The Secrets on Chicory Lane Read online

  Fine. If he was going to be that way, there was nothing I could do about it. I went about my business at home. Dad was at work, so I stayed at the house with Mom. She remained in bed all morning and didn’t come out of the bedroom. The cabin fever got to me after a while, so I decided to walk across the street to check out the shelter for myself. Maybe Eddie had left a note or some other clue as to where he was. When I arrived, I saw that the padlock was missing. Eddie usually brought it with him into the shelter, so I opened the steel door and went downstairs. The padlock lay in its spot beneath the stairs. The lights were on and the lava lamp was still bubbling. The smoke had cleared but the room still reeked of pot. Eddie’s bed was unmade and the place was a mess. His artwork, spread over his drafting table, was covered in a large black ink splotch, as if he had spilled the bottle over it. An accident, or had it been done on purpose?

  I’d always known Eddie was troubled. Growing up with a father who had beat him must have screwed him up in a major way. His fascination with demonic imagery and violence wasn’t what you’d call normal. If I’d known then what I knew now, I might have run the other way and never become involved in a relationship with him. But at the time, at the age of twenty-two, I was still in something of a rebellious stage of my life, experimenting with the stimuli that made me tick. In other words, I was discovering myself. I wanted to be open to darker elements in the world. After all, I had grown up in a fairly sheltered environment in a small town. My eyes were first opened in Austin during undergraduate school, and even further in Chicagoland.

  There was no question that Eddie had a powerful sexual hold on me. He was so damned attractive, so charismatic, and he did things to me in bed that no one else had ever managed to do before or since. That’s the truth. A lot of my romance novels deal with heroines who fall for the bad boy, and all that comes from my experience with Eddie.

  At least during the beginning of that summer, Eddie still occupied my heart, and I wanted to correct whatever had occurred the night before. Maybe my maternal instincts—ha ha—wished to cure him of the darkness that enveloped him. Perhaps I simply wanted him to love me, which I believed he did. Whatever the motivation was, I was determined to keep the relationship alive.

  I made Eddie’s bed and started to straighten up the room. I picked up his dirty clothes, which were piled in a corner, and put them in the laundry hamper he kept near the stairs. The toilet behind the partition was pretty disgusting, so what did I do?—I cleaned it. Call me crazy. That’s when I noticed the concrete slab in the floor—Davy Jones’s Locker—that had been Eddie’s secret hiding place. I wondered if he still kept treasures in there, and I considered if I should try lifting the lid to see.

  “What are you doing?”

  His voice startled me, and I yelped. “Jesus, Eddie! You scared the shit out of me!”

  He stood behind me and laughed. “Sorry. What are you doing?”

  “I just cleaned your filthy toilet! It was gross, Eddie. What if I needed to use it? I wasn’t about to sit on that thing.” I got up off my knees and moved past him around the partition. “So, have you noticed what I did? How do you like the way your room looks?”

  He looked around and nodded with approval. “Very nice. I think I’ll keep you.”

  “You didn’t act like it last night.”

  “I’m sorry. I was drunk. I was stoned. I wasn’t in a good frame of mind.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I get that way a lot these days. Come sit down, I have a birthday present for you.” He took my hand and led me to the bed, asking me to sit. He went to a bookshelf and retrieved a small box that was wrapped in blue paper and a ribbon; I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Geez, what’s this?”

  “Open it and find out.”

  I was surprised to find a pair of beautiful black pearl earrings in gold-plated settings. “Oh, Eddie, I love them!” I took them to the only mirror in the shelter and put them on. “Wow, they’re gorgeous. Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome.” He put his arms around me and kissed me. The previous night felt like it had never happened. Things were as they were. He checked again and asked if I was still on the pill. I told him I was. We fell into bed and spent the rest of the day there in decadent, blissful ecstasy. Looking back, I find it ironic how I didn’t know at the time that I would never have children. That nightmare would come later.

