Almost
By William M. Brock

 

It was an "almost" day for me.  Usually I'm not so wishy-washy.  Either I do a thing, or I don't.  This day, the day I'm talking about, every choice seemed to carry its own bad consequence.  I could feel it in the back of my throat, a taste of cold iron.

I almost didn't mow the grass for my dad's friend Kenny. Kenny's an old guy, sixty at least.  As a kid—say my age—working down at the grain elevator, he fell off a catwalk carrying an eighty-pound sack of cracked corn.  He's walked with a crutch ever since, which is why I like to help him with lawn work once in while.  I charge him two dollars, else he thinks it's a charity thing and gets mad.

Problem is, I get stuck talking to him, he's so lonely it's heartbreaking.  Kenny has this weird disease, neuro-something or other, so he has these big ugly warts all over his face and hands.  It's hard for me to take, and I know him.  I have to sit and drink warm beer and talk about school and girlfriends, and listen to how things were in the old days before he got crippled and ugly.  I needed money for college in the fall, and time is money.

My real business is Sales.  My friend Cord bankrolls the merchandise and I make the deliveries.  Nothing too heavy—marijuana, a little X, steroids for the jocks, like that.  JOEY BLACK'S LAWN CARE makes a good cover, and I really do mow some grass now and then, like for Kenny.

That day I was almost a hero.  But a real hero saves the girl and catches the bad guy.

* * *

I almost didn't go to Cord's eighteenth birthday party that night.  His parents bought him a fancy new car, then took off for Europe.  He had a good time planned.  Beer, wine, other stuff.  Lots of girls; I knew some of them.  It looked like a promising evening.  Truth?  It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

By then I wasn't in a party mood.  Jittery and depressed, I just wanted to walk away from everything.  At least Cord's father wouldn't be there.  He's the kind of guy that stands too close, smiles so much you forget what a smile is supposed to mean.  My dad said I should go to the party, maybe talk to some friends.  The only one I wanted to talk to was Cord, and he'd be loaded by the time I got there.

I almost got loaded myself, tried to, and I'm not much of a drinker—not like cord.  His parents have this big old Victorian out in the boondocks, and there must have been fifty, sixty kids—drinking, doping, screwing, fighting.  Their butler/property manager hired security, or things could have turned real nasty.

I sat on a front balcony and drank a lot of beer, and a few shots of something flammable.  None of it had much effect.  My brain seemed cold, detached.  My eyes burned like I had some kind of fever.  This cute redhead, Cheryl, invited me upstairs.  I almost went along, even though I knew she just wanted to piss off an old boyfriend.  I wasn't in the mood, said she should go find her Ex instead.  Her plastic cup caught me right in the face, but it was only beer.  I'm usually a lot more polite, and smarter.

Later—much later—Cord found me, still out on the balcony, still drinking.  I knew he'd get around to me eventually.

He shook his head.  "I don't know what you did to Cheryl.  She's been draggin' people off into dark corners all night.  And some corners that ain't so dark.  You get her engine started or somethin'?"  Cord could put on just enough "Midwestern Ignorant" to irritate his Ivy League father . . . and me.

I took a drink.  Maybe I was tipsy by then.  "She thinks she has something to prove.  Hope she proves it before it wears out."

He grinned, chewing gum a mile a minute.  Speed would be my best guess.  "I've been floating around all night, and this is the first I've seen your ugly face.  You been hiding?"

"Yeah.  I almost didn't show up at all.  Probably ought to get the hell out, the kind of mood I'm in."

He laughed out loud.  "Whoa, hold it right there.  Where's the guy who said there's no time for 'almost' or 'probably' in this life—only do or not do.  And that's the first time you ever used mood as an excuse for anything."

I raised my glass his direction.  "You're right, for once, except the mood thing.  If I followed my mood, I'd be home asleep.  But you nailed me on the 'almost' stuff.  I almost didn't get out of bed today.  I almost didn't go over to help old Kenny this morning; you know how he can be.  And I'm sick to death of menial labor."

Cord took a couple of pills out of his shirt pocket, offered me one, and I shook my head.  He shrugged and swallowed both with a drink of beer.  "You're just acting like a human being for a change.  Always pushing, buddy.  You always have to win a scholarship, or help out some old fart that don't have nobody.  Burned out, and you ain't even got started yet."  He sat on the floor, his back against the wall of the house.

"No, that's not it."  I couldn't see the stars through the yard lights.  I did see a uniformed guard help Cheryl while she vomited in the bushes.  Wondered if the guard got his turn.  "Right after I got over to Kenny's this morning, I almost saved a girl's life.  I don't think I can take any more of this 'almost' crap, that's all."

