“He fell, Rose. Climbed too high for his own good, end of story.”
“Not him. I mean Hammer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The deceased had taken illegal drugs. Supplied to him by you.”
“You weren’t even there. Get over yourself.”
“Oh, I saw. Earlier in the day.”
I made myself sort back through it. Okay, that. “You saw me helping a stranded motorist.”
“I saw him hoovering meth in your Camaro.”
I laughed out loud. “Star witness, doesn’t know an Impala from a Camaro.”
“Whatever.” She chewed on her thumbnail, watching the door. “I know what I saw. If you’re the supplier of drugs and somebody dies, it’s a felony. I know that for a fact.”
“What you saw was me out in the rain trying to change my friend’s tire. If anybody goes looking, they’ll find a drug in Hammer that I haven’t touched but once in eighth grade. Anybody around here can back that up, so don’t try lying. Just leave me out of it.”
I rolled over and turned my back on her. I’d heard of this, about supplying drugs to somebody that gets in trouble. The trouble being in this case death. She had nothing on me, but she could nail Maggot. I felt rage building up in my gut. She didn’t leave. Nobody came to take my temperature. It came down to whether I could hold off exploding longer than Rose could go without nicotine. I lost. I sat up and yelled at her. “Why do you have to kick the fucking hornet’s nest? You think the Peggots aren’t punished enough? Hammer died trying to fucking save that snake-assed bastard. You want to cry over him, knock yourself out. But you’re not good enough to clean Hammer’s shoes.” She sat through all this with no expression at all. Asked if I was done. Said this was not about Hammer, it was about the rest of us. She’d lost everything, and now she had to make sure we all knew how that felt. And then she got emotional, pulling out wads of Kleenex and blowing her nose. She said losing Fast Forward was like dying herself.
I tried to pull up the sheet. They had me wearing a stupid dress thing with snaps. “For fuck’s sake, Rose. Look how he treated you. He was cruel to everybody that ever knew him.”
She said I didn’t understand him. But I did. Fast Forward had a beautiful poison inside him that infected people and got them hooked. I told her it was bound to end this way because Fast Forward was a dangerous animal, and they aren’t known to have long lives.
Rose didn’t deny that. But she could have been the one to save him. She looked straight at me with her wrecked face full of tears and madness and swore that’s what she believed. That the scar he’d put on her was his way of making sure Rose would belong to him for life.
I’d watched Hammer Kelly die, and now I had to see it all over again with every Peggot that came through the door saying, Lord, it can’t be true, having to hear that it was. I dreaded coming back from the hospital to face the family. But I understood. They needed somebody alive to tell the tale. They were grateful, and didn’t blame me, and we all agreed there would be no getting over this. Hammer was the Peggots’ MVP.
June came to stay with us at Mrs. Peggot’s, padding around all week in her gray sweatpants, making coffee, making soup beans, running a hand over her mother’s rumpled head. Mrs. Peggot sat dazed at the kitchen table. The rest of the family rolled back and forth in waves between the Peggot house, which was home base, and Ruby’s, where he’d lived. They couldn’t plan a funeral, still waiting for final say from Hammer’s Texas relatives as to where the body was to end up. Hammer’s dad hadn’t visited in an age, and we’d pretty much forgotten about him having blood kin. But that’s who holds the cards in the end. The Peggots were stuck, not able to move forward with the normal death matters of cooking and drinking. It was all just loose ends and talk. Like if they hashed through it enough times, they might get to a different ending.
Maggot went upstairs and got cooked for the duration, so it was entirely on me to get this story on the family’s books. It’s a lot of responsibility. I did my best, save for a few details held back. We were not avengers on the trail of Fast Forward. There was no handle of gin, no meth. The Marlin he must have left in his truck, possibly stolen. It was by pure chance we happened on Hammer with his flat tire. Lost lug nuts, those made it into the story. Plenty here is true. We stopped by the house of an acquaintance to dry off, and heard that some friends had gone over to Devil’s Bathtub. Why not join them, ridiculous weather and all, boys will be boys, etc.