Old Crimes

by Jill McCorkle

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Short Stories

Synopsis

Beloved author Jill McCorkle delivers a collection of masterful stories that are as complex as novels—deeply perceptive, funny, and tragic in equal measure—about crimes large and small.

McCorkle, author of the New York Times bestselling Life After Life and the widely acclaimed Hieroglyphics (“One of our wryest, warmest, wisest storytellers” —Rebecca Makkai), brings us a breathtaking collection of stories that offers an intimate look at the moments when a person’s life changes forever.

Old Crimes delves into the lives of characters who hold their secrets and misdeeds close, even as the past continues to reverberate over time and across generations. And despite the characters’ yearnings for connection, they can’t seem to tell the whole truth. In “Low Tones,” a woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. In “Lineman,” a telephone lineman strains to connect to his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. In “Confessional,” a young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty.

Profoundly moving and unforgettable, for fans of Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Lily King, the stories in Old Crimes reveal why McCorkle has long been considered a master of the form, probing lives full of great intensity, longing and affection, and deep regret.

“Jill McCorkle has had an extraordinary ear for the music of ordinary life since the beginning of her career, able to work with the voices we know so well to write these stories about what they will not tell us, what they would rather not tell us, what they hope to tell us, what too often goes unsaid. And this collection is a new wonder.” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

It was June 1999 and they were at a family inn in New Hampshire. It was not the romantic weekend spot Lynn had imagined when Cal invited her for a quick getaway between sessions of summer school. Being together and time away, he had said, that’s what we need, right? Lynn nodded even though she was not feeling the togetherness at the moment, just the away, out in the middle of the woods in an old farmhouse with a prefab wing of rooms, like a rundown motel. The walls were covered in dark paneling and there was a faded floral bedspread, shades too small for the windows, and a forty-watt bulb in the one lamp on the dresser. The food in the dining room was family-style with very little choice, the room filled with trinkets and little wooden signs everywhere: If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, Bless this mess, and in the bathroom, We aim to please, you aim, too, please. There were tattered pinwheels in Pepsi bottles on the tables, a kewpie doll by the cash register, and things she had not seen in years, like pastel-colored rocks growing in a fish bowl, a dried-up sea monkey container, and a Cabbage Patch doll dressed up like a sailor. There were more toothpick holders than she had ever seen gathered in one place, and something about it all, the Early American décor—eagle decals everywhere—and empty bird feeders, all the stuff, left her feeling like life had slowed, clicking like a dying engine, and then stopped.

Needless to say they were not partying and celebrating the end of the century as Prince had promised they would be doing back in the eighties when they were kids growing up hundreds of miles apart—him in a cushioned suburban well-educated life in the Northeast where things like the right schools were always at the forefront; and her, maneuvering the backside of the Bible belt with all the baggage and guilt often inherent in that, no expectations of anything beyond high school graduation until the guidance counselor, barely out of college herself, insisted Lynn try. You have choices, the young woman kept saying. You can go anywhere.

Lynn had met Cal out in front of her dorm the day she moved in. That was over a year ago and he would be graduating soon. Although on break, both had brought a stack of books along for the weekend—he was studying to take the LSAT and she still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do in life but knew he would be more impressed if she also had a stack of books. She was barely twenty and thought it was mean that her college advisor was saying she had to declare a major, something that he also said would affect the rest of her life. The high school guidance counselor had made it all sound so simple and it was anything but. Still, she had taken a lot of courses she found interesting, even when her grades didn’t reflect it. She had taken one in forensic archaeology and another in ethics and the two together had left her thinking of all the many mysteries that remain unsolved and perhaps always will, not to even mention all that remains unknown and buried under ice and volcanic rock, in peat bogs and the greatest depths of the ocean.

On a whim she had taken a creative writing class even though her advisor kept saying that her chosen courses were not leading toward anything and that if she didn’t buckle down, she would not be able to graduate in four years and her financial aid would likely not be extended. His voice sometimes sounded like a lawn mower in her head, muffling anything from past or present that sounded like a reprimand or a judgment. She had had enough reprimands and judgments to last a lifetime. Besides, she was the first in her family to even go to college, so whatever happened, she had at least done something. She had made that choice. That was what she told herself at the end of each day.

