Dead Leaves, Dark Corners

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  The millions of feet stopped slithering and wriggling. There wasn’t anything on its head that looked like ears, but it seemed to be listening.

  “Yes, I know she’s worried about her mom. They’ve scheduled the CAT scan for next week. I hope it’s not a brain tumor.”

  The doggy-poop-colored, multi-legged creature began slithering and wriggling in reverse now. A few seconds later, it had crawled back under the refrigerator.

  “Yes, and I know Doofus...I mean Tom...didn’t get the raise he was expecting. That’s a damn shame. He works his ass off for that company.”

  Chelsea watched the knee lump begin to move. She followed its lumpy, pincher-creature journey downward; saw it crawl out from under the denim hem, scramble across the sneaker, then back under the cabinet where they kept the stinky garbage.

  “You know what, I’m going to invite her to Bunco on Friday. I bet she could use a night out with the girls. I don’t know why I said all those terrible things. I guess I was just hurt. Had my panties in a wad over stuff I shouldn’t have taken personally.”

  Chelsea watched the shoulder lump move now. Watched the tiny monster squirm out from under the plaid collar and rappel down her mother’s back. It stalled at the Levi’s label again like it had done before. It was no longer shark-grinning.

  “I’m going to call her right now, before I take Chelsea to the park. Thanks for listening, Kelly. You’re a good friend and I appreciate you. See you Friday.”

  Chelsea thought the creepy crawly was angry. That made her worry at first, but when it abruptly let go of the jeans and dropped to the floor, she breathed a sigh of relief. It scrambled back to its hidey hole under a section of the hardwood where there was a small corner missing. Her daddy kept promising her mommy that he would fix that board, but he never got around to it. Chelsea decided she would get after him about it too, even if neither of her parents could understand a damn word she said.

  Dudes

  “What’s wrong with the games we usually play?” Andy asked the three men sitting at the felt-covered table. It was poker night and they were finished playing cards because everyone but Darryl was out of cash. Darryl, their host for the evening, might be the best Texas Hold ‘Em player in the history of the game, or he might be a damn cheater. Andy had yet to figure out which it was.

  They were at the fuzzy stage of the night when the Bicycle cards had been put away, the chips and salsa consumed, and the serious drinking begun. Miller Lite was for poker. Crown Royal was reserved for this leg of their monthly get-togethers when they would all get a little loose. They lived within a two-block radius of each other, so there would be no driving under the influence. And since the wives were doing their own wine version on the next street over, the guys didn’t have to worry about getting home late and facing sober, angry spouses. Most everyone would be hungover the next day, but it was almost always worth it.

  “I’m sick of Whisky Pong and Truth or Dare,” Darryl said. “This is a fun game. You’ll love it.”

  “What’s the name of it again?” Jimmy asked. His red hair and freckles revealed his Irish ancestry, but he must have gotten his liver from a different branch of the family tree – he was always the first one drunk.

  “It’s called What Would It Take? I’ll go first so you can see how to play it.”

  Andy noticed that Darryl seemed on edge tonight. Maybe he and Staci were having problems again. Since Andy was the newest member of the monthly Dudes’ Night Out, he wouldn’t risk blurting out a marriage question in front of the other guys. They didn’t talk about marital issues...that’s what the women did. But perhaps later Andy would ask him privately; it might be that Darryl needed a sounding board. He hoped the Crown wouldn’t erase the idea before the evening was finished. Darryl was the best-looking member of Dudes’ Night Out, but that was also something Andy would never say...not in public or private. If word got out that Andy liked dudes as much as he liked chicks, he would probably be run out of town on a rail. There was no place in their white middle-class Christian neighborhood for that kind of nonsense. Darryl may be the best poker player, but Andy had the best poker face. Not even Candace, Andy’s wife, suspected.

  “Okay, here goes,” Darryl continued. “What would it take,” he paused dramatically, looking up at the ceiling for inspiration, “for you to give up watching sports for a year? Gordon, you start. Then we’ll go clockwise around the table.”

