The Ceiling Man

by Patricia Lillie

  “Asshole! You made me spill my beer!” Tits had a point.

  “She always said she hated my friends,” Mopey said. “I think she meant you.”

  “I like Mopey,” Blevins said. Maybe there’d be a fight. At least they were finally doing something besides standing around.

  “Shut up,” the other said.

  “Everybody chill.” The guy in the biker jacket took a beer from a blue cooler and tossed it to Tits.

  Blevins liked the jacket, but didn’t mention it. He was sick of being told to shut up.

  “I’ll cut him some slack tonight, being that he’s broken-hearted and all,” Tits said, “but if it wasn’t for that. . .I have an idea.” He stumbled up the three steps into the trailer.

  “Maybe he’ll fall on his face on the way out,” Blevins said. “I know. Shut up.”

  “Then do it,” the other said.

  “Look! Stress relief.” Tits was back. The beer was gone. Instead, he held a gun.

  “I don’t like guns. We’re gonna get shot,” Blevins said.

  “Don’t worry about it.” The other was one cool motherfucker.

  “Where’d you get that?” Biker Boy was impressed.

  “My old man left it to me.” Tits waved the gun over his head.

  “Your old man is still alive.”

  “Yeah. He doesn’t know he left it to me.”

  “He’s gonna kick your ass.”

  “Not if I’m holding this.” Tits fired once into the sky, then again into the fire.

  “Ooooo. Fireworks. Can we go now?” Blevins said.

  “Wait.” For the first time, the other’s voice held a hint of emotion. Blevins wasn’t sure what it was. Not quite excitement. Anticipation?

  “Hey, Mopey.” Tits looked as if he might kick the chair again but thought better of it. “Try this. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Mopey waved him off and took another pull of his beer.

  “Lemmee try it.” Biker Boy held out his hand, and Tits gave him the gun. He turned it over and examined it. “M1911. Niiiiiiiiiice.” He let off two shots into the fire, took aim at the Confederate flag at the far corner of the trailer, and put a hole in it.

  “Hey! Asshole! That’s my Bocephus flag! Give it back!”

  Biker Boy laughed and handed Tits the gun.

  “Shit. It’s already got one hole in it.” Tits pointed the gun at the flag, fired, and missed.

  Biker Boy was practically doubled over laughing. “You oughta sell it to me.”

  “Hell no. It was my grampa’s. Had it in the army or something.”

  “Army? What army was he in? The booze-hound brigade? Hey! Don’t point that thing at me!”

  “Watch your mouth. Besides, it’s empty,” Tits said.

  “Didn’t your old man teach you anything? Never point a gun at a man unless you’re willing to kill him. Loaded or unloaded. And it’s not empty.”

  “What makes you think I’m not willing to kill you? And it is too empty.” Tits lifted his hand and ticked off his fingers with the barrel of the gun.

  “He’s counting on his fucking fingers,” Blevins said. “It’s his gun. He oughta know what’s left in it.”

  “He does. Or did. Watch,” the other said.

  “Six shots,” Tits said. “It’s empty.”

  “And one in the chamber. You shouldn’t sell it to me. You should give it to me. You’re too fucking stupid to keep it.” Biker Boy opened another beer.

  “Tits oughta shoot him,” Blevins said. “Fucking know-it-all.”

  “Shut up and watch.”

  Mopey looked up from his beer. “I’m pretty sure it’s empty.”

  “Ha. Another country heard from. I’m telling you, it’s empty. Look.” Tits put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  Blevins heard the pop and watched. He watched the blood spurt from the wound and pour from the man’s mouth. He watched the gun fall from Tits’s hand and the body sink to the ground.

  “Shit,” Biker Boy said.

  Mopey puked.

  Blevins smiled. “Cool. How’d you know that would happen?”

  “I made it happen.” The other shrugged.

  “Stop shittin’ me.”

  No answer from the other.

  “Fucking idiot just can’t count. Couldn’t count.” As much as Blevins wanted to believe, he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around what the other was—or wasn’t—saying.

  One corner of the other’s mouth twitched in something that almost passed for a grin before it disappeared.

  “Seriously? You can do that?”

