The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

by Brady Udall

  When we got home from our day of shopping, I expected to see that blue Torino in front of the house and Dr. Pinkley on the couch sipping a hot chocolate and chatting with Sunny. For at least a couple of weeks afterwards I existed in a state of low-grade paranoia: all day long I listened for his knock on one of the front doors or a tapping on my bedroom window. I watched for him at basketball games and church services. But he never showed up. He had come all the way to Richland and had not tried to contact me. This both disappointed me and gave me hope: maybe he had given up on me completely.

  I knew, deep inside, that this was a false hope, a simple self-delusion. Barry was the only consistent thing in my life, he was as imminent as the weather. Every time I thought of him a panic would swell in the space behind my heart and lungs, like a tremor rattling up from deep underground. I felt helpless against the very idea of him; I could not hide from him, could not outrun him, could not find a way to slip out from under his shadow. Many times I had considered calling the police, or telling Lana and Clay everything. But I knew Barry Pinkley too well. Nobody—not the police, not the Mormons—could keep him away from me as long as he wanted to be a part of my life.

  One thing I was sure of: if I did not show up at the appointed hour he would come and get me. I imagined him jimmying one of the windows and creeping through the quiet halls of that house, his dim presence like an infection.

  That afternoon it began to snow. It was late February and we’d had a week of warm, blustery weather. Today, though, the sky had gone gray and flat and by the time I snuck out of the house that night there was nearly a foot of powdery snow on the ground. It continued to come down, the black, deadened air filled with tiny crystals of ice that fell with such a deliberate slowness that the houses and the humped forms of cars and shrubs and the glittering, skeletal trees seemed to rise up gently into the night sky.

  I practically skied down the hill, shooshing through the powder, which swirled up in curtains of sparkling dust. I was wearing only jeans, a sweatshirt and my tennies—digging my winter boots and coat from the hall closet would have made too much noise—but I did not feel cold at all. The car, a maroon Crown Victoria, waited for me at the corner, its brake lights making two pink pools in the snow.

  The door opened for me and I slid into the hot, smoke-filled interior. Barry was at the wheel and next to him sat a brunette who wore a jacket stitched together from the pelts of what must have been at least a dozen different creatures. Jeffrey slouched in the backseat, the ember of his cigarette glowing like a lit fuse.

  Barry introduced the woman to me as Roberta, his fiancée. He reached over Roberta to pat my knee. “You ready to have a little fun tonight?”

  “Okay,” I said, and he stepped on the accelerator. The engine revved, the tires spun and whirred and Barry waited patiently, whistling a little tune and pressing the gas down all the way, until the car lurched once and inched haltingly forward, like a wagon pulled by a team of oxen. By the time we made it to the highway we were plowing forward into the dark night with a smooth momentum, throwing up billowing arcs of white on either side.

  We drove for forty-five minutes, clumps of snow obscuring all the windows, Barry concentrating on the road through the narrow swath the wipers made and pushing Roberta’s hand away when she tried to rub his leg.

  “You get out of that house all right?” Barry shouted over the squall of the heater. “Nobody saw you leave?”

  “I’m pretty quiet!” I shouted back.

  Roberta smiled at me and patted my head as if I were a dog. She had beautifully feathered hair and I kept getting strong whiffs of her musky perfume. She yelled at Barry, “You didn’t tell me he was a little Tonto!” By the time we stopped I realized something of a miracle had occurred; we’d been in that car for most of an hour and Jeffrey had not uttered a single word.

  When Barry opened the door, I caught a glimpse of a split-level ranch house with icicles hanging off the gutter in rows like the teeth of fish, and in the distance some kind of electrical plant glowing with a yellow phosphorescent light and putting up billows of steam. Barry and Roberta got out and Barry told me to stay in the car for a few minutes, Jeffrey would keep me company, they had to arrange a few things and then they would come and get me. Once the door had shut Jeffrey said, “That man, coma-boy, is beginning to get on my nerves.”

  “Why are we here?” I said.

