by Tom Poland
A small garden with flowers, tomatoes, and cucumbers struggled in the shade. Two rope hammocks hung lazily from a trio of trees. “If your daughter lives here, she’s in one unique place for sure,” I said.
“Inventive isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes, but not the first tree house. Caligula held banquets in a tree house and Tarzan and Robin Hood lived in tree houses too,” I said, remembering great heroes. Perhaps Rikard would be one too.
The treehouse dweller walked over holding a pan of gleaming fish.
“We’re gonna fry these babies, have some garnished potatoes, some okra, and tomatoes, and a little wine. We’re cultured here at Conjura.”
He whistled, and a rope ladder dropped from above.
“You two relax,” he said, holding the fish. “Stroll around. I’ll get dinner ready. Then I’ll come get you.” Climbing one-handed, he ascended into the house.
To the west, the sun sat atop the treetops, almost as if it were rolling along their crowns. Nightfall loomed. We would sleep among the limbs with the soon-to-awaken night creatures. Tyler seemed a wreck. Agitated, unsure, and nervous, she walked toward a palisade of cypress logs topped off with broken glass and devils rope, the barbed wire Old West Indians detested.
She turned, pale and trembling.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said, holding her basket so tight her knuckles paled white, the bag’s strap cutting into her left shoulder. “I’ve been all over the South following leads, and now that it’s about to … well maybe happen, I’m scared.”
“You’re going to do it.” I said, though nerves were getting to me too. “No matter what happens up there, I want you to be happy. We can’t be sure of anything in this life but know this. I adore you. I’ve never said it but I do.”
Something terrible shone from the back of her eyes.
“Look,” she said, pointing.
Someone was peeking at us through a curtained window.
A pale green curtain fluttered shut.
“Yes,” I said, taking Tyler by the arm. “I wonder who that might be.”
We walked to the ramparts leaning out over the blackish-green, shadowy swamp where Tyler stopped and turned to me.
“Have you ever wondered if I’m telling the truth about Lorie?”
“Yes. Something seems amiss when a daughter goes years and makes no effort to contact her mother.”
“I didn’t lie but I didn’t tell you everything either.”
“So, what is it you need to tell me?”
“No one taught me anything about sex. I think my parents didn’t know what to say. So, I stumbled into it. I didn’t get pregnant or anything bad, but it never seemed special. It’s supposed to be one of life’s great joys. To me it wasn’t.”
“So … what happened?”
“When Lorie was a preteen, she looked like she was twenty-five. She had really blossomed and was very pretty, very sexy. I knew boys would be all over her. In those early nights—before my desire died—I thought she was spying on Hines and me. I’m sure she heard us late at night. Then one morning I caught her, well, doing something…. It embarrassed both of us.”
“That’s just something people do,” I said, my face warming.
“I know. Anyway, I thought a lot about her, little woman-child that she was. I wanted her to grow up and enjoy this gift, perhaps the greatest gift. I never went to college but I read a lot. Read everything I could, in fact, on how to be a good parent. That’s very hard, you know, to be a good parent.”
“No one can claim to be an expert,” I said, “though many think they are.”
“I read that one reason so many American teenagers have problems with alcohol is they never drink with their parents. No experience whatsoever. Parents won’t drink around them, like they’re pure and alcohol is evil, then, of course, they belt it down when the kids are away. I read that kids in Italy and other places and cultures drink in the home and have less problems with alcoholism. So, I thought, well maybe this is true with sex too.”
“Well maybe so,” I said, wondering where she was headed.
“I talked it over with Hines. He was all for teaching her the facts of life … letting her watch us … or, he said, some boy would teach her out in a field in the back seat of a car. So … so, we sat her down and talked it over with her and asked her if she thought going through it with us might be a good thing.
“She said ‘yes.’ ”
“I can’t imagine that,” I said. “Not like that with my daughter.”
