The Charm - Shortish Story, attempt at scary

I stood there, hat in my hand, facing the rich old hag.

“What?” she repeated for the second time. Apparently she was not only fat and near toothless, but deaf.

“I lost your gold charm.”

“You lost my charm. The charm my great grandfather gave his wife on their first wedding anniversary. The charm that made it through the Civil War. The charm that was made especially for Alpheus R. James by Edwin Thomas, the only goldsmith worth his salt in Charleston. It survives a hundred and fifty years until it happens to come across your sorry carcass.” She paused for effect. “And then you lose it.”

“Grandma, I’m sorry.”

And then, the words I knew she would say but didn’t want her to.

“And how in the HELL did this happen?” she shrieked, leaning forward in her wheelchair, eyes gothic wide and red-rimmed. Okay, she’s obese and her skin looks like some kind of pork rind but not as crunchy. Her lungs, however, well those are okay.     

I reached for a chair, saw that the nearest one had a cat the size and darn near the shape of a soccer ball on it and thought better of grabbing it. The cat glared insolently at me from its worn paisley resting place.

I didn’t want to answer. Oh, how I wished I could avoid it. However, she had asked and my daddy didn’t raise a liar, so I had to answer. Anyway, I had rehearsed the answer a million times on my long drive home just in case I was trapped like this. But I still didn’t know what to say.

-------------

Gramma had called me a month ago. She is fat, ugly, mean, disrespectful, and she smells like some kind of meat but she is so rich that everyone tolerates her on the off chance that when she kicks off, she’ll leave them something even though she has threatened dozens of times to leave the whole $14 million estate to her cat, Peaches.

“James!” she had shrieked over the phone before I even said hello. I held the phone away from my ear, about arm’s length away. “I want you to go to Iowa and get my charm from my sister Belle. She’s had it for 15 years and that’s long enough. I want it back, before the 50^th anniversary of daddy’s death next Tuesday. James, do you hear me?”

It was Wednesday night, and I had just finished eating dinner. Suddenly my stomach rumbled.

I took a deep breath. I was taking my financial future in my hands, but my girlfriend had a big evening planned for us that weekend. I knew it would kill her if I wasn’t there.

“Gramma, I…”

“James, so help me GOD you will not get a DIME of mine if you don’t get me my daddy’s charm by next Tuesday! Your car will make it, won’t it? There’s only one right answer, here, sonny-boy.” And then she added, “And I don’t want you bringing that little priss with you. I don’t approve of the relations before marriage. It ain’t Christian.”

I’m not a wealthy man. I drive tractors for poor farmers who are behind on the hay harvest and widows who need septic work. I really want some of Gramma’s money, I have to be honest. It would change my life if I just got $50,000 of it. I could move out of this trailer and buy a house. I could marry Annie, my girlfriend. I could buy her a nice, new diamond ring and a car. Why does my one rich relative have to be a troll? I’d like to strangle her; I’ve fantasized about it, to be honest with you. However, I’d need six hands to get around her neck, which is the size of a tractor tire, I swear. So there was only one thing to do.

“Yes, Gramma,” I said sweetly through clenched teeth.

“Good. Her address is 12290 Undertown Road. She still lives in Keokuck, Iowa, of all places. Now Aunt Belle doesn’t know you’re coming. I haven’t talked to her since she tried to screw me out of daddy’s belt buckle when he died. But I called her and she’s still there. You just go get that damned charm from her and tell her I sen-cha.”

“But I thought you hadn’t talked to her in…”

“Dammit, James, now don’t you cross-examine me!” She cried. “I hung up after she said hello, obviously. Now I don’t want to hear from you until you get back.”

“Okay, Gra…”

Click.

I broke the news to Annie the next day. She gave me one of those bite-the-inside-of-your-cheek-and half-pucker-your-friggin’-lip steely stares that women are famous for these days and walked away. You go, girl. Whatever. I just packed my trusty dust-colored Duster and headed for Keokuck, Iowa, where Aunt Belle lived, presumably with a husband, if he was still alive, and her half-witted son, Albert.

On the 12 hour drive through the interminable corn fields of Illinois to Iowa I remembered Albert. He was huge. One Halloween when we were kids and he was maybe seventeen, he picked up a pumpkin that weighed probably near 80 pounds with one hand. Not by the stem, either. He just palmed it like I’d carry a volleyball, or maybe a cantaloupe. He carried it over to the picnic table where we all were and said, “I want to cut it open.” We were all dumbfounded; not only that he was so strong but also that he spoke. He hardly ever uttered a word. We all stared at him until it got uncomfortable so I walked over and grabbed a knife from my sister and gave it to him, handle first, like Momma said. Well, he pulled it out of my hand so fast that it cut my palm wide open. Blood squirted everywhere as I grabbed my hand to try to stop the pain and bleeding. I was bending over, sucking in my breath, more in fright than pain, since the knife was really sharp. After a few seconds, I realized that no one was comforting me. This annoyed me right off. I had just about had my hand cut off by this ogre of a relative and no one even said so much as “are you okay?” Then I noticed the racket. I stopped sucking in my breath and looked up. Albert was going to town on the pumpkin. He took that knife to it and with one hand he would slash and with the other he would bludgeon it with his ham-sized fist. Pretty soon, there were pumpkin guts all over the table, the kids, the trees and the dogs. The kids and the dogs were all crying. He was covered in pumpkin guts. This went on for nearly 30 seconds before a few of the adults came over, all yelling and concerned. They tried to restrain him but he threw them off like old coats. He kept slashing and pounding, the children long gone from the table, a wicked smile on his face. I can see it now; Uncle Ned, sprawled against a tree with a sprained ankle. The kids, two and three deep behind trees; Aunt Belle, hands to her mouth. The other adults just stood there, either too afraid or too smart to get involved. Finally he finished, and breathing hard, looked around at the people and the mess. It was dead silent. Not even a bird dared make a noise.      

