The Ming and I

by Tamar Myers

  “Anything is possible, I suppose, but I’d bet my money on the Yankee.”

  “De Camptown race is five miles long,” I said. “You’d be better off putting your money on the bobtail nag, and let somebody else bet on the bay. Shirley Hall might hate the South, but she likes me. She wants us to be friends.”

  “Traitor.” She pointed to Freddy. “And no offense, Abby, but besides being a Yankee she sounds a little weird.”

  I helped Wynnell adjust a pin that was digging into her left shoulder. “Okay, so she’s unconventional. Eccentric even. Isn’t eccentricity a quality we southerners cherish?”

  “What about the Roach lady? You said before you didn’t like her. Maybe the feeling is mutual.”

  “It is for sure; she told me to my face. I had lunch with her today, you know. At Tam’s Tavern down in Rock Hill.”

  “You don’t sound like bitter enemies to me.”

  I laughed, remembering the expression on Gloria’s face when she saw me. “I invited myself. Ms. Roach was not amused. She’s tough as nails, and I don’t mean just her body, but I can’t picture her plowing into a little old lady with her car. With her fists, maybe, but she wouldn’t want to scratch that black Caddy. Besides, the woman is obviously a control freak, and a control freak wouldn’t try to shoot someone with a Civil War pistol.”

  Wynnell cringed but didn’t correct my nomenclature. “That’s a gut reaction, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Your gut has been wrong before, Abby. It could be Ms. Roach. It could be that redhaired letch you were telling me about. It could be any one on the board, or any of the docents.”

  “Et tu, Brutus?”

  “My point is you are too trusting, Abby.”

  She was right. When Buford told me he had run out of gas on our first date, I should have at least leaned over and examined the gauge. To my credit, I didn’t buy his story that he was dying from a rare form of cancer that struck only males, for which sex was the only cure.

  “I wish Greg were back in town,” I wailed.

  “There, there,” she said, and gave me a big hug. It was a short-lived hug, however, because the monstrous pin that held her bosom together was poking me fiercely in the nose.

  I don’t know why the networks switch over to their summer programming as early as April. No doubt they’re in cohoots with the fashion industry, which insists on selling bathing suits in January, but never in July. Santa Claus is undoubtedly the mastermind behind this fiendish scheme. Last year I saw Christmas decorations going up in some stores in late August. If somebody doesn’t put a stop to St. Nick and his accelerated calendar, we’re going to get so far ahead of ourselves we’ll lose an entire year.

  There was nothing but reruns on TV that evening, I didn’t have the oomph to go out and rent a video, and I was fresh out of unread books. Frankly I was relieved when the phone rang.

  “Greg?” I asked hopefully.

  “This is Shirley Hall. I have to see you right away.”

  The static was terrible, and I could barely make out what she said.

  “There’s no need to worry about the fungus, dear. I’ve named him Freddy, and he’s doing just fine.”

  There was a moment of pure static.

  “Ms. Timberlake, this is very important. I need to see you. In person.”

  “It’s after nine, dear, and we just talked this afternoon. Can’t we make it tomorrow?” I was definitely going to reconsider a friendship with the Yosilanti Yankee.

  “This can’t wait. I think I know who killed June Troyan and Frank McBride.”

  “Who?” If the receiver had possessed vocal chords, it would have screamed in pain.

  “Oh, I can’t tell you over the phone. I have to show you—” The phone crackled so badly, I momentarily lost her altogether.

  “What?”

  “This has to be seen to be believed. It’s awesome.”

  “I’ll be right over, dear.” There is nothing like a little adrenaline to put the zig back in my sagging zag. Freddy the fungus had a hard act to follow.

  “Oh, no! Don’t come here. Meet me out at Roselawn.”

  “Now? Like I said, it’s kind of late and Roselawn—well, I mean—”

  “That it’s haunted?”

  “Yes.” I felt like an idiot saying that. Especially to a retired college professor.

  “That’s why you have to meet me there.”

  “Couldn’t we at least drive out there together?” The broom-wielding Abby had been swept away by the ghost of Maynard, and in her place was a spineless jellyfish.

