Sparkle (32 page)

But there was nothing in it. It just sat there, black and cold in his hand. Puny, ugly, and stubbornly mute.

I shouldn’t have broken my promise to Jolie. I shouldn’t have made the promise in the first place. This is my punishment. I wrecked everything.

Chapter 47

Joe thought he might puke. He was excited about the possibility of folding Sparkle Cleaners, but he was also teetering on the verge of a panic attack. Several times he had a nearly overpowering impulse to go back to the house and pull Eddie out, to say screw the whole thing right now. If Eddie meant it, and they were going to get out of the business anyway, why not start now?

But that would be stupid, he told himself. Why throw away a simple job that was already half done? They were going to need every penny they could lay their hands on to have any real chance of starting a new life.

So Joe drove around, counting stoplights, chain smoking, and seeing how long he could hold his breath. He drove by the Ravenna a couple of times. He really wanted a beer. But he knew he’d be tempted to lean on LaVonne again, and he’d already accepted just about all the support he could handle for one week.

He should go home and pay some bills, he thought. Look at the books, start getting ready for the changes coming, do something useful. But he couldn’t. He was too wound up. He took his recorder out of his pocket and started to say something. But nothing came out.

After Joe had burned through a pack and a half of Pall Malls, the day finally wore itself down. By three-thirty, he was just a half-hour away from the end of what might actually be their last crime job ever. They’d fulfilled every commitment, every last one. Joe turned the van around with a lighter heart.

He started to daydream about selling all the cleaning equipment, and the house and all their furniture, and hitting the road with Eddie and the van. And LaVonne. They’d go all around the United States and Mexico and Canada. He’d earn gas and food money by stopping at Indian casinos and betting on sports. If they got really hard up, maybe he could learn some songs again and play at fairs and stuff. Eddie would—

He got stuck. What would Eddie do? Detail the van every day?

Joe remembered a time, a long time ago, when he’d tried to teach Eddie how to play the harmonica. The song he’d chosen was one of the first ones he himself had learned: “What I Like about You,” by the Romantics. Joe remembered being blown away because Eddie had learned the simple but great harmonica part really fast. After a couple of lessons they had played the song together, and it actually sounded good.

Joe had played it on his acoustic guitar like a grunge MTV Unplugged cover, a lot slower than the original, and kind of soulful. Eddie had come in and played his part perfectly. It had sounded great. How old had they been? Eddie was maybe still in his teens. At the time they were both living with their aunt, and Eddie was doing some strange upsetting stuff. Joe had thought he could teach him a bunch of songs, and maybe he could be in the band Joe was going to start. Not all the time, just on certain songs.

But when Joe tried to teach Eddie another song…what was it? It took Joe a minute to remember. Oh, yeah. “Love Me Do,” by the Beatles. When Joe tried to teach Eddie the new song, all Eddie would do is play the part from “What I Like about You” over and over and over. Nothing would budge him. Joe figured out pretty quick that was the only song Eddie was ever going to play—and that was the end of that.

The truth was, if Joe really wanted to make this change happen, he was going to have to gear himself up to pay one hell of a price. There was never any way to predict what the sticking point might be with Eddie, but there was almost always something. And once that wall was hit, it took everything Joe could muster to get around it. Most of the time, it wasn’t even remotely worth the effort.

Eddie couldn’t take his eyes off the gun. He was desperately trying to conjure Jolie’s memory. “Remember, I’m trusting you,” she had said before she sent him home. Her voice had been sweet and caring, even as she sent him away. It crossed his mind that before this week, he had hardly ever tried to remember things in the past.

“I know you’ll do the right thing.” Is that what she had said? What had her voice sounded like? What had she looked like when she was speaking? Why hadn’t he paid more attention? Why hadn’t he been able to look at her when she spoke to him? Was this going to be taken away from him, too?

Eddie opened his eyes and looked at the couch next to him. The stain on the wall hadn’t changed.

Jolie being dead was bad enough. But he hadn’t prepared himself to handle this. He had counted on being able to free her spirit, to feel her final parting touch and know he had helped her with his special gift. But her being gone, forever and without a trace, was more than Eddie could stand.

