Little Falls, page 6
Jeffrey is a three-hundred-and-eighty-pound frequent flyer at Little Falls Hospital suffering from chronic kidney failure, brittle diabetes, and a litany of other ailments that could fill a medical textbook. Dressed in a baggy tee shirt that reaches to his knees and sweat pants, Jeffrey strolls across the parking lot with red Beats headphones perched on his enormous head while clutching a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a giant soft drink.
I turn my head further and watch the bumbling man bop his head back and forth to whatever music he is listening to. I know I should be relieved that I was not bludgeoned or shot to death tonight, but there is something about the sight of the humongous slob clutching his bucket of chicken and gigantic vat of soda that inflames a festering discontent. I tightly grip the steering wheel as my eyes remain affixed to the lumbering man, tracking his movement in my rearview mirror. Maybe I have this all wrong. Here I have been blaming myself for my problems, blaming myself for my inability to save the hospital, when it’s been people like Jeffrey all along who have gotten me into this mess in the first place. Here’s a guy who eats so much salt that he is in the emergency room for fluid in his lungs every other weekend. Here’s a guy who never monitors his blood sugars so that a week doesn’t go by in which he isn’t suffering from some kind of diabetic crises. And how can one ignore the most obvious issue, the three-hundred-and-eighty pound elephant in the parking lot, the fact that the man doesn’t pay one iota of attention to his ballooning, astronomical weight. He and others like him force the hospital to invest tons of capital into industrial, reinforced wheelchairs, beds, operating tables, and CAT scans to combat Earth’s gravity. If people like Jeffrey simply took a modicum of care for themselves, the hospital wouldn’t be in the predicament it is in, and I wouldn’t be expected to squeeze money out of a rock. The rage overflows, spreading to all facets of my life that are in disarray: my narcissist wife, demented mother, mediocre kids. I think about the pool I will never have, the fancy car I will never drive, the country club I will never belong to. I move onto all the unfairness existing in the larger world, how all the jobs are departing this country, how much I despise it when the Fraternal Order of Cops hits me up for money, how much I hate shopping at Costco with those huge shopping carts. And it is all because of Jeffrey Arnold. Fucking Jeffrey Fucking Arnold. It’s all his fault. Every last fucking thing.
I push the ignition button and slip the car in reverse. The car rolls backwards as I gaze into the review mirror, monitoring Jeffrey as he continues to amble away with his back to me. Jeffrey’s the problem. I swing the steering wheel until his lumbering form is directly behind the vehicle, my jumbled brain calculating trajectories, and I ease the pedal closer to the floor. The car lurches backwards and begins to pick up speed. Whoa! My head feels like it is aflame as the distance between my car and Jeffrey is halved. Fucking Jeffrey Arnold. I tweak the steering wheel until the obese man is centered in the rear window. Jeffrey remains unaware that there is a moving vehicle honed on his massive ass like a heat-seeking missile. I depress the accelerator further sending my car hurtling towards the target. As the gap rapidly narrows, whatever force linking me to this planet detaches and I feel like I am floating free. Such a glorious feeling! It’s sublime! Ha! Ha! I’m laughing hysterically. The car draws closer and closer to its target until the image of Jeffrey Arnold now completely fills the rear window. The maniacal smile plastered on my face twitches, once, twice. Something is wrong. My foot uncontrollably quivers on the accelerator pedal. It is shaking like a mother fucker. And just like that I am suddenly back to my senses, crashing down to Earth. What the fuck am I doing? I skip my foot over to the left and jam both feet down. As I slam on the brakes, I spot Jeffrey in the rearview mirror, finally sensing something amiss. He swings around, eyes wide with terror as he reflexively holds up the bucket of chicken and soda in front of his abdomen. As the car comes to an abrupt stop, I feel the vehicle jerk back and forth causing my head to impact the steering wheel twice. The first knock startles me…the second turns the world black.
I come to with a painful gasp of air and a pounding headache. My eyes dart to the rearview mirror. Jeffrey is gone. I put the car in park.
