Sparkle (3 page)

For Jolie, it meant an automatic boost in pay. For Joe, it meant he wouldn’t have to worry about Eddie spazzing out and throwing a fit if Jolie wasn’t there. For Eddie, it meant the world. After Joe, Jolie Walker was Eddie’s favorite living person.

“So…that’s great. I’ll tell Eddie,” Joe said. “I can tell him—it’s a sure thing, right?”

“Sure as they get.”

“Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Bye.” Jolie hung up.

She’d gotten through to Joe, she could tell.

“Hey there, Jolie. Can I talk with you a minute?”

It was Mark Bender, her boss. Mark had recently taken on the assistant head zookeeper job. He’d been at Woodfield for about four months, and he was still having some trouble finding his place. He’d completed his MS in zoology from the University of Idaho the previous summer. Before that, he’d spent a couple of years working as a zookeeper in Salt Lake City, after getting his BS at Brigham Young. He’d grown up with animals all his life, was a 4H junior farmer and the whole bit, and early on told Jolie one of the reasons he’d wanted to come to Seattle was for the great fishing—although the hunting was apparently not as good as in Idaho.

“Sure, Mark, what is it?”

“Well…you were just talking to that guy, that guy’s brother…”

“Joe. Eddie’s brother.”

“Right. Eddie.”

Mark wasn’t a Mormon, but he was damn conservative for Seattle. He was trying hard to fit in, though. He’d come along for beers with the zookeepers after work on several occasions, and Jolie noticed he didn’t seem to have much tolerance for alcohol. After a beer or two, he’d start getting kind of loud, even slurring a bit. Then he’d catch himself and excuse himself for the night. One time, she’d asked him if he was okay to drive. He’d looked at her with the oddest, half confused-half irritated expression, mumbling something barely audible before heading out the door.

“I was just letting him know that the grant came through and I’ll be taking Eddie around every week.”

‘Yes. Well that’s great, Jolie. Listen, though. I’m not sure how to say this, but the kind of disability this young man—“

“Eddie.” Jolie smiled at Mark’s use of “young man.” They had to be practically the same age.

“Right, what is Eddie’s diagnoses, exactly?”

“Why?”

“Well…I was wondering, has he ever…acted out in any way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Has he ever displayed any…violent tendencies?”

“Omigod, no. Eddie’s a lamb. He’s the sweetest, gentlest person you ever want to meet.”

“I know, but, I actually have a little experience with this kind of—is he autistic, or what?”

“It’s a little sketchy, Mark. Something happened to him when he was a kid. It’s something like autism spectrum with some post-traumatic blah blah. What does it matter?”

“I was just thinking maybe it would be better if we got one of the guys—“

“In general, Mark had an awkward, halting way of talking to Jolie that was different than his normally self-assured zookeeper vibe. Jolie had a half-flattered and half-panicked impression that he wanted to ask her out. He was tall, fit, and good looking, but he so wasn’t her type. Too tucked in. Too wholesome, frankly.

Jolie liked men a bit rougher around the edges.

“Mark, I need the extra money on this.”

“Well maybe we could have someone tag along–“

“Mark. Really. I’ve been doing this tour with Eddie for nearly a year, now. It’s not a problem. I like it. I like him. It’s easy and it’s easy money.”

As a boss Mark was generally okay, though it was still too early to tell for sure. He tended to be rigid and a little snappish when it came to minor scheduling conflicts. He also had an extremely detached style of working with the animals. Which made sense, coming from a farm where you ended up eating everything, eventually. He was also an unabashed hunter, although the blank stares he got from the rest of the zoo staff when he talked about it had pretty much shut him up on that subject. But all this clashed with vegetarian Jolie’s view of every animal as a distinct personality, as valuable and compelling as any human.

They walked for a moment in silence.

“Do you know what he does?” Mark said finally.

“What difference does that make?”

“I was just reading his file.”

“He’s some kind of janitor.”

“Jolie, he cleans up crime scenes. He’s around violent crimes constantly.”

Jolie stopped walking.

