Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

They probably got his wife here for that. Besides, I barely knew the guy. Plus I’m a convicted felon, remember? They’ll be all over me like white on rice. I don’t need no added scrutiny. The Kid likes saying that, “white on rice.” It’s an expression the Rabbit used to slip his way now and then and for some reason for the last few moments the Rabbit has been flashing across the Kid’s thoughts. He’s been replaying the instant out there on the Causeway in the hurricane-force wind and rain when the Rabbit stopped trying to stand on crutches and just gave it all up, when he ceased to fight gravity and pain and let his tired broken old body tumble down the hill into the rising floodwaters. For the first time the Kid thinks he knows how the Rabbit must have felt in the last months of his life when his only counter to the loneliness and shame of banishment and harassment official and otherwise was his sometimes sly wit and his guarded friendship with the Kid. Then the city officials sent the cops to bust up the camp and scatter the residents like cockroaches and when that didn’t work and they all sneaked back because they had no other place to live and under the guidance of the Professor rebuilt their camp, the hurricane came along and did what the cops couldn’t. By then the Rabbit’s life despite having almost no options had gotten too complicated to bear or even to understand. So he let gravity take over. Which is what the Kid feels like doing now.

Why? You don’t have anything to hide, do you?

Dude, I got a lot to hide. Everyone does.

The Kid imagines being frisked by a cop and the cop coming up with the DVD of the Professor’s final interview which will implicate him in the Professor’s death even if after watching it they actually buy the super-spy story which is highly unlikely. Either way, to nail down the Kid’s exact relation to the death of the famous college professor they’ll go out to Turnbull’s Store to check out his alibi with Cat and Dolores. They’ll have a warrant to rummage through his duffel and backpack where they’ll discover over nine thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills which the Kid will have a very hard time explaining to anyone. It’s money beyond money. It’s like winning the lottery only not. He has a hard time explaining it even to himself. All it’s done for him so far is complicate his life. He almost wishes he’d refused to let the Professor pay him for his services so he could simply drop the DVD into the canal and let the Professor’s wife think whatever she wants.

The Writer has disappeared. All the reporters and cameramen have seen what the Kid sees now and have scrambled down the line of vehicles where they’re bellying up to the yellow crime scene tape watching and already filming the tow truck that’s been backed up to the edge of the canal. The operator locks the brake and steps down from the cab and walks toward the rear of the truck. He’s a professional and moves slowly and methodically so everyone can know it. He takes his position at a panel fixed to the bed of the truck and checks the gauges and levers that control the tension of the steel towing cable.

Cautiously the Kid makes his way to the tape and stands among the reporters and TV cameramen. The police officers and EMT technicians crowd forward and peer into the canal. The black steel cable curls loosely over the concrete edge of the canal and drops into the water and disappears. The operator shifts his hands from one lever to another, the engine digs in and the winch at the rear of the flatbed truck slowly starts spooling the cable, gradually straightening and tightening it until it’s taut as a steel bar that when reaching the turning drum seems magically to soften into coiled black rope. Then the dark waters of the canal rise into a green bubble that bursts apart, and the front bumper and chrome grill of the Professor’s Chrysler van appear, dented and dangling, headlights smashed. The waters part and the vehicle keeps coming like a whale emerging from the depths of the ocean, until it’s half in and half out of the water, held tight to the truck by the cable as if harpooned. The operator locks his levers and walks forward to the cab and climbs up into the driver’s seat. Very carefully he puts the truck in gear and edges it ahead a few inches at a time, bringing the van slowly up and out of the canal onto the embankment where it ends shuddering on all four wheels, sheets of water slithering off its roof and sides and pouring out from under the doors and hood. A police officer steps to the rear of the van and swings open the wide door and a wave of water spills onto the ground. Another officer pulls on the driver’s side door. It suddenly opens and another, smaller wave breaks onto the ground. Slumped forward in the driver’s seat, his forehead resting on the steering wheel, as if he fell asleep while parked, there he is: the man known to the Kid as the Professor.

ON THE DRIVE BACK TO APPALACHEE BOTH the Writer and the Kid for most of the first half hour are stuck deep in separate and distinct thoughts and stay silent until finally the Writer tells the Kid he doesn’t get it. Why would the cops immediately say to the press that the Professor’s death is an apparent suicide, no foul play, et cetera, when they don’t even have a coroner’s report yet and can’t produce a suicide note?

The Kid shrugs and notes that they only called it an “apparent” suicide. And maybe there is a suicide note except it’s at the Professor’s house. Or he sent it to his wife in the mail. Or maybe the police know something about the Professor’s past that could cause him to commit suicide but to protect other people’s privacy they can’t reveal it to the public. Also it is possible they’re only saying it was a suicide just in case he actually was murdered and they want whoever did it to think he got away with it until they gather enough evidence to make an arrest. Cops do that sometimes, the Kid adds. I’ve seen it on TV.

Sounds like you buy the official version, though. But then you knew the guy personally.

Sort of.

The car has left the main road and turns onto the narrow lane leading into the Panzacola National Park. They pass clusters of green-uniformed work crews, chain gangs made up of young black convicts still clearing away debris and fallen trees, the aftermath of Hurricane George. The Writer glances over at the manacles and chains linking the men and asks the Kid about the fact that the Professor’s hands were chained to the steering wheel and his foot to the gas pedal. Before they could remove his body from the van they had to use bolt cutters to cut his hands free of the steering wheel and his foot from the accelerator, remember? That’s a far-fetched and fanciful way for a hugely obese man to kill himself. Especially one who’s supposed to be a genius. There have to be a hundred better ways for a man that smart and that fat to make his death look like a simple accident.

The Kid says he must have wanted to make sure he couldn’t change his mind at the last second. Besides, they weren’t really chains, he points out. They were combination bicycle locks made from steel cables and the cops didn’t know the combinations to unlock them. Which is why they used the bolt cutters. It’s the same type of eight-millimeter cable the Kid used for locking his own bike back when he had one and is probably where the Professor got the idea. That could be why he opened the driver’s side window too — so the van would fill with water immediately and he wouldn’t have enough air inside to give him time to escape. It must be wicked hard to kill yourself while you still have time to change your mind, the Kid says.

The Writer agrees. But something about the way the man did the deed suggests that it wasn’t a garden-variety suicide. If he wanted to make some kind of point or issue a statement to the survivors or to the general public — a not uncommon desire among people who kill themselves — there are ways to do it without making it so strange and ugly.