Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [31]
She jumped when the phone rang, Victor Ibañez calling from the grocería. “Heard you got Frank over there,” he said.
“Victor! God!” Libby said. “Who’s Frank?”
“Big old guy with a bushy gray beard. Probably wearing slippers. Looks like he lives in a pumpkin patch.”
Would small-town telegraphy ever cease to astonish and appall her?
Victor laughed through his nose, like a snuffling dog. “A pumpkin patch! That’s perfect!”
“Victor,” Libby said. “This is not funny.”
“Frank won’t hurt you, honey,” Victor said. “Just light his cigarette, you’ll make a friend for life.”
“I’m not going anywhere near him! Is Burt there? You tell Burt to get over here.”
“Just a moment.” Without covering the phone, Victor said, “It’s your wife, Burt. Are you here?” Into the receiver, Victor said, “Burt says he’s not here.”
“Come on, Victor. Please,” Libby said. “I’m seriously freaked out. If you don’t let me talk to Burt, I’m going to call the marshal.”
“She’s gonna call the marshal, Burt,” said Victor.
“Damn it, Victor.”
“Now, now,” Victor said. “Burt’s already on his way. I just wanted to call ahead to say Frank’s harmless. But lately he’s been taking these little walks away from home.”
“I don’t think going around and terrifying single women who live alone in the country’s exactly harmless.”
Libby heard gravel crunching outside as Burt McLemoore pulled into her driveway.
LEWIS woke up early in the morning from a dream in which the earth had tilted off its axis and everything was sliding away from everything else. Chairs flew from tables, pillows popped from sofas, highways lifted off the ground like kinked ribbons. In the next bed, Carl snored pianissimo, almost a purr.
Lewis decided to go running. He pulled on pants and loped downstairs. Movement was good. He pushed through the front door, jogged down the driveway, one footfall between each palm tree. It was cold out, gray and dewy, and Lewis’s wool sweater produced a faint wet-dog stink that intensified as he warmed up. His hands grew pink. Was it possible that his jerky start-and-stop pattern of drinking constituted a real disease, the same one his father had? His father seemed another species: a red-faced television exec, a five-martini luncher fixated on racehorses, already on his third family and second open-heart surgery.
Lewis hit flat ground and picked up speed. Light seeped slowly into the sky. As if hand-tinted, oranges and lemons acquired the faintest pastel hues. Near the garage, he heard the familiar glass-packed rumble of Red’s truck and looked around for a place to hide in case he was doing something wrong by being out at this hour. It felt like he was. Then again, he usually did feel like he was doing something wrong.
Red rolled down his window. “Beautiful morning, eh?”
“Just taking a run,” said Lewis.
“You and Frank both,” said Red. “I gotta go fetch him. Want to come along?”
“Sure.” Lewis clambered into the truck. He’d been only vaguely aware of Frank’s existence. Frank spent his days in a lawn chair in the kitchen, where Ernie Tola could keep an eye on him and light his cigarettes. A couple times Lewis had seen Frank sitting on the front porch, and once Lewis went into a downstairs john and found Frank, pissing away with surprising accuracy: the big mute seemed too dim to have mastered even that basic art.
“Any more thoughts about the writing you did?” Red asked.
“No.” Lewis accepted a Pall Mall and light. “Although I don’t see how you can be so sure I’m an alcoholic.”
“Oh, I could be wrong,” Red said cheerfully. “Although normal drinkers don’t drink ice-tea glasses of vodka. Or get DUIs. Have four or five drinks a day and get drunk twice a week. Not to mention the blackouts. Then there’s the secondary stuff. Living in a garage. So alienated from family and friends you can’t call on anyone for help. Dropping out of school and—”
“Look, alcoholism is your paradigm,” said Lewis.