“It’s only right you should want closure and felt the need to speak to the man. He owed you at least that much. But I sense something went wrong.”
I hear a foot grind a cigarette butt into the floor and a lighter flick. Millicent Dibble sighs. “Yes, something went wrong all right. That Sunday, the newspaper featured an article about the Hoodoo Chickens’ Mexican tour. It turned out Shankdaddy had already left the country for the summer. He wasn’t coming to look for his daughter. I went home and downed a few bourbons to console myself. When I returned to my office, I no longer heard any noise in the basement, so I wrote that earlier noise off to my imagination. I needed a vacation and took off for Lake Winnipesaukee for the rest of the summer.
She coughs through her words. “You see, Mona Lisa, what happened to Mia was an accident. It was simply the universe’s way of wiping away the wicked.”
“I agree,” I lie, desperately. “Please let me go.”
She clears her throat with determination. “No! You came here to try and persuade me not to testify for Cricket. But she is innocent and doesn’t deserve to go to prison! You don’t care about who you hurt. You’re just like Mia—selfish.
Dibble traipses back up the stairs, humming “As The Years Go Passing By,” by Gary Moore, stopping occasionally to hack out a cough.
I whip out my cell phone. No service. I wish I’d left Mom a note telling her where I was going, even though our relationship lately has been more about me keeping an eye on her. So here I am, locked inside four mortuary gray cinderblock walls, moonbeams streaming through a lunchbox-sized window, illuminating a waterless sink. I miss the old dripping sound in here, that tortuous, life-saving sound of falling water. I sniff and find the scent of mouse is definitely stronger than the last time I was inside this closet. B.B. must have been a decent mouser. I also detect an underlying fruity aroma that’s probably demolition dynamite.
I’ve got to get out of here.
I listen for someone else’s step—a delivery person, a demolition expert, a nostalgic student or teacher who forgot something or wants one last stroll through their old haunt. What I want is anyone who might hear me scream. I’m saving my lungs to make that final scream count. Of course, Mia probably had these same thoughts.
I jangle my bracelet, hoping Bilki will hear it. Yet, she remains mum. I can’t imagine why she would remain silent during this crisis, of all crises, unless of course she’s only a figment of my delusionary mind.
A glimmer of light slides across my feet like the reflection of a shooting star. I look up and see a familiar silhouette. It’s Mia. She’s wearing her Rush band tee shirt with the rabbit coming out of the hat and one LOVE earring. Breaking the other one didn’t release her spirit because her real killer remained free. I’m overcome with the urge to do something for Mia, to give her a gift, or do her a favor to make up for thinking I’d caught her killer when I hadn’t. I’ve let her down by not setting the record straight about how she died. I search for paper and pen and see that Millicent Dibble has removed everything. I have only one option, the same option Mia had. I drag my arm across the jagged piece of broken cinderblock and cut open a gash. Blood trickles down, soaking the side of my Bonepile tee shirt. Normally this amount of blood would make me faint. Not now. I know it’s my only ink. I use it to scribble a crucial message on the wall. My words are painfully neat and explicit.
Dibble did this to me and Mia.
Mia nods, gratefully. She dips a finger in my still-wet blood and draws a crimson bear on the wall. An icy chill runs down my spine. What does this mean? Am I some kind of sacrifice, like the bear Mom killed?
Day passes into frigid night. Thank God I have this zombie woman jacket. I keep my fingers warm by playing Rosalita. I try to stay upbeat by sticking to early Beatles songs. But eventually I slip into the melancholy section of the Lennon and McCartney songbook. Then I give up on the Fab Four, altogether, and nosedive into pitch-black 32-20 blues. I have to keep playing to distract myself from the cold. It’s October, after all, and the building’s heat is off. I dream about the warm bearskin on the cot in Black Racer Woman’s cabin. I don’t care if my PETA mom would hate me dreaming about bearskin. It would feel fantastic wrapped around me right now. She probably hasn’t even noticed that my pickup truck is outside her apartment, or that I’m missing.
