Chapter 14

The snow falls. Effen dozes, but he’s aware of people in The House. Every now and then someone ventures up to his room, giggling before, during and after he or she says anything. The only message Matt manages to relay is, “Oh-ho, no.” Then out he lumbers.

Suddenly Farrell is there, with Jack Russell presumably on that bright red ribbon of a leash that Elizabeth insists on attaching to the pup. From the sound of it, Jack is whimpering, stretching up on his hind legs, batting the air with his gyrating, stub-tailed backside. Farrell is emitting the throaty wheezes of someone trying to stifle gut-wrenching, body-quaking laughter.

Effen isn’t thrilled about her being here in the first place. It shames him to remember she was at the farm for that little scene. He never in his life raised his voice to anybody, let alone his fist. And his reaction to his near-arrest wasn’t exactly the stuff of courage. Now she’s laughing at him. Just like everybody else. Terrific. What’s the matter? Is his fly open?

Would Farrell really laugh at him if it were?

He opens his eyes to see her convulsed against the door frame, zipped up in her teal green parka, muting her mirth with the back of her gloved hand. The dog is indeed straining on the leash, beating double quick time with his combined tail and rump.

Effen holds on to the curved mahogany board at his shoulder and sits up.
Farrell wails. “It’s Dracula … coming out of his coffin! “Bleeeeaaaah, I vant a cup of coffee’ …”

Effen realizes he’s not on the bed as much as he’s in the bedframe. The box spring is on the floor. Realization seeps into words. “Those idiots! They forgot the slats!”

“The what?”

“The slats. The pieces of wood that fit across the frame to hold the box spring. The bleeding geniuses must’ve thought they were firewood. No wonder everybody was laughing at me. I thought they were having a party down there.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Things are pretty dead right now.”

Effen listens. Farrell splutters. “It’s a joke, F.N.!”

Effen crawls over the sideboard, not of a mind to ask for help. He’s not beyond savoring the absurdity of his position. Laughter becomes a trace element in his voice. “Aw, come on, Farr, I may not have asked for pity, but I didn’t ask for abuse! Did you come here for a reason or to harass me?”

She lifts up the terrier. “I was walking the rodent.”

“In a snowstorm?”

“When he has to go, he has to go! Besides, the snow’s not so bad now. It’s nice and soft. Not as blowy.It looks like snow you see in the movies.”

Effen opens the Venetian blind. She’s right. The snow is falling thick, steady, silent. Just like snow in the movies. All sound is muffled, yet the day has a festive feeling. Effen hears shovels scraping as homeowners try to keep ahead of the accumulation. People call to each other. Nearby, laughing children lob snowballs.
Effen watches with a touch of envy. He hasn’t enjoyed a good snowball fight in years. He almost had the chance when Bruton and some of the volunteers started making icy ammo after a celebratory reenactment of the Battle of Trenton to years ago. But Von Aldo quashed the fun with the L word. Even now as Effen watches, a tightly packed offering slams into the glasses of a youngster so tightly wrapped against the elements, it’s impossible to tell if the victim is a boy or a girl. Kids don’t worry about liability.

He asks Farrell how she won the doggie detail.

“I had to get away from Brut. He’s been ranting about what the state did to you. Elizabeth made the mistake of asking him if he knew what happened to the horselets.”

“They’re out there. Somewhere. Even if we can’t see them.” Effen retrieves his coat from the floor and hangs it in the armoire. “I’m reminded of Mrs. Gardner’s funeral. Did you know Mrs. Garner? She had a mentally impaired daughter. The girl came to me during one of the viewings and said she couldn’t find her mother. I thought she had trouble telling the parlors apart, so I brought her to her mother. But then she says to me, 'Where’s my mother? I can’t find my mother,' even though her mother was right in front of her, laid out, surrounded by roses.”

He wants to make tea, but the teapot and crockery are packed in the unmarked boxes. He pulls scissors from a kitchen drawer and starts stabbing the tape that seals the boxes.

Farrell hangs back, blushing. The color and the hesitation make Effen think she doesn’t want to pry. “Afraid of finding skeletons in the undertaker’s closet? Come on. If three lusty forest rangers can look at this stuff without going blind, so can you.”

He gives her the scissors and begins opening the boxes with his car key. An early opening reveals the CD player and disks. The player is plugged in and gives forth Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor performed on original instruments.

Effen moves on to another box. “So Brut’s ranting,” he says, plunging the scissors through the tape. “Don’t let it bother you. Some people jog. Brut rants. He was in his glory at the farm. Did you know the troopers didn’t call an ambulance because they had orders not to attract attention to their mission? Brut flipped when they said that. He tried calling 9-1-1-, but they pulled the phone out of his hands and threatened to arrest him for obstructing justice. Brut lit into them for obstructing my right to life.”

“Makes you sound like a fetus,” Farrell says, adding a delicate noise of disgust.

Effen considers. Should he tell her the rest? Why not? She might laugh again. The color in his cheeks runs full blast. His voice is small with abashment. “Believe me, I didn’t know if I was a fetus or a corpse, coming or going There was oxygen on my nose, a blood pressure thing on my arm, Von Aldo hanging over me with a stethoscope, and four grown men verbally slugging it out in my room.

“You know how there are times when you’re so scared you think clearer than usual? This was one of those times. I mean, things like that don’t happen to me! It was so weird and strange, I got my adrenaline and my dander up at the same time. I tore off the oxygen and shot up. Well, I tried to get up. Tom fell on top of me to make me stay down, and at the same time he’s yelling at me not to worry, I was going to be all right. Then Brut starts ranting all these questions at me: ‘What’s your name? Do you know where you are? How many of me can you see?’ And, of course, he wasn’t giving me time to answer anything. Not that it mattered. I didn’t want any part of it. I had had enough humiliation to last a lifetime. I told him I would die before I went to a hospital. He said, ‘Fine. What’s your parents’ phone number, so we can notify next of kin?’ Suddenly, having a vacation courtesy of my major medical carrier didn’t look all that bad.”

Farrell says she’s sorry she didn’t go back into the house. “Sounds like a real zoo.”
“Oh, it was definitely a moment for the annals of my personal history.”

The trudging up the stairs is Matt. “Hey, Owner! Are you among the living?” The trudging stops. Effen assumes Matt would like The Owner, as the staff calls him, to come to the door, sparing Matt a hike up the stairs. Effen obliges.

Matt sounds tired. “Are you here for Doctor B? He’s on the phone.”

“Christ, yes. Better I intercept him on the phone than have him come after me.”

“Well, be careful. He’s saying his prayers.”

“Don’t worry. He can’t do anything to me that he hasn’t done already.”

But Brut doesn’t want Effen. He’s looking for Effen’s visitor. And yes, he’s ranting. The voice jumps through the receiver.

Effen assures Brut that Farrell stopped by with Jack.

For a few seconds there’s silence. “All right,” Brut continues. “But you make sure she comes back soon. We’ve got a project here.” That’s the end of the conversation.

Effen replaces the phone. “Your duty calls.”

Farrell tosses aside the scissors, drawls “Yeah,” as Effen slips her parka onto her shoulders. He sees her out and watches her go into the storm, terrier in arm. He doesn’t notice the snow. He’s insulated by the warmth of victory. At last, he’s done something he wanted to do so long ago: He’s made Farrell Schmidt laugh.