Read The Bones of Old Carlisle Online
Authors: Kevin E Meredith
Karl Arrowroot knew the layout of the Eden Hotel well enough that
he could immediately picture all five routes from the lobby to the
veranda: the main flight of stairs, two emergency stairwells, and two
elevators. He knew she could easily exit by one path while he sought
her by another.
He chose the main stairway, a grand, curving affair with deep red
carpeting that he attacked two steps at a time. Then past the Mace and
Helm restaurant, down the tapestry-lined hall and finally through the
French doors to the veranda itself.
The wedding girl hadn’t moved. She looked at him, still
expressionless, then back at the darkening water of the Mittelkopp. In
the summer, the Mace and Helm would extend its dining room to the
veranda and people would come out to dine and laugh, but for now it
was still silent, occupied by just the two of them.
“Evening, Miss,” Arrowroot said, joining her at the railing to
look out over the river. He removed his helmet and sunglasses and drew
his regular prescription glasses from a cargo pocket in his pants.
“Yes,” she replied, turning to stare at him, her eyes big and
completely focused on him.
A sudden sorrow coursed through his mind, and he stared at the
river’s foamy rush and tried to understand. He’d fought with the US
Army, tolerated Banjo, performed a lesbian wedding, insulted Chief
Hatfield in two separate encounters, and almost got beat up by a
libidinous drunk, all just to talk to the strange girl beside him. And
now that he’d found her, he was sadder than he’d been since before
that hangover started going away.
Isn’t that the way it always is? he asked himself. The harder you
try to get something, the worse you feel when you finally land it. Why
would God make us that way? Or was the unhappiness God’s doing at all?
Think about it. Cats and dogs don’t make sense. The way people are
doesn’t make a lick of sense. How could God’s creation have gotten so
bolluxed? Maybe God had washed his hands of it long ago. “You’re all a
bunch of fuckups,” God speaketh, “so now you’re on your own. Peace
out.”
Arrowroot shook his head, chastised himself for his lack of faith
and forced himself back to the matter at hand. It was cold, he was
shivering and he didn’t know what to ask first.
“So, uh, where are you from?” he began.
“I’m not sure,” she said, in a lilting voice with a hint of
accent, perhaps Spanish or Italian or something else. “I made myself
forget everything this morning.”
“Why?”
She breathed out a sort of half laugh and turned to him. “I made
myself forget that too.” Her eyes were almond-shaped under dark
eyebrows that seemed arched in perpetual surprise.
“Are you getting married?”
“No.”
“Sorry for asking, you know, but you’re wearing that dress.”
“I don’t think I knew it was a wedding dress,” she said, “only
that it was beautiful. I think I found it somewhere.”
“Oh really?” Arrowroot said. “Do you recall where?”
She pointed across the valley, toward Steeple Mountain. “In a
house. There.”
“Oh, one of the old mountain estates?” Arrowroot asked.
“Yes, that house, there.” She was still pointing.
Arrowroot tried to follow her finger but all he saw were black
trees in the growing darkness.
“How long were you there?” he asked. “Do you remember?”
“I’m not sure. Days perhaps.”
“Was anyone else there with you?”
“I- They- It was- Someone else,” she stammered, and she gripped
the railing and looked down, straight into the water. “No,” she said
quietly. “No. No.”
She knows something, Arrowroot observed silently.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he performed the following moral
dialogue with himself:
She’s been traumatized by something. She needs far
more help than you can give.
Yes, that’s true, but somewhere under that black mop
of hair, there might be the information I need.
You’re using her, just like that drunk in the red suit
tried to do.
He wanted sex. I’m trying to rescue a lost person.
She’s gonna toss you in the Mittelkopp!
So I should just let her stand here by herself, a poor
girl on her wedding day?
She’s already told you she’s not getting married.
Regardless, I am likely the only person in the world
who cares about her.
Hah! You haven’t even introduced yourself. You haven’t
even asked if she’s hungry. Just leave her here. She won’t
care. Go home and get a drink.
