The Eulogist

by Liz McKinney Johnson

  To create a believable character you must give him a flaw. My eulogy characters were all easier to accept because they were imperfect. They were scared or repentant or critical. They stammered and searched for the right word. Sometimes they cried. Badge of honor. Heart on your sleeve. Faster.

  I’m almost home. Albert’s almost home. It’s Albert’s condo in the pine forest with its high ceilings and new window. Albert’s food. But inside is Charlie’s briefcase with work that needs to be done. Work that needs to be turned in at Charlie’s job in the morning. Faster.

  The lights are surrounding me now, blurring together. They seem to be coming from all sides, bright and unrelenting. My eyes focus, and I realize the most intense lights aren’t streetlights, they’re headlights and they’re heading right for me. Instinctively, I pull the steering wheel to the right to avoid the piercing light. It rushes by, horn blaring loud then soft. The Doppler effect.

  I’m no longer on the road. The road is gone. I’m going too fast. My foot fumbles for the brake. One foot, both feet. The car is traveling forward, and I think, downward. The hood dips forward, the ground feels mushy under the tires. Sliding, sliding, and then a sudden, dull thump, jarring enough to pitch me forward into the steering wheel. Not hard enough to deploy the airbag. My head cracks against the wheel. The engine dies.

  Shouldn’t I burst into a ball of flame? Isn’t that what happens in all the action movies? At a pivotal moment in the story, something bursts into a ball of flame, but the hero leaps free of the wreckage, in slow motion, arms and legs pinwheeling. But there is nothing. No flame. No slow motion. I am simply stopped. Stopped on the side of an embankment, up to my hubcaps in mud and muck. Thank God for so many consecutive days of rain. Saved by soggy leaves and some kind of buried, tire-stopping tree root.

  I listen for sirens, for someone to call out to me, asking if I need help. But no one knows I’m down here. No one except the idiot who ran me off the road. But, did someone really run me off the road or did I cross the line and head for him? I can’t remember. I listen again. The driver of the other car must have stopped. He must have seen me go flying off the road. The engine is making a clicking noise. I listen harder. A couple of crickets chirp their condolences, but there’s no traffic noise rushing by from up above. Where’s the other guy? What kind of lunatic would come that close to annihilation and then simply drive off? Jerk. Of course, he’s probably saying the same thing. He’s probably going through ten Hail Marys right about now, grateful he’s alive.

  I push the driver’s door open about two inches before it sticks solidly into the mud. Great. I reach up and explore my forehead. There’s a knot the size of a cantaloupe rising up across my brow and something sticky over my right eye. I lean over and tweak the rear view mirror toward my face. In the darkness, I can’t make out much more than the outline of my head. Flicking on the dome light, I see there’s a dandy boxer’s cut across my brow bone that is bleeding … a lot. Blotting it with my sleeves seems to make it worse and now my shirt’s all bloody. The whites of my eyes have both gone red and the skin around them is already turning purple.

  That cut is going to need stitches. I have to get out of the car, climb back up to the road, and find a doctor. Since I’m not Gumby, going out the door is not an option. The half-open window will have to do. This escape hatch looks much smaller than I’d like, but the window controls don’t operate when the car’s not running, and I don’t think this car is going to be running anytime soon. I crank the key in the ignition just to test my theory. Nothing. I’m surprised the dome light works. Unlatching my seat belt, and with my back to the window, I reach up to grab the edge of the roof. I tip my head and shoulders backwards and pull. The small of my back rakes across the edge of the glass.

  "Shit!" I hiss into the blackness.

  With the top half of my body out and my butt balanced precariously on the edge of the window, I can lean back and see the stars in the night sky. Ordinarily a beautiful sight, right now the pin pricks of light act as illustrations for the sharp little stabs of pain shooting up my forearms as I try to heave my weight up and out the window.

  "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, make a wish on you tonight. Get me the hell out of this car!"