  “I’m down in Great Falls, Ms. Timberlake. Roselawn is halfway between here and Charlotte. See you there in about forty minutes, give or take.”

  I called Wynnell’s house, but nobody answered. Surely she hadn’t gone anywhere else in her pinned-together frock. Then I remembered the time Wynnell attended a church picnic in a pinafore made out of recycled paper bags. The forecast had called for sunshine, but this was the Carolinas. Thunderstorms pop up as unexpectedly as spider veins. In just one minute Wynnell’s pinafore dress was reduced to soggy pulp; the next minute Wynnell was wearing less than even her husband had seen her wear in several years. There was simply no telling where that woman would go in a cloth dress held together by sturdy metal pins.

  The Rob-Bobs were my second choice as ghost-buster backups. Good buddies both, they were always there to lend a helping hand when needed.

  “Sorry, no can do,” Bob boomed.

  “I’ll let you cook supper for me again,” I promised rashly.

  Rob got on the extension. “Sorry, Abby, but we’re having a little get-together here tonight. It would be rude if we left our guests.”

  “A party? And I’m not invited?”

  “It’s a support group for gay adult southerners whose partners are Yankees. GASPY. Tonight the partners are included. We’re trying to teach them how to make proper biscuits and gravy, but some of them are proving to be slow learners.”

  In desperation I called C.J.

  “Hello?” she said sleepily.

  “I didn’t wake you, dear, did I?”

  “Actually, you did.”

  I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t even ten.

  “You’re too young to go to bed with the mockingbirds,” I chided her. “You should be out having a good time, and I’ve got a great idea.”

  “I’m tired, Abby,” she said crossly. “I’ve had a hard day. I just want to go to sleep.”

  “Nonsense, dear. You haven’t even heard my idea. Remember that nifty adventure we had the other night?”

  “Abby, I’m not going back to that horrible haunted house, so you can just forget it.”

  “We won’t be alone, dear. A friend of mine will be meeting us there. She’s a big woman, not like me or Mama. I’m sure if there’s any trouble, she could protect us.”

  “Never go to a haunted house at night with a big woman,” C.J. muttered.

  “Excuse me, dear?”

  “My uncle Billy-Bob was dating this big girl back home in Shelby—”

  “How big was she?” I asked politely.

  “Huh? Abby, do you want to hear this story or not?”

  “You could tell me on the way over to Roselawn,” I said sweetly.

  There followed a moment of silence during which I feared I’d lost her. “C.J.?”

  “Are you ready to listen?” she asked at last.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, Uncle Billy-Bob took this girl—Betty Jo, I think her name was—to this vacant house on the edge of town. He was planning to make out with her, you see. Only neither of them had a flashlight along. So they’re sneaking around in this empty house—which was as dark as a well digger’s ass, you see—when all of a sudden a bat or something comes flying right over their heads. They both scream and jump, but the next thing you know Uncle Billy-Bob can’t find Betty Jo. Not anywhere. He even goes home and gets a flashlight, but no luck.”<
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  “Lord have mercy!” I gasped loudly, just to cheer her on.

  “Well, the next day Uncle Billy-Bob and his brothers, Uncle Bobby-Bill, and Uncle Bibby-Boll, go back out there to help him look for Betty Jo.”

  “You’re making that up,” I said. “I mean about the brothers’ names,” I added quickly.

  She sighed. “Yes, you’re right. There is no Bobby-Bill. His name is really Bolly-Bib, but he was arrested for dancing too closely with a sheep at the Harvest Moon Ball, and the family is ashamed. I’m not supposed to mention his name. You won’t tell on me, will you?”

  “My lips are sealed. So what happened to Betty Jo?”

  “That’s the awful part, Abby. They searched all day long, and every day for the next three weeks, but they didn’t find her. It wasn’t until a year later, when the house was being torn down to build a Harris Teeter, that they discovered Betty Jo. Of course she was dead by then. Hardly more than a skeleton.”

  “Ugh!”

