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.