Bury This

by Andrea Portes

  But, somehow, in the first Michigan snows of winter, that last gasp of 2003, it had become obvious to Lars, Danek, Brad, and Katy that the two silver-age people at 2226 Rose Avenue would not be left alone for the holidays but should, from this point forward, be showered with an embarrassment of attention and activity and animation through the arch of holidays from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s. Or maybe it was a sense of family, lost, to each of them, family far, far away and somehow estranged.

  Or maybe it was the guilt. A collective guilt, never uttered.

  They would make it up. They were good kids.

  They would fix it.

  To meet there, the four of them, Danek with his carols, Katy with those glass-spun ornaments, Lars and Brad with the Douglas fir tree, tinsel, and even a poinsettia bought almost out of the gate of that tree farm down on Flint Ridge, to usher in this new season with a new sense of sentiment, a protective sense of sheltering . . . well, yes, it was new to them. It was new to them all, a unanimous surprise matched, held, trumped by the opening of doors to that spick-and-span ocean-blue living room, a fire, and the smells of pecan pie, pumpkin pie, turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and booze, too, a winter kind of brown booze, poured mischievously into eggnog with sprinkles and cloves and a wink, just this once.

  In the background, the Packers game, and the house a buzz of activity, who can help who, what can I do to help, can I get that, here let me hold that for you, falling over one another to help, falling into one another, a frenzy of cinnamon and pecans and pinecones and a thousand gestures, going outward, away from you, what can I give? Let me give more. Let me do more. What can I give?

  And strange to them all, Lars, Danek, Brad, and Katy, that somehow this toast, on this day, so many miles away from Mom and Dad and aunts and uncles back home, this time around the table, with the red winter tablecloth in that sky-blue room, somehow meant more, somehow held more, a cling to the heart, an absolution, a deliverance even. A new angel on the tippy-top of the tree, passing yams and chatter at that ruby-set table with the Lt. Colonel and his onyx-haired Dotsy, Packers in the background, 10–7.

  So, it was strange then, too, when, in the middle of just-before dessert, a knock comes to the door and outside, then, is none other than the blob, Shauna Boggs, in her cowl-neck and parka, a shimmering turtle veering outside the door frame, leaning slightly to the left.

  TWO

  An aisle among many aisles at the Walmart. Big and blue and full of stuff. So much stuff! Stuff for your kitchen. Stuff for your playroom. Stuff for your bedroom. Stuff for your bath. Garden stuff. Lawn stuff. Baby stuff. Car stuff. Stereo stuff. Kid stuff. Dad stuff. Stuff for stuff. Stuff to store your stuff. Enough stuff to put your other stuff to shame. So much stuff. Never enough stuff. Never enough stuff to fix the stuff you can’t ever, ever fix with stuff.

  And for Shauna, in the aisles and aisles of stuff, an idea. I know! I know what I will do! Wading through the miles and miles of aisles and aisles, there is a jewelry area. Jewelry. And there is a plate area. Maybe plates? And, finally, an area of crystal ware. Crystal. Yes, crystal. Glasses, candlesticks, a vase for a bouquet. A classy vase, a vase with roses etched on the side. Then I’ll put roses in it, roses in roses, get it?

  And, also, on the way out, Shauna catches it out of the corner of her eye. Peppermint schnapps. Peppermint schnapps, now that’s festive.

  I will come bearing gifts, a rose vase with roses and peppermint schnapps. You can mix it with cocoa. Isn’t that what you do? Mix it with hot cocoa and sip it by the fire. Just like a family. Like a family we will sit in that ice-blue living room and sip schnapps-spiked cocoa by the fire.

  I’ll buy cocoa, too. They probably have it but I’ll buy it anyway. Better safe than sorry.

  It had bothered her. The kids. Coming to her door. What had it meant? What could it mean? That photograph of Beth. That article. Why had they brought it? She was my friend, not theirs. I know damn well what she looks like, you don’t think I know? Jesus.

  But Dorothy and the Lt. Colonel, they won’t be expecting me. Of course they won’t. But, bearing gifts, I mean, what’s the worst they can do? No, no. They will welcome me. They will welcome me, probably no one there, probably they’re just sitting around, watching football, it’s Sunday, yes, he’ll be watching the Packers. Dotsy will be making sauerbraten and the Lt. Colonel will be sitting in his chair yelling and praising, praising and yelling at Brett Favre. Hell, the fire will already be going. They are bound to invite me in, why wouldn’t they?

