Strange Weather by Joe Hill
When they had lived together, it had been one of Kellaway’s rules that Holly could talk to Frances only when he was in the room, for exactly this reason. He had not wanted Holly to have a cell phone because of the danger of Frances texting her. He had refused to let Holly buy one, but then the fucking company she worked for gave her one, insisted she carry one.
“You tell that hairy cunt—” he began, but then the phone clattered, and it was George.
“Daddy,” George said. He had his mother’s rushing, breathless, excitable voice, the same soft, sweet slur. “Daddy, you were on TV!”
“I know,” he said. It took a great effort of will to steady his voice and inject some warmth into it. “I was in TV Land all afternoon, where all the TV people live. The hardest part is getting there. They have to shrink you down, very, very small, so you can fit inside the television set.”
George giggled. The sound of it was so lovely it made Kellaway ache. He wanted to hold his son in his lap and squeeze him until he shouted and tried to wriggle free. He wanted to take George to the beach and shoot bottles for him. George would clutch his fists and dance every time a bottle smashed. Kellaway would smash the world to see George dance.
“That isn’t true,” George said.
“It is. First they make you very, very small, and then you get a ticket and ride to TV Land on Thomas the Tank Engine. I sat right next to one of the Teletubbies on the trip.”
“No you didn’t.”
“I did. Really.”
“Which one?”
“The yellow one. He smells like mustard.”
George giggled again. “Mom says you saved people from dyin’! She says there was a bad person and you shot her down just like—pow! Is that what happened?”
“That’s what happened. Just like that.”
“Okay. That’s good. I’m glad you shot that bad person.” The squawking sounds began in the background, Fran getting going again. George listened to her, then said, “I’ve got to eat my Eggo and go to bed.”
“You do. Go on, now. I love you, George.”
“I love you, too.”
“Put your mom back on.”
“Aunt Fran wantsa talk to you.”
Before he could reply, the phone clattered again. Then someone new was on the other end of the line. Even her breathing was unpleasant: thin and slow and deliberate.
“Hey, Randy,” said Frances. “You got a court order not to talk to my sister.”
“She called me,” he said patiently. “There’s no court order says I can’t answer my own phone.”
“That same court order says you can’t own a gun.”
“The gun,” he said, “was behind the counter at the Vietnamese restaurant in the food court, and I asked for it. It was Mr. Nguyen’s gun. And the cops are keeping that part out of the news, not to protect me but to protect him. He’s here on a visa, and owning that gun could get him in hot water with immigration. But go ahead. Make a fuss. Force the police to deport a guy who gave me the weapon I needed to stop a mass shooting. What a hero you’ll be. I want to talk to my wife.” He had thought this lie through carefully and felt it was beyond Frances’s limited powers to assault.
And he was right—she didn’t even try. Instead she went for the easier attack. “She’s not your wife anymore.”
“She is until I see the divorce papers.”
Frances inhaled. He could picture her perfectly, the slits of her nostrils narrowing at the end of that long, bent nose of hers. She had Holly’s features, subtly distorted so that she was utterly lacking any of Holly’s beauty. Holly had a soft, pliant mouth and eyes that shimmered with emotion and an innate desire to please. Frances’s eyes were dull and tired, and she had deep creases bracketing her lips. Holly hugged easily. No one would want a hug from Frances; the steely points of her hard little tits would probably leave bruises.
“Maybe you think you can use this somehow to get them back,” Frances said. “But it’s not happening. She’s not coming back, and neither is he. Not after what you did to them.”
“What I did today,” he told her, “is save lives. What I did today is shoot a madwoman before she could go on a killing spree.”
“You’ll have to shoot another madwoman before you get anywhere near either of them. Because you’d have to kill me to take them away.”
“Well,” he said to her, “that would definitely be a bonus, wouldn’t it?”
He hung up.
He didn’t expect her to call back, but the phone shuddered in his hand a moment later, before he even had time to let go of the receiver. Frances couldn’t stand letting someone else have the last word.
“Why don’t you rest your tongue,” he said, “for eating pussy later?”
There was an awkward silence on the other end of the line. Then a young man said, “Mr. Kellaway? My name is Stanley Roth, I’m a producer with Telling Stories, on NBC? Wow, it has not been easy to get your number. This is Randall Kellaway, yes?”
It took him a moment to recalibrate. “I watch your show. You did that one about the watermelons full of meth in Orange County.”
“Yes. Yes we did. Definitely our greatest claim to fame. Meth Watermelon is also the name of our office softball team. We beat the guys from 20/20 to win our league last summer, and I’m hoping to beat them again—in this weekend’s ratings. I’m sure they’re trying to get in touch with you to invite you on their show and talk about what happened today. I would be a very happy man if I were fortunate enough to get to you first.”
Stanley Roth spoke in such an exuberant flurry that Kellaway needed to go back over it in his head to figure out the guy was making an offer.
“You want me to come on your show?”
“Yes, sir, we do. To tell your story. The story of the good man with the gun. You’re Clint Eastwood, only for real.”
