Envious Shadows

by R.P. Burnham

  Roses

  They had gathered together on a Sunday afternoon of a beautiful late April day to plant rose bushes. The idea was born last weekend when Fiona and Lowell visited his mother. He had been trying to get Pat to exercise more for her health, and the day being warm and pleasant, they had succeeded in talking her into an outing. The Edgecomb house was in a neighborhood that forty years ago, just as the town entered into a prolonged growth spurt, was a country road on the outskirts of town. Their split-level house was typical of the neighborhood; in fact there were some half dozen others of the exact same architecture along with a scattering of ranch houses on their street. Further down the road where newer colonial houses built within the last twenty years were prevalent, Pat saw a house which had a hedgerow of roses. Their house had neither fence nor hedge; instead the rather unkempt and patchy lawn simply went to the gravelly shoulder of the road and petered out. Pat said that someday she would like to have a row of roses like the one they were admiring, and Lowell, who loved having projects, started talking about what would be necessary to do to put a hedge of roses in. By the end of the walk plans were hatched and scheduled for this day.

  As they made their plans through the week, Fiona suggested that Bill and Johnny be part of the project. She and Lowell had discussed at length the remark Bill let drop casually when he and Lowell removed the fallen trees at the lake—the interesting idea that perhaps he was suffering from clinical depression. With her social science background, she thought the symptoms he had described might very well be depression. She had talked to Becky about this development several times and to remarkable effect. Having a name for his behavior changed her attitude instantly. She began regarding the way he behaved since he met Marilyn to be the result of illness. In this manner she could love him and dissociate the way he had acted and the things he had done from him. At first both Lowell and Fiona were glad but also uneasy at the sudden swing in attitude, but they underestimated her. She had always loved him; now she had a reason for it. She was still her old, prudent self, however; she placed two conditions on their reunion: he was to stop drinking and he was to see a psychiatrist. With this being the current status of their relationship, Fiona thought a family project with Johnny would do both of them some good, and Bill, whose days of idleness and isolation were wearing him down, was happy about the idea as well.

  The following Sunday after an early lunch Fiona and Lowell took the pickup truck and drove to a garden center in South Portland to get all the materials—the bushes, bonemeal and compost for fertilizer, along with the shovels, wheel barrow, measuring tape and other equipment they got from their shed—and arrived at Pat’s house at about one o’clock. Pat, wearing an old pair of shorts that did nothing to hide her strange bowling-pin body, was already outside bringing the garden hose to the front lawn when they pulled into the driveway. With her were Bill and Johnny, excited and feeling important to be part of the project.

  Bill, examining the root balls bound in burlap, instantly showed his good spirits by commenting on the head start the new hedge would give them and joking about the way Becky had planted rosebushes three years ago.

  “I’m telling you, we put sticks in the ground and rosebushes sprang up from them.” He grinned broadly and put his hands in front of him about two feet apart. “Sticks this big looking as dead as a doornail and they turned into living rosebushes.”

  Lowell smiled. It felt good to see his brother his old self again. He was still thin, but his color was much improved, his posture was not the disheartening slump that apologized for existing, and his eyes shined with pleasure as he spoke. Johnny wore a similarly happy face.

  “I’ve seen that technique,” Fiona said. “You got those roses from a gardening catalog, right?”

  “I think so. Becky ordered them.”

  “That’s an ancient way of reproducing a plant—a cutting. Tara and Meg’s landlady put some in years ago. I remember we watched her while Tara’s mouth was going a mile a minute saying they’ll never come up, it was impossible, they were dead branches. She went over to a dead branch on a maple tree and snapped it off and asked, ‘Think we can get a tree out of this?’ Finally Meg said, ‘Tara, will you shut up!’ It was hilarious, but Mrs. Fournier proved her wrong. They did turn into rosebushes.”

  “How is Tara?” Bill asked.

  “Raising hell as usual. Her bowling team just won their league this year and they celebrated till dawn last week. When she woke up in the early afternoon next day she said the last thing she could remember was graduating from high school.”

