No Chains Shall Bind Me (The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Seven) Read online

  Gail heard the Schuber pickup coughing along the road long before she spotted the vehicle. As Van had feared, they drove past the Ebener driveway, all the Schuber heads turned the wrong way. Van gave chase, a good enough sprint to flag them down long after they passed. Look, Ma, you’re son’s waving at me in the rear view mirror, Gail imagined the Perfesser saying. I wonder what that might mean?

  Van, after much work, got his family and their ancient beat-up pickup truck corralled in the Ebener driveway, and walked them up the driveway to the house to avoid any obvious-to-the-Schubers misunderstanding. The Schuber pickup was loaded with gifts, castoffs of nearly a century of Michigan farmsteading – was that the hand-cranked ringer washing machine back there? – as well as bushels of late spring and early summer produce – lettuces, early tomatoes, green beans, and some of last fall’s potatoes, sprung from stir, the basement root cellar. Metonomy, the family’s incongruous Black Labrador – Standard Poodle mix, appeared from under whatever tarp she napped on, sniffed the air, whined, and gingerly limped out of the back of the overloaded pickup. The old dog paced over to Gail and sniffed at her crotch. “Nope, no grandkids yet, or ever,” she told the dog. Metonomy wagged her tail and stood, guard-like, by Gail.

  Strange. Metonomy normally ignored Gail.

  The Perfesser creaked out of the pickup, but Lucille, Van’s mother, bounded out quicker and rounder, and got to Van first and gave him a hug. “My aching back!” the Perfesser said, lying down on the dirt and stretching. This is Van in thirty years, Gail told herself, as she always did when dealing with Van’s family. The Perfesser was lean and wiry, sun-baked and wrinkled, not a spare ounce of fat on him. He wore grey chin whiskers and a fringe beard, academically carved a precise inch long. The large bald spot on the top of his head left him with almost a tonsure, a fringe of grey hair turning white, a halo around the bald spot. He wore a white button-down shirt, a vest with what Gail guessed was a mustard drip, and his ever-present tweed jacket with elbow patches.

  Van’s younger sisters Abby and Daisy exited the pickup, from the tiny undersized fold-down bench seats in what Van pleasantly described as the back seat of the extended cab pickup. “Hi, Abby,” Gail said, and smiled. Of Van’s family, Abby was her favorite, the only one she could engage in a conversation without having to watch her every word hawklike. Abby, three and a half years younger than Van, looked almost like his twin, save for being six inches shorter and not needing to shave. They probably took the same bra size, too. Characteristically, Abby read, a thick paperback science fiction novel with a transparent-taped over library code on the base of the book’s spine. Uncharacteristically, Abby ignored Gail as if she wasn’t present or hadn’t spoken. A mere flicker of Abby’s eyes toward Gail told the story – Abby had the anti-Transform prejudices bad. Gail hadn’t known, but, then again, why would the subject ever come up? Transforms were rare. More terrorists, zombies, reformed child molesters and professional female ninja assassins likely roamed the country than Transforms.

  Daisy walked toward the back of the pickup, darkly eyeing the stream of household members exiting the Ebener house to greet Van’s family. She lit up a cigarette and turned away, after giving Gail the usual hard eye, and, unexpectedly, a kind smile.

  Gail had never gotten along with the incongruous Daisy and her attendant freak show. Daisy stood five eleven, as tall as her father, but she possessed her mother’s ample motherly figure. She cocked her hip against the pickup and inhaled quickly what looked like an overdue smoke. Today, she wore stained blue jeans and what had to be one of Lucille’s cast-off blouses, nowhere near long enough to cover what needed to be covered.

  “Hey, Gail, over here,” Sylvie said, a hog-holler bellow. Gail thought calming distancing thoughts to steady the juice and pushed her way through the throng around Van’s parents. The juice quivered in all the Transforms nearby, threatening to leap out of them and into the damned juice buffer. Gail concentrated on keeping calm and keeping the juice where the juice was supposed to be.

  “…oh, and we have lots and lots more where that came from,” Lucille said, happily prattling away in her airy style. “Why, the Grubers left enough behind in the barn to stock nearly ten households when they moved to Florida. Canning equipment, washboards, picnic supplies, unmatched plates and glasses, you name it. Everything necessary to set up a proper house.”

