The baby, the baby, the baby; the baby represented another chance, a new beginning for Chelsea, her husband, her demented-acting mother. For all of them, in fact, and this included poor shattered Devin.
Devin. Driving everyone up the wall with his morose behavior, now, then, always. One particular summer, changing from his sweet former self into a troubled angry little shit, and never looking back. Getting caught drinking, constantly, from that fifteenth year, drinking drinking drinking—Devin, not like your typical kid, getting beerdrunk and ‘partying.’ Hell no. Guzzling straight liquor. She saw him do it, time and again, when it was only the two of them at home. He went from being a happy boy who played games with her and did funny voices and dances and laughed all the time straight to a mean redneck drunk like you see hanging around that nasty honkytonk The Dixiana in downtown Tillman Falls. Like adolescence in his case meant skipping the healthy and productive adult years to go straight to alcoholic, sad and confused curmudgeon.
Later, Libby’s death at the hands of a drunk driver would seal his emotional deal, but ironically enough, it had not been Devin himself. That mess represented the final nail in an actual coffin into which Chelsea thought her brother should have crawled along with his dead girlfriend, for all the years he’d lost to grieving and drinking, anyway.
She didn’t have the words or ideas for what ailed Devin. Considering the circumstances of what happened to Libby, one would have thought he’d never take another drink, not so much as a drop.
In his case? The opposite. She wondered if he considered that the universe had sent him a message to chill out and clean himself up. Only drinking more, though, after that day. No one could blame him.
And then there was sweet Dobbs, Devin’s best friend who’d been riding with them, thrown from the car and paralyzed, living just up the road with his mother. He seemed to have let the tragedy finish him too, only in a different way. Everybody gave up.
Even her, in a way.
Dang.
Chelsea, so lost in rumination that she’d shredded an entire mound of carrots.
She finished making the salad and envisioned her brother’s imminent arrival in Chilton, not even a goddurn actual place, only an unincorporated collection of subdivisions with the only real town center being Hill Hampton’s car dealership, and quite unlike pretty, preserved Tillman Falls, the county seat, with its town green and statues and sense of history. How she wished she could at least live in one of those nice old southern houses on Whaley Way, with their massive magnolias and oaks and crepe myrtles so ancient they towered high as trees. Old South money back in yonder.
What she wanted couldn’t be bought: Chelsea, and the rest of the family, at last managing to heal Devin—ushering him, processional, down the path of wholeness and sanity, at the same time making her saintly mother’s passage from this life to the next comfy as possible. An act of generosity, a kind of filial duty, one fraught with inherent meaning; her current life felt bereft of said meaning; a no-brainer.
Fix Devin.
And as for Mama, maybe not as sick as she imagined. Her pal Felicia, always such a gossip, going back far as Chelsea could remember.
Myriad other worries besides Devin bobbed to the surface like Big Ma-Maw’s homemade dumplings in broth bubbling with greasy fat.
But she’d been gone twenty years now, her granny, the first dead body Creedence and Devin had ever seen, and nobody’d had them good dumplings since. Now, with Dusty acting distracted and frightened over the impending birth of their child—yes, she had lied to her brother about Dusty’s enthusiasm—more immediate concerns sat poised to take precedence over old tragedies such as lost-soul brothers, dead grannies, and lost old friends like Libby and Dobbs.
Old friends.
Old friends who could maybe help her brother.
Get him back home.
Get Devin back to himself, whatever’s left.
Covering her salad bowl with Glad wrap and putting it in the fridge, she chewed her lip and glanced sidelong at the phone. Chelsea should have been turning on the oven to preheat for the taters, thick cut steak fries that she refused to put in the Fry Daddy anymore because of Dusty’s growing gut. Instead, she plopped down on a kitchen stool and began doodling on the message pad sitting next to the cordless phone base.
Kitty-cat faces.
Dusty caricatures.
A hollow-eyed skeleton wearing aviator shades.
Devin.