  One more heave, this one with an accompanying ho, and my ass bumps through the window and drops down to the door handle. I am now sitting, kind of, a fact for which my biceps are extremely grateful. I relax my arms and close my eyes. The stars of the night sky are now twinkling across the inside of my eyelids. I feel a little woozy. It probably wasn’t a great idea to get into a car accident with little more than scotch and fried cheese in my stomach. This, coupled with the loss of blood and the exertion of yanking myself out the car window, is beginning to take its toll.

  After a few minutes wrestling with near-nausea, I again grasp the edge of the roof and snake first one leg then the other through the window. As my left leg makes its final exit, the back of my shoe catches on the window edge. It jolts me off balance and I fling my hands off the roof, hopping madly on one leg for a few seconds until my shoe pops free and I am finally back on both feet. None of this has helped my sour stomach. I stand for a moment, my Nikes slowly sinking beneath the squishy leaves and mud, and then I vomit. A slurry of booze and cheese curds pools on the ground and drips from my chin. This is when I remember my feet are still pretty sliced up from the other night and I should not really be hopping on them. I’d scream, but if a schmuck screams in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does he make a sound?

  When I suck one shoe out of the muck the puke trickles into the hole left behind. I guess, like water, puke seeks the lowest point. This would be among my lowest points. I lean back in through the car window and retrieve my note pad. It’s only now, turning to the task at hand, getting the hell out of here, that I notice just how far away the road is. I’m a long way down, easily 100 feet from the top. I could continue going down, but who knows where I’d come out. Up is the only escape. The metaphor is not lost on me. Go down into the unknown darkness or straight up into the light. If my head didn’t hurt so badly, it might be funny. Comical. After all, comedy is just a hop, step and a jump to the left of tragedy.

  Shoving my note pad into my belt, I head up. Up and out. The ground is so saturated it’s like climbing through molasses. My shoes make toilet plunger sounds. Every once in awhile there’s a bush I can grab on to for a bit of extra leverage, but mostly it’s just slimy, slippery shit. I don’t know what time it is. I should get one of those swanky watches with a light-up dial.

  If I could quit focusing on sliding back down to certain death, my next order of business would be to figure out how this all happened. Actually, I don’t think I’d die if I fell. Knocked unconscious maybe, but probably not killed. However, I would have to start climbing all over again and that would make me want to die. So, it’s really a wash.

  Let’s review the facts. I know I was going too fast. I know I wasn’t paying full attention to the road. But, I’m sure I was going straight. I was staring at the hood of the car. I was an arrow. And, if someone were trying to run me off the road, wouldn’t he do it from behind? He’d be following me, not hurtling at me from the opposite direction. You’d have to be nuts to come after someone from the front, like a game of chicken. What if I hadn’t veered? He would have had to correct at the last minute. Not only nuts, you’d have to be some kind of a racecar stunt driver to pull that maneuver. It had to have been me. Didn’t it? Didn’t it?

  There’s the road. I’ve never been so glad to see crumbling asphalt. With both feet on solid ground I turn and look back down at my car. I could have, no, I should have been killed, or at least broken into several pieces. Just up the road a stand of scruffy pine trees lines the embankment. A few more feet and I’d have accordioned into them instead of driving off the edge. Good thing I already threw up.

  Now what? I haven’t heard or seen another car since the accident. I still need a do
ctor, and I have to get a tow truck to drag up what’s left of my car. Better start walking. Lily’s right. I really need a cell phone.

  THIRTEEN

  "Charlie, I’m telling you exactly what they told me. Klein is denying everything. Says he doesn’t have a girlfriend, and if he did, she wouldn’t be turnin’ tricks on the side."

  Dennis is standing at my desk. He’s not leaning on anything. He is pissed.

  "I don’t know what to tell you, Dennis. It came from one of my most reliable sources."

  My imagination is usually quite reliable. Over the years it has produced any number of credible sounding people, places and things.

  "Ain’t cuttin’ it this time, Buddy Boy."

  Buddy Boy? What the hell happened to Tiger? Clyde Fenton in accounting is Buddy Boy. I don’t like the sound of this.

  "We need proof. Photos, witness statements, best yet, the girl herself. Right now, all I got is your word, which is buying me a big pile of nothin’ upstairs. I need more."

