The world was his oyster, and beside him . . . Terry. Well, she was a stand-up gal. Terry from Clarkston, a TV blonde in a coral shirtdress, sun-wedge shoes, and that sleek, all-over, never-burnt tan. Oh, Terry was something. She sure was. An Oprah disciple. A Regis fan. He was gonna marry her. Maybe next week. Hell. He might as well buy a ring and put it on her finger after this next race. Had to. Can’t lose her. Not this one. A real looker. A catch.
Maybe he would even marry her on a day like today, here at Mount Pleasant Meadows. The sky a big bold blue, the egg-shell wood promenade, champagne toasts in the clubhouse and everyone in hats. He wasn’t looking so bad these days himself, you know. He’d fixed himself up right. A jacket for days at the ponies. A jacket and a just-bought hat. Terry noticed him right away. At the club bar, drinking mint juleps, watching the stakes race. Not that he hadn’t noticed her on the way in. That blonde fuck-me hair, wasn’t that the point, that you would notice, that everyone would notice, from across the parking lot, the clubhouse, the track? Oh, sure, she stood out, a real Clarkston belle. Back home, she said, she grew up on the lake. Sure, she was a step up, a house on Big Lake and vacations up on Mackinaw Island. But he was her league now. Her league, with his Seventy. Five. Thousand. Dollars. Pushing him up, propping him forward into success success success now. Possibilities, properties, deals. Now was the time. Now was the time to cash in. Cash in all of it. Maybe buy another house, out on Pontiac Lake, or Elizabeth, put Terry in the house and never look back at those dirt dog days on the outskirts of Muskegon.
And, Shauna, what about her? Well, he couldn’t take her with him. That’s for sure. An embarrassment, an embarrassment now. Three hundred pounds! Three hundred pounds of inexplicable moping, dragging around. One-syllable answers and looking at the ground. Christ, he was ashamed of her. Couldn’t even introduce her to Terry. He’d never see Terry again.
And the drinking. Before, a tonic. Now, a celebration. A celebration of life, of the Meadows, of Terry, dinner at Mount Pleasant Winery, nights at Green Spot. Terry’s even introduced him to some new friends, nice people, classy people. And they were celebrating too. All the world’s a celebration at Mount Pleasant Meadows. All the world a spinning cycle of who’s up, who’s down, the jockeys, the ponies, the stats. Terry’s friend, he had a suspicion maybe an ex, just bought a pony himself. Easy Living. He was sure to be a hit, strong bloodline, clean stud book, lineage back to Byerley Turk. Oh, no . . . Easy Living was just that. Easy Living. And maybe, maybe, if he played his ponies right, Troy Boggs would one day own his own Easy Living, watch his own thoroughbred in the post parade.
He and Terry.
Staying at Terry’s. She had a condo. A nice one with sleek lines, a wet bar, and a sunken living room. Everything gray, silver, pearl, and chrome. A slick little hideout with a view of the Meadows. A clubhouse here, too, with a pool table, a ping-pong table, an ice hockey table, an outdoor grill, a common area, a Jacuzzi, an Olympic-size pool, and a battalion of lounge chairs. Oh, it was shared space, of course, with the rest of the association. But, you know, you never saw anybody, never saw a soul out here, really. So it was practically yours.
Terry had been married before, too. Poor dear. Some head honcho at Chrysler, treated her like yesterday’s takeout. Some big swinging dick with hair plugs, you can tell from the picture, boinking his secretary after hours, during lunch break, even on weekends for a quickie, while Terry waited at home crying her eyes out, heartless jerk. (One day I’ll fuck his shit up.)
Well, she showed him. One lake house, two Chryslers, and one condo later, she showed him. Bastard. And now, Terry was set. Terry was set and he was set and they’d be set together. Easy fucking living is right, assholes.
Meeting Terry’s friends in the clubhouse, well, it wasn’t easy. But he was a man, sure. He was not a bad-looking man. A man you wanted around. He looked the part. He matched the wallpaper. Yep, he’d do. He’d do for Terry, poor thing, she’d been through a lot.
Gone were the days drinking Coke and gin or whatever was left out of his brown plastic Buffy’s Buffet glass, staring at the floor. No how. Not now. Not anymore now with Terry and the ponies and his Seventy. Five. Thousand. Dollars. Nope. This was it. Easy Street.
He knew for a fact, Terry had Two. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars in the bank from her settlement. Not that he’d ever take advantage. No, no. Not him. Terry was the real deal. He woulda run off with her in a pickle-barrel, sure, but with this, well, it didn’t hurt. Security.
