Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  Junior was mulling it over, probably listening to his orders in his head. Most likely it was instructions from his father and a father’s requests can be very compelling, especially in a crime family. “The only way to make sure everything goes according to plan is to make sure nothing goes according to plan,” he said, almost crying in his failure. But the chant seemed to steel his confidence and the aim of the gun firmed up.

  “WHAT?!” I was still trying to diagram his last sentence. “Who thought up that claptrap?”

  While the gun didn’t move, his shoulders visibly fell. “I did.” He remembered to be offended and took a step closer.

  “We need to get out of the storm.” I decided to try a different tactic. If he felt he himself was in physical danger, maybe that would make him surrender. “If lightning strikes anywhere close, we’ll all be electrocuted.” A second later, another strike lit up the sky. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise before the rain plastered it back down again.

  “I’m not done yet,” he said, splashing on the wet ground like a small child. His shoes were covered in rubber. “Forgot your galoshes, did you? Darn shame, that. Dad said –“

  “Shut up, Junior!” Butte yelled from inside Hazel’s grave. He was shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard.

  “You spoiled it! I was doing good and you spoiled it!”

  “I made sure it didn’t go according to plan,” I threw back at him.

  “Hey!”

  It looked like he was going to fire any minute. It might not sound wise to taunt the guy with the gun, but it keeps them busy. Billings looked like a drowned llama. He was itching for an opening to rush Junior and take the gun, but it was hard to judge distance and detail through the sheets of rain. If tension were lightning, we would have all been dead.

  “Shut up, Junior!” yelled Butte again. I could see the tips of his fingers clawing at the front edge of the hole, but he wasn’t getting out without help.

  “Put the gun down!” I shouted at Junior. “We can discuss it. You succeeded, Junior. If this was about disrupting your Dad’s trial,” I took a stab in the dark, “there’s no way it can move forward after this.” Again, I was making a guess on the legal precedent here. But if I could convince him he’d accomplished whatever he’d set out to do, he’d be more likely to give up.

  Billings took a step forward, reaching out. “She’s right.” He’d gone from doubting me, to being confident in my conclusions. There was nothing else for Junior to do.

  Junior fired the gun. Something hit me in the left shoulder like a sledgehammer and I heard Billings yell, “Mom!” as I fell backward into my father’s muddy grave.

  Chapter Five

  My name is Billings Montana. I work for an organization called CURDS which fights the proliferation of tainted cheese known as Uber. It causes Offensive Obstruction, a disease that stops colonic peristalsis leading to internal rupture and death. I’m part of a team that until a few days ago was led by my mother, Helena Montana. She was killed in the line of duty, although she didn’t know it.

  She was shot by Charles Krochedy, Jr. and fell into an open grave in the pouring rain. It seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw the look on her face. It was pure annoyance. She’d just gotten off the disabled list from a couple of broken ribs and a punctured lung and really didn’t want to be recovering anymore. For an instant, neither one of us was worried. Plenty of people survive getting shot in the shoulder. After she fell in, I felt differently. She didn’t get back up and try to get herself out of the hole. She didn’t scream curses at Junior. She was quiet. There was nothing but the sound of the pouring rain, and another clap of thunder.

  I saw her fall. I’m pretty sure I yelled, “Mom!” though I don’t really remember doing it. Without a second thought as to how I was going to get out again, I jumped in. It was a good thing Mom is…was…short. She was lying on the bottom, but there was plenty of room for me to splash down. There was already more than an inch of water accumulated and I bent down to pull her head out of the water. Blood was pouring out of her shoulder and mixing into the water. “No no no no no,” I chanted as I sat down in the bloody water and cradled her head and upper body against me. I put both hands over the wound and held her tight.

