A flash from 10/13 in Normal entries

“She had to disappear before they disappeared her.”
“Did she have to give me up?”
“I don’t know that she did.”
“Someone did. I’ve been rotting for five years upstate like a pink salmon belly up.”
“Yeah. Welcome home.”
He slid the Mason jar across the table top. The Formica was worn down to press board over the years, like a river rock, slow and sure, smooth like it was sanded. I took a swig, winced held back the urge to cough.
“You sleep with her?”
“What?”
“Did you fuck her?”
He looked nervous. I slid the jar back. He took a long pull. The light bulb flickered; naked, no fixture.
“You were gone man.”
I nodded. The windows looked black from inside, reflecting their own bits of the shack. The glass was old, custom fit the way grandpas used to, with leaded glass. Over time the weight gives the effect of melted wax. I listened for the sounds of the woods, ingrained paranoia and a need to feel something nostalgic. Up here the sounds were different than the gray building upstate in the valley.

“So you were close, I mean when she disappeared.”

“She would have got disappeared, man. You were gone.”

I let him keep that fear. There wasn’t enough moonshine in the world to drown it. He had it wrong. I didn’t want to reclaim my wife. I wanted to get the bitch who gave me up.

“Yeah, if she got disappeared I’d know where she was. I figure she disappears on her own the last guy in her bed might know where she is. “

The mason jar came my way, I took a quick sip, enough to put the fire in my mouth, taste the hills, remember who I am, and slid it back. Not enough shine to drown his fear in the world, enough shine in that jar, maybe, to flatten out his loyalties, give the fear a name. I wanted his fear to have my name. I wanted to carve my name in his wood.

I stood and stretched. He watched. The barrel of his squirrel gun peeked from behind the threadbare loveseat. In the chamber would be two primed shots of rock salt; that way you aren’t picking lead out of the meat, just a splintered bone or two. Upright behind the sunk in ‘setting’ chair, facing the old console TV was the blued barrel of a twenty twenty. The shells in that were either slugs or scrap iron. No one bought factory rolled shells up here. If it came to it I’d put the salt high up his left leg, close enough to his nuts for him to cry to Jesus. Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time in the hills. Jesus didn’t come for motherless children; he sure as hell wouldn’t come for an adulterer moonshining pissant.

“Know where molly is?”

“Molly?”

“Patches.”

“Oh. Yeah, I think. Heard she went to loo-ville.”
I sat on the love seat, arm dangling. He had to turn in his kitchen chair to face me. He swallowed hard with nothing in his mouth. I slapped my knees like I was going to get back up. He walked over easy to hand me the jar and sat down shaky in the setting chair. I guess his play was that if it come down to it he’d put a slug in my heart. We both knew if it come down to it he wasn’t going to get a shot off.

“Ok, guess I’ll go talk to patches. You ain’t gonna disappear, right?”

He nodded hard. I nodded once.

“Waters high this year. A guy could disappear into Jebs crick and not come up until he bloated up into the Missouri.”
“Ohio,” he said “Jebs crick feeds into the Ohio.”

I nodded again.

“See ya soon.”

He smiled weakly like he’d like that, old friends and all. I drove the ruts up out of sight, killed the lights and walked back down, leaned against the alder that let me see into the shack. I watched for a half hour. He just kept rubbing his face and hitting the jar. He turned on the TV and fell asleep. Didn’t make a call, didn’t slip out. There’s a thousand ways to disappear; some guys can do it right in front of you.