English: Of Ducks And Dirty Secrets

[Nessie]

Of Ducks and Dirty Secrets
By Nessie

Our final fight exploded over a duck.

It was a plastic duck. It was larger than a tub toy, about a foot long and about eight inches high. It was not well-made or expensive. It was probably made in China. It was shiny bright yellow and it was pretty, but it was the very epitome of all that was common and of absolutely no value. She was already upset because I had said that I wanted to move out over of all of our problems and the hell that my life had fallen into inside our great and once-lovely mansion.

She was home for awhile, for she had just ended a long concert tour. She hadnʼt come home right away, but had taxied to a hotel to party with friends for a few days. She was home now because we still had business to take care of, and we hadnʼt done any of it. I didnʼt care that she liked to party because she had enough money to do as she pleased. But I never went with her. Large groups of people ingesting various forms of alcohol, worshipfully getting silly and stoned with the big rock star, just were not my thing.

There was nothing special about our disagreement. It was the same old story, like a worn-out vinyl record...that secret, nasty thing that always put us at loggerheads, the issue that was ever-growing and never solved. But this time I did something forbidden that put her over the edge.

I donʼt know why I zeroed in on that duck. It could be because it was in easy reach and so handy. And when I laid my hand on it and told her that I was going to throw it in the trash, she exploded in fury. Every shred of her capacity to see reason was lost.

I knew that she would react like that – and I did it anyway.

* * *

Her birth name was Susana. Her stage name was Curvy Sucia. Her music ranged from screaming punk metal to synthesized ballads filled with sound effects. Sucia and her music were much more popular here than they ever could be where we were born, so we ended up moving.

She was pretty, with bright brown eyes and clear skin, but her personal fashion sense was that of a homeless woman. Her hair was a brilliant dyed reddish gold, very striking, and very long, ending in ragged points at her waist. It almost never saw a comb. Her figure was as curvy as her stage name, especially after her first real success. With her new money, she had bought herself a pair of new breasts.

Today, those famous curves of hers were clothed in what could only be called creative rags. Susana loved to shop, and she was not a snob about it. She had all the money she could ever have asked for but didnʼt seem to prefer the upscale shops of the very rich. Instead, she loved to come out of secondhand and thrift shops with multiple bags of bright material, which might or might not fit her. Any problems were solved with a pair of scissors, a willingness to rip, rend and tear, and her semi-expert sewing skills.

Today, her makeup was heavy and her cheap secondhand glitter was all over her. She looked this way when she was onstage or in the bars with her admirers, and right now she had just come back from a party spree. Interestingly, her disguise in public was simply to remove it all. The owner of “Another Ladyʼs Treasure” was very familiar with Susana but, being well over fifty years old, saw only an ordinary thirty-year-old woman in baggy T-shirts or oversized sweats, her face bare and her hair up. She had no idea at all who her dream customer really was.

I was so happy when the first big checks arrived! No more would we wonder how we were going to pay the rent! No more did we rent! No more would I have to drive us everywhere in my clanky old rustbucket! No, my car was new and reliable and the taxi drivers of the city were willing! She was talented and unique and I saw that from the very day she picked up her first guitar. I would have been content with just earning a living. No way did I expect this wild level of success, where we had piled up more money than we could spend in five lifetimes.

Things might not have been so unbearable if only I could have happily shared her social-butterfly lifestyle. But I am an introvert. I donʼt like noisy groups of people that I donʼt know. I like to be at home, in peace. My portion of the money is my security, not an excuse to go everywhere and buy everything that I can find. Now that it was all here, there was no way I would have expected that I would personally have...

Nothing!

* * *

Susanaʼs brows rushed together and her face turned stormy. She leapt at me, and fell on top of me, knocking me backward. Her painted fingernails reached for the duck as we both fell to the kitchen floor. I held the cursed thing out of her reach and my knee connected with her stomach. I pushed her up and got one foot under her. With a good kick from me, she flew backward, landing in a pile of newspapers and mail and magazines which fell down around her. Cancelled checks fluttered like snow to the floor.

I jumped to my feet and screamed:

“I still have it! I got your little duckie! Iʼm going to throw your stupid duck into the garbage can!”

