House of Dead Trees

by Rod Redux

  His mother was wrong. He did understand… he understood perfectly.

  Jane

  1

  It was 1,033 miles from Dunsany, Massachusetts, to the town of Cypress in Southern Illinois, where the Forester House awaited. Jane, Raj and the two Dans made the two-day trip ahead of the rest of the gang, taking a couple of the black SUVs that featured on the program. The fans of the show called the vehicles the Mystery Machines, when the subject of their rides came up on the forums.

  They always went ahead of the rest of the cast unless a location was near the studio. There was a day’s worth of preliminary work to be done before they could even think about taping a segment, and a property had to be vetted to make sure it was safe and suitable for filming as well. That was Raj’s responsibility. Several times in the past, a shoot had been called off when Raj deemed a property too decrepit or uninteresting to film. Sending a preliminary team saved their production company a lot of money if a potential location didn’t pan out.

  Although her presence was not strictly required, Jane often went ahead with the scout crew so she could do some onsite research. She interviewed the locals, visited the historical society, if there was one. Frequently, her investigations uncovered some interesting nugget-- a scandal or some bit of historical trivia-- they could work into an episode, details that might not otherwise have come to light. At the least, her contributions kept the history buffs hooked. Much of the appeal of a haunting was the link it provided to the past—pleasant or unpleasant. A sense of life’s continuance.

  While Jane did her research, Raj and the two Dans usually met with the owner of the property. They toured the location so the Dans could get the lay of the land, figure out how to prep the site, and then, while they set up the cameras, lights, and all the electronic equipment the Ghost Scouts needed to do their “investigation”, Raj briefed the property owner, explaining how they filmed, and what he or she could expect for the next day or so.

  It was also Raj’s responsibility to get the various contracts and releases they needed signed by the owner, so everything was neat and legal.

  Allen, Billy and Tish usually arrived the following day for the taping. Because of the distance, they were flying in for this one.

  Though the average person might cringe at the thought of a sixteen-hour drive, Jane rarely found the long trips tedious. She enjoyed traveling, watching the country unfold for her like the pages of a never-ending popup storybook. She had her computer and cell phone, too, so she could research and make phone inquiries should she weary of watching the scenery roll by, but she rarely got bored. It was a big country, and there was a lot to see. She probably would have made a good trucker, she thought, if she hadn’t hooked up with the Ghost Scouts.

  And Raj was good company.

  In fact, in the years they’d been doing this, driving ahead to scout a location, Jane had gradually begun, she suspected, to fall for the lanky Indian.

  He wasn’t what you might call “traditionally handsome”. He was certainly no babe like Billy. He didn’t have Allen’s forceful personality either, but familiarity—rather than breeding contempt, as the old saw dictated—had sown the seeds of a deep-rooted appreciation for the man’s keen intellect and gentle nature.

  Rajanikanta Chandramouleeswaran was too thin, and his nose was too big, and his cheeks were pocked by the fading scars of a teenage war of attrition with acne, but he was sweet and soft-spoken, intelligent and protective, and Jane found herself drawn to him more and more as the years went by.

  Not that he could possibly be interested in someone like her. She wasn’t exactly supermodel material. Her face was round and plain, her boobs just average, and she’d begun, just in the last year or two, to detect some cellulite on her butt and the backs of her thighs. She’d bought a treadmill and tried a few fad diets, but the cellulite clung stubbornly on, like those facehugger creatures in the Aliens movies, only to her ass instead of her face.

  Guys didn’t exactly go gaga for cottage cheese butt these days, so she kept her burgeoning fondness for Raj to herself. She’d never been one to throw herself at men anyway. Never had been. If she ended up a childless cat-lady, so be it. Her biological clock might be winding down, but she’d seen the unhappiness that lurked in the eyes of women who’d settled for Mr. He’ll-Do far too many times in her life to blunder into the same trap herself.

  “It says here,” Jane spoke from the passenger seat, her laptop open on her thighs, “that the region we’re going to is called ‘Little Egypt’. The region has been likened to Egypt’s Nile delta, it says, because of its fertile soil and the fact that it sits at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, the most voluminous rivers in the United States.”

