The Big Yellow Pick-Up
For so many working people, the dream job is
one that they can leave behind them when they go home at the end of the day.
Isn’t odd then, that so many people identify themselves at the workplace with
elements of their personal lives?
The staff at TC Insurance was full of avid proponents
of just such behavior.
Doris Eaves, the office manager, belonged to a very
formidable bowling team. Her office was jammed with trophies. Her ever working
on a Saturday was out of the question, and she used up her vacation days on
various Fridays and Mondays throughout the year, traveling to tournaments
around the country. Among the sales staff, Don Branch’s office was a barrage of
colors and textures furnished by his own crocheted afghans, throw pillows, and
wall hangings. He claimed that they increased his sales, and his client list
would actually bear that out. Bobby Conley’s office was peppered with golfing
regalia. Every winter, he took the same two weeks off to fly down to Palm
Springs to play. He always returned with at least a couple hefty policies.
Kevin Darling’s thing was movies. He had a big,
original poster of the silent film, “Wings,” hanging behind his desk, as well
as some framed lobby cards of Hollywood classics and black-and-white 8x10s of
stars and character actors. He had bought a few of them with autographs, and
like Don’s crochet decor, the memorabilia was often a conversation starter,
which would turn a potential client into a solid sale.
For six years, Kevin had been married to Lisa,
a young woman of a cinematically like-mind, and she was no pretender. Between
the husband and wife, there were challenges of knowledge of film. Who directed
“The Bride of Frankenstein”? Who was the author of the play, which became the
movie, “Key Largo”?
Thursday nights were their dinner-in-with-movie
nights.
This Thursday, Kevin hurried out of the stolid,
squat office building, past Harmon, their pivoting secretary, to his car.
Thursday nights were not only movie rental nights; they were also nights of
Chinese take-out and a bottle of... how many even know where to find a bottle
of plum wine below the Mason-Dixon Line? It was a special stop. In fact, so
were all three.
Kevin got his plum wine, Szechuan chicken, double sauteed
pork, shrimp fried rice, wonton soup, “Kentucky Fried Movie,” and “Ruggles of
Red Gap.” His day, and sharing the rest of it with his wife, would be complete.
The Chinese food steamed on the passenger seat. He had tossed the movies into
the back, just in case some of the wonton soup spilled. He’d put the plum wine
bottle down by the spare tire, for the highly unlikely event that he’d get
pulled over, and then, as he pulled out onto the Interstate for the couple
miles to his exit, came the friggin’ jerk in the canary yellow pick-up truck.
The truck blasted past, its Glass-Pak mufflers
muffling nothing in the evening, homecoming traffic. Kevin saw the driver’s
head and shoulders. The man in the yellow pick-up was a balding man of bright
red, showing through pale, milky, freckled skin.
Kevin put his foot on the gas.
“Jackass,” he thought.
Kevin was accustomed to the Interstate traffic of a
Thursday evening. It would be backed up about three hundred yards before his
exit, everybody pulling up to get off. The dick in the yellow pick-up was
alongside Kevin’s car, and Kevin made damned sure that the guy in the truck
couldn’t squeeze into the exit lane, as he surely wanted to do. The man in the
truck was in a useless hurry, and Kevin would give no quarter. He jockeyed his
car so that there was no room between him and the other cars, fast approaching
the stalled line of traffic at the exit. The man in the yellow pick-up truck
made defensive eye contact with Kevin, shot his glance down the forward few
hundred yards, and sped off to the next exit, loudly, angrily.
Kevin had succeeded in not letting him in.
And then there was “movie night,” and plum wine and
Chinese food, and a soft, comfy wife on the couch.
And then there was the television news.
A man had been killed on the Interstate. The video
news presented footage of his overturned, canary yellow, souped-up truck. The
other man in the Freightliner semi was shaken but uninjured, sober. The yellow
pick-up had whipped in ahead of the semi on the Interstate, one exit past Kevin’s,
and had clipped its rear bumper with the laden Freightliner’s front end. The
big yellow pick-up had flipped over at least four times, landing on its crushed
roof.
Through the pleasure of languid rest beside his wife’s
warm, dozing body, “movie night,” Chinese food, and plum wine, Kevin jolted
awake.
He knew, “I sent that man down that road.”
Starting to shake, he muttered, “Twice a dick.”
Kevin did not wake Lisa as he gaped in awe at the short,
television news clip, then he moved Lisa and himself to the bedroom, and was only able
to sleep several hours later, privately, fitfully.
At 7am, as usual, he awoke; he pretended to awaken. He
jostled his wife’s shoulder, and together they did their morning routine. Kevin
got into the car he had driven the night before and drove to the insurance
office, conscientiously pushing the movies through the “return” slot at the
rental place on his way there. Somehow, he thought it would add an element of
secure normalcy to his morning and prepare him to face the last people he had seen
before his new, morbid secret.
As it was each day, there were three copies of the
local paper on Harmon’s desk. Everyone in the office wanted either yesterday’s
sports or stock market quotes, today’s crossword and comics, or tomorrow’s
weather.
Of course, in plain black and white, there was a
four-inch by four-inch photo of an overturned pick-up truck on the front page.
The headline read: “Larry Bell, High School Basketball Coach, in Highway
Death.”
As Kevin’s mouth opened, lifting a copy of the paper,
and his eyes widened, Harmon looked up at him, and pleaded, “Isn’t it just
horrible? He’s in my congregation. He was going to be Billy’s coach next
year... my Billy.”
