Authors: Giorgio Faletti
The motel didn’t live up to the promise of its sign. It was just the usual cheap and nasty kind of place, where everything was strictly utilitarian and lacking in taste. The receptionist, a short, plump, prematurely bald man who made up for the little hair he had left with a big moustache and long sideburns, hadn’t had any visible reaction when asked for a room. Except that he wouldn’t hand over the key until the corporal had put the money down on the desk. He wasn’t sure if this was normal practice or treatment reserved exclusively for him. He didn’t care much, either way.
The room smelled damp, the furniture was nothing special, and the shoddy carpet was stained in several places. The shower he took, hidden from prying eyes behind a plastic curtain, alternated hot and cold unpredictably. The TV set worked intermittently, and he had finally decided to leave it tuned to the local channel, where the images and sound were clearer. They were showing an old episode of
The
Green
Hornet.
Now he was lying naked on the bed with his eyes closed. The words of the two masked heroes, fighting crime with their clothes always immaculate, were a distant hum. He had removed the bedspread and put the sheet over him, so he wouldn’t have to endure the sight of his own body when he opened his eyes again.
He was always tempted to pull the sheet up all the way over his head, like they did with corpses. He had seen so many corpses lying on the ground like that, with bloodstained sheets thrown over them not out of pity, but to spare the survivors a clear vision of what could happen to any of them at any moment. He had seen so many dead people, and now he was one himself even though he was still alive. The war had taught him to kill, had given him permission to kill, and because he wore a uniform he knew nobody would blame him and he didn’t have to feel any guilt. Now all that remained of that uniform was a green cotton jacket at the bottom of a bag.
Without realizing it, the men who had sent him to face the war and its tribal rituals had given him something he’d previously only had the illusion of possessing: freedom.
Including the freedom to kill again.
He smiled at the idea, and lay there for a long time in that bed that had unceremoniously welcomed dozens of bodies. In those sleepless hours he went back in time to when, also at night …
… he had been sleeping soundly, as only young men do after a day’s work. A muffled noise had woken him suddenly, and immediately afterwards the door of the room had burst wide open, and he had felt a draught on his face and seen a light shining straight at him and, through the light, the burnished threat of a gun barrel hovering a few inches from his face. There were shadows behind that light.
One of the shadows had become a voice, harsh and clear.
‘Don’t move, punk, or it’ll be the last thing you do.’
Rough hands had turned him face down on the bed. His arms had been pulled unceremoniously behind his back, and
he had heard the metallic click of the handcuffs. From that moment on, his movements and his life had stopped belonging to him.
‘You’ve been in reformatory. You know all that shit about your rights?’
‘Yes.’
He had breathed that monosyllable with difficulty, his mouth still furry.
‘Then just imagine we read them to you.’
The voice then addressed the other shadow in the room in a commanding tone. ‘Take a look around, Will.’
With his face still pressed to the pillow, he heard the sounds of a search. Drawers being opened and closed, objects falling, the rustle of clothes. The few things he had were being handled expertly, but far from gently.
Finally another voice, with a hint of excitement in it. ‘Well, well, chief, what do we have here?’
He heard footsteps approaching and the pressure on his back lessened. Then four rough hands pulled him up until he was in a sitting position on the bed. In front of his eyes, the light played over a transparent plastic bag full of grass.
‘So, we roll ourselves a little joint from time to time, huh? And maybe we sell this shit, too. Seems to me you’re in big trouble, boy.’
At that moment, the light in the room was switched on. There in front of him was Sheriff Duane Westlake. Behind him, gaunt and spindle legged, with a touch of beard on his pockmarked cheeks, was Will Farland, one of his deputies. The mocking smile on his lips was a joyless grimace that underlined the malicious gleam in his eyes.
He managed to stammer only a few perfunctory words, hating himself for it. ‘That isn’t my stuff.’
The sheriff raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, it isn’t yours. Whose is it then? Is this place magic? Does the tooth fairy bring you marijuana?’
He raised his head and looked at them with a resolute air they both took to be defiance. ‘You put it there yourselves, you bastards.’
