Drafts of a Suicide Note

by Wong, Mandy-Suzanne

  K forgets it cuz he owes her everything. That’s sort of my fault, innit. Cuz of course Mrs C put up the startup $ for BHS even though Baby says not. So I mean I got to break out on my own cuz he took on that debt to her. The money’s been paid back, but K still feels the weight of the debt cuz of how Mrs C is: she acts like a queen. & not just that. Since she gave us our livelihood, our life together here, K feels like she has that power over life in general. That’s how much he’s weighed down by her power over him. & it doesn’t ease up in his sleep.

  What if I said: Baby? None of this necessarily absolves your momma, I don’t know what she’s done, I don’t know about the insurance people or any of that, but Baby you don’t know the whole story either.

  Then what if I showed him my Goodreads page. He’ll say: I didn’t know you’d become a bookworm too, Nikkou, wherever did you find the time? I’ll say: Truth is, Baby, what I like most about books is you talking about books. So when I was making this Goodreads page for Seabird, this book came up that had a lady scholar in it who cut up her Bible & rearranged all the Books of So-&-So in a new order, so all God’s Words were the same but she could feel the creative part she played in making them meaningful. Part of the point of the book was it’s the same thing with her body: her body is a Gift that was made a certain way, but now it’s hers to make meaningful in her own way, you know? So I was like: I know that book! It’s by Thomas Hardy…

  What’s making a girl out of stuff like Goodreads data got to do with K’s momma? Nothing! Cuz Mrs C might be cold, but she wouldn’t murder anybody. Also it’d make K smile. He’d remember telling me that when he got into Hardy, he learned that stuff that has always been a certain way is never only that way & never has to stay that way. I’d remember telling him: That means nothing’s necessarily as bad as it might look. Then I’d find a way to say: Stop before you ruin everything.

  It’d never work. It boils down to the same thing: Quit asking, just have faith.

  

  If I ever got to sleep again that night, I don’t remember. I’d wager that I didn’t. Because Nabi definitely didn’t. I know that because I remember how she looked the next day with piercing clarity.

  Her eyes were wide and vitreous with the strain of cheerfully persuading herself that she was in no danger of nodding off in front of clients. Her smile was fixed and tremulous at the same time. I remember sitting on the couch, wearing the same clothes in which I had been kidnapped, wondering when it was that I had shaved, forcing down espresso as Nabi said, “Baby, that’s not good for your stomach.” She appropriated my espresso and drank it. It was my second triple shot anyhow. I must’ve made it while she was getting dressed.

  She wore that mauve suit. The one I’ll never forget. As I won’t forget her twitchy, two-handed caress: my cheeks, my unkempt hair. Most of all Nabi’s glassy smile as she scrutinized my face. Jesus, what I’d put her through. I must’ve spent the whole night pacing up and down.

  She wanted me to sleep. I, an irredeemable reprobate, promised I would if she’d let me drive her to work first. Poor nikkou, my hoshi, looked almost tearful with relief. She said she’d do her makeup in the car.

  Why didn’t I hold her there until both of us were fast asleep, her little suit too rumpled to go anywhere? Wouldn’t things have turned out better?

  At that point, probably not. I should’ve kissed her longer anyway.

  All the way to Hamilton, Nabi nagged me happily about sleep, sun, and soup. I didn’t think much of anything about leaving her there as usual. I didn’t think—as from Door #1 Nabi waved to me with a beautiful brown hand.

  Cravings for retribution filled me to the brim. I dashed home, made myself look intimidating, grabbed my phone.

