Looking Back

It’s hot. So hot the sweat soaks through your ballcap and runs down its beak and dribbles off. Hits your chapped lips and leaves them salty. Hot like hell. Get the shingles to the roof. Seventy-five pounds apiece. Keep up, you and one co-worker. Keep up with the rooftop crew slapping on roughly twenty-five bundles per hour. Hot like you wouldn’t believe.

At the end of these days he made two hundred dollars. Cash. His boss paid him in twenties. “You know, John,” he said sometimes, “if you went on the books we could promote you. Let these kids run the shingles up.”

And John would smile and take the money. Say something like, “They’d never keep up.”

#

Home was a little house behind a church in a tiny town no one has ever heard of. He found Murray asleep in the living room, on a recliner in front of the television, so he crept by and into the kitchen where he washed Murray’s breakfast and dinner plates and put them away. Then he put some chicken in the oven before creeping back by and into the bathroom for a shower. He shaved his head clean but left his beard. He’d been finding a few grays in it lately. Wasn’t sure if they were noticeable. Wasn’t sure how he felt about them.

Back in the living room he found Murray, awake now, with his Bible out. John set the meal on a tray in front of him. In another life, Murray had been a pastor at the church next door. The church owned the house and its higher-ups were more/less waiting out the days until Murray died to take it back. They’d been waiting four or five years now, since Murray had stepped down from his pastoring duties. John worried they wouldn’t have to wait much longer. He had stepped down, Murray, when his memory had begun to fail him, but the momentum of his decay had become relentless over this past year. Every day he feared finding some new failing in Murray’s mind.

John, in clean sweats, sat on the sofa perpendicular to Murray’s chair and gave himself a moment to relax.

He asked Murray, “You do anything today? Get outside at all?”

“Oh you know. Just read The Word.” Murray flipped a page in the Bible on the armrest of his recliner. “You know why the Lord took Lot’s wife?” he asked. He asked this most nights.

John answered the same as he always did: “Because she looked back.”

“Because she looked back,” Murray said, nodding, bits of his face bouncing along. He had aged as much physically in this past year as he had mentally. New pockets of skin all over his face. So little hair you would think he shaved his head too, if looking from a distance. He would be eighty-four come the first of the year. A month or so back his daughter had visited and, even though Murray knew she looked familiar, it was fifteen or twenty minutes before he figured out who she was. He had yet to forget who John was, although there were times where recognizing him seemed to require some effort. Before his daughter left she had given Murray a long hug, and she had cried. She’d never done that before. Cried.

John ate his own dinner at the table. When he was finished he went to the basement where the laundry he had thrown in the dryer that morning waited. He put it in a basket and then returned to the living room where he found Murray sleeping again.

“Come on,” he said, nudging Murray awake.

Basket in hand, he helped Murray out of the chair and up the stairs and into his bedroom. Then he found Murray’s pajamas in the basket and laid them out on the bed. Murray thanked him.

John said, “I’ll see you when I get home tomorrow, Murray,” and turned to leave.

Murray said, “John.”

John stopped in the doorway.

Murray said, “Why did the Lord take Lot’s wife?”

John smiled. “Because He told her not to look back. And she looked back.”

“Mm. She looked back.”

“Goodnight, Murray.”

“Goodnight, John. Thank you.”

#

So hot you have to wear sleeves to keep the skin on your arms from blistering. Some days, a hundred degrees. Today: One hundred and six. Working a house that was cooking in a little yard surrounded by breeze-killing trees. Like the earth’s oven. So hot you feel every line in your face. So hot your head hurts.

After work he stopped at a gas station and filled the tank of Murray’s old brown GMC and then inside the store he found himself stalling. He was getting afraid–“afraid,” that was the word--to go home some nights. Not so long ago he had entered the house and thought he could smell something foul, but then it seemed to go away. Then when he helped Murray out of the recliner, he saw the recliner was soaked in urine. It wouldn’t be long before John would have to help Murray change clothes. Help him shower. The bathroom. With each day another shred of the old man’s dignity fell away, and with it also fell away the ability to understand what he was losing. But John knew. Murray had been a great man, in John’s eyes. The greatest John had ever known.