The backhander arrived quickly and violently. The sheriff was big and had a heavy hand. It seemed hardly possible that he could be so fast. He felt the sickly-sweet taste of blood in his mouth. And the corrosive taste of anger. Instinctively, he jerked forward, trying to headbutt the sheriff’s stomach. Maybe it was a predictable move, or maybe the sheriff was endowed with an agility unusual for a man of his bulk. He found himself lying on the floor, the frustration of having achieved nothing now adding to his anger.
He heard more words of mockery above him.
‘Our young friend here is hot blooded, Will. He wants to play the hero. Maybe he needs a sedative.’
The two pulled him unceremoniously to his feet. Then, while Farland held him still, the sheriff punched him in the stomach. He fell heavily on the dishevelled bed, feeling he’d never be able to breathe again.
The sheriff addressed his deputy in a patronising tone. ‘Will, are you sure you found everything there was to find?’
‘Maybe not, chief. I’d better take another look at this dump.’
Farland slipped his hand into his jacket and took out an object wrapped in transparent plastic. Not taking his eyes off him, he said to the sheriff, his mocking grin wider than ever, ‘Look what I found, chief. Don’t you think that looks suspicious?’
‘What is it?’
‘At first sight I’d say a knife.’
‘Let me see.’
The sheriff took a pair of leather gloves from his pocket and put them on. Then he took the object his deputy was holding out and started to unwrap it. The rustle of the plastic gradually revealed the gleam of a long knife with a black plastic handle.
‘That’s a fucking sword, Will. Reckon a blade like that could have been used on those two fucking hippies, the other night by the river.’
‘Yeah. Sure could.’
Lying on the bed, he had started to understand. And he had shivered, as if the temperature in the room had suddenly plunged. As far as his voice, still winded by the punch, would let him, he attempted a feeble protest.
He didn’t yet know how pointless that was.
‘It isn’t mine. I’ve never seen it.’
The sheriff looked at him with an expression of ostentatious surprise. ‘Is that so? Then how come it has your prints all over it?’
The two of them approached and turned him over on his stomach. Holding the knife by the blade, the sheriff forced him to grasp the handle. Duane Westlake’s voice was calm as he pronounced sentence.
‘I was wrong just now when I told you you’re in trouble. Fact is, you’re in shit up to your neck, boy.’
A minute or so later, as they dragged him away to their car, he had the distinct feeling that his life, as he had known it up until that moment, was over for good.
‘… of the Vietnam war. The storm continues over the
publication
by the
New
York
Times
of the Pentagon Papers. An
appeal to the Supreme Court is planned, to uphold the injunction to cease publication …’
The imposing voice of news anchorman, Alfred Lindsay, shook him out of the restless lethargy into which he had slipped.
The corporal knew this story.
The Pentagon Papers were the outcome of a thorough investigation into the causes that had led the United States to become involved in Vietnam, an investigation set up by Defence Secretary McNamara and carried out by a group of thirty-six experts, both civilian and military, on the basis of government documents, some dating as far back as the Truman era. Like a rabbit caught in the journalists’ headlights, the Johnson administration had been shown to have consciously lied to the public about the handling of the conflict. A few days earlier the
New
York
Times
,
which had somehow come into possession of the papers, had started publishing them. The consequences had been predictable.
In the end, as always happened, it would just be a battle of words. And words, whether written or spoken, never amounted to very much.
What did these people know about the war? How could they know what it meant to find yourself thousands of miles from home, fighting an invisible and incredibly determined enemy? An enemy nobody had thought would be ready to pay such a high price in return for so little. An enemy everyone in their heart of hearts respected, even though nobody would ever have the guts to admit it.
Even if there were thirty-six thousand experts, civilian or military or whatever, they still wouldn’t understand anything, or make their minds up about anything, because they’d never smelled napalm or Agent Orange. They’d never heard the
tac-tac-tac-tac
of machine gun fire, the muffled sound of a bullet piercing a helmet, the screams of pain of the wounded, which were so loud you ought to be able to hear them in Washington but in fact barely reached the stretcher bearers.
Good
luck
,
Wendell
…
He moved aside the sheet and sat up on the bed.
