by Nick Craine
Fact: Date rape was a term not in use then, being largely an unacknowledged recreational activity.
Fiction: Dick had done “everything he could to save her.” He’d been “devastated” by her death and would “never get over it.”
Mrs. H would be very annoyed with Chellis for using the term fiction interchangeably with that of falsehood, because fiction conveyed deeper truths. Okay, fine, he bought that, why not, but with the purchase he also wanted conveyance to some immediate truths. He began to wonder if his employer had done something that required the services of a Reputation Management specialist, a career that for Dick had begun in high school. Writers committed crimes aplenty, but these usually involved punctuation, vanity, absurd optimism, and self-pity. None of which were Athena’s failings. They also wrote savage reviews of their contemporaries’ work, dissed their publishers and agents, diddled with their friends’ wives/husbands, and slipped knives into unwary backs, but not literally. They were criminals of the figurative. Usually. What would propel a writer to commit an actual murder? Serious plagiarism found out? A vicious rejection (editorial boards being the favoured haunt of sadists)? The extremes of publicity? Sinister, out-of-control research? Or the standard motives that drove even normal people around the twist: love, money, revenge. Writers happily waded in fictional buckets of blood, splashed it around liberally, killed off characters by the score, and even settled a few personal scores in the process. But the type was too squeamish and sane and cowardly – and principled, don’t forget – to wander into the genuine dark side where real horrors lurked. Writing about murder didn’t accustom one to the actual deed surely, didn’t tempt one to cross that most forbidding of moral boundary lines. Although any provocation could take a disturbed mind there. Injury, invention, zealous belief. An over-cooked mind could justify to itself any perfidy in whatever screwed-up way. If justification came into it at all.
Still, he couldn’t see Mrs Havlock doing anything truly nasty. Whereas Dick? No question.
It might not have been her in the car, of course. Dick may have developed a taste for the mature, well-seasoned female. Could have been his own mother with him. Did Dick have a mother? Mothers did seem to be in short supply, although one might have come with the car, an upmarket human accessory who reminded you to flick on your turn signal or nagged you about driving too fast.
Accessory to the crime.
Vis-à-vis tricky plot situations, Mrs. H had on occasion asked Chellis what Marcel Lazar would think. Think? he had always wanted to reply, and would have if Athena weren’t so enamoured of her creation. Lazar’s brain was made of paper, his vitals nothing more than squiggles of black ink! He could have a whole Dummies series written for him alone. He was a flat man, a dead man, inflate him with your imagination, dear reader. But now, glancing in the rearview mirror and noticing not for the first time since he’d left Claymore that he was being followed, he found himself wondering, What would Lazar do?
Hit the gas, that’s what.
As he bore down on the accelerator, his car made a sluggish, albeit earnest effort to pick up speed. It voiced a few economy car zoom-zoom noises, fooling no one except Uncle Bob in the back, who slid silently to the floor.
“C’mon baby,” urged Chellis, and baby was doing her best, but the shadowing vehicle was gaining ground. He glanced around nervously, assessing the terrain for portals to alternate realities. He zoomed along like a Sunday driver through this dingier, ungroomed stretch of the province. The very source, he assumed, of its literary gothic reputation. Wealth, if it had ever graced this locale, had long ago packed up its booty and moved to the city. The houses were quietly derelict on the outside and ragingly oppressive within. Of this he was aware because he could almost see the desperation, generationsdeep, pouring out of the windows like smoke. Romantic if you had a means of escape or thrilled to the sight of unhinged shutters, cracked brick, junked cars in the front yard, and stands of overgrown lilac bushes originally planted to absorb the smell from the crapper out back. These houses were upright rectangular containers for no-fun Presbyterianism, incest, and dads wearing green work pants, pilled cardigans buttoned in the wrong holes, and thin nylon socks twisted at the ankle, heels sticking out like teddy bear ears. The Sears catalogue the only reading matter in sight . . . .
His pursuer was almost on him and signalling Chellis to stop. Shit on a shingle, it was the fuzz.
If placed under duress, he might have to admit to being snotty and unfair to the residents of this economically embarrassed stretch of wherever.
