Babbicam

by Rod Madocks

  Doctor Kaiser: Yes, I’ve explained your heart is not strong enough to perfuse your organs. It’s pumping very weakly.

  —Good word that, ‘perfuse’, I like it. I don’t mind saying I’m worried about you, doctor. You work too hard and your eyes have big dark circles under them. You spend too much time here for one thing.

  Doctor Kaiser: Thank you for your concern.

  —My body might be shot but my mind’s still good. I can tell you are in mourning. Seems like the whole world is wrapped in grief. I want you to know that I can take the truth.

  Doctor Kaiser: I think we should concentrate on you. Please tell me truly how are you feeling today?

  —Tired, sickish all the time, dizzy when standing up, wheezy lungs, food tasting like ashes, feet all swole up, bumping in the chest when I move about. In fact it reminds me of long ago hearing Granfer moaning to Ma that he was feeling turrible and likely to croak dreckly. Doctor Kaiser, how long have I really got left?

  Doctor Kaiser: You have serious heart sickness. The heart is failing on the left and right sides. I am treating you but there is no cure. The heart is not pumping and the veins are stiff. I cannot in all certainty say how long there is left. The treatment you are getting will prolong your life for a while.

  — [sound of croaky laughter] I’ve certainly been prolonged. That’s true! I’ve been prolonged a lot more than some folks would have guessed. Tell you what, I’ll give you a prediction. I say I’ll be gone before the leaves on that elm are fully out. That one out the window there.

  Doctor Kaiser: We will all be arraigned before the Almighty one day, sir. I’d be failing you not to advise you to get your affairs in order while there is time.

  —That’s what I’m trying to do now. I’ve been clearer in my mind since I’ve got really sick. I’ve been in such a fever all my life now I’m as cold and clear as a newt lying at the bottom of a well. I’m all smoothed out and I don’t seem to want or need anything. Once I was such a bigabout lad yet after these last few months there ain’t too much of me left. I’m easily pulled around by Nurse Mulholland. My clothes are still ranked in the wardrobe but I will never fill them again. Lord, now all I ever really want to do is curl up under my sheets and let the busy world take care of itself.

  Doctor Kaiser: Are you able to get up at all now?

  —I have been marooned up here at the top of the house and had not come downstairs all winter. Sometimes I have got up to look out the window. My legs are all scambly like a broken-down hoss. Mainly I lie in bed and watch those elm branches there. It’s a puzzlement that I can be so bored. I always used to be happy in my own company but now I miss seeing folks. We don’t really know anyone now. We got a Christmas card from the dispatch clerks at my old workshops and some locals came to the door on paper and metal drives for the war effort. Addie sees a bit of Mrs Cepelka two doors down. Sometimes I watch her son, young Billie, from the top window. Billy actually called a few times offering to do errands for the school war fund. I asked Addie to send the little tacker up if he called again.

  Billie did turn up asking for more jobs a month or so ago and Addie got him to come up to this here bedroom to see me. He looked a sharp lad in his red-check hunter’s jacket. I could see he did not care too much for a sick old man. I asked him what was that uniform I saw him wearing outside sometimes. He said it was the Scouts of America. Billie also said his Pa was in Italy, fighting krauts. He’d sent back a swell enemy parachute helmet. It had dried blood on the inside. His Ma said it weren’t blood but he knew. He reckoned his Pa had shot that kraut. He asked me if I’d been in a war. I said, no, not never. Not that sort any road. I wanted to know about his mates. He said that they were called Danny Bananas and Spitwad. Danny’s real name was a spic name the boy said, but they called him Bananas, and Spitwad he lived further down on East Holt. His real name was Roscoe. I asked him, why Spitwad? The lad said that he guessed he spat a lot. I couldn’t help but smile. Boys can’t help showing you their real selves, don’t you think, eh?

  Doctor Kaiser: I guess that’s true.

