The Killing of Butterfly Joe

by Rhidian Brook

  As we ascended Hunter Mountain, Joe jabbered away. I think he was even more excited than I was. He drove like an actor in an old movie, where they deliver their lines whilst barely glancing at the road and a fake background is projected onto the back window.

  ‘The whole family are curious to meet you, Rip. I told them you are a charming, cultured fellow of fine tastes and opinions, so you mustn’t let me down on that.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I told them to call you Rip. No offence, but that old name of yours just isn’t serviceable. You can’t have a name people can’t say right. It’s death to sales. So we’re going to conduct a little ceremony up here, at the Hudson Panorama. Elijah, hand me that Coke.’

  So Joe re-named and re-baptized me with the sweet liquid of his land. I actually liked the no-nonsense brevity and associations of my new name. It was good to be free of my phlegmy L’s. And when we were done, he put an arm round my shoulder and showed me the vista as though he owned everything in it and was about to offer it all to me. ‘There she is: America. When we moved here I brought Ma to this spot and told her the names of the great families who lived down there on the Hudson and I made her a promise that the Boscos would do for butterflies what Carnegie did for steel, the Vanderbilts for railroads and the Rockefellers for oil. We are about to take it to the next level. And you are going to help us get there, Rip. You’ve been sent for a time such as this.’

  Joe was a person who found books in brooks, sermons in stones and the good in everything. I didn’t believe any of this for a second, and I am not sure Joe did either, but I went along with the theatre of it because there was foolish pleasure to be had in such wild fancy and sometimes wild fancy brings about impossible things. I had a feeling that people must have at the beginning of all great voyages, a root feeling, a radical stripping-back to the absolute of journeying, where you feel like you are starting afresh, without the hindrance of history. It’s ridiculous, but from the moment Joe gave me my new name I really did feel like a new person.

  * * *

  Joe was vague about where he lived and the time it might take to get there. It was simply ‘over the hills, not far away’. It is only thirty miles from the east of the Catskills to the west as the bald eagle flies, but it seemed to take hours to get there; I can recall my feelings that day more clearly than the route to his house. I remember the summer-stalled ski-lifts of the Hunter resort, the hippy paraphernalia of the other Woodstock. And I can picture passing through forests of black Norway spruce and by white churches with slim steeples and narrow peristyles; but my mind was on what was round the corner. Mention of Joe’s mother had got my thoughts driving on ahead to his family and their ‘mansion with many rooms’.

  ‘You have a big family, then?’

  ‘Let’s see. There’s me. Ma. My sisters: Mary-Anne, you met. And Isabelle. She is the serious one. Then we have Little Celeste who we adopted. Old Clay who we found in a garbage truck. And Elijah here. And now we got you. That makes eight. If you count the dogs, Nancy and Ronnie, that makes ten.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  Joe went quiet for a few seconds – an era of silence in his case – and then he made a groaning hum like a dying animal. I immediately regretted asking the question.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Joe looked like he was weighing what to tell and what not to tell. He checked the rear-view mirror. ‘Elijah?’ The boy didn’t stir but Joe repeated his name louder just to be sure. Then he turned to me.

  ‘One thing I have to tell you now, Rip. We don’t talk about my father. He is The Unmentionable One. He’s the cancer you’ve just been diagnosed with. The haemorrhoids you got. The elephant in the china shop.’

  ‘Bull. You mean bull in a china shop. Or elephant in the room.’

  ‘You see, Rip. It’s this kind of refininering I need. Out there, you’ll be the polisher of my rough edges. What I’m saying is, don’t raise that question around the house. Especially around Ma. Never around Ma.’

  Was this permission to ‘go there’ with him? It was the sort of prohibition you immediately wanted to break. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy.’

  ‘It’s OK. I just don’t want you asking Ma the wrong thing and getting on the wrong stick!’

  ‘I’ll keep . . . mum.’

  ‘But you should know how we got to where we got. That’s important. You need to know the story. In case you have to use it yourself. It’s part of the sales pitch.’

