Peter Abrahams - The Fan

“This and that,” said Boucicaut.

“Looks like you’re making out all right,” Gil said.

Boucicaut stopped whatever he was doing inside the deer carcass, the thrower out of sight. He gave Gil a look, the same combative look, Gil supposed, that he used to see through the bars of the catcher’s mask when the game was on the line. But now it had a menacing effect he didn’t remember; maybe it was just the black beard. “Is that meant to be funny?” Boucicaut said.

“You’ve got a truck. You’ve got this place.”

Something snapped inside the carcass. “The truck’s a rusted-out piece of shit with two hundred thousand miles on it. And this pigsty isn’t even mine. Belongs to my old lady.”

Gil couldn’t stop his gaze from sliding toward the bed against the back wall, empty and unmade.

“Don’t get a hard-on, Gilly. She won’t be back till August.”

“Gil.”

Boucicaut tilted a beer to his lips, swallowed half of it. “Ask me why, Gil.”

“Why what?”

“Why she won’t be back till August.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause she’s in the pen.”

Gil didn’t say anything.

“Ask what for.”

“Just tell me, Co.”

“No one calls me that either.”

“What do they call you?”

“Len.” Boucicaut finished his first bottle, set it on the table, coming close to Gil. Gil heard him breathing, the heavy breathing of a fat, middle-aged man, not a big-league catcher. That didn’t make sense. “It’s my name, right?” said Boucicaut.

“Right.”

“Did you know that Boucicaut was a knight in the Crusades?”

“No.”

“A real one, not like Robin Hood. A college chick told me that.”

“You went to college?”

“That’s a good one. This was a college chick I picked up in a bar.” Boucicaut started on the second bottle. “You haven’t finished asking me.”

“Asking what?”

“What they got my old lady for.”

“Speeding?” Gil, his first beer drained too, was feeling lightheaded.

“Another joke. You’re out-jokin’ me, old pal.”

“I give up, then.”

“Sellin’ her tail.”

“They locked her up for that?”

“She was workin’ the ski places. Not a bad idea-that’s where the money is. Hurt their image, though, so they went after her. Image is the whole fuckin’ deal with those assholes.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. I miss the money is all.”

The mongrel returned to the door. Boucicaut threw out another red organ.

They emptied their second beers, had a few more. Boucicaut finished with the deer, bagged the meat, put it in the fridge; then kicked the remains outside, rolled up the newspaper, stuffed it in the woodstove. “What day is it?” he said, wiping the thrower on his jeans and handing it to Gil.

For a moment, Gil wasn’t sure. Was that what it meant to be unemployed, you lost track of time? Then he pictured his schedule, laid out in boxes, now demolished. “Thursday,” he said.

“Thursday,” Boucicaut said. “Sale on ammo, down at Sicotte’s. Think I’ll run down.” He stepped outside, crossed the yard, stopped by the 325i. “Wouldn’t mind a little test drive.”

“Want me to drive you there, you mean?”

“More like drive myself. Unless you don’t trust me.”

Gil went outside, gave him the keys. He’d trusted Boucicaut since he was five years old. “Be right back,” Boucicaut said. He opened the car door, saw the trophy lying on the passenger seat. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Gil said. “My kid’s.” He reached inside, took it out.

“You’ve got a kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. A couple.”

“In school?”

“If it’s really Thursday.”

“They must have left early.”

Boucicaut looked puzzled.

“For school,” Gil explained. “They were gone when we got here.”

“They don’t live here, for Christ’s sake. They’re with their ma.”

“In jail?”

Boucicaut’s forehead knotted. “Not her, man. Down in Portland. This was before.”

He climbed into the car, wheeled it around as though he’d been driving it for years, and sped off, spewing mud. His whoop of pleasure hung in the air, or else Gil imagined it.

Gil went back inside, closed the door. It was cold. He lit the stove, had another beer, looked around. He found nothing interesting-unless guns and ammo were interesting; plenty of guns, plenty of ammo-until, on the floor at the back of the only closet, he came across two baseball gloves, both buried in dust balls. One was a fielder’s glove, the other a catcher’s mitt. A black Rawlings. Gil recognized it. He put it on, pounded his fist in it a few times; then he took it off, sniffed inside, and set it on the table beside the trophy.

He lay down on the bed, got a hard-on. Boucicaut’s old lady was a whore. That meant she’d sleep with him if he paid. He toyed with the idea of sleeping with Boucicaut’s old lady, decided he wouldn’t do it. But what if she walked in the door that very minute? He watched the door for a while. Then he closed his eyes.

When he opened them the trailer was cold and full of shadows, and the objects he saw-trophy, mitt, beer bottles-had fuzzy edges. He checked his watch: six-thirty. He’d slept all day. Gil rose, opened the door, went outside. No car. Sicotte’s, as he recalled, was about fifteen minutes away. The mongrel trotted past, toward the woods.

“Here, boy.”

The dog growled and kept going.

Gil took a piss, watching the lane, listening for the sound of an approaching car. He heard no cars, heard nothing at all. The temperature fell, the silence grew, like a living thing. Gil felt the woods all around. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket for warmth, for comfort.

And felt something crumpled up in one of them. He withdrew it, smoothed it out: a long, sealed white envelope, addressed to him. He opened it.

Inside was a legal document he could make no sense of at first. Words and phrases from various parts of the page leapt out at him: “Defendant’s DOB,” “Probate and Family Court,” “Plaintiff.”

“Hold it,” he said aloud, “just hold it.”

The mongrel reappeared, wagging its ragged tail, brushing Gil’s leg. Gil kicked it away.

He forced himself to begin at the top, read word by word. Ellen’s name was typed in the box labeled PLAINTIFF. His appeared in the box beneath: DEFENDANT. For a moment he thought he was the good guy; the plaintiff was a complainer, right? Then he read on:

THE COURT HAS ISSUED THE FOLLOWING ORDERS TO THE DEFENDANT (only items checked shall apply):

There followed nine numbered lines, preceded by little boxes. X s appeared in two of them:

YOU ARE ORDERED NOT TO ABUSE THE PLAINTIFF by harming or attempting to harm the plaintiff physically, or by placing the plaintiff in fear of imminent serious physical harm, or by using force, threats, or duress.

YOU ARE ORDERED NOT TO CONTACT THE PLAINTIFF or any child(ren) listed below, either in person, by telephone, in writing, or otherwise, and to stay at least 100 yards away from them, unless you receive written permission from the Court to do otherwise.

CHILD(REN): Richard G. Renard II.

Gil’s first thought was a crazy one: someone had slipped into the trailer while he slept and stuck the envelope in his pocket. Then came a dim recollection, dim not because of a long passage of time, but because it was such a cool bland memory in a hot sea of them: red-faced Bridgid in tears, Garrity’s pink and snappable leg, shaking Figgy’s Judas hand. A cool bland memory of a man in a windbreaker rising from a chair in the office waiting room, polite and smiling. “Mr. Renard?” Then the long white envelope. And: “Have a nice day.”