The Little Sleep (9 page)

Then, through the trees, I see a stretcher brought out of the Sullivan house. It’s holding a body with a white sheet over it. The stretcher’s metallic legs are like the barren tree branches. They look dead, unfit to carry life and too flimsy to carry any weight.

Back on Wianno and getting physically fatigued fast. Joints tighten and demand that I stop moving. I don’t walk this kind of distance regularly—or at all. This is my marathon.

Been waiting and listening for the ambulance and cop cars to pass. Nothing yet. They must’ve taken a different route.

I might be a half mile from the library now. A car approaches from behind. Its wheels grind salt and sand left over from the winter. The salt and sand have nowhere to go, I suppose. The car slows down and pulls onto the sidewalk ahead of me. It’s in my path. It’s a red car, something American and muscular, not at all practical, and that tells you all you need to know about the driver of such a thing.
Whoever it is has to wait until I drag my limping-for-real ass up to them. Drama and tension happen naturally sometimes.

I mosey up to the car. The front windows are rolled down, engine still on, its idling is somewhere between a growl and a clearing throat. There’s a thick arm hanging out the window, tapping the door, tapping to someone’s favorite song. Not mine.

The driver says, “Hey there, Genevich. What’s that you’re carrying around?” The driver is the redheaded goon from the DA’s office. The passenger is his bald buddy. It’s sweet how they stick together, even this far from their natural habitat.

I say, “A book. Ever seen one before? Truth be known, I just look at the pictures.” I hold it up. I don’t have any secrets.

The passenger goon, Baldy, says, “Oh, he’s a funny guy. I love funny guys. They make everything more fun.”

I say, “That’s quite the expressive vocabulary you got there. I can see why your buddy lets you talk.” They both have their cell phones in their ears. Maybe they’re surgical implants. I point and add, “Those phones will give you cancer. Be careful.”

“Thanks for the tip,” the redhead says. “What are you doing down on the Cape? For a retard who can’t drive, you sure do get around.” He laughs. It’s forced and goofy.

I don’t say anything. The goons go all sit-and-stare on me, dogs pointing at some dead animal floating in the water.

The library is in the visible distance. The clouds part a bit, a tear in the overcast fabric, and the sun shines on the library’s white flagpole. I’m on a main road, middle of the day. I convince myself that I’m safe, so I decide to keep up the chatter.

I say, “I like the Cape this time of year. Think I’ll play a little mini-golf later. Take advantage of the off-season touristy stuff. Want to play? Five bucks a hole until the windmill. Then it’s ten.”

Baldy says, “We’ll pass, Mushface.” He’s breathing heavy, practically frothing. His chin juts out, a thick slab of granite, a section of the Great Wall of China. It seems to be growing bigger with each breath.

I say, “Now, now. No need to get personal, boys. This has been fun, but I think I’ll continue on my afternoon constitutional, if you don’t mind.”

I resume my walk. I have goons from the DA’s office tailing me in a red car, Sullivan’s surveying red car. Nothing is coincidence. Everything is connected.

They follow me. The engine revs, mechanical authority, a thousand angry voices. Clouds of exhaust punctuate the vehicular threats. The roars fill me, then pool in the back of my head. I want to turn to see how close they are, but I won’t.

They pull up next to me again, but we all keep moving. Nobody is the leader. The car creeps farther onto the sidewalk, cutting into my path. There’s a chest-high stone wall to my left. I might run out of space soon, sandwiched between metal and rock, that proverbial hard place.

Redhead says, “We weren’t done talking yet. Leaving us like that was kind of rude, Genevich.”

“Yeah, well, Miss Manners I ain’t.”

Their car edges closer. Heat from the engine block turns loose my sweat. I’m going to keep walking. I won’t be the one to flinch in this game of chicken. No way. Not after that retard crack.

Redhead says, “I hope you didn’t come all the way down here to talk to Brendan Sullivan.”

Baldy finishes the thought. “Yeah, wasted trip, Genevich. He’s got nothing to say. Never did.”

