[9] Roach Town

[9]

The drive back to Park House was slow and stinking. Zone had dropped into a strange mood. The mood came out of nowhere. For a second he was laughing to himself about how he had gotten Gagger and the Officer Lindsay to roll around in manure. He wasn't joking when he told them to do it, but he didn't expect them to actually do it. But they did it, and no Zone regretted it. But that wasn't what was bugging him all of the sudden. Gagger was drunk, that was for certain, a thing that was of no concern to Zone, but at the same time he was glad of it. Had he been sober, or even kind of sober he would have picked up on Zone's souring mood. And Zone knew that Gagger, being the good friend that he was, he would have tried to cheer Zone up. Zone didn't want to be cheered up. He was in the beginning stages of a brood. He could tell it was a nasty one too. He wanted to be alone. To be really alone. Not like before when he was rocking in the cushioned rocking chair in the sitting room "Thinking" before Helen had come in and accused him of being too spicy for Rochester with racial overtones. Something wasn't right in Roach Town. But because of all of the chaos since coming to town, all the distractions and poor form from everyone involved, from the grandmas to Gagger to Siobhan to the toothpick coward to the Officer Lindsay to Gary Alone and Union Dan and especially the Constable Bondo he never got a chance to see things in any clear way. His brood was making him irritable and angry. Sitting between the hearse driver, who was driving like he was carrying a load of fine china, and Gagger who was mumbling to himself, smelling like cow shit, he felt trapped. He needed to get out. He couldn't take it anymore. He needed to be alone. He was also still quite wired from the Orange Sunshine. This really didn't help. It was making him jumpy and acute. He would get so focused on his thoughts that he would lose the world around him, then someone would elbow him on accident and he would jump out of his skin. He couldn't take it anymore. He screamed:

"Stop!" The hearse screeched to a halt. There was sound of a thud in the back. Zone thought "Oh, shit." He hadn't meant to scream so loudly. The hearse driver was staring at Zone. His mouth open. A giant question mark on his face. Zone said:

"Shit, man, sorry. I need to get out. Gagger let me out." Gagger was confused too. He got out of the hearse and got out. Zone said:

"Come help me." Gagger left the door open and followed Zone to the back of the hearse. Zone opened the door. The body of the dead woman was now crumpled up at the front of the hearse. Zone felt terrible about this. He suddenly understood why the hearse driver was driving so slowly. He got into the hearse. The poor woman. He tried to rearrange her body. He asked Gagger to pull on her feet. The hearse driver was now standing behind the hearse. He said:

"Um, that is not good." Zone looked up. He looked like he was crying. He wasn't. He was about to though. He held it in. They managed to get her back into a dignified position. In the process her skirt had pulled up. Exposing her underwear. Next to her hip was a tattoo of a very elaborate roach. With roses winding around it. Zone looked at it for a second. Gagger, always the asshole, said:

"Dude, have some respect." Zone twisted his head so fast that his neck popped. The look on his face made Gagger feel something sharp attack his butthole. Even drunk he knew he had fucked up. He muttered "Whoa." And backed up a couple feet. Zone pulled the woman's skirt back down. He took another look at her now bloated body. The blood under her nose. He did some sort of silent prayer thing that was nothing more than "I am sorry." He crawled out of the hearse. They shut the door. Zone told Gagger he would be back at the Park House later, to leave the door open. That he should maybe think about taking a shower. Gagger was still tender from his remonstration. He took the information and orders in silence. Zone turned to the hearse driver and said:

"Hey, man, you live around here, yeah?" The hearse driver said:

"Yeah, up on Townline. Why?" Zone said:

"I got some questions for you. Are you around tomorrow?" He thought about it. He said:

"Well, I guess. I need to get this body to Middlebury, that might take a while. Tomorrow might be a slow day, I guess. It's already pretty late." He was trying to get out of meeting tomorrow. But Zone didn't know that secret code around here so he said:

"Oh, good, that frees you up then, I will try and come in the morning." The hearse driver pulled on his pony tail and sighed. Zone continued "What's your address?" This somehow cheered the hearse driver up. He said:

"Oh, you can't miss it. The hearse will let you know." This indicated that there would be some other things that would let Zone know as well. He figured he would figure it out. He said:

"Okay, thanks, man." Zone had another thought. He said "How far is Middlebury?" The hearse driver said:

"Miles? Thirty, I guess. With this thing though, it will take me an hour. With the cargo and what not." The cargo meaning the dead body. Zone said:

"You think the cops will show up there?" The hearse driver said:

"They always do." Zone tried to understand this statement. It didn't seem right. He asked:

"This happens a lot?" The hearse driver corrected his statement:

"Well, no, but one time there was a body that I took to Middlebury that we thought was a murder and the cops followed me there." At that exact moment Zone saw the cruisers lights coming from over the hill. He didn't want to deal with them again so he ran off into the woods. The hearse driver was a little shocked by this. He stood there for a second. Then decided to get back into the hearse and drive Gagger to the Park House and then drive the body to Middlebury. As he was pulling back onto the road the cops caught up to him. The first cruiser pulled up next to the hearse. Captain Sergeant, the toothpick coward was sitting in passenger side seat. His window was rolled down. He said:

"Where's that loser, Zone?" The hearse driver shrugged his shoulders. The Captain yelled over the hearse driver at Gagger. He yelled:

"Hey faggot, where's your lover?" Gagger looked over and yelled back:

"We dropped him off at your mom's house for some anal sex lessons!" The Captain was trying to get out of the cruiser. He was restrained by the driver. Who Zone could hear saying:

"Man, he is just fucking with you! Let it go!" The Captain toothpick coward Sergeant yelled back:

"You're lucky I'm restrained!" Gagger yelled back:

"Like mommy like son!" Steam literally came out of the Captains ears. The cruiser sped off. Followed by the other two cruisers. The Officer Lindsay waved at Gagger as the cruiser she was in drove by. Gagger did a "Call me" motion with his hand. The Officer Lindsay blushed. Or so it seemed. The hearse driver put the hearse into drive and slowly pulled away. Zone stayed in the bushes until there was silence again. He walked onto onto the asphalt. Watching the hearse turn right at the end of the street. He turned around and started walking uphill. His broody mood getting broodier by the minute. He was angry. Choked up. The sounds of frogs and subtle breezes in the moonlit night felt strange to him. There were smells attacking him from all sides. Sometimes good smells, sometimes bad smells. He acclimated though. Even when some of the smells were so sharp that he thought that his nose had broken. How can something so beautiful and bucolic be so repugnant at the same time? He wondered. He didn't know.

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Zone's feet were huge on the pavement. He wasn't bouncing around like normal, like the vulture he was, because he was walking uphill. This was good, if not hard, but it was good. It focused his brood. Listening to his heart race. Hearing his own breath. Climbing the hill. The hill went on forever. It was relentless. Even with his long strides the hill didn't want to give it up. The moon was at it's apex now. Zone could see pretty good. His boots flapping on the asphalt. His breath, shortened. His heart like a hummingbird. He had to stop at one point because he was afraid he might puke. Then he thought about Siobhan and the bar. Maybe he had made a bad choice. Maybe he should have gone back down to the bar and closed it down. Drinking shots of whiskey and drinking beer. Maybe doing some motorboating in the alley like he had thought before. But he was alright. Booze-wise. He was kind of aimless, but not really. He knew where he was going, he also knew what he would do when he got there. It seemed important at the time. Even though there was no indication that any of it mattered. As far as everyone was concerned, Zone and Gagger were no longer on the case. They were just taking the cure like what was the reason they were even there in Rochester in the first place. Tomorrow they could just wake up, Zone and Gagger, have some hangovers, fight the grandmas over breakfast, while they behaved like animals but ate like birds. And things would be fine. They could spend a week doing nothing, hanging out in rocking chairs, getting to know the grandmas. And then Captain Nylon would send a cop up to take them back, and that would be that. But Zone, falling into his brood, trying to figure out why he was feeling this way, he was not the kind of person, the kind of detective, to just let things go. Which is why he asked the hearse driver his address. Which is why he had let Gagger go back to Park House to sleep it off, which is why he was willing to have a heart attack climbing this awful hill just to get back to the crime scene. And as bad as things were getting, mostly about the climbing of this terrible hill, there would be an end in sight. Even if it killed him. Because Zone believed in justice. That justice wasn't just something that should be taken for granted. That, even though he was supposed to be taking the cure, he had a duty to the poor woman with the bloody nose and the cockroach tattoo. It was only proper.

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When Zone got to the top of the hill he saw Constable Bondo swerving down the road where the asphalt turned to dirt. Apparently he had gotten un-stuck. He was followed by the two boobs, Gary Alone and Union Dan, in two different vehicles. Swerving just like the constable. Zone found this odd. One of them lived at the house where the body was found. He had mixed them up in his mind. It was either Gary Alone of Union Dan, it didn't really matter. He would remember at some point. Or not. What was important is that they were all going in the same direction. Away from town. Down some back roads leading somewhere Zone didn't know where they led. He thought about this. That maybe tomorrow he should go to the library in town and have a look-see at a map. He wanted bearings. At the moment he felt like he needed bearings, but he didn't, not really, the information he had was enough to not really require such details. But it would be nice to have a larger scope of things. But at that moment, Zone really wished he had a map so he could see things on a larger, more global scale. But it really didn't matter. He was glad to be walking on flat land again. He turned left on Chickadee road. Listening to the frogs and the cool breeze. The rustling of leaves and branches. Zone was convinced he would see a moose. Coming at him from the dark. He didn't really understand how Vermont worked, but this was a new fear of his. Either that or a bear or a raccoon or some angry dog would come and attack him also. He was used to the city streets. Not this nonsense. The silence and almost violent landscape. With it's terrible smells and unknown noises.

