Spring 2009 Fiction
To the Heart of the Matter
by Scott Kauffman
How will I know how you loved me?
I have left you, that is how you will know.
Carolyn Creedon, Litany
Jude pulled the fender-rusted Buick into his driveway and braked it to a sliding
stop, the tires skidding on the gravel and off into the ankle-high grass. He cut the
engine and just sat, wet under his suit. Wet under his socks. When he got out, he
reached behind the seat for the fifth of Seagram’s and broke the seal and chugged a
long, throat-burning swallow and started for the backdoor. Across the street, near-
sighted Mrs. Roberts throttled back her mower and waved. Jude raised his free hand
and walked all the faster.
“Better get your windows up, Mr. Hardy.”
He turned to where she pointed. Clouds black as singed dogs ran along the
horizon.
“Fixin’ to storm.”
Jude, his back to the old woman, raised the bottle.
“Fixin’ to be a bucketdropper.
He wiped his lips on his shirt cuff and nodded. “Looks like, doesn’t it?”
“We get those this time of year. Common with the change of seasons and all.”
Jude started again for the backdoor. “I better get our windows down. Christine
will be giving me hell from here to Sunday.”
His neighbor frowned. “You shouldn’t speak like that, Mr. Hardy. Your wife’s a
saint. So sweet, always asking after me since my mister passed. She works so hard.
I always hear her coming home at I don’t know what hour.”
Jude did not answer.
He went into the kitchen where he fished out a tumbler from beneath a stack of
dishes greening with pizza sauce and filled it to the rim. He sipped down the whiskey
and looked out into the living room. Through the picture window, shafts of blue-gray
light dancing with motes fell through the panes slant upon the raw cords in the worn
carpet.
He emptied his glass and filled it and walked out onto the front porch and
slumped into their one wicker chair. Across the street, a dozen ducks sheltered
under a tangle of willow branches bowing into the pond. He watched the ducks,
watched the sky darken, the ozone-charged air growing sharp as angel hair. From
the driveway, a rumble like distant thunder from the headers on her Camaro. The
back door screeched. “Jude!”
He started to rise and sat again. He sipped the whiskey.
She walked back to their bedroom calling him, past the towel-strewn bathroom
and through the living room to just inside the porch door, its screen breaking her
face into squares of light. Jude twisted his glass in half circles inside the palm of his
hand.
“Are your ears petering out too? Did you not hear me?”
Beyond the pond, thunderheads knifed into the sky. A downdraft caught a
stray duck as it swooped low, the dark liquid beating of its wings fluid against the
pewter water. Jude jutted his chin. “Too much wind.”
“Too much booze.”
Jude shrugged. He drank.
“So did you hear the news?”
“Did I hear what news?”
Blackness leached into the woman’s eyes. “Don’t start out by copping an
attitude with me, Mr. Lawyer. I’ve had a hard one today too.”
“No doubt.”
He reached with his free hand and loosened his tie and undid the collar button.
“Sorry. I’ve a lot on my mind.”
“So what else is new? You think the whole world revolves around you and your
all so important problems.”
“Did something happen?”
“Yes, it did. Thank you for expressing an interest in something I said.”
“Of course.”
“Betty’s husband called before I left the office.”
“And?”
Dr. Sullivan died.”
Jude nodded. A clammy breeze fingered his hair. “Yes, I heard.”
“Her husband hadn’t heard the juice. Only that Dr. Sullivan was found dead.”
Lightning veined the bruise colored sky, filling the air with a frail afterscent like
burnt iron.
“He killed himself.”
A roll of thunder swallowed Christine’s words. “Jude? I asked you how.”
Jude reached to his breast pocket for his Salems. “He . . .”
The telephone rang. Jude struck a match and flicked it out into the brown lawn.
The telephone rang again. Christine still stood behind the door.
“You know he’s not calling to ask me to meet him somewhere.”
Christine looked over her shoulder to where the telephone sat in their living
room, not on an end table because Jude had smashed the one they had, but on the
carpet beside a stained sofa that smelled of vomit where he had passed out. The
telephone rang again.
“You better pick it up,” Jude said. “If I do, he’ll only hang up, and you don’t
want to spend another evening with me. We can’t afford to lose the furniture.”
Christine pirouetted on one foot. “Be my guest. Prove to me that you have
some machismo and don’t worry. We have no furniture left worth losing.”
The bedroom door slammed, the squares of glass in the living room window
rattled in their panes.
Jude sat, watched the sway of poplars bordering the pond, their quicksilver
clash of leaves. He unfastened the cufflinks she had given him on his last birthday,
the hand-tooled ones she had her old man buy for her on his monthly run into
Tijuana where he traded meth for the chemicals he used to run his lab secreted in a
Mohave arroyo. Jude rolled his shirtsleeves halfway to his elbows and leaned back in
his chair and watched the blackness close in, listened to the murmur of Christine’s
voice drift from the bedroom window she had cracked open. He could not make out
her words, but he recognized the ache in their tenor from long ago, only now she
spoke her words for Tommy Grazioso.