  Still no answer.

  “I wanna do that.” Way better than breaking windows.

  “Later. I’m hungry.”

  “I might have enough for a burger. Maybe fries.” Blevins pulled a handful of change from his pocket.

  “I need more. Let’s go.”

  Blevins and his new best buddy walked toward the two survivors.

  [5]

  Carole

  I DIDN’T KNOW THE MEN INVOLVED, but I knew where it happened.

  What a lot of people thought of as Port Massasauga was part of the township, not the city. Just outside of town, Workman Road was township. It was heavily wooded, and the homes were widely spaced. A few were nice—and expensive—houses built by Port Massasauga newcomers, but most were trailers, and not the tidy well-maintained variety. They were peeled-siding, plastic-and-duct-tape-on-the-windows, Christmas-lights-up-all-year-around trailers. Some sat just as they were when hauled in decades ago. Some had ramshackle additions. Front yards were overgrown and filled with trashcans and rusty cars on blocks. Most had satellite dishes on their roofs, and at night the curtain-less windows lit up with the glow of giant-screen televisions.

  The newcomers campaigned to have Workman Road annexed by the city. They wanted city zoning regulations enforced and the eyesores on their bucolic road cleaned up.

  Most reports of gunshots on Workman Road—the reports always came from the newcomers—turned out to be out-of-season hunters or rednecks letting off steam. This time, the county sheriffs found three men dead. The newspaper called it a suspected murder-suicide.

  • • •

  THE MISTERS DONATHAN, Hensley, Bartone, and Pekonen, four of my favorite Senior Center regulars, were back from their second suspension for gambling on the premises. All in their eighties, they enjoyed bragging about being on probation at the Senior Center. Old man bad-assery at its finest. They played poker for toothpicks. If anyone asked, they claimed it was pinochle. They sat in the corner, and the cards were out. I had a hunch the toothpicks represented more than toothpicks and headed over to remind them a third strike meant they’d need to find another place to hang out.

  Just short of their table, I stopped. Eavesdropping on fogey chatter was always entertaining and sometimes enlightening, one of the small perks of my job.

  Entertaining didn’t fit their subject. I didn’t understand why women had the reputation for gossip. Old guys were the worst.

  “I heard some animal got to ’em. Musta been huge. They were devoured. Ripped apart.” Mr. Donathan dealt the cards.

  “Don’t be an idiot. If anything got them, it was a fox,” Mr. Hensley said.

  “It was one of them black bears.” Mr. Bartone had a thing about black bears. Every summer, one wandered into town, and he worried until the snow fell. Sometimes later.

  “What I don’t get is why the guy with the hole in his head was all in one piece. And you keep dealing this crap, you could end up with a hole in your head,” Mr. Pekonen said.

  “I got enough of ’em already,” Mr. Donathan said. “Maybe he watched the other two get eaten and shot hisself just to get the picture out of his head.”

  “Especially if it was a black bear,” Mr. Bartone said.

  “That doesn’t even make sense. Don’t you read the paper? Fold.” Mr. Pekonen tossed his cards on the table.

  “What? You believe everything they put in the paper? You’
re a moron. Call.” Mr. Hensley said.

  “He shoulda shot the bear first. I’m out.” When Mr. Bartone got started on bears, he had a lot in common with Abby.

  “Where do you guys get this stuff?” I asked.

  “Oh, we listen,” Mr. Donathan said. “You should too. You wouldn’t believe half of what goes on around here.”

  “She’s married to a cop. She knows what’s what,” Mr. Pekonen said.

  “That’s right. You got any juicy stuff for us?” Mr. Bartone perked up.

  “No, and you know I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Interesting variation of pinochle. I always thought it used more cards. If any money changes hands, make sure it’s after you leave here.” I left them to their game.

  I discounted half their talk—okay, ninety percent of it—but I knew the Workman Road events were uglier than the official newspaper version. They always were.

  The township was county sheriff’s jurisdiction, and I was glad Jim was a city cop. In almost twenty years with the police, Jim saw terrible things. He seldom shared them with me, but when he needed to talk, I listened. Even then, I suspected he spared me the worst of the details. The rare Port Massasauga murder was usually drug related—ugly, but clean. The domestics bothered him, especially when children were involved, and the air got tense around the house. The Workman Road mess involved rednecks, not children, but still sounded nasty enough to make for tension at home.

