The year, 1990, a crisp October evening, the sun lulled low in west, the beans grew ripe in the fields, and Stew Jollymeadow was tearing east on McLeod rd at interstate speeds. If you’d been around to see the dust plume billowing in his wake you’d no doubt wonder what he was in such a hurry for. Had his cows escaped onto the O4 highway? Was a milo field on fire? No, tonight Stew’s motivation was altogether more personal. Minutes before, he’d received a call from his step step-grandma in-law, Anne Kragen, and she was scared. Something was happening to her husband, Alfonse. He had been in fine health earlier that day but, right as they sat down to supper, he began speaking as though 5 drinks into a bender. From there, Alfonse’ limbs turned to jelly. Anne and her step-son, Delroy, lunged across the table just in time to keep the elder Kragen’s face out of a scalding pot of soup. They had dragged him onto the couch where he now lay, lively as a rag-doll. Stew was no doctor and no illusion he’d be of much help in a medical emergency not involving cows, but his elderly neighbor needed a calm presence and that he could provide. So he put on his seldom seen alter-ego, lead foot Stewart, and peeled out of the driveway in no time flat.
The house of Kragen wasn’t far from Jollymeadow H.Q., only a quarter mile, and Stew made that distnacece in record time. He hopped out of the truck and shuffled inside in the manner of one better trained in the farmer’s carry than the sprint. Upon opening the door he beheld a frantic scene indeed. To Stew’s right Anne, nearly in tears, was clutching a telephone in the kitchen, pleading with the 9-11 operator. Opposite this, Alfonse was recumbent on the couch while his son paced the room, slapping his pockets with all the grace of a terrified mother hen. An expression of modest relief washed over Anne’s face when Stew arrived and she began speaking into the receiver with more confidence. Delroy wasn’t so heartened.
“Dad’s a goner!” He wailed. “You don’t just walk off a heart attack at his age!”
It seemed to Stew Delroy was in need of more urgent care than Alfonse. Stew walked into the living room “Delroy, come on, he’s sill breathing!” he said and knelt next to the couch, feeling for a pulse in the old man’s wrist. There it was, strong and steady, even if the rest of his body was nothing of the sort. “Here, feel this too.” Stew told Delroy, presenting Alfonse’s wrist. Manic as he was, Delroy paused his pacing and flapping for just long enough to do as Stew had asked. Sure enough, he felt it too. Maybe his dad could pull through after all. When he resumed his pacing, it was now with the composure of a merely concerned mother hen.
Anne finished her 9-11 call, and now the most they could do was wait. The house was held in brief, anxious eternity. Stew took a seat and began nervously rubbing the back of his neck, Delroy returned to his old routine of slapping and flapping, and Anne tapped her foot to a manic beat. Even Alfonse managed to join in, stirring from his coma to soundlessly gum at the air. ‘Good grief’ thought Stew, ‘does it always take this long to drive from Salsburg?’ But as the thought entered his mind, so too did a screaming, waling, siren enter his ears. Delroy heard it too and was sent into another fit of panic, flapping so hard Stew thought he might achieve lift-off.
“What if, what if…” Said Delroy, eyes rolling and bulging “What if they save him but some Dr. Melange turns dad…” he was cut off for a moment by a bout of hyperventilation “What if they turn him into a potato?” Delroy cried, now hopping and skipping his laps around the living room.
It was at this moment two paramedics burst inside, wheeling a stretcher between them. They glanced at the manic Delroy then the comatose Alfonse, bemusement evident on their faces. It seemed they’d only been infomed of the one emergency and weren’t prepared for triage.
Minutes later, as the ambulance sped back from whence it came, Alfonse firmly secured to the stretcher, Stew couldn’t help but consider how odd the neighborhood would feel without the old crank. Stew and his wife, Heather, had been farming the land south-east of Salsburg for decades, in large part thanks to Alfonse’s property. Without Heather’s step-mother being a Kragen, they’d have had a much tougher start in the farming business. However, despite the livelihood Alfonse helped the Jollymeadows make for themselves, Stew and Heather were still ambivalent toward the man himself.