“I’m Karl Arrowroot,” he said, extending his hand. She looked at
it, then back at his face, and he put his hand down. Maybe she didn’t
know what a handshake was. Maybe she didn’t want anyone else touching
her after what happened with Mr. Franklin.
“Are you hungry?” Arrowroot asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Would you like some dinner?”
“No.”
“Oh, you already have plans?” he asked.
“No,” she said, and then she paused and gripped the railing. “I
don’t want to eat another.”
“Another? Another what, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Another person,” she said.
Arrowroot had been wondering when she was going to bring this up.
“Well now,” he began, “that raises an entirely new line of
inquiry. But let me start out this way. Ain’t nobody gonna eat nobody,
not in my town, not while I’m mayor.”
She looked at him. “There was a man whose foot was eaten by a
doctor.”
Arrowroot assumed she was being serious. He coughed to stifle a
laugh, then bit his lip.
“That was Hercules Journeyman, the biggest joker in Heligaux,” he
said. “He was telling a joke. He wanted to make you laugh, so you
would smile in that picture he was painting.”
“Then where was his foot?” she demanded.
“It got cut off, you know?” Arrowroot explained. “Herk’s got
diabetes, he’s old as hell, his foot died, more or less, so they cut
if off so it wouldn’t kill the rest of him. Nobody ate that thing, I
can assure you.”
“Then what do you eat?” she asked, clearly not believing him.
“Anything I’m served,” Arrowroot answered. “I’m not picky. Never
have been. When I was growing up –“ His voice trailed off. When he was
growing up, there was never enough food for him and his two younger
brothers. More than once, he ate out of the same dumpster where he
retrieved his newspapers. It wasn’t a story he ever told, and he
wasn’t sure why he had almost shared it with her.
“Tell you what,” he said, rubbing his arms. “Let’s go inside and
see if the restaurant’s got anything you’d like. I promise you human
won’t be on the menu.”
“Yes,” she said, but Arrowroot could hear the suspicion lingering
in her voice.
His phone vibrated. He’d gotten another text. “Just a moment,
need to check this,” he said.
“Where are you?” it read.
“On the Promenade,” he wrote back.
“I know. Where on the Promenade?”
“Eden Hotel.”
“Why?”
“Found who I was looking for,” he typed. “Gonna have dinner here,
see what I can learn.”
“I’m coming.”
Arrowroot closed his phone and put it back in his pocket. “Aw,
damn,” he said to himself. “This just won’t do.”
A man in his 50’s having dinner with a girl barely out of her
teens, wearing a ruined wedding dress, hair under her arms, conveying
a shaky, at best, grasp of reality. This wasn’t necessarily how he
wanted to be seen, especially by the person who had been texting him
all day.
“This just won’t do,” he said again to himself, and then spoke
out loud to the wedding girl. “This way, if you like.”
She followed him back inside to the Mace and Helm, a decent
restaurant by hotel standards, even if it wasn’t one of the most
tastefully-appointed. Battleaxes, swords and snarling boar’s heads
protected the walls. Shields leant on shelves, suits of armor standing
of their own accord.
Only the plate glass windows at the far end of the dining room,
letting in the warm pink glow of the day’s waning moments, was
unencumbered with the motifs of ancient violence.
As usual on a Saturday night, it was already busy. To Arrowroot’s
relief, they looked to be all out-of-towners, here for a technology
convention of some sort.
“Greetings, Mr. Mayor,” said Ralph, the rail-thin, long-time
maître d’. “Been awhile, good to have you back. A table for just
yourself and your lovely ladyfriend?”
“Could be three of us, Ralph, good to see you too. Any seats
left?”
“Just a few, follow me please,” Ralph said, turning to the girl.
“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ralph, this is, uh, Tamani,” Arrowroot said. “Tamani, right?”
“Yes,” she said again.
“And I see you’ve chosen to go unshod this evening, Tamani,”
Ralph observed.
“Oh, damn, Ralph,” said Arrowroot, “I didn’t even notice. Do you
have a pair of slippers I could borrow?”
“I don’t think I do, sorry,” said Ralph. “I won’t say anything,
Tamani, if you can promise not to step on anything sharp.”
“Yes,” said Tamani.
