Chapter 3. And, go.

Someone’s washed and shampooed Hazel Concannon’s hair, which hangs in damp ringlets around her face. They’ve applied a pink-gold lipstick to her heavily lined lips and a coral-colored blush to the broad apples of her cheeks. Hazel turns her head and I see where mascara has been applied to her lashes, as well. The good kind that doesn’t clump. She looks almost pretty in her makeup and green silk blouse. Less feral.

Some of the water in Hazel’s hair has dripped off onto the shoulders of her blouse and I can see chill bumps on her arms. I get up from my chair, pad into the kitchen, and collect a towel from the washer/dryer combo just left of the fridge. Back in the TV room, I pass her the towel, still warm from the last cycle.

“I don’t want you to catch cold,” I say, nodding at her slick curls.

Hazel accepts the towel and, elbows flailing, rubs her head vigorously. When she passes it back to me, her carefully combed hair is now a morass of snarls.

“A reminder before we get started,” Ayers says, clearing his throat. “We’ve got lunch to serve in twenty-five minutes and, at present, it’s just Barbara in the dining room, so we need to hurry this along.”

I glance over at Sheriff Whatley whose entire countenance has been affected by Barbara’s name. Every visible bit of his paper white skin has turned pink. Poor man. He probably thinks whatever’s between them has the potential to roll out, long-term, as love.

“Then let’s get straight to it,” the sheriff says, pulling a small recorder from his pocket. He depresses the red button on its side and sets it on the glass-topped coffee table between us. “So, we’re all here to give last night’s events some closure,” he says. “Let’s start by getting everyone’s agreement to this recording on audio. All I need from each of you is to state your name, how you’re related to this event, then add a simple, ‘I agree’. Rhys?” He turns to me. “Let’s start with you.”

“Rhys Overland,” I begin, then pause to better categorize my part in last night’s hostilities. “I was the recipient,” I say. “Of both the pizza and Ms. Concannon’s outrage. And, yes. I agree to these proceedings. Ayers?”

Seated in the chair to my left, Ayers clears his throat then leans closer to the recorder. “Ayers Membly, owner of The Ship Shack,” he says. “I agree.”

The proverbial ball is passed to a pretty, older woman seated on the couch next to Hazel. Tanned with straight, blonde hair and giant gold hoops in either ear, she slides forward and points heavily glossed lips at the recorder. “Bettina Dadovich. Mother of Dan Dadovich who is the owner of Daddy-O’s Pizza. I am the sister and court-appointed guardian of Hazel Concannon…”

“Court appointed?” I cut in.

Sheriff Whatley leans over. “Hazel’s had a few episodes,” he says, low. “Nothing violent, last night’s incident not included.”

He glances up at Hazel who’s got both fists working at her hair. She pulls one lock straight, then the other, as if they were teats on a cow and there was milk to be made. It’s a soothing technique I’ve seen many of my foster siblings use. I think it’s something about the silky feel of hair. A little soft to go with the rough.

Sheriff Whatley turns back to Bettina. “Mrs. Dadovich, do you agree to today’s conditions?”

“I do.” She nods and turns to her sister. “Hazel. You’re up, honey.”

Hazel drops both hands into her lap and, silent, picks at a bit of snagged material in the crotch of her polyester pants.

“Honey?” Bettina nudges her. “It’s your turn.”

When Hazel doesn’t take up the baton, Bettina speaks on her behalf. “This is my sister, Hazel Concannon,” she says. “Last night, Hazel was asked to deliver a pizza to The Ship Shack. Upon seeing Ms. Overland, someone my sister professes to know, she grew overexcited and behaved in a manner unbecoming…”

Sheriff Whatley halts Bettina with an upheld hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Dadovich. I’ll take it from here.” He leans forward, ducking his head to catch Hazel’s attention. “Before we can move on, I need you to say you’re agreeable to this deal, OK, Hazel? Can you say, I agree? Otherwise, we have to take you down to the station.”

“I agree,” Hazel blurts out.

“Thank you,” the sheriff replies and, like everyone else in the room, looks over at me. “You’re up, Ms. Overland. Ask Ms. Concannon your questions.”

Breathing slowly so as to hold in the tide, I turn in my seat and look at Hazel. “Did you know my mother?” I pronounce the words slowly, a nervous smile dancing around my lips.

Hazel nods, eyes adrift.

“I need to hear it, darlin’.” Sheriff Whatley taps against the recorder. “Out loud, please, Hazel.”

Like a child who’s done something wrong, the woman’s lower lip trembles. “Yes,” she answers first to the sheriff, then to me. “I knew her.”

I watch as the air around Hazel’s head shimmers, the parts nearest her temples, folding and puckering. Opening like little mouths from which fern-like leaves roll out. They slip into place above her forehead and waver there like a crown, constantly reassembling itself. They’re scars of the emotional variety. A laurel wreath created by the worst kind of torture.

