FOUR: Waiting on an Angel, Part Two
“They say Jesus died on the ol' rugged cross,
To save you from people like me . . . “
--John Mellencamp
Though I have proposed countless theories in my mind over the years as to precisely what it was that propelled my father into such an unusually irrational rage on this day, motivating him to abandon the family, at least temporarily, reduced to hot-wiring his own Kawasaki motorcycle, and upon Momma's darkest hour of need no less, the ugly truth remains a mystery to this day.
Most likely for the best.
What is it about this day I will remember?
Time itself seemed to stand dead still. More than slightly touched by the heat even by mid-morning, I imagined, daydreamed, perhaps hallucinated the formidable and unmistakable figure of red-headed stepchild and big sister Gabby Lynn, purposefully roaring down Ridge Road in a surreal cherry red metallic blur. Her partner-in-crime, Bonnie Johnson's sweet super-charged street racing machine, B.J.'s widely coveted '72 Nova “Cherry Bomb” wildly rumored to be able to outrun any deadly Kentucky State Police Interceptor the pigs had ever rolled out on the merciless interstate blacktop. The sight only slightly less terrifying for a child than seeing Clockwork Orange for the first time, the two-ton Terrible Twosome, undisputed juvenile delinquent heavyweight division tag team champions, stopping by the roadside mailbox in a flash to elicit the illicit daily interception of our surprisingly reliable rural postal delivery.
The deceptively cherubic Gabby flashes me her patented playful-malicious grin, gives me the peace sign.
Big, fat Bonnie, longtime dropout, unapologetically flips me the bird. She believes me a narc and a spy; maybe I am.
Then peeling off again into the choking red clay dust they go, disappearing around the mendacious bend of Blind Man's Curve with a predictably obnoxious blast of the car horn version of the Confederates' beloved battle hymn, just as quickly as they had materialized.
But truth be told this vision seemed an impossibility. Yet another unrequited mystery to befuddle my troubled young mind.
Hellbent as she was to keep Daddy and Cathy from finding out she'd been expelled from Marshal County High for chronic truancy, pounding the pulp out of mouthy cheerleaders and any number of other undisclosed miscellaneous borderline felonious juvenile transgressions, going on nearly six months ago now, maybe longer, Gabby Lynn wouldn't bat an eye at abandoning her desperate daily mission to keep from missing out on her mandatory summer globetrotting vacation with Grandma Lana, back in Chicago. Right about this time the happy wanderers should have been doing a lot more than California Dreaming: exploring the Pacific-kissed tourist delights of Disney World, Hollywood, the Golden Gates and haunted island prisons of San Francisco and no doubt anywhere else within modern transportation's reach Gabby Lynn's shamelessly manipulating motherless little heart desired to go. This land was made for you and me . . .
Who knew? Maybe the not-so-little runaway never planned on coming back to Kentucky at all.
Had Daddy finally found out about Gabby's expulsion? Or figured out his eldest daughter's treasonous plan to escape this horrific domestic nightmare?
"Hey there, kiddos."
Had Daddy finally, finally noticed the Final Eviction Notice conspicuously posted to the front door like a Black Death caveat for the past several weeks? Had the incessant ringing of the telephone driven him to a deeper level of sensory madness? More likely, the poor man had just realized he'd run out of coffee or smokes or pills or toilet paper. Maybe Cathy had neglected to pick up the newest Playboy or Penthouse, or forgotten to fix him a properly labelled four-course lunch. Whatever the case, the man of the house appeared on the front porch some time this day, familiarly zombie-like, a ghastly figure in his jaundiced tidy whities, black socks and ancient duct-taped loafers, like some mutant tourist, a newly freed hostage seemingly blinded by the harsh light of mid-day, ghostly pale and disoriented as a northern tourist on the beach first day of summer.
Eventually spying the listless heat-stricken pair of his youngest progeny lying about in apparent purposeless abeyance, he issues his standard mildly concerned inquiry: “Shouldn't you kids be in school by now?”
“Summer vacation, Daddy! ” Six year-old baby sister Alyssa Lee gingerly reminds him.
“Oh, yeah, of course,” comes Big Daddy's groggy, more than slightly fazed reply. “Okay then, you kids just stay out of the street, all right? You hear me?”
“Yes, Daddy!” she dutifully assures him.
“Sorry, kiddos. Daddy's just feeling a little under the weather today. Maybe tomorrow we can take a little ride, play some putt-putt, ride the go-karts, go grab a bite at the Dog 'n' Suds. Would yuze guys like that?”
“Sure, Daddy,” comes our automated, cautiously optimistic reply. Another vague, meaningless quasi-promise instantly discarded, just so much dust in the wind. As always, it's the thought that counts.