  Here’s what I knew from recent experience. Aetna was Masami’s secret and the face of her guilt. A stranger, Char, was in on it, but Barrington knew nothing; Erik was a servant, not privy to details. The ghostly vision of ikiryou showed her that I’d delved into her shadows, come too close to what she had to keep hidden at all costs. She sent Erik to Bull’s Head to learn the extent of the danger. Be subtle, she said; and since he can do no wrong, she failed to see that what she asked of him was like asking an elephant to be tiny. Erik took liberties, lost track of his instructions as he’d done with Henry Cox. Enslaved to a Manhattan-sized ego, his attempt to take advantage of Nabi’s trusting nature ended with the disencumbering of his manicured soul. He flounced away, his mission forgotten, only to discover his head on a bed of lettuce awaiting gravy. Need 2 talk!! Call me!!

  I called him. I dared him to come to me, knowing that ikiryou could no longer touch me. I did it so I’d have someone to scream at. He’d run to Momma-sama but there was nothing she could do. Unused to helplessness, she’d go clean out of her mind, consummating my revenge.

  That’s what I imagined. As for what actually happened, that afternoon would see one of my vital palisades crumble to pieces, unleashing the phantasms in my substructures.

  Why Fort Scaur? Because of all its paradoxes? Because it crowns the West End’s highest hill, yet its devious construction prevents mariners from spotting it? Because it’s full of hidden passages, yet it boasts a view of the entire island, north to south? Because it was a site of conflict between mighty powers light and dark? If that was the metaphor I had in mind, it failed. The British built the fort to guard against a Yank invasion circa 1870, but the invasion never came. When the Nazis likewise changed their minds, Scaur fell into disuse with a sigh of relief and became a public park, a ruin reclaimed by wildflowers and trees. Maybe I chose it because it’s up de country, five minutes for me but far from Erik’s blindly beaten path between Warwick and Hamilton. I wanted to preserve that triumphant frustration, that vertiginous, victorious rage. Because it was perverse, I determined to hold onto it. The bright unvanquished stronghold and its glorious vistas seemed to help with that somehow, perhaps.

  Driving up, I recalled a certain clearing shaded by a poinciana tree. In a corner of the grounds, this circular clearing persisted without reason or assistance. Or so it seemed to the eight-year-olds who played “Oberon and Titania” underneath the branches heavy with red blossoms. Erik’s plastic ray-gun was no use against our fey magic.

  I pulled in beside his Fiat. There were no other cars; that’s normal for a weekday. Just my brother’s bluebird egg on wheels.

  He said, “How’s your convertibaby?”

  “No touching. Let’s go.”

  I led him to the clearing. He mooned over my MG the whole time, I just know it.

  “Are you very sick, onii-sama?”

  Erik likes to use this formal mode of address with me. It’s sardonic. I’d rather tell it like it is. I call him idgit.

  “You look a little better. There’s this sort of gleam about you, onii-sama.”

  Such poetic observations as we arranged ourselves on a park bench. I was a bit giddy from sleeplessness. I had all sensors on full alert while insisting on a high degree of numbness, all of which added up to a mild case of hysteria. Course I didn’t know it then. I was high. I had to be high in order to stand up and not to scream. It made numbness into confidence and powerlessness a severe advantage. I said I was fine, never felt better in my life.

  Then I put him on the defensive. “Whatever you’re up to, leave Nabilah out of it.”

  “What the—? Hey and how are you too, mochi, I’m just fine, thank you, not up to anything. I only spoke to her because you wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

  “Yeah, well, nothing’s changed. I don’t have time for whining. So if that’s all you got, good morning and regards to your momma.”

  His hands were on me. One on my chest, holding me back, one on my shoulder sporting a pinkie ring and eau d’Erik. Thankfully the park was empty. How we must have looked, a parrot pleading with a crow; hibiscus and black dahlia jostling for position in a vase. He looked at me, all helpless innocence (typ
ical).

  “Well?” I said.

  “I’m goin shru de trees, onii-san.”

  “And what do you expect me to do about it?”

  Erik shook his head. He never was good with sentences.

  “If this is going to be like pulling teeth, let me remind you that you only have so many.”

  He squirmed, gathering courage. “I need to know what you’re going to do, onii-san. How far is this going to go?”

