Songs in Ordinary Time Read online

  “I’ll tell you what killed Earlie Jones. It was avarice and lust! Selfishness and dishonesty! Treachery! That’s what killed Earlie Jones, not me! Do you understand? Don’t you know what must’ve happened? He took my money, and he started to run. He was trying to get back to the other two, who were waiting for him with my car, my clothes, my goods, all my possessions, and so he’s running and huffing and puffing when all of a sudden his foot gets snagged in something. Who knows, maybe a vine or a tree root, or maybe he just trips, but down he goes, flat on his face, and the knife, the blade he still carried against me, jams up into his heart.” Omar sighed. Eyes closed, he shook his head. “I just hope he went quickly, that’s all.”

  “Yah,” Benjy said, as oddly breathless as if he’d just been sprinting through those spring woods. “I hope so, too.”

  They went inside, quickly, quietly, feeling their way through the dark, each bound by the other’s vision.

  A rainstorm broke over the mountains, the sudden downpour swelling rivulets into foamy gushing brooks. Gusts of wind lashed spindly trees back and forth, bending them to the ground.

  On the third floor of Atkinson Hospital, Nurse Annmarie Simros moved quickly through the sleeping ward. There were eight patients, all men, and most of these were elderly. She had three more meds to administer before her break. The windows flashed with the brilliance of the lightning. The thunderclaps seemed to come every few seconds now. It was amazing how soundly everyone slept through the storm, especially the older men, who usually tossed and turned all night with insomnia. This was a phenomenon she’d noticed before.

  “Mr. Seldon,” she whispered, bending over the old popcorn vendor, whose head was still bandaged. Tomorrow his sutures would be removed. The blow had fractured his skull and for three days he’d lain in a coma. Sonny Stoner had visited every day. A distant cousin had driven down from Burlington to find a nursing home that would care for him when (and if, his doctor interjected) he was released. But Joey Seldon had come out of the coma. He insisted he was going home and, as soon as he could, back to his stand. “Mr. Seldon,” Nurse Simros whispered, the graze of her fingertips on his shoulder surely icy, she thought, as his eyes opened with alarm. “I have your pills here,” she said, lifting him and bringing the cup to his lips. He swallowed, his sightless eyes locked on hers, even now as she eased him back onto the pillow. “Good night,” she whispered, then turned to go. She glanced back. A bolt of lightning filled the ward with light and Joey Seldon’s eyes flew from window to window. It was the brightness, she told herself. That was all, just the sudden intensity.

  Almost a mile away in his apartment over the Holy Articles Shoppe, Howard Menka was wide awake. Usually, storms like this frightened him, but he was so excited over tomorrow’s trip that he could think of little else. First thing in the morning he and his landlady, Lucille, were leaving on the bus to see Cousin Perda. He’d packed their lunch, four liverwurst-and-tomato sandwiches, two hard-boiled eggs, two Devil Dogs, and a thermos of cherry Kool-Aid. He turned on the light next to his bed once again to admire the gifts he had bought for Perda and the other patients. There were two red-and-black Japanese fans, a magnifying glass, a box of gold stars, six tiny plastic infants swaddled in bits of pink and blue flannel, and his favorite, the tumbling man in the squeeze bars. He squeezed the bright green sticks, smiling as the little figure spun and turned up and over the sticks, then down again. He couldn’t wait to show Lucille how to work it. Maybe it would make her laugh. It was hard to make Lucille laugh.