  Jeffrey snorted with gusto. “You think I have any notion whatsoever? You think he tells me anything? He’s losing it. He used to have it together, but now that the Mexicans moved in and took away our clientele, he decided he could find himself a market up this way. A bold plan, coma-boy, I’ll grant you. Who would have ever thought the drug trade might be plied hereabouts? Not I. There are dope fiends everywhere, I’m telling you, even here in La-La-ville. Down south every fifth man, woman or child is a pothead or pill-popper in some form or another. Up here, maybe it’s one in twenty-five, very hard to say. And even worse, around here they know how to camouflage themselves to look like the rest of the population. Where I come from a dope fiend looks like a dope fiend, it’s in his interest to appear as such.” Through his nose he whistled a wistful little tune. “It was a much simpler place.”

  Already snow had blanketed the windshield, leaving us with nothing but the murky light from the instrument panel. The idling car rumbled and shook.

  “So now what happens?” Jeffrey said. “The good doctor is distressed, he is dismayed by this bad turn of fortune, by the apparent failure of his new venture, and he is getting high more often than yours truly. He sometimes gets so whacked out I have to pilot the ship, I know you must shudder to think of it. Believe me, I was not cut out for leadership or decision making. Do you mind if I light up a J back here?”

  I heard a rustling of fabric and then Jeffrey’s lighter gave off a flash that made colored paisleys swim across my vision. The lighter snapped shut and I heard deep sucking noises, and then the smoke curled around the back of my head, making my eyes burn.

  “I feel like I am in the presence of a kindred soul here,” Jeffrey said. “Why do you put up with him? You don’t like him, do you?”

  I hesitated. “No.”

  “Of course not. But here you are. He can be very persuasive. And yet the irony is he can’t get what he wants, which is to live the dream, you know, the white clapboard house on Maple Street with the wife baking cookies and Edgar the coma-boy sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework, preparing himself for a medical career. Problem is no woman will put up with him for more than two weeks and he’s hooked on morphine and little Edgar is big Edgar and getting bigger all the time. The dream is dying, and I fear things might get ugly. You know that mitt he gave you? I was with him when he bought it at a pawnshop. He’s never thrown a baseball in his life. He’s a warped son of a bitch.”

  I breathed in the smoke and immediately I felt as if my eyes were floating, suspended in a warm, bubbling liquid. A question dislodged itself from somewhere deep inside my head: “Did he kill my mother?”

  Jeffrey laughed—haw-haw-haw!—as if I had told a particularly fine joke. “He just gave her what she wanted, that’s all! Hmm, yes. Same for me, same for that old shithead Art, same for all of us. That’s his talent. He knows what people want and he gives it to them, and there’s really nothing in the world worse than that.”

  Another volley of smoke hit me in the back of the head. Jeffrey said, “I’m sorry about your mother, by the way. For some, death comes as a blessing.”

  “And Art? Is he dead too?”

  “He should be so lucky. Still plugging away as far as I know. I sort of miss those good old days of convalescence, don’t you? There’s something worthwhile in reclining in bed and taking your meals on a tray. If only the nurses had been the tiniest bit sexy.”

  The driver’s-side door opened and there was Barry, wearing a wide smile which lasted for only a couple of seconds. Snow lay on his hair like a cap of white lace. He peered into the backseat. “Are y
ou…It’s like the inside of a bong in here!” Swearing and spitting, he opened the back door, grabbed a fistful of Jeffrey’s long hair and hauled him, trailing tendrils of smoke, out into the yard where they swung around in a tight circle like a couple of square dancers. When Barry released his grip Jeffrey staggered wildly backwards, arms going in circles, finally losing his footing and skidding into the deep snow. Barry bent over, his hands on his knees, catching his breath, and Jeffrey lay still on his back, buried except for his suede shoes pointing at the sky.

  “Alas,” came his muffled voice from out of the snow. “The bloom is off the rose.”

  EDGAR THE FABULOUS

  IT WAS A SURPRISE party. Barry opened the front door and we stepped into a dark room which flared suddenly with light and the scattered shouts of “Surprise!!” Edgar was not surprised at all. His eyesight had become exceptionally clear and his bones felt as if they were filled with slow-moving sap. He wanted to laugh but seemed to have forgotten how.

