Broken Strings

by Nancy Means Wright

  “Hello, Billy,” she said. He lifted his head and she saw that the eyes were one huge purple bruise, the perfect nose pushed to one side, teeth looking loose in his mouth.

  “Liddle business deal,” he said, “went sour – couldn’…” and he slammed into her arms, sobbing, a dead weight. It was all she could do to get him back up to his rooms. Told him she’d call 911 for help but he yelled, “No calls! Jus’ lea’ me alone.”

  And angry all over again, she raced downstairs, jumped on her bike and pedaled hell-bent for home.

  * * *

  Willard had gagged his insides out. The nurse said that was good and rushed out with the reeking bucket. A second nurse poked his arm with a needle and minutes later he was strung together and on an IV. He’d been hooked up like this when he came home from ’Nam in ’72. He’d had a nightmare and started hollering, his mother had called emergency. A doctor came and knocked him out. Sometime in the night or the next day he had the nightmare again and woke up to find his mother in tears beside his bed. She’d lost one child, she said, and now another. He kept telling her he was still alive but she wouldn’t listen. His Puritan mother, who always said if you don’t suffer, life’s not worth the living.

  After that he took the pills they gave him for post trauma stress every day till she died. Gradually the nightmares quieted, and only once in a while, like the night after Marion was killed, did the horror of the thing come back. But it wasn’t a “thing,” it was a fire, running down the path, burning so bright he could feel the heat of it even yards away. Then the fire shrieked and he saw the long black hair, turning slowly to ash. Women came running with buckets of water and when the fire subsided he saw it was a small girl, her naked body turned black and shrunken till she was a hunk of rags and bone; a puppet, dropping into the dirt in front of his eyes.

  And eighteen-year-old Willard had just watched it happen. Willard, who took errant mice down the road to let them go, captured flies in his hand, and freed them in the back yard. But back then he was too paralyzed to help her. His captain said it was war, it had to be done, a napalm bomb misdirected and hit the wrong target. So after the keening women had scraped up bone and ash, Willard went back to his unit and tried to eat his meal. He was shipped home a year later and his mother bragged to everyone that her son was a hero. When all he’d done was watch a young girl burn to death as she tried to flee her flaming village.

  Now here she was again, his mother. “No!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!”

  But she kept coming.

  “Willard, it’s Fay,” the woman said. “I was worried. I mean, I feel so guilty. It’s all my fault you’re in here.”

  He squinted. Saw the jeans and boots. Smelled the goats on her.

  “It’s Fay,” she repeated, and he saw that it was.

  “It was my fault,” she said, “for having you make that controller out of yew. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  The yew. He remembered now, he’d spilled a little of the sticky sap on his shirt. It must’ve got in his mouth. Or was it a bit of wood from the band saw? Something flew up and struck him in the lip. The stuff they were pumping into him now was working. He was sleepy. He let her talk on, tried to respond with a “hmm” or an “umm” but he couldn’t keep up. His eyes closed.

  “Willard, don’t go to sleep … nurse? Nurse!” Heard her feet clatter out, then more feet traipsing back in.

  “It’s all right, it’s just the sedative we gave him, he…”

  Fay’s far away voice again, and then cousin Stormy’s – had she brought him here? Yes, something about a “vision.” What was it? Then Fay again, “Willard, it was my fault, that yew. It’s dangerous. I want you to be…Willard?”

  He let the stuff take over his body, the way he did when Mother crowded him; he’d close his eyes and tune her out… out… The inside of his lids now on fire, the flames… The young girl running…on fire….

  * * *

  Fay and Stormy sat in the hospital café, guzzling milkshakes. Fay’s was vanilla with coffee ice cream, Stormy’s was all chocolate. It had spread from the edges of her lips to her cheeks. She waved away the napkin Fay handed her; stretched her tongue out and upward to lick her upper lip.

  “Chocolate feeds my visions,” she said. “Which reminds me…” She stirred the milkshake, gazed into its milky depths. “Before he took Beauty, well, I’d left her in the gingko tree, you know, it has that nice long bumpy limb – I often sit there and just let myself go. Into a vision, you know. That’s why – ”

  “So what was the vision?”

