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As we sat in the car, I wondered what we should do first. Part of me wanted to race to the store to ask Larson about the ledger. I knew he’d be the perfect one to decipher what the numbers in it had to say to us. But I had to put some time between finding the ledger and knowing its contents. I was still too angry with Roni…and not quite ready to know the truth.
Besides, the fireflies may have returned to Mickey but I felt a whole swarm of butterflies aching in my belly over this new discovery. And when the butterflies are fluttering I tend to be a bit too rash. I didn’t want to go to Larson guns blazing. A little more cleaning would probably serve to calm me down. We had another house to attend to.
As we pulled away from Mickey’s place, I took one last look at the mystery vehicle at the curb. I wondered if I was just being paranoid about it.
“Do you think somebody bad owns that car, Dunc?” Mickey asked. I swivelled so quickly that he jumped in his seat. “What?”
“Stop reading my mind, is what.”
“Well. There’s never any strange cars parked on this street. It’s all old people without visitors here. You know that.”
“I was just thinking that, myself,” I said. “It kind of sticks out here like a pickle at an ice cream party. I don’t like it, Mickey. But why would someone trash your house and then leave the car right there in the open? It’s too easy.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Unless it’s stolen maybe.”
***
As we walked through the front door, my first thought was about the police. I couldn’t believe they were leaving us alone, even though they knew both of our houses had been broken into. I found it rather odd that they weren’t on us like glue, tracking our every move.
“If Roni hid something here, where do you think it’d be, Duncan?” Mickey asked as I absentmindedly tossed my keys where the front hall table usually sat. They hit the wall and slid down behind a pile of shoes that were flung from the closet. Mickey bent to retrieve them and tossed them in his pocket.
I looked around at the whirlwind of chaos and laughed. “Do you think there’s any possible way that whatever it was wasn’t found? Mickey. Look around you. There’s not a doilie unturned. If Roni hid something here, they found it.”
“Well, maybe you have a hidey hole like the one in my floor? Do you?”
“If I do, I don’t know about it,” I said as we entered the kitchen. “Look at this mess. They even unwrapped the freezer meat.”
“It’s starting to stink up the place.”
“Yep,” I said, trying to stop the gag in my throat from coming up. If the meat had thawed and started to turn, they must have broken in to my place a day or so earlier, while I was still fading in and out of consciousness in the hospital. And yet they waited until that day to ransack Mickey’s place.
“Where do we start?”
I went to the cupboard under the sink and grabbed out a large garbage bag and some yellow gloves. “I’m starting with the meat. The sooner we get this out of here the better.”
“Good idea, Dunc.”
“That’s why I get paid the big bucks.”
“I’ll go upstairs and start there,” he said. Mickey has a weak stomach and the smell was obviously getting to him. He looked a little green around the gills. “I’ll pick up your clothes and stuff.”
***
Two garbage bags later and the kitchen was beginning to look more like its old self. The whole time I toiled I was aware of the lack of noise coming from upstairs. After tossing the second bag out the back door I decided to pay Mickey a visit.
He was sprawled across the mattress, which was half on and half off the box-spring. He was buried deep in the Hive ledger and he wore the scrounged up concentration face that always seemed so painful on Mickey.
“Whatcha doing, bud?” I asked. I tried to sit down on the edge of the mattress, but it shifted like a tanking yacht so I jumped back to my feet.
“Anything. Take it. Follow the. Under the big one. The list. Don’t tell. Deeper.” He mumbled random words and appeared to be lost in thought, unaware of my presence.
“Hey. Mickey!”
He jumped and the listing mattress tossed him to the floor.
“Duncan. I forgot you were here.”
“No doubt. You were lost to the world, Mick.” I gestured toward the ledger, which had fallen from his hold and rolled back up into a tube. “Whatcha doing?”
He blushed pure red and rose to his feet, apologetic. “Just looking.”
“What were you saying, though? Sounded like you were doing a lot of talking.”
“Well, nothing. Only. Only it’s filled with words too, Dunc. Like one of those puzzle things where you have to find all the words.”
I stared at the ledger, my pulse quickening.
“And put them together like. To figure out the secret message. Like a movie star’s name or something. Only it’s a lot bigger, Dunc. Like a story.”
I sat on the floor, picked up the ledger and started scanning its pages. Tiny words where there should be numbers. Everywhere. Placed randomly throughout the pages.
“…and when I got to the part about the ladies’ room. Well, that’s when you scared me.”
“What?”
“The ladies’ room. All the other stuff was all jumbled. But then the part about the bees. I got that, Dunc. I figured that part out myself. The bees were easy.”
I desperately flipped pages, scanned line after line of numbers. Nothing was coherent.
“What about the bees, Mickey? What the hell. What are you talking about?” I didn’t realize that my voice was rising with each word. I didn’t notice that I was screaming in his face and that he was cowering further and further away with each word. Until he was back down on the mattress, pressing himself into it and attempting to disappear from what he thought was my anger.
“I’m sorry, Dunc,” he moaned, flinching away from my hostility. “I’m sorry.”
“No. Don’t be sorry. Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what you mean about the bees. I’m not angry, Mickey. I’m just excited. I’m sorry. But you have to tell me what you mean about the bees.”
“The hive.”
He said it as though it would all come clear to me. Like two words would bring the whole picture into focus.
“Mickey. Jesus. Don’t be cryptic. Tell me.”
He grabbed the rolled up ledger from my fist. It was only then that I realized I had been holding it over his head like a weapon. I tried to give myself time to breathe…to calm down. Mickey opened the book and scanned his way through it until he found the part he had been referring to. He handed it up to me, a peace offering.
In the ladies’. This was followed with a thick barrage of numbers. Where the bees buzz. And another assault of numbers. Under their eyes. And at the bottom of the page, after columns and columns of numbers. Everything.
“Everything, what?” I asked. Mickey relaxed slightly and rose from the mattress.
“Everything, Dunc.” He said. “Everything we need to know. All the secrets. They’re hidden in the ladies’ room at the Hive. She hid something there. And she wanted me to know it.”
His fear now turned to pride and he puffed himself up by the strength of this newfound knowledge.
“Oh my God. But wait. Would she make it so obvious? Anybody who found this would be able to figure that out. It’s too simple, Mickey.”
“Maybe she knew I was the only one who knew about the hole in the floor. Maybe—”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t explain why she would hide something at my house.”
