Death by Facebook (10 page)

My
profile had several more comments, mostly about my post of two weeks
ago about being dead and all, but also about my not saying anything
after that.

Larry
McKenzie:
“
So,
if you're really dead, show me a sign.”

David
Hazlett
:
“Come
on Jimmy. I can see right through you!”

Larry
McKenzie:
“
are
you still dead?”

Janet
clicked in the box that asked 'What's on your mind?' and typed a
brief sentence. Having waited this long to say anything would be
dramatic no matter what she said, but she found an elegance in
simplicity that was uncharacteristic to anyone that knew me.

Jimmy
Turner:
“
Sorry.
Only part of me died. The rotten part.”

13

Larry
Larson loved a mystery, if for no other reason than he was good at
solving puzzles. Mysteries, though, unlike their odd shaped
cardboard cousins had a distinct thrill. Mysteries never let you see
all the pieces at once, they seemed to trickle in one or two or a few
at a time. That lack of information only made the game more fun, for
it was the pursuit of a clue, the chase of a theory that gave it
life.

The
bartender at the Lava Lounge had seen a lot of strangeness, more than
her share for such a small outpost. Her early years in Chicago had
shown her all the typical dark sides of humanity, but here, in the
high jungle, darkness had a different set of shadows. She attributed
it mostly to the remoteness of Volcano town, some to the vog -
volcanic smog - and more than she would care to admit to the spirits.
No one here called them spirits, they used the term energy, vibes or
“the presence”, but either way in her mind it was
spirits.

She
caught Larry's eye and brought over another Lava Lager. “So,”
nodding over to the headlamp crew, “what do you make of these
guys?” She took the bar rag off her shoulder and wiped the koa
counter around Larry's coaster.

“
Those
guys?” Larry glanced over, catching the tall guy playing his
ukulele again while the other guys, headlamps blinking red, nodded.
“Tourists. Crazy tourists no doubt, but they seem harmless
enough.”

“
Not
as crazy as that redhead with the cut up hands.” Turning, the
bartender looked over at the empty corner booth. “She was in
here a moment ago, did you see her?”

“
No,”
Larry nodded. “Cut up hands?”

“
Last
night, I don't think you were here, but this girl with long red hair
was in here, drinking like a fish. Her hands looked to be sliced up
pretty bad like she had fallen down on the sharp lava. She was using
a lot of napkins as they looked to be bleeding a little. I finally
got to cutting her off from any more beers when one of those crazy
head lamp guys made a move on her.”

“
These
same guys?” Larry asked.

“
Oh
yeah, same group. One of them went over to her booth and before I
knew it he was yelling and falling over chairs to get away from her.

“
She
left right away, but I could hear him telling everyone she wanted him
to lick the blood off her hands. Crazy shit like that.”

“
Whoa,”
Larry mumbled, pushing his empty mug right past the incoming full
one. “Thanks.”

“
She
just left a minute ago. You didn't see her, in that corner booth?”

Larry
looked around the bartender toward the empty dark corner booth where
Private James Turner had sat immediately after coming into the bar
ahead of him. He knew his bartender friend occupied the sober side
of the bar, but for a moment he thought she had her story mixed up.

“
You
just said this crazy red head girl had long hair. The guy I walked
in with sat in that booth and had a crew cut.”

The
bartender had both her elbows on the bar now and was listening
intently. “You gave the telegram to the redhead that sat in
that corner booth?”

“
Yeah,
that's right.” Larry said, suspecting a problem in the tone of
the bartender's question.

The
bartender straightened up, put her hands on her hips and sighed.
Shaking her head a bit, as seasoned bartenders do when they
occasionally see something they haven't seen a million times before,
she looked back at Larry. This, she kept to herself, was another
example of bad spirits, bad energy amongst the jungle dwellers.

“
That
there redhead, in that booth over there tonight, crew cut or not, is
no James Turner.”

Larry
leaned back on his stool and laughed. “Ah come on!” He
looked over at the empty booth again. “Then who was it?”

The
bartender looked over at the headlampers and pointed to Dave. “Why
don't you ask him? He'll tell you a story.”

