Then came Graduation, Memorial Day, and School-out. Russ still hadn’t gotten used to school starting in August and ending in May; somehow the school year was never official for him until Labor Day. He would lie in bed on those September Mondays and wait for the faint tidal shift that always ran through his blood. Only then did the real school year begin.
Cassie Manygoats never returned to his office. After that first brief visit, Russ didn’t see her again except as they passed in the halls and in the crowd at Commencement. The only time they had even a moment for conversation, she commented on her envy for his pending trip and how she wished she could go, then told him to be sure and say hi to Tony Soprano. She punctuated this advice with a lifeless chuckle, and he offered his own stilted laugh in return before hallway traffic drove them in opposite directions.
Immediately after School-out, Wendy shot off to some kind of staff development in Phoenix--something on Math and Science content standards--and left him alone with the girls. They were excited about their trip east, and immediately began packing, which Russ considered a blessing, as he dreaded the usual last-minute scrambling of two prepubescent girls. Who knew what they might forget?
One afternoon several days before their departure, Russ was washing dishes when nine year old Darlene popped up beside him and tugged on the kitchen towel tucked into his belt: “Daddy?”
He made a small startled leap away from her. “Whoa, honey, you scared me! What do you want?”
“Daddy, are there really alligators in the sewers in New Jersey?”
He let the crusted plate in his hands slip back into the soapy water and cocked his head down at her. “Now who told you that, honey?”
“Mrs. Hardaway. She said to be careful going to the bathroom when we’re there because of the alligators. She said people buy them as pets and flush them down the toilet and they get big eating rats in the sewers. Then they come back up and bite you on the butt when you’re going pee.”
Hardaway. That witch. Cassandra practically worshipped her, but the woman had adopted an inexplicable hostility toward both Wendy and Russ. He had a pretty good idea why she would mess with his daughter’s head like that. She had been Stephanie’s teacher two years earlier, fawned over her all year, then made it clear all this year she considered Darlene a grossly inferior student in comparison. That, and she shared a duplex with Cassandra in the housing. She had several times given him the hairy eyeball when she caught him hanging around Cassandra’s classroom. He should complain, try to get her written up, but she would just deny it, blame Darlene. And it would piss Cassie off. He dried his hands on the towel, dropped them on Darlene’s shoulders. “That’s just an urban legend, honey, and it’s about New York, not New Jersey.”
“What’s an urban legend?”
“It’s like a traditional Navajo story, like a coyote story, only set in the modern world. But it’s not true.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Pinky swear?”
He pinky swore. For Darlene, that settled the matter. She broke contact and scuttled outside to join her sister, whatever they were doing out there. Probably riding bikes around the housing. As long as they stayed within sight of the house. That was the rule. The local Crips and Bloods still contended for turf around the school, so the range of the girls’ activities was greatly circumscribed.
At last it was time to go. Wendy returned two days before their scheduled departure, puffed up with subject-area confidence, and grudgingly helped the girls finish packing. When the appointed day arrived, she drove them to Flag and dropped them at the curb outside the hotel where they were to overnight because of the early hour of their first flight. She never left their aging Ford Explorer, just leaned out her window, said, “Call me when you get there, okay?” Russ got a peck on the cheek, the girls got a wave, and she was gone.
From Flag they flew to Phoenix, from Phoenix to Atlanta, Atlanta to DC, DC to Newark. He was concerned that all the flight changes would be too much for the girls, but they knew the routine from two years earlier and were excited to repeat the ordeal. More excited than Russ for sure. By ATL the girls had taken control of their itinerary, were checking departure monitors, hurrying Russ to each gate in turn.
In Newark, Dolores stood waiting for them just beyond the checkpoint, close to the wall so she could avoid the heterogeneous stream of their fellow travelers. Russ remembered how his dad somehow always managed to sneak all the way to the arrival gate...but that was before 9/11. The girls ran to her right off, nothing but hugs for Nálí. She wrapped an arm around each of them but kept her eyes on Russ. When he reached her, he said, “Hi, Mom,” and leaned across his daughters to peck the cheek she offered.
Once they had all their luggage, Dolores led them to her car, which she had parked for some reason in the open lot far beyond the parking deck, despite the numerous spaces available in the latter. He did not ask why, as he dreaded her explanation, which would likely involve some dire warning in her email about terrorists. Russ was drenched with sweat from the humidity by the time they reached her boxy black Mercedes where it lay baking in the sun before a single stunted acacia.
Half an hour later they pulled into the driveway of the two-story suburban home where Russ had lived nearly 23 years. It was strange to him now. He thought of the Henry James story “The Jolly Corner,” about an American expatriate in Europe who returns to his family home after 30 years abroad to find it haunted by the disfigured ghost of his own alternate, undeparted self. He knew the story well; BA in English, so how had he ended up as a high school counselor? “Letting the days go by / water flowing underground.”