  “You tell me. She’s obviously had you spying on me for some time. I’ll thank you to let go of me.”

  He let go. He didn’t deny anything. Just made a face and whined, “You said fraud, you know, at the office. That wasn’t fair.”

  “Call a lionfish a lionfish.”

  “But they wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t for the best.”

  “You mean the best for them.”

  “You don’t get it. You always…” And he sighed, indignation igniting underneath his seahorse-patterned tie. “It’s bigger than that.”

  “Fraud and embezzlement, plain and simple.”

  “Don’t use that kind of language. You’ve got no right without proof.”

  “There’s proof. Just not for you to see.”

  “Why not, pray tell?”

  “Because you wouldn’t understand it, and you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

  Erik’s mouth dropped open as if to prove my point. Some exaggerated blinking, flabbergasted sputtering. “And you intend to do what exactly with all this? Assuming even a bit of it is true, which not one teensy morsel is, what are you going to write? Aren’t you calling yourself a literary scholar? Or did you turn into Anderson Cooper when I wasn’t looking? That the kind of story you meant, mochi-sama? You want to kickstart some investigative brouhaha? You really want to try to bring us down over this?”

  “If I did, Erik, do you think I’d warn you in advance?”

  “Come on,” he said in a small voice. “It’s illegal, you know. I mean blackmail—”

  “Cease-and-desist already rained down from on high. Won’t do one bit of good.”

  Again with the touching. His hand on my wrist. “That’s not what I mean, onii-sama. Look, maybe you’re on the right track. But if you are, it’s for the wrong reasons.”

  “Do yourself a favor. Don’t try to be profound.”

  “Let me finish what I’m saying, will you? Chingas, mochi, trying to say something to you is harder than talking to either one of them, you know that? Course you do, you’re doing it on purpose. Anyway, listen just a sec. That girl who disappeared? The one you mentioned? That’s fishy, all right? I’ll give you that. If she had something in the corner and it stank, someone needs to get it out, I agree. But that is totally different from CAM committing fraud, and that I guarantee you never happened. Momma would never. Ever. So you see? Our interests are the same.”

  “How exactly do you arrive at that conclusion?”

  “If that girl was doing something that made it look like Momma was doing something even though she wasn’t, I need to know. Do what you need to do, investigate, whatever. Just, you know, keep me informed. Before you go public. That’s all I’m saying.”

  It wasn’t, of course. When every last species of potential interlocutor goes extinct, still Erik-Katsuo will not have finished talking. An effluence of questions bubbled forth from him as though he were an overheated pot: what did I think Masami had done, how did she know that girl…stuff that Masami couldn’t wring from me herself. And I made it just as clear to her sniveling toady that I would not hand out free samples of my work.

  He gaped. “You want to go accusing us of things, you can at least have the decency to tell us what they are.”

  He was begging. I enjoyed it. So I threw a little bone. “Falsifying documents.”

  He thought I didn’t notice, but the outrage fell out of his voice. “What documents?”

  “I said no samples.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Kenji, why are you doing this?”

  “Because Aetna Simmons betrayed you. Clocktower and CAM and all three of you, even almighty Momma-sama.”

  That stung. I saw Erik’s tongue get caught behind his teeth. “What do you care about Aetna Simmons? Nobody cared she existed till what, yesterday?”

  “That betrayal cost her everything. The least I can do is rescue her, salvage her good name.”

  “You’re telling me you know this person?”

  “In ways you wouldn’t dare attempt to fathom.”

  “Is that so?”

  “That’s right!” This gushing out of me as pride and gratitude flowed in, as I watched Erik founder and recalled Masami’s stream of nonplussed babble. In a fit of nervous energy, I left the bench and stood in the shadow of the tree. The breeze plucked petals from its huge bouquet of blossoms. The uncertain light dappled the grass.

  “So what’s it going to say, this coup of investigative journalism?” said Erik.

