by Greg Jolley
All this snow and country was new to me having spent all my life in Inglewood, ten miles from where he and Mumm worked in Hollywood. I asked, once, why we were at the summer cottage in winter.
“Shut your pie hole.”
In Ann Arbor, I had called the mansion—no answer. I also tried to buy a newspaper in the motel office to see what news there was about Mumm, but I was struggling, throwing up a lot, and moving slow. Father spotted me, hooked my elbow, and turned me around.
“Guess I cracked your egg. Behave, or I’ll scramble it.”
THAT FIRST day at the cottage we had the single light from a bulb in the narrow kitchen, but no heat. Heidi Ho found two oil lanterns on a shelf and lit them with the box of stove matches. She tore a yellowed newspaper into strips and told me to put them in my shoes for warmth. I did.
I spent the late afternoon curled on the short couch, sometimes shivering, even though Heidi Ho had found a thin blanket for me. I searched the pantry and found a tin of saltines. After eating all of them, I decided to keep the tin. I placed the Luscious letters inside and buried the tin at the bottom of my satchel.
It was quiet and cold, and they were upstairs in the loft where they rhythmically bounced. Dust fell from the ceiling boards above me.
I stayed on the couch facing the lake-view window. Even with the strips of newspaper in my shoes, my feet were freezing, and I found it helpful to rub my toes together. I took out my View-Master as the sun glowed through cloud openings and used its light to illuminate my reels of 3D images. I don’t know why, but within the View-Master, faces were clear and focused, and I could see all the details of eyes.
The sun disappeared in the background of World War II Heroes. I moved an oil lantern to the windowsill as the last of the day’s light sank into the frozen lake. It began to snow.
In the middle of the night, I listened to Heidi Ho tiptoe down the narrow stairs and pour a glass of water at the tap. She must have seen me sit up because she offered me ice wrapped in a rag which I declined. She went up the stairs, and I curled back up on the short couch with my shoes still on under the thin blanket.
I was awakened before the dawn’s light by Father shouting down from the loft.
“Boy! Go and get my briefcase from the car!”
It was snowing, and my shoes and pant legs were wet when I returned from the auto. Heidi Ho was downstairs and took the briefcase from me without a word. I noted that her lips were void of lipstick and tried to envision her eyes before she climbed to the loft. I sat on the couch wishing that I hadn’t eaten all the saltines the day before.
The western sky lightened into a gray sweep over the flat silver lake. I could hear Father’s voice from time to time. He was speaking oddly, fast and repetitive, and I distinctly heard him say, “I’ve shed my skin, but I’m still a snake.” It was clear that he was working himself into a lather while Heidi Ho cooed, trying to sedate him.
She came down the steep wooden stairs after an hour of Father’s strange talk.
“He gave me cash. We’re to go to town for food and clothes. And more lanterns,” she explained.
I set my View-Master down with regret. I had been studying the eyes of famous men in American Presidents.
Once I got the automobile backed out, the drive was easy but slow. The snow was bumper deep. Heidi sat in the back with the cash. The little town of Wildwood had grand and tall buildings and homes with wraparound porches and wide, graceful front steps. Most of these structures were shuttered, and many long driveways led to empty lots of rubble. I suppose that the town had at one time seen its heyday, but the buildings and houses stood like weathered ghosts facing the frozen lake.
The grocery store was in the middle of town, and we parked right at the door—the lot was barren save for two snow-covered, rusted sedans. Heidi was pleased to discover that the place was more of a general store. In addition to food and lanterns, there were two shelves of clothing and a hanging rack of shirts, coats, and dresses.
On the drive back to the cottage, Heidi held a newspaper in shaky hands. At one point she said to herself, “I’m kicking it.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I focused on keeping the auto on the ill-defined, twisting road. When I braved a glance into the rearview mirror, her lips were sounding out the words below her pert nose and missing eyes. I was hoping that seeing eyes again would return even if it included Father’s dark and baggy ones.
