by A. J. Lape
“Who’s out here with you?” he barked accusingly. Basically it was me, the dead guy, and the idiocy that followed me everywhere.
I pointed over to the stiff, pinkish gray fingers and saw Vinnie pale two shades and teeter forward. He looked at the body then to me, and put his hand over his heart like you would if a dead soldier from war finally made it to U.S. soil. Then, I swear he started humming America the Beautiful.
I loved America and miraculously fought off the urge to laugh. To add to the hilarity, Vinnie was driving a pink Volkswagen Bug and had somehow squeezed his moon-pie-lovin’ lump of a behind into it. Why was it pink? He won it when he kept his hand on the hood all night in a contest. It even had black plastic eyelashes on the headlights, custom-made for a girl celebrating her femininity. Although bizarre, a man’s car is a man’s car. The moment he sang “And crown thy good with brotherhood…” he stopped with a little girl eek, like he knew his car was in danger.
A yellow Dodge Charger materialized out of nowhere.
The car plowed toward me, growling like an angry locomotive on a death mission. I had a split second of paralyzing fear, wondering if my life was going to end as a hood ornament, but its brakes suddenly screamed—biting and hissing—then screeched to a halt beside Vinnie’s parked car.
Maybe the universe was trying to kill me.
The Charger’s door was angrily punched wide, grazing the side of the Bug as one gargantuan-sized man jumped out cursing. He was wearing a black hoodie that had to be a quadruple X. I was a fan of hoodies; they could cover a multitude of bodily sins, but I must say, this man brought a whole new meaning to the term Big and Tall. The hooded figure slammed his fist on the roof of the Bug, talking about somebody’s mother in a very unflattering way.
“What the…” bleep profanity, he cursed.
“What the…” bleep profanity, “to you!” Vinnie cursed back.
I cringed, actually putting my hands over my ears. Somehow my mind bleeped out most profanity. My father rarely cursed, and I mean RARELY, so it was on the forbidden list. And my father’s forbidden list was a little more narrow than most folk’s. He was all about “the body is a temple.” Trouble was, mine thought it was a “den of sin.”
Vinnie thundered over to the side that was dented, like a mad dog off his chain. Bending over, his red shorts drooped flashing a crack so big it rivaled the Liberty Bell. “You think I can buff that out?”
I was just wondering if they made toilet paper that big.
“You,” the hooded man glared, pointing a thick finger at Vinnie, “Get out of my way.” Get out of his way? I thought. We were parked and in a parking lot. He was the one that chose to turn into it and just about mow us down.
Right then his hoodie fell, and if Darwin was still looking for his Missing Link, I’m pretty sure we might’ve found him. Not only was he humongous, but his dark eyes were set between bushy eyebrows, his nose had been broken, and his face had a two-inch beard.
“Who are you?” he demanded of me.
I didn’t know why he wanted to know, but I dumbly answered, “Darcy Walker.”
It was like a jolt of recollection smacked him right in the kisser. His body gave an immediate, involuntary jerk as he moved his attention from Vinnie and onto me, mulling over every inch of my face, his eyes narrowing, then relaxing, like he were reacquainting himself. Taking another step forward, he was nothing but powerful strength with emotions about to pop.
He muttered, “Good God, it can’t be,” to himself, as he rubbed a hand over his week-old beard.
Vinnie looked at Darwin’s Missing Link with a smirk, figuring Darwin was just looking for a Mrs. Darwin. “Dolce, sometimes people are just dumb.” I kind of smiled, but I needed to corral Vinnie as quickly as possible. The mood he was in, he might slap this man between two slices of bread and have a sandwich.
Darwin’s Missing Link jerked his head toward Vinnie. “So, what’s your problem, man?” he bellowed. Normally, I liked a good fight as much as the next person, but there was dead body six feet away from us. I found this a waste of time.
