by Lee Irby
“Get back inside!” someone barks, probably Jeb, but Leigh Rose ignores him.
“Eddie! Talk to me, please!”
My opponents must have guns, too. It’s a safe assumption in a nation of two hundred million pistols and rifles. This could get ugly if I come out brandishing a weapon, but then again, who’d ever suspect me of being armed and dangerous? A wanted man, even!
“Eddie, if you can hear me,” Jeb cautions, “leave right now before someone gets hurt.”
The NRA would be very proud of what happens next. I begin to revel in the power of the gun in my hand, as it seems imbued with sinister forces that connect me to warlords and gangsters. I rise up from my crouch, my head poking through the bush that conceals me.
“Eddie, what are you doing?” Leigh Rose squeals, delight mixed with dread, yet another complication in a night full of them.
“Go inside, Jeb,” I say firmly, as we eye each other in a macho showdown. His walrus face creases into a surprised grimace, hands resting on his wide hips.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he counters.
“I want to talk to her in private.”
“Just go already,” Leigh Rose retorts, giving her brother a slight shove that doesn’t budge him. “You’re so annoying.”
“Why are you even here?” he challenges me. Before I can respond, Graz comes out and does a double take when he spots me in the bushes.
“Eddie?”
“Can I talk to Leigh Rose for five minutes, please? Alone?”
“You should go,” Graz intercedes as he looks around for helicopters or drones that might drop down from the sky.
“He doesn’t have to go anywhere,” Leigh Rose sniffs, before jumping down off the stoop and joining me in the bushes. Norris Mumford has apparently merged with the group as well. I can’t make out his features too clearly because he remains in the shadows, but my first impression is: bland and regular. Nothing remarkable, just another well-bred sybarite from the burbs of Henrico. “It’s my house and I say he stays.”
She slips her hand into mine. Her skin feels clammy and cold, despite the oppressive heat that presses down on us from all sides. Sweat literally drips from every pore of my body, and dehydration is making me dizzy. It was a mistake to come here. I belong with Lola, my love. She must be back at the hotel by now. How do I get away, with Leigh Rose clutching onto me like I’m a life preserver?
“I have to get out of here,” I mutter under my breath.
“Me too,” she whispers, reeking of booze.
Graz takes center stage, determined to play Brutus to the hilt. A good man driven to treachery for a noble cause: my demise. “Eddie, don’t make this hard on yourself. You don’t know the whole story—”
“He knows plenty! He knows you guys all want my money and you can’t have it.” But in Leigh Rose’s voice now I can detect traces of instability that were lacking earlier. Is it just that she’s drunk? But what if Graz is right about her mental condition? Leigh Rose squeezes my hand even tighter, so that blood can’t circulate to my fingers. Is she crazy? Or have these idiots driven her around the bend?
“Eddie, get in your car and drive away. That’s the smart move here. We’ve all had a long day and Leigh Rose could use a good night’s sleep.”
“They think I’m suicidal! It’s all crap! Just leave me alone, okay? I’ll be fine.”
“She tried three weeks ago,” Graz says solemnly.
“That’s a lie! You all hate me because I won’t marry Norris, and I won’t marry Norris no matter what lies you tell about me. I’d never kill myself.”
“Her daughter found her facedown in the bathroom. That’s why the kids aren’t here.”
“They’re at camp. Listen to this crap! Eddie, let’s go. Take me anywhere. Just get me away from these people.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I announce forcefully, summoning courage from the gun perhaps, or just from the last drops of humanity left in me. “If Leigh Rose needs mental health services, you should get a professional to help her, because this little intervention isn’t working. You three get inside so I can talk to her.”
“We’re not going anywhere without her,” Jeb informs me.
I want to shoot him. How happily I’d blow his face off with a single shot. But I just can’t bring myself to lift the pistol.
“Five minutes, okay? I just want to ask her a few questions.” For several seconds all quiets down and it seems as though they’re going to comply with my request. Having dealt for years with students on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I’ll quickly ascertain whether Leigh Rose is mentally sound. But then Jeb notices something and his mouth drops open like he’s about to devour an entire ham.