  From the two phone calls Gail hadn’t been able to escape, talking to Lucille, she knew Van’s mother didn’t have the remotest understanding of their situation. They had, what, fifteen former adult households now stuck into one? They had more standard household gear than they could possibly use in the next several lifetimes. Gail had told Van’s mother, gently, a half dozen times, not to bring this stuff. However, there was no telling Lucille anything, at least with anything this side of a two by four. When she made up her mind on something, well, that was that, and facts be damned.

  Lucille always meant well. Even if someone got angry and tossed the old Schuber junk in the trash in front of her, Lucille wouldn’t get mad. She would just go silent, emotionally crushed, and refuse to speak for eons on end. Van had a slight tinge of this tiny fault as well, but Lucille could sulk for just days.

  Perhaps they could hold a yard sale after the Schubers left…

  The Perfesser ambled over to Gail. “So, my dear Focus, how are you doing?” he said. At least he noticed her.

  “I’m okay,” she said, lying.

  “Don’t mind us,” he said. He rubbed his arthritic hands, especially his ever-enlarging knobby knuckles, victims of too many hours at the easel and perhaps too much exposure to the lead common to paint. “We’ll try not to create too many disasters.” He laughed his wheezy short laugh. “We’re good at disasters, you know.” He glanced around the Ebener farm and shook his head. “Look at all those tents! You’ve turned this place into a real YMCA campground. With all the space they’re taking up, you could be raising a lot more crops.”

  And sleep where? Gail censored her rejoinder. The Perfesser did have entertainment value. For which she rejoiced. “Most of us have never lived on a farm before,” Gail said. The Schubers owned a fifty plus acre spread outside of Flint, just south of Swartz Creek. Sixty-two and twenty-two one-hundredths acres, the Perfesser would say. Save for their kitchen garden and their eight acres of pick-it-yourself mostly sweet corn for their roadside stand, they rented out their acreage to the Johnsons next door, for pasturage. “Early on we asked for a show of hands for anyone who’d ever driven a tractor, and save for the Ebeners, got nobody. We did get three hands for people who had fixed a tractor before, though.”

  “Hmm,” the Perfesser said, eyeing the householders around Lucile. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket, elbows akimbo. “I understand the problem. Too many people, not enough land. Can’t be self-sufficient enough to even feed the babies.” The infertility problem hadn’t stuck in his mind. No surprise there.

  The Perfesser kicked at the ground. “Marginal land at best, too.” His comment echoed the Ebeners’ comments on the subject. But, as the Ebeners’ said, marginal land is priced accordingly. Betha’s stepparents had picked up this land in foreclosure during the Great Depression and gave it to Betha and her husband as a wedding present. The place served them as a decent second income source, nothing more.

  The Perfessor bent over to whisper in Gail’s ear. “We can take in a few of these people during the winter, if you can’t find another place,” he said.

  “Thanks. Uh, though, I’m not sure we can make that work. I need to be near my people to keep the juice moving,” Gail said. Milan and the Ebeners’ farm was almost a ninety minute drive away from Swartz Creek and the Schuber’s place in summer. Winter? Gail didn’t want to think about it.

  “That’s too bad,” he said. Gail detected an intelligent sigh of relief. She wouldn’t want this crew in her house, either. “Anyone for a game of lawn-darts?” he bellowed out.

  Metonomy took her head off Gail’s foot, stood and ba
rked. The dog recognized the word ‘lawn-darts’, and if Gail recalled correctly, loved to fetch the damned things. Occasionally, too soon. She wasn’t sure how the dog had survived its many lawn dart wounds over the years, or why the crazy pooch still loved the game. Metonomy, of course, was the quintessential Schuber.

  Gail looked up to find Lucille leading an entourage of the household women Gail’s way. Everyone liked Lucille, at least for the first half hour. Sometimes for a full hour. After an hour, you couldn’t miss the prickles among the kindnesses. “There you are! There you are! Oh, come give me a hug!” Lucille did as she asked Gail. “Whoo! You do have the strangest odor to you, you know. Well, I guess that can’t be helped. So, let’s go see about making baby clothes!” Lucille grabbed Gail’s arm to lead her off, with the other women. “All these women, we’re going to need baby clothes, especially given this free love commune you’ve got going here.”

