"You're my real father?" I asked with humiliating credulity. Well, why not? Neither Todd nor I looked anything like Skunk. We didn't favor Mom--not really...I think. It was just conceivable that Uncle Vern had dumped unwanted twins in the most convenient skunk den.
"Inconceivable!" Uncle Vern bellowed. "I am referring to the arrangement between Skunk and myself that put you and your family in cakes and ale."
While the bellows subsided I reflected on cakes and ale. Twinkies and Budweiser. Literally, it applied; figuratively, it stank. On the other hand, compared to us on Oregon Hill, Todd and my mother had been wallowing in the good life.
"A monetary arrangement is what I guess you're talking about," I said, my circular wording coming as a result of uncertainty. I was growing increasingly frustrated with knowing so much and so little.
"Reverend Smith retired to Florida," Uncle Vern continued, leaving me to infer that the answer to my question would come later, if at all. "He asked me to continue the good work with the Glass Heads. This was unusual. There are several of these groups throughout the state prisons and they are all conducted by ministers."
"You became the conductor?"
"And not even ordained. God works in mysterious ways."
"True that."
"Reverend Cawfield was apoplectic. I believe I already mentioned his group to you: the Crystal Angels. When he came to Powhatan for Reverend Smith's retirement party, he was honored with a concert and he spotted my bad eggs right away. But I had built up a foundation of trust with the warden. We weren't publicity hounds, mind you. We were only looking to secure our income: mine through my business, his through his job. It was too bad I couldn't put 'reverend' in front of my name, which added a certain cachet to the programs. To make amends, the warden had the print shop insert 'deacon'. I didn't complain.
"Skunk had a ready-made network of associates outside the system. The first job—"
"Who was in charge?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You or Skunk?"
"I had the critical data."
"And he had the critical manpower." As I said this, I tried to conjure up the 'network of associates' at Skunk's disposal, a motley collection of drunks, dopeheads and all-round losers who had almost enough collective sense to retract their heads from their buttholes. As Vice-President of the Dominion Jewelers Association, Vern could look properly officious snooping around a jewelry store. But try as I might, I couldn't imagine one of Skunk's associates wobbling into a schmancy ice palace, dropping hunks of dirt and looking conspicuously inconspicuous.
"Without me, Skunk couldn't have..." Uncle Vern let his overheated pride simmer for a few silent moments, then said: "Let's just say we were equal partners. Whenever he was out of jail, he took over field operations."
"I'll bet your insurance went up," Marvin snorted from his cockpit. When his uncle bent his nose to the darkness ahead, his nephew added: "Everyone's insurance went up, right? All those robberies. You ended up screwing yourself."
"Not at all. A single job could cover my premiums for ten years."
An admission that the Glass Heads was a highly profitable enterprise, though the only dollar amount I had heard so far was the highly speculative (in my mind) million dollars. And, depending on the split, a million smackers wasn't that many smacks.
"I was astonished at how smoothly things went," Uncle Vern confessed, smoothing his own feathers as he reminisced upon their success. "In his field, your father was remarkably efficient. Neither he nor any of our accomplices was ever caught."
"I beg to differ," I protested.
"He was scooped up by the law for stupid violations. Robbing the 7/11, assault, that sort of thing. But never for knocking over jewelry stores."
True. When Skunk was in his cups and those cups went dry, mom and pops became natural targets. I don't think he was ever armed for these drunken ventures, but a tendency to lock Mom in the storage freezer and twist Pop into a pretzel was not looked on lightly. How he managed to stay out of prison for years at a stretch suggested undue influence with the parole board. After all, Virginia implemented Three Strikes and You're Out back in 1996. I assumed that influence came from Uncle Vern. You had to admire the way he had finessed the system.
"But then came catastrophe," Uncle Vern continued.
"The Brinks job," I suggested.
"That was later. I'm speaking of the arrival of Archibald Penrose."