I leave the car running and bolt from the vehicle, fully expecting to find the man splayed on the pavement behind the rear bumper like a felled Goliath. I find nothing, just the red glow of the parking lights and the bare asphalt. A sigh of relief barely escapes my lips before my chest tightens. Is it possible? Could Jeffrey be trapped underneath my vehicle? An image of the man wedged beneath the chassis flashes across my mind. Dropping to the ground, I scamper to the side of the car. Clinging to its frame, I gaze underneath, expecting the worst. Once again, no sign of Jeffrey.
How could a three-hundred-and-eighty-pound man just vanish?
A man that size surely would have left a mark. If my head were not so damn foggy, I am certain I could arrive at reasonable explanation for his disappearance. Think! Oh God, why won’t my brain work? No doubt the toxic stew of prescription drugs and whatever crap George had pushed me to drink back at The Dine is to blame. All I can do is slump against the car.
I absentmindedly run my hand across my slick forehead, wincing when my fingertips contact a sensitive spot. What’s this about? Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. Crouching beside the driver’s side window, I totter unsteadily and wait for the light in the parking lot to spring to life. My reflection appears in the window, revealing a red splotch stamped upon my forehead. I look at the steering wheel as suddenly it all comes back to me.
Lug…lug.
What the hell is that? I listen intently, tilting my head side to side to locate the source of the sound over the hum of the car and the buzz of the light. Lug…lug. It’s coming from the right, I conclude, and stumble into the darkness in pursuit, veering away from the car. Triggering the flashlight application on my cellphone, I hold my device in the air and scan the area. Nothing. Lug…lug…lug. Shuffling ahead, I step on something squishy, stopping me in my tracks. Oh Lord, what is that? Squatting down, I find a fried chicken drumstick. Balanced on my haunches, I tilt the cellphone, further surveying the pavement ahead. My light settles upon another drumstick a short distance away, and then another, and another still, until I come upon an upended bucket beside an oversized cup of soda slowly emptying its contents. Oh, shit.
I steady my hand and direct the phone’s light back towards the rear bumper of my car and then into the darkness behind it. A glint of silver winks back at me. Dreamily, I approach the twinkle until I am standing beside a weathered, knee-high metal barrier that runs along the edge of the parking lot. Beyond it is a precipitous drop into a ravine. I look down. Through the darkness I can faintly make out the form of a body.
Gripping the railing, I swing my leg over the metal barrier, and gingerly climb down the steep embankment. Tugging on weeds and exposed roots for support, I am finally able to reach the bottom and immediately have to suppress the urge to vomit. Jeffrey Arnold is sprawled in the overgrown grass at the bottom, eyes glossy and fixed upward, his blubbery neck contorted in a most unnatural way.
I squat beside the body, desperately trying to process what I am witnessing. When the panic arrives, it is overwhelming. I scamper up the embankment, clawing at the dirt, determined to get as far away from the Jeffrey as possible. Back up in the parking lot, I breathlessly search for help before frantically pacing back and forth beside my car. My first thought is to call the police and alert them what happened. My finger presses the 9 on my cell phone, and then I remove it from the screen. I simply cannot bring myself to make the call. The police will realize in a second that I am hopped up on pills and alcohol. Hell, there is a nearly empty bottle of ouzo stuffed in a paper bag on my passenger seat. Whether they believe it was an accident, it is certain to be a huge scandal. The local news will have a field day with all the sordid details. I will be ruined…my family devastated. I won’t stand a chance under the glare of the media. I do not even give myself the luxury of thinking about it further. After taking a final survey of the area and confirming that there are no witnesses, I jump into my car and pull away. Before I know it, I am once again hurtling through the streets of Little Falls, frantically glancing at the sky through the windshield, expecting a police helicopter to be following my every turn. The paranoia does not dissipate when I leave Little Falls behind and escape to Ashbridge.
CHAPTER 7
My house looks different. My brain tells me to stop being ridiculous—of course it is the same house I have lived in for years with my family. Yet, as I drive up the driveway, the house appears changed in an imperceptible way. It’s as if someone has replaced the structure with a replica, down to the black shutters and potted plants by the front door. The truth is the house is exactly as I left it. I am the one who is different. I’ve committed an unspeakable crime. I pull the car into the garage and ease the vehicle beside a weed trimmer and hedge-cutter suspended from a peg board, switch off the car, and listen to the garage door closing behind me. I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and recoil. My face is ashen, eyes bloodshot, hair in disarray. The adrenaline that had coursed through my body during my hasty dash from Little Falls has fully dissipated.
