Little Bird of Heaven (28 page)

Outside, more car doors were being slammed shut. The Days Inn was moving to evening, night. Families were arriving, couples. A drunk-sounding couple in the adjacent room.

Daddy paid them no heed. Daddy was motioning with the gun, toward the phone, in a way that made me very nervous.

“You will call your mother, Krista and explain the circumstances. How you’ve chosen to come with me. How you are safe with me. How nothing is going to happen to you, or to any of us, if she accepts her responsibility as she has not done yet. If she comes to see me, tonight. Just get in the car, and come here, and see me. If she loves you the way a mother should. I’ll tell you what—you tell her: ‘Daddy says I can leave, if you come.’ Call her ‘Mom’—she’s ‘Mom’ to you. Tell Mom that Daddy will let you leave here if she comes. If ‘Mom’ takes your place. See, Krissie, the marriage bond is the fundamental thing. The vow—‘Till death do us part.’ Lucille comes, and Krista can leave. With a promise not to tell anyone about us—right? A promise not to interfere. All I need is some
time face-to-face with your mother, I think we can work things out. I know we can work things out. These papers, I want to show her. She’s got to realize. You’ve got to realize, Krissie—your daddy would never truly hurt you. Nor your brother, not ever. That’s a promise. That doesn’t even need to be a promise, that is understood. That is fact. But Lucille has got to see me, tonight. Tell her.”

I stared at him. He spoke so reasonably. His mouth twisted in a rueful smile, as if everything he was saying was so very obvious, he hardly needed to say it.

“But Daddy, if Mom knows that you’re here—with me—I’m afraid like I said she’ll just hang up the phone. She won’t even listen.”

Daddy’s face flushed with blood. “No. She will not. She wants to speak with me, in her heart.”

Was this so? I didn’t think it could be so. I wanted to think
yes
but I was trembling with fear, there was Daddy with the gun in his hand, not exactly aiming the barrel at me, but holding the gun in such a way that the slightest movement would turn it toward me, at chest level. Or maybe this was Daddy teasing Krissie. Maybe Daddy wanted me to laugh. Maybe in another moment Daddy would smile, and wink. A daddy can be so funny! I thought
Daddy is joking. Daddy is such a tease.

“You know the number, Krissie. Dial it.”

There was my hand lifting the plastic receiver, sticky from strangers’ sweaty hands. Numbly I dialed our home number but all that resulted was a frantic beeping and Daddy said, “Baby, you have to dial ‘nine’ for an outside line, this is a motel.” Daddy laughed, and I tried again, this time I dialed nine and then our home number and I prayed that Mom would answer as the phone rang and on the first ring as if she’d been waiting anxiously by the phone, Mom did.

“Mom? It’s—”

As soon as she heard my voice my mother said sharply, “Krista! Is he there with you?” and I said yes and my mother said, “Has he been drinking?” and I said yes and my mother said, “Is he—dangerous?” and I hesitated, I could not say yes, I could not betray Daddy; and my mother
said, “Where are you?” and still I hesitated, for Daddy was leaning close, his eyes shone with excitement, a kind of elated dread, I could feel the clammy heat lifting from his skin, the ugly revolver tilted downward toward the floor and in that instant I thought
I can, I must
—I must wrench the gun from his fingers, this might be my last opportunity, I must scream at him, I must surprise and frighten him, I must run with the gun to the door—but the door was not only bolted but chain-locked, the door could not have been opened as quickly as I would need to open it, to save my life. Within seconds this man would be on me, this large heavy sweating desperate man would be on me, furious that I’d disobeyed him, flaunted his authority, dared to take something from him to which I had no right. And so I would be punished. I would be hurt. I knew. I stood paralyzed, helpless as at the other end of the line my mother’s voice lifted in anger, agitation, fear asking where? Where had he brought me? and Daddy lost patience and snatched the receiver from me.

