The older cop forces a grin. “Good thing my partner’s a lousy shot, heh?”
“Good thing,” I say.
“I don’t like you,” Hardy tells Jessie.
The older cop’s walkie-talkie crackles and he picks it up. “Room 215 secure.”
“Roger,” comes back. “Maintain perimeter. Unknown hostile still at large.”
“Look,” I say. “What’s going on? Is that a fair question?”
The older cop answers, “That kid made an escape. The crazy one you two put down.”
“A locked room on the seventh floor,” Jessie says. “Two guards outside the door. They didn’t see a thing. He’s just gone. Disappeared.”
“We’ll be in the hallway,” the older cop says to me. When Jessie doesn’t immediately follow him, he adds, “Both of us.”
Hardy turns back to me. He looks at the bullet hole. I think about where Jessie was, kneeling not five feet away from the edge of the bed. And how Hardy was doubled over me, a bull’s-eye big as a barn. I reach up with my finger and probe the hole. It is real and still warm. Hardy can see the calculations I’m making about trajectories. From the hallway I hear the old cop whisper, “Goddamn, Jessie. What the hell were you thinking? It’s a miracle you didn’t kill them both!”
Hardy grins wide and sly. His eyes light up like a Christmas tree and he mouths, “I told you so.”
-----
The Afterlife According to Snake. Bad Feelings About Penguins.
Beloved Champ. Three Moose. An Unexpected Mourner.
Quinn shows up ten minutes into The Price Is Right, hands me the suit Alix picked out and a pair of oversized sunglasses that he hopes will disguise my identity, though from whom I’m not exactly sure. While he takes care of the release paperwork, I struggle into costume. I’ve had the wounded wing free of the immobilizer a few times, but it costs me five minutes of distilled agony to slip into the white dress shirt. The Percocet does little to dull the throbbing in my shoulder, and I decide to opt for comfort over style, securing the arm back in the Velcro sling before slipping the jacket on, leaving the left sleeve empty. Standing before my bathroom’s tiny mirror, I try on the sunglasses. I look like a one-armed, blind private eye, like someone who’s been searching for clues in all the wrong places.
I lift Brook’s vsaji from the nightstand drawer, the only memento I need to keep of my time in 215. When I slide the healing necklace into my jacket pocket, I find a slip of paper. Unfolding it reveals Alix’s handwriting: In Raleigh tomorrow—Dance. Greenfield Lake, Sunday around 12:00? I could bring Brook.
When Quinn returns, he looks at me in my Stevie Wonder shades, says, “Hey, where’d B. C. go?” and laughs. I leave my hospital room without a good-bye or a backward glance, and Quinn leads me to a gray service elevator that lowers us into the basement. We weave our way through the back of the cafeteria, workers turning to stare as we pass. The muscles in my legs are stiff, but the movement feels good. Finally we cut down a concrete corridor and Quinn opens a door. I step into the cloudy gray day and draw my first breath of nonrecycled air.
“Our chariot awaits,” Quinn says, pointing. Parked amid the ambulances is the same vehicle I pissed on last week—Snake’s hearse, big and black, engine rattling like a getaway car’s.
As we approach I see Hardy’s thick form hunched behind the wheel. Even with the overcast sky, his wheat-colored hair shines. He manages half a smile and a wave. I follow Quinn around back, where he pulls open the long door above the bumper, the one you’d slide the coffin through. He tilts his head and says, “All aboard.”
Peering into the darkness, I see skinny bent legs and a cane. Snake sits in shadow toward the front on a sideways padded seat. I recognize it as one of the red booth cushions from Heaven’s Gate. A thin hand holding a cigarette floats into the slanted light. “Come join me.”
I crawl in and settle down across from Snake. Quinn swings the door shut and drops us into darkness. A few seconds later we rumble off. Daylight leaks around the black curtains masking the windows, so as my eyes adjust I can make out Snake’s hand lifting and falling from his mouth. I can hear him puffing, but I smell no cigarette smoke. Sitting sideways in the darkness but traveling forward is disorienting, the sensation of movement without progress.
Snake’s trembling hand extends toward me. “My name is Paul, Paul Hillwigger. We were friends before the accident. I owe you my life, and I—I deeply appreciate you coming today.”
Snake’s feeble handshake is a dead fish, and when he leans into me I glimpse one of his eyes clouded with red blood. “I remember you fine, Snake, just from what they tell me is a long time ago. It’s all pretty screwed up.”
