phone onto my little rented bed and curled around it, as if it held some imprint of my mom's voice.
I watched the news obsessively for some news about an attempt on Caruthers's life, but as the months dragged out, I tuned in less and less. Winter got so cold it froze the ears and tails off cats. I jerked awake at 2:18 every night, my arms clutching at Frank as he bled out. After six months Callie's home line was disconnected, so I risked a call to her at work.
Leaning against the pay phone at the back of the poolhall, sticky with sweat and trapped air, I pressed the familiar buttons. I'd gulped down a few beers to shore up my courage, and my buzz turned the whole thing into a dream--the sound of her, my shaky words, so much resentment and pain that neither of us could stop talking to breathe. She demanded to see me. When I told her it wasn't safe, she yelled at me until I eased the phone back onto its cradle.
I spent a sleepless week worried that they'd monitored the call and were coming to throw me in jail, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.
A few nights later, I came across Liffman outside the bar, shooting a pistol at a moose-crossing sign. His night-vision goggles were askew, and he staggered under the weight of the booze, but he cracked that sign again and again. The cops had wisely parked at a good distance and sat smoking on the curb, waiting for him to pass out. But Liffman, I'd learned, never passed out.
As he fumbled with a reload, I approached. Callie had never let Frank take me shooting, but I'd been around his guns enough to be calm in their presence. "Liffman."
"Yuh, Nicky?"
"What do you say we get you some sleep so tonight doesn't cut into your drinking tomorrow."
It took a few moments for him to decipher the words through the booze. Then a smile cracked his wind-chapped face, and he slid the gun into his pocket and trudged home. The cops waved as we passed.
The next day at work, while whacking the head
off a sockeye, he gave me that missing-tooth grin. "You ready for when they come for you?"
I kept working.
He lopped off a few more heads, flicked them to the bin, the pink spray specking his corded forearms. "/ am. I'm ready for those motherfuckers. DEA, IRS. Shit, when the black suits come sniffin', I'll be a trace in the wind. Or a round in their chest."
When the whistle blew, I followed him out to his truck. He never turned around, but he unlocked the passenger side first, left the door standing open. I got in.
I said, "I don't want to be at the mercy of anyone ever again."
We drove out to the nowhere tundra and sat on his hood, draining a six-pack and squinting into the white. He pulled a pistol from his parka pocket and aimed it at my face. His head was crooked, his black curls hanging down like a curtain fringe. He was smiling, and it wasn't a pretty smile.
I said, "Liffman."
"Wanna learn how to shoot?"
"Yeah."
He walked off twenty paces and crunched the bottles into the snow. We shot. He drank the next six-pack himself. We shot some more. When I turned to reload, I heard a flicking sound, and he had a knife out, low and mean at his side. He faked a swing at my head, the blade whistling by so close I could feel the air move.
"Knife fight?"
I said, "That, too."
Every six months I sent Callie a card at work telling her I was alive and okay, delivered through a remailing service in Utah so it would bear a different postmark. Another lesson from the school of Liffman. The service would alert me if the letter bounced back as undeliverable, so I'd know if she quit or moved. I was terrified she'd get sick and wouldn't be able to contact me, or that she'd die scared and alone. Those sporadic cards served as my lifeline to her.
I moved to Washington and snagged a job driving a delivery truck for a bakery. And then, two years later, to Oregon, where I worked mornings on a road crew and earned a night-school B.A.
I felt like a hermit crab trying out new shells, looking for a fit. I
I watched the news obsessively for some news about an attempt on Caruthers's life, but as the months dragged out, I tuned in less and less. Winter got so cold it froze the ears and tails off cats. I jerked awake at 2:18 every night, my arms clutching at Frank as he bled out. After six months Callie's home line was disconnected, so I risked a call to her at work.
Leaning against the pay phone at the back of the poolhall, sticky with sweat and trapped air, I pressed the familiar buttons. I'd gulped down a few beers to shore up my courage, and my buzz turned the whole thing into a dream--the sound of her, my shaky words, so much resentment and pain that neither of us could stop talking to breathe. She demanded to see me. When I told her it wasn't safe, she yelled at me until I eased the phone back onto its cradle.
I spent a sleepless week worried that they'd monitored the call and were coming to throw me in jail, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.
A few nights later, I came across Liffman outside the bar, shooting a pistol at a moose-crossing sign. His night-vision goggles were askew, and he staggered under the weight of the booze, but he cracked that sign again and again. The cops had wisely parked at a good distance and sat smoking on the curb, waiting for him to pass out. But Liffman, I'd learned, never passed out.
As he fumbled with a reload, I approached. Callie had never let Frank take me shooting, but I'd been around his guns enough to be calm in their presence. "Liffman."
"Yuh, Nicky?"
"What do you say we get you some sleep so tonight doesn't cut into your drinking tomorrow."
It took a few moments for him to decipher the words through the booze. Then a smile cracked his wind-chapped face, and he slid the gun into his pocket and trudged home. The cops waved as we passed.
The next day at work, while whacking the head
off a sockeye, he gave me that missing-tooth grin. "You ready for when they come for you?"
I kept working.
He lopped off a few more heads, flicked them to the bin, the pink spray specking his corded forearms. "/ am. I'm ready for those motherfuckers. DEA, IRS. Shit, when the black suits come sniffin', I'll be a trace in the wind. Or a round in their chest."
When the whistle blew, I followed him out to his truck. He never turned around, but he unlocked the passenger side first, left the door standing open. I got in.
I said, "I don't want to be at the mercy of anyone ever again."
We drove out to the nowhere tundra and sat on his hood, draining a six-pack and squinting into the white. He pulled a pistol from his parka pocket and aimed it at my face. His head was crooked, his black curls hanging down like a curtain fringe. He was smiling, and it wasn't a pretty smile.
I said, "Liffman."
"Wanna learn how to shoot?"
"Yeah."
He walked off twenty paces and crunched the bottles into the snow. We shot. He drank the next six-pack himself. We shot some more. When I turned to reload, I heard a flicking sound, and he had a knife out, low and mean at his side. He faked a swing at my head, the blade whistling by so close I could feel the air move.
"Knife fight?"
I said, "That, too."
Every six months I sent Callie a card at work telling her I was alive and okay, delivered through a remailing service in Utah so it would bear a different postmark. Another lesson from the school of Liffman. The service would alert me if the letter bounced back as undeliverable, so I'd know if she quit or moved. I was terrified she'd get sick and wouldn't be able to contact me, or that she'd die scared and alone. Those sporadic cards served as my lifeline to her.
I moved to Washington and snagged a job driving a delivery truck for a bakery. And then, two years later, to Oregon, where I worked mornings on a road crew and earned a night-school B.A.
I felt like a hermit crab trying out new shells, looking for a fit. I
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