I raised my eyebrows and said, “We?”
“Listen, I’m not doing much right now and if you want, and if I won’t get in your way, I’d like to kind of tag along.”
I drank deeply, savoring the tongue tickling richness of Gretchen’s house wine, which probably cost at least five dollars a gallon. I started to speak but a jaw creaking yawn asserted itself. I thought of the long ride home and wondered if I’d be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning. I took a deep breath and looked at Priscilla and said, “I’d be glad to have you tag along, but you’re going to get bored. Investigations consist mostly of walking a paper trail and conversing with tiresome people.”
Her eyes brightened and she straightened up, drank an ounce of wine and repeated, “So what are we going to do next?”
“I’m not sure, we still haven’t got anything of note. You talk with Eva and get a list of people Frank knew and we’ll start chatting them up. If we talk to enough people something should surface and we can add it to what we have and continue on. In other words we build our case piece by piece as long as we can find pieces.”
“You told Ona you were a virgin detective. So how come you suddenly know all about it?”
“I don’t know all about it, but I do know how to do research. There are two kinds, primary and secondary. Secondary is using sources that someone else has dug up and recorded, like a book or an entry in an encyclopedia. Primary is hunting up original stuff on your own. Researching your Grandfather’s death will consist of finding what are hopefully primary sources of information, mainly people who remember what was going on ten years ago.”
She sucked wine up the straw, put a finger over the top and tilted her head back. She lifted the straw high above her head and opened her mouth, lifted her finger, and let the wine drop down her throat. Then she looked at me and said, “So what’s your gut feeling?”
“I don’t have a gut feeling, doing research requires patience, persistence, and an aversion to second guessing oneself. We may find a solution, or we may spend a great deal of time and energy and find nothing and have to give up.”
“But if we do find out what really happened to Frank you’ll get Eva’s five thousand and it’ll all be worth it.”
“Yes it will,” I said. After a time I asked, “Does Eva have five thousand dollars?”
She looked at me and smirked like a naughty child. “You’re in a kind of a race, Old Man. You find out what happened to Frank before Eva dies and you’ll get the five thousand. You don’t you won’t, Ona will use it to bury her, she never did care too too much for Frank.”
We shut up and ate. Several college kids were sharing a pitcher of beer in the front booth and two elderly couples were having an early supper at the counter. The woodstove was creaking and popping, and the joint reeked of wood smoke, coffee, and fried meat. I finished the chowder and managed to refrain from lapping up the remains with my tongue, but only just. In a few more years I’ll probably forgo silverware altogether and just dip my head to the plate like a dog. I refilled my mug and leaned back. The alcohol had dulled some of the pain resulting from far too much exercise and I felt fairly content. I had a cold seven miles to pedal but that was yet to come so I could be content a bit longer.
I was looking at Cat, who was dozing in front of the stove, and being content when Priscilla said, “So when did you drop out of the world and start pedaling around on a bicycle?”
“About twenty years ago.”
When I didn’t elaborate, Priscilla waved a hand in my face and said, “Come on Old Man… details, gimme some details.”
“It’s fairly tame stuff. Thoreau said: ‘The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation,’ and he’s right. My desperation reached a peak one fine Spring day that twenty or so years ago. I was teaching about a hundred and fifty freshmen and sophomores Early American History that year and out of the hundred and fifty, maybe twenty were actually interested in the course. It was obvious most of them didn’t give a damn about history or learning in general, they just wanted easy credits. I got into arguments with dozens of them about their grades and it was apparent when talking to them that they were self concerned, intellectually stunted, and ethically shallow.”
Priscilla snorted and smiled. “No shit. You don’t have to be a college professor to know that about most people, especially men.”
I shrugged and drank. “Anyway, I walked home that day and as soon as I entered the door, Barbara, my wife, collared me in the hall and informed me that we had to buy a new house. It seemed that the one we had, which was paid for, didn’t suit her needs anymore. It suddenly occurred to me that Barbara was of the same ilk as the hundred and twenty odd students who didn’t give a damn about history and were just interested in getting a passing grade, thus satisfying the school’s history requirement.
