Hieroglyphics

by Jill McCorkle

  At least, now it’s summer, and the day camp she forces Harvey to attend is a much easier situation. The camp is at the small children’s museum downtown and is run by a teacher in the elementary school, the man all the kids want for second grade, because he wears purple high-top sneakers and dances on his desk when all the children get one hundred on the spelling test. He seems like a nice guy, too, but Shelley’s job has taught her to question everyone. “We talk about dinosaurs, pirates,” he had said, trying to assure her. “Mummies. What children aren’t interested in those topics?” Two days in a row, Harvey has done all of his clinging and begging in the car and then walked off without looking back once, and even though she feels so proud of him, it also breaks her heart, because she fears there could be a day when he or Jason might do that for good. People do that, she thinks yet again. People sometimes leave and you don’t know why, or if they will ever come back; you don’t know if they are alive or dead.

  She misses Jason and the way he has always been such a help with Harvey, but she is also thrilled, finally, to get cheerful messages or texts from him. He is doing fine. He loves school. Loves numbers. Calculus. Coding. She’d told him that he didn’t have her brain, and he’d immediately said his skills must come from his dad, something he always circles back to.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Jason has said. If he has thanked her once, he has done so thousands of times by now. “I know it’s a lot of money.” All through his life, he has thanked her, and there is some part of her that breaks every time; she knows he felt slightly on the outside when Brent was in their lives. Before that, it had been just the two of them, with Harvey on the way, and making ends meet was really hard then. He loved, as all children do, to hear stories about himself, and so she told him how he had once refused to play with a child who’d intentionally killed a granddaddy longlegs, or how he only ate orange food for a couple of years—goldfish, cantaloupe, Kraft macaroni and cheese—how there was a period of time when he cried to see the sun set, fearful it would not come back.

  She has told him stories about his dad and what a huge loss to the world it was when he died. “We were so in love,” she has told Jason many times. And she has painted the things she remembers, as well as things she wishes she remembered, and still he had questions: Did he like cantaloupe, too? Did he ever jump from a plane? Or kill somebody? She tells Jason that his father watches over him and will bring him great luck and strength. She tells it so well that she believes it, too.

  She tells Harvey that he is also special, that often something happens at birth to make sure everyone is aware of how important that person is. “So smile, honey,” she says, and he does, but it is always with his hand raised to cover his mouth, the scar that splits his top lip, the tiny white line up to his nose. He loves the kit of fake mustaches Jason gave him, especially the big bushy handlebar one. He says that is what he will grow when he’s a teenager, that he bets his daddy will have a big mustache when he gets home from building an igloo and from hiking on the Appalachian Trail. He says when he is a man his mustache will be put in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for being the longest mustache ever. He is sure his lost turtle will come back home any day now, and he says he has seen a murderer at least once—maybe in a parked car when they are leaving a store or on the highway. He has also seen a ghost in their house.

  People leaving and never returning is as common as someone getting a gun, going into a public place, and blowing people away. During many trials, Shelley has heard people say: “And we never saw him again.” Or they say: “Yet another angry white man with a gun.” The shootings happen so often, people ask: Terrorist or sick white dude? Pass the salt. How was your day? Just like in that song Shelley’s mama used to sing, “Ode to Billie Joe,” where all the people sit at the table eating like no big deal when this boy has killed himself, and nobody ever even knows what the girl had to do with it all in the first place. It’s clear she was involved, but how? She was seen with him up on the bridge—pass the biscuits—and then he was dead, gone, like all those poor people just going about their lives before the crazy person showed up. That’s what she has heard a judge say: “One minute they were where they were supposed to be—school, work, worship—and the next minute they were not.”

  Death is never easy to explain. When their cat went missing in Georgia, she told the kids she was sure he had found a new home. “Of course he did. Who wouldn’t want that sweet little kitty cat? Or he might come right back here,” she had told Jason. “Cats do that all the time.”

