The Occupied Page 3

  Again, I was at a loss for words.

  “Now you can go,” he said.

  I turned to leave, but had a thought, trying to be neighborly. “Next time, Mr. Krim, if you want something out of that glass case over there, I’d be glad to get it for you. You know, so you won’t drop them and they won’t get broken.”

  He pursed his lips tight together for a second. “Haven’t you been listening? I wasn’t the one who opened that glass case.”

  When I got home I tossed the book he gave me into a corner of my bedroom and, for a while, forgot about it.

  The end of the school year was looming, and a bunch of our classmates had raised a pile of cash to throw a party the last weekend before the beginning of summer vacation. Some of it was to buy a modicum of soda and a huge amount of beer, and the rest was the talent fee for The Assault. We happily took the cash and carted our equipment to the edge of a private beach park at Silver Lake. Somebody knew whoever it was who ran the park, and we were assured that he wasn’t the kind who would call the police and report underage drinking. He must have been paid off.

  That evening, ready to light the night on fire with rhythm and blues music, I looked out into the crowd, and there, in the very front, was Marilyn Parlow. She was wearing a pair of short shorts, a tight-fitting tank top, and a flirtatious smile.

  I was ready for her. I whispered the name of the first number to Dan and Augie, then strode back and told Bobby, who was engulfed by his drum set. It was a number that I had picked out especially for Marilyn.

  Augie started thumping a bass line, slowly. Then Dan’s guitar let out a slow, shivering scream that originated at the high frets way up there near the body of his Fender Stratocaster. Bobby was riding the foot pedal with a chest-pounding beat.

  Then I put on my Ray-Ban sunglasses and gave the intro. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I shouted into the mic, with the vamp building in the background. “The Assault is happy to be with you tonight.”

  The crowd went crazy.

  “We have a very special number for you.”

  More cheers and screams erupted.

  “This one goes out to someone very special. Marilyn Parlow.”

  I could barely hear my own voice over the noise.

  “This one is dedicated to you, darlin’. Hope you like it.”

  Music pounded, swelling slowly up the scale. Dundt dundt dundt dundt, dahhhh . . . Then I wailed out in a falsetto, the first line of the James Brown hit—

  “‘This is a man’s world . . .’”

  Even through my shades, I could see Marilyn’s expression. First, mock anger at my insult to her professed feminism. Then, as if she couldn’t help it, the surrender to a grimace that was hiding a smile, and then finally her full-blown belly laugh as she shook her head.

  I figured that was it. That I had her. But with Marilyn, it was never so simple.

  After we finished our set, Bobby climbed out from behind his drums and started talking and joking around with me, when Marilyn wiggled up to us. She put one hand on my shoulder and one on Bobby’s and pulled us to her. She kissed both of us on the cheek, first Bobby, then me. “I love your music.”

  She looked at Bobby. “When you’re hitting those drums, I can’t tell whether you want to hurt them or make love to them.”

  Bobby’s face turned scarlet.

  Before she walked away, she said to me, “And thanks for the dedication. I guess?”

  Marilyn had successfully messed up my head in a very serious way. Did she know what she was doing? Of course she did. She had to.

  Bobby started packing up his drum kit. “I think I’m gonna take off, guys.”

  Dan put an arm around Bobby’s shoulders. “C’mon, stay awhile. This is your chance to party.”

  “Aw, let him go,” Augie cut in, sauntering over. “He doesn’t know how to have fun anyhow.”

  Bobby gave a half smile. “Yeah, not really my scene. Besides, something just feels . . . off about this place. Like something bad happened here and it left its mark, you know?”

  I looked at Dan, who shrugged. Augie shook his head and just laughed and made a spooky noise, then wandered away to tap a keg.

  “You guys don’t feel it?” Bobby asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. There was something uncomfortable hanging in the air. “But it’s nothing a joint and a few beers won’t remedy.”

