Rumble Tumble

We read in the papers about the wrecked plane and the one body found. Bill’s. The papers called it a real-life mystery. We had no idea what Big Jim had done with Herman’s and Red’s corpses, but my guess was they were feeding a mesquite bush in the desert somewhere. Bill’s death was attributed to bad flying, and someone believed, or wanted to believe, he had crawled free of the wreckage and died.

Of course, Bill hadn’t had a pilot’s license, and it had been Irvin’s plane. Or at least the one he was using. No future newspaper articles followed. No policeman came tapping at our door.

I think the truth of the matter was the authorities knew who Bill was, had dealt with him before, and didn’t give a shit he was gone, just as long as he was out of their hair.

But Bill hadn’t been so bad. I thought about how Bill had called that old man uncle, had given him money, bought him beer and cigarettes. I wondered how Irvin had answered to the old man for Bill’s death. Or if he had.

I said, “It’s funny way it is. I haven’t even seen Brett but a few times since October. We only been to bed once. On my birthday. And it wasn’t too good, you want to know. I think I’d rather have had a pair of socks or a billfold.”

“Maybe you’re taking it too personal.”

“The bad pussy?”

“How she’s treating you, you moron.”

“I don’t want to say it, but I got to say it. I feel I sort of did something for her I wouldn’t have done for nobody but you. And now she’s got Tillie back, I’m like last year’s used Kotex.”

“Tillie needs a lot of attention,” Leonard said.

And she did need attention. She was in drug rehab, but she was back to hooking. This time out of LaBorde’s two main hotels when they didn’t catch her and run her off. Then she’d go to Tyler for a while to hook up with some of the church crowd there, bang them silly.

“You think she’s really going to change?” I asked.

“Nope,” Leonard said. “I could have told you that from the start. She wanted out of what she was in, but she’s not a new person. It could happen I guess, but I wouldn’t tie a rubber band around my dick till it did. Do that, your whang will fall off.”

“You knew from the start it would turn out like this, didn’t you?”

“You didn’t do what you did for Tillie, Hap, you did it for Brett. This has got nothing to do with Tillie, far as I’m concerned. Brett for that matter. I did it for you.”

“I hate I asked. I hate you had to do it.”

“I hate it. But it doesn’t matter Brett isn’t having anything to do with you now.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t having anything to do with me.”

“Whatever. That doesn’t change things. I did it for you and you did it for her because you thought you should do it. We’ve done it. It’s over. What do you want, to be cheered? Have a little parade or something?”

“That would be nice,” I said.

“Well, you ain’t gonna get it.”

“I killed people, Leonard.”

“You knew that could happen.”

“There were a couple of women back there. I didn’t mean for them to die.”

“I don’t know they had much of a life, Hap.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“No, but you think them being women makes anything any different? It makes it done. War’s hell. You think shit like this is without consequences, man?”

I pushed against the porch with my foot and the swing moved back and forth for a while. I said, “Would you have strangled Wilber if Jim had let you?”

“In a heartbeat. I’m glad I didn’t have to, but I certainly would have. I even liked the idea at the time.”

“What about Bill?”

“What about him? He took a chance for money and it didn’t work out. I didn’t make him do it. He wasn’t lied to or convinced. He didn’t care, long as he made money. He shouldn’t have gone along.”

“Well, maybe, but the one bothers me is Herman. Red a little. Herman had turned. Really. He risked his neck and he helped us get Tillie back.”

“Yeah, he did. But you know what, Hap? I’m an asshole about it. Guy like that, he’d done enough evil in his time, there weren’t enough candles for him to light, enough Hail Marys for him to say. He did all right by us, but he wasn’t someone I saw as a future poker buddy anyway. As for Red, he could talk up a good steak ranchero, but he should have died at birth.”

“How do you sleep at night, Leonard?”

“I sleep like always. Good. I don’t even have Nam flashbacks. I went to do a job I believed in, and I did it. You didn’t believe in it, you didn’t go. Do you have nightmares about not going?”

“Of course not.”

“You would have; had you not done the thing you believed in. It wouldn’t have been the same kind of nightmares, but it would have been something. If not a dream, something hollow. That’s the way I’d have felt had I let you do that business without me. So, far as I’m concerned, I did what was right. Period.”

“And Big Jim gets away scot-free.”

“Looks that way. It happens, man. The world don’t shake out fair all the time.”

“Gets right down to it, I guess it’s just you and me, brother.”

“Give Brett time.”

I nodded.

“I’m going to bed, Hap. Good night.”