Jokers Club

by Gregory Bastianelli

  Would the whole town be mourning my death when it came? Or would I be placed here in my designated spot, to be forgotten with all the others. This cemetery was growing, stretching itself out, like the tumor that clung barnacle-like to my brain. Soon, would it outgrow the whole town? Death was something that would not stop.

  I moved down a path parallel to the slope rising gently to my right. As I glanced up, I saw a man who moved slowly behind the birch trees. I stopped. The man, who was thin like the trees that nearly concealed him, emerged from the cover of a birch and looked at me.

  I froze, not from the chilled air that engulfed my body, but from a sudden shock that numbed my soul.

  “Woody!” I screamed.

  He turned and ran.

  It was him. His face was smudged with dirt, his loose clothes covered with pine needles and dead leaves, as if he had been crawling along the ground, but there was no mistaking it. It was Woody.

  I ran after him, zigzagging around the trunks and headstones. The incline made my footing slow. My legs were numb and aching from walking all day long. I wasn’t gaining on him. He moved swiftly, but I could see him in the distance ahead.

  “Wait, Woody!” I cried, using up almost all the breath my lungs held. “Stop!”

  I came to the top of the rise, where the trees ended in a clearing of graves, and stopped. As my breath sputtered in rapid bursts that stung the bottom of my lungs, my eyes searched. There was no sign of him. Beyond the clearing began the thick brush and woods that led to the Colonel’s hidden tomb. I closed my eyes and listened, hoping to hear the sound of Woody’s movement through the undergrowth. When the echo of my breathing dimmed in my ears there was only silence.

  Then they picked up the sound of jingling bells.

  It came from somewhere off to my left. I moved toward the sound. I saw its origin as I neared. My body trembled. What was going on in my head?

  The Joker stood in an open grave, spade shovel in hand, digging out shovelfuls of dirt and throwing them on a pile beside the grave. He went about his work, not looking at me as I approached the side of the grave and peered down.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Digging,” he replied, still not looking up. He was almost completely below ground level. I looked at the name on the headstone.

  JASON NIGHTINGALE

  I cringed.

  “Why are you digging?”

  He stopped and looked up. His black lips were spread in a wide grin. “Why, to get to the bottom of course.” He dug the tip of the shovel into the dirt and tossed it over his shoulder.

  “But why are you digging here?”

  “Can you think of a better place to dig?”

  How about the plot that’s reserved for me? I thought.

  I heard the thump as his shovel struck something hard. I closed my eyes tight. Make this vision go away please.

  “Ha, ha,” he laughed. I heard the scraping sound of dirt being brushed off the lid of the coffin. I opened my eyes to see the Joker climb out of the hole. He stood beside the pile of dirt he had removed, one hand leaning on the shovel, the other extended out toward the hole, palm open.

  “There you are,” he said.

  “I don’t want to look.”

  His smile faded. “What are you afraid of?”

  I was afraid of everything. But my body did move, it did take small steps to the edge of that hole. I looked down.

  I wanted to scream.

  There was no coffin. Instead, lying in its place was a refrigerator.

  “Don’t do this to me,” I cried.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” the Joker said. “I had nothing to do with this.”

  I fell to my knees beside the hole. Every muscle in my body trembled in spasmodic fits. I put my face in my hands, trying to hold the tears in.

  “I don’t want to remember.”

  “Geoffrey,” came a voice. It sounded like it came from a great distance. It wasn’t the Joker’s voice. It was higher pitched. It was a youthful voice; it sounded like it came from …

  I took my hands away from my face, staring from behind watery eyes into the hole.

  “Geoffrey!” came the muffled voice from inside the refrigerator.

  It was Jason’s voice.

  “Help me,” it said.

  I stared, afraid to move.

  “Don’t just sit there,” the Joker said. “He needs your help.”

  “Please, help me.” The voice was louder.

  Frantically, I jumped into the hole, onto the refrigerator, grabbing the door handle and pulling it. It wouldn’t open.

  “Geoffrey!” the voice screamed. “Let me out!”

  I yanked on the handle, but it still would not open.

  “I can hardly breathe, Geoff.” The voice was growing weaker.

  “Hang on, Jason!” I screamed. “I’ll get you out!” I kept jerking the handle back with all my might, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “I … can’t … breathe.” The voice was fading.

  I began pounding my fists on the door, smashing them one after the other.

  “Open dammit! Open!” No sound came from the other side. “No!” I screamed. “I can’t be too late! Not again! Please no!” I collapsed on the door, shaking, heaving tears from my eyes, one fist still pounding in ever slowing thumps, like the beats of the heart fading on the other side of the door. I pushed myself up onto my knees.

  “This can’t be happening!” I screamed to the sky above.

  The Joker looked down at me, smiling.

  “Leave me alone!” I jumped up and scrambled frantically up the side of the grave, momentarily panicking that I wouldn’t be able to get out. Once on the ground, I ran as fast as I could, away from that grave, away from that refrigerator. Just like I had run those many years ago.

  SEARCHING FOR JASON NIGHTINGALE

  Martin Peak was nervous. He lay on his bed in his room, sweating, his whole body shaking; he could feel his heart drumming in his chest. What had they done? This was a nightmare. This couldn’t be happening. Could it?

