The Ceiling Man

by Patricia Lillie

  “Not that I know of. What happened?”

  “Abby disrupted the math lesson with. . .lurid talk,” Ms. Colley said. “The two things she kept repeating were, ‘He rips their throats out,’ and ‘When he eats them, their insides get splattered all over.’ No matter how many times I told her to change the channel, or just to stop, she kept going.”

  Change the channel was Ms. Colley’s version of I love grapes.

  “She didn’t stop until Twyla cried. Then Abby cried, and they both had meltdowns.”

  I was speechless. And appalled. We both knew Abby didn’t—couldn’t—just make things up. She could only lie in reply to yes or no questions, and she was bad at that. She could repeat verbatim things she heard or describe in great detail things she saw or did. Even when she went off on a tangent and imagination came into play, the what-ifs were always easily attributed to something we knew she’d heard, seen, or done.

  “Are you still there?” Ms. Colley brought my attention back to our conversation.

  “Yeah. I’m clueless. We don’t watch many blood-and-gore movies and never when Abby’s around. Besides, she’s pretty self-censoring. If we watch anything that gets scary or makes her uncomfortable, she goes to her room and puts in an Anne of Green Gables DVD. Maybe she watched something on Netflix when she was home alone. I’ll check into it. Do you need me to come get her?”

  “No. They’re both sitting in the Quiet Corner now. I think Abby feels bad for upsetting Twyla. They seem to be comforting each other. I just wanted you to know what happened.”

  We hung up, and I thought about it. I dwelled on it—Abby-level dwelling. We didn’t have cable, so television was limited to Netflix, only hooked up in the living room, and DVDs. I wasn’t getting any work done, so I opened my Netflix account and checked the list of recently viewed items. Nothing there I didn’t recognize, nothing that explained Abby’s storytelling.

  When I got home, she was at the kitchen table doing a word search puzzle.

  “Abby, what happened at school today?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t tell me nothing. Ms. Colley called me.”

  “Twyla does not like moving pictures. They freak her out.”

  I understood that. Twyla couldn’t cope with television or movies. Her parents kept the television in a locked cabinet and only watched it when she was asleep or gone.

  “What does that have to do with what happened at school?” I asked.

  “I should not have showed her moving pictures. It was mean.”

  “What are you talking about? What moving pictures?”

  “Idunno.” Shrug.

  Great. “Abby, we really need to talk about this.”

  “Mom. I really need to finish this.” She went back to her puzzle, and that was that.

  I checked her room. Maybe somebody at school lent her a movie. I looked in her player and at her DVD collection—Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, A Little Princess, all I found were the sweet, slightly sappy movies Abby liked. I checked her known hiding places. All I found was a half-eaten bag of chocolate chips. One minor mystery solved. I knew I bought those. The room was a mess. Unless I dismantled and reassembled it, I wouldn’t find the DVD, if it existed.

  After Abby was in bed and we were alone, I told my husband about Ms. Colley’s call. Jim couldn’t come up with an explanation either. We decided to take the wait-and-see route and not worry until we were sure there was something to worry about.

  It had worked for us before.

  [3]

  Carole

  MOST DAYS, I LOVED MY JOB. The other days involved dealing with budgets, grant proposals, or my mother-in-law, and it was Evelyn’s day at the Senior Center. My mother-in-law didn’t come to the Center for the services or the activities or the company. She came for the chance to annoy me.

  Evelyn was a strong woman. When Jim was an infant, his father abandoned them. Neither of them ever saw or heard from him again. His mother raised him on her own. It wasn’t easy, and I had a lot of respect for what she went through. However, I didn’t like her, and I didn’t feel at all guilty about it. She didn’t like me either.

  It was a given that I wasn’t good enough for her golden boy. Nobody was or ever could be. She adored Abby but remained convinced all of my daughter’s problems were my fault because I waited until I was “too old to be having babies” to have one. Her darling boy was, of course, in no way responsible for that decision. If only I was a better housekeeper, a more devoted wife, a more attentive mother—the list went on—Evelyn could relax and enjoy her dotage. I tried not to take it personally, usually without success. Even if a miracle occurred and I became a cross between Mother Theresa and Martha Stewart, I would never measure up.

