Kill 'Em With Kindness, page 8
Nick hesitated but did as she asked. The tires hit the gravel shoulder with the sound of popcorn popping and a dust cloud engulfed the car before clearing with the breeze. His resignation bothered him and it made him think about his wife, the things she asked him to do that he always did. Made him remember how he stopped doing things. And what that led to.
Kimmy got out of the car. “Pop the trunk,” she said. She came back moments later, took her place in the passenger seat, and handed Nick a small screwdriver. Nick’s eyes moved from the tool to her face, then to the screws attaching the metal to her skull.
“No,” he said. “You’re going to break your neck.”
“It was barely fractured, doc said. Do it or I’ll just do it myself anyway.”
And Nick found himself leaning into her, finding the head of each screw and twisting, torquing each loose and eliciting a small gasp from the patient. As each screw fell away, the holes left behind slowly filled with blood. She wept softly. And when he finished, she pulled the headgear from her body and tossed it away into the tall grass, moving her head slowly from side to side, cautiously testing her freedom. She got back into the car.
“Now let’s fucking go,” she said.
Nick pulled up to the curb of Grand Rapids Community College, the same school he’d attended after getting kicked out of State. It had been some years but it hadn’t changed at all. He watched Kimmy walk to the door, barely a limp left and looking almost herself from behind. She turned before entering the glass doors, smiling like the Ottawa Indian woman in the mural over the door. It was an Ottawa creation story: the towering female figure sat on the bank of the tiny Thornapple River, using a piece of native pottery, not collecting water but pouring, supplying the river with moisture and fish and beaver, each gift depicted within the flowing, blue, painted water.
Kimmy disappeared inside and Nick pulled away. He was still irritated and, in truth, scared. Kimmy could give him all the guarantees in the world but it didn’t mean anything. How seriously could he take her? She was planning a murder and in the same breath planning a community college art project. Unfucking believable.
From behind, she looked like the girl he remembered. Her legs were tan and smooth, and Nick thought about such stems wrapped around him, squeezing, choking the life out of him. He didn’t want to die, but what a way to go. Don’t fuck my goat.
Nick pulled into the lot of Every Creature’s Animal Hospital, approached the delivery door, and rang the bell. After a moment the security door adjacent to the bay door cracked open and a Hispanic guy with a shaved head, early twenties, popped his dome out of the doorway and eyeballed Nick.
“Dog guy?” he said after a moment.
“I suppose,” Nick answered.
The guy offered a nod and opened the bay door. Nick stepped inside the storage area of the clinic, followed the guy past stacked-to-the-ceiling bags of specialty dog foods, organic toys, and flea treatments. The back of the guy’s bald head was tattooed with a green outline of the state of Texas. The form was blank except for “El Paso” in black script, and the city’s precise location marked with a small red rose. Nick continued following through the kennels and through a dark hallway where El Paso dipped his feet into a cat litter box containing a frothy white chemical mixture.
“Dip your feet and follow me,” El Paso said.
Nick dipped and followed into the small room. The stench of sweet death was foul and assaulting.
“Parvo,” El Paso said before Nick could ask. El Paso pointed to a small cage and a fluffy brown puppy inside. The thing looked miserable, shivering with fever under the blanket and heat bottle, tiny leg affixed with an IV needle of hydrating fluids. “Whole litter of seven came in with it,” he continued. “She’s the last.”
El Paso opened the large freezer. Inside Nick saw various amorphous bundles of heavy brown plastic. On top of the pile were six tiny packages, the size of a drive-thru burrito. The kid pushed the small bundles aside, leaned deep inside and came out with a grunt-worthy bundle in his arms, this one large and wrapped in the same heavy plastic as the pups. El Paso grunted again as the weight shifted. “Grab the other one, huh?”