Exiting the car, I walk stiffly to the back of the vehicle, anxiously expecting to find a damaged back fender, blood, matted hair—the detritus of the fatal encounter. The fender, however, looks pristine, free of even a minor blemish. The cushiony exterior of Jeffrey must have absorbed the impact. I suspect that the contact of the vehicle with his body was just enough to cause the poor man to lose his balance and trip over the guardrail sending him plummeting down the ravine. The only evidence of the collision is a jagged line of sugary syrup from his soda splayed across the back window like a lightning bolt. I retrieve a roll of paper towels from a shelving unit, saturate a wad with Windex, and proceed to clean. I am left panting after running the paper towels over and over the glass surface. I gather the used paper towels and stuff them into a black garbage bag before I am struck with a compulsion to discard the tainted clothing that I am wearing. I pull off my clothes with such haste that I nearly topple to the ground. Standing clad only in my boxers, I treat the discarded garments as if they were radioactive, adding them to the garbage bag.
The house is still as I enter. My bare feet press softly against the cool hardwood floor as I creep through the first floor into the empty kitchen. I tread past framed photos of family outings hanging on the walls— Olive and Cole smiling at a picnic table by the lake, Sam in a baseball hat mugging for the camera at an outdoor concert, the entire family at the beach dressed in matching white and jumping in unison. I cannot shake the feeling that I am contaminating the house by my mere presence. I press on, slowly climbing the carpeted stairs to the second level. I cannot find the courage to peek into each of the children’s rooms and instead head directly to the master bedroom. I find Sam asleep, curled in a ball at the edge of the king-sized bed, bundled under the duvet. I’m sure she would get fright of her life waking up to such a ghostlike apparition dressed only in boxers standing beside the bed. I head straight for the shower and scrub myself with such vigor that my skin is left pulsating and raw. As I depart the bathroom, I am thankful that the mirror is fogged up. I cannot bear to see myself.
I slip on a new pair of boxers and a white t-shirt and climb into bed. Sam mumbles in her sleep, pulling the duvet more snuggly and leaving half my body uncovered. I stare at the ceiling for some time coming to grips with the sinking realization that I am indeed finished. By tomorrow the police will be knocking on the door and a new chapter in my life will begin.
CHAPTER 8
I wake to Sam jostling my shoulder.
“Ed!”
My eyes spring open. The police! They’re here!
“Ed! You’re late for work. Ed!” It takes a second for me to gain my bearings. I gaze at Sam’s animated face as if it is the first time I have ever laid eyes on her and slowly turn to look at the alarm clock on the side table. 8:10 am.
I pull the covers over my head and sink beneath them.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sam asks, her voice muffled as I try to burrow my head into the mattress.
“I’m sick,” I moan, refusing to emerge from my cotton sanctuary. I sense Sam standing by the edge of the bed, assessing me with what I would like to believe is worry but which is more likely curiosity tinged with annoyance. I have never called out sick to work in my life. I can hear Sam depart, and I am left alone in bed. A half an hour later, Claire rings my cell and asks where I am. I mumble that I am sick and ask her to cancel all my meetings until further notice. I detect concern in her voice, but she does not inquire further. Dutiful Claire. Over the course of the day I drift in and out of consciousness as if I am floating in the ocean once again. I am back in Kauai with Sam on our honeymoon bobbing up and down in the water looking back at the beach and beyond that at the Four Seasons hotel. Sam smiles at me from beneath a floppy hat—a happy smile. I am happy too. I yearn to return to a time of promise, a period in which the future was still ahead of us. The image slips away and reality creeps back in and I am left once again in a state of purgatory waiting for the long arm of the law to bust through the bedroom door and snatch me. My stomach growls angrily but I don’t have the energy to get up out of bed. What’s the point? The end is near. The lack of food only serves to weaken my resolve further adding to an oppressive fatigue. My bones begin to ache, cheeks itch. Time is fluid. One moment I can see light around the edges of our blackout blinds and the next it is black. At some point my kids pop their heads into the room as if they have stumbled into the frame of The Death of Socrates and whisper: “Daddy, are you OK?” I emit a monstrous groan that sends the two of them scurrying away in horror. Eventually Sam shows up and stands a safe distance from the bed by the doorway.
