Too Close to Home

“Can you walk?” he asked. For a tough-looking guy, his voice was very quiet.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. He got on one side of me, the van driver on the other. My leg was sore, but it didn’t feel as though anything was broken.

I let the two of them back off to see if I could stand unaided. I was okay. I bent down, pulled up the leg of my jeans, and while I had a bruise forming, the skin hadn’t been broken.

“Hey, that’s great,” said the reporter. “Listen, we’d like to ask you a couple of questions about your son.”

I said, “If you leave right now, maybe my first stop on the way home won’t be to a lawyer to sue your fucking station’s ass off for nearly putting me in the hospital.”

The reporter glanced at his cameraman, then back at me and said, “Sorry. Maybe we can catch you later.” He extended a business card to me between two fingers, but I didn’t reach for it. Then the two of them got back in the van and drove off.

“Assholes,” said the football guy.

I extended a hand. “Jim Cutter,” I said. “Thanks very much. Jesus, you’ve got arms like a bear.”

“Drew,” he said, taking my hand and giving it a firm squeeze. “Drew Lockus.”

“Well, thanks, Drew.”

Drew looked a bit sheepish. “I didn’t mean to be spying on you there before.”

“No problem.”

“It must have looked funny, me peering at you from behind the bushes. It’s just, I saw the name on the truck and wondered if you were related to that boy, the one that got charged.” Drew spoke slowly, deliberately, like he was thinking everything out before he said it. “It was on the news.”

I nodded. “I am,” I said. “That’s my son.”

Drew let out a noiseless whistle. “That must be tough.”

“He didn’t do it,” I said, wanting to make the point right away, whether Drew got around to asking or not.

“Sure,” said Drew, nodding. “I’m sure he didn’t. Cops, you know, they’re always railroading people.”

He sounded as though he was speaking from experience, but I had enough problems without inquiring about someone else’s.

“Your tractor,” he said, pointing. “It’s still off the track here, if you want a hand.”

I said I’d be grateful, and he got on one side and I on the other, and we got it back on the ramp. I could see muscles bulging under his shirtsleeves. When I lifted, putting weight on my leg, I could feel pain shoot through it.

“Shit,” I said. “That smarts.” I felt the need to explain why I was even out here, considering my circumstances. “It’s been quite a day so far. My son, he normally helps me,” I added. “We’re a team.”

“That’s a nice tractor,” Drew said. “I used to fix these.”

“Really?” I said. “What kind of work do you do now?”

Drew shrugged. “I’m sort of between jobs.” Then, as if he’d just remembered where he was, he nodded back at the house surrounded by the high hedges and said, “I look after my mom here at the moment. Big house for her to live all alone in.”

I glanced over at it. “Beautiful house.”

Drew nodded. “Well, if you’re okay. .”

I nodded, took a couple of breaths. I had a thought, then shut it down. Then it came back.

“You looking for work?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Sort of. But not that much. Why?”

“I had someone else working for me today. Kind of a short-term thing. A kid. Didn’t work out.”

“Oh. I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I’d have to bounce it off my mom, see if she’d be okay with me being gone some through the day.”

“Your call,” I said. If Drew didn’t want a job, no big deal. I was sure I could find someone else. There was some kind of unemployment office down at city hall. I could probably luck into someone there.

But I gave him one of my business cards, wrote my cell phone number on the back. “If you’re interested, try that number. We’re not answering the house phone much these days.”

“Hope your leg feels better,” he said, his voice quiet, like he was afraid if he spoke too loud out here on the street, he’d wake his mother.

“Thanks again,” I said, and got back in the truck. In the mirror, I saw him standing in the street, watching me drive away until I turned the corner, and then we lost sight of each other.

TWENTY-THREE

Any other day, it would have been time to pack it in and head home. Ellen called my cell and said she’d thrown a small chicken into the oven an hour ago, and dinner would probably be ready by the time I got back.

“I’m going to try to get one more job in,” I said. I was only a few blocks from the Putnam house, which was a property of almost two acres, but I thought, cranking up the speed a bit on the Deere, I could finish it off before it started getting dark, even without help.

“Jim,” Ellen said, “come home.”

“Just set a plate aside for me,” I said. “We need money now more than ever. I don’t make a lot, but it’s better than nothing. You figure out the finances, how we’re going to pay Natalie Bondurant?”

“Yes,” Ellen said. She sounded defeated. “We’re going to have to cash in a few things.”

“Sounds like I better keep cutting grass,” I said. “I’ll be home when I’m home.”

“I’ll see ya,” she said tiredly.