by Joel Arnold
They were in the shed, now. The shed that used to be a garage, but now it was full of old, unused furniture. They walked carefully between the old couches and bookcases, the cracked, over-painted dressers and upturned tables.
"Would you look at all this stuff," Edna said. She ran her hand over a tarnished dresser. "This used to be mine."
Some of the objects were covered with white sheets. Edna and Mae began pulling them off.
When Edna uncovered a worktable with wheels, she froze. "Oh," she whispered, her hand shooting up to her mouth. Mae and Andy turned their attention to the object, and their jaws dropped slightly. "Oh," Edna whispered. She dropped the white sheet and backed away, bumping into a table, her eyes still directed at the mortician's table.
"Edna," Mae whispered, putting her hand on Edna's shoulder.
The mortician's table.
Edna looked away, shrugging off Mae's hand.
Andy and Mae looked at each other.
They heard shouting in the distance.
THIRTY-EIGHT
"Emma!"
Natalie put her hands to her temples, then wiped the moisture from her eyes.
"Emma!"
"It's me, Dad," Natalie said. "It's me, okay?" She grabbed Hector's head from behind and turned it upwards. She leaned over him, looking into his eyes. "Don't you recognize me? Natalie. Your daughter. Your only daughter."
"You're not my only daughter."
"Only living daughter, then," she said. She grabbed the handlebars on Hector's wheelchair and turned it around, pointing Hector towards the front door. She pushed him slowly down the front hall. The wheels on the chair moaned over the wooden floor.
They stopped in front of the door. Hector kicked out at it.
"Stop it." Natalie walked around his chair and opened the front door. She held it, stepped out on the front step and held the door open. "Come on."
Hector rolled himself onto the front step. Natalie maneuvered herself behind him and slowly, with a great deal of effort, let him down the four steps to the front of the walkway. Hector and his chair were heavy. Gotta get a ramp.
There was no need to take Hector out of the house very often, and Natalie managed the steps well when the times for him to get out arose. But whenever the ache came into her back and shoulders as she carefully lowered the chair down a step at a time, holding her breath as the chair descended, the thought of having a ramp - just a small one was all she needed - was very pressing. Hector had to get out of the house every once in a while.
Get him out in the sunshine, the open air, and let him shout. Let him get the shouting out of his system. He'd only been in the wheelchair for two months, only back from the hospital that long, but the need to shake his fist and shout at Mae's house had crept back quickly. It was a bark. A grown man's bark. Let him out on his leash of a wheelchair and get the barking out of his system, Natalie thought. Keeping him in the house all this time and taking his shouting and rage on herself - that was too much. So give in, she decided. Give in to his need to bark, to shout. To shake his fist in the air.
And Hector started to bark.
"Goddamn killer!" he barked at Mae's house, shaking his fist in the air. "Goddamn killer!"
He needs this. He needs this. Get it out of his system.
"Goddamn killing bitch!" He grabbed the wheels of his chair and rolled himself forward onto the short mowed grass. Natalie instinctively reached for the handles, but then decided it would be better not to. The weeds would stop him. The weeds and the tall grass of the field between their houses. Let him roll himself to the edge of the lawn and wear himself, his rage, down by trying to roll across the field.
"Get over here, goddammit, so I can get my hands on you!" He rolled to the edge of the lawn and struggled with the foot high grass and weeds, his arms straining at the wheels. The veins in his neck bulged. His entire head, his neck turned a deep, rich red. "Goddamn...killer...bitches," he whispered, his arms falling limp at his sides.
Natalie retrieved her father from the edge of the lawn, rolled him back to the bottom of the steps. She sat next to him and put a hand on his knee. They sat there resting. Hector and Natalie resting, soaking up the fresh air and sunshine.
THIRTY-NINE
Edna turned a sickly pale. Andy let out a haggard sigh. Mae rubbed her hands slowly together.
"My god, he's at it again," she said softly.
Edna was about to open the door of the shed and exit when she heard Hector's voice pummel the air. Her hand froze on the doorknob. "What's that?" she asked. But she already knew, and the thought chilled her. The thought, the knowledge made her shiver and a small flood of perspiration appeared on her lip.
