I should point out that Dodo’s picture is not a photograph. His image stands out from the rest because it’s a sketch. When he returned from ’Nam, he carried a lean hungry look that one of Rennie’s artist friends captured for the cover of a comic book version of some novel. Dodo put a cropped copy of the cover on this wall instead of his military photo. Too bad the bargain pulp paper it was printed on has yellowed, not to mention frayed and curled inside the cheap frame. You can hardly make out Dodo’s pretty face anymore.
I feel a thunderous slap on the back. I turn and face a mug that’s as free of wrinkles as the day the artist sketched it. Dodo’s still-thick brown wavy bangs dangle over the rims of his oversized nineteen-seventies glasses. His face looks like it should be on the cover of Tiger Beat or 16 Magazine. Yet he just celebrated his sixtieth birthday. I can’t help but think that Dodo might be an incubus who sucks the life out of women to maintain his youthful appearance. Rennie could have verified this for me. He knew how to spot every kind of demon. He told me some of them even disguise themselves as angels. That kind of fraud reminds me of those pristine white Colonial homes in the old part of town that are all rotten at the core, just like my older brother.
I lick my lips as Dodo puts a near-empty plate of spinach-and-mushroom manicotti on the bar. I wonder how I missed this dish.
“’S been a while, bro,” he hisses. “You’re looking good.” He speaks these words with his upper lip curled, in a wicked expression the Italian men in my family seem to master at birth. Women love it. Guys want to punch it off their faces.
And seriously? Me looking good? What the hell is he talking about?
My hair is thinning on one side. I’m missing two teeth from a bar fight. My left eye is droopy, and my back is starting to bow. What I’m looking like is a funky Quasimodo. This baby-faced jerk knows I’m fifty-six and can easily pass for his dad.
“I’m living the California Dream,” I snort back at him.
I turn away and check out the leggy twenty-somethings who are lingering around the entrance to the bar. It’s obvious they’re trying to catch Dodo’s wandering eye so they can enjoy all the empty humiliation he has to offer. It’s a good thing he’s never been married or had a kid. I’ve tried both. Neither decision was great, especially the kid bit. My son likes to think of rehab as his second home. But that’s nothing compared to what a kid of Dodo’s could be. That hellcat could bring on the apocalypse.
I glance outside at the boarded-up brick building where Dodo’s Comic Book Store used to be. You can still see the tufted bottom half of the Dodo bird decal that was once featured on his storefront window. My brother worked for my dad’s electrical business during high school to save enough money to open that store after graduation. Dodo worked so hard his junior year that he stayed back and didn’t graduate until he was nineteen. Then in 1971, Dodo turned twenty and was drafted for ’Nam. His business had barely been open a year. Funny how nobody’s redone his storefront. I suppose they figure the place is bad luck.
One of the leggy babes edges closer to my brother. She licks her full ruby lips. My shoulders twitch.
I point at Dodo’s old building. “Too bad you lost your comic book store,” I say, loud enough for her to hear.
Dodo swipes a palm over the bangs on his unwrinkled forehead. “Too bad? Losing my store sucked royally. My timing’s the worst. Comic books used to be for kids. Now everybody reads them. I could have been a zillionaire. Instead, I’m a grease monkey at a garage that forever borders on bankruptcy and pays me diddly-squat. Meanwhile, you live in the land of bikini babes, great weed, and eternal sunshine.”
He raises his arm. I duck, thinking he’s taking a swing at me. But he’s only offering me an imaginary toast, as the bartender hasn’t yet served us any real drinks.
“Here’s to you, Oz!” Dodo winces at his risen invisible glass, like he’s actually jealous of me, which is flipping hysterical.
III
I feel bad, for like a millisecond. Then Dodo shoves the guy next to me off his stool and snatches it for himself. The barkeep snorts like a bull over his rudeness. I’m thinking I’m about to get stuck in the middle of another bar fight. But the uprooted guy swats the air lightly, like he’s used to Dodo’s insults. Nothing but Uncle Rennie’s passing could’ve brought me back together with my brother. Nothing.
