Works and Days

Patti came over to Curtain Street that evening.

“I’m not demanding that you come home,” Patti told her son. They were both sitting on the floor, and Chayne had made a comment about having to go to the basement for his grandmother’s mixer.

“I just came to let you know I noticed you weren’t around. And to tell you that you can come back whenever you want to.”

Patti wanted to say that she didn’t blame Russell for leaving. She wanted to say that she was going to start looking for an attorney. She also wanted to say that she had no idea how things were going to work out.

“Has your father been by?” Patti asked.

“Not yet,” said Russell.

“It figures.”

“Patti.” Chayne said in a low voice, coming back from the basement.

Patti shrugged and reached into her purse for a cigarette. It was too late to take the words back now.

Cigarette clenched between her lips, Patti said, “You just take care of my boy, awright, Kandzierski?”

Chayne opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it in the presence of the boy. Patricia Lewis could tell this, and was glad of it when Chayne only nodded.

 

Thom thought he heard the door opening, and nearly jumped up. But it was just someone walking down the hallway outside of the loft. If Jackie and Chip had come back, his sister would have asked him how long he’d been sitting on the battered couch, the cordless phone in his hand and the phone number on his leg, licking his lips.

Thom looked out of the window onto the nighttime river with its slow passing barges, and the lights of East Sequoya twinkling on the other side.

“Approximately thirty-five minutes,” he murmured.

This is stupid!

Thom licked his lips one more time and dialed the numbers Jackie had written on the piece of paper into the phone. The phone rang a few times. On the fifth ring, Thom was about to hang up when he heard a “Hello?”

“Liz!” Thom croaked, and then, clearing his throat, said: “Hello, may I speak to Elizabeth Parr?”

“Parr? I haven’t been Liz Parr for—Thom, is that you?”

Thom breathed a sigh of relief and wanted to laugh.

“Yeah. Yes.”

“How are you?” Liz asked.

“Good, well, good enough. With how things are going.”

“Patti told me. Sort of?”

“What did she say?”

“Oh, God, Thom, I’m sure you know what she said. She hasn’t changed since college. She always was wild.”

“Well, she says it’s over.”

“Is it?”

Thom was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It sort of looks that way.”

“How’s your son?”

“Oh, he’s great.”

“I mean, how’s he taking it?”

“I need to talk to him. It’s hard to get inside of Russell.”

“Like father like son.”

“What?” Thom laughed as the door opened and Jackie came in.

“Me and Russell are nothing alike. He’s more like Patti. You remember my little sister—there she is now. Hey sis.”

“Jackie?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what Russell’s like.”

“Thom it is so good to hear from you!”

“It’s good to hear from you too. Why’d you call?”

Liz was quiet for a moment.

“I think it’s that whole midlife thing,” she said. “Yeah, we get it too.”

“Are we in midlife?” Thom asked.

“We’re getting there. I started thinking a lot about college and you and Patti. After you all and Russell left I didn’t talk to you that much. I missed you guys. I missed the old days.”

“I think the last time we saw you was before your marriage. I forgot you weren’t Liz Parr anymore. How is....”

“Lionel. His name was Lionel. And Lionel isn’t anymore,” said Liz. “I’m Liz Parr all over again. No one calls me that, but I am.”

“You got a divorce.”

“Ah, yes,” Liz said with false lamentation.

“Do you have any kids?”

“Marvin and Julie. Ten and eight. Thom I wanna see you. When can I see you?”

Thom laughed. “When do you want to see me?”

“What are you doing Friday?”

“Wait a minute—” Tom said, “Where are you?”

“In South Bend?”

“Really, still?”

“Yeah. So that makes me what? Two hours away?”

“About that much. You want me to come down there? Friday? After work I’ll just drive down. We can walk around Notre Dame, go out to dinner, talk about old times? How’s that sound?”

“Great. Let me give you my address and everything...”

Jackie, watched her brother laugh on the phone, then scribble stuff down on the bit of paper. It was good to have him here. She wanted to tell her brother how bad this date with Chip had been. She waited until he was off the phone. By then Jackie was undressed and had slid into jogging pants and a tee shirt, ridding herself of that damn bra.

“Wow, Sis, you’re sagging!” Thom noted.

“You’re such an ass. Was that LIZ?”

“I don’t like the way you say her name. Sounds like lizard?”

“That’s how I always felt about her. You’re going out with her?”

“Um hum,” Thom smiled brightly, and drummed his fingertips on the steamer trunk. “Friday night!”

Jackie shook her head, pulled a hand through her thick hair and said, “Just don’t fuck her, Thom.”