“Hey.”

Suddenly the store in which he stood seemed to materialize again and John looked up from the pepperoni sticks he’d been mindlessly staring at. These thoughts of Murray, like most thoughts for John, had little narrative, no pictures. Thoughts for John were more like shapes and colors. Things that little resembled words. On the other side of the pepperoni sticks stood a man about John’s size: six feet, two thirty or two forty, depending on the time of day. Thirty-five, maybe forty years old. Shorts. Tank top. Very distinct tan lines around his upper biceps. He had something of a mullet beneath his floppy teal ballcap, and a mustache that may or may not have been ironic. At first glance one might think the man had a ridiculous look, but John assessed quickly that this guy knew how to handle himself in a fight. John was always looking for that. Old habits.

John nodded hello.

The man said, “I know you.”

John squinted. Smirked. Shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Yeah, I do. You look a little different but I’d know you anywhere. Saw you on television must’ve been hundreds of times.”

John got a laugh out of that. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” he said.

“No I don’t.” The man laughed a little bit, but his tone was serious. “I know I don’t.”

John plucked a couple of pepperoni sticks out. “I’m a roofer,” he said. “Winter time comes, I’m on a boat. I’m not on T.V.”

“Not anymore. But you used to be.”

John gestured goodbye with the pepperoni sticks, smiling as if he were dealing with a talkative lunatic, and said, “You have a good day now.”

At the counter he paid for the sticks and the gas and a protein shake for Murray. He also picked up a couple of lottery tickets that he wouldn’t tell Murray about, given the Lord’s stance on gambling as interpreted by their particular branch of Baptist. He didn’t like doing it, especially secretly, but the truth was getting harder and harder to ignore. He would have to find someone better suited to care for Murray soon, and that was going to take money. He had talked to Murray’s daughter about it, but she was barely getting by. Murray had a sister who seemed entirely disinterested in the subject. The church seemed willing to help, so much as they could help, but “so much as they could help” was unfortunately not nearly enough. And the money John made could barely keep up with Murray’s ever-growing needs and requirements.

Back outside the store, the sun wasn’t going down without a fight. Still ninety degrees, late in the day. He got in the truck, turned the key and hoped. And, one more time, the engine whined to life.

At that moment he noticed the man from inside coming this way. The man with the mullet. The hat. John fought off the urge to wave and put the truck in drive and hit the gas. Alll he did was sit there and wait. And when the man got close, John politely rolled down the window.

The man said, “Forgot to introduce myself.” He stuck his hand through the open window and they shook. “Greg Miller.”

“John Gaines.”

Greg gave him a look. Then he said, “Well, John Gaines, I’m up the highway a few dozen miles. In Dempsy? I run a wrestling school there.”

“That right?”

“Here. Here, let me give you a card.” Greg patted himself down and then produced a business card that he handed through the window. John gave it a look before setting it on his lap. Greg went on: “Look I’m trying to bother you or nothing. I was just thinking maybe, maybe, if you had the time? Maybe you could stop by the gym and say hi to the students. It would really mean something to them. Maybe you could talk to them? About maybe your experience in the business.”

John looked at him for a long moment before chuckling. “I already told you, man. Whoever it is you think I am? I’m not that guy.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m just having a real hard time believing you.”

John’s chuckle settled into a small smile. He stuck his hand back through the window to shake goodbye, like an amends. But then when Greg took it, John’s hand, John held tight.

“But one thing you should know,” John said. The smile disappeared to nothing. “If I were that guy? If I were that guy? Whoever it is you think I am? If I were that guy, well, if I were you, that’s not something I’d be spreading around.” He squeezed Greg’s hand just hard enough to let Greg know the stature of the man with whom he was dealing. “Because that guy you think I am?” John took a second to just stare. Then he said, “He can be violent. If pushed to it. He’s a very, very, violent man. Deep down. I think you probably know that about him. Greg.”

