Nobody Knows Your Secret (4 page)

H
adley was making
a pot of fresh-brewed, delicious Brazilian coffee when she heard the familiar “thunk” of Randy the Rocket’s morning paper delivery. As she went to the front porch to retrieve the paper, she peered down the street just in time to see the tail end of a bicycle disappearing around the corner of the cul-de-sac. How anyone could throw papers onto porches and pedal away so quickly was one of life’s unsolved mysteries. Maybe the Rocket would grow up to be a major league pitcher or a professional cyclist.

She had been waiting for the paper all morning. She bypassed the headlines and went straight to the obituaries. If Beanie was off gravedigging duty, she thought maybe they could begin cleaning out Eustian Singlepenny’s house.

Bill had given her the okay to start cleaning out Eustian’s house now that the legal wrangling over his murder had been cleared up. Since all the obituary notices involved people on the other side of the county, she thought, it doesn’t look like Beanie will be busy today.

“Go for it,” she muttered to Onus, who ignored her, preferring to poke his head inside a tiny, empty box he’d found.

She went to the refrigerator and retrieved the baloney. Removing the bread from the breadbox, she pulled eight slices from the bag. If they were going to be working as hard as she suspected today, she reasoned they would need extra sustenance. Putting the sandwiches together, she sliced them into halves. She wrapped the sandwiches in wax paper and put them into a plastic bag. Rummaging around in the pantry, she found some chips and a bag of cookies that did not have chocolate covering them. There was nothing more frustrating than trying to separate cookies that had melted together to form a giant chocolate mess. She sliced off several thick slices of chocolate pound cake and threw in a couple of apples into the bag for good measure.

Hadley had bought Harry a small cooler to take fishing years ago. Remembering where she stored it, she retrieved it from the garage, washed it out, dug some ice cubes out of the icemaker and filled it full. Throwing in some sodas and bottled water and the bag, Hadley was pleased with the menu.

Onus was still obsessing about how to cram his fat head into the tiny space inside the box.

“Hey Onus, mind your manners. Don’t tear up the house today.”

She went to the cabinet and got a can of cat food out. She opened it and placed it in his dish. “Guess you could use a snack, too,” she said. “Give it up, old bird. Your round head just ain’t gonna fit into that square hole.”

Onus ignored her advice. Why should he care what she thought. Ignorant human.

“Guess it’s time to round up Beanie,” Hadley said, gathering her supplies and packing the car.

Hadley was wearing her oldest jeans. A ratty old tee and a faded long-sleeve shirt completed the ensemble. She had donned Harry’s old baseball hat and her old hiking boots. Sticking out of her rear pocket was an old pair of leather gardening gloves. The only thing left to do was make sure Eustian Singlepenny’s house key was in her purse. It was.

Time to go. As she backed out into the street, she waved at her neighbor, Ivy Benedict. Ivy was harvesting huckleberries for her homemade wine. What Ivy could do in her kitchen with some cheesecloth, an empty gallon jug, some sugar, yeast, huckleberries, and a balloon to go atop the jug was amazing. Hadley had tasted some of Ivy’s products from her little in-home winery.

Hadley wondered if Beanie was still at home or if he was making his usual rounds around town.

Hadley knew Beanie from grade school. They’d grown up together. An injury in a pulp mill as a younger man had disfigured one of his hands and part of his forearm, but Beanie, whose real name was Vesper Wendell Fugate, had moved back home to the mountains and got a job at one of the local cemeteries. The accident at the pulp mill had turned Beanie into a simple soul. Reflections for Beanie were seen through a prism as opposed to a looking glass. Many folks laughed at him. He was the butt of jokes.

When Hadley looked at Beanie, she saw a kind heart and a good man. Beanie was her friend. Slightly damaged, but who didn’t get a few dings and dents on his chassis if he lived long enough? The accident had left Beanie with periods of foggy thought, which a lot of people made fun of, but not Hadley Pell.

She tried to help Beanie out whenever she could. Her brother-in-law, Bill Whittaker, the local sheriff, had gotten Hadley the job of cleaning out Eustian Singlepenny’s house. Eustian was a world-class hoarder, but Beanie was one of the hardest workers Hadley knew.

She drove down Main Street, hoping to catch a glimpse of her friend. Beanie liked to mingle among the town’s people and keep abreast the local happenings in his own simple way. He didn’t give a dried apple about local politics, ignoring the latest gossip about what the mayor was up to or who was going to run for the school board. The countless court battles down at the courthouse did not interest him.

Beanie focused on more important issues – like what the Blue Plate Special was at the Greasy Spoon. He rarely ate at the Spoon, preferring to feast on a cold can of chili or a peanut butter sandwich for supper. But as he ate the chili or sandwich, he liked to imagine he was eating from the handwritten menu on the chalkboard outside the diner: meatloaf and mashed potatoes, chicken fried steak and gravy, or turkey casserole with cornbread topping. It passed the time.

