Absolutely Normal Chaos (17 page)

I will change the subject. I will not waste any more paper on Beth Ann Bartels.

I showed Maggie the book that Sally Lynn gave
me about sex and she seemed
extremely
interested in it. I let her borrow it. I’ve already looked through the good parts. It’s a little advanced, I think, for me. It’s probably a little advanced even for my
parents
.

WHERE IS ALEXXX??? (I just phoned again: no answer. Groan.)

Mrs. Furtz. Tell about Mrs. Furtz. Okay.

Carl Ray looked really pathetic when he got back from seeing Mrs. Furtz today. He said she wanted to know where he got the ring.

I’ve been wondering about that myself. “So?” I said. “Where
did
you get it? And if you’re going to ask me to promise not to tell, I am gonna blast you one.”

“I told her that Mr. Furtz gave it to me before he went into the hospital that day.”

“WHAT??? Are you saying
Mr. Furtz
gave you that ring? The one you turned around and gave back to
Mrs. Furtz
? Is that what you’re saying here? Could you tell me exactly why it is that everybody’s always giving you things, Carl Ray? Could you please tell me that? You hardly knew Mr. Furtz. You worked for him—what—a day? A lousy day? And he gives you a ring? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

I would not make a very good detective. I would want to beat the information out of people. Which is what I felt like doing right then to Carl Ray. I am so impatient.

“Why, Carl Ray? Why did he give it to you?”

“Look, Mary Lou. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, okay? I have to go think awhile. I promise I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Oh brother. He’d better tell me or I’m going to kill him.

Just phoned Alex again. No answer. Groannnn. I’m going to bed. Please let him be home tomorrow, Athene, please.

Saturday, August 4

Oh, King of Kings and Alpha and Omega! I am definitely going to go cra-zeeee.

First of all, that beefbrained Beth Ann. She called here four times this morning wanting to talk to Carl Ray. The first two times I said he was still in bed and I wasn’t going to wake him up. The third time she begged and moaned, so I went up to wake him, and he wasn’t there! So I told her that and she wanted to know where he was.

I said, “I’m not my brother’s keeper, Beth Ann.”

She said, “He’s not your stupid brother, Mary Lou.”

She called again an hour later and wanted to know if he was back yet. I said, “Nope.” She wanted to know when he would be back.

I said, “I’m not my brother’s k—”

Then Carl Ray came home. I told him about besotted Beth Ann. He said he’d call her later. I said, “Good for you, Carl Ray.” I was glad he didn’t go rushing to the phone.

Then I asked him if he’d drive me to the drugstore. I didn’t have to go to the drugstore, but I knew that was the only way I was going to get him alone so he could tell me the rest of the story about the ring.

I should mention, however, that before Carl Ray came home, I called Alex again. He wasn’t home. I’m going to die.

So Carl Ray and I got in the car.

“Okay,” I said, “finish your story, and don’t give me any business about ‘What story?’ You know exactly what I mean. About Mrs. Furtz. She wanted to know where you got the stupid ring and you told her that Mr. Furtz gave it to you, and I asked why, and you didn’t answer. And by the way, I want to know exactly why you came here to Easton and exactly who your father is. I want to know it all, Carl Ray.”

He gave me one of those mournful looks. “I came here because my mother said that my father—the real one—lived here in Easton.”

“In
Easton
? God! Easton?” I was trying to think of everybody I knew who was old enough to be Carl Ray’s father. I had this horrible thought that what if
it was
my
father? That was too horrible to even think about. Then I thought of Mr. Furtz, but Mr. Furtz was dead and, besides, he didn’t even know Carl Ray until Carl Ray got a job at the hardware store. Then I thought of Mr. Cheevey, for some reason, and as soon as I thought of Mr. Cheevey, I thought,
Of course
! Mr. Cheevey has those long arms and those long legs and that skinny body and that little bitty head and those freckles. Boy, have I been stupid! All that other stuff—the money and the college education—must have come from his real father.
Of course
! Mr. Cheevey has lots of money. But eck—Alex and Carl Ray as brothers? Eck. I said, “WHO IS IT? WHO IS YOUR FATHER?”

“You don’t have to yell.”

“I DO! I DO! I DO!” I stopped. I counted to twenty. I breathed deeply. “Okay, Carl Ray,” I said, in this very sweet and soft voice. “Did you find your father here in Easton?”