Kevin
averted his eyes from Harmon. He averted his eyes from the newspaper, dropping
it to his side.
“Any calls?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Mind if I take this with me to my office?”
“That’s why we get three, so everybody can see it.”
Harmon’s eyes met Kevin’s. He was perspiring. It might
have been last night’s plum wine.
“Mr. Darling?” she asked, “I don’t really know how to
put this.”
“Yes?”
How could she know?
“Would you please put one of these in the men’s room?
I usually get here a little earlier... and Mr. Branch usually gets here at
about five-after, and he... likes to...”
“Well, of course I can.”
Kevin quickly opened the men’s room door, and
carelessly tossed the other copy of the paper into the john, while still
reading the story of the man killed in the canary yellow pick-up. Entering his
office, he had to turn to page 9, not only to continue the saga of the
Interstate, but to read another article specifically of Larry Bell’s civic
achievements. At the end of that piece, there was a referral to page
twenty-three, where was Larry Bell’s third photo of the same edition of that
Friday’s paper (four, if you count the one of the belly-up truck), accompanied
by his proper obituary.
Kevin tried to take in so much information.
Of the life of a man.
Larry was the father to three children. They were two
daughters, ages fifteen and seventeen, and a son, age ten. All were the
children of the same mother, the only wife of Larry’s forty-three years.
Larry’s own mother and father had distinguished themselves through anonymous
hard work, and Larry was their only child. He had attended a community college,
and there, met his wife, Marianna. He had studied physical education; she got a
degree in “Home Economics.” Upon graduation, they married in and remained in
their hometown.
Larry was hired as the basketball coach at the
third-ranking high school in his hometown. There were but three high schools,
and Larry had brought his team up to Number 2. Larry had also taught United
States history and spent a few hours a week as a guidance councilor. His wife
practiced her “home economics” at home with their three children.
“And with all that going for him,” thought Kevin,
“what made him such a hot head?”
There was soft a knock on Kevin’s door, and Bobby
Conley, the golfer, peeked in.
“Hey Kev, I was wondering if you got that response
from Lassiter.”
He glanced at Kevin’s desk toward the newspaper and
let himself all the way in.
“Gosh, y’know, I knew that guy. What a shame, huh?”
Kevin caught his composure enough to pretend not to
have been absorbed with the photo and headline.
“Oh, this guy. Really? You knew him?”
“Yeah,” sighed Bobby, “Kinda. PTA and a couple rounds
on the links. It’s a shame. He had a family... students, his team.”
Kevin pulled one out of his hat to seem detached, “Did
we cover him?”
Bobby perked up, “You know, I don’t know. I’ll ask
Harmon.” He thought again, “Oh, yeah, that Lassiter thing...”
Kevin relaxed. “Uh-huh. He called yesterday and had
that kid fax it over. We sign by Monday, max.”
Bobby threw back his shoulders and grinned.
“Well, maybe I’ll get those new Pings by Easter.
Coffee?”
“Sure, Harmon has it done?” Kevin said, thinking of
tossing that God-damned newspaper back on her desk.
“Mmmm,” he said, over his coffee mug, as he did.
Kevin was eaten up for the rest of the day, but he
closed three auto policies, one large and one small term-life, and he had an
estate settlement with a greedy daughter and her attorney to resolve, so that all eased his guilty consumption. He’d had no stomach for lunch with the guys. At
the end of the day, he left the offices and got into his car. He drove, he
thought, like an old lady, down the Interstate to his jammed-up, Friday
rush-hour exit ramp.
At home, Lisa had brought Caprese salad and spaghetti
and meatballs from their favorite Italian place, along with a bottle of
inexpensive California Chianti. Who wants to cook on a Friday? There were a
couple of movies on TV during dinner, and Kevin was considerably more clingy
with Lisa than usual. The television news had more to report, this evening,
more of a sympathetic memorial piece, about Larry Bell, beloved local basketball
coach, now somewhere, to Kevin, about five times more a dick than the anonymous
one who had ripped past him on the road. Larry Bell had gone from a temporary
resentment to a haunting.
“Let’s go to bed.”
Lisa blinked, “Okay. It’s a little a little early. Is
everything alright?”
“Mmm.”
Lisa cocked her head and searched.
Saturday morning was warm and clear. Kevin put on a
pot of coffee, as Lisa got dressed for her long jog. After she left, Kevin
quickly dressed and drove out to buy the newspaper. On an impulse, he picked up
a bottle of Christian Brothers brandy.
Once home, he poured some brandy into a cup of coffee,
reread Larry Bell’s obituary, all that was left in the paper as a record of the
man’s death. There would be a wake on Monday and Tuesday. Kevin began to
ruminate. It was not a police matter; Kevin’s role was simply an incident. The
fatal accident itself had happened almost three miles from where the two had
encountered each other. It hadn’t even been road rage; it had been more like
road irritation. If anyone had been enraged, it was Larry Bell, speeding off
down the highway and angrily, Kevin speculated, swerving in front of the
Freightliner. A light went on in Kevin’s mind, as he thought, “And ruining the
truck driver’s life too!”
He poured himself another coffee and brandy.