Spending all day Saturday at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, what a day. Coming down Sunday by the pool, Terry in her peach pants and sweater set. Coral earrings. Unwinding now over white wine spritzers, still warm for September. Still sunny, seventies, not a cloud even.
I mean, yes, sometimes he would hide a bottle or two, but why tell Terry? Sometimes she would fall asleep and he’d have a nightcap, what’s wrong with that? It was perfectly normal.
Somewhere in the front office, a buzzer beeping incessantly. Beeep. Beep. Beeeeep. Jesus, that thing’s been going all morning, what the hell’s going on?
Troy sick of it, making his way to the front glass doors, next to the water feature, a wall of waterfall rocks. And there, outside the glass doors and gray stone waterfall . . .
Shauna.
All three hundred pounds of her.
Not wanting to see it. Not wanting to be seen. Oh, fucking Lord. Not here. Don’t let Terry see! Hurrying over, hurrying her in. We’ll go to the condo. That’s it. I’ll just take her to the condo. We’ll talk in private. Just me and her. Don’t let Terry see.
“Dad?”
“Hi, Shauna. Well, what a surprise.”
Troy Boggs polite. Troy Boggs in panic.
“Shauna, let’s just. How ’bout we talk over here. Good to see you.”
Good to see you! Ha, what a laugh. No, Shauna, it is not good to see you, just as it is not good to see yourself. Look at you. Christ. How do you even get around like that? How do you fit in a car? On a seat? In a doorway?
Through the peach-and-turquoise wallpaper hallways, little palm-tree sunsets over ocean water and a gazebo, pretty little sunset scenes, innocuous as mustard. Drywall paradise. Frosted tulip light fixtures, turquoise carpet, Shauna inspecting it all. So this is where you live, huh? This is where you’ve escaped to?
Brass-frame glass mirrors every ten feet. Oh, take them down. Take the mirrors down. Don’t look at me.
Inside the pearl, silver, gray, chrome condo, he couldn’t help but brag.
“Terry designed it.”
“Huh.”
“She designed it herself. ’Cept the sunken living space, that was there first. They’re all like that.”
“Living space?”
“You know, this here.”
Gesturing down to the sofa, glass-top coffee table. Ivory gas fireplace, who is this man? Who is this man in front of me? This can’t be my dad. Yes, there’s the pickle-nose, a little. Yes, there’s the splotchy skin, but the tan, the Tommy Bahama shirt with buttons, the khaki pants? Where the fuck did you come from, man in dad-suit, semi-dad?
“Shauna, have a seat. How ’bout here?”
And now sitting down on the gray-silver sofa, tiny seagulls in silver stitching, just for texture. Everything smelling new, just bought, just-bought slick chrome-and-crystal condo. Where the fuck am I?
“So . . . what brings you to Mount Pleasant?”
“Um.”
“New boyfriend?”
Dumb. That was dumb. Shouldn’t have said it. Yeah, right. Looking like that. New boyfriend. Maybe Al Roker. Fat Albert.
“You, Dad. I came to talk to you.”
“Oh, yeah? Well. I mean. There’s a phone here. We do ‘have the technology’ . . . Wanna drink?”
“Yeah.”
Too fast. Yeah, I want a drink too fast. Yesterday even. Yesterday and all the days before.
“What’s on your mind? You like Captain Morgan? It’s spiced. You gotta try it. Goes great with Coke. Just great.”
&n
bsp; Mixing up the Captain Morgan spiced rum, oh, to be on the sea. To be away from this landlocked condo complex out on the sea somewhere with Captain Morgan and his parrot and his eye patch and his spiced rum in barrels and away from three-hundred-pound daughters with imploring eyes and nothing to say.
“The ice is the trick. You gotta have the ice.”
Ha. That’s a laugh. Did you have to have the ice all those years in our crashing-down ash shack back home? Did you have to have the ice in your 10-AM-brown-plastic-gin-and-Coke-or-what-ever’s-left glass back on Route 31?
Handing Shauna the drink, an assuring smile.
“Bottoms up, kid. Good to see ya.”
Good to see you. Already said that, Christ, how many times can I say it without sounding like a jerk-off?
“Dad . . . what happened to you? I mean, what is all this? What . . . is this?”
Silence. Ice clinking. Take sip.
“Shauna, change happens quick. You know, a lot of people sit around and wait, wait for change to happen, to them. But not me. Not after I found Tony.”
