Life Expectancy (23 page)

PART FOUR

A
LL
I E
VER
W
ANTED
W
AS
I
MMORTALITY

41

N
o one’s life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.

Simply by existing, unseen and in some distant redoubt, Konrad Beezo made the world a darker place, but we lived in light, not in his shadow.

No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make. There is always cake.

Following the destruction of our house in January 1998, Lorrie and Annie and I moved in with my parents for several weeks.

Huey Foster’s estimation, the night of the fire, that nothing whatsoever could be salvaged from our house proved correct as to furniture, housewares, books, and clothes.

Three items that qualified as mementoes, however, were raked from the ashes in acceptable condition. A cameo pendant that I had bought for Lorrie. A crystal Christmas-tree ornament that she had purchased at a gift shop in Carmel, California, on our honeymoon. And the free pass to the circus on the back of which my father had written five dates.

The face of that card had been singed and water-spotted. The words
ADMIT TWO
and the word
FREE
had vaporized entirely. Only a few fragments of the beautifully rendered lions and elephants survived as ghost images, glimpsed between mottling scorches, embedded soot, and water stains.

Curiously, at the bottom of the free pass, the words
PREPARE TO BE ENCHANTED
were almost as bright and clear as they had ever been. In this new context, that line struck me as vaguely ominous, as it had never done before, as though it were not a promise of delight but a subtle threat.

More curiously still, the reverse of the circus pass appeared all but untouched by heat and water. On that side, the paper had been only slightly yellowed; the five dates in my father’s printing were easy to read.

The card smelled of smoke. I cannot say truthfully that it smelled also of brimstone.

In early March, we began looking for a place in town, preferably in my parents’ neighborhood. By the end of that month, the house next door to theirs came on the market.

We know an omen when we see one. We made an offer the sellers couldn’t refuse, and closed escrow on May 15.

If we had been rich, we could have bought a compound of houses encircled by a wall, entered by a single gate, guarded around the clock. A house next door to my folks, however, was as close as we could get to living like the Corleone family.

Our lives after Annie’s arrival went on pretty much as before, except with greater focus on poop and pee. I chafe at the injustice of the Nobel Prize Committee awarding peace prizes to the likes of Yasir Arafat while failing year after year to honor the person who invented the Velcro-sealed disposable diaper.

Annie didn’t need to be weaned from breast-feeding. At five months, she turned adamantly away from an offered breast and insisted on culinary diversity.

Something of a smartie, she spoke her first word shortly before Christmas that year. If you believe Lorrie and my mother, it happened on the twenty-second of December, and the word was
mama.
If instead you believe my father, it happened on the twenty-
first,
and she spoke not one word but two:
chocolate zabaglione.

On Christmas Day, she said
dada.
I don’t remember any other gifts I received that year.

For a while, Grandma produced needlepoint images of bunnies, kittens, puppies, and other creatures that would charm a child. She soon grew bored, however, and switched to reptiles.

On March 21, 1999, when Annie was fourteen months old, I drove Lorrie to the hospital in good weather and without incident, and she delivered Lucy Jean.

When the afterbirth issued only moments after Mello Melodeon had tied and cut the umbilical, he complimented Lorrie: “Smoother than last time. Why, that was as effortlessness as an experienced broodmare dropping a colt.”

“As soon as you pull the wagon home,” I promised her, “I’ll give you a nice bag of oats.”

“Better laugh while you can,” she said. “’Cause now you’re a lone man in a house of three women. There’s enough of us to form a coven.”

“I’m not afraid. What more could happen to me? I’m
already
bewitched.”

Perhaps Konrad Beezo had some long-distance means of keeping tabs on us—which seemed to be the case, considering his timely visit prior to Annie’s birth. If so, he had chosen not to risk exposure this time until the baby’s gender was known.

Although I wanted a son someday, I would happily raise five daughters—or ten!—with no regrets if that would thwart Beezo’s thirst for vengeance and keep him at bay.

Just in case fate graced us with a band of sisters, I would have to get serious about the ballroom-dance instructions to which Lorrie periodically subjected me. With five daughters to chaperone and to give away in marriage, I’d miss out on too many memories if I couldn’t fox-trot.

Consequently, I learned to trip the light fantastic better than I had imagined that I could, considering that I’m biggish for my size and something of a gimp. The legend of Fred Astaire is in no danger of being eclipsed, but if you let me spin you around the floor either to a bit of Strauss or Benny Goodman, I can make you forget all about Bruno the dancing bear.

On July 14, 2000, after I’d gone to the trouble of learning to dance, fate in a single stroke pulled out from under me the rug that I was cutting, granting my desire to have a son and challenging the mad clown to keep the dark promise in the mason jar.

Fresh from his mother, little Andy did not respond to Mello Melodeon’s slap on the butt with the usual birth cry full of shock and dismay. He issued a sharp yelp unmistakably expressing offense, followed by a perfect tongue-between-the-lips raspberry.

