Fragile

21

Travis opened the door for Jones and offered him a beer, which Jones declined in spite of really, really wanting one. There was a yellow light glowing over the kitchen sink, a nearly full ashtray and an open bottle of beer on a table in the room’s center, as if Travis had been just sitting there, smoking and drinking, staring off into space. The room was devoid of decoration, just clean Formica countertops and old appliances. The only decorative touch was an old calendar hanging on the fridge, still on December of the year before, every square blank, a topless woman stretching over the hood of a Cadillac.

“Marshall home?”

A quick shake of his head. “What’s he done?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. I just want to talk to him.”

Jones told Travis about Charlene, about the message she’d sent to Marshall, about the witness who’d spotted the car. Travis took a seat at the table, lit a cigarette. The smell made Jones sick, but he didn’t say anything. Cigarette smoke reminded him of Abigail. He barely had a memory of her that didn’t include a cigarette in her hand or dangling from her mouth. More brand cigarettes-long and brown like shrunken dead fingers, crooked and pointing, piles of them in ashtrays all over the house. When she died and he sold the house, the real estate agent had made him strip the curtains and the wallpaper, even rip up the carpet. Everything was yellowed and stiff, reeking of smoke.

“He said he took some girl for a ride the other night. But that was early in the evening,” Travis said. “Anyway, I didn’t believe him. He lives in his head on that computer upstairs.”

He said it without heat. Jones nodded, walked over to the refrigerator, saw a magnet from Pop’s Pizza. He thought about his own kitchen, cluttered with every possible gadget, colorful ceramic bowls, at least one pile of catalogs and mail, a little gathering of cute salt and pepper shakers that Maggie had haphazardly collected over the years-little Eiffel Towers, dancing pigs, an egg and a yolk. She was always complaining about the lack of counter space. Get rid of some of this junk, Jones would say. It’s not junk, it’s life, she’d answer.

“I saw your boy last night,” said Travis.

“Where?”

“At Pop’s,” he said, gesturing toward the magnet as if that was what had made him think of it. “He was sitting there, looking like he’d dropped his ice cream cone on the sidewalk.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. Stood up from the looks of it. Checking his phone, dialing and hanging up.”

Jones felt something loosen in his chest. If Ricky had told the truth about that, maybe he was telling the truth about everything. When relief passed, guilt rose in its place. This search is more about you than it is about him, Maggie had accused. Maybe she was right.

“Charlene is Ricky’s girl, isn’t she?” Travis said.

“Yeah,” said Jones, sitting across from Travis. The other man took a long draw from his beer. They were easy together, always had been, even with, or maybe because of, the past they shared.

“That must kill you, Jonesy. It must keep you up at night.”

Travis was already over the line Jones had seen him cross too many times. They’d all go out for a drink, a bunch of guys from the precinct, and the rounds would start coming. By about round three, Travis would start to change. Depending on his mood, he’d get rowdy, or maudlin, or just plain mean. His face would turn a particular shade of red, his voice would take on a certain pitch. And soon a few of the guys who couldn’t handle it would beg off for the night. Usually, someone would wind up taking Travis home. Often it was Jones. Travis didn’t bother Jones as much as he did some of the other guys. Jones understood him, knew the size and shape of the baggage he carried, how much it all weighed.

“She wouldn’t have been my choice for him,” said Jones, smiling in spite of himself.

Travis took another swig off his bottle. “She looks like her mother.”

Jones gave a snort. “Mel never looked that good.”

“Come on. You fucked Melody Murray.”

“No, man. I never. That was you.”

Travis laughed again; this time it took on a hooting quality. “Now, that’s true. I popped her cherry-in her mama’s bed.”

“That’s what I always heard.”

They both chuckled for a bit. For a minute they were just two middle-aged guys who’d known each other nearly forever.

Then, “So where’s Marshall, Travis?”

“He took the car a while ago. Pissed at me, as usual. Said he was going to sleep at his grandpa’s. He actually seems to like the old bastard.”

