She plucks a copy of "The Whole Truth" from the magazine rack. It's a newsprint tabloid that's famous for wallowing shamelessly in rumor and hearsay about everything from celebrity gossip and health fads to unnatural phenomena and far-fetched true crime, and Meena has long been captivated by it, regardless of her father's frequent snorting scorn. "Hogwash! Claptrap! Lies!" She also adds a couple of packs of cigarettes to her order. Marlboro Lights. She likes the gold color on the outside of the pack. She told her father on his birthday in May that she was going to quit smoking, to please him, and mostly she's been successful in this, but it's been a such a hard struggle and she's thinking, why bother with that anymore? Might just as well please herself, now.
The woman ahead of her is a housewife, dressed in tennis togs. She turns to look back at Meena. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't mind collecting that $25,000," she says.
Meena finds herself smiling a smile that feels as if it's been glued onto her face.
The cashier smiles back. "So what do you think, hon?" she asks. "Where is he?"
Meana shrugs and shakes her head. "I have no idea."
But the fact is, Meena does happen to know the Wendells, if only vaguely. They used to shop at Krejci's, years ago when everybody else did too, and they live not far away, just around the corner in fact, on the good side of Vernon Boulevard.
"His wife took out an ad in the paper the week before her husband vanished," the housewife says. "You know. One of those self-congratulatory bits on the 'Milestones' page? To mark their first wedding anniversary, I think it was." She raises her eyebrows, as if this is supposed to mean something, but what?
She's leaning toward Meena; she's nudging at her with an elbow, winking and clucking. "Want to know what I think?" she asks. The cashier hands her the credit card receipt to sign. When Meena doesn't reply, the housewife moves closer. "He's dead," she says. "And she killed him," she adds.
"What? Who?"
"The wife, that's who," the housewife replies, and then she pulls her chin in, smug, knowing.
"Unless he killed himself," the cashier says.
"That guy?" The housewife points to the flyer. "Nah. Hell," she says, "just take a look at him. Poor fella. No balls. Trust me."
Meena peers at the flyer. "Maybe he ran away."
The housewife stops, turns back to face Meena. "What?"
She wishes she'd said nothing. "I don't know, I... Well, maybe he just took off, you know? I mean, maybe he's starting all over again someplace else."
"You mean like he's hiding somewhere?" the cashier asks.
Meena nods. "Yeah. I guess. Yeah. Something like that."
"Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. Maybe he didn't like his life. Maybe he didn't like himself. Maybe he wanted something else."
"So he takes on another identity?"
Meena shrugs. "Maybe."
The cashier shakes her head, dismissing this. "Nah. That's not real. That only happens in movies."
"I'm telling you," the housewife says, "the guy's dead. And he didn't kill himself either; he was murdered. By his wife. She had enough, and so she did him in, and that was the end of that."
And now this woman has turned and pushed her cart away, while the cashier goes on to scan Meena's groceries and the missing man in the flyer looks on with all that troublesome blurred worry in his face.
Meena takes the other way back home again on purpose just so she can pass by the Wendells' house. She's trying to remember what else she knows about the family. They owned the car dealership on 2nd Avenue, Wendell Ford—so maybe that explains the photo of the car. And wasn't there an older brother that everybody said got more than his fair share when the business was sold? Maybe Mr. Wendell was depressed.
Now there is a mini-van parked in the driveway out front, and on its side, that same flyer again, now blown up into poster size. Underneath, in big letters: "Have You Seen Ralph?"
Otherwise, the house looks just fine. Quiet. Peaceful. A wreath of dried wildflowers on the front door, plants blooming on the porch. It just looks empty that's all. Abandoned and nobody home. If you didn't know any better, you might not think that there was anything gone wrong here at all.
The same could be said of the Krejci house at 2338 Otis Road, and Meena realizes this as she pulls into the driveway and feels a pang of, what? Guilt? Shame? Embarrassment?
She thinks of the dreams she still has sometimes, even at this age: where she's supposed to be in school, at a class, history or mathematics, but for one reason or another she hasn't ever gone to it, every day she's missed it and now the year is almost over and she's in big trouble, how will she ever explain? That's how it feels to approach the house right now. She's dizzied for a second by a flutter of panic that flies through her and then is gone.