He nodded.

Softly, sweetly, I said, “Who is it, Carl Ray?”

He looked all mournful. “I have to do one more thing first, and then I’ll tell you.”

Aargh. “And when might that be? I am only asking for an approximate time. Tomorrow? Wednesday? Next week? Next year? In ten years?”

“Pretty soon.”

“Very good. Very good indeed, Carl Ray. Thank you for telling me all of this.” Sometimes when you talk with Carl Ray for a while, you begin to lose your marbles and talk like an idiot.

Sunday, August 5

Oh, King of Kings!

Alex is home! Finally! Sigh.

I haven’t seen him yet. I called and called his house all day and was just about to expire from despair because no one was home, no answer, no nothing.

And then, after dinner, he called. They made a “side trip” to visit some old friend of his father’s and that’s why they didn’t get back on Tuesday. He’s fine, he missed me, and he wants me to go over there tomorrow. Maybe Carl Ray will drive me over. I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow night. God, I’m hopeless.

Right after I finished talking to Alex, the phone rang and Maggie answered it, and she said it was for Carl Ray. He mainly listened, and every once in a while he would say, “Yup,” and “Okay.” I knew it wasn’t Beth Ann, because when he’s talking to her on the phone, he messes with his hair.

When he hung up, I said, “So, who was it?”

He said, “Just somebody. Nothin’ important.”

Honestly. People. I didn’t even ask him about any of his secrets. I think the trick with Carl Ray is that you have to give him a little time. You have to be patient. I am going to learn to be more patient.

Monday, August 6

Oh, Deity, Omnipotent, Alpha and Omega, King of Kings and Supreme Being!!!!

You won’t believe it.

You really won’t.

But then again, maybe you will. Maybe you haven’t been as stupid as I have been.

Calm down, Mary Lou. Tell it from the beginning.

First of all, while Carl Ray was at work today, the mail came and there was a letter for Carl Ray from Aunt Radene. I kept looking at that letter. I held it to the light but couldn’t see anything at all. Then I examined the flap to see if it would open easily. Stuck down tighter than anything. I thought about trying to steam it open, but the last time I did that (with one of Maggie’s letters) I burned my hand, and it didn’t work anyway, and Maggie could tell someone had been trying to get her letter open and she went berserk.

So I had to wait.

As soon as Carl Ray got home, I gave him the letter. Then I stood there while he looked at it. He didn’t open it. He started up to his room. I said, “It’s from your mother.”

He said, “I know.”

God.

Then I asked him if he’d take me over to Alex’s after dinner. He said, “Sure,” and he went on upstairs.

He came down for dinner with a tie on! Everybody started teasing him.

“Goin’ out with Beth Ann?” Dennis asked.

“Hot date, huh?” said Dougie.

“Didn’t know you owned a tie, Carl Ray,” Maggie said.

But Carl Ray just ate his dinner.

Then he drove me to Alex’s. He seemed so
nervous
. I figured Aunt Radene must have really shaken him up by her letter. So I said, “What did your mom have to say?”

“Oh, stuff.”

“Yeah. Stuff. Like what?” I get right to the point, don’t I? So much for patience.

“She told me that I could tell people about my real father if I wanted to. She said she had a long talk with my other father—the Carl Joe one—and he understands now why I was so mad at first and why I had to come up here to find him—the other father. He—Carl Joe was jealous, she said.”

I counted to ten. “So is it okay for you to tell who your real father is? Can you tell me now? Can you?” He pulled into the Big Boy parking lot and stopped the car. I counted to twenty. I breathed very deeply.

And then HE SAID IT. He just came right out and said, “Mr. Furtz is my father.”

Holy cow. Alpha and Omega. All I could say was, “
Mr. Furtz
?”

And Carl Ray sat there nodding like an idiot, but all of a sudden he started to cry, and all of a sudden I remembered that Mr. Furtz was
dead
, and so I started patting Carl Ray on the shoulder. Mr. Furtz! When he calmed down a little, he told me the whole story. If I put it down just as Carl Ray said it, with me in between counting to thirty and forty and fifty and holding my breath, it would take me a whole journal. So I’ll summarize it to the best of my ability.

Here goes: When Aunt Radene first told Carl Ray that Uncle Carl Joe was not his real father, Carl Ray was really mad. He thought she should have told him sooner. He made her tell him who it really was, and she said it was a man named Charlie Furtz.