Nick stepped inside the door and at the opposite end of the large storage room, past shelves of specialty dog foods and tartar fighting chew toys and flea treatments was the freezer. The top was open and inside Nick found a package similar to the one the kid had just brought out. Nick grabbed it. It was heavy, frozen solid. Nick struggled with the grip, propping it on one end, giving it a hug, and lifting it from the cold box. Inside the plastic was a single frozen form and, though the end was taped shut, a hairy canine tail poked out of a gap.
Nick lugged the package to the car and dropped it in the open trunk on top of the other package. Nick followed El Paso back inside and repeated the drill five more times. As Nick was stuffing the last of the carcasses into the car, he was sure this had to be some terrible delusion brought on by psychosis.
“Phenobarbital? Propofol?” El Paso said. “Morphine? Ketamine? What else you need?”
“I’m good,” Nick said.
“He’s good.” El Paso laughed. “Right on. You know anybody wants a party, you send them this way.”
“You bet,” Nick said, and started the car. He pulled away and watched in the rearview as the guy watched him drive away. The icy dogs shifted in the trunk and back seats as Nick pulled out of the lot. Nick could only imagine the art project Kimmy had planned. Dead dogs. Art? Nick couldn’t judge. Either all of it was or none of it was. Nick preferred to think that all of it was. Otherwise it was just a bunch of assholes doing shit.
The one positive thing about hauling not one, not two, but thirteen dead dogs through the cornfield across the stream and into the clearing Kimmy had made, was that for the time Nick sweated and exerted himself and hated dogs in general, he forgot about hating other things. He even forgot for a time that his death was almost certainly imminent. But his mental vacation was cut short as the damp heat hung in the air, an oppressive pressure, and Nick knew the only way to escape it was to get out. Leave.
He could run. Why wouldn’t he run? Nothing keeping him in Horton, nothing but his bullshit situation. And he entertained that thought, but Kimmy kept coming back to him. She was the reason he couldn’t leave. And he wasn’t overlooking the tape. He was trying not to factor it in, taking it for granted that Chief wouldn’t give chase.
Nick wiped the sweat from his brow. It was early but hot, the moist air blowing in from Lake Michigan, warming and thickening and creating a wet, breathable soup that pulled the moisture from his body, then left it to sit. Nick moved to the edge of the clearing and sat in the dirt on the short shade of the eastern tree line. The sun was almost directly overhead and cool space was at a premium. Nick caught his breath in the shade and the breeze did its best to wipe away the sweat and hot. He dragged a dirty arm across his forehead. He eyed the plastic wrapped art supplies in the middle of the clearing. Dead animals as art. He didn’t know what to make of it, didn’t want to know anything anymore.
With rest came clarity and the things he had been able to forget came back and he hated Hobo for being dead and making him feel like he owed him something. It was Hobo that had pulled him into this pile of shit sandwiches. Choices. And again his mind went to Kimmy. Was she even worth protecting? The fight in her was, he saw it, the way she pummeled the blonde with the cue ball. If she brought the same fight to her plan for Chad, Nick wasn’t sure she wouldn’t just pull it off. The fight was her strength and her liability, but regardless, she was the type to go until she had what she wanted. And in that spirit Nick found the part of her worth saving. He’d signed on when he got into her car that night. He’d signed on for better or worse with an act of kindness. And it would certainly kill him.
He walked slowly through the corn. He saw no crows but felt their curious eyes. Nick grabbed at the stalks he passed, choking and shaking them to life with a sound like television static. But it was about as entertaining as one would expect, and Nick thought about Kimmy and her girl, and her story of the Scarecrow Man. Her life was the Scarecrow Man, it takes and takes, always with a promise to return what it’s borrowed, but it never will. Its promises are addict-honesty, empty words spoken to further its own agenda, despite the sincerity in its eyes.
Nick found Kimmy on the porch before she saw him. She was sitting in the sunshine and dragging her toes in the hard dirt of the worn path leading to the stairs. Her smile was simple and true and it was easy to see her as a child. Then he saw her legs and he hated himself for seeing them, and he saw her growing up against a backdrop of beauty and lust and sin. He wondered how a pretty girl makes sense of the lechery she faces every day, how once-kind eyes turn as they notice what a “fine young woman she’s becoming,” as those eyes find her in the dark, especially in the dark, and turn her into something else, an object to be enjoyed. And she is enjoyed. The curse of every beautiful girl. And add the desire to please, the need to be wanted when you’re not. It’s a fucking tightrope Nick could never know. And he hated that he was looking and wanted her. Except the part of him that loved it.
