The South Side Tour Guide

by Shelter Somerset

  School started the following Monday. Like he had all week, Harden hurried off for work. Andy walked the kids, with their colorful backpacks and Olivia clutching her brand new Bubble Guppies lunchbox, to the bottom of the driveway to await the school busses. Mason’s arrived first, and he wished him good luck. A few minutes later, Olivia’s pulled up. Andy scooted her up the steps and, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat, waved to her as she peered out the window. He stood, watching the iconic yellow bus grow smaller.

  For most of the morning, Andy slumped around the house. It was his first full day alone at Burr Oak Farm. Now that the school term had started, Kamila worked from three until whenever Harden returned from work, and every other Saturday. Andy wished she was there that day, hating moping around an empty house. Dick Carelli’s working the field came as a welcome distraction. Seated high atop his tractor in the distance, Dick was the solitary human he saw or heard, except for what flashed across the television screen.

  He finished his tepid coffee and checked his e-mail at the family computer. (The past few weeks, he’d failed to get an Internet connection for his laptop and had finally stowed it away in frustration.) Thirty people interested in his South Side tours had sent queries since his coming to Iowa, in addition to the one or two phone calls he still received each day. He hated thinking about losing money. He had more in his savings account than ever before in his entire life, but it wouldn’t last forever.

  Ken was pestering him more and more also.

  One of his rare e-mails read in part: “What the hell are you doing out there? You should’ve gotten back days ago.” Without responding, Andy signed off the computer.

  He avoided answering Ken’s texts and uncharacteristic calls. What might he tell him? Even his friend Skeet had telephoned Andy Saturday afternoon, baffled about what was going on.

  “Ken keeps texting me,” Skeet had said, with Chicago’s energetic street traffic buzzing in the background. “He asks about you and where you are. He wanted to know if I knew when you were coming back. The first and second times I told him I didn’t. The third time I ignored his text. So what’s up? Have you two broken up? Are you staying in Idaho?”

  “Iowa, and I’m unsure.” Andy had told him he’d call Ken to straighten everything out, but he had yet to bother.

  He puttered about the house, thinking, debating.

  Much of Kamila’s housework was completed by the time she showed at three. Bored out of his wits, Andy had washed two loads of sheets and towels, made the beds, and prepped dinner. He even had Olivia’s school lunch ready for the next day.

  Only after the kids returned from school, near four o’clock, did the house grow animated. They tripped over each other’s talk about their first day. Mason loved middle school, where he had different classes for different subjects. And Olivia believed her second-grade class might be the best in the school’s entire history. Andy tossed them as many questions as they could juggle. Later, he helped them with their first homework assignments while Kamila sorted fresh fruits and vegetables and set them on the porch to ripen in the afternoon sun.

  Andy checked himself from throwing his arms around Harden when he returned home a tad past six. He stepped aside and allowed Olivia room instead.

  They continued to share a bed. Their lovemaking had become a comfortable passion. Andy grew woozy realizing he touched or ogled the private orifices and body parts of a man who’d once been married to his sister. The same man who had fathered his nephew and niece. And, with the exception of those first two times, they made love stone cold sober.

  Tuesday, Andy again walked the kids to where the driveway met the road. With the odd lonesomeness clogging his throat, he waved good-bye to the last bus and lumbered back up the long driveway. He found himself waiting for Kamila. The clocks ticked.

  Was that how Lillian had felt before the Chicago drug dealers had enticed her?

  On Wednesday, he met Harden for lunch, a wonderful midweek reprieve. After a short forty-five minutes, Harden saw Andy to his van. Melancholy shadowed him.

  That night while Harden slept soundly, Andy crept downstairs to his old basement bedroom before the moon rose. Though he loathed his time alone during the day, he suddenly craved the solitude of night, to think.

  Alone in the dark basement, with the hopper windows showcasing a swatch of white stars, the bedroom’s walls opened to him. He lay awake most of the night, wondering….