“What—?”
“Tony Robbins. Ultimate Power. That’s what it is. It’s just ultimate power. You should read it.”
Taking it out past the wet bar, a black hardback book with a gleaming cover. A giant of a man smiling from the gloss, big teeth, arms crossed.
“This book changed my life. I want you to have it.”
Handing over the gleaming black book to Shauna, a heavy tome, a Bible-black brick. Hope it works. Maybe it will work. God knows she needs it.
Shauna taking the book, a confused pink pudge face, eyes looking for something to grasp, something to latch onto. Everyone back at Hope was talking about the case, the documentary, the town abuzz with gossip. But here was Dad, hours away, talking about Tony.
“Dad . . . if you did something. If you did something that you know wasn’t right . . . even if it was a long time ago—”
“The past is dead, kid. The past’s the past. All you got is the future. And . . . ” Tapping the book with his forefinger. “The future is now.”
“But what if—”
“No excuses.”
“But, Dad, listen to me—”
“No excuses, kiddo. The future is what you make it.”
And now the door opens, goddammit, and there is Terry. Terry in her peach sarong and swimsuit, gold bracelet.
“Oh.”
“Well, hello, Terry. This is Shauna.”
Not wanting to say it, not wanting to say it.
“My daughter.”
And there she is. Flip-flops in September. Shorts. A muumuu of a shirt, a tent thing with little pink flowers. And that hair. Grease head. Black roots. And into dry, dry wispy breaking blonde frazzle. Rat hair.
“Oh! Well, Shauna, it’s nice to meet you. Real nice to meet you. Here, won’t you sit down? Want a drink? Oh, what am I saying, you’ve got a drink. How bout a—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. I was just leaving, actually.”
What a relief!
“Oh, so soon . . . ”
“Yeah, I gotta get back. I got an early shift, in the morning.”
“Hm”.
“Yeah, I got a new job, telemarketing. It’s okay. I mean, the hours are good.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Listen, Dad, it’s good to see you.”
Good to see you! Good to see you! It’s so goddamn good to see everyone around here I could tear my face off!
“Mind if I just . . . use your bathroom before I go…it’s a long drive back so . . . ”
And Troy standing there like a wooden post, a palm-shirt scarecrow. What do I do?
He wasn’t gonna tell her, later. No way he would tell Terry. Later. After Shauna scurried out, polite good-byes all around, pleasantries in turquoise. No, there was no way to tell her, when Terry went back down to the clubhouse, what he found in the bedroom.
There it was, a nice little white note, in front of a nice shiny hardback black book, with a smiling tall man and, on top of it, a heaping pile of human shit. A pile of it.
On the note:
“Dearest father, This is what I think of the past.”
“PS: Don’t forget to tell Terry to put on the wedding dress and cry while you fuck her.”
TWO
A million miles of cable between them, stretched out on a wire. A system of radio signals, satellite signals, digital symbol in ones and twos spiraling down to focus, at the Home Depot, the TV set in the break room, back in Torrance. That’s him, isn’t it?
Torrance, California, where Jeff Cody had just been promoted to assistant manager. Ah, beautiful Torrance! Where Jeff Cody had stumbled after years upon years of blowing around, pissing away time, scorching it, doing whatever it is a man can do to make his head stop.
Yes, he knew they were coming. Of course they were coming. They would come and find him, track him down, wheedle their way into his sidelines, the margins of his shit-ball drive-to-work days and after-hours, this cockroach life, hiding around and in between boxes, stacks, piles of wood, burrowing out, only when the lights off, a thousand little tentacles, crawling scared. What kind of life is this? A look-back life. A thousand broken light-bulbs, might-have-beens, a thousand maybe-what-ifs. Junk cars on the pavement, everything a past glory, a past almost.
Living a life of almost-had-turned, somehow, everything inward, everything else away. The gang, the boys, all of them, where now? In Pittsburgh, in Phoenix, in Plano. Gone to the four corners, spread, a common cause of guilt, a mirror unheld. Get them away! Lose them! Put them in boxes, ship them out, stack them high and steep, get them out of here. Storage. Lock the lock, throw away the key.
Those sunny, summer-always sunshine days of Torrance. Don’t look at the ground, don’t look at the cement. Keep your head up, up and away. Keep your head up to the bright bulb always summer sky, never mind the concrete blocks, barbed wire, metal fences, junkyard gates, rusty trucks, burned-out signs, leaning signposts. Keep your head to the sky, Torrance. And whatever you do . . . don’t look back.
