by Sergio Gomez
Cover design by: Teddi Black
Interior design by: Megan McCullough
Para mi abuelita Isabel
“We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.”
—Alan Moore, Watchmen
PART ONE
NEW NEIGHBORS
Chapter 1
Dutch County
1998
When you’re young, time seems like nothing but an abstraction. Something you kill until the next exciting thing happens in your life. It’s easy to take small things for granted, like your loved ones being alive on your birthday.
Raymond Gibson hadn’t been young for forty years. Not since the mid nineteen-fifties when Rock ‘n’ Roll had heart and before the Oval Office was used for meetings of infidelity.
Nothing like thinking about political news to make you feel old. Raymond’s seventy-third birthday had passed a week ago, and he’d celebrated it how he’d celebrated his birthday ever since he was sixty: alone in his house with his tools, making toys.
Before sundown he’d put on his track jacket and walked down to Penny’s Bakery to get his favorite cupcake—a chocolate chip almond with vanilla icing.
“Today’s my birthday,” he told Penny as he came up to the register.
She brightened up when he told her the news, reached into the drawer underneath the cash register where they kept the candles, and asked, “What’s your favorite color, Mr. Gibson?”
He thought about it for a second. Each year (day, really, if he sat down to think about it) his vision seemed to get worse and worse, and the appeal of color seemed to be growing further away from his heart.
“Red. Or yellow, if you don’t have red.” Those colors seemed to be the only exception.
“Why not one of each for one of my favorite customers?” Penny said, grabbing two candles from the drawer and stuffing them inside the wax paper she’d wrapped the cupcake in already. She grabbed the whole bundle and put it in a small brown paper bag and handed it to Raymond. “This one’s on the house, okay sugar? Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” Raymond said, putting his wallet back into the pocket of his jacket and taking the brown paper bag from Penny.
He left the bakery with a big smile just as he always did. It was a combination of the excitement of getting the cupcake and Penny’s flirtatious nature. Not that she was much to look at; a blond in her early fifties that looked like she’d smoked and drank too much in her youth, with bad hair and fake nails.
But Raymond hadn’t been with a woman since his early fifties, when he’d brought home one of the recently divorced barflies from the Mills Tavern—or the Wrinkle Ranch as the locals called it.
Nowadays, he wasn’t even sure he’d know what to do. And the “sugar” from Penny was probably the most action his old heart could handle, anyway.
He went home and ate his cupcakes in his kitchen by his lonesome. He didn’t even light the candles, because without anyone around to celebrate with him, he didn’t see the point.
Raymond had never been married. Didn’t have children. Didn’t even have a dog—or a damn cat—because the idea of having fur all over his house made his skin crawl. He’d considered an iguana, but then he’d gone into the pet store and locked eyes with a skink. Its black eyes seemed to mesmerize him, and when he finally broke eye contact with it, he felt as if hours had gone by and a part of his soul had been stolen.
So, a lizard was out of the question after that experience. And if he wanted to be around birds, he would just walk down to Myers Park and feed the ducks and pigeons his staling loaf of bread from Penny’s Bakery. That’d also save him the trouble of having to clean up a cage every morning.
Besides, he didn’t think a pet could fill the longing he had for companionship, anyway.
All his friends were dead, too. Besides the one he was on his way to meet.
Ernesto Gonzalez was already at the picnic table, the same one they met at every week because it was the only wheelchair accessible one. He waved to Raymond as he saw him coming. “Ah, there’s my best friend.”
Raymond sat down on the bench across from him. “Not by process of elimination, I hope.”
Even though they’d only been friends for five years, which was fresh relative to living several decades, they liked to say that this was an “old” joke between them because of their ages. Ernesto was eighty-two, and Raymond had just celebrated his seventy-third birthday. By definition, they joked, everything they did was old.
Ernesto laughed and pulled out a deck of cards. He flipped the top off, slid the deck out, and then put the box back into his shirt pocket all while talking. “Seventy-three, huh?”
“And feel every bit of it,” Raymond joked, though he wasn’t all joking. He could still feel the hot pain shooting through his knee from bending it to sit.
“You’re a spring chicken in my eyes. Once you hit eighty, you’re going to wish you were in your seventies again.”
“I believe it,” Raymond said, exhaling.
The end of his breath turned into a small white cloud in the chilly air. It was late Fall, and one could still be outside with just a light jacket to keep the crisp air at bay, but by bedtime everyone in Dutch County would be sleeping in their long jammies underneath a warm blanket.
“Seems like that’s all life is, doesn’t it, old feller?” Raymond said.
“You mean wishing you were a different age?” Ernesto asked, bridge shuffling the deck.
“Yeah. When you’re a child, you can’t wait to be an adult. When you’re old, you wish you were a child.”
“Grass is always greener on the other side, I think the saying goes.” Ernesto smiled. He’d once told Raymond that was the first idiom he ever memorized, back when he was first learning English in his early twenties. He’d tried to sneak it into every conversation ever since. “What’re we playing today?”