  “So this is just a conversation game? Is that it?” At forty, Gordon was the oldest and also the stupidest. He was Andy’s least favorite in the group, but the man had a kind of gentle gullibility that was somehow endearing. Jimmy and Darryl gave Gordon shit about how he would believe anything, but Andy just patted him on the back and told him not to listen to those fuckers...the world had plenty of cynics already.

  “Yes, Gordon. Don’t strain yourself now,” Darryl grinned. “Just think about the question. Really think about it. Imagine sitting on your couch on a Sunday afternoon. It’s October. Two football games and the second game in the World Series are all on at the same time. You can’t watch any of them. What would it take for you to give that up for an entire year? And there’s no cheating. You can’t sneak and watch when nobody is around. What’s your answer?”

  Gordon frowned in concentration; he was giving the question the full thrust of his average intellect. Andy couldn’t keep the smirk off his face when he considered all those beer and whisky-soaked neurons struggling to fire.

  “It would take ten thousand dollars to give up watching sports for a year,” Gordon said. “That’s my final answer.”

  The other three men erupted in laughter.

  “Dude, this isn’t Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” Jimmy said with a snort followed by a hiccup. “I like your answer though. Ten grand sounds about right. It would royally suck to miss a whole year of sports. I’m gonna say the same.”

  Darryl eyed Andy next. “What about you?”

  Andy returned the steady gaze, a little unnerved by the soberness he saw in the handsome face. Darryl didn’t seem as inebriated as everyone else, including Andy himself. There was another thought along those lines, but it was soon forgotten in the struggle to come up with an answer that his friend would respect.

  Andy smiled, enjoying the attention more than he should. “I wouldn’t take a dime to give up watching sports for a year. You know why? Because it would free up all that time for more...cerebral...stuff. You know, like reading books and writing my memoirs.”

  That prompted another round of laughter, even though Gordon likely didn’t know the meaning of ‘cerebral’ nor ‘memoir.’

  “What’s your answer, Darryl?” Andy said, his face flushed from the whiskey as well as being the focus of Darryl’s attention.

  “I’m with you,” Darryl replied. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about sports, really. I only watch it so I can have manly conversations about it at work.” He gave Andy a wink, then said, “Your turn. What’s the next question? And it doesn’t have to be about money.”

  “Oh, okay,” Andy said, flustered by the wink that felt like it was just for him. “Let’s see. What would it take to...run naked through the neighborhood?”

  The silly notion elicited another round of guffaws. Fists pounded the felted table now, as drunken fists are inclined to do.

  “It wouldn’t take anything. I’ll do it for free!” Jimmy hollered, jumping up and peeling his clothes off on his way to the front door. He stumbled as his feet got caught on the waist of his jeans, but eventually he wriggled out of the tangled denim, then the boxer briefs right after.

  “What about your shirt?” Gordon asked through his laughter.

  Jimmy hiccupped, snorted, and said, “I’m a little self-conscious about my gut. Been drinking too much beer.”

  “Your junk is hanging out like the Sunday laundry, and you’re worried about a beer belly?” Darryl said with an indulgent grin. Everyone avoided staring at the aforementioned junk, mostly because dudes don’t stare at anothe
r dude’s junk, but also if they were honest, Jimmy’s junk wasn’t that impressive.

  “I’m gonna do it! You guys watch!”

  The three men gathered in a yellow circle of porchlight as the palest ass this side of Belfast darted through the Rodgers’ lawn next door, down the driveway, across the residential street where the streetlamp reflected off it like a lighthouse beacon, zigzagged back and forth through the Lukerts’ crape myrtles, then back across the road again, where it finally plopped its pale glory down on the flagstone steps.

  “Whew! I’m really out of shape!” Jimmy said, tugging his clothes back on. “Feeling the breeze on my frank-and-beans felt awesome. You guys shoulda done it with me.”

  “Maybe next time,” Darryl said with a smile as they gathered back around the poker table. “Gordon. Your turn. Come up with a What Would it Take question.”

  “Okay, I have one ready,” Gordon slurred. “What would it take to eat a spider? And not a little black house spider...I mean one of those gigantic fuckers.”

