Von Lagerhaus

Wine Flash PressFairfax, Virginia

COYRIGHTS AND NOTICES

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

VON LAGERHAUS. Copyright © 2011 by Dave DiGrazie. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Wine Flash Press, P.O. Box 2112, Fairfax, Virginia 22031.

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Cover photo, Down the Middle by Andy Larsen. Used by permission. Check out Andy’s wonderful photography at andrewlarsenphotography.com.

This book will be available in paperback form at many fine book retailers in late November, 2011.

Dedication

To Lora, Jessie and A.J.: The three people I most closely walk with through the woods.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Author's Note

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

About Dave DiGrazie

See John Play - April 2012!

Check out Dave Online

Acknowledgements

Releasing my first novel is like welcoming you aboard the maiden voyage of my very own cruise ship. I’ve never built one before; I’ve sweated the details, and I’ve gotten lots of help. Now, I want you to sign up for the trip, and I want to take you to a lot of awesome, memorable places and show you a good time. I don’t want to lose any of you during the voyage! And I want you to look forward to the next cruise I organize.

If this ship you’re holding in your hands takes you to enough interesting destinations that you’ll want to read my next novel, a lot of people deserve mention for their part in the success. I’ve been fortunate to have the support of great critique groups and individual writers who’ve given me their time, energy, and the occasional rebuke that makes me stronger: Many of these people are better writers than I, and you should be on the lookout for them. Alphabetically: Beth Albright, Carrie Callaghan, Jan Cincotta, RaeLynn Fry, Tim Grove, Shannon Hamblin, Chris Joyce, Michelle Lerner, Joe O’Brien, Andrea Pawley, Joanne Redmond, Gina Sangster, David Swinson, Clint Talbert, Kurt Thurber, Diana Veiga, Beth Wenger, and David Woodard.

Editor Laura Kelly and her New York team get a shout-out for their patient, caring and yet honest handling of me and my manuscript. I’d be remiss to leave out the late, great Jeanne Leiby, former editor-in-chief of The Southern Review, who read a good chunk of the manuscript and took me seriously at a conference where we met. Her enthusiastic support meant tons. Jeanne, I hope you’re looking on from heaven, smiling.

My wife and kids, to whom this book is dedicated, get credit for encouraging and putting up with me. Rock on, DiGrazie clan!

Did I miss anyone? Probably so – and well, that figures. I’m forever the absent minded professor. Let me know I’ve left you off; and if you can get to the little slice of heaven I call home, I’ll make it up to you with a homemade pizza and a beverage of some type.

Author’s Note

Dear Reader,

Don’t try to learn anything from me! If it’s truth you’re after, better books have been written. A special aside to those who know me well: I will not try to defend anything I’ve written here. I have beliefs, to be sure, and among those beliefs is this: There’s an awful lot about the universe I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

And now I invite you to turn the page and check out what happened once upon a time to a gaggle of people I invented and then placed in a world I imagined was real.

Dave DiGrazie

August, 2011

One

Rawanzel Johnson did not know where she was. She was shivering cold, in a pine forest, sitting on the shoulder of a two-lane road. It was drizzling and gray, yet the air smelled so suddenly fresh that it hit her like a whiff of ammonia. There were no cars and no engine sounds.

A moment earlier, she had been sitting, shaking, on a cheap folding chair in what used to be the dining room of a run-down two-story wooden frame house on Buffalo’s lower West Side. From the street, the house looked vacant. But Rawanzel knew who was at home.

She was no stranger to the rooms upstairs, the ones with stained mattresses on the grimy old hardwood floors, where she worked for the money needed to feed her habit. She could remember details about the patterns of chipping paint on the walls of the room on the main level, where she’d cook up her fix and put it into her body. She told herself that the work she did in this place was necessary, reminding herself that if there was any money left over she must go to buy some McDonald’s for her almost eight-year-old daughter. And her six-year-old daughter. And her four-year-old son. But that was before the witch from Social Services came with two cops and took her kids away a few days back.

Rawanzel wanted to do better. But responsibility always took a back seat to the wild bodily craving that threw her mind into havoc when it missed that chemical: Bodily craving that overruled common sense and became a common sense of its own.

Before, she wrestled with guilt over not feeding the kids better, for letting them fend for themselves too often. But this last time she already felt the horror and the seeming finality of having the kids taken from her. This last time, she needed to fly away. Old Joe’s money would be her ticket. He’d want to party, and she would do whatever was needed to get as much of his money as she could. When that unpleasant chore was finished, she would get higher than she’d ever been before, and feel as mighty as the crack would let her feel. Then, if the drug let her come back to earth, she’d try to stop. This would be the grand finale. Yes, she had told herself that before. But this time she really meant it.

