Joe Hill - Heart-Shaped Box

A dog yapped somewhere in the distance. Bon lifted her head, gazed thoughtfully in the direction of the door, then lowered her chin back to her forepaws.

“Was she pretty?” Georgia asked.

“Anna? Yeah. Sure. You want to know if she was good in the sack?”

“I’m just asking. You don’t got to be a son of a bitch about it.”

“Well, then. Don’t ask questions you don’t really want to know the answers to. Notice I never inquire about your past lays.”

“Past lays. Goddammit. Is that the way you think of me? The present lay, soon to be the past lay?”

“Christ. Here we go.”

“And I’m not being a snoop. I’m trying to figure this out.”

“How is knowing whether she was pretty going to help you figure anything out about our ghost problem?”

She held the sheet to her chin and stared at him in the dark.

“So she was Florida and I’m Georgia. How many other states has your dick visited?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I don’t have a map somewhere with pins in it. You really want me to make an estimate? While we’re on the subject, why stop with states? I’ve had thirteen world tours, and I always took my cock along with me.”

“You fuckin’ asshole.”

He grinned in his beard. “I know that’s probably shocking, to a virgin such as yourself. Here’s some news for you: I got a past. Fifty-four years of it.”

“Did you love her?”

“You can’t leave it alone, can you?”

“This is important, goddammit.”

“How’s it important?”

She wouldn’t say.

He sat up against the headboard. “For about three weeks.”

“Did she love you?”

He nodded.

“She wrote you letters? After you sent her home?”

“Yeah.”

“Angry letters?”

He didn’t reply at first, considering the question.

“Did you even fuckin’ read ’em, you insensitive shitbird?” There it was again, an unmistakably rural and southern cadence in her voice. Her temper was up, and she’d forgotten herself for a moment. Or maybe it was not a case of forgetting herself, Jude thought, so much as the opposite.

“Yeah, I read ’em,” he said. “I was hunting around for them when the shit blew up in our faces back in New York.”

He was sorry Danny had not found them. He had loved Anna and lived with her and talked with her every day they were together but now understood he had not learned nearly enough about her. He knew so little of the life she’d lived before him—and after.

“You deserve whatever happens to you,” she said. Georgia rolled away from him. “We both deserve it.”

He said, “They weren’t angry. Sometimes they were emotional. And sometimes they were scary, because there was so little emotion in them. In the last one, I remember she said something about how she had things she wanted to talk about, things she was tired of keeping secret. She said she couldn’t stand to be so tired all the time. Which should’ve been a warning sign to me right there. Except she said stuff like that other times, and she never…anyway. I been trying to tell you she wasn’t right. She wasn’t happy.”

“But do you think she still loved you? Even after you put your boot in her ass?”

“I didn’t—” he started, then let out a thin, seething breath. Wouldn’t let himself be baited. “I suppose probably she did.”

Georgia didn’t speak for a long time, her back to him. He studied the curve of her shoulder. At last she said, “I feel bad for her. It’s not a lot of fun, you know.”

“What?”

“Being in love with you. I’ve been with a lot of bad guys who made me feel lousy about myself, Jude, but you’re something special. Because I knew none of them really cared about me, but you do, and you make me feel like your shitty hooker anyway.” She spoke plainly, calmly, without looking at him.

It made him catch his breath a little, what she said, and for an instant he wanted to tell her he was sorry, but he shied from the word. He was out of practice at apologies and loathed explanations. She waited for him to reply, and when he didn’t, she pulled the blanket up to cover her shoulder.

He slid down against the pillow, put his hands behind his head.

“We’ll be passing through Georgia tomorrow,” she said, still not turning toward him. “I want to stop and see my grandma.”

“Your grandma,” Jude repeated, as if he weren’t sure he’d heard her right.

“Bammy is my favorite person in the world. She bowled a perfect three hundred once.” Georgia said it as if the two things followed each other naturally. Maybe they did.

“You know the trouble we’re in?”

“Yeah. I was vaguely aware.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea to start making detours?”

“I want to see her.”

“How about we stop in on our way back? You two can catch up on old times then. Hell, maybe the two of you could go bowl a couple strings.”

Georgia was a little while in answering. At last she said, “I was feelin’ like I ought to see her now. It’s been on my mind. I don’t think it’s any sure thing we’ll be makin’ the trip back. Do you?”

He pulled his beard, staring at the shape of her under the sheet. He didn’t like the idea of slowing for any reason but felt the need to offer her something, some concession, to make her loathe him a little less. Also, if Georgia had things she wanted to say to someone who loved her, he supposed it made sense not to wait around. Putting off anything that mattered no longer seemed like sensible planning.

“She keep lemonade in the fridge?”

“Fresh made.”

“Okay,” Jude said. “We’ll stop. Not too long, though, okay? We can be in Florida this time tomorrow if we don’t mess around.”

One of the dogs sighed. Georgia had opened a window to air out the odor of Alpo, the window that looked into the courtyard at the center of the motel. Jude could smell the rust of the chain-link fence and a dash of chlorine, although there was no water in the pool.

Georgia said, “Also, I used to have a Ouija board, once upon a time. When we get to my grandma’s, I want to poke around for it.”

“I already told you. I don’t need to talk to Craddock. I already know what he wants.”

“No,” Georgia said, her voice short with impatience. “I don’t mean so we can talk to him .”

“Then what do you mean?”

“We need it if we’re going to talk to Anna,” Georgia said. “You said she loved you. Maybe she can tell us how to get out of this mess. Maybe she can call him off.”

22

Lake Pontchartrain, huh?I didn’t grow up too far from there. My parents took us campin’ there once. My stepdaddy fished. I can’t remember how he did. You go fishin’ much on Lake Pontchartrain?”

She was always after him with her questions. He could never decide if she listened to the answers or just used the time when he was talking to think of something else to pester him about.

“Do you like to fish? Do you like raw fish? Sushi? I think sushi is disgusting, except when I’m drinkin’, and then I’m in the mood. Repulsion masks attraction. How many times have you been to Tokyo? I hear the food is really nasty—raw squid, raw jellyfish. Everything is raw there. Did they not invent fire in Japan? Have you ever had bad food poisonin’? Sure you have. On tour all the time.

“What’s the hardest you ever puked? You ever puked through your nostrils? You have? That’s the worst.

“But did you fish Lake Pontchartrain much? Did your daddy take you? Isn’t that the prettiest name? Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Pontchartrain, I want to see the rain on Lake Pontchartrain. You know what the most romantic sound in the world is? Rain on a quiet lake. A nice spring rain. When I was a kid, I could put myself into a trance just sittin’ at my window watchin’ the rain. My stepdad used to say he never met anyone as easy to put into a trance as me. What were you like growin’ up? When’d you decide to change your name?