The Freewayfayers' Book of the Dead

by John Okas

  A Tangled Loop

  The stakes are high. Over the past five years, since Thorco’s merger with Zeus Chemical, and with the increased amount of government war spending, Thorco stock has more than doubled in market value. Such a fortune is a law unto itself.

  “Yes,” says Noelle Needleman, Hilda Swan’s counsel, “a case can be made that Sarah Swan has deserted her child and that you, her step-aunt, the signer of the hefty Thorco dividend checks, is the closest thing Gloria has to a next of kin. Better anyhow than leaving her in the hands of a drug-using baby-sitter. With the mother off who-knows-where, this Miss Lord person out of our way, it might well be possible to have the minor put under your protection by default. After all, you are concerned for the girl and want to see that the money from her inheritance is not being used to fuel her corruption.”

  “Then that’s my plan,” says Hilda. “Move that tar baby out here to Stetson City and torture her with cowboy music. You don’t imagine that slick, soft, city girl knows anything about horses, do you? Who knows? She may even have an accident.”

  City bureaucracy is a tangled loop. As impeccably as the arrest was made, that’s how unlawfully the detainees’ rights are violated afterwards. And with maddening illogic, as slowly as the police department brings the case of Gloria’s sitter and her friends to court, that’s how fast the city social service process attends to the case of the corrupted minor. In two days Gloria is standing with Horace Grabble in front of Judge Poderesta of the family court with Miss Needleman representing Hilda Swan, the petitioner. In her complaint no mention is made of where the baby-sitter might be, only that she is missing and that without her the child’s upbringing, rickety to begin with, is falling apart completely.

  Of course, it is a farce. Grabble can see that, but he flinches when he faces the court, stepping lightly, not wanting to prejudice one case with the other. He hems and haws, and bends the rim of his hat, as he tells the judge that there are at least two sides to every story, that, yes, the father is dead, the stepfather is dead, the mother is missing, but the baby-sitter is minding the child nicely, that Miss Lord was not remiss in exercising what is a viable option for the rich with home schooling and a state-certified teacher. He points out that Gloria is no relation of Hilda Swan’s, the two have only seen one another once twelve years earlier at Gloria’s mother’s wedding. But he fails to make his point.

  “And if Miss Lord is so conscientious,” says the judge, “why isn’t she present in court today to argue for her job?”

  Checkmate. Neither Grabble nor Glory want to bring up the baby-sitter’s arrest for it will certainly lose the case for them. Grabble asks for a five-minute recess to confer with his client.

  “It’s diabolical, Horace,” Gloria whispers in the hall almost in tears, “We’ve been set up in a crooked game to bear witness against our friends!”

  “We might as well tell the judge,” says Grabble. “Maybe we can at least get Laudette and the boys out of jail.”

  What choice does Gloria have but to accept the advice of counsel?

  “Your Honor,” he says, “a great injustice has been done. The reason Miss Lord is not here is that she and two friends were arrested last week and have not yet been booked. We cannot get anyone over at the city jail to tell us what’s happened to them.”

  “Held without charges? That’s a very grave accusation, Counselor. I hope you have some evidence to support it.”

  “For X’s sake, I saw it with my own two eyes.” The minor Bee goes out of order. “What do we have to do, file charges against the police for kidnapping? Talk to Lieutenant Butler.”

  Poderesta bangs his gavel. “Have a little more respect, young lady. What did the arresting officers say the charges were?”

  “They didn’t, man,” says Gloria, standing up and lying. “They just took them.”

  Court is recessed until two in the afternoon, while Poderesta checks into it. When it is reconvened His Honor takes the bench, looks down at Gloria and says, “The case against your baby-sitter charges her with possession of illegal drugs, and contributing to the delinquency of the minor, as if you didn’t know, young lady. She’s being arraigned right this moment.”

  The judge rules that Gloria be enrolled in the Wright Institute, a special uptown school for wayward and truant heiresses.

  Help!

  And it is further determined that if the minor’s mother, lost on the horizon, is not found within ninety days, Gloria should be moved to the Lonely Bull Ranch of her step-aunt Hilda. And until that time, when Gloria is not at school, she is to stay at home and mind the staff. Does she hear?