“Is that a gun?” he asks in horror, pointing at me, his index finger wagging in front of his beer-swollen belly.
I don’t bother to reply as it’s pretty obvious what’s in my hand. A rollicking spasm of ire seizes Jeb and nearly lifts him off the ground, and I lean back in case he jumps on top of me.
“You’ve got a gun? Were you planning on shooting all of us? You gutless prick! You probably blew up General Lee’s statue, too, I bet. A gun. Fuck your gun, Edwin. You don’t have the balls to use it.”
A cooler head prevails, in the form of the even-tempered John Graziano, who manages to come between Jeb and me. “Eddie, put the gun away,” he counsels, his body serving as a human shield of sorts. Flying under the radar, though, is Norris Mumford, who ducks inside the house, presumably to get a weapon of his own. Or to call the cops. Or take Leigh Rose’s credit cards.
“I brought it to protect myself,” I say emphatically, not about to unilaterally disarm while facing down a ravening lunatic in Sperry topsiders and an ill-fitting Hollister T-shirt. Jeb doesn’t have the body to pull off a slim fit. “There’s some crazy stuff happening tonight, as you’re well aware of. I didn’t come here looking for trouble, let’s be clear about that.”
“Why did you come here then?” Graz asks, sounding sincere in his confusion.
“To check on her.”
“You suck!” Jeb thunders at me, not persuaded by my concern for his sister. “You’re fucking everything up and you think you’re so smart, but you’re stupid and a coward. You stuck your dumb nose in it now, nerd. There’s gonna be hell to pay, promise you. Might as well shoot me. Come on, tough guy. Put a bullet in me.”
“Just hold on.” Graz sighs, revealing a weariness with his master’s antics. “Nobody is shooting anyone. Eddie, drop the gun and walk away.”
“No way.”
“Then just leave.”
“Fine.”
“Eddie’s staying with me tonight,” Leigh Rose shouts with the gusto of a carnival barker, grabbing me around the waist.
“That can’t happen,” Graz parries. “We both know that and so just drop it. Eddie’s leaving, aren’t you, Eddie?”
Norris has finally returned, and if he has a gun, he’s concealed it. He does whisper in Jeb’s ear, however, sharing some pearl of wisdom that causes Jeb to grin callously.
“Eddie? You’re leaving, right?” Graz tries again.
Leigh Rose pulls her body against mine, which causes me to tense up. On an intellectual level, I understand her embrace to be an act of defiance, and there’s a slight chance she has feelings for me. But besides that, the more pressing issue is what if she is in the midst of a breakdown and needs help that she won’t get from this gang of miscreants. Should I stay to assist her, to save her even—yet I might be completely wrong about everything and getting played by Leigh Rose for a fool, and not for the first time. I never signed up for this heroic role, but I’m the one who came here, only because the police are looking for me…the police. Hmmmm.
What I say next surprises me because I honestly didn’t think that I could outwit anyone…but I suppose self-preservation takes over at some point, and I need to know why the cops want to speak with me. “Well, sure thing, I’ll go,” I reply, brazenly staring down Jeb, gun still in
my hand. “But let me tell you something. The cops have been to my house already. Whatever little scheme you morons are pulling off here, it’s already too late.”
“What cops? What the hell are you talking about?” Graz’s nasal monotone has given way to worried snarl, which is music to my ears, amplified when Leigh Rose begins laughing hysterically. So these washed-out frat boys are up to no good, though I don’t know what precisely they’re doing.
“He’s a lying piece of crap!” Jeb growls, but Graz ignores him. It isn’t hard for me to be convincing, because I’m merely telling (some of) the truth.
“Eddie, what are you talking about?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jeb brays once more. I decide to be coy, knowing I’ve struck a nerve. I pat a pocket with a cocksure grin.
“I got the number right here. Think I’ll give the detective a call and tell him everything I know.”
“He’s bluffing!”
But Graz knows me better than Jeb, and he can tell I’m being sincere. “Hold on. Eddie, there’s no reason the police would come question you about anything we’re connected to.”
“Right!” Leigh Rose squeals in delight, undercutting Graziano’s humble entreaty.