“Right now, it’s you,” Vinnie snorted. “My mind’s trying to come to grips with the dead body we’ve found.” I stomped on Vinnie’s foot. I wasn’t sure we wanted to release that information to the public, but Vinnie already let the cat out of the bag. The man glanced over Vinnie’s shoulder then all of a sudden looked weirded out, his chest rising and falling fast when he saw the fingers hanging out the corner of the dumpster. The odor didn’t faze him—maybe it’s because his nose was nearly twice the normal size. Mumbling to himself, he said a few choice, profane words then ultimately looked at us like we were the culprits.
Swell.
After some bizarre posturing that basically was like two Sumo wrestlers chesting away at one another, Vinnie’s temper exploded. With a teeth-baring snarl, he slammed the man chest down onto his Charger, his left arm pulled so high he was almost scratching his own neck. Darwin’s Missing Link grunted loud, and the air filled with the sound of cracking bones.
Once he sputtered out, “Okay!” Vinnie’s temper came to a grinding halt. Vinnie muttered something Italian then shoved Darwin’s Missing Link toward the door of his car. He piled inside then hung out the window, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “We’ll talk later,” he roared.
Vinnie looked at the dented door of his Bug, then out of the blue took his right foot and planted it on the driver’s side of the Charger, leaving a crater the size of a soft ball. “Yeah, we’ll talk later,” Vinnie snorted in a promise.
Whatever in the heck that meant in manland, I shrugged.
Vrooming his engine a few times, he backed out, kicking up some stray gravel as he gave us some unflattering hand gestures. “I should’ve knee-capped him,” Vinnie gruffed.
A breeze kicked up, stirring up the putrid dumpster smell. Considering vomiting, once again I shook it off right as my name was yelled with the force of a megaphoned howitzer. It wasn’t in veneration, people. It just wasn’t. I stiffened, and when I dared to seek it out, I saw the school counselor, Laken Dempsey, storming my way like a ticked off Tasmanian devil.
This was one of those situations that proved I needed to reboot my brain. I needed to settle down, be a nice little girl, stay in class, crochet a doily or something, because the moment I stuck one foot in sin, I was the type that always got caught.
I heard, “Darcy!” Three seconds later I heard, “Darcy Walker!”
When I acted deaf, dumb, and mute, I heard it even louder. “DARCY!” I looked at Vinnie, he looked at me, and we both knew it was now or never. Turning around, I gave her an idiotic wave that she opted not to return.
Well, wasn’t that rude, I laughed to myself.
Dressed in a tan pencil skirt and white fitted blouse, Ms. Dempsey was a bombshell by middle-aged standards. Heck, by teenaged standards. She was a natural blonde, model thin with curves that made your eyes pop out of their sockets. Plus, she had a set of long legs that were practically to her armpits. Ms. Dempsey was newly single, her blink-and-you’ll-miss-it marriage barely over. Vinnie was grinning from ear-to-ear like he had a chance.
Vinnie was an absolute moron.
She belted out, “Whose bright idea was this to skip class?!”
There wasn’t a lot of finger pointing going on. For God’s sake, everyone knew it was me. In a fit of insanity, I glued on some press-on nails last night. They were pink, girly—everything I wasn’t. I ripped off two and spit them onto the ground, back to my normal nubs. I needed some sort of stress management course. I’d just had my hands in my mouth when I’d been in a dumpster with a dead man. I spit three more times, trying to get rid of the dead body cooties.
She repeated again, “Who told you it was okay to be out here, Darcy?”
I looked in her sky-blue eyes, blinked a big smile and like an idiot responded, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, I always say.”
Sometimes it was best I kept my mouth shut...it really, reall
y was.
Ms. Dempsey massaged her forehead, releasing what looked like a massive migraine. Vinnie glanced at her expression, moaning in sympathy. He leaned up on the Bug, the car groaning from his weight. Oh, God, help us. I knew that look...he was getting his flirt on.
I no sooner gasped, “No,” out of my mouth when she inhaled deep and nearly retched all over the place.
While she was doubled-over, Vinnie rubbed small circles on her back as her gag reflex negotiated with the stench before her. “Now, there-there, Ms. Dempsey. Let Vinnie take care of everything. Darcy and I weren’t out here running off to get married. She’s, um, untouched. I like the experienced type, and just so you know, I think your husband’s a fool for dumping you.”