Chellis pulled over and cut the engine, causing his car to tick tick tick, winding down as if it were about to relax on the road like one of Dali’s molten clocks. He rolled down the window and smiled winningly at the approaching figure, even though he didn’t approve of the forest ranger style of the newish O.P.P. uniforms – so Smokey. And since he was privately grousing, he also didn’t approve of the way the news announcers on the CBC had adopted the American pronunciation of the word “missile.” Let’s keep our military argot distinct, as well as our overseas operations. He wouldn’t bring that up now, but he might if things got contentious.
“Afternoon, sir,” the cop said.
“Officer.” A pup, which promised easy intimidation. Child labour in the Western World, that’s how it seemed the older he got. Doctors, plumbers, and other figures of authority – all children.
“You in a hurry?”
“Funeral. I’m late.”
“Uh-huh. What’s wrong with your head?”
Interesting. Here was a question Elaine herself had often posed, and for once he had an answer. He touched one of his ailing, bandaged temples. “I have complexion issues.”
“I see. I have quota issues. You were going one kilometre over the speed limit.”
“Seriously? You’d give me a ticket for that?”
“Mind if I have a look in your trunk?”
Yes. “Not at all.”
Chellis removed the key from the ignition and hopped out, taking care not to knock the officer on his arse by opening the door with an overabundance of cooperation. They both walked to the back of the car, Chellis noting with much satisfaction that the cop was shorter than he was. That too had changed, the O.P.P height requirements, allowing women and minorities, elves for example, into the force.
“You think I have a body stowed in here?” Chellis asked breezily.
The cop gave him a look that said plenty, and none of it reflecting well on Chellis’s character. He opened the trunk to reveal a cache of homemade crosses, plastic ferns and flowers, the Raggedy Ann doll, and other maudlin memorabilia of the highway departed.
“What’s this crap?” Obviously a dead body would have been a less offensive sight.
“Um, I did say that I was going to a funeral.”
“You stole this stuff?” The officer took a step backward and eyed Chellis with . . . horror? Perplexity? Admiration? Don’t ask.
He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pad and pen.
“What, you’re giving me a ticket for cleaning up the road?”
“Nope.”
“For speeding? In this thing?” He gave his car a kick, adding injury to insult – the bootlace that had been holding up the tailpipe broke and clattered noisily onto the road. “You haven’t even asked for my licence.” Then he thought, Bugger, did I bring it?
“Right, that reminds me.” The officer dug into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet, which he handed to Chellis.
Generous!
“You left it at the liquor store.”
“I did? Geez, thanks.”
“That’s why I was following you, to give it back. And to check for a body in the trunk. Suzie said you were acting suspicious. Impersonating a detective, for one thing.”
The little prick. “I was suspicious, I’ll be wanting to count my cash. Or do you mean, suspiciously?” Save the Adverb. “I do sometimes act that way. Girls like it.”
“Yeah?” The cop sm
iled. “I was hoping you could do me a favour?” He scribbled something in the notebook, tore off the sheet, folded it, and handed it to Chellis.
“You do have quota issues?”
“Nah. If you could give this to Cindy, she’s a waitress at the coffee shop in Kinchie, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Why, sure. Be happy to.” Kinchie was next up, so it’s not as though his itinerary was common knowledge. “Which coffee shop?”
“Only one in town, can’t miss it.” He walked back to his car and got in, calling out, “Have a nice funeral.”
“I will.” Chellis waved as the officer did a U-ey and drove off. But when he bent down to tie the tailpipe back on, he thought, I will?
10
Body Burden
UNDENIABLY, hard things come at you through your soft life. Surprise existential meteors blaze into your charmed atmosphere and a glowing corona of good fortune is no protection. At the moment of impact you may even be snarled in the strictures of complaint, although honestly what’s there to complain about if one is sufficiently hydrated and moisturized, well-fed, comfortably and stylishly clothed, psychologically healthy (more or less), ditto physically, relatively debt-free, and young enough? You may even be shod in a pair of hip Beatle boots and staring down at their splendid, time-prinking toe caps, trying not to splatter them as you take a leak on the grassy mound of a vintage corpse (1918, a very good year) in the Kinchie graveyard. Golden showers for the deceased, voiding into the void.
