THE HEAD, Chapter 4
two heads
Chapter 4
To get Becky to tell the story, Slick had to agree to do all the closings for the next two weeks. Becky liked to go home early. After the negotiations were concluded to her satisfaction, she said, “First of all, Mitch looks like hell. Like if a dog shit in the road and cars and trucks drove over it all day that’s what he looks like.”
When Becky told a story, she liked to include lots of details. She was driving them up the hill to the bar, Red’s Place. It was only a half dozen blocks away.
“Who cares what he looked like? Did you find out what he has?”
Becky took her time. “When I first seen him, I thought he really was sick, you know? No wonder he never went to work, like he was running a fever, but it wasn’t that. It was more like psychological. Like stress. Like when you take a day off on account of personal problems.”
“Who cares about his problems? I want to hear what that asshole has. Does he have some sort of thing made out of gold? What’s he got? Is it jewelry? Is it pure gold?”
Becky turned right. “I’m gonna drop you off. I got other things to do today.”
Slick hated it when Becky dragged out a story. “Are you gonna tell me or not? What’s he got?”
“Sweetie, don’t get your knickers in a knot.” She let him fret for a moment. “You wanna know what he’s got? It was sitting right there on the dinette table when I got inside the trailer. Big as life.”
Slick frowned and glared at the side of her head as if hoping his angry expression would get her to speed up the story. “What?”
Becky did not bother to look over at him. “It’s a gold head. Know what I mean? Like the head of a statue.”
Slick sat back. He had to think about it for a few seconds. “A head. Real gold. Made of genuine gold.”
Becky nodded, “Looked like it.”
Slick made a sound which might have been a laugh. “How big we talking? Like a little head? Like a golf ball?”
Becky pretended she had to think about the size of the head. “I could tell he didn’t want me to see it because he threw a towel over it as soon as I got in there. Then he picked it up, carried it down the hall, and stuck it on a shelf in the closet. Then he came back and wanted to know what I wanted. Acting like I should just forget about it. Like it’s possible to forget I just saw him hide a big gold head.”
Slick stared at her. “Big? It was big?”
“Life-size.”
“Wow.” Slick remembered what his friend Rodney had told him in the bar. People sell gold by the ounce. It’s worth hundreds just for an ounce. “What you think a head that size would weigh? If you had to guess.”
A squirrel was attempting to cross the road, and Becky swerved around it. “You should have seen Mitch. Like he hadn’t had any sleep. Like he’d been up all night solo drinking.”
“An entire head made out of gold. Life-size. Unbelievable.” Slick was trying to act cool. “You got a good look at it? A life-size head made of gold.”
“I saw it with my own eyes. But only for a few seconds.”
Slick tried to envision the golden head. “What’d it look like? Like Jesus? Or Buddha?”
“How do I know?” Becky pulled into the bar’s parking lot and came to a stop. There were six other cars in the lot and Red’s old truck. “Like something you would see in a museum from the ancient times. You know. Like a Roman emperor maybe.”
“How much you think a head that size would weigh?”
They were parked right beside the bar in the shade. Becky pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. When she had Slick’s full attention, she liked to delay. In her opinion that was just good story-telling technique. Make them wait.
Slick hated it when Becky delayed. “Is he gonna sell it? Did he say? Why were you in there with him so long?”
She dug a lighter out of her purse. “I told that fool the reason I was making a social call was because I heard he was going around telling people we’re getting back together, like that is ever going to happen. We are not getting back together. Not ever. I told him to quit telling people that. But get this.”
She paused to get the lighter going and apply the flame to her cigarette. “I did not mention the gold head. I wanted to see if he would bring it up.”
Slick looked as if he was on the verge of yelling, as if in a second maybe he might clench his fists and stamp his feet. Becky enjoyed it when he looked like that.
“What’d he tell you? Did he tell you something? I heard he found it in someone’s garbage can.”
“This is interesting. I’m not sure he even cared why I was visiting him. Once I got in there. You know? Actually, I think he was kind of glad I stopped by. He looked sick. I actually considered telling him to go back to bed. Like I was his mom. ‘Don’t worry, baby, let Mommy get you an aspirin.’ You ever seen somebody having a migraine? That’s what he looked like.”