I’ve seen them before. On the old homeless man always walking the waterfront in Alexandria. On my foster sibling, Clancy, a gangly, 16-year old boy who took his life rather than continue living with the Sandeltons. Occasionally, I see them on me. It’s part of why I have an aversion to mirrors.

Hazel turns her head towards her sister and smoothes down the woman’s wild hair. Her manicured nails raking right through those skinless scars.

“Hazel?” I ask, recovering her attention. “Where did you meet my mother?”

Hazel blinks, thinking hard. “At the birthing center.”

“At Barnes Hospital?” I ask. “At the big hospital in St. Louis?”

“No,” Hazel responds. “Not there.”

Bettina looks over, brow furrowed. “You worked at Barnes, honey,” she says, worry sharpening the dull tone of her voice. “You delivered babies there. Don’t you remember?”

“I delivered babies at the hospital.” Hazel bobs her head. “But I delivered them at the compound, too.”

In my peripheral vision, I see Sheriff Whatley reposition in his chair. “What compound, Hazel?” he asks.

“The one in the countryside.”

“Where in the countryside?”

Hazel shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “They put us in vans and drove us out there.”

“Did you head north, Hazel?” Ayers cuts in. “Did they take you over the Clark Bridge?”

“Would have been the Old Clark Bridge back then.” The sheriff leans forward, officially taking over. “Did you go though Alton?” he asks, one hand going for his breast pocket.

Hazel nods. “Yes.”

Out comes the sheriff’s notepad and pen. “So you were in a company van?”

“Yes. A company van.”

“Was there a name on the van, Hazel?”

“No. It was just a white van.”

“And that van,” the sheriff says, scratching out his notes, “did it take you up I-55 north?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff pauses, blue eyes rolling up. “So you were driven into Illinois?”

“Yes. To the countryside.” Hazel smiles at the memory. “They took us to a farm.”

“How many of you were there?” the sheriff asks.

“Five total,” Hazel answers. “The driver, two nurses, one of which was me, and Doc Miner and his boy, though he didn’t always ride with. Sometimes he just met us there with his nanny. Sometimes, he didn’t show up at all.”

Sheriff Whatley’s pen goes still in his hand. “There was a boy there when women were delivering?”

Hazel nods. “Yes.”

The sheriff cocks his head. “Why would a boy be there, Hazel?”

Hazel bursts out laughing. “To help, of course,” she says. “What a stupid question.”

Next to me, Ayers coughs, stifling a laugh.

Bettina takes hold of her sister’s hand. “Obviously she’s misremembering,” she says in a hospice tone.

Hazel removes her hand from her sister’s and looks around our small circle. “No I’m not,” she says firmly. “They took us to a farm. Doctor Miner and his boy, Jacob, were there with us.”

I let my eyes go soft and watch Hazel’s patchwork emotions threading themselves into a mantilla that forms around her head and shoulders. It is a holographic shroud made up of dots of odd colors and slashes of shifting light. It’s as if Hazel is putting out some sort of S.O.S. I’m not equipped to understand.

“Can you describe the farm?” I ask her.

The frenetic display disappears, sucked back into Hazel’s body as, that quickly, she lights up with the memory of it.

“It was a beautiful farm,” she says, smiling. “There was a long, rocked drive with an old, white house on its right side and a red barn and concrete silo on the other.”

As I lean forward, the others lean back, ceding me the floor. “So you delivered babies inside the farmhouse?”

“Not in the farmhouse…” Hazel begins to say something more then a shadow crosses her features and she shuts down.

“Hazel?” I prompt.

The woman looks through the glass top of my coffee table to the blue shag rug beneath. “We went through the old root cellar,” she says. “That’s how we got there.”

“So there were stairs beneath the root cellar’s doors?” I ask. “And they led to the birthing center?”

Hazel nods, smiling and frowning at the same time. “Doc Miner’s boy used to slide down those doors when they were closed,” she whispers. “Jacob had the most beautiful red hair. The exact color of a fresh penny.”

The room’s air becomes thick. Filled up with the others’ worry that, just maybe, Hazel is telling the truth.

“So this boy's father was in charge of the birthing center?” I ask.

A smile. “Yes.”

“Was this birthing center in the country like the one at the hospital?”

“Yes, but there were no windows, of course,” Hazel says as if I was stupid.

I drag my chair a little closer to the table and inch forward on its wooden saddle. “So you were there when my mother gave birth to me?” I ask.

“Yes.” 

“And my mother’s name.” I inch slightly forward. “Was it Kathryn?”

