Reunion at Red Paint Bay

Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar




’Tis a pleasant thing, from the shore, to behold the drowning of another … not because it is a grateful pleasure for anyone to be in misery, but because it is a pleasant thing to see those misfortunes from which you yourself are free.



–LUCRETIUS





Simon Howe, editor of the Red Paint Register, drove south toward home, into the fading light. Beyond the rusting town sign, as far as one could see into the scrub pine woods, there was no other imprint on the land to suggest what lay ahead. A sign wasn’t really necessary. People didn’t just happen upon Red Paint. If you took the spur road off the interstate, you probably already lived there and knew where you were going. Simon reached over the gearshift and let his hand fall on the knee of his wife, Amy. She had been quiet for miles, unusual for her, all the way from their dinner at the Bayswater Inn. Maybe she was worrying about their son, home alone for the first time. If there was separation anxiety, he figured it was more on her part than Davey’s.

A small flash of light in the brush caught his eye as he approached the train tracks. He stopped as if the wooden barrier arms were down and felt the night breeze dampening his face, bringing with it the faintly dank smell of the marshes. “Lightning bugs,” he said, “there were always hundreds of them in our yard in summer when I was a kid. I used to snatch them from the air and put them in a glass jar. It was like catching fire.”

Amy followed his gaze into the woods to see what he was seeing. “Maybe that’s why they’re disappearing, all the little boys putting them in jars.”

Simon stared into the tall weeds for a minute, watching for another flicker, but there was none. He drove on, the old Toyota rattling across the tracks and straining up the steep hill. At the top the length and breadth of Red Paint, four miles by three, stretched out ahead of them. It appeared like a watercolor of a town, a still life at dusk. There was no main road, just a narrow ribbon of asphalt snaking from the cottages on the bay to the bungalows dotting the eastern pine woods. In between lay the town center, an irregular common of grass bordered by brick storefronts. In the middle, a red-and-black bandstand, dated 1813. From its steps, visiting politicians invariably praised the good citizens of Red Paint for sticking to their roots. Staying put turned into a virtue.

“How many people do you think will show?” she asked.

“Where?”

“Your reunion. Think they’ll fill the ballroom?”

“I don’t know. I hate reunions. It’s like turning into your own embarrassing teenage self again for a night.”

“I’m looking forward to it, meeting your old sweethearts.”

“I had girlfriends, not sweethearts.” Ginnie, Nora, Lauren—he hadn’t thought of them in years. Except Ginnie, once in a while.

Amy tapped his arm. “I forgot. I promised Davey we’d bring him a cheeseburger and fries for staying alone.”

Simon glanced in the rearview mirror before slowing. “He didn’t need an incentive. He practically shoved us out the door.”

“He was putting up a good front. I know he was nervous.”

Simon did a U-turn into the dusty parking lot at Red’s Diner, circled the flashing RED’S sign, and pulled back onto Route 7, Bayswater Road.

Amy angled the air vent toward her face. “So,” she said, “what are you leading with this week?”

She often asked this. Sometimes he made up absurd stories of UFO sightings over Red Paint Bay or terrorist groups training out by the old gravel pits to avoid mentioning what always filled page one—tedious articles about variance applications and town meeting procedures. Tonight he just wasn’t in the mood to pretend. “I suppose I’ll play up that guy who lost his toe in the landfill accident last month. He’s filed suit against the town. I was thinking of the headline Big Toe Worth $500K?”

“Provocative question.”

“Right. The city papers will be all over it for follow-ups.”

He came up fast on a turning car, and Amy stiffened against her seat as he veered onto the gravel shoulder, then back onto solid road. He drove past Black Bear Miniature Golf and Ten-Pin Alley, neither with any visible signs of life. What were the other 7,140 citizens of Red Paint doing in their houses at this hour, watching some alternative reality on TV? “I was thinking of a new tagline for the Register,” he said, “Nothing Happens—And We Report It.”

“Catchy.”

“It’s actually the slogan for a Buddhist newspaper, so it’s much deeper than it seems.” Two bright lights came up quickly in the rearview mirror, white disks, then turned off abruptly, as if disappearing into the woods. He kept watching, expecting a police car to appear, blue lights flashing in hot pursuit. He would turn around and follow, of course, just like in his reporter days in Portland. He saw nothing. “You know when the last murder was in Red Paint?”

