Murders Among Dead Trees

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  PARTING SHOTS

  A good friend of mine was dying. His faith brought him great comfort. His faith remained strong in the face of his illness. Mine faded.

  I didn’t have the atheist versus Christian argument with him. That wasn’t an argument I wanted to win. ~ Chazz

  Before he even opened his eyes, he groaned. Burt could feel himself pulled up from blissful unconsciousness toward daylight and damnation. Genie was still dead and Audrey was still alive and now he’d have to deal with it all over again.

  The radio was on and Marcus, the morning DJ, swam in behind his eyes and started prying the eyelids up. Burt rolled over, hoping Marcus would get to a song soon. Instead of introducing a song Burt could retreat into, the radio guy nattered. The radio dial was slightly off. Through the static Burt could tell it was the regular DJ, though Marcus didn’t sound like himself this morning.

  A stab of sunlight poked into his brain through the curtain and he cursed as he rose from the bed unsteadily and made his way to the bathroom. For a moment, Burt thought he was going to fall but he caught hold of the podium sink, nearly ripping it from the wall. Wouldn’t that have been a terrible tragedy? Old man trapped under own sink! Nine of ten accidents happen in the home, so why not me? he thought. It would be lonely, slowly dying under the weight of the sink, unable to get up. But dying could be an immense relief, too, wouldn’t it?

  After an unsatisfactory squirt, he faced himself in the mirror. Burt’s eyelids were rimmed with bright pink and his nose looked like a tomato. He belched loudly and tasted gin. Gin made his stomach bleed. Good.

  Audrey had thrown up so much blood, he couldn’t figure out how it was possible God had delivered him the tragic miracle. Right now she was somewhere in Banff National Park taking pictures of elk so Japanese tourists could have a never-ending supply of fresh postcards. Audrey. His good daughter. Healthy and whole and a great weight on his heart.

  Genie had always been Audrey’s opposite. Audrey slept like an angel through the whole night from six weeks old. Genie had colic and seemed to keep it with her like a curse. Genie stayed cranky right up until her death.

  Burt wondered if he should bother with the pretence of making coffee, head out for a double double at Tim Hortons, and pour in a little hooch? Or he could take a bottle of 90 proof in each crepuscular hand. His father, Silas, drank himself to death.

  “Slow suicide is perfectly okay by the laws of man and nature,” his old man had said. “God gave us the grape and the barley and plenty of reasons to use ’em.” Silas always concluded that and similar pronouncements with, “Burt! You’re young and full of blue piss! Fetch me another bottle quick, before I sober up.”

  His father was a happy drunk, and gravely melancholy when sober. Burt decided he must have inherited the same taste for alcohol his father had, but regretted he didn’t seem to enjoy the compulsion nearly as much. Now that Burt was an old man himself, the world had changed the rules on him. Alcoholism was a disease now and that new, ugly fact sort of made the fun spill out.

  Silas — how come there weren’t any guys named Silas anymore? — had taken pride in starting each day with a shave so Burt lathered up, too. Maybe that was the trick. Looking better might be the key to feeling better. Then he thought of Genie using his razor to shave her legs and how he had bellowed at her not to do it again. She’d run off for two days that time.

  His wife, Helen, had always been the buffer. Helen worked as a librarian now. He saw her sometimes across the parking lot at closing time. He had assumed that she had put up with so much that her capacity to forgive was bottomless. Burt must have worn her out because after Genie died his wife didn’t seem to have any energy left to make him feel okay anymore. He had begun to drink more after Genie passed, but he figured he was entitled. If you can’t drink after losing a child, when was the best time?

  Marcus blathered at Burt through the static from the clock radio.

  “Shut up, Marcus!” Burt said, and kept on shaving. The razor was old and cut him several times. “The wages of sin are razor bucks,” Burt said to his reflection. The haggard old face that emerged from behind the whiskers was little better than the mask that had grown over it while he dreamt. He missed half his chin but he had already put three dots of toilet paper on his shaving nicks so he decided he’d drawn enough of his own blood for the day.

