Remains

by J. Warren

“Some,” I said.

  He nodded to himself, and turned to look out the window once more, “God damn shame to waste a pretty gal like ‘at on someone like Pete. Now, book learnin’ is fine, don’t get me wrong, but Gwen Ladd?” he said, turning to face me again, leaning forward on the desk, his elbows spread wide, “that was the horse shouldn’t never been broke’.” I didn’t understand, but I didn’t know what to say, so I stood still. He looked down at the desk, and said “Last thing that woman needs is for someone to come along digging up that little boy of her’s.”

  “Do you—?” I started to ask, but had to clear my throat. He looked up sharply when I did, “Do you know where she is?”

  “Up ta’ Delany. Was you around when that boy went missin’?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  He looked up at me, his eyes dialing down to that sharp hardness, “how old was you back then? ‘Bout eleven? Twelve?”

  “Twelve,” I said.

  He shook his head some, “That boy was her world, son. You got family?” he asked. I shook my head ‘no’, and he nodded once, to himself, as if confirming a suspicion. Then he said “That boy was her world. When he disappeared, well,” he paused, “I believe she didn’t see no reason to stick around.”

  “But I thought you said she was at—?” I started.

  He tilted his head a bit to the side, and said “Her body is in that loony bin, son, but Gwen Ladd? She stepped out for a cigarette some time ago, and ain’t been back yet,” he paused, “Twelve,” he whispered, shaking his head and looking at the desk. “I tell you this, boy,” he said, looking back up at me, “were the lord god himself to come back today?” he said, tilting his head up at me and squinting, “he’d burn us all down to cinder, and sweep us into the gutter.” Chills ran up my arms. “That’d be about right,” he said, and nodded to himself. My whole body flashed cold.

  Somewhere on the ride, I started to wake up from whatever haze I’d slipped into.

  To this day, I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember driving. I don’t remember a lot, except running those final words over and over again in my head, like a movie. When I did wake up enough to know where I was, the car was off. I was in a parking lot. The sunlight didn’t look too much different than it had a bit ago, so it wasn’t much later. I looked out the window and saw that I was at the hospital. Not the emergency room, though; I was parked near the regular building entrance. As I watched, an old man and a younger man walked in the doors together.

  “Why?” I asked myself, out loud. No one answered. I knew why, though. I thought back to that day, seeing Mrs. McPherson in the car. I remembered looking past Randy to see her, and the sun reflected in her eyes. I had to know, I guess. Some writer would probably describe that better, but all I understood was that I needed to know.

  The doors slid open for me, and I walked inside. The hospital was cold and white. All four rows of chairs in the lobby were white leather. The whole place seemed too clean, a purposeful clean that made me feel queasy. I walked to the desk in the middle of the room. No one was there, so I waited. I watched the monitors showing patients and doctors moving around in black and white. Some cameras were pointed out at the parking lot: I watched a large bus stop outside, and an old black woman get out and hobble toward the front steps.

  Just to the right of me, the bathroom door opened, and a man walked out in a white uniform. His ID badge dangled at from his beast pocket. As he walked behind the desk, the phone rang. He picked it up without breaking stride. “Delany admitting, please hold,” he said. He punched the little red button without even looking.

  He looked up at me and asked, “Can I help you?” still cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder.

  He was familiar. I’d seen him before; something in the eyes. “Go ahead, it’s not all that important,” I said. He looked down at a page on the desk and tapped the red button again, “Delany admitting, thank you for holding. Can I help you?” He listened for a moment, his eyes roaming the paper in front of him. I couldn’t help but stare. I moved to get a look at his ID badge, and then it hit me. I’d seen those same eyes before, but in a girl’s face. His ID read ‘Leonard Marshall’ and in the photo, he was smiling. I’d seen that same smile, and those same eyes on Jennifer, his sister, so long ago. I flinched, thinking once more about the night I lost my virginity. ‘Lenny’ was ‘Jenny’ Marshall’s little brother by about five minutes. They were twins.

