Karen Pt. 05 - Conclusion

"Your mom and Aunt Elsie were always in cahoots together on something! Lovey and I shared many secrets together..."

After a few more minutes I got up off the floor and stood. I knew what I had to do now, and there wasn't much time left, I realized as I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand.

"What's wrong Tim?" Andrea asked, sitting up now, as I began getting dressed.

"...Honey what's wrong?" She asked again when I didn't answer.

"Sorry Andrea, but I have to do something" I said as I sat on the bed and began putting on my boots.

"Tim, its ELEVEN FORTY FIVE, AT NIGHT, can't it wait until morning, honey!!?" Andrea asked in exasperation.

"I have to do it now." I said.

"But, WHAT are you going to do and why NOW, Tim?" Andrea moaned as she flopped back down on the bed with her arm over her eyes.

"Because there's no time, honey." I replied

"Well...want me to go with you then?" Andrea asked, somewhat confused.

"You can if you want to." I said hurriedly.

"Tim, are you alright?" Andrea asked concern in her voice now but I was already walking towards the door.

I put on my coat and took the large flashlight off of the refrigerator and scurffed up the keys to Ricky's old truck and put them in my pocket. Next I went into Ricky's room and took the metal detector out of his closet at the same time as I grabbed the rain slickers and tucked them under my arm. As I walked out of the trailer and down the two steps I took the shovel that Ricky had leaned against the Impala. Andrea closed the door to the trailer and came running over to the truck a few minutes later as I was loading everything into the cargo bed, except the metal detector - it went into the cab.

"Where are we going?" Andrea asked as we headed into the night.

"Moms" I said.

"Couldn't we have gone tomorrow morning instead?" Andrea asked slightly irritated.

"No, the dozers start ripping up the neighborhood in the morning Andrea, we have to go tonight." I said

"Can we stop and get a cup of coffee at least? If we're going to be out all night we may as well get coffee for God's sake!" Andrea said, still not sure of what to think of me.

"Sure, we need gas anyway." I replied, calming down a bit now that we were under way.

"We won't be out all night either." I said.

"Yeah, sure we won't. What's up with the metal detector and shovel anyway? Are you looking for buried treasure or something? We were making love ten minutes ago and now - this!!" Andrea said with slight sarcasm in her voice as she threw her hands up in dismay.

"Yeah, buried treasure or something." I replied.

I explained to Andrea that Mom had been, in many ways, like a small child. She had always possessed a childlike imagination and loved rimes, games and riddles. That's why she had always been so good with little kids, because in many ways she, herself, saw the world as a small child would. The key she had hidden under the vanity had jarred a memory in me tonight and given me a strong suspicion of something that had been clouded in the back of my mind for a long time now. I looked over at Andrea in the darkened cab and said

"Hang with me on this OK? I have to play this one out and it shouldn't take that long... For me, OK? Please?" I asked as I drove the truck now.

"If you weren't so damn good-looking and such a great fuck, I'd say NO!" Andrea said with resignation in her voice.

"That's my girl!" I said smiling.

We got gas and coffee at an all-night truck stop and were soon underway again. Thirty minutes later we were back at the old neighborhood. I parked Ricky's truck on the curb, discreetly next to a D-10 Caterpillar outfitted with rippers that was parked ominously in the middle of the darkened and deserted street of the neighborhood and slipped into my raincoat.

"Here put this on." I said, tossing Andrea the other raincoat.

"You're a nut, did you know that Tim?" Andrea asked as she put on the oversize raincoat.

"I know, but I'm a great fuck." I said as I grabbed the metal detector and stepped out into the rain.

"Keep reminding me. I have a feeling that I just got myself into something that I could get arrested for tonight." She replied.

I carried the metal detector and shovel over towards the block where Mom's darkened house stood.

"Where the fuck are you?" Andrea wailed as she stood in the rain looking for me.

"Over here, and keep your voice down!" I whispered back and flashed the flashlight on and off quickly.

In a serious voice I then said "Andrea, we're technically trespassing as of yesterday and there's several million dollars worth of construction equipment here in this neighborhood right now so someone may well be watching, ok?"

"This whole thing wasn't my idea Tim" Andrea retorted as she continued walking toward me in the dark.

I silently rolled my eyes at her reply and said nothing. When Andrea got to within fifty feet of me I started walking towards the house again.

"FUCK!" Andrea yelped.

"Will you keep quiet, what's wrong now?" I hissed.

"I dropped my coffee. Sonofabitch!" Andrea said just loud enough for me to hear.

"Will you stop playing games and GET OVER HERE ANDREA?" I asked in a loud whisper.

Andrea was silent and didn't move.

Then I remembered Mom once scolded me with "Nice job Tim, that's how a lady likes to be treated isn't it?"