  —Ess, I wanted to keep him there, I liked seeing such a bright fierce young craitur. Reminded me of what I used to be. I asked Billie what sort of things he liked doing. He went on about reading the funnies and comics. The American Eagle and evil Wu Fang or something. Well, I didn’t know about them but I told him I’d got something for a lad who likes adventures. Told him to go over there by the bedside cabinet. He was a brave lad. No-one likes the smell of sickness. He rummaged about among all that invalid’s mess there then pulled out ‘Bear Hunters of the Rocky Mountains’. You know that book? I told you about it. The one that was gived me as a prize long ago in the navy. I told the lad that ‘Admiralty’ meant the navy. I showed him the ticket at the front signed by Commander Jackson. I told him he could have the book. He could make better use of it than I could now. I could tell he wanted to go but the good lad stuck it out a while longer. I liked looking at the boy. He was so fresh-minted and with eyes that looked through you just like mine used to do. I was passing something on at last. I told him my wife would give him something nice to eat no doubt and I wanted to say something else but could only come out with, “Don’t be frit, boy.” He gave me a look and said, “No, mister, I sure won’t,” then he was gone. I can’t tell you the satisfaction of seeing that lad.

  Doctor Kaiser: How else do you pass the time?

  —Mainly, I read the papers. The Journal arrives with a bang; thrown onto the porch by the delivery boy. I likes to smell it. There is an outdoors scent to it. Nice fat newsprint, good American paper quality. Addie had bought me a magnifying glass so I can make it out better. I generally skip the war news and football and the bowling leagues. Life is a strange business, I likes to think of it flowing on without me. I like advertisements mainly. You can buy anything in this country: coolerators, cabinets, dinette sets, autos of every type—such wonderful things. Sometimes I dream that there is still time to buy more things for Addie. I feel I should reward her while I can. I wonder what happened to all the stuff, all those things in my life. Where did they go? The family bible gone with Jessie somewhere, Ma’s pottery figure of Nelson gived her by Uncle Freddie, the mariner. Or that gilt clock of Miss Keyse which I had my eye on.

  Doctor Kaiser: I think it’s my duty to remind you that there is still personal business for you to clear up. Things that happened that night in England, the night of the murder. Is there anyone I should contact?

  —Oh Lord no, doctor. You sound like a priest now, you do. The past is quite dead and everyone is past caring. I only like talking to Gabby.

  Doctor Kaiser: Gabby?

  —Gabby is Addie’s cat. A braget cat in Deb’m speak. That’s a grey tabby. She’s a quiet friend to me. She sits at the bedroom window watching the birds and letting me rattle on. She tells me when someone is coming. I can see her ears flick when there is a foot on the stair or when Addie is whispering to Nurse Mulholland downstairs. Gabby will outlast me. She will go hunting the spring frogs calling in the ditches and her ears will twitch when they come to clear me away.

  Doctor Kaiser: I feel you are not being entirely straight with me, Mr Lee.

  —Let’s not fall out, doctor. Like Lizzie told me all those years ago, the truth is dangerous if it is let out before its time. You don’t understand. I’m protecting you. One day you will realize that it’s me who has chosen you to talk to, not other way round. It will all be finished soon anyway. I have never really been so sick before, not since my lungs filled up when I was in the navy. My body has carried me so far though. Much farther than expected. Best not to think too much on it. Odd how the world is strange and mazy when you think about it then when you take a second look, it snaps back and lands on its feet again like a cat, all complete. You tell me to face the truth but I’ve realized that it’s Addie I need to think of now. Bit late, I know. She keeps coming up to fuss over me. Sometimes I pretend to be asleep and just lie there and watch her through half-closed peepers. I sti
ll like to look at her lovely face, it’s like a new moon lasting into day. I have led her to this country and now I’m leaving her. Poor Addie, even after I have gone, she will still have to hide because we have lived on false papers. I can hear her radio in the kitchen. Addie loves it but I cannot abide all the chatter and the beat music. The only music I like is hymns really. What is that program? Kate Smith, big fat Southern girl. She always signs off her shows with, “Thanks for listnin’.”I often hear Addie singing Kate’s radio hit song called ‘White Cliffs of Dover’. I told her that there ain’t no such things as blue birds at Dover. Bluebirds are American birds. Them Dover birds are swifts. We used to call them ‘screechers’. She did not appreciate it and told me it was a beautiful song and I had no heart to make fun of it like that. I told Addie I did have a heart but it was made different from other folks. Anyway, I need to thank Addie for putting up with me for so long. She was so much softer than the others, especially that fierce Lizzie. Lizzie might have been the love that claimed my heart but Addie has been the best thing in my life. You too, doc. Thanks for listnin’.