  “Yes, ma’m, but I’m afraid visiting hours would be over before you could get here, though. Would you like me to connect you to the phone in that room?” he paused, waiting, then said “Okay, hold on just one minute.” He tapped a few buttons on the phone and asked me “Can I help you?” before he’d even set it back on its cradle.

  “Lenny?” I asked, and his eyebrows shot up a bit. “Hi, I’m Mikey Kendall. I dated your sister—god, what? Ages ago,” I said. His eyes relaxed some. I could tell he didn’t remember.

  “Ah. Okay. You’re not looking for her, are you? Because she’s—,” he started.

  Before I realized I wanted to know the rest of what he was about to say, I said “No, no. Not here to talk to her.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “What I’m actually here for is—,” I started before I realized that I really didn’t know what I was here for. I wanted to see Gwen McPherson, but I didn’t know why.

  “You’re not a reporter, are you?” he asked.

  My eyebrow shot up, “No, why?”

  “They’ve been here, already. They’re asking to speak to Mrs. McPherson, poor woman,” he said. He leaned forward like someone in a movie and whispered, “there are a lot of people who think that those bones they found? They think those are Randy McPherson. Or, what’s left, anyways. You know, the kid who disappeared a while back?” I nodded. “Well, seems they want to ask her what she thinks about that.”

  “How many have been by?” I asked.

  “Four or five, for right now. Guy came from the Tribune, another from the Journal. One guy came in all the way from Duncanville,” he said, leaning forward a little.

  “No, I’m not a reporter—but—well, I’ll be honest; I want to see her,” I said.

  He nodded as if I’d confirmed something he’d been suspicious of all along. “Thought so. I don’t have any Kendall’s on my roster for today, so I know you’re not visiting any kin,” he said, “you know I can’t let you up, though.”

  “None of them got up, either?” I asked.

  He shook his head, “Nope. Doctor Baker says no one gets up to that ward without seeing him first,” he said, “and he’s away from the hospital, today.”

  I looked down at the counter, my blurry reflection looking back up at me. I smiled and turned away. “Hey, wait,” he said. I turned back to face him. “You’re that guy she went up to Lake Taboga with that one time, right?” I nodded. “Thought so,” he said, and sat down in his chair. I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but turned to walk away, instead.

  For some reason, seeing Mrs. McPherson had become a burning thing inside of me. I still don’t know why, but it was all tied up in that same feeling I had the day I figured out that Randy wasn’t in the coffin they put in the ground. In my head, thinking ‘I want to see her’ was the same thing as thinking ‘it’s too narrow’. Randy had never fit in that coffin. I opened the driver’s side door and stared up at the windows, thinking ‘which one?’

  The whole drive back to my parent’s place, I couldn’t tell you how I knew any of that. Gradually, it just became certain. I knew that, when the press conference was on the local news at six, those bones would be Randy’s. It was like someone was sitting at a keyboard, somewhere, typing this all out, and I was only finding out line by line. The worst part was that the feeling I had no choice in any of this happening settled into me, and my arms felt heavy. I wanted someone to hold me. I knew that I had to call Susan back, but I found that I wanted Kevin’s arms wrapped around me. I shook my head when I thought of tha
t, and turned the stereo up louder. Unfortunately, my father had pre-programmed only A.M. talk radio shows and I was attempting to block out Kevin’s arms with baseball statistics. I snapped the radio off violently, and forced myself to think about Susan.

  By the time I pulled back into the driveway, I was breathing heavy, and I felt cold. My shoulders were so tense I thought they were going to snap. I wondered why I hadn’t left, already.

  TWENTY

  “Bud Gantner called for you,” my father said to me as I walked in the door. I set the keys down on the kitchen table, “and someone named O’Mally.” I froze.

  “Did—umm—did they say what they—wuh—wanted?” I asked without turning.

  The paper rustled, “Bud just wanted to see if you were alright. He says you went to the men’s room last night and then didn’t come back. The other boy didn’t say,” then came the inevitable pause, the rustling of the paper, “that isn’t that O’Mally boy you went to school with, is it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I ran into him the other night.”

