Rescue Fantasies (Part 14) (683 hits)
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Submitted by fried-green-potatoes (View user info) at 2006-01-21 08:02:22 EST
http://www.ubersite.com/m/82622 (Part 13)
Carl Burns chose his words carefully. Kylie was changing—that was the missing piece behind Jan's divorce. The girl's carefree ways were dissolving into something darker and more sinister, something that couldn't be explained by a normal-if-sulky transition from child to young woman. Kylie would cling to Jan on those mornings when the woman rushed out of the house to work, the days her mother would not return until classes ended late at night. Welts began to appear on the girl. The father shrugged and walked away when asked about them. Jan would ease through the door near midnight and find her 12-year-old curled into a tight ball in inthe corner of a urine-soaked bed. Kylie pulled back from everyone except her mother and Dee, the wild friend who spent as much time at Kylie's house as her own. "Dee knows me best," was all Kylie would say when asked about her new confidante, a girl already expert at navigating a home life in shambles.
John realized that the old man was deliberately leaving gaps in the tale. He remembered the photograph from Jan's end table: Kylie, the girl in soccer jersey who stared out at the world through dark and troubled eyes.
"We're not what you'd call a talkin' family, young man," Carl Burns said to John. "We asked what was goin' on, but the little girl wouldn't speak on it....It was her daddy, after all."
"So you're telling me that while Jan was out of the house, you thought the dad was inappro..."
John stopped when he saw the old man's face. As sick has he was, Carl Burns hadn't forgotten how to deliver a cold, hard look into another man's eyes. He hadn't forgotten how to ball up that big, calloused fist of his in case the guy missed his meaning. Kylie's grandfather was making it clear that any detailed questions John had were none of his business. The two men sat silently for a moment and let the air clear.
"All I'm gonna say is that Jan couldn't have her baby around that man anymore—not any more, not after that," Carl Burns said finally. "The man give Jan the divorce when he saw she wasn't after his money. But he was sore about losin' Kylie. He hired another lawyer and took a stab at gettin' the girl back. That's about the time that Kylie and Dee got into some scrapes around town, and that give the daddy and his lawyer what they needed," the old man said.
"What scrapes?"
"Breakin curfew a couple times, underage drinking once—getting writ up by the police for little things like that. Kylie's momma was still keepin' them miserable work hours, remember; Kylie and Dee was on their own a lot and, well.... It weren't much trouble--kid stuff, really. But it was enough for Kylie's daddy to get a custody fight goin'. And that's where things was at when I come to town."
"You mean when you came into Ellington for the hospital check-up?"
"Hospital wasn't the main reason... it was for Kylie I come," Carl Burns said. "Jan was sick over this custody fight, mister. She couldn't fight it proper ... not with Kylie stayin' silent about what was goin' on with her daddy," the old man continued. "You know anything about my Jan, you know she could never put Kylie into something like that. Didn't matter what no court said, she wasn't gonna be sending her little girl up to that man fearin' what was happenin behind his doors.... She'd die before she'd do that."
Carl Burns described how he and his daughter tried to find a way to get Kylie out of town and beyond the reach of her father-- for good. They thought about stealing her up to Debston, hiding the girl there while authorities searched Philadelphia, New York and other urban magnets for a reported runaway. The problem was Jan's ex-husband. It wouldn't take long before he would have the law paying a visit to the grandfather's house to check out the story. "We couldn't make it work, not that way" the old man said.
Then came the day that forced the old man's hand-- the day Dee pulled the trigger, Kylie ran, and Carl Burns picked up the phone to report a little girl had shot herself in an uptairs bedroom. The ambulance was there within minutes. Three EMTs stormed in and rushed to the room that Carl Burns pointed to. And it was then that the old man heard the youngest on the ambulance crew start to yell, "Kylie! It's Kylie!"
"I'm guessing this is that kid who tends the cemetery," John said.
Carl Burns smiled. "Damn, son, you managed to get around some in Ellington, didn't you?"