“You and your dad still not talking?”

Travis cast his eyes to the ashtray and ground out his cigarette. “You know, the DUI, losing my job. I disgraced him, he says.” Travis started to laugh a little then, but Jones could see there was no humor in it. “Disgraced. Like he’s the queen of England.”

Travis started tapping his fingers on the table, beating out a nervous rhythm. Then he lit up again. Jones could see yellow stains on his index and middle fingers.

“I’m going to need to talk to Marshall, Travis. Like, right now. Tonight.”

Good humor abandoned Travis’s features, and that familiar darkness settled in around his eyes and the line of his mouth.

“How’s the transmission on your vehicle?” Jones asked.

Travis gave Jones a slow blink. “Needs work.”

He stood up quickly, and Jones did the same. It was never a good idea to be sitting when Travis was standing. Travis left the room and returned a moment later with a beat-up denim jacket.

“I’ll come with you,” he said. “To find Marshall.”

That was the last thing he needed, Travis along for the ride. But there was something about the way the other man looked that ignited a familiar feeling of pity within Jones. It was that same thing that always drew them together. Besides, Marshall was a minor; Jones couldn’t really talk to the kid without a parent around anyway.

“Suit yourself.”

The sky outside had turned quickly and totally from dusk to night. Jones and Sarah looked anyplace but at each other-Sarah looking at her knees, Jones messing with the radio-while Travis and Melody rocked the car in the backseat, laughing, moaning, until finally it stopped. Jones flipped through the stations; they only got a few back then, whatever happened to carry in from bigger cities that day. Sometimes on 712 AM, The Hollows Wave, the night DJ played some decent stuff. But that night all Jones could get was an alternative station.

“Oh, I love this song,” Sarah said. Jones had no idea what the song was or who was singing, but he didn’t want to seem uncool. She didn’t say anything else.

“Are you two just going to sit there?” asked Travis, popping his head between the front seat headrests.

Neither Jones nor Sarah answered; they just exchanged an embarrassed look. She definitely didn’t act like a girl who enjoyed giving head, not that he’d ever met a girl like that. Really, most girls-in his limited experience-didn’t want anything to do with what was going on in your pants. Most of them just wanted to kiss, maybe do a little rubbing. Most of the girls he knew balked at even putting their hands down there.

“There’s no point in pretending you’re a prude, Sarah,” said Travis. “We all know the truth.”

Sarah frowned, turned to study him and Melody. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Melody started to giggle. “Come on, Sarah. Lighten up.”

Travis and Melody were both stoned stupid, now laughing like idiots. Finally, Travis pushed open the door and the two of them tumbled out, ran screaming into the woods. They left the door open, and the cold air quickly filled the car. Jones got out and closed it, could still hear their voices off in the distance, like the calling of barred owls. He returned to the driver’s side.

“Can you just take me home?” Sarah asked. “My mom is going to be really worried. And really mad.” She looked like she might cry, eyes wide, corners of her mouth turned down.

“Yeah, okay. Sure,” he said. “They’ll be back in a minute and we’ll go.”

He noticed that some of the tension in her shoulders released with a breath. And her arms, which had been wrapped firmly around her middle, relaxed a bit.

“What did he mean ‘We all know the truth’? What’s he talking about?”

“Don’t listen to Travis,” Jones said. He felt embarrassed. “He’s got problems.”

“No, really. I want to know.”

He should have told her that he had no idea what Travis was talking about, just left it at that. But there was a small part of him-a young, stupid part of him-that wondered if the whole innocent thing was just an act she was putting on. Maybe, he thought, if he just told her what he knew, she’d relax. Maybe it was even true.

“Travis says someone told him that you give good head.” The words sounded clumsy, felt awkward on his tongue.

She stared at him blankly but slowly started to shrink away from him again. She looked down at her knees. “I don’t know what that means,” she said.

He felt his face flush. “Uh, you know.”

“No,” she said, getting angry now. “I don’t.”