He started to say something, then closed his mouth and looked at me for a few seconds.  "Somebody died?"  There's a glow in his eyes, a little rush from hearing something new and juicy.

"Yeah.  The cops kept it quiet.  Her parents weren't home yet when I left.  They've got this little detached garage right up against Kenny's back fence.  I heard a car running, it just didn't seem right.  Broke a window and got her out of there.  She looked…boiled, bright pink, especially her eyelids and fingernails.  For a minute I thought she might be made up like a clown, or a cartoon character.  I almost started laughing, carrying her out of that place."  I swallowed hard, choking on something.

Cord slurred his words, couldn't open his eyes all the way.  "Man, you are really fucked up.  Not that I blame you, after a morning like, I mean—you know what I mean."  He started fumbling with his pockets, looking for something important.  A little plastic envelope appeared in his hand.  "Sure you won't have a pill, maybe a rock?"

"Let me get this straight," I said.  "Somebody dies.  Maybe you caused it, or could have stopped it.  Just take a drug or a  drink, then everything's okay?"

He smiled.  Perfect teeth.  That kind of perfection costs money.  "Always works for me."

"That's good.  For you I mean.  'Cause you know this particular dead girl."

"So?  I know a lot of girls, most of them alive if I remember right."

"Girls like her?"  I pointed.

He struggled to his feet and looked over the railing.  Cheryl lay stretched out on the grass, barefoot, torn T-shirt, denim shorts unbuttoned.  "Yeah, lots of girls like her."

"Any idea how old she is?"

He actually seemed to think about it.  "Must be our age—seventeen, eighteen.  She was in our class at school."

"No, she's not too bright, got held back.  Nineteen at least, more like twenty.  Now this dead girl, this Amber—"  He jumped when I said the name.  "You remember that name, do you? This is the same girl you and your dad, and his buddies from the city, played some grown-up games with last Saturday—"

"What the fuck do you know about it?  You wasn't there.  All these years, this is the first one of my parties you come to."

"I got all this from old Kenny.  He was feeding the cops beer and asking a million questions.  He just won't quit.  Him being a cripple and all, it's hard to just walk away.  And there are reasons I don't go to your little get-togethers.  One of them is your dad really creeps me out.  I always thought he had a thing for kids.  Like this girl Amber, she's maybe twelve years old.  Almost twelve.  There's an 'almost' for you."

"Too young?"  That perfect smile again.  "Not so anyone could tell.  She sure as hell didn't say anything.  She liked it—all of it.  We even—"

"Maybe she changed her mind when the cocaine wore off.  I'm trying not to make any heavy moral judgments here—we’re friends, so what does that make me?  But I carried a dead girl out of that smoke and poison this morning, and I'm pissed, so watch your fucking mouth."

He looked out over the balcony again, thinking, planning.  "I guess first thing I need is a lawyer, huh?"

"Bet your dad already owns fifty lawyers.  The one you need to worry about is Sheriff Dabney."

"What about him?  A hick sheriff in a hick county.  Besides, he's a friend of the family."  He grinned.  "We've all got the same taste in women."

From our vantage point, we could see flashing lights out on Red Bluff Road.  A hick sheriff in a hick county?  My mouth went dry, and my hands shook with genuine fear.  Sheriff Dabney was owned by the same people who owned everything else around here.  People like Cord's father.  Cord didn't need to worry, not with his connections.  I was the only one left with a story to tell, a story that could get me killed.  I hoped they weren't too hard on Kenny, for carrying tales.

Two patrol cars came around the long sweep of the driveway.  Cord snorted, suppressing a laugh.  "I think my ride's here."

That fat Deputy, Enoch Watkins, motioned for me to come down.  "No," I said.  "Looks like I'm the one they want."  I wondered what the charge would be.  Breaking and entering?  Interfering with a corpse?

They kept me for twelve hours, chained to a concrete block wall in a tiny room.  A card table and three folding chairs.  Buzzing fluorescent lights.  A stench I still can't believe.   They brought me water in Styrofoam cups—never enough.  Twice I urinated into a coffee can, with the smiling, brutal aid of Deputy Watkins.

I learned the formal art of storytelling in that interrogation room.  I said exactly what they wanted to hear.  That Cord and his father, and his father's rich friends were saints with money.  That the parents supported a heavy drug habit by renting out their little girl to scum they met on the Internet.  Hell, the stuff about the parents may even be true for all I know.  The D.A. read my sworn statement and smiled.  "Good," he said.  "Glad to see you get with the program."  And he let me go.

I prefer this informal version of the story, myself.  It has a lot to say about how things work, here, in Mahlon County.

 

END