  “Apparently there was a secret trapdoor, and she had accidentally stepped on it and landed in a soundtight little room. Ever since then Uncle Billy-Bob has been a couple of horses shy of a herd—if you know what I mean.”

  “Indeed I do, dear. So will you come with me?” I asked brightly.

  “Lord no! Haven’t you even been listening, Abby?”

  I hung up and called Mama. There was no answer.

  23

  I did not go out into that dark night alone. I made Dmitri come with me. I would have taken Freddy, too, but I couldn’t find the lid for the Corning ware bowl, and I wasn’t about to have fungal fluid sloshing all over my car.

  Dmitri hates riding in cars. He associates them with veterinarians and long glass thermometers that are plunged up places the sun has yet to shine. He stiffened as soon as I opened the car door, and by the time I turned on the engine, he was yowling like a rock musician with his hair caught in a wringer.

  “Settle down, dear,” I said soothingly.

  Dmitri settled into my lap, his claws embedded to their hubs. I yowled along with him.

  By the time we got to Roselawn, we were both hoarse. When I got out of the car, it took me a few minutes to separate cat from pants leg. A light shower had commenced, and Dmitri was not enthusiastic about experiencing its charms.

  “April showers bring May flowers,” I crooned.

  Never an avid gardener, Dmitri was not amused.

  I suppose I could have worn Dmitri like hairy yellow chaps, but he’s a rather corpulent cat, and I was worried that it would put too much strain on his claws. Personally, at that point I didn’t mind the pain. With my eyes blinded by tears I wouldn’t be able to see the dark mist—no doubt Uma’s blood—that swirled around my car, like something out of a B movie.

  It was now an hour since Shirley’s call, but her car was nowhere in sight. Any normal person would have turned around immediately, or at the very least remained locked securely in the car. A glutton for terror and pain, I dashed to the rear entrance, carrying Dmitri in my arms.

  Roselawn Plantation, like any respectable southern home, had a back porch. Dmitri and I, only slightly dampened by the shower, took refuge under its generous roof to wait for Shirley. Poor Dmitri was still upset, but the frantic yowls at last subsided into low, throaty growls. Unlike Billy-Bob and Betty Jo, I carried a flashlight, and the twirling patterns I created with its beam along the porch floor seemed to distract my cat—for a while.

  I suppose we had been standing just outside the back door for about ten minutes when Dmitri made it quite clear he needed to use the litter tray. A normal cat might well have been content to piddle on the porch, given that the grass was wet, but Dmitri was strictly an indoor cat that had no prior experience with porches or lawns.

  “All right, all right,” I snapped, “there’s a linoleum floor just inside that door. But don’t you dare put one paw into the parlor until Shirley gets here. There’s a Yankee ghost in there who’s not just whistling ‘Dixie.’ I have his cap to prove it.”

  I unlocked the kitchen door with my left hand. My right hand was holding the flashlight, and my right arm was wearing a cat. Just as the fingers of my left hand found the switch, the bulb went out. Mine and the flashlight’s.

  I regained consciousness in utter darkness. I’m not talking about the dark of a moonless night, or even the dark of a well digger’s ass. I’m talking about pitch-black, the color of Buford’s soul.

  Only once before had I seen such darkness, when Buford and I made a valiantly feeble (the valor was mine, the feebleness his) attempt at a family vacation with our children. That was the summer Buford took up with Tweetie, and perhaps I should have suspected something even then, but that’s another story.

  At any rate, the four of us took a motor trip to Tennessee. One of our objects was to visit the Lost Sea, which is really a small lake deep within a cavern. While on the tour our guide turned off all the lights so that we could have the thrill of experiencing total darkness.

  But that night at Roselawn, the lights never came back on. Even the light in my head flickered only intermittently. In that utter darkness it was impossible to tell if I was conscious or unconscious. With no visual clues to guide me, my thoughts and dreams blended together like coffee and cream. Thanks to Dmitri’s claws, even the old reliable pinch test was useless. I hurt all the time.

  I may well have remained in this state of sensory-deprived confusion had it not been for Mama’s powerful genes kicking in. My shnoz can’t hold a hanky to hers when it comes to smelling trouble, but it is more than adequate in the scent department. And I smelled something.