Slick appeared to be lost in a daydream. “I bet it weighs ten pounds. At least. Maybe more.”
“He told me he’d had nightmares all night and then this morning, that gruesome story was in the paper. He was all worked up about that story.”
Slick snapped out of his daydream. “What gruesome story?”
“Sweetie, are you gonna get out of my car? I have stuff to do today.”
“What story in the paper?”
Becky gave Slick a look and then recalled that if Slick ever read anything in the paper, it was going to be on the sports page. It pleased her to see she had regained his full attention. “It was on the front page, the story about the dead guy, the murdered guy. Don’t you read the paper?”
Slick knew nothing about this story.
As if she was talking about something casual, like the weather, hot and humid, Becky said, “The cops found a guy murdered. In a house.” She took a drag on her cigarette.
“What guy? What’s this have to do with Mitch?”
Becky exhaled a cloud of smoke. “The dead guy’s head was missing.”
Slick felt cold all over. “OK. Wow. Shit. What’s it got to do with Mitch though? What are you saying?”
Becky swiveled so she could look right at Slick. “The house where they found the guy was on Mitch’s garbage route. It was one of his houses, one of the houses where he picks up. He recognized the address.”
Slick felt his mouth go dry. “Mitch found all this out just this morning? What are you saying? What are you telling me?”
“He told me it was that guy’s garbage can where he found the gold head. He said last night he couldn’t sleep. It was the head. Something about it. He kept having nightmares. All night, he’s having these nightmares. Disembodied heads, floating over his bed. Headless bodies staggering around in his bedroom. Like they are trying to find their heads.”
“Jesus.”
“Then, this morning, he has to get up early, before dawn, right? Because he’s a garbage man. But he decides he can’t go to work. He doesn’t feel well. He made himself a cup of coffee, ate a bowl of cereal. That head is sitting right in front of him on the dinette table. Like it’s looking at him. He goes and gets his morning newspaper. Right there on the front page is this story about a dead guy.”
Slick looked like a kid listening to a ghost story. He was breathing out his mouth.
“He reads the story about the murdered guy. Who was found in his house, missing his head. Can you imagine? The cops find the body but no head. The address was in the paper. It was an address that was on Mitch’s route. The same address where he found the gold head. The very same address.”
Slick looked as if his ability to produce words was failing him.
“He told me all morning he’s just been sitting there at his dinette table in a fog. He said a guy who works with him on the garbage truck came to see him, pounded on his door. But he was too scared to open it. He never answered the door. He just hid in his trailer, afraid to move. And then I showed up. If you ask me, he’s one sick scared puppy. But at least he’s now the possessor of a valuable gold head. You OK?”
After Becky dropped him off, Slick found a copy of the daily paper in the bar. His dad was reading it. Three regulars, afternoon drinkers including Billy the Cop, were sitting at the bar watching a ball game.
“Hey, Dad, you got the front page? Let me see it.”
On the front page was a picture of the house where the cops found the dead guy after they got an anonymous tip.
The words of the story swam in front of Slick’s eyes. There was no mention of Mitch or a garbage can, no mention of a missing golden head.
Slick felt overwhelmed. He felt the details of Becky’s story and the newspaper story were too confusing. He wanted to call up his pal Rodney and have a conversation with him. Rodney was good at figuring out things. A gold head in a garbage can. Mitch having nightmares. A dead guy missing his head. Two heads. A gold head and a human head. He needed to talk to Rodney about all this.
Slick imagined Mitch on his route, picking up garbage cans, finding the head in one of the cans, not the dead guy’s head, a different head, a head made of gold. He needed to tell Rodney all about this. Two heads.
Red watched his son scanning the story on the front page of the paper. Red had already read the story about the beheaded guy. He and his regulars had been discussing it just a minute ago. Billy the Cop had not visited the crime scene. He had not seen the headless body, but he’d heard all about it. He knew details that were not in the paper.
Red slapped the bar to get the attention of his regulars. “What’s the matter with the world today? A guy gets his head chopped off right here in our town. A thing like that could drive a man to drink. Am I right? You fellas thirsty? Who needs another beer?”