“Lucille! We’re in Sparta, Lucille. Come to be with us, all this will be cleared up.” Daddy was cradling the receiver in his left hand in an awkward gesture that required lifting his elbow, bringing the mouthpiece of the receiver close to his mouth at an angle. He spoke in a voice of subdued eagerness, smiling.

I could hear my mother’s uplifted voice but not her words and Daddy said, calmly, “It isn’t like that, Lucille. Maybe it pisses you but she’s with me because she wants to be here. That’s how it is, Lucille. So come be with us, we will clear up these misunderstandings.” And again I heard my mother’s voice but not her words and Daddy listened patiently for several seconds before interrupting, “D’you know the Days Inn, Lucille? On the highway? Sure you do. It’s beyond the Holiday Inn, and Mack’s—you know, the traffic circle. The Days Inn. Can’t miss it, the sign is all lit up. I think it’s a yellow sign. Just past Mill Road. I am in room twenty-three, Lucille.
Two-three.
I will be awaiting you, Lucille. No need to knock—just walk up to the door, Lucille, I will be watching for you. Krista and I are relaxing here—just waiting for you, Lucille. We need to be a family again. We can call Ben a little later. We’ll begin with just you and Kris
sie, Lucille. You know how I’ve been wanting this, Lucille. You know my heart. Krissie wants to be here, Lucille. She is
not hurt.
And she
will not be hurt.
No one will be, I promise. You won’t be hurt, absolutely not. Just come here, Lucille, come alone, right away and we’ll straighten this out. Tell you what—if you think that Krista is upset, if you’re concerned about Krista I will let her go, as soon as you step into this room. I mean—Krista can step outside. Krista could wait in the car. Maybe later, if things work out, we can call Ben, we can pick him up and all of us have pizza somewhere. How’s that sound? The kids love pizza. Lucille, we never really communicated, I think. I’d been led to suppose something from you that maybe was a misunderstanding. It seemed to me you’d turned from me, you’d hardened your heart too soon! But now, we can make amends. It isn’t too late. You’ll find that I am a changed man, Lucille. Just get in your car, honey, and drive out Garrison, to Mohawk, and Mohawk straight north to route thirty-one, it won’t take more than ten-fifteen minutes, Lucille. But you have to leave right now.
Don’t make any calls to anyone.
Just get in the car, and get here. You know how I love you, Lucille, you are my wife—‘till death do us part’—this is a decision I have not made lightly, you know it’s the right decision, and a long time coming. Lucille?”

Daddy listened. Daddy scowled and interrupted: “No, Lucille. Now.”

And Daddy hung up the phone.

T
HE END,
when it comes, comes swiftly.

You can’t foresee. Of course, you have foreseen.

The trouble that came into my life
must have an end, simultaneous with that life.

For of course my mother called the police. There was never a glimmer of a possibility that Lucille would comply with my father’s demand to present herself to him at the door of room 23 of the Days Inn, still less a glimmer of a possibility that she would wish to present herself in my place, that I might be allowed to leave. Terrified and near-hysterical my mother called 911 and stammered what she knew, all that she knew,
of my father who was “holding their daughter captive” at the Days Inn on route 31; of my father Edward Diehl who’d been “involved” in the murder of Zoe Kruller, in 1983, but never arrested; of Edward Diehl who’d been her husband who’d “threatened my life, and my children’s lives, many times….” And within six minutes of that call Herkimer County sheriff’s officers began to arrive at the Days Inn. And Sparta police vehicles began to arrive. In all, there would be twelve vehicles, in addition to a medical emergency vehicle; there would be, shortly, a van bearing a local TV camera crew; there would be sirens, flashing red lights, the amplified voices of strangers demanding that Edward Diehl open the door—step outside with his hands in the air—drop his weapon if he had a weapon—
and do it now.

