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Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
Last Rights : Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Over the next week Hammy was in and out with stacks of old clippings, books and essays on deviant behavior, case studies that resembled Tim. "Yow, I never knew what happens to you when you get electrocuted. You sort of burn up from the inside out. And it usually takes a few tries." He held up an article he’d Xeroxed at the library. "Tim’s eyes popped out." He went through the attic and basement, artifact by artifact, document by document, memento by memento. "Remember this?" He’d come across a grainy old photograph of himself sitting on a duck raft at the Fox Gap Lake Pool. He couldn’t have been more than seven. It was the Hammy I’d always remembered. A happy looking boy with a closed mouth smile and deep dimples. "I was a pretty cute kid," Hammy said. "You were adorable." Old pictures affect me like old songs. They make me sad. I wanted to put my hand into the print and pull out the boy I loved so much. Then I saw the blurry image of Tim on the left side of the photo, crouching down in the pool, water all the way up to his eyes like an alligator, staring into the camera. I could barely make him out, but there was no mistaking Tim. I was glad Hammy didn’t notice. He interviewed me. "You said in your April 15, 1957 entry that Tim and Tony Saterswhite quote, seized and searched you. Can you explain?" "I don’t remember." Hammy slid forward in his chair. "Trix, sometimes we say we don’t remember because we don’t want to remember. But it’s all up here." He tapped his forehead. "It doesn’t go away... September 11, 1959. ‘Tim played the same note over and over on the piano for two hours and when I asked him to please play something else, he came at me with the beat wand from the metronome.’ Comment?" My jaw began to quiver. "Trix, is this about the money?" Hammy took my hands in his. "Because thirty percent is yours, Trix. This book’s gonna soar." "It’s not about the money. I don’t want the money. It’s about our name. I can’t have the family name besmirched anymore." I broke down. "Besmirched? You kidding? We’re gonna be on Larry King!" I started hitting him. "Not the face, not the nuts." No, I wouldn’t hit him in his beautiful face and I certainly wouldn’t knee him in the nuts. I’d missed my chance having babies but I still had hope in my heart for a niece or a nephew. I kicked him in the shins over and over with my espadrilles and then Gene came in, red from the sun, eyes slanted and puffy like a big mad pig. "There are rotting floor boards on the side porch. It’s not like when Mom and Dad were here to take care of everything, Gene. Old homes need attention and care." "I’m the one who wanted to close that room off fifteen years ago," Gene said, cutting through Hammy’s ulna and radial artery with a number four scalpel. "That ‘I told you so’ attitude is unhelpful." I held open a lawn & leaf bag. "I’ll call Dale Veeth in the morning." "There’s got to be another contractor in this Godforsaken town." "Dale’s had a rough time. I want to help him out." "We’re always helping everybody out," I said under my breath. "What did you say?" Gene asked. Hammy’s eyes and mouth opened wide when Gene picked up the head by the ponytail. "Nothing." "Is someone being a Little Miss Me, Myself and I selfish bug?" "He does bad work and he steals." "What’s that?" He cupped his ear with a bloody work glove and looked around the rec room. "Did I just hear a Little Miss Walk-All-Over-Appalachian-Children? No? Must have been the bug zapper by the Fieldings' pool." "All right, enough." I looked down at Hammy’s torso and felt ashamed of what I’d said about Dale. "Call him in the morning." |
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