“Call me Paul.”
The hearse hits the drilling hum of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and then the smooth whine of the highway out of town. We’re heading west and south on 74.
Snake’s odd request makes me strain to see more of his face, but I can’t. “Sure,” I say. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better than I was.” His thin hand again stretches across the darkness, and I open my palm to receive what he’s giving me. It’s a paper clip. “That’s how close the bullet came,” Snake says. “The surgeon told me it missed my heart by the length of a paper clip. I’m keeping one in my pocket to remind me of that, forever. I made a vow.”
I think of Brook’s vsaji. “We both got lucky.”
“Let’s note the distinction, friend, between being lucky and being fucking blessed.” Snake lifts his cigarette to his lips. I hear him inhale, blow into the air, but still I smell no smoke. His hand lingers on his sharp chin, and he scratches at his goatee.
I hand back his paper clip. “I take it you’re counting yourself among the fucking blessed.”
“Bet your ass. I’m a new man, Buddy. Even if you hadn’t gotten smacked in the head, you wouldn’t recognize the man I am today. That ring was my grave and my womb. You know what heaven sounds like, Buddy? Patsy Cline. Believe it.”
An eighteen-wheeler rumbles behind me, close enough to make me jump. “I completely believe you, Paul. I’m just not clear on what you’re talking about.”
“The paramedics told me I flatlined in the ring. My physical body perished. But I was saved. Redeemed. Resurrected. You follow me?”
“Absolutely.”
“One minute I’m on the mat, bleeding all over, feeling ragged and beat, then boom, I’m looking up at Patsy, onstage in this classy bar. She winks at me and smiles and a waitress brings me draft beer that’s on the house. I don’t recognize the other folks in the audience, but everyone’s cheery and laughing, all real glad to see me. We’re all singing along to ‘Back in Baby’s Arms’ and this cute old couple start dancing. Everything’s beautiful and light. Then Patsy just stops midsong and looks to her left. That’s when the penguin comes waddling out.”
“Did you say ‘penguin’?” I ask.
Snake nods. “The crowd gets all somber, and the penguin aims a flipper at me. ‘He’s the one,’ he says. So all the customers, all these good people I’ve been drinking and having a ball with, they grab hold of me and drag me down a hallway. They kick open the bathroom door and heave me in, only when I fall I land in swirling water, dark and crappy, like I’m in a giant toilet that just got flushed. Everything’s pitch-black now, and I’m spinning and dizzy in the cold water. Something slimy keeps licking at my legs. It has ahold of me, Buddy, do you understand? I’m going down.”
Not sure of how to respond, I say, “Yeah, I had a bad feeling about that penguin.”
The hearse slows and pulls to the left, loops down what must be an off-ramp. Snake moves his hand to his mouth and away again. “I slip under the surface of the murky whirlpool, gulp pure filth and gag. But then I hear the voice. Take hold of my hand.”
“Patsy?” I ask.
“No, no. Hardy. His arm plunges into the whirlpool and grabs me, pulls me against the vacuum trying to suck me down forever. Then blam! I wake up in the hospital with Hardy at my s
ide, holding my hand.”
“Appleseed went nuts in the ring,” I say. “He’s the one who smashed your python.” I hear myself and realize I’ve just blown my amnesia cover, but Snake doesn’t seem to notice.
“Hardy fulfilled his role. By killing poor Lucy—rest her soul—he liberated me from a dangerous life. In the hospital, Hardy told me I was part of a glorious plan, that God wanted me to live for a reason. Is that such a terrible thought, Buddy? Is that so unthinkable?”
I find myself contemplating the plans in which I’ve become involved. Their author seems a mystery to me, it’s true. We are both quiet for a while then, listening to the hum of the tires. The hearse clacks over railroad tracks, makes a left, slows to a stop.
When the back door swings open, the whiteness shocks my eyes. I don’t hear Patsy Cline. I duck out and Hardy stands before me. “Hello, Mr. Cooper.”
“Hi, Hardy.” Though it’s overcast, I put on my blindman sunglasses.
Hardy stares at my empty sleeve and asks, “Are you all better now?”
The pulse of blood in my shoulder is regular and even, though not painful. Fortunately, the draining and the accompanying odor have subsided. “I will be, Hardy. How about yourself?”