I blinked, and not just because, at that moment, Uncle Vern nearly drove us off a cliff to avoid hitting a raccoon in the road. "Mom mentioned him back at the house. Dr. Whacko…" Yes, she had mentioned him—then dropped the subject. I had not followed up, probably because of it's dire irrelevancy.
"Originally, Professor Penrose was studying the effects of poverty on the genome. I suspect he chose Oregon Hill because he felt safer working in a white enclave."
"Ha!" I commented.
"He wasn't bothered by the locals. Not very much. As I recall, his car was only stripped once. But when the usual suspects realized Penrose was Skunk's acquaintance, they laid off. Now, studies on twins are a dime a dozen. I suspect this was merely a lark—or the university was using the study to case the neighborhood. Even then, imminent destruction was in the air."
"I cry myself to sleep over it."
"Really?"
"Something wrong with that?" I demanded. And it was almost true. For decades, the original inhabitants had lived in dread of the university that lusted after their land. And then the day had come.
Uncle Vern said: "The wholesale destruction of homes, your friends forcibly removed. Yes, I might have shed a tear, too, if that had happened in my neighborhood."
Marvin made a 'fat chance' sound.
"As I was saying, Penrose's study was straightforward enough—until something more interesting came along. You."
"Aren't twins a dime a dozen, too?"
"Fraternal twins are. But monozygotic male twins are fairly rare."
"Mono…"
"Identical. When you have the chance, look up 'zygosity' in the dictionary."
"I will. How do you spell that?"
"I-d-i-o-t," said Marvin.
"But you were rarer still. Some years ago it was discovered that most identical twins aren't genetically identical. It has to do with something known as 'copy number variants'. From what I can understand of the subject, some chromosomes of one identical twin will lack genes the other one has. This has proved quite a bonus to scientists researching genetically transmitted diseases, with one twin showing a tendency towards leukemia, for example, while the other twin shows no predisposition at all. But it has proved disappointing to all those scientists who based their studies on the premise that identical twins were identical in every way, right down to their corpuscles. Incidentally, it has also been shown that, over time, identical twins diverge genetically, depending on environmental factors."
"Like?"
"If one is exposed to cigarette smoke or other carcinogens, or exposed to ionizing radiation, while the other has a healthy environment."
"And I thought you only knew about fake jewelry," Marvin said.
"So which one of us has the lupus gene?" I inquired, naturally enough. "Is Todd going to howl in the moonlight—or will it be me?"
"I wouldn't know. And neither did Penrose, I suspect. He staked his claim to fame on something else entirely. There are more than eighty men in Virginia prisons alone who have identical twins outside the walls. Defense lawyers love this. How can the state prove which twin committed the crime? Eyewitnesses can't tell them apart. And in the case of genetic evidence, only some heroic science can tell the difference."
"I still don't understand. Why pick on us?"
"Penrose told your father that you were special because there were so few number variant studies on white twins of deprived backgrounds. And he had to work fast, what with Oregon Hill being right next to the university and being marked for...is there a kinder word for 'destruction'?"
"Big lo
ss," Marvin chortled. "And we're still being followed."
"Be that as it may," Uncle Vern said, punishing his nephew with a squeal-inducing swerve into the oncoming lane. Back on the right side of the road, he went on: "Skunk made it clear that he did not want Penrose hanging around the house. He didn't mind him poking and prodding you boys—"
"Todd was there?"
"You were side by side with him for over two years."
"Ha!" I said, pleased that my idiot brother had been forced to share the filth, not that I ever recognized my surroundings as anything other than normal.
"And your father had a phobia against forms—and Penrose had a plethora of them for Skunk to fill out."
"Plethora," I said, spitting on him. "He never had a Social Security number that I knew of," I said. I only saw an inmate identification number."
"I didn't think you could get a welfare check without one," Uncle Vern mused.
"Must have been through Mom."
"Not after she left," he pointed out.
"Skunk didn't believe in living off state handouts," I said.
"He preferred stealing to working?"
"Hey, stealing is work. Hard work." And I added: "You should know."