  When Jim was around, Evelyn’s behavior toward me was passive-aggressive, snide little comments with double meanings. She was Jim’s mother, so I smiled, reminded myself to breathe, and took it. When she was at the Senior Center—my turf, no Jim—she turned on the flat-out aggressive. I still smiled, reminded myself to breathe, and took it. I liked my job.

  When she hit the lobby, I was in my office with the door closed, buried in a grant proposal. I still heard her.

  “Can’t anyone run the vacuum around here?”

  I hit save on the proposal. If I didn’t go out and greet her, there might not be anything left of the Center to fund. The paid staff knew it was me she was after, but I’d already lost too many volunteers over her.

  “Evelyn? How are you? You look nice today.” I added an extra dollop of syrup to my voice.

  She stood at the bulletin board and read the list of the next month’s activities. “This is the same old stuff. Didn’t you even look at the list of suggestions I gave you?”

  I’d tossed it on my desk and forgotten about it. It might have slipped off into the wastebasket.

  “I did. It’s wonderful, but you know I need to run it by the Board before I can do anything.” Sometimes I hated myself.

  “Oh. Well. Did I tell you I’m talking to Catherine Marlowe about being appointed to your Board of Directors?”

  There was a good reason Jim said I was never allowed to own a gun.

  Syrup. I tried to remember the syrup. “Really? How wonder—”

  That idiot Blevins walked in the door.

  Port Massasauga was officially considered a city. In reality, we were a large town, just large enough to have a few city-type problems. One of which was a small homeless population. Some of them were mentally ill, some were drunks or druggies, some just down on their luck, and some were all three. Then there was Blevins, who was a sociopath. Or a psychopath. I always got the two mixed up. Whatever he was, he was a nasty piece of work.

  Shelly, at the diner, used to feed him for free every night. They had a deal. He came in at the end of the day, and she fed him while they cleaned and got ready to close. He might take the trash out as token payment, but usually he just ate. The arrangement came to an end last November. He showed up in the middle of the evening rush and demanded food. When Shelly told him to come back later, he went ballistic. He yelled. He swore. He tipped over tables and generally scared the paying customers. She called the police, and Blevins went to jail.

  When spring came, he showed up at the appointed time and expected dinner. When Shelly told him the deal was off and he needed to leave or she would call the police, he was outraged.

  “But it was winter! Time for me to go to jail!” Blevins hated being contained in good weather but got himself arrested as soon as the snow started to fly. After the Salvation Army, the only homeless shelter in town, banned him, it was pretty much his only option.

  Shelly had a restraining order. Just walking through the door was enough to get him arrested. He left, but not quietly. Blevins’s mode of communication was, to say the least, colorful.

  That night, the diner’s plate glass window was shattered. She replaced it. The next night, a rock went through the new window. On the third window, Shelly spent the big b
ucks on unbreakable glass. It was cheaper than continual window replacement.

  I asked Jim why the cops couldn’t do something. Everybody knew Blevins broke the windows. He reminded me everybody knows isn’t enough. They had to catch him in the act. The one time they caught him, he didn’t go away for long. Blevins broke, but he didn’t enter. No matter how expensive it was, vandalism wasn’t as serious a charge as breaking and entering. He was mean. He was nasty. He preyed on those he saw as weak, but he wasn’t entirely stupid.

  “I need money.” He headed straight for Mrs. Gardner, the meekest of the three women in the lobby. She shrank away and clutched her purse.

  “You need to leave. You know you’re not allowed in here.” Blevins didn’t scare me. He was all about intimidation and sneakiness, not outright assault.

  “Can you at least give me a cup of coffee? I need coffee.” He was at the urn before I could answer.

  “Take your coffee and leave. Otherwise, I will call the police,” I said.

  “I can’t believe you are giving him coffee! He has no right to be here! And he stinks!” Evelyn’s screech and fingernails on a blackboard had a lot in common.