She burst out of the pile of papers like a madwoman, throwing sheets to the side with murder in her eyes.

“Do not touch my things!” she screamed.

I ran out the kitchen door out of the house, the yellow shiny duck still clutched in my hand. I had every intention of throwing it in the garbage can exactly as I had promised. I suddenly changed my mind about that. All she needed to do to recover the birdie from the trash can was to tip the can over and spill the contents on the ground. That was just too easy. She would win, and it wouldnʼt prove anything.

Our huge three-story home was beginning to need a new coat of paint. But it was about where one would expect it to be, considering that it was the home of a very famous singing star with millions of admirers (and haters and stalkers, not to mention paparazzi). Its address was a secret from Google Maps. It sat smack in the middle of sixteen acres of wilderness, surrounded by an iron fence with a gate at the end of a long, snaking driveway. Our land was partially forest and partially a marsh. It was me who mowed an area around the house after the gardener had been fired by Susana two years ago, so the half-mile of asphalt walking trail was overgrown with weeds on both sides and littered with branches.

But it was open enough for me to run down it, so I did.

She followed me, screaming and shouting that I had no right to so much as touch even one of her things. I had no right to help myself to anything at all. She had paid for that duck! Her talent and her voice had earned us everything we owned and none of it, not even the tiniest item, was owned by me!

Not so, and her own behavior was the proof. Sure, she had a voice in things, but obviously somebody had to be the disciplinarian.

“You certainly wonʼt be singing for long if you keep screaming like that!” I shrieked back at her, perhaps ruining my own vocal chords.

“Give me my duck!” This demand was followed by various vile and filthy names for me.

“Finders keepers, losers weepers!”

“Thief! I will have you arrested for stealing from me!”

“Go ahead! Call the cops! Iʼd love to see the headlines! HEY, WORLD! THE GREAT AND WORLD-FAMOUS CURVY SUCIA IS SCREAMING THROUGH THE FOREST LIKE A CRAZY MANIAC OVER A CHEAP PLASTIC DUCK! PUT THAT WOMAN IN A STRAITJACKET!”

One of the glories of living in a gated rich-peopleʼs wilderness estate is that absolutely nobody ever hears a thing that goes on in your yard.

She caught me near the swamp.

She tackled me football-player style and we both fell to the asphalt. I felt her knee in my back but I did not release my grip around that duck. Around and around we rolled, over asphalt and damp ground and branches. She kicked me in the gut and I bit her on the ear. I broke free for just a few seconds. I scrambled to my feet and screeched:

“Your little duckie is going swimming in the swamp with all the other little duckies!”

I threw that little yellow duckie with every drop of strength in my arm toward the cattails which grew in the mud.

There was almost no water out there. The summer had been dry. The duckie fell with a soft plop, beak-down and with its butt sticking up in the air.

I earned a kick in the ribs for that move but this definitely ended the battle. She was furious with me but totally fixated on the duck. She forgot me entirely, because all she wanted was to have it back in her hands.

She left me lying on the asphalt and scurried toward the marsh, toward the bright yellow duck trapped in the muck.

Her first steps went well. Next, things went a bit less easily, her feet leaving the muck with ugly squelching sounds. Then her steps became downright difficult, as her leg disappeared halfway to the knee and was released with a noise that sounded somewhere between a fart and a gargle. By then it was obvious that walking was barely possible but Susana was a determined woman! She reached the duck. It had landed around thirty feet out. She pulled her legs out one last time to turn around, holding the duck high over her head in victory. She smiled at me, a closed-lip smile of victory mixed with a touch of pure craziness. Susana, the single and childless, had just plucked her baby from the deadly maw of a natural disaster.

A problem was plainly visible to me while she savored her success. I was still angry and didnʼt feel like pointing it out. Her legs continued to sink.

When she tried to take another step, she discovered that she could not, for both legs had sunk into the heavy, dense, gooey guck to the knee. And she couldnʼt pull either one of them up.

Her wild, tangled hair fluffed in the breeze along with the various loose parts of her homemade outfit as she tried to extricate her legs.

