Anemone

By Jim Frazee

After his failed rescue of his brother Wyatt in a suspicious house fire, sixteen-year-old Russell Cobb wakes up from a coma, strangely mistaken for him and thrust into the middle of an arson investigation. Russell's only hope, before his bandages come off, is to deduce the likeliest suspect in his troubled past or risk being charged with homicide. In view of his brother's death, he begins to see his family, Wyatt's enigmatic girlfriend Edie, and a school gang in a darker light, colored by deceit and possibly his own paranoia, until Edie turns the tables, tying his brother to an unimaginable crime.

 

Set against the idyllic backdrop of Aqua Verde, a mid-60s California beach town, ANEMONE addresses society at a moral crossroads when what went on behind closed doors was nobody's business. Russell flees to a condemned seaside hotel where he joins a draft-dodging surfer, and later, a fugitive Edie, with whom he falls in love. Through a tangle of twists and traumatic revelations, and mentored by the surfer, Russell discovers more than he could have bargained for about her, his family, and the real target of the fire.

 

Brutal, gripping, and tragic, ANEMONE is a coming-of-age tale that deals with issues still relevant today. At its core is betrayal, emotional survival, and revenge within two ordinary families whose misdeeds bring about a reckoning from which no one emerges unscathed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Frazee
• Release date: Mar 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224503346

Book preview

PART ONE

ONE

1967

With a sleight of hand all his own, Frank clinked open his Navy Zippo so that the flame rose magically at his cigarette, and this time over the dining room table a pillowy smoke ring broke up into a hazy question mark. For most of their youth, the party trick had been harmless, but in recent years Wyatt and Russell had begun to watch it with trepidation, as it preceded either a warning to keep on their toes or of impending doom. While Frank had been airborne, the boys failed to spot a smoldering ember during a Santa Ana, resulting in minor property damage. By chance after work, their mother Marion had extinguished a spot fire that had charred the garage side wall. If you aren’t vigilant, went Frank’s subsequent diatribe, a single cat’s eye taken up by wind could wipe out a town like Aqua Verde faster than they could recite the Pledge of Allegiance. What a blaze failed to consume, it changed forever. Today, in a twist, their father’s lesson didn’t involve corporal punishment because its subject was neither their negligence nor their behavior, but rather overwhelming force out at sea. The stratagem of deception as surprise. Firepower.

The boys didn’t blink as he camped it up over breakfast, relaying hush-hush intelligence about naval maneuvers at 21-hundred hours that night, briefing gouge he called it. A Korean War decorated vet and former flight trainer at NAS Miramar, Francis Xavier Cobb always prided himself as a pilot before Pontius, true-blue and formidable and lightning fast, and hadn’t quite let go of the chest-candy swagger typical of a Fightertown officer. The action, he said, would stretch from La Jolla to Aqua Verde to San Clemente Island, and you didn’t hear it from me.

During the gouge, Russell stole glances at Wyatt in case he might lower his guard about Edie, his girlfriend gone missing, but there was nothing more there than his sleepy-eyed, cow-licked stare at the dissipating question mark. In the past week, a grayish-white pallor had come over him, and his skin seemed tighter at the jaw and cheekbones. His arms hung at his sides.

... so either you move like the wind and attack like fire or you’ll eat the old soup sandwich, Frank concluded, and stopped his Timex watch, worn inside of his wrist since joining the Navy as a teenager. Okay, swabbies. Synchronize at 7:17.

Russell set the hacking seconds on his own Timex, a military-issue watch with a black 24-hour dial, luminescent arrow hands and a stainless-steel case. Not quite tall at sixteen, almost a dead ringer for Wyatt and sleek-limbed from watersports, he kept his sandy hair neat, as Frank insisted, and his full brows helped shield the fact that he found it hard to look anyone in the eye. Out of habit he stared downward in conversation. Or he might make a joke, laugh at it too quickly, redden, and retreat behind a wince.

Wyatt! Frank said, and snapped his fingers inches from Wyatt’s nose, startling him. Synchronize...

Oh, I... forgot mine, but I’ll be there, Wyatt said.

Frank frowned. All right, later then.

That leeway for Wyatt came as no surprise. Russell had wised up enough to button his lip and not chafe anymore about it.

