Murder at Willow Slough (40 page)

47  

Hospital Tree

When next he woke up, Jamie got his wish. He wanted desperately to go outside. Kent pushed the wheelchair into sunshine, a warm day.

Jamie’s skin felt every ray. He sank into the warmth, pulled on the sleeve of his gown, trying to get it to stay up so more of his arm could drink. The sleeve wouldn’t cooperate, so he absorbed sunshine through the cloth.

The whiteness was so bright it hurt his eyes. But he didn’t want anything getting between him and his sun. He wanted to be naked in it.

He asked Kent, “Would you, untie, my gown? Help me, get it, off?” Kent got the gown off his shoulders, down to his waist. It made Kent think of Sarasota.

For the the first time Jamie got warm. How his body craved heat. He remembered sun baths, grateful for every one of them. He exhaled, soaked.

He shut his eyes, dreamed, imagined, smelled, listened—to birds sing, and traffic buzz, and grass grow; he could hear that too because growth has sound, it’s active. Grass’s sound is mostly water rushing through tiny living pipes, and cells expanding.

Far from him, small children squealed at play, human animals communicating uncensored. He loved those children, tried to figure out what their game was. He decided they were little girls, Black girls, jumping rope, having a wonderful time at play.

A machine bap-bap-bapped at building something or destroying it, the two necessities of life. He heard a basketball dribbled on a concrete driveway, and a motorcycle rev—Japanese, he thought, a Honda or a Kaw.

He imagined a fountain, he wanted to hear water run loud and fast; then he heard the seashore. Hip-hop snapped loudly out of a passing car, rhythm-perfect.

His fingers wanted texture—the sun was working on them, healing them—so he opened his eyes,slowly pointed.“Could we,go to,that tree?”

It wasn’t a plastic tree, a concrete one; it wasn’t a video of a tree or a memory of one. “Sure.”

Kent pushed as near as he could get on sidewalk, then slowly eased the chair onto the earth. It was bumpy, because it was earth and hadn’t been smashed by a machine lately. It had a smell, it was earth. Jamie slumped but held on, didn’t fall out, but if he had, the earth would have caught him, held him up.

And they were there, and he looked up at a magnificent centenarian ahead, a hundred feet tall, a wise old maple.

They looked at each other silently, respectfully, for quite some time. Jamie’s neck strained from looking so high, but even the hurt felt good.

The tree gazed down at him and prepared itself.

A tree’s wisdom, its strength is in its rootedness; while every other foul thing locomotes. Sometimes life should be looked at from just one spot.

Of rooted species, a tree is the highest form; the human its equivalent, though not its equal. Trees know they are superior; their expirations are pure oxygen, keeping every body and thing alive.

Vulgar adolescent trees poke each other in the branches and claim, “My poop is better than vanilla ice cream.” But tree superiority comes with age, and with age comes silence.

Trees do not speak, but they communicate. How else would a bird know which of all possible trees was the right one for her nest? The tree has to find the right bird, invite the right bird.

But in the daytime trees are open for business, completely democratic, the more the merrier, no fee ever, come and perch a spell; tell everyone what you’ve seen and where the good bugs are.

Trees are quite proud that birds fly away from humans and to them. Every creature of the forest uses the tree, though chipmunks are particular, pesky favorites.

Jamie raised both his hands, showing them, and silently asked if he might touch. A breeze stirred only the treetop, a lovely shh, for quietness and yes.

He tried to stand, forgot the brakes; brakes were Rick’s job mostly. The chair lurched, Jamie sat back down in a hurry. “What are you doing?” Kent cried. “Jamie, wait!”

“Bark,” said Jamie. “It’s okay.” The tree said I could.

Trees don’t much like to be touched. They prefer the open air, and they’ve seen all the places our fingers have been. Still, this one knew it was a hospital tree, so it took a quiet pride in being a symbol of hope, of life itself. It was a survivor, too—though it was a lonely life for a tree, having to live at a hospital, always on duty, away from its family and its forest from the time it was a sapling.

Hospital trees, the good ones, always have time to give human survivors a treat. Time is something trees know everything about, though humans are mostly stupid and seldom ask them about it. Or about much of anything.

“What do you expect of humans?”snob trees sniffed.“They locomote.”

It was said of humans that few of them could hear trees converse, people were insanely busy scurrying about for nothing. So most trees don’t bother to speak with them; but only ill-bred trees discriminate.

