The Merciful by Jon Sealy

Author:Jon Sealy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Haywire Books
Published: 2021-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

11

The trial was scheduled for the late autumn, around Thanksgiving, so Henry met with Daniel Hayward one more time and then returned to Charleston. Francine had moved out—didn’t even have the courtesy to leave her husband a note, it seemed; Daniel came home from his weekend in jail to find her clothes missing and the house empty. Henry could see the house now: smelling musty from lack of life, perhaps a little warm. Quiet. Daniel would have walked in and said, “Hello? Hello?” to one empty room after another until the truth, that queasy knot in his stomach, ruptured. He would have sat on the couch and tee-peed his hands over his mouth and nose, and thought about his life and where everything went wrong. When Henry saw him, Daniel wore the look of a man already condemned, with deep dark eyes and a permanent stoop to his shoulders. Henry knew it wasn’t the sentence but the anticipation wearing on him. People were resilient and could adapt when they knew where they were going, but uncertainty could kill a man. Henry made the usual promises—We’ll take care of this, don’t fret, I’m just a phone call away—but then he got in his car and scuttled up the highway, through a tunnel of old oaks and Spanish moss, to his home on the Charleston peninsula.

The first thing that was wrong was the spray paint on the side of his rowhouse, white paint on red brick: #dogjustice. He parked in his narrow driveway and stared at it for a moment, and then he set his head on the steering wheel. The neighbors were polite but someone had no doubt already called and left a message on his answering machine, and maybe even called Judy at the office, to see when he would be getting it cleaned up. The paint didn’t bother him so much as the question of what-next. As with Daniel Hayward, the uncertainty of the future hung over Henry like a guillotine, Henry unable to get out of the stock, the media, he supposed, playing the role of the oppressive state.

Sure enough, here came a little Robespierre now, a cocky young fellow with a big camera slung over his neck, ready to capture a photo of Henry getting out of his car, the paint in the background. It was late in the day and the shadows from the wisteria and crepe myrtle a kaleidoscope on the wall so that with any luck, the vandalism would not show up in a decent photo. Henry considered just putting the car in gear and driving off, and he considered scurrying with his back to the cameraman into his home, but he’d never been one to shy away from conflict. He got out and marched headfirst toward the cameraman, who got his requisite shots before calling out, “Mr. Somerville! A word!”

Henry kept walking without speaking until he reached the smirking shit, lunged for the camera, and yanked it from the kid’s hands.

“The hell!” the

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