  Thursday morning, Harden refused eye contact with Andy and seemed more impatient with the kids. “Olivia, watch you don’t put your sleeve in your cereal. You have no time to change into a new shirt. And what did I tell you about snatching Daddy’s pen from his briefcase? Mason, keep your schoolbooks off the stairs. Someone might get hurt.”

  After walking the kids to the bus stop, Andy returned to the kitchen and watched Harden rinse the dishes and stack the dishwasher. He looked handsome in his black slacks and loosened baby-blue tie, the sleeves of his white Oxford rolled to expose hunky forearms.

  Andy understood the silence between them. They had ascended to a new level of communication, as though the currents carried signals without the need for words. Andy stepped behind Harden and placed his hands on his shoulders.

  Harden paused. He turned and looked into Andy’s eyes, the first time that morning. The corners of his mouth struggled into a smile, and he shook his head, flushing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m acting like one of the kids. When I saw you hadn’t slept in the bed this morning, well… I….”

  Andy fell into Harden and wrapped his arms around his waist. Harden squeezed back. As if they were slow dancing, Harden rotated them so that Andy’s lower back pushed against the sink. Nothing existed but the breath exchanged between them and the pulsating of blood through their veins.

  Their foreheads pressed against each other, and Andy savored the drive of bone against bone, the melding heat of something stronger than the both of them.

  They kissed more, long and full.

  Reflections from many years ago wafted through Andy’s mind. Harden had first kissed him by the sink in Streamwood. It seemed impossible, surreal, that life had conveyed them to their present juncture.

  Andy opened his eyes and looked over Harden’s shoulder. A sudden and horrible dread smothered him. Standing on the porch, clutching a basket of fruits and vegetables, Kamila peered at them through the kitchen window with her dark eyes.

  Andy shoved Harden back.

  “What is it?” Harden asked, gripping his arms.

  “Kamila, out on the porch. She just saw us kissing.”

  Harden spun around. Only dust from the wake of Kamila’s Toyota remained.

  “Are you sure it was her?”

  Andy nodded, moisture sapped from his mouth. “Positive. The look on her face. She must be freaking out. I’m freaking out.”

  To Andy’s surprise, Harden pulled him into his chest for another embrace. His lips brushed Andy’s cheek. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

  Andy nudged Harden off enough that they could see into each other’s eyes. “Aren’t you worried?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “She’ll tell the entire county. You know how things are around here.”

  “Not with Kamila.” Harden softened his voice. “The Bosnians are as closemouthed as a people can get. She probably won’t even tell her sister and brother-in-law. Besides, she’s been a loyal employee.”

  Harden went off to work, reassuring Andy that their secret was safe between them. Andy remained housebound, expecting Kamila to barge in and assault him in a jealous woman’s rage.

  Suddenly, life in Iowa seemed more menacing than what he’d left behind in Chicago.

  Thank goodness, the day passed without incident. When the kids raced inside the house, one behind the other, they asked about Kamila. Andy told them she’d been taken ill. Probably not far from the truth. Olivia said she wanted to draw her a “get well” card, and Andy couldn’t help but chuckle.
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  Later that night in the bedroom, after they’d made sure the kids were asleep, Andy found Harden’s sexual advances unsettling. He seemed little concerned about Kamila on the prowl, holding as a potential weapon the knowledge of his and Harden’s relationship.

  “I told you not to worry,” he said, fumbling with Andy’s shoes and socks, next yanking off his jeans. Andy relented, though his mind traveled far from Burr Oak Farm, over the miles of cornfields, worried how he might have brought shame to Harden and the kids, like his sister had.

  But maybe Kamila realized that she had seen nothing unusual. European men were thought to be more affectionate, and she might be used to seeing men kiss, like Harden and Andy had by the sink.

  Andy recalled her expression. The wide eyes, the tensed jaw muscles, the white knuckles from her clutching the basket handle to her chest. And her rushing off in her car, leaving a plume of dust.

  Kamila had understood perfectly what he and Harden were doing.