  The day she left, Helen’s last words to him were, “Make God the center.” He’d tried, but Burt was tired of apologizing. How much contrition did one man have to drag up before he could be free of eternal condemnation by a bunch of celestial busybodies?

  God didn’t understand how hard it is to be a man, Burt thought. And sometimes, if you’re very unlucky, He answers your prayers and in the end still gets it wrong.

  It was then that he caught a few phrases and realized Marcus was talking to him. He was sure he heard “eternal damnation” and the words “sorry prick.” He stalked to the bedroom and finally tuned the radio. “What mischief are you up to, Marcus?” The static drained away and it was as if Marcus was standing in his bedroom yelling.

  “…if you believe in reincarnation, let me tell you what that is, friends and neighbors,” Marcus said. “Reincarnation in a hamster wheel.”

  “Okay,” Burt said. “What happened to the usual mix of Johnny Cash, Stompin’ Tom Connors and Elvis?”

  “If you believe there’s an old man in the sky watching your every move, how can you ever get naked or evacuate your bowels? I’ll tell you what your fascist God makes you. You’re a damned ant farm! And I use the term ‘damned’ not carelessly, but advisedly.”

  “Jesus!” said Burt.

  “Jesus won’t help you now,” Marcus said, as if he had heard Burt. “Jesus died to get his Dad in a forgiving mood. Would you let one child, your favorite no less, die, just so you could forgive your other children?”

  “Jesus!” Burt said. He almost skidded and fell as he headed downstairs for the phone.

  Marcus figured he had less than a minute to go so he did his best to pour it all out before the station manager barged through the door to haul him off the air. He couldn’t help thinking of his hero, Reverend Ted, who had been hauled away from the altar by a bunch of angry old men who hadn’t appreciated the nuances of his drunken speech against religion. Ted had been dead for years now but people all the way from Bangor still talked about the Sunday the crazy reverend had gone off his nut. Marcus felt he owed the old minister something. Though his tirade from the altar had been lost on most of the congregation, Marcus counted that as the beginning of his journey from asleep and born again to awake.

  “I’ll get to our sponsors, Hankerson’s Car Wash and Chigley’s Roofing, in just a moment. By the way, the views of your humble radio host are exactly the same as our noble sponsors ’cause they know I’m only laying the beautiful truth on you!” For the first time since he spun jazz records for the one to five shift in college, Marcus was having fun at his job. Of course, the check tucked safely into his breast pocket had really kicked him into high gear. He’d use the money to get a tent and some supplies for the summer ahead. No need to touch the principle. A million dollars freed a guy up and knocked the shit of his boots.

  “You know the beauty of these heavies I’m laying on you, brothers and sisters? The beauty is, you, too, can be godless and free to be dead forever. You don’t have to feel guilty anymore. Say your child is dying. Guess what? It’s a bad genetic bounce in a random universe. There’s no one to plead your case to. If God’s too busy to save your child from a horrible disease without you having to beg, what kind of monster is your god, anyway? I’d save your child in a heartbeat if I were omnipotent and I’m just a simple, know-nothing guy about to be unemployed. Think about that! If your God has less compassion than I do, what are you worshipping? You’d be better off praying to me and begging for my help and forgiveness and sending me lots of moolah! How about it folks? I can always use more. Maybe I’ll pull a Pope and use the cash you send me to fill up my base
ment with fine works of art the world will never see! Sure, I could use it to feed the poor, but unlike religion, I’m not going to lie to you.”

  The board’s red lights were blinking. “Our lines are jammed. Everyone wants to talk to their new god, the inimitable me, but you can call me Marcus!”

  “This is Jim Chigley of Chigley Roofing,” an angry voice came over the speaker. “I was just having breakfast and heard your show and I think I might just toss my cook—“

  “No need to thank me, James. Enjoy your meal. I bless you for making this show possible.”

  “I don’t — ”

  “Know what you did before I came into your life? In the old days, before me, you could beat your wife and feel terrible about it all the way to church where your priest said it was okay.”

  “Hey! I don’t t know what you’re talking about! I’m not even Catholic.”

