A Picture is Worth

Mt Rainier hike, August 2012

Someone Sings

Some people swore that the house was haunted. They claimed to have heard the sound of singing. A female voice, soft and sweet. A woman had committed suicide there years ago. She’d been found hanging from the balusters of the upstairs landing. It caused a sensation at the time. She was the wife of an influential man in the community, a banker named Arthur Mann. Rumor had it that Mann was a womanizer and kept up his shenanigans even after he’d married his young bride. When she found out he was unfaithful, she took her own life. It was a double tragedy, in that she was pregnant. But there was another, more sinister plot line.

Mann’s wife Emma was the only child of a wealthy industrialist, who’d put a considerable amount of money in trust for his beloved daughter. She received the money outright the day she turned 21; just a year after she married Mann. A year later, she was dead, and Mann, the beneficiary of her trust money, was able to pull his bank from the brink of insolvency. People thought that was awfully convenient, but the police could find no evidence of foul play.

Mann had died only three years after Emma’s suicide. Some said he was broken hearted over the death of his young wife and their unborn son. Others were less generous in their convictions. The imposing Victorian mansion had been vacant since Mann’s death all those many years ago.

%%%

Jacob hears the singing now. The sound comes floating across the unkempt lawn like an evening mist -- a woman’s voice. He can’t make out the words, but it makes him feel like crying.

Jacob stands in the lee of a cluster of birch trees and cocks his head to the left and then the right, trying to pick up the sound of the singing again, but he’s lost it in the rustle and whisper of the wind shimmering the leaves of the birch. He looks at the trees and follows their white, striated trunks and branches up into the leaves, which the moon has turned to silver.

Clouds scudding across the bruised grey sky slide over the moon. Suddenly it is dark, the wind dies, there is no rustling of leaves, all is silence and stillness, and then the boy hears the singing again; the soft, sweet, melodic sounds of the song floating through the trees. He stops and turns his head, listening. Where is it coming from? 

A seedpod shaped like a teardrop and hung from a tiny, inverted parasol of fine filaments floats through the air, touches Jacob’s cheek, and settles on his shoulder. He turns his head, reaches up and, with thumb and index finger carefully takes it and brings it down to inspect. When he looks up, she’s there.

%%%

Jacob’s mother is sure that her son is still alive. It’s been seven years since he vanished, and despite an extensive investigation, no sign of him has surfaced. The mother’s determination to keep pursuing the case put an unbearable stress on the marriage and now the mother lives alone. She spends her days rereading newspaper accounts of the boy’s disappearance, and the ensuing investigation. She wanders the streets peering at faces of boys too young now to be her son.

It was on one of her aimless walks that she happened upon the house. It stood in stark silhouette against a hazy sky backlit by a weak evening sun. The house seemed a foreboding presence, crouched there as if ready to pounce. She stood and stared at it. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. She moved cautiously toward the house.

A cloud passed in front of the sun and the sky darkened. The slight breeze that had been cooling the humid evening turned to a harsh, cold wind, and the mother reached to grasp her straw hat. Her skirt blew and billowed around her legs, and dust blew up into her eyes. She turned her head away.

The scream startled her and as she looked to identify its source, the wind whipped her hat away, and it raced, tumbling across the brown weeds and away from the house. She felt the wind on her body like hands, pushing her away.

Jacob’s mother, hunched against the wind, glared at the house. Summoning her courage, she moved towards the house, struggling against the wind, fiercer now, the screaming growing in intensity. A window screen tore loose and flew at her like a scythe. She ducked it and reached the porch.

As she stepped up on the porch, the wind died and the scream stopped. The sudden silence was as unnerving as the violence before it had been. She pushed aside the broken door and stepped into the house. It was then that she knew. Jacob was here. Her son was here. She moved quickly to the stairs and began climbing, hesitatingly at first, but then with determination, rising rapidly towards the landing; towards the balusters.

%%%

The house was torn down in 2007 as part of a larger land development that faltered as the housing bubble burst. A treeless track of weed-infested land stretches east towards the town proper, ending at a desultory creek that is most often just mud.

The area is posted with No Trespassing signs, but teenagers still drive out along the empty streets laid out to deliver homeowners to homes that were never built. In the daytime it’s a great place to learn to drive, or to just raise hell. At night, it’s a favorite make-out destination.

No one remembers the house and its story now; it was so long ago. So when teenagers report seeing a woman walking with a young boy late a night, no one connects it to the disappearance of Jacob and his mother, or to the death of young Emma and her unborn son.