I tossed him the ledger and righted the mattress onto the box-spring. I was just about to pick up an overturned dresser when he grabbed my arm.
“But maybe she didn’t.”
“Maybe she didn’t what? Help me with this,” I said. He grabbed an end and together we hauled the dresser back into place.
“Hide something in your place. Maybe she didn’t have to.”
I shook my head. “Nope. She did a weird thing once, Mick. She went into the house once. That Fourth of July. We had a cookout. Everybody was there. Remember? She went into the house for a shirt, but came out without one. I thought of that a while ago. Maybe she was hiding something then.”
He shrugged. I could see his wheels spinning. “Maybe she just wanted it to look that way?”
“Why would she do that?” I asked. But even before the question was out, the answer popped into my head like a sore. And with it, I felt some of the butterflies releasing. “Because somebody who was at that cookout was a somebody who was involved in whatever it was Roni was involved in!”
I struck my forehead to complete the Eureka moment. Mickey’s face lit up. “And she was only throwing them off the scent, Dunc. What she really wanted to do was make them think it. So they wouldn’t find the hole in my closet floor.”
“Ha! Yeah, Mickey. So they wouldn’t find the hole in your closet floor. I wonder if this means that the ledger doesn’t mean anything at all?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know numbers, Dunc. They make me all fuzzy and stuff. That’s why the words stuck out so much.”
“Well, let’s finish cleaning this mess. Then we have to see Larson. Just in case.” I rolled the ledger up and put it in my back pocket. “And maybe you can go through the rest of the words and see if there’s anything else in it that makes sense.”
Mickey beamed with the pride of one who is needed. “Sure thing. I can do that.”
“Great Mick. Then, when you’re done doing that, maybe you can figure out a way for us to sneak into the Hive without landing in the back of Cal’s cruiser.”
“That would be bad, Dunc. That would be the worst thing.”
I allowed his simple but accurate words to linger there, hang in the air about us as we set to our task of righting the rest of the house. There was nothing more to add to them. That was the pickle we were in. We had come to the point where we would have to break the law in order to figure things out.
And though Cal could possibly and finally have his mind put to rest through the outcome of our crime, he’d be the first to throw the book at us. He’d have the key for our cells thrown away long before he’d ever think to ask us why we did it.
“Well. Would you look at what the cat threw up,” my mother said as she opened the door. “As I live and breathe.”
A fuchsia plastic martini glass swayed theatrically in an outstretched hand while a cigarette dangled from the other. I could hear music coming from the back of the house. Ella Fitzgerald. The Ella usually didn’t come out until the bottle was about halfway polished. I knew it was going to be an interesting visit. I smiled.
“Entre-vous, my burnt little Injun.” She moved aside to let me in, slopping what was most probably pure vodka onto the threadbare carpet in the tiny front hall. “To what do I owe this great honor?”
“Hello, Mother.” I entered the house and kept walking straight through on my way into the living room, talking as I walked. In order to keep on her good side, I made no mention of the booze or the fact that she was in a kimono in the middle of the afternoon. “They told me you came to see me in the hospital. I just wanted to ask you-”
“Honey, honey. Wait. Stop,” she pled, following me a bit too quickly down the narrow hallway.
I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her.
“What is it, Mother?”
“Well. I just thought we could talk in the kitchen.” She grabbed my arm and tried to lead me back to the kitchen at the front of the house. “I could fix you a drink. You look like you could use one. You sound as though you could use one.” She looked me up and down, feigning disgust.
“But the bar is in the living room.” I pointed.
“Yes, yes,” she said, frantically waving away the living room with her cigaretted hand, “but the vodka is in the kitchen. Come on, now. Don’t be a nuisance.”
“What’s wrong, Mom? You seem agitated.”
“Well, if you must know, nosey parker, I happen to be entertaining a guest at the moment. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Oh.” I could feel myself blush. I needed no more coaxing. I was in the kitchen in seconds and she was right behind me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were…”
“Now you do. No bother. Now what are you here for, Duncan? I know it’s not to bring me flowers or Mother’s Day cards. What’s the scoop, poop?”
I flinched away from her questions and looked at her. It didn’t take much to see why Mickey didn’t like her. Even happily drunk, she was caustic. “Can we sit down for a sec?”
“Lead the way, Duncan. I hope it’s good, though.”
I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and sat down at the kitchen table. My mother sat across from me, sitting her cigarette inside the divot of a near full ashtray. I poured myself a few fingers of vodka, straight. It had been a rough few days. I was also hoping it would help my throat.
“What’s the skin and bones of your visit, my child?” she asked when I finished swilling down the vodka and didn’t move to say anything. “I mean, besides the celebration of your rebirth from the fire. I have a live one in the lair and you’re wasting valuable time.”
There it was. The first class attitude I had come to expect from her.
“Yeah. Like I said, they told me you were at the hospital,” I began. I looked at the vodka bottle and pondered what would happen if I took another drink. With almost no food in my belly, I knew I was risking a drunk. But every other indicator screamed, ‘do it’. I twisted off the cap and poured another couple shots.
“Well, did you see the papers?” she said. “My boy, it was a virtual media frenzy. You know nothing ever happens in this town but growin’ and cuttin’. Grass, Duncan. That’s our life here. You made page one; you and that fire. I had to make sure you were okay.”
“Yes. Well…did you happen to see anybody, Mom? Someone maybe a little big? Muscular? While you were there, did anybody else come to my room?”
“That idiot of yours was spread in a smile like a lunatic right there on the TV too. Looking like a rubbed penny.”
“Mom. Don’t call Mickey an idiot. I won’t sit here and listen to you-”
“The boy’s as slow as molasses and twice as thick.”
I drank down the rest of the vodka, slammed the glass down on the table and stood up. My mother gave me a ‘what did I do?’ look, but the damage was done. I had overstayed the amount of time I could tolerate being around her by a few minutes.
“Just answer the question, Mom,” I said. “Did you or did you not see a muscular guy in or around my room while you were there? It’s important.”
“Well, Duncan,” she said, looking guilty enough for me to worry about what was coming next. “There was this one person there.”
I sat back down and gripped my now empty glass. She knew who it was at the hospital and I knew I wasn’t going to like her answer. I held on to that glass with all my strength, waiting for the bottom to fall out of my day.
