by Leo Bonanno
Richard went on ahead after we left the dining room, trudging up a long winding staircase. I had first planned on walking straight as well, passing the staircase and down the long sterile hall to my room. Fate, however, had different plans for me that evening. I did not move forward, but rather backed up and veered left. Apparently fate was urging me passed the kitchen towards Wilson McCune’s study. Fate clearly wanted me to eavesdrop on a very loud conversation.
At first it was nothing but thunderous yells and a few thuds from a stomping foot. Then, as I passed the kitchen doorway and the rumble of the dishwasher, it started coming in clear. “Daddy, please!” Cheryl begged. I was close enough to peer through the crack in the door. I could see her fists clenched in frustration. She was obviously screaming at her father, whom I couldn’t see at first, but who then came whizzing into my field of vision. He put on the brakes just inches away from his daughter’s legs.
“Absolutely not! I forbid you to even think about cavorting with that man-no…that spying weasel!”
“Daddy, don’t punish Lewis and I for his father’s behavior. It’s not fair. Please, stop this!” Wilson’s eyes bulged out from his skull.
“Fair?” He said manically, with his head cocked to one side and an eerie smirk on his face. “Do you call being cheated out of my own money fair? I sure as hell don’t!” He said, now screaming again. “A man cheats your father, your family and you want to marry his son? You’ve got a snowman’s chance in hell of pulling that off, my dear!”
“But Daddy-”
“And one more thing,” Wilson threw his chair into reverse. He whizzed out of sight but stopped off to the right, in front of his fireplace. His shadow loomed over his daughter and half the room in a kind of ghostly shroud. I watched and listened as the shadow of Wilson McCune lay down his decree. “If you bump into Lewis Norville on the street; if you write him or call him or whisper his name in your sleep; if you so much as glance in his general direction, you’re out and off!” Cheryl drew her hands to her face. She looked terrified. I didn’t blame her. Staring at her monstrous father in front of that roaring fire was something I’m sure she’s still trying to forget to this day. I would later go to bed and thank God that I hadn’t seen it directly myself.
“You wouldn’t…” Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes.
“Wouldn’t I? Just think about all the money I’d be saving without having to pay for your wardrobe and your hair appointments and your visits to the nail salons and spas. I’m sure your brothers would be very happy to take your share of my empire off your hands. As the oldest, you’d undoubtedly get the biggest piece of the pie. Richard, or maybe one of the others, could put it to good use, I’m sure. Donald doesn’t have the sense for large numbers, but I’m sure he’d enjoy it just the same.” The shadow was tapping the temple of its head. Cheryl’s hand dropped to her side.
“Others? What others?”
“Well, Maddie, of course. Or Nona, or Thomas, or any one of my faithful staff.”
“You’d give my share to the help? The help!” She looked as though she was eating something slimy and repulsive.
“Every penny,” he replied flatly. He rolled forward and into view again, his shadow shrinking back down to that of a man’s. “I believe our discussion is over.” Cheryl ran to the right and I heard a door slam. Wilson whizzed to the left, hollered out to Thomas, and another door slammed to mimic the first.
My heart was racing. It was like watching a play live on stage, except this play was real and a hell of a lot juicier in terms of plot. The highs, the lows; I was feeling them all right along with the players. I felt them in my heart and my gut, and then I felt a large hand drop onto my shoulder.
“Good God!” Thomas stood in front of me, looming in the mixture of light and shadows. I craned my neck upwards to stare into his eyes. “What the hell are you doing, Lurch?” Thomas lifted a silver tray into the light. On it rested a glass of water and a single pill. It was tiny and brown, with OXIZALE engraved on it.
“And you sir?” He asked. He bent forward and whispered “Eavesdropping runs in your family, I see.”
“I’ll have you know I was just coming to thank Mr. McCune for his hospitality when that little tiff started,” I thumbed towards the door. “And I’ll thank you very much to loose that condescending tone with me, Jeeves.”