“Something snapped deep in my mind. I dropped my briefcase on the floor and walked into the bedroom, packed a suitcase, and walked out. I resigned from the college, my house, and my wife, traveled to the places I wanted to travel to, came back here and kind of settled in.”
“So now you’re living the good life.”
I thought about it for a time. Finally I said, “No, my life is still an inconsequential folly.” To get her away from me I asked, “And you? Life is exercise?”
“Oh yeah. It seems like I spend most of my time being bored. But exercise centers me, it gets the chemicals lined up and keeps me from going buggy.”
“Are your parents still alive?”
“My dad bugged out a year after I was born. My mother, Eva’s daughter, was a R.N. We lived and worked in a county home in northern Minnesota.” She gave me a look and smiled. “You want rustic? You want wild and remote? Go to northern Minnesota. Mom was a charge nurse on Ward C, which was mostly Alzheimer’s and the seriously wacko.
“We lived there for seventeen years. The place was old, really old, and the funding was marginal and they were always chronically short of staff. I helped Mom with the residents since I was ten. I’d get up at five, go to the ward and help the residents shit, shower, and shave, then have breakfast and go to school, which sucked to the max. Then I’d come back to County and work on the ward until six or so. Weekends I’d put in four or five hours a day. Back then there weren’t so many laws and regulations and Admin arranged it so I was given an aid’s pay, which helped us a lot.
“Then one day Mom’s three pack a day habit caught up with her. We were eating supper during a thunderstorm and she made a little noise, dug a hand in her chest, said, “Good-by, My Love,” and fell off the chair. The cigarette she had in her mouth got jammed up her nose when her head hit the floor.
“I bummed around, made the army take me and spent four years as a MP, got discharged and lived here and there, did this and that, and now I’m here keeping Ona company and helping out with Eva.”
“You were a MP? Why didn’t you investigate the death of your Grandfather?”
“Listen, MP doesn’t mean NYPD. I spent most of my time doing traffic and gate duty. The last year of my hitch I did some serious stuff like burglary and drugs, but mostly it was just dealing with lowlifes.”
“You made the army take you?”
She rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger and said, “Yeah. They said they had a height requirement and I said I met it. After a major hassle they came around.”
I had to ask. “So how tall are you?”
“Five feet and an inch, I’m five foot one. Jesus, you and the army, get a grip.”
… . .
WE WALKED THE BIKES TO THE park and leaned them against the Gazebo. While Priscilla trotted to the deli to buy wine, I wrapped Cat in her quilt, put a few kibbles under her nose, and zipped up the trailer. It was dark and getting cold. I wanted to be home, snug in my wooden cave and basking in the flickering warmth of the stove and thinking of things that could have been. But I wasn’t, so I stood in the gazebo and waited for Priscilla.
She came out of the deli and I watched her w
alk back to the park. She didn’t swagger exactly, but she had that walk athletes favor, kind of an aggressive strut. Small, plain, elf like, and she struts. It must be attitude. She jumped up the steps, pulled a bottle of seltzer and a bottle of red wine out of a bag and let the bag float to the floor. She poured half the seltzer over the rail of the Gazebo and replaced it with wine.
“So what was it like, being a child working in a county home?” I asked.
Priscilla handed me the bottle, waved her hand at the dark empty street, and said, “Listen, everyone is screwed up in some way or another and sometimes it’s hard to tell who should be carrying the ward keys. Except in Ward C. In Ward C you always knew, the poor schmucks.”
I nodded as if I knew what she was talking about and said, “I remember my father’s brother had to be put in a nursing home. I don’t know if he was demented or not, but I do remember he was violent. One time he gave a nurse a black eye so the doctor changed his medication and turned him into a zombie. He was sad and gentle until he died.”
