A Story In Progress

[maeve]

Along the dusty shore of the Wabash, in the temperate heat of a summer morning, four young scavengers scuttled back and forth between the water’s edge and the wood line searching for the treasures that make a young life complete. They were totally preoccupied with uncovering the best rocks and shells the river would yield. The spot where the search was taking place was perfect for locating such precious items. The river’s current was swift but not rapid, and so, easily washed onto shore the coolest of the rocks and shells.

Mike, being one of the most daring of the kids, rolled up his jeans to his knees and ventured into the water expecting to find the shell that would set him apart as the luckiest for the day. He knew from past expeditions that the log which hung dearly onto the shore, refusing to give itself up to the swift depths, acted as a net grabbing all sorts of shells and other debris in its limbs.

“Mike, your dad told you not to go in the water,” said Kevin.

“Aw it’ll be alright, I’m just looking. I’m not getting wet,” Mike answered.

“Ooo, I found a real pretty one over here,” Helen called out with a smile on her face, “See, it looks like a small ice cream cone filled with some kind a fancy ice cream or sumthin.”

“Oh wow! That is a cool one, let me see will ya? Come on let me see it,” said Eric.

“Ok, here, but then give it back.”

“Give what back?” Teased Eric as he raised his arm above his head with the precious shell grasped in his hand, just out of Helen’s reach.

“Eric! Give it to me! I found it!” Helen attempted to pull the shell down closer to her by taking hold of Eric’s arm and yanking it hard, but without success. “That’s not fair! I found it!” Helen cried out as she began to get close to tears.

“Oh here ya big baby. I was just play’n around. I wasn’t go’n keep it,” Eric assured her as he handed it back.

“Hey guys! Guys! Come and look what I found!” Mike suddenly shouted. He was still standing over by the hung-up log, a bewildered expression on his face

“What, what is it? Did you find a rock?” asked Kevin.

“I think it’s a girl,” Mike answered.

“A what?” Inquired Helen, who was not quite close enough to believe that she had heard properly,

“A girl. It’s a girl,” repeated Mike. He was reasonably sure that what he was looking at was, in fact, the remains of a girl, or more precisely, a woman; but the fear that began to swell up inside of him caused him to fight that realization making his response less than a confirmation.

Mike began to back away as the others worked their way closer and closer to the grizzly discovery, each one taking their turn to look and exclaim their undoubting acknowledgements that it was, in fact, a girl.

“What do ya suppose happened to her?” Kevin wondered aloud.

“Maybe she killed herself! It was all just too much and she flung herself off the Main Street Bridge. I bet that’s what happened alright,” said Eric.

“Yeah right Eric,” said Helen. “How would you know anyway?

The shadows of the trees began to close in on the river as the sun made its way behind the wood line. A darkness spread over the woman’s body as the waves kicked her unguarded head over and over again into the side of the log, the thuds muffled by the rushing water.

“Maybe we should go get a grown up. I think we need to get a grown up, really guys, somebody go tell their dad,” pleaded Helen.

“I’ll go. I’ll bring my dad back and show him. You guys wait here, I’ll be right back.” Kevin rushed off through the woods and down into the small creek bed that emptied into the river. He headed back toward the subdivision choosing to follow the creek instead of the road because it was faster. The route that he had decided on led him through a large drainage tunnel that was buried underneath the road, hidden from view to any passersby that may have been traveling down the road in their car. When he got to the tunnel’s opening he came to a quick halt. He had been this route many times before without ever thinking much about it, but now, at this moment, he felt a shudder run through him. His neck felt cold and his shoulders began to shiver, just a little. The chill took full flight down his back and made his belly feel kind of funny, just for a moment or two. He wasn’t quite sure why he had this creepy feeling, the tunnel wasn’t that bad. A person could see their way to the other end, yes it was a bit of a distance, but Kevin had been through there a lot and it never bothered him before. Now though it felt different, he shivered again then ran as fast as he could to the other end where he stopped and looked back in reflection. He shook his head and waved his hand at the tunnel as if to say, “That was nothin’, what was the big deal?”

The river continued to bludgeon its victim who lay swooshing gently, rocking back and forth unresisting to the currents torments. The children continued to stare, continued to wonder.