Jones found himself gripping the wheel, wishing he’d never listened to Travis, wishing he could be anywhere but where he was. Finally, he left the car.

“Crosby!” he yelled into the darkness. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here. I have to get home.”

He heard the car door open and close, and then determined footsteps on the ground.

“What does it mean?” she asked. He turned to face her. She was tiny, much smaller than he was, but somehow her direct and powerful stare cowed him.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, looking up at the starry sky. “You know, like a blow job, okay? That you suck cock.”

She stepped away as if he’d slapped her, and he felt like he had, he was so ashamed in that moment. She was a nice girl. She was innocent.

“I want my stuff out of the trunk,” she said. Her voice was faint.

“Why?” he asked. “You can’t walk from here. Your house is miles away, and it’s dark.”

He’d driven them out of The Hollows and down past the dairy farm to a state park that closed at dusk but where no one ever bothered to pull the gate shut. They were three miles from town, surrounded by nearly five hundred acres of yellow poplar, hemlock, American beech, iron-wood, dogwood, red and white oak. Kids from school came here a lot, sometimes to play, sometimes at night to drink or make out. He came here often to walk or run the five miles of trails; sometimes he did his homework on one of the picnic tables or down by the rushing Black River just to be away from his mother, from everyone.

“Look,” he said, raising his palms. “I’m sorry. Let’s just wait for those guys and then we’ll all go.”

She shot him an annoyed glance and then walked to the head of the rocky path that led into the park. “Melody!” she yelled. “Let’s go. I have homework.”

Her voice bounced off the rock walls of the glacial ravine, came back sounding haunted and strained. But she stayed there, looking into the park even though no one called back to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, coming up behind her. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m a jerk.”

He could see that she was shivering, so he shrugged off his varsity jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She seemed to consider refusing, then offered a weak smile, pulled it tight around her. He noticed then the sweet turn of her nose, the wide, full shape to her lips. Her eyes were heavily lidded, almost sleepy, but their color-hazel with flecks of green and gold-shone in the amber light.

“Who says that?” she asked him, after a moment. “Why would they say that about me? I don’t-I haven’t.”

Jones kicked at a stone by his foot; it skipped off into the brush.

“Forget it,” she said.

Jones shrugged. “You know what? Probably no one said that. It was probably just Travis being a tool. He’s, you know… troubled.” He made a looping motion with his finger and pulled a funny face. They both laughed then, and he felt the awkwardness between them pass. But the next second, Travis and Melody emerged from the path.

“What’s so funny?” Travis snapped at them. Melody wore a deep frown, looked as if she were fighting back tears.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, brushing past them, headed for the car. “I want to go home.”

“What happened?” asked Jones.

“Melody’s a little prick tease. That’s what happened,” said Travis, staring at her hard. He was clenching and unclenching his fist.

Melody spun around. “Shut up, Travis,” she shrieked, and the sound of it echoed around the park.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Sarah. She strode over so that she was standing right in front of Travis.

The exact sequence of events, who said what, was always nebulous here. Jones remembered a chaotic rise of voices, like gulls on a beach fighting over food. He remembered himself as apart, watching, even considering going to the car until they got it all worked out. He remembered Melody saying that she wasn’t a slut, or something like that. And Sarah asking why he’d spread rumors about her, she didn’t even know him.

But more than anything he recalled the electricity of rising anger, their pulled, pale faces.

“You’re a loser, Travis Crosby. A born loser.”

She couldn’t have known the charge of that word, what it would mean to him. She couldn’t have known that he’d heard it a thousand times, in a hundred ugly ways, from a father who’d never had a kind word for his son. It was just the word a girl who wasn’t accustomed to calling people names would choose. She said it dismissively and turned to walk away.

“What did you call me?” His voice was white-hot.

Jones saw her turn back to look at him, to say it again. Travis’s back was to Jones, so he didn’t know what she saw on Travis’s face that made her own expression go slack with fear, her eyes widen.

“Okay,” said Jones, “that’s enough.”