  Lucille was bringing holy cards. She’d wanted to give each patient a patron saint card, but the only name he could remember was his cousin’s, and Lucille said there was no such saint as Perda, so she decided on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Good idea, he said, but the truth was that the image of Jesus holding his bleeding heart always made him sick to his stomach and dizzy because of the way he couldn’t stop thinking about that soft warm heart still beating as it bled in the palm of your hand, and the whole time, like now that he’d let it into his thoughts, he’d be trying to click it off, think of something else, come on now, he’d tell himself, anything but that, even though Jozia said it wasn’t like a human heart, of course: a human heart would die outside the body, but Jesus’ heart was eternal, didn’t need a cord or any connecting thing to keep him alive, just love, she said, that was it, love, think of love, just love, love, love, and Lucille, whom he loved, loved, loved, but dared not tell because of the man who came sometimes. He was older, short and plump, with gray sideburns. He always brought her apples and pears. The last time, after he left, Howard heard Lucille singing through the heat register on the floor, where he’d been lying and listening the whole time. Tomorrow, after the trip to see Perda, he was going to tell her, maybe even on the way home in the dark bus, when they’d both be tired and feeling good about themselves and lucky the way he and Jozia used to feel in their realization not only of all they had, but that they had each other. Of course now that his sister was under the spell of Grondine Carson she considered the trip to see Perda “nothing but a waste of time and money,” but not Lucille. She had said yes the minute he asked her.

  All through the storm Chief Stoner had been dozing in the chair by his wife’s bed. He woke up now, startled by the sudden quiet, the wet stillness, and the close scent of flowers in the room. He listened. When he heard her breathing, he gripped the arms of the chair and started to get up.

  “Sonny?” Carol said. “Where you going?”

  “Nowhere,” he lied. The flowers on the dresser were from Eunice. She sent dinner over every night, and on Sundays when the nurse was off, she bathed Carol and spent the day with her. Sonny made it a point to be away from here on Sundays. On the night of Joey Seldon’s attack he’d vowed to stop seeing Eunice. He’d called his sister in Rhode Island and asked if Lester could spend a few weeks with her. She had six kids, all athletes, but Lester had refused to go, preferring to spend his nights down in the kitchen monitoring police calls. He’d given up suggesting he call Alice Fermoyle. Lester said the world was becoming an evil place.

  “Lay down with me,” Carol said. “Please?”

  “But I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

  “Nothing hurts anymore,” she sighed through the swoon of her medication.

  Buckles, badges, and key chains clinking, he lay on his side facing her, cringing to keep every pore, every bone, hair, and muscle from touching her. They hadn’t been this close in months. “How’s that?” he whispered, and when she didn’t answer he asked again. He hardly knew what to say anymore.

  “I’m sorry this is taking so long,” she said.

  “You sleep so much during the day, it’s hard at night,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean that,” she said, and he realized she was crying.

  “Oh, Carol, don’t. Oh please don’t.”

  “No, listen. This is important, Sonny.”

  As she spoke, he tried to let his mind wander. He had three patrolmen assigned downtown tonight. Two on foot and one in the car. If that didn’t work…Her sadness tore him apart.

  “You see, I know everything,” she was saying. “That’s what happens. Part of me’s way up there, the good part…”

  “No, the good part’s here,” he whispered, taking her small hard hand in both of his.

  “Now, you just listen. I know how sad you are. You don’t think you’re a good man anymore, do you? But you are. You are! I know you are.”

  “No, I’m not,” he said as he moved closer, holding her hand to his mouth, and now it all came out, his carelessness at work, his men’s disappointment in him. Another store had been broken into since Joey Seldon’s mugging, Hardy’s Records, and though he was certain that punk Mooney was involved, he couldn’t seem to prove it. There was some malevolence in the air, a heaviness he could smell and taste. He woke up dreading it and fell asleep dreading it.

  “But it’s not your fault, Sonny.”

  “Yes it is,” he said. “Things just stopped
being important anymore.”

  “What things?” she whispered across the pillow.

  “I don’t know.” He thought a minute. “Rules, I guess. Seemed like being careful didn’t matter anymore. All that time and always trying to keep one step ahead, you know, and what the hell, look what happens.”

  She didn’t say anything. He heard the catch in her breathing.

  “You don’t mean me, do you, Sonny?”

  “’Course I mean you! What do you think I mean?”

  “Eunice. That’s what you mean.”

  They lay in silence. He stared at the ceiling. He needed to tell how Eunice had pursued and seduced him, how by taking advantage of his grief she had betrayed her sister-in-law, her closest friend. For the first time now, he realized how much he hated her. Women like that left their poison everywhere.

