Sandy Gingras - Lola Polenta 01 - Swamped

by Sandy Gingras

  “Surveillance of lewd conduct,” I tell him. “Is that a crime?”

  “We have to talk to Detective Johansen,” Joe says. “You’re right; that picture of William’s car looked just like a restroom parking lot.”

  “So William is gay?” I ask.

  Nobody says a word.

  “William is gay in a public restroom?” I ask.

  “Look at George Michael,” Joe says. “It could happen to anyone.”

  My father says, “This is becoming more common in public restrooms on old Florida highways now. The still-in-the-closet gay men, most of whom are married with kids, tend to be the ones caught up in the police sweeps. Often times, the meetings are not as elaborate or ritualized as this, but there’s a network of people. They find ways…”

  He drives us back to my car in the restroom parking lot. He’s exuding barely contained pissed-off-ness. He’s also breathing very heavily. I keep thinking that his heart is going to explode or something. And it’s going to be all my fault.

  “You should consider an aerobics program,” I tell him. Although, I should talk—I haven’t exercised a day since I’ve been down here.

  “Didn’t I tell you not to get involved in this, Lola?”

  “Even just walking would help your breathing. I know mom walks every night. Why don’t you walk with her?”

  He says, “What if the cops weren’t there? What if those guys discovered you? You don’t know what they would have done.”

  “They say walking is the best exercise,” I say.

  “I have been walking with your mother,” he tells me. “Those are men with secrets. They could’ve been desperate.”

  “I know. I know,” I say. “But we discovered a motive for William.”

  “You almost discovered yourself into jail,” he says. “Or worse.”

  “You should practice breathing,” I tell him. “You should consider living in the now.”

  He looks over at me.

  “It’s just a thought,” I say.

  Chapter 48

  I can’t sleep. When I take Dreamer for a walk, I see the lights are on in William’s trailer. I should have learned my lesson, but I can’t resist. It’s 2 a.m.; I have to see what he’s up to. Hopefully he doesn’t have his Zorro mask on.

  I try to look up through the Venetian blinds. I don’t know what Miss Tilney is talking about—all I can see is ceiling. There’s one window where the blind is only half pulled, but I can’t see in. I’m too short. If I crawl on George’s car though, I could look straight in. I creep up onto the hood. I kneel up. William is sitting at the table with a white V-neck tee shirt on and dress pants. He’s got a ledger in front of him filled with lines of numbers and he’s figuring something with a pencil.

  Dreamer’s standing by George’s car, and then I hear “Moof,” and she’s gone. “Mooooooof,” she howls as she takes off down the dirt road. I jump off the hood and run after her, although I know she won’t go far.

  We’ve made a lot of noise, so it’s no surprise that William is opening the door. “What’s the meaning of this…,” he says. But we are already gone.

  Dreamer is stopped dead in the dirt road about a hundred feet away. She is sitting down and whining. As I run up, an alligator waddles out of the shadows and scuttles across the road. “Brgf,” Dreamer says.

  “Oh,” I say. “That’s not good. Let’s get out of here.”

  Nothing is stirring in William’s trailer when we get back. The lights are out and everything seems definitively locked up. Even the blind is pulled all the way down.

  Funny thing is, I swear I saw a tattoo on William’s arm. It didn’t look like one of those “I love Jesus” tattoos either. It looked like one of those homemade ones that you get in prison.

  When we get in the trailer, my hands are shaking. Dreamer needs a drink of water.

  That’s when I notice that I have a couch. It’s oatmeal color with a wooden frame. It’s actually a futon. I look around. I’m grateful to see my card table is still here and my cardboard chair. Miss Tilney was itching to throw them away, I know, but my mother must have overruled her.

  There’s a note on the card table from my mother. “Have a good night’s sleep! I’ll bring breakfast tomorrow morning bright and early. Love you, Mom.”

  I sleep like a champ on my new futon. I hate to admit it.

  For breakfast, my mother brings sticky buns. We eat them on real plates. There’s also something to be said for drinking coffee from a mug rather than a wine glass.

  My mother stands at the window looking at the sun shimmering on the marsh. “This is such an open place, isn’t it? You can just see and see…”

  I know what she means. The flatness of Florida makes the world feel endless. “It’s like a long run-on sentence,” I tell her, “kind of redundant but kind of soothing.”

  “Do you miss teaching, Lo?”

  “I miss the kids. I don’t miss the administrative stuff.”

  “Maybe you could teach a class here at the retirement home…”

  My mother has gotten to calling this place “the retirement home.” Sometimes she makes me feel like crying with frustration.

  I sigh.

  “A book discussion group,” she continues. “A creative writing workshop. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “Um,” I say. “Do you really like it enough to move down here? Miss Tilney says…”

  “Oh dear, she’s just so EAGER for me to live here. She’s constantly making plans for me. I’m just enjoying my vacation, dear. That’s all.”

  “So you’re not starting a business with her?”

  “Well, we’re making two dog beds for Mrs. Curlitch. She has Scotties, so that should be a small project. Beyond that, I don’t know. May, next door, has expressed an interest in curtains…”

  “Dad says that you’re walking at night with him,” I say.