  Given the soreness of the subject of Transform infertility, and the everyone-must-love-Lucille vibes, Gail predicted not a single one of her people would have the nerve to remind Lucille of the Transforms’ infertility problems. Gail tried to not worry too much; given Lucille’s general level of disorganization and her flightiness, the lack of material for baby clothes would likely send her off in some other random I-must-be-helpful direction. Enough of these and she might actually find something useful to do to help the household. Gail wouldn’t hold her breath, though.

  Lucille did provide dinner, though Gail had no idea what they were going to do with the five gallon tub of runny macaroni salad the Schubers had trucked down from Flint, unrefrigerated. Funny, nobody but Gail would touch it. Pork, ham, bacon in everything – the Schubers raised more than a few pigs. They had tried cattle, once, before Van hit kindergarten, but raising cattle proved to be too much work. The Perfesser, already teaching his art history and art appreciation courses at Flint JC, didn’t have it in him to be organized enough to milk the cows every day, or organize anyone else to do so.

  Gail sat down with another heaping bowl of the, well, three-quarters spoiled mac salad under the lightning oak, named for the obvious reason. Alone, and thankfully away from everyone. The sun reddened in the west, braced by distant tall thunderheads, white on dark purple-grey shadows. The free meal had everyone in her household happily porked out – so to speak – and a happy household made a happy Gail. Bacon spaghetti sauce, however, was about the oddest food Gail had ever seen. The food did make everyone content, though, however strange.

  Of course, echoing the emotions of her household wasn’t anything the pamphlets mentioned. Yet another incongruity she, by now, expected.

  “That crap’s going to kill you.” Gail looked up. Daisy, cigarette in hand, sat down five feet away, a half smile on her face. Gail almost stood and walked away. The last thing she needed in her life was any Daisy. They always fought.

  Only Daisy felt different, somehow, today. Gail forced herself to relax, and suffer.

  “There’s a Focus trick that doesn’t make the newspapers,” Gail said, half embarrassed. “We can eat nearly anything and not get sick.” The embarrassment came from her late-night snacking on the household garbage. She wouldn’t admit her nighttime habit to anyone, even to Van.

  “Useful,” Daisy said. She shook her head. “I heard what you did to your parents. You’ve got to do the same with mine, before they mess you guys up with their ahem help ahem.”

  Gail smiled and held up the spoiling mac salad. “They really are trying, which is more than my parents could manage. We can live through their chaos.”

  Daisy, of all things, smiled. “Neat.”

  “Neat?”

  “You’ve grown, Gail. And I don’t mean the half inch taller crap, either.”

  Gail didn’t think she had grown any since she last suffered through Daisy. “Huh?”

  “You’re not trying to organize my parents. You always used to.”

  “Organizing them made everyone unhappy,” Gail said. “I’ve got too much to worry about now, without having to worry about organizing the impossible to organize.”

  “As I’ve said, grown.”

  Gail studied Daisy, closely. Especially the insides of her elbows. She had to be high. No way would she be complimenting Gail sober.

  Daisy noticed Gail’s inspection. “I’m still not doing IV drugs,” she said. Unlike normal, Daisy didn’t seem bothered. Perhaps what Daisy disliked about Gail was her effect on Daisy’s parents. “Go ahead and scrape. I didn’t cover them up with makeup, either.”

  Daisy’s makeup today was ‘young hooker’, not an uncommon style for her. ‘Young hooker’ made the proper social statement, on one hand, and went over her mother’s head, nearly as important. What Daisy wore when her mother wasn’t around, in her infrequent visits to Van, was pure hippie. She took the Franklin Roosevelt liberalism of her parents and quadrupled it, becoming in her mind a true proletarian revolutionary. Gail tried not to think about Daisy’s confused politics and philosophies; for one thing, Van had cautioned Gail that Daisy’s espousal of Marxist-Leninist revolution was an act, simply to pull her parent’s chain.

  Gail held out her hand; Daisy provided an elbow and Gail did check. Daisy rolled eyes and lit another cigarette. “You want to check between my toes, perhaps?”

  Probably too much. Gail declined. “So, what’s with the nice, today?” Daisy’s last question almost sounded friendly.