“Okay, then. You kids stay out of the street,” he repeats. Not really a street at all, to be precise, Ridge Road was the very definition of a country-ass bumpkin backroad to Nowhere—though there were some pretty nice million dollar mansions back there in Paradise Acres--long, lonely, ceaselessly winding, serpentine, two-lane asphalt pathway, fraught with hairpin turns and deep, treacherous ditches, unseemly caked with untold splats and splotches of sun-baked roadkill, racoons, possum, mostly dead pets and the like. The Chicago-based Moody-Butkowski clan no longer residing in the exciting, culture-rich domain of the big city anymore, but sadly, involuntarily had somehow become indefinitely stranded in this godforsaken piss poor backwater purgatory for the past six years, two months, and eight and a half days--but who's really counting.
Innocent bystanders, most of us really, just forced to chase along with Daddy and his half-baked dreams of untold real estate riches. Sadly, the dream had died long ago. Now we were little more than half-starved castaways stranded on the shoulder of Desperation Highway, trying to beg, steal or prostitute a ride back to civilization. Even so, Marshal County could be a great tourist trap to grow up in, or so they said. At least until you hit your teenage years, which we'd reportedly be lucky to survive around these parts. At least the statistics showed this place seemed to be afflicted with an alarmingly aberrant rate of youthful suicides, car wrecks, fatal gunshot wounds and fireworks accidents, drug and alcohol-related fatalities, runaways and unexplained disappearances, local enlisted men killed or wounded in the line of duty, etc. Something in the Indian-cursed water, perhaps? Thanks a million, Daddy.
“Yes, Daddy . . .” Alyssa Lee and I dutifully patronize the man, doing our best to placate the most paramount of his darkest, seemingly endless fatherly fears. Kids run down in the street by maniac driver. Attacked by wild dogs run loose from the nearby gypsy trailer park. Abducted by aliens in the driveway. Kidnapped by the crazy lady, an ex-clerk at the Kwik-Pik recently fired for undisclosed reasons, who'd been stalking him, stalking all of us, for weeks now. Just to name a few.
"Hey, have you kids seen Daddy's car around here anywhere," he tentatively inquires.
Intently scanning the bleak front yard surroundings in obvious abject confusion, our father appears to have suddenly recalled the sad fact that his trusty rust-ravaged neon green Gremlin had either been repossessed by the Man or, more likely, jacked by teenage hellions in search of a quick and dirty joyride. Or, most likely, secretly sold by Mama to help pay some bills. She still had Grandpa's old Gran Torino to get herself and the kids around.
Fruitlessly fiddling with the stubbornly non-responsive dirt bike, it must have slipped his steel shark trap of a mind that his beloved back trail rice burner had become yet another innocent victim of Gabby Lynn's bitter teenage angst-inspired sabotage. Another senseless and wholly misdirected petty act of juvenile spite, I suspect, in self-righteous retribution for Cathy's wholly ineffectual month-long “grounding” after the chronically recalcitrant stepchild had taken the Kawasaki out on an unauthorized Zen road trip about the county. (In truth, just another routine “secret mission” to retrieve another round of Daddy's essential supplies from the Kwik Pik. As much trouble as she could be, the helpless ungrateful bastard, Daddy, really had hung her out to dry on that one, I must confess.)
"Mothereffingoddammitsonofagoddamnedbitch!!!" Cursing up a frightful shit storm, Daddy emits a mighty roar right out of his own highly animated bedtime monster tales, shamelessly plagiarized from the old Abbott & Costello Meet Whoever flicks, beloved since his own long-lost childhood. In his unrequited and impotent rage Daddy quickly retreats to his frigid lair, the overburdened a/c unit set at warp speed as per his standing orders, and proceeds to trash the house without mercy. As we would shortly come to discover, he effectively destroyed anything that wasn't nailed down or too heavy to hurl across the room—from barren kitchen cupboards and fridge to living room, overcrowded with a Bohemian's warehouse-like melange of Daddy's framed photographs and photography supplies; half-hearted attempts at becoming the next Andy Warhol or Jackson Pollock or penning the next great American underground novel; an atrocious mess of books, leaflets and magazines documenting the latest U.F.O. incident or Apocalyptic occult phenomenon to catch his fleeting interest.
Without wheels, he, too was trapped, ad infinitum. Welcome to our world.
“Mikey?” she hesitantly inquires, Alyssa Lee never one to give up driving her only accessible sibling to madness quite so easily, if ever.
“What?” I reply, finally, unapologetically impatient. Irritated by the unforgiving heat. Nearly bored to palpable tears.
“Nothing,” she says, suddenly withdrawn, uncharacteristically reticent. Cherub-faced little devil child.
“What is it now?” I disinterestedly insist, high above, lost in my umpteenth speed-reading of my beloved dark and brooding Dark is Rising series from the shady confines of the dilapidated tree house just across the cabin's barren dirt driveway.