  Besides Barry and Roberta, there were five or six other adults gathered around a wooden table which supported a gargantuan, five-tiered white cake. The only one missing was Jeffrey, who had stayed prostrate in the snow despite Barry’s efforts to get him to come in with us. Some wrapped presents lay next to the cake and a few red balloons were getting kicked around on the floor. The room smelled of marijuana and lemony air deodorizer.

  “Roberta’s the one who arranged for that cake,” Barry said. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “A midget could live in that cake,” said a short bald man in overalls. “A whole family of midgets.”

  “It’s not my birthday,” I said.

  “I know that,” Barry said. “This is a get-to-know-you party, in your honor. These are some of my friends and I wanted you to meet them. I’ve told them all about you.”

  One by one he introduced them. The tiny bald guy was named Donovan. Ned the Man, flabby and pale and wearing a blue bathrobe, sat quietly at the table contemplating the cake. The dark-haired woman in the tube top was Annie. The middle-aged man in the sports jacket who came over and gave me a friendly chuck on the shoulder was named Dr. Cuevas. “My house!” Dr. Cuevas said in a strong accent. “You are bery bery welcome to be here.” Trisha and Robin, who looked like sisters, gossiped with Roberta in a corner.

  Soon a cry went up for Ned the Man to play one of his famous songs on the baby grand in the living room. Ned the Man shook his head shyly and tried to hide behind the cake.

  “Ned the Man can flat-out play,” Donovan told me. “And he doesn’t do the old standards, like you’d think. Every song he does, he makes it up on the spot. The only difference between him and Elton John is Elton John isn’t afraid to leave his own bedroom during daylight hours.”

  There was more urging, the women giving Ned the Man little shoves toward the piano. Ned the Man glanced around coyly. He was so pale he looked like he had been soaking for months in a barrel of vinegar. “Shall I?” he said, and everybody shouted “Yes!” He nodded with an air of resignation. “In honor of Edgar, then.”

  He sat at the piano, looked the keys over and began to play, his fingers moving expertly up and down the board. Suddenly he began to sing in a loud Broadway voice, “Oh Ed-gar…he is so fab…u…lous, he is so mar…ve…lous, he makes my heart sing Love! Love!…Lo-OOOOOOOOOVE!!!” He ended with a pounding flourish of chords and we applauded. Ned the Man sat with his head lowered, his hands in his lap, humble in his genius.

  Next I opened the presents: a red sweater from Roberta, a packet of a dozen combs in all the colors of the rainbow from Annie, a bottle of Jovan Musk cologne from someone who wanted to remain anonymous. The last present was from Barry. He placed it in my hands gently, delicately, as if he was handing me a lit stick of dynamite. I knew what it was before I ripped the paper away: a stethoscope. His stethoscope.

  “I bought that the day I got my acceptance letter from Johns Hopkins,” Barry said. Roberta gave him a comforting pat. “It’s hardly been out of my sight since.”

  Dr. Cuevas came over and gave it a close inspection. “Oooo,” he said. “A Benderman! The Cadillac of the stethoscopes!” He took it from me, and instead of placing it around my neck the regular way, by pulling apart the earpieces, he solemnly slipped it over the top of my head as if he was conferring on me a medal of great honor.

  One of the sisters came up to me, swiveling her hips and talking in a Southern belle voice, “Hello there, Doctor, are you ready to give me my physical now?” All the women shrieked with laughter and Barry told them to cut it out.

  Until then, I’d been having a good time in spite of myself, but the stethoscope had ruined everything. It felt like an anchor chain around my neck. While I ate cake and drank Coke and watched the adults dance around the piano while Ned the Man played chink-a-chink-a-chink-a rockabilly tunes, I tried to get up the nerve to take it off. I thought about my empty bed in the darkness of the Madsen house. I wondered what they would do if they found me missing. Would they call the police? Would they cry and carry on? I imagined a SWAT team, like those on television, crashing into the house through all the windows, rescuing me and hauling Barry and Ned the Man and everybody else away in handcuffs. It was a fantasy that pleased me to no end.

