Acre Under a Green Sky

When we pulled up to the house that night, we were surprised to see Will's police car parked in my father's parking spot. It was after 11:00.

"What now?" my father said, and these were the first words uttered since leaving that church on The Hill. My father parked behind Will. I could see that there was another man sitting in the front seat with Will, but I couldn't make out who the man was.

Before my foot touched the pavement, my father said, "Get in the house." I wasn't about to argue. I ran into the house.

My mother was sitting in her chair reading a paperback. I stationed myself at the picture window to watch my father and Will outside, but I could also see my mother reflected in the window. She turned her book over on the table next to her chair, and watched me. I turned to her.

"Will's out there with somebody," I said.

"I know," she said.

My father was leaning with outstretched hands against the driver's side of the car; talking through the open window to Will. I still couldn't make out the passenger sitting next to Will.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" my mother said. And then, she added, "...partner?", and I knew that she was pissed about something. God only knew what! Everything about 'this murder business' pissed her off.

Then I saw my father reach down and open the car door for Will.

"Hot damn!" I said turning to my mother, "They're coming in."

"I'll pluck a goose," she said.

She rose to her feet with a joyless stony look that went right through me and moved into the kitchen.

Will stepped out of the car and stood with my father in the glow of the porch light. The shadowy form of a very large man rose up on the other side of the car. When this phantom came around the back of the car and into the light, I shouted into my mother, "It's Clay Lancaster!"

"Hot damn!" my mother shouted back.

Clay Lancaster was a young Waterstop policeman who looked like Baby Huey. Small head atop a huge towering body. The dark blue policeman's uniform from head to tow obliterated any hint of a waist. He had a round baby face and a black Hitler mustache. The space between his nose and upper lip was so vast that he felt he had to cover it somehow, but to run the mustache the whole length of his mouth seemed too much, so he chopped off the ends and looked ridiculous. And he would explain all this to you as if it were important. On top of that, he had a joyous childlike smile that he shared with everyone making him appear slightly idiotic. Add to this a policeman's cap one size too small, and you have a pretty good picture of Clay Lancaster. Little kids adored him. Big kids teased and exploited him. I thought he was great.

I ran over and held the screen door open for them. They were all laughing when they entered our living room.

My father put his hand up on Clay's shoulder and said, "Clay here did some mighty fine police work today!"

Clay blushed and Will added, "He sure did!"

Clay was a hopelessly sweet young man who was about as dimwitted as he looked. Mostly he did traffic patrol, but I doubt that he ever wrote out a whole traffic summons before being talked out of it. Maybe today was the exception.

"What happened?" I said.

"Clay's going to tell us all about it," my father said.

"Where's Nora?" Will said, looking toward the kitchen.

"Hey, Will? Clay?" my mother sang out from the kitchen, and I mean she sang out their names musically; sweetly. So sweetly, it was almost an insult.

My father started for the kitchen, and I was alarmed that both Will and Clay were following him. My mother was hiding in there. Invading her territory was not a great idea. I ran in ahead of all of them.

"Do we have any beer for these guys?" my father said, making it sound like an accusation somehow.

"Oh, plenty," my mother said nodding toward the fridge.

Clay and Will joined my father around the open refrigerator door. He was passing out bottles of beer. Will offered his bottle to my mother, but she held out her nearly full glass of vodka on ice to show that she was okay. I ran to fetch the bottle opener from the top drawer. The men passed it around; popping caps onto the floor. I picked them up.

I felt the presence of these two men in my mother's kitchen as a palpable force. I butted my full weight against it. I was using every ounce of body English I could muster to herd them back into the living room, but the force of their presence far outweighed mine.

When it became clear they were in the kitchen to stay, I was sure my mother would excuse herself, but she never moved from her seat at the head of the table. My father took his seat at the opposite end of the table, and Will and Clay sat opposite each other on the side chairs nearest my father. I sat in my chair next to Clay –– the golden boy.

Clay was going on about how he had solved the mystery of the ID bracelet. Earlier that day, Clay entered Carson's Jewelry Store on Route 22. It was the fifth store he had checked out that day. Little did he know when he pulled open the door to that store and felt the wonderful blast of cooled air that in the next ten minutes he would fall in love and become a hero.

"Blanche is her name," Clay was saying.

"And she brought the bracelet in to be fixed?" I said, trying to get to the bottom of this.

"No! She was the pretty blonde behind the counter."

"I'll bet she was a big-butted girl," Will said, with an aside to my mother, "Clay loves big-butted girls."

Clay was blushing again, "Yeah!" he said stretching the word out like a sigh.

"So who brought the bracelet in?" I insisted.

"Patience!" my father said, "He'll get to that."

"It's not fair," I said, "You guys already know what happened."

"Why don't you just tell the boy, for Christ's sake!" my mother said almost under her breath.