She made a B in the class—some good ideas but nothing thought through, the professor said—but she had continued to think about one of the exercises that was assigned at the end of the term. Pick an object. Pick a place where that object exists. Imagine a person in that place with the object. Then they were supposed to imagine a different person in that place with the object, and then another and another. How many variations—different characters, different situations, different stories—might evolve. It was amazing how something so simple could quickly become complicated.

She chose a belt because in her archaeology class she’d already been assigned to track something through the ages that people take for granted. At first she had wanted to do hats, because she loved hats of all kinds even though too self-conscious to wear them, and was inspired by that one famous bog body on the cover of one of her assigned books—the Tollund Man, ancient and frozen, and wearing a little pointed cap, a detail so simple and personal that it filled her with sadness—but when she began researching it all in the library, the history of the hat quickly became a lot more complicated, way more work than she wanted to do, though she never would have told Cal that. But the Tollund Man was also wearing a belt and it seemed clear that was the easier pursuit, not to mention it offered far more action than the hats would have, the word alone suggesting action. A belt could be a song or a drink or a slap. The belt: looping and connecting since 3300 BCE. Leather, suede, satin and silk, rope, brass, cord. Notched, cinched, buckled. It was a fashion statement, a utilitarian transport for tools and treasures, an object grown-ups could use to threaten children. It was a murder weapon, binding hands and feet or wrapped around the throat. A belt. A room. Inside a room, behind a door, a man takes off his belt. That was her sentence.

Who is the man? What is the situation? Is anyone else in the room?

Cal had already unbuckled his belt and stretched out on the bed in their tiny, dim room. We have a commitment to be together for right now, he had said any time there was discussion of the future. Isn’t that enough? But she wasn’t sure. She had set the clock in her head, something she did often when making a decision, giving herself time but knowing when the alarm sounded, she had to act: make a decision, leap. The clock was always ticking.

All choices have consequences, her guidance counselor had said. It’s not about right or wrong, but what’s right for you. She told herself that when the alarm sounded, she would decide. Was she just another notch in his belt? Or would they live ever after either happily or not? Would she be able to not get hurt? Not do something she would regret? Not be judged?

Before the conversation about their relationship, the drive had been pleasant enough, with many sights to see all along the way. They ate lunch while watching a trained bear show, which he said was unfortunate but she kind of liked but didn’t say so—bears on bikes? It was impressive—and then they had spent the early afternoon hiking through a gorge formed 200 million years ago. They saw the Old Man in the Mountain, a famous rock formation like a giant man’s profile—godlike—watching over the land. His profile had been on license plates for the state and storefront signs, and famous people had traveled far to stare up at or write about him.

And then they had arrived at the Tyner Family Inn and there was a waterfront as the ad had said, but it was a very long hike through the woods to get there. And then there was no beach or place to sit and it was muddy, bugs on the filmy surface, a martin house listing to one side, and a rickety dock, and they didn’t see any other people at the pond or in the woods. Much of the forest had been clear-cut, stubs and stumps everywhere, and there were dangerous-looking spikes with yellow plastic ties, like an old crime scene. Yes, exactly like a crime scene and she said so, only to have him shake his head and sigh. “Why do you always see the worst possibility?” he said and she wanted to ask how he could not see those possibilities. How did he not see, but she felt vulnerable in the inquiry and remained silent.

Oh, the aching gills to live in such a pond, a slow evaporation with no rivulet leading to a better place. It reminded her of all the bog people in her book, in particular the Yde Girl, murdered and tossed away in the Netherlands in 54 BCE—her blonde hair stained red by the tannic acid. The facts: A sixteen-year-old girl—four and a half feet tall, with scoliosis—murdered and thrown in the bog. She was not far from the village. The woven sprang she had likely been wearing on her hair was wrapped tight around her neck; there were no signs of struggle, which meant the stab in her shoulder happened after she was strangled. And then she just stayed there, preserved by the bog, until May of 1897 when some men at work found her and freaked out.

