Land of a Hundred Wonders

On My Ownish

After I held Grampa’s hand tight two days straight, Miz Tay Lewis, the nurse who was minding him in the hospital, told me he was in good hands and that I should get some rest. Miss Jessie suggested I stay at her farmhouse. I told her-“No, thank you.” Though being around the horses’d be comforting, I didn’t need to be keeping an eye out for Sneaky Ray. No. I needed to be back at the cottage with my mama’s paintings, Grampa’s Lucky Strike-smelling shirts. The lapping of the lake.

Don’t much feel like it, but I know what I really should do, what is of #1 importance, is to put all my concentration on solving this murder case and then writing my awfully good story. Not only for Mama, but for when Grampa comes home from the hospital. So he’ll see that I’m getting Quite Right enough that I can take care of him the way he’s been taking care of me all these years. “While you’re recuperating, take a nap out on the porch and I’ll catch us a bass,” is what I’ll tell him.

Not being able to stand the stillness of the cottage, I’ve come out to the pier. The water is slick with gas, but the minnows don’t care, they’re darting around my toes. All that’s left of the day is a lemon slice of sun. It’s bad enough to be without Grampa in the day hours, but in the night?

Just a bit ago, Mr. Frank Bailey came by. ’Cept for me, he’s Grampa’s best friend. “What’re you doin’ with his boat?” I asked him when he got done tying up at our pier. “When’s he comin’ home?”

He went over the whole damn heart attack story, finishing up with, “Ya know that you’re always welcome to come stay with me and the missus.”

I told him, “Thank you for the kind offer, but roses need quite a bit of water if they’re to bloom to their fullest.” Grampa’s been crisscrossing them since I was a little girl. Mixing a bit of this rose with a bit of that rose until he came up with three original peachy pink types he calls the Gibby, the Addy (after Mama), and the Kitty (after Gramma). “These flowers remind me of my girls,” he boasts. “Nice smellin’ and pretty as hell, but mind where you grab on to ’em. They can be a tad prickly.”

Mr. Bailey nodded over at the gardens. “Charlie always did have one hell of a green thumb. Shout out, ya need anything,” he said, peeling off bills from the wad he’s always got in his pocket, because when he’s not fishing, he owns the Tap-Home of Two Beers for a Buck.

“I got coin in the cookie jar, and in case I get hungry, there’s cans of soup and crackers in the cupboard,” I said, even though I can’t imagine ever eating without Grampa.

He said, “God bless,” and looked sad clean down to his rubber boots. A minute later, all that was left of the visit was a foamy green trail and Grampa’s boat bobbing gently in the wake.

It wasn’t until after Mr. Bailey had gone that I thought of something I did need. Not me, really, but Top O’ the Mornin’. Who’s going to wrassle up the chow? Who’s going to turn on the pumps?

“Hey,” Clever calls. She’s right on time, coming toward me in a tan T-shirt and too-short skirt that used to fit her just fine.

Picking up a flat rock, I side-arm it. After I watered the roses and tossed the birdseed, I moved my collection of skimmers down here to the pier. I’m not going to sit in my matching chair on the lawn ’til Grampa gets back.

“Ya left the hose on,” Clever says, plopping down next to me.

I draw my knees up outta the water.

“It’s all right. I closed it up for ya.” She presses up against me, letting her bare feet dangle in the water next to mine. The sky looks like a baby present. Pale blue with ribbons of pink wrapping it up. “Miss Florida told me ya went and got my belongin’s offa Rudy’s porch.”

She’s acting a little cocky, like she doesn’t care that her mama kicked her out, and I don’t know, maybe she really doesn’t. That apartment they lived in above the Tap wasn’t so nice. Dirty clothes balled up in the corners. Empty beer cans sitting on the windowsills like feeding troughs for flies. And when you tried to drift off to sleep, the shouts coming up from the bar below always reminded me of those religious pictures of lost souls calling for help from hell.

“Mama promised that she and Miss Florida will keep takin’ care of the diner until Charlie…” This is hard on her, too. Clever loves Grampa and he her.

If Janice and Miss Florida have been tending to Top O’ the Mornin’, it’s probably the second coming of World War Two up there by now. And that’s a big IF. I know I can count on Miss Florida, but Janice Lever’s promises aren’t worth a plug nickel.

“I picked up the Gazette from the library and dropped it off at all the regular places for ya,” Clever says, picking up one of my flat rocks and letting it rip. “Ya ever gonna talk again?”

“Your belongin’s sack is next to his chair.”

I side-arm two nice ones. My dog should be divin’ for these rocks.

Clever returns with her bag of things and sets it down between us. “Where’s Keep at?”