At the cottage, Heidi carried the clothing inside, and I made two trips to bring in the cardboard boxes of food and lanterns. As I unpacked the groceries, Heidi fueled the new lanterns but didn’t light them. She placed them back inside a box and carried them out through the front door without explanation.
I took to my couch and, under the thin blanket, changed all my clothing save my vest. Looking out the lake window, I studied the dock. The one piece of clothing I had asked for at the store was a gray coat, and I pulled it on as I studied the line of white crusted boards extending out over the frozen water.
I was drawn out to the dock. Kicking snow off the boards, I walked out to its end. The ice on the lake looked like cellophane. Somewhere far under the ice, fish lived, and I wondered how.
There was a party over on the property farther along the east side of the lakeshore. Their place was a hundred yards away around the curve of the lake. It had electricity, lots of it like we had in Inglewood, and their many windows and doors were lit. I looked back up the dock to the narrow cottage and the single bulb in the open back door.
There was a group of eight men constructing something out on the ice on the lake, a bunch of fellows walking back and forth stacking and arranging. Some added furniture to the mound and others stacked and leaned timber.
Father’s voice began booming, like artillery, and Heidi joined the fracas, her voice panicked and pleading, her tone crisp and much higher than his.
I walked back up the dock to the shore and went inside. Father was still upstairs, but his ranting and cursing carried down those steep and narrow stairs. Heidi climbed down, her mouth quivering, her nose red and moist. She was carrying a shovel, and I watched her go out the front door with it.
She was gone—out in the cold—for a good two hours. During that time, I View-Mastered faces with eyes and thought about those men building that haphazard structure out on the ice.
When the sun began to set, I found a rusty can opener and ate a can of cold corn. Heidi came back inside, her clothing filthy with soil stains and her cheeks and hands smudged with dirt. She was shivering and cursing and stood at the sink where she washed up quickly. I watched her strip to her undies and pull on a pair of men’s tan corduroys and a checkered flannel shirt. I didn’t speak, and neither did she—not to me, anyway. She talked to herself under her breath, saying things I didn’t understand. All I caught was Father’s name over and over, “IM, IM…”
When she had climbed the stairs to Father’s voice, I listened for ten minutes trying to figure out what they were discussing. All I could hear was harsh whispering. I buttoned up my new gray coat and went out to the lake.
The sky was clear, and the sunset was a sideways explosion of gold and burgundy. I turned to the big home and the party and the structure on the ice. I could hear music and an occasional loud laugh carrying from the well-lit crowd on the patio and the gentle sloping, snow-covered lawn.
When darkness fell, a man carrying a red-glowing road flare started the fire on the lake. I assumed that gasoline or lantern oil had been poured because the bonfire rose fast. Standing in a clearing along the shore about halfway to the party, I watched the flames weave up through the furniture and timber, pouring black smoke upward. People were applauding and calling out to each other and laughing. Their voices carried over to me like false heat from the fire that I couldn’t feel but was nonetheless warmed by. I entered the tree line and followed the curve of the shore to the gathering.
Twenty yards from the big house, I thought I could feel the heat from the flames, but mayb
e not. Men and women and a few children were moving in the glow of the bonfire and the large lit windows and patio doors. Three men walked down the white lawn and out onto the lake to a structure of tubes and equipment. I watched them in the flickering light as they knelt and talked and worked.
“Hey,” a child’s voice called to me. “Wanna play?”
To my right, I saw a boy of about eight watching me over a low hedge.
“We’re celebrating daylight saving time ending,” he explained.
I looked back along the shore to our place. I was worried. Father had a really bad temper when he found me out of earshot. The boy was smiling and held a barbecued turkey leg in his hand. My thoughts of Father made that low hedge appear to rise.
