A Ship Made of Paper

[15]

Six months pass.The spring is winding down, reverting to the insolent, unpredictable nature with which it began, cold one day, warm the next.Though the schools have weeks before closing for summer, the Leyden teenagers are behaving as iftheir vacations have already begun, prowling the streets beginning in the late afternoon and staying in their packs through the evening.Now it’s about four in the afternoon, a bright, mild day, the sky like a child’s drawing, and Derek Pabst drives his patrol car through Leyden’s small commercial neighborhood, past the Koffee Kup, which seems to serve everyone in town who drives an American car, and then past theTaste ofSoHo, where most ofthe cus-tomers drive imports, and then pastWindsor Hardware, which has be-gun stocking more Italian crockery and ornate English fireplace utensils.

For the most part, the stores on Leyden’s little Broadway are the same ones that were there when Derek was a boy—the Smoke Shop, Moun-tain Stream Realty, Buddy’s Card Shop, Candyland, Donna’s Uniforms, the WindsorPharmacy, Sewand Vac, Kirk’s VarietyStore, Finand Feather, Tack andTackle, and the Stoller and Hoffman InsuranceAgency.

Derek cruises through town without expecting to see anything he will have to react to.Except for traffic violations, he has never seen a crime in progress in his twelve-year career.He has been, for the most part, after the fact—showing up after a house has been burgled, after a wall has been covered with graffiti, after a wife has been smacked around by her drunken husband.Finding MarieThorne in the Richmond woods last November had been the most dynamic moment ofDerek’s career, and the satisfaction of that feat was all but cancelled by, first ofall, her not wanting to be found, and, secondly, by the hideous accident that took place in those same woods a halfhour later.Nevertheless, Derek remains alert as he makes his custom-ary rounds.You make your presence known, you show the flag.It reminds people they are living under the rule oflaw, it makes everyone feel safer, it brings out the best in them.He stops at the town’s central traffic light, where Broadway intersects with Route100,the county’s main road that goes south to NewYork City and north toAlbany.The wind swings the hang-ing traffic light back and forth like a censer.A processional ofhigh school kids crosses the street in front ofhim, fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds in cargo pants and tank tops, a mixed group ofboys and girls, horsing around, shoves, laughter, their skin glistening, all ofthem in hormonal overdrive.

As is Derek himself.Spring always awakens his longing.He thaws like a river, his blood rushes, he can hear it as he lies in his bed and waits to fall asleep.The constellations wheeling in the spring skies seem to exert undue influence on him.It is not only that he is seasonally overcome with lust, but that the lust itselfhas such a melancholy weight to it.He watches the teenagers as they make their way through the white lines of the crosswalk and come percolating up onto the sidewalk.Is that Buddy Guyette’s daughter in those pale, distressed jeans? My God, the ass on her.He feels a little twist ofsensual agony.Then he sees Mercy Crane, whose father is also a Leyden cop.She is alone, walking with her eyes cast down, wearing baggy clothes to hide her shape.She looks dejected, her hair hangs lank and dirty over her eyes, she slings her backpack over her shoulder and holds on to the strap with one hand.

Mercy looks up, sees Derek through the sun-struck windshield, with its reflections ofrooftops and upside-down trees.She raises a practically lifeless hand in greeting, ekes out a tiny smile.

Derek drives another quarter mile and turns into the driveway leading to the Richmond Library, originally funded by Ferguson Richmond’s family a hundred years ago.Now it’s a public library, funded halfby the state and halfby the town.It’s a pleasant old brick building, with some-thing ofthe Russian dacha about it, flanked by locust trees.Derek likes to come here to smoke in private, sitting on the hood ofhis car, savoring the taste oftobacco, letting the nicotine simultaneously jack him up and cool him down, and think about his life.A few years ago, the town built a basketball court behind the library, and though the cement has cracked and the baskets aren’t regulation height, there’s often a decent pickup game going on for Derek to watch while he smokes.

