Suicide Supper Club

by Rhett DeVane

  Choo-choo stood and refreshed both of their coffees. “Did you have to get rid of that cat?”

  Johanna slapped the air with one hand. “Are you kidding? D.B. slept on Mom’s side of the bed and followed her around like a puppy. Other than hating my daddy and the Christmas peeing, D.B. wasn’t such a bad little animal.”

  “So you and your mother are able to share those memories. That’s good. Not everyone gets that chance.”

  Johanna tucked a long curl behind one ear and propped her chin on her hand. “Mom’s pretty open about things. And me being the one close-by, I suppose I’m the one she’s leaned on since my daddy died five years back.”

  “She’s lucky to have you, and your sisters.”

  Johanna reached in her jeans pocket and extracted a folded tissue. “Sorry.” She dabbed the moisture from her eyes. “I cry if someone looks at me sideways.”

  Choo-choo reached across the table and patted Johanna’s hand. “Grief comes bubbling up when it’s supposed to. Best to let it out, or it will harm you.”

  For the second time in less than two weeks, Loiscell Pickering screeched her car to a stop in front of Choo-choo’s house. She flung open the door and scrambled up the walkway. Choo-choo opened the door before Loiscell had a chance to knock. “Thank you, thank you, for coming.”

  Loiscell stepped inside, noticing her friend’s red-rimmed eyes and nose. “What’s happened? I couldn’t make out a single word you said over the phone. Good thing I recognized your voice and have caller I.D., or I would’ve thought it some kind of crank call.”

  “It’s Prissy . . . I . . . I think she might have passed away.”

  Loiscell took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders back. “Where is she?”

  Choo-choo led the way to the master bedroom and motioned toward the bed. A small hot pink dog pillow rested on one end. At first glance, the poodle seemed to be asleep, until Loiscell looked closer and noticed the absence of movement.

  “I stayed over at my Hospice patient’s house a little longer than I planned to,” Choo-choo said through muffled sobs. “I planned to take Prissy by the vet’s first thing in the morning.”

  Loiscell sat on the bed beside the pillow and reached a hand over to touch Prissy. The little animal’s skin was cold. She held a couple of fingers in front of the dog’s nose to test for breath signs. Nothing. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”

  Choo-choo folded onto the edge of the bed. “She acted better this morning. I even got her to eat a few bites of soft scrambled eggs. We walked outside for her to do her business—imagine that—then she came and sat down beside me on the steps and we enjoyed the cool morning air.”

  Loiscell hugged her.

  “All these years since Charlie left us, and Prissy and I didn’t get along worth a toot. It’s like we lived to aggravate each other. We finally got past it and now, this.”

  Loiscell soothed, “I know. I know.”

  “I can’t just leave her here. What shall I do?”

  Loiscell kicked into fix-it mode, a familiar role. “I have to ask some hard questions, Choo-choo. So please don’t be angry with me.”

  Choo-choo sniffed and moved her head up and down once.

  “Do you wish to bury her, or would you prefer cremation?”

  “Never given it much thought. Suppose I could bury her in the back yard.” Choo-choo’s white brows knit together. “But once I’m gone and the house is sold to someone else, she’ll be left alone.”

  “True.”

  “How do I go about the other?”

  Loiscell held Choo-choo’s hand as she spoke. “It’s too late in the day to do anything, dear. Monday morning first thing, I can ride over to Tallahassee with the two of you. There’s a veterinary clinic over there with a crematorium. They usually get the ashes back to the owner in a couple of days.”

  “Do I let her be until then?”

  Loiscell shook her head. “No. That wouldn’t be good, honey. What we’ll do is this: we’ll wrap her in a soft sheet and put her in a plastic bag. I have room in my deep freezer. That way, she’ll be protected until we can take her over to Tallahassee.”

  “I don’t think I have the heart to do this, Loiscell.”

  “That’s why you have me, Choo-choo. Now if you have a sheet or towel you don’t mind giving up, I’ll get her fixed up.”

  Choo-choo rose and walked to the linen closet off the master bedroom. She handed Loiscell a plush throw in a pale shade of pink.

