by Paul Zimmer
“That man is also wanted for armed robbery, stealing a truck, vehicular homicide, wounding a policeman, manslaughter, and a bunch of other things. I’d sure like to know if he’s back in these parts.”
Just the account of Balaclava’s record chills me again, but I struggle on to tell the sheriff, “The Brontë sisters in Viroqua saw him. He was in their shop asking about me.”
“Who are the Brontë sisters?”
“That’s what we call those three women who own the bookstore.”
The sheriff seems puzzled by this for a moment, but doesn’t pursue. He asks, “When did they see him?”
“Yesterday. He really scared the hell out of them.”
“Did he threaten them?”
“No. He was trying to act straight—but that guy can’t help looking nasty, no matter which angle he turns. The nature of the beast.”
“There’s a lot of badass guys out there these days. Are you sure this is the same one who abducted you? What’s he look like?”
“When he pushed me out into that whiteout he was wearing a fur hat over his whole head, but I saw he had gray eyes, and a mouth like a shark gill. He’s big, big and big, has a muscle voice like Tami Mauriello.”
“Who is Tami Mauriello?” the sheriff asks.
“Cyril!” Louise cautioned, sensing that my mechanism had been tripped.
But I had to tell the sheriff just a little about Mauriello. I can’t help myself. I am Cyril, the tender of lives. “He was a heavyweight boxer, and he staggered Joe Louis with a punch one time, before Louis took him out.”
“Not too many guys did that,” the sheriff observes.
“He played in On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, too. Not many guys did that either.”
“Cyril, this is serious business!” Louise cautions.
The sheriff goes on with his questioning. “Why would this guy come back to Soldiers Grove looking for you? He must know there’s a watch out for him.”
“I don’t know why he’s here, but I am in no condition to be facing him down. Can you help me?”
“I’ll put out a general alert, and I’ll talk to those Brontë ladies and get a better description. Do you have any idea where he might be hiding?”
“I can’t say,” I reply, then, after a little reflection, “I suspect he’s pretty good at keeping himself scarce until he’s ready to pull one of his capers; he probably lives in vehicles, breaks into abandoned houses. He knows how to hang out in deep woods. I think I saw some camping gear behind the seat of his pickup, and we’ve got a lot of trees on these driftless hills. He knows how to disappear.”
“Do you carry a cell phone?”
“No, sir.”
“I don’t have enough guys to assign you twenty-four-hour protection, but I’ll get you a little alarm device that will signal us in case the guy comes around. Do you have a weapon?”
“No.”
The sheriff sees my hesitation. “You better think about getting something. Even a knife, a blackjack or something.”
“I couldn’t bruise a peach, even with a blackjack in my hand.”
“Too bad you don’t know Tami Mauriello,” the sheriff smiles.
But it isn’t funny. This berserker is sniffing around Soldiers Grove again! He seems to be looking for me now. Louise looks scared. That makes me angry—I don’t want Louise to be frightened. I’m so sorry she’s been dragged into this thing.
“Watch yourselves,” the sheriff says, and heads for the door.
Watch ourselves? Oh, sure! A couple of arthritic elders up against King Kong! If that goon walked in here now we couldn’t do anything but slap at him and flash our snags. Together we might still be on our feet, but the two of us are no match for a mad dog. He’d as soon put me under as look at me. I’ve still got the chilblains to prove it. But what the hell does he want with me now?
CHAPTER 16
Louise
The sheriff has been checking in with us, and his deputy delivered the alarm device. They finally have a description of Balaclava produced in detail by the Brontë sisters who portrayed him as a sort of combination sloth bear and Gila monster.
The home administration, of course, talked to us at length about these recent happenings. They are almost as uneasy about the situation as we are. They do not want any trouble in the home. Elderly people are easily disturbed. Cyril and I don’t wish to start a panic.
This is not a good time for us to try and slip out on one of our larks, so the Dodge remains discreetly parked in a far corner of the lot.