Eddie knew how guns worked. You just pulled the trigger and things changed forever. People went away and they never came back.

This was the gun that shot Jolie. It had taken her away. Why wouldn’t it speak to him?

He took the gun out of its baggy and held it in his hand. He wondered how it felt to be shot. Would it hurt much? Or would you just be out of your body, waiting for someone to help you go where the spirits were supposed to go? He put his finger on the trigger and held the gun up to look at it more closely. If he used it on himself, would he go where Jolie was?

“Just let go!” It was his mom’s voice. It was urgent, and it immediately stilled the other racket in his head.

It was deadly quiet in the room.

“Just let go!” The voice was more pleading this time.

Eddie’s hand holding the gun drooped, sagging, into his lap. He put the weapon back in the plastic bag, carefully, and placed it inside his Mariners bag. Nothing in this room was going to help him. There was no escape, no fixing or taking back the horrible things that happened in the world every day.

Whatever he did, he did for himself.

Not for Jolie, not for his mom or his dad. Not even for Joe.

Could all the things he had told himself he had done for other people—the wholehearted, soul-wrenching things—have been nothing but a trick? A trick to help him hide? A trick to help him feel safe? A trick he had played on himself?

“Just let go.”

It sounded like a whisper now, like a dying sigh. Like he might never hear it again.

Eddie’s heart swelled and his face began to change. His eyes squeezed shut tightly and seemed to come closer together. The texture of his skin coarsened. His cheeks went crimson.

He began to weep. He held both hands tightly against his face. It was silent at first.

Then a small sound came out. It repeated over and over. “Huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh.”

It went on for a long time. It was the most exhausting thing Eddie had ever experienced, and he sank down onto the floor. “Huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh-huh.” His hands and face were soaked with tears and mucus. He tasted salt and struggled to breathe. When there seemed to be nothing left, Eddie was left sprawled on the floor in front of Jolie’s couch, gasping for air, unable to move. That, at least, was some comfort.

He laid there and felt the tears dry on his face. He noticed how puffy and sore his whole face felt, how hot his eyes burned. His nose, which was always clear, was completely clogged, forcing him to breathe through his dry mouth and into his raw painful throat.

Eddie had been drained of something. Something he had believed was no longer true. Something that was holding him back. It had stood like a wall between him and his memories, caged him in a small barren room with no future and past. Now that it was gone he could almost see things that were long lost. He could almost feel things he had never felt. But not quite.

Then Eddie fell asleep. Whether it was for a moment or an hour, he couldn’t tell. There were no dreams.

Chapter 48

When Eddie woke up, he felt strange. Like another person. He was in a cage. He had lived there for years, but his work with the dead had been an amazing window into something beautiful and real, something no one else could see, and the window had kept him sane.

Now, when he needed it most, the window was closed. Jolie wasn’t here. Mom wasn’t here. Even Lucy Silver was gone now, out of reach. Eddie had broken all his promises. He was in a cage and there was no way out. His heart filled with panic, similar but far worse than when he was touched unexpectedly. He rose to his knees, the adrenaline pumping and forcing him to move.

He was trapped. He stood and looked around wildly. He’d spent his life cleaning up after other people, never asking for anything more. Just one gift. Just one window. He’d given up everything for it.

He began to pant and his head was spinning. Jolie wasn’t here. This wasn’t her place; these weren’t her things. She was gone forever, except for one pathetic dead stain. He had never even told her how much he cared about her. He had to get out.

Eddie reeled and knocked into an end table. A lamp crashed to the floor. It felt good somehow.

It’s not my mess!

Just let go.

“No!” Eddie raised his voice. “No! No!” He had to get out.

He stumbled through the room, not seeing or caring to see. Then everything went blank. Completely, utterly blank.

His body started to smash things. He grabbed a mirror off the wall and threw it at the bloodstained wall. It splintered into a million fragments. He tipped over the couch. He kicked holes in the walls. He broke the lamps and knocked the pictures down and into pieces. He went into the kitchen and threw the vase full of wilted carnations and daisies onto the floor. He tipped over the table and broke a chair against the water faucet. It started squirting everywhere.