  By the time we left it had quit snowing and turned deadly cold. The place where Jeffrey had fallen was now an empty, human-shaped indentation and his footprints traced a wandering path out into the road and disappeared among the tire tracks. Behind us, the power plant glimmered in the darkness like a city of gold. I asked Barry where Jeffrey was, my breath sliding from the corners of my mouth in ribbons of steam.

  “He went off to sulk somewhere,” Barry said. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back. He has to turn everything into a drama.”

  Roberta had fallen asleep on the couch with an empty bottle of beer tucked between her breasts, so it was only Barry and me. Barry drove now with a contented heedlessness, the big car sliding all over the freshly plowed road.

  “I want you to know that I’ll be around a lot more these days,” he said. “I hope we can spend more time together, you know, get used to each other. You had fun tonight, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “That was a big cake.”

  “A beauty, no doubt about it. You liked Roberta, didn’t you? She’s a great woman, a real find.”

  “Nice,” I said. “She’s nice.”

  “Those are good friends, too, good people, the best. Nothing more important in this world than your friends. Remember that.”

  I asked Barry if he’d had any luck in finding my mailman.

  “Well,” he said. “I made a couple of calls, you know, cashed in a few chips, and I found out something that I didn’t know about before, I don’t know how I missed it. The Postal Service doesn’t deliver to the reservation, Edgar, that mailman had no business being anywhere near San Carlos. What was he doing there? It’s a mystery. You can bet I’m on the case.”

  For awhile we drove in silence, the only sounds the whirring heater fan and the crackling of tires on the icy road. I put the stethoscope in my ears—I had not taken it off at the party—and listened to my own heart. The hissing, watery glug-glug glug-glug I heard was the kind of noise you’d expect to hear bubbling up from the darkest depths of the sea.

  I don’t know what made me say it. I don’t know if it was the marijuana smoke I’d inhaled or how tired I was, but I blurted it out suddenly, as if it wanted to come out of its own accord: “The Madsens want to adopt me.” I still had the stethoscope on my chest and the words sounded rumbling and fathomless in my ears, like the voice of God.

  Barry turned off the heater and looked at me. “What? Say that again?”

  “The Madsens. They want to adopt me.”

  Without looking back at the road, Barry put his foot on the brake, not hard, but hard enough to make the car fishtail and slide onto the shoulder, where it ground to a stop. He never took his eyes off me. “Did they tell you this?”

  I nodded.


  “I should have guessed!” Barry slapped his palms on the dashboard. “These people will do anything to keep their grip on you. I know firsthand how they work, their methods of persuasion, they’re masters at it. I mean, just with those missionary clothes we practically converted three different people, and we weren’t even trying! They took one look at us and pretty much dropped to their knees, ‘Baptize me! Baptize me, please!’ It’s spooky. I’m telling you, if somebody doesn’t stop them, these people are going to end up ruling the world.”

  I took the stethoscope out of my ears. I said, “The Madsens are nice.”

  “Then this is what you want?” Barry said. “You want them to adopt you?”

  Yes, I thought. Yes yes yes. As much as I knew, deep down, that it would never happen, that theirs was a world in which I didn’t belong, I still wanted it, of course I did, I wanted it with all my heart.

  “Well?” Barry said.

  I shrugged.

  Barry gave the ignition a vicious crank. “We’ll see what happens,” he said. “Let’s just see what happens.”

  THE LONG WALK

  HERE WAS EDGAR, for the seventh time in six months, waking up in a cold, soggy bed. It was not yet dawn and a bar of light lay under the closed door of Brain’s bathroom. From the other side of the door came the soft, queer sound of his laughter: coo-hoo coo-hoo-hoo-hoo. Something wasn’t right: though I was wringing wet from the waist up, my underwear and pajama bottoms were entirely dry, as if somebody had held me by the ankles and dunked me into a pool halfway. Even the back of my head was wet. I was pulling at the sheets, confounded, when Brain came out of the bathroom carrying a tall glass of water.