“I’m sad today.”
He leans in to help Snake from the hearse. In the light I see a purple bruise spread down his sunken cheek and disappear into his goatee. Blood stains the white of his left eye. It looks like a special effect. Snake lifts the cigarette to his mouth, but then I see it’s no cigarette at all, but white plastic. He notices me staring and explains, “Nicotaint. The body’s a goddamn sacred temple. From now on, I’m respecting mine. Like I said, I made a vow.” With this, he inhales and then flares his nostrils, blowing invisible smoke into the air.
Quinn appears at the side of the hearse and says, “Gentlemen, shall we proceed?”
As the four of us move across the parking lot, Snake leans heavily on his skull-capped cane—no longer just a prop—and Hardy’s strong arm.
The cemetery is the size of a small racetrack, clear-cut from a forest of pine trees a long time ago. We’re heading up a gentle rise topped by the chapel, a whitewashed cinder-block cube with a tiny steeple holding high the cross. Some kind of colorful mural brightens the side, but from this angle I can’t make it out. The grass is wet from an early morning rain and the sky is gray overcast, fine weather for a funeral. To our right, a serious black tent covers folding chairs. This I suppose is where we’ll lay Barney to rest. At the sight, Snake turns away. I’m curious about who will give the eulogy.
Alongside me, Quinn says, “I’m hesitant to discuss business on such a somber occasion, but I think it best that we plan on gathering tomorrow around noon. It’s imperative that we all share the same creative vision for the Bash. Coordinate.”
“Are you gonna go to the beach, Mr. Cooper?”
“You bet, Hardy.”
“Mr. Q,” Snake says, peering over his shoulder with the bloody eye, “I’m not sure I’ll be up for a public appearance. Not the day after.”
“Don’t underestimate the therapeutic value of work, P. H. View it as an integral component of the healing process. Plus, our investment at this stage is sizable.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Snake offers.
Closer to the chapel, the paved path cuts through a section of what I fear must be the graves of children. The small markers crowd each other. BELOVED LILLY: 1983-1990. Seven years old. IN SACRED MEMORY OF LITTLE MAX: 1986-1994. Eight years old.
“That there is Saint Francis of A-sissy,” Hardy says. I look up at the chapel mural, which indeed depicts a robed man surrounded by happy animals. In addition to the usual dogs and horses, there’s a panda and a moose. I tip my sunglasses to confirm what I’m seeing. The moose sports enormous antlers. Thankfully for Snake, no penguin is present.
I tell Hardy, “You’re exactly right.”
“Saint Francis loved animals. Whatsoever you do to the least of my creatures, so too you do unto me.”
Snake reaches into his pocket and pulls out a white handkerchief, brings it to his face. He sniffles and leans into Hardy.
A patch of fresh yellow flowers on one of the graves draws my eye. Someone put them here today, stood over this grave and prayed. A second color shines behind the yellow flowers, and I tilt my head down to see what else was left at the foot of the tombstone. A red dog dish.
The epitaph reads, CHAMP. A LONG, GOOD LIFE: 1980-1994.
The tombstone next to it reads, SUNSHINE. YOU WERE MY EVERYTHING.
And behind that, SCHULTZIE. ÜBER DACHSHUND.
My eyes jump to the chapel, now just ahead. Hardy holds the door as Snake and Quinn step inside. Over them arches a carved sign that reads ST. FRANCIS’ S PERPETUAL CARE BELOVED ANIMAL CEMETERY.
I’m so jarred by the realization that I’m standing over the graves of dead dogs and cats that I actually let out a laugh. Hardy scolds me from the top of the steps and I stifle my reaction, bow my head, and start toward the open door, not knowing what to expect.
What I see from the back are about a dozen mourners scattered across the pews, alone and in little groups. A calico cat wearing a rainbow-colored collar greets us in the lobby. It figure-eights Hardy’s legs then prances toward a simple wooden altar. Before it, positioned in the center aisle, is a seven-foot-long shiny black box, one foot wide.
Snake’s skeleton legs fold, and Hardy grabs him by the arm. “C’mon, sir, I’ll help you. You’ll be alright.”
From rafters overhead hang four different chandeliers which illuminate the murals decorating the cinder-block walls: to the right a Technicolor-bright Noah’s Ark, and to the left a rendering of Adam naming the animals before Eve showed up. Both cartoony drawings feature moose prominently, and it occurs to me that I’ve never seen one in the Garden of Eden before.