  Bobby said he’d see us at practice, then hauled his gear out to his dad’s Pontiac. Dan, Augie, and I hung out at the party into the wee hours. In the past few months, Augie had practically become a one-man drug cartel, so we spent our time smoking weed and draining down beer.

  I finally dragged myself home near dawn, feeling spent and empty, and trying to concoct in my head a headline for the evening, something like “Best Night Ever,” even though on the inside I wasn’t buying it. By that time the starry night had already started to change and darkness was turning into a hazy gray. The morning light was starting to break over Manitou, revealing what the world really looked like.

  4

  On the last day of school, an hour before the bell was to ring, I was called down to the principal’s office. I wondered if someone had ratted on the drinking and other nefarious goings-on at the party at Silver Lake. But it wasn’t about that. It was a message my mother had delivered to the school secretary, who in turn handed it to me.

  I know it is your day to stop by Mr. Krim’s. But please come straight home after school, and do NOT stop at Mason Krim’s house.

  That message was intriguing enough to drive me crazy, so I hustled home. When I arrived at my house, I noticed that down the street there was a big black station wagon with no windows in the sides or the back.

  My mother met me inside the door, and she had that look in her eye, something serious. “On the way home from work, I saw some envelopes sticking out of Mason Krim’s mail slot, and the newspaper was still on his doorstep, so I decided I’d check on him myself.” Then the kicker: “Mr. Krim has passed away.”

  My body went cold. “How did he die?”

  “Well, he was old. Already had a stroke. You know that. It was just his time.” My mother was a nurse, and I knew she had experience with death, but she seemed more uneasy than she’d ever been, even after a shift at the hospital.

  Plus, I had my own reason for probing. “Yeah, but . . . where did you find him?”

  “In the living room.”

  “By the bookcases? Across from the glass display case?”

  “No, Trevor. Not there . . .”

  “I really want to know. On his walker?”

  “Yes. I guess he must have been standing with his walker when he collapsed.”

  “But where?”

  “By a wall. Under a painting.”

  “The dead Christ? That one?”

  She eyed me closely and took her time answering. “Yes, under that picture. But you needn’t worry about any of that . . .”

  I couldn’t let it end there. “Were his eyes open?”

  She sighed. “Yes, they were. Now, Trevor, you don’t need to know anything else.”

  “I do. I do need to know. Was he looking at something?”

  “What difference does it make? He’s gone. I’m sure he appreciated what you did for him—”

  “Was he looking at something? It’s important to me.”

  Long pause. “Does this have something to do with your father passing? I know it was so hard for you when it happened, you were so young.”

  “No. Nothing to do with Dad dying.” I raised my voice. “Mom, I need an answer. What was he looking at?”

  “Maybe looking at the picture, I really can’t say—”

  “Did Krim look surprised? Shocked?”

  Longer pause. Finally she said, “Yes, he looked surprised. Probably a physiological response. It happens at death sometimes.” Then she raised one eyebrow and added, “Trevor, how did you know all this?”

  I just shrugged, and then I sprinted up the stairs to my bedroom and shut
the door.

  After rummaging around my room, I found the book that Krim had given me. It was titled Piercing the Supernatural Veil, but no author’s name was listed. The publishing date was 1929 by the Theosophy League.

  I started reading, and I kept reading until I finished the book at around two in the morning. It was the eve of summer vacation, and in a few days my summer job with a construction company would be starting. I also knew that Dan Hoover wanted several band practices lined up as soon as possible.

  But suddenly, none of that seemed to matter. By the time I hit the last page of the book, my view of the physical world had been rocked with the idea that there might truly be another dimension out there, one that could wilt roses and shatter ceramics . . . and scare a man to death. And as the title of that little book implied, there might be a way to connect with it. As Mason Krim had told me as a boy that time, in his weird monologue at the cemetery, “There’s things out there you don’t know yet. Things that can happen.” Whatever those things were, I wanted to find out.

