Garden Lakes

by Jaime Clarke

  “Yeah,” Sprocket said, not sure whether Warren was asking or reiterating.

  “You’re looking at Gemini,” Lindy said to Hands, who had swiveled the telescope north-northwest.

  “Cool,” Hands said. “It looks like two people holding hands.” We lined up behind the eyepiece, all except for Roger, who drifted away from the crowd. Who wanted to watch two people holding hands? Girlish behavior, he thought; just like the horoscopes. His mother liked the horoscopes, which was, as his father would say, case in point. “Now Roger,” she’d say, smoothing the paper on the table in front of her, affecting the tone of a sideshow mystic, “you must avoid reckless moves today, which only serve to embolden your critics. Stay calm.”

  “What’s yours?” Roger would ask eagerly, tilting his bowl to spoon out the sugary milk. The horoscopes seemed to young Roger to be real advice—better than advice: It was as if someone could tell the future. His mother had taken the time to explain the signs of the zodiac but could not answer Roger’s persistent questions about how the astrologers knew what they knew, which amazed Roger as he kept secret count of how many days his horoscope had been dead-on.

  “Okay, let’s see.” His mother scanned the page, gathering her terry-cloth robe around her neck against a blast of air-conditioning. “Here it is. Ohhh, this is a good one: ‘Be frugal. Make the least effort for the most effective gain. Going all out can exhaust you before you’re finished. Controlled energy, not wastefulness, will see you through the day.’”

  Roger would hurry home after school to compare notes with his mother, rereading the horoscopes, which his mother had folded and set on top of the refrigerator. They would freak each other out with stories that proved the horoscopes’ veracity, Roger often embellishing for effect.

  His father put a stop to the horoscopes his first day of retirement. Roger was startled to find his father seated at the kitchen table, unshowered and unshaved. His mother acted strangely too, busying herself around the kitchen: wiping the counters, rearranging the pea green Tupperware silos that warehoused the family’s supply of flour, sugar, and coffee. Was today Saturday? Roger asked himself. A glimpse of the calendar under the giant pineapple magnet on the freezer door confirmed that it was a school day. His father didn’t appear sick, though Roger didn’t possess the type of bravery required to stare at his father long enough to get an accurate diagnosis.

  His father was constantly reminding Roger of his deficiencies. His mother glanced at Roger dolefully when his father was in the room, but rarely said anything against him. Later, when Roger inquired about his father’s early retirement from the army, the swift end to what had been described not just by his father but by his father’s buddies—who frequently came around on Friday and Saturday nights, staying long after he and his mother had gone to bed—as a brilliant military career, the only derogatory thing his mother had to say was that his father’s promotion to brigadier general had been denied because his father lacked the “philosophical qualities” the army mandated of its high command.

  The colonel’s omnipresence—he was the last person Roger saw before leaving for school, the first he’d encounter upon his return—relegated his mother’s luminous personality to the darkened corners of conversation, until she disappeared altogether. Roger began tagging along on outings to the shooting range, trips that increased in frequency until the colonel was ready and waiting in the driveway when the bus let Roger off, which left his mother longing for the horoscope breakfasts and the long afternoons in the living room, where Roger would act out his day or she would assist in what she could understand of his homework. Those days seemed firmly in the past, and his mother surrendered to the harder, coarser Roger, the Roger who locked himself in his room, the Roger who hardly spoke at meals (when he would take meals in the kitchen and not in his room). She’d ceded all influence in Roger’s life to his father, glumly attributing it to Roger’s maturation. A boy needed his father if he was to become a man, she told herself.

  Roger dodged the light emanating from the classroom window. Peering in, he saw Mr. Malagon and Mr. Hancock deep in conversation. The front door would be open, Roger knew, but what about the kitchen? He had two chances: the door to the dining room and the door at the end of the hall that led to the kitchen.

  The hallway was suffused with muted conversation, and Roger realized his first piece of luck: Either Mr. Malagon or Mr. Hancock had shut the classroom door. His cover story, if caught, would be that he’d dropped in for a drink from the drinking fountain, having gotten thirsty from staring at the stars with everyone else, who he’d point out were right behind him. Assembly was sometimes good cover, he knew.

