And I saw my momma—my beautiful mommy—not with my mind’s eye as times before but, truly, for the very first time. And I just bobbled there looking at her.
*
“All the next day rains broke through—steady, gentle, spring rain that made lovely sounds on the leaves, spanked the ground around the pool, pattered upon its surface. And, the waters came up.”
It was sometime during that time Carlie lost it . . . lost her hold on life and slipped away, forever separated from the existence she’d known on this earth—from friends and family, pain and thought.
*
The Great God of the universe strewed my mommy with lovely, little flowers, pushed them up around her hair—pink and white—’til she looked like my queen in a tiara. She floated in the water and moved with the flow of my pool.
I slowly advanced upon her so’s I wouldn’t cause alarm, make her cry out. Just my liddle buger-eyes above the water’s surface. And I reconnoitered . . . reconnoitered up to her head, back down around her feet. Then, as I crept slowly toward her face on the other side, with great joy, I found her looking at me—big, black eyes open wide looking down at me her child and the prettiest smile I’ll ever see. All for me.
I guess one of the nicest of all times is when it rains. Splish-splashin’ on top of the pool. Drip-droppin’ on my head, my face. Sometimes it’s cool, makes me shudder so I dive deep. Sometimes it’s warm as a bathtub, so warm I can’t tell where I end and the water begins. We’re the same. No beginning, no end. That’s the way I feel—like I don’t want it ever to end. Me and my mom—floatin’ and bobbin’, twistin’ and turnin’, swishin’ and swashin’. I swim circles around her and I smile ’cuz she’s smiling at me. The rain split-splats all around me and I smile at the times we have together in the water in the cool, clear pool with the green grasses growin’ up all around and the bubbles slippin’ past and the little fishies nudging me. They nudge her, too. They’re not particular.
I dive down deep to keep myself warm by my springs—down there where the water rises up out of the earth and rocks, pressing upward from a source I’ll never find, where the waters are even so much warmer, down under where I can never go. But I won’t leave my mommy alone for long. I miss her loving smile and the fun we had together.
45
It was Saturday. Even though most of the doctors curtailed their routine rounds until Monday, the halls were busy, bustling with nurses and aids going about their work, visitors. That included Virginia and Margaret’s two sons, per agreement and they were going through the closet taking out the few personal effects the hospital had retrieved from the ambulance attendants the night of Maggie’s accident.
Virgie was standing, holding up an item one of the “boys” had handed her, examining it and laughing. “I haven’t seen this in such a long time!” It was Margaret’s old, black belly bag, the one with the broken zippers that all but refused to slide either way. Usually, she carried it slung over her shoulder.
“Mercy. Margaret stopped using this years ago. She referred to it as her purse.”
Maggie preferred it because of the way it expanded, held all she needed it to hold yet, remained light, soft. Made her feel unencumbered. It looked vaguely familiar to her sons.
“You know . . . ,” one of the men said, “I do
remember that bag and, yes . . . that was a long time ago.”
Virgie unzipped the largest compartment, began rummaging around inside. It had Meggie’s keys—car and house . . . the police had placed them in the bag when they towed her car away . . . her driver’s license, checkbook, some tissue, lipstick, a small cake of powder by a company that no longer sold women’s makeup, her voter’s registration . . .
“Hey. Now, here’s a dead giveaway.” Virgie exclaimed. “The year on this registration is 1979. You guys know what you were doing that far back?”
The younger of the two men spoke up, “I was nine. That’s about all I remember on such short notice. And, that made you ten—give or take a little,” he said to the older.
The older son added, “We were, probably, throwing our paper route at the time. Mom took us out. You remember. Then we stopped off for doughnuts. You, me, Mom and Pop sitting around the table, eating doughnuts.”
“Oh, yeah . . . and ice-cold milk. We ate the whole baker’s dozen in one sitting.”
Virgie continued to pilfer through her dear friend’s possessions. She opened the small, front compartment, found a charge card from Sears, an old grocery list, a couple of paper scraps with phone numbers, a grocery receipt dated July 3, 1979.
“This sounds kind of familiar . . . July, 1979. Is that the year we went to that old Boy Scout camp? What was its name?”
“Camp Matigua.” stated a son.
“Yes. Camp Matigua. My, oh, my . . . it’s got all the things Maggie bought for that picnic. And, she wrote ‘firecrackers’ down on her shopping list. Here . . . here it is.” She showed both pieces of paper to the sons.
As the woman unzipped the small, back, outside pocket, a lovely, delicate piece of fabric caught her eye.
“I wonder what this is.”
She pulled it out as the boys watched. Margaret had folded a handkerchief around a card so that both items fit snuggly into the compartment . . . the embellished, ecru-on-white handkerchief and dirty, old, frayed Social Security card. Virgie opened the piece of material fully and read the name that had been embroidered down, along one edge, around the corner and up the other side . . . Corporal Banard M. Pettiway.