  He closed his eyes and kept repeating to himself: It’s only a dream; it didn’t happen.

  “Martin!” his mother called from downstairs. His eyes opened. No, he wasn’t dreaming. Oh, how he wished he was.

  “Martin!”

  He slid off his bed and shuffled to his bedroom door, opening it and leaning out into the hall. From the master bedroom to the right he could hear the deep breathing of his father and the puffs of air from his oxygen tank.

  His father wasn’t long for this world. Years of smoking had scarred his lungs for good, and he relied heavily on the oxygen tank that pumped air into those damaged organs. But he wouldn’t be able to suck on that tank for long. Soon the air would run out for him.

  Just like the air had run out for Jason Nightingale in that refrigerator. But Martin’s father was pushing seventy, and Jason had been a young kid just starting out in life.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Martin always felt odd having such an old father, and one who seemed to have been sick for as long as he could remember. In fact, it seemed like his father (always father, never dad) had been sick for Martin’s entire life. When he was gone, it would just be his mother and him. His older brother, Richard, lived in the Midwest and had his own family to take care of. He was fifteen years older than Martin, so he hardly felt like a brother at all, more like a young uncle. He was off to college before Martin could even remember him living at home. Then a job, marriage, kids. Yeah, it wasn’t like really having a brother. Not someone you could turn to when you were in trouble.

  And boy was he in trouble now, very big trouble. And he couldn’t stop shaking. He needed to talk to somebody. The authorities were looking for Jason Nightingale, and eventually they would find him. And then what?

  His mother called again. “Why don’t you answer me?”

  When his father was gone, he would be left caring for his mother, who wasn’t in the best of health either.
Even as his father’s lungs deteriorated, his mother kept puffing away at her own cigarettes, sometimes right in the same room with his father and the oxygen tank. It was a wonder the house didn’t just blow up.

  Martin often thought his birth was an accident. Why else would they wait fifteen years to have another child? But then he began to wonder if his birth wasn’t planned after all. That maybe his parents realized his brother Richard would be going off to school in a few years and moving on, and who would there be to take care of them? It would be just like his father to plan his birth so when he was gone, Martin could take care of his mother.

  But what he really needed right now was for someone to take care of him, because something really bad had happened, and he hadn’t done anything to stop it.

  And you could have, he told himself. That’s what tormented him the most. You could have spoken up. Someone should have spoken up. Geoff or Dale should have spoken up, but it could have just as easily been you, he told himself. You didn’t always have to be the quiet one. Sometimes you deserved to be heard. Sometimes you did have something to say. And maybe just this once you could have made somebody listen to you.

  “Come down here right now. There’s someone here that needs to talk to you.”

  Martin crept to the top of the stairs. Who? Who was here? Had Jason got out of the refrigerator and come for him? Was his angry rotting corpse waiting for him on the couch downstairs, waiting to make him pay for not speaking up to the others? Make him pay for always being the quiet one.

  The stairs looked incredibly steep as he stared down them, wondering who was waiting for him down there. He plopped one foot on the first tread, then, like a Slinky, plodded one step at a time down the stairs to the bottom.

  Chief Hooper stood in his living room.

  God, he knows, Martin thought. Now his heart wasn’t pounding anymore. It had stopped completely in his ribcage. Sweat beaded up along his temple.

  His mother stared at him. “The chief needs to ask you something,” she said.

  Hooper glared at him, eyes burning into his and Martin wanted to look away, but he felt frozen in place.

  “Jason Nightingale is missing,” his mother said, before the chief could even open his mouth. “Did you know that?”

  “Missing?” Martin said in a fractured voice.

  “Yes,” Chief Hooper said. “He was supposed to be spending last night at Lonny Mudge’s house but apparently didn’t. His parents were expecting him to come home in the morning. But he didn’t do that either. Did you see him yesterday afternoon?”

  The chief glared again.

  Remember, Martin thought. Remember the story Oliver told them to say. Stick to the story and we’ll be okay.

  “Yeah,” he managed. “We, uh, were playing. Then, um. I don’t remember seeing him after that.” Gosh, you idiot, that sounded stupid. You’re a stupid liar, Can’t you even lie right? “I guess, I thought he must have just gone home.”

  The chief was silent for a moment.

  “Are you sure,” his mother asked.

  Martin nodded, not trusting his voice to try to speak anymore.

  “Well, that’s the same story the other kids in the neighborhood have said.” He looked at Martin. “If you – remember – anything else, you be sure to let me know.”

  Martin nodded again.

  The chief turned to his mother. “Thank you, Mrs. Peak.”

  After he left, Martin’s heart started beating again.

  Once his heart got moving, Martin did too. He had to find someone to talk to. He couldn’t keep this to himself. He needed to share the panic.

  Running down Maple Street, he could see Geoff up ahead in his front yard. He yelled and waved his arms and Geoff spotted him. Martin was nearly out of breath when he got to him.

  “Hooper was at my house,” he finally managed to spout, hands on his knees, bent over, catching his breath.

