Brightleaf Read online

  Mavis has on a tube top and blue jeans today, which surprisingly makes her look young and spritely, and her hair is all done up in a banana clip. Eleanor is pacing around glumly in a designer t-shirt that hangs off her bony shoulders. Eleanor’s spiky black hair has grown past her eyes. She’s clearly not herself these days. Not that Eleanor is ever the life of the party, but she normally navigates her day in some variation of high-strung mode, liberally passing out critiques or terse comments. Someone you’d like to see slow down, eat a bowl of mashed potatoes, and take a long nap. I’d like to see her eat, period. But I gotta say it’s no fun seeing her this way. It’s like Eleanor’s weighed down by some invisible load.

  “Eleanor, you okay, darlin’?”

  “Actually I’m not. It took you long enough to notice.”

  “I’ve noticed you haven’t been yourself for a few days now.”

  “Well, you didn’t ask. Also, I haven’t heard you ask about Ned.”

  “I thought about Ned the other night,” I tell Eleanor. “I noticed he hasn’t been around all that much since he moved.”

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  “I’m not going to keep leaving voicemails.”

  It wouldn’t surprise me if Ned’s voicemail box is filled with messages from a bunch of girls worrying about him. Guys like Ned end up with lots of saviors.

  “Speaking of people going MIA, anybody seen Manchild since the other night? Did anyone check on him the day he got released from the hospital?”

  Mavis and Eleanor both give me guilty looks.

  “Look, baby,” says Mavis. “I feel sorry for Manchild and all, but once you shake off a rattle snake, you run like hell and don’t look back. I took a risk invitin him over to get help from that healer man, but I don’t want him in my life. At all.”

  “I probably should have checked on him,” I say, “but I was out of it after all that hocus pocus business.”

  Mavis says, “Eleanor cut him off for good. So maybe he done run off.”

  Eleanor nods and says, “But I promised him golf clubs if he let Lonnie Jr. hypnotize him. I’m surprised he hasn’t come by to collect.”

  “Me, too,” I say. “But somebody should make sure he’s not locked up in some psychiatric ward, or stumbling around with amnesia.”

  “A psycho ward ain’t a bad place if you need it,” says Mavis.

  That’s the truth. I feel like Manchild was probably better off before Lonnie Jr. got his hands on him.

  I hate it that Lonnie Jr. had such power over all of us. And it’s disgusting how he made us feel like he had some kind of love in him. Then the very next day he sends me that sleazy card asking if I’m a swinger. Gross. I let my imagination go for just a minute. I see myself trapped in a room with him. He’s wearing the medallion and no shirt. And he’s running at me with his hands outstretched like he wants to lay them on my face again and stun me like a jellyfish.

  “I still don’t get it how somebody so shallow can have that kind of power,” I say.

  “Hey, baby, I ain’t gonna fight over whether or not the troll was pure in heart, but the fact stands that I still can’t put a cigarette to my lips. That took somethin powerful.”

  20

  It’s a Date

  Mavis

  “Mavis speakin,” I says into the phone.

  “Mavis, it’s Terry. How are ya?”

  “Hangin in there, Doc. How bout yourself?”

  “Good…I’m good. Actually, I’m calling to ask a favor.”

  “Ask away, darlin.”

  “I have this function coming up. It’s nothing big. But it’s important to me. Would you be up for going with me?”

  “You askin me on a date, Doc? I unnerstand how I’m attractive to younger men and all, but don’t you think Mary Beth is the lady you should ask?”

  “Well…”

  “Ya’ll both know why you hang around the house all the time.”

  “Mary Beth is a difficult woman to understand…and some of my hobbies may not sit well with her. She distrusts me for some reason. How can you get close to someone who doesn’t trust you?”

  “By talkin to ‘em. But don’t feel bad, darlin. Mary Beth don’t trust most men who try and get friendly with her.”

  “That’s why I need you to come with me. I need your opinion on how to proceed with Mary Beth regarding this thing I do.”