  Standing at the checkout line, Shauna Boggs notices the young, too-pretty girl, all in makeup behind her bright blue smock and ROLL-IT-BACK pin. The little bitch is making her nose smaller and averting her gaze. What? You’re too good for me? You think you’re better than me? Oh, I get it. I’m just some fat slob. Just some fat ugly old cow to you, is that right? Little cunt, I could show you. Little cunty cunt. I’ll get you. I’ll get you and your little dog, too.

  Give me that bag! Give me that receipt. Fuck. You’d think I was a goddamned leper. Jesus. I bought my parka here for God’s sake. How’s that for gratitude? This great big Walmart, this big blue betrayal, you were meant to embrace me.

  In the parking lot, lit from above in patches from high-above steel lampposts, sentinels in the concrete, guarding the lot while the sun falls down under the dirt-gray sky and now come little flutters, little flutters of frost. Down in the slow fall, a descent of purpose, as inevitable as night itself dipping down, conquering slowly in white. Here we are, here we come to grace you, to cover you in white. Sleep, sleep now, it’s over. The champagne-colored Nissan is hard to find at first, it’s not the only one and the lot is crowded. God, Christmas. Fuck Christmas.

  This goddamn rush every year, this frenzy. You’d think it was the first time, each time, for fuck’s sake. And, I know it’s not me, it’s getting worse each year. I just know it is. Each year, earlier and more frenzied. It didn’t used to be like this. Used to be, things were delicate. Small and special. Quieter. Used to be there wasn’t even this parking lot. Or this goddamned Walmart. Used to be, there was a little strip downtown, they’d light it up. Remember that? They’d light it up after Thanksgiving, and put a tree, and put some lights up in rows, with tinsel, twenty feet apart. A colonnade down Main Street. A promenade and we would walk it. We would walk through it, me and Beth, we’d walk along giggling into our mittens, snowflakes clinging to our scarves, and there’d be dumb little carols, “Let’s hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, too, come on it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.” “Si-iilent night. Hoo-ooly night. Aaa-all is calm. Aaa-all is bright . . . ”

  And we’d cuss and curse the dumb-ass carols, saying how we were gonna smash the speakers hanging down from the lights, pull the plug. Beth in her baby-blue wool hat and scarf.

  Those black suede boots, remember them? They went up to just below the knee and even a stacked black heel. Classy. But, you know, that’ll be the day.

  And Beth said she just had to have a hot dog and left me there in front of the Walgreens, snow coming down. I was pissed. I remember, cursing to myself, I almost left. Coulda just left you there, little miss perfect. And then, feeling so stupid, what a jerk-face, when next week I open that bright red rectangle mystery present back home and it’s the that’11-be-the-day boots, right there in front of me, black suede boots, stacked heel, with a note:

  “From Santa Claus aka Beth. HA-HA, you thought I left you for a hot dog!”

  And I could’ve fallen off the face of the earth backward.

  Yes. 1976. Things were different.

  Their friendship, a castle made of sand. That day on the playground, years before. Beth, not even five years old, building a castle, all to herself. Four turrets and a tower. Even a moat. Around her, the older boys circling, running, shouting, playing pirate, playing spaceship, playing cowboys and Indians. In between them, Beth, the eye of the storm, meticulous, building, shaving, sc
ulpting. And Shauna, one of the boys. Trying to be, anyway. But even then, outcast. They all knew where she lived. That dare-you-to-go-in house.

  One of the boys, the freckle-faced one, had taken an especially diabolical pleasure in destroying the castle, devastated in one kick. And Beth, seeing the four turrets and the tower and the moat, annihilated, burst into tears. It was Shauna, then, who saved the day. Shauna, then, who came to her defense, who walked right up to the freckle-faced boy and punched him. Punched him! Right in the nose.

  Then chaos on the playground. The boy’s nose streaming out blood, the little girls screaming, running to their mommies, and Beth looking up as if watching a play. Shauna had grabbed her by the hand and whisked her out of there.

  “C’mon, I know where to hide!”