A smile crept onto his face. It was guilt, but as it is when a dog is caught chewing on his master’s shoe, there was something behind those eyes that was not guilt.

By now my hand was awash in blood. I held it above my head to slow the bleeding; a child asking a question in school. I had a question, all right.

“Are you some kind of freak, Albert?”

“Albert not a freak,” he said, looking at my arm as I held it aloft. A single stripe of blood ran down to my elbow, making my arm look like some kind of half-baked candy cane.

He continued to stare at my arm.

“I cut you.”

“Yes, you idiot, you cut me! What’s your problem?” I was furious, so I was minimally aware of my mother standing beside, or kind of behind me, her hand now on my shoulder.

“Now, James, he didn’t mean it. He don’t know no better.” This was meant to console me. It didn’t work, especially when Albert said what he said next.

“Albert did mean to do it. Albert wanted to cut James! Albert did cut James, and Albert will do it again!” he roared, his voice a mix of rage and determination, like an oath meant to reach the gods of the underworld. His eyes were large and intense. His boyish face took on a leathery, older look, as his eyes stared into mine, focused not on them but on some point a few inches behind my eyes. A target, perhaps?

I just stared at him, mouth agape. I felt utterly alone, like David in front of Goliath. I realized that if he jumped on me at the moment, I would be hurt or killed before anyone could do anything. 

Unable to confront the hulking teenager, my mother hustled me away. I didn’t say anything. I was dumbfounded and scared.

It occurred to me as I drove that I was going to see Albert for the first time since that event so many years ago. Apparently he had changed, fitted into society. I remember hearing that he held a job at some gas station not far from his home and that he had lived at home all these years.

The miles drove the light posts past me, a slow-motion strobe that accompanied me into the night.

PART 2

I pulled into a dilapidated gas station just as the sun was coming up over the summer green cottonwoods that stood as sentinels by the river, the tallest things in a hundred miles. Other than them, it was all corn and sorghum fields, presided over by ancient brick and wood houses, nearly all of which were white.

I pumped the gas and went inside to pay. There was an old – did I say old? I meant fossilized – man standing behind the counter, watching my every move. I don’t have long hair or tattoos. I don’t even have a mullet, for crying out loud, which is rare around here. I’m a pretty normal looking guy, so why this old codger was checking me out was hard to guess.

As I was grabbing some Cheetoes from a shelf to go with my Coke (I didn’t say I was skinny), I heard a mechanical sound like a robot. I started and looked towards the direction of the sound. The old man was grabbing his throat, staring right at me with big eyes. I didn’t do anything, I just stood there. I didn’t know what that sound had been, but apparently the guy was dying on me or something. The only thing was, he didn’t fall down or move or anything. He just stood there, a-lookin’ at me with, as I said, big eyes.   

Finally he frowned. His mouth moved in a curious way and I heard the mechanical sound say, “I said, ‘You from around here, boy?’”

Turns out the old dude had had a tracheotomy, one of the more charming operations people have that probably shouldn’t. But weren’t tracheotomy scars fairly small? His scar went across his whole throat and disappeared into his shirt collar. And it looked disgustingly fresh, like he had just removed the bandage. I could see the pink and purplish flesh through his fingers, the needle prick marks like the prints a centipede might make. At any rate, he was holding his throat in anticipation of some conversation. I wasn’t interested, but that didn’t matter. I had to say something.

I felt a little chagrined for not recognizing that the man had once had his throat cut open and still went on living. I realized that I had been staring at his neck for several seconds. I further realized I had better get around to answering his question regarding whether or not I was from these parts.

“Uh…no,” I stammered. “You?”

That was kind of dumb. What can I say? I was kind of freaked out. The man just stared at me.

“Worked here at the store for sixty-six years now,” he finally said in a smartass drawl through his fingers.

“Oh.” I shifted in my shoes, the Coke sweating in my hand. The Cheetoes seemed not quite so appetizing as they had been. Wanting to redeem myself, I said, “I’m going to my great aunt’s house. It was built a long time ago, too.” Kinda like you, I thought to myself.

“Who’s your aunt?” the Voice queried.

“It’s my aunt, my great Aunt Belle.

 
His eyes widened and I had a sudden smell came to my nostrils. It smelled of stale fish and cat crap. I, to this day, don’t know where it came from, but it was so strong that I almost puked right there. The dusty store, the voice, the smell. My head spun.

“I…gotta go.” I put down my would-be breakfast and bolted for the door, completely unsure of whether I could outrun that smell before it crawled down my bowels and tore out some kind of bile. As I ran out, I heard the Voice yell. It was a mechanical shriek. Imagine a tinny speaker pushed way past its limits, or the last few seconds of a child’s cry when it is seriously hurt or dangerously ill. You know that sound. The child takes a deep, interminable breath and lets out a scream that comes from all they are. This scream can last for a hyperbolic period of time, but it is the last few seconds that tell how hurt or upset a child is. It’s the last wheeze, the last seconds of the screech, the squeezing of the last milliliter of air from the lungs that tells the depth of the alarm. I heard it from the mechanical voice of the old man as I hit the old white painted, dusty screen door running for the parking lot. It sounded like fury, although I don’t know why he would have been furious. It sounded like triumph and anguish all in one.

“There’s no Belle here anymore!”

I didn’t care, and I didn’t look back. I turned the key, shifted into reverse and gunned its trusty V-6 all in one smooth motion. I reversed through the dusty parking lot directly onto the highway. Dust enclosed my vision, but I didn’t care. As soon as I perceived that I had hit solid pavement, the transmission was in “Drive” and I burned rubber outta there. I had to out run the voice, the dust, the smell.

The smell stayed with me for quite some time.

PART 3

 
I was lost.