He never saw the two of them together, but he no need to consult Madam Zola
to read him the signs. Like phone calls she took in another room. Late work nights
when she did not crawl into bed until near dawn, sweetly smiling in the moonlight,
smelling of Tequila and expensive perfume and hours-old lovemaking. Never any
purchases by her on their Visa statement, the full amount of her salary deposited
into their bank account, checks going where they always went, but Gucci blouses
and Armani dresses, their snipped tags in the bathroom wastebasket he puzzled
together late at night while he listened for her car.
Tommy worked for Nicolo Dominic, the boss of her firm’s biggest accounting
client. A narc who Jude once partnered with on a case had seen them a month
before at one of Tommy’s bars up on Youngstown’s north side, snuggling in a back
booth, she on his lap, a diamond bracelet dangling from her wrist. Three times in
four years The Vindicator had plastered Tommy’s face on its front page after the
grand jury indicted him, once for pushing numbers, once for running a call-girl ring,
the charges dismissed after Nicolo made his amends with the Democratic chairman
who ran the county. The third time it got serious when the State Police unsealed a
woman from a fifty-gallon drum some kids on a raft found floating down the
Mahoning River after the chain holding it to its concrete anchor snapped. The
woman, pregnant and Catholic, was seen on Tommy’s arm only a week before she
disappeared. Jude never heard what it cost, but he guessed fixing it cost Nicolo
plenty, fixed the election of Larry, Curly, and Moe to the Court of Appeals.
The bedroom window thudded shut. The skew of light thrown by the door
screen darkened across the floorboards. “So how did you hear about Dr. Sullivan?”
Jude stubbed his cigarette into the sole of his shoe. “When I came back from
court this afternoon, his widow was sitting in my waiting room.”
“You never told me they were clients of yours.”
“They’re not.”
“Then what was she doing hanging out in your office?”
“She dated George some in high school.”
“Oh?” Christine rasped a fingernail across the wire mesh. “That seems odd.”
“Does it?”
“Dr. Sullivan must be thirty years older than your brother.”
“I would say.”
“So.” She tilted her head. She smiled. “Younger wife. Older husband. Who’s a
doctor. My, my.”
A skein of lightning spiderwebbed the sky. Christine looked at her watch. “I’ve
got to get ready.” She crossed half the living room and came back. “Wasn’t there a
rumor making its rounds about his wife seeing someone?”
Jude tapped his wedding band on the rim of his glass.
“Judy, wasn’t there?”
next page
To the Heart of the Matter
by Scott Kauffman
How will I know how you loved me?
I have left you, that is how you will know.
Carolyn Creedon, Litany
Jude pulled the fender-rusted Buick into his driveway and braked it to a sliding
stop, the tires skidding on the gravel and off into the ankle-high grass. He cut the
engine and just sat, wet under his suit. Wet under his socks. When he got out, he
reached behind the seat for the fifth of Seagram’s and broke the seal and chugged a
long, throat-burning swallow and started for the backdoor. Across the street, near-
sighted Mrs. Roberts throttled back her mower and waved. Jude raised his free hand
and walked all the faster.
“Better get your windows up, Mr. Hardy.”
He turned to where she pointed. Clouds black as singed dogs ran along the
horizon.
“Fixin’ to storm.”
Jude, his back to the old woman, raised the bottle.
“Fixin’ to be a bucketdropper.
He wiped his lips on his shirt cuff and nodded. “Looks like, doesn’t it?”
“We get those this time of year. Common with the change of seasons and all.”
Jude started again for the backdoor. “I better get our windows down. Christine
will be giving me hell from here to Sunday.”
His neighbor frowned. “You shouldn’t speak like that, Mr. Hardy. Your wife’s a
saint. So sweet, always asking after me since my mister passed. She works so hard.
I always hear her coming home at I don’t know what hour.”
Jude did not answer.
He went into the kitchen where he fished out a tumbler from beneath a stack of
dishes greening with pizza sauce and filled it to the rim. He sipped down the whiskey
and looked out into the living room. Through the picture window, shafts of blue-gray
light dancing with motes fell through the panes slant upon the raw cords in the worn
carpet.
He emptied his glass and filled it and walked out onto the front porch and
slumped into their one wicker chair. Across the street, a dozen ducks sheltered
under a tangle of willow branches bowing into the pond. He watched the ducks,
watched the sky darken, the ozone-charged air growing sharp as angel hair. From
the driveway, a rumble like distant thunder from the headers on her Camaro. The
back door screeched. “Jude!”
He started to rise and sat again. He sipped the whiskey.
She walked back to their bedroom calling him, past the towel-strewn bathroom
and through the living room to just inside the porch door, its screen breaking her
face into squares of light. Jude twisted his glass in half circles inside the palm of his
hand.
“Are your ears petering out too? Did you not hear me?”
Beyond the pond, thunderheads knifed into the sky. A downdraft caught a
stray duck as it swooped low, the dark liquid beating of its wings fluid against the
pewter water. Jude jutted his chin. “Too much wind.”