The four of us follow the calico up the aisle. We pass three blonds huddled together in a pew on the left, out of place and nervous. They’re waitresses from Snake’s Pit, ex-exotic dancers come to pay their last respects to their boss’s dead pet. One waves at Snake, who raises a weary hand like the Pope casting a blessing as he shuffles by.
On our right sits a group of wrestlers, huge shoulders bulging in jackets. Cro-Magnum Man nods sympathetically. The Native American Spirit Warrior kneels in prayer. The Mad Maestro, dressed in his purple neon tails, rolls his handlebar mustache between two fingers. At the end of the pew sits Jambalaya, the Creole King. On his lap he holds Gumbo, his rooster mascot, who flaps his wings when he sees me. My right hand slides up to cover my chest, and I smile in tentative recognition at my colleagues.
A Doberman wearing a rainbow collar—red, green, yellow—trots across our path, ignoring us. Snake lays one thin hand on the coffin, then we move on to the front pew. I slide in behind Snake and Hardy, who both kneel. Quinn sits on the other side of me and asks under his breath, “Funeral expenditures related to business would qualify for tax exemption, don’t you think?”
I look left at Quinn to shush him, and across the aisle, Rhonda’s green eyes sparkle. She’s kneeling alone in the opposite front pew, red hair wrapped beneath a black shawl. Our eyes come together, and she smiles.
“Excuse me,” I say, sliding past Quinn.
“Where are you going?” he wants to know, but I ignore him. I scoot past the coffin in the aisle and slide in next to her. Since Rhonda’s kneeling, I get down too. She says quietly, “Hi, Seamus, Seamus, Seamus.”
“How did you find me? What are you doing here?”
“The one true gift flows through my veins, remember? Besides, I thought we had a date at the drive-in.”
“Lady, I have zero idea what you’re talking about.”
Her smile thins. “Listen, no kidding around,” she says. “I need to talk to you about my future.”
From the back of the church, a booming female voice calls out, “All please rise and lift your voices to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Turn to page seventeen of your hymnal for ‘A
ll God’s Children.’”
Rhonda and I turn to the minister, dressed in a huge flowing robe that’s rainbow-striped like the collars of the Doberman and the calico. She reminds me of Mama Cass. We stand, and Rhonda flips a few pages of the hymnal, finds the right page, and holds the hymnal in front of me the way Alix used to when we’d bring Brook to mass. In the here and now, the minister proceeds up the aisle, belting out lyrics a cappella,
It’s a gift to have feathers,
It’s a gift to take wing.
It’s a gift from God
To hear the humpbacks sing.
Next to me, Rhonda sings too, raising her eyebrows in mock anger until I start mumbling the words.
At the end of the song I whisper, “I’m having enough trouble with my own future.” But Rhonda brings a finger to her pursed lips, bows her head. The high animal priestess stands solemnly behind the wooden table. She unfolds her hands and raises her arms. “Sisters and Brothers, I am the Reverend Evangeline and I bid you great welcome. Please be seated.”
We sit, and Rhonda places the hymnal back in its holder. She wears no rings. Rhonda catches me studying her hand but doesn’t seem to mind.
“We weep this day for Brother Hillwigger,” Reverend Evangeline tells us, “who has lost a beloved friend and now must put her to rest. Though it be clothed not in skin but by plumes or scales, all life reveals the beauty of the Lord’s creation.”
Snake sniffles, and Hardy pats him on the back.
Rhonda leans into me. “Say, that creep with the suspenders, does he always have that aura?” Quinn, clearly unnerved that I’m with an unknown, is staring at us. I shrug, a gesture intended to address both of their concerns. Two mallards swoop down from the wooden rafters and circle the chandeliers. One lands on the altar, eyes up the congregation like guests past their welcome.
“I can’t see auras,” I whisper to Rhonda.
Reverend Evangeline ignores the duck. “Brother Hillwigger and I prayed together on the phone last evening and he shared memories of the dearly departed. He told me how Lucy loved to come up into his bed when she knew she wasn’t allowed there. How she craved the spotlight and was always fidgety before a big performance. How she knew when he was low in spirit and would comfort him simply by her presence. And now, he must wonder, as we all must when death and disappointment visit us, why has God stripped the joy from my life?”
Buddy Cooper Finds a Way Page 16
