Garden of Evil Read online

  ‘Hate to say this, sir, but that sound to me like a whole shitload of hard work for nothing. Nobody never has no trouble understanding me now. I make good enough sense.’

  ‘What’s your name, son?’ Jim asked him.

  ‘Jordy Brown, sir.’

  ‘Whose face is that on your T-shirt, Jordy?’

  ‘Snoop Dogg, sir.’

  ‘Well, to give him his proper name, it’s Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Junior. But do you know what Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Junior, is most famous for saying?’

  Jordy Brown grinned broadly. ‘Yes, sir, he say that Britney would make a better prostitute than Christina cause she’s thicker.’

  ‘Yes, he said that. But he also said that if the only job you can get is flipping burgers at McDonalds, make sure that you’re the best burger flipper that ever was. Like, ever – in the whole history of burger flippery.’

  ‘I ain’t goin’ to flip no burgers at McDonalds, sir. Not never.’

  ‘Maybe not. Don’t count on it. But you are going to be speaking and writing English for the rest of your life, so make sure you’re the best English speaker and writer you can possibly be.’

  Jordy Brown twisted around to look at Simon Silence, as if he were appealing for a second opinion, but Simon Silence simply raised one of his blond, almost-invisible eyebrows, and shrugged. Jim thought: at least somebody in this classroom knows that I’m talking sense, even if he doesn’t talk much sense himself.

  ‘Right,’ he said, turning to the blackboard. ‘Here we see the name of Rachel X. Speed, an award-winning poet who made her name by writing very gritty, in-your-face kind of poems. She wrote about stuff that poets don’t usually write about, like losing babies and falling in love with other women and falling in love with all the wrong men.

  ‘This poem is called A New Language of Love and when I’ve finished reading it to you, I want you each to write down what you think of it. One sentence will be enough. Three sentences will be plenty, but – hey – don’t think that I’m stopping you from writing more if you want to. You can write me a whole book if you like.’

  He opened the slim, black-bound collection of Rachel X. Speed’s poetry and started to read.

  ‘You came home last night.

  My love, my lover.

  You came up the stairs and I opened the door wide to welcome you.

  You hit me.

  You said not a single word, not even that you hated me.

  I sit here now, watching you sleep.

  My love, my lover.

  Trying to understand what you were telling me.

  It’s three a.m.

  On the other side of the room hangs a portrait of me

  An oval portrait that moves when I move.

  And writes, whenever I write.

  A portrait that shows what you have done to me by hitting me so hard

  Both of my eyes are crimson, like a clown’s, and my lips are split

  My love, my lover.

  I always believed you when you said you loved me

  So, when you stopped talking to me –

  When you started hitting me instead

  What was I to think?

  You didn’t leave me, so you must have found

  A new way to tell me how you cared.

  A new language of love, called “hit”.

  I am trying so hard to learn it

  My love, my lover.

  But, please, give me time.

  No other language, as you learn it, makes you cry like this.’

  Jim closed the book and looked around. Some of the class were obviously baffled. Some looked completely indifferent, staring up the ceiling or frowning at their fingernails as if they hadn’t really been listening. A few of them, though, appeared to be upset. The pretty African-American girl with the beaded hair who was sitting in front of him had tears sparkling in her long false eyelashes, and was rummaging around in her beaded purse for a tissue.

  Jim dragged his chair around and sat close to her. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘The poem wasn’t meant to make you cry. What’s your name, sweetheart?’

  ‘Jesmeka,’ she told him, dabbing her eyes. ‘Jesmeka Watson. Oh, shoot, there goes my frickin’ eyelash again.’

  Jim waited while she carefully peeled off her upper-left eyelash, and then he said, ‘So, Jesmeka – how did that poem make you feel? If you were to write down something about it, what would you say?’

  ‘It’s the same as my sister Donisha and this guy she’s living with, exceptin’ Donisha has a little baby boy to take care of, too.’

  ‘Really?’