“Too much booze.”
Jude shrugged. He drank.
“So did you hear the news?”
“Did I hear what news?”
Blackness leached into the woman’s eyes. “Don’t start out by copping an
attitude with me, Mr. Lawyer. I’ve had a hard one today too.”
“No doubt.”
He reached with his free hand and loosened his tie and undid the collar button.
“Sorry. I’ve a lot on my mind.”
“So what else is new? You think the whole world revolves around you and your
all so important problems.”
“Did something happen?”
“Yes, it did. Thank you for expressing an interest in something I said.”
“Of course.”
“Betty’s husband called before I left the office.”
“And?”
Dr. Sullivan died.”
Jude nodded. A clammy breeze fingered his hair. “Yes, I heard.”
“Her husband hadn’t heard the juice. Only that Dr. Sullivan was found dead.”
Lightning veined the bruise colored sky, filling the air with a frail afterscent like
burnt iron.
“He killed himself.”
A roll of thunder swallowed Christine’s words. “Jude? I asked you how.”
Jude reached to his breast pocket for his Salems. “He . . .”
The telephone rang. Jude struck a match and flicked it out into the brown lawn.
The telephone rang again. Christine still stood behind the door.
“You know he’s not calling to ask me to meet him somewhere.”
Christine looked over her shoulder to where the telephone sat in their living
room, not on an end table because Jude had smashed the one they had, but on the
carpet beside a stained sofa that smelled of vomit where he had passed out. The
telephone rang again.
“You better pick it up,” Jude said. “If I do, he’ll only hang up, and you don’t
want to spend another evening with me. We can’t afford to lose the furniture.”
Christine pirouetted on one foot. “Be my guest. Prove to me that you have
some machismo and don’t worry. We have no furniture left worth losing.”
The bedroom door slammed, the squares of glass in the living room window
rattled in their panes.
Jude sat, watched the sway of poplars bordering the pond, their quicksilver
clash of leaves. He unfastened the cufflinks she had given him on his last birthday,
the hand-tooled ones she had her old man buy for her on his monthly run into
Tijuana where he traded meth for the chemicals he used to run his lab secreted in a
Mohave arroyo. Jude rolled his shirtsleeves halfway to his elbows and leaned back in
his chair and watched the blackness close in, listened to the murmur of Christine’s
voice drift from the bedroom window she had cracked open. He could not make out
her words, but he recognized the ache in their tenor from long ago, only now she
spoke her words for Tommy Grazioso.
He never saw the two of them together, but he no need to consult Madam Zola
to read him the signs. Like phone calls she took in another room. Late work nights
when she did not crawl into bed until near dawn, sweetly smiling in the moonlight,
smelling of Tequila and expensive perfume and hours-old lovemaking. Never any
purchases by her on their Visa statement, the full amount of her salary deposited
into their bank account, checks going where they always went, but Gucci blouses
and Armani dresses, their snipped tags in the bathroom wastebasket he puzzled
together late at night while he listened for her car.
Tommy worked for Nicolo Dominic, the boss of her firm’s biggest accounting
client. A narc who Jude once partnered with on a case had seen them a month
before at one of Tommy’s bars up on Youngstown’s north side, snuggling in a back
booth, she on his lap, a diamond bracelet dangling from her wrist. Three times in
four years The Vindicator had plastered Tommy’s face on its front page after the
grand jury indicted him, once for pushing numbers, once for running a call-girl ring,
the charges dismissed after Nicolo made his amends with the Democratic chairman
who ran the county. The third time it got serious when the State Police unsealed a
woman from a fifty-gallon drum some kids on a raft found floating down the
Mahoning River after the chain holding it to its concrete anchor snapped. The
woman, pregnant and Catholic, was seen on Tommy’s arm only a week before she
disappeared. Jude never heard what it cost, but he guessed fixing it cost Nicolo
plenty, fixed the election of Larry, Curly, and Moe to the Court of Appeals.
The bedroom window thudded shut. The skew of light thrown by the door
screen darkened across the floorboards. “So how did you hear about Dr. Sullivan?”
Jude stubbed his cigarette into the sole of his shoe. “When I came back from
court this afternoon, his widow was sitting in my waiting room.”
“You never told me they were clients of yours.”
“They’re not.”
“Then what was she doing hanging out in your office?”
“She dated George some in high school.”
“Oh?” Christine rasped a fingernail across the wire mesh. “That seems odd.”
“Does it?”
“Dr. Sullivan must be thirty years older than your brother.”
“I would say.”
“So.” She tilted her head. She smiled. “Younger wife. Older husband. Who’s a
doctor. My, my.”
A skein of lightning spiderwebbed the sky. Christine looked at her watch. “I’ve
got to get ready.” She crossed half the living room and came back. “Wasn’t there a
rumor making its rounds about his wife seeing someone?”
Jude tapped his wedding band on the rim of his glass.
“Judy, wasn’t there?”
next page