  Help! Help!

  Now that her day in family court is settled so dismally, Gloria and Horace make their way across the street to criminal court to find out about their friends and to see what they can do to help them. First denied arraignment, now given one before their court-appointed defender has a chance to prepare a case, Laudette and company are back in stir. The judge found the district attorney’s argument compelling. These drug fiends were potential risks for flight. McCoy and Bonet have prior convictions. He set no bail, and deposited them back in the can to wait for a trial date just over three months away.

  Help! Help! Help!

  Grabble’s appeal is turned down, as is Gloria’s application to see Laudette. The women’s house of detention is no Sunday School picnic. Visitors under eighteen are not allowed. As for Earl and Bones, they are being held in maximum security at Merkel’s Island, at least until their connection to the Gourmet drug market, and perhaps Rudolph Reichmann, is thoroughly investigated.

  Help! Help! Help! Help!

  Surprise!

  As in need of help as Gloria is, to look at her you wouldn’t know it. She stands sensationally tall, has a strong build, and a commanding presence. But a fourteen-year-old girl is going to be hard-pressed when beset by adult mischief.

  Pearly Gates takes to watching her rather closely and always seems to be lurking around her door. She is not sure his attention is entirely for tight surveillance. The ugly grin on his face worries her and she suspects it is some beastly form of flirting.

  “By what authority do you look at me the way you do, Pearly? How dare you! I find you loathsome. You stink!” she bursts out.

  The obtuse factotum smiles. He seems to enjoy her insults. She must lock herself in her room if she wants privacy.

  What is the use of being one of the wealthiest girls on the Freeway if I have to live like this, caged like an animal? If it comes to it, and I’m forced to go live with my step-aunt, I may actually have to do as I bragged to my friends: give up the money, run away, and become a show girl. In the meantime, somebody please save me!

  Another thing that worries her is the note in Lieutenant Butler’s report about the books he found. She already has removed the volumes in question from the locked room and hidden them in the secret stairwell. She would like to sneak them out of the house entirely. But where can she hide them? She would try to get them to Thalia to hide at her house, but Pearly listens to her calls, and Thalia’s parents, since Gloria has been expelled, have forbidden their daughter to call her.

  Sometimes Gloria wishes she listened more to Laudette about the value of “other people.” Times of trial are tough when you have no regular friends to help you bear your problems. At least she still has her special friend, music. She will never be completely alone, not while she can hear a sound and wonder about how wonderful it is. She is not the Real McCoy of course, but nevertheless she can comfort herself by making passable passes on the piano. And fortunately, Pearly does not like to watch or listen while she plays.

  The Eve of the Feast of Light, nineteen forty-three, is a rainy night in Empire City. The four stooges are merry, making themselves at home for the holiday in the kitchen and Gloria is sitting all alone in the back parlor with big worries on her mind. When is Mummy coming back? What if she’s dead? How can I get my baby-sitter and her friends out of the tomb and myself out of the Wright Ins
titute? And who will help me get rid of those stool pigeons in the kitchen? Rats! And what happens if no one comes to save me? Help me, Daddy-o, wherever you are. In less than sixty days I’ll be going to the Lone Star State to live with your sister, or else wind up like Mummy, showing off my flesh for money. Do I really have what it takes to be one of Cootie’s Cuties?

  Like a steer smelling the hacksaws of slaughter in the air, Gloria can hear those steel guitars warming up.

  She tries to play the piano to express some of her tension, but the ivory is too unbending for her blues, so she sits on the bench, with her hands in her lap and her eyes closed, listening to the rhythm of the falling rain, reduced to saying prayers to the gods whose existence she highly doubts.

  “Emanual save me! Lord Z give me strength!”

  Muted by drapes and closed windows, the beats drop down outside, making tiny thumps like fingertips tapping softly on stretched hide drums. Suddenly, she hears a hard sound, a loud sizzling crackle like a beef steak on a barbecue. She notices a breath of clammy cold air come into the parlor and rustle the sheets of Kreuszer on the music stand.