  The question that was haunting me, as I drifted off to sleep, was whether Mason Krim, gripping his walker moments before his death, had some kind of experience as he looked up at that painting, the one with the pale Christ off the cross as he lay on the ground in death with his chest gashed. I thought back to my first visit with Krim at his house. And what he had said to me when I was with him and he was staring at that picture on that wall.

  “Wrong side.”

  Wild dreams with crumbling houses and sad angels and strange whispers and doorknobs that turned into jackals’ heads. I slept late the next day—almost until noon. My mom must have taken pity on me; it was my first day of vacation, and she hadn’t wakened me before heading off to her shift at the hospital.

  After prying my eyes open, I slumped around the kitchen in my gym shorts, filling up a mixing bowl with Cheerios and dousing it with milk, when the doorbell rang. I put down the bowl, shuffled to the front door, and opened it. Marilyn was standing on the front porch.

  She laughed. “Wow. Bad hair day!”

  I discovered a cowlick in my tangled hair and smoothed it down. “Hey, what’s up?” I was trying to play it casual.

  Then I looked out to the curb and saw Bobby behind the wheel of his parents’ Pontiac. He waved. There was this bitter taste of disappointment. But I thought to myself, Okay, so I guess the three of us is better than the none of us.

  Marilyn had her hands on her hips. “We’re going on a picnic. Shake your booty.”

  I dashed into the kitchen, tipped the contents of the cereal bowl into the sink, and sprinted upstairs to get dressed. Fifteen minutes later we were cruising west toward the end of town where the country club was located.

  I asked where we were going.

  “Up by the golf course,” Marilyn said. “There’s a service road up there. Lots of grass. Great view.”

  “Yeah,” I said, noting that she didn’t call the place by its local name, Makeout Point. “I know about that area. How’d you know?”

  She burst out with, “Everybody knows, stupid!”

  After parking the car, we found a grassy hill with a view of the marsh and Pebble Creek directly below. If you looked farther you could see some farmers’ fields, and even farther above the trees, the high cement tower of the incinerator at the Manitou landfill, which was illuminated at night with rows of vertical lights so you could see the eerie outline of the tower, like a surrealistic Christmas decoration. On “animal burning days” it would send up a disgusting odor of smoke and death.

  Marilyn spread out a bedsheet and opened up a picnic basket. She had stuffed it with fried chicken, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and chips. My kind of food.

  The three of us lay down on our backs with our bellies full, staring at the blue sky, not far from a hedge of lilac bushes that were exploding with fragrance.

  After a while I said, “What’s out there?”

  Bobby asked, “Out where?”

  “After life. After death.”

  “Don’t know,” Marilyn said.

  “Heaven,” Bobby said.

  I narrowed it down. “I’m talking about something else.”

  “What?” Bobby asked.

  “Supernatural things. Angels and demons. Another dimension.”

  “I don’t like scary movies,” Marilyn said. “I like love stories.”

  I needed to make my point. “Maybe some things seem scary because we don’t understand them. Like an invisible supernatural veil. And we’re on one side. But what if we were able to walk through it?”

  Marilyn started laughing. “Oh, you are in such a weird mood. Where do you get that stuff?”

  Just then, Bobby jumped up, looking at his watch.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I just remembered I need to get to the dry cleaner’s at the Crestview Plaza. I promised my dad I’d swing by and pick up his shirts before they closed.”

  Marilyn started packing up her picnic accoutrements, but Bobby cut her off. “Don’t bother. I’ll be back in half an hour or so. You guys just chill.”

  We watched Bobby drive his dad’s Pontiac down the road until it disappeared. Marilyn rolled over on her side closer to me, and we made small talk for a while. About her plans for school and how she had been accepted at a girls’ college in Virginia. And about her summer job at the YWCA swimming pool as a lifeguard, and how she was bummed because it was an inside pool and she couldn’t get a suntan that way. She joked about my construction job, and why I couldn’t hurry up and finish the city’s new outside swimming pool where my summer job had me pouring cement. The air was filled with the scent of lilacs, and I was trying not to stare at Marilyn, but it was hard not to.