  “At Sully’s?” my father asked, and I could hear each word grate on my nerves like a polishing machine: in me, sparks flew everywhere.

  “Yeah,” I said. Just then, mercifully, the phone rang. “I got it,” I said, and walked to the counter. I didn’t care who it was, as long as it stopped my father before he got going. “Hello?” I said.

  “Michael,” Sarah said. I heard her breathe in, hold, then exhale. Her mouth sounded dry.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “How are you?” she asked, in that way that meant ‘I don’t care, but you expect me to ask’.

  “I’m okay,” I said, already wondering if I was going to call Kevin at all, and if so, him or Susan first.

  “How much longer are you going to be staying there?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it,” I said. On the phone, there came another inhale, exhale, and then a low rumbling sound.

  “Is that your cat?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “with Diane away, he won’t leave me alone for five seconds.”

  “Where’s Diane?”

  “She’s left me.”

  All my trains of thought stopped. For a second, the entire room was quiet. I heard her shirt move against the speaker, and the rumbling got quieter.

  “I—umm—I don’t know how much—how much longer. Why?” I asked.

  “Because I was thinking—,” she began, trailing off. I waited. “Because I wanted to ask you to come stay with me a few days to—to help me get my things packed. I’m moving, you see; out of here, away. I’d like some help.”

  I looked back into the living room. My father was just putting the paper down, and picking up the remote control. The television clicked on, and he began to rock the chair some. I looked back at the phone. “I—umm—I don’t know, Sarah. I—,” I started.

  “That’s fine, Michael. I could have used the help, is all. I can manage, though. Thank you for your--”

  “Wait a minute.” I looked at my shoes. “Just—just fucking wait a minute, okay?” I sat down at the table, the telephone cord stretched over my shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be here, Sarah. And I don’t know how much longer I’m—,” ‘going to be with Susan’ I almost said. To this day, I remember clearly having to will myself to stop talking. “—needed,” I said, “here. I had to go to the sheriff’s office today to get some—,”

  “Sheriff’s office? Why? What happened?”

  “—some papers. There was an accident at church the other night I had to go get the police report.”

  “Aren’t those usually faxed or mailed directly to the insurance company?” “Probably in a real town, yes. Here, though, we have to deal with Aiken. You know that.”

  I heard another inhale/exhale. I could tell she had calmed down some. “You’re tense, Michael. What is it?”

  I turned to look at my father, and saw that the mid-day news was on. The graphic at the top right hand of the screen was a picture of a set bones in the dirt. “Sarah? I’m gonna’ have to let you go. Can I take some time to think about this? That’s not a ‘no’, just—I—umm—need a little time. Is that okay?”

  She exhaled loudly, “I guess, Michael. Call me,” she said, and hung up.

  I rushed into the living room just as the anchor person switched over to video tape of a small stage. In the audience were ten or eleven people in suits, all working furiously on yellow legal pads or tiny spiral notebooks. On the stage was a wooden podium. The state seal was on it. The national flag was on one side, the state flag on the other. At the podium was a man in police uniform. The caption underneath him on the screen read ‘Sgt. Abe Mills’. He straightened some papers he had in his hands, cleared his throat, and said “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for coming out today. I want to assure you that we have been working ‘round the clock on the matter of the remains found just north of town four days ago. At this stage in the investigation, we have some conclusive forensic evidence. I’d like to turn this conference over to Doctor James Clarke, the forensics officer assigned to this case. After he speaks, there will be time for questions for either I, or Dr. Clarke,” and then he stepped to one side.

  I sat down on the couch. My father, in his chair, picked up the remote and aimed it at the television. “Horseshit,” he mumbled.

  “Don’t!” I said.

  He looked over at me, his eyes squinted. I thought for a second he was going to ask me why not, but his eyes relaxed, and he settled the little box back down onto his thigh. When I turned back to the screen, a tall man in a blue windbreaker was behind the microphone.

