First the Thunder Read online

  Molly was sleeping soundly when Laci looked in on her. Will was asleep in their bedroom, spread-eagle atop the covers, wearing only his boxers. He mumbled as he slept, his fingers twitching. Laci went to the kitchen and took a cold bottle of beer out of the refrigerator and sat on the sofa and stared at the black screen of the TV.

  The mobile home where the child had been found was a pigpen. A skillet full of cold, dried-out spaghetti and sauce on the stove. The sink full of dirty dishes. A half-gallon plastic jug of milk, a quarter full and soured, on the sticky counter. The trash can overflowing with dirty diapers. The child, when the officer discovered her, sat huddled behind a safety gate in a closet, her bed of filthy blankets soiled with urine and fragments of potato chips, a dirty gray cat huddled up close to the gate like a loyal but useless sentry.

  The stink of the place was still with Laci, still in her nostrils with every breath. She needed a shower. A hosing down. But was too exhausted at the moment to move. First she would finish the beer.

  Jesus, how she hated this life. Not specifically her life with Will and Molly but this human life of struggle and misery. What kind of psychopathic god would create such a place?

  Again she thought of two people dead, horribly burned. The fire had erupted between them and the garage doors. How long had they screamed and clawed at the walls before they fell to the ground? How long had they raced back and forth in their shrinking space before their skin began to tighten from the heat, the fine hairs on their arms curling, eyeballs stinging, lungs filling with toxic smoke? And in their wake, how many dozens of addicted individuals had they left behind? Plus the little girl. Wholly innocent. Yet the one who would suffer most in the years ahead.

  And that was when she started crying, sobbing, her body shaking. She huddled into a ball and pulled her shirt over her mouth so that no one would hear.

  37

  A few minutes before seven the next morning, Sunday, while most people were sleeping in or making their groggy ablutions prior to having their souls scalded clean by a fire-and-brimstone sermon, Harvey, standing barefoot in his dew-wet yard, wearing old cargo shorts and a sleeveless black T-shirt, stared down the empty street. He could not remember why he had stepped out into his yard. Behind him, the house was quiet, Jennalee still sound asleep.

  A few hours earlier he had awakened with a rock-hard erection and a need to touch his wife, so he had rolled against her, run his hand down her naked back and over a hip, then let his hand slide across her buttock and between her legs. “Mmm,” she had said, but nothing more. His hand moved gently until she grew wet, and then he slid up tight against her and slipped inside, thinking This is all we have left as his body rocked harder and harder against her. His orgasm came fast and hard and there was something jagged about it as it pulsed out of him, yet he held her tightly afterward, fighting back the need for additional expiation, a need to weep or cry out in pain, until she moved her hand to pat the top of his hip. Then he rolled away and gazed deep into the darkness as it hovered above them.

  He remembered all that but he could not remember why he had come outside, and now stood gazing into the distance, truck key in hand.

  His testicles ached. He slipped his free hand down his shorts, squeezed his balls, pulled them away from his body but could not release the ache.

  He turned and walked to the front of the garage, punched in the four-letter code on the door opener, JLEE, and watched the door slide up. Then he went to his truck and climbed in behind the wheel. The cab was cooler than the morning, but its air not as fresh, the light dim and uninspiring.

  Where to? he asked himself. Then he remembered the text last night from Will. He put the key in the ignition, turned it to the right but did not start the engine. Told his OnStar system, “Text Will. Sheetz for coffee. Meet there.”

  He sat waiting, finger and thumb still holding the ignition key. He was ready to turn the key to the left, lean back and close his eyes, when the reply appeared on the screen, and a female machine voice said, “New text message from Will. On my way.”

  Harvey started the truck, pulled out onto the driveway, forgot to hit the remote to close the garage door, and drove away. Everything he looked at along the street appeared somehow peculiar to him, familiar but changed in a way he could not discern, as if the colors were slightly off, as before a damaging thunderstorm, when a pale wash of yellow paints everything with a kind of dread tinged with excitement. But the sky was not overcast, no heavy dark clouds, only blue firmament and golden light. Yet something was different. Maybe it was the muscle twitching in his bare foot on the accelerator. Maybe the way his balls ached. Or the seat belt signal beeping its warning.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said.