The kid on the ambulance crew spent the afternoon telling everyone within earshot how he knew this girl personally and how she had helped him with homework once and how good and nice she was and wasn't it a shame that this could happen to a fine girl who wasn't stuck up like those other honors kids. "He just saw the dark hair on a girl Kylie's size lyin' dead in her momma's bedroom, and took it from there. Don't know how mouthy, excitable types like him gets ambulance work, but I guess volunteer fire and rescue pretty much takes all kinds," Carl Burns said.
"Why didn't you tell them then and there?" John asked.
"Tell them what? There's a girl shot dead in the bedroom and the last one to see her alive was my granddaughter, who drove off and quit town five minutes after it happened? A girl whose momma was already sick about the prospect of losin' her?" Carl Burns shot back. "It just took, is all; and I wasn't gonna stop it from happening. This young feller kept runnin his mouth about the dead girl being Kylie and it just took-- the only question they asked me about names was if 'Kylie' was short for something else.'"
It seemed fantastic. Like one of those quirky filler stories the paper ran almost every day: the world-class medical center that amputates the wrong leg, or he highway construction crew that screws up and bulldozes the wrong building.
"You mean to tell me nobody, not the sheriff, not the detective not the medical examiner took a hard look into...."
"This ain't no crime story on the TV, son," Carl Burns said. "Ellington's bust. Been in receivership for five years. Ain't no money left for more than three full-timers in the sheriff's office and part-time help on weekends. This is just some ol' bust-up steel town that everyone wants out of nowadays. There ain't nobody left to care over nothing--theys so busy figuring how to get out. They sure as hell ain't gonna bust a gut over a girl who shoots herself by accident...or even a girl who runned off to New York City to get out of a bad home."
It was Dee Gutierrez the old man referred to, and posters of the girl popped up in a few stores around town a three weeks after the shooting. By then, the closed-casket funeral for Kylie Burns was over and done with.
"I seen one of them posters, and you know what it said? 'Girl missing, on or around October 13,'" Carl Burns said.". "'On or around'... Them folks of hers didn't even know she was gone. Just thought she's stayin' at friends like always. They only learned she was missing when the school sent someone into that filthy house askin' why Dee weren't in class all them days. Them folks didn't know and they didn't care. And they ain't lifted a finger to find her since."
"What about Kylie's Dad?"
"What about him? The law couldn't figure out if it was suicide at first, and they turned the place over lookin' for some note from Kylie. They didn't find nothin', of course. But when word got out they was lookin' for a note or something that might explain what would cause a young girl like Kylie to shoot herself, her daddy fired his lawyer and stayed out of it from then on. What's that tell you, young man?"
John swallowed hard and asked what he'd been avoiding.
"Jan...."
Carl Burns nodded. There was no need to finish the question.
"Hardest thing I ever had to do--ain't sure I quite forgived myself neither. I was just prayin' she'd stay clear of the house that day. And in fact, it was hours before someone finally tracked her down at her night studies. They didn't tell Jan what was goin' on—just come home quick. When my Jan come in that night, the body was gone to the examiners but the sherrif was still in the living room.... And I had to let it happen. ...pretending-like... letting that sheriff tell my daughter that her baby..."
Carl Burns trailed off and he rubbed his forehead for a moment or two.
"There weren't no way around it, mister... I had to let her think her baby was dead... if only for a few minutes... just till they cleared out and stopped asking questions... I'd a rather lose an arm than let my little girl be like that--even for a few minutes... But it was the only way ... the only way to keep Kylie with nobody to follow and take her ... I'm tellin' you straight off that was my big sin in all this, son—not telling her straight away...It's something I'm never gonna be done with."
The screen door slammed and out walked Beatrice with a glass of water and a fist full of capsules. She kept her back ceremoniously turned to John as the old man swallowed the pills one by one. In the field across the road, farmers were oiling the machinery. The old woman left and Car Burns continued.
