by Chuck Kinder
Sure, old Jim, Ralph said, and hugged Jim’s shoulder back. —I forgive you. It’s water over the dam.
Do you really forgive me? Jim asked. —Do you mean it?
I do. I swear I do, old Jim, Ralph said, shaking his woolly head in vigorous affirmation.
Ralph and Jim embraced at the bar. When Jim began to weep, so did Ralph. Men looked away from them, and the college girls, including the tall, beautiful, tattooed biker chick, began to dance with the incredulous locals.
I have a new girlfriend, anyway, Ralph said after a time.
Say what? Jim said.
I'm a fool for love, Ralph said. —I never learn my lesson.
You have a new girlfriend?
She’s a babe.
Her? Jim asked, and nodded toward the tall, beautiful, tattooed biker chick, who was boogying wildly at that point with a bearded, one-legged, relentlessly hopping local man.
No, Ralph said. —No way. I told you you could have her.
Who, then? Do I know her? What’s her name?
You’ve got to be kidding, Ralph said, and laughed, his big shoulders shaking, covering his mouth with his paw, the way he used to do.
Ralph and Jim had 4:00 a.m. scrambled eggs at a Nut Tree restaurant God-knows-where on Route 80, where they walked the check and Ralph stole a cherry-wood pepper grinder as an upcoming anniversary present for Alice Ann, to commemorate their eighteen years of marital bliss.
3
Lindsay and Jim were married on a beautiful spring afternoon, and she wore a long-sleeved, floor-length, light green dress, its material covered with small blue and yellow flowers, which she had made with her own hands. She wore a wide-brimmed white sail of a sunhat and carried a single white rose. Jim wore a new plaid sport coat he had bought the day before. It looked like something he could fashionably wear to sell used cars.
The party that night after the ceremony was a great success, and the police were called only twice. When Jim came to the next afternoon himself, he found his breathtakingly beautiful bride in bed beside him still wearing her lovely, albeit somewhat wrinkled, wedding dress, not to speak of her somewhat crushed white sail of a hat, whereas Jim was buck naked except for his brand-new snakeskin cowboy boots, Lindsay’s wedding gift.
Only for Crumley’s grumbling and threats two days later did the rented moving van get loaded with all of Lindsay’s worldly goods for the move south to San Francisco to begin a new life with this new husband. The various Trail’s End bar drunks.
Buffalo had dragged along to help had moved like moonwalkers, and often their memories clearly failed them as they returned to the house with items from the truck. Lindsay visibly trembled as her beloved, inherited treasures were lucked into place on the truck and bound. When the Buffalo almost stumbled off the truck’s loading plank with a box of her grandmother’s priceless china, Lindsay gasped and then flung herself to the second-floor bathroom, where she locked herself in, lit up, and paced in rage and despair. The day had been packed with the portent of bad omens. As soon as she spotted her kitty-carrying case the morning of this moving day, little Sappho had hidden out wild-eyed and shivering in a closet. Finally Lindsay quit pacing the bathroom and simply flopped down on the commode lid, where she sat grinding her teeth and chain-smoking. Presently Jim began tapping on the door and begging Lindsay to trust in their future together.
Later on that day of their departure, when Jim pulled Lindsay’s Oldsmobile Cutlass into a drive-through car wash in Lolo to remove the crude comments Buffalo and the boys had soaped onto the car, the crazy caravan of Trail’s End drunks and grown men with the nicknames of boys had circled them honking and hooting and hanging mooning asses out side windows. Now and again some drunk fool would discharge his gun in the air. Lindsay had looked over at Jim with her smoky, country-song gray eyes, and shook her head slowly, and said quietly and simply, Good God, and I am just on my so-called honeymoon. Lindsay reached over and put her hand on Jim’s big arm. Honey, Lindsay said, and Jim looked at her, honey, all I want is a normal life. A simple, normal life is all I ask of you.
Yessum, Jim had said, and grinned. —The normal life is in the mail.
4
A huge full moon hung above the Bay, and nearby the planet Venus shone that night far more brilliantly than any star, as Jim and Lindsay sped into Berkeley out of the east, Jim singing Shine on, shine on harvest moon, for me and my gal, above the radio blasting honky-tonk, the highway lights lushly coral, taillights bobbing in the tinted windshield like the blossoms of tiny electric red roses.
Lindsay rolled down her window, stuck out her head, let her long hair blow. She closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and ate air fresh from the Orient. Lindsay clapped her hands. I’ve never been so flipping excited, she exclaimed to Jim. I’ve never been so happy. God, Stark, I think I could eat you alive, Lindsay said, and then kissed and nibbled at Jim’s neck.
Just remember, Jim said, you are what you eat.
When suddenly in the smooth flowing darkness beyond the road in the mudflats by the bay, the horrible shapes of creatures rose in Lindsay’s vision from the black waters. Holy moly, Stark, Lindsay said, and pointed excitedly. —What in the world?
