I hummed a tune of my own making for a few miles more. When he spoke he sounded different.
‘He didn’t say anything about my suit.’
I wanted to laugh, but Joe delivered this with the gravity of a deep revelation.
‘I thought he might . . . at least notice it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘They weren’t worth it. The butterflies weren’t worth it. After all that.’
‘What do mean?’
‘I should have left the trunk in the fire. And I should have got Ma out, instead of going back for the bugs.’
‘You can’t blame yourself, Joe. You were five!’
‘I could have saved her from getting hurt. And I shoulda.’
‘You were trying to do the right thing. Your father gave you an instruction.’
‘Turned out that the person giving it ain’t worth listening to.’
Joe sounded different because there was no artifice. He wasn’t trying to sell me anything. His voice was an octave lower. The tone gentle, accepting, almost resigned. It was as if the encounter with his father had forced him to set down his plates, drop the act.
‘Maybe he was getting back at Ma.’
‘For what?’
Joe started to free other memories that must have lain there somewhere, unable to get out until now.
‘For Ma going with another man. When he was away. I don’t blame her for it. She met him in a bar. A driver. Not Ma’s type, not at all. I didn’t like him, although he was nice to me. But she didn’t want to be with him. She was just lonely, I guess. The night he called to say he was leaving she tried to destroy my father’s study. I don’t think she meant to start that fire but she meant to hurt him for leaving. Ma lied about the butterflies. She told him they were destroyed in the fire and maybe that weren’t OK.’
‘He didn’t deserve them back. Your mother wasn’t exaggerating. He’s a monster. I should have trusted her. I fell for his act. I took him at his word,’ I said. ‘I’m such an idiot.’
‘You did right to take him at his word, Rip. You have to take people at their word or you get caught up in a cynicalistic spiral.’
‘But you saved them. That makes them yours. No?’
Joe shook his head. ‘Maybe it’s time to let them go.’
Something important was happening to him but I was still so caught up in the needs of my own saga and forging the outcome I wanted for it, that I didn’t quite give the moment its due.
‘You don’t mean that,’ I said. ‘About the butterflies?’
‘I do mean it.’
‘You are just going to let the collection go back to him?’
‘I wanna be free of them. They’ve been a kind of curse.’
I shook my head. ‘But . . . That wouldn’t be fair, Joe. That isn’t justice.’
‘Men’s laws don’t always deliver justice, Rip. They’ll be going to the Smithsonian. Maybe that’s where they should have been all along.’
‘So what are we going to do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? We just turn up and tell your mother that the butterflies are going back to your father and forget all about it? She won’t let them go without a fight.’
‘She don’t got no choice.’
‘Come on, Joe. That’s not the Joe I know talking.’
Joe shook his head. ‘I got a glimpse of something that I don’t ever want to see again, back there, Rip. I felt fire then ice. And then a numb nothing. I felt what it was to not exist. To never be again! And for there never to have been anything other than what “we make of it” and our perceiving of things. A place where there was no higher truth to trust and where Death and the Devil win. But it’s OK. Sometimes you have to see the other side of a thing to know what matters.’
Joe’s personality was powerful enough to bend all things to his will and for the good – which he believed coincided most of the time. But now he seemed done with trying to make things fit his preferred narrative; to bend things to a comic shape. Perhaps it was no bad thing for Joe to think – for a few moments maybe – that the universe was an indifferent Godless space and that the essential comedy of life was an illusion that would forever be shattered by random rocks being hurled by a careless cosmos. Because that is, indeed, what it might be. But I needed his hope. And I needed him to believe all that stuff even if I didn’t believe it myself.
‘We can’t let him win, Joe.’
‘I’m done with the bugs.’
I was blind to what was really going on with Joe. I was still charging on towards the flames like that idiot moth, but he wanted to hold back; he was unwilling to fight something he couldn’t beat and continue chasing something he couldn’t catch. In the last hours of our adventuring, Joe Bosco was seeing things way more clearly than me.
It was only when we reached the main gates that I remembered that Edith had forbidden me from ever passing through them again.
‘Your mother said she’d kill me if she saw me again, Joe.’
‘You seen too many movies, Rip. It’s all smoke with her. Ma wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
That might have been true, but we hadn’t factored in that Edith would be ahead of us. Twenty years ahead of us.
‘Red sky at night,’ I said.
A sunset-orange glow lit the tops of the trees, making a hearth in the middle of the purples, blacks and maroons of the sky either side. But these signs in the sky – of which I thought I was a fluent interpreter – were misleading. I was again failing to see the forest of reality for the trees of symbols and images.
‘That’s no sunset,’ Joe said. ‘The sun’s behind us.’
He was right; I could see the sun, dipping down behind the Catskills.
‘Probably Clay’s bonfire,’ he said. Then Joe suddenly sat forward.
‘What is it?’
‘Look!’
He was pointing ahead, along the line of the car’s bonnet. A blue morpho had landed dead centre on the bonnet at the top of the radiator. It sat there wings out, the shimmering grille insignia of a new automobile. A miracle for this time of year and this climate! The lone morpho took off and flew up into the cold air, where we saw the brilliant flashing wings of another blue morpho, and then another, and another. They flew in confused lines, searching for sunlight. A mini-swarm of butterflies released from their tropical glasshouse into the hard bite of this temperate Appalachian night.
