Hartley didn't trust the air mattress. He had swept the rough wooden floor free of dirt and dead bugs as best he could and laid a tarp on it, but still. Air mattresses had a way of springing a leak just when you'd gotten comfortable and thought you could finally rest. He'd purchased a cheap sleeping bag that he'd laid atop it. It wasn't the Hilton, but it would do.
Outside it was still daylight but the crickets had already begun rubbing their wings together. Some people called it night music, the racket they made, he called it a bunch of horny insects. He was a city boy at heart, always would be. Well, suburbs anyway. That's all he'd ever wanted: a nice house in the suburbs, decent cars to put in the garage, a family. Same thing his old man had. Same thing everyone told you you were supposed to want.
He watched as white smoke curled up from the orange tip of the cigarette on the card table and drifted through the open door. He couldn't bring himself to actually smoke the damn thing and the smell was making him sick to his stomach. He'd quit a ten-year habit seven years ago. Janie had been on him. "We've got a son now", she said. "Do it for him." And so he had. He'd given up smoking for Hartley Jr., and for Janie and for the family everyone had told him he was supposed to have.
Except he didn't have a family anymore. Janie had up and left him for a woman she met on the internet. And don't that beat all? Don't that just take the fucking cake? How's a man supposed to hold his head up after that? He'd come home from work and there was a note and clothes thrown about the bedrooms and money missing out the bank account. Just like that it was as if he'd been erased from his own life.
What was he doing here? His grandfather had called it the Lighthouse. It was an old wood cabin really, that Granddad had covered in stucco and that his father always said he would restore and never did. When the sunlight through the mountains hit it just right the whole building lit up, glowed soft and golden. Looked like the kind of place that could lead a man home. Keep him from dashing himself against the rocks. It was the first place he'd thought of when he needed to get away, when he knew he couldn't stay in that house with the scented candles and throw pillows and Thomas Kinkade paintings one more minute. He'd thought about ripping and breaking them all, just leave them torn and smashed on the floor as if a stranger had broken in, rifled through all his belongings, taken everything that was valuable and destroyed any hope for what was left behind. But Janie might come back and if she did, Hartley Jr. could get cut. A man protected his child. And Hartley Pierson was a man.
He would fight for HJ. Of course he would. He would fight for custody with everything he had. He was his son, dammit! You don't take a man's son! He'd believed everything Janie told him. That damn woman had been in his house. Ate at his table! Janie said she was part of her online writing group. They critiqued each other's stories. She was helping her be a better writer, Janie said. But all that bitch was doing was helping herself to what was his. Now she had his wife and his son and he was the one with the sad and sorry story.
Hartley got up and walked outside. He needed fresh air. About a hundred feet behind the cabin was a sheer drop-off. He walked near the edge of it and closed his eyes. He could remember standing out here as a little boy with his grandfather, his hand in the old man's, staring out at the mountains and the valley between them. The view was breathtaking, but a part of Hartley was always afraid of falling. He'd squeeze his grandfather's hand as tightly as he could and his grandfather would tell him that one day the cabin and piece of property would be his and a man could never be afraid of what was his. He had to claim it and own it. Yes, all this was his, he thought now. His grandfather was long dead and his own father had died two years ago in a car accident. This all belonged to him. He claimed it. Hartley stepped a little closer to the edge and threw his arms out as if to embrace it all. Some loose rocks skittered out from beneath his feet. Terrified he flung himself backward, lost his footing and landed hard on his rear end. He scrambled to his feet and went back into the Lighthouse.
He'd bought a bottle of Jack Daniels when he'd gone shopping for the other supplies. He wanted to cry and he thought the JD might help. Men didn't cry. At least not a sober man. A drunk man might be forgiven for crying, though. A drunk man might be forgiven for a lot of things. She had told him she loved him all those nights--years--she had lain beneath him. She had called it love so he called it love too and believed it like a good man was supposed to do. The sun was sagging in the evening sky. Soon he would be alone in the darkness and quiet. The dark would close in on him and the quiet would be deafening and his own thoughts would gnaw at him until they ate him alive. Outside, in the fading light, the stucco walls began to turn from gold to rust. Fireflies flitted among the lush greenery like pinpricks of hope. Inside, Hartley lit a candle and put it in the window.
Topic: THE LIGHTHOUSE (Read 4084 times)