The Tale of Edgar Headeroo

Edgar sat in his pleather chair while Anna fed him breakfast. He sat in his chair and Anna fed him because he could not move himself within the chair, nor could he get up from it. Anna was careful with the oats. She always started out that way. Somewhere though, always about halfway through, she’d flip, and she would baste Edgar’s cheeks with the flavorless oats.
   Anna had been his caretaker for the past year. She started a little before as a house cleaner for Edgar in order to pay off loans as she finished nursing school. When Edgar'd finally become so weak with the disease that he lost use of his arms too, she transitioned into his caretaker. The guilty called it fate. Anna had graduated bottom three of her class, and Edgar’s son-in-law, Jimmy, had relocated his company East. All of this happened at the exact same time Edgar became functionally paralyzed
   The family paid Anna well. Direct deposit from the east coast. She hadn’t come through a company. Jimmy had convinced Edgar’s daughter, Barbara, the would have plenty of money from selling the ranch. Whatever supplies Anna needed, whatever pay she said was adequate; it was all covered.
   There were good days where Edgar might get back some movement. Those were few and getting fewer.  But once, Edgar had been a cowboy. In those days he owned a ranch where he raised beef for the meat company upstate. The ranch had belonged to his father and Edgar’s grandfather before that. When Edgar’s grandfather met a girl he kindly loved, he eased his rambling ways. She was with child soon after they met, and Edgar’s grandfather, for once and for all, settled down. He put a new handle on a hammer, built a barn with muscle and nails, and established Headeroo Ranch, 1933. It almost stood a century.
*

Anna took the kettle off the stove. She scooped the coffee into a mug. Poured the water, stirred.
   Edgar gave thanks to at least get fresh coffee grounds. Though he worried sometimes about what the effects of taking straight coffee grounds would be, he always drank the whole cup. At this point, what was the worse that could happen?
   After breakfast, he was left in a chair in front of the television. His favorite activity each morning and evening was watching Westerns. Back when TMC was part of the budget, he could sit in front of the television all day and no jolting around or accidental knocks upside the head could ride off with his joy.
   He was watching a man crawl over a desert rock with a wide hat and a six shooter, all in sepia, when, right as the cowboy aimed with a silhouette like Elvis, the television clicked off.
   Edgar looked at Anna. She was wiping the windows nearby. She dropped the remote and sprayed the TV then wiped it. The ammonia made Edgar’s eyes water. When she left to the next room, finished with the TV, she did not turn the movie back on for Edgar. As she walked past him, she made like she was wiping the top of his head and laughed.
*
   “How has Daddy been?”
   “Hard to say, but his vitals are all fine.”
   “That’s good. That’s good. At least something…Does he seem happy?”
   “I really can’t tell, I’m sorry. He’s stopped that whimpering sound, did I tell you?”
   “Oh? That’s wonderful!”
   “Mhm.”
   “You should have told me sooner. This made my day!”
   “Sorry. I meant to text you, but I, well, I get caught up in all there is to do.”
   “No, I understand. We really appreciate you.”
   “Yeah...”
   “Could you put Daddy on the phone for me?”
   “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Don’t you think that tortures him?”
   “I have some good news. Don’t worry. I know he’ll want to hear…
   …Daddy? Daddy? I just sent you a package. It’s a DVD—one of your favorites. You won’t believe where I finally found it. I wanted to save it for the end of this month, but it’ll be an early surprise. I’m forcing Jimmy to fly us out there. If he won’t, I’ll get a ticket myself! …I love you, you gotta know I love you. Remember to take it easy on Anna. And absolutely no funny business! Hahahaha...”
   “Bye, Barbara.”
   “Wait. Does he look happy?”
   “He looks about the same as always.”
*
    Edgar looked down the sloping hill to the gas station that was now his only neighbor. Where once he watched cattle graze and corn stretch its hands and yawn, now he people-watched. He figured he could have earned some kind of degree from down at the college what with all the different iterations of person he’d observed. Once he saw a boy, about twelve, pull up, get out of a beat-up Chevy, fill his tank, pay, and drive off with a 32 oz coke in hand. Contrast that with the man-child who came in many forms, but always sat in the passenger seat while the lady pumped gas. That fired him up more than anything.
    Something hurt his neck as it plopped down on his head. Things were shadier now. Anna had slapped Edgar’s hat on him. He said a quick prayer that she would leave. She use to do these things only on occasion, but now he could get no peace. Every time he got relaxed, she’d emerge from the bushes like a damn highwayman, face covered and all.
   Anna pulled up a chair beside him. She fanned herself with a rag then dropped the wet thing over Edgar’s shoulder.  
   “There! The bathroom is spotless. Let’s see if the bitch can find something to complain about this time.”
   Edgar tried to move his hand for the billionth time. He strained within as if God himself might heal him in some light-wavering miracle. If only he could grab Anna by the ear, then he would pull her down to his face, and he would freeze there with his eye in hers, and her little lobes would stretch to get away, and he would not let go.
   Instead, she put her hand on his.
   “I’m sorry Mr. Headeroo. Heck, it’s not your fault. Maybe I’ve been a little too hard on you. I’m just trying to get you better. I know you can do better.”
