The Northwoods Chronicles (21 page)

“Oh, my god,” she said, uncrossed her legs and
pulled up the leg of her sweatpants. On her calf was a bite mark,
still red and imprinted, though no skin was broken. “This woke me
up tonight. It felt like a bite. Hurt like bloody hell. Look.” She
held the monkey’s jaw to the bite mark on her calf. It fit exactly.
“Jesus,” she said. “That’s creepy.” She tossed it on the fire, and
John repressed the urge to jump up and grab it out. Instead, he
willed the panic to subside, insisted that his muscles relax. He
thought for a moment that he would cry. Instead, he closed his eyes
and tried to be one with the universe, to know that the evaporated
particles of the jawbone were being returned to their natural
elements. He breathed deeply, hoping to breathe some of them
in.

“I need social tutoring,” he said.

“I’m only available tonight,” she said, and
rested her head on his shoulder. John put an arm around her and
realized that the monkey and its jawbone had sent him out into the
world, and started him on the path of showing him the things he
ought to be knowing. He breathed in the delicious, perfumed scent
of Natasha and realized that that monkey and its jawbone had just
saved his life for the second time.

Margie dried her hands
on the dishtowel, then threw it into the laundry bag for the
service to pick up in the morning. She did one last walk-through of
the diner, checked that the front door was locked, turned on the
nightlight behind the counter, turned off the overheads, and walked
into the quiet kitchen. She paused, listening to the quiet hum of
the refrigerators.

She was hardly ever the last person here
anymore. Someone else usually closed up for her. When she was here,
the place was a bustle of noise. But it was nice when it was
closed, and instead of putting on her coat and heading home, she
put a teabag into a cup of water and stuck it into the microwave.
Then she sat down at the big baking table and warmed her hands
around the mug.

This had been the single worst day in all the
years she had run the diner. A crew of actors, actresses, camera
people, directors, makeup artists and whole trailers full of stuff
had arrived in town to film a commercial, and they were going to be
around for a week.

By the end of the lunch shift, Margie’s two
cooks and two waitresses wanted to put a “No Hollywood Types” sign
on the door. The Californians were driving them nuts. By the end of
dinner shift, Margie wasn’t sure who would be willing to show up
for work the next day.

Nothing satisfied those people, and it was
mostly because what was on Margie’s menu wasn’t on their diets.
They wanted low-fat this and vegetarian that, half-caff this and
with a twist of that. They asked for substitutions with virtually
every meal, because nobody liked what she had to offer. They
shrieked with laughter when they saw Margie’s specialty, fried
cheese curds, on the menu. Margie always liked to accommodate when
she could, but two people yelled at her girls, and at least a dozen
more left their meals on the tables and walked off without paying
their checks.

Margie cried in the ladies room twice. Something
she tried never to do.

This was her diner’s worst day ever and those
people were going to be here for the rest of the week. Maybe she
should recommend to them that someone cater their food. Margie was
certain she lost money, and she hoped she hadn’t lost good
employees.

Margie folded her arms and rested her head. She
was tired beyond tired. She was past exhaustion. She was fed up.
She was overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed.

She and Jimbo had done all right in White Pines
Junction. They owned the diner free and clear, along with the land
it sat on. They had only a little mortgage left on their home.
Jimbo was almost finished with the novel he was writing, little
stories and anecdotes about living in Vargas County and the strange
things that were always going on. Jason was growing up to be a fine
boy with an incredible intelligence. He’d get scholarships to the
university of his choice, there was no doubt about that. Except for
today, life was good.

Except.

She looked up at the calendar on the wall. Micah
would have turned seven in another month. She’d be shopping the
catalogs for his presents already, and party preparations would
already be under way. He’d be excited as any little boy could get,
having a hard time sleeping as the time drew near. He’d be in
school now, she thought with a pang. Bringing home art for the
refrigerator.

She blinked twice and then wondered how she
could ever have thought that life was good when they were without
their son. It made her angry to think that she could be getting
over him. She should be pining for him every moment of every day,
like a decent mother.

