[Darkthorn 01.0] Pond Scum

by Michael Lilly

  When my sister and I were young, Nancy Black was our babysitter. Instead of inviting her to our home, my father insisted (for obvious reasons) that we go visit her at her house, just across the street from us. Of course, every time we were sent over there, we weren’t without promises of violence should we say anything incriminating.

  Back in the day, Nancy was healthy, strong. Aside from the few pounds that made her so, she fit the stereotype of a trophy wife: long, naturally blond hair, beautiful blue eyes, and full lips. However, she had none of the weakness that seemed to plague so many trophy wives on the soap operas and sitcoms. Nancy was widowed when I was eleven. Her husband, Mason, had been hiking in a canyon when his headlamp’s battery died. He walked right over a dark ridge and fell to his death. Nancy grieved for a solid year. Then, out of nowhere, she planted a beautiful garden along the side of her house, having knocked out the fence that lay there previously in order to accommodate it.

  She planted herbs and vegetables, and always ended up with such a plentiful harvest that she distributed the surplus to the neighbors in need of food. For me, late summer and early autumn are reminiscent of tomato basil cheddar soup, the tomato and basil bringing a tang that store-bought produce simply couldn’t match.

  Over time, her garden became something of a community garden. It started when Betsy Rovelek, distraught at the loss of her dog (an overconfident Pomeranian—its mourners weren’t many), came to Nancy for comfort. Nancy offered a plot of her garden, so that in the wake of death, Betsy could bring new life into the world.

  This happened two or three more times, and eventually, Nancy tore down the fence on the other side of her house to allow for more land to be tilled for planting. At that point, it was well known that Nancy would not only help her neighbors plant crops, but assist in their growth as well. Riverdell Daily printed a piece about her and her generosity, a central theme of which being the circle of life.

  Nancy has aged well. She’s just as strong as ever, physically, and even more so emotionally. I see her now and then when I’m out picking up coffee, and she’s almost always engaged in conversation with the other patrons, enthusiastic and glowing. In efforts to leave the seal on the coffers containing my childhood memories intact, I usually avoid eye contact with her.

  Now, I step steadily toward her house, the microphone of my consciousness unused for a time, and I fester in anxiety of what may come to the stage when the show resumes. Nonetheless, I proceed.

  Now, having traversed adolescence and young adulthood and emerged victorious, I must speak with Nancy.

  I step up the walkway, flanked by the remains of her fall harvest, with a runty pumpkin here and there hoping to grow into usability before they’re swallowed by the chill of winter. The smells of fall harvest fill me as I inhale, redolent of squashes and pumpkins and potpourri. It reminds me of when my mom would drag Trina and me through antique shops in search of Halloween trinkets before the season was fully upon us.

  I ring the doorbell, the sound of which hasn’t been changed since I was a child. It’s a sweet chime, audible both through the solid oak front door and leaking out of the slightly cracked windows in the kitchen, to my left.

  Nancy answers from within: “Coming!” It’s almost a song, the way she calls it through the house.

  She opens the door with energy that’s sure to be the envy of anyone else her age.

  She wears a smile, one that reaches every bit of her face. Her eyes are crinkled in a way that suggests that this smile occupies her face much of the time, which warms my heart.

  While the difference is barely visible, her smile changes in nature when she sees that it’s me calling at her door on this November morning.

  “Remy,” she says. Her eyes swim with sympathy, but this isn’t the kind that says I’m sorry about what happened this week. Rather, it says, I’m sorry about your entire life.

  I exhale in a short, broken burst, and she puts a reassuring hand on my upper arm. Her hand seems to pulse, as though she’s transferring some of her abundant energy supply into me.

  “Come in, come in. I’ve just made a pie, but it won’t be cool for quite a while. But I do have some leftover pumpkin cookies. Come and sit and talk.”

  Twenty-Eight

  “Remy,” says Nancy again, after fetching a plate of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen deeper within the house, “I’m sorry.”