‘Go fuck yourself, Colonel Lensky. You and your fucking syndromes.’
All that was behind him now.
Chillicothe, Karen, the war, the hospital.
The river was following its course, and only its bank preserved the memory of the water that had passed.
He was twenty-four years old and he didn’t know if what was in store for him could still be called a future. But for some people that word would soon lose all meaning.
Barefoot, he walked to the TV and switched it off. The anchorman’s reassuring face was sucked into the darkness and became a little dot of light in the middle of the screen. Like all illusions, it lasted a few moments before disappearing completely.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take you all the way into town?’
‘No, this is fine. Thanks a lot, Mr Terrance.’
He opened the door. The man at the wheel looked at him with a smile on his tanned face. In the light from the dashboard, he suddenly reminded him of a Don Martin character.
‘I meant thanks a lot, Lukas.’
The man gave him a thumbs-up sign. ‘That’s OK.’
They shook hands. Then the corporal removed his bag from the space behind the seats, got out of the car and closed the door. The voice of the man at the wheel reached him through the open window.
‘Whatever you’re looking for, I hope you find it. Or that it finds you.’
These last words were almost lost in the rumble of the mufflers. In an instant the vehicle in which he had arrived was nothing more than the sound of an engine fading away.
He adjusted his bag on his shoulder and started walking. He felt neither nervousness nor euphoria at this homecoming.
Only determination.
A few hours earlier, in his motel room, he had found an empty shoe box in the closet. The lid bore the trademark of
Famous Flag Shoes, a mail order company. The fact that the box was still there said a lot about the care taken by the motel’s cleaners. He had removed the flaps from the lid and written CHILLICOTHE on the white background in capital letters, going over the word several times with a black
felt-tip
he had in his bag. He had gone down to reception with the bag on his shoulder and the sign in his hand. Behind the desk, a nondescript girl with thin arms and long straight hair and a red headband had replaced the man with the moustache and sideburns. When he had approached her to give back the key, the spaced-out Flower Power look had drained from her face and she had stared at him with a hint of fear in her dark eyes. As if he was coming towards her with the intention of attacking her. He was starting to come to terms with this attitude. And he suspected it was a judgement that would never be challenged.
Here
it
is
,
colonel
,
here
’
s
my
luck
…
For a moment, he’d been tempted to scare her to death, to pay her back for that revulsion, that instinctive suspicion she had felt for him. But this wasn’t the time or the place to go looking for trouble.
With ostentatious gentleness, he had put the key down on the glass desktop. ‘Here’s the key. The room was disgusting.’
His calm voice, combined with his words, had startled the girl. She had looked at him in alarm.
Die
,
bitch
.
‘I’m sorry.’
He had shaken his head imperceptibly and stared at her, letting her imagine his eyes behind his dark glasses. ‘Don’t say that. We both know you don’t give a shit.’
He had turned his back on her and left the motel.
Beyond the glass-fronted door was the little square. On his
right was the service station with the orange and blue Gulf sign. A couple of cars were waiting to go into the car wash, and the pumps were busy enough to arouse hope that he’d get a ride before too long. He had walked towards the diner, over the door of which was a sign presenting it to the world as the Florence Bowl and offering home cooking and all-day breakfast.
He had slipped past the advertisements for Canada Dry and Tab and Bubble Up, and had taken up a position at the exit from the service area, so that he was clearly visible both by the cars leaving the parking lot and by those leaving the pumps after filling up.
He had thrown his bag on the ground, sat down on it, and held out his arm, trying to make sure that it was as
conspicuous
as possible.
And he had waited.
A few cars had slowed down. One had actually stopped, but when he had stood up to go and the driver had seen his face, he had set off again as if he had seen the devil.
He was still sitting on the bag, holding out his pathetic sign, when a man’s shadow fell on the asphalt in front of him. He had looked up to see a guy wearing black coveralls with red inserts. On his chest and his sleeves, he had a sponsor’s colourful trademark.
‘You think you’re going to get all the way to Chillicothe?’
He had attempted a smile. ‘If things carry on like this, I guess not.’