But some teens have cut short their late-night excursions and come home shaken. They think they saw a noose around the woman’s neck, dragging behind her as she walked, hand-in-hand with the boy. People tell them they must have mistaken a shawl for the noose, but they’re sure it was a noose.

When people ask, “But then where is the woman? And what about the boy; where is he?” No one has an answer.

2012

Chapter 20: Another Mega Donor Chips In
[Go to beginning]

Karl Rove hurried out of the Capital Republican Club and jaywalked across 1st street to the South Metro Station. He stood in the giant hall of the station and called Harold Simmons, one of the GOP’s big money men.

Simmons answered on the first ring. “Yeah, what’s happening Karl, my man?” Simmons drawled.

“Hi ya, Hal, it’s Karl,” Rove said unnecessarily. “Been wondering how you and Ann are holding up, what with all the election excitement.”

“Excitement?! You call this horse shit excitement, Karl? Why hell, I’ve done tractoring’s more excitin than this, boy.”

“What do think of Romney’s VP pick, Hal?” Rove asked.

“Good choice, far as I’m concerned. Boy’s got a good head on his shoulders,” Simmons said. “But I’m still not satisfied we’ve got this thing in the bag, Karl. The courts are giving us a hard timer on our voter ID push here in Texas.”

Judges had ruled that the costs of obtaining a voter ID would fall most heavily on poor African-Americans and Hispanics in Texas, a state with a history of voter discrimination, and that such groups would face unwarranted hardships if the law were to be applied.

“So I hear, Hal. But we’re making progress in the swing states, and that’s what’s important. Hell, there’s no way Texas electoral votes are going Obama’s way,” Rove crowed. “And speaking of that, we could use an infusion of money to help in some of our other election initiatives, and--”

“Now Karl, you know I’ve given a hell of a lot of money already.”

“Well, yeah, but a lot of that was--”

Simmons interrupted, “I know. It was for Santorum’s super PAC, but you told Annette the guy had a chance,” Simmons said. “And money’s, money, Karl. Besides which, I’ve given another mil to Romney.”

“And we appreciate it, Hal. We do. But it’s coming down to the wire and everything we can swing now will help ensure victory in November,” Rove said, speaking quickly to prevent another interruption from Simmons, and running a handkerchief across his sweating brow.

“What do you need the money for, Karl?” Simmons asked.

“We need to pay for lawyers and poll watchers in the swing states to prevent voters without the authorized identifications from voting in the election,” Rove said. “That’s a lot of feet on the ground, Hal.”

“No shit!” Simmons said. “But I guess that’s one good thing we can use lawyers for; the sons of bitches aren’t good for anything else,” Simmons said. “How much?”

Rove hesitated. Simmons had already donated more than $18 million dollars to various Republican candidates and super PACs. How much could he wring out of Simmons this time? “Well, with what I’m getting from Foster, I think another million would do it.”

Rove held his breath. He hadn’t hit up Foster Friess yet, but if he got the money from Simmons, he could then go to Friess and use Simmon’s contribution as leverage to get a similar amount from Friess. Rove knew that the GOP mega donors were competitive as all hell when it came to who was paying in the most money.

“Okay, I’ll have my fucking accountant make the arrangements. Shit, every time I talk to you it costs me money, Karl,” Simmons said.

“Well, I appreciate it Hal. Can I ask you one more thing?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve money,” Simmons said.

“No, no. I just want to reiterate how important it is to keep holding out on any job growth until after November,” Rove said.

Simmons headed up Contran Corporation a huge chemical and metals conglomerate that controlled millions of jobs across the nation. Simmons holdings included multinational conglomerates NL Industries, Titanium Metals Corp., Valhi Inc., Kronos Worldwide Inc. and Keystone Consolidated Industries Inc. Many of Simmons’ businesses were heavily regulated waste-control and nuclear-waste disposal businesses, and Simmons wanted people in power who would eliminate all the burdensome regulations that, in his opinion, limited his options on how to maximize profits.

“I hear ya, Karl,” Simmons said. “All our hiring has been off the books. But here again, it’s costing me a ton of money just to payoff all the lawyers I need to keep me out of trouble on this.”

“And we appreciate it, Hal. Imagine the impact we’ll have, though, when employment figures shoot up after Romney is elected.” Rove said, scowling at a panhandler that was sidling up to him.
_________________________________________
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

2012

Chapter 19: Hire slowly, if at all
[Go to beginning]

“Look, Karl, we can’t hold off on hiring forever.”