  The lock on the door to the dining room caught as Roger turned the knob, his hopes plummeting. What were the odds that the kitchen door was open? he wondered. He knew without doubt that the exterior kitchen door would be locked shut—it could be opened only from the inside anyway. He padded down the hall, past his alibi, the water fountain, knowing he’d need a better story if he was caught wrestling with the kitchen door.

  The door was unlocked. The knob turned so quickly Roger held his breath. He checked under the door to make sure he wasn’t about to surprise a clutch of sophomores in some last-minute breakfast preparation, but the air coming from under the door was cool and dark. He slipped inside, letting the door fall against his fingers, easing the knob’s metal tongue back into place.

  Roger’s eyes adapted to the darkness, the outline of the portable wall visible. He felt the sockets of the silverware caddy. Empty. He felt his way along the stainless steel refrigerator, tempted to pull open the double doors in search of a midnight snack, but he kept his focus. His eyes dilated, he maneuvered through the kitchen by sight, zeroing in on the drying rack, which boasted the day’s silverware. Relinquishing his plan for moderation, Roger clutched as many utensils as his hands could carry. A thump reverberated through the kitchen, quickening Roger’s pulse. No alibi would exonerate him now, he knew, and he backed against the door opposite the one that had delivered him, pushing against the horizontal bar with his backside. The door admitted him into the night and clicked shut behind him.

  Roger breathed shallowly. In the distance he could make out the voices of the astronomy club. This daring take would be enough to execute the prank and put the whole sordid business behind him. Actually, the prank seemed less onerous once he possessed the silverware. Who knew, it might even be legendary.

  Roger took a step and froze. The ground shifted near his feet, the drip-drip-drip from the air conditioner suddenly audible. What looked like six or eight pigs rooted through the remains of a prickly pear cactus, the swine having taken no notice of Roger. He heard a low grunting and took another step, choosing a course that would allow escape, but the sight of one of the pigs in profile chilled him: its long snout yawning to reveal its daggerlike teeth. Javelinas. Roger had seen a pack of fifty or so javelinas tear up a wild dog on a cable program (to his then delight). Roger identified the javelinas at the moment they identified him. The tines of the bouquet of forks glinted in the moonlight. Roger knew from the cable program that he was in less danger if the herd did not include newborns, or if a newborn was not grazing nearby. Roger couldn’t be sure that he was seeing the whole herd; the trajectory he’d mapped out could well land him in the middle of the herd, like the wild dog on television. He pressed against the door, afraid to let his hands fall to his sides lest the javelinas read this gesture as hostile. He could feel his anger rising. Fuck this, he thought. He stomped his foot at the two nearest javelinas, whose grizzled black and gray fur bristled. The javelinas eyed Roger. The rooting and grunting ceased. A musk, earthy and moldy, spread like dye in water. A chill gave Roger a spasm he punctuated by throwing both fists of silverware at the javelinas, sprinting in the other direction. Undaunted, the javelinas gave chase at angles manageable only for animals who bore their load so close to the ground.

  Roger crossed the outer loop, the click-clack, click-clack of miniature hooves i
n pursuit. Ahead, the gravel domes of the Grove rose. He imagined himself in some absurd video game, knowing instinctively that he could become surrounded if he were to make the wrong move. He circled the first pillar of gravel, chucking a good-size rock at the pod of javelinas. The rock landed without making contact, dividing the javelinas into two flotillas. Roger sprang from his hiding place. A dark stain the shape of an inverted triangle seeped through the front of his shirt as he skirted the edge of the Grove, hesitant about committing to entry for fear of being trapped.

  The lights of Garden Lakes grew faint as Roger charged past the Grove, expelled into the raw desert outside the development. The grunting sounds became intermittent woofing, like a dog barking at passing cars. Roger swooped up a rock in each hand, spinning around to face the pack. But the javelinas had withdrawn, scurrying off into the desert, alarmed by the yips and howls traveling through the bright sky.

