Mucho Mojo

36.

Space suits in daylight. Red worms in flashlight, writhing and twisting in dark, odoriferous lard…

That night I lay in bed and remembered all that. It was not conducive to sleep.

I got up and went into the kitchen for a drink and saw Leonard had not made the couch into a bed. He was sitting on it watching television. The screen jumped with snow and rattled with static.

The movie he was watching was coming from a long ways, and the cheap rabbit ears weren’t picking it up too well. I could see it clear enough to make out noble German shepherds crawling on their bellies toward some nasty space aliens. I recognized the movie. I Married a Monster from Outer Space. It had scared me when I was a kid. I doubted any monster movie would scare me again.

I forgot the drink of water and went over to the couch and sat down by Leonard. He didn’t look at me. I saw in the reflected light of the television screen that he had tears in his eyes.

I turned my attention to the TV set. The aliens were catching hell now, both from German shepherds and good-old American citizens who weren’t going to stand for no space aliens messin’ with their women.

I said, “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Uncle Chester?”

“Yeah.”

We sat until the end of the movie and then another one started up. This one was about a guy that got some kind of radiation on him and grew incredibly big and had to wear a loin-cloth.

Leonard said, “What about you and Florida?”

“What about us?”

“That bad?”

“She just wants to be friends. I don’t know how you fags work, but a gal wants to be your friend after you’ve been fucking her, it usually means she doesn’t want to be anything to you but gone.”

“I’m usually the one wants to be friends. I used to want a relationship. These days, the shit I’ve been through, except when I have a hard-on, celibacy seems acceptable and preferable. You, on the other hand, don’t feel that way. If ever there was a guy wanted to be married and have two kids and a dog in the yard, it’s you.”

“Call me transparent.”

The big guy on the screen was starting to have some serious trouble with the U.S. Army. They were blasting the shit out of him.

“This murder case,” Leonard said, “how do you think we did?”

“It’s not over, but I think we did all right. Hanson believes he solves this case he’ll be in for a promotion. Him and Charlie both.”

“Charlie don’t think that. Told me he’s put in applications at burger joints, claims he’s one hell of a cook.”

“What Charlie is, is full of shit.”

“Hap, what if we’re wrong, and it ain’t Fitzgerald?”

“It’s him. And his brother too, though I don’t know you can count T.J. as knowing what he’s doing. He’s like a fuckin’ golem. Just does what he’s told.”

“We got so much circumstantial evidence, Hanson could get a warrant. Look around the church and Fitzgerald’s house. That might be better than this plan of nabbing the Reverend at the carnival with a kid in hand. Whatcha want to bet Hanson gets a warrant, looks hard enough, he’ll find some dead kid’s underwear with the Reverend’s cum in ’em?”

“But if he doesn’t, then the motherfucker’s tipped off and he can get real careful. Hanson plays it his way, he just might nab him. Fitzgerald puts his hands on a kid, kidnaps him, then Hanson’s got something to work with, a righteous reason to bring the bastard in. Then, with a little luck, the rest of it will come out.”

“We’re out of this now, right?”

“You betcha.”

“Hap, not that I’m petty or anything, but I told you Uncle Chester wasn’t the one.”

“I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“I’m a good judge of character.”

“I’m proof of that.”

Leonard was silent for a moment. “Well, even I fuck up now and then.”

The All Black Carnival came to the East Side on a hot morning that threatened storm. The storm lay in the west, dark as an army boot, and the heavens rattled with poisonous thunder.

Our fear was the storm blew in, the carnival might be canceled, and if that happened, Hanson’s plan was gone with the wind, and the Reverend would have to wait for another night. Strike somewhere unexpected.

Me and Leonard were out of it, but we couldn’t resist the temptation to drive over to the fairgrounds early that morning and watch the carnival trucks pull in behind the tall chain-link fence, observe the machineries of fun going up: the Tilt-a-Whirl, the coaster rides, the Slingshot, as well as rides I couldn’t put a name to.

I kept wondering how Fitzgerald was nabbing those kids and getting them away from there to commit murder. He was a high-profile individual. People on the East Side knew him well and weren’t likely to forget him walking off with some kid, but somehow, every year, he was grabbing a kid and taking him up to that death house.

How was he choosing his victim? Was the kid someone Fitzgerald had been watching, someone who’d been attending church activities? Someone Fitzgerald knew would be going to the carnival? Someone whose home life was a disaster, or someone who had no home life at all? Someone whose past would indicate anything could have happened? Someone like the little boy under Uncle Chester’s floor?

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t my problem now. It was Hanson’s. We drove back home.

About two in the afternoon, Leonard and I went over to MeMaw’s, and Hiram helped us finish up the porch. There wasn’t a lot left to do. About an hour’s work. It was very hot. The sky was clear and blue except in the west, and from those brooding clouds there came a kind of mugginess that was almost overwhelming, and I couldn’t get my mind off the on-coming night and the carnival and what might happen. I hit my thumb with the hammer three or four times, dropped boards and nails, and cussed enough Hiram had to ask me to stop.

“No offense, Hap,” Hiram said. “But I don’t talk that way, and don’t want that kind of talk around Mama. She might hear you.”

I apologized, truly embarrassed for making Hiram uncomfortable. I hoped MeMaw hadn’t heard me.

When we had driven the last nail, Hiram said, “Come on in. Mama’ll want y’all to have some ice tea.”

“I need it,” I said.

Hiram went inside, and Leonard and I promised to follow, after picking up a few nails and boards. When Hiram was out of sight, Leonard said, “I’m fucking ashamed of you, all that cussing.”

“Yeah, well, you can eat shit.”

Then we heard Hiram yell for us from inside the house.

“Hap! Leonard! Oh, God! Come here, quick!”

We rushed inside. MeMaw was slumped in a kitchen chair, almost falling off of it. There was a pool of urine in the seat of the chair, dripping on the floor. Her walker was turned over, as if she had let go of it in the act of trying to rise.

The stroke had come swift and silent, lethal as a black mamba. She was alive, but comatose. We stretched her out on the floor and packed a pillow behind her head and called the ambulance. They came quick, hauled her off to Memorial Hospital. We followed after, Hiram in his van, me and Leonard in my truck.

At the hospital, we sat with Hiram in the waiting room while the doctors did their work. Which wasn’t much. The bottom line was MeMaw was old and it didn’t look good. All they could do – all we could do – was wait.

When we got the word, me and Leonard went into ICU with Hiram and looked at MeMaw. She was wired up like a spaceman and seemed to be smaller and frailer than was humanly possible. I was somehow reminded of those pictures you see of Mexican mummies, the ones that have been exhumed and put on display because the relatives couldn’t afford to maintain the burial plot. I noted the liver spots on her hands. Why hadn’t I noticed them before? They looked like old pennies viewed through weak coffee.

We stayed for a while, then Leonard said, “Hiram, we’ll check back. You need anything, just ask.”

“Yeah,” Hiram said. “Thanks. Man, I can’t believe this. I mean, I can. Her being old and all, but I can’t believe it either.”

“I know,” Leonard said.

“Need us to call relatives?” I asked.

“No,” Hiram said. “A few minutes, I’ll do that.”

We left Hiram sitting by MeMaw’s bedside, holding her hand.