The Last Day For Rob Rhino

by Kathleen O'Donnell

  “You did not. Tell me you didn’t.” Claire laughed. She couldn’t help it.

  “I did.” Rob smiled, his missing tooth making him look like a grade-school kid. “It wasn’t easy either. I’d already given up the urn. So it was quite a covert operation to break into the chapel and pull the switch.”

  “Oh my god. You are something else. You broke into the chapel?”

  “I had help.”

  “You had help? Good Christ, it’s like Mission Impossible around here.” Claire didn’t think this place could get any more bizarre.

  “You can’t get through this life without good friends. That’s all I can say.” Rob Rhino reliving his dastardly endeavors made him laugh.

  “So a friend broke in for you?”

  “Yeah. A good friend of mine worked here at the school. I have a lot of friends here from my prof days or did. Anyway, he broke in the night before the parent’s service and pulled the switch. Gave me back my wife’s ashes. No one was the wiser. Gloria’s parents went on about their business. They interred some fireplace ashes who-the-fuck-cares where. And I had my own private funeral service on the downlow.” Rob did a little hop.

  “You are amazing Rob Rhino. You are.” Claire saw him in a different light. A teeny bit better one.

  Rob gazed across the horizon. “I’d crossed so many lines in my life by that time, I figured what the fuck.”

  Claire followed his eyes out over the grounds and off into the heavens. The clouds drifted and rolled in a sky so majestic it might convert the unbeliever. Liam would like it here if he didn’t hate it.

  “I’m no cemetery expert but this has to be up there with the most beautiful,” Claire said.

  “Gloria loved it. She’d been coming here since she was a kid to admire it. I could’ve kept her urn but I had to bury her here in this beautiful, majestic place. The only place I’m at peace.” Rob’s teary eyes made him look more old-whipped hound than porn star.

  “I’m probably pissing off Freddie Eddie. Let’s head back. Enough about me. What’s your story? I’ve rambled enough.”

  “I’m afraid mine is as old as time.” Claire put one foot in front of the other. “Right before Liam died, I found out he had a girlfriend. And a baby.”

  “Whoa, whoa.” Rob’s rubber heels squeaked to a stop. “Claire, I—”

  “No worries,” she said in her best Rob Rhino. “It’s cool. I’m over it.”

  “Ah... really?” Rob’s eyes moved up and down over her.

  Claire stared at Rob’s fluorescent clogs, an obscenity of cheer. “Yes. Really. In fact, I’m here to bury Liam with his father in a family crypt. They’d been estranged. I want to bring them together, make peace.”

  “Oh that’s nice of you. Sentimental.” Rob’s eyes narrowed. “His father is already buried here?”

  “Um-hum.”

  Rob Rhino stopped, tilted his head, took her measure again. “It’s nice, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s nice. I bought a family crypt. For the whole kit and kaboodle.”

  “Oh well, bygones and all.” Rob started toward the auditorium again.

  “Liam didn’t get along with anyone in his family.”

  “Oh?”

  “His first wife is buried here.”

  Rob Rhino stopped short. “There was a first?”

  “Yes.” Claire felt in her pockets for her friends. “She killed herself.”

  “Oookay...” Rob’s eyes narrowed further still. “A happy group.”

  “Guess she never got over their divorce or some such bullshit.” She swallowed.

  “I wonder if Liam was in my history class?” Rob chuckled. “Wouldn’t that be funny?”

  Claire laughed. “No he never went here. He hated this school, thought it was for hippies, pot smokers. Oh sorry. He hated this whole town.”

  Rob laughed, loud and hard, he slapped his leg and bent over at the waist. “You’re over it all right. You’re something, Claire Corrigan.” He laughed harder.

  Claire didn’t crack a smile. Her mouth hardened in a kiss-like pucker while she waited for Rob Rhino to come to his senses.

  “Are you done?” she said.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just—” Rob wiped his eyes. “Whoo. You’ve got James Earl Jones sized balls. That’s some revenge scheme. Five million bucks—wow.”

  “I’m not going to deny it,” Claire said. She touched her scalp. “Why should I? You’re right. I’m getting even. And I spent a boatload of Liam’s precious money, which he’d hate, for the privilege. So what?”

