Sweeney on the Rocks Read online

  Inside Sweeney’s house, he turns on every light. Okay, if you’re the guy, you’ve jimmied the door, and you’re a little nervous, keeping an eye on the ranch house behind you, kicking your feet at Zeke; yapping little dog. You have the body in the backseat, maybe wrapped in a blanket. You go back to the car. Moving faster, in a rush, you fireman’s carry the body into the house, dump him into the chair. You’re going to track in a little mud. And, yup, there’s smudges on the linoleum. A slight little path of reflection, heading from the door to the living room. Not a lot, though. The guy was careful.

  Okay, but once you get the body in the chair, you’re going to be relieved. Maybe in the mood for a joke. I mean, this is funny, right? You’re chuckling. Do you leave a little souvenir, maybe? A little fuck-you to Sweeney?

  Sweeney goes through the room more carefully. He has a pair of cheap Charlie Russell prints on the walls, faded to blues and greens. The glass on both, he’s only briefly ashamed to note, is covered with dust. Be an easy thing for a guy to finger smear a little note. Ditto his lamp with its leather shade, the heavy stitching and crude painting of a bucking bronc. The old folks do love their western kitsch. But no. No message.

  The problem, he finally decides, is this: Rock, hard place. Sweeney in the middle.

  Fight or flight or stasis? Nobody to fight, nowhere to fly. And anyway, he likes it here. Stasis? His ex-wife—the proud possessor of a Ph.D. in the history of Sweeney’s failings, a post-doc in the intricate, expanding list of his fuck-ups, past, present, and future—always said he’d rather drive off a cliff than sit spinning his tires in the mud.

  Sheeeyiiitt.

  ~

  Seven years ago, looking for beer money, a side of cowboy mystique to go with his entrée of ennui, he’d answered an ad for a night calver. Said over the phone, “I’m honest, I’m reliable. Two things you just don’t see much of anymore.” Exactly the right tone to strike with any rancher over the age of fifty.

  But honesty and reliability can only get you so far. Late nights, early mornings, here’s Sweeney out there with his first-calf heifers, pointing a flashlight, looking for bulging vulvas, twisted tails. Big bad Sweeney, babysitting cows. And his first time reaching into a birth canal for those soft, tiny hooves? Urine in his face, a blurp of green cow shit around his hands. Sweeney’s stomach, stainless steel for thirty years, emptied itself onto half-frozen mud.

  He’d stayed with it, though. Whatever had gone missing within Sweeney, self-confidence or self-esteem, these ranchers had it in their blood. Sweeney rented the bunkhouse, trading room and occasional board for helping out. Maybe it’ll rub off, whatever they got. Seven years later, he’s still here, still kind of waiting.

  Nine-thirty at night, Sweeney knocks at the back door. “Anybody home?”

  “Teddy?” Pauline struggles up from her knitting. “Everything okay?”

  Carl’s got his remote, kicked back with the misshapen knots of his feet up on a hassock. “You don’t got plumbing problems over there again? Toilet still working?”

  “Just thought I’d come over, say hello. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Well, aren’t you the one.” Pauline wobbles into the kitchen. “I baked yesterday. Feel like a piece of pie?”

  “Apple?”

  “Cherry rhubarb.”

  “Even better.” Stepping through this door, you expected to be fed. “A little early for rhubarb?”

  “Costco. We went into town today.”

  “Jesus god, that Bozeman.” Carl hasn’t taken his eyes off the TV. “Bozangeles, they’re calling it and I think that’s about right.”

  Sweeney notes the dishes still in the sink. While Pauline cuts him off a piece of pie, he runs water, squirts in dish soap.

  “Oh now. You don’t have a do that, Teddy.”

  He scrubs at a hardened crust of ketchup. “You didn’t happen to see anybody come into the yard today, I don’t guess? Drive up, turn around?”

  “We was in that goddamn Bozangeles all day.”

  “Carl,” Pauline says absently, “language. We didn’t see a soul. How come?”

  “Note on my door? Said they came to say hi, but didn’t sign it.” The lie comes easy enough to bother him.

  “Well, that wasn’t very polite.”

  “Yup.” Sweeney dries a final plate. “Anyway, you don’t mind, you see anybody around, let me know, okay?”

  He considers their living room. Lace curtains gone yellow with cigarette smoke. A burled-cedar coffee table polished on the two spots, left and right, where they put their heels. A wicker basket on the fireplace with ten years’ worth of Christmas cards.