  “Never mind that. Ask your wife’s forgiveness. That, my friend, is the way to heaven right here on earth, right here, right now.”

  Marcus leaned back and looked through the glass door of his booth. His boss’s door was closed, so he was sure Clarence Degal was still enjoying his morning nap. His boss made a great show of being the first of the day staff to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night. Mostly Degal napped and ate chicken from the restaurant next door. On summer afternoons, everyone knew Degal would be out with advertisers on the golf course. He slept with his door closed and played golf under the guise of “making sales calls.” Degal told everyone he was the hardest working station manager in the business because his car was in the parking lot the longest of any employee at the radio station.

  “Next caller! Gwen, you’re on with your new lord and savior, Marcus in the Morning on 95.4, almost 95 and a half on your FM dial. What’s on your mind?”

  “This is Gwen.”

  “Yes, we know. Go ahead.”

  “Do you mean me? This is Gwen.”

  “Next caller. Bobby, Bobby, lay it on me!”

  “I’m a Christian, mister. Are you seriously saying God is a figment of my imagination?”

  “Exactly, Bobby, you’ve got it right. He or she is a figment that’s draining away your life energy. Which Christian god do you believe in, by the way? The Old Testament god who’s always angry or the new testament God who took a chill pill who’s all about love except when he’s not?”

  “I believe in both the God of the New and Old Testaments.”

  “That’s no good. He’s supposed to be eternal and unchangeable so you really have to pick one. Get back to me on that and we’ll chat. Next caller!”

  The secretaries from the front desk appeared at his door: Sheila and the other Sheila. The young one waved her arms while the old one slapped a pad of paper against the glass of his booth. He looked up and flashed them a grin. The paper read, “36 angry calls!” He gave both women an energetic thumbs up and shooed them away. As soon as they turned their backs he gave them both middle fingers.

  “Next up, Roger’s on Marcus in the Morning!”

  “All I got to say is right on, man!”

  “Nobody likes a suck up, Roger. I condemn you to the depths of hell for your impious thoughts about the hot check out lady at The Duck ’n Rush. She’s over eighty and deserves your respect, you utter pig!”

  Laughter. “Rock on, man. You’re my new god —”

  “Blasphemer!” Marcus said.

  “We’ve got to whip through these calls, folks, because sometime soon Mr. Degal is going to wake up from his morning nap and I’ll be off the air, so come on, Poeticule Bay, let’s have a little intellectual rigor before I blow this town for a little place I like to call Anytown Better, USA! I can see by the jammed lines that you have the number so let’s go to line 2 with Trish. Trish, what do you have to contribute to our religious discussion?”

  Silence. Then he heard a tell-tale echo and hung up on Trish. “She’s is in love with the idea that she’ll hear herself on the radio. If you’re going to talk to me, you’ll have to turn down your radio. Trish, get over yourself. Buy a tape recorder and you’ll be able to hear yourself all day without bugging the sh—um, bugging me. Whoops. With that breach of on air etiquette we go to, line 3. The queue says this is Burt.”

  “This is Burt.”

  “You’re off to a slow start, Burt. My divine finger is reaching out, much like in that famous painting of God giving life to Adam. The difference is, my finger’s over the button that will send you to oblivion. What’s your story, Burt?”

  “I killed my daughter.”

  Marcus spaced out a moment. “Tell me more,” he said finally.

  “You’re saying God doesn’t exist, but I made a deal with Him. I prayed like crazy and…”

  “Back up there, cowboy. How’d you kill your daughter?”

  Burt took a long drink from his bottle of gin. He decided he was serious about getting the job done today and all that orange juice was slowing down the process.

  “I had two daughters,” he said into the phone. Sending a message out to the living and the dead, he thought.

  “You have my attention, Burt. Lay it on me.”

  “My eldest, Audrey. She got cancer. Audrey was my daddy’s girl. She couldn’t do wrong and nobody loved a daughter like I loved her.” He breathed heavily. He could hear it through the phone, but the more he tried to control it, the worse it got. He guessed he knew lots of things are like that.

