by Ed Kurtz
She reckoned they still might make for good friends, after all.
* * *
The house was a sagging, decrepit mess—more of a shack or a shanty than anything. It was surrounded on both sides by dense woods with the lake to the east and the old, burned out elementary school to the west. Perfectly secluded. The ideal locale for a recluse like Dane Honeycutt. If it hadn’t been for the teenagers hanging out in the hull of the old school—most likely drinking and screwing and smoking dope—no one would ever have heard the shot. The poor bastard would have gone undiscovered until there was nothing left but bones.
The body was crumpled and folded at a ninety degree angle in the open doorway. A few inches from the limp right hand was a .38 Smith & Wesson. Powder marks were evident on the hand, and the position and angle of the small black-red hole in the corpse’s right temple were consistent with suicide. There was little mystery to this one—the only thing that struck the investigating officers as odd was that the guy did it at the front door like that. Most suicides chose to blow their brains out in their bedrooms, or cut their wrists in the bathroom, or hang themselves in the closet. Not one of the seven policemen on the scene could recall ever having investigated a suicide in an open front doorway. It was like the guy answered the door and then pulled the trigger. Some nasty shock for the Jehovah’s Witness on the other side.
A plainclothesman with an oily comb-over shook his head and stuffed a stick of gum into his mouth. The uniform beside him muttered, “Weird.”
“If I lived like this guy, I’d probably kill myself, too,” the plainclothes said.
“In an open doorway?”
“Why not? It’s not like it matters where you do it.” He chewed viciously until the gum was a compact wad in his cheek.
“Where you’re dead, you’re dead,” he said.
* * *
The cement floor was cold and smelled faintly of gasoline, despite the fact that the garage had not been used for anything remotely automotive for years. Underneath the metal shelves there were still sawdust shavings from ages past, when Harold was much younger and occasionally indulged in some ham-fisted woodworking projects. Leon had never noticed the sawdust before, but he’d never been curled up in a fetal position on the garage floor, either. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind he wondered if any of the sawdust originated from the same wood his father used to make the lopsided bookshelf that still sagged in his bedroom. The question did not linger long, however. The brutal, pounding pain in his skull overrode it. Just like everything else.
Leon was already bent over with agony when he’d returned home from work, only an hour earlier, to find his father frozen in his chair with tears streaming down his drawn, sunken face. The old man was pale and greasy, his thin white hair hanging in damp ropes, and when Leon drew near to him he could smell the overpowering stench of piss. Harold had soiled himself.
Leon turned the television off then, and he stood where he could look his father in the eye. Harold furrowed his brow and struggled to focus, and when he ultimately did, he said, “I’m so tired, Leon. God, I’m so tired.”
“I know, pop,” Leon said. He tried to help Harold out of the chair, but he was too weak to stand. Leon had to heave him up into a fireman’s carry. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he wheezed.
“I don’t wanta watch no more,” Harold muttered as his son carried him across the house to the bathroom. “I just wanta sleep.”
He sounded stone drunk, but Leon knew better. Harold hadn’t had a drop since the previous evening. He was just out of his mind with exhaustion.
Leon lowered his father into the bathtub as gently as he could, though he still managed to knock the back of Harold’s head against the cracked, mildew tiles on the shower wall. Harold did not seem to notice. He simply sank into the corner and closed his eyes. Leon left him there for a moment and rooted around the medicine cabinet until he found the oxycodone. He shook three tablets out of the orange plastic bottle and swallowed them dry. He then returned to his father’s side and began undressing him. It was as bad as he imagined—the pants and boxers were unsalvageable, the old man’s backside and legs smeared with feces. Leon held his breath and got the rest of Harold’s clothes off before jamming them all into the empty laundry basket. He figured even that would end up in the garbage.
Harold mumbled incoherently as Leon turned on the water and waited for it to warm up. As soon as it reached an adequate temperature, he began bathing his father, his head throbbing the entire time. The opiates were not working as quickly as before. Leon worried that they might not work at all.
