The Lonely Polygamist Part 32

Shrugging, Golden did not look up. He said, "I always do."

ROYAL TO THE END Not yet ready to enter the house, he settled his bulk with tender care on the front steps to think. He knew, without needing any sort of confirmation, that what Ted Leo had told him about Beverly was true. In all the time he'd known her she had barely mentioned her own history, and Golden always a.s.sumed this was because she had no time for a past, rife as it was with inconveniences: the childhood hang-ups, the lingering insecurities of high school, the inevitable regrets-none of which serve any purpose except to cloud the mind and forestall the building of G.o.d's kingdom upon earth. She was someone who was so right, so deeply correct in everything she did, that it seemed impossible that anything belonging to her, even her distant past, could be wrong.

She had intimidated him with her icy rect.i.tude since the first day they met. It was less than a week after Golden arrived in Virgin, and Royal had arranged for all of them to have dinner together at the Cattlemen's Club. Beverly, then in her mid-twenties and possessed of a taut Scandinavian beauty, had been dating his father for a few months and had only just been informed that Royal not only had a wife in Louisiana to whom he was still legally married, but a hulking, socially challenged son who happened to be sitting right across the table, hiding behind his menu.

Instead of taking out her anger on Golden, which some might have been inclined to do, she let Royal have it. For the rest of the night she did not speak a word to him. She was perfectly cordial toward Golden, asking him in solicitous tones how he was handling the dry desert air, about his hobbies and plans for the future, but as for Royal, who vied for her attention with snippets of Mel Torme and questions about the quality of her food, she had only brief glances of such howling, arctic spite that even the waiter was rattled. Golden had never seen his father so thoroughly and aggressively ignored, and was surprised to find how much he was enjoying it.

It wasn't until Royal's final weeks in the hospital that Golden and Beverly spent any real time together. Before that, he saw her at church and occasionally at seminary study, where they took lessons on theology and church history in preparation for being baptized. Once, when Royal was out of town on business, she stopped by Big House to ask Golden if he'd noticed anything strange about his father's recent behavior. To Golden, this seemed like the oddest of questions. As far as he was concerned, all all of his father's behavior was strange, recent or otherwise. of his father's behavior was strange, recent or otherwise.

"He's got this look look all the time now," she said, "and he's started forgetting where he is sometimes." all the time now," she said, "and he's started forgetting where he is sometimes."

Golden knew the look she was talking about; he'd noticed it his first day in Virgin, and simply a.s.sumed that the manic glow in his father's eyes had everything to do with the transforming fire of the Holy Spirit. In fact, all of Royal's strange behavior-the sweaty, all-night prayer sessions, the spontaneous bouts of hugging and neck-kissing, the obsessive underlining of scripture with red pencil until there wasn't a single line of scripture not not shaded in red-struck Golden as nothing more than the slightly overzealous eccentricities of a man who had come into the Truth a little late in life and was making up for lost time. shaded in red-struck Golden as nothing more than the slightly overzealous eccentricities of a man who had come into the Truth a little late in life and was making up for lost time.

There were a few things, now that Beverly had mentioned it, that couldn't be easily connected to Royal's recent conversion. He had begun wearing military-issue aviator shades day and night, chewed aspirin by the handful, often lost his balance while doing nothing more than standing at the kitchen counter b.u.t.tering a slice of toast. When Golden asked Royal how he was feeling healthwise, Royal explained that if weren't for the excruciating headaches, the jags of nausea, and the fact that the left half of his face had gone numb, he could honestly claim he'd never felt better in his life.

Golden suggested, in his mild way, that Royal see a doctor.

"G.o.d is my doctor," Royal said, in all apparent seriousness, smiling the slight, unnerving smile of a saint. "And He tells me every day I'm doing just fine." is my doctor," Royal said, in all apparent seriousness, smiling the slight, unnerving smile of a saint. "And He tells me every day I'm doing just fine."

When Royal pa.s.sed out during a church social, going headfirst into the refreshment table, upsetting the punch bowl and having a leg-shaking seizure that terrified the children, everyone decided he could probably use a second opinion.

The tumor the doctors found in his brain was inoperable, as were the cl.u.s.ters of cancer that lined the walls of his lungs. Even through the pain, the delirium, the drug-induced cycle of diarrhea and constipation, he was Royal to the end. He wore his gray Stetson-the one with a medallion of uranium-rich pitchblende affixed to its headband-when the nurses weren't around, and sported his aviator shades because he couldn't take the light. When the young, ruddy-cheeked doctor-who Royal referred to as Little Doc Fauntleroy-suggested with some querulousness that wearing a lump of radioactive mineral on one's head might not be safe, and that long-term radiation exposure might in fact have been a contributing cause of Royal's cancer, Royal made a show of removing the hat and licking the hunk of pitchblende all over as if it were a piece of hard candy. Golden had seen his father make such a display many times, along with the parlor trick of pa.s.sing a Geiger counter over his face so that it chattered and ticked like an irate dolphin, its needle pegging off the scale. This was how Royal demonstrated the wonder and harmlessness of radiation, which, he claimed, had never been proven to hurt a soul-except, of course, for a few hundred thousand j.a.ps-bada-bing!-and was the only reliable means of keeping our great nation safe from the Reds and all the combined forces of Satan.