How much of that is on me, he wondered? He had been
prejudiced from the start, the loud flashy truck, the aggressive driving style,
the red, impatient face to which he had taken an instant dislike. What if it
had been some old man in a Mercury, or further, some attractive young woman in
the same yellow pick-up truck, driving just as aggressively? Honestly, Kevin
allowed that he would have let either one into the exit lane ahead of him. He
frowned into his coffee cup and waded waist-deep into a pool of guilt. He was,
he thought, partly responsible for the death of Larry Bell and for screwing up
the lives of Larry’s family, students and team, as well as that of the trucker.
Not to mention his own. The math was unimpeachable; if he took himself out of
the equation, none of this would have happened.
Lisa bumped through the side door into the kitchen,
puffing, smiling, and Kevin snapped from his reverie. She saw the bottle on the
table and said, “You’re starting early, huh?”
Before Kevin could respond, she kissed him on the lips
and muttered, “Yum,” at the sweet taste of brandy. She pulled the sweatband off
through her hair her as she walked toward the bedroom. “I’m going to take a
shower. Fix me one of those, will you?”
Kevin began to compile a short list of diversions that
might help him through the rest of the weekend, aside from getting drunk.
Although that was high up on the list, it was not his style, and it was not an
answer. Movies would have to be chosen carefully – light fare, nothing about
guilt – some home-cooked meals (Kevin was a very good cook.), maybe some yard
work, make love to Lisa a few times... That should distract him until he could
immerse himself in work on Monday.
Still, as Kevin brought Lisa’s spiked coffee into the
bedroom and nuzzled her naked shoulder, she breathed in a low tone, “Are you
sure you’re alright, honey?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m a little tense. It’s just work
stuff.”
Trouper that she was, Lisa let the matter go, and they
enjoyed their weekend of pleasant distractions. Late Sunday afternoon, as Lisa
sank back into the pillows, smiling, glowing, she turned to Kevin and sighed
through half-lidded eyes, “You seem a little far away.”
Kevin gently pulled her closer and whispered into her
neck, “That lasagna has to come out in about ten minutes,” and that was that.
On Monday morning, as Kevin passed reception, he
noticed that Harmon was not in her usual “office casual” attire. She was
wearing a conservative white blouse with a blue silk scarf, which matched a
knee-length skirt and black panty hose. Her hair was done up in a bun, and her
make-up suggested that she could be on her way out on a date to a good
restaurant.
Kevin feigned impressed surprise. “Well, well, Ms.
Harmon, shall I ask who is the young man?”
Harmon had been divorced for about three years, and,
because of her son, Billy, didn’t get out too often.
She lowered her eyes and blushed and said, “No, Mr.
Darling, after work tonight I’m going to the wake for Larry Bell, you know, the
man who died last Thursday.”
“Oh, that’s right. You said he was in your
congregation. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by what I said about you having
a date.”
“Oh no, I’m flattered that you noticed,” she said, and
as Kevin turned to leave, “Mr. Darling?”
She held out a newspaper, and Kevin nearly winced.
“Could you put this in the men’s room, please?”
In his office, Kevin made a few phone calls and got
his laptop and some literature and blank policies together for a meeting with a
pharmacist about theft insurance. The woman had three stores, and with the
escalating robberies and burglaries of Oxycontin and other man-made opiates,
this would mean a juicy commission. She was already a client, so her signature
was a shoo-in. Also, she was only about a half-mile away, so Kevin figured he’d
walk.
On his way, he turned over in his mind the wisdom
versus the folly of maybe accompanying Harmon to the wake that evening. Was it
a dumb idea? He was very curious to see the wife, Marianna, and her children,
to see the friends and associates of Larry Bell, to assess, to access somehow,
the dead man’s life. Or was it a vain attempt to absolve himself of the guilt
that he felt? Or was it a morbid desire to throw himself into Larry Bell’s
familiar circle as some sort of penance?
He made his sale, and, walking back to the office,
stopped at the diner and picked up a cheeseburger, a BLT, and a couple of iced
teas. At the office, he gave the BLT and an iced tea to Harmon, who was just
putting her things away, getting ready for lunch.
She looked in the paper bag and beamed, “Wow, thank
you Mr. Darling! What are you, a mind reader? This is exactly what I was going
to get.”
If Harmon did not pack her own lunch, that is exactly
what she always got.
“Don’t worry about it." He turned toward his office, and pretended something
had just occurred to him and turned back. “Hey, I was wondering, if you’re
going to Larry Bell’s wake by yourself, maybe you’d like me to go along with
you.”
Harmon looked perplexed. “I didn’t think you knew
him.”
“Well, I didn’t, but the whole thing has got me, I
don’t know, intrigued. All the people he knew, what he meant to the community,
and I was thinking about going, but I didn’t want to seem like a gawker. I
think I’d feel more comfortable if I was there with someone who knew him, and I
thought maybe you’d feel better not having to go there alone.”
It struck Kevin how lame that last part sounded, but
Harmon came to his rescue.
“Well, I’ll know plenty of people there, Mr. Darling,
but sure, why don’t you come along as a... as a sympathetic member of the
community. How’s that? I’m sure Larry knew lots of people that everybody else
didn’t really know about.”
“Thanks Harmon. What time?”
“I’m going right after work.”
Kevin called Lisa and told her he’d be a little late.
He kept a blazer and tie in his office for occasions after work that might
suddenly arise, and he put them on and was ready to leave at 5:30 sharp. He
followed Harmon in his car through some of the prettier streets in town, and in
about fifteen minutes, they arrived at Rutherford Funeral Home. The parking lot
was full, and they had to park a few hundred yards away, for all the
overflow that lined both sides of the street in either direction. As the two
walked toward the funeral home, they passed knots of people loitering on the
sidewalk, and Harmon said “hello” to a few of them. There were many people
gathered in the parking lot, politely waiting to enter the crowded anteroom.
