Chapter Three

“Look, O’, I’m really sorry for laughing at you.” She sat steaming silently in the Bucket as I drove her home. “I guess I just kinda needed it. Believe me, I would’ve gladly traded you places instead of being grilled by Hastings.”

“We laugh at others.” Oliva’s gaze remained locked on the windshield. “Not at each other.” The Bucket ground loudly over a fallen tree branch that looked like a giant leper’s lost gnarled finger. “Whoa.”

“Hang in there, Battle Bucket.” I patted the dashboard. “You can do it, girl.”

Olivia’s angry veneer nearly vanished, but I realized too late I’d just supplied her with more ammo. “And here we go again. Why does the Battle Bucket have to be a female? And why do men always insist their cars are women? It’s like women are only good to be driven and told what to do and where to go, like a car, with no minds of their own, and only you big, strong men can tame the wild beast!” She finally turned toward me. “I never thought you’d be one of the sexist pigs, too, Tex!”

I knew that if I looked back at Olivia, I’d burst out laughing. A deadly move. So I bit my lip, concentrating on the road, hoping not to start round two. Finally, she let out a whooping roar of laughter, the flag of peace at full mast again.

“I promise not to refer to the Battle Bucket as a female again. I’ll call him Ben.” We shared laughter, cathartic after all the gloom of the day. “I’m seriously sorry though, O’.”

“It just sucks, that’s all.” Olivia settled in comfortably and kicked her feet up on the Bucket’s dashboard. “That whole place sucks. Most of it’s a boys’ club full of sexist pigs, bullies, and perverts, young and old. And they’re so stupid…they talked to you and Ian as possible murder suspects.”

I had to agree with everything she said. The tyranny of bullies at Clearwell High didn’t just stop at the students’ level. It carried on from gym teachers to regular teachers, all the way to his booted highness himself, Arville Hastings. I once read the behavior of school bullies could be explained as youthful immaturity. But how does that explain adult bullies? And what about the ninety percent of Clearwell High who aren’t bullies? I guess “youthful immaturity” is reserved for the chosen sociopathic few. My grandmother used to tell me school days are the best days of your life. She lied.

“Well, at least they didn’t talk to Josh,” I said. “At least, not yet. Hey, maybe they’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I imagine the only reason they didn’t suspect Josh was he was too small and therefore, not a perceived threat. I sometimes wonder if crime ever got solved in Clearwell.

“Whatever…” Olivia slashed her hand down, end of subject. I couldn’t be happier we were letting this dialogue die. “Just remember, we’ve got to stick together. We’re all we’ve got.”

“You’re right.” I pulled onto Olivia’s street. In front of us, the dirty, white ice cream van slowly chugged down the street, its bell dinging at intervals. “Hey, Olivia…you ever seen this van before?”

“Ugh…no.” Her lip turned upward in disgust. “What? Is it some pervert selling Bomb Pops out of the back of his van?”

“I don’t know. I first saw him on my street last night and thought it was weird because of how the van looked and the fact it’s October.” The van’s bell maintained a slow, solemn pattern, totally devoid of any “good humor” whatsoever. The tinted back windows proved impossible to see through. A film of dirt and dust obscured the license plate. I sped up to within three feet of the van.

“Tex, what are you doing? You gonna shake down the ice cream man for a cone?”

The bell stopped crying. The van sped up, quickly vanishing down the street, orange and yellow leaves stirred up by its departure.

“Huh…weird.” A tingle of fear ran down my back. My knuckles on the steering wheel grew whiter than usual. “I guess it’s quitting time for the ice cream man.”

“Hey,” said Olivia, already forgetting the runaway ice-cream van. “Don’t forget tomorrow after school, I got a stupid detention to go to. I’ll walk home, so you don’t have to wait.”

“No, that’s cool. I’ll wait for you. I want you to be safe.”

“Ha! You boys need me to keep you safe. But thanks for the ride. Meet me in front of Miss Swanson’s class about an hour after school lets out.”

“What’d you do this time, anyway?”

“All I did was call Swanson an uptight beeyotch. Can you believe that crap?” I shook my head and chuckled, while Olivia remained stunned at the unfairness of the Universe. “Well, she is an up-tight beeyotch.”

Regardless of Miss Swanson’s beeyotchy status, Olivia was right about her ability. She could take care of herself and had rescued the three of us from close scrapes before. But I still couldn’t help but be afraid for her. For all four of us. Something dark was stirring underneath the boiling surface of the stewpot that was Clearwell, Kansas, and some mad chef was ready to serve it up to us.