  “Um, well, let me think a minute. I know I had one. It came to me, I remember, right then, there in the tree, with the puppet in my hand. ‘Marion,’ I said, ‘the puppet looks like Marion Valentini.’” She took a long slow guzzle of chocolate up through the straw.

  “We know that, Stormy. The puppet was a self-portrait.”

  “Mmm. Well then – then I tried to become the puppet. That’s what I do, you see, to create my visions. Become the person I want to see.”

  “Uh huh. And did you?” Fay pushed away her shake. She was still thinking about Willard. She couldn’t imagine the world now without him.

  Or Beets. There was still no word. It was all her fault. Willard a suspect and Beets gone missing. If only Rudolph hadn’t helped Willard with the marionette stage, hadn’t seen that rug and portrait, hadn’t succumbed to the urge to steal. But too late now.

  “I did.” Stormy sat there looking complacent in her hot pink shirt that barely stretched across her chest and black cotton pants that bulged at the waist where she’d opened the top button to let her stomach breathe. “I did,” she said again.

  “Did what?” Fay said absently, still thinking of Beets. Her bowels felt loose from stress; she reached in her purse and chewed an Imodium.

  The psychic took a few noisy breaths and made an ooo-ming sound. “I was lying on a table. Waiting for something. What was it? Yes, the new controller. Waiting for the strings that would bring me to life. The real Marion looming above, attaching first the leg string, then the arm string, then…”

  “I know the strings, Stormy. What then? What about the control stick?”

  “…then the head strings,” Stormy went implacably on. “Then she kissed it.”

  “Kissed what?” Fay felt a surge of blood into her head. “The control stick? The marionette?”

  “Neither – something else. Or maybe it wasn’t a kiss. Something…with her lips.

  And then – ”

  “Then?”

  “It faded. The vision. I was back in the gingko tree, holding the puppet.”

  Kissed the controller, Fay decided. Must have been, yes, there was no other way.

  She’d known that before, didn’t she? But never with fresh yew! Stormy seemed confused, too much chocolate. The new controller Cedric had made was of fresh yew, brand new, oozing with sap. The stuff got on her lips, she swallowed and then…

  “Done,” said Stormy, pushing away her empty container.

  Done in, Fay thought. And Willard – had he kissed a controller, too? Because it was Beauty’s controller? Because it looked like – not Marion, no. Like herself?

  Oh God, she thought. Oh my. And he kissed it?

  “And now Willard may be dying,” she cried aloud. Dying for me.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Stormy. “He’s not dying. The doctor said so. He’d swallowed only the tiniest bit of yew. They made him puke it up. They got it all out.”

  * * *

  “I didn’t do it!” Rudolph hollered when Fay walked up to the holding cell. She’d made a quick call to Nova for permission to see the man after ascertaining that Stormy was right. Willard would live, his coloring went from pale gray to vital pink when she pecked him on the cheek in his hospital bed.

  She was standing now outside the holding room; even so, the man didn’t smell any better than he had when he first walked into her house. He was wearing a sort of orange jumpsuit with sleeves too short
for his brawny arms. This time they had him for more than just breaking and entering. He was in for possible homicide.

  “Tell me what actually happened,” she said.

  “I already told my lawyer.” He crossed his arms, shutting her out.

  “Look, Rudolph. I’m your boy’s foster mother. He’s disappeared, and all because of you. You abducted him Friday and it’s already Monday. So he’s considered an accomplice for your break-in and he’s just a boy. It was unfair of you, Rudolph. Stupid! Irresponsible! Your child. He’s only a child, Rudolph – he’s in my care now, and I want him back. So where is he? Tell me that.”

  Rudolph shrugged. “I didn’t think he’d take off like that. We was headed for the border. I got an uncle up there in Canada. We was expected for supper. Uncle’s new wife makes a good beef stew.” He sighed. “Food here’s like eating turds.”

  “You were in Georgia Plains when he jumped.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Red light, you know, and he opens the door without a damn word – and he’s off. Light turns green, cars honking – what in hell pardon my French – could I do?” He rolled his eyes.