  “Interesting,” Raj replied.

  Jane nodded, scrolling down the page.

  “In its early days, it was more closely affiliated with the southern agricultural economy than it was to the North,” she read aloud. “Southern Illinois is the oldest-- and at one time it was also the wealthiest-- region of Illinois. It’s best known for its rich history and plethora of antebellum architecture.” She peeked at Raj and said, “We ought to document some of the antebellum architecture while we’re there. Judging from the pictures on the internet, it’s very romantic, Gone-with-the- Wind-looking stuff.”

  Raj nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Smiling, Jane read on: “The wooded hills of Southern Illinois are often referred to as the Illinois Ozarks, although the region is not generally considered part of the true Ozark mountain country. The Shawnee National Forest covers a large portion of this rocky highland region, including seven wilderness areas: Garden of the Gods, Bay Creek, Clear Springs, etcetera, etcetera.”

  Their walkie-talkie crackled then and Big Dan’s voice issued from the speaker. “Hey, Raj, we need to stop at the next rest area. Little Dan’s got to drop off a monstrous steamer.”

  Raj and Jane glanced at one another and burst out laughing.

  Raj checked the GPS unit, then reached for the walkie-talkie. He keyed the transmitter button and said, “That’s a big ten-four. Looks like we’re just about at the halfway point. We’ll stop at the next exit that has a gas station or restaurant, then look for a place to spend the night.”

  “Copy that, boss,” Big Dan replied. “Little Dan says we gotta hurry, though.”

  “Tell ‘em I’m prairie dogging it.”

  “He says he’s prairie dogging it.”

  Jane looked at the SUV behind them, then met Raj’s eyes. “Oh my God!” she snorted.

  Grinning, Raj said, “Copy that. Try to squeeze your buttcheeks together. Over.” Laughing, he placed the walkie-talkie back in its charging cradle.

  “We really ought to separate them,” Jane said.

  “Do you want to drive the rest of the way with either of them?” Raj asked.

  “On second thought… let’s leave them together.”

  “I agree.”

  2

  Fifteen minutes later, Raj hit the blinker and they veered off I-76 West and headed toward a large truck stop. They were about thirty miles east of Akron, Ohio, pretty close to the midway point of their journey.

  It was a rural, undeveloped area overlooked by woody hills. The truck stop, which was surrounded by broad open fields, was called Bailey’s Truck Center. It was a combination filling station and restaurant, with diesel pumps in the back and a great stretch of well-maintained parking for semis.

  Jane put her laptop to sleep and tucked it under her seat as Raj pulled into the truck stop’s parking lot. She was eager to get out of the SUV and stretch her legs. They’d been driving for hours.

  “Let’s fill up before we go inside to eat,” Raj said into the walkie-talkie.

  “Copy that,” Big Dan replied.

  As Raj pulled up to one of the pumps, Jane put her hair in a ponytail and slipped on a baseball cap. Of the four travelers, she was the most recognizable. The Dans were rarely on camera, and people didn’t usually identify Raj-- pro
bably because of his ethnicity, she surmised. She took off her trademark hornrim glasses and put on a pair of prescription sunglasses, then smiled at Raj.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  “Gorgeous,” Raj replied seriously.

  “Yeah, right,” Jane scoffed, dismissing his compliment with a flap of her hand.

  Wish he really meant that, she thought.

  She didn’t notice the way Raj’s eyebrows beetled together momentarily.

  Jane stepped out of the SUV and stretched with a groan as the Dans pulled up to the pumps behind them. Little Dan leapt from the other vehicle and shuffled past Jane, a panicked look on his face, one hand gripping the seat of his jeans.

  Big Dan got out a second later, waving his hand in disgust. “I’m not sure the little guy made it,” he said with a horrified laugh. “I think we’re going to have to let the SUV air out before we hit the road again.”

  Jane put her hand over her mouth, trying to conceal her amusement.

  “Excuse me, love,” Raj said then, touching her elbow as he stepped around her. Jane moved aside, and he swiped his credit card in the pump’s card reader, then pushed some buttons and lifted the nozzle from its cradle. He jammed the nozzle into the SUV’s tank and started pumping.