  The memories are hazy, of course, but I’m sure at least a couple of weeks went by in this fashion. Things were pretty good between Eddie and me, as I recall, although he was drinking and getting stoned a lot more than before. I indulged only a handful of times during this period; I found I actually appreciated reality over the haze of euphoria. Eddie was very persuasive, though. It was very easy to follow his lead, do what he wanted, and go with the flow. I figured the summer would be a rather selfish and lackadaisical break from graduate school—I would do nothing but enjoy myself and wallow in the pleasures of the flesh.

  By the middle of June, things started to turn sour. I’m not sure exactly what happened. Eddie stopped making me laugh. He grew morose and moody, retreating into the dark recesses of himself, which he kept secret from me and the rest of the world. When I asked what was bothering him, he answered with the usual, “Nothing,” but I could tell otherwise. The demons he drew on paper were haunting him. The ghost of his father? I had no idea. While being with me certainly was the most important thing in his life, he was terribly unhappy. As I grew older, I started to wonder if some people just have a melancholic nature, and they’re not happy unless they’re unhappy, if that makes any sense. Now I wonder if it might have been an early sign of the illness that hit him full-on in the eighties.

  One night we went to one of the shadier nightclubs that was on the highway leading out of town. It was populated mostly by cowboys, oil field roughnecks, and women I would call less than chaste. An older crowd. I believe Eddie and I were the youngest patrons in the joint. The thing was, a lot of people knew Eddie, at least the bartender and some of the women did. There were two older ladies who actually flirted with him in front of me. The men stared at us, particularly at him—Eddie had long hair and was unlike any of them. Eddie ordered beers for us, and we sat at a table near the jukebox that was blasting out a Fleetwood Mac song from Rumours, which was the album you heard everywhere that summer.

  “Do you come here often?” I asked him.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why? It’s not your—it’s not our kind of place, is it?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s seedy and full of white trash. It suits me fine.”

  “I don’t much like it. You know those women?”

  “Sure.”

  “How?”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “No, but they acted like they know you pretty well.”

  “We’ll leave after we finish our beers, if you like.”

  “All right.”

  It wasn’t easy to talk with the music pounding next to us, so we sat quietly in the smoke-filled bar and chugged the beers. But just as we were about finished and ready to leave, a man sauntered over to our table. He wore a baseball cap and greasy overalls and appeared to be in his forties or fifties.

  “Ain’t you Charlie Newcott’s kid?” he shouted over the music, looking at Eddie.

  “What?” Eddie asked.

  “You’re Charlie Newcott’s kid, ain’t you. I recognize you. You were there at the rig when he fell.”

  Eddie didn’t say anything.

  “I was there, too,” the man said. “I worked with Charlie for twenty years.” He said it with a decidedly threatening tone. It made me uncomfortable.

  “Congratulations,” Eddie said.

  “He was a friend of mine.”

  “Good for you.”

  The man leaned close so that he was face-to-face with Eddie. I could smell the man’s liquor-fueled breath from where I sat. “You know what I think?” the man asked with a snarl.

&nbs
p; “You can think?” Eddie spat.

  “You punk. I think that was no accident when Charlie fell. You were up there with him at the top of the rig.” When Eddie didn’t respond, the man kept going. “Charlie would never slip. He was a pro. You killed him, didn’t you? You fucking pushed your father off the platform.”

  Eddie shoved the man away and stood. “Come on, Shelby, let’s get out of here,” he said, holding out his hand to me. I gladly took it and got up.

  But the man wouldn’t have it. He actually grabbed Eddie’s shirt with a clenched fist. “Admit it, you hippie shit. You murdered your old man. We all know you did.”

  “Get your goddamned hand off of me.”

  “All of us that worked there that day, we knew. The cops may have believed your story that he lost his footing, but we know better.”

