Brightleaf (16 page)

It is 2 a.m. when my cab pulls up to the Rapturous Rest. I pay the driver and close the car door as quietly as possible. I tiptoe up the steps and pull out my key, but the door is already unlocked. It quietly swings open. As I move towards the stairs, I notice a beam of light shining out from under the kitchen door. Looks like no one even thought of shutting down the house properly tonight. Looks like a case of
when the cat’s away
.

I push the kitchen door open. Mavis and Terry are sitting at the table drinking coffee and talking in hushed tones. They immediately stop talking and stare at me, like I’m some curfew-breaking teenager wielding a twelve-pack.

Mavis says, “Well, well, well. Look what the cat drug in.”

Terry just looks at me. He takes a sip of his coffee. His expression is neutral, as if he is thinking about something boring, like paper clips.

“What are ya’ll still doing up?” I ask.

Mavis says, “It ain’t every day that you’re out this late, Little Lady. So if you thank the two of us is doin somethin outta character then you best look in a mirror.”

“You’re waiting up for me? You shouldn’t have.”

“Baby, I had no choice. I tried to go to sleep, believe me. But I kept worrying about you out with that hotshot detective. So me and Floyd, we finally got up to get us a hot cup of buttermilk, and who did we run into? Doc. He couldn’t sleep neither.”

I look at Terry, but he will not meet my gaze. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking. But I can guess. I decide to tell them the story of my night. With details.

“After nodding off on Detective Metz’s bathroom floor for a few hours, I woke up and decided to do a brave thing and crack the door. A lamp was shining in the living room, but the house was silent as concrete. So I gathered my purse and shoes and stepped over Detective Metz, who was passed out facedown on his living room floor.”

I’m not telling Terry and Mavis this part: when I stepped over the passed out Detective Metz I discovered the tiger underwear was a thong. I felt faint at the sight of his hairy butt. But I forced myself to keep quiet and stay moving.

From there I ran out of his house to a waiting cab. I apologize up and down to Mavis and Terry for not calling.

By now Terry looks relaxed. He believes me, which is a relief. He has this funny smile like I’m some kind of really ignorant girl.

“I don’t get why you would go out with a guy you said
leers
at you,” he says.

“I wanted to see Ned’s journal, obviously.”

“Come on!” says Terry. “You knew he wanted to be more than friends.”

“Okay,” I say, embarrassed. “I was the teensiest bit flattered. But the last thing I expected was to see him round the corner looking like a Zulu
gigolo.”

“I had a similar thing happen to me once, too,” says Terry. “It was so frightening. A woman I knew surprised me by jumping out in this stretchy suit.”

Mavis raises her eyebrows.

I shake my head and say, “I’m going to take a shower in the carriage house.”

I feel like I need to scrub extra hard.

33

Swimming Away from Sins

August 15, 1990

Dear Diary,

I got baptized last Sunday. I’ve decided being a Baptist is not ghastly like my mother says. After church a bunch of people went to the Brightleaf swimming pool to be dunked, and I went with them. My grandmother thought it was the finest thing to happen in Brightleaf since Smitty’s Grand Opening in 1973. I wore the Little Mermaid swimsuit under a long white robe. I am still boycotting the pool, but it goes to show that I would rather be seen by half the town of Brightleaf splashing around in a long white choir robe than in that terrible swimsuit. When the preacher dunked me, I thought of all the bad things I’d ever done like read Marcelle’s private letters, smoke cigarettes, lie, and The Huey Incident. And one time I dumped out a whole bottle of milk of magnesia on the shelf at the Rite Aid. I felt a little bit bad about those things. I swear on the Bible that I did not know Huey had a pet rat. By now he knows it wasn’t his beloved Mrs. Frisbee. But nobody else (Mrs. Bussy, the principal, or Huey’s friends) was quite sure if he actually pulled a rat head from his locker. Not even his own mother totally believed him. Now that I am all baptized and everything, I might tell Huey the truth, that the rat head wasn’t a figment of his imagination. Maybe.

My father called today. He tells me I should probably stay with Grandmother for a while longer. Even start school here, at least until my mother straightens herself out. Grandmother is a teetotaler. Which sounds very religious. But this is a huge relief for a girl like me who needs regular things: someone to help her with homework, pick her up from tennis at 5:45 instead of 8:45, take her shopping for shoes and a dress without having cocktail hour in the Dillard’s restroom first, and have a routine supper with nice conversation. A girl like me also wishes she would not be awakened in the middle of the night by a grown lady rambling about how the cat doesn’t love her the way he used to. She wants ordinary. At least until she is 16....X

34

Ned’s Secret

Mary Beth

We’re only as sick as our secrets. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s true. People keep all kinds of secrets, ranging from the sinister to the ridiculous. Pick up a newspaper, and you’ll find stories about congressmen or celebrities caught doing something embarrassing and secretive. Secrets are kept so jobs and social standing won’t be lost, relationships won’t fall apart, the children won’t find out, but most often, to keep out of jail.