Ralph took them to a table for four, and as soon as they were
seated opposite each other, she leaned forward, her elbow planted
firmly beside her salad plate. “What are those things for?” she asked,
pointing at a pair of swords crossed on the wall behind Arrowroot’s
head.
“For fighting,” he said. “Couple fellas take those things and
have–“
“And that?” she continued, pointing at a rusty battleaxe over a
large fireplace, her eyes blazing with the intensity of a prosecuting
attorney.
“Same general idea, but requiring a few more calories,” he
replied. “Swing it with enthusiasm in the direction of those you don’t
have any use for, you know.”
“And those metal clothes?”
“Ah yes, a knight’s business suit, if you will.”
“Why would someone wear that?”
“Well,” Arrowroot said, trying to sound relaxed. “Now you’ve
figured it all out. One fella puts on that suit of armor so that the
other fellow with all the swords and axes and whatnot couldn’t get to
the white meat, if you will.”
“So he couldn’t eat him!” she declared, leaning back, her case
rested.
“Oh no, now I get it,” Arrowroot said, and he glanced at the
restaurant’s door to make sure his additional guest wasn’t here yet.
“Oh, my goodness, no. Just so he couldn’t kill him, you know. Once a
fella’s dead, they’ll just leave him in peace, go kill someone else or
go on back to their lunchbox or something.”
“Why would they kill?”
“Just about– Just about every reason you can imagine, except
dietary,” Arrowroot said. “Women, land, insults, money, you name it.”
“Why are they on the walls?”
Arrowroot was ready to talk about Fort Shergawa, and what she had
seen there, and who she was. He was even ready to talk about
happinesses. But he was neither prepared for nor in the mood to talk
culture, or anthropology, or whatever other academic discipline would
concern itself with the public display of Medieval weaponry.
He leaned back, sighed, removed his glasses and polished them
with his napkin.
“You know,” he said, without looking up, “I’m just not sure
you’re going to get your questions answered. By anyone. You made
yourself forget too much this morning, I think.”
She didn’t understand anything, Arrowroot thought, not even how
to interact with another person. Right now, she was staring at him,
looking at his eyes, at his face, at his clothing, at the pith helmet
he’d set on the table, then back to his eyes, taking it all in with
the intense, unyielding gaze of a cat. Or a robot.
Arrowroot opened her menu and set it before her. “Take a look.
There isn’t one item that even remotely corresponds to human flesh,”
he said.
“Explain these to me,” she said, handing the menu back.
So she can’t read either, Arrowroot thought. She must have set
that memory purge on high this morning.
“What’s your favorite meat?” he asked.
Two couples dining together at a nearby table erupted in
laughter, and she stared at them intently while Arrowroot scratched
his neck, hoping they wouldn’t notice.
“They made a happiness,” she said finally. “They made it
themselves, with their own words.”
“Indeed,” he said, and he felt the same ache in his hands he’d
experienced at the gate in front of Fort Shergawa that morning. He set
the menu down and shook out his fingers, glancing at his knuckles to
make sure the blood was returning.
“So, what’s your favorite meat?” he asked again. “Fish, beef,
pork, lamb?”
“Fish,” she said quietly, and Arrowroot could tell she had no
memory of what she liked. If she’d forgotten how to feed herself, this
was going to be a long dinner.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned and studied it.
There were no rings on the fingers, no paint on the nails. Arrowroot
knew immediately who was touching him, but he looked up anyway.
“Hello, Danielle,” he said.
“Hi, Daddy.”
Arrowroot stood and hugged his daughter, a difficult act
considering all that had passed between them. But his embrace was
firm, almost desperate in its sincerity. The fact her dark hair was
hanging clumped and undone down to her neck, and she was wearing one
of those damned tie-dye dresses, a bunch of colors all smeared
together in circles, didn’t bother him at all.
“This is Guillaume,” Danielle said, introducing a tall, slender,
bearded man in blue jeans and a pinstriped suit coat. Arrowroot had
heard about the new French boyfriend and put his hand out with an
enthusiastic “bon jewer,” intentionally butchering the pronunciation.
