by Thomas Laird
“Your name was Jennifer. I heard that. I wouldn’t want to be called anything but my given name, so maybe I shouldn’t be using that Lady in the Lake shit with you.
“Does my foul mouth offend you? It’s probably my low upbringing. My old man was a fisherman, a swamp fisherman. He didn’t deal with gators. We were always poor, so that’s why I joined the Navy.”
The figure in white pirouettes. Somehow he knows there is heat being directed right at him. The night is hot enough, but this feeling makes him sweat freely, up to the point that his clothing is drenched, even the legs of his blue jeans.
“Maybe you’re picking at me because I did terrible things, myself. I did terrible things in the war, yes I did. I killed a lot of children of God, and I suppose I’ll be in your boots soon enough, wherever it is you really are, because I know you ain’t really here on this dock. You died out of this life, Jennifer, and I hope you were dead before those beasts got to you. I’m just guessing he killed you before you ever got close to these parts.
“I’m thinking you’re not in hell because I just can’t imagine what you could’ve done to deserve that bullshit. Maybe I got it coming, but I just can’t see how you wracked- up enough demerits to get yourself into some damn underworld. You got to go somewhere when you’re not on this godforsaken dock, right?
“I know the Catholics think there’s some midway place between heaven and hell—purgatory, right? I don’t know if you’re a Catholic or if you were one. Seems likely only Catholics would get stuck midway between destinations, but hell, I’m not smart enough to know.
“If you’re in some middle ground, I expect you want me to hand deliver you to the final stop and get you out of that middle ground spot where you are. But I got news for you. This is Plank, Louisiana, and it can’t be all that much better than purgatory or hell! We’re all doing our stretch in this shithole, so leave me out of it!
“Maybe I’ll sell my property, and then you can screw with someone else’s head. There are guys who aren’t afraid of anything, in this neck of the woods. No spook’d run them off. They’d sell tickets to the goofy-assed teenagers to come see the Halloween show on Leonard Tare’s old dock, that’s what they’d do! And then there wouldn’t be any more heartfelt little chats between the two of us. They’d laugh you off, right into that miserable swamp.
“There was talk of draining this bayou, you know. The boys in Plank wanted to get rid of the gators and the mosquitoes and everything else because they were going to build a subdivision around here. But the money wasn’t there. It still might happen, though. Land is dirt cheap, and those developers have an eye for building little towns out of dung heaps.
“If they ever came around asking to buy the property, I’d hold out and get a good price, and you won’t have any water to hover over, anymore.
“I don’t know what else to say. You tire me out, just standing and glowering at me the way you do. I told you I didn’t have anything to do with what that miserable bastard did to you, and I ain’t my brother’s keeper, Lady. I got enough troubles of my own.
“And I think I just fell in love with Joellen. I guess it’s love because I never felt this strong about any woman before. I know I can’t let go of her. I care about her. And I’m usually disinclined to care about anyone. I made a couple buddies in Asia, and that’s where they stayed. In the ground. And I’m thinking if I really let loose with Joellen, I’m going to lose her, too. I haven’t got a damn thing to offer her but this shit-eaten shack and the dock next to it. And I got you, now, to boot. What woman in their right skull is going to put up with that?
“You know what else? You’re just a puff of white fog, and nothing else, and I’m tired of all these mind games. You’re just in my skull, and you damn well better get the hell out!”
The white entity began to form itself into its gaseous, filmy white shape, again, and Leonard knew his visitation was over. She never stayed long. Just long enough to dig her ghostly nails into his soul and take hold of him.
“You ain’t real and never have been.”
She wasn’t Leonard’s fault, he knew. The Lady in the Lake was his problem, however.
*
Joellen rented a house in town, not far from the saloon where she worked. Tony’s hole in the wall was walking distance from the one-bedroom house she occupied for $225 a month—it was a steal, she knew. It was in good condition, and it was furnished and had central air. It belonged to two oldsters who had recently departed for senior assisted living in Claremont. They were both in their mid-eighties, and the real estate agent told Joellen the two geezers figured it was time.
The fridge and the stove were brand new, and it seemed too good to be true.
She and Leonard broke in the bed on her first night in the place.
“Why don’t you move in with me? We could share the expenses, and it’d really be cheaper for two of us than just me alone.”
They had just disengaged, and Leonard wanted to immediately respond with a yes, but he eyed her carefully.
“You don’t think I’m being pushy, do you, Leonard?”
“No, no. I just want you to be sure that you want me in here. I ain’t the easiest person to live with.”
“You snore?”
“I do not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’m scared you won’t be able to tolerate my nasty-ass habits. I get up at four in the morning, even when I haven’t got anywhere to go or anything to do.”
“You can still keep your property, Leonard. I know you just got done spending a lot of money on it, what with the new windows and the new furnace and all.”
“It ain’t the money, Joellen.”
“Then what is it? That whatever on the dock?”
“Her name was Jennifer.”