Sometimes I look into the faces of the people who’ve had secrets exposed, like that man Bernie Madoff. Or the teacher at the private school who hosted drug parties for his students in his apartment at night, seducing the young girls to whom he taught Shakespeare and Melville each day. I saw that teacher’s picture in the paper. I studied it, trying to identify the deviant in his eyes, first covering the left side of his face, then the right. They say the right side of the face shows a person’s dominant state best because it’s ruled by the left-brain. The left-brain being the analytical and logical side. So I guess if a person were stark-raving mad they’d have no objectivity. They’d have a craziness living in their right eye. Sometimes when I study a face, half of it looks like it’s been eating of the knowledge of good and evil forever, but the other side is a blank canvas for an expression that is waiting to happen.

Studying that teacher’s face, beyond the careful necktie and tailored blazer, beyond the dark, wavy hair, I also studied his mouth. Did it have a sinister curve or twist or whatever it is bad people do with their mouths? I saw nothing. Not in the eyes, not in the mouth. I decided he had a clear conscience, except for maybe a slight crease across the forehead. The forehead gave him away.

So did Ned have a dark side? I look at the smiling photo of him in the newspaper. It’s hard to tell much from black and white newsprint, but your gut can tell you a lot if you listen.

35

In Memoriam

“This Share Group is dedicated to Ned’s memory.”

Since none of us could be at Ned’s funeral, I tried thinking of some kind of ceremony that would bring closure for us here. I opt for a symbolic candle theme. When I was growing up, the Christmas Eve candlelight services at the Presbyterian Church created a kind of magical mood, like an angel just might bust in through the wall behind the baptismal font, like the Incredible Hulk. For some reason, holding a lit candle in the dark makes people feel introspective and maybe even a little bit holy. So I’ve got this big pumpkin pie scented Yankee candle in a jar, lit and sitting on the coffee table in the center of the circle. The whole house smells like pumpkin pie. I think Ned would approve and really appreciate that this candle represents his life. I bought a pack of those white emergency candles and pass them around. Winslow, Vanessa, Terry, Eleanor, Mavis, Angus, Jimmy, Baby George, Phil, Chauncey, and I are present – pretty much the whole group, except Ned. The plan is to give each person in the circle a chance to share some personal experience he or she had with Ned when the mood strikes. It’s my hope that we will all grow richer in our understanding of Ned and towards one another through this process. They say funerals are more for the living than the deceased. We need to say goodbye.

I turn off all the lights and pull the curtains to increase the drama. Ned’s candle is the only light until Vanessa leans over, and lights her candle.

She says, “That Ned was a funny thing.” When she smiles, the gold star on her tooth gleams. “On occasion, I’d go over to the carriage house to see if that child needed any cleaning done, but you’d be surprised to know there was never nothing much for me to do, except dust. And how that boy loved to collect dust! But his dishes, they was always clean. He never had a toilet bowl ring or nothing. And kept his trash picked up, he did. I clean for lots of single mens, and they keep all kinds of trash. They got beer cans, milk cartons, pizza boxes, tangled up with dirty underpants, t-shirts, and sneakers. They got mold growing in the toilet and tub. You’d think they never had a mama to teach them nothing. But not Ned. And another thing, the one time I went to hang up one of his shirts, I seen they was all hanging in his closet organized by color, his shirts were.”

I try to picture Ned’s tie-dyed shirts arranged by varying degrees of color.

Vanessa continues, “And he had framed pictures of his mama and daddy, right next to a picture of Bob Marley. Now that tickled me.” She laughs. “But next to Bob Marley he had him a picture of him, and I mean Ned, shaking the hand of George Bush.”

“The president?” asks Jimmy.

Vanessa nods. “It was a picture of Ned shaking hands with George W. Bush. When he was the president.”

“He never told us about that,” I say. “Did he?”

Winslow says, “Many people shook hands with George W. Bush but will never speak of it.”

I say, “Vanessa, did he tell you why he was shaking hands with the president?”

Vanessa nods and says, “So I says to Ned, what you doing shaking hands with the president? And Ned, he says he kept a bunch of folks from getting blown up at a concert one time. Says there were some terrorists gonna kill everybody.”

“Terrorists at a concert?” asks Terry.

“He said it was… lemme think.” Vanessa rubs her chin. “I think he said it was some anti-hippie…terrorists…or something. And that was very strange to me, too. I never heard of nothing like that.”

“Anti-hippie terrorists?” says Winslow. “What? A group of preppies hell-bent on wiping out flower children?”