  “Why do you tell such lies?” Brent had asked, certain the cat was long gone. “Coyote chow,” he said. But she said the cat was lost, missing—missing like the piece of luggage she once lost. She owned so little, and then that, too, was gone, and maybe that is why this trial is so important to her. She is a lot like that young woman who was murdered, one of the people who could so easily be lifted from the Earth with barely a footnote—pass the gravy, please.

  Shelley never got her luggage back, left on a Greyhound bus, and yet she has never stopped thinking about the life of her things; she likes to think they were found by someone homeless, the fancy nightgown she loved—nylon, but it felt like silk—finding a home with someone who, like her, had never had something so impractical, the scent of fabric softener and the sachets she kept with it giving an added sense of comfort. The same with her favorite sweater, its fibers carrying her smell onto the body of the person who found it. To them, her loss was their luck, a stroke of good fortune, the sort of thing that might help change an attitude or turn a life around. To think otherwise, to think of her things pissed on or burned, bloodied beyond recognition, was too painful to even imagine, as was picturing the slender calico running for her life, ears tucked back and a guttural scream emitted with the swift tear of a coyote or the speeding tire of a car. Shelley’s eye is always drawn to the side of the road—so much loss there in the ditches and wooded areas.

  Brent had said it was over and he was going his own way.

  What about us? she wanted to ask, but she didn’t. Her brother had told her, “Don’t ever beg, Shelley.” But now she’s thinking she might have to beg a little to keep her job. He would probably say that in this case, begging might be a good thing.

  When the lawyers looked over the other day and realized she was listening to their conversation, she studied the shorthand pad in her lap, where she had recorded their jokes; they were always telling little jokes. A couple of their jokes were racist, even though the judge was black, and Shelley had notated all of that as well—oh God, that was there, too, with the grocery list, not my joke, their joke—and she’d also put in her own two cents about how the judge would’ve made Judge Judy melt like sugar. Shelley had once seen the woman in Pinehurst buying shoes—and really expensive shoes, too—but Shelley didn’t make eye contact, because there is no way that woman would remember her, but still, she took note of those shoes, beautiful ostrich-skin pumps in a kind of burgundy color, and she has seen the judge come into the courtroom wearing them, too, and it’s hard not to feel a little connected since she herself witnessed her buying them.

  Now, she cringes with the idea that someone so fiercely intelligent has by now probably read all that Shelley wrote about the trial and would know that she sometimes buys inferior products, that in fact her list is filled with places where it says buy whichever is cheapest. It would be so much better, make such a better impression, if she had written a particular brand: Crest, Colgate, Tom’s of Maine (that would have really made a good impression probably—all natural). And there was a time when that would have been true, like in high school when she’d wanted to use Vibrance shampoo because of the commercials and the way it showed the girl’s hair go from straight and stringy to a wild wavy mass like Mariah’s. Hair so full of life! And she liked Aquafresh—the cool, freshening stripes—ski slopes, and happy families. That’s the way I like it.

  But the list Shelley accidentally turned in really doesn’t represent her well, and, even worse
than that, she’d described the judge as having angry eyes and hair that all but leapt from her head as if it might burst into flame, the way the pirate Blackbeard’s beard supposedly used to do. She had learned that from Harvey, that he put candles in the beard so it looked like he was on fire when he invaded ships. “Harvey, do not ever let me catch you putting candles in one of those fake beards,” she had said, and Harvey asked how she knew he was thinking that. But she knew. She did know. She later found a box of birthday-cake candles tucked under the stuffed turtle on his bed.

  Shelley’s job has always kept her feeling better about herself. Sometimes the worse the case, the happier her life can feel, because, yes, it may be difficult to not know where someone is, but at least no one has put a cigarette out in your eye while you slept or a broomstick up your vagina, no one has shaken your baby to death or drugged you and then shot heroin into your arm to make it look like you killed yourself in a sad little apartment above a hot-dog drive-in, while your sweet little baby was staying with a friend just so you could have a date. That’s the story of the trial, and she can’t get it out of her head. It all feels so close to her life—Brent could have killed her when she showed up at his house and told him about Harvey—and so she actively seeks ways to distract herself so she won’t feel afraid, something she learned to do a long time ago when the sounds of all those televisions and voices in her childhood home joined together in one loud vacuum-like hum.

