The Handyman's Summer

by Nick Poff

  “We don’t need the details,” Ed said quickly.

  Blanche was twisting her hands together. “It must have been so gruesome. Evie was so hysterical – cryin’, moanin’ and screamin’ – that they took her away in an ambulance.”

  She looked soberly at the two men. “She was never the same after that.”

  “Did she go back to the hospital?” Ed asked.

  “Oh, you know about that,” Blanche said. “No, she didn’t. Or rather, she wouldn’t. That’s when things got ugly. Oh, at first things weren’t too bad. Evie calmed down enough to go home, and get through Daniel’s funeral, but she started having spells after that. The neighbors got concerned and started a petition to have her taken away. Nothing really came of it, but that’s when people started talking so mean about her.”

  Blanche shook her head. “Oh, people said terrible things. They said Daniel’s death wasn’t any accident, that he killed himself. They said he had been as crazy as she was. One time a bunch of boys threw rocks at her. I think Evie might have gotten better and gotten on with her life, but those awful people wouldn’t let her. She finally just lost her mind. Then they left her alone, after all the damage was done.”

  Ed leaned against the building. The combination of the hot sun and this sad story was making him sick to his stomach. “So that’s when she became the town crazy lady?”

  “Yes.” Blanche nodded. “Even if someone tried to help her, she wouldn’t let them. And most of those people, why, they were so ashamed when they realized what they had done to her, they just clammed up. Pretended not to see her. Pretended she wasn’t there at all.”

  “Blanche,” Rick said softly, looking as sick as Ed felt. “We believe someone was helping Evie through the years, perhaps even watching out for her from far away. Do you have any idea who it could be?”

  “No, but that doesn’t surprise me. I always thought Evie got along awful good for someone who was supposed to be looney.”

  Ed and Rick both sighed. “I guess there’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Ed said. “Why wouldn’t Miss Corcoran let you tell me this yesterday?”

  Blanche looked embarrassed. “Well, I guess it’s all right to tell you two, but please don’t repeat it. Promise?”

  “We promise,” they said solemnly. Ed even crossed his heart.

  “Well, I’ve always been an old maid, always knew I would be. Louella is a different story. She had a boyfriend in high school, but he ran off at some point. She’s never told me the whole story. Anyway, she was especially close to a girlfriend she had, and some of the boys started talking nasty about the two of them being lesbians. It was terrible for Louella. The friend even moved away to get away from the talk. Louella stayed here in town. That was brave of her, but it changed her. She…got mean inside herself. She wouldn’t let anyone near her. She was kinda like Evie, except she didn’t go crazy, she just got hard.”

  I don’t understand,” Ed said. “What does that have to do with the Denisons?”

  “Oh! Well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  Rick smiled and took her hand. “You won’t. It’s okay.”

  Blanche went back to twisting her hands. “Well, like I said, some people went around saying Daniel had killed himself, and they said the reason he killed himself was because he was a homosexual. I don’t know if there’s anything to it, but you know how people are. Well, after what she went through when she was younger, Louella’s always been afraid any talk about Daniel would rake up the stuff people said about her.”

  Ed took her other hand. “We understand, better than most people.”

  “Well, that’s what I meant. I know people have talked trash about you two, but not around me. I won’t let ‘em. Ed’s been wonderful to me all these years, and considering what people say about me behind my back, why, I’ll take you two over them any day.” She squeezed their hands.

  “I guess we people who…who don’t quite fit in have to stick together, right?” Ed smiled at her.

  “Yes,” Blanche said with relief. She looked at the ground, a sad expression on her face. “I will go to my grave not understanding it.”

  “What?”

  “How people can be so kind and yet be so awful.”

  Blanche smiled at them briefly, and then turned to go back in the store. “I gotta get back to work. Bye, fellows.”

  “Bye,” they echoed as the door closed behind her.