"Once the sheriff left, I explained it all to Jan: How they wouldn't come lookin as long as they thought it was Kylie who shot herself, how Jan could keep her baby up to my place, let things die down while she got set up in a big city where nobody'd ever be lookin for them two ... 'you'll have her back by summer,' I kept tellin' her.'"
"Why are you telling me all this now?" John asked
"Don't take this the wrong way, son, but if me and Beatrice had our way, I'd be tellin' you nothin'," the old man replied. "We were dead set against it—just like we were when Jan talked to her friend Faye when things got hard those first days. Me and Beatrice tried every way we knew to talk Jan out of letting you or anyone else know....But Jan gets real quiet-like when your name come up...thinking...thinking about you... Ever notice my Jan's sweet ways--times when she's pulled inside herself, just thinkin' things over?... Ever seen that soft, sweet look that come over her then?"
Carl Burns stopped and the old man brushed his eyes quickly. John could see his throat working hard as he struggled to keep his composure.
"Well, Jan just says 'Pop, he needs this story...I can't say why... I don't think even he knows why...He just needs it, needs to make it his own somehow... It's what he's needed all along.'"
John got up quickly and moved to the edge of the porch. He stood there leaning against a worn post, looking into the empty fields. The two men stayed with their backs turned to each other for a long while, each thinking about how much had been lost in such a short span. Finally, John cleared his throat and began to speak.
"I... I don't know if I quite believe you about all of this...about any of this. How can you even be sure the shooting went that way?"
Carl Burns looked at him and smiled sadly.
"People love you, tell you things, and you take it on trust, young man....Besides, it don't make a damn bit of difference, how that shot got fired... Kylie and her momma are everything to me. I woulda done exactly the same, protecting them the best I know how, no matter how it happened. ... Far as believing goes, son, if I had my way, you wouldn't believe a single word I said.. The whole goddamn world wouldn't believe none of it—none of it. Then, I reckon I'd have my baby girl and her baby girl back with me right now."
The old man shook his head slowly.
"I best go rest up now," he said.
John helped Carl Burns to his feet. He was breathing hard, struggling for air, and he needed to stop every few steps before he made it though the screen door. John was halfway down the porch steps when he heard the old man's voice.
"Strange happenings, that's for sure, son. Hard to understand, even for me. Now I got a question for you," the shadow behind the screen door said. "I ain't never laid eyes on you or heard your voice till today. How is it that a man like you could take everything out of my life like that? In just a day or two—it's all been took and I'll die before I ever lay eyes on my baby and her baby again. How does that happen, I wonder?"
Words began to form in John's mouth. The old man shut the door before he could get them out.
*one more installment to go*
User Reviews
Submitted by fried-green-potatoes (user info) at 2006-01-24 13:04:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2006-01-22 09:44:23 (#)
Ranking: 2
best-written series in the history of ubersite.
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Wow. Just nice to be mentioned in the top tier since this is only the second piece of fiction I've ever done. Thanks, Jack.
I'm finding an outline to be helpful these days. Seems to keep things from just fizzling into a tacked-on ending. I didn't know what a fiction outline was supposed to look like, so I just played it by ear: "storyline" in the first column, "words/images" in the second column. Started with a VERY rough storyline and, every few installments, I'd flesh it out a little. Then, in the second column, I'd jot down a few key phrases and images that were showing up. Near the conclusion, you've got a little two-page handwritten reminder ("you're there before you know it"...frames/the margins of things... the teacher's mouth ... "I'll have her by summer" etc.) of stuff that you can continue to build on, rather than trying to introduce a bunch of new elements.
Usually it took about five minutes or so before each writing session, that's it. And, like I said, I have NO IDEA if what I'm doing is "the right way" or "the way it should be done." I'm sure it varies by writer. But it seemed to help me out on this story, and I thought I'd pass it along.
Thanks for the kind words!
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-01-22 23:03:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Yep.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2006-01-22 09:44:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
best-written series in the history of ubersite.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-01-22 07:56:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-01-21 10:23:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh..... that poor old man.
Finish it, dude - I want to quit this stinking hellhole of a website and I can't until you're done. You're my Scheherazade.