Vanessa says, “He told me it was at a Fish concert. I remember that because it reminded me of the Long John Silvers I just ate, and it surprised me that somebody would name their band that. Kind of like naming a band Dog or Cat or Pig.”

“Phish? Really?” says Winslow. “I’d love to hear that story. But I don’t get why somebody would target them.”

“I don’t know, either. When he told me, I just nodded and went about my business,” says Vanessa. “No offense to Ned or nothing, but some people I clean for says some strange stuff, so I’ve learned to go about my business and say,
Mm-hmmm
. But Ned, he was a sweet boy.”

“Good as gold,” says Mavis, leaning forward to light her candle. Mavis holds the candle under her chin. The way the light hits her face makes her look a lot like Willie Nelson. “He’d come over before the Wednesday supper sometimes with a white box full of that black lava he picked up at the Starvos. How I love me some black lava. He’d hand over the box and whisper in my ear, he’d say, ‘You don’t gotta share it, man.’ A few times I kept it to myself and nibbled on it all week, but most times I’d set it out there on the table for the dessert. Bet ya’ll didn’t know that about the black lava, did you?”

Eleanor looks perturbed. She says, “Yes, we knew Ned was the one who brought the baklava, but I doubt he gave it to you to dole out as you pleased. Are you making that up?”

“Don’t be gettin your knickers in a knot over there, darlin. I never did see you eatin any of it.”

“All right, ladies,” I say. “Keep it sweet. Anything else you want to add, Mavis?”

Mavis says, “There’s a lot to say, but I just wanted to say that part about the black lava. He was always just real nice. One time I seen him give Manchild two dollars.”

Winslow reaches out to light his candle. He says, “I guess those of us who don’t live at the Rapturous Rest never really knew Ned as well, outside of our little therapy group here, but I can say this about him: he was always interesting, if not entertaining, and could do some damn fine breakdancing.”

“He was the master,” says Chauncey, lighting his candle, too.

Terry gets his flame going next. He pushes back his glasses and says, “When I first came to the Share Group here, I gotta admit it was because of Mary Beth.”

Everybody looks at me.

“I went home that first night thinking every one of you was crazy,” says Terry. “Especially Ned. But I woke up the next morning feeling a little lighter. The honesty was refreshing. I guess that’s the essence of Share Group. So here’s to Ned.” He holds his candle high.

Chauncey says, “Hear, hear,” and holds up his candle to toast Ned with Terry. Doyle and Jimmy both light their candles and lift them. So do Angus, Phil, and Baby George. For a minute there I’m worried Baby George and Phil will start telling booger jokes again. Or Angus might throw up. He’s done it before. But they’re quiet. Eleanor is the last to light her candle. She holds it under her face, making her appear gaunter than ever.

She says, “Ned and I had a special relationship. I’ll always remember him as the future father of my children…that I will never have.” Then she bursts out crying. Mavis hands her a tissue and pats her on the back, but nobody knows what to say. Most of us are probably betting that the
special relationship
is all in Eleanor’s head. To ease the discomfort in the room, I move on with the ceremony.

I have this little eulogy that I wrote and practiced into a tape recorder a couple times. I figure now is the time for it, so I gesture to the Yankee candle and say in my best funeral director tone, “This candle represents Ned’s life on Earth, and now that we all have our candles lit by him, each of us enriched by his life in some way, I’m going to blow out Ned’s, although his memory will burn in our hearts and minds forever. And as the pumpkin pie scent lingers in the air, so does the spirit of our dear friend.” I stand and blow out Ned’s candle. And in that I feel the loss of a presence in my life, a friendship truncated by some unknown force.

We sit for a few more minutes, our faces illuminated by the emergency candles, until I believe a respectable amount of time has transpired before our fingernails catch fire. I blow out my candle and sit in the dark for a few seconds. Everyone follows suit, and stillness settles into the room. I quietly rise and flick on the lights. Three or four people are crying into tissues. Others are hunched over, their hands over their eyes. We are all in some state of meditation or prayer for Ned, it seems.

When the ceremonial part is over, I plan to segue into part two of our meeting: the circumstances surrounding Ned’s death. After another few minutes of reflection, I ask, “Anyone have anything else they’d like to say before we move on?”

Everyone looks at one another and shakes his or her head.

“Okay, then. I’ve got some things I’d like to share. I’ve been looking into this for the past few weeks, picking up odds and ends from the police, the library, Doyle, and even from Ned himself.

“I’m not a detective of course, but I think I know how Ned died.”

The room is especially silent. Even Floyd notices and stops scratching. Several faces look worried.

Then two voices break the silence simultaneously: “I killed him!”

They stare at one another, Eleanor and Jimmy, like they are challenging one another as to who should get recognition for killing Ned. And it’s like the whole room awakens to this new revelation, this new disclosure.