“Do you think she was pretty?” Helen asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Eric, “I mean look at her. Gross. She’s all gross looking. How could that be pretty?”

“I mean when she was alive Eric,” the censorious tone hardly seemed to fit the mouth of a ten year old, but presented itself none-the-less.

“How can anyone tell?” Mike chimed in. “She’s all fat lookin’ and funny colored. It doesn’t even look like she’s a real person. She don’t look like people look”.

“I know,” continued Helen in her condescending voice, “I can see how icky she looks now. That’s what I’m meanin’ though. Don’t you think she must have looked different before? I mean you don’t think she looked like this do ya? I wonder what she looked like before.”

“Well how’s someone supposed to know that?” Mike replied with Eric giving him the complementary backup, “Yeah”.

“Well who do you think she is?” Helen continued her inquisition.

“I don’t know,” Mike was clearly agitated and began to back away further from the woman. He couldn’t stop staring though. He wanted to but couldn’t. The way her arm was wrapped up in the branches of the tree, like a living person grasping to hang onto something, it just didn’t seem to fit with her limp legs that seemingly drifted with the river’s flow. He moved back to the shoreline and sat down in the heated sand which warmed his cold legs, the same legs that he could move at will. He crossed them then plopped his elbows onto them and placed his chin discouragingly into the palms of his hands.

Helen came over to Mike and sat down next to him, “Kevin will be back soon with his dad Mike. We won’t have to wait here much longer.”

“I know. This is just weird, you know? I mean she’s not getting up out of the water. Is this what it’s like? To be dead? She’s really dead?”

“Well duh! Of course she’s dead, she’s been floating in the river dummy,” Eric couldn’t resist the impulse to stick one to his friend and felt his self gratified for seeing the advantage of any easy mark. “But this isn’t what it’s like for everyone,” he continued. “It depends on how ya die. Like if you burned to death in a fire or something, it’d be different. You’d look different. I know cause I’ve seen it on TV.”

“Oh right Eric, you’ve seen real dead people on TV huh?” retorted Helen.

“Well, not actual dead people, but they talk about stuff like that all the time on CSI and my sister watches that and she’s told me that how you look when you die depends on how ya die.”

“Whatever dude. Can we just be quite for a little bit and wait for Mr. Grimes and Kevin to get back?” Asked Mike.

Kevin climbed up out of the creek bed and ran toward his house. His shoelace had come loose and the plastic tip on the end was slapping his leg with each downward thrust of his foot. He pushed onward though, fearing any delay might somehow change the circumstances that had evolved and brought him home early. He ran up through the neighbor’s yard hurdling the row of Rose bushes without even brushing them, “Yes!” He thought to his self and continued on as fast as he could manage. His house was in sight, the manicured front lawn, and the guardian Yews which lined the front of the house both welcomed him with a reassurance that dad was there and would know what to do.

The office was now void of any antagonizers, but the remnants of a past violent struggle remained in the subsidiary trash that scattered the floor, an easy fix, when compared to the vulgar graffiti sprayed on the walls and the smashed computer monitors. Brenda kicked her way through the debris frustrated from knowing that something like this would probably happen again once the clean up was finished and the computers were replaced, “What’s the count now Jonathan three or four?”

“I’m pretty sure this makes three now,” A tone of discouragement accompanied Jonathan’s voice, but the disgust and anger in having their office violated again seemed to come across louder than any other feeling in his tone.

“I don’t suppose it’ll do any good to call the cops, huh?” Jonathan asked with discouragement now assuming the prominent tone.

“Well, I don’t think it’ll hurt, and besides, we need to report it so that our end of things is done right anyway,” Brenda replied. “Damn, they pulled the phone lines out of the wall.”

“I’ll go down to the corner and call from the coffee shop. Do you want anything while I’m there?” Jonathan asked.

“Yea, thanks I think I’d like a large mocha cappuccino if you don’t mind.”

