Life is Short: The Collected Short Fiction of Shawn Inmon

by Shawn Inmon

  My crestfallen state must have showed on my face, because she took pity on me, or at least as much pity as she was capable of.

  “Look, son, you’re not the first of Augie’s avid fans to seek me out after all these years, looking for some scrap of something that he might have left behind. Did you really think you were?"

  I tried to recover. "I'd hoped I might be."

  "That and four bucks will get you breakfast at the café. So, what is it you want? Are you wanting to interview me for your next book? That can be arranged, if we can arrive upon a fair compensation for my time. Or, are you looking for something else? Photographs, maybe? Some of Augie’s old clothes? I have some of both, but as you can imagine, they are very dear to me."

  Maybe all was not lost. "I would be glad to see anything you wish to show me, Ma'am."

  "I’ll show you. Go in the dining room and look in the bottom drawer of the buffet. There’s a wooden box there. Bring it to me.”

  In a daze, I crossed into the dining room, opened the bottom door of the immense piece of oak furniture she called a "buffet." To me, a buffet is served at a casino, or during lunch at an Asian or pizza restaurant, and is all-you-can-eat. I poked around in the drawer a bit, but aside from the box, there was nothing but old tablecloths and napkins. I wanted desperately to look inside the box, but I was afraid she might have me on some kind of mental timer. When I hustled back into the living room, Ms. Simper held out both hands for it, papery wattles hanging from her otherwise skinny arms.

  “Here, here,” she said, and set the box next to her on the couch. She opened the lid, which gave off a distinctive squeal; a good thing I hadn’t snuck a peek in the dining room. She removed a few knickknacks—a seashell, a refrigerator magnet from New Orleans, a brooch that looked even older than her—then pulled several black and white photographs off the bottom. She held them out to me, and I accepted them gratefully.

  The first was a marvel to my eyes. It showed an older version of the face I knew so well, more careworn and tanned. He was reclining on a wide, lovely front porch that I realized with a shock was the same foul porch outside the front door. He was wearing a wife beater and jeans. He held a bottle of Dr Pepper in his hand, which fit, as he had given up alcohol in the last years of his life.

  The second picture was just as revelatory. Here, he was sitting in a swing on the same porch, his arm around a pretty young brunette. Both had wide smiles and appeared to be talking. Her hand rested casually against his chest. He looked alive and vibrant. I also noticed a swollen stomach under the brunette's sundress.

  “Is—is this you, Miss Simper?” It was difficult for me to transition the lovely young lady in the picture to the old hag who sat in front of me.

  “Of course it is. Who else would it be?” She smiled a toothless grin at my confusion. “Just you wait, young man. Old Man Time is undefeated. You won’t always be young, you know. Beauty fades.” She raised one eyebrow at me. “Stupid, on the other hand, is much more persistent."

  For some reason, I was uncomfortable at the idea of hearing her insult her daughter again. I changed the subject.

  “Are you willing to sell these?”

  “Everything is for sale, if you have the cash. I would sell you my virginity again, if you wanted. I’ve still got the box it came in.” She winked at me.

  Here it comes, I thought. I choked back the bile that threatened to escape my clenched teeth and said, “What are you asking for them?”

  Her watery eyes never left mine. “I’ve been offered a thousand dollars for both of them, and I turned it down.”

  I cringed inwardly. I did have a thousand dollars, but no more. It was almost like she had snuck into my room and counted my money. If I gave her everything I had, I didn’t know how I would get back to the airport, or what I would eat until I got home. I shook my head to clear it.

  What a monumental fool I was! So easily distracted. I was here for a prize much greater than a few black and white photographs, intriguing and undiscovered though they were. I gathered my courage, tried to limit the shaking in my hand, and said, “Madam, I would recommend you call that person immediately and accept their offer. I couldn’t offer anywhere close to that.”

  She dropped the pictures back in the box and slammed the lid shut so fast, I might have jumped a few inches off the sofa.