  “Like a tarantula?” Andy asked, happy to notice he wasn’t slurring. Not yet.

  “Yeah. One of them.”

  Darryl arched an eyebrow. “Raw or cooked?”

  “Oh, good question!” Gordon replied. His eyes were beginning to cross slightly. “Uh, let’s say you can cook it.”

  “If I get to sauté it in a little olive oil and garlic, it wouldn’t take much. I would do that for...” Darryl pondered his response, then said, “One bottle of Caymus Cabernet. The 2013 vintage. That’s under two hundred bucks. I get to drink the wine with the sautéed spider.” The movie-star grin flashed then, almost taking Andy’s breath away.

  “I didn’t know you were a wine drinker,” Jimmy said. His naked run had sobered him up a bit, but he was already rectifying that development. He poured another shot from the Crown bottle, drank it, and slammed the glass down on the table.

  Darryl’s grin broadened. “There’s probably a lot you don’t know about me. I’m a goddamn man of mystery.”

  “I’ve known you for ten years,” Jimmy said, his eyes blinking from the burn of the whisky. “I don’t think there’s anything about you I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps. Your turn, Jimmy. What’s your What Would it Take question?”

  “I’m ready! What would it take to fuck that fat broad on the corner?” he said, waggling his ginger eyebrows.

  “You mean Charlene? The tax accountant?” Andy said.

  “Yep.” Jimmy poured another round of shots for everyone, and then downed his. He rubbed his watering eyes with the back of a freckled hand. “Yes. She’s gotta be about three hundred pounds, don’t you think?”

  The men nodded.

  Gordon said, “Three twenty-five. She’s really big.”

  “So, what would it take to fuck her, Gordon?” Darryl only sipped the whisky shot.

  “Oh man. I don’t know if I could even get it up for that. I guess if I get to look at that red-headed stripper from Baby Doll’s while I’m boinking the fat broad, I’d do it. BUT, I get to do the stripper right after. Well, maybe not right after, but when I can get it up again.”

  The laughter was loud and spittle-flecked. Two of the dudes were three sheets to the wind now; Andy felt pretty hammered himself. There was something he had been meaning to do, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Darryl was staring at him now with twinkling eyes and a George Clooney smile.

  He felt himself blush again, then tried to cover it with a question. “Darryl, it’s come full circle. Back to you. What’s your next What Would it Take question?”

  A wave of something flitted across Darryl’s face...something unidentifiable, at least in Andy’s current state. Then it was gone.

  “What would it take to help a buddy bury a body?” Darryl said, locking eyes with him.

  Andy squirmed under the intense gaze. Why was Darryl suddenly so serious? It was just a stupid game.

  Jimmy and Gordon didn’t seem bothered by the question.

  Jimmy said, “That makes me think of when smart phones first came out, and everyone was asking Siri where to hide a body. And she’d give you all these locations, like swamps and dumps. So funny!”

  A flash of annoyance crossed Darryl’s face. Andy saw it before it disappeared.

  “So what would it take, guys? You know that old saying: a good friend helps you move, but a great friend helps you move a body.”

  Darryl’s grin seemed more like a grimace now. His odd behavior had penetrated the others’ alcohol fog; Andy could see it on their faces.

  Gordon nodded slowly, then said, “True friends don’t bail when the going gets tough. It wouldn’t take anything for me to help a friend bury a body. I’d just do it.”

  Jimmy squinted at Darryl. Andy could see confusion on the freckled face, then resolve. Jimmy had known Darryl longer than any of them. Together, the two men had weathered divorce, job loss, and the passing of parents. Whatever rabbit hole Darryl was going down, Jimmy would follow.

  “Me too. I’d just do it. It wouldn’t take anything.”

  Darryl nodded, then turned his attention back to Andy. The full appeal of the handsome face was directed at him; he felt his knees go weak under the poker table.

  “What about you, Andy? You’re the newest dude here, and probably the smartest. Are you willing to stick your neck out for a friend?” Darryl said with a squeeze of Andy’s shoulder.