“Where is this friggin’ place?” I said to myself. “Undertown Road…”

I had been driving in circles, through pools of perpetual green, head high corn stalks for hours, the paved road only a wider row through what appeared to be a county, if not a state, of corn.  

“How much darn corn can people eat, anyway?” I queried myself again.

I hadn’t seen another car for hours. That in itself was strange. But according to the map that I had consulted twice , Undertown Road was not that far off the main highway that I had driven from Alberville, my own town. I pulled over again and consulted my map, which I had began to suspect was created by a consortium of crazed idiots in some warehouse somewhere that only cared to get some of the major landmarks correct, the rest be damned.

I had been driving all night and half the day. I should have been there hours ago. I had to get some rest. The wheels made crunching sounds as I pulled off the road. The car shifted sideways as the wheels edged towards the ditch. The sun gleamed too bright through the dusty windshield. I reclined the seat, pulled my hat over my eyes and was out.

When I jerked awake, the car was dark.

“Geez,” I said to myself. I blinked and looked around. My neck was sore. I stretched my arms forward to the windshield. I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since the last of my dried apples almost – I looked at my watch, it was ten o’clock - six hours ago. I couldn’t believe it. I had been sleeping for six hours.

The night buzzed. Crickets chirped, fireflies buzzed in the cool evening; a reprieve from the sticky heat of the day. I felt refreshed. I knew Undertown Road had to be somewhere up ahead. I mentally kicked myself for not bringing a phone.

“OK, let’s go,” I said to myself aloud. It sounded more like a warning than a cheer.

I had driven no more than two miles when out of the darkness a sign smiled at me:

“Undertown Road”.

I turned down the gravel road, driving slowly. There were no other houses. Since I was in full solitary car confinement mode by now, I continued to speak freely to myself.

“Why in the aich-ee-double-toothpicks even have an address if there are no other houses within four BILLION miles,” I asked myself incredulously. The place was as well-populated as a crypt. Actually, crypts are well-populated in a sense, but that was beside the point. Then I saw it. “Finally!” I shouted to myself with relief. My smile faded quickly, however.

12290 Undertown Road. It was a white brick house, with pink shutters and moss roof. Well, the shutters had been pink at one time. I mean shutter. Oh, there may have been something under the moss. The grass grew almost two feet tall, full seed heads swaying softly in a breeze that only they felt. The gravel driveway that my car stood on in the awkward silence was in danger of being overtaken by weeds.

“What in the…”, I whispered to myself. I knew then that I would not be spending the night there. If the outside looked like this, the inside…I shuddered at the thought of bread in full mushroom mode on a counter, cockroaches, healthy and well-fed, running – no,  make that walking. These roaches would be walking around in top hats, carrying on intelligent conversations with British accents, talking about the arts. Evolutionally  advanced creatures, would be the cockroaches in this house. I was petrified.

I turned off the car. The noises of a southern country night took over where the comforting mechanical churn of the engine left off. There wasn’t much change in volume. There is something about mechanical, human-conceived noise that is comforting. In its absence, nature takes over. Nature is unpredictable. Death is a part of nature. Death and mold and rot are what nature does. Civilization has done it’s best to combat nature; to shield it from our view. Mechanics, well-oiled, pumping pistons, switches, physics tamed to meet our satisfaction, are the boon of civilization. When the noise these machines make goes away, the noises of nature – insects, growing things, timeless wind - talk to us. It tells us in whispers that in the end, we are mold and dust and rot. Death comes, machines or not. It’s disquieting, if you can pardon the play on words. 

I sat there for a moment. Listening to the chirping of the locusts was not helping. I felt like something was going to come up behind me in the car. I turned to look through the rear windshield. Nothing.

The car door opened and closed with a last reassuring click of humanity and surrendered me to the night. I stood and stared at the dark house. It stared back.

I took a tentative step towards it and something moved inside. I stopped. It was slight, a shifting of dark against darker, a small movement that told a story. I was being watched.

I drew myself up and walked steadily to the door. If I was being watched, I was at least going to make a good show if it. I was going to look brave, even if I was not too sure of myself.

“Thanks for not turning on the light,” I said to myself as I stepped onto the wooden side porch. As soon as I said it, the porch made a creak like it was going to come apart. Instinctively I looked down, not sure I wasn’t going to fall right through. I just glanced down, for I’m sure less than a second. When I looked up, there was a pale face in mine.

“Sheee!” I said to myself as jumped back, taking a step off the porch.

The face remained unchanged. This was old, mountain old, clay old, shriveled…I once heard of an earthworm someone found that was like nine feet long. That was an old earthworm. The owner of this face was way older. And that smell! Oh my…you have never smelled this. There was stale piss in the air, mixed generously with moist and moldy cheese, rotten squash and fish. It was unholy. I almost gagged.      

“Uh…hi, (cough) my name is James. I’m sorry for coming so late…my Gramma James sent me…said you’d know I was coming (lie). I got lost. ”

Not so much as a blink, but there was a noise. A creak, a groan, a rustle. It was a voice, barely a whisper. But there was no inflection. It was automated. It reminded me of the old man in the store that day. This, however, was not human made. On the other hand, it didn’t seem God-made, either.  

“We knew you were on your way. Come in.” 

I was kind of caught in my lie. I thought that Gramma had said that she had hung up when the phone picked up. Maybe my memory was playing tricks on me. Probably. My palms were wet. I stepped up the step again and muttered, “thanks” under my breath.

The air was heavy in the house. There was moisture in every breath. I imagined for a brief moment that I was drowning in dust and air that seemed to get into my lungs and then expand. The house was full of old. There was furniture, but it was covered, some with plastic and some with sheets. There was a lamp with a single bulb, no more than 25 watts I’m sure. The carpet was a dingy orange. Even in the muted light I could tell that it was crack-house filthy. The walls were that charming dark stained walnut veneer; another fine innovation from the stoned generation that brought us lava lamps and black light art. There was one plus, however; the walls were almost completely covered with photographs. Some were in K-Mart metal frames, some were simply tacked up to the wall.