  “You sure you want to part with this, Choo-choo? You won’t get it back.”

  “Charlie gave me that before he died. It doesn’t match my furniture. I think he would like Prissy sent off in it. Very fitting for his little princess.”

  “All right, then. Now, bring me a clean white garbage bag.”

  Choo-choo started to leave the room, then turned around and walked back to the bedside. She reached down and stroked the poodle’s head. “It was you Charlie was coming for, wasn’t it? Leave it to you to beat me out of the next spot in heaven.”

  Loiscell waited until her friend left the bedroom to lift the dog. She rested the body in the middle of the throw and folded the edges envelope-style.

  Choo-choo returned. “This seems so . . . ordinary. To be put in a trash bag.”

  “One thing about death: there is little dignified about it. But we can make it special, for Prissy. We’ll have a little ceremony and sprinkle her ashes, if you’d like. I know Abby and Sheila will want to be there.”

  “I’ll put her over our family plot. Charlie can keep her company, and soon I will be there too.” Choo-choo reached into her pocket and withdrew a lacy handkerchief to dab her eyes.

  Loiscell lifted the wrapped parcel and worked the bag around it. She wasn’t particularly happy about having a dead poodle in her freezer, but what could she do? It was only for overnight. She needed to clean out the deep freezer anyway. Most of the meat was frost-burned, and who knows how long those bags of peas and beans had been in there?

  “I don’t think I can stay here alone tonight.” Choo-choo’s gaze darted around the room.

  Loiscell draped an arm around Choo-choo’s shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. “I’ll take Prissy over to my house and get her settled in. Then I’ll grab some pajamas and maybe a couple of funny movies. We’ll sit up all night long if you’d like. I can either crash on your couch or in your spare bedroom.” Loiscell let go of Choo-choo and picked up the plastic-wrapped bundle, cradling it as if it was an infant.

  Choo-choo Ivey walked through her house with a cardboard box, collecting dog paraphernalia: a water bowl, a half-chewed beef bone sticky with Prissy’s dried saliva, a leash, a squeak toy, a grooming brush. Dogs died. Every day. They farted and peed on rugs and chewed their toenails until one day they didn’t.

  She carried the box outside to the rolling trash bin, threw it inside, slammed the lid. Back into the house to strip the sheets and covers from the bed. No way would she or anyone sleep on them. In the laundry room, she pulled the detergent bottle from its perch above the washer. A battered tin of Yip-Yap Doggie Breath Fresheners grazed the washer lid and clattered to the floor.

  Choo-choo crumbled to her hands and knees and sobbed.

  Chapter Seven

  Three weeks before suicide

  Monday

  Glenn checked his watch for the third time in less than thirty minutes. The daytime hours when he wasn’t distracted by work dragged as if he walked through cane syrup. It had been a long, agonizing three weeks since his discussion with Clay.

  Glenn Bruner hadn’t experienced such itchy eagerness since he was a kid awaiting Santa. Big Glenn used to call the state a “high rolling boil,” as if his son’s moods compared to a hot, churning pot of grits right before they burped over onto the burner. In the early years, Big Glenn had snuck presents under the tree long after he tucked his son into bed, and even ate the cookies left out by the hearth, always leaving one half-eaten on the plate. One year, his father had dipped his work boots i
nto the fireplace soot and walked to the tree, leaving telltale prints. Magic had come easy back then.

  Glenn thought about Sheila. Why does she keep on nag, nag, nagging me?

  The dumb bitch could do no right. If a legal way existed to be rid of his wife with no mess, fuss, or prison time, he gladly would embrace it. But without Sheila around, Glenn faced the disgusting tasks of washing dishes, sorting laundry, and cleaning the bathroom. He couldn’t eat fast food every meal.

  Sheila appeared, a fresh beer in one hand. He snatched it and popped the top, then gave her the wicked eye. As she turned to leave, Glenn reared back and gave her a shove with one of his bare feet. She lurched, teetered a moment before catching her balance, then looked back at him with a pained expression.

