Tulipwood
by
Barry Rachin
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Published by:
Tulipwood
Copyright © 2010 by Barry Rachin
This short story represents a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Also by Barry Rachin:
• The Misfit Motel
• Canary in a Coal Mine
• A Waltz Yes, a Heart No
• Just like Dostoyevsky
• 107 Degree Fahrenheit
Tulipwood
"Hey, Kid!" The woman's menacing tone voice brought Frankie Dexter up short before he even made it halfway across the darkened lawn. Frozen in place, the fifteen year old peered about but couldn't see a thing, not even the scraggily weeds beneath his feet. No street lamps existed this far down the road, and the thin sliver of a moon was wreathed in clouds. "Why are you on my property?"
What if the owner of the disembodied voice had dialed 911 from when she saw him prowling the street and already notified the police? Maybe the cops were on their way and she was just stalling for time until the authorities arrived.
"I'm going to the 7-Eleven," Frankie mumbled.
A skinny blonde in her late thirties stepped down from the front stoop of the Lomax place. The owner, Edgar Lomax, had suffered a stroke and passed a while back. The blonde, his common-law wife, settled in five years earlier. The reclusive woman lived alone, having nothing to do with any of the neighbors.
"Convenient store’s that way." Though he couldn't see the outstretched arm, he knew that she was pointing down the street in the opposite direction from where Frankie was headed.
The sound of wolfish laughter shot through with vulgarities filtered through the wooly darkness along with the clatter of an empty beer can skittering across the asphalt. "Can't get to the 7-Eleven that way."
"Why's that?" The gravelly tone was downright inhospitable.
"The McElroys are out on their front stoop drinking."
A Friday night ritual, the McElroy clan would be sitting out on their front stoop, drunk and looking for trouble. The front lawn was probably littered with crushed beer cans and cigarette stubs. The old man was out of prison a year now. The oldest son worked at the gas station three blocks down from the Kentucky Fried Chicken. The younger boy dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade. He didn't work and had been in and out of trouble with the police since eighth grade.
Frankie had considered running the gauntlet - casually meandering to the end of the street and continuing down Oak Hill Ave to the center of town. The ex-con father would give him a dirty look or flip him the bird. The demonic sons would hurl insults and challenge his sexual orientation along with a few choice obscenities. Or, for the sheer fun of it, they might beat the crap out of the fifteen year old boy. There was another burst of foul-mouthed laughter followed by a loud guffaw. The McElroy's took great pleasure letting the community know they held everyone in utter contempt. "It's almost eleven o'clock," The nastiness in the woman's tone ebbed. "What the hell are you doing out this late at night?"
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Frankie took a deep breath air and considered his options - the truth, a flagrant lie or a hodgepodge of supercilious nonsense. “My mother is home drunk. My father's got a girlfriend, and I just didn't want to hear it anymore."
The crickets were chortling away, a rhythmic, high-spirited cadence. Down toward the end of the street one of the McElroy degenerates howled like a lunatic at the wispy moon. The outburst triggered another wave of sniggering and crude laughter. Frankie was stuck in a nether world. The boy certainly didn't want to home while his parents were sniping at each other. He couldn't make it past the McElroy's place without considerable risk. And now the deceased Edgar Lomax's live-in girl friend had just caught him trespassing.
"What's wrong now?"
"Nothing," Frankie blubbered. He had begun crying rather noisily, making embarrassing snuffling sounds through his soggy nose. "Everything's just peachy keen!"
The skinny woman quickly closed the distance between them. Wrapping her arms around Frankie's waist, she pulled him up against her. "Poor baby!"
No one other than his mother had ever held him like that. The crickets continued their nocturnal symphony shot through with a slurry of four-letter word as discordant counterpoint from the far end of the street. But nothing mattered anymore. There in the pitch black on Edgar Lomax's front lawn, a woman was cradling Frankie up against her chest and crooning unintelligible, infinitely reassuring sounds in his left ear.
"Hey kid, you're squeezing the life out of me!"