  Since childhood, Shelley’s mind has wandered, and so she is especially sympathetic to Harvey and the way the teacher described his staring out the window. This is why her job is so good for her—taking notes, word after word, stroke after stroke—such a healthy way to stay focused and productive, to contribute to the good of society while also taking care of herself and her children. She practices begging while walking the aisles of Food Lion. Please let me keep my job. She shakes her head against the thought of the judge’s eyes, that piercing stare that demands truth from all the lowlifes. “I will need to speak to you,” the judge had said, and Shelley practices begging one more time while she spins the rack of L’eggs and No Nonsense. Gentlemen might prefer Hanes, but she hates pantyhose and always has. How can it even be healthy to be all bound up that way like a Jimmy Dean sausage; a pair of pantyhose was the weapon of choice in a trial just six months ago: mask and strangulation tool, all for under five dollars.

  I tend to wear nice pants instead of skirts, she imagines telling the judge. I take my work very seriously. Every aspect of it.

  Harvey

  A lot of what Jason has told Harvey is funny in the daytime but not in the dark, like about cave fish that go blind because they don’t need eyes. “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” Jason always said and that’s why Harvey tries to use his eyes and ears every day. Jason told him about the Beast of Bladenboro and the Munchkin people and the maniac under the bed. Jason said don’t tell their mom all that stuff, because it would frighten her. But Harvey has told her. He had to, especially in the middle of the night when it was just the two of them.

  Harvey thinks a lot about the Dog House Girl too and the way they found her naked and dead like that. He imagines that he is in that room with her. He tiptoes in. First, he goes and gets himself a Chihuahua hot dog dripping with chili and salsa, and there she is, waving and saying, Aren’t you the cutest! That’s my favorite too, Harvey. She says, Only you can see me. You know that, right? Thinking about this in the day is okay.

  But Lizzie is never good to think about. He might try to imagine being friends with her and getting her to act good and be kind to others but as soon as he says that, she reaches for her axe and says she has to give somebody forty whacks, and that always wakes him up and he feels like he needs to go stand by his mother’s bed.

  Come see me, Harvey, Dog House Girl says. You don’t need to be afraid. And what she meant was in the cemetery. Come see her in the cemetery. Come see where people leave little flowers above where she is, down there in the dirt, where it is as dark as where the cave fish are, which is why they don’t have eyes.

  Super Monkey can keep the bad people from doing what is bad and mean so people like that girl can keep her eyes and keep on living there at the Dog House with her little boy. Harvey’s a little like a superhero or a Ninja Turtle, like Leonardo, but more like Michelangelo, telling jokes and making everybody laugh. He uses nunchakus—that’s like his specialty. Jason says Harvey loves the Turtles as much as Jason used to love Power Rangers. “The good ones stay forever,” Jason said. “Look at Superman. He’s like eighty.”

  “Eighty?”

  “Yes, or a hundred,” Jason said. “One time they said he died.”

  “He can’t do that,” Harvey said. And now that’s another thing that Super Monkey is having to try to fix. Don’t get Superman killed or hurt or old.

  “But then they let him come back,” Jason said. “Like Jesus or E.T.” Jason loved that movie and he would sometimes reach his fingertip out to Harvey and say, “Phone home,” and that’s what Harvey said when Jason left to go to school—“Phone home”—and Jason took a pen and wrote his number inside Harvey’s closet and drew a picture of E.T. so Harvey could call whenever he wanted to, but lately he just gets Jason saying he can’t talk, leave a message. Harvey says, “Phone home. There’s ghosts in the yard.”