  All of it as dear to Sweeney as his own childhood.

  ~

  He parks in the middle of the Highway 89 bridge, the Yellowstone rolling black and silver below. Two o’clock in the morning, there’s half a moon and an empty road. Deep water down there. Roiling, splashing, grumbling, anxious for the Missouri. Full of big fish. Brown trout, sulking. Once a year, some old fart gets his picture in the paper holding a twelve pounder. You got retired time on your hands, you can dredge streamers all day long.

  Stepping out of his truck, it’s quiet enough he can hear the squeak of his truck springs. An odd feeling, standing in the middle of an empty highway. All this road just for him.

  Five hundred yards behind him, long haul truckers growl down I-90. Ahead, an empty scroll toward Clyde Park, Wilsall, Ringling. A series of diminishing small towns nested like Russian dolls. The Crazy Mountains in dark horizon. To the east, nothing but wind and sage and a downhill run toward Appalachia.

  Not quite hurrying, he lifts the body out of the bed. A few strands of loose hay trickle out onto the road.

  The body sags into a U, and he catches it with his knee, quick-steps it toward the edge of the bridge. Lets it rest briefly on the railing—“Father, son, holy ghost.”—and rolls it over into the river.

  A long moment, then a splash.

  Later, there will be regret. Thoughts of the body tumbling along maybe even now, rolling on the gravel bottom, the hard current playing with eyelashes, exposing blank pupils. What was his name, his nickname, his mother, father, brother? What were his dreams, his sins, his penances? Nobody deserves to rest unmarked and unremarked upon. Sure, I mean, he probably had it coming. But nobody deserves it.

  Until now, Sweeney hasn’t had time to feel anything but panic. First thought? Save my ass. Now, however, staring down at the dark water, the glint of silver on ripples…If old times are an indication, he’ll soon turn into a maudlin mess. How much we take for granted, all these small miracles. Buttons, chewing gum, zippers, unlocking his truck, turning the ignition. His cell phone, his microwave. Jet contrails. In aggregate, our extraordinary days. And yet we die.

  Maybe the body’s already caught against some tangled root, the current making a floating gauze of his hair, minnows swimming into the open mouth, picking through his teeth.

  But for now? No cars. No cops. No issues.

  Cool.

  ~

  An old habit, Sweeney likes his late-night walks. Back home in Brooklyn, collar up to his ears, he’d hit the pavement three or four nights a week, stroll along anonymously, enjoy the slow segue of neighborhoods. Chinese to Russian to Hasid. In Rockjaw, though, there’s no such thing as anonymous. A guy walking alone at night arouses suspicion. He trails barking dogs and porch lights, 911 calls. Silhouettes in screen doors.

  With Zeke, though? I’m just a guy walking my dog.

  Through the windows, house to house, there’s a teacher bent over his desk, grading papers, blowing lightly on the coals of his disillusionment.. A few doors down, a young woman stands at her stove, hair in her eyes and a spatula working. Her heart has been broken. But whose has not? Further down, an old man limps away from the fridge, white box of Chinese takeout in his hands.

  Sweeney is well aware—although he doesn’t dwell on it—that they are always they. He is not among them. He is a stranger here, and always w
ill be.

  Signing up for witness protection comes after a dozen discussions. The first one, you’re in handcuffs chained to an interrogation table. You and two detectives play an intricate game of approach and avoidance. “Sure yeah. Maybe you could help us out. Maybe. Whatchyou got?” Bad coffee, cigarettes awkwardly lit. Finally, a week or a month later, you’re staring at a half circle of Feds in cheap suits. The Assistant DA, in a slightly better suit, is handing you a pen. At no point do they tell you the entire truth. I mean, they make an effort. If they gave you the whole, Price is Right, Com’on Down spiel, and a year into it you discovered the lies, you’re going to pull a Lazarus and roll back the rock, which would be embarrassing for everybody. So they tell you about starting over, cutting connections. But they don’t tell you about how you’ll never fit in. Not anywhere.

  There are fourteen motels in Rockjaw, Montana. At the Super 8 by the Interstate, Zeke leads him from tire to tire. To anyone watching from a window (say, a Bensonhurst wop with blood on his mind, schadenfreude in his heart), Sweeney’s just some guy with a dog. Meanwhile, his left hand’s working overtime in his pocket, clicking at the remote. Unlock, unlock, unlock. But no…nada. No beep-boop-bop. No flashing headlights. Nothing. Would have been too much to ask, the first motel he tried.

