Flyers (9781481414449)

by Hayes, Daniel

  The thing is, the song was so tragic and so hopeful at the same time that I could never be sure if it was pulling Pop up or dragging him down.

  I waited in the hallway until after the song was over and Pop had clicked it off with the remote. Then I stepped into the doorway, but didn’t say anything right away. There was an eerie stillness to the room that made me think of a wax museum for some reason. Pop sat frozen in his rocking chair, not rocking or puffing on his pipe, or even rubbing his temples the way he sometimes did after a long day. The room was dark, but I could see his outline clearly enough, backlit from the light of the stereo.

  “Hi, Pop,” I said, kind of softly, wondering if maybe he’d started to fall asleep in his chair.

  The chair turned slightly in my direction. “Gabriel?” Pop said hoarsely and almost as if it were a question. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “How’re you doing, Pop?” I walked into the room and sat in the chair opposite him.

  “I’m not making any serious plans to check out quite yet,” Pop said, but you wouldn’t have known it from the tone of his voice. He tried to laugh and couldn’t even pull that off.

  “How’s Mr. Lindstrom?” I had kind of a sinking feeling about this. The way Pop was acting made me think the worst had happened.

  “Hanging in there,” Pop said, nodding. “Hanging in there as well as can be expected.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “He seemed to be looking a little better when Bo and I saw him this morning. Maybe he’ll be able to come home soon.”

  “God willing,” Pop said, and nodded thoughtfully. “God willing.”

  I waited to see if he’d say anything more. He studied me a minute before going on.

  “Gabriel, there’s something I should tell you. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, but now I think it’s time I did.”

  I felt my stomach tighten. Announcing that he had something to say just wasn’t Pop’s style and didn’t seem like a good omen.

  “She’s hit him with a lawsuit,” he said. He was looking out the window, but it was too dark out there to see anything.

  “A lawsuit?” I said, puzzled and relieved at the same time. “Who?” Pop wasn’t always the most linear of thinkers, and I was used to having to guess which direction he was coming in from. He’d often agonize over different cases he was working on, and I thought at first maybe he meant the girl with the dead cat was suing her ex-boyfriend.

  “The papers were served on him three or four weeks ago,” Pop continued, still staring out the window. “I’ve no doubt the whole business contributed to the stroke. He came to me right away, upset, of course . . . more upset than I’d ever seen him—angry, embarrassed, hurt, confused, all rolled into one. I got hold of her lawyer and tried to set up a meeting between her and her father, but she refused. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him, except through her lawyer.” He gave kind of a helpless wave of his arms. “It’s moot now,” he said, “since John couldn’t sit through a meeting anyway. But it’s hard going there every day and seeing the same questions in his eyes: ‘Did you hear from her?’ ‘Is she coming?’ And each time I have to tell him no, I can see the hurt in those eyes. I’m sure he thought that whatever their differences had been, she’d want to see him now.”

  I took all this in. Of course, I knew now it was Mr. Lindstrom’s daughter he was talking about—that she was suing him and wouldn’t speak to him—but other than that none of it made much sense to me. “Why’s she suing him?” I asked.

  Pop turned and looked me in the eye. “Rachel—that’s her name—is seeking punitive damages for prolonged physical abuse, claiming, among other things, that his violence toward her over the years has damaged her chances of ever having a healthy relationship with a man.”

  “Mr. Lindstrom abused his daughter?” I said, my jaw dropping down.

  “Unfortunately, that very reaction is what makes cases of this sort so difficult. People hear the word abuse and automatically react with horror and indignation. It’s not the kind of thing anybody wants to appear to condone, so it makes it that much harder to get a client a fair shake.”

  “Do you think he did it?”

  Pop gave a little shrug. “It’s not just a matter of ’did it’ or ’didn’t do it.’ John was never one to spare the rod, as they used to say. He doesn’t deny that. He had two good hands and a leather strap, and he used them when he saw fit—probably generously, if I know John.”