“Well, that look on your face isn’t helping anything, young man. You make me want to not tell you. I certainly don’t want to be the bearer of bad news on a day like today.”
“Mom,” I said, grinding my teeth as I spoke. “Speak now.”
“You’re making your mother very uncomfortable, Duncan.”
I spun in the direction of the voice and nearly fell off of my chair. Almost unconsciously, my hand went into my pocket and felt for Roni’s picture. It was fast becoming a security blanket of sorts. I had brought it out and placed it on the table in front of me before I realized what I was doing.
“Cat took your tongue for a run, did it?” my father said. His enormous frame swallowed the doorway. He had gone into prison big and came out bigger. Much bigger.
“That little lady there was no angel, you know. Let’s have a look.” He reached for the picture of Roni and it disappeared in his mitt. “Still harboring a bad one for a bad one, are ya?”
I grabbed it back from him, pushed my chair out and stood up.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, attempting to keep my voice down and failing miserably. I swung on my heels. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“I told you to stay in the other room, you,” my mother said, wagging a finger from her martini holding hand at my father and causing the drink to spill over the kitchen table. “Duncan, really. I don’t know what you’re getting so excited for. Last time I looked, I was a grown woman. If I want your father here to visit, there’s nothing wrong with that. You really do have to learn to keep your opinions to yourself.”
“For Christ’s sake, Mother. The man’s vile.”
“I may be vile, but I’ve come here to help you out this time. There’s more to do in the clink than sit and rotate on my own Goddamn thumb. There’s a lot of information floating around in that dive, Duncan. Information you might be interested in if you can get over yourself for one Goddamn minute and hear me out.”
He pushed me back into my chair and I slunk down like a scolded child.
“Have yourself another drink, sweetie,” my mother said, pouring another couple of fingers of vodka into my glass. She grabbed another glass from the cupboard, half-filled it with vodka and set it at an empty spot at the table. “Here. You might as well take a seat and join us. I want to applaud you on your wonderful hiding abilities.”
My father sat down and took a swig of vodka. “For Christ’s sake,” he said, turning to me. “He’s a big boy. No need to play charades with him any longer. I’m staying with your mother, Duncan. There you have it.”
“You know,” I began. “I’d love to reminisce with the two of you. Really, I would. But the thought of spending another minute in this house just makes my skin crawl. If you have something to tell me about Roni, can you spit it out. I need to leave here before I go insane. Although, I can’t for the life of me imagine why you would have any.”
“A tart like that one gets talked about in the darkest of places, sonny-boy,” my mother said, stifling a laugh.
I stood up again, ready to leave.
“Wait now, boy. Think about it for a minute. You know as much as I do that the Hive is the biggest dive in town. Don’t you think them that drinks there would be the same that sleeps in the bunks up the hill? There’s always news from home in that hell, and ten-to-one it’s news from the Hive.”
He had a point. Now I had a vested interest and I was willing to sit long enough to hear him out. I decided it was time to stop pouring back the vodka though. I pushed back my glass and offered my father my undivided attention. This brought a slimy smile to his face. He folded his new massive arms across his chest and held court.
“That fat puke Tate was cleaning money through the Hive. And your little piece of girlie tail was helping him to do it.” He paused long enough to enjoy the look of shock that spread across my face. “Yep. She was keeping the books on the little side job he had with the big men up in Hannaford. Only, word around the pen was that your Roni was skimming some off the top for herself. Tate doesn’t like to spread the wealth, you see.”
“There is no way in hell that Tate is responsible for-”
“Hold it there, captain. I ain’t saying that Tate did your little darling. I’m guessing he had nothing to do with that. I’m just telling you what I know, and even that is speculation. I wasn’t even going to say anything until you landed a crispy critter in the county hospital. I put two and two together and figured it measured in at about four.”
I looked at my mother, who seemed oblivious to everything except for the martini glass in the one hand and the cigarette in the other. It was just as well. I didn’t want her chiming in with her vitriol against Roni. I got up to leave.
“I don’t know how this helps me, Dad,” I began. “So Roni was keeping books. What does that have to do with me? I already have my suspicions about the fire in my garage and it isn’t anybody from the Hive I’m looking at. It’s Cal that I want to speak to. He’s the only one in this town who has anything against me.”
“Are you sure of that, Duncan?” He winked at me.
Before I could answer, the doorbell went off. Startled, I jumped just enough for my father to notice and laugh.
“You always were a nervous little Nancy, Duncan,” he said. “I don’t know where you got that from, because you sure as hell didn’t get it from me.”
My mother came to and went to the door, leaving us in the kitchen alone.
“Well if it isn’t the simple hero!”
“Shit,” I mumbled, racing to the front door to try to stanch the insults before they overwhelmed Mickey and caused him to flee. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“What’s that, Sharpie?” my mother said in a mocking tone. “Get your fingers out of your mouth and stop mumbling, will you.”
“Is Duncan here?” Mickey squealed in a way that made me realize just how much I hated my mother. “I gotta see him. Is he here?”
He cowered in the doorway, looking three shades of pale. His whole body flinched away from my mother’s dominating pose.
“What is it, Mickey? What’s wrong?”
He had been crying.
“They messed up my house, Dunc. Everything’s all over the place. It’s all tored up like a hurricane hit.”
“Oh man. It’s okay. It’s okay.” I put an arm on his shoulder and he crumbled into me for just a split second…long enough for me to get my back up in preparation for the shot I figured my mother would send our way. But to her credit, she said nothing.
“We gotta go fix it, Duncan.”
“Okay. We will. Don’t worry about it. We’ll-”
“I hope this love parade is over soon, fellas,” she interrupted. She was never one to disappoint. I knew she couldn’t keep quiet. “I’d like to shut my door and get on with my life here.”
“I think we’re done here, anyway. Tell Dad good-bye.”
“Tell him yourself,” he said. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story? I didn’t come to the hospital to tell you about a little ledger full of dirty money, Duncan. There is more.”
“Later, Dad. We have to go.”
“His little simpleton is upset,” my mother said. “Can’t you tell they-”
I turned so violently in her direction that I cut her words off mid-flow. I think that was the closest I had ever come to hitting my own mother. Without another word, I tugged Mickey by the arm and led him to the car. Seconds later the front door slammed shut and my visit home was officially over.