“Bon soir,”
corrected Guillaume, taking Arrowroot’s hand limply.
Arrowroot realized it would require a great output of social energy to
like Guillaume.
“And who is this?” Danielle asked, a little too brightly, turning
to Tamani.
“Tamani,” the girl replied, and to Arrowroot’s surprise, she
stood and offered her hand in turn to Danielle and Guillaume.
“Bon
soir,”
she said to each, with Guillaume’s perfect pronunciation.
“Oh,” Guillaume replied,
“parlez vous Francais?”
Tamani smiled and blinked. “I don’t know. What is
Francais?
”
Guillaume found the joke hilarious, still laughing after
Arrowroot motioned the couple to join them and they took their seats.
“So tell me, Tamani, how do you know my father?” Danielle asked
with a sidelong glance at Arrowroot.
“He found me here, in this building, watching the mountain. He
called to me after I threw—“
“Tamani’s been to Fort Shergawa this morning,” Arrowroot
interrupted. “She might have information.”
Tamani closed her mouth and stared at Arrowroot, silent and
still, expressionless but for her perpetually arched eyebrows.
The seconds ticked by, and Danielle finally erupted with
laughter. “That seems to be news to her, Daddy!”
Guillaume contributed his own throaty laugh to the proceedings,
as Arrowroot wished desperately he could be somewhere else, anywhere
else right now. But he’d always been a fighter, and he came out
swinging.
“Tamani’s forgotten everything since she woke up at Fort Shergawa
this morning,” Arrowroot said. “She’s been taken into custody by the
US Army, dumped off at the police station, nearly arrested there, damn
near raped right here on the veranda a few minutes ago. I suppose
getting laughed at is the least of her worries, so go on, let it out.”
Danielle looked from Arrowroot to Tamani, and when the girl
didn’t dispute his account, she realized he was at least speaking
partial truth.
“I’m sorry,” she said, putting her hand on Tamani’s. “My father
is such a kidder, I never know. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Tamani took Danielle’s hand, squeezed it and leaned toward her.
“Have you ever eaten another person?”
As Arrowroot looked around the room in agony, Danielle bit her
lip, her mouth twisting in the horrible way that betrays a war between
the urge to laugh and the desperate need not to. Guillaume, taking his
cues from Danielle, turned away and pretended to study his phone.
“Daddy tells me people kill each other, but not to eat,” Tamani
continued, gesturing toward Arrowroot.
“Karl, please,” Arrowroot blurted. Misery. Sheer misery.
“Are you speaking literally or metaphorically?” Danielle asked,
struggling to stifle another laugh.
“Metaphorically,” Tamani replied, but it sounded more like a
question than an answer to Arrowroot, as if she were trying to
understand the word.
“Metaphorically,” Guillaume began, “we are all devourers of each
other, we eat each other up and spit out the bones.”
Tamani stared at Guillaume for a long moment while he shifted
uncomfortably. “No,” she said, “you cannot spit out this bone.” She
pointed to her thigh. “Or this one or this one,” she continued,
pointing to either side of her forearm.
All of them laughed, even Arrowroot, and Tamani smiled and looked
confused. “I have given you all a happiness,” she observed. “I don’t
know how.”
“Metaphorically means symbolically,” said Danielle, trying not to
sound condescending and failing. “But you were very clever just now.
You pretended that Guillaume was speaking literally.”
Tamani looked down and mouthed the words several times.
“literally. . . metaphorically . . . literally.”
“But no,” Guillaume said, “people do eat each other, literally.
Many stories of such things. It’s a ritual among the uh, the original
– the, the natural peoples of many places, and there have been times
when even the most civilized did that, did eating. In times, how you
say, of great, uh, tribulation.”
“It happens accidentally too,” added Danielle. “Someone slips and
falls into a vat at the sausage factory, and ZZZZZ! The next day he’s
wedged in a biscuit. But it’s very rare.”
“Very rare,” agreed Arrowroot, “almost never happens.”
“Except symbolically, happens all the time,” Danielle said.
“This is true,” said Guillaume.
“Huh?” offered Arrowroot.
