Dan Wakefield - Home Free

Late morning, finishing muddy black coffee and bowls of Wheaties at the picnic table with benches that sat in the kitchen, Barnes asked Gene to go for a walk. They went along a narrow path in the scrubby woods and came to a slow brown stream where they sat on a log. Barnes tossed pebbles in the water, making little plinks. He said he and Nell had to get back to Boston. He said Gene could come and stay at his place awhile if he wanted.

“No, man. Thanks.”

“Yeh, I think you’re right. To keep away awhile.”

“Got to.”

“Wanna stay here?”

“Where?”

“The Arms.”

“Christ. I can’t just ask.”

“They said it’s OK. Already.”

“Did you ask? For me?”

“No. They seemed to know.”

Gene gave a quick cut laugh.

“I guess it shows,” he said. “That I don’t live anywhere.”

Barnes shrugged.

“Who knows?”

Gene dug out a cigarette, lit it on the second trembling try, coughed. After a couple puffs he threw it in the stream and suddenly turned his face up to Barnes, the color of paste and panic.

“Hey, man,” he said, “what am I gonna do?”

“You mean—this summer?”

“No, no. I mean, my life , man.”

There were suddenly tears coming down. Barnes’s mouth opened, then closed, then he put his arm around Gene and Gene buried his head against him, sobbing, all of it coming out now, racking and coughing and heaving, wrenching, gut-deep, spasms, sobbing not just for the loss of his love, his Lou, or his life, that dizzy dream, but for all life, the puniness of it, people going bravely ahead through the tangle of it, tearing and being torn, caring anyway, cursing and caring, brave pretending there being no certain still ending for them all, but sometimes, struck by it, seeing the dark ahead some had, like this, to wail against it, down from and out of the falling yawn of his limitless depths, the ache at the center, the nightmare side of the dream, the scream.

Barnes held onto him with both arms, like a child or a lover, murmuring as best he could sounds to comfort: “OK, man, yeh, it’s OK, let it out, let it all out, go, let it go, it’s all OK, yeh, go …”

Later, empty of it, dry and nose-blown and clean inside, Gene sat up straight again, had a whole cigarette, and after clapped a hand on Barnes’s knee and said, “You’re good. Thanks.”

Barnes said he and Nell’d be back up again to see Jerry and Monica, they could bring any of his stuff for him, just say what. And anything else he needed. That he and Nell could provide. They walked back along the trail through the often overgrowth, the sun hotter on them as they neared the house, sweat breaking, brambles scratching, swatting at occasional buzzing bugs, speaking no more, silence an understanding and a bond, stepping into the sudden circle of the house and the dust-grown yard, side by side, brothers. Before they left, Barnes gave him a biff on the arm and said, “Hang in, man.” Nell gave him a package of Bazooka bubble gum and said, “Practice!”

As the car drew out of sight Gene stood, still looking at where it had been, arms hanging limp at his side, feet still, rooted, when Coach Billy’s voice shot out like a crack, “Go out for one!” and he wheeled, already running toward the cocked aim of Coach’s arm, running clear across the clearing, reaching, catching the shot spiral of the ball in his stomach, went backward with it, curled and clutching the catch, smiling as he fell. Welcomed.

The house made its own noises, apart from the people noises. As the days fell around him, Gene learned which noises were whose. His were close and few, lying on an old army cot in one of the small rooms upstairs, staring up at the ceiling stained by rain from a leak in the roof. Cots are quiet, like stiff boards. House creaks came at night mostly, slow, tired, like the haunting effects in old movies. So did the people-made creaks of the bedsprings come then, at night, and he learned to tell the difference between the ones made by Coach Burt with Pal and Coach Billy with Pal. Coach Burt with Pal made quick high squeaky bouncy creaks like a singsong tune for kids skipping rope, and along with this came giggles and yelps, playful, nibbly, and then sudden cries of delighted shock. Coach Billy with Pal made steady, long rhythmic creaks, building, slightly faster, longer steady, like a march, methodical, and along with this were no other sounds except breathing, deep, matching the steady rhythm of the springs as the creak relentlessly rose in pace and ended with a deep cry like someone stabbed and then, the creaking dead, a long low fading moan. Later, steps, the chain of the toilet yanked, the swallowing whoosh of the flush. Morning, rattle and tinkle of cups and spoons, whistle alarm of water boiling, beginning of life again, repeating.

One night Gene and Pal were playing checkers and the two Coaches said they were turning in early and Gene said maybe he should, too, but they said no, you finish your game there. Gene lost his concentration and Pal won. He started to get up to go to bed and she put a hand on his wrist, sitting him down again.

“Would you like me,” she said, “to come with you?”

“I guess I can’t. Do that now. Yet. Thank you.”

“Sure,” she said.

She gave him a little kiss on the forehead, and went on up. Gene sat where he was for a long time, looking at the jumble of red-and-black squares on the checkerboard.

He figured out Pal was mostly Coach Billy’s woman, but it was all right with him if she sometimes went to Coach Burt, after all he, too, was a friend, a part of the family. And both the Coaches had said it was fine with them if she went to Gene, in fact it might be the best thing any of them could do for him. If not, at least he’d know they all cared.

Pal was a nurse and worked in the pretty new hospital in Damariscotta. Coach Burt had a job at a summer camp teaching kids baseball and swimming and some basic track events like the high jump. He was good with kids, his laugh, his line of patter. Coach Billy had a job lined up for the fall coaching freshman football at a public high school. He and Coach Burt kind of took turns doing paying jobs, and Pal worked steady. Coach Billy was around the house all day so he and Gene tossed the football and played a lot of checkers, and sometimes sat on the porch and got quietly high. Coach Billy was friendly but didn’t talk much and Gene never pressed him. Coach Billy mainly just liked to sit on the porch, either playing checkers or getting high or maybe just sitting, moving a little back and forth in the rusty glider. He seemed like one of those people who has either done something awful or had it done to him.

One afternoon he and Gene were sitting on the glider with a can of beer and Coach Billy just started talking. Gene hadn’t asked him anything, he just started telling it, slowly sipping his beer and talking in a quiet monotone, looking straight ahead of him across the flat dusty ground and into the bramble.

“I went to Wisconsin, on a football scholarship and I was all gung ho about it. I did everything they told me. I started as a running back my sophomore year and made All Conference. My junior year I made second-string AP all-America. I got married. To the Homecoming Queen. I was still doing what they wanted me to. Then I saw what was happening. I saw I was in a machine. I wanted out, all the way out. I joined the Marines. I figured they’d send me to Nam and they did. They told me to kill and I did. Just point me to the ones you want dead and I’ll do it. I realized, shit, I had escaped one machine and put myself into another machine. I just went along with it. I did my time and I killed when they told me and then I got out. Burt was in my unit over there and he talked about going back to Maine where he grew up and just kind of fooling around. That sounded right and I came with him. I met Pal at the diner in town. We spent the day and that night and I told her straight before anything happened I wasn’t going to fall in love with her or anyone or get married to her or anyone and she is free to stay and free to go but that’s where it starts and ends. I will not get caught in any machine again, ever. You have to be careful, you have to be on guard, or sure as hell they’ll get you in one of their machines. I’ve been in their football machine and their marriage machine and their war machine and that’s it. They won’t get me again, not in their full-time job machine or their settling-down-and-have-kids machine or anything else. Not even their Welfare machine. We all three put what we earn in the pot. Pal sees we have enough and looks after things. I have made myself unfit for all their machines. Even if they got me they would have to spit me out.”