  And they had sprinted, the scene falling back behind them. A gaggle of moms looking for the culprit. Of course it couldn’t have been a girl. Climbing up up up into a century-old elm at the other side of the park, peeking in. They couldn’t help but giggle. They were criminals. They were partners in crime. They were in love in that moment. And that moment lasted for years.

  It was only later, when Beth got into Hope and Shauna got into no hope, that the castle made of sand began to disintegrate. Weakened now. Exposed. Vulnerable to any kick on the playground from an errant boy.

  Yes. Those schoolgirl days. Things were different.

  Shauna now, thinking, this peppermint schnapps might not be right for a gift. Maybe it’s disrespectful, even. What if they think I’m saying something bad, like, “Here. Here’s a drink. I bet you could use it.”

  No, no, this peppermint schnapps is not a good idea. It cheapens it. Cheapens the vase with the tiny scratch roses and red roses, too. That’s enough. That’ll do. It’s a classy gift. Thought out.

  Better just leave the schnapps out of it. Better just keep that to myself. Can’t bring it back anyway, no way, not to missus cunty cunt back there. The look she’d give me. Little bitch.

  No, best to keep the schnapps out of it. Best to drink it. Maybe just a sip. Dutch courage.

  THREE

  The kitchen is a place you take someone when you’re not sure you want them to stay. And so it was that Shauna Boggs found herself standing in the middle of the holiday-scent kitchen, surrounded by Danek, Lars, Brad, Katy, and, of course, Dorothy Krause, too. The Lt. Colonel, in the other room, had said a perfunctory salutation, a nod of acknowledgment, but it was fourth quarter, what could he do? Danek was treating this like a scene from a TV drama, he had seen this setup before, he would have to learn these skills, one day, as a senator. The unwelcome guest. The unhappy constituent. It was all practice, everything was practice for those years on the Hill.

  “Shauna, please, would you like something? Some water, maybe some coffee?”

  But Shauna doesn’t hear him, or see him, or acknowledge him. Shauna is too busy proffering her big silver-and-gold present, something in a festive shiny paper bag, with sparkles and fleur-de-lis tissue paper. Something heavy, she hands it to Dotsy, solemn, “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Krause.”

  And now, still in her parka, no one has asked her to take it off, Dorothy takes the silver-and-gold regency bag. “Oh, Shauna. That was so sweet of you. How kind. You didn’t have to.”

  And Shauna, wondering now, why haven’t they asked me to sit down? Why haven’t they asked me to take off my coat? Why are we not all sat down around the fire sipping cocoa? Why am I not welcome here?

  Why are these kids here? These four dumb, smug, Gap catalog kids? Why are they looking at me like a problem to be solved? Something to be dealt with? Why the formality? Oh, yes, Shauna. Shauna, would you like some coffee? What’s with all the coffee? Is there a fucking exam in the morning? Geesh.

  Well, no matter. Dots will open the present and all will be forgiven. Good old Dots will preen and primp over the vase and then these little fuckers will part like the Red Sea and, next thing you know, we’ll all be singing carols together, exchanging stories, laughing by the fire.

  And Dorothy Krause does open the gift, taking the box out of the royal gilded festive bag and placing it square on the countertop.

  There it is now, the crystal vase, with roses etched on the side and, now for the kicker, the roses themselves, in the gift bag, waiting in the corner. Bright red roses for the glass rose vase. See. I thought it out.

  The little brats are scurrying to get it all together, make it nice for Dotsy Katy is cutting the flowers and arranging them in the vase, how nice, how pretty, just so.

  “What a thoughtful gift. How gorgeous, these roses.”

  But somehow, even as they thank me they are shrinking back, pulling away from me, I am out of the circle. Something to be kept on the other side, something to be quarantined.

  Maybe if I show the roses to the Lt. Colonel, maybe then there’ll be the respect. These guys just don’t know the pecking order, see? These guys just don’t get it.

  Reaching for the glass rose vase with new-cut scarlet roses, Shauna Boggs grabs it out of Katy’s hands and holds it up from the kitchen, for the Lt. Colonel to see.

  He’s watching the game, third and goal in the fourth quarter, eyes glued to the screen, the announcer a delirium of hurried excitement. What’s gonna happen? What’s gonna happen? This could be the game . . . !