She knows she's going to have to make a phone call now, of course. She has to tell somebody, she can't be putting it off anymore. But who to call? And what to say? What is everybody going to think later, when they find out how long she's waited? She takes a look at the street, expecting to see an ambulance or a police car pull up, but it isn't going to be that easy. That's just laziness. It's wishful thinking, is all. Because in that case then someone else would be in charge and that would simplify everything, wouldn't it, by taking all the burden and responsibility from her hands? But no, the street's quiet, and the houses are all closed up, here in the thick summer heat of the middle of the day.
She carries her bags of groceries into the house, then puts the things away, carefully and neatly, using the work of it to calm herself again. By the time she's finished, she is damp with sweat. She thinks she'll cool off for just a minute, fixes a glass of lemonade, takes it into the living room, plants herself in the chair in front of the fan. This house is not air-conditioned, because Josef wouldn't have it. Too expensive, he said, and besides he didn't like that cold air blowing on him all the time. Felt unnatural, like breathing chemicals. But now, Meena is thinking, now she can do anything she wants and he's not here to stop her.
She lights a cigarette and watches the smoke roil lazily upward and away from her. No need to hide the pack now. She leafs through the tabloid—a boy who looks like a bat, an alien burial on the moon, a pair of Siamese twin calves, turtles with two heads, and her horoscope: "An unusual opportunity might arise to make some extra money by selling a body part."
She supposes that the proper thing for her to do now would be to call up Dr. Montgomery. He's been caring for her father for as far back as Meena can remember, and he'll know what to do. She'll have to concoct some explanation for why she's waited this long to call him, though, because can't they tell when somebody's been dead for a while? She'll say she got up early and went out for a walk, because she does that sometimes. She'll say she thought her father was asleep in his bed down the hall and she didn't want to wake him. And then she went about the business of cleaning the house and time got away from her so the next thing she knew it was afternoon and he was still up there and that wasn't like him, so she finally decided she'd better go check.
She will do that now. Meena will go upstairs as if she doesn't yet know what she's going to find there, as if she isn't aware of anything wrong, as if she's only just now begun to worry and to wonder, Why is he still asleep? She'll go to into his room, she'll go to his side, she'll look at him and see that he's not moving. She'll become alarmed. She'll think to feel for a pulse, to lean over close to listen for his breathing. She'll call out to him, then maybe she'll even give him a little shake, would that be too much? Then and only then will she fully understand. Then she'll realize the truth, and this will cause her to scream and rush from the room, down the hall to the telephone, to call Dr. Montgomery. All of this will leave her breathless and that will sound just right, and what she tells him then won't be a lie either, not exactly. It will be almost the truth. Close enough anyway.
Meena swings her feet back down to the floor and gets up and goes into the kitchen. She drops her cigarette into the sink, grinds it in t
he disposal, then rinses out her glass and sets it on the counter to dry. All right then. She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, grits her teeth. All right. She's ready. She will do it now.
But even as she climbs the stairs, even as she stands there in the hallway outside his door Meena is still thinking: maybe it's all a mistake. Maybe he isn't dead, after all, maybe he really is just sleeping. Or could be he's unconscious, in a coma that he'll come out of later. Maybe she didn't check carefully enough earlier. Maybe he is waking up right now. Maybe she'll go in, and there he'll be sitting up in bed, looking at her, annoyed that she didn't have the courtesy to knock.
With her hand on the knob, Meena almost turns away. She almost goes right back downstairs, to smoke another cigarette, to wait a while longer, to think. But she manages to shake this impulse off. Scolds herself, just as she knows he would: "No!"
She opens the door, quickly. Almost falls into the room.
Bare wood floor, braided rag rug that Matka made out of old socks and wool pants and sweaters. Single bed, narrow. When had he got rid of the bed he'd slept in with his wife? Meena doesn't know, she can't remember. Has he always slept this way? Blanket, pillow, green bedspread. Table lamp. No ornaments. On the table his medication. Closet, dresser. The old photograph of Agnes, in her thick glasses and solid shoes.