  I wasn’t giving it to him, more like letting him take it, but she acted like I invited him to tea. Her feathers weren’t just ruffled. She puffed up with rage.

  Please don’t explode. I don’t want to clean up the mess. I watched Evelyn turn purple with fury and didn’t notice Blevins next to me until I smelled him. She was right. He stank.

  “You’re a real bitch.” He took a mouthful of coffee and before Evelyn could reply, shot it all over her. If he were a comedian, it would have qualified as the best spit-take ever. For about three seconds, he was my hero.

  “Coffee sucks anyways.” He dumped it on the floor and splattered all three of us.

  “You need to leave. Now, or I’m calling the police.” My wet shoes washed away any hero-worship.

  Blevins let loose with one of the rich streams of invective for which he was famous. It was almost poetry. His last line as he went out the door was “Nice fucking windows.”

  • • •

  BY THE TIME I got everybody and everything cleaned up and settled down—and got rid of Evelyn—I was a good hour behind my self-imposed schedule. On my drive home, two hours later than usual, I thought about dinner. I had no desire to cook, but I’d already played my one pizza card for the week.

  Abby loved to cook. Except for a few simple things, she needed supervision, which took as much or more energy as doing the cooking myself. As for Jim, he was a disaster in the kitchen. I’d told him many times my next husband would be both rich and a gourmet cook. I didn’t know which was a higher priority.

  Dinner needed to be something quick and easy. I tried to remember what we had to throw into a pasta salad—and saw Blevins on his bike. Whenever I passed him on the road, I fought the urge to run him down. Most of my fellow Port Massasauguans admitted to the same urge. Blevins still lived only because no one would believe running him down was an accident, and prison jumpsuits weren’t flattering to any figure type. The memory of him spewing coffee all over Evelyn bought him some goodwill. When I passed, I gave him more than his bicyclist’s three feet. I almost waved at him.

  Abby and Jim met me at the door. Jim’s grin was as loopy as Abby’s. They were up to something. He took my coat and briefcase, and Abby led me to the dining room. The table was set with my vintage Fiesta Ware. Something was on the plates covered by napkins—the good linen napkins.

  Oh, god. More laundry.

  “Sit down. Don’t touch anything until Daddy gets here.” Abby pointed me at my chair. As soon as Jim joined us, she whipped the napkin off my plate.

  A peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich. Jim and Abby loved them, but I didn’t see the appeal.

  “The pickles count as vegetables,” Jim said. “By the way, my mom called.” He winked, and Abby giggled.

  Abby was a sponge for other people’s moods. After a weekend with Evil-lyn, she came home sullen and critical of everything. Go figure. After time with my parents, who took the grand-parents-are-more-fun-than-parents philosophy as gospel, she came home glowing, in love with everybody and everything.

  She was happy and mirrored Jim’s silliness. It was one of her clear days. I needed to sit back and enjoy her and the ridiculous sandwich before she caught my crankiness, but all I could think about was jammies, a good book, and as soon as she and Jim weren’t looking, the bag of Oreos stashed in the back of the cupboard.

  “Well. That was delicious.” Not as delicious as the Oreos would be, but they didn’t need to know about my hidden treasure.

  “Stay put,” Abby said. When she got bossy, she really got bossy.

  “Is this going to take long?” My comfy pajamas were calling my name.

  “Just sit.” She and Jim went to the kitchen.

  I relaxed a little while I listened to them in the other room. Something hit the floor, followed by an oops and more giggles. I tried not to think about the mess they were making. With any luck, Sami would clean up the floor.

  “Brownie Sundaes!” Abby was back. Jim was right behind her with a loaded tray.

  She stuck a bowl in front of me. A ginormous slab of brownie topped with ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream and, oh yes, a cherry.

  I loved my family. Peanut butter, dill pickles, and all.

  • • •

  ABBY AND JIM both called it an early night and left me downstairs alone. I curled up on the couch with my book and enjoyed the quiet. The night was freakishly warm for the time of year. The door to the sun porch stood open, and Sami lay on the porch enjoying the night air.

  Sami growled.