  And from the other room, “Lt. Colonel? Lt. Colonel?! Look what I brought! Look at your present, for you and Dotsy!”

  And the Lt. Colonel can hear noise and turn his head slightly, but that’s all he can do, third and goal, fourth quarter, past the two-minute warning.

  And Brad, Katy, Lars, and Danek can stand there, but that’s all they can do, watching Shauna Boggs, they-call-her-the-blob, holding up the wet glass vase, teetering, water dripping down the side, from the newly cut fresh red roses.

  And you can’t reach out in time, how could you, to grab the slippery vase from Shauna Blobs teetering in her cheap black parka. You can’t grab it in time, from the clumsy meat hands on that sloping meat body and so, as you all watch, standing there like perplexed shepherds, the crystal vase with Christmas crimson roses slips out of her piggy hands and onto the floor in a thousand little pieces and glass shards and glass shards with roses and red petals and thorns and thorns with glass shards and water shards and a deadening silence.

  In the background, Favre makes the catch and the announcer squeals in ecstasy and Lambeau Field explodes in a fever pitch of yellow and green. But the Lt. Colonel is left out in the cold, sitting abandoned in the living room, a solitary figure, staring into the kitchen at the three-hundred-pound girl in a parka, a shuddering girl, suspended in glass shards and thorns and beaten-up roses.

  FOUR

  A mackerel sky in tendrils over the lake, the lake frozen over in white, tucked in from the lighthouses heralding Lake Michigan. Muskegon Lake ice fishing. Perch. Walleye. Northern pike. The best of the first and last ice pan-fish. Detective Samuel Barnett leaving early morning, 4 AM for blasted sakes, tiptoeing out, trying not to wake his wife breathing deep snug under the quilt.

  Out on the lake, in his makeshift tin-pan shack with heater. A hole in the ice and nothing doing, sat freezing his ass off on the bench, nothing but this Old Style to keep him warm. Goddammit, he shoulda brought two sausage sandwiches, not just one. The wife had offered two, just in case, honey. But no, no, being a stupid little boy kid husband, not wanting to be that known, that predictable, he’d refused. Trying to play the man. And now starving, starving between these flimsy walls of aluminum grating, no more sausage sandwiches and not even noon, hell with it. What a dumb fuck. He might as well relent. The wife was right. Two sausage sandwiches, not just one.

  Over the milk pebble sheet, a charcoal-black figure, a lone wanderer over the splat clear rink, coming closer, closer, closer, a gnat, then a cockroach, then a monkey, then a man. Now, a uniformed man outside the shack. A knock on the rin-tin-tin aluminum.

  “Detective?!”

  A sigh, what now. Can’t I just have one day? I
s that asking too much?

  “Detective Barnett? You in there?”

  Of course I’m in here, dumb-ass, where else would I be?

  “Uh. Yeah.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Might as well.”

  A scutter and a clang off the ting-ting grating, careful of your feet, that ice is no joke. Breath now in vapor gusts, in-out in-out, vapor gasps made of words, out of breath, gushing.

  “Detective, there’s someone down at the station. Wants to talk to you.”

  “Well, it’s Saturday—”

  “I know. I know. That’s what I said, sir. I sure did. But they wouldn’t have it. Said it had to be you they talked to, wouldn’t leave even.”

  “Well, what the hell?”

  “You got that right, sir.”

  Air in puffs, made of ice.

  “That sandwich place open?”

  Heading back over Shoreline in the Ford Crown Vic, limited slip rear differential and boy do you need it. Even a barely there wisp cloud day like this the ground goes ice snow sludge slop pebbles ice again. You just never know what’s down deep underneath.

  The station empty, dark in mint-gray chrome, one fluorescent spotlight over the far chrome desk in green-gilled yellow. Sitting there, facing away, a fat-shirt with a bald head, one hair over the bald circle forehead wrong ways. His parka, forest green, draped over his lap. Nervous.

  “Hi there.”

  “Hello. Hello, Officer.”

  “Nice day.”

  “Yes. Yes it is. Very nice day. No snow yet.”

  “Yup. That blizzard’s coming in though, ought to be here tonight.” Detective cozy-talk.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. They said three feet in Milwaukee, so . . . ”

  Better just sit down. Sit down, act casual, pretend to look through paperwork. Official.

  “Detective. I have something to report.”