  I wondered what Pop thought of this. He’d never in his life raised a hand against either Ethan or me. He never needed to. For one thing he was so easygoing it was rare for him to get upset enough, at least with us, to even want to. For another thing, when he asked us to do something, and told us he really wanted us to do it, we went and did it—simple as that. Even if it meant apologizing to somebody like Mrs. Quinby, which I wouldn’t have done in a million years on my own.

  “Do you think he’s guilty?” I said, trying my question a different way.

  Pop shrugged again. “The question is—guilty of what? Of losing his temper? Of striking someone? Of raising his kids the way he was raised, and the way I was raised?” He ran a hand through his gray hair, which late at night tended to be even wilder than usual, giving him a kind of Mark-Twain-Meets-Einstein look. “It’s a funny time we’re living through, Gabriel. I’ve lived for a while, maybe too long, but I’ve never seen a time when so many people were blaming each other for so many things. You read the papers. . . . You watch TV. It’s almost all you see. Every day my young client from that cat-poisoning affair gets treated to an earful of invectives from the animal lovers who line up outside before he’s escorted into the courtroom. If you could see their faces, contorted with a raw and ugly hatred. . . . And the things they shout . . . some of their suggested punishments . . . I’d be embarrassed to tell you. They have no way of knowing for certain if he’s even guilty, and there’s at least some evidence to suggest he’s not. Even if he is, shouldn’t he be included as one of the creatures covered by this outpouring of love they insist motivates their interest in the whole affair?” He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “I sometimes wonder whether, if Jesus were to reappear now, he’d dare try that ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ business again. If he did, I suspect prudent men everywhere would duck for cover from the onslaught of the ‘pure at heart.’” He reached over for his pipe and held it, but didn’t light it. “The truth is we all come into the world imperfect, and whether we like to admit it or not, we’ve all caused our share of harm to others, through stubbornness, or selfishness, or just plain weakness. And maybe because I’ve caused more than my share, it disturbs me to see just how unforgiving people can be. I don’t know—maybe I’m afraid this is all a preview of my own Judgment Day.”

  I thought about this. The idea of Judgment Day had always fascinated me. I’d read a couple of different books by people who claimed to have died and come back to life, and they both said the same thing—that Judgment Day actually consists of you judging yourself. You sit there and watch your life play out before you, and you see not only all the things you’ve done, but how those things have affected others. Supposedly the pain that comes from this can be excruciating, because you see your actions with total clarity, stripped of all the rationalizations you’d wrapped them up in during your life. I couldn’t help but think that if this were true, maybe Pop was getting a head start on the rest of us. He’d always been hard on himself.

  “You’re a good person, Pop,” I said. “The best I know.”

  Pop smiled sadly. “That generous statement is undoubtedly more of a testament to your goodness than mine, Gabriel. But right now I should be more concerned with John than the state of my own pitiful soul. This whole business has already taken quite a toll on him. As I say, it probably helped bring on his stroke, and I’m afraid it’s affecting his mind as well. I finally realized today what he’s been trying to tell me all week. He actually thinks he saw his son on the night of his s
troke.”

  “The guy who was killed in the car accident?”

  Pop nodded. “I wish you could have known him. He was as kind and sweet and gentle as anyone you could ever meet. And talented? He could fix anything on wheels. Oh, how he loved cars—the faster, the better. It couldn’t be fast enough to suit him. He’d take an old junk heap and fiddle with it till that thing could practically fly.” Pop finally lit his pipe, puffed on it a few times, and sat there in a cloud of smoke, remembering. “Ironically, it was his love of fast cars that turned out to be his undoing. That was an awful night, that was. I’ll never forget it. And even though the years have come and gone, John never really got over Andy’s death.”

  I sat up straighter. So that’s who Andy was. Andy Lindstrom. He was the boy in the picture I’d been studying the day we cleaned Mr. Lindstrom’s house.