  With the tape measure and green garden sticks that were usually used for peas but which they employed as site markers, Lowell and Bill measured the forty-two-foot length from the corner of the driveway to a clump of three birch trees on the corner of the narrow lot and marked the places to dig holes every three feet for the fifteen plants they had bought. Next Lowell began digging the holes while Fiona removed the burlap from the root ball, gently shook off any loose dirt and carefully teased the roots apart. Bill added a mixture of bonemeal and compost to each hole, after which Fiona would place the plant into its new home. With this done, filling the hole became the next stage and here Bill gave fatherly instructions to Johnny and let him do the filling—or rather let him think he was helping.

  “See? You hold your hands sideways and push the dirt in. See how I’m doing it to make sure the dirt fills in evenly? Now try it and pat it down.”

  Johnny would do as he was instructed and Bill would do a final pat-down. They would fill about a third of the hole; then Fiona would water the soil and they would repeat. In this way each hole took about ten minutes.

  Johnny was vocal during these procedures. “Hey, Uncle Lowell. I’m filling the hole.”

  “That’s good, Johnny. I see you’ve learned well—you’re pushing the dirt in on all sides.

  “Press it down to get the air out of it, but don’t pack it too tight,” Bill said.

  Pat, for whom the work was being done but who merely observed all this activity, asked how long it would take for the row of bushes to grow together to form a hedge. She had brought a lawn chair from the backyard out front and was sitting in it.

  “Judging from the size of our plants, about three years, I’d guess,” Lowell said. “I’ve never done landscaping but I’ve talked to guys who do. I think that’s about right. Do you agree, Fiona?”

  “Yes, my mother put some in our backyard smaller than these bushes and they grew together in four years. There was a gap where one of the bushes died, but in another year or so even that gap was filled.”

  “There you go, Ma. In four years you can be watching one of your shows before going to work and look out the picture window to see a perfect hedge of rosebushes.”

  Pat leaned back in her lawn chair. “That reminds me. I thought I’d seen everything on those TV talk shows—girls who are only interested in men who are hairless, women who only sleep with their sisters’ husbands, guys who are turned on by painted toenails—but last week I saw one that takes the cake. It was a guy and gal who only got turned on if they were standing up to make love. Not only that, but they had to be outside.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Good thing they lived in southern California. In Maine they’d have quiet winters.”

  Lowell could see a scowl growing on Bill’s face as Pat related her observations. He was becoming agitated and finally couldn’t remain silent any longer. “Ma! Do you you mind?” He threw a sideways glance at Johnny, who, while understanding something was going on, was quite mystified as to what. He kept looking from his father to Pat to Lowell.

  Pat made an oops! face by raising her eyebrows, drawing her mouth into an oval and putting her hand to the oval. Then as quickly as this charade was enacted it passed. “Lowell,” she said, “what are you going to do in that group that builds houses for poor people?”

  “Habitat for Humanity? I think I’m going to be a site manager. I went into the interview planning to work as a carpen
ter, but when they heard about my experiences as a general contractor in Chicago, they said I was just the type of man they needed. So I’ll be spending a lot of time overseeing the building, but I also plan to do carpentry. That’ll be fun. Training volunteers will be work.”

  “Like me,” Fiona said. “I’ll need a lot of training.”

  “So you’re going to do this too?” Pat asked. “What about your job?”

  “I’ll be a weekend wonder.”

  “And she won’t need much training, Ma,” he said proudly. “She did good work at the cottage.”

  He dug the next hole and the process was repeated. After a few more he suggested they should start spreading bark mulch over the dirt. Pat had two bags of it in the garage, so it was the one thing they hadn’t needed to bring with them. He and Bill went to the truck to get the wheelbarrow, then into the garage.

  “I take it things are going pretty well with Becky?”

  “Are those big plastic bags the mulch?”

  “Yeah, that’s them.” He pulled one of the bags to a standing position, then took out his pocketknife and slit the top of the bag.

  “Pretty good actually, to answer your question. At first I didn’t think it was a good idea when you told me Fiona had told Becky about the depression, but really she’s a different person now.”

  “You should tell your boss Mr. Buckmann too.”

  “I will, but first I should be diagnosed.”

  “When’s your first appointment?”

  Johnny came running into the garage excitedly. “Hey, Daddy, look what I found!” He thrust out his hand to show them a dead beetle.

  “That’s a beetle. Where’d you find it?”