She
walked over a round of mugs to that table and pointed out Larry at
the bar. Dave got up and came over.

“
How
you doing there?” Dave asked, extending his hand to Larry.

Larry
turned a bit in his chair, took his hand and asked “Great, how
about yourself?”

“
Not
bad, but I wanted to ask you, being a local here in this bar and all,
do people usually come out of the jungle a bit,” Dave paused
and looked around, then added “crazy?”

Larry
tried not to take insult, being a jungle dweller himself. “Well,
Dave, define crazy.” He was staring up at the blinking
headlamp on Dave's head.

Dave
got the hint and quickly pulled off the head lamp. “Well, not
this
kind of crazy. The oozing open wounds bleeding in a bar asking me to
lick up the blood kind of crazy. You know,
real
crazy.”

Larry
looked back to his beer for just a moment and laughed. “Yeah,
well, that
is
pretty crazy. I don't know. I didn't see that.”

Dave
tilted his head a bit in confusion. “Well, you walked in with
her tonight. She sat in that booth over in the corner.”

Larry
turned in his chair to face Dave now, frowning a bit. “That
guy with the short military haircut?”

Dave
nodded. “Yeah, that was her. She cut all of her hair off, who
knows why? Maybe got tired of cutting her hands. But that was her
alright.”

The
bartender was back and leaned up to the bar as Dave continued.

“
I
saw her hands tonight. Same
crazy
chick,” Dave put some more emphasis on crazy.

“
See
Larry, I told ya. Dave here had a close up,” the bartender
laughed. “Too close maybe?”

“
I'll
say!” Dave said a bit too loud. “Hey, good meeting you,
I'm going to go back and finish my hot wings.”

The
bartender watched Dave put his head lamp back on and make his way
back to his table. Turning she leaned in toward Larry. “So,
that redhead actually said she was Private James Turner?”

Larry
nodded.

“
And,
she took the telegram from you?”

“
Yep.”

Both
of them stirred the silence with their own private thoughts for
several moments. There had to be some kind of explanation, but
neither of them could fashion one.

“
You
know,” Larry began. “I just thought it was one of those
Don't Ask, Don't Tell cases. He did look a bit effeminate, or she
did, of course. I mean, if you're gonna put your ass on the line who
cares which way you swing, right?”

The
bartender glanced quickly around her tables and caught an eye of the
headlamp crew waving wildly for more beers. “Look Larry,”
she said as she was forced to go back to work. “I agree.
People do a lot of strange things that I don't understand. But, I do
know this: Private James Turner has not been in my bar yet.”
She turned, poured six Lavas and carrying them like they were popcorn
headed for the flashing red lights.

Larry
couldn't get an angle on this mystery so he waited, waited for the
next puzzle piece to appear. In his experience another one always
did.

The
macadamia nuts on the bar were almost gone and as he picked up the
last one he saw his friend Alex, from the front desk, walk in.

~~~

Agatha
found herself getting antsy in the soda shop. Burr's was obviously
the place to be if the center of the social universe was your goal.
Every happy person in Sacramento must be in here, she thought,
laughing, talking and enjoying all the commotion.

On
any other occasion this would have been fun, she had to admit. Just
not now. She had spent practically every ounce of her will power to
propel her soul into this adventure, and she was aching. Any further
delay in talking to him would torture her further.

Obscenely
big ice cream floats were being placed on the table. Apparently,
they all had one, some kind of signature thing he had ordered for
everyone.

She
was watching him. It was all she could do if conversation was
impossible. Watching him closely, and replaying every word of their
Facebook chats, messages and emails, she reviewed what he must now
know of her. She was a widower, still lived in the same
neighborhood, had adopted a boy who was now in the Army, drove an
early Prius and had three lovely cats: Tahoe, Reno and Truckee. He
was divorced, some ten years now, had no kids, worked for a defense
contractor at McClellan Air Force Base and had just bought a fully
restored 1972 Camaro convertible.

For
just an instant, and really not a moment longer, she felt the same
manic anticipation, the full force of teenage angst she remembered
having the first time he picked her up on a date, in an old beat up
1972 Camaro convertible.