  “No skin off my nose. Thought something like that might be what you came here for. So, Mr. West Covina, California: if not for souvenirs, what did you come for?”

  That sent a chill through me. It must have shown, for she went on: “I know we are a little slower-paced here, but we do have computers, 'Merica Online, phone lines. Isn't hard to look folks up. So you must be looking for somethin’ pretty special to come all this way.”

  A paralysis of analysis overtook me. What was the best way to play this situation? While I was running every option through my mind, I was disconcerted to hear my mouth blurt: “I had read somewhere that you might have some recordings that Mr. Wolf did before he passed away.”

  I clapped my hand over my mouth, but it was too late. Self-betrayed, and by my own native honesty.

  With a sudden burst of unlikely agility, she yanked herself to her feet and slid-clomped out of the room. As she left, she said over her shoulder, “You already paid to stay tonight, Mr. Culverhouse, but I want you gone first thing in the morning.”

  I watched her clomp away with mixed emotions. On the one hand, she hadn’t specifically denied the recordings' existence, but neither had she shown any eagerness to share them. Now I was faced with a deadline. I had less than 24 hours to locate the tapes and make them mine.

  Using the foolproof method of listening to her slide-thump, slide-thump, I was able to tell which portion of the house she was in. I immediately began searching from room to room, looking for anything that resembled an audio tape. I found any number of strange things—a jar filled with nothing but smooth rocks and water, a painting of a murder of crows circling a farm flying upside down, a pantry filled with what appeared to be jars of urine—but nothing else pertaining to August Wolf or recordings of any kind.

  By five, I was dusty, discouraged, and worn out, so I retreated to the sanctuary of my bedroom. I had combed every room but Patricia’s and Miss Simper’s bedrooms; locked and occupied, respectively. I didn’t know where to turn, so not long after I heard Patricia return from her job at what I later discovered was radio station WETT, I slipped by her as she watched her game shows and walked back to the diner.

  I was pleased to discover that “Supper” on the menu didn’t always mean chicken fried steak. Tonight it meant barbecue ribs, corn on the cob, cornbread, and baked beans. If I had stayed in Wetumpka much longer, I would have needed to be rolled to the bus station, no doubt.

  I left the diner just as it was closing, having lingered over several glasses of what they called Sweet Tea, but which was actually a glassful of sugar with just enough tea and water to make the whole thing fluid. I took the long way home, and by the time I arrived back at my falling-down lodgings, the whole house was quiet. Patricia had even turned the television off and gone upstairs to her room. Pushing buttons at the radio station must have been exhausting.

  I sat in my stocking feet on the twin bed in the corner of my room, feeling the sugar high rush through my veins. I couldn’t even find comfort in one of my own books. After whiling away what seemed like an eternity, I finally opened my door and tiptoed down the stairs to the only bathroom in the house, where I relieved myself of several glassfuls of the Sweet Tea.

  As I made my way back to the bedroom, I realized how little noise the house made. As far into disrepair as it had fallen, it had once been well built. I rarely encountered so much as a creak. And that gave me an idea; a terrible idea, in retrospect, but with the knowledge I had at the time, it was the best I could do.

  I crept across the downstairs until I was standing outside Miss Adelaide's bedroom door. I might safely assume that she, on the other side of that door, slumbere
d in sweet Morpheus’s arms. I stood stock still for thirty minutes outside that door, listening for any sound coming from the other side.

  I’m sure you think I am exaggerating when I say I stood still for half an hour, but I am not. I had a lot of training in this game. In the years leading up to Mother shooting Father and blaming a burglar for the act, I often played the stand-still-be-completely-quiet game for hours on end. Mother and Father’s favorite game was let’s-be-at-each-other’s-throats, and they never seemed to tire of it. Their game led to mine. They played theirs all over the house. I played mine in my closet, behind my clothes.

  After my thirty minutes of sentry duty, my ears became attuned enough to the silence to allow me to discern minute sounds. I heard the padding and scratching of the cats out on the front porch, the leaves of the bougainvillea slightly scratching against the window in the living room, the ticking of my watch. Eventually, I sorted all those out to their proper places and heard what I sought: the steady, slight snoring behind the door.

