Death Rhythm (4 page)

Several large sturdy oaks occupied Mae’s yard, their branches bare. Bright orange-red October sun poured down into the yard, hitting Andy’s face with a brilliant flash as he walked out onto the front step. He squinted, momentarily blinded, shading his eyes with his arm. The sun was different here. Like freshly squeezed orange juice. Pure. Not like the muddied light that filtered into Andy’s eyes back home.

In various spots throughout the yard, dead leaves were heaped into piles. The sound of a rake scraping over dead grass came from behind the house.

Andy followed the narrow driveway until it ended in a small cul-de-sac. Beyond was a garage, separate from the house, its windows opaque from the reflecting sun.

Andy looked around the rear of the house and saw Mae stuff an armful of leaves into a wheelbarrow. She wore a faded pair of blue jeans and a maroon windbreaker. The wind tussled her hair, sending it flopping over itself, forming a new hairdo each time she turned and faced a different direction.

The house was built of brick, weathered here and there with orange paint chipped off and cracks running along the walls like veins.

At the top of the house, under the black slate roof, was a porthole window, which Andy guessed belonged to an attic. He also noticed a pair of rusting metal storm doors set into the ground. The shiny new steel padlock keeping the doors shut reminded him of the sheriff’s story about Mae’s burning cat. He had yet to see any cats.

Mae hefted a pile of leaves into the wheelbarrow and carted them off to the other side of the property, where she dumped them into a larger pile of smoldering leaves.

Behind Mae’s property, to the north, was a wooded area. A small, overgrown trail disappeared into the trees.

Mae saw Andy standing there like a lost dog, and waved, yelling, “Over here, over here,” as if he hadn’t seen her.

He waved back and ambled over.

Mae tipped the wheelbarrow forward and shook it, sending another pile of leaves into the blackening mass. Then she placed the handles of the wheelbarrow into Andy’s hands. She smiled, and said, “Glad you came to help. Now we’ll get the job done twice as fast.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Well, for starters, just roll that baby on over to the next pile of leaves, and we’ll go from there.”

Andy pushed the wheelbarrow to the closest pile.

“Okay, you can set it down, now.” Mae looked at Andy questioningly. “Haven’t you ever raked leaves before?”

Andy’s cheeks flushed. “Guess not.”

“Well, if I would’ve known that, Andy, then I wouldn’t have started so soon. The raking part’s all done.” She patted him on the shoulder. “But hauling the leaves is twice the fun.”

Andy smiled and bent over, picked up two handfuls of leaves and tossed them into the wheelbarrow.

“It’ll be faster if you use your hands together. Like a team. Pretend they’re a steam shovel, Andy.” His aunt threw a bunch in. “A steam shovel.”

After filling the wheelbarrow, they dumped the load on the rest of the incinerating leaves, and went back for more. They continued until all the leaves burned.

“You’ve never raked leaves? Any kind of yard work?” Mae’s cheeks were red from the crisp breeze, her lungs working a little harder now to fill with air.

Andy breathed harder, too. “We didn’t have a yard.”

“That’s too bad.” Mae smiled sympathetically, taking off the work gloves she'd been wearing, wiping off her sweaty hands onto her jeans. “I think it’s a good experience for everyone to do some yard work now and then. To feel the leaves. The texture. To feel the grass and the soil. I mean really get down and feel it, pick it up with your bare hands and squeeze the shit out of it, and get a feel for the whole life cycle. Growth, death, erosion, and growth again. It’s all right here,” she said, gesturing to the ground.

Andy stared for a moment, and asked, “If you like the feel of the earth so much, why are you wearing gloves?”

She laughed. Shrugged. “After a while, the soil starts eroding everything away.” She took hold of Andy’s hands and held them up to his face. “But look at your hands,” she said. “They’re still young. They haven’t lived yet. The soil on your hands is making them grow, making them strong.” She squeezed his hands, then let them go.

“It’s all a cycle, Andy. It’s all a rhythm.” She smiled. “Wait here a moment.”

When she came back out of the house, she carried an old brown shoebox. Across the side of it was written BULBS in thick, black marker. She handed the box to Andy.

“Tulips,” she said.

She led Andy to a patch of bare soil, about six-feet by four-feet, behind the house. She reverently got down on her knees. Andy did the same. Mae took the box of tulips and handed Andy a small spade.