Finally Cyril and I take a scheduled home shuttle ride to Viroqua to visit the Brontë sisters in the bookstore. Cyril feels guilty for involving them in his trouble, and cannot apologize enough.
I noticed a story in the county newspaper about a holdup in one of the local bars. The robber was described as a large man who wore a ski mask covering his face. The prospect haunts us. Cyril has never imagined that he might end up a stalked man.
This quiet, sparsely populated area is not accustomed to this sort of thing. The sheriff visits us again and asks more questions. We are able to tell him very little. Again he suggests that Cyril obtain a weapon. This increases our uneasiness. Cyril has never touched a gun, and is very reluctant to do so now.
So I must do something. I slip out surreptitiously one afternoon while Cyril is napping and drive the Dodge to my farm. Heath kept weapons in the house from when he was a boy—a shotgun, a rifle, a small, pearl-handled revolver. Once he demonstrated to me how to aim the pistol, how to stand firmly with legs spread, hold the gun with two hands at arms’ length, and sight down the barrel with one eye. He showed me how to load it and I fired it a few times for practice. I hated it—the intimidating bang, a tin can flying violently off the rock where Heath had placed it as a target.
But now I put the gun in my handbag with some bullets and bring it back with me to the home. When I show it to Cyril he becomes upset that I have done this. He will have nothing to do with the weapon.
Another week passes and there are no further robberies or demon signs. We allow ourselves a slight relaxation. Perhaps Balaclava has decided to abandon the territory. We do not have the nerve to try one of our daytime excursions in the truck, but Cyril is growing bored and restless. He suggests that we at least slip out and make our way over to Burkhum’s Tap one evening for just one Leinenkugel.
CHAPTER 17
Cyril
I convince Louise that we’ve got to get out of the home for just a brief while to preserve our sanity and breathe free air. We’ve got the routine down. It’s almost as simple as just walking out the door—but not quite. We still prop open an exit door with a piece of cardboard and make the break when the coast seems clear. This makes our exploits more exciting, and part of our pleasure is the stimulation of escape—believing that we’ve done something daring. We always chuckle gleefully as we hobble slowly across the road to the tavern.
I’ve had two Leinenkugels and Louise is nursing one. I feel so good I am about to signal for a third round when Louise firmly puts her hand over mine. “Cyril, we’ve got to keep our wits about us. These weeks have been challenging, and I don’t believe it’s over yet.”
“How about splitting one with me?” I suggest. “I’ll get a glass.”
“Cyril, please keep a lid on. We can only hope that monster has moved on—but he came back here for some mysterious reason, and you certainly seem to be a big part of that reason.”
This gives me a chill. I try to ignore the full meaning of what she is saying. “How about just a little something to get us back across the road?”
I like to hang on to that lovely early alcoholic glow. I once read an interview with a jazz musician—I can’t remember who, maybe Lester Young—and he was talking about drinking. “I’d like to stay just slightly loaded all the time,” he said. “Trouble is, I always get excited and start the spillover.” That’s where my parents were—permanently spilled over. “Okay, let’s go home,” I say to Louise.
I notice she has carried her little handbag with the pistol inside, and this gives me the willies. Louise has more sense of the present than I do. I tease her about it, “I notice you’re packing your rod. So I’ll feel safe. I can see the headlines now in the National Enquirer: BELLE STARR RETURNS FROM GRAVE TO SUBDUE ICEMAN’S ENEMY. Do you know who Belle Starr was?”
“Cyril, the Leinenkugel—it is making you silly. No brief lives now! Let’s go. We’ve got to be careful.”
“Belle Starr blew a lot of men away in her day. She was born in Missouri and fell in with Jesse James and Cole Younger, and was as tough as any of them.”
“Cyril, I am not as tough as any of them. I’m an old French peasant woman who gets very worried. This is no time for brief lives. We’ve got to get back across that road without trouble.”