  Without warning, her face melts into a sorry sob. She clasps a tissue in the hand that’s not supporting a plate of cookies, and raises it to her face. Instead of blotting tears from her eyes, however, she just crushes it in her hand, as if trying to squeeze the white out of it.

  I give her a minute.

  “You know, Remy,” she says, “I only ever had one regret in life. And it wasn’t Mason’s death. My one regret was that I didn’t call and tell someone the moment I suspected something was going on at your house.”

  “You knew,” I say. At one point, I suspected that she had copped onto the goings-on of my household, but I was never able to grow a pair and call her on it. In the end, though, what good would it have done? My father had already laid an elaborate framework for the lies and façades necessary to mask his hidden hobby.

  I forgave her even before I consciously accused her.

  “I did.” Now she uses the tissue for its intended purpose before returning it to her free hand’s death grip. She has since placed the plate of cookies on the coffee table, but as of now, it sits at the ready.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  “No, it’s not. It wasn’t.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t. But it is now. When did you figure it out?”

  “Well, call it a would-be mother’s instinct,” she says. Her face is almost dry now, but her eyes remain puffy and red. “Sometimes you can tell when something is out of place, even if only slightly.”

  “What was it that was slightly out of place?”

  I expect the answer to be some kind of evidence that Dad didn’t quite cover for; a bruise, a spot of blood. Maybe both in an alarming frequency.

  “Your eyes, dear,” she says. Now she’s calm enough to discard the used tissue and pluck a fresh one from its box, this time without trying to strangle it. “Your eyes betray more than you know. Yours are the eyes of a survivor. On the outside, they’re identical to your father’s, but a person with intuition can see that yours are different. Yours are swimming the pained wisdom that most people don’t acquire until they’re too old to do anything with it.”

  I nod, at a loss for words. It’s strange, having these concepts laid out before me so plainly. I suppose the concept has always been in my head, but broken, floating around in a million tiny pieces, a pensive cloud, without a way to harness it. Now, as I sit across the table from Ms. Black, they coalesce and take shape for the first time.

  The shape is not ugly or frightening, as I feared. Solemn, sure. But with an aesthetic sharpness to it that offers insight to its past and purpose, but not that boasts or mocks on its behalf.

  “Ms. Black,” I say.

  “Nancy. Just because you grew up doesn’t mean you get to get all informal with me.”

  “Nancy,” I say. It does feel better. I smile. “I’m not really sure why I came here. But now that I’m here, I want you to know that I don’t hold you responsible. I don’t blame you. If we thought that telling someone would fix anything, we would have done it. But his rope of lies was too tightly and elaborately woven. It would’ve taken a lot more ammunition than to which any of us had access to get anything to happen, especially with how much more relaxed DCFS was back then.”

  “I should have called anyway,” she says. Her eyes are unfocused, as though she spoke this sentence to the void, hoping to draw from it an ethereal sort of reassurance that I can’t offer.

  “You were scared,” I say.

  She nods.

  “We all were,” I say. “Some kids hoped for baseball bats or Game Boys for Christmas. In our family, we just hoped to survive a
nother year together. That was just how it was. And we did.”

  Nancy manages to pull her gaze back into this dimension, and fixes it on me. “When I heard about him a few days ago,” she says, “my first reaction was to be sorry, to offer condolences.” She pushes the plate of cookies toward me. “But I suppose that this is more congratulatory than consolatory.”

  We spend a while catching up, though I don’t impart the secrets of my nighttime activities. Her life has flourished as much as the vegetables in her gardens, abundant with neighborly chats and vignettes with friends.

  Ask the clock zooms past noon, we wrap up the conversation and begin our farewells. As we stand square to each other in her cozy entryway, she puts her hands on my upper arms, like how she did when I arrived. Her eyes meet mine and radiate with a brand of compassion that I’ve avoided over the years.