  Did someone open a door? She leaves the piano to see. The front door is closed and bolted. Across the big hall is the south entrance which is similarly locked. However, there is water on the floor in the foyer. She can hear all four of the stooges in the kitchen. Probably one of them ran in and out for something. She turns to go back to the parlor.

  Oh! Surprise! Glory Bee nearly jumps out of her skin. A strange boy is standing behind her, holding an umbrella, so close that she is actually standing under it. She backs off, startled, but his expression is so mild that she feels no more alarm after her initial shock. In fact she feels an instant kindred. He is foreign, with a skin type not unlike her own moist sheen, but his color, a yellowish grey-brown, pales next to Gloria’s splendid, blended honey tone.

  He puts a finger to his lips, collapses the umbrella, and motions for her to follow him back to the parlor. She estimates that he is about seventeen years old. She notices a dusty pollen smell, a pleasant bouquet that is both floral and faunal, sugar and spice, snails and quails. He is an inch shorter than her six foot highness, on the slight side, rather delicate, but by no means thin. He has a well-fed look. His long black hair, braided down his neck, trots behind him. He is wearing a loose jacket and pants cut like pajamas with roomy sleeves and legs, both black silk, thickly quilted for winter. She wonders how his feet can stand it, though, going through the raw, wet night outside in nothing more than a pair of worn-out slippers.

  When they reach the back parlor he closes the door behind them and turns to her with his arms folded, smiling. His eyes, moist dark crescents, look as if he is waiting for her to be the first to speak. She sees that while his smile is soft and agreeable, and his smoky pearl eyes gentle, his features are boldly stroked. In the curves of his chin, eyes, ears, and nose she sees shapes similar to the scimitar characters which postmarked that last letter from her mother. This then is a messenger boy with news of her mother. She wastes no time getting to the point.

  “Is she dead?”

  “No, not at all,” says the bringer of good tidings. “She’s living the high and sweet life up white cloud way.”

  His voice is a whisper, free of hard stress, and has a warm, sensual lilt, deeper and softer than any boy’s she has ever heard. She expected he would have more of a sing-song accent, but he has the cadences of her mother tongue down better than pat. “I’m pleased to meet you at last, Gloria. My name is Pun Qwats. I’m here to repay you for your mother’s service to Lord Z.”

  “Not you too! This Hairy Tuna is not for real. He’s a fairy tale, right?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the angel-faced boy says in his fairy-soft, muted, fluted tone. He then spreads his arms and Gloria sees that he is holding a clutch of papers. “I will tell you all about it later, but let’s get business out of the way first. Here is a message from your mother.”

  Gloria takes the envelope and opens to the first page. It looks like just another apology.

  I’ve tried to write you dozens of times, but it’s too late. What’s done is done. What is the sense of trying to touch you from halfway around the world if I never could when you and I lived in the same house? But, Gloria, what good is an apology without an attempt to set things straight? Pay attention to the bearer of this note. He is more remarkable than you can imagine. He will make things up to you better than I ever could.

  Gloria looks at the boy, smiles and turns the page. She finds an affidavit that talks about her in the third person.

  I, Bharani-Sarah Black Swan, hereby appoint Mister Pun Qwats of Rural Route Zee, Pu Province, Pingp’yangpoong, my daughter Gloria Black’s legal guardian. Further, I hereby assign Mister Pun Qwats my complete power of attorney. He may write checks in my behalf and withdraw from my accounts as he sees fit to raise my daughter and support her in whatever style she would become accustomed to under the provisions of my will.

  An attached document leaves everything to Gloria, legally effective upon her coming to age nineteen.

  Until which time as she does, Mister Qwats will be her legal guardian, and trustee of her estate. After which she may employ him for as long as she likes and in whatever capacity she can conceive of and is obliged to compensate him in no other way but the yearly wage of one goose egg, gold, shell or otherwise, as she sees fits his service, to be bestowed annually on the Eve of Xmas, and to provide him with food, clothing, and a place to do his work.

  A note to Gloria suggests that she let him move into the workshop, and that she, the new mistress of the house, as she already has, take the big bedroom.

