Bathing the Lion

by Jonathan Carroll

“I’m only telling the truth.”

  “Well, eat your truth. Nobody wants to hear it.”

  “She really didn’t like my soup?” Edmonds was crestfallen. Lola taught him how to make zuppa di zucca based on her family’s recipe. He’d always been very proud of it. “What didn’t she like?”

  “She didn’t like anything you cooked.”

  “Keebler!”

  The netsuke man looked at the girl. “Why don’t you tell him, Josephine? Save us all time and just say it. Why are you coddling him? How much longer do we have to wait for him to get it? He’s got to learn.” Keebler walked over to the kitchen sink, bent down, and drank from the hissing faucet for a long time. When he was done he stood up and wiped his mouth with his fingers. “Because if you don’t tell him, I will.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Don’t, Keebler!”

  “Your life was an illusion, Edmonds. The whole thing was a setup—Lola, this life, everything. You were manipulated.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Lola was a setup’?” Edmonds’s voice was a threat. “Explain that, Keebler. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  Josephine started to protest but Edmonds gave her a “shut up” look, and she did.

  “Come on—tell me.”

  “There are these things called mechanics—”

  “Talk about Lola.”

  “I will, but let me tell it my way.” Keebler stepped away from the sink. “There are mechanics. They run things. They do their job for a while, some centuries usually, and then retire. Or rather they have to retire—it’s the rule.”

  Edmonds glanced at Josephine as if expecting her to clarify what he’d just heard. She held up a finger for him to wait.

  “When they’re finished, when they’re retired, some are transformed into humans. As soon as it happens they forget everything about their past existence. They’re given new lives as human beings of all ages—some are made young, others are middle aged like you, it varies tremendously. They try to place you where they think you’ll be most content. This new life was created specifically for you and it was complete down to the last microscopic detail. Even the real human beings who interact with you believe you’ve always been here. One day you blinked and when you opened your eyes again you were Bill Edmonds, retired tree surgeon.

  “All retired mechanics spend the rest of their days in these second lives until they die natural deaths. Lola was part of the new life made for you.”

  “What?” Incredulous, Edmonds looked again at the little girl. She wouldn’t make eye contact.

  “She was another piece of your second life.”

  “Bullshit! Prove it.” Edmonds had his back to the hallway. Rather than answer, Keebler lifted his chin to indicate the other turn and look behind him. Edmonds hesitated but turned.

  Lola stood four feet away, wearing his black-and-green wool mackinaw coat. But this Lola was twenty-seven years old, her age when they’d first met. The year she dyed her red hair white and cut it very short, like it was now. The coat she was wearing he had bought for himself two years before she died. She’d loved it the moment she saw it and with his permission, made it her own. So here in front of Bill Edmonds was young Lola wearing a coat her older self had on the week before she died in the hospital at forty-six years old. She had even asked to be buried in it.

  Edmonds did not move toward his wife. He did not reach out and try to touch her. He did not know what to do. She was dead. Only in the last months had he finally begun to accept the fact Lola was gone forever. Even his mulishly stubborn heart had now admitted it was true—she was dead. But in an instant here she was again, only looking like she did when they’d first met decades ago. The time when he fell so hard in love with Lola Dippolito that it felt like he was a character in a cartoon with little hearts and chirping birds floating drunkenly around his head.

  Lola said in a low, tremulous voice, “I’m sorry, Pulcino, but it’s true. Everything Keebler said is true. You are a mechanic. Or you were, before you got retired. But they need you again, Bill. They need you to do something for them. It’s why all of us are here—Josephine, Keebler, and me—we’re all here to help. It’s why he’s telling you these things, even though it’s a bad way to find out. I know, Bill—it is terrible to have to learn the truth about these things after all you have gone through. You don’t deserve such a shock.”

  William Edmonds looked at his young dead wife, the netsuke man, then at Josephine. “These things really do exist? These mechanics?”