The first firework launched from a tube with a gritty rush of wind and a gray tail following it into the black sky. It rose hundreds of feet and exploded in brilliant gold crystals. Those gathered on the patio and the lawn were shouting with delight and amazement, and another firework was launched with the same rushing sound, blasting glittering green sparks high, high above.
“Well?” the boy asked.
A million green stars were falling from above and blinking out before they reached land.
“We have lots to eat.”
I was hungry and fearful of Father finding me gone. When the boy took a hearty bite from the turkey leg, I climbed over the hedge.
I stayed on the perimeter of the festive crowd to the side and out of the direct light. Two other children, about the boy’s age, joined him, and I noticed him losing interest in me. The other two were lovely, chatting girls. Up above, two fireworks exploded at the same time, and we were all bathed in a blend of purple and yellow.
“Hungry?” the boy asked.
Without looking down to him, I answered, “Yes. Please.”
He walked up the lawn and entered the house. Through the tall, lake-view windows, he moved along the buffet set up in the warmly lit interior. I waded further into the crowd with their heads tilted back to watch the exploding sky, and I stood directly in between the bonfire and the house. Music was wavering from the home.
“No!” A man screamed from the lake.
I turned.
Out on the ice, he fell back, rolled, and scrambled to the row of tubes. A rocket launched, and the firework took off horizontally instead of skyward. A second later, a blue cascade of sparks exploded against the left wall of the house beside the double doors. People were yelling and ducking in the blue glow.
The boy walked through the doors with a plate in his hands.
Two men yelled from the lake, and I turned to them.
Despite their efforts, a second rocket took off. It skimmed like a missile and struck a lounge chair and dining table on the patio with a hot, silver, glittering explosion that sprayed the nearby partiers. There was screaming from the man at the tubes and the crowd as people ducked and hid. The only persons standing were the boy with the two girls holding plates with their jaws dropped.
I broke into a run.
Another rocket launched.
I began to shout as I ran, planning to tackle or knock him down.
“Get down! Get down!” I yelled.
Halfway to the boy, I tripped over a sprinkler head buried in the snow.
I fell, plowing snow into my face.
There was an explosion of orange against the second story of the house, and I rolled to my feet and ran for boy, screaming at him.
The next missile struck him square in the chest. He was slammed from his feet backward in through the doorway. His body was a silver hurricane of sparks and bright light and flying, burning goo.
The two girls were also hit and went down spinning and screaming. I ran across the patio, past huddling, kneeling guests, and toppled furniture.
I reached the boy. He was in flames, arms flailing, screeching in agony. A man braved the flames and climbed over the boy, hands pounding. Another tossed in a tablecloth, and the man and boy rolled. The tablecloth caught fire in the arcing spray of flame and silver. The man’s clothing caught fire, but he kept pounding the boy’s body and the spewing, bright molten flame.
I was knocked down, and I knelt on the patio bricks where I watched men and women swarm the boy and the two girls with water and tablecloths. The boy stopped screaming before the fire on him was extinguished.
I knelt there in the chaos. My attempt to save him had failed. The dinner plate that the boy had been bringing me was upside down on the patio, and I stared at it while the two girls and others screamed and cried out.
The smell was ghastly—hot phosphorous and burning, boiling flesh.
A HALF-HOUR later, an ambulance arrived from the city, and the bonfire had weakened to just below head height. All the people had moved inside, and I could see them through the windows. The patio was scattered with overturned furniture and discarded paper plates and cups. I stood up so I could watch the ambulance driver in the crowd. He and his partner were on their knees with an open medical box working frantically to save those two little girls.
When the ambulance headed off into the night, I walked to the big window and put my hands on the glass. The scene inside was full of grief and sadness. A fight broke out among three of the men, and I stood in the snow watching the brawl of fists and kicks until it ended.
Eventually, the partygoers thinned out, and I turned away. The bonfire was at a low ebb. Across the curve of the lake that single light bulb lit the cottage. I climbed over the low hedge and entered the trees and brush making my way back.
