The Town

1

Julia walked home from the funeral alone, declining to ride with Gregory in the van. She held her breath as a pickup passed by, trying not to breathe until the agitated dust settled.

Moving to McGuane was the biggest mistake they’d ever made.

If she’d thought it once, she’d thought it a thousand times, but it was truer now than it had ever been. As she walked down the dirt road from the American cemetery, she thought of Deanna’s death, thought of Adam at the police station, and knew that it was time for them to admit defeat, give in, call it quits, and head back home to California. Their noble experiment had been a failure from day one, and it was time to get out while the getting was good.

She would have a hell of a time convincing Gregory of that, but she was set on this course of action and nothing could dissuade her. She’d go without him if she had to, although she didn’t think it would come to that. His mother and the kids would jump at the chance to move back to California, and the pressure of all five of them would hopefully be sufficient to convince him to leave.

Because it was getting dangerous here.

That’s what the alarm bells inside her head were saying, and it was not something that she would dispute. She had always felt danger here, from the first day in that dark house, and though she’d tried to rationalize it, explain it away, deny its existence, it had been the one underlying constant in her experience here. She had never felt at home in McGuane, and she knew now that she never would.

It was time for them to cut their losses and run.

Another vehicle passed by—the preacher’s car, she thought—and she moved aside and held her breath until the dust had started to settle. She looked over her shoulder, saw the backhoe filling in Deanna’s grave behind the iron gates at the end of the road, and was consumed with a profound sadness and sense of loss. Deanna had been her only friend in town, and that, of course, had amplified her feelings, but the truth was, Deanna had been a real friend, a person she’d liked immediately, to whom she’d grown close in an extraordinarily short time. Next to Debbie, in fact, Deanna was probably her best friend in the world.

She’d had a tough time maintaining her composure during the funeral service. She’d cried the entire time, but the crying had constantly threatened to erupt into hysterics, and she’d had to hum some goofy old Monkees song in her mind in order to keep from dwelling too intently on the fact that her friend had died.

Been murdered.

She didn’t know that, she told herself. She didn’t know that for sure.

But she did. She did.

These things happen.

Gregory’s mother had not gone to the funeral, had stayed home with the kids instead. She had wanted to come, had wanted the children to go, but Julia did not want Adam or Teo to attend. She remembered her own mother dragging her to church funerals all during her childhood. It was a Molokan tradition, and her parents’ generation thought nothing of it, considered it normal and appropriate, but she had hated spending so many weekends in graveyards, had had nightmares and resulting fears and worries that she swore even back then she would never inflict on her own kids. She still considered it unhealthy to spend so much time glorifying and thinking about death, and she had refused to budge on her funeral prohibition for the kids.

Her eyes were so swollen they hurt, and the dust was not making things any better. She wondered if she should have ridden home with Gregory after all, but when she thought of his blank, expressionless face at the graveside service, she knew she had made the right decision. If they’d been trapped in the van together all the way home, they would have been fighting by now. She needed this time away from him, needed this time to herself.

Maybe she wouldn’t go home at all for a while. Maybe she’d just wander around, walk, think. Give herself the opportunity to really feel what she needed to feel, to sort out her emotions, to dwell on Deanna’s passing and mourn her friend. Alone. In private. Where she could indulge her own feelings and not have to worry about the needs and feelings of others.

She deserved at least that much.

Yes, she thought. She would walk around town for a while.

She’d just make sure to stay far away from Russiantown.

She and Gregory had not made love in weeks. No, that was not true. They had not had sex in weeks. They had not made love for months.

That record was not broken tonight. She didn’t really want sex, but she wanted someone to hold and hug, a shoulder she could cry on, and Gregory, the bastard, ignored her completely, sitting up in bed and reading his damn Time, the blankets pushed into a little wall between them.

She’d gotten home just before dusk to find that Gregory’s mother had already made nachinke for dinner. They’d all eaten separately—Gregory in the living room in front of the television, Adam and Teo in the dining room, Sasha in her bedroom. Her mother-in-law had sampled as she’d cooked and wasn’t hungry, but Julia was famished, and she grabbed four of the pastries and ate them over the sink in the kitchen.

After dinner she’d taken a hot bath, and by the time she was finished, the kids were all safely ensconced in their separate bedrooms. She had the feeling that either Gregory or his mother had told them to leave her alone, not to bother her, and while she would have preferred some noise, would rather have heard the sounds of talking and laughter and life in the house, she was too tired to make the effort to set things right.

She did not bring up the idea of moving back to California until she and Gregory were both in bed because she did not want to fight in front of the kids, and she knew this would provoke a confrontation. She also wanted a little lag time, a little breather so she could marshal her emotional forces and build up some strength. It had been a long and draining day.

It was an ultimatum she intended to deliver, but she did not want to phrase it as such, and on her first pass the approach was light. “What do you think about moving?” she said.

He looked up from his magazine. “To a different house?”

“Back to California.”