The sun rises and falls. Thirsty days blur into desert dry nightmares. I haven’t heard Millicent Dibble’s footsteps in a while. I hear every street vehicle as music. At night, the police cars and ambulances screech the evening’s overture with a medley of piercing sirens. At dawn the trucks play the opening number, choking their diesel engines to life, until the steady hum of cars sounds like a swarm of killer bees. I wonder why vehicles are the only things I hear? Are they all I want to hear? Is it because they represent the hope of escape?
I play the title line to the Beatles’ “When I Get Home,” over and over, emphasizing the “when.”
When?
Millicent Dibble must have left by now. I slam a fist into the wall and let loose an amp-blowing scream. Footsteps shuffle down the stairs.
“Help me!” I shout to my unknown liberator.
The pesticide canister outside the janitor’s closet door clinks on the handle. This sounds ominous. I wrap my jacket around me and fail to suppress a dry-throated cough with my sandpaper tongue. It sticks to the roof of my mouth.
“Keep the noise down,” rasps Millicent Dibble, clanking the canister harder.
I know what’s in that canister. She’ll melt my lungs with that pesticide if I make any more noise.
Millicent Dibble sings B.B. King’s “Why I Sing the Blues.” Even with her cigarette-scorched throat, she’s got a good voice. Her raspiness works with the blues. She should have continued with vocals after her fingers failed. It might have saved her mental health. Her tune sticks in my head. But I won’t play anything on Rosalita that’s rolled off her filthy tongue. I think about my truck sitting outside Mom’s apartment. She definitely won’t come looking for me. She and Shankdaddy have something in common: expecting them to act responsibly is hopeless. I play a few lines from “Your Mother Should Know.” My fingers cramp and quit.
I survey the charms on my bracelet. The paintbrushes, palette, and easel. My mind enlarges them, growing them to full size. My mind paints a wall mural with a swirling portal on the wall. What’s on the other side of that portal? Is it safe? I stare at my eagle charm and it grows into a full-size bird, my protector-companion. Rosalita and I step through the portal, trailed by our winged friend. We emerge on the other side to find a blue bear playing a guitar under a maple tree that’s literally on fire. In the sky overhead, the stars are shaped like musical notes. The bear hands me a skeleton key, also shaped like a musical note, and tells me to unlock the stars. I ask him which star fits the key, and he says, “All of them. You hold the key to the universe.” I reach up and turn the key in a random star and a powwow drum falls from the sky. The blue bear grabs it and beats an ancient drum song. I sing along, my heart pounding, pounding, pounding, the eagle thwomping its wings to the beat.
I squeeze my head, trying to make the pounding stop. My lips feel crunchy. My throat burns. I blink at the sight of the shriveled mottled purple and orange skin on my hands. What I wouldn’t give for a cup of water. I could drink the entire Connecticut River. It was different for Mia when she was trapped here, because she had water. I want to cry but my dry eyes can’t manufacture anything but hard salt crystals; they lack the moisture to flow. My eyelids are as crusty as my lips. They’re sore and raw. I have to pry them open or they stick shut, ripping off eyelashes each and every time I try.
This is it. I can’t sing anymore. Neither can I recall exactly where I am. I know I’m not in Indian Stream. I stumble madly into a hard wall, with something smeared on it. Perhaps these are words. Did I write them? Yes, of course I did. But I can’t read them now because my vision is b
lurred. The memory of my strange reality returns. I remember I’m locked in the janitor’s closet. Hallucination and vision impairment must be symptoms of dehydration. Forgetfulness could be another. Outside, I hear a car engine start and tires squeal away. I’m wild with elation. Millicent Dibble has departed.
But my voice is nearly gone. I need to scream for help one last time before I have no voice left. Someone on the street might hear. Before considering the consequences, I let loose a jagged scream like crushed ice. Instantly, furious feet scurry my way.
What have I done? I’ve committed suicide! Millicent Dibble will gas me with that pesticide canister. I’m done. All I can do now is rage. Rage to survive. That’s what Etta James said. I can do that. I hear her footsteps, and I don’t care anymore. I won’t give up. I rasp the words to Etta’s song “At Last,” as the canister bangs against the door. I’ve become Millicent Dibble, desperate, lovelorn, suffering, wailing the blues. I want this to be over. I want to hear the hissing of the open canister, to see the hose slide under the door, to taste the burning chemicals and feel myself melt away.