Looking around her home, gripping her stomach, panic at the idea of having been born and living in a South Carolina pine barren with a man she didn’t love.
With his child inside her.
Billy.
That’s who she’d call. The logic, irrefutable. Chelsea—Creedence, as he’d remember her—would call Billy Steeple down in Columbia. He’d know what to do about Devin. Chelsea, in need of a hand; one of handsome Billy’s hands, doing nicely. The idea of talking to him after so long came as a rare thrill; the fantasy of doing more than talking, as they had almost managed so long ago, left her weak in the knees.
Thinking long and hard before deciding to look up his office number in the Southeastern University online directory, at last she jotted it down with a hand that shook the way Devin’s always did.
Naughty, bad girl thoughts flooded into her belly all around the baby. She stayed so mad at Dusty all the time. And him so mamby-pamby, dull and unsexy. And her horny and feeling lonesome while he played his dumb games.
But, what had happened the last time she left herself think naughty thoughts?
Deep in her heart, of course, she would always think of the child as Dusty’s. Uh-huh. Wasn’t no doubt. After all, she’d only done it with Buddy Lawler, one of the car salesmen at Hampton Motors, twice last month. So far. Now he would not stop pestering her for another go-round.
But, it hadn’t been no better than Dusty. Seemed impossible that sex so lame could produce a little baby—but one of the two doofuses had managed the feat. Thank god they both had pudgy bodies and brown hair. This was a pathetic lifeline, one to which she would cling as she prepared for a lifetime of pretending which lay ahead.
A revelation, cold, wicked, but also appealing—but now, if I went and finally done it with Billy... we could pretend my baby was his.
I could pretend, rather. Not we.
Secrets must be kept close. This idea formed the core of Mama’s wisdom.
Chelsea drew in her breath—Billy, not only a person of means but a gentleman. He would consent to marry as soon as her divorce was final—and divorce it would be, the second Dusty saw with whom his dumb redneck ass would have to compete.
A way out of Edgewater County. But she would have to hurry.
The pencil point broke on the pad. She tossed it aside. Argh.
Outside on the porch of her manufactured home she drank in the springtime Carolina air, but sneezed from all the pollen coming off the trees in yellow waves. Cussed at the layer of orange longleaf pine straw Dusty wouldn’t rake to save his sorry life. Cringed at the sound of a logging truck choo-chooing on the hill down toward the highway. Heard dogs howling at a far-off siren.
Billy. They had all-but screwed that one time. It could finally happen. Still wasn’t clear what had gone wrong.
A way out.
Her mind raced. Devin, Billy, Dusty, the baby. Mama. What people would think, if they only knew how she was scheming.
But above all: The baby.
Chelsea, perhaps at last finding her one true thing. No one could get mad her for a little messing with people’s hearts and minds, if it meant the best for her baby. She got up the nerve, made the call, and at last he answered, the sound of his voice like music in her ears. Billy.
And, at her tears and breaking voice over poor Devin, why, you should have heard how Billy sounded—like Superman ready to race to the rescue. By the time she pressed her body into his in gratitude for helping her brother, his heart would be hers.
Five
Devin
&nb
sp; With cold liquor gurgling down his ruined and painful gullet, only one problem loomed with any true immediacy—another motherfreaking phone call.
But, this time? Epic.
Steeple.
No shit.
His best boy. All chummy sounding on the message, checking in. But like, to call back. Super important, actually. Not just checking in. Please, his oldschool college friend’s final entreaty.
Settling into a dim nook far away from the scattered barflies and yammering televisions at Chubby’s, Devin punched up Billy’s number and waited, humming the melody of that Gary Wright tune ‘Love is Alive.’ Hadn’t the foggiest how that’d gotten into his noggin. Hadn’t heard that one in twenty years. Longer.
“Ruck?” Billy, sounding out of breath, answered on the third ring. “How fantastic to hear back from you so quickly.”
“You acted like it was an emergency. Going all please on me like that.”
Billy paused and grunted. “Yeah, no, well: Hard to believe it’s been so long.”
