A Shiver of Wonder

by Daniel Kelley

  It was all true. However, no fact couldn’t be proven untrue with the right set of new facts.

  “Hi, David.”

  David almost fell off the bench. Johnson stood straight up, ears and tail vertical, but quickly relaxed again.

  “Hi, Clair. How do you do that?”

  David hadn’t been facing the gate, but his peripheral vision should have caught the motion as Clair entered the courtyard. Not to mention the click of the latch opening, the clunk of gate closing, her footsteps as Clair in those pristinely clean saddle shoes walked toward him.

  A ghost of a smile. “I don’t know. I just thought I’d come in and say hi.”

  David had become inured to Clair finding him to ‘say hi’ in the little garden courtyard. She always seemed to know when he was there… but then again, he never knew if she sought him there when he wasn’t outside, either at work in his apartment or gallivanting about the town with Johnson.

  He had come to like Clair. An odd, quiet, shyly introspective girl, she emanated a certain fragility and loneliness, yet at the same time owned a distinctive core of strength and soundness. Many times, David had found himself puzzling over the things she’d said to him, hours later, days later. Her words were simple, and yet not so simple. She possessed wisdom, despite a skewed sense of perspective she couldn’t help because of her age.

  She was an enigma, but a pleasant one.

  “I don’t like him either,” Clair stated.

  David smiled. Typical Clair: an assertion uttered without the slightest iota of context. “Who?”

  “That man. The detective.”

  “Oh. Him. Did he bother you guys too?” He cocked his head. “And how would you know if I did or didn’t like him?”

  “Wasn’t it obvious?” She strode forward and sat down on the bench facing David. She was wearing shorts today, and a tee shirt with two large bumblebees on it.

  David couldn’t recall seeing Clair or Mrs. Rushen among the bystanders on the second floor the morning before, but perhaps his altercation with Detective Ormsby had been more strident than he’d thought. “Some excitement yesterday, huh?” he said cautiously, unsure of what Clair might have been told.

  “If you call a death excitement,” she returned evenly.

  “You know what happened?”

  She nodded. “And if I hadn’t, it was all the kids at school could talk about today.”

  “Oh…” David reached down to scratch Johnson’s head. “Did any of them know you lived here?”

  She shook her head. “I told Mrs. Jenkins, because I thought I should. So she knows. But she agreed with me, that it would probably be best if I kept that fact to myself for the time being.”

  David couldn’t help but grin as he sat up again. Mrs. Jenkins agreed with Clair! But very possibly, it had actually been like that; the girl’s self-possession was nothing if not extraordinary.

  A door shut nearby, and Johnson immediately bounded toward the gate that led to the caretaker’s cottage. The latch clicked open, and within seconds he was leaping all over Bill Lopes.

  “Hey, boy! How are ya, Johnson?” Bill was always affectionate with the dog, and David hadn’t failed to notice that it was only on these occasions that Bill exhibited a true sense of happiness. He wasn’t taciturn so much as imperturbable, but as he massaged Johnson’s ears while deftly avoiding an eager tongue, he appeared years younger than he was, as well as decades spryer.

  Bill turned to David. “How ya holdin’ up? I was hopin’ I’d find ya out here today.” And then he caught sight of Clair. Johnson dropped down as Bill instantly stiffened, his eyes narrowing as he drew a taut breath. “Clair,” he nodded. “How’re you?”

  She smiled at him, a far wider, more engaging smile than she ever managed with David. “Hi, Mr. Lopes. I’m good. Thank you for asking. Are you off to sweep the walk?”

  Despite Clair’s efforts, Bill still appeared discomfited. “Yes. Yes, I am,” he replied tightly. “Almost three twenty. I’m late.”

  Johnson trailed Bill to the gate that led to the common area, but dejectedly; it was clear that Bill wasn’t interested anymore. Bill opened the gate before turning back to David. “Maybe a beer after I’m done?” he asked. “Ya got a few minutes?”

  David didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. I’ll be here.”

  Bill nodded, and then left. Johnson leapt after a fly, chased it around the fountain a bit, and then shook himself before lying down at David’s feet again.

