Waveland Page 13

  “So anyway, I had a long and profitable career. Heady days, until I couldn't stand it anymore. I quit the last place, moved to the coast, took small jobs for local architects—just drawing, a skill that I finally mastered. I didn't do design. I was just that weird guy who drew pretty well.”

  She tugged on his arm, pulling him out of the chair. “And you faked them out for a really long time, is that it?”

  “I guess,” Vaughn said.

  “And you're a bad person, and your dad, well, he was, as they say, a dream. I see where you're going with this, Vaughn. And it's really maudlin. You got maudlin written all over you. You're rolling in maudlin, dripping with it. You gotta stop. You're lucky I've got a high tolerance, you know? Normal woman would've slapped you silly a half hour ago.”

  “Yeah yeah,” he said. “Bite me.”

  “I don't know,” she said, reaching for his hand to lead him from the room. “You might get lucky. You might trick me.”

  17

  Tony showed up in the front yard in the middle of the night Saturday with a garden hoe and a pickup truck the size of a tank. He was yelling for Gail to come out and talk to him. Gail was in her room—maybe she was asleep, maybe she was awake. Vaughn didn't know which. It was very late. He went out on the balcony outside his room and said, “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “I'm Tony,” Tony said. “And I want to see Gail. Who're you?”

  “I'm her husband.”

  “Oh,” Tony said. “I didn't know she had a husband.”

  “Yeah, she does, and it's me,” Vaughn said.

  “You were out of town,” he said.

  “I've been out of town awhile. About a year.”

  “Well, tell her I want to talk to her, will you?”

  “She's asleep,” Vaughn said. He thought he probably should have said she wasn't there, but he wasn't thinking that clearly.

  “Wake her up?” Tony said.

  “I'm not going to wake her up. What the fuck do you want anyway?”

  “You want to start something with me?” Tony said.

  “It's the middle of the night and you're in my front yard with a truck. You want me to call the cops? What're you doing here?”

  “I'm her boyfriend,” Tony said.

  “You're her boyfriend?” Vaughn said. “That the same boyfriend who beat the crap out of her a while back?”

  “Nothing like that,” Tony said. “I guess I need to talk to you, if you're her husband.”

  “I don't want to talk to you,” Vaughn said. “I want to go back to sleep.”

  “Is she right there?” Tony said. He pointed at Vaughn.

  “No, she's not here. She's in the other room. I just came out here to see who was yelling.”

  It was one of those chilly nights, wispy sky was moving fast. There were a few stars behind the clouds. Dogs were barking in the distance. Vaughn could hear the cars out on the coast road.

  “What's with the hoe?” he said.

  “What?” Tony said.

  “The garden tool,” Vaughn said. “The hoe.”

  Tony looked at it as if he'd forgotten he had it in his hand. He was leaning on it, sort of like that painting. “I don't know,” he said. “I just had it in the truck. I was hoeing some stuff earlier.”

  Vaughn nodded and wiped his eyes, rubbing them with his thumb and index finger, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “Well, can you call tomorrow?” he said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Call tomorrow,” Vaughn said and turned to go inside.

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” Tony said. “We need to talk.”

  “We don't,” Vaughn said.

  “We do,” Tony said. “You got me all wrong. Come on down, will you?”

  Vaughn was guessing at his easiest path out. Was it call the police or go inside and hope Tony would leave? Tony didn't look like a guy who was going to leave.

  “Just get out,” Vaughn said. “Go on home. Come back when you're sober.”

  “I'm sober now. I want to talk to you. I think we'd better have a conversation.”

  “What about?”

  “Her,” he said.

  Vaughn looked up at the sky. The moon was almond-shaped, like a person's eye. He couldn't figure it. He motioned toward the back door. “I'll be down in a minute,” he said. “Put away your weapon and get the truck out of the yard.”

  Tony wanted a beer and Vaughn gave him one and they sat together at the kitchen table. The kitchen was spotless, the way it usually was. The beer was Mexican. Tony looked at the label and chuckled. “No shit,” he said.