  And that was when Joe told me his version of the Bosco family history, a history that (I would learn) would mutate in the telling and vary with the teller:

  Joe (twenty-five) was the eldest of three children: Isabelle (twenty) and Mary-Anne (nineteen). Joe’s father was a leading entomologist and lecturer in zoology. Joe’s mother, Edith, was from a poor Southern family but savvy enough to teach herself bookkeeping and earn extra money as an eye model. He described her as pedigree hillbilly turned middle class. They were a reasonably prosperous couple living in Palos Verdes, a suburb near Long Beach, California. Joe’s father spent most of the year away on expeditions to South America, in search of rare and new species of butterfly. His long trips away were a source of tension between Joe’s parents. Sometimes he’d disappear for months into the jungles of Yucatán, or the rainforests of Colombia, in pursuit of his obsession, sending packages of incredibly rare specimens in glassine envelopes back in parcels which Edith kept in a naphthalene-laden trunk. The long absences already put a great strain on the marriage. One day Joe’s father called, from Bogotá, to say it was over. He was leaving. Not coming back. That same night a fire destroyed the home and nearly killed Edith, who was eight months pregnant. The fire was caused when his preserving chemicals ignited. That was the ‘straw that flipped the camel on its back’. Joe’s mother filed for divorce. The father didn’t contest it. Edith moved the family to Tucson and then to Michigan where she got a job as PA to a university administrator. It was in Michigan that Joe became a keen bug collector and butterfly chaser. One day, when Joe’s mother was sick and in bed, he set his prize Colias eurydice on a piece of wood inside a 4" by 6" glass box, made it look pretty with some dried flowers and gave it to her as a get-well present. Joe’s mother took one look at it and said, ‘We should make these and sell them.’ Joe knew where to source the butterflies in sufficient bulk; they just needed some glass, some silicone and bits of wood on which to mount them. The local flower store took an order of two dozen cases and sold them all in no time. Encouraged, Joe and his mother started to sell on the road, going farther afield, down to Ann Arbor, up to Saginaw and west to Kalamazoo, loading up the trunk of the Caprice Classic and driving until it was empty. It was unsolicited cold-selling and not everyone took the product, but once a store took an order repeat business usually followed. Before long the order-sizes increased and they began to venture across state lines into Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania, selling butterflies from the trunk and taking sample boxes to get pre-orders. The family business was soon taking in regular orders from gift and flower shops in six states. Then, about a year ago, the Boscos decided to move further east, ‘in search of new opportunities’. They found a house in the Catskills with enough space to create a factory to meet the increased orders that were coming in. They started to employ people to help and Joe started making plans to pitch the products to the big chain stores and get the ‘national order’ they were looking for.

  That was around about the time he met me.

  If someone you don’t know well tells you their family history, particularly a history with trauma at its centre, what can you do but accept it at face value? I had no reason to disbelieve this account at the time and nor did I; I believed he was telling me the truth, even the truth about the untruths.

  ‘Thanks for telling me that.’

  ‘I mix it up sometimes, Rip. When I need to tug the heartstrings during a sale that’s flagging I can call on that history to win a few extra orders. Maybe get into t
he detail of how I saved my ma from the fire. Sometimes I might tell them my father went missing in the jungle. How I was the main “bread and butterfly winner” from the age of around ten. Folks love that rising from the ashes stuff. And they love how I saved Ma from the fire. And everyone loves a story where someone gets killed. That really greases the skids. It’s a straight road to sympathy. Every time.’

  I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not until he giggled. ‘I’m just kidding.’

  ‘About your Ma nearly dying in the fire?’

  ‘Nooo!’ he squealed. ‘I wouldn’t make something like that up! That would be twisted!’

  ‘Of course not. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But if it’s your story, you can do what you like with it. They usually ask me how I got these anyway.’