  Rob pulled himself together. “So what is right. Claire, come on. Are you serious?”

  Claire stood ramrod straight. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

  “You do know Liam is dead. Odds are he won’t know.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Claire wasn’t a spiritual woman. In this case she hoped she was wrong. She clung to the convenient, ridiculous idea of eternal life. “Depends what you believe.”

  Rob sighed. “You’re right. I’m not religious. I believe in love. I’d like to think the good in us can triumph over the bad.” Rob jammed his hands in his pockets. “I want to think Gloria and I will be together again. But that’s not the point—that’s romance. What you’re doing is revenge.”

  “And?” Claire leaned against a headstone.

  “And? Revenge is wasted on the dead. Liam’s been gone, what? Over a year? Why did you wait? How long did it take to decide you were pissed off?”

  Claire jerked and sprang off the headstone like a bird had just crapped on her head. “This is why. I’m bald, you asshole. I’m bald and it’s his fault.” The passing visitors made a wide berth around the campus odd couple, frowning at Claire’s yelling on sacred ground. “It looks like I’m going to stay this way forever. I’m stuck here alone to deal with his girlfriend and her kid, and I have to do it with no goddamn hair. If I’m miserable for eternity Liam can join me.”

  Rob Rhino filled the short distance between them and held her hands. “Claire, it won’t matter. Whatever you do to or for the dead doesn’t matter. I know. It won’t make you feel better. It won’t make you any less bald.”

  Claire’s hands went limp, her bottom lip trembled like a child’s. “It’s all I’ve got left.”

  ****

  They walked back to the parking lot. She rattled the keys in her coat pocket, felt her hand brush up against her pills. They met Freddie Eddie loping toward them.

  “Where’ve you been?” Freddie Eddie said “You disappointed your fans. They thought you’d mingle longer. I’ll bet Alex’s is packed next weekend. I handed out flyers.”

  “I’m sure you took up the slack,” Rob Rhino said. “You break enough hearts in my absence.”

  Freddie Eddie winked and chuckled. “Just a couple.”

  “A real pleasure to see you again, Claire.” Freddie Eddie bowed at the waist. When he straightened up his eyes looked like whatever he felt about seeing Claire again was the opposite of pleasure.

  Claire gazed over his head, stayed silent.

  “I’m gonna walk Claire to her car then we can take off,” Rob said.

  Freddie Eddie waved goodbye and headed in the opposite direction.

  “I rode over with him,” he said.

  “Where are you staying by the way?” Claire left the subject of Freddie Eddie alone for the moment.

  “I own a house here. Nothing fancy.”

  A never-ending wonder, Rob Rhino. “Why does that surprise me? Right about now nothing should.”

  “No, right about now nothing should.” He shook his heavy head, smiled a rueful smirk.

  “Well, here’s my car. I can take it from here.” She unlocked the door.

  “How long are you staying?”

  “Three weeks if you can believe it. Long story. Mausoleum shipping time and everything.”

  “Oh well, I’ll probably see you around. I’m here for the next few months. I usually stay for the spring and early summer, before it gets too hum
id. I’m around campus for the rest of Trustee Week, plus out at Alex’s most weekends.”

  “Alex’s.” Claire clucked like a hen.

  “It’s a gig, isn’t it?” He looked pleased. “Freddie Eddie’s helped me ride the wave pretty hard the second time around.”

  Speaking of. “What about Freddie Eddie? Does he know about Gloria?”

  “No. No one does.”

  Claire didn’t know if she should feel flattered or not. “Why did you tell me? Me, of all people?”

  Rob kicked at a piece of gum stuck to the asphalt. “I believe in love.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The parking lot was at a standstill. Twelve hundred visitors headed out at the same time, nobody moving. A toss-up to see who’d get out first, the suckers in their cars or the stiffs six feet under on hold ’til the Second Coming. Claire’d bet even money.

  Her car edged forward while she dug around in her purse for something to do. She grabbed a big lump of something and yanked it out. Her cell phone cord. Guess that meant it wasn’t plugged into her phone. Which meant her phone wasn’t plugged into the outlet. Again. Still. Where was it anyway? On top of the TV in the hotel room probably. Oh well, the kids knew the hotel number.