****

As I pulled into my driveway, I noticed the cats. At least eight cats milled about the front door and along the dying hedges by the bay window. I spotted a calico, a black cat with white paws, several yellow and white striped cats, and Benny, Mr. Cavanaugh’s cat. Great. Something died and attracted a cat convention to our front yard. I walked toward the front stoop, cautiously avoiding contact as one stray cat hair would set my eyes itching and watering. The cats turned their attention to me and rubbed against my jeans, purring their internal motors.

“Scat,” I said in a hushed whisper so as not to excite them further. “Get away.”

“Richard?” said a voice from behind me. Mr. Cavanaugh. His tone reminded me somewhat of a cat’s purring self-satisfaction. “Ah…there you are, Benny. And it looks like you have some friends, too.” He grinned oddly, waiting for some sort of corroboration.

“Hey, Mr. Cavanaugh.” I didn’t want to rile him regarding a cat controversy of my devilish doing. “I don’t know why the cats are all here. Maybe a dead bird…or something.” The cats encircled me like I was an open can of tuna.

“Maybe they just like you.” His smile appeared to be on autopilot, stretched and frozen into place. This man makes a living in sales? “How was school today, Richard?” Now, this was something new. As long as Mr. Cavanaugh lived next door, he never once inquired into my academic achievements. “I understand the police talked to you today.” So, this is what he wants. “About the death of the…Rimmer boy, is it?”

“Well, they questioned a lot of people. It really wasn’t much of anything.”

“Ah…did they tell you anything about the…murder?” The way he drew out the word “murder” sounded like some stuffy old British constable in a forties B-movie. “How it…happened?” This intrusive questioning, delivered through his Cheshire Cat-like grin, was way unsettling. And how in the world could Cavanaugh know this? Does news travel that far and fast in Clearwell? As far as I knew, creepy Cavanaugh never appeared to leave his porch.

“I really don’t know anything, Mr. Cavanaugh.” Here I was again in a ridiculous situation. A wild group of cats wanted to crown me their king with feline pomp and circumstance, while their court jester interrogated me, seemingly oblivious to the cats on parade at my feet.

“Well, tell your father hello for me.” He turned his grin into a disgruntled frown, ending our conversation. “Come along, Benny.” The cat ignored his owner, only having eyes for my pant legs. Mr. Cavanaugh bent to pick him up. “Naughty little kitty…” he continued chanting as he walked back to his front porch.

“Okay, cats, I’m done here.” I brushed them aside as well as I could without harming them. I sneezed once, ran up the two steps, unlocked the door, and squeezed through as narrow an opening as possible. I looked out the door window and saw them sitting on the stoop, staring up at me. I’m much disliked by everyone at school, but suddenly I’m irresistible catnip to every neighborhood cat? What’s happening?

****

Upstairs, I immediately felt uncontrollably anxious. I walked past my mom’s old study where she used to do her real estate work. I hadn’t been in there since she died. We kept the door shut. Whether closed to preserve memories within, or to keep them from painfully flooding out, I didn’t know, but shut it remained and had been since her death.

I put my hand on the doorknob and felt a large static shock course through my body. It seemed like a beckoning sign. The seal had been broken, and now felt safe for me to remember.

I pushed the door open and looked around. After a year, it surprised me to see the place practically devoid of dust and smelling quite fresh. There sat her old desk that must’ve been passed down through many generations, still covered with the last house listings she’d been working on. On the mantle above her desk rested her collection of rubber duckies. A strange collection for someone her age, but I remember Mom as always being different from the local PTA moms. She always stubbornly—defiantly—did things her way, let the Greek chorus of gossiping housewives be damned.

I pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk, and in it sat a long cardboard box. I opened the folded flaps; inside were dozens of long thin candles of varying colors. Most were white, but some were colored—blue, gray, yellow, green—and some were striped. I never remembered having seen my mother burn any of these candles anywhere in the house. Was Mom an Avon lady on the side?

When I opened the closet door, a loud squeak indicated the only sign of neglect in the room. An odd wooden box, about eight by eight inches, sat on the top shelf. I grabbed it and opened it. Lying in the center was my folded green knit cap, the one Mom gave me. Surrounding it were various odd knick-knacks and remembrances of my childhood, including baby teeth (gross), pictures I’d drawn, and once again, more bay leaves, herbs, and a handful of cloves. The box had been hand-made, the amateurish carpentry betraying these origins. The bottom appeared to be a thin piece of plywood. What a weird “memory box.” And why would Mom snag my cap from me to put in there?