  Gail’s old antagonist paused for a drag and a moment of cogitation. “You’ve joined the freak show,” Daisy said. “Makes you more pleasant.”

  Daisy considered herself a long-time member of the freak show. Pretty much everything Gail disliked about Daisy – the smoking, the drugs, the insane sex, the lying, cheating and petty theft, the idiots she normally hung out with – were due to Daisy’s freak show membership.

  Have I changed so much, so quickly? Gail wondered.

  “It’s that obvious?” Hell. Gail even felt camaraderie for the, well, normally hated slut. Daisy’s reaction sure beat the icy glacier avalanche she got today from her normal confidante, Abby. Abby had even told Gail to stop talking to her. To go away. For fucking ever. “Sorry. Becoming a Focus hit me hard.”

  “No shit. I’ve talked with a couple of Transforms in my day, and juice is, in their mind, worse than H. I can’t imagine what sort of hell you’re going through, especially since this isn’t a habit you can kick until you’re dead.” Daisy took a deep drag and leaned back, loosing a volcanic exhale. “You even look like a death-spiral druggie.”

  “I know,” Gail said. “This Focuses-are-beautiful crap is taking its own sweet time coming in.”

  “I can already see some changes, though,” Daisy said. She rolled over on her stomach and studied Gail, a strange longing in her eyes. “It’s subtle. Your face is going from bland to oh-my-god striking. Modelicious. Groovy hot. Heroin chic.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “In a year you’ll be able to run this madhouse simply by simpering and looking helpless,” Daisy said. “Get naked and you’ll probably be able to get them to put leather collars around their necks for you and bark.”

  Gail could imagine them doing something equivalently appalling, unfortunately. “That’s just what I don’t need,” she said. “I’m already too tempted. I mean, all I would have to do to take over and make the Transforms worship me is use the juice weapon. It’s just sitting there, whispering to me, every damned day. Uuuuse meeee.” She hadn’t expected to have fun talking to Daisy. She couldn’t even unburden herself to Van this way.

  He would just say ‘go ahead and use it when you need to’. What he wouldn’t understand was that once she started, she would never be able to stop. Van just didn’t understand emotions, or how emotions ruled people.

  Daisy stubbed out her smoke and lit another. The kid had been chain-smoking, at least outside of home, since she rumbled through Junior High. “Gail, I know you want to be miss goody two-shoes, but it ain’t goin’ to fly. Even the Perfesser, the most
goody of them all, can’t pull it off when he’s at work.”

  Gail leaned forward, picked up a fallen acorn, a careful survivor from last fall, stripped off the nut, and whistled through the cap. Of all things, Metonomy came running. Giving Daisy the eye, he circled around and put his head in Gail’s lap. “I need to be good, because if I start being bad, I’m not sure I can stop myself before I become horrifically evil.” She caught where Daisy gazed, finally recognized the look on her face, and sighed. “So, you’re bi, as well as everything else?”

  “Of course. I suppose I shouldn’t be making a play for my bro’s girl, but I’m not sure how much more he can take.” Gail winced. “He hasn’t said anything to you, has he.” Gail shook her head. “This place disturbs his inner balance. Not enough privacy. You can see it in the crinkles in the corners of his eyes.” Daisy laughed. “At least you won’t hear any complaints from him about living in a tent. He spent about ten summers living in a tent, back home. Living in a tent was the only way to keep hisself from being ordered around non-stop by Mom and Abby.”

  Oh, that’s why he hadn’t pitched a fit about the tent. “If I lose him, I think I’d just die.”

  “Good fucking luck keeping him,” Daisy said. “Us Schubers have a little problem. We’re somewhat self-centered.” Pause. “One of the reasons you’re his perfect match. You’re just as.”

  Gail nodded. The Schubers were indeed self-centered, just not very organized or ambitious. She once supplied both for Van. She realized she owed him a few dozen hours of organizational work on his dissertation. Hopefully, she could continue to fake competence, not knowing any French or the tony 18th Century British English colloquialisms. “Right now, I’m not self-centered, I’m overwhelmed.”

  “That’s easy, then. Get him to help you. We’re all suckers for helping people. Look at Mom and the Perfesser,” Daisy said. “They can’t help but try to help, even when they’re so utterly clueless it’s embarrassing to be around.”