by Baxter Clare
Around a mouthful of sundae Frank snorted. "She's lucky I buried her."
"What did she do that was so awful?"
"She wasn't awful," Frank admitted. "She was just sick. She was a manic depressive and wouldn't stay on her meds."
"Did she have the radical mood swings?"
Frank stared into her bowl. "Yeah. More toward the end. And to be fair, it wasn't always so awful... When I was little, before my dad died, they'd be getting dressed up to go dancing—they loved dancing—and my dad was shaved and he smelled like Old Spice and Scotch and he'd put me on his feet and dance with me. Sinatra or Benny Goodman. He loved those guys. Then he'd shoo me off and I'd sit in the bathroom on the John, watching my mother put on her makeup. She'd be humming and making faces in the mirror—putting her face on, she used to call it—and I loved watching her. She was so pretty. She looked like a queen in a fairy tale, or one of those Greek goddesses they were always trying to teach us about in school. And I thought, I mean I really believed she was magic. She'd make flowers appear in the window box in midwinter, or she'd cheep at these tough little New York sparrows and they'd come flying into her hand. And there was a pit bull in the basement that would kill anything that came near it, but my mom would say, 'Oh, hush,' and walk up to it, pretty as you please, scratching his ears, rubbing his belly, and that dog would act the fool over her. Wagging his tail and rolling on his back, licking her cheek. I was sure he was gonna eat her one day, but she'd just laugh and play with him. He'd whine for her to come back when she walked away."
She took a bite of ice cream. When Gail didn't say anything Frank continued.
"I never knew which it was going to be." She gave a wry smile. "How the pigeons have come home to roost, huh? I'm just like her in that I never knew if she was going to be the fairy princess or the wicked witch. Was she gonna be high or low? Laughing or weeping? Dancing or sleeping? Toward the end, after my dad died, that's when she got pretty predictable. It was all bad then. Everything went to hell. I did what I could to try and make up for it, to try and keep her from spilling over into the lows, but it didn't matter. She always ended up in a depression. There'd be days, sometimes weeks, she wouldn't get out of bed. Toward the end I preferred that. At least I knew where she was. And I could take care of myself. All I really needed her for was to cash the welfare checks. I'd drag her outta bed to the supermarket then I'd keep the cash they gave her and do all the shopping, pay what bills we could."
The ice cream didn't taste good anymore and Frank stirred it into soup. Gail was scraping smears of fudge from the sides of her bowl. The click of her spoon was comforting. Gail sitting across from her was comforting. Licking the tip of the spoon, Gail asked, "How old were you when it got bad?"
Frank did the math. "I was ten when my dad died. She held it together for a little while after that. She didn't get really bad until I was in my teens. My uncle helped out when he could. He'd come by once a month or so, slip her something. It was pretty embarrassing. My mom had been so pretty—I think he was crushed out on her even after my dad married her. She'd cry all over him and grovel and thank him. He had a wife and two kids so he never gave us much. And he must have been leaning on the landlord because I don't how else we paid the rent."
"What do you mean he leaned on the landlord?"
"He was a cop—things were different then. A civilian did you a favor, you did them a favor. So he probably helped the landlord with rowdy tenants, cruised by more often than regular patrols, who knows? At any rate, he did his best. I think it hurt him to be around us. He must've missed my dad something awful. They were best friends. I tried to stay at my uncle's as much as I could. I didn't want to be home, but my aunt was a bitch. She made it clear she didn't want me around, so I stopped going after a while. My older cousin had joined the Army by then and the younger one started fooling around with drugs. We drifted away. After I left for California my mom lost the apartment, started living on the streets. My uncle'd find her and take her into a shelter but she'd always leave." She dipped her spoon into the pool of ice cream, let it run off, dipped it again. "She died on the street. A shopkeeper noticed she'd been in the same spot a couple days in a row. Called the EMTs. She was frozen under a pile of newspapers. Had my number on her. Cops called me. That was that. Nice, huh? That's the kind of daughter I was. Let my own mother freeze to death on the street." Frank looked up to see Gail wipe at a tear. She glanced back into her bowl, quietly telling it, "I ran and I ran just like the Gingerbread Man."