Zone continued to brood. He was annoyed with the Captain Sergeant. He didn't understand why he was so pissed at Zone and Gagger. There was no logic in it. Sure, he didn't want people coming around getting into his business, but so what? He was hiding something, for certain. And Zone felt like this was a distraction, but then, was it really? There was something funny about his last name that didn't feel right. Like maybe Bonny, the Matron of the Park House, was her last name not Sergeant? Was that something Zone had made up? Maybe she had said that, or something? Did he read it somewhere? Zone was getting clogged up. He had been in town for maybe nine hours and so much had happened that he had lost track of almost all of it. He had suffered from a hangover from the ride up, then he got drunk again, then he got high, then he got nearly murdered by grandmas, and then he got drunk again on moonshine, then he kind of sobered up again. And now he was walking back to the greenhouse. In his mind he was hoping that the bottle of moonshine would still be there. Where he had last left it. Where the boobs had been sleeping. It was possible. Zone kind of wanted to take the rest of that booze, if it was there still, and drink it all, lying down in the greenhouse. Maybe do some sort of tantric osmosis. Absorb the crime scene. He knew nobody around here. He knew none of the customs, but he did know that all these assholes, all the people that he had met since coming to town, they knew way more than they were saying. And, even though he didn't know the surroundings, he could guess, and it would be a good guess, that one of them, even if they were just assholes, or boobs, or whatever, they were involved. Even if the poor murdered woman with the fancy roach tattoo didn't look like them. Or seem like them. There was a connection. And Zone would find it. Even if it meant sleeping in a greenhouse. Covered by burlap.

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Zone was in a terrible mood by the time he got to the greenhouse. He was annoyed by the moon. Which just hung there like a static eye mocking him. Too bright to do any good, but giving glare to anything he wanted to look at. Not that there was anything to look at. It was just that the fucker wouldn't leave him alone. A soft blaring. He wanted the thing to go away. But it did not go away. It just hung there, staring. Making sure he didn't fuck up. He wanted to shake his fist at it. But that seemed dumb. He did his best to ignore it. He found the place where the boobs had passed out and where the bottle of booze would be. The bottle was still there. He thanked the moon because of this. Which made Zone feel crazy. His emotions were all over the map. He gave up on his brooding for one second to try and figure this out. He decided he was just drunk. He had been drunk. And now that he was holding the bottle of booze, he realized he would get more drunk. He didn't care though. Then he decided he did care. He almost just dropped the bottle on the ground and walked back to Park House. He could use a good night's sleep. Maybe a week of it. Taking the cure. Hanging out with the grandmas. Eating, and trying not to read too loud. But then he thought about Gagger and Bonny and the grandmas. There would be no peace there. Zone did what he thought he would do. He walked over to the greenhouse and laid down where the poor dead woman had laid just an hour ago. Maybe less. He took a drink of the hard stuff and nearly puked. He rolled a pinner. In the moonlight. The greenhouse smelled like butt smells. Because it was a greenhouse. But when Zone laid down he could smell the dead woman's perfume. Chloe'. He knew it. Where he knew it from was anyone's guess. He knew it from her body in the hearse, but that didn't matter. The body was long gone. Going to Middlebury, wherever that was. Thirty miles away, as the hearse driver said. An hour of driving. But what did it mean now, here, in the greenhouse. Where Union Dan and Gary Alone had found her? Where the inept and feckless Constable Bondo, with his chewing gum car had let alone until he finally was able to be retrieved, where the State Police had come all the way from Burlington just to give Zone and Gagger the grief? To Zone, what was odd, was not that there was a dead body in the greenhouse, but all the other bullshit that came with not dealing with the dead body in the greenhouse. She was a secondary thought to them. And as much as she was out of place, here, in Rochester, it was everyone else that was really bending themselves into to pretzels to pretend that this was normal. Even the hearse driver pretended that this was something normal until he was pressed on it. Zone thought about this. How he had said:

"The last time I picked up a body they met me in Middlebury. The cops did." Or something. Zone couldn't tell if it was just bad police work, or if everyone was inept, or if they were covering something up. The only thing he did know was that nothing seemed right. That the original two boobs got together with the third boob, the Constable Bondo, and had gone down the dirt road away from town. That the woman's body was heading to Middlebury. That the cops would be there when the hearse got there. That the driver of the hearse lived on Townline road, that his place would be apparent.

Zone laid on the floor of the greenhouse. He closed his eyes. Smelling the perfume. He smoked his pinner. His mood was quite dark. He was annoyed with the moon. Blaring softly in the quiet night sky. The sounds of frogs. An owl hooting. He was not happy. But he was comfortable. He finished his smoke. Dabbing it out on the wooden floor next to his leg. He reached over and pulled a burlap sack over his body. He would just let himself have a moment of rest. There was no rush. It was a long walk back to Park House. He had earned it. The rest. It was late. He would just have a little shut eye, maybe gather his thoughts as he meditated on the floor of the greenhouse. A tantric osmosis. His anger dissipating into the bully moon. His brooding coming to an end. There was the sound of a mouse or something in the corner as Zone tried to keep his thoughts together. But those sounds only made him sleepy. He tried to get up again, to find a way inside the mystery. But instead he fell asleep. A burlap sack for his blanket. The smell of perfume winding it's way through his nostrils like some sort of cartoon muse.