  It happened suddenly, and it scared the crap out of me. Eddie had somehow taken hold of his empty beer bottle in one hand and brought it down hard on the man’s head. The bottle shattered and the man let go of Eddie’s shirt as he stumbled backward, stunned. Time halted for a moment as everyone in the bar focused their attention on us. Eddie stood there with half the broken bottle in his fist, ready to jam it into the man’s face if he came closer.

  The man shook his head like a wet dog and felt his scalp. Blood was oozing down his forehead. “You little shit!” he shouted as he leaped for Eddie. I screamed. Eddie swung the sharp edge of the bottle across the man’s face, slicing it in three distinct red stripes. This time the man screamed and covered his face with his bloody hands.

  The man’s buddies came forward—four men who looked like they could tear Eddie apart. Eddie stood his ground, holding the jagged-edged bottle. One man bravely rushed Eddie, only to be jabbed in the chest with the weapon. I must have been shouting, “Eddie, stop! Eddie!” I’m pretty sure I heard the bartender yell, “I’m calling the cops!”

  “Let’s go,” Eddie said as he took my arm with his free hand and backed us out of the joint. He never dropped the broken bottle or turned his back on his adversaries. When we were out the door, he shouted, “Run!” and we did. The men burst out the door after us. We got in his mother’s car, shut the doors, and locked them. He fumbled for the keys.

  “Get out here, you shit!”

  “Come out and fight like a man!”

  “Eddie, let’s go!” I cried.

  They reached the car and tried to open the door on the driver’s side. A rock hit the windshield and caused a spiderweb crack. I screamed again.

  Finally the engine turned over. The tires screeched on the gravel parking lot as Eddie backed out of the space, almost hitting one of the men behind us. They were still shouting as he tore out of the lot and onto the highway.

  “Jesus, Eddie!” I was near hysterics. I had never in my life been that close to violence. I’m sure tears were streaming down my face.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “We’re safe. No one got hurt.”

  “No one got hurt? Are you crazy? You nearly cut that man’s face off!”

  “He deserved it.”

  “What was that he said? He accused you of killing your father!”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “Eddie, what was that all about?”

  “Shut up!”

  The force of his words startled me. I did shut up. But Eddie drove recklessly and broke the speed limit. As soon as we entered the city limits, a police cruiser pulled out of its hiding place. The cop turned on his red-and-blue lights and hit the siren. Eddie cursed, slowed the car, and pulled over. I didn’t say a word, but I was thinking, Serves you right.

  Eddie had been doing eighty miles per hour in a forty-five mph zone. Eddie handed over his driver’s license and registration. The cop went back to his car while we sat in silence. Finally, Eddie said, “Sorry, Shelby. I kind of lost it back there.”

  I just nodded; I was still very upset. I’d also never been in a car that was pulled over by a policeman before. I was pretty scared.

  A traffic ticket might have been the end of it, but unfortunately the policeman must have received word about the fight at the bar while he had returned to his cruiser. The man came back to our car with his pistol drawn.

  “Step out of the car, please,” he ordered. Eddie complied. I got out, too, but the policeman barked, “You stay in the car, miss,” so I got back in. The man commanded Eddie to put his hands on the side of the vehicle and to spread his legs. The cop frisked him and then quickly put handcuffs on him. “You’re under arrest for assault. Come with me.” He roughly pulled Eddie toward the cruiser. I panicked and got out of the car again.

  “Wait! What about me?” I called.

  The policeman answered, “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”

  “Take the car home, Shelby!” Eddie shouted. “The keys are still in the ignition.”

  By then, the cop had pushed Eddie into the cruiser’s back seat and slammed the door. The policeman returned to me and asked, “Were you a witness to the fight at the bar?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you may need to make a statement. Your friend hurt two men, one pretty badly. He may lose an eye.” He asked for my ID and wrote everything down. “Follow us to the Limite police station, would you, please? We’ll ask you some questions there.”