  “She always made sure she was right there, right ready and available,” he began, but she stopped him. She didn’t have the energy for it. What she meant by part of her already being up there was that she saw things differently now. “At first, it hurt real, real bad. But then I tried to stop caring, because I couldn’t do both. I couldn’t hate the two of you and still die. The hate was keeping me alive.” She touched his cheek. “And besides now, in a way, I’m relieved. I don’t have to worry so much about you and Les being alone. I can just concentrate on this.”

  “This?” But he knew what she meant.

  “I just want to go now. I could, you know, honey. I could do it tonight if I wanted.”

  “What do you mean?” he cried. He jumped up and turned on the light. She cringed away from its glare. He pulled open the nightstand drawer, then all the dresser drawers. He was looking for bottles. She had pills hidden somewhere, pills or poison. That’s what she meant. He picked up the bottle of Lysol from the windowsill and peered at the label. He searched through her closet, repelled by the stale odor of her unworn clothes in the airless heat.

  “Don’t, Sonny, please don’t,” she kept saying as he rummaged through the shoe boxes on the top shelf. Letters, photos, dried corsages whose brittle rusty petals crumbled when he touched them.

  “You can’t do that,” he said, fumbling in her bureau drawers, through lace panties, silk slips, garter belts, and stockings she would never wear again. He kicked aside the scatter rug and ran his hand under the dresser. This was a familiar role. He took the chintz cushion from the rocker, unzipped it, and felt inside. He knew exactly what to do here. Many’s the time he had conducted similar searches, looking for money, a gun, some evidence of malfeasance, in this case the damning proof of his own sins. In failing his family and his community he had failed himself.

  “Sonny, please stop. You think you can control everything, but you can’t!”

  He stood in the middle of the room, looking around. It was in here somewhere, mocking him. Here under his own roof it had spread, tainting them. But he would not be that easily defeated this time. He would fight back and he would keep on fighting, protecting what was his. She held up her hand as he stepped closer. The lamp lit her face with a penetrating luminosity, the bones glowing through her flat white pallor.

  “Don’t, please don’t,” she whispered as he stuck his hand under the mattress. He pulled out three waxed-paper sandwich bags filled with capsules and tablets.

  She begged him to put them back. They were all she had. Didn’t he understand? Just knowing they were there was often comfort, strength enough. This was wrong. He had no right to take this from her. If he really loved her he would at least allow her this one last choice she could make for herself. Didn’t he understand how much she needed this final freedom?

  No, he protested, not freedom, but despair. To do this would make a mockery of her life.

  “Of your life, you mean,” she sobbed as he went across the hall. He emptied the bags into the toilet and pressed the lever, watching the swirl of colored pills gurgle safely away down and out through the sewer pipes under the wide rain-soaked front lawn to the road, deep below the street, all the streets, safely, safely away.

  The rain had turned to drizzle, the lightning sporadic and distant. The faint rumble of thunder came like the weary aftermath to a wild party, chairs pushed into place, a couch dragged back, rugs rolled out. Smiling, Astrid Haddad lay in bed with her hands clasped behind her head. Beside her, Bob slept soundly. He’d just invested a lot of money in a business tailor-made for her show-business background. The minute Bob said the name Omar she recognized it as that mysterious guy Marie Fermoyle knew but would never talk about. He’d come into Bob’s office and sold him a franchise in a business Bob said would more than double the money she made now. When she thought of poor Marie struggling to make ends meet, she realized how lucky she was to have sweet Bobby Haddad.

  He’d stood behind her last night smiling as she removed her makeup; then he’d tossed the certificate of franchise onto her dressing table and told her to quit both jobs in the morning. Don’t even worry about giving notice. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the merchandising wave of the future.

  Imagine getting paid for giving parties. It would be like Vegas in a way. Balloons, she thought, picturing the ceiling a mass of white balloons floating like soapsuds. Her color scheme would be pink, silver, and white. She saw herself on a little platform in one of her shimmering cocktail dresses. She’d open every party with a song. “Bobby, wake up,” she whispered, nudging him. His eyes opened heavily and he curled his bandaged hands to his chest. “Listen to what I just made up.” She’d forgotten about his hands, but she wanted him to hear this before she forgot. She leaned over him, singing in a husky whisper. “Don’t you ladies just sit and mope. Sparkle up your lives with Presto Soap.” He fell back to sleep, smiling.