“She’s not real, Leonard. She’s just some swamp gas or something.”
“I’ve been trying to tell myself the same thing, and it ain’t working out real well.”
Joellen’s face flushed, but he held her close to himself.
“You’re taking the breath all out of me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be…I love you, Leonard Tare. You already know that, though, I figure.”
“I love you, too, and I know you damn well knew it the first night we were together in my truck. We’re not teenagers, you and me. We’ve been alive long enough to know the difference.”
He kissed her and held her tight, once more. The house was cool from the air conditioning, and it gave both of them a chill. Leonard was only recently getting used to the cool of his own new setup, back at the shack, and he wondered how he’d lived all these years in this febrile chunk of the South.
“I’m not saying we should marry,” she whispered. “I just got done with one man. I want us to be certain this is right before we both do something foolish. I couldn’t stand to hurt you, Leonard.”
“You wouldn’t know how. And I couldn’t, not with you. But I can’t get shut of her.”
“Get shut of who?......You have to be kidding.”
“Look, it’s like a skunk got run over in front of the house. His stink makes you sick. You can’t live with it, him lying out there gagging you every day. And the smell just lingers, and he’s out there rotting and making you want to throw up. You have to go out in the street and do something, get rid of that stench.”
“You’re not a policeman.”
“I told her.”
“You talk to it now, Leonard?”
“I have to try and get her to go wherever she’s supposed to go, and she’s not supposed to be on that goddam dock!”
“Don’t get upset, Leonard.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. And I told myself, like you said, that it’s none of my truck. But it just doesn’t cut it, and I keep finding myself out there at midnight, when I’m not with you, and that whatever keeps floating over that pier and I think I might pop a few of my screws if I don’t fix this soon, Joellen.”
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“You need to talk to someone. Maybe some kind of a doctor.”
“I said my screws might pop, not that they did. And, anyway, I already talked to a VA shrink, and to a priest, and to Mama Bea. I think I already covered all those bases. This is something I been chosen to do. There are things like that in this goddam life. You just get stuck with them, and then you own them.”
She put her face into his chest, and he shivered again and pulled the covers higher.
“I love you, Leonard.”
“And I love you right back. But nothing is going to be right for either of us if I go section eight on you.”
“Section eight?”
“Nuts, Joellen. Crazy. Loon-like.”
She laughed.
“It isn’t really funny. I’m sorry,” she said.
“Actually, darlin’, it’s funnier than owl snot. It’s absolutely hilarious. This oughta be a sitcom on the TV. Nobody ever had to wet nurse a for-real ghost before, did they? You might as well laugh because you’d go loo-loo if you didn’t. And there isn’t a damn thing amusing about a woman getting tossed to those reptiles in my bayou. There’s nothing to tickle your funny bone in any of this. But like I said. I own it, so I got to fix it.”
*
Leonard calls Jimmy Parisi in Chicago long distance, once more. Parisi answers the phone promptly, and Leonard is frankly amazed that the Chicago cop will even take the call.
“You have to believe I’m not out of my mind,” he tells Parisi.
“No one ever accused you of anything, Leonard.”
“You think I’m just some goofy hillbilly who’s smoking his shoes.”
“No sir, I do not think that.”
“She’s talking to me, Detective. Not in words, but she’s talking to me. And don’t tell me to get help. I already tried that. A psychiatrist at the Veteran’s Administration, a Roman Catholic priest, and a would-be hoo-doo priestess who sells cure-alls to the boobs.”
Parisi laughed.
“And now I have a lady, and I want to marry her and move on, but I can’t because this ghost or whatever has its claws in me and expects me to do something about her goddam situation.”
“Like I said last time, Leonard, that’s where my partner and I come into the scenario. It’s what we do. If I was you, I’d take my girlfriend, get the hell out of Plank and find somewhere to start something brand new.”
“Yeah, Detective, I’d love to do that. You were in the military, right?”
“I was.”
“You were in Vietnam?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“You know about dealing with shitty situations, then. I’m betting you hated that police action about as much as I did.”
Parisi remained mute, on the line.
“But it’s your messed up little war, no one else’s, and there’s no one but you to clean up all that crap.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Leonard.”
“I just wanted you to know, because you deserve an explanation.”
“You cannot get involved in this, Mr. Tare. I explained all that before.”
But the line was dead, and Jimmy Parisi waited a good long moment before he put the phone back in its cradle.
*
Leonard Tare stayed with Joellen in her rented house for two nights. Things were getting even more serious between the two, and he told her how much more he loved her every time he touched her face and held her and made love to her.
“I don’t like the sound of this, Leonard. What are you planning on doing?”
“I have to go up north, soon. Can’t put it off any longer. Then, when it’s done, I’m coming back and selling that shack. Figure on jacking the price up to cover the improvements I put in. And I’m gonna paint the outside and inside and finish the roof. I’m going to sell it and the dock and the property. Then we’re going to buy this house from the realtor and the two little old folks and then we’re going to get old here, while I make you happy for at least a half a hundred years.”