  Dennis is staring at me. I can see his scalp where he missed a spot with his comb-over this morning.

  "I think we’ve already talked about how important this is," Dennis continues. "I want you to verify what you’ve gathered so far and then get more on top of that. You have until Monday."

  "That’s not enough time," I blurt out. Actually it’s only Thursday, under normal circumstances, a couple days plus the weekend would be plenty of time. But I have a few other irons in the fire right now.

  Dennis leans on my desk, but this time it’s not his normal friendly slouch, it’s a two-handed forward bend over that places his face uncomfortably close to mine.

  "I’m worried about you, Charlie. You don’t seem yourself. You look like crap. I understand about the car accident and all, but is there something else going on I should know about?"

  I roll back in my chair. What if I spilled the whole truth? It would feel so good to tell someone what’s really happening. But Dennis? On the One-To-Ten Acquaintance Scale, Dennis rates about a two point five, which is better than just about everyone else, but is lame nonetheless.

  "I’m sorry," I say. "I’m just a little frustrated about how tough this case has been. Klein is good, really good."

  Dennis stands up again and crosses his arms.

  "We knew that going in. It’s why I put you on the case. We can’t lose this one, Buddy Boy."

  Buddy Boy. There it is again.

  "Don’t let me down, because if I go down…"

  "I know," I interrupt. "If you go down, I go down. No one’s going down, Dennis. I can get you what you need by Monday. Just let me get to work."

  "Morning," Dennis says, turning to leave. "Monday morning."

  Well isn’t this a slice of sunshine? Since I’m not really an investigative journalist or a published author, something tells me I better try to hold on to my real job. I’m going to have to call Lily with some sort of excuse why I can’t see her for the next couple of days. She does know about my car accident. I got a lot of sympathy for that one, especially with the black eye and three stitches. I look like I got the shit beat out of me. All things being equal, I probably deserve to get the shit beat out of me. Perhaps I can whip up a little residual ailment.

  Lily answers her cell phone on the first ring.

  "Lily Rudolph."

  I pinch my nostrils closed with a thumb and forefinger and lower my voice.

  "Lily, it’s Albert."

  "You sound awful. What’s wrong?"

  "Woke up this morning with a head full of snot and I can hardly swallow. I must have caught a cold walking back from the accident the other night. Or maybe at the Urgent Care where they did my forehead. Those places are germ factories."

  "Oh no! Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to bring you over some soup or something?"

  I savor this image awhile before replying. I’m lying in bed propped up with plush pillows. Satin pillows. Lily crosses the room toward the bed carrying a steaming bowl of soup. She’s wearing a red gingham apron. That’s all, just an apron.

  "Albert? Are you still there?"

  "Huh? Sorry. I had to get a Kleenex."

  "Do you need anything?"

  "No. I’ll be okay. I think I just need to rest. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to catch this thing. Can we take a day or two off, make sure I’m not contagious?"

  "Of course. Just get better. But you have to promise to call if you need anything."

  "I promise."

  I hang up and stare at the stack of folders on my desk. I have a craving for soup, but first things first. I flip open the top folder. Inside is a report detailing all the people we tracked down from the doughnut shop. I’d posted a sign on the cash register offering $50 to interview anyone who had been at the shop around the time of Mr. Klein’s alleged tumble. It generated quite a few calls, but very little information. I was beginning to suspect a link between high doughnut consumption and low test scores. Maybe I missed something the first time through.

  Most people go through life reflecting on how well everything fits together. To them, one thing leads logically to the next. I’m always looking for the anomalous, the mismatched sock. I’ve been thinking about what Roger Jones said. How there was something about Michael Rudolph’s accident that bothered him. Something that didn’t fit together.

  The first interview in the folder is an inane conversation about whether adding glaze to a traditionally plain doughnut was a baking breakthrough or a travesty. The next several transcriptions aren’t much better. Then we get to Marilyn Andre. Marilyn says she was seated at a table right by the door on the day in question. She actually uses the phrase, "day in question." Must be watching too many Perry Mason reruns. She claims to have seen Mr. Klein exit the shop. She saw him stop at a table opposite hers and pick up half a dozen containers of extra frosting. I read her transcription again.