  “Dadgum, Sheila.” He guffawed and took a swig of the cold brew. “You looked like you was doing that stupid yoga for a minute there.”

  Sheila joined in with a forced laugh.

  Glenn belched. “You’re just plain-out crazy sometimes, woman.”

  She lowered her gaze and shuffled off toward the kitchen. If he slipped up and punched her in the kidneys again, that soft vulnerable unprotected spot, would the itchy feeling go away?

  Big Glenn had often used that same sucker-sneak trick on him. When his father was around, Glenn remained ever vigilant. It didn’t help. One night, Glenn had tiptoed across the dark hallway on the way to the bathroom, safe because his father slept on the couch after swilling a bottle of that brown stuff he called “my medicine.” Glenn’s small bladder burned. Most of the time, he was good at holding it until the coast was clear.

  A shuffle sounded behind him. A heavy foot shoved him and he lurched forward, his head snapping back like a test crash dummy. Glenn managed to catch himself with the edge of the lavatory. A trickle of hot urine flowed down one leg. He jiggled in place and prayed his father wouldn’t see the wet patch spreading across the front of his pajama pants.

  His father’s deep-throated laughter boiled at his back. “Walk much, boy?”

  Glenn blinked in the low green night-light illumination. His mother, where was she? Cowering behind the master bedroom door? Sleeping soundly with the knowledge her husband had passed out on the couch and wouldn’t bother her for a few hours?

  The key was to not react in a way to send Big Glenn’s black humor into a spitting rage. Go along. Make fun of himself for his father’s benefit. He pushed out a giggle. “No sir. I never learned that walking thing too good.”

  His father grunted. “You’re a kick in the pants, kid.” Satiated and chortling at his own twisted play on words, Big Glenn had shoved past him into the bathroom and pissed a long stream before staggering back to the couch and free-falling into the cushions.

  Glenn doubted his father recalled the many times he had humiliated his son. Funny how he had strived to make Big Glenn look at him with some sense of pride. Too bad the old man wasn’t alive to witness what his son planned now. Big Glenn would be stunned by his son’s conviction and courage.

  Glenn added his father into the ever-evolving daydream. He imagined hitching that new bass boat to its matching pick-up truck, launching it below the Jim Woodruff Dam, then sending the boat onto a skimming plane inches above the river’s glassine surface. Big Glenn smiled back at the towering rooster-tail of water kicked up by the powerful Mercury outboard. The cooler, packed to capacity with ice-cold beer and sandwiches, awaited. Fish cowered in their shallow beds. The two masters of the river were loose, and no one would be safe.

  Three weeks before suicide, Saturday

  Glenn Bruner and Clay stood side-by-side on the firing range. The older man had toyed with him since Glenn arrived at the camp: ducking into groups of hunters, avoiding eye contact, making himself conspicuously unavailable. Many members had packed up for the day and left the grounds. A few still worked their way through the newly-constructed obstacle course. In the distance, Glenn heard an occasional shouted curse and pop of gunfire. The course was a real ball-buster, and would be wicked hard on his bad knee. Walls, ropes, and low barbed wire, plus rutted running trails, workout stations, and a fake town with pop-up targets. Glenn had yet to tackle it, and a few of the inner circle members had commented on his lack of enthusiasm. He would. He would. Just, later.

  “Looks like you got you another new rifle,” Glenn said.

  Clay grunted.

  “I don’t know how you find room for ’em all. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you out here with the same one twice. Must be nice, being able to afford all those fancy guns. I would have to build on a room, if I had ’em.”

  The older man lowered the assault rifle and turned his head. Those dead eyes bored right through Glenn, and the muscles around Clay’s jaws flinched and relaxed. For a moment, Glenn wished he was anywhere but here. Odd since he had dreamed of the chance to talk to Clay, every second since their last encounter.

  “Ever notice how some people run off at the mouth, but don’t have jack to say?” Clay raised the rifle, took careful aim and fired. Dead heart-center of the human-shaped outline.

  Glenn’s face flushed. Anyone else who spoke to him in such a manner would live to regret it. “I’ve thought about your offer.”