Eleanor screams, “I did it! I poisoned his spinach!” She starts to bawl. “I didn’t mean to kill him! I just wanted him to get really sick, so I could nurse him back to health! So he’d need me! I put castor bean in the spanakopita I bought from Mr. Stavros and brought it up to Ned’s apartment. I told him to accept it as a token for a long, successful life.” She sobs into her hands, her whole body trembling.

Jimmy says, “I’d be happy to let Eleanor take all the credit for killing Ned. But I did a dumb thing. I gave him a drug most people are not familiar with called yohimbe. I can’t help but wonder if that killed him, although I can’t see how.” Jimmy puts his face in his hands. Then he turns to Eleanor. “Where’d you get your castor bean?”

”Etsy.com.”

“You gave him the yohimbe?” I say to Jimmy.

“How do you know anything about that?” Jimmy asks. “I know the police found it in his apartment because they asked me about it, but I stayed mum. It’s not like it’s illegal. I didn’t want to implicate myself for nothing.”

“ For starters, he could have taken Viagra for his impotence,” I say. “But you had to go and pretend to be a doctor and practice your mad scientist thing on him.”

“Ned was impotent?” Jimmy and Eleanor ask, speaking in unison for the second time.

Eleanor’s face smoothes into a smile; then she happily cries, “That explains so much! Oh, sweet Ned! I should have never killed you!”

Jimmy sits there looking at Eleanor, dumbfounded by what just came out of her mouth, like she’s some kind of mutant. Like half woman, half Komodo dragon. Then he starts laughing. Jimmy points his finger at Eleanor, almost touching her nose, and laughs so hard his face turns purple. I can see all his teeth, and they are a lot whiter than I would have imagined. He finally chokes out, “Ned wasn’t impotent, you evil bitch! Ned just had zero interest you. You knew that. He was only nice to you because Ned was nice to everybody.”

Eleanor’s face is blank with shock, but Jimmy keeps laughing. I’m worried he’ll up and die from lack of air. Eleanor bursts out crying again.

Those two are a sight to behold, Jimmy laughing and Eleanor sobbing.

Finally, Jimmy catches his breathe and says, “I gave him the yohimbe for
hair growth
…for premature balding—and it was working too! I was keeping the dosage low, so I still can’t see how he OD’d. I stressed to Ned the importance of following my instructions. I even advised him to quit drinking coffee and using any other recreational substances while I was treating him.”

Hair loss? His hair looked perfectly fine to me. Some men are sensitive about those types of things, though. How tragic if he died
because of it. At this revelation, things begin to settle down. Even Eleanor stops crying. Now it appears she’s reverted back to being pleased she tried to poison Ned.

So Ned wasn’t impotent. He was taking the drug for hair loss.

“Okay,” I say. “I had that part wrong. But guess what else?”

No one can guess, so I remind them of Ned’s dream about Evil Otto.

“Evil Otto, again?” says Terry.

I tell them I wanted to find out why Ned would dream about him so much. I do not tell them how I came to read Ned’s journal and definitely skip the part about Detective Metz’s tiger underpants. I tell them how I found out that he’s the villain in a 1980’s video game called
Berzerk
. I nod at Chauncey, who tried to tell us all this a few weeks back.

“That was a controversial game for a while,” says Winslow. “When I was in grad school a guy did his thesis on the effect of video games on the developing mind called,
The Mind in the Machine
, and I vividly remember him telling me how several kids died of heart attacks after playing marathons of that game.”

I say, “Evil Otto is just a smiley face, like Chauncey was saying a few weeks ago. But that makes him more terrifying.”

“Big deal,” says Baby George. “I watch scary shit all day, and I ain’t dead.”

I unfold a piece of paper and read, “According to an article by Cracked.com, entitled “The Ten Most Terrifying Video Game Enemies of All Time,” Evil Otto was voted the scariest video game villain in the world.” I read, “‘It was Otto’s job to fly through the poisonous walls and zap you when the timer ran low. Otto was merely a pain, but what makes him truly frightful is the fact that he is possibly the only video game enemy in history to kill players in real-life. Between 1981 and 1982, two teenage
Berzerk
players died of heart attacks shortly after posting high scores at video arcades.
Evil Otto watched them die...with a smile on his face.
’”

Mavis shudders.

Terry shakes his head and says, “That’s sick.”

“You think he was killed by the video game?” asks Jimmy.

“Maybe yohimbe and
Berzerk
together. I think he had a heart attack.”

Jimmy’s mouth falls open. He says, “I can buy that.”

“Who would imagine that an herb for hair growth and a video game could create such a lethal combo,” says Terry. “Weird how each of them could cause a cardiac arrest all on their own.”