Russ regarded the split-level box. It was home, and yet it was not. The shape of the house was the same, but the landscaping and the trees in the yard had changed. Some time after his dad died, his mother slapped on aluminum siding and a fresh paint job. The house he remembered as olive green and white was now two shades of gray. Up and down the block, the neighbors’ houses had undergone similar alterations. Everything the same, everything different. As they walked to the door, he asked his mom about the fate of those neighbors still in residence when he moved. Only two other families on this side of the block of those he’d grown up with. She was less certain about the other side, but believed all the properties there had changed hands. The girls could care less. They chased each other around the lawn while Russ heaved their luggage from the trunk and Dolores fumbled with her keys.
As he waited for Dolores to unlock the door, he scanned Piedmont Avenue, pausing at each house to unpack the palimpsest of his personal history. Next door to his right was the old Starkweather house. The Starkweathers were long gone, likely deceased, and the current owner had cut down their infamous hedges and installed a border of Belgian block around the yard and the driveway. He wondered if old Mrs. Starkweather’s horde of confiscated baseballs and Frisbees was still locked away deep in some hidden cellar.
Beyond that house were the two duplexes. These had gone up in a vacant lot that was the site of many adventures in Russell’s early years, adventures that briefly intensified during the construction period, which happened to be the last summer before Russell entered kindergarten. He recalled the deep basement pits and the yellow saurian earth movers on which the neighborhood kids climbed in the evenings. Most of all, he remembered the gigantic apple tree at the edge of the Starkweathers’ lot, and the men who had bulldozed it down. The whole neighborhood had gathered dangerously close to watch, Russ and his family included, and when the thick, gray trunk tipped and the vast, tentacled rootmass tore free, everyone marveled at the enormous brown and spotted toad that lay in the pit: a clandestine, startled god. His youthful fascination with amphibians and reptiles began that very moment. To this day he wondered what became of the toad. In his mind, it still lived nearby, somewhere deep beneath another tree, casting its mysterious influences over the neighborhood.
The contrast between his memories and this slightly upscale toad-free su
burban street disconcerted him, but the difference between these neat homes with their green lawns and the dreary school housing where he lived on the Rez with Wendy and the girls...that was far greater. No wonder the girls loved it here. One day it would be hard to get them to return.
At last his mother got the door open. The interior of the house had changed as well: new carpet, new paint, new fixtures, new furniture. Complete remodels of the kitchen and bathroom.
They settled in--the girls in Tommy’s old room, where they would share the pullout bed; Russ in his own former room, which still contained his original bed even though Dolores had made the space her sewing room. At least after all that traveling, they had a home for a while. Things were good.
The first couple days were mostly spent visiting relatives and dining out. Russ had to admit that the restaurants in and around Middlebrook had increased significantly in both variety and quality--as had his mother’s tastes. He was shocked when Dolores took them to a sushi place the second night--a pretty good one, too. His mother would never have eaten sushi during his high school or college years. Darlene was excited about ordering octopus, but the more reserved Stephanie stuck with California rolls, which she nibbled through a dark curtain of barely kempt hair.
That night the dream came again, his father arcing downward from the end of the platform, and Russ awoke with a choked-off scream. As he gasped for breath, he saw Dolores in the doorway.
“Russell, are you all right?”
He inhaled through clenched teeth. “I’m okay, Mom. I just had that dream again, the one about dad in the quarry.”
“Russell, Russell, Russell. Your father’s been gone 11 years now. Prostate cancer ate him, not the alligators from your nightmare.”
“Yeah, well tell that to the nightmare. It comes and goes. Sometimes it stays away for a year or more, and other times I get it every night for a week, even two or three. That’s how it’s been lately.”
“And have you seen a psychologist?”
“Not yet, but Wendy made me promise I’d find one soon.”
“Well then, for once I agree with the little heathen.”
“That’s enough, Mom. You can go back to bed now.”
“Fine, but please try not to wake my granddaughters. I don’t want to have them both crying and begging to sleep in my bed because you scared them with your shrieking.”
“I wasn’t shrieking, Mom.”
“No, of course not,” she said. He let it go. Dolores would always have the last word. Always.
After she left, Russell lay in the same bed where the dream first attacked him. The lingering impressions were slow to fade: the certainty of his nonexistent sisters, the false memory of his father’s lost head. These phantom recognitions of circumstances beyond the dream itself always delayed its ready dismissal, gave it hooks to extend its grip on his waking mind.
The girls finished breakfast early the next morning and ran outside to play in the grass. The lawn itself was a treat for them--yards back home were just dirt or at best cinders of red lava rock.
Russ prodded a cooling chunk of syrup-drenched waffle across his plate while Dolores sipped her coffee. Her taste in coffee had also improved. The current batch was from Papua New Guinea. She kept it in the freezer. Folger’s Instant was good enough when the old man was alive.
Russ spoke without looking up: “Mom, do you think we could borrow the Merc today? I was wanting to take the girls for a scenic drive.”
“Scenic? This is still New Jersey, remember. Exactly where do you plan to take them? Bayonne?”
“Well, I was thinking about driving them up in the Watchungs, maybe even taking them on a little hike while we’re there.”
“You want to go back to that quarry, don’t you?”