  “Yeah, he was here too,” Geoff said. He seemed calmer. God, how could anyone be calm in this situation?

  “I thought he could tell I was lying,” Martin said.

  “Why? What’d he say?”

  “Nothing.” Now Martin began to cry. “It’s just … I don’t know.” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “I don’t think I was too convincing. I was really scared, Geoff.”

  “Come on. I’m meeting Dale at the Pines.”

  They raced through the ravine and out the other end onto Elm Street and then up the hill to the Pines. There Dale was already waiting for them. The three of them sat against the big boulder.

  All below them they could see groups of people canvassing the area out in the fields beyond the cemetery and along the shores of the lake. A marine patrol boat even cruised along the surface of the water.

  “They certainly don’t think he’s a runaway,” Dale said.

  “No.” Geoff responded.

  “They definitely think something happened to him.”

  “Maybe we should make a call,” Martin suggested.

  “What?” Dale asked. “Are you kidding?”

  “Well, it can be, you know, anonymous,” Martin explained. “One of us could go down to the pay phone in town and just call, tell them where to look, and hang up.”

  “That’s crazy, Martin,” Geoff said. “Then they’ll know somebody did something to him.”

  “But we did.”

  “Martin,” Dale said, frustrated. “They have to find him themselves. They have to think it was an accident.”

  “But it WAS an accident!” Martin screamed.

  “Shut up!” Dale yelled. “We have to keep cool.”

  “Easy, Dale,” Geoff said. “Nobody’s going to hear us up here.”

  Dale looked around, as if expecting someone to come around the corner of the boulder. Martin began crying again. It made him feel like a baby, but he couldn’t help it. He was scared. He wished he could be as cool as Dale or as calm as Geoff, but he just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t in him.

  “What a mess,” Dale said, shaking his head.

  Martin stood up and took a few steps over to the side of the hill. He couldn’t sit still. From here he could see the Tin Man’s house and behind it, the pile of junk. There was the refrigerator nestled among it, holding its gruesome contents. Martin felt like screaming at the top of his lungs, Look over there!

  But of course he didn’t. No. He had to do what Oliver said. They always did what Oliver said. Wasn’t that how they got into this mess in the first place? Doing what Oliver said?

  Martin never felt the courage to stand up to Oliver. That he could blame himself for. But Geoff and Dale were smarter, stronger and cooler. Shouldn’t they have stood up to Oliver? Shouldn’t they have said something to stop what happened? Damn them. They could have and they should have.

  A few days later, Martin and Geoff went out fishing on the lake. Martin’s father had a canoe. In Martin’s whole life, he had never known his father to use it; it just hung abandoned on the wall in the garage. He often wondered why his father had it, and then found out one day that he used to take Richard out on the lake to go fishing in it. Of course, Martin thought. His father was probably healthier then and could do things like that with Richard. But he could no longer do those things with Martin. Of course not.

  So he and Geoff took the canoe down and carried it, with their fishing poles and some night crawlers, over to the lake. They paddled out into the middle to where they figured it was the deepest. They hoped that’s where they’d have the best chance to catch Behemoth, the lake trout that was a legend around here for its size. Several people had supposedly hooked it before, or so they would say, but it always outfought the fisherman and got away. And now it roamed the lake with two or three hooks still imbedded in its mouth.

  It had inspired Geoff to write a story about a prehistoric fish that attacks some fishermen in a boat. Geoff had read it to the gang in the clubhouse one night. Martin thought it was a pretty cool story. It was more gory though than scary, with the fish chomping the hell
out of a couple of the fishermen.

  Martin didn’t care about catching a fish, prehistoric or otherwise. He just didn’t want to be alone. And being at home with his parents didn’t count. Bringing food and drinks up to his father’s bedroom and getting his mother a fresh pack of cigarettes wasn’t the kind of companionship he needed. He might as well be alone for all that would do for him.

  But being with Geoff was good. Sitting out here on the lake, his problems seemed so far away. But it was never too far. At some point they would have to reel in their lines and paddle back to shore and it would still be there, hanging over them.

  Geoff baited the lines for him, because Martin hated putting the night crawlers on. He hated even touching the things. That’s what Geoff should write a story about, a giant night crawler, because they had nasty teeth. That thing could eat up the town, just like one of the movies they would watch on television on Saturday afternoons.

  They cast their lines and watched them sink into the depths of the lake. Then they just sat there silently. What could they say? What do you talk about when you caused someone’s death?

  “This isn’t going to end good,” Martin said.

  “Huh?” Geoff looked up from his line, in a daze.

  “They will find him and something bad will happen to us.”

  “I know they’ll find him.”

  Martin looked up at him. He seemed so calm.

  “What will happen?” he asked.

  Geoff sighed. “I don’t know. Oliver says …”

  “Who cares what Oliver says,” Martin yelled. “He doesn’t know everything.”

  Geoff stared back, silent.

  “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen,” he finally said. “I just don’t know.”

  Martin thought for a moment. “Well, pretend it’s one of your stories you’re writing. What would you write that would happen.”

  Martin could see Geoff thinking deeply, mulling it over. Then he shrugged his shoulders.