Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

No chimney, so no fireplace. So no mantel. But there’d be shelves for the photos. A huge wedding portrait hanging on the far wall. They would’ve been married out at Shalebrook Lake. A smallish gathering of only close friends and Kimmy’s family. Chub had been on his own since he was sixteen. I had no idea who his best man might’ve been. Kimmy’s father? That sounded right. Chub in a white-jacketed tux, Kimmy in a subdued but still breathtaknedl breathting dress. The photographer telling them to gaze into each other’s eyes, hold up the champagne glasses as if in a toast, stand at the rim of the water. They would’ve had to be careful because of the duck shit.

The opposite wall would be devoted to Scooter. A few large and fancy baby pictures. At least a couple of those family portraits with the child looking one way and Chub and Kimmy with faraway expressions and faintly perplexed smiles. One or two of the hanging frames would be slightly askew. I’d straighten them as I passed by.

The living room would have formal but comfortable furniture, the kind that had no real personality but that you could lie on without fear of wrecking it. Scooter’s toys would be piled in their own corner. Dolls and stuffed animals and pull-string gadgets that would teach her a cow said moo, a cat went meow. All of them neatly stacked. Chub was a neat freak in his own way, carefully organized and meticulous. It’s what made him such a good mechanic and getaway planner. The carpeting would be gray, something to hide dirt. There would be doormats to wipe your feet on and a small tiled foyer where you were expected to leave your shoes.

The banister leading upstairs would be polished and glossy, the corners of the stairs well vacuumed. Their bedroom would have a little more character, at least a couple of pieces of antique furniture. The headboard from some nineteenth-century captain’s home on the North Fork, with a carving of a three-mast square-rigged blowing-mainsail whaling ship dead center. When they made love, they’d have to prop the pillows just so, to keep from getting welts.

At around three in the afternoon Chub pulled into the driveway. I slid farther down in my seat even though he didn’t glance in any direction except Kimmy’s as he crossed the lawn. She brushed her hair back with the side of her glove and left a dirt smear across her forehead. For some reason it made me groan.

Chub had lost a little weight and grown a Vandyke that he kept well trimmed. It suited his face. He’d started losing his hair as a teenager and now kept his head shaved. He walked with a light step. He practically skipped after Scooter, who squealed with laughter and tried to run away. He scooped her up, set her on his shoulder, and spun around while she held her arms high, fingertips brushing blossoming buds on the ends of tree branches. She slid down into his arms, where he held her tightly against his chest and marched over to Kimmy. They kissed and then he pressed his forehead to hers for a moment.

Nothing they did was out of the ordinary, but it seemed exceptional to me. I saw the life I wanted, or the life I thought I wanted. The only part that was ugly was the creeper parked on the other side of the street, staring at them.

Chub had put in only a half day. His clothes looked too clean and fresh for a grease monkey. Maybe he’d gone legit and let other mechanics work under the hoods and transoms at his garage, but I couldn’t see him stepping out of the game completely. He certainly hadn’t crawled under any soccer mom’s SUV today. So what else was he doing with his time? Paperwork? He’d still be known on the circuit. Crews and strings would still be coming to him for engine work and plotting getaway routes. Was he turning them away? Or did he just pick and choose more carefully now?

I grabbed the door handle like I might climb out. And do what?

I could step up their brick path and watch as Chub turned and saw me, hit his usual pose of cool, sort of locking his legs and leaning back. He’d invite me in and it would be awkward at first, Kimmy unsure of what to say or how to act, il th to act, l at ease that I was there at all because I’d be staring at her. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. But soon things would loosen up. We’d act a little stupid, joke around, and share old stories. Nothing serious would be broached until later, after the beer bottles started to pile up. Chub would be thankful I’d deserted Kimmy. It had allowed him to step in. But he’d still resent me and consider my leaving a betrayal of our friendship if nothing else. His face would fall and that wounded expression would cross it inch by inch, starting with the frown lines in his forehead and down to his lower lip, which he’d be chewing on. Eventually he’d taste blood and stare at me for a lengthy time, steeling himself to either grab one of the bottle necks and crack me across the temple or let most of his anger slide and give me a hug.

Kimmy wouldn’t have any of it. She would still hate me. She would always hate me. I didn’t blame her. I hated me too.

Even as she said, It’s good to see you. How’ve you been? I’d know what was really moving through her heart. The real questions she wanted to ask, the honest indictments she would make. I’d left her alone to wallow through the misery of the miscarriage and our broken engagement. I’d left her to endure the onslaught of questions and insinuations by her family and friends as they snapped open the headlines and came at her, saying, This mass murderer, this sicko. He’s your boyfriend’s brother, isn’t he?

All those bodies left behind in Collie’s wake, but the only one that meant anything to her would be ours, the one that hadn’t come to full term, which she’d lost without anyone knowing, without anyone to console her. Not even me.

With a sharp tug I angled the rearview mirror so I could see them in it. See myself with them. I ran different scenarios. I saw other ways to impress myself upon the world. I could ease out of the car, move across the lawn as if it had been me who spent a thousand hours pushing the mower back and forth, using the edger to trim the borders, the way my father did, the way Chub did. Drop him with a shot to the kidneys. Kneel before the baby and hand her a teddy bear, get her to giggle, draw her into my arms. Lift her up and move to Kimmy, then press my forehead to hers, smell the loam, taste her life. Turn my back to Chub coughing in the grass and dream him gone. It’s what we all did when we wanted something badly enough. Let the irrational thoughts slip through, the idea that by sheer force of belief we could make things change, adjust, divert, back up. It’s what a thief does in the shadows, willing himself to vanish.

Step inside with my family and put the baby in her crib and take Kimmy by the hand to the bedroom and love her the way I would’ve if I hadn’t run away in my weakness and fear. I clutched the door handle until my fingers were white and cramped. I forced myself to let go. I cocked the rearview mirror back to where it belonged. When I looked over again, the front lawn was empty except for one pink barrette and the plastic bowl, tilted on its side.

The screw whose house I’d crept made me go through the same regimen as the day before. I spoke my true name. He led me to the small side room where I was frisked. He was a little rougher this time and clenched my nuts hard enough to make me grunt. Again I was politely asked if I would voluntarily succumb to a strip search.

I thought, I know what your wife’s lingerie looks like. Youust fix Tl drove to work today without a license, without any credit cards in case of an emergency.

He repeated the question.

I told him to fuck himself.

Instead of telling me to leave, the screw moved me along.