After Marion came out in her freshly pressed postal uniform, said goodbye to the boys, and left for work with Frank, Russell ventured into his brother’s room, closest to the garage. Wyatt hunched over his desk. On an inverted plastic desk pad, all his fingers were splayed, and he was stabbing a jackknife between them in a game of Five Finger Fillet.

Russell had never understood the point of that pastime. Got a second?

Not for you, he said. If not for the fact that he was two years older and a bit stockier than Russell, they might have been twins. Concealment was wholly Wyatt’s gift, from his part in a local gang to the hostility that had grown inside him since his mid-teens. He often targeted Russell, as though angry they were brothers.

Edie, he said, matter-of-factly. He was used to the tiny slits in the desk pad. I haven’t seen her all week. Is she sick or something? He had cased her house the night before, and still disturbed by his discovery, he couldn’t mention it yet without playing his hand. Well?

Got me, he said, the jabs speeding up.

Is she... hurt? he asked, fearing the answer. 

The knife stalled in mid-air. Why would she be?

I don’t know. Something’s... not right.

He continued, narrowly missing fingers. Way of the world, dummy.

This time, he wouldn’t let that stand. Stop calling me...

Are you even aware that everyone thinks you’re a spaz?

He blushed, cleared his throat. Not... everyone, he said, and stepped closer.

Get lost, jerk-off, Wyatt said, and nicked his little finger. Shit. A little blood wasn’t reason enough to stop. His fingers spread wider. The knife, precise. 

She doesn’t have one of those, does she?

Wyatt sniffed. She’s a pussy. Couldn’t hurt a flea. She’d ask someone else... He swiveled around. What the fuck you looking at?

Nothing. I’m looking at... nothing.

Wyatt’s gaze fell to the Timex, identical to his own. Give it to me.

What? 

I’ll get the belt if I don’t find mine and...

Have you done something to her?

The knife struck the writing block and stood handle-up and his left arm swept at Russell’s watch, though not fast enough. Wyatt leaned back and cackled, the same sound as when he wadded up cellophane from a pack of cigarettes. What makes you think that?

For what you think she did with me.

Anemone, you haven’t got a clue. Give me the watch, now.

Not till you answer me.

Out of patience, Wyatt lunged and tore off the Timex without any resistance.

*

Before school, in his newly purchased used van, Bart Pangborn swung by the house and Russell, as usual, wedged a wood chock under his door. Pangborn, beefy as a wild boar and randomly cruel after an early-teen stint in juvenile hall, ran the Holy Ghosts gang at St. Ignatius Academy, of which Wyatt was a member. In exchange for secret-policing student conduct and efforts that fell short of the mark, they were given wiggle room on grades by the nuns who turned a blind-eye to their punishments, some of which could spiral out of control. While Russell was spared the push from the second floor into a dumpster, the baseball bat into genitals, and the cigarettes put out in arm pits, he had been a victim of the Bloody Mary. On the way out, Wyatt blabbed to Pangborn about the naval maneuvers, which was no surprise.

All day through classes, Russell fought off a cool sweat over his confiscated watch. Forgetfully, he checked his wrist for the time, only for the theft to sucker punch him. Excuses he dreamed up, each more dog-ate-my-homework outlandish, were bound to invigorate the slashes of Frank’s belt. Wyatt’s deception was foolproof. Safely, the Russell – 16th birthday watch inscription was hidden against his wrist. While Russell hadn’t once seen his brother’s engraving, he assumed it matched his own. His only recourse was to search the house for Wyatt’s watch before the others came home.

Again, Edie hadn’t shown up to class. Other students were used to her absences and took them for granted, not Russell. For the umpteenth time, her empty desk drew him in. Why had recently been cut into it. Did I really see that last night in her bedroom, or is my crush so bad that I’m imagining it all? For the final time he roused the nerve to approach Sister Pierre Hache about her and was told again to mind his own business. He bowed to authority, but her coldness eased his mind over ditching the last class.

At home, he started his search in Wyatt’s bedroom, taking care to leave everything in its place. Hopefully something might emerge about Edie, too. A good hour of rifling the desk, dresser, and clothes closet failed to produce the watch, and he moved to the den. Nothing surfaced there either among the sofa cushions, stuffed chair, TV cabinet and bookcases. In the dirt-floor basement, where Wyatt would sometimes secretly smoke, he picked through cases of dusty Mason jars, cracked terracotta pots, plumbing equipment and rows of old paint. Someone entered the house and went to the kitchen, no doubt Wyatt for leftovers of Russell’s birthday cake. Quickly he searched every dark corner, box and shelf, turning up only gum wrappers and a few spent matches. His spirit sank at the thought of punishment.