“Meant nothing by it,” he said with a monotone and a smirk. He brushed past me and pushed open the door. Light flooded the hallway, forcing me to shield my unadjusted eyes. He suddenly turned to me. “A warning though, Mr. Hunt. In this house, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong can only result in one thing…wishing you hadn’t.”
Thomas turned and walked towards the door to the left, into McCune’s bedroom. I turned on my heels and headed back towards Maddie’s room, muttering profanities the entire way.
“Oh big deal,” Maddie said. “Wilson fights with at least two people in this house every night, including myself.” She was lying in bed, her eyelids heavy.
“But Maddie, he actually threatened to-”
“Cut her out of the will and kick her out blah blah blah.” She looked awful. “It’s how he keeps them here and under his thumb. It’s how he keeps us all here. That man may be gruff on the outside, but he’d whimper like a puppy locked in the bathroom if he were left alone for too long. He doesn’t scare me at all,” she finished with a yawn. I looked at the night table next to her bed and saw the bottle of pills Dr. Witcham had given her to help her sleep the next few nights. It wasn’t just food poisoning that had Dr. Witcham concerned, but Maddie’s blood pressure and the level of stress everyone in this town knew she must be under. She was sinking fast.
“But Maddie, I-”
“Reevie, go to bed. There is school tomorrow and you’ll fail your maff quis if you…” and she was gone. In her then present state, Maddie was as useful as a solar powered flashlight. I turned off her light and left the room.
Richard came in to say goodnight at about ten. I tried to get to sleep and found it was easier said than done. I eventually dropped off around eleven to the sound of the rain against my window. I didn’t stay asleep long though.
A woman’s voice. It was very faint and unrecognizable, but its owner was obviously in the midst of an altercation. Then the voice stopped, a door faintly closed, and someone was walking around. Silence came over the house again, but only temporarily. Someone started clambering around in the kitchen, sorting through noisy utensils. I got up to confront my noisy nighttime nemesis. Before I shut the door to my room, I turned and glanced at the clock next to my bed, and the red numbers 12:32 pierced the darkness.
I had assumed the woman who was arguing was the same person who was then fumbling through the kitchen. At first, I thought it was Nona since she was probably the only person in the entire house who knew her way around her kitchen. During my last visit, I stepped away from the dinner table for a clean fork. By the time I found it and returned everyone else was already finishing dessert.
I went into the dining room and peered into the light shed from the kitchen through the serving window. The womanly figure was frantically opening cabinets and drawers. She, however, was far too slender and delicate to be that cow Nona. As the woman stepped to the right towards the fridge, I saw a plate, a loaf of bread and a butter knife sitting on the countertop. As I moved forward towards the doorway, the woman brought a jar of jelly out of the fridge. The lid of the jar was slightly off, and a thin line of the strawberry jelly ran down the back of the her right hand. The veil of sleepiness finally began to lift, and I realized I was watching Cheryl McCune make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Her body was obstructing my view, but I listened as the jelly lid hit the counter. She reached for the knife, and as she pulled it in, I leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder. I heard the tiny teeth of the knife ping ping ping somewhere against the jar before it fell and hit the counter. Cheryl jumped and screamed. When she turned to look at me, I saw how much d
amage my little tap had done. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing fast. Her left hand seized her right and I realized she either cut or poked herself with the knife thanks to my surprise.
I screamed as well. Cheryl moaned a little, then ran to the left side of the kitchen and opened the cabinet below the sink. A small first-aide kit sat there amongst a forest of cleaning products. She grabbed the white and red box, opened it, and pulled out a roll of gauze. When she turned to face me, her right hand was wrapped in white bandages. I started talking quickly, like a man on the brink of a guilty verdict. “Damn! I’m sorry, Cheryl. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry, I’m sor-”
“I’m okay, relax,” she said, taking a deep breath. I followed suit.
“Are you alright?”
“Just a little jolt,” she said. “I stuck myself when you scared me.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay, really. I think I’ll survive.” She walked back to her plate. The two pieces of bread on it were still bare. At the rate she was going, she’d never finish her sandwich. “What are you doing up so late?”