That morning he’d meant to take it easy. Don’t sweat it, boss. Assistant manager Cody. And assistant manager Cody of the Home Depot didn’t sweat it, why should he, that morning in Hardware or Fixtures or Plumbing. There was nothing to sweat. A slow Tuesday morning dragging along. A cleanup on aisle five, in Paint, someone dumped a can of primer. Dumbshit. That was not gonna be easy. Put up the cones. The orange ones. MOJADO. DANGER. WET PAINT.
Slip-n-falls! Christ, the lecture they give ’em on slip-n-falls. Two days devoted to the viscosity of tiles, the treatment, miracle treatment you put on the tiles. MORE traction when wet! MORE traction in the rain! Not that it rained much in sunshine always-happy Torrance. January and February, that’s it. The rainy season. In June. June gloom. The blah cloud season. That’s the only season. Two months of rain in winter. One month in summer of gloom. The rest, fuck it, sunshine all around. That bright marble blue cloudless sky beating down on iron fencing and padlocks and lectures about slip-n-falls, out on the patio next to the nursery. You can get a hot dog on the truck but I wouldn’t eat it. Burritos, too.
The no-papers fenced in, in a cage, waiting to work. Take a number and they’ll paint your house practically for free, they’ll move you, they’ll clean your toilets, they’ll mow your lawn, for peanuts, scraps, a shrug. They want to work. Jeff Cody strolling out on Sundays, out to the pen. Agua! Agua, amigos! Giving them water in the beating-down sun. Jesus. You had to feel sorry for them. On Christmas he’d given out a bunch of returns in a raffle. No big deal, he couldn’t sell them anyway. And beer. Cervezas! Cervezas, amigos! It was obvious they were good people, fucking sweat their asses off for four bucks an hour in the beat-down heat. You couldn’t help but feel bad for them. What the fuck did they ever do?
And there, in landscaping, between the bougainvillea and the azaleas, in Outdoor Nursery, assistant manager Jeff Cody rounded the corner and stood face-to-face with, eyes to eyes, staring at, D
etective Samuel Barnett of the Muskegon, Michigan, police.
Beside him, flanked, a cop of each color, one white bread, one black. Big-bicep-bodied L.A. kind of cops, Rodney King cops, Rampart cops, cops you didn’t want to fuck with. Cops not on the beat, cops not on a squad. Cops on a force. Cops like soldiers. City soldiers, armored, billy-clubbed, heat-packed, muscle-bound.
Between them, a relic, Detective Samuel Barnett of fish-town Michigan.
“Jeff Cody, you are under arrest for the murder of Elizabeth Lynn Krause.”
And the cuffs get put on.
“Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of . . . ”
And the white cop and the black cop get to lead him through the maiden grass, through the lace-leaf maple, through the crimson queen. The sweet-scent blooms of jasmine, the gentle trellis of periwinkle, gardenia, peonies, poppies, daisies, belles, all watching as the black-beetle uniforms scurry through, marching past the lily-of-the-valley, the ruby stella, the old-fashioned bleeding heart.
And behind them, the law words, the make-it-right Miranda words of halls of marble, justice words float through, through and up toward the bright cobalt sky, a sky made of Play-Doh, banishing clouds to Michigan, banishing gloom to Michigan.
And below, the bougainvillea and the bluebells gossip and giggle. The peonies concur. The poppies demur. And the sweetheart roses smile finally.
THREE
A raw scallop sky in the middle of March, the nothing month. The courthouse, the cement steps, the beige brick walls all faded as a photograph, turning white before your eyes. Blink now and it was never there.
No one knows what to make of this new century, 2004 and it’s not looking good. They had come from every corner of Michigan, all parts of the glove, from Holland to Saginaw, from Clarkston to Traverse City. The story had filled them with rage. Gross indifference. Reckless endangerment. Murderers! Animals! Sickos! Some with signs: JUSTICE FOR ELIZABETH! BURN THE BASTARDS! FRY ’EM! And then, the churches . . . from Good Shepherd Assembly to New Hope Bible to the United Methodist down the way. The Dearborn Heights Baptist all the way from Detroit. A candlelight vigil. Prayers in silence. Some pray for clemency. Some pray for revenge. The snow plower and his wife seated at the back of the courtroom, hand in hand. And the students, the classes in Hope College, practically empty. The students down at the courthouse. And for the law students, a required course. A field trip.
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