At dinner time, the aroma of goulash filled the house, and especially Russell’s room, nearest the kitchen. In a long-sleeve sweatshirt, he floated on the periphery of the dining room as Frank horsed around with Wyatt. The old man had him locked in a dutch rub, and was razzing him about forgetting his watch at breakfast. At last Wyatt broke free, mimed syncing Russell’s watch with Frank, and asked him along to the maneuvers. Frank appreciated the gesture but had to decline, as his bowling league tournament was tonight in Solana Beach with Marion and friends. Besides, he’d seen the exercises before, and the real thing in Korea. They’d enjoy it more on their own. When Frank finally noticed Russell inside the doorway, hands in pockets and drowning in a downward glance. Frank was about to call him out for eavesdropping when Marion asked for help. Merciful God, Russell thought. Frank lit candles and set the table, while Russell brought out plates of goulash, Marion the salad, and Wyatt the beverages.

Still in her postal uniform, Marion said grace as always. She was a slender though shapely brunette. In the right light she appeared younger than her years and was a born-and-bred Catholic whose beliefs were less subdued than quietly unswerving, giving her a kind of confident glow some men found attractive. She dressed well, kept her hair in a stylish French twist, and avoided the beach to protect to her fair complexion. She was devoted to Frank.

Everyone ate as he ran through the ship classes and jets that would be on show later. The boys, as always, downed their milk first. Missing a knife, Frank went to the kitchen and took their glasses for refills. As he handed them back their milk, the phone rang, and he left again. Wyatt swapped glasses, sure he’d been given Russell’s by mistake. Not about to cause a stir, Russell played along, grateful nothing more had arisen about the watch. Frank was on the call for only a few minutes. Their starting slots had been pushed back a half hour, he told Marion, just after Wyatt and Russell were excused, anxious to complete their homework before the maneuvers.

It was an evening like any other, except one of the boys was about to die.

In his room lit by a desk lamp, and bleary over geometry, Russell leaned back and blinked at an old George Reeves Superman poster. The costume had faded to a baby blue, his pants were bun-huggers with a cheesy belt, and the red cape, a bath towel. He’d outgrown such childhood diversions, yet the man of steel was there on the wall, damning him in a way that his missing watch did. On an impulse he tore the poster down and mashed it into a ball. From the hallway, his parents called out goodbyes, and he crunched harder, the ball resisting. The car backed out of the double garage and purred away. He chucked the poster into a wastebasket, breathing easier, now that Frank had left. Another attempt at the parallelograms and trapezoids only intimidated him more. Einstein aced these before he was 10. I should’ve had a poster of him on the wall.

Like a draft, Wyatt came in and Russell braced himself for a smack upside the head. 

Anemone, he said, you kipe my smokes? Can’t find ‘em anywhere.

Nope, he said, eyes on his scribblings, wary still.

Wyatt chuckled at the geometry book, stretched his arms and flopped on the bed. That Russell hadn’t seen before, and he loathed it as much as his watch on his brother’s arm.

Lost cause, that shit, Wyatt said, yawning, and flicked his own Zippo on and off. 

Yeah, you are, he said, under his breath.

And you won’t crack it, so nail the cake equations and get out with a ‘C’ like me.

He erased a line of a trapezoid. I’m not you.

Wyatt waved a hand in front of him. God, it stinks in here... anyway, if I couldn’t figure it out, you’ve got only two chances, slim and none. And Slim left town.

The pencil squirted away as Wyatt looked drowsily into the lighter flame.

That’s easy for you to say, he said, and went back to diagramming.

Anemone talking. I mean, who else would spend all his time diving at the reefs when it’s the bikinis at the beach that count, and what’s inside them. He let out a bigger yawn. God, I’m bushed. Must be all the sex and...

Not... Edie? 

You need another bruising for that bitch? he said, and the flame went out. 

Don’t call her that.

Wake up, he said, flicking the lighter several times without luck. Shit.

He drew a new line, closing the trapezoid, but his mind wouldn’t let go of her. Swear nothing bad has happened.

Snoop, snoop, snoopy... He sounded exhausted, only getting a dry click. Anyway, I’m blowing this pop stand. Enlisted today.

He swiveled around. No way.

