Keepers: The Cedar Hill Series

Keepers

The Cedar Hills Series

By

Gary A. Braunbeck

JournalStone

San Francisco

Original Version Copyright © 2004 – Gary A. Braunbeck

Author’s Preferred version Copyright © 2015 by Gary A. Braunbeck

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN:  978-1-942712-38-1  (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-942712-39-8  (ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-942712-40-4  (hc)

Printed in the United States of America

2nd Edition

JournalStone rev. date: July 17, 2015

Cover Design: Alerim – 99designs.com

Edited by:  Dr. Michael R. Collings

KEEPERS

We lay aside

useless bones,

ribs of reptiles,

jawbones of cats,

the hip-bone of the storm,

the wish-bone of Fate.

To prop the growing head

of Man

we seek

a backbone

that will stay

straight.

—Miroslav Holub, Bones

(translated by George Theiner)

...altogether I am now trying to recover like a man who has meant to commit suicide and, finding the water too cold, is trying to regain the bank.

—Vincent van Gogh

Letter to Theo, Saint-Rémy, early September, 1889

Chapter 1

It Was Already Broke When I Got Here

...Did you lick their hands when they were done?

The dismal bitch lay on her side in the dry gray October twilight in my front yard, her black wrinkled teats lumped beside her like a cancer grown far too large and malformed for her body to hold inside. Her sides shivered as she labored to pull in air, and the sound of her breathing—wet, thick, ripped-raw painful—was like no other sound I’d ever heard before, nor one I would ever care to hear again. Her coat was patchy with mange, her eyes bloodshot and mad; when I came closer, they narrowed into slits and a low growl came from her throat. I could smell her from ten feet away, a ripe, sick, sweet-rotten smell. But beneath all of this was a moist kneading sound, soft but persistent; as I reached out toward her she jerked to the side and a flap of flesh held in place by the merest thread of tissue fell back: beneath it, maggots teemed in an open wound as too-bright blood seeped outward into her fur like the ever-expanding strands of a spider’s web, some of it dribbling onto the lawn and trickling toward my feet, forming rivulets in the grass.

I thought of the old man on the highway earlier, and it almost cut me in half.

It’s okay, girl, I said in what I hoped was a tender voice. It’s okay, shhhh, there, there, just let me take a look so we can make it all better, okay? I continued on like this for what seemed an hour but was probably less than a minute. Once I thought she might let me touch her long enough to see if there was a tag on her collar, but she made a snap for my hand at the last moment, startling both of us.

I’ve never done well when it comes to ministering to sick or wounded animals. I guess it stems from an incident when I was a high-school sophomore, one of those It Happens incidents that you think you’ll eventually get over but never really do, even though admitting to it some two decades later feels embarrassing...but the sight of this pathetic animal on my lawn caused this particular instance of It Happens to cross my memory once again.

I had a part-time job after school at a local neighborhood grocery store, Beckman’s Market, one of those Mom-and-Pop operations that’s been in the area for as long as anyone can remember. I was cleaning the beer cooler one afternoon—it had been defrosted the night before or something—and there was this big puddle in front of the side entrance door. It was the first thing that the customers saw when they used that entrance, which a lot of them did, so the boss wanted it to look nice. One customer came in and accidentally pulled the door’s spring off its hinge and the thing slammed shut like a vice grip. I started messing around with it but the boss told me to leave it alone, he’d fix it in himself a little while.

A few minutes later another customer came in, followed by this little grey cat. Cutest thing you ever saw, all furry and friendly...and evidently hungry; it kept darting to the produce section, trying to get at the apples and oranges. I thought whoever owned it must keep it on one hell of a diet.

My boss told me to get rid of it. I picked it up, kicked open the door, and threw it out. I threw it quite hard, on purpose, so maybe it'd get the hint and go back home.

No such luck.

The door started to slam shut just as the cat was making the feline version of a mad dash to safety back inside.

It never had a chance.