  There were a couple of police officers in a car nearby, Chang and Burganski. They filled me in later on what happened after I jumped into the grave. They didn’t see the gun because Junior’s back was to them, but they heard the report and saw the flash reflected in the rain when he fired. Chang grabbed the radio and called it in while Burganski ran through the rain, gun drawn, and ordered Junior to drop his weapon. Chang said that while she was on the radio asking for an ambulance, Grandma threw off the blanket and leaped out of the car, and out of her shoes, splashing stocking footed through the soaked grass. Before Junior could do anything, Grandma tackled him, throwing her entire body into his. They fell together onto the grass. By the time Burganski was able to separate them, Grandma had her bony knees jammed into his stomach and her hands around his throat.

  Having finished the radio call, Chang came on the run, too, and cuffed him, dragging him away to the squad car. Burganski jumped into the grave with me, adding his hands to mine over Mom’s shoulder. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” I could tell from the look on his face.

  Muddy water dripped down his cheeks. “She’s losing a lot of blood. I think he hit her brachial artery.” She had started to slide down into my lap and he helped boost her up again. “Keep her head up.”

  In the distance, over the noise of the rain, I could hear faint sirens getting gradually louder. We sat together in the bloody, muddy water for what seemed like a long time, until paramedics came with a backboard and a winch. They confirmed what Burganski had said. They made some attempts to revive her before rushing her to the ambulance, and worked some more inside the vehicle, but she was gone.

  We were told later that Chang and Burganski had gone back yet again to get Butte out of Aunt Hazel’s grave. They found the long edge bordering the aisle in a shambles, chunked and dug out enough to create a makeshift ramp dotted with puddles. Butte, of course, was gone. They asked me if I wanted them to put an APB on him, but since he hadn’t been the one to fire the gun, he probably wouldn’t have been kept long even if they did find him. I opted instead for a restraining order to keep him away from Grandma. I considered doing one in reverse, too, to keep Grandma away from Butte, but I would have needed a third one on myself and I didn’t want to be restrained. His disappearance left me feeling cheated, but I wasn’t sure of what. The next day I had a TRO and a court date for Grandma to finish the process. I also suggested she have her locks changed and she promised me she would do that the following week.

  The next couple of days were hard. I had to call Miss Chiff and tell her what happened. She offered to call the rest of the team who were back in Washington D.C. being debriefed and I took her up on it. Then they started calling me, making plans to come to Springfield before we had any arrangements made. Miss Chiff also sent a copy of Mom’s final wishes to my phone so I’d have them. I tried to discuss it with Grandma, but she wouldn’t do it. “Do what you think is best,” she said. She spent a lot of time in her bedroom.

  The next day, Officers Chang and Burganski came to see us. They explained that once Junior realized he was facing murder, he started to sing like the proverbial canary. Turned out his father was financing the whole Cheese Club operation. He’d gotten word almost immediately from Badassi about the heavy losses in the jungle and Badassi was asking for more funding to relocate and restaff. But Charles, Sr., along with his brother David, couldn’t launder the funds properly from the defense table at the courthouse and as long as the trial was on they were in custody. They had no grounds for a continuance, so Charles had asked Junior to create a mistrial. When Junior Googled it, the first thing listed was death of a jurist. He liked it and didn’t bother reading further. Because of his connection with Butte through WHEY, and a chance encounter with The Weather Ch
annel predicting the heavy rain, he easily came up with the plan to kill Grandma to create the mistrial by luring her to the graveyard. He hadn’t planned on having to fire the gun, which would trace the activity back to him. He was going to create the fiction of the grieving widow visiting the grave, upset by the continued disinterment because of the strike, and falling in, succumbing to the elements before anyone could find her.

  Mom was cremated later that same day, as per her wishes. It also allowed us all the time we wanted to get people together for a memorial service. In addition to the rest of the team, Miss Chiff, Dinny and Knobby would all come, too, though the latter three would arrive the day of and be leaving again after the service. The team would be staying with Grandma one or two nights, until she was ready to kick us out.

