Kind Nepenthe

by Brockmeyer, Matthew V.

  “What did you just say to me?”

  DJ blinked, turned, and made for the 30.06 leaning against the wall in the corner. But before he could even raise the rifle to his shoulder Diesel had already stepped forward and grabbed the barrel. There was a momentary back-and-forth-tugging, and then Diesel slammed the gun into the boy’s chest, knocking him backwards and off his feet, while twisting the rifle from his grasp.

  DJ hit the ground and as he looked up—eyes wide and mouth hanging open—Diesel brought the butt of the gun down square into his nose.

  Screaming, DJ brought his hands to his bloodied face. Diesel kicked him in the gut. Hard. The boy made a sound like a pierced tire belching air and curled up on his side.

  “Pull a fucking gun on me, boy?” Diesel raised the rifle and brought the butt down against DJ’s ribs. “Teach you to pull a fucking gun on me,” bringing it down again, this time into his lower back. He kicked him once more and then set the stock of the rifle down. Leaned against the barrel, panting. “What kinda idiot tries to use a hunting rifle as a close-range weapon anyway?”

  DJ moaned once from the floor and then began to cough in wet, pained sounding hacks as Diesel thought, Fuck, now I done it. Lost my goddamn temper.

  But the boy needed to be taught a lesson.

  “You’re one stupid sonofabitch. I just came here to talk to you. To get you to man up and be a husband and a father. Look what you made me do.”

  DJ groaned, curled even further into himself. “Go away. Please. Go away and leave me alone.”

  “Fine. I’m fucking leaving, you dumb motherfucker.” Diesel looked down at the gun he was leaning on. “And I’m taking this with me. You can come and get it when you calm down.”

  “Just go.”

  Diesel stomped out of the trailer, knocking branches out of his way, leaving the door wide open and swinging on its hinges.

  Rain was starting to fall now and dirty brown puddles had gathered in the muddy yard. He pulled himself up into his truck, lay the rifle on the passenger seat and sunk his face into his big hands, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers. He sighed heavily and set his hands in his lap. The rain began to pick up, pelting the windshield in a steady patter. He lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke, watched the fog and mist swirling down from the trees.

  How had that happened?

  The boy pulled a gun. That’s how it happened.

  Clutching the cigarette in his teeth, he pulled a Xanax from his pocket and tossed the whole bar in his mouth, chewing it, relishing the bitter taste. He needed to focus on the important thing here: the girl and his grandson.

  Fuck it, for all he cared, his son could go straight to fucking hell.

  11

  “Megan?” Rebecca called out for the third time, trying to stay calm, squinting into the shadows. Nothing. She peered around the dark bedroom. Megan was gone.

  “Megan, sweetie, are you in here?”

  Rebecca found herself whispering and didn’t know why. When she tried to call out it felt wrong, it scared her, like she might awaken something sleeping. Something evil.

  Could she have gone into the grow room? Why would she do that? As Rebecca approached she heard weeping. Quiet, but definitely there, coming from behind the open door.

  “Megan?”

  She tried to make her voice sound calm and reasonable, not a terrified whisper. A sniffling couple of breaths and more crying. Yes, something was in the corner, hidden behind the open door. She went to grasp the knob and was suddenly afraid.

  What if it wasn’t Megan? What if it was something else? Then resignation. She had to find her daughter.

  She pulled the door back from the wall and there in the corner was Megan, clutching her bunny stuffy, curly hair draped over her round face.

  “Megan, honey, what are you doing? Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Scared of Calendula? Did he scare you, sweetie?”

  “I’m scared of both of you.”

  12

  Katie sat on the big white sofa in the glow of the television. She shuddered, unable to weep anymore. She was no good. Everyone always told her so. She deserved it. Deserved it all.

  DJ was all she had and now he didn’t want her anymore.

  It was always the same. When she was eight her father left. Just left. One day he was there and the next he was gone. She never heard from him again besides that one Christmas when she was ten and he sent her a Barbie Malibu Dream House. She was too old to play with dolls at that point and just left it in its box.

  “Ain’t you going to play with it?” her mother asked. Katie shook her head. “Ingrate,” she said, sipping her Lord Calvert before putting a Benson and Hedges to her lips.

  When she was fourteen her mother dumped her off on her Aunt Melinda and moved to Seattle with some guy who didn’t want a kid around. Aunt Melinda was a bitter woman who drank too much and, when she did, never hesitated to tell Katie what a burden she was.

  All through high school it was like she was invisible. She had no friends. Boys didn’t notice her. But then she met DJ at the Alder Point store. He’d just moved back to Southern Humboldt from Eureka. He seemed so sweet and shy, asking her if she wanted to go to the County Fair in Ferndale with him. After that night of spinning on the twister, kissing in the shadows, the taste of cotton candy and pepperoni pizza heavy in his mouth, everything had been different. She was happy for the first time in her life.

  She moved in with him. She was so proud: he owned his own land. Forty acres. Sure, there was nothing on it but a shitty little trailer, but they’d make it work. They’d build a real house one day. Then she was pregnant and DJ’s dad was telling her to call him Pops. She shoulda known it wouldn’t last. Nothing did.

