Story: Treasure (part 1)

"I like how they write 'hope' on the bottom of these bottles," said Jimmy from the backseat.  "Next to the recycle sign."

"It's not hope," said Jerry, behind the wheel. "It's H-D-P-E."

"Oh," said Jimmy.

"What's it stand for?" I asked.

"How should I know?" said Jerry, without looking over.

"Some chemical probably," said Jimmy.

"Close enough," said Jerry, in a way that said the matter was closed.

He made a left turn, onto the low street with long sunny lawns and chain fences.  Concrete driveways.  It wasn't sunny today, not rainy, sort of a null.  The sky a huge bowl of grey water, reflecting nothing.  I wished there were more trees.

"Do we really have to do this?" I asked for the fourth or fifth time.

Jerry shrugged.  "You want to go, we need cash," he said.  He steered the big car, not his own, lazily, one hand barely resting at the bottom of the wheel.  "You got any better ideas on how to get any?"

I shrugged back.  "It's such a hassle," I said, which was as honest as I felt like being.  The idea made me sad and sorry and a little sick feeling every time we did it.

"Look," he said.  "The old lady's loaded, and it's all just going to rot in there.  She'll never notice anything's missing.  She likes it when we visit, it makes her happy."

"That's probably the worst part," I said morosely.

"No one else visits her," said Jimmy.

"You're not looking on the bright side," said Jerry.  "There's really no better solution to the problem here.  She gets a little company, we get a little cash.  What's the problem?"

"What if she does notice?" asked Jimmy nervously.

"She won't," said Jerry.

"But what if she does?" he said.  "She'll know who did it, no one else visits her."

"She wouldn't rat us out," Jerry said, with some edge under his voice I didn't much like.

At the low street's only tree, a large and unlikely willow, we swung right, onto a street that was identical to me except for that strange blank impression of total correspondence with memory, the instant recognition of a face or a view, seen a hundred times before in the same circumstances.  My brain said to itself, 'we're here.'  I sat up in my seat and began to fidget.

"What do we take this time?" said Jimmy.

"We won't know 'till we see," said Jerry reassuringly.  It was a litany of theirs, every time the same questions and answers.  I was quiet now, my job was to do the talking once we were in.  I started out the window at the grey house, formerly blue, chewing my thumb nail and thinking.

"Alright," said Jerry, pulling up to the curb and wrestling the long plastic handle of the transmission upwards.  "We know how this goes, just like before."

"You're sure she won't notice," said Jimmy.

"Sure I'm sure," said Jerry.  "We'll just be in and out, and then the fun begins."

"Yeah, I said, looking up at the old house.  There was something solemn in the sad washed-out color of its siding, the uneven decomposing roof line.  It was a servant remaining long after he needed to stay for the sake of his poor master.  A soldier staying at his post while others fled.  I bit the thumbnail off and opened the door.

"Let me do the talking," Jerry said as we stepped onto the walkway and wound up towards the kitchen door.  Jimmy was jittering along behind me.  I thought about turning around and shouting Boo, but I was too tired to deal with an outrage from Jerry.  I counted the garden gnomes, laying among the bright flowers planted below the unused front door instead; how long before we tried to hawk them, too?

So, we came to the kitchen door, under a low car port with a big oil stain and no car.  Jerry pulled the screen door open, tried the handle without knocking.

It wouldn't turn.  He swore.

"Mat," said Jimmy.  Jerry glared at him, touched a finger to his lips, then stooped and lifted the rubber mat by the corner.  Nothing there.  He muttered something and started running his hand along the top of the door jamb.

Suddenly the door opened.  We all jumped, at least I did.  She was there, looking at us weirdly.

She was about a head shorter than Jerry, her hair level with my shoulder.  Her eyes were large, and wide-set, and always looked damp.  Her hair was a frizzy white halo of long whorls, escaping a bun in back.  She always gave an impression of not noticing much any more, but now she seemed sharper than usual, looking at us three in surprise equal to our own.

"Jerry?" she said.  "Jimmy.  What are you two doing here?  Oh, you've brought your friend.  You should have called."

"I did call, Grandma," said Jerry, recovering in less than an instant and walking past her into the kitchen.  "Don't you remember?  We're on our way home from school, and  came to visit for a bit."

As he spoke, Jimmy and I, loitering like shades outside the screen door fallen closed, looked at each other quickly.  He seemed as tired and unhappy as I was.  Then Jimmy reached out, pulled the screen door open, and we entered.  The little kitchen smelled like lemon cleaner and smoke.  The screen hissed behind us, closed with a little bang.

"I don't remember you calling," said the old lady in a vague way.  "But it's nice you came."  She reached up and hugged Jerry, and he hugged her back, eyes closed, pat pat on the ancient shoulder blade. 

I was surprised that he seemed sincere in the hug.  If he hadn't been, I doubt she would have noticed; she generally didn't notice much.

"Can I make you some tea?"  Her voice was steady, but she spoke slowly, the beat of each word dropped like a careful step.

"Sure," said Jerry, "though we can't stay too long, we have a show to go to later."

"Alright," said the old lady, shuffling towards the sagging cupboards.

Jerry shot a look at me.  "I'm going to run upstairs real quick, Grandma, I want to show Jimmy something in Dad's old room, is that alright?"

"Of course," she said, holding a kettle under the tap.  "This is as much your home as it is mine."

"My friend Mark here," Jerry said, "can keep you company."

"Hello Mark," said the old lady.

"Hi Mrs. Turningham," I said quietly.  "It's nice to see you again."

"We'll be right back," Jerry said, moving sideways towards the stairs in the living room.