“Clint Eastwood is real. Isn’t he?”
“Yeah, well . . . yeah. But he gets paid to pretend to be what you actually are: someone who knows how to fight back. People feel so powerless most of the time, so overwhelmed by the forces lined up against them. They need these stories like they need food and drink. Stories about people who made the best, bravest choices when it would’ve been easier to fold, and who made a fucking difference. I hope you’ll excuse my language, sir, but I get really amped up about this stuff.”
“Would I have to go to New York?”
“No, you’d do it from there. We can get a local studio and tape the interview remotely. If it helps to nudge you in the right direction, I should add that Chief Jay Rickles has already agreed to talk with us as well and would join you in front of the camera. That guy loves you. I think he wants to adopt you. Or marry you to one of his daughters. Or maybe marry you himself. He talks about you in exactly the same awestruck way my son talks about Batman.”
“Maybe you ought to stick with him. He seems like he knows what he’s doing when he talks to the press. I’m not a public speaker. I’ve never been on TV.”
“You don’t have to be a public speaker. You just have to be yourself. Nothing to it, as long as you don’t think about the three million people watching and hanging on your every word. Which has still got to be less scary than running into a shop where a woman is killing people indiscriminately.”
“It wasn’t scary. There wasn’t time to be scared. I just ducked down and got moving.”
“Perfect. Oh, my God. That’s perfect. Get ready to duck again, because women are going to be throwing their panties at you.”
“I’m married,” he said with a certain edge. “And I have a little boy. An amazing six-year-old.”
There was a respectful pause. Then Stan said, “Did you think you’d ever see him again?”
“Not really,” Kellaway said. “But I’m still here. I’m still here, and I’m never going to let him go.”
They were another twenty minutes on the line, doing what Stan called the “pre-interview” and the producer filling him in on what the on-air discussion
Once again the phone rang almost as soon as he hung up. He thought it would be Stan again, calling with some last urgent, overlooked piece of trivia. Or maybe it would be someone from ABC or NBC, hoping to book an interview for one of their shows.
But it wasn’t Stan at all, and it wasn’t CNN, and it wasn’t Frances. It was Jim Hirst. The call was grainy with hiss, and his voice sounded far away, as if he were calling from the other side of the world, or maybe the other side of the moon.
“Look who got famous today,” Jim said, and issued a dry, hacking cough.
“More like look who got lucky,” Kellaway replied. “I figured if someone was going to blow my head off, it would be over in the suck, not here at the mall.”
“Yeah, well, sounds like some crazy bitch shopped for trouble at the wrong place today. Got more’n she paid for, huh?” He coughed again. Kellaway thought he was a little drunk.
“You having some of that scotch I gave you?” Kellaway asked.
“Yeah. I might’ve had a sip or two. I raised a glass to you, my brother. I am so glad you’re alive and she’s dead and not the other way around. I want to put my arms around you, man. If she killed you, it would’ve killed me, you know?”
Kellaway was unaccustomed to strong emotion, and the prickling in his own eyes took him by surprise. “I wish I was worth half what you think I’m worth.” He shut his eyes, but only for a moment. When he shut his eyes, he saw the woman, Yasmin Haswar, rising up from behind the glass counter, her eyes wide and frightened, and he turned and shot her all over again. Straight through the baby strapped to her chest.
“Don’t get down on yourself. Don’t you do it. You fucking saved a whole mess of lives today. And you made me proud. You made me glad, for once, that I survived and came home. I’ll tell you what, man. It was never my childhood dream to live for fifty or sixty years as a useless drain on society. Today, though, I’ve been thinking, I guess I’m not a complete waste. When my best friend, Rand Kellaway, needed a gun . . . well. You weren’t empty-handed today, and that’s my piece of this. That’s my little taste of glory.”
“That’s right. You had my back this afternoon. Even if no one will ever know it.”
“Even if no one will ever know it,” Jim repeated.
“Are you okay? You sound sick.”
“Ah. It’s the fucking smoke. It’s right on top of the house tonight. It’s burning my eyes, man. They say the fire is still two miles off, but I can’t hardly see to the end of the hall.”
“You should go to bed.”
“Soon, man. Soon. I wanna stay up and watch the news loop around one more time. That way I can toast you again.”
“Put Mary on. I’m going to make her send you to bed. I don’t need another toast. I need you to take care of yourself. Get Mary.”
And Jim’s voice changed, became suddenly morose and querulous. “I can’t, man. She’s not here.”
“Well, where is she?”
“Beats the fuck out of me,” Jim Hirst said. “I’m sure I’ll see her again sooner or later. All her stuff’s here!” And he laughed—until it turned into the broken, hacking, rattling cough of a man choking on blood in his deathbed.
July 8, 8:51 A.M.
LANTERNGLASS REACHED OUT TO THE Lutz family first. When you had a bad job to do, it was best to do it first thing and get it out of the way. She hated calling the family of the deceased. It made her feel like a crow, pulling strands of gut out of roadkill.
