A Shiver of Wonder (4 page)

“Hey, boy! How are ya, Johnson?” Bill was
always affectionate with the dog, and David hadn’t failed to notice
that it was only on these occasions that Bill exhibited a true
sense of happiness. He wasn’t taciturn so much as imperturbable,
but as he massaged Johnson’s ears while deftly avoiding an eager
tongue, he appeared years younger than he was, as well as decades
spryer.

Bill turned to David. “How ya holdin’ up? I
was hopin’ I’d find ya out here today.” And then he caught sight of
Clair. Johnson dropped down as Bill instantly stiffened, his eyes
narrowing as he drew a taut breath. “Clair,” he nodded. “How’re
you?”

She smiled at him, a far wider, more
engaging smile than she ever managed with David. “Hi, Mr. Lopes.
I’m good. Thank you for asking. Are you off to sweep the walk?”

Despite Clair’s efforts, Bill still appeared
discomfited. “Yes. Yes, I am,” he replied tightly. “Almost three
twenty. I’m late.”

Johnson trailed Bill to the gate that led to
the common area, but dejectedly; it was clear that Bill wasn’t
interested anymore. Bill opened the gate before turning back to
David. “Maybe a beer after I’m done?” he asked. “Ya got a few
minutes?”

David didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. I’ll be
here.”

Bill nodded, and then left. Johnson leapt
after a fly, chased it around the fountain a bit, and then shook
himself before lying down at David’s feet again.

“He doesn’t trust me,” Clair said
quietly.

David blinked. Trust? What a strange way to
phrase it. ‘He doesn’t
like
me’ would be more natural, if a
bit bizarre coming from a first grader. But since when did Clair
say anything in a normal, straightforward manner?

“I don’t know about that,” David replied
easily. “He’s just… awkward around most people, I suppose.”

Her head shook. “It’s okay. He has his
reasons. You talk with Janice here sometimes, don’t you?”

David’s eyebrows rose. “Sometimes. But not
today. Or yesterday. And I would guess that ninety percent of my
conversations with neighbors occur right here. Like now, with
you.”

“Janice likes talking to you.”

David tried not to smirk; it was something
Genevieve always pointed out, too. The fact that David liked
Janice, but had never had any interest in pursuing anything
further, was usually lost on Genevieve when she was in one of her
antagonistic moods.

“She’ll need somebody to talk to,” Clair
continued. “I hope it’s you.”

And as his eyes shot to hers, she stood. “I
have to go now.”

“But…” David rose as well. “What do you
mean? How do you – ”

There was a loud click as the latch was
opened, and a few seconds later Mrs. Rushen stepped through the
gate into the courtyard.

Clair was smiling openly now. “I’ll see you
Sunday, maybe,” she whispered.

David glanced at Mrs. Rushen, imposing and
sexless in an amorphic gray dress. “Are you ever going to tell me
her first name?” he whispered back, determined to end their
conversation lightly with the same game he and Clair had played for
over two months now.

“No! Are you going to tell me Genevieve’s
last name?” she murmured.

“No! You never told me how you knew her
first name, anyway! What about
your
last name? Does it begin
with P?”

“Ha!” she rejoined. “Maybe you’ll never
know.”

“Come,” said Mrs. Rushen tonelessly. She
nodded at David, and Clair winked before the two of them filed
briskly out of the courtyard.

Johnson, who had risen along with David,
spied a flying insect he could pursue. David slowly sat down once
more, finding himself intrigued and confused yet again by the
little girl who lived in 2B with her peculiar guardian. Why did she
say so many curious things, and how did she
know
so much?
Was it all just obvious, and an observant child could pick it up
without any effort at all? Or was she abnormally attuned to what
went on in other people’s minds?

Johnson caught his prey, mauled it, and then
spit it out.

The fountain gurgled, the dog and the man
relaxed, the afternoon sun moved leisurely lower in the sky.

“That girl creeps me out.” Bill popped open
a can of Miller Genuine Draft and downed a healthy swig. “She ain’t
right,” he added after swallowing.

David had opened his own beer, sipped some,
and then set it down on a rickety side table. “She’s a little off,
but she’s okay,” he replied lightly.

“She’s
way
off. And that woman is
barmy.”

“Mrs. Rushen?”