  “That Aetna was brilliant and fearless. That when she refused to be exploited, Clocktower and CAM drove her to the unthinkable. That it’s time to take responsibility.”

  None of this appeared in my Works of Art essay. In fact until that moment, the idea of an exposé hardly featured in my thinking. Directly, anyway, most of the time.

  “How in heaven do you know all this? What else did she tell you? What else have you seen?” On his feet now, mustering the nerve to try to get up in my face.

  I said, “You’re an idgit, you know that? You’re knee-deep in this shit, and you have no clue what it is.”

  At that his whole aspect changed. His tirade was lengthy, the delivery impassioned. I half-expected it to end with Erik seizing an armload of petals, hurling them skyward.

  Most of what he said, even his ardor, he parroted from Masami and Barrington. Their golden boy, who lives for nothing but their praise, hasn’t a hope of appreciating the implications of his own words. Even if I wanted to remember them, I wouldn’t clutter a page with more than a précis. I include that much only because it clarifies Masami’s motivations.

  Erik’s monologue began with something to the effect that Clocktower’s investment portfolio is “one of the biggest, most important new accounts we have.” How new? He didn’t say. I’d guess it’s around four years old, given Aetna’s timetable.

  “And before you get on your high horse,” he said, “you should know an investment of this magnitude makes a big difference to a lot of people.” To Masami in other words. He invited me to “think even bigger.” Imagine, he suggested, some multinational conglomerate holding company, world-famous (a name I’d never heard of), wooing Clocktower Insurance. Imagine what would happen if said conglomerate bought an interest in Clocktower and through Clocktower learned to love CAM, perhaps started an account for the whole conglomerate.

  “You see where I’m going with this. Huge, right? Ginormous. For CAM and for Bermuda [his emphasis]. Think of the money that’d roll into this place. New jobs, tourists, all of it [with petal-throwing]!”

  Put this in perspective. This idgit wants me to believe the CAM-Clocktower alliance could deliver Bermuda from the clutches of recession. Given what you know, would you wager an Okada-Caines could be motivated solely by the greater good?

  I didn’t think so either. Erik made a wan attempt to uphold his righteousness, but faced with my skepticism his inborn rumormonger got the better of him. He let slip that because CAM offered such puissant connections, the competition was cringing, the Premier was cozying up to Barrington. There were a lot of ifs and endless qualifiers but the end result could be, said Erik, Barrington as Minister of Finance.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything more frightening.”

  “Phooey, mochi, don’t make fun.” He really said that. He was serious. Then he seemed to rewind and start all over again, his voice straining to approximate Barringt
on’s Black-Power fervor and the conviction that somewhere, in some shadowy bend of the circuitous money trail, the lives of little children and the revival of Hawkins Island’s Pirate Parties were at stake. Leaving it for me to discern the facts:

  The Clocktower Account was a keystone of Masami’s plan to rule the world, a sinister design that would remain secret at all costs. Though Erik knew nothing of Aetna’s role and couldn’t wrap his head around it even if he tried, he feared the unique circumstances of her death would call attention to her bizarre life; the life of a rebellious cog in said sinister design. As fear exacerbated his permanently dumbfounded condition, he flung out his questions willy-nilly and tumbled into a mortally perilous contradiction:

  Erik wanted me to investigate. Masami: cease and desist. Blaring contradiction.

  Never would Erik-Katsuo Okada-Caines permit his own desires to conflict with Masami’s. Not even if it meant lying to himself and everyone who needed him to tell the truth. This just proved all his hyperbolizing was unhampered by understanding. It proved he had no clue what she had done.

  Your revered Momma-sama drove a beautiful woman to her death for money and the power of a political insider. And you helped. A moment’s thought with half a brain would show you.

  That’s what I botched my chance to say. Instead I went and got the tree involved.

  Erik sat on the bench. The effort to convey the magnitude of Masami’s magnanimity was just too much. The actual truth eluded him, of course. The scent of money and the glare of glory saturated his senses.