  Pop had enough on his mind, but I had a question that just couldn’t wait any longer. “Pop,” I said, “were you over at Mr. Lindstrom’s house within the last few days?”

  Pop nodded. “Today. I had to pick up a few papers. Why?”

  “Did you go upstairs?

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid I didn’t make it that far. I told John what a splendid cleaning job you did on the downstairs though. Don’t tell me you’re tackling the upstairs now too.”

  I shook my head. “It’d be nice, though—for when he comes home.”

  “It would indeed,” Pop said. “It would indeed.”

  Actually I wasn’t thinking much about cleaning at that moment. I was thinking how I’d be helping Jeremy stack some hay the next day, and how after we were done I’d talk him into going with me to see what the deal was at Mr. Lindstrom’s house. We’d do it together, and we’d do it in the daylight. And I wouldn’t have to worry Pop about the whole thing.

  Fourteen

  “How’d the date go?” I asked Jeremy before I even got off my bike. “I hear Amy’s mom is very nice.”

  “It was better than the date you had,” Jeremy answered. I had to admit, he was getting better at this all the time.

  The main haymow was already filled, and we started in on one of the old dilapidated barns off to the side. This particular barn had plenty of boards missing from its sides, not to mention an entire open section facing east, so it wasn’t as stifling as it had been in the main haymow. It was hot enough, but nothing compared to before. Our main problem this time was entirely different. It seems that by setting up shop there, we were challenging the territorial rights of a group of not-so-hospitable bumblebees. I never did find out where their nest was located, but they’d fly in through the open east section, buzz around our heads a few times, and then fly out again. I’m not crazy about bees, but I’ve never had any major problems with them. Jeremy, on the other hand, had a long history of disputes with every kind of bee you could imagine. The trouble was, Jeremy couldn’t just let a bee fly by. If there was one within swatting range, he seemed to feel it was his civic duty to swat at it. I don’t think this was a decision on his part, but more like some kind of a spastic reflex. Whatever the reason, the bees did not appreciate the attention. Before we’d finished stacking the first load, Jeremy had been stung twice.

  “Just ignore them,” I advised after the first time.

  “Shut up,” he advised back, trying to twist around to check on the welt that was forming on his back.

  “Have it your way,” I told him. “Just make sure you let them know I’m not with you.”

  “Shut up.”

  By the middle of the second load I was pretty much on my own as far as stacking hay went. Jeremy’s skirmishes with the bees had escalated to an all-out war, and he was losing ground fast. At one point, while he was swatting at the enemy in front of him, a battalion circled behind him and started dive-bombing on his bare back. Before I knew it, Jeremy was doing some diving of his own—off the hay we’d (I’d) stacked and down onto the dirt floor. He rolled to his feet and shot out the door, with the bees in hot pursuit. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen, and I had to sit down, I was laughing so hard. I didn’t get to stay seated long though. With Jeremy gone, a few of the leftover bees fixed their attention on me, proving—since I hadn’t done anything to them—that even bees can be bigots, and I ended up diving in the dirt and retreating the same way Jeremy had.

  Even as I was galloping across the yard, I could hear Jeremy’s father’s happy guffaws from the wagon. He was still chuckling five minutes later when Jeremy and I returned, our backs covered in dabs of aloe vera lotion his mother had supplied.

  “You boys ready to go back to work?” he said as we flopped to the ground in front of the wagon.

  Jeremy looked up at him as if he’d lost his mind. There’s bees in there,” he said, pointing angrily at the old barn.

  “You’re gonna let a few bees call the shots?” Mr. Wulfson said, pretending to be totally perplexed at such a state of affairs. He motioned for us to follow him.