I took a few tentative steps inside. The floor groaned like I weighed 400 pounds. Something the size of a huge rat moved from the back of the room near the kitchen. For a moment I was desperate to identify what it was.

“Please oh please oh please make that a cat,” I prayed.

It was a small dog, technically speaking. However, it was so mangy and covered with matted fur in most places (and bare flesh and sores in others) that it would have challenged Mr. Webster’s definition of the word. But as it hit the doorway that I presume led to, God forbid, bedrooms, it paused for a split second and did one of those smiles that some dogs do that look like a snarl. It’s upper lip curled and it’s eyes gleamed silvery red for a split second. Then it slinked guiltily into the dark.

“Nice…” dog, I was going to say conversationally. It wasn’t going to work anyway, since my voice broke when I said it. My throat was dry after all, so a conversation was out of the question by the time my diaphragm froze anyway. Real fear grips there hard. When I finally made it back home my stomach muscles were sore for three days.

As I stood there, breathing in the expanding wet air, I had glanced at a picture on the wall. The fact that I glanced at it is not interesting by itself.

One picture, two problems. First, the subject moved. It moved as subtly as a shadow cast by the moon, but I’m telling you, it moved. I wouldn’t have seen it if it hadn’t. It was at about neck height and the sheer busy-ness of the wall in general made it impossible to see any of the photos in passing. It was a photo of a man and a woman and this huge smiling man. But it wasn’t the huge man that got my attention. He’s not the one that moved at first. It was the old man. This was the second problem. It was the old man from the store. The old man with the voice. At the moment I felt like the indigestion genie had awakened, pissed off.

It dawned on me that the huge man was Albert. I didn’t remember him being that big, even in my childhood hyperbole memory. He comically dwarfed the man and woman in the picture. What’s more, he held a gold chain with a cross in a circle attached. It was the charm. And he was smiling at me. Not at the camera. At me. I had seen enough. I was going to lose control of certain bodily functions if I didn’t get the job done in a minimum of time.

My voice cracked again as I said feebly, almost conversationally, “Hey…the charm.”

 The weird old woman was going to think I was going through puberty, what with my voice constantly cracking.

“Yes…” she hissed in my ear. “It’s right here.”

Talk about an invasion of personal space. I turned slowly to see her, my eyes reaching around my head for a glimpse faster than my neck wanted to move. I knew she was smiling. I just knew it. When I did see her, I saw that she was smiling indeed; her eyes a ghastly gray as deep and unfathomable as the ocean before a storm, the color of bloodless flesh, focused not on my eyes but somewhere deep inside my skull, like Albert’s had been that day so long ago. Her lips were a pale pallor that I hope never to see again, stretched into a thin, cardboard sneer. Her breath reminded me of a squirrel that I had killed as a child and let lay for a month in the sun before I dawned a facemask that had been drenched in my sister’s perfume and buried it in disgust. What’s more, she was so close that if her toes weren’t touching my shoes, they must have been very close. She was with me, alright. Most importantly, she held the charm like a lantern at about eye level.

I reflexively took a step back and my elbow smashed into the wall. The picture that I had been looking at hit the floor with a crash. I looked down at it. Albert wasn’t smiling anymore. He glared at me now.

Let’s recap, shall we? Dilapidated house. Dark room. Freaky pets. Photographs that move. Possessed relatives. I’d had enough. I reflexively grabbed the charm from my ghoulish auntie and said, “Hey Belle…I gotta go. Tell Albert hi.”

Her eyes widened and sunk into her skull as her jaw dropped to damn near her chin. Without a breath she immediately shrieked like a banshee from hell. The scream was instantly intense, instantly tainted with unholy anger and bloodlust. My space also instantly smelled like a lifetime of rotten wildlife. Her white hair stood on end. I whirled and was just as instantly convinced I was running for my life.

I took two big steps towards the door and saw the entryway that Rover had gone through suddenly move. They don’t often do that, do they? No, as I bolted towards the screen door I realized that the entryway had not moved. It was Albert, and he filled the entryway space. In the moonlight I could see that he was holding something in his right hand, shiny and dripping black.

“James!” He bellowed as he raised an axe. “Come back here! That’s my charm!”

The furor in his voice was reminiscent of the old jerk in the store and picture. I hit the door with enough force to tear it partially off its hinges as something crashed behind me.

I was behind the wheel in an instant. The key was still in the ignition. I turned it and shoved the tranny in reverse. Instinctively I glanced in the rear view mirror and yanked hard on the wheel almost simultaneously so I wouldn’t run over the old man. That would be the old man from the store and the picture. He glared at me and went to grab at his throat again, probably to express some thought that had sprung to his mind. I wasn’t interested. As he sailed by my window his mouth was moving and his eyes glowed with some passion that I knew I didn’t care about. My car ran onto the lawn and back onto the driveway and then onto the gravel road. The wheels burned out in the gravel interminably as Albert threw the door the rest of the way off it’s hinges. He was coming after me.

As the car was throwing up gravel, I thought I was going to throw up, too. Albert was making great strides towards me, his face contorted in rage, just like it had been that day with the pumpkin. I pictured the vegetable carnage. Now I was the pumpkin and Albert was finally going to make good on his promise to cut me. The car started to move forward and then slowly gain speed just as Albert arrived where I had been moments earlier, running past where I was and then falling as his feet slipped out from under him on the gravel. The dust obscured him and I was gone.

PART 4

I found the highway much quicker and was on the Interstate, doing probably 90 to 95. I had the charm! I had the charm! Mission accomplished!

That’s when I saw the lights.

I don’t know what set of circumstances made this particular state trooper be on the Interstate that evening, but the fact that he was there with his radar on, in the end, cost me a lot of money. If I ever meet my luck I’m going to kick him in the balls.

