This Dark Road to Mercy: A Novel (7 page)

“Then why are you here?” he asked.

“Just need to know if you’ve seen him.”

“I haven’t seen you in years and years, and suddenly you show up asking questions about Wade Chesterfield because you want to know if I’ve seen him?”

“That’s right.”

“I ain’t stupid, Pruitt,” he said.

“Well, then this is a pointless conversation, isn’t it?”

Phrate sat there staring at the television until the commercials were over and the game was back on. The camera followed Sosa as he trotted out to right field to begin the inning. Phrate looked over at me. “You still got your bag of tricks?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“Because I might be a whole lot more interested in talking about ol’ Wade if you do.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Vicodin, Oxy, Flexeril—anything that might take the edge off.”

“Might be some Dilaudid in the truck.”

“A dose of that, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Phrate said he hadn’t seen Wade Chesterfield in a couple years, but the last he’d heard he’d gone clean, gotten a good job. “I think that girl he was with had a couple of kids,” he said. “But Wade wasn’t no kind of daddy to them.”

“Boys or girls?”

“Girls,” he said. “One of them was named something like Sunday or Wednesday or a holiday or something. Might’ve been Easter.”

“Easter?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was Easter. It was definitely Easter.”

“What about the other one?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I heard their mama OD’d on something a few months ago.”

“Who told you that?”

“We’re just talking about Wade here, man.”

“Anything else?”

“His real name ain’t Chesterfield,” he said, smiling. “It’s Chessman.”

“Why’d he change it?

“Come on, man,” Phrate said, laughing. “Why do you think he changed it? You ever hear of a Jew ballplayer?”

“Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, Erskine Mayer.”

“Well, maybe Wade wasn’t a fan of them.”

“Any other family in the area?”

“Not that I know of.” He was quiet for a minute, like he’d said everything he’d ever known about Wade Chesterfield. Then he raised his eyebrows. “So, back to our deal.”

My doctor’s kit was hidden under a gym bag in the floorboard behind the passenger’s seat of the truck. Phrate’s eyes lit up when he saw me carrying it back to the table.

“Where do you want to do this?”

“Hell, man,” he said. “Right here’s fine. It don’t matter.” The trailer to my right had its blinds closed tight, and there was no car parked in front of it.

Syringes and multidose vials lined the inside of the kit. I slipped on my batting gloves before popping the cap off a syringe and plunging the needle into a vial and drawing out 10 ccs.

“Your gloves sterile?” Phrate asked. His laugh sounded nervous.

“They’re sterile enough.”

Phrate put his cigarette between his lips and stood up and untucked his shirt. Then he undid his belt and dropped his pants a few inches and turned around. The needle sunk into the fatty upper muscle of his right glute just like it had a thousand times before. He winced a little when it went in. “That brings back memories,” he said, his eyes already turning glassy. As soon as the needle was out he lowered himself down into his chair, the cigarette still burning between his lips. “Damn,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to feel it so—” The muscles in his face relaxed and the cigarette fell from his mouth and landed in his lap. “Damn,” he whispered. My gloved hand picked up the cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. Phrate’s eyes closed and his head lolled back, his body already limp in the chair.

Easter Quillby

C H A P T E R   7

I
’d spent Sunday afternoon sitting on the floor in the TV room, watching the Cubs play the Rockies and making a card for Marcus. After Sammy had hit number fifty-four in the first inning, I’d drawn a picture of him waiting on a pitch on the front of Marcus’s card, and I’d put a little 54 up in the corner of the picture, and then I’d drawn a little heart around it and used Magic Markers to color it all in. I’d never thought of myself as much of an artist, but that picture surprised me by how good it looked; part of me hated to give it away, but I hoped Marcus would like it. On the inside of the card I’d written,
I’m sorry. Can we talk tonight?
and I’d signed it
Love, Easter, your girlfriend (I hope!).
McGwire hit number fifty-five that night against the Braves, but he did it late in the seventh inning, and I’d already gone to bed.

On Monday morning, just before we left for school, I’d taped up the card inside an envelope and given it to a boy named Damon because he was in Marcus’s class.

