Frederick Busch - Girls

And Fanny’s sad face that had been so easy once, and not so breakable-looking.

“It’s because I’m looking into the goddamned sun,” I told the dog.

I listened to sheriff’s deputies talking about road wrecks and house fires. It was a way of not listening to me. I knew a local man with a scanner who would sit in his chair at night and drink beer and listen to catastrophes. He never went to bed unhappy, he said, because he was alive to do it and somebody else, between seven and ten, would have died in a stupid way while he sat in his chair.

The branches were thickening a little, just as Fanny would have pointed out. I saw the tops of grasses in the fields off our road. They were scoured by driving winds after the storms, and then the winds polished them. At dusk or dawn, they gleamed. As spring came on, as no new snow was deposited and as the winds diminished, the tops of the fields grew coarse and started melting down. It seemed a likelihood, I was ready to admit, that winter might be ending. But we had suffered snowfalls in April with some frequency, and I could remember May snow that took saplings over into twisted shapes that looked all spring and summer like suffering. So, yes, it was possible we’d have some spring. But I was ready for winter to go on.

At the Blue Bird, where I had my thermos filled and bought some doughnuts for the dog, I saw Archie Halpern and I waved. I didn’t go over because I felt like one of those patches of grass-topped swamp ground you intend to step on and instead you step into. I was brimming with it and trying not to let it show. I figured if I sat with him for half a sip of Verna’s sour coffee, I’d be shouting into his shoulder and crying out loud. Just thinking of it made me turn away from him. He knew. He knew something was up. He just let his eyebrows go up and come down the next time I looked over.

I read every piece of campus mail, and I signed off on everything I could — rosters for night watch, extra-duty rosters, an agreement with the student rape-prevention service that escorted girls to and from the library at night. The head of the political science department must have hand-delivered the announcement that the Vice President of the United States of America would not be appearing on campus because of unalterable schedule conflicts. “For more information,” his memo said, “consult Head Librarian Horstmuller.” I hadn’t ever much liked him because of his schedule. He was one of those professors who came to work at nine and left at five, like a man who had a job. That kind of trying to act like a businessman annoyed me, since I figured this guy, like most of the others, couldn’t balance his own checkbook. Of course, neither could I. Anyway, I thought Ms. Horstmuller had some balls, even if I didn’t agree with her holding back the information, so I didn’t appreciate the chairman’s tone. What a pity for him, I thought.

Then, letting the dog have one more run before we settled in to cruise, I warmed up the Jeep. The temperature was rising, but the moisture in the air was, too, and my elbows and knees reacted to it. I didn’t even want to think about my ribs, and I wondered if they were going to have to put a screw into the little finger of my right hand. I kept thinking I could feel the pieces of bone shift and grate against one another. I moaned and hissed a bit when I got into the car. This made the dog very pleased and he sat up prettily to pose for the students and teachers we passed.

“She had to have a diary,” Rosalie had said. “They sometimes stop after a while, but most of them at least begin. Girls that age keep diaries.” Rosalie had also said, “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her parents had found it and suppressed it. They’d hate her sad little cries of ecstasy about the tenderness of whoever was committing statutory rape with her.”

“You’re not bad in the ecstasy department,” I had told her.

“Those aren’t little cries, Jack. You made me come. And this is not rape. Is it?”

I thought again of Janice and I pictured the cheap, sexy underwear. I thought of Fanny’s sturdy, reliable underpants and bras. It had been a very long time since I had seen them except in the washer or dryer. It felt like a very long time since I’d seen her. And Rosalie: I thought of her in the oversized boxer shorts. I thought of her naked with me.

I deserved to live alone with my dog, I thought. I lived with a dog. I rode patrol with a dog. That was who I talked to. Except when I was two-timing Fanny.

Down at the bottom of the campus, on its back end, where the street ran parallel to the main street of town but was separated from it by the width of the college, I saw the black Trans Am with its spoiler and scoop. I stopped and backed up so I had a little cover from some old maples. It seemed to me I saw Everett Stark, the black kid who was tired of white folks and cows. It seemed to me he leaned into the car, then straightened, looked around, and then leaned in again.

I was not about to let him do that to himself. I hit the accelerator hard, and of course I skidded out as I took off. I got control, pretty much, and the slight swerve I stopped with added to the look of law enforcement on the move. I told the dog to stay and I was out and walking, and hurting pretty much, before either of them might have expected me. My Jeep was in front of the Trans Am, so he would have to back up to get away. I walked around behind his car, and I stood there.

I had not realized that I planned to do that. I hadn’t understood that what I was going to do was plant my legs, aim the pistol at the back window, and tell Everett to walk around and stand beside me.

“William Franklin,” I said as Everett came over, “stand outside the car. Shut the door. Place your hands on the roof.”

Franklin came out slowly. I said to Everett, “You stand to my right, behind me, and you stay there. And shame on you, Everett.”

“On the roof,” I told Franklin. I walked a wide circle so I could come in directly behind him. That way, he couldn’t tell whether I had the gun in my pocket, which I did, or aimed at him. I reached for his left hand — I remembered him as a lefty — and I took hold of his little finger. You can make a man the size of a left tackle walk on his tiptoes and sing falsetto with a grip on that finger. I kept hold of him and patted him down. He had a lot of cash, which I threw on the snow behind us, and I found the plastic envelopes I’d expected to. I also found brown pharmaceutical vials.

“Everett, what in hell are you doing with your life?”

Franklin said, “Since when do you guys go armed?”

Everett said, “It was a little speed. Very mild stuff. Ask him. I got to study more. I got to stay up late. I keep falling asleep. ”

“You work a job, right? You go to classes all day, you work in the cafeteria, of course you fall asleep. That’s what you need.”

“I can’t afford to sleep,” he said. “I need to study harder.”

“I know where that is,” I said. “But you can’t buy medicine from Dr. Doom out of Staten Island, New York, over here. How do you know what goes in those little items he sells you? You lie down with dogs like this, Everett, you get up with only fleas, you’re lucky. This guy gives you rabies and worms and all kinds of shit. I want you away from him. You hear me?”

Franklin said, “This is a fuckin’ restraint of trade , Ev.”

I tightened a little on the finger, and he was on his knees, his head sinking.

“It’ll break, William. You know it.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay what?”

“Okay whatever you want. ”

I let up enough for him to raise his head.

“Go away, Everett. All right?”