Harmon walked up to a small group and introduced Kevin around. They were part
of her church. Being only two and not wanting to stay for too long, Harmon and
Kevin went on ahead into the vestibule, where Harmon signed the register. They
made their way into the viewing room.
Inside, it was like most wakes. People spoke in
whispers at about the same volume as the piped-in, moribund organ music. Many
people sat in the pews, and those standing, stood in groups, and it was quite
easy to speculate which were family and which were friends. In the front pew
were Marianna, Larry’s widow, and her three children. Marianna, stoic, fit, and
attractive, was friendly to the mourners who approached her for an embrace and
to offer their condolences. She smiled a sad smile, and her eyes were red from
on-and-off weeping. Her daughters were in a constant state of tears. The young
boy tried to stand tall and every so often wiped his eyes on the forearm of his
suit coat, in between firm pats on the shoulder by solemn men.
Kevin accompanied Harmon about halfway down the aisle,
as she walked down to kneel at the open casket to say a prayer. Kevin looked at
the corpse’s face. The mortician had muted its natural redness, and even from
where Kevin stood, he could see a galaxy of freckles on Larry’s forehead. There
was no more anger in repose, and that peacefulness made Kevin uncomfortable, as
he had had, up to that moment, only the one image of Larry Bell. Harmon stood
up and walked back toward him, not a moment too soon. She whispered, “Let’s
go.”
She said “good night” to a few people still waiting in
the parking lot, and Kevin walked her to her car, where he thanked her and saw
her off. Kevin drove home, lost in thought.
When he got home, Lisa was just pulling a dinner of
roast beef, mashed potatoes, and string beans out of the oven. She had bought
the meal from the hot bar at the supermarket on her way home from work, and the
food looked pretty good. He kissed her, and she stood back and looked at his
torso, the blazer and tie.
“Aren’t we sharp,” she remarked. “Meeting after work?”
It flashed across Kevin’s mind to simply agree that
that’s what it had been, but he felt instantly how ridiculous that notion was.
On principle, he never lied to her unless it was for a surprise for her. Also,
she was a tax attorney, and although she was not a prosecutor by trade, she
still had the lawyer instinct, and in the eight years that they had known each
other, he had seen her snake out the truth from many a would-be deceiver.
“No, actually I went with Harmon to a wake after work
for that high school coach who died in the car crash last week. She knew him
from church, and I went along to give her some moral support.”
“Well, Sir Gallahad, aren’t you sweet,” she said,
meaning it. “Okay, I bought, so you set the table, and open up a bottle of that
Bordeaux.”
They ate dinner, and Lisa, mercifully, did most of the
talking. They watched TV until bedtime and turned in.
The next day at work passed fairly uneventfully, and
Kevin was able to put Larry Bell and family out of his mind for at least twenty
percent of the time. Near the end of the day, Bobby Conley rapped on the
doorframe to Kevin’s glass office and came in.
“Hey, Harmon and I are going to Larry Bell’s funeral
tomorrow, and she said I ought to ask you if you wanted to come along. I didn’t
think you knew him.”
Kevin tried to look intent and sincere. “I didn’t, but
I went with her to the wake last night, just because I was kind of interested,
and she was going there by herself. I think I might like to go with you guys
tomorrow though. What time are you going?”
“It’s at 10:30, so we’re going to leave here at ten.
Then there’s a reception at the Rotary Club afterwards with food and an open
bar, so we’ll take the rest of the day off. I figured I’d just check my
messages and make some calls in the morning, before we go. I already told Doris
that Harmon and I were going, and maybe you, and she said it was fine, so are
you in?”
“Yeah, I think I will go.”
“Alright, see you tomorrow.”
At home that night, knowing that in the morning, he
would have to explain to Lisa why he was putting on a suit and tie, Kevin
decided to tell her of his plans. He tried to sound casual, but his voice was tight and high pitched.
“What’s your preoccupation with this guy?” she wanted
to know. “I’ll grant you, a funeral would be a good place to pick up a couple
life insurance policies, but I know you better than that. That would just be
unscrupulous and ghoulish.”
“I’m not preoccupied with him. It’s just that... Well,
maybe I am... I...”
Kevin couldn’t hold it in any longer. He had to tell
someone, and who better than the person with whom he shared everything, his
constant voice of loving female reason, for better or for worse? So he told
Lisa the story of the big yellow pick-up truck and of his feelings of guilt and
anxiety as to his role in the death of a devoted family man and community figurehead.
When he was through, Lisa absorbed what she had just
heard, with her attorney’s mind, less than with the mind of a wife.
“Honey, I think you’re worrying yourself needlessly.
You aren’t guilty of anything except what you’re putting on yourself. We’re all
involved in the interrelation of events at some time or another that have
consequences that we’re never even aware of.”
She took a long pause and then continued, “Suppose you
bought one of your buddies a circular saw for Christmas, and a couple months
later, he had a few beers while he was doing a project with it, and he cut one
of his fingers off. Would you feel responsible for his reckless behavior?”
“No, but in this case, I acted aggressively and
selfishly and with prejudice, and that elevated the situation into what
resulted in a man’s death,” Kevin argued.
“Exactly,” Lisa countered, “You only elevated a
situation which already existed. This guy, as you said, pushed you, and you
responded by pushing back, and ultimately, he paid for his own aggression.