Without realizing it, Frankie's arms had snaked up behind the woman in a fierce bear hug. She broke away and held the boy at arm's length. "The McElroy party doesn't seem to be winding down any time soon," she noted with a flick of her head in the direction of the late night revelers. "Would you like to join me for a cup of coffee?"
Frankie wiped the tears away with the heel of a hand. "Yeah, that would be nice."
"I'm Kendra Ryder."
"Frankie… Frankie Dexter." She led the way into the kitchen, which was rather neat and tidy. A Tiffany lamp with a multi-colored glass shade threw a dim warmth across the room. She put a pot of coffee on to perk. "I'll be just a minute."
Retreating into the bedroom, the woman emerged five minutes later. Something was different about the way she looked. She hadn't changed her clothes or makeup. Her ratty hair was still unbrushed. "Coffee looks about ready."
Kendra Ryder, who wore a pair of jeans and cotton blouse, was rather harsh looking. A smattering of laugh lines and crow's feet dimpling the corners of the watery blue eyes; a certain feminine delicacy in the thin lips and squat nose was offset, neutralized by a brittle obstinacy in the pokerfaced expression. The skin was pale, translucent. Frankie noted a fleeting prettiness but only when she smiled, which she didn't seem to do that often.
Kendra set a plate of Oreos on the table between them and then began picking at her fingernails. "Glue… epoxy," she said by way of explanation. "It's a bitch trying to get this stuff off your nails. Mineral spirits doesn't really help and the more volatile stuff like lacquer thinner just burns."
Frankie was trying to figure what the woman had been doing that her hands were so frightfully calloused, but she didn't readily volunteer additional information, and the boy didn't feel comfortable asking. A short while earlier he was standing in the yard next to a forty-foot, white mulberry tree bawling his fool head off, and now he was sipping coffee and nibbling cookies. He felt strangely safe, no longer vulnerable. All the anxiety and confusion had sloughed off like so much dead skin.
A timer on the microwave suddenly beeped. Kendra rose. "This won't take long," she said, disappearing down a narrow stairwell just off the kitchen. When she was gone ten minutes, curiosity got the better of the boy. Unlike the kitchen, the unfinished basement was flooded with a bank of fluorescent lights. An array of woodworking tools - table saws, belt sanders, jointers, planers, drill presses and a six-inch Ryobi band saw - were arranged about the concrete floor. Kendra was releasing the pressure on a steel clamp. Lifting a square block of solid maple, she turned the surface over to reveal a parchment-thin web of blue masking tape rimmed with glue.
She looked up and smiled when he approached. "Here's the fun part." She began gingerly peeling the tape away to reveal a decorative mosaic of exotic woods arranged in an intricate pattern not unlike a patchwork quilt. "That's bubinga," she pointed to a dark wine colored wood shot through with black, "a form of African rosewood. The golden veneer with the
pale flecks is Brazilian satinwood." She eased another strip of tape free of the surface and tapped a greenish, scaly wood that ran around the perimeter of the design creating an inlaid, quarter-inch frame. "This here's a domestic species… sassafras." When the last piece of masking tape had been removed, she wiped away some excess glue with nail polish remove and laid the rectangular object aside."
"But what is it?"
"A keepsake box," the woman replied.
"Where's the lid?"
Kendra pointed at a band saw in the far corner of the room. "Tomorrow morning, I'll saw the lid free of the carcass, round over all the sharp edges on the router table and insert the brass hinges.
On a separate work table a grouping of ornate jewelry boxes were arranged in various stages of completion. "Did you paint the woods?"
Kendra flashed a closed-lipped smile. "No, they're exotics. That's exactly how the lumber looks in its natural state. After sanding, I wipe them down with light Danish oil to bring out the lustrous warmth of the grain but nothing more."