“Charles, November isn’t forever. Can’t you hire, but delay putting new employees on the books?” Karl Rove knew that Charles Koch was a savvy businessman. There was no question in his mind that Koch could make Koch Industries employment records look like the great depression was still going on. Something else was on Koch’s mind.

“You’re asking me to cook the books, Karl?” Koch was having fun. He liked to hear Rove, the little weasel, whine and whimper.

“No, no. Please don’t put it like that, Charles. That sounds like fraud. I’m--”

Koch interrupted. “But Karl, isn’t that exactly what it is? You want the jobs picture to look worse than it is in order to hurt Obama’s chance of reelection.”

Rove ignored Koch’s barb and finished his sentence. “...simply asking you to delay a little longer, a month or two, until the die is cast, if you will.” Rove sighed. “You and David are running a one hundred billion dollar company. How hard can it be to slow down the bookkeeping on recording new hires?”

“It’s a big risk, Karl,” Koch said.

Here it comes, thought Rove.

“We could be audited. I don’t know. I’d want some sort of assurances.”

“What kind of assurances,” Rove said.

“Well, suppose Obama wins the election, God forbid, then what?”

“Jesus, Charles, we don’t even want to consider that,” Rove said.

“I have to consider it, Karl. As distasteful as the prospect is. So what I’m asking is, what is the Party going to do for Koch industries should such a disaster befall the country?”

Finally, the old bastard gets to the point, Rove thought. “You know the Party has always supported business, Charles. That’s not going to change, even with a Democratic president. I mean, look what we did to Obama up to now. He can’t get anything done.”

“Karl...,” Koch let the name hang there, “I want specifics. I want a pledge that a Republican Congress isn’t going to let these damned environmentalists pass more onerous regulations, I want additional offshore leases opened up, including off California, I want that goddamned pipeline built. Are you hearing me?” Koch was getting angry just thinking about all the government intrusions he imagined would occur in a second Obama term. He took out a monogrammed handkerchief and wiped his brow.

“I hear you, Charles. Of course. There’s no way we’re going to--”

Koch had taken a breath and now interrupted Rove again. “And for god’s sake let’s put this global warming bullshit to rest once and for all, Karl!”

“Well...,” Rove said. His sense was that Republicans were getting leery of being seen on the wrong side of the global warming debate when much of the Republican constituency, from Texas to Mississippi was suffering the worst drought since the dust bowl.

Kansas Corn, 2012

“Well, nothing,” Koch said, pouring water from a pitcher on his desk into a glass filled with melting ice. “Do you know how much money David and I have poured into the Heartland Institute? Do you?”

“I imagine it’s a lot,” said Rove. He knew that reports showed that the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups that some had called, “The Merchants of Doubt.”

“You’re goddamned right, it’s a lot. Look Karl, I want you and that dimwit Priebus to get out here and sit down with David and I. I want this face-to-face, you understand?”

Rove opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Koch was rattling on.

“We’re going to start with a statement of principles, and then lay out what we want item by item. And once we’re agreed, I want McConnell and Boehner to sign on the dotted line. This needs to happen ASAP. I’ll have Kevin call you.”

“Kevin?” Rove said.

“Kevin Gentry, he’s one of the more articulate free-market types and we need his thinking on this.”

“Fine, fine, Charles, but getting back to the reason for my call--”

“Yeah, yeah, Karl. We can keep holding back on full-scale hiring and we’ll make sure that putting new hires on the books takes place with glacial speed. That satisfy you?”

“You bet. Thanks , Charles, I really--.” Rove stared at his cell phone. A lighted panel said, “Call Ended.”
_______________________________________
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Scars

I got this here scar in the middle of my forehead or maybe a little to the right just above the eyebrow and running long side my head right here to the sideburn what I got now, but didn’t have then. Lucky not to lose the eye, I suppose. It don’t look too bad now, or I don’t think it does, but you ought to have seen it when that shovel hit me and laid open my forehead and the skin flap hanging down over the eye, blood ever where, and me hollering bloody hell, “Momma, momma!”

My daddy were a mean drunk and either he were drunk all the time or he were just mean, drunk or sober. What I done to earn that shovel cross my head was sneak a mason jar of hooch outta his hidey hole and damned if he didn’t come up on me fore I had that lid off and me looking at him like he were a freight train bearing down on me and me staring in his fiery eyes like they was high beams and wham!

I survived that run in with daddy but daddy didn’t. My ma grabbed holt o me and hauled me in the house and wrapped my head with a dish rag or somethin and then grabbed the 12-gauge and while daddy were leaning over trying to save some of that there hooch running out the jar, mamma filled his butt with two loads of #4 shot. I think she did it as much fer what he done to my sister as fer hitting me. Anyways the second load I guess tore off his private parts and daddy laid out there in the yard and bled out. I’ll never ferget the moaning went on all night and I was doing some moaning of my own but like I said, I survived.

