David Gates - A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me

“What stinks in here?” I said.

“Coffee was tasting like shit, so I ran some white vinegar through the coffeemaker to get all that scunge out. I was just about to vacuum. This place is going to be a disaster area after I’m gone. You better get somebody good in.”

“So no word? I stopped by his place.”

“I told you he’d be pissed.”

“He’ll probably turn up.” I looked in the mini-fridge and found a single peach yogurt. “This yours?”

“You can have it. So how come you’re mad at me?”

“Who said?”

“I call bullshit.”

“I’m not too happy with Johnny .”

“You just wished it would’ve been you,” she said.

I peeled back the foil and found a plastic spoon in my drawer. “I’m good with who I’m with.”

“Well, if you want to know, it wasn’t exactly epic.”

“I don’t need details.” I ate a spoonful of the yogurt, then pushed it away. “Here, you want the rest of this? I better get back.”

“So is everybody thinking bad about me?” she said.

“I would doubt anybody knows. Jesse might. He wouldn’t judge you.”

“Shit,” she said. “I am so out of here.”

Jesse and Myron were sitting on lawn chairs in the Holtzmans’ front room when I got back, still finishing their lunches. “How’s our young lady?” Jesse said.

“She’s holding up,” I said. “How you doing?”

“I don’t think they should’ve put her out like that,” he said. “She was just upset like anybody else. We did have a little to drink. I would’ve followed y’all out, but I had to make sure and say a word for Billy.”

“I wish I’d got to hear you.”

“It wasn’t much. I just said he was my friend, and he was a good man and he loved all of them, which I don’t know he always did, but I am pretty sure he wanted to. He was more of a Christian than he let on.”

“You had me pretty near to crying,” Myron said.

“Now is Johnny all right?” Jesse said. “I expected he’d be out here.”

“He might still roll in this afternoon,” I said. “If we can get the rest of the drywall up in the next couple days, I’ll call the guy in Conway to come up and do the taping and we’ll be able to get the plumber in and start on the woodwork.”

“Be good to have Johnny.” He looked over at the tattooed kid, who was chucking a Red Bull can into the dumpster. “Those two, I don’t know.”

“We might have to think about them. Hell, we used to be kids.”

“Now you’re trying to hurt me,” Jesse said.

A cold rain started about one o’clock and Myron put a tarp over the floorboards and came in to help with the drywall. I got out my phone and called the guy who’d answered the ad; he sounded like I’d woken him up. I told him to come around to the office tomorrow morning, eight o’clock sharp. He said he’d try. So probably cross him off. The rain had turned to snow by the time the bodybuilder got back with the stuff from North Adams; he said cars were slipping off the road at the top of Route 2, so after he and his buddy got the truck unloaded I sent them home. Finally, about four o’clock, I got a text back from Johnny reading Fuck U .

—

Kristin was due back from Boston sometime today, and I remembered her saying something about maybe getting together. I hadn’t had time to stop by and feed the stove during the day, so the house was cold when I got in, even though I block off most of it in the winter—all I use is the living room, kitchen and one upstairs bedroom. The one time my father ever came up after my wife left, he said I should sell the place so some family could have it.

The snow hadn’t amounted to much, but the thermometer in the window said it was down to fifteen. I opened the draft and the damper, poked up the embers, put in some good birch logs and watched the bark flame up, then turned on the public station from Amherst and got their daily dose of Iraq and Syria and Israel and Gaza. All names as far I’m concerned, though you didn’t want to tell Kristin this; she said you couldn’t just ignore what was happening in the world. Every time they had another school shooting somewhere, she was all set to—and that’s the point, right? Set to do what? Of course look at where she worked. One thing about Bozrah, we’ll never have a school shooting.

If it had been up to me, I would’ve broken out the Jack Daniel’s while the house was warming up, cooked myself some pasta, then turned in early and read myself to sleep; I’d been working my way through The Duke Ellington Reader , which Kristin ordered for me off Amazon. No particular occasion, just that she’d heard me mention Duke Ellington. Actually, I was afraid it might have been our one-month anniversary until I looked back at my calendar. But I knew I should check in with her before pulling the phone.

“Perfect timing,” she said when I got her on her cell. “I’m like ten minutes out of Greenfield. Why don’t you start down? I’ll make us some dinner and you can stay over. Or we could go out.”

“I think I better pass,” I said. “I got some guy coming around to interview first thing in the morning.”

“So how about if I come up? Since I’m already on the road. I don’t have class till tomorrow afternoon. Is there any food in the house?”

“You must be whipped, though.”

“I’m buzzed, actually—I stopped at a Starbucks. So did the thing go all right? Your friend?”

“It wasn’t my favorite day. How was Boston?”

“Fine, except I missed you. I’ll stop and pick us up something.”

“I don’t know how the roads are going to be. It’s cold as hell up here.”

“Oh, pish tush,” she said. “Nothing can daunt a Subaru girl.”

By the time I saw her headlights coming up the drive, I’d brought in wood for the night, I had the Jack Daniel’s rolling and I’d dropped a blue pill and could feel my face starting to get red. I didn’t always take one, but I was fifty-nine and she was forty-four, I’d worked all day, had plenty on my mind and I had to admit I was pissed that she hadn’t wanted to hear me when I was giving her hint after hint, not pissed pissed but annoyed. When she got out of the car I saw her breath smoking. I went out onto the porch; she stuck her tongue in my mouth and I took the canvas grocery bag and her suitcase.

“Nice and toasty in here ,” she said when I shut the door behind us. She tossed her coat down and she was on me again. “See, I did miss you. So I brought scallops. And chives, and ginger. I know you have rice. I’m going to make us something healthy. If I know you, you’ve been eating crap all weekend. What are we drinking?”

“Just having my usual,” I said.

“Is that vodka still there? I’ll get it, I have to go make my preparatory preparations.”

I picked up her coat off the floor and hung it on the coat tree, then sat on the sofa. “You need to get a gas stove,” she called from the kitchen. “How can you cook on this thing? And a decent refrigerator.” She came back with a glass of vodka and ice, put her knees over the arm of the sofa and rested her head in my lap. I smoothed her bangs away from her wide forehead; her face looked strange upside down.

“You seem like you had a good time,” I said.

“It’s always a little painful to go back.” She raised her head to take a sip, then eased it down again. “But I got to see a couple of people, and they were showing Out of the Past at the Brattle. Have you seen that? You have to see it. Oh, and I went and revisited the Monet haystack—I know, I’m such a cliché. Anyway, thanks for letting me come up. I really didn’t want to go back to the hellhole tonight.” Her apartment in Greenfield was in a turn-of-the-century building on Main Street, above the stationery store. She’d fixed it up with white particle-board cubes for bookcases and good rugs and painted the walls sky blue and hung a Star of Texas quilt over her bed. But yes.