“That isn’t for me to decide,” I mutter, trying to maintain a poker face devoid of emotion, when inside I’m bursting with doubt. “All I know is my mother said the police want to talk to me. I figured it was about you all.” Or about a homicide in Ithaca. Maybe one in Gettysburg. There are always competing scenarios.
“You can say that again,” Leigh Rose chants, a welcome if not deranged chorus of support.
It proves too much for Graz to withstand. “Wait! Just wait. What do you want? You want to sleep here tonight? Is that it?”
I remain stoic, not from choice but due to the fact that I’m speechless, which only fuels his angst. So Graz sweetens the pot as only a frightened plutocrat can.
“Is it about money? Just come clean, okay? I don’t have time for any games. What the hell do you want, Eddie? Name your price.”
“Maybe he’s not a prick like you guys are,” Leigh Rose erupts, shaking the bush in rebuke like a jungle goddess as she waves her arms. “You wouldn’t understand that because you only think about yourselves. But Eddie here is a college professor, he’s a scholar, and you can’t just buy his integrity.”
“Yeah?” Jeb sneers, eyes burning at me. “Okay, would you stay quiet for a hundred thousand bucks? Would that take care of your integrity?”
“Go to hell,” Leigh Rose answers for me, and a good thing, too, because I probably would’ve taken the money, what with all the legal bills staring me in the face.
“Eddie, what do you want?” Graz asks point-blank.
“For what?”
“For turning the other cheek.”
A little humility goes a long way. I tell him the absolute truth, the very reason I came here at all. But would they really hand over a hundred g’s? Guess we’ll never know…
“I want to talk to Leigh Rose alone for five minutes.”
Next to me I hear Leigh Rose gasp, not in surprise, but more like she almost tripped and caught herself at the last second. Her hand finds mine and she squeezes tight. The gun now feels like it weighs a ton. If I’m not careful, I might literally shoot myself in the foot, provided this weapon functions.
“Sure, no problem.” Graz tries to herd his comrades inside but Jeb is unwilling to leave, Stonewall Jackson reincarnated.
“That’s it? He can threaten us and we do nothing?”
“Come inside, dude.”
Until now Norris Mumford has been a complete nullity, the typical amiable dunce whose natural habitat is the background. But for some reason, acquiescence brings out the tiger in him. Retreat proves liberating, and thus free from being a mere follower, he produces a revolver and points it at my face.
“Get the fuck out of here, loser,” he growls.
His voice is deeper than I expected, resonant even, cowboy in texture, and I have no doubt he’ll blow me away if given the chance. Leigh Rose shrieks and covers her mouth, while I marvel at the sheer brilliance of this nonentity, who is calling my bluff against the wishes of his compatriots.
“Don’t be an idiot!” Graz remonstrates, slapping at the gun like it’s a nuisance.
“He doesn’t need to be up in our business.”
“I hate all of you!” Leigh Rose screams, and even among the far-off McMansions, neighbors could probably hear her. Graz of course realizes the potential pitfalls involved in an unseemly public outburst, but Norris, perhaps impelled by stupid masculine jealousy, continues to take aim at me. Even by now Jeb wants the standoff to end, and puts his arm around Norris’s shoulders the way a coach might console a losing player. It’s a tense moment to endure, two men with guns in the middle of the night, both vying for the same woman (not really), one of us an outlaw, a desperado, a pervert…
“This is ridiculous,” Graz fumes. “Get inside. Let them talk. Eddie, five minutes.”
Norris Mumford wavers, seemingly caught between two poles—giving in to me, the embodiment of all that is wrong in the world, according to RushHannity, or standing up for his bedrock principles, which might land them all in prison. Thankfully he comes to his senses, more or less. “He’s the reason she’s acting all crazy,” he fumes, the gun dropping down in surrender, Jeb Wardell by his side, the moon above in a waning crescent phase, meaning that tomorrow night there’ll be even less of it revealed to us below, until finally in a week it’ll disappear altogether, thereby mirroring my own lapse into obscurity.
