Russell Banks - Trailerpark

“Terry,” the kid said in a quick, light voice.

“What?”

“What should I tell them? I can’t say I was only kidding. They know what that means.”

“Tell them you were stoned. Tripping. Tell them you took some acid. Beg.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’ll cool it with them,” he said somberly, and he followed Terry out the door.

Keeping to the shadows behind the trailers, they walked to the far end of the park, crossed the short beach there and came up along the lake, behind the other row of trailers, until they were behind the trailer where Bruce lived. “Go on in,” Terry instructed him. “They couldn’t see you now even if they were parked right at the gate.”

The kid made a dash for the door, unlocked it and slipped in, with Terry right behind. When the kid had locked the door again, Terry suggested he prop a chair against the knob.

“Why? You think they’ll try to break in?”

“A precaution. Who knows?”

“Jesus, maybe we should’ve waited out in the woods till your sister got home!”

“No, man, forget it, will you?” Terry walked through the room, stumbling against a beanbag chair and giving it a kick. “You got any beer here? I shoulda grabbed a couple of beers from my sister.”

“No. Nothing. Don’t open the refrigerator. The light.”

“Yeah,” Terry said, his voice suddenly weary. He sat down heavily in the beanbag chair, and it hissed under his weight. “Jesus, it’s cold in here. Can’t you get some heat into this place?”

“I can’t make a fire. They’ll see the smoke.”

“Forget the fucking stove, you goddamn freak. Turn up the damn thermostat. You got an oil heater, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but no oil. I only use wood,” the kid said with a touch of his old pride.

“Jesus.” Terry wrapped his arms around himself and tried to settle deeper into the chair. He was wearing his orange parka and knit cap, but sitting still like this had chilled him. Bruce had gone down the hall to a window from which he could see the entrance to the trailerpark.

“Hey, man!” Terry called to him. “Your fucking pipes are gonna freeze! You can’t put a woodstove in a trailer and not have any oil heat and keep your pipes from freezing! It’s a known fact!”

There was a knock at the door, softly, almost politely.

Terry stood up and faced the door. He whispered Bruce’s name.

When the second knock came, louder, the kid was standing next to Terry.

“Oh, my God,” the kid said.

“Shut up!”

A clear voice spoke on the other side of the door. “Seberonce! Come, now.”

Then there was the sound of a metal object working against the latch, and the lock was sprung, and the door swung open. The Jamaican stepped quickly inside, and the white man followed, showing the way with a flashlight.

“Too dark in here, mon,” the Jamaican said.

The man with the flashlight closed the door, then found the wall switch and flicked it on, and the four men faced each other.

“Ah! Seberonce, we gots to hab some more chat, mon,” the Jamaican said. Then to Terry, “So, my brudder soul-bwoy. You gwan home now, me doan got no bidniss wid you, mon.” He flashed his gold teeth at Terry. Inside the small space of the trailer both the Jamaican and his companion seemed much larger than they had in the car. They were, indeed, both taller and thicker than Terry, and in their presence Bruce looked like an adolescent boy.

“I was just telling him you were asking for him,” Terry said slowly. Bruce was moving away, toward the kitchen area.

“Wait, mon! Stan still!” the Jamaican ordered.

The other man switched off his flashlight and leaned his sweatered bulk against the door. “You,” he said to Terry. “You live here?”

“No, man. Across the way, with my sister. She’s a nurse in town.”

“Whad a black mon lib up here wid rednecks for, mon?”

“My sister. She … she takes care of me.”

“Gwan home now, mon,” the Jamaican said, suddenly no longer smiling. The sour-faced man opened the door for Terry, and he took a step toward it.

“Wait, Terry!” the kid cried. “Don’t leave me alone!”

“Shut you face, Seberonce. We gots to hab some more chat, me and you. Dis bwoy, him gwan.”

Terry stepped out the door, and the sour-faced man closed it behind him. It was cold outside. He stepped to the hard, cold ground and walked quickly across the lane to his sister’s trailer and went inside, locking the door carefully behind him. He crossed the room and stood by the window where Bruce had stood earlier and in the darkness watched the trailer he had just fled. After a few moments, he saw the two men leave and walk down the lane, past the manager’s trailer and through the gate. For a second they were silhouetted by the headlights of a car coming from the other direction, and after the car had passed the men, Terry realized it was his sister’s.

Swiftly, he left the window and then ran from the trailer and across the lane. The lights were still on in the living room of Bruce’s trailer, and the door was wide open, and as he came up the steps he looked into the room and saw the kid slumped over in the beanbag chair, the back of his head scarlet where the bullets had entered.

Terry turned around and walked away. His sister was pulling a heavy bag of groceries from the front seat of her car. He came up behind her and said, “You want help?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Was that you just now running over to Bruce’s?” she asked over her shoulder as she backed away from the bag of groceries.

“No,” he said. “No. I was just getting my pay from Marcelle. I… I haven’t seen Bruce, not for a couple of days. Not since he went down to Boston.”

“Good,” she said. “I wish you’d stay away from that kid. He’s trouble,” she said sighing.

SHE DID NOT REVEAL THAT two days prior to His arrival at the trailerpark she spoke with Him on the telephone. She was alone in her mother’s trailer at the time, which was approximately 10:30 PM, and because she expected her mother, Nancy Hubner, to return from a meeting of the Catamount Historical Society around eleven, Noni had just rolled and smoked a single marijuana cigarette, which she was accustomed to doing when left alone at this time of night, for while she had come to require for sleep the kind of sedation provided by a single marijuana cigarette, her mother had forbidden her to use the weed, particularly since Noni’s psychiatrist had happily provided her with enough Valium to put her to sleep for the rest of her natural life. Noni was in the bathroom flushing down the roach, when the phone rang, and it was Jesus. More precisely, He claimed to be Jesus. He had a surprisingly high voice, kind of thin, almost Oriental, and He spoke in a New Hampshire accent that was sufficiently local for her to think at first that He was originally from around here, but then of course she quickly remembered that He was Jewish and from Bethlehem and that, therefore, His use of a local New Hampshire accent in speaking English with her was merely a typically Christian courtesy designed to make her feel more at ease than she would have with someone speaking in a foreign accent or, as surely would have been understandable, in a foreign language altogether, ancient Hebrew, for God’s sake. She would have thought He was some kind of nut and hung up.

“This Noni Hubner?” were His first words to her.

“Yes.”

“This is Jesus. Been thinking of giving a visit.”

“Jesus?”

“Yup.”

“I must be dreaming,” she said. “You sound like my father.”

“I am.”

“No, I mean my real father.”