A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [90]
A chill passed through Dennis and with it deflation, a sense of his own diminishment. He looked away. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. What did he want, then? He didn’t know, didn’t even know why he’d come. Gordon droned on. Hearing Lisa’s name, Dennis looked up.
“She sounded so sad. I didn’t know what to say.”
“What the fuck’re you talking about?”
Gordon’s face flushed. His chin quivered miserably. “You shouldn’t . . . you shouldn’t do that to her.”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He stood up to leave and, seeing the two hideously wide white sneakers side by side at the bottom of the stairs, facing the door, waiting, wondered why, for what? For the same thing he had been waiting these twenty-five years? For nothing, he realized, for absolutely nothing, if it meant eating and sleeping, then waking again to discontent, this sense of illimitable loss. His brother was here, so what was this yearning for? It was supposed to be over now.
“You’re married, Dennis. You should be faithful to your wife.”
Dennis spun around. “Look, there’s only one way this is going to work. You want to come back here and live like this, fine. But my family is my business, not yours. You got that, Gordo?”
They stared at each other until Gordon looked away. Dennis started to open the door.
“They’re my family, too,” Gordon said under his breath.
It usually took only a few swings to get the right momentum, but some of the trash bags felt like dead weight. Two crates of rotting cantaloupes had come in, and the supplier said to throw them out. Another shipment was on its way. Gordon grabbed the bag with both hands, ready to heave it, when he heard a loud clang inside the swill-streaked Dumpster. He froze, listening. Too loud to be a squirrel or a rat. Something heavier, big, like a raccoon, maybe. Or a skunk. He stepped back.
“Fuck!” came a thin voice from inside.
He put down the bag and peered in, unable to see much over the piled trash. He jumped back as a crushed box of doughnuts flew past his head. He walked to the end of the Dumpster where a loaf of flattened bread and a deeply dented can of pineapple chunks lay on the ground among glinting splinters and rusted shards, the man-made till from years of trash haulings.
“Fuck!” There was a painful groan.
“Who’s that? Who’s in there?” For a moment there wasn’t another sound other than flies buzzing and, from the lone spindly tree beyond, the high-pitched, scolding chatter of a squirrel whose larder was being pilfered.
“I said, who’s in there?”
Still no reply. Up on the loading dock, the metal door creaked open, then banged shut. Neil was dragging out another stack of cartons to flatten and pile against the building. Seeing Gordon’s guarded stance, he hurried over. Gordon gestured to indicate someone was in there. Neil nodded, then disappeared for a moment under the loading dock. He returned dragging a long, rusted section of drainpipe. He began to pummel the trash in the Dumpster with it, all the while cackling, “Come on out, you beggar! You fucking beggar, you!”
A head popped up on the opposite end of the Dumpster, then came arms and a torso in a roll over the side, with Neil sprinting close behind. “Mother o’ God, look at this,” he said, pulling the girl from the straggle of paper-blown bushes. “Look what was in there, the very bottom of the food chain.”
The long cut on her left arm was bleeding down her fingers onto her pants.
“Jada!” Gordon said. Her wild hair was snagged with bits of trash and what at first appeared to be torn flesh, until, seeing seeds, he realized it was the slimy skin of a rotten tomato.
“Tell him to let go-a me!” she snarled through clenched teeth.
“Tell her to shut up!” Breathless as a cat with prey, Neil grinned, eyes gleaming with the pure, high-octane thrill of her pain. “Nice, huh?” He pointed at her. “Nice country we live in.”
Every time she tried to pull away, he yanked her back, laughing.
“What hole did you crawl out of?” he said.
“Fuck you!” she shot back.
“Or maybe you