In the Wake of Silence

In the Wake of Silence

         Rocco’s no smarter than a steaming pile of elephant dung. That’s according to what the circus people have told him his whole life: Rocco Casek is dumb. A dimwit. Retarded. But even he can tell the woman in the grocery store parking lot is furious. She’s shaking like hurricane-force winds are blowing around inside her, and her pinched eyebrows spell a “V” at the bridge of her nose.

         Rocco can see angry energy. He feels it, too. It’s an electric shock prod to his nervous system. Shimmering red energy with bursts of silver sparks swirling around the heads of angry people terrifies every fiber of him. Oh, he knows what anger can do. And as Rocco makes his way from the store toward her, it is clear as windowpane she isn’t just campfire angry. That woman is hopping, bonfire mad. And she is parked right next to the car he has to drive away.

         The driver’s side door of her fancy SUV is open, and she is standing with her back to the front seat, barking into the cell phone pressed to the side of her head. Miss Virginia’s Camry is parked one spot closer to the grocery store than the angry woman’s vehicle. Rocco slows his pace way down; almost walking in slow motion. If he approaches slowly, he reasons, maybe his six-foot frame will become invisible to her. Apparently, it doesn’t work.

         “Hang on a minute,” he hears her growl. “Here comes someone.”

         He keeps his head down, thankful for the dark sunglasses he’s wearing. He’s hidden, as long as she can’t see his eyes. The plastic bag he carries crinkles as he reaches into his trouser pocket for the car keys, and that makes him wince. Being heard is worse than being seen.

         “Excuse me,” the woman addresses him in a booming voice.

         Every instinct screams at him to run away. But of course, he can’t do that. Instead, he concentrates real hard on what he’s doing; slides the key into the driver’s side lock and twists. The button pops up. Rocco opens the door, reaches in, and pulls up on the back door lock button.

         “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

         By now, he is certain. She wants him to say something. People always want him to say something. He drops the bag onto the back bench with as much nonchalance as he can muster. He forgets to be careful and the two bottles of Miss Virginia’s pink wine clank together as they fall against the car seat. John-John doesn’t make a peep, so Rocco is pretty sure neither bottle hit his leg or anything. Not enough to hurt him, at least.

         “Did you just go into that store and leave this baby alone in the car?”

         Rocco leans back down and looks across at John-John, belted securely in his car seat. His chubby arms reach above his head; fingering the air for something Rocco guesses only he can see, as the pacifier bobs in tight pulses under the pressure of his sucking. On the drive over, it’d taken Rocco a long time to find the store, and John-John had drifted fast asleep. Miss Virginia’s homemade map was to blame. She’d drawn arrows sending him down Taleo Drive. Turns out, there is no Taleo Drive. When Rocco finally parked, he figured John-John was like him and hated when people woke him up. Besides, Rocco knew he would be quick. Miss Virginia’s list, scribbled underneath the useless map, is short. “Get wine,” is all it says.

         Rocco draws a lungful of air and holds it, straightens up, and faces the angry woman. Her blonde hair is pulled into a ponytail just like Mandy wears hers, and sunlight glints off a pretty medal hanging around her neck on a thread-like gold chain. He wonders if it is St. Christopher. Mandy has a St. Christopher’s medal.

         This reminds him. He has to go. Mandy will be home soon from her birthday lunch with Shane Daniels, and Rocco still has a stop to make. He clunks shut the back car door.

         “Unbelievable! He’s completely ignoring me,” the woman says into her phone. “I’ll call you back.” She snaps shut her phone and announces, “I’m writing down your license plate number and calling the police!”

         Rocco slides behind the wheel and starts the engine. In the rearview mirror he can see her, red air swirling and crackling around her, writing on what he reckons is her store receipt. He presses the brake pedal all the way against the floor and drags the long gear arm down into reverse. He’s fairly sure that makes the back-up lights come on, because the woman hops to the side. Rocco waits a second longer, in case her toes are still in his way, and then he eases off the brake. The woman glares at him and punches buttons on her phone as Rocco backs out of the spot, but by then he is thinking about roses.

         There’d been roses for sale inside the store. Gigantic Queen of Hearts roses poking their perfect heads out of buckets the drab color of army fatigues. For about a second, he’d wished he could buy some. Rocco didn’t have any money of his own though, and Miss Virginia told him flat out she’d count her change twice, so he’d better bring it all back. Then Rocco had leaned over and smelled one, and he was glad he was broke. He’d inhaled until the breath filled his toes, but all he’d smelled was the rank water at the bottom of that bucket.

         Mandy deserves a proper rose that smells like a rose. No, two proper roses. Twice as nice. And he knows where to get them.

