Stella, Get Your Gun

I closed the door, leaned my head against the frame and sighed with relief and fatigue.

“That honey-and-vinegar thing,” I heard Jake say behind me, “you know, it works both ways.”

I closed my eyes, lifted my head a couple of inches and banged it slowly against the door frame. Why was that man still here? This was quickly followed by another thought. I turned around and faced Jake.

“Aunt Lucy said you were the one who found my uncle,” I said. “He was at your shop, wasn’t he?”

Jake nodded, waiting for me to continue.

“I know about the money he gave you, too,” I said.

I didn’t have to say another word. Jake’s eyes smoldered with barely suppressed rage. He knew where I was heading. He stared at me for one long moment, then turned away, disgust clearly written all over his face. I heard the sounds of his footsteps moving through the living room and into the narrow foyer hallway. A moment later I heard the soft slam of Aunt Lucy’s front door.

Chapter 5

I awoke the next morning in my old bed, surrounded by cabbage-rose wallpaper and the faint scent of cedar. For a moment I was disoriented. Nothing seemed familiar. As I stared around the room, my eyes brought the angled ceiling into focus, and I remembered everything with a skidding ache that seemed to drain the world of color and promise.

Lloyd was gone. The indentation at the foot of the bed where he’d slept was cool to the touch. I fumbled with my watch and saw that morning was quickly slipping away. The sound of murmured voices rose from the first floor as I headed into the bathroom. How had I managed to sleep for so long?

I hastily pulled on my jeans and T-shirt and started down the stairs. My body responded by sending out dual throbbing drumbeats of pain, one from my ankle and the other from my hungover head.

“Idiot,” I muttered to myself. I eased slowly down the steps, listening to the sound of Aunt Lucy’s voice growing louder as I approached the first floor. She was in the kitchen talking to someone.

“I know you’re inside that dog,” she said. “There’s no sense trying to hide from me. I’m a big girl and I can handle change.”

I reached the doorway just as Aunt Lucy turned away from the stove, a plate of eggs and bacon in her hand. Her white curls stood out like runaway corkscrews. She was wearing a faded pink floral housecoat, fluffy pink bunny slippers and a blue silk scarf knotted like a bandit’s mask around her neck.

Lloyd the dog sat at the kitchen table wearing one of my uncle’s fishing hats. When I stepped into the room he looked up at me and sighed. He was probably thinking I’d arrived to rescue him, but was ambivalent because Aunt Lucy was approaching him with the plate of food.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What’s Lloyd doing wearing Uncle Benny’s hat?”

Aunt Lucy put the plate down in front of Lloyd and beamed up at me. “Well, honey, maybe you’d better have a cup of coffee first.” She peered at me, stepping closer and sniffing suspiciously. “And a couple of aspirin, too, I’ll wager. You got into the liquor cabinet last night, didn’t you?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She was back at the stove, opening a cabinet and reaching for the pill bottle.

“Yep, your uncle here was bad to drink now and again, weren’t you, honey?” she said.

Her back was to us, so I figured I’d misheard her. I looked over at Lloyd. Aunt Lucy had put the Yellow Pages on the kitchen chair so Lloyd could reach the table at a proper height. He sat there, his shaggy black-and-white spotted fur gleaming in the brightly lit kitchen, wearing Uncle Benny’s hat without complaint and wolfing down the plate of eggs as fast as he could go. After all, it wasn’t every day a dog got this kind of treatment.

Lloyd looked up and met my gaze for a fraction of a second. He was grinning.

“Aunt Lucy, Lloyd doesn’t need to sit up at the table. He’s fine to eat from the floor. In fact, I’m gonna run out and get him some dog food in just a little bit—”

Aunt Lucy interrupted me. “No! Don’t do that! Don’t you know anything?”

She stomped over and placed a thick mug filled to the brim with coffee in front of me. The coffee sloshed, spilling onto the table, but Aunt Lucy didn’t notice. She was gazing at Lloyd with a fond, loving expression on her face.

