thirty-six

The ride back from Houston was uneventful and unhappy.

Reams’s anger at Jay Morgan was of the slow, brooding variety. Morgan realized the professor had gone to some trouble to arrange the morning job interview, but Morgan had simply not given a rat’s ass. The police had kept him until nine in the morning.

Dirk Jakes’s anger at Jay Morgan was more of the ranting and raving variety. Jakes’s brand-new Mercedes had been “stolen” according to the story Morgan gave the police. But more than anything, Jakes seemed hurt and angry that he hadn’t been invited to the titty bar when Morgan had “borrowed” the Mercedes for his midnight drive.

All in all, Morgan was damn unpopular for the duration of the cramped ride back in the Geo Metro, the only rental available on short notice. They made it back into Fumbee late Sunday night, and Reams dropped him off without a word.

For all Morgan cared, Jakes and Reams could go fuck themselves. With corncobs. He had no energy left for apology. The night and early morning with the police had left him wrung out. He couldn’t tell them the real story without it leading back to Annie Walsh. He’d tried to keep it simple. After the titty bar, he’d gone, so he claimed, to the beach for some air so he could sober up. A bunch of Mexicans had beat him up and thrown him in the water, then taken the Mercedes.

“We found the car ten minutes ago,” a big detective had told Morgan.

Morgan had shrugged. “Those crazy Mexicans.”

“What about your shoes?” one cop had asked.

“I wanted to walk in the sand.”

“Then shouldn’t you have taken off your socks too?”

“I told you,” Morgan had said. “I was drunk.”

Morgan had claimed the whole incident had happened about a mile down the coast and away from the pier. The situation seemed impossible and hopeless. Nobody had mentioned a body. Morgan had watched the car go down. There’d been no sign of the man.

Perhaps Morgan should flee the country. A former colleague made good money teaching English in Asia. Morgan had seen the job listings before. English teachers needed in Japan and South Korea.

But that would take time to arrange. Surely recent events would catch up and overwhelm him before then. At least he was home. For a while, the world could wait. He went to bed, slept like a cold, dead stone.

Monday morning he went to Albatross Hall. He was five minutes late for his poetry workshop. He noticed three empty chairs in a row, didn’t have to think too hard about it. Ellis, Lancaster, and DelPrego.

“Has anyone seen our missing comrades?” He gestured at the empty seats.

The class shook its collective head, mumbled ignorance.

“Never mind. Let’s get on with it. Tammy, read us your poem.”

A thin girl, sandals with socks, dishwater hair, and no makeup. “It’s called ‘The Aftertaste of Love.’ ” She stood and cleared her throat, read from a pink sheet of paper. “How he clings, like the orange dust from cheese puffs. How he screams the silent, dog-whistle need of his generation. But nobody hears…”

Ah. It was as Morgan thought. God had started punishing him already.

Morgan closed his office door. It had been a long morning. He switched on the radio, then rummaged his desk drawers. The radio announcer spit out the local news, then switched to the weather. Mild for most of the week, but winter’s last hurrah gathered up north and west in Colorado. A cold front. It threatened to slide south by the weekend and dust Green County with a few flakes.

Morgan found what he was looking for in the bottom drawer. A flask of Jim Beam. Not his usual poison, but it would do in a pinch. He unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. The familiar warmth again in his belly. Morgan decided that not only had he officially fallen off the wagon, but that the wagon had also backed over him and parked on his head.

He took another swig.

The phone rang in midswig, startled him. A mouthful of booze spilled down his chin. He grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“Morgan? It’s Dean Whittaker.”

Morgan sat up straight. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Good news, Morgan. Lots of press going to be there all the way from Tulsa and Oklahoma City. We pulled some strings. Going to be great press for the university.”

“Uh…”

“Also, we have the honors college assigning the poetry reading as mandatory extra credit for their freshman composition and humanities classes. I know these sorts of events aren’t generally well attended, but we want to put our best foot forward, eh? I think we can fill up the whole damn auditorium.”

“That’s fifteen hundred seats.”

“Well, the press, faculty, most of the administration, the graduate students from the writing program, the usual collection of community art-fags-you didn’t hear me say that-and about a thousand freshmen. I know most eighteen-year-olds don’t usually go in for this sort of thing, but the seats will be filled and it’ll look good. That’s what counts. The eyes of the entire university will be on this show. Exciting, isn’t it?”

“Sure.” Morgan found his hand reaching for the Jim Beam.

“You are going to put on a good show for us, aren’t you, Morgan?”

Morgan cleared his throat, picked his words carefully. “I promise a professional reading with excellent and innovative poetry.”

“Right,” Whittaker said. “Just so long as we get the right message across. You know what I mean.” He said good-bye and hung up.

Morgan drank whiskey, rubbed his eyes. He thought about Ginny. Maybe he should call her. He was surprised to wish he could be with her. She had a soothing effect. She’d been right. People who have a secret together need each other. He picked up the phone, put it back down again. No, she might still be with her parents, and Morgan didn’t have the spine right now to explain himself.

He called Sherman Ellis at home. The phone rang and rang.

Morgan hung up, bit his thumbnail.

Morgan’s phone rang and made him jump. He grabbed for it quickly. Maybe Ellis had *69 and was ringing him back. “Hello? Hello?”

“Take it easy, Professor,” Fred Jones said. “You sound like you just ran a mile.”

“I’m really pretty busy right now, Mr. Jones.”

“Busy my ass. I have four new poems, and we have an appointment.”

Morgan rubbed the bridge of his nose, bit off the first reply, and took a deep breath before saying, “You know, Mr. Jones, part of any good poet’s education is to accumulate a myriad of poetry experiences. There’s a poetry reading on campus tonight. It might be a good experience to give your own work a rest and go hear some other readers.”

“Quit jerking me off.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. But seriously, there’s a guy on campus maybe you could talk to. A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.”

Jones went quiet on his end for a moment, then said, “Who?”

Morgan told Jones how to find Valentine’s office. The image of the two strange old men amused Morgan. Let them drive each other nuts. The thought made his mouth twist up in a grin. It had been a long time since anything had made Morgan smile. His face muscles weren’t used to it. It almost cracked his face in half.