“You should know better than anyone,” Danielle said. “The body of
Christ. The blood of Christ. You eat him every Sunday. You’re still
Episcopalian, right?”
“Until the day I die,” Arrowroot replied. “Haven’t been in
months, though.”
“The Catholics say it’s really him,” Guillaume observed, raising
his hand in a toast. “His body. His blood. Cheers.”
“You’re skating just this side of blasphemy,” warned Arrowroot.
Tamani had been following the conversation like a novice might
watch a tennis foursome, turning her eyes to each in turn, nodding in
a puzzled way, lost in the rules of engagement. But something had
intrigued her. She leaned forward and raised her hands. “Who is
Christ?” she asked. “Who is Christ?”
“Oh, heaven help us,” said Arrowroot.
“A myth,” said Danielle.
“The salvation of humanity,” countered Arrowroot. “He saved us
all, everyone who accepts. And he’ll come again, possibly soon.”
Danielle snorted, but Tamani was growing agitated.
“He’s coming again?” she asked. “To rescue us?”
“Exactly,” Arrowroot affirmed.
Tamani’s eyes filled with tears. Then she touched her face and
looked at her wet fingers. “Why does this happen? Why do you do this?”
Their drinks arrived – red wine for Guillaume and Danielle, water
for Arrowroot and Tamani – and they placed their orders. Arrowroot
requested salmon for Tamani, who sat silent in her sudden misery,
staring at her hands. Guillaume and Danielle ordered meatless dinners.
Guillaume’s phone rang, he looked at it briefly and answered.
“Hallo? Hallo? Oui oui, Stephan!”
Danielle stood. “Gonna go powder,” she said to Tamani, squeezing
her shoulder. “Be right back.”
Guillaume was speaking loud French on the phone, Tamani was
staring at him without blinking, tears drying on her cheeks, and
Arrowroot marveled at how quickly a decent day could come apart like a
cheap shoe. Then his phone vibrated. It was a text message from
Danielle: “Out in the hall. Now!”
Arrowroot was only too glad to leave. “Gotta tend to something,”
he whispered to Tamani, but she didn’t move her eyes from Guillaume’s
mouth and face. Guillaume seemed to like the attention, Arrowroot
noticed, gesturing, laughing annoyingly and speaking a version of
French that even Arrowroot could tell was overwrought.
Danielle was dark-haired and petite, and for a brief moment as he
approached her in the hall outside the Mace and Helm, he thought she
might be beautiful. But then she looked at him and snarled.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded, pointing at the
restaurant door.
“That’s a very troubled young lady who might know something,”
Arrowroot replied. “Nothing more and nothing less.”
“You can’t spit out this bone,” Danielle said mockingly. “Oh no,
a rescuer, boo hoo. Seriously, Daddy, if she’s your date for the
night, just tell me and we’ll leave you alone. I don’t think I can
take any more of her acting.”
“She was doing fine until you and Mister Parleyvoo showed up,”
Arrowroot asserted. “That’s the problem with you, always leaping from
some hare-brained conclusion to a four-alarm conniption, and half the
time you’re just plain wrong.”
“That’s the burden of being a woman in a man’s world,” Danielle
said. “Women evolved having to figure out all your patriarchal,
murdering bullshit, so it’s just instinctive.”
“Oh, now, don’t start on with all that evolution crap again,”
warned Arrowroot. “I never should have sent you to college.”
“It’s true!” Danielle insisted. “It’s true. I have to live it
every day. If a woman’s mind isn’t going a mile a minute to figure out
what you all are up to, she’s gonna be dead or raped or missing body
parts before dinnertime.”
“Okay,” Arrowroot replied gamely, “If men are so hard to be
around, why the hell did you come bother me anyway? There are plenty
other places to have dinner.”
“I needed to talk to you,” Danielle replied, and her voice
softened. “I came to apologize for what I wrote. I was sure you were
lying, you know? And then I find out that not only were you on the
Promenade today, but you did that wedding. Some good friends of mine
are very grateful to you, by the way. So I wanted to see you, make
sure your body hadn’t been taken over by aliens, you know, and say
sorry, and then here you are with Miss barely legal, ‘do-people-eateach-other?’ and all, and I don’t know what to think. I mean, she’s
built like an East German swimmer, so she’s popping steroids and god
knows what else, and she apparently doesn’t even have time to shave.