  Jesmeka nodded, and sniffed. ‘Every night he comes home and either he’s high or he’s drunk or else he’s both, and he hits her just like the guy in the poem. And she’s always the same, with the split lips and the swelled-up eyes, and I keep telling her, kick the frickin’ loser out, girl, or else call the cops on him. But she always says he can’t help it, he’s depressed because he don’t have no job to go to, and him hitting her, that shows at least that he cares about her. She says she loves him and couldn’t bear to lose him – or worse still, if he just ignored her, like she didn’t even exist.’

  Jim laid his hand on top of hers and patted it. ‘I’m sorry, Jesmeka. I hope things work out all right for her. I didn’t mean to distress you like that. If you ever need any help – or your sister does – I’m always here. I know a whole lot of counselors of various kinds and I know a whole lot of cops, too. Tough cops, with nightsticks, who don’t particularly care for men who beat up on women. They call themselves the Nosebreakers.’

  He stood up and dragged his chair back behind his desk. He scanned the classroom for a while, as if he were searching for survivors at sea, and then he pointed to the boy who was sitting directly behind Jesmeka. This boy was white, and skinny, with a dirty-blond pompadour that stuck right up in the air, like a cartoon of somebody who had been scared by a ghost. He was quite good-looking in a starved, James Dean way. He was furiously chewing gum and texting on his iPhone.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked him.

  The boy kept on texting until he realized that the classroom had gone silent and that everybody was staring at him. He looked around and said, ‘What?’

  ‘I hope that message is of vital national importance,’ said Jim.

  ‘This message?’

  ‘That message.’

  Jim walked around and picked up the boy’s iPhone. On the screen, he had written: ‘BTD CU 2nite @ Rage AEAP maybe 8 we can do sum 420 then find sum kitty.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jim, putting the iPhone down. ‘You’re bored to death, are you?’

  The boy pulled a face and said, ‘Doing this medium English stuff, that wasn’t my idea. My old man said I had to, so I didn’t wind up like him.’

  ‘Remedial English,’ Jim corrected him. ‘“Remedial” meaning special teaching for people who can’t tell the difference between angel and angle, and think that dirt gets pushed around in a wheelbarrel, and who can’t tell kitty from pussy, for that matter.’

  The boy shifted in his chair and said, ‘I listened to the poem.’

  ‘That’s good. It’s good that you listened. Listening is always a pretty good first step in learning something. What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Rudy Cascarelli.’

  ‘Any relation to the pizza-making Cascarellis?’

  ‘Like, second cousins or something. I don’t know. My old man’s a bus driver.’

  ‘OK, Rudy. You listened to the poem. What did you think?’

  Rudy Cascarelli stayed silent for so long that the class began to shuffle their feet and talk amongst themselves. At last, he said, ‘She musta done something. I mean the woman that wrote it, just because she don’t tell you in the pome what it was, that don’t mean she didn’t. Maybe she gave him this real crap sandwich to take to work. Like baloney or something. My old man hates baloney. He hit my mom once, when she made him a baloney sandwich.’

  ‘Your mom made your father a baloney
sandwich so he hit her?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean it wasn’t a punch or nothing, more like a push, but she fell over and hit her head on the kitchen counter, so it looked like it was worse than it was, which it wasn’t. He told her, just because his name’s Italian, that doesn’t mean he likes Italian sausage. Like, he won’t eat nothing pink. If it’s pink, he won’t put it in his mouth.’

  ‘Not gay, then,’ put in the Hispanic boy sitting next to Simon Silence. There was a burst of laughter from all around the classroom, but Simon Silence turned and gave the boy a disapproving stare that froze his face in mid-grin.

  ‘What about you, Simon?’ asked Jim, walking up the side of the classroom until he reached the third row of benches. ‘Did that poem do anything for you?’

  ‘Oh, for sure,’ said Simon Silence. ‘That poem clearly shows what happens when you disturb the natural order of things.’

  ‘Unh? What do you mean by that? What “natural order of things”?’

  ‘Who was Adam’s first wife, in the Garden of Eden?’

  ‘OK . . . some legends say it was Lilith.’