The canister bangs harder, as if it’s smashing the door lock. “What, not enough room for a hose under the door?” I ask, nearly voiceless. “Did the executioner forget her key?” I think of B.B. King’s song “Somebody done changed the lock on my door,” and I start playing it, squeaking out the lyrics like a mouse. ‘Cause I done changed, I done changed that lock on my door. With what little voice and time I have left, I sing the blues. It’s my last protest against Millicent Dibble before she sprays her deadly pesticide. I’m glad she’ll hear me singing about jealousy because I know it will hurt her. It will conjure the pain of her unrequited love and send her weltering in the blues.
A weary voice says, “Mona Lisa? Is that you?”
This isn’t Millicent Dibble. It almost sounds like Del. I’m hallucinating.
The voice calls again, “Are you in there, Mona Lisa?”
It is Del. “Yes. Help me. Dibble did this to me.” I speak quickly, in case I lose consciousness.
I hear the canister clank again; this time it smashes off the door lock. There’s a whirl of motion. Del swoops me and Rosalita up the dark basement stairs, holding a flashlight ahead of us like it’s my final tunnel of white light. I shouldn’t have sung that last song because now I’m having trouble swallowing. My throat is so dry I can barely breathe. How stupid is it for me to die, here and now, in Del’s arms? He rushes me down the main school hallway. I know I’m leaving Colt High for the last time. I feel the wind, the deliciously moist New England wind. I never realized how wonderful dampness could feel. There are patches of light overhead, giant nighttime starbursts. No, they’re streetlamps. I’ve been in a dark place for too long to see light correctly. Del leans me against one of the lamp poles and presses a water bottle to my lips. The water splatters and sputters down the dry insides of my throat like rain on Death Valley. I cherish this elixir of life. I can feel things start to work again inside me, like oiled gears, repairing themselves. For the first time in days, I think I might survive.
Something green gleams beneath one of the streetlights. It’s Del’s dad’s bike. He sets me gently on that Harley with the green flames, jabbering that I need to hold on because he won’t wait for the police. It’s too risky to stay put another minute in case Dibble should return.
“I can hold on,” I assure him, barely audibly.
While we ride, I feel someone holding my back, supporting me. I look down and see deathly blue fingernails gripping my waist.
Del careens into my apartment driveway where Mom and Celine are pacing, shaking their cell phones at the sky. They shout relief as we pull in. Del relays my story and carries me inside. Mom phones the police. I lay on the couch while Celine feeds me sips of water. She offers me a small piece of a Jamaican beef patty. In my delirium, I see the dead cattle from my slaughterhouse apartment circle me, hanging their droopy heads, blinking their bloodshot eyes. I push away the beef patty and accept a cracker. I drink a gallon of water and pass out.
I wake to the smell of rubbing alcohol, the glare of fluorescent lights, the feel of tubes pulling on my arms, and the sound of Mom raging at a baby-faced police officer, saying, “That monstrous woman must not make bail.”
A woman with a stethoscope around her neck hovers over me. Mom and Celine sit at the foot of my bed. Del’s arm is wrapped around my shoulder. I don’t feel fire ants this time, just the warmth of a million stars.
“How’d you know I was in danger?” I ask him, feebly.
Celine overhears my question. She puts a hand on her hip, and cocks her head. “Yes, Nephew, how did you know?”
The doctor folds her arms, also awaiting his reply.
Del’s eyes shift down and to the left, surreptitiously. “It was the weirdest thing. When I went to Mona’s cabin and found it empty, I was afraid she’d gone back to Beetle. I went to bed early, depressed, and I had a dream about my mom. I don’t know why but I decided to ride that old Harley to Hartford., as if I was rescuing my mother from high school. As I pulled in, I heard Mona Lisa scream.”
Del keeps rattling his head back and forth as if he’s shuffling and reshuffling the images inside it. “I know this sounds ridiculous but when I saw Mom in that dream, she looked so real.” His eyes won’t meet mine.