“You were about this close to intubation, Mister,” the on duty nurse said, waking me from a shallow sleep. She held up a pinch to demonstrate how close I had come to getting a tube shoved down my throat. Her words felt like an admonition; as if I had intentionally locked myself into a burning garage. Tube or no tube, it felt like my lungs were dryer than death and twice as ugly. I offered her a mischievous smile to make up for my perceived sins.
“Your friend saved your life, you know,” she continued, adjusting the nose tube that shot a steady cold stream of air into me. I squinted to read her nameplate. Thelma Reynolds. I hadn’t yet decided if she was kind or mean. Her words said nice, but the harsh bun of grey-streaked black hair pulled to the back of her head and the frown creases around her mouth said otherwise.
“If he hadn’t hauled you out of that garage, I’d be talking to an empty bed right now. Just as well he did… they think I’m crazy enough around here as it is. No need they see me shoutin’ curses at empty sheets and half-fluffed pillows.”
I smiled and looked to the chair at my bedside. “Where’s-”
“Now don’t get yourself back on the talk circuit just yet, Mr. Wiseguy. You’ll need to save your lungs the anguish.” She stood back and looked me over. “There. That’s better. I don’t know how those things go all askew. How’s that for fresh air?”
With her thick arms crossed, her obscenely ample bosom became even more pronounced. I raised my eyebrows in reply, afraid to open my mouth to speak again.
“You’ll be getting a masked treatment in just a few that’ll put you into your second life. Now if you were a cat, that’d be a good thing. I don’t have to tell you that you’re not. After this treatment, it’ll be good as rain if you stayed away from burning buildings for a very long time. Always would be your best bet.
“I don’t have to tell you this, either. But I’m gonna anyway. I always give the most advice to those who can’t argue or escape. Unless you’re asbestos or Satan, it’s best not to be caught dancing in flames. We can only clean your lungs so many times, Mister.”
Again, I felt admonished. I looked to the chair where Mickey had been the last time I was conscious.
“Him? I sent that one home,” she said. “No place for him to be, sittin’ waiting for you to stir. How are those burns treatin’ you?” She unfolded her arms and moved to roll me onto my side.
It was the first time I felt the pain since it happened. As soon as she had made me aware of it, though, it was the only thing I could think of… even from within the medicated cloud I found myself in.
“These dressings will stay on until the next shift change,” Nurse Reynolds said. She tsked a couple times while inspecting my back; touched a few raw undressed places, causing me to wince and pull back.
“That really hur-”
“Ut tut tut. I told you not to speak. It’s gonna hurt. They’re burns. That’s what they do.” She lowered me gently back in place. “Nothing too too bad, though. Now the papers are gonna want to talk to you, too, like they spoke to that Mickey fella.”
It was so hard to keep track of the conversation. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the medication dripping through my intravenous, or the manic way Thelma Reynolds chose to carry on a conversation.
“Your friend was interviewed yesterday by the Tribune,” she said. I gave her a look of bewilderment. “He did save your life, you know. You were locked into that garage good and tight. Someone out there doesn’t think much of you; that’s for sure. They’d sooner cook ya, as look at ya.”
I scribbled furiously into my hand with a non-existent pen, hoping she would understand the international sign for give me a pen and paper.
“Well, they just happen to be right here.” She opened the top drawer in the bedside table and handed me what I needed. “Make it quick, though. There’s more than you here.”
What day is it? Is Mickey hurt? Do they know what happened?
“Well, you’ve been a guest at the hospital for two days now.” Her index finger went over the list one item at a time. “Your friend is fine. He cut himself on the hand… two stitches-nowhere near as bad as your gashes-and burned his elbow. Just a minor burn. I’m not much of a detective, so I can only speculate. You made somebody mad enough to cook you.”
I brought the pen back to the paper, but she decided to keep on going.
“Your mother was here just a little while ago. If you don’t mind me saying, she didn’t look marathon ready. I was tempted to wake you and tell you to make room for her.
“Only one more visitor while you were sleeping. A big one.”
“What did he look-”
“Do I honestly have to knot a grown man’s tongue?”
I jotted fat? down on the paper and raised my eyebrows in response, prompting her to answer the question.
“Well, he was more Arnold big than Fat Albert big. He said he’d be back later when you were awake. Now I have to go. Rounds don’t stop at you; despite the fact that you’re the biggest news this town has had in months.”
As she was walking out, I quickly jotted down a final reply and tapped the pen rapidly against the pad to get her attention.
Thank you.
“Wasn’t a bother,” she said on her way out the door. “I do have to tell you though. Those vows of silence… they’re Thelma’s orders, not the doctor’s. I’ve been doing this for a long time though, so I know what shakes. You best keep to no-speak for the time being.”
She was gone before I could protest. I looked around uneasily, wracking my brain to come up with who it could have been who paid me a visit while I was out. It was obvious I had to leave. I examined myself and couldn’t see any reason why I had to stay. My back was a blister of heat; my head a fog of thoughts; my hand and arm wrapped and throbbing; and my throat and lungs a gravel mess, but I figured it would be best if I took my chances and took a stroll.
Leaving a hospital in the middle of the afternoon was a lot easier than I expected it would be. I hauled my coat on and merely slipped to the stairwell, made my way down the four flights and let myself out. It was moving on from there that would have proven difficult had Mickey not been sitting on a bench in the adjacent park.
Though he looked forlorn to the point of miserable, I was relieved to see him sitting there. I knew that a man in next to nothing but a coat would somehow be less conspicuous if he was with somebody. Besides that, it was a good time to thank him for being at the right place at the right time.
“Duncan,” he said as he spotted me crossing the road. “You should be inside. You should-”
“Don’t worry about that,” I interrupted. My throat screamed in protest and I suddenly knew that Thelma Reynolds was a very smart woman. “How long have you been here? Did you see any big guys coming or going this morning?”
“Nope. But you should be-”
“Mickey. No. Someone was here to see me. Someone big. The nurse told me he was there when I was sleeping. I don’t know who it was and I don’t want to find out. You have to go get the car, buddy.”
I saw the look of terror in his face and quickly recalled the last time I allowed him to take the wheel. We had ended up in the ditch by Coreman’s Creek and I needed a tow truck to haul me out. Instead of calling myself an ass for allowing him to drive, I screamed bloody murder at Mickey for being dumb enough to land in the ditch.