  Andy swallowed hard. This wasn’t a game any longer – that message had pierced the mental fuzziness. He wished he hadn’t taken that last Crown shot. Three pairs of eyes stared at him.

  “Where is Staci?” Andy asked. “Is she with the other wives?”

  “Nope. She never made it home after I caught her at the Comfort Inn with the UPS guy.”

  “What are you saying, Darryl? You killed her?”

  Darryl frowned, rubbing his eyes while he studied the ceiling. Andy could see unshed tears floating above the blue irises. “I didn’t mean to. I was just following her to see where the hell she went every Friday at three o’clock while I was selling fucking software to millennials and morons. I work my ass off in a job I hate so she can drive her Lexus and live in this neighborhood. And that’s how she shows her appreciation? What a whore.”

  The other two nodded in agreement.

  “Where is she? Where did you put her?” Andy asked.

  “You mean them? They’re in the trunk of my Caddy, wrapped in the plastic shower curtain from the motel. I had to do them both. The guy was coming at me with a box cutter.”

  “Oh, geez,” Andy said. “I gotta take a leak and think about this. Give me a minute.” When he returned from the bathroom, wiping his face with a wet washcloth, the three men were still sitting at the table. Andy could tell they had been talking about him while he was gone.

  He looked at the three faces before him and knew with instant clarity that if he didn’t go along, they would kill him.

  He took a deep breath and said, “Five miles out of town off Parker Road, just past the Goodyear Tire factory, there’s a junkyard. I had to go there once to find a part for my dad’s old Subaru. There’s a creek at the back of the property and a ton of trees and brush and trash around it. We take bolt cutters to cut through the chain link on the south side...we don’t go through the front. There’s a camera there. We take four shovels. We bury the bodies deep so animals don’t get to them. I figure it’ll take twenty minutes to get there, another twenty to drag them back to the creek, an hour to dig the hole, twenty minutes to get back here, then another half hour to get cleaned up so when we go home to our wives, we don’t smell like fucking grave dirt. Let’s get moving.”

  Smiles, both drunken and relieved, spread across the faces of the three men.

  On the drive, Andy sat in the passenger seat. He was turned so he could watch Darryl’s face. The dashboard lighting added a green, alien-like cast to the attractive face. Andy noticed that the fingers clutching the steering wheel seemed relaxed, and there was the
tiniest of grins playing about the corners of the full mouth.

  “You don’t seem filled with remorse,” Andy said.

  “She was a cheating whore. She got what she deserved. Right, dudes?” Darryl glanced at the rearview mirror. Andy didn’t need to look into the backseat to know two heads nodded in unison.

  “And what if someone saw you carry the bodies out of the room? Another guest or a maid?”

  “I made sure the coast was clear.”

  “What about cameras? They’re usually all over those motel parking lots.”

  There was the George Clooney grin again. “I’m a software salesman. I know how to erase digital recordings from a low-end surveillance system at a two-star motel chain. It was easy getting the counter girl to let me into the back office. You can probably deduce how I did that.” The wink which earlier had said I’m just for you, now seemed to say I’m a little smarter than everyone else.

  Andy found he was no longer charmed by it.

  “When do you intend to report her missing? Where do the other girls think she is?”

  “They think she’s visiting her mother in Philly, because that’s what I told them. Phone records will confirm it because the crazy hag called this morning. I’ll call Edith in the morning to make sure her daughter arrived, but of course she won’t have. The old broad has dementia, so her testimony that Staci wasn’t even planning to come for a visit won’t carry any weight. Staci will have vanished somewhere between here and there. Her car will be found in a ditch. There will be some drops of her blood on those nice leather seats.” He tapped a bulging shirt pocket. “The investigation will go on for a while. I’ll play the inconsolable husband and you guys will be my alibi. It’s a good plan...elegant in its simplicity.”

  Andy couldn’t deny it. “And how do you know I won’t change my mind and rat you out?”

  “Because if you do, I’ll tell everyone you’re gay and that I suspect you might have followed Staci and killed her because you’re in love with me. As a failsafe, I’ve planted some of her blood in your car. The guys will say you weren’t at Dudes’ Night Out tonight. Right, guys?”