The cottage was silent. I stood still just inside the lake door for five minutes with my ears expectant and aimed to the loft. No creaking ceiling boards, no voices.
I wondered if Father and Heidi had found sleep. I noticed that the front door was open because a cold draft was crossing to me. Instead of climbing the stairs for a peek, I walked to the front door and out through it, closing it behind me.
I walked along the side of the windowless wall. When I turned the corner of the house, I saw lantern light out in the trees. Four had been lit and set out in a rectangle behind wooden frames draped with white sheets. The structures of thin linen glowed from within. A single, low silhouette of a head and shoulders rocked side to side.
I walked closer and paused with my hand on the front curtain.
Father was ranting but doing so low and softly. Heidi was sobbing.
“Must be a better solution,” she tried, her voice wet with tears.
“We have our pact, our agreement,” he replied, deep and sure.
I parted the linen and looked inside.
There was a pit surrounded by lanterns.
Father stood in the hole, his clothing slicked with mud and his fedora and shoulders white with fresh snow.
“There’s our dimwitted third wheel,” he spotted me.
“Sit, boy,” he demanded.
I did on the dirt mound beside a shovel. My butt wanted to slide until I planted my paper-filled shoes, heels first. Heidi sat on the edge of the hole, arms locked across her chest. Father gave her a come here gesture with his big hand. She stopped crying.
She slid down, mucking up her shoes, clothing, and handbag. She stood beside him and his briefcase and a shotgun I hadn’t noticed before.
The snow was falling harder. They both looked tan in the lantern light. Heidi had changed into her travel dress and held her purse in both hands. Her head was turning from Father’s to me. I watched Father’s nose and mouth. He was offering a stream of gibberish which he broke off.
“Boy. Welcome to our big finale. This will unite us all. Climb down here. Onto the stage, so to…”
He didn’t finish. I slid down the wall of snow and mud into the shallow pit that was wide enough to bury a piano in. I pressed my back against the wall facing Father and Heidi, who stood by his side.
“Good, boy. Say that you admire this well-lighted theatre.”
I did.
He offered Heidi the shotgun, and she took it after
setting her purse on the snow and mud at her feet.
“What happened to Mumm?” I braved. I watched his wide lips pinch and his jaw chew to the side.
“Her? Yes, we could offer a prayer for her…her beautiful face and slutty ways, but no. She departed earlier. Whisked right off the stage and into the wings.”
I tried to make sense of that. He interrupted me. “Boy, stop that. Moving your head like some godforsaken typewriter.”
I stopped the sweeping nod I was tracing and searching his words with.
“I’m packed and ready to go,” he went on, his hands twisting on the handle of his briefcase. “Miss Ho will leave first. Then you. I’ll depart last. This is my movie, so I get the very last scene.”
“I’ve kicked the horse and tar,” she was hesitating, teeth chattering. “Doesn’t have to go this way.”
Father turned slowly to her, head tilted to one side.
“So? Your future is nothing. Bent over, being pumped by strangers until you’re a hag.”
Heidi got an elbow to the ribs and coughed in pain. She tilted the barrel of the shotgun toward her face and began to cry again.
Father struck her hard with the back of his hand, and she yelped, and he reached out to me. His big hand opened, and I saw a shotgun cartridge. He nodded toward the rifle in Heidi’s hands and explained, “It only holds two. I get this one.”
I looked to Heidi with the barrel before her mouth.
“Miss Ho, do as scripted. Hit your marks.”
Heidi’s hands were shaking. She adjusted the length of the shotgun and placed the barrel between her lips and slid it in an inch.
“Oh. Pause,” Father said, “I do love that image. Okay, and thank you. It’s a picture I’ll lovingly take to…well, you know.”
“I forgot my satchel,” I said, hoping to break the spell of madness, a reason to climb out of the pit.
“No matter,” Father said.
He turned from her and locked his hand on my arm and tugged. My feet tangled on themselves in the snow and mud.