“All you have to do is dig a small hole about five or six inches deep, and place in a bulb, big side down.” She waited until he scooped out a spade full of dirt, then placed a tulip in his hand. He stuck it in the hole.

“Now cover it up and pat down the soil with the spade.”

Done.

“Good.” She handed over ten more bulbs, keeping the rest for herself. “Just plant them wherever you feel fit, Andy. I trust your creative judgment.”

His creative judgment consisted of tossing a bulb a few inches into the air and planting it where it landed.

“The thing I like most about tulips, Andy, is that you stick them in the ground, and no matter how hard the winter is, or how cold the ground gets, they always come up in the spring. They’re tough little buggers. But the funny thing is - even after toughing out months of a cold winter - once they do grow up through the ground, it only takes a swift kick to destroy them.”

Andy tossed another bulb into the air. Watched it land. Dug a hole in the earth with his fingers and buried it.

“So tell me about Edna, Andy. How’s she been?”

They sat cross-legged next to the tulip garden in Mae’s backyard. The temperature had dropped slightly, the wind picking up a bit, but Mae didn’t seem to notice this as much as Andy did. Whenever the chill began to bite into Andy’s hands, he rubbed them quickly together, letting the friction warm them.

“She’s been all right, I guess.”

“What’s she been doing all these years?”

“Working in the records department at St. Mary’s hospital.”

Mae nodded. Looked away.

Andy ran his hand over the yellow-brown grass, then cupped his palms together and blew warm, moist air into them.

Mae asked, “Is she still married?”

“Mom? No. My father died a long time ago. I can’t even remember him.”

“Did Edna tell you much about him?”

“About my father?” Andy picked at the dead grass in front of him. “Not really,” he said. “Did you know him?”

Mae stared hard at Andy, her voice hesitant. “Yes, I knew your dad.” She leaned back, squinting from the sun. “You know, Andy - when you called and asked to come over here, I didn’t know how I’d react at first.”

“I hope I’m not too much of a bother.”

“Oh, you’re not a bother. It’s just that the memories I have of your mother, your father - “ She paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “It’s strange to have them thrust at me so suddenly, so out of the blue. It’s like I’ve been thrown blindfolded into a large, deep lake.”

Andy didn’t know what to say. How could she not have known that his father died years ago? Her own sister’s husband?

Mae twisted around suddenly and got to her knees. She pointed to the woods in back. “Listen. Do you hear that?”

Andy turned around. “What?”

“Listen.”

Andy tried to listen and at first all he heard were his own chaotic thoughts, his own heart beating rapidly in his chest. But as he forced himself to relax and listen, he heard a rhythmic knocking coming from the trees. A rapid, staccato THOCK! THOCK! THOCK!

“It’s a redhead,” Mae said. “There. Do you see it?”

Andy shook his head.

Mae pointed into the woods. “There. In that big elm. A redheaded woodpecker.”

He didn’t know an elm from a jack pine, but his eyes finally latched onto the bird, its bright red head jack-hammering the tree. Every once in a while, it would stop, turn its head to check on its progress, and continue on.

Mae’s eyes suddenly sparkled. “Are you interested in birds, Andy?”

Andy wanted to know more about his father. His mother rarely talked about him. To Andy, he was merely a few pictures tucked in her dresser. He opened his mouth to ask about him, but stopped. Instead, he said, “I haven’t had much chance to see any. Just a lot of pigeons.”

Mae gazed upward into the sky. “They have the most hypnotic shoulders.”

“Pigeons?”

“Yes. When the sunlight hits the feathers on their shoulders, the colors shift and swirl around. Like when you look into a pool of spilled oil.”

She stood up and stretched, looked across the grassy weed-filled field that separated her property from the neighbors’. “I’m really nuts about bird watching. I’ve spent hours and hours sitting here watching them. Sometimes I just plant myself right where we are now and wait for them to come. Sometimes I get out my pair of binoculars and go searching for them. They’re so graceful when they’re flying. So pleasant and soothing. It’s like they’re a part of the wind.”

Andy followed Mae’s eyes across the unkempt grass, the browning weeds. Followed her eyes to the red brick house with the clothes billowing ghost-like between the white metal poles.

