Snarky Park

by Cathy Lubenski

  He continued, “I’d like you to go to some meetings and workshops and see what’s going on for me. I’d hate for Rowley’s work to all be for naught.” His eyes darted sideways again, and Bertie had to fight to keep hers from following them.

  “And I’d be writing stories about it?”

  “Eventually. For now, you’ll be gathering information and taking notes. Maybe we’ll do a big piece on Rowley’s legacy to the city. How does that sound? I’ll let Howard know that you’ll be working out of the office some days. You can make your own schedule as far as The End goes. And if you have to work on the weekends, we’ll get you some time off during the week. We don’t want to run afoul of the Feds and their labor laws, right?”

  Bertie had a suspicion that Johnson didn’t care a whit about how many labor laws he broke as long as he could away with it.

  “Will I still be covering social events?”

  “Of course, of course. We’re the only paper in town with a social columnist and I think that gives us a certain cachet, right?” He really didn’t want to hear Bertie’s answer to that one, she was sure. Fortunately, he barged ahead without waiting for her reply.

  “So, before you go, why don’t you tell me about Friday’s party? Not poor Rowley, but your impressions of the band and, oh, maybe the guests.”

  Bertie recognized her cue – it was time for the “natter.” She’d prepared a story on the way out to the mansion.

  “Well, sir, one of the older women came back from the bathroom with the back of her dress tucked into her panties. She walked across the room like that with her, uh, full moon shining, if you know what I mean.”

  Johnson went suddenly still, his gray eyes fastened intently on Bertie’s face. A chill went through her; what if he knew she’d made it up?

  Just as suddenly, he laughed. He didn’t just laugh, he practically roared. Bertie joined in slowly, not sure what to do.

  He slowly wound to a stop, wiping his eyes with a blindingly white handkerchief he took from an inside pocket of his suit. “Lovely, wonderful,” he said. “I must’ve been in the lobby greeting guests when it happened. I’m surprised no one else has mentioned it. Who was the woman?” As he waited for her answer, a look of avarice passed over his finely chiseled features. Bertie realized this was his raison d-etre, his big interest in life.

  “I don’t know, sir, there are so many people I don’t know… “ She let the sentence drift off, hoping that would satisfy him. For now, it seemed to.

  “Well, if you see her again, find out her name and let me know. That’s priceless. Well, off you go. Maybe next time you come, you can meet the rest of the family. My wife, Annabelle, and … the rest of the family,” he added vaguely. He stood, and Bertie did, too.

  “I’m very happy to meet you, Bertie Mallowan. He extended his long-fingered hand and enveloped Bertie’s right hand and then surprised her by grasping her wrist with his left hand as well. His hands were dry and soft and unpleasant to touch. She was surprised at her visceral reaction to them; she wanted to pull away quickly and wipe her hand on her slacks but controlled the impulse.

  “I’m happy to meet you and to be working at the Beacon-Banner,” she lied. She couldn’t help it; she looked over at the spot on the wall where he’d been staring.

  He saw her and walked casually over to the wall, leaned against it and put his elbow down. “I’m working on expanding my vineyard,” he said, and the abrupt lead-in to a subject they hadn’t been talking about startled Bertie who’d turned to leave. “Oh, yes, sir?”

  “Yes, right now I have two vines. I create one bottle of wine a year. As you can imagine, it’s the most exclusive label in the world – just one bottle.”

  Bertie couldn’t imagine what this had to do with her, but played along. “Yes sir, I can imagine.”

  “But I’m going to add more vines and share my pleasure with the world. Well, that’s all. Can you find your way out of the park or should I call Bobert to come and get you?”

  “No, that’s fine I can find my out, thank you.”

  He stayed where he was and watched her go back up the steps. Hell, she thought. She wanted to look at the wall without him standing there chatting away about grapes and wine. She made a mental note to check out the wall the next time she was back in Snarles Park.

  She walked back up the steps and into the mansion, keeping a wary eye out for Annabelle Johnson. She’d had enough of that craziness for the day. When she got to the front door, she realized she had no idea where her car was. The old gentleman had taken it and driven it somewhere.