  Simon Silence nodded. ‘That’s quite correct, Mr Rook – Lilith, who was fashioned out of the same clay as Adam, and not from Adam’s rib, as his second wife Eve was.’

  ‘So what does this have to do with hitting women?’

  ‘It has everything to do with hitting women. Why was Lilith cast out of the Garden of Eden? Because she was Adam’s equal, and refused to be subservient to him. And after she had been cast out of the Garden of Eden, she became the lover of the angel Sammael, sometimes known as the Angel of Death, and even God could not persuade her to return.’

  Jim said, ‘What you’re saying here, Simon, is that if Lilith hadn’t been booted out of Eden, and she and Adam had stayed together, men and women would have been equal, right from the get-go?’

  Simon Silence gave his radiant, illuminating smile. ‘Exactly, Mr Rook. The sexes would have been balanced, as they were meant to be. Men and women, good and evil, life and death. Very few people believe it, but if it hadn’t been for God, and God’s intolerance, and the ignorance of his priests and his earthly representatives, the world would have been a far safer and a happier place, all the way down the centuries.’

  ‘Where the fuck you get all that from, man?’ asked DaJon Johnson, in bewilderment. ‘I thought I heard a poem about some dude disrespectin’ his old lady, not some Bible story. Or maybe I fell asleep there for a while. Maybe I went into some mini-coma and missed out on all of that Bible-y bit.’

  Simon Silence lifted his hand to him, like a priest giving him a benediction. ‘You will understand, DaJon, I promise you. And sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Well I sure as fuck hope so, man, cause I’m gettin’ real confused back here.’

  ‘Language, DaJon,’ Jim cautioned him. ‘There are ladies present.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Sure,’ said DaJon. He tilted back in his chair and said, ‘Sorry, Simon.’

  Jim started to walk back to the front of the class to ask Kyle Baxter what he had thought about the poem when there was a brisk rapping at the door, and Detective Brennan walked in. He was closely followed by a woman detective with dyed-black, pixie-cut hair, a snub nose, and bright scarlet lips. She had eyes as a green as a cat’s, and there might have been some whistling and feet-stamping if she hadn’t had a gold LASD badge on the pocket of her blouse and a large nickel-plated SIG Sauer automatic holstered at her waist.

  ‘Mr Rook?’ said Detective Brennan. ‘Real sorry to break into your class like this. This is Detective Carroll. May we have a private word with you, please?’

  ‘Sure,’ Jim told him. He turned around to Special Class Two and said, ‘I won’t be more than a couple of minutes. Try and write me that one sentence about A New Language of Love, OK? Don’t try to impress me. Don’t worry about your spelling, or your grammar. We’re going to be tackling all of that later. Just try and express how you feel. Make it come from the heart.’

  He followed Detectives Brennan and Carroll out into the corridor, and closed the door behind him. Immediately he heard talking and laughter, and he didn’t hold out much hope of his class actually writing anything.

  Detective Brennan said, ‘We have some information on the young girl who was nailed to the ceiling of your classroom.’

  ‘I see. Really?’ For some reason, Jim felt suddenly breathless, as if he was about to be told something matter-of-fact but terrible at the same time. He had experienced the same breathlessness on the day that the nurse had come out of that room at Cedars-Sinai and told him that his father had died. He could see his father through the open door, lying in bed with the sun shining on his silver hair, and he didn’t look dead.

  ‘Did you check your class register yet, Mr Rook?’ Detective Carroll asked him.

  Jim shook his head. ‘I usually like to kick off with something a little more lively, before I do that. I’m not too good with names, as a matter of fact. I’m like, visual, more than categorical.’

  ‘Special Class Two is supposed to number fifteen students this semester, including a student called Simon Silence who was enrolled only the day before yesterday.’

  ‘That’s right. Yes. I think so, anyhow. I’ve only counted fourteen so far, but it’s not unusual to have one or two fail to turn up, especially on the first day.’

  Detective Carroll said, ‘Do you know a woman called Jane Seabrook? She currently resides at three seven one zero nine, Stone Canyon Avenue.’