The barkeep leans into me, his gold cross dangling over the bar. Slivers of well-combed silver hair rake across his liver-spotted pate. “It’s good to see you, Oz,” he says, “despite the circumstances.” He offers me a respectably calloused hand. “I’m Buster Nowicki.” He squeezes my knuckles too tight. “You remember me?”
“Sure.” I smile, grateful for the recognition. “You were Dodo’s buddy back in high school. Then you wound up in his unit in Vietnam. Lucky you.”
“Yeah.” He rolls his bloodhound eyes. “Lucky me.” Buster pats my shoulder. “Your Uncle Rennie was a great man. He knew the secrets of the universe. Plus, he was a guy you could trust.” Buster’s eyes shift sideways, toward Dodo. “Unlike some people.” He pounds the bar top. “You ready to drink a Gansett in his honor?”
I nod lightly, noticing he doesn’t ask Dodo if he wants a beer, even though my brother is patting his hand on the bar, in the universal gesture for requesting a drink.
Nowicki passes me a can of Narragansett lager.
“Hey, No Dicky,” says Dodo, standing. “What about me? Did you forget about the time I saved your ass on the Ho Chi Minh Trail?”
Nowicki chuckles, “You didn’t save my ass; you nearly got it shot off, trying to sell fake American cigarettes. You were a jerk then and you’re twice the jerk now.” He bends to rummage under the back of the bar like he’s randomly decided to start spring cleaning in October. Buster finally emerges with a red face and an open beer which he slams in front of Dodo with a shaking hand. Beer sloshes onto Dodo’s forty-year-old “Dressed Up to get Messed Up” band tee-shirt.
My brother puts his palms up in surrender. “Oh, c’mon, Buster. Your daughter is a grown woman. Lay off me. Will you? You know Angie ain’t no saint.” He smacks his lips. “But I’ll admit she’s a great cook. Everything is all natural. Picked from the garden and the woods, or bought at local farms. Look at me. I’m the picture of health.”
Nowicki grinds his crooked teeth into his words. “Yeah, she’s great, and you’re trying to break her heart.”
Here it comes…
“No way,” Dodo leans into the bar. “I told Angie I didn’t care if she kept the baby or not. I never told her to get rid of it.” My brother lifts his chin. “Truthfully, I think it’s about time I had a kid. Don’t you? Wouldn’t you like a good-looking grandbaby?”
I hold my breath as Nowicki turns his back on us and faces the veterans’ photos. I’m afraid he might be crying. I lower my head, respectfully, not wanting to stare at a guy when he’s down. I imagine myself back under the pretty pink lights of the Pechanga Casino poker room, enjoying a winning hand of five card stud. My eyes are following my favorite waitress’ ass, when I feel the thump and hear the crash. I bolt upright and see shattered glass glistening across the back of the bar. Buster Nowicki is holding Dodo’s broken picture frame, tearing the paper picture inside it into narrow strips.
My brother has one arm frozen stiff on the bar, like he’s about to leap over it, when his elbow crumples. He falls back toward my side of the bar. I lunge too late to catch him. His neck whacks the stool and then hits the ground with a crack. He’s out cold.
The guy Dodo kicked out of his seat yells, “I’m a medic,” and pushes me aside.
Buster Nowicki stands motionless, gray-faced and bloodless.
The medic guy shouts, “He’s got no pulse. He’s not breathing.”
I grab my thinning hair. “No way!” I dial 911 on the burner phone I bought at the airport. “Dammit,” I mumble, as I can’t seem to hit the right buttons. I sho
uld’ve paid more attention to my premonition. Maybe I really am as much of a bad luck charm as my late parents claimed. I’ve come home for the first time in thirty-five years, and my brother collapses at my feet.
IV
Buster tosses the dirty paper plates, plastic utensils, and half-drunk beer cans from the bar top into the trash. He wipes the bar down, like fifty times, as if he’s stuck in some kind of psychotic loop. A parade of hotties follows the ambulance gurney as it rolls Dodo’s body away. The paramedics continue to work on him, so I guess he’s still alive. My brother’s ageless form makes me think of the dead boy soldiers at the monument. Only, Dodo isn’t young. I need to remember that. I overhear a teenage girl ask her older friend why I couldn’t have collapsed instead of Dodo.
