"She Talks to Angels" -- The Black Crows & "Not for You" -- Pearl Jam

The moon is waxing once again, and everything is going wrong. The day is creeping closer, looming in a clichéd sort of way, just on the undercurrent of every thought and motion. Addison got the photo book, the photo book, and looked at the pictures.

Pointing to one she said, "Who's that?"

"That's you and GG, when you were a little bitty baby," I told her. Sometimes I think she's mad at me because I'm not Mom.

Now that I think about it, I should have titled this differently. Let's just try this again.

"Not for You" -- Pearl Jam

So, going back to a...shared theory, it is rather unfortunate that I see, when free-associating the word 'heaven,'  puffy clouds and Adam Sandler. Who knew that my mental image of heaven would forever be tinged by watching Happy Gilmore repeatedly?

Sometimes I dream of going to the mall in Cincinnati. Only this isn't your average everyday trip. Sometimes I'm driving to Florida, via Cincinnati, and end up at this crazy mall, exposition, old amphitheater place that is just weird. And always I am alone. I shouldn't be alone. I'm never alone now, so why am I alone? There are other people, sometimes, but they don't have bodies--I cannot grasp a hand or feel the brush of clothing or even the swish of my own hair. It's unnerving. What if one could not feel? I wake, in the dead of night, and upon realizing that I am, indeed, still safe in my huge soft bed, I often drift back to sleep and into the eerily vivid world of my strange dreams.

I wonder if that is how it must feel to be a ghost? To exist without being able to touch anyone, interact with someone you can see? It is a sickening feeling, an emptiness, to hope that someone who is dead could still be here.

"Heaven Beside You" -- Alice In Chains

So there was discussion of having a death date party. No? You didn't think that was amusing? Hmm. Well, perhaps you would be interested in knowing that a certain day is approaching that marked the end of life as we all knew it. So, instead of getting super bummed out, I say we all get some popcorn, MGD, and watch Mama's Family. Oh wait. "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion." Yeah, we could watch Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment, and then The Burbs. 


Okay, okay. I know that you want to hear me whine some more don't you? Oh. Well, fine. I didn't want to complain about my dead mother anymore either, thanks.

The Square Shoulder of a Man Named Butch

XI

Claire flicked on the television in the corner and grabbed a pitcher of orange juice. She was pouring juice in a tumbler when the news anchor introduced a live report.

            “Hello, Gina Flynne reporting from the Sherwood Nature Preserve five miles south of the city: a body has been found in the river, tangled in the driftwood and leaves. We have here, the nature observer who happened to spot the body in the river. Mr. Thornton, how did you happen to spot a body in the river?” the reporter leveled her microphone at a back-pack laden whose khakis and polo shirt were damp, his tennis shoes dirty. His tan skin gave the soft pallor of fear, a sickly white color under all that bronzed skin.

            “Well, I was just out here checking out what animals I could see for this class project. I’m doing a chart of all the different animals that I could see while walking about a three mile roundtrip hike. I began by spotting and identifying all manner of animals that live in this environment. On my way down, just about a half mile into the hike I spotted something in the water. I had seen some otters in the river earlier, so I walked closer to the bend in the river and I saw something. But it wasn’t moving, except lapping with the leaves in the current. The river’s been down a bit since there hasn’t been much rain, ‘cept that good shower we had last weekend. That was the first good rain we’ve had since August.”

            “Yes, Mr. Thornton I believe it was,” Gina the reporter turned to face the camera as it zoomed in on her, catching a section of flapping caution tape in the distance, “At this time authorities have not released any information other than that it was a body, and that it was found in the river…”

            Gina Flynne rambled on in corner of the kitchen, and Claire plopped down onto the loveseat in the breakfast nook, “I can’t believe this. What if that’s Roxanne? What if she got swept away in the flash flood?”

            Mark handed Claire a slice of buttered toast and sipped his own juice. Licking the orange pulp from his lips he said, “Then I guess you have one less case you have to worry about before you go off to your new job. And I have one less on the docket next month,” he said with a smile.

            “You are so terrible, that’s not funny,” She narrowed her eyes at him as he leaned over to kiss her, “I mean, she’s out there somewhere, who knows what might happen? That really could be her. In the river,” Claire’s eyes drifted away from him, un-focusing as they slid upward. Maybe she should call that guy, that private detective who’d found her friend’s runaway son. Her son was living in a homeless shelter five states over when he found him. A real knight in tweed armor, she thought of Margo’s tears trailing through her blush as she recounted the tale. She reached in her mind for a name, but Mark was repeating her own name, snapping attention back into focus on his face, and she could not remember.

            “You know, Claire, we can help people by keeping the law offenders off the streets and their kids in decent homes. What we do is important. But we can’t save everyone from everything. Even if we put in 110% every day, there always seems to be something else that could be done, something more,” he saw that she was drifting out of the conversation again.

“Listen, I forgot that I had this brunch meeting with Margo this morning, so I think I will skip the toast.” She shoved the toast back into his hand, downed the remainder of her juice and slid on her jacket. As she gathered her things, she tried to ignore Mark’s half-hearted objections.

            “Okay then, I guess I’ll just go play some golf. Call me when you get home from brunch,” he reached for her and he managed a quick peck on her cheek before she breezed by him and out the back door. Her footsteps down the stairs faded, and Mark wondered why she was so bothered by the runaway.  