Today, the talk was about Pearl Andrew’s 97 birthday party and a hundred other things.

“Don’t you know them grandkids from Ohio turned up for the weekend?” somebody said.

“Cecil Phillips got home from squirrel huntin’ Sad-day. Cleanin’ his shotgun like always. Dern thang went off. Sent a spray a buckshot through his livin’ room ceiling. Leola was settin’ on the throne in the upstairs john. Heard she got a mess a pellets in her bottom.”

“Heh. Heh,” someone said. “Bet it’s a three-dawg night at Cecil’s.”

“You said it. Leola’s backside was burnt, but I heared the toilet took most of the shot.”

“Do say?”

“Guess Leola’s fin’ly got that new bathroom she’s been pining for.”

“Yep. And Cecil’s got the outhouse! Heh. Heh. It goes with the dawg house, ya know. Kinda like a set!”

From their conversations, Beanie learned that Reece Melborn’s beagle pups would soon be ready for adoption, three girls and four boys. Lucky seven, and more beautiful beagles had never been born on the mountain according to Reece.

Beanie gleaned information like a magnetic field. The reason was simple. In Hope Rock County, Beanie was invisible. Not in the real physical sense of the word but in the practical sense.

It was the same whether he was positioned at the edge of the woods waiting for a funeral to be over so he could finish covering the grave or if he was sitting on a bench outside of Brinkley’s Garage, most people just did not see him. He was as much a part of the scenery in Hope Rock County as the big, brick courthouse. People would talk and reveal secrets, never realizing Beanie was right there listening in and keeping current with the town’s news.

Hadley drove down Main Street looking right and left in search of her friend. Beanie was leaning against a column at the courthouse. His eyes were closed, his face turned up to the sun. She angled her car into one of the parking spaces in front of the building and rolled down her window.

He opened his eyes when he heard the approaching car.

“What are you smiling for?” Hadley asked.

“I see all that cooler in the back seat,” Beanie said. “Bet it’s plum full of goodies.”

“Yes, it is. I cooked a truckload of dishes for us. Just like I promised. Where’s your shovel?” Hadley asked,

“We ain’t gonna dig graves, today, are we?” asked Beanie. “Harvey said we had no business, today.”

“You’re right, Bean. No grave digging today. I don’t know what I was thinking. It sure is a glorious morning, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Hadley, what you been doin’?”

“Well, I thought if you were free today, we could start cleaning out Eustian’s house. What do you think? If we get an early start, maybe we can make some good progress before it gets really warm. We could get ahead of the game. Figure we need to get crawlin’ before the snakes.”

“Snakes!” Beanie said.

“Figure of speech, Bean,” Hadley said. “Figure of speech.”

“Oh. You got a lotta them speechin’ figures, Hadley. You’re stuffed to the gills with ’em, ain’t ya. One ‘a these days, them speechin’ figures ‘er gonna spill out all over the street. I’ll be sweepin’ ’em up for a month of Sundays. You think they’ll fit in a regular garbage can? Harvey’s got some extra big bins down at the cemetery. He won’t mind if I need to stuff them figures in a few of them.”

“Don’t worry about it, Bean,” Hadley said. “You ready to get to work?”

“You bet,” Beanie said. “I got nuthin’ to do, today. Got the weeds ’n’ grass mowed just like Harvey wanted. Nobody to plant. I’m with you, Hadley,” Beanie said.

“Have you got any leather gloves?” Hadley asked.

“I got some at the tool shack at the cemetery.” Beanie replied.

“Why don’t we just pick up a pair while we are in town instead of going all the way out to the shack?”

“I don’t have but two one-dollar bills and a dime and a nickel in my pocket, Hadley”

“Don’t worry about that, Beanie, I’ll take care of it. We will just take it off our taxes as a business expense”

“Hadley is cleaning out a dead man’s house a business?”

“Of course, Bean,” Hadley said.

“Really?” Beanie asked. “I don’t know. But I guess it is if you say so, Hadley.”

“I say so.”

After a quick stop at the hardware store for gloves, Hadley and Beanie drove out to the Singlepenny house. Hadley was pleased to see that two industrial dumpsters had been delivered.

“What you want to bet we can fill up both of these before we are finished with this job, Bean?” Hadley asked.

“I don’t wanna take that bet.” Beanie said, as he got out of the car. “But like I said, Harvey’s got them extra bins, he’d be glad to let us use.”

“We’ll leave Harvey’s bins where they are, Bean. These two dumpsters are huge. They’ll be big enough for what we need. If we don’t fill them up, we’ll take and use one of them for a swimming pool.”

