Cold Dead Past (4 page)

                                                        CHAPTER 6

Jay was more than an hour behind schedule and out of gas by the time the sign for the Haddonfield exit flashed into view.  The storm had let up some, but he still had to snake his way through the deep ruts left by other drivers on the exit ramp.  Not much had changed.  There were still no gas stations near the freeway.  He just hoped he could make it into town and get fueled up before the Condition Red denoted by the gas pump on his dashboard became really serious.

He didn’t relish the idea of tramping through a foot of snow for several miles in his new designer shoes.  For a moment, Jay even imagined ending up like one of those people he always heard about when he was a kid.

They went off into the forest to do a little hunting and a storm like this, which was really minor by mountain country standards, would blow up and catch them.  Sometimes, they were found alive.  Other times, they would be found frozen and buried in a drift, their toes turned black from frostbite, their cheeks imparted with a permanent blue hue.  Jay shuddered.

Over the next five miles, the snow cleared up and the going was a lot easier. Still, he kept a tight grip on the steering wheel and one eye planted on the gas gauge needle, which was pressed hard up against the "E".  He finally made it to where the old county road began its descent into the valley and let the car coast the last mile into the lot of the "Blue Lightning Service Plaza".

Calling it a service plaza must have been Frank’s dad’s idea of a joke.  It was just four pumps with a convenience store and repair bay that looked like its better days were long past.  Jay got out of the car and stretched. He took a deep breath and looked around.

The cinder block building was covered with peeling paint. In some spots, the layers of pigment were like an exposed bank of sedimentary rock that told the history of the land. No one had made any effort to clean the snow from around the pump islands, so he gingerly stepped to the back of the car through the slush to unlock the gas cap.

The interior of the station wasn’t in much better shape.  The concrete floor was painted battleship gray.  It looked like it hadn’t been mopped in a week.  Furnishings were sparse, just a metal desk and office chair.  A set of dented metal cabinets with an ill-fitted Formica counter top ran the length of the rear wall.  Above the the cabinets hung an odd assortment of fan belts, fuses, pine tree air fresheners, and other accessories.  On the counter itself were strewn a collection of oily rags, tools.  "No Sale" blinked in cool green on the electronic cash register.

Gene Jordan sat slumped behind the desk, browsing a copy of "Hustler".  He looked grubby, with a three-day growth of beard.  Greasy curls fringed the edges of a New York Yankees stocking cap.  His filthy coveralls were streaked with oil and reeked of old sweat. He barely took notice of Jay through the grimy, cracked window.

"He’s dressed good," Gene thought, and turned his attention back to Cherry Topps, whose main claim to fame was a freakishly large pair of breasts that were "all natural and certified".

Gene never worried about the folks who were dressed well.  It was usually the ones who looked like trailer trash, driving the twenty-year-old beaters, who would try to do a drive-off and beat the bill for a tank full of fuel.

This guy was in a new German car, wearing a nice leather jacket and new jeans.  Gene laughed to himself about the shoes.  If they were new, too, they sure wouldn’t be once the guy had to make his way inside to pay.  It was one of Gene’s games to leave the lot covered in snow and slush.  That way it would fill the shoes of those not smart enough to know they should be wearing boots.

Most of the people who stopped at the station were "richies" and better off than him.  It was his way of showing them who was boss, getting them back for the working man.  It wasn’t the only odd habit he’d developed over the years.

Originally, Gene had installed the self-serve pumps so that he could sit on his ass in the warmth of the office during the winter. As they say, the best laid plans often go awry.  He glanced up from his reading to check out the customer again, just in case. He scowled when he saw the man fiddling with the lever on the side of the pump.

"Dammit!"

The pump had been giving him fits for the past few months.  There hadn’t been any extra cash to fix it.  He slapped his magazine face down on the desk, open, so as not to lose his place, and headed out the door.

Jay was still moving the pump lever back and forth when Gene walked up around the driver’s side of the car.

"Having trouble?" asked Gene, with a crooked, gap-toothed smile.

"Yeah, it doesn’t seem to want to start for me here," replied Jay.

Gene stepped over the extended fueling hose, crowding Jay out of his way.

"There’s a trick to it sometimes, ya see," he said, looking back over his shoulder at Jay. "You gotta give a whack to it."

He took his fist and gave the pump a bash on the side.  Jay noticed a dent there about the size of a fist.  The electronic display remained blank.

"Son of a bitch!"

Gene turned back to Jay, who feigned interest, but was feeling the bite of the cold.  He was trying to remember whether you could get trench foot from slush-filled shoes.

"Or maybe two."

Gene laughed and hauled back with his fist, giving the pump a mighty wallop. There was some whirring and a clunk as the display came to life with large, orange LED numbers.

"Damn Japs."