  In the afternoon, Ms. Colley called again.

  “Well, at least this time we know what inspired her,” she said.

  Abby didn’t start it. Devon did. He lived in one of the new houses on Workman Road and probably just repeated things he’d heard at home. Although Abby might have seen the front page of the paper, I knew her additions to the conversation were nothing she heard at home.

  “Some of it was the same things she said last time, about ripping their throats out and splattering them all over,” Ms. Colley said, “but this time she added, ‘those two were just a snack,’ ‘he only wants the live ones,’ and ‘wait ’til he gets really hungry.’ The weird part—she sounds so matter-of-fact about it all.”

  For a kid who hated scary stuff, blood and guts storytelling was out of character.

  The ability to hold two completely different ideas in her head at once or make two plans and the inability to see the conflict between the two was typical for Abby. I found myself saying, “Abby, you cannot go to the A-Tech next year and stay in Ms. Colley’s class at Creekside at the same time,” or “Abby, if you are spending the weekend with your grandmother, how are you going to spend the night at Twyla’s house?” or something similar on a daily basis.

  Most of Abby’s dual track thoughts made sense in an Abby-way. If she could picture two sets of events, both were real and connected for her. Sometimes I had to strain for the connection, but to her it was obvious. I long ago accepted that I would never completely understand the workings of Abby’s mind, but I couldn’t find the connection between what I thought of as Abby-normal and the new Abby-gruesome.

  When I told Jim about Abby’s latest round of storytelling, he didn’t say anything.

  “Okay. What are you not telling me?” I asked.

  “She probably just picked up on some of the gossip. I bet the school was full of it.”

  “The Center certainly was. Is the stuff about an animal true?”

  “I really can’t tell you anything more than what you read in the paper.”

  “You know, that is exactly why so many cops end up divorced,” I said.

  It wasn’t a city investigation, but cops talked—to each other. I was pissed but knew better than to press him for more information. Something about Ms. Colley’s call disturbed him. From the look on his face, trying to get him to tell me what would be as futile as trying to get Abby to talk after an Idunno and would only piss me off more.

  “Why don’t you take the dog out,” I said.

  • • •

  THE NIGHT THE lights went out, Jim and I were out to dinner with friends. Abby was home alone—sort of. At seventeen, she rebelled at the idea of a sitter.

  “I am not a baby,” she said.

  My line between over-protective and irresponsible parenting was blurry, especially after Abby hit adolescence and it started moving. We left her alone after school. As far as I was concerned, that earned me a shiny gold star in the Encourage Independence category. Leaving her alone after the sun went down was a different matter. She didn’t agree.

  “I am seventeen. Seventeen-year-olds do not need babysitters. Seventeen-year-olds are babysitters.”

  We compromised—my euphemism for getting sneaky. When Jim and I went out for an evening, Pete’s wife Livvy dropped in for a visit and acted surprised to find us gone. She and Abby loved each other, and Livvy usually brought cookies. Even if Abby tired of socializing and went up to her room, Livvy stayed until we came home. Someday, Abby would figure out what was going on, but since Livvy was a neighbor and a friend, she hadn’t yet. At least, she hadn’t told us so. Maybe she just liked the cookies.

  At the restaurant, we waited about fifteen minutes in the dark. When the electricity didn’t come back on, we made our apologies and left. Not only did we want to check on Abby—even though I was sure Livvy was there—a prolonged power outage meant alarm drops and people getting the stupids. There was a good chance Jim would be called in to work.

  Between Friday night traffic and no streetlights, our ten-minute drive home took over a half hour. When I asked what good it was to be married to a cop if you couldn’t use lights and sirens when you needed them, Jim snorted. I made the same joke often.

  The house was pitch dark. Abby didn’t answer when we called, but Livvy met us at the back door, flashlight in hand.

