splat chapter twenty-nine

SPLAT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Suzie slept like a child. What's the difference between the sleep of the just and the sleep of the damned? Do you think the wicked suffer for their evil done during the day? Do the good commit heinous crimes in their dreams? Maybe there's a balance.

Suzie had boiled all her anger away before she got home. Her lust for revenge evaporated while she made her way through the still wet streets. It took Care Bear fortitude to stay awake all the way to Reynoldstown. She got home to a damp, empty apartment and fell into her bed, spent, asleep inside of a minute. She didn't toss and turn, she didn't wonder if Jerry was all right, if he'd recognized her, if he'd go to the cops and tell them she was the sniper. She didn't think about anything but how tired she was.

All her dreams were under the surface, and to tell the truth, they were all about silly things with very little symbolic content. The only snippet she could recall had her in a movie theater in her socks, sliding all the way down the smooth aisle, watching the screen. Then, rather than walking back up to find a seat, cuz she thinks she's already seen it, she pushes through the exit doors next to the screen and walks out into the sunset. What kind of meaning can be found there?

When she woke up, she was sore all over, so she must have been fighting some kind of battle in her sleep. She felt like she'd been hit with a stun gun. She sat in the living room for awhile, groggy, and watched the Weather Channel while the sun shone outside, wishing the hurricane would turn around and come back. She'd been in no mood to appreciate such impressive weather yesterday, and was sorry now. She waited with the TV on mute until the tropical report came on, hoping it would show another storm boiling up out of the Gulf, heading miraculously their way. But the newest one was still bopping around the Caribbean. She shut off the TV, disappointed. Maybe the next one.

There was nothing to eat. She didn't feel like macaroni and cheese out of a box, or ramen noodles, or a beer. She wasn't really hungry. She looked around at the living room. She'd cleaned it up yesterday, but it was still gross and disgusting. It would take more than just picking up trash to make it a pleasant place to live. She went back into her room, and it was in the same kind of shape, so she gathered and sorted and cleaned and trashed until her room was neat for the first time in months. Maybe she'd take all that laundry down to the laundromat and wash it. Maybe later.

She remembered Alex's phone. It was charged now, so she walked over to the new Edgewood Shopping Center across Moreland to see about buying some minutes for it. The burned out house looked clean now that the rain had washed away a lot of the rubble. A black, picked-over skeleton of some defeated dragon. Suzie felt nothing as she passed it. It bothered her that she was so anesthetized. Yesterday the sight of it had brought tears, but today it was as if it were some sort of art installation. Ruined house #78.

She bought a hundred minutes from the phone store in the new center. It was amazing how fast they'd turned an abandoned industrial complex into dozens of stores that looked like they'd been there for years. She stopped into the new Kroger and bought herself a loaf of bread, some ham, and a carton of milk, just so she could say there was food in the house.

Then she walked back to the apartment and made herself a nice home-cooked meal, and used Alex's phone to call Uncle Daddy, who'd just gotten back from his trip to Macon and was heading for bed.

He sounded glad to hear from her. 'Where are you, Honey?'

'Oh, I'm at home. I thought I'd come over and see you later.'

'Well, maybe you better not. Things are kind of difficult at the moment.' He paused. Suzie chewed her sandwich. 'I heard noises down the back last night,' he began.

Suzie's stomach knotted. She put the sandwich down. 'Oh.'

'There were lights in the woods, and helicopters. Give me your phone number.'

Auntie Mae would be upset. She never did approve of Suzie's hideout. The woods were no place for a little girl to hang out in by herself. 'How's Auntie Mae feel about this?'

He answered a different question. 'She's not doing real well, Honey,' he said, sounding sad. 'The doctors had her in for some tests the other day, and she was supposed to be back yesterday, but they wanted to run some more tests. They're not saying what they think.'

'My God. What's wrong with her?'