  There was so much to do, and she couldn’t tell anyone. Omar Duvall had told Bob they should keep it to themselves for a while. First, she’d call Mr. Briscoe in the morning and tell him she was through. She sighed, relieved that she wouldn’t have to spend every day afraid of seeing Norm Fermoyle.

  She looked over at Bobby, ashamed now of all her fooling around. The poor guy had worked his hump off to do this for her. Out every night lately, and coming in so tired sometimes he trembled and cried out in his sleep. Tonight he’d come home not only soaking wet but with bleeding hands. He’d cut them on the old metal desk that he’d been moving to make room for her Presto Soap material. With her first profits from the soap business she’d surprise Bobby with a brand-new executive mahogany desk like her boss at the casino had.

  It was almost three in the morning. Omar dozed on the couch until the front door creaked open and Alice tiptoed inside. He watched her shadow pass over him. No doubt of what she’d been up to, he thought, grinning, as her door closed upstairs. He waited until the only sound in the house was the drip of the kitchen faucet; then he crept up the stairs and opened Marie’s door. She reached up to stroke his arm as he unbuckled his pants and let them drop to the floor. She lifted the sheet. The minute he crawled in, her legs scissored around him.

  “Oh you woman,” he moaned.

  “Shh,” she panted in his ear as he rolled on top of her. “Shh, shh, shh,” she kept imploring him.

  The certainty of Earlie’s death had spawned this amazing passion. At first he’d thought it was fear, which in his younger years had always been a galvanizing force. But now with all that blind energy turned inward, his course was no longer set by that frenetic voice in his head telling him to run, but by desire, and all that he desired was here.

  He understood now that this had been the mission. All his life he had been headed here, to success and the love of a strong woman. Benjy wanted his mother’s happiness more than anything else, so Omar knew the boy would not betray him, if betray was even the proper word, because truly he could not even now recall the actual moment, the blow, the thrust—if there had been one. For how could so pure a heart have taken a life? Impossible. He could not comprehend such an act in the face of this desire. No, no, no, came the rhythmi
c pounding of his heart over hers. Because he would have this, have this, have this, this, this, this!

  “What?” she gasped in his ear as she pulled him down to her.

  “All of this,” he whispered.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  The knife, he thought, turning his head for air. Other than the boy, it was the one connection to him.

  When she was asleep and the sky beginning to lighten, he crept from the house, hurrying to the end of the puddled street where the woods began. He carried a bag and rags to clean the blade.

  Blue Mooney initialed the sign-out sheet for the seventy-five retreads he’d just loaded on his truck. Waiting on his dashboard was a cup of steaming-hot coffee and a jelly doughnut.

  “Hey, Mooney,” Colter called as he headed out of the office. “See if they got any extra snows up there, and if so, grab ’em.”

  “Yes sir!” Mooney answered with a brisk nod.

  Colter’s weather-beaten face softened with a grin. Both for his boss’s benefit and for the ritual it had become, Mooney walked around his truck and gave the two chains securing the tires one last yank. He flipped his keys in the air with a quick glance back at the platform, where Colter was talking to one of his salesmen. That might not be a bad life, he thought, noting the salesman’s shirt and tie, the shoeshine, yes, and a girl like Alice Fermoyle waving goodbye every morning.

  “Blue?” a familiar voice inquired. He spun around to see Sonny Stoner getting out of his cruiser with one of his cops, Jimmy Heinze.

  “What do you want? What’re you doing here?” he asked. Colter had to be watching.

  “Roll up your sleeves,” Sonny said. “Okay, now let me see your hands. Hold ’em up.”

  “Why? What do you want?” he kept asking as Sonny examined his hands and arms.

  “Where’d you get those cuts?”

  “What cuts? I don’t know. I always got cuts.” He looked at his hands, just old nicks and scratches.