  “Plenty. You could pull over, follow him.”

  “Well, I had loot in the back, you know. ’Sides, he was already down a side street, gone – what could I do?”

  “You already said that, ‘what could I do.’ Now go back in your mind. What happened at Cedric’s house? The puppeteer’s house,” she added when he looked blank.

  “Oh, that.” His sigh echoed in the hollow cell. “I already went through that.”

  “Say it again. For me. Your son’s life is at stake here. I want every detail.”

  He stumbled through the tale. She’d already heard it from Sergeant Nova, but she’d check with Nova again in case there was a variation. The rug, the gold-framed portrait of Marion’s dad that had already been returned to Cedric. Beets’s model train engine that he’d kicked under the sofa when the woman came out of the bedroom.

  “Screamed?” she said. “Caught you in the act of stealing?”

  He shrugged. “A little upset, that’s all. No screaming, no. Just yelling.”

  “Then what? What did you do then, Rudolph? Was this the first time you’d been surprised in the act by someone?”

  “Naw, not the first time. How you think they got me those two other times? One time the guy woke up and another time –”

  “Never mind. It’s this time I want to know about.”

  “She caught me, what could I do? We got the rug already in the truck. I’m looking around the room. She comes in and grabs Beets, hollering swear words, you wouldn’t believe! He’s yelling, too, she has him by the nose. Then she gets the kid’s hair – he needs a haircut, you should of done it.”

  “Then what, Rudolph? Stop digressing!”

  “Stop what?”

  “Go on! Beets was hollering, yes, poor kid. So you pulled her off him?”

  “I told her to get out, but she wouldn’t. I sent the kid out of the room – don’t know if he went. Then I, well, what would you do, situation like that?”

  “What did you do, that’s the question. This is our boy we’re talking about here.”

  Rudolph went back to his bed and sat down. “Lousy mattress,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep a wink the last four nights. Somebody threw up in it.” Seeing Fay’s hot face, he swallowed and went on. “I got her boots in my hand, red, platform soles. Threw ’em at her, caught her off-balance. She fell and, well, me and the kid took off. That was it.” He slapped his hands together, like he was washing Fay out of them, and lay back on the bed.

  Red boots? She didn’t remember seeing any red boots. She’d ask Nova. “You didn’t wait to see if she was okay? You might have killed her. Platform soles? There’s a lot of wood in those soles and heels. Maybe you did kill her, Rudolph.”

  “Never! Never did that!” His nose was a radish, he was digging his fingers into his palms, he’d soon draw blood. She sensed he was lying – about the boots maybe, but she heard him out. “It was self-defense. Beets saw it. Ask him.”

  “You just said you sent him out of the room.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Well.” The fingers loosed, dropped to his sides. “Look, lady, it was only a shoe. I hit her with a friggin’ shoe. That’s going to kill her?”

  “In the temple, in just the right spot. It wasn’t in the stomach, it was in the forehead, right?” It could have killed her, Nova said. Rudolph was their man, he said. Though Willard, who’d arrived shortly afterward, was still a suspect for the stringing up.

  “Some argument over a puppet he wanted,” Nova had said, but looked shamefaced. He’d seen the mice in Willard’s veggie car, ready to be let out ten miles away.

  “Why did you do it, Rudolph? You just got out and now you’re back in again.”

  He looked woebegone and for a moment she felt sorry for him. It happened seventy percent of the time to released convicts, she’d heard; recidivism was the word they used. Sometimes the prisoners were let out the door with only a few dollars in their pocket. And who’d want to take them in? Fay felt guilty again. If she’d been kinder…

  “Just happens, that’s all,” Rudolph said. “Now I got to take a piss. Bug off, okay?”

  Chapter Ten

  A Thief on the Run and a Girl in the Creek

  Tuesday, October 2

  Fay was done with milking and the morning wasn’t over. She had to drop off Beets’s tee shirt for Stormy to meditate on in the gingko tree. She would drop off goat cheeses at the Co-op and then head to Green Pastures, the euphemistic name for the Alzheimer’s home where Marion’s mother lived.