From the soapbox of his hospital bed he told anyone who would listen he had spent years years breathing uranium dust in his own G.o.dd.a.m.n mine, had overseen the processing of yellowcake in the mills, had witnessed some of the biggest tests firsthand, and had breathed in the bouquet of radioactive fallout, which didn't smell much different, he claimed, than a rich woman's farts. And you didn't see anything wrong with him, did you? s.h.i.+t, no! Look at him! Strong as a f.u.c.king ox! And then a childlike bewilderment would smooth out the sun-gouged lines of his face, a touch of doubt would dim those luminous eyes, and he would glance around, confused as to where he was, exactly, and where it was he was headed. breathing uranium dust in his own G.o.dd.a.m.n mine, had overseen the processing of yellowcake in the mills, had witnessed some of the biggest tests firsthand, and had breathed in the bouquet of radioactive fallout, which didn't smell much different, he claimed, than a rich woman's farts. And you didn't see anything wrong with him, did you? s.h.i.+t, no! Look at him! Strong as a f.u.c.king ox! And then a childlike bewilderment would smooth out the sun-gouged lines of his face, a touch of doubt would dim those luminous eyes, and he would glance around, confused as to where he was, exactly, and where it was he was headed.

Even when he was too weak to lift his head from the pillow, and hat-wearing had become a luxury left to the hearty and spry, to spite the doctors and all the other doubting Thomases, he made sure his Stetson was displayed prominently on the hat rack in the corner, where it stayed until the day he died.

Together Golden and Beverly watched him go, inch by inch. From his bedside, they took turns reading to him from the Book of Mormon and Prospector's Quarterly Prospector's Quarterly and, when he could no longer take solid foods, fed him ice chips to keep him hydrated and soothe the sores in his mouth. At some point, when he was nearly blind and had lost so much weight the depressions and bony k.n.o.bs of his body were hard to distinguish from the twist of bedsheets, he finally came to accept that he would not be spared. In his lucid moments, which seemed to come more frequently the worse he got, he made Golden promise, over and over again, that he would take care of Beverly, that they would live the Principle together, that he would make her his first wife and secure for her a place in the Celestial Kingdom. and, when he could no longer take solid foods, fed him ice chips to keep him hydrated and soothe the sores in his mouth. At some point, when he was nearly blind and had lost so much weight the depressions and bony k.n.o.bs of his body were hard to distinguish from the twist of bedsheets, he finally came to accept that he would not be spared. In his lucid moments, which seemed to come more frequently the worse he got, he made Golden promise, over and over again, that he would take care of Beverly, that they would live the Principle together, that he would make her his first wife and secure for her a place in the Celestial Kingdom.

Take care of her, boy, Royal would say, once or twice when Beverly was right there in the room with them, and she'll take care of you and she'll take care of you.

Golden, of course, never doubted this. In fact he had nothing but wary admiration for Beverly's resourcefulness, her stoic calm in the face of so much pain. Her Uncle Victor, her guardian and only living relative, had died after a long illness only a little more than a year before and now her fiance was being taken from her in a similarly brutal fas.h.i.+on, and did she once curse G.o.d or beat her breast at the unfairness of it all? No. She just kept feeding Royal his ice chips and quietly doing battle with the nurses over his morphine dosages.

One bitter winter morning when Golden was on duty while Beverly was at her apartment sleeping off a long night-vigil, he found the will to bring up something that had been nagging him since Royal's diagnosis. "What about Mama?"

"Mama?" said his father.

"Malke. Your wife."

For a moment Royal's big, watery eyes went soft, as if he were remembering long-ago days bathed in golden light. He licked his lips. He said, "What about her?

"What should I tell her?"

This time, Royal didn't take too long to think. "Tell her about this," he said, with the slightest gesture of his head. "Tell her how I went. That ought to put her in a good mood for a while."

The rest of that morning and afternoon Golden spent watching his father suffer: wracking coughs and whole-body tremors and two watery bowel movements requiring a crack duo of cheerful orderlies to change the bedsheets out from under him while he wept and cursed as if under attack by ghouls. By nightfall Golden was heartsick, all but done in with boredom and dread, and, as always, Beverly showed up just in time, when he was certain he couldn't take another minute.

Go home, she told him, as she always did, squeezing his wrist in a way that brought a lump of grat.i.tude to his throat, get yourself some sleep get yourself some sleep.

No, there was simply no way he could have managed it without her. It might as well have been the motto of his existence, tattooed on the billboard of his forehead: COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT BEVERLY! COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT BEVERLY! Not only had she seen him through his father's death and initiated their limited courts.h.i.+p and eventual marriage, she had helped him gain control of his father's finances and a.s.sets while he took a bruising crash course in the construction business. She suffered four miscarriages before having her first success and then gave birth to ten healthy children in a row, losing one along the way, even as she managed her day-to-day household down to the color of the hand towels in the bathrooms, almost single-handedly raising their children even as she brought her husband along slowly on the finer points of duty and fatherhood, talking him through sibling spats and IRS audits and client lawsuits and the tricky inner workings of the church, all the while overseeing the expansion of the greater empire, which involved arranging the courts.h.i.+ps of and marriages to his three other wives as well as steering the whole hurly-burly crowd of them through privation and sickness and loss and every other conceivable sort of domestic weather, fair and foul. Not only had she seen him through his father's death and initiated their limited courts.h.i.+p and eventual marriage, she had helped him gain control of his father's finances and a.s.sets while he took a bruising crash course in the construction business. She suffered four miscarriages before having her first success and then gave birth to ten healthy children in a row, losing one along the way, even as she managed her day-to-day household down to the color of the hand towels in the bathrooms, almost single-handedly raising their children even as she brought her husband along slowly on the finer points of duty and fatherhood, talking him through sibling spats and IRS audits and client lawsuits and the tricky inner workings of the church, all the while overseeing the expansion of the greater empire, which involved arranging the courts.h.i.+ps of and marriages to his three other wives as well as steering the whole hurly-burly crowd of them through privation and sickness and loss and every other conceivable sort of domestic weather, fair and foul.