  She smiles. “Your father is changing. I never thought it was possible.”

  I bet, I think.

  My mother looks out toward William’s trailer. “Oh look,” she says, “there’s a squirrel licking your license plate.”

  I take a deep breath. “What are you up to today?” I ask.

  “Well that nice man, Joe, is going to help us search the Internet for a stove that fits into your kitchen. I can’t believe you don’t have one. A stove is essential.”

  “Mom, I’m never home.”

  “Nonetheless. Someday you’ll settle down.”

  “In the retirement home?”

  “We’re just searching to see what’s available. I don’t know what’s got into you. You never used to be so negative. A nice cute stove right here,” she indicates a spot near the sink about the width of her hips, “would make everything just right.” She looks around proudly. “It’s all so COMPACT, like a little boat.”

  My phone beeps. It’s a text message from Johnny. “I need to talk to you,” it says.

  Chapter 49

  The thing about my trailer is that there’s no washer or dryer. You have to go to the clubhouse to do laundry. I’m trying to do a couple loads before work.

  May is there doing laundry too. I’m surprised William let her out of the house, although when he’s gone, I notice she does pretty much as she pleases. It’s only when he’s around that she cowers and follows him and speaks only when spoken to.

  “Is William at church?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “I heard the police were going to question him again. Do you know why?”

  “They think Ernie was blackmailing him over that photo.” She says the word “photo” with a sneer.

  How do you ask if someone knows if their husband is gay? I say nothing.

  She is folding William’s clothes. They are almost a uniform: white BVDs, white V-neck tees, dress white cotton shirts, polyester pants in brown or grey or black. “I’m glad we’ll be done here soon,” she says.

  “Done?”

  “With establishing the church. Then we’ll be assi
gned somewhere else.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “Kenya,” she says.

  “Kenya?” I ask.

  “Bolivia…,” she says.

  I look at her.

  “The Lord’s work takes us many places. It is not ours to question but to follow the need,” she tells me.

  I wonder if they have public restrooms in Bolivia.

  “Or Des Moines,” she says.

  “Iowa?” I say.

  She nods. I wonder if she’s kidding me, but her face is a blank.

  “When is this happening?”

  “Very soon now,” she tells me.

  “What will George do?” I ask.

  “Go back to his wife, live in the sacrament of marriage,” she insists.

  “He’s divorced,” I want to say, but some people are so embedded in their denial, it’s like they are in an ice cube and you can see them but never touch them. I want to knock on her cube, “Hello in there.” But then again, maybe she’s right and George will go back to his old life. I just know I won’t. Can’t. Some doors that you leave open a crack suddenly slam shut, like some invisible wind shift pulled them irreversibly closed.

  “That was a gay meeting in the rest area,” I tell her. So much for subtlety. I’ve found that rudeness is at the heart of private investigating. So is lying.

  May continues to fold BVD after BVD.

  “…that William was at…,” I add.

  May looks at me and her pupils are huge.

  “William does outreach where outreach is necessary,” she tells me, although I know she knows what he was really doing there in his Zorro mask. I can tell from how she keeps folding the underwear tighter and tighter.

  “George and Joe and I are going to William’s service tonight.” I tell her.

  She nods.

  “We want to check it out, see what the church has to offer,” I lie.

  She looks at me shrewdly. “You won’t like it,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “It’s not for women like you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s for people who are looking for somewhere to belong.”

  “I want that,” I tell her. And it’s true.

  “You’re too modern.”

  I stop. I think. “Really?” I ask her.

  “I want to be ruled by God, and so belong to William because he is the will of God incarnate.”

  “What about belonging to yourself?”

  “That’s selfishness. Happiness is selfish.”

  I see a pattern here, so I stop. I understand that the most dysfunctional things have the most allure sometimes. Ruled?

  “Did he know about you being arrested for shoplifting?”

  She laughs. It’s more a rumble than a laugh. “Who would care? That was in another life. That was when I was someone else. I was at my lowest point and God sent me to William. That was the reason I became a Holy Innocent. I’ve confessed my sins, and I’ve been washed clean.”

  ∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙

  I go to work. At 10 a.m., I have an appointment with Mr. Drainage. Then Joe and I are going to William’s church. My father is nowhere to be found. I walk by his office. I go in and just stand there and breathe. It smells like his aftershave and also like books. I look at the pictures on his walls. The mistakes, the things that haunt him.

  I glance at the piles on his desk. I go around in back of his desk and sit down in his chair. I open the top drawer. It’s a shallow drawer with some stray pens and some paperclips, some passwords written down on slips of paper. There’s a creased black and white photograph of my mother and father. They’re standing next to a car and my father is holding my mother’s hand. They’re laughing. I pick it up. Underneath it is another photo. It’s a Polaroid picture of me at fifteen. It’s faded and the edges are curled like the photos of the unsolved cases behind me.

  In the photo, I’m holding Budgy like a baby. My purple hair is half grown out. My face is in her belly and one paw is reaching up to my face. I’m smiling in the picture. I stare at my face. It’s so open.

  My hand goes up to my mouth. My cheeks are wet. I put the photos back and close the drawer. I walk back to my office like a zombie.