“No problem. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Jonathan made his way back through the rubble and out the main entrance. On his way to the corner he looked around at the river and the other buildings and thought about how ironic it was that he was walking so close by here last night and it never occurred to him that something dire was taking place just a few blocks away. Jonathan recalled how the lights from the buildings clearly reflected off the river, the luminance, godlike, seemed able to give life to the cement and steel city that was springing forth from the murky cold of the water penetrating the surface until the reflection became reality. Everything seemed so normal and peaceful to him then, he wondered at the contrast between the scene of his memory and the scene he had just left. He knew there were people who disagreed with his way of life, but he never went so far as to destroy the things that they owned, and he had a very difficult time trying to comprehend how someone else could be so mean. He knew the attack was one of hate and intolerance, but he always felt great pain in knowing that other people could hate that much.

When he walked into the coffee shop he headed straight for the phone hanging on the back wall. Sifting threw his pockets he dug out some change and called the police to report the incident. After about fifteen minutes of the same routine he had gone through before on such occasions, he hung up the phone and walked up to the counter.

“Hey Jonathan,” the guy behind the counter nodded his head upward in acknowledgement. “I heard you on the phone. Another break in?”

“Yeah, well I guess it’s become vogue now to destroy downtown offices, that is, our downtown office,” replied Jonathan with an expected tone of sarcasm.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Um yeah, I need a mocha cappuccino and a vanilla latte to go,” said Jonathan.

“Messed things up pretty bad did they? That’s a real shame man. You’d think people could find better things to do, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess. All I know is that I’m going to be spending the next several days cleaning up this mess instead of working on the activities that I should be working on.”

“Well, you take it easy man. Don’t let it get to you. Here, these are on the house today. Try to have a good one.”

“Thanks Phil, I appreciate it,” said Jonathan.

“No problem. Tell Brenda I said hi,” Phil shook his head upward again but this time he added a slight wave of his hand. As Jonathan walked out of the shop Phil shook his head one more time but now it was hung down and moving from side to side.

Brenda was sitting on one of the desks looking around when Jonathan came back into the office. “I didn’t want to touch anything until the cops got here. Did they say how long they would be?” Brenda asked.

“They said they’d be here in a little while. I’m not sure what that actually translates into from cop talk. Here’s your cappuccino.”

“Thanks. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing, it was on the house. Phil said hi by the way.”

“That’s cool. Phil’s a good guy. Did you tell him about the office?” asked Brenda.

“I didn’t have to, he heard me on the phone.” Jonathan sat down on the other desk adjacent to Brenda and looked around. “We’re going to be cleaning this up all week.”

“Yeah, but at least no one was here to get hurt.” Brenda had a habit of looking to the bright side of any difficulty. Jonathan shrugged and kept his thoughts to himself.

Kevin burst through the door yelling at the top of his lungs, “Dad! Dad! You gotta come and see what we found down by the river! It’s a lady dad, a real lady and she’s dead!” The back of the door slammed hard against the door stop and flung itself half way shut again.

“Wo, wo there,” Kevin’s dad rustled the boy to a stop grabbing hold of his shoulders and looking him in the face. “What’s all this yelling about? Did you say you found a dead person?”

“Yeah dad! You gotta come and see! We found a lady in the river,” Kevin’s voice was somewhat settled but remained anxious just the same. “We were lookin’ for rocks and stuff and Mike found her. She’s floating in the river but she’s like all caught on the log and stuff. You gotta come! Come on, they’re waitin’!”

Kevin’s mom came rushing into the room looking more anxious than Kevin and alternating glances between the two, “Did Kevin say he found a body? Oh my god! Kevin are you alright? Come here, let me see you, are you ok?” By this time Mary Grimes seemed to be in a larger state of anxiety than her son.

“I’m fine mom, I’m fine,” Kevin tried to brush her arms away from his head as they descended upon him as if she was checking for a fever.

“Oh honey, you need to go and find out what happened. Where are the others Kevin? Are they still there? Oh my god, you need to get down there right away.”

Frank Grimes was trying very hard to keep his cool. He didn’t want to create any more anxiety than there already was, especially in his wife who he knew was currently contemplating never letting Kevin out of her sight again. “Honey, would you please get my cell phone for me while I put on my shoes?”

“What? Oh, yeah. I’ll be right back. Kevin are you sure you’re ok?” Mary was hesitant to leave him but tore herself away and went for the cell phone after he reassured her once again that he was in fact ok.

“It was really freaky dad. Mike was pickin’ up rocks right next to her. He saw her and called us over and when I got there she was like just floating, but not like people float when we go to the lake, it’s different.” Kevin still had that hurried delivery in his words as he tried to express the find to his father.