The man was tall, about forty, with a slender build and a ginger beard and hair. He had looked at him a moment, then lowered his voice, as if to downplay what he was about to say.
‘I don’t know who messed you up that way and it’s none of my business. I’m going to ask you one thing. And if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll know it.’
He had allowed himself a pause. To weigh his words. Or maybe to give them more weight.
‘Are you in trouble with the law?’
He had taken off his cap and sunglasses and looked at him. ‘No, sir.’
In spite of himself, the tone of that ‘No, sir’ had identified him beyond any doubt.
‘Are you a soldier?’
His expression was confirmation enough. The word Vietnam wasn’t spoken, but hovered in the air.
‘Drafted?’
He had shaken his head. ‘Volunteer.’
Instinctively, he had bowed his head as he uttered this word, almost as if it was something to feel guilty about. And he had immediately regretted it. He had looked up again and looked the other man full in the eyes.
‘What’s your name, boy?’
The question had caught him off guard.
Noticing his hesitation, the man had shrugged his shoulders. ‘One name’s as good as another. It’s only so I know what to call you. I’m Lukas Terrance.’
He had stood up and shook the hand the man held out to him. ‘Wendell Johnson.’
Lukas Terrance had not shown any surprise at the cotton gloves. He had nodded towards a large black and red pick-up. It was standing by a pump behind them, and a attendant was filling it up. Attached to the back of it was a tow-cart carrying a single-seater car for dirt track races. It was a strange vehicle, with open wheels and a driving compartment that looked as if it could barely contain even one man. He had once seen a similar one on the cover of
Hot
Rod
magazine.
Terrance had explained his situation.
‘I’m going north, to the Mid-Ohio Speedway near Cleveland. Chillicothe isn’t really on my way, but I guess I can make a little detour. If you don’t mind travelling slowly and without air conditioning, I’d be happy to give you a ride.’
He had responded to the offer with a question. ‘Are you a racing driver, Mr Terrance?’
The man had started laughing. On his tanned face, a spider’s web of lines had formed at the sides of his eyes. ‘Oh, no. I’m only a kind of handyman. Jack of all trades. Mechanic, chauffeur, cook.’
He had made a gesture with his hands, a gesture that seemed to say: That’s life.
‘Jason Bridges, my driver, is travelling all nice and cosy on a plane right now. We mechanics do the work, the drivers get the glory. Though to be honest, there isn’t all that much glory. As a driver he’s crap. But he keeps going. That’s how it is, when you have a father with a fat wallet. Money can buy you cars; it can’t buy you balls.’
The attendant had finished filling up the pick-up and turned around to look for the driver. When he spotted him, he had gestured eloquently towards the line of waiting cars. Terrance had clapped his hands, as if to bring their conversation to a conclusion.
‘OK, shall we go? If the answer’s yes, from now on you can call me Lukas.’
The corporal had picked up the bag from the ground and followed him.
The driver’s cab was a chaos of road maps, crossword magazines and issues of
Mad
and
Playboy.
Terrance had made space for him on the passenger seat by shifting a packet of Oreos and an empty can of Wink.
‘Sorry about the mess. We don’t get many passengers in this old wreck.’
He had calmly left the service station behind him, and then Florence, and finally Kentucky. Soon, those days and those places would be only memories. The good ones, the real ones, the ones that would stay with him all his life, like cats to be taken on his lap and stroked, those he was about to create for himself.
It had been a pleasant journey.
He had listened to Terrance’s anecdotes about the racing world and especially about the driver he worked for. Terrance was a good man, a bachelor, practically without fixed abode, who had always been involved with races, though never the really important ones like NASCAR or the Indy. He mentioned the names of famous drivers, people like Richard Petty or Parnelli Jones or A. J. Foyt, as if he knew them personally. Maybe he did. Anyhow, he seemed to enjoy thinking he did, and they were both fine with that.
Not even once had he mentioned the war. Once over the state line, the pick-up with its racing pod in tow, had taken Route 50, which led straight to Chillicothe. Sitting on his seat with the window open, listening to Terrance’s stories, he had seen the sunset, with that tenacious, persistent luminosity typical of summer evenings. All at once, the places had become familiar, until at last a sign appeared saying
Welcome
to
Ross
County.
