"The Doom Statues" - Chapter 49

At no point had there ever been any news crew sent out to report on Ben and Lois’s mysterious fate, either at Otherwise or in their hometown or anywhere in between. Common sense seemed to indicate that there probably was a newspaper writeup or two, of some sort, but even these must have been second hand and vague, since none of the residents personally talked to anyone about it. And Jeremy’s family was mostly inclined to keep a tight lip on all of this as well, just as it was difficult to imagine Harry Kidwell went out drumming up a bunch of bad publicity.

Still, word must have leaked somehow, considering the sharp decline in attendance for their third Saturday tour. While Tom grimly speculates that he might have gotten too stale with his teachings, after that first pair of workshops, at the opposite end of the spectrum, Liam appears somewhat relieved. In any event, they go from 78 paid attendees that first week, to a whopping 213 the second, down to just 36 this time around. Kidwell himself is once again nowhere near what had once been his pet cause. Meanwhile, the others are left wondering if interest has already waned, or if darker forces are at work, fallout from the Ben and Lois disappearance.

Lenny is finally around to assume his original handyman’s role, while Jeremy, mostly with the help of Grace and Denise, manages to keep the kitchen afloat. Though hobbling quite a bit, Lenny proves capable enough, and says he’s not really concerned about the pay situation, at least not yet. Whenever Kidwell comes around again, maybe they will revisit this topic, but in the meantime he is getting free room and board here. He’s still collecting unemployment checks, anyway, and should be able to for the next little while, so long as everyone keeps this hush hush. Although his ability to move here at the drop of a hat does make Jeremy wonder what Lenny’s situation could have possibly been prior to his arrival.

“Uh, yeah…,” Lenny demurs with a broad grin, “I might have lost my…previous living arrangement, during that little hospital adventure. Might have been just kind of crashing on some couches since then. Just maybe.”

At least he seems chipper enough, or projects a good front if nothing else. Elsewhere, spirits are low, and most everyone is dragging ass on top of it. Thus the downturn in business, while potentially problematic, is something not many are complaining about.

Aside from the Druckers, of course, and maybe Liam, most instead turn their attentions to the upcoming party. This year as it happens Halloween lands on a Tuesday, and so Tuesday night it is. Though among the least productive, from an artistic standpoint (depending upon one’s views on the actual “work” involved, mentally or conceptually or otherwise, in Marcus’s performance art), Kay and Denise have at least thrown themselves into planning this. Officially giving the gala a sort of so-winking-retro-kitsch-it’s-not-even-kitsch name, Not Your Grandma’s Halloween Party, is something they begin setting up Tuesday morning, just the two of them, although Grace and Rebecca eventually lend a hand. Meanwhile Lenny, Jeremy and Clay are sent all over the grounds as their reluctant, frequently whiskey enhanced gophers.

Liam makes one of his few legitimate executive decisions thus far, in refusing to let them stage it in, “that damn dreadful barn.” Therefore they elect to define the party’s parameters with lights, roughly parallel sagging strings of white and purple Christmas bulbs, in a square between the barn, school, the last two cabins, and then the shed and showers behind the main house. In keeping with the theme, any pumpkins or for that matter anything even remotely resembling traditional Halloween orange is verboten, and anyone displaying such shall be denied entry.

Nobody can really bring themselves to entering the kitchen office, in the wake of Ben’s presumed death. For some reason the aura in that tiny room is far heavier than in the kitchen itself. Or it could just be that the kitchen is a necessity, unavoidable, whereas they can just shut the door on that office and forget about it. So it is that the computer screen is left dark in there, as various laptops are always conjured in the kitchen instead, for creating these often tongue-in-cheek concoctions for the party. Though Rebecca insists that the Ghoulish Goulash, of which she cranks out enough to likely feed dinner to the entire town of Stokely, is a family tradition.

Even after two months, they’re still not quite sure what to make of this girl. She seemed kind of uneven and manic – and this was before the disappearance of her lover. Lately, impressed by that shiny blue blouse with the golden owls, the one Grace keeps wearing, Rebecca took to crafting a stencil replica of it, and then painting that pattern, in sparkling gold as well, all over her bedroom wall.

“Owls are also considered good luck, and a deterrent to hauntings,” she explained. Then went ahead and painted the so-called employee bar, in the front room of the third floor, that same shade of haint blue, followed by the repeating, sparkling gold owl pattern atop it.