Some Remodels Go On Forever

Some people swore that the house was haunted. I hoped so. It should be. I’d buried two wives and an increasingly demanding girlfriend in the basement, and seeded several other wives, girlfriends, and acquaintances throughout the place. They were probably haunting each other in the old bay-and-gable row house in what had been a working class neighborhood of Baltimore, but was now what the city fathers euphemistically termed a "blighted area."

I walked down a sidewalk showing signs of severe earthquake damage lugging my parcel, glancing up at a darkening sky. My breath came in strangled gasps as I finally reached the wreak of a house. I pledged for the umpteenth time to make the gym a regular destination. 

I paused at the steps, staring at the grey shamble of a porch. The front screen door swung wildly in the wind, banging and screeching like my dearly departed girlfriend, Sonora, as I held her down and deepened the part in her jet black hair. What a temper she had. The first two wives were angels compared to her, and they were no angels.

I hated having to come back to this dump, but I received yet another notice from the city that I was in violation of code, something to do with unsightly, unsanitary, unsafe, and probably just damned unappealing conditions. Mostly, it was the smell; probably a cracked sewer pipe, a city inspector suggested. I argued that the whole area was about to be bulldozed and converted to "open space,"another euphemism for no more affordable housing, but my pleading fell on deaf ears. Not wanting to break any laws, I’d come to remedy the unfortunate smell emanating from the premises.

I let the 50-pound bag of lye slide off my shoulder onto the porch and walked into the house. The wind whipping across the door made a scream not unlike that wrenched from Marley, my first wife, when I pushed the kitchen knife up under her ribcage. So many women. So much blood.

Marley, Denara, my second wife, and Sonora, were just three of the ten (or was it eleven?) women I’d terminally reprimanded (yes, eleven). I stood in the foyer and surveyed the empty spaces around me; living room (a misnomer in this house), dining room (I chewed off two of Sonora’s fingers in there; served her right for shoving her hand in my face as I choked her), and back through there, the kitchen, where the knives had been kept.

I headed for the stairs. I wanted to check the upstairs bedrooms and play a little game with myself. There was a dead rat on the landing. “That’s what you get for nibbling on Nora,” I said to the desiccated creature. I glanced to my left, towards the master bedroom. Is that where Nora is? I wondered. I went into each bedroom and tried to remember which former woman friend was where. I should have brought a pen and note pad.

Walking through each bedroom I was dismayed to see what age and neglect had done to the remodeling I’d spent so much time on in each room; replacing drywall, baseboards, paint, wall paper. Don’t let anyone tell you that hiding bodies in walls is easy. For one thing, there’s only sixteen inches between wall studs and some of my “projects” were, shall we say, Rubenesque in stature. The purchase of a Craftsman 10” Table Saw allowed me to artfully place body parts in the wall spaces without degrading load-bearing beams.

My game of hide and seek was, I’m afraid, a bit of a dud. I couldn’t remember who was where. It had just been so long ago. Only the gals in the basement were, shall we say, “fresh,” and this was the source of the problem I’d come out to fix.

I went back down stairs shaking my head. How quickly we forget the good times. I opened the door under the stairs, only to be repelled bodily by a brawny aroma that was physical in its intensity. I wondered about my ability to go down those steep stairs to the basement and dig up Marley, Denara, and Sonora, and sprinkle them with the lye I’d left on the porch. Why the hell hadn’t I thought to do this in the first place? They all used too much perfume, but surely I’d had no thought that this affectation would tied them over into putrefaction.

I went back to the porch to retrieve the bag of lye. Two small boys were on the porch. The larger of the two was methodically kicking the bag. A fine dusting of white powder decorated his scuffed Air Jordans and was spreading across the porch.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing!” I said.

“Dat meth?” the boy said, looking at me with a mixture of curiosity and cunning.

To be continued (but how?)

The Vengeful Djinn

The air

thick with heat

The sky

a sickly yellow-brown

Coagulate black clouds

laced with lightening

pressed down upon a ravaged land

Rolling thunder punctuated

the constant roar of cyclonic winds

and rain and hail battered what little was left standing

The black clouds now melded with the horizon

rose ponderously to reveal a gigantic funnel cloud

seeded with the remnants of what was once a civilization

The storm howled over the devastation like the voice of the vengeful Djinn