He steers his car with the heel ofhis left hand, using the right to pluck a cigarette out ofhis breast pocket.As he swings around the library and approaches the court, he can hear the excited young male voices, the pounding ofthe ball on the cement, and then he sees something that gal-vanizes him, sends a rush ofadrenaline through him.

TwoAfrican-American males, fifteen to eighteen years old, one tall, the other taller, one thin, the other thinner, one black, the other blacker, and both ofthem fitting the description oftwo ofthe escaped Star of Bethlehem boys who are still at large.Unsnapping his holster strap as he gets out ofthe car, Derek walks quickly toward the basketball court.It’s a two-on-two full-court game, shirts versus skins, both the black kids have their shirts off.Derek approaches from the north and the action is under the south basket, so no one sees him right away.But then some-one makes a basket, the ball is taken out ofbounds, and the flow ofthe game reverses.Derek is still fifteen or twenty yards from the fence sur-rounding the court.As soon as he knows he’s been spotted he breaks into a run, shouting,“Hey, you, stay where you are.Don’t move.”

The white boys do as they’re told, but the blacks know better.They practically fly through the gate on the south end ofthe court and into the cornfield that’s on the Richmond Library’s eastern edge.In the past, the corn would not have been knee-high this time ofyear, but the farmer who normally harvests these thirty acres moved toArizona, and last year’s crop, ten feet tall and dark brown, is still standing.The boys are invisible.

Derek doesn’t bother to chase them in.As a boy, he ran from friends, rivals, and even the police through this very same field ofcorn, and he knows exactly where the boys will emerge—they will take the natural path that empties out onto the open land right behind theVFW post.He walks quickly back to his car, but before he gets in he shouts at the white boys:“You be here when I get back.”

It takes barely a minute to drive to theVFW.It’s a squat little asphaltshingled lodge, with squinty little windows and white pebbles in the parking area.Two flags snap smartly in the breeze—the red, white, and blue and the black POW-MIA.Derek parks his car in front and makes his way to the rear ofthe building.A long sloping lawn heads right down to the cornfield.He walks a few feet into the dried brown rows oflast year’s crop, just deep enough in to conceal himself, about ten feet to the right ofthe deer path that boys have been using for probably a hundred years.His heart is pounding with anticipation.He will listen for their footsteps, and when they are almost out ofthe field he will step into their path with his gun drawn.For a moment, he considers unlocking the safety, but he thinks better ofit.He is not without self-knowledge and he senses within himself a desire to do some harm.

Derek waits in the field.The drone ofan airplane passing overhead, the drone oftraffic, the drone ofa million flies who have come to feast on the corn’s rot, the drone ofa motorcycle just picking up some speed.

He feels a cold trickle ofsweat going down his spine.He disengages the safety on his gun.

After ten minutes, it’s obvious that those black boys must have found some other way out.Nevertheless, Derek continues to wait, while the sweat accumulates at his belt line and the humming ofhis mind winds tighter and tighter, higher and higher.At last, he forces himself to con-cede his plan has not worked.He walks back to his car, returns to the basketball court.

The white boys have waited for him, as instructed.He’s watched these two grow up.They used to blush, literally wring their small hands with pleasure when he spoke to them, but now they are at the age ofse-crets and not one ofthem can look directly into his eyes.They claim not to know the name ofeither ofthe black kids they were playing ball with not fifteen minutes ago.

“Ever see either ofthem before?”Derek asks, pretending to believe them, keeping up the fiction that they are all on the same side in this matter.

This isn’t even dignified with an answer, not a grunt, not even a slight shifting ofweight.

“What about it, Todd?”Derek says, figuring he’ll have better luck singling one ofthem out.He choosesTodd becauseTodd’s a good kid, with a brother in the Marines and a schoolteacher mother, on the one hand, and a father who took offfor Hawaii to live in a nudist commune, on the other hand, soTodd’s got to know right from wrong.