Gail cleared her throat. "God, Frank. You were just a kid. Kids do that. It's a normal reaction."
"Nice try. I was eighteen years old. Hardly a kid. I knew better. I could have gone to school closer to home. I could have taken her to California with me. I could have institutionalized her. I could've done a lot of things. Truth was, I didn't want to be anywhere near her. She wouldn't stay on her lithium and I was gonna be damned if I'd go down with her. So I bailed."
"You may have been a legal adult," Gail argued, "and despite acting like an adult and taking care of yourself and your mother all those years, inside you were still a kid. You reacted like any kid would."
"Maybe." Frank dropped the spoon into the bowl. "Whatever. It's done. I did what I did, she did what she did, and I need to live with it all."
"Oh, boy. That is frighteningly stoic. Vintage do-or-die Frank."
Frank thought about that, allowing, "I'm willing to live with it but I never said it would be easy, or that I'd do it gracefully. I'm still mad at her. I'm mad at myself, too. I don't like what I did, but I'm willing to let it go. I have to. I'm tired of being mad, being such a hater. Doesn't get me anywhere but closer to a bottle. Or a gun. I don't know much but I know I don't want to go there. So it is what it is. Rocks are hard, rain is wet. I can't change any of it. All I can change is how I react to it. If that's stoic, then that's what it is."
"It's like when you left me," Gail mused. "It was so much easier to hate you than to admit how much it hurt. How much I missed you and wanted you back."
"I'm sorry about that."
"No. Don't be. I'm not saying it to make you feel bad. I just know how it feels to be mad at someone when all you really want is to love them. Case in point, my father. I just wanted to love him but after all the broken promises it became so much easier to hate him and push him out of my life. I think now I love him because he's my father, but I don't like him and don't particularly want a relationship with him. I was always mad he wouldn't be the father I wanted him to be and could never accept him for the father he was."
"Yeah." Frank nodded. "You wanted the sober dad and I wanted the mom who lived between the highs and the lows."
"Did you hate me after you left?"
"No. I was too tired to hate you. Too busy drinking and getting numb. Hate would have interfered with the numbness. I just didn't think about you. When you popped into my head I pushed you out. Just like I've always done with anything that hurts. Push it out, cover it up with lots of booze or work and pretend it just doesn't exist."
"And now you can't do that anymore."
Tracing the pattern in the wood veneer, Frank echoed, "And now I can't do that anymore."
"I'm glad."
Frank looked into the cool and limpid green eyes, just like the song said, and she had to turn away. She hadn't earned the right to look there yet.
"Tell me about the night you quit drinking."
Frank shook her head. "You don't want to hear about that."
"Yes, I do. If you want to tell me."
Frank sighed, plunging into the short version. "I'd gotten off early. Fubar was on call. I had the whole night to get shit-faced and that's what I planned to do. I was buying Scotch by the case at that point so I settled in with a bottle the minute I got home. Watched TV and drank and drank and drank. Waiting for the booze to kick in, to feel the click that quiets everything down. But it didn't happen. I was well into my second bottle and stone-cold sober. I couldn't get the click. And I got scared. I'd
been cleaning my guns. They were all lying on the table in front of me. Picked up the nine millimeter and put it in my mouth. If I just squeezed a little tighter on the trigger it would be quiet forever. Peaceful. Nothing would ever hurt again. So I squeezed a little tighter. I was daring myself to do it. I remember thinking, 'Pull, pull! Just pull, damn it!' and then the TV went black for a second, just a quick, two A.M. pause between infomercials, and I saw myself in that black screen—gun in my mouth, finger on the trigger, shaking—and I threw the gun across the room. Threw up all over. Couldn't stop shaking. I was crying. Managed to call Joe, my old LT. He told me to sit tight, he was gonna get help. I dozed off, sitting on the floor, wrapped in my bedspread. Phone woke me up. I thought it was work. It was Mary—she's my sponsor now—and she said, 'Joe called me last night and I'm taking you to a seven o'clock meeting. Get showered and get dressed. I'll be there in half an hour.' And that was that."
Gail shivered, hugging herself. "It sounds so harrowing."
