Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

So many regrets, so much thrown away. Because I think about Audrey, too, more and more often. All the good things she is and tried to offer me. I ask myself why I couldn’t see her then as I see her now, why I couldn’t feel for her then what I feel for her now. Storm is the easy answer, but there are no easy answers anymore. My responsibility. My guilt.

She’s still there for me now; she comes to see me nearly every day. But I’d be a fool to expect her to be there when I get out of prison. My lawyer is confident he can plea-bargain the charges against me down to second-degree homicide, maybe even felony manslaughter. At the minimum that would mean a sentence of eleven years, with the possibility of parole in five to six. I can’t ask Audrey to wait five or six years for a convicted felon. I won’t ask her; I don’t have any right to put that kind of burden on her. She has so much to give — let her give it to someone else, somebody better than me.

You’re not given more than a couple of chances in this life. Screw them up, waste them, and that’s all there is. You get what you deserve then. You get exactly what you deserve.

One of the croakers sidled into my white rubber room a little while ago. I opened one eye to a slit, and when I saw that he wasn’t one of the shrinks with their idiotic questions (“Had any stimulating conversations with your bedpan today, Mr. Kent?”) or a nurse with a needleful of temporary fixative for the shakes, shimmers, and other fun by-products of alcohol withdrawal (perfectly calm at the moment, Kent had no desire to have his ass punctured unnecessarily), I decided to wake up and be sociable for a change.

The croaker, however, didn’t look particularly sociable. Very solemn, he was. Like a judge about to pass sentence on a miscreant. Which, as it developed, was precisely the case.

“I’m afraid I have unpleasant news for you, Mr. Kent,” he said.

“Is that so?”

“There is no easy way to say this, so I’ll be blunt. We have the final results of all your tests, and they’re conclusive. You have cirrhosis of the liver.”

“No surprise there, Doc.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Prognosis? Terminal, eh?”

“Barring a regenerative miracle, yes.”

Is that you I hear chuckling maniacally, Pa, you old fook? Well, clear a place for me in the hot coals and dish up a shot of sulfur and brimstone. When I get down there, we’ll hoist one together and then go spit in Old Scratch’s eye.

“How long do I have, Doc?”

“That depends.”

“On where I end up and whether or not I have access to any more of the nectar what brung me here. Correct?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“How long with the best of care and nary another drop of demon rum?”

“A year. Possibly eighteen months.”

“And how long with continued pickling?”

“You’d be dead in three months. I’m sorry, Mr. Kent.”

“Sorry? Sorry? Why, Doc, you couldn’t have brought me a better gift if you were Santa Claus and this was Christmas morning.”

Kent smiled. Kent winked. Kent could have kissed him.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Just when I thought I’d never hear from John Faith again, the letter came. I knew it was from him even before I ripped open the envelope.

Dear Trisha,

I don’t have many friends, so I’m not very good at saying good-bye. Maybe this isn’t the best way to say it to you, but it’s my way and I hope you won’t mind.

Thank you for being my friend when I needed a friend the most. I’ll never forget you, Trisha.

Good luck. And don’t ever stop caring.

Your friend,

John

It made me bawl like a baby. Right away I took it upstairs and locked it in my treasure chest, where I keep all the stuff that means the most to me. I read it once more first. I’ll never forget you , John, I thought. Don’t you ever stop caring, either.

That night, when Daddy came home from work, I told him about the baby and that I wanted to have it and keep it. He was pretty upset at first, but he didn’t have a hemorrhage like I’d thought he would. Actually, he was pretty cool about it. He asked if Anthony was gonna marry me, and I said I didn’t know about that yet, which kind of surprised me because until that very minute I’d been so sure I wanted Anthony to stay out of my life for good, particularly after what that asshole brother of his tried to do to Ms. Sixkiller. Daddy said that, well, whatever happened I wouldn’t have to raise the kid by myself — I could stay right here at home and he’d help me, if that was the way things worked out. Yeah, pretty cool. He stays out all night gambling too much and works too hard and sometimes I think he’s like the Bitch and doesn’t give a shit if I live or die, but I guess he really does love me after all.

One thing I didn’t tell him about: the baby. I won’t tell anyone until the time comes, not even Selena. It’s my secret and I’m not gonna share this one.

If it’s a boy he’ll be named John, and if it’s a girl she’ll be called Faith.

I’ve been to see Dick several times now at the county correctional facility. At first our meetings were awkward; he wouldn’t look me in the eye and what little conversation we had was limited to neutral topics — my teaching and volunteer work, how Mack was adjusting to living with me. But at the end of each session he asked me to please come back, with a kind of desperation in his voice, and I couldn’t have refused him even if I’d wanted to. He has no one else. In all of Pomo, in the entire time since his wife left him, he’s had no one but me. And it wasn’t until now, when it’s too late, that he realized it.

There’s a hard irony in that, and in the fact that our roles have been reversed. He needs me now, but I no longer need him. I still care about him, and part of me will always love him, yet the feelings are detached, heavy with sadness but without yearning. It’s over. It would have been over even if there weren’t bars and steel mesh separating us. Indians are as blind as whites sometimes, but when we do see, we see more clearly than anyone. And we know better than anyone how to make compromises and adjustments, how to live with loss, how to channel feelings and be satisfied with less than we hope for. There is no self-pity in that; it’s a simple statement of fact. I would be all right. Continue to try to make life better for my people, and my own life would be better for the effort. Someday, perhaps, I’ll meet someone new to need and love, and who will need and love me in return. I think if this happens he’ll be red, or more red than white, but in any case it won’t matter. What’s important is that then the long nights won’t be lonely anymore.

I told some of this to Dick the last time I saw him. He said he understood and I think he does. It was the first time we’ve been able to talk about what matters to both of us — a good omen for him, too. Jail has been difficult for him, and prison will be twice as bad, but he takes full responsibility for his actions; the bitterness he feels is mostly toward himself. He won’t be the same man when he’s free again, or necessarily a better man, but he will be a wiser one.

His one blind spot is John Faith’s role in all that happened. He’s said more than once, with anger in his voice, that if John Faith had not come to Pomo there wouldn’t have been nearly as much trouble. Deep down he may even believe that if it weren’t for John Faith, he wouldn’t have killed Storm.

But he’s wrong. What Dick doesn’t understand is that John Faith is not guilty of anything other than poor judgment. He isn’t a poison-maker; he’s another victim, in a way the most tragic victim of all.