VILLA OF THE MYSTERIES
“That’s the gorgon,” Jamie replied, as though addressing an idiot. “Didn’t you see Hercules in the Underworld?”
“Uh, no.” I scrunched down to peer into its mouth. Water had pooled behind its grimace and become a trap for yellow jackets and daddy longlegs. “How disgusting. What’s it doing in front of your house?”
“My father designed it. He also did the monster bees in Empire of the Anguished. Also Sirena the Ageless in Blood Surf and the talking rocks in Satan’s Hammer. Ever see those?”
“No. Sorry.”
“No one did.” Jamie looked tragic. “That’s how come we’re living in this dump.”
He edged past me, shoving the half-opened screen door so that we could follow him inside. “Watch your step,” he said and stooped to pick up an electric drill. Ali and Hillary wandered past him, kicking aside a newspaper. “This place is a fucking bear-trap—”
“You’re not kidding,” said Hillary.
Inside smelled of mildew and marijuana smoke, the hot reek of carpenter’s glue and solder. The low ceiling was traversed by heavy beams hung with bundles of rope, a hacksaw, wire mesh. There was hardly any furniture—an old horsehair sofa and two unsprung armchairs. Sheets of plywood leaned against one wall; two-by-fours were stacked alongside another, and there were mason jars everywhere, filled with nails, screws, nuts and bolts, metal hinges. India-print bedspreads were pinned over some of the windows; in others you could clearly see the great webs made by golden orb weavers, and the spiders themselves poised in the center, like flaws in the glass. A big old wooden hi-fi console stood beside a crumbling fireplace, opera blasting from its torn speaker.
“Welcome to Hodge Podge Lodge,” said Jamie.
“I thought it was the Villa of The Mysteries,” said Ali.
“Uh-uh. That was from Medusa Enslaved.” Jamie crossed to the stereo, scowling. He turned off the opera and began flipping through a stack of records, finally found something and put it on. There was the crackle of dust on the needle, and then music, the same few notes picked out on a piano. “You guys hungry?”
We drifted into the kitchen, a dim room with rough-hewn cabinets and a few battered chairs. Hillary flopped down at a trestle table strewn with the remains of breakfast—a jar of imported marmalade, half-eaten toast, tin mugs of cold tea.
“Yeah, as long as I won’t catch something,” said Ali.
I plonked down beside Hillary, moaning. The beer and whiskey had burned off, and I could feel the beginnings of an early hangover. “I would kill for some coffee.”
“How about some ants?” He held up a piece of toast filigreed with tiny insects. “Mmm mmm good. Can you imagine Flo and Moe here?”
“No. I can hardly imagine me here.”
At the sink Ali clattered and smoked. Jamie filled a teakettle and put it on to boil, and I rested my head on the table. From the living room music echoed, and Hillary sang along in his reedy baritone—
And then I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew I was jolted awake by the teakettle’s piercing whistle, and a man’s voice booming.
“Why aren’t you kids in school?”
I sat bolt upright. Ali dropped her cigarette in the sink and looked around furtively, but Jamie only took the kettle and began to pour boiling water into a brown ceramic pot.
“Hello, Dad,” he said. “How’s it goin’?”
It was like a fast-forward glimpse of how Jamie would look in twenty years. Into the kitchen strode a wiry man in faded coveralls and carpenter’s belt heavy with tools, his shoulder-length blonde hair going to gray and receding from a high sunburned forehead, so that you could see the taut lines of face and skull. The same haunted eyes, mocking as Jamie’s; the same wry mouth. He walked over to his son and jabbed him with the blunt end of a screwdriver. As he passed me I caught the distinct smell of marijuana smoke.
“You young scalawag, you,” he said, peeking into the teapot. “Wait’ll the truant officer gets here.”
“It’s night, Dad.” Jamie gestured at the window. “See? Dark: night. No school.”
The man turned to survey the rest of us. “Well, well. Our nation’s youth in revolt. I’m Jamie’s Dad. Ralph Casson.” He nodded and shook my hand, then Ali’s, then Hillary’s, repeating his name solemnly each time. “Ralph Casson. Ralph Casson. Ralph Casson.”
I glanced at Hillary, but he just grinned. “Hi, Ralph. We met this morning.”
“Of course we did.” Ralph Casson slid the screwdriver back into his toolbelt and grabbed one of the enameled mugs. He sipped, made a face, and handed it to me. “So. Which ones are you? Debutante daughters of Miss Broadway 1957? Antonioni extras in town for the fall foliage tours?”
Ali found a windowsill wide enough to perch on and settled there. “I’m Alison. This is Lit—”
“‘Lit’? What the hell kind of name is that?”
“It’s for Charlotte,” I said, and felt myself reddening. “But nobody calls me that.”
I stared at my clunky boots. My hair cascaded into my face but I let it stay there, until I felt a hand brush it away.
“Charlotte. You’re right, I don’t think you’re a Charlotte.” I looked up into Ralph Casson’s frank, slightly manic gaze. He pulled his fingers gently through my tangled curls, let the hair fall back into my eyes as he drew away. “How about Thalia?”
“How about Bigfoot?” suggested Ali. Hillary and Jamie laughed, but Ralph shook his head.
“‘ A lovely being,’” he said, “‘scarce formed or moulded, a rose with all its sweetest leaves yet unfolded.’”
“Oh, bra-vo, Dad.” Jamie’s sarcastic voice drowned out Ali’s hoot. Ralph Casson winked at me, then crossed to the sink and began washing his hands.
“Watch your step, Jame,” he remarked over his shoulder. “You don’t want to get into bad company in this place.”
“Who’s bad company?” said Ali. Ralph turned and shook his hands, sending water over all of us.
“You.” He tilted his head at Ali, then me. “Her.”
Hillary pretended to be affronted. “What about me?”
“You?” Ralph regarded him disdainfully, then said in an arch, Glinda-the-Good-Witch voice, “You have no power here!”
“And they do?”
“Oh, Christ, please don’t get him started—” begged Jamie.
“Don’t you know the Mahamudratilaka?” Ralph raised one hand as though delivering a benediction. “‘ Go not with young women over twenty, because they have no occult power.’” He sighed. “Kids these days. What do they teach you?”
“You sound like my old man,” said Ali.
“Does he know the Mahamudratilaka?”
“Probably,” said Hillary. He sniffed at a glass of milk left over from breakfast, then poured it into his tea. “So what are you doing here? Fixing up this place for Kern or something?”
“Or something.” Ralph began rummaging among canisters and mason jars on the counter, finally settled on a large Earl Grey tin. He pried off the top and fished out a plastic baggie full of marijuana, opened it to remove a packet of ZigZag papers, and began rolling a joint. I quickly turned my attention to a jar of marmalade, trying not to look shocked. I knew adults in Kamensic who smoked (there were certainly enough who drank), and probably did other things as well, but I had never actually witnessed somebody’s father crumble a bud into a rolling paper. Ralph finished rolling the joint, lit it, and inhaled deeply.