“Yeah, yeah. I know. Busy Saturday.”
“You should go get some sleep, and maybe if you're a good boy, the Sex Fairy will come visit you in your dreams.”
“I wanna dance.”
“You wanna dance.” She studied me a few seconds, then turned to her bartender. “Cliff, set this Guinness aside for Mr. Flatley there, and watch the bar for a few minutes. Come on, big boy, let's dance.”
I don't know if she actually jumped the bar in a knee-length skirt, but if you knew her, it wouldn't surprise you if she had. Before I knew it she had me by the hand, leading me to the floor. Just keeping up with her was a challenge, but I did my best. She had rhythm and style, and her every hip swing was loaded with raw, earthy sensuality. The song must have run well over five minutes, and I began feeling the combined effects of several beers, a few shots, a twelve-ounce burger with fries, and this sudden, irrational burst of aerobic exercise. When the song ended, I was breathing hard. She pulled me close and rubbed my head.
“Go get some sleep,” she said. “You look like you got up before sunrise.”
“Of course I did. But I'll have that Guinness first.”
When that Guinness was finished, I was, too. I paid up and walked home, my legs heavier with each block. The driveway's slight incline felt like a hill, and the steps on the spiral stairs seemed too high. I climbed under the sheets naked and fell immediately asleep.
I was awakened by the Sex Fairy. She materializes in the bed next to me, and my first awareness of her is always a touch. Sometimes it is the touch of breasts pressed against my back or gently touching my face. Sometimes it is a warm female ass backed into my groin or a warm, loving hand. Sometimes, like this morning, it is a kiss. However it begins, it always ends the same.
It usually goes like this: a cough, a shared laugh, and a moment, after which the Sex Fairy asks, “Are you going to make coffee?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I love your coffee. Hey, I'll bet I can take a shower before the coffee's ready.”
“You know where the towels are.” We go downstairs. I begin making coffee, while Rita washes off fairy dust. She emerges fully dressed. Sometime during coffee, she pulls a small notebook out of her bag and start adding to or subtracting from one or more lists of places to go, items to buy, things to do, and people to see. I serve coffee and crack jokes. After two cups of coffee, she leaves. If I'm a good boy, I'll see her again next week.
The situation wasn't quite as cold as I make it sound. Carly and Dylan meant everything to her; everything she did was for them. What began as prudence during custody hearings became a habit, and Rita never had men over to her house. Ever. I asked her once what I would have to do to sleep over at her house, and she said, “Marry me. They already have one parent who sleeps around.” Naturally, she wouldn't sleep over at my apartment, and she didn't go on overnight trips without her kids, either. She worked until three every morning except Saturday and Sunday, after which she went straight home. The girl had no social life whatsoever when she met me, and still she made me wait a year before she agreed to “go out” with a customer. We “went out” to lunch a handful of times, and we kissed in the parking elevator after our third lunch, but timing a tryst seemed impossible. One night I laid a copy of my door key down on the bar.
“For you,” I said. “Whenever you get the time.” The next morning brought my first visit from the Sex Fairy. It was convenient for both of us. It kept everyone's life uncluttered.
It's not like I never went to her house; I just never went to her house for sex. I went over from time to time to help out, like when we painted her house or when we expanded her back deck, or when I helped her put in raised beds for her tomatoes, but there was no playing house, there would be no public displays of affection in front of her kids, unless... yep. Unless I intended matrimony. Now, as to that, about a year after I gave her my house key, she told me she thought I could make a good husband, but that it probably wouldn't be anything like I expected. I took that as an opportunity to explain how impossible it was for me to see myself as a stepfather. I didn't want to be anyone's substitute parent, and especially, I didn't want to try it with two nearly-grown teenagers. Carly, Dylan, and I all got along just fine, but I always sensed that part of what they liked was knowing that I wasn't going to shoehorn myself into some poser-parent role just to sleep with their mother, that they would never wake up to find me drinking coffee in their dad's old robe. The Sex Fairy came by four to six times a month, and most of the time, I had no complaints, except to wish that she'd shown some interest in 1984. Any at all, really.
4. Snubbed and Stumped
I spent the rest of the weekend vaguely depressed. Just didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything. Monday morning was different. I threw clean clothes into the cab, locked the door to the garage, and pointed the truck toward the office. Traffic was the usual insanity, as was the office, but I smiled and whistled all the way back to Sweeney County.
I saw Eleanor's green Volvo parked outside the White Horse Tavern as Steve and I drove past. As my mind replayed that moment when she first turned to face me, I noticed my heart beat a little faster. Then I remembered her ring finger, and my mood sobered. Oh well. I turned my mind to the week's work ahead.