  “You’re not like him,” she says. “It’s your best quality. Go and do more good. The world needs more good. And who better to deliver it than he who’s seen the darkest of evil and flipped him the bird?” She smiles and winks like a proud auntie.

  Despite the mountain of cookies weighing on my arm, I hurry to the café in pursuit of a sandwich. I eat my find on a bench outside of the city building before I enter. As I proceed into the warmth of the building, I’m greeted by an equally warm smile from Karen. A clock with a faux gold frame shows that I have five minutes left.

  “Oh, no problem,” says Karen. “Through this hall, turn left, and it’ll be the last door on your right. He’s probably just twiddling his thumbs anyway.”

  The wooden architecture and marble flooring are indicative of a city building from a much wealthier city. The wood gleams with a polish that could have been applied just this morning, based on the smell and its glorious sheen. When I listen closely, I can hear the phantom clack, clack of the high heels of receptionists, past and present, echoing on the hard surfaces that grace the halls.

  The hallway that Karen indicated is to my left. Crossing the threshold casts a sense of business upon me, and I feel a sudden compulsion to appear more professional and put-together.

  Arriving at the end of the hallway, I rap three times on the door to my right, which bears a nameplate with Peter’s name on it. It swings inward shortly thereafter, and a very average-looking man wearing a very above-average suit beams at me, seizes my hand, and shakes it vigorously.

  “Good to see you! Now, let’s get started. We’ll get the less pleasant details out of the way first, shall we?”

  I don’t know whether he’s expecting any of it to be pleasant, but I suppose that, to some, inheriting seven figures can dampen the blow of losing a loved one, and Mr. Sharp has no way of knowing that I am not one of those people.

  He straightens his glasses. “Now. Your father has indicated in his will that he would like to be buried in the local cemetery, and the city has thus taken the liberty of digging up the plot that he reserved several years ago.”

  Perhaps he knew that his hobby may earn him an early end.

  “Okay. How soon can we get it done?” I ask.

  “Well, uh … most people prefer to wait a week or so in order to inform the appropriate parties and allow their loved ones to make travel arrangements if necessary. But if that’s of no concern, we can hold the ceremony as early as tomorrow, provided a fitting casket is available. Would you like the number of the florist?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  “Very well. Are there any other amenities that you’ll want looked into? Your father had an extensive life insurance policy that will cover whatever you wish to have done, I’m certain.”

  “I don’t care. Just dot the Is and cross the Ts. The cheapest casket, whatever.”

  “I’m not sure I’m understanding correctly. In that section of his life insurance policy, expenses are outlined in such a way that sends any remaining money from that particular allotment back to the insurer. So if you’re hoping to pocket the leftovers—“

  “I’m not. This isn’t a man to be celebrated. Dig a hole, drop him into it, and fill it in.”

  I can see that Mr. Sharp is becoming increasingly uncomfortable, but I can’t summon the energy necessary to put a mask on at the moment. I worry about the omission of my façade landing me in trouble, but I don’t have the energy necessary to pump it full of the amount of worry on which I usually operate.

  “I suppose I’ll make a note of that,” he says. His eyes dart here and there, determinedly avoiding mine. “Moving on. His will names only two parties outside of himself: you and your mother. He left the house and all of his material possessions to your mother, and all of his wealth to you. However, he has no contact information listed for either of you; the only reason I was able to find you is because of the small, rural nature of our town. But no amount of Google, Facebook, or the various people-finding websites has turned up anything for your mother. Would you be in contact with her, perhaps?”

  “No. I haven’t heard from her since she left. I’m sorry.” I’m not, but it makes me sound more human.

  “I see. Well, the transfer of the money is an easy enough matter—”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “I see. I suppose we can be in touch about that later.” I find myself wondering what he has in mind. Maybe that’s just his way of ‘giving me time to think it over.’

  “Thanks. Anything else?”

  “That’s it, I think. I’ll get in touch with the mortician and the graveyard staff and let you know of a definite time that we can hold a ceremony.”