"Alright, Jerry," the old lady said.  She set the kettle on the stove.  I wondered briefly, if Jerry had been at all the smooth operator he thought he was, and if he'd wanted to set the old lady on edge, he probably would have acted the same way.

The old lady didn't notice.  She didn't seem to notice much.

"Sugar?" she asked.

"Just Mark's fine," I said, "but I think you're sweet too."  What was I talking about?

"Aren't you a dear," said Mrs. Turningham, shuffling towards the living room and the sofa.  I followed, doing that slow swinging-leg walk people do when they wish to convey that they wouldn't go any faster even if their way wasn't blocked by someone slow and infirm.

She sat on the couch, I took the love seat as usual.  The TV was off, and the house seemed still as a dusty drum, except for the rustling and stumping coming from upstairs.  I was supposed to be talking so she wouldn't notice that.

"So how have you been," I asked.

"Oh, just fine," she said.

The silence dragged.

"Might rain later," I ventured.

"No," she said flatly.

"No?" I said, half-smiling.  "Just no?"

"The weatherman said it would clear up this afternoon," she said firmly. 

I looked at her when she said it: she was looking at me steadily, her eyes still wet, but seeming more focused than usual.  Her whole person seemed a little more focused than usual.  Was she on to us?

"Well, that's nice," I said.  What was wrong with me?  Six days out of seven the problem is to get me to shut up.  Now my only job is to talk, and I had nothing to say.

"Your garden gnomes look nice," I said weirdly.

"I know dear," she said.  "You tell me that every time you boys come by."

"I do?" I said.  I felt odd; did she just remember something I didn't?

"But it's always nice that you say so," she said, smiling.

"I guess so," I said.

The silence was becoming desperate.  I found myself hoping she'd ask what Jimmy and Jerry were doing upstairs so that I'd be off the hook.  Say something!  Speak!

"May I ask you a question," Mrs. Turningham said, taking me by surprise.

"Of course," I said after a moment's pause.

"Do you know anything," she asked, "about flowers?"

I didn't know she was this far gone, I thought.

"Not really, ma'am," I said.

Mrs. Turningham looked at me levelly. There was an unusually loud thud from he ceiling, and she looked up.

"But I can learn," I said boisterously, trying to cover the noise. "What are these outside, by the gnomes?"

She looked at me again.

"Those are hyacinths," she said pleasantly.  Did she nod to herself?

"I'll be right back," she said then, and she struggled up from her seat. I got up and tried to help, she waved me away. She shuffled towards the kitchen. The phone was in the kitchen.

"Mrs. Turningham,"'I said, darting up after her.

Sure enough, she was making a bee line for the wall inside to door, where the ancient Bakelite rotary hung.

"I'm sure they'll be back down any minute," I said stupidly. Where was my brain?

She didn't turn to me or slow down. She shuffled up to the phone, and I suffered a short agony of indecision over whether to jump in her way. I didn't really want to, I think now I wanted us to be caught.

Before I could think clear to do anything, she had shuffled past the phone. I stared unspeaking, and she moved to the shelves set into the wall beside it, started poking around. Address book? I wondered, fighting panic. Who needs an address book to remember 9-1-1?

The kettle whistled and I nearly leapt through the ceiling.

"Could you be a dear," Mrs. Turningham said, "and  move that off he burner?" She didn't turn from the shelf.

"Sure, yes ma'am," I said, and found a pot-holder.

"Ah," she said, drawing a little brown book from the shelf. She turned to me, half-smiling confidingly. "Funny, I thought I'd just looked at this last week, but it's not where I left it. Oh, I'll take that dear."

She reached out for the kettle, which I was still holding, standing in the middle of the floor. The thought shit through my mind: if I wanted to act odd and tip her off, I would be acting the same way.

She took the kettle, fixed the tea. I looked on quietly. The thumping from upstairs had stopped.

"Oh let me carry that ma'am," I said, seeing her contemplating how to heave up the tray laden with cups, cream, cookies, and the pretty little teapot. I took it up, and she said thank-you and took the little book, and I preceded her back into the living room.

"Now,"'she said, seating herself and fixing her tea, "the hung about flowers is that they all have names."

"Sure," I said, accepting a warm-walled mug and sitting back. Wouldn't they be coming down soon? "Actually they all have two, I mean if you count the Latin name."

"The taxonomy," Mrs. Turningham said. "Yes, but those are really only guesses, ones we made up for them. And," she added roundly, "those are for kinds of flowers, not for flowers themselves."

"What do you mean?" I asked, taking an imprudent sip and scalding my tongue.

"Everything that grows has a name," said the old lady calmly. "Your name isn't Homo Sapiens, is it?"

"No ma'am," I said. "At least," I amended, "no one calls me that."

"Quite right," said Mrs. Turningham. "This book," she said, "has the names of some flowers Mr. Turningham and I knew, while we were together.  Both here and at our house."

"I thought this was your house," I said in surprise.

Usually our talks were vague exchanges of pleasantries, she asking me questions she'd asked me a dozen times, me giving the same answers.  I had been tempted sometimes to give different answers to see if she'd notice, but I didn't have the heart to play mean tricks.  Besides, Mrs. Turningham didn't seem to notice much.

But today was different; this was a somehow sharper Mrs. Turningham than the one I knew, a sharper one.  I had the feeling that she was more present than she'd been before.  I had never talked about anything really personal with her before, but I had never spoken with her for this long before either. 

The house was absolutely still, all noise upstairs had vanished.  What were they doing?  Why didn't they come down?

(link to part two)