One of our tasks was one I both loved and detested, if such a thing is possible: survey control recovery. So far, we had been working only on the south end of the job, from Carswell in Sweeney County northward. It was equally as important to our accuracy to find known references points at the job's north end and begin setting control points southward along the way, in order to eliminate any possible horizontal error in our survey. To find those known points, Mike had spent some time searching the National Geodetic Survey website. He had downloaded nineteen datasheets, each detailing the location and description of a known marker within twenty miles of the Reynolds County airport. Our first task was to hunt down each of those markers and inspect its suitability as a GPS control point. It's an odd combination of frustration and fun.
Let's start with the fun part. Who doesn't love a treasure hunt? Okay, it's not really treasure, but it is a game of finding something according to a set of clues, such as: “the surface disk is set in the top of a 12-inch cylindrical concrete monument flush with the ground surface. It is 117 feet west of a utility pole with three transformers, 53 feet east-northeast of the east rail of a railroad track and 50 feet southwest of the southwest edge of a church parking area. The underground disk is set in the top of an irregular mass of concrete 46 inches below the ground surface.” That's the description of a marker located pretty close to downtown. Others are out in the middle of what looks a lot like nowhere, but prettier: “the station is located about 6-3/4 miles southwest of Middleton, 4-1/2 miles south of Reynoldston, 3-1/2 miles northeast of the Flat River, and on property owned by the Muskogee Timber Company.” Adding to the challenge, they are often overgrown with weeds or covered by leaves and dirt, which is why we carry metal detectors in our trucks. It's an all-day task, so bring a lunch. I usually pack Chex Mix and beef jerky, venison jerky when I can get it.
Now for the frustrating part: often an hour of driving and searching reveals the survey marker has been destroyed by development or buried under four inches of fresh asphalt. In other cases, one of a pair of known points exists, but the other is missing or “disturbed”, which means it's been bent or moved in any way since being set, rendering its published coordinates useless and wasting your time. Other times, the survey marker is there, but it's deep in a hollow with no sky or under a grove of trees, either of which makes it useless for GPS control. Even more aggravating is knowing that had he had bothered to read their descriptions, Mike would have known over half of the points he sent me to investigate were a waste of time, but the only way to convince him that the control point was worthless was by physically checking it out yourself, though, so that's what I did.
By six o'clock, Steve and I had had enough of that sort of fun for one day,
so we headed for Carswell and the motel. We needed beer, so we stopped at a supermarket to peruse the import selection. While Steve was trying to decide between pilsener and ale for the evening, I became aware of someone behind me checking out the wine racks. There was something familiar about the scent, too... I turned my head, and there stood Eleanor.
“Well good evening,” I smiled. “What's for dinner?”
“Excuse me?”
“What's for dinner, you know, to go with the wine. It's me, Addison. I came into the White Horse--”
“Oh, yes. I remember you now. Did you have any more questions about Sweeney County?”
I suddenly couldn't think of a thing. My mind went completely blank, and I shook my head in reply.
“Well, if any arise, you can always come to the tavern during business hours and ask me there. Do you need a card?”
I would love a card, and I told her so.
She handed me an official card bearing her office phone number only. “Take note of the new summer hours,” she said. While I studied her card, she disappeared.
“Foster's,” Steve said. “It's Australian for drunk.”
“Get a case,” I suggested.
The next day was long and uneventful, which only made it seem longer. Steve wanted to stop at a liquor store in Reynoldston to pick up a pint, so we did, after which I turned the Mighty Ford south toward Carswell.
Twelve miles south of downtown Reynoldston, we crossed the Flat River. Due to extensive siltation from centuries of tobacco and cotton planting along its banks, the river is ordinarily a mere four feet deep where the highway bridge crosses. Recent rains had temporarily raised the level to ten and a half and caused the river to flood low land on either side, expanding its width from forty-five to four hundred feet across, a wide flat peanut butter-colored pond no more than six feet deep.
“Take a look,” I said. “We're going to do a wetlands survey down there.”
“Not while it's up like that. Don't let that shit fool you,” Steve warned. “It looks like a big old pond, but that water's moving at a steady fifteen, twenty miles an hour. It would push this truck like a styrofoam cup, and it would take either one of us away like a cigarette butt.”
“We have a tree count to do, too.”
“We do? Where is it?”
“I'll show you.”
We rode through another mile of flat bottomland before the ground began a gentle rise. Timber stands rose straight up to our left; to our right, green pasture land spread out for a mile. I turned left at Thornton's Ferry Road, which promptly climbed one hundred feet over a half mile and opened into fields on either side, affording a view of the river valley and the ridge ahead. “Now up there on the left,” I continued, “way up there on top of that ridge...”
“Those trees there? That's it?”
“That's it. Weird, huh? One huge square of trees in the middle of farm and pasture land? I'm still trying to figure it out.”
We pulled up into the driveway and parked. We exited the truck and strolled casually through the mini-forest.
“Hickory, elm, red oak, white oak, sweetgum, poplar, maple... wait, at least two kinds of maple right here,” Steve identified trees as we walked. “Magnolia, pecan... look here, this is a hugely overgrown crepe myrtle. Someone planted those. This is a lot of trees to count, but I think we've counted more for the City of Atlanta,” he remarked.
