“It made an impression, Hap. I don’t blame all whites for the stupidity of those people who put up that cross and burned those words into my relatives’ lawn, but it left something here,” she touched her heart, “that has to do with me and white skin. I’m smart enough to know it’s a knee-jerk response at times, and I fight against it, but it’s there, and what really makes me mad is, late at night, sometimes I wake up bitter. Memories like that don’t go away easy.”
“So now you don’t trust whites, and you don’t care to be seen with them – romantically, anyway?”
“It makes me feel dirty. I even feel a little inferior a lot of the time. Like I should be grateful I’m doing what I’m doing, and that I’m doing good for a little colored girl from East Texas. I know better intellectually, but emotionally, I feel maybe I am a nigger. That I’m second-best. I fight against it all the time.”
“Do you feel dirty right now?”
“No. You don’t make me feel that way. In this setting. But we went out in public, the old feelings would come back. I’m not saying I’m not willing to fight them. I’m being honest. But they’ll come back. And maybe that’s OK, as long as I confront them. All right. I’ve showed you my dirty laundry. Told you stuff I’ve never told anybody. Now, tell me something about yourself. Help me learn who you are.”
“I’m a guy who hopes he can show you there’s more to white guys than someone who just wants in your pants. More to this white guy, anyway. I don’t deny that getting in your pants is on my mind. I look at you and biology takes over, and I’m enjoying the sexual aspect of our relationship, but I want more. I’m not going to push you on the matter, but I want you to know that.
“OK. Enough on that. Let’s see. What else? I’m a college dropout. I was a draft resister during the Vietnam War, and I’m proud of it. I stood up for something and didn’t wimp out. Didn’t run off to Canada. Didn’t get religion. ’Course, there was a down side. I went to prison for refusing to step forward at the induction ceremony. I did eighteen months. Let’s see. What else? I was married. The woman made a fool out of me, even after we were divorced. She was like catnip to me. She waved her butt and I followed. She nearly got me and Leonard killed once.”
“What?”
“I’m only going to talk so much about this right now. Later, maybe I’ll have more to say. But the gist of it, without being too specific, is I let her pull us into something I should have known better about. A way to make quick money, easy. Only it wasn’t easy. Leonard knew it was a dumb idea and he told me so, but I was headstrong, and he went along with it anyway, because of me. Ended up my ex-wife, Trudy, got killed and I got injured, and Leonard got his leg hurt bad. He was lucky it healed up the way it did. They thought for a while he’d lose it.”
“My God, Hap… That explains those scars you’ve got?”
“Some of ’em. So, I’m an ex-con and I nearly caused my friend to lose his leg because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You’re right. I’m giving myself too much credit. It wasn’t my dick leading me around. It was some foolish vision of true love. I used to believe in that. Sometimes I still do. Maybe that’s what sapped my ambition, there not being any true love. Though to be honest, before Leonard got hurt, I wasn’t exactly a ball of fire either.
“Trudy and prison could be blamed, but I guess finally, you always got to blame yourself. I let my idealism get stepped on, and I began to think it was a sham, that there never was anything to it, because nothing ever changed. But I’ve come out on the other side, now. I’m not ambitious, but I’m not lost either. I’ve got my faith back in humanity, and it’s people like you that do it.
“There’s bad stuff out there, but you look around, there’s good too. I’m not saying I’m ready to wear flowers in my hair and tell everyone to just love one another, but I do think things can be better than they are, and that each of us, in his or her own way, can have something to do with making it better. I also like blueberry ice cream, fluffy bunny rabbits, stuffed animals, especially teddy bears, and cute shoes, if they don’t fit too tight.”
“You silly ass,” Florida said.
“Oh, one more thing. Earlier today, I found a dead body in a pond.”
23.
We got back to the house late and took the bedroom Leonard had left us. He was asleep on the couch. We made love again and talked some more. I told Florida all I knew about Illium Moon, about how we found the body. She thought we should call the police. I did too. But Leonard had taken bullets because of me, the least I could do was give him some time.
“You never heard any of this,” I said. “It comes up, except with Leonard, you don’t know a thing.”
“Oh, Hap.”
“Not a thing, Florida.”
“That poor man… down there.”
“He don’t know he’s up or down. Another day isn’t going to matter.”
We finally snuggled and fell asleep, and I dreamed.
And in this dream I was under water. Down there in the bookmobile with Illium, but I could see clearly this time. It wasn’t as dark as it had actually been. Uncle Chester was there too. They were swollen and spongy and their faces were no longer black. They were the color of damp oatmeal. Illium was sitting behind the wheel. He had a jar of coupons. Beside him, on the passenger side, reading a paperback copy of Dracula, was Uncle Chester. I was in the back, leaning between the seats, watching them. They didn’t seem to notice I was there. I looked over Uncle Chester’s shoulder. He was reading the part of Dracula about the “Bloofer Lady,” the vampire child murderer. I could read it clearly, even though the words were gibberish, hieroglyphics at best.