“A swimmin’ pool?” Beanie asked.

“Sure,” said Hadley. “We’ll fill her up with water and practice our belly flops.”

“Oh, Hadley. My belly floppin’ ain’t the best,” Beanie said.

“Don’t worry, Bean. We ain’t trying out for the Olympics. Just you and me and a big old dumpster swimming pool. You belly floppin’ and me in a bikini. Won’t that be a purty sight?”

“It makes me wanna puke just thinkin’ about it, Hadley.”

“Don’t lose your lunch,” Hadley said. “My old bikini is up in the attic dry rotting as we speak.”

“You gonna go swimmin’ with me in a rotten swimmin’ suit?” Beanie asked.

His face suddenly paled.

“Oh, Bean,” Hadley said. “Take your finger and rub your forehead. Erase that thought of me swimming naked in that dumpster swimmin’ pool with those two little strings that were once my bathing suit floating on top of that rusty water like two tadpoles right out of your brain.”

Beanie did as Hadley instructed. After scrubbing his forehead with his finger, he was all smiles.

“Boy,” Hadley said, “Eustian had some view.”

From their vantage point, Beanie and Hadley looked across Eustian’s meadow. The rusting remnants of MEGA Mountain Funland Park looked eerily haunting in the distance. The skeletal remnants of the old Ferris wheel, the ragged remains of the roller coaster, the ghostly relic of the gigantic menacing clown head were all visible from Eustian’s porch, along with the rotting stalls and ticket shacks.

Beanie stood quietly gazing at the metal and wooden ruins that peeked over the treetops through the encroaching weeds. He sighed.

“Looks spooky and lonesome, don’t it, Hadley? Think it’s haunted?”

The wind whipped through the pine trees causing the branches to knock and moan. The breeze that blew through the Ferris wheel whined, carrying strange, high-pitched sounds to waft across the meadow.

“Oh, Hadley! Listen! The haints are tuning up to sing!”

“They are not, Beanie. It’s just the wind trying to get that old wheel to spin again.”

“Well, I don’t want to see that. My knees are jelly, Hadley,” Beanie said. “I don’t need no skids in my underwear, too.”

“Calm down. There is nothing to be afraid of, Beanie.”

“If you say so, Hadley.”

“I say so.”

“Hadley?”

“Yeah, Bean.”

“Are you positive there ain’t no ghosts floatin’ around in that place. Look! The chairs on the big wheel are rockin’ back and forth. There’s someone in them!”

Hadley stood behind Beanie and looked at the rusting skeletons of the old thrill rides.

“It’s only the wind. I promise. Nobody’s on the Ferris wheel. Besides,” Hadley said, “we’ve got nothing to worry about. What ghost in his right mind would leave sucha lovely amusement park to come look at two old goats cleaning out a house full of old junk?”

“Well,” Beanie said, “I guess you got a good point.”

Hadley’s argument had struck home. Beanie was all smiles.

“You’re so smart, Hadley. If I was a ghost riding rides, I’d never leave them in a million years. Especially to come watch us clean out trash.”

“You’re especially right, Bean,” Hadley said. “Like always.”

A
fter gloving up
, Hadley had a thought.

“Let’s start in the old tool shed, Beanie,” she said.

They walked over to a tilting structure that looked like it had never seen a paintbrush in its life. Hadley grabbed the crooked door’s handle and pulled. The door protested, squealing open on corroded hinges.

“Bingo, Beanie! Just what I hoped we would find. We will grab that old garden wheelbarrow and use it to carry stuff to the dumpster. And luck’s on our side! The wheel’s not flat!”

With the wheelbarrow in hand, they made their way back to the house.

“Okay Beanie, let’s get this show on the road,” Hadley said, bending over to pick up empty beer cans that marked a path from the shed to the house. “Looks like hoarding is thirsty work. Eustian would have likely died of a pickled liver if Rayna’s crust hadn’t gotten him first.

“Hey, Bean! I think we have every brand of beer Pixies sells represented in these cans. My guess is Eustian needed a can path to find his way from the shed and back to the house, like following bread crumbs in that fairy tale.

“Go to the back seat of the car, Beanie, and get that box of big, black garbage bags. We can bag up these aluminum cans for the recycle center instead of throwing them in the landfill.”

“I pick up cans all the time, Hadley,” Beanie said.

“Anything we can keep out of the dump helps Mother Nature,” said Hadley.

“Yeah,” Beanie said. “But Mother Nature gets awful mad at me, sometimes.”

“How so?”

“Well, sometimes Mother Nature sends bees after me. You know, especially in dope cans.”

“Beanie,” Hadley said, “be careful when you’re picking up those sweet soda pop cans.”

“I like a dope, now and then. But the empties sure do pack a wallop if they’re full of bees ,n’ waspers.”

