It’s me against you now, truck.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait . . .
The truck is coming toward me now, the momentum of the hill speeding it up. It almost looks for a second to be slipping in the mud but then it rights itself, barreling down the driveway.
It crosses my mind now that if, say, I don’t manage to throw this mystery plastic baggie combo and if, say, I don’t manage to hit the driver’s side with it . . . this truck could very likely barrel straight down the hill smack-dab into me. Little old mud rock me just sitting by the side of the road.
Wait.
Wait.
Barreling truck.
Barreling truck.
Wait.
And . . .
WHOOOOOOOOSSSHHH.
There it goes.
7
THERE ARE ONLY so many things a mysterious gooey liquid combo trapped in plastic baggies can do. I mean, it’s not like it’s going to hit the front windshield and turn into a chicken. Or fly up into the air and turn into a spaceship.
But what it actually does is just right.
Because what this baby actually does do, upon impact, is explode.
BOOOOM!
As soon as the plastic baggie combo makes impact with the windshield it ignites, setting off a kaboom that sets off a series of precise and exquisite events, each one leading to the next in perfect combination. Like a Rube Goldberg contraption.
First, the driver freaks the heck out at the blast, jumping three feet into the air. Maybe four.
Second, he loses control of the steering wheel because he happens to be three feet in the air.
Third, the truck, now left to its own devices sans steering wheel, loses control and begins to go off the edge of the driveway.
Fourth, the wheels of the truck, now off the driveway, go sloshing through the mud, now taking the truck farther into chaos.
Fifth, the wheels of the front of the truck get stuck, but the wheels of the back of the truck are still wanting to move forward.
And sixth, beautifully sixth, the back of the truck comes forward, essentially jackknifing the truck across the driveway and blocking it for any of the other trucks.
So, let’s say, if you were the Midwestern Mastermind, sitting in the back of the line of giant white trucks, impatiently waiting, what you would see is a giant explosion up front, a crash, and a resulting white semitruck strewn across the road in just the precise way to make it impossible for any of the other trucks to get by it.
Genius.
I look back up the hill at Henry, who is standing there in the distance, proud.
I shake my head. Whatever that was, and however that happened, I am in awe.
We look at each other and I pretend bow.
What? I’m part of this, too, you know. I’m the one who threw that mystery plastic baggie combo, risking life and limb. Lest we forget.
I could really dance a jig right now, even in my mud costume.
But there is a new issue.
As I look up the driveway I see the skinny but rapidly growing figure of a man who has a face the color of a lobster and steam coming out of his ears.
I can’t dance a jig now. I will have to dance a jig later. Right now all I can do is slowly, casually step backward, crouching down with each step to become one with the earth again. A kind of primordial reverse of Darwin’s evolution. I am coming back from whence I came. Back into the mud and the mire, back to my life as a single-cell amoeba!
The Midwestern Mastermind doesn’t even stop his momentum down the long, flooded hill. He just keeps going full tilt the entire way down and then flings himself at the driver.
“Are you allergic to success?!”
The driver looks up at him, dazed from the accident. “Wh-what?”
“Do you hate money? Are you an idiot? What the heck happened?!!”
The driver’s eyes roll back into his head.
And he promptly faints.
8
I HAVE TO hand it to Henry. Not only did he just launch a plunger into the air like it was a bow and he was Robin Hood, he created an exploding chemical reaction, thereby jackknifing a semitruck . . . and as a result caused one heck of a distraction.
Every single truck driver has opened their doors to come out and take a gander at the crash, the truck, and the sight of the Midwestern Mastermind hopping around like a deranged chicken. It is now that I realize I never quite understood the expression “hopping mad.” Seeing the Mastermind, not thirty feet away, flailing his arms like a rabid seagull while hopping from one foot to the other has really solidified it for me.
I get clips of the words, through the rain, which has now picked up, of course. Gone is the drizzle and now back to cats and dogs it is!
“You . . . fnjrefinfejfi! I can’t believe . . . iafifihfu! This is the most . . . ijafiirrg!” He squawks from the side of the driveway, the truck driver leaning away from his bile and possible spit.
He hops again. “It’s like I hired the Marx Brothers!”
At this the actual Marx brothers appear behind him. In ghostly form.
One of them, Groucho, winks at me. “I resemble that remark.”
He billows in front of me, puffing on his cigar.
“Um. Not that I mean to sound ungrateful. Or uncharmed. Because I am. But what, exactly, are you doing here?” I ask.
“What are we doing here? What are you doing here?! I mean, have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”
He does have a point there.
“Okay, okay. Yes, this is not one of my better looks.” I shrug.
“Look, it’s no good just sitting there like a lump on a bog. I mean a bump on a log.” He waves his cigar.
Behind him, down the road, the sound of muffled swear words continue.
Groucho leans in. “No, sir. You gotta fight, gotta get up and fight. Why look at me! I’ve worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty!”
I can’t help smiling.
“No, sir, you gotta get up! Get up and get up there and help your brother before he turns into a clam!” he exclaims.
I brush the mud off me.