  “It was in some dirt Fiona dug up.”

  “Last year’s model,” Lowell said, leaning down to observe the black insect. “It’s too early for many bugs to be out.”

  “Well, we saw ladybugs in the winter, didn’t we, Johnny? We saw them in the basement, remember?”

  “Yes, they came into the house to get warm.”

  With his eyes wide, he moved his head up and down so solemnly that Lowell had to smile. “What did you do?” he asked.

  “We let them stay because they needed to get warm.”

  “That was good of you, Johnny.”

  “Mommy doesn’t like bugs in the house, so it was our secret.” He looked up at his coconspirator, who grinned at him.

  “Well, throw the beetle back into the hole. You can give it a decent funeral.”

  He hurried away intent upon his business and yelling, “Hey, Fiona, we’ve got to bury this beetle my daddy says.”

  Bill watched him fondly for a few moments, then turned to Lowell. “The appointment is in three weeks. Apparently there are a lot of troubled people in the world. A month was the quickest appointment I could get.” He started lifting the bag. “Jesus, these things weigh a ton,” he muttered. Together both of them lifted the bag so that it could be poured into the wheel-barrow.

  “I’m glad you’re doing this. I think it will help to see a psychiatrist.”

  “I hope so. Becky hopes so too. It’s made a difference with her, I’ll say again, so I’m all for it. Do you think one bag will be enough or should we break out the other one?”

  “No, one’s probably enough. And you’re not drinking?”

  His face became serious, and he looked uncomfortable. “I had a little slip the other day, but…”

  Lowell, not knowing how to handle this bad news, tried to look as nonchalant as his brother. Neither were doing a very good job of it. He could see Bill looking right through him.

  “It’s Ma, you see. Sometimes she drives me crazy.”

  “Like she did awhile ago? I noticed.”

  “Her language was inappropriate in Johnny’s presence. Sometimes I think she doesn’t have a clue.”

  “Come on up to the lake,” Lowell said. “Take a break.”

  “We’ll see. But we better get this mulch out there. It looks like they’ll be needing it pretty soon.” He took the wheelbarrow handles and rolled it out to the edge of the road, and they got back to work. With mulch now available, Pat had something to do. Lowell got her a shovel from his truck, and she started spreading it over the circle of wet dirt below each bush.

  With the hard work, no breeze and a hot sun for April, they all needed a break when they’d planted ten of the fifteen rosebushes. They went out to the picnic table in the backyard. It was in the shade by the house, and as they drank the lemonade Pat brought to them Lowell had occasion to see the peeling paint on the siding. The house had last been painted eight years ago when he was in Maine for a two-week vacation. In a few weeks it would be warm enough to do exterior painting. He suggested the idea to Pat and asked what color she’d like the house. It was a pale yellow now.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something a bit brighter, but whatever is cheapest.”

  “You can change the color, Ma. Color doesn’t add anything to the cost. And besides, paint is something you don’t want to get at basement prices. And double besides, I’ll buy the paint for you.”

  Pat grinned so that the happy smiling Chinese Buddha appeared on her face. “You’re too good to me, Lowell. If that’s the case, how about a golden color with white trim. That would advertise my personality.”

  “We can do that.” He turned to Bill. “What do you think? Are you ready to do some painting?” Bill had helped him eight years ago on his college summer break.

  “As long as you do the detail work again. You know I can’t paint very well.”

  “Can I help, Daddy?”

  “You can watch. Painting is messy and you have to go up ladders. Your mother wouldn’t like that. It’s not something a little boy can do.”

  Johnny looked crestfallen as he picked up his glass with his two little hands and sipped at his lemonade. Bill, watching him, looked distressed.

  Lowell exchanged a glance with Fiona. She nodded slightly, showing that she had understood his eyes. Bill was too worried about being a father and a friend to Johnny and too insecure about his role. Becky would have said no without invoking the absent parent’s opinion.

  Pat, oblivious to this dramatic undercurrent, said, “Billy, you’ll have time this year. Remember you had to go to some college thing last time and Lowell had to finish the house alone.”

