by J. D. Barker
10
“You’re a fucking drunk.”
Dewitt Matteo sat across from Willy and me in the same conference room, same chairs, Gerdy and I had sat in three months earlier. Even his brown tweed suit appeared to be the same.
Matteo tapped his pen on the top of a lined pad of yellow notebook paper. He had yet to write anything. “You’re as pale as a hemophiliac after donating blood, and you’re sweating.”
“It’s warm in here.”
“It’s seventy degrees in here,” he shot back. “You’re a fucking drunk, and your body is craving a taste.”
I said nothing.
“I told your aunt you couldn’t be trusted on your own. A teenage boy with no supervision. She swore up and down that you were a good kid, that you could take care of yourself. In the past few months, I fielded dozens of calls from your school and social services. When you took it upon yourself to stop attending class, your principal called the county. Do you have any idea how hard it was to put that fire out and keep them from checking on you? That’s not the worst of it, though. The worst has been that neighbor of yours, your so-called ‘guardian.’” His chubby fingers formed air quotes. “Apparently you missed some kind of grocery delivery, and she lit up my phones a couple times an hour. Poor Tess had to run to the store for her and make a delivery. Be ready to see a hefty bill for that against the estate. My office is not a delivery service.”
“I’m sorry.”
Matteo stopped tapping. “I know you’ve been through some shit, kid, more than anyone should ever have to deal with, but you gotta pull yourself together. This needs to stop, or pretty soon there won’t be a way back.”
My hand started shaking again. I put both on my lap, under the table.
“Do I need to send you to some kind of rehab?”
He asked the question of me, but he was looking at Willy when he asked it. Both Willy and I shook our heads.
“I can stay with him for a few days,” Willy offered. “I got Gatorade, like you said. There’s no alcohol left in the apartment. My big brother had a drinking problem, and I helped my mom detox him. The first couple days will be rough, but then it gets better. I know what to do.”
Matteo eyed him, looked him up and down, then turned back to me. “Your aunt gave me a list of your friends. Next to this one’s name, she wrote the word ‘responsible’ and underlined it. She was a smart woman.”
He leaned back in his chair and thought for a second. “How much money do you have in your pocket?”
I wasn’t sure. I reached in and pulled out a wad of cash from the left front pocket of my jeans and a few coins from my right. I set my small fortune on the table and counted it out. “Twenty-four dollars and thirty-eight cents.”
Matteo reached over and slid the cash in front of Willy. “You hold that.”
Willy stared at him, confused.
The attorney turned back to me. “For the next few months, your stipend from the trust will be paid out directly to Mr. Trudeau here. He will buy your groceries when he goes shopping to buy whatever your crazy neighbor throws on her list. Absolutely nothing will be spent on alcohol, drugs, prostitutes, gambling, or whatever other vices you’ve decided to sample of late.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I’ve only been drinking, but he silenced me with a glance.
“What trust?” Willy asked.
Matteo held up a finger, quieting him too. “In exchange for your trouble, Mr. Trudeau, you will be paid a salary of one hundred dollars per day, also from the trust. You will keep Mr. Thatch clean and out of trouble. The second he steps out of line, you pull him back. If you don’t pull him back, I put an end to your newfound wealth. Stay in his apartment as long as necessary. Understand?”
Before he could answer, Matteo turned back to me. “The conditions of your trust are very clear, and I plan to honor your aunt’s wishes. In order to collect the balance, you must graduate from college. You can’t graduate college if you don’t graduate high school, and you can’t graduate high school if you don’t go. When school starts back up next month, I expect you to be there. You need to finish out your senior year, keep the grades up, and get into Penn State. No more fucking around. Do you think you can do that?”
My head was pounding. The headache had started behind my left eye and grew from there, reaching out with exploratory fingers. The shaking of my hand had migrated south to my leg. I forced it to stop jumping under the conference table. I thought about the small fifth of Captain Morgan spiced rum in my dresser back home, the one Gerdy had swiped from Willy’s party a while back. I wondered if Willy had found that one.
“Yes sir,” I said, although somehow I already knew I would never set foot in Brentwood High School again.
Log 08/08/1993—
Interview with Dr. Helen Durgin. Subject “D” within expected parameters.
Audio/video recording.
“Tell me about Edward ‘Jack’ Thatch,” Subject “D” said.
“What would you like to know?”
“Why do they allow him to keep seeing Stella?”
“Because she wishes for it. His visits are a form of reward.”
“A reward? Like a dog gets a treat when it rolls over?”
“I suppose something like that,” Dr. Durgin replied.
“And my reward has been what? More time in this box?”
“You see Stella, too. You received books and music. An education.”
Subject “D” laughed at this. “You realize I never once met any of my teachers? They sit on the other side of the glass while I’m in here. They read to me from textbooks, answer my questions around that ridiculous delay. I’ve never been told their names. I never see their faces. They don’t praise me when I excel or criticize me when I fail. I could close my eyes and take a nap. I imagine they would go right on reading, lecturing, one eye on the clock and the other on the door, but unwilling to look at me. None of them really care about me any more than you do. I’m just a lab rat to you. The afterthought of some long-ago experiment gone awry. I’m a happy side effect living to fill your journals, your tapes, clean up their mess.”
