Inappropriate Behavior: Stories (21 page)

5

Today I was sure I saw him near the smoothie shop on Euclid and Twentieth, coming out of the pet store next door. Buying white rats for his cancer experiments, no doubt. He wore a houndstooth hat and a blue velvet scarf, and carried a plastic bag in one hand and a hickory cane in the other. Although he doesn't really need the cane, David Ferrie is fond of affectations. I barely noticed him, but again, the eyes, black as agates, beneath the painted-on eyebrows. (David Ferrie suffers from alopecia universalis, which caused all the hair on his body to fall out. Although Ferrie initially thought this condition was a sign of cancer—he thought a lot of things were signs of cancer—scientists will tell you that the condition is genetic.)

This was the closest I'd ever seen him to my actual house, but by the time the school bus stopped, four blocks farther down Euclid, and I ran back to the corner, he was, of course, gone. This is one of the things that sucks about not having a car, even though my mom swears she'll get me one soon.

6

My therapist says, “Last time we were discussing David Ferrie.”

I say, “Yes.”

He says, “And the time before that, we were discussing David Ferrie. And the time before that.”

I say nothing. I want to tell him I saw David Ferrie at the pet store, buying white rats for his cancer experiments, no doubt. But the last time I told my analyst I saw David Ferrie, he tried
to talk to me about my sexual dreams and fantasies, and I don't want to discuss that again.

I want to tell him, Look, I'm sixteen years old. I get embarrassed when you ask me about my sexual dreams and fantasies. It's creepy. I don't think you're asking me about that to help me. I think you get your jollies hearing about my sex dreams. I sometimes get the distinct impression that you're hovering over me. I don't like it. You perv. I say nothing.

My therapist says, “If you don't talk to me, I can't help you.”

“I think I saw David Ferrie at the pet store the other day,” I tell him. “The one on Euclid and Twentieth.”

He says, “I don't understand why an obviously intelligent young woman like yourself is always—”

“The one near the smoothie shop. I got off the bus and tried to find him, but he was gone before I could get back there. Which is odd, because he's very old now, and moves slowly.”

My therapist says, “Last time we talked about some things you could get involved in at school. Did you look into any of that?”

My therapist wants me to go out for cheerleading. I would rather puke maggots.

I say, “I talked with Mr. Cannizaro about starting an alternative history club.”

“I think, perhaps, just for now,” my therapist says, “it would be better for you to
join
something rather than start something. If you join something, you can still be a leader in the context of an established environment.”

I say, “Like Oswald? He joined something.”

My therapist says, “Lots of other people have joined things, Jill, and it turned out fine for them.”

7

I do have sex dreams sometimes, but not about David Ferrie. Most of my sex dreams are not about people, at least not people I know, and sometimes they're not about people at all. One night
I dreamed I was having sex with an alligator, and just at the end the alligator turned into the devil. I woke up wondering about how to tell my mother, if she'd be more unhappy about me having sex with an alligator or the devil. Then when I got completely awake, I realized I didn't have to tell anyone about the dream.

8

Today at elective period, we held the first meeting of The Alternative History Club. It was me, and Nikki Sloan, and Tiffany Konsakis, and Rachel Weld, and Kevin Cooper (who likes either Nikki Sloan or Tiffany Konsakis or both) and Mr. Cannizaro. Mr. Cannizaro said we couldn't just have meetings, that we had to have a project in order to get a grade for elective. He said he'd leave it pretty much up to us. He said, “Just clear it with me.”

Then Mr. Cannizaro leaves the room and we move our desks together, all except Rachel Weld, who stays where she is in the back corner of the room beneath the map of Missouri.

Nikki Sloan says, “What
are
we going to do?”

Tiffany Konsakis says, “Something easy. I
don't
have time for this crap. Stupid elective.”

Kevin Cooper says, “I got
totally
wasted Saturday night.”

Nikki's cell phone goes off. She checks the number, puts the phone back in her purse.

Tiffany says, “Did you see when Van Ramp scheduled the SAT prep?”

Rachel Weld says nothing.

Kevin says, “I was hanging with T. J. and Sedgewick. We went to this party. The guy's parents were in
Naples
. It was the shit.”

Nikki's cell phone rings again. She checks the number, pushes a couple of buttons, and puts the phone back in her purse.

I say, “I propose we do our project on the life and accomplishments of David Ferrie.”

Nikki says, “Sedgewick is
such
a tool.”

Tiffany says, “Have you written your essay for Carleton yet?”

Rachel Weld says nothing, just sort of stares ahead, slumped in her chair.

I say, “David Ferrie was a man of wide and varied interests. For example—”

Nikki says, “I wish
my
parents would go to fucking Naples.”

Rachel Weld sighs.

Kevin Cooper sighs.

I try to think of the grossest, most salacious thing I can think of to get them interested. I think, David Ferrie used to have drag parties at his home in New Orleans. I think, David Ferrie participated in the CIA's early experiments with LSD and mind control. I think, David Ferrie made his own wigs out of bright orange monkey hair.

Nikki Sloan starts beeping. She takes her cell phone out of her pocket, texts something.

I think, David Ferrie studied the voodoo religions of the Caribbean, and regularly attended secret rites. I think, There were human tissue samples found in David Ferrie's apartment, and they were
not
his own. I think, None of this does justice to David Ferrie.

Nikki Sloan dials a number, says to her cell phone, “Quit texting me, freak.”

Kevin Cooper says, “My parents are going to Des Moines this spring.”