“We don’t know them, Officer Pabst,”Todd says.Christ, what a piece ofwork this kid’s become, the insincerity wrapping around his voice like red stripes on a candy cane.“We were just playing a little B-ball with them.”

“A little B-ball,”Derek says.

”Are you charging us with something?”asksAvery Hoffman, an aging cherub with a messy mustache.Avery’s father is a lawyer with the public defender’s office who has argued so many losing cases that he’s become one ofthose crackpot small-town cynics who sense a deal, a fix, or a con-spiracy in every transaction.Derek thrusts his eyes uponAvery with the force ofa nightstick, but the kid doesn’t fold.“Cause ifyou’re not,”he continues,“we’d sort oflike to get back to our game.”

Derek laughs invitingly, but the boys remain silent, removed.“I’ll tell you, this was a real nice town to grow up in.”The boys exchange glances, which Derek quickly tries to evaluate.Are they treating him like an old-timer? Bad enough.Or are they acknowledging some little secret held among them?Worse.He lowers his voice, moves it to one side, like fold-ing back the lapel ofyour jacket to reveal a shoulder holster.“And I want to keep this a nice town, you understand?Those individuals you were play-ing basketball with?They don’t belong around here, not running around.”

“Why is that, Officer Pabst?”asksTodd, laying it on pretty thick now.

”Because they escaped from a juvey home,”Derek says, letting Todd think he’s being taken at face value.“And since then they’ve been breaking a whole lot oflaws.They’ve been going up and down the river, breaking in, bothering people, taking shit, making their own rules.They almost raped a woman right here in our town.”

“Ifyou know so much about them,”Avery says,“then how come you’re like‘What’s their names’and everything?”

“Come here,”Derek says, softly beckoningAvery forward.

”No,”Avery says.

”I said come here.”Derek grabsAvery’s shirt and pulls him forward until their noses are touching.“Be nice,”Derek whispers into the boy’s suddenly gray face.

“We really don’t know those guys,”Todd says, his voice rising.“We were just playing and they came over.We don’t know them.”

Derek listens toTodd but keeps his eyes onAvery.“Is that right?”

Derek says, barely whispering, and he holds on untilAvery finally caves in, nods.Derek pushes him away.

Back in his patrol car, Derek has ample time for reconsideration and regret.He has forgotten little ofhis own youth, recalling not only the scrapes with the law, the lies, the reckless adventures, but also remem-bering with a painful clarity how it allfelt—that sacramental sense ofloy-alty toward your friends, how it swelled in your heart, that mad beliefin each other, how you’d do anything for them and they’d do as much for you and with all ofyou pulling for one another no one could bring you down.

As far as those boys are concerned, he’s the enemy, not only old but a cop.

Without admitting to himself where he has been driving, Derek pulls into Kate’s driveway, just as a yellow-and-black van from Centurion Se-curity Systems is backing away from the house, its wheels spinning, throwing up pebbles.Kate is still in the doorway, holding the signed copy ofher maintenance agreement with Centurion, and when she sees Derek she waves the sheet ofpaper over her head, because he has been after her for months to get the house wired up.

As has become their custom, she invites him in for a cup ofcoffee.

She gets her coffee delivered by UPS from a warehouse in Louisiana, bright-yellow cans ofdark roast with chicory, and Derek tells her with each cup that it is the best coffee he has ever tasted.“And as a cop, let me tell you, I know my coffee.”She knows he is flirting with her when he says this, but she is willing to let that happen.When she and Daniel first moved to Leyden, she dreaded somehow being involved with Daniel’s former life in the town, and Derek was emblematic ofall the old friends ofwhom she wished to steer clear.Derek was worshipful and beseech-ing around Daniel, and his wife, the perfume-soaked and the socially am-bitious Stephanie, with her bleached hair, and coarse skin, was anathema to Kate, and provided yet another reason to avoid Derek.But now, Kate looks forward to Derek’s visits and his interest in her offers moments of relieffrom the loneliness ofher days as a single woman.He is surely not what she would have chosen for herself, but she enjoys him the way she enjoysTV, as a slightly enervating diversion.He has a pleasant voice, deep and manly, beautiful hands, with long, tapered fingers, and the hair on his arms is like a boy’s, the color ofhoney.