Groucho is right. There’s enough distraction down here for a while.
“But how should I—”
I turn back to Groucho and his brothers. But they have disappeared into the pouring rain. The only thing left is the faint smell of cigar smoke wafting through the air.
9
HALFWAY UP THE muddy hill I realize I don’t see Henry. I mean, yes, it was his ingenious plan to crash the truck at the bottom of the hill and, yes, he had given me the thumbs-up gesture from high above my muddy ditch, but since Groucho and his gang showed up, he seems to have disappeared.
Up up up the hill I climb, still covered in mud, still camouflaged . . . now not only by the mud but by the firelit chaos behind me. At one point I look back at the Midwestern Mastermind and his tweedles, trying and failing to dislodge one of the tires. Yes, I am proud of my work. I stand there, looking down at them as they grumble.
“I did that.”
Small solace to a mud-covered girl in the rain but, hey, you have to take it where you can get it.
I keep expecting Henry to pop out from somewhere up on the landing dock, but he is nowhere to be found.
At this point, I’m wondering what, exactly, I should be doing. Yes, I need to find the black SUV with Zeb and Binky. This, I understand. But Groucho told me to help my brother!
Hopefully, I can find Henry and he will have already invented another genius scheme. Otherwise, I will definitely have to put my thinking cap on.
Passing the line of trucks up the driveway is a bit surreal. Every truck door is open, some of them even blinking, one with a constant ding ding ding. Each driver has abandoned his post, fled down the hill to somehow get that jackknifed truck out of the driveway. I shake my head. I gotta hand it to Henry.
“Pssst! Eva!” The urgent whisper comes from behind a willow acacia to
my right, up the slope.
“Henry! Wow. Do you see this?” I gesture down the hill at the chaotic scene below. “I mean, you have really outdone yourself.”
Henry takes a bit of pride in his work. “Yes, I must say, that was more satisfying than I could have imagined. I wasn’t quite sure the alkaline lithium from the batteries would mix with the water at impact, so, yes, that was extremely fulfilling.”
“Is that what that was? You made that from batteries you found in the utility closet? Oh, Henry. That was inspired!”
He turns red, sheepish, and now decides he’s more comfortable just changing the subject altogether.
“Eva, I think the black SUV reversed down the servant’s entrance, due to the inclement weather. I’m not certain if there’s an exit that way but if there is—”
“Zeb!” I crash in over Henry, spotting the SUV in the distance, heading in the exact opposite direction as the truck debacle.
“Is it possible there’s a back entrance? But that’s impossible. I’m fairly certain the only entrance is down the driveway. In fact, we are on a mountain.” He thinks. “Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” I ask.
“Unless . . . there’s a . . . secret passageway?” Henry turns to look at the headlights of the SUV making their way toward the mountain in the downpour.
“No, there can’t be.” I look. Following the lights of the black SUV.
“Perhaps that is where the rest of the minions are meant to escape. The ones left guarding the wedding guests,” he suggests.
The two of us look up to the arched windows of the wedding chapel. The warm glow emitted gives no hint to the down-and-dirty hostage situation within. In fact, you could easily see that from the road and think, “Awww . . . they’re having some sort of nighttime service.”
Henry keeps his eyes on the onyx SUV winding its way up the side of the mountain.
“If there is a path there, it’s definitely not in the guidebooks,” Henry notes.
“If there is a path there . . . I definitely don’t see it. Do you?”
“No, Eva. No, I positively do not. A passage through the mountain, the engineering alone would cost millions.” He thinks.
We look at each other.
“Well, it’s not like Hearst didn’t have millions.” I say the obvious.
“Point taken,” he admits.
Our eyes stay mesmerized by the SUV, now looking like a beetle with lights, finding its way in the distance. It’s getting farther and farther away but even in this deluge, I feel like I can almost make out a trace of a little boy in the passenger seat.
A boy with a mop of blond hair, painted in blue.
10
THE FIRST TIME Henry came home with his new friend, I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know what to do.
If my parents were alive, which is something I find I say to myself more times than I care to admit, they would say I should do zero. Nothing. Just be myself. Exist. And let Zeb exist alongside us and see how it goes.
My mother would have opened her arms to Zeb just as she has opened her arms to everyone from Chattanooga to Timbuktu. My father probably would have tried to engage Zeb in conversation about the Dodgers, the Lakers, the LA River project, or any other topic that he could dig out from his giant brain that would put Zeb at ease. Not that Zeb needs to be put any more at ease. If he was any more at ease he would melt into the surf.
As it was, no one was home but the three of us kids and Marisol, so I chose to meet Zeb with a certain amount of caution.
However, after weeks and weeks of watching Henry and Zeb, Zeb and Henry, building a two-story Lego supercomplex, complete with irrigation system, outlet mall, and furniture store called “Furniture R Us,” I decided that Zeb was all right in my book. Even if he was from the dreaded and somehow irritating Los Angeles.
Of course, as months went by, it became clear from all of our interactions that maybe my earlier view of his birthplace was a little . . . close-minded?
It was a moment of self-reflection. My parents would not have been proud.