Tears slid down the sides of her face.
“You go up there, and none of what you say is going to happen.”
“You don’t believe in happy endings, Jo?”
“Am I supposed to, just because I’m a woman?”
He dabbed at her waterworks with his fingertips, and he whispered into her ear.
“I’m going to put that Lady in White on my dock to rest, Joellen. Then we can live here in peace, finally. When she gets some rest, so will we.”
Chapter 6
She says we need to talk, and then I know what’s going to happen. When I get to Jackie’s place, there’s no dinner, no flowers, no set-up for grand romance. She points to the couch, but when we sit down, she’s at the opposite end.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I’m getting back with the ex.”
I don’t have a comeback for her, but I feel myself rising off the sofa.
“Please sit down and let me explain,” Jackie says.
“I don’t think so. You saw him or you got together or he called you on the phone and told you he just wanted to talk. And so you got together, and one thing led to another.”
“Jimmy.”
I walk to the door and open it and walk right out. She never says a word to stop me.
*
“Shit, that was abrupt,” Doc says as we sit at the White Castle on 87th and Damen, around three the next morning. “That came out of nowhere. I thought she told you she wanted to get serious.”
“Apparently it wasn’t with me.”
“I’m sorry, partner.”
“On we go.”
“Why don’t you take the rest of the tour off this morning? You’ve a trillion hours of sick time, don’t you?”
“It wouldn’t do any good.”
“How bad is it?”
“It don’t tickle.”
“Christ, what crap luck, Jimmy. First Erin, and then sweet Rita. This ain’t right, my man.”
“Other than Erin, I guess my selection of lady friends has been a little lacking in good judgment.”
My smile is strained, and he knows it.
“I don’t know what I can say to make you feel any better, so I’ll just shut the hell up.”
“How ‘bout that weather we’ve been having?”
He looks over at me and I see the pain in his eyes, too. Doc Gibron is the best friend I’ve ever had, and that look on his face just confirmed what I’ve known all along. Christ, I don’t know how it would be without him.
A lot bleaker than it is right now.
*
There’s a note on my desk when we’re about to get off, at 7:30 A.M. It’s from Jackie:
Jimmy,
Any woman would be lucky to have you. But my heart just wasn’t there. I wanted it to be. You know I did. And it kills me to hurt you like I did. I hope you can forgive me, some day.
Jackie
I took the piece of white typing paper and crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the garbage can. I would’ve burned it, but I don’t have an ashtray, and I don’t want the goddam smoke detector to have an attack.
When I get home, I do the only thing I’ve ever done when I’m stricken by the deal of cards that goes south on me. I sleep. Or I try to. And this time I’m lucky, and I fall right off.
The kids are at school. I dropped them off before I went to bed. My mother offered to stay here with them. Eleanor could see the sadness on me, the way she’s always been able to. She knows my every mood, and it’s useless to deny that I’ve been kicked in the chest by what happened with Jackie Bishop. She knows I was committed in the thing I had with Jackie, so I don’t have to go into detail, and I dropped Eleanor off after I dropped the kids at school.
I’ll have to be up at two in the afternoon so I can pick them up and take them back home. Then I go get Eleanor at four, and she makes us dinner and then stays the night with them when I’m on the graveyard shift. I’m lucky to have my mother here for them. It�
��d cost me a whole lot to find a nanny who’d stay overnight. They practically don’t exist in Chicago. I’ve looked, but my mom refuses to let me hire a pro. And she won’t let me pay her, so I buy her groceries in spite of her protests about that, too.
The worst part is the empty bed. This was Erin’s bed. I suppose I should have bought a new mattress and box springs and the whole set, but I don’t have the heart to do it. The mattress sags from my body, but Erin’s side is level. She only weighed 125 when she was healthy, and when she got the cancer, it was even less, of course.
She lingered with the disease for four months. I suppose that isn’t all that long, compared to others’ suffering. But it was long enough. She lost all her hair from the chemotherapy and the radiation. And the experimental pill they tried with her just nauseated her and gave her terrible diarrhea. It was an awful sixteen weeks or so.
Erin died in late summer, just when Mike and Mary were little guys in kindergarten and second grade—Mary’s the older. They were pretty bad off, being as young as they were. And, again, if it hadn’t been for Eleanor, I don’t know how we would have survived it. But the kids made it through, and I’m still here.
Some of me. Some of me was lost when I lost Erin, and it can never be retrieved.
I should be used to losing people, by now, but somehow I haven’t picked up any wisdom about how to make their absences less painful. Death, of course, is the most excruciating kind. But having people disappear on me is almost as bad.
It isn’t just loneliness, when they all depart. It’s like some kind of subtraction from your own being. Maybe it’s a kind of draining effect. I don’t know. All I know is that I feel depleted by my own missing persons list.
