Brambleman (9 page)

Charlie didn’t have a chance to put his hands
over his ears before Evangeline started screaming. “He ain’t got no
rights! Not if he walks out on his family!”

“Excuse us,” Charlie said, taking Susan by
the elbow. “We need to talk.”

Evangeline followed them to the master
bedroom. Charlie closed the door in her face.

“We need to solve this in like sixty
seconds.” Susan glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to meet the
lawyers. I told you I’m being deposed.”

“I know who should be deposed.” Charlie
nodded toward the door.

“OK, what she did is rude and wrong,” Susan
whispered.

“And you know why she did it.”

“Yes. But I don’t necessarily feel that way.
I don’t want to fight. I just want to find something that works. If
you could just go along this time, it would really help out.”

Necessarily
? He felt like he was being
asked to take a dive in a boxing match. “It can’t happen
again.”

“You know I can’t control her.”

“Next time she tries this, she can sit here
alone all day. Like a vulture.”

Susan scowled. “I gotta go.”

“So I’ll pick them up in Cumming Wednesday
evening. No sense in you driving up after work.”

“Or I can,” Susan said. “No sense in you and
her being in the same zip code.”

“Good point. You’re it, then.”

Then came an awkward moment, since kisses had
ended back in July and now their relationship had sunk to an even
lower level. Susan grabbed her purse. “Bye.” She walked into the
hall just as Beck emerged from her room. She called for Ben, then
hugged her children so hard they yelped.

After glancing around the room he’d painted
last summer, Charlie stepped into the hall and braced for serious
man-against-mother-in-law action. The door to the garage slammed
shut and Evangeline herded the kids toward the kitchen. She began
ransacking the place in an attempt to fix breakfast. Charlie
stepped in wordlessly, grabbing bowls and boxes.

“Is that all you got to feed them,
cereal?”

“Save it, Evangeline. If we’re going to get
through this—”

“Where’s the milk?”

Ben pulled a jug from the refrigerator.
Evangeline grabbed it and scrutinized it like she was a lab
technician at the Centers for Disease Control. “I can’t believe you
give them skim. Children need whole milk to grow. You must buy the
groceries. Susan wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“We have rules about TV,” he reminded
her.

“Nothing I can do about that in Cumming,”
Evangeline snapped. “We got cable.”

“So do we, but we hold it to an hour a
day.”

“Movies run more than an hour, everybody
knows that.”

“Average, Evangeline. Average. They can watch
a movie every other day.”

Evangeline’s stiff body language suggested
she was not subject to his pronouncements. “Don’t you worry. I know
how to make children happy.”

“That’s wonderful,” he deadpanned. He looked
around the kitchen. After an awkward silence, he said, “Well, I’d
better go. Kids, I’ll see you Thursday.”

Beck and Ben hugged him. He noticed they
didn’t seem sad to see him go. Then again, they knew Grandma would
let them watch cartoons all day. No doubt she’d seize this
opportunity to make up for her Charlie-induced time deficit with
them, suck out their brains, and mold them into little Cutchinses.
Was that the payoff he got for marrying Susan and helping pay her
way through college? This truly was an outrage.

Charlie left Thornbriar with a pounding
headache. He hadn’t had any coffee yet, so he stopped at Starbucks
to fix his caffeine deficiency. Then he called Susan’s work number
from his cellphone.

“I’m busy, Charlie.”

“I’ll just take a moment. Have I told you
that your mother is a difficult woman?”

“I believe you mentioned it once or twice. So
what’s your point?”

“You’re making this worse than it needs to
be,” he said.

“I didn’t do this.”

“Your whole family is already fighting the
custody battle.”

“Don’t be paranoid. Oh, the attorneys are
here.”

When he laughed, she said, “What’s funny? Oh,
forget it.”

“Fine. Bye.” He hung up, vowing that if he
came across the Cutchins name in Talton’s book, he’d prominently
feature the family’s role in the outrages. Just then, the sun
jumped out from behind a cloud and beamed down on him as if to say,
You got that right
.

Charlie had left Bayard Terrace hoping Angela
would accept the situation. After all, she seemed to be warming to
him. A little. However, when he returned with milk and bread, he
learned that the feud between mother and daughter was far from
settled, and his job was still in jeopardy.

