Authors: Matthew Crow
I felt myself blanche at the prospect.
“... well, only if you feel you’d be up to it, having seen what you’ve seen of course... ”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine to do it, if needs be.”
“You’re on your own today too, did I say that already?”
“No.”
“Richard’s taken ill. It’s his heart you see. He was never a well man, I’m sure he will have told you as much.”
“He mentioned it once or twice.”
“I’ll bet,” said Caleb. “We’ve got a special one for you today son. Real special. Never known the like in all my life.” He placed his empty cup on the bench
and led me towards the back of the workshop.
“What is it today?”
“We have,” he said, pulling a white sheet from a pile of beautiful mahogany. “An advanced booking. A reservation if you will.”
“How so?”
“Someone’s been gifted with foresight. Sadly for them it don’t end so good. Ending quickly if the diagnosis is accurate. Small mercies and the like I suppose.”
“They’re planning their own funeral?”
“Right down to the dimensions. The measurements are on the side there.” He pointed to a sheet of gilded paper on the counter, which held a rich blue ink perfectly detailing
measurements and outlines. “Even given us a diagram of where the chairs got to be come the big day, though what use it is to him I don’t know. He’d be none the wiser if we took
him down to the scrap yard in a potato sack,” he laughed and made his way towards the doorway, picking up his coffee cup as he left.
“Can’t be the happiest of jobs, orchestrating your own funeral,” I muttered, expecting no reply.
“I don’t know. Might help to take your mind off things.”
“It’s hardly a diversion from the point in hand.”
“Suppose so when you look at it that way. Then again it’s second nature to me, I got my details as crystal clear as I can make them. The little lady, she gets confused by fuss.
It’s more for her sake than mine of course.”
“And they know for sure they’re dying, I mean sometimes they make mistakes, doctors. Gonna be an expensive coffee table if they end up seeing the year out.”
He shook his head. “Nothing’s certain in this life kiddo, but this poor bastard’s direction is as near as you’re gonna get.”
“Do you know him?”
“Can’t say personally. I heard of him okay. Everyone round here has.”
“Who is it?”
“The writer.”
I felt my heart skip a beat. “Levi?”
“Only one I know. Unless you count those monkeys down at the
Evening Post
, which few do by general consensus. Last year they mixed up the birthday dates with the funeral dates. A
person’s got to be trying to screw up like that.”
It felt odd to say the least to be arranging, for all intents and purposes, the death of someone I had come to know over the past few months. Perhaps know is too strong a word.
But even the fact that he had registered on my consciousness seemed to make my work somehow more sacred, as though I was offering my services as a gift to a friend. It was only as I began to wind
up for the day - peeling off my overalls, now damp with perspiration, wiping a hand across my basalt brow, pebble-dashed with the grainy residue of chopped wood - did the significance of my
knowledge truly dawn.
Of course Aimee would be devastated. However she interpreted life through that Escher staircase of a mind, one thing I did not doubt was the sincerity, and authority, of her feelings. But all I
could really seem to focus on was that thought that I would be the one who got to deliver the news to Harlow. Undoubtedly he would feign sorrow at the circumstances. I could hear him in my head:
‘Didn’t like the man, son, but can’t say I’d have wished this on him... ’ yet he knew as well as I did that Levi’s health, or lack thereof, was a blessing in
disguise. And that soon, however traumatic initially, his relationship with Aimee would reach its most natural conclusion.
The thought of being Harlow’s bearer of mixed news carried me home in relatively good spirits as the evening light began to muddle and fade. Outside of the cafe,
cellophane sentiments had already begun to sprout in bouquets and wreaths at the borders of the police-tape. One or two officers still hovered uncertainly, more engrossed with one
another’s’ conversation than anything else. A female officer ducked beneath the yellow tape that surrounded the entrance and placed a box of doughnuts, which I knew belonged to the
cafe, on the hood of the car. Her colleagues dove in with an undisguised zeal, chewing down on the round pastries as red and purple globs smeared their chins. The mourners, of which there were few,
had lit candles around the building where cards and lilies had been strategically placed, and seemed oblivious to the crassness of the officials’ behaviour.