And what had he ever done for her? Besides offering himself as a figurehead, a convenient mannequin she could dress and pose and move about as she saw fit? Not much. Unlike some others, she had never expected anything from him, he knew this. She understood better than anyone that he was not so much his father's son as a pale, off-brand imitation, a cheap replacement, a consolation prize who offered little in the way of consolation. Though she still occasionally pushed him to take the lead, to put more trust in his "patriarchal instincts," she seemed to have accepted that he would always need her steadying hand, that she would always have to be there to prop him up when the hard winds began to blow.

He was thinking about all this as he eased himself up from the porch steps and entered a queerly silent Old House. There were children inside, they were just being exceptionally careful not to make any noise: Nephi pretending to read a book, Louise and Sariah sandwiched between the couch and the wall, carrying on a cryptic conversation in sister-sign language, Em at the piano, staring at the sheet music like a mannequin in a music store window display.

"Your mother?" Golden put his hand on Em's shoulder and she whispered, hardly moving her lips, "Upstairs."

Beverly was seated on the cus.h.i.+oned stool at the side of the bureau. The late afternoon sun, partially blocked by a raft of clouds, filled the room with swirling motes. She was sitting straight-backed, as always, with her hands in her lap, looking shrunken, significantly smaller than the bigger-than-life woman who loomed in his imagination like a giantess. But mostly it was the look on her face that unnerved him. It was as if all the pins and clasps and fasteners that had been keeping her expression so securely in place for so many years had suddenly sprung loose, giving way to reveal an entirely different person, one who looked, despite the sharp cheekbones and wrinkles around the mouth, to be a lost and frightened girl.

He had seen her like this only one other time: the day his father died, driving home from the hospital in his dusty Thunderbird, the hard morning glare on the winds.h.i.+eld. She sat next to him, her eyes dry but her face cracked open as it was now, Royal's last effects held tightly in her lap: his boots, his rings and wrist.w.a.tch, his Stetson with its gaudy uranium brooch.

As they came around the big bend in the river she told him to stop the car. He pulled over near the bridge, and she got out, picked her way down the rocky slope, and, with a wild-animal screech and a surprisingly athletic throwing motion, slung the hat Frisbee-style toward the river. At first Golden didn't think it was going to make it, but the hat had stopped its end-over-end tumble and for a moment caught the air like a kite, spinning out into an elongated parabola and settling softly into the water, where it bobbed along shallow eddies between scrims of bank ice, listing to one side until the bowl filled with water and it sank from sight.

By the time she made it back to the car she had already recomposed her features into that famously impervious countenance, the one she would maintain dutifully and without variation until, as far as he knew, right now.

In their shadowed bedroom that smelled of stale suns.h.i.+ne, she looked up at him, eyes glimmering with an eerie vulnerability that made the bottom drop out of his stomach. She said, her voice airy and slight, "He's gone?"

Golden nodded. "He's not coming back."

"He told you, didn't he. About me."

Golden considered denying it-denial was his best and dearest friend these days-but this was a lie he knew he could not carry off just now; his own face, he was sure, had already revealed everything. "He told me, but Bev, listen to me, I don't care. I'm sure he told you what I've been doing-what I've been building this whole time."

Beverly shook her head. At the moment, Golden and his petty indiscretions weren't really registering with her. And while he should have felt some relief for this, as well as for the fact that Ted Leo had not revealed anything about Huila, what he was experiencing was a strange, lurching sense of vertigo. He had been relying for so long on Beverly as the only immediate source of stability in his life that seeing her like this-diminished and uncertain, ambushed by a past she thought she'd left forever-gave him the sense that there was nothing solid under his feet. Even in the midst of everything, he'd been operating, as he had for years, under a single, standing a.s.sumption: that if all else failed-and it probably would-Beverly would be there to save him. He would go to her and confess everything, prostrate himself before her and plead for mercy. Either she would go Old Testament on him, kick him out, banish him to someplace far away and unpleasant, or, as she had done any number of times before, she would swallow her anger and deep disappointment in him long enough to take care of everything. And then she would hold it over him for the rest of his living days.

He tried to sit, realized there was in fact nothing underneath him, and at the last moment s.h.i.+fted his weight to the side so that his wide behind landed with a humpf humpf on the corner of the bed. on the corner of the bed.

"Bev, don't worry about it, please, it doesn't matter, I myself, I've done some things-"

In a thin, toneless voice that seemed to belong to another person, she told him she had worked in "that place" only a few months. Her Uncle Victor had been injured working construction under the table, and to buy groceries and pay off his medical bills she had, in her desperation, gone for the quick money.

"Before that I'd always been a good girl," she said. "Ma.s.s every Sunday, daily rosary, all of it, but I was stupid. I thought I could cheat G.o.d, get us out of debt and then make it all disappear with confession and a few Hail Marys. But it was the worst thing..." Here she trailed off, her gaze falling to the floor. "And your father was the one who got me out of there. After Uncle pa.s.sed I had nowhere else to go."