‘What are the chances!’ I said.
Joe saw what it really meant. ‘Someone’s left the butterfly farm door open. Pull over. I’ll go see to it. You go on.’
‘But I can’t, Joe. Not without you.’
‘Don’t be scared. I’ll see you at the mansion.’
Joe set off towards the morpho farm, his long, loping gait eating up the ground, carrying his great frame twice the distance of the average mortal. As he walked he put out his arms and started to corral the butterflies back towards the nurseries, herding them to safety. Then he was gone. I watched the spot where he’d disappeared for a few moments and then drove on.
‘Come on, Chu,’ I said, geeing myself up.
I’d barely travelled fifty yards when I saw two figures running down the drive towards me. It was Isabelle with Celeste. Isabelle was holding Celeste’s hand and Celeste was holding her doll by the hair; like two displaced people fleeing a raging conflict. I got out to greet them and Celeste embraced me. She was sobbing. ‘Mama Edith gone crazy.’
Isabelle, out of breath, her eyes red from tears – and maybe smoke – spoke in a croaking, cracking voice.
‘She’s burning them. I couldn’t stop her. Where is Joe?’
‘He’s . . . Wait. She’s burning the collection?’
Isabelle nodded and caught her breath, choking back the emotion. I could smell the residue of burnt butterflies on her skin. The sensible thing to have done in this situation – the thing that Llew Jones would have done – would have been to have let Isabelle and Celeste jump in the car and driven away, leaving Edith and the others
to their fate. But sensible had not been my friend or confidant for a while now and I still thought I could win.
‘I have to stop her,’ I said.
‘It’s too late. Don’t go there, Rip, please.’
‘She can’t destroy them!’
‘Rip! You can’t stop her.’
‘Get Joe, I’ll go on.’
The thought of those dollars fluttering into flames was painful. Every second’s delay meant another rarity up in smoke. I was still so sure of myself, of my ability to fix things, I drove on.
As I reached the house I could see the source of the fake sunset: Clay’s bonfire, burning high and harder than ever. It looked as though he was burning more than leaves for I could make out a chair in the orange flame. Clay’s flat-bed Ford was parked up by the outhouses, a tarp tied over a highly stacked container, the weight of the chattels tilting the vehicle and giving it an Okie look. The library window was open and a cloud of smoke was spiralling out and up into the purple sky. A lick of flame reflected from inside onto the open window. There was a sound of smashing glass. This was a slash-and-burn operation, or a scorched-earth policy. Leave your lands but burn everything of value before the enemy gets here.
I took a deep breath. Mary’s Walther was still in the glovebox. I had never used a gun but how hard could it be? It was cool and solid and a satisfying weight in the hand. I worked out where the safety catch was. I cocked the hammer. I opened the chamber. (Although I am not sure that these are even the right terms for what I was doing.) I gripped the gun and stepped from the car. There was no sign of the dogs. I ran into the house and up the staircase towards the sound of shouting and breaking glass and the smell of burning, holding a gun I had no intention of using, busting moves I had learned from a hundred cop movies and Westerns, all crouch and poised anticipation. I reached the top where I met Clay coming down the landing with two empty canisters of gasoline. When he saw me he stopped, calmly set down the canisters, then held up a hand like a traffic cop blocking my path.
‘You ain’t welcome here.’
‘Don’t do this, Clay.’
‘You better turn round and leave,’ he said. ‘Or I will gut you like a trout.’
Clay had always shown deference towards me, but now all pretence at being the meek and humble servant was dropped. He even dispensed with my name and the interesting thing is that, shorn of the nauseating religious prefixes, he sounded better. I actually preferred the real nasty Clay to the fake nice Clay.
There was another crashing from inside the library.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I cleared my throat to try and hide the fear in my voice.
‘She ain’t letting them go back to him.’
‘She’ll go to jail for it. We might all go to jail.’
‘You ain’t stepping across this line.’
Clay was twice my age but he was in shape, scrawny and streetwise. In a hand-to-hand fight he’d overpower me easily. But – and this is the lovely thing – I had something that made me far more powerful than him: a gun! Yes. Joe was right: guns give superpowers to idiots and wimps. And I was at least one of those things. I pointed the gun in the direction of Clay’s head. I’d like to say I said something cool. Something like, ‘Step aside, motherfucker!’ But I was too nervous to construct a decent put down so I simply said, ‘Outside!’ Clay took me seriously enough; he raised his hands and moved over. I’m glad he did – for my sake as much as his – because the thrill of saying even that one word whilst holding the gun gave me such a powerful sense of righteousness that the slightest hint of resistance might have made me do it. And that would have got me into more trouble than the actual trouble I was about to get myself into.
‘Miss Edith was right aboutchoo. You is a malignancy. The Lord will have vengeance.’
‘I’m counting on Him having a better sense of justice than you. Now get out of the house. Or I will shoot you. And if you set the dogs loose I will shoot them. Which would be a pleasure.’
