Death Rhythm (8 page)

“I don’t know anything about it. Ask Dad.”

“He’s in his workshop.”

“So? Ask him anyway.”

“You know I don’t want to go down there,” Evelyn says.

“Why?” Mae is teasing her now.

“You know why.”

“Because you’re scared?”

Evelyn doesn’t answer.

“Because you’re a 'fraidy cat?”

“No.”

“'Fraidy cat.”

“Shut up.”

“'Fraidy cat. Furrrraidy cat.”

“Shut up!”

Mae shook the memory away and finished unloading the groceries. She went upstairs. The door to Edna’s old room was ajar. Mae kept it shut most of the time, and out of habit went to close the door. But when she saw Andy’s duffel bag on the floor and the sheets pulled back on the bed, she stopped in the doorway.

How much does he know?

Does he know anything?

Everything?

What has Edna told him?

She saw
Tom Sawyer
lying on the dresser, a piece of paper next to it.

It was the child’s drawing of a snarling face.

Look out for Big Ed
, it said.

Look out for Big Ed.

Mae closed her eyes.
Oh my God - poor Evelyn.

The drawing hovered behind her eyelids, it’s teeth growing and dripping.

Look out for Big Ed.

Mae heard the distant beating of a drum in her mind. The sharp violent crack of a striking stick.

Look out for Big Ed
.

She shook her head. Opened her eyes. Clutched the edge of the dresser.

Jesus.

Why did I let him stay here?

She saw the dresses in the closet. The closet had always been shut before. Why was it open now? And the book. That had been in the attic. What was it doing here?

Andy must have been looking around. Snooping. Perhaps his mother sent him over here. What did she want? What was she trying to do?

Stop it, Mae. Stop being ridiculous. The poor guy had an accident. The sheriff brought him over here.

It’s just that the memories...

She had spent so long in therapy dealing with the memories, but now that she was faced with them again, not with Edna herself, but with her son -

It was going to be harder than she thought.

She stepped out of Edna’s old room and into her own room. Looked out her window. Her breath caught in her throat. Her mouth dropped open.

At first she wasn’t sure what it was she was looking at, but then it hit her.

Even from up here, she knew.

She took a step back from the window, her hand rising to her neck, her eyes growing wide, her gut feeling as if something was alive in there trying to get out.

“Uh – ”

There were no words, just pitiful sounds escaping her mouth.

“Uh – ”

She saw the picture in her mind again, the child’s drawing of the snarling face, the big dripping teeth, the words, scrawled by her dead sister -

Look out for Big Ed
.

“Ah – ”

Her knees buckled under her, and she fell back onto her bed, then shot up off of it, ran into the bathroom, and dry heaved over the toilet. Bile burned in her throat, bringing tears to her eyes. The bright whiteness of the porcelain made her dizzy.

Oh Jesus, oh God...

Her heart raced in her chest. It felt like it would explode from her ribcage.

She tried to get the image out of her mind. Tried to push it as far away as possible.

It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be,
she told herself over and over again. She wiped the spittle off her lips with a shaking hand.

She began to cry. The sobs wracked her body as she shook her head.
No, no, no. It can’t be.

But it was and she forced herself to face it once again. If she had learned anything in therapy, it was how to face the things that frightened you, the things that sickened you.

“Holden,” she finally whispered, looking out the window, the tears dripping salty into her mouth. “Holden.”

Andy followed Natalie through her backyard, passing a large vegetable garden, about thirty by twenty feet, and a cluster of apple trees. The yard was clear of fallen apples, and a few clusters of rotten, bird-picked ones clung desperately to the uppermost branches.

Natalie opened the back screen door and went inside the house. Andy waited outside, expecting her to reappear with a bandage. Instead, the screen door opened. Natalie leaned against the doorframe. “You can come in,” she said. “It’d be a good idea if you washed the blood off your hand.”

They walked through the kitchen; dishes piled high in the sink, the garbage can filled to the top. T-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts lay strewn across the living room couch. The remnants of a meal sat on a chipped coffee table. The television was tuned to a football game.