“Well, Hines wasn’t Lorie’s father,” Tyler said, her face crimson. “He wanted her to get into this. So, we let her come into the bedroom and watch what I can only call an act.”
She stopped, seeming to gather her thoughts.
“Things went okay at first. Hines told Lorie how it affected the man, and apparently he must have seen something in her eyes.”
He ordered me to leave the room.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, and it was a huge mistake. Some time went by, things grew quiet. Then something happened. Lorie ran from the room into the downstairs bath and began throwing up.”
I had never heard such a revolting thing. Before either of us could speak, Rikard came down the ladder, eating a piece of fish.
“Are you ready? Can you make it up my little stairway to heaven here?” he asked holding onto the rope ladder.
We went over and Tyler climbed first. I watched as she rose, rung by rung, her legs inches from my face. I followed her with butterflies dancing in my stomach and bedroom thoughts flying through my head.
Coming through the trap door, I surveyed the place. The massive oak growing through its center closed off a view of rooms on its far side. The place was far bigger than suburbia’s brick homes. It was hard to believe five trees and three columns could support such weight, but they did and had for a long time.
Setting foot into the house was like stepping onto a granite slab. Tyler, weak-kneed, stood by me as Rikard sliced tomatoes in a galley-like area above an old ship’s teak basin. Nearby, an old gas stove hissed as the fish fried. Between the galley and fireplace, a bamboo table with a glass top reflected candlelight.
Curtains of bamboo and glass beads broke the interior’s free-flowing angles and curves. The massive main area was soft with diffused green light playing through sun catchers. An East-facing window held a leaded glass portrait of a nude blonde with flaring hips.
A medley of smells swirled about … frying fish, scented candles, incense, and the green smell of bamboo. The hand of a woman had touched Rikard’s lodge. Rattan chairs and a wicker sofa heavy with pillows sat in an open area where sweetgrass baskets hung from walls. A glass cabinet held guns and knives. A jade plant, lush and dark, sat near the hearth of a stone fireplace embedded with amethyst crystals.
An expanse of old, worn, wide pine flooring covered with throw rugs separated the galley from a bath where candles burned. A framed limerick, The Pelican, hung on a wall, immediately drawing Tyler’s attention. Dark wood, wildlife art, and a palette of warm tones gave the place a hunt club feeling but the inventive décor gave it a childlike aspect, like children lived here, not a killer and his woman. The last time I was in a treehouse I had been a boy. A thought came from nowhere, striking me hard—the first time I’d had such a thought. When did I stop being a child? I didn’t have an answer and a profound sense of loss seized me in this home of children-adults who had no TV, no phone, no computer … no outlets, no switches, just candles and hurricane lamps filled with kerosene.
Rikard came over holding two bottles of wine—red and white.
“All right, you can be an e-l-i-t-i-s-t and s-i-p white with the fish, or you can do like old Mullet Man does—do as you damn please. Guzzle some red. I have a cabernet sauvignon and I have a chardonnay, dry of course, but I can’t chill it—treehouse temperature only. How about it pretty lady?”
“Red.”
“I’ll have red too,” I said.
/> Rikard poured two goblets half full and swirled the wine, its redness sheeting down the glass, varnishing it red. No one proposed a toast. Tyler looked at me, worry in her eyes, and I reached for her hand. Her basket sat at her feet, her bag lay on the sofa.
Rikard held the cabernet sauvignon aloft.
“Holler when you need more. Enjoy your stay. Get a buzz. Crystal is way back there,” he said nodding to the rear far past the massive oak. “She’ll be out soon. We’ll set the table and then we’ll dine on the freshest fish possible.”
We helped him set the bamboo table with the essentials and sat. Rikard—about to serve the fish, tomatoes and cucumbers, and potatoes—rang a small brass bell mounted on the wall. A pure note of shimmering brass, dulcimer-like, floated through the house, dying slowly, hanging in the air.