  Three places later, however, and by the faint light of the dormant movie theater marquee across the street, a Ford Taurus beeps a cheerful little welcome, unlocks its doors.

  Sweeney glances around. Cars, hotel windows. A late model Chevy truck idling outside the Hawk’s Nest Saloon, driver’s forehead on the steering wheel. Sweeney allows himself a moment’s pause, enjoying the sense of his own competence.

  The car? Bronzish. Nondescript. Clean. A few million others in America just like it. He covers his hand with the cuff of his sleeve and pops the trunk. Empty. A flap of carpet over a spare tire. He goes to the front doors. In the back seat, an empty Avis folder. But in the front seat floorboard, half hidden under the floor mat, a thin brown briefcase. Smooth calfskin. Expensive. Don’t congratulate yourself yet, Sweeney. Don’t get cocky. You don’t have the upper hand here. You are miles away from having the upper hand. He tucks the briefcase under his arm and tugs at Zeke’s leash. “Let’s go, boy. Getting late.”

  ~

  Sitting Indian-wise in his living room, he goes after the briefcase with a screwdriver and mallet.

  By his knee, Zeke works over a leather bone, gnawing it around with more anger than hunger, keeping half an eye on Sweeney. In Zeke’s world, there are leather bones then there’s everything else.

  Two combination locks on the briefcase, one on either side of the handle. But rather than try to pop the hardware, Sweeney goes after the hinges. Couple hard whacks and the case falls open. He dumps it across the carpet.

  Looks like…a stainless steel .357. Cobra. Nice pistol. Utilitarian. Got some punch. Sweeney spins the cylinder, checks the loads. Unexpected from the same guy who carried a rat shooter for a shotgun.

  And in loose cash, there’s seven hundred and…fifty-five dollars. Sweeney folds it, tucks it into his jeans. Call it payment for funeral services rendered.

  Then there’s a manila envelope full of photos. Black and whites, printed out on a laser printer. Surveillance shots. The flat depth of field that says telephoto. And they’re all of the same woman. Lighting her cigarette, laughing wide-mouthed at a bar, reading a magazine, face half-hidden under those big sunglasses they wear these days.

  He knows her. Knew her, anyway. Oh boy and oy vey, did he know her. Brooklyn born and bred. Knew her inside and out. Tina Harrison, his piece on the side.

  What is her photo doing in a briefcase in Montana?

  Sweeney owns an ancient laptop, an early Dell. Thick as a family Bible, heavy as an endloader, most days he more or less successfully resists its charms. The dim screen, the fan loud as a blender. But he fires it up now.

  Within a few minutes, after the router headaches and the half minute spent wrestling with his own cynicism (privacy? what privacy), he’ll Google her name. Find nothing on the woman herself but instead a missing person’s report for her brother. Cocky, obsequious, burdened with the unfortunate name of Georgie Harrison. Thought he was a gangster, that kid. Always angling for a way into the life, posturing, talking words he learned from a book. No surprise it caught up to him.

  But Tina? There was always something feral about her, something with teeth. A Venus fly trap for a heart, snapping at Sweeney as he buzzed past.

  ~

  How many dead men has he seen up close and personal? A rude question, even according to the generous terms of his own ongoing interior monologue. Self-flagellation masquerading as introspection. The worst ones of course were the ones he tagged himself. Number three, cleaning up, he’d found a bloody molar rattling around on the floor boards, lost in taco wrappers and napkins. “Sorry, Sonny.” The guy’s name had been Sonny.

  But to his credit, Sweeney never did nobody that didn’t deserve it. What he told himself, anyway. But from whose perspective? Not theirs, surely. And that kind of thinking is slippery as a bar of soap.

  Sweeney has this recurring dream. Can’t get rid of it. The people he’s killed, their heads are mounted on the wall of a log cabin. Some kind of ski lodge. Montana meets Brooklyn, right? And the heads are never quite right: ears too far forward, eyes slightly askew, lips too red, the cheeks sunken. And here’s where it gets creepy: They’re all still alive. Talking. Sneering. Keeping up a running dialogue about Sweeney’s failures, his shortcomings. “Can you believe this is the schmuck that offed us?” kind of thing.