In the long run, they didn’t.
After Harold was cleaned up, Leon dried him off and managed to get him into a Budweiser tee shirt and an old pair of Bermuda shorts. He then put his father to bed, but he continued to mumble and thrash his head back and forth. As dangerously fatigued as he was, Harold still would not go to sleep.
Leon clamped his hands on either side of his father’s face and stared intently into his watery eyes.
“Go to sleep, dad,” he said firmly.
Harold’s head rolled to one side on the pillow. He had passed out.
Now, curled up with his knees to his chin on the cold, hard floor in the garage, Leon did not worry about his father. He did not worry about Ami or Bess or the strange, nightmarish mess he’d left behind at Dane Honeycutt’s house. Leon Weissmann worried about his head and why it hurt so badly that he could not lift it from the ground or open his eyes. He worried that there might be something terribly wrong with his brain.
Leon was worried that he was dying.
PART TWO
The jungle eats its young. No sooner has one of its children annihilated another does yet another of the jungle’s brood arrive to devour it, too. The most wary of this dysfunctional family look up, always up, for the larger beast that shall one day come to kill and eat it. Accordingly does the wandering spider remain ever vigilant for the coming of the predator’s predator, the bird or capybara or even larger spider that seeks him out. He hides in the daylight beneath rotting logs, in monocots and banana plants, deep in the intricate networks of termite mounds where the sustenance is plentiful, for a time. At night he scurries out into the darkness, keeping ever close to the rotting carpet of vegetation that covers the forest floor. He is always alert; the slightest sign of movement he interprets instantly for reason to flee or to attack. His is the deadliest venom in the world—no prey is likely to survive, nor enemy that elects to molest him.
The wandering spider does not know fear.
10
“Any nausea?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Photophobia? Sensitivity to light?”
“Plenty, yes.”
“How about other sensory input? Like noise, maybe strong smells?”
“I don’t know…I guess so. It…it just hurts. All the time, it just hurts.”
“And it’s a pulsing pain, you said.”
“God, it’s killing me. I think it’s got to be a tumor or something.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve got migraines.”
Leon cracked one eye open, his warm palm still draped over his forehead. The doctor, a young, balding Asian man with the unexpected name of Wimbledon, scribbled in his notebook.
“Migraines?”
“Yup. Pretty common, actually—though that doesn’t mean it’s to be taken lightly. It might get better over time, but to be honest it might get worse, too.”
“Worse?”
“Some people who suffer from migraines develop what we call auras, which basically means they will perceive unusual sensory factors that indicate the onset of the migraine. You might see, smell or even hear things that aren’t really there. If it happens to you, you’ll know.”
“Jesus,” Leon moaned.
“Oh, this is completely treatable. You don’t just have to suffer. I’m going to give you an analgesic for the pain and an antiemetic for the nausea. You say you’ve just been trying aspirin
thus far?”
“Yes,” Leon lied.
“Well this should help tremendously, then.”
Doctor Wimbledon scribbled furiously on a prescription pad, tore the page free and handed it to Leon.
“If things smooth out and you’re doing all right, we’ll check back in, say, four weeks. If not, just call the nurse and we’ll get you back in for a follow up.”
Leon squinted at the prescription and frowned. He had no idea what the marred, cursive letters on the page signified, but he felt certain that whatever Wimbledon had prescribed, it was not as powerful as the massive doses of oxycodone he’d been taking. And the oxycodone wasn’t even working anymore.
“Sound good?” Wimbledon asked with an insincere smile.
“Sure,” Leon said, unconvinced.
“Don’t worry,” Wimbledon said as he ushered Leon out of the examination room. “Millions of people have this same problem and live perfectly full and productive lives.”
Full and productive. Leon smirked. Since when was life full or productive, migraine or no?