“You’re dangerous. You need to be contained.”
“I suppose. Containment can be a funny thing, though. Do you understand the basic principal of a pipe bomb?”
Dr. Durgin said nothing.
“A pipe bomb uses a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe itself means a simple low explosive can be used to produce a relatively large explosion. You see, the containment causes increased pressure, amplifies the destructive power. If you put a bomb in a box, the resulting devastation will be far worse than if you set off the same bomb in the middle of an open field. I’ve been in my box for a very long time, Doctor.”
“Stella is also in a box, albeit, a much larger box.”
“Why isn’t Thatch in a box of his own?”
Dr. Durgin did not respond.
“He doesn’t deserve Stella,” Subject “D” said. “Hand me that glass of water.”
Without hesitation, the doctor did as she was told.
—Charter Observation Team – 309
11
“Well, ain’t that some shit.”
Preacher parked his black Pontiac GTO in his usual spot on Willock Road and walked up the steep hill to Brownsville Road, then down the block to Krendal’s Diner, what remained of Krendal’s Diner. The picture windows were covered in large sheets of plywood. The glass door had been replaced with a large steel monstrosity secured with a padlock. A sign was bolted to the center of the door at eye level:
CONDEMNED
This Structure Is Declared Unfit
For Human Occupancy Or Use.
It Is Unlawful For Any Person To
Use Or Occupy This Building
Any Unauthorized Person Removing This Sign
WILL BE PROSECUTED
Preacher’s first thought at reading this sign was the poor use of grammar
. Conjunctions should not be capitalized. Preacher’s second thought when reading this sign, when taking in the entirety of the destruction upon which it was attached, was, what the hell happened?
He ate here the day before the Gargery woman’s funeral—steak and eggs—his usual.
He ran his finger along the edge of the metal window frame, his gloved hand coming away with soot. He made it a point to be informed. He did not like being uninformed.
With the death of the Gargery woman, he had no longer been required to make monthly deliveries of cash to the boy.
That was good.
That was real good.
Because it left time for other jobs.
He avoided this armpit of a city for three and a half months. He liked to stay on the move, a change of scenery. He liked to get his hands dirty, and this Pittsburgh job had been beneath him from the get-go. This hands off, observation only, delivery-boy bullshit was not what he signed up for. A waste of his talent.
That would change today, and that was exciting.
That got the blood pumping through his aging ticker.
The diner, though, the diner bothered him.
An unknown variable.
He didn’t like unknown variables.
Another cloud drifted past the sun. This one dark and gray, and ready to burst. The temperature dropped too, a cold breeze kicking up. Rain soon. Heavy rain.
The payphone behind him began to ring.
Preacher considered pulling down the sign, then left it.
He crossed the sidewalk and picked up the call with his gloved hand, careful not to let the receiver actually touch his ear. “You didn’t say anything about the diner.”
“The diner?”
“Looks like some kind of fire. What happened?”
“The diner fire is unrelated. It doesn’t concern you. I figured you would have heard.”
“I’ve been in Arkansas.”
A sigh. “Good for you.”
“Was the boy…?”
“No. He’s fine.”
Preacher glanced down at his watch. Ten minutes until six. “Are we still a go?”
“Yes. Are you ready?”
That was a stupid question. He was always ready. “Yes.”
“Nobody lives, understand?”
That last bit made him forget the stupid question.
He couldn’t wait.
12
One block away, only two parking spaces down from where the surveillance van used to park before Duncan Bellino moved out of the apartment building located at 1822 Brownsville Road, Detectives Faustino Brier and Joy Fogel sat in a cream-colored Honda Civic pulled from the motor pool earlier in the day. They didn’t want to drive their regular vehicles, not today, on the off chance the Thatch kid recognized either of them.
Faustino watched the man who drove the black Pontiac GTO hang up the payphone and walk back toward Willock. He probably parked in the same place as the last time he saw him.
“I’ll stay on him,” Faustino said. “You follow the boy.”
“Got it,” Fogel replied, already climbing out of the car, eyeing the dark clouds above warily.
13
Turns out, Willy had found the small bottle of Captain Morgan in my top dresser drawer. The bottle hadn’t been hidden or anything, just sitting in the middle of some old comics, loose coins, random school assignments, a half-full box of condoms, and some drawings not worthy of display but not quite bad enough to throw out.
I want to be clear about something. I didn’t really need alcohol. Not now, and not back then. I’m not, and never was, an alcoholic. I’ve met a few in my time, more than a few—alcoholism is a horrible disease that lives far beyond the need to numb some feelings. Alcoholism lives within the cells, a hungry animal screaming to be fed. Maybe that comes later, but what I had wasn’t that. At least, I didn’t think so. I simply wanted to forget. I wanted to wipe away the last year. I wanted to go back to a time when I didn’t know the medications needed to treat acute myeloid leukemia by heart. I missed Auntie Jo’s incessant complaining, I missed the warmth of Gerdy’s hand, I missed the heat of Krendal’s kitchen and the greasy feeling of the dishwater after a dinner rush.