[Unfortunately, this is the last serial post for this book, at this point in time. Perhaps more, or another, will be featured here in the near future. Thanks for reading, I hope that you enjoyed!*Laura Beth]

Toadies - "Happy Face"

You know you've been waiting for this....

The Square Shoulder of a Man Named Butch continues:

IX

“It’s been long enough,” said Mark Gabeheart, his brow furrowed in concentration as he looped and knotted his tie in front of the mirror.

            “Yes, I know, but I keep hoping she will show up here. It’s not like her to steal. She must have felt so desperate,” replied Claire, pulling the stiff tissue stuffing out of a new purse.

            “You should report this, cancel your credit cards. Do something,” and although he tried to sound gently concerned, anger laced his clipped words.

            “I’ve been thinking about it…she hasn’t used any of my cards, I checked all the balances just this morning. I just think that she will come here or call, or stop me in the garage again.” Claire frowned as she perched on the edge of the bed slipping her slender feet into strappy heels.

            “She probably just took the cash and threw the rest away, that’s what junkies do—“

            “She’s not a junkie. You know, you’re as much to blame for any of this as I am. She’s just a child who was torn from her home!”

            “Torn from her home! Listen, those people were growing pot plants in the shed in their back yard. They deserved to go to jail,” Mark was furious now.

            “You know who deserves to go to jail? Parents who have meth labs in their bathrooms, who unnecessarily expose their children to those chemicals; but the maximum sentence for both parents, on cultivation charges? No probation instead of jail time. That’s absurd. You could have given them a slap on the wrists, probation, drug screening. I’m sure that they were just trying to get by. Her mom had recently lost her job. There’s no way that they could make it on one income for long. This economy, it does things to people. Some people do things that they might not otherwise do, good or bad, just to get by,” Claire paced in front of her mirror, finally selecting a lipstick and mirror compact to put in her purse.

            “They broke the law. I set an example. Those who break the law, even if they haven’t ever done anything like that before, are responsible for the consequences. They should have considered where their daughter would end up before they decided to grow marijuana in their back yard!” Mark’s voice was swelling, the anger rising up his neck and spreading in red swatches up his cheeks.

            “I can’t have this conversation with you again, Mark, let’s just forget it. We both fucked up and now that girl is a runaway—,” Claire was pulling her overcoat on and picking up her purse.

            “We fucked up? I was just doing my job,” Mark checked his watch, “Listen we’re going to miss our reservation if we don’t get going,” he pulled on his own overcoat and followed her out toward the kitchen.

            “Whatever, Mark,” she said, resolved not to speak to him anymore, at least not until she’d had a couple of glasses of wine.

X

At home Carl was quite unsure what to do about the man in the trunk. He backed his car up to the back door, coming as close as he could to the concrete steps there. He went to the door, unlocked it, and hurried inside. From the little space he made between the blinds he looked at the neighbor’s houses. No one appeared to be out and about. He gathered some plastic bins from the basement storage closet and stuffed them with two old blankets. He went back out into the rain, sitting the open bins beside the trunk. He listened a moment before working the key in the lock, hearing only the rain and wind in the trees. Slowly he opened the trunk, only to see that the once-unconscious man was now obviously dead, blood spilling from his head and leaving a huge puddle on the otherwise clean upholstery.

He removed the blankets from the bins and threw them inside. He unlocked the doors and sat the bins in the back seat and walked back into the house. His mind was reeling. He had killed someone. Now what? He sat at the kitchen table, his soggy clothes dripping onto the linoleum floor. And put his head between his hands. He listened for a long time. The only noise besides his pounding heart was the rain. It was splattering through the trees and hitting the roof, a metal garbage can outside, and somewhere, a wind chime. He strained to hear an inner voice that was not there. His mother’s wisdom had left him. His mind flicked through every Forensic Files episode he had ever seen. He was thinking gruesome thoughts again.

After a while, he grew cold. He rose from the table and went into the bedroom. He changed out of his damp clothes, stuffing them into a plastic garbage bag. He washed his face in warm water in the bathroom. He put a clean pair of shoes in a grocery sack, slipped on his raincoat, and went back out into the rain. Thinking, once again, in the driver’s seat of the car, he opened the glove box and got out his spare pair of gloves, the cotton kind, some his mother had given him when she went through some of his father’s old things. He slipped them on, and drove out of the city, heading northwest toward the state park.

His headlights sliced through the rain and the gathering darkness as he turned onto a road that led down to the water. The road was long, winding its way to and fro along the river until it ended as a boat ramp slanting into the water. There was enough parking to accommodate several trucks with boat trailers, but the lot was empty. Carl turned away from the water toward the lot, and then reversed to stop a few feet from the edge of the rising river’s rain-dappled surface.  He removed the man from the trunk, arranging the blankets over the bloody spot. He removed the man’s clothes and rolled him into the water. The body disappeared below the churning surface for a few moments, but Carl turned away. He gathered the man’s clothes, briefcase, and cell phone pieces and stuffed them into one of the plastic bins and placed it in the trunk.

He pulled off the highway at a truck stop and had a cup of strong oily coffee. He pulled his car around the back of the restaurant as he was leaving and, after wiping it, and all its contents, obsessively with an old towel, he threw the plastic bin into the dumpster there. He sped away. Very late that night he put his soiled clothes, shoes, towel, and gloves into a garbage can down the street. He crawled into bed and quickly fell into the black hole of sleep.