Really, I know you’re all worked up over this, but you’ve got to work through
it in your mind and start to forgive yourself. Try using softer reason, and if
that doesn’t work, why not say a prayer? If you know that God forgives you,
then maybe you can start to forgive yourself.”
It was times like these that his love for Lisa re-grew
and pierced his heart. He felt a lump in his throat, and he was unashamed. She
was right, and yet the nagging inside was not going away.
“Mmm,” he said, in half-hearted agreement.
“Let’s go get a big fat pizza and some Italian red and
eat in the living room,” she said.
They left hand-in-hand to go get it, and she drove.
In the morning, after a long, hot, pensive shower,
Kevin put on his best suit and shoes, and he sadly fantasized that he was
instead taking Lisa out to the fancy French restaurant on the plaza and was
going to give her a sapphire necklace. She had made a pot of coffee and was
sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas, looking over some paperwork. He
poured a cup of coffee, and they sat in comfortable silence. Kevin finished his
coffee and stood to leave. Lisa looked up from her work.
“You look very handsome,” she said with conviction, as
though he were her son on his way to the prom.
She stood and gave him an all-encompassing embrace.
She kissed him long and tenderly, held him back by the shoulders and locked
eyes with his.
“Now don’t you worry, kid. If it brings you too far
down, just imagine that I’m there with you.”
She leaned in and kissed him again on one tiptoe, her
other leg kicked back. My God, he thought, how she does me.
Harmon and Bobby and Kevin went to the funeral mass
and then to the cemetery, and it was all very solemn and all very artless and
friendly, with many brave faces and much open weeping. There were loads of high
school students, who had been given the day off for the services. Most were
just learning how to grieve, and Kevin tried to imagine what various ones would
grow up to be like, based upon their behavior that morning.
Harmon and Bobby had ridden together in Harmon’s car,
so that, Kevin guessed, Bobby could drink freely at the reception. The three
left the cemetery and met up again at the Rotary Hall. It was the time of every
funeral when the hard part is over, there is a metaphorical sigh of a job done,
the voices are no longer hushed, and myriad emotions slosh forth. Kevin and
Bobby headed straight for the crowded bar, and Harmon made the rounds of the
many members of her congregation.
Kevin and Bobby stayed near the bar and had a few
rounds, as Bobby introduced Kevin to what must have been a Who’s Who of his
golfing buddies and other country club luminaries, and, while it was at least
diverting, and often quite entertaining, a notion began to fester in Kevin’s
mind.
He immediately dismissed the notion as ludicrous, but
it stuck to his psyche like a burr. He had another drink, and then another, and
the notion didn’t seem any saner, but it presented itself as much more likely
-- that Kevin should go and introduce himself to Marianna Bell and offer his
condolences.
But why? It was the same sort of feeling he had had
about going to the wake. Was he masochistically daring himself to be placed
directly in front of the wrong he had caused? Would it prove to him some sort
of bravery? Was there some intangible that he might discover that would make
things all right? He got a fresh drink and excused himself to Bobby, who was in
a conversation with an obviously wealthy, drunken couple and who, Kevin
figured, must have thought he was headed to the men’s room.
He took about five steps in Marianna’s direction, when
Thierry Levesque, one of Kevin’s customers, smilingly blocked his path. He
wanted to schedule an appointment for putting his twin son and daughter on his
car insurance policy, and he was thinking about buying a Jet Ski, and how was
Lisa? He may need a tax attorney, but it’s nothing really serious, you know?
Kevin was politely trying to extricate himself from
this encounter, looking over Thierry’s shoulder, when a woman with a dour
expression walked boldly up to Marianna. Marianna’s face clouded, and the dour
woman leaned into her with a mean expression. The two started to have words,
and then more animatedly and then more loudly. Those nearest the two women
stopped talking and stared. The dour woman began yelling, and more people
stopped talking and turned in their direction. Although the dour woman was
yelling quite loudly now, Kevin could only make out the words, “love him,”
repeated about three times in the diatribe. Two men, one an usher from the
funeral, hurried over, got between the two women, and began escorting the dour
woman toward the exit, as she continued shouting and pointing a rigid finger
back at Marianna.
“Wow, I wonder what that was all about,” Thierry said.
“So, Friday lunchtime?”
Kevin said “okay,” and went to find Bobby.
“Did you see that?” Kevin asked, over what he wanted
to be his last drink. “Do you know who she is?”
“Hell if I know, but it sure got ugly.”
Much of the crowd took the argument and ejection as
their cue to begin filing out. There were several people gathered around
Marianna, gesturing, and her children were speaking to her with frightened,
imploring expressions.
Kevin called Lisa and asked her to please take a taxi
to the Rotary Hall, so she could drive him home. She said she had figured on
that one and had had the foresight to take the bus to work instead of her car.
While they were driving home, Kevin told her about the scene at the reception,
neglecting to mention that he had been on his way to speak to the widow at the
time. They speculated that it must have been a relative on Larry Bell’s side of
the family who had never approved of the marriage, got drunk, and crossed the
lines of tact and decency.
In spite of being tipsy, Kevin felt no fatigue, so
they stayed up late and watched “Holiday,” with Cary Grant and Katherine
Hepburn for about the seventh time, and it soothed him.
When Kevin arrived at work the next morning, Bobby
Conley was sitting on the edge of Harmon’s desk, and they were embroiled in wide-eyed
conversation. They both looked up when Kevin came in, and Bobby asked
excitedly, “Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Right, of course you wouldn’t have. You remember that
big to-do yesterday at the reception?”
