Chapter 26 The Art of Crochet
Jonathan Bartlett sat at the table in the high school teachers’ lounge, sipping his fourth cup of coffee and scrolling through Facebook. Since the town’s newspaper had gone belly up three years earlier, Facebook was Troy’s sole source of local news—if that’s what you wanted to call the gossip, hearsay, wild speculation, conspiracy theories, and general insanity that Jonathan’s neighbors tossed with their fact salads. You had to know a person’s political leanings, astrological signs, and pharmaceutical history if you wanted to interpret their “news” correctly. Sorting the facts from the fiction was exhausting, confusing, and occasionally hilarious. Like the time Viola Lewis was discovered wandering the beer aisle at Walmart in a thong at six in the morning. Soon the whole town was captivated by a detailed account of her alien abduction. It wasn’t till days later that her sister, Violet, popped into the comments to report that Viola had misread the dosage on her Ambien prescription.
It got worse than that, of course. Seemed like somebody was always being accused of Satanism or sleeping around. As a teacher, Jonathan pitied any historian who might one day try to make sense of it all. But like everyone in Troy, he was hooked. Feeling like a junkie, Jonathan refreshed his feed. The talk today was about Logan Walsh. Melody Sykes had just posted a clip from Channel Four.
Reports of Walsh’s involvement with a local white nationalist group have not been confirmed and no evidence of any such affiliation was uncovered during a search of his home. Nathan Dugan, a forty-year-old Troy resident whose neo-Nazi sympathies were revealed earlier this spring, was known to many as Walsh’s mentor. Reached in San Antonio, where he has been staying with his mother, Dugan told reporters that he believed Walsh was struggling with his sexuality. News Channel Four has not been able to confirm or deny that Walsh was gay. We have, however, confirmed that a copy of TheCatcher in the Rye was found in his home. As you may recall, John Hinckley was carrying the same book the day he attempted to assassinate President Reagan. Walsh appears to have attempted to hide the book’s title by wrapping it in the cover of Manhood by Senator Josh Hawley.
Do y’all need any more proof that these gay books are dangerous!!!!Lula had commented below.
Manhood. Jonathan had recently come across a book with that cover. He could see the red and white letters on a red background—and the name of the senator (an Ivy League graduate with a three-hundred-dollar haircut and bespoke suits) who’d written it. Though it wasn’t the kind of book that would ordinarily catch his eye, Jonathan knew exactly where he’d seen it. Lula Dean’s purple library.
Jonathan set his phone down on the table. He closed his eyes, touched his middle fingers to his thumbs, and began the breathing exercises his therapist had taught him. He needed to calm the hell down. His blood pressure had just shot so high he was watching fireworks on the backs of his eyelids. It was only twelve-thirty and school wasn’t over until three. There were still two and a half hours left before he was free to murder Lula Dean.
For the past two years, it had taken a monumental show of self-restraint to keep Lula’s (mostly metaphorical) blood off his hands. Jonathan crossed the street when he saw her coming. He turned off the TV whenever Lula showed up on the news. He did give in to temptation one night and drive around collecting lawn signs for her mayoral campaign. He’d taken them home, shot them up with a pellet gun, and set them all ablaze. But so far, that was the worst he’d done.
Sometimes he lay asleep at night, dreaming up horrible fates for her. Eaten by feral hogs was a personal favorite. So was tying her to a bedbug-ridden mattress and watching her slowly sucked dry until there was nothing left but a withered, desiccated husk. Others were a little less fanciful and a few didn’t even involve murder. But none of them could be seen through to fruition because he’d promised Elliot he wouldn’t.
Elliot Minter was Jonathan’s best friend. For years, they’d lived just down the street from each other. They worked at the same school, where Jonathan taught American and European history and Elliot was the beloved musical director. They ate lunch together. They celebrated Christmas at each other’s homes. Every Tuesday night, they played Dungeons Dragons. And after Jonathan’s wife died of cancer at age thirty-eight, Elliot Minter kept Jonathan alive.
During the months when Jonathan couldn’t find the will to live, Elliot let himself in every morning to make coffee and lure Jonathan out of bed. He made sure Jonathan wore clean clothes and drove him to work. In the evening, Elliot cooked them both dinner. For half a year, Elliot sacrificed his personal life. He kept Jonathan going until he was able to function on his own.
Elliot was a saint. Lula Dean would rot in hell for what she’d done to him.
Everyone in Troy knew Elliot was gay. He didn’t discuss it with most people—because who the hell discusses their private life with a bunch of gossips they barely know? But it wasn’t a secret and Elliot certainly wasn’t ashamed. Under his direction, the music department put on two musicals every year—a feat few heterosexuals could have ever accomplished.