  “He doesn’t trust me,” Clair said quietly.

  David blinked. Trust? What a strange way to phrase it. ‘He doesn’t like me’ would be more natural, if a bit bizarre coming from a first grader. But since when did Clair say anything in a normal, straightforward manner?

  “I don’t know about that,” David replied easily. “He’s just… awkward around most people, I suppose.”

  Her head shook. “It’s okay. He has his reasons. You talk with Janice here sometimes, don’t you?”

  David’s eyebrows rose. “Sometimes. But not today. Or yesterday. And I would guess that ninety percent of my conversations with neighbors occur right here. Like now, with you.”

  “Janice likes talking to you.”

  David tried not to smirk; it was something Genevieve always pointed out, too. The fact that David liked Janice, but had never had any interest in pursuing anything further, was usually lost on Genevieve when she was in one of her antagonistic moods.

  “She’ll need somebody to talk to,” Clair continued. “I hope it’s you.”

  And as his eyes shot to hers, she stood. “I have to go now.”

  “But…” David rose as well. “What do you mean? How do you – ”

  There was a loud click as the latch was opened, and a few seconds later Mrs. Rushen stepped through the gate into the courtyard.

  Clair was smiling openly now. “I’ll see you Sunday, maybe,” she whispered.

  David glanced at Mrs. Rushen, imposing and sexless in an amorphic gray dress. “Are you ever going to tell me her first name?” he whispered back, determined to end their conversation lightly with the same game he and Clair had played for over two months now.

  “No! Are you going to tell me Genevieve’s last name?” she murmured.

  “No! You never told me how you knew her first name, anyway! What about your last name? Does it begin with P?”

  “Ha!” she rejoined. “Maybe you’ll never know.”

  “Come,” said Mrs. Rushen tonelessly. She nodded at David, and Clair winked before the two of them filed briskly out of the courtyard.

  Johnson, who had risen along with David, spied a flying insect he could pursue. David slowly sat down once more, finding himself intrigued and confused yet again by the little girl who lived in 2B with her peculiar guardian. Why did she say so many curious things, and how did she know so much? Was it all just obvious, and an observant child could pick it up without any effort at all? Or was she abnormally attuned to what went on in other people’s minds?

  Johnson caught his prey, mauled it, and then spit it out.

  The fountain gurgled, the dog and the man relaxed, the afternoon sun moved leisurely lower in the sky.

  Chapter Six

  “That girl creeps me out.” Bill popped open a can of Miller Genuine Draft and downed a healthy swig. “She ain’t right,” he added after swallowing.

  David had opened his own beer, sipped some, and then set it down on a rickety side table. “She’s a little off, but she’s okay,” he replied lightly.

  “She’s way off. And that woman is barmy.”

  “Mrs. Rushen?”

  “Yuh. She’s demented.”

  “Mmm.” David hadn’t a clue as to what drove the mysterious Mrs. Rushen, but hoped for Clair’s sake that she wasn’t a psychotic.

  The two men were in the front room of Bill’s cottage. Rustic wood-paneled walls and dark, dust-laden window curtains made for a dim man cave, the effect magnified by creaky furniture, a decades-old television, and piles
of frayed magazines that hugged the walls of the room.

  Bill had eyes that had seen more than their fair share of hardship, of harshness, of the shitty end of the stick that life wielded so casually and callously. This was his home, and he was fine with it. He could have ended up somewhere far worse, and he knew it.

  “Big business here yesterday,” Bill said. “Big business, bad business.”

  David picked up his beer. “Yeah. Pretty crappy.” He drank some. “I can’t quite say I feel bad for Heck, but I can’t imagine Janice is having an easy time of it.”

  Bill shook his head. “Nope. Saw ’er this mornin’, on ’er way to Bargain Bin. She had to take off yesterday, ’count of the police ’n all, but she pulled her servin’ shift last night. She looked a mess.”

  David believed it. He took another long sip.

  “That detective, Ormsky. What an asshole,” growled Bill.

  David snorted. Some suds found their way into his nostrils, making them tingle. “He’s not exactly a charmer.”