“Angela just left with the contract,”
Kathleen said, greeting Charlie at the door. “She’s getting an
attorney to break it. Fat lot of good it will do her.” She closed
the door behind him and moved to the window, spying on the street
from behind a curtain. “I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen. That
was a big mistake. She has no idea what she’s getting into.” She
shook her head and let go of the curtain. “She said she’d call the
police if you don’t leave, so you’re in this, too.”

No cops
. “Maybe I should—”

“You’re not going anywhere. Get to work.” He
looked into the woman’s sky-blue eyes. She seemed equal parts sweet
and creepy right then. “I think my daughter hates men,” she added.
“She didn’t love her father. What do you think?”

“I don’t, not about that.” His problem with
Angela was her opinion of him, not vice versa. Live and let live,
that was his motto. “I wish you two could get along. Maybe try a
little diplomacy.”

Kathleen shook her head. “She didn’t hug me
when she left. And I’ll never have grandchildren. She’s fifty years
old. I suppose her girlfriend could have some procedure done.”

“I suppose.”

Kathleen sighed. “She’s going to have to
change her attitude. Or else,” she added in a sinister tone.

OK. More creepy than sweet. “Or else
what?”

“I’ll put a curse on her, that’s what I’ll
do.”

“A curse? Don’t go medieval on us,” he
pleaded, laughing.

She narrowed her eyes to slits. “Thurwood’s
book is my baby, the most important thing in the world, and she’s
trying to kill it.”

“I can take a hint,” he said. “I’ll get to
work.”

“It’s best that you do.”

“Just don’t put a curse on me.”

“Don’t worry. You’re immune.”

“That’s good to know.”

“At least I think you are. Haven’t tested it
on you yet.”

* * *

That afternoon, Charlie took a break and
strolled down to Bay Street Coffeehouse. He was encouraged to see
Amazon Woman working the counter and delighted when she smiled at
him. He sat by the large front window and sipped coffee laced with
a double shot of espresso. He gazed out at a thin, beautiful
platinum-haired woman in black tights jogging by. No time for that:
He was an ascetic with a job to do. The idea that his life had been
boiled down to one essential thing brought a peaceful feeling—until
he picked up a discarded newspaper from the next table and glanced
through the Metro section. A news brief caught his eye:

Diner Gutted by Flames

DeKalb County investigators are probing a
late night fire Saturday that destroyed a Pancake Hut on Hanover
Drive. No injuries were reported.

Arson investigators believe an incendiary
device may have been involved in the 11 p.m. blaze. Pancake Hut
waitress Lila Beth Richards reported a “suspicious-looking man with
goggles lurking around” just before the fire. Police believe this
may be the possible suspect in the fatal shooting of a Forsyth
County man at the same location Friday night.

The Pancake Hut chain is the target of a
class-action discrimination lawsuit filed by black customers.
Investigators declined to comment on motives in the case.

Charlie gulped down the rest of his coffee,
quickly returned to Bayard Terrace, and frantically searched the
dungeon for his goggles. He was sure he’d brought them back from
Optical Shoppe on Saturday. After reading Sunday’s article about
the shooting, he’d made a mental note to get rid of them, but now
he couldn’t find them. He paced around the basement, afraid that
Trouble was framing him for crimes the weird old fellow himself had
committed. Clearly, something beyond his understanding was at work:
the fight with Susan, Beck’s 911 call, his eviction, the lightning,
the shooting, the bus ride, the manuscript, the deal. Rescues and
vengeance at random.

Desperate to figure out what was going on,
Charlie hopped into his van, and despite a gnawing fear of getting
busted, returned to the scene of the crime. Or crimes. After a
twenty-minute drive, he pulled his van into the Pancake Hut’s
deserted parking lot and looked into an orange-purple twilight.
Lines of yellow tape surrounded the place like it was a poorly
wrapped gift. The building had been gutted and charred to cinders;
only brick walls remained. He exited the van and stared at the
burned-out building, then glanced toward the bus stop and saw a
dark patch on the pavement. Logan’s blood. Charlie’s knees buckled
and he nearly fell down.