By this time I was cowering in a corner of the musty-smelling motel room like an animal paralyzed with terror. I had wedged myself between the wall and a bureau, sprawled and panting telling myself
If my mother intervenes. If my mother is here. She will speak to him, they will let her speak with him, it will be all right.
Telling myself
They won’t hurt him, or me. It will be all right.
Daddy saw me, and Daddy took pity on me; didn’t chastise me, didn’t scold; moving restlessly about the room gripping the gun and speaking to himself, breathing heavily. His face shone with elation, excitement. Flashing red lights from the parking lot illuminated his battered and bewhiskered pirate’s face and his glassy-glaring eyes.

“Loveya, Puss! You better know that.”

Now the voice had become a megaphone voice, deafening as if it were in the room with us. A shout, an angry male voice, instructions repeated to
Edward Diehl
to lay down his weapon, unlock and open the door and release his daughter; to step through the doorway slowly and with his hands raised and visible and he would not be hurt repeated
Edward Diehl would not be hurt
and my father might have laughed, I think yes I heard Daddy laugh, or was it a sobbing sound that resembled laughter, Daddy’s face dazed and flushed and with that look of piratical merriment about his whiskers and twitching mouth and his racing eyes caught in the glare of a powerful spotlight aimed at the motel door and window penetrating
the cracked and grimy Venetian blinds Daddy had yanked down over the window to shield us from the eyes of strangers. In these last staggering minutes of his life my father did not speak, he did not speak to me as if in the urgency of the moment he’d forgotten me, a kind of oblivion had washed over his soul, his
hard-as-steel soul
and he’d forgotten me, he’d forgotten his wife whom he had so desperately summoned to his side. He’d forgotten his family, his life that had gone bad. For it was his secret knowledge that death is
easy,
death is so much
easier
than life. At the door calmly unlocking and unbolting it as he’d been commanded and through my fingers as I lay in a paralysis of terror in a corner of the room rank with odors and dust-balls I saw through the crooked slats of the Venetian blind the brilliant dazzling light that was aimed against us from outside, a harsh blinding light, a white-tinged luminescent white, a white you might mistake for the purest star-light, illuminating and consecrating all that it touched even as it meant oblivion, annihilation, extinction and bathed in this light—for now the door had been kicked open by my father, now the musty-smelling motel room would be exposed to the stares of strangers—I saw Daddy crouching, his shoulders hunched and his head lowered, now his face was turned from me and I could not see if he was smiling, I would never see Daddy’s face again and must surrender him now, in his shaky right hand the revolver to be identified in the media as a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson in the
illegal possession
of Edward Diehl, I saw Daddy step confidently into that blinding light and lift this gun as if about to fire it in a seemingly spontaneous mocking gesture that would be the final gesture of his life.

T
WO-INCH GLOATING HEADLINES
in the Sparta
Journal—

FORMER SPARTA RESIDENT DIEHL
SUSPECT IN ’83 KRULLER HOMICIDE
KILLED BY POLICE IN MOTEL SHOOT-OUT

In the
Journal
and elsewhere you would learn that my father’s full name was Edward James Diehl and that the dates of his life were 1942–1987. You would learn that he had been born in Sparta, New York, and so it seemed appropriate that he would die in Sparta. You would learn that, though never arrested for the crime, he had been a “prime suspect” in a homicide: for always Edward Diehl must be a
suspect,
even in death.

Falsely it was reported in the
Journal
as elsewhere that my father had died in a “shoot-out” with police officers but in fact it had not been a “shoot-out” with connotations of lurid melodramatic TV tabloid crime but a massacre: my father had not fired a single shot. Though his gun was loaded with ammunition the safety lock had not been released, clearly my father hadn’t intended to fire a single shot and this fact would not be reported, this was a fact I would not learn until months later.

Daddy had wanted to die. He had not wanted to kill. He’d had no intention of harming me. This I would come to believe. This I know to be true.

It was determined that eight police officers had fired at Edward Diehl within a space of several seconds and not one of these police officers had
missed his target. It was Herkimer County policy, police officers must fire no less than two shots at their target. And so eighteen bullets had torn into my father’s head and upper body, some of them as he was falling, some after he’d fallen, some as he lay writhing and dying on the carpet inside the room where the power of the bullets had sent him sprawling on his back, out-flung and the Smith & Wesson revolver flying from his hand.