“Stop it,” she said out loud and then took a
long sip of the chamomile tea. She’d been to enough counseling
sessions to know that grief eventually fades, and life goes on.
Everybody dies.

If only Micah had died. But he hadn’t.

“I would give this whole building, this whole
business, my happy home life and my good health to just see him one
more time,” she said to the silent kitchen. “I’d give up Jimbo and
Jason and my right hand just to know that he was all right.” A sob
caught in the back of her throat, and she made the conscious
decision to indulge herself for as long as that cup of tea lasted,
then she’d regain control with her iron grip, and carry on with
life. In the morning she’d order some nonfat yogurt and milk and
buy some turkey sausage and some of those non-cholesterol fake
eggs.

But before the tea was cold in its cup, Margie
had gone to the office and fetched the small white paper pharmacy
sack from the back of the bottom file drawer and sat with the two
bottles of blue capsules. She had kept the leftover narcotics from
when Jimbo cut his hand, and again when he had that hernia fixed.
There was more than enough here to end her misery and her grief and
her horrible, horrible guilt. Yes, she believed that suicide was a
mortal sin, and that she would choose the finality of death as her
choice, but she also believed that Jesus would give her one more
chance to hold her little boy in her arms before she said good-bye
to him, and that’s all she was asking for, really. She’d gladly
give up her eternal life for one more hug and a whiff of his sweet
tousled head.

Margie sipped the tea and knew that tea wasn’t
part of the program. Beer was. Drink two beers to slow the
metabolism, eat a sandwich to slow the absorption, and then start
taking the pills, slowly, two at a time, until she felt so sleepy
she couldn’t stay awake. Then she’d go lie down on the couch in the
office, pull the afghan over her, put her head on a pillow, maybe
take a few more just to make certain, and then go to meet her
little boy and her doom, both together, perhaps in that order.

The thought of it was the only thing that gave
her peace. As she sat at the big table in the dark diner with only
the humming of the giant coolers to keep her company, she wondered
why she hadn’t done it already.

It was time.

Knowing that, she felt the exhaustion of the day
slough off her shoulders, and the excitement of a new adventure
began to fuel her.

She popped the top off one of the pill bottles
and spilled the capsules out onto the tabletop. Then she opened the
refrigerator and got herself a Michelob. It had been hours since
she’d eaten, so she opened the bread and pulled out the cold
chicken and tomatoes and made herself a big, sloppy sandwich, then
set a place for herself at the table. This was a ceremony, not
anything to gulp standing up at the sink. Before sitting down, she
went back to the office for a piece of paper. She needed to leave a
note for Jimbo.

Then she drank her beer, ate half of her
sandwich, took a couple of capsules, and tried to compose her
note.

Forgive me, Jimbo,
she wrote.
I know
Jesus does. I can’t go any longer with this burden of guilt. I need
to see my baby.

Margie read it out loud to herself, and it
sounded stupid. Oh well. Suicide notes were not supposed to be
great literary works. This would get the job done. She finished the
beer and opened another.
Be good to yourself, my love, and take
care of Jason. He’ll need you now the way Micah needs me.

That was pretty good. She took two more capsules
and started in on the other half of her sandwich. Two more pills
from the pilfered stash and she’d be beyond the point of no return.
She could survive four, or maybe even six of these narcotic caps
after a long sleep, but, beyond that, there would be no coming
back. If she came back, it would be brain damaged, and she couldn’t
do that to Jimbo.

She counted out six more. That would be what she
would take as soon as she had the other half of the sandwich down.
Then she’d take the rest to the couch. They’d dissolve slowly and
do their work over the long haul of the night. She wouldn’t puke
them up, she wouldn’t wake up in the morning in the hospital. She
had it all figured out. Babcock would find her in the morning when
he opened up to start the coffee and heat the griddle. The diner
would close for the day and the staff wouldn’t have to deal with
the out-of-towners, and those people would have to find their
dietary accommodations elsewhere. Fat chance.

This was a fine sandwich, she had to admit. She
put a little Tiger sauce on it, and, as she did, the phone
rang.