I’ll tell the old farts after I get the paperwork. DEP. Delayed entry program.

Why tell me?

Because, anemone, by the time I’m in Nam, he said, through a mighty yawn, dropping gooks faster than you can say Jesus Mary and Joseph, you’ll still be sitting here like a virgin, dicking around with geometry only a genius will ever use.

Fighting tears, he couldn’t hold it in any longer. You and Pangborn, you’ve stabbed her or kidnapped her or... I saw the blood on her bedroom floor!

Must be the brain damage.

I know what I saw!

Eyelids sleep-heavy, he mumbled: If you knew the truth about... you’d kill yourself...

Russell startled, his lips parted and cheeks wet. Then Wyatt’s eyes closed, and Russell turned back to his desk. 

Why do you hate me... so much?! he asked, not facing him, a minute later. Already Wyatt was deep asleep, the lighter open in his hand.  He poked him and he didn’t move. Answer me.

He stopped, as it wasn’t long before the maneuvers, and made no further headway on homework. He’s lying, holding back on her, I know it. But what truth about me...?

Before leaving, he nudged Wyatt’s foot, but got no response. A slight odor wrinkled his nose, no doubt his brother’s dirty gym socks, and he left the door open to air the room though the odor already lingered some in the hallway. Wyatt would catch up later, and if he didn’t, tough luck for him. Four blocks down the hill he imagined Wyatt squirming under Frank’s stink eye, until he crossed the train tracks and realized he himself had missed out on taking back his own watch.

The night sky was starless, the moon new and the tide neap, ideal visibility from his vantage point on the bluffs. Afternoon wind had become a gentle onshore breeze, and the neighborhood’s jasmine and oleander softened the brininess drifting up from the shallows. To the south flickered the point of La Jolla. To the north the coast curved out to sea, black on blacker. Again, Wyatt’s last words buzzed in his head. I’d kill myself...?

Hey, douchebag, someone called, and he got to his feet, on guard. Down here.

A half-block south, Pangborn crossed the train tracks to the bluffs. The other Holy Ghosts, Swiss and Bodaway, were already perched there, having escaped Russell’s notice.

He’s still at home, he called back, easily mistaken for Wyatt in the dark.

Anemone? he said, as the others swigged liquor from a paper-bagged bottle. Pangborn sat down with them, chuckling.

Russell moved to another spot with an easy exit to the beach. When their laughter flew up, he stood to see if Wyatt had arrived. He hadn’t, or anyone else. 

Far out over the ocean came the first dull pops. Illumination flares burst in a nimbus beyond a shock-line of cruisers and destroyers. Then came the flash of an anti-aircraft gun, the thunder of ordnance seconds later. Quiet resumed, this time, ominous. A fireworks of rocket flares erupted and fell from small parachutes, undraping the sky enough for him to catch the shelling of a target drone and fiery chunks of it spiral into oblivion. Past the ships’ radar antennas, jets strafed derelict vessels and cargo hulks, rumbling the town in sonic booms, and did touch-and-goes on the deck of an aircraft carrier, afterburners screaming. The Holy Ghosts whooped at the show. In the rapid salvo exchanges, he sighted an F-4 Phantom take out its rag, and a barge, doubling as an enemy destroyer, sink upright. Below him waves broke in shushes to the shore. Near the end, flak shot up in towering sprays of hollow detonations, and tracer fire peppered drones - any evasion, futile. When the flak sites went silent, smoke crept in over the water, gray and eerie. It all seemed too easy, David and Goliath in reverse, and he dusted off to go when flares shot up once more. Four fighter jets verged into a pattern over their carrier in pursuit of a tow plane’s banner target. Finally, the convoy swung north and the salvos petered out like doleful schoolyard cries, and some his very own.

Strange, his brother hadn’t shown. That could have been the plan all along. Everyone gone so he could get to Edie. He had her locked up in some horror house attic, bound and gagged and blindfolded, he was torturing her, having his way with her and... He shook his head, his gravest fears running loose. Below him, shorn pier pilings glistened as they had on a walk with her not so long ago, when he’d wondrously felt alive. Slowly the smoke obscured them and erased the bulkhead below. Where could she be?

A hand clamped his shoulder, and he tore away, familiar with that grip.

Slow down there, cowboy, Pangborn said, and fished in a pants’ pocket. Wyatt’s watch. Thought you could give it to him.

He froze. What? Was this one more of his tricks? 

