by Lee Irby
7
“He told me he lived with his sister.”
This sentence hovers between Gibson and me as if the words are spinning in a crazy cyclone, and after speaking, Gibson literally grabs an armrest to keep from pitching forward in shock. I’m reeling too. Not only did I nearly get my head blown off by a woman scorned, but my own scorned femme, Lola the Huntress, claims to be on her way to Richmond to “talk,” which can mean many things. Talk? About what? I made myself perfectly clear. No more. It’s done. Yet she won’t be sated until she has my head on a platter.
Wait a second. Did I hear Gibson correctly?
“His sister?”
“Yeah! I saw pictures of them together and that’s what he told me. I don’t mess around with married guys. That’s one of my rules.”
Gibson has rules, good to know. But I have a few rules of my own, a major one of which is not to get shot by a police officer. I’m steaming mad at this beautiful creature, in the same way I grew irate at Lola not that long ago, when she too acted stupidly…and tried to deceive me, though not as blatantly. Why is she even coming down here? There’s really no excuse for her behavior, just as Gibson should know when men are taking complete advantage of her. And who gets caught in the middle?
“I think it’s safe to say that we’re both lucky to be alive.” I abhor the patronizing tone in my voice, but at that moment I’m not in control of my inner life.
“That bitch was crazy! And a cop! But check this out: he’s the biggest drug dealer I know. How f-ed up is that?” Admiration oozes from every pore of her glistening skin. She couldn’t love him more now if she tried, despite the fact that his gutless lies nearly got us both killed.
“Extremely. He’s a piece of garbage and you should stay away from him. Does he even know anybody at the National? Or was that just another game he was running?”
“Said he did. And I bet he does, knowing him.”
“I promise you he doesn’t. He was just taking advantage of you.”
“No he wasn’t.”
“How can you say that?”
“I wanted him, too. I just thought he was single.”
Oh, this is a perilous conversation! When these lovely young women speak to me of their libidinous lechery, it sends me spiraling to the nether reaches of joy, which is located in Hell. I hate myself for how ardently I crave every detail. I’ve vowed countless times never again to become the dumping ground of their sexual escapades. Yet one innocent comment is all it takes for me to crumble like a five o’clock sand castle, and Lola is descending on me unless I can concoct a way to stop her. She might be lying just to torture me, which is one of her favorite hobbies. I never should have rattled her cage from afar, as my text only fueled her desire for dramatic gestures. But what else would you expect from the only child of two theater professors?
Haven’t I mentioned that Lola is the daughter of two of my colleagues at Notting College, soon to be ex-colleagues when my perfidy is exposed?
“I feel like you haven’t been honest with me from the start,” I say, waiting to take a left onto Semmes Avenue. “You said you were just dropping the CD off. I was waiting in the car! I was doing you a favor.”
“I didn’t know he was married.”
“That’s not the point. I was trying to help out your band, not be a taxi service for a random hookup.”
“It wasn’t random.”
She’s just a kid, I have to remind myself, and prone to make mistakes. She assumed she could get in a quickie, and under different circumstances she might’ve and I would’ve known nothing, if not for the unlucky arrival of Police Woman.
“So you like him then?”
“Yeah, we have some real chemistry. It’s hard to explain.”
Lola would’ve had no problem explaining, and it’s difficult to say what she liked more, the act itself or the reporting of it, especially when Dahlia got involved, Dahlia the pinch-faced corrupter, who promised never to tell anyone—maybe she’s the one I killed, to keep her quiet. Just go check the dumpster behind the Public Works hut at South Hill Town Park. You might find a body in there. Dahlia let it be known that she considered me a creep, that she didn’t approve of Lola’s relationship with me, and nothing, nothing, drives a person to homicidal rage quicker than the unvarnished truth.
“You don’t have to explain,” I add nervously, secretly wishing she would divulge all. “And I don’t have room to talk. I’ve done some pretty stupid things before, especially when I was a little younger.” Or last week. And last night.