It all had gone according to plan. She felt the power, felt the love, heard herself talking to the others, and felt herself being listened to. So she prepared the next rock and re-loaded herself. That’s when the icy coldness started, and the shaking. Then, in an eye blink, she wasn’t in the house anymore.

Karen Dawson was tired, late, and trying to beat a stale green light after stopping at the supermarket on the way back from the studio to pick up a few things for Jeff and the kids. The light turned yellow a hundred feet ahead, and Karen hit the accelerator because she knew it was a long yellow. She saw a flash of chrome, two eyes of halogen, up and to the left, where she didn’t expect them. She did hear the beginnings of a tire screech, and it did make the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

She did hear herself say, Shit.

Karen had a charmed life, her friends all said. A pageant winner – well, that was sixteen years earlier – before she met Jeff, the wild biker dude/rugby star/land developer who sported a rabblerousing rap sheet with various local police departments. But she tamed him, and together with him created three children that the couple was sending to the best private schools in Raleigh. Over the years, Jeff’s actions disproved the initial concerns of her well-intended friends. He became a loyal, generous husband even if their careers – she got back into television when the twins started kindergarten – kept them from sharing as many moonlit dinners on their back deck as she’d have liked.

Karen catered her own parties at their large home in tony Wake Forest Village. Her kids’ clothes were always clean and pressed and smelled nice and fresh; and she was gaining a reputation for her artwork in stained glass. Working in television again meant she recently had to cut back to teaching only one aerobics class per week, but to know her, her friends said, was to be a bit awestruck at how put together her entire life seemed to be.

Then she was no longer in her car. She was sitting on the side of the road. She noticed that everything was wet, it was suddenly daylight but the sky was gray, and that she was chilly, way too chilly for Wake Forest, North Carolina in early June. Wherever she looked, nothing but pine trees, rain, and the empty, unfamiliar road she sat on. Oh, and a black travel bag next to her that she did not recognize as hers.

Aha! Her cell phone was in her pocket. She jumped up and retrieved it. It told her the time was 2:36 PM. No, she thought, it was already past the kids' bedtime. And she had no reception. No Service, read the message at the top of the display.

Shit, she repeated.

Rawanzel began to walk toward a small yellowish light off to the side of the road that flickered in and out of view through the tree branches. Within a couple of minutes she was close enough to see a brown door next to the light, and then, as she continued, she saw that the door belonged to a little gray cottage. The cottage might have been another three minutes away. There were no other signs of civilization. It made sense to walk toward the light.

Hey!

Rawanzel turned back in the direction of the word.

Hey! the voice sounded again. A human figure waved at her. A woman, Rawanzel could tell. She waited, and the woman got bigger. The woman began to jog toward her, and the woman’s features became more distinguishable. A blonde white woman. Sort of tall. Youngish. Looked safe.

Hi. Where are we? said the woman as she got closer. She was wearing a corduroy jacket and carrying a black leather bag.

Rawanzel didn’t say anything.

The woman was now standing just a few paces away. Excuse me, but where are we?

You don’t know, Rawanzel stuttered. They each took another step toward each other.

You mean, you don’t know either? Rawanzel heard desperation in the white woman’s voice.

N-no. I – I don’t know how I even got here. Rawanzel felt her own words as though they were aliens escaping from within. I – I’m cold.

The white woman set the bag down on the damp ground, and pulled out a dark green jacket with a wool lining.

Well this is for you, I think… I already got mine. The white woman indicated her own jacket. She spoke in a deeper, more self-assured voice. Like she was some sort of announcer, or teacher.

She held out the jacket, and Rawanzel accepted it with a blank expression and a mumbled, Thanks.

You think we should go knock? the white woman asked, pointing toward the cottage.

Who are you? What is this? Rawanzel’s mind flashed to the crack house for an instant. She was there again, quite vividly. Someone was holding her in their arms, repeating something about please keep breathing. She felt fresh bewilderment.

Who are you? she repeated to the white woman. An angel or a demon?

I’m – I’m just a person, the white woman replied. A freaked-out person. No, a very freaked-out person.

You too.

Yeah. I popped into this place maybe fifteen minutes ago. Been walking alone, and you’re the first person I’ve seen. I was hoping you could tell me whether we’re still in North Carolina or if –

Rawanzel looked into the white woman’s face. They were not avoiding each other’s eyebeams.

Shit, the white woman whispered.

Oh, Lord, Rawanzel mumbled. The white woman was just as clueless as she was.

Holy shit, the white woman said again, a little louder.

In another moment, they were embracing each other.

We’re lost, we’re lost, cried Rawanzel into the white woman’s corduroy jacket. I knew I was bein’ bad, but I couldn’t help it. I was just tryin’ to get through one day to the next.

They held each other tight for a half a minute, the white woman’s arms embracing Rawanzel’s scrawn, Rawanzel’s hands locking around the white woman’s more stylish torso. The white woman’s body heat helped Rawanzel to collect herself a little. Then they were looking again into each other’s faces.