Priscilla grunted and said, “Oh yeah, been there. Someone can be the nicest, gentlest person in the world for seventy years, then they get dementia and suddenly they’re Rocky Balboa. When I was about twelve or thirteen we had this guy named Wilton Cummings get admitted. Big dude. When he arrived he weighted over two forty. He was a football star and then a big deal coach. Anyway, he gets to be seventy something and ends up at County, demented as hell, a real fruit loop. He refused to take a bath, swore a lot, and at meals, what he didn’t eat he threw at anyone walking by. He also liked to open his pants, and while fondling his cock, try to grab the nearest woman with his other hand. It was kinda funny, because after the first few days, all the women would walk a circle around him while giving him the hairy eyeball.
“So one night I’m walking down the corridor between wards C and D. It was like, really narrow and there’s maybe two forty watt bulbs lighting the whole corridor. I’m halfway along and suddenly there’s Wilton. How he managed to get out of the ward, nobody ever found out. Anyway, he’s standing there looking like something out of a horror movie, and he’s got his pants unzipped and his cock is out and hard. I remember being surprised he had a hard on because Mom used to say there wasn’t too many men that age could get it up. Anyway, he’s coming toward me like he’s in a Frankenstein movie and he’s the monster. I turned to run and he’s a lot faster than I thought, because he grabs my shoulder and throws me into the little alcove that people used to sit in with their relatives and talk.
“So I’m on the floor watching him come at me and there’s no way I’m gonna get around him. He’s grunting and smiling and pulling on his cock and smelling like a pile of moldy jockstraps. When he got almost above me I rolled up on my shoulders and rammed both feet into his crotch as hard as I could. I did it twice. I remember hearing myself grunt like those teenage tennis players you see on television. Wilton stops moving and just hangs over me like some kind of statue. Then he lets out a moan and goes over backwards. Made one hell of a noise. I got up and ran back the way I came and called Mom. She said to come in and pretend like I didn’t know anything about it, which I did. Old Wilton never bothered anybody again, and when Mom died and I left, he was still on the ward, though he weighed maybe ninety pounds.”
Jesus Christ. I couldn’t think of any worthwhile comment, so I took a drink instead. A police car drifted into view and glided along Main Street. I watched it turn down Summer Street and said, “So why didn’t you stay in the military and work your way up the ladder? Or failing that, why didn’t you join a police force when you got out of the Army?”
“Regimentation and obedience, I shouldn’t have made such a big squeal about forcing the army to take me. I should have known better, I’m not so good with regimentation and obedience, which is why I didn’t join the cops when I got out. Not that they would have taken me.”
“Height?”
Priscilla nodded. “Yeah, height, nobody likes a short round.”
I stood up, and bravely ignoring various aches and pains, eased down the steps and walked twenty feet or so to a clump of bushes and pissed. When I returned, Priscilla shook her head and laughed. “Handy item, a cock. Now, if I have to pee, I gotta find a bathroom or go into the brush, drop my pants and get a cold butt and wet hair. Someone sees you pee in the park? No problem, just a man being a man. Me? I’d get called a pervert.” Then she said, “But I’m glad I’m a woman, most men are foolish, simple, and childish.”
After a moments thought, I decided to also let that slide by without comment.
We sat on the worn wood floor drinking and letting the cold wind blow over us. We talked little and the silence was comfortable. In my other life I always felt the need to quell the silences with inane babble and must have bored the hell out of a lot of people, including myself.
We finished the wine. I stood up, and accompanied by significant pain, lifted my arms over my head, swooped down, touched my toes and held it. My muscles seemed to have the elasticity of cement and the pain was strong and deep. To avoid verbal zingers from Priscilla, I clamped my mouth shut to keep from groaning out loud and allowed the big leg muscles slowly lengthen. I counted to forty and straightened.
Priscilla stood up, and with a fluid motion pitched the empty bottle toward a trash barrel about thirty feet away. It swished in and the barrel rang like a broken bell. She turned to me and said, “So what about tomorrow?”