I swear, Vinnie ate paint chips as a child.
If that was an attempt to make her feel better it backfired. Her mouth dropped wide as she lifted one french-manicured finger mouthing, “One minute.” Then she shook her head hard, either shaking off a bad memory or the thought of Vinnie as her significant other.
She ignored him, deciding to focus on me. “What’s up, Darcy? What out here has you so curious that you’d walk right out of class?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Vinnie roughed me up a little as he stepped in front of me. “I’ll tell you what has her so curious, Ms. Dempsey. It’s that smell. There’s a stiff in the dumpster.”
She furrowed her brows, her big blue eyes confused. “A what?”
Vinnie rolled his eyes, pointing out her vernacular with dead bodies was archaic. “A stiff.”
“A dead body,” I clarified.
She went stone cold, not moving, not flinching. “A dead body,” she repeated tonelessly.
“Uh-huh,” Vinnie started preaching. “And by the looks of things, this guy gave up the ghost awhile ago.”
After Vinnie gave her the play-by-play of pulling me out of the dumpster, I pitched a thumb over my shoulder. When she still didn’t move, Vinnie grabbed her arm, dragging her across the parking lot, her tan heels clickety-clacking on the pavement. Her skirt and white blouse got caught by the wind as she perched herself on top of the cardboard boxes. Vinnie had one eye trained on her thigh, the other on the dead man’s hand. I cleared my throat, trying to give him the message to reign in the bad-boy, but Vinnie was looking at her like she was a moon pie.
She stood there for a few seconds, gasped, coughed then fought a vomit-filled gag.
“Yeah,” Vinnie agreed with a snort, casting me a downturned look. “Dolce didn’t seem to have the same reaction as you and I did.”
“Shove it where the sun don’t shine,” I mouthed. When he continued to frown over his shoulder, I stuck my tongue out. This coming from a male who made out with moon pies and Red Bull every night.
Once Ms. Dempsey pulled herself together, she asked the obvious. “Why would you crawl into the dumpster with a dead guy, Darcy?”
Good question. One I didn’t have an answer for. “I guess I thought he might still be alive.”
Vinnie’s face went lax, mournful, and I swear, I saw a tear. “That was a brave thing to do, Dolce.” I thought I was brave once. I had to give an impromptu speech about the fall of the Mayan Empire. All I said was “blood, war, rivalries, maybe a little too much bad luck and the shama lama, ding-dong, and voila, your tribe was dunzo." That was brave. This was dumb-butt insanity.
Ms. Dempsey stumbled back down into Vinnie’s arms and started talking to herself; contemplating her next steps, debating whether she should go to the principal first or dial 911 and be done with it. Finally, she pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her skirt and thumbed in the speed dial for her boss.
When she was done with both conversations, she whispered, “Who is he?” Vinnie and I looked at one another and shrugged like nimrods. Hand to heart, neither of us had a clue. But that was Darcyville. Stuff happened in Darcyville, and you were left to either accept it or annihilate the SOBs that caused it.
4 MURPHY’S LAW
MY WORD, THIS was either too good to be true or too screwed up to even fathom. Had I, in fact, found a dead body? A dead body that people in school might’ve known about before it was even discovered? This was either the fantasy of all fantasies, or I’d taken an even deeper step into crazy.
After several I don’t know, officers; Yes, I was skipping class; and No, I’ve never seen him befores; school was over, and Vinnie drove me home in his rattletrap.
So much for excitement. One minute you have it, the next it’s snuffed out by those in authority.
The killjoys.
I live in Buffalo Trails Country Club off of Tylersville Road. Don’t let that little CC behind our neighborhood fool you, though. Ours wasn’t Olympic-sized swimming pools, expensive cars, and fancy parties—that was up the street. Ours was foreclosure city and the short road to Hell.