Illium unscrewed the lid on the jar in his lap, and the jar filled with water and the coupons floated up and out, paraded before him like small, wafer-thin fish. He plucked one of them between his fingers and put it back in the jar. He grabbed another, and another, but as fast as he put them in the jar they floated out. Uncle Chester turned and looked at Illium. He shut the book and held it in one hand. With the other he reached over and clutched at the floating coupons. He helped put them in the jar, and still they floated out. The process was endless. Illium and Uncle Chester grabbing the coupons, putting them in the jar, and the coupons floating out.
I turned to the back and there was a trunk in the van, and the lid was up. It was Uncle Chester’s trunk. I looked inside. There was a little black boy in there. Nude. His eyes wide open. His lips formed the words Help me, but I turned away.
On the opposite side of the van, mounted on the wall, was the painting Leonard had done of the old house amid the trees. The paint began to bead, then bubble. The bubbles filled with colors of the paint and streaked down its length as if crying Crayola tears.
I felt uncomfortable. Hot. I realized I was holding my breath. The back door of the van was shut. I tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge. I turned and tried to walk to the front of the van, but now I was swimming. I tried to ease between Uncle Chester and Illium, make my way to the driver’s window, but it was closed. I was growing weak, dizzy. I grabbed at the window crank and attempted to roll the window down, but the crank wouldn’t work, and now Illium and Uncle Chester had hold of me and were yanking me back. I twisted and tried to fight them. Their faces were more puffed than before. Their eyes poked from their heads like peeled grapes. The little black boy was out of the trunk. He swam between them, took hold of my shirt. His eyes were pleading. His hand tugged at me. His arm came loose at the shoulder and floated up, but still his fingers held my shirt. Then his other arm came loose at his shoulder and floated to the top of the van. Then his legs. And finally his head. His torso came down to rest on my chest, and his body parts bobbed all around me, shedding flesh, leaving only the floating bones, the rib cage lying across me. I tried to pull the skeletal arm and fingers from my shirt, but I was too weak. The bony arm began to tug. Coupons swam by me. Illium and Chester Pine leaned over me and smiled. The water
turned murky. I felt as if I were blacking out.
Then I woke up hot and mummy-wrapped in the covers. The moon was filling the room. Florida had rolled to the other side of the bed. The moonlight was mostly on her, and I was in shadow. I noted that the shadow made my skin dark as hers. I untwisted the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed and took in some deep breaths. After a while, I rolled back on the bed and took hold of the sheet and covered Florida and myself.
I thought about what I had dreamed. It seemed pretty silly now. There was a logical explanation for everything in the dream, but I felt my unconscious was also trying to tell me something I’d overlooked all this time. I still didn’t know what it was, but I thought I had hold of the edges of it, and if I kept my grip, I might pull the rest of it into view.
I lay awake until the moon slipped away and the sun eased up, rose and gold and already hot.
Florida was still asleep, and so was Leonard, when I tiptoed into the kitchen and started coffee. By the time the coffee was beginning to perk, Leonard was awake. He came in wearing his gray robe and some grungy bunny-rabbit slippers. You know, those silly things with the ears on them, white cotton tails at the heels. Personally, I’ve always wanted a pair.
Leonard yawned, sat at the table. “Where’s Florida?” he said.
“Still sleeping. We were up late.”
“Contemplating the universe, of course. What’s this?”
He was pointing at his painting. After I got the coffee going, I had brought it into the kitchen and propped it up in a chair. I had the copy of Dracula on the table. I had a pencil and paper there too. I had drawn on the paper.
“I been thinking stuff over, Leonard. I believe I’ve come up with some ideas.”
“Like what?”
I poured him coffee, poured myself a cup, and said, “I’m looking at this now from your standpoint. Your uncle isn’t guilty. Once I could get myself to think that way, I began to get some ideas. That’s all they are, though, ideas.”
“Let’s hear them,” Leonard said.
“Your uncle was a fan of mysteries. He wanted to be a cop. He was a security guard. He claimed to have information regarding child murders, and wanted to have his own personal investigation with assistance from the police, but he didn’t want them in complete control. We know from what Hanson said that the child disappearances here on the East Side weren’t exactly given top priority, and now, even if someone came in and wanted to pursue them, like Hanson, it’s such an old case, it would still be a back-burner operation. We know too racial prejudice most likely affected the conclusions of previous investigators.”
“Bottom line, my uncle didn’t trust the police, but he saw himself as an investigator. It was his big chance to solve a real mystery.”
“Let’s say Illium, who was an ex-cop, met your uncle through one of his personal programs. Bookmobile, the recycling, whatever. They became friends, and they began to investigate this business. I don’t know why they began to investigate. Some little pieces of evidence got them curious, and they were bored, and they went to it. Or they found the skeleton by accident, and your uncle brought it here because he wanted to examine it, try and figure what happened. Thing is, though, if he was investigating with Illium, and they were serious about what they were doing, they must have made notes. But where are they?”
“You’re right,” Leonard said. “Uncle Chester would have made notes.”