I thought about it and said, “Why don’t we meet at Gretchen’s around twelve, twelve thirty?”
She gave me a look. “Twelve, twelve thirty? You really need that much sleep?”
“No, I don’t. But we older types have our routines. I want to putter around and read a bit. I’m playing a game on my computer, and I want to futz with that, and Cat needs… ”
“Hey, you have a computer? What kind?”
“It’s not an actual computer, it’s an Xbox, I bought it a couple of months ago.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you were the type, Old Man.”
“Video games are petty complex things. One has to juggle a lot of variables in their mind at the same time while avoiding getting your avatar killed.” I pointed to my skull. “Games keep the synapses bubbling, and, they’re fun.”
“Listen, when we were at County, Mom bought a Xbox, the first one, and I used to play this game called Airdrome. It was a World War One flying thing. I loved it. I still have the disks, could I play it on your machine?”
“No, they’d be incompatible, but I have some games you might enjoy. One is Fallout Three. It takes place in Washington DC after it’s been nuked. It’s tough and startling in its complexity and you can configure your character as a woman. It’s been out a while, but I think you’d like it. Sometime you can come out and play it if you want.”
“God yes! I love playing computer games, especially shooters.”
“Keeps the boredom at bay?”
“Oh yeah!”
I picked up my bike, pinched the tires, and put on my helmet. Priscilla was straddling her bike. She tapped me lightly on the shoulder and said, “Listen, thanks for the calories. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I nodded, coasted out of the park and headed home. Within a mile my knees ached, my calves tightened up, and I had to keep straightening first one leg then the other, just to keep them pushing the pedals. And, my feet were cold. Still, it was a good ride, me and the dark and the hypnotic hum of the tires. Feeling like the only human on the planet I pedaled along, content and a bit smug, if only for seven miles.
… . .
AFTER THE RITUAL OF THE STOVE, I took my supplements along with three aspirin, and spent twenty minutes stretching in an attempt to lessen the damage and pain. Then, with Cat snuggled in my lap, I settled in front of the stove to read. With just the candles for light the cabin walls flickered with warped shadows that danced in the corners. Cold winds moaned and pushed at the boat, and something large, perhaps a deer, crashed through the grove. I put down my book,
put a gentle hand on Cat’s scarred body, closed my eyes, and let my mind float in it all.
It felt primordial, and I had a brief sense of what it must have been like sixty thousand years ago, hunkered down in a cave or some puny makeshift shelter, listening to thousand pound Saber Tooth tigers prowl around outside. No wonder our psyche is wrapped in myths and free floating anxiety, from which we take every opportunity to escape.
After a time I swallowed two more aspirin, blew out the candles, and put my primordial self to bed. For the few minutes I was awake I thought about being old, old like I now was, and old old like I soon would be. Floating back over my life, I carefully washed away the contentment, then depressed and soaked in self pity, I burrowed down in the covers and slept.
… . .
I WOKE UP SORE AS HELL and with a feeling of being tightly wrapped in rope. Wonderful stuff, aspirin. I took two, and under the watchful eye of Cat, spent twenty minutes stretching.
Thanksgiving was a couple of days away, and in New Hampshire that usually means snow, ice storms, or rain. But today was pleasant enough to induce spring fever in November and I decided to take a walk to invigorate the system, or at least get it operational again. Three cups of coffee and a few more stretches got Cat and I out the door. I walked across the back pasture and followed a creek through a stand of pine. Fall is a good time to wander the woods, cool weather, no bugs, and the delightful sound of fallen leaves crunching under your feet. The only worrisome thing is strangely dressed men with guns trying to kill Bambi. But the farm has dozens of no hunting sighs nailed to trees, so it’s usually not a problem in this remote area.
Bentley Dadmun - Harry Neal and Cat 09 - Dead Dead Dead, the Little Girl Said Page 5