Politically trees are divided; radicals tell horror stories about humans cutting down trees by the millions with all manner of torture devices; in some places it’s a real holocaust, and clear-cutting humans are like Nazis. California Sequoias even offered to throw themselves in front of bulldozers to protect the last of the Amazon (“we’ll crush them,” one cried, filled with self-sacrifice and religious fervor); but alas, the redwoods were rooted like everyone else and couldn’t make the trip.

Which was just as well; they were precious, a tree dynasty. It was a fine sentiment, though; forest senators agreed about that.

Millions of other trees, mostly low-level pines living in rows, were planted by humans, and said that humans are their friends. The silent majority of trees, however, simply stood their ground, heedless of tree talkradio.

Trees prefer movement to talk; their movement is much more subtle than legged creatures’. Trees’ dance is a sway, and the wind can play a mean marimba.

Kent leaned down, “You want me to get closer?”

Jamie nodded. Kent maneuvered but it was clumsy going, avoiding old roots. He got as close as he could.

Jamie leaned, reached out his hand, and felt the roughness of fine old maple bark, rubbed it slowly, up and down, fingers in the ridges and cracks. Tree skin, unlike the inferior human kind, only gets handsomer with age.

Jamie wanted to feel bark on his face, but couldn’t get close enough. So his fingers worked, loving the bark, memorizing it, so they could tell his face what bark felt like today.

Kent watched, humble and filled and silent. Jamie had beautiful hands, like a pianist’s almost, with long, straight, slender fingers; sensitive hands feeling maple bark.

Kent patted a shoulder and stepped away from the chair; his hand felt the bark too. His right and then his left, both hands, moving slowly.

Kent rested his face on the bark; then he turned around and leaned against it, felt the bark on his back. The tree supported him; it was quite good at standing there, supporting life-forms. It had stood, supported and nourished, exhaled oxygen and sheltered all comers better than anyone else for a century.

Kent gazed at Jamie, who met his eyes. The three of them exchanged, carbon dioxide for oxygen, life itself; two partners and a kind old maple.

Kent covered Jamie’s cold, small hand with his big warm one. Kent squeezed.

Jamie stared at him wide-eyed, then he squeezed. Kent squeezed back.

Jamie began to weep. His body felt so miserable and his heart felt so full. And this time he could not mistake it, argue it down, will it away. He tried; it was impossible.

He fell completely in love with Kent Kessler.

When people care for each other during illness, give their tenderness and their souls, it’s the deepest, closest love they’ll ever know.

If only Jamie’d realized what Rick received, what Jamie gave to him. If only he knew what lotion on cheekbones felt like to his Mom.

All he knew was that Kent meant everything.

Bewildered by tears, by his own strong emotion, Kent tried to make things better; he acted, it was all he knew to do. “Crook your arm around me.” Gently he lifted Jamie from the chair, carried him the extra step he needed.

Kent stood there, so strong, a half-naked blondboy in his arms; Jamie’s wet face resting on maple bark, communing eternally.

Kent held him there a long time; till finally Jamie’s head lolled. Kent carried him back toward the hospital.

He liked how much his muscles strained; he was proud he had the strength to perform for his buddy.

Kent’s entire body came alive. His arousal grew, too, and he enjoyed its side-to-side motion with every step.

That’s when he learned, his ardor for Jamie Foster was nature’s way.

48  

Top Ten List

Jamie was conscious for up to an hour now, and Kent started to look optimistic again, like something he’d hoped for was possible and he could personally make it happen.

Jamie began to be curious about why he was in the hospital. Kent hit what he thought were the safest highlights, but Jamie was thoroughly confused. A patch, what does he mean? What’s so brilliant about a patch? The Internet. Snuff pictures. At least we got that part right.

Grand juries, Congressional hearings, testifying. That means it’s over. After all these years, now people testify. Wow. Whatever happened, Kent, you’re fantastic.

Jamie tried to congratulate him, but Kent put a finger on his lips, told him not to talk, to save his strength. Jamie tried, but his head crashed and he fell asleep again.

***

The next day George explained it very differently. “Tommy Ford contacted you, threatened to kill you. To get at you he took someone else hostage and would have killed him if you didn’t trade.”

“Oh, no. Poor guy.”

“He’s all right, he’s fine. We set you up with a microphone and lots of backup. We thought we had everything covered. But things went wrong. We had some unanticipated lapses and a mistake. You ended up in Ford’s custody. You traded for the hostage. He was drugged, animal tranq, just like you said.”