  Squirt comes in just as I’m sitting down. “That handsome detective is here to see you,” she whispers.

  “Oh hell,” I say. “He’s got the worst timing. Is my mascara runny?” I ask her.

  She pauses. “Are you okay?” she asks.

  I swipe under my eyes with my finger. “Show him in,” I tell her.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I nod.

  He’s got chinos on and a khaki golf shirt. “That bag of drugs had Ernie’s fingerprints on it. And yours,” he adds. “It’s a brand called ‘Muscle Man.’ Not sold over the counter. It’s a combination of amphetamines and anabolic steroids. Kind of a nightmare.”

  “Weird.”

  “Very.”

  “Your nose is sunburned,” I tell him.

  “I went to feed the manatees with my daughter yesterday afternoon. This sun kills me.”

  “What do manatees eat?”

  “Iceberg lettuce.”

  “Really,” I say.

  “Juju’s an animal lover. She won’t forgive me for not letting her get a pet. I have long hours. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  I think about her little determined posture daring anyone to think her other than strong. “A pet is a good thing to have. Dreamer’s saved me from myself a million times,” I tell him.

  “That’s a good dog,” he says.

  “I might have died from loneliness without her,” I admit.

  The air vibrates between us. He looks at me. I look at him.

  “Those manatees are something to see,” he tells me. “You should go sometime… over near the power plant. The water’s warm there, and there’s a fresh water hose they let run out of the cooling plant. You’re not supposed to touch them, but we take the kayaks out and they come right up to get their heads scratched.”

  There’s something weird about this conversation. It’s like a real conversation, not an interrogation. I wonder what’s changed between us.

  I feel a fluttering in my stomach. “Were you wearing hiking boots?” I ask him. I don’t know why I ask him this.

  “In the kayak?”

  “You HAVE hiking boots though?” I say.

  “No,” he says, puzzled.

  “Not even tucked away in storage for some future day when, you know, you might go out west or somewhere and you might need them to climb Pike’s Peak and scale a cliff and then rappel down the other side?” I say. I’m on a roll here, and it’s one of those kinds of things that keep going downhill, but you just keep rolling with it.

  He looks at me. “Pike’s Peak?”

  “I thought you were an Earth Science teacher.”

  “I was.”

  “And you have a kayak?”

  “Two.”

  “I have none,” I say. As if that’s that. I mean that’s our whole potential relationship thing in a nutshell. 2-0. Kayak-wise.

  He’s very quiet. I sit back in my chair. I get a sudden image of my mother sewing, how she’d get the scissors and open them and rip through the fabric and there’d be this sharp but satisfying torn apart sound.

  “You called about something?” he asks. He looks different suddenly. Like a cop again.

  I called him this morning because I wanted to tell him about the photo of William’s car. “That was in one of those rest stop areas where gay men…” I trail off.

  “I know.”

  “You do? How come you didn’t tell me?”

  He stands there unyielding.

  “So, did you interview William again, after you knew where he was parked?”

  “He’s coming in today.”

  “How about Gene Swan? That wasn’t a rest stop where he was parked.”

  “No. It’s Emile Johe’s in Tampa.”


  I look at him with my eyes wide, “The loony bin?”

  “It’s a residential institution for the mentally ill. He was visiting his wife.”

  “Ernie was blackmailing him about that?”

  “Gene Swan assaulted his wife 35 years ago. She bumped her head on their fireplace when he knocked her down, and she didn’t get up the same person. They called it an accident back then. But it’s in the police report. He confessed to pushing her. Domestic abuse just wasn’t the crime then that it is now. He didn’t do any jail time,” he tells me. “He visits her once a week. I talked to him about it. He says she doesn’t recognize him at all. He brings her Trix cereal and coloring books; he told me those are her favorite things.”

  “Trix?” I say.

  “Ernie was blackmailing him,” the detective continues, “for forty dollars a week. He seems to have a deep sense of shame about it all. He never re-married. He’s got pictures of her up all over his trailer. Sad, really.”

  “So you don’t think he killed Ernie.”

  “He’s actually the only one with an alibi. He was at his bowling league at the time of Ernie’s murder. He’s got seven witnesses, and he bowled a 133 and a 125. He keeps all of his scorecards in a file.”

  “How about William then? Do you think he’s gay?”

  “He was there. Odds are…”

  “Does he say that Ernie was blackmailing him?”

  “He takes the fifth. He says prayers…”

  “How come you’re not a teacher anymore?” I ask. It’s been bugging me.

  “That was a long time ago,” he says. “Curious George,” he adds.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “When my wife died, I decided to go into police work.”

  “Why?” I ask. I never noticed how big his hands are. He’s holding them stiffly at his sides, but I can still see the breadth of them. They’re like baseball mitts. Suddenly I think how soft it would feel to lean into those hands.

  “She had a brain aneurysm,” he says. “It was very sudden. One moment, she was here, then, no. I was left with Juju. It was crazy. Juju was so innocent. It’s funny how you think you can protect that.” He trails off.

  “You find any more evidence, call me,” he says turning for the door. “And no more snooping around in bushes.” He almost smiles.