   She stood up and took the rag from off Edgar’s shoulder. As she walked back in the house she stopped to watch a long black truck drive in off the highway and park at the gas station down the hill.
   The truck towered over all the other vehicles and took up his parking space and half of another’s. Smoke rolled up and out the cracked tinted windows for a while. Anna watched and swayed like in a dream.
   The truck door opened. A lanky shadow rose on the grey cloud that emerged from the truck cab. A black brim cut through, and out walked yet another man-child, one with the weakest shoulders Edgar had ever seen. His chin too was weak, so weak that it disappeared into his neck. He looked like he was stuck in a fleshy neck-brace.
   There was however one thing that caught Edgar’s eye with envy. He could tell right away that the boots and the hat the boy wore were quality. Edgar thought to himself about how he’d like a new pair of boots and a hat, how he’d been wanting those for a while now. The one hat he had was weathered, faded, and stiff. Worse, it had been a gift from Jimmy.
   The boy in the black cowboy hat was waving at him. No, Edgar looked to his side to see Anna was his target. And Anna, who had let her hair down, was waving back.
*
   Edgar gasped for air and woke up. This had been happening more and more. It was dark outside and he was in the middle of his bed without blankets or sheets to cover him. All of a sudden, he realized there were voices in the house. Anna and someone who sounded like a bat.
   “Come on, sugar” the voice said.
   “No way. I hardly know you.”
   “Come on. Let’s go get some dinner.”
   “Sorry, my shift isn’t over yet.”
   “Well I say screw it. You look too good to stay hidden away in this old place.”
   “You’re sweet, but I gotta stay.”
   “Please? He’ll be fine on his own. Ain’t it mostly in his head anyways?”
   “No. I mean not really.”
   “But didn’t you say—“
   “I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s a freak thing.”
   “Like a curse?”
   “No, I don’t believe in that crap.”
   “Then what are you worried about?”
   An engine rumbled outside the house. Through his window, Edgar followed a titanic black truck as it drove away. Black fog spilled out of the tailpipe.
   Edgar shut his eyes to go back to sleep. For a moment he feared what may come if he started choking. With Anna gone, to dream was deadly. Nevertheless he gave in and drifted off. Yet again, what was the worse that could happen?
*
    Over the next week, Edgar was not surprised to find that the man in the black truck, Sandy as he had learned, had become a regular in Anna’s life. Edgar had seen it a hundred times. Both men and women he knew from all walks of life had fallen victim. Hell, he felt it was true of his own daughter. Some passably good-looking person comes along, spots one of the lonely-hearted, and eases in the knife. Edgar had seen them all bleed with nothing but butterflies.
   While Sandy was hanging around, Anna was mostly pleasant. Even when he was gone, she had let up on the abuse. But Edgar only grew angrier. He thought it might be jealousy at first. The way Sandy could swing Anna around and lift her up around his waist. The fact that he could wash his hair yet left it in a greasy ponytail that badly needed rung out.
   However it wasn’t jealousy in the end. It was simple right and wrong what made Edgar come to despise Sandy. The slight limp Anna had developed. The extra make-up she’d been wearing around the eyes. Edgar knew what these were. Flashing codes of light from behind enemy lines.
   Then one day Sandy brought it all out.
   “Please just shave it off.”
   “No! I look like a damn six year old without it.”
   “But I hate it! It’s like spiders when you kiss me.”
   “I said no!”
   Edgar’s old ash tray broke against the tile. The brown glass splattering like mud across the kitchen floor.
   “You need to calm down, Sandy.”
   “Oh I’ll make you beg for calm, sweetie. I’m being real good right now.”
   “This is my job. You get it together. We’re not doing this in front of Edgar.”
   Sandy stopped and looked over to Edgar. Edgar kept his eyes on the two of them.
   With a mocking tip of the hat, Sandy swaggered past Edgar and  down the hallway towards the back door. Edgar prayed hard for the second time that month that he might participate in miracle. He prayed that he could throw his leg out and send Sandy toppling over. Or that he might throw a punch right into Sandy’s groin. None of this happened, but still he stared at Sandy for as long as his eyes could track him. When the door shut, Edgar looked back at Anna who was sweeping up glass. She didn’t look back at him. She knew what he was saying. It was the same advice she had been giving herself lately, and, besides, what would your mama think?
   That night she wheeled Edgar into his room and eased him into bed. She turned out the lights but not without first covering him up with his blanket.
*
   Three days later, Edgar and Anna ate lunch around the oak family table. The old thing was one of the few artifacts from Edgar’s childhood that was still around. He remembered how he would ride horses with his dad in summer, sometimes until sunset, and the gratifying taste of anything at the table on those late nights. He remembered how he would walk downtown and buy chewing gum from Abigail who worked at her parents’ pharmacy, and how she’d sometimes sit around the table with them too, all of them serving in fellowship.  
   But it was tuna sandwiches today.  Still, Edgar felt different. Anna’s care had been different. She had been feeding him almost gently. And the tuna was dry like he liked.
   She wiped his chin and looked out the window, past the gas station, to the forrest that spread up the mountain.