  Roger let the rocks fall out of his unsteady hands. He looked back in the direction of Garden Lakes, the shadowy points of the Grove obscuring his view, isolating him from the development. The carbon-copy houses appeared fake, a front meant to shake off the cops. He scoured the perimeter, feeling like he’d been lured by the javelinas into a sinister trap. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the streetlights along the parkway snap out.

  Chapter Seven

  Brennan rearranged the set of prism paperweights on his desk, a nervous habit everyone at the Sun had grown used to, even fond of. The shiny pyramids skated across the desktop under Brennan’s thin, manicured fingers, gleaming under the fluorescence, sprinkling the walls with teardrop rainbows.

  “When can I see a draft?” he asked.

  “When have I ever shown a draft to anyone?”

  Brennan spun the paperweights counterclockwise, knocking them together like steelies in a playground game of marbles. “I’m asking,” he said.

  Charlie frowned. “Are you asking, or is someone else asking?”

  Brennan learned forward. “Wait a minute,” he said, “what are you accusing me of?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything,” Charlie said.

  “It sounds like an accusation,” Brennan said.

  “Do you blame me?” Charlie asked as Gallagher sailed by Brennan’s window, glancing into the office. He nodded to Gallagher, who sped out of view. “I know the McCloud family is pressuring you,” Charlie said, testing an unsourced rumor Gallagher had passed along. He gauged Brennan’s face for a reaction, but nothing.

  “My loyalties are to this paper,” Brennan said, thumping his desk for emphasis. “Everyone knows that. Christ.” Charlie knew Brennan often feigned umbrage and called upon his reputation when he felt threatened.

  “That doesn’t mean the McCloud family hasn’t been crawling up your ass,” Charlie said, switching tack, injecting his voice with sympathy. “I’ve got a stack of messages from up and down that family tree on my desk.”

  “They think you have an ax to grind,” Brennan said.

  “I don’t,” Charlie said flatly.

  “Yeah, well, they’re convinced you do.”

  “Where’s their proof?”

  “They don’t have any,” he said. “But they’ve got their suspicions.” Brennan’s harried and much-beleaguered secretary knocked, but he waved her off.

  “What suspicions?” Charlie asked. Brennan ticked off a series of seemingly unconnected columns Charlie had written over the last year or so: the closure of a private swimming club McCloud had funded with monies he may or may not have gained illegally through a complicated shell game involving the books of American Community; the misfortune of the Tongan families McCloud had imported as landscapers—so many they resided in a community together south of Phoenix—for his assortment of hotels and master-planned communities; the death of McCloud’s protégé by a self-inflicted gunshot in the driver’s seat of his Lexus in front of a toy store on Camelback Road. The protégé had broken alliance with McCloud upon McCloud’s indictment and begun a new company telemarketing genealogy books to those predisposed to pay for such mementos. The company sank into the red and the protégé became aloof, his suicide effectively ending the company and leaving its employees without pay; the average employee was owed in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars.

  “Those are all legitimate, newsworthy items,” Charlie said. “Is the Sun going to start assigning me topics?”

  “Hey!” Brennan nearly catapulted out of his seat. “Don’t start saying things like that. No way. Have I ever interfered?”

  “Some might call this little tête-à-tête interference,” Charlie shot back.

  Brennan’s secretary rapped again, but Brennan ignored her. “The point is that we ran a story on the swim club and we covered the protégé’s death in the Metro section, as news—”

  “Columns are for comment and opinion,” Charlie said. He folded his arms. “That’s what Duke hired me for.”

  Brennan quieted at the invocation of the publisher’s name. Charlie knew Duke prized him above others at the Sun, and Charlie could threaten to move to another paper if Brennan persisted.

  The phone buzzed on Brennan’s desk. “I told you I didn’t want to be interrupted,” he yelled at his secretary through the glass. She motioned for him to pick up the phone. “What? What is it?” Brennan’s face contorted. “Richter who?” Charlie felt a heat rise in his chest. Gallagher’s paranoia about the county attorney’s private investigator had seemed unfounded until Brennan spoke his name out loud. “Okay, yeah, whatever,” Brennan said. He cupped the phone. “I have to take this. Promise me you’re not going after McCloud.”

