by Amelia Gray
71.
THE SUGAR CEREAL was not in the break-room cabinet nor under the sink. It was not in the reception desk. It was not in the large lower desk drawer belonging to an officer who hoarded sweets. It was not in Chico’s office and it was not in the paper towel dispenser in the bathroom. It was not in his aunt’s bag of clothes, folded beside her. The boy had made a detailed list of where the sugar cereal might be and had crossed off possible options. Behind one of the chairs in the reception area, check. Tucked within the fire extinguisher’s glass case, check. He checked the break room’s refrigerator and freezer, opening all drawers, moving aside forgotten baggies of spoiled sandwiches and frozen-over potpies, looking for the slightest clue. He attached the list to a clipboard, which he carried under his arm.
His aunt was waiting for him in the reception area. She had found a word search among the scattered newspapers and smoothed the sheet of newspaper over her knee, looking up every so often to find the boy.
He stood on the chair beside her, unscrewing the light switch with a small screwdriver. “There’s one,” said the boy, leaning down to point at the page.
Shelly circled the word “snow.” “The sugar cereal is not going to be behind the light switch.”
“It’s unlikely,” he said, popping the screws out of the switch plate and into his hand. He tried to remove the plate but couldn’t catch the width of it in his small hand and dropped the screwdriver to get a better grip. “I’m taking this case past likelihood and moving straight into possibility.” Using his fingernails, he pried the plate off and peered into the darkness around the device.
“Are you sure you didn’t eat the sugar cereal?”
He replaced the switch plate, picked a screw out of his palm, and threaded it into place. He picked up the small screwdriver and fit it into its notch and tightened it. The screwdriver had come from Shelly’s glasses-repair kit, which she kept in her purse.
“Or probably someone else ate it?”
Her nephew dropped to a kneeling position on the chair and slowly placed one foot on the floor and then the other, with the kind of care a much smaller child would employ. She held her bag of clothes to the side in case he fell toward them. He had always been a careful boy.
“We have a high standard of moral conduct around here,” the boy said. “The ladies and gentlemen of this office are charged with upholding the law, as I’m sure you’re aware. Nobody is going to knowingly come into this office and eat sugar cereal that doesn’t belong to them.” He had picked up his clipboard again.
Shelly patted the chair next to her and he frowned but clambered up again, grasping the chair’s back rail and turning to sit beside her.
She put her arm around his shoulders and hugged him to her. “It doesn’t really matter where the sugar cereal is, does it?”
“Sure it does. If someone hid it, finding where it’s hidden will help me know who did it. If someone ate it, there will be evidence, and I’ll find it, and then something can be done. I should check the wastebins.” He scanned the items on his clipboard list and started to slide off the chair when Shelly tightened the grip on his shoulder.
“But if you think about it,” she said, “it doesn’t really matter.”
The boy was silent, staring at his clipboard.
Shelly released his shoulder and circled another word, “fence.” “Remember what we learned about what happens to the cereal, and the candy in the cereal, and all of us?” she asked.
The boy used his careful handwriting to write “leaves” on the page, and then crossed it out just as carefully. “It’s out there somewhere,” he said to the page.
“That’s right,” Shelly said. “Now it’s time to go and have some dinner.”
She stood and hefted him off the chair and onto his feet. He unlocked the receptionist’s desk drawer and put the clipboard inside. The key to the desk was on its own ring, which he attached to a lanyard around his neck and tucked under his shirt. The key was cold on his stomach, then it was warm, and then he couldn’t feel it at all. He followed his aunt out of the office.
72.
THE LAUNDRY BASKET had been too awkward to carry up the hill. Shelly left it at the bus stop and bundled the clothes in a towel to haul on her back. She did not look at the address written on her hand, because she had heard it would be the only house on the street with boarded windows. She walked to the garage and knocked on the open door.
“Knock-knock,” Shelly said.
A woman raised her hand from her desk. “The detective said you’d stop by,” she said. “Let me move my papers.”
“Don’t go to any trouble for me,” Shelly said, widening the door with her shoulder. She entered the room and laid her bundle on a chair in front of the desk. Wasps swarmed and dotted the towel.
The woman was gathering folders from where they lay scattered atop an old white-lacquered washing machine. “Don’t mind them,” she said.
The wasps were chaining themselves together to form a necklace around Shelly’s neck. She resisted the urge to lift her hand. “I thought a change of scenery was in order,” Shelly said.
The other woman lifted folders to her chest and hefted them off the washer. She spread the papers out on the countertop and sifted through them. “I need to organize my life,” she said.