Them, baby, Jim said, are driftwood sculptures. People come out and build them at low tide. Driftwood dinosaurs, a sphinx of driftwood, tigers, trolls, demons, driftwood creatures in the form of spheres, an animal imagined by Poe, a minotaur, Swedenborg’s devils, the elephant that foretold the birth of Buddha, driftwood metaphysical beings, nymphs, you name it.
Whatever you say, Stark, Lindsay said, rolling up her window and lighting a cigarette. She looked into the rearview mirror. She wanted to keep the past behind her but still visible, the way she liked to watch horror movies on television, from the next room while she was ironing.
Following a wide sweep of highway onto a massive bright boat of a bridge that seemed to float over a flood of low fog, Jim delivered Lindsay into the startling lights of a brand-new life.
Killer Is Cool
1
The fresh start that Ralph and Alice Ann made that same March when Jim and Lindsay were married was perhaps their best ever. They had been through the flames, Alice Ann declared, and now they were rising from the ashes of the past. They had gotten that bad bankruptcy business behind them, and Ralph’s first book, that collection of stories which would eventually make him famous, was just coming out, and the early reviews—Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly—were wonderful. All those years of dashed hopes, final straws, that life of low points, leaving towns under the cover of darkness, abandoning breakdowns on the highway and sneaking away burdened by defeat, bankruptcies like clockwork, were all somehow vindicated and made almost heroic by the stories in Ralph’s book.
Ralph and Alice Ann had decided to use every dime of Ralph’s remaining advance money to make their old homestead as glossy as a magazine layout. Alice Ann searched Sears for new bedroom rugs and drapes and kitchen curtains; they had to have new kitchen curtains, curtains like Alice Ann’s mother once had, pale green with tiny pink apples on them, a few posters maybe, or prints, both, whatever, as long as they were bright, splashed with color, maybe in a Mexican motif (Alice Ann loved Mexico, and someday she and Ralph just had to get south of the border), as long as everything new in this fresh start was an aria of color and brightness and light, and plants, loads of new plants, exploding ferns, green jades, flowering plants, everywhere green, growing plants, galore with life, and lamps, two big new lamps for their showcase of a living room.
After getting estimates, Ralph and Alice Ann settled on a cheap Chicano crew to landscape their yard, which turned out to mean a week of overtime chopping jungle from the junked appliances beside the garage and peeling the back yard’s layers of rotting oranges in a fog of flies.
Late one afternoon Ralph jumped his hoodlum son by surprise, got him in a pretty good hold, and tried to reason with him about the goddamn dinosaur of a Dodge which had been rusting on cinder blocks in the driveway f
or two years while the son tinkered on it with stolen parts. Although this discussion had ended in the back yard on the ground with the son holding Ralph in a headlock for nearly a half hour before Alice Ann returned home from work and squirted them with the hose, the goddamn Dodge was hauled, along with all the junked appliances.
After his hippie daughter had pulled one of her days-long disappearing acts, Ralph had stalked the house with a pillowcase one Saturday morning bagging the dozen or so stray cats whose karma, according to his daughter, had led them to his daughter’s door. One by one Ralph tossed those filthy felines into the trunk of his car. Ralph would teach those cats karma all right, and his daughter, and Alice Ann, too, if she butted in. Ralph was going to put his foot down around this karma carnival, and he was going to shake those spraying, hissing, clawing cats out of his life like a bad habit. There could be no real fresh start with those creatures skulking around ready to pounce on it like a rat, and Ralph getting no respect.
Ralph fixed himself an eye-opener and sat at the kitchen table smoking. He was letting Alice Ann sleep in. She needed it after these last few days. Goddamn that hippie daughter. Making her mother sick with worry. Casting a pall over this fresh start. Ralph could hear those cats yowling from the car's trunk in the driveway. Maybe he should just pull the car into the garage, leave the motor running, close the garage door for a time. Wipe that slate clean before Alice Ann got up. No, he had to have Alice Ann’s backing in this business. She had backed him at last about hauling the boy’s heap. That was a first. Alice Ann had to realize that it was them against those kids. They had to stand up to those criminal kids shoulder to shoulder or be buried alive.
God, it’s almost eleven, Alice Ann said when she walked into the kitchen. She poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette from Ralph’s pack. She exhaled through her nose and ran her fingers back through her long, tousled hair. She was wearing a short blue nightie, and Ralph could see that she had not shaved under her arms for days. —Why didn’t you wake me up, sweetie? Is there any sign of her yet?
Not to my knowledge there’s not.
Did you check her bedroom?
I checked her bedroom.
She could have slipped in and gotten some things and gone again. How would we know? I tried to listen for her. But I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. The last time I looked at the clock it was nearly three.
She hasn’t been here, Ralph said.
How do you know? How do you know that?