This jerk must have took a class called “The Quintessential Hick Cop 101”, and aced it. If I wasn’t so tired and freaked out I would have laughed out loud as he got out of his car, hitched his pants up around his 350 pound waist, adjusted his crotch while shaking his left leg and sauntered over to my car. His flashlight beamed in my mirror and I blinked. I glanced at the round little digital clock that sticks to my dash. 11:30 pm. I had been driving for about 30 minutes. It seemed like three.

He bent down to look into my car, giving the passenger floor a cursory pass with the beam of his flashlight.

“Well, now, sonny-boy. I don’t know where the fire is…” here he stopped to do that good ol’ boy chuckle “…but you was gonna be first, huh?”

“Well…I, uh…I’ve had a hard night. I was at a relative’s house and…” What? She and her family are crazed lunatics? Star players in the Night of the Living Dead? I didn’t have the chance to finish my sentence anyway. He cut me off.

“Ev-rybody lies to me!” he howled, his trooper hat touching the brim of my baseball cap.  

I was aghast. “What? I didn’t…”

“You sorry ess-oh-bees come flyin’ in here from god-knows-where drivin’ like lunatics and you expect me to look the other way. People are killed by people like you every night! Don’t you have no respect for the locals here, boy? Now git outta your car. No one innocent drives like that through my county. You’re hiding somethin’ and I’m just the man to find it.”

“But I don’t…” I started.

“Shut up!” he roared back. “You doin’ somethin’ or you wouldn’t be drivin’ like a bat outta hell in the middle of the night. Now git out!” He flipped a latch on his holster. I figured he meant business, so I gingerly reached for the car door, opened it and stepped out.

“Now stand over there and let me see what you got in here. And don’t try to run. These bullits run faster’n you any old day.”

I stood back a few yards while his fat butt shook as he looked under my seats and in the back seat.

He stood up and regarded the charm that dangled from his left hand. The flashlight beam made it sparkle in the night. Neither of us spoke. A minute passed. He gathered it in his hand and peered at it closely, the flashlight pointed into his chubby paw.

“Well, I’ll be…” he said to himself in a voice just above a whisper. Then turning to me, he said, “Guilty as charged.” 

I almost jumped

“What? I’m not doing anything! What? That’s just some old charm I got from my Aunt Belle! It’s going home to my gramma’s house!

“I don’t think so, pal.”

This made no sense to me. “What? Why not?” I asked, my mouth dry.  

“Well, my speedy little friend, let me tell ya. You are looking at not only a trooper for the state of Illinois, but a bona-fide collector of Civil War memorabilia. I happen to know that this ain’t new. I also know that if you knew what it was, in other words, if you was supposed to have it, then it wouldn’t be laying around in your piece of junk car. That means it’s probably stolen property. Now…”

“This is preposterous,” I argued. “That belongs to my grandma James back in Illinois. I just got it back from my great Aunt Belle and now I’m taking it back. I didn’t steal it! Honest!”

This seemed to soften him up a little bit. He pursed his lips, tipped his hat back further on his head and regarded me.

“Who’s your Aunt? I know everyone within 100 miles of this place. One of the benefits of being a local trooper.”

“My aunt’s name is Belle, Aunt Belle. She lives with her husband and her son Albert over in Keokuk, Iowa. You know them?” I asked hopefully.

Something glinted in his eye, a shade of recognition. I should have been, but I wasn’t sure if this was going to play in my favor or not yet.

“Oh, I see. You were just coming back from a little visit at auntie Belle’s house. Just happen to have left in the middle of the night.” His tone was not so friendly. “Yeah, I know them. And if you been snoopin’ around that place I’ll know it. Now gimme your license.”

I was at a loss. I gave him my license.

“Stay there,” he growled as he sauntered back to the cruiser.

A few minutes later he came back.

“Just so happens there was a little disturbance at your auntie’s house tonight. You know anything about that, sonny?”

My heart sank. Was that crazy old bag and her husband going to say I stole that ridiculous charm? What about Albert? He’d kill me if he got the chance, I knew it. I didn’t say anything. I just stared back at him. I didn’t know what to say.

He continued. “Yeah, Officer Harrison said the neighbors called when a car matching yours pulled out of there about half hour ago. This,” he lifted the charm, “looks like something that they mighta had once. I’d take you in right now if I didn’t know the place was cleaned out a month ago.”

I was starting to get angry. “What? It’s definitely not clean!”

“Listen, boy. You know as well as I do if you’re family that Albert killed his mama and stepdaddy last month. Butchered ‘em both and the dog before blowin’ off his own head with a shotgun. Now I don’t know what you think you’re doin’, but this here charm is evidence. Because I’m in sucha fine mood I’m going to let you go while’st I check this out. This leetle gem is worth a drive or two back up here for you, I’d reckon. But if I find out that you were pokin’ around, stealin’ from the dead, I’ll drive down there myself to bust your butt. You got that?”

I didn’t know what to say. I just said, “yes sir” and got back in the Duster. I drove away and left the lights of the cruiser blinking in my rear-view mirror, a carnival of my misfortune. 

PART 5

I just stood there.

“Well, James,” Grandma yelled, “you’d better come up with that damned charm in a  hurry. I will NOT be screwed by my own grandson outta something that’s rightfully mine!”

I saw them all again. The old man, the old lady and Albert. The cop, the dog-like thing; I remembered the drive. I thought of all the grief that my own grandmother had put me through, not just this time and not just me, but the whole family. These things flashed through my mind for about ten seconds. Then I said it.

“Screw you, you old witch,” I said, and walked out, her jaw hanging and eyes bulging with rage.

I slammed the door behind me and left her demands, her cats, her stench forever.

She died just ten days later, of natural causes.

I didn’t get one thin dime.