“It’ll be ok son. You need to try and calm down some. I need you to show me where exactly you found her, ok. Do you think you can do that?”

“Yeah, dad I know right where it’s at. We go there all the time. Mike, Helen and Eric are all waiting for us to come back. I told them I’d bring you, they’re waiting for us.” Kevin’s plea for a rushed departure was not in vain and soon Frank had his cell phone in hand and his shoes on his feet and he and his son were heading out the door.

“Hey Mike, check this out. It’s a Preying Mantis. Look at it, isn’t cool? It’s hanging off o’ this branch. Come here, check it out.”

“Yeah Eric, it’s cool.” Mike’s voice wasn’t exactly convincing but he went over to have a look. This seemed to be enough to pacify Eric for the moment at least.

“You and those bugs Eric. What’s up with that? I mean really, bugs are gross, why do like them so much? Oh yeah, I know. It’s because you’re so gross.” Helen was enjoying her opportunity to slam Eric; she never felt like she had enough opportunities to do it and so relished each one as a special event.

“Bugs are not gross Helen! They’re way cooler then you.” At that moment the green winged mantis was flung through the air, leaving Eric’s hand on a trajectory that would in seconds send Helen screaming and jumping.

“Get it off! Get it off! Eric you’re a maggot!” Helen yelled, while her fiery hair was lit brighter by the flush which enveloped her face. “God, I hate you. Why can’t you ever be nice?”

“I’m always nice. I’m just not nice to wimpy little girls who can’t handle looking at a bug,” retorted Eric.

“Cut it out you guys,” Mike was still in his foul temper and seemed to grow ever more impatient. “Where’s Kevin? He should have been back by now.”

Eric and Helen looked at each other; Helen’s tongue parted her lips and the angry glare which accompanied the previous gesture was enough to keep Eric’s comments at bay, at least for the time being.

A rustle was heard by the group, looking up they saw Kevin and his dad heading in their direction.

“Look dad, she’s over there,” Kevin pointed in the direction of the log as Mike, Eric and Helen all began to run over to meet Kevin and his dad.

“What took you so long?” Mike asked.

“Sorry, I got back as quick as I could. Is she still there?” Eric inquired.

“Of course she’s still there. It’s not like she could go anywhere you know.” Mike’s voice carried a tone in it that Kevin took for anger, but Frank new it was more fear than anything else.

“Why don’t you kids wait here and I’ll go see.” Frank stretched out his arms in a fashion that rounded up the children and left behind an invisible line that they knew was not to be crossed, at least for the time being.

Frank continued over to the log not quite sure what to expect. When he got a little closer he was able to make out the form of a young woman, maybe twentyish. The woman’s long dark hair was wrapped around her face, clinging to it, like a piece of Saran Wrap clings to itself when it’s pulled from the roll. The remaining length of her hair floated freely in the river’s current. Frank wasn’t sure if he should try and pull her hair back or not, he wasn’t sure if really wanted to. He convinced himself that he would be tampering with possible evidence and that it was probably best not to get too close. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

After making his report to the police Frank walked back over to the kids. “Is everyone alright? Mike, Kevin said you found her. Is that right?”

“Yes.” Mike didn’t feel like offering anything further. Frank didn’t feel like pushing.

“Are your parents home Mike?” Frank asked.

“They should be, at least Mom is I know.”

“What about your parents Helen? Eric?”

“I think my mom is over next door. She said she was gonna help Rose with her hair colorin’. Helen replied.

“My dad’s home. He’s working on the car in the garage. I think my mom’s there too. Are we gonna have to talk to the cops? We have to tell them that we found the body, right? It’s like they’re gonna ask us what we were doing here and then they’ll want to know which one of us found her and if we knew her and all that stuff that cops ask, right? Are they going to take us downtown?” Eric seemed to be making up for Mike’s lack of apparent interest in the subject.

“Well now, I’m sure the police will want to ask you a few things, but I don’t think that they’ll be taking anyone downtown Eric. Mike, why don’t you use my phone and call home? Tell your mom that you’re here with me and that I need to talk to her, ok? You don’t need to tell her anything else if you don’t want to. I can tell her what happened.” Frank handed the phone over to Mike and he began to dial.