She looked at it, hanging on the wall,
surrounded by yellowed pieces of paper taped up with all kinds of
phone numbers and messages on them. It was Jimbo, it had to be. She
had to answer it, because if she didn’t, he’d be worried and come
looking for her, and that could foil her plan.

She let it ring three times, then stood on
surprisingly woozy legs to answer. “Hello?”

“Hey, babe,” Jimbo said. “It’s late. You coming
home soon?”

“I’m buried in paperwork,” she lied, and felt
the hand of God waving its finger in her face.
Naughty,
naughty.

“Well, don’t be too late. You know I can’t sleep
without you next to me.”

“I know.” Her tongue felt thick and she hoped he
didn’t notice a slur in her speech.

“Okay, then. Get home as soon as you can. Drive
safely. Don’t forget that Jason and I love you.”

“Love you too,” she said, a sob catching in her
throat.

She hung up the telephone and looked at the
table. A plate with juicy tomato/mayo drippings and a few crumbs,
one empty beer bottle and another half empty, and a pile of blue
pills.

This had been an excellent idea merely twenty
minutes earlier. Now Jimbo had interrupted her and made her think
about how he always complained that he couldn’t sleep if she wasn’t
in the bed next to him. Yes, it chained her to him, particularly at
bedtime and when she wanted to take off for the weekend with one of
her girlfriends, but that was okay. Those were easy things to give
up, considering.

And he had mentioned Jason, her first born, her
eleven-year-old boy genius who had a brain so big his thought
processes had long since passed both her and Jimbo, and that wasn’t
easy, considering how smart Jimbo was.

How many of those blue pills had she taken?
Four. She had sixty to do the job, but had only got to four, and
had been about to take another six, the amount of no return.

She poured the rest of the beer down the sink,
rinsed the plate, bottled up the rest of the pills and put them
safely away in the little white sack in the back of the file
cabinet. If she hurried, she could get home before getting too
woozy and then she could fall asleep next to Jimbo and he need
never know. She’d wake up in the morning just fine, come to work
and deal with Hollywood tastes and appetites.

She’d wake up just fine, as long as the grief
and the guilt and the hurt and the never-ending, god-awful pain was
just fine. Now she couldn’t indulge herself in that sweet,
blissful, guilt-free, pain-free rest in the arms of Jesus that she
had so desired, so longed for, so deserved. No, she had to go sleep
next to Jimbo.

And she would do it, too, goddamn him. She would
raise that remaining son to be a good man, and she would see Jimbo
through to his old age and death, every stinking day resenting the
fact that she couldn’t have her own peace as they had somehow found
theirs. She resented the shit out of it, and she resented them for
it.

But maybe she’d feel different in the
morning.

Margie turned out the last light and went
home.

Mrs. Teacher was so
eager for the fishing season to begin that by the time the tourists
hit town, she had acquired a whole new spring and summer wardrobe,
and had everything ironed and hanging, perfectly coordinated, in
her closet. New shoes were stacked neatly in their boxes on the
floor, her hair was freshly colored and permed and she’d bought new
combs to keep the curls out of her face.

The locals began to arrive with the snow melt,
coming up on weekends to open their cabins and air out the bedding.
They repaired the damage the squirrels had done during the fall and
winter, and checked to make sure their pipes hadn’t frozen. They
flushed the toilets and inspected the roofs and checked in on their
garages, full of boats, fishing equipment, jet skis and dirt bikes.
This was recreation country and Mrs. Teacher was ready for a little
recreation.

Easter Sunday she put on a new frock and hat and
shoes and went to church. She sneaked out a little early to beat
the crowd, such as it was—Pastor Porter never quite filled the
sanctuary—and headed directly to Margie’s.

Margie rolled her eyes when she saw Mrs. Teacher
come in, but Mrs. Teacher was above that and politely ignored her.
She also ignored the warning glance that Margie threw her way.
Margie didn’t understand. She didn’t know what it was like to be a
widow. Margie may have lost a son, but that wasn’t the same. She
still had Jimbo to warm her bed at night. Mrs. Teacher had nothing
but a fading memory.