The Matriarch (11 page)

Dott and I stand at Frank’s bedside watching him drop off to sleep almost instantly. We tiptoe out of the room and walk together to the front door.

“I’ll be happy to stay if you think I can be of help.” She swipes at her hair with a hand.

“Thanks, but I think he’ll be okay now—at least for the night. C’mon, let’s sit outside for a moment.” We go out onto the porch with Louie and settle into the wicker chairs at the table. The night is moonless but bright with stars. The serene beauty of it makes me uneasy, as if it’s hiding a menace I can’t begin to name. And I don’t blame my anxiety totally on the disturbing murder of Dante Russo. There’s something more going on here … but I haven’t a clue.

“You knew the Russos?” I ask Dott.

“Not well. They seemed happy enough to me. But marriage is a trip into the mystic unknown as far as I’m concerned.”

“I need to ask you …” I laugh, knowing my questions will sound weird. “This is going to sound fucking crazy—” I stop, realizing I’m speaking to her as if she’s male, one of the guys. “Excuse my language, Dott; I do apologize.”

Dott gives a snort and whacks me on my back. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I need to ask you about fig trees. You seem to know a lot about them. Have you seen Frank’s tree?”

“Not for a long time, I guess. Not since well before the quake. It was a little bit of a thing back then, a scrub.”

“See, that’s part of the puzzle,” I say. I think for a moment, and Dott is silent, waiting for me to explain. “Frank told me that tree’s been almost barren for years, no fruit to speak of. Then the quake hits, and all of a sudden The Tree grows big time. And it’s producing so many figs and so many different types … Isn’t that abnormal?”

I fish a cigarette out of my shirt pocket. Dott picks up the box of wooden matches and removes one. She strikes it and guides the flame to my cigarette. Her gesture is graceful and natural, as if she’s preformed this somehow intimate courtesy many times before. Her face glows in the brief flicker of the match.

“I mean, it’s only been around nine months since the quake,” I say, still unsure of my take on The Tree. “Frank says, like you Dott, that it’s been just a scrub with practically no fruit. But Charlotte and I were just out there, and it’s sure no scrub now. How could an earthquake make that kind of difference? What could it possibly do?”

Dott laughs and gives me another whack on my back. “Hell’s fire, Cassidy, it’s not that unlikely.”

Her loud voice resounds in the quiet night, and I find it a relief, as if she can blow my misgivings away with mere volume.

As a boy lying in bed at night, I could hear my dad and Uncle Frank in the living room shouting at each other after too much dinner and drink. But I would easily drift off to sleep because of the laughter mixed in with those raucous voices. I felt buffered from the world—protected by those loud, boisterous men.

“The change in growth could happen,” Dott goes on. “A sudden influx of water, maybe. You spend any time in a rain forest and you see just what’s possible in the way of growth. And it can be damned weird growth!”

“But, Dott,” I say quietly, my sense of comfort vanishing, “we don’t live in a rain forest. This is Southern California; it’s almost a desert.” I pause and wonder how to phrase what I want to say without sounding like a city boy spooked by no-frills life in the country. “Earlier today, I fell against the trunk of that tree and knocked myself out.” I decide to leave out the part where I was going to fire my new handgun up into the branches. “When I came to, I could swear …” But I can’t do it. I can’t tell Dott that The Tree has skin and breathes.

It breathes!

I search my mind for something more reasonable I can swear to. “I swear that trunk is not wood.”

“So,” Dott asks in a patient reasonable voice, “what is it?”

“It’s a pale green, almost skin-like.” I close my eyes and lean back in my chair. “Shit, Dott, I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s wood, Cassidy, tree wood, or maybe a big vine. A lot of trees have big, stem-like trunks.” She pauses. “Are you thinking about this in relation to my story earlier? About that demon?”

“No, not at all,” I say, surprised at the question. That story had seemed like pure nonsense to me.

“Do you think the tree is evil, Cassidy?”

Her eyes burn into mine. Evil. I have to think about that one.

That tree scared the shit out of me today with its obscene glut of figs, its skin-like trunk, and the fact that I can practically see it grow. And then there’s the breathing. My uncle rambles on about something dark in the air since the quake, and then comes the news that a kind, loving woman has apparently butchered her husband like a piece of meat. I want you to explain all this to me Dott, and then I want you to make it all go away.

But I don’t say any of that to her; I don’t want her to run screaming off the porch and leave me all alone. I laugh instead and stub my cigarette out. I reach over and take Dott’s hand in both of mine. “Hey Dott, it’s been a crazy day, you know? Crazy murder, crazy tree—I don’t know what I think.” I grin and release her hand. “I’ll walk you to your truck, Dott.”

“I’d like to see that tree again,” she says as she gets into the truck. “You’ve got me curious.”

I’m amazed at the relief I feel. A second opinion is always good.

I feed, sucking nourishment from the tonic-laden liquid that surrounds my growing heart.