  A couple days later, we were expecting the guests to arrive when Grandma, sitting on the couch with a crochet project in her lap, called me over. We’d both been busy all day getting the house ready. It was only a one-floor bungalow, and Mom’s old room had long ago been turned into Crochet Storage, but Grandma had figured out a place for everyone and distributed pillows and blankets in preparation. She was watching the 5:00 P.M. News as she worked on something using a variegated tan, black, and blue yarn. For a while, I stood near her, wishing I had the ereader she’d gotten me, but I’d left it on the CURDS1. The house smelled deliciously of roast beef. Several pounds of potatoes were in a huge pot on the stove. I’d helped her peel and slice them earlier that day. “You know, Nitro’s a vegetarian,” I reminded her as I sliced.

  “I have Mac ‘N Smelty,” she replied. “Spiced up with some green peppers and mushrooms. Will that be all right?”

  It sounded like an odd concoction to me, but I assured her that he’d like it. “Keep the box to prove it’s Smelty.” Smelty wasn’t really cheese. It wasn’t susceptible to the effects of Uber Rennet, but most of us were still leery of anything close.

  “Of course.” She motioned toward the counter where the empty box stood on display. A large yellow star surrounded the phrase “Uber Free!” She wiped a tear that could have been from the onion she was chopping up for the roast.

  Now I watched her crochet, actually seeing some tension leave her body as she looped the yarn over the hook in her hands. “Strikes over,” she said, and counted eight stitches. “SEIU got them 7%, an extra vacation day, and a free plot for twenty years of service or when they die, whichever comes first. This time tomorrow, everyone will be back where they belong.” Except for Mom, I thought. She was in a lavender urn in the middle of the coffee table. Grandma patted the seat next to her. He eyes were red and puffy from crying and that just made things worse. Feeling numb, I sat next to her. “I want you to know I don’t blame you, Billings.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. In a way, I blamed myself. I felt like there was something I could have done differently, though I didn’t know what. Jump in front of the bullet? At the time, I didn’t even really think he would fire. Neither of us did. We were in control and de-escalate mode.

  “Well, no one lives forever,” she went on. “My great grandmother lived to be a hundred and ten. And for the last twenty years she was nuttier than a jar of Jif. She thought her right knee was a peacock and her left knee was a roadster. She’d roll around the courtyard of her nursing home in the wheelchair with me on her knee. She would only let me ride the peacock, you see. I was too young to ride the roadster.” Grandma went quiet for a minute and I wondered if she had maybe lost some marbles herself. That kind of thing often ran in families. “I was six when she died, but I remember.

  “Listen, you’re going to lose a lot of people in your life. If you don’t learn to say goodbye and move on, no matter what, you’ll lose the most important person of all. Yourself. It sounds cold. It feels cold. But it’s what you have to do. This one is hard. I’m a mother who has outlived her child and there is nothing worse than that.” Her voice hitched, new tears threatening, but she beat them down. “She died saving my life. And this,” she indicated the yarn in her lap, “is my life. Hardly seems fair, does it?”

  “Grandma.” I still didn’t know what to say.

  “I was seventeen when my grandmother passed, and I was twenty-six when my father smoked himself to an early grave, and thirty-three when my mother drank her way to hers. You were ten when your grandfather died, and now twenty-one when –.” It was a litany only a little less monotonous than the begats in the Bible. “Someday, you’ll lose me, too. You know that.”

  “Grandma,” I said again.

  “And life goes on.” She kept her eyes on the yarn, deliberately avoiding the urn on the table. Suddenly her hands dropped to her lap and she stopped crocheting. “This wouldn’t have happened if I had fought Butte more. All I had was this darn hook. Look at it. It’s not a weapon. You couldn’t puncture a fresh stick of butter with this thing. Maybe I should try knitting. Those needles are sharp. I could have stopped Butte with knitting needles. Ah!” Her eyes spun and her expression got a little wild for a minute. “Woodburning!” I reconsidered the reverse TRO to protect Butte from Grandma, but Dad would need to participate and he had disappeared. She picked up the crochet hook and started up again. “Would you check the potatoes for me, dear?”