I’m not safe. I never was. Safety is the big disguise. I keep walking. Straight line. That’s what courage is: dumbass perseverance. The library flagpole is my bearing, my shining beacon. I’m done talking. Just walking.

Redhead says, “I can make this simple for you, Genevich. You can make us go away by giving us those photos.”

My eyes stay on the flagpole. It’s covered in white vines and white roses.

“Yeah, give us the photos, and then you can have a little nap.”

“Or a big one.”

“It’s time to be smart, here.”

“We don’t play games.”

“Ask Brendan.”

Baldy says, “Oh, wait a minute, he can’t ask Brendan.”

The negatives are still in my desk but the manila envelope and photos are inside my jacket. I wanted to make Sullivan look at them again. I wanted to see his eyes seeing the photos. I can’t explain what information it would’ve given me, but it would’ve been something. Maybe everything.

Redhead says, “Be a smart retard, Genevich. Give us the photos.”

I can pretend the photos are inside my library book and, when Redhead reaches for it, smack him in the face with it, knock him silly. Maybe it’ll buy me enough time to get to the library. Maybe it won’t. I wouldn’t mind paying the missing book fee if it worked.

I don’t give them anything, feet on pavement, playing it cool when everything is too hot. Their engine revs loud enough to crack the sidewalk under me but I just keep on going. My eyes are locked on the library and its flagpole, the flagpole with vines made of white roses, and those roses are now blooming and growing bigger, just like the smoking and growling threat next to me.

I’m falling but not falling. I’m not falling because I am sitting, but I am falling because I am leaning and sliding, sliding down. My right hand shoots out and slaps against wood. It wasn’t expecting wood and I wasn’t expecting any of this. Adrenaline. Fear. My heart is a trapped rabbit and it frantically kicks the walls with oversized hind legs. Disoriented is a brain comparing short-term memories to what the senses currently report and believing neither.

Goons, the DA’s goons. Sitting on a bench. Surgical implants. A bench. Red car. Feet planted in grass. Walking. Falling, sliding. A stone wall. White flagpole on my direct left, and there are no vines or blooming roses. . . .

I blink and stare and look. If I was an owl I’d spin my head like a
top and cover all 360 degrees, make sure there’re no holes in what I see. Okay. I’m sitting on a bench, the lone bench in front of the library.

My legs hurt. They won’t bend at the knee without complaining. I did the walk. Pain is my proof. My next thought is about time. How much I hate it, and how desperate I am to know how much of it has passed.

Here comes Ellen. Her little green car pulls into the library lot. I’ll stay here, wait for her, and reboot from my latest system crash, but there’ll be files missing. There always are.

I feel inside my jacket. The manila envelope. I peek inside and the photos are still there.

Ellen has mercifully changed out of her clown pants and into old carpenter jeans, faded, like my memories. She also has on a gray sweatshirt, part of her bingo attire. It makes her look older and tired, tired from all the extra years of hands-on mothering. I won’t tell her that maybe the clown pants are the way to go.

Ellen says, “Have you been out here long?”

I wonder if she knows how awful a question that is to ask. I could say
not long
and be correct; it’s relative. I haven’t been out here asleep on this bench for long when you compare it to the amount of time I’ve existed with narcolepsy, if you compare it to the life span of a galaxy. Or I could say
not long, not long at all, just got here.

I say, “I don’t know.”

Ellen ignores my response and its implications. She adjusts her monstrous bag on her right shoulder. She usually complains about that shoulder killing her, but she won’t switch the bag over to her
left. I don’t know anyone else who exclusively uses her right shoulder for load bearing.

She says, “Did you get some work done? Get everything you need?”

I say, “Some work done. Still more to do.” Still groggy. Speaking only in phrases is the ointment. For now, my words are too heavy for complex construction.

“That’s good. Though you look a little empty-handed.”

I had taken out the little Osterville history book. I check and pat the bench and my coat. It’s gone.