She saw his face harden, saw the stubbornness settle over his features, and her own anger rose in reaction. “It’s not working out here,” she told him. “We tried it, we all followed your dream, but it’s turned into a nightmare.”

“Still afraid of our haunted house, huh?” He looked like he was sneering.

“Our son was arrested, our friend is dead, there’s been a string of murders that somehow we’re supposed to be responsible for!” She glared at him. “This fucking town is practically ready to lynch us, and you’re obliviously going on like nothing’s happened! Well, something has, and it’s affected our ability to live here, and it’s time we left!”

He looked at her levelly, and he put on his calm, rational, explaining voice, the voice he used when he was going over something with one of the kids or when they were in the middle of an argument and he really wanted to get her goat.

Once again, it worked perfectly.

“I have put a lot of money into this house and into the café, and we will not be getting another lottery check until next summer,” he said. “We—”

“We can get jobs!” she interrupted him. “And in case you haven’t noticed, your precious stage collapsed! It killed Deanna and three other people and—”

“Paul has insurance,” he said calmly.

“Stop that!” she told him. “Stop playing these fucking games and talk to me like an adult. We’re not competing to see who wins this argument here. I’m telling you that we are going to sell this house and move.”

“And I’m telling you we’re not.”

“Well, the kids and I are. Your mother too, probably. We’re getting out of here. We’re moving back to California—”

“No, we’re not.” His smile stopped her. There was something strained and artificial about it that frightened her. She was reminded suddenly of an old friend from college, Teri Yu, who, for a brief period of time, had been involved in an abusive relationship. Her boyfriend, Todd something or other, had hit her and beaten her, but Teri always gave the usual unprovable excuses that she’d tripped and fallen, hit her head on a piece of furniture or twisted her arm on the stairs. One evening, however, they’d double-dated, gone to a Jethro Tull concert at the Forum, and in the parking lot afterward, Teri and Todd had gotten into some kind of argument. Todd had slapped her, and he would have done more had not Julia stepped between them and faced him down. His expression at that moment had been terrifying: he was smiling, yet filled with anger, filled with hate.

And he’d looked, at that precise second, exactly like this.

She stared at Gregory. He stared back. She knew they’d been drifting apart, but the thought came to her that they did not know each other at all. She had no idea who this man was anymore, and that frightened her more than she could say.

Then the expression was gone from his face, and her feeling with it, and Gregory just seemed to deflate. The stubbornness was gone, the anger, the hatred, and she saw the fear beneath his bluster, the confusion and vulnerability behind his macho mask.

She saw her husband again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” There were tears pooling in his eyes, and for the first time she saw how hard all this had been on him. He was stressed out too, and instinctively she reached over to him, put her arms around him, hugged him. They’d drifted so far apart that they’d been unable to read each other’s moods. Maybe that was at the root of their problem—lack of communication. They were both the same people they’d always been, neither of them had changed, and she thought that maybe their recent adversarial relationship had arisen from the strangeness of circumstance rather than any true differences between them.

“I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way.”

“I know,” she told him.

“I’ve failed all of you. I didn’t want to—”

“Shhh,” she said. “Shhhhh. It’s all right.” She held him, felt the familiar contours of his body beneath her fingers, the ridges of his collarbone, the muscles in his back, and for the first time in a long while, she felt close to him, truly close to him. They were going to see this through, she thought, they were going to make it, they were going to survive.

“I love you,” she told him.

“And you were going to leave me?”

“I couldn’t leave you.”

“Then give it one more chance,” he said. “A month. And if things haven’t changed, things haven’t improved, we’ll sell the house and move somewhere else. Back to Downey… wherever you want.”

She wanted to argue, knew that she should stick to her guns. This wasn’t a problem between them, it was something else, something bigger, and the need to leave seemed imperative. It made no logical sense, but she felt as though the chance to move was a rare window of opportunity that was being offered them, a window that soon would close, and close forever.

But he was asking her, begging her, pleading with her, and she owed him at least that much. It had been his dream to come here, it meant a lot to him, and it was only for a month. Besides… maybe she was overreacting, letting her emotions dictate her thoughts.

“I swear. One thing more and we’re out of here. Packed and gone. McGuane in our rearview mirror.”

There was something about his voice that rang false to her, and she had the sudden desire, the sudden need, to look at his face and see if the deception she thought she heard was really there, but he was still hugging her, holding her tight, his head on her shoulder, her head on his, and she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“All right,” she said. “Okay. One month.”

2

The café was closed, as it had been for the past three days, but Paul’s car was parked in the alley, and Gregory used his own key to unlock the front door. He walked inside. “Paul?”

There was no response. He shut the door behind him, looked around. Nothing had been touched since that night. Yellow police ribbon still circled the mangled mess of lights and rigging that littered the better part of the room. Even from here, Gregory could see dried bloodstains on the floor and on the smashed tables and chairs.