What should he do? What
could
he do?
Report Trouble to the police?
No cops
, Trouble had said.
We’ll handle this ourselves
. Charlie had to face it:
Someone—or something—capable of shaking off a lightning strike,
then smiting left (diner) and right (dead guy) was more powerful
than cops.

Was he under Trouble’s power now? Was he
leaving the laws of man behind? Charlie had to concede something
was out there, something that could reasonably be called God—and It
knew who he was. It also seemed to go out of Its way to keep him
alive
and
push him underground. Apparently, God had
something to say about the affairs of men, and Charlie was part of
Its plan. Quite an epiphany for someone who’d spent his life a
millimeter away from atheism.

Charlie ventured past the yellow tape and
picked up a shard of blackened glass as a souvenir. There was no
point in lingering. He scrambled back to the van and drove off as
darkness fell.

* * *

The next afternoon, when Charlie returned
from a workout and shower at the Decatur Y, Angela’s black Camry
was in Kathleen’s driveway. He parked on the street and waited for
her to leave, but he grew bored after five minutes and decided to
confront his nemesis—or at least say howdy.

A freckled young strawberry blonde in
overalls and an Indigo Girls T-shirt answered the door. She had
boyishly short hair and a nose ring along with three small gemstone
studs in her left ear, one in her right, and a tattoo on the back
of her neck, some kind of elf-rune design. He wished he could see
the lower one Kathleen had mentioned, but it seemed rude to
ask.

“You must be the Bogeyman. I’m Hyacinth
Vickers. Angela dragged me over for moral support in her fight
against the evil witch.” She spoke with a straight face and a
twinkle in her eye.

“Which old witch?”

“Whichever.”

Angela was talking on the phone in the dining
room. He heard loud chopping coming from the kitchen and shouted,
“Hi Kathleen!”

“Glad you’re back, Charles. Lots of work to
do,” Kathleen said, sounding gruff and purposeful.

Charlie plopped into the green easy chair.
Hyacinth returned to the sofa and held up a book:
Killers of the
Dream
, by Lillian Smith. “I found it in the study. She was a
lesbian and a friend of Dr. King’s. I learned about her in a
graduate women’s studies class at Emory.”

Grad school? Kathleen had practically accused
Angela of child molestation for dating her! Angela didn’t teach at
Emory, either. It seemed that she’d done nothing wrong—except to
piss off her mother, that is.

“By the way,” Hyacinth said, “Angela called a
history professor at Georgia State. Turns out he knows you … says
you’re great and they’re lucky to have you. Name’s Sherrill.”

Charlie burst out laughing. Angela’s
inquisition had led straight to his old
Macon Telegraph
colleague and drinking buddy, back during his days of imbibing.
“Hank Sherrill’s a history professor? I’ll be damned.”

Angela appeared, wearing a scowl and a
red-and-black lumberjack shirt.

Kathleen followed, beaming triumphantly. “You
didn’t say you won a Pulitzer Prize!”

Charlie stood. “I was just the editor on that
series. I didn’t write it.”

“No, you
edited
it. I think that
settles it, don’t you, Angela? You can take your letter and—”

“He can’t stay here,” Angela said. “He can
work on the book somewhere else.”

As Kathleen fumed silently, Hyacinth bounced
up from the couch. Playing Tigger to Angela’s Eeyore, she said, “We
have to go if we’re going to meet Mary Alice at five.”

Angela gave her a warning glance. “Mr.
Sherman, I’m not letting you take advantage of my mother. There
will be a new contract. You’ll get an agent’s fee if the book gets
published. I mean, the book’s finished already. It either works or
it doesn’t.”

“I’m not an agent. I’m an editor. If I was
going to take her money, I’d already be gone.” Out of the corner of
his eye, Charlie saw a crow perched in a bare-limbed dogwood by the
street. It cocked its head and regarded him with a beady eye.
“Anyway, it’s Kathleen’s decision.”

“It’s good to have him here,” Kathleen said.
“He weather-stripped the back door.”

“She’s not in her right mind,” Angela
snapped, pointing at her mother. “She babbles about angels and
prayers.”

Kathleen recoiled, her eyes wide with anger.
“I babble? I babble? That’s it for you, Missy.”