David Eddings - High Hunt

“Not really,” I said. “I’ve only got three more days till I get out, and I think I’ll keep my nose clean.”

“Good idea—hey, you got anything on for tonight? I mean any chickie or anything?”

“No,” I said, “just kicking around. I thought I’d just give you a call and let you know I was still alive, is all.”

“Why don’t you grab a bus and bag on out? I’d come and pick you up, but Margaret’s workin’ tonight, and she’s got the car.”

“Your wife?”

“Yeah—and I’ve got to watch the kids. I’ve got some beer in the fridge. We can pop open a few and talk old times.”

“All right,” I said. “How do I find the place?”

“I’m out on South Tacoma Way. You know which bus to take?”

“I think I can remember.”

“Get off at Seventy-eighth Street and come down the right hand side. It’s the Green Lodge Trailer Court. I’m in number seventeen—a blue and white Kenwood.”

“OK,” I told him. “I’ll be out in a half hour or so.”

“I’ll be lookin’ for you.”

I slowly hung up. This was going to be a mistake. Jack and I hadn’t had anything in common for years now. I pictured an evening with the both of us desperately trying to think of something to say.

“Might as well get it over with,” I muttered. I stopped by a liquor store and picked up a pint of bourbon. Maybe with enough anesthetic, neither one of us would suffer too much.

I sat on the bus reading the ads pasted above the windows and watching people get off and on. They were mostly old ladies. There’s something about old ladies on buses—have you ever noticed? I’ve never been able to put my finger on it, but whatever it is, it makes me want to vomit. How’s that for an inscription on a tombstone? “Here Lies Daniel Alders—Old Ladies on Buses Made Him Want to Puke.”

Then I sat watching the streets and houses go by. I still couldn’t really accept any of it as actuality. It all had an almost dreamlike quality—like coming in in the middle of a movie. Everybody else is all wrapped up in the story, but you can’t even tell the good guys from the bad guys. Maybe that’s the best way to put it.

The bus dropped me off at Seventy-eighth, and I saw the sickly green neon GREEN LODGE TRAILER COURT sign flickering down the block. I popped the seal on the pint and took a good belt. Then I walked on down to the entrance.

It was one of those “just-twenty-minutes-from-Fort Lewis” kind of places, with graveled streets sprinkled with chuckholes. Each trailer had its tired little patch of lawn surrounded by a chicken-wire fence to keep the kids out of the streets. Assorted broken-down old cars moldered on flat tires here and there. What few trees there were looked pretty discouraged.

It took me a while to find number seventeen. I stood outside for a few minutes, watching. I could see my brother putzing around inside—thin, dark, moving jerkily. Jack had always been like that—nervous, fast with his hands. He’d always had a quick grin that he’d turn on when he wanted something. His success with women was phenomenal. He moved from job to job, always landing on his feet, always trying to work a deal, never quite making it. If he hadn’t been my brother, I’d have called him a small-time hustler.

I stood outside long enough to get used to his face again. I wanted to get past that strangeness stage when you say all kinds of silly-ass things because most of your attention is concentrated on the other person’s physical appearance. I think that’s why reunions of any sort go sour—people are so busy looking at each other that they can’t think of anything to say.

Finally I went up and knocked.

“Dan,” he called, “is that you? Come on in.”

I opened the screen door and stepped inside.

“Hey there, little brother, you’re lookin’ pretty good,” he said, grinning broadly at me. He was wearing a T-shirt, and I could see the tattoos on his arms. They had always bothered me, and I always tried not to look at them.

“Hello, Jack,” I said, shaking his hand. I tried to come on real cool.

“God damn,” he said, still grinning and hanging onto my hand. “I haven’t seen you in three or four years now. Last time was when I came back from California that time, wasn’t it? I think you were still in college, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said.

“You’ve put on some beef since then, huh?” He playfully punched me in the shoulder. “What are you now? About a hundred and ninety?”

“One-eighty,” I said. “A lot of it’s German beer.” I slapped my belly.

“You’re lookin’ better. You were pretty scrawny last time I seen you. Sit down, sit down, for Chrissake. Here gimme your jacket. It’s too fuckin’ hot for that thing anyway. Don’t you guys get summer uniforms?”

“Mine are all rolled up in the bottom of my duffle bag,” I told him, pulling off the jacket. I saw him briefly glance at the pint I had tucked in my belt. I wasn’t trying to hide it.

He hung my blouse over a kitchen chair. “How about a beer?”

“Sure.” I put the brown-sacked pint on the coffee table and sat down on the slighly battered couch. He was fumbling around in the refrigerator. I think he was a little nervous. I got a kick out of that for some reason.

I looked around. The trailer was like any other—factory-made, filled with the usual cheap furniture that was guaranteed to look real plush for about six weeks. It had the peculiar smell trailers always have and that odd sense of transience. Somehow it suited Jack. I think he’d been gravitating toward a trailer all his life. At least he fit in someplace. I wondered what I was gravitating toward.

“Here we go,” he said, coming back in with a couple caps of beer. “I just put the kids to bed, so we’ve got the place to ourselves.” He gave me one of the cans and sat in the armchair.

“How many kids have you got?” I asked him.

“Two—Marlene and Patsy. Marlene’s two and a half, and Patsy’s one.”

“Good deal,” I said. What the hell else can you say? I pushed the pint over to him. “Here, have a belt of bourbon.”

“Drinkin’ whiskey,” he said approvingly.

We both had a belt and sat looking at each other.

“Well,” I said inanely, “what are you up to?” I fished out a cigarette to give myself something to do.

“Oh, not a helluva lot really, Dan. I’ve been workin’ down the block at the trailer sales place and helping Sloane at his pawnshop now and then. You remember him, don’t you? It’s a real good deal for me because I can take what he owes me out in merchandise, and it don’t show up on my income tax. Margaret’s workin’ in a dime store, and the trailer’s paid for, so we’re in pretty good shape.”

“How’s the Old Lady? You heard from her lately?” It had to get around to her sooner or later. I figured I’d get it out of the way.

“Mom? She’s in Portland. I hear from her once in a while. She’s back on the sauce again, you know.”

“Oh, boy,” I said with disgust. That was really the last damned straw. My mother had written me this long, tearjerker letter while I was in Germany about how she had seen the light and was going to give up drinking. I hadn’t answered the damned thing because I really didn’t give a shit one way or the other, but I’d kind of hoped she could make it. I hadn’t seen her completely sober since I was about twelve, and I thought it might be kind of a switch.

“You and her had a beef, didn’t you?” Jack asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Not really a beef,” I said. “It just all kind of built up. You weren’t around after Dad died.”

“Naw. I saw things goin’ sour long before that. Man, I was in Navy boot camp three days after my seventeenth birthday. I barely made it back for the funeral.” He jittered the cigarette around in his hands.