I paused for a moment and, forgetting the tragedy that had taken place, found myself wondering where I was now to get my quick fix of caffeine and fried goods. I shook the thought from my head
and carried on my way.
Out on the porch Mrs Pemberton rocked gently on her chair. I had every intention of ignoring her tonight though she had other plans.
“The po-lis been asking about you this afternoon. Asked if I knew when you might be back. Told them you come and go as you please, seldom so much as a
good day.
”
I pushed my key into the lock and opened the door. “I know. There was an accident, at the diner.”
“Mmhm, someone cut that lady up good and proper. It’s a tragedy is what it is. Miss Violet called me on the telephone, said the poor woman’d been stabbed six times in the
heart.”
I didn’t correct her. “Well, goodnight.”
“You weren’t involved, were you boy? Folk from this town aren’t known for such behaviour.”
“No ma’am. I found her. Called the police, she was dead by the time I got there though.”
“Fine shame you aren’t an early riser. Chance she might be telling the tale herself otherwise.”
“I suppose we’ll never know.”
“I spoke to the po-lis myself. Said that man’s been sniffing around your house for weeks now. And mine. I went to run some errands the other day, when I came back my kitchen
window’s wide open for all to see.”
“Which man?”
“Don’t play me no fool,” she said, grinding to a halt on the seat. “I know you’re up to no good. Can’t pull no wool over my eyes. I had sixteen dollars in the
jar when I left. Got back there were only six. Police weren’t so quick to answer my call, no siree. Guess you have to have a knife in the heart before anybody thinks to stop by these
days.”
“You think you’ve been robbed?”
“No think about it. Unless them raccoons started chewing on dollars it’s the only explanation for it. Someone been in my house and taken my money. And I intend to find out
who.”
“Well, good luck with that. Goodnight.”
“You make sure to tell those po-lis you’re back home. They still want to talk with you. Can’t pull the wool over their eyes either. None of us blind in this town boy, none of
us blind.”
Work the next day was unsurprisingly solemn. As I laboured beneath the relentless sun I felt my skin prickle with untoward sweat and, to my embarrassment, caught frequent
drafts of evaporating whisky as it rose from my pores. That sun felt like a vice being tightened as the day went on, and the whole world seemed somehow crueller through my tight, bloodshot
eyes.
“Someone had a good night,” said Emmett with a tap on my shoulder as he made a rare venture into the dirt-pit. Mercifully he did not hover long enough to warrant a
response.
Though the hangover played the starring role in my day, its gloom was further accentuated by the constant mutterings surrounding the murder. It seemed that the only thing any of those boys could
talk about was the crime and its aftermath. Some of the younger boys claimed they knew the culprits though, unsurprisingly, could not name names through fear of retaliation.
“Y’all don’t know who we know,” said Steven as we carried debris to the farthest edge of the site.
Most of the men dismissed his ramblings. In fact I think I was the only one really listening, and that in itself was a triumph of proximity. In my tender state I was less agile than usual, and
had been forced to operate at the same slovenly level as the clod-kicking youths who frequented the site only when they had little else to do.
Lunchtime offered little respite. The rumours grew bigger and faster.
“I heard it was a gang,” said Chris, picking the tomato from his sandwich. “Whole group of bikers swarmed the place and bashed the lady’s skull in.”
“No way – she was shot.”
“... heard it was a knife that done it in the end.”
“... panties were found jammed in her mouth.”
“... head cut clean off... ”
“... Daddy said he saw two foreign looking sorts... ”
“Worst part is they only got away with thirty dollars in coin... ”
It didn’t seem to occur to the tragedy’s chorus that given the police’s complete lack of footwork on the crime their proclamations held little to no value. I
suppose in such instances the truth is surplus to requirements. Eventually when the talk went from casually disrespectful to the outright grisly I stood up to leave.
“Mind if I sit, or were you hoping for silence?” said Harlow, casting his shadow across the ground on which I sat.
“Feel free. Your company’s always welcome. It’s the banshees I’m better off without, today at least.”