“You fellas may not remember the significance of this handkerchief. It was that jazz funeral we joined on its journey down the road to the cemetery. All the women in the procession were carrying a handkerchief like this, waving it in the air. I guess Margaret found one on the ground and picked it up. It’s got the dead soldier’s name embroidered along the edges—Corporal Banard M. Pettiway. And, this Social Security card . . . I don’t know. It’s certainly not Maggie’s. Not either of yours, not your
dad’s. It’s made out to a Raymond Carey Olftersen. I bet he’s been wondering where on earth he left it.”
And, pressed against the back of the card was a solitary, white Dogwood bloom, a solitary hot-pink Red Bud blossom . . . both brown and faded.
“If you fellas want, I’ll take this to the Social Security office Monday. I’m sure someone’s been missing it.” Virginia held the card in her hand.
“You could mail it in, Virginia. I’m sure that woul . . .”
“It’s no chore to drop it off.” Virgie was quick to offer, “I’ll be out and about anyway running errands. What else do I have to do with my time . . . except sit with your mother? Goodness knows, I’ve little housework to do, being just me knocking about. A flying swipe with the dust rag and I’m pretty much through.”
46
Monday morning bright and early, Virginia took the card to the Social Security office. She had no need, really, to take a number, to sit and wait for who knows how long for her turn to come around. So, she explained the circumstances to the officer on duty, the fellow in uniform who kept watch over the applicants, answered questions, maintained order, kept tempers from flaring.
Being a most social individual, the woman had a huge tendency toward chatty—the self-same trait that got her in trouble with the young man at the square dance affair. Virgie explained to the officer that her friend had found the card years ago at a picnic they’d gone on. She gave him the exact date, July 4, 1979. And, finding the old Boy Scout camp of considerable interest herself, she told him about that, too . . . and the funeral procession.
When she, finally, noticed him getting a bit twitchy as he sat—actually, he’d been twitchy for the past ten minutes—glancing nervously around the room looking more than a little like a cornered pole cat, she handed him one of her cards. She had made herself a business card. It wasn’t a bona fide
business card since she had no business. It looked like a business card, had been run off by the printer; contained her name, mailing address and
phone number, but it, also, included a Bible scripture. She gave them out when she met people with whom she shared common interests, priorities, people she felt could benefit from some alternative health information that she wrote on the backside. Sometimes, when she invited them to her church, she’d hand them her card. So, she gave the officer one . . . just in case.
That was the end to it, she expected—her interesting tale had been told, the item given over to the appropriate authorities—until her phone rang a couple of days later. The police lieutenant on the other end said he was calling about the Social Security card she’d left at the local office, that he would appreciate the opportunity to come out and talk with her a little more about it. She didn’t feel the request too unusual since the card was very old, a relic, but police interest roused her mind to quandaries as to why a simple return should necessitate a visit and why they would need further information from her. She had told the gentleman at the office all she knew.
{“She always does, bless her heart.”}
As the visit turned out, he, merely, wanted confirmation and personal testimony from her as to how she and Margaret had come to possess the card and the circumstances, as best as she could remember, surrounding the occasion. He made notes in his small notebook as she recalled their adventures at Camp Matigua.
“We had a wonderful time, Officer. And, except for the funeral, it was a most peaceful 4th of July. Nothing untoward happened. Didn’t even get any firecrackers
off.”
And, then, he left . . . but, not until he asked her, politely, for the handkerchief, as well, which he placed into a plastic bag. It was greatly creased where Maggie had folded it around the card and stained by the blossoms that, for some 30 years, had been pressed into it.
“I don’t know why . . . she just stopped using it—probably since the zippers were always giving her trouble. They wouldn’t open if they were shut and wouldn’t shut if they were open. And, too, they would slip open while she was in public. She got pretty flustered when she looked down and the contents were spilling out all by themselves. The bigger question for me, Lieutenant, is why she took it on this particular occasion some few weeks back—after leaving it so long in retirement. I guess we won’t know that answer until my dear friend wakes up—if she ever does.”
The officer expressed regret that Margaret was in her present condition and extended his hope that she’d soon be mended.
“A nice, young man . . . a really nice, young man.” she muttered to herself as she watched him walk down the sidewalk. She closed the front door and joined him in his hopes that Maggie would soon be well. She’d be glad to have her old friend back in the neighborhood. She greatly missed her long-time, coffee-drinking buddy.
*
And, that was the end of her dealings with the police and the ancient Social Security card . . . until she read the write-up some weeks later. She may well have missed it altogether had it not been for the Fishers’ visit.
She had her head down peeling and eating oranges, newspapers strewn across the small sofa, making little piles on the floor around her feet—using one section to hold the peels—when Kenneth wheeled Darlene through the door and over to where she sat.
“We had to run some errands in the neighborhood so Ken thought now would be a good time to touch base with Margaret. How’s she doing, today?”
“All’s peaceful. Haven’t heard a tweeter out of her. Mrs. Widon said her condition hasn’t much changed. She seems to rouse a little, then goes back into her comatose state.”
“Did you see the write-up about that Raymond Carey Olftersen person you were telling us about? The owner of your lost-and-found Social Security card?” Ken was wanting to know.