 

 

 

Dust Orbits - Short Story

Dust Orbits                                                              

It’s not like she was beautiful in an overt way. She wasn’t. She was plain looking, as much as I hate that description. I mean, what is a “plain looking” person, anyway? I guess it was the fact that there was no one, definable thing that made her stand out to me. I still don’t know what it was about her to this day. All I know is that I needed, of all things, some stuff from a craft store to make a gift for my daughter who is the only real love of my life. I keep it that way. Her name is Hilary; she’s the one that deserves all my attention since I messed everything up with our family five years ago. I write short stories for her. It’s about all I can do right in my life; make this little girl know I love her by writing little ditties about fairies or princesses or unicorns for her. And she loves them. Her mom, who doesn’t hate me as much as she used to now that she’s remarried, usually reads them to her before she goes to bed. I’m glad she does it. It makes me feel like a million bucks when I hand my little girl one of these little creations, just to see the look on her face. Once she stunned me by saying that the stories are like code for me saying “I love you” to her. Where does she come up with this stuff? At any rate, I was just there at this little craft store to get some supplies so I could bind a little book for her.

So I walk into this store for the first time on the advice of a friend of mine that worked with me. I'd never bound one of my books before, I just stapled them. But it was her birthday coming up and I wanted to do something extra so I asked my friend who is the secretary that works at my company and she told me about the place, pretty close to the office so I could get there and back on my lunch break, easy. So I head over there. I walk into the store and I stop when I see her. She was…I don’t know. She looked like a girl I knew when I was a kid, literally like a girl next door. But it wasn’t just that. I wasn't sure what it was about her that got my attention. Her hair was about shoulder-length, not really done or anything. She didn’t wear makeup and her clothes seemed baggy, too. I could tell she was probably what we used to call a “sleeper” chick, meaning she’d be way better looking - in a traditional way - if she dressed so as to show off a little bit. The kind of girl that probably hid a great body, but I didn’t think about that at the time. She just chose not to flaunt – never has, as long as I’ve known of her. And there is something in that that is more appealing than anything I can name, in some ways.

I walked around a little dazed at first, peering around corners at her, trying to get a bead on what was so attractive about her. I saw someone I took to be the store owner ask her about changing her schedule for the upcoming week, and she agreed. After a while I accidentally found my supplies, but then I waited until there wasn’t going to be a line and walked up to the counter and made the purchase. She looked directly into my eyes. She smiled, and her teeth were white. Not perfectly straight, but white. Her eyes were brown, but when she looked at me they seemed almost backlit, making them almost a light green. There was nothing behind them – no come-on, nothing but friendliness and happiness. Well, maybe there was a little something behind them, but nothing much. Certainly there was no real flirting, just the eyes of a girl that was somehow happy with herself, happy to be working in a little store making $10 an hour in Portland, Oregon. Her questions had double meanings:

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Is that all today then?”

I replied yes to both and left in a daze without a returning her wish for a good day to me.

A week later, my boss made an announcement. The company had won an award and we were all invited to some kind of presentation. The mayor was going to be there, and even a state senator. I don’t make much money, so I don’t date much. Women like a guy to have money to flash around, but with my daughter in my life I usually don’t have the desire - or the extra cash to flash for that matter. But my boss said spouses were welcome, and it didn’t cost anything to get in. And my secretary friend, well, we’re good friends so I’d already told her about the girl at the store. When my boss said spouses were invited, she looked at me and smiled. I know where she is in her personal life and that she was only recently divorced and still really hurting, so I figured she wasn’t smiling at me for any other reason than that she had a plan cookin’.

I have to admit I was two steps ahead of her.

The presentation was to be on a Thursday. It occurred to me that would it would be perfect to ask the girl at the store to go with me. The secretary, well, she’s just sitting there grinning at me. She knows I’m alone. She knows just enough about me, thanks to a long and slightly alcohol infused conversation at last year’s Christmas party to know that someday I hope to, you know, find a wife again, someone to grow old with. At the time of the party she was just starting her divorce so we were kind of commiserating like people do sometimes when they’ve had a drink or two. It’s funny; we’d worked at the same company for two years but never really spoke until that night and we’ve been good friends ever since. I know a lot about her and she knows a lot about me, but not everything. At the time, what she didn’t know was that I pick my daughter up from school every Thursday early afternoon, before I should be knocking off for the day, and that it’s her favorite day of the week. Sometimes her mother and I though, we make adjustments for life stuff. The man she married, he’s a good man. They got a family. I honor that, for my little girl’s sake if nothing else. The night of the presentation, my ex had already told me they had a thing to do that involved our little girl and asked me if we could switch nights. I said ok. So when the boss made the announcement I figured, yeah, I got a couple days here to make this go since I don’t have Hilary that night now. I mean, we were finding out on a Monday, about ten days before. That’s important because most women think it’s ok to be spontaneous, but not ok to be a shoddy planner. Women see that and they immediately see a guy that does not have his stuff together. So I start planning. I figure, maybe this week I take another trip to the store. This is kinda sly because I really don’t need anything there. I mean, the book for Hilary is already made up. It went well so maybe I’ll do another one someday, but I don’t need one now and I am not making enough money to be storing a bunch of goods I don’t need immediately. But a girl like that…a girl that looks clean and good, like someone easy to just be with like an old friend, well she’s worth $16 in supplies for the next book I make for my daughter, even if I have to pay it in advance.

So I had it pretty dialed in, what I was going to say, what I was going to buy. This was on a Wednesday night, eight days before the award night, so I was all set to go the next day. I mean, I was about to hit the lights when my ex calls.

“Johnnie, it’s Amber. Hey, I know we were supposed to take Hillary next Thursday, but can we switch back?”