Amy took a long drink from her water bottle. “It must have been before we bought the house—at least ten years.”

“Twenty years ago this week, a biker was shot outside the Mechanic Pub. All that time since without a killing.”

“You sound disappointed.”

Maybe he was. A murder focused the mind of a small town as no other event could. A murder could make people feel like victims and ask what the world was coming to. A murder could make them lock their doors at night. And, of course, people bought papers to read every grisly detail. “It’s just surprising,” he said. “You figure somebody would pick up a loose .22 once in a while to settle an argument.”

The giant Burger World sign came into view, and Amy braced one hand against the dashboard. He turned into the takeout lane with exaggerated slowness, inched up to the large plastic ear, and leaned out the window. “One cheeseburger, well done, and regular fries.”

“Would you like to maxi-size your order for another dollar, sir?” The voice was gentle and soft, a young girl’s voice that he hadn’t heard before. She sounded pretty to him, but he couldn’t say why. He considered making up some reason to go inside to see, a test of his intuition.

“Sir?”

“Yes. I mean no.”

“Okay,” the sweet voice said, “that will be $3.74. Please pull up to the next window. And have a nice night.”

As the Toyota crept forward Amy ducked her head into the middle of the car and called out, “Thank you,” which seemed unnecessary to him, since she wasn’t part of the transaction. But harmless. Just Amy.

“You know …,” she said, settling back into her seat.

“What?”

“It wouldn’t hurt for you to be more friendly with people.”

“Which people?”

“The girl back there.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “You want me to be more friendly ordering a cheeseburger and fries from a giant clown’s ear?”

“You can be terse sometimes.”

“I’m succinct, not terse. The teenager inside that ear or wherever she is could care less as long as I order quickly. They run on volume here, not friendliness.” Simon took a five-dollar bill out of his wallet. “Does this have anything to do with the FRIENDLIEST TOWN sign? Because you realize that was just a marketing ploy. The Downtown Association dreamed it up to lure small businesses.”

“I’ve just noticed you can sound unpleasant with people. They could get the wrong impression.”

“Unpleasant?” He backed the car down the narrow drive-thru lane and stopped alongside the yellow ear. “Excuse me. Hello?”

“Would you like to change your order, sir?”

“No, I just wanted to ask, when I ordered, did I sound terse to you?”

“Terse?”

He wondered about the word—was it above the comprehension level of a teenager working at Burger World? “Terse or rude,” he said, aiming his words into the bright lemon ear canal. “Was I unpleasant?”

“No, you were okay. You should hear some of the guys. They’re pretty gross.”

Simon rested his arm out the window. “I’m sorry you have to listen to that.”

“Yeah, for seven bucks an hour. But I can get back at them, if I want.”

He pictured her red-painted fingernails grinding roaches into a paste to spread over the burger and squeezing out a dirty sponge into a Coke. A horn blew from behind. “Well,” Simon said, “good luck.”

“Thanks. Your order’s ready now.”

At the pickup window a teenaged boy handed out the black-and-white BW bag, with the familiar grinning cow face on the side. Simon looked in. “She gave us extra ketchup. Lots of it.” As he pulled away he twisted back to call out “Thank you” to the bulky kid, who smiled and waved.



The car bumped along Crescent Street, Red Paint’s perpetually torn-up road, as Amy squeezed a perfect line of ketchup onto a French fry. He always marveled at how steady her hand was. He wondered how many fries she would eat. Invariably he underestimated. She said, “Did you hire your replacement for the pressroom yet?”

“Didn’t I tell you? The guy was in the Red Sox farm system for a while then worked at the Portland Press Herald.” Simon turned on the radio. “That reminds me, the game should be on.”

The station was always tricky to dial in this far up the coast, and static filled the air. Amy touched the knob to tune the channel better. “How did you lure him to the Register, promise a drastic pay cut?”

“He left there seven years ago.”

“Where’s he worked since?”

It was a helpful trait for a psychiatric therapist to be curious, as his wife was by nature, pushing every odd bit of information to the bitter end in case it held some unforeseen significance. But in normal conversation he found this habit irritating. Some topics were left unfinished for a reason.

“He hasn’t really worked.”

“What’s he been doing since leaving the Press Herald?”

Simon thought of the claim the man had made during the interview—that he had read more than a hundred books in the past year. Mostly crime fiction, but still. “He’s been reading a lot, two books a week.”