“No. What paper is it in?”
“Probably, the one you’re reading right there, if that’s today’s paper.”
Virginia quickly went through the sections on the
sofa and floor, then, upturned the peels and perused that page. There it was. She sat down to give the article her undivided attention when Ken said,
“Darlene and I are going to leave her with you for now. We’ve got some things we need to do before offices close. We’ll drop in, again, another time. Talked to Maggie’s sons in the hall. They said Doctor Frank doesn’t hold out much hope that she’ll come out of it, that it may be expecting too much considering both the Alzheimer’s and brain injuries. And, too, the fact that it’s taking so long for a recovery.”
Suddenly, they heard Margaret, “Water . . . please. Water. I’m so thirsty.”
But, when they looked over to the bed, the woman was exactly as she had been when they entered the room. And, as well, she was on IV’s.
“She just thinks she’s thirsty,” Darlene surmised.
47
It wasn’t difficult to find Carey, once forensics put the card through various laboratory tests.
Those many years back the matter had been placed in the “cold case” file and life went on. Quite dazzling it was, for Carey . . . the life of a competition biker with his biker bitch-wench by his side at every turn. And, they, in turn, had had three boys of their own. The older two cycled out of show business when they married, started their own lives but the youngest, in his late teens, found the glitz and glamour intoxicating—like his father and mother. They three were quite a team—complemented each other well. She never moved out of her black attire—leather, silk, silver bracelets and earrings, a tattoo here and there, stark black hair, black fingernail polish, biker boots appropriate for a beautifully trim and fit woman who looked a decade or more younger than her actual age. The only noticeable change in her daily wardrobe was the number of silver studs on her clothes and bling in her body piercings.
But, father and son wore custom-made costumes—very expensive, colorful, flashy—and helmets air-brushed for each ensemble. His own figure, sinewy and lithe, along with craggy, chiseled facial features, silver-
white hair and mustache were an impressive contrast to his young son’s more fleshy, muscled physique, smooth, youthful and attractive face.
But, the cycles—now, they were the real treasure. Carey denied them nothing, put the most excellent, most appealing parts and accessories on his and his son’s bikes. And, it wasn’t just one machine for each. Carey amassed a stable of the best, set up his own repair shop just for their personal bikes . . . greatly pampered and serviced three times as frequently as any bank exec’s helicopter.
Competition winners received enviable rewards, which, in Carey’s mind, justified the expense. Events experienced a huge draw. Ticket sales were always record-breaking and it became apparent Carey and his son were the main attraction . . . brought in the crowds. They two had that “X-factor”, that intangible and inexplicably mysterious quality that puts certain Homo sapiens over the top. The father reveled in this reality.
Because of this and, because of his finesse and maneuvering, he, now, received a percentage of each night’s gross. He was doing well. Negotiations were in the works and he expected to become partner with some associates in their own events. This was right where Carey wanted . . . needed . . . to be since he had long since past competitor’s prime and he wanted to keep his bitch in style. She required it.
Detective Larry Deeks, on the other hand, had always believed the husband was guilty. The lawman had been entranced by the wonderfully engaging and innocent smile, the hugely deep dimples in the photo the victim’s
parents had provided. The sight of Carlie Lynette Olftersen’s emaciated, brutalized and nibbled body lying in the mud—lost and forgotten—never left some corner of his thought down through the years. So, when the Social Security card was brought to his attention, he pursued the matter with vigor, decided that, if th
e card had lingered in place for so many years, so, too, may have something else—something they, regrettably, had overlooked. He returned to Camp Matigua for a personal search.
*
Carey had turned his radio off, set it down to check the map in his wallet. That was what the youths found, first . . . the radio sitting on the ground. They picked it up, turned it on to their favorite station, then approached the pool whereupon they saw Carlie lying in the water. They panicked, threw the music-maker into the water. Down through the years, with the coming and going, the rising up and receding of waters, the plastic radio traveled, coming to rest in the roots of the enormous and ancient tree that leaned out and over, decorated with its large, hemp rope bearing a single knot that swayed to and fro in a storm.
Detective Deeks carefully held onto some of the roots as he leaned his body out and reached down, retrieved the object from within the tangle. He brushed off the debris that had accumulated when the waters rose, turned the radio over, perused its backside. There at the bottom of the casing was the owner’s name melted into the plastic with the aid of a heated wood-burning wand . . .“R. Carey Olftersen”.
There, really, couldn’t be a reasonable explanation for why both his dead wife and his radio were in that place, concurrently sharing the same fresh-water pool, except that he had been present, as well . . . a fact Carey adamantly denied so many years back, a claim backed up by a significant number of witnesses. But, the authorities would go through all the procedures, including reading him his rights which arresting officers did do with due diligence when they approached him on the final night of competition—the night of the big rewards. As he and his son began minor adjustments to their bikes prior to performance—his wench looking on—they handcuffed him.
Camp Matigua: The Lost And Forgotten Page 22
