Category: first draft

Chapter Thirteen, Part Two.

Jeezers, this was a grind. First Mikkelson is in, just as I’d always meant hm to be. Then he’s out, just as I believed was necessary to move things along, and then I put him back, because he’s effing integral. Damn me. Anyhoo, the following is the aftermath, the hangover, if you will, of flopping along through this “plotline tug-o-war.” If you want me to be honest, over half of what I’ve put down here just plain– in my head– sucks, and sucks awful. There are tidbits that are worth saving, but right now I just flat out hate it. Rough draft. Rough draft. Rough draft. I hope it works better for you than it does for me.

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Just passing the spot where he’d left the road in search of dead cattle, Will felt the expansion in his chest and the air coming in a rush. A few hundred yards more and he could stretch his legs and slip into the hypnosis that would carry him for as long he was willing to go. The mild euphoria, that “runner’s high”, had ever been an illusion in Will’s case. There was always something in his head, something he could not set aside. “Run, Billie. Run, run, run. The thing is, Billie, and in case you didn’t hear, the world is round. Run, run, run, no matter how far, someday you’re going to find yourself right back where you started. There’s no getting away from that.”

Of all the things that had come out of her mouth, the negative, the fatalistic, the snide, that was a comment that he could not discard. Not with a lifetime of practice and diligence, there were phrases, observations and revelations born of a poisoned philosophy that nevertheless rang true and he could not dismiss them. They hit the target and struck deep, buried in the bone, held fast with barbs.

“Mommies give you life, Billie. Life! They give you flowers, sunrises, puppies. They give you love, Billie. And all they want back is love. You know what else they give? They give you death. And with all the love in the world, all the love mommies can give, it goes away. She dies. That love dies with her. You die. Everything you knew and ever had, a mommy’s love, and the love you had for her. Gone. All because of Mommy.”

Will hit four miles and the shackles were off. He left the gravel shoulder and eased himself onto the asphalt. Gravity shifted ninety degrees, its force no longer driving his feet into the ground, but propelling them forward. The earth beneath him was no longer a binding force, but a springboard. The balls of his feet touched it like a fleeting kiss, a faint whisper, its constraints a dim, indistinct memory. It was going to be one of those days,

The sun had fully risen and Will felt the full force of it on his back. There was a breeze from the West, and he was running straight into it. Wind in the face cooled you off, wind at your back heated you up. He was hot already. With a well practiced move, he removed his shirt, balled it up, and drifted further to the center of the road until he could toss it to the eastbound shoulder. He’d grab it one the way back.

“If you could be anybody in the world, would you still be you?”

It had rained the entire day before. Will had managed another hour of procrastination before he opened the hope chest. Mom’s box of scorpions, she’d once told him when he’d asked what she kept in it, open it and you’ll get stung. He was maybe seven years old when he first became aware of it, how it was the first thing she went to whenever they arrived at the farm. It was only a year or so later that he made the connection between her spending hours scribbling in a blank journal or a wirebound notebook and the mysterious wooden box in her bedroom. It was only a few months after that he was able to understand the role it played in the irregular, impromptu dashes back to Venlo. He learned to watch for a handful of new notebooks. He was soon able to use them as a calendar, estimate time she spent hunched over them, at the kitchen table, the chaise by the pool, crouched on the bathroom floor, writing in a deliberate, thoughtful manner or scratching in a frantic scrawl. When the books were full, It was time to go.

Working out how long it took to fill a notebook or a journal was a trickier thing. Will had to consider whether she was manic, down in a hole of paralytic depression, or somewhere in between. That took some time, but he eventually doped it out.

Will approached a bridge. He’d learned from an odometer mission in his truck, calculating distance and what landmarks were nearby in setting up the mileage for his runs. This bridge, which would have come in handy that morning he was tracking down dead cattle, was just short of four miles from the end of his driveway. It marked the edge of the county, crossing the Wahpekute. Another three miles would bring him to the South Dakota border.

Will’s temptation was fleeting. To the border and back would put him close to fifteen miles. He hadn’t run anything more than a half marathon since college. The sun on his back tempered his desire to make it something of a record day. It was going to hit ninety degrees, possibly higher. The humidity was cranking up as well. Will crossed the bridge, crossed the road and back over the bridge. Nine would do. His head wasn’t in the right way to push himself.

The contents of the chest went back to his mother’s mid-middle school days. Nothing there, no hints of what was to come. It was all pubescent girl; worries about school, friends, arguments with Nan, budding breasts and their foretelling of future anxieties over menses and boys. But, it was calming. Will was surprised at the relief that came with line after line of even, tidy cursive, rolling on and on into pages and books centered on a too-tall, gangly and awkward girl with bumps swelling under her shirt. It became so routine and repetitive that he began riffling through pages without a glance at a single phrase.

