From a Buick 8(98)

The crocodile had closed its mouth.

NOW:

Sandy

Shirley, Huddie, Eddie: the sound of their entwined voices was oddly beautiful to me, like the voices of characters speaking lines in some strange play. Eddie said the crocodile had closed its mouth and then his voice ceased and I waited for one of the other voices to come in and when none did and Eddie himself didn't resume, I knew it was over. I knew but Ned Wilcox didn't. Or maybe he did and just didn't want to admit it

'Well?' he said, and that barely disguised impatience was back in his voice.

What happened when you dissected the bat-thing? Tell me about the fish. Tell me everything. But ? this is important ? tell me a story, one that has a beginning and a middle and an end where everything is explained. Because I deserve that. Don't shake the rattle of your ambiguity in my face. I deny its place. I repudiate its claim. I want a story.

He was young and that explained part of it, he was faced with something that was, as they say, not of this Earth, and that explained more of it . . . but there was something else, too, and it wasn't pretty. A kind of selfish, single-minded grubbing. And he thought he had a right. We spoil the grief-stricken, have you ever noticed that? And they become used to the treatment.

'Well what?' I asked. I spoke in my least encouraging voice. Not that it would help.

'What happened when Sergeant Schoondist and my father got back? Did you catch Brian Lippy? Did he see? Did he tell? Jesus, you guys can't stop there!'

He was wrong, we could stop anyplace we chose to, but I kept that fact to myself (at least for the time being) and told him that no, we never did catch Brian Lippy; Brian Lippy remained Code Kubrick to this very day.

'Who wrote the report?' Ned asked. 'Did you, Eddie? Or was it Trooper Morgan?'

'George,' he said with a trace of a grin. 'He was always better at stuff like that. Took Creative Writing in college. He used to say any state cop worth his salt needed to know the basics of creative writing. When we started to fall apart that day, George was the one who pulled us together. Didn't he, Huddie?'

Huddie nodded.

Eddie got up, put his hands in the small of his back, and stretched until we could hear the bones crackle. 'Gotta go home, fellas. Might stop for a beer at The Tap on the way. Maybe even two. After all this talking, I'm pretty dry.'

Ned looked at him with surprise, anger, and reproach. 'You can't leave just like that!' he exclaimed. 'I want to hear the whole story!'

And Eddie, who was slowly losing the struggle not to return to being Fat Eddie, said what I knew, what we all knew. He said it while looking at Ned with eyes which were not exactly friendly. 'You did, kid. You just don't know it.'

Ned watched him walk away, then turned to the rest of us. Only Shirley looked back with real sympathy, and I think that hers was tempered with sadness for the boy.

'What does he mean, I heard it all?'

'There's nothing left but a few anecdotes,' I said, 'and those are only variations on the same theme. About as interesting as the kernels at the bottom of the popcorn bowl.

'As for Brian Lippy, the report George wrote said "Troopers Morgan and Jacubois spoke to the subject and ascertained he was sober. Subject denied assaulting his girlfriend and Trooper Jacubois ascertained that the girlfriend supported him in this. Subject was then released."'

'But Lippy kicked out their cruiser window!'

'Right, and under the circumstances George and Eddie couldn't very well put in a claim for the damages.'

'So?'

'So the money to replace it probably came out of the contingency fund. The Buick 8 contingency fund, if you want me to cross the t's. We keep it the same place now we did then, a coffee can in the kitchen.'

'Yar, dat's where it come from,' Arky said. 'Poor ole coffee can's taken a fair number of hits over d'years.' He stood up and also stretched his back. 'Gotta go, boys n girls. Unlike some of you, I got friends ? what dey call a personal life on d'daytime talk shows. But before I leave, you want to know sup'm else, Neddie? About dat day?'

'Anything you want to tell me.'

'Dey buried D.' He said the verb the old way, so it rhymes with scurried. 'An right nex' to im dey buried d'tools dey use on dat t'ing poisoned im. One of em was my pos'hole digger, an I din' get no coffee-can compensation for dat!'

'You didn't fill out a TS 1, that's why,' Shirley said. 'I know the paperwork's a pain in the fanny, but . . .' She shrugged as if to say That's the way of the world.

Arky was frowning suspiciously at her. 'TS 1 ? What kind of form is dat?'

'It's your tough-shit list,' Shirley told him, perfectly straight-faced. 'The one you fill out every month and send to the chaplain. Goodness, I never saw such a Norwegian squarehead. Didn't they teach you anything in the Army?'

Arky flapped his hands at her, but he was smiling. He'd taken plenty of ribbing over the years, believe me ? that accent of his attracted it. 'Geddout witcha!'

'Walked right into it, Arky,' I said. I was also smiling. Ned wasn't. Ned looked as if the joking and teasing ? our way of winding things back down to normal ? had gone right past him.

'Where were you, Arky?' he asked. 'Where were you when all this was going on?' Across from us, Eddie Jacubois started his pickup truck and the headlights came on.