Wow. That didn’t take her long. Time to go with honesty then:
“Okay. Basically, I’m thinking that if I go back there and confront my fears, it might help me get rid of them once and for all.”
“Is this something one of those witch doctors told you to do after he saw it in a vision?” Her voice placed quote marks of sarcasm around “witch doctors” and “vision.”
“No, Mom. It’s just an idea that came to me. And we don’t call them witch doctors. You’ve been watching too many old movies. Come on: how long will it be before I’m out here again? I might as well try. Can’t hurt anything.”
“That’s what you say. I, on the other hand, am very uncomfortable with you going to that place, especially in my car.”
“Mom, it’s just a dream.”
“Maybe your dream is just a dream, but there are serious reasons to stay away from that quarry.”
“What are you talking about, Mom? We never even caught any of those salamanders, and I doubt they bite anyway.”
“I’m not talking about lizards. I’m talking about wise guys. Maybe you recall how your grandfather was so dead set against your father taking you and Tommy to that place? That’s because your grandfather had a friend, and he had a friend, who...knew people. Italian people. And his friend’s friend’s Italian friends said to stay away from that pit because the Mob was dumping bodies there. He said they liked it because the bodies went down and never came back up. There was a rumor that the lake was bottomless, at least in some places. Your grandfather wasn’t totally sure but he thought it might even have been where they dumped Hoffa. He got into a real shouting match with your father one time over him taking you boys there. I thought they were going to get physical and I would have to call the police to break them up.”
“Dad and Grandpa getting into a fight, Mom, seriously? You’re just making this stuff up now. And that whole Mafia thing is probably an urban legend. Even if it’s true, we’ve got to be talking way back in the ‘50s.”
“Well son, I can’t control your choices, that’s obvious; but I do control the use of my car. And I don’t much care for you taking my granddaughters up there either.”
“Mom, listen: even if the wise guys use that place, they’re not going to be hanging around in the daytime. We never saw anyone else up there when Dad took us. Just lemme do this, Mom. Please.”
She shook her head slowly then pinned him with her stare. “I am totally against this, but then it’s been a long time since you listened to anything I had to say. So if you’re determined to pursue this silliness, then I guess you might as well go ahead and get it out of your system. And when it doesn’t solve your problem, I hope you will seek professional help. I would encourage you to take your burden to the Lord, but I know you’ll just shut me out as usual. Very sad.” She shook her head again, slowly, her face downcast. “And I’d really prefer you didn’t take my granddaughters with you, but if you’re so determined to do this today you’ll have to because I have my Bible study with Reverend Mainz at 11:00, and I won’t be able to watch them for you.”
Later that morning he remanded Dolores into the custody of her Bible study group, declining her invitation to enter and meet the other ladies--who would love to see how he’d grown. And of course there was the new pastor, Father Mainz, whose sermons were so relevant. Dolores attempted to lure the girls in with cookies, but Russ promised them better desserts if they would hold out until lunch, and they accepted his counter-offer. Their last visit to New Jersey had left them with a taste for fancy Italian pastries, so he was thinking about taking them to Chimney Rock Inn, where he had washed dishes in high school. More upscale than in his day, he expected the current incarnation would at least offer tiramisu, something he knew the girls would love. He pointed the restaurant out to them just after they finished skirting the Stavros Quarry and its dusty gray conveyors on their left. Gray conveyors, gray buildings, gray railcars, gray trucks--everything monochrome, coated with the powder of crushed rock.
They wound up the hill, past the Chimney Rock formation itself, stark protrusion atop its ridge, bleached pigeonshit-white and smooth with uncountable coats of paint, all surrounded by graffiti. He slowed and the girls craned up to see it, but
only briefly. They were underwhelmed. It probably wasn’t much to them after Monument Valley, Spider Rock, Sanostee Arch, and all the other weird rock formations on the Rez. They were more interested in the row of five gray metal cylinders directly below whose rounded ends still spelled: “Z-A-P-P-A.” “Daddy, what’s Zappa?”
Zappa...the man was dead how long now? Longer than Russell’s dad, who never lived to see his granddaughters. Russ had unresolved issues with him over that--his dad, not Frank Zappa--the old man could’ve stopped smoking any time; Russ and Tommy and Dolores all asked him to quit over and over again. Once Russ tried to explain this to Wendy, but that conversation went south immediately: “You should be grateful you knew both your natural parents. When you’re a different skin color from the rest of your family, it’s kind of obvious you’re adopted. Look at me: I had to deal with kids calling me Princess This and Princess That all the time...Princess Spreadeagle, Princess Running Nose...and if I had a dime for every time some jerkoff at Temecula Valley High asked me if my ‘Indian name’ was ‘Two Dogs Fucking,’ well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have to work now. You might still have to, but not me.”
Russ couldn’t argue any of this; knew better than to try. He had no doubt the details from her personal history were true, even if presented all out of context. Her pre-Russell past was one of her trump cards, and he knew by now to shut up and take it when she played it.
Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 4 Rev1 Page 30