The naked edge

10

The rhythm of the wheels on the railroad tracks gradually soothed him. Clickety. Clickety. For a half hour, Carl sat next to the small table in his compartment. His hand on his pistol, he expected that at any moment, the door would burst open and men would throw flash-bangs at him. He kept the window shade drawn, but then he worried about what he wasn't able to see. Raising the shade, he saw only passing countryside and gathering shadows. After his heartbeat calmed, he went to the compartment's sink, removed the wads of Kleenex from his mouth, and brushed his teeth (no matter how filthy he was on a mission, he always felt clean if he had a chance to brush his teeth). Then he washed his hair in the sink and used a wet towel to swab the dirt and river smell from him, all the while keeping his pistol close and his gaze on the locked door.

Hunger demanded to be satisfied. At the convenience store, he'd bought a Coke, two ham sandwiches, and a bag of potato chips. He'd wanted much more, but he'd been afraid of being remembered if he bought too much food in addition to his other purchases. Clickety. Clickety.

The sandwiches were stale and tasteless. He washed them down with the now-warm Coke, seasoning them with the equally stale potato chips. Clickety. Clickety.

Outside the window, the countryside rolled by, vague trees and hills in the darkness, glowing windows in farmhouses, then the glare of towns. He shut off the light, eased onto his bunk, set his knife and pistol next to him, and stared at the ceiling. The passing shadows rippled over it. Mercifully, he slept.

But then the clickety, clickety slowed. The change of rhythm woke him. Hearing the squeal of breaks, he grabbed his pistol and peered out the window, only to see a small train station, a passenger departing into the gloom. No one else was in view. Nothing to be alarmed about.

He started to lay back but then noticed a sign on the station's wall: NEWBERN-DYERSBURG, TENNESSEE. A hand seemed to reach inside his barely full stomach and twist at his guts. The northward Amtrak line passed through the extreme western edge of Tennessee, he knew. A hundred miles to the east was Nashville, where Carl's father had taken the family after his drunkenness caused him to lose his stockbroker's job in Iowa City.

In Nashville, the arguments and beatings had worsened. One night, Carl found his father unconscious at the kitchen table at three in the morning. The lights were on. A half-empty bottle of peppermint brandy sat next to him. The peppermint soothed the stomach inflammation that years of too much alcohol caused.

Carl had laid out bread, mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, dill pickles, and a chunk of ham, as if his father had decided to make a sandwich. His father was so stupefied that the muted sounds didn't wake him. Carl applied mustard and mayonnaise to one slice of bread. He took a sharp knife and cut into the ham. He used a dishtowel to wipe his fingerprints from everything. He used the same towel while he held his father's hands and applied fingerprints to bottles, plates, and the bread wrapper.

"Uh," his father said.

"Ssshh," Carl said.

He raised his father from the table, then hefted him to the counter and the half-prepared sandwich. He put the sharp knife in his father's right hand and knocked his father's legs from under him, making sure that the knife plowed into his father's stomach when he hit the floor. His father tried to moan, but Carl pressed his hands over his father's mouth. As a pool of blood spread, his father trembled, then lay still. Avoiding the blood on the floor, taking care that none was on him, Carl went back to bed. He enjoyed the most satisfying sleep of his life.

Now Carl wished that the same peaceful sleep would come to him. Watching the ripple of shadows across the train compartment's ceiling, he tried to think back to when, if ever, his life had been the way he wanted. There had been a time, he decided.