The doctor rolls her eyes and leaves the room.
Celine clucks her tongue. “Is that so?”
Twenty-three
The Hunter
I prod the fire, hoping to see a powerful vision in the bursting flames, a vision that will tell me what my future holds. The embers gleam like celestial nebulae, erupting into molten crimson and gold—the very colors that remain missing from this autumn landscape. Yet no extraordinary image appears. There will be no visions for me today.
I lean back and return to Del’s arms. Firelight flickers against the shadowy dusk. He hands me half a peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich and munches his half, eagerly. I barely nibble mine. He pulls the pot of coffee from the cooking rack he’s set over the fire and fills my blue speckled cup. It tastes smoky wonderful. But two sips is more than enough. My stomach gets full on next to nothing, these days. The doctors say it should feel normal again by Halloween. They also say I’m suffering from post-traumatic stress and shouldn’t make any big decisions for a while. Del insists that this fire and the fresh New Hampshire air will heal me. Lying together beside this campfire feels a little too comfortable, like when we were lying together on the floor of that white floral room at the back of his garage. I’m torn between the allure of this deep coziness and my future career in Stadt and St. Louis and all of the other musical places I want to be.
The sun drops below the mountains, turning the sky a grizzly gray. I lay back on the soft moss, tucking the scratchy blueberry wool blanket I brought outside up to my chin, staring into the darkening sky, considering the endless possibilities overhead. The Great Bear, Ursa Major, has yet to rise. That constellation always reminds me of the old bear I saw when I was confused in the woods behind Del’s house, that bear in the mural in my bedroom, that bear who appeared with Del and Marilynn a few weeks ago. The Great Bear. Real or imagined, I’m tired of bears. I picture the red bear Mia painted in blood on the wall of the janitor’s closet. What did it mean? I hope she wasn’t suggesting I carry out some weird bear sacrifice, like my great aunt was trying to do when Del stopped her. Del would hate it if I killed a bear. He cares so deeply for them; he’s practically one of them.
Del’s eyes continue to gleam in the firelight. He misunderstands my riveted gaze for distance and pulls me to him, filling my mouth with fiery kisses that taste like newborn stars.
I stop him. “I don’t know where I’m going anymore.” The words fall from my lips, like blues’ notes fall from my fingertips—light, bent, and slightly dissonant.
He pulls me close. “You’re not yourself.”
> “We all had roles to play,” I say, letting more careless words tumble.
Del leaps to his feet. “Why did you just recite John Lennon’s quote from when the Beatles broke up? Are you breaking up with me?”
He circles the fire. I get up and wrap my arms around his waist from behind, warming him and myself, remembering how it felt when I almost lost him. “What I meant is that we all had a part to play in solving your mom’s murder.”
“Ah, my mother. Now that I feel like I finally know her, I don’t think I know you.”
He turns and kisses me again, this time until it hurts. I break away, babbling concerns about what will happen to Cricket Dill, now that she is free. Del asks me if I have lingering feelings for Beetle. I scoff and do not mention that I returned Beetle’s locket in the mail only this morning. If I tell him that, he’ll ask why I kept it so long. The truth is, I don’t know.
Del picks up Angel and plays the tune we wrote the first time I visited his house. He tries adding a new verse:
No longer young, no longer free
We’ve both seen more than we should see
Past ghostly shadows, and endless lies…
He tilts his guitar handle my way, prompting me to add the concluding line. But I shrug, at a loss for lyrics. What can follow endless lies?
A line jumps into my head: Now grown so loveless, we break all our ties. But I don’t dare utter that. It sounds as bad as it feels.
How about, “Into the bluest October skies?” he asks.
“Nice,” I say, not meaning it. “That lyric is definitely you, Del—forever hopeful. You see beyond darkness into light, just like Bilki. I’m more like my Great Aunt Black Racer Woman, murky and dangerous.”
I can’t tell him what I really think of his lyrics: that they lack magic. Something has changed. I hear John Lennon repeat in my head, We all had roles to play. I squeeze my head with my hands.
Wabanaki Blues Page 27