Brambleman (22 page)

When his cellphone rang, he answered in the
study.

“How’s Mom?”

“She’s been in a terrible mood all day. I
wonder why that is.” His tone was dry.

“She thinks you’re going to keep asking her
for more money.”

“I
am
going to keep asking her for
more money.”

“She’s paid you enough,” Angela spoke gently,
as if she was a nurse telling a terminal patient that he’d be
getting no more painkillers.

“That’s not the deal. I never would have
signed on for that amount.”

“It can’t be open-ended. I’m looking at the
contract right now. My God! What is this? ”

“Red ink,” Charlie guessed, though he had no
idea what Kathleen’s copy looked like. His contract, as gruesome
and sopping wet as a pound of raw liver, was now packed away in a
plastic tub in the dungeon. The vat, he called it. And now he felt
the weight of it on his shoulders every waking moment—and even when
he slept, for that matter. He assumed the document was saturated
with the blood of those lost souls who gave him his dreams. He
still needed to get the stuff tested. But not until they’d fed him
all their stories.

“It says, ‘The party of the second part will
succeed, or die in the attempt.’”

“Hey, don’t blame me for
that
.”

“Die trying?” she said, her voice dripping
with disbelief. “No way this holds up in court.”

“Who’s going to challenge it? I thought you
agreed—”

“I never agreed to anything. I just had a
setback when my attorney was killed. I’ve got a new attorney.
Sandra Hughes is redoing the contract.”

So she was back to boxing with God. “Knock
yourself out.”

“By the way, Mom thinks she has
superpowers.”

“Not
that
again. She also thinks she
has a cat,” Charlie said. “Bounce. I keep kicking the food
dish.”

“We had to put her to sleep just before
Christmas.”

The euthanasia had been Angela’s gift to her
mother just before she left to spend the holiday with her tattooed
(now ex-) girlfriend.
Such a sentimentalist
. “It’s the gift
that keeps on giving,” Charlie said. “She puts out food for it once
a week. Which is odd in and of itself.”

“She’s in denial. Tell her she doesn’t have a
cat anymore.”

Being a dog person, Charlie considered an
imaginary cat preferable to a real one, so he didn’t plan to
mention the tragedy, fearing he’d have to drive her to the Humane
Society to get a replacement. “I gotta go. Rick’s about to shoot
Major Strasser.”

“What? Oh.
Casablanca
. Yeah,” she said
wearily. “One thing: If you want to stay there, you’ve got to take
on more of a caretaker role. That’s the only way this is going to
work.”

“I’ll do what I can. But there is the matter
of payment.”

“We’ll discuss terms later. Make sure she
takes her meds.”

“What terms?” he asked, but it was too late.
She’d already hung up. When Charlie returned to the living room,
Rick and Captain Renault were strolling off into the foggy night.
Kathleen was misty-eyed. “That was our favorite movie,” she said.
“Thurwood and I must have watched it a dozen times together.” She
hit a button on the remote and turned off the TV. “I heard you
talking about my kitty.” She went into the kitchen and stuck her
head out the back door. “Here, kitty, kitty!”

She returned to the living room. “Have you
seen Bounce?”

“Never,” Charlie said.

“I think my daughter killed her. That’s just
the sort of thing she’d do.”

“Well, Bounce must have been very old or very
sick.”

“Yes, she
was
old and sick. I asked
Angela to take her to the vet for surgery. But she won’t spend
money on a cat. Not my cat, certainly.”

“If you know this, why have you been putting
out food?”

“Well,
something
has been eating it. I
thought she might have tossed Bounce out on the side of the road
and she made her way home. You know how they have radar. But the
food hasn’t been touched lately. Maybe she is dead. Maybe it’s
rats.”

“Hmm.”
Had Trouble … Nah. Ick.
Probably
. He shuddered, imagining the old trickster walking the
streets with a rat trap stuck on his face. Which would serve him
right, sort of. “Well, don’t feed the rats.”

“I miss Bounce. Now I’ve only got you,”
Kathleen said. “And you should be working on the book right now.
That’s what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?”