“Excuse the mess. You can wash up in the bathroom.” Natalie led Andy through a door to the left.

She turned on the faucet in the sink and grabbed Andy’s hand, holding it under the running water. It was hot. Andy jerked his hand away, but Natalie forced it back under, rubbing a bar of soap over the cut. It stung.

“You don’t want it to get infected,” she said.

She turned off the faucet and patted Andy’s hand dry with a towel, then took a large gauze bandage from a drawer beneath the sink and wrapped Andy’s hand in it.

The way she held him, the pressure as she applied the bandage - her skin touching his. He remembered her the night before; her long hair falling over her shoulders, the same hair that now brushed against his lips as she held his hand. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, off the back of her head as she checked the tightness of the gauze wrapping.

“How does it feel?” she asked.

He flexed his hand, raising his head quickly as she looked up. “Feels good,” he said.

She patted his hand. “It should be all right.”

“Thanks,” Andy said, wishing she hadn’t let go.

He followed her into the living room, his eyes trained on her ass.

“Who’s this?” The voice was gruff, heavy.

Andy looked up, embarrassed. An old man sat in a wheelchair in front of Natalie, wearing light blue boxers and a white T-shirt. He sat hunched over, his stomach erupting in a potbelly. His hair was a thin white wisp that flopped forward from the back of his head, his face wrinkled and red, full of gray stubble.

“This is Andy Byrd, Dad,” Natalie said. “He cut himself at the cemetery on that window ledge. I brought him here to fix him up.”

Andy held up his bandaged hand, smiling slightly, wondering if the man’s dull green eyes had caught him staring at his daughter’s ass.

“What the hell were you doing looking in there? There’s nothing in there.”

Natalie answered for Andy. “He’s here visiting Mae. He’s got relatives out there.”

Natalie’s father narrowed his eyes. “Mae Stone? You a relative of Mae Stone?”

Andy looked at Natalie, then back at her dad. “I’m her nephew.”

“This is Hector,” Natalie said, motioning to her father.

Andy held out his un-bandaged hand.

“What the hell were you looking in there for?”

“Just curious.” He shrugged. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Hector emitted a phlegmy grumph from the back of his throat. He quickly backed his wheelchair out of the living room. He rolled himself out of view down a hallway that led towards the front of the house, the wheels grinding over the wooden floor.

“Did I say something wrong?” Andy asked.

“He just gets that way sometimes. Don’t worry about it.” Natalie lowered her voice. “He’s getting senile. I don’t like to admit it, but – ” She glanced at Andy’s hand. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, fine.”

“Want something to drink?”

Andy was about to accept when Hector called from down the hallway. “Natalie!”

“Hold on a minute,” Natalie said, excusing herself from the room.

Andy stood there imagining the old man telling Natalie of his roving eyes. He shifted his weight nervously back and forth, straining to hear their conversation. Bits of barely audible mumblings were all that reached his ears. He waited about five minutes until he made out a word.

It was the word ‘out’.

“Out.” He heard it again, for certain this time.

Then he heard, “No, Dad. It’s all right.”

Then, “Out,” again.

Suddenly, there was the sound of wheels grinding against the wooden floor.

“No, Dad, leave him alone.”

“Out! I want that boy out of here!”

Hector and his wheelchair flew into the living room, the grinding noise stopping as the wheels rolled onto the green carpet. Natalie followed close behind.

“I want that bastard out of here!” Spit flew from between Hector’s dentures. “Out!”

“Dad, stop it!” Natalie grabbed the handlebars of Hector’s wheelchair, stopping him from colliding into Andy. “Andy, I’m sorry.”

“Out, you bastard. I want you out of my house!” The flab in his arms swished back and forth as he strained at the wheels.

“Sorry, Andy,” Natalie said, her eyelids drooping.

“You ain’t sorry about shit!” Hector screamed, his face growing purple.

“You better go.”

“Goddamn right, you better go.” Hector strained forward. Sweat poured off his face. Natalie struggled to hold him back. “Get the fuck outta my house!” Veins stood from his neck like cable. “Out! Out! Out!”