It had all been so easy before. So easy before hearing that voice. She thought the hard part would be hearing Mae's voice, but no - it wasn't easy, but it wasn't unbearable. But Hector's voice. That was the hard part.
"Hector Plant," Mae said. "One of his shouting tirades. Haven't heard one since his stroke."
"I have," Andy said. Edna looked at him, and then looked at her hand on the door.
The shouting ceased.
Edna began to tremble. Mae put her hand on Edna's shoulder and Edna flinched.
It had been so easy. So easy before Hector's voice roared through the air. His voice lifted up the blinds for Edna. The blinds she'd built up so long ago, the figurative ear wax she'd grown, and now Hector's voice removed it, cleansed it out, and Edna began to hear it once again. Oh god, it had been so easy before. So simple. And now she heard it, heard the drum once again, beating in her head. Evelyn's drum.
"Edna," Mae said. "We have to talk to them. Tell them to stop their badgering. Tell them to drop their grudge."
The drum floating through the air like a phantom, the beat embedding itself once again into Edna's brain.
"I can't do that."
"We have to bury this thing," Mae said. "Bury it so we can get on with our lives."
"I've been getting on quite well," Edna said. "Before coming here, everything was just fine." Yes, just fine. All blocked off. The beat, the pulse, the pounding all blocked off from her ears, her mind. Before coming here again, before hearing his voice.
"I can't believe that," Mae said. "Somewhere far back in that mind of yours, there's a scar, Edna. A long bloody scar that these memories of ours keep picking at."
But Edna's scar had been closed. For so long. And now, now...Hector's voice was a chain saw, roaring away at the thing.
"As for me," Mae said, "as long as I know Hector is over there kindling his grudge like some old fire, the scar in my head is going to rot and fester. The more I hear the pain in Hector, the worse it is for me. And now Natalie," she said. "Now Natalie. The grudge is growing in her, too."
Edna had to plug her ears again, shade her eyes. She couldn't take the sound of Hector's voice. Though he'd stopped, it still rang in her ears, and to hear it amplified - that would be too much. "Can't we leave well enough alone? Can't we just ignore it?" Ignore it? Ha! She giggled to herself. Giggled! She couldn't believe it. She knew ignoring it was impossible, but - at least it would be better than having to hear it again.
"Ignore them?" Mae said. "How can I ignore them? They keep shoving it down my throat. They keep picking at that scar, Ed, try to peel it off, try to push their icy fingers in and make me suffer."
"So what can we do about it?"
"Talk to them. Go over there like civilized adults and talk to them. I know it's going to be hard. I know that, Edna. But we have to show them we're not the monsters they think we are. We have to show them we've grown up. We're cured. We have to get it in their heads that this crap cannot go on and that we will not let it go on. This is not a dream we're living, Edna. It's life. We have to get a hold of out lives. Take it by the throat and put it in order. We have to talk to Natalie and Hector."
But can't you see? Edna thought. Can't you see that no, of course we're not monsters, but they - Natalie and Hector - are the monsters. Don't you see that?
&
nbsp; But all Edna could say, all she could get out of her mouth without betraying the knowledge of that awful pounding in her head was, "I don't think I can. I don't want to go."
Andy spoke up. "It's not going to help. What if it only makes things worse?"
"Maybe it won't help," Mae said. "But it can't make things any worse. Don't you understand? This opportunity we have - it's a prime opportunity. I mean, if Hector and Natalie were no longer here, than yes, I think we could go on living our lives. Go on living with that festering scar. But this opportunity before us; just think - Natalie and Hector are both here, and maybe, just maybe, if we can communicate with them - then maybe the scars will begin to thin out."
"But I'm fine now," Edna said. Fine at least until she heard Hector's voice. But she had done well before. Cover it up. That's all she had to do. Cover up the pounding. Cover up the past. Edna's voice trembled and she felt tears collect themselves in the folds of her eyelids. "I'm healed," she said, forcing back the tears. Can't let them see this pain, this opening. "I want to forget about it."
