Blossom - Andrew H. Vachss [67]
"She knows how it works."
"She died five years ago. When I was almost twenty–four. Lung cancer."
"That's why you went to medical school?"
"Partly. Funny, I was always the one Mama worried about the most. Violet was wild, but she settled right down. And Rose, she was quiet. Everybody's pet. I spoiled her rotten my ownself."
"Why'd she worry about you?"
"Mama used to say, a girl who's got a taste for a trouble–man once, she keeps it forever."
"And you did?"
"Chandler Wells God. Used to be I could just write his name in my school notebook and get trembly right above the tops of my nylons thinking about him. He was a wild boy. Not bad, not evil like some. But wild. He ran 'shine just for the kick of it. Gambled away all the money he made. Folks said he'd be a stock–car champion, he could ever settle down long enough, get him a good ride at the track. He even tried it a couple of times. Told me it wasn't much of a thrill going round in circles."
"What happened to him?"
She wasn't listening. Her long nails absently scratching my chest. Back there, then.
"Mama ran him off a dozen times. She couldn't get mad at him, not real mad. He'd come around to the back. And the girls, they'd help me sneak out, be with him. One time, the troopers chased us. Just for speeding, but Chandler, he wanted to play. He had this old Mercury he put back together from a stock car and there wasn't a car in the county could catch him when he was flying. The troopers had the road blocked off at one end. They used to leave just enough space between the cars to let one through. Just enough. Like a challenge: that opening looked like a slit when you were going fast enough. They played it square: you got through, they wouldn't chase you anymore that night. But if you didn't, they'd call the meat wagon. Chandler was smoking down this old dirt road when we saw it. 'You want me to stop?' he asked me. 'Go on through, honey,' I told him. Holding on. 'I love you, Blossom.' It was the first time he said that to me. Like he did then. We shot through the roadblock like it was a mile wide. Weeks after that, folks would come to see Chandler's Mercury…there was paint streaks down both sides from where he passed so close. When he finally brought me home that night, Mama grabbed a strap, chased me all around the place. The girls had to sit on her, hold her down, she was so mad. Later, when she was calm, she sat me down. Told me what Chandler was. A trouble–man. She said some men are rogues and ramblers, and some women are just drawn to them. After a while, the good ones, they settle down. But a trouble–man, he never gets quiet."
"Chandler never got quiet?"
"Got real quiet. Dead quiet." A tear tracked her face. "He got into an argument with another boy in one of the riverfront joints. Chandler asked him to step outside. The other boy had a knife. Chandler didn't. He was twenty–two. I was still in high school then. Thought I'd never stop crying."
I lit another smoke. "Some people, they never get to find their love."
"You ever love a woman, Burke?"
"Two."
"Where are they?"
"One's dead. One's gone."
"The girl's who's gone…why'd she go?"
I dragged on the smoke. "The woman who died, Belle, it was my fault. It didn't have to be. I used to think all the time about the woman who's gone, Flood. Why she left. Now, maybe I know. Maybe she knew what you know. Didn't know what to call it, but she knew."
"Trouble–man," she whispered, coming to me.
103
LIGHT WAS BREAKING across the bedroom window. Blossom lying on top of me, wetness still holding us together below the waist.
"Trouble–man," she said. "Troubled man, you are. What did you go to prison for?"
I looked into the center of her eyes—the way you do with a parole officer. "For something I didn't do."
"And what was that—what was it you didn't do?"
"Get away," I told her.
Her body trembled against me, giggling. "You want a cigarette?" she asked.
"Yeah."
She lit one for me, supporting herself