So much unknown. Was she sacrificed to some god? We’re praying for a good crop so here’s a dead girl. Banished and executed because she had scoliosis? She’s not like the rest of us. Or was it just that bad things had always happened to young women walking through the woods: These big teeth? The better to eat you with my dear. Dead already? So, here’s an extra stab. If I had a gun, I’d shoot you, too. What Lynn had learned is that evil and violent things had been happening since the beginning of time. There had always been people who wished others harm. There had always been innocent people sacrificed.

“Who knew this place would be so run down?” Cal had said, but he didn’t offer that they should consider an alternative and he didn’t apologize for his choice, even after she flushed several dead roaches down the sluggish toilet; the only hand soap was a thin wafer wrapped in plastic that smelled of disinfectant. Now his pants and belt were draped over a chair and he patted the place beside him. She pulled her hair up in a high ponytail and stretched out, causing both of them to roll to the center of that way too soft mattress. It was hot. The wind had died and the oscillating fan provided little relief. The touch of his skin to hers was unbearable in the moment, just too hot in a room that already smelled soured and old. “Of course,” he reminded her, “this is luxurious compared to where Pete and Roy are.” His roommate, Pete, was in Ghana and Roy was working in a camp for delinquent kids in rural Tennessee. She knew she should admire that and she did, she really did, but she also knew so many people probably like those at the delinquent camp that she couldn’t imagine choosing to be there. And was it so bad to long for things like a nice hotel with a clean pool? To dream of a candlelit, mahogany-paneled cocktail lounge with a piano player? Plump stuffed chairs and heavy cut-glass vases and fragile champagne flutes like in the movies. Or what about a balcony looking out at the sea—any sea. She worried that she was not as socially aware and involved as everyone else Cal valued in life, but she had seen so much firsthand and didn’t want to look back. Had he figured this out or did he just hear in her silence an echo of his own voice?

And then out of nowhere a child appeared at the door, her yellow T-shirt smeared with dirt and what looked like catsup. Her hair was a tangled mess. She announced that this was her birthday—June 6th—and she was six years old. Six on six six, mama says, sign of the Debble. She asked where they were from and how long they were staying. Were they married? Did they have a baby? Did they think they’d be eating the candy bar her mama left there by the bed? Lynn handed her the Milky Way that looked like it had been parked bedside for years, tattered wrapper and rock hard. The child ripped the paper away, one eye closed, as she bit into it and then chewed with her mouth open, a dribble of chocolate on her plump cheek. She stood admiring Lynn’s red suitcase and clearly wanted a closer inspection, chocolate and dirt-stained little hands reaching all around. She said her name was Jane and her mama owned the place. “I’m Jane Doe,” she said in a gruff voice and laughed; she had a wide space between her front teeth and dark brown eyes. “Like ‘doe, a deer.’”

She pointed at a picture hanging on the wall beside a fly swatter and said the hunting dog in the bottom right corner was named BoBo and had eyes just like her daddy. “My daddy is nice like BoBo,” she said. “He licks my hand like this,” she licked the back of her own hand, leaving a chocolate stripe there. Lynn wanted to ask did she mean her dad or BoBo licked her but the child had moved on and again was touching everything. She lifted the lid of the suitcase and peered in. Cal asked didn’t she need to be going somewhere but she just shrugged and shook her head and it seemed she was getting ready to get up on the bed when they heard a man’s voice calling her name.

“Come here right now,” he said. “We’ve told you not to bother people.”

She put the half-eaten candy bar down on the bed and gave an exaggerated sigh, crossed eyes and tongue extended, then stomped away, letting the screen slam behind her.

“Finally,” Cal said, his arms around Lynn’s waist and attempting to pull her toward that marshmallow bed, but she stayed by the window and watched, the girl taking her time to get to the man standing there, hands on his hips and cap pulled low on his forehead. “Get in that house,” he said and yanked her by the arm. “We’re tired of you bothering people and if it happens again, you’re gonna get it.”

He pushed her toward the main house and then turned away, missing the way she stuck out her tongue, wagged her little hips, and then shook her middle finger at his back. Surely, he wasn’t the dad with eyes like Bobo.

In a room, behind a door, a man takes off his belt. The child is waiting there in the corner as she was told to do, eyes fearful as he steps closer. I warned you, he says, it’s your own fault.