I liked the sound of my gun-toting self. Guns definitely give one a temporary sense of self-worth. I felt this forcefield around me, projecting power and assertiveness. It was a shame I only had an audience of one. I waited until Clay had descended the stairs, left the building and closed the door behind him.
I still don’t completely know why I entered that library or felt so strongly (enough to risk my life) about saving those butterflies. Perhaps I had the walk-through-fire-fearlessness of the already condemned. It did have something to do with saving the collection for the collection’s sake: the thought of its incineration and people never seeing them and all Isabelle’s hard work coming to naught. I think I also wanted to save Edith, too. From her raging self, as well as the law. And of course, I still had the wild hope of saving the deal. But the thing I really wanted to save was myself. My reputation. I somehow conflated the saving of the butterflies with the saving of my name in those final, fiery moments.
What a scene: Elijah, at the top of a step ladder, pulling the upper drawers from the cabinet and dropping them to the floor, with a crash; un-cased butterflies lying all over the floor, some easy-over some sunny side up; Edith standing at an oil drum, that Clay must have dragged into the room from the back yard, picking up the freed specimens and dropping them into the barrel like stray leaves into the bonfire, their colours offering one more flash of delight before disappearing into the pyre. The smell of it all was quite particular – a tangy smell like cinched pinewood – and the heat was astonishing. Edith, her hair tied in a gingham scarf, was wearing gardening gloves and a vest that revealed bare shoulders and skin that was scarred from the fire she’d started twenty years before. She’d never looked more Appalachian. Standing on one crutch and with her eye patch she was a crazed pyromaniac pirate, taking demented pleasure in tossing the specimens into the flames, sometimes pausing to pull off the wings, and speak some last rite. The noises of cracking glass underfoot and the crackling of a thousand flaming thoraxes in the furnace added sounds and furies to match the madness of the moment.
‘Edith!’
She was so utterly absorbed in her ritual that she failed to notice me standing at the door until I shouted her name for the third time. When she finally did look at me she seemed unconcerned.
‘Meddler. Is that you?’
She dropped a pink and black butterfly into the flames.
‘You look a little shocked, Meddler. A little disappointed. Like you didn’t get what you hoped for; like you didn’t know what you were dealing with there.’
‘Edith. Please. Why are you doing this?’
‘I should have let these fuckers burn twenty years ago.’
‘Don’t do this, Edith. You’ll go to prison. This is wilful destruction. It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it! You were right about him, Edith. Shelby doesn’t care about people. Except himself. But that’s not you. You do care, I know you do.’
‘Listen to you. All enlightened now. It’s not just about that son-of-a-bitch. It’s about these cursed butterflies.’
Of course, this wasn’t just about Edith denying Shelby his bugs. She may have been making a bonfire of his vanities, but she was also constructing a pyre for her unhappiness, getting rid of the thing that was the source and supply of her trouble and pain. By destroying the butterflies she was breaking the curse and getting free of the past.
‘I want to thank you for one thing, Meddler.’
I waited for the unexpected compliment.
‘I want to thank you for starting this fire.’
‘I’m not responsible for this,’ I said, feebly.
‘Oh, I’m pinning this one on you, Meddler. You definitely started it. I got witnesses.’
I could see Elijah looking down at me. He looked scared and conflicted about what to do next. ‘Elijah! Please. Stop.’
He looked at me and he looked at Edith and then at the gun that I was waving. He seemed scared and that made me even more afraid. Some people can handle a gun as though it were as everyday as a
toothbrush. But I wasn’t one of those people and my arm trembled and my hand shook with the holding of that pistol as I pointed it at my former host, the mother of my good and dear friend, Joseph Bosco, a woman whom, despite all that I knew about her and what she was doing, I quite admired, and even had some sympathy for. She knew I wouldn’t use the gun; and even if she thought I would, I don’t think she cared. She’d crossed the line of caring. So much so that my instruction to her to stop what she was doing was ignored completely and my repeating of the instruction only made her laugh. It was too late anyway. All the drawers were emptied. All the cases smashed. And a thousand specimens were already in the pyre. The heat and the increasing airlessness was making it hard to think. I never took the measure of Edith’s unforgiveness, her sense of rage. But I knew then nothing was going to allay it. Not the restoration of her ruined face. Or even the winding back of time. I think the rage had become a part of who she was. It was her identity. And she wanted to burn that, too.
I couldn’t shoot her. The only thing I could do that didn’t involve killing her was to kick that damn furnace over so that she had no way of burning what was left of the collection. This sounds like a logical sequence of thinking now, but in the moment it wasn’t like that. I pictured myself kicking it over and then – in the same thought-second – I was kicking it over. I ran towards it and kicked it from the side so that it wouldn’t topple on her. As a result it fell towards the alcove and the contents – wood, singed butterflies, paper – spilt out onto the carpet and towards the great silk drapes. I had no time to stop the fire igniting them because Edith was now lunging at me with the broken shard of a smashed case. I backed away making an effort to look like someone who would actually fire the gun that I was still, lamely, pointing at her with the safety catch on.
The Killing of Butterfly Joe Page 35