Shortly after dawn, Charlie finished
transcribing his dream of Lincoln Roberts, the black preacher who’d
been beaten nearly to death for speaking truth to power in 1912.
Unfortunately, he’d
been
Roberts, so he’d woken up at 4:00
a.m. screaming in pain and terror.

He shut his laptop and, with trepidation,
climbed the dungeon steps. Kathleen had been through several mood
shifts lately, so he wondered whether he’d see good Kathleen
(cheerful and hospitable) or bad Kathleen (cranky, suspicious, even
a little smiteful). She was in the kitchen, eating oatmeal. Charlie
regarded her carefully, then glanced at the stove. None for him.
Not good. Also, she happened to be glaring at him.

“Just remember, it’s his book, not yours,”
she said by way of greeting.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t you ‘yes ma’am’ me.”

“First time I ever heard
that
.”

“I know you’re a smart aleck and want to
change everything.”

“No I don’t.” He planned to keep the title
and Talton was still the book’s sole author, although that seemed
increasingly unfair. Also, the footnotes were staying—some of them,
anyway. But there was no point in arguing. He retreated to the
dungeon and packed his duffel for a workout.

After a trip to the Y, he worked on his
laptop in a Decatur coffeehouse. Shortly after noon, while sipping
coffee and ignoring his gnawing hunger, he finished Chapter Three.
He stared at the computer screen dumbly for a moment, then …
Eureka! He now had the sample he needed to send to Fortress
Publishing. Unfortunately, Joshua Furst was an old-fashioned
hard-copy kind of guy, so he couldn’t simply send the chapters via
e-mail.

He hurried back to Bayard Terrace and told
Kathleen the good news.

She was unimpressed. “It’s about time,” she
declared.

He went to the study and wrote a cover letter
while printing the chapters and table of contents. Afterward, he
handed a set of chapters to Kathleen and slid the other one into a
brown envelope, then addressed it and taped it closed. He slipped
on his jacket, bounced out the door and down the steps, then
stopped as suddenly as if he’d hit a brick wall. He wanted to put
his imprint on the book. Mark his territory, so to speak. He came
back inside.

“What’s up?” Kathleen asked suspiciously.

“The title doesn’t work.”

“Don’t change it.”

“I’m not changing it. Just adding something
to it.”

“That’s changing it.”

“I’ll show you.”

Minutes later, he handed her a new title
page. She looked over her glasses and read aloud: “
Flight from
Forsyth: Ethnic Cleansing in America
.” After a moment of
mulling it over, she said, “I guess that’s OK.”

He walked the package down to the post
office. After mailing it, Charlie cut across the alley to the
coffeehouse, where Jean greeted him with a big smile. “How’s the
writing going?”

“I sent the first three chapters to my
publisher.”

“Cool. So you’ve got a publisher
already.”

“Kind of. If they like it.”

“Well, good luck.”

Charlie thought about asking her out. Then he
remembered he didn’t have a place to take her—or money, for that
matter. He drifted to a seat by the window with his double
espresso. Once there, he permitted himself to daydream. Really,
could success be so far away? Where would he live when he hit the
big time? A loft, of course. In a trendy, fashio-industrial section
of town, preferably near—or in—an abandoned textile mill. And he’d
wall in cozy little bedrooms for the kids to sleep in when they
came to visit, which would be often, since he would fight for and
win joint custody. But Saturday nights would be reserved for Jean.
Or someone like her. Actually, since he’d learned she was bisexual,
maybe Jean
and
someone like her. If the marriage thing
didn’t work out, that is. Hey, an ascetic can dream, can’t he?

He finished his drink and returned to Bayard
Terrace. It was a school day, and he needed to pick up the kids,
but first he had to settle accounts. Susan was demanding money for
the mortgage payment, and he didn’t want to be browbeaten by his
wife on such a triumphant day. He showed his work log sheet to
Kathleen, explaining what she owed him.

Her eyes widened in anger. “We’ve been
through this,” she said. “I already paid you.”

“Yes, for a hundred and twenty-five hours,
but I’ve worked another—”

“No. I paid you that money to edit the book,
and you should be through by now. Not just a couple of chapters.
I’m certainly not giving you any more money. Do you think I’m a
fool?”