  “Sure.” I got up and went into the kitchen. The potatoes were boiling, the water churning with white foam reminding me of the Congo River near Kinshasa. I felt that Grandma was done talking. I sat at the kitchen table listening to the water burble and the clock tick away the minutes, both looking forward to and dreading the arrival of my friends. Life goes on, she said.

  When the doorbell rang, I took a breath and went to answer it. They were all there, bags in hand, each of which whacked me in the back as I accepted hugs from everyone. I was a little disturbed when I got an unexpected reaction during my hug from Badger, until I realized it was because the twins were right behind him. My eyes were ahead of my arms and Captain Gung Ho, so named because he always salutes, was responding to them. A hug from the twins is something special. Not because I’m engaged to Avis, but because of the way they do it. It’s kind of a triple hug. Not only do both Avis and Agnes hug at the same time, but they wrap themselves around you in a human cocoon. “Thanks for coming, everyone,” I said.

  Grandma came to greet them, too, taking their coats one or two at a time and hanging them in the front closet. She began to direct each one to their sleeping quarters. “I’ve cleared floor area in the sewing room. I don’t have extra mattresses, but there are lots of pillows and blankets. There’s also space in my bedroom. You can draw lots for the bed and I’ll take the couch. And the rest can camp out here in the living room.”

  There were words of reassurance that we could all make do. It wasn’t important. I knew when the time came, no one would take her bed, either. By the time everyone was settled, dinner was ready. Grandma got plenty of compliments on the roast beef, and most of them even sampled the Mac ‘N Smelty, and they made a good show of an appetite that I could tell wasn’t there. I wasn’t hungry either, but I managed to down a reasonable amount.

  With so many people to help, clean up was a breeze and before long we were settling in for the night. Grandma started to lie down on the couch, but we insisted she take her own bed and she finally relented. The twins and I agreed to take the living room, where we moved the couch over to the wall, and moved the coffee table, complete with urn, up next to the television to clear the floor. Grandma helped us spread out a blanket for under and one for over. She looked up at me and down at the floor and up at me again. “No, this is no good.” The blanket was clearly too small. She disappeared into the sewing room and I could hear her apologizing for the interruption. A minute later she came back out carrying a huge crochet project in white, with purples and blues drizzled in. She dropped it on the couch. “I was going to save this for your wedding, but now is as good a time as any. Congratulations!”

  She unfolded a flap and pulled out the afghan. It seemed to go on forever, like one
of those strings of handkerchiefs that clowns pull out of their mouths. We spread it out and the edges folded in on themselves next to the wall and along the couch. “Oh my God,” I said. I gave her a hug and kissed her hair. “Thank you, Grandma. It’s gorgeous!

  “Oh, Mrs. Gumphy,” said Avis. “It’s wonderful.”

  “And so thoughtful,” added Agnes.

  Grandma was tearing up. “It was a pleasure. I hope you all are comfortable for the night.” She tagged my shoulder and I gave her my attention. “Now, normally, I would say no funny stuff, but that doesn’t matter now. If you need to comfort each other, you do it. I won’t mind a bit.” She stood on tiptoe and I met her halfway to accept a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, dears.”

  I laid down next to Avis under the giant afghan. “I love you,” I told her.

  The first time I’d slept with Avis had naturally been awkward, but we had also agreed that the idea of saving ourselves for marriage was a bit ludicrous. With their special situation, we really didn’t want to be figuring this out on our wedding night. I kept checking with Agnes to make sure she wasn’t left out, and I felt both bad for her and a bit lecherous, as if I was doing a three-way. Agnes reassured me as she closed her eyes and gave a slow, trembling sigh. “Trust me. I’m not left out.” Because they shared a blood vessel and artery and not just adipose tissue, Avis’ hormones affected her twin and vice versa. “But don’t tell. It’s kind of a conjoined twins secret. No one has to know.” So we let the others imagine whatever they wanted.