  Ed and Rick looked at each other. Rick frowned thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “I guess it’s time we put Muriel Weisberg on the case.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Muriel was invited for dinner the next evening. As everyone feasted on Effie Maude’s fried chicken, biscuits, and coleslaw, Ed and Rick in turn told Muriel, Neal, and Rex everything that had happened and all they had found out from the day they first spotted Evie’s house until yesterday, and their conversation with Blanche Reddin.

  “I salute you guys,” Muriel said, toying with her coleslaw. “You managed to keep this a secret all summer, and even a nosy bitch like me didn’t get wise.”

  “Rex and I knew you were up to something.” Neal glanced at his friend next to him at the table, who grinned. “However, being the self-absorbed brats we are, we thought it had something to do with us.”

  Muriel sighed and laid down her fork. “Marvelous meal, as always,” she said, “but that story has taken away some of my pleasure in it. I feel awful for Daniel and Evie. Blanche is right; that family was doomed.”

  Rex tossed the chicken leg he had been gnawing on his plate. “It sucks,” he said flatly. “Ernie and Daniel should have been together.”

  “The times,” Rick said. “Rex, I know you think it’s bad now, and it is, but if you go back twenty-seven years it was twenty-seven times worse. I don’t think there would have been any way Ernie and Daniel could have had much of a relationship beyond those furtive trysts they had. At least they couldn’t if Daniel was to keep his job.”

  “And that mother,” Neal grimaced. “What a piece of work! I’d love to give her a kick where it counts.”

  “The John Birch Society was one big shit stain on America’s underwear.” Muriel glared around the table. “As far as they were concerned, anyone who was not white, Christian, heterosexual, or a commie-hating patriot was a commie, and someone to be eradicated. Thanks to Nixon and McCarthy and assholes like those damned Birchers, so many lives were ruined. Homosexuals were forced out of government jobs. Anyone who ever expressed any sort of liberal view was hounded endlessly. Lots of them committed suicide. It was people like the Birchers who made the civil rights struggle even harder.”

  She glanced at Neal and Rex. “I don’t suppose they taught you anything about that in U.S. History at good ole PHS.”

  Neal shook his head. “I remember Mr. Streater talking about McCarthyism, but he never really said what happened to the victims. And he sure didn’t mention the John Birch Society.”

  “Suicide,” Rex said bluntly. “You think Daniel killed himself, don’t you?”

  Ed and Rick looked at each other. “Yes,” Ed said quietly.

  “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?” Rick asked Rex.

  Rex sat back in his chair, his arms folded. “Yes,” he said, as if demanding someone to take issue with his answer.

  “So have I,” Neal said, putting a hand on Rex’s arm. Rex relaxed.

  “We all have,” Ed said. “And a lot of gay men go through with it.”

  “But why?” Muriel demanded. “What could have happened between January first and February ninth to make Daniel even think about such a thing?”

  “That fucking Gladys Jacks probably found out about him and Ernie,” Neal sneered.

  Or maybe one of Daniel’s students was caught reading Animal Farm, or The Grapes of Wrath, or some other subversive book,” Rick said in disgust.

  “Speaking of grapes,” Ed said, “we can thank Daniel and Evie for tonight’s dessert. Effie Maude made a grape pie with the grapes Re
x and I picked from their arbor.”

  Neal and Rex both stood and began clearing the table. Muriel watched this with interest. “You’ve sure got them trained well.”

  “You pull your weight in this house,” Ed said with a chuckle, “Or you get kicked to the curb.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Muriel, her eyebrows raised. “So I should maybe get busy after dessert with a dust cloth or something?”

  “No,” Rick said as the boys brought in dessert plates and the pie. “We’ve got a much bigger chore in mind for you.”

  While Rick cut the pie and passed pieces around the table, Ed explained to Muriel their theory of Ernie as the mysterious benefactor. “We really can’t think of anyone else it could be,” he said, reaching for his fork. “We doubt it’s Joe Fountain, and we haven’t come across anyone else who seems to have been even remotely involved with Evie and Daniel at that time.”