Greg’s eyes were wide now.

John squeezed his hand just a little tighter. “Maybe he just wants to be left alone.”

John held his hand for just a second longer, letting that sink in, and then he released it.

Then he smiled again. “Lucky for you I’m not that guy,” he said, as if the whole exchange had been a joke. He gave Greg a little wave with the business card, put the truck in drive, and left Greg standing there. At no point before he hit the highway did John let his eyes drift to any of his mirrors.

#

Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights are for church. They sit near the back and as people enter they stop to say hello. Paying their respects to Murray. For thirty-some years he had been pastor here. And in these hours Murray comes to life, physically as much as mentally. He rises when the new pastor asks the congression to rise. He sings when the congregation sings. He shouts support when the pastor makes a strong point. Reads along in his Bible throughout the sermon. John reads along too. He remembers where he was, who he was, before Murray found him. Before God.

Week after week. Sundays and Tuesdays. Until, as the weather cools, Murray begins to struggle to rise when the pastor calls for the congregation to rise. He sings only until he forgets the words, and, eventually, he doesn’t sing at all. Opens his Bible but his eyes no longer follow along while he’s staring at the page.

#

Christmas comes and goes. Fourteen hour days on a fishing boat. Cold enough to burn you. So cold you don’t like to slow down because that’s when you really feel it. The burn. Sea spray frozen in your beard. More money out here, but not enough. He’d had to buy Murray a walker in November. Had to childproof most of the house without even realizing that that was what he was doing. Never enough money. Never enough.

The momentum of Murray’s decay had gone from relentless to cruel. John would get home past dark most nights to find him either confused or asleep in his chair. And most nights he would find the breakfast and lunch he had prepared for Murray untouched in the fridge. When he asked Murray what he had eaten that day, Murray would say, “Soup or some such,” which was not really a lie. Murray undoubtedly believed it. He was growing more frail by the day.

After they ate dinner John would help Murray into the bathroom and out of his clothes and into the shower, where a metal chair waited for him. John would close the curtain and exit the bathroom and sit on the floor outside the door and nod off, smelling of bait and sea mud and sweat. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, before Murray couldn’t wash himself. Another shred of the old man’s forgotten dignity. There weren’t many more shreds left to lose. Eventually John would hear Murray turn the shower off and John would knock on the door and enter and hand Murray a towel around the shower curtain and wait for Murray to dry off and then hand him his robe. Then he would help Murray out of the tub and out of the bathroom and up the stairs to his bedroom and into his pajamas.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Murray,” he would say.

And Murray, every night, would say, “Tell me. Why did the Lord take Lot’s wife?”

“Because she looked back.”

“Mm. Because she looked back.”

On one such night near the end of January John came home later than usual. Each night now, he entered the house afraid. He knew there would come a night, not so long from now, inevitably, when he would return to find Murray had had some terrible accident. Maybe Murray would fall. Maybe he would try to cook his own lunch and set the house on fire. All day on the boat John would fight these thoughts away. Coming home felt like dodging bullets, and the same was true for this night: He entered the house this night to find Murray right where he always was, in his chair, his Bible was open on its armrest. But Murray was awake tonight. And his eyes were locked on the television, where John saw he was watching a professional wrestling show. It took John a few seconds to realize it was PRIME, specifically, which surprised him. John had seen something, quite some time ago, about PRIME coming back, but he’d just as quickly forgotten about it. He remembered now. Murray seemed entranced by the action in the ring, which amused John.

In the kitchen he found Murray’s breakfast and lunch untouched again. He no longer expected otherwise. Rather than putting together something new he decided to heat up Murray’s lunch and serve it to him on the tray. Then he took a seat on the sofa and watched Murray watching the television. Occasionally Murray would look over at him, confused–trying to put it together who John was, no doubt–and then, either figuring it out or giving up, he would return his attention to the ring. Every so often he would take a bite of food.