  38

  Will pulled up alongside Harvey’s truck and saw him sitting alone at one of the red patio tables, bare feet on the dirty concrete. Will climbed out and approached him and said, “Where are your shoes?”

  “You mind getting the coffee?” Harvey said. “I forgot my wallet.”

  Will looked at his brother for a moment, then turned and went inside. When he returned to the table four minutes later, Harvey was sitting in exactly the same position as before, hunched forward with his elbows on his thighs, hands clasped between his knees. Will nudged him on the shoulder and handed him the cardboard cup of coffee. Then sat next to him.

  “You look a little out of it,” Will said.

  “Didn’t get much sleep last night. Or did but . . . I don’t know. Not the good kind.”

  Will nodded. Took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know why they have to make it so damn hot.”

  “It’s always hot this time of year. Dog days. That’s what Mom used to call them.”

  Will considered telling Harvey he had been referring to the coffee, not the weather, but decided to let it go. Obviously Harvey had other things on his mind. “Dog days,” Will repeated. “Why do you think they’re called that?”

  “I always thought it was when dogs go crazy with the heat. Like in that song ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen.’”

  “That was an album, wasn’t it?” Will asked. “Not a single. A Joe Cocker album.”

  “I thought it was a single,” Harvey said.

  They sipped their coffee, said nothing for half a minute.

  “Rabies,” Will finally said. “The time of year when dogs get rabies.”

  “Okay,” Harvey said. He drank his coffee in quick little sips, three or four in a row, then a pause. He said, his voice flat, Will thought, almost robotic, “What’s the idea?”

  Will glanced around to see if anybody was close enough to hear their conversation. A guy in a white SUV and a young woman in a red compact were at the pumps. The other tables were empty. Only then did Will become aware of music oozing from speakers somewhere. He thought it sounded like a Fleetwood Mac song.

  Traffic was light out on the street. The whole scene felt odd to Will, like a scene from a movie, the camera focused on him and Harvey. He wondered if the convenience store’s security cameras could pick up their conversation.

  He leaned across the table and asked, in a voice barely loud enough for his brother to hear, “You still set on doing this thing?”

  “Depends on which thing you’re talking about,” Harvey said.

  Will brought his coffee up from between his legs and set it on the table, but held the cup in both hands, and leaned over it as he spoke. “You said you wanted him out of town. Out of your life.”

  “That hasn’t changed,” Harvey said.

  “So what’s the worst thing a guy in his position could do?” Will asked. “Something to make the whole town want rid of him?”

  Harvey looked off into the distance for a moment, his body very still, as if he might be watching a bird soaring off, watching something beautiful fly away from him. Then his body sagged a little and he said, “I’m too tired for guessing games.”

  “Kiddie porn,” Will said. “But instead of me just starting a rumor about it, we plant the porn on h
is office computer.”

  Harvey was still for a moment, then he turned just his head toward Will. “How are we supposed to do that?”

  “We’re going to have to break in. I have Stevie working on getting some DVDs. We get into the school, load the stuff onto Kenny’s computer.”

  “What if the computer is locked?” Harvey asked. “Needs a password we don’t know.”

  “I guess in that case we just leave the DVDs in his desk.”

  “So he sits down at his desk Monday morning, sees the DVDs, and tosses them in the incinerator. Good plan, Will. Foolproof.” He turned away and looked at the tabletop, the braided mesh of thick strands of metal, the smooth coat of plasticized red paint.

  “Don’t worry,” Will said. “Stevie’s good with computers. He’ll get the shit loaded. Because that’s school property, see? It makes everything that much worse for Kenny.”

  Harvey sat motionless but for his head going back and forth. Then he said, “Let’s stick with the plan to start a rumor. Get people talking.”