“Thank you for making room,” Shelly said. She waved her hands over the towel, and the wasps took flight. Her living necklace dissipated. One landed on her hand and made a delicate path toward her fingertips. Shelly stood quietly and allowed the movement, which felt like a caress over the tiny hairs along her mid-digits.
The woman was watching. “Wasps don’t have hairs on their legs that capture pollen like bees do. They used to eat meat.”
The wasp walked across Shelly’s fingertips. She brought her hand closer to her face to see the tiny claws at the ends of the wasp’s feet. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” she said to the wasp.
“They still have the bodies of predators.”
Shelly moved her hand with the wasp toward the washing machine, reaching into her pocket for a quarter with the other. She placed the quarter next to the insect, holding her wasp hand level. The wasp regarded the quarter and touched it with a quivering mandible, then released Shelly’s hand and headed for the roof. Shelly put the quarter down and picked up the laundry. “Thank you for making room for me,” she said to the ceiling. The room’s rafters swelled with movement.
“No problem. It’s nice to have company,” the woman said, unwrapping a stick of gum. She had stacked her folders and opened a book at her desk, though it was clear she wasn’t reading it. She put the gum in her mouth and moved her fingers across the page as if the words were printed on ridges. “Do you know about ‘you’?” she asked.
Shelly thought about it. “About as much as could be expected,” she said. “I wouldn’t say I know the whole depth and breadth.”
“More devastation has been linked to ‘you’ than anything else. The research is conclusive. I’ve researched the full canon. Since it was ‘thou.’ We’re talking over six hundred years of devastation. Heartbreak. Accusation. And worst, worst? False promise.” She leaned back in her chair and tapped a stack of books rising up from the floor, reaching above her elbow. “A lifetime of plans, dissolved. Each of them linked to ‘you.’ Tied there in the history of the world.”
Shelly balanced the clothes on her hip. “If it wasn’t me, it would be you.”
“It is ‘you.’” The woman worked her gum like a cud. “Can you imagine the history of the world without ‘you’?”
“I appreciate you saying that,” Shelly said, opening the washer lid. She ran her hand around the interior of the machine to pull out the forgotten tissues. At the bottom of the tub, she touched a ribbon, satin against her hand. The ribbon was stuck partially under the lower rim of the agitator. She tugged at it and worked her hand under the plastic rim. It had gone through a cycle or two and was wrapped around the agitator. Leaving it there would immob
ilize the agitator, leading to a highly imperfect wash. Shelly pushed the agitator to one side and pulled on the ribbon in the opposite direction. She felt the ribbon sliding and tearing against the plastic piece, and then it was free, and her hand came back holding the ribbon looped around two gold wedding bands and knotted tight. She held the rings close to her eye. The ribbon was pale pink and lined with stitched eyelets. It looked like the kind of ribbon that would be woven through a baby’s bonnet. She put one of the rings between her teeth and made an impression in the gold.
“What is it?” Marie asked.
Shelly held the rings up. “History of the world,” she said.
73.
DAVID’S MOTHER fumbled with the foil crimping over the carton of juice. She tried to pinch it between her thumb and forefinger, but the thin tab of foil and her blindness worked together to elude her. She scratched at the foil-crimped lid, as if to puncture it, but succeeded only in flattening some of the minor perforations of metal, bowing it in. David reached for her hands to help but she pulled them back, protecting the juice with her forearm. The attendant standing at the corner of the room already knew not to go to the trouble of an advance and assist.
“There was a court case in one of the southern states years ago,” she said, “twenty years ago. The only witness to the act in question was a five-year-old child, a boy. Without question he had witnessed the act. His mother’s lawyer led him to the stand, and the judge asked the boy what color the lawyer’s tie was. The boy said it was blue, and the judge said, no, that tie is red. The boy was confused and said it was blue and the judge said that the tie was red and the boy was very bad if he thought it was blue.”
“What color was the tie?”
“Yellow, that’s the thing. There’s an interesting tale about the minds of children.” She had run a divot in the foil with her fingernail, and she went back to trying to grasp the edge with her thumb and forefinger.
“They searched the house,” David said.
She squeezed the plastic juice carton until one section of the foil, weakened from the struggle, lifted from the corner. A dribble of juice leaked into her hand, and she laughed and put her finger into her mouth. “Did they find her?” she asked.
“Franny?”
Bright drops of juice spilled onto the table, and she took her finger from her mouth, bent her head to the table, and held her lips to the drops. She pressed her tongue to the table and slurped the juice. “Your sister,” she said into the table, smacking her lips as if she tasted a delicious dish. “Did they find your sister?”
“That’s over, Mom.”
His mother had stopped smacking her lips. She turned her head slightly and rested her left cheek on the wet print her tongue had left. “Things were never quite right,” she said. “It was my fault, with your sister. The doctors gave me pills and I took them.”