And there he is, same as before. Nothing's changed. Josef hasn't moved. She crosses over to the bed. She stands near him and looks closer. This isn't as hard to do as she thought it was going to be. He stares but doesn't see, and that makes him seem unreal. She is thinking: Do I see some movement? His chest rising, ever so slightly, a flutter of his eyelids, a pulse in his temple? Maybe he's still breathing? No, he's not.
Meena stands back and studies him for a moment. He looks pretty bad. In fact, he looks just awful. His face is gray, his lips are blue, the scrape on his cheek is a livid bloom. He looks battered. He looks like he's been beat up. She notices the blood on his yellow shirt, dried brown. There seems to be some blood on the pillow, too. And a ghastly-looking bruise on his forearm—maybe it's broken?
Meena knows that in his pocket there will be the cash that he has always carried with him, that thick roll of bills wrapped in a rubber band, and she's thinking that she'd better take it from him now, before anybody else gets here. He would want her to have it, wouldn't he? But to get it, she will have to get closer, lean over him, reach across... She'll have to touch him.
She does this quickly, but even so he is disturbed and there is a smell, a fevered stench that rises up from his body and gags her.
Meena forgets about calling out to him. She doesn't shake him. She even forgets to scream, as she had planned to do. She is backing out of the room with one hand holding the roll of bills and the other hand over her face. She pulls the door hard shut and heads down the hallway to the telephone.
Not until she's started to dial the doctor's number will Meena realize what people are going to think when they see Josef Krejci lying dead in his bed and battered as he is. The blood. The scrape on his face. His arm, broken. His head, bruised. And then what they'll say when they figure out just how long it's taken his daughter to tell.
"Daddy?"
Meena's face is wet with tears. She leans toward him.
"I'm sorry."
She takes a deep breath, then bends closer to unbutton his shirt. She only has to grope under his collar for a moment before she finds the silver chain. She tugs on it, and his body rocks, but the chain is strong and it holds. She pulls it again, and his arm shakes free and drops to the side, where it hangs awkwardly, fingertips brushing the floor.
"Please..."
Meena yanks one more time, harder, and his body flails as the chain breaks at last and the key comes away in her hand.
Meena Krejci is sitting at her father's desk. She has opened the bottom drawer and pulled out the fireproof box. She unlocks it with the key, lifts the lid, then reaches in and removes the small pile of documents from inside. She rifles through these. A wedding license: Josef Krejci and Agnes Skvor. A deed to the house: 2338 Otis Road. Her Social Security card: Meena Ludmilla Krejci. A pink slip: 2004 black Volkswagen Jetta. And last: a thick leather packet full of cash.
King of the Wood
1961
On a Saturday afternoon Mr. Grandon might hand out quarters for buying candy at the snack stand in the pavilion, and then Mrs. Grandon would be scolding you and Libbie as you headed off toward the park: "Stay out of the street, steer clear of stray dogs even if they seem friendly, don't drink the water at the fountain, and if a stranger approaches you, you scream and run the other way." She didn't tell John these things—she didn't consider the world to be as dangerous for him as it was for you. Because he was older and because he was a boy.
Libbie was four years younger than her brother John. She was fair like their father, and she was jokey like him, too, with a ready smile and quick laugh, but John had his mother's serene beauty—dark hair, green eyes, and pale skin. John was a tall, thin, studious kid. He was known to hang around with Leo Spivak, who lived across the street and had earned a reputation for wildness that he seemed to feel he had a duty to live up to. There always seemed to be something wrong with Leo—he was a mess of old chicken pox scabs and scars, bee stings and mosquito bites that he scratched and picked at until they bled and bled again. Bruises bloomed on his shins, his knees and elbows were plated with scabs, his nose dripped green and gold snot all winter, he had his tonsils taken out, his appendix burst, he lost a front tooth to the tetherball pole at school. He slammed his sled into a tree at the bottom of the toboggan chute on Hollow Hill and was unconscious for two days afterward. He fell—or jumped?—off the limestone wall at Dead Man's Drop down at Ellis Creek and broke his leg in two places. The rumor that went around afterward was that he'd done it on a dare.