  The car moved forward a tad. Some lady in a BMW honked. Like it’d help. Claire rolled down her window all the way, reached into the bottom of her purse for her pills. Stop. She put both hands on the wheel.

  It started with the dentist.

  He’d had that genius idea to do her root canal with no anesthetic. Hello? Doctor Mengele calling.

  He’d said, “Mrs. Corrigan the nerve is dead. But the tooth is abscessed up into your nose. The area I’d have to numb is very tender. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you. The pain from the needle would—”

  “What do you suggest?” Claire’d asked.

  “I can do the root canal without novocaine. You won’t feel a thing.” The look on her face was the international symbol for not on your fucking life so he’d added, “I’ll give you some Valium to take before your appointment. You’ll be relaxed as a newborn kitten.”

  Doctor Mengele sent her home with more Valium than he’d probably intended. At seventy-three he’d threatened to retire for years. Claire watched him shake a few pills from a big bottle into a small one, all the while blabbing about his new fly rod. On her way out the door, he’d handed her the big bottle. She’d kept her mouth shut and kept walking, big pill bottle in hand.

  That night, as a dry run, she’d tried one. Doctor Mengele was righty-o. The runaway thoughts and choking panic that’d haunted her most of her life slept for the first time.

  She’d mentioned her wonder drug to her Pilates instructor who gave her some lifechanging advice. “They’re still giving out Valium? That’s for old ladies. Harmless. Like Advil. Anytime you go in for any kind of medical procedure, no matter how harmless, you can get that stuff. Just tell ’em the procedure makes you nervous, and, bam—you get it.”

  Then she’d looked it up online to see what else she could get it for.

  Over the course of the next year Claire had two mammograms, a CT scan for unexplained side pain and an MRI when the CT scan was inconclusive. Then three unnecessary root canals, two wisdom teeth removed, complained of insomnia, suffered from restless leg syndrome, and fibromyalgia.

  Her days floated off in a serene haze, her nights in a dreamless catatonic-like sleep. For a time. When she’d suspected Liam had a steady on the side, the runaway thoughts and panic woke with a vengeance, she accelerated her fake illnesses and the Valium dosage then chased them with a small glass of wine or two in the late afternoons.

  Claire pulled out of the parking lot and onto the outer campus road where traffic moved quicker. When Liam died and her hair fell out, she got a whole round of new doctors. Dermatologists, specialists, a shrink or two. She’d found the perfect setup and a different yet similar drug. And an ace in the hole with her hairless widowhood. A well-placed tear brought out the prescription pad every time.

  Then she discovered she could buy the drugs online. And from Guillermo.

  She turned onto the main road out of the university. She reached back into her purse. Her pulse quickened, her mouth felt full of yarn. She decided to take a pill (just the one) when the car died. What the—?

  It slowed almost to a stop. The car behind her swerved, the driver hung out his window, hollered something about her mother. It felt impossible to steer. The wheel would barely move. She pulled hard. The sedan rolled slow, came to a complete stop about six inches from the sidewalk.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  She banged the steering wheel with both hands. What’s the deal with this goddamn car? She just put gas in it the other... at that station on... shit crap shit. She’d never put gas in it. The last person to put gas in this heap was probably rental car lip-ring boy back at the airport.

  Now what?

  She’d call for help. She looked down at her purse. Hit the steering wheel once more for good measure. Goddammit. Call on what? A cord? She leaned her wet forehead on the wheel. Guess she’d have to hoof it. Her hotel was a few miles away. No idea where a gas station was obviously. She’d find someone to ask. Have to deal with the staring, the awkward politeness, or rudeness. Claire opened the door without looking. An oncoming car nearly slammed into it, skidded out of the way, horn blaring. She jumped back. Didn’t any of these hicks watch where they’re going in this Podunk town?

  After looking in all directions she got out and started walking toward her hotel. Not five feet from the car she heard a familiar voice.

  “Claire Corrigan?”

  Rob Rhino.

  If she wasn’t in such dire straits...

  Claire stopped to turn around. Rob and Freddie Eddie drove next to her at a crawl in Freddie Eddie’s ’Vette.

  “We’ll pull over right up there.” Rob Rhino pointed to Freddie Eddie who did what Rob said.