  “Thank you. I guess I’ll be on my way, then.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Thorn, and I offer my condolences. It sounds like the two of you had differences, but whatever turmoil this brings you, I hope that you’ll take comfort in the loved ones you still have around you.”

  “Right. Will do.” Without my permission, Beth and Todd come to mind.

  I walk out of the building through the door where I entered and take a deep breath. I didn’t anticipate that cleaning up after my dad would be my job. Although, in retrospect, I suppose I should have; after all, who else would take that responsibility? After working for the city for so many years, I can’t suddenly pretend that I don’t exist and thrust the burden upon them.

  I was being truthful when I told him that I haven’t had contact with my mother since she left us. It’s true that I have contact with my sister now and then, but that line of communication has never detoured to our mother and, frankly, I don’t know where I might start looking for her if I were inclined to locate her.

  There are times when I long for a connection with my mother, usually brought on by witnessing the small gestures of care and affection that are so subtle that I wonder whether they’re visible to normal eyes: a young father kneeling to the height of his child in order to engage her, or a mother ruffling her son’s hair. And the fact that they don’t seem to notice that they’re doing these things makes them all the more special. That it’s simply a byproduct of love, rather than ticking boxes on some obscure parenting checklist.

  At any rate, my mother doesn’t necessarily have to be my issue. Sure, we’re family, but only in the most naked definition of the word. I want well for her, but not at the expense of my dignity; if she wants to claim her membership in my life, my family, she has to earn it, an effort that has not yet manifest.

  Twenty-Nine

  The overtone of the day is boring, and the sky agrees; a dull, gray, overcast blanket presses in upon Riverdell with the apathetic lethargy of a sloth with mono. The sentiment seems to be echoed by the trees, bushes, grass; a windless day yields very little of visual interest as far as plant life is involved.

  I cross the street to the station, where a throng of reporters chatters eagerly amongst themselves. However, in the context of a census as weak as Riverdell’s, ‘throng’ means maybe three or four, including the odd reporter from out of town who thinks breaking this case will make their career. It won’t.

  I’m aware of how journalism w
orks, and have a vague sense of what might compel an aspiring writer to choose that career path for himself or herself. That being said, we all have our favorites. Some prefer the mouthy kind that does half the talking for you; we have one of just that variety named Stu Perry. Good guy, if a little annoying.

  My favorite is the kind that works with the local law enforcement. I don’t mean that in a stay-behind-the-yellow-tape sort of way, but rather in a sense that we trust each other to be working for the public good. If a serial killer is on the loose, and purely by coincidence, it so happens that all of his victims thus far had been driving red cars on the night of their murders, reporting that detail will do nothing but pump fear into the hearts of red car drivers throughout the town, regardless of whether or not it’s reported as a possible motivating factor behind the murders.

  My ideal journalist is the one who tells the public what they need to know, in the way they need to hear it, and only when necessary. As far as I’ve seen, the only journalist around here who fits those criteria is Jordan Skellar. His talent in journalism lies not in that he can put words in someone’s mouth to have them regurgitate into a microphone. His talent in journalism is that he actually fucking listens. Bundled, of course, with a near peerless writing ability and a way with the public eye that inspires trust and confidence.

  As though summoned to my field of vision by my thoughts alone, Jordan catches my eye and my meaningful nod toward the back of the building. By policy, press is to remain outside the building so as to preserve the working environment inside. So with some small efforts and communication, I do my best to pull Jordan aside so that we can have a good, productive chat without the loud interference of the other reporters’ questions about so-and-so’s wife or dog or whether he liked sauerkraut.

  Still surrounded by his fellow reporters, he feigns frustrated exasperation and slips away from the madness. I reach the back only seconds before he does.

  “They really stiffed us on this one,” Jordan says. He looks at his notes. “We were told that Jeremy Keroth, of Portland Metro, is wanted on charges of … everything. There was a bit about a girl, but that’s it. Think you can help me out?”