“I… I was just wonderin’ the same thing.”

Sometime back, we discovered if somebody lays their hands on me, I can recall things better. Clever says it works ’cause another person’s energy sinks into my skin, flows up to my brain and gives it a jump-start. Pressing her sticky palms to my cheeks, she says, “Ready?”

I close my eyes the way she likes me to and wait for something to come into my scrambled-up mind, but all that appears is the realization that Grampa’s gone and he might not be back. “I can’t… nuthin’s happenin’,” I say, giving up. My memory feels matted. Worse than usual.

“Grampa had a heart attack,” Clever says. “He’s in the hospital.”

Miss Lydia is always telling me that having trouble with my memory might be more a blessing than a curse. Maybe she’s right, because unlike a breath ago, I can picture him now in the cold metal bed, breathing so slow.

“That’s where Keeper is, too.” Dr. Sam Cooper, knowing that dog like he does, he told me it’d be fine for me to leave him at the hospital. When Grampa wakes up and feels my dog curled up next to him, maybe his heart’ll get happier, the same way it does when he spots a red-wing blackbird, his most favorite feathered friend of all. Oak-a-lee… oak-a-lee… oak-a-lee.

“Mama says he’s bad.” Clever dabs at my tears with the bottoms of her T-shirt. “Ya gotta prepare yourself.”

“And just how am I supposed to prepare myself for… I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I say, kicking up a spray.

She hunches her shoulders and looks over at Willard’s place. “Wait a minute… I might got somethin’ to cheer you up.” She takes a box of Top O’ the Mornin’ matches out of her skirt pocket. On her third try, the lantern that hangs off the dock flames up. Opening the top of her belongin’s sack, Clever spreads out what’s inside. Those stretched-out socks. That used-up sweatshirt. She gives a yelp when she sees her rolled-up Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid poster. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she says, hugging it close. “That was real thoughtful of Janice to send it along, don’tcha think?”

I guarantee you, her mama didn’t give it one thought ’bout how happy that poster’d make her girl.

“What’s that?” I ask, poking at the tip of a piece of paper that I hadn’t perceived earlier. It’s jutting out the back pocket of the raggedy jeans.

“That’s the somethin’ I thought might cheer ya up.” She knocks my hand away, slips out the folded piece of paper and irons it straight on the dock. “I stole it off Willard. It’s his precious map.”

A map? Willard? Where have I heard… “He was askin’ me about a map this afternoon. But he told me he was lookin’ for a treasure map.” And that I should get it off Clever and return it to him right away tonight or there will be hell to pay. “This doesn’t look at all like a treasure map,” I say. “Shouldn’t there be a big X that marks the spot and a coupla skulls?”

Clever asks eager-beaverly, “It’s a treasure map?”

“That’s what Willard said.” The wobbly dock lantern is sending darting shadows across the paper. “Wait a minute,” I say, pointing. “Isn’t that the Malloy place?” Me and Clever, Billy and Georgie and Cooter used to play hide-and-go-seek in those rows of tobacco when we were kids.

“That figures. Willard’s got something clandestine going on out there with Bishop Malloy. I heard ’em talkin’.”

I wheel toward her, shocked from my nose to my toes. “You know what clandestine means?”

“Got a book outta the library when I picked up the Gazette. Been workin’ all afternoon learnin’ some new words. Figured you and me… well, with Grampa… maybe we could start playin’ some Scrabble.” Clever clears her throat twice and announces, “Clandestine relates back to the Ku Klux boys.”

Really, I don’t have the heart to tell her.

But just like this investigative reporter suspected, Willard is up to no good. And not by his lonesome. Sounds like he’s joined up with rotten Bishop Malloy, who is deceased Mr. Buster’s only child with his wife, Suellen, who is also dead from something I don’t recall. Never have been able to tolerate Bishop, who is NOT religious even though his name makes him sound like he is. He does bad things to stray cats. And I’ve seen him pull the pants offa kids to humiliate ’em. What could those two troublemakers be up to out at the Malloy place?

Clever’s stomach grumbles.

“Sounds like ya need some chicken noodle soup,” I say, swinging my legs outta the lake. “Straight from the can, just the way you like it.”

“That sounds real good,” she says, stuffin’ the rest of her belongin’s back into the sack, but folding the map up neat and sliding it into the top of her swirly skirt. “And then what say you and me go firefly catchin’ like we used to. When we got a jar full, we’ll take ’em up to Miss Lydia and she can make a feel-better potion for Grampa. You’d like that, right?”

