Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

“You’re not like your mother,” he said.

Duchess watched a bird hold still and perfect in the air.

Darke rubbed a hand along the wheel. “She’s got a way out. She owes rent. I need a favor.”

“She’s not a whore.”

“Do I look like a pimp to you?”

“You look like a cunt to me.”

The word sat there a while.

“That’s okay. So long as I don’t look like the man I really am.” He spoke with a flatness that chilled her.

“You took something last night.”

“You’ve got enough.”

“Who decides what enough looks like?”

She stared.

“Your mother can make this go away. You need to ask her. That would level things a little.”

“Fuck you, Darke.”

“The tape, Duchess. I need the security tape.”

“Why?”

“Trenton Seven. You know what that is?”

“The insurance place. I see the boards.”

“They won’t pay the money because the tape is missing and they think I had something to do with the fire.”

“You did.”

He took a long, deep breath.

She grit her teeth.

“I won’t forget.”

She met his eye. “You shouldn’t.”

“I really don’t want to have to come for you.” Something in his voice made her believe him.

“But you will.”

“I will.”

He reached across her, into the glove compartment, took out his sunglasses, not before she saw it, sitting there, the barrel facing her.

“I’ll give you the day. You tell your mother what you did. She can fix it, or I’ll have to. And you get the tape back.”

“You’ll give it to Walk.”

“No.”

“The insurance guys will get the cops involved.”

“Maybe. But you got to ask yourself something, Duchess.”

“And what’s that, Dick?” Maybe he caught the tremor then.

“Would you rather have the cops come looking for you? Or me?”

“I heard you stamped a guy to death.”

“He didn’t die.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Business.”

“The tape. Maybe I’ll hold on to it.”

He stared at her, those eyes that bore deep.

“You stay away from my mother and maybe one day I’ll give it back to you.”

She climbed from the car, then turned. He watched her, studied her, taking in every feature, committing her to memory. She wondered what he saw as she walked into the school building, beside other kids, their lives so light they dazzled her.

The day crawled. She checked the clock often, her eye on the window, the teacher’s words not reaching her ear. She ate lunch alone, watched Robin from the fence and felt what little control she once had slip from her grasp. Darke could do immeasurable damage. She needed the tape. She believed he wouldn’t take it to Walk. She reasoned there were two types of people in the world, the kind that called the cops and the kind that did not.

When the bell sounded she watched the other kids file in, kids playing ball tried for one last play, Cassidy Evans led her group.

Duchess slipped down the side of the main building, then ran across to the parking lot and drifted through Fords and Volvos and Nissans. She would get caught, no doubt about it, but she’d tell her mother she was feeling sick, time of the month, something the school would not press.

She walked fast, feeling the eyes of everyone she passed. She skirted Main in case Walk was looking out of the station. It was hot, so fucking hot she could barely breathe. Sweat all over her, T-shirt damp.

When she made it to Fortuna she found the old house, for once glad she had fucked up, that she didn’t make time to destroy the tape.

But then she stared at the yard, all the junk cleared, the garbage truck had already come.

The tape was gone.

She looked up and down, breathing hard, like her last hope had deserted her.

She spent the afternoon on the beach, sitting on the sand and watching the water. She clutched her stomach, the pain was hard and constant and followed her all the way back to collect Robin.

He talked the whole way home, about his birthday, about being six and what came with that. He asked for a house key, she smiled and stroked his hair, her mind someplace she hoped he’d never follow. In the empty house she fixed scrambled eggs and they ate together in front of the TV. And, when the sun fell, she got him into bed and read to him.

“Can we have green eggs one time?”

“Sure.”

“And ham?”

She kissed his head and cut off his light, closed her eyes for a moment, then woke to darkness. She walked through the house, turned on a lamp and heard music from outside.

Duchess found Star on the deck, the old bench needed painting. The moon lit her mother as she strummed the old guitar. Their song. She closed her eyes, the words cut her.

She needed to tell her mother what she had done, that she had taken a match and burned the very bridge that kept them out of troubled water. They were in the shallows now, but the deep would come for them, it would swallow them down till not even moonlight made it through.

Duchess took steps, feet bare, she did not notice the splinters.

The strum of soft chords. “Sing with me.”

“No.”

Duchess slid along till her head came to rest on her mother’s shoulder. No matter what she had done, no matter that she was tough and she was an outlaw, she needed her mother.

“Why do you cry when you sing?” Duchess asked.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I called that guy, the music guy from the bar. He wanted to meet for a drink.”

“Did you go?”

Star nodded slowly. “Men.”

“What happened last night?” She did not ask often, but this time she needed clarity.

“Some people just can’t hold their liquor.” Star shot a look at the neighboring house.

“Brandon Rock. He hit you?”

“It was an accident.”

“He couldn’t take no for an answer.”

Star shook her head.

Duchess watched the tall trees sway against night sky. “So Darke didn’t do nothing this time.”

“Last thing I remember was him helping me into the car.”

Realization was cold, and for a while Duchess could not speak. And then she thought of Darke, his hands on her. She grit her teeth, steeled. Bad things happened to bad men.

“You know it’s Robin’s birthday in the morning.”

Star looked sad then, not broken but close, her lip still a little swollen, her eye still dark. The kind of look that made the pain worse. There was no gift for her brother. Her mother had not remembered.

“I did something bad, Mom.”

“We all do bad things.”

“I don’t think I can fix it.”

Star closed her eyes, still she played and sang as her daughter gently leaned on her.

Duchess wanted so desperately to join in, but her voice began to break.

“I’ll protect you. That’s what mothers do.”

Duchess did not cry, but right then she came close.

10

WALK SUFFERED THE INDIGNITY OF the fall alone.

Small blessing. One minute he was walking, the next he was on his back looking toward the sky. His left leg, just gone from under him.

He sat in the cruiser, in the lot at Vancour Hill. He did not go in. Kendrick said he could have problems with balance, still, that loss of control, it was frightening.

The radio was low, static and talk, 2-11 in Bronson, 11-54 in San Luis. A coffee cup from Rosie’s Diner, a burger wrapper on the mat. His stomach pressed his shirt and he rested his hands there. Slow shift. He’d driven by Vincent’s, the house was coming along, the shutters removed and stripped, ready for painting.

He searched for the night star, dwelled on the disease and felt it in his bones, his blood, his mind. Synapses firing slow, the correspondence not lost but delayed.