“Let’s go with rummy.”
“Can do.”
Ernesto dealt out the cards. They liked to meet once a week at the park and play cards to keep their wits and competitive edges sharp. They went to the same doctor and Doctor Wayne was a big proponent of the elderly exercising their brains as much as possible. It worked out well, because they both enjoyed each other’s company.
Raymond looked at his hand. Awful. No matching numbers, suits were all over the place. This was going to be a long round for him.
“I’ll start,” he volunteered, and picked up a card from the deck. A three of hearts. At least now he had a pair of three’s in his hand. He discarded a jack of spades.
Ernesto drew his card, and with a sly grin pulled four cards from his hand and showed it to Raymond. “Dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis.”
Raymond didn’t need to tap into the Spanish lessons he’d taken before his flight to Acapulco for his first retirement week to know he was getting his butt kicked already.
Ernesto put the melded sequence in front of him. “I’m feeling luck going through my bones, today, my friend!”
Raymond shuffled his cards in his hand. One thing he hated was losing. Even at seventy-three in a friendly game of rummy at the park to his only friend, old habits die hard.
Unless it’s smoking, he thought with a smirk. Darn, he could kill for a cigarette right about now.
“Never knew someone who enjoyed losing as much as you, amigo,” Ernesto taunted as he slapped down a five of diamonds into the discard pile.
Raymond ignored him and picked up another card.
An ace of clubs. A darn, lousy ace of clubs!
He grabbed a card from his hand and discarded it without thinking about future strategy. This game was on its way to a loss already.
“My oldest grandson Carlos and his wife just had a newborn last week,” Ern
esto said, drawing a card to start his turn.
“Oh, wonderful,” Raymond said, trying to sound more excited than he was. It was difficult while losing.
“Yeah, they’re flying out on Sunday from Arizona, so I can meet my great-grandson. Then some family from Mexico will be flying in later in the week. They should all be here Tuesday. Wednesday, at the latest.”
“I bet you’ll be happy to see them,” Raymond said.
But it was hard to relate with all of his family being gone from this world. Even his little brother Ronald was gone, though that was a different case.
Raymond pushed the thoughts of Ronnie surfacing to his mind away, and watched Ernesto fix the cards in his hand.
They would continue to play until the sun was nothing but a sliver on the horizon, both pretending that the game was secondary to their weekly catch-up chats, but both also keeping score of who was winning the rounds in their heads.
A blue van pulling up to the curb outside the park would signal the end of their game. Ernesto would break up the game and pack the cards back into their case while his oldest daughter, Rosa, made her way into the park to get him.
Raymond would exchange pleasantries with Rosa, then he’d say goodbye to both of them as Rosa wheeled Ernesto away from the table.
Sometimes it crossed his mind that his best friend—only friend—might not make it to the following week. But this time, it wasn’t the case. He had family coming in from Mexico to meet his great-grandson next week. There was no way the universe, or God, or Lady Luck, or fate, or whatever power one attributed the controlling of events to, would be that cruel.
Then again, he never thought the last time he saw Ronnie would be the last, either.
Walking down Kirkland Ave in the dusk, he pushed the thoughts of Ronnie away from his mind again.
Chapter 2
Five years ago, if someone would have told Maria Rodriguez that her future would be moving into a place like Dutch County (a “bumblefuck town” as she would have called it back then), thinking about marriage, and caring for another woman’s child, Maria would have laughed in their face. The laugh would have been so long and powerfully laced with margarita that it would have blown the jokester away.
And now she would have to swallow that laugh whole. Because here she was, moving boxes into the house of her recent dreams with her fiancée. Some of the boxes which contained Jack’s belongings—her fiancée’s son from his first marriage.
The house was in a quiet neighborhood where everyone had a large yard, a world of difference from the townhouse neighborhood they’d been living in back in Philadelphia.
There were trees lining the streets, in people’s yards, and in the common grass areas with leaves that had turned color and mostly fallen off. They were pretty in their own right this late into the Fall season, but Maria could imagine how green and vibrant they would make the neighborhood once Spring and Summer rolled around.
There was also plenty of sidewalk to stroll their baby around—for when they decided to have a child of their own in the near future.
The best part, and what had sold Maria and Scott on buying the house, was the quietness of the neighborhood.
After years of being hard partiers, this change of pace seemed like heaven. The perfect place to get away from their pasts, start over, and start a family.
Maria put the box down on the floor. The plates rattled inside it. She got up, and felt Scott wrap his arms around her waist. He leaned in and kissed her behind the ear. “Come on, only four more boxes and we’re done. I’ll fix us something to drink afterward.”
One thing they hadn’t kicked was how they both liked to drink. The only difference now was that they could have one (strong) drink and call it done, instead of having to get damn near blackout drunk like before. Like in the “old days” as they referred to that phase of their life.
Their relationship with alcohol was better, and in turn their relationship with each other was better.
Maria turned in his arms and kissed him on the lips. “Can we order pizza, too?”