Jay noted the panel on the front of the pump which said it had been manufactured in Michigan.  For a split second he considered correcting Gene, but it didn’t take a particularly sharp mind to realize it was a bad idea.

Gene loped over to where the nozzle was thrust into the filler and gave the switch on the handle a squeeze.  The numbers ran on the display like a slot machine.  He eyeballed Jay with his dry, bloodshot eyes. Recognition flickered across his face.

He tilted his head, grinned, and pointed a finger at Jay. "You know, you look mighty familiar."

Jay was rubbing his hands together and shuffling his weight from one foot to the other in an attempt to keep warm.  He was used to the idea that sometimes there were people who gave him a look and thought that they recognized him.  It had happened quite a few times since the book had come out with that photograph of him on the jacket.

"I get that a lot," he said. "I’m a writer."

"Nah. That ain’t it," said Gene, as he scratched at his scalp through the stocking cap. "Not unless you were to write some of them sexy letters in to one of my magazines."

Jay shook his head and laughed.

"No. Nothing like that."

Jay squinted and took a long look at Gene. There was something there underneath all the dirt and stubble that caused a spark in his brain.

"You know, come to think of it, you look kind of familiar, too.  I used to live around here.  Left about fifteen years ago."

Then he noticed the name tag with half of the stitches torn that hung loosely on the attendant’s coveralls.

"Gene. Gene?  Frank’s brother?"

"Why, yeah."

Jay smiled and patted his chest. "It’s me, Jay."

He held out his hand.  Gene gave him a puzzled look. Then his rheumy eyes lit up.  He pulled a dirty rag from one of his back pockets and wiped off his hand before taking Jay’s in a firm grasp.  Gene’s hand felt damp and clammy.

The hairs on the back of Jay’s neck stood up as Gene held his hand in a tight embrace, looking him straight in the eyes.  Those eyes looked dead, as if there was something hidden behind their blank gaze.

The smile washed from Jay’s face. He tried to pull his hand loose.  Gene kept pumping it, a yellow-toothed, crooked grin spread on his face from ear to ear. "I’m damned glad to see you, Jay," he said. "I ain’t seen or heard of you in ages."

Jay gave their entwined hands a little glance and Gene looked down and released his grip. "Sorry ‘bout that," he said, laughing. "It’s just that I don’t see many of the old bunch anymore."

Jay took in the station lot before he spoke.  The row of derelict junkers, the faded chipped sign over the door on the service building, the cracked and taped glass in the overhead door to the service bay answered his next question more eloquently than Gene ever could.

"So… How’s business?"

"Damned poorly.  Ever since they put in that new ski run on the other side of town, all the traffic from the highway drives ten miles on down the road to the next exit.  Not much need for me when they can get a hot dog and a pop twenty-four hours a day down there and save themselves the drive through town.  But, I’ll survive."

The switch on the pump nozzle kicked out.  Gene walked back to return it to the pump as Jay opened the door and climbed back in behind the wheel.  He was rubbing his right hand, trying to get some of the circulation back into it, when he was startled by tapping on the window.  Gene stood with his hand out.  Jay rolled down the window.

"Thirty-two bucks," said Gene.

"Right," Jay said, as he reached into the glove compartment for his wallet.

He passed Gene two crisp new twenty dollar bills.  Gene pulled a long, leather trucker’s wallet, attached to a loop on his coveralls by a chain, from his back pocket.

As Gene dug out the change Jay asked, "How’s your dad?"

Gene’s lips pursed, forming a narrow slit.

"He’s dead.  This is all mine now."

He straightened up and gave his domain a thousand-yard stare.

"All mine.  Since Frank’s gone," he half-whispered.  To Jay, the words seemed tinged with bitterness.

Gene leaned down and into the window, his face screwed back into that crooked smile.  Jay remembered the story about fake smiles.

"What are you doing back in these parts?  Last I heard you were working on some book or other."

Jay was overpowered by Gene’s breath, which stank of Cheetos and beer.

"Finished it," he said. "I got a call from Meg Taylor about Jack Hauser."

Gene turned his head snorted up a big, yellow gob which he spat out into the snow.

"Yeah," he said contemptuously. "That was too bad.  But I don’t see what all the fuss was about with that one.  You probably missed the church stuff, though."

"Got started late.  The weather, don’t you know?"  Jay turned the key in the ignition and the car hummed to life.

"You ain’t really missin’ much.  He’d turned into a real pain in the ass."

Jay bit his tongue. Continuing this conversation much longer might just take him down a long road best left alone.  He was already so late, anyway.

"If you really feel the need to go, though, they’re buryin’ him at Holy Cross."

Jay checked his watch and then looked back to Gene with a smile.

"Well, I’d better get going, you know?"