Forgot it at the Riley house he painted with me. He offered it on the scarred palm of a hand. It was the Timex all right. And now the jerkwad’s a no show.

Wasting no time, Russell grabbed it and ran.

Have a blast at military school, Pangborn hollered and laughed with a snicker.

He jogged up the hill, jubilant, and stopped under a streetlight. The Timex was exactly like his. Grime covered the case back and he wiped it clean on his cut-offs. In disbelief, he stared at the inscription: "To Wyatt with love – 16th birthday." With love. Two stunning words not on his own watch. In the event Wyatt was out and not back before Frank, he strapped on the Timex. At least now he’d be spared another cluster of welts, but all the way home with love ticked in every step taken. What did I do... what didn’t I do?

At the highway white crosses marking traffic fatalities, a police cruiser, cherry-top swirling, sped up the street. He felt weak and betrayed, the fool of the family. With love wouldn’t be still. A second cruiser zoomed by, nearly sideswiping him, and he followed, jogging a block until breaking into a run. Barely winded, he halted in the shadows behind a small crowd of neighbors, off the curb and facing away from him. Some were in bathrobes and curlers, others clutching yapping dogs. Two dining room chairs, bewilderingly, were aflame, high up in a eucalyptus tree. Flickering bits of wood, insulation and siding wafted from the sky. The police cruisers, their radios squawking, blocked off the street as one officer managed the crowd and the other looked on from the front yard. The deep wail of a pumper truck pealed across town. His house was on fire.

The roof over the kitchen had blown off like a lid, and flames shot from the gaping hole there, spreading to trees and shrubs, spitting burning debris. The den and living room were almost engulfed, the other rooms smoky, hard to gauge. Wyatt was nowhere in sight. He has to be inside... no way he woke from that sleep, or would’ve have missed the maneuvers for Edie or anything because Dad would expect a report. He’d invited him, promised to be there. He’s trapped inside, injured... Dad would go in, no matter what... it’s my last chance now with him and Mom... With love...

Undetected, he looped around the neighbor’s backyard and stayed low through the ivy embankment to the west side of his house. Things looked worse here. The den windows were blown out, and those in his parents’ bedroom. An orange glow came from the dining room draperies, warning him off. A second fire truck blasted its horn from the highway.

The only way inside was through the back door of the garage. He kicked it open - the car was still gone. In a crawl below a smolder-bank, he entered the door to the hallway. Heat dropped him hard. Flames swarmed over the ceiling and smoke hung feet off the floor. The linoleum nearest his room puffed at its seams, gluey and noxious. He needed to move fast. To be sure, he edged into Wyatt’s room first, unaware the door sagged roughly free from its half-riven hinges. Sparks shot from the overhead lamp and bristled his hair. The room stank of melted records. A hellish groan at the far end of the house scrambled him over the seething carpet to the bed, his knees beginning to blister. Wyatt wasn’t there. Almost no time left to reach his own room, he cupped his mouth and whipped around just as a blazing ceiling panel toppled down, trapping him. The overhead burst into a hail of hot glass, singeing his T-shirt and arms. All at once the room warped toward collapse, crashing the door over him in a wave of flames. The impact knocked the wind from him. He couldn’t move a finger for what seemed a long time, until in the grasp of fire, he pushed and kicked away. His whole body howled as he dove through the windowpane and landed outside by the wizened scarlet petals of the bougainvillea. Everything went black.

TWO

With a twinge Russell woke into harsh white light. All of him felt swollen and stripped of epidermis, unable to move. He squinted, and in painful fascination, he perceived the body splayed before him not as his own, as much of it was dressed in black. But this was his body. A cocoon of bandages wound around sections of his torso, arms, and legs while white gauze concealed most of his bloated face, with little more than his eyes exposed.

In a room lined with heavy polyethylene plastic sheet, a nurse in scrubs and rubber gloves hummed You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice as she removed his bias-cut stockinette, an elastic wrap held in place by safety pins, and disposed of it in a laundry bin. Inch-thick absorbent pads covered thinner gauze pads, under which were layers of petrolatum Xeroform, all of it blackened from a silver-nitrate treatment. Even as she recorded his pulse rate and blood pressure, she hadn’t noticed him regain consciousness. She re-dressed his wounds, blanketed him with a dry sheet and gurneyed him away. In a large open room, an IV pouch with a morphine-drip line was connected to his wrist under gauze.

