Read Online Fellow Mortals by Dennis Mahoney - Free Book Online Page A

be forgiven for the time he complimented Marcie’s billboard near the CITGO station, and all he really said was that her hair looked better than it used to.
    “And remember what I told you,” Peg says to Danny and Ethan. “You’re not to go anywhere near the trailer or the woods.”
    “Why?” Danny asks.
    “I’m not comfortable having you talk to Mr. Bailey.”
    “Your mother doesn’t mean that Sam’s a bad person,” Bob says. “He just wants some privacy.”
    “Which I would give him,” Peg insists, “if I could talk to him a minute. But he’s always in the woods doing who knows what. I keep leaving notes. He’s never there—he’s like a ghost.”
    “He was there before dinner.”
    “What, where?”
    “In the trailer.”
    Peg stands up and marches to the door, still in motion when she bends to get her pumps—hop, pop, double hop—and off she goes, into the darkly falling evening and across the barren plot. She keeps her eyes upon the trailer, moving at a clip, half expecting Sam’ll spot her and rabbit into the trees. When she makes it to the door, she doesn’t hear a thing. There’s not a glimmer of light from either set of blinds. But the strangeness is the reason that she soldiered out at all, and she’s about to follow through when Sam emerges from the door.
    Peg retreats until the streetlights are visible again.
    “Hi,” she says, frightened of his tall silhouette.
    She doesn’t say more until he’s lit enough to recognize. He’s skinnier and browner with a two-day beard; it occurs to Peg she hasn’t really seen him since the fire, that she can’t talk trailer straightaway without condolences.
    “I’m sorry,” she says. She really truly is.
    “Thanks,” Sam says. “I got your notes. I should have said hello.”
    “No, please. We were worried, that was all.”
    “How are your boys?”
    “They’re fine, they’re shaken up. It scared them.”
    “I know.”
    He keeps looking eerier the better her eyes become, dangerous and lank, wearing dirty jeans and flannel. There was style to his hair but now it’s scruffy. She can smell him. He reminds her of a homeless man who used to be a student, someone in the very early stages of addiction.
    “I heard you bought the land back here,” Peg says. “I wish I’d known. Are you planning to rebuild?”
    “No.”
    “You’re staying in the trailer, then?”
    “I haven’t worked it out,” he says. “It’s only been a month.”
    “No, of course,” Peg says. “I only meant to say…”
    “Thanks for coming by.”
    He turns toward the door, finished with the talk.
    “Sam,” Peg says, stepping forward inadvertently.
    He stops and they’re together, closer in the dark, in the very tight gap between the trailer and the trees. She can hardly see his eyes but feels the way he’s looking at her, staring down and using all his height to make her small.
    “May I ask you a personal question?” Peg says.
    He doesn’t tell her no.
    “What are you doing for a bathroom?”
    “There’s a tank,” Sam says, and she imagines it beside her, there beneath the floor in the damp, muddy gloom.
    “It isn’t any of my business…”
    “I’m asking you to go,” Sam says.
    She doesn’t have a breath, never mind an answer. He leaves her there abruptly, goes inside, and shuts the door. It’s as if he’s really vanished, how she’s instantly alone.

 
    8
    “There wasn’t a phone,” Henry tells Ava at the door, panting like he’s jogged the whole way home. Before he says more, Wing’s jumping up between them, Nan’s calling them to eat, and Henry’s kicking off his shoes and walking to the bathroom. He’s muddy, with a crust of dried blood along his forearm.
    “Henry…”
    “Just a sec, I’ve got to whiz like the devil.”
    “You were bleeding.”
    “What? Whoop, look at that. I didn’t even feel it. It’s the blood thinners, babe. Lemme wash, just a minute. Start without me,” Henry says, leaving Ava, Nan, and Joan to