The Whisper Garden

by David Harris Griffith

  “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

  Dexter nodded and shook Jeremy’s hand. “All right. Just let me know when you make up your mind.” Dexter turned and strode off.

  Jeremy was already thinking about it. A book: his side of the story. Which would be better – to tell it to Dexter, or to write it himself? There’s gold in them thar hills, he thought. Maybe he should contact a publisher and see how much they would pay for his story. Maybe it would be enough that he could retire comfortably and stop having to worry about money. The Whisper Garden was profitable enough, but it really was starting to seem a lot like work, and everyone had been right; there were already imitators springing up. There was even one palm reader in Jackson Square who was charging people fifty cents a minute to listen to static on a set of headphones.

  A knock on the door interrupted his line of thought.

  There was a middle-aged woman standing on his steps. She looked vaguely familiar. Jeremy didn’t feel like dealing with a customer for the Whisper Garden. He didn’t really feel like dealing with anyone at all.

  He stood blankly, trying to decide how to tell this lady to come back later. She took his silence as puzzlement, and spoke.

  “Jeremy, don’t you recognize me? I’m your mother.”

  Saturday March 8th

  10:00 p.m.

  Sarah got back from visiting her parents at about ten o’clock. She was surprised to find Jeremy already in bed. She crawled in next to him and snuggled up.

  He said, “It has been an exceptionally odd day.”

  Sarah pressed her face against his neck. “Considering some of what we have been through lately, that’s saying a lot.”

  “I know, and I stand by my statement. It all started when Dexter dropped by to ask if he could interview me for the book he wants to write about what we have been through.”

  “That doesn’t seem too weird.”

  “It wasn’t. But right after he left, my mother dropped by.” Jeremy let that sentence hang in the air.

  Sarah pushed away from him so she could look at his face. “Your mother.”

  Jeremy nodded.

  “The mother you haven’t seen in twenty years?”

  “The very same one.”

  Sarah watched his face. It was blank. She snuggled back up next to him. “That must have been…” She trailed off, she had been about to say, “horrible,” but then she realized it might not have been. She continued, “How did it go?”

  “Weird. She tried to give me a check for two million dollars.”

  Sarah pulled away from him again. She could find no trace of joking in his face. She asked, “Why?”

  “She never spent her share of my father’s insurance money. She said she had been saving it for me. She wants to be part of my life.”

  She said, “Damn.” It was the first time Jeremy had ever heard Sarah curse. She continued, “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her that Dad wanted her to have that money for herself.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That she hadn’t been able to spend it because she felt bad about leaving me. She had been keeping it as a kind of apology. I told her to shove her check; she couldn’t buy her way back into my life. I told her if she wanted to make things right, all she’d have to do would be show up for my eighth birthday party. She cried.”

  Sarah didn’t say anything, she just kept hugging him. He went on, “I felt bad about that. I never hated her. Part of me was thrilled that she had shown up. Part of me just wanted to kick her out the door and cut her off like she had cut me off. In the end, I told her I needed some time to think about the fact that she was around. She’s going to call me in a week.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think so. I don’t really know how to feel about it.” He stroked her hair and continued, “That wasn’t the end of the weirdness though.”

  “It could get weirder?”

  “Trent Reznor called. Somehow he got hold of one of the Scenic Decay CDs.”

  Sarah jumped up. The notion of Jeremy being handed a two million dollar check had initially excited her – a pile of cash would certainly make life easier – but she was proud of the way he had handled his mother. Trent Reznor calling about Scenic Decay, that meant Jeremy might have a career. She could live with the notion of him being a professional musician. “Does he want to sign the band?”

  “He wants to hire me as an engineer in his studio.”

  Sarah’s emotions went through a blender. On the one hand, that would be a good job – more than a job, that would be a career. On the other hand, that would mean he would have to stay in New Orleans, and she didn’t think she could handle that. She tried not to show her inner turmoil as she asked, “What did you say?”

  “I said that as much as I’d love to work with him, I can’t. I’m moving to Kentucky.”

  Sunday March 9th

  Noon

  Charles was not content. For the first time in years alcohol was not bringing him comfort – if anything it was adding to his distress. He could even name the exact moment he had grown dissatisfied with his life. It was the moment he had read the piece of paper stuck under a rum bottle in front of Marie Laveau’s tomb.

  Ever since he had had that thought, Now, at last, for the first time since I came back from the war, I have some place to be, he hadn’t been able to shake the idea that he had a place. He held the deed, and that meant he owned it. He told himself, So what? It doesn’t matter, even if I own the land it is no good to me. But he couldn’t shake the thought that he finally had a home.

  He wanted to stop thinking about it, but he couldn’t.

  Then it happened: another visit to the tomb, and this time there was a wallet, mostly hidden behind a large candle. No ID on the inside, but the outside was embossed with the name Harper. The important part was that the wallet held a little more than a thousand dollars in cash.