  Sometimes I dream in color, sometimes I feel things, and I always hear things in my dreams, but I have never smelled anything. This then was reality, not a subconscious flight of fancy, because there was no mistaking the scent of decay.

  It wasn’t a musty smell. It was dry and slightly acrid, like old gym shoes found in the back of a closet years after they were worn. It was the odor of dead bacteria and stale air.

  With the return of olfaction, my other senses began to sort themselves out. In utter darkness the only way to tell up from down is by one’s sense of touch. Gradually I realized that I was lying down on my side, and not only had my body been clawed by Dmitri, but it was badly bruised as well. I was lying on some of those bruises.

  I found my fingertips and felt the surface beneath me. It was earth, probably clay, but dry and covered with a layer of fine grit. With a great deal of difficulty, and not a little noise, I sat up. My head felt like a watermelon that had been bounced to market on washboard roads in the back of a truck. Make that a truckload of battered melons.

  “Oh God!” I said aloud. I know I spoke aloud, because in moving my lips I inhaled some of the grit. There was, however, no echo or resonance of any kind.

  Perhaps I should court your rational nature and tell you that I realized I was in a pit of some sort, and that I had been placed there by the person, or persons, who had obviously conked me on the head upon entering the kitchen. But that simply wasn’t the case. I didn’t know where I was. Despite my pain, I didn’t even know if I was alive or dead.

  Even Episcopalians believe in an afterlife, and since I had never experienced one (not to my knowledge, at any rate), how was I to know it didn’t include pain? Surely not heaven, but that other place—the one whose name I had bantered about carelessly ever since I learned it was not a polite word. Perhaps I was there. Perhaps this was my punishment for hating Buford, snapping at my kids, neglecting Mama, ignoring C.J., mocking Wynnell’s outfits, and making fun of that frizzy-haired blond mystery writer who lives in Rock Hill.

  “I’m sorry!” I wailed.

  Either God didn’t answer, or I couldn’t hear him above the throbbing in my head. At any rate my circumstances didn’t change. To cover my bets, I decided to try a full confession. Loudly, and slowly, I enumerated, in detail, my manifold sins—at least the ones I could remember. Contrary to public opinion, I have transgre
ssed on more than a few occasions. I began with the time I was five, when I willfully drew on Auntie Marilyn’s white walls with Mama’s bright red lipstick because she wouldn’t give me a second piece of candy. I ended with dragging Dmitri, clawing and yowling, on a trip he clearly didn’t want to take.

  Then it hit me like a ten-pound bag of cornmeal. Dmitri! If this wasn’t the other place—and I was beginning to doubt it was—my youngest and hairiest baby was missing. Perhaps he was lying somewhere near me, at the end of his ninth life.

  Frantically I called his name. Like God he didn’t answer. That was no surprise. The greater the urgency in my voice, the less likely he is to come. I called again and again in a much gentler voice, but to no avail. It was quite possible the feisty feline was not dead after all, but merely refusing to acknowledge my existence. It would not have surprised me to learn that he was crouching not a foot away, and was perfectly well.

  Although it was painful to do so, I slowly began to expand the perimeter of my known world. Inch by inch I explored with my fingertips. I was dreading what I might find. Call me a sentimental old softy if you will, but the discovery of a cold, crumpled cat would have broken my heart. As battered and bruised as I was, what difference did another scratch or two make, as long as it meant that my precious hair ball was still alive?

  My heart stopped, and then began pounding faster than a madman on a xylophone. My fingers had encountered something, but it wasn’t a cat. It was round and smooth except for one rather noticeable dent, and it had three holes in it, just like a bowling ball. I put my fingers in the holes, and with the fingers of my other hand to lend support, I picked it up. It was much lighter than a bowling ball, and it wasn’t round after all. Just below the thumb hole was a rough, protruding edge. I ran the index finger of my left hand along the edge. It was definitely perforated, and the strange part was, the perforations felt like teeth. Although it took me a few seconds, I concluded I was holding a human skull.