  If she couldn’t find it, she’d have to hike down the long driveway where she could start hitchhiking. But her car was there, waiting for her. Good God! Someone, she suspected the old man, had washed it for her. She hoped he hadn’t minded the piles of candy wrappers, old notebooks and sweatshirts he’d found.

  She opened the door and, out of the corner of her eye, saw the old man in the bushes beside the driveway, and walked over to him.

  “Hello, thank you for looking after my car,” she said, smiling. “I’m Bertie Mallowan.”

  His face, lined as one of Bertie’s rumpled sweatshirts in the backseat, lit up. He smiled.

  He touched the rim of his cap again. “Hello, miss, I’m Brown. I work for Mr. Johnson. Glad to meet you.”

  “Please, call me Bertie. Have you been here long?”

  “Oh, yes, miss, I worked for Mrs. Kees, the original owner, long before it became Snarles Park.” The old man pronounced it Snarles, not the exaggerated Snar-less. “That’s been about thirty or forty years now.”

  “It’s beautiful here.”

  “Yes, it is, miss, but we get awfully ’fraid during wildfire season. The fires just roar up the canyons. The grounds have been burnt right away several times over the years, but we’ve always managed to save the mansion. Yes, miss, we have.” He looked proud.

  “I’m sure that is a worry, this far out of the city. And, please, call me Bertie, you don’t have to call me miss.”

  “Yes, miss, I will. Are you going to be working for Mr. Johnson now?”

  “Yes, I work at his newspaper. I’m taking Bromby Pompton’s place and I’ll be doing some investigative reporting, too, I just found out.”

  “Investigative?” The old man looked suddenly alert. “Really now, miss? That’s really interesting. Investigative, just like on TV. How about that?”

  Bertie had just opened her mouth to agree when Dillard Johnson opened the front door and said, “Brown! I need you in the park. Now.”

  Brown touched his cap brim and actually bowed to Bertie before ambling off down a side path. Apparently there was no front door entrance for Brown. His dusty brown pants and khaki work shirt faded into the shadows that lived under the trees at the side of the house.

  Johnson stood in the front door while Bertie drove down the driveway and out of sight. When she reached the road, Bertie stopped and rested her head on the steering wheel. She was exhausted. The tension of meeting Annabelle and Dillard Johnson had drained her energy, leaving her as limp as a damp towel. Adapting to the world of wealthy after a lifetime of relatively normal middle-class existence was wearing, not even counting old and older trees, Australians and a fairytale-like garden with its own name.

  And she couldn’t figure out why on earth Johnson had abruptly that added that little conversational fillip about the vineyard; it was almost as if he’d been drawing her attention away from something. But what? And why?

  There were lots of emotional cross-currents eddying through and around Snarles Park, no matter how you pronounced it.

  Bertie lifted her head... There was little traffic in this exclusive area of Los Angeles County at this time of the day. There were broad fields of sage and brush turned gold in the hot sun. Before long, they’d be brown and dry as tinder as the summer wore on.

  She took a deep breath and put the car in gear.

  “Cheeze,” she said out loud. “If this was a book, I’d be drowning
in plot right about now.”

  The car didn’t seem to care.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Howard Schompe’s jaw clenched so tightly that Bertie thought he might break a tooth when she relayed Dillard Johnson’s edict giving her time away from the office.

  “And when are you supposed to get your other work done?”

  “Why don’t you ask the Big Johnson?” Bertie thought, but remained mute in the face of Howard’s anger.

  Howard retaliated by piling up scut work for Bertie to do: The calendar of religious events; volunteer opportunities; garden tours. In her previous life, a news assistant would’ve been stuck with all this typing, but not any more. Now, news assistants were reporters and real reporters were out of work.

  When Thursday night rolled around – the evening of The End’s monthly meeting – Bertie was seated in a folding chair in a local community center, struggling to keep her eyes open.

  She and Cully were squished in between a man with dreadlocks and a woman who was dressed … um, “suggestively,” Bertie whispered to Cully.