“Yeah, there's not much to it but to do it, really. We'll set some GPS control out on the road, where it's clear, and shoot to a property corner, then start shooting trees, picking up property corners along the way. Maybe shoot some dead people.”
“Some what?”
“Dude, this place has a private cemetery out back. Wanna see it?”
Of course he did, so we started in that direction. Along the way I explained my interest in cemeteries and history in general, and he didn't think I was too weird. I told him how the road we'd come in on had the same name as one of the prominent families in this cemetery, and how eager I was to get a good look at the individual headstones.
We emerged on the north side of the trees and turned left. Fifty yards ahead lay the cemetery. “Wait 'til you see this place,” I told Steve. “We'll probably have to jump the wall, because I don't think anyone's been in here for a long--”
I stopped. The wrought-iron gate stood halfway open.
“That's weird,” I said, starting toward it again. “The gate wasn't open before. I couldn't get it open.”
“Rusted shut?”
“Locked,” I replied.
“Maybe someone broke the lock.”
“Maybe.” The lock didn't look broken. “Or maybe they just unlocked it,” I said, and I couldn't stop myself from looking around as I said it.
“Who?”
“Damned if I know.”
Now Steve looked around. “Weird.” he said.
“You know it. Shall we take a look?” He shrugged. I led the way.
Inside, a sand walkway down the center was clear enough to walk, in stark contrast to the weed-filled and leaf-strewn plots on either side, up from which rose headstones dated to the 1800s: Conleys on the right, Thorntons on the left. That sand path was itself evenly bisected by another, perpendicular path, dividing the cemetery into four sections, and nature must have placed the red oak three feet off-center of the intersection, forever ruining man's contrived symmetry. Beyond the tree to the right, I saw a gap in the weeds. I kept moving slowly forward and wishing I'd brought my machete.
In the northwestern quadrant, a pair of headstones stood near the walk. The closest headstone and the grave beneath it had been recently cleared and clipped. Weeds grew waist-high around a single maintained grave.
“Elizabeth Theodora Conley Burroughs. Eighteen eighty-five, nineteen sixty-eight,” I read “She's the one they called Old Miss Elizabeth at the liquor store. Well. Pardon the expression, ma'am, but who's been trimming your landscape? I thought she was the last of the line, but I guess they must have family, after all. Maybe one of her children, some relative of hers? An old lover? An old, old lover?”
I looked around for Steve and saw him standing under the red oak on its far side. “Addie, come here,” he said.
I walked down the path to join him. He didn't say anything, he just pointed to the weeds. Looking down, I saw a trail of broken and bent stalks where someone had recently stomped through. We followed the trail into the corner and found an empty space, about six feet long and three feet wide, that, like Miss Elizabeth's, had also been recently cleared and clipped.
Steve stopped behind me and looked over my shoulder. “Woah,” he said into my ear. After a moment's silence he asked the question on both our minds. “I wonder who it's for?”
I suddenly felt... anxious. That's the only word I have to describe it, and I had never felt anything quite like it. I wasn't afraid, exactly; I know what fear is and I have mental processes for dealing with it. This was different. I just felt like something, somewhere, was terribly wrong, somehow, and whatever it was, it made me anxious. I wanted – needed – to leave as soon as possible. I tried to shake it off.
“Where's that pint?” I asked.
“Back at the truck.”
“Let's go there.”
“I mean,” Steve said, “that's just weird. Know what I'm sayin'? That's just... all of it. All of it. Know what I'm sayin'?”
We were rolling southbound through a pine stand outside Carswell. We'd left the cemetery and walked the most direct route back to the Mighty Ford. Steve opened his pint there, and I took two good swigs: not enough to make me drunk, but enough to relieve that unbearable anxious feeling. I glanced over at my instrument man, who had helped himself to a few more than two before recapping the bottle.
“Yeah, man,” I replied. “I know exactly what you're saying. That was weird. That gate was locked when Mike and I were there, and it was all overgrown. I didn't even notice those sand walkways the first time, that's how overgrown it was-- and just last wee
k. Somebody unlocked that place and started cleaning it up. There must be family somewhere. Maybe Mike's found out something.” The company cell phone rang on the dashboard. I picked it up and looked at the screen. “That's Mike now. I'll see what he knows. Yo, Mike!”
“Hey. How's it going there? Y'all getting any work done?”
“When not tracking down a lot of worthless survey control, yeah, I'd say we are. Seriously, we spent yesterday finding decent control, and today we set up and collected data on eight points.”
“Eight? Why only eight?”
“Two at a time, two forty-five minute sessions at each location, plus driving time...” I began explaining.
“Well, see what you can do about picking up the pace,” he said as I cheerfully gave him the finger. “Let's talk about courthouse records. How many properties did you research when you went to the courthouse?”
“I forget exactly how many, Mike. It covered the first ten miles of the project from Carswell north--”
The Dead Hand of Sweeney County Page 5