“Where do you think we go after we die?” childishly inquires the clueless flaxen-haired sprite.
Oh, brother, here we go again . . . Precocious little imp already questioning her own mortality at seven years old, blushing baby sister only thirteen months younger than I.
“I don't know,” I say, listlessly throwing back another modestly energizing handful of Tic-Tacs. “Why don't you go ask one of your invisible little friends?” I reasonably suggest.
“That's not nice, “ she childishly scolds. “It's mean talk like that what made poor Midnight run away. Can I have some of those?”
“No.”
Just plain beat, on the verge of dehydration, Alyssa and I had been all morning engaged in a fervent but ultimately fruitless search—all around the cabin, the nasty spider-nested crawlspace, the woods behind the house—for our missing cat, a shady little perspicacious character we called Midnight. Spookiest green eyes since Alyssa Lee's haunting little peepers caught sight of the world. Not officially our pet, but we'd claimed her a few days after she kept showing up at our doorstep several months ago, materializing just as mysteriously as she had now seemingly vanished without a trace. MIA for the past two days now. Creepy cat wasn't allowed inside the house, of course, Mama possessing an irrational aversion to all pets for some unknown reason. From canines to amphibians—let's not even bring up reptiles or rodents—anything lower than human not being served for dinner was strictly prohibido en Casa Moody. Though one time the little ebony rogue did manage to sneak in somehow, scratched up Mama's old couch, Daddy's La-Z-Boy something fierce. Scared the shit out of Daddy that day, creeping into bed with him; big loser taking his daily day-long catnap, supposedly in recovery from his latest month-long mental breakdown. Now inevitably cursed with seven years of additional bad luck to boot. Tatiana, a deeply superstitious Sicilian born in North Africa, likewise refused to come near the thing, solemnly advised us to take heed. Claimed the sudden appearance of the strange-eyed black cat—possibly the earthly manifestation of some evil spirit, perhaps the “walking soul” of some well-meaning dead elder—was a warning, a portent of some imminent bad luck or danger. Crazy lady had even sprayed some homemade exotic concoction about the front and back doors, likewise around each window of the rotten banana-colored trailer next door, solely to keep the evil creature from cursing her home.
Though I kept my subtle suspicious to myself, I secretly suspected either Mama or Tatiana, possibly both, could have had a dubious hand in the sudden “mysterious” disappearance of our short-lived, wayward house pet. Daddy claimed he was allergic to cats. And a lot of other things. Dogs. Bee stings. Big city air pollution. Country well water. Mama's cooking. Her mother's cooking. Come to think of it this could very well be another fine example of Daddy's evil passive-aggressive handiwork.
“Go get the phone, Daddy!” Little Boss Alyssa Lee foolishly calls out in vain for about the hundredth time.
“Don't waste your breath, sister,” I cynically advise. A two-ton wrecking ball couldn't break through that zombie man's prescription pill-induced wall of sleep.
Big Daddy's sleepin' at the wheel again, ha-lay-loo-oo-oo-jah . . .
The kitchen telephone, the family's only phone, had been ringing with ominous insistence since shortly after breakfast. Cold Pop-Tarts and Kool-Aid, again. As usual, there was no bread and what little milk was left had been sour for days. Which never stopped Daddy from dashing a generous splash of the toxic stuff to liven up his mandatory morning jolt of instant java, at least when the coffee creamer was gone. Mr. Coffee. Good old Joltin' Joe. I'm surprised Mama hadn't thought of it first: a subtle way to off him, finally free herself of the two hundred plus pounds of walking, talking, stalking dead weight she'd been carrying around for almost a decade now. Maybe she had, and his Münchhausen-esque system had just become immune, or at least somewhat tolerant of the constant inexplicable intestinal irritant. One more sympathy-garnering ailment Mr. Hypochondriac could add to the list of incurable harbingers of his imminent death. As if we could ever be so lucky. Of course Big Daddy seemed strangely contented to do without so many of life's little necessities—shelter, food, water, toilet paper—at least when it came to other people's basic needs. Supposedly the man had grown up in the fleeting wake of the last (but not final) Great Depression—at least in the Great Pretender's own mind, he had. Harold Dick Moody was living in the Great Depression alright, but, no doubt, of the dreaded mental health variety.
“I don't know,” I finally reply, admittedly not having given the existential matter a proper amount of thoughtful consideration. “A place just like this, I suppose. Except with more food. And always something cold to drink.” Ungodly drop dead hot as it was today, this thoughtless mortal being had a one track mind. Today, it was all about survival.
“Why do you ask?” I foolishly inquire.
“No reason,” she lies. “You know sometimes you're about the least helpful big brother I've ever met,” Alyssa Lee reasonably assesses the elemental nature of our relationship.
“Excuse me for livin',” I sourly reply.
