First the Thunder Read online

  He resolved to do better. To be a better husband and provider. Whatever had to be done, he would do it. And this desire somehow conjoined with his desire to help Harvey and to be more considerate of Stevie and to give Molly all the things that such a sweet girl deserved. Only then would there be some relief from the pressure that squeezed at the base of his scalp, the soreness that crept down his neck and into his shoulders at the end of every day. Maybe he wasn’t naturally bold like Harvey but he could make himself bold for all the people he loved. He would do whatever he had to do, no matter the consequences.

  II

  18

  Even with his eyes stinging and his body sore from a lack of sufficient sleep, Will found the morning refreshing. Thanks to a cloudy sky, the 7:00 a.m. sun was muted, its heat and glare softened. Jewels of dew still glittered in some of the yards, but the sidewalks were as dry as if last night’s rain had never happened.

  And what a long, exhausting night it had been. Will had argued with Harvey, argued with his daughter, argued with Kenny. Then, barely asleep after making love to his wife, she had been called out into the rain to photograph an accident at Connor Flats. When she returned home afterward, he was awakened again, and held her until she fell into a hard sleep.

  And now, only a few hours later, Laci’s story of those three young men was still with him. One boy dead, one severely injured, none of them old enough to buy a beer in his bar. The sadness Will felt for the parents of those boys deepened the resolve he had discovered even before he knew of the accident, a desire for justice, for some small measure of balance to all the unfair, unpredictable blows the world seemed keen to administer.

  The mug of hot coffee in his hand steamed into the air. With every sip its warmth spread throughout his body, so that he was sweating after the first five minutes. He told himself that he should try to like iced coffee more, but then the notion of forcing yourself to like something you don’t struck him as laughable.

  He walked west, the sun at his back for the first six blocks, then turned south for the final two. And there stood Stevie’s small trailer home in a narrow lot of dewy, overgrown grass, Stevie’s red pickup parked facing the front door. Every time Will visited, a wash of pity flooded over him, and he wished he could do more for Stevie; wished he had done more.

  Stevie’s neighbor on his right was a Dollar General, and on his left, a small gun shop. Both buildings were still dark, their gravel parking lots empty. Stevie’s trailer was dark too. Will finished his coffee, shook the last drops from the cup, and set the cup on the rear bumper of Stevie’s truck. Then he walked to the door, pulled open the unlocked storm door, and knocked four sharp raps on the hollow metal door.

  Not until the third set of knocks did the lock click and the door come open. Stevie, wearing only a pair of olive drab boxer shorts, squinted out at his brother and said, “You could’ve waited a couple more hours.”

  “I have a business to open up,” Will said.

  Stevie blew out a breath and turned away, leaving the door open. Will followed, came inside and took a seat across from Stevie, who was slouched in one of the orange vinyl bench seats behind a table holding his laptop and an empty Mountain Dew can.

  “You don’t want to put some clothes on?” Will said.

  “It’s hot as hell in here.”

  Will looked around. At least Stevie was keeping the place neat. No dirty dishes in the sink, no crumbs or visible dirt on the carpet. In this heat the slightest invitation would have the place crawling with ants and stinkbugs, cockroaches and mice.

  He said, “So what were you doing last night when Kenny stopped you?”

  “What do you think I was doing?”

  “And what was supposed to happen if you got inside?”

  “Wouldn’t know until I got there.”

  The remark sounded truculent, but Will understood. If the bike had not been secured in any way, Stevie might have kicked it into neutral and rolled it outside and down the sidewalk. If the front fork was locked, he wouldn’t have been able to move it, and might then have resorted to destruction of some kind; to flattening the tires or scratching the paint job or snipping the brake lines. He might have found a bucket of paint and drenched the bike with it. He might have poured gasoline over it and set the bike aflame. Any of which, Will knew but apparently Stevie hadn’t considered, would bring the police to Harvey’s door.

  Will said, “You know you could be in jail right now.”

  “I could be dead right now,” Stevie said. “I could be asleep right now. I could be anything. So could you. But we’re not, are we?”

  Will smiled in spite of himself. “We’re going to do something, Stevie. I just don’t know what yet.”

  “Do something to Kenny, you mean?”

  “Damn straight.”

  And now Stevie smiled too. He sat up and squared his shoulders. “He ruffle your feathers last night?”

  “Arrogant,” Will said. “So arrogant I just wanted to smash his face.”

  Stevie leaned against the table’s edge. “Let’s burn his house down.”

  “I think it has to be more subtle than that.”

  “Where’s that going to get us?”

  “I know where I don’t want it to get us. I don’t want it coming back on any of us.”

  “You got an idea?”

  Will shook his head. “It has to be foolproof.”

  “Nothing’s foolproof,” Stevie said.

  “I’m not saying it has to be perfect. But we have a Deputy Dawg sheriff and two Huckleberry Hound deputies to think about. So whatever we do, it has to seem like an accident.”

  Stevie, looking a bit surprised, said, “How far are you talking about going here?”

  Will too had been surprised by his words. “I guess we should leave that up to Harvey. He’s the injured party.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s not the only one with a score to settle, you know.”