My heart actually sunk. I hadn’t realized I had been looking forward to asking this girl out as much as I was, I guess. But what was I going to say? I had a mean cop that lived inside me at the time that never let me forget my guilt about what I'd put my wife through. I said yes, automatically. It was probably the right thing to do anyway, but it made me feel just vindictive enough to ask what happened to their plans. It was an innate, subconscious knowledge that asking would put her in a compromising situation; either she’d feel she had to divulge information that was private or come across as withholding information asked in a purely conversational way by someone who had just granted a favor.

“It’s just, Jack…work…never mind. It’s just frustrating. His plane was late three days ago and it’s thrown his whole week into disarray, so now I’m changing all these plans. One stupid plane flight. I just wish we weren’t so dependent on his work. But that’s not your problem.”

Well, it was now, but I wasn’t going to tell her about it. Somewhere inside me the cop scowled, but I kind of smiled anyway.

I was satisfied. “No problem,” I said. “I’ll just get her like always, then.”

So I guess I had a date after all, but with Hilary instead. I mean, it's no good to take a stranger on a first date with your daughter. Even a guy that doesn’t date much knows that. That’s hard on the date and the daughter, both.  

The night was a success. The mayor spoke, my boss gloated, my daughter and I ate better food than we usually do, and people fawned over her. They always do. I really enjoyed myself, and seeing her do so well in a social situation like that, it really made me proud. She’s really growing up. Still, a small part of me, I have to admit, would have liked to have spent the evening talking to that girl, the girl from the store, just to see if she was really as honest and straight forward and good as she seemed. I kind of felt bad about feeling that way since I love my daughter so much, but I’ve been working on being ok with my feelings so I let it slide.

Three months later it was summer and my daughter and I were walking on the same street where the little craft store is. It was a street art fair, and it was warm and perfect with a sweet breeze that came through at just the right times. My daughter’s hair blew around like a halo and she laughed as she watched some street performers.

“Daddy, can we get an ice cream cone?”

I’m a victim to this girl, you know? If I had only $5 to my name I’d give it to her so she could have that cone. As it turned out, things were going pretty well at work – I’m in sales - so I actually had a little change on me for once. Better yet, I’d heard a new and very interesting ice cream shop was on the same block. It happened to be on the same side of the street, just two doors down from the shop where the girl worked. We walked towards both stores, ice cream and craft.

Sitting outside the ice cream store eating a cranberry ice cream cone in a summer Thanksgiving match to my daughter’s sweet potato and chocolate chip one she said to me, “Daddy, why do you keep looking at that store over there? What’s in there?”

I hadn’t realized I had been looking at it. I’m sure I blushed. And then, in a spirit of bravado I'm not generally in possession of I smiled back at her. “Well, why don’t we go in and find out?”

A few minutes later we were walking up to the store, just finishing our cones. I was about to open the door when I saw a sign that read, “No food inside, please”.

“Oops,” I said to my daughter as I pointed to the sign. “Guess we need to finish first.”

The door swung open suddenly. “No you don’t,” a woman's voice said out of nowhere.

And there she was. She smiled at us both as she emptied a dustpan of next to nothing into the dirt by the storefront. I have to say I kind of caught my breath. She sparkled just like she had last time; same white, imperfect teeth, same disheveled hair, same self-possession and happiness that I apparently find so disarmingly attractive in women. At least in her.

I just stood there, stammering, “Oh, I, uh…”

She sensed my discomfort and diffused my masculine confusion by putting her hands on her thighs and looking into my daughter’s eyes with a big, warm smile. “You two coming in here? Don’t worry about the ice cream. No one pays attention to that sign anyway,” she said, laughing as she stood and pushed the door open wider. I walked in, but not before I caught a whiff of her hair which smelled too much like a tropical salad to be a real high quality brand of shampoo. I should know- the ones I buy are always the cheap ones, too. They use fragrance to cover up the fact that they're not very good, I think. I don’t care. Apparently she doesn’t either. More importantly, I was certain that I caught a flash of something personally welcome to me in her eyes. That’s it. Nothing more than she’d project to a woman in her nineties, I was sure at the time. Now I’m not so sure, but it’s what I chose to think then.

We shopped around a bit. When my daughter discovered the pieces in the store like the ones I had used to construct her book, she looked at me with a suspicious smile and a raised eyebrow. Then she shook her head and disappeared to look at fancy paper around the corner.

“She’s adorable,” the girl behind the counter said. “And she sure loves her daddy.” And then she added, “She is your daughter, isn’t she? I was assuming…”

“Yeah, that’s my little girl…love of my life.”

“A good daddy; that means more than you could ever know.”  

Looking at her, I could tell she was sincere. A near stranger had just said the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a month. I’m no Don Juan, so I didn’t know what to say back. I just smiled back at her, but she wasn’t smiling.

“Daddy! Can we get some of this?” My daughter actually startled me, bringing me back from some planet I had forgotten even existed. She was holding up some red paper. 

“No, sweetie,” I smiled at her. “Let’s go, angel.”

“You two have fun out there,” she said to Hilary, who smiled widely back. “OK!”

“Thanks,” I said to her over my shoulder, but she was already off on her next project in the store.

I spent the next two weeks trying to figure out the best way to go ask her out, but I just never did it. I really have no explanation, other than Life. Work was really busy, starting to pick up, and school was going to be in session again for my daughter so we were cramming in as much fun as we could before all that started. Before I knew it, as strong an impression as the girl at the store had made on me, I just found it more convenient to not pursue her for the time being.

Life’s weird. I don’t even really watch movies any more because I don’t need the drama. But I have to say, sometimes things happen that surprise me. You remember my secretary friend? Her name is Alaina. Well, after her divorce had been final for a while we went to lunch a few times and we began to see each other as very good friends. Not really romantic, but more than friends, too. We hadn’t gone out yet on a real date, but after a few months of spending time with her, well, I kind of wanted to. It’s complicated work, dating secretaries. Not the best choice, usually. But I’d rather err, conservatively, on the side of finding someone special than preserving a job. Jobs can be replaced. There aren’t that many good women out there – not for me, anyways - especially because of Hilary. I won’t allow a bad person around her, ever. So while I wouldn’t recommend it, if a guy thinks someone at his work could be someone special, he should carefully look at that. Life is weird, but it’s also short.