  The first thing to go through his mind when he saw the cash was, At last, now I have enough of a stake to set myself up on my land. This was followed immediately by, Great, now I’m going crazy. That’s not how I would have said that. He followed that thought with, Now it is time to sober up and get on with my life. Then, Now I know I’m going crazy. Me? Sober? He laughed, standing there in front of the tomb with a couple of late tourists staring at him.

  But when he left the cemetery, he did not go buy himself a drink. He went through his normal motions, except with increasing sobriety. His normal panhandling actually went a good deal better than usual.

  He woke the next morning fully sober for the first time in more than twenty years. The hangover was astonishing, but even with the hangover he felt good. Maybe going to the country wasn’t such a bad idea. He could easily live off the land; the army had taught him more than he had ever wanted to know about how to live in a swamp.

  The next day he got on a bus with five hundred dollars’ worth of used camping and hunting supplies. He also brought some seeds to start a garden.

  It was time to start a new life.

  Sunday March 9th

  4:00 p.m.

  Walking down Royal Street, Sarah couldn’t help but feel jealous of the performers. Since the attacks, Sarah hadn’t been able to do her statue act. Every moment she stood on the pedestal she’d become more convinced that someone was walking up behind her with bad intent. She hadn’t been able to make it more than thirty seconds without sneaking a peek behind herself … and living statues that don’t stand still don’t make money.

  Intellectually she knew she was safe, at least from Aldous, but the nervousness remained. Nevertheless, walking with Jeremy she felt safe, and he had wanted to go for a stroll. With Mardi Gras over for the year, the crowds were thinner, and there were slightly fewer street performers, but there is always something to look at in New Orleans.

  Not far from Pirate’s
Alley, Sarah’s old corner, they saw a familiar face. A round head fringed in white. They had never thought to wonder why he was called Harper; they had just assumed it was his name. When they found him sitting next to an old guitarist on Royal Street Sarah and Jeremy knew that Harper was more than his name, it was his calling.

  Harper was blowing a soulful solo on a harmonica, his melody dancing over the guitarist’s chords like a snake twining through a lattice. Sarah and Jeremy were both impressed with his skill. They stood enthralled until the music stopped, and then Jeremy stepped up to speak. “We never got a chance to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Sarah explained, “Saving our lives.”

  “You don’t need to thank me for that – like I told you then, I was just treating you the way I’d want to be treated.”

  “Look, we have some idea how big a risk you took in helping us. Not many people would have done it. We owe you.”

  Harper said, “If you want to repay me, just help someone else out sometime.”

  “We’d do that anyway.”

  “And how much thanks would you want in return?”

  Jeremy pondered this for a moment. “I guess I see your point. We wouldn’t be doing it for the thanks.”

  They stood there for a moment, nobody knowing quite what to say. Finally, Jeremy said, “I have to say, you play a pretty mean harp.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I play guitar some, and I’d be honored if you would come by my house sometime and make some music with me.”

  “I do like to play.”

  Jeremy pulled out one of his business cards, “Here’s my address.”

  Harper looked at the card. The address looked familiar. He had a feeling he had been there before. “So, what is a Whisper Garden?”

  “It’s a long story. The short version is it’s a self-directed psychic experience.”

  Harper managed to keep a smile on his face, even though his head was spinning. He had almost robbed the kid he had saved. “I might make it by sometime.”

  Sarah said, “We’d love it if you did.”

  Sarah and Jeremy turned to walk away; they knew that time was money for a street performer. As they walked away, Jeremy turned his head and added, “And if there is anything we can ever do to help you, just let us know.”

  Harper nodded and looked down at the card. He thought, I think you already have, kid, but I’ll never be able to tell you.

  Saturday May 31st

  8:00 a.m.

  Jeremy still couldn’t picture himself driving a minivan, even though he was doing it. He couldn’t picture himself owning one, even though his name was on the title. Ever since he had met Sarah, Jeremy found himself doing a lot of things he would have never imagined for himself. Leaving the French Quarter was fairly high on that list, but here he was, doing it.

  Jeremy was driving the newly purchased minivan. Sarah was driving the rental truck. Mojo was riding shotgun in the van, at least for the first leg of the journey. Jeremy could handle it a little better if he thought of it as a van instead of a minivan. Musicians drove vans to haul their gear. Gear hauling was a big part of why they had chosen the van. Jeremy had wanted something sportier, figuring that if he was going to live some place where he needed to drive, he might as well get around in style. In the end, Sarah’s practicality had overridden Jeremy’s sense of style.

  Sarah’s practicality had been influencing a lot of decisions ever since Jeremy had agreed to move to Kentucky with her. It was Sarah’s idea to use the proceeds from selling Jeremy’s house to buy an apartment building in Kentucky. Her idea was that that way they would have both a dwelling and a source of income. The building they had chosen was a grand old house, which had been split into apartments. They were going to live on the top floor and were inheriting five tenants from the previous landlord.