  I decided that she was flirting, so I made the move. I kissed her, and she seemed like she enjoyed it. She kissed me back, and I felt myself being swallowed up in her perfume, which had the fragrance of exotic flowers.

  But when I tried to go further, she slapped my hand and pulled back. “I’m not easy like that. Why would you think that?”

  I tried to be nonchalant. “I don’t think that.”

  By then she was lying on her back with a serious look on her face. Then, after a minute or so, she burst into laughter. “What was that thing you were saying? About a supernatural whatever?”

  “Supernatural veil.”

  “Yeah. What were you talking about?”

  “Just something I read.”

  “Do you believe everything you read?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Because there’s a lot of ridiculous stuff out there. What’s important is what you can see and touch with your own body. And what you can feel with your own heart. Not some invisible make-believe.”

  I was trying to figure her out. But before I could, she sat up quickly and said, curtly, “Just don’t be stupid, Trevor. You’re smarter than that.”

  “Stupid about what?”

  “You know, about me. Us. Everything.”

  As soon as she uttered that last word, she stood up and went back to packing the leftovers and the trash and putting it in the picnic basket. By then we could see Bobby’s Pontiac, winding toward us up the road’s serpentine twists and turns.

  I grabbed the picnic basket, and Marilyn and I started walking toward Bobby’s car. I was leaving behind the grassy hill and the lilacs and the drifting scent of her perfume.

  Like Adam, I had been tossed out of the Garden. But unlike him, I didn’t realize it yet.

  5

  That was the only romantic interlude I had with Marilyn before the start of summer, or even up to the fall for that matter. And it had been a failure.

  In early summer The Assault had a few performances. But then things tapered off. Dan Hoover had always handled the bookings, but he had been accepted into the Juilliard jazz program and more and more was disappearing for music camp or private lessons. I knew he was talented, but it didn’t hit me at the time what an incredible honor it was for Dan to
be accepted into the program. All I cared about was the fact that our blues band was slowly disintegrating and I didn’t like it.

  With Dan not around, and Bobby going AWOL working six weeks straight at a church camp, Augie and I started hanging around together more. He had tried for a football scholarship at UW Stout, but didn’t get in. He decided to start out at the local community college and then planned on transferring to Stout after two years, in order to save money on tuition.

  One weekend my mother had to attend an overnight nursing conference out of town. She made a point of ceremonially handing me a set of keys with a serious mother look. “I’m giving you the keys to Mason Krim’s house. We’re expecting some relatives of his to arrive any day now to claim the estate and check out the house. In case they come while I’m gone, you’ll have the keys, and you can let them in.”

  Then, an even more intense mother stare into my eyes. “And no parties in that house. Understood?”

  I nodded approvingly. I couldn’t imagine a worse place to have a rocking party than in Mason Krim’s house.

  After my mother left early that evening, Augie and I were at my house sucking down cans of Miller beer, killing time, when Augie gave a mock shiver. “Man, I get the creeps sometimes just driving down your block.”

  “From what?”

  “That place on the corner. It looks like a haunted house.”

  “Yeah, that’s where Mason Krim used to live. Don’t worry. He’s got some relatives coming to claim the place. I’m sure they’re just going to knock it down and sell the lot. They’re supposed to stop by here anytime to pick up the keys.” I took a swig, then glanced at Augie. He had a strange look of concentration on his face. “I ever tell you I used to check in on Krim?”

  “Like, face-to-face in his house?”

  “Every Tuesday. He was a lonely, creepy old man. Always trying to scare me with talk about death and stuff. Even has this huge painting of a dead Jesus right in the entryway.”

  “Sick.” Augie went quiet for a moment. “So what did he talk about?”