“How could I not? I guess you found something out.”
“You bet we did,” Bobby said, glancing at Harmon. “It
turns out that that woman was Sarah Greeley. She was married to Don Greeley,
who owned the Beaver Dam Sawmill and about five thousand acres of prime
timberland up in the mountains.”
“He died a few years back, right?”
“Yup, and she got everything. Now, for about the last
ten years, she’s been running a charity for poor kids, and she helped a bunch
of them get into high school, and more than a few made it onto Larry Bell’s
basketball team. A couple of them were some of his biggest stars. This kid
DaVonn Roberts is the starting center for Louisville. Maybe you’ve heard of
him.”
“Yeah, I have, so what’s the rest?”
“So come to find out, Sarah and Larry have been having
an affair for the last five years. She gets drunk and spills the beans about
the affair yesterday and says that Larry was going to leave Marianna for her,
and that he was on his way home from her house to tell Marianna, when he got
into the accident.”
“Oh wow,” Kevin replied. If they only knew.
“Of course, Marianna and the kids are devastated, and
by now, everybody who was there yesterday, and half the town knows all about
it.”
“I’ll bet.”
“It’s such a tragedy,” Harmon added. “Such a shame. He
was such a good man.”
Kevin looked at the floor, shook his head and said
nothing as he walked slowly to his office.
“Oh, Mr. Darling,” Harmon called after him. “Mr.
Levesque called and asked if tomorrow, 12:30 would be okay.”
“Yeah, sure,” he droned, and shut his office door
behind him.
He sank down at his desk and held his head in his
hands. What else, he wondered? How much more unrevealed damage had he caused in
one selfish, egotistical moment? Now, all of Larry’s friends and relatives had
learned of his infidelity. He was stripped of his good name. Instead of the
honor that would have come from having lived an exemplary life, he would be
disgraced for his deceit. All because Kevin hadn’t liked his looks and his
attitude. Kevin spread some papers on his desk and pretended to work, in case
anyone walked past his office door, but he could focus on nothing but his
guilt. His thought process was moving through mud. He envisioned a huge
auditorium filled with all the people he had harmed. The crowd sat mutely; men,
women, adolescents, children. They all looked through him.
At lunchtime, he told Harmon that he had some stuff to
do outside the office, and that he wouldn’t be back. Technically, it wasn’t a
lie, but she was listless and didn’t seem to even notice. She said she’d see
him tomorrow.
Once in his car, Kevin decided he'd go visit Larry
Bell’s grave. Maybe he had already decided that was what he was going to do. He
drove to the cemetery and walked to the fresh plot. There was loose soil strewn
over the newly laid sod. There was a temporary marker awaiting a permanent
headstone. It was the day after the interment, and Kevin was the only person
anywhere to be seen. As he stared down at the grave, he thought of all the
irrevocable events that Larry Bell had missed over the past few days, the
turmoil versus the repose. The thought confused and saddened Kevin. He made a
brief, silent prayer for peace of mind and forgiveness and ambled back to his
car. So much for “movie night.”
At home, he lit a candle and put it on the kitchen
table, poured himself some of the remaining Christian Brothers and sat down. He
was on his second glass, when Lisa got home from work. He poured her out the
rest and told her what he had found out that morning. Lisa was a bit more
sympathetic than when Kevin had told her the first part of the story, but she
was steadfast in her conviction that all of this was not Kevin’s fault, and
that he should find some way to ease his own guilt. Also, she said, she would
do anything she could to help him. He was not on his own.
“Let’s go bowling and have cheeseburgers and beer,”
she surmised, and they did. It was lively, loud and divertingly destructive.
They laughed often. When they got home, they made passionate love for a long
time, and, drifting off to sleep, Kevin felt truly grateful for what he had in
life.
Friday morning, Kevin did what he could to keep busy
until his meeting with Thierry Levesque. He called a few clients, did some
research on upcoming changes in medical coverage, and studied a little for an
online test to get points toward keeping his license current. He also made some
lengthy small talk with Harmon, as it seemed their relationship had deepened
somewhat through the past days’ events. He noted that that was at least one
positive thing to come out of this whole affair. He bought two books of Billy’s
raffle tickets for a trip to a Biloxi casino.
Thierry arrived on time, in a jovial mood, with a
bottle of expensive bourbon for Kevin. They settled quickly, and Kevin gave him
a rate which he would usually have reserved for family members. It was partly
in secret appreciation for Thierry’s upbeat mood, and partly because of Kevin’s
underlying defeatist malaise. On his way out, Thierry did make mention of the
extramarital affair which had caused the scene that they had both witnessed, and
he asked if Kevin knew about the memorial basketball game at the high school,
scheduled for Saturday night. Larry Bell was to be honored with a plaque. Kevin
said he might try to go, and they bid each other good afternoon.
As soon as Thierry left, Kevin called Lisa at work.
“Hey, you know we missed ‘movie night’ last night,” he
cooed. “Let’s just make it a postponement to tonight.”
“I don’t think I have any plans. The usual time and
place?” He could hear the smile in her voice.
“Chinese?” he offered.
“Surprise me.”
He next dialed Chez Etienne, the restaurant on the plaza, and made reservations for
9pm, Saturday.