"No, please, you don't have to explain a thing," he said, desperate not to hear any more. Certainly there was a part of him that wanted to hear it all, every detail, to make a list of each man she'd been with-Ted Leo included-so he could track the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down and smother them in their sleep. And no, the irony of such a feeling at this moment in his life was not entirely lost on him. But mostly he stopped her because he didn't want to be responsible, didn't want to pity or second-guess her, didn't want the burden of her secrets and sins to be added to his own. It was selfish, of course it was, but then so were most all his thoughts and choices these days. Besides, he knew the rest of Beverly's story, because it was his story too. His father, with his money and influence and irresistible gonzo charisma, had saved her. He had invited her out to Virgin, where she would be offered a great gift: the chance to walk away from her previous life forever, to toss aside her stained and tattered self as if it were nothing more than an old sock meant for the rag box, to be cleansed and redeemed, to be chosen as one of G.o.d's special few.

"You don't have anything to be ashamed of," he said, worrying a loose thread on the hand-st.i.tched bedcover with his big fingers. Unable to resist the urge to make his own confession, to relieve the pressure on his conscience just a little, he added, "I've been doing some things, you know, that I'm not so proud of lately."

At this, she looked up at him. "You were building one, not working working in one." And he was heartened by the bit of steel that had come back into her voice. But it was only temporary. She coughed twice into her fist and seemed to go a shade paler. She whispered, "I'm sorry," and he said, "No. I don't care. It doesn't mean anything to me." in one." And he was heartened by the bit of steel that had come back into her voice. But it was only temporary. She coughed twice into her fist and seemed to go a shade paler. She whispered, "I'm sorry," and he said, "No. I don't care. It doesn't mean anything to me."

She sighed. "It should."

"Then it does," he said. "But I still love you." It felt good to say this-he couldn't remember the last time he'd made such a claim-eight, ten years ago, probably, before he knew any better. And it came to him that something peculiar was going on: I love you I love you. What could have possessed him, especially during these uncertain times, to utter such potentially destabilizing words to three of his wives in as many days?

She did not respond, but seemed to relax a little, her shoulders dropping an inch or two. She would not look at him now. He noticed, as if for the first time, the mole under her left ear, the trace of down along the hinge of her jaw. She was the most familiar person in the world to him and therefore had always been that much harder to see.

Slowly she began removing the hardware from her hair, clips and barrettes and chopsticks and pins, placing each implement carefully on the top of the bureau, her springy iron-gray locks loosening, then falling around her face. She said, "I think I need to lie down for a while," and while Golden could not remember Beverly ever having taken a midafternoon siesta as long as he'd known her, he said, Yes, of course, I'll take the children so you can have some quiet Yes, of course, I'll take the children so you can have some quiet. Unsteadily she rose to her feet. He stood and offered his hand and then she did an amazing thing: she accepted it. She grasped his wrist and leaned in to him, letting her weight rest against his, and for just a moment, before she pushed away, it felt very much as though he were holding her up.

37.

IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE AND INCENDIARY DEVICES FOR THE GUERRILLA FIGHTER

FROM THE BUS STOP HE HUFFED ALL THE WAY HOME, DID ALL HIS ch.o.r.es as fast as he could, and wandered into the kitchen swaying around like somebody with a bad case of cancerous malaria. He had to do a little sick-person moaning and b.u.mp into a chair for Aunt Beverly, who was standing at the sink coughing, to notice him. She asked him if he was all right and he licked his lips and said in a weak prisoner-of-war voice that he couldn't hear her very well, that everything sounded far away. She touched his forehead, which was hot and sweaty because after ch.o.r.es he'd done like a hundred jumping jacks behind the chicken coop until it felt like he would faint or his arms would fly off his body into the weeds. ch.o.r.es as fast as he could, and wandered into the kitchen swaying around like somebody with a bad case of cancerous malaria. He had to do a little sick-person moaning and b.u.mp into a chair for Aunt Beverly, who was standing at the sink coughing, to notice him. She asked him if he was all right and he licked his lips and said in a weak prisoner-of-war voice that he couldn't hear her very well, that everything sounded far away. She touched his forehead, which was hot and sweaty because after ch.o.r.es he'd done like a hundred jumping jacks behind the chicken coop until it felt like he would faint or his arms would fly off his body into the weeds.

Aunt Beverly didn't even get suspicious. She gave him a cold washcloth to put on his forehead and said, "Why don't you go rest up in your room," and he climbed the stairs doing a version of the Honk Job, saying, yes, yes, yes yes, yes, yes, because he was Rusty the Guerrilla Fighter, and no one could stop him.

He spent the rest of the afternoon up in the Tower building an Improvised Explosive Device. He did not have a cardboard tube, but found-improvised!-an old Wilson tennis ball can that would work fine. Just like June had shown him, he took his time, spreading out all his items together on the closet floor-Safety First!-and then dumped in the plastic baggie of Pota.s.sium Nitrate and canisters of Red and Green Flash Powder into the can, nodding like an extremely intelligent scientist amazed at his own scientific advancements, and then to top it off he dropped in the two blasting caps, why not, he was going the distance. He cut out a circle of cardboard, punched a hole in the middle, slipped the fuse through the hole, and capped the can, sealing it up with half a bottle of rubber cement. To make sure he was doing it right he checked Improvised Explosive and Incendiary Devices for the Guerrilla Fighter Improvised Explosive and Incendiary Devices for the Guerrilla Fighter, which was filled with complicated diagrams for things like the Whistle Trap, the Bangalore Torpedo, the Magnifying Gla.s.s Bomb, and the Exploding Pen, all of which would one day come in handy for a guerrilla fighter such as himself but right now were really not all that helpful.

In the section called "General Tips," it said, Any glue can be useful to the guerrilla bomb-maker Any glue can be useful to the guerrilla bomb-maker, but rubber cement, it must be said, is the bomb-maker's best friend. Use liberally but care must be taken at all times, because of extreme flammability but rubber cement, it must be said, is the bomb-maker's best friend. Use liberally but care must be taken at all times, because of extreme flammability. Rusty liked that, extreme flammability extreme flammability. Just to be sure to achieve extreme flammability, he s...o...b..d on another layer of rubber cement.