No sooner had Cal dozed off, the thin sheet barely covering them, when the door creaked open and the girl popped her head in.

“Are you sleepin’ in the daytime?” the girl said. “Mama says lazy asses do that. And you got no clothes on.”

“Could you wait outside?” Lynn said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

The girl crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face the wall. “Do you have underwear?”

“Please,” Lynn said. “I’ll be right out.” She waited until the girl left, and then got up to dress. Cal made a noise and turned to the wall; he had a book under his arm, which must have been there while they were having sex—multitasking.

“Do you want to read to me?” the girl asked when Lynn came out and sat beside her on the stoop. She had a ragged copy of Hansel and Gretel and waved it back and forth and then forced it into Lynn’s hand. It had a yard sale tag on it for five cents and was once owned by someone named Jeremy who had scrawled his name on the front cover in green crayon. “This is a scary one,” the girl said—hair, teeth, nothing had been brushed, and she had scratched a mosquito bite to blood. “The mama and daddy loses them in the woods and they go eat candy at the bad witch’s.”

It was a cheap little version and Lynn changed some of the words around to sound more like the Brothers Grimm; she said they dwelt near the woods, and had the wife call the children’s father simpleton instead of stupid. Lynn said how the witch, who first appeared as a kindly old woman, beckoned them closer with the promise of nourishing food and a place to rest, and the child stared up at her in wonder. “Their mama is mean and so is the witch,” the girl said and looped her arm through Lynn’s, then leaned her head on her shoulder; she squeezed Lynn’s arm hard every time the witch spoke and then laughed at the end when they got away and their tired old father was happy to see them. The girl said she didn’t know the witch just looked like an old woman and begged for Lynn to read it again and show her where it said that.

Lynn turned the flimsy pages, narrating along the way. She herself had never gotten over the cheap imitations of her own life, the cassette by “the Original Artists” she saved money for weeks to buy when she was eleven only to discover the terrible trick—the band was named The Original Artists—and their versions of all the popular songs everyone at school was talking about sounded nothing like what she was hearing; it left her feeling stupid and ashamed and angry that she had been misled. Or what about the dolls pretending to be Barbie—all the simplified, cheapened, dumbed-down versions of all the real things. The jeans, the sneakers, the backpack. She suddenly had the awful thought that some people might see her that way—some cheapened, dumbed-down version of something much better. It was times like that when she wanted to buoy herself and imagine the best, how she didn’t need anyone else in her life, how she could live anywhere, someplace where no one remembered her as that girl; she could even live alone and be just fine. She could take the right courses and become something as the advisor had said—just choose something, make a choice—then she could get a job and go anywhere. Find an apartment. Live in a city.

Later, when Lynn was seated outside at one of the small oilcloth-covered tables, waiting for Cal to shower and join her, she told the woman what Jane had said about the photo of BoBo. The woman laughed and shook her head. “There’s no BoBo. I buy those pictures to make it all look homey,” she said. “I don’t know those dogs and people from Adam.” She laughed again and then lowered her voice. “And that girl hasn’t got a daddy,” the woman finally said. “Not that she knows of, that is, and truth is she hasn’t got a mama either. She calls me Mama but I’m not her mama—just a temporary foster. And she keeps trying to call Hank her daddy and he doesn’t want anything to do with her, you know?” The woman paused, twisted and reclipped her hair on top of her head. “And hell, I don’t blame him. Him and me have only been going out since New Year’s and if he leaves, it’ll be that little devil’s fault.”

It was hard to tell how old she was. Fifty? Sixty? She was bone thin and her hair only had the slightest streaks of gray but her face and neck were wrinkled like someone who had baked in the sun. “I was told she was found on the floor of the Friendly’s bathroom right down the road,” the woman lowered her voice. “She was four by the time I got her, a head full of lice and still in diapers.” Outside the window, the girl was standing in the spray of a rickety old sprinkler Lynn had listened to all afternoon, the words she had read in her book in rhythm with the sound. “I sure can’t do it forever,” the woman said. “Not for that little bit of money they send.”

By then, Cal was at the table and they were given their choices of meatloaf or baked chicken. Green beans. Macaroni and cheese. There was only one other couple in there and from the looks they were passing between them, it w. . .