  And there was Harden’s sister-in-law, Holly. She’d gathered the implications of the two empty cabernet bottles and the half-burned taper candles too, Andy was certain.

  Harden succeeded in stripping Andy naked. Andy, chuckling, pushed him off. But soon he surrendered to Harden’s tongue. He roamed along Andy’s body, from his neck to his toes. Harden stopped midway working upward again, and for the first time took Andy into his mouth. Harden coughed, looked up at him, and smiled.

  “Sorry. I’ve never done that before. Guess I’m no good.”

  “Feels awesome,” Andy whispered, prodding Harden’s mouth back onto him.

  And soon, Andy forgot about Kamila Becic and Holly Krane, and their pestering eyes.

  The next afternoon, Kamila again failed to show. Andy sent Harden an atypical text message, asking if he’d heard from her. He replied he had not, and that he would telephone her when his meeting adjourned. Andy paced the kitchen, unable to shake the worry that unpleasantness lurked ahead.

  The kids arrived home from school within fifteen minutes of each other, and their questions about Kamila’s whereabouts ebbed. “Uncle Andy, I got three gold stars on my story, the highest you can get.” Olivia waved her short story in Andy’s face. He read her tale about the little bunny that found a way to trick an aggravating fox by standing on a boulder and pretending to be an elephant. Andy thought it was clever and well written.

  “You guys have lots of homework?” he asked.

  “I don’t,” Olivia said, posting her story on the refrigerator at Andy’s suggestion.

  “That’s because you’re a dumbhead second grader. I’m in middle school. I get homework even for weekends.”

  “Make sure you do what you can before dinner so we can have a fun evening.”

  Mason was upstairs in his room, working hard on his schoolwork, while downstairs Olivia and Andy made hamburgers and home fries. Harden returned home from work early, close to five, and after eating and the kids’ baths, the family gathered around the living room television with the lights dimmed and an oversized bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. Dressed snug in pajamas, the kids quivered and giggled in anticipation of the fun-filled evening, a special treat after their first week of school. Harden, sexy in his ratty sweatpants and T-shirt, readied the computer, which was cabled to the television. Andy sat with Olivia and Mason on the sofa, their warm cotton pajamas against his bare arms comforting and soft.

  Olivia reached for the popcorn and spilled some onto the carpet.

  “Watch that you don’t make any messes,” Harden told her in a lighthearted manner.

  “Turn off the foyer light,” Mason demanded. “It’s making it too bright in here.”

  Olivia, leaving behind a small popcorn trail, jumped up and turned off the light. A blue-yellow flush permeated the room. “There’s a full moon out tonight,” Olivia declared, peering outside, where the grumbling of an engine came from the cornfield. “And Mr. Carelli’s working.”

  “It’s harvest season,” Harden said, opening his arms to his daughter, who let the curtain dangle back into place and fell against him on the sofa. “He’ll be out there night and day the next few weeks.”

  Harden pressed “play” on the remote, and everyone hushed. Andy had remembered to shut down his cell phone, which had been dinging with texts, mostly from Ken. He’d left them unread and ignored.

  Their movie choice captured the somber aura that had nagged Andy throughout the week. A listless computer-animated ogre, frustrated with domestic life, fought a sinister world inhabited with folklore goblins who sought to cajole and lie for power, and a demanding damsel that reminded Andy of Lucinda Jamison.

  Harden pointed out that one of the creatures had hair like Mason’s and rubbed his head. Mason’s dry protests brought about more tickles and giggles.

  “Stop, Dad. I don’t look like that.”

  “Hey, no throwing popcorn.”

  “Daddy, your breath smells like stinky coffee.”

  “Sorry, sweetheart.”

  Harden even gave Andy’s butt a playful tap when Andy got up to use the bathroom. He returned and hunkered down, trapped in a tangle of legs and arms. Harden hoisted Olivia onto the spot closer to Mason, and he edged next to Andy, pressing against him.