  I placed my hand on the doorknob to her bedroom, wanting to become friends with it before turning, lest it give me away. When it had warmed to my touch, I turned it slightly but smoothly to the left until I heard the latch release. I paused with the door shut, monitoring the metronome of her breathing; I glanced behind me. Would opening her door let in any light? No, all was dark in the house.

  One-quarter inch at a time, I pushed open the door. There was no telltale squeak, just the whisper of the door brushing against the carpet. Inside, I could see that her bedroom was modestly sized. Perhaps it had been a downstairs children’s room, into which she had moved once she could no longer get up the stairs. As I let my eyes adjust, I began to make out the surroundings: a twin bed, a round night table with a small glass of what I presumed to be water, a four-drawer dresser, and in the far corner, a weathered chest. The rest of the furniture looked to be of a piece, but the chest stood out.

  Going by my glowing face of my watch, it took me twelve minutes to make my way to the chest. I took a single gentle step, waited sixty seconds, then took another. Slow going, yes, but this was no time for impatience, even though my heart raced. It was possible I was within inches of what I had searched for my entire adult life.

  I reached out and touched the smooth surface of the chest. Two leather straps held the lid shut. I sat on the carpet beside it and with infinite patience, I loosened them. Sweat dripped off my forehead and sounded loud to my heightened senses as it splashed against the carpet or leather straps.

  When the second strap was worked loose, I opened the lid. The room was as dark as the inside of a coffin, so I gently reached out to see what could be determined by feel. The top layer felt like old clothes. Beneath that, a blanket and sheet set. And, holy of holies, beneath that was a wide, flat box, less than an inch thick. To my astonishment, it felt like nothing as much as the kind of box that would be used to store a reel-to-reel tape. His reel-to-reel tape. My reel-to-reel tape. My music. Surely, no one had worked as hard as I had to touch this simple box.

  The bedside light clicked on. The room filled with light. My heart filled with dread.

  I closed my eyes and pretended to be very tiny, sitting there in the corner of the room to await the scream I knew was coming. All I heard was a phlegmy cough and the sound of blankets being thrown back.

  I looked desperately around for any hiding place, but there was nothing.

  Slide-thump. Slide-thump. Slide-thump.

  She came around the end of the bed and looked me in the eye. Disoriented for a moment, to see me so tiny in the corner, I suppose. And then, finally: the shriek I had anticipated. Wordless, but expressing fear, anger, and shock in full cry.

  Miss Adelaide’s right hand flew to her mouth. Her left fluttered to her throat, which left her without the support of the walker. The scream turned into an extended gurgle that might be described as a death rattle, and she fell to the floor like a bag of wet laundry.

  I was paralyzed. I needed to move with alacrity, but some primal part of my brain was still playing the stand-still-be-completely-quiet game. Eventually, a faint scent of urine brought me around. I had heard that about the dying, and now I could believe it.

  With a light source in the room, I looked down at the box my fingers had explored. It was white, with cursive handwriting in faded blue ink across the top. Grumbles, Gambles and Grins: Music for a New Era. Running down the left side of the box were a numbered series of titles. I closed my eyes and said a lengthy prayer to the god of music.

  The prayer didn't work at all. Before I even finished the words, another scream interrupted me. I looked to the door and saw Patricia, who had just discovered her mother's prostrate form. She ran to her without so much as a glance in my direction. Back turned to me, she knelt and touched Miss Adelaide's throat.

  I took that as my cue to begin making my way back to the bedroom door, clutching the white box like the treasure it was. I was but a few feet away from an exit, from freedom, from bliss, when Patricia turned and saw me.

  “Oh! Oh! What?” In unknown mimicry of her mother, one hand flew to her throat, while the other covered her mouth. “What—what are you doing here? Why—”

  As I mentioned earlier, thinking on my feet is not one of my skills. I froze.