  “Darlin, there is so many more fish in your sea. I don’t recommend wastin your time with her. Just sayin. I like you too much to let your heart go gettin broken.”

  “I like a challenge.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But I could use some excitement. You got me, baby.”

  21

  The Huey Incident Continues

  July 20, 1990

  Dear Diary,

  Today was apparently a big day for the soup kitchen, and we were running late. Grandmother told me to hurry it up and get dressed, and yes, I had to come, because they will need all the extra hands they can get. What the hell? I like saying hell.

  So I pulled on my white baby doll dress and flip-flops and got in the Roadmaster, slamming the door extra hard to make a statement. It did not make a statement. The door weighs about two hundred pounds, so I barely got it to latch properly. When we got to the soup kitchen, there was a bunch of commotion, like everyone was super hungry and was wondering what the holdup was. Like, where are the people who are supposed to feed us? A bunch of them looked mad. It was very scary, like I was in a real zombie movie. Attack of the Homeless Grownups! Only there were tons and tons of kids, too, because it’s summer and school is out. Even the children looked mad. I thought homeless people would be all thankful and all glad to have someone to give them food. I am just a 7th grade girl. I stay summers at my grandmother’s because my mom is an alcoholic. I hate being dragged to serve a bunch of people who treat me badly while I serve them squash, field peas, and cornbread with a sort of happy face. I think homeless people take advantage of nice people. But my grandmother said they are not all homeless and that many have genuine needs. And that it’s not our job to determine who is taking advantage and who is in genuine need, like people with mental illnesses or the elderly who cannot work. And the kids. We do our job and trust the Lord to send the folks who need us most, she says. Well, today was the day we were offering ice cream sandwiches. That was it. It was hotter than hell outside, and everyone just wanted their ice cream. After the ice cream sandwiches were passed around, everyone calmed down. I will never take an ice cream sandwich for granted again. That was this morning. We’ve been back home long enough for me to watch the white guy with the fro do a painting on PBS. He talks all soft, like he knows old people are probably sleeping during his show, and he doesn’t want to wake them. My grandmother likes to paint with him. I do not paint. I am bored to death. I will write down more of The Huey Incident. The last thing I want to do is write it down. Because very soon I’ll have to tear this whole diary to shreds and eat it. To dispose of the evidence.

  It started on a day like this: Mrs. Hall had us dissecting in science. First, we cut up worms, then frogs, then rats. Not all on the same day or anything because that would be a little too Pet Cemetery for us 7th graders. It was always gross, but after doing it a few times, you become a pro. Plus, the “subjects” have already been drained of blood. I hated the rats the most because they have fur, and I have heard that rats are smarter than people. There was a special trashcan Mrs. Hall set up where we were supposed to place the rats after our lab, so that she could take them to the animal graveyard or something, but Bert Smith did something really bad. When Mrs. Hall turned her back to write on the board, he cut the head off his rat and chased some of the girls with it behind the lab tables. I thought I would get sick and felt very sorry for the rat, even though it was already dead. Mrs. Hall stopped talking and put down her chalk. She yelled, Cut it out!
She couldn’t see what it was everyone was screaming about. Bert got still, faked like he was going to throw it at me, but suddenly tossed it in the regular classroom wastepaper basket. But I imagined a rat’s head hurtling towards me anyway, and I felt like I might lose my lunch of deviled ham and Cheetos. So I concentrated on the chalkboard, which had a picture of a rat kidney on it. It looked so much like a swimming pool that I imagined myself floating on a raft with a bright blue sky overhead, until the feeling went away. On a scale of things that are scary, a flying rat’s head is equal to a wolf spider jumping into your mouth. And it gave me an idea: I immediately thought of Huey The Pudding Stealer. The bell rang, and my classmates packed up their book bags and pushed their way out of the biology lab. But I kept my eye on the wastepaper basket. I stepped out of the classroom and waited in the corridor for Mrs. Hall to walk to the teachers’ lounge. I prayed under my breath that she would not glance at the wastebasket. When the coast was clear, I ripped 3 sheets of paper from a notebook and used them like a glove to get the thing out. No one would ever suspect a nice girl with blond hair to be in possession of a dead rat head. I have never written this before, so I am going to need to take a break from these details. I cannot believe that I, Mary Beth Green, a straight B student, did such a thing. And if anyone is to read this and tell anyone: I will wait until you fall asleep and superglue your left finger inside your right nostril....X