Eddie ripped open the door of the refrigerator and pulled the whole heavy thing down, scattering its meager contents across the linoleum floor with an enormous crash.

He moved from room to room, breaking, breaking, breaking. With everything he wrecked, his body felt a little lighter.

He felt as if he was tearing down his cage.

Joe’s heart sank as the cute little house came in sight. He parked in front, then lit a smoke to bring himself fully back to reality. He needed to stop kidding himself, get a grip. His silly daydreams didn’t mean a thing. Regardless of what he—or even Eddie—wanted, they’d probably be doing this same crummy job until one of them was dead. What else did they know? Who would ever hire either one of them? He had to face facts. This was the only way they would ever make a decent living. They were nothing but janitors, and no ordinary janitorial jobs were going to properly support them.

Joe got out and walked up to the front door. The street was quiet. He experienced a fleeting dreadful fear that the entire block was completely deserted. Every house had dead people in it, and he and Eddie weren’t going anywhere until every one of them was cleaned up.

He knocked on the door. “Eddie, it’s four!” he said loudly. “You ready?”

The window next to the door exploded outward with a huge crash. A dining room chair flew through it and bounced on the lawn.

Joe flinched and cowered, throwing up his arms defensively. Had someone come in and attacked Eddie? He pushed open the door, crouched and ready for a fight.

Eddie was in the dining room, breathing heavily, poised to throw another chair through the window.

“No!” Joe shouted. “Eddie! What the hell are you doing?”

Eddie froze for a second. Then he threw the chair through the window.

“Eddie! Eddie! Stop! Stop it!” Joe wanted to move but seemed rooted to the floor. All he could do was yell.

Eddie was looking around wildly for something else to break. But he’d done a pretty good job of it. There wasn’t much left. He had a look on his face that scared the crap out of Joe. He’d never in his life seen Eddie look like that. He looked pissed. Mad—scary mad. He looks like Dad.

“Eddie, calm down.” Joe tried to sound calm himself. “What happened?”

Eddie looked over at Joe, right in the eye. It was only for a second, but it caught Joe by surprise. Then he ran directly at Joe, brushed by him, and went out the door.

“Great,” Joe said under his breath. He turned and ran after his brother.

For a minute, Eddie seemed to be headed for the van. Joe thought he might get in and shut the door, and that would be the end of his fit. Maybe this was Eddie’s incredibly dysfunctional way of saying sayonara to cleaning. That made a sort of twisted sense.

But Eddie reached the van, took a hard right, and kept running.

Joe followed. “Damn you, Eddie! Eddie, stop! Come back here right now!” As Joe started to come up behind him, Eddie turned around abruptly and stopped. Joe pulled up short, gasping for breath.

“Just let go!” Eddie yelled at him. “Just let go!”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Joe shouted, panting, his hands on his knees. “Do you have any idea, any clue, what you just did in there? Huh? Do I have to spell it out for you? Like everything?”

“Just let go!” Eddie yelled.

“Screw you, Eddie!” Joe stood up straight and slapped a hand on the painful stitch in his side. “This isn’t what I thought you meant when you said you didn’t want to clean anymore. I’m done watching over you and cleaning up after your screw-ups.”

“Just let go!” Eddie yelled.

Joe grabbed him by the shirt.

Eddie punched Joe in the nose. Joe fell down hard, holding his face.

Eddie turned around and ran.

“I’m going to frickin’ kill you!” Joe yelled, scrambling to his feet and sprinting after his brother. Despite his lack of wind, he was a faster runner. Without thinking, filled with fury, he took a flying dive at Eddie’s legs.

Eddie went facedown onto the pavement at top speed.

Oh shit. Joe was going to scream at Eddie again, but the anger drained out of him as he realized his brother was completely still. Both Joe’s arms were bleeding where they were wrapped around Eddie’s legs. Eddie just lay there on his face, his arms stretched over his head.