He sighed. 'Like I said, they won't tell me nothing. She's just been a little tired lately, is all. It's probly nothing to worry about.' He sounded worried.

'Where is she?'

'I took her up to Atlanta Medical Center there on Boulevard, used to be Georgia Baptist. You might could go and see her. She's feeling pretty low.'

Suzie thought she would just run up there and ask the doctors herself.

'Hold on a minute, Honey,' Uncle Daddy said in a different tone. 'I'm hearing noises down the back.' He put the phone down and went to the kitchen window. The back yard was crawling with police, heading toward the house. He picked up the phone and said hurriedly, 'Honey, the cops are here, coming up from your place in the woods, it looks like. You better stay away from here for awhile. But I want you to go see your Auntie Mae.'

Suzie felt sick. 'Okay, I will, Uncle Daddy. I'm sorry to bring the police down on you.'

'Don't worry, Baby Girl, I'll be fine. You take care of yourself.'

Suzie had a strong urge to sneak over to Uncle Daddy's and cruise by to see what the cops were up to. But she knew for a fact that it would be a stupid thing to do. So she got in Ed's Mercedes and went over to see her Auntie. She parked a couple of blocks away and walked in, to avoid the parking fee.

She had a few qualms about parking such an expensive car near Boulevard, but looking around she realized that just because people were poor and had no jobs didn't mean they didn't drive nice cars. There were a lot of expensive cars parked in the neighborhood. Either a lot of poor people living well, or a bunch of cheap doctors that didn't want to pay the $3 parking fee either.

She left Ed's car where she'd parked it, satisfied that it was as safe as anywhere. She was feeling that Atlanta was a gentle place. Even if it was urban, people still had manners and respect for each other. For a moment, the world felt like a warm, safe place to be.

She found Auntie Mae sitting up in bed dressed in a hospital gown. She was watching a talk show, looking bored. Her room was mostly empty linoleum and empty wall, the bed and a rolling tray were crammed into a corner almost directly below the TV set, so Auntie Mae's neck was cricked. Suzie sat next to her and rubbed her shoulders, arranged the covers, fussed over a passive, quiet Auntie Mae.

'Did they give you any drugs, Auntie Mae?'

'No. Why do you ask, child?'

'I thought you were looking a little out of it when I came in.'

'No. I'm just a little tired. It's too noisy here to get any real sleep. And they keep coming in and fiddling with me.'

They sat there for a few minutes in silence, absorbing the ads and the details of other peoples' lives.

'Uncle Daddy says they don't know what's the matter with you.'

'No. It's probly nothing. Don't you worry.' She patted Suzie's hand.

They sat there for a few more minutes. Another talk show came on.

'This is where my mom died, isn't it?' Suzie asked in a small voice.

Auntie Mae looked at her sympathetically. 'Yes, it is.' She turned to look out the window at the view part of a brick wall someone had painted to look like a field in spring. 'Lord, it's been over twenty years since your mamma passed,' she said, looking down at Suzie. 'You've grown to look so much like her.' She reached out and stroked Suzie's hair.

Suzie took her hand. Auntie Mae was the only mother she really knew. She used to be so lively and strong. Now she was like a ghost, the skin on her hands paper thin and dry, a grayness tingeing the beautiful deep brown, making her hand look like it had been pulled from a fire.

'You're like her in other ways, too,' Auntie Mae continued after a silence. Suzie wanted to hear more. Nobody ever wanted to talk about her mom in front of her.

'Not that you'd ever get involved with the types she ran around with when she was your age.' She laughed softly at the memory and stroked Suzie's hair some more.

'A bunch of environmental activists is who she hung out with. Oh, she was wild, that one. She ran off with her boyfriend who blew up some company's warehouses and then fled. She ended up in Ireland for years, living as somebody else.'

'That would be fun,' she said.

