The driveway gate is not locked so he swings it back to the pansies. Resistance is futile. He is the unstoppable Jim, Giant Jim, riding a new and improved euphoria, euphoria with purpose.
He gets in the truck, where Gary has left his keys in the ignition, one more sign of growing up in a small town, and backs down the drive in a sober fashion, slowly, so as not to alarm anyone. They should be running out of the house now and stopping him, but of course that isn’t happening. His father sitting in the window again, gazing expressionless, Jim in his passing no different than clouds in the sky.
He backs into the street without even looking, willing the quick end, disappointed as always, and drives toward the center of town. The diner Rhoda’s sister and brother-in-law own, a good place to start. Except that then she will be alerted. He takes the bend to Safeway and his dental office and pulls into the parking lot. He needs a plan. Here is where Rhoda worked for him, where they first met, where they first fucked. A sacred place of origin, capable of pointing the way. A depressing little brown building, a woman emerging now with her son after a bit of torture. Causing pain every day. It’s supposed to be one of the reasons dentists have the highest suicide rate, swapping every year or so with psychiatrists, who are obviously fucked. Otherwise why would they be in that profession? But the dental suicides are a little more mysterious maybe.
“What to do,” Jim says aloud. “What to do.”
The most likely would be her sister Donna’s place, big and with extra rooms. Donna’s the one closest to Rhoda. But Rhoda may have rented her own place now, in which case his chances will be small.
“Have to start somewhere,” he says. He pulls out of the parking lot and turns away from the water. Donna and her husband, Jim, live in the hills at the edge of town. They have a small diner and have mortgaged everything as heavily as possible to pretend to be kings. But why not. At least they want something. Jim would like to want something simple like a house. He has a brand-new one in Fairbanks, no furniture yet even, and honestly doesn’t give a shit. Two stories of nothing, specially built fireplace where no one will gather, enormous empty hearth, some external shell he built to remind himself exactly how lonely he is. He’d rather live anywhere else now. Lost in the paper birch, endless, no neighbor in sight. Even the trees thin.
Road with no sidewalk, houses with no lawns, only untrimmed grass and weeds growing, everything taking a dump as you get farther from the water. Then a couple exits on the highway and turning up a new road cut into hillside that hasn’t been braced and will be falling down soon. Small twisted black oak out here, and manzanita, the kinds of low hills all around Lakeport, and houses widely spaced.
He turns into their gravel drive. A new gray house, two stories, probably four or five thousand square feet, ridiculous, with deck and hot tub and gazebo out back. Three other cars but none he recognizes. He doesn’t know what she’s driving now.
The pickup engine collapses with a rattle and he waits a bit, rolls down the window. Scrub jays calling, rough and unapologetic. Flight of one of them in that long swoop upward before landing.
He reaches behind the seat for his valise and the magnum, lifts it out heavy and cold and looks at it in his lap, considering. Turns it over a few times. Then he reaches for the shells, so blunt and wide. Squared-off gray ends, heavy lead. He opens the cylinder and inserts them one at a time.
He steps out and tucks the pistol into the back of his jeans under his jacket. Long barrel and so heavy. He may accidentally shoot off his own ass, which would be kind of funny. Always had a small ass but there’s always more to lose. He can feel himself grinning.
“Joker,” he says. “Flat-ass Jim. No-ass Jim. Here for a reckoning. I want my ass back.”
No-ass Jim saunters toward the house like any corral. Hear you’re hiding my woman here. He should say something like that. Bring her out before I burn this place to the ground.
The front steps are terra-cotta, which must be slippery as fuck in the rain. He mounts carefully. The ground everywhere still wet.
The knocker is a pig snout, which seems appropriate for the gluttony of such a big house. Gourmands inside just finishing up some pâté not knowing they’re about to enter a western. Wrong set, wrong time.
Jim comes to the door. Two Jims. “Hi Jim,” Jim says, and “Hi Jim,” Jim says back. He looks like Elvis, full head of dark hair, not receding, and long sideburns. A bit pudgy, but a handsome man. One of the town’s bourgeois leaders, a business owner, the kind of person with something to lose when the stranger comes to town, the kind of person laws are meant to protect. Whereas No-ass Jim is more a desperado at this point.
“I want my ass back,” he says.
“What?”
“I’m thinking I have a flat ass, or no ass, so I want it back.” Jim smiles. “Well let’s take a look and see if we can help. Maybe a steady diet of pancakes down at the diner. It’s been working for me.” Jim rubs his belly. Wearing a polo shirt with horizontal stripes, not fitting into a western at all.
“Can’t,” No-ass Jim says. “Hiding something back there.”
Jim grins again. “Aren’t we all.”
“So is Rhoda here? I won’t cause any problems. She’s been helping me out, talking with me on the phone to help me get through the day, so I guess I could just call her, but I’m never alone, and I don’t want to have that talk in front of my brother or parents. I’d like to just see her now in person.”
“She’s not here, Jim. I’m sorry.” He looks like he’s lying. No-ass thinks about pulling the pistol to be a bit more insistent, but if she’s really not here that would end everything. Police would be called and No-ass would no longer be free to pull his horse up to whatever hitching post he wants.
“Okay. Not sure I believe you.”
“Well you can take a look. Come inside and walk through every room. Be my guest. She’s not here.” The Jim who belongs spreads his arm wide to invite into the realm. If he’s lying, this is a good ploy. Pretty convincing.
“Okay. I’ll go look for my ass elsewhere then I guess.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Happy Easter. Where is she? Where can I find her?”
“You know I’m not supposed to say.”
“Yeah, and you’ll be calling her now to warn her, right?”
“Yeah, of course. I have to.”
“Okay. See you later.”
