Kem Nunn - Tapping the Source

Hound Adams stood framed for a moment in the doorway and then stepped onto the sidewalk. Several people at once seemed to be trying to talk to him, but he was ignoring them, staring past them into the crowd after his friend. Ike could not make out what they were saying. He still had Barbara at his side. He was holding her hand and knew without looking that she was weeping. Suddenly one of Hound’s friends started away from him and Ike saw Hound’s hand reach out to grab the guy by the arm. His words were harsh and clear. “Keep your motherfucking mouth shut,” he said. “I want his ass on the street.” Ike could not hear much more. “But he jumped bad on him,” someone said, and Hound called for quiet. Ike strained to get closer, to hear more. He could feel Barbara pulling at his arm and then it was like he was aware of someone looking at him and he turned his head.

Hound Adams was standing with his back to the dirty brick wall. The fog was sweeping up through the streets and above them the purple letters of the Club Tahiti had begun to buzz. For a moment their eyes met; Ike met Hound Adams’s stare with his own. But it was only for an instant, and it was Ike who looked away, back into the crowded street.

Barbara did not want to go home, and she did not want to be alone. On the way back to the Sea View they picked up a six-pack of beer. The drank it seated on the floor of Ike’s room, their backs against the bed. Actually Barbara drank most of it. Ike had two beers and Barbara drank the other four. “You know the funny thing,” she said. “When I first moved in with Preston, I thought I was without hope; I mean, my life was pretty screwed up then. But I’m not. That’s what I’ve learned, living with Preston. Preston is without hope. I’m not. It took a while, but I’m beginning to understand that.”

Ike felt that he should respond but was not sure about what to say. “You said you’ve been with him just over a year?”

“Almost two.”

“But you’ve known him longer?”

“Not known him. I knew who he was. This town was different back when he and Hound owned the shop. I mean, everything was smaller. There was only one high school; everybody knew everybody else. I think I was in the seventh grade when Preston moved to Huntington, but I used to spend a lot of time at the beach. Most people who hung out around the beach knew who Hound and Preston were.”

Ike took a drink of beer and stared at a slice of moonlight on the glass.

“I remember the day he won that big contest, the nationals or whatever it was. I remember standing on the pier and watching. It’s strange to think back to that now. I haven’t thought of it in a long time. But I didn’t meet Preston until recently, maybe two years ago.” She stopped. “You don’t have to listen to this,” she said. “I can shut up.”

“No. I’m interested.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Ike watched her take another drink and then rest the bottle on her knee. “I haven’t drunk this much beer in a while,” she told him. “Not since the night I met Preston, maybe.” She seemed to find that amusing in a sad sort of way and smiled at the floor. “We met in a bar, that place that’s the punk club now. I can’t even remember what it was called then, the Beachcomber or something. I had just gotten out of the hospital and wasn’t supposed to be drinking, though; I remember that. I’d gotten pregnant that summer and it turned out to be a tubular pregnancy. I almost died. They wound up having to take everything out. Everything.” She said it in a flat voice, the bottle resting on her bare leg, the moonlight finding one side of her face. Ike had not turned on any lights; the room seemed better in the dark.

“Anyway,” she continued. “That was where I was at the summer Preston came home. I’d just done two years at a local J.C. I had been planning to apply to this photography school up north, and all of a sudden it was like everything was over. I mean, I just couldn’t see the point anymore. Then Preston showed up. He’d been gone for years. First the war, then jail. He came back like he is now. That’s the only way you have ever seen him, so it probably doesn’t mean that much to you, but nobody else could believe it. He was a different person, completely.” She paused and took a drink of beer.

“But I guess I saw us as having something in common,” she said. “At least that was how I felt at the beginning, like the whole thing was without hope.” She stopped for a moment and looked at Ike. “But that wasn’t it really, now that I’ve had time to think, to be with him. I mean, I don’t know if I can say it very well, but what was really going on was that I was looking at Preston and I was seeing this tragic figure, but I was seeing something else, too; I was still seeing that young guy on the beach holding a big silver trophy over his head, and somehow I was still trying to be the girl on the pier. That might sound stupid, but the thing is, I was working at something. I was really believing that if Preston and I loved each other we could help each other, we could get back some of what had been lost, both of us. But what I’ve begun to see in the last year is that I’m the only one working at it.” She stopped. “Preston doesn’t care,” she said slowly. “About anything. So maybe you can see why I was surprised when he started talking about taking this kid he had met up to the ranch. I mean, he acted like he really wanted to do it. I don’t know.” She stopped again and shook her head.

“What do you know about the ranch?”

“Nothing. Just what I told you in the truck.” Ike was staring at the wall, but he could feel her turning her face to look at him. “Do you think this, tonight, had something to do with what happened up there?”

Ike didn’t answer right away. For some reason, he was reluctant to tell her. He supposed, however, that she would find it out on her own sooner or later. Perhaps it was better that she hear it from him. It had all come to seem clear enough. Barbara had told him that Preston and Hound had been partners. Preston had told him that Hound Adams had friends with bucks. Certainly whoever owned the ranch had money. And Preston had not had to break down any fences—he’d had his own fucking key. It seemed plain that Preston once had free access to the ranch, and that now he was no longer welcome there. When he and Jacobs had run into each other, they’d fought over it. And that was how it had started. This afternoon, at the Club Tahiti, they’d met again, and they had ended it. As for Preston’s willingness to risk it—to take Ike there, he had evidently miscalculated. It was just as he’d said to Ike that day Ike had seen the figure in white from the clearing, he had not expected so many people to be around. Ike worked his way through these ideas now, with Barbara. She looked away from him as he spoke. When he was finished, she sat with her eyes closed, her forehead on the heel of her hand. “Assholes” was what she finally said.

They both sat in silence for some time after that, until Barbara said she had to use the head. Ike watched her cross the room. When she came back, she asked him if he was ready to go to sleep. He shrugged. “Whatever you want,” he said. She put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” she told him. “And thanks.”

It was a strange night. Ike let Barbara have the bed. He slept on the floor below it, but he slept fitfully, waking time and again to think that she had spoken to him, that she was awake. But each time he sat up to look, he found her asleep. And at last he slept himself, soundly, he supposed, because when he woke he found her already dressed and poking through the cupboard above what passed for his kitchen sink. “No coffee?” she asked.