I looked back at the shelf. The white Styrofoam head adorned by the long red-haired wig Mom had bought seemed to stare down at me, giving silent, tacit approval for my trespassing. I collapsed against the wall beside the door, sliding to the floor. A sudden outburst of violent sobbing brought on a wave of memories, as I held my head between my knees…

****

Two years ago, it was a day like any other, a comforting thought. One of the last ones I remember having. My mom handed me my sack lunch as I left for another happily bland day in my last year at grade school. She stopped me and gave me a long, lasting kiss on top of my uncombed hair.

“After I take your dad to work today, I have an appointment. I may not be here when you get home from school, so try and make your dad dinner just in case, okay, honey?” Her red hair brushed up against my face. In the privacy of our home, I welcomed my mom’s coddling, but never in public, natch. What happens at home, stays at home.

“Right, Mom.” I raced out the door, actually excited about new possibilities at school. “Love you, Mom!”

“Love you, too.” I looked back from the corner bus stop and saw her in the doorway, suddenly tired-looking. Possibly crying. I got on the bus and at first, thought nothing of it. But as the day grew long, my new “friend” Paranoia pawed at me, nudging my imagination into the worst scenarios possible.

Why would Mom miss dinner because of an appointment? She’d never missed a meal with us in her life. And why had she been crying? That day, the hours crawled by slower than usual. By the time the counselor’s office summoned me, I nearly wet myself out of fear.

“Richard,” said the school counselor, “your father’s here in a taxi to pick you up. Your mother’s in the hospital.”

****

The cab driver dropped us in front of Clearwell County Hospital. I didn’t remember much about the trip other than my dad attempting to tell me what was happening.

“Tex, your mother has breast cancer.” Lines on his forehead rippled. His grimace appeared wracked with physical pain.

“How bad is it?” I knew about cancer—it can kill anyone at anytime. But to my younger mind, cancer hadn’t yet achieved Boogeyman status.

“We don’t know yet.” He wrapped his arm around me. “We were hoping the bump they found was going to be benign…um, not harmful overall…but it turned out to be…malignant…harmful. They’re going to have to operate. And it’s a pretty serious operation.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I had nothing else to say. So many emotions ran through me. Betrayal for not being told the truth, incredible anger at the unjust Fates, sadness for more trauma to my family, and fear for my mom’s health and life. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why? Why didn’t you tell me?” I cried in a continuous chant. The cab driver, obviously tired of listening to it, turned on his radio.

“Shhhh, son.” Dad held me tighter than he ever had. Or has, to this day. “We didn’t want to worry you.” Then Dad started crying, too.

****

Dazed, I pushed Dad in his chair through the cold, sterile hallways of the hospital. My vision had blurred from non-stop crying in the taxi. Torn between wanting to shout at the people staring at us, “What are you looking at?” and being pissed off at the people ignoring us, I wanted it both ways. But most of all, I wanted life back as it was this time yesterday.

We arrived at Mom’s room on the fourth floor. Upright in bed, even without makeup on, she appeared as beautiful and healthy as ever. Surely the doctors had made a mistake.

“Tex…” Her eyes implored me to come to her. “How was school today?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The tears started again as I hugged her. Talking about school seemed rather pointless. “How are you? Why didn’t you tell me? What’s going to happen? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tex, when I said goodbye to you this morning, the lump in my breast still could have been just a benign cyst.” That word—benign—again. “There was no sense telling you until we knew what we were dealing with.” She smiled wanly.

“What’s going to happen?” I wanted the bottom line, tired of the baby pampering. “What are we going to do?”

It’s funny how life can change so suddenly sometimes. A real laugh riot.

“We have two choices,” explained my mom, the only dry-eyed person in the room. “I can either have a radical mastectomy—have a breast removed—or they can take the lumps out and treat me with chemotherapy and radiation for the next six months.” No pampering going on now.

“It’s your choice, Elizabeth,” said Dad. “Whatever you decide, you know Tex and I’ll be here for you.” His voice broke. I couldn’t stand the sight of Dad like this, and it triggered more of my own crying. The endless back and forth crying jags went on for the next several hours until they kicked us out of the room. Just business as usual for the hospital staff.

****

Mom decided to go through with the chemo and radiation treatments and thus began Our Cancer Year. She knew it wasn’t a perfect science. She knew of the side effects, and that it might not be successful. But damn, she fought hard.