“I don’t know why I waited so long to have a security system put in,”

Kate says, nursing a cold halfinch ofcoffee while watching Derek enjoy his fresh cup.They are seated in the living room, on the black corduroy sofa in front ofthe fireplace, which is now filled with dried goldenrod and purple loose strife.

“I feel better that you got it done,”says Derek.“Especially…”

“What?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I think I saw two Star of Bethlehem kids on the loose today, two from the gang who broke into your house.”

“Where?”

“In town.I tried to talk to them, but they saw me coming and they took off.Any doubts I had about them being the two…”

“It’s so strange.They just won’t go away, will they.Why don’t they go back to the city, or wherever it is they came from?They want to live in the country, near the river, and enjoy our various cultural and natural re-sources.Is that it?”

Kate laughs, but her voice is soft, far from her usual tone ofsly provocation.When Derek first started coming around, Kate adopted a more feminine and compliant voice in a kind ofcompensatory spirit, the way very tall people will stoop a little around others so as not to tower over them.She didn’t want to intimidate Derek—whom she calls“poor Derek”when she mentions him to people like Lorraine—and she slipped into a somewhat frail persona with him, seeking his advice, deferring to him on matters of worldly practicality, and keeping in check such verbal habits as sarcasm, ar-cane cultural references, and wordplay.Derek, for his part, has also con-structed a kind ofalternative selffor his meetings with Kate.Rather than sitting at her table as a man who has lived his whole life within the confines ofone small community, a man who has married his high school sweetheart, he has changed himself into a kind ofexiled big-city cop who has ended up in Leyden because ofsome secret catastrophe back in the big city.That both Kate and Derek are in disguise makes their time together unreal yet relax-ing;it’s like being at a masquerade ball, but one in which the disguises are not so elaborate, and you always know with whom you’re dancing.

Kate and Derek continue to talk about her new alarm system.Kate says that one ofthe reasons she agreed to move out ofthe city was that she liked the idea ofliving in a place where she wouldn’t have to worry about crime.Derek tells her that crime inWindsor County has gone up nearly ten percent in the past four years, though it’s been mainly in the larger towns in the south ofthe county.Then they talk awhile about the O.J.case, though here Kate has to be careful because Derek knows next to nothing about it, he keeps falling back on the simplest statements, like,“Man, that guy had everything, and now look at him.”They are do-ing their best to avoid the inevitable conversational juncture when they will begin talking about Daniel, whose behavior, motives, and present-day life have ended up at the center oftheir every conversation.

This time, it’s Derek who brings it up.“Any word from our wandering boy?”he asks.The way he talks about Daniel is different from how he discusses crime and safety.His voice when he mentions Daniel is toler-ant, bemused, and morally superior.

“As a matter offact, I talked to him today.”

“Really?”Derek says, his voice rising a little.

”He wanted to pick Ruby up at day care.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Well, it was just as well for me.I knew I was having the alarm system put in, but they wouldn’t give me an exact time.”

“So? Is she going to spend the night there?”

“Yes,”she says.“I could use a night off.”

“Well, I guess it’s good for her to have a male role model or something.”

And now the subject is properly launched, it wafts above them like a big lazy balloon.

“This place where he’s living,”Kate says.“I finally got the courage to go over and take a look at it.”

“He’s over on SalterTurnpike.”

“A little suburban-style house, with a carport and fake shutters.”She stops herself, realizes that sort ofarchitecture wouldn’t disturb Derek, that in fact his own house could be described like that.“And inside, really dreary.I asked him,‘Who decorated this place? Lee Harvey Oswald?’”

