The July Monday morning in Darien was warm and humid as Jake O'Brien backed his Packard out of the two-car garage. He waved good-bye to the wife and kids and drove off, ostensibly, for work. In the trunk, last night, he'd put a suitcase packed with a few changes of clothes and a shaving kit. Instead of going to the office he drove a few towns over, parked the car in a vacant lot, hoofed it, suitcase in hand, to the train depot. Along the way, crossing a small bridge, he tossed the car keys into the drink. At the station he paid cash for a one-way ticket to Erie, Pennsylvania.
In Erie he booked a room at a cheap hotel, the Sunshine, for a week. He changed from his gray flannel suit and silk tie into khakis, a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of two-tone shoes, and made tracks to a bar. At the bar he ordered a glass of beer. Glass raised, he toasted himself in the mirror. "Free at last!"
In his wallet, over $1000, 50s and 20s, withdrawn from their account on Friday. He'd left plenty for Maggie and the kiddies. At least for a while. She could sell the house and move the brats into an apartment to economize. "Anyhoo, not my headache!"
Jake struck up a conversation with the one other barfly, a broad, past her prime, dishwater blonde, eyes hungry, too hungry. A fish in a barrel. After he chatted her up they left for his hotel room.
In the room he encountered a problem. She was expecting 10 bucks, in advance. Jake saw red and punched her in the face, knocking the floozy off her feet, the back of her head hitting the radiator, good and hard. She was out.
"No sense in letting the moment go to waste," he reasoned as he raised her dress and began to remove her undies before realizing that she wasn't simply out for the count. She was dead.
Jake had seen combat in the Pacific, hand-to-hand: rifle, bayonet. The first time he killed a Jap, disemboweling the bastard, he was shook. Very shook. He'd been a happy-go-lucky kid, high school quarterback, honor roll, always quick with a joke or a good word, never cussed, church on Sunday with his folks. But after that kill he wasn't the same. In future kills, and there were many, he felt nothing; nothing more than swatting a fly. But the first kill was something else. That night, despite the heat, he shivered in his foxhole, no sleep.
Coolly, Jake packed his suitcase after shoving the corpse under the bed. Leaving, he hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob. "That oughta buy some time." He snuck down the back stairs and out into an alley. In the alley, for no discernible reason, he wondered how Maggie and the kids were doing. Then he realized he couldn't remember the names of his kids. He knew there was a boy and his kid sister, but other than that, pretty much a blank. He took the first train to Chicago. He'd never been to Chicago before, but it seemed like a good place to get lost.
Jake was a handsome Irishman, hair pitch-black. In Chi-town he grew a mustache, spent loot in the Loop, slowly sipping a sloe gin fizz, tapping his foot to Dixieland combos. Running a little low on do re mi, he found a pawn shop and bought a .38. He didn't shoot anyone with it. Rather, he'd follow a well-dressed drunk out of a bar, down a dark lonely side street. Then Jake would creep up behind the sap and bonk him on the head with the Smith & Wesson's butt, knocking the mug out, helping himself to the wallet.
Jake wearied of Chicago, had his fill of soot and flickering neon and sawdust saloon floors and cheap women and slaughter houses. "A slaughter house is not a home," he said to a drunk at a bar.
Jake hated drunks. He'd have a drink, but just one. Nurse that baby. Drunks are slobs!
And winter was approaching. He hated the cold, one of his many reasons to flee the Connecticut that blue-blood Maggie was so wed to. At the Greyhound station he bought a ticket to sunny Santa Fe.
In Santa Fe he booked a room in a lodging house and decided to go legit, get a job. He found one as a soda jerk at a five-and-dime. It was okay; he looked sharp in his white jacket and black bowtie. All was hunky-dory until a few months in, one quiet morning. Elmer, the boss, was off to the bank, the cashier gal called in sick, leaving Jake to man two spots. That was okay, it was slow. No one in the store except some dungaree ducktail teen.
Out of the corner of his eye Jake noticed the punk sneak a bottle of perfume into his pants pocket. In a flash, Jake was on him. "Put that back!"
Shame-faced, mumbling to the floor boards, the kid denied he'd stolen anything. This enraged Jake. He'd seen him steal the item! With his own eyes, dammit! The kid was calling him a liar! Jake punched him, roundhouse right, right to the temple, his fist like a stainless steel piston, killing the kid on the spot. Cool as a mint julep, Jake hefted the corpse by its armpits, dragged it out the backdoor, and behind some bushes in the adjacent lot. Then he returned to washing Coke glasses, wiping the counter, whistling, yakking up the next customers, a couple of good-looking young gals. They put a hop in his step.
He didn't return to work the next day. Instead, dawn found him roadside, on the outskirts of town, thumbing, trusty suitcase at his feet, Texas bound. In El Paso he rested for a week or so before hopping on a bus to Tijuana. From there, another bus until he came to a village that looked pleasant as peach punch. It spoke to him. He disembarked. As the bus rumbled away, he stood there, knuckles on hips, surveying the dusty and sleepy little town. He smiled and nodded, "Thistle dew."
In high school, he'd taken two years of Spanish, aced it. That, with his black hair and mustache, and a solid Southwest tan, he was Mexican, high-end Mexican: Spaniard of royal blood was his story. He became José Rodriguez. At the far end of town he located a sweet little bungalow for sale, made a down payment the next day.
He met Maria, a local girl who'd had a fling at Hollywood, to no avail, returned home, tail between legs, hair peroxided. He went to work for her father at the farm supply store. José and Maria married at the local church, raised a brood of bambinos.
One Sunday eventide, a few years later, José and Maria sat on their front porch swing, hand in hand, children and chickens in the yard, a gentle breeze in the cooling air. Winter was on its way, but cold weather was a faded memory for José. From inside the bungalow, the radio played a song he knew from somewhere, but he couldn't put his finger on where or when.