The Wooden Sea (33 page)

"Back there in the trees." His voice was sad and quiet. He sighed deeply when he finished the sentence.

"How come you're out here?"

Looking at the ground he mumbled, "They told me to go home."

"Can you show me where they are?" I tried not to sound impatient. If I pissed him off now I was in big trouble.

He brightened right up--this was an adult's invitation to go back into the action. "Yeah, I'll show you! Are you going to take the bike? How come it's got such big tires?"

Back when I was his age, things like mountain bikes didn't exist, so I understood his skepticism.

"It drives better that way; especially in the woods, over rocks and stuff.

Hop on--we'll ride it in and you can show me where they are.

Then you can take it for a ride yourself if you like."

He jumped on, shouting gleefully, "You steer and I'll be the Dreampilot! I'll tell you where to go."

"Okay, Mr. Dreampilot. Hold the shovel."

I hadn't seen them because they had driven a good ways into the woods and down into a small ravine that couldn't be seen from the road. When we reached Floon's car no one was around, but the body still lay in the trunk--not a good sign.

"Where are they?" Leaning the bike against a tree, I turned in a complete circle but saw nothing.

The boy looked too. "They were looking for a place to bury him before; somewhere under the trees. But they wouldn't let me come. That Floon guy called me a little pisser."

Instinctively I touched his head and almost said when I was your age I was a lot more than just a little pisser. But I held back and tried to sound reassuring instead. "Hey, that's a compliment! I'm a big pisser and proud of

it, but that's only because I'm grown up. Give me the shovel. You want to take the bike now and go for a ride?"

He shook his head. "No, I want to go with you."

"Okay, come on. We'll leave the bike here and go find them."

We walked around for minutes but found nothing and heard nothing. The woods were fragrant and full of leaves and flickering shadows. Soon autumn would arrive and the smells in here would change--they'd become thicker, funkier--things would die, fall, cover the forest floor, and rot. Old wood, old leaves, later on it would snow and all those dark final colors of winter would be covered by the white.

I would never see any of it again. The thought was unbearable. I tried with all my strength to clear it from my mind. We walked on, stopping once in a while to listen for the others.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

I hesitated, smiled. "I'm you, grown up."

He studied the ground and thought that one over. "But how can we both be here at the same time?"

"I don't know. It just happened. I can't explain it. I guess it's magic."

"Okay." He rocked back on his heels, saw something on the ground, bent to pick up an interesting-looking stick that was lying against a rock.

His voice was calm and reasonable when he spoke. As if what I'd said was no big deal. "I knew we were kind of related or something but I didn't know how.

You're really me when I grow up?"

"Yes. I'm you when you're forty-seven years old."

"That's pretty old. But you look okay. Do you still have a penis?"

That stopped me. "A penis? Well yeah. Why wouldn't I?"

"Marvin Bruce told me your penis grows back inside your body when you get to be forty."

Just the name and memory of that skinny, yellow-toothed, brown-nosing sewer rat shot the hair up on the back of my neck. I said a little too adamantly, "Marvin Bruce picks his nose and _eats _it. Are you gonna trust a guy who does that?"

"You know Marvin?"

"Sure. He's a jerk. He probably grew up and became Kenneth Starr."

"Who's that?"

"Never mind. Let's go."

We found them as far into the woods as you could go. Both men were sitting on the ground staring blankly into the distance. Chuck lay asleep on Floon's left foot. Only George looked up slowly when we approached. The expression on his face said he was trying to wrestle his mind back from a place very far away but having a hard time doing it. Maybe that was why he didn't appear surprised

to see me.

"Frannie. Here you are. Are you all right? You look very pale."

"I'm okay. What are you doing? Why are you just sitting? There's a body in the back of that car.

You can't just leave it there like that."

"We were about to go back for it. We stopped to rest and then Caz started giving me details about his project. It's absolutely astounding. You can't imagine the ramifications of what he's attempting to do."