  This time, when Clay’s eyes rested on him, a flicker of interest lurked behind them. “That so?”

  “I’d like to try it.”

  Clay studied him. How Glenn would like to master the ability to make someone wither beneath such a steely-eyed stare.

  “It’s not guard duty at Disney, what you’re signing on for.”

  “I realize that.”

  Clay’s face morphed into a stained mask of pleasure, the same expression a predator wore anticipating a bloody takedown. “A few things you and I have to get straight.” Clay fished a toothpick from his jacket pocket and stuck it between his lips. He rolled it from side to side before docking it in one corner. “You have to keep your stupid mouth shut. You don’t, and I’ll have to contend with your lack of discretion. Got it?”

  Glenn nodded. Clay’s version of contend had to mean a whole lot of not breathing.

  “Keep your nose clean. That means doing nothing to draw attention to yourself. Nothing. You don’t get so much as a speeding ticket. You play pretty with the neighbors. You resist that burning urge to pound your wife to a bloody pulp.”

  “Hey, man. I don’t hit . . .”

  Clay huffed. “Who you think you’re kidding, girly-boy?”

  Glenn swallowed hard. His mouth felt drier than it did after a hard weekend of whiskey.

  “I’ve met plenty like you. Men who think they get some kind of sick power by beating women.” Clay extracted the toothpick long enough to hurl a wad of spit to an inch in front of Glenn’s boots. “What you do at home is none of my business, unless it interferes with mine. You work with me; you follow my rules. I don’t care if you feel she needs it to keep in line, or whatever reason you’ve made up to make it right, you don’t put a mark on her. You make nice. The last thing one of my hires needs is to get hauled in on domestic abuse charges. Am I clear?”

  “Sheila would never—”

  “Shut up. I said you don’t so much as put a finger on her. Are. We. Clear?”

  Glenn’s head bobbed up and down.

  “I’ll find the job. I’ll work out the details. You will do everything I say. If you go off half-cocked, I never heard of you.” The toothpick slid to the opposite side in one practiced motion. “I can disappear into thin air so fast, you’ll believe you imagined me.”

  “I get it. I get it. So when do we start? Do I get one of your fancy rifles? Do I—”

  Clay held up a hand to plug the diarrhea of questions. “In time. First, the job. Then, the weapon. You will be provided with what you need.”

  Glenn’s heart rate picked up its pace.

  Clay took out a small leather-clad notepad and scribbled a phone number. “If you have to reach me, leave a message on voicemail. Don’t go into details. Don’t say my name. I’ll contact you and arrange a
meeting.”

  “You’ll call me soon though?”

  “No time frame.” Clay tore off the page and handed it to Glenn. “This isn’t a nine-to-five. When the job becomes available, you will know.”

  Glenn glanced at the block-printed note as if it was the winning lotto ticket, then stuffed it into his pants pocket.

  Clay picked up his rifle. “In the meantime, practice, girly-boy. Practice.” His cold stare fixed on Glenn. “One thing you have to know: I hate loose ends. You work with me, you best not leave any behind.”

  Three weeks before suicide, Sunday

  Sheila Bruner retrieved the “special box” from the hall closet. God forgive her, she hadn’t destroyed it like she promised after Oreo’s accident.

  Late Sunday: God’s day. A day of rest.

  Glenn would be home soon. Such a chance to take, but she needed it. Had to feel the material next to her misused body. She peeled the housedress off, hesitated, and removed her bra and panties.

  The silken material clung to her bare skin. The elastic waist hung on her hip bones like a dust cover draped over a chair. She should take the uniform to the sewing machine and alter it. Soon the baggy shorts wouldn’t be able to grip enough to stay up.

  Scales didn’t lie. The last time she weighed, the indicator line had rested barely above the ninety mark. But she had always been naturally thin. And who could eat? Nothing appealed to her. She nibbled and drank enough to stay alive, though why? Surely one of these nights, her husband would take care of that.

  Could she pack up a few things and escape to that refuge house somewhere in Tallahassee? Sure. What then? No family. No money. No formal training in anything. No means to scrape out a meager living. No faith in being able to make her way alone.