“Aunt Lucy, that’s Lloyd. He’s my dog, remember?”

I said the words slowly, making sure they had time to sink in just in case she needed a new prescription for her glasses.

Aunt Lucy leaned over and patted me on the back. “That’s what they’d have us think,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “But I know better, and so do you.”

She slipped into a chair beside Lloyd and stroked one of his paws. Lloyd growled softly, afraid she was going to undo his sudden good fortune.

“Oh, you poor, dear sweetie,” she said with a light giggle. “You always did like your food, now, didn’t you?”

Her face clouded over for a second. “You know, that was part of your problem. You ate all those things that weren’t good for you, like Vienna sausage and potted meat.” She gripped Lloyd’s paw a little tighter and stared right into his big, brown doggie eyes. “That’s turkey bacon you’re eating, you know,” she said. “You can’t even tell the difference, can you?”

I took a long pull on my coffee and tried to figure out an approach to dealing with Aunt Lucy. Surely to goodness, Glenn Ford had grown enough to include at least one psychiatrist.

“Yep,” I said as I leaned back in my chair and stretched, attempting to appear very casual about Aunt Lucy’s sudden departure from reality. “Old Lloyd’s a good dog.”

I stressed the word dog. Aunt Lucy turned away from Lloyd for a second and focused on me.

“Let’s not be too concrete,” she said, her voice tightening. “Do you or do you not believe in reincarnation?”

My head was pounding. This was going to be another long day.

“Well, I, um, I guess I never really gave it too much thought, Aunt Lucy. You know, with us being Catholic, I sort of figured the Blessed Virgin story was enough to handle without actually venturing into the afterlife and all.”

Aunt Lucy released Lloyd’s paw and brought both hands down hard on the table. “Horse pucky!” she said in a loud, firm tone.

“Horse pucky, the part about the Blessed Virgin?” I asked, knowing with a certainty that this was not at all what she meant.

“Stella Luna Maria Valocchi,” Aunt Lucy said, “you know exactly what I mean! Wake up and smell the coffee! This is the twenty-first century. Get with the program!” Aunt Lucy gestured in Lloyd’s direction. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who that is! Look in his eyes and tell me that isn’t your uncle Benny.”

Aunt Lucy sighed and reached for Lloyd’s paw again. He was finished eating, so he licked her fingers, either thanking her or looking for forgotten food morsels. To Aunt Lucy it was a sign from the great beyond.

“You see!” she cried triumphantly. “He always kissed me after he ate!”

Behind us someone snorted softly. Nina, her hair looking exactly as it had yesterday, wild and unkempt, stood framed in the doorway. Her mascara was smeared into raccoon rings of thick black around her bloodshot blue eyes, giving her a decidedly dangerous appearance.

“You see?” she muttered as she passed behind my chair on her way to the coffee pot. “Like a loon.”

I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes. Clearly I had done something terrible to piss God off to this extent. What other reason could there be for leaving me here in my aunt’s kitchen, the sudden defender of the Catholic faith?

“Well, Aunt Lucy,” I began, “I don’t know about the afterlife. I mean, I don’t think none of us can say for certain what happens, but I’ve known Lloyd for about a year now, and in all that time, he’s always been a dog.”

Nina had poured her coffee and was leaning against the counter, just out of Aunt Lucy’s sight, rolling her eyes. Lloyd moaned softly and let loose with a thick doggie belch.

“You see?” Aunt Lucy said. “Benny always had the heartburn.”

Nina was shaking her head and making circular coo-coo motions with her left index finger. I ignored her and turned my attention back to Aunt Lucy’s mental status. Aunt Lucy could not be crazy, at least not permanently.

“You know,” I said, ready to try again, “I don’t think Uncle Benny would come back so quick. I mean, isn’t there some sort of waiting period, like an orientation process? Besides, Lloyd has his own soul. What would happen to it if Uncle Benny took over? Don’t they reincarnate you into a new body, you know, so you start with a clean slate?”

Aunt Lucy frowned, then with a sudden quick motion, reached across the table and slapped me upside my head.