Gibson calls my bluff. “Like what?”
I inhale sharply and my lungs fill with boning knives. Her limpid eyes fall on me and her feet are once again on my dashboard, her legs raised up and knees bent like they had been when her brawny lover had been on top of her—I really hope that prison will rehabilitate me. “Oh boy.” I cough, hitting the brakes to avoid slamming into a postal truck stopped in the middle of Semmes Avenue. “That’s a hard one to answer because there’s so much to choose from.”
She rolls her eyes dismissively and picks at one of her lovely toes. “I bet you’ve never done anything too bad. You’re a college professor.”
“Egging me on, huh? I know a thing or two about reverse psychology. Let’s just say I’ve had my moments.”
The postal truck lurches forward and I press gently on the accelerator. “Have you ever messed around with one of your students?” she asks.
“Too risky.” Notice I don’t directly answer the question—I can evade like a World War One fighter pilot.
“I bet they’ve come on to you, though.”
“Nope. I’m too ugly.”
“You’re not ugly.”
This is clearly entrapment. But the truth is, I am ugly, hideously ugly on the inside, a monstrosity unfit to inhabit the planet. “That’s kind of you to say,” I announce with great fanfare, as though I’m about to call out the winning number for the lottery, “but the sad fact is, unless you want me to make something up, my life is pretty damn boring.”
“Do you get high?”
“Not so much anymore.”
“I have some weed if you want to smoke while you’re here.”
“I thought you were supposed to be sober.”
“Weed doesn’t count.”
“I’m pretty sure it does.”
“Whatever, it helps me calm down.”
At least my forty dollars was well spent. There’s no reason for me to hector her about her substance abuse issues, given all we’ve endured up to this point. I’m bringing Gibson home more or less in one piece, not totally sober, no better at math, not chastened by her brush with death at the hands of a maniac cop, but alive and kicking. “Music helps me calm down,” I say, handing her my phone. “Pick something out. Something snappy.”
She groans and starts scrolling through my playlists. So we’re right back where we started, babbling about music again with such vigorous excitement that Gibson never gets around to picking a song before we return home. And we won’t even be late for lunch, at which my mother has planned for me to meet her betrothed, Mead George, which will happen in a matter of minutes. As we pull into Traylor Estates, I feel fear rising in my throat.
“I haven’t met your father yet, you realize.”
“I hope he’s in a good mood. He’s been so stressed recently. He keeps saying he’s going to kick me out of the house. You can’t tell anybody that I skipped class today.”
“I already told my mother.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because I didn’t know what the hell you were doing! I was worried about you.”
“I’m screwed.” She sinks down low in the seat, like she wants to melt into the fake leather. “They’re going to kill me.”
“They’re getting married. They’ve got other things to worry about.”
Then she brightens. “I’ll just say I went to class. I mean, maybe I did. I walked over from 7-Eleven.”
I cringe at the prospect o
f being swept up in another deception being perpetrated by one of my siblings, but in the name of keeping my mother happy, I agree to go along with Gibson’s ruse. One never grows numb to lying. Each untruth carries away a small part of the soul, the way a river ceaselessly erodes a fraction of the muddy bank that contains it and in time the river changes course and thereby becomes unrecognizable.
“Maybe you did.”
“There’s always a solution to every problem.”
I park in the same spot on the side of the road in front of the house. I notice right away that the Corvette is gone, meaning Mead is running late, possibly AWOL with his ex. With Clint Eastwood as my witness, I swear I won’t let my poor mother get hurt by a scheming gigolo. But right when my ire reaches its apex, who doesn’t show up but Mead George himself, wheeling his vintage sports car down Traylor Drive at seventy-five miles an hour like he’s speeding for the finish line at Daytona.
“He drives like a maniac!” blurts Gibson. “He’s gonna die in that car one day. Or kill somebody with it.”
