by Matthew Crow
“Ignore him Barb,” said Harlow, flipping unspecified chops onto the bars with a rewarding hissing sound. “Me and Jonah’s making fast friends. He’s a grafter alright. And a fine new addition to my work force.”
More cheering from the crowd, this time aimed at Max who, true to his nature, remained wholly nonplussed.
She flapped her hands playfully at the men, “Well you’re certainly a sharp young thing, you look just like a movie star. Let me get you a drink. You want a beer?”
God did I want a beer.
She pulled a can from a nearby dustbin filled to the brink with ice and beverages and handed it to me unopened. I tore the can clean open and practically dove headfirst through the ring piece. “You need anything else Jonah just help yourself,” she said, making her way across the garden towards the kitchen. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you, my dear.”
As the afternoon rolled on the majority of the men initiated a game of poker while the women tossed salads and clucked about life’s minor difficulties behind the kitchen’s screen doors. I have little interest in gossip and poker is a game I feel I’ve mastered, so took myself away from both groups and sat on an old swing set just behind the dying coals of the barbeque. Bananas wrapped in foil gently softened over the hot ash as a slight chill began to play like a xylophone across the amber glow of early evening. In nothing more than a bid to appear at least partially occupied I picked a piece of wood from the ground and with my pocket knife began to smooth its edges until it seemed manmade. It wasn’t that I was avoiding people. I was thrilled simply to be surrounded, yet felt overwhelmed somewhat by my sudden thrust into a social life, and further perturbed by the ellipsis and elision that inevitably occurs between a longstanding clique, people with pasts, people with histories, people with lives that have interlocked and overlapped and acted as both witness and jury to each other at one point or another. I have never had this luxury. And as such am not entirely sure how to go about achieving it. I guess I’ve left it too late. Though maybe all is not lost. You and I seemed to lock into one another’s existence at a time when most people were as established in their roles as ever they would be. But then again we had an incentive; that catalyst of a scheme which at least broke the ice and marked us out as ripe for company. Real life’s trickier, I have found. And when faced with individuals I seem to spend so long deconstructing character and intentions that I inevitably miss the most obvious inroad and am forever resigned to acquaintance at best. This is tenfold when faced with large, established groups. So I take the loner’s preferred method; separate myself entirely then wonder why it is I never seem to be the one holding court.
As I pushed the edge of the knife across the length of the wood, causing thin strands to curl and drop, a light hand appeared on my shoulder. I turned to look and no-one was there. Then I felt the swing to my right dip and the chains tighten.
“Hi stranger,” she said. It was Aimee. Still dressed in white, only barefoot this time, and with just a hint of make-up barely noticeable to the untrained eye.
“What you doing here, Aimee?” I asked.
“Oh you know me,” she said, swinging gently on the balls of her feet, her hands gripping the chain of the swing tightly. “I like to spread myself real thin,” she laughed and then looked back at me. “You’ve met Daddy.”
“Levi?”
She laughed and nodded towards Harlow. “Small world, huh?”
“You can say that again.”
“How were the burgers?”
“Best meal I had all week. So you’re Harlow’s girl. Well I’ll be damned.”
“One of two. We’re the twins. Identical,” she threw herself backwards and pushed with her feet causing her to streak through the air. She swung like a pendulum before returning to my side. “For all you know you might not even be talking to me at all. I could be my other half,” she laughed again and bounced the weight of her body gently towards me.
“Say Aimee, I like your Daddy, I like him a lot, so with that in mind I want to ask you a question and I want you to promise me you aint gonna get mad.”
She giggled to herself and held me tight in her usually flimsy gaze. “You know as well as I do a person can’t make that kind of promise,” she said with uncharacteristic certainty. “But we’ve come this far so I guess you better go on and say it.”
“You know what it is I’m gonna ask you. Why you kicking around with a dirty old man like Levi, Aimee? Good God. You’re only a girl.”
At this she shook her head lightly and those blonde locks tumbled across her face once more, making her expression distant and distorted. “He has what they call potential. He’s going to give me things no-one else can.”
“There’s more to life than money you know,” I said, gripping tightly to the swing’s chains.
“That’s what he says when he talks about you.”
“He talks about me?” I asked. She stared to the ground and shook her head gently. “So then what is it?” I asked. “What keeps you following him around like a damn shadow? Surely there’s more interesting folk you could be playing with?”
“All I ever wanted was to live forever. And he can do it. He’s making me a character. He hasn’t said as much but I just know it. He’s stealing pieces of me each and every day. Aint that something special?”
“Harlow?”
“Levi... the writer,” she said breathlessly. “They say he’s a genius, you know.”
“Can’t say I did. I’m new to these parts.”
“You’ll get old soon enough,” she said standing up. “For what it’s worth Levi knows all about you. Says even he couldn’t have invented someone as interesting as you,” she ran her hands across my hairline and held my face up towards her. “You’re a nice man, even if all these scars say different.”
“A man can’t help the scars he picks up,” I said, becoming jittery at just about every aspect of our interaction – not least the proximity of Aimee’s father; the man I was fast coming to think of as my one true friend in this town. “Don’t make him good or bad.”