  She eyed the speed pipe on the cluttered end table. The gun. The crushed pills. Her face hurt so badly. She could feel her swollen eye crusting up. She pressed her finger tips to it. It felt foreign and not her own. She needed something. She picked up the pipe and took a hit.

  Immediately, she felt better. Her heart began to race. She took a small snort of the crushed pills to calm herself. That was good.

  A silly sitcom was on the television. A teenager being a smartass to his parents. And it was funny. Really funny. She found herself laughing and she felt so much better. Everything would be all right. Pops would work it out with DJ. She took another hit, this one a big, long one. Her skin flushed, heart pounding so hard it threatened to leave her chest.

  Then she felt something shift inside her. Something jerk and move. Suddenly she was sick. She thought she might throw up. She stood up and a great gush of warm water fell out of her, running down her legs and splashing onto the floor.

  13

  Yeah, the more Coyote thought about it the more fucked up the situation was. As he let his mind go over it again and again he grew seriously pissed off. Stupid fucking kids. If the weed came out bad he was taking it out of their cut. He’d been running that grow for years now and had never had a problem with the generator or the fuel line before. Christ, how many gallons of diesel had they dumped into the river? If the environmental protection people caught onto this he’d be screwed. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Fuck. He’d be ruined, probably lose the land. He was tempted to just get a big insurance policy and torch the whole fucking place. The way herb prices were dropping so fast, it seemed like the only way he was going to turn a real profit anyway.

  And there was the gate, just hanging open. Hadn’t he told those kids to always keep the goddamn gate locked? The SUV slammed into a pothole. He gripped the wheel tight and careened down into the driveway.

&nb
sp; And all this rain. He was sick of it. And tired. So tired. Tired of the game. Tired of Northern California. Tired of Humboldt. Tired of dealing with all these idiots.

  And Sunbeam calling him out of nowhere. Demanding her money.

  Maybe the rain would keep her away. One could hope.

  But if he knew her right, she’d go through rain, sleet, hell or worse to get paid. It was funny how a person could walk away indignant from cash one minute and then demand it back all high-and-mighty the next. Women. Just like his fucking wife. Whatever. Better to pay them early, he’d learned, then deal with them later. Always cheaper that way in the long run.

  As he banked around the bend toward the Chef House, a figure emerged from the darkness, staggering up the road. It startled him and he jolted for a moment, but as he crested the curve and the headlights illuminated it, he saw it was Calendula, drenched, leaning on a shovel.

  Look at this freak, Coyote thought, wandering around in the rain. Just what the fuck is going on around here? He eased the SUV to a stop and rolled down the window.

  “Yo, dude, what the fuck you doing?”

  “It was you. Wasn’t it?” The whites of Calendula’s eyes gleamed in the darkness.

  Christ, what now? Coyote slipped the transmission into park. “Me what?”

  “You that did it.”

  “You best explain yourself, son. What the fuck is going on around here?”

  “You took the weed. You took all the weed and then showed back up like you don’t know what happened. I never should’ve called you.”

  “Whoa, whoa, slow down. What the fuck are you saying? The weed’s gone?” Coyote swung the door open and stepped out into the rain. “Just what the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Coyote felt his body begin to quake, his ears begin to ring. He stepped toward Calendula through the pouring rain with a pointed finger, the wind whipping his hair into a frenzy. “I said explain yourself.”

  Calendula stepped up into the glare of the high beams. Coyote could tell right away that something was wrong with him. He looked demented and demonic in the harsh light: gaunt face stained with blood, a massive lump on his forehead.

  “I’m not listening to your bullshit. You know the weed is gone. You’re a fucking thief. Admit it.”

  “Fuck you. Fuck you.” Coyote shoved his finger into Calendula’s chest. “The weed is gone and you’re accusing me? Me? How do I know you didn’t take it, you little shit?”

  “Don’t even try and turn this thing around. I know it was you because Spider told me so.”

  The words sent ice down Coyote’s spine. His anger dissolved. It was suddenly very cold out in the wind and rain. Very, very cold. “What did you say?”

  “Spider told me.”

  “Spider? You see him, too? I thought I was the only one.”

  “Yeah, I see him, and he told me all about you.”

  “You…you can’t believe him. He’s a liar. He’s told me awful things. Things that I know can’t be true. Jesus, I thought it was all in my head.”

  “Oh, no. He’s real all right. And he told me to give you this.”

  With that Calendula raised the shovel up over his shoulder.

  Coyote began to stumble backwards through the rain, shaking his head, mumbling, “No,” as the shovel came crashing down towards him. He instinctively raised his arms to protect himself from the blow, then turned toward the SUV, its door hanging open, only a few feet away. As he lurched towards it Calendula brought the shovel down hard, right on the back of his head, and Coyote watched helplessly as the SUV melted into darkness and the ground came rushing up towards him.