That night he went without his supper. He stayed up in the Tower, pretending to be sick, because if he sat downstairs with all the a-holes at the dinner table he might not be able to keep himself from smiling, and for once in their pathetic lives they might use their tiny rodent brains to figure out what he was up to. He didn't mind being hungry for one night because this was the end for him at Old House, he knew it, this was his last night in Alcatraz.

One more time he let himself imagine the incredible BOOM, BOOM, the shooting colored lights, the whole sky lighting up like the Fourth of July and World War III and New Year's Eve put together, and everybody looking out the windows and running outside to see what the heck the shooting colored lights, the whole sky lighting up like the Fourth of July and World War III and New Year's Eve put together, and everybody looking out the windows and running outside to see what the heck that that was, and what would they find? You guessed it. His father the Sasquatch caught in the act, sneaking around the Spooner house hugging and holding hands with some black-haired lady who was very definitely not his wife. was, and what would they find? You guessed it. His father the Sasquatch caught in the act, sneaking around the Spooner house hugging and holding hands with some black-haired lady who was very definitely not his wife.

Which made him think of his own mother, he couldn't help it, who was right now in a hospital surrounded by oldsters and lunatics, and here was his father walking around hugging some Mexican chick no one's ever seen before? He tried not to think about that part of it, because it made his stomach twist.

What a d.i.c.khead he'd been to think any of his other plans would work. Fighting Aunt Beverly or convincing his mother or Aunt Nola to let him come home would never work, who was he kidding. None of them, not even the all-powerful witchy-woman Aunt Beverly, could change anything, not really. His father was the only one. It was his father who had the power, who connected them all. You take his father out of the picture by showing everyone what a cheater and a liar he is? No more family. It was simple. You take away his father? No more monkey net.

He should have understood this because it had already happened to the Sinkfoyle brothers. Their father got excommunicated for running around with some hippie lady who wasn't even a Christian, and while everybody was saying, Oh, those poor Sinkfoyle children, oh, those poor Sinkfoyle wives Oh, those poor Sinkfoyle children, oh, those poor Sinkfoyle wives, Chet and Dan, the redheaded Sinkfoyle brothers, were explaining to Rusty in Sunday School how effing great it was, how finally they got to live in their own house, have their own rooms and eat Corn Nuts and watch TV anytime they wanted because they were on their own now and their mother had other things on her mind. It's the best! It's the best! they said. they said. We're having the time of our dang lives! We're having the time of our dang lives! Sure, their new house was an old junky trailer out on the landfill road and their mother spent most of the day bawling into her pillow in her bedroom, but still. Sure, their new house was an old junky trailer out on the landfill road and their mother spent most of the day bawling into her pillow in her bedroom, but still.

And so Rusty waited up in the Tower hungry and happy, imagining a new life in which he had his own room and better underwear, in which his mother would come home from the hospital to take care of him and his sisters and brothers because they needed her more than ever, and they would become a regular family, a family in which no one would make fun of him or call him names anymore because he was a hero who had exposed the truth and destroyed the monkey net, a family in which he would be tolerated and maybe even loved.

So what the heck was taking everyone so long? It was forever before Parley and Nephi came upstairs to go to sleep, but not before they delivered a few more tampon jokes in his direction. Did Rusty go crazy and try to hit them, which was the usual thing, did Rusty get even the slightest bit mad? No, he just did some pleasant chuckling, saying, Good one, guys Good one, guys, because right now, on this special night, he was filled with kind thoughts toward all creatures of the earth, even Nephi and Parley, especially now that he knew he wouldn't be seeing much of them anymore.

When the house was quiet, when Nephi began to wheeze and Parley started releasing his putt-putt-putt putt-putt-putt sleep-farts into the atmosphere, Rusty took his place at the window. He sat there for a long time. He sat there and sat there and sat there and did not look away once, and after what seemed like hours his head got heavy and he sometimes didn't know if his eyes were opened or closed, and then there was the crackle sound of his father's pickup pulling into the driveway with its headlights off and suddenly his eyes were wide open watching Sasquatch climb guiltily out of the truck and sneak off toward the Spooners'. sleep-farts into the atmosphere, Rusty took his place at the window. He sat there for a long time. He sat there and sat there and sat there and did not look away once, and after what seemed like hours his head got heavy and he sometimes didn't know if his eyes were opened or closed, and then there was the crackle sound of his father's pickup pulling into the driveway with its headlights off and suddenly his eyes were wide open watching Sasquatch climb guiltily out of the truck and sneak off toward the Spooners'.

From his top-secret location he retrieved a book of matches and his Improvised Explosive Device, which looked like a giant yellow firecracker. Down the stairs he went, out the window, and across the roof, softly calling, Geronimo! Geronimo! as he jumped off the garage, and then he was running barefoot down the driveway going, as he jumped off the garage, and then he was running barefoot down the driveway going, Ouch! Ouch! c.r.a.p! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! c.r.a.p! Ouch! because once again he'd forgotten his shoes. because once again he'd forgotten his shoes.

When he got to the Spooner driveway he began to creep like an Apache who was one with the night, taking the form of fence posts and dead shrubs and breathing only when he couldn't stand holding his breath anymore. He was like the wind, but not like the wind at all because the wind makes noise and he wasn't making any, you should have seen him, n.o.body in the history of the world had ever walked with such perfect silence.