  “We’ve had to send some of the remains off to Eukiah for double checking; dental records and so forth. You all watch television, I’m sure you’re all familiar with what it is we do, now,” he said, and looked down. I got the impression he wasn’t happy about the new found popularity of his field of work. “But I’ve been working in this field a long time. I can tell you this. The remains are incomplete and, judging from some of the marks I saw on them, this is likely due to scavenging. We did have enough to work with, though, to sort of get the ball rolling,” he said. He looked down at his notes, flipped a page, then said “without dental records, I cannot be certain of the identity, but here are some broad facts. The remains are those of a male, approximately 6 to 8 years old,” he said, and the room came alive with murmuring. I closed my eyes. It seemed like a bullet had gone through me. To know, to finally know. The doctor raised his hand, palm out and shushed the crowd. He continued “I understand what you’re all thinking, and let me assure you, I’ll get the results of the dental record check out as soon as it’s back. Let’s understand something, though, folks,” he said, and leaned forward on the podium like a preacher. “Even if this little boy isn’t Randolph McPherson—,” the rest of what he was going to say was drown out. The room exploded into noise.

  Hearing the name made it hard to breathe. For so long, he was just a face in the back of my head. A set of emotions tied in a knot that had a name only I knew. To hear a complete stranger speak that name made me tear up.

  On the screen, the doctor got the room quieted down once more. “As I was saying,” he continued, and something burned in his eyes “even if this little boy isn’t the one missing for so long, that doesn’t make it any less of a tragedy. No matter who he is, this little boy was somebody’s son who never made it home. Let’s try to keep that in mind, okay?” he turned and walked off the stage.

  Before Officer Mills even made it back to the podium, hands were up. He looked over at the doctor, who gestured toward the crowd as if he wanted nothing to do with them any more. Mills turned to face them. He pointed to one and said, “Sandy.”

  A woman with long blonde hair and glasses stood up. “Thank you, officer Mills. I’d just like to ask: was anything discovered with or near the bones?” In the background, the doctor rolled his eyes and his jaw set.

  Mills cleared his
throat, and then flipped through a page of his own miniature spiral notebook. “About three feet down inside the dig, what was left of a bicycle was discovered. We’re still in the process of digging that up. We’ll also have more information for you on that as soon as we get it up and run the serial number,” he looked a bit further to his right and pointed at a man in a sport coat with short brown hair, “Dave.”

  The man stood up. “Were there any indications of trauma to the bones?”

  Mills turned toward the doctor. The doctor came forward, glaring at the crowd. “I am not authorized to answer that question at this time. Thank you, that’s all we have time for today,” the doctor said, turned, and walked off the stage. Officer Mills looked a bit confused, but turned and followed him. The room was alive with hands and people calling out after them.

  The news anchorwoman came back on, saying “Of course, we will continue to have coverage as information comes in. To repeat what you just heard, the gruesome discovery of remains four days ago--,” she continued, but my father changed the channel. I couldn’t move or speak. Something in me had jarred loose. He was flipping channels until he found a baseball game on. He set the control down on his thigh. I stood up and walked to the front door. I heard him call after me “Where are you going?” but I didn’t answer. I opened the door and walked outside, shutting it slowly behind me.

  I knew what they’d find when they ran that serial number.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I don’t know how long I walked. It didn’t seem all that long. After a time, though, I realized I was walking the old route out to the field. It felt strange not to be riding my bike. I stopped near one of the huge ditches that ran alongside the road. I could feel the memory coming on, but I tried to stop it. The second therapist I’d seen taught me how to do that, but I’d never been very good at it. I could feel it building up, like a summer storm, pressure just behind my face. My arms and legs felt heavy.

  I was still there when the sheriff’s car pulled up. I had been so deep down that I hadn’t seen or heard it coming. I blinked at him, slowly, as he got out of his car. He adjusted his belt and put his hat back on. For a split second, I saw the salt and pepper of his hair. He closed the door of his patrol car and came toward me, his boots thunking on each step.