"I'll take your word for it. Get up, George. We have to dig a hole now and stop wasting time.

Did you find a place yet?"

The boy wandered away, poking his stick into the ground.

"Anywhere around here should be all right, Frannie. It's as far from the road as we can be. We'll have to go down deep, though, to prevent the animals from digging it up when we're gone."

I stabbed the shovel into the earth. It clanged loudly against a tree root.

It was like the day I had tried to bury Old Vertue out here--thick roots crisscrossed the forest floor just below the surface. I had learned the hard way that cutting through them was impossible.

I walked back and forth pushing the shovel into the ground every few feet but it was all the same--roots galore. The only sounds were the birds, me poking with the shovel and the boy swishing his stick, hitting trees, swatting at their branches.

"I don't think we can do it here. There are just too many goddamned roots."

"Should we go get the body or not?"

I dropped the shovel on the ground and crossed my arms. In my mind all I could picture was a giant traffic light stuck on red. Something had to be done, a decision had to be made fast, but what?

A wind kicked up. The air was suddenly filled with the lush scent of pine and the sexy hiss of a warm breeze through summer's trees.

Without thinking I lifted my head and sniffed the air. "My God, what a beautiful smell."

As if it couldn't decide on whether to go or stay, sunlight flickered across different parts of the boy's body. His head was bowed. From the look of it, he'd recently gotten his hair cut by Vernon the town barber, dead twenty years now.

Seeing something on the ground, Little Fran dropped his stick and slowly began to bend down.

His eyes were glued to one spot. "Hey, look at this!" He was twenty feet away. I was annoyed that he was distracting me, plus I

couldn't see what had him so excited. A kid thing probably. No time for that now. George and Floon stood waiting for me to decide. Ironic--these two megabrains waiting for instructions from F. McCabe, once deemed "a candidate for the gas chamber" by an enraged high school principal before expelling him.

But I had no idea what to tell them to do--the traffic light in my mind was still red.

_"Look!" _The boy snatched at something on the ground.

Rising again, he held something between his thumb and index fingers.

The rest of his fingers were splayed out like he didn't want them to touch whatever it was he held. Until it moved, I thought it was only another stick.

It was a lizard or a chameleon, I don't know which--I ain't no herpetologist.

I should have asked George the expert on everything but I was too excited to care. The poor little fucker had been minding its own lizard business, taking a little sun on the forest floor. Until without warning it was yanked up in the air by its long tail. For a moment. For a moment it stayed that way, swinging and twisting in circles desperately trying to get away. Then its tail snapped off and Mr. Lizard hit the ground running. The boy squealed his delight and dismay.

More important, when the lizard ran away it skittered up, along and then over my shovel. The
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picture of those two things together, one on top of the other--lizard on shovel--touched something in me like flame to dry paper.

Without a second's hesitation I remembered George and me looking at Antonya Corando's school notebooks. And I heard him say there were only two images that kept recurring in all of her strange, prophetic drawings--that shovel and a lizard.

My eyes glued to the spot on the ground where the kid had picked up the lizard, I stepped over and said, "Dig here."

_"There? _It's right under that tree. There will be roots everywhere."

"Pick up the fucking shovel and dig _here, _Floon. Or I'll stick it up your ass, blade first."

"But, Frannie, he's right. The roots--"

"George, remember Antonya Corando's notebooks? Remember the two images you said kept coming up over and over?"

Sucking in his lower lip, he raised a hand to make a point. Like he was raising it in class to be recognized by the teacher. But his hand slowed going up as the understanding of what I'd said hit home. His hand abruptly snatched at the air and turned into a tight fist. "The lizard and the shovel!"

"Exactly. Start digging. Right here."

"Yes!" He whipped around to Floon who was now looking at both of us as if we were the enemy. "It's here, Caz. Frannie's right--this is where we have to dig."

"I'll start! Let me." The kid cried out happily, picking up the shovel but dropping it again in his excitement. He picked it right up again and began digging like a little machine.