  “I know, brother. I hear you.”

  They sat still for a while then, each remembering and wondering. Then Will said, “I guess I’ll head back.”

  “You want me to make some coffee?”

  “Naw, thanks. Just wanted to see how you were doing this morning.”

  Stevie said, “I’d be a lot better if this heat would let up.”

  Will slid across the seat and stood. “Come by later if you want. It’s always cool downstairs.”

  “Cooler maybe. I wouldn’t exactly call it cool.”

  At the door Will paused for a moment, looking out. “Is your lawn mower broke?” he asked.

  “I knew you couldn’t leave without making some kind of remark.”

  And Will nodded in acknowledgment: guilty as charged.

  19

  Despite Will’s parting criticism, Stevie felt good after his brother’s visit. Of the two brothers, he had always been closer to Will. When they were boys, it was Will who played catch with Stevie, Will who broke him of his habit of throwing like a girl and of flinching when a fastball came his way. Harvey was older, too busy for kid’s stuff.

  Only at Harvey’s wedding, with Stevie standing up front in the church beside Will, both of them dressed in rented black tuxedos while a bloody Jesus peered down at them from a fiberglass cross, had Stevie realized that Harvey loved him too. Harvey, waiting for Jennalee to come down the aisle, had winked at Stevie, and in that moment, Stevie’s eyes filled with tears, and he heard a voice that could only belong to Jesus whispering in his ear, This bond of brothers shalt not be broken.

  That was why Stevie had tried to break into Kenny’s garage. And it was why he would do anything either brother ever asked him to do. The bond must never be broken.

  20

  Harvey had the hoods up on both his Nissan Titan and Jennalee’s Infiniti when Will came down the sidewalk. The vehicles were parked side by side on the wide concrete driveway, both newly washed and chamoised dry, the front end of the Infiniti raised up on ramps. Harvey lay on his back beneath the sedan, snugging up
the new oil filter. Two five-gallon plastic containers of oil sat unopened along the edge of the driveway, adjacent to a tub of dirty oil he had drained from the vehicles.

  The concrete was cool against Harvey’s back, the morning sun hot on his feet. He liked the smell of the undercarriage, of metal and rubber and oil and road dirt, the scent of his free-spirited youth. More and more frequently these days he was looking back on his past, remembering that life had once been simple and unencumbered. Neither vehicle had needed an oil change but Harvey had needed to keep himself busy, to distract his thoughts with the simple pleasures he was good at and understood.

  “Must be nice,” Will said, startling Harvey for a moment.

  Harvey ran a finger around the edge of the filter, double-checking the seal. Then he scooted out from beneath the Infiniti and looked up into his brother’s face. “What must be?” he said.

  “Filling up your driveway with what, sixty thousand dollars’ worth of Japanese transportation.”

  Harvey sat up, wiped his hands on a rag he pulled from a pocket, then rolled onto one knee, and stood. “They’re worth maybe half that in trade-in value.” He looked around for Will’s car. “Did you walk over here? What’s going on?”

  “Stevie almost got himself arrested last night.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Trying to break into Kenny Fulton’s garage.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Harvey said. “What did you do—tell him about that Indian deal?”

  “Laci wanted me to start including him in stuff. Said he feels bad because we always leave him out.”

  Harvey shook his head. “Maybe now she’ll understand why.” He stared at the front fender for a few moments, then turned to retrieve a container of new oil.

  Will said, “Apparently Kenny has a security system with a camera.”

  “I could’ve told you that,” Harvey said. “Except that it’s just on the garage. Somebody broke in last March or April, I forget which it was. They jimmied open the door on his Beemer and set off the car alarm.”

  “I didn’t hear about that.”

  “A lot of break-ins happening these days. People stealing whatever they can get their hands on.”

  “Good thing I don’t have anything worth stealing,” Will said.

  Harvey unscrewed the oil filler cap on the Infiniti, then looked around for his funnel. “Be right back,” he said, and crossed to the garage. Fifteen seconds later he returned to the Infiniti, stuck the tip of the funnel into the oil reservoir, and carefully poured oil into the funnel.

  “So what happened?” Harvey asked. “Kenny call the police or not?”

  “He called me. I went over and talked him out of it.”

  “Shit,” Harvey said. “He knew I’d beat his ass if he called the police on my brother. All he wanted was to throw his weight around a little and act like a big shot.”

  “It was all I could do to keep from smashing in his face.”

  Harvey checked the oil level, replaced the filler cap, and walked to his own vehicle. He said, “Can you get me the rest of the oil?”

  Will retrieved the second container, set it at Harvey’s feet while the remainder of the first can was emptied into his truck.

  Will watched and said nothing. The sun was hot on the back of his neck.

  Harvey finished, then carefully laid the funnel in the grass so as not to stain his driveway with oil. Then he wiped his hands on the rag again. He turned to Will. “So now what?” he said. “Did you come up with a plan or not?”

  Will looked toward the house. “I need to know what your parameters are.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “How far are you willing to go?”