“I know that feeling.” He sat down beside me and opened his tin lunchbox. Carefully placing the wrap back in the box, he broke a sandwich clean in half and handed me the larger of
the two pieces. “That wet bread you were poking at didn’t look so fun.”
“You noticed.”
“Couldn’t not. That’s the problem with the bachelor way of life. The food. It’d be the death of me.”
“I get by okay on the whole, it’s just... ” I took a bite from the sandwich and continued with my mouth full. “Been a funny weekend is all.”
“What you need is a nice little wife. Someone to take care of you.”
“If only it were that easy.”
“Heck you can borrow mine if you like.”
“It’d be an honour. She’s a good woman.”
“Pain in the ass more like,” Harlow chuckled. “Nah I’m jus’ kidding. Wouldn’t have her any other way. Damn it boy you make it with a brewery last
night?” he said, sniffing the cloth of my work clothes. I shrugged and felt the food hit my stomach like a penny in a well.
“Sometimes it’s all I can do to get to where I want to be.”
“And where did you want to be?”
“Somewhere outside my own head.”
Harlow sat silently chewing, digesting the situation, before continuing. “So, you want to tell me what’s bothering you?”
I thought for a moment and almost began when I felt the sandwich make itself known inside of me. My eyes watered and I felt myself drain.
“Whoa boy you got it bad!” said Harlow “Here,” he pulled a hip flask from his pocket. “Now I’m not encouraging it, but this’ll sort you out.”
He unscrewed the cap and handed me the filthy silver goblet. I’d sooner have bent down and sucked up the mud beneath my feet than amended my rift with alcohol of any variety. But I was
touched by the gesture (though dubious of his methods all the same) and took it with an unsteady hand.
“You sure?”
“Only thing that’ll get you back to human.”
I gripped the flask and tipped it to the sun. The whisky poured down my throat without so much as greeting my tongue, and for a moment all was well. Then it kicked inside me. I gripped my hands
into the ground as my stomach writhed and bucked. My eyes stung and my throat tightened around itself.
“That’s it boy,” said Harlow, taking another bite of his sandwich.
I stood up and ran to the furthest oil drum, my hand pressed against my mouth. The moment I stopped I felt my body turn inside out. Specks of food cascaded with an embarrassing echo into the
bottom of the tin. Yesterday’s sin stung my lips and my head felt like it was ready to follow suit into the bottom of the barrel as every spare ounce left my body and pooled into a foul
smelling moat.
“There you go boy, get it all up. Sooner it’s out sooner it stops hurting.”
Eventually I drew to a halt, my stomach aching as though I’d been punched a thousand times. As I sat back down I felt shaken, though within seconds my newfound lightness seemed to catapult
me back into a form I almost recognised as myself.
“Better?”
“Surprisingly.”
“Here,” Harlow handed me an apple. “To take the taste away.”
“Thank you.”
“So,” he said eventually. “Now that one weight’s off your mind - or your belly, depending on how you look at it - you want to tell me why you walking around like the
living dead?”
“I had a bad day yesterday is all.”
“We’ve established that much kid. I don’t want to push the subject if you don’t want to talk about it, but the way I see it a problem shared is a problem
halved.”
“Or doubled, depending on how you look at it.”
“I like to think of my glass as half full.”
“I don’t think I’ll be troubling the glass for some time yet.”
“Well there you go, you learn a lesson. I bet it almost seems worth it now.”
Harlow patted me on the back and for a while we watched the sun trace the endless amber glow of the dust. “I found the lady, Mary,” I said. “At the coffee shop. Had to break a
window to get in. It was too late though. I was too late.”
“Well I’m sorry to hear that, I guess that sort of thing stays with a man.”
I bent down and pulled back the foot of my jeans to allow it some air.
“Ouch, you do that on the window?”
“Yeah, hurts like a bastard.”
The cuts around my leg had spread and darkened. Dirt had mixed with blood and formed a grim tattoo around the entire length of my ankle as though I’d been shackled.
“Promise me you’ll have a doctor look at that, don’t look too pretty.”
“Will do. Just got to make it through the day first.”
“You’ll be fine. Worst part’s over. You know, you ever want to talk, I’m here. Am I right in thinking you don’t have much family around these parts?”