"Yeah. Harrowing. That's a good word for it." Frank pointed at the raised flesh on her arms. "Still gives me goose bumps every time I think about it. But I don't ever want to forget it, either. If I forget I might go back there. So that's why I'm here." She gave Gail a tight smile. "Still on for tomorrow?"
"For more chocolate? You bet!"
"Good." Having had enough of talking, Frank got up and put the tray outside. Gail came up behind her. "Thanks for the ice cream."
"Thanks for the company."
"Call me when you get in tomorrow."
"I will," Frank said. "Good night."
"Good night."
Gail walked down the hall and Frank watched until she got into the elevator.
CHAPTER 7
Sunday, 9 Jan 05 — Manhattan
Early. Still dark out. Dark as this city can be. Drinking awful hotel room coffee. Okay, still a day behind in this damn thing.
Had a nice time with Gail last night. Came down to my room and we talked. Made her cry. Yea! Way to go. Hell. Almost made myself cry. Sad story, yada, yada, yada. But today I’ll put a period to this whole sorry affair. Who knows, maybe I’ll even cry.
Ten minutes, huh? Want a sad story. I’ll give you a sad story.
My uncle came over one day. This is after my dad died.
"Al," my mother says, gives him a hug.
She's got a wooden spoon in her hand. Dripping yellow cake batter all over the floor but she doesn't even notice. Why would she? She didn't have to clean it up. I digress.
"Al." She smiles at him.
"Cat," my uncle says, "howya doin'?"
He had a deep voice like my father's. I wanted to cry every time I heard him.
My mother goes back into the kitchen. My uncle follows her. I did too, after wiping up the goddamned batter.
"Tm making a cake," my mother announces. Duh. " With chocolate frosting," she says. "Luce likes chocolate frosting"
Luce. She was the only one who ever called me that.
"That's nice," my uncle says.
He's staring at my mother's back, and she's whipping the batter like she's trying to churn it into butter. My uncle, he says, "I made arrangements for the funeral. I got him into Holy Cross," and my mother screams, "Holy Cross? You're putting him into Holy Cross? No, Al. No! I will not let you do that! I will drag him up to Central Park and bury him myself before I let him near a Catholic cemetery. Do you hear me, Al? He is not being buried in the church. I swear you'll have to kill me before that happens. I swear it, Al, I swear it! Do you hear me?"
She's fucking hysterical now. Berserk. She runs over to my uncle, starts pounding him in the chest.
"You bastard!" she's screaming. "Don't you dare bury him there. Do you hear me? I won't let you, Al. I swear I won't let you."
My uncle clamps her wrists like she's a two-year-old. "For Christ's sake, Cat, take it easy. Jesus. Calm down."
My mother only gets crazier. She's trying to get her hands loose, panting, "I won't let you! I won't let you! I’ll kill you before I let you bury him there, I swear it, Al. I swear it."
My uncle says, "All right, Cat. We won't bury him there. Jesus Christ. I promise. We won't bury him in the church. Any church. Shh. I promise. Cat, I promise."
"No, no, no! No church! He'd hate that. I know he would. You know he would."
"Calm down, Cat. Calm down. No church, Tm telling you. We won't put him in a church."
"You promise?"
"Yes. I promise."
"Swear to me, Al."
He crosses himself. "On my mother's grave, I swear to you, no church."
"All right." Then my mother slumped down onto the floor like someone had pulled all her bones out. Very dramatic, and she says, "I want him buried in Woodlawn."
My uncle, poor bastard, he just laughs. "Jesus, Cat, that's impossible. We don't have that kind of money."
" We'll find it!" my mother says, suddenly coming alive again. " We've got the life insurance policy! That'll cover it!"
My uncle kneels down beside her, shaking his head, tells her, "Cat, honey, that's only ten thousand dollars. At Woodlawn that wouldn't be enough for a flower arrangement. We just don't have that kind of dough. You gotta be reasonable here. We won't bury him in the church but he ain't going to Woodlawn, neither. I’ll look around. I’ll find a public cemetery for you, I promise, but it ain't going to be Woodlawn."