“No. I think you need to take your
medicine.”

“Don’t you insult me! I’m not the one making
up things!”

How did she know
?
She was just
guessing, right
?

He wanted to point out the contract’s terms,
but his copy was a bloody mess and Angela now held Kathleen’s.
Another problem: If his employer was too far gone mentally, it
could invalidate the agreement, and he would lose all his rights.
Charlie alone understood what the real deal was, but he had no time
to explain or argue, not when the kids’ teachers considered him
insane and Susan was ready to sic Family and Children Services on
him—or even worse, Evangeline. So all he could do was bluff. “I’m
not working on it, then,” he declared. “We’ll talk when I get
back.”

“You should earn your keep, instead of asking
for money. Start paying rent. I don’t have money anymore. My
daughter took it. Where are you going? Come back here!”

* * *

It was too nice to stay inside that
afternoon, so Charlie took the kids to Duck Lake Park. They walked
around the lake, tailed by a mallard and his mate expecting more
than the few crumbs they’d been tossed. Beck was playing Cupid.
“Mommy asks about you all the time,” she told Charlie. “What you’re
saying. And what you’re thinking.”

Ben followed after them in his haphazard
fashion, hunting down pine cones and tossing them in the water.
“About what?” Charlie asked.

“About our family.”

“I think about you and Ben. I think about
writing. I think about doing my job as a father. That’s mainly what
I think about.”

She squinted into the sun. “What about
Mommy?”

He shrugged. “That changed. What does Mommy
think?”

“Mommy thinks you’re crazy. But I’m not
supposed to tell you that.”

“It’s not really much of a secret, now is
it?”

“No, everybody thinks you’re crazy.” She
giggled and grabbed his hand. “That’s all right.”

“I’m glad you think so.” Charlie watched Ben
run up to the dock with an armful of pine cones and heave them all
into the lake. “What else does Mommy think?”

“I can’t tell you. But if you want to come
back, that would be OK. You didn’t have to leave.”

Another mixed signal from Susan. No surprise
there. “Well, actually, I did. But I don’t expect you to
understand.”

“I understand,” she said firmly. “You’re
being stupid and hateful.”

“No. It’s hard to explain, but this is
something I have to do.”

“Do you think you’ll ever come back?”

It was his turn to squint into the sun.
“There’s always a chance.”

She frowned as she pondered this. Ben ran by
with another load of cones to throw in the water. “You dropped
one!” Beck shouted, and went running after him.

* * *

After dinner that night, Charlie gave Susan
$150—all he had left except for a few ones and a twenty tucked
behind his driver’s license. “Cash?” she asked, raising an eyebrow
at him like he’d gotten the money from the old woman’s jewelry box.
“You’re living like a street person. And I need more than
this.”

He dug out the twenty and slammed it on the
table. “All I got.”

Susan rolled her eyes and picked up the
money, which only served to harden Charlie’s attitude. He left,
mumbling to himself about “never coming back, not for a long
time.”

His stance was quite unfortunate, considering
what happened to him when he returned to Bayard Terrace. Kathleen
greeted Charlie by accusing him of stealing her salt and pepper
shakers and pawning them.

“If you can’t give them back,” she shouted,
“at least give me the money you got for them!”

Clearly, Kathleen was losing her battle with
dementia. He went into the study and used his cellphone to leave a
message for Angela: “Kathleen is off her meds and out of
control.”

“I heard that!” Kathleen shouted from the
living room.

A little while later, Charlie was brewing
coffee. Kathleen came up behind him and hissed, “Get out of my
house.”

He turned to face her, jumping back when he
saw the butcher knife in her hand. “Kathleen! What’s gotten into
you?”

“Don’t try to trick me. That’s what you all
do. Try to sell me a new roof and take my house! You can tell your
boss and the other Irish Gypsies that I’ll not put up with it. I’m
calling the police!”

“I’m not a thief. We have a deal. Thurwood’s
book, remember? I just sent—”

“Get out!” She stepped toward him, pointing
the knife at his crotch.

It was one thing to be an ascetic, quite
another to be a eunuch. He raised his hands, but only belt high.
“No problem. I’ll just get my computer.”