  “I didn’t get here until the lights went out,” she said. “I had to let myself in. She didn’t answer the door.” Livvy had a spare key to our house. “She’s in her room. She did acknowledge me, but didn’t want to come downstairs, so I gave her a flashlight and left her there. The dark didn’t seem to bother her. In fact, she seemed pretty happy with the situation.” Livvy’d known Abby since she was a toddler and knew better than to push for typical reactions.

  “Oh yeah. There’s cookies on the kitchen counter. Chocolate chip with pecans.”

  Livvy and Pete were the best neighbors in the world. We thanked her, and she left.

  Jim grabbed a flashlight, and we headed upstairs. Abby sat cross-legged on her bed. Her fingers danced. Her eyelids fluttered, and her eyes showed only white. To anyone who didn’t know her, it would look like a seizure. We knew she was deep in Abby-land.

  Both Jim and I had always assumed Abby-land was a happy place. When there, Abby always smiled. She looked downright blissful. Sometimes, I wished I could join her there. We never wanted to call her home and were sorry when we were forced to.

  That night, however, she looked anything but blissful. Her lips were pinched, a tight straight line. On one side of her jaw, a muscle throbbed. Her forehead was furrowed, her eyebrows knit into a uni-brow. She appeared lost in intense—and worried—concentration.

  “Abby! ABBY!” We both tried to call her back, but she continued to rock, unaware of our presence. Rocking was supposed to soothe her. Often, watching her rock soothed me, but there was no comfort in that night’s rocking. She ramped up the speed, the motion jerky rather than rhythmic. It hurt to watch her, and whether she needed it or not, I needed to bring her back to us.

  I reached out to shake her, something we tried to avoid. Before I touched her, she stilled, and the lights flashed on. Her face was slack, her expression blank.

  “He is finished,” she said, her words as empty as her face.

  “What? Who’s finished?” Jim asked.

  “The ceiling is red. Twyla would like it.”

  “Abby. Look at me. What ceiling?” I struggled to keep my voice calm, steady.

  She looked at us then, and her face lit up with her big, loopy, Abby grin. “How wa
s your dinner? Was it good?”

  “Abby—” I lost the struggle, and Jim interrupted me.

  “We didn’t get to eat. The lights went off before we even ordered our food.”

  “Me too,” Abby said. “Sandwiches?”

  Tuna on toast wasn’t in our plans for the evening, but it was one of Abby’s specialties and she enjoyed making it for us. Jim took his first bite and pronounced it delicious. Abby glowed.

  It was a normal family night. A happy family night. I relaxed and went with the flow. Whatever was going on with my daughter, I couldn’t solve it then. Better to concentrate on Abby’s sandwiches and Livvy’s cookies.

  The next day, Jim went to work, and Abby and I spent the day doing Saturday things. We half-cleaned the house and shopped for Twyla’s birthday present, a weird fleece pillow supposed to look like a pizza. I thought it was hideous, but Abby assured me Twyla would love it. Abby decided she should bake a batch of her Killer Brownies.

  “They will be a surprise for Daddy,” she said.

  I never argued with brownies.

  Whenever I tried to bring up the previous night, all I got was “Twyla would like the ceiling” or “There will be five of us at Twyla’s party. That is just enough.” Pushing her resulted in an Idunno. We were having such a good day I decided not to force it.

  I was one of the last to hear what happened during the blackout.

  Evelyn called. She asked for Jim, but when I told her he was working, she deigned to speak to me.

  “I hope you are planning a good dinner,” she said. “With the day he is no doubt having, he’ll need it.”

  I was a crap housekeeper, but nobody ever accused my family of being underfed. She’s Jim’s mother. Be nice.

  “Abby made brownies. Why?”

  “You haven’t heard? Oh, that’s right. You’re too good for television. The Connors family. Dead. All of them. They found them late this morning.”

  I knew the Connors. Not well, but Marnie was in my Lamaze class when I was carrying Abby. Although our girls were the same age, we seldom saw each other after they were born. Kyra and Abby didn’t move in the same circles. Kyra was a cheerleader and on the Creekside Homecoming court. The two younger boys, red-headed twins, were hell-raisers. The month before, they took a 1969 Mustang for a joyride, totaled it, and were arrested for under-age drinking and grand theft.