At once I had a concern I could not help but relate to Mello. “Gee, he’s got such…a tiny one.”

“Tiny what?”

“Peepee.”

“You call it a peepee?”

“What—they use a fancier word at medical school?”

“His willy is the usual size,” Mello assured me, “and plenty big enough for what he needs it for in the immediate future.”

“My husband the idiot,” Lorrie said affectionately. “Jimmy, dear, the only baby boy ever going to be born with the equipment you expected will also have horns because he’ll be the Antichrist.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s not the Antichrist,” I said. “I can just imagine what the load in
his
diapers would smell like.”

Even in that moment of joy, Beezo was in our minds. We weren’t whistling through a haunted graveyard; we were laughing through it.

42

H
aving become the new chief of police, Huey Foster provided protection for Lorrie and baby Andy at the hospital. The guards—off-duty officers, out of uniform—were instructed to draw as little attention to themselves as possible.

A day and a half later, when I took my wife and newborn home, another policeman was already stationed in the house, waiting for us.

The chief assigned the officers in twelve-hour shifts. They came and went as unobtrusively as possible, through our garage, hiding in the backseat of Dad’s car or mine.

Huey acted not solely out of concern for us but with the hope that he would snare Konrad Beezo.

After a nervous week, when the clown did not come, Huey could no longer justify the expense of providing us protection.

Besides, if his pastry-addicted men gained any more weight, they wouldn’t be able to button their pants.

For the remainder of that first month, Dad and Mom and Grandma moved in with us from next door. Safety in numbers.

We relied also on out-of-town muscle from the Colorado Guild of Bread and Pastry Professionals. These guys put on weight, too, but being experienced bakers and lacking our family’s thoroughbred metabolism, they were wise enough to wear only pants with expandable waistlines.

At the end of the month, the Guild men had done as much as they could, and our gallant colleagues went home.

Dad and Mom moved back into their house with Weena.

We’d begun to think that Konrad Beezo might be dead. With his abiding rage against the world, his paranoia, his arrogance, and his propensity for homicidal action, he should have gotten himself killed decades ago.

If not dead, he might be residing these days in a cozy insane asylum. Perhaps he had assumed one too many false identities and now lived in a delirium of split personalities, believing himself to be Clappy and Cheeso and Slappy and Burpo and Nutsy and Bongo, all at once.

Although I feared that calamity would befall us as soon as we became convinced that Beezo was gone forever, we could not remain in a state of high anxiety for the rest of our existence. Even mere wariness eventually became an unsustainable burden.

We had to get on with life.

By July 14, 2001, when Andy celebrated his first birthday, we felt that we had safely crossed a divide between a world haunted by Beezo and a world free of him.

Life was good and getting better. Three and a half years old, Annie had long ago been potty trained. Lucy, over two years old, had just graduated from a potty to a potty seat on the grown-up toilet, and was enthusiastic about it. Andy knew the purpose of a potty but thoroughly disdained it…until gradually he began to recognize the pride that Lucy took in her ascension to a real throne.

Annie and Lucy shared a room across the hall from us. Annie liked yellow, Lucy pink; so we had painted the room half and half, with a dividing line down the middle.

Already something of a tomboy, Annie sneeringly called Lucy’s half of the room
girly.
Not yet having mastered sarcasm, Lucy judged her sister’s half
stupid lemon.

Both girls believed that a monster lived in their closet.

According to Lucy, this beast had a lot of hair and big teeth. She said it ate children and then vomited them up. Lucy was afraid of being eaten but more afraid of being vomit.

At only twenty-eight months, she had a preference for neatness and order that other toddlers not only didn’t exhibit but didn’t understand. Everything in her side of the room had its proper place. When I made her bed, she followed after me, smoothing the wrinkles out of the spread.

We figured that Lucy would be either a brilliant mathematician or a world-famous architect, or the subject of intense interest to psychologists studying obsessive-compulsive disorder.

To the extent that Lucy thrived on order, Annie luxuriated in disorder. When I made
her
bed, she followed after me, “smunching” it to give it a more relaxed look.

According to Annie, the monster in the closet had scales, lots of tiny teeth, red eyes, and claws that it painted blue. Her monster, like Lucy’s, ate children—not in a gulp, as did Lucy’s terror, but slowly, savoring them nibble by nibble.

Although we assured the girls that no monsters lived in the closet, any parent knows that such assurances are not particularly effective.

Lorrie designed a fancy sign on her computer, printed it in red and black, and taped it to the
inside
of the closet door:
MONSTERS
,
PAY ATTENTION
!
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED INTO THIS BEDROOM
!
IF YOU CAME IN THROUGH A CRACK IN THE CLOSET FLOOR
,
YOU MUST LEAVE AT ONCE THE SAME WAY
!
WE DO NOT ALLOW YOUR TYPE IN THIS HOUSE
!

This comforted them for a while. Irrational fears, however, are the most persistent kind.