Aunt Radene and Mr. Furtz had been dating for a year when they went to a New Year’s Eve party in Easton. That’s the party my parents talk about, where Uncle Carl Joe and Aunt Radene fell in love
“at first sight.” Aunt Radene stopped dating Mr. Furtz and started seeing Uncle Carl Joe and right away they knew they were going to get married. Then Aunt Radene discovered she was pregnant and it was Mr. Furtz’s baby. (Does this sound like a soap opera or what?) But Uncle Carl Joe said it didn’t matter to him. So they got married right away and nobody ever knew that Carl Ray was anybody’s baby but their very own.

Then, about six months ago, Aunt Radene read an article in a magazine that said you should always tell children if they were adopted, that they had a right to know. Uncle Carl Joe didn’t think she should tell Carl Ray because he wasn’t exactly adopted. Aunt Radene was his real mother, after all. And Uncle Carl Joe said, “What is a father anyway? Isn’t it someone who raises a child as his own?” But Aunt Radene worried and worried and finally she told Carl Ray.

Are you following this?

Anyway, she could not have known Carl Ray would go all berserk on her, and that he would insist on knowing who his real father was and where he lived. As soon as Aunt Radene told him it was Charlie Furtz and he lived in Easton (at least she thought he still lived there), Carl Ray said he was going to go find him and no one could stop him.
Uncle Carl Joe got mad. That’s when Aunt Radene wrote to my parents asking if Carl Ray could come up here and stay with us awhile.

“God!” I said. “Did you know Mr. Furtz lived right across the street from us?”

Carl Ray said no. He had looked in the phone book under Furtz and there was one Charles Furtz, who lived on the other side of Easton. Carl Ray went to that address, but the lady living there said the Furtzes had moved to a bigger house. She wasn’t sure where this bigger house was. He was all depressed, but that very night he came outside when Dennis and I were sitting on the curb, and he heard us say the name Furtz and he couldn’t believe it. He decided it was fate.

The next day he went to the hardware store and he told Mr. Furtz who he was, and that he was Mr. Furtz’s son.

“God!” I said. “What’d he say? Was he mad? Did he believe you? God!”

“He just looked at me a long time and asked me when my birthday was and he thought awhile and said that well, I did look like him a little bit. He wanted to call my mother, but when I said she didn’t have a phone, he said he would write to her. Then he offered me a job—and on the first day of work, he gave me the ring.”

“It
was
Mr. Furtz’s ring?” That’s when I realized that Mr. Furtz (Charlie), Uncle Carl Joe, and Carl Ray all have the same initials: C.F.

Carl Ray nodded. “I didn’t know this then, but my mother had given him that ring a long time ago. That day he went to the doctor, and then to the hospital, and a few days later…” Carl Ray started crying again.

It was awful. I was crying too.

Later, Carl Ray said that he only just learned from Mr. Biggers that when Mr. Furtz heard that he had to go into the hospital, he was afraid that he was going to die. He had a premonition. So he contacted Mr. Biggers.

“The money! The college education! That was from Mr. Furtz?”

Boy, have I been stupid. I should have guessed this a long time ago. I’ve been so wrapped up in Alex Cheevey that I didn’t see anything right in front of my nose.

Carl Ray said that yes, it was all from Mr. Furtz, although Mr. Biggers didn’t tell him that at the time. Carl Ray didn’t know that for sure until he went home and told Aunt Radene everything. She was very upset about Mr. Furtz dying. She wished Carl Ray had told her that sooner. He felt real bad about that, I could tell. But Aunt Radene said that would explain the letter she got from Mr. Furtz, saying he wanted to leave something for Carl Ray, and she had
written back saying only “You don’t have to.” But apparently Mr. Furtz didn’t get that letter. He was dead already. Mrs. Furtz got it and she didn’t understand it.

When we got back from West Virginia, Carl Ray went to Mr. Biggers again, and he said he needed to know if it was Mr. Furtz who gave him the money, and Mr. Biggers said he would have to check if he could divulge the name. That’s who called Carl Ray on Sunday. Mr. Biggers. And he said, yes, it was Mr. Furtz who had left Carl Ray the money and all.

How am I doing? Like I said, this took Carl Ray hours to spit out.

Sometime in there I asked Carl Ray if he had told Mrs. Furtz any of this, and he said that yes, he told her today.