“What is it?” he’d asked.

“It’s for Marcus,” I’d said. “Don’t read it.”

“Y’all like each other?”

“No,” I’d said, but then I caught myself and remembered why Marcus had gotten mad at me in the first place. “I mean, ‘I don’t know.’ Just give it to him—please.”

I was on pins and needles all day, and it didn’t help that it was my week to wipe down my class’s tables after lunch in the cafeteria. They called it being a “table helper,” but all you really did was fish a stinky, old rag out of a bucket of soapy brown water and wipe down the table after the class was finished eating. The kids in your class lined up against the wall and waited on you to finish, some of them just standing there staring at you. I hated to have all of them look at me while I cleaned those tables, but I hated the pukey smell the brown water left on your hands even more. When it was your turn, a copy of your school picture always hung on the bulletin board in the cafeteria, but somebody’d come along and taken mine down. I asked Mrs. Davis where it could’ve gone, and she just shrugged her shoulders and said she’d find another one to put back up.

But I’d forgotten all about the smell of those rags and my missing picture by the time school was over, and when Mrs. Davis took us out to the playground I couldn’t think about nothing else except finding Damon. I had to wait for the kickball game to start before I could ask him anything. He was kicking second behind Selena, and I walked up to him where he stood against the fence, waiting his turn.

“Did you give Marcus my note?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “I told you I would, didn’t I?”

“What’d he say?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Did he open it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess so.” Selena popped it up, and it dropped just behind second. She made it to first. Damon walked toward the plate; I grabbed his arm.

“But he didn’t say anything?” I asked.

“I already told you ‘no,’ ” he said. “Stop bothering me. Dang.”

There were already two down when I got thrown out at first after grounding it back to the pitcher. And then, halfway through the bottom of the inning, Selena made me leave my spot at short after I missed two pop-ups back-to-back. They put me out in right field because they said my head wasn’t in the game. I told them I was fine, but I knew they were right. Still, it’s embarrassing to be put out in right once you get used to playing shortstop.

I stood out there with the sun beating down against my back, knowing that nobody was going to kick it out to right field because none of them was left-footed, and even if they were they couldn’t kick it this far anyway. But being out there gave me plenty of time to think, which is exactly what I needed to do. I thought about what I’d heard Miss Crawford say to Wade last Saturday morning about how she’d been talking with our grandparents and that she couldn’t make any promises about whether or not we’d be moving to Alaska. And then I thought about all the questions Marcus had asked me about our grandparents, about Wade.

Damon was playing first, hunched over with his hands on his knees in the “ready” position. I prayed that he’d really given that note to Marcus. What had Marcus thought when he’d opened it? Had he liked the picture I’d drawn of Sosa? Would I hear him knock on my window later that night? I needed to talk to him bad, not just about us, but about me and Ruby and about what I’d heard Miss Crawford say. I’d even talk to him about Wade if there was anything he still wanted to know.

I’d half expected Wade to show up at the field again one day after school, but he hadn’t. I looked at the fence where he’d been leaning against it, and something caught my eye: a man stood off in the woods, just staring at me. He wore black sunglasses and a black baseball hat that looked brand new. A thick gold chain hung around his neck, and he wore a black tank top too. But the thing that stood out most about him was his arms; they were huge. He walked toward the fence once he realized that I’d seen him, but he stopped before he got too close, and I knew it was because he didn’t want nobody else to know he was out there.

“Come here for a second,” he said. His voice was scary and high-pitched like a woman’s, and it seemed like his tongue was too big for his mouth. “I need to ask you something.”

I didn’t move. “What?”

He didn’t say anything, and I knew he was hoping that I’d walk over toward the fence. “Is your name Easter Quillby?” he finally said.

“No, that’s not my name.”

He looked at a piece of paper he held in his hand, and then turned it around so I could see it too; it was the picture of me that had been hanging in the cafeteria. He smiled and took off his sunglasses. His left eye was closed, and the skin around it sagged down the side of his face. “Yes it is,” he said. “And your daddy’s name is Wade Chesterfield.”