“Okay, okay, you’re right,” I reach down to pick up our canes from under my chair. Our first small spat—and I want no more. I am not going to go where my parents went. We make our way through Burkhum’s tables and head out.
It’s a sweet night, a half moon still low enough so that we can see the high clear stars over the driftless hills. I’m sure there are crickets sawing on the shadows, but they don’t resound in my one working ear. Okay, it probably wasn’t a good idea to slip out to Burkhum’s. I admit I’m a little nervous now, and I sense Louise’s very real tension in the wide darkness. I regret I’ve caused her to be worried.
We hobble across the berm onto the road shoulder. No cars moving, so we tap-tap-tap across the pavement to the other side as quickly as we can. There is light coming from Burkhum’s big sign and the two high, yellow utility lamps on poles over the rest home parking area. But darkness dominates, and as we step into the shadows of the trees and shrubs in the strip around the edge of the parking lot, something rustles in nearby greenery.
I can’t quite make it out, but whatever it is, it is much bigger than a raccoon, much larger than a rabbit or coyote, about the size of a large deer, but not bigger than a bear. Whatever it is, it is definitely scrunching through the shrubs toward us. Louise makes a very small sound, but I am quiet. Both of us instinctively touch each other and continue our quick shuffle in the direction of the home away from the advancing specter.
By the time we trundle onto the pavement of the parking lot I notice that Louise—my God in heaven!—Louise has opened her little purse and has her pearl-handled pistol in her hand. How can things happen so fast? Here we were hobbling our way home under the stars, my tummy happily gurgling with Leinenkugel, and in a wink we are facing some heaping menace. Or at least Louise is confronting it. I am doing my very best to make her shuffle along; but Louise, brave, incredible Louise, is prepared to fight if necessary!
Whatever it is, this imposing shadow in the bushes, it hesitates before emerging, probably because it sees Louise’s pistol—and just at that moment the whole area fills with light as a car swings down our lane of the parking lot, coming toward us with headlights on bright. The dark menace thrashes back through the shrubs away from us.
One, two, three—one, two, three—our canes tap as we hurry across the parking lot asphalt, making our plodding way, giving each other as much support as possible. No words pass as we dodder hurriedly toward the entrance. When we reach the home we are too weary and frightened to show any caution, and walk right in the front door together without hesitation. Thank God Louise has put her pistol away, and the woman at the desk is engrossed in a book and doesn’t look up.
In our exhaustion we head for one of the lounge couches in a far corner and ease ourselves down to be close to each other. I take Louise’s hand in mine and we put our heads together. We don’t speak; we concentrate on slowing our breathing. It is such a comfort to be with each other.
I haven’t the slightest conception of what young love is. I missed out on all that. I even missed out on middle-aged love. But I am learning about old love fast—and it is a very, very fine thing. Being close to Louise at this moment, her head on my shoulder, facing this crisis together—her proximity is the most meaningful thing that has ever happened to me in my life.
Cyril, I say to myself, you have got to do something to make yourself worthy of this woman!
CHAPTER 18
Louise
Whatever that monstrous thing was in the shrubbery, large or small, dark or light, it seemed to have very bad intentions. One could sense its malice as it moved toward us. It was not an animal, but a human being, a figure of fear and anger; otherwise why would it be lurking and approaching us in the dark? We were fortunate that the car came through the parking lot at that time and brought its light.
Cyril and I talk quietly in the lounge as we recover. He has the sheriff’s emergency gadget in his pocket, and we discuss whether we should use it. But our situation is complicated by our culpability: we had gone out of the home against the rules—AWOL, I believe the military call it, away without leave—and we are wary of drawing the administration’s attention to our mischief. We also hesitate to draw further awareness to our troubles with Balaclava. If they catch us breaking rules or if trouble happens, they could put us out. Where would we go then? Already the chief administrators are looking askance at us as if we are troublemakers.