The last year of my life had been a nightmare, and I wanted to wake from it. I couldn’t wake from it, so I tried to forget instead. Alcohol allowed me to do that, even if just for a little while. I suppose had I spotted the remainder of Auntie Jo’s pain meds after the fire, after leaving the hospital, had I found her pain meds and sampled those rather than that first bottle of Jameson, it might have been pills that helped me forget rather than alcohol, but it would have been something. I needed something. If I hadn’t found some way to slip away from the pain, some way to numb the pain, I surely would have taken Auntie Jo’s pills by the handful and put a more permanent stop to my horrific ride. It’s silly to say alcohol saved me, but in some ways it did. Alcohol saved me from myself.
The first few days after the last drink were tough.
The shakes came and went, tag teaming with fever and sweats and dry mouth. I couldn’t keep food down, not that I really wanted to eat. My body threw up everything, heaving until my throat grew raw. I had trouble sleeping, and when I finally did drift off, I’d wake with attacks of anxiety, my heart racing so fast it felt like a motor stuck in the wrong gear attempting to chug up a hill. This passed after a few days, but it might as well have been months. Time made little sense to me.
Willy stayed with me the entire time. Matteo talked to him several times. I’m not sure what exactly they worked out, but Willy returned the first night with a large suitcase. I told him to take Auntie Jo’s room, but he opted to remain on the couch. Something about moving into that space seemed taboo, even to him.
When I asked for a drink, he gave me cranberry juice instead. I drank so much cranberry juice my piss turned red. This should have been cause for concern, but my body ached so bad at that point, I think I welcomed death—a little red piss was surely a step in the right direction.
On the third day, the shaking stopped. I told Willy about the life insurance money, the trust. I explained in detail what Matteo originally told me. My allowance, the college requirement, my part-time guardian across the hall paid via grocery delivery and the occasional book.
I filled him in on the years between. My trips to the cemetery, each one since our failed meeting ending in my cracked up bike back in ’88. I told him what little I knew of Dunk. I told him about my visit to Stella’s house last year, I told him about the little room in the basement, I told him about Raymond Visconti and how he was found the next day in the same alley across from Krendal’s as Andy Olin Flack years earlier.
I told him everything.
And Willy listened.
Through all, I caught him more than once glancing through my bedroom door at the drawings of Stella or toward the dusty stack of posters still sitting on the table near the kitchen. When I finally finished, he asked me one simple question. “Do you love her?”
To which I answered, “I don’t know.”
“I’m drawn to her,” I explained. “I don’t think a single day, maybe even a single waking hour, has passed where I haven’t thought about her. It’s been like that since I was a little kid. When I’m with her, even if only for a brief time, I feel complete, I feel whole.” To say these things out loud brought Gerdy to mind, and the guilt crushed me.
I’m okay being the other girl.
Was it possible to love two different girls? I was beginning to think it was. Not exactly the same love, different kinds of love, each one filling a different void.
Did I love Stella? I did. Maybe I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud, but I surely did.
Did I love Gerdy? I wanted to, but I didn’t. Not at first, anyway. Maybe now, yes, but not at first. And admitting such a thing made everything hurt that much more.
Perhaps that was the difference, if there could be one.
I couldn’t not love Stella, even if I tried.
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Knowing I would see her soon got me through this past week, through the withdrawal, got me past the alcohol. At least this time.
“It’s almost six,” Willy finally said. “You need to go.”
Outside, dark storm clouds cluttered the evening sky, thick raindrops smacked against Auntie Jo’s window. I nodded and started for the door.
“You should bring an umbrella,” Willy suggested.
“Don’t have one!” I called back from the hallway.
I wasn’t about to let a little rain slow me down, not today.
If not for the rain, I might have noticed Faustino Brier’s Partner, Detective Fogel, round the corner of my building and follow me toward the cemetery.
I paused at my parents’ graves beneath the dripping leaves of the large maple, rain splashing all around. Although the downpour hadn’t started very long ago, the ground was already spongy. Three graves now beneath that tree, the grass around Auntie Jo’s filled in and blending with the others. The vases attached to each gravestone overflowed, the metal lined with rust stains. Neither of my parents’ vases held flowers. I hadn’t been here for months, not even after the funerals for Gerdy, Krendal, and the others from the diner. I just couldn’t.
Kneeling in the wet grass, I peeled away the maple leaves sticking to the surface of the stones, wiped the grime away with rainwater and my hand.
“Kaitlyn Gargery Thatch. February 16, 1958 to August 8, 1980. Loving wife, mother, and sister,” I said softly.
My father’s grave sat in silence beside hers, somehow condemning my recent behavior. The minimal words on his stone were representative of the few words he would speak when angry with me, the silence often more punishment than any anything he could say aloud.
“I’m getting it together,” I said to both of them. “It’s been a rough patch, but I’ve got it now. I’ll come back when the weather breaks, clean this up.”
The vase attached to Auntie Jo’s gravestone did contain a flower, a single daisy, now dead and shriveled. I wondered who put it there.