Foreshadowing? A red herring? There’s a prophetic quality to Gibson that is quite alluring—a blend of youthful innocence and jaded adulthood, allowing her to speak her mind freely without fear of reprisal. At the same time, she spews lies like confetti on New Year’s Eve. Can a liar also be a prophet? We’ll see, we’ll see.
Mead’s Corvette kicks up gravel as he swings into the driveway, sending a plume of dust spinning into the air. The front yard now resembles a battlefield; just add in some bloated, rotting corpses and this tableau could be a Mathew Brady daguerreotype. Then the man hops out of his car. My first impression: he reminds me of Ed O’Neill from Married…with Children, as Mead is beefy, even fleshy, with a soft chin that seems to be retracting into his face, a widow’s peak shaped in an arrowhead, and the heavy-lidded eyes of someone who is perpetually sleep deprived. He gives us a friendly wave and bounds over with the long, purposeful strides of a determined letter carrier.
“It is so awesome to finally meet you!” he booms at me with an arm extended for a manly shake. His grip is strong and sure, but dare I say that he comes across as a wee bit insincere—I might as well be shopping for a used car. Tsk, tsk, I need to reserve judgment, because I make a very positive first impression that belies my hideousness.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey! How was class?”
“Boring.”
Then Mead turns his attention back to me, and I quickly remove the smirk that Gibson’s fib brought on. “So, Edwin, how’s your morning been so far? Did you visit your old stomping grounds?”
“You could say that.”
“It’s been a while since you’ve been in Richmond, right?”
Gibson saunters off to the house and like lemmings we fall in behind her. My throat is parched, the scotch is wearing off, and I’m sticky from the oppressive heat that actually seems to take on a physical dimension, a heaviness that clogs the air. I don’t know how much more I can take. Why am I speaking to this man about my existence? I have a smile plastered on my heat-reddened face. But the strain is catching up with me. The floorboards of my soul groan in agony from the weight of my anxiety, the brown grass crackles beneath my plodding feet. “Yeah,” I manage to spit out, “it’s been a few years. Too long. I don’t really have a good excuse.”
“And you’re a writer?”
“I teach writing.”
“I thought you wrote books.”
“Not so much lately, but I might have a good idea for a new one.”
“Really? I’d love to hear it.”
Well, it’s about a college professor who may (or may not) be on a killing spree…never mind. My mother bursts out of the front door with arms outstretched to greet us, displaying energy uncommon to victims of panic attacks. I deduce that she must be feeling better, and she’s so intent on us that Gibson breezes right past with nary a word. “Come on in!” she erupts joyously, making me think that my mother has ingested a euphoria-inducing pill. Wonder where she keeps her stash…“I was just making lunch. I hope you two boys are hungry.”
Perhaps a poor choice of words, given our close proximity in ages. But Mead doesn’t seem to mind. “Edwin here was just telling me that he has a new idea for a book.”
“That’s wonderful, honey! You’ll have to fill us in.”
“It’s kind of hard to explain.”
A cool blast of AC brings immediate relief. I close my eyes and revel in the comfort. Even cooler is the basement, where I long to retreat so that I can call Lola, which might be futile since she seldom answers her phone, placing me in a bit of a bind. I absolutely must convince her not to come, but it would have to be by text, and given my lack of digital dexterity, these texts take me a long time to compose and don’t convey the true meaning of my intentions. In short, there’s probably no way I can convince her not to come and my next step should be planning on what to do once she hits town. She must remain hidden. My family can’t know of her.
“I read somewhere that publishers are looking for books that have something called a high concept,” Mead says. “That’s where the title and the story are the same and so the readers can figure out what the book is about without really thinking about it.”
“I don’t write those kinds of books.”
Mead looks at me with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean?”
My mother jumps in, sensing danger. She knows I can’t talk rationally about my nonexistent writing career without my engine overheating. “Eddie has had bad luck when it comes to publishing, but he’s a great writer and one day the world will know it.”