  All three of them nodded at different speeds. Edmonds looked at his beloved Lola. A week after she died he was so staggered, so deranged by her loss, that he had walked into the closet where her clothes still hung and masturbated while weeping for her. How could any of this be true?

  Lola stepped forward and gently touched his arm. He looked at her hand and saw the tattoo of the blue accordion there she had gotten while on their honeymoon trip to San Francisco. “This is the life you wanted, Bill. It was what you asked for when they retired you.”

  “What did I ask for?”

  “Love. You wanted to be loved fully and deeply until you died.”

  “But you died and I was all alone, Lola!”

  She answered gently, soothingly—as if speaking to a hysterical child. “It was their first step toward bringing you to this moment. They knew you would never leave here as long as I was around.” Her hand tightened on his arm. “They understood how much you loved me.”

  Edmonds pulled away from his wife. He snatched his arm back as if she had no right touching him. “And did you love me, Lola? Was it real? What am I supposed to believe now?” He spread both arms as if to take in the entire world around them.

  “It’s the life you asked for,” Josephine said from over in a corner of the room. “You told them what you wanted—”

  “Down to the last detail,” Keebler added.

  Josephine continued. “And they created it just for you. This is it. But can I ask one thing? Didn’t it bother you at all when I came to live here? And Keebler—remember the first time you saw him alive and how big he had grown? You weren’t surprised, not a bit. You just accepted it all.

  “Any other person would have freaked out but not you, Edmonds. Haven’t you ever thought about it? Haven’t you wondered about your calm reaction to so many crazy impossible things happening in your life?

  “It’s because you’re used to them, or were when you were a mechanic. There was a time things like this were a normal part of your everyday life. So when you see them now you don’t care. Me moving into your house, Keebler … one minute he was a four-centimeter-tall figure on a shelf. The next he’s sitting at the table eating your soup. Normal people would go crazy if any of this happened to them, but you didn’t. Don’t you get what it means, Edmonds?”

  FOUR

  “Bill Edmonds? Sure I know him. Nice old guy, but nutty as a can of cashews. I mean really crazy. His wife died a few years ago and he’s never been the same since. It sent him into a total tailspin; it’s very sad. I’ve known him a long time and he always was a good guy. He still is, but now you’ve got to take everything he says with a pound of salt.”

  Kaspar Benn sat at the counter of the same diner where Edmonds had first encountered Josephine. Kaspar was talking to Nathan Ballard, the owner of Out of Order, the town bookstore. Ballard’s shop was three doors down from Kaspar’s so the two men often bumped into each other here in the morning, when they both ate breakfast.

  “Where does he live?”

  “Bill? He’s got a house out at the end of Salt Pond Road. You can’t miss it because it’s bright red and white. I think he repaints the place every year. It looks like the kind of perfect toy house you’d see on an electric train layout.”

  “And what about the little girl? Is she his daughter?”

  “What girl?” Nathan looked at Kaspar quizzically and shook his head as if to say he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “The little gir
l who…” Kaspar pictured the mysterious child who’d burned his cell phone and insisted he contact Edmonds.

  “Bill lives alone. As far as I know he has no children and I’ve known him twenty years.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “He used to be a tree surgeon up until a few years ago. Then he fell out of a tree during an ice storm and cracked his skull pretty badly. That was the end of it for him. A few months later his wife died of cancer. Poor guy; it was like a one-two knockout punch.” Ballard shook his head and sipped his coffee. “People who know Bill can’t agree if it was the accident or Lola’s death that sent him around the bend.”

  “What kind of crazy do you mean, Nathan?”

  “Well for one, Bill carries a little carved figure in his pocket he calls Keebler. Don’t ask me why. I think it’s Japanese or something. Sometimes he puts it on the counter here and talks to it while he’s eating.”

  “Yikes!”

  “Yeah, exactly—yikes. Ava—tell Kaspar about Bill Edmonds.”

  Ava Mount, the owner of the diner, had come by to refill their coffee cups. “Bill? He’s a nice guy. A little bit bonkers, but hey, aren’t we all? He always orders exactly the same breakfast every morning. Know why? Because it’s what his wife cooked him when she was alive. I think it’s very sad and sweet.”