Gene met his smile with a smirk and a grunt as he stepped back from the car.  The look stayed on his face as he watched the black Jetta slip off into the distance toward town.

             
                                          CHAPTER 7

His conversation with Gene gave Jay more second thoughts about this trip home.  Gene had seemed just a little off.  He shrugged his shoulders and told himself to get over it.

There was one last rise in the road before the two-mile-long drop down into the valley.  From it, he could see all of Haddonfield.  It was like a tree, with streets branching out from Main Street, which was firmly rooted at the bridge over Spindle Creek.

He’d gotten that image from his father.  To him, it had meant that the town was a living, growing thing.  Here, in the depth of winter, under the oppressive grey sky, it was changed to a dead, leafless black and white image for Jay. It was the place where his youth had ended with the deaths of his father and of his best friend.  Where he learned earlier than he should have that life wasn’t the carnival fun ride that children are led to believe it is.

Jay rolled through the gates of Holy Cross Cemetery just as the graveside service had ended.  He stood next to his car as the mourners filtered through the headstones toward the line of cars parked at the edge of the roadway.  A lot could be determined from observing the vehicles in someone’s funeral entourage.

Everyone who died got the obligatory black limousine.  Usually a Cadillac.  It was funny how life made this one concession to the desires of the middle class when they couldn’t appreciate it themselves.  Well, maybe they did.  Maybe it made the deceased feel better to know deep down that all their striving for a better life would at least leave those who survived them with a sense of the luxury they could never provide while they were alive.  Maybe it gave them some final relief and respite as they wandered off into the light, if they believed in that sort of thing.

If the loved one were exceptionally lucky, he got a flower car.  But that was just for those who had enough friends with the money to afford the inflated prices for the all too familiar arrangements of mums and gladioli.

After the flower car came the average middle class stiff’s life, writ in the cars of their friends and relatives.  It wasn’t merely the length of the snake’s tail behind the hearse, but what its bones looked like that gave an indication of social standing.  Not just for the deceased, but also for those they had known in life.

A lot of the discomfort for people saying their goodbyes doesn’t come from the actual death of someone they knew.  It comes from having all pretense stripped in the parade to the grave.  Any man can spiff up for the event by buying a designer suit cheaply at an outlet mall, but he can’t hide the fact that he has to drive a twelve-year-old Toyota with rust eating holes into the doors and fenders.

Jay’s dad’s funeral parade had been a long line of big, solid middle class mainstays.  Cadillacs, Lincolns; big, full-sized family luxo-cruisers, even the sheriff in his black and white interceptor.  It was the kind of display which befitted the town’s mayor.  As he looked down the line at the group of vehicles at curbside for Jack, the short row of old and compact cars told him that here had been a man with few friends and not a lot of money.  Jay wondered what his own death would tell others about his life.

He looked back to the stream of figures dressed in black and caught sight of a couple of familiar faces crossing the road up near the head of the line.

"Meg!  Gary!  Over here!"

They stopped. Jay saw their heads cock, pausing for that awkward moment when they tried to figure out if they actually knew this person calling their names, trying to recall who the hell he was.

That moment was awkward for Jay, too, because of Gary.  Meg had been with Gary after she and Jay broke up.  If they were back together now, any slight fantasy he might have had about her could pretty much screech to a halt.

Meg beamed a smile back at him almost immediately. Jay could see her tugging on Gary’s arm and engaging him in an animated conversation.  When Gary turned his face toward him, what Jay saw was a sort of surprised, tight-lipped grimace.  An observant man knew right away that the ball was still in play. It was confirmed by the way Meg had to practically drag Gary over to where Jay was standing.

As Meg got closer, he could see that she’d been crying.  Still, she was beautiful, with her sparkling deep blue eyes framed by rosy cheeks and jet black hair.  The word he’d come up with as a description was "striking".  He found himself smitten all over again. Before he could say a word she was upon him.  Her arms enfolded him in a tight hug.  As she released Jay, she gave him a light kiss on the cheek.

"I’m so glad that you could come."

Meg sniffled and pulled a handkerchief from deep in one of the pockets of her black wool coat.

"I’m sorry that I’m so late," he replied. "I should have left earlier.  I wasn’t expecting the weather I hit on the way up here."

Gary grunted and offered his hand to Jay. When Jay took it, Gary took it tightly in his and gave it a firm, single pump.  That and the way he positioned himself up close to Meg, with his arm protectively around her, told more about his personality than the deputy sheriff’s uniform he wore.

"Why, you old son of a gun.  How are you doing?" Gary asked.

"Not too bad.  There wasn’t much of a turnout, was there?"

Meg shook her head and sniffled.

"Like I said on the phone, there aren’t a lot of us left around here.  Most of our school friends have moved away."

Jay took another look at the line of cars as they began to pull away and nodded his head.