“Three years ago, I was called out on a domestic abuse on SalterTurnpike and the guy turned out to be my tenth-grade English teacher, Mr.

Machias.Man, I loved busting that guy, and he’s like trying to strike a bargain with me while I’m leading him out to the car, he’s saying,‘Mr.

Pabst, we’re both men ofthe world.’Men ofthe world.His poor old wife’s in there with a broken nose and a chipped front tooth and he’s try-ing to bond with me.”

“So what are you saying, Derek?That it’s a bad neighborhood?”

“Here’s what I think.There are no bad neighborhoods, there’s just bad people.”

Oh, thank you for your hard-won wisdom of the streets.“Daniel looked really uncomfortable, having me in his house,”she says.“He was swaying back and forth, talking a mile a minute, and he had his hand sort oftucked be-hind him, massaging his kidney like he does when he’s very, very nervous.”

“He was nervous? He should beashamed.He should be on his knees begging you to forgive him.”

Kate shrugs, but Derek is saying exactly what she wants to hear.She finds that she has a practically limitless need to hear her side ofthings af-firmed when it comes to the breakup ofher household.Once, she would have guessed that she would want to preserve her pride, that she would put up a brave front and mount the traditional romantic defense ofnon-chalance, or philosophical acceptance.But that hasn’t been the case.Kate wants there to be no mistake in anyone’s mind about whose idea it was to separate.She is the wronged party, any spin on that is immoral.And whenever she thinks she has had her fill ofpity, she finds that she has a craving for just one more helping.

“He looks terrible,”Kate says.“He must have lost at least twenty pounds, and he’s got these crepe paper dark patches under his eyes.His health is shot.”

“He shouldn’t even be talking to you about his health,”Derek says.

“He’s lost that right.”

“It’s not like cops and robbers, Derek, this is real life.Whatever he’s done, he’s still important to me.And ifhe’s developed some kind of heart condition…”

“He had a heart attack?”

“I don’t know what he had.But I do know he’s wasting away.And for what?”

“HamptonWelles,”Derek says softly.

”But that wasn’t Daniel’s fault!”

Derek nods.It is, in fact, what he, too, believes, but he doesn’t like to hear Kate say it.

“And I do think,”Kate continues,“that in terms ofhim and Iris, it’s been devastating to them.I think it’s hard for them to even see each other.”

Derek is entirely sure that Daniel and Iris are seeing a lot more of each other than Kate cares to realize—he has seen them coming out of theWindsor Bistro, seen her car in front ofDaniel’s house—but he thinks better ofmaking the point.Sometimes you can lose by winning.

“You’re a very brave lady, Kate,”he says.“I mean it.You’re really taking it well.”

“Can I offer you another cup ofcoffee?”

“No, I better not.I’m having trouble sleeping anyhow.And this stuff is a whole lot stronger than anything I get at home.”

“Meow,”says Kate, making Derek laugh with such a burst ofmanic nervous energy that his face goes crimson.Kate looks at him with a mild gaze, but soon she is laughing, too, and they continue to laugh, as ifher joke were a kiss and they wanted to prolong it.

And then the laughter subsides and they are left with each other and the silence, which Derek, finally, cannot endure.

“You ask yourself,”he says, shaking his head.

”What?”

“What you’d do in her particular individual situation.”

“Iris? WithDaniel, youmean?”

“Whatever anyone says about it being an accident, Daniel lit the fuse.

What would you do with someone who did something like that to yourhusband?”

“Well, first I’d like to actually have a husband.”She realizes as soon as the words are out that it’s not a good or even acceptable joke.She knows Derek is attracted to her, that he has been coming around with the hope ofone day taking her to bed, and she doesn’t want to encourage him, any more than she would want to absolutely discourage him.And, sure enough, the wisecrack has made him uncomfortable.He shifts in his seat, recrosses his legs.

