Donald Pollock - The Devil All the Time

“This is what death is like,” Willard said somberly one evening as he and Arvin knelt at the putrid, blood-soaked log. “You want such as this for your mother?”

“No, sir,” the boy said.

Willard struck the top of the log with his fist. “Then pray, goddamn it!”

Arvin pulled the filthy handkerchief from his face and breathed deeply of the rot. From then on, he quit trying to avoid the mess, the endless prayers, the spoiled blood, the rotten carcasses. But still, his mother kept fading. Everything smelled of death now, even the hallway leading back to her sickroom. Willard started locking her door, told Arvin not to disturb her. “She needs her rest,” he said.

AS HENRY DUNLAP WAS GETTING READY to leave the office one afternoon, Willard showed up, over a week late on the rent. For the last few weeks, the lawyer had been slipping home in the middle of the day for a few minutes and watching his wife and her black lover go at it. He had a feeling that it was an indication of some kind of sickness on his part, but he couldn’t help himself. His hope, though, was that he could somehow pin Edith’s murder on the man. God knows the bastard deserved it, fucking his white employer’s wife. By then, sled-footed Willie was getting cocky, reporting for work in the mornings smelling of Henry’s private stock of imported cognac and his French aftershave. The lawn looked like hell. He was going to have to hire a eunuch just to get the grass cut. Edith was still pestering him about buying the sonofabitch a vehicle.

“Jesus Christ, man, you don’t look so good,” Henry said to Willard when the secretary let him in.

Willard pulled out his wallet and laid thirty dollars on the desk. “Neither do you, for that matter,” he said.

“Well, I’ve had a lot of things on my mind lately,” the lawyer said. “Grab a chair, sit down a minute.”

“I don’t need none of your shit today,” Willard said. “Just a receipt.”

“Oh, come on,” Henry said, “let’s have a drink. You look like you could use one.”

Willard stood staring at Henry for a moment, not sure he had heard him right. It was the first time Dunlap had ever offered him a drink, or acted the least bit civil since right after he’d signed the lease six years ago. He had come in ready for the lawyer to give him hell about being late with the rent money, had already made up his mind to knock the fuck out of him today if he got too mouthy. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Charlotte needed another prescription filled, but the drugstore was open until six. “Yeah, I reckon I could,” Willard said. He sat down in the wooden chair across from the lawyer’s soft leather one while Henry got two glasses and a bottle of scotch from a cabinet. He poured the drinks, handed the renter one.

Taking a sip from his drink, the lawyer leaned back in his chair and gazed at the money lying on top of the desk in front of Willard. Henry’s stomach was sour from worrying about his wife. He’d been thinking for several weeks about what the golfer had told him about his renter beating the fuck out of that man. “You still interested in buying the house?” Henry asked.

“Ain’t no way I can come up with that kind of money now,” Willard said. “My wife’s sick.”

“I hate to hear that,” the lawyer said. “About your wife, I mean. How bad is it?” He pushed the bottle toward Willard. “Go ahead, help yourself.”

Willard poured two fingers from the bottle. “Cancer,” he said.

“My mother died from it in her lungs,” Henry said, “but that was a long time ago. They’ve come a long way with treating it since then.”

“About that receipt,” Willard said.

“There’s damn near forty acres goes with that place,” Henry said.

“Like I said, I can’t get the money right now.”

The lawyer turned in his chair and looked at the wall away from Willard. The only sound was a fan swiveling back and forth in the corner, blowing hot air around the room. He took another drink. “A while back I caught my wife cheating on me,” he said. “I ain’t been worth a shit since.” Admitting to this hillbilly that he was a cuckold was harder than he thought.

Willard studied the fat man’s profile, watched a trickle of sweat run down his forehead and drip off the end of his lumpy nose onto his white shirt. It didn’t surprise him, what the lawyer said. After all, what sort of woman would marry a man like that? A car went by in the alley. Willard picked up the bottle and poured his glass full. He reached in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. “Yeah, that would be hard to take,” he said. He didn’t give a damn about Dunlap’s marital problems, but he hadn’t had a good drink since he’d brought Charlotte home, and the lawyer’s whiskey was top shelf.

The lawyer looked down into his glass. “I’d just go ahead and divorce her, but, goddamn it, the man she’s fucking is black as the ace of spades,” he said. He looked over at Willard then. “For my boy’s sake, I’d rather the town didn’t know about that.”

“Hell, man, what about kicking his ass?” Willard suggested. “Take a shovel to the bastard’s head, he’ll get the message.” Jesus, Willard thought, rich people did fine and dandy as long as things were going their way, but the minute the shit hit the fan, they fell apart like paper dolls left out in the rain.

Dunlap shook his head. “That won’t do any good. She’d just get her another one,” he said. “My wife’s a whore, been one all her life.” The lawyer pulled a cigarette from the case lying on the desk and lit it. “Oh, well, that’s enough of that shit.” He blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Now about that house again. I’ve been thinking. What if I told you there was a way you could own that place free and clear?”

“Ain’t nothing free,” Willard said.

The lawyer smiled slightly. “There’s some truth to that, I guess. But still, would you be interested?” He set his glass on the desk.

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Well, neither am I,” Dunlap said, “but how about you call me next week here at the office and maybe we can talk about it. I should have things worked out by then.”

Willard stood up and drained his glass. “That depends,” he said. “I’ll have to see how my wife’s doing.”

Dunlap pointed at the money Willard had laid on the desk. “Go ahead and take that with you,” he said. “Sounds like you might need it.”

“No,” Willard said, “that’s yours. I still want that receipt, though.”

THEY KEPT PRAYING AND SPILLING BLOOD on the log and hanging up twisted, mashed roadkill. All the while, Willard was considering the conversation he’d had with the fat-ass landlord. He’d run it through his head a hundred times, figured Dunlap probably wanted him to kill the black man or the wife or maybe both of them. There wasn’t anything else in the world he could think of that would be worth signing over the land and the house. But he also couldn’t help but wonder why Dunlap would think that he would do something like that; and the only thing Willard could come up with was that the lawyer considered him stupid, was playing him for a fool. He’d make sure his renter’s ass was sitting in jail before the bodies cooled off. For a brief spell, he had thought after talking to Dunlap that maybe there was a chance he could fulfill Charlotte’s dream. But there wasn’t any way they were ever going to own the house. He could see that now.

One day in the middle of August, Charlotte seemed to rally, even ate a bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup and held it down. She wanted to sit on the porch that evening, the first time she’d been out in the fresh air for weeks. Willard took a bath and trimmed his beard and combed his hair, while Arvin heated some popcorn on the stove. A breeze blew in from the west and cooled things off a bit. They drank cold 7-Up and watched the stars slowly cross the sky. Arvin sat on the floor next to her rocking chair. “It’s been a rough summer, hasn’t it, Arvin?” Charlotte said, running her bony hand through his dark hair. He was such a sweet, gentle boy. She hoped Willard would realize that when she was gone. That was something they needed to talk about, she reminded herself again. The medicine made her so forgetful.