  “But is he crazy?”

  Ava glanced at Nathan, and after hesitating a moment they both nodded.

  “Well, I’ve got to go see him today about something. I’ve never heard of the guy before. I guess from your description I’d better call before to let him know I’m coming.”

  Ava put down the coffeepot. “Wait a minute. I just remembered—I’ll show you something.” She walked back into the kitchen and returned shortly with a large photograph in her hand. She put it on the counter between the two men. Pointing to someone in the picture she said, “That’s him. That’s Bill last Christmas here at the diner with Lola. She was his wife. We were having our Christmas party and the place was packed.”

  Glancing at the picture, Kaspar did a dramatic double take when he noticed a woman sitting in the booth along with Edmonds and his wife. Sweeping the photo up in his right hand he brought it closer to his face and gaped, incredulous. “No WAY!” He looked at Ava and then at Nathan. His eyes were enormous. “Jezik? It’s not possible!” Before the others could say anything, Kaspar Benn rushed out of the diner without paying for his coffee.

  * * *

  Vanessa Corbin arrived at her husband’s store a few minutes after Kaspar had run out of the diner on his way to William Edmonds’s house. When she found the door to the store was locked and a CLOSED sign hung in the front window, she nearly lost it.

  Generally speaking, spoiled people have an almost psychic knack for finding others who will indulge them. Vanessa was a prime example of this. For years her husband, Dean, had spoiled her rotten because he loved her. Jane Claudius grudgingly spoiled her because she needed Vanessa to continue singing in her bar. And Kaspar Benn spoiled her because her way of making drama out of everything tickled him most of the time, plus he loved her cooking.

  But today no one had spoiled her—just the opposite. Dean announced he wanted to break up. On hearing this news, Jane Claudius stared at Vanessa like she was no more than a pathetic loser. And Kaspar hadn’t even cared enough to meet her here although he’d said he would, while knowing full well she was in the middle of a ferocious red zone meltdown crisis.

  “What are you doing here?” A very familiar but unwelcome voice behind her made Vanessa stiffen and grimace. How perfect! Exactly what she did not need now.

  Steeling herself, she managed to say, “Is there a new law today saying I’m not allowed to be here?” she asked before turning slowly around with as much hauteur and dignity as she could muster. It wasn’t very much though because hearing her husband’s voice so unexpectedly made her tremble.

  Dean stood nearby with hands on hips, mouth tight, his face one big neon sign of irritation. “Did you come here to see me? You heard what I said about not meeting up again till tonight.”

  “No, I didn’t come here to see you; I came to see Kaspar. I just wanted to talk to him.”

  “About what?” He took a step toward her. Was it some kind of challenge? She remembered the cup of very hot coffee she’d thrown at him.

  “He’s my friend too, Dean. You don’t own Kaspar just because he’s your partner.” At that molten lava emotional moment, she wanted to blab everything; she wanted to spit the truth about her affair with Kaspar Benn right in her husband’s face.

  “Talk about what, Vanessa?”

  “Oh okay, let me think. Hmm. Well, we could start with my husband leaving me. What do you think, Kaspar? You know Dean pretty well. Why do you think he wants to do it just, like, out of the blue?”

  Dean didn’t respond. He didn’t say a thing. He stared over his wife’s shoulder into the store. He must have seen something interesting in there. Pushing her brusquely aside, he turned the handle and strode in without another word.

  “I’m still talking to you!” Vanessa wasn’t about to let him just walk away. She followed him right into the store.

  A few steps across the threshold, both Dean and Vanessa Corbin stopped, paralyzed by what they saw. It was so impossible and completely wrong that Vanessa instinctively moved closer to her husband for protection, although against what exactly she didn’t know.