My Uncle Joe staggers into the bar from the main room and points at Buster. He’s half the size he was the last time I saw him, and he calls out in a raspy squeal, “What the Sam hell did you put in my nephew’s beer?”
My eyes widen at Joe’s accusing words. I figured Dodo simply had a heart attack.
Buster stares past Joe into the main hall, eyeballs bouncing, like he’s searching for somebody. His eyes halt and soften, like he’s found who he was looking for.
He turns to Joe. “What can I say? I admit it. I killed the bastard. I’m not sorry, either.”
“What?” My jaw drops.
Joe pokes a twisted arthritic finger at Buster. “I knew it. You poisoned my nephew for knocking up your daughter.”
Buster runs his hand across the broken glass in front of the whiskeys, cutting his fingers. He smears his dripping blood on the shredded cartoon image of Dodo beside the broken frame. “Guilty as charged,” he says, with a quavering voice.
Uncle Joe storms toward Buster, huffing. His head flies back when he sees me and realizes who I am. “Oz! You’re home! What’d this bastard do to your brother?”
“I didn’t see anything,” I reply.
Buster puts his hands to his heart. “You know why I did it, Oz. Somebody had to end that guy. You know he’s unnatural.”
“Why you dirty…” Joe lunges at Buster.
I step in front of Uncle Joe and haul back my arm, preparing to punch Buster Nowicki on behalf of the entire Grigio clan, when I feel a meaty arm pull me back.
V
“You remember me, Oz? I’m Officer Cieco,” says the neat silver-haired policeman who is gripping my pulsing bicep.
A young cop muscles past him and starts to read Buster his rights.
“I’m surprised to see you back in town.” Cieco flips open a notepad. “Can you make a statement about what just happened here?”
“Hell, no. My head is spinning.” I lean on the bar so I don’t collapse. “I can’t make a statement about what happened because I don’t know what the hell happened. One minute my brother was alive and the next he wasn’t.”
Cieco sneers. “It doesn’t really matter. Buster Nowicki has already confessed to killing Dodo. The toxicology report will reveal what type of poison he used.”
“Why do you assume that Dodo was poisoned? Buster said he killed him. He didn’t say how.” I feel the balding side of my head starting to sweat.
Cieco strokes his chin. “How else could he do it? Did you witness something?”
I start to pace, back and forth, along the short distance of the bar. “I don’t know what I saw. Why don’t you examine the evidence? You didn’t bother looking at it before you put out that warrant for my arrest. Rennie said you wrongly judge people because of your limited view of the world. You don’t believe in demons, so you tried to jail me for tying up my demon landlady, even though she was about to fatally curse me. You don’t believe in premonitions, so you punished Rennie for his foresight. He told that guy his brakes were bad because he saw the future. He didn’t sabotage that car, like you claimed. Sure, Rennie and the guy were in love with the same girl. But if Rennie was his killer, why would he warn him?”
“Your parents didn’t believe in any of that mystical nonsense.”
“You’re right, and look what happened to them. Their friend, Hannah, had a powerful demonic doll that protected her home. Mom and Dad didn’t believe in it. After they pocketed Hannah’s jewelry, they wound up in a deadly car wreck. You put a drunk driver in jail for their deaths. But Rennie and I both knew the doll was the one that really killed them.”
“Oz,” says the cop, “enough with the crazy. You only dodged doing serious time because the statute of limitations ran on what you did to that nice old lady. You want me to arrest you now for drunk and disorderly?”
“Always looking at the small picture, aren’t you?…Wait a minute. The picture! That’s it!” I point at the broken picture frame behind the bar.
I move closer to read the piece of paper glued on the back of the frame. It shows the comic book novel title that used Dodo’s face, back in the days before graphic novels.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray!” I exclaim.
Cieco sighs. “What are you jabbering about now? Did Buster use that picture frame for self-defense? Is that how the glass got all over the place?”
“Open your mind, man,” I say. “Buster didn’t use this itty-bitty frame for self-defense. He smashed it to supernaturally murder Dodo.”