Not just in children, either. In a world where rogue states ruled by madmen are seeking nuclear weapons, look at how many people fear a tad too much fat in their diets and one part per ten million of pesticide in their apple juice to a greater degree than they fear suitcase bombs.

To further reassure the girls, we stood Captain Fluffy, a teddy bear in a military-style cap, on a chair beside the closet door. The captain served as a sentry on whom they could depend to protect them.

“He’s just a dumb bear,” Annie said.

“Yeah. Dumb,” Lucy agreed.

“He can’t scare off monsters,” Annie said. “They’ll eat him.”

“Yeah,” Lucy concurred. “Eat him and puke him up.”

“On the contrary,” Lorrie told them, “the captain is very smart and comes from a long line of bears that have for centuries guarded good little girls. They have never lost one child.”

“Not one?” Annie asked dubiously.

“Not one,” I assured her.

“Maybe they lost some but lied about it,” Annie said.

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Lied about it.”

“Does Captain Fluffy look like a liar?” Lorrie asked.

Annie studied him. Then: “No. But neither does Gran-gran Weena, but Grandpa says she didn’t either know any guy blew himself up with a fart like she says.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, “blew up with a fart.”

I said, “Grandpa never accused Gran-gran of lying. He just said she sometimes exaggerates a little.”

“Captain Fluffy doesn’t look like a liar, and he isn’t a liar,” Lorrie said, “so you should apologize to him.”

Annie chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “I’m sorry, Captain Fluffy.”

“Yeah. Fluffy,” Lucy said.

In addition to leaving on a Pooh night-light, we gave each girl a small flashlight. As everyone knows, a beam of light will vaporize either a vomiting or a nibbling monster.

Twelve months passed, another sweet year crowded with bright memories, without
real
terror.

Although three of the five dates on the back of the circus pass remained in the future, we could not assume that any of the ordeals ahead of me had anything to do with Konrad Beezo. Prudence required that we be more alert for threats that might come from sources having nothing to do with the clown or his imprisoned son.

Twenty-eight years had passed since the night of my birth. If still alive, Beezo would be nearly sixty. He might still be as insane as a maze-crazed lab rat, but time had to have taken a toll on him as it does on everyone. Surely he wouldn’t be as passionate in his hatred, as energetic in his fury.

As the summer of 2002 waned, I felt that we had most likely seen the last of Konrad Beezo.

By September, when our Andy was twenty-six months old, he had a closet monster of his own. His was a child-eating clown.

Our apprehension at this revelation cannot be exaggerated. Although our house didn’t easily lend itself to such retrofitting, we contracted to have an alarm system installed, wiring all doors and windows.

We hadn’t told the kids about Konrad Beezo, Punchinello, or anything regarding the violence those men had perpetrated and the threats they’d made. Annie, Lucy, and Andy were far too young to understand any of that macabre history, too young to be burdened with it. The scariest thing they could handle at their age was a closet monster or three.

We considered that they might have heard something of the story from a playmate. This was unlikely, because our kids never played with other children out of our sight.

We had never felt we could afford to assume for certain that Konrad Beezo was dead or moldering in a booby hatch; therefore, one of us always remained with the kids when they were at play, and often one or both of my parents were there, as well. We watched. We listened. Surely we would have heard.

Maybe Andy had seen a bad clown in a movie, on TV, in a cartoon. Although we monitored their exposure to packaged entertainment and tried to protect them from a media that seemed hell-bent on corrupting them in a hundred different ways, we could not be certain beyond all doubt that we had not slipped up and that impressionable little Andy hadn’t glimpsed an evil clown with a chainsaw.

The boy provided no insight into the inspiration for his fear. From his perspective, the situation was simple:

There was a clown.

The clown was bad.

The bad clown wanted to eat him.

The bad clown hid in his closet.

If he fell asleep, the bad clown would munch on him.

“Can’t you
smell
him?” Andy asked.

We couldn’t catch a whiff.

We put a solemn sign on the inside of his closet door, warning off the cannibal clown. We presented Andy with a teddy bear named Sergeant Snuggles, his own version of Captain Fluffy. He received his own special monster-vaporizing flashlight with an easy-on switch for small uncertain hands.

In addition, we put in the alarm system, purchased small aerosol cans of pepper spray and secreted them throughout the house in places high enough to be beyond the children’s reach, purchased four tasers and distributed them in similar fashion. We added second deadbolts to the front door, the back door, and the door between the kitchen and the garage.

Because Grandpa Josef had not mentioned January 12, 1998, in his predictions—the night that Beezo had attempted to kidnap Lorrie, deliver our first child himself, and abscond with the baby—but had cited only January 19, when our house had been burned down, we could only assume that he might have also failed to warn us of another bad day closely associated with the upcoming third date on his list. For at least two weeks prior, we would need to work ourselves into a state of judicious paranoia.

We had enjoyed nearly four years of peace, of normalcy. Now, as the third of the five dates approached—Monday, December 23, 2002—we felt a long shadow falling across us, a shadow out of time, with its origins in August 9, 1974.