The doctor shut the door to the room behind them and rushed down the hallway in the opposite direction. Leon’s head pulsed. His skull felt like it weighed two hundred pounds. Presently a heavy Hispanic nurse appeared and touched his elbow.
“Are you all right, sir?”
Leon mumbled and nodded.
“Are you going to need an excuse slip for work today?” she asked.
“Oh,” Leon said. “Oh, no.”
He had not even called in. The thought never occurred to him. He simply hadn’t shown up to work.
“No,” he said. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
He staggered back to the waiting area, past the check-in desk and out through the automatic doors to the parking lot. The bus stop was two blocks away, and he dreaded the walk.
Leon crumpled up the prescription in his fist and dropped it on the sidewalk along the way.
* * *
Ami stood up and peered over the cubicle wall, across the dreary, compartmentalized labyrinth to Leon’s messy work area. He still was not there, though there was now a stack of documents in a tattered manila folder that wasn’t there an hour ago. She screwed her mouth up to one side and returned to her chair.
“Hmn,” she said.
A half hour later Cheryl Minchillo came traipsing down the narrow walkway between the rows of cubicles, a file grasped tightly in her hand, her face the same angular, rocky aspect of determination as always. Ami made accidental eye contact with her and Cheryl tried to emulate a smile. It looked like it hurt, the way she did it. Smiling did not come naturally to Cheryl.
“Ami, hi,” she droned, mostly through her nose. “You haven’t seen Leon today by any chance, have you? Leon Weissmann?”
“Leon? No…”
“God,” Cheryl drawled with exaggerated irritation. “He hasn’t showed up. Didn’t even call.”
“That’s strange,” Ami admitted.
“It’s damned unprofessional, is what it is. Anyway, I’d noticed how chummy you two were getting lately, thought I’d ask.”
Chummy? Ami raised an eyebrow.
“If you see or hear from him, let me know, okay?”
“I will,” Ami said.
The smile melted away and Cheryl tramped on down the walk, vanishing around a corner. Ami swallowed dry and stared down the vacant corridor after her. For the second time that week, she wished she had his phone number, a way to check up on him right away. After the strange way he’d behaved in the restaurant the day before, the headache and the medicine and her own unfortunate know-it-all commentary on the whole thing, she felt somewhat responsible for his absence. The last thing Ami wanted was for Leon to lose his job over something like that.
“Jesus, Leon,” she whispered.
Mindlessly, she began rearranging small items on her desk; the pencil cup, the picture of her and her dogs, her box of mint teabags. Somewhere in another cube, someone stifled a laugh. It was met with a stern shhh. From every corner of the floor came the maddening cadence of typing. Someone coughed.
There was nothing else for it—Ami was going to have to stop by his house after work. It was certain to be awkward, especially if he was entirely fine, but then entirely fine people did not tend to shirk work without a word to anyone. Something was wrong. Ami intended to find out what it was.
She returned her attention to the dull glare of the computer monitor and clicked over to the spreadsheet for the company’s bi-weekly benefits report. The moment it came up, Lisa appeared in her peripheral vision, leaning against the cubicle wall.
“Hey, Ami,” she chirped.
“Not now, Lisa,” Ami snapped.
Lisa frowned deeply and stormed off in a huff.
* * *
“You can wake up now, dad,” Leon said, sitting on the edge of his father’s bed. “I made you a grilled cheese sandwich. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
Harold stirred, emitted a small moan and cracked open his crusty eyes. He’d been asleep for nearly thirteen hours, which Leon deemed more than sufficient.
“Wha—what time is it?” Harold rasped.
“Lunch time. Come on, get up. It’s on the table.”
“I feel like hell.”
“You had a bug. You’re all right now.”
“I feel like hell,” Harold repeated.
“Come on.”