He had not spoken to Paul since the funeral, and then it had been merely a generic “I’m sorry,” that echoed the words of the people in line in front of him. He felt bad that he had not called, had not made more of an effort to be there for his friend. He’d sent a condolence card, but that was even more impersonal, and he knew he should have talked to Paul, but the truth was that he did not feel close enough to him to do that. Sure, they’d been hanging together for the past few months, but before that it had been nearly twenty years since he’d seen him, and Paul had to have friends who were closer to him than Gregory, had to have formed relationships with other people in the intervening years.

Gregory felt strange being here alone like this. He should’ve called Odd first, brought him along. He had no idea what to say or do, but he’d already committed to this course of action, and again he called out, “Paul?”

There was noise in the back.

“It’s Gregory!”

Paul emerged from the office area, looking bad. He obviously hadn’t shaved since the funeral, and although he had changed out of his suit, his clothes were wrinkled, dirty, and disheveled. “What are you doing here?”

Gregory shuffled his feet awkwardly. “I just… I came to find out how you were doing, see if you need any help with anything.”

“How I’m doing? How I’m doing?” Paul strode across the floor toward him, fists clenched. “How the fuck do you think I’m doing? My wife is dead.”

Gregory licked his lips. “I thought you might need some help with the cleanup—”

“Cleanup? What am I supposed to clean up? This place is history. After the victims finish suing my ass, I’ll be lucky to own the fucking clothes on my back.” He shoved a finger in Gregory’s chest. “I never would’ve done any of this if you hadn’t bullied me into it!”

“Bullied you?”

“You think I wanted to have concerts in my café? I never even thought of that before!”

Gregory felt himself being drawn into the argument. “You were complaining that you were barely making enough money to survive. I was just trying to help you out.”

“You were on an ego trip. You were bored and rich and looking for something to do, and you thought you’d come and lord it over the people you used to know. And now Deanna is dead because of it.”

“Wait a minute—”

“You never liked her anyway, did you? Are you happy now? Got what you wanted?”

Gregory held up his hands. “Sorry,” he said. “I just came by to see how you were. If you don’t want me here…”

“A little late for that, isn’t it? I never wanted you here at all. And if I’d listened to what that little voice was telling me, my wife would be alive.”

Gregory felt his anger building. “It’s not my fault. The rigging collapsed. It was an accident.”

“Accidents don’t just happen.”

“Of course they happen.”

“There’s always a cause.”

“And that’s me?”

“If the shoe fits…”

“Look, I don’t want to fight. I know what you’re going through—”

“You have no idea what I’m going through!”

Gregory backed up. “Fine,” he said. “Fine. I’m here if you need me. Give me a call if you want. But I think it’s better if I leave you alone right now.”

“You’re here if I need you? Where were you when I needed you to make sure your lights and sound system were safe enough not to kill people, huh? If you hadn’t been too fucking cheap to get a professional to put it in, this never would’ve happened!”

“You’re the one who wanted Odd to handle it!”

“And he failed! You and Odd are the ones who fucked up here. You killed my wife and Irma Slater and Houston Smith and Linette Daniels and I’m going to sue your ass for everything you’ve got, you cocksucking little milk-drinking faggot!”

Gregory pushed him.

They hadn’t had a physical altercation since they were little, since junior high, when Paul had gotten blamed after Gregory keyed the gym teacher’s car, but they got into it now, escalating instantly from shoving to punching. They were both horrendously out of shape, but anger and adrenaline made up for lack of fitness and expertise, and the fight was vicious. There was no one else around; neither of them was concerned with maintaining a manly facade, and they kicked and punched and pulled and grabbed in animalistic fury.

Paul yanked Gregory’s hair, pulled him forward, then punched him in the stomach, knocking him down, and though he could barely breathe, Gregory rolled out of the way before he ended up with a hard kick in the midsection. He staggered to his feet, faced Paul, and though he didn’t want to think it, the thought arrived unbidden: I wish I had my gun.

Paul came at him again, and Gregory kicked out, the toe of his shoe connecting with his friend’s gonads, and Paul fell to the floor, clutching his crotch, curling in on himself, whining in a high, doglike squeal.

A rectangle of light appeared, approached, and then overtook the two of them, and Gregory turned to see Wynona opening the door. “What is going on here?” she said, looking around.

Paul moaned, and Gregory stared at her dumbly.

The teenager walked in, walked past him, and crouched down next to Paul. She looked up at Gregory disgustedly. “Haven’t you done enough?”

He backed toward the open door, letting his fists fall open.

“You killed his wife, now you want to kill him too?”

“I didn’t kill anybody,” Gregory said. His voice sounded slurred, dumb, confused.

“Just get out of here,” Wynona told him, helping Paul to his feet.

He looked at the two of them, then turned and hurried out of the café.

You want to kill him too?

He had wanted to kill him, Gregory thought. If he had had his gun, he would have.

And as he got into the van and drove away, he realized that he didn’t feel ashamed about that at all.