He listened from the window at the side of the house and thought he could hear voices. He crawled behind the big air-conditioning unit to wait. It didn't take long. The back screen door whined and when he could hear footsteps and whispering and they were walking around the other side of the house just like he knew they would, he took out his matchbook, got ready to light the fuse, but then there was a banging noise and Raymond was up against the gate of his pen, huffing and stomping his feet, staring at Rusty with those big yellow eyes.

Shhhh! Raymond! he whisper-shouted as loud as he dared. he whisper-shouted as loud as he dared. Raymond! Stop it, dang it! Raymond! Raymond! Stop it, dang it! Raymond! But Raymond didn't listen, Raymond never listened to anyone, and now he was going crazy, b.u.t.ting the gate with his chest, and at any moment Sasquatch and the dark-haired lady would be coming around the house to see what was going on, so he lit the fuse, watched it burn for a minute, throwing off sparks so bright he could feel the heat of them on his neck, and then he ran out into the open and set the Improvised Explosive Device on the dirt next to the back steps and it was going to be so sweet, so very very sweet to see the look on Sasquatch's face when night turned to day and sudden supernatural thunder woke up everyone in Old House and worlds would collide and secrets would be revealed and life on earth would never be the same again. But Raymond didn't listen, Raymond never listened to anyone, and now he was going crazy, b.u.t.ting the gate with his chest, and at any moment Sasquatch and the dark-haired lady would be coming around the house to see what was going on, so he lit the fuse, watched it burn for a minute, throwing off sparks so bright he could feel the heat of them on his neck, and then he ran out into the open and set the Improvised Explosive Device on the dirt next to the back steps and it was going to be so sweet, so very very sweet to see the look on Sasquatch's face when night turned to day and sudden supernatural thunder woke up everyone in Old House and worlds would collide and secrets would be revealed and life on earth would never be the same again.

He was creeping back to hide behind the air-conditioning unit with his hands over his ears when something fell on him from the sky. Or that's what it felt like, anyway. He hit the dirt, rolled over and saw feathers floating in the air above him and he realized it was Raymond, that idiot, who had jumped the gate and run over him, but he was not even hurt, he had survived, Raymond had just knocked him down and was now all tangled in the Spooner clothesline, flapping his wings and going, urk, urk, urk urk, urk, urk, which served him right. Rusty looked over at his Improvised Explosive Device, which should have gone off by now, but it just sat there, a little curl of smoke coming out of the top, and he ran to pick it up before Raymond untangled himself and attacked again. He was looking into the tiny black hole where the fuse had disappeared, wondering what had happened, what a gyp, dang it what a big freaking gyp! what a gyp, dang it what a big freaking gyp! thinking how dark that hole was, how it seemed to be growing bigger and blacker, when his eyes filled with a white wall of light and inside his head bloomed huge flowers of fire that shot off red screaming meteors and fiery atoms exploding into green stars and s.h.i.+mmering sparkles of gold and blue and oh holy dear sweet jesus lord G.o.d it was so beautiful and bright and loud it was everything he could have ever hoped for. thinking how dark that hole was, how it seemed to be growing bigger and blacker, when his eyes filled with a white wall of light and inside his head bloomed huge flowers of fire that shot off red screaming meteors and fiery atoms exploding into green stars and s.h.i.+mmering sparkles of gold and blue and oh holy dear sweet jesus lord G.o.d it was so beautiful and bright and loud it was everything he could have ever hoped for.

38.

SOMEONE NOT LIKE HIM

ONLY LATER WOULD GOLDEN REMEMBER MANY OF THE DETAILS. DURING the weeks and months afterward they would come to him at unexpected moments-in the middle of a conversation or the half sleep of early morning-bits of memory and disconnected sensation, broken images creeping into the dark corridors of his mind through back entrances and trapdoors: the swirl of feathers, the flash of light like a splinter lodged in his eye, the vibrating moon, the cold water of the river shocking his hands, the smell of burning hair. the weeks and months afterward they would come to him at unexpected moments-in the middle of a conversation or the half sleep of early morning-bits of memory and disconnected sensation, broken images creeping into the dark corridors of his mind through back entrances and trapdoors: the swirl of feathers, the flash of light like a splinter lodged in his eye, the vibrating moon, the cold water of the river shocking his hands, the smell of burning hair.

It was the second night Huila had spent at the Spooner home. The first night they had both been too jittery to talk, to say or do anything in a coherent way, so they walked around the house holding hands and whispering awkward half phrases like AWOL teenagers sneaking around under a swollen moon. The second night, Golden decided, would be different. He planned to talk to her, really talk, to finally get down to business. They could not go on like this, he would tell her, trying hard to keep the whine out of his voice, he couldn't take it anymore, it was that simple, something bad was going to happen, it was only a matter of time. Either they were going to go through with it, they were going to run away together, or they would have to face up to everything they had done, stop sneaking around and accept the consequences. So this was his plan: they would talk, in a very serious and adult way, and once and for all she would tell him what to do.

They were walking around the west side of the house where Sister Spooner kept her collection of birdbaths, bird feeders, birdhouses and other bird-related paraphernalia, when Golden heard something. A metallic rattle, a low grunting. His throat seized and he put his arm in front of Huila to stop her. He imagined a shadowy figure waiting to ambush them, maybe more than one, maybe Todd Freebone or the stranger from across the street at the bank, or Ted Leo himself. He waited, listened, heard nothing more. He peeked around the corner of the house and what he saw confused him: a boy crouching over something in the dirt, and behind him the ostrich, out of its pen and bearing down on the unsuspecting child, its yellow eyes irate and s.h.i.+ning.