She was stuck. She discovered it slowly.

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All of the fury that she had almost forgotten came back like a blast of wind. Her augmented breasts were heaving in fury. She screamed in rage:

“Look at what youʼve done!”

“Who, me? Canʼt you see yet how stupid all of this is?”

“Iʼm not going to let you tell me how to live my life,” she grumbled sullenly. She kept pulling on both legs, duck in hand, trying to free them, but the mud had her stuck like glue.

You canʼt imagine how tempted I was to talk away and leave her there! A night alone with her ridiculous toy in the stinky marsh would certainly teach her a lesson or two. But what, precisely, was the entire disagreement about?

Priorities.

And things had just changed. That stupid cheap China-made duck-shaped ornament was a priority when everybody was free to move around. Now that she was stuck so firmly, the duck, and whether or not she could keep it, could no longer be a priority.

I practice what I preach. Therefore, after watching her try to pull her legs out, oh, eight or nine times, with the guck of the marsh wiggling and jiggling like gelatin, when she said:

“Help me dig my legs out!”

...even though it wasnʼt a request but an order, and she definitely should have said “please” or “Iʼm sorry” or something like that somewhere, anywhere, in the sentence, priorities dictated that the sun was now setting and no matter how angry I was with her, I simply could not leave Susana alone in the marsh all night long.

Priorities. I could always try to turn her lifestyle around later.

I groaned, though. Another priority was definitely not to get stuck in the mud alongside her. The idea of spending a night stuck in a sticky, stinky wad of muck and mire alone with Susana was downright repulsive.

Plus, this area might be more than just a patch of half-dried mud. The marsh could have underwater springs, which could make parts of it into true quicksand. I decided that extreme caution was the best way to tackle this. I dropped to all fours to spread out my weight and began to crawl out toward her.

Everything was slow, odorous, and very sticky. I could feel the mud grabbing at my knees and calves and my hands sunk in three inches every time they touched the muck as I crawled. They made small sucking noises as I pulled them out, and it took some effort, but crawling over the surface of the mud, flat-palmed, with my weight never all on one limb was working.

I finally reached her. She was watching me petulantly, her long stringy reddish-gold dyed hair fluffing a bit in the breeze, one hand on her hip and the other clutching Dear Duckie The Sacred, her lower lip puffed out a bit. It all irritated me more, for she was looking mighty pouty.

“Rock back and forth. Move your legs as much as you can. Keep your knees straight and make like each leg is a big stir stick churning up a pot of very chunky soup. I will dig and maybe this will loosen things up so that you can pull out.”

She obeyed me. She rocked her entire body forward and back, keeping her knees rigid. When space appeared between her skin and the mud, I snaked both arms down, sliding my fingers down the sides of her legs. I started at the top, grabbing large handfuls of smelly goop, with roots and dead leaves and little stringy pieces of I-know-not-what dripping from my fingers. One by one, I threw the globs away from her, and they landed with wet plops on the surface of the mire. She kept on rocking and I kept on digging. I am sure that it seemed like it took longer than it did. And finally, at long last, she was able to extract one leg with a loud, rude, long slurp that sounded like an ill-mannered child trying to get those last drops of a chocolate shake out through a straw.

You cannot imagine how relieved I was! She wasnʼt going to be in the marsh all night. I wasnʼt going to be in the marsh all night either, not because I was stuck with her, nor because it really and truly took me all night to free her. I didnʼt have to run back to the house for my cell phone to call the rescue squad. There would be no firefighters, there would be no paramedics, there would be no police. Feeling positively wonderful, I dug with new fury and force, flat on my belly, feeling the wetness seep through my shirt, reaching down deep, and her other leg was swiftly liberated as well. There would be no headlines. There would be no news stories. I didnʼt have to try to explain all of this ridiculous, infantile imbecility to any authorities. Susana, I knew, would not have been grateful to the rescue crew; she would have been livid at their intrusion into her life.

When she was finally fully detached from the black muck, she ended up sitting with her butt in the mud and her legs splayed out scandalously. I rolled over and landed flat on my back, staring at the sky and feeling guck seep into my hair but I didnʼt care.