Hazel’s eyes fly up to meet mine. “Kathryn!” she shouts, then smiles. “Yes! That was her name. Kathryn.”

“And, just to confirm, you were her delivery nurse?”

“I was.” Hazel nods, proud of it; a thing I don’t require my synesthesia to see. It’s in her rolled back shoulders and stuck-out chest.

For the first time in this woman’s company, a purplish-blue haze rises off of her. The color of self-esteem.

“Can you tell me what happened, Hazel?” I ask softly. “Can you tell me about my birth?”

With a single intake of breath, Hazel sucks the purplish mist back in through some valve located near the top of her head. And that’s where this better version of her stays, buried within the dull beige shell of her skin.

“No,” Hazel answers.

I look at the sheriff who turns to the woman.

“Hazel, you need to answer Ms. Overland’s questions,” he says. “This is what you agreed to.”

Hazel turns to her sister. “I want to go home, now.”

“You have to do this now, honey.” Bettina pats her sister’s bobbing legs.

“I want to go home.” Hazel looks back at me, panic widening her heavy-lidded eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this any more.”

Sheriff Whatley reseats his hat on his head. “Now, Hazel…” he starts just as a thick, zinging sound comes from the window.

All of us turn and look at the single pane above the couch. A neat hole has appeared just a few inches from its bottom sash. And, like a burn, I see the path of some projectile in the air of my TV room. A series of gray Cs that starts on the window’s other side and follows an arrow-straight trajectory to a little, black hole in the front of Sheriff Whatley’s hat.

I stare at the sheriff, still seated in his chair. One hand lifted, as if he was worried about his hat being knocked off.

Bettina leans forward. “Sheriff, you’ve got something here.” She taps a manicured finger against her forehead.

The spot of dark on the sheriff’s brow becomes a line of thick, dark blood.

As it rolls down his face, Ayers shouts, “Get down!”, and pulls me out of my seat.

As I’m falling to the floor, more bullets pierce the window’s glass and embed themselves in places throughout the room, some hard and some soft. Some of the bullets seat themselves in the wall connecting my TV room to my hall closet. Some go through the back of my chair, recently emptied. Some stick to their targets with a sickening thwack. Before I turn to the two women still on the couch, I already know at least one of them is dead.

“Get down, Goddamnit!” I hear Ayers shout.

I turn in time to see him grab hold of Bettina’s arm. As he pulls her off the couch, Hazel comes along, too, and both woman hit the floor. As more bullets pierce the window, it’s Hazel who pushes herself up and scrambles away into my front hall. She stops just beyond its corner, so all I can see of her is the socked sole of one shoeless foot.

New sounds have begun just outside my front door, thankfully bolted as well as locked. I hear these sounds through the door's worn weather stripping: hard-soled boots worn by heavy men currently coming up the garage's side stairs. Ayers hears them too and is looking up at Hazel, caught between the door and this room full of bullets.  

Ayers takes hold of Bettina’s arm and drags her towards the hall. As she comes, her body rolls sideways and both of us see where all but the lobe of Bettina’s right ear is now gone. Her sparkling gold hoop, still intact.

“Come on!” Ayers shouts at me through the loud gunfire and begins across my floor towards Hazel.

I go to follow, then catch sight of Bettina’s giant yellow purse, just under her legs. I pull it out from beneath her and affix its long strap around one shoulder. Keeping low, I elbow my way towards Sheriff Whatley’s body, now full of holes, and yank him off his seat. As if orchestrated, he lands on the floor with a loud thud just as a pummeling begins at the front door. The men have arrived with what sounds like a battering ram. I block out their rhythmic assault and turn the sheriff over.

His hat falls off and, just like with Bettina, I see where a good piece of his head is gone as well. The point where the bullet came out so much larger than where it went in.

“Hey!” Ayers calls back to me from in front of my coat closet. “Hurry the fuck up!”

All I can see from here are his boot heels and my closet's floor covering pulled up and out like a tongue.

As quickly as I can, and with as much respect as I can afford, I find the sheriff’s gun, additional clip, and wallet, and shove them all into Bettina’s purse. Keeping low, I scramble towards the front hall where Ayers and Hazel are waiting. At the front door, just ten feet beyond them, the hits continue. Each one causing the vertical split in its center to grow longer and wider. 

Ayers drags me forward so I’m able to see the hole in the floor of my closet. “Get down there!” he shouts, pushing me towards it.

I look down at the black tunnel beneath my closet floor. Affixed to one side are a series of rusted rungs that disappear just a few feet in.

“Get down there!” Ayers shouts again and I drop into the hole, scrambling to find each toehold in the blackness.

I reach the bottom faster than the darkness suggests and, at its base, find cold concrete beneath my feet.

“Grab her!” Ayers whispers hotly to the sound of my front door cracking wide.