  At first, I thought it was the big orange cat from across the street. He loved to sit just close enough to the house to get Sami riled up. Once Sami worked up a good frenzy, the cat washed his butt. When one of us humans finally bellowed Enough at the dog, the cat got up, stretched, and sauntered away, his work done.

  I waited for the barking, but it never came. Just the deep growl. I put my book down and got up to see what was going on.

  Sami went crazy. She ran through the house and hurled herself at the back door—then she barked.

  Insane barking. Timmy’s down the well barking. There’s a clown car in the driveway barking.

  She ran back through the living room, halfway up the stairs to the landing and barked at the window. Back down, back to the porch. She barked, ran to the back door, and repeated the process.

  I was almost to the porch when she barreled at me, head-butted me, and grabbed my pajama leg in her teeth. Unless I wanted ripped pants, I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jim stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I have no idea. Something out front set her off. I don’t know what. She won’t let me move.”

  Jim headed for the porch.

  Sami let go of me. She growled, lunged, and snapped.

  One time when Sami and I were getting out of the car, the mailman came around the corner of the house and startled me. No blood was shed, but Sami sent him home for a change of underwear. Until then, although I knew she took her people-protection duties seriously, I’d never seen her spring into action.

  Dogs have forty-two teeth—ten more than humans have, but still only forty-two, not the hundred and forty-two they look like when they’re all bared and snapping.

  Sami flashed them all. More frightening than the teeth, she bared them at Jim. Jim, the puppy-loving marshmallow, source of treats and Frisbee fun and all things good in doggy-world.

  “Sami. Sit!” It didn’t work. She barked and snarled and displayed an alarming number of teeth. Neither of us wanted to try to get past her.

  Then it was over. She slumped and hung her head, like someone hit her off switch. I swore I heard her sigh.

  “What was that all about?”

  “I have no idea,” Jim said.

  We went to the porch and looked out the windo
ws, but saw nothing to explain Sami’s freak-out.

  Jim got a flashlight. “Stay here,” he said.

  “Yeah. Like that’s going to happen.” I followed him out the door.

  We searched the front yard and walked all around the house. We found nothing out of the ordinary, not even a big orange cat.

  [4]

  Blevins

  “THIS IS BORING.” BLEVINS AND the other hid in the shadows of the tree line.

  “Wait.”

  “They have beer, and I don’t.” The other promised him a good time, but so far they just stood around and watched a bunch of rednecks party. The yahoos were having fun. He wasn’t.

  “They also have a gun.”

  “So? I’d rather have beer. And I don’t see no fucking gun,” Blevins said.

  “Watch.”

  “I can’t see nothin.”

  “Shut up and pay attention.”

  Blevins groaned. If he humored the ugly son of a bitch, maybe he’d get bored and they could go find some real fun. Break windows or something. He shut up and watched.

  The once white doublewide had turned to dirty gray with pieces of its faded red trim missing. Rotted plywood covered two windows. Blevins squatted in abandoned buildings in better shape. On one corner hung an American flag and on the opposite, a Confederate flag, both survivors of a few too many winters. The trailer’s front yard held two barbecue grills and a rusted burn can, but the men gathered around a bonfire. One sat in a rickety lawn chair. Two more stood nearby. Empty beer cans littered the ground.

  Blevins didn’t recognize any of the three, but he knew one of the two pick-up trucks parked in the yard. While he was on his bike that afternoon, the jacked-up Ford F-150, tailgate covered in Pennzoil decals and stupid bumper stickers, passed him. The driver laid on the horn and cut close enough to run him off the road. He hoped it was parked there every night.

  He’d be back. Before he smashed the windows, he’d flatten the tires.

  Bits of talk and wood smoke drifted his way.

  “Hey. Mopey. You need to cheer up. She’s not worth it.” The man in the Show Me Your Tits shirt kicked Mopey’s chair. The chair teetered—Blevins waited for it to collapse, but Mopey regained his balance and righted himself. Mopey reached down, grabbed Tits’s ankle, and with a quick jerk, dumped him on the ground. Blevins laughed.