“Yuh. She’s demented.”

“Mmm.” David hadn’t a clue as to what drove
the mysterious Mrs. Rushen, but hoped for Clair’s sake that she
wasn’t a psychotic.

The two men were in the front room of Bill’s
cottage. Rustic wood-paneled walls and dark, dust-laden window
curtains made for a dim man cave, the effect magnified by creaky
furniture, a decades-old television, and piles of frayed magazines
that hugged the walls of the room.

Bill had eyes that had seen more than their
fair share of hardship, of harshness, of the shitty end of the
stick that life wielded so casually and callously. This was his
home, and he was fine with it. He could have ended up somewhere far
worse, and he knew it.

“Big business here yesterday,” Bill said.
“Big business, bad business.”

David picked up his beer. “Yeah. Pretty
crappy.” He drank some. “I can’t quite say I feel bad for Heck, but
I can’t imagine Janice is having an easy time of it.”

Bill shook his head. “Nope. Saw ’er this
mornin’, on ’er way to Bargain Bin. She had to take off yesterday,
’count of the police ’n all, but she pulled her servin’ shift last
night. She looked a mess.”

David believed it. He took another long
sip.

“That detective, Ormsky. What an asshole,”
growled Bill.

David snorted. Some suds found their way
into his nostrils, making them tingle. “He’s not exactly a
charmer.”

Bill blew out some air. “Kept pronouncin’ my
name Lo-pes, Spanish-like, with two syllables. Do I look like I
came from Mexico?” He lifted an unlit cigar out of an ashtray and
chomped down on it. “Asshole.”

Johnson’s head rose as a fly buzzed out of
one of the curtains, only to make a landing in the adjacent fold.
The dog promptly closed its eyes again.

“Do they have any idea who did it?” David
asked. “I wasn’t here all morning, so I only know what I read in
the paper.”

“Whoever did it, I hope they get away,” said
Bill. “I told ’em what I saw. They can follow it up and come up
with their own conclusions.”

“What’d you see?” said David, eager but
trying not to be overly inquisitive.

“Well, first of all, ya gotta understand
that Heck had it comin’. Ya know that, right?” Bill’s eyes bored in
on him.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Oh, c’mon! Ya knew he beat on her,
right?”

David hesitated, but then quickly nodded.
“Yeah. I did. I never saw him do it, but…”

“But ya saw the presents he gave ’er.”

Another nod. “Uh, huh. The worst one was a
few months ago. When her arm turned totally purple, and her cheek –
”

“It was bust open like a piñata on the
Fourth of July.”

David tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help
it. “Yeah. About like that.”

Bill grabbed his beer and tilted his head
back to guzzle some, the cigar going along for the ride. “My Mum,”
he said after wiping his mouth, “she lived for a bit with a guy
just like Heck. He sponged offa her, beat us kids ever’ time he was
lit and ever’ time he wasn’t. He once hit her so bad I thought she
was gonna die just from the one blow.” His head shook, slowly.
“Well, he got his.”

“What happened?” David asked.

Bill glanced toward a window, where a spider
web so thick it was almost solid looked as though it was an
extension to the glazing.

“It’s funny,” he said, “my Mum actually
missed ’im after. Jim Frisk. Big Jim Frisk. Some guys he owed money
to, they came for ’im one day and gave ’im a touch of his own
medicine. They went too far, though. They killed ’im. His head was
nothin’ but bloody pulp when they got through.” Bill’s eyes sidled
back to David as a wry grin emerged. “That enough detail for ya? Or
do ya want me to tell ya some more?”

David reached again for his beer and drained
half the can. His eyes began to water, but he forced himself to
evenly meet Bill’s gaze. “So… what’d you tell the police you saw on
Wednesday?”

“Ya mean, what’d I tell that asshole
Ormsky?”

David nodded. Bill laughed.

“I made sure to take ever’ Goddamn minute of
his precious time I could. I started with my first sweep out front
at eight a.m., and went through ever’ last bit of trimmin’, tidyin’
and fixin’ I did. All Goddamn day.”

David couldn’t help but chuckle, imagining
the impatient, officious Ormsby blowing his cool while Bill drawled
on and on.