“You’ll be fine. There’s no mud on city streets. Just zip home, get the keys and drive it over. I’ll take over from there.”
“Oh, Duncan,” he moaned. “I’d rather not. I have to work soon, anyway.”
“I’m not sure what time it is, but it looks like hours before your shift starts, Mickey. Don’t tell me you’re going to leave me here in a hospital gown and a coat. I need you now. I need you to help me.”
He stood and pace for half a minute, knowing he was going to do as I asked but not wanting to in a very big way.
“Okay. But if I get caught-”
“You won’t get caught. Nobody’s looking-”
“Cal’s been all over me the last two days, Duncan. All over me.” He noticed the look of panic on my face. “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him a thing. He’s getting pretty angry though. I thought he was gonna hit me, he was so mad this morning.”
I sat down on the bench he had vacated.
“Don’t worry. We have nothing to hide. It’s not like we did anything. We have to remember that. We’re innocent.” Though I had never felt more guilty of a thing in my entire life. I felt like it was me who took the life out of Roni and left her in that field. And I was almost certain that somebody out there was going to sooner or later make it look like I had.
“I’ll be right back. Stay right here. Promise. Promise me you’ll stay right here.”
“I promise. I’ll be glued to this spot.” He looked leery, as though he thought I would dart the moment his back was turned. “Bring me a change of clothes too, would ya Mick. The key’s under the step where I showed you.”
“I don’t like this,” he said as he walked off in the direction of my house. “I don’t like it one bit.”
As soon as he was out of sight I realized I hadn’t thanked him for pulling me out of the garage. It would have to wait.
I felt apprehensive. I was sure that I stuck out like a tiger in a fishbowl. I got up and walked further into the park and found a bench under an elm. I felt slightly less conspicuous there. I nervously awaited Mickey’s arrival while I prayed for the miracle that would get him there in one piece.
My first inclination was to head for the graveyard, but I knocked that idea down as soon as it appeared. That was something I would have done. I had to think like Mickey. He wasn’t exactly enamored with graveyards. He still had a child-like fear of those places, as evidenced by the way he superstitiously held his breath whenever we drove past them.
My biggest fear was that Cal had stuck around and led him away from the store to mine his brain for more of whatever it was he was looking for. Mickey was easily led; the perfect victim for someone as adept at intimidation as Cal.
I headed to my house, thinking Mickey might be out on the front porch waiting for me to appear and rescue him from himself. I only got about halfway there when I noticed a bundled figure sitting on the curb across the parking lot from The Hive. Even with his back to the road, I knew it was Mickey. The parka hood, fur-trimmed, pulled to a tight ‘o’ and the slow rhythmic rocking forward and back; it had to be him. I threw my left signal on and pulled into the Hive lot.
As I inched the car up to where he was rocking, the ‘o’ of his hood slowly rose… but I could not see the darkness inside. I only knew that he was seeing me.
His hand slowly lifted to a wave as I put the car in park-leaving it running-and jumped out into the cold.
“Hey, Am,” Mickey said. His voice came out with a muffled gush of air that dangled in front of him a moment before dissipating in the cold. He loosened his hood and revealed his face to the headlights’ glare.
He had been crying.
“Hey, Mick. We’re not at work now,” I said, patting his shoulder and taking a seat on the curb beside him. “You don’t have to call me Am. We’re friends now.”
“Well, yeah. But not really. I’m on the clock still, Duncan. I’m sorry I didn’t stay.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just relieved to see Cal didn’t trap you somewhere and give you what for for not telling him whatever it is he imagines we know.”
“Well he didn’t. I came here on my own. I was just thinking, that’s all.”
I put my hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. This seemed to slow the pendulum motion his body had locked itself into. I only let go when his rocking had come to a complete stop.
Not sure what to say, I chose to go with nothing. We sat in the glare of the headlights for a few minutes just watching the white tunnels of breath escaping with our exhalations.
“Why don’t we go inside for a drink before we head back to work?” I suggested. Mickey startled back to himself, giving his head a shake to clear the fog. “We will have to get back soon, though… but we can stay a few more minutes anyway. Dean’s taking care of things for now, but you know how he gets.”
“Sure, Dunc,” he said. “Sounds good. I like being inside. It’s like we’re closer to her in there.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean, bud.” But I didn’t. Not really. To me it felt like we were walking in a ghost house whenever we entered The Hive. Roni was everywhere. I wondered if she had touched the glass that held my beer, wiped down the stool I perched myself on, lingered in the hallway I walked to reach the men’s room. The whole Hive experience had become excruciatingly painful for me. For Mickey, it was like coming home. For him, The Hive was the true final resting place for Rhonda Eastwood; somewhere he could go to pay his respects.
I got up and killed the engine on the car and locked it up. As we walked to the front door, I noticed for the first time just how bone-cold it was outside. “You can’t sit on pavement like that when it’s this cold, Mickey. You’re libel to get piles doing that.”
Mickey held the door open for me, ignoring the comment I had hoped would serve to lighten his mood.
The darkness of the Hive reached out and pulled us in. Never did a bar have a more apt name. The Hive was dark and hectic. I always had the sense there was so much going on I wasn’t quite privy to and I was acutely aware of its manic insect hum. I was not comfortable there when Roni was present and I hadn’t warmed up to it at all in her absence. There was also the distinct impression that such good friends of Rhonda’s were not welcome.
I followed Mickey to where I knew he would go. Our table was in the corner behind the pool table. We spent many hours there watching patrons shooting pool while waiting for Roni’s shift to end.
Mickey slipped into the chair against the wall. This was his normal chair too. In the corner he could watch for Roni to make her appearance. I pulled out the chair across the table from him and sat down.
“We’ll have one quick drink,” I said. “Then it’s back to the grindstone.”
“Sure, Duncan.”
I took my coat off and hung it on the pool cue rack beside the table. This was a signal for Mickey, who seemed to be operating on auto-pilot. He chose only to toss his hood back off of his head, though. He was only half-willing to leave the cocoon and join me in the Hive. The coat would stay on.
It was extremely rare that nobody was shooting pool and I had half a mind to just take up a cue and start playing myself. It would have lifted Mickey from his funk, but the fact that Dean was left in charge at the store niggled my thoughts like a canker. I stared into the two pools of light shining on the table’s purple felt surface instead, waiting for Mickey to make sense of whatever it was he was worrying on and spit it out.