Regarding this Halloween party, it is nothing if not well stocked with alcohol. As if on some collective wavelength in realizing that this represented the one notable shortcoming in their supplies, nearly every car scooped up a trunkload of various adult beverages, either on the way to or from the Ados’ funeral. As such, this punchbowl the size of an average charcoal grill rests atop one picnic table, and there’s a wide, level podium someone dragged out from the school, behind which Lenny and Jeremy volunteer as bartenders, with an array of liquors and mixes on a table behind them. They even go as far as to dress the part, in mostly the same outfits worn to the funeral, sans tie and jacket, substituting much more comfortable shoes.

Rather than bolstering spirits any, however, the party remains a somber affair. Oh, those outside what Jeremy likes to think of as the central circle are having a smashing time, with the laptop cued up to crank a party themed playlist – Marcus offered to curate and DJ, though accepting suggestions before and throughout – with the occasional monster tune thrown in, and it certainly looks cool out here, the girls did a great job in that department. But, citing the tired cliché of it all, few of these artists bothered dressing up in costume.

Tom and Kathy look a little different, different enough to cause everyone to ask who they’re supposed to be. But when forced to explain over and over again that they are Mark Rothko and Ruth Duckworth, respectively, and then explain who these people are on top of it, Jeremy supposes these costumes lose much of their power. He has sort of heard of the one and not at all the other. Otherwise, Rebecca dressed like that doll missing an eye in the front area of the main house, Zoe a plain old fashioned witch, broomstick and all. A good half dozen merely rifled through The Collection, threw on the zaniest outfits they could find and called it a day.

Among these is Grace, no surprise there. Even so, she feels less than festive, and winds up joining the other mourners in this central cluster of tables. Despite being in the middle of everything, this is curiously the least happening spot, with the food on one side, the alcohol another, Marcus DJing between the barn and shed, a handful of people dancing in between. The back wall, so to speak, of this light bulb demarcated area, meanwhile, is occupied by those standing and mingling, of which the Druckers and a quite clearly potted Liam Blodgett have been holding court as a trio for hours. With few other interlopers that Grace has seen.

She smiles a lot because her job as goodwill ambassador kind of demands it. But also, in more personal moments, because she often has no idea what they’re talking about, what the current codes of conduct are, though she really likes these people and would love nothing more but to fit in with them. They don’t ask her much about herself, but she can only assume this is because she has projected a vibe of being not that interesting. Yet, everyone is for the most part exceedingly nice to her, in turn, so she would have to guess that they like having her around, they enjoy her presence. And she’s even begun to gain confidence in her own creations, too, the weird marginalia she has glued or nailed or taped, in themed clusters around the main house. Her latest has to been to take every painting or picture she can find lying around the house and paper the second floor hallway with them, interlocking these as snugly as she can, like jigsaw pieces. In fact only when finding a piece that will fit perfectly into an existing gap will she fill it, before moving on to the next.

She had done some similar work prior to their arrival here, it’s true, but not at this level. This growing appreciation for her contributions has emboldened her, as if they are finally getting it, the more of it they see around the house. All of which leads her to conclude that maybe she just needs to do more to make her presence felt.

Even so, she has also felt this tremendous urge to cheer everyone up around here as well, though she can’t quite say why. Though hoping that they like her, sure, this need nonetheless trumps even any efforts at fitting in. As the dour mood suffuses this group like a fog, refusing to lift, she cannot resist the urge to triumph all the positives this place has to offer. And this isn’t empty hyperbole, either – she really means it, she still loves it here. Grace supposes she has always been overly optimistic, though. Maybe this has been her downfall.

At least Emily and Kay remain in her corner, however. Both are currently arguing, as her mind floats back to the present tense, that while a few events around here have certainly been weird, nothing downright bad has happened to anyone, at least not that they can prove. And that the mystery has made them all the more intrigued, in a way, determined to stick around.

“See, now, it’s having the opposite effect on me,” Denise argues, with a throaty chuckle. She’s the only person at the table puffing away on a cigarette, though nobody seems to mind. “I feel like I came here all fired up about solving some mysteries. And now it’s more like, mmm, mystery solved! It’s time to get the fuck out!”

“That’s me,” Rafael concurs, “I only stick around for the party. Tomorrow, you see. It’s bye-bye.” At this, he makes a flying motion with his hand, extending his arm as he lifts it skyward.

“Well, okay, let me correct that,” Denise says, a rebuttal of sorts to what Rafael had said, though she’s actually speaking to her chick friends, “I’m not quite saying it’s time to get the fuck out of here. I’m more saying, you know, we’re not getting the answers we need. It’s time to look elsewhere.”