“There’s different sorts of scars,” she said. As the long sleeves of her dress inched up I made out a small line, no longer than a slug and a fifth as thin, colouring her wrist like a bracelet. “These don’t look like the kind of scars a man gets from just fighting back.” She turned from me and waltzed carelessly into the house. Behind the window I saw her approaching Barbara who gave her a loving embrace and a small cookie, which seemed to enrapture her completely. Aimee twirled out of the door leading to the living room and out of sight.
“Don’t mind Aimee,” said Harlow, standing so close behind me he could have pushed me like a child on the swing. “She’s a sweet girl, harmless, you just got to give her time.” He sat down next to me and handed me a beer.
“She sure is pretty,” I offered. “I spotted her around town. Never put two and two together I suppose. Older than I thought she would be.”
“Them’s old photographs I carry around with me. Stops me forgetting... more of a sentimental gesture, you understand. Something’s worth remembering you hold it in your heart and your head no matter how many prompts you carry around with you. If you know what I mean.”
I nodded.
“She wasn’t always like that, Aimee. God knows we tried. It’s her nerves, you see. Doctor’s can’t do anything about it.”
“Doesn’t seem to need curing to me.”
“Course the wife blames the company she keeps. You say you’ve seen her around town. I know what people think. I know what they see. See her chasing after another stranger, strange old men, with strange old habits. She can’t help it, just the way she is. Never quite wanted to be herself. You ask me she’s still just a girl playing fairytales.”
“Worse things than holding onto your innocence in this life. Wish I hadn’t been so keen to spend mine.”
Harlow cleared his throat and took a sip of beer. “There’s a difference between spending and having it taken over and over ag
ain, if you know what I’m saying. I just don’t trust the sort of men who can’t see that they’re handling a girl as fine as china. Had it my way I’d take a gun to market and pick off every sonofabitch that came within ten yards of the little one. Only she’s an adult now, on paper, which is all that matters in the eyes of the law, got to make her own mistakes. And I tell you, that girl makes mistakes finer than my wife makes Thanksgiving dinner.”
“For what it’s worth I’ll keep an eye out for her, if I ever see her around.”
As I spoke an aeroplane left disappearing fingerprints on the sky’s canvas as it pricked the foot of a cloud. Harlow traced its ascent with a roll of his eyes before patting me on the back, and returned his gaze to the endless yellow of the cornfields that led to his yard. “That’d be good kid, that’d be good. Now... if there’s one consolation it’s Sylvia. You haven’t met my other daughter. She was working today. Works in the city, have her working every hour God sends her way. Not that you’d hear her grumbling. I guess life’s really down to chance.”
“Some of us are luckier than others.”
“Aint that the truth, kid,” he said, draining his can of its contents. “Aint that the truth.”
We were left in silence, immune to the faint clatter of background noise from the party’s dying dregs. I could hear Harlow’s breath, slow, steady, next to me. If I could have stretched that moment for the rest of my life I would have.
“That’s a fine piece of work you got yourself there,” came a voice from behind us. Caleb, a distant relative and - according to Barbara - a constant feature of Harlow’s household made his way to the front of the swing set on which we rested. It took me a few moments and a brief glance towards my lap to realise what he was referring to. In my hands, against the blade of the knife, the wood block was now smooth and curved, like some abstract piece of fruit.
“Oh,” I said. “Just a hobby of mine.”
“Jonah’s good with his hands. He’s a frustrated artist,” said Harlow, standing up and offering Caleb his seat.
“Frustrated something,” I added.
“Ever thought of turning your hobby into some spare change?” asked Caleb, “I’m always after able craftsmen, and I’m sure Harlow’d give you a reference if need be.”
“A fine one at that,” said Harlow, sending a million inert mosquitoes up into the air as he prodded the white coals with a spatula. “I been faking Max’s signature on references since you were knee high to a midget.”
Both Caleb and I laughed. He reached into my palm, carefully avoiding the blade, and took the strange fruit from my hands.
“You think you could work to a larger scale?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Depends on what you had in mind. I’d draw the line at reproducing the Titanic but within reason don’t see why not.”
“Caleb runs the old funeral home on Sixth Avenue. Been in that family longer than the red in his hair.”
“Buried four generations of pallbearers and counting. Say, you don’t have any business you can pass my way do you?” He laughed at his own quip. It is a trait I have come to acknowledge that the more morbid a man’s work, the more humour he is able to elicit from it. I bet my life’s worth that doctors and gravediggers have more laughs than children’s entertainers and street performers.
“Not this week, sir. Business can’t be too bad for you though, it’s not like it’s a habit anyone’s going to be quitting,” I added.
“What’s that son?”
“Dying.”
Caleb paused for a moment and then chuckled. “A habit. I like that my man. I like that a lot. So, what do you say? Fancy a sideline that’ll never go out of business?”
“He pays good,” said Harlow, covering the grate with a drum lid. “Or at least he will, now that he’s poaching my very own houseguests.”
“I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. You in?”
“I’ll certainly take a look. See if I might be able to help.”
“Well that’s just dandy. You come by tomorrow morning. We got some big business coming up. I’ll show you the ropes and you can decide if it’s for you or not.”