It carried him through about a quarter of the contents of the chest. No hints. No tells, no foreshadowing. He went no further that day. The rain had finally relented and when the sun came out he couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. He hit some golf balls. The corn in the field had grown a foot, so he could no longer see the dots they made in the turned soil. However, he found the occasional sound of his projectiles tearing through leaves more satisfying, and even looked forward to the plants growing higher, increasing the potential destructive power each shot would have. The effect this exercise had in diffusing whatever anxiety he’d felt over prying into his mother’s past was unexpected. The initial fear he’d had over discovering some dark secret, some emotional trauma tied to her childhood as an explanation for her madness wasn’t there. All he’d read revealed nothing more than little girl’s normal excitement and trepidation at growing into a young woman. That was what he’d expected and was something he’d had drilled into his head for nearly half of his life. Having it re-affirmed brought little relief.

Instead, he found old, irrational fears stirring. What if there was nothing in that box before he was born that indicated trouble? What if her musings revealed nothing more than the irrationality and recklessness of adolescence? What if she didn’t go nuts until after he was born, and the cause of her madness was inseparable from his coming into being?

Will came upon his shirt. His pace was too high, driven by the wheels cranking in his head. It was a mistake. Running like this with all that in his head. Not burning that box the first day he was here. Opening that box. Reading what he’d read so far. Reading any more of it. Reading it, knowing he could never read it all, because the last notebooks had been torn to pieces, thrown into the pool, only to be carried away as “evidence…” That final question would never be answered… It was a mistake. Coming here.

Clutching his shirt, Will came upon the edge of the Mikkelson property. He’d have taken little notice, he was talking himself he needed to keep his pace until he’d reached his driveway, and only then could he allow himself to decelerate to a walk, but he saw Arn Mikkelson’s beat-up one-ton-dually moving onto the county road. Here was a chance to face the man.

Will kicked up his pace, trying to find the strength for an all out sprint. He could see a clear silhouette of Mikkelson’s head, back lit by the low sun in the east. It was turned, looking west, in his direction. There was no traffic coming at him and there was no way he couldn’t see Will coming at him. The head turned and the truck eased forward, turning into the eastbound lane. Will raised his shirt over his head and waived it. He would have shouted and screeched as well, but his legs weren’t getting enough air as it was. Surprised, as his legs had lost all feeling and his chest was burning, Will was actually closing on him.

Impossibly, Will’s rubber legs responded to his demands for even more acceleration. Will could actually make out Mikkelson’s face, first in the side mirror and then, as the truck straightened out on the pavement, his eyes, staring straight back at him in the rear view. Will was perhaps fifteen feet from the tailgate when he heard a sudden roar. The four rear tires of the truck blurred and emitted a rising screech as they spun on the asphalt. The vehicle leapt away from him, and Mikkelson’s eyes were lost in the fog of blue, reeking tire smoke.

Will came to a jolting halt in a half-dozen, flat-footed steps. He bent, grabbing his knees and coughing. Still squeezing his patellas, he tried to turn his body to escaped the noxious haze of Mikkelson’s scorched rubber.

“Fucking…” Will wheezed, “dirty . . . asshole . . .” He repeated it several times, still bent over in the middle of the road. When he’d regained the energy to stand erect, the tire smoke had dissipated, and he could inhale without hacking. He forced his mouth to close but continued to greedily suck in air, solely through his nostrils. I was a few minutes before he tried to move.

Will’s legs were shaking, wobbly like he’d actually done those fifteen miles. Never before had he finished a run with a “kick” such as that. He vowed never to do it again. Even to escape flames, he would never do it again. He made it to the end of the drive before he could consciously feel his legs again. At the end of the drive, he reflexively opened his brand new mailbox, even though he knew the mailman wouldn’t be by for at least four more hours. He slammed the empty box shut and began his walk to the house. The gravel driveway looked about five miles long, and the vehicles of Maartens’ roofing crew looked like Matchbox cars.

I’m going to the house, he told himself. I’m going to stretch. I’m going to shower. I’m going to eat a yogurt and a banana. I’m going to get dressed. He stopped less than halfway down the drive, seeing a stone about the size of a chicken’s egg. He stooped to pick it up, marveling at how he wobbled as he rose back to standing. He looked at the stone, rolled it in his palm, then threw it, toward the county road, and in the directions Mikkelson’s truck had been going. And then I’m going to seen Bertie Blom, and become the greatest pain in the ass he’ll have ever known in his lifetime.

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Yeah. There ya have it. And such a long wait for it, too! It’ll be a LOT more coherent after the next go ’round. Fear not, what’s coming next time is a LOT more lucid. ‘ Til then.

 

Chapter Twelve, Part 2

No need for chatter. Chap 12 continues . . .