Tate himself came over to take our order. Tate was the owner, a pessimistic piece of misery who looked the same as long as I’ve known him. When we were growing up together, he was Ryan. Somewhere in high school Ryan slipped away and he has been stuck with his last name ever since.
“What can I get ya?” he asked, not even attempting to hide his contempt. He carried a germ laden J-Cloth and swiped a single swath through the center of the table with it, dropping down two cardboard coasters along the way.
“Two draughts, Tate,” I said. I snipped a smile short when he turned abruptly and headed back to the bar.
“He’s a fat fuck, Duncan.”
I pulled my head back and raised my eyebrows, taking Mickey’s unexpected comment in. He smiled and unzipped his parka.
“Yeah. No kiddin’. I never did like that guy.”
“Roni used to call him a pencil dicked hellcat,” he said. “Said he was always hitting on her and causing her grief. Said he was so fat he couldn’t find it to pee.”
I laughed and looked back toward the pool table. It was calling out to us… getting louder as Mickey’s mood improved.
“I suppose she’s probably right about that,” I said. Tate was grossly overweight. With his graying hair and climbing widow’s peak he looked easily ten years older than us. He was three days younger than me. It used to piss him off that my birthday was celebrated first in school. “I certainly wouldn’t wanna go looking for anything under that pile of rubble he calls a gut.”
Despite the fact that his eyes were darting around the bar scanning longingly for the ghost of a girl who would never show, all was finally right with the world. Mickey laughed. It seemed he finally shook the cloud that Cal had dropped on him.
“Howsabout a game of pool?” I asked, forgetting myself. It was sink or swim time. Every day the manager in me struggled against my natural inclination towards mediocrity and slackerdom.
“We have to get back to the store after this beer. This place’ll be closing soon anyway.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Maybe you should be the manager. God knows my heart ain’t in it.”
Tate pressed in between our conversation and plopped two mugs of beer on the previously dropped coasters, spilling foam from each with the force of their landings.
“Two draughts. That’ll be six, eighty-five.”
The beer at The Hive was no longer free for Rhonda’s freeloading friends. I reached into my pocket and paid the man, smiling at the ridiculous vision Mickey had just gifted me. I hoped Tate wouldn’t mistake the smile for a kindness.
“Maybe I’ll just shoot a few into the corner pocket while you’re drinking your beer, Duncan,” Mickey said. He slid out of his chair, grabbed a cue and the triangle and began his short journey around the table emptying its pockets of balls. The noise of balls being dropped and rolled and dragged across the surface of the table followed.
I took comfort in the tap of the cue on the white ball and the clack of the break. Sipping my beer, I felt lulled and sated by Mickey’s noisemaking. It was easy for me to slip back into a time when we did this every night. We’d come and have a beer on our lunch-hour, maybe a plate of the Hive’s piss-poor fries on the side, get a few words in with Roni as she’d move through the bar like a queen on a mission.
Roni did do the books for the Hive, but she really did so much more. It was as though she ran the place. Tate wouldn’t know his arse from a cupcake. Roni was the best thing that ever happened to him. I could not figure out what went wrong. It was like all the pieces were sitting right in front of me, but I had no way of knowing how they fit together.
I certainly felt the hatred oozing out of Tate’s pores whenever Mickey and I slipped into the bar, but I couldn’t tell Mickey we weren’t going back. He loved being in the place where Roni had spent most of her time. It gave him peace. Taking that away from him would have destroyed him. Besides, her conscience had already warned me in no uncertain terms that she’d hide me if I ever stopped him from going to the Hive.
Another sip, another clink of ball against ball and the soft thunk of a pocket being filled was all it took for me to slip back completely.
***
There was something disarming in the way Rhonda acted while I was packing a few things at my place. I tried to imagine that it was simply the adrenaline of flight, her excitement in busting away from a town she always hated, but it was more than that. Her sudden impatience with me, and her insistence that Mickey wait in the car out of the way, made it feel like it was her journey. Not ours. She dismissed all my questions about things we would need with a quick, “It doesn’t matter”.
“Okay, Roni,” I said once we were back on the road. “What’s this really about?”
“What do you mean? Adventure. Escape. Getting out of this little town before it sucks us under. Before we disappear. Can’t you feel it happening, Duncan? Can’t you feel the fading?”
I wasn’t buying it. The look of desperation that crept into her face earlier was now holding court over the landscape of her features. The panic in her heart was visibly recognizable in her near panting, and the shimmer of sweat covering her forehead and arms. There was more to this thing than adventure.
“Bullshit,” I said.
“What? Can’t a girl have fun? It’s not just a man’s world, you know. We can break out every now and again too.” Her smile, with the dashboard lights illuminating her manic face, was more frightening than convincing.
“I don’t have anything,” Mickey said from the backseat. “Why don’t I have anything?”
“What, sweetie?” Roni asked, pleased by the intrusion. She turned to face him, offering him another of her shocking new smiles.
“Well, we didn’t go to my place. I didn’t pack any clothes. I’ll need stuff too.”
She swung around to look at me, looking for help getting out of the corner she had put herself in. I averted my eyes to the road, pretending I hadn’t seen her shift.
“I have money, Mickey,” she said. “Enough to buy you a couple of things. We have to get to the train station or we’ll miss the next train. Miss that, and we may not leave.”
“Why not take the car?”
“Yeah, Roni? Why not the car? What’s with taking the train? Whenever we get to wherever it is it’ll take us, how the hell are we gonna get anywhere? We’ll need a car.”
“The train’ll take us further. And we can sleep. It makes sense if you think about it.”
She interrupted Mickey’s next question with a blast from the radio. CCR took us the rest of the way to the station while my attention oscillated between the road and the nervous foot tapping and fidgeting going on in the seat beside me.
We pulled into the station and parked next to the main building. It was all I could do to beat Roni to the trunk.
When the trunk popped open and I reached in to grab my bag, Roni clenched my wrist. I stopped what I was doing and looked at her, knowing the other shoe was about to drop.
“Wait,” she said.
I tried to yank my wrist free, but she held firm forcing me to look at her.
“What’s going on here, Roni?”
“Drunk courage.”
“What-”
“I needed to play you and Mickey into the mix to get me this far. I was scared, Duncan. I needed you to think you were coming with me.”