Tiffany Konsakis urgently whispers, “Bell, bell, bell, bell, bellbellbell.”

The bell rings and everyone leaves.

I sit and think, New Orleans DA Jim Garrison said that David Ferrie was one of history's most important individuals.

9

“Because here's the thing, Jill,” my therapist says. “Lots of people, when they've been through something like this, even long after
it's over, they still have the stress of the experience. And that stress shows itself in some strange ways.”

“I was never really that stressed,” I say. “I know that sounds awful.”

“And since he didn't have any hair,” my therapist says, “and he was obsessed with cancer. I just think there's a connection here we're not exploring thoroughly enough.”

“It was a long time after that I started seeing him,” I say.

“Well,” my therapist says, “a year or so.”

“Right.”

“That's not that long. The body has needs. When the body is threatened by such a terrible stress, it releases chemicals to help you fight. Your body is still in the mode of fighting. Or there are still these chemicals built up in your body that have nowhere to go and nothing to do now.”

“So you're saying David Ferrie is adrenaline?”

“Not just that. Or not even that, Jill,” he says. “But he's not alive and walking the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, either. That's for sure.”

I say nothing until the time runs out, at which point I get up and leave.

Outside on the street, my mother is waiting. It's nice to walk home with her.

“You don't have to keep going to him if you don't want to,” my mother says.

“Daddy wants me to.”

“Well, your father doesn't understand you like I do,” she says, taking my hand. “He thinks that it was harder on you than it was. He doesn't know how strong you are. How smart. How wonderful. He just doesn't know.”

“I'll keep at it a little while longer,” I say. “For him.”

“You're my wonderful girl, Jill,” my mother says. “Such a caring, beautiful girl.”

10

It's one thing to assassinate a president, although it's relatively rare in the US. There have only been four out of forty-four: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and JFK.

But it's another thing to get away with assassinating a president. This takes not only extraordinary planning, financing, and will, but also a considerable amount of luck. In the case of the Kennedy plot, even surviving involvement in it was quite a feat. Many, many people connected with the events in Dealey Plaza died pretty soon after November 22 of 1963. The
London Sunday Times
said that as of 1967, the number of dead people involved in the case was actuarially impossible, odds like one hundred thousand trillion to one. I don't know how to write that as a number, but it's big. The best overall count of these deaths was done by Jim Marrs in his book
Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy
. Marrs put the count, as of 1989, at 103, which is twenty-six years later, yes, but it's still a lot of dead people from a fairly small pool.

And along with the heart attacks and cancers and “long illnesses” that you'd expect, there were the weird deaths, the creepy ones, the karate chops to the neck and dismemberments and execution-style bullets behind the ear and sudden, overwhelming cancer, as in the case of Jack Ruby, the only person who we know for sure is a killer in the whole thing.

Marrs's count has forty-three deaths from “natural causes,” including heart attack, cancer, and other illness. The next most common cause is murder, sixteen of them, most from gunshot, but we also find ax wounds and bar brawls and the case of mobster John Roselli, who was stabbed a mere sixty-eight times, garroted, dismembered, and then stuffed into a weighted metal oil drum and set adrift in Miami's Dumfoundling Bay. There were eight deaths ruled suicide, two drug overdoses, six “accidental” gunshot wounds, five plane crashes (the safest form of transport, statistically), two fatal falls, two electrocutions, one
fire death (although this victim may have also been shot). One man died of surgical complications, one of a heater explosion, one of a hunting accident, one collapsed after a routine military physical. Six died in automobile accidents, four of them single-car accidents, including taxi driver William Whaley, who drove Oswald to his rooming house just after the assassination (at the time of his death in 1965, Whaley was the only Dallas taxi driver ever killed on duty).

David Ferrie officially died of an accidental blow to the neck when he lost consciousness after suffering a blackout that may or may not have been caused by either extremely high blood pressure or an overdose of pills. Despite this perfectly natural death, Ferrie somehow managed to compose two suicide notes that were found in his apartment—one was signed in his hand, the other was not.

11

My mother's leukemia diagnosis came the summer I turned thirteen. The initial odds for survival were one in five, which is twenty percent, an easy number to write. I'd see it everywhere, on the walls of the hospital room, on the bedsheets. My mother's eyes were little 20s, the palms of the nurses' hands were tattooed with 20s. I even started counting to twenty, over and over again, all day long, my life broken down into tiny progressions or interminable marches—sometimes it took forever to count to twenty.

12

Jim Marrs followed up
Crossfire
with
Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us
, which is too nutty for words. If I start seeing aliens among us, then I'll take this delayed-stress business a bit more seriously.

13

Today I saw David Ferrie in the vintage-clothing store, pondering a pair of gabardine pants that would have beautifully matched the silver tweed overcoat he wore. I moved toward him as he headed for the fitting rooms, then ducked behind a hat tree and waited.

This was it. The store wasn't crowded. I knew if I could just wait long enough, he'd come out to purchase his pants, and on his way to the counter I'd step from behind the hat tree, and we'd finally meet, or something. At least he'd know I knew. I'd somehow make sure of that. I waited.

I would say—I think those pants will look very nice on you, sir.

I would say—I understand gabardine is a very comfortable fabric.

I would say—Gabardine was first introduced as the fabric in which the Italian Air Force outfitted its pilots.

I would say—Do you think it's possible, that if we were wearing vintage clothing, and someone hypnotized us, we could somehow channel the person the clothes belonged to originally?