My brothers and sisters and cousins are all aboard, hal-lay-loo-oo-oo-jah . . .
Meanwhile, little Alyssa and I weren't allowed to use the toaster or any kitchen appliance or gadget. Under any circumstances. Or at least not without so-called “proper adult supervision.” Which meant under the watchful eye of Catherine the Great. Eldest daughter of a grudgingly retired Chicago cop and a deadly efficient homemaker on the precarious verge of eternal empty nesthood, she rarely dares show an emotion outside of fruitless matrimonial frustration or pointless parental disappointment, or vice versa. She is tall, dark, slender. Though suspiciously ever less and less svelte as of late. Coldly taciturn yet white hot tea kettle quick-tempered. Merciless as a barehandled waffle iron left on the burner too long. Lightning gunslinger quick to draw and fire her hair trigger bitch slap at her own kids. (Sadly, she regards her horribly incorrigible stepchild as a hopelessly lost cause, hardly worth the effort anymore, thus disregards Gabby Lynn's terribly inconvenient presence altogether.) Daddy frequently jokes Mama is his “poor man's Jackie O.” Dead ringer Doppelganger for the presidential widow turned international icon of infinite grace, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. If his derisive brand of dark humor registers anywhere in her consciousness, she cagily chooses not to acknowledge it, her purposeful shun often revealing him to be the pompous self-serving ass he is, has always been, just chose not to show it until after marriage. And for this, he bitterly, secretly resents her to no end.
Needless to say not even Mama's incessant domestic ironclad rules would stop us incorrigible rascals from slathering endless pieces of brick-hard burnt toast with Grandma Geraldine's heaven-sent cherry, berry, apricot or peach preserves, so long as the Iron Maiden wasn't around. Too bad we'd also run out of Grandma G's generous annual Christmas appropriation of homemade morning ambrosia well before Easter.
“Mikey?”
“What?”
“So, why would we need food if we're dead?” Alyssa Lee curiously muses aloud, the uncharacteristically philosophical little shit apparently not at all eager to drop the matter.
Frankly I was leaning towards nihilism these days. But that shit was way over her helium-filled little circus animal balloon head.
“I don't think angels really eat much. Or even need to,” she says, painfully perpetuating her pointless monologue. “Or drink water. Or much of anything else for that matter. You think?”
“Sounding a bit presumptuous there, aren't we, little cherub?” I dryly reply, a subtle jab to burst the little neophyte's Jesus-loving bubble.
Whatever inevitable bad news, whatever life-shattering family emergency, whatever involuntary long-distance messenger of doom happened to be hanging on the line like a very unlucky high wire acrobat would have to wait at least until dinner time. If not later. Much like us, just hanging in the weeds hoping for any semblance of human relief aid. If and when Mama ever came home from her unenviable ten hour day of changing dirty linens, scrubbing toilets, cleaning up after untold throngs of thankless tourists at the Ken-Lake Resort, then freelancing with Auntie Tatiana along the endless line of pastel washed Mom 'n' Pop motor lodges up and down Old Highway 421, Marshal County's notorious Tourist Trap Artery. This was a time long before voice mail or cellphones or even answering machines, at least in the backwards backwoods confines of verdant western Kentucky.
And on and on she sings: Chocolate milk and honey on the other side, hal-lay-loo-oo-oo-jah . . .
The sole, purposeful occupant of the Moody's spacious urine-tinted five-room fishing cabin, Big Daddy the reality fugitive wouldn't be getting out of the bed anytime soon. Especially not to answer the phone of all things. And with his mind-boggling assortment of all-important medications and “nervous pills,” his handy-dandy smokes within easy nightstand's reach, certainly not for anything short of an earth-shaking bowel movement or, more likely, the long-awaited Great Extra-Terrestrial (not alien) Invasion (his so-called “earthbound liberation”) Space Captain Tricky Dick so often cheekily proclaimed was inevitably forthcoming.
Cold, cold water chills the body, but not the soul, hal-lay-loo-oo-oo-jah . . .
Ain't no plug gonna' fill this hole, hal-lay-loo-oo-oo-jah . . .
“Well, if you're so freakin' smart, little girl—despite your understandably limited six and a half year old Kentucky public school-enriched vocabulary—what the heck are you asking me all these questions for?”
“You see anyone else around to ask?” she points out, reasonably enough.
“No. Not really,” I grudgingly admit. “Do you?”
“Maybe,” quickly comes her purposely cryptic reply. Along with that patented creepy butt crack grin. Neighbors seemed to love it for some reason. Ate that shit up like honey fresh out of the hive. Clueless backwater hicks.
“Do me a favor,” I say, foolish to even bother wasting my breath. “You start seeing dead people again, just keep it to yourself, would ya?”