  14

  When Diesel swung open the door to the cabin he was startled to see Katie standing there, staring back at him with a grim and confused look. She almost seemed like a ghost standing there, silent and swaying slightly, one side of her face a swollen purple bruise, the other looking both very pale and very childlike. He stared at her blankly for a moment, frozen in the doorway.

  “What is it, Katie?”

  “Something’s wrong.”

  She looked down at her belly.

  “I don’t feel so good. I think…I think the baby might be coming. I…my water. My water, yeah—I made a mess.” She motioned to the floor with her hand. “I made a mess. I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up. Do you have a rag or something?”

  It was then he noticed the speed pipe in her hand.

  “Katie, you ain’t been smoking that, have you?”

  “It was just a little bit. Just a hit to make me feel better. I never meant for nothing to happen to the…I never meant to hurt the…”

  Her face crinkled and she began to weep.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  He rushed toward her and gently took her by the hands. “Come on, let’s get you to the hospital.”

  “I’m so, so sorry.”

  15

  It was beginning to rain heavier now and Rebecca jogged the distance from the chef house to the old Dodge Ram pickup, Megan wrapped in her arms. Rebecca’s chin jutted out over the girl’s little head in an effort to shield her from the wind and rain. She could hear the voices of Calendula and Coyote arguing in the distance, just make out the headlights up the hill, aglow in the darkness. She slipped her fingers under the door handle and pulled the truck door open, and sat Megan on the busted-up seat. Megan’s bottom lip quivered in the dim-glow of the dome light and she sniffled, her shoulders rising and falling in quick shudders.

  At least she’s stopped crying, Rebecca thought as she brushed the hair out of Megan’s face, then used the hem of her T-shirt to dry the girl’ eyes and wipe the snot from her nose, talking the whole while in the motherly murmur she’d used when Megan was just a baby and woke up in the middle of the night crying. “Okay. It’s okay. Shhh. Everything is all right.”

  She knew Calendula kept the keys to the Ram on his keychain, but maybe Coyote kept an extra set in here somewhere. She searched frantically: in the glove box, behind the visors, the armrest console, under the floor mats. No keys anywhere.

  How could she have not gotten the keys from Calendula? She had them in her fingers. Just one pull and they’d have been hers. But she’d been scared. He had scared her, the way he was acting, so crazy. She felt as if she was coming out of some kind of cloud, a blanketing dream state she was staggering out of. She hadn’t felt this sober since she’d come here, all the adrenaline and terror setting her mind on an edge straight as a razor. She was going to get those keys, or get Coyote to drive her and Megan out of here. She was leaving, with or without Calendula. But she didn’t want to bring Megan with her. It could get ugly and the little girl had seen enough insanity already.

  “Sweetie,” she said, “I’m going to need you to stay here while I go get the keys to the truck. Do you understand?”

  Megan nodded her head, still whimpering, but beginning to calm down.

  “Mommy is just going right up there to talk to Calendula and Coyote. I will be right back. Okay?”

  “I want to leave, Mommy.”

  “I know, sweetie. And we will. Soon, I promise.”

  “I want to go back to Granny’s.”

  Rebecca shut her eyes, took in a deep breath and held it for a moment before releasing it and opening her eyes again. Megan’s hair was back in her face, snot already dripping back down her nose.

  “Okay, Megan. But for now you have to stay here. Just stay here till Mommy gets back.”

  “I’m afraid to be alone.” Megan began to shudder and Rebecca was afraid she wa
s going to break into another sobbing fit again.

  “You won’t be alone. Mommy will be right up there by those lights. I need you to be a big girl and wait here. Okay?”

  Megan nodded, breathing heavily.

  Rebecca brushed the hair out of her face. “Okay?”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  Rebecca shut the door softly. Oh, yes, she would get those keys, come hell or high water.

  16

  Katie moaned as Diesel steered the big truck down the switchbacks, the windshield wipers slashing back and forth against the onslaught of water pouring from the sky.

  “Ohhh. It hurts. Hurts so bad.”

  “Just hang tight there, sweetie. We’ll be there soon.”

  Everything was happening fast. Too fast. He wondered at all the times he had raced down these back roads before, tires shrieking, heavy truck lolling and threatening to tip, thinking what he was doing was so important. Had any of it ever been that important? No. Not compared to this. Just sketchy drug deals and drunken attempts at revenge. This was the first time anything seemed truly important in a long, long time.

  He was sweating heavily and grinding his teeth when they finally pulled off the 36 and onto the 101. They got off on the first Fortuna exit and splashed through the wet streets, lines of cars queued up at the drive-thrus of McDonalds and Burger King, the rain falling in thick white lines against their bright headlights. They roared through the Safeway parking lot, up the hill and into the hospital parking lot.

  Diesel parked and looked over at Katie, her head turned away from him, weeping quietly. “I’m just no good,” she moaned. “It’s all my fault. All my fault.”

  Diesel swallowed heavily, forcing himself to be strong. He had to be strong. He patted Katie’s skinny leg with his big hand. “Now, now, everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see. We’re at the hospital now. The doctors will take care of everything.”