He was home.
Or rather, he was where he wanted to be.
A couple of miles after Slate Mills, he had asked his surprised companion to stop. He had left him to his bewilderment and the rest of his journey, and now he was walking like a ghost in open country. Only the lights of a
group of houses in the distance, which on the maps went by the name of North Folk Village, showed him the way. And every step seemed much more tiring than any he had trodden in the mud of Nam.
He finally reached what had been his goal ever since he had left Louisiana. Just under a mile from the village, he turned left onto a dirt path and after a few hundred yards came to a building surrounded by a metal fence. In the back there was an open space lit by three lampposts where, between stacks of tubes for scaffolding, an eight-wheel tow truck, a Volkswagen van and a Mountaineer dump truck with a snow shovel were parked.
This was where he’d lived. And it would be his base for the last night he would ever spend there.
There was no light inside the building.
Before continuing, he made sure there was nobody around. Then he moved forward, following the fence on his right until he reached the side that was more shadowy. He came to a clump of bushes that hid him from view. He put his bag down and took out a pair of wirecutters he had bought in a general store. He cut the fence just enough to allow him to enter. He imagined the sturdy figure of Ben Shepard standing in front of that breach, heard the sibilant voice he remembered lambasting
‘those
fucking
sons
of
bitches
who
don
’
t
respect
other
people
’
s
property
’.
As soon as he was inside, he headed straight for a small iron door, next to a blue-painted sliding door that allowed access to vehicles. Above it was a big white sign with blue lettering, telling anyone who was interested that these were the premises of
Ben
Shepard
–
Demolition
Renovation
Construction.
He didn’t have a key any more, but he knew where his former employer kept a spare one.
He opened the glass door that protected the fire
extinguisher
. Just behind the extinguisher itself was the key he was looking for. With a smile on his tortured lips, he took it out and went and opened the door. It slid inwards without squeaking.
One step and he was inside.
The small amount of light coming in from outside, through the high windows on all four sides, revealed a space full of tools and machinery. Hard hats, coveralls hanging on hooks, two cement mixers of differing capacities. On his left, a long counter filled with tools for use with wood and iron.
The damp heat and the semi-darkness were familiar to him, as were the smells. Iron, cement, wood, lime, plasterboard, lubricant. The vague odour of sweaty bodies from the hanging coveralls. But the taste he had in his mouth was completely new. It was the sour taste of enforced separation, a sudden awareness of all that had been taken away from him. Everyday life, affection, love. The little of it that he had known when Karen had taught him what truly deserved that name.
He advanced in the semi-darkness, taking care where he put his feet, towards the door on the right-hand side. Making an effort not to think about the fact that this place full of rough surfaces and sharp corners had meant everything to him.
Beyond that doorway, clinging to the wall of the building like a mollusc to a rock, there was one large room with a single window protected by an iron grille. A kitchen area and a bathroom on opposite sides completed the layout of his old home.
He reached the door and pushed it.
And stood there, open mouthed in surprise.
Here the shapes were more distinct. The light through the window from the lampposts in the parking lot sent almost all the shadows scuttling into the corners.
The room was perfectly tidy, as if he had left it hours rather than years before. No dust hung in the air, and it was obvious that it had been cleaned often and carefully. Only the bed was covered with a sheet of transparent plastic.
He was about to take another step into his old home when he suddenly felt something knock against him and slide quickly between his legs. Immediately afterwards, a dark shape jumped on the bed, making the plastic rustle.
He closed the door, went to the night table and lit the bedside lamp. In the dim light, the nose of a big black cat emerged, and two huge green eyes looking at him.
‘Waltz. Holy Christ, you’re still here.’
Without any fear the animal approached, walking slightly lopsidedly, and sniffed him. He reached out his hand to grab it and it let itself be picked up. He sat down on the bed and pulled it on to his knees. He started to scratch it gently under the chin, and the cat immediately started purring, as he knew it would.
‘You still like that, huh? You’re still as much of an old softie as ever.’