Before I can move, Hazel slides straight into my arms and the two of us fall backwards. We’re barely up and off the ground when Ayers is there above us, ready to follow suit. I see one of his arms pulling closed the wooden door behind him, and hear the sharp whine when Ayers sets its bolt. He drops down onto the concrete and a small, red firework lights up the blackness. He's landed hard on the concrete floor. Turned his ankle.

“Ayers…” I whisper.

He silences me with a truncated shush then pitches forward and opens another door. Hazel and I are pushed through it and, again, Ayers slams the door behind us. Latching it closed. 

Immediately, the sound of banging resumes overhead as fists, battering rams, or feet attempt to break through the closet’s trapdoor.

“Follow in my footsteps,” Ayers says, wading into the dark.

We walk in lockstep, Ayers first, then me, then Hazel. We navigate through the cramped, junk-laden space to a large, tarp-covered object in its middle. Ayers slides the covering away and a small vehicle is revealed beneath. A roadster with a convertible ragtop. Something through which bullets would, easily, come.

Ayers takes hold of my hand and leads me around the car’s nose towards the driver’s door. “Can you drive a manual?” he asks.

”Yes.”

I watch as Ayers backtracks to the car’s other side and opens its passenger door.

“The garage door is manual, too,” he says, assisting Hazel into the vehicle’s rear seat. “Which means, I’m going to have to open it. Key’s in the visor.”

I pull down the overhead visor and the vehicle's key drops into my lap.

“You’re coming with us, right?” I ask, my words tempered by the sound of the trapdoor breaking.

Not answering, Ayers slides across the vehicle’s nose and grabs a couple of metal signs stacked in the corner. He swings my door open and leans across me to pass them to Hazel. 

“Hold this over you,” he tells her, then slides out again, already to the garage door by the time I close my own.

I put the key in the ignition, pump the gas, and the engine fires. In the backseat, Hazel startles and I find her with my rearview mirror. She’s arranged the signs like a tin roof above her. One slope reading, Halbertson’s Grocery, Where a Dozen Eggs costs 10 cents! And, the other reading simply, Chesterfield Cigarettes.

Ayers takes hold of the garage door’s handle and pulls. It moves upward, but only a couple of feet.

I dip my head and look out at the revealed yard or two of rocked drive. “We’re clear!” I call to him.

New sounds roll out of the hidden room behind us and spill forward into the garage. Grunts and landings. Boots and gunfire. The intruders are shooting at the locked door now. Blowing bits of it outward.

“Get in!” I shout to Ayers while throwing open the passenger door.

Ayers shakes his head. “I have to get this door clear!”

“Get in!” I shout as voices sound out, louder now.

I see the intruders in the rearview mirror. They're spilling, one leg, then the other, through the opening they've made in the door. Each one, dressed, head to toe, in black.

“Go!” Ayers shouts, arms trembling as he pushes upward on the rusted door.

“We’re good!” I shout, nodding at the sufficient space. “Get in!”

Ayers dives towards the car as I drive forward and we’re out of the garage with no more than an inch of clearance to spare. As Ayers turns to assess the threat behind us, I focus on the rocked road running between The Ship Shack and its paved parking area. Two cars have been positioned there and are set at odd angles no regular-sized vehicle could clear.

“You’re not going to make it,” Ayers warns as I approach, his right hand working the leather of his door’s handle.

As I barrel towards the two vehicles, a map springs up around me, showing me the approach I’m to follow. The clearance here and the danger there, all displayed in the style of an architectural drawing. Each part glows brighter as it’s required, becoming a many-steps tutorial, provided courtesy of my condition and in real time.

“We’re going to lose the mirrors,” I say, turning the wheel slightly.

Ayers nods and braces himself, both hands now on the dash. “I can do without mirrors.”

The men behind us now out of the garage and following, we hear their gunfire more than feel it. Only one bullet makes the distance, striking the Eggs sign above Hazel’s head and sticking there.

As I drive between the two vehicles, keeping to my blueprint, the mirrors are sheared cleanly off, but nothing else. Not even a scratch is left on the vehicle’s dark blue paint.

Out on Great River Road, I turn right, away from town and towards the Illinois countryside. My foot never coming off the gas.

I glance up at Hazel in the backseat. She's abandoned her signs and is now curled around a pillow Ayers had there, her expression, blank. 

I look over at Ayers, who’s staring straight ahead, jaw flexing.

“The next Goddamned time I tell you to do something, you do it,” he says in a hardscrabble voice.

“I know you miss your wife, Ayers,” I say, looking up at the rearview mirror, as of yet empty of cars, “but I’m not going to be the one to deliver you to her side. OK?”

Ayers looks off into the countryside. “Take a right at Full Moon Road,” he says, then leans back and closes his eyes.