“We are coming with you.”
“No. No you’re not.” She finally released her grip and reached in to grab her own bulging suitcase.
Mickey had joined us at the back of the car but remained quiet. He often watched the two of us like a hawk to see how tense situations would play out before adding his own two cents. Not being one to take sides, I think he was always quietly hopeful our arguments would never come to the point where he would have to.
“I’m not going to let you leave here without us, Roni.”
“Come on, Duncan. You want to leave here as much as you want a turkey on Tuesday. You were just playing along to hear the sound of your own voice.”
“This isn’t about seeing the world, is it Roni?”
She dropped her suitcase to the ground with a thud. Before I knew what was happening, she had me in a panicked embrace. Her hands then grabbed my head and her mouth found my nose, my cheeks… my mouth.
When she finally found my ears she held me closer and whispered, “Don’t make a scene, Duncan. You’ll only upset Mickey. You have to let me go. I have no choice. You have to.”
My eyes roamed and locked on Mickey. He was watching us like someone on the verge of a breakdown. I didn’t think it was possible for him to be more upset than he already appeared, but I had to listen to her. She had once again manipulated me into a corner; something Rhonda Eastwood was incredibly good at accomplishing.
Her mouth came back to mine and she whispered the same warning again, her hot breath filling my lungs as she spoke the words.
“You guys are scaring me,” Mickey finally said.
She released me and opened her arms to Mickey. As he fell in, I picked up her suitcase and headed for the front doors of the station. I had already relented to her will. She was getting on the train and we were staying behind. She would tell me what was going on in her own sweet time. And like a puppy lost, I would wait for that time to arrive.
***
“Hey, idiot,” Tate said, startling me from my reverie. “I think it’s time you let somebody else use that table. You’re only fooling around. These boys want to have a real game.”
He was flanked by the Martin brothers, Robbie and David. They were regulars at the Hive. Roni called them Trouble and More Trouble. They were a couple of muscle-bound simpletons I never gave the time of day. They smiled at Mickey, arms folded, waiting for him to cower under and walk away from the pool table.
“There aren’t any idiots here, Tate,” I said, rising out of my chair. “No need to speak to him like that.”
“And there’s really no need for the two of you to keep haunting this place now that Roni ain’t in it, either, Duncan. How’s about the two of you call it a night now? I’ve been a good host. I brought your beer. I let the thin genius there scratch up just about as much of my table as I can take. How about you just get your asses on back to the IGA and stock some shelves now.”
I moved toward him, balled fists at my sides. He took a step back at the same time the brothers Martin took a step forward, smirking their ill will in my direction.
“It’s okay, Dunc,” Mickey said, sliding the pool cue across the surface of the table. “I was finished anyway. We’ll go, Tate.”
“That’s very good of you, moron,” Tate replied. “I’ll tell Roni you stopped by.”
Mickey gasped and a dark anger crossed his features. I thought he would pounce on Tate, but he seemed to recompose himself on the spot. He grabbed his coat.
“Come on, Duncan,” he said, ignoring the three of them completely. He put his parka on and started walking towards the door. “We better get back to the IGA like he says.”
The Martins stopped their posturing and began to set the pool table up for a game, not once opening their mouths to speak.
“I don’t like you, Tate,” I said, making sure I was quiet enough so that Mickey couldn’t hear me. “And Roni didn’t like you either. She didn’t like you a lot, Tate. She warned me about you. I wouldn’t even come to this rat trap if it wasn’t for Mickey. He wants to be close to where Roni used to spend her time, but he doesn’t know how much she loathed the time she spent here.”
“Well don’t do me any favors, Duncan,” he replied. “Tell him not to come back and we’ll all be happy.”
“We’ll be back as long as Mickey wants to keep coming. And you are not going to stop us.” I leaned in close enough to smell his stale breath. “I’ll tell Roni you said hi. How’s that?”
He flinched. I saw it just before he regained his composure. He was just as uncomfortable with ghosts as I was. It made me wonder what it was Roni was keeping from me the night she boarded that train. The Hive was involved in that night. I sensed it like you sense someone watching you. You just know where to look… and when you do, there they are… looking like the cat that ate the rat. And as soon as I mentioned Roni’s name, it sure looked like a rat that Tate choked to swallow.
Waking up to our first Christmas without Rhonda was even harder than I had imagined it would be. With the bitter taste of our confrontation with Cal still burning a hole in my throat, I was in no mood to greet the morning without her.
As I sat up in bed, I remembered-and instantly regretted-the damage I had done to the rest of that bottle of whiskey after we left Roni’s graveside with our heads down and our tails between our legs.
We loved Roni like crazy. Bringing her a Christmas tree every year was just the tip of our Rhonda Eastwood obsession iceberg. Rhonda had come to define Mickey and me; form the people we had become. It was hard to be around such a free spirit as hers without having just a bit of that magic rub off on you, whether you wanted it to or not.
I should have gone with my gut when Roni voiced her desire to flee this shit-town, though. My gut told me I belonged in the small, in the forgotten, in the never going anywhere. But as I drove on, with Roni’s feet in my lap and her dreams in the air around us, something overtook my reason. Her desire to be anywhere, everywhere… it suddenly spoke to me. It bit me like a bear you can’t bite back but have to chase anyway, just to prove your courage.
If I would have kept my mouth shut, she’d maybe still be hanging wishes on those God-damned wires. There’s nothing wrong with wishin’ your life away and going nowhere with it. It’s when you cross that line and try to put those wishes into real… for losers like me, that’s when the trouble starts.
What hurts the most is that Roni had every faith in Mickey and me. She really believed we would take her to the everywhere she imagined. That was where Roni was most fallible, her Achilles heel. She was unable to see the losers before her whenever she looked at us.
But we didn’t kill Rhonda Eastwood. That was one piece of business Cal would eventually have to chew on and swallow hard.
We may have allowed her to dream, and maybe even dreamed right alongside her too, but Mickey and me… we didn’t have a thing to do with Roni’s dying. Like two idiot moths at a porch light, we were just wrapped up in something bigger than us and too stupid and blinded to realize it. Only problem with that analogy is the porch light went out first and the two stupid moths are left behind wondering why it’s so God-damned dark.