  “So what if people talk?” Will asked. “What does that accomplish?”

  “Your plan’s no better.”

  “I’m not done yet,” Will said. “We mess the place up, trash it like a bunch of kids would do, and on our way out we set off the alarm. The police are first on the scene. They find the DVDs before Kenny even gets there.”

  Harvey listened while running a finger along the tabletop pattern, in and out of the triangular holes. “I don’t see it,” he finally said. “What’s to guarantee the police even find them? Why would they turn on the computer in the first place?”

  “So we ransack the place. Pull out all the drawers. Leave the DVDs in plain sight in one of the drawers.”

  Harvey shook his head. “And our Keystone Cops are going to be bright enough to know what they’re looking at?”

  “I told Stevie to get some magazines too if he can. Something eye-catching.”

  Harvey leaned back in his seat. Looked out at the street. Watched a couple vehicles go by.

  “Well?” his brother asked.

  “It’s a stupid idea.”

  “Then let me hear a better one.”

  A full minute passed before Harvey spoke. “What the fuck,” he said.

  “And that means?”

  “It means fine. It either works or it doesn’t. When are we doing it?”

  “I say tonight. Figure we could meet at eleven. That old house of Earl Bigley’s has been sitting empty since last winter. Plus there are no streetlights there. We meet behind his house, then walk across the practice field to the rear of the school.”

  “You want me to bring anything?”

  “Stevie said there’s no security cameras on that side of the building, but I figure we better wear ski masks and gloves anyway. Wear dark clothes.”

  “And how are we supposed to get inside without setting off the alarms?”

  “Stevie said he has that covered.”

  “Stevie does.”

  “He’s done some work there more than a few times, Harv. The tar and gravel roof this past spring. Helped refinish the basketball court a couple summers ago. Says he’s the go-to guy whenever the maintenance supervisor needs an extra hand.”

  “Jack of all trades,” Harvey said.

  Will waited a few moments, then said, “Just meet us at eleven. Behind Bigley’s place. I’ll walk over; Stevie will bring the stuff we need. You want him to swing by and pick you up?”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Harvey said.

  Now Will leaned back in his seat. Drank off the rest of his coffee while he watched a young mother fill her tank. As she did so, she leaned close to the rear window and made baby talk through the glass. Wouldn’t it be funny, he thought, if there’s no baby inside? Just some crazy girl talking like there is.

  And there was something about the harmless banality of his situation—of sitting there outside a convenience store with an empty coffee cup and smiling as he imagined a movie scene—that reminded him suddenly that his life was not a movie, and that plotting to destroy a man’s life did not come without possible consequences. They could all get arrested. Their own reputations destroyed. Families ripped asunder.

  A wave of dizziness swept through him then, and his field of vision shrank and darkened, and he thought he might pass out. To keep himself from falling he pressed a hand to the mesh tabletop and stuck three fingers through the holes.

  When, half a minute later, his vision cleared and the dizziness passed, his first thought was of how quiet the morning was, and how still. No music from the store’s speakers, no soundtrack. No actors rehearsing their lines. No chance for a second take.

  39

  Eleven hours later Harvey ladled a plateful of pot roast out of the pressure cooker but didn’t really want any of it. He’d had no appetite all day long, couldn’t remember the last time he’d paid enough attention to a meal to actually enjoy it.

  Before lifting the lid off the pressure cooker he looked again at the note Jennalee had left on his plate.

  Taking Mom to the mall. See you around 9. Love you.

  And again he told himself that she had been at the mall yesterday. Spent half the day there. Came home with two pairs of shoes. Two pairs for half a fucking day.

  Now he sat in his chair in the living room, faced the TV, the plate balanced on his knees. He stared at his reflection for a while in the blackened screen.