“I heard someone’s voice out here. Suppose it was you.”
“Probably; that was me speaking with Daddy.”
“Oh?” I asked, intentionally playing stupid. In my experience, stupidity is the gate through which information flows, which explains why morons think they know more than they do.
“I’ve got a…situation only he can help me.”
“I see. And you felt after midnight would be the best time to discuss it?” She turned and smiled.
“There’s no time like the present, especially when you can’t sleep.” She grabbed the jelly jar and moved back towards the fridge.
“No peanut butter?” I asked, noticing that both slices of bread now had a healthy coating of jelly.
“Just jelly is good enough for me,” she said, and I laughed. I guess you didn’t keep a figure like hers through your forties by eating peanut butter and jelly.
Cheryl finished cleaning up as Nona walked in, looking cranky and balloon-like in her nightgown. “What’s going on?”
“Just getting a snack,” Cheryl said.
“I’m shocked you managed it on your own,” Nona said. “Everyone in this house bitches because they can’t find anything in here, yet you did just fine without a map or a compass. Oh, you made a sandwich and played doctor, I see,” Cheryl blushed. “If this keeps up, Mr. Hunt, I’ll be out of a job.”
“Not to worry, Nona. Cheryl still had to rummage through this room to find everything she needed. I think your job is safe for now.” We laughed like old school chums in the kitchen for a while, me mostly faking it. Cheryl eventually took her snack up to her room, and I left behind her, leaving Nona in the kitchen alone with a crumb-covered countertop. She said she couldn’t sleep knowing the kitchen was now an ant magnet.
“Once they get in, you’ll never get rid of them for good,” she said. I left her there with a goodnight and a sponge.
I passed Maddie’s room, but then backtracked and opened the door to see how she was doing. A few rays of dusty light leapt across her bed. Her empty bed. Where the hell did she go? my little voice asked, but I didn’t have an answer. I finally reached my room and went in. The clock now read 12:59. I yawned and grunted, shutting the door behind me. I hadn’t even let go of the knob when I heard footsteps approaching on the other side. Assuming it was Maddie, I opened the door again, only to close it quickly. I peered through the crack of light separating me from the hallway. Richard walked passed my room and towards his father’s, wearing a tired looking T-shirt and sweats. Poor guy can’t even get a minute’s peace at one in the morning. No wonder he screams so much. I started to shut the door when I looked down and saw that Richard was leaving moist footprints on the floor behind him. I stuck my head out a little further and watched him disappear into the darkness of the foyer. I looked back down at the footprints again, decided it was too late to care, and shut the door once more. I found my way to my bed in the dark following the beacon of red numbers that now screamed 1:05 at my eyes. I buried my head under a pillow and an inch of comforter, and prayed for sleep.
I heard the gate moving along its track and was hurled, yet again, into the world of consciousness. I peered at the blurry numbers on the clock…1:32. For a split second, I remember wondering who the hell could be coming up the drive at that hour, but the thought quickly vanished. It was undoubtedly Donald just as Richard described…drunk as a skunk.
A few minutes later, there was the sound of a key scraping across a doorknob outside, searching for a keyhole. After about a minute, the doorknob finally turned and the door swung open on squeaky hinges I didn‘t notice the day we arrived. The door slammed hard, making me jump in my skin. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was disturbed. Cheryl’s scolding voice and broken conversation filled my sleepy head. “It’s past midnight…trying to sleep…Daddy will kill you…are you nuts?” Donald, still assuming it was Donald, made some attempts at speech, but I didn’t recognize the language. “Come on…water…” Cheryl said.
The faucet was on in the kitchen, and I heard the distinct sound of ice-cubes hitting the bottom of a glass. The voices were quieter then, and I started to drift away. I heard Cheryl say something like “Dad” and “said…money,” or it could have been “honey.” Either way, I was too tired to care. Seven minutes later, I finally fell into uninterrupted slumber.