  Bill didn’t take the remark in the benign if inept spirit it was made. He reddened and his fingers drummed at the table. “Yes, Ma, a leave of absence from work means I’ll have plenty of time on my hands. Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Now, Billy, I wasn’t accusing you of being lazy. That’s my department. Your department is, what do you call it? Gofer?” She reached over for a handful of potato chips and began munching.

  Instead of placating him, the remark made him even angrier. Lowell remembered explaining to Pat last week on their walk what Bill’s duties as a gofer to his carpenter friends, Pat and Denny, entailed, but Bill seemed to take the remark as another dig at his situation. “What do you mean by that?” he asked, his eyes flashing.

  The atmosphere was charged and getting dangerous.

  With her mouth full, Pat said, “I’m not used to having a man around, gofer or not. I just feed my face and let things slide.” She slapped her belly. “With this result. You’ve got to remember I’m the oldest hippie in Waska.”

  “It’s the snacks that get you, Ma,” Lowell said. “Those chocolates, the cookies, the chips.”

  “Sweets to the sweet, they say.” The smiling Buddha arrived on her face. Lowell wondered how anyone could think she was mean-spirited or hostile. “When I lost interest in men, it became my only vice.”

  Bill’s face still wore a pained scowl, though he was fighting to regain his composure. The problem was that the anger came from so deep inside and from such long duration that it could not be easily sloughed off. After Bill Paine Sr. left, Lowell could not remember another man around the house; he supposed after two disastrous relationships with unstable
men who abused alcohol and drugs, one of the smartest things their mother had ever done was to perceive she had no genius for picking men. Unlike Bill, he also thought that it was the best thing she could do for her sons. Is no father better than a bad one? He imagined she asked herself that question. It was soon after Bill Sr. deserted them that Pat’s mother challenged her to knuckle down and work a steady job to pay the mortgage. Therefore he did not begrudge her her snacks—nor her soap operas and bizarre TV talk shows, which Bill had told him last week drove him crazy. Thanks to Fiona and to his years he was mellowing. Love and security gave him the necessary perspective to take a larger view of human frailty. Bill’s attitude, from this viewpoint, was a bad sign. But if it took love to open an avenue to older connections and to find acceptance for old transgressions, then Bill even with his renewed hopes could not be expected to feel so benign. To understand is to love and to forgive, but it takes freedom from the effects of those old transgressions before one sees this. Until his life with Becky was restored, Bill was not going to see his mother’s frailties in anything but a hostile light.

  Even so, Lowell made an effort to smooth things over. “I don’t think Ma meant anything. She knows a gofer is one who is learning on the job. You just admitted painting is not one of your strengths.”

  Bill silently acknowledged him with a reluctant nod, but when they went back to work he did show that he realized his touchiness was throwing a pall over the gathering and made an effort to be cheerful. Pat, whether consciously or accidentally, also managed not to push any buttons, and as a result the work proceeded in a reasonably pleasant atmosphere.

  Becoming sleepy as the time for his usual nap passed, Johnny stopped helping and sat on his grandmother’s lap. Though sleepy, he was till chatty. As they worked on the final three bushes they could hear him telling Pat, “Phil saw a toad in his backyard. I’ve never seen one.”

  “Who’s Phil?”

  “Phil’s my friend. I stay with him when Mommy goes to work.”

  “And he’s seen a toad and you haven’t?” Why, I bet there are some in my backyard. I see them all the time. Would you like to go look with me?”

  He would. “Hey, Daddy! I’m going to see a toad!” he yelled excitedly. He was wide-awake now.

  “If you do, don’t harm him,” Bill said. “Just look at him, okay?”

  That was satisfactory to the little naturalist. Pat took his hand and they walked around the house. They could hear Pat asking him if he knew what color a toad was and him answering pink or purple. Pat started explaining they were green with bumps on their backs as their voices disappeared.

  Bill grinned when Lowell looked at him. “I think he’s colored them pink in his coloring book.”

  “Next time he’ll use green.”

  “Aren’t frogs green? I thought toads were more brownish-green,” Fiona said. Daryl Hendricks put one down my back in the third grade. I remember brown. And Pat’s right. They do have bumpy skin.”

  “You’re right,” Lowell said. He put the shovel aside. “This hole’s ready. One more and we’re done.”

  “Fiona, thanks for all your help talking with Becky. I really appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad to help, Bill. I like you and I like Becky. I want to see you back together again.”