“Time keeps on slipping-slipping. Don’t it, though?”
Billy, asking how Devin had been. What he’d been up to. And so on. Devin heard a strident female voice, muffled, in the background.
Billy, faraway, saying, “Go back to bed. Now.”
Tickled. “Don’t tell me I interrupted you in the middle of getting some.”
Back to Devin, a softer tone. “Nonsense. We were doing yoga. So, I hear you’re coming home soon? Is this right? That would be fantastic.”
Devin, a pull on his triple house bourbon, hot right out of the bottle into his glass and down it goes. So Creed, behind the call from Steeple after all, the conniving little red-haired busybody.
“Bill, I can’t stand the place. You know it just as sure as I’m a stone drunk. Creedence might’ve got some silly idea-r in her punkin head I was coming back, but damned if I do anything because she wants it. Or cause anybody else fucken wants me to. That much we know.”
“God knows it must be hard for you back here. I know it is for me, sometimes.”
“Hard. Yeah.”
The spots, silvery simmering and boiling, blotted out the view across the stained and picked velvet surface of the pool tables—B-girl Darla, a frequent drinking buddy, sat hunched over a gin and tonic in need of refreshment.
She noticed Devin noticing her; she winked, blew him a kiss, and hit the response on the bar-top trivia machine without looking; the CORRECT ANSWER fanfare blared.
“So you’ll come? For me?”
A tremulous recitation of hoarse, coiled animosity masquerading as enthusiasm:
“Bill, I can’t wait to get home and try all this out. We’ll schlep on over to the new Sizzler they got in Chilton. Yeah, we will. Creedence says, she says, she says they got a huh-huh-hot bar where a mo-fo can slop macaroni and taters and slaw and mustard greens on the side of them ribeye and T-bones like it’s Sunday dog-gone dinner at the preacher’s house.”
“Hardy-har. You’re making my stomach growl.”
He gulped hot liquor. Fought back a stupid wave of panic and tears no set of aviators able to conceal. Faking laughter, wet and thick, Devin going, it’s a beautiful plan, bro. “I’m halfway out the door.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” Billy said.
Belching into the receiver. “There’s some words what’s gotta be said.”
“By all means.”
“Serious shit.”
“Go ahead.”
“All right. Here goes...”
“Yes?”
“Can’t remember what we was talking about.”
Cheery, now sounding like a game show host introducing today’s contestants, Billy said, “We’re talking about you coming back here to South-Cack to visit with us for a spell! To get yourself fixed up! That’s all we were discussing. That’s the whole deal, Rucker-man!”
Nobody was getting ‘fixed up’ or detoxed. The last time, too rough. No way. Hell, he’d only done it because of Millie anyway, but what had it got him but more headaches and heartaches and empty bottles.
“Sounds dee-lightful.”
“Can you get yourself to the airport?”
“Fly home on your nickel?”
“Quicker, easier, over in a few hours.”
Curious to hear Billy’s version: “What’s so gall-danged important back home, any-hoo?”
“Well. Creedence reports you haven’t been home since your Dad passed away.”
“Objection. Hearsay.”
“That’s no good, brotherman.” His tone turned gentle, as though speaking to a child. “Your mom. Sounds like they—she—could use a visit. Before too much longer.”
“You wanted to give me a goddamn reason to come back home to that shitty ass place? Partner, you done it right there.”
“I did?”
“I tell you what. I’m-a gonna kill their lying asses. All of ’em.”
“That’s so not-even funny, bro.”
“Every comic drops a clunker. But I’m here all week, folks.” Turning reflective. “You done a lot for me, son. You picked me up when I was down, once, in the summer of ’90. Near as I can recall.”
Billy made a strangled sound. “I didn’t need to be told the date.”
“You okay?”
Strained. “Three words: Just come home. I know if you give me the chance, I can help again. Like before.”
“This is a shit assignment you’re volunteering for.”
“There’s nothing I want more. And nothing Creedence wants more, either.”