  Vaughn sized the kid up. Vaughn was bigger than him by half a foot, but Tony looked fit and strong. He might have been thirty, soaking wet. Vaughn figured if it came to that, he could probably cool Tony just by wrapping him up and hustling him out the door; but if the kid started swinging, Vaughn was going to get hit. He figured Tony didn't really want to get into a fight. Sometimes it happens, but more often than not, even if the guy doesn't want to admit it, he is looking for a way out. Vaughn could make that work for him.

  “So what's the deal with you and her?” Tony said.

  “We're married. We've been married for a hundred years. Sometimes we live apart, sometimes we live together. Right now we're living together. Since that show you put on a few weeks ago, you're not really welcome around here.”

  “She started it,” he said.

  “I don't care who started it,” Vaughn said.

  “She hit me right here with a beer can,” he said. He drew his hand along his cheekbone, alongside his left eye.

  “She could have hit you with a hoe, for all I care,” Vaughn said. “You beat the shit out of her.”

  “Did not. I didn't beat her. I just pushed her around a little bit,” Tony said. He did a long tug on his beer. “She fell down a couple times.”

  “You guys,” Vaughn said. “We went to the hospital.”

  Tony looked at him for a minute, sort of looking past the neck of his beer, and said, “So that's when you came back, right?” And he smiled.

  It was Vaughn's turn to scratch at the beer bottle. He did that for a minute, watching his fingernail cut the label. “Yeah, well, maybe you've got me there, Tony,” he said. “But I've been here every day since.”

  “Who's the other woman?” he said.

  “What other woman?”

  “The other one. You know,” he said. “The other one I always see you leaving with.”

  Vaughn watched the second hand on the clock, thinking it had been a long time since he'd been in a situation like this. He was trying to figure out which one of them was ahead. Tony seemed plenty docile, so that was points for Vaughn. On the other hand, Tony had made it into the kitchen, which was big for him. If he made a break for the door into the rest of the house, Vaughn would have to hit him with a chair, he figured. He looked at the chair—where would he grab it?

  “She's an old friend of ours,” he said.

  “She is?” Tony said. “What about the guy over on Mary Magdalene?”

  “Yeah, he's a friend, too,” Vaughn said. “Eddie. His name's Eddie. Greta stays over there sometimes. Sometimes she stays over here. It just depends.”

  “He's only got one hand,” Tony said. “That Eddie. How'd he lose it? The hand?”

  “Desert Storm,” Vaughn said. “What do you care? You've been following us around a lot, have you? That's not exactly legal. That's not exactly the smart thing to do after what happened with you and Gail, is it? Police might be interested in hearing about you.”

  “Police, schmolice,” Tony said. “You aren't calling any police.”

  “I did last time, didn't I?”

  “You didn't. She did,” he said, pointing up into the house. “I know what goes on. She told me. She told me everything.”

  “Oh yeah? When was that?” Vaughn said.

  “I see her,” he said. “When I want to, when she wants to. She comes by. We see each other. We're grown-ups. What, that's news to you?
”

  Vaughn shrugged. Tony was ahead by more than he'd figured.

  It wasn't too bright there in the kitchen. There wasn't much light. The only lights on were the ones over the stove and over the sink. There were lots of shadows. From outside there were tree shadows on the glass. Vaughn got the feeling he'd made a pretty big mistake letting Tony into the house. He got the feeling he ought to get him out of the house, if he could.

  “Here's the deal,” Vaughn said. “We've got an arrangement. We've got a deal, so you can do whatever you want. But we're not doing it tonight. Okay? Tonight you're finishing the beer and going home.”

  “You giving me orders?”

  “No,” Vaughn said, sighing. “I'm not giving you orders. I'm suggesting in the nicest possible way that maybe the best thing we could do, the best thing you could do right at this moment, is finish that beer and walk out the door.”