  Sweeney has a problem sleeping late. Three hours and here’s Sweeney blinking at the ceiling, tobacco-colored water stain in one corner. Depending on Sweeney’s mood, the water stain looks either like a happy Labrador retriever with floppy ears or a mutilated hand with the middle three fingers missing. This morning it’s the hand. That speck off to the side could be a thumbnail somebody pulled off with pliers.

  His cell phone vibrates on the bureau. He picks it up without bothering about the caller ID. “Sweeney. I’ll do anything for money. Who the fuck calls at 6:15 in the morning?”

  “Judge, jury, hangman, my friend. Got a question for you.” Cal Merchant. A fugitive from the Army and the Laguna Beach surf scene. Maybe the only man in town with a more complicated history than Sweeney’s.

  “Ask me anything but the state capitols.” And where the bodies are buried.

  “What is it about white people that makes ‘em get up on a Saturday, spread all their shit out on their front lawns?”

  “You tell me, man.”

  “Reason I’m asking, I’m wondering if you’re free to come over, help a brother conduct a little experiment. I want to see what happens when a black man has a lawn sale. I’ll pay the hourly.”

  “Called a yard sale. Let me look at my schedule.” Sweeney half sits up, glances through to his kitchen, the Ranch Supply cowgirl calendar on his fridge. A single red X over last week’s forgotten dental appointment. “Yeah, I’m free.” He reaches for his smokes.

  A few minutes later, pulling on yesterday’s jeans, here’s the square velvet box of Aggie’s ring heavy in the front pocket. Relic from another lifetime. And then brushing his teeth before the mirror, a freckle of blood on his cheek, a beauty mark just under his left eye.

  He smears the dot away hard with a washcloth, scrubbing a faint blush into his skin.

  Good as new.

  ~

  The friendship of men, Sweeney believes, is built on an armature of respect hidden under a veneer of derision.

  Twenty miles south of Rockjaw, Cal Merchant owns a narrow stretch of ground squeezed between cliff and creek. Cal built the cabin himself, piecing it together with hand-hewn logs and quarter rounds. Added a gas stove and a bank of computers. Shelves full of books and a dozen small oil paintings (biased toward early California, toward Monterey). It’s a life almost painful in its picturesqueness. Fly rods, fitted shotguns. A reloading benc
h. Cal’s said, “Being a black man in Montana? It’s a full-time job, defying expectations.”

  Sweeney goes running with Cal now and then. A two mile grunt to the top of Windmill Falls. Sweeney would suggest sparring with padded gear—his gym keeps gloves and helmets—but suspects that Cal probably knows jujitsu or tae kwon do or some such. Guy has that feel of exotic bad-assery about him.

  They’ve been friends for, what…seven years now? Met shortly after Sweeney’s divorce. Shooting pool at the bar, they knew each other the way dogs know each other. A look, a snarl, a sniff. In this town of seven thousand, how many share a background in real violence?

  Sweeney parks down the road from Cal’s, leaving room for other vehicles in the narrow driveway. Strolls up to the door, Zeke at his heels. Eight in the morning, there’s already a hot summer smell of sun through the pines, the seared scent of needles and sap and bees.

  Cal meets him on the porch, desk lamp in his hands. “Just in time. Grab some boxes there, maybe start spreading some stuff around on tables?”

  “You can buy my time but you can’t buy me.”

  “Everybody’s for sale.”

  “There’s a profound truth.”

  A pair of picnic tables on the sloping lawn, a makeshift clothesline stretched between two aspens. For the next hour, Sweeney arranges vintage suits with butterfly collars, Lycra ski pants, raveling sweaters, t-shirts advertising shoes. “This mean your mother’s moving up here?”

  Cal’s bent over his old mountain bike, inflating a tire with a hand pump. “How you get that?”

  “This is all from your spare room.”

  “Nah, man. Just a white man experiment, like I said.”

  “Hard to imagine your mother in Montana.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Cal considers the sacrificial spread of his possessions. The existential transition, mine to yours. “I can see the attraction, man. Yeah, dig it, right? It’s like a purging, it’s like a capitalist enema. Just cleaning out all this old crap.” Somewhere Cal’s picked up a Copenhagen habit, and he pinches up a chew. He keeps his head shaved, and now rubs his hand thoughtfully around the baldness.