Now I’m alone with Leigh Rose, and we’re still ensconced in the bushes. First we must crawl out before we’re devoured by annoying gnats and ants that seek out our moist flesh. We emerge from the primeval forest and walk over to my car, reminding me once more of being with her in high school. At the end of the night she’d always walk with me out to the driveway and kiss me good night, where we’d laugh some more and mock the serious, never doubting that our youth would last forever. Now, however, I must assess her mental stability and decide whether to intervene in a meaningful way. But if I were to leave with her, the three amigos would give chase. And where would we go? Surely not to the Chicory. My phone has been blowing up, as they say, but I can’t bring myself to check it. For now, Leigh Rose gets my full attention, since we’ll probably never see each other again.
“Are you okay?” I ask gently, still holding the gun, which I’m loath to put aside. But she’s fascinated by it and tries to take it from me. But she’s the last person who needs a pistol.
“Where did you get this thing, Eddie? It’s huge.”
“It belongs to the man my mother is going to marry.”
“Can I hold it?”
“Seriously, are you okay?”
But she continues to ignore this crucial question and instead grips the gun by the barrel and pulls it away from me. It takes a sustained effort to thwart her, which only makes her snappy. “You don’t trust me? You think I’ll shoot myself right here? Come on, Eddie. Don’t believe the lies they told you about me. I just want everyone to leave me alone. I have two children to raise.”
“And they’re at camp?”
“Sort of. They’re with their grandparents, whose estate is like a camp.” Sometimes all it takes is one pebble of truth to begin the rock slide of admission. She finally releases the gun and stares down at her bare feet. “Okay, things haven’t been great with me. My daughter can be a pain in the ass. My son is lost. It’s my fault.” She sniffles and I find myself reaching for her. But she remains frozen in place, a block of ice in this torment of heat. “I’m the worst mother in the world. I don’t deserve any of this. I really feel like I’m losing it. No, I’ve lost it, Eddie. I’m totally crazy. They’re right. I’m a horrible person.” Then she giggles girlishly, even as tears stream down her face. “Did the cops really come talk to you?”
“According to my mother.”
“That figures. Those idiots, t
hey’re always looking for easy money. Silver mines in Kenya, uranium deposits in Bolivia, I can’t keep up with it all. Oh, and bullets. They’re buying like thousands of rounds of ammunition because they think the government will ban bullets.”
“Do you want me to get you out of here? Because I will. I’ll take you wherever you want to go so you can get help, if that’s what you want.”
She searches the night sky for guidance, but sometimes the stars don’t align the way we want them to. “I’m going to marry Norris.”
“What?”
“I said yes. I accepted his proposal. We’re going to fly to Las Vegas tomorrow and get married.” She cackles bitterly, brushing perspiration from her eyes. At night this part of Henrico County grows deathly quiet, and buried deep within the bosom of the land, beneath these monstrous houses of red brick, are the decayed roots of tobacco plants and the white bones of black slaves who toiled here. Generations of women have roamed these gentle hills and dreamt of escape, from drudgery, servitude, war, poverty, boredom, insanity…maybe standing right on the same spot Leigh Rose now occupies, laughing at life, and crying, too.
“That explains why he wanted to shoot me,” I observe, ever the logician in search of a priori causes.
“He’s a prick.”
“Then why are you marrying him?”
“Because I can’t marry you.”
“No, you really can’t.”
“But how did the cops get your name, I wonder? That part scares the crap out of me. Those three inside, they need to chill out with their little plan of world domination before it’s too late.”
“I can take you away from all of this! Seriously! We can leave right now!”
“Oh, Eddie. I want to, I really do. But I can’t leave Richmond, now or ever.” She melts into my arms one last time, and it feels as if the credits should roll. But nothing is more illusory than an ending.
21
It’s after eleven p.m. Lola has summoned me. She claims that she’s at the Chicory Motel (again), that her tryst has ended, and that she might now grant me an audience. My mother has also called and wants to know when I’m coming home. There is also the matter of returning the call of Detective Voss, though I really don’t want to and I’m very bad at forcing myself to do unpleasant jobs like publishing academic papers no one will ever read. If I call Voss, my life will be ruined. If I don’t call Voss, my life will be ruined. Either way, I’m ruined. Good times were had by all!