Don't Leave Me (22 page)

As Sandy Epperson cruised by the sign for the Theatricum Bottanicum, Topanga Canyon’s outdoor theater, she thought about how terrible most criminals were when it came to acting innocent.

You didn’t need all that hokum about kinesiology and lying indicators, as if they were magic. You could just tell because most people were lousy actors. Maybe a DeNiro could fool you, but not these scenery chewers. Not like your Scott Petersons, who were so full of themselves they thought they could charm anyone into believing them.

Samson was not an actor and not trying to be one.

Neither was she. No, she was more adept at keeping under the radar.

.

Chuck plunged forward into darkness. Against the starry sky, the trees were grim shadows. He had to lean forward at the waist to keep on the road, looking at the ground just a few feet ahead.

There were homes on the right. He saw lights in the windows of two.

Then heard the engine of an oncoming car. In a flash he remembered an incident from his childhood. He was fourteen and walking home in his neighborhood one night. As neighborhoods went, his was fairly safe, but when a car passed him in the street and slowed, he sensed bad news. So he backed up a few steps, turned and ran down the first side street he came to, and ducked behind some trash cans lining a driveway. Crouching there, he peeked out and saw the car drive by. He was sure it was looking for him. He waited a few minutes, then ran all the way home.

Now he followed his memory and ran up a driveway on his right. There was indeed a side yard and large, municipally-approved trash containers. One of them was green, to be used for leaves and grass. He opened it up and felt around and came up with a handful of mown grass. He threw his leg over the rim and got in, closing the top over him but leaving a slight crack to look out of.

The car cruised by. Slowly. It had a bright side light pointed in the direction of the houses.

It continued on past this house. Chuck listened for the sound of it getting further away. As soon as he could hear only the crickets he thought he’d wait another minute, then get out.

Light splashed around the trash container. Almost as if an alien space ship were hovering above him and about to beam him up.

Chuck didn’t move, still holding the lid open a crack.

He heard something slam behind him. In the receptacle he couldn’t turn around and look. He held his breath.

The top of the trash can flipped open. Chuck was staring into the double barrels of a shotgun. The shotgun was in the hands of an old woman. She was all lit up. She looked like some avenging witch from a Tolkien movie.

She said, “What in the name of the good God are you doing in my trash?”

Chuck closed his eyes. “Do you have a phone?”

“You think I’m stupid? You think I’m just gonna let you into my house or something?”

“Some people are trying to kill me.”

“I might be one of 'em, you don’t get on out of here.”

Chuck shook his head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He was about to drop from exhaustion, a phone was in this house, but an old lady was holding a gun on him and talking hillbilly smack.

And he wasn’t in any mood to explain himself anymore. He stepped out of the trash container, dusted himself off and put his chest on the barrels of the shotgun.

“Go ahead and shoot, or let me use your phone,” he said.

She thought a moment, then made a gesture with the gun. “Inside,” she said.

The house seemed to have no available space for moving around, save for a narrow corridor. Like an ant farm. Newspapers were bound and stacked and up against the walls. Cardboard boxes of various sizes, some open some closed, spilled out who knew what—clothing, dishware.

Granny Shotgun led him to the kitchen and pointed to a wall phone with the gun.

Chuck dialed Royce.

“Man, you got to come get me right now,” Chuck said. “I haven’t got time to explain. You free?”

Royce groaned, then, “What time is it?”

“There’s all sorts of stuff going down right now and I just need you to get me out of here.”

“Stuff?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Where is here?”

Chuck looked at the old woman. “What’s your address?”

“I’m not telling anybody where I live,” she said.

“Please!”

She was still holding the shotgun, lazily in her arms, so the twin barrels pointed at his feet. She shook her head.

Fine, wonderful, this was just what the doctor ordered!

Royce. He was the kind of guy who could sell responsibility to teenagers. Chuck said, “Tell this nice lady who I am and who you are, would you do that?”

“Chuck––”

He held out the phone to the woman. She said, “Just let it hang and step over next to Bobby Sherman.”

Chuck followed her eyes to a faded poster of a guy dressed in gaudy '70s clothes, from thick-striped pants to puffy shirt.

Whatever.

Chuck let the phone dangle from its base and went to the poster.

Granny Shotgun picked up the phone and said, “Talk.”

Chuck read her face as she listened. It went through a few permutations of canyon skepticism before melting into warm acceptance.

Next thing he knew she was giving Royce her address.

She hung up the phone and put the shotgun down, leaning in a corner. “Thank you for your service,” she said.

Chuck said nothing, but managed a nod.

“You want a Fig Newton?”

“I just want to rest.”

“I want to talk. I want to know what trouble you’re in. I want to use it.”

“Use it? For what?”

“My show.” She shuffled over to a desk, and Chuck noticed for the first time that she was wearing a bathrobe with no belt. He silently prayed he wouldn’t get a glimpse of anything.

She came back and handed him a piece of paper. It looked like the first page of a script.

Chuck looked up at her. “I guess you’re Henrietta Hoover.”

“That’s not just who I am, that’s who the hell I am.”

Chuck said nothing.

“That’s my tag line,” she said. “I stole it from
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
”

I have fallen into the rabbit hole, Chuck thought.

“You don’t know about my stuff, I gather. Not a theater person, huh? I’ve done several pieces. I was written up in LA Weekly. I was nominated for Drama Circle award. But maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“I—”

“This show is about my embrace of atheism, which I was stating publicly before any of these cockamamie new atheists with their fancy books came along.”

She made a gesture with her arms and her robe threatened to flash open. Chuck looked at the floor.

“Ma’am, I’m just hoping—”

“Don’t call me ma’am! What do you think I am, some sort of schoolmarm?”