  “What’s up? Something wrong with your car?” Rob Rhino walked as quick as his stub legs would let him, his clogs squeaking and slapping on the sidewalk toward Claire. Freddie Eddie stayed in the car.

  “It’s out of gas.”

  Rob dropped his head and wagged it back and forth, “You’re kidding. Claire Corrigan. What am I gonna do with you?”

  “Take me to get some gas.”

  “Two-seater car. Hang on.” Rob did a quick waddle back to Freddie’s lech-mobile and leaned into the driver’s window. In a few seconds he doubled back to where Claire stood helpless on the sidewalk. Freddie Eddie peeled away from the curb.

  “Where’s he going?” Claire said.

  “Gas station, I hope.”

  “By himself? How does he know what kind to get?”

  “No telling what kind of trouble you’d get into alone. Unleaded. It’s a rental. Won’t need premium grade.”

  “Aren’t you smart?” Claire had a less generous observation on the tip of her tongue for Freddie Eddie and his ridiculous car but since he’d gone to get her ass out of a sling, she swallowed it. “Let’s go sit in the car. Only thing it’s good for right about now.”

  They walked the few feet back to the sedan and got in.

  “Now we’re even.” Rob Rhino said.

  “Even? Huh?”

  “Yeah, I kinda owed you one.”

  “For what?” An odd duck, this porn star.

  “You picked me up on the highway and gave me a ride that first day.” He rapped the dashboard like a snare drum. “This is karma I guess.”

  “If that were true you’d have run me over first.”

  Rob cracked up. “Well, I wasn’t gonna mention that part.”

  Claire’s mouth felt parched. Beads of moisture lined her upper lip like tiny soldiers. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and reached into her purse. Claire felt one of the many pill bottles at the bottom but didn’t pull one out. She didn’t want to take a pill in front of Rob Rhino. Why she cared she didn’t know. She caressed the pill bottle in the dark r
ecesses of her Kelly bag.

  I believe in love.

  She glanced up to find him looking at her arm sticking out of her purse. His eyes moved to hers. Caught with her hand in the pharmacist’s jar.

  “You can wean off those things.” He looked stern, professor-ish.

  “Why would I?” Her doctor (doctors) never said she should. “Not like it’s heroin.”

  “You’re gonna end up dead nonetheless.” Rob glanced out the window.

  Claire yanked her arm out of her bag. “Not everyone dies of an overdose like Gloria.”

  “What makes you think Gloria died of an overdose?”

  “Didn’t you say—”

  “I said Gloria had a drug problem.”

  Freddie Eddie pulled up alongside her.

  Claire felt exasperated. She rolled her eyes. “How’d she die then?”

  “I killed her.”

  Chapter Thirty

  They put gas in her car and Rob insisted on following her to the hotel. Better safe than sorry. Freddie Eddie made stern faces at her and only grunted when necessary. Claire drove to the hotel, pulled into the closest open space in the parking lot still full of Trustee Week revelers. Freddie Eddie idled behind her. Rob jumped out.

  “This is me. Days Inn.” Claire got out, locked the rental, tossed her keys into her bag. She’d taken a few stress relievers as soon as Rob jumped out of her car when Freddie Eddie delivered the gas. Her anxiety on a rampage after Rob’s bombshell.

  “Oh so this is where the princess sleeps on the pea.”

  The murderous porn star seemed casual as ever.

  Claire licked her peeling lips, wondered if he could hear her blood running, smell her sweat, her alarm. “I appreciate all the help.” Damn Jordan for being right.

  A dual cab truck roared up behind Freddie Eddie, revved its engine.

  “Better get going before Freddie Eddie starts kickin’ ass.”

  “Wait.” Claire crept close to Rob’s ear. “Why’d you kill her?”

  “She needed to go.”

  ****

  Housekeeping dollied up the biggest FedEx box anyone there’d ever seen. They had to send someone back for something sharp and heavy duty to get it open. Claire had a few hours to sort out its contents before heading to the farm for the last supper with Liam’s family. Conchita’d worked her usual magic. All were well chosen, wrapped in plastic, shoes in cloth bags, a few coordinating purses, ready to wear.