“And that’s cool and all,” Emily agrees, nervously fidgeting with her necklace as she peers into the near distance, at her boyfriend tending bar, “and, you know, of course I loved Ben and Lois to death. Of course I did. And I can’t imagine holding up as well as Jeremy has, during this whole ordeal. But at the same time…”

“Yeah, I mean,” Kay chimes in, completing her thought, “the whole thing is weird, like you said, but even the chief of police admitted they couldn’t see how this was any direct danger to us. Whatever the fuck happened.”

“I only stay for the party,” Rafael explains, and then, in a whisper almost like a chant, repeats, “tomorrow.” Nods to confirm this, if only to himself.

Tony has spent the last few minutes staring down and picking at the tablecloth, ones Rebecca silk screened with overlapping random animal images, like a red squirrel standing on its haunches, slightly offset from a green one, slightly offset from a black one. Yet jarred to life by this last comment, he mutters at last, “eh, I’m kind of with Rafael, actually. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, really. I mean, this place is cool and all, but am I seriously expecting it’s gonna advance my career in some way?”

Kay clicks her tongue, with a speed that suggests it’s more reflex than a consciously mapped reaction. “Come on! You’ve got to stick around!”

When he remains noncommittal, she will not so subtly march up to the drink podium for another pair of these apple spiced bourbon concoctions they’ve been sipping, and plant herself on one of his knees. She is somewhat of a large girl, but he is an even bigger boy and this move doesn’t faze him in the least. At one point, long after conversation has moved on, Kay turns just enough in his lap to squeeze his chin with one hand, lean in for a kiss and ask again, “so what is it? You’re sticking around here a while longer, aren’t you? Please tell me yes. You’ve gotta at least stick around for me!”

Tony flutters his eyelashes a few times and finally looks up at her with a shy smile, concedes, “okay.”

But Rafael doesn’t leave the following day, nor the one after that. When pressed he will only continue to mutter that it will happen “soon.” And even after coaxing this concession from Tony, he remains ambivalent, Kay can tell. They’ve continually revisited this topic, as they are this gloomy Thursday morning, circling back around to it repeatedly.

She was slinging some pottery over in the workshop for a while, but her lower jaw began to hurt in an entirely different section, and she was having trouble concentrating. Decided to dip over here to Tony’s corner space and see what he was up to, for just a quick chat. That had been over an hour ago. For most of it they’ve been exactly as they are now, side by side with their backs against what is ordinarily the projection wall, as Tony shows her his work in progress on some slick video editing software. The lights are off in this room, which has no windows, the blue glow of his laptop their only illumination.

“My next step will be to figure out the camera angles,” he’s telling her, regarding his current vision. He wants to project on all four walls of this room at once, with carefully synchronized footage that will make the person feel they are moving through the area in question, even if standing still – the woods leading up to that cemetery, various other rooms in this house, Wooley Swamp, the school.

“And like, I could include the ceiling, too, if I wanted, and I probably need the floor as well. Especially if we’re talking about those weird little so-called Welch ponds.” He clears his throat, toggling around with some 3D imaging program that seems way over her head. “That’s kinda why I’m still here, I think, I just keep wondering if I have enough footage. Maybe next Saturday I could cobble together some kind of dry run. I’d hate to leave, you know, and then realize I don’t have enough.”

“This is why you’re still here?” she playfully taunts, “here I thought it was for me!”

He offers a slight chuckle and mischievous smile, eyes mirroring this frame of mind, behind those thick glasses, as he turns to her. “Oh, yeah. Of course, of course. That’s what I meant,” he says, before facing his work once more. She makes a disappointed sound and smacks him on the shoulder, as they both share a laugh.

“Where is home, anyway? I know you told me, but…you’re not from New York, right?”

“Connecticut,” he says, shrugs, swivels his head mostly in her direction again, though gazing absently into the near distance, “it’s close enough, though, it may as well be New York.”

“So are mom and dad, like…do they have artistic backgrounds, too?”

“Depends what you mean by that,” he smirks, readily visible beneath his bushy beard, “mom’s a psychologist and dad’s a surgeon. I mean, you could argue that just about everything is an art form. But…you know, they’ve been extremely supportive every step of the way. Even now they’re basically telling me, you know, if I wanna leave, then just leave…”

A blood curdling shriek from not that far away snaps them out of this discussion in an instant, and both instinctively hop to their feet as swiftly as these awkward positions allow. Even if, by this time, it has already become apparent that this wasn’t quite a terrified scream, more one of delight – it’s Kathy, who just happens to be alone in the workshop at this moment.

“OH MY GOD!” Kathy’s saying, to whomever might be within earshot, “I just saw Jen! She’s out by the pond!”

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