Amy ate another of Davey’s French fries. “Who has time to read that much?”

“Retired people, the sick, the unemployed, people without TVs or kids.”

“Which is he?”

The option was there for him to pick. But one lie would necessarily lead to another, as Amy pursued his story. “Actually, a prisoner.”

She rolled up the top of the Burger World bag. “He was in jail?”

“Still is, up in Warren. His release date’s tomorrow.”

“What did he do?”

Simon didn’t want to say. He didn’t really know anyway, not specifically, at least. “I probably shouldn’t be talking about this.”

She reached over and poked his neck. “Come on, spill it.”

“Okay, he assaulted a woman.”

Amy lifted her arm from his shoulder, the understanding instantaneous. “He raped her?”

Simon drove.

“You hired a rapist?”

The description seemed so all-encompassing, as if a single word could sum up a man’s whole nature rather than just one awful act. Didn’t a person deserve at least a few sentences about his life before being judged?

“I assume he didn’t put that on his résumé,” Amy said.

“He had a record, not a résumé.”

She glanced out of the window, then back at him. “You didn’t tell me you were thinking of hiring a rapist.”

“I didn’t know I was. I just went up there to check out the new incentives the state has for hiring prisoners when they’re released. I ended up doing some interviews.”

“And hiring a rapist.”

“As it turned out.”

“There weren’t any pedophiles or murderers available?”

Simon braked hard at Five Corners, even though normally he would take his chances coasting through on the yellow to avoid waiting through the multiple lights. “I sense you don’t approve.”

“I’m just wondering why you would hire a rapist.”

Rapist—how many times would she say it? “This guy has a name, which is David Rigero, and David scored higher than most of our regular applicants on the employment test. I liked him, too.”

“Liked him how?”

“As someone to talk to. If I were sitting next to him on an airplane, I’d enjoy our conversation.”

“You’re planning trips with him?”

“No,” he answered, even knowing she was being facetious. “But it’s a small office, and I prefer to like the people I hire. He wants to do some stringing for us, too. He has an aptitude for writing.”

The traffic crept by in front of them—a few cars, a gasoline tanker, and a white unmarked truck, the kind often mentioned on crime reports as spotted leaving the scene. Should the people inside these vehicles all be judged by the worst thing they had ever done? Who could survive that scrutiny?

“So,” she said, “whose life did this wonderful conversationalist of yours ruin?”

Simon debated with himself for a moment making up a name. Sally Jenkins popped into his head. It sounded believable. “I didn’t ask.”

“You weren’t curious about his victim?”

“What would a name tell me? I didn’t ask him anything specific about what he’s in for. It didn’t seem appropriate.” Simon waited for a woman carrying two bags of groceries to cross in front of the Toyota, then pulled carefully through Five Corners. It was the most dangerous intersection in Red Paint.

“Maybe she could use a job,” Amy said. For a moment he thought she meant the woman crossing the street. “That is, if she’s gotten over the trauma of being sexually assaulted by your new hire.”

Simon accelerated quickly, and the rattle started up again. Amy whacked the dashboard with the heel of her hand.

“You might trigger the air bag that way.”

She pounded harder with her fist. “At least it would stop the goddamn rattle.”

He took her hand in his. “I’m sorry, okay? I wouldn’t have hired the guy if I knew you would react so strongly.” He said this clearly, no qualifications. It was easy to apologize for something he didn’t have any intention of changing. “I thought I was doing good here, giving a second chance to a person who’s paid his debt to society.”

She started to say something, then thought for a moment. “You know that half my practice is women who have been abused in some way. I hear their stories every day. Their abusers get out of jail after a few years and move on—and those are the ones who even get convicted. The women never escape, especially from rape.”

“So David Rigero should be locked up forever, throw away the key? Or let him out with no job and no future?”

“I didn’t say that. But you didn’t have to hire him.”

“Right, I should have just let him pick from all the other job offers he had.”

They rode on in silence. Amy rarely let arguments die out like this, with his getting the last word. He wished it would happen more often. In a few minutes he turned onto Fox Run and into their driveway. He switched off the engine and opened his door. She stayed in her seat, holding the Burger World bag. He never realized how idiotic the grinning cow looked.

“Coming?” he said.

She looked over at him. “I never want to meet this man, Simon.”

He nodded. But Red Paint was a small town. It was impossible to say that any two people might not meet some day.