  The rest of that night is a haze. I remember going to the station and telling my side of the story while Eddie was kept in another room. The man at the bar, whose name I can’t recall, was in the hospital. The other guy—the one Eddie jabbed with the sharp edge of the bottle—had been treated for a minor injury and released. Both men were pressing charges. I told it exactly how I saw it—the man had approached Eddie in a threatening manner and essentially accused him of being a murderer. When we tried to leave peacefully, the man grabbed Eddie’s shirt with the intention of hurting him. Eddie was only defending himself.

  After I gave my statement, they let me go. I drove the Newcott family car back to Chicory Lane and parked it in their driveway. The house was dark, so I figured Mrs. Newcott was asleep. Nevertheless, I rang the doorbell. Twice, three times. Finally, the door opened and a haggard-looking woman stood behind the screen door. I barely recognized her as Eddie’s mom, and I realized I hadn’t seen her at all in the few weeks since I’d been back. Like my own mother, she appeared as if she had aged several years.

  “Mrs. Newcott, Eddie’s in trouble,” I said, breathlessly. “He’s been arrested.”

  “What?”

  I told her the story, and she simply shook her head. “I’ll deal with it in the morning,” she muttered, and then she shut the door. Christ! I was flabbergasted. The woman didn’t care; or maybe she was just too out of it to give a damn. Whatever—I stood there for a minute attempting to figure out what I should do. In the end, I did nothing. I turned, walked across the street, and entered our home. The place was dead quiet, a single lamp in the living room left on for me. Mom and Dad were asleep. Silently, I made my way to my bedroom, undressed, and climbed into bed.

  I’m not sure if I slept or not.

  15

  Eddie was released on bail the next day. He called when he got home, so I went across the street to see him. He was in the fallout shelter, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Music I wasn’t familiar with was blaring—heavy rock and the dark, metal stuff, probably Black Sabbath. Eddie had been listening to a lot of Black Sabbath; he identified with the band’s Satanic imagery and themes. It wasn’t my cup of tea.

  His mother had hired a lawyer and posted a five-thousand-dollar bail to get her son out of jail. “She’s not talking to me now,” he said.

  “Eddie, why did you have to hit the man with a bottle? Couldn’t we have just walked out of the bar?”

  “You heard what he said,” he answered. “Besides, I don’t think he would have let us walk out without following us and doing something in the parking lot.”

  “Do you really go there often?”

  “Not that often. There are a few kicker bars just ou
tside the city limits that have a seediness that appeals to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand.” With that, he lit a joint, inhaled deeply, and handed it to me.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He continued to take drags.

  I didn’t know what else to say, and I didn’t want to stay. I got up. “Well, I need to help my mom with something today. I’ll see you later.”

  As I returned to our house, thoughts churned in my head. Eddie was not the same person I had fallen in love with. What had changed him in such a short time? It had only been a few months since Christmas.

  His lawyer contacted me after a few days, requesting a deposition, so I gave him one. It must have helped, for two weeks later at a preliminary hearing, the case was thrown out. No criminal charges would be filed against Eddie, but that didn’t mean the man wouldn’t file a civil suit. Luckily for Eddie, it didn’t happen. The man must have sucked it up to a few stitches and let it go.

  One night, I went over to the bomb shelter with some trepidation. It was very early July, I remember, before the Fourth. The month of June had been a trying one for Eddie and me, and our relationship was strained. I cared about him a great deal, but when we saw each other it felt as if he was pushing me away. He was keeping secrets from me; I could tell. It was the way he acted; I can’t explain it. Most women have an innate ability to spot a liar. Not that I thought Eddie was lying to me, it’s just that there were things he wasn’t telling me. That afternoon, I had called and told him I wanted a “serious discussion.” He said, “Uh oh.” We agreed to meet at the bomb shelter at nine o’clock.

  When I opened the squeaky steel door, I was hit with a thousand decibels of what I guess was Black Sabbath. I climbed down the steps into the smoky man cave, beheld the ever-bubbling lava lamp, and found Eddie lying drunk as a skunk on his bed.