My heart is busy. It is creating. A dense mass of little tubes at its center contract and expand with each beat. This propels blood out from that core to my outer edge where many of my living veins glide along the nutrition-filled floor of this cavern. These tentacles contain everything that is in me, the Mother Tree, but in miniature. And, they do my bidding.

The rocky chamber—filled with fluid that seeped down from above in which I lay dormant for so long—finally erupted. That fluid rose to nourish this form—this verdant growth that is my home now. I was conceived in those waters eons ago—those life-giving fluids from the rotting bodies of hundreds of natives … young, sacrificed virgins.

My passion is to create new life but without male involvement. The male is my enemy. I was sacrificed, over and over, my life’s-blood dripping down into a huge sinkhole and then into a chamber below. Man did that to me. Over and over. I was the innocent virgin female; my heart cut from my body and held in the hand of the savage male … still beating. I am in mourning for myself. It is a mourning filled with hate. My hate breeds in me an overwhelming need … a need for vengeance.

I breathe, and my branches and leaves reach out for knowledge of my new world. Tonight they bring me news that one of my gender has done battle with the enemy. And won. It is a welcome first step.

Punk. He’s a smart-ass punk.

Al opens the fridge and gets himself a cold Bud. He opens the can, puts it to his mouth, and tips his head back. The golden liquid falls into his throat—cooling, calming.

Think you’ll mouth off to me, huh? Think again, punk.

He has to laugh. That ticket was a good touch. He noticed the expired registration when he pulled up to Frank’s place but hadn’t realized it would come in so handy. It won’t hurt to run a check on that Cassidy guy, Al decides. In fact, it will be thoughtful, preventative police work to do that very thing. Yes-sir! Quality sheriff-type police work. Al finishes his beer and tosses the can into the garbage under the sink. Sure, he’s old man Murphy’s nephew, but that doesn’t mean a fuckin’ thing.

Cassidy Murphy is the kind of guy Al has always hated. A rich guy brought up by rich parents who supplied the punk with everything. He probably never had to work a day in his life—everything just given to him. Nothing like Al’s knock-around, work-like-a-dog life. And he’s good looking too! Al figures no chick ever says “no” to this guy.

I’d like to punch him right in his rich, handsome face. He wouldn’t be much to look at after a fight with me—no Sir!

Al walks into the bedroom, and there she is … his Gin, a lump under the covers. Sometimes he gets a sad feeling when he looks at Gin. Like when she’s bent over her needlepoint, so taken up with those stupid little stitches she doesn’t even know he’s in the room. She’s like a child. It makes him think of when they’d first met. They’d both been children then, talking together of their future. What bullshit. It hadn’t taken him long after marriage to realize that she sure as hell was no Kelly. A dumb broad like Gin could never replace his true love. It doesn’t pay to think on the past though. The future is the bottom line. He smiles at his dark image in the bedroom mirror.

Albert D. Schmidt’s the name, future sheriff of Diablo County.

He drops his belt and gun to the floor, along with his pants. He sits down heavily on the bed and takes off his boots and socks. She has to be awake; he’s made enough noise to guarantee that. She’s scared, he knows, and that’s the way he likes his Gin. Already hard, he fondles himself briefly.

Al pulls the quilt down, exposing her white flannel nightgown. Her gowns are always long-sleeved and full length—a feeble attempt to turn him off. He knows her whole body is clenched, her haunches squeezed shut against him. But that just increases his pleasure. Al smiles in the dark.

“I forgive you, Gin,” he says.

A “very nice service,” everyone says. I guess that’s in contrast to a very shitty service. I look around the Veteran’s Hall, generously given for Dante’s funeral. Gwendolyn Schwartz and her husband, Ed, close friends of the Russos and ex- military people, have arranged a tasteful tribute to Dante and to soldiers everywhere.

The pastor has opened this after-funeral reception by speaking of this and of the curative balm of military service and deprivation in general, so necessary to the salvation of modern man.

What crap! Am I drunk yet?

Soon, I hope. I am grateful though—to the veterans for their benevolence in providing a very decent red wine—and pour myself the last from a nearby decanter. I don’t see any more decanters around and feel a mild surge of alarm. I like to think that I always drink with healthy caution, but today I’m not so sure.

I’m sick about Dante. Since his death, I’ve been thinking of him, what he was like in the past with my family and me. There were seven of us: my parents, Dante and Carla, Frank and Emma—and me. I was blessed. And Dante was a great guy. He took a liking to me and let me help him with the horses he boarded and trained. He’d put me up on a colt and lead us around ’til we got used to each other. Then he’d let me give the colt a treat of oats or barley. We bonded, those colts and me. Dante told me I was a natural with horses, and I remember how proud I was.

I ate a lot of meals with Dante and Carla back then; I felt like I was a member of their family. Carla … How could she …? Did she …? Was it really murder? I shake my head. It’s too terrible to think about.

Everyone is hovering around a long rectangular table. It has a huge chocolate cake on it, about two gallons of softening vanilla ice cream, a large urn of coffee, and three baskets of fresh figs. There’s also an open cooler of beer and soda resting on the floor near the table. Dante’s friends and neighbors fill the hall, and several have brought their children along.