Acquiring our name from the historic buffalo trail that ran through the area, we set out with the intentions of being a first-rate lodge, but the Club dried up before anyone could ever swing a club, period. Four holes were built, but that’s when disaster struck. The original developer “buffaloed” potential homeowners, stole their deposits, and ran off to Fiji. Or so goes the rumor mill...to this day he was still listed in the post office as MIA. As a result, the remaining fourteen holes were green spaced with town homes and condominiums. But for those of us that loved to golf, we traveled those four holes on a loop, knowing we looked like morons.
At best, BTCC was a cookie cutter community; at worst, it was a visual nightmare of the designer-impaired. Our house was at the end of the cul-de-sac on Bison Boulevard. It was your traditional red brick with black shutters, coach lights lining the drive. The design was thought out; it made sense; it was appealing. It didn’t matter, however, when your neighbors kept pink, plastic flamingos as lawn decorations. Their stupidity unwittingly rubbed off on you. Even so, homes were mostly well kept, but not outlandish. No one had money enough to be outlandish, and even if you did, property lines were a blur. Our street was built for three homes, but when the Club went belly-up, a fourth house broke the homeowner’s code and was shoved in almost sideways to close out the street.
As far as economic status went, we were a neighborhood of used minivans and affordable, four-door sedans. Where did the Walkers fit into the equation? We weren’t poor, but we were barely middle class. And it wasn’t that my father didn’t make good money. He just insisted on having two college plans apiece for my sister and me. I tried to tell him my plan was a wasted cause, but it went over about as well as claiming you were a friendly ant at a picnic. One way or another someone was going to force you back into your hill or spray you with a dose of pesticide.
If the double-coverage college plans weren’t enough, he had insurance policies out the wazoo. Opening his bills once, I ran across two quarterly statements for accidental death and dismemberment policies. Maybe it was a good idea to have one, but two? My father sat at his desk all day talking to his colleagues about the volatile world of insurance. It wasn’t like his bungee cord was going to snap or a chainsaw was going to land on him. But he liked to be prepared and unfortunately had some major life lessons that made him walk on eggshells, trying to plan for things he wished would happen, and things he wished wouldn’t have happened at all.
Our home was the standard Cincinnati two-story: front door in the middle, office to the left, dining room on the right, hardwood kitchen in rear, mirrored by a den. A mudroom connected the den to the garage. No sooner had I kicked my shoes off in the kitchen than my father came in through the mudroom early. He’d been at some continuing education class and had taken the term “business casual” to an all new level. He was wearing golfing clothes, Adidas sneakers, and a Cincinnati Reds ball cap. My father, Murphy, always wore a hat. It wasn’t to hide a dirty head or balding spot. I think it was to block out the world.
With curly brown hair and Cherokee Indian lineage, Murphy wasn’t short in the looks department. At 6’2” tall, he
was physically imposing with guns for arms and hands that could span a basketball. Chiseled with high cheekbones, he had a pair of deep-set brown eyes the color of gingerbread...eyes that one minute could warm your soul; the next blow as cold as death. You see, Murphy was a bad-boy, a reformed bad-boy nonetheless, but bad-boys were like shelving unstable chemicals. They were fine when left alone, but shake them up and it was a whole different story.
Immediately, my palms got sweaty. Murphy knew, I gasped to myself. His eyes were narrowed, full of ticked-off parental privilege, and a spanking he was considering dispensing.
I needed a foxhole.
My word...maybe I needed a gun.
With no other recourse, I held my chin high and gave him a circle wave. “Hey, Murphy.” I called my father by his first name. A practice I’d observed for fifteen years. The present time probably called for something more traditional, but old habits die hard...even when they’re dumb.
I slid into one of the black wooden chairs around the kitchen table, too afraid to even breathe. Murphy woke up in a bad mood and honestly had been crabby since the first burst of green punched through the ground. Why? It was diet season...his goal was to lose ten pounds in the next two weeks.
Hunger could zap the sense of humor, people, it really could.
Carrying a bag of what I knew was squirrel feed (my little sister was convinced she had a pet squirrel), Murphy stalked slowly across the hardwood floor, his jaw painted into a harsh, angry line. Stopping one foot in front of me, he kicked the leg of my chair and opened his mouth.