  Now, Harvey spends a lot of time watching the blackberry thicket between their yard and the new house, because this is where the ghosts go. “Don’t go out there,” Jason said. “Not without me.” Jason is like Leonardo. The fearless leader, serious and smart. Jason’s number is also written on the kitchen wall, right beside the phone. It is there beside everything else important to remember for when Harvey gets a ride and might be home too early: 911, never call unless an emergency; 411 will give you someone’s number if you know their name. He once got them mixed up and was trying to figure out how to call his mother at the courthouse and the person kept saying, “Where are you? Where are you?” And he knew not to tell about himself to a stranger and he didn’t know that person. His mother told him that. They said that at school. And the woman said, “Don’t go anywhere, little boy. Stay on the line.” And then in no time there were sirens and several policemen and of course there wasn’t an adult at home, which he was never supposed to say. He was supposed to say that his mother was in the shower and she will have to call right back. His mom said the best answer was to say his daddy was in the garage working on the car, could he call back soon, because people act different if a man is there, like working on a car or chopping wood.

  He left Jason a message about the Dog House Girl and how he can’t stop thinking about her even though their mom tells him not to worry and then he told Jason how their mom cries sometimes and puts her head on the table like they make you do at school during quiet time. He told him how he’s having trouble eating hot dogs, and he loves hot dogs. Last time he told Jason that, Jason said, “Then eat pizza—that’s what Michelangelo would do. Pizza with lots of good junk on it.”

  The only good thing about when it gets dark is story time. Not whatever his mother tells or reads to him, even though he likes that part too. He loves how she smells like the bathtub and the way she is so warm; her bathrobe is like a real soft towel. Sometimes he closes his eyes and pretends that she is a mini horse there beside him, his horse, the first horse to ever be housebroke. This horse stands over the commode and then flushes. His mom says “commode” but the first-grade teacher said “toilet.”

  Harvey likes his story time, when he tells his own story to himself with his eyes closed and it’s a like a movie going, and the problem lately is that the other stories are interrupted, like when the TV goes out when they say that something needs to be told right now and it’s really, really bad stuff like a tornado is coming or something else scary. So last night when Harvey was in his own story time and living in that hollowed-out tree with the Runaway Bunny, waiting for their mother to come and get them, some of the others tried to get in instead. He was in there cu
rled up and nice and warm and he knows people would tease him for being in a book that is written for babies but what they don’t know is that this tree is different. The others closed the book and didn’t know what came after, that they got a big television in this tree and they eat lots of good food and there is a mama and a daddy and they all curl up and watch things like Finding Nemo on the TV and the mama and daddy say I love you—“I love you”—and Bunny and Harvey pretend to sleep so that the mom and dad will keep staying there in the dark tree but then sometimes something shakes the tree hard and claws at the windows and the mom and dad aren’t there anymore, because Lizzie got them, and even though he was so tired and even though all that shaking made him pee, he had to get up and put on his outfit to go out there and tell Lizzie that he is Super Monkey, whose specialty is to tell everyone in the universe, “Don’t get killed,” and she has to go back and start over and not do bad things.

  Make me, Lizzie said. You can’t stop me. And then he felt so bad and scared he went and got in bed with his mom and stayed real quiet so she wouldn’t know, and he pretended he was back inside the tree with the bunny family. Jason said sometimes daddies go places and never come back and that’s just how it is. Jason said that’s why brothers are important. He said, “Don’t ask Mom about it,” and Harvey hasn’t, because if he starts to, Lizzie will pick up her axe and stare. If he asks, then she might start murdering again and it would be all his fault, so he thinks about all the things he can ask his mom about. There is the Maco Light, about the train engineer that lost his head and goes looking for it down near the beach, and there are the Munchkins throwing rocks, and the Dog House Girl, who wasn’t wearing any clothes at all, and Harvey hates that part of the story. He hates that part as much as he does to think about a needle stuck in her arm by that terrible man Super Monkey has not been able to make quit.