You, no not you . . . Chellis could take this opportunity before the hard thing arrives to count his blessings, to appreciate the wonder of life itself, to consider that he has been spared disability, disease, poverty, and random violence (for the next few seconds anyway). Instead, he was grooving in a piss-meditation (it had been a long trip) and wondering what it might be like to marry and settle down with Cindy, the waitress at the Kinchie coffee shop. He had not yet clapped eyes upon Cindy, but has managed nonetheless to come up with an image, a composite of all the waitresses he has ever encountered in small towns (sensibly excluding Bev from The Age Spot). She’s a comely enough girl, a bit husky of build, the hair a bit too crisp from over-bleaching, the rose/fairy/teardrop tattoo on her ankle or on the cusp of her right buttock a bit too predictable, the tongue a bit too sharp, but all the better for slicing off her g’s and droppin’ them like so much mealy-mouthed verbiage. Still. She might do. Little white clapboard house on one of the side streets, linoleum flooring, furniture constructed from wood product, leftover instant scalloped potatoes in the fridge, a lilac polyester comforter with an abstract design on the bed, an indefinable whitish splat on the speaker mesh of the clock radio . . . Friday nights at the Legion, curling bonspiels, annual hunting trip up north, bake sales, road hockey with the two boys . . . the dog running off with the tennis ball. Hey, come back here with that, ahh . . . what’s the dog’s name? Nietzsche? No. No Nietzsches allowed. Chellis would have to put up a sign to that effect. Duct-tape it to the front window.
Naturally he had read the note the cop had asked him to deliver. Read it quicker than you can say, “MARRY ME.” Which is exactly what the note did say. Only that. If Chellis handed it over as promised, wouldn’t that put him in a ticklish position? Cindy would take one look at the note, then at him, see what she was getting, and despite their utterly brief acquaintance, would exclaim, Yes, yes, oh yes!
Too bad for Elaine. Tough beans, rough rocks. Yep, he’d drive his truck into Farclas once in awhile, go to the big box hardware store, pass Elaine in her Smartypants Car, give her a one-finger wave, maybe two. Better things on his mind . . . (nor would he waste time peppering his thoughts with superfluous ellipses, the serial dribble of grammatical shot) . . . wrenches, a Robertson screwdriver, male and female plugs. Him, a tight-lipped, minimally-smiling country boy in a faded blue-check flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up, golden hairs provocatively mussed on his tanned and muscled forearms. (He’d still secretly vote NDP or Green, despite saving a few bucks at the antiunion, screw-the-little-guy big box.)
Finishing up, the mound well-watered, Chellis was reminded of a couple of Elaine’s proto-inventions for the forgetful male. Very clever, he had to admit, but problematic all the same. The “Flycatcher” was to be a tiny security system intended for implantation in the crotch of a man’s pants, its purpose being to alert him when he neglects to zip up. Chellis could see how such a device might come in handy, especially for your thinking man, your absent-minded professor type, but there were romantic occasions when an alarm, however muted, would definitely be a spoiler. Which he had helpfully brought to her attention.
“Romantic occasions? When do you have those?” Elaine had retorted. “Although I see your point.”
“My love life is robust, thank you very much, and don’t say it’s on my head.”
“The point? Only you would say something like that, Chel. I’m much nicer.”
“No you’re not.”
The other fledgling device was a remote control auto-zip for those who discover themselves to be gaping (down there) whilst in public. You simply reach into your pocket to hit the remote, or touch a disguised button on your tie pin, and up goes your zipper, crawling as surreptitiously as a real fly, or zooming up with real zzzzzzip.
“Okay, great, wonderful,” had been his assessment of this one. “What if it malfunctions? Guy gets trapped in his pants or caught in the zipper, yow. Or severed, nipped in the bud? Don’t you think these ideas through, Laney? I suppose you could use the remote to undo other people’s zippers at a board meeting or a party. Now that would be fun, kids would love it.”
“Damn, you’re right. Ruin my life, will you.”
“Doing my best.”