“I got this bell off a shipwreck near Port Royal. I was surprised no one had gotten it, but there it was. It wasn’t pretty like it is now. Was black, very dull. I cleaned it with—”
Somewhere beyond the immense oak, a clatter of glass beads and a fluttering surge of air came at us, and a new force filled the arboreal lodge. We turned to the sound. A woman stepped from behind the oak carrying a pelican in her arms.
Tyler rose from her chair and her hand went to her lips, which quivered. She stood there unflinching, betrayed only by her lips and misting eyes. She bent over and picked up her basket.
“Did you make this?”
“Yes, I made it,” said the woman, lifting the pelican into the air to float away, settling softly onto a massive oak limb, surveying this remarkable reunion.
“Your name is Lorie.”
“Yes, mom, no one really knows me as Crystal. Rike made that up.”
An awkward pause set in that seemed to go on forever. No one moved.
Suddenly, the two rushed together and crying, they hugged and kissed each other, their hands swarmed over each rubbing away the minute fractions of distance that remained, abolishing their separation. They cried and hugged and sobbed and hugged and utterly were lost in one another’s arms. Relief washed over me. Their words came out in bursts and flutters—like birds flying up from a field.
“I … I didn’t know what to do … He wanted it all … I knew I had to go … I.”
“No, no, don’t say anything … just hold me.”
“It was ... it was the hardest thing ... to walk away from you ... to leave with nowhere to go to … I was so lost. I was … I just wandered … ”
“Shhhh, I know it was. Don’t worry, you’re here ... I’m here … we’re together at last.”
The two embraced, tears flowed, Tyler’s long-sought reunion a reality. Rikard and I sat in silence needing to say nothing. They embraced and staggered in a drunken dance, crying away all those years, all those miles, and all those missed moments.
Then from nowhere a spark of anger ignited Lorie. She shoved Tyler… “I hate that bastard. I want him dead, dead, dead.”
“He is dead, angel. He’s dead.”
“No, you’re just saying that. He’s not dead. I want him deader than dead.”
“Baby, he’s dead. I shot him. Shot him twice. I went to prison for you, baby, for Lucky too.”
Lorie wailed, a cry of pent-up suffering released at long last.
“God, oohhhh Lucky, my sweet, sweet pet. God I miss her so. God damn that man’s soul. I want him dead. I can’t believe it. I just can’t. I want him dead. Dead.”
“Look, look at this,” Tyler reached into her bag and brought out a photograph. “Look, that’s me.”
Lorie took the photograph … Tyler in orange prison togs, hair shorn off, unsmiling, a long white identity across her photo: 530931-02-838FFO-NCDOC. Gaunt and pale, her teeth seemed too large for her face.
“Yes … it’s you but that doesn’t mean he’s dead. Maybe you served time because you tried to kill him. I want him dead.”
“I knew you’d doubt me. Even if I brought the newspaper clippings and obituary, even if I brought you his death certificate, it would not be enough.”
“You’re damn right.”
Tyler reached into her bag and brought out a small wooden box with a hinged lid. She opened the lid, looked inside, and satisfied handed it to Lorie.
Lorie shrieked, bringing a hand to her mouth. She screamed again, her eyes locked onto the box’s contents.
“Oh my God, yes, you killed him. I know that’s him. God, if you didn’t kill him, he’s as good as dead. How did you keep this thing all these years?”
“I packed it in salt.”
Lorie turned to Rikard.
“The canned sardines we feed Ogden are salty, aren’t they?”
“Very.”
Lorie picked up a fork and stabbed into the box with fury. She brought up a shriveled something with blue markings. Rikard caught my eye and mouthed a “Sweet Jesus.”
Lorie turned to her pelican.
“Ogden, here, Ogden.”
With a feathery stir, the bird drifted from the tree to the floor. Lorie flipped the thing into the air and the pelican caught it clean. With a backward tilt of its head, the last remnant of the Big Enforcer disappeared from Earth to be shit out over the marsh where it would rejoin Rikard’s great cosmos.