Forget about it. Rebuild the dams inside of her. Rebuild the floodgates, lock them, solder them shut a thousand times, and throw away the key, throw it into the ocean, and throw it into goddamn outer space. Just forget about it and close out that awful drumming in her head.
The smell of the shed was that of dust and damp wood and damp cloth. Stagnation. The sheets covering much of the furniture were yellowing and mildew collected in the nooks and folds of the furniture.
The smell reminded Edna of the basement, the basement of long ago, the basement with her father working in it, his breath full of stagnant stink. Stagnant bourbon. The smell reminded her of being ten, eleven years old. When her father was drunk and staggering and couldn't do the work and he had no one else, not Mother, not his wife, because she wouldn't be dragged down there, and Edna wouldn't either, except she was so much smaller and so much more easily threatened with the back of father's hand.
"I'm gonna need help with this, Ed."
She covers her head with her pillow. Her ten-year old head. Her father pulls the pillow away. His breath stinks. It smells like sour milk. His eyes are glazed, frosted over with alcohol.
"Come on, Ed. You gotta help me. This has to be finished by tomorrow. By tomorrow morning. We don't have a lot of time."
"Do it yourself," Edna says, covering her head with her hands.
"What?" her father asks. "What? You get your butt out of bed right now. Right now!" He whaps her with the pillow, then drops it and slaps at the back of her hands with his flat palm.
"No!" Edna shouts.
"Right the hell now!" Her father's open palms turn into fists, and Edna senses this without even looking. She feels the air molecules constrict and change their flow of direction as her father closes his hands into fists. She know she cannot say no again. Not tonight, at least.
She gets out of bed, and her father grabs her by the hand, pulls her along behind him as he steadies himself down the stairs, his footing unsure. Edna is afraid of falling.
In the basement, Edna sees the body, sees it's old Mr. Severson, sees the hole in his head, his right temple decorated with a red hole, and she knows the back of his head is probably gone by the way it lays on the table.
"If I would’ve known this was coming in tonight, I wouldn't have drunk so damn much. But they want him for tomorrow, and boy, this fella needs a lot of work. Hand me that sponge, will ya, Ed?"
Edna tries not to look too closely at Mr. Severson. She hands her father the equipment he asks for, wipes up the floor under the table as things spill, picks up the instruments her father drops in his drunkenness.
Her father laughs. "Nervous, aren't ya? Don't you worry about a thing. Old Severson here isn't gonna bite you."
She ignores him, carrying over a bucket of embalming fluid for her father.
"Really - don't you worry about a thing. You think he's going to rise up and grab you? He's just a big old dummy, Edna. Think of him like that. A big old dummy." He laughs again. "Just think of him as a toy, Ed. A big doll. A big dummy doll. He's not gonna bite you."
A doll, Edna thinks, and thinking of it that way really does help. It does. Mr. Severson, you're just a doll. Just a big doll.
Then her father grabs Edna, grabs her by the hand, and forces her fingers into the bullet hole in Mr. Severson's temple. She recoils, tries to recoil, but her father holds her hand there, pushing her fingers into the small, neat hole. She can feel the brain in there.
a doll, a doll, a doll, just a doll
"See," her father says. "Nothing to be afraid of. Just a bunch of goop in there. Nothing that's gonna hurt you."
A doll. Just a doll.
"You can't be afraid of this stuff, you can't let it get to you, hon, it's just skin and brains and blood, and it's my job. And I need your help tonight because daddy's drunk and they want Mr. Severson here all dressed up and ready to go for the funeral tomorrow. Why do they want it so soon? Don't ask me. I just do what they tell me to do." He laughs again.
just a doll a doll
"And I appreciate your help, Ed," he says, sticking tubes into slits in Mr. Severson's body. "I do appreciate your help, yes, indeedy. Bring that bucket over here. We gotta deflate your doll here." More laughter. "Then," he says, "we gotta pump him back up with some magical juice. Give Mr. Severson here the elixir of life everlasting, amen." He starts the pump that will clear out the corpse of its natural juices. It chugs along as Edna's father sings to himself. "Summertiiiiiime," he sings. "Blah blah blah blah blah blahhhhh blahhh, Summertiiiime. Blah blah blah blah blah blah."