Then, ten years into Elliot’s tenure at Troy High School, an email arrived in the principal’s inbox. Attached were two pictures of the musical director kissing a handsome, leather-clad man outside a gay bar in Atlanta at three o’clock in the morning. Elliot Minter is grooming innocent young people to be perverted and promiscuous, said the note that accompanied the images. The email had been sent from an anonymous address. Later that day, having received no response, the note and pictures began popping up in people’s Facebook feeds from an account called Protectors of the Innocent. Most of the early comments were from women gushing over Elliot’s incredibly hot lover. Then Nathan Dugan and a couple of other bigots picked up the story and ran with it.
I do not want this pedo anywhere near my son, Nathan wrote.
“Pedo?” Elliot had come carefully to Jonathan’s house to strategize over gin and tonics. “The guy I’m kissing in the photos is three years older than me. For fuck’s sake, he’s in finance.”
Is this the lifestyle a high school teacher should be living?Melody Sykes asked, phrasing her comment as a question so she couldn’t be called out if the situation ended up going the other way.
“What the hell is this lifestyle she’s talking about?” Elliot asked. “I was kissing a hedge fund bro. We weren’t renovating a historic bed-and-breakfast.”
“Nobody’s asking why the person sending the pictures was outside a gay bar at three in the morning,” Jonathan pointed out. He’d assumed the stalker’s identity was as much a mystery to Elliot as anyone else at that point.
“It was Lula Dean,” Elliot announced flatly.
“Lula Dean?” Jonathan repeated. “That prissy woman with the little white dog and orange hair?” At that point, Lula hadn’t found the dirty cake book that would lead her to fame. “How the hell did you reach that conclusion?”
“I know who she was there to see that night.” After he told Jonathan the truth—and shared a few pictures—he swore him to secrecy.
“Come on. Those pictures are amazing. You should post them,” Jonathan advised.
“No, I shouldn’t.” Elliot was adamant. “I promised I wouldn’t, and I have no interest in being as awful as she is. And please tell me you won’t say anything, either. Hopefully this will all pass in time.”
It took a couple of weeks for the hysteria to build—for harmless stories to be embellished until they were nothing but blatant lies. A video of Elliot showing the cast of his production of Chicago how to do a Fosse hip roll was posted online, along with a note of encouragement—You were fabulous today, dahling!—that Elliot had given a sophomore boy. When the school’s musical-theater students rallied around Elliot, a group of parents claimed it proved their kids had been brainwashed. Led by Beverly Underwood, the school board came to Elliot’s defense and refused to reprimand him. But the damage was done. Elliot’s private life was suddenly public. Even a trip to the Piggly Wiggly could be an ordeal. Once, the mother of a high school student had grabbed an egg carton out of his cart and smashed the contents with her fist.
“That’s what I’ll do to you if I ever catch you talking to Whitney,” she’d said.
“Okay,” Elliot responded. He had no idea who Whitney was. There had never been a girl by that name in his class.
When the school year ended, Elliot resigned. He left Troy, his dream job, and his best friend behind. And he was fine. He didn’t turn to drugs or plunge into the depths of depression. He got a new job in a part of the country where musical directors are assumed to be gay until proven otherwise. He had a nice boyfriend and a cute cat. His apartment was tasteful and located near a big park. But whenever he and Jonathan spoke on the phone, it was clear Elliot was not the same person. He’d lost something that no one should have to lose. No, that wasn’t right, Jonathan had to remind himself. Elliot Minter hadn’t lost anything. His peace of mind, his sense of safety, his belief that most people were good at heart—whatever it was that was no longer there—had been stolen by Lula Dean.
When the three o’clock bell rang, Jonathan strapped his messenger bag across his chest and rode the wave of rowdy kids out of the school and into the parking lot. He left his car sitting in its spot. His brain was still buzzing with anger, and he needed to walk.
His destination lay on the other side of town. Along the way, he passed Troy’s elementary school, which had let out thirty minutes earlier. A woman rushing down the front stairs nearly barreled into him. There was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“Jonathan!”
He stopped and squirmed. “Sorry, I—”
“It’s Crystal. Crystal Moore? You and I met at Elliot Minter’s house a few times.”
There had to be a glitch in the matrix. This was not the Crystal Moore he’d met. That woman wore ballet flats and knee-length skirts. He couldn’t remember the color of her hair, but she’d kept it pulled back in a butterfly barrette. This was a black-clad, auburn-haired goddess with a crescent moon pendant dangling from a golden chain around her neck.
“I know.” She filled in the silence when he found himself unable to speak. “I’ve changed since you last saw me. I had the world’s best midlife crisis.”
“Well, it certainly suits you,” Jonathan said. “You look happy and free. Which way are you heading?”
“Across town,” Crystal told him. “And you?”
“I’m going that way, too. Mind if I tag along?”