“You know Hampton, don’t you?”Derek asks.

”A little.”

“What’s he like?”

“Extremely dignified, what people used to call a Credit to His Race.”

“Man,”Derek says, with a sad shake ofthe head, as he so often does when Hampton’s fate is discussed.He touches the hollow ofhis own throat, also a practically ritualized gesture between them.

“Poor Daniel,”she says.“I can’t help thinking Iris is sort ofholding him hostage.”

“Hostage?”

“Psychologically.”

Derek glances away, as ifthis were a bit rarefied for his tastes.

”Daniel feels responsible…AndIrisisnofool.She’s perfectly capable ofmanipulating the hell out ofDaniel, without even halftrying.

He’s doing her shopping, he’s mowing the lawn, he’s like her servant.”

“I can’t believe you,”Derek says.“You’re sitting here feeling sorry for him.The whole town’s talking about what a rat he is, and the person he hurt the most is feeling sorry for him.You’re a very understanding person.”

“I’m not understanding.I’m hurt.I feel incredibly hurt.It’s just…

well, it’sDaniel.He’s a sweet man.But he’s rootless, that might be the problem.I should have put it together when he came up with the plan to move back to this place.He wanted to be near his parents, strange as it sounds.All that unfinished business, it’s true what they say.Some of those unloved kids have the hardest time leaving home.They think it’s al-ways just about to happen, the things they’ve been waiting their whole life for.And then they get fixated on the idea ofpassion, some big bang theory.You know what I mean?An explosion that will create, or re-create, the world.Maybe that’s why he got so attached to this woman, this woman who is really basically a stranger to him.He wants to be res-cued from his own emptiness.And I think he sees her as the perfect mother, too—even though she was willing to throw her marriage out the window.But she’s very touchy-feely with her kid.Daniel loves that, be-cause he understands it, and it’s what he missed.Then you take all that, and you mix in all ofDaniel’s goddamned pro bono idealism, and his whole fixation on theblackthing, and how they’re supposed to be more feeling than us, more emotionally present.All that nonsense.”

“Nonsense?You call what he did nonsense?”

“Daniel doesn’t want to hurt anybody.”

“But he has,”says Derek.“He’s lucky he’s not facing charges.”

“It was an accident, I think that much was obvious to everybody.It was just the worst horrible freak luck.That thing, that rocket goes off and severs poor Hampton’s carotid artery.God.It would have been bet-ter ifhe’d died right then and there.”

“He pretty much did.”

“That’s not true.He’s getting around, he’s walking, feeding himself.

He’s probably fucking that wife ofhis.”She puts her hands up as ifto shield herself.“Sorry.I don’t know where that came from.”

A silence descends upon them.From outside the house, they can hear the blue jays raucously quarreling around the bird feeder;they seem per-fectly willing to slaughter each other over a beakful ofthistle.Sometimes it seems so obvious:the world is a place ofrelentless brutality, the only reason anything is alive is that it can kill something else.

Derek has left the window down in his car and the squawk ofhis radio drifts toward the silence ofthe early evening.

“Your radio,”Kate says.

”I can hear it.”

“What’s it saying?What’s going on?”

“Not a damn thing.”And then, in a moment ofinspiration, he decides to risk it all in one sentence.Suddenly it’s easier than holding back, eas-ier than pretending he has not been dreaming ofKate, has not fallen in love with her.All that has happened has happened for a reason, starting with Daniel getting kicked down the stairs and moving back to Leyden, and then the freak early snow, and those black kids terrorizing Kate, the whole karmic chain ofevents, including MarieThorne getting lost in the woods.It all had to click together just so.

Kate is frowning at the open window, through which the noise ofthe police radio drifts.

“Should you be paying attention to that?”she asks.

He takes her hand.“Everything I really want to pay attention to is right here,”he says.