I awoke a little after eight the next morning, not by choice but by force. Someone was banging on my door demanding I open it. I sat up too fast and my head began to throb. My head fell back to the pillow while the banging continued. “Oh for the love of God, come in already!” The door opened and there was Maddie all dolled up in her uniform. “What’s your problem, Maddie?” If you wake up everyone else that way, it’s a wonder you still have a job.”
“Reevie…” She said softly, but I barely noticed.
“I had the craziest dream last night,” I began. “Yesterday, while you were all tipsy from those pills, you told me I had better go to bed because I had a math quiz the next day.”
“Reevie?”
“I dreamt I was back in Ms. Lyons’ class, sitting in my old seat-”
“Reevie, please…”
“…but get this, I was old, like I am now. There I was, crammed into one of those little desks surrounded by classmates. Here’s the worst part-”
“Reevie.”
“I wasn’t wearing anything but my underwear and a sombrero.”
“Reevan, shut up!” She exploded.
“What? What’s wrong, Maddie?” I hadn’t looked at my sister through clear eyes until then. She was in her uniform, but I had missed the important details. She was holding a Kleenex, and her eyes were wet and red. A stream of tears ran down her cheeks. “Maddie? What is it?”
“Reevie, there is someone out here who needs to speak to you.” She brought the Kleenex up to her eyes and turned away, shutting the door as she went. Already I heard voices out in the foyer. There was sobbing, and then screaming. I got dressed and went out to meet the person who demanded my attention.
The foyer was painfully bright and loud. I looked passed the noisy crowd of strangers into the dining room. Cheryl McCune was sitting in her chair with her back to me. Maddie had a hand on her shoulder. I looked back towards the throng of foreigners; about two-dozen of them seemed to be hovering about, and a small but noisy cluster of five had conjugated in the middle of the foyer at the foot of the staircase. Sunlight poured in through the open front door and flooded over them. Above, the chandelier trembled with the sounds of the ruckus.
Richard was in that cluster of people talking to a man who stood above everyone else, and who was of proportionate girth. I stepped forward towards them and was nearly knocked over by a man rushing passed. I noticed he was wearing white gloves. They are all wearing white gloves Little Reevan said, finally waking up.
I took another step forward and called out to Richar
d. He turned to me, as did his large new friend and the three others flocking around them. “Richard!” I hollered over the commotion. “What’s going on?” Richard’s colossal companion bent forward, whispered to the others and then pointed to me. Two of the little people went off towards Wilson’s room. Richard, the giant, and another shrimp started towards me.
Finally, my sleepy fog was beginning to lift. The man grew larger as he came closer. He was wearing a suit and tie along with some more of those white gloves. Richard was still in the shirt and sweats I saw him in the night before. The shrimp, who was actually Richard’s height, carried a small pad in his gloved hands.
As they drew closer, I saw Richard’s eyes begin to water. The faces of the others, all of the others, were serious and determined. There was a man kneeling down over the threshold of the front door, apparently inspecting it with a tool not unlike a letter opener. A woman was sitting down at the dining room table next to Cheryl and my sister. Her pen raced across the page as Cheryl sobbed incessantly. I turned to my right and watched as a stout bald man descended the stairs slowly, running a gloved finger over the glistening banister. A uniformed police officer stood in the corner, watching me watching them.
One didn’t have to be a genius to see what was going on. That investigative parade was no termite inspection or asbestos check. Something more serious had occurred at McCune Hall last night, and thanks to a night of constant interruptions, I had slept right through it.
An unfamiliar voice brought me back to my body. “Mr. Hunt, are you there?” I turned, craned my head upwards and locked eyes with the anonymous goliath.
“Yes, I’m here,” I answered.
“Reevan, something awful has happened.” I turned to look at Richard. He was a man. He’d been a man for quite a while. He was young and strong; the picture of health and possibilities. Just then, however, as I looked at him standing in the shadow of a giant with watered eyes, he looked like the child I used to scratch on the head when I visited my sister years ago.