I looked over at my mother sitting back in her chair glaring at my father with her cigarette elegantly poised, and I was struck by the change in her. The overhead kitchen light was never kind to anyone, but now it was being downright cruel –– casting dark shadows under her eyes and around her mouth. But it was more than bad lighting. All those weeks with no money for beauty parlors had taken their toll.

Her hair had grown straight. She was wearing it straight back behind her ears. It ended bluntly at the nape of her neck. Her golden yellow hair was now a lusterless conglomeration of colors; all of them mousy drab. She wore no make-up. Her face was not so much pale as bland with indistinct features. Her blood-red nails were chipped and broken. And she had become fat in a bloated way. I had seen all this before; and yet, the changes that had been taking place over a period of months suddenly struck me as an overnight transformation. The truth is I was seeing her for the first time reflected in the eyes of outsiders, and I was embarrassed.

I looked around me at the kitchen walls with their checkerboard of clean spots, and it occurred to me for the first time that there had been no progress; that all her projects had stopped. I couldn't remember the last time I saw her do anything, and I was ashamed.

"Turns out the guy in the back is her uncle," Clay was saying, "and he owns the place. Funny thing is his name isn't Carson at all. So I say, 'Where's Mr. Carson?'; and he says, 'There is no Mr. Carson.'

'But this is Carson's Jewelry Store, right?' I say. Anyway, he's getting mad at me and I like Blanche so much I don't want him mad at me; being her uncle and all, so I show him the picture of the ID bracelet, and right away, he says to me, 'Yes, I did that piece.'"

And with that, Clay took out a white handkerchief the size of a dish towel and mopped his face. "I'm a big sweater," he said to my mother.

"Well, you're a big man," she said.

"Oh yeah, I'm soaking wet under here."

"You should try powder."

"Powder?"

"Baby powder or talc. For the sweating."

"You think?"

"Clay!" I cried out in frustration.

"Oh yeah, so right off I peg this guy as a tightass son-of-a-bitch. He sends Blanche back to find the slip and in two shakes she's handing it to me and you could have knocked me over when I saw what it said."

Clay felt that he had finished his story. He drank down a good three-quarters of his beer in one gulp and sat there with that silly grin on his face.

"Clay," my father said, "What did it say?"

"The slip of paper?"

"Yes, the slip of paper. What did it say?"

"Here! I have it right here," Clay said, but he didn't have it. He had given it to Will.

"It was Joe Scarceletti, wasn't it?" I said.

"Nope," Clay said, still searching his pockets, "You'll never guess."

"Just tell them," Will said.

"It was Gladys Mulley. She brought the bracelet in for engraving and she picked it up. Yeah, it was Gladys Mulley all right."

Clay had milked the situation for all it was worth, so I figured he deserved a little one-upmanship; or "one-upmanshit", as my mother called it.

"Doesn't matter who picked it up. We already knew Joe gave the bracelet to Gwen."

That wiped the smile off Will's face.

"And how did you know that?" he said.

"We followed Joe tonight."

Will turned to my father.

"And? Where did he go?" Will said.

"I'll tell you later," my father said.

"What do you mean? Where did he go?"

"He went to church," I said.

My father shut me up with a look.

"Church!?" Will said.

"We'll discuss it later," my father said, looking toward my mother for a change of subject, but she wasn't playing.

"What's going on?" Will said, "I don't get it."

And everyone looked toward my mother as if she had the answer.

At first she appeared mystified by the sudden attention –– then resigned to some secret misery all her own. She rose to her feet canvassing everyone at the table with that stony look of hers, and then after a significant pause she said, "You know, guys, right now I don't give a flying fuck," and she turned to leave.

On her way through the doorway into the living room, she flicked the light switch –– leaving us all in darkness.

After the initial shock, we heard Clay Lancaster laugh as if it was a funny joke. An instant later, my father jumped to his feet nearly knocking over his chair and stormed into the living room.

Then we heard the unmistakable sound of a slap –– and a scream.

I went berserk. I was in the living room beating my father with both fists and kicking his legs. I have no idea how I got there. He turned his back on me as a defense, and I jumped up on his back like a monkey beating at his head. I was shouting at him the whole time, but I couldn't tell you what I was saying. All I remember was Will and Clay pulling me off my father. Only then could I hear myself saying, "I'll kill you! "I'll kill you!" I could see the horror on my mother's face. She was half lying on the sofa. My father was standing there –– pale and bloated. I think he was holding his breath. Both Will and Clay held me tight until I'd exhausted myself kicking and thrashing to get at him. Then they let me go, and I was shocked to see no understanding on their faces. They were as horrified as my parents.

I ran into my room to wait for the punishment to come. Danny was asleep. I sat on my bed resigned to the inevitable end. I heard talk coming from the living room. I didn't care. I could have faced a firing squad that night. I had done the right thing.

And now I understood the impulse to kill.