“This bitch calls my house,” Patti told Felice and Jackie, “and starts talking about how she just wanted to go over old times. Weren’t they good? No they weren’t good!”

Patti swigged the last of her coffee and got up to fill her cup again.

“She acts like we were friends or something.”

“You were roommates,” Felice pointed out.

“She was fucking Thom!”

“To be fair—” Jackie started.

“Jaclyn, if you’re going be fair I don’t want to hear it.”

“To be fair,” Jackie continued, “if anyone should be upset it should be Liz.”

“Yeah,” Felice added as Patti came to sit down between her two friends. “Didn’t you steal Thom from her?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Patti protested. “Thom’s a man, not a car or a candy bar. When I was a junior I got Liz for a roommate. We had an apartment, and she asked me if I minded her boyfriend coming over again and again, and I said no. I thought she meant visiting. I didn’t mean hearing world class fucking on the other side of my wall. So one day while I was getting up to go to class, the boyfriend came out in his underwear. That’s how I met Thom.

“He was nice back then, and he was actually fun. It took me almost the whole year to admit I liked him because he looked like he was twelve. He was five feet tall and—”

“He was fucking your roommate.”

“And loudly,” said Patti.

“I don’t want to hear this about my brother!”

“They were hellcats,” Patti continued. “And I didn’t appreciate that because it was the only thing he and Liz had in common. Thom and I were starting to become somewhat close. Before we left for the summer I told him I couldn’t do this anymore. We were becoming more than friends, and he was still with Liz. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. So I went back home to Chicago, and one day that summer there was a knock at my door, and it was Thom, and he told me he and Liz were over and he loved me.”

“Girl, that’s the sweetest story,” Felice said.

“Yeah,” said Patti. “And then almost twenty years later we ended up here.

“The romance died. Once upon a time it was good. But once upon a time the wheel was state of the art technology.”

Patti shrugged as if to say, So what?

 

That same morning, Chayne had seen Russell off to school, and was on his roof top when he saw two cars coming down the cobbles of Curtain Street. The first was his parents’, and the second was a hearse.

“What the fuck?” Chayne mumbled, and stood up to walk his way off of the roof, and come back into the house.

“Good morning, Baby,” said Sharon.

“Good morning, Mother.”

“Chayne,” said his father. “We were all talking about you last night—”

“That can’t be good.”

“And your Uncle Woodrow said it was a shame you didn’t have a car, so he decided you should have this one.”

Chayne looked at it, planting his fingers on the back of his neck, thought of saying, But, it’s a hearse, and then decided not to state the obvious, and only said, “Thank you.”

After his parents left, Chayne walked down the steps with the keys, opened up the hearse and sat down in it. He had always imagined a hearse was like a station wagon, but it wasn’t. Not at all. This wagon’s cargo was, of course, the embalmed, and the wagon reminded Chayne of the inside of a casket. Chayne had not refused the gift because he knew he needed some form of transport and then, also, he thought the idea of driving a hearse would add to his personal myth, and Chayne loved building up his personal myth. He could admit this vanity to himself. Lastly, as he admired the wonderful amount of storage space and wondered what he could do with the rollers, the thought of what a difficult vehicle this would be to steal.

Chayne flipped open the glove compartment and read the sign:

 

PRINCES OF QUALITY

PRINCES OF BURIAL

PRINCES OF CREMATION

 

EDMUND PRINCE

EUGENE PRINCE

WOODROW PRINCE

 

PRINCES OF GESCHICHTE FALLS

PROVIDING FINE FUNERIAL SERVICES FOR THE FAMILIES OF WINTHROP

COUNTY FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS

 

“Chayne!”

He shouted in shock, then looked up from his morbid reverie to Jewell Emery and a hamster faced man he hadn’t seen in years.

“Jewell! Diggs!”

“What the hell are you doing in a hearse?” Jason Dygulski demanded.

Chayne got out of the car and said, “My parents got it for me. They thought I should...” Chayne shrugged, and gestured to the hearse, “have a car.”

“Oh, my God,” Jewell murmured, shaking her head.

“Well, what’s up?” Chayne said.

“We just came by to see you,” said Diggs. “Jewell wanted to know if you were coming to her place tonight.”

“There’s gonna be a live band and everything. Folks getting up and singing. A good time had by all. You’ll be there. And you should bring Russell with you.”

“Well,” Chayne shrugged. “I guess we’ll… be there. What are you all doing?”

“I gotta be at work by twelve,” said Diggs.

“I gotta be at work by happy hour,” Jewell smiled. “I love my life. Come to think of it, I love your life too, Chayne. Oh, by the way, I almost forgot—”

“Yes?”

“I’m pregnant. You wanna be the godfather?”