         Backtracking takes as long as getting to the store had, and this time John-John doesn’t fall asleep. The pacifier must have come loose because cries erupt from his uncorked mouth. Rocco takes off his glasses and spins around a couple times, pulling his face into goofy grimaces and giant, eyebrow-raising grins, like Chucky the Circus Clown used to do. John-John quits crying, that is until Rocco swerves and almost takes out a mailbox. John-John starts right up again, but Rocco is almost to the house with the roses.

         He misjudges the curb and with two tires on the grass, the car is all slanted when he cuts off the engine. John-John sucks greedily on his pacifier when Rocco plugs back up the hole. Leaning in close to him, Rocco catches a whiff like the air in the exotic animal trailer. He had better work fast before that old pacifier is less important to John-John than clean britches.

         A white picket fence surrounds the yard with a smart little house smack dab in the center. The rose gardens look like they are trying to escape the fence; fragrant brambles clear the picket points and spill over the other side. Fallen rose petal confetti decorates the sidewalk where Rocco stands.

         There are pink roses and red ones and yellow ones and even white, which the Queen of Hearts wouldn’t like, although they are awfully beautiful. If heaven exists, it probably smells just like this. Rocco wonders if there is, by chance, a canning jar in Miss Virginia’s trunk; and if so, could he take some of that heaven-air home with him? John-John starts crying again, so he abandons the thought. Just two roses will have to do.

         His breath catches when he spies the rosebush with flowers the color of Mandy. Rocco has never met a person with energy her color. Only Mandy. It isn’t purple and it isn’t bright pink, but if you could mash those two together, you’d have Mandy’s color. Two Mandy-colored roses will be the best birthday presents ever.

         Rocco reaches for a stem, but the thorns threaten his fingers no matter how he tries to avoid them. Finally, he just takes a deep, rosy breath and bends the stem. It won’t give. He snatches his hand away, feeling like he’s been bitten by a rattler. A voice rings out then, so sudden even John-John in the car stops crying. Rocco freezes.

         “What ya doin’ there, boy? Stealin’ me flowers, are ya?”

         Rocco is a statue; only his head swivels on his marble neck. A small, stooped woman with a bun of hair as white as her roses stands inside the gate. Rocco’s eyes grow wide, and he slowly shakes his head side to side. He keeps waiting for all that yellow light around her head to blush, to go red, but it doesn’t. She is trying real hard to fool him, though, so he pretends to think she is mad at him.

         “If’n ya don’t ask first, snapping stems is stealin’!”

         Rocco looks down at his shoes pressing all those pretty pedals flat, and nods.

         “So ya going to ask me, boy, or are ya going to steal ‘em?”

         He has to show himself then, somehow; he has to reach out. He looks her right in the eyes, and he lays his hand on his chest in the spot where he can feel his heart beating. He takes a shaky step toward her, and when she doesn’t move away, he reaches for her hand. She turns her head a little, peering at him more out of one eye than the other, but she stands her ground. Her hand, soft as talcum powder, doesn’t weigh more than a sparrow. Rocco presses it to his heart, and he bows his head. When he looks up, she is smiling a toothless grin at him.

         “We going to need clippers,” she says.


         The ride home from there is short, but it isn’t easy. Rocco has to steer Miss Virginia’s car with one hand, as he holds the roses in the other. Miss Millie, the old woman called herself, wrapped the long stems’ cut ends in wet paper toweling and pinched a generous square of tin foil atop, so it wouldn’t drip. Rocco has to lean a bit to the right and hold the tin foil bundle below the edge of the front seat, on account the rose heads would otherwise be squashed against the ceiling. And to make matters more challenging, John-John has taken his crying up a notch. Now, he is howling.

         Blue lights pulsate against their house when he pulls up behind the police car. The front door flies open and Mandy runs out. Rocco smiles so wide he feels his lips crack. Maneuvering the flowers carefully out in front, he unfolds himself from the driver’s seat. As Rocco raises a stiff arm to Mandy, the bouquet in his grip quavering at its end, she rushes past. Ruby fireworks snap and crackle in her wake. His smile fades. Then he sees the police officer coming out the doorway.

         “How could you do this, you stupid dimwit,” Mandy shrieks as she yanks open John-John’s door. The baby sobs as Mandy tugs in frustration, trying to free the child whose flailing arms are stuck in the car seat harness.

         Rocco’s eyes stay glued to the officer striding toward the car. “Is the baby injured?” he asks.

         “No fussing in front of the neighbors!” Miss Virginia shouts, walking out onto the stoop. “Inside with you, lot.” She loses her balance and giggles, stumbling against the open door. “Come on, now. Who wants a drink?”

         “Oh shut up, Mother,” Mandy snarls, clutching John-John to her chest and moving toward the house.