“Poor guy. He could have, been killed.” Jamie’s face twisted with concern.

“He’s okay, thanks to you.”

“They tell me I, got stabbed. Not strang-led?”

George stroked Jamie’s hair. “They tried to do both, but we arrived in time to prevent the strangulation.”

“Thank you. Sorry if I, screwed it up, chief.”

“You didn’t. You were great.”

“Hos-tage is, okay?”

“The hostage is fine.”

“Tell him, I’m so glad. Poor guy. Scared. Hurt-ing.”

“He’s fully recovered, his mother’s taking care of him.”

“A favor? Will you, take care of, my Command-er?” Jamie’s eyes filled with pain. “I can’t do it. He hurts, over this. He hides it, but he thinks, it’s his fault some-how. He’s not, Tommy Ford! Or that Crum. He caught them! At last. Thank God.”

“I’m on it. You get well and I guarantee, Commander’s going to be just fine.” “Thank you, bud-dy. Help him. Tell him, you guys, saved my life. Don’t ever, ever, let my Hero hurt.”
***

Two days later Kent brought Jamie a videotape of the TV coverage. Turned out to be a huge mistake.

The Indy stations had Casey’s photo of Jamie’s butt hanging out— the only photo cut off more or less at the waist—with Slaughter saying, “Tremendous physical and mental courage, that any Hoosier would admire.”

Jamie frowned at Kent.

The networks varied; ABC was most comfortable with the Gay angle, NBC gave equal time to “Gay” and the derogatory “homosexual.” To CNN the story could as easily have been a plane crash in Sri Lanka, they only cared about breaking news. CBS ran a longer piece, intense about the crimes and more accurate about their serial nature. CBS interviewed Casey and Dr. Steve Helmreich.

The national focus turned away from the victims and onto FBI involvement. Jamie resented it, but tried to follow the import.

Kent said, “We released a few seconds of video of the crime,but that’s not included on this tape.” His remark went over Jamie’s head.

Then his worst nightmare happened. Tabloid TV showed photos of Foster, the former model. Did they show Foster in evening clothes, in designer fashions, the splash he made by coping with that mini-disaster on the runway in Milan? No. Thousands of such pictures had been taken, but no. They showed him 98% naked, leaning on a rock in a sensational string bikini.

The next day the networks caught up with Foster the Calvin boy, so the tabloids showed the rear nude European campaign for Garimondi. It was never seen in America—till now. “Oh no. Oh no. They’ve destroyed, my career. I’ll nev-er, work again.”

“It ain’t that way, Jamie. You’re a real celebrity now.”

“That’s the last thing, on earth, I want to be!”

“Gee.” Kent liked all those pictures on TV.

“I’ll never, be hired, again. I’ll have to, work for Lou-ie, the rest of my life. Dear God, what did I do wrong?”

He turned away and cried. No matter how much Kent tried to help, Foster ruined Jamie’s life.

Foster’d only gotten into the business to earn Jamie’s tuition money, a freshman at the University of Chicago with a lifelong dream of being a reporter. But Foster turned out to be great at modeling, a little Attitude Boy, son of a Junior Miss. He made a lot of tuition, then quit the minute Jamie got his master’s in journalism. Jamie always thought of them as two people.

Jamie kept modeling in the closet so he’d be taken seriously. For awhile Foster still worked Fashion Week in New York and Europe, but no one back home knew that; Jamie was on vacation. He had a real career now, and wrote features from glamorous places; he got to take Rick to Europe. Then Rick got sick and Foster retired for good.

And now the whole entire world had seen Jamie Foster’s ass. The coverage went on for days, NUDE MODEL STABBED BY SNUFF FILM QUEERS!!!

He sank into total despair. “Please, just leave me, alone. Can’t you see I, want to be, alone?” Kent slunk out, and Jamie screamed and wailed for two solid hours. Everyone on the ward heard him.
***

Later he coped a little; the coverage wasn’t Kent’s fault. Maybe Jamie should see the rest of the tape so he’d know how bad it got. He asked for Kent,who came to the door looking terribly sad.“I didn’t mean to upset you, Jamie.”

“You didn’t. The tape did, but you did not. You are, my friend. Come, sit with me?”

“I’d like to.”

“You did, nothing wrong. I need my, bud-dy, to help me, get through this.” Jamie threw him the toy basketball.

“I’m your buddy?” They played catch for a minute. Jamie loved his basketball.