"But where did you - "
"Edgar," Kendra interjected, anticipating his train of thought, "was a master woodworker. We met at a craft fair. I was selling crappy jewelry at the time. After we started dating, I took over finishing and placing the merchandise in art galleries. By the time Eddy took sick, I had already picked up enough of basic woodworking skills to actually design and build boxes Reaching up she yanked on a chain and the overhead lights went dark. "We met at a rainy craft fair," Kendra repeated. They were sitting back in the kitchen. "Not terribly romantic by most people's standards." She glanced at a clock over the stove. "Your parents are probably wondering where you are." The implication was fairly obvious.
"What do you do with the jewelry boxes?"
"I already told you… sell them through art galleries, flea markets, craft fairs, whatever." She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes with her glue-stained fingers. "You gotta go home now."
"Can I come see you again?"
"I dunno," she hedged. "Maybe, if your folks don't mind."
"Yeah, they won't care."
"And you can't go anywhere near the tools. They're dangerous as hell." Kendra held her hands up in front of his face. "How many fingers?" Frankie counted ten, all intact. "Touch any of my power tools, and that will be the last day you ever set foot in this house."
Frankie lingered in the doorway. "I wonder if the McElroys are still partying."
Sensing his reluctance to leave, Kendra disappeared back down the stairwell. When she returned, the woman was holding a small strip of cream colored wood delicately veined with orange. "Smell this." She stuck the milky wood up under his nose.
"I don't smell nothin’."
Kendra scuffed the wood with a piece of 120-grit sandpaper she was holding in her free hand and extended the wood a second time.
"Cripes!" An intoxicating sweetness wafted through the room life an expensive, designer perfume. "It's tulipwood and, like bubinga, also from the rosewood family." She handed him both the sliver of wood and the sandpaper. "Next time your parents have a tiff or the McElroy clan is stirring the pot, take a whiff of tulipwood and it will calm your nerves." She gently pushed him out the door into the warm night. "Goodnight, Frankie Baxter and I hope your parents can work things out." Kendra stood out on the landing and watched the young boy reluctantly shuffle off down the empty street.
* * * * *
"You got in late last night," Mrs. Dexter was in the kitchen cooking waffles. She added a tablespoon of vegetable oil to the mix, an egg and a splash of milk. With his brown hair and fair complexion, friends claimed said Frankie was the spitting image of his mother. They both had dimples that surfaced when they smiled and a malleable softness about the mouth.
"I met the lady who lives in the slate blue cape."
"The Lomax place?" His parents still referred to it as the Lomax place even though the owner was long dead.
"She does fancy woodworking… said I could come back and visit as long as I got your permission." Before his mother could respond, Frankie jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. He returned a moment later holding the slender length of tulipwood and the sandpaper. "Here, smell this." He rubbed the sandpaper over the surface briefly and held it up to his mother.
"What a delicious scent!" Mrs. Dexter grabbed a whisk and stirred the batter to a frothy consistency.
Frankie told his mother how Kendra took over the woodworking business after Edgar took sick. "She said I had to get you permission," Frankie repeated.
"Well, I don't know," his mother wavered. "A woman living by herself and…"
"For God's sakes, she's older than Aunt Helen!" Aunt Helen was Mrs. Dexter's younger sister.
"I'll think about it," his mother replied evasively, "and let you know later tonight." Spraying the waffle iron, she poured the batter onto the griddle and lowered the lid.
Frankie was about to argue the issue but held his tongue. His mother wasn't being contentious and seemed genuinely pleased with the fragrant tulipwood and the notion of a woman building ornate boxes. "Well, that lays one mystery to rest."
"Which is?"
"Many times when I passed the Lomax place coming home from market," his mother remarked, "I heard the sound of heavy machinery and wondered what they were doing. Now we know."
Frankie went upstairs and lay down on his bed. An older woman had held him tight up against her wiry body. This was unfamiliar territory. He had to think it through. Not that there was anything much to think about. Kendra had pulled him close in the darkness out of pity not lust. The 'poor baby' was clearly meant as an expression of sympathy and maternal affection. The way she held him, Frankie could feel every crevice, fleshy bulge and contour of her body.