“You don’t need to say that.”
“Your father and I loved you and we loved your sister, but things were never quite right with her. It was my fault.”
David had a vision of his mother delivering a speech facedown on the table. The speech would be about drug use, and she could tour the state offering it to middle school students. Each school would provide a chair, a table, and a microphone that had a broad enough range of motion to bend and nearly touch the woman’s lips, which now repeated the mouth shapes required to create the words “your” and “sister” without sound. On cue with visiting hours ending, the woman in the corner advanced to hook her heavy arms under David’s mother’s armpits, pulling her gently back into her wheelchair with care, the attendant’s eyes blankly suggesting she had done this many times before with many other confused mothers who had all ultimately tried their best to form a family.
At the bus stop outside, David noticed how dry and clean the air felt. The snow had melted, and the landscape featured blooming buds. He found, carved into the bench:
SORRY ABOUT ALL THIS.
74.
MARIE HEARD THE CARS PULL UP and saw the officers organize. “The police are here,” she said, watching from her spot at the garage door. The other woman was still stooped over her laundry, folding and unfolding, as she had for the past thirty minutes. The stack of folded clothes was on the floor, which Marie had not ever swept and which was thick with wasp bodies and the webs of spiders. Fifty years of motor oil and dryer lint had layered underneath the bodies. Marie tried to imagine the poured-concrete floor without the mired gunk but could think only of chemicals she might pour onto the floor to try to cut it. An acid, perhaps combined with a few passes from a power washer, though it would require her to move her papers. The thought of all her papers outside in boxes filled her with sadness. The woman had been folding a striped polo shirt for ten minutes and was at that moment tucking the fabric of the sleeves behind the trunk with her fingertips. She leaned forward to examine her angle of attack on the fold. Stooped like that, she looked like a scientist examining a specimen.
“Police are here,” Marie said.
“I’m sure they’ve got a good reason,” said the woman.
Marie looked back out the door and saw that they were headed toward the house. Chico was among them.
“I should let them in,” Marie said.
“That sounds helpful of you.”
Marie found the keys in the desk drawer and headed for the house. “Helpful of you,” she said to herself as she walked.
75.
ON APRIL 11, I was on the North Side when I received a call to assist a detective with a search warrant order. I arrived on the scene to find Detective Chico with Officers Riley and Hanson on the scene. Officer Marks arrived shortly after I did. The home had boards over the windows and seemed abandoned. Detective Chico knocked on the door. There was no response. The process was repeated, and Detective Chico noted that he was concerned for the safety of parties inside the home. Due to departmental lack of funds, a battering ram had not been purchased. Officers Riley and Hanson began to consider entering via the window. At this time, a woman arrived on the scene with a key that unlocked the door. There were no lights on in the house, and the officers deployed their flashlights. There was a strong smell of urine, which the officers noticed and remarked upon. There was broken glass on the kitchen counter. Officer Marks took photographs of each room. The stairs to the basement were deemed impassable by the officers due to a buildup of discarded books, print media, and containers filled with the above, and Detective Chico made a note to call in a secondary crew for further search if necessary. Their flashlights swept the room. The team ascended the stairs and searched the master bedroom, at which point the detective and officers found a dark room full of items such as newspapers, magazines, greeting cards, books without book covers, blank computer paper, empty cardboard boxes, tissue paper, wood shavings, Post-it notes, index cards, receipts, and other materials. On the bed, one individual was found and deemed unresponsive. The individual was positively identified by Detective Chico as David B. When officers neared, they found that the man was agitated, and his breathing had been hindered. An urn was opened by his side, and it appeared that he had spread its enclosed contents over his body. Paramedics were called. The officers attempted to help Mr. B remove some of the items from his mouth or pull them from his hands, but he refused their assistance. When they reached for his mouth, he moved his face to the side and became agitated. He would not release the paper in his hands, and he became aggressive, swinging his arms from his position on the bed. Two of the officers caught his arms and held him until the paramedics arrived. Mr. B was weeping throughout and making a groaning noise during this time. Paramedics arrived and additionally aided in restraining him. When he was restrained, it was revealed that he had been holding in his mouth a balled-up page upon which words were typed. Detective Chico found the page and documented its contents while paramedics attended to Mr. B.
76.