  The room was too warm and he considered climbing out of his chair to turn the air conditioner’s thermostat lower. But Jennalee liked to keep it set at seventy-two. She liked to sleep without a blanket, with only the slowly throbbing ceiling fan to stir the air. That was why, when they were married, he had the central air-conditioning installed, because she promised to sleep naked and uncovered every night, as natural as an animal in its burrow, as long as the house wasn’t too warm or too cold. But the nakedness, he soon discovered, was an exaggeration. From the very beginning she wore lingerie to bed.

  Another deceit, he told himself. He felt them accumulating all around him, stacking up in the corners. One of these days they were going to crush him to death.

  Around ten-thirty that night, Jennalee’s entrance into the kitchen woke him out of a dream of hunting, a dream in which he had gotten separated from his father and brothers in the oak woods. He was awakened by a click that, in his dream, was the snapping of a twig, followed by the sound of something crashing toward him from behind. He awoke with a start, looked around, momentarily disoriented. Then he saw the kitchen light on, heard Jennalee tearing off a strip of cellophane to stretch over the leftover pot roast, sliding the bowl into the refrigerator. He closed his eyes again before she came into the living room, didn’t want to talk just yet, wanted the smell of the woods awhile longer.

  Jennalee stood there looking down at him. Then, before she made her way upstairs, she spread an afghan across him, a knitted blanket of a dozen bright colors, one of many her grandmother had made. It was an act of tenderness that almost brought his eyes open, almost caused him to look up at her and smile, except that he recognized other scents now too, the odors of food from another house, wine on her breath, and a vague, fleeting fragrance he could identify only as neither his nor her own.

  Upstairs she showered and brushed her teeth, changed into satiny panties and a matching teddy, turned on the ceiling fan, climbed into bed, turned on the TV. He followed her through the sounds she made, envisioned her careful movements, always so feminine and precise. He felt something like hunger in his belly but maybe it was the nausea again, that strange hollow hunger that earlier in the evening had made him afraid to eat anything.

  At ten forty-five he mounted the stairs as quietly as he could, wincing with each creaking step. He peeked around the doorjamb, saw her asleep, curled on her side, her back to the flickering images on the screen. The ceiling fan made a barely audible thumping sound as it spun. By the time he turned away from her, his arms were pimpled with goose bumps.

>   Downstairs he recovered the black khakis and black T-shirt he had stowed in the hall closet, changed into them and left his other clothes on the closet shelf. Then he wrote a note on the pad Jennalee used for her grocery lists:

  Went over to Will’s for a beer or two.

  He knew that even if she woke up and wandered downstairs, she would not call to check on him. She never questioned his whereabouts.

  Outside, Harvey walked at a pace he recognized as too slow to get him to the Bigley house on time, but the heaviness in his legs and the emptiness in his stomach and the steam-room heat of the night all worked to weaken him further, conspiring with the stifling darkness to weigh him down. Most of the houses he passed were already dark, though here and there a window dully glowed with the pale light from a flickering screen. He remembered that when he was a boy on a night like this the streets would be full of people. Kids chasing fireflies or playing kick the can. Adults scraping back and forth on their porch swings and gliders. Old folks rocking. These days everybody stayed inside breathing air blown out of a box while they stared at another box until narcotized enough to sleep.

  Eventually he came to the right street and walked as silently as he could to the empty Bigley house two blocks away. He had known old man Bigley and his emaciated wife, who had died five years before her husband, but, for as long as Harvey could remember, both had seemed ancient, withered and frail. Harvey as a boy had mowed their lawn now and then, five dollars an hour. Will and Stevie had done the same, each brother taking over for the one before him.

  Harvey stepped into the yard and felt the weeds brushing against his trousers. Apparently Stevie, he figured, was the last person to mow the yard. The house had been boarded shut ever since Bigley’s suicide three or four years ago. Harvey could not remember exactly when the old man had died; the years had flown by too quickly, the days flying off in the wind like pages from a book with a broken binding. All he remembered was that a pistol had been used. A Mauser C96 Bigley had brought home from Korea. Harvey had held that pistol when the contents of the house were auctioned off. Wanted to buy it but was afraid it might be haunted. Wished now he had bought it anyway.