Jay Lake - Rocket Science

“Be careful,” Doc said. “It looks like someone broke his ribs for him.”

Mrs. Milliken came in with some clean white rags. She smiled at me a moment, then went to work on Dad’s face, wiping the blood off. I fought back my tears, but my sinuses had filled up and were driving more out and I couldn’t blink away the pain inside me.

Doc Milliken grasped Dad’s face between his hands and thumbed back the eyelids. “Take it easy, Vernon,” he said softly over his shoulder as he shut the lids again. “Grady’s a tough old buzzard. He isn’t going to check out today.” He began to examine Dad’s scalp.

I looked around for Deputy Truefield. He was in the front room, talking on the telephone. I’d had enough law enforcement shenanigans for one day, and didn’t really want to know what he was discussing. Instead I took Dad’s hand and held it. The rough, callused fingers were familiar, their hard textures reminding me of my boyhood. I looked down and realized that he was still wearing his wedding band.

I had no idea he’d never taken it off. Not even knowing that much about Dad made me sad all over again.

Doc Milliken, Deputy Truefield and I stood on the front porch. Mrs. Milliken had brought out a tray with some frosty bottles of grape pop, then gone to sit in the front hall, listening through the screen door. The ceiling above me was painted blue to keep the wasps off it, and I found myself studying the knobby gingerbread along the edge of the porch roof.

Truefield cleared his throat. “Sorry about the hitching post, Doc.”

“I expect that young Vernon will make good on it.” Doc Milliken winked at me. “It was historic, you know.” I smiled weakly as Truefield glared at me.

“Sheriff’s on his way over from El Dorado,” Truefield said conversationally. “There’s going to be some hard questions asked.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but no words came out. I didn’t have anything to say. Doc Milliken patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t you think that the Augusta police should handle this, Peter?” he asked Deputy Truefield.

“Normally, yes, but I’m already involved. There’s reports to fill out, and where there’s reports, there’s questions.” Truefield shrugged and looked uncomfortable. His expression reminded me of the way Ollie had looked at me back at the police station.

“He’s going to be fine, you know,” said Doc Milliken. “There’s been no murder done here.”

“No, but we have attempted murder for sure.”

Milliken caught Truefield’s gaze and stared him down. “Vernon didn’t do it.”

I was glad to hear that. I knew I hadn’t done anything to Dad, but I wasn’t sure I could convince anybody else of that. Having him in the trunk of my car would be pretty convincing to a judge and jury. It wouldn’t be hard to construct a motive for me, either. God damn Floyd Bellamy and his magic Nazi airplane.

“How do you know?” demanded Truefield.

“Three ribs cracked, several more bruised. I’d like to send him on to Wichita for X-rays, just in case I missed some.”

“So?” Truefield’s tone was belligerent, his hand straying toward the revolver. I really wished he would stop that.

“Do I have to spell it out?” snapped Doc Milliken. “Vernon Dunham’s been lame from polio since he was eight years old. I know. I treated him through it and damned near lost him. It’s a miracle he can walk at all. Grady Dunham’s ribs were kicked, very hard, by someone. Now, do you suppose Vernon stood on his good leg and kicked his dad’s ribs in with his lame leg? Or did he stand on his lame leg and kick them in with his good one?”

“Oh,” said Truefield. “I see,”

I felt miserable, but I had to point something out. “I could have had an accomplice.”

“Whose side are you on?” asked Doc Milliken. “Besides, whoever hit your father in the head didn’t know him well. That knock would have killed almost anyone else, but they got him right in his metal plate. He’ll be weak from blood loss and have a heck of a headache when he wakes up, but that’s about it. You would have done a better job.”

The metal plate. Dad’s reward for surviving the accident that had killed Mom. The jackrabbit in the middle of the road had lived for a while, but Mom had her head torn off by a fence post. Sleeping like a baby in the back seat, Dad’s head just got bashed in. The nice metal plate that the surgeons at St. Francis hospital in Wichita had implanted in his skull put him back together just like new — a medical advance courtesy of the war. Dad was as good as ever, except for his endless capacity for gin, draining through the Mom-shaped hole in his heart.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I know all about the plate.” Mom’s surgical steel tombstone, stuck in Dad’s skull.

“That might let you off the hook,” said Truefield sternly, “but it still doesn’t look too good. County attorney will want to talk with you for sure.” Then, in a weird echo of Ollie’s advice, “I wouldn’t take any trips if I were you.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere.” Never again.

Who would have wanted to kill Dad? He made it to services at the First Christian Church downtown once or twice a month, he did a little hauling and light chores. He was harmless. Dad was the town drunk, but everybody knew why. Most folks looked past it and treated him well enough. There were even a few widows with designs on him, although Dad was pretty adroit at avoiding that kind of attention. He hadn’t been very adroit at avoiding someone else’s attention, though.

Something occurred to me. “Doc, you see anybody in here in the last day or so with a broken arm? Maybe an Army captain named Markowicz?”

Truefield’s head snapped towards me so hard I could hear his neck crack. His eyes narrowed and his hand went firmly to the butt of his revolver. Doc Milliken gave me a narrow-eyed look and said, “Now what would you know about that, Vernon?”

“I heard a rumor that Dad might have broken the Captain’s arm for him. Maybe he did this to Dad.” I waved back vaguely into the house behind us where Dad still rested.

“I think maybe we shouldn’t discuss this,” said Deputy Truefield in a low, tight voice.

That finally broke through my blues to make me angry. I tolled the litany of my complaints. My dad had been dying in the trunk of my car. Some strong-legged bastard had kicked a harmless old rummy in the ribs, whacked him upside the head, not caring whether he killed or not. Truefield kept trying to pull his gun on me, like I was John Dillinger or something.

I thought about my missing Nazi envelope, about Floyd’s stupid stunt of stealing the aircraft in the first place. I thought about how out of control my life was getting and how fast that had happened.

“You big… big… goober !” I screamed at Truefield. I could feel my lips stretch back, spit flying as I yelled. My leg throbbed in time to the angry cadences of my speech. “You talk about arresting me for trying to kill my own father, but when someone with a real reason to do it comes up, you don’t want to discuss it. This isn’t Germany, by God, this is Kansas. We don’t think that way around here.”

Doc Milliken put a hand on my shoulder, his fingers firm and warm. “Vernon, calm down.”

He turned to Truefield, who had his revolver pointed at my chest. “Now Peter,” said Doc Milliken, “put that gun away. Young Vernon’s just upset because something terrible has happened to his father. I suggest you go wait in your patrol car for the Sheriff to arrive. We won’t say any more about broken arms, none of us, until the time is right.”

“You be careful, Vernon Dunham,” said Truefield to me, sticking his left index finger in my face like a little pink gun even as he holstered the pistol. “There’s some pretty big stuff going on. You’re likely to be swept away by it.” He paused, catching his breath. “I want things back to normal here in Butler County. That includes you and your dad, Vernon. So just you take it easy.”