  Eventually, Harden draped his arm around Andy’s shoulders, and Olivia shivered and giggled at the affection flanking her. Growing serious, she hushed everyone, as if they had been the ones to disrupt the quiet. Harden placed his index finger over his lips to mimic Olivia’s call for silence, and winked at Andy.

  Light pulsating from the television captured everyone in a misty stupor. Thousands of words were too inadequate to convey the bittersweet emotions flowing through Andy’s soul. Midway through the film, a sleepy stillness settled over the living room. Before long, both Mason and Olivia lay on their sides, snoozing. While the end credits scanned the screen, Harden and Andy roused them awake and helped them to their beds.

  Back downstairs, Harden and Andy tidied up before sleep. Harden stored the remaining popcorn, and Andy rinsed the empty glasses. In the midst of cleaning, Harden opened his arms, and Andy became absorbed by him. The beat of their hearts, mere inches from each other, came slow and rhythmic.

  They broke off, and Andy made sure they’d cleared everything from the living room. He was carrying a half-empty glass of milk into the kitchen when someone banged on the front door. Andy guessed Dick Carelli wanted to let them know he was working the field, although they’d already known by then he’d been spending many nights at a stretch plowing. But would Dick pound with such violence?

  Harden hastened into the foyer. “Who the hell is that?”

  Another round of loud banging.

  “Is it Mr. Carelli?”

  “I doubt it. I’ll check.”

  Andy wanted to prevent Harden from moving closer. Something sinister came from those loud raps.

  Harden hesitated before reaching the door. “It’s Lilly,” he whispered fiercely. “It must be her. She’s come back, just like I worried.”

  Andy understood Lillian. The drugs had metamorphosed her into another creature. Crystal methamphetamine had injected her with rage and resentment toward the entire world, worse than what Andy had ever experienced. Yet the drugs had also rendered her into a lethargic mess who could barely move without someone carting her around.

  “Maybe it’s Kamila,” he said.

  “Can’t be her.” Harden shook his head. “Can’t be.”

  Harden inched closer to the door. His shoulders rose near to his ears, and he held his arms away from his sides. He gestured for Andy to stay back. Slowly, he pulled aside the lace curtain hanging from the narrow door window that overlooked the porch and peeked outside.

  Chapter 26

  HARDEN peered out the window, but he saw only a tall, shadowy shape. The storm door was propped open by the stranger’s back, and his fists were poised for additional banging.

  Still rooted to the foyer and holding the glass of milk, Andy whispered, �
�Who is it?”

  “Hard to tell with the porch light off.”

  “Turn it on.”

  “Best to keep it off,” Harden said. “Stand back now.” He leaned closer to the door. After a lengthy drawing in of breath, he said in his tough-guy voice, “Who’s there?”

  “I’m here to see Andrew Wingal. It’s urgent. I’m a police officer.”

  Harden and Andy swapped looks. Andy’s eyes grew wide, and his face went whiter than the glass of milk trembling in his hand. He set down the glass on the foyer console and brought his hands to his chin. Slow recognition crept over his shaky expression.

  Harden sucked in more breath. “What do you want with him?” he shouted into the door.

  “I want to see him. I see his van out here. I know he’s in there. Let me talk to him.”

  His gravelly, dominating tone sent chills along Harden’s arms and neck. He looked back to Andy. He still stood speechless, quaking.

  Rubbing his eyes, Mason drifted downstairs. “What’s all the racket down here?”

  Andy gestured for Mason. Sleepy eyed, he obeyed. Andy kept his hands firm on his shoulders. Harden suspected he wanted to steady himself as much as hold Mason from getting in harm’s way.

  He scooted Mason toward the kitchen and moved to Harden’s side. “It’s okay, Harden. Let me speak with him.”

  “Who is he?”

  “My… some guy I know from Chicago.”

  “What’s he doing here? Are you in trouble?”

  “Nothing like that. He’s a friend who happens to be a cop. I’ll talk to him real quick and send him on his way.”