***
“When did you kill him?” Lorie asked.
“Three weeks after your letter.”
“You should have let me do it.”
“What I should have done is never marry again.”
Rikard poured Tyler some wine and lightly touched her shoulder.
“Ain’t many women strong as you. If that bastard had married some other woman, she’d be living in Hell right now. Her children too. You were the right woman for him, nature’s answer.”
Tyler turned to Lorie.
“How did you get the basket to me? Why didn’t you see me? You could at least called me.”
“I didn’t take the basket to you. Rike did,” she said moving to his side.
Rikard got up.
“You folks excuse me.”
“No, you stay,” said Lorie. “You can’t leave now.”
“Rike took the basket to you, a birthday gift. I had no idea he’d done that.”
“Is this true?” asked Tyler.
“It’s true,” said Rikard. “I drove up to your house and dropped it off.”
“You drove all the way to Apex?”
“That I did. I can drive. I lived on the mainland once upon a time.”
Tyler turned to Lorie.
“Did you tell him how to find the house?”
“No, I had no idea he was going to Apex. Sometimes he goes to the mainland for several days. I don’t need to know why he goes.”
Tyler struggled with this revelation, trying to take it in. Something intense was working through her mind.
“Prove you brought the basket to me.”
“You live in a two-story blue house with white trim, a neat yard with flower boxes, and a red and black mail box. Is that good enough?”
“No. Lorie could have told you that. Describe the front door.”
“Looked new. A walnut door with leaded glass … a rising sun design.”
“You changed doors mom?” asked Lorie.
“Yes, yes I did.”
Tyler turned to Rikard.
“You did this on your own?”
“Yes.”
Tyler’s hand came up then paused.
“You love my daughter, don’t you?”
“That’s a fact.”
“Mom, When I told Rike I left you without saying goodbye, it brought back bad memories for him. His mom ran off one day with another man when he was a boy. She never said goodbye and he never saw her again. He said missing his mother all his life wasn’t different from you missing me … and my missing you. I hope you don’t think I forgot about you. We’ve talked about you so much, we really have. Rike knows everything—and I mean everything. He said he would get us together one day and he has. I had no idea you had gone to prison
. I never thought you’d kill Hines.”
Tyler, tears cascading down her cheeks, hugged Lorie again, then she went to Rikard and embraced him. In the end, Tyler’s deliverance had come not from the lonely pelican but a renegade voodoo killer. Tyler’s quest was over.
Rikard grabbed the wine, walked over to the galley, and stretched.
“Let’s me and you go down for a while. Dinner will keep. Let these two have some time alone. Bring your glass.”
We climbed down the rope ladder into the cooling night. A great chorus of cicadas serenaded us, and a few early bullfrogs were booming in. We walked over to the hammocks and sat.
“Now don’t go thinking I’m soft just ’cause I got those two together.”
“Why did you do it? I mean it’s the right thing, but why?”
“They say if you see your girl’s mother, you’ll know how the girl will age.”
“That’s not why you did it, Rikard.”
“No, not really. They say nothing matters more than family.”
“That’s true,” I said.
“You grew up in a family, right?”
“Sure.”
“What kind of family?”
“Normal one … Mom, dad, and two sisters … no brothers though,” I said.
“How was it?”
“Good. Those were unforgettable times.”
“Well good for you. My mom ran off and my father didn’t want me,” said Rikard. “An orphanage in Mount Carmel, South Carolina, raised me. I grew up in the woods near Clark Hill Lake. Ever since, I’ve wanted to live outdoors. This island and my treehouse mean everything to me except for one thing. I want a family.”
“You said you had some children.”
“Well, I’m not sure. In my younger days I got around, wasting myself, spreading my seeds everywhere. That part of my life is over. Lorie, her mom, and me … we can be a family.”
“Most men would commit suicide rather than live with a mother-in-law.”
“I ain’t like most men, and Tyler’s not a typical mother-in-law. Nobody knows that better than you.”