  Financially, things were unexpectedly good. The sale of Jeremy’s house had brought a sum that had surprised Jeremy; he hadn’t expected the value of his house to more than double in six years. A little less than half the proceeds had gone into the purchase of the apartment house. It amazed him how many more square feet the same money would buy in the smaller city. He was getting six times the house for half the price. The rest of the money had been squirreled away in a portfolio put together by a financial advisor.

  Following the truck, Jeremy turned onto Rampart Street, thus leaving the French Quarter. Jeremy kept his eyes ahead, on the truck, on Sarah, on the future.

  He didn’t look back.

  Epilogue

  Aldous was free, at least in some senses of the word. True, he was restrained, imprisoned and under constant observation, but those were trivial details to be dealt with later. The important part was that he was free.

  The doctors had been surprised he had lived. He had lost a lot of blood. He had broken a dozen ribs, one arm and both legs. His back had broken in two places. Various internal organs had received various amounts of bruising. His brain had suffered a severe concussion. But none of that mattered. Though he had been lapsing in and out of consciousness at the time, he had a clear memory of the gator screaming protests as the paramedics cut it off of his body. The gator was gone. He was free.

  The prosecutors were pushing for the death penalty. His defense team was preparing an insanity defense. He didn’t know or care if he was in a mental institution or a jail. None of these things mattered. He was free from the gator, and one way or another, he would soon be free from his imprisonment.

  Reader Questions

  Thank you for taking the time to read this book. The author has put together these questions to help you to discuss and uncover more about the story.

  »The Whisper Garden is set in pre-Katrina New Orleans, how would the story be different if the same basic events happened one year after the Hurricane? How about five years?

  »Are there any supernatural events in The Whisper Garden, or does everything have a rational explanation?

  »If you were Sarah, would you have continued to talk to Jeremy after he revealed that at twenty-seven years old and had never held a job or had a girlfriend because he believed his family was cursed?

  »Was there anything sympathetic about Aldous?

  »If you were Jeremy, would you have spent all of your inheritance?

  »After his experiences, is Aldous more or less dangerous than he was before?

  »If Aldous escapes, is he more likely to seek revenge on Dexter, Jeremy, and Sarah, avoid them because they bested him, or be indifferent to them and move on to wherever the winds of his psychosis move him next?

  »Are Jeremy and Sarah stronger or weaker as a couple because of their experiences with Aldous?

  »Will Jeremy succeed at living life as an adult, having to earn money, think about the future, etc.?

  »Now that Charles has the Boaz Pendleton deed, will he stay sober and get his life back together?

  »Of the two characters in the novel who might write about the events in the The Whisper Garden, would it be more likely to have been written by Harper or Dexter?

  »How do you think Dexter’s account of his side of the events of The Whisper Garden would differ from the novel?

  David Harris Griffith

  www.davidharrisgriffith.com

  David Harris Griffith was born in the mid 1960s to an artist and a noted psychologist. He has a bachelor’s degree in English with a specialty in creative writing, had enough hours to get a minor in photography if the university had offered one, enough hours of psychology to meet the prerequisites for admission to the master’s program in psych, and enough time in the theater department to… well he spent a lot of time there, surely it was good for something. (Every experience comes into play for a writer one way or another.)

  David has been studying and teaching Shao Lym Ryu, an eclectic martial art, since the mid 1980’s. Despite bein
g in charge of the school, he is far from being a master. He doesn’t believe in the concept of anyone being a master. To be a master implies there is nothing left to learn, and that is impossible. Is there a field of human study where further study does not also raise further questions?

  David has worked as a professional photographer. That pursuit was relegated to a back burner when he discovered that while taking photos is a joy, managing that kind of business is far less of one.

  On a good day, David is a marginally competent bassist, and has played with several local bands over the years. On a bad day, David is happy that not many people pay much attention to what the bassist is playing. One of the bands David has played with was called Whisper Garden, and was named after the song Whisper Garden, which was written by Ben Brown (a good friend of David’s) about David’s novel The Whisper Garden.

  David is a passionate poker player, and has a well reviewed guide to winning no limit texas hold’em available on kindle.

  Recently, David has taken an interest in the cigar box guitar movement, and has been building cigar box guitars. He loves transforming junk and cheap supplies into playable instruments and finds great joy in answering the question, “how can I put strings on that?”

  None of these are disparate activities though. Everything influences everything else. Rhythm effects sparring and storytelling. Understanding combat plays into poker. A picture is worth a thousand words, but understanding how to compose a picture is also understanding how to tell a story, or is that the other way around? Studying self defense means being able to write about violence more realistically.

  David also feels very strange writing about himself in third person, but feels like he’d sound pretentious writing a bio such as this one in first person.