“Oh, God, Iʼm glad thatʼs over!” I declared to the now-colorful sky. The sun was definitely going down.

I struggled to sit, and said:

“I canʼt carry you and you canʼt walk on this. Youʼre going to need to crawl back to solid ground with me, on all fours, like I did.”

And then I saw that silly duck still in her hand.

“Susana, you canʼt crawl with that in your hands.”

She had looked rather pleased to be liberated. But now, a cloud passed over her face. Her expression became mulish and obstinate and her voice turned cold as she clutched her duckie to her breast and said (I kid thee not):

“We didnʼt go through all of this for me to be without it now.”

“Say what? Itʼs just big enough that you canʼt keep a grip on it with just one hand. Itʼs slippery and wet. By now Iʼm tired enough to say yes if it was the same size as most of those tub toys are, but Susana – youʼll need both hands just to keep it with you. You also need all four limbs to support your weight and if you donʼt crawl that way, you can easily get stuck again. If that happens, there will be a rescue crew out here.”

Surely she could understand that?

“Come with me, Susana. You donʼt want the firemen putting planks out here for you, do you? Please...let the duckie go and crawl with me. Crawl to firm ground and safety with me.”

“But I love that duck. I want to keep him.”

“I understand.” (I did not, but sometimes you have to say what you have to say to get through a thing. And on that note, perhaps I needed to try illogical persuasion, since facts were not working out for me.) “The duckie, he is fine out here. He is a duck, isnʼt he? And this is a marsh. There are other ducks out here who will love him just as you have. He is made of plastic. He will not decompose...he will live happily, for centuries! He is safe out here. Us, not so much. He does not have more value than you do...so please, Susana, in the name of all that is rational, sane and safe, crawl out of this bog with me. You will be safe in the house, and he is already safe out here. We will figure out how to get him out later. Another day. Not today. Please.”

Her lower lip trembled and she looked about to cry.

“But I love him, Rocky. Every time I see his face, and hold him, and touch him, I am reminded of all those happy evenings years ago...when we were just little girls. Remember? In the bathtub. Mama would pour in the bubble bath and the suds would rise and the water would be so warm...and we would play together.”

I was flabbergasted. And touched. I did indeed remember, and her logic sucked me in...for a few seconds anyway, I understood the simple beauty of the duck.

“Please can I keep the duck...”

I am sorry. So sorry. I want to take it back, so badly. I just snapped! I mean yes, I understood now why she loved the duck so much considering her memories, but another part of me did not understand it that much because here we were, sitting like a couple of brain-dead morons out in a fucking deep dangerous sticky mudbog and the sun was setting fast...and the world was full of cute toys like that and she had to just learn to let it go...just let things go...

Like a snake, I struck. My fingers managed to get a grip around that duckʼs neck and once more, it was mine. With every last drop of force left in my aching arm, I flung that muddy yellow duck out toward the center of the marsh as hard as I could possibly throw it. It landed out of sight...behind a patch of cattails.

“There he goes!” I grabbed Susana by the wrist. “Thatʼs it! Thatʼs all! Out of sight, out of mind! Forget about the duck. You canʼt have him now no matter what. Heʼs out of the picture for good. Itʼs just you and me out here. So crawl to firm ground! Crawl, I said!”

She slapped me in the face.

Her slippery wrist slid out of my fingers and she began to crawl...just as I had told her to...

Out into the marsh...toward where the duck had vanished from sight.

“No! Donʼt do it! Susana, come back! Iʼm sorry! I shouldnʼt have done that! I will find you another! I will buy you a flock of them! No, no, this is not what I meant for you to do...come back to me...goddamn it, girl, I love you...youʼre my sister...!”

But she was having none of it. Away from me she crawled. Perhaps I should have gone after her. I was stunned...absolutely shocked...but even if I caught up with her, I was not physically capable of dragging her by force!

I stayed where I was, sitting in the mud, saving myself, hoping desperately that she would see reason, turn around, and crawl back to me. Or perhaps she would find the silly cheap thing and manage to crawl back to me with it. Where thereʼs a will thereʼs a way, you know...and did she ever have a lot of will! By now I would have willingly helped her tenderly wash it clean with the back yard hose.