  Her eyes fell on the box in my hands.

  “Oh, come on. Really? That? Is that what this whole thing is about?”

  She closed the distance between us in a blink and snatched the box away. Stricken, I reached to recover it, but she held it away and glared at me.

  “I am calling the police right now. I’ll let them sort this all out.”

  I found my voice. “I didn’t harm her, I promise. I was just looking for that.” I nodded toward the box.

  Her bovine eyes took on a clever glint. “We’ll just see about that. You stay right where you are.”

  She fled past me into the hallway, where I heard her pick up the heavy receiver of the rotary dial phone.

  While she dialed, my mind raced, but arrived at no destination worth mentioning.

  “Hello? Can you send the ambulance at once? 1417 Outhlacoochee Street. My mother’s collapsed. I think she might be dead.”

  I had a decision. Wait for the authorities to arrive and explain what I was doing in Ms. Simper’s bedroom at three a.m., or flee.

  As I closed the front door behind me and picked my way along the broken cobblestones to the sidewalk, I realized that Wetumpka's climate was insufferable at all hours. Since I had left without my belongings, I took some small comfort in the fact that at least I wouldn’t freeze to death.

  After a few blocks' walk, I saw a darkened house with a hammock in the back yard. As quietly as one can climb into a hammock, I did. I should mention one of my premier abilities here: I can fall asleep, no matter the circumstances, in less than a minute. The night I saw Mother shoot father through the throat and leave him burbling on the living room carpet, I was upstairs and asleep just a few minutes later.

  I was awakened the next morning by a feisty blue jay, lecturing me that I did not belong in that particular hammock.

  I took inventory. I did still have my bankroll, as that was in my pocket while I was investigating. All my other belongings were still at what had recently been Miss Simper's house: my shoes, Father’s suitcase, and most importantly, the masterpiece that was Grumbles, Gambles and Grins. Granted, I had never listened to it, but how could it not be?

  The fact that I was so close to the prize, yet did not have it in my hands, drove me to distraction. I swung my legs over the edge of the hammock, found a birdbath in the back yard to make my morning ablutions, and retraced my steps of the night before. I had no idea what I would see at 1417 Outhlacoochee Street.

  In the end, as is so much of life, it was an anticlimax. There were no ambulances, no police cruisers, no activity of any sort. I approached the front door cautiously, but heard only the blare of the television from inside. I opened the front door and stepped in.


  "What the–” I began to exclaim. Patricia Simper was sitting in a folding chair in the entry, dressed in a nice blouse and slacks. She’d combed her hair, and although I am no expert on such matters, I believe she was wearing makeup. It seemed she was waiting for me.

  “Hello, Lawrence.”

  I searched my mind. Had I told her my name, or one of my pseudonyms? I didn’t recall. Unable to think of anything else, I answered: "Hello."

  She noticed my confusion. “I tossed your room. Your picture is on the books I guess you wrote. About my dad.”

  I nodded, cleared my throat. “Umm…and your mother?”

  “Don’t look so panicked. The doctor came and looked at Ma. He said she just had a heart attack. He said it had been comin’ a long time. It just happened to be last night.”

  “I see. So…”

  “Did I tell them what you was doing, hiding in Ma’s room, goin’ through her stuff like that? Nah. Not yet. Still could, though.”

  A shrewd look danced across her bovine face. It made my testicles sweat.

  “You must want that tape you was holdin’ pretty bad, am I right?”

  My lust for the tape, for the indescribable music I knew it held, blasted to the surface and shone on my face. If only I had the slightest acumen at deceit.

  “I thought so. I took it down to the station this morning and hooked it up to the reel-to-reel machine and listened to it. Didn’t sound like much to me, but I guess it must to you.”

  If dropped into the Louvre, she would only ask for directions to the restroom and the snack bar. The idea that this sublime music had filled her ears, not mine, required me to suppress a pang of jealous fury. Not seeing the tape in evidence, I fought the urge to strike her.