But then Sarah was running, casting Jones’s varsity jacket to the ground. Did she start to run and he gave chase? Or did he move toward her, causing her to bolt? Jones couldn’t tell. But Travis was after her. She disappeared into the dark of the path, her footfalls loud and echoing, with Travis on her heels. Melody and Jones exchanged a look, and then they followed.

“Leave her alone, Travis,” Melody yelled.

When they caught up with Travis and Sarah, the two were in a standoff. Sarah had picked up a heavy branch and stood with her back to a long pathway that led into the river valley below.

“Stay away from me,” she said, crying, lifting the branch like a baseball bat. “Get away.”

Behind her yawned the steep and twisting path down, the individual steps just stones lined in the earth, jagged gray teeth in mossy gums.

Jones grabbed Travis by the shoulder. “Let’s go. This is finished.”

But Travis turned and swung on Jones, catching him hard in the jaw. Jones fell back with the shock and pain of it, a warm gush of blood traveling from his nose over his lips onto his shirt. He didn’t see what happened next; Melody and Travis always said different things. Travis said that Sarah came after him with the branch and he fended her off. Melody said Travis turned from the swing on Jones to go after Sarah. Whatever happened, the end result was that Sarah fell. And her head hit a sharp stone jutting from the ground. That was the next sound Jones remembered hearing. And then there was absolute silence. Everything in the forest around them-the wind in the leaves, the singing of spring frogs and crickets-seemed to stop. Jones got to his feet and saw her lying there between Melody and Travis. Melody dropped to her knees beside Sarah, who was so still.

“Sarah,” she whispered, as though trying to rouse her from sleep. “Sarah?”

Then she looked up at them, her face a mask of sorrow and fear. Her words were just an exhaled breath. “She’s-she’s not breathing.”

“No,” said Jones. “That’s not-No.”

He went to kneel beside Sarah as well and saw the unnatural angle of her neck, the strange stillness, the odd cast to her skin.

“Oh, my God.” He felt the first grip of true fear he had ever known.

“I never touched her.”

They both turned to look at Travis, who started to back away, his lips parted, head shaking. Then Travis took off in a sprint, disappeared up the path to the main road.

It was that night that Jones realized your body was a thing that could be broken on impact through careless action, broken like a branch left in the road. She was wrecked before him, ruined, ended. There was just one moment between her life and death, just one breath drawn and not released. He thought about the sound it made… that final, soft noise of flesh on stone, the crackle of breaking bone. It was so quiet.

Then, years later, there was a dawning, a slow and terrible dawning that he, too, would die. Even he would one day draw a breath and not release it, or release a breath and not draw another. He would cease to exist, cease to draw the world in through his senses, though it would go on without him. A grim dread, accompanied by a petulant rage, settled on him. It was all so damn fragile. It shouldn’t be. Something so important should be stronger. How were we all supposed to bear it? he wondered. How could anyone really live, knowing that they were going to die? What was the point?

That night, and every awful thing that followed, was there between them in the Explorer as they drove to find Marshall. It was always there, wasn’t it? But the years had buried it all deep, covered it with the fallen debris of ordinary days. Jones wanted to say, Is it still with you? Do you still dream about it? But he didn’t. He knew the answer, could see it in the shattered expression Travis had worn that night and how that face, hollowed with fear and regret, was just beneath the surface of every other face he wore. That’s what Jones saw when he looked at Travis, not the fearsome bully everyone else seemed to see.

Travis lit another cigarette without asking, rolled down the window, letting the cold air sweep in. Jones drove from The Acres and took the main road through the center of town, passed the coffee shop and the independent bookstore, Pop’s Pizza and the Om Yoga Studio. A sharp right after the last light put them on Old Farmers Road, which started as a paved road but devolved into little more than a rocky path, completely impassable after a heavy snowfall.