Suddenly I saw her legs disappear and her scream of terror split the air.

“Iʼm sinking!”

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My heart turned to ice.

She had hit a soft spot. She was now vertical, her legs having plunged under. Her arms waved around wildly, looking for something to grab. I saw the cold sand creep up her thighs and brush her butt cheeks. Finally – and Iʼm not sure if at long last, everything had gotten bad enough to convince her to turn back, or if she only wanted to see me -- she managed to turn enough in the mud to face me.

I saw sheer fear in her eyes.

“Rocky! Help me! Itʼs all mushy here and there is no bottom!”

I was frozen. There was absolutely nothing I could do. She was sinking fast. If I crawled out there, I would be sinking with her.

“Itʼs sucking me under!”

In horrified fascination, I saw the black quicksand take her hips and encircle her waist. The tips of her long red-gold hair brushed against the surface of the muck, which rippled and rolled around her, liquid but not not liquid, millions of tiny grains of sand completely saturated with water.

“Please, Rocky! Crawl out here and pull me out! Itʼs cold! Iʼm scared! Iʼm in up to my chest!”

Could I have made it? She had hit something awful for sure, something deep, something bottomless, something merciless in its hunger. I saw her beautiful, big, melon-like breasts resting like balloons on the surface. Then, the quicksand began to nibble on them. I had an idle, utterly stupid thought that shames me to remember – it was about the huge amount of money that she had spent on those breasts, and how both of them would now be at the bottom of the bog. Her arms splashed in and out. Her head twisted wildly this way and that, looking for something, anything at all that she could grab; her eyes fastened on me again, begging me, expecting me, to do something for her.

My throat was closed completely in horror. I couldnʼt scream. I couldnʼt call out to her, because for the first time in our entire lives together, there was not one little thing that I could say that would be helpful. My muscles felt like stone. The quicksand swallowed her breasts and then she was only a head and shoulders, wiggling and twisting in the mire.

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“Oh, my God, Iʼm scared! Rocky, do something! Please help me! Iʼm going under! Do something! You always know what to do!”

The muck rolled over her shoulders and began to travel up her neck. Her arms, darkly covered with goop, were raised in supplication over the mire. So fast, it was taking her so fast...and yet, everything seemed like it was happening in slow motion. Soon her head was tilted back as she tried to keep her face above for just a few seconds more and she screamed:

“Help me! You always know what to do! How can you possibly not know what to do –”

Poor Susana! I knew exactly what to do. If I tried to save her, I probably would go down with her. There was a small chance that I might not, but probably, I would. The odds were terrible. Therefore, I was saving myself.

I could see her eyes to the end. I was the last thing she ever saw. She went under the quicksand, still waiting for me to somehow work a miracle.

Her hands remained above for a few seconds, fingers fluttering, still searching for rescue. There was none to be had...and then, I was alone in the marsh.

All was quiet, except for the croaking songs of frogs and toads, the twitter of red-wing blackbirds, the soft rustling of the reeds of the cattails in the light breeze, and the quacking of a flock of ducks that had landed way out there, in the center of the marsh, where there was still some water.

I cried. For my failure to teach her anything at all...for my failure to help her...and my failure to save her.

I crawled to dry land alone, my tears falling on the damp surface of the marsh, mourning the sisterly relationship that, for no reason that I could see, had morphed into something twisted and bizarre. How could she love a toy that reminded her of happy times with me more than she loved me?

On dry ground at last, I stood up. My clothing was completely saturated with muck and goo in various shades of colors. One of the advantages of living in seclusion in a place where the ultra-rich shut out the world is the total, absolute privacy that our land afforded. It occurred to me that all of my clothing was wrecked. And they were a memory that I didnʼt need. I could never wear them again even if I got them clean, because they would always remind me of the day that I killed my sister with my failures.

My tank top and shorts, along with my bra and underpants, joined Susana in the marsh. I buried them before I walked, naked except for my sneakers and socks and what covering the mud afforded me, back toward the house.

