C is for Corpse

The kitchen was done in thirty-year-old linoleum with cabinets painted an intense shade of pink. The appliances made the room look like an illustration from an old issue of Ladies' Home Journal. There was a small built-in breakfast nook with newspapers piled up on one bench, and a narrow wooden table with a permanent centerpiece composed of sugar bowl, paper-napkin dispenser, salt and pepper shakers shaped like ducks, a mustard jar, ketchup bottle, and a bottle of A-l Sauce. I could see his sandwich preparations laid out too: an assortment of processed cheese slices and a lunchmeat laced with olives and ominous chunks of animal snout.

He sat down and motioned me into the bench across from him. I shoved aside some of the newspapers and took a seat.

He was already slathering Miracle Whip on that brand 01 soft white bread that can double as a foam sponge. I kept my eyes discreetly averted as if he were engaged in pornographic practices. He laid a thin slice of onion on the bread and then peeled the cellophane wrap from the cheese, finishing with layers of lettuce, dill pickles, mustard, and meat. He looked up at me belatedly. "You hungry?"

"Starved," I said. I'd eaten a mere thirty minutes before and it wasn't my fault if I was hungry again. The way I looked at it, the sandwich was filled with preservatives, which might be just what I needed to keep my body from going bad. He cut the first masterpiece diagonally, passing half to me, and then he made a second sandwich more lavish than the first and cut that one, too. I watched him patiently, like a well-trained dog, until he gave the signal to eat.

For three minutes, we sat in silence, wolfing down lunch. He popped open a beer for me and a second one for himself. I despise Miracle Whip but, in this instance, it seemed like a gourmet sauce. The bread was so soft our fingertips left dents near the crust.

Between bites, I dabbed the corners of my mouth with a paper napkin. "I don't know your first name," I said.

"Phil. What kind of name is Kinsey?"

"My mother's maiden name."

And that was the extent of the social niceties until we'd both pushed our plates back with a sigh of relief.

Chapter 11

After lunch, we sat out on the deck in painted metal porch chairs pockmarked with rust. The deck was actually a shelf of poured concrete, forming the roof of the garage, which had been carved into the hillside. Wooden planters filled with annuals formed a low protective barrier around the perimeter. A mild breeze was picking up, offsetting the heavy blanket of sunshine that settled on my arms. Phil's belligerence was gone. He'd been pacified perhaps by the many chemicals in his lunch, but more likely by the two beers and the prospect of the cigar he was clipping with a pocket guillotine. He plucked a big wooden kitchen match from a can next to his chair and bent down, using the surface of the deck to scratch it into life. He puffed on the cigar until it drew fully, then shook the match out and dropped it in a flat tin ashtray. For a moment, we both sat and stared out at the ocean.

The view was like a mural painted on a blue backdrop. The islands in the channel looked grim and deserted, twenty-six miles out. On the mainland, the small beaches were faintly visible, the surf like a tiny ruffle of white lace. The palm trees looked no bigger than fledgling asparagus. I could pick out a few landmarks: the courthouse, the high school, a big Catholic church, a theater, the one office building downtown over three stories high. From this vantage point, there was no evidence of the Victorian influence or any of the later architectural styles that blended now with the Spanish.

This house, he told me, had been finished in the summer of 1950. He and his wife, Reva, had just bought the place when the Korean War broke out. He'd been drafted and had gone off two days after they moved in, leaving Reva with stacks of cardboard boxes to unpack, returning fourteen months later with a service-related disability. He didn't specify what it was and I didn't ask, but he had apparently only worked sporadically since his medical discharge. They'd had five children and Rick had been the youngest. The others were scattered now through the Southwest.

"What was he like?" I asked. I wasn't sure he'd answer. The silence stretched on and I wondered if perhaps it might have been the wrong question. I hated to spoil whatever sense of camaraderie we'd established.

He shook his head finally. "I don't know how to answer that," he said. "He was one of those kids you think you're never going to have a minute's trouble with. Always sunny, did things without being told, good grades in school. Then when he was sixteen or so-his last year in high school-he seemed to lose his footing. He graduated all right, but he didn't seem to know what to do with himself. He was drifting. Had the grades for college and God knows I'd have found the money someplace, but it didn't interest him. Nothing did. Oh, he worked, but it never amounted to a hill of beans,"