It took all my energy getting out of bed. I tried as best as I could, with just my two hands, to hold my head in place as I walked to the bedroom window and looked out at the blustery day forming beyond it.
I sank a little further when I saw the dead tree hanging askew from the side of the car, looking every bit the victim of a violent altercation with a wood chipper.
I didn’t have to wonder how far we dragged the carcass the night before. A trail of branches, needles and debris ran down the middle of the street and lead up the driveway to the car. The falling snow was quickly erasing all traces of foul play, though. Anyone on the lookout for a stolen pine tree would soon be out of luck.
I continued my futile attempts to keep the pounding headache at bay while I hauled myself into the clothes I had shucked off and left in a pile at the foot of my bed only a couple of hours before.
Each footfall I took reverberated the throbbing pain in my head, but I thought I’d better remove the tree from the side of the car before anybody noticed it. It hadn’t occurred to me that other, more civilized, people were too busy celebrating the season with loved ones to notice a mangled tree hanging from the side of their crazed neighbor’s car.
Mickey sat at the bottom landing of the stairs, bent back and staring upwards in his usual one-eye-open drunken sleep posture.
“Hey,” I said. I shook his shoulder on my way past.
“Handsaw?” he asked.
“You’re dreaming, fruit-loop.”
He startled upright and his hand went to his mouth to wipe away a trail of drool.
“What time is it?”
“Time to get up and bury that God awful tree. Or what’s left of it. What the hell did we do after we left the graveyard last night?”
Mickey stood up and hugged close to the wall for support. “Oh. I don’t feel so good, Dunc.” He put his hand over his mouth. His eyes rolled in his head, unable to anchor. “I think I have to use your wash-”
“Don’t you even think of getting sick in my hallway, Mickey. I’ll swat you with your own hand. Get your ass to the toilet now before it’s too late.”
I was in no state to hear the retching that was sure to follow, so I made a beeline for the garage door. With my coat flung over my shoulder, I embarked on my search for the garden shears. It was time to free our prisoner.
Leaving the shears and rope in the snow beside the car, I dragged what was left of the tree into the backyard. I began to pluck it apart branch by branch, the whole time struggling with the heady scent of pine and the way it tried to lure me back to the past.
Mickey’s reappearance, even in his hung-over state, was the ballast I needed to keep me in the present.
“What are ya breaking it up for, Duncan?” he whined. “We don’t have a tree ourselves.”
“Well, you can’t have this one neither. We tore it all to ape-shit last night, Mickey. Weren’t you there?”
He grabbed a bough from the ground and used it to swat at the falling snow. “I don’t see why we couldn’t keep it, anyway. It wasn’t that bad. What are you gonna do with all the pieces?”
“I thought we could have a bonfire. Maybe it’s time we started a new Christmas tradition, Mickey. What do you think?”
“I think it’s snowing like a bitch, Duncan. And I think maybe Cal Eastwood’s making you a bit crazy. I wanted a tree. And you went and ripped it to pieces. That was Rhonda’s tree.”
Mickey placed the bough on the pyre I had been building and turned and walked back to the house.
As much as I might have agreed with him, I tried my best to ignore his simple logic. I finished shredding the tree apart and returned to the garage for the gas can I kept with the lawnmower.
Soon the flames and smoke were rising against the storm and I knew I had to head back to the house. Whenever Mickey gets his feelings hurt you have to ease him back into happy. Somewhere along the road I had become both his tormentor and his touchstone. I knew he’d be inside waiting for me to cheer him up. And I knew I had to do it. With Roni gone, I was all the poor bastard had left.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was back in that car, in that time. Back dreaming about the way those wires swooped up and down between the telephone poles in that dreamy way they dance in motion. Back looking at that stretch of body as she lay across our laps.
***
Instead of returning my thoughts to the road like I should have, I shot Mickey a wink and a smile. Instead of letting Rhonda sleep the sweet sleep of wire wishers and daydreamers, screw-up Duncan gave her a great big poke in the belly.
As Robert Plant melted into Freddy Mercury, Rhonda awoke with a blast of that rich and heady laughter that was such an elixir for the both of us.
“Duncan, you ass-hole,” she said. “You scared me half to death.” But her renewed laughter belied her true feelings.
“I was just thinking, Roni. What if we did happen to see the world? What would be so wrong with taking a little peek?”
“Duncan Manning, you crazy bastard. You don’t have it in you,” she replied. Her eyes narrowed though. She was trying to read my expression and determine whether or not I was pulling her chain. Or perhaps she was attempting to gauge whether she needed to wait a little longer, or give the rod that final yank that set the hook.
Roni may have gone overboard on the free-spirit thing, but seeing her shine like that-seeing her light up Mickey the way she did-I just wanted to be hauled in with them.
“What makes you think I don’t want to see the world too?” I asked, poking her again as we drove on.
Her laughter carried us through the rest of the song.
“Are you guys sure?” Mickey asked, hanging his head out the window for a quick gulp of passing air. Coming back in, he looked past Roni and made sure he had my attention. “The world’s a hell of a big place, Duncan.”
“Not if you take it one step at a time, Mick.”
“It’ll be okay, Mickey baby,” Roni cooed. “We’ll take care of you. You trust us, don’t-cha?”
***
He did trust us, too. Mickey always did. He’d follow Roni and me off the face of the Earth if we ever found the right turn to get us there. Problem is we never knew what to do with that power. Roni was too busy dreaming of another place and I was too stupid to do anything even half-ways good with it.
I stumbled enough with Roni’s help. With her gone, I felt completely lost. It didn’t help that Mickey was still looking my way for answers. I guess he just never realized how many of the previous ones had actually come from Rhonda.
Standing in a blizzard on Christmas morning, watching a bonfire sink in upon itself, I knew I was failing him yet again. A good word was all he needed. I could have saved our first Rhonda-less Christmas for him, but I couldn’t drag myself away from the smell of pine and the lost wishes that scent encompassed.
With this blog, Trish and Kevin hope to create a cohesive novel written in two voices. Trish will write the first chapter and Kevin the second… and so on. They would like to have the entire novel written by the fall, but life may intervene.
Chapter 1 is now available for reading. You can click Chapter 1in the Categories list in the left-hand menu to read it. (Or, simply click on the links below to open chapter in new window.)
Enjoy!
Chapter Log
Chapter 1 – Posted by Trish on May 21, 2008