After the latter part of an underproductive afternoon,
Kevin left for the weekend, got their plum wine, spare ribs, Happy Family,
scallion pancakes, “Mother Jugs and Speed,” and “Car Wash.” At home, he and
Lisa made out on the couch for about ten minutes, something they did fairly
often, to keep a youthful enthusiasm in their romance.
Later, as Kevin put in the disk for the second movie,
he said matter-of-factly over his shoulder, “They’re having a memorial
basketball game tomorrow night at the high school for Larry Bell. I was
thinking we could go, and then head over to Chez Etienne for a treat. It’s been
a while.”
Only then did he turn to see her reaction.
Her head was slightly tilted, and she wore a lawyerly,
bemused look that made her eyes sparkle.
“Get over here and sit down.”
He did, and she took his hands.
She patiently, earnestly continued, “Don’t you think
you’re taking this a little bit too far, getting more involved than you need to
be? I would think the more you distance yourself from the whole thing, the less
responsibility you’re going to feel for it. And don’t try to tell me you don’t
still feel guilty, because the basketball game comes with a bribe.
“What if I said no to the game, honey? Would you
cancel dinner?”
“No, of course not. I just thought this might offer
some closure, and the dinner, I thought, would be a nice distraction
afterwards.”
He could hear the shallowness in his voice, and he
knew she could hear it too. Was he trying to convince himself that he meant it?
Why not try? Why not at least grab at some straws?
Maybe Lisa shared his sentiment, because she said,
“Listen, we’ll go to the game together. There’s just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“What am I going to wear that’s appropriate for a
basketball game and a three hundred dollar dinner? Put on the movie, will you?”
She kissed his hands and released them.
When Kevin awoke Saturday morning, Lisa was already on
her long jog. She had made coffee, and he had some as he got dressed. He went
out and got a baguette and ingredients for a big pot of his famous butter bean
soup to occupy his afternoon. Back at home, Lisa had already showered and was
on her way out to get her hair done and be otherwise pampered.
Kevin drifted through the early afternoon, going
through the motions of making his soup. To begin, it took him fifteen minutes
to find the ham hock he had just bought, and he cut his index finger chopping
celery. While the soup was finally simmering, he had a beer and watched Warner
Bros. cartoons, and afterwards could not recall a single one. When Lisa
arrived, they had their soup and got ready to go. Lisa had solved her wardrobe
issue. She wore a black cocktail dress with Kevin’s too-big wool college jacket
over it. With her hair done up, she looked hopelessly sexy. She sure knew how
to create a diversion.
“I can’t wait to get you in the back seat after the
game, Susie,” he rasped.
“Nuh-uh. You promised me dinner... then we’ll see. And
not too late, you know my dad.”
She smelled delectable.
Entering the gym they – or she – turned many heads,
adolescent and adult alike. It wasn’t hard to find a spot in the bleachers, as
the gym was only about half full. Kevin looked around and did not see Marianna
and the Bell family. Before tip-off, two of Larry Bell’s players wheeled a
table, draped in the school’s colors, out to center court. There was what was
obviously the plaque, covered with maroon velour in the middle of the table. A
well-dressed teenage girl followed with a microphone and introduced herself as
Karen-something, senior class president.
She announced that, as we all knew, this game was
being held to honor the life and achievements of Mr. Larry Bell. A bunch of
kids sitting together in athletic jackets and some students around the gym
stood up and hooted and clapped. There was a smattering of polite applause from
the rest of the attendees.
Karen went on to say that it was unfortunate that the
Bell family was unable to attend, so the basketball team’s co-captains would
accept this honor, and she unveiled the plaque, commemorating Mr. Larry Bell’s
years of unselfish devotion to the school and its students. The audience
response repeated itself from the first time, and the table was wheeled away.
Kevin and Lisa left at halftime, the home team up by
nine points.
“That was harsh,” she remarked, and that was all that
was said of the event.
Too early for their dinner reservation, they dropped
the college jacket in the car and strolled around Monument Square and the
tree-lined plaza, laughing heartily, while recalling every private detail of
their awkward first date.
Sunday morning, Kevin suggested that Lisa wear his
college jacket, and nothing else, back to bed. He was earnestly trying to put
himself “in the moment” and alleviate at least the surface of his lingering
guilt. The rest of the day, they lounged around the house, without bothering to
get dressed. Their conversation was sparse and shallow, but it might have been
that way on any other Sunday. Ever the knowledgeable activity coordinator, Lisa
herded him to a diner for cheeseburgers and malts, still wearing his college
jacket. They then went to the art movie house downtown and saw “Bread and
Chocolate.” They sat in the back row and didn’t see much of the movie. Although
he felt inside that Lisa was working toward an end, one of the many qualities
that Kevin admired about her was that she was effortless in almost all her
endeavors. She worked with soul. She made everything look and feel easy, and it
was infectious. When he was with her, it was foolish, almost embarrassing, to
struggle with anything.
The problem was that she could not be with him all
day, every day, to transmit that ease.
When he got to work, Kevin said “good morning” to
Harmon, who had already made coffee. He poured himself a cup and lingered,
mentioning that he and Lisa hadn’t seen her at the basketball game Saturday
night. Had they missed her, or didn’t she go? She said she had been at a
banquet for Billy’s civic group. She had, however, seen Marianna and the kids
at church on Sunday. They had been all dressed up, and Marianna had worn a very
distant and prideful air, had sat way up by the front of the church, and had
avoided any real conversation with the few congregants who had tenuously approached
her in the shame that she obviously felt.