As I hosed myself off in the back yard, I knew that I really should call the police. I needed to tell them what had just happened. It was entirely possible that I hadnʼt committed a real crime. I may have thrown a plastic duck at mud that I didnʼt know was quicksand, but it sure wasnʼt me who had felt a such a huge need to go fetch it out.

Of course the police would be here if I called them. And so would the rescue squad, to fetch Susanaʼs body out of the swamp. There would be headlines in the papers. There would be an autopsy. There would be a funeral. There would be fans sobbing in sorrow, haters to laugh as they smeared her memory, the curious, and the paparazzi. There would be conspiracy theories on the Internet. There would be calls in the night from those who got the number of my cell phone through a leak...people, including police, would have a question...

“Did Rocky murder Sucia?”

I would never be rid of it.

I was very tired. I needed to think. Susana was dead, and I could never bring her back. And there was absolutely nothing about this situation that would not be exactly the same in the morning.

Priorities...right now, mine was to sleep...

* * *

Nine days later, I made the phone call. It wasnʼt to the 911 emergency line. It was only to the regular number for the police in the nearest city, where Susana liked to party. I knew that an officer was here when my cell phone rang.

“Hi. This is Officer Gomez. I am here to respond to your call. Would you open the gate, please?”

“The remote control doesnʼt work. Itʼs always open. Just lift the latch and come right in.”

I sat outside on one of two lawn chairs and waited for him. Before long, the police car appeared, snaking slowly toward the house on our long, curving driveway. It came to a stop in front of me. When the door opened, a nice-looking police officer with a friendly face and a comforting smile emerged and approached.

I noticed him sizing up his surroundings. Our big house, with its peeling paint and the one gutter in front that was coming off. The small patch of grass mowed around it. The unkept asphalt walking trail that disappeared into the woods. My small camper. And the outdoor toilet with the words “Jimmyʼs Johnnies” emblazoned on the door. He stared at that with considerable interest.

After he absorbed all of that, he said, “Hi. Are you camping out?”

I waved him toward the empty chair. “I live here. Have a seat.”

He sat down. Together we faced the sun and the forest. He pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.

“So...I understand that you want to report a missing person.”

“Yes. My older sister. Her name is Susana Lucía Ramirez. And my name is Raquel Felicia Ramirez.”

He scribbled on his pad. “Do you have a photograph of Susana?”

“Just go to Google and enter the name ʻSuciaʼ. You will have hundreds.”

His eyebrows raised and his jaw dropped a bit. “Rocky?”

I smiled. “Thanks for noticing when Iʼm almost never onstage. Yes, Iʼm Rocky...and I manage her career, pick up the fan mail, organize the tours, make the dates with the recording studios...lots of things.”

“Wow.”

A beat of silence. He was plainly impressed.

“When did you first notice that she was missing?”

“I canʼt be sure. I saw her last nine days ago.”

“And what was she doing then?”

“Going into the house.” I made a general gesture toward the big house. “She had just come home from some time in the city. She never drives. A taxi dropped her off.”

“Nine days...that seems like a long time to not question where she was.”

“She does like to party hearty, and she has a pile of friends...and she often stays in hotels in the city. She is careless about checking in with me. It could be, I saw her arrive but wasnʼt watching when she left. Some days without contacting me wouldnʼt be unusual for her. I do take care of all of the business stuff but thereʼs not much business right now – and she just canʼt go this long without at least calling me. Five days might be normal...but nine? And no, I donʼt have any evidence of a crime or an accident – but nine days still isnʼt right.”

“Is she an alcoholic?”

“I donʼt think so. She drinks, sometimes a lot -- but mostly just with friends.”

“Boy friends?”

“Friend friends. Well, yes, boy friends too. Nobody serious.”

“Any possiblity that she left voluntarily?”

“I suppose. But thatʼs not what I believe.”

He kept writing. And he wrote some more. Then, he said:

“Is there any place where you would like us to start looking?”

“Actually, yes.” I took a deep breath. The next thing I said was the hardest thing that I had to say. “I am very afraid that she might still be in the house.”

Now, he looked at me with suspicion. “You mean that your sister has gone missing for nine days and you didnʼt check the house that she lives in?”