“Not a chance, Michael Lance,” Alyssa Lee coldly assures me. “Not a chance in H-E-double hockey sticks,” she sneers coyly.
Thankless ingrate little earth devils that we were, Alyssa or I might have answered the phone if we'd had half a suicidal mind to cross Commander Daddy's longstanding battle orders: never do so under any circumstances. (This was a time long before caller i.d. But certainly not bill collectors.) Then again sad fact was little sister and I, left to fend for ourselves once again, had been locked out of Daddy's one man mental health retreat on a daily basis all summer vacation long. No Captain Kangaroo. No Price is Right. No All My Children today. At least when Gabby Lynn, the Enforcer, was around, doggedly staking her undisputed claim to the TV for the better part of the day, we were afforded some semblance of sanctuary. And would it really be worth the trouble to wrench open perpetually wayward fifteen year old big sister's trusty bedroom escape hatch? Unless we happened to be starving. Which we usually were. Fortunately our merciful empty calorie AM sugar buzz usually kept us TV babies going for hours. Though the friendly neighborhood carrion crow circling a guarded patch of pale blue sky directly overhead was not a feel good sign. Hopefully Mama wouldn't have to work too late tonight.
Every once in a blue Kentucky moon some kind stranger or other would stop and take heed of our conspicuous but sadly depleted dummy roadside lemonade stand. Bestow a merciful lifesaving gift of modest alms upon us poor orphaned ragamuffins. There was always water from the garden hose. Earthworms and insects were a delicacy in many foreign lands, supposedly a good source of protein. The latter of God's meaty little creatures—rhinoceros beetles, Jerusalem crickets, rainbow grasshoppers, army ants, assassin tree spiders, Daddy long legs—were certainly creeping around in savory abundance today. The vibrant, though notably drought-depleted fleet of dragonflies fluttering about like mini-cemetery pinwheels would have likely made a tasty treat, though nearly impossible to capture, and hardly worth the considerable effort in this heat. Hungrily spying a mouth-watering mini Hostess cupcake-frosted plant bug, a juicy concatenation of unsuspecting tree slugs, my culinary attentions became suddenly distracted by a promising diversion. The Charles Chips man was making a timely early morning delivery to the fortuitously junk food-friendly Gay-bors next door, who had just left for town in their asthmatic little baby blue VW Beetle. “God does provide, little sister, God does provide . . .”
“Mikey?”
“What now?”
“When's Mama comin' home?”
“It won't be too long now, little sister, “ I lie, a feeble effort to be kind to the poor dying thing. “Won't be long at all. You just hang in there now. Mama's comin' home soon.” It is barely half past noon.
“Have any more gum?”
“No,” I say, honestly.
“Have some more Tic Tacs?”
“Sorry, all gone, sister,” I shamelessly lie again. My empathy does have its limits. Especially today. Ninety-eight in the shade, or so they say.
“Mikey?”
“What?”
“You know you're a terrible liar,” she coolly informs me.
“Like another Tic Tac?”
“Sure. Thought you'd never ask.”
Pathetically she languors in bittersweet heat-stricken oblivion within her usual meager patch of front porch shade. Daddy's broken down cherry Kool Aid red Kawasaki loosely chained to the corner post. Sun-fried frizzy-headed little sister weakly crooning out a catchy, slightly skewed, interminably repetitive death bed medley of antediluvian African slave spirituals. More recently hijacked by virally infectious fundamentalist Jesus lovers. Apparently the discombobulated mental remnants of a mind-numbing musical tuition she'd picked up during our short-lived stint at the Baptist vacation bible thumpers' camp. Perhaps more so out of public humiliation than maternal protectiveness, late last spring Mama pulled us out of St. Bartholomew, Marshal County's sole Catholic hole in the wall of worship. Good old St. Bart. One of the twelve Apostles as mentioned in the Synoptic gospels. Witness to the Ascension. Skinned alive and crucified at the Maiden Tower in Armenia. Body recovered off the coast of Lipari, hauled to shore by island children after the saintly corpse failed to yield to men. Somehow considered a miracle. Patron saint of bookbinders, butchers, shoemakers and nervous disorders.