This, I did not see. I have no memory of this. Though I was the daughter of Edward Diehl who’d been “taken hostage” in that room, I was the fifteen-year-old daughter of Edward Diehl whom police had “rescued” from that room, I did not see my father die, I would not remember anything beyond the deafening gunfire.

F
EBRUARY
11, 1983

I
T’S A SNOW-BLINDING
S
UNDAY
morning slowly he’s pushing open the door at 349 West Ferry with the silver-tinselly Christmas wreath on it, sprig of blood-red berries and big red fake-velvet ribbon though Christmas is—Christ!—a long time past and he knows something is probably wrong, his mother’s life has gone wrong, he’d like to think it isn’t because of him, she’d gotten fed up being his mother like she’d gotten fed up with being Delray Kruller’s wife, who could blame her? So he’s steeling himself for what he’s going to find inside. Shades pulled at every window upstairs and down he’d seen from the street, walked around to the rear of the bruise-colored row house in the snow blinking and staring and it’s weird, it is not a good sign Aaron Kruller thinks, the front door is not locked.

No one here? No one downstairs? The living room—if that’s what you’d call it—is pretty messed-up. Like they’d been partying but never got around to clean-up. And a single lamp burning, in daylight, with a crooked shade. Aaron is hoping that he won’t meet up with Zoe’s woman friend close as a sister Zoe claimed though Aaron had neither seen nor heard of this Jacky before, shiny face and dyed-beet hair and pushed-up breasts in some sort of corset-looking nylon thing Aaron was made uncomfortable to see, there was Jacky licking her lips gazing at him like she knows his innermost thoughts and they are not-nice thoughts, frankly filthy-sexy-teenage-boy thoughts, her friend Zoe Kruller doesn’t look old enough to have a kid Aaron’s size, at least six feet tall with a bumpy shaved
head and a stippling of scars on his face and steely eyes like the wrath of God judging her.

Any woman, could be older than his mother, like Jacky DeLucca, one of his teachers at school or the mother of a friend he’d see stopping by the home of one of the guys after lacrosse, and Aaron finds himself staring at the woman like he can’t help seeing her inside her clothes, the actual naked body of the woman, the female, fascinating to him, appalling and astonishing and his wonderment is like something squeezed through a narrow pipe coming out a smirk of disdain, can’t bring himself to smile at them in dread of them guessing the kind of thoughts he was thinking O Christ couldn’t wait to get away from the DeLucca woman to beat himself off going off like a gun making a mess like whipped egg white in his pants.

But Jacky isn’t here, seems like. Not even the TV is on.

Last time he’d been here, the front door had been unlocked too but there’d been people inside. He’d heard voices inside. This time it’s weird and unsettling, so quiet.

“Hey: Mom? It’s me.”

Asshole thing to say it’s me, it’s me Aaron, calling out in his voice Zoe said was loud as a young calf bellowing, she’d laugh pressing her hands over her ears but now Zoe doesn’t seem to be here, to complain of him.

Aaron is disgusted, and Aaron is angry. Seems like Aaron is always disgusted and angry and not wanting to think he’s anxious what he might find inside this house.

Because she hadn’t called him, for a while. First she’d moved out she had called him—Aaron—at certain times she’d promised and he’d been home to answer and he’d been sullen and insulting to her but O.K., that was O.K., she’d called him, and talked to him, and even if he’d said Fuck you Mom and hung up the phone, it was O.K. between them and she knew it. And he knew it. But now, hadn’t heard from Zoe in maybe two weeks. And had not glimpsed Zoe in Christ how long—maybe a month. There was Christmas—a shitty time he’d like to forget—and New Year’s—worse yet—that passed in a drunk-drugged blur and she’d called to tell him she had his Christmas present for him all wrapped up but never got around to delivering it. Come by the house to pick it up, she’d said.
How the fuck is a fourteen-year-old kid going to do that, on a bike?—Aaron’s old junker Schwinn?—sliding and skidding in the snowy-icy streets?—sure as hell Delray isn’t going to drive him.