Ellen says, “What’s the matter?”

Maybe I hit the redheaded goon with the book after all, assuming there were real goons in the first place. I could verify some of my previous extracurricular activities. Go inside and ask if I had checked out that book, but I won’t. An answer of
no
would do too much damage to me. I’d rather just believe what I want to believe. It’s always easier that way.

I say, “Nothing. I think I left a book inside.” I stand up and try not to wince. I’m going to have a hard time walking to the car.

She says, “What’s wrong now, Mark?”

Everything. I need to go back to Southie, try to put distance between me, the maybe goons, and whatever happened at the Sullivan house. I also need to give Ellen an answer, an excuse, something that won’t lead to a trip full of follow-up questions. “Nothing. My body is protesting another drive in your torture chamber.”

“Want me to get your book?”

“No. It wasn’t any good.”

Back home. It’s five o’clock. I’ve been gone for only half a day, but our little excursion to the Cape and back has left me with a weeklong family-vacation-type hangover. I just don’t have a cheesy T-shirt, sunburn, and disposable camera full of disposable memories to show for it.

My office phone blinks. A red light. I have a voice-mail message. Let’s get right to it.

“Hello—um, Mr. Genevich? This is Jennifer Times. I got your number from your card that you left me?” Her statements are questions. She’s unsure of what she’s doing. That makes two of us. “I think we need to meet and talk. Please call me back as soon as you can.” She leaves her number, and the message ends with a beep.

I won’t call her right away. I need the meanings and possibilities to have their way with me for a bit. Just like I need a hot shower to untie my muscles; they’re double-knotted.

First I’ll check my e-mail. I turn on the computer. The hard drive makes its noises, its crude impersonation of life. The monitor glows, increasing in brightness until the desktop is visible. Same as it was yesterday and the day before. There’s no e-mail. Then I do a quick search for any stories about Brendan Sullivan and Osterville and murder. Nothing comes up.

Maybe I should call Sullivan’s house. Don’t know if that’s a good idea. Not sure if I’m ready to have my name popping up on police radar screens, if he was in fact murdered. There’s still too much I don’t know, too many questions I couldn’t answer, but the call is the chance I probably have to take at some point. I should call. Call his house now. Might not have been him I saw being taken out of the house. What I saw might not have even happened.

Screw it. I pick up the phone and dial Jennifer Times instead. Sullivan can wait. The shower can wait. It’ll be good to have things to look forward to.

One ring. “Hello?”

“Jennifer, it’s Mark Genevich returning your call.” I’m all business, even if she’s not the client and not in the photos anymore. Let her do the talking. I don’t need her. She called me.

“Hi, yeah, thanks for calling me back. So, I was thinking we should meet and talk?” Still with statements that are questions. Maybe being forced from the spotlight has left her withered, without confidence. Maybe it’s just my perception. For all I know she’s a confident young woman, an aspiring celebrity, and she’s only reflecting
my constant state of insecurity because I want her to. It’s what we all want from our celebrities. We want them to tell us something we don’t know about ourselves when they can’t.

Suddenly I’m Mr. Popular. I say, “I can do that. You pick the place.” I assume that she doesn’t want to come to my office. Otherwise, she would’ve offered.

“Can we meet for dinner at Amrheins later tonight? Seven
P.M.
?”

Of course. The DA’s pet restaurant. “I can do that too. But make it seven-thirty.” I don’t need the extra half hour. Sure, it’ll give me a safety net, never know when that ever-elusive thief, lost time, might strike, but I said seven-thirty because I want to exert some of my own conscious will upon the situation. For once.

She says, “Okay.”

There’s silence. It’s big enough to span the unknown distance between us. I say, “See you tonight, then, Jennifer.” I’m not going to ask why she wants to meet with me or ask her what DA Daddy told her. There’ll be plenty of time for the tough questions later. I’m not going to force this. I don’t need to. I’m not used to the power position. I’ll try not to let it go to my head.