“You’re my, bud-dy.” Jamie made a big hoop with his arms. Kent banked the ball off Jamie’s chest, and it landed right in his crotch.

Kent hit Play. Cox’s Dayton station quoted Josephine Hansen of the Tribune. “An unbelievable story of courage and dedication and self-sacrifice,” she said in her lovely mid-South lilt, “between a Straight cop and a Gay reporter.” The Dayton ABC station had Darla Collins twirling her tush in front of a courthouse again. Channel 7 in Columbus had video of their anchor walking along the abandoned railroad bed where Aaron Haney was found. “But one reporter stuck with the story,” she said, “and made his hometown proud.”

That felt great, until Jamie hit Cincinnati, where the homophobic ex-mayor, who wasn’t even a reporter but was an anchor now, called Jamie “a soft-porn employee of a homosexual newsletter.”

He’d worked nonstop for a dozen years to become a good reporter. Now he was nothing more than tabloid TV, victimized by his own profession.

Everyone showed his naked butt. Larry King had his butt. Barbara Walters had an artist’s rendering of his butt. No doubt Letterman had his butt in a Top Ten list. And every last report highlighted the partnership between a Straight cop and a Gay reporter.

The final segment was Mike Wallace’s jailhouse interview with Agent-in-Charge Frank Carson. Jamie mashed the volume up; this he wanted to see.

They weren’t allowed to talk about the current charges because of lawyers, Wallace said. “But there is plenty more we wanted to ask Agent Carson about.”

Carson said, “Homosexuals are unreliable informants, untruthful witnesses, not the kind of people that the Bureau is willing to stake its reputation on.”

“Does that include former Director J. Edgar Hoover, a known homosexual?”

Color simultaneously drained from Carson’s face, and intensified. He glanced down, then back at his interrogator. His jaws worked, but no words came. Finally he said, “Director Hoover was not a homosexual. He hated homosexuals, Communists, criminals and security risks, because they’re so easily blackmailed.”

Wallace: “All of them? Agent Carson, here is a photograph of J. Edgar Hoover wearing a dress at a party in Georgetown in 1952. Are you really going to tell me that J. Edgar Hoover, the foremost lawman of the 20th Century, was a security risk, and therefore Jamie Foster, this openly-Gay, unblackmailable reporter for The Ohio Gay Times, was the proper target of an FBI investigation; while you never went after the serial killer of 13 men that he almost gave his life to catch?”

“We had good reasons for identifying him as a threat.”

“What did he threaten? To sing show tunes at a piano bar? People in Columbus admire this man. There isn’t any dirt on him to be found— we’ve checked.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that investigation.”

“The Ohio Gay Times has requested a copy of your file on Mr. Foster. Are you prepared to justify its contents when it’s released soon?”

“We performed a necessary assignment thoroughly and professionally.”

“For what did you investigate him?”

“It’s still an open investigation, so I can’t comment.”

Jamie hit the Stop button. He felt caught. “I don’t, know what to say. I’m over-whelmed. Call Casey. I want to see, how we covered it.”

“Sure, his articles are hardhitting, an inside look, and those photos are unbelievably good evidence. He focused on the killers, not just you.”

That’s my Casey. “Do you know, what I saw, on that video? Three things. The graph-ics keep, reminding me, of the scars on my back, and I’m not ready, to deal with that yet. They tried to, hand me, a mirror today, but I told them, I’d break the damn mirror, over their heads.”

“Oh gee, I’m sorry, I…”

“Two, this was, the best story, I’ve ever had, prob-ably the best story I’ll ever get, and every hack in the country, has already written, it up. That pisses me off real bad.”

Kent didn’t know what to say. “Maybe you can write something after you get out of the hospital.”Then his awareness changed. “You’re feeling competitive again!”

“And three—everyone, has now seen, my butt.” Jamie fumed, hard as titanium.

“You’re kidding, aren’t you?” Kent searched his face.

“I could have done, without every-one in America, seeing my butt. There are some people, that I would be very happy, if they never saw, my butt. It is my butt; it’s not Brokaw’s butt; it’s not Baba Wawa’s butt. It’s my butt, and I like to be, the one who decides, who sees my butt.”

They burst out laughing. Laughter felt sweet, but it hurt Jamie’s back, so he laughed about that, then threw his ball at Kent’s head.

They both knew his butt was stop-traffic gorgeous. But not if it ruined his career.