"Aw, shit!" It suddenly dawned on him what changed when Kendra ran off to the bedroom, slamming the door shut. She had slipped on a bra. Even alone in his own bedroom, the stolid, middle-aged woman's sense of modesty and decorum caused the boy to blush self-consciously.
The Lomax place resembled a safe haven, a protective womb. The several hours spent there was like a dream - unfortunately, a dream that, like most pleasant fictions, didn't last. Before leaving the basement, Kendra had shown him a crate full of finished boxes. The artwork was meticulous. Marquetry - the handicraft dated back to the Middle Ages - was the name of the technique she used to puzzle the tiny slivers of wood into intricate design patterns.
After the glue dried, Kendra sanded through eight, increasingly finer grades of sandpaper ranging from two-twenty to fifteen hundred before applying Danish oil. "Chatoyance," she spoke softly rubbing a thumb lovingly over a glassy wooden surface. "From the French œil de chat, meaning cat's eye." "You sand the wood until it's so smooth that, when the finish is applied, the surface flings the light back at you in shimmery brilliance." She held the box up to the light and the decorative surface exuded a luminous glow that caused Frankie's breath to catch in his throat.
In the early afternoon, Mrs. Dexter went off somewhere and didn't return until late in the afternoon. "Did you know the police were called over to the McElroys' place last night?"
"How do you know?"
"The Hispanic lady who lives diagonally across from them works behind the deli counter in the market. She says the two brothers got plastered and started beating on each other. They're out on bail now."
"What about Kendra, the lady who makes the fancy boxes?"
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Baxter replied almost as an afterthought. "You can spend time over there but don't go near the machinery. Now I've got to make supper." Frankie's mother shifted the several bags she was balancing in her arms and headed in the direction of the kitchen.
Later that night while he was lying in bed, Mrs. Baxter came into the room. "Kendra goes to church Sunday mornings over at Saint Stevens, and she also volunteers stocking shelves at the library Wednesday afternoons." After a brief pause, she added, "Ryder… her last name is Ryder. Kendra Ryder."
"How do you know this?"
"If you go to visit and hear machines running down in the basement," she sidestepped his question, "don't set foot in the house until the electricity is turned off and the noise dies away."
"Okay."
"I'm doing laundry in the morning. Do you need any clothes washed?" Frankie had a bad habit of burying dirty laundry under the bed.
"No, I'm fine," the boy replied. Mrs. Baxter went away.
* * * * *
"Your mother came to visit," Kendra said the next time Frankie stopped by. It was a Thursday afternoon. The black sky had been spitting warm rain off and on all day. Rain was the kiss of death to crafters. The previous Saturday, Kendra had set up her ten-by-ten foot canopy at the Stonington Craft Fair only to see her business literally washed away by a torrential downpour. Eighty-seven soggy exhibitors spent the day staring bleakly at one another in an otherwise empty field. Only a small handful of diehard customers, sporting rain gear and umbrellas, visited the fair. They didn't linger and nobody was in a buying mood. Luckily, the fair extended straight through the weekend, and Sunday Kendra was able to recoup the loss and turn a small profit.
"I gotta cut slots for the brass hinges," Kendra said. "Sit over there," she pointed at a folding chair a good thirty feet away from the drill press and don't belch, fart or pick your nose."
As she explained it, the razor-sharp slot cutter, which measured a meager three inches in diameter, was, far and away, the most dangerous tool in her arsenal. The Delta, ten-inch table saw made a god-awful racket and ripped through rock maple with lethal indifference. But the stock could be guided safely along a metal fence or navigated across the carbide tipped blade with a miter gauge. The tiny slot cutter afforded no such luxury. Kendra fashioned a right-angle brace from scrap lumber and clamped the lids onto the brace before cutting slots. Reducing the speed on the drill press to a sloth-like six hundred rpm's, she inched the wood across the table until the horizontal blade barely kissed the grain. Then she locked her elbows rigidly against her sides and eased the wood forward in tiny increments. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. When the blade cut to a depth of half an inch, she pulled back, freeing the stock from the whirring blade.