03/10/01

Started the day preparing to go to the Catskills to work on Cupcake’s broke-down Winnebago, but I get this call from Phebe. She said Betty was in the hospital again with another diabetes attack and I had to find a way to pick up Mookie from Newburgh and bring him back to the farm. Percy was gone already from the house so I end up asking Cupcake to change her plans for the day. So Cupcake and I head into Newburgh in her car to pick up the baby from Fauntleroy. We get the baby in the car, start back Goshen way, and we get pulled over by the police. Cupcake’s all nervous like I’ve never seen before. She gets a ticket for rolling through a stop sign.

After the police car is gone I hear her say, that was close!

I ask, what was close?

She says, oh, nothing.

We get to the farm and I’m thinking it would be best if Cupcake just drops us off. But she sort of invites herself inside, starts walking around all over the house going through all of Phebe’s shit. I’m thinking I gotta get this girl out of here. If Phebe shows up right now we’ll have disaster. We put the baby down to sleep after a feeding and Cupcake asks to check my bandages. Then she starts giving me a massage on the living room sofa. At some point her hands make their way over my ass. I had to put a stop to it and ask her to leave. She doesn’t seem too happy.

You’re not going to thank me for helping to pick up your grandson? She says as she makes her way out.

Thank you but this is just not the time or place, I say.

Time or place for what? She says. What are you talking about?

You know, I say.

No, I don’t know, she says. What?

Good fucking gracious.

03/09/01

So I’m at Porch Rot’s farm. Not a soul around. I find a shovel and start chiseling my way through the frost layer. Just keep digging away, removing the soil that had been used by Hiram to fill in the old well years ago. In time I’m down so deep I can’t even throw the dirt out anymore. I have to find a ladder and a bucket to carry the dirt up in. I just keep digging down deeper and deeper. No sign of Clean Phil’s remains though. Next thing I know I feel dirt raining down on my head. I look up and there’s Stash Skimington looking down on me from the rim of the well up above.

I hear you think I might have been involved in your trailer being set on fire, he says.

Well what would you think if you were in my shoes? I ask.

Stash says: I would be saying to myself ‘if this guy was behind the fire he would have had a bullet in my head already and had me half-buried too.’

Suddenly the ladder is pulled out of the well before I have the chance to grab it. I look up and the sun is shining down the well making it hard for me to see. I see what looks to be a pistol in Stash’s hand. I’m no sure what’s happening. And then, BLAM!

Somehow the bullet misses. I start climbing out of the well as dirt continues to rain down on me. I’m clinging to the rocks lining the shaft as I slowly inch my way to the top. I’m worried the whole time there’ll be another blast. But there is no blast. There’s no sign of Stash up top either. I start to wonder if this was all just a hallucination. I wonder if this was all part of a dream. . . And right then I wake up.

So I find myself going to Stash’s house again to try again to talk things over with him. But he’s still away. The note he left for Phebe was still at his door starting to yellow. This time I found a message in Phebe’s handwriting just below his handwriting. It said: Please call me.