In any event, what could the sheriff do if we called him? Go out and inspect the bushes with his flashlight? Two old fools out after dark against the rules, afraid of the bogeyman . . . Perhaps it had been an animal. Animals often wander through the landscape and woods of the driftless hills. An animal also would have run away from the light of the car.
When one feels under threat, darkness can delude you into enlarging on strange presences. That’s how ghosts are born. That’s how demonic creatures get into the world. But for now, neither Cyril nor I really believe that large shadow was an animal.
It is late. So we say goodnight with an embrace and go at last to our rooms to sleep the difficult sleep of elders. By mutual agreement, Cyril and I do not spend time complaining to each other—but both of us find the aging process to be vexing. My dreams are often disturbing. The link between the subconscious and unconscious is a slender strand—and sometimes in the middle of the night I cross back and forth like a courier between these states, then finally bear my bad dreams into consciousness to lie awake uncomfortably the rest of the night.
Now with our recent experiences I have even less confidence in the possibility of some hours of blessed sleep. I have pills which give some help, but their effect wears off easily. Once I awaken it becomes a struggle against the weariness that is omnipresent. If I am able to drop back to sleep, my dreams are sometimes nightmares from which I feel I might never escape.
For instance, here is the very worst of my bad reoccurring dreams: A doctor has given me a battery of medical tests and is reviewing results with me. I can see him growing uneasy as he talks. At last he looks at me desolately and gives me the word. He tells me I am incurably ill, that nothing else can be done—it is a matter of months. When I recover from the shock of his announcement and have had time to think, I tell the doctor I am resolved to death, but I do not wish to delay it. If it is inevitable—then I wish to have it now. Can it happen without all the dreary waiting?
“That is your choice then,” the doctor says in the dream. He scribbles a prescription, rips it from his pad and hands it to me. I put it in my small purse where I now keep the pistol.
I wait a few days and my condition worsens. Finally I put on my coat and struggle to the pharmacy to have the prescription filled, coming home with a bottle of oddly opaque liquid. The label reads:
DEATH.
Take two tablespoons at night on an empty stomach. There is no prescription number for renewals. There is a small yellow sticker pasted to the bottle. It reads, Warning: This medicine will cause visual dimming and ultimate closure.
I have made my decision. Without further hesitation, I take up a tablespoon, fill it to the brim with this liquid and swallow, then pour a second and take it down fast. DEATH ha
s no taste, it goes smoothly down my throat, immediately entering my head and heart. I feel chill waves begin to move across my intestines, my sight dims, my heart staggers, my fingers have no feeling—but I do not die. There is no ultimate darkness. Things just become grayer and more distant.
I grow impatient and frightened that I will end up only impaired. Spilling and shaking, I struggle to take two more tablespoons of DEATH, attempting to hasten its process, feeling it edge down my capillaries, creep into my heart and brain. Now things are shutting down all over my body.
Suddenly I grow frightened, feel a loneliness beyond comprehension. I will miss life! Yes. Yes. I will miss Cyril. I wish I had not been so impulsive. I struggle desperately against the dream, clawing my way out of it, and wake up just before I die, steeped in sweat, gasping and clutching the sheets.
I find my dream so frightening and feel so shaken by it that later, in a rare disclosure, I tell Cyril of the experience. He takes hold of me and hugs me warmly to calm my trembling. Then he excuses himself for a moment and disappears into the vending area, returning with a small carton of chocolate milk, placing it in my hand. He is smiling. He knows I love chocolate milk. It is my brown balm, my panacea. He even reaches to spread the cardboard spout open for me.
The presence of Cyril is a miracle. How could I have predicted that such a person might come into my life exactly at this late, critical point, someone who would bring me chocolate milk when I need it most? Without Cyril, I would have perished of ennui. With Cyril, I have marvelous adventures, someone to love and hold and trust again, someone with whom I can face down troubles and fears.