  But each time she got her jacket and purse, the phone would ring and like a marionette string, jerk her back from the door. First it was Stormy with another vision, then Lieutenant Higgins, who had just heard about Willard’s hospitalization. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said. Higgins was the consummate cop; you had no choice but to answer.

  “I was waiting,” she said.

  “Waiting for what? For him to die? Well, we found out anyway, Nova’s wife called from the hospital. She’s a nurse there, you know that?”

  Fay didn’t. No wonder the life-and-death news got around so fast. Higgins knew, he said, knew that Willard had sawn a controller out of yew, that the sap had somehow seeped into his mouth. Just a “taste” Higgins said, Fay rather liked the word – sometimes Higgins surprised her. “But he threw it all up, he’s okay.”

  “And thank God for that.”

  “Um.” Did he sound disappointed? “Well, keep us in the loop, that’s all. We got two homicides now, we don’t need one more.”

  “Nobody would want to hurt Willard!”

  Higgins was quiet a minute and she realized yes, Higgins was jealous in his own way. Flattering to Fay, but people killed for jealousy. “I have to go,” she said. “I…” She started to say “have to see old Mrs. Valentini,” but stopped in time. She didn’t want Higgins to tell her to “leave it to the police.” Not that they’d get any more out of the old lady than she could. Fay didn’t know what the questions were. And what logical answers could the poor demented lady give, anyway? Though something useful might pop out.

  She started to tell Higgins about Stormy’s vision, but held back. He’d just laugh. And he’d berate her for talking to Rudolph. Instead, she let him remind her about their Monday lunch date, and she said “Uh huh, well, good bye,” and started to click off.

  But not before the lieutenant reminded her that Willard was still a suspect in Puss Valentini’s death.

  “Fay?” Now it was aunt Glenna and she turned back. “Get me more of that iced tea mix, will you? We’re out of it. They say green tea’s good for you. It might perk up these old knees. Old age is hell, you’ll find out. Once I turned eighty-four everything started to go. Knees, ankles, legs, hips – brain cells.”

  “Okay.” Fay added iced green tea mix to her mental grocery list, said it three times to keep it in mind. She was almost at the door; if the phone ra
ng she wasn’t answering.

  The door opened on its own, like the automatic door in the grocery stores. And in fell Chance. With old Billy the Kid close behind. She saw a puffy face, blackened eyes – he’d run into a couple of doors, had he? She caught a whiff of iodine, tobacco, hair grease. A come on, no doubt for Chance. A turnoff as far as Fay was concerned. What could she say to Chance, who was seventeen and looked twenty-one?

  “I’m running late,” she told the girl.

  Chance nodded. “So are we.” She’d been quiet lately, like something was going on she didn’t want to talk about. And Fay had too much on her mind, too many unorthodox happenings, to ask. Billy was writing music for Chance’s goat play, she’d communicated that much last night at supper. Now she was heading for the stairs, a tall lean figure in jeans and Abenaki tee shirt so shrunk it showed her belly button; Billy trotting behind her with a furtive smile at Fay. He knew Fay didn’t approve of him but he kept moving up the steps anyway. The Ghouls shirt. She wondered if he painted, too. Like skulls and crossbones? Did he dig up the dead? Was there no end to his ghoulish talents?

  There was another visit to make to that bone artist. Where was he located? When would she find the time? The pile of goat cheese was diminishing. If Valentini’s Marionettes brought in a little money, she might give up on the cheese. Too time consuming, too little remuneration. “We have a rehearsal, too,” she hollered back at Chance. “Tonight at seven. At Willard’s place, so be there! I’m picking Will up from the hospital – he had a close call. But insists on our using his house.”

  If she could ever get out of here to get to the store, then to Green Pastures, then to pick Willard up at three. She let the door slam behind her.

  “Mama! Sweetie Pie got through the fence! Come and help!” Fay was almost to the pickup when Apple came running on her short, bowed legs, her cheeks red as the first falling leaves on the big maple by the goat barn.

  It was the last straw. She had to go, she had to be at Green Pastures before they sat down to lunch. There’d be no talking to Gloria Valentini at lunch. “She grows violent around food,” the director had said on the phone.