Golden stepped forward to shout, to try to intercept the bird or ward it off, and it was here that his memory would falter. Afterward, he wouldn't remember hearing anything: one moment he was reaching out, about to shout, and then he was on his knees, clutching the side of his face, a burr of pain deep in his ear. He would not remember screaming at Huila to run, but later she would tell him that he had done exactly that. He would remember the spangles of colored light that dazzled his retinas-making it impossible for him to see clearly-and imagining that he had been shot or clubbed over the head or otherwise attacked. He scrambled to find the boy, blinking hard, but his left eye registered only hazy red starbursts and the right one didn't seem to be working at all until he saw, through a pall of smoke, what he took to be a pile of garbage topped by a small guttering flame. It was very close, nearly at his feet, and he was about to step over it when he realized that it was the boy, that the boy's head was on fire. He groaned-a sound of pain that came from somewhere very deep-and the next thing he knew he was running with the boy, who felt, gathered against his chest, like nothing more than a pile of smoldering rags.

Later, one of the things that Golden would find hardest to forgive himself for was the fact that he didn't know, as he stumbled toward the river, exactly who he was cradling in his arms. It was his child, he knew that much. He just didn't know which one.

Even after he'd doused the boy in the freezing water and gotten a look at his face, the top half of which was b.l.o.o.d.y and pitted beyond recognition, the skin charred, much of the hair on top of the head burned away, still he couldn't tell, and he would later wonder if he simply didn't want want to know, if in its shocked state his mind had refused to speculate, to consider the names and possibilities, searching instead for some other, more acceptable outcome: that he was mistaken, that this was not his child at all but belonged to someone else entirely, someone stouthearted enough to withstand a blow such as this, someone wise and resolute and strong, a man of faith, a good father, someone not at all like him. to know, if in its shocked state his mind had refused to speculate, to consider the names and possibilities, searching instead for some other, more acceptable outcome: that he was mistaken, that this was not his child at all but belonged to someone else entirely, someone stouthearted enough to withstand a blow such as this, someone wise and resolute and strong, a man of faith, a good father, someone not at all like him.

INTO THE DARK Golden parked in the farthest corner of the p.u.s.s.yCat Manor parking lot, next to the dumpsters. The last time he was here, six or seven weeks ago-a period of time that now seemed like a span of years-he had claimed this very spot. It had been a sunny, clear morning, he remembered, and he had sat here slumped behind the wheel of his pickup, worrying, dithering, unable, as always, to come to a decision, wondering if he had the guts to walk though the brothel doors.

Tonight it was dark, bl.u.s.tery, an hour or two before sunrise, and he did not dither. He climbed out of the cab and rummaged through the bed of the pickup, looking for his axe handle, the one he'd bought ten years ago, shortly after the episode with Ervil LeBaron in which he'd broken out Ervil's taillights in front of the entire congregation and had become, briefly, a minor hero who some had already placed their bets on as the One Mighty and Strong, come to redeem the world and save them all. Heady days those had been, full of such hopes and expectations, and he hadn't thought twice about acquiring his own personal axe handle, to keep in the bed of his pickup, just in case. Of course, he had known he was not the One Mighty and Strong, or anything close to it, but that didn't stop him from driving over to Lamont Bros. Hardware and splurging on the deluxe model-a hickory Harvistall with a nice grain and heft to it-for the outlandish price of $5.99. He placed it in its special spot in the bed, right behind the rear window on the driver's side, and in those nine intervening years had never picked it up again.

It was still here in the truck somewhere, he was sure of it, probably buried under a pile of survey stakes or copper elbow joints. He cast around in the c.u.mulus of broken tools and fast-food wrappers and snarls of baling wire, finally locating it by feel, snared in a tangle of a shorted-out extension cord. He held it up to the negligible light. It was nicked, dinged, weathered a splintery gray, and stained at the b.u.t.t end with what looked to be spilled antifreeze, but it would do.

Walking across the parking lot, he felt weirdly clear-headed, charged and alert, which made little sense considering the night he'd had so far. It had been only a few hours ago that the two volunteer firefighters, twin brothers Ronnie and Donnie Gundersall, showed up within minutes of Beverly's emergency call, and with a deft competence belied by their scruffy facial hair and matching Lynyrd Skynyrd concert T-s.h.i.+rts, checked Rusty's vital signs, loaded him into the makes.h.i.+ft county rescue van and, with a spinning of tires and scattering of gravel that may have been excessive under the circ.u.mstances, headed off for the hospital in St. George. Before they'd gone, Ronnie told Golden that the sheriff had been called and suggested Golden wait around to talk to him, but Golden wasn't about to wait for anyone. He jumped into his pickup and, with Beverly and Nola in the station wagon not far behind, drove with his foot mashed on the gas, the only thought in his head that if he drove fast enough he might be able to beat Ronnie and Donnie to the emergency room.

At the hospital he was told Rusty was already being transferred to a Life Flight helicopter bound for University Medical in Las Vegas. Without waiting for his wives or speaking to anyone else, Golden got right back into his pickup and drove on, following I-15 through the winding gorges of Arizona and then across the moonlit desert plains of southern Nevada, his momentum stalled only by the old GMC's aversion to uphill grades, and the interminable fleets of sixteen-wheelers that seemed to clog the highway this time of night. Entering the great bowl of light that was Las Vegas in search of a sign that would point him in the direction of University Medical, he became disoriented, driving through intersections and over medians like someone who had never seen a stoplight or executed a left-hand turn in traffic. On the dark, humming highway he had been on a kind of autopilot, some part of his mind insisting on nothing but motion and progress, but now that progress had stalled he felt himself unmoored, swamped under by the tide of light and human noise, and in one black moment the horror of what had happened rose up in him with such force he heaved forward against the steering wheel, knocking the air out of his lungs. The pickup coasted for another twenty feet, hopped against the curb and stalled. Golden evacuated the cab for the sidewalk and, in front of an audience of singularly unimpressed bar-hoppers and motorists, vomited onto the base of a towering desert palm.