  He turned to Bertie, looking past her at the woman. His eyes bulged before he sat back in chair again. He started to cough, choking back a laugh. Bertie dug her elbow into his side to shut him up, staring straight ahead and not daring a look at him in case his laughter spread to her, like a bad case of Ebola. His eyes were welling up with tears of laughter and the cough was starting to sound real when the woman spoke to Bertie.

  “Are you a regular here, sweetie?”

  “No, this is my first time. How about you?” Bertie angled her body so the woman couldn’t see Cully’s contortions.

  “My first time, too. Ha, ha, I can’t remember the last time I said that.”

  “That?” Bertie asked.

  “Yeah, ha ha, you know, that this is my first time.” The woman’s laughter was raucous but infectious. Her platinum blonde hair, which had to be a bad wig, trembled with each “ha, ha!” She had a face that could’ve stared out from any high-end fashion magazine in the world if she hadn’t been made up so heavily. Her body, with voluptuous curves, was accentuated by red hot pants and a spangly blue halter top she was wearing. She stuck out a hand tipped in black-polished fingernails for Bertie to shake.

  “Hi, I’m Felanie.”

  “I’m Bertie. Uh, Felanie?” Bertie shook hands.

  “Yeah, you know, Felanie? I’m waaay tougher than Miss Demeanor.” Her raucous laugh rang out again and Bertie laughed along with her this time.

  “Hey, hon, will you save my seat? I’ve just got to go to the bathroom before The End begins.”

  “Sure.” Bertie waited till she’d exited the row of chairs before turning on Cully. “What the hell! Shut up, do you want us to get into trouble?”

  Cully had leaned back in his chair and was gulping air, his laughter finally subsiding. The man with dreadlocks was staring at him, disapproval bowing his mouth into a U.

  Bertie elbowed Cully again, just for good measure, this time scoring a direct hit on his solar plexus. Air whooshed out of his mouth and he bent his lean, lanky body over his knees.

  “Cripes, cut it out, Bert, you hurt me.”

  “This is serious stuff. Now straighten up. We’re here for a reason.” Bertie opened her eyes and nodded her head as if willing the reason – gathering information to nail Rowley Poke’s murderer – into Cully’s brain.

  Cully opened his eyes and nodded his head in unison with hers. “Oh! Yeah, I got it,” he said, settling back in his chair. “Besides, you started it. Dressed suggestively? I don’t what the dress code is for The End, but it’s probably not red hot pants and a blue … thingy on top.” He snickered again.

  Felanie came back just as a tall, gangly man with a long ponytail in his thirties strode across the front of the room to the microphone.

  “Hello all of you and welcome. Some of you know me, but for those who don’t, I’m Buddy Laird, the new leader of The End Justifies the Green. I’m taking over for Rowley Poke, who passed away last weekend. Let’s have a moment of silence for Rowley.”

  Bertie partially closed her eyes, keeping them open enough to watch Buddy Laird. His head was bowed, but she could see that his eyes were half-open, too, and that he was scanning the room.

  “OK, let’s get right down to business and hear from the …” Laird’s talk droned on, blah, blah, blah, and Bertie leaned across Cully to ask Dreadlocks, “Why is he president now?”

  “Weren’t you listening? Rowley Poke was president, Buddy was vice president. Now that Rowley’s dead, Buddy’s wish came true and he gets to play president.” Dreadlocks scowled at her and Bertie felt chastened.

  Laird and an older woman with gray hair braided into pigtails took turns boring the audience before he moved on to Activities. Bertie was aware he’d capitalized the word and her head snapped up.

  “We’re going to have a work weekend … uh, this weekend, and we need as many of you who can make it to … uh, make it. You all know the rules, I think. If you show up, you have to bring a bucket of compost for the … uh, compost bin. This group is run by garbage; I hope I don’t have to remind you of that fact.” A titter ran through the crowd.

  “We’ll be working the corn fields so wear work clothes. Our plan is to show how easy it is to make our own fuel from corn-based ethanol and we need hard work and elbow grease from all of you who believe that we’re responsible for making a better world.”