Andy backed out of the living room, stumbling through the kitchen, pushed by Hector’s verbal assault. Natalie tried desperately to calm the man down as Andy let himself out the back screen door, his hands shaking. He tripped on a step, and then sprinted across the tall-grass field to Mae’s house.

A minute later, Hector had shut himself in his bedroom. His phlegm-filled voice came through the closed bedroom door. “Get him away!”

Natalie stood on the other side. “He’s gone, Dad. He’s gone.”

She tried opening it, but her father and his wheelchair blocked it on the other side. Natalie leaned her head against the wall, her skin glossy with sweat. She was afraid he might hurt himself, afraid that his heart was racing too fast.

“Let me in.”

“No.”

“Dad?”

He didn’t answer.

“Dad? Come on.”

His voice came out tired and hoarse. “Why did you bring him here?”

Natalie shook her head. “I don’t know.” Why
did
she bring him here? To show him off as a trophy to her father? Stupid, she thought. Stupid.

“Keep him away from me.”

“Okay. I won’t let him near you.” Natalie felt worn out. Exhausted. She had moved back in with her father only two months earlier. She was thirty-eight and had worked ten years as a nurse in Faribault. It was her father’s health that called her back to Ellingston. He needed her. But now, she wanted to go lie in her bed and sleep for a few days.

She heard her father roll away from the door. She waited a moment, and gently pushed it open. He sat there, a pathetic figure in his sweat and drool stained t-shirt, head hung forward, hands limp at his sides, potbelly sticking out like an old wrinkled medicine ball. The furious energy of a few minutes ago had drained from him like the air of a popped balloon.

Natalie watched him, then walked up behind him.

Sometimes, she thought, it would be so much easier to get it over with. She could do it right now. Put her hands around his neck and squeeze. She doubted he would put up much of a struggle.

Maybe that’s what he wanted. Maybe he was waiting for her to do it.

She put her hands on his shoulders. Flicked her thumbs up and down along the sides of his neck.

His flesh felt hot. His pulse beat beneath her thumbs.

It would be so easy. The pain would be over.

She looked down at the top of his head, at the age spots showing through his thin white hair.

So easy.

But instead, she slid her hands down his chest, leaned over him and gave him a hug.

“Dad,” she said, her mouth next to his ear. “I love you.”

He raised his right hand and feebly patted the top of her head. She watched a tear travel a rough course over his cheek.

She didn’t know how much more she could take.

EIGHT

The clouds split apart, the sun searing Andy’s eyes. He squinted. His head throbbed. He couldn’t breathe deeply enough. The tall dead weeds clawed at his ankles, and he stumbled when he reached the edge of Mae’s property, nearly falling over.

Stop, just stop, he told himself, taking a deep breath.

He stopped in the shade of one of the large oak trees. Leaned over, his hands on his knees, and sucked in mouthfuls of air. The sun reflected off the windows of Mae’s house, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Put his hand up to his temples.

What the hell was that all about?

He tried to think of what he did or said that made the man so angry. Was it the way I looked at his daughter?

What else could it have been? Did he mistake me for someone else? Did I remind him of someone?

There was a lot he wanted to ask Mae about. Ask her about the graves, the pictures on the walls. That crazy bastard next door. Ask her about a lot of things. But that would have to wait. For now, he just had to get out of this place. Get back to Cathy. He couldn’t even remember why he'd left her in the first place.

To
breathe,
he reminded himself. But the air out here, fresh as it may have been, left a strange taste in his mouth. He didn’t know exactly what he'd been expecting when he walked out of his Milwaukee apartment only a few days ago, but it certainly hadn’t been this.

Well, it didn’t matter any more. He was getting the hell out of here.

He caught his breath. Stood up. Shaded his eyes with his hand, and walked around to the front of the house. The sun felt like an ice-pick in his head. He saw Mae’s silhouette on the other side of the screen door.

“Mae,” he said, pulling the door open. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

Mae didn’t answer.