  The name of Dean’s business was “Benn Corbin.” Before it became a luxury men’s store, it was one of the town’s two magazine and candy shops. People bought their daily newspapers there, cigarettes and pipe tobacco, chewing gum and chocolate bars. Kids were always loitering around the store looking at the car, sports, music, or movie magazines while waiting for something more interesting to happen in their lives. The previous owner decided to retire about the time Dean and Kaspar began looking for a commercial space in the middle of town. The sale was arranged quickly and to everyone’s satisfaction.

  But the partners felt real sadness when they gutted the place to turn it into “Benn Corbin.” Both men prized the funky vintage 1950s feel of the store. The uneven, deeply scratched and scuffed pumpkin pine floors; fifty-year-old cast-iron wood-burning stove; the cheap magazine racks and metal shelves the color of oyster shell carrying an array of disparate objects no one wanted but which nonetheless had never been moved or taken down because the owner was too lazy or he wasn’t even aware those things were still on display. Things like six-year-old comic books and dull Hallmark greeting cards, yellowed and bent paperback novels by the likes of Fletcher Knebel, Calder Willingham, and Roderick Thorp. The small faded red-and-white cardboard display that still held two cheap yellowing Timex watches on it. And a slightly sinister-looking toy kangaroo that, when wound up, banged furiously on a tiny drum. There were Wiffle balls and bats, and a large plastic Revell model of the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. Dean got a kick out of the fact old Ayres, the previous owner, had painted the brick walls white to brighten up the place rather than spend a few dollars more to install good lighting.

  After buying the store, the men had the wooden floors sanded and sealed until they glistened and glowed a deep rich honey brown. The white was stripped off the walls, returning the bricks to their original terra-cotta color. Finally, the new owners paid thousands of dollars to install state-of-the-art lighting so everything in there, especially the clothes on display, looked exceptional.

  Ayres was invited to the grand opening of Benn Corbin, but shortly after walking in and seeing what they had done to his store, it was plain the previous owner was at first dismayed and then genuinely upset at the transformation.

  “Everything’s gone, even the smell. You took away the smell of my store!” The old man didn’t have to say anything more. Dean and Kaspar knew exactly what he was talking about.

  Ayres’s news store had had a distinct aroma all its own. Whether it was nice or not was debatable. A combination of fresh printer’s ink on newspaper, mild
ewed cloth, decades of tracked-in mud and dirt (depending on the season), candy, summer dust, winter slush, body odor, cigar and cigarette smoke, hot sulfur from just-lit matches, and an array of other unidentifiable but strong ingredients. All of them had accumulated, accreted, and emulsified in the store for decades, creating a distinctive odor instantly familiar to anyone who frequented the place. For better or worse it was a smell you knew in an instant.

  When Dean and Vanessa walked in that morning, the aroma of Ayres’s store was the first thing to meet them. The delicately delectable smells of the various Diptyque scented candles used in the swank Benn Corbin were no longer there. They had been blotted out completely by the signature stench of the old news store.

  More surprises were waiting for the Corbins, many more, but the fusty odor was the first clue. It was as strong and pervasive as it had once been; it hogged all the air in the room. Of course such a singular smell did not belong in the home of handmade suits from Naples and Scottish cashmere scarves costing as much as a small car.

  After the seconds it took their brains to identify the tang, the couple was faced with the next impossible fact: Benn Corbin no longer existed. The store had somehow transformed back to old Ayres’s newspaper shop.

  Dean had glimpsed it through the front window over Vanessa’s shoulder when they’d stood outside on the sidewalk arguing. Naturally he couldn’t believe what he saw, so he pushed his wife aside and opened the door to investigate.

  Everything was gone—the luxurious clothes, the custom-made mannequins from Antwerp, the antique walnut display cases, the Mission furniture, the overall lightness of the store they had so carefully planned and created. Instead, the Corbins were now surrounded by a dark, dank, dumpy dated shop that sold stale Hershey bars and three copies of Road & Track magazine a month.

  “What is this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happened here?”

  “I don’t know, Vanessa. I don’t … know.”

  “Where are all the clothes? Where is your store?”