  “What happened to Audrey.?”

  “The Big C.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it, Burt.”

  “Are you? I wonder. People find it so goddamn interesting, like they can’t hear enough about it and can’t think enough about it as long as it’s happening to somebody else.”

  “I hear your pain, Burt, but I’m not going to apologize for you tweaking my interest. You called me. Now what’s this about you killing somebody? Were you serious about that or are you just yanking me?”

  “Audrey had the Big C and I…I loved her so much. I had another daughter. Genie. I dream of Genie with the light brown hair. You know that old song?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I do. And I still dream about her. I killed her, or God did.” Burt took another long drag of gin. “Genie was always wild. She was just born that way, like she was meant to be a wolf or something and there was some mistake along the way.”

  “What happened Burt, between you and me? It’s just us guys, a good hunk of Maine and the South Shore of Nova Scotia listening.”

  Marcus wasn’t sure if he should believe his caller and had his hand poised over the dump button, watching the clock hands skim around. “C’mon, Burt. Don’t leave us hanging. Who’d you kill?”

  “I like you better when you just let Johnny Cash sing.”

  “Johnny didn’t sing. He talked his way through his songs and somehow nobody seemed to notice. What happened to your daughters, Burt?”

  “Genie showed up at Audrey’s hospital bed drunk one night after she’d disappeared for three days. Genie ran away a lot. Anyway, Audrey didn’t mind, but Audrey was like that. Nothing phased her and she was just glad to see her sister. Audrey was always sunny…even acted pretty chipper fighting the Big C. Anyway, I chewed out Genie for showing up drunk and Audrey got all upset and I went to the hospital chapel and I made myself a prayer. I asked God to take Genie instead of Audrey.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Sure, it didn’t happen to you.”

  “God doesn’t answer prayers, Burt. Even if such a thing as God exists, and I won’t grant you that, he doesn’t interfere with our messed up world. If God cared about you, Audrey wouldn’t get cancer — that’s what mature grown-ups call the disease, by the way, not ‘The Big C’— and there wouldn’t be so much suffering.”

  Burt took another ragged breath, remembering his church-going days. “I think there’s so much suffering because there’s so much sin everywhere.”

  “Sure, sure,” Marcus said. “We’re all sinners according to rel
igion, which is like blaming us for having two legs and two arms each and commanding us not to have heads. I told you, Burt, we’re all ants in the big plan, only there’s no plan. God doesn’t answer prayers, dude!”

  “God answered my prayer that night.” Burt said. “Genie dropped dead behind the wheel of her car that night at the look off over Poeticule Bay. Aneurysm. She was only nineteen and her brain blew up.”

  “I really am sorry to hear that, Burt. We all go one by one. We’re all dying, some by feet and others by inches.”

  “That’s a pretty way of talking about something ugly, but let me tell you, right after that, Audrey started to get better. It was like…suddenly she had The Medium C and then The Little C and then her scans were clear.”

  “You think your deal with God came through and you traded one daughter for another?”

  “I know it. The doctor’s couldn’t explain it. They just said things like this happen sometimes, as if that was an explanation.”

  “I can tell you, Burt. You’re an innocent man.”

  “I’m guilty. Audrey and my wife think so, too. They won’t have anything to do with me. I don’t blame them.”

  “Burt, it’s all a big crapshoot. You got a bad bounce. Tell your wife and daughter that Marcus in the Morning forgives you your ignorance and they should, too. You’re not a monster. You’re human and we’re all guilty of that.”

  Burt began to cry.

  “Thanks for the call.” Marcus pushed the dump button. “Well, look at us. We’re all yak, yak, yak. Let’s spin some Billy Ray Cyrus. I know you kids used to like his daughter’s songs, but this is adult swim time now and I’ve got something here for Burt. Burt, I’ve got a gift for you. Genie died of an aneurysm because Intelligent Design is a joke. It was a genetic, organic failure of the structural integrity of a tube in her brain. Your daughter with cancer lived because cancer cells grow wild and sometimes they choke off their own blood supply and die off on their own.”