Daddy, take my word for this, you’re in way over your head.”
“Well, what do you propose I do?” Arrowroot asked. “She’s been to
the fort, dammit!”
He took off his glasses to wipe them and leaned against the wall
near the wooden door to the Mace and Helm. As he waited for Danielle’s
answer, the door flew open, nearly flattening him.
Guillaume appeared, stared at both of them for a second, his eyes
wide with fury or rage or both. He made a sound like “uhuh!” and
stomped off.
“Guillaume!” Danielle shouted. “Guillaume, stop!”
She caught him at the end of the hall and he turned toward her
and gestured violently. She seemed to be trying simultaneously to calm
him down and understand what had happened, and their words came out in
unintelligible hisses. Arrowroot suspected Tamani had somehow upset
Guillaume and realized there might yet be hope for this day.
Their voices grew quieter, and Danielle seemed to have calmed her
French lover. “Stay here,” Arrowroot heard her say. “Let me talk to
him.”
Danielle’s face was flushed and her snarl was back in full force
as she stomped up to Arrowroot. “So your little friend is just full of
surprises,” she said.
“Do tell,” Arrowroot replied.
“She speaks French.”
“Huh,” Arrowroot said. “I kinda figured English wasn’t her first
language. So does Dr. Eifel Tower get upset every time he meets a
fellow Frenchie?”
“She eavesdropped on his phone call.”
“Uh, so did everyone else in the place,” Arrowroot observed,
“whether they wanted to or not.”
Danielle continued to scowl. “She heard him say something he
shouldn’t have, and she called him on it.”
“Oh, this just gets better and better,” Arrowroot said. Guillaume
was still fuming at the end of the hall, watching them, and Arrowroot
flashed a smile the Frenchman ignored. “What did he say?”
“Okay,” Danielle said, drawing in her breath, “I’d rather you
hear it from me than your new girlfriend. He told Stephan he was out
with me and my father. He used the words ‘
bourgeoisie’
and ‘
ignare’
to
describe you, which basically means he called you an ignorant rich
man. And then Tamani plays all innocent. He hangs up and she repeats
what he says,
ignare
and
bourgeoisie,
just the way he said it, and
then she’s just, like ‘What did those words mean? Why did you say them
about Daddy?’ And she keeps calling you ‘Daddy!’”
Danielle made fists, pointed her toes together and scrunched her
face in disgust. “Ackkk!”
Arrowroot let out a booming laugh in reply.
“Oh, that’s just too much,” he asserted, looking down the hall.
“Guillaume! Guillaume!”
Guillaume started and took a few paces away from Arrowroot, as if
he were about to run away.
“Boy, come on back,” Arrowroot bellowed, striding down the hall.
“C’mon, we got a girl sitting alone in a wedding dress, and dinner on
the way.”
Guillaume froze. Arrowroot reached him, clapped him on the
shoulder and took his hand. “Ignorant rich man?” he asked. “That the
best you can do?”
Guillaume issued a flat, humorless laugh.
“Okay, how about this one?” Arrowroot said. “You’re an arrogant
bastard from a country that doesn’t know how to fight, who takes his
damned phone calls in the middle of dinner. There, now we understand
each other.”
Arrowroot laughed again, strode back up the hall and waved his
daughter and Guillaume forward, holding the door of the Mace and Helm
open for them. They glanced at each other sheepishly, as if Arrowroot
had caught them kissing in his living room, but they followed him back
through the door.
As they reentered the restaurant, a disconcerting number of
people looked up at them, Arrowroot noticed. All strangers tonight,
part of a technology convention from out of town, probably, but it was
safe to assume they knew who was dining with the disheveled girl in
the wedding dress. So the fact they were staring told him to fear the
worst as he looked for Tamani at the table across the room.
And there she was.
“Oh God no,” he said to no one. “Oh, damn.”