“Help me the way you helped Libby?”
Billy paused so long Devin thought the call had dropped.
He ignored the reference to Libby. “Come back to the world, dude. What do you have to lose? And what are we talking about for a plane ticket? The money—it’s nothing to me.”
“Okay, Scrooge McDuck. I get it.”
Pleading: “Let me do this, big chief.”
Devin, chastened and contrite. “I don’t deserve it.”
“From the Enough-Already files comes a sad tale of martyrdom.”
Devin, finding a true voice inside, for once. “I’m drunker than shit right now. Which is the only time I feel okay. That’s the god’s truth. If I come, I come. But lemme figure out how on my own.”
“Two thousand miles? Too much freaking driving.”
“I’m careful. Wouldn’t want any accidents.”
“Accidents—they’re pernicious buggers, they are.”
The rest of the bourbon disappeared. Devin, his throat raw. “That they are.”
“But look. It’s like a noted philosopher once said: the more you drive, the less you think.”
“Maybe that’s why I like it so much.”
Billy mentioned again how with his USAirways Platinum status he could book Devin in a skinny instant; had done so recently for a conference to which he’d be flying to in San Antonio in a mere two days. Expressing hope that by the time of his return on Sunday, Devin, by whatever means, would be waiting there in Edgewater County.
Devin, a sea-change of mood. “You’ll be in Texas? That ain’t but two states away.”
Billy’s voice became small. “It’s for work.”
“I’ll drive on down and meet you there. Hang out.”
“You’ll do what?”
“Ain’t never been to old San An-tone. I hear they got themselves some nasty tight little brown Mexican pussy down that way.”
“You can’t be—you’re not serious.”
“If we don’t leave with Spanish-speaking crabs, m’boy,” slapping his thigh, “we ain’t done our jobs right. Fuck-all if we ain’t.”
“This sounds crazy.”
“Beau, you wanted a plan. There it be. Boo-yow.”
Devin, downright stoked: this, no mere peregrination like all his other travels; here, one with a tangible destination: San Antonio, Texas, an American city, meaning bars and liquor stores like every other crappy two-bit berg in the whole lousy countr
y. Might take a bit longer to get himself back east than heading straight that-a-way, but Devin, in no real hurry.
Not to get home.
Billy, strained, mumbled his hotel info. Sounded like he wanted to take a dirt nap over the whole Devin-popping-by idea.
Perfect.
Devin, bursting with vigor at the notion of getting moving. And so: A light-heeled shuffle over to the bar, waving his empty glass around and calling for Jimbo.
The bartender, a pothead, emerged bleary-eyed from the back room. “Need a fresher-upper, Ruck?”
Devin, holding out his hands. “Almost steady. One more round should do it.”
“Coming up, old buddy.”
In a moment he found himself sipping a fresh double and chased it with the first of the beers Jim would line up.
Devin, regaling Darla and a few others, announced he was headed back home to visit family; he spun stories about his sister, about Libby and Billy and fuckers like Dobbs, too. All had betrayed him.
“But here come the judge,” to a variety of hoots and boot-stomping. The regulars cheered but had heard it all before, but still they listened and nodded and drank and smoked with Devin. Like family.
After a while he got drunk; after a longer while, he forgot about the folks back home, as well as his impending trip to San Antonio. Forgot it as much as he forgot anything which had happened in the past. Which wasn’t a god-damned bit. But it didn’t hurt to pretend, every now and then.
Six
Billy
Billy, anxiety ridden, not nearly high enough, slumped at his desk in the Media Archive, a musty crumbling converted warehouse shoved way out on an outer spiral arm of the sprawling Southeastern campus.
Staring at his cellphone, chewing his lips.
Jumping at every small sound.
All tremendously bothersome.
Ever since the conversations with the Rucker siblings Billy had suffered a deep and abiding fear that at any second, the phone might again sound bearing the voices of mad, babbling ghosts.
Mansion of High Ghosts Page 5
