Страница 43 из 147
That year, 1957, Evacuation Day had come on a Sunday. Monday was the school holiday, and Mr. Leary had taken Da
And despite his promise to come home a lot-every weekend he could-Da
His first novel was dedicated to Mr. Leary. Because of the Irishman’s love of Latin, Da
MICHAEL LEARY,
IN MEMORIAM
It was from Mr. Leary that he’d first heard the phrase in medias res. Mr. Leary had praised young Dan’s writing by saying that, “as a reader,” he liked how Da
“What’s that called-is there a name for it?” the boy had i
Mr. Leary had answered: “I call it in medias res, which in Latin means ‘in the middle of things.’”
Well, that was kind of where he was at this moment in his life, Daniel Baciagalupo was thinking. He had a two-year-old son, whom he’d inexplicably not named after his father; he’d lost his wife, and had not yet met another woman. He was struggling to begin a second novel while the first one was not yet published, and he was about to go back to New England to his first noncooking, not-in-a-kitchen job. If that wasn’t in medias res, Daniel Baciagalupo thought, what was?
And, continuing in Latin, when Da
Maybe that was why the first novel was dedicated to Mr. Leary. “Not to your dad?” Ketchum would ask Da
“Maybe the next one,” he would tell them both. His father never said anything about the dedication to Mr. Leary.
Da
Whenever Ketchum called from those faraway phone booths, time seemed to stop; whenever he heard from Ketchum, Daniel Baciagalupo, who was twenty-five, usually felt that he was twelve and leaving Twisted River all over again.
One day, the writer would acknowledge this: It was not a coincidence when the logger called on that rainy April night. As usual, Ketchum called collect, and Da
“So you’re a typist now,” Da
“It was never my handwriting,” Ketchum told him. “It was Pam’s. Six-Pack wrote all my letters.”
“Why?” Da
“I can’t write!” Ketchum admitted. “I can’t read, either-Six-Pack read all your letters aloud to me, yours and your dad’s.”
This was a devastating moment for Daniel Baciagalupo; as the young writer would think of it later, it was right up there with his wife leaving him, but it would have more serious consequences. Da
“I thought my mom taught you to read,” Da
“Not really,” Ketchum replied. “I’m sorry, Da
“So now Pam is typing? Da
“There’s a lady I met in the library-she turned out to be a schoolteacher, Da
“Where’s Six-Pack?” Da
“Well, that’s kind of the problem,” Ketchum told him. “Six-Pack moved on. You know how that is,” he added. Ketchum knew all about Katie moving on-there was no more to say about it.
“Six-Pack left you?” Da
“That’s not the problem,” Ketchum answered. “I’m not surprised she left me-I’m surprised she stayed so long. But I’m surprised that she’s moved in with the cowboy,” Ketchum added. “That’s the problem.”
Both Da
“Are you saying Six-Pack will tell the cowboy what she knows?” Da
“Not immediately,” Ketchum answered. “She has no reason to do me any dirt-or to do you and your dad any harm, as far as I know. We parted on good enough terms. It’s what’ll happen to her when Carl beats her up, because he will. Or when he throws her out, because he won’t keep her for long. You haven’t seen Six-Pack in a while, Da
Daniel Baciagalupo was counting to himself. He knew that Ketchum and Six-Pack were the same age, and that they both were the exact same age as Carl. When he got to fifty, Da
“Explain what you mean,” Da
“It’ll be when Carl does something bad to Pam-that’ll be when she’ll tell him. Don’t you see, Da
If he was a better man, it might be a relief to the cowboy to learn he didn’t kill Injun Jane. And if Six-Pack had led a gentler life, maybe she wouldn’t be tempted to use her knowledge of the situation as a weapon. (At worst, Pam might blurt out the truth to Carl-either accidentally, or while he was beating her up.) But Ketchum wasn’t counting on the cowboy to discover some essential goodness within himself, and the river driver knew the life Six-Pack had led. (He’d led that life, too; there was nothing gentle about it.) And the cowboy had driven himself crazy-not because he believed he’d killed Jane; he didn’t even feel guilty about that, much less crazy. Ketchum was right: What made Carl crazy was that he couldn’t remember killing her; Ketchum knew the cowboy would have enjoyed remembering that.