I hear the click of handcuffs. “Of course he did. As far as I can tell, you’re drunk and disorderly. Shades of decades past.”
My voice climbs an octave. “You’ve got to be kidding. I always knew you had a puny brain but I assumed you knew how to read. You really don’t get the connection between Dodo’s death and that picture?”
Ceico writes fitfully on his notepad. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
“Then I’ll spell it out for you. Dodo is short for my brother’s full name of Dorian. Grigio means ‘gray’ in Italian. The Dorian Gray character in the famous novel by Oscar Wilde dies after his picture is destroyed.”
The younger cop bites his lip to keep from laughing. “So you’re saying that breaking your brother’s picture killed him?”
“Sort of. In the story, Dorian dies because his damaged picture no longer supernaturally protects him from the ravages of age, illness, poison, and injury. His years of bad living suddenly take their toll. The same is true of Dodo.”
“I don’t get it,” says the young cop.
“Neither do I,” mutters Ceico.
I raise an eyebrow. “Doesn’t anybody in this town read?”
Cieco tightens my handcuffs. “I think we’ll be adding a psych eval to your processing at the station, Oz.”
I hear a loud “Aha!” and we all turn. Uncle Joe’s jet black hair pops up from behind the bar.
“Hey, Cieco. You gotta see this.” He points downward.
The cop lets go of me and slips behind the bar. He squats to see what Joe’s yapping about. I hear him snap on a pair of evidence gloves.
Cieco lifts an open box of rat poison into the air and shakes it at me. He places it inside an evidence bag.
“Thanks, Joe,” he says. “This should wrap it up.”
VI
Cieco herds people from the main room out the front door. “Time to go home, folks,” he growls.
I feel hot with rage. “Buster didn’t kill Dodo with rat poison,” I yell, making one last effort. “The man’s a decorated combat vet. Poisoning’s not his style. Buster killed Dodo by breaking his picture.”
Nobody’s listening to me.
A sweet-faced woman in her thirties slips out of the unisex bathroom that’s behind the bar. She’s holding her very pregnant stomach. Her long brown hair is piled neatly atop her head, and she’s dressed angelically, in white pants, white patent-leather heels, and a sheer, ruffled white chiffon blouse. Naturally, she ignores me. She bends down beneath the bar, pulls out a near-full aluminum pan of spinach-and-mushroom manicotti and scurries back into the bathroom.
Someone snaps their finger in my ear. I turn and see Cieco.
“Hey, Oz,” he says. “The hospital just confirmed that your brother, Dodo, was declared DOA. I need to find that cute girlfriend of his and give her the bad news.” He scans both rooms. “She’s waiting around here somewhere because I told her she shouldn’t drive. Have you seen her?”
I shrug. “I got no idea who the hell she is.”
He extends two open palms. “Of course not. She’s the mother of your future nephew. Why would you care about meeting her? You’ll never see the kid, anyway. Right?” He removes my cuffs and returns to the main room, saluting with his back to me. “You’re free to go. If I don’t see you for another thirty-five years, that’s fine by me.”
A weird fog rolls into the room. I rub my eyes and see it’s my ghostly soldier buddies. This is the first time I’ve seen them indoors. It’s also the first time I’ve seen them hanging their heads. I figure it’s because they knew Dodo in ’Nam and want to pay their respects. I pull out some smokes but they back away, cowering, staring past me, bug-eyed. I turn around and see they’re looking at the woman in white. She looks like an angel, except for the wide succubus quality of her mouth. I find it odd that she has exited the bathroom for a second time and is still carrying her manicotti pan, which is now empty and squeaky clean. It occurs to me the soldiers may be freaking out because they’ve seen people compulsively clean things as a way of dealing with heavy grief.
Could this be Dodo’s girlfriend, Angie?
She steps behind the bar, puts down the pan and picks up the bloody shreds of Dodo’s picture, staring at it blankly.
Yup, it’s her, all right.
I hope she doesn’t know the story of Dorian Gray and is planning to do something pathetic, like tape the paper bits of his face back together to bring him back to life or something. I shiver at that thought.
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