  He lifted a hand from the wheel and held out the scarred wrist that I’d noticed in the barn. He then started to hum some as yet un-composed tune, signalling an end to this line of talk. The fire at the heart of this history had supplied quick kindling for my speculations, but I decided not to ask any more about it for now.

  We were at the western end of the Catskills and climbing again, along a road that narrowed until it became track. A hood of vapours had collected around a peak and with the sun going down there was a glow to the sky that my new namesake would almost certainly have described as sanguine (a word that seems better applied to sunsets than people). For the first time in days I desired a spliff.

  ‘There are a few other things you should know about my mother,’ Joe said. ‘She swings from calm to crazy like that.’ He flicked his fingers. ‘One minute she is as sweet as maple syrup. Take you in as her own son. The next she’ll curse you to hell. And when she curses she does it like she’s paid by the word. It’s hard to take at first but you’ll get used to it. It pretty much started the day after the fire. She’s still angry with God, the world and the Unmentionable One. When we get there she might act as though she has no idea you are coming even though I told her a hundred times. I’ll need to go and explain things again. She might swear like crazy at me, she will say all kinds of stuff but she won’t really mean any of it. She’ll blow herself out like a twister in April. At her centre there’s this calm part, the generous, kind part of her. Remember to hold on to that in the middle of the storm.’

  ‘But she does know I’m coming to work for you?’

  ‘Sure! But she forgets stuff. And she gets mad at me for bringing people back to the house. Ain’t that right, Eli?’

  Elijah was now awake, face pressed against the windowpane, looking out sadly at the passing trees. ‘I guess.’

  ‘When I brought Clay home that was something. She always taught us to practise charity. I found Clay literally in the back of the truck where they throw the garbage. I thought I’d bring him back home. When I turned up I thought she’d kill him. I had to hide the gun. She keeps a gun in her bed, under her pillow, for effect. She likes to get it out and shoot the chandelier some days but it’s nothing to worry about. Now she loves Old Man Clay like he’s her own. It’ll be the same with you. There might be a little test for you when you meet her but you’ll be good.’

  ‘A little test? What kind of test?’

  ‘If I told you what the test was it wouldn’t be a test. Just don’t speak too much. It’ll make her think you’re conceited. And don’t speak too little. It’ll make her think you’re timid and if there is a thing my mother will crush, it is timidinicity. She hates weakness and she hates pride. It’s a tightrope you gotta learn to walk. And tell the truth. If she looks you in the eyes and asks you a question, tell the truth! She’ll know when it’s not. If there is nothin’ she hates more in this world it’s a liar.’

  The sun was almost down when we came to the entrance gates of the house. The pillars were the height of a man and had balls on the pediments. The wrought-iron gates themselves were drawn back and one was off its hinges. The drive curved away out of sight, bisecting a wood and unkempt lawns. The uncut grass in the middle of the drive brushed the undercarriage of the car and Joe drove slowly, to draw things out for my benefit. He kept looking at me, giving me his ‘I bet you weren’t expecting this’ grin.

  Two dogs – an Alsatian and a Dobermann – bounded up to the car, barking and snapping at the wheels. I remember thinking these were either the dogs of a rich man with something to protect or the dogs of criminals with something to fear.

  ‘Here’s Nancy and Ronnie!’ Joe yelled. ‘Don’t get out until they are chained. They don’t know you, they’ll rip your throat out.’

  The dogs gave us a barking escort up the long, long drive, Joe taunting them with little dummy swerves, accelerations and decelerations. ‘Come on, crazy dogs! Come on, crazy dogs!’

  We continued for maybe a mile through thick forest, on a slight camber, and then the track straightened and a house came into view. I was still, even at this late stage, expecting a shack, or perhaps a lodge or a cabin in the grounds of a rich man’s estate. When Joe had used the word ‘mansion’ to describe his home I had assumed euphemism, or more Joe-oversell. But the house was a huge neo-Gothic stately pile, and with the sinking sun making a silhouette of its gables, turrets and folly attics, it was a splendid sight, a house worthy of any of those Captains of Industry who had made their homes over the hills not far away, and Joe was drinking in my surprise, slowing the car to eke out every drop of it.