“Mark, I truly appreciate your concern. I truly do. But I don’t see what difference that could possibly make. Eddie is safe. He is easy. And he is coming tomorrow and every Saturday for the next 56 weeks.”

“Okay,” Mark said. “But will you promise you’ll call somebody on your walkie talkie if anything happens?”

“What? Jees—Yes…of course. But this just seems a little ridiculous. Why would anything happen?”

“Trust me, Jolie. I have personal experience with this kind of…mental illness. I know he’s gentle and all, but these poor people—they can have hair triggers. Things can seem perfectly fine, then turn on a dime. I know what I’m talking about here. Just promise you’ll be careful. And use that walkie talkie.”

“Sure, Mark,” Jolie said. It took a lot to resist rolling her eyes. “I promise.”

“Good,” Mark said. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“You do great work, Jolie. I do enjoy working with you.”

“Okay, Mark. Thanks. I should get going.”

“Sure. Busy day!” He walked away.

Jolie shook her head at his back. “Fucking tight ass,” she said.

Chapter 4

As soon as the front door clicked shut behind Joe, Eddie let himself open slightly to what was in the house.

A bittersweet sensation seeped in. Pain, utter loss, and helplessness all stirred together with a tingling impression of being intensely alive, powerful, and without limits.

Ordinarily Eddie didn’t experience emotion, at least the way most people understand emotion. Even now, the sensation was primarily mental, as though he were standing outside watching it happen to someone else. That didn’t detract from its power. He forced himself to keep most of it out. He wasn’t entirely ready.

Eddie gently removed his anti-splatter face shield. He carefully stripped and folded the white Tyvek hazmat coverall. Eddie always suited up by the book. Occupational Safety and Health Administration 29 CFR Part 1910. Bloodborne Pathogen standard, 1910.1030. Respiratory Protection standard, 1910.134. Hazard Communication standard, 1910.1200. He knew the regulations by heart. Word for word.

He let Joe check him to make sure he was properly protected, even though his brother hadn’t taken the course. It was worth it to make Joe feel better.

But regardless of what the rules said Eddie couldn’t work covered up. Too much information got blocked. He took off gear as carefully as he’d put it on, until he was down to the outfit he always worked in: white boxer shorts, T-shirt, socks, and sneakers. For protection he wore kneepads and surgical rubber gloves. Sometimes even the gloves were too much—but Eddie was committed to following the heart if not the letter of the law. He would limit his direct contact with bodily fluids.

He was well aware of his transgression. But what he had to do was private. And what Joe didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Eddie’s arrangement with Joe made sure that Eddie wouldn’t get caught. Joe never came back into a job without knocking first and getting Eddie’s permission to enter.

Eddie had locked the door behind him at his first blood job, and Joe had come back a little before five, worried and then angry when Eddie wouldn’t answer his increasingly urgent knocking and ringing the bell. After ten minutes Joe was at the boiling point, ready to kick in the door.

Eddie opened it in his face, fully suited up. He pulled down his mask, looked his brother directly in the eye for the first time in recent memory, and said, clear and plain, “Man-sized mess, Joe. You don’t come in until I’m done. Never never never. Knock again at five.”

Then he’d quietly closed the door and left Joe stunned at the quiet click of the lock. It was the longest original speech Eddie had put together in at least a couple of years, and Joe got the message. It didn’t pay to tangle with Eddie when he set his will to something that strongly. As long as Eddie got the job done, one more idiosyncrasy was no skin off Joe.

From that day on, whatever Eddie did on the inside was his own business. Joe made sure no one else bothered his brother either.

Eddie pulled a brand-new, economy-sized spray bottle of Shiny Gold all-purpose cleaner from his canvas Mariners bag. The bottle looked alive: potent, warm, blue, and beautiful. It seemed to breathe. Eddie appreciated it with a gratitude that was new each time. Shiny Gold made his work—his vitally important work—possible.

Shiny Gold. Eddie heard the happy music of the Shiny Gold television commercial rise up and move to the forefront of his consciousness, the simple jingle that had been cheering him on ever since he was a kid.