“I did look around in there, but there is no way I can see everything.”

He was very puzzled. And now he knew that something was not right.

“Do you have vision problems?”

“No...but I would still like you to search it. My name is on the title too, and I am perfectly able to give you permission to conduct a search. Permission is given. The door is open.”

He looked at the house again. The peeling paint. The half-detached gutter. The closed curtains and the dusty windows. The unkept yard. I could almost see the chill going down his spine. I suppose it did not look welcoming.

“Would I be wise to call for a backup before I just walk in there?”

“You can call the National Guard for all I care.”

He scrutinized my face and he saw that I meant it. And since I meant it, he concluded that there was no gang waiting inside to ambush him.

He stood up. “Coming with me?”

I stood up. “Sure.”

Together we walked to the front door of the home that Susana and I had bought together after her big checks began to roll in. He put his hand on the doorknob, twisted it, and walked in...

“Holy Mother of God!”

He began to cough. He didnʼt last more than ten seconds in the kitchen after that smell hit him. He whirled and I saw his eyes bugging wide before he almost knocked me over to run outside, desperate for fresh air.

He fell to his knees and vomited on the ground.

Wow.

I knew it was bad, terrible in fact – but I guess that since it had all grown slowly on me, I was used to it. I hadnʼt imagined that a police officer would actually puke because of my house. Hadnʼt those guys seen everything?

Two hours later, the house was swarming with police and a dozen workers in Hazmat suits and gas masks. A truck was parked in the driveway sporting the words LARRYʼS EXTREME-CLEAN WIZARDS and several dumpsters had been deposited in the grass.

I was back sitting in my lawn chair, blowing my nose with a whole roll of toilet paper as I sobbed, unburdening myself to my new best friend, Officer Gomez. He was such a good listener. I let loose with all the sickening details of Susanaʼs ugly secret. It felt fantastic to tell it all to another person – marvelous indeed, to drag her mountain of crap out from hiding, to see those dirty, useless, ugly and numerous things of hers strewn over the yard under the brilliant sunlight of that warm afternoon – revealed for all to see, and every bit of it headed for the dumpster.

“Donʼt worry,” said Officer Gomez. “If she is trapped anywhere under any of that mess, they will find her.”

“She shopped all the time and it just kept piling up. She couldnʼt throw away anything. Nothing! Not even if she never used it. Not even if it was broken or even garbage. She couldnʼt toss an empty can of soup into a trash can or let go of a candy wrapper. She pitched a terrible fit if I touched a thing. One by one, the rooms were filled with piles of things. I got the camper when her things crowded me out of my own bedroom. I got the outdoor toilet when the last bathroom in the house stopped working and she was afraid to call a plumber...well, you can see why. This house is not up to code.”

“Itʼs an illness, Rocky. It is treatable. I can get you a list of doctors who can help --”

“And if she isnʼt here? Do you think you will still find her, Officer?”

“Definitely, if sheʼs using a charge card.”

“She likes cash. I mean, you know, when she takes taxis and pays hotel bills, it keeps everybody from knowing who she is.”

“Well, it is possible that she really did leave voluntarily. You said that she stays in hotels for days on end. Maybe this mess is stressful for her too, and staying out is how she escapes it.”

What a smart man! I had never thought of that. I had only considered her a party animal who spent too much money. He brought me another cold soda from the portable refrigerator inside my camper.

And a white-clad man in a gas mask emerged from the house with another pile of rotting thrift-store clothing. It landed softly into a dumpster. Another form, vaguely female, came out with a full plastic bag. No matter what it was, the sight of it leaving the house filled me with hope...and joy.

The thought fluttered and died inside me: I hadnʼt committed any crime. I owed the world the truth, and I owed my sister a respectable burial. What an obscenity, to leave her cold dead body in the marsh to be nibbled on by snails!

But didnʼt she owe me something? This was my house too. She had denied me my entire home! Didnʼt she owe me this cleanout?

I heard the officerʼs voice cut through my thoughts.

“Iʼve seen this kind of thing on TV. She must be a Level 5 hoarder.”