Yes, Mother, one day the entire world will know the name Edwin Stith, but not for the reasons that you imagine. The walls are already closing in, the noose I’ve placed around my neck is tightening. “Do you mind if I go take a shower?” I ask, but it sounds more like I’m pleading. Mead has his phone out and studies a text or e-mail carefully.
“Lunch will be ready in ten minutes,” my mother replies. “Is that enough time?”
“I’ll be quick. I just feel very gross right now.”
“You look tired.” She places her hand against my forehead just as she used to do when I was a kid. “Do you feel okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just dirty and need to clean up.”
Mead heads off upstairs. Once we are alone, my mother pulls me into the living room, where no one is allowed to sit down because the furniture cost too much money back in 1984 when it was purchased. “How did you find Gibson?” she whispers.
Cover for her or not? A promise is a promise. “I drove back to the campus later and she was there. We just got our wires crossed.”
“Thank God! That girl worries me so. She’s headed for trouble—I can smell it a mile away.”
“She’s an adult. It’s her life to ruin.”
“But she’s so pretty and she could amount to something, but she just hates everything. It’s her mother’s fault.”
“It usually is. That’s also my excuse.”
“Eddie! You be nice to me!”
“I’m kidding! Mead seems like a good guy.”
She beams up at me. “You think so?”
“Yes. But I really want to take shower.”
“Go, go. I’ll finish up in the kitchen.”
I run down to my basement lair and each step of descent brings me closer to my true home, Hell, which isn’t hot at all but surprisingly cool and refreshing. I turn no lights on so that it remains dark, almost perfectly so, meaning Hell has no raging fires or molten pits of lava. The Talking Heads say that heaven is a place where nothing ever happens, but in Hell no one makes small talk. I can think of no better spot than Hell to give Lola a call, futile as it may be.
She said she’s coming here, arriving by ten, when the darkness of night thickens into a black soup. And that obviously can’t happen. Lola in the city of Richmond? Talk about an unstable compound! She has to understand that she can’t toy with my life the way a puppy might devour a pai
r of old shoes.
I call my beloved…and in my head I can hear her phone buzzing away. A contemptuous look at the screen. Incoming call from Edwin? I imagine her smirking and shrugging and maybe cackling in delight with Dahlia and Thor as the three youths mock the pathetic professor who’s nearing forty with not much to show for it. Is it possible she’s not coming down here alone? That she’s taken the circus on the road for my amusement? No, please no!
I don’t bother to leave a message because it would be pointless. Texting is her preferred medium, and so it is to the written word I must turn if I’m ever to escape her clutches. You’d think a writing professor could craft a missive of substance without batting an eye, but writing has never come easily to me. So why then did I pursue it as a career? Fame and fortune, mostly. And the groupies.
Those bastard little buttons on my phone, how they mock me…the letter I want is never the letter that pops up on the screen, and thus I must retype almost each word two or three times, before finally producing this:
You’re really coming? You don’t need to. We can talk about this when I get back home.
Right as I hit the Send button, I hear noises coming from the storage portion of the garage, where Mead has his collection of weapons. I want to make sure that the noises are of a legitimate origin and not part of a burglary, and so I poke my head through the door that separates the man cave/laundry room from the workshop (now weapons depot). I see that Mead is rummaging through the boxes. Once he spots me, he waves me over. Inwardly my heart sinks. I just need to shower and have a little quiet in my subterranean room, but now I have to paste that fake smile back on and pretend to care about what he wants to say.
“You might want to see this,” he says proudly, holding up a square wooden box decorated with lotus blossoms and red stars. “It’s pretty special. One of a kind, really.”
He unlatches the box and pulls out a pistol that like all guns looks toyish at first glance but then takes on a more ominous form the longer you look at it. I can almost hear Bev’s piercing cry of disgust, given her absolute hatred of all guns, handguns in particular, which is why when I killed her, I refrained from using a firearm and instead opted for a sharp blade. I always tried to treat her with courtesy. All my victims, actually.