“I don’t have anything against—”

“I come out on stage, see, and I say to the light, stay out of my face. I don’t need you. And then I sing a song about the pointlessness of existence.”

Chuck said, “Would you mind keeping your robe closed?”

She looked down at her exposure. “Do you have something against the human body?”

“I just, um, have my mind on other things.”

“What other things? There is nothing more elemental than the human body. We do not have minds that exist outside of our bodies, we do not have souls. Do you think we have souls?”

This was beginning to feel like one of those conversations from high school, when he was baked at the beach with his band friends. But there was no choice except to talk on. He was going to stay inside until Royce came, and the main thing was to keep her from disrobing until that moment. Or maybe ever.

“Sure,” Chuck said. “We have souls.”

“Who made these souls?” Henrietta Hoover asked.

“God.”

“Oh really? Out of what?”

“Ms. Hoover, I’d be thrilled to come see your show, but—”

“Listen! What if, just like particles of matter existing before the Big Bang, particles of unconscious consciousness existed right alongside them? And then when the universe all came together, these particles did, too?”

Make me a particle and float me out of here, Chuck thought.

.

Stan heard somebody knock on the other side of the door.

“What’s going on, Stan?” It was Julia’s voice.

“I think you know,” Stan said. That sounded good to him. It was good and tough. He was going to fool them all right.

“I need you not to do anything foolish,” Julia said.

“Just you wait and see!”

A moment’s pause. Stan hoped she wouldn’t go away. That would spoil his plan.

He heard beeping from outside and then the door clacked open. Julia came in and shut the door behind her.

“You’re not being very nice, Stan,” Julia said.

“Am too! You’re the one who’s not being nice. You have Chuck and you’re going to hurt him!”

“Stan, listen to me. I won’t let them hurt Chuck. All they want is to talk to him. It’s very important. Can you understand that, Stan?”

He shook his head. Hard.

“No, I don’t think you can.” Julia came to him and made like she was going to hug him. Stan jumped back and gave her the don’t-touch-me glare. Chuck said it made him look like a mad dog when he did that. Fine. Good. He was going to mad dog them all, starting with Julia.

She didn’t look mad.

“Stan, I always thought you were the greatest kid in the world.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“I thought of you like that. Like you were my kid brother. You know there was an old song, and whenever I’d hear it I’d think of you, Stan.”

“What song?”

“It’s called 'Vincent.’ It’s about Vincent Van Gogh. Do you know who he was?”

“He was a painter and there was a movie about him starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn.”

“That’s right. This song was about him. And there’s a line in it that says this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

Stan frowned.

“I wish this world wasn’t the way it was, Stan. I wish there was a place where you didn’t have to go through all this.”

“I don’t know if you’re a bad guy or a good guy, Julia.” He felt like crying just then, but he told himself not to because that wouldn’t be good for the plan.

“I don’t know myself, Stan. But will you promise not to try to hurt yourself or do anything foolish?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I know you have some imagination. No one’s going to get hurt if we all just stay calm. Okay?”

“How did you fool us, Julia?”

“What?”

“How did you do that trick where we thought you were dead?”

Julia looked at him a long time. “Don’t think about such things, Stan. You just wait. You’ll be with Chuck soon.”

Sooner than you even think, Julia!

She turned and punched the keypad again.

And this time a picture zoomed into Stan’s mind, just like he knew it would. A snowman was holding a cannon that fired a ball into a duck’s butt.

The duck went
Quaaacck!

.

Ray Hunt slumped at his desk in the study, the tightening in his chest threatening to throw his heart to the floor. He’d done some wrestling in high school. Got to the state championships as a welterweight. He was crushed in the semis by a kid from Stockton who squeezed all the air out of Ray’s lungs.

Funny that picture should come to him now. Or maybe not so funny.

It was dark in the house. Ray liked it that way just before bed. Astrid, as was her custom, would have cracked a book upstairs in bed, read three pages, and dropped off to sleep. Ray would come up and remove the book from her stomach and flick off the light.

But until then he would sit with only the desk lamp on, writing in his journal. He wrote it out in longhand, with a Bic pen, the greatest pen ever invented, the best value. He loved the feel of it on the page and knew he would not ever consign his most intimate thoughts to the keyboard and the computer. He wanted them on paper, because someday he’d be dead and he needed this journal to be found.

It was his confession and his catharsis.

And Astrid knew nothing about it.

He couldn’t bear it if she did, until he was completely finished. Astrid, whom he’d known since they were in junior high school. The woman of his long years, of the good times and bad. And there would never be another to take her place if she were to go before him.

But what if he died first? And what if then she found the unfinished confessions of Raymond Hunt? He could only hope that she would understand, as she always did when she heard him out. He would craft the journal as carefully as he could, as a closing argument of sorts. He’d once harbored thoughts of going to law school and becoming a great trial lawyer. Viet Nam changed his perspective on all that. He was too restless when he got home to wait three years for a sheepskin and a shingle. He operated under the impression that he could die at any time, and there was no time to waste. So he and Astrid started the Academy on a proverbial shoestring.

And to all the world he looked like a success. A clean, upright example of the American dream.

He started writing in the journal, and out came
The American dream can easily turn into a nightmare.

A noise in the hallway startled him. Astrid? No, it couldn’t be, she would have come down the stairs and immediately alerted him to her presence.

The cat? Not with that heavy a paw step.

He looked out the open door of the study. Only darkness, with a bit of illumination from his desk lamp spilling onto his wife’s display case. Astrid was a collector of things beautiful and porcelain, and entirely uninteresting to Ray Hunt. But because they were hers, he was happy they were there.