Dave Zeltserman - The Caretaker of Lorne Field

“It’s what happened.”

Minter looked back and forth at them. His wide apple-cheeked face pinched in concern. “I’ve put in a lot of time already talking to these investors and the town council. Not only that, but my reputation…” he started, his words choking off.

“I’m just telling you what happened.”

“Has your son told his side of the story to the authorities yet?”

“No. Sheriff Wolcott told me that the doctors want him to wait until tomorrow to talk to Lester.”

“Have you talked to your son yet?”

“Not yet. He was crying too much after it happened and I was just trying to get him home before he bled to death.”

Durkin wiped a hand across his jaw, then tugged at his grizzled chin as he thought about Lester and what had happened. “I’m planning to go to the hospital after dinner to see how he’s doing.”

“They won’t let you see him,” Lydia said.

Durkin stared at her as if she were crazy.

“Neither of us are allowed to see him,” Lydia repeated dismally. “Not until Child Services finishes their investigation.”

“That’s not right-”

“What will your son say about what happened to him?” Minter asked, cutting him off.

Durkin looked dumbly at the lawyer as if he had forgotten who he was. “He’ll say the same as me. That one of the Aukowies chewed off his thumb.”

Minter lowered his head into his left hand and squeezed his eyes as if he had a migraine.

“To answer your earlier question,” he said, “that clause would not withstand scrutiny by the courts. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. You can be arrested and sent to prison.”

He stopped squeezing his eyes and stood up abruptly. He nodded to Lydia and Durkin. “I’ll be speaking to you soon,” he said to Lydia, then to Durkin, “If you’re arrested call me immediately. From this point on if Sheriff Wolcott or any other official asks you what happened to your son tell them it was an accident. Or better yet, don’t say a word and have them talk to me instead. And most importantly, do not make any videotapes of those weeds. Keep a low profile, do not do anything to call further attention to yourself, and do not, I repeat, do not make any videotapes of those weeds. Do we understand each other?”

Durkin stood glumly with his arms crossed and his stare cast down to the floor.

“Mr. Durkin, am I getting through to you?”

Durkin nodded slowly.

“Good.” He sighed heavily. “Right now I’d better go and see if I can have a talk with your son. Mrs. Durkin, what hospital is he at?”

“First Baptist.”

Minter nodded, repeated that he’d be speaking to them soon and headed towards the front door. Glass crunched under his tennis sneakers. He didn’t seem to notice. Lydia yelled out to him, asking whether this was going to change their plans.

Minter stopped and gave her a tired look. “I hope not,” he said. “No, it shouldn’t. If it was an accident like you say, then it shouldn’t matter. It might make our investors skittish for a week or two, but that will hopefully be the extent of it.”

He nodded once more to them and then hurried from the room. They heard the front door open and close only seconds later.

Lydia sat frozen, her small wrinkled face twenty years older than earlier that evening. At that moment Jack Durkin had a good idea how his wife would look on her deathbed. It also made him think of a magician’s trick. Lower the curtain and raise it a second later to reveal that the middle-aged woman volunteer has been replaced by her elderly mother. She stared straight back at him without appearing to notice him. Slowly recognition seeped into her eyes.

“You’re not going to ruin this for me,” she said in a quiet, dispassionate voice. “Not just for me, but for Lester and for Bert. Do you understand that?”

“Look, I haven’t done anything.”

“I asked if you understand me?”

Durkin saw cold violent murder in her eyes and nodded accordingly.

“You are going to do exactly what that lawyer told you to do. And you’re not going to say another word to anyone about a weed biting off Lester’s thumb. If you do, so help me God.”

She stood up awkwardly, tottering for a few seconds on her feet before getting her balance. Durkin felt sick inside seeing how she held her injured hand and how swollen it had gotten.

“You need to have a doctor look at that,” he said.

“Only thing you should be worrying about now is how you’re going to explain to Daniel Wolcott why you didn’t have Lester’s thumb with you when you brought him home.”

He sat and watched her leave the kitchen, then listened to the sound of her heels clacking across the living room’s hardwood floor and later on the stairs leading to the second floor. When the sounds faded, he found the broom and dust-pan and swept up the broken glass. After that he washed and dried the dishes.

The more he thought about it the more that lawyer’s plans sounded like pie-in-the-sky dreaming to him, but if Lydia wanted to believe it then he’d let her. He didn’t see any harm coming from it, and if it gave her some hope, all the better. Eventually he’d get the town to increase his honorarium, and once that happened, Lydia would settle down. As far as Wolcott went, he pretty much expected the sheriff’s reaction to what he told him. But what else was he going to say? Make something up? He’d pay anything, though, to see Wolcott’s reaction when Lester told him his side of the story. Wolcott always treated him as a crank, as if what he did was one big joke, and he’d love to see the look on that smug bastard’s face once it dawned on him that maybe the Aukowies were something other than weeds. The only problem was if Lester couldn’t remember what happened. He had a nagging fear that that might happen. It seemed as if Lester went into shock almost immediately, and if he did and had somehow blocked out his memories of dropping the camcorder and having his thumb chewed off, then Wolcott would continue his snickering and treating him like the town loon. Worse, he’d probably arrest him and keep him from weeding Lorne Field. That thought had worried him most of the afternoon.

Durkin fished through Lydia’s junk drawer where she kept coupons and recipes and other odds and ends. In the back of it he found a torn piece of paper that had been sitting in there for years. The ink was mostly faded, but Durkin could still make out the phone number written on it.

He picked up the phone and called the last number he had for his brother. It had been almost ten years since Joe called and left the number with Lydia, and almost twenty-five years since Durkin last spoke to his brother. He had no idea whether the number was still good, but he prayed that it was.

Joe answered after the fifth ring.

“What do you know,” he said, “my big brother, Jack, calling. Never thought I’d hear from you again.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

Joe laughed. “Caller ID. You should get it and join the twenty-first century.”

“Joe, I need your help.”

“What, no pleasantries? After what, twenty, twenty-five years-that’s all I get from you, that you need help? You can’t even pretend to ask how me or my family’s doing? But then again you’re a busy man saving the world each day.”

“What are you trying to say? That you don’t believe I save the world each day?”

“I don’t know.” There was a long pause, then, “Look, Jack, you drank the Kool-Aid, I only sniffed it. I just don’t know.”

“You think I’m crazy then,” Durkin said angrily. “And pa and grandpa and every other Durkin before them. And you’re the only sane one of us ’cause you got to go off to college.”

“Jack, I’m not saying any of you are crazy, but this is something I’ve thought a lot about since leaving home. Maybe there’s some other explanation. For example, maybe the weeds secrete a mild hallucinogenic that can be absorbed through the skin when you touch them-”