He tapped himself gently on the head with the bottle. His big brown eyes fluttered and closed. He willed his brain to empty itself. His head dropped slightly, his breath slowed, and he braced himself for the shock of raw information he knew was coming. As soon as he fully opened up he would be flooded with sensation, hit with a huge blast of unfiltered truth about what had happened here. Not becoming overwhelmed would require complete openness and trust.

The only thing Eddie allowed to stay in his brain was the Shiny Gold jingle. If you have a mess too big to hold, just grab a bottle of Shiny Gold! would ring pleasantly, protectively through his head until the work was done. It acted almost like a brake, keeping the potentially overwhelming sensations manageable. It gave him something else to focus on.

Even on ordinary days, Eddie’s sleepy hazel eyes fed information to his brain in ways most people experienced only intermittently, if at all. He had almost no depth perception; there was often no near or far. This could be problematic at times, but for his work it was extremely useful. Everything Eddie could see was right here, everywhere, just within reach. Even the storm outside, the charging clouds and slanting mists of rain, framed by one enormous picture window, were just as close and real as the stubborn remains of violence in the room.

On most days, Eddie’s senses did have one thing in common with those of ordinary people: they blocked far more information than they let in.

Most people have no idea that they’re essentially wearing blinders, with only one small crack for the light to come through while the other 99.9 percent remains unseen. Even that small sliver carries too much information to process, so the brain heavily filters and edits what’s left.

It’s a mercy, really. Being conscious of much more would be disaster. The endless light-waves of brilliant snapping ultraviolet and deep booming infrared, the radio signals, cell phone transmissions, x-rays, and all the rest relentlessly zipping, flashing, and bursting through the air would drive any normal person mad.

Still, there are times when some of that extra information can really help.

When cleaning up blood, for instance. Just as soldiers use longerthan-visible-wavelength infrared goggles to see in the dark, forensic scientists and crime-scene cleaners often use shorter-than-visible-wavelength ultraviolet lamps. Black lights.

Joe, trying to be helpful and cutting edge, had bought a commercial black light and ultraviolet goggles for Eddie a while back. Eddie tried them, but only once. They made splats of blood pop out from the background in almost 3-D relief. It wasn’t that different from what he saw when he fully sank into his cleaning trance. But they also blocked a huge amount of other information he could see on his own.

And they made his head hurt.

Eddie thought of his gift as simply an ability to see differently than ordinary people.

But it was much more than that. His nose, for instance, was even more important to his work than his eyes. Eddie had always been extra sensitive to smells. And smell, even in ordinary people, is an underrated sense. Very average noses consistently—and unconsciously—sense fear or desire in total strangers. Tiny infants can sniff out their mothers without fail, and blindfolded moms can easily tell their own babies from all others. Most importantly, powerful smells, far more than any other sensory information, can awaken long-dormant memories and emotions, creating an instant overwhelming sensation of being transported to another place and time.

It was like that for Eddie. The smell of blood did something amazing to him. Once he had singled it out, unlike any other odor, it acted as a trigger. His perception would shift, the world changed utterly, and otherwise undetectable sensations bloomed and exploded into a fantastic symphony of information.

But the most delicious feeling to Eddie was how all of his senses would melt into one. Sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, sense of time and space, intuition, all together. Indistinguishable.

Most days Eddie had a hard time stringing together more than four or five words. He couldn’t explain what he experienced when he was left alone in a room full of blood. He knew he had a special gift. But how it worked was no one else’s business. Not even Joe’s.

Now, Eddie slowly opened his eyes to a new world. He took two or three deep, energizing breaths. The furniture, the pictures, the mantel— everything in the room—had lost definition, except for the splotches of blood, which wavered and glowed as if they were floating very slightly away from whatever surface they had landed on. All throughout the room, there were no edges, only a bright center where the victims had fallen. Eddie knew their spirits were still here, confused and stuck.

As he gazed quietly at the room, he felt the physical distinction between him, the room, the sky, and the spirits of the dead unraveling. It was revealing itself—as it always did when he worked—to be an illusion. Soon Eddie would be able to move and act in a realm that was real to him alone. The traces people left behind became animated as ghosts, acting out their grim final moments over and over, until Eddie washed it all away and made the place peaceful and whole again.