Meanwhile, Alyssa's scandalous revelations to her Sunday school teacher, appropriately effervescent and sunny-faced Miss Sun, also my second grade teacher from last term, had caused the family, meaning Mama, an unbearable backlash of public scorn and humiliation from the church faithful, however subtle. (Unceremoniously relieved of her duties as back-up church organist. Cordially un-invited from her weekly Bible study and book-banning circle. Summarily dismissed as co-chair person of the St. Bart's annual “Let's Put the Christ Back in Christmas” food and toy drive for the underprivileged. A prestigious position which really came in quite handy around the lean Moody holidays, let me tell you what.) As Alyssa's story goes: Supposedly, infamous self-appointed surrogate father figure, Victor “Big Pappy” Winkleman, one of St. Bart's most devout and longstanding deacons, our volunteer Communion tutor, no less, had been a predatory wolf in sheep's clothes, as it were, secretly preying on the defenseless little lambs of the flock. Said malfeasance in particular, attempting to perpetrate untold acts of perverse pedophilia upon several outdoor “study sessions” pretty far off the beaten path along a mostly secluded backwater stretch of Wildcat Woods, which roughly meanders to the rougher, lagoon-carved, non-tourist side of Kentucky Lake. A little too close for comfort, I couldn't help but observe at the time, from the dreaded Bad Medicine Bogs. A locally notorious, purposely avoided No Man's Land. A treacherous natural quagmire fraught with pernicious patches of prickly vined deadly night shade and belladonna, poison oak and ivy. The tumescent labyrinth of pretty-flowered vegetation beguilingly concealing pitiless death traps of quick sand. More commonly known around these here parts as the Land of the Lost.
Unspeakably disheartening, today the little urchin had come home from her compulsory morning rounds—shady sweet-cheeked nymphet adroitly peddling her ridiculous hand-colored driveway rocks, shamelessly pawning armfuls of sunflowers and posies picked from the neighbors' own painstakingly kept gardens—hauling another shit load of those dreadful Death Canyon dry store-bought peanut butter cookies, barely a dollar's worth of Buffalo nickels in change from old Miss Ella, desperately lonely shut-in just down the way. Strange thing was sweet old shut-in had passed on last winter, though she still frequently visited her favorite little socialite.
Sadly, Alyssa Lee's measly morning take proved not even worth the miserable effort to make the forbidden trek past the scary rabid dog-infested gypsy trailer park, down the daunting declivity of Suicide Hill—a quick side stop at the “Mom 'n' Pop” roadside shop, the candy store that is no more, where the over-anxious Freeman quartet giddily anticipates the celebrated arrival of Grandma Lana and her Golden Pontiac, who will inevitably steal Gabby Lynn away for the better part of the summer—careful to avoid the Red Barn burger bar, teenage hoodlum hangout, just to get to the Kwik Pik out across the daunting two-lane gauntlet of semi-heavy 421. The usual ungodly late summer's heatwave moving through the Land of the Lakes, the Cumberland Gap, the greater Ohio River Valley like a phantom army of damned Yankees, suffocating the very life out of us poor Southern folk, old Ridge Road was a virtual ghost town today, its usual mid-day dead quiet, soulless self.
Where is everybody today? There's just nobody. Almost nobody. A while back my little friend and sole academic rival, young Robyn Greenback, along with her mama, a former Miss Kentucky, had come riding by on their blue-blooded, white-spotted mares, Destiny and Grace. Despite the subtle socio-economic objections of her folks—Senator Garth Greenback, also a prominent local vet who came from old horse breeding money, and Delta Dawn (what's that flower you have on?) the county real estate maven born and bred from Big Tobacco—young Robyn, who lived in the white stone palace on Hummingbird Lane, insisted on perpetuating our strange friendship cum rivalry.
“So, how many points have you racked up so far in the Super Summer Speed Reading Sprint, Speed Racer?” she presumptuously inquires, my sandy-haired little sun goddess fresh and deeply tanned from her recent stay at Daddy's third vacation home in Costa Rica. His second, a private isle in the French Riviera. “I've got almost a thousand.” 750. But in my own defense, all my favorites have been unceremoniously banned by the all-powerful, all-knowing Marshall County Library Commission. “Bridge to Tarabithia.” The death of a child deemed too controversial, too potentially traumatic for unsuspecting young Kentucky readers. The entire “Dark is Rising” series, irrefutably excommunicated. An obvious plethora of satanic, anti-Christian references there. Along with “The Lord of the Rings.” The apparently not-so-harmless Hobbit supposedly presenting the same phantasmagoria of shameful pagan, Jesus-hating themes. “Catcher in the Rye,” for it's so-called anti-social, homosexual-inspiring leanings. Stranded hotel horrorshow, “The Shining,” for obvious reasons.
Of course, I was almost finished translating “Les Miserables,” French to English. Two hundred fifty fantastique point. And I still had my piece de resistance firmly tucked under my belt. “Crime and Punishment.” Three hundred points, to send me catapulting to a glorious, insurmountable victory.
Nobody ever remembers second best.
“Maybe we can go on another marathon bike ride, sometime soon,” she sanguinely suggests, evoking a noticeable cringe from mommy dearest.
“Come along, darling. Mustn't be late for Power Ballet. You know how Ms. Natasha can get . . .”
“Just a minute, Mama . . . And I hope you do plan on attending my birthday party, Mr. Michael,” my filthy rich young friend generously calls out from her lofty equestrian perch. Mas-ter My-khal. Predictably highlighting the front page of the Marshal County Courier's sickeningly fluff-filled Lifestyle section, the junior socialite's fabulous annual birthday bash pales only in comparison to the Senator's own yearly July Fourth lakefront extravaganza.