During the day, little stirrings snagged his attention - a pencil scratch on a clipboard chart, the cranky wheels of crash carts, bedpans emptying and a toilet flushing, a floor mop wrung into a metal pail. Often throughout the room, pain mimicked a foghorn from a remote lighthouse. Was it early morning or twilight? Were those cars lapping by or waves at high tide? In a dream lasting all night, he wandered between bullwhip kelp heaped in tangles of fronds and rubbery stems along a familiar shore. Bluebottle flies fed on upper tidal wrack while sandpipers and plovers picked the hard-pack sand for benthos. He sidestepped tar patches and spume full of trace metals, uncovering sand dollars whose etchings looked like trilobite fossils, anthropodic furrows molded into Paleozoic rock. He handed one of these living relics to Edie and she...

A metallic thwack disrupted his beachcombing and drew his good eye to a fellow roommate in the next bed. Beside the safety rail of his own, a slim black woman with a corkscrew afro rose to her feet, clutching a fallen clipboard and pencil, and straightened her scrubs. Not quite forty, she had hands pink as mother of pearl, and her radiant Nubian face shone with a confetti spray of freckles either side of her graceful nose. An itch wrinkled his, and twitching it didn’t help until she scratched the tip of it with her pencil eraser.

Itchy nose, a sign of danger, she said, tucking the pencil in her hair. But that’s over now. She smiled broadly. Welcome back, Mr. Cobb. I’m Dr. Angela Grimes. Call me Angie. Her long glassy neck was pale as well.

He tried to reply but couldn’t speak.

Smoke inhalation. She retrieved the pencil and noted that on the clipboard chart, a schematic diagram of his body. You do remember what happened?

Very slightly, he shook his head, and she put the pencil back in her hair.

This is Scripps, La Jolla. The burn ward. Nine days since the fire. You’re not too tired to hear about some things? He shook his head again. Good. It was up in the air for a while. You’ve been in a coma, ICU. I can shoot straight with you, can’t I?

He nodded, and she put the clipboard on the overbed table.

I’ve already diagrammed the estimated depth of your burns, you missed the pleasure of a large-bore venous cannula and probably you’re over the worst of the pain. In fact, you’re in better shape than we thought at first.

A female patient called out to Grimes and she gestured she’d be right with her.

Anyway, no sepsis on your wounds yet, we’re halfway home with debridement, getting rid of loose bits and pieces. Am sure it’s Greek to you, but better you get used to it. You’ve got mostly second and a few smaller third-degree burns on twenty-four percent of your body, facial and scalp lacerations, singed nasal vibrissae. Your lower cheek was blistered with superficial partial-thickness burns, facial swelling persists, including a half-shut eye and upper lip like Louis Armstrong, though these will heal on their own. You’re going to be with us a while, and I promise you, you won’t get any BS from me.

He swallowed, and it stung. She picked up the clipboard, searching for her pencil. He glanced at her hair and she smiled knowingly. She checked off a box on the chart.

Guess you’re wondering about the family. Her face tightened some. We’ll come back to that during their next visit. Your Mom and Dad, they’ve been through a lot and... well, you were luckier than your brother. She touched him so gently on a bandaged forearm that he nearly wept. I’m very sorry.

The patient cried out once more, and a nurse went to the woman’s aid. 

Grimes hesitated, unsure of herself. There’s no right time to tell you this... the fire, it appears to be arson. Negative corpus, meaning no viable source of ignition. Crazy, I know, but it’s standard practice among fire investigators to base their conclusions on the absence of physical evidence. Meaning, if that stands, it’s murder.

Arson? Murder? Ever so slightly, his good eyelid shut, then opened again.

In any case, Grimes said, the fire investigator can’t rule you out as a suspect yet. Just routine procedure. And since your voice will take a while to return, you have a little time before he gets your statement. He’s really got zilch to go on, which is unusual, so he needs to know if you saw something. He said it could even be hidden in your past...

*

Far into the evening, Wyatt’s death sent after-shocks through Russell. At lights-out, the last jolt snapped him back to the image of little pools of blood on Edie’s bedroom floor. The thought that she could be the arsonist almost made him laugh; it was absurd even to imagine it. But deep-down he believed the blood and the fire had to be connected somehow, that this was more than just coincidence. And the timing told him so. Being a Holy Ghost, Wyatt must have had plenty of enemies, some ruthless enough, if pushed too far... but, burning him alive?

