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Anything
You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You by Laurie Lynn Drummond Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Copped A debut book
by former police officer Laurie Lynn Drummond titled, Anything
You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You, collects ten short stories about
five Mango-colored sawdust
spits and floats, filling the air as George cuts deeper into a stubby limb on
the massive, twisted mulberry in my front yard. He has refused my offer of a
ladder, and so, as he reaches the chainsaw above his head, his navy
sweatshirt hikes up to reveal the gentle swell where back becomes buttocks
and dives into a dark inverted Y. I grin and look away. Although he is only fifty-nine, George
resembles an eighty-year-old walrus and moves as if his knees are permanently
fused. Every morning and every afternoon, he walks his ebony pug past my
house in a slow shuffle. I know he has a wife, though I’ve never seen her. I
kn0~ he’s retired, hut from what I can’t say for sure. “Lemme tell
you something,” he said by way of introduction several weeks after I’d moved
into the neighborhood. “I like most cops. You gotta
hard job. Most people don’t understand, but I do.” I’d thanked him politely, agreeing
silently that the job was hard, hut not in the way he might expect. “Nice work you’ve done here on this
house,” George had continued, barely stopping to take a wheezy breath. “Most
people don’t care. They’ll let everything go to hell, I can tell, you’re not
that kind of person.” He tucked in his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and
nodded, his jowls jiggling, as he took in my newly tilled garden, just washed
windows, recently edged grass. I squinted a little at my house, the yard, saw
it through his eyes, and
relaxed my shoulders, straightened my spine. Yes, I
thought, I’m not that kind of person. I’ve lived here five months now, and
I’ve learned that George likes to tell people something, sometimes several somethings, each time he sees them. Like this morning, for instance. “I’m gonna
tell you something, Liz. Now, I’m not telling you what to do, hut that
mulberry will rot if you don’t cut those limbs flush and paint ‘em. Simple thing, really. But your business is your
business.” The last wisps of his hair flip-flopped willy-nilly in the breeze. I’d nodded, looking at the tree,
thinking how Andy would have hated this kind of chore; we’d divorced just
before I joined the police department eight months ago. Maybe one of the guys
on my shift would lend me a chainsaw, show me how to use it. Or my sister’s husband, a man
who seemed born to hold a hammer and pound a nail. A chainsaw, a gun: What’s
the difference? They’re both just tools to be mastered. I’d flexed my
fingers, imagining the quivering machine clamped between my hands, the crisp,
cool cuts I would make, smoothing out the lines of the tree. A task that,
when finished, would actually show the effort. But George had other ideas, Despite my protests, he was hack in ten minutes with his chainsaw,
his whole body tense with delight. “At least show me how to do it, George,” I’d begged. He’d brushed off my request. “No need
for that,” he responded, a smile skittering quick as a mouse across his lips.
“My contribution to public service. This’ll he done right quick. Won’t take
but half an hour.” I relent, and he is happy. As he works, George tells me things.
Actually he tells me something for fifteen minutes, then cuts for five
minutes, then tells me something else for twenty minutes, and so on. I glance
at my watch, stifle a yawn. This is not going to be a right quick job. I have
to be on shift in less than two hours. He
tells me about the weed eater stolen from his driveway. “Hell, if they’d of
asked, I woulda given it to ‘em. But stealing. Sheesh.” He shakes his head in disgust. “But I don’t have
to tell you, Liz, do I?” And he fires up the chainsaw, cuts another limb. He
stares at the ground or the tree as he talks. He tells me about mowing the
lawns of three neighborhood widows, relates the deaths of their husbands:
heart attack, pancreatic cancer, Alzheimer’s. “Fine women, a real shame.”
About the history of his German chainsaw. “Don’t make ‘em
like this anymore. Never breaks, not like that stuff they sell you these
days, lemme tell you. People think they can save
money, buy something on the cheap, then it breaks on them six months later. Ha!” About the property he’s
bought outside I
don’t know whether he’s trying to get a rise out of me or whether he really
believes this, but I can’t let the comment pass. So I keep my tone neutral
and mention that I believe shooting somebody is a problem no matter where you
live, whether that somebody is stealing from you or not. His
lips fold inward, his jaw juts forward, and he glares at the police unit
parked in my driveway before he starts in on another limb high above his
head. The inverted Y appears again, a much deeper view. Swear to God, it’s
all I can do not to giggle. This will be a good story to tell the guys at
work. After
the limb thuds to the ground, he turns and looks me straight in the eye. “Lemme tell you something. I killed somebody once. Over in
“I’m
talking about putting a gun upside someone’s head and pulling the trigger. An
American. Army fellow like me,” His cheeks expand like a chipmunk, and he
expels a long breath. “Was raping a little Vietcong girl, no more than eleven
or twelve. Just a little girl that never did no harm to nobody.” His gaze
drifts away. “Couldn’t abide by that. So I killed him. And lemme tell you, I may have nightmares, hut I don’t
regret it.” George fires up the chainsaw, rises
back up on his toes. The blade bites into the limb, sawdust fills the air.
This time I don’t grin, and I don’t look away. I study the wide expanse of
his flesh, really study it, the ripples and hollows, the caterpillar trail of hair. I’m
startled by the sudden urge to reach out and gently pat his half-bare bottom. But I don’t. I just stand behind him,
sawdust floating around us like fireflies, taking it all in: that exposed flesh, the deep crack, our broken secret hearts. It’s
great to read a woman’s voice describing the difficult work women do in jobs
traditionally held by men. There was a lot of promise in Anything
You Say, but the reliance on horror and violence, and the weak writing
distracted this reader too much. Steve
Hopkins, September 25, 2004 |
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ã 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the October 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Anything
You Say.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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