“I ain’t got a daddy,” I said, staring at his eye, knowing that he’d shown it to me just so I’d be scared.

“Yes you do,” he said, smiling again. “And he’s in trouble.”

“You’d better get away from here,” I said. “I’ll scream for my teacher.”

“No you won’t.” He put his sunglasses back on and just stood there staring at me for a second, and then he turned real slow and walked off into the trees. The branches closed around him and he disappeared, and after a second I wondered if I’d seen him at all.

When the inning was over I told everybody that I didn’t feel good, and I took Ruby and went up the hill to the playground and sat on the swings so we’d be near Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Hannah. I didn’t say anything to them about the man I’d seen because I didn’t want them sending us somewhere else before I had the chance to talk to Marcus and figure out how me and Ruby were going to keep from going to Alaska. She swung back and forth while I just sat there beside her, thinking about asking her if she’d seen anything weird: any strange people out in the woods, anything that stood out. But I didn’t want to worry her, so I kept my mouth shut. I was terrified, though, and I sat in that swing and stared out over the woods, wondering where he’d gone and hoping he wouldn’t come back.

It wasn’t a new thing for people to come around looking for Wade. There had been plenty of times when me and Ruby were playing out in the yard and somebody’s car would stop and they’d roll down the window and say, “Y’all seen your daddy?,” or something like that. There had been plenty of times when I woke up in the middle of the night with headlights shining bright on the wall of our bedroom and the sound of somebody banging on the front door, screaming for Wade. Mom would get up cursing at herself and go out to the front room and yell at whoever it was that Wade wasn’t home and didn’t even live there anymore.

But something about this time felt different; nobody’d ever come to find us at school before, and nobody’d ever talked so quiet or stood so still when they asked about Wade. And not a single one of them had ever known my name.

That night, after dinner, most of the kids hung out in the TV room and watched the Cubs play the Reds. My bedroom door was closed, but I could hear them cheer every time Sosa came up to bat. Ruby hung out in the computer room and played Oregon Trail. She liked it just as much as I did. I didn’t leave our room after dinner except to get ready for bed; I didn’t feel like being around anybody because I had too much on my mind. My bed was covered in homework I hadn’t finished, but I couldn’t stop worrying about whether or not Marcus would come over, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the man I’d seen out in the woods. His voice wouldn’t leave my head.

Ruby opened the door and walked into the bedroom just as I was closing my math book after finishing some division problems that were due the next day. She kicked off her shoes and pulled down her covers.

“How’d you do?” I asked.

“Okay,” she said. “I didn’t make it all the way, though. And you died of cholera.”

“Great,” I said. I slipped my homework into my book bag, climbed off my bed, and dropped the bag by the door. “Are you sure you didn’t have any homework?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said.

“Well, then I guess we should get ready for bed.”

We took turns brushing our teeth in the bathroom across the hall, and then we got into bed; I turned out the light on the table between us. Miss Crawford opened our door a few minutes later and told us good night. I was still hoping that Marcus would come, and I didn’t plan on going to sleep, but the next thing I remember is Ruby whispering my name.

“What?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t it be fun?”

“What?” I asked again.

“Going on a trip,” she said. “Just me and you, just like on Oregon Trail.”

“It would,” I said. “Go to sleep.”

But I must not have slept too soundly because my eyes popped right open when I heard him at the window. I looked over at the clock on the table; it was just a little after one in the morning. I kicked the sheets off me as quick as I could so that he wouldn’t tap again and wake up Ruby. I crawled down to the end of my bed and unlocked the window and slid it open. I sat back and waited.

I heard Marcus put the toe of his shoe against the outside of the house to start climbing up, but when a pair of hands came in and grabbed on to the windowsill I realized they weren’t his. The hands were white, and they had hair on the backs of them and little tufts of it above the knuckles. I knew the minute I saw them that they were man’s hands, and I was too surprised and scared to do anything except watch as they helped whoever it was climb up through the window and into our bedroom. I looked over at Ruby and saw that she was awake and sitting up in bed. She had the covers pulled up around her, and she sat there and stared at those hands too.