"Point taken." Uncle Vern thought a moment. "No, the first prison he went into would have insisted he have a number."
"Why didn't my father brush Whacko off?" I inquired. "This was all voluntary, right?"
"Skunk might have been adverse to state handouts, but he was perfectly willing to take money from individuals. Professor Penrose provided him—your family—with a gratuity straight from his own pocket."
"What, the school wouldn't pay?"
"There was a research grant that provided a stipend for subjects under study, but it was a pittance and Skunk laughed it off. What Penrose offered couldn't be sneezed at."
It couldn't have been that much, or else Skunk would have stopped being the terror of mom and pops within a two-mile radius—approximately the distance he could drive in a straight line after downing a couple of cases. Then again, maybe robbing Fast Marts was more from habit than for profit. Skunk's avocation might have been like an itch that just had to be scratched. But what about all the dough he was raking in from the Glass Head Gang? It was beginning to appear that my father had multiple sources of income. Maybe he wasn't so dumb, after all. I mean, all the best Wall Street goldbricks insist that their investors should diversify.
"You're saying Dr. Whacko could afford to buy out my family?" I said, making it sound like a corporate takeover.
"He could have afforded any number of families," Uncle Vern said. "Professor Penrose…"
I didn't have to think hard or long. Archibald Penrose leaning down, a perfect square of half-unwrapped, chocolate-covered ice cream held out to me….
"The family that makes The Square?"
"The ice-cream magnates, yes."
There were few things more important than ice-cream when I was a kid, and I had been touched by the King of the Ice-Cream Square—or one of its princelings. I'm not exactly sure what scrofula is, but if I had had it, I would have been cured. I felt the thrill one associates at contact with royalty, the rich and famous, and people who possessed unique talents—like contortionists. A member of the Kissmecanoe Ice-Cream Stupendaloza family had taken a personal interest in me. I was one of the Chosen.
"Why are you grinning like that?"
Uncle Vern had taken his eyes off the road long enough to study my face. This drew a protest from Marvin. I wasn't too happy about it myself.
"Nothing," I said quickly. "Could you, uh…" I nodded at the road beyond the windshield.
Uncle Vern turned his head forward. "Skunk took the man's money, but balked when Penrose got too nosy."
"Nosy about what?"
"As soon as he learned you and Todd were the real thing—perfectly matched twins, down to your circumcised—"
"Hey!"
"Penrose wouldn't let loose. He was in your house every day—remorseless is the word your mother used. He studied your behavior, your IQ, even the way your eyes followed shiny objects. For all I knew, he studied your stools."
"Yech," said Marvin."
"'Yech' indeed. Of course, he studied your blood. Skunk didn't care how much he drew out of you, or how painful it might have been for the two of you. But over a period of two years he picked up on other things…details of your environment. This included strong hints of Skunk's ongoing criminal behavior. This gave Penrose a thrill, apparently. It tied in so beautifully with his research. Not only could he form a genome baseline of perfectly identical twins, he could sit back and watch the results of your genetic inheritance."
"You mean, if Todd and I both turned out to be bank groupies."
"He could combine the new science with the old. MZ polymorphism pasted to the old nature/nurture school. The pair of you were ideal."
"I'm not an idealist."
Uncle Vern brushed off my pun with the brusqueness it deserved.
"So Skunk or Mom or both of them decided to split, taking one of us with them," I said. "But how about Jeremy? And Michael? Doubletalk came out of the blue—"
Uncle Vern emitted a nervous cough. "It was my idea, in fact. The professor was bound to stumble on the Glass Heads one day, much to our detriment."
"Especially yours."
"Your parents didn't have an ideal marriage…"
He let the self-evidence dangle a moment before continuing.
"They were agreeable to the idea. So your mother re-married…"
The self-evidence disappeared. "You mean divorced?"
Uncle Vern shrugged. "Such a costly, nonsensical procedure. Besides, Winny was perfectly satisfied with the arrangement. And we would be giving him an additional name."