  ‘It used to belong to a gun-manufacturer. It’s the house that homicide built!’ He laughed at this joke, a joke that seemed well rehearsed. ‘It was sitting empty for thirty years. No one would touch it because there was some stupid superstition about all the crimes that paid for it. But the real crime was that a place like this was empty for so long. So we moved in and fixed it up. Made a few improvements. Mended the pipes, sanded the floors. We got a priest to anoint the doors with oil. Its reputation has been well and truly exorcised.’

  ‘So . . . is it yours now?’

  ‘Like everything in life, Rip: it’s just on loan.’

  As Joe swung the Caddy around in front of the house, the sun no longer flattened everything out and I saw its true condition. Hardly any of the windows on the ground floor had glass or frames and large parts of the roof did not have tiles. One whole section of the outside wall was exposed to the elements, with a rough tarpaulin draped over it. There must have been power because there were lights on in the upstairs rooms, and signs of life within, but it was, essentially, a ruin.

  ‘Welcome to my mansion, Rip.’

  — Is he dead?

  — I can’t say.

  — You can’t say, or you don’t know?

  — Like I said, I can’t say.

  — I didn’t do it. I know how it looks but I didn’t do it. I know you have to ask me a lot of questions but I need to say that now. Before my memory and the pressure of remembering confounds things. Plus, my head hurts.

  — I understand, sir. And it’s your right to say what you believe to be true. We’re going to go through everything. Believe me. We have time. But, first things first. Why don’t you start by telling me your name?

  — Llewellyn Jones.

  — Can you spell that for me, Mr Jones?

  — L.L.E.W.E.L.L.Y.N.

  — Your business card here says ‘Rip Van Jones’?

  — That was my working name. Joe said I needed a snappier name for selling.

  — You mean Mr Joseph Bosco?

  — Yes.

  — And how old are you?

  — Twenty-four. Last week.

  — From England, right?

  — Wales. But yes, I’m British. Is he OK – is Joe OK?

  — We can’t tell you that right now.

  — He’s alive, though? You can at least tell me that?

  — I’m sorry. Can you tell me what you were doing in the United States? Was it business or pleasure?

  — Pleasure. I intended to do a bit of manual work, bar work here and there, to pay my way. But I came to see America.

>   — Seems you done that. Thirty-two states. In six months. That’s some going. So how did you meet Mr Bosco?

  — Do you have a cigarette, Sheriff?

  — Sure.

  — I was staying at my Aunt Julia’s. Near Hunter. I was doing odd jobs for her but I intended to get out and see the country. Maybe write about it. And then I met Joe – at the Kaaterskill Falls. I told him I wanted to see America; he offered to show it to me. I needed money; he offered me a job. He was very persuasive. He could sell you . . . anything. And I liked him. I thought he was unusual. But good-unusual. I think most people in my shoes would have taken the job.

  — Selling butterflies?

  — It was a good business.

  — You didn’t see anything that made you think you should steer well clear of this guy?

  — Well, yes, plenty. He was annoying and constantly attracting trouble. Winding people up. He really didn’t care what anyone thought of him. He was afraid of no one. Except for one person perhaps. He’d do all kinds of things – not exactly breaking the law – but trouble-making. You might say these were warning signs, but nothing that prepared me for what came.

  — What kind of signs?

  — Well. He would get into arguments. He talked about having Good Theology and Bad Theology. He had a particular beef with religious authority. Well, any authority, really – especially male authority. He’d go into churches and sit at the back and wait for the sermon and then he’d start asking them questions. ‘What are you doing for the poor?’ ‘How much do you get paid, Reverend?’ ‘Do you really need that Mercedes?’ That kind of thing.

  — He was an atheist?

  — No. He just had a thing about religion. And what it did to people and what America has done with it. He wanted to help the poor and would give money away, willy-nilly. Including money that was needed for other things. Like bills. It was a chaotic kindness.