  “These past nine months seem like a dream now—either that or a nightmare. But thanks to you and Lowell, I think I’m starting to get my life back.”

  Pat and Johnny returned from the backyard. Their faces showed they weren’t successful.

  “Did you see any toads?”

  Johnny shook his head slowly. With the excitement passed, he was growing sleepy again.

  “Mommy will be here to pick you up in half an hour. But you look tired. Do you want to go onto the couch and take a nap?”

  He shook his head more vigorously. “No, I want to see the rosebushes finished.”

  Lowell looked up to see a car coming down the road going very slowly. As it drew closer he could see Rett Murray driving and Darren French beside him. They in turn were spotted, with the result that the car went so slowly it was almost not moving. The two Nazis didn’t say anything; they just stared with insolent, hard expressions on their faces that invited comment. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fiona shrink fearfully behind Pat. He went over to her. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “They’re just being punks.”

  Bill, being closest to the road and nearest to the pair, put his arms on his hips and returned the stare. “What are you looking at?” he asked with a sneer.

  “I’m looking at you. Is there a law against it?” French turned and whispered something to Rett Murray and the car came to a stop.

  “Shove off. This is a respectable neighborhood. We don’t need trash like you polluting it.”

  Listening to this ridiculous exchange not much above the level of teenage macho posturing, Lowell felt dismay and apprehension for Fiona’s sake and—he had to admit—shame for his brother. He should have just ignored them.

  “You’ve got quite a mouth, bike boy.”

  “You’ve got a tiny brain, butthead.”

  “We’re just driving by and you yell insults. But consider the source.” He turned to Murray, and the ridiculous adolescent tone continued as he said loudly, “A fine stable of thoroughbreds. Poor white trash, nigger lovers and a nigger working overtime for the mongreli-za-tion of America.”

  Hearing Fiona’s gasp at the hateful words, Lowell felt a surge of blinding anger. Bill was about to retort, but he rushed over, stepped in front of him, and then went right up to the car. “You lowlife dirtball. Get the hell out of here. You know what you are? You’re cockroaches floating in a bowl of soup. You make cowardly insults from the safety of your car so that you can run away when it gets too hot.”

  For a moment the two Nazis appeared uncertain what to do. Murray whispered something, but French shook his head.

  “What the hell is the matter with you people? We’re all human. What does it matter if one person has blue eyes and another black? It’s so trivial, so stupid. We’ve got more in common than differences. If you weren’t so destructive and evil, you’d be seen for what you are—jerks, idiots, morons. Get a life and leave us alone.”

  French scowled at him and rocked back and forth as he considered his move. Behind him with his hands clenching the steering wheel Murray looked scared. “Come on,” he said, but with a sudden motion French threw open the car door and stood before Lowell with his fists clenched. “Who you calling a coward, nigger lover?”

  Lowell tried shoving him back into the car but only succeeded in making him lose his balance and fall against the top of the car. He pushed himself off and swung wildly at Lowell, who ducked the blow.

  Then Bill stepped in and punched him in the belly. A surprised look of panic came over his face as the air left his lungs. He gagged for a second and then went for Bill. In the meantime Fiona’s high-pitched and panicked voice screamed, “Stop it! Stop it! I’m calling the police.” Pat was also screaming something and Johnny added to the cacophony by starting to cry.

  Murray got out of the car, not to fight but to try to stop it. He and Lowell found themselves allies as they tried separating the two belligerents. “Listen, Darren, calm down. It’s not worth the trouble. She’s got a cell phone.” He stood between the two while Lowell with his arms on Bill’s shoulders marched him backwards.

  Presently both were calm enough for the two peacemakers to prevail. French turned and pulled open the car door. “If you want to feel comfortable, my advice is to stick to your own kind.”

  “And I say mind your own business.”

  They drove off. When they disappeared around the curve in the road, Lowell went back to Fiona. Putting a protective arm around her shoulder, he could feel her trembling.

  “Those damn yahoos,” Bill hissed as he leaned down to comfort Johnny, who was even more upset than Fiona and still crying. When Bill picked him up, he threw his arms around Bill’s neck and hung on ti
ght. Lowell could see him whispering comforting words, but he could not hear them.