“Beanie,” Hadley said, suddenly thinking of Kyle, “I know the old-timers call soda pop ‘dope.’ When soda pop first came out, it had real dope in it. But maybe you should try to call soda pop just plain old soda pop. Folks might get the wrong idea when you say you like dope.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, Hadley,” Beanie said. “You talk over my head, most times. But for you, I’ll call dope a sodie pop.”

“Good, Bean,” Hadley said. “You do that for me.”

“You got any dope,” Beanie said, “I mean sodie in your cooler?”

“Yeah, boy,” Hadley said. “We’ll get us one in a little while.”

“Okay,” Beanie said.

With many huge bags full of beer cans tied up and ready to recycle, they turned their attention to the rest of the yard. A stained, old winged-back chair stood on a bare patch of ground. Its springs were sticking out of the ragged cushion. The arms were weathered black. The battered material on the back was split and worn thin. It became the first item they tossed into the dumpster. Hadley grabbed one side and Beanie grabbed the other. Together they began walking it to the waiting bin.

“This thing’s weathered a lot of storms,” Hadley said. “It’s been sitting out here for a coon’s age. The grass is dead under it.”

“Old Mr. Singlepenny got the goodie out of this chair, Hadley,” Beanie said.

“Yeah,” Hadley said. “This was probably his throne where he looked out and surveyed his kingdom.”

Beanie dropped his half of the chair immediately.

“What’s wrong?” Hadley asked.

“When I sit on my throne at home, Hadley,” Beanie said, “I do real bad things in it. So bad, I have to flush it right away.”

“Oh, Beanie. This isn’t a toilet. It’s Eustian’s roost.”

“His settin’ chair.”

“Yes. His settin’ chair. Not his toilet chair. Figure of speech, Beanie. Just a figure of speech. Now, pick up your end, and let’s give her the old heave ho into the dumpster.”

A vintage telephone booth, minus the phone, stood guard beside an old toilet – the real deal, a throne, abandoned on the spot where Eustian had tossed it. Empty crates, buckets, flower pots, a dented tuba, old car fenders, and stacks and piles of debris were scattered about the yard. Twenty-five black bowling balls were lined up on the ground like discarded cannonballs. Hadley was amazed at the variety of junk Eustian had collected and dumped here and there and everywhere.

They worked steadily until lunch. After devouring their baloney sandwiches, they rested for a while.

“Your lunch have time to settle?” Hadley asked.

“I don’t think I’ll get a cramp if I go in swimmin’, if that’s what you mean,” Beanie said.

Hadley looked confused.

“Figure of speech,” said Beanie. “Just a figure of speech.”

Hadley laughed.

“Come on, then,” Hadley said. “Let’s dive in!”

They hauled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of junk and dumped them into the dumpster.

“You know Bean,” Hadley said, “I think Eustian must have been trying to create his own dump way out here.”

“Yeah, I wonder where he got his stuff from,” Beanie said.

“Some of this looks kinda old and then some of it looks sorta new,” said Hadley, picking up a keyboard and putting it into the wheelbarrow. “I think I heard rumors about somebody going to the lot behind the Thrift Store at night and helping themselves to the donations people dropped off for the needy. But most of this stuff just looks like somebody took a truck and helped themselves at the dump. I guess Eustian was just a collector of all things without specializing in any specific theme. Unless landfill qualifies, I think.”

Together, they cleared a large swath to the porch. They sat down on the top step to the porch to drink a bottle of water. The porch wrapped around the front of the house and was a repository for all kinds of useless things.

A surfboard rested against a headless department store manikin. Nineteen plastic pink flamingos were entangled in an orgy of disarray. An old cast iron cook stove sprouted mops, golf clubs, and a rusty scythe from its eye holes. A huge rocking horse balanced on top of an ironing board. Every crack and cranny of the porch was filled with books, boots, and automobile parts.

“Well Beanie, looks like we got plenty more stuff to feed the dumpster,” Hadley said as she got up and stretched.

Beanie positioned the wheelbarrow next to the porch and loaded it with junk. They worked and worked until, at last, the floorboards were exposed.

“That’s probably the first time this porch flooring has seen the light of day in decades. How are you holding out, Bean?” Hadley asked.

“Okay. I guess. This is kind of like a treasure hunt, but I ain’t seen no treasure worth keeping.”

Hadley and Beanie decided to call it a day. Tomorrow, they would tackle the inside of the house.

As Beanie got into the car, he looked over his shoulder and said “Do you think anything has messed with the string we wove through the house when we were here last time? If I see a ghost, I wanna make sure I can get out of there as fast as possible.”

“Don’t worry Bean,” Hadley replied. “We got the rattlesnake out of there on our last visit, and I’ve never heard of such a thing as a
venomous
ghost.”