  “I want him out of my life.”

  “Does that mean . . . you know?”

  “It means get him to move. Get him to leave town. Make it so he doesn’t want anything to do with this place anymore.”

  Will considered the possibilities, which were scarce. “Do you think he’d move if his mother was out of the picture?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why he ever came back here to live after college anyway. I know his old man didn’t want him around anymore.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t.”

  “Did Jake actually tell you that?”

  “Why would I make it up?”

  “So what was going on between those two? What did Jake tell you?”

  “He said he wished Kenny would grow up and act like a man. Wished he’d get married and live his own life.”

  “You think he might be gay?”

  “How the hell would I know that, Will?”

  “I’m just asking what you think. He was your friend all those years, not mine.”

  “I thought you said you’d come up with a plan to get rid of him. And you didn’t.”

  “Wait a minute,” Will said. “What if we start spreading a rumor about him? Something like . . . being a pedophile maybe. How would that look, what with him being around schoolkids all the time? The trick is in getting people to believe it.”

  “You get enough people talking, they’ll believe it.”

  “People used to say Merle is a pedophile. He’s got that sneaky look to him, you know?”

  “He’s not a pedophile,” Harvey said. “He’s not anything.”

  “What makes you the expert?”

  “Jennalee heard it from her mother. Who heard it from Merle’s mother. He was born with a condition of some kind. He’s got no pecker.”

  “You mean he’s a girl?”

  “He’s got no pecker, no pussy, no anything. Just a hole he pisses through.”

  “That’s not even possible,” Will said.

  “Look it up then if you’re so smart. It’s called genesis something. Or agenesis. Something like that.”

  “Damn,” Will said. “The poor sonofabitch. Life must be hell for him.”

  “He sure doesn’t act like his life is hell. You ask me, life would be a lot simpler without a dick.”

  Will shook his head. “That’s not something I ever want to find out.”

  Harvey pulled his phone from a pocket, looked at the time. “Don’t you have a bar to open up?”

  Will leaned down to look at Harvey’s phone. “Yeah, I got to get moving. So you want me to start the rumor or not?”

  “Why not? All the big mouths in town eventually end up in a bar, don’t they?”

  “So let’s say it’s successful,” Will said, “and Kenny moves to another school district. Louise will probably go too, right? What’s that going to do to Jennalee? I know they’re all pretty close.”

  Harvey said nothing. He stood there motionless for a moment, then remembered the phone in his hand, and slipped it into a pocket. Then put his hands on the front of the Infiniti and leaned into the shade beneath the upraised hood.

  “I’m not saying she would ever leave you,” Will said, and moved closer to his brother. “She’s your wife. She’s not going anywhere without you.”

  Harvey remained silent a few moments longer. Then said, his voice barely above a whisper, “I want him gone. Whatever else happens, happens.”

  21

  Around nine that morning, an hour and a half after Will’s visit, while Stevie was washing the plate and skillet he had used for his breakfast of toaster waffles and sausage patties, his cell phone rang.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Is this Stevie?”

  “You got him.”

  “This is Kay Miller. Do you remember me?”

  He thought for a moment. Kay Miller? Kay Miller? Then, suddenly, “Mrs. Miller! Ninth-grade algebra!”

  “How have you been, Stevie?”

  “I saw you a couple weeks ago at Shop & Save. Anyway I thought it was you.”

  “It must have been,” she said, “because I saw you too. We should have said hello.”

  “We should have,” he said. When he was in ninth grade Mrs. Mille
r was one of four teachers who gave him an erection nearly every day. None of the teachers was a beauty, especially Mrs. Miller with her short, plump, forty-something hausfrau look, but if he concentrated on her ample bosom he could pass most of the forty-five minutes of each class in a state of aching arousal. When he noticed her recently picking out oranges at the grocery store, he saw her only in profile, and paused—unseen, he thought, at the end of the aisle—to observe that she had put on even more weight since that last time he had seen her in town, and that her neckline was no longer clearly distinct from her sagging chin, and that, from what he could see of her face, she looked to be very unhappy about the oranges, or maybe just unhappy in general. Her breasts, however, were still her most remarkable feature, large and pillowy and inviting even twenty-some years after his initial obsession with them.

  “I saw your flyer on the bulletin board as I was leaving,” she told him. “And I pulled off one of those little tabs with your phone number on it. In case I ever needed help with anything.”

  “And do you?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure it’s something you would want to handle.”

  “There’s not much I’d turn down,” he told her. “What’s the job?”

  “I was out in my garden just a few minutes ago,” she said. “In fact that’s where I still am. A raccoon ran right past me and into the crawl space under the porch. And it’s still there. I’m half-afraid to go inside for fear it will run out and bite me on the ankle or something.”

  He stifled a laugh. “I doubt that’s going to happen,” he said. “Not unless you back it into a corner or something.”

  “But aren’t raccoons nocturnal?”

  “I think that’s true in most cases.”

  “That’s what worries me. If one is out running around in broad daylight, not two feet from where I was weeding, what if it has rabies? I don’t want a rabid raccoon living under my back porch.”