Alfonse could be as vindictive as he was generous. Ten years ago, for example, Stew had made the decision to purchase a hay baler. This was not a choice which Alfonse thought highly of. Each year when he put up sliage, Alfonse would crow about his early adoption of the upright slio. While the other farmers would futz with their wind rows, hoping they dried enough to bale, Alfonse would ensile the lot, water and all. In doing away with the need for the silos, Stew was crapping all over a silage legacy. The Kragen patriarch seethed and boiled for days after learning of the news. Once he saw Stew riding down the road on a tractor, towing that awful machine in his wake. Alfonse waited till Stew was out of sight, just past a hill, and spat in his direction. ‘Balers,’ he though ‘what kind of dishonest, two-timing, layabout needs a baler?’ So he started talking to the neighbors, maybe one of them could take over Stew’s responsibilities now that he had been proven such a misanthrope. In time, this talk would filter back to the Jollymeadows.
This, among other stories, made Alfonse the sort of person you wouldn’t miss too much. Stew felt a twinge of shame for acknowledging it, even if only to himself. Stew wasn’t only reticent to wish Alfonse ill because of his present misfortune, but also because the Kragens, for all their faults, had been going to Meeting as far back as living memory. Unpleasent as Alfonse could be, he followed the Way and Meeting people must cleave together lest the world swollow them up and salvation be theirs no more.
Weeks past, Stew and Heather kept busy with chores, news began coming back from the Kragens. Alfonse’s spell had been something called a transient ischemic attack, but everyone shortened it to mini-stroke. He was feeling much better after a bit of bedrest, more or less returning to his old self, mixed as that blessing may be. But there was one detail of the story which the Jollymeadows found themselves loathed to accept.
Heather was speaking with her step-mom, Alfonse’s daughter, catching up on the weather and similarly inoffensive matters till the subject of Alfonse’s health was raised.
“Oh!” said Heather’s mom with surreptitious excitement “I heard something very queer from your aunt Marsha. Since she’s been staying with dad to look after his health, she’s been noticing Anne looking awful suspicious. Just yesterday I was talking to her and she was telling of how Anne had made pancakes for breakfast. The thing is though, she saw her sprinkling an odd white powder into the batter.”
“Aren’t there a good few white powders in pancakes?” Heather asked “Flour and baking soda and stuff?”
“Maybe so,” continued her mom “but these were special pancakes since, when she ate them, Marsha began to feel all off!”
“All off?” Asked Heather
“Of course, she was sleepy and ill and the whole nine yards. And that’s not even all. Marsha found some of that yucky white powder on dad’s chair, right on the arm. So she made sure Anne wasn’t around to see, and picked some up in a little envelope. She sent it off to a lab and it turned out to be this funny thing called pheonbarbital!”
“Pheno-barbie what now?”
“Well I don’t know much about it but it sure sounds like dangerous stuff. I’ve heard Anne’s kids are hurting for want of money too. Marsha thinks those oil wells on dad’s property would look mighty tempting in their shoes.”
The implication hung, unspoken. Heather wasn’t quite sure how to react. She and Stew had always gotten along quite well with Anne and to suggest she was feeding her step family special phenobarbital pancakes at the behest of her struggling children was unsettling to say the least.
“Well gosh,” Heather finally said “So have you been feeling this cold front lately, it’s been just freezing down here!” Heather is known the be conflict averse.
Months past. Beans and milo were harvested, the winter chill set in, and the thought of Anne poisoning Alfonse nagged at Stew and Heather’s thoughts. Each Sunday, at Meeting, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to look Marsha in the eye. Acusing Anne of such trechery, it curdled their stomachs. Where would she have even gotten such an exotic substance? Better to stay abreast of familial squabbles. After each Meeting concluded, the Friends would remain in the living room and chat. The conversation tended to be more harmonious than honest. Everyone was always doing well, their only relivant problems being those concerned with the Devil. So despite spending two hours each week speaking with the Friends, Stew and Heather didn’t learn much more about the poisoning during meeting.
More often than not, it was Heather’s mom who updated them on the intensifying rumors. She said once there had been several long gaps, never hearing from Marsha. Evidently she feared Anne may be listening in on the other reciver. Just recently though, an update had made it through. More and more white powder was popping up everywhere. Once it was Alfonse’ hankie, then the driver’s seat of his car, and, most recently, inside a water glass. Marsha was edgy, always sleeping with one eye open and quarantining Alfonse to a seperate bed.
Another week and tensions were running higher than ever in the Kragen household. Alfonse and Marsha were only eating meals from a can and Anne seldom emerged from her room. Eventually, on a brief foray from the bed, Anne called her eldest daughter and asked if she could take her on a little weekend getaway. The daughter obliged and Anne scurried back to her bed where