Elementary, my dear Watson, Ralph said, and jiggled his glass at Alice Ann. —We forgot to hide the vodka last night. We left it out like dopes and I left my cigarettes out here on the table, too, and everything was still here when I got up. She hasn’t been near the place. For that matter, the lout isn’t around either. As far as I can tell, he didn’t stagger home last night either.
He didn’t? He didn’t ask to stay over anywhere, did he?
Of course not, Alice Ann. He’s probably out casing some house to break and enter. And she’s probably high in some hot tub engaging in unspeakable acts of sex.
Don’t, Ralph, please. What’s that noise?
What noise? I don’t hear any noise.
I don’t know. Some noise. Like babies crying or something. There it is. God, that’s weird.
There are no babies around here, Alice Ann, that’s for sure. Maybe some asshole neighbor is mowing his lawn. Maybe it’s a siren in the distance. Probably the police chasing our children.
Ralph, we have to go look for our daughter again. I’ll go get dressed.
That’s crazy, Alice Ann. Just tell me where we start. Tell me that. You’ve called everybody who has known that girl since childhood. That’s humiliation enough. I don’t understand why you’re so worked up, Alice Ann. She’s pulled this disappearing act before.
She’s our daughter, Ralph. Our only daughter, Ralph. I keep seeing her beside some road.
Right. Hitchhiking to Hollywood. Alice Ann, honey, this is old business. She wants that old car, Alice Ann. That’s the long and short of this business. We just got rid of the boy’s rattletrap, honey. You backed me on that business. We vowed no more eyesores rusting away in the driveway, Alice Ann. It has to be you and me and our fresh start or we’re goners.
Our children have to be a part of our fresh start, Ralph. Sweetie, our whole family has to share in this new beginning.
The way I see it is that old business is going to ruin our fresh start. That’s the way I look at it. I’m sorry, but there it is.
Ralph, are you calling our babies old business?
I’m calling a spade a spade. I’d like to enlist our old business in the Marines is what I’d like to do. Do you want an eye-opener, by the way? I’m going to freshen my screwdriver. Here I am getting all hot and bothered. I’m getting all worked up, and we said those days were behind us.
Is there any tomato juice? I’d like a Bloody Mary if there’s any tomato juice.
Ralph opened the refrigerator and said, There’s tomato juice here. But it’s in a can somebody opened and just stuck back in here, who knows when. That could poison a person. When you open a can you should put any leftover contents in something plastic. Nothing would give those kids more pleasure than to poison me.
Settle down, Ralph. It’s no big deal. Besides, you’ve never put anything in anything plastic in your life.
This tomato juice could be poison, I’m telling you, Ralph said, and shook the can and sniffed it. —Have you ever watched while that boy chugs right out of a carton of milk? He chugalugs half a goddamn carton of milk at a time and doesn’t give a second thought to contaminating what’s left for the rest of us with his awful germs.
You do the same thing, Ralph. Make me a Bloody Mary. Tomato juice is too acidic to go bad that fast.
I don’t either.
Ralph, I’ve seen you do it a thousand times. I keep hearing that awful sound, Ralph, what in the world is it? Maybe something has crawled up under the house. Maybe you ought to get the flashlight and take a look, sweetie.
First thing in the morning, Ralph said, and turned on the radio. —Do you want a touch of Tabasco? Worcestershire sauce? The works, or what?
The works, Alice Ann said. —Why not? Some celery salt, too, Ralph. Ralph, that noise is making my skin crawl.
I've been the busy beaver all morning, Ralph said, and turned up the radio. —I started a new story. I think it’s sure-fire.
Ralph, look at these goose bumps on my arms. Somebody is walking over my grave, Ralph.
When the doorbell rang, Ralph dropped the can of tomato juice into the sink.
Jesus Christ, Ralph said. —Who could that be? Don’t answer it, Alice Ann.
Don’t be crazy, Ralph, Alice Ann said, and got up from the table.
Me? Me crazy, Alice Ann? Don’t answer it. Whatever it is, we don’t need it.
Why are you so weird today? Alice Ann said, and left the room.
Ralph looked down into the sink at the spilled tomato juice as red as blood. Ralph turned on the hot water full blast and sat down at the kitchen table. He lit a cigarette and polished off his drink. He could hear Alice Ann speaking with somebody at the door. Steam rose from the sink. Ralph saw he had forgotten to close the refrigerator door. He saw an uncovered plate of something gone green. Ralph could hear an actual siren somewhere in the distance and the insane cries of those cats.
2
Where’s my Bloody Mary? Alice Ann said when she returned to the kitchen and sat down. —I’m going to need it.
Jesus, Ralph said. —I knew you shouldn’t have answered that door.
You had better make yourself a stiff one, too, Ralph. You’re going to need it, too.
I told you not to answer that door, Alice Ann. Didn’t I tell you?
Ralph stood up from the table and went to the sink. He turned off the hot water and then turned on the cold and rinsed his glass. He took a tray of ice from the refrigerator and that plate of green fur. Using a fork Ralph sc
raped the green fur into the garbage disposal.