"But it's so beautiful and so close," my mom pleads. "I could visit him every day."
"No. Not Woodlawn. But I’ll get him as close as I can. I promise. I gotta go. Marie's holding supper for me. I’ll take care of it, though, okay?"
My mother stood up and went to the cake batter. I heard her whisper, "I just want him close to me."
Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. Who didn't?
How's that for a sad story?
And all in ten minutes. Shit. Still owe another ten from Friday. I’ll get to it tonight. Promise. But for now, may as well see if the gym's open.
CHAPTER 8
Frank popped for a cab to Canarsie. When it pulled up at the cemetery she paid the driver and got out. She stayed a long time on the curb. Shifting a bouquet of flowers back and forth, she held her face up to the weak sun. She'd forgotten how lifeless northern sun was compared to southern sun, yet despite its bloodlessness the warmth felt good. She knew she was procrastinating, but she had all morning. This had been waiting for over two decades. Another few minutes couldn't hurt.
After a bit she felt silly and finally stepped through the iron gates. Her mother had been buried next to her father, and Frank walked in the direction that memory took her. She remembered his grave being near a tall, bare tree at the far end of the cemetery. But there were dozens of tall bare trees. She meandered between headstones looking for her father's name. She paused at some of the more poetic headstones, impressed by the age of others. Almost surprised, she read a white marble slab inscribed "C. S. Franco 1932—1983."
For a second she was confused, wondering if there were two C. S. Franco’s in the same cemetery. She glanced at the stone next to her mother's.
Francis S. Franco
Born 1934—Died 1969.
Just as she remembered.
But there was a jar of cut flowers in front of her father's stone. And a devotional candle, its pale wax smudged and melted.
Frank wondered who could have left them. She felt like she'd stumbled upon a secret. She backed away from the graves to gain perspective, searching for a plausible explanation. Perched against a granite tombstone she began compiling a list of names.
Her mother's parents were both long dead. She had twin sisters that Frank never met. They'd lived somewhere in New England, maybe Rhode Island or Maine. She couldn't remember.
Her father's parents were also deceased. They had died when she was six.. She remembered her father and Uncle Al flying home for the funeral, her mother crying in the airport and her father reassuring her he'd be back in a couple days. Not to worry. Telling Frank to take care of her mother, his chee
k rough against hers when he kissed her.
Frank rubbed the back of her neck, bringing her focus into the present.
Al and her father were their only children. Al died not long after she'd moved to California and his wife had returned to Illinois.
Her cousin John had died of hepatitis, contracted from dirty needles. Her other cousin went to Illinois with his mother. Last Frank had heard, in a long-ago letter from her mother, he'd found God and joined a fringe Klu Klux Klan. Frank wouldn't have been surprised to see his name pop up on an FBI bulletin.
She tried to remember her father's co-workers, his friends at the bars. Her mother had known hundreds of people but Frank couldn't say she'd been close to any of them. She scanned nearby headstones, looking for similar offerings. There weren't any. Whoever put the flowers and votive here had done so deliberately.
Frank squatted in front of the candle. It had a paper picture on it, a kid dressed like a pilgrim. Santo Nino de Atocha. She reached for the glass, then pulled her hand back.
Someone would have left prints on it.
Frank studied the flowers. White chrysanthemums wilting at the edges. In an old mayonnaise jar stained with evaporation lines. The jar had been used before. She stood, peering down into the candle. There was water, about an inch collected at the bottom. Her heart was speeding. She wished she had a camera. She checked the headstones again, making sure she had the right ones. She calculated the odds of having identical headstones in the same cemetery, deciding they were slim to nonexistent in a place the size of Canarsie. She found two fallen branches and stuck them into the jars, inverting the glass onto the sticks so she could carry them without marring the prints.
Carrying the jars like flags, she walked to the corner deli she'd noticed on the way in. She asked a three-hundred-pound man for a phone book and he grudgingly slid it over the counter. Frank found the number for the Ninth Precinct and called on her cell phone.
"Sergeant-Jones-NYPD-how-can-I-help-you."
"Sergeant Jones, who would I talk to about a lead on a very old homicide?"
"Depends. How old we talkin'?"