Chief Crosby (everyone still called him that, thought of him that way, though he’d retired long ago) owned the surrounding hundred acres, thick with hemlock and pine. Rumor had it that he’d had offers from developers-huge offers-that he’d summarily turned down. Every winter Jones fully expected to have to find a way to haul the chief’s giant corpse out of there. But every spring he emerged in his big red pickup truck, looking a bit slimmer, like a bear emerging from hibernation.

“My old man is never going to sell this land, not even a sliver of it,” said Travis. “It’s worth a fortune.”

“He won’t live forever,” said Jones.

“We’ll see,” said Travis, flicking his cigarette out the window.

As they turned onto the drive, Jones saw Marshall’s car parked on an angle beneath the glow of a spotlight that shone from the garage. There was a low crescent moon, and a field of stars he didn’t usually get to see in the brighter light of town. The Crosby house was built from field-stone, a massive chimney reaching up through the red and white pine; it was still and dark, sure of itself to the point of being contemptuous, like the old man himself.

Off down to their right, a stone carriage house tilted in the landscape, its boards splintered and gray, its roof caving in. Jones exited the vehicle and approached the Chevelle, got stiffly to his knees, joints and lower back protesting, and spotted the dark puddle on the ground beneath it.

When he stood up again, he was surprised to see Travis directly behind him. He hadn’t heard the door open and close, had assumed the other man was still sitting in the warmth of the vehicle.

“What are you doing, Crosby?” said Jones, taking a step back. He felt the urge to rest his hand on the gun he carried in a shoulder holster. He knew, though, that a move like that, slipping your hand inside your jacket, was one of antagonism for another cop. He didn’t want to overreact, but the sight of Travis unnerved him. Shadows had settled on the hollows of Travis’s face, in the valleys under his eyes, in the deep lines around his mouth.

“Do you ever think we should have just owned up to what happened that night?” Travis said.

Jones drew and released a deep breath. Here it was, clawing its way up from the dirt beneath their feet. “Why are we talking about this now?”

Travis turned up the corners of his mouth in a mirthless grin. “Come on, Cooper. We all died that night. We’re just ghosts in our lives, aren’t we? Everything is rotten, decayed.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt her. Not… kill her.” His voice shattered on the last words.

“I know that. I do.”

“I just keep thinking that if it had just stopped there, if I’d just had the courage to own it…,” Travis said. He let the sentence trail and his eyes drift over to the old house, the place where he’d grown up. “The thing is, I wanted to be a better man than my father, a better father than he was. I just never knew how. You can’t build a house without the right tools, you know.”

Jones saw the other man begin to cry and cast his eyes away. He didn’t want to see Travis break down. His hand was itching to reach for the gun in its holster. It’s too late for all of this, Travis, he wanted to say. We’re too far gone. All our mistakes, everything we’ve done wrong. It is just part of who we are now. There’s no such thing as redemption. Two people are dead because of all the things we did and didn’t do. Your tears mean nothing. But he was pretty sure that was not what Travis needed to hear. He wished Maggie were here; she’d know what to say to him. She always had the answers.

“I know I can’t undo the things I’ve done. I can’t go back and be a better father. But I can protect my son right now. I can do that.”

When Jones looked back at Travis, the other man had a gun in his hand, a.38-caliber Smith & Wesson, his old service revolver.

“What are you doing, Travis?”

“What I have to do.”

“What’s he done, man? We can work it out.”

Jones thought about Maggie and the things she’d said, how angry she’d been at him tonight, the accusations she’d leveled against him. And he saw now that she was right about everything. And Travis was right, too, about them all being ghosts in their lives-not living right, not at rest or at peace, just howling at the fringes.

“Hiding the truth isn’t the same as protecting someone.” Even as he said it, he knew what a sad hypocrite he was. “What good did it do any of us?”

But Jones could see the blank determination in the other man’s eyes. He knew instinctively that he wouldn’t have time to draw his weapon now. He’d waited too long.

He lifted his palms in a gesture of surrender; when he saw Travis relax, Jones rushed him, hoping that Travis’s reaction time was slow because he was drunk. But before he could reach Travis, the explosion of the firing gun opened up the night.