  Jane ambled away, wondering at the thrill she’d felt at Raj’s touch, the way he’d called her “love”. Of course, Billy was physically affectionate towards her as well, and he was gay, so she shouldn’t misconstrue Raj’s behavior, read more into his soft touch than there really was.

  As she meandered across the tarmac, the drone of all the diesel engines combined into a singular hum, one it seemed she could feel as well as hear. It sounded like a swarm of giant metal bees, felt like a low electric current in her skin. It was lulling in the afternoon heat, that sound-sensation, made her feel dreamy, drowsy. Hummmmm…

  He’s not seeing anyone right now, Jane thought. In fact, he never dates. Maybe he’s shy. I might have to make the first move.

  Brightly colored annuals frothed in the concrete planters that lined the front of the station. She paused to identify the flowers. Impatiens. Marigolds. Petunias. A riot of yellow, orange, red and purple.

  A lavender nimbus of reflected sunlight surrounded each planter. The flowers were beautiful, despite the cigarette butts and soda bottles that had been cast carelessly amid the blossoms.

  Sensual things, flowers, she thought.

  Their petals always reminded her of the female organ’s delicate flesh, that inward spiral, as enticing as a Georgia O’keeffe watercolor. Yet, flowers embodied both the male and female aspect, didn’t they? The stamen, the stem…

  Jane glanced over her shoulder at Raj. His back was turned to her, the muscles of his buttocks clearly delineated beneath the light fabric of his cotton summer slacks. Jane remembered reading somewhere that the muscularity of the buttocks was an indicator of male fertility. Jane realized her nipples had become painfully, sensually erect, and she blushed furiously.

  Flowers always make me think about sex, she thought.

  Her uncle’s voice suddenly rang out in her memories. “That’s a good girl, Janey. Just work around the edge with your fingers, pack it in there good and firm. You’re doing a great job!”

  “Like this, Uncle Rick?” she heard her nine-year-old self ask. She was sitting Indian-style in one of the greenhouses, dirt smeared across her thighs, tee shirt clinging to her chest with sweat. She was helping her father and uncle repot plants, taking the root-bound sprouts from the containers they had outgrown and placing them into larger ones, then scooping dirt in around the edges, using her fingers to tamp the black potting soil in so there were no air pockets. The plants would wilt if there were air pockets.

  “Make sure you sprinkle some fertilizer on ‘em,” her uncle said, leaning over her. He put his hand on her head, smiling down at her, and she smelled his body, a mélange of cigarettes and sweat and the cologne he always wore. She couldn’t remember what it was called, that cologne, but it came in colored glass bottles shaped like racing cars or vintage automobiles.

  Uncle Rick had moved in after her mom died. He’d just gotten divorced and had nowhere else to go, so her father had taken him in. Uncle Rick helped with the family business, Riverside Nursery and Garden Center. That was the theory anyway. He mostly just drank and smoked cigarettes. He also slept in the breezeway by the garage… just down the hall from her bedroom.

  “You’re getting real good at that,” Uncle Rick complimented her, his hand trailing down the back of her neck.

  “She’s a hard worker, just like her old man,” her father said, sitting in the next row. “Pop a squat. She’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Uncle Rick’s shadow on top of her. Smell of Pall Malls and racecar cologne.

  “I just got done with them little spruces over there. Lemme rest fer a minute.”

  Jane swayed beside the concrete planters.

  Goodness! she thought, lightheaded. The heat must be getting to me!

  She turned away from Raj and hurried inside where it was dim and cool, hectic red splotches tattooing her cheeks. She leaned against a video slot machine and tried to catch her breath, sweat beading her brow.

  “Here ya go, sissy. Spread those cheeks and sit down here on Uncle Rick’s lap…” And then the hot slippery sensation of her uncle’s erect penis sliding in between her legs. The heat, the flowers, her uncle’s cock sawing back and forth between her sweaty thighs.

  “A-bounce a-girl, Janey. A-bounce a—“

  SHUT UP! Jane screamed inside her head, and suddenly the voices, the memories, were gone, and it was just her again inside her skull-- quietly, blessedly alone.