  “I promise,” Charlie answered. He stood as Brennan swiveled away, the phone cord falling into the groove in the back of his leather chair. Charlie tried to eavesdrop, but Brennan’s voice lowered as Richter came on the line. He heard the county attorney’s name mentioned and gently closed the door behind him, the air thinning as he negotiated the newsroom, desperate for enclosure. He guessed what Richter was after, idly wondering if the county attorney was friends with the farmer Charlie had so resolutely forsaken for his own career. Over the years, Charlie had braced for retaliation from the farmer, whose business collapsed under the weight of the Heather Lambert case, but the quiet that followed such a public dustup had been chilling. Charlie had reasoned away the farmer’s objections to his assertions that the illegal immigrant had without a doubt been employed by the farmer at the time he plowed into Heather Lambert, who was the perfect victim to tap into the discontent Phoenicians held for illegal aliens. But Charlie hadn’t been able to erase from his mind the interview he’d held with one of the employees of the farm, who confided in him that the illegal alien had been a friend of his from Mexico and didn’t work for the farmer—the employee had spit the word “friend” in his broken English, and Charlie surmised that the illegal alien was a source of turmoil in the employee’s life, maybe even a relative—and that he’d conned the employee into lifting the keys to the farmer’s truck under the guise of needing to run a quick errand. That this quick errand was to procure a quarter pound of marijuana could’ve been verified by even a cub reporter.

  Charlie half expected the farmer to produce the employee as a witness in his defense against the maelstrom of bad publicity and innuendo. Charlie had promised not to use the employee’s name, and the employee must’ve been baffled by Charlie’s silence, another fountain of anxiety in those heady days at the Phoenix Tab. Charlie imagined the employee’s indignation at the concealment of the truth or, at the very least, the threat to his employment, an indignation that was left to simmer as the days and weeks rolled on, the papers and airwaves filled with vitriol. Charlie’s recklessness grew in the shade of the employee’s revelation, Charlie’s denunciation of the farmer’s practices bordering on libel, but he was driven by self-righteousness, a force not easily overcome by reason.

  Charlie had indulged in a bit of self-righteousness at the Tab a month or two prior to the Heather Lambert story too. One of
the senior reporters was caught falsifying a source for a puff piece spotlighting the struggles of the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving to heighten awareness leading into the Fourth of July holiday. The reporter had credited a compliment about the chapter to a man on the street who existed only in the reporter’s mind. Charlie had suffered innumerable afternoons subjected to the reporter’s unregulated rants about this and that. The managing editor was said to be the reporter’s best friend in the world, and, worse, the two were neighbors, so Charlie’s complaints about the workplace went unheard. Not even the reporter’s politically incorrect language—ranging from calling one of the interns “doll” to referring to Mexicans as “spics”—warranted so much as a reprimand from the managing editor. So when Charlie learned of the journalistic shortcut by chance, when the reporter accidentally attributed the fabricated quote to someone who shared the same name as the bartender at a popular watering hole—who refuted the words were his—Charlie seized the chance to ride the reporter in front of the Tab staff, including the managing editor. “Just make it up,” became a catchphrase he bandied about the office. The reporter began avoiding him, but Charlie’s thirst wasn’t quenched and he began taunting both the managing editor and the reporter. He’d tell an outlandish tale and finish with “I don’t know why I said that, it’s not true,” before turning to the reporter and saying, “Maybe you can use that in your next piece.” The managing editor pleaded with him to tamp down the sarcasm, but to no avail—the office had been infected and soon everyone was taunting the reporter.

  When the fevered pitch of his offensive against the reporter dissipated, Charlie’s frustrations emboldened him. What began as a casual lunch with the intern the reporter had flirted with turned dark when Charlie filled the intern’s ears with the stories of private lust he claimed the reporter had admitted in the intern’s absence. He surprised himself with sound bites about deviant sexual behavior he’d only seen in movies or on the Internet. The intern’s giggles transformed into rage toward the reporter sometime between their ordering lunch and Charlie’s paying the check.