It's just a doll. Just a doll, and it's not so bad. Just a doll, and she can stand being down here. Just a doll, and she can watch the last bits of life being sucked out of Mr. Severson, because when he's just a doll, it's only stuffing. Just rags and yarn being pulled out of his body so that her daddy can refill him, give him some new and improved stuffing. So Mr. Severtson is just a doll, and that's fine with Edna.
Standing with her hand on the door and Mae babbling, Edna hadn't wanted this memory, but it came anyway. Came through the walls, the fortifications she'd built up, and now slipped out into her mind while Hector's voice still rang in her head. While Mae continued to babble on -
"Forget it?" Mae said. "How can we forget it? How can I forget it? With Hector over there, yelling, shouting his memories at us, his grudge. And Natalie. Now Natalie has caught this memory like a disease, a plague. It's Hector's memory pushing her down and making his grudge into her grudge. Yes, maybe you can forget it - no, not forget it, but at least hide it away in the back of your mind - "
Yes, that's right, Edna thinks. Hide it away, push it away so far back, lock it away in a sound proof vault. It worked so well before. Before she heard Hector, at least.
"And Andy," Mae continued. "You can think of all this as just a dream if you want to, if you must. But not me. I have to live with this. I have to live with this memory. It lives in this house. In the cemetery. In Hector and Natalie."
"Why don't you move?" Andy asked.
Mae sighed. "I can't. I've spent too much time as a child hiding it, locking it away, and now I can't."
But I can, Edna thinks. And what's so wrong with that?
"I have to face it," Mae said. "Face the past. Look it in the eye. Stare it down. Tell it to fuck off. Can't you see? Don't you understand? Here is where I can make my stand and live with myself in the process."
Make her stand. Make her stand, Edna thinks. And how did I cope with it all before? How did it work for me for so long?
Andy spoke again. "Shouldn't you leave them alone? Don't you think that grudge is too deep?"
"Well, I have to try," Mae said. "And if it doesn't work - if they just laugh at my face or yell at me and shout - I'll at least have a greater sense of peace with myself because I tried."
Peace. That's what I want, too, Mae, Edna thinks. I want peace. And I had it for so long. At least until I came here and heard Hector.
And I can hear her drum again. Evelyn's drum. I just want peace. And hadn't it felt so good before? My peace? Hadn't it been so good, shutting up Evelyn's drum? That constant pounding, that banging, in my head, forever in my head, until I shut it up, shut her up? Hadn't it felt so good, finally thrusting my hand at her, burying that stick up to her ribcage, and finally shutting that drum up, that sound, the constant pounding ceasing, ceasing for so long, the fortifications beginning to build themselves right then and there? Yes, it had felt so good, and it had worked for so long. Evelyn's drum had been only a dream in the back of her mind for so long after that, only hearing it in the distance of her dreams, until now. Until now. Hector's voice had started the pounding again.
Edna's hand slowly turned the rusting doorknob of the shed until it clicked. She pushed the door open and they walked into the sunshine, the October sunshine. The temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees, and out in the west, clouds formed.
The pounding had started for Edna once again, and she remembered how easy it had been to stop it before. How easy and good it had felt to bury her hand. Up to the rib cage. And the drumming, the pounding, had ceased.
FORTY
That undercurrent. That undercurrent.
Andy felt it.
From the moment his mother came into his bedroom this early morning - he felt it.
Like a thousand flies.
Like that beat in his head.
That undercurrent. Alive and buzzing, an electric wire. An electric, sizzling umbilical cord. It thickened and grew and sizzled when Edna had stepped into his room. It was there in the shed, the three of them waiting in hushed silence during Hector's vocal onslaught. God, it's still here, Andy thought. Still here, and it wasn't Natalie. She was a part of it, yes. She was part of it. But as he had the seat belt wrapped around her neck, trying to choke off that beat, he realized it was something more. Almost too late, he thought now and closed his eyes. Almost too late.
And now here's Mae, rattling on about her twelve step program to deal with your twisted, murderous past, Mae rattling on about confrontation, psychological self-help and justification. Mae - ready to do battle.