  Jeremy and I looked at each other and shrugged. We then followed him into the barn, the two of us practically tiptoeing, and keeping a sharp eye out for bees. Mr. Wulfson stopped just inside the barn and turned back toward the opening. He had his hand on the brim of his hat as if he were about to tip it to a lady, but of course that wasn’t what he had in mind. The first bumblebee that sailed through the opening was snapped out of the air with a flick of his wrist. The bee fell to the dirt, and the cap returned to Mr. Wulfson’s head. He repeated this simple motion many more times in the next few minutes, laughing after each swat and seeming to get a big kick out of the whole thing. Jeremy and I watched in awe as a little pile of bees started forming around his feet.

  “We can’t be lettin’ a few bees dictate policy, now, can we, boys?” he said happily. “Here, Jem”—that’s what he called Jeremy—“you keep this cap on your head and if one of those fellas gets too close, you snap him into a better world.” He flicked the hat once more to demonstrate.

  Jeremy scowled at the cap for a few seconds and then put it on his head. Mr. Wulfson returned to the wagon, turned on the elevator, and started loading hay onto it again. A few minutes later I became aware of a commotion going on behind me and turned to see what it was. Jeremy had his father’s hat in his hand and was going A-l nutso, dancing around like somebody possessed and swatting in every direction for all he was worth. I couldn’t even see any bees, but that may have been because I was laughing too hard. Two minutes later we both dove out of there and onto the dirt again.

  • • •

  After lunch Jeremy and I got on our bikes and headed out to Mr. Lindstrom’s house. Jeremy was still in kind of a foul mood, even though I’d been extremely nice to him, courteously thanking him a number of times for the free entertainment, and forgiving him for the welts on my back, which, I was quick to explain, were all his fault and still hurt more than you might think—aloe vera lotion or not.

  “Ooouuuu, I’m so scared,” Jeremy mocked after we’d dropped our bikes in the yard and he caught me staring up at the house. “There’s a ghost in there that pulls shades down. Ooouuu.”

  “Too bad you didn’t bring your father’s hat with you,” I said. “Then you could swat it.”

  “Shut up,” he told me.

  We climbed onto the porch. As I stuck my key in the door, I started feeling a little silly about how I’d bolted away from there the night before. The place didn’t seem nearly so creepy now. Of course, it’s hard to work up too much fear when you have somebody like Jeremy right on your heels going “Oooouuuu, I’m so scared” every two minutes.

  I took a quick peek into the living room, which still looked pretty good, except for a little film of dust that had already started to settle over everything, and then headed for the staircase. I stopped at the top and thought for a second, trying to decide which room I’d seen the light in. Jeremy made another ghost noise.

  “You know, Jeremy, you actually make a better ghost than you do a person.”

  “Shut up,” he said in
his person voice.

  There was only one door open in the upstairs hallway, and it was on the wrong side of the house. Any windows from that room would face the backyard, not the front. Still, since that was the door that was open, we walked over to take a look.

  Even from the doorway it was obvious that this was Mr. Lindstrom’s room. To say it had a lived-in look would be a gross understatement. The whole room was like an industrial-sized hamper. Dirty clothes were strewn everywhere, the bed gave new meaning to the word “unmade,” and the smell was . . . well . . . almost as bad as it had been in the kitchen. We didn’t bother going in to investigate any further.

  “Let’s find the room that had the light on,” I said.

  “Let’s find a room that doesn’t stink,” Jeremy added.

  We headed across the hall. It felt strange being up there, and I still had the feeling that we were violating privacy—not just Mr. Lindstrom’s but the whole family’s, even though they were all long gone.

  “This could be the one,” I said with my hand on the knob to the first door right of the staircase.

  “Then open it, scrub.”

  I did. Right away I knew it was a girl’s room, so it must have been Rachel’s, the daughter who’d left home and was now suing her father. Except for the dust and cobwebs, it was actually cleaner than Mr. Lindstrom’s. There were still some things on the walls—a picture of John Travolta dancing in Saturday Night Fever, another picture of the Bee Gees, and next to that, a picture of the Mod Squad, which couldn’t have looked more un-mod if it’d been Julius Caesar and the gang.