The Long Fall by Lynn Kostoff Read Free Book Online

hear your husband laugh again.

SIX
     
    D ebt has a way of settling you in your skin.
    So does the threat of death.
    Jimmy dry-palms four aspirin and circles his room at the Mesa View Inn. It doesn’t take long, the place a box with a narrow bathroom attached, a weekly rate stand-in for the idea of a home, cluttered with a lumpy bed, a couple of chairs, wallpaper whose fading design resembles underwear stains, a dresser with mismatched drawers, a portable black-and-white that picks up two stations, and a hot plate.
    Traction,
Jimmy thinks.
    That’s what he needs. A little traction.
    After what happened between Richard and him, Jimmy moved to the next branch of the family tree and tried a long-distance call to Mom. She’d been divorced from the old man going on four years now, the marriage having sputtered along until Mom suddenly became a big fan of Jerusalem Slim, Mom cashing in her chips for a seat on the Hallelujah Express and three months after the divorce was finalized, landing a second husband in the same beat, a guy named Jerry Snapp, another born-again citizen, who owned two seafood restaurants in Tampa.
    Mom was a regular sister of mercy now, big on religious homilies and quoting scripture passages, but decidedly tight with the maternal purse strings, so when Jimmy asked for the loan, he kept it simple, shaving away all references to Ray Harp and his collection practices and sticking to a tune he figured Mom might come in for the chorus on—the new-man, fresh-start melody—but she shut him down completely when it came to the cash, telling him how happy she was to hear he’d changed and how she’d always known he had the capacity to be more than he’d settled for and how it was important at this particular juncture in his life to trust in God to provide, and capping things off by saying that she and Jerry were praying for him.
    The next thing, a dial tone. Jimmy had debated calling back and saying he appreciated all the prayers but maybe Mom and Jerry there, if they really wanted to do him some good, they could throw in another one, like Ray Harp maybe getting amnesia or eating it in a car wreck.
    Traction.
    One week.
    He’s even marked the date on the calendar, one of those complimentary jobs from his brother’s business, Frontier Cleaners, Richard standing in front of the original store in Scottsdale, the addresses and phone numbers for the others listed below, then a bold-faced slogan: We Clean What You Can’t. Jimmy had one of them hanging in his cell at Perryville, too.
    Jimmy sits down on the edge of the bed. His hands are shaking, and he can feel the pulse in his neck take off.
    He’s been in jams before, but this thing with Ray Harp, it’s got him worried.
    He’s wondering if maybe he’s losing the touch. He’s seen it happen. Plenty of other guys, their luck goes light and then just one day disappears. They keep doing what they’ve always been doing, but it just doesn’t work anymore.
    The Mesa View Inn, for example.
    Jimmy’s hit bottom a couple times, but he’s never had to take up residence there.
    Ditto with Perryville Correctional Facility.
    One thing leading to another, that’s the way Jimmy’s used to playing it, and that’s the way it’s always worked ever since he washed out of his first semester at ASU for a little recreational pot-dealing among friends. That led to some new friends, and those friends had friends, and pretty soon Jimmy had lots of pals with interesting alternatives to regular employment.
    Jimmy had the touch then, and though he told himself he’d know when to quit and take a French leave, it never quite happened. The world was full of sweet, easy deals, and he was going to live forever.
    But then one day you blink and you’re thirty-five, and one thing is not leading to another anymore. They’re sprouting detours instead, none of which takes you where you want to go.
    Jimmy gets up off the bed, circles the room, then ducks into the bathroom and splashes