With a deep sigh then, I walked over to where Andrea was standing and smacked her on the lips with a kiss. Then handing her the shovel in the dark and taking her other hand, I led her to the vacant house and around to the backyard and the weed strewn garden which had once been Mom's pride and joy.

"Sorry about your coffee, we'll get you one on the way back, ok honey?" I softly asked.

I turned on the flashlight and while keeping the beam low, switched on the metal detector. I then quickly ran the head of the metal detector over the shovel that Andrea was holding; there was an immediate high pitched squeak from the metal detector as it came to within close proximity of the metal portion of the shovel.

"I'm going to sweep now, keep the light beam on the metal detector's head and keep the light beam low so we don't attract any attention in case someone is watching." I instructed Andrea.

It was after two AM now and the rain was coming down in sheets. I began to wonder if Andrea was right, maybe I was a nut. Taking the metal detector's handle I started sweeping Mom's garden in wide arcs the way Ricky had shown me and soon began getting a few hits from things like nails and ancient pull-tabs removed from beer cans that the old man had thrown into Mom's garden, that bastard...

"Anything?" Andrea asked.

"Not yet honey, you're doing a good job with the light though." I replied.

"What are we looking for?" Andrea asked.

Without answering her I kept making wide arcs of the metal detector until I had finished one side of the garden and then begun sweeping the other half, slowly with methodical arcs.

"This is so exciting, like a Sherlock Holmes movie!" Andrea suddenly exclaimed.

"Keep your voice low!" I growled.

"FINE! Whatever." Andrea hissed back, annoyed.

Andrea then began a whispered litany of insults by asking herself what kind of idiot would be engaged in this kind of nonsense at two O clock in the morning in a creepy abandoned neighborhood with the Seattle rain coming down in buckets when he could be home in bed making love with his woman in a warm, dry bed with...

"I got it! Here, take the metal detector and hand me the shovel quick!" I said

I began digging in the garden and a few minutes later retrieved what I had suspected was there all along. Tucking the piece under my arm, I took the metal detector back from Andrea and gave her the shovel to carry. Then I flipped the power switch of the metal detector to the off position.

"Turn off the flashlight Andrea and let's get out of here." I said.

We then quietly splashed through the mud puddles as we made our way back to the street and through the darkened neighborhood toward the truck. Looking around me now, I suddenly realized that this part of my life's history would soon be gone forever within just a few short hours when the dozers and excavators roared to life and began to demolish this once happy place with mechanical indifference and belching diesel smoke. The houses would be violently ripped apart and splintered by steel teeth and then dumped into waiting trucks destined for the landfill, discarding the memories and history of this place like yesterday's newspaper. No thought of the people who once lived here in this neighborhood, working, living, playing and falling in love under the Mistletoes of Christmas's of long ago would even be considered. Like Mom, the neighborhood had passed into history now...

Andrea and I arrived at the truck and got in. I had a pretty good idea what was inside the mud caked parcel that Andrea and I now laid on the floorboard of Ricky's truck. Buried treasure? No, hardly that at all but it might satisfy my curiosity on an issue that had been nagging at me for a long time now and also help me put some closure to Mom's loss. I started the truck's engine, turned on the lights and heater and pulled onto the highway enroute for the return trip to Ricky's trailer. As we began to drive through the night's rain I began to think about something that Andrea had said which hadn't registered with me while we had been in the garden and sweeping with the metal detector a few minutes prior. Obviously she had been cold and wet when she had begun her sarcastic rambling sentence that had included the phrase "when he could be home in bed making love with his woman." Now the words "his woman" kept repeating themselves in my mind as we drove.

An hour and eight minutes later we were back at Ricky's trailer. I put the metal detector back into Ricky's room and put away the shovel and flashlight before returning Ricky's keys to the living room table. I then set the recently exhumed parcel, which was still wet, onto a chair in the living room and stared at it as I slipped out of my wet clothes. Then, setting the parcel onto an unfolded newspaper I began to unwrap the decade's old, wax paper that Mom had wrapped the piece in. There were several layers of the brown wax paper I discovered, each of them covered with fifty years worth of mud and dirt.

"Andrea, could you bring me the key?" I asked loud enough for her to hear me through the hallway.

Carefully, I continued unwrapping the parcel and a few minutes later Andrea came out of our bedroom with a large fluffy towel wrapped around her and handed me the small skeleton key.

"What is it?" Andrea asked as she eyed the piece curiously.