The Lutz family was unlisted, but Bob Lutz, who’d died at just twenty-three, had offered one-on-one piano lessons to kids at Bush Elementary, according to the school Web site. As it happened, the vice principal at Bush was a Brian Lutz. Lanternglass called his office number and got a recording saying that he would be checking messages throughout the summer session, but if it was urgent, he could be reached at his cell, followed by the number.
She made the call on the sidewalk in front of a Starbucks, just down the street from Possenti Pride Playground, where Dorothy had tennis camp. Lanternglass had an iced coffee that was so cold she broke out in goose bumps when she had her first sip. She was almost too nervous to drink it, didn’t need the caffeine to amp her up. There was no reason to think Brian Lutz would answer his cell, but he did, on the second ring, as somehow she had known he would.
Lanternglass introduced herself in a quiet, gentle voice, said she was with the St. Possenti Digest, and asked how he was doing.
He had a deep baritone with a very slight crack running through it. “My little brother got shot in the face two days ago, so I guess not so hot. How are you?”
She didn’t reply to that. Instead she told him she was so sorry, that she hated to intrude when he was struggling with his grief.
“But here you are, intruding anyway,” he said, and laughed.
Lanternglass wanted to tell him about Colson. She wanted to tell him she understood, that she had been on the other end of this herself. In the days after Colson died, journalists parked in front of the two-family house Aisha lived in with her mother and waited for them to come out. When Aisha’s mother, Grace, walked her to school in the morning, the reporters would flock around them, waving tape recorders. Grace gripped Aisha’s hand and stared straight ahead, and the only reply she ever made was a sound: Nmm-nm! That noise seemed to mean, I don’t see you, and I don’t hear you, and my daughter doesn’t either. Lanternglass knew now that her mother had been sick with fright, was afraid of the attention, afraid to be looked at too closely. Grace had been to jail three times—had in fact been pregnant with Aisha on her second stint in county—and was scared the reporters would publish something that would get her sent back. Aisha herself wanted everyone to know what had really happened. She thought they should tell all the reporters how Colson was shot to death and he DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING except take a stupid CD. She wanted to explain how Colson was supposed to go to London and meet Jane Seymour and be in Hamlet. She wanted everyone in the world to know.
Ain’t it enough you lost him? Grace had told her. You want to lose me, too? You want me to get locked up again? You think the police won’t come down on us, we try to make them look bad?
In the end Aisha Lanternglass did get to tell the world all about it. She just had to wait fifteen years. The St. Possenti Digest had published Colson’s story in five parts over a single week. Those stories had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in local reporting, which was why Lanternglass still had a job when almost all the other full-time reporters with the Digest had been laid off in the recession.
But she didn’t tell Brian Lutz about Colson, because she had promised herself a long time ago that she’d never use his death as a way to get a story. Even after you lost someone, it turned out you still had a relationship with that person, one you needed to tend to as you would tend to a relationship with any living friend or relative. Colson was, even now, someone she cared about and was at pains not to misuse.
So she said, “I just wanted to ask if there was a photo of Bob your family wanted to share. I don’t want to make things any more awful than they are. Your brother did something really special, you know? When a lot of folks would’ve run in the other direction, he went into Devotion Diamonds to try to help people. I want to acknowledge his bravery when we write about what happened. I also want to respect your feelings and do right by your family, but I’ll let you go this minute if you don’t want to deal with a prying journalist. My paycheck is not big enough to put grieving people through the emotional wringer.”
For a long time, he didn’t speak. Then he laughed again, a corrosive, brok
“He thought the shooting was over,” Lanternglass said.
“He would’ve had to have been pretty fuckin’ sure,” said Brian Lutz, and when he laughed again, it sounded closer to a sob. “We cried on the Little Zoom-Zoom coaster! I even wet my pants a little! After we got off, our uncle couldn’t look at us, either of us. Just took us straight home. I’ll tell you about my baby brother. He would’ve died before he walked in someplace where he coulda been killed. He would’ve just fuckin’ died.”
9:38 A.M.
Lanternglass had two e-mails speaking for Alyona Lewis, Roger Lewis’s wife. The first came through her lawyer, at 9:38. Lanternglass read it at her desk in the open-plan office of the Digest.
“Today Alyona Lewis grieves the loss of her beloved husband of twenty-one years, Roger Lewis, killed in the senseless mass shooting at the Miracle Falls Mall; Margot and Peter Lewis grieve the loss of their beloved son; and St. Possenti grieves the loss of a lively, good-humored, and generous community member.”
The e-mail went on for another eight hundred words, all of it just as formal and forgettable. Alyona and Roger had opened their first jewelry store in Miami in 1994, attended the Next Level Baptist Church, owned three Brussels griffons, wrote big checks to the Special Olympics. Flowers might be sent to the Lawrence Funeral Home. It was a tidy, professional public statement, and there wasn’t a single thing in it that Lanternglass could use for a quote.
10:03 P.M.