Not there. Not to the house on West Ferry. Delray’d said not ever was he going there, couldn’t trust himself what he’d do, if he did
.

Your slut-mother. Slut-junkie mother go check the bitch out, see for yourself.

Delray’s heavy hand fell on Aaron’s shoulder. With a shiver like a horse casting off flies with its rippling skin Aaron cast off Delray’s hand like he’s holding himself back from slugging the old man in the face
.

Don’t believe me she’s a slut, eh? That just proves you don’t know shit who a slut can be.

Loudly he called: “Mom?” The calf bawling for his mother
.

A few times he’d actually heard a calf bawling, it was something to hear!

Thinking maybe she’d shout at him down the stairs. Say Oh God Aaron that’s you? You’re here? Jesus wait I’ll be down in a few minutes you’re thirsty go get something from the fridge, sweetie, O.K.? Don’t come up here it’s kind of messy, O.K.?

And he’d think with a shiver of disgust She’s got somebody up there—has she?

He’d seen his mother with a man, just once. Maybe more than once. Maybe he hadn’t exactly seen them, quickly he’d looked away. Or maybe—they’d been at a distance—it had not been Zoe but another blond woman who’d resembled her. It was mostly what he’d heard—what he’d overheard. Delray on the phone. Delray’s relatives complaining of her. Maybe it was all bullshit, how’d Aaron know? Them saying that’s how a white bitch behaves, can’t trust them, comes down to it they’re white and you’re shit on their shoes like Delray was a full-blooded Seneca which he was not, still less was Aaron, and Aaron was Zoe’s kid not just Delray’s and maybe he looked Indian but there was more to him than that. Hell yes.

Aaron poked his head into the kitchen—nobody there. Vinyl chairs looking like they’d been kicked partway across the floor. Bottles, glasses, plates soaking in the sink. Like the party spilled into here like high tide lapsed to low tide and
the surf drained away and what remains on the beach is litter you don’t want to examine closely. And beneath a stale-garbagey smell, a scent of Zoe’s perfume.

It’s too quiet here. Zoe isn’t easy with quiet. In the house on Quarry Road which was too damn far out of town to suit her, miles into the country Zoe always had the radio on loud or was singing to herself, practicing her Black River Breakdown voice you’d hear through the house and it was a sound that was both comforting and unsettling for it meant Zoe Kruller’s other life, the life she lived away from the house and in the eyes of admiring strangers, the life she’d yearned for that Delray and Aaron could not give her, and that they resented. Why aren’t we enough for you was a question never asked for neither Delray nor Aaron would have had the vocabulary for such a question. But there were good memories too, overall mostly good memories Aaron thought, when he’d come home from damn fucking school where he was treated like shit or from lacrosse bruised and banged up and bleeding from cuts in his face and there was Zoe singing in the kitchen and she’d sounded happy.

Proud of his lacrosse scars. The older guys respected him. If he had his lacrosse stick he’d bring it into the kitchen with him but Zoe wasn’t allowed to touch it know why?—Females are forbidden to touch your lacrosse stick. Even your mom.

What kind of damn old Indian superstition is that, Zoe asked.

He’d shrugged and muttered in reply. Zoe laughed annoyed saying it’s an insult like I would contaminate the damn thing and Aaron said smirking That’s the way it is, Mom. That’s l’cr—.

Zoe made a swipe to touch the stick. Knowing she’d do this Aaron lifted it high over his head. Laughing red-faced, and Zoe said O.K. smart-ass make your own supper, you’re so smart.

He hadn’t had to, though. By supper, it was O.K. between them.

On the stairs he’s calling in the bawling-calf way, “Hey Mom—you up here?”