The question wound its way through opioid nightmares until late afternoon the next day when he woke in the cocoon to the sounds of distant shore break, seagull shrieks, and the hiss of oxygen tanks. The ceiling lights were off. Clusters of people entered the burn ward like lost souls into purgatory, stepping uneasily to a family member or friend, and mumbling among themselves in the disembodied, hushed tones of a netherworld. Visiting hours.

His bad eye opened another notch. He wiggled fingers and toes without pain, and licked his parched lips. Smart shoes and oxfords closed in. He guessed it was them. 

Hey, swabbie! Frank said. What a relief to have you back!

Honey, Marion said with a forced cheeriness, we’ve missed you so much.

In a new olive-gray smart suit and hair in a chignon, she looked elegant but strained, her makeup unable to conceal it. One head-to-toe look at him was enough for her to get teary, and Frank patted her shoulder. Grimes swung by and greeted them. Evidently, they’d met several times already. Frank, in Sunday church clothes, wore a potent new aftershave and she took a step back. His parents had not seen him without the dressings, and his father asked about the latest prognosis.

We’ll see, Mr. Cobb, Grimes said, and Marion turned to face her. He’s definitely healing faster than expected. We chose not to administer colloids in favor of sodium solutions and intensive rehydration. He’s over the ventilatory insufficiency from smoke inhalation, and the bacterial superinfection of his respiratory tree, so he’s getting there. And my bet is he’ll be talking to you in a week or so.

Wonderful. Marion relaxed a bit. It won’t hurt if I give him... a little hug... 

Everything’s gonna be like before, son, Frank said, sure of things, and Marion nodded in agreement. Only better.

Mr. and Mrs. Cobb, Grimes said, familiar with such wishful thinking. I believe your son’s old enough that we don’t need to dance around the issue. It’s important to be open about what has happened to him, and what is going to happen, so he’s always informed.

While Marion looked uncomfortable with the idea, Frank was miffed by the doctor’s candor. Grimes proceeded anyway, and elaborated, also for the benefit of Russell, who hung on her every word.

Rehab will take up to five weeks, depending on progress. As you know, he’s been through considerable trauma. Skin grafting will be necessary. How much will depend on how he heals. Sometimes the body can do a better job than I can with a graft. He isn’t going to be, well... quite the same. I can assure you, however, he will recover and lead as normal a life as anyone, aside from his burns. It’s a tough road ahead, but with your encouragement and support, he’ll do fine. I’ll leave you with him now if you don’t have any other questions.

I won’t be the same...

Does he know... everything? Marion said, lowering her voice.

He remembers the fire, Grimes said, earnestly, and knows about his brother.

They shook hands and she went to another patient across the room. 

Jungle bunny the best they can do? he said between his teeth to Marion, who elbowed him.

A nurse rolled in a crash cart. As Russell watched her replace the IV bag and adjust the injection port, Frank placed something from his coat pocket on the overbed table, out of Russell’s view. Once the nurse left, Marion regarded him, not knowing where to start.

Go ahead, Frank said, it’ll be all right.

She glanced warily over the cotton blanket, kneading her hands. The house, honey... it’s, you know... there’s nothing left. Like a Santa Ana fire blew right through and... I mean, we couldn’t salvage a... He stared at her. I’m sorry, everything sounds so... so thoughtless.

As she spoke his legs began tensing as before a cramp, only this wasn’t as painful. He wished he could ask about Wyatt.

We’ve rented one of the Tidewater bungalows, you know, at the bluffs. With an option to buy. We think you’ll be comfortable there, you’ll have a bigger room and a view of the ocean. He listened carefully, and she went on, reassuring herself as much as him. It’s okay, honey. You’ll see. Though we lost the house, we can be grateful we still have each other. We can really thank God for that.

She seemed to avoid any talk of Wyatt. Maybe she just didn’t want to upset him. More likely, all this about the rental house, a new start, and the ocean view was to cushion him for the next blow. He turned away from them.

Unsure how to proceed, she regarded Frank, who thumbed his brow.

I know what you’re thinking, he said, finally more himself, why don’t we re-build. Well, it’s time to move forward and once the insurance settlement comes through, we’ll be set. The fire, it looks like it started from the old gas leak in the oven. With incredulity, he repeated what Grimes had told him about the possible arson murder, calling it preposterous, but then added: You didn’t notice anything, did you?

