, Budd Farley, Phil Spohr. Pizza crusts lay scattered on the table before them, beer cans, glasses. Crumpled napkins. They all deserved punishment, not just Zachary. He'd wait for them in his Jeep and when they left Cobb's, one by one he'd pick them off with the rifle. Execution ofjustice. Calm, methodical. Irrevocable.

  Was Patrick Mulvaney capable of such an act? A forced move, one time only. You wouldn't know, would you, until you tried?

  Sometime, maybe. And the father, too-Morton Lundt. Even the mother, Mrs. Lundt. They too were involved. They too were guilty. Defending the rapist, slandering the victim. That breathless admission Mort and I did appreciate it-your loyalty.

  Patrick backed off from the bar, unseen. Left Cobb's, returned to the Jeep, to wait. Thinking how unsuspecting they all were-his enemies. They had no reason to be otherwise. He himself could not have said why now, why such passion on his part now, after such a long time. The Mulvaney men had long shirked their responsibility, that was it, and it was unsaid-Mike Jr. had fled all the way to the Marines where he boasted he was a new man now, soon to be shipped to the Mideast. Michael Sr. had fled-God knows where. But there was Patrick. He was not the Mulvaney man you'd have expected to exact revenge but there was no other, and no choice.

  At 12:10 A.M. at last Zachary and his friends appeared, leaving Cobb's by the side door. Beneath the lights of a concrete walkway bordered by crude stucco latticework. The young men stood talking and laughing before going to their cars-Patrick might have picked them off one by one. How unsuspecting they were, unknowing. Oblivious of danger. Patrick thought of the fantastic wingless birds of New Zealand that had intrigued the young Charles Darwin. No mammal predators for millennia-a heaven of birds, of countless species. As if all of creation were exclusively birds, yet birds not birds-unable to fly, helpless against predators when predators arrived. Easy prey.

  Zachary crossed the lot to his car, a Corvette. He walked carefully, as if resisting the impulse to sway. He'd been drinking beer for hours, he was drunk. His friends pulled out of the lot while Zachary stood fumbling in his pocket, searching for his keys-no, it was a pair of glasses he took out, and put on, after his friends were gone. So Zachary needed glasses to drive. So his vision wasn't perfect.

  Patrick started the Jeep, waited until Zachary's Corvette pulled out of the lot and followed him. A left turn, a quarter mile and a right turn, headed for Zachary's house in north Mt. Ephraim near the Country Club. Zachary drove cautiously, not very steadily, weaving in his lane. He seemed unaware that only his parking lights were on, not his headlights. Patrick waited for the strategic moment-as Zachary turned onto Depot Street, through a darkened stretch of overgrown vacant lots, boarded-up warehouses-before overtaking him, passing him on the left and blocking his way. The Cor
vette came to an abrupt halt. Patrick leapt from the Jeep, rifle raised to his shoulder and aimed at Zachary's head. "Don't move! Stay where you are."

  As if, taken so utterly by surprise, mouth gaping in cartoon astonishment, Zachary Lundt could have behaved otherwise.

  Quickly Patrick came around to the passenger's door of the

  Corvette and climbed inside, keeping the rifle trained on Zachary Lundt's face. In mere seconds that face had drained of blood. Zachary appeared paralyzed. His staring eyes, the slack of his mouth, his very posture that seemed to have caved in upon itself-he was in a state of panic, totally disoriented. "Don't shoot, please don't shoot," he begged, "-oh please don't shoot me, you can have my w-wallet, my car-anything you want-please don't shoot-" His voice cracked, there was no volume to it. He'd begun to tremble convulsively so Patrick felt the tremors of his body as if they were his own.

  Is this all there is to him?-the thought pierced Patrick like a knife blade.

  After so long, years-this is all?