   Edgar heard something like thunder to the East. It rolled again and Anna too heard it this time. She looked to him and he looked to the phone. His eyes strained towards it, but she did not go and call for help. Instead, she dusted the sandwich crumbs off her shirt and went to check the lock on the back door.
   While Anna was in the back, Sandy slithered through the foyer. He had pocketed his own key it would seem. He was wearing his good black boots and his good black hat and a faded black t-shirt which read Raised on Merle.
  “No need to get up. I let myself in.”
   Anna screamed. It was the first time Edgar had ever seen her without bluffs, and he was afraid for her.
   She should have screamed at Sandy to get out, should have thrown a pretty from off the shelf. Run. But she stood there, paralyzed, as Sandy worked his way up to her.
   A second later, Edgar felt his chair move. Sandy’s breath was damp behind him.
   “Come on out here, daddy. You won’t wanna watch this.”
   He was wheeled where he could see Anna only to be washed away from her, receding out to the back patio. Inside Anna stood and shook and grew smaller and smaller.
   Edgar’s head fell over as the wheelchair spun around. His arm flopped over the side, and the armrest dug into his ribs. He faced Sandy’s feet and the gas station down the hill.
   “Let me just lock this here so you don’t go rolling away.” Edgar’s ribs felt like they were combusting. He screamed though his vocal cords remained limp. Then, something inside him moved. Then outside. It was a motion he’d practiced for years until he’d grown too old for make-believe—the drawing of a six shooter.
   Right as Sandy leaned down and reached towards the chair lock, Edgar’s shooting arm reeled back with lightening speed and he elbowed Sandy in the gut. Sandy doubled over. Then, with deadeye grip, Edgar grabbed Sandy’s extended arm that was on the lock. Shocked, Sandy lost his footing. As Edgar’s arm deflated of its sudden strength, the weight pulled Sandy down and over the edge of the hill.
   Like a coin tossed at the perfect angle, Sandy rolled head first the whole way down the hillside. When he finally stopped, Sandy was at the edge of the gas station lot. He made to pull himself up, but instead he rolled over and stared up at the clear sky.
   A truck door at the gas station slammed shut. The twelve year old boy was out of his old Chevy and rushing over to Sandy. He looked at Sandy then back up the hill to Edgar who was perched at the top.
   The boy yanked off the boots excitedly while Sandy groaned and swatted at him. He grabbed up Sandy’s hat as he sprinted up the hill.
   “Get back here, punk-bitch”
   The boy quickly turned back only to kick Sandy in the face, which shut him up, and he took off again.
   He ran the hat and boots all the way to the top of the hill. By the time he reached Edgar, the boy was gasping.
   Edgar remained leaned over the arm of his chair. His eyes brimmed with painful tears.

    Anna was out, staring down the hill at Sandy as if she'd walked in to the wrong room still in her underwear.
   The boy determinedly set Edgar upright. He breathed with relief. Next the boy took off Edgar’s booties. In their place, he slid on Sandy’s boots, and he crowned Edgar with the black leather hat.
   “Gee mister!” the boy said in a whistling pitch, “that was amazing!”
***
   A week, half a season later, they three were gathered around the television in the living room as the sun began its amarillo descent in the west. Edgar, Anna, and the boy. Anna got up from the couch to go flip the pork chops, which were warming the house with their fatty and autumnal smell. She had already called the boy’s family and checked to make sure he was alright to keep Edgar company a little while longer. The boy had been coming over frequently since  he had met Edgar. Anna had explained some of the situation to his parents, but always neglected to mention anything about Sandy. She no longer saw Sandy’s apparition in the shadows or smoke. He had hobbled up the hill that day without a single glance towards Edgar, her, or the ranch. When he left, he had left for good.
   And so the boy and Edgar watched horses and marshals carry on across the screen, delivering good from evil, money from thieves, the debutantes from the drunks. Edgar said nothing to the boy and felt no need to.
   And what if it had only been in his mind? What if he had not moved but Anna instead had pushed Sandy? What would we make of that?
   While they ate their pork-chops, the boy was so lost in the western he could hardly get the food to his mouth. Out of nowhere, the phone rang, and Anna dropped her fork. She forced a laugh as she bent to pick it up. On the way up, she noticed Edgar trying to say something. Edgar’s secret language, which had whirred unnoticed for months, she now knew. She watched the eyes, followed the lips. She knew what he wanted. The caller was most likely his daughter, and he did not want Anna to answer. She let the machine get it.
   “Daddy? Hello? Anna? Daddy? Hello-o? I’m starting to get worried. Hello? Well, anyway, if you hear this Daddy, I won’t be able to make it down. Turns out Jimmy is going to be gone for a month and he wants me to keep the house. He says it’d be stupid to pay for a house-sitter and a plane ticket during vacation season. Whatever. You know you can’t win with him. I promise you though, I will be there before Christmas, I promise, I promise. Oh, you gotta know I love you daddy. You gotta know. Take care! Tell Anna I said hello!”
   And as she hung up, Edgar could hear her muttering, “stupid, stupid, why did you say that? Stupid!”