I unwrapped the last of the thick wax paper then and revealed to her a small, green, tin box about the size of a kitchen toaster. I took a sharp breath at recognition of the green paint and hand painted flowers that were now coated with streaks of grime and rust. Taking the key with trembling fingers I inserted it into the keyhole and gently tried to rotate it inside the brass mechanism but to no avail. I then slowly began working the key back and forth a few times until the tumblers inside the lock finally allowed me to turn the key and open the lid of the box. More wax paper was revealed inside which was in the shape of a rectangle. Looking up at Andrea then, I removed the rectangle and began to carefully unwrap the wax paper. Eight by ten photographs, the first two were badly decomposed from being damp inside the box but the rest, which were each separated by more wax paper between them, were quite well preserved.

"Andrea, meet Rick." I said.

I then handed her the photo of a very handsome man close to the age of thirty who was smiling broadly in front of a Coca-Cola sign. Picking up another photo of Rick and staring at it, I subconsciously began to slowly trace a finger over the bridge of my nose and cheek bone over and over again.

"You have his eyes Tim, and Ricky has the same sterling jaw and nose." Andrea said quietly.

"All, that Mom ever wanted, was to be truly loved, Andrea." I said softly.

"I wonder what Ricky and Brenda will say when they look at these?" Andrea asked.

"I don't know what to say myself, Andrea ... look at this one, Mom's wearing cat-eye sunglasses doesn't she look cool?" I asked, as we both laughed.

One casual photo showed Rick leaning against the driver's side door of the nineteen forty one Plymouth coup with his right foot on the running board of the car and looking directly into the camera's lens with a rather "bad boy" expression on his face. The photo looked like it had been taken in front of some kind of a hot-rod garage located in a metro area someplace. Rick had on a T-shirt which was stained with motor oil and I also noticed a large key ring on his belt.

There were several more photos of Mom and Rick at the carnival that day and one photo of Rick with several other young men, with their arms around each other, as they stood in front of an olive colored helicopter.

"Viet-Nam" I said, as I showed the photo to Andrea.

"That explains a lot." Andrea said sadly.

Andrea and I continued to slowly sift through the photos and carefully separating them from the wax paper that Mom had so diligently placed between them. There were close to a hundred photographs in the stack and surprisingly more than three quarters of them were still in very good condition. Rick had apparently had a dog and presumably one photo was of him with his mother and father while they were standing on the steps of a house. According to the photos Rick was also an avid hot rod enthusiast as many of the photos were of the nineteen forty one Plymouth coup at drag strips with other guys and their girlfriends, including Mom.

"I can certainly understand her attraction to him, Tim." Andrea said, looking at one photo of Rick.

"Oh my God, Andrea, Mom put the negatives in with the photos, look,see." I said pulling them out of the metal box and unwrapping the wax paper around them.

"Looks like the negatives survived better than anything else, Tim." Andrea said as she carefully removed the last of the wax paper surrounding the negatives.

"Here's an awesome photo of Mom and Rick together, Andrea!" I said.

"That ride, that they're on, is called the Scrambler, Tim. I've been on that ride before." Andrea said, looking at the photo.

"...Holy fuck" I suddenly exclaimed.

I then sat down and put my head in my right hand and closed my eyes after looking at the back of one of Rick's Viet-Nam photos.

"What is it?" Andrea asked.

Without saying anything I held up the photo, of Rick standing at attention in uniform, in my left hand and then rotated the back of the picture towards Andrea.

"Rick Sheffield ...July '67. Holy fuck is right. I guess now you know your - sorry ...I mean his last name now, Tim. Honey, do you think maybe it's time to quit for the night and do this again tomorrow?" Andrea asked quietly.

"Yeah, it's been a very good yet very emotional day Andrea." I agreed.

I began to gently spread out the photos onto a clean piece of newspaper on the kitchen table so they could dry out completely. I then weighting them down at the corners with salt shakers, napkin holders and anything else I could find. Andrea was right, I needed a break from looking at the pictures, and it was beginning to really take an emotional toll on me. As I began to spread out the last of pictures Andrea walked back out from our bedroom; she had now discarded the towel I noticed with rapt attention. After looking at me intently for a few seconds, she then turned and went back into our room without saying anything. I turned out the lights and went to her. Andrea and I made love until dawn and then slept while the rain continued to fall outside.

I now knew who had, really, given Mom the jewelry box and taken her photo at the carnival that day in nineteen sixty four. I also knew who the man was that had written the letter hidden inside Mom's jewelry box. He was the same man with gentle eyes that had come to visit Mom and I as Ricky lay in the hospital, more than fifty years ago. He was the man with the large key ring on his belt. I then dreamt that my mother was young again and once more a woman in love. In the dream, I felt her presence near, as she looked down at Andrea and I, as we lay cuddled together. And once more I heard Mom sing the words to the "happy song" as she had when I was a child sitting in her lap those many years ago, when she was the young girl in the carnival photo. "The key, the key, the key to the garden gate, along the path my love awaits..."