  The gray-haired woman, Ms. Pigtails, stepped up and whispered something in his ear. “Oh, yes, thanks for reminding me, Arial. Thanks to all of you who showed up at last week’s Skins protest at the massage parlors. Those people have to learn that used latex condoms are filling our … uh, landfills and that they won’t degrade for hundreds of years to … ha ha, come. Sheepskin condoms are the way to go and you people are responsible for letting them know that.”

  Laird’s voice was rising, taking on the tone of a zealot bringing the word of God to unbelievers.

  He started chanting, “Skins not ’tex, skins not ’tex…” His chant was picked up by Arial, but most of the audience just sat there, mute. If it was Laird’s intention to stir this crowd up, it was falling as flat as a used Trojan.

  Felanie suddenly leaped up. Bertie, who’d been sharing elbow space with her, was almost knocked off her chair.

  “Hey, you asshole,” Felanie shouted, “sheepskin is more expensive … you’re unfair to those of us who can’t afford it. Why don’t you frickin’ hippycrits get jobs and quit making problems for honest people just trying to make a living.”

  She pulled a big, homemade sign from behind her chair that read, “END THE END.”

  Bertie fell back against Cully, and stared at Felanie, her mouth hanging open.

  Several other scantily clad women scattered throughout the audience jumped to their feet holding signs and chanting, “GREEN IS OBSCENE,” “HIPPYCRITS GO HOME.”

  Buddy Laird, pink flushing his cheeks, stood in front of the crowd apparently speechless. Felanie fought her way out of the middle of the row and charged the stage, along with the other chanting women who were using their signs as cudgels against members of The End who trying to stop them.

  One of the women, dressed in a micro-mini skirt and see-through blouse, took a flying leap onto the stage, knocking Arial out of the way and grabbing Buddy’s ponytail. She started swinging him around by the hair, trying to gain enough momentum to fling him into space.

  He yelped, his shouts of “help” picked up by the microphone and amplified as each spin brought him next to it, dying out as he spun away.

  “HELLLllllppppppp …. HELLLppppp.”

  Bertie was deafened as she scrambled over an old couple who seemed glued to their seats in shock. Cully just leaped over the couple and pushed ahead, doing some broken-field running through the hand-to-hand combat and clearing the way to the exit for her.

  Felanie’s wig was on the floor, looking like a bedraggled platinum blonde rat. Short bright red hair stood up on her he
ad in spiky clumps. Another woman’s tube top was down around her waist, exposing surgically enhanced breasts that were bobbling up and down with the force of every downward swing of her sign on the head of a young man, who smiled with each impact.

  A table of refreshments had been upended, leaving a slippery trail of smashed tofu on the floors. Anyone running into or out of the slick immediately went down with a bang.

  “This way,” the dreadlocked man hissed at Bertie and Cully, leading them to a door half-hidden behind a curtain and pushing his way through it. They were outside in an alley, in the cool night air.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” Dreadlocks whispered. “I don’t want to be here when the cops arrive.” He led the way through hulking garbage bins that spread looming dark shadows in their path and out the other end of the alley onto the street.

  Behind them they heard cries of “HELLLpppp” mingled with shouts and screams.

  They stood catching their breaths.

  They’d survived The End.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cully and Dreadlocks were bent over at the waist, breathing hard, while Bertie leaned against a brick wall, holding her side and panting. She was seriously thinking about unloading her dinner all over the sidewalk.

  A black-and-white police car roared past them, dome lights flashing red and siren whoop-whoop-whooping. Cully stood up and watched it race down the street, screeching to a stop outside the community center. Two patrolmen leaped out of the car and ran in the open front doors.

  Dreadlocks watched with Cully, who turned and caught his eye. They started laughing and broke into a spontaneous high five. Bertie looked at them, aghast at their sudden spasm of good spirits.

  “What’s wrong with you two? We could’ve been hurt, we could’ve been arrested. What’s so funny?”

  “Yeah, Bert, I was really afraid,” Cully said. “That guy who got the double eye-nippling from the woman smacking him with the sign … that could’ve happened to me. Poor guy.” Cully and Dreadlocks snickered.