Cold in July

24

A day’s rest hadn’t helped me much. I was still tired on the morning I started back to work. Depressed too. The idea of having Russel around me all day was not appealing.

To make the situation even more confusing, he reminded me more and more of my father. It wasn’t just the massive hands. He moved like my father and I fancied their voices were much the same.

And perhaps there weren’t that many similarities, and I was merely trying to raise the ghost of my dad and give him substance.

But if that was the case, why couldn’t I have chosen a more suitable host than a goddamn ex-con who threatened my child and nearly beat my brains out?

The morning was already hot, as usual. The rain had quit only a few hours before and the sun was out now and boiling the wetness off the brick streets like the damp off a beached fish’s scales.

I had to pass in front of the shop before I could make the turn that led to the lot in the rear where I parked and as I passed, I saw Russel standing out front, leaning on the glass door. I had hoped to at least have a little time to get unlocked and get the coffee brewing before I had to deal with him.

I went on around back and parked and opened the shop and went through to the front door and tapped on it. Russel jumped a little, and I unlocked the door and let him in.

“Snuck up on me,” he said.

“I drove by out front and saw you. I thought maybe you saw my car.”

“No, I was woolgathering. Nice place. It looks like you get some business.”

“Yeah. We do all right.”

I led him to the back and told him to take a chair and I put on coffee. When I was finished with that, I turned the thermostat to a cooler level and went over to the cash register and unlocked it. I had the bag of money I’d brought from home, just enough small change and dollars to get us rolling for the day, and I put all that in the register.

“What is it you want me to do?” Russel said.

He had left his chair and was standing at the counter.

“I don’t really know,” I said. “I haven’t thought about it. I guess you can clean up.”

“All right. With what, and how do you want things done?”

I took him to the back and showed him the closet with the broom, mop and dustpan. I showed him the bathroom. “You can get water from here for mopping,” I said. “Somewhere in that closet is a bucket and there’s some soap and all manner of stuff. I’m not even sure what’s in there. We’re not too good at cleaning up, actually.”

“I noticed,” Russel said. “There’s glass and wood and sawdust all over the floor under the work tables.”

“Yeah, well, we’re busy. You just do what you like, but look busy. I don’t want to make James and Valerie feel like I’m playing favorites.”

James and Valerie came in then, and they looked at Russel, then looked at me.

“New employee,” I said. “I’ve hired him for a little while to kind of straighten the place up, since we don’t seem to get around to it.” I hesitated, wondering if I should say Russel’s name. It didn’t seem likely they would remember who it was I was supposed to have shot, and even if they did, it was even more unlikely that they would associate the last names as kin. “This is Ben Russel.”

James shook Russel’s hand and Valerie smiled, which was good as a hug any day. She seemed to like what she saw in Russel, and it was obvious Russel didn’t mind looking at her either.

“Well,” I said, “let’s get to work.”

Russel straightened the closet first, then swept and mopped the joint until it was as shiny as the White House silverware. When he wasn’t working, he talked to Valerie, and they got along just fine. A lot better than James got along with her. It burned James so bad he came up front and leaned on the counter and whispered, “What’s that old guy got that I haven’t got?”

“A hard-on?”

“Funny, boss. You’re a riot. Maybe you should get your own television show.”

After about a week, I got fairly comfortable with Russel. I even praised his work. I wanted to hate him, but I kept finding myself liking him. Now, when I looked at him, I didn’t get the vision of him on my son’s bed clutching the boy’s pajama top in one hand and holding a knife in the other. I couldn’t associate the man that night with the man working for me. I saw a man that reminded me of my father. And that made me uneasy. I’d force myself to remember what he’d done so I could get mad. But the anger wouldn’t last.

I got so content with him, I’d slip and say things about him at home. Nice things. Maybe something funny he’d’ said or done, and when I did, Ann would look at me as if I were a priest who had just announced the best use for a crucifix was scratching your ass. But I couldn’t help admiring the old guy. He was a character. He had style. Like the way he handled Jack the mailman.

Since our little run in, Jack had been less than friendly. He would deliver the mail by opening the door, giving us all a look that could turn bricks to shit, then toss the mail across the floor hard enough to send it sliding halfway across the shop.

I kept thinking he’d get over it, but finally decided I was going to have to confront him, or call his supervisor. But Russel took it out of my hands.

One Tuesday after Jack had done his trick, Russel came over and said, “So what’s with him?”

I didn’t want to bring up the night of the shooting, but I didn’t see any way out of it. I told Russel everything. It actually felt good to talk about it and get it off my chest. As the days had gone by, the incident, like a lingering chest cold, had built up inside of me again. I was sleeping lousy, snapping at Ann and Jordan, and thinking about the bad things in my life more than the good; it was a relief to let the poison out.

“I see,” Russel said when I finished, and he went back to work.

Wednesday at mail time, Russel was up front, waiting by the door, smoking a cigarette. It didn’t occur to me what he was planning until an instant before it happened. Jack came walking along like clockwork, opened the door, stuck a mail-filled hand in and cocked his wrist in preparation of a toss. But Russel grabbed the hand and bent it back and stepped outside with Jack.

Russel put his arm around Jack’s shoulders, and Jack shrugged sharply, but the arm didn’t go away and suddenly Jack and Russel were moving past the display window and out of sight.

I got nervous and went outside, and at the corner of the building I found Jack’s cap and our mail, and when I went around the corner I found the mail pouch and Jack and Russel. Jack was on the ground and there was a trickle of blood running out of his nose.

“This is against the law,” Jack said, “fucking with the U.S. Mail.”

“Next time,” Russel said, “I’ll shit in your cap and make you eat out of it. I expect you to deliver the mail right from here on out. Got me?”

Russel’s voice had been so low and straightforward, it scared me. It was the tone he had used that day in the parking lot of the day school.

“Yeah,” Jack said. All the bravado had gone out of him. He was just a big bully that had finally met his match.

“You aren’t so tough,” Russel said. “I’m a sixty-year-old man and I just kicked your ass. Get up and git.”

Jack rolled to his hands and got up. He saw me standing at the edge of the building and he turned red. I handed him his mailbag as he walked by.

“Don’t forget to pick up that mail you dropped,” Russel said. “Deliver it the way it’s supposed to be delivered. Now.”

Jack turned around and looked at Russel, and there was a hint of showdown in his eyes. But just a hint. It faded like an ice-fleck on a stove.

“Now,” Russel said in that menacing voice.

Jack swallowed, went around the corner, got his hat and picked up our mail. We followed him and watched him open the door and drop the mail inside, gently.

“Very nice,” Russel said.

Jack squared his shoulders as best he could, and walked past us. Before he was out of earshot, Russel called after him. “You have a nice day, hear?”