  22

  Detective Metz

  Mary Beth

  More banging comes from under the house. I could make a fortune giving haunted house tours. We could turn off all the lights and let people walk through while the plumbing is being installed. Not only would it be terrifying, but the money earned could subsidize the cost of the new pipes and maybe even the port-o-let. It has taken a lot longer than the one week to have the plumbing up and running. The plumbers tell me I’m not the only person in town to need a plumber.

  The person who took our pipes managed to do it in a flash, virtually under our noses. I have a feeling whoever was responsible could install them much quicker than the Laurel and Hardy that Clean Flush sent over. The pipes must have been stolen some unusual day when the house was empty. And what became of all that copper? It doesn’t seem like someone could walk into a pawnshop with a truckload of copper and hock it like a television to be displayed next to diamond rings and roller blades. I keep thinking how I brought all this on myself. It’s what they call Karma. You sow, you reap. Pilfer a dog, lose your pipes.

  It’s about 7 a.m. on Saturday, and I’m sitting on the front porch drinking coffee. Mr. Littrel across the street is doing his wind-up man routine. Wearing the same outfit as always: blue, button-down shirt and khaki pants. He comes home from work and goes directly into the house without looking around to wave or acknowledge any of the neighbors, then an hour or so later he walks outside and does yard work in that same outfit. He lives in one of those traditional brick homes, painted white. He leans a ladder against the house to get up on the roof in the redundant outfit. I wish one time he’d look my way, create a little crack for me to squeeze into his life, so I could invite him over. The Beatles said it well when they sang that song about all the lonely people.

  I’m about to stand up and go back in the house to help Mavis fix the Saturday breakfast when up drives a police car and parks out front. I hope they figured out who took the pipes. It’s a little too late to put it all back under the house, but maybe I could sell it to the Treasury Department, so they could crank out some more pennies. Or to that Franklin Mint to make those worthless keepsake collectors coins.

  “Hey there, Officer,” I say as he walks up the sidewalk towards the porch. I’m still wearing my old pink bathrobe with the coffee stains, and I’ve got big-time bedhead.

  “Hello,” he says. “Detective Metz.” He reaches out his hand for a shake.

  “I hope you’re not here to arrest me for indecent exposure,” I say, standing up.

  Detective Metz smiles this wide, white smile and tells me he’s not the Fashion Police. He says, “I’m here to speak with Mary Beth Green.”

  “I’m her. Tell me you caught the plumbing pirate.”

  “I heard about that,” he says.

  Detective Metz has yellow hair and brown eyes. I’d surmise he’s younger than me, say thirty. But who knows? He could be fifty. It’s hard to tell with men sometimes. Lately, I’ve started guessing how old men are, then tack on an extra ten years for good measure. I guessed Terry Dorrie was thirty-five. So I suspect he’s more like forty-five. You can tell Detective Metz is one of those pretty boys who is used to getting a lot of attention from women. Like he expects women instantly to be attracted to him, so even though I wish I wasn’t wearing the pink robe, I assure you I have no desire to impress him.

  “No, ma’am, this is not about pipes. I’m actually here for a more disturbing reason.”

  “A more disturbing reason?”

  What could be more disturbing than a woman stealing a dog from the fenced yard of a stranger? Then dyeing it black. If I were someone who could faint really good, I would try it right now to distract Detective Metz. But I’m not. So I look at the ground, and say, “Okay, sock it to me.”