"I wish I could have made it to the service, but I forgot how the roads can be up here this time of year."

"It’s the thought that counts, I guess," said Gary. "Jack didn’t have a whole lot of people he was close to."

"I stopped at the gas station when I got into town and the way Gene talked about him, he must have turned into a real prick."

"Oh, that bastard Gene," snorted Meg. "Don’t pay attention to anything he told you.  Jack just kept to himself.  For some reason, he and Gene didn’t get along.  Something happened over the last few months, but we could never get either one of them to talk about it."

Gary interrupted, "I know what it was about.  Well, not totally, but I heard them arguing outside the hardware store one day.  Something about Gene’s brother.  If it were a murder, I’d have put Gene number one on my list.  There was a lot of hate."

"What did happen?" asked Jay.

"Well…" Gary thought for a moment before continuing. "We think he fell from his hayloft.  When we found him-" Gary was interrupted by a high-pitched, squeaky voice coming from behind Jay.

"When they found him, he’d been gnawed on by just about any animal that came by.  Couldn’t even have an open casket at the funeral.  Really nice mess."

It was Tommy.  Meg turned on him and slapped his arm.  He gave her a surprised look.

"You know it’s true, Meg."

Jay appraised him.  Tommy was basically an older version of the chubby, freckled, red-head that he remembered from their school days.  He turned from Meg and offered a hammy hand to Jay. When he took it, it felt damp, clammy, and soft, as if Tommy used a lot of lotion.

Meg continued, angrily, "You don’t have to talk about it.  No one should die alone like that."

Tommy ignored her last comment and kept his eyes on Jay. For Jay, it was rather disconcerting.  It was like being in a room with one of those paintings that had eyes that followed you around.

"So how are you doing, big-time writer guy?"

Jay felt Tommy slip something into the palm of his hand as he extricated it from his grip.  It was a business card, engraved, with the words "Valley Auto" and "Thomas Lazaro, Sales Consultant".

Before Jay could answer, Gary took Tommy by the arm, gave him a stern look, and said, "I can’t believe you, man.  It’s a fucking funeral."

"No, it’s alright," Jay interrupted. "Really."  He turned back to Tommy. "I’m fine.  You don’t look like things have been going too badly for you, either."

Tommy shook Gary’s hand loose and pulled the sleeve of his black cashmere coat back down over his wrist.

"Yeah. Selling a lot of cars now that we get all these city people up here in the fall and winter."  He patted his paunch. "And, of course, my wife feeds me pretty well."

He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.  Jay followed the line and could see Tommy’s wife Charlotte.  She was a large woman who looked as if her makeup had been not so much applied as that her whole arsenal of cosmetics had been exploded on to her face.  She was standing there, impatiently watching the four of them from a distance. She had a sour look on her face and tapped her foot.

Noticing that some attention had been directed her way, she called out, "Let’s go!  I’m freezing out here and everybody else has left!"

Tommy’s mouth turned into a slit. The muscles in his jaw twitched and squirmed as he ground his molars.  He shot back at her, without turning round, "In a minute!  Can’t you see I’m talkin’ to someone here?"

Charlotte stamped her foot like a petulant child and did a slow burn.  Jay found it hard to keep from smiling.

"My master calls.  You come down to see me sometime.  Now that you’re successful, you’ll need a new car."  As he said it, he gave a disdainful look at Jay’s Jetta.

"Really, now.  A successful guy such as yourself shouldn’t be driving one of these little German boxes.  I can get you a great deal."

"Tommmyyyy," whined Charlotte.

A frustrated look came across Tommy’s face.

"I’ll keep that in mind," replied Jay.

Tommy gave him one last salesman’s smile. It quickly turned back into a frown as he turned and walked to his car.  The three of them broke out into a quiet chuckle as they watched Tommy and Charlotte in animated discussion as they got into the car.

The tires on Tommy’s DeVille squealed as he slammed on the gas and peeled out.  As it went by, Gary cracked a grin and said, "Damn good woman.  Just glad I’m not married to her."  He turned to the others and said, "I’d better get going."  He took Jay’s hand in his for one last pump. "Come by and see me before you leave town.  We can catch up on old times."

As he took Meg’s arm, she glanced at Jay.

"Gary, do you mind if I ride back into town with Jay?  I’ve got some catching up I’d like to do, too."

He glared for a moment at Jay and then nodded. "Not at all."

Meg turned to Jay. "It’s okay with you, isn’t it?"

Jay gulped in a little air as he said, "No, no. It’s fine."

As they walked to the car, she slipped her arm round his and said, "I just didn’t want to impose.  As she stood waiting for him to open her door, she continued, "I just wanted a chance to talk to you alone."

Jay smiled as he unlocked the passenger door. "Just get in, will you?"