“Yeah, I can dig up the VCR and we can put something on. Maybe one of my Jerry Springer tapes.” Scott grinned, then pecked her on the lips.
After kissing him back, she separated from him and slapped him on the shoulder. “Alright, wise-guy.”
“I kid, I kid. We’ll find something good.” Scott reassured her. They’d made sure that the utilities were on a week before move-in day.
Maria turned back to the box she’d just placed down by the bay window. “Guess I’ll pull some plates from here for dinner tonight.”
“I’ll go and finish up while you do that,” Scott said. He slapped her on the butt before heading through the house and back to the U-Haul truck parked in the driveway.
The old man that lived next door was coming down the sidewalk as Scott made it to the truck. Scott stopped at the end of the driveway and waved to him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember his name because they’d only met once when they first came to see the house months ago.
“Good evening, young fellow,” the old man waved back to him from the sidewalk. “You two all settled?”
“Just about. Got these last few boxes to take into the house, then we’ll have to return the truck to the rental place,” he said, pointing his thumb behind him, “then the movers come in with our furniture tomorrow. Hopefully by then, we’ll be mostly unpacked.”
The old man nodded. “Need any help moving those boxes in?”
Scott eyed him up. He was old, mid-seventies or early eighties if he was guessing correctly, but he didn’t appear decrepit the way his old man had been at that age. That was probably because his dad’s lifestyle could have been described using two old adages: he’d smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish. And, it’d been that way until his last days.
The man in front of him was slender and about six-feet tall, maybe taller but it was hard to tell because he slouched. He was up there in age, alright, but healthy and willing to help nonetheless.
Scott shook his head. “No thank you. Appreciated, though.”
“Mm-hmm, any time neighbor. If you need sugar or anything, I’m just a few short yards away.” The old man smiled.
“Thanks again,” Scott said. And before he started off, he said, “Say, mister, what was your name again?”
“Raymond Gibson,” the old man said with a smile.
Scott approached him with his hand extended out. “Scott Roberts.”
“I remember. Two first names plus an ‘S,’” Raymond winked.
Scott laughed. “That’s a new one.”
“When you get to my age, you’ll come up with these sorta tricks to remember stuff, too, son.”
Scott laughed again. “See you around, Mr. Gibson.”
Mr. Gibson said goodbye and started his way home.
Scott turned back to the truck, and then remembered he was going to ask Mr. Gibson where a good pizza spot around the neighborhood was. He looked over his shoulder, and saw the old man was already half way down the sidewalk.
Never mind.
He climbed onto the truck to get the last of the boxes. The only ones left had Jack’s toys and video games, so they’d be some of the heavier boxes.
Guess I need to come up with tricks of my own to remember things. With a smirk on his face, he stacked up two boxes and started to carry them back inside.
Chapter 3
The bad part of having a friend he only saw once a week was that when he returned home it reminded him of how lonely his house was.
Raymond hung his track jacket on the coat rack, hung his keys on the holder, and kicked his shoes off. Then he slipped on the house slippers he kept by the front door.
His house was quiet, and each creak of the floorboard underneath his steps seemed to echo throughout. He never noticed this except after meeting with Ernesto at the park, and the reminder of how lonely his house was made him reconsider getting a dog or a cat.
Loneliness, or invite t
he smell of a litterbox or wet dog into his home. Yuck, he thought as he grabbed the remote off the coffee table and settled into his recliner.
He threw his wool blanket over his lap and flicked the television on to a comedian performing with a ventriloquist puppet. Raymond recognized him as Buddy Killian, but wasn’t overly familiar with his work. He’d only heard of him because of how famous he’d become in the last three years.
His schtick was centered around using ventriloquist dummies to say outrageous things—racist, sexist, ageist, and/or vulgar things. The nature of the joke all depended on which puppet he was sharing the stage with and which voice he was doing.
At the moment, he had the puppet named Zack the Zombie, who Buddy used to mock dead celebrities. It was one of the darkest acts of his performance, the kind of humor that makes people laugh uncomfortably while squirming in their seats.
The audience on the television was laughing it up, though. Maybe some of it was piped for television, but the guy was a mega celebrity, so something told Raymond that people would laugh just because of who Buddy Killian was.
It was odd that in this day and age someone like Buddy Killian could still get away with this kind of humor. Sure, comedians like George Carlin and Chris Rock found success by pushing the boundaries of what was socially acceptable, but they were considered kings of comedy. Legends even.
They weren’t newcomers sharing a stage with puppets like Buddy.
But maybe… Raymond watched Zack the Zombie’s mouth move as Buddy told his bit about the late Princess Diana.
“I saw Princess Diana in the afterlife, Buddy.” Zack said to the comedian.
“Oh, did you now, Zack? What did you talk about?” Buddy asked. He had an incredulous look on his face—as if even he didn’t know where the dummy was going with this.
“She told me about how even when you die in a car accident the insurance companies don’t believe your injuries.” Zack the Zombie responded.