  “Oh…my…God,” Muriel said, chewing. “If my mother wasn’t dead she would die from this pie already. Please promise I can take a piece home. Well, yeah, I see your point about Ernie, but until we know – if we ever know – what happened between New Years and Valentine’s Day, there could be another party who slipped into the story.”

  “You still think you can track the real identity of B.M. Tarpley, don’t you?” Rick asked.

  “Oh, sure. New information technology has even seeped down to small town rags like the Courier. I should be able to find it. I can use Ernest Jacks as a jumping off point and see where it leads me. I just wish I knew a little more about him.”

  She looked up and smiled mischievously at Neal and Rex. “Would one of you incredibly handsome young men go upstairs and check Mrs. P.’s yearbook stash for me? I need the Zephyrs from ’55 and ’56.”

  Neal and Rex rolled their eyes at each other. Neal had his mouth full of pie so Rex got up and headed for the stairs.

  “What are you thinking?” Ed asked.

  “Well, flipping through the yearbook worked for you guys when you wanted to find one of Daniel’s students, right? I want to check out the graduating seniors when Ernie and Daniel were in school. I mean, come on; most PHS graduates get married, spit out kids, and die, all within a five mile radius of the old dump. I’m sure most of their classmates are still around here.”

  Rex appeared and put the yearbooks on the table next to Muriel. He lingered next to her as she flipped through to see the graduates for 1956. She stopped at Daniel’s picture. “You dear, dear man,” she said softly. “What did they do to you?”

  Rex looked over her shoulder at the photo, his eyes stormy. Neal came to stand beside him, and then Ed and Rick joined the others gazing at Daniel Denison’s senior picture.

  “Is there any way we can make up for what happened to him?” Rex wanted to know.

  “You mean avenge his death?” Neal’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I’d like that.”

  Muriel looked up at the four men surrounding her. “Oh, we will. ‘Ask Muriel’ is on the trail now, and I can assure you she won’t give up until both Daniel and Evie can rest easily in their graves, once and for all.”

  ###

  Ed’s first appointment on Thursday morning was with a new client in Doster Meadows, one he’d never met. He decided to take Rex along to give him an idea of how to deal with a new – and potentially – recurring client.

  When he started the truck the radio came on in the middle of Debbie Gibson’s “Only in My Dreams”. He reached for the volume, and then hesitated. “I have a confession to make,” he said.

  “Yeah?” Rex was grinning.

  “I love this song.”

  Rex laughed and slapped the dashboard. “Me, too!”

  Ed laughed with him as he jacked up the volume. They sang along until the song finished.

  “Man, I love being with someone who gets it,” Rex said, turning down the volume.

  “I know what you mean.” Ed stopped for the light at Main and Stratton. “It’s a dumb thing, but it makes you feel less alone.”

  “Yeah,” Rex said. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke out the window. “Daniel was kind of alone. I mean, Ernie only counted so much, really. Ed?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is it really better now?”

  “Sure it is. Rick and I are living together, flaunting our unnatural relationship in front of the whole town, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to. I mean, you guys could have sold Mrs. Penfield’s house and gone anywhere you wanted to go.”

  “And give this fucking burg the satisfaction of running us out? Ha!” Ed hit the steering wheel for emphasis. “Someone has to stick around and stick up for those who need it.”

  Rex smiled. “I’m glad you stayed.”

  “Thanks. Second thoughts on staying here and working with me?”

  “No. Not now.”

  “Cool.”

  Ed entered Doster Meadows and drove through the winding streets. He stopped in front of a split level ranch house much like its neighbors. He glanced at his book, and then at the house number. “2615 Creek Drive. This is the place.”

  Rex flipped his cigarette out the open window. Ed frowned. “You pick that up this instant,” he commanded. “Put it out and put in the ashtray. We’re making a first impression here and everything counts.”