“Bye, Jim. And good luck to you. I hope you feel better.”
No-ass turns around and walks with big steps to the truck, tired of being a pity case. It never feels good when people feel sorry for you. And who is this other Jim anyway? No-ass was valedictorian. What happened?
He backs the truck calmly then spins the wheel and peels out, fishtailing down the road and keeping the accelerator pinned, the engine choking on itself and the trees moving faster. Then he punches the brakes and fishtails again, bed of the truck so far to the right he almost flips. The feel of that point approaching. But he slides in the thin layer of gravel mysteriously left on top of the asphalt and comes to a stop, sideways in the road. No one else around. Smell of his tires. He rolls down a window and feels the cool air, smells the engine. Old oil mixing with fried rubber. The sky so gray and empty.
He just doesn’t know what to do. Leave the truck and walk into the hills? Drive to some other place she might be? Go back to his parents’ house? Drive to Santa Rosa to see his kids again? Go to Mexico?
He gets out of the truck for some fresh air and to clear his head. Leaves it sideways in the road and door open, like an accident or a crime scene. If someone comes, let them have questions. Jim has questions too.
The grass is wet and long here, no grazing. The stunted black oaks not blocking any sun, everything around them grown wild. Big stands of poison oak, waxy. So many fallen sticks, his boots crunching with every step. Oak balls dark brown and slimy, rotting. Spiderwebs everywhere. He has to keep brushing them aside.
So much lichen on everything, rock and tree, in white and black lace. No surface clean. And the dream of walking forever isn’t possible because every ten feet is such a hassle, never in a direct line, always having to sidetrack around some bit of brush or deadfall. It feels like a job.
Jim turns around, crunches back through all the sticks, peels away spiderwebs, tries not to slip on the rot, and is standing at the truck again. At least the options have narrowed by one.
He’ll try Sandra’s house. She’s the black sheep of the family, a good place to hide. And not far away.
Down the highway a couple stops and into the back side of town, quiet lanes of trash and untrimmed weeds but pretty enough, peaceful. A small house hunched on a mound elevated maybe ten feet above the road, mini hill for a mini kingdom. Two thin tracks of concrete for a driveway, accommodating the wheels only, grass between grown long enough to brush the underside.
Nose of the pickup pointing upward when he stops. He tucks the magnum behind his back and walks to the front porch, sagging thin wood and cracked gray paint. Raps on the door and steps back.
He has to wait, and then the door opens slowly. Sandra with long dark hair, only a girl still, maybe twenty or twenty-one, because Rhoda is ten years younger than him and Sandra almost ten years younger than that.
“How did you get a house?” he asks. “You’re so young. I just realized.”
“Benefits of the pool empire,” she says.
“I guess the empire is over now.”
“Yeah, Mom killing Dad will do that.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault. At least not that we know. Were you having an affair with my Dad too?”
“No. Not that I know of. Unless he got me when I was sleeping over there.”
“He wasn’t above that.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. So why are you here, Jim?”
“Direct just like your sister.”
“Like our mom.”
“Okay. Well I want to see Rhoda.”
“Off limits.”
“Why though?”
“Because you’re suicidal and crazy desperate and a dipshit for cheating on her? Does that ring any bells?”
“I guess so. But there are other ways to look at it.”
“Such as?”
“Maybe I loved as well as I could. Maybe this is the best me I’m offering, and that’s all anyone can do.”
“Not good enough.”
“You’re young but mean.”
“We haven’t even started.”
“Well. Is she here?”
“Would you tell me if she was?”
“No.”
“So she might be here.”
“No. She actually isn’t.”
Jim feels like he’s talking to Rhoda. It’s the same raw directness he likes, and she’s slimmer the way Rhoda used to be, same dark hair and small face. Not beautiful in a way everyone would agree on, but some witchiness he likes. And her top just a black stretch thing with a low cutaway showing cleavage. Where he’s looking now.
“Maybe you should go,” she says.
“Or stay. I could stay.”
“Stay and do what?”
“A fresh start. Maybe you and me instead of me and Rhoda. A newer better version of us, clean and without any history.”
“Do you want me to puke right here on your shoes, or should I run for the sink?”
“Don’t be mean.”
“Honestly I would puke.”
“That’s not kind.”
“Out of control, Jim. You need to slow down. Stop looking outside. And leave my sister alone. She’s already got enough of her own problems. There was our parents, yeah? And the whole fight over the estate? And trying things now with Rich? Maybe give her a chance.”
“In theory that sounds good.”
“Try doing it.”
“The weather again.”
“Snap my fingers and blow out the sun.”
“You mean you can’t control your feelings?”
“Bingo.”
She leans her cheek against the edge of the door. “I can see you’re not actually a bad guy. Just pathetic. But leave her alone, yeah? Don’t ever try to see her or talk to her again. You had your chances.”
“We need more than that. Everyone needs more than that.” He thinks about the magnum. Again it might be useful. And his mind is working in new ways. What had seemed like crime before doesn’t seem like crime now. He could force her to be with him, and would that really be wrong? He reaches back, his hand closing on the grip, so certain, the gun a maker of law, a maker of new right and wrong. But it will be used one time only. He knows that. Because no one will agree with this new law. So he needs to save it still, until he finds Rhoda.
“What about money?” he asks. “What if I paid you a thousand dollars to be with me right now?”
Her face looks so disgusted, really like she might vomit, and she closes the door. He knocks, but he knows she’s not going to answer. He could break it in, but again he’s not ready for the end yet. And what has he missed? She’s smart, and she knows Rhoda well. He might have discovered more here in this conversation, if he’d been able to keep sex out of it. But he’s never been able to do that. Sex and despair the same thing, both limiting what the world will be, both irresistible.