I never saw any such show. Something went wrong with the cable TV awhile back and she wouldnʼt call the company because of how the house looked. She just paid the bill anyway.

Given Susanaʼs habits, who will ever know for sure what has happened to her? Bad things happen to pretty, famous girls who party hearty, stay out all the time, carry lots of cash and are not careful about who they pick up. When they find the house empty, with no Susana anywhere, they will question all those party people next. They are like a zoo...what a circus that will be!

Of course they wonʼt know anything. Perhaps one of them got away with something. Weʼll never know, will we?

Then Gomez will come back to visit me, and there will be more questions. I wonʼt know anything either. Not me. Ever.

Larryʼs crew will be back tomorrow. My house will soon be empty for the first time in years. I am not worried about inheriting anything. Since we split the checks 50-50, thereʼs plenty for me without touching one penny that is hers.

Everything is different when it comes to money. Iʼm the hoarder. Sheʼs the spender.

I wonʼt tell you that I am not sad about Susana. It hurts. I am sorry that she is gone and I miss her and I never meant to hurt her. And I will probably feel pain forever. My own sister loved a memory of us with a plastic duck more than she loved the real me of today, who worked so hard to help her succeed.

But it will be nice to start working on my house. I want to fix all of the things that are broken and paint every wall and buy new furniture and decorate every room. And I havenʼt been able to cook a meal for – I donʼt even know how long! But when the stove is cleared and cleaned and the refrigerator emptied out from all the rotten crap thatʼs inside it right now, donʼt chocolate-chip cookies sound grand?

Gomez is going to be amazed when he sees how things have changed.

[PM2K]

Fantastic story, fantastic artwork. A perfect combination! Thanks so much!

It is also great to see your art and prose again, Nessie.

[Nessie]

Thanks for the kind words, PM2K!

Nessie

[DJlurker]

Talk about tragic... But I suppose there wasn't any other way it could end...

[Nessie]

Talk about tragic... But I suppose there wasn't any other way it could end...

Actually, I felt kind of bad about Susana myself. I don't write many tales that end grimly. Usually it's a dream, an hallucination, or a rescue after the character has submerged.

This time, I described a quicksand demise in detail plus, I drew her, three times. So I ended up with a clear mental image of what she would look like as a real woman.

But then I reminded myself that she doesn't exist. And if I was in Rocky's shoes, it would be REAL HARD to do anything differently if she did exist. And was my sister. And I was living in a freakin' camper because she trashed our house.

Nessie

[water_bug_62208]

Missed your artwork and writings... great to see you doing both once again.

Your stories are as cleverly and beautifully written as ever with details so skillfully used. I also like how your artwork matched with the actions in the story. My favorite was when Susana first got stuck in the mud... the depth you drew her legs stuck in the mud matched beautifully with the storyline, and as you described her legs, her struggles, and how she was firmly stuck in the marsh mud, you could imagine all of your written action taking place in the drawing.

The placement of your drawings in the story was well done and quite strategic, and the bright, boldness of the pastel-like colors of your artwork are still as impressive and unique as they've always been.

Thanks for sharing!

[Nessie]

I also like how your artwork matched with the actions in the story.

The trick to that is if you're doing it all at the same time, and you draw something and you discover it doesn't match, just change the story a bit.

Glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully I will be back with more sometime but it is going to be a slow trickle.

As for the colors, I finally graduated to all-Prismacolor pencils (or similarly professional materials) and read up on blending techniques and layering. It's paid off. Not that you can't saturate things at the scanner level anyway, and I still do a little of that, but with a really good layer of color, it is a lot less than it once was.

Nessie

[Chimerix]

I really, really enjoyed this in English. Looking forward to understanding it in Spanish!

I like that it was a story that had quicksand as opposed to a quicksand story. It kept me engrossed throughout!

[Nessie]

I like that it was a story that had quicksand as opposed to a quicksand story. It kept me engrossed throughout!

That's good to hear because that is exactly what I aimed for! The Spanish includes a downloadable text file so you can play with it offline if you want.

Nessie

[QueenT]

Will read your story a little bit later, but just wanted to say that your artwork is stunning!