         Miss Virginia’s offer to her guest for a drink reminds Rocco he needs to get the bag from the back seat. He turns to fetch it, but the police officer shouts at him.

         “You hold it right there, boy. Where do you think you’re going?” His arm hangs at an unnatural angle, hand hovering near his gun. A cowboy itching to draw.

         Rocco’s hands fly up to his chest, one palm facing out, and one fist clenching the foil bundle. His chin swings back and forth like a gate on a hinge in high wind. Don’t shoot. The abrupt surrender has thrashed the roses, sent them swaying. In his peripheral vision, an unfettered pink petal flutters down.

         Miss Virginia is still on the stoop. “I ain’t saying it again, now! Get your asses in here before I call the cops!” She whoops and slaps her thigh.

         The police officer doesn’t laugh at her joke, but he shoves Rocco in the direction of the house. Rocco hears cop boot clomps on the walkway right behind him.

         Inside, the officer speaks loudly to be heard over John-John’s cries. Mandy has the baby, bare-bottomed, on the sofa, cleaning that barn smell off him.

         “Here’s the situation, people. A local 9-1-1 dispatcher fielded a call at 13:18 in which the caller reported an abandoned baby in a late model four-door vehicle, parked in the Stathem Piggly Wiggly parking lot. The caller noted that said vehicle’s Georgia tag number was Bravo – Foxtrot – Tango – 3-9-5-1.” He pauses to take a breath. Apparently, Miss Virginia figures he looks a tad parched.

         “What’re ya drinking, officer? I have a nice zin. ‘Course it hasn’t had time to chill,” she says with a bat of her eyes. "Where's my wine, Al--"

         “For chrissake, Mother, will you shut the hell up?”

         Miss Virginia’s energy goes from her usual greenish tint to something murkier. Rocco takes a small step back.

         “Don’t you sass me, Amanda Mae Potts! I won’t have it. Not under my roof. And not before the Law.”

         The policeman clears his throat. To Miss Virginia, he says, “Mrs. Potts, the vehicle involved in this incident, a 1979 Toyota Camry, is registered to you. Now did you authorize this young man to drive said vehicle?”

         Miss Virginia shifts her bleary eyes to Rocco, and then nods yes. The officer turns to him.

         “What’s your name?”

         John-John blubbers from the floor where Mandy has just set him down. Rocco’s gaze goes from the baby's plump cheeks to the officer’s stern mouth, then down to the gun holster. And in that moment, a flash of memory breaks free of the dusty cupboard in his mind where it has been locked away. In the grip of the memory, Rocco looks down and sees his own cherub legs, splayed out on rough floorboards where he sits. Out his toddler eyes he sees another policeman, dressed in a khaki uniform instead of the navy one today’s officer is wearing. And he sees a man with a handlebar mustache that he somehow knows is his father. In the memory, his father flexes his enormous muscles as he and the policeman shout threatening challenges at each other. The room is filled with agitated red sparking energy, surging and roiling over Rocco’s head and between the men. Rocco can hear himself crying. A sudden, ear-splitting shot shatters the universe and his father crumples into a crimson heap beside him.

         “I said, ‘WHAT is your NAME?'” the officer bellows.

         Rocco’s shoulders shoot to his earlobes and he cowers. The memory lingers, as real as real is. He can’t take his eyes off the officer’s gun.

         “He doesn’t speak, he’s some sort of retard,” Mandy says, moving next to the policeman. “He wrote his name on a piece of paper the day Mother took him in. It’s Rocco Casek, according to him.”

         The officer's face pinches up like he just tasted something real disagreeable. “You ‘took him in’ from where?”

         Miss Virginia plops on the sofa. “From nowhere,” she says. “He just come around a couple weeks back, and I felt sorry for him. He stays in the attic over the garage. Helps out around the house to earn his keep.”

         The officer narrows his eyes at Rocco and asks Miss Virginia, “He show up about the time the circus pulled into town?”

         Miss Virginia’s eyebrows arch. She considers Rocco and then looks back to the cop. “Maybe so.”

         The officer shifts his weight, plants his feet like he expects roots to take hold. “You a carnie, boy?” Dislike lifts off him, sour as sweat. Rocco's gaze drops, lands again on the gun.

         The officer lifts his chin at Mandy. “And why did you leave your baby in the care of a dirty carnie?”

         “Now hang on,” Mandy protests, her pretty magenta energy sparking, “I left John-John with my mother, while I was out celebrating my birthday with Shane--”

         “Loo-ser!” Miss Virginia pipes in.

         “Hush, Mother!”

         “What are you defending him for? Took you to lunch at the Biscuit ‘n’ Grits, for Christ’s sake. Probably the only restaurant in town ain’t afraid of him. And who can blame folks? All that tattoo ink. Makes a person look crazy.”