“That was the real shame,” Harmon said. “We’re
supposed to be Christians, and everybody was either so nervous or standoffish
or haughty, and it just made me really sad.”
“Maybe they’re so distant and fearful, because it
reminds them of their own faults,” said Kevin, surprising himself.
Harmon’s eyes widened with discovery, and she said
nothing as he took his coffee into his office.
All the rest of the workday and on Tuesday and
Wednesday, Kevin stumbled along, imagining Marianna’s pain and shame and
loneliness and self-imposed alienation, and her indignation at it all. He
compared himself to the churchgoers, vainly trying to mask his own feelings of
guilt. Nights, he let himself fall under Lisa’s care and yet continued to
foolishly struggle, in spite of himself.
As soon as he had spoken to Harmon on Monday morning,
he had an itch and suppressed it. He knew what it was. Within a half hour, that
itch became, again, “the burr.” Would he confront Marianna Bell and confess?
Yes, no, yes, no.
For three days, he did not even trouble himself with
the logic or illogic, the absolution or the damage. It was blindly yes or no.
He was unaware of what he would do or say if he did, and his own emotional
future was a blank if he didn’t. Either consequence didn’t matter at all.
Simply, would he, or wouldn’t he?
He found the Bells’ address in the White Pages... just
in case.
He dully entered the reception area on Thursday
morning and greeted Harmon as he passed.
“Oh, Mr. Darling,” she called.
He turned, and she held out a Post-It sheet with some
numbers on it.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the winning raffle numbers from last weekend. I
keep forgetting to give them to you. You should check your tickets, because no
one’s won the grand prize yet.”
“Oh yeah, thanks,” and he absentmindedly stuck the
paper in his pocket.
Yes, no, yes, no, all morning. At lunchtime, he got in
his car to get a chicken Caesar salad from the Italian place and honestly had
no recollection of how he ended up in front of Marianna Bell’s house. Nor of
going up the walk and the front steps, until his thumb was on the doorbell.
He heard a vacuum cleaner turn off, and the widow
opened the front door. She was trim and athletic in jeans and a white blouse.
She wore a guarded, inquisitive expression and said nothing.
“Hello, Mrs. Bell, my name is Kevin Darling.”
Her eyes narrowed, “Yes?”
Kevin used his best sales voice; this was like a cold
call, “I have something important that I want to talk to you about. Do you mind
if I come in?”
She looked him up and down, fully opened the door, and
walked a few steps ahead of him into the hallway, where she stopped and turned
to face him, coldly.
“What do you want?”
“Mrs. Bell, I’ve been wanting to speak with you for
quite a while. I think maybe we ought to sit down.”
“I don’t. What is it that you want?”
“Mrs. Bell,” he began, “The night your husband died, I
was driving home from work on the Interstate, and your husband pulled up next
to me and wanted to get into the exit lane. He was driving very aggressively,
and I boxed him out of the lane, so he had to go up to the next exit. If I
hadn’t done that, he never would have gotten into the accident. He’d still be
alive.”
Marianna’s eyes got large and mean.
“Is that it?” she demanded incredulously. “How dare
you come here and butt into my life!”
She paused to collect her anger.
“How could you be so selfish? How dare you enter my
house with your petty, guilty conscience! What do you want me to do, forgive
you?
“My husband was a lout, a cheating, abusive lout, and
I knew it, and I had to live with it for the last seven years. And you come here
with your whiny, picayune story about some insignificant macho contest on the
highway. Well, for your information, I hated that truck, his toy.
“Larry used to scare the hell out of me and the kids
whenever we got in the car with him, and I had to live with that too, and shut
up about it for years and years. Do you think my children didn’t suffer all
that shit?
“Why don’t you open your eyes for five friggin’ seconds
and think about what I’M going through? What I’ve BEEN through!”
She punched him hard in the chest.
“Now get out of my house, you weakling! You... egotist!”
She pushed him out of the house and slammed the door.
He backed uncertainly down the front steps, and slowly emerged from a daze, and
realized where he was, waking from a dream. He got into the car and caught his
breath, still rising up into a new clarity. His eyesight grew keener, his mind
sharper. He drove back to work.
That afternoon, he returned six calls for term life
and homeowners’ policies, all from members of Harmon’s congregation. He set the
six appointments for Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, and they were all going to be
sure things. He ordered flowers for Harmon, to be delivered in the morning. And
it was “movie night.”
On his way to the Chinese restaurant, Kevin passed the
cemetery where Larry Bell was buried, but in his mind, it was nothing but a
nondescript, empty place, which held no spirits. It had no life of its own,
like an empty ballpark would, or an empty campground would. The only spirits he
had in mind were two bottles of plum wine.
He got snow peas with oyster sauce, spicy string
beans, roast pork mai fun, and rented “Grand Hotel” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad,
Mad World,” two all-star casts in movies about weird relationships between
strangers. He wondered if Lisa would get the connection.
She was not home when he arrived, so he emptied his
pockets on the kitchen table and got into a hot shower. Lisa was home when he
got out. He wrapped himself in a towel and met her in the kitchen. He gave
her a long kiss, and she could sense the newfound relaxation in his core. She
stepped back and looked at him, and he knew that she knew.
She held up the rumpled Post-It sheet.
“Are these the numbers for Billy’s raffle?” she wanted
to know.
“Yeah, nobody’s won the grand prize yet.”
“Well,” she smiled, “It looks like we’re going to
Biloxi.”