Leon wandered back to the kitchen, where he’d cleared off the old card table for the first time in years. He was in college the last time he ate at that table, and ever since it had been piled high with moldy books and dirty dishes and a hundred sundry knickknacks. Now there were only two paper plates with a grilled cheese on each of them, sliced diagonally into triangles. When Harold finally staggered out and saw the table, he cocked his head to one side and grimaced.
“Where the hell’s all my stuff?”
“You mean your junk? I put most of it in a couple of boxes and the trash I threw away.”
“There wasn’t no trash,” Harold complained. “Don’t touch my stuff, Leon.”
“Sit down. Eat.”
Harold’s eyes got wide and glassy for a moment, and then he complied. Without another word, he sat down at the table and stuffed a corner of the sandwich into his mouth. Leon beamed. It was nice, having a quiet lunch at home like this, with no Cheryl to hassle him or Lisa to annoy him. He missed Ami, though. He wondered if he would still have a job come Monday, and if not, whether or not he would ever see her again. He hated to think that they would part on such an uncomfortable note. That business about his dad was ill-conceived, an awful thing to say to somebody he was only just getting to know. Probably she thought he was some sort of psycho now. Leon fervently hoped he and Ami would be able to get past that.
The good news was that his headache had lessened enormously. While he waited at the bus stop that morning, he came close to lying down on the ground and calling it quits. Within a couple of hazy, half-remembered hours, however, the pain went from unbearable agony to a dull, measured thump. Compared to the worst, he could take the thump. The hot lunch was his way of celebrating his recovery. Harold finished both halves of his before Leon swallowed his first bite.
“Good?”
Harold nodded, though he looked perplexed. His mouth and chin were speckled with crumbs from the sandwich.
“Would you like some coffee?”
Harold jutted out his lower lip like a confused infant.
“Would I?” he asked.
“I’ll make some.”
Leon crossed over to the counter beside the sink and flipped open the top of the ancient black coffee maker there. Inside the basket sat a paper filter filled to the brim with green and white mold. Leon winced, disgusted. The mold looked eerily similar to the fungus he’d seen on the ant in the garage.
“This’ll take a minute, pop,” he said. “I’ve got to clean this mess out.”
Harold’s face pinched into a squashed mask of bafflement. He slowly
turned his head to face Leon, and he said, “What day is it?”
“Friday,” Leon answered quickly.
“No work?”
“Nope,” Leon said without a care. “Not today.”
“Oh.”
Harold turned his mouth down at the corners and allowed his watery eyes to trail over the kitchen and out the window to his right. He could hear the water running in the sink and Leon clanging things against one another, cleaning the various components of the coffee maker. Out in the street, in front of the house, a trio of young boys shouted and laughed as they passed by. One of them had a soccer ball, which he tossed to one of his pals. The third kid wore neither a shirt nor shoes. Harold’s face pinched even more.
“No school, either,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What’s that?”
Leon did not hear his father over the dull roar of the faucet. He shut it off.
“No school,” Harold said again. He pointed at the window, but the kids were already gone.
“You okay, dad?”
Leon kept a concerned eye on Harold while he fitted the components back together and reached for the coffee can. It was half-caff, but it was all they had.
“Kids outside, playing. It’s odd.”
“Hooky,” Leon said, but before the word had fully passed his lips, he heard the distinctive groan and squeal of the garbage truck turning onto his street.
A moment later, it screeched to a halt two houses down, near enough that Leon could see it through the window. Two guys in yellow jumpsuits scampered up to the curb and began collecting the bins to dump in the back of the reeking truck. Leon gaped.
Because Friday was not garbage day. But Saturday was.
“The hell?”
“Coffee ready yet?” Harold asked. He seemed to have dismissed the topic of which day it was and moved on.
Leon turned back to the coffee maker in a shaky haze and finished setting it up. Once the grounds and water were in, he flipped the switch and wandered into the living room without a word. He found the remote buried among Harold’s refuse on the side table, turned the television on, and clicked through until he landed on the local news channel.