'You only think so. She had to work a deal with the feds before she could come back home, else they would have arrested her for aiding and abetting a fugitive. They wanted to know where the old boyfriend was, but by then she had no idea, and couldn't tell them anything they hadn't known for years.' Auntie Mae sighed. She'd loved Suzie's mom like a sister, back when she was a bit of a rebel herself.

'Yeah, your mom, a real firebrand.' Auntie Mae picked up a strand of Suzie's hair. 'Your hair used to be more gold, more like your mom's, but it got deeper as you got older.' She ruffled Suzie's mop top. 'And dark blue eyes. She always looked real straight at you. Direct. And she'd poke, if she found a place where you had issues. She'd wind you right up to see how you'd react. Hurt like hell sometimes, but people learned not to try any nonsense around her. She was psychic, too. All that stuff, horoscopes and handwriting and tea leaves. She could read beer suds and sweater lint, that girl. She could really pin someone down, lay it all out. People used to come to her.'

Suzie laughed angrily. 'I'm like that? I don't have a psychic bone in my body. And I know absolutely nothing about people.'

Auntie Mae patted her hand. 'I'm tired, dear. Let me lie down. Hand me my Bible over there, if you don't mind.' She pointed to the air conditioning unit by the window.

Suzie got it, took the extra pillows from behind Auntie Mae's back and arranged the blankets around her. 'I should go,' she said, kissing her forehead and blinking back a tear. 'Try to get some rest. I'll come see you tomorrow.' Auntie Mae opened her Bible and started reading where she'd left off.

Suzie went out to the nurse's station. A big black woman in scrubs sat behind the desk filling out charts.

'I'd like to talk to someone about my Auntie's condition.'

The nurse regarded her calmly. 'And who's your Auntie?'

'Mae Wilson.'

The nurse continued to look at her with the same expression on her face. 'And she's your auntie,' she said, unconvinced.

Suzie fidgeted. A white girl claiming relationship to a woman with mahogany skin. Uh huh. 'Yes. She raised me.'

The nurse cocked an eyebrow. 'Like, she was your maid or something?'

Suzie nearly shouted, 'No! I lived with her after my mom died, and...and then my dad.' She burst into tears.

The nurse busied herself with her charts while Suzie fought to control herself. 'Well,' she said, trying to be kind. 'I'm not allowed to give out details of a patient's diagnosis if you're not the next of kin.' She looked up at Suzie. 'And I couldn't tell you anything, anyway. You'd have to speak to the doctor.' She went back to work. Suzie turned away, dismissed and feeling small, and left the building.

When she got back to Ed's Mercedes, she noticed something through the back window. It was a can of brake fluid, tossed in the back. Nelson must have thrown it back there. It bothered her. Here she was, driving a real expensive car. It should be neat and clean, polished and fly.

She reached back and picked up the empty can. It wasn't greasy. She took the cap off and poked at a plastic seal, unbroken. Hmmm. The can twisted apart in the middle. A ziplock bag holding an ounce of pot fell out on the street. She stared down at it. She looked around. Then she stuck it back in the can and threw it in the back. She tried calling Uncle Daddy, but he didn't pick up the phone.

Suzie didn't even try to get on the Interstate. It wasn't completely closed down at this stage, but there were so many bottlenecks, and such a long line waiting to go through or even around that police were warning motorists not to go anywhere near Atlanta if they could help it. Most of the city didn't bother coming in to work that morning.

She drove down to Riverdale on US 41, a secondary highway that runs from Michigan to Miami.

It used to be how you got there, but after the interstates, it was just streetlights and strip malls between vast sections of scrub trees and farmland. Today it was backed up like a parade going through. Everybody was taking alternate routes. It took her an hour and a half to get to Riverdale, a fifteen minute drive on the Interstate.

She had a lot of time to think about Auntie Mae, about her mom, about various acts of vengeance, about her ex job. The more she thought, the more edgy she grew. She was such an angry person, her feelings so raw they amazed her. She never suspected she was that mad at the world.