Last year's decadent festivities featuring an exotic petting zoo flown in from Thailand and, for slightly less refined entertainment tastes, a mini-rodeo from Montana. This year the bottomless spenders supposedly renting the lion's share of some traveling circus from Paris.
“August 15, “ she gently reminds me. “Feast of the Assumption, same birthday as Napoleon. But I'm sure you've already marked your calendar.”
“Whatever.” Doggedly perpetuates our friendship, despite my reticent ambivalence.
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away . . .
Down the road, the dynamic duo disappears, nobly continuing the rounds of their humble kingdom of dirt poor serfs. Strategically avoiding the general direction of the canine-crazed gypsy trailer park, I can't help but observe.
Aside from the lovely Lady Greenbacks, a while back now, there's just nobody.
The often total silence of this place is disquieting. Unreal. Otherworldly. Yet oddly comforting at times, like something that never changes. This was cemetery quiet. Strange and stagnant. Dormant as the half-built shell of a vacant duplex the currently estranged Brothers Moody had gone in on together half a dozen years ago. The one that sits like a future spook house in long-abandoned tragically aborted Weeping Willows subdivision. The one so ill-advisedly built on the verboten grounds of an ancient Chickasaw burial site. Which also happens to border the toxic razor-wired government-restricted confines of an old uranium plant shut down by the EPA a few years back. Who knew?
All in all, Marshal County could be just fine for a weekend getaway, but three hundred sixty five days a year, could drive a man to madness. Especially a city boy—a rabble-rousing, street-fighting, hot rod racing South Side hood like Daddy.
“Poor sunstroked babies, you all just look bored to tears.” Who comes now but comely thirteen-year-old cousin Lucinda from right next door. Sister Golden Hair Surprise, a highly welcome human mirage of hydrogen peroxide and overpowering designer impostor opium perfume in delightfully skin-tight Daisy Dukes. Gracefully emerging from the precariously leaning canary yellow trailer perched on a deceptively treacherous little hill, begrudgingly she trudges her umpteenth load of laundry to be haphazardly strung out along the ghostly clothesline on the shabby willow-shaded knoll barely separating our respective “short-term” rental properties. “You know I've got ice cream 'n' candy for any good little helpers.” Bored to tears, maybe, but definitely not born yesterday. Budding dishwater bombshell was a well-practiced bold-faced liar to boot. Who could blame her? Desperate times called for desperate measures. Doritos and sunflower seeds, maybe. Uncle Mickie's family was equally poor and perhaps twice as penurious, by necessity. Though things were looking up, at least for them, since Uncle M got his CDL and a semi-decent gig with North American. Now he was just never home. Which wasn't always a bad thing. Moody as his far more melodramatic manic-depressive next door twin, if not more so, the man's drinking temper had driven Tatiana and the kids to emergency evac overnight flights down to the No Name Motel too many times.
“No thanks, Cuz. Don't think we'll ever be that bored,” I politely decline her generous, but feeble attempt at bribery. “All righty then. Suit yourselves, little cousins. Don't say I never offered you godless little heathens nothing,” she fumes, scorned drama queen storming off in a self-righteous hough. “Heads up, y'all here comes trouble . . . Hey Grandpa Hank . . . “
"Hey there yourself, little lady. How's Lucinda Lou today?"
"Please don't ever call me that again, old man--"
“Grandpa!” Alyssa Lee just now lets out a heart-stopping banshee's shriek, capricious imp suddenly showing her first signs of life for ages. And who comes roaring up the bare grassed lawn now but bald-headed, bespectacled Grandpa Hank, old gas bag furiously puffing away on one of his ever-present monster stogies, impertinently driving up the way in his familiar rust-colored Caddy convertible to carry out an uncharacteristic mission of mercy.
“Why don't you all come on down to the house for a minute now,” he says, reaching over with a painful sounding groan to throw open the behemoth passenger side door. “It's hotter than Hades' shithouse out here and Lord knows you two yard rats shore could use some fattenin' up. Did that plum fool father a yours lock you all out the house again? Damn sure know I raised that boy better'n this, I did. Judas Priest, when I get my hands on that sorry some-bitch . . .”
Unfortunately rotten apples do fall from rotten trees. Like father, like son, the old man was mostly talk, little action. In fact this was the fastest I'd seen the lazy old fart move in forever. Something heavy must really be going down. Okay, who died?
“Gonna' wish he weren't never born, by God . . .”
Ever dutifully Grandpa Hank manages to evacuate the little refugees from the desolate scene of untold future chaos without too much fuss, our very temporary guardian nervously delivering us to the pine-shrouded ranch house a mere quarter mile down the road. Into sweet little ole Grandma Geraldine's comforting old school country kitchen.