The directness of the question surprised him, and he shook his head again.

Okay. He put his lips uncomfortably close to Russell’s ear, the aftershave spicy as cinnamon. Your mother and I, hate to say it, but we think your brother’s at fault here. That secret’s safe with the three of us, of course. I mean, you get that, I’m sure. And we can’t have him scotch the insurance. Capiche?

He straightened up beside Marion. Russell swallowed, confused. She came closer.

I’m sorry, honey. It’s been hard for us too. A real ordeal, what with the trouble Russell was getting into, and now the funeral on hold till the investigation is over...

A flinch-sting of panic shot through him, not lost on her, and she leaned in.

Wyatt, honey? Are you in pain?

One of his legs jackknifed, and he screamed. Marion recoiled into her husband’s arms before they tried to calm Russell down. Grimes rushed over. She gave him an injection in the hip, gently touched his shoulder and he slipped out of consciousness.

*

Toward the end of a morphine dream, he lay in his cocoon lodged in

Reviews for Anemone

[Jim Frazee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Somber, romantic, and emotionally raw, ANEMONE is a masterful debut that intertwines the intimate dramas of Jim Frazee's characters with the larger elemental forces of nature.

Jim Frazee’s debut novel ANEMONE, a poignant, lyrical coming-of-age tale set along the rugged cliffs of 1960s coastal California, opens with Russell Cobb, a teenager badly burned in a house fire, waking up in the burn ward of a hospital, heavily bandaged and unable to speak. His doctor informs him that his brother Wyatt died in the fire, which appears to be arson. It’s being investigated as a murder. When Russell’s parents visit, they mistake Russell (whom they believe was responsible for starting the fire) for Wyatt.

Flashbacks reveal more about Russell’s childhood and family dynamics, including his contentious relationship with his brother, who tormented and belittled Russell; his father, Frank, a Navy war veteran who was distant, quick to anger, and harshly punished Russell for perceived transgressions; and Edie, Wyatt’s girlfriend, in whom Russell found a kindred spirit—a fellow creature wounded by the barbs of parental abuse. Back in the present, Russell, who believes Wyatt was murdered, must investigate the fire and clear his name, realizing his injuries will soon reveal his true identity to his parents. As Russell delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding the fire and Wyatt’s untimely death, his connection with Edie intensifies. Meanwhile, he crosses paths with an enigmatic surfer known only as Horse, who emerges as both mentor and ally to Russell.

Frazee’s critique of the moral compromises of an era and the hidden dynamics within ostensibly ordinary families calls to mind the works of Pat Conroy—particularly The Prince of Tides, with its lush, elegiac prose and poetic depictions of the coastal South’s savage beauty. Comparisons to John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, too, are perhaps inevitable, given the novel’s California setting and its exploration of the enduring impact of family secrets and betrayals. Like Steinbeck’s masterpiece, ANEMONE grapples with themes of betrayal, redemption, emotional survival, and the brutal reckonings that follow hidden misdeeds.

Frazee’s writing in ANEMONE is as ethereal and enigmatic as its title, with passages that elevate the narrative to a realm of poetic transcendence: “Imperceptibly they rose into thin air, out of themselves, and into ethereal beings without language or sense of demarcation, adrift in greater enchantments. In that firmament he forgot himself and the strange day, the scars and pain, his dead brother and Edie, his parents, even Horse.”

Here, the characters are not merely individuals with desires and fears but become part of a larger, almost mystic tapestry that defies the confines of their earthly struggles. Similarly, descriptions weave the natural world into the fabric of the story: “Vast expanses of seawater evaporated into higher elevations, and onshore winds swept back the vapor through the cordilleras to ancient pine groves, all the way to the lacustrine plains of the Great Basin.” It reflects the novel’s deep preoccupation with cycles of renewal and decay, mirroring the oceanic pulses of the novel’s setting—sometimes calm and reflective, other times stormy and foreboding.

The novel’s frenetic climax, set against a catastrophic wildfire sweeping through Aqua Verde, propels the story to apocalyptic heights—resulting in a narrative whose haunting resonance lingers long after the final page is turned.

Somber, romantic, and emotionally raw, ANEMONE is a masterful debut that intertwines the intimate dramas of Jim Frazee’s characters with the larger elemental forces of nature.

~Edward Sung for IndieReader

https://indiereader.com/book_review/anemone/