  He says, “Can you identify the subject in this photograph?” Detective Metz holds up a picture of what I expect to be a white poodle. When I look up I see the smiling face of a person I know well.

  “That’s Ned,” I say.

  “So, you know this man?

  “Yes. He’s not in trouble, is he?”

  I start thinking maybe Ned got caught buying, selling, or consuming an illegal substance. I’m suddenly relieved he moved out of the carriage house. I start imagining the carriage house becoming a den of drug dealers, and other unhappy people. Drug dealers can attract violence. And I may have narrowly avoided a shoot-out in my backyard—a dead body in the lemon verbena, blood dripping from the daffodils—while Share Group is peacefully underway in the main house.

  “Actually, Ms. Green, he’s deceased.”

  “Deceased? But not like…dead?”

  Detective Metz nods.

  This can’t be true. I look at the photograph again. It’s really Ned. Cute, sweet Ned.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” asks the detective.

  I feel like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. When I try to form words, my tongue acts as if my mouth is stuffed with sand; it doesn’t want to cooperate.

  “Well, I guess…it was last Wednesday…no…two Wednesdays ago? When he came to a meeting we have here.”

  “Do you remember if he was going anywhere later? Meeting anyone?”

  I shake my head. “No. It’s not something he would have told me.”

  “Tell me what you do know about Ned,” says the officer.

  Remembering Ned and his crazy dreams and him showing us the worm at Share Group makes me want to cry. I’m getting that prickly sensation in my nose, and it’s creeping up to my eyes.

  “Ned is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He rented from me for one year and came to the Share Group regularly. When he lived in my carriage house, he’d come over for breakfast sometimes, so we got to talk a little. I know for a fact he did a good business as a computer programmer and played a lot of video games. When our plumbing was stolen, he moved out and, like I said, he wasn’t here for our last Share Group meeting.”

  I feel a knot rising in my throat, so I swallow hard to keep from completely losing it in front of Detective Metz.

  “Yeah, we figured that out. The video game thing,” says the detective. “But what is Share Group?”

  I define Share Group for the officer and invite him to join us. I believe law enforcement could use some sharing time as much as anybody. The police deal with situations most people would find traumatizing on a day-to-day basis. Take the officer who found Ned, for instance. Even worse, think of the folks who investigate ser
ial killers, like Jeffery Dahmer. How would you handle being on a regular patrol, doling out speeding tickets, reprimanding jaywalkers, pursuing bank robbers, to suddenly be called to a disturbance in a house? You go to that house and open the refrigerator, and there, staring you in the face, is a human head. I think of those officers. They could use some share time.

  “Thanks for the invitation,” he says. “Can I get a list of names of those present the last time you saw Mr. Hillman alive?”

  I go down the list, naming everyone from Mavis to Marcelle, from Terry to Lonnie Jr. When I mention Manchild’s name, the detective says, “Manchild Guccio comes to your meetings?”

  “I don’t know his last name, but I doubt there are many people named Manchild in the world. He rarely came. Do you know him?”

  “He’s scum. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

  “Are you serious? I wouldn’t want to be left alone with Manchild anywhere, but I can’t see him killing Ned. They barely knew each other.”

  “Have you seen him lately?” asks the detective.

  “Come to think of it, the last time I saw Manchild was the last time I saw Ned.” I’m starting to get a bad feeling. Detective Metz writes on his notepad and questions me for anything else I remember about Ned.

  “He had vivid dreams,” I say. “He was always telling us his dreams like they were something that really happened to him. It also seems like he may have…I don’t want to say. Well, he’s dead, so I’ll say…I’m pretty sure he consumed a lot of marijuana and maybe other drugs. Not that I knew from spending private time with him or anything. He was only like, what? Twenty-three?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “Thirty-four?” Here’s a good example where I should have tacked on the extra ten years.

  “Tell me about the last time you saw him alive,” says the officer.