  Jim stared at her. His breathlessness was growing worse. ‘Jane Seabrook? Jane Seabrook is just a girl. Well, she was when I knew her. And she was living in Santa Monica in those days.’

  ‘Jane Seabrook is thirty-nine years old, Mr Rook.’

  ‘Thirty-nine? Yes. Jesus. I guess she must be. What about her? Nothing’s happened to her, has it?’

  ‘No, Mr Rook. Ms Seabrook is fine. But Ms Seabrook had a daughter, Bethany, and Bethany Seabrook was enrolled in Special Class Two this semester.’

  ‘She had a daughter? I didn’t know. She told me she wasn’t going to keep it.’

  ‘Apparently Ms Seabrook always told her daughter who her father was, and how much she still loved him, and that was one of the reasons why Bethany wanted to join Special Class Two – to get to know her father without her father realizing who she was.’

  Without any warning at all, Jim found that he was crying. His throat felt as if it were choked up with thistles and tears were pouring freely down his cheeks. He found it almost impossible to say anything.

  ‘It wasn’t . . . don’t say that . . . please don’t tell me—’

  Detective Carroll took hold of Jim’s hand in both of her hands and squeezed it in sympathy. Detective Brennan laid a hand on his shoulder. Jim had never known that it was possible to feel so bereft.

  ‘The girl who was nailed to the ceiling, Mr Rook. Ms Seabrook has made a positive ID, and the coroner has also taken DNA samples in case you want to question your own parenthood.’

  Jim gave the slightest shake of his head. It was all he could manage. He couldn’t speak any more. He walked off slowly along the corridor until he reached the window at the end, which overlooked the grassy slope that led to the athletics track.

  As they sailed overhead, the clouds cast shadows which fled across the grass like the souls of people who were once loved, hurrying to go wherever they have to go, or wherever the wind takes them.

  SEVEN

  Outside Jane Seabrook’s house, Stone Canyon Avenue sloped steeply uphill, and the driveway leading up to 37109 was even steeper, so that Jim had to park his car at an awkward tilt, with its rear end protruding into the road, and he had to push his door open with his feet in order to climb out.

  It was midday, and still breezy, with the clouds tumbling overhead like a speeded-up movie. He felt completely unreal as he climbed the steps that led up to the front porch. Ocher-colored dust blew up from the flowerbeds on either side, as if he were a spirit who caused whirlwinds wherever h
e walked.

  The house was modest: a cream-painted two-story family home, with Spanish-style windows, and a heap of flowering pink bougainvillea hanging over the porch. As Jim reached the top of the steps, a small dog began to yap, and he heard a clear woman’s voice call out, ‘Tessie – hush up, will you!’

  He didn’t recognize the voice. Are you supposed to recognize somebody’s voice after eighteen years? He went up to the varnished oak front doors and rang the bell. He waited, biting his lower lip. He looked around. An old man in a frayed Panama hat was standing in his front yard on the opposite side of the road, staring at him suspiciously. Jim almost felt like giving him the finger.

  The doors opened and there she was. No longer brunette, but blonde, with a shoulder-length bob, with bangs. But still the same hazel-colored eyes, and the slightly feline cheekbones, and the pink lips that looked as if she had just finished blowing somebody a kiss goodbye.

  She was wearing a simple black linen dress, and a string of black beads around her neck, and a plain silver bracelet.

  ‘Hallo, Jane,’ said Jim.

  She gave him a tight, complicated smile. ‘You’d better come in,’ she told him.

  He followed her across a wide, cool hallway with a brown-tiled floor. On the left-hand wall hung a large mirror, with a brown wooden frame; and on the right-hand side hung a garish amateur oil painting of a lake, with disproportionately giant ducks flying over it.

  They came out into a conservatory, with calico blinds drawn down to keep out the sun. It was furnished with brown wicker armchairs, and a glass-topped coffee table, and a variety of frondy potted palms. It smelled of dry heat, and plant fertilizer, but it also smelled of Jane. She was still wearing the same perfume, after all these years. Light, and flowery, with an underlying muskiness, although he had never known the name of it.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  ‘Please – why don’t you sit down?’