Kimmy looked up from her shoes.
“How’d you get here?” he said.
“Mama. She and Janie picked me up and we went to McDonald’s.”
“Thought you were on the outs,” Nick said. “Don’t come back and that?”
Kimmy shrugged. “She doesn’t mean it.” She thought about that and laughed. “Maybe she does, but she can’t stick by it. It’s her way. She takes things in, men mostly, but she feeds the crows, takes care of my girl while I can’t.”
Nick looked at the house. The sun was mercifully below the corn and Nick could see the house was dark. No car but his in the drive.
“Where are they now?”
“Gone. For the weekend. I got to get a couple things. Want to come inside?”
“Nah. Just grab whatever it is and we’ll go.”
“I need you to carry it. Just come in and see the place I came from.”
Inside, the trailer smelled of cinnamon and dust. The place was cluttered with country knick-knacks and dolls, hundreds of dolls among old-fashioned butter churns and wooden rocking chairs. Cross-stitch needlework served as art, crowded on tables and other surfaces, framed like family photos. No real people were in any of the frames, only more dolls and country life vistas made of fabric and thread.
Kimmy turned on the lights and the fully mirrored walls of the living room reflected the scene to infinity. Nick followed Kimmy to the small kitchen. She grabbed a can of beer from the refrigerator and handed it to Nick. Then she pulled out a half full container of orange juice and added the remains of a vodka bottle. She swirled the mix and took a drink from the carton.
“C’mon,” she said. “I want to show you something.”
Nick followed her down the dark hall and eyed the photos on the wall. “Where’d they go?” he said as he straightened a photograph of Kimmy.
“Gone to Goshen, Indiana. Annual trip with my aunt. They like the Amish pies.”
Nick followed Kimmy into a small, child’s bedroom, her daughter’s. She took a seat on the unmade bed and patted the place next to her. “Sit.” Nick downed his beer and set the empty can on the white dresser next to a snow globe. Inside the glass sphere was a plastic barn-raising scene with plastic Amish men wearing plastic beards, frozen as they hammered and hoisted.
Nick took a seat and Kimmy leaned forward, reached under the bed and retrieved a photo album. She opened it and started looking through the pages. She didn’t say anything and Nick sat quietly, wishing he had another beer to keep him occupied. He looked over as she flipped through Christmases, summer scenes at a brown lake, birthdays, New Years. She stopped on a photo of a young girl sitting on the knee of a mustached man wearing a Pabst Blue Ribbon hat to match the can in his hand. She lingered.
“Who’s that?” Nick asked. “Your pop?”
“Nope. Uncle Todd. Not really my uncle. Boyfriend of my mom.”
“You guys close?”
“We were. Till I got older.” She left it at that and walked away. Nick remained in the small, crowded living room until she came back from the hall, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him behind her. The doll eyes followed him everywhere.
She led him to a small pink bedroom. The walls were decorated with unicorn posters and drawings of animals, mostly elephants, a few crows on power lines like the ones that ran in front of the house, outside the fields. Kimmy kneeled in the small bed and reached between the mattress and box spring. She retrieved a photo, looked at it for only a few seconds before the emotion was too much. She lay the photo on the bed. It was her, younger, but still the beauty she was holding a boy a little older than her.
Nick asked the only question that came to mind given the company she kept. “Where is he?”
“Prison.” She choked before tamping her sorrow down with a hard sigh. “Way up in Iron Mountain. Been there about seven years.”
She picked up the photo again. She cried softly at first, then she was sobbing. Before Nick could put an arm around her, Kimmy leaned into him, sobbing into his t-shirt.
“It’s okay,” he said.