“Well, ain't you two just the cutest thangs,” she squeals, like to squeezing our defenseless cheeks to death. “Skinny as beanstalks though,” she kindly observes. “Bless your poor little hearts.”
There the masterfully multi-tasking ole girl, bless her heart, served us up a formidable lunchtime feast of homemade fried chicken, dumplings, home fries, hand-picked sweet corn on the cob, fresh greens, apple pie a la mode, and ice cold Coca-Cola or home-brewed iced tea. Which of course we politely wolfed down like little savages as the neighborhood guardian busily talked on the phone, sweet little ole Geraldine somehow attempting to coordinate the incoming news of this horrendous affair. As it was universally secretly agreed amongst the family, that slick bastard, old Grandpa Harold's unwitting sugar mama, sweet simple country girl with a heart of gold, ole Grandma G was a living saint compared to that city slicker snake oil salesman of a second husband of hers. Tearfully, stoically the old Southern dame received and in turn promptly delivered word of the impending tragedy up North, back in Chicago.
And word is spreading quickly, a barely containable drought-fueled brush fire by the end of lunch. Too bad we were stuck well within the closely guarded containment zone. Within the hour an impressive gathering of friends and neighbors had convened at “the safe house” to lend moral support. The ageless Martins, eternal retirees. Psychic Connie, the welfare mom. Brainy Buddy Russell, Gabby's old pal, along with his Mama, the RN who helped Mama and Tatiana with their student nurse classes. Even old man Crabapple, the grouchy old bastard who, along with his rabid pack of demon Dobermans, eagerly chased us kids off his precious orchard lots like we were invading Huns. Not missing a beat, Geraldine thoughtfully invited over her fat, friendless, socially retarded nephew to “help keep us little ones company.” Poor Marvin “The Martian,” the social scourge of our highly intolerant school bus route who along with Lucinda would be a freshman in high school next year, was teased and beaten unmercifully on a daily basis by the so-called “cool kids,” cousin Anthony prominent among them. The creepy acne-faced fathead would probably grow up to be a homicidally bitter billionaire mad scientist and blow up the world in the most horrific of doomsday scenarios. An unapologetic science geek and computer whiz (before there even were computers) who in turn amazed and confounded me with an endless display of his award-winning experiments, Marvin was also a die hard U.F.O. buff who never missed an opportunity to spend the night so he and my father, the most inconvenient of soul mates, could spend endless hours, deep into the starry night heartily comparing alien tales. Despite the tragedy slowly unfolding all around us, I secretly, selfishly dreaded that there were larger, far more sinister forces aligned against me here. Sad as it was, poor clueless brilliant Marvin vociferously counted poor silent unsuspecting eight year old me as his best, perhaps only, friend. (But, truth be told I strongly suspected it was my father.) An unmitigated pain in my ass under the best of circumstances, needless to say at this point Marvin the Martian was presently the most unwelcome of bothersome distractions.
“Hey, buddy, wanna come check out my new GPS extra-terrestrial radar tracker? Say, how's your Dad? Do you think he's home by any chance? What the heck's goin' on around here? Somebody die or somethin'?”
Clearly, something terrible has befallen somebody. Someone has died. Someone young. Someone widely beloved. Someone especially close to Mama. Quite suddenly, unexpectedly. And in rather dramatic fashion, it appears. But who?
What is it about this day that I will remember? Wide-eyed, terrified, nervously rocking in Grandpa Harold's oversized earth-tone plaid lounger, Alyssa Lee clings, white-knuckled to her beloved threadbare “silky,” holding on for dear life. Terrified little girl becomes lost in the disturbingly catatonic rhythms of another bittersweet Jesus-loving dirge.
I saw Jesus walking on the water, walking on the water, walking on the water . . .
I surreptitiously turn down the volume on Batman, showing on the old Zenith, discreetly eavesdrop on the grief-stricken conglomeration of grown-ups in Grandma Geraldine's comfortingly overcrowded country kitchen. Already in full crisis mode, doing the only thing she can think of to do, Geraldine is solemnly gathering up the essentials to whip up a batch of consoling blueberry pies, some mini-baked apples cups or peach cobbler, maybe.
The kitchen telephone rings again.
Marking the top of the hour, the conspicuous living room grandfather clock strikes an ominous tone.
Materializing at my side, an uninvited phantom, the frustratingly occasional psychic Alyssa Lee suddenly whispers in my ear a prophetic piece of terrible news.
"Aunt Lucy! From Chicago." Mama's baby sister. Of all the horrible luck, she always had been our favorite.
From Grandpa Hank's easy chair, Alyssa Lee cries like a baby.
Otherwise, the palpable silence here is suddenly deafening.
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