When his wife, Jess, was dying, she’d seen marvelous things. Visions of a past she’d never experienced, and a future she would never visit. On several occasions, Jonathan had entered her hospital room and found her deep in discussion with relatives and ancestors who’d long been dead. They told her things, Jess confided. Most of what she learned she kept to herself. Then, one day when he visited her in the hospital, Jess had announced there would be another woman in Jonathan’s life. She described her in detail, down to the color of her dress. Beaming with happiness, she took his hand and said she approved.
“No, you’re the only woman I love,” Jonathan had told her. “Nothing will ever change that.”
“You’ve let them tell you what love is.” Jess pulled him closer and whispered in his ear. “They have no idea.”
It wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. In fact, it all seemed so ridiculous that he began to question everything Jess had said after they added the palliative drugs to her IV. He knew his life would end when she died. He had no interest in surviving.
After her funeral, he told Elliot as much.
“Jess said you’d say that,” Elliot responded. “She had me promise I’d get you through.”
He’d made good on that promise. Thanks to Elliot, Jonathan was no longer in danger. But the idea of loving another woman still felt impossible. In the years since Jess had died, no one had caught his eye or captured his interest. Troy was hardly a bachelor’s paradise, and Jonathan had gotten used to the loneliness. The person Jess had seen was just a hallucination. This was the South, where ladies loved color. Jess had described a woman in black.
As they approached Lula Dean’s library, Jonathan slowed. “This is my destination,” he said, though he didn’t want the walk to end. Their conversation had felt effortless. His blood pressure had lowered, and his skull was no longer throbbing.
Crystal cocked her head and smiled, and for a moment he was worried she was judging him. “Mine, too,” she told him. “Have you visited before?” she asked cautiously.
“I’ve browsed the shelves, but I’ve never borrowed anything. But I remembered seeing a particular book, and I wanted to find out if it’s still here.”
“May I guess which book?” Crystal asked.
“Sure,” Jonathan replied.
“Was it Manhood?”
She knew. He could see it. They both turned in unison to face the little library. Their eyes scoured each of the shelves.
“Logan Walsh had a copy of TheCatcher in the Rye wrapped in the cover of Manhood—I’m pretty sure he got it from here,” Crystal said.
“TheCatcher in the Rye was on Lula’s banned book list.”
Crystal looked up at him. Her eyes were the turquoise of bubbling springs and hidden pools. How could he never have noticed before?
“I borrowed a book I thought was The Rules,” she said. “It turned out to be a banned book about witchcraft that was wrapped in the wrong cover.”
Jonathan reached into the library and pulled out The Art of Crochet. He opened it up to the title page and showed it to Crystal. “Look at this. Gender Queer. Literally, the most banned book in the United States.”
“I’ve read it. It’s very sweet,” Crystal said. “It’s hard to believe we live in a world where parents let their kids beat sex workers in Grand Theft Auto and then worry that a graphic novel about a nonbinary person is going to screw them up.”
“Do you think Lula did this?” Jonathan asked.
They both laughed at the question.
“Oh, hell no,” Crystal said. “Somebody pulled a prank.”
Jonathan smirked. “But it’s her library,” he pointed out.
Crystal caught on quickly. “Which means she’s responsible for what’s in it.”
“Exactly,” Jonathan said.
“A lot of people would think she was in league with Satan if they found out. It wouldn’t be very nice to expose her.”
“Lula was the reason Elliot had to leave town,” Jonathan said.
“I suspected as much,” Crystal told him. “That settles it. She deserves whatever she gets.”
That evening over multiple Negronis, Jonathan and Crystal composed a Facebook post.
“Should we create an anonymous account to post it?” Crystal asked when they were finished.
“No.” Jonathan was adamant. “We’ll use my account. I want her to know that I did it.”
Lula Dean says she started the Concerned Parents Committee to protect our town’s young people from pornography and propaganda. This morning, I am sad to report that Lula may be the biggest pervert of all. Just last night, I stopped by her library to borrow a wholesome book. I chose The Art of Crochet. When I opened it, I couldn’t believe my eyes! Inside that perfectly wholesome cover was the book Gender Queer. I can only imagine what might have happened if one of the sweet, innocent, impressionable teenagers I teach at Troy High had stumbled across a book about nonbinary people. Of course I immediately checked the other books in Lula’s library. Inside the wholesome covers were books about everything from CRT to witchcraft. What was Lula Dean thinking when she did this? When did she start hating children and set out to destroy our town?
They scheduled it to post the following day at 7 a.m.
The next morning, Jonathan woke to the smell of coffee for the first time in years. He could hear Crystal humming, her song growing louder as she approached the bedroom.
“It’s a beautiful day,” she said, handing him a cup of coffee and planting a kiss on his lips. “Check your phone. All hell is breaking loose.”