“There were only two things I knew would
matter to ’im. First was, Heck showed up ’round eleven thirty. I
was outside gettin’ the mowin’ going, and he sauntered right on
past me like he owned the joint. Didn’t tell ’im Janice was out,
figgered he knew. Second was, ’bout thirty minutes later, two of
those thugs he’s been here with a few times while Janice was
workin’ came on by too. I was done with the mowin’ then, and as I
was headin’ back on in here, they were poundin’ on her door,
callin’ for Heck to come out.”

“So it’s the two guys!” David was excited,
sitting forward on his chair. “That wasn’t in the paper. I read the
whole thing!”

Bill waved a hand about. “Maybe. Maybe not.
I headed to the courtyard to muck the fountain after that. Never
heard another Goddamn thing. Forgot all about ’em till Janice came
and woke me up ’round eleven that night.”

“Janice came to you? I thought she called
the police!”

“Yuh. She did. I came over, took a good
gander at ole Heck lying there in a puddle of his own mess, and
told ’er to call ’em. She was innocent, wouldn’ta done her no harm
to do things the right way.”

David sat back again. All of this going on
while he was either building links and concocting metadata in the
sterile offices of Culpepper Mills, or blithely asleep in his
bed.

“Weird thing is,” Bill continued, “that
creepy girl Clair?”

“Uh, huh?”

“I overheard her tell Janice that she needed
to go see her mother.”

“What?” This made zero sense to David.
“When? And why?”

Bill shrugged, and removed the cigar from
his mouth. He set it down and then popped open another beer.
“Sunday afternoon. Clair and that woman were sittin’ in the
courtyard. Just sittin’. I passed by on my way up to 2G – those
idiot kids in there stopped up the Goddamn toilets again – and as I
was comin’ back, I saw Janice poke ’er head into the courtyard,
real tentative-like. But then she goes in. I stood just outside and
heard her say it. ‘You should go see your mother. She needs your
help,’ or something like that.”

Most of the second beer was then emptied
into Bill’s mouth. David reached for his own and finished the can.
He couldn’t even process all of this, it was so disjointed and
nonsensical. He stood, and Johnson followed suit.

“I should go,” David said.

Bill nodded.

“I’m supposed to meet Genevieve at six.”

Bill guffawed. “She gonna dump ya
again?”

“I hope not.” David glanced down at Johnson,
who was already pawing at the cottage door, ready to chase after a
few more bugs. “But ya never know.”

“So how was the meeting last night?”

Genevieve eyed David coldly as she locked
Gâteaupia’s doors, seeking even the slightest hint of derision or
sarcasm.

“Just asking!” David added, throwing his
hands into the air in a show of innocence.

Johnson barked; his leash had gone along for
the ride.

The keys were stowed in a purse. The locks
were double-checked, and then triple-checked. “It was good,” she
answered as she began striding west on Larch. “Not quite the
turnout we’d hoped for, but still… about twenty of us.”

David stepped quickly to catch up with her.
“Are we… are we headed to eat somewhere?” Genevieve’s house was in
the opposite direction, at Birch and Seventh.

“I want to walk. I’m not hungry yet. Let’s
go to the square and take a couple turns around. Look how happy
Johnson is!”

Indeed, Johnson was straining forward, eager
and hopeful for the cool green expanses of the public square.

“Okay! So tell me about the meeting.”

She glanced over with a doubtful smile. “You
sure?”

He nodded. “But if the acronym has changed
again, I’ll need a refresh.”

Genevieve laughed, and she warmly took his
arm. “It’s funny, your saying that. We actually spent fifteen
minutes debating that very point!”

David’s eyes rolled, but with amusement.
“What’s being added now?” he asked.

“Do you remember what it was?”

He chuckled. “I memorized it! LGBTQIA.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, questioning, intersex,
asexual.”

His arm received a squeeze. “Impressive.
Push it, will you?”

He pushed the Walk button so they could
cross Fourth Street.

“All right, so you know how we try to keep
things on a casual basis – no titled leaders, no person-in-charge,
right?”

“Uh, huh.”

“Well, I’m not sure how much longer
that’s
going to last. We at least need someone who can shut
things down when they head in the wrong direction.”

“But who determines what the wrong direction
is?”

“
Exactly
the dilemma! If our mission
is openness and acceptance of all, how can there
be
a wrong
direction, no matter where that direction leads us?”