  Doctor Kaiser: I feel that we have not wrapped up everything that could be said.

  —There you go agin. The only talking I’ve got left is what I keep saying to my feet.

  Doctor Kaiser: Feet? I do not understand you.

  —Ess, to my feet. I calls them “my boodies”. Them yellow nails sit like horns on the purple plum toes. If they could for once be strong and firm and if my legs worked right I’d go to the lake shore to make an ending. I keep telling them that they’d better start working. Better to drop myself away than wait for sickness to point out the way. I’ve been watching those little flies in my room, they touch the light bulb then, Phut! They’re gone and no fuss.

  So many questions pop up now I can’t move around. I think about what was pressed on me when I was young. You could say it was just how life rolled, some lived and some died. What is there to confess? The deed was done. That was it. I still find it so hard to put into words. Where was the feeling in it? After a life of regret and sorrowing over it the feeling is getting easier. I don’t know why. But it does. What happened and did it matter? It mattered then and the pain mattered and the frit, the dreadful frit of a soul being forced out of itself before its time. But it all now seems not to matter so very much. Ma used to say that us better way be makin’ hame. Bet you don’t what that means… [wheezy laughter on the recording, no reply from Kaiser] How much longer will I lie here? Soon, Addie will be sleeping next to an empty bed. The money I built up will keep her safe for a while. She will go on tending the roses without me. The love between us has grown since I’ve been sick or maybe I appreciate her more. Sometimes at night I’ve crawled out of bad dreams and looked across at her sleeping beside me, her face all shiny from the cold cream. Still such a fair maid. So peaceful and all smoothed out. Wishee well, Addie. Did she hear me? Thanks for listnin’. Good bye and fare ’ee well then. Think I’ll watch the snow a bit. There’s the mewies flicking about…

  Guilt

  Dang! I’ve been so mad at him for seeming to bail on us so easy like that. In this last recording Lee just slides away. He is humorous in a way that he has not shown up to now. And all of a sudden he cares about Addie. Sickness has made him soft-headed and it hacks me off. I didn’t expect a cryface Lee but I was hoping for some honesty at least. Instead he comes out with an unpitying, aloof voice that sees no need for the confessional. Perhaps it’s all to do with that village folk magic stuff I don’t really understand, something he got from his mother, stuff from the depths of the Ladywell. Maybe he thought he’s already earned the stars in his crown, he was feeling secure because he’s got someone to take on his sins like that sin eater business. I feel as if I’ve worked for a big fat zero. I’ve lost everything and blame him for filling me up with all this witchy crud, saddling me with Georgia and leaving me with zip.

  Okay, focus. It looks like all I can do is fall back on my professional insight. Perhaps only a poet whose business is words can really trap Lee. My attic is full of words like coins all stacked up or, even better, like bees—yeah, that’s it, words like bees with yellow eyes and dry rustling wings. I’m counting them off and putting one against another trying to find a way to make a picture of Lee. To help me I’ve been staring at his photo all the long months I’ve taken transcribing his recordings. His eyes burn out of that portrait. I’m sure he resents my poking and prying. The photo I’ve chosen as my inspiration is the one of him hatless in a morning suit. He looks like a middle-aged guy but with the sap still in him. His hair is wispy-looking, maybe still growing out from the prison barber’s attentions. He refers to his hair as ‘his feathers’ in his ghosted autobiography. He has a gardenia in his button hole. That means it’s got to be spring or summer because that’s when they flower. I thought at first that it was a photo taken for his wedding to poor Jessie but that took place in winter. So the photograph has to have been taken in the warm months of 1908 because before that he was in jail and the following year he had flitted up north. It has to be spring to summer 1908. It’s a publicity shot then, probably commissioned by him at one of the Newton Abbot studios. This is his public face. He looks a bit like a gypsy made to wear the clothes of a settled people. I scrutinize the picture, noticing the uncompromising set of the jut ears, the high voltage eyes that are ever so slightly skew. His whole face has a feral, varminty look, with something of the changeling about it. I’m like an old-time phrenologist trying to feel his bumps. I think I’ve detected his propensities—amative, destructive and secretive. That massy forehead of his butted against the world. I think it could be a violent face.