My name’s Rawanzel, but I go by Wanza. You?

I’m Karen, and they call me Karen. Then she pointed at the little cottage down the road. Light’s on. Think we should check it out?

Yeah, but we don’t know who’s inside, Rawanzel said. What kind of people they might be.

I'm scared, but maybe my Jeff's inside. Or someone kind who'll help us figure things out.

Or force themselves on us, Rawanzel said.

Let me just try this one more time. The white woman took her cell phone out and looked at it.

Shit, she said, looking at Rawanzel. Wherever we are, there's no reception. Guess we'll take a chance on who's inside.

They were walking together toward the door and the small electric light that hung near it. There was no doorbell, so Karen knocked. There was a white, letter-sized envelope on the ground; it was a bit soiled. Rawanzel stooped to pick it up, sighing as she did. She began to open it. Karen knocked on the door again, this time more energetically.

Look at this! Rawanzel thrust a paper in front of Karen’s face. Karen read aloud a note that was scripted in elegant handwriting:

Welcome.

I have been anxiously waiting to see you. Understand that this is not the place where we will meet and there is nothing for you inside this little house. You must walk up the hill on the road out front. I trust that you will know what to do as you continue to walk.

Things will get better.

I am, in anticipation,

G. Von Lagerhaus

The women looked at the note, then at each other, then at the note again. A raindrop hit the paper and smudged a couple of the words, then Karen folded it and put it in her pocket.

It’s like a different world. How did we get – why are we here? Rawanzel was looking intently at the woman – Karen – as she talked.

I was driving home with groceries, and the signal, it turned yellow and I tried to beat it, and – Karen’s voice died, then revived again. What were you doing before you found yourself in this place?

I was over on Plymouth Avenue, getting…um…never mind. Rawanzel seemed to deflate just a bit. Karen touched her.

Wanza. That’s a neat name. Reminds me of ‘Kwanzaa.’ Do you celebrate Kwanzaa?

Oh, okay. Let loose on me with your fool stereotypes –

Sorry. I just – Karen sighed.

Rawanzel glared. No fool white woman was going to Kwanzify her.

So, the note tells us to walk, Karen said. It’s a miserable day to be walking.

You got that right. And my feet are sore.

And I wish for walking shoes, Karen said. But maybe we should do what the note says. We’ve at least got each other for company.

Rawanzel nodded wryly. They walked back to the road and continued in the same direction they had been walking. Slightly uphill.

If we see a car or anything, we should flag them down, Karen said.

I haven’t seen a car at all, have you?

No.

The road had little bends where the slope got more severe. It might not have been such a bad walk except for the chilly rain, and the ill-suited footwear. Rawanzel’s feet squished uncomfortably in her flimsy, poor-fitting shoes, and they were getting numb. Ten minutes passed. Rawanzel imagined that she was going to start bleeding soon. She noticed that she was beginning to wince with each landing of her left foot.

I’m sorry, but I gotta stop. Her speech revealed that she was a bit winded. My legs and my feet, they’re sore. These shoes suck, and I don’t usually walk this much.

Oh, sure. Karen smiled. Let’s stop and rest. There’s a log there. She paused. We can sit, and talk. Doesn’t seem to be any deadline to get to wherever it is we’re supposed to be going.

Karen opened the black travel bag. Let’s see. she fumbled around inside the bag, and her hand re-emerged with two objects.

You hungry, Wanza?

Yes. And cold. Mostly just cold. And damn, my feet are sore.

Well, do you like granola?

I guess. But a candy bar would really be nice. Chocolate.

Let me see. I’m not sure what’s in this bag, I didn’t pack it, you know… I found it on the side of the road right after I popped into this place. But I pulled both our jackets out of here, so… Karen looked inside and felt around.

Look at that. She pulled something out of the bag and started reading off of it. Milk chocolate with a soft, buttery center, the wrapper says – here you are. Karen held the thing in front of Rawanzel.

Rawanzel recognized it instantly. That’s my favorite. Yeah, I’ll take it.

She was ripping away the paper, already taking her first bite. Comfort. For a few seconds. Then she stopped chewing and looked at the two thirds of a candy bar still between her fingers.

If I’m not dead and you aren’t my guardian angel, than just who are you? Rawanzel kept her gaze on the candy.

Jeff calls me his angel. Jeff’s my husband. Karen fell silent and Rawanzel saw her contemplating her granola bar, which she hadn’t even begun.

So you’ve got a husband? You miss him?

Karen sighed. "Miss him? Just saw them all this morning, but yeah, suddenly I miss my whole family. My family. My life. Shit. I’ve got twin girls, seventh graders. And a boy, Jerry. Short for Jeremiah. Sophomore in high school. They need me. I need them. And I think they’re all so far away now. Just all of