  "When you buy one of their cinnamon rolls, they give you extra cups of the cream cheese frosting if you want. You know what I mean. Those little plastic cups with the lids. You can have as many as you want. They keep them right there on the counter and you can just grab ‘em. Personally, I think they put on plenty of frosting as it is, so I never take extra, but some people take a bunch. Anyway, these teenagers had been in earlier and they each took about four or five of those little cups. Of course they didn’t use ‘em all. It’d send you right into diabetic shock. So they left them behind on the table. And this guy walks by on his way out. This guy you’re asking about. He walks by their table, stops, looks down at all those little cups of frosting and he takes them. Every single one. Drops ‘em into his coat pocket. I thought it was kind of weird. Like picking up someone else’s garbage. And he was dressed nice too. Trench coat, slacks, loafers. But then I thought, what the hey, they’re just gonna throw them away anyway. Who cares?"

  Thank you, Marilyn. This might be a piece of the puzzle. I’m willing to bet that cream cheese frosting, applied liberally to the bottoms of one’s shoes, could compromise traction. I have a nice pair of Kenneth Cole’s back at the condo. I’ll just stop on the way home and pick up a can of frosting. Mr. Science in action.

  Standing in line at Kroger’s, I feel a little odd purchasing a single can of Duncan Hines Creamy Home-Style butter cream frosting. They didn’t have cream cheese. The checker simply scans it and drops it into a bag without a second glance. I imagine she’s seen just about everything come down that conveyor belt. I don’t think she passes judgment or questions your choice of Extreme Fudge Avalanche ice cream over a nice head of lettuce and some Tofurky.

  My new plan is to gloss over the whole girlfriend thing with Dennis. I’ll blame it on bad sources and take the hit for not verifying the information. Cut my losses and move on. If my frosting experiment turns out as expected, the next step will be to get a hold of Klein’s shoes. Even if he wiped them off, there should be some residue in the stitching. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to talk someone out of his shoes, especially if they’re still on h
is feet, but I’ll come up with something. I always do.

  I think it’s unfair how artists and writers and musicians get all the credit for being creative. As if the rest of us would be hard pressed to make our way through a coloring book let alone produce a work of inspiration. I consider my work to be very creative. It takes imagination to come up with a story that can convince a claimant I’m on his side. There’s more than a little ingenuity in my ability to ask one question and get three answers. And it takes originality to tackle a challenge from a new angle. No one’s going to present my work in a gallery at MoMA, but a clever solution to a tough problem is as elegant as any sculpture.

  It’s good to be back in the saddle again. To mix my metaphors and species, I’ve felt like a fish out of water pretending to be Albert: the writer, the consummate professional, the nice guy. It’s wearing me out. If I can catch Klein, it’ll be like the good old days. Another rock crawler uncovered and left to squirm in the sun. Dennis will be happy. He’ll stop calling me Buddy Boy and leave me alone for a while. There’ll be a lot of backslapping around the office. Another success for Charlie Sandors. Because that’s who I am, I’m Charlie Sandors. I’m good at what I do.

  It’s not completely dark when I get back to the condo with my frosting. The days are getting longer. I set the grocery sack on the counter and punch a few keys to retrieve my phone messages.

  "Hi Albert, it’s Lily."

  You’ve reached Charlie, Lily, go ahead.

  "You must be trying to sleep. I just wanted to check up on you and see if you’re feeling any better. Give me a call later if you want a rain check on that soup offer. Bye."

  I’m not sleeping, Lily. I was never sleeping. I’m wide awake and I’m playing you for a fool. Can’t you see that? It won’t be long before you find out exactly how big a jerk I am. I think they put lying to grieving widows right up there next to stealing candy from babies. For an encore, maybe I could kick a puppy then push an old lady down and take her purse. Why won’t you stop being nice to me? I’m going to hurt you.