“But when they’re not flying,” Mae continued, still staring at the neighbors’ house, “they seem so damn nervous. If you get a good look at them, you can see their little bodies twitching, and their heads jerking around.”

Andy stood up, his legs tingling from the lack of circulation. He walked in a circle to get the blood going. The wind had shifted and was now sending smoke from the burning pile of leaves in their direction. Andy coughed and rubbed at his eyes. He turned away from the thick smoke.

Mae stood up and put her hand on his shoulder. Her eyes darted back and forth across his face. “I’ll let you use my binoculars if you’d like,” she said. “You can go and find some birds for yourself.”

Andy’s stomach growled. It was close to three in the afternoon.

“Hungry?” Mae asked.

“Sure.” Andy coughed again.

“I’ll whip up a couple sandwiches.”

The pile of leaves smoldered like a black acrid heart at the edge of the property.

Inside Mae’s kitchen, Andy thumbed through the phonebook, looking up the Ellingston Auto Repair Shop. He thought it best to forget about bringing up his father again with Mae. Obviously there was a whole can of worms in there somewhere, and he didn’t have the time or patience to open it now. He had to get his car out of the repair shop, drive home, and try to patch things up with Cathy. He hoped he wasn’t too late.

He found the repair shop’s number and dialed. Someone picked up the other line. Andy said, “Hi. This is Andrew Byrd, and I was wondering - “

“You've reached the Ellingston Auto Repair Shop. We’re closed right now, so please leave your - “

Andy hung up.

“They’re closed,” he said in disbelief. “It’s only a little after three, and they’re closed.”

“They don’t always have a lot to do down there. They probably got bored and went home.”

“But they’ve got my car to work on.”

“This isn’t Milwaukee, Andy. They just don’t carry the kind of parts you need here. I’ll bet they have to order a windshield from Minneapolis.”

“How long will that take?”

“Who knows?” Mae stacked the sandwiches she made on a plate and brought them to the kitchen table. She sat down across from Andy and sighed. “You’re welcome to stay here if you’d like.”

Andy took a sandwich from the plate and looked at it. Then he set it back down. “I guess I don’t have a choice.” He looked up at Mae. “What else can I do?”

Mae watched him without answering. She sat down and bit into her sandwich. She continued to watch him as he sat there, staring at the top of the kitchen table.

FOUR

The binoculars bounced up and down on the dark blue windbreaker Andy borrowed from Mae. They hung around his neck by a tan leather strap stained dark from years of use. “You can’t make out the moons of Jupiter with them,” his aunt said, “but you sure as hell can hone in on a bird.” The weight of the strap dug comfortably into his neck as they bounced and jerked in time with his footsteps. He followed the overgrown trail behind Mae’s yard.

He had to get out of Mae’s house for a while. He tried calling Cathy twice after lunch, but she didn’t answer the phone. The first time, he hung up without leaving a message, but when he tried again an hour later, he spoke into the answering machine.

“Cathy, it’s me. I don’t know what to say, other than that I’m sorry. I’m at my aunt’s house.” He spoke quietly into the receiver, hoping Mae wasn’t listening. “I know you’re probably wondering ‘what Aunt?’ and believe me, I was surprised to find her myself, but I got in a car accident, and – ” He paused, realizing he was rambling. “Anyway, I’m sorry, and I’ll be home as soon as my car is fixed. Just know that I love you and I’m sorry.” He hung up. Felt that Mae was listening in the next room. Not that he had anything to hide, but -

He just had to get out.

The trail was narrow, only a foot across at its widest, and was covered with dead leaves. The shadows from the trees were long as the sun touched the horizon. It was the same sun that had illuminated blood on the hood of his car only twenty-four hours earlier. The same sun Cathy would wake up to tomorrow morning.

What was she doing?

The trees here were thick. Poplars, maples and pines. Up ahead a group of birch clustered together in a small clique. Many of the trees were already bare, like the ones in Mae’s yard, but the trees here had the advantage of a brotherhood, giving each other protection from the wind. Some of the smaller ones still held their leaves in colorful defiance.

Most of the leaves were at Andy’s feet, though, and crunched as he walked. He took a deep breath.

Here was that smell again, that fresh smell he'd noticed earlier sitting in Mae’s kitchen. Was this where it came from? These rotting leaves?