PAPER SAILBOAT ON A STILL LAKE MY DEAR CARRY IT AWAY CARRY IT HURRY MY DEER IN THE WOODS, I’M LOST, I F
OUND A NOTE WITH YOUR NAME / I FOUND A PLATE ON THE WATER, A PAPER PLATE ON A STILL LAKE THIS DRAINED AORTA FEELS THERE’S NO BRUISE THIS UNBLUSHED BLEMISH THIS MISTAKE THAT ORBITS MY BODY MY LOVE DO YOU BELIEVE THE FLOATING ALTAR FINDS A DRAWN PATH, FUTURES LUSHLY DESCRIBED WITH A PRACTICED HAND / MY DEAR DARLING HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A LAMB HAVE YOU EVER IN A MOMENT FELT THE NEED TO ABHOR THE EARTH FOR IT COMPACTS INTO A NUT WITH EVERY FAILING FOOTFALL AND EACH MIND DIES SOLITARY REMEMBER THE TIME WE REMEMBERED, REMEMBER THE STEAMING CRACK IN THE EARTH, REMEMBER LUST AND IF YOU DO, REMIND ME / REMEMBER THE ALTARS ALL IN WHITE, YOUR HANDS PRESS THE WALL SEARCHING YOUR HANDS OH HEAVENS DO YOU THINK THAT’S OUT THERE DO YOU REMEMBER THE WAY A SWEET MEAT LOOKS AFTER A GOOD BROIL WHAT’S IN A FOOT IN THE EARTH WHAT’S PUTTING DOWN ROOTS SWEET YOUTHS WHAT’S IN A NAME BUT STICKS AND BRANCHES / AFFIX YOUR BILLOW AND SAIL MY LOVE, PUSH FROM THE SHORE, YOUR FEET BARE AS A SATYR YOUR FEET UNSHOD, I DO LOVE A GOOD RIDDLE MY LOVE AND YOU WERE THE BEST, BLOT YOUR EYES, TAKE MY TISSUE, I HAVE ANOTHER, I HAVE ANOTHER HOUR BEFORE YOU FIND ME / OH DEAR SORRY ABOUT THE BLOAT SORRY ABOUT THE AFFECTED AIRS IN THE END WE’RE ALL HOLDING VEILS WALKING IN A LINE WE’RE HOLY VEILS WALKING IN A LINE OF ANTS DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN THE RUST WAS SO HIGH AROUND OUR EYES, WE THOUGHT WE WOULD BE WET FOREVER / A PAPER BOATS ON A STILL LAKE, FLOATING SILENT DOWN THE RILL, CATCHING SWEETLY ON SHINING PEBBLE, FLIGHT OF RAYS SHINES THE WATER, MAKE THE MISTAKE THOU MAKE THE MISTAKE THUS THAT THESE DAYS WILL NEVER EVER, THESE DAYS WILL NEVER / A LONG TIME AGO WHEN I WAS A GIRL AND WE WERE ALL ONCE GIRLS SAYS SCIENCE, LOOK IT UP, IN THE LONG TIME AGO WHEN I WAS ALL ONCE GIRLS IN THE FOREST ONCE I MEAN TO SAY I FOUND AN ALTAR THERE IN THE WOODS, A BRANCH COVERING LEFT CAREFULLY, I LOOKED LEFT AND RIGHT AND THEN TUCKED IT BACK AND FOUND A WASHED PAN OF BRICKS AND STONE, OBJECTS ARRANGED AND IN THE CENTER A BOLUS OF SWEET SKULL AND TISSUE, AN OWL SAVING A FINE CHEW FOR LATER, THE PERISHED CREATURE PRESENTS ITS HISTORY THERE TO FIND OR NOT FIND, FOR US TO THINK OR NOT THINK THAT SOMEDAY WE MIGHT BE SUCH / I SPENT THE DAY INVENTING ABATTOIRS FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE TECHNICALLY WELL BUT JUST A LITTLE TIRED OF WAITING TO SEE WHAT’S NEXT, DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN DO YOU KNOW HOLY WAYS TO LOOK AT A BOAT, ANYTHING GAINS SIGNIFICANCE WHEN YOU PUT IT ON AN ALTAR, THAT’S THE THING ABOUT ALTARS, ABOUT THINGS, EVEN A SLUR SPARKLES WELL ENOUGH THAT YOUR OWN MOTHER COULD PICK IT UP AND HOLD IT IN HER HANDS, YOUR DEER MOTHER / OH HEAVENS DID I ALREADY APOLOGIZE FOR THE BLOAT DID I ALREADY COMB YOUR HAIR OH MY SWEET DEAR, WE NEVER DID TRY TO HAVE OUR TIME DID WE, OUR SOULS WAVE FROM ACROSS THE WATER, THE WAVELESS WATER, BETWEEN US A PAPER BOAT FLOATS BY WHICH I MEAN TO SAY, BY WHICH I STILL MEAN, BY WHICH A STILL LAKE /