“Let’s hold our water there and back up. Your uncle began to lose it. Alzheimer’s, not enough blood to the brain, whatever, but he began to experience problems. He got his will straight through Florida, left his stuff to you. But his thinking continued to muddle. Say he couldn’t work on the case anymore, and that just left Illium. Your uncle wanted this business solved, but it was different now. His brain was melting. He couldn’t hold his thoughts. I think that’s why you have that bottle tree out there. A part of him knew there was something corrupt about, but he couldn’t remember what.”
“So he translated it as something supernatural?”
“Something evil. If he heard about bad spirits when he was a kid, it could have come back to him as real, his mind messed up the way it was. He might have thought he was actually doing something that could protect him. And in clear moments he wanted to tell you about it, or write it down, but he couldn’t remember long enough, so the things that were important to the case became all the focus he had, and those things became symbols rather than thoughts.”
“The coupons. The book. The painting.”
“In a way, he was giving you a mystery to solve, not on purpose, but because those elements, those clues, were all that remained of his thinking on the matter. He might not even have known what those clues related to anymore, but they were important to him, and you were important, and he had enough savvy left to put those items together and have them stowed away in a safety-deposit box.”
“It really is Agatha Christie shit?”
“Let’s see what we got. The book, Dracula. I don’t think it means anything particularly. I believe your uncle was thinking about Illium. Not directly, perhaps. But the book had to do with Illium, and it merely indicates a connection.”
“Illium has, or had, the notes, is what you’re saying?”
“Could be. If he did have them, I figure whoever left him the little present of the kiddie pornography and the clothes found them and destroyed them. The coupons, now. Both Illium and your uncle had them, and they seem important, but not so important Illium’s killer took note of them. We certainly found them easy enough.”
“Meaning, if they were important,” Leonard said, “Illium’s murderer didn’t know they were.”
“Yeah. Your uncle gave some coupons to Florida to give to you, and he put some in a safety-deposit box. Illium had coupons in jars. But what’s it all mean? I haven’t come up with a thing on that.”
“The painting?”
“That one’s up to you, Leonard. Tell me about it.”
“I painted it when I was a kid, for my uncle. It’s of the old Hampstead place.”
“It’s a real place?”
“Yeah. It’s behind the house here, back in those woods. I used to go there now and then. The house was abandoned years ago. Hampsteads were white folks, and they owned all the woods back there. Used to be a couple hundred acres. The black community ended right behind the house here, where those woods begin. Guess it still ends there, but I don’t know if all that land’s still owned by the Hampsteads. They may have sold some of it. I really don’t know anything about it anymore. Just that the house was once a fine house, there was some tragedy in the family, and they moved out, but kept the land and the house, but didn’t attend to it. I been inside a couple of times. When I was a kid. Climbed through a window. It was a pretty spooky place. I don’t even know it’s still standing.”
“Better and better. Look here.” I picked up the pad and showed it to him. I had drawn a series of little rectangles within a series of lines.
“I don’t get it,” Leonard said.
“First day we came here, I saw a composition notebook on your uncle’s desk. I glanced at it. It had a drawing, or chart, or whatever, like this on it. I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was just doodling. For all I know, that’s what it was, but I suspicion it might be a note that didn’t end up with Illium. After the cops came, it disappeared. I guess they have it. Maybe they have more notes than we think, but I don’t believe so.”
Leonard studied the pad. I said, “I’m not sure I’ve remembered it exactly right, but that’s close. Does it make you think of anything?”
“A floor plan with six rectangles in it.”
“My thoughts exactly. What about the rectangles?”
“Furniture?”
“I don’t think so. But leave that for a moment. If it is a floor plan, it’s not to this house. Too many rooms. And the rectangles don’t correspond with your uncle’s furniture at all. Do you see what I’m getting at now?”
“I
f the coupons connect. If the book connects. Then the painting connects, or the location of it connects, and that location could go with this floor plan.”
“Right. We just don’t understand how they connect. Now, what comes in rectangles?”
“All kinds of things. A stick of gum. Books. He liked books, that could be it.”
“Proportion throws that. The rectangles are too big to be books if this is a legitimate floor plan.”
I hummed a few bars of the death march. Leonard’s eyes widened. “Graves,” he said.
“Ta-da!”
“You mean under the Hampstead place?”
“Could be.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch.”
“When Florida wakes up, she’s going over to see her mother. When she does, you and I are going to go take a look at the Hampstead place.”
24.
Late morning, a half-hour after Florida left, we entered the woods, Leonard carrying a shovel, me with a flashlight clipped to my belt, my remembrance of Uncle Chester’s diagram folded up in my pants pocket.
At first the going was easy, as the woods were made up mostly of well-spaced pines and there were soft paths of straw to walk on, but soon the trees sloped uphill and there were hardwoods, vines and brambles, and the pines grew closer, and the going wasn’t so good. It was humid too, and the smell from the pines and sweet gums became cloying, like being splashed with a bucket full of cheap perfume.
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