Short Ride to Nowhere Read Free Page A

showing in the shining metal.  
    He looked at the shrink.   “Did he ever say anything to you that might’ve explained what happened to him?”
    “No,” the doctor said.   Jenks waited.   So did the doc.   So did the cops.   So did the girl and the other patients on the wall.   Everybody waiting for the other guy to do something, explain something, give something.
    “Where are Hale’s belongings?” Jenks asked.
    “He had none.”
    “He had books.   He sold books in Times Square.   He had a wallet, pictures of his kids.   The photos mattered to him.   He once dropped his wallet over the stern while we were hauling in a net of bluefish and he went in after it.”
    Nolan glanced through his paperwork.   Wynn studied Jenks.   The doc’s socks made harsh judgments on the fate of humanity.
    “No wallet when he was brought in,” Nolan said.   “Whatever other belongings he might’ve had must’ve been grabbed by the other–” Nolan thought about his next word carefully, even leaned in so he could whisper it with a touch of real meanness.   “–skels.”
    Skels.   Street shit.   Gutter trash.   Homeless fucks.   It brought a chuckle up in Jenks.   Nolan was purposefully trying to push his buttons, get him pissed, maybe mad enough take a poke at somebody, prove he had a temper.   It made sense they’d try to rattle Jenks as hard as possible, see what might fall out of him.   He liked that they were trying to do their job, at least.  
    There were no other questions he could think of to ask, so he got up and left.

3
     

    He had nowhere else to go so he went home.  
    He’d been here before, watching the new family living in his house.   He imagined that most guys who’d had their homes foreclosed did this kind of thing.   Parked down the block and watched the folks who picked up a new mortgage for a song.   If he’d only been offered a rate of under 6% he might’ve been able to make it.   But the bank couldn’t come down, nobody would help him refinance, they just had to chase him out.  
    He glanced over at Hale’s house, saw there was a black SUV in the driveway.   He imagined the two owners of the houses sitting together on their patios sharing a beer, nowhere near as terrified and desperate as Jenks and Hale had been.   Their kids much happier, their wives filled with breezy laughter, their dogs fatter, their gardens greener, roses redder.   Jenks glanced up at his old bedroom and imagined some bastard making love to his woman there, eager and confident, reliant and with a low, slow laugh that blew her hair across her eyes.  
    The edges of the lawn were nice and evenly trimmed, something he’d always failed to do despite his wife’s nagging.   It made him want to climb out of the car and go kick up divots just to foul the perfection.   His sweat had watered those seeds.   He thought about tearing up the rose bushes and hurling them through the bay windows.   
    He sat back in his seat, lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag.    He stared in the rearview and saw his old man’s eyes staring back at him, urging him to quit whining and get on with it.   Jenks started his car and headed for the city.
    He took Southern State Parkway in and watched as the trees and brush fell away and the road shifted into the Belt and led him into the Midtown Tunnel.   He headed into the darkness along with the rest of the traffic, the tunnel dipping beneath the East River.   His imagination ran wild the way it always did, his mind’s eye picturing the tunnel walls caving in and the flood waters rising, a rampart of charging white rapids sweeping in behind so that everybody had to abandon their cars and make a run for it.
    He came out of the tunnel and eased into Manhattan, thinking of his wife.   She lived here now on the Upper East Side with her new boyfriend, an advertising exec who spent a lifetime making the average person feel stupid and ugly unless they bought his latest product.