“Here’s to hoping,” I said, raising my empty can towards his.
“To hoping,” he mimicked, clicking his beer against mine.
I was one of the last to leave the party. I timed it carefully, you see. I wanted my presence to be noted, in an effort to show my enjoyment of Harlow and his hospitality. Though I was equally keen not to be the final few – those last drops of ketchup that simply won’t vacate no matter how many times you tap the bottom and bash the side.
“Don’t be a stranger,” groaned Barbara as she embraced me by the front door, blushed from an afternoon of sun and wine coolers. “We’re always open for visitors, any time, just you drop by.”
I thanked her and kissed her once on the cheek as I accepted the cold meats and stale rolls she had kindly wrapped in foil as a midnight snack.
My street seemed more barren than usual as I walked the final stretch towards my front door. Porch lights beamed as moths grew closer to the flames, the lucky few jutting back as the heat scorched their wings whilst their more lethargic companions were caught flickering and hissing behind white shades; their shadows frantic and magnified. A cricket played a sad solo somewhere in the distance. The juices from the meat began to seep through their shroud and dribble awkwardly down towards my elbow. When I was able to take a closer look a trace of red had emerged like a wound across the now crumpled white of my shirt.
“Evening, boy,” said Mrs Pemberton, rocking silently on her porch. The orange orb of a cigar was the only visible trace of her, like some shocked Cheshire cat.
“Evening, Mrs Pemberton,” I said, stopping at my front door. Usually this would be the beginning and end of our interaction. I loathe her and she me. Neither with reason, I hasten to add. It just seems to have been an unspoken initial response that has remained unfaltering during my tenure as her closest neighbour. Despite this, and being in such fine spirits that very evening, I decided to grant her the courtesy of both my time and my good manners, though rationing both to the bare essentials. “Warm out,” I offered.
“Been warmer,” she said, making no attempt to move into the light. Her husband died three years into their nuptials and she has sat ever since, sour and Havishamesque, waiting on that porch. Waiting for what I do not know: for his return from the great beyond, I suppose, or perhaps for her own demise, and their ensuing reunion. Whatever her aim she is little liked amongst the neighbours I have spoken to. Though her age and longevity within the area have elevated her to a status of those whom we must respect.
“A welcome breeze, that’s for sure. This time last year I could hardly draw breath.”
“I like the heat,” she said, her orange orb dilating with a quiet fizz. “Keeps my joints as they were.”
“Well you take care Mrs Pemberton,” I said, turning the key in my door.
“Awfully late,” she said, just as I was about to step inside.
“Sure is. I’m pretty beat.”
“Don’t see you going out at night so often. Not for some time now anyway,” there was a thump on the wood beneath her feet and a small black cat ran down the length of her garden and squatted beneath the car of the house opposite. “You haven’t been courting trouble have you young man?”
“No, ma’am. Visiting friends from work. Had us a barbeque,” I held up the aluminium meat as supporting evidence.
“I been on this street for forty years now and never seen a pick of trouble. I hope I don’t start now.”
“I’m not the sort of man to court controversy,” I said, opening the door wider still.
“Mmhmm,” she said, rocking back on the bows of her chair. “Some men been sniffing around your house.”
For some reason my stomach turned slowly like a sycamore falling to soil. “My house?”
“Mmmhmm. Looking through your window. Been into your garden too, probably want
ed to check your house wasn’t burning down. I got three baskets of laundry ruined thanks to that fire. I hope you apply more thought to your surroundings in future.”
“There were men at my house?” I asked again.
“Men, yes, two. How many times you need telling, boy?” she said with a snap before returning to her dour tone, “I been sitting here for hours. I saw them clear as day. They don’t see me though. I keep my lights off, for providence you see?”
“What time was this?”
“Yes siree, that stench won’t be scratched from my delicates no matter how much I scrub. Lighting fires in broad daylight. Anyone’d think we lived in a slum.”
“I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused, Mrs Pemberton,” I said, fully aware that no further headway was going to be made on the subject, that night at least. “I’ll happily reimburse you for any loss to your estate. Now if it’s all the same with you I really have to be getting to bed.”
“You go boy. And remember what I said. This is a nice street. Nice people too. Don’t want no trouble.”
“Goodnight Mrs Pemberton,” I said, stepping inside and closing my door.
I looked out to the garden; the pleasure of the day now marred by such incongruous news. Nothing had been taken. Nothing destroyed. The garden lay as flat and featureless as it had been left. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass to get a further look but to my eyes everything appeared the same.
I do hope this remains the case. It seems that for the first time in my life I am beginning to fear change.
With love as always,
Jonah
Dear Jonah,
Being still drunk is so much worse than being hungover. If nothing else the latter is universally acknowledged; invoking, as it does, rolled eyes, ironic head shaking and the knowing smiles of those desperate to be seen as ‘with it’ enough not to judge. The former however requires an element of deceit; that strange notion that one must appear to be entirely sober despite alarming evidence to the contrary. In such a state one is inclined to forget that being sober is like so many things in life, whereby once a level of consciousness is applied it becomes satirised to the point of nullification. The symptom is always so much more telling than the cause.