  Bill blew out some air. “Kept pronouncin’ my name Lo-pes, Spanish-like, with two syllables. Do I look like I came from Mexico?” He lifted an unlit cigar out of an ashtray and chomped down on it. “Asshole.”

  Johnson’s head rose as a fly buzzed out of one of the curtains, only to make a landing in the adjacent fold. The dog promptly closed its eyes again.

  “Do they have any idea who did it?” David asked. “I wasn’t here all morning, so I only know what I read in the paper.”

  “Whoever did it, I hope they get away,” said Bill. “I told ’em what I saw. They can follow it up and come up with their own conclusions.”

  “What’d you see?” said David, eager but trying not to be overly inquisitive.

  “Well, first of all, ya gotta understand that Heck had it comin’. Ya know that, right?” Bill’s eyes bored in on him.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Oh, c’mon! Ya knew he beat on her, right?”

  David hesitated, but then quickly nodded. “Yeah. I did. I never saw him do it, but…”

  “But ya saw the presents he gave ’er.”

  Another nod. “Uh, huh. The worst one was a few months ago. When her arm turned totally purple, and her cheek – ”

  “It was bust open like a piñata on the Fourth of July.”

  David tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it. “Yeah. About like that.”

  Bill grabbed his beer and tilted his head back to guzzle some, the cigar going along for the ride. “My Mum,” he said after wiping his mouth, “she lived for a bit with a guy just like Heck. He sponged offa her, beat us kids ever’ time he was lit and ever’ time he wasn’t. He once hit her so bad I thought she was gonna die just from the one blow.” His head shook, slowly. “Well, he got his.”

  “What happened?” David asked.

  Bill glanced toward a window, where a spider web so thick it was almost solid looked as though it was an extension to the glazing.

  “It’s funny,” he said, “my Mum actually missed ’im after. Jim Frisk. Big Jim Frisk. Some guys he owed money to, they came for ’im one day and gave ’im a touch of his own medicine. They went too far, though. They killed ’im. His head was nothin’ but bloody pulp when they got through.” Bill’s eyes sidled back to David as a wry grin emerged. “That enough detail for ya? Or do ya want me to tell ya some more?”

  David reached again for his beer and drained half the can. His eyes began to water, but he forced himself to evenly meet Bill’s gaze. “So… what’d you tell the police you saw on Wednesday?”

  “Ya mean, what’d I tell that asshole Ormsky?”

  David nodded. Bill laughed.

  “I made sure to take ever’ Goddamn minute of his precious time I could. I started with my first sweep out front at eight a.m., and went through ever’ last bit of trimmin’, tidyin’ and fixin’ I did. All Goddamn day.”

  David couldn’t help but chuckle, imagining the impatient, officious Ormsby blowing his cool while Bill drawled on and on.

  “There were only two things I knew would matter to ’im. First was, Heck showed up ’round eleven thirty. I was outside gettin’ the mowin’ going, and he sauntered right on past me like he owned the joint. Didn’t tell ’im Janice was out, figgered he knew. Second was, ’bout thirty minutes later, two of those thugs he’s been here with a few times while Janice was workin’ came on by too. I was done with the mowin’ then, and as I was headin’ back on in here, they were poundin’ on her door, callin’ for Heck to come out.”

  “So it’s the two guys!” David was excited, sitting forward on his chair. “That wasn’t in the paper. I read the whole thing!”

  Bill waved a hand about. “Maybe. Maybe not. I headed to the courtyard to muck the fountain after that. Never heard another Goddamn thing. Forgot all about ’em till Janice came and woke me up ’round eleven that night.”

  “Janice came to you? I thought she called the police!”

  “Yuh. She did. I came over, took a good gander at ole Heck lying there in a puddle of his own mess, and told ’er to call ’em. She was innocent, wouldn’ta done her no harm to do things the right way.”

  David sat back again. All of this going on while he was either building links and concocting metadata in the sterile offices of Culpepper Mills, or blithely asleep in his bed.

  “Weird thing is,” Bill continued, “that creepy girl Clair?”