When I don’t answer, when the tears come again, she gathers me into the kind of fierce hug that Clever’s well known for. The kind where she’s not so much hugging as holding on to ya like you’re a life preserver. “He’d expect you to saddle up and ride hard, and here ya are feelin’ all sorrowful,” she says. “Ya gotta be strong for him, Butch. C’mon.” She takes her bag up in one hand, my hand in the other. “I’m starvin’.”

When we pass his Adirondack, I run my fingers down the wood. Give it a smooch right where his head falls against the grain. Clever’s right. I am feeling sorry for myself, and like Grampa always says, feeling sorry for yourself never gets nobody nowhere quick.

“Maybe instead of takin’ the fireflies to Miss Lydia, we can take ’em straight to Grampa and they could be his night-light?” I say.

Clever gives me a playful shove. “Now there’s the rootin’-tootin’ cowgirl I been lookin’ for.”

We’re almost to the cottage when a reedy voice says outta the shadows, “Good evening, ladies.” A few steps closer and I can see it’s none other than Willard DuPree, sitting cross-legged in the thatched chair to the side of the screened-in. Bare-chested and twirling one of Grampa’s roses between his fingers. A yellow one.

I’m not sure how Clever’s feeling about him now, but I don’t want to take any chances. “If ya stopped by to find out if we wanted to play strip poker, we don’t,” I say, tugging on her.

Getting up, Willard breaks the rose off its stem. “Actually, I stopped by to beg your forgiveness, Carol.” When he’s done settingthe flower in her hair, he circle pets her globe tummy. “After a thorough examination of my conscience, I’ve changed my mind about giving up the baby and wanted to rush right over and tell you.”

Clever says, swooning, “Oh, Willard, I knew you’d change your mind.”

“Can’t you see he’s jukin’ ya?” I say, choking her wrist. “He doesn’t even have a conscience, for crissakes.” (I’m pretty sure I know what Willard’s after and it isn’t Clever or the baby. Or even hot sex.)

“I… I miss you,” Willard tells her, crocodile tears watering his whiskers.

Clever wrenches out of my grip and rushes to wrap him up in her arms. She can’t see it ’cause she’s got her face buried in his scrawny chest, but even if she could see his trickery smile, she’d be helpless to fight off those love feelings. It’s in her blood to surrender to men. “Ya sure?” she asks him. “ ’Bout the baby, I mean.”

Pointing to her belongin’s bag, he answers, “Do you have my map in there, sweetie?”

(Just as I thought.)

“No. I got it right…” Clever fidgets in the top of her skirt.

“She’s not your sweetie and she doesn’t have the map.” I don’t want to say it, but I have to. It’s for her own good. “She gave it to me for safekeepin’.”

Faster than I’ve ever seen him move, Willard shoves Clever off to the side and takes a giant step toward me. “Hand it over.”

“Why, I’d love to, Willard, but for the life of me I can’t remember what the hell I did with it. I’m NQR, ya know,” I say, not looking at him, but eyeing Clever, waiting for the realization of his two-faced phoniness to dawn across her face. It’s out of the corner of my eye that I see him whipping his arm back, his palm wing-flat.

Clever springs into action, wedging herself between us. “That’s all ya really want, ain’t it? The map? Well, then take it, you… mealy-assed liar,” she cries, flinging it at his feet along with the yellow rose.

Willard tells her with a winning smile, “Once again, I’d like to apologize. I completely misjudged you, Carol.”

“Really?” she says, hope bobbing back up into her watery eyes.

“Really.” Willard bends down to retrieve the map. “It turns out you’re only about half as dumb as I thought you were.”

Hearing him laugh wicked like that, before I know it, I’m yelling, “AHA!” and my hand is coming down hard across the back of his spindly neck with one of Billy’s Oriental choppers that lays him out flat.

Nobody talks to the Kid that way.

Nobody.

“I’m so sor-” I try to tell Clever.

“Shut your trap,” she hisses at me as she snatches the map outta Willard’s fingertips.

Now, I know she could use a hug, no matter how bad she’s behavin’, but I dare not touch her until the sorrow is done sweeping through her. She’ll beat the snot outta me if I try something pitiful like that.

Boy, what a stimulating idea!

Willard’s already struggling to his hands and knees, so I put my arm around Clever tight, and aim her like a weapon. Just like I knew she would, she gets hot as hell, spinning and lashing out dervishly, eventually landing a solid kick in Willard’s stomach that deflates him like a day-after-the-party balloon.

Once Clever’s got her breath back, I ask, “You all right?” even though I know she’s fine. (She’s blessed with high recuperative powers.) I also know exactly what she’s about to say. That’s the way it is with sidekicks.

Sure enuf, she hawks and spits, landing a goober square in the middle of Willard’s forehead, then goes ahead and quotes the BEST movie line of all time: “For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.”