He would not remember getting back into his truck, or how he managed to find the hospital after what must have been another half hour of dazed wandering. He walked through the gla.s.s doors of the hospital and kept walking as if he didn't know how to do anything else, down one hall and then another, past people sleeping on plastic benches and small families carrying on their grim vigils and, finally, into a room full of desks and filing cabinets where a short Hispanic man was busy humming to himself and mopping the floor. The man looked up-he had a kind, generously creased face, and Golden went right to him. He tried to explain, to say, I'm looking for my son I'm looking for my son, but his voice was useless, ragged, as if he'd spent the last couple of hours screaming himself hoa.r.s.e. The man smiled, seeming to understand perfectly, and then the room narrowed and darkened, and he felt himself toppling into the man's waiting arms.

He awoke on a gurney in the hall, a portly, freckled nurse looming above him. She said, "Back to the world of the living, are we?" With a nurse's cheerful competence she shone a penlight in his eye, fitted his arm with a blood pressure cuff, all the while asking what his name was, if he knew what day it was, if he had, in the last twenty-four hours, ingested alcohol or drugs. Again, he tried to speak, to make his ident.i.ty and intentions known, but he seemed to have fallen mute: when he opened his mouth the only thing that came out was a wet, interrogative grunt.

The nurse noted this on her clipboard, and was pumping up the air-pressure cuff with forceful contractions of her meaty fist when a commotion down the hall drew her attention. She turned her back on him and proceeded to carry on a long-distance conversation-which consisted mostly of waving arms and dramatic shrugs-with another nurse on the other end of the long corridor trying to maneuver a large bleeding man in a wheelchair who was shouting about the motherf.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who'd stolen his Gold Toe socks. Golden thought about the friendly janitor he had apparently just fainted upon, and hoped he had not done the man any lasting harm. The nurse continued ignoring him and Golden decided that, as comfortable as that gurney was, he couldn't wait around any longer. He sat up, tested his feet against the floor, and started in the opposite direction, taking the first left he came to, the blood-pressure apparatus still dangling from his arm. It wasn't long before he found Beverly and Nola, who shared a small, out-of-the-way alcove with a few plastic chairs and a coffee vending machine. They rushed to him, their hair wild and eyes bloodshot, clutching the necks of their nightgowns. The sight of these two women, their familiar smells, the weight of their palms on his wrists, brought him out of the fever dream he'd been having and fully into himself: he was suddenly aware of his own creaking ma.s.s, the smells of gunpowder and blood and river mud rising off him, the cold, clenched fist of his heart constricting with dread at the news he was about to receive. His wives asked him the same series of questions they'd been asking for years: What was wrong with him? Where had he been? What had taken him so long?

Even though he didn't speak or respond in any way, they must have been able to read the expression on his face, the single question contained in it, because they both stopped at once and Beverly nodded. "He's alive."

Golden felt his equilibrium give. He pivoted and sat down hard. For the moment, this was enough. His muscles and joints turned to liquid and he thought he might slide right off the chair and onto the floor.

But, of course, it wasn't that simple-nothing ever was. Nola sat down next to him, and in hushed tones gave him the rest of the news, which had been delivered by the lead surgeon only a few minutes before.

Rusty had been rushed into emergency surgery the moment he arrived, but once the doctors had opened up his head and had a look around, they quickly put down their scalpels. There were too many metal fragments embedded too deeply; if they tried to get at every one they would end up doing more harm than good. So they had removed several of the larger, more accessible fragments, and cut away a portion of his skull to accommodate the swelling of the brain. There were other, less dire injuries. The boy's left eye had been destroyed, as had most of his right hand. He had suffered third-degree burns to his face and scalp. His chances of survival, the surgeon had told them, were poor at best. Once he was transferred into the ICU they would be allowed to see him.

The wives gave Golden a few seconds to let this sink in. They watched him, waiting for a reaction, for some kind of explanation, but he gave them none, simply sat there in the white hum of the waiting room, sporting the blood-pressure collar strapped around his biceps and gripping his knees as if he might otherwise fly into pieces.

Nola, who was wearing a man's denim jacket over her nightgown, along with a pair of mismatched rubber irrigation boots, carefully removed the collar from his arm and placed it to the side. She gripped one of his hands in hers. Normally, it was Beverly who would have taken the lead in a situation like this, but Beverly sat across from Golden looking strangely vacant and withdrawn, as she had for the past couple of days. Nola hunkered down in front of Golden in an attempt to make eye contact, as if she were trying to induce a confession out of a grade-schooler, and asked the question Beverly had shouted at him from the porch as she watched him wade with Rusty across the swollen river, the question the Gundersall brothers had asked as they knelt down beside the boy to check his vital signs: "What happened happened?"

And Golden answered her now as he had answered them then, though he ended up only mouthing the words: I don't know I don't know.

I don't know. These three words composed the simplest, safest answer he could give; he was in no state to be offering explanations, to himself or anyone else. But he knew also that they were a denial, even a lie, a cheap and convenient way of absolving himself. Because if he was willing to give the whole thing even a little thought, if he backtracked even briefly along the lines of cause and effect, he was certain he would find himself, as he always did, the one to blame.