After the initial operation, the doctor released her into our care. Although bedridden for several days, not once do I remember her losing faith or wallowing in self-pity as I surely would’ve done. She constantly smiled, joked, talked to me about school (which I tried to get out of for a couple of days, as I thought I wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway).

By the second day, she got up, no moss on her, and prepared our lunches for the upcoming day. I helped her with her stretching exercises and took walks with her, becoming somewhat her personal coach. Her optimism proved contagious and gave me hope we’d survive this.

Then the treatments started. She’d drive herself to the hospital and be back home several hours later. But when I jumped off the bus every day, ran into the house, hoping to hear some miraculous end to cancer, more often than not, I found her napping, one arm slung over her eyes, the other holding onto a big bowl.

About the time her hair began to fall out, I noticed some of the fight had left her. When awake, she seemed like a sad former shadow of herself. She walked around in her bathrobe, resting in strategically placed chairs throughout the house. She’d smile, ask about school, then lie down for “some shuteye,” she’d call it. I don’t know how she did it, but every day she still managed to take Dad to work and pick him up again.

“Tex…” she said one day, sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. “I think it’s a good idea if we get your driver’s permit early.” Her eyes looked half-glazed.

“Um…okay, Mom, but I’m only thirteen.” The thought of operating large machinery out in the big, bad world when I could barely find my way around on my bike, terrified me.

“Yes, honey, but we have extenuating circumstances.” My mom never held back with her large, wonderful vocabulary, definitely a trait I picked up from her and carry with me to this day. “I’m sure the driver’s bureau will work with us on this.”

Of course, Mom was right. Apparently, such things were relatively commonplace (but not in my family!), and seeing as how I had two currently debilitated parents, the bureau rewarded me with a driver’s permit at the ripe ol’ age of thirteen. The provisions allowed me to drive to school and back, take my dad to work and back home, and take my mom to her medical appointments. “No joy-rides or fun driving!” croaked the froggy-voiced bureau puppet from behind his desk. I wanted to ask, “Mr. Puppet, just what in hell makes you think there’s anything fun about driving?” But I kept my mouth sensibly shut.

Dad volunteered as my driving coach, and we definitely had some hair-raising adventures. Every weekend, we’d journey out, my dad gripping onto the “Oh Hell, Handle” above the passenger window with white-knuckled intensity. Not until late in the game did I notice he kept his eyes shut half the time. He made me nervous, his fear obvious by the way he’d scrunch down in the seat or raise one knee in a defensive position (not an easy task for him to do). By the end of each lesson (in terror, Dad probably thought), I felt a little more accomplished, while Dad let out a sigh of relief, sweat beading on his forehead. To this day, I’m still not sure if Dad’s comfortable with my mad driving skills, but I’ve not once been ticketed or been in a wreck.

Soon, Mom had lost all of her hair and her eyebrows had fallen out. Proud as ever, she wouldn’t let this stop her from going out in public. She donned a colorful bandanna and put makeup on again. One day, after I brought Dad home from work, we found Mom sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a white Styrofoam head covered with a red-haired wig. It looked as if she was in the middle of an intense stare-down contest and on the losing side.

“Well, guys, what do you think?” She grinned and held the atrocity up. “What do you make of my new wardrobe addition?”

“Put it on and let’s see how beautiful you look,” Dad said. So artificially red, the wig could’ve made a stop sign jealous, at least ten steps removed from Mom’s natural strawberry-blonde coloring. Long and curved at the ends, the fake hair resembled a 60s Go-Go dancer’s mane gone wild. Dad and I exchanged quick, nervous glances.

“This is what the hospital set me up with. Don’t worry, dear, they said the insurance would cover it.” Finally, she let out a loud, whooping laugh, the happiest I’d heard her in months. “Okay, I think it’s going back.” Later, I found out she never sent it back. Don’t know why. Maybe she kept it as a war trophy.

Dad looked instantly relieved as we all ridiculed the bald-faced runaway head of hair from hell. Mom proudly decided to work with what she had and garnered a very stylish collection of bandannas to wear for all occasions. She also gained neighborhood notoriety for being so brazen as to not hide her cancer or hair loss.

Around these interesting days of Our Cancer Year, I took it upon myself to learn to cook, my time to take care of my parents. Okay, maybe calling it “cooking” seemed like a stretch. Totally over-reliant on the microwave, I started by burning TV dinners, and this supplied much-needed mirth over those several long months. Sitting down at the dinner table, I could see Dad’s face, torn between amusement and dread, at what new monstrosity I would serve up. Mom beamed at me and never failed to tell me how proud of me she was as she forced herself to choke down burnt mystery meat.