  “Uh, huh?”

  “I overheard her tell Janice that she needed to go see her mother.”

  “What?” This made zero sense to David. “When? And why?”

  Bill shrugged, and removed the cigar from his mouth. He set it down and then popped open another beer. “Sunday afternoon. Clair and that woman were sittin’ in the courtyard. Just sittin’. I passed by on my way up to 2G – those idiot kids in there stopped up the Goddamn toilets again – and as I was comin’ back, I saw Janice poke ’er head into the courtyard, real tentative-like. But then she goes in. I stood just outside and heard her say it. ‘You should go see your mother. She needs your help,’ or something like that.”

  Most of the second beer was then emptied into Bill’s mouth. David reached for his own and finished the can. He couldn’t even process all of this, it was so disjointed and nonsensical. He stood, and Johnson followed suit.

  “I should go,” David said.

  Bill nodded.

  “I’m supposed to meet Genevieve at six.”

  Bill guffawed. “She gonna dump ya again?”

  “I hope not.” David glanced down at Johnson, who was already pawing at the cottage door, ready to chase after a few more bugs. “But ya never know.”

  Chapter Seven

  “So how was the meeting last night?”

  Genevieve eyed David coldly as she locked Gâteaupia’s doors, seeking even the slightest hint of derision or sarcasm.

  “Just asking!” David added, throwing his hands into the air in a show of innocence.

  Johnson barked; his leash had gone along for the ride.

  The keys were stowed in a purse. The locks were double-checked, and then triple-checked. “It was good,” she answered as she began striding west on Larch. “Not quite the turnout we’d hoped for, but still… about twenty of us.”

  David stepped quickly to catch up with her. “Are we… are we headed to eat somewhere?” Genevieve’s house was in the opposite direction, at Birch and Seventh.

  “I want to walk. I’m not hungry yet. Let’s go to the square and take a couple turns around. Look how happy Johnson is!”

  Indeed, Johnson was straining forward, eager and hopeful for the cool green expanses of the public square.

  “Okay! So tell me about the meeting.”

  She glanced over with a doubtful smile. “You sure?”

  He nodded. “But if the acronym has changed again, I’ll need a refresh.”

  Genevieve laughed, and she warmly took his arm. “It’s funny, your saying that. We actually spent fifteen minutes debating that very poi
nt!”

  David’s eyes rolled, but with amusement. “What’s being added now?” he asked.

  “Do you remember what it was?”

  He chuckled. “I memorized it! LGBTQIA. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, questioning, intersex, asexual.”

  His arm received a squeeze. “Impressive. Push it, will you?”

  He pushed the Walk button so they could cross Fourth Street.

  “All right, so you know how we try to keep things on a casual basis – no titled leaders, no person-in-charge, right?”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “Well, I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to last. We at least need someone who can shut things down when they head in the wrong direction.”

  “But who determines what the wrong direction is?”

  “Exactly the dilemma! If our mission is openness and acceptance of all, how can there be a wrong direction, no matter where that direction leads us?”

  “So what happened last night?”

  Genevieve groaned as her arm detached from his. “Jill and Joan, the couple that joined just last month? They object to the I and the A. They think it should be LGBTQIDK.”

  “What the hell is IDK?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What? How can they possibly – ”

  But Genevieve had turned toward him, beaming, and with a glimmer in her eyes. “Literally, it’s ‘I don’t know.’ IDK, see?”

  This time it was David who groaned. “I thought the Q covered all those who weren’t sure what type of ice cream they liked.”

  He received a playful slap on his arm as they began to cross Third. Johnson was digging his paws into the street, head low as he stretched the leash to its limit.

  “The Q earned its own fifteen minutes last night. Lydia had read online that some groups consider it queer, not questioning. So of course she brought this up, but while most of us were fine with either, some people detest the negativity the word ‘queer’ connotes, and others want to embrace it.”

  “Johnson! We’ll walk first!” David attempted to guide Johnson back onto the pathway that circumnavigated the square. And then to Genevieve, “Is that it for your hosting duties for a while?”