But John was just the opposite: thoughtful, cautious, contained, precise. He was always neatly dressed, in a collared white short-sleeved shirt, a navy blue V-neck sweater vest, crisply creased khaki pants, and clean black high-tops. Around his neck he wore a St. Christopher medal on a silver chain. It lay in the hollow of his chest as if it were a part of him; when he went swimming he'd hold it in his mouth like a lozenge so that if the chain broke, at least the medal wouldn't be lost.
Bohemie Bridge was Linwood's version of the Charles Bridge in Prague, and like its source of inspiration, its promenade was lined with statues of the saints. One winter afternoon when you and Libbie strayed that way on your walk home from school, John pointed out St. Christopher to you. The figure was of a large man, bearded and robed, holding a child perched on one shoulder like a bird. "Christ-over," John explained. His words came out a cloud, suspended in the cold air, as if in awe. Leo had been clowning around, puffing on a stick he'd found and blowing out his breath, pretending it was smoke. The baby was Jesus, John said, and the man was carrying him across a flooded river to the safety of the other side, which act of pure goodness would ensure his blessedness before God forever. The medal that John wore was his protection, he went on, and that made Leo spurt with laughter. As if John needed any protection. "Protection from what?" asked Leo, as the ice above the roller dam cracked with a bang as loud and deep as thunder underground.
The roller dam was a low flat concrete structure that crossed the river just downstream from the pillars of Bohemie Bridge. It had powered the cereal mill at one time, but that eventually went over to Cooke Electric and then the roller dam didn't serve any real purpose anymore. It didn't have a high spill and so its draw was deep and unexpected: the lake that it formed upstream might have seemed placid and peaceful to a boater or a swimmer who didn't know any better or who chose not to heed the bright yellow warning signs that were posted—"Danger! Deep Turbulent Water!"—at regular intervals along both banks. Water crossed over the top fast and strong, drawn down hard and foaming toward the place below the limestone palisades, where the river took a sharp turn, creating the whirlpool that was known as the deep eddy, a swirl
of water so slow and lazy as to be almost imperceptible if you didn't know what you were looking for there in the middle of the river's seemingly placid flow.
"The deep eddy is deep," John explained. It was a huge hole that gaped like a drain at the bottom of the river and swirled down and down and down from there, for miles and miles and miles, all the way, he claimed, to the very center of the earth.
He went on: If you could ride a rocket down into the deep eddy, it would be the same as sending a rocket out into space—you could go in and in and in or out and out and out, but no matter where you started, you would always end up right back at the beginning again—there on the bridge in Linwood, standing in the cold shadow of a saint. That was infinity—a snake eating its own tail in one long continuous, twisting loop.
You and Libbie were ten then, and Leo and John were fourteen. A soft faint caterpillar of fine dark hair had settled on John's upper lip, and his Adam's apple had grown to become a knot of awkwardness in his throat that seemed to strangle him and cause his voice to squeak and crack.
This was 1961: Freedom Riders, Alan Shepard, Malcolm X., Bay of Pigs. Mr. Grandon was building a bomb shelter in his back yard. John was going to be an astronaut, he said. He had a telescope in his window that he kept trained on the sky. One day he would go there, he said as solemnly as if it were a promise he was making, carried up into the heavens on a rocket that he would name The Christopher, borne off into the simple purity of space—cold, empty, dark, and flawless, spattered with perfect and pitiless stars.
You and Libbie were a familiar sight, a pair of fearless girls skipping up the sidewalk in denim shorts and canvas sneakers. Mrs. Grandon's opinion was that safety was to be had in numbers, and so you were instructed to stay together and never ever let the other go off anywhere alone. You could walk up to the candy pavilion in the park, if you went by way of the street, but you were not to take the shortcut through the woods, even though that was the better route because it circled the edge of the zoo, passing by the aviary and the monkey cages and the bear compound before veering up the hill into the trees along a path that would bring you eventually into your own back yards. To come through the woods was forbidden, and you both knew it, so when Libbie insisted on taking that path anyway it made you skittish and in a hurry to get it over with and be home.
The Minor Apocalypse of Meena Krejci Page 5
