Russell Banks - Affliction

“He seemed sort of okay; I mean, I guess he was acting the way he usually did. Except when he got so mad at the guy in the restaurant that I thought there would be a fight. I mean, usually when I came up to stay with him, he was sort of nervous and wicked grouchy one minute and really nice the next, and that’s how he was acting that day when we drove up in that really old truck. It was his father’s truck. Sorry, I guess you know that. Then at the restaurant he lost his temper, and I really got scared. But then he calmed down a little, I guess because I started crying and all, and probably because everyone was looking at us; and then the restaurant guy told him about having to clean out his office or something like that; and then he lost his temper again; but this time he didn’t do anything to the restaurant guy. He just grabbed me by the arm and we left, and then we went to his office. And that’s it. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened?” I asked. I looked across the room to her mother, and she frowned at me. We were sitting in her living room, Jill and I next to one another on the sofa, Lillian on an easy chair and Bob Horner standing behind her. After numerous pleas and lengthy negotiations, they had agreed to let me talk to Jill, but there were rules, Lillian told me. “The child has been through enough. Her doctor says that it’s important for her to talk about these things, about her father, but only at her own rate, in her own way.” I was free to ask her what she remembered of that day, but when she no longer wished to talk about it, I was to back off.

“Well, nothing important happened. I mean, he just put some stuff from his desk into a box and took his guns down from the thing on the wall — the gunrack; and we left. In fact, he was pretty calmed down by then. He wasn’t smiling or anything: he was probably pretty bummed out by getting fired and all; but he was calm. Not like back in the restaurant. And later.”

“Later?” I said. “You mean, at the house, with Margie?”

Jill looked over at her mother and said, “I really don’t feel like talking about this stuff, Mom.” She was almost twelve at this time, tall for her age, but thin and awkward-looking. She sat calmly, almost placidly, wearing jeans and a bulky white cable-knit sweater, with her hands clasped together in her lap. It was clear that she would soon be a very attractive young woman, attractive in the same way her mother must have been and in fact still was — swift-moving, graceful, in control.

Horner cleared his throat pointedly, and when I looked at him, he shook his head a fraction of an inch. I stood up. “Well, Jill, I surely do thank you for being willing to see me and talk to me as much as you have. I know that it is not easy …, ” I said, and I heard Horner clear his throat again. I put out my hand, and Jill took it in hers and shook it lightly. I did not know what else to say, so I said nothing. I believe that I wanted to hug her, to hold the girl tightly, like an uncle, but I knew that I could not do that. Wade had made it impossible for me to be his daughter’s uncle. So I turned and nodded to her mother and stepfather. ‘I’ll let myself out,” I said, and walked to the door alone.

“I seen the cocksucker just once that day, when he come into the garage looking to pick up his car; only, Chub told me not to give it to him without him paying the bill first — which was close to three hundred bucks. He was pissed, tossed a shit fit right there in the garage, so I just muckled onto a fucking Stillson wrench and showed the sucker to him. I put the sonofabitch right up in his face like that, and he backed the fuck off. I don’t take that shit from nobody. Nobody. He give me a bunch of shit about how we used to be asshole buddies and all — which has not got a fucking grain of truth in it. Wade Whitehouse never liked me, and I never liked him, the cock-sucker. Piss on him. Ever since I was a fucking kid, he’s had it in for me, always trying to put my ass in a sling — which he could do a little bit easier when he was the fucking town cop; but now that he was just another John Q. Citizen, I was ready for the fucker. He caught me a few years ago, when he first got appointed town cop; he grabbed me swiping pumpkins one Halloween from Alma Pittman’s; I was maybe sixteen, seventeen, and he hit on me hard and told everybody I was a fucking Peeping Tom — that kind of creepy shit, which was ridiculous, fucking ridiculous. I can get laid anytime I fucking want to— which is not something Wade Whitehouse could ever say for himself — so why the hell would I go around peeping into some old broad’s window for? You ask me, he was the one doing the peeping, and that’s probably how he caught me swiping her pumpkins — which is just something kids around here do, you understand. On Halloween, I mean. What the hell, you grew up here: you understand. Anyhow, when he seen the fucking Stillson waving in his face, he backed off a ways and lit out down the road, toward Golden’s, as I recall, where I saw him pull in — he was driving his old man’s truck, I remember, and he had his kid with him. She stayed in the truck the whole time. That was the only time I dealt with the fucker that day. I should’ve split his fucking skull when I had the chance. I don’t give a shit he is your brother — you know I’m right. I don’t even give a shit you got it on tape: I didn’t do anything illegal.”

“Wade pulled up in front of the store in that shitbox of his father’s, and I thought, Well, well, well, here comes today’s problem. I thought it because he headed straight up the stairs to Hettie’s apartment. Sent his kid, the little girl, into the store ahead of him with a dollar bill in her hand.

“She poked around in the cooler, looking for a bottle of tonic. Said she wanted one of those all-natural drinks — and who the hell carries that kind of shit up here? So she got a carton of milk and was standing there by the cookies, studying the goddamned labels. Checking out the ingredients, like a Goody Two-shoes. And though I feel sorry for the kid — what the hell, who wouldn’t? — she still struck me as a whole lot like her mother. Who, if you ask me, is not the most likable person I’ve ever met.

“Meanwhile, Wade must’ve found out that Hettie wasn’t home. Which he could have found out by asking me, of course. But he wouldn’t do that. Although he sure was not making any particular secret out of his checking for her at her apartment upstairs. What with his daughter right there and me knowing who comes and goes up those stairs. Something I’d sometimes just as soon not know, frankly. This being one of those times.

“Then, like he was covering for himself, he came down the stairs and into the store and asked me did I know if Jack Hewitt had got his deer yet. And I said no, Jack Hewitt did not get his deer yet. Which I happened to know was true, since I have to tag every deer shot in this township, my store being the only official tagging station, and Jack would’ve had to bring his deer in for tagging. So, ‘No,’ I said, ‘Jack did not get his deer yet.’

“Then Wade asked me did I happen to know where Jack Hewitt was hunting. Like I was supposed to believe he had stopped off at Hettie’s to find out where Jack was. Sure, you believe that and I’ll tell you another one, I thought to myself.

“So I told him. Not that I knew exactly. But Jack had stopped by early and picked up a box of shells, and we had exchanged a few words. Mostly about his being the new town cop and getting his license back and all. Which frankly I thought was good for the town, knowing what I knew then about Wade Whitehouse and what I know now. Anyhow, Jack had mentioned he was going up to Parker Mountain, where he had spotted a huge buck that we both knew had not been shot yet. Since the biggest buck that had come in so far was only a hundred-and-fifty-pound ten-pointer. Not your monster buck.