She recoiled. “It isn’t! It’s shit! All of it is shit! He’s never coming back to me. I loved him! We were going to leave this place and never come back. But look at me, still here! Can’t even take care of my girl!” She shook hard and fell into Nick again. “I got to get her out of this place, Nick! He’s going to put his mitts all over my baby!”
“Who is?” Nick asked.
Kimmy pulled away. “Whoever it is that wants to. And mama’s going to let him because that’s the price you pay to have a man in the house!”
And then she was calm, spent, like a little kid who doesn’t know how tired they are until they collapse. She hugged Nick, and Nick held her and looked around the room. So much pink. Everywhere.
“That’s why I need to get her out, Nick. That’s why.” She ran out of words and Nick held on to her, stroked the tear-dampened hair from her face. She burrowed in deeper and it hit Nick the kind of damage a man can do. And how a girl can grow up seeking out the very thing she should avoid.
“I’m sorry,” she told his chest, her voice muffled, vibrating against him. “I didn’t want this to happen. I just want my baby.” He pulled her tighter and she continued to cry. He felt better than he had in a long time. His own demons could sleep while he was dealing with hers. But even the relief nagged at him. Was it worth it? Leave one hell to vacation in another? And how long until he had to go back home?
TEN
THE BLACK FORD cut through the night. Chad maneuvered the truck in and out of traffic deftly. He was alert, reminded Nick of a cocky pilot out of some 1980s action film, jetting through hostile territory on the way to get the bad guy.
“I’m really looking forward to this, Nick,” Chad said. “I gotta tell you.”
They were alone again, aside from the dogs behind them in the extended cab. Nick had no idea what Chad had planned this evening; the man was nothing if not unpredictable. Nick did know that at the end of the night he could be dog food or he could have a pocket full of cash. Nick figured whatever tone the evening took, the piece would be useful. But despite some ambiguity, there was a crystal clear truth—Chad had taken some sort of shine to him. But then, that shine had also lit up Kimmy bright as the sun.
“Where we going?” Nick asked.
“You’ll see.” Chad stepped on the gas and the truck picked up speed. “Got to step on it. We’re on a timer.”
“Where’s Erik and Russell?”
“Relax with the questions, huh?” Chad said. So Nick did and neither of them spoke until they hit the eastbound I-96 north toward Grand Rapids.
Nick pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, ripped it open and put one in his mouth. Chad held out his hand so Nick coughed up another. “Light me up,” Chad said and Nick did. Then he lit his own and let the cellophane fly free as he cracked open the window.
“I love her. You know that, right?”
“You say so,” Nick said. He kept looking forward, felt Chad trying to size him up again, like the night on the boat.
“There’s honesty in you.” Chad grinned. “Even if it is a bit sarcastic. College does that to people, makes them sarcastic, cynical. Dad told me that. Smacked me sideways the couple times he caught me reading something from the library. Wasn’t too appreciative of education, my old man.”
Nick thought for a moment. “I don’t know. He’s not altogether wrong. The more you know,” Nick took a long drag from his cigarette and tossed it out the window, “the more you know you don’t.”
Chad thought on that one, then gave Nick an appreciative nod. “This. This is why Erik and Russell aren’t with us. I can’t have a conversation like this with them. They got nothing to offer on anything except NASCAR and TV, cartoons mostly. I don’t like that shit, never have.”
Chad changed lanes and took the 196 east. The on-ramp curved sharp and inertia pulled everyone, dogs included, to the left until the road finally straightened. Chad gunned the truck hard down the merge lane, passing a long line of cars before cutting over.
“I’ve always loved that girl. She tell you we grew up together?”
“No. I didn’t know that.”
“She was always a fucking knockout. Even back then.” Chad looked over to Nick. “That was a bad thing to be with her mom. With the men she brought home.”
Nick offered a ‘Hm’ in response. He didn’t particularly care to hear this information. But Chad wanted to talk in a way he hadn’t been able to, it seemed, in a very long time. And Nick was his captive audience.