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Will hated yard lights. He’d only been exposed to one in his entire life, and it was on this property. It had been in the back of the house, and actually very close to where the new power pole was placed. The room he stayed in during his visits—“his room”—had been at the rear of the house, on the other side of the bathroom as his mother’s. The light, a large, buzzing globe from within a tube of mercury vapor blazed with the intensity of nuclear fission. It was set at a height more or less even with the second floor windows. Even with the shade down and the wispy, curtains pulled, the light that bored into the room was bright enough to read by.

The supervisor never came back. Neither did the Sheriff, though Will sweated it out for a day or two. It was not at the idea of being compelled to install a hated means of exterior illumination, but that he’d have to sit through another sales pitch for the coroner job.

Will shuffled out of the parlor and into the kitchen. He stopped at the back door, opening it a few inches. It was raining, and literally in sheets. It was coming down so fast and so hard that the huge drops shone white. Even through the downpour, he could make out the last power pole. The lineman had taken down the light, but the bracket was still in place. If he were somehow compelled to put up the light, he would indeed go to town and purchase a rifle. There was a quick flash and an impressive bang of thunder. There would be no golf swings today. Nor would there be a run, which disappointed him. He was up to a solid weekly schedule, running three, six and nine miles spaced out over six days. That was a pace he hadn’t maintained since college.

Will paused a moment before closing the door. He was deciding whether to dash out to his truck for a trip into town and breakfast. He’d taken Bertie Blom’s advice and forced himself to make regular appearances in town. So far, it seemed, it was good advice. His banter with Wendy the waitress had progressed beyond the wetness of his feet. He’d had more than one spontaneous conversation with a local on the days there wasn’t an open booth. He discovered, with some surprise, there had been years of speculation regarding the ultimate fate of the “old Rijsbergen place.” He’d met more than one person who remembered his grandparents and, to his relief, nobody who remembered his mother— at least nobody had brought her up.

Too wet, Will decided. The thought also crossed his mind that, now that it had become a thing of the past, rekindling the saturation level of his shoes wasn’t anything he’d miss. He’d also made a few trips to the “Muni”, the only bar in Venlo’s city limits. Under the auspices of watching baseball, Will had slunk in, perched himself at what seemed to be the most inconspicuous end of the bar and sipped beer. The first night in, he got several hard looks, but never exchanged a word with anybody, aside from the bartender, a kid who looked scarcely old enough to drink himself. He wasn’t much of a talker, which had suited Will just fine. The place became quite crowded by the third inning, and while he got plenty of second and third long looks, the only conversation he engaged in was typical bar banter with whoever was sitting next to him at any given time. Will sat through the entire game, which turned into a three and a half hour slugfest. He managed to leave after only three and a half beers, never tipped more that a buck a beer—which the youngster had no problem with, and stopped himself from buying the house a round.

It wasn’t until his third visit that Will suffered a momentary shock and had to fight the urge to flee, and that was when the person minding the bar turned out to be Wendy, the waitress.

“Well, look who’s decided to join the neighborhood.”

Will had been tempted to tell her he’d just stopped in to use the bathroom. A moment’s consideration stopped that plan of action. He’d either have to never set foot in the place again, which essentially meant he’d given up on developing what never had much promise of more than a meager social life, or put up with whatever comments she’d have ready for him the next time he had breakfast at the diner.

“Ballgame,” was all he said, and took the same place at the bar as he had his first two visits.

As it turned out, he discovered she was a resource that rivalled Blom when it came to his “public image.”

When she plunked his second beer in front of it, she asked, “How’s that house coming along?”

She’d not said a word to him otherwise since he’s sat down.

“You tell me,” he answered.

“I heard it’s getting a real nice makeover.”

“Heard from whom?” he responded.

“Anybody you’d care to ask,” was her counter.

It went no further than that, but it told Will volumes. It also opened the door to further interaction. Once he’d been seen talking to Wendy, several people who come to the bar from the tables for a refill or to drop off empties—Will’s preferred seat was next to the wait station, which had functioned as a buffer to his left flank, and he’d yet to see a server—they’d give him a hello and offer some idle chitchat. More than one had asked him “How’s that house going?”

Any further conversation he’d had with Wendy was neutral, generic, and only as personal as her revelatory statement of, “five days a week at the diner, three nights a week here.” The only comment Will had regarding his own business was his uncertainty of “how long I’ll stick around here after the work on the house is done.”

“Nice to have options,” she said.

Will had actually enjoyed the evening, and was surprised that, when he left, he had no idea of who’d won the game. He’d also limited his intake, however, not wanting to risk a lowering of inhibition. His purpose had been only to be seen, not understood. Closing the door on the rain and socializing for the day, went to the refrigerator and took out the makings for a frittata.

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Back before ya know it.