"No, we'll do it. It'll go faster. You just stand back." I gestured for him to hand over the shovel.

He wouldn't. He tried putting it behind his back. "No! That's not fair! I found that lizard. I did. And I found these guys too when you couldn't. So I should get to dig first."

I tried to sound reasonable, like a good guy who was only on his side.

"My man, we just gotta do this ourselves and as fast as possible. We gotta dig this hole and then get out of here."

His face tried turning to stone but you know how little kids are--they haven't learned how to be cool yet. They know passion cold and hot, but not cool. His next voice came out a sob. "That's not fair! I helped you twice today and you know it! I helped you get out of the library too. I--"

"Give me the goddamned shovel. _Now!" _I stepped toward him. Whatever was on my face scared him. He held the tool behind his back, but when he saw me coming, he dropped it.

Stumbling backward over it, he fell down. His eyes stayed scared on me. There was no more
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time to waste. I picked up the shovel and turned away from him.

"You're the pisser! You're the big fat pisser and you _don't _have a penis!"

His outrage turned to singsongy taunt. "You don't have a penis, you don't have a penis!"

Ignoring the boy, I gave Floon the shovel and pointed out the spot on the ground. I was dizzy and needed to sit down.

"Frannie, watch out--" George's voice, then something hard hit the back of my knee. It buckled, but I didn't fall. Turning, I saw the kid running away into the woods.

"He kicked you."

"Doesn't matter. Let's _pp."_

But it did matter. When we decided it would be better for George and Floon to first go back for the body, I stood alone thinking about the little boy. Where would he go? Would he be coming back?

I felt weak but clearer in my mind than I had all day. Some sort of plan had taken shape: Dig die hole, bury the body, return to town--The snap and click of twigs under their feet announced they were returning. The body in its bag on their shoulders looked smaller.

As if it was still alive and they were concerned for its comfort, they lowered it very gently to the ground. Floon picked up the shovel and began digging. He worked with precise gestures and no wasted effort.

The hole grew quickly not least because there was nothing in the way--no roots, boulders, nothing unseen or unexpected. I was sure there wouldn't be.

The lizard had been the X to mark this spot and I knew that the minute I saw it.

When George took over digging he asked if I had ever heard of Kilioa.

When I said no he explained it was a mythological creature--one of two lizard women who keep the soul of the deceased imprisoned. By then I didn't give a damn whether the lizard we'd seen was Kilioa or a normal forest reptile catching a few rays on a sunny day.

"Yes, but lizards have always been very important in world mythology, Frannie. They can symbolize all sorts of profound things."

"Fascinating, lust keep digging-"

"You don't care do you?"

"Not at all."

The excavation went on. We talked some but not much. I didn't feel up to joining in the work yet so I let them do it. Periodically I checked to see if the dead Floon was still with us.

They'd gotten pretty far down when I heard two sirens go by out on the road, one right after the other. It made me crazy not knowing what the reason was.

Normally you didn't have to use the siren in a Crane's View police car.

Assuming the worst, I decided the best thing was to get these two guys out of here now, finish the job myself and go home.

When I told them neither seemed unhappy about stopping. We stood above the hole looking down into it.

"George, I want you to leave town for a while. Just go and don't come back for maybe a week or two. Have you got money on you?"

"Yes, but where should I go?"

"I don't know. I want you and Floon here to just disappear for a while. Call me in a few days. I'll tell you when the coast is clear to come back. I want to clean up every trace of anything we might have left back at your house.

I'll lock it up when I'm done. Who knows if anyone saw what went on back there."

"Okay."

Floon said, "We can go to my apartment in New York."

"No, that's a bad idea. Go away for a while. Take a road trip, go somewhere neither of you is known. Go to the ocean and talk about Floon's plans."

I remembered that hotel room in Vienna and seeing the dog on the bed.

Astopel had said it was George Dalemwood. I remembered Susan Ginnety telling me George had simply disappeared from Crane's View thirty years ago and was never seen again.