At the end of those early meals, Dad would lean back, look to the ceiling, and sigh. “Well…that was interesting.”

We’d burst out laughing, generally ending with Mom’s coughing, and we’d just as suddenly stop.

Soon, I’d graduated to burning hamburgers on the stovetop and developing skills for powdered mashed potatoes. Dad joined me in my cooking endeavors, wanting to help (but I suspect driven by dread of my next culinary offering). We were “giving back” to Mom—as awful as those early meals were—and she watched proudly. Weirdly enough, in those scary, sad, unsettling times, we, as a family, seemed to grow. We found small pleasures in the mundane details of everyday living we used to take for granted.

Between school, driving, cooking, and taking care of my parents, I had never been busier. The year flew by as well. One spring day, I came home to find Mom crying at the kitchen table, where she conducted all the important details of her life.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

“Tex…the cancer is in remission.” I had a crash course in cancer education over the past year. This was good news. “I’m going to be all right.”

She rushed forward, threw her arms around me, and we did a crazy circular dance for minutes, knocking everything over in our way. From all the whooping and screaming, our neighbors probably thought we were being massacred by a serial killer.

“I’ve got to call your father!” Her eyes bugged out, filled with crazy hope. “No, wait! Let’s drive down to his work and tell him there!” She hopped up and down like the girls do at school, squealing like they’re on fire. “You drive! No! I’ll drive!”

Off we went, my mother driving, speeding through the neighborhood. As I grabbed onto the “Oh Hell, Handle,” I found sudden empathy for what my dad must’ve experienced. Mom bolted for the bank door before I even got out of the car. By the time I entered the bank, Mom and Dad were hugging. He knocked off work early and suggested the three of us go out to eat and celebrate.

“No offense, boys,” said Mom, grinning, “but…thank God!”

****

Three months later, while preparing dinner, the phone rang.

“Son…there’s been an accident.” Dad’s voice sounded tinny and far away as if from an old-fashioned radio, followed by an uncomfortably long radio silence. “It’s your mother. Terrible…accident.”

Mom had picked up her real estate business again. While driving back from an appointment along I-35 during that wintry late afternoon, a semi-truck slid on a patch of ice, jackknifing in front of her. Her car ran head-on into the overturned truck, killing her instantly.

****

Earlier, I had explained the “Golden Rule” regarding bullying. This holds true in life as well, especially when you’re dealing with those tricky, arbitrary bitches known collectively as the Fates. When dealing with the Fates, you should always try and run under the radar and not draw attention to yourself. If they don’t know you exist, they can’t screw up your life. Once you’re on their radar, they know you’re there, and they become bound and determined to toy with your life, ensuring that a life full of happiness is snatched right out from under you.

The Fates noticed how Mom cheated Death and decreed, No, we can’t have that. So in their constant game of selfish one-upmanship, they took notice of my family’s happiness and decided it should be short-lived. I envision them sitting in their courts, bored with the usual wars, plagues, pandemics, and famines, thinking how much fun it would be to bring a smaller tragedy to fruition for their own petty amusement. With a few small moves of the McKenna family chess game pieces, the unfair Fates smiled and said, Let’s change it up.

Good move, the kiss-ass lackeys replied as their all-knowing, unjust tyrannical leader smiled from his golden throne. And we, the poor, helpless, pitiful game-pieces have no other choice but to suck it up and see if there’s any game left in it for us. Because it’s clearly out of our hands. There’s no such thing as creating and following one’s own destiny. Just…fate decided by cruel gods.

At that time in my frozen, emotionally stunted life, all I could think was game over.

****

That night, as I picked Dad up, we drove home, business as usual. I told him how Hastings and a cop grilled me about Matt Rimmer. He clenched his eyes shut, obviously pissed off.

“You want me to talk to this Hastings?” he asked.

“No, Dad. That’ll just make things worse. It’ll blow over.”

We drove along through the early falling dusk in silence. I thought about everything I found in Mom’s office and the memories it brought cascading back like an inexhaustible waterfall. I had questions. And if I couldn’t control my life—if the Fates were cruel arbiters of our lives—at least I might be able to control the talk I knew I had to have with Dad tonight.

“Dad, I want to talk about Mom. I’m ready to talk about her tonight.”