The door slammed right on its neck. I was only a foot away and heard something crack. Then another customer came in and the cat did not so much fall back out as spasm.

I opened the door and saw the cat choking to death, kicking and coughing and spitting, horrible, heart-sickening sounds...and it never once closed its eyes, just stared at me the whole time like it was my fault. It spewed blood and vomit from its mouth while its other end evacuated all manner of pained foulness.

It had to have been a horrible, agonizing death. And all I could do was stand there and watch it happen.

My boss made me throw it in the trash out back. God, I was sick about the whole thing: I didn't mean for it to die, but now here I was, scooping this dead cat into a shovel and dumping it in the trash. It should have been on its way home to a bowl of milk or a can of tuna. It should have been rubbing up against strangers’ legs, purring in that warm, please-love-me way that almost no one can resist. But it wasn’t lapping milk or rubbing someone’s leg; it was lying on top of a trash pile, flies already swarming over its still-warm body, and I was the one who’d put it there. I dropped the shovel and picked up the cat’s body, my thumb brushing blood from the silver tag on its collar, whispering I’m sorry, kitty, over and over as if the thing was suddenly going to rally against Mr. D. and whisper its forgiveness. For some reason, I wanted to wipe all the blood from its tag, I wanted to know its name; it seemed to me, at that moment, that something should be done to make its body more presentable—but to whom or what I couldn’t have said. I just wanted to give this poor thing some kind of dignity, I guess, before I tossed it in among the empty egg crates and tin cans. I knew how silly this would look to anyone passing by but I didn’t care; I apologized again and again, wiping the tag (which refused to come clean) until its ass began leaking something dark and thick down the front of my shirt and apron.

I spent the rest of the day crying. My boss sent me home early. I was depressing the customers.

I would not simply stand here and watch this dog suffer. I didn’t need that on my conscience.

I went inside to call the pound, who instructed me to contact Animal Control, who told me to get in touch with the nearest emergency veterinarian service, who in turn told me they had no one available to come and collect the dog, could I possibly get her into my car and bring her over? They would have someone waiting to take her.

Your Cedar Hill tax dollars at work.

I said I’d call them from the car once I was on my way, hung up, and looked for something in which to wrap her. It seemed the right thing to do, the decent gesture, a last act of kindness before we parted ways.

I didn’t bother changing my clothes; my pants and shirt were already ruined with blood, and the fetor of fresh death was all over me.

Two hours ago, as I was driving home on I-70, an old man several vehicle lengths ahead pulled to the side of the road, climbed out of his car, and simply stood by the highway. Traffic in my lane wasn’t nearly as fast as in the other two, so I was afforded a better-than-average look at him. In his early seventies, gaunt-faced, reed-thin, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit, he stood like a character from a Magritte painting: snappy, formal, arms held rigidly at his sides, wearing a derby as if he’d been born with it on his head. The Musings of the Solitary Pedestrian.

I could not read the expression on his face, though I think there was something of the blissful to it; even now I can’t be sure, because when I was four car lengths away a gust of wind blew his derby from his head and bounced it across two lanes of traffic. Amazingly, it was never struck or flattened by any of the cars. The old man snapped out of his reverie (if in fact that’s what it had been), slapped a hand on top of his skull to find that, yes—drat!—the derby was indeed gone, and in a series of movements equal parts stumble and run, darted into the river of oncoming cars. The people in front of me swerved to miss the car in front of them, which had swerved to miss another car as it barely missed the old man, who by now was well into the center lane where the traffic was faster but better-spaced; he almost had the derby in his hand when another gust of wind blew his frame one way and the hat another. He looked upward, his face devoid of expression, watching helplessly as the derby performed a bouncing, twirling, oddly graceful aerial ballet on its way back to my side of the road. The old man didn’t even check the traffic this time; he moved in the direction of the hat as if in a trance, arms reaching upward, imploring. Everyone, including me, was sounding their horns and rolling down their windows to shout at the old fellow to watch himself, get out of the way, move it fer chrissakes, you crazy son-of-a-bitch.