  “You okay, hon?” someone asked behind her. A man’s voice. She turned and blinked at a clerk who was mopping up a pool of red slushy mix at the end of the aisle. His name tag said, Hi, My Name is Richard! He had sandy blonde hair and a mustache.

  “Yes, Richard. I’m fine, thank you,” she said, surprised how even her voice sounded.

  He remembered his name was pinned to his breast pocket and grinned sheepishly. “You sure? You look a little pale.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and then she pushed away from the Cherry Slots and walked to the ladies room to splash some cold water on her face.

  3

  Of course, no one knew about the sexual abuse she’d suffered at her uncle’s hands. No one besides Billy, that was. She’d told Billy about the things her uncle did to her the afternoon the two of them tried to make love. Billy was the only person she’d ever trusted with her secret. Not even Raj knew, and he was-- next to Billy-- probably the closest friend she had in the world.

  They were seventeen and curious, Jane and Billy, down in the rec room in the basement of Billy’s house. They were supposed to be studying for an English exam, but they had spent the afternoon making out instead, lying on a futon mattress on the floor beside the billiards table.

  The radio was playing-- the Cure singing “Why Can’t I Be You?”-- and they felt safe because they could track the movements of everyone upstairs by the creaking of the floor above their head. Twice one of Billy’s parents had come down to check on them, and they’d hurriedly returned to their text books.

  Finally, dizzy with desire, Jane decided to give herself to him, but when they got their knickers to their knees, she saw that Billy was limp as a noodle. She’d tried to get him up, confused and embarrassed.

  “What’s wrong? Is it me?” she’d asked, and he had burst into tears.

  Hauling his pants up, he told her no, it wasn’t her, and then he’d confessed. It wasn’t her, it was him; he was queer.

  “Please, don’t tell anyone!” he had begged her. “If my dad ever found out…!”

  Billy’s father was a stern ex-marine, a loud and critical disciplinarian, and (she suspected) a little too free with his fists. His temper was notoriously short-fused, and he made no secret of his contempt for liberals, commies and limp-wristed faggots. Thinking of all the
times Jane had heard Billy’s father snarl, “I can’t stand that queer shit!” at the TV, while Billy’s brothers nodded in simpatico, Jane had fervently hugged and kissed her friend, trying to sooth him.

  “I won’t tell anyone, Billy! I promise!” she swore as he lay trembling beside her on the futon mattress.

  She was crying, too-- in sympathy with him at first, but then she realized she was crying for herself as well, because she was as much a pariah as Billy was; he for what he was, she for what had been done to her. Both of them had to keep their true selves hidden from the outside world.

  Once the realization struck her, it was like someone threw the floodgates open, and they had both sobbed hysterically, clasped in one another’s arms. She had blurted out her own confession then, as he clenched her to him, her bare breasts pressed to his chest, his long dark hair stuck wetly to her cheeks and lips.

  Her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer when Jane was seven years old, she told him. Jane was too young at the time to really understand what was going on, even though her mother and father had sat her on the sofa in the TV room and tried to prepare her for her mother’s passing.

  They had tried to soften the blow with pleasant sounding euphemisms, talking about how God worked in mysterious ways and how they’d all be reunited in heaven someday. Perhaps they’d softened it too much, because none of it had seemed real to her as she sat playing with her Super Teen Skipper doll. She didn’t understand why both of them broke down crying as they told her about her mother’s illness. They said it was just temporary, that it was just until they all died and went to heaven, and then they’d be together again.

  Her mother had quickly succumbed to the cancer eating her brain, but even when she was gone, it had seemed to Jane that the whole tragic affair was no more real than the soap operas her mother used to watch in the afternoons. In a week or two, Jane believed-- deep down inside where our most fervent fantasies dwelt-- that her mother would return, and it would be like none of it had ever happened: her mother getting frailer day by day, withering like a flower uprooted from the earth, the hospital visits, her father waking her in the middle of the night, crying uncontrollably, babbling she’s gone, Janey, she’s gone! The endless visitation and funeral service, the empty house the two of them came home to when all of it was over.