False Memory

Dusty liked both Motherwell and Skeet, although for different reasons. Motherwell was smart, funny, and reliable — if judgmental. Skeet was gentle and sweet — although probably doomed to a life of joyless self-indulgence, days without purpose, and nights filled with loneliness.

Motherwell was by far the better employee of the two. If Dusty had operated strictly by the textbook rules of intelligent business management, he would have cut Skeet from the crew a long time ago.

Life would be easy if common sense ruled; but sometimes the easy way doesn’t feel like the right way.

“We’re probably going to get rained out,” Dusty said. “So why’d you send him up on the roof in the first place?”

“I didn’t. I told ‘im to sand the window casings and the trim on the ground floor. Next thing I know, he’s up there, saying he’s going to take a header into the driveway.”

“I’ll get him.”

“I tried. Closer I came to him, the more hysterical he got.”

“He’s probably scared of you,” Dusty said.

“He damn well better be. If I kill him, it’ll be more painful than if he splits his skull on the concrete.”

The guard flipped open his cell phone. “Maybe I’d better call the police.”

“No!” Realizing that his voice had been too sharp, Dusty took a deep breath and more calmly said, “Neighborhood like this, people don’t want a fuss made when it can be avoided.”

If the cops came, they might get Skeet down safely, but then they would commit him to a psychiatric ward, where he’d be held for at least three days. Probably longer. The last thing Skeet needed was to fall into the hands of one of those head doctors who were unreservedly enthusiastic about dipping into the psychoactive pharmacopoeia to ladle up a fruit punch of behavior-modification drugs that, while imposing a short-term placidity, would ultimately leave him with more short-circuiting synapses than he had now.

“Neighborhoods like this,” Dusty said, “don’t want spectacles.”

Surveying the immense houses along the street, the regal palms and stately ficuses, the well-tended lawns and flower beds, the guard said, “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

Motherwell raised his right fist and shook it at Skeet.

Under the circling halo of crows, Skeet waved.

The security guard said, “Anyway, he doesn’t look suicidal.”

“The little geek says he’s happy because an angel of death is sitting beside him,” Motherwell explained, “and the angel has shown him what it’s like on the other side, and what it’s like, he says, is really awesomely cool.”

“I’ll go talk to him,” Dusty said.

Motherwell scowled. “Talk, hell. Give him a push.”

3

As the heavy sky, swollen with unspent rain, sagged toward the earth and as the wind rose, Martie and the dog returned home at a trot. She repeatedly glanced down at her pacing shadow, but then the storm clouds overwhelmed the sun, and her dark companion vanished as if it had seeped into the earth, returning to some nether-world.

She surveyed nearby houses as she passed them, wondering if anyone had been at a window to see her peculiar behavior, hoping that she hadn’t actually looked as odd as she’d felt.

In this picturesque neighborhood, the homes were generally old and small, though many were lovingly detailed, possessing more charm and character than half the people of Martie’s acquaintance. Spanish architecture dominated, but here were also Cotswold cottages, French chaumières, German Häuschens, and Art Deco bungalows. The eclectic mix was pleasing, woven together by a green embroidery of laurels, palms, fragrant eucalyptuses, ferns, and cascading bougainvillea.

Martie, Dusty, and Valet lived in a perfectly scaled, two-story, miniature Victorian with gingerbread mill work. Dusty had painted the structure in the colorful yet sophisticated tradition of Victorian houses on certain streets in San Francisco: pale yellow background; blue, gray, and green ornamentation; with a judicious use of pink in a single detail along the cornice and on the window pediments.

Martie loved their home and thought it was a fine testament to Dusty’s talent and craftsmanship.

Her mother, however, upon first seeing the paint job, had declared, “It looks as if clowns live here.”

As Martie opened the wooden gate at the north side of the house and followed Valet along the narrow brick walkway to the backyard, she wondered if her unreasonable fear somehow had its origins in the depressing telephone call from her mother. After all, the greatest source of stress in her life was Sabrina’s refusal to accept Dusty. These were the two people whom Martie loved most in all the world, and she longed for peace between them.

Dusty wasn’t part of the problem. Sabrina was the only combatant in this sad war. Frustratingly, Dusty’s refusal to engage in battle seemed only to harden her hostility.

Stopping at the trash enclosure near the back of the house, Martie removed the lid from one of the cans and deposited the blue plastic bag full of Valet’s finest.