Winny Marteen, with a face like chewed gum, and Lizzie McPherson. It didn't bear thinking. On the other hand, Skunk McPherson and Elizabeth McPherson née Whatever had left a lot to be desired in the aesthetics department. My mother was a bigamist. Pretty catchy.
"My mother's maiden name wouldn't happen to have been 'Neerson', would it?" I asked.
"Yes, it was."
"Gotcha," I said. "I'm a bit vague on the timing. Mom didn't allegedly off herself until I was ten. Hell, Jeremy didn't show up until I was five and Sweet Tooth was...hell..."
"Lizzie would often come back to Oregon Hill and stay a week or so, whenever they were certain the professor wouldn't visit. That's how she ended up with Jeremy, at first. In the meantime, Todd was cared for by a nanny."
"A nanny?" It sounded creepy, and I was overwhelmed with jealousy. Nannies and silver spoons went hand-in-hand. "And Michael?"
"Ah...the crux."
"Him and Jeremy...?"
"Perfectly identical...yes. It was a ghastly coincidence. I didn't think proper researchers could cream in their jeans..."
"So," I prompted. "Michael?"
"The stress and scrutiny was too much. He was put up for adoption."
I leaned perilously close to the edge of the gaping silence that followed this remark. Adopted out to who, or whom? The Hatfields or the McCoys? I was about to fall into the cavern and ask, when Marvin said:
"It's not time yet, Uncle Vern."
Vern's wince left me once again wondering who was in charge here.
"What did Whacko have to say about all this?," I said, veering away but not forgetting. "I mean, Todd and Michael were half of his research, right?"
"He was beside himself, but not for long." Another deep sigh from Uncle Vern. "He suspected the separation was bogus. He wanted to know why your mother and father would go to so much trouble and apparent expense. He also wanted his money's worth. Greedy bastard."
I gave him my best cockeyed look, which was wasted as he negotiated a sharp curve down a mountainside.
"But how could they afford the West End?"
"They couldn't, of course." Uncle Vern's voice was strained by selective revelations. "I have a cousin in the real estate business…"
"We cut a deal on a very nice piece of property…you've seen."
"Yes."
When Uncle Vern seemed reluctant to continue, Marvin made a threatening noise. To say he was enjoying his uncle's discomfiture was to put it mildly. I had long-since made the connection between his wound and Uncle Vern's shenanigans.
"In short, we arranged a mortgage."
"Don't tell me," I said, summoning my feeble financial intellect. "The down payment was worth as much as the house. You were laundering your jewelry heist money."
"Well, it was actually worth a bit more than the house."
"And there was still the Brinks money to come," said Marvin gleefully. So gleefully that I was sure he was due a big inheritance.
"And my cousin paid not a cent in capital gains tax," Uncle Vern added, deciding to take pride in his family's larcenous exchange. "It was his house, after all—not that he ever spent a day in it."
"And ever since then you've used the mortgage payments to process the jewelry money. And since you were the fence, the only middleman who had to be paid off was your cousin. It's the purest kind of speculation."
Uncle Vern preened unseemingly in my comment; and truth to tell, it had come out sounding like a compliment.
"It couldn't last forever," he said. "It was a fifteen-year mortgage. My cousin was afraid the bank might stick its head out of the mud if the payments continued beyond that. I told him there was no need to worry. With the housing mess, who would notice? The FHA was so busy sniffing around everyone's financial gonads that the bank wouldn't have time to think about any anomalies at Ferncrest. But…"
His cousin was a worthless ninny, by his lights. Even after fifteen years of massaging his booty through the financial body, Uncle Vern sent a choleric arrow through his unappreciated relative. Personally, I was impressed. Not only by the fancy fencing, but the fact that for over a decade and a half Uncle Vern's Glass Head operation had run so smoothly. If Skunk really was his best henchman—Skunk, who couldn't kick a can down the road without serving time for it—then I could only credit Uncle Vern with being a true mastermind. It must have been like teaching rats to crack a maze again and again and again. And pretty stupid rats, at that.
Skunk Hunt Page 46