Russell Banks - The Sweet Hereafter

“Just tell him I’m sleeping,” I said, and wheeled into my room.

In a little while, I heard his pickup truck drive up and crunch across the gravel of the driveway. He knocked on the door, and Daddy greeted him in his fake-surprise way. “Hey, Billy! What brings you out on a night like this? C’mon in, c’mon in, take a load off.”

I shut off the TV sound and with Fergus the Bear in my lap rolled my chair over next to the door so I could hear them better. Mom was washing dishes at the sink; I heard Billy and Daddy scrape their chairs on the floor as they sat down at the kitchen table. Billy still hadn’t said anything. I wondered what he was like when he was drinking. He used to go out a lot at night, which is why I baby-sat so often for him, and most times when he left the house he said he’d be having a few beers with the boys down at the Rendez-Vous or the Spread Eagle, in case of an emergency or something, but when he came home he never seemed drunk or anything. Just sad, as usual. Because of his wife, I assumed. That and Vietnam. He was a well-known Vietnam vet, and those guys are always a little sad.

“Would you like a cup of tea, Billy?” Mom said. “There’s a piece of cake left, if you want.”

“No. No, thanks, Mary,” he said in a flat voice.

“So,” Daddy said. “What brings you out tonight?”

“Well, Sam, I might’s well tell you the truth. It’s this lawsuit you’ve gotten yourself all taken up with,” he said. “I want you to drop the damned thing.”

“I don’t see how that concerns you, Billy,” Daddy said. I could tell from his voice that he was smiling but was seriously mad. That’s what he does when he’s mad, keeps on smiling but shifts his voice down a notch. It’s scarier that way.

“It does concern me.”

Daddy said, “I don’t know why it should. There’s a whole lot of people in town that’s involved with lawsuits. We’re hardly unique here, Billy. I mean, I can understand how you feel, it’s depressing, sure, but it’s reality. You can’t just turn this off because you happen to think it’s a bad idea. Half the town is suing somebody or other, or getting ready to.”

“Well, I’m one who’s not suing anybody. And I don’t want a damned thing to do with it, either.”

“Okay, so fine. So stay out of it, then.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve tried to do. I’ve really tried to stay the hell out of it. But it turns out that’s not so easy, Sam. You’ve gone and got yourself some hotshot New York City lawyer, this Mitchell Stephens — you and Risa and Wendell Walker and the Ottos.”

“Yeah, so? Lots of folks have got lawyers.”

“But yours is the one who’s gonna subpoena me, Sam. Force me to testify in court. He came by the garage this afternoon, real smooth and friendly.”

“Why would he do that?” Mom said. “You didn’t have anything to do with the accident.” She’s so out of it. Even I knew that Billy had been driving behind the bus that day, so he could wave at his kids, like he always did. That made him the only person not on the bus who’d actually witnessed the accident which meant that he’d be the one to tell if Dolores had been driving safely. They naturally couldn’t sue anybody if Dolores was driving recklessly, and only Billy knew the truth about that.

“And if the bastard does subpoena me,” Billy said, ignoring Mom, “then all these other lawyers are gonna line up behind him and try to do the same thing.”

“No, that won’t happen, Billy. Mitch Stephens’s case is small, compared to some of these guys, and very focused. The way he told me, all he needs is for you to say what you saw that day, driving along behind the bus. I know it’s a painful thing to have to do, testifying and all, but it’ll only take a few minutes of your time, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“Wrong,” Billy said. “That’s purely wrong. The other shysters’ll copy him, or do a version of whatever he’s doing, and there’ll be all kinds of appeals, and I’ll be tangled up in this mess for the next five years. And believe me, you and Mary will too,” he said. “This thing is never going to go away, Sam.”

“C’mon,” Daddy said. “You know that won’t—”

“Do you know,” Billy interrupted him, “that we got lawyers suing lawyers, because some people were stupid enough to sign up with more than one of the bastards? And we got people switching lawyers, because these sons-of-bitches are bribing them, making deals and dickering over percentages.” I hoped Mom and Daddy hadn’t done that, switched lawyers, because of Mr. Stephens’s computer.

Billy said, “A couple of local folks I won’t bother to name — but you know them, Sam, they’re friends of yours — they’ve even started a suit against the school board, because they’re not happy with the way they decided to use the money that got collected around town last winter and the junk that people sent in from all over. There’s one group in town that agrees with the school board and wants to spend the money for a memorial playground and donate the junk to the Lake Placid Hospital, and another that wants the money to go against this year’s town tax bills and maybe have a tag sale or something to get rid of the stuff.” He laughed, but he wasn’t amused. I knew Mom and Daddy were in the second group, but I guess Billy didn’t.

“Yesterday,” he said, “I heard somebody wants to sue the rescue squad, for Christ’s sake. The rescue squad. Because they supposedly didn’t act fast enough.

“This whole town,” Billy said in a suddenly dead voice, “the town has gone completely crazy. I used to like this town, I used to really care about what happened here, but now … now I think I’ll sell my house and the garage and move the fuck away.”

That got Mom upset — the word “fuck,” not the idea of Billy’s moving. “Billy, please,” she said. “The children.” Like they could hear him over the television. It was her own ears she was trying to protect, not theirs. “I can’t have you talking that way in this house,” she said. Right, this Christian house.

He said he was sorry, and the three of them were silent for a minute. “I was thinking, if you two dropped the case,” Billy said in a low voice, “then maybe the others would slowly come to their senses and follow. You’re good sensible people, you and Mary. People respect you.”

“No, Billy. We can’t drop the lawsuit,” Daddy said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you, because I run a pretty good tab at your garage, but we need the money, Billy. For hospital bills and suchlike. Just for living.”

“Christ, I’ll pay Nichole’s hospital bills, if that’s what you’re talking about. The Walkers, they’d drop out if you did. And the Ottos, I don’t think they want to be doing this, either. Then your lawyer wouldn’t have any reason to pursue the case. I bet he’d pack it in, cut his losses, and go home.”

“None of us wants to be doing this, Billy.”

“If you two could make a smart shyster like Stephens pull out, then maybe the other people in town would start to see the light, and people could get their mourning done properly and get on with their lives. This has become a hateful place to live, Sam. Hateful.”

“Not for us,” Daddy said.

“No, not for us,” Mom chimed in.

What a dumb thing for them to say. It shocked even me. I heard Billy’s chair bump against the floor as he stood up.

“Not for you. Right,” he said, “not for you.” He must have thought they were the stupidest people he’d ever met. Then, naturally, because of what they’d said, he thought of me. “How’s Nichole? She around?”

Mom jumped in. “She’s resting, in her room.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s too bad. I haven’t seen her, you know. Since the accident. I guess no one has. Tell her hello for me,” he said in a low sad flat way that made my chest tighten, and I wanted to fly out into the kitchen and hug him.