After they had gone, I got in the car and drove back into Portland to work out in the Bay Club at One City Center. Slating the roof had been exercise in itself, but I was trying to work off the little handles of fat that were clinging to my sides like determined children. I spent forty-five minutes doing peripheral hard-flow circuits, constantly alternating leg and upper-body exercises until my heart was pounding and my shirt was soaked with sweat. When I had finished, I showered and looked at the little fat deposits in the mirror to see if they were getting any smaller. I was almost thirty-five, I had gray hairs invading the blackness of my hair, and I was two hundred pounds of insecurity in a five-eleven frame. I needed to get a life-that, or liposuction.
The white Christmas lights glowed in the trees of the Old Port as I left the Bay Club, so that, from a distance, they seemed to be burning. I walked to Exchange to pick up some books in Books Etc., then continued down to Java Joe's to nurse a large one and read the newspapers. I rustled through the Village Voice to find out Dan Savage's latest views on sex with eggs or urinary games. This week, Dan was dealing with a guy who said he wasn't homosexual, he just liked having sex with men. Dan Savage didn't seem to see the difference. Frankly, neither did I. I tried to imagine what Angel would have said to the guy and then figured even the Voice wouldn't print what Angel would have said to him.
It had started to rain and wet streaks marked the windows like cuts on crystal. I watched the rain for a time, then returned to the Voice. As I did so, I was conscious of a figure moving toward me and a rank smell in my nostrils. My skin prickled with unease.
"Can I ask you a question?" said a distinctive voice. I looked up and started. The same coldly amused eyes watched me from the doughlike face, rain glistening on the bald head. The mingled scents of blood and cologne were stronger now, and I drew back a little from the table.
"Do you want to find God?" he continued, with the kind of concerned look that doctors give smokers when they start patting their pockets for cigarettes in the waiting room. In his pale hand, he held a crumpled Bible pamphlet, a crude pen drawing of a child and its mother visible on one side.
I looked at him in puzzlement, then my face cleared. I thought for a moment that he might be some kind of Jesus freak, although if he was then Jesus was scraping the bottom of the barrel for recruits. "When God wants me, he'll know where to find me," I replied and went back to reading the Voice, my eyes on the page but my attention riveted to the man before me.
"How do you know that this isn't God looking for you now?" he said, as he sat down across from me.
I realized that I should have kept my mouth shut. If he was a religious nut, then talking to him would only encourage him. These types act like monks who've just been given a weekend off from their vows of silence. Except this guy didn't seem like the religious kind, and I got the feeling that there was a subtext to his questions that I hadn't quite grasped.
"I'd always hoped He'd be taller," I told him.
"There's a change coming," said the bald man. His eyes had a kind of intense look to them now. "There'll be no place for sinners, for divorcees, for fornicators, for sodomites, for women who don't respect their husbands."
"I think you've just covered some of my hobbies, and all of my friends," I said, folding the paper and taking a last, regretful sip of my coffee. It just wasn't my day. "Wherever they end up sounds good to me too."
He watched me carefully, like a snake preparing to strike if it saw an opening. "No place for a man who comes between another man and his wife, or his little boy." There was audible menace in his words now. He smiled and I could see his teeth, small and yellow like the fangs of a rodent. "I'm looking for someone, Mr. Parker. I think you may be able to help me find him." His obscenely soft red lips stretched so far that I thought they might burst and shower me with blood.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"It doesn't matter who I am."
I looked around the coffee shop. The kid behind the counter was distracted by a girl at the window table and there was no one else sitting down here at the rear of the shop.
"I'm looking for Billy Purdue," he continued. "I was hoping you might know where he is."
"What do you want with him?"
"He has something that belongs to me. I want to claim it."
"I'm sorry, I don't know any Billy Purdue."
"I think you're telling lies, Mr. Parker." The tone and volume of his voice didn't change, but the threat of danger it contained rose a notch.
I flipped back my jacket to reveal the butt of my gun.
"Mister, I think you have the wrong person," I said. "Now I'm going to leave and if you get up before I've gone, I'll use this gun on your head. You understand me?"
The smile didn't flicker, but his eyes were now dead. "I understand," he said, and again there was that terrible sibilance in his voice. "I don't think you can be of help to me after all."
"Don't let me see you again," I said.
He nodded to himself. "Oh, you won't see me," he replied, and this time the threat was explicit. I kept him in sight until I reached the door, then watched as he took the pamphlet and set it alight with a brass Zippo. All the time, his eyes never left my face.
I retrieved my car from the parking garage at Temple and took a ride by Rita Ferris's place, but the lights were out and there was no reply when I rang the bell. Then I drove from Portland to Scarborough Downs until I came to Ronald Straydeer's place close by the junction of Payne Road and Two Rod Road. I pulled in beside Billy Purdue's silver trailer and knocked on the door, but the trailer was quiet and no lights burned inside. I peered in the window, cupping my fingers at the glass, but the place still looked a mess. Billy's car stood to the right of the trailer. The hood was cold.
I heard a noise from behind me and turned, half expecting to see that strange head erupting like a white sore from its tan raincoat. Instead, there was only Ronald Straydeer, dressed in black denims, sandals and a Sea Dogs T-shirt, his short dark hair hidden by a white baseball cap decorated with a red lobster. He held an AK-47 in his hands.
"I thought you were someone else," he said, looking at the gun with embarrassment.
"Like who? The Vietcong?" I knew that Ronald swore by his AK. A lot of men who had served in Vietnam did likewise. Ronald once told me that their standard-issue rifle, the M1, used to jam in the rains of Southeast Asia, and they would routinely replace them with AK-47s stolen from the bodies of Vietcong. Ronald's gun looked old enough to be a war souvenir, which it probably was.
Ronald shrugged. "Ain't loaded anyhow."
"It's okay, Ronald. I'm looking for Billy. You see him?"
He shook his head. "Not since yesterday. He hasn't been around." He looked unhappy, as if he wanted to say more.
"Has anyone else been looking for him?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I thought I saw someone last night looking in the trailer, but I could be mistaken. I didn't have my glasses on."
"You're getting old," I said.
"Yuh, he could have been old," replied Ronald, seemingly mishearing me.
"What did you say?"
But he had already lost interest. "I ever tell you about my dog?" he began, and I figured that Ronald had told me just about everything I might find useful.
"Yeah, Ronald," I said, as I walked back to the car. "Maybe we'll talk about him again, another time."
"You don't mean that, Charlie Parker," he said, but he smiled as he spoke.
"You're right," I smiled back, "I don't."
That night, cold rain fell like nails on my newly shingled roof. It didn't leak, not even from the parts that I had done. I felt a deep satisfaction as I drifted off to sleep, the wind rattling the windows and causing the boards of the house to creak and settle. I had spent many years falling asleep to the sounds of those boards, to the gentle murmur of my mother's voice in the living room beyond, to the rhythmic tapping of my grandfather's pipe on the porch rail. There was still a mark on the rail, an ocher stain of tobacco and worn wood. I had not painted over it, a sentimental gesture that surprised me.