Anyway, I saw on the company calendar that Alaina’s birthday was coming up and it had crossed my mind to get her something special, but since I had only just really gotten to know her I had put it out of my mind. However, Hilary had met Alaina at the big shindig a few months ago and had seen her at a company picnic earlier in the month as well. Hilary really liked Alaina and one Thursday she asked me about her.

“Dad,” she said in a tone of voice that she only uses when she is serious, “what about Alaina?”

Sometimes kids just know, you know?

We talked as we drove about why it’s not usually a good idea to date people you work with, but that didn’t really satisfy her. “You should just ask her out anyway,” she said matter-of-factly with a frown.

My daughter had never spoken to me before about my so-called love life and here she was, acting like she did it all the time. Eleven year old girls are a trip.

“Well, she has a birthday coming up,” I unwisely said.

She snapped her head around and beamed. “I knew it!” she said, pointing at me for emphasis.

I should never play poker. I tried to play it off by telling her that the only reason I knew that was because it was on the company calendar but I don’t think she bought it. I know she didn’t, even though I was technically telling her the truth. Thankfully she didn’t press the issue by asking me to name one other name on the calendar because, of course, I wouldn't have been able to.

“You should write her a story like you did for me on my birthday, and then put it in a book. That way you could tell her in code how much you like her, too!”

The girl's perceptive, I'll give her that. At any rate she made me promise, so I put some old poems into a little manuscript and went down to the store with the supplies the day before Alaina’s birthday.

There were a couple reasons that I was looking forward to seeing the girl at the store. One was to get the supplies. I am pretty proud of some of my poetry and this was the first time I'd attempted to put any of them in a collection of sorts. The second was to answer a question: how would I feel when I saw the girl at the store? Did she even work there? Would she still be attractive to me, now that I was kind of interested in Alaina? Maybe she’d have a ring on her finger. I swear I have less and less faith in men when I see women like her walking around without one. But, sure as hell, she was there. Still shiny, still plain, still so attractive in her understated way. And no ring. Men are idiots.

“Another book?” she asked me when I came to the counter, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, for a friend this time,” I said.

“Your daughter’s beautiful and so charming. You’re a lucky man…for a few more years,” she said with a sly smile.

I laughed. “I guess you’re right. Good thing I’m a good shot.”

She chuckled. “Have a good day, Mr…” as she looked at my bank card, handing it back, “Maxwell.”

“You too,” I said, without asking her name. I mean, why wouldn’t I ask her name? Because she flusters me, that’s why. I’m a salesman. It’s my job to ask names. It’s what I do. But not this time.  

As I walked toward my car, I almost abandoned the idea of giving the book to Alaina. I mean, if this nameless counter clerk shakes me that bad, do I have any business treating Alaina like she is extra-special to me? What was I doing? I should just march right back in there, ask her name and then give the book of poetry to her instead, after it’s finished. I actually considered it. But I didn’t do it. It was something about Hilary’s perception about Alaina that swayed me in the end, I guess. I mean, something inside me knows the girl behind the counter would treat my daughter well, too, just like Alaina. But in the end…I just stuck with the plan and the promise I’d made to Hilary. _____________________________________________________________________________________That That was two years ago. Alaina and I have been going out steadily for about fourteen months now. Talk of marriage has even come up a few times. So the other day I went into the craft store to put together a book of compositions that I wrote for Alaina alone. There are poems about love and short vignettes about the coincidences that bring people together. The coincidences that bring people together are always interesting, but what about the ones that keep people apart?

As I walked into the store I saw her again, from a distance, as she spoke with two women who appeared to be looking at rubber craft stamps. Their conversation was animated and punctuated with laughter as if they were old friends, but I knew the women were only welcome customers. As I watched her, part of me wanted to share her with the woman I was now sure I loved, with Alaina, but I didn’t know how. What could be said? And what did the desire to communicate this, or the inability to do so, say about me as a man, or even as a partner in a relationship? Would there be other secrets between us as well? Was I really ready for Alaina? I thought of the possibilities that had forever passed by this woman and I, and of the magnitude of the questions that had arisen in my mind alone, depriving her and I both from her perspective on them. All this from a relationship that she didn’t even know she was in. I wondered if she had any idea at all. How could she?

A split second later I made a decision: I would find another place to get book supplies. That felt like the right thing to do, except it provided no lasting answers. I was just tired of those questions and had nothing to reply to them. I hadn’t found the supplies - hadn’t even looked for them - but it was still time to leave. I turned to go. As I walked toward the door, sun broke through the clouds outside and I could see dust particles floating in the early autumn morning sunbeams, orbiting one another but never really touching.

“Mr. Maxwell!” A lilting voice called behind me. “Can I help you with anything?”

I turned. “No, that’s ok,” I said, smiling. “Thank you.” I walked out with her looking silently after me.

I’ve never returned. 

--Eric Marley 
March 2013

Ghost - POEM

Ghost

I hear what’s happening
It's whispers
Like memories that ghosts have
Inky across night's floor
Looking back, they cry
I hear them now
I see our death
My spirit leaving
Our entangled bodies
I can already see
A wispy memory
Of us in the trees
Obscured by the sun
The mist will cover it
And I will glide along
On wind
Windswept
Like the way dry sand
Flies along the face
Of the wet sand that stays
Safely in place
I will glide over it
And I will see the memories of you
Grains of sand
Rushing by
But I won’t be able to stay
Because I can’t stay now
I never learned how to stay
You, the sand that remains
Will never see me fly by

Ghosts are never really seen.

--Eric Marley

March 2013