“Murray,” John said.

“Mm.”

John looked at him. He could tell Murray wasn’t listening. Not really. Sometimes Murray just couldn’t muster up the focus to do that–listen–and this was one of those times.

John said, “I don’t know how much longer we can hold out like this. I don’t know–I don’t know how to take care of you. The way you need. I just know it’s not right, me leaving you alone all day.”

“I like the one in blue.”

John turned to the screen to see a wrestler in blue running the ropes. Nodded. Then he went on: “You saved me in a lot of ways, Murray. You saved my life.” He willed the tears out of his eyes–he didn’t want Murray to see him cry–but his voice betrayed him and shook when he said, “I owe you so much.”

Murray looked at him. For a moment it seemed like he understood, but just as quickly he turned back to the television.

John said, “We need help. I just don’t know how to get it for you. I don’t know how to do this.”

“Mm.”

“Yeah,” John said with a sigh. He turned his attention, also, back to the television. It seemed Lindsay Troy was running things at PRIME these days. John had known her once upon a time, and was surprised to see her in that role. The shot flipped from the backstage area to the ring, and John recognized one of the participants in the upcoming match too. “You know,” he said to Murray, who couldn’t hear him, “I used to do that.” He gestured with his chin toward the screen. “I never told you. But I did. I guess there’re a lot of things I never told you.”

“Mm.”

John watched some more. Then he said, “I used to be good at it.”

“John.”

“Really good.”

“John.”

Now John realized that he himself had not quite been listening. He turned to Murray, who was looking right back at him, as if in this moment the cruel years had shed away and he had become himself, something of himself, for at least right now.

“Yeah, Murray?”

Slowly, deliberately, Murray said, “Why did the Lord take Lot’s wife?”

John nearly answered as automatically as he always did. But then he stopped himself. He let out a long sigh. And then he said, “I don’t know, Murray. Why did the Lord take Lot’s wife?”

Murray blinked a few times. His head tilted just slightly. He looked confused by the question, and with that look, John felt his own heart break. It wasn’t like he’d held out hope for Murray all this time. He could see what was happening. But there’s a difference between losing hope and letting go of it. He knew he had to let go.

Murray said, “Why did–?”

“We should get you to bed.”

They went through the routine.

Later, when John returned to the living room, PRIME’s ReVival was still rolling on. For a long time he just stood there watching, entranced. Money, he thought. We need money.

#

Voices. Echoes. A huge room. The two storey ceiling of a warehouse. And that stale smell of old sweat dried and renewed a hundred times over in unwashed ring gear. Grunts and moans. The unmistakable, satisfying sound of a human back crashing flat against a canvas ring.

John entered Greg Miller’s gym in Dempsy after having blown off work for the first time since he’d changed his name, then braving a blizzard up the highway. He kicked the snow off his boots while watching a pair of young men sparring in the ring under the tutelage of a middle-aged trainer who could probably take both of them at the same time. Always assessing people, John. People and their aptitude for violence. Elsewhere in the room there were several males and a few females working out on their own. Gym mats. Punching bags.

John pulled the toque off his bald head and shook the snow off of it, adding to the puddle that he and everyone who’d entered before him had created on the concrete floor. And just then Greg Miller rounded the corner from a section of the warehouse that seemed set up for office space.

“Can I help y–” Greg stopped mid-step, mid-sentence, when he saw John. Then he said, “You came.”

John nodded. “I feel like I should apologize for how we met a few months back. I’m a little guarded. I’ve got reasons for it.”

Greg came forward the rest of the way. “I understand.”

He didn’t, John knew, but it didn’t matter. “Truth is, I could really use a favor. Two favors, I guess. And I can’t think of anyone else who might be able to help me.”

Greg nodded quickly. “Anything.”

John looked at him seriously. “First, can you put me in touch with Lindsay Troy?”

Greg just stared.

“And second,” John said before he could respond. “I’m gonna need a mask.”