  Turning to Lowell as he repeatedly patted Johnny’s back, he said, “Those men are dangerous. I think we should call the police. There must be some civil rights law against harassing people. They were looking for trouble. At least I don’t think they came by accidentally.”

  “You’re right about that,” Pat said. Her face was filled with concern for Fiona and Johnny. “I think I’ve seen them before. One time with the big guy alone and another time with both of them.”

  “When was that?” Lowell asked.

  Pat rubbed her chin with a pudgy index finger while she considered. Her eyes looked up into her brain. “Last week and two weeks ago on a Saturday. I had no idea they were the Nazis you’ve mentioned.”

  “Are you sure, Ma?”

  She grinned weakly, which was more of a grimace, for this was the serious Pat. “I’m never sure of anything, but I’m pretty sure. It was the same gray car and was going slow just like today. That’s what made me notice it. I was on my way to the restaurant one time and was in a hurry. I didn’t think anything of it until today.”

  Bill, finding Johnny comforted and starting to squirm, put him down. “That’s all the more reason we should call the cops. It’s like they’re stalking us.”

  Lowell asked Fiona what she would like to do, but she seemed paralyzed with indecision and just shrugged.

  He took the phone from her. “Okay. I agree. I’ll call them.”

  He told the man who answered the phone that he wanted to report a racial incident, an harassment. After a long silence which seemed so long he started feeling foolish, he asked, “Am I speaking to a police officer?”

  He was. The man identified himself as the desk sergeant. “What do you mean by a racial incident?”

  Watching Fiona’s hurt face, he explained what happened and said they knew who the men were—Rett Murray and Darren French, local Nazis.

  The desk sergeant seized upon one detail with a note of triumph in his voice. “You shoved this Darren French? You initiated the violence?”

  “No, I did not initiate the violence. The man is a Nazi, and he used vile racist words—nigger and nigger lover. He was looking to start something. All I tried to do was get him to go back into his car.”

  Fiona had winced when he repeated French’s racists epithets. Now as she listened she looked sick to her stomach.

  “But you were the first to use violence, see?”

  The voice droned on officiously, indifferent to human pain and fear, so that Lowell’s next statement was an angry retort. “But he used verbal violence, and it was he who came to our property.”

  “Did he go on your property? Did he trespass?”

  “No. This happened on the street, a few feet from our property line.”

  “You didn’t say, but I take it if he said nigger there was a black person there?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said impatiently. “These people are Nazis and—”

  “Just a minute, sir,” the sergeant said, and before Lowell could reply he was put on hold.

  He looked up. Bill was standing with his arm around Johnny’s shoulder. His mother was rubbing her hands together absently. Fiona was looking more and more stricken. He remembered her reaction to the first racist incident last year. Her face had the same shocked, violated look she had then. It made another flash of anger shoot through him like an electric shock, but before thoughts of violence and revenge could formulate themselves, he took a deep breath.

  “I’m on hold,” he explained.

  “What’s the problem?” Bill asked. “It doesn’t sound like they’re being very cooperative.”

  “They’re not. He seems to find it a big thing that I touched French first.” He heard a click on the line and listened.

  “Look,” the sergeant said, “if it happens again let us know. But as you describe it it sounds like a personal altercation. People got mad and started name-calling.”

  “You’d get mad too if you were called those names. And besides, it has happened before. They harassed us in Portland last summer.”

  “Portland? That’s not our jurisdiction.”

  “So you can’t help us?”

  “I understand you’re upset, sir, but we don’t think it’s a matter for the police.” He said good-bye and hung up.

  “Did you hear that? They aren’t going to do anything. They say it was just a personal altercation.”

  “We’re not through yet,” Bill said. “I know some of the cops. They went to C.A. with me. I’ll talk to them. We’ll get justice yet.”

  Lowell nodded, his eyes on Fiona. He knew what kind of justice she wanted. She wanted to be left alone and be allowed to live her life, and she was feeling the world would not let her do that. For the third time he felt a surge of anger. The world being too abstract to be the object of his wrath, he saw in his mind the hateful faces of French and Murray. “Damn them to hell,” he muttered out loud, and when Bill, his mother and Fiona looked at him, he said, “You know who I mean.”