  So far, so less clear. The photo glimmers on the edge of my desk lamp’s glow. It’s a stubborn pumpkin head like those put out to scare the trippers who pay their $18 to the Wisconsin Dells Fright Tours on offer in this town. How do you lay a spirit? I want to fix Lee and stake and settle him. Ghost laying is a village skill that’s probably lost even in Lee’s birth lands of South Devonshire. My fellow citizens seem to be creating a new cult of the dead and it’s already getting to be a business opportunity. You can take Halloween ghost tours to see derelict cemeteries and old TB sanatoriums. You can pick over the vacant lot where the cannibal Ed Gein’s cabin used to stand in Plainsville. At Maribel Caves you can probe for the revenant spirits of hoodlums, bootleggers and liquor runners. If you have more modern tastes you can go to the old Eagles ballroom in Milwaukee and try and tune in to Buddy Holly’s last gig there before the plane crash. Maybe I should bring some Yankee greenback commercial sense to Babbacombe. Let’s see, there’s many a spirit we could scare up for the paying public. Babbacombe Ghost Tours! November 15th a high point, guaranteed appearances by Miss Keyse and the Fey sisters. Sweet! What a cash cow that would be for a poor holes-a-pocket writer. And I’ve not got to Forest Home Cemetery yet. Let’s put that off awhiles. There is still some ground to cover.

  Now here is another bit of verse, it’s not very good but still there’s a catch to it: “John Lee, the butler, is now sent for trial, Committed for murder there is no denial, Whether he done it, it is hard to say, It will be proved on some future day…” The author is not known, a hack Victorian song sheet producer most like. It was published in Bristol England in 1884. It asks the question that we are really after. Did he really ding the old lady over the head and slit her like a pig?

  Don’t we want the bones to live, speak, give forth secrets? Who was Lee really? Crime history is full of those about to be executed who plead their innocence with a straight face. They keep it up even when they are in the death house. Years later it gets proved by DNA that they were as guilty as hell.

  When murder does happen here in the Dells it’s a desolate business. Two teens went missing around these parts in 1980, a few years before I was born. They were a 19 year old farmer’s son called Tim Hack and his High School girlfriend, Kelly Drew, just graduated from beauty school. Their bodies were found in a field near Ixonia. Tim h
ad been stabbed and Kelly had been tied up, raped and strangled. There was a lot of police activity at the time but no suspects were identified. The case became known as “The Sweetheart Murders”. Every August the family drove Tim’s Olds Cutlass Supreme around Jefferson County hoping to jog memories. Thirty years went by until a cold case review matched DNA from the victim’s clothes with an ex-con from Kentucky called Edward Edwards. At about the same time Edwards’ own son contacted the police and fingered him for the Sweethearts Murder. Edwards was a lifelong criminal. He robbed gas stations in the 1950s and was sentenced to prison. He bust out of jail and became one of the FBI’s Most Wanted for a time. On recapture, he said he’d go straight and even wrote a book about his reformation called ‘Metamorphosis of a Killer’ but it didn’t take long for him to get back to crime. He drifted across the country between 1977 and 1996 and killed at least 5 people, probably more. There are some who think he might be the L.A. Zodiac Killer. He was a thief, forger and law enforcement impersonator and even posed as a psychiatrist in Minnesota, counseling trauma victims—get that. It turned out he was working as a handyman at Concord House Restaurant where Tim and Kelly were last seen. Edwards confessed to the crime once he was confronted by the evidence but he didn’t elaborate or explain what had happened to those kids. He sat through his sentencing hearing without saying a word, ignoring the relatives sobbing their hearts out in court. I studied the photos of him and marked those frigid eyes. He acted bored—looking, yawning all the time, slumped in a wheelchair because he was crippled with heart disease. He had oxygen tubes going in his nostrils to help his breathing. I remember Grandpa saying they should have plugged those goddamn nose tubes into some natural gas and done everyone a favor. They sentenced him to life and he sparked out with a heart attack a few years later in 2011. They did a state poll at about then on the death penalty and it was the first time that over 50% in Wisconsin said they’d vote for death for murderers.