The derby landed on the hood of my car, skittered up against the windshield, and caught on the edge of a wiper blade. I looked to make sure the lane was clear, then opened my door to get out and retrieve the damn thing.

The driver of a minivan in the center lane laid on his horn but never slowed, even when it became obvious that the old man wasn’t going to move out of the way. The van hit him head-on, crumpling him against its grille and dragging him several yards before whatever forces govern such human catastrophes saw fit to release his destroyed frame and spin-roll it several feet, scattering small and not-so-small pieces along the way before it stopped with a sudden, silent, wet finality.

I don’t remember getting out of the car and retrieving the derby, nor do I clearly recall being the first to reach the old man, who was somehow still alive.

I knelt and offered the hat to him. I couldn’t think what else to do. He reached out and grabbed my shirt with a bloody, demolished hand. My heart tried to squirt through my rib cage, and then something else happened but I don’t quite remember what. I know I showed him the derby once again but he didn’t seem to notice. He spit blood on me, tried to speak, almost made it happen, then released his grip. And died.

I waited. I answered questions, allowed myself to be looked over by EMTs, told my story to at least four police officers, and was finally allowed to go. I was climbing into my car when I remembered the derby...which I was still holding. I replayed the almost comic dance the old man had performed to the derby’s elegant pirouettes as he’d pursued it to the death. If he’d gotten away safe and sound it would have made a funny, slightly absurdist story to tell at work or a party; but there are punchlines, and then there’s the punchline. Pardon the decided lack of chuckling here, folks.

I approached one of the officers and handed him the derby. He was chasing this, I said, as if it explained everything in excruciating detail.

Hey, we were wondering what happened to that thing, said the officer, taking it from me and dropping it into a large, clear plastic bag that contained what I assumed to be the contents of the old man’s impeccably-tailored pockets.

Who was he?

The officer didn’t even make eye contact: We can’t release that information until we’ve contacted the next of kin.

But I was with him when he.... My voice trailed off for a moment as I watched two men load the black-bagged body into the coroner’s wagon. He grabbed my shirt and looked at me. I was the last thing he saw before he died, and you won’t even tell me his name?

The officer shrugged. Policy. Sorry, sir. And left me there.

Standing now in the supposed safety of my home, I realized the blanket I’d selected from the linen closet was far too big for the dog in my yard but just the right size for wrapping an old man’s broken body. I put it back and selected one of more appropriate size, all the while sensing that something in the back of my memory was trying to wake up and get my attention, but I was moving now, moving right along, and it was important that I keep moving at all costs and not stop to think about anything for too long, so I shut the closet door and made my way outside.

The dog had disappeared. I didn’t panic. It had obviously been in a great deal of pain so it couldn’t have gotten very far; altogether I’d been inside no more than six minutes. I was starting around back when a delivery van pulled into the driveway. It was from neither UPS nor FedEx. I didn’t think I’d ever heard of this company—Hicks Worldwide—before, but I wasn’t certain. I went to meet the driver, who handed me a parcel the size of a carry-on shoulder bag and asked me to sign here as he scanned the shipping label.

Did you happen to see a dog wandering along the road as you drove up here? I described the dog and her condition. The driver adjusted his wool cap, wiped some sweat from his face, and shook his head.

Nope, I’d’ve noticed a dog in that kind of shape. You call the pound?

Of course, I said. When it became clear to him that no further details would be forthcoming, the driver thanked me, returned to his van, and left. I carried the package inside and dropped it on the kitchen table and probably would have let it go at that if it hadn’t been for the way it was addressed.

The package had been overnighted at no small expense, had a tracking number, and required a signature on delivery. It had my name and home address, nothing odd there, but the return address was also mine. Someone wanted to make damn sure I got this right away. Evidently this same someone also did not want me to know, until I’d opened the thing, who’d sent it or why.

