The Wooden Sea

“Because it’s dead, Joh

Joh

“No, John.” I tried to push Vertue against one wall of the trunk so he wouldn’t slide around when I drove, but someone was in my way. “John, move! Haven’t you got anything to do?”

“No. Where are you going to bury him, Fra

“Only people get to go there. I haven’t decided yet. Would you please move over so I can get him settled here?”

“Why do you want to get him settled if he’s dead?”

I stopped moving and closed my eyes. “John, would you like a hamburger?”

“That would be very nice.”

“Good.” I took five dollars out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Eat a hamburger, and when you’re done, go up to my house and give Magda a hand bringing in that firewood, okay?”

“Okay.” Holding the money in his hand he didn’t move. “I’ll be very quiet if you let me come with you.”

“Joh

“You always say that.” He looked at the Arnold Schwarzenegger watch I had given him a few years before when he was going through a Terminator phase. “How long do I have before I go over to your house? I don’t want to eat too fast. I get gas.”

“Take your time.” I patted his shoulder and moved to get in the car.

“I didn’t know you had a dog for a friend, Fra

“Dogs know how to love, John. They wrote the book.”

Driving away, I checked in the rearview mirror. He was waving at me as a child would—his hand flapped up and down.

Magda believes you can tell a person’s personality by what is lying around in their car. Stopped at a light on April Avenue, I looked down at the passenger’s seat and saw this: three unopened packs of Marlboros, a cheap cell phone mangled from having been dropped often, a paperback collection of John O’Hara short stories, and an unopened envelope from the town hospital containing the results of a barium enema. In the glove compartment was a tin of Altoids breath mints, a videotape of Around the World in Eighty Days and CDs of seventies disco music no one but me wanted to hear. The only interesting things in the whole car were the Beretta pistol under my arm and the dead dog in the trunk. The contents depressed me. What if we were living under Mount Vesuvius and at that moment it decided to blow again? Lava and ash would kill and perfectly preserve me in my two-ton Ford coffin. Thousands of years from now archaeologists would dig me up and guess who I was judging by what was around me: cigarettes, KC & the Sunshine Band, the results of an asshole exam, and a dog carcass. What’s My Line?

Where was I going to bury Old Vertue, and with what? I had no tools in the car. I’d have to go home first and get a shovel out of the garage. I took a quick left and headed down Broadway.

On his eightieth birthday, my father swore he would never again read a set of instructions. He died a month later. I say this now because I had used the same shovel to bury him. People thought I was cracked. Cemeteries have backhoes for that purpose, but I thought there was something ancient and good about making my father’s final bed. I couldn’t say Kaddish, but I could scoop him a hole with my own hands. In the middle of a hot summer day I dug his grave with a smile on my face. Joh

The two way radio crackled. “Chief?”

“McCabe here.”

“Chief, we’ve got a domestic disturbance up on Helen Street.”

“Schiavo?”

“You got it.”

“All right, I’m near there. I’ll take care of it.”

“Better you than me.” The dispatcher chuckled and clicked off.

I shook my head. Donald and Geraldine Schiavo, nee Fortuso, had been my classmates at Crane’s View High School. They were married right after we graduated and had been at war ever since. Sometimes she hit him on the head with a pot. Sometimes he hit her on the head with a chair. Whatever was closest. For years people had pleaded with them to divorce, but the two lovebirds had nothing else in the world besides their hatred so why should they give that up? I would guess once a month their mutual simmer turned to boil and one or the other got dented.

A group of neighborhood teenagers were standing on the sidewalk in front of the Schiavo house, laughing.

“What’s up, troops?”

“Fuckin’ Star Wars in there, Mr. McCabe. You shoulda heard her screaming before. But it’s been quiet for a while.”

“They’re resting between rounds.” I walked up the path to the door and turned the knob. It was open. “Anyone home?” When no one answered I said it again. Silence. I walked in and closed the door. What first struck me was how clean and nice-smelling the house was. Geri Schiavo was a sloppy, lazy woman who didn’t mind having a house that stunk. Ditto her husband. One of the a

Not this time. A new store had opened recently in town that sold a wide assortment of exotic teas. I don’t drink tea but found as many excuses as I could to go in there just to enjoy its aroma. After my initial shock wore off at the order and shine in the Schiavo house, I realized it smelled like the tea shop. A potent, wonderful fragrance that gave your nose delicious things to think about.

The surprises didn’t end there either because the house was empty. I moved from room to room searching for Donald and Geri. Nothing had changed since the last time I visited. The same cheap couch and prehistoric BarcaLounger sat side by side in the living room like bums at rest. Family photographs on the mantle, a scrawny piss-yellow canary hopping around in its cage, all the same. But there was that orderliness and shine to everything I had never seen before in this house. It was as if the couple had prepared everything for a party or an important visit. But as soon as they had everything ready, the owners left.

I went to the basement, half worried that down there would be a rough answer to the mystery upstairs: both Schiavos hanging from matching rafters, or one standing over the other’s body with a gleeful look on their face and a gun in their hand. Didn’t happen. The basement was only full of tidily stacked magazines, old furniture, and junk. And even that had been neatly arranged in a corner. Down there it smelled good too. It was the damnedest thing. What the hell was going on?

Their backyard was as big as a bus stop but the lawn had been mowed. I had never seen the grass out there less than five inches high. I’d once even offered Donald the use of my lawn-mower, which he grouchily rejected.

Back in the house I sat in the BarcaLounger to think things over. And almost went right on my ass when it tipped all the way back on nonexistent springs. Touch and go for a few seconds, I managed to wrestle the thing back upright. That’s when I saw the feather.

There was a sealed-up fireplace on the other side of the room. As I fought gravity to get the stupid chair back on earth, I saw a flash of incredibly bright color on the floor in front of the fireplace. Wiggily kneed from the battle, I went over to the feather and picked it up. About ten inches long, it was a mixture of the most brilliant colors imaginable. Purple, green, black, orange—more. I couldn’t imagine a more inappropriate object to be in the house of these slobs, but there it was. I stared at it while I called the station house and told Bill Pegg what I’d seen.