         “He’s not near as crazy as you!” Mandy shouts. She turns to the officer. “You want to know the real reason she took Rocco, here, in? I’ll tell you why. Because she has it in her head that he is my long-lost twin brother, back from the dead.”

         Miss Virginia sputters green sparks like steam from a kettle of boiling tea water, and pulls herself up off the sofa, wagging a finger. “Look at him! He’s ‘bout the same age as you. And there’s a resemblance!”

         Mandy shakes her head, but her gaze glides over Rocco. She sets her jaw and rolls her eyes back to Miss Virginia, who hasn’t stopped talking.

         “My baby boy was as alive as you in that hospital. They took you both away to wipe you down, and when they came back, they told me Albert was dead. But a mother knows!” Her eyes are pulled so far open Rocco can see white all the way around the brown parts. “And I never saw no body! I never buried no baby!”

         John-John starts crying, suddenly, like he’s been pinched by a ghost.

         The officer shifts his weight, glances at his watch. He starts to speak, but Mandy cuts him off. She talks slow, like she does to John-John.

         “Mother, I know this story as well as you do. Little Al was born sickly. That’s it. And nobody, not Papa, rest his soul, not the doctors or nurses, nobody wanted you to suffer more than you needed to. It’d have been too painful for you to see him. And, you still had me.”

         “Yeah, well. That don’t replace what you lost,” she answers. It’s the most un-slurred thing Rocco’s heard her say today. Her face looks carved out of stone, and a wavy, blue tinge douses the sparkles about her head.

         Mandy’s magenta flares like a struck matchstick. “Neither does he!” she says, pointing at Rocco. “You let a stranger into our house, Mother, one with obvious mental problems, putting us all at risk. And now you’re letting him take your grandbaby in the car? All for your precious wine?”

         The officer steps between them, his shoulders drawn back and his chest puffed out. He seems suddenly taller.

         “I’ve heard enough. I’m taking this man into custody for reckless endangerment of a child.”

         “What? You have no right!” says Miss Virginia. “Al’s a little off, but he’s harmless.”

         “Mother, you have lost your damned mind? He’s not Al! And he’s not harmless. He left John-John alone in the car. Don’t you even care about your grandbaby?”

         Miss Virginia and Mandy start hollering back and forth, and the policeman tries to calm them down. No one notices John-John, but Rocco. John-John is getting frightened. Rocco knows how he feels. Rocco doesn't want him to be scared.

         “Calm yourself, Mrs. Potts! You don’t know anything about this man.” The officer is shouting to be heard, jerking a thumb in Rocco’s direction. “How do you know he’s not a criminal?”

         Mandy is having a terrible birthday. Everything is a mess. Rocco is still holding the two-rose bouquet, though it got banged up during the moments he forgot it was in his hand. He takes a step toward Mandy, lifting the flowers.

         “Step back, boy!” the officer barks.

         John-John cries harder. Now there are little red sparkles around his head too. Rocco starts trembling. No, don’t be mad, little kid. He looks at Mandy, at her special color changed, flickering. Even the smoky wisps rising from her bloodshot energy has darkened, like spilled wine seeped into carpeting.

         Rocco needs to get John-John away from the red sparkles. He trains his eyes on the baby; takes a couple steps toward him; stretches out his arms. He hears, “Halt!” but it sounds far away, like distant thunder. Then another sound, crisper, finds his ear. A tinny click, sharp and clear, like when Chucky the Circus Clown snaps that big ruffle collar onto his costume. And an onslaught of Chucky-memories saturate Rocco’s mind. Chucky was always grumpy, but with that costume on and that big smile painted on his face, the kids thought he was happy. Yes, Rocco should act like Chucky. It worked before. Smile big. John-John likes that.

         Another shouted command and Rocco is yanked away from Chucky-thoughts and back to the living room. He twists around to look at the officer. The black eye of the gun stares back at him. Angry glitter flickers and swirls. Everything is loud, confusing.

         “I said down! Down on the floor!” the officer bellows.

         Rocco forces his Chucky-grin bigger, even though his stiff cheeks tremble. Yes, Rocco knows John-John is down on the floor. Yes, Rocco will get him; take him outdoors, out where there is no ceiling pressing the angry energy close to them. They will be safe out there.

         He drops Mandy’s roses. They are wilted and ruined, like her birthday. With arms outstretched, he reaches, big smile pasted to his face, for John-John.

         A blast explodes in the room. Mandy and Miss Virginia scream, but John-John falls silent.

         Rocco’s legs turn to liquid. He crumples to the floor, his face just inches from the roses. He feels nothing. Magenta fills his vision. The noise fades away as peace swells in the silence.

         And suddenly, he is certain: There is a heaven. He can smell it already.

*~*~*~*~*~*

WC = 3676