We live in anxious times; terrorist attacks, mail-order anthrax, letter bombs, all sorts of unspeakable horrors delivered right to your door—or so say the paranoia-mongers who know that a populace kept on edge is a populace easily manipulated. I try not to buy into the fear, because once it’s got a hold on you, it grinds you under its heel until your spirit is mute.

I put down the blanket and opened the package. I only wanted to find out who’d sent it, then I’d take care of the dog. Just a few extra moments without the blood of another living thing on my hands and clothes. I didn’t think that was unreasonable.

Inside was a large, well-taped and -packed cardboard box that revealed two layers of bubble wrap and packing peanuts before finally unveiling the first of its treasures: five record albums, sleeves undamaged, LPs in perfect condition. Steppenwolf 7, Yes’s Fragile, The Best of Three Dog Night, Neil Young’s Harvest, and the masterpiece of masterpieces, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.

I stared at the albums in wonder. I’d long ago lost my copies of the records, had replaced them (in this order) with reel-to-reel, 8-tracks, cassettes, and CDs. Who the hell would be sending me mint-condition copies of albums in a format no one listened to anymore?

Beneath the albums, each in a clear plastic protective sleeve, were several 45 rpm records: Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl), Join Together, Don’t Want to Live Inside Myself, Ode to Billy Joe, They’re Coming to Take Me Away (Ha-Ha!), Cherry, Cherry, and at least a dozen others I’d heard on the radio while growing up. God, the memories that were brought back just seeing the titles on the old record labels—Decca, Dunhill, RCA, Cotillion and Reprise. A history of long-ago Seventies popular music, here in my shaking, blood-tinged hands. Growing up, I’d become something of an expert on the various changes made to their labels by record companies over the years—the loss of the multicolored lines on the Decca label, the way the Reprise logo got smaller and smaller, how Capital went from black to the coolest green with its circle-within-a-circle to just a boring shade of pea-puke that shamed my turntable’s aesthetic. I was the only person I knew of who noticed or cared about such trivialities—

—except for Beth.

Beth.

I looked through the LPs and 45s again, my arms shaking more and more as the realization dawned that these records had not been thrown into this box at random; they were selected with a great deal of attention, a private meaning in their arranged order, chosen as she would have choose them.

These had been among Beth’s very, very favorite albums and songs. Beth, my first and truest friend; Beth, who I’d loved more than anyone else before or since; Beth, who’d I’d last heard from on a sweltering summer night over twenty years ago; Beth, who’d been missing and presumed (later officially declared) dead for a majority of my adult life.

For a moment her face superimposed itself over the old man’s, and why not? I’d been the last person to see either of them alive.

Over the years I had managed to convince myself that Beth wasn’t really dead, that she’d just run off to some exotic foreign place without telling anyone and was living there under an assumed name, maybe as an artist, or underground writer, or something just as gloriously bohemian. That would suit her—say Fuck you! to the world at large and vanish into a new country, a new identity, finding herself until she was confident enough to come back and say, "Ha! Fooled those complacent smirks right off your faces, didn’t I? Boy, have I got a story to tell you!"

I gently placed the records aside, making sure to stack them so they wouldn’t slide off onto the floor; already I was planning on pulling my Gerard turntable out of its box and hooking it up to the stereo so I could listen to them until I hit the city limits of Sloppy Nostalgia (our motto: Wax with us or wax the damn car!).

Underneath another layer of bubble wrap were books, hardcover and paperback; Judy Blume, Kurt Vonnegut, A first edition of Stephen King’s Carrie, The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, a bunch of old comic books—Spider-Man, Prince Namor: The Sub-Mariner, Hawk-Man, Ghost Rider #1.

Heaven; I was in heaven.

There was a 9 x 12 clasp envelope sandwiched between two of the comic books. I opened it and dumped the contents onto the coffee table.

The first thing to spill out was a present I’d given Beth for her twenty-first birthday—a thin, gold necklace with a small cameo that opened to reveal a photograph of her and me