  “Then what?” he said.

  “Whatever you want,” Vaughn said. “This house is going to sleep.”

  “What about us?” he said.

  By this time Vaughn was making big gestures every which way. He realized that the gestures were too big. He was shrugging and holding his hand up in the air and making faces, rubbing his hand over his scalp. He was clearly at a loss. Tony couldn't miss it.

  “What about us?” Vaughn said, turning his head and squinting a little.

  “What's this deal you've got with her? You're living here, she's living here, she's going out with me—what kind of deal is that?”

  “She's not doing too well,” he said. “She's not feeling so well in the world. She's suffered some discontinuities, if you know what I mean. Things aren't quite going her way.”

  “That includes you?” Tony said.

  Vaughn shook his head. “I don't know,” he said, his voice going slower and deeper, quieter. The kind of voice you use when you're really getting tired of the game, playing up the menace. Even he thought it was funny.

  “What're you laughing at?” Tony said.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I just thought of something.”

  “What?” he said.

  “It's nothing,” Vaughn said. “You leaving or what? I'm going up to bed.”

  “You're going to let me stay here in the kitchen?” he said.

  “No, you're not staying in the kitchen, Tony. I want you to get in your truck and go home and do what you do. Do it out of sight.”

  “Oh, that's pretty,” he said.

  “What can I say? You trashed her and now you're seeing her on the sly or whatever. She's upset. She's having some kind of breakdown. I'm trying to cover the goddamn thing, and here you are at three in the fucking morning in the front yard. I mean, for Christ's sake, can you get a clue here and back out?”

  “Whoa,” Tony said.

  “Yeah, that's right,” Vaughn said. “Whoa.”

  “Tough guy,” he said.

  “It's not about tough guy. It's about being tired and having had enough. You know what I mean? Whatever you want to do is fine with me. Whatever she wants to do is fine with me. Whatever the two of you want to do together is fine with me. But if she turns up hurt, it's not fine with me. That's why I'm here and why I'm going to stay here. That's why you're not staying here. And that's about what I've got.”

  Tony scratched his forehead as if he was thinking. “Well,” he finally said, “that makes some sense. You know what I mean?” He looked at Vaughn earnestly. “That makes a lot of sense. You make a lot of sense.” He looked at him again. “Tell me, are you a lot older than she is?”

  “Some,” he said.

  “You look older,” Tony said.

  “Thanks,” Vaughn said.

  Tony tipped the bottle up and drained it, put it on the middle of the kitchen table, stood up, pushed the chair back in gently. “The power of persuasion,” he said.

  “Ain't it something.”

  He smiled at Vaughn and held out a hand, and Vaughn took it and shook it, and then led Tony to the kitchen door, and Tony strode out like a gentleman.

  Gail was sitting on the upstairs landing playing with a tiny electric train set she had bought Vaughn for his birthday one year. It was N-gauge tiny; the tracks were about a quarter inch apart; the cars were about two inches long. She had a little circle built, and she was running the train around in the circle. She had the red and silver engine, a boxcar, a flat car, a tanker car, and a little half-size caboose. She was watching the train go around this twenty-four-inch circle. She was driving it real slow.

  “So what'd he want?” she said.

  “I guess you already know that.”

  “What, are you mad at me or something?”

  “Mad doesn't get it,” he said.

  “You need to save me from myself.”

  “I'm beginning to understand that,” Vaughn said.

  “It's shitty of you to have brought that woman in here,” she said.

  “I thought you were okay with that woman,” he said.

  “Yeah, I'm sure you did,” she said. She sped the train up and it went around one more time and then flew off the track. A problem he recognized. “You just brought her here to protect you.”

  “Gail, it's like the middle of the night and I've just had your boyfriend for cookies in the kitchen, and I was thinking we ought to just let this go and maybe talk about it tomorrow.”

  “You're mad at me because I've been seeing Tony,” she said.

