Black House (Page 76)

" — hell out of the road, assshollle — "

"Resent being called an ass**le by some cow-college graduate," Jack says in his best Rational Richard voice, and although he adds a pompous Ba-haaa! for good measure, his heart is pumping hard. Man, he’d almost flipped back right in front of that guy!

Please, Jack, spare me, Richard said. You dreamed the whole thing.

Jack knows better. Although he looks around himself in total amazement, the core of his heart isn’t amazed at all, no, not even a little bit. He still has the cap, for one thing — Ty Marshall’s Brewers cap. And for another, the bridge across Tamarack Creek is just over the next rise. In the other world, the one where giant rabbits went hopping past you, he has walked maybe a mile. In this one he’s come at least four.

That’s the way it was before, he thinks, that’s the way it was when Jacky was six. When everybody lived in California and nobody lived anywhere else.

But that’s wrong. Somehow wrong.

Jack stands at the side of the road that was dirt a few seconds ago and is tarred now, stands looking down into Ty Marshall’s baseball cap and trying to figure out exactly what is wrong and how it’s wrong, knowing he probably won’t be able to turn the trick. All that was a long time ago, and besides, he’s worked at burying his admittedly bizarre childhood memories since he was thirteen. More than half his life, in other words. A person can’t dedicate that much time to forgetting, then suddenly just snap his fingers and expect — 

Jack snaps his fingers. Says to the warming summer morning: "What happened when Jacky was six?" And answers his own question: "When Jacky was six, Daddy played the horn."

What does that mean?

"Not Daddy," Jack says suddenly. "Not my daddy. Dexter Gordon. The tune was called ‘Daddy Played the Horn.’ Or maybe the album. The LP." He stands there, shaking his head, then nods. "Plays. Daddy Plays. ‘Daddy Plays the Horn.’ " And just like that it all comes back. Dexter Gordon playing on the hi-fi. Jacky Sawyer behind the couch, playing with his toy London taxi, so satisfying because of its weight, which somehow made it seem more real than a toy. His father and Richard’s father talking. Phil Sawyer and Morgan Sloat.

Imagine what this guy would be like over there, Uncle Morgan had said, and that had been Jack Sawyer’s first hint of the Territories. When Jacky was six, Jacky got the word. And —

"When Jacky was twelve, Jacky actually went there," he says.

Ridiculous! Morgan’s son trumpets. Utterly . . . ba-haaa! . . . ridiculous! Next you’ll be telling me there really were men in the sky!

But before Jack can tell his mental version of his old pal that or anything else, another car arrives. This one pulls up beside him. Looking suspiciously out of the driver’s window (the expression is habitual, Jack has found, and means nothing in itself ) is Elvena Morton, Henry Leyden’s housekeeper.

"What in the tarnal are you doin’ way down here, Jack Sawyer?" she asks.

He gives her a smile. "Didn’t sleep very well, Mrs. Morton. Thought I’d take a little walk to clear my head."

"And do you always go walking through the dews and the damps when you want to clear your head?" she asks, casting her eyes down at his jeans, which are wet to the knee and even a bit beyond. "Does that help?"

"I guess I got lost in my own thoughts," he says.

"I guess you did," she says. "Get in and I’ll give you a lift most of the way back to your place. Unless, that is, you’ve got a little more head clearing to do."

Jack has to grin. That’s a good one. Reminds him of his late mother, actually. (When asked by her impatient son what was for dinner and when it would be served, Lily Cavanaugh was apt to say, "Fried farts with onions, wind pudding and air sauce for dessert, come and get it at ha’ past a pickle.")

"I guess my head’s as clear as I can expect today," he says, and goes around the front of Mrs. Morton’s old brown Toyota. There’s a brown bag on the passenger seat with leafy stuff poking out of it. Jack moves it to the middle, then sits down.

"I don’t know if the early bird gets the worm," she says, driving on, "but the early shopper gets the best greens at Roy’s, I can tell you that. Also, I like to get there before the layabouts."

"Layabouts, Mrs. Morton?"

She gives him her best suspicious look, eyes cutting to the side, right corner of her mouth quirked down as if at the taste of something sour.

"Take up space at the lunch counter and talk about the Fisherman this and the Fisherman that. Who he might be, what he might be — a Swede or a Pole or an Irish — and of course what they’ll do to him when he’s caught, which he would have been long ago if anyone but that nummie-squarehead Dale Gilbertson was in charge of things. So says they. Easy to take charge when you got your ass cozied down on one of Roy Soderholm’s stools, cuppa coffee in one hand and a sinker in the other. So thinks I. Course, half of ’em’s also got the unemployment check in their back pockets, but they won’t talk about that. My father used to say, ‘Show me a man who’s too good to hay in July and I’ll show you a man that won’t turn a hand the rest of the year, neither.’ "

Jack settles in the passenger bucket, knees against the dash, and watches the road unroll. They’ll be back in no time. His pants are starting to dry and he feels oddly at peace. The nice thing about Elvena Morton is that you don’t have to hold up your end of the conversation, because she is glad to take care of everything. Another Lily-ism occurs to him. Of a very talkative person (Uncle Morgan, for instance), she was apt to say that So-and-so’s tongue was "hung in the middle and running on both ends."