“Ed, you alright?”
I don’t answer but stir enough to let her know I am still alive.
“I think I’ll sleep down in your mom’s old room,” Sam announces, eager to stay clear of the plague.
My wallowing knows no end. I move on to bemoaning my path in life. Where did I go wrong? All I wanted to do was write. The only class I truly liked in college was creative writing. Professor Marcus, a young professor whose look included a slick goatee, tight black jeans, and an untucked collared shirt, told me once that I had some potential as a writer. He said I just needed to work at it, to “massage my creative gristle” or something along those lines, and gave me a list of books I should read to gain inspiration. I should have read those books. Why didn’t I? At the very least I should have read one of them. It could have changed my whole trajectory in life.
That night I have fever dreams. Where are the police already? I begin to imagine scenarios that only serve to heighten my anxiety. What if Jeffrey’s body has not been found yet and he is still stuck in that ravine rotting like road kill. I become even more alarmed by the alternative that Jeffrey is not in fact decomposing but somehow still clinging to life. Maybe I should have checked his pulse or something. That would have been smart. Why didn’t I just check his damn pulse? I envision Arnold giving me up with his final breath to the police “It was Ed Teak. He left me here to die. TEAK! TEAK!” I see the police stringing out yellow tape, measuring tire skid marks, taking notes, gathering evidence, building a case, staking out the house in unmarked cars, ready to burst through the door. Maybe they will toss in a smoke grenade or use one of those tanks with the boom to crash through the wall. I saw that on television once. It was pretty cool. I remain in bed, floundering in this limbo, hopeless, waiting.
CHAPTER 9
The second morning arrives. Still no police. For the first time I begin acknowledging the plausibility of another possibility: I might actually get away with this. I preemptively call Claire and inform her in an exaggerated raspy voice that I am still sick and will not be coming in today. When the kids have left for school and Sam for her Pilates class, I retrieve the garbage bag with the paper towels and clothes and burn them in an iron fire pit in the backyard. I bury the ashes and my shoes beside a hydrangea bush. I recognize the need to check the internet to find out if there is any news about Jeffrey, but my paranoia persists. I am afraid to search for the story from my personal computer or phone thinking this could be traced by some secret agency in the government. Instead I grab the car and drive three towns away, pay for the deluxe service at a car wash just in case I had missed any residue that would link me to the crime, and then visit the public library.
The library is nearly empty except for two white-haired librarians sitting behind the collection desk silently scanning books. They greet me with a synchronous hello, and I nod to them rigidly before heading straight towards a bank of computers in the far corner. I locate a computer already logged in and bring up the online website for The Little Falls Gazette. It doesn’t take me long to locate the story. I read through the article as quickly as I have ever read anything in my life, nearly stumbling over the words. When I finish, I go back and reread it like a toddler, articulating every syllable in my head so as not to miss anything. Relief overwhelms me. The news is fantastic. Jeffrey has indeed been found in the ditch and he is very much dead—no last minute big reveal. The best part is that the police (God bless the underfunded and woefully incompetent Little Falls Police Department. Hallelujah!) have deduced that Jeffrey’s premature demise was an unfortunate accident caused by poor lighting in the parking lot that tragically led him to trip over the railing into the ravine below. In a stroke of cosmic justice, the derelict car wash parking lot was acquired by the city of Little Falls last year, and now the Arnold family, in their immeasurable grief, has retained the services of Thompson, Thompson, and Thomas to sue the town of Little Falls for its failure to maintain a safe environment with satisfactory lighting. “A working bulb could have saved my son’s life. We gonna make ‘em pay,” Jeffrey’s mother wailed in her grief. I start to full on sob at the computer station, a body shaking cry session that attracts the attention of the two wizened librarians, who cast sympathetic looks my way. I wipe the tears and snot on the sleeve of my shirt and sign out of the computer. Before I leave the library, I make sure I surreptitiously run a wet wipe three times across the keyboard. You can never be too careful.