  And should she, Gloria, at any time in her life, find no position for Mister Qwats or for any reason wish to terminate his service, then for the duration of his unemployment, Gloria is to put anything and everything she has in joint ownership, community property, with him. They are to share and share alike in the inheritance, as brother and sister.

  It is signed “Bharani-Sarah Black Swan” and right next to it are some strange, beautiful signs that she takes for her visitor’s native signature because under it, as handsome as the hand of the finest Grammar School penmanship teacher, he has written “Pun Qwats” in script. It is witnessed by Crane and Sybil Haddock-Watt, Doctor and Mrs, with an address on the Grammar Isle.

  “How old are you?” She asks. “Aren’t you kind of young to be a legal guardian? And is this real, or is it a joke?”

  “It’s both!” says the boy sweetly. “And I’m older than I look, Gloria. The Haddock-Watts are reputable scholars and pretty near respectable people and will swear that your mother meant every word she wrote.”

  The boy digs around in pockets he has up his sleeves and brings out a photograph. “Here is a picture of your mother with me and Sybil Haddock-Watt.”

  He passes it to Gloria and a smile brightens her face when she sees it. Her mother looks positively aglow, happier and healthier than Gloria’s ever seen her. She looks a bit rounder, as if regular exercise and a diet of hardtack and goat jerky agrees with her. To her mother’s left, in the center of the frame, is a ferret-faced woman with piercing eyes.

  “That’s Sybil Haddock-Watt,” says Pun Qwats.

  And to the ferret-faced woman’s left is the boy who just gave her the picture. The three have their arms around one another’s shoulders, and are smiling for the camera, one big happy family.

  Gloria reads the document over again. Of course, she knows nothing about what holds up in court, but upon second reading, she has no trouble boiling down what it says, “It looks to me as if I have a slave for life or you’re going to be a very wealthy boy some day.”

  He begins to laugh and she joins him even though she is not sure what is so funny. Her mother has sent a boy where a big woman like Laudette has failed. “Wait until you hear what a mess you’ve walked into. The first thing you have to do is save the one you came here to relieve. You see, the staff in this house ratted on my b
aby-sitter and her friends Earl McCoy and Bones Bonet for smoking marijuana at my birthday party. The police took them all off to jail. First I couldn’t find them, now I can’t bail them out. By the way, how did you get in here?”

  “No miracle there. Your mother gave me the key to the south alley entrance. I’m no Purple Sage, but I’m not completely unseasoned either. I’m well-acquainted with the situation. I’ve been watching this house for two days. I snuck in, saw you blue, and listened to those serpents carrying on in the kitchen, talking and laughing about what they did to Miss Lord.”

  Gloria sees that her visitor is the fastest draw around. Even while he speaks he pulls more papers from his sleeve, bail receipts for Earl, Bones, and Laudette and an acknowledgement that the law firm of Newson and Newson has been retained for their defense.

  “They have experts in immigration, child custody, inheritance, and criminal law. I spoke to Lynn Newson himself and he was optimistic on every count. Now don’t be surprised when those jailbirds fly in for dinner tonight; they’re free on bail, and right now doing some last minute shopping. I was just at the store myself.” He reaches again up his sleeve and produces yet another wonder: a large bundle in white paper. As if it were a human infant in a blanket, he folds the paper back with delicate movements and shows her a seven-pound codfish. “Here, I bought you this; it’s more than just a symbol for a Merry Xmas, it’s something we can actually eat. Now lead the way to the kitchen, Gloria, and let’s turn the coffee counter on those spies and toss them out of this temple.”

  Severance Pay

  Looking like a teenage brother and sister, non-identical twins, Gloria and her new guardian breeze into the kitchen bearing the fish. Mona, Pearly, Kitty, and Shepp are klatched at the coffee counter. Since this is the Night of Nights Mona is pouring whisky in everyone’s cup.

  Pearly gives the boy the once up and down. “Hey what gives, Sis? I didn’t know you knew any boys. Where did you find this one, at the laundry or the takee-outee place on the next block? For your information, Wang, in this country we cook the fish first before we deliver it.”