Matthew Stokoe - Empty Mile

Lighten up. The other day was just something that had to happen.”

“What you made Marla do was disgusting.”

“Forget that shit. You gotta see what’s happening. You won’t believe it.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me out onto the sidewalk.

“Look! Look what that fucking bitch is doing.”

A small van was rolling slowly along the street. It had posters taped to its sides and the front of a handheld loudspeaker stuck through the open driver’s window. It looked like something a small-town politician might use for electioneering. And it was being put to a similar use now. The posters displayed several different slogans, but they all boiled down to the same thing-that the proposed road to Tunney Lake should be stopped on environmental grounds. And backing the posters up, the loudspeaker demanded that we save one of our natural beauty spots, that we preserve it from the overexploitation that would certainly come with easier access.

“Look at her. I mean, am I insane? Did the world just take a vote and decide to fuck me in the ass? This is unbelievable.”

I followed his outstretched arm as it tracked the van. In the shadows of the cab, past the bullhorn, I saw the reason for his rage. Vivian was speaking into the microphone and driving one-handed.

“She’s been doing this for three days. And that’s not all. Come here.”

He pulled me along the street to a lamppost. Stapled to the dusty gray wood there was a flier outlining in more detail just what the negative effects of a blacktop road to the lake would be-from the destruction of forest to the death of wildlife to the erosion of the lake’s foreshore.

Gareth tore it from the pole and ripped it to pieces. “She’s putting them everywhere. She’s even stuck them to trees on the Loop. Where’s your car?”

“Around the block. Why?”

“I have something to show you.”

“Not interested.”

Gareth looked at me with dead eyes. “Your chum Jeremy Tripp’s involved.”

And so I found myself back at Tunney Lake, sitting in front of a blank TV in Gareth’s bedroom. Out in some other part of the bungalow I could hear David rolling around in his wheelchair and muttering to himself.

Gareth took a DVD from his nightstand and slid it into a player. “Tripp sent me this in the mail yesterday.”

He hit the remote and the disk started to play. I recognized the setting immediately. Jeremy Tripp’s house-the bedroom where I’d found Vivian wrapped in a towel. She was there again now, only she wasn’t by herself this time.

Jeremy Tripp had her on all fours in front of him on the bed. She was naked and he ploughed into her as though he was working out. On the screen I could see the bed inching across the floor with each of his thrusts. Vivian seemed unaware of the camera but Jeremy Tripp grinned straight at it from time to time and later, as he was finishing, he winked and gave it the finger. After he was done with Vivian they lay on the bed together for a minute or two, then she got up and walked into the bathroom. After she’d gone, Jeremy Tripp rolled off the bed, picked up the camera from wherever it had been resting, and panned it around to a dresser in a corner of the room. On top of this there were several neatly stacked reams of paper. He lifted a sheet from one of them and held it in front of the camera. For a moment the image blurred, then it sharpened again and the screen was filled with a close-up of a flier identical to the one Gareth had ripped from the telegraph pole in Back Town. Then the screen went black as the camera was turned off.

Gareth looked at me with his mouth open and his hands turned up. “What sort of fucking psycho is he? It explains her sudden interest in the road, though.”

“You think he put her up to it?”

“Of course he did. Jesus, Johnny. Vivian’s one of these cunts who live to find excuses to rant at the world. All you have to do is point her and pull the trigger. I used to tell her how much we needed the road when I was going out with her and she moaned about it even then. Now this asshole’s wound her up to the point where she thinks it’s her duty to save the community from it. The fucking eco-liberals on the council are going to eat it up with a spoon.”

“Well, thanks for sharing…” I stood up and started to leave but Gareth stopped me.

“Johnny, wait a minute. Let me ask you something. You hate this guy as well, right? Two plant businesses in one town? He’s gotta be fucking you up. If he wasn’t around, both of us would be a whole lot better off. I might even get Vivian back. What would you say to us making him not be around anymore?”

“And how would we do that?”

Gareth held my gaze. “How do you think?”

The idea was appalling, but at the same time I couldn’t help feeling a rush of desire to see Jeremy Tripp dead. When I didn’t say anything Gareth stood up.

“You owe me, Johnny. You’d be a dead man now if I hadn’t stopped those jocks from cutting you open.”

“That was ten years ago.”

“You wouldn’t be any less dead if it happened yesterday.”

“I don’t owe you that much.”

For a moment Gareth looked closely at me, then, as though he had lost interest in the subject, he lifted his hands and smiled. “Hey, just thought I’d say it, you know? I thought maybe you were thinking along the same lines. Forget about it. I tell you one thing that puzzles me, though. Vivian’s Vivian and that’s bad enough, but why the fuck should Tripp care if the road gets built or not?”

I shrugged and didn’t answer. But of course I knew. Jeremy Tripp had begun to move against Gareth, the same way he’d moved against me and Marla, attacking from a distance through something each of us held dear.

As far as I was concerned Gareth deserved everything he got. But it was still strangely frightening to know that I had begun something which might well destroy the only hope he had for the future.

Jeremy Tripp called first thing next morning and spoke without preamble.

“Bill Prentice has confirmed what you said about Gareth Rogers, that he believes he was swindled over the proposed road to the lake.”

“Does that mean you’ll leave us alone now?”

“It means more than that. This shift of focus has made Plantagion redundant. As a gesture of recompense I’d like to hand over our customers to you. And our stock of plants. Gratis, of course.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was an offer that would save Plantasaurus, that would raise it from certain failure and catapult it into the ranks of stable and sustainable businesses.

“Well, of course, we’d be happy-”

“Good. I’ll have the plants delivered to your warehouse tomorrow. And I’ll call you in a day or so about the customer agreements. How is your brother, by the way?”

“He’s good.”

“His girlfriend cleans my house, I think. Rosie. It must be profoundly affecting for someone in his condition to have a relationship.”

“It’s very important to him, yes.”

There was a brief silence on the line while Jeremy Tripp digested this. Then he hung up.

It seemed that in the space of five minutes Plantasaurus had gone from certain ruin to potentially being more successful than we could have dreamed. That was, of course, if Jeremy Tripp was genuine. But looking at it logically I saw no reason for him not to be. He’d attacked us because he believed we’d made the video that drove his sister to suicide. Now that he knew someone else had made it he had no reason to continue persecuting us.

I went outside. Stan was dancing with Rosie on a flat patch of ground in front of the cabin. He had a radio balanced on the porch railing. It was tuned to a station that played jazz and swing.