100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Sweets heaved his bulk out of the chair. “Are they in your bedroom? I’ll go and get them. What drawer are they in?”

I rolled my chair across his path.

“That’s not necessary. I have them in a box somewhere in the closet. Tell you what. You come by tomorrow and I’ll have them out to show you. We can call Sis on the phone from here. It will pave the way for your visit if I tell her you’re coming to see her.”

“Good!” Sweets rubbed his hands together. “I’ll bet little Hester is a livin’ doll.” He gave me a good view of pink gums and a tip of tongue wetting his lips.

“And, Sweets, as long as you’re coming over tomorrow, could you bring a load of wood in your pickup for my Franklin stove? Do you still have the old pickup? It’s getting toward fall and I could use some firewood.” I added, “I just got my disability check. I’d pay you well for some wood.”

He stood by the door with his hand on the knob. “Well, I don’t know. The brakes ain’t so good on the pickup.”

Sweets paused while the cold coil in my belly turned slowly.

“I guess if I’m your friend I can haul a load of wood for you. After all, we’re almost family.” The quality of reeking old motor oil was back in his voice.

“Good, then. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said to his back as he walked out the door.

As soon as he was gone, I rolled down the front ramp to the sidewalk and on out to the narrow blacktop road. I live around a bend on this dead-end highway, the last house on the road the town extended a quarter of a mile some years ago to a small picnic area. It’s beside a scenic view that looks out over Heron Valley and the mountains beyond. I’m about the only person who goes there any more. Every day, weather permitting, I wheel down to the overlook, poking here and there among the grass and weeds with the stout walking stick I always carry across my lap. It’s like an extension of my arms.

The seclusion and beauty of the place have been my joy, and the exercise has given me tremendous arm and shoulder development that makes getting around in the house easy. Even swinging on the bars in the bathroom seems like play to me.

The town paved a turn-around area at the end of the road and erected posts and crossbars around it. The dropoff at the ledge is perhaps six hundred feet. It’s so abrupt no trees grow on its face to obscure the view. Grass and weeds grow in the cracks in the amesite. The wood posts are rotten at the base. They cracked ominously when I set the brakes on my wheelchair and pushed against them.

When I got back to the house I had a sandwich. A little later I drank a glass of scotch over ice before I went to bed. I slept well.