Left Out In the Cold
Rachel walked up the steps to the porch and knocked on the screen door. The inner door was open, it was a warm night for autumn, and she could just make out shapes inside the house in the dull evening light. She tried hard not to look in, feeling it would be an invasion of privacy, but finally couldn't help moving her head back and forth to see through the screen, hoping for a glimpse of her friend. She knocked again and heard another door open inside, and then watched Tim walk down the hall. She put on her smile before he pushed open the door.
"Hi," she said feeling that any words she could possibly come up with to follow the greeting would be useless and flat.
"Hey," Tim replied holding the screen open in invitation. "How's the arm?" he asked as she stepped in.
"Sore," she answered showing him the bandages.
He smiled in sympathy. "You want a beer? I was just sitting in the back. Or I've got some wine in the fridge."
"What are you doing with wine in the fridge?" she asked looking up at him in surprise and forgetting to be serious.
"You never know who's going to drop by. And don't you dare tell the guys at the office."
"I'd love a glass of wine," she conceded and followed him into the kitchen.
She always thought it funny that Tim lived in this old house in town, even after he'd told her the story of how he'd inherited it from his math teacher. Tim described her as this crazy old lady, old even when he was in high school, who saw something in him other than the miscreant, as he called himself, kept him interested in math, loaned him books to read, and later encouraged him to write his GEDs so he could get into the military. He told the story in an offhand manner, but it was clear he was grateful to her. He looked her up when he got back to Kentucky with the intention of saying thank you and discovered she'd retired in Lexington with her sister. By the time Tim came to say hi, the sister had already passed and she was living alone. He dropped in on weekends and helped her keep the place up. After she died, he was surprised to find she'd left him the house. He moved in to fix it up and sell it and never moved out. He liked the porch.
Tim poured Rachel some wine, opened himself another beer and led the way back out front. She kicked off her shoes and curled up on one of the old chairs and studied him carefully for a moment or two. The porch suited him.
"Tim," she started.
"Don't," he interrupted her, shaking his head. "There's nothing to say. It couldn't have gone down any differently. I wouldn't have let it. Neither would you."
"I feel terrible," she said, her voice hitching. "And Raylan, he's worried about you."
Tim raised an eyebrow at the last statement. "If he's worried I'm going to go off myself, he can stop. It's not my style."
Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow.
"Look," he said, "last night, after I got back, I did a lot of thinking. Remember that story I told you about the guy in Afghanistan? Well, you just can't be mad at that sniper for shooting the kid or that Afghani kid for shooting at the soldiers. They had to do what they did. And you can't blame Frisk…" he stopped a moment and squeezed his eyes tight. "You can't blame him for reacting the way he did. Shit, he didn't know any better. It's all just fucked-up shit that happens. You can't control it so you can't blame yourself for it."
He needed her to understand that he couldn't have just watched it happen. Tim, the sniper, the Marshal, had to make that shot.
He got up and moved passed her into the house. She worried for a moment that she'd upset him, but he came back out almost immediately carrying a book.
"Here, listen," he said and he started reading.
"I can see what the law is like. It's like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks in the bed and a cold night. There ain't never enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling and hauling, and someone is going to nigh catch pneumonia."**
"Now, he's talking about the law," Tim said, pointing at the book, "but I see it covering luck, too, or fate, whatever you want to call it. Frisk, Raylan and me, we all grew basically the same, we're like the three folks in the bed, and it's Frisk didn't get any of the blanket. Like that kid in Afghanistan, or the sniper – fate left them out in the cold. I guess if you want to you can find someone to blame. But I can't blame myself. Yesterday, Frisk wasn't under that blanket, and I guess I wasn't either." He went quiet and chewed at his lip.
"I'm probably not making any sense," he continued. "But I want you know I'm okay with it. I'm okay Rachel, really, I am. I'm torn up that I had to take the shot, but I'm okay that I took the shot. Do you understand?"
Rachel stared at Tim for a few minutes. Then slowly she shook her head. "Raylan was right. You and literature, it's an interesting juxtaposition."
"Bite me," he said.
"In your dreams," she replied sarcastically and felt a little better.
They sat quietly, thinking, working on their drinks. She watched Tim closely until he turned and raised his eyebrows at her.
"Can I borrow the book?" she asked.
Author's Note: This idea had to come out after a conversation with 50ftQueenie. Anyone read the book?
** Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men; Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1946