As Zeb’s dad became more and more involved with his betrothed, Binky, it seemed like Zeb was over at our house about forty percent of his life. Which was fine with us. Henry liked having him around. Henry liked him.
And I liked him. Despite not wanting to. Despite myself.
In fact, I kind of came to see him as a sort of secret little brother, a happy-go-lucky one. So now I had not one but two kid brothers to worry about. But there was still something, some unnamed thing, that irked me. Something that tended to flare up every now and again. Something I couldn’t explain.
Again, sometimes I think I don’t really understand feelings.
So, the point of this is . . . watching Zeb being spirited away up the hill in the torrential downpour is like watching a black SUV drive away with Henry’s arm, or his toe, or his heart.
And no one gets a piece of my brother. No one.
11
“HENRY, WE HAVE to do something! We can’t just stand here while Zeb is whisked away to God knows where—”
“Yes, yes. I’m thinking. I’m thinking,” Henry replies.
But before he can finish I see something and have decided on my own plan of action.
“Follow me!” I tell him, heading toward the far end of the loading dock.
“What? What are we doing exactly?” Henry asks.
“The golf carts! We are stealing a golf cart,” I answer.
“We are?”
There’s a row of white golf carts in the corner. Five, to be exact. Of course, the keys are nowhere to be found.
“Keys, keys, keys, keys. If I were the keys, where would I be?” I’m talking to myself.
“Probably in . . .” Henry looks around and then points. “There.”
He’s pointing inside a sort of mini office there tucked into the loading dock. Yes, that is exactly where I would be if I were a key.
“Okay, you get in. I’ll grab the keys.” I run into the tiny office, scrambling through the papers and ledgers, some motor oil, and a few hot-rod calendars.
“Wait? Does this mean I’m driving?” Henry calls out.
“Yes!” I answer. Scramble scramble scramble. Behind the motor oil? No. Under this biblical pile of receipts? No. In this metal desk? No. Think think think. Ah! There, the closet.
“I’m not sure if I’m very good at driving!” Henry yells out.
“I’m sure you’re fine. When was the last time you tried it?” Yes, there. Inside the closet door. A row of keys.
There are only about fifty of them.
Ugh.
“The last time I drove?”
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing the keys.
“I believe that would be . . . never,” Henry adds.
I look at him. Okay, this is not good.
“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Try this key.” I hand him a silver one.
“No.”
“This one.” It has a red tag attached.
“No.”
“What about this one?” This one has a blue tag attached.
“Not even close.”
I hand him a smaller, gold one. “How about this?”
“No.”
“This?” That one has a black rubber thing around it.
“There must be a more efficient way to do this.”
“Do you know how to hot-wire a golf cart?” I ask.
“Most assuredly not,” he answers.
“Then keep looking.” I hand him a smaller silver one.
“This one?”
“I think we already tried that one.” He squints.
“Okay, this one.”
“Wait. Waaaa . . . aaait.” He hesitates a moment and . . .
Click.
The key turns.
The engine starts.
“It’s working!” I leap in the air.
“Yes! Small problem. I don’t know how to drive.” Henry dampens the mood.
“Well, haven’t you played like a video game or something where you’re supposed to be driving a race car or something?” I ask.
“Video game?” Henry looks at me. “Have you met . . . me?”
And he’s right. Our parents never let him play video games. Except sometimes Minecraft.
“If you want me to build you a ferromagnetic fluid reaction, well, see exhibit A.” He points back down the hill at the tangle of trucks. “But steering an actual vehicle? In analog? I don’t think so.”
“Fine. Scooch over.”
“Is that really the best solution?” Henry ponders.
“We have to do something! And this is the only game in town.”
“Fine. But I must insist you wear your seat belt.” He secures his own with a click.
“Fine.”
I fasten mine. Click.
And then yes, okay, I hit the gas a little too hard and the two of us go careening forward, nearly clipping the bumper of one of the remaining golf carts. I admit it. Henry screams.
“No, I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” I say.
But I so don’t have it.
We are lurching forward up the back service driveway, slippery road beneath us, careening this way and that.
After a moment of silence, Henry pipes up.
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“What?” I say, trying to concentrate on the road.
“The only game in town,” he answers.
“What’s wrong with that?” I swerve to not hit a tree.
“It’s just so unlike you.”
“What do you mean?” I swerve to not hit another tree.
“It just sounds a bit . . . contrived.” He thinks.
“Contrived?! We’re about to steer off this roadway into the abyss and you are calling my language contrived?!” I swerve to not hit a rock, then overcorrect, nearly steering us off the road.
“I’m just saying it didn’t feel quite genuine,” he adds.
“Genuine?! I genuinely believe I am risking my life and limbs here, and yours, too, now that I think of it, trying to rescue your friend who showed up one day and just sort of oozed into our lives and became like the most important person in your world! Which is irksome—especially when I genuinely believe that very first most important person to you was always . . . me! So I would appreciate it if you saved your linguistic and driving criticism and instead thanked me for helping this total random stranger who seems to have totally eclipsed me!”
Henry & Eva and the Famous People Ghosts Page 12