  Rex immediately did as he was told, looking abashed. “Thank you,” Ed said tersely. First meetings with clients always made him nervous. “Now, keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Ed made a face at him as he rang the doorbell. The door was almost immediately opened by a short woman with short red hair and a plain, no-style dress. “Hello, she said with a smile. “I’m Mrs. Olivia Greer.”

  “How do you do?” Ed said politely with a smile of his own. “I’m Ed Stephens and this is my assistant in training, Rex. Thank you for calling. How can we help with your plumbing today?”

  Mrs. Greer had shifted her gaze from Ed to Rex, staring at him in a fixed way. Rex shuffled uncomfortably and nodded. “How do you do?” He mumbled.

  The woman ignored Rex and opened the door for them. She parked herself on a plain brown sofa in a living room devoid of any real color or charm. She spread her dress modestly over her knees and smiled at Ed, who stood just inside the door with Rex behind him.

  “I’m so glad you came to see me, Mr. Stephens,” she said in a confidential tone. “I told you a bit of a fib, though. I really want to share the good news of the Lord and his son Jesus Christ.”

  Oh, shit, Ed thought. He managed a polite smile. “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Greer, but I’ve already received that news.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said with amazing earnestness. “It’s my understanding you are a practicing homosexual in need of God’s forgiveness.”

  Ed shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, actually I don’t consider myself a practicing homosexual. After all these years I’d like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

  Rex, still behind Ed, smothered a snort of laughter. Mrs. Greer rebuked them both with a pious look. “God will not be mocked, Mr. Stephens.”

  And I’m on the verge of mocking the hell out of you, lady, Ed thought. “In other words, Mrs. Greer, you don’t need help with your plumbing today?”

  “Oh, no. I admired the shelving a neighbor of mine installed in her home, and she told me you had created it for her. I understand homosexuals can be very creative, but that’s no excuse to act upon immoral impulses.

  “I don’t hate you, Mr. Stephens,” she said gently. “I don’t condemn you either, but I feel it’s my duty to introduce you to your savior and change your path to one of righteousness.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, ma’am,” Ed said quietly. “However, it’s always been my policy not to mix my personal and professional lives. Since there aren’t any handyman chores we can help you with today, we’ll just be on our way.” He showed her his teeth and turned around, almost bumpi
ng into Rex, who seemed rooted to the floor. Ed gave him a gentle shove. Rex stumbled a bit and reached for the door handle.

  “Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Stephens,” Mrs. Greer said politely. “Please know I am always available for your help. I’ll pray for you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Greer. I really appreciate that.” Ed pushed Rex through the door and opened it wide for himself so it would make a loud slam behind him.

  Ed and Rex silently walked back to the truck. Once they were safely inside, Rex looked at Ed with respect. “I don’t think I could have handled that the way you did.”

  Ed shrugged. “Oh, trust me; I wanted to tangle with that bitch like Krystle and Alexis on Dynasty.” He managed a twisted smile. “You learn, though, that no matter how justified you feel, it’s bad for business. We’re at this to make a living, and the best revenge on people like Mrs. Olivia Holier-Than-Thou Greer, and the ones who talk trash behind your back, like that woman displaying the shelves the local homosexual handyman built for her, is taking their money. I charged that tacky broad with the wall unit a fortune for it, and now I wish I’d charged her double that.”

  Rex thought about that. “Yeah, I guess I understand. You mean kill them with kindness and steal them blind?”

  Ed laughed. “Now why didn’t Rick and I ever think of that? Yes, that’s it exactly. We’ve been working our asses off for years so we’ll eventually have enough of their money to be in a position to tell them to fuck the hell off.”

  “I think I can get onboard with that,” Rex smirked.

  “Good deal.” Ed started the truck and was about to shift gears when he hesitated. “Before we leave,” he said, carefully removing Rex’s cigarette butt from the ashtray, “throw this on her driveway.”