  “I'm not mad at you. If you want to see Tony, that's your business,” he said. “He's about half your age.”

  “Like that matters,” she said.

  “He's about half your IQ,” he said.

  “Like that matters,” she said.

  “So, nothing matters, then,” he said. “I'm going to turn in.”

  “I need you to stay here and talk to me,” she said. “Sit down, will you?”

  She was putting the train back on the tracks. It was difficult. She had to get the front wheels on the track, all four of them, then she had to get the back wheels on the track, and then she had to scoot the car back and forth to be sure it was on the track, and then she had to put the next car on and had to bump it into the first car in order to hook them up, and she didn't have a lot of patience. Pretty soon she had the engine dragging the cars around half on and half off the track. He motioned at the train. “Turn it off, will you.” He got down on his hands and knees and put on his reading glasses and tried to get the cars right.

  Gail said, “I don't know what it is, I just like him.”

  “He's a real man,” he said.

  “Boy,” she said.

  “Whatever,” he said. “Whatever he is, he's real.”

  “He's simple. That's what he is,” she said. “That's what makes him attractive. I think I'll probably get rid of him soon.”

  “I think you probably won't,” he said. “But it's all right as long as he doesn't beat you up again. You can see whoever you want.”

  “I guess I can,” she said, and she sped the train up and ran it off the tracks again. “Why'd you leave me?” she said.

  He shook his head and picked up the engine, flipped a finger at the wheels. “I don't know. You asked me to. That's the way I remember it.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but you know—”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said.

  “I figured it was just time. Something wasn't right,” she said.

  “You were mad at me, but I couldn't figure out why,” he said.

  “I wasn't mad so much as tired of you,” she said.

  He handed her the little engine. “That could be too much candor,” he said.

  “There's a time for candor,” she said.

  “This isn't it,” he said.

  “Apparently,” she said.

  Just about then a door opened down the hall and Greta walked out in a pair of shorts and one of his shirts. She was coming out of his bedroom. She was buttoning the shirt. She looked down the hall and saw them sitting there in front of Gail's roo
m, and she said, “Well, howdy-do. And good night.” Then she turned around and started to go into her room.

  “Come on out,” Gail said. “Come out and play.”

  “We're playing trains,” Vaughn said. Greta kept one hand on the doorjamb, stood for a moment in the hall and said, “You guys go on. I just wanted to see what happened with the guy in the truck.”

  “Vaughn took care of him,” Gail said. “Sent him packing.”

  “Oh,” Greta said. “Well, you guys carry on. I'm going in here to read or bathe or sleep. Probably all those things. It's going to take me an hour or two. Could take me all night.”

  Gail looked at Greta, then at him. “What does that mean?” she said.

  Greta waved. “It doesn't mean anything. I'm going.” She did another odd wave and shut the door behind her.

  “That went well,” he said.

  “This whole thing's gone well,” she said. “From the very first. The two of you coming over, taking up residence. It's very yesterday, isn't it?”

  “I don't know what you expected me to do,” he said. “I'm living with this woman and what—you want me to come over here and leave her?”

  “It's a thought,” Gail said.

  “Not happening. We split up. You wanted me out of here as fast as you could get me out of here.”

  “That's not true,” she said.

  “Is,” he said.

  “Well, it may have been true for a while, but it wasn't completely true.”

  “It was pretty true,” he said.

  “It wasn't permanent, though,” she said.

  “Sometimes things don't start out to be permanent but end up that way.”

  “What's that, a Hallmark card?” she said.

  “This is tough stuff,” he said. “All of it.”

  “You've got that right,” she said. “We were married. We were married a long time. We had a life. Maybe we should have stayed together. Maybe that's what we were supposed to do.”

  “Tried that,” he said.

  “Why are you such a fucking smartass all the time?” she said. “Tried that. How's that make me feel when you say something like that?”

  “I'm only telling you the truth,” he said.

  “I'm fucking naked as a fucking baby out here, and you're saying Tried that,” she said.