In envisioning Elaine’s wholesome, lovely, exasperated face, his Cindy simulation was entirely eclipsed. He grinned, thinking about the Home Psychiatry Kit, reached down to zip up, and then crumpled, felled by the sudden (to him) arrival of the hard thing. His body, with its freight of pollutants and cellular deposits of mercury, lead, formaldehyde, DDT, and bisphenol A hit the ground like a bag of wet crap. His mouth, opened in shock, took in a sampler of Kinchie soil, compact as Christmas cake with loamy corpse-enriched earth, stones the sizes of raisins, snails, friendly bacteria and not-so-friendly weed killer. A tincture of his precious bodily fluids – eight parts water, and two parts alcohol – leaked out of his eyes. He knew he wasn’t unconscious because he heard the swish-swish sound of someone running through the cemetery. Unless that was the sound of the blood in his head making a rapid retreat from the disaster zone in his occipital region.
The sound was gone. All sounds were gone, except for a gull keening in the distance. He didn’t think he was dying, but it was a fantastic idea and the setting was perfect. As an iota of bent reflection remained possible, he took advantage of the opportunity by recalling that Marcel Lazar was always getting cracked on the bean, beaten-up, kicked in the groin. Chellis hugely enjoyed those parts of Mrs. Havlock’s books, and he suspected that she did, too – slapping the guy around. No harm in that, it was a feature of the genre. Literature. Life. It really didn’t do to let one bleed into the other, he now decided. Let the unfeeling Lazar take the hard knocks. Chellis was going to have to guard the borders with a great deal more vigilance, like a kid keeping everything separate on his dinner plate. What time was it anyway? Dinner time, Mr. Wolf. The grass here didn’t taste that bad, especially lightly dressed in his own urine (nectar of the celebs), better than Laney’s idea of greens.
Chellis heard footsteps again, someone hastily approaching. Seeing as a deceased individual lay in the earth directly beneath him, missionary position, there was a good chance that his new arrival was a furious descendant come to finish him off. Piss on my grandad, will you! He blinked a couple of times and inclining his head slightly caught sight of two objects resting about a yard, metre, cubit, or verge away . . . it was a smorgasbord of short distance, his cerebral storage bins having tipped over. One of these objects was a cheru
b’s stone head, the size of a Sicilian blood orange, and the other was a golf ball. Choose your weapon.
“Omigod, are you all right? I mean, oh hell, I’m sorry!”
A pair of brand new, blindingly white sneakers came into view. Chellis raised his chin, upon which was decoratively affixed a yellowed willow leaf, and directly under his bottom lip, wriggling like an electric soul patch, was a centipede. A pair of large fingers reached down, picked the centipede off, and sent it back to its job of making the world a better place (every little bit helps). This was not the bloody-minded assailant, then. But rather, as it turned out, one Robert Burns, a recently retired high-school history teacher who had been out on the golf course next to the graveyard, despairing and knocking golf balls into deep space.
Chellis sat up and spat out a wad of saliva mixed with blood and dirt. “Couldn’t be better,” he said. Jaunty Lazar-speak. He was annoyed to hear it issuing from his own mouth.
“I can’t believe I hit you. Half the time I can’t even hit the damn ball.” Robert helped him to his feet. “You crack your head on the stone? You feeling dizzy? Look, we better get you to Emergency.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Chellis touched the back of his head where a dinosaur egg was forming. “Could use a drink, though.”
Robert reached into his windbreaker pocket and produced a silver flask upon which his initials were inscribed in a lavish, swirly typeface. “Retirement present, and the best thing about golf.” He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Chellis. “Ditto fishing, woodworking, and sitting on your fanny reading old Reader’s Digests.”
Chellis took a long, grateful pull. “That’s better. Usque beatha, water of life.” He took another, more discerning sip. “An eighteen-year-old Talisker. Even better than an eighteen-year-old.”
“I guess you haven’t met Cindy.”
Chellis took another sip. “Cindy of the coffee shop? Not yet.” He handed the flask back. “She’s something, is she?” He walked over to the cherub’s head and scooped it up. Holding it cupped in his hand, he surveyed the crime scene, while its blank stone eyes stared up at him. There did not appear to be any decapitated statuary within view.