But she also had this dead area inside of her, where nothing could get in. She was like a light switch, on and off. Her emotional range swung from fury to sobbing, and that was about it. The care and love she had felt sitting with Auntie Mae was the only halfway peaceful emotion she could point to. It bothered her. She must be some kind of freak.

She finally pulled the Mercedes into Stoner's garage, and drove around the back past a newly whitewashed wall. She noticed it with intense annoyance. Then she saw through the open bay doors that Ed was there, yelling at Nelson. Nelson made frantic gestures to Nathan, who came running out of the shop to change places with her.

Ed had seen his car come into the lot, and was stalking through the garage toward it. Suzie fled in a panic. She jammed between cars, crouching so he wouldn't see her. Her bag got stuck going through a small squeeze, and she squealed in frustration trying to pull it through.

Ed looked around, suspicious. He didn't believe that Nathan had been out driving the car, as Nelson was insisting. He continued to yell. She listened to them argue from around the corner. Nelson was lying through his teeth. Ed started cussing. Nelson acted offended, like he never used foul language. Ed started threatening.

Suzie longed to put her head around the corner to see him fume - standing there belly out, red faced, too short to look Nelson in the eyes - promising to have him killed. Nelson's response would be to loom over him and growl. Suzie'd seen him do that with dozens of nasty customers.

Finally Ed climbed up into his car and left, but not before having some pretty insulting things to say about the mess inside the car.

Nelson was steamed. Suzie came out of hiding, feeling like it was all her fault. 'No, Sweetie. I'm not mad at you,' he assured her. 'But, Honey, you sure make things difficult for me when you do things like this. That fucking asshole was this far from calling the cops on me.'

She stood in the hot sun, talking to him. He seemed reluctant to go inside. 'Did you fix whatever he wanted done?'

'No, you didn't give me a chance.'

She winced. 'What did you tell him?'

'I told him there was a problem and he has to bring it back so I can do something else. I told him I've got a part on order and he's just going to have to be patient. But he took his car and cussed me out into the bargain.' He shrugged. 'Now it's his problem.'

He edged away from her and went running back into the shop, grabbing a socket wrench and burying himself in a pickup's engine compartment.

Suzie came in out of the heat, and noticed a woman standing around at the wooden worktable, thumbing through the paper. She was black, and beautiful, with a short afro. Well dressed. Bored. Maybe it was the same woman she'd seen before. Maybe not. Suzie floated around the same side of the shop, but apart from saying hey they didn't speak to each other. The woman read the paper, Suzie watched Nathan testing cars.

Nelson was off under some other car, and then dodged into the office. Suzie looked around for her car and didn't see it. She wished Nelson would roll a joint so they could go around the block and talk. She had so many things to get off her chest. She still hadn't told him she got fired, she wanted to know what he thought of Ed, and she was getting more and more freaked out about having shot Jerry.

But he was ignoring her, and staying away from the other woman, too. She felt uncomfortable. The woman was hanging out in Suzie's exact same spot, and she felt rootless not being there. 'Which one's your car?' she asked brightly, trying to make conversation about how long it was taking and how you had to watch them every minute.

The woman nodded that her car was parked out back, and turned to walk out in the sun and pace back and forth where everyone could watch her. She looked bored.

Suzie moved into her spot and smoothed the paper. She didn't like the way the woman looked down her nose at Suzie's ragged t-shirt and worn jeans. Just because she was dressed nicely, wearing makeup, looking good; not wilting in the heat like Suzie was. The woman exuded exasperated patience. Like she was queen of the universe.

'Who's she think she is, the owner?' Suzie whispered to Nubby while he washed up at the hand sink. Nubby mumbled something unclear and scampered back to the car he was working on.

Suzie studied her. As a customer, she'd be impossible to satisfy. No way would she put up with Nelson's usual half-assed job. She would criticize and whine and bitch and moan until he caved and gave her the best he had, and didn't make her pay for it. And she'd still be haughty about it.

Suzie always took the least crumb, the most broken down car, the worst repair job, and was grateful. She looked at the woman's car; a late model Toyota, gleaming silver, spotless. She would have contrasted it with her car, but her car wasn't there.

Suzie noticed that the woman had no bumper stickers, and thought of one she could print up when she got home. Something like, I'm A Horrible Bitch And It's Contagious. The woman patted her perfect hair and smiled meanly at Suzie, coming back inside and stand impatiently by the Goat's front fender.

Nelson was still giving both of them a wide berth. Suzie went after him, and cornered him rising from the oil pit. She loomed above him as he climbed out of the hole. He started, looking around to see who was noticing. What was wrong with him? Suzie figured it was because Ed had yelled at him. She felt awful about making him look bad professionally. 'Um, Nelson,' she began, turning her attention to her car needs. 'I hate to mention it...'

He whirled on her defensively. 'Now, whatever you think,' he started. Then he noticed her slouching over, looking at her feet, embarrassed, ashamed. He straightened up and preened slightly, glancing over at the black woman, who was watching the scene intently.

Suzie didn't touch him. She tried to never show physical affection in front of the boys, and certainly not in front of customers, and he was standing too far away to touch, anyway. But she wanted a hug badly. Something was very wrong between them, and she felt at fault, and she knew there was nothing she could do except go away and let him work.

But she didn't know where her car was. 'Um, Nelson, I don't have anything to drive.'

'You can have yours back, Baby,' he said nonchalantly. 'It's all fixed.'

'That's the problem. I don't see it anywhere.'

He didn't blink. 'One of the boys took it off to a specialist to get the clutch plate turned.'

Suzie didn't think a clutch could be turned like a brake drum. 'But all the boys are here.'

A bolt of mental lightning hit him. 'I know. You can drive this other car.' He was animated now, and vaulted off toward the front of the shop. 'Let's you and me go and get you up and running. It's a real comfortable car. You'll love it.'

He led her to a 1990 baby blue Cadillac DeVille and waved her inside like she was royalty. 'Yessir,' he said, fishing the keys out of his pocket. 'This is just the thing for you. Air conditioning, leather seats, automatic everything.' He spoke quickly, his gestures urging her to start the engine.

He rummaged in his shirt pocket and reached out with a fistful of pot. She stared at it in her palm. 'I'd rather have a hug and a few minutes to talk with you,' she said. 'I've got a lot of things on my mind. I need a hug.'

His eyes moved around rapidly. 'I know, Baby. But I'm so busy.' He spread his hands. 'I've got to get back to work, can't leave the boys alone for a minute.'

She nodded. He couldn't.

'I've been driving this car myself for the last few days.' He looked at her. 'That's how I feel about you. Giving you the car I'm personally driving. Nothing's too good for you.' He was so anxious for her to be gone that he was almost spinning on the pavement. He was jumping up and down like an impatient child.

'How are you going to get home?'

'Oh, I'll get a ride,' he mumbled vaguely. They were out of sight of the garage. Nelson bent down in the door and went to give her a quick peck on the cheek.

'Where's my hug?' She cried.

He grimaced, and looked around, and reached in and grabbed her shoulders, bringing his face to hers with his tongue already out and probing the air for her lips. His mouth was dry, and there was a string of spit between his tongue and upper lip. It was like french kissing a large, drooling parrot.

She turned away and reached for the ignition. The Cadillac started with a rattle and a belch of smoke. Nelson bounded back from the car. 'Okay, Honey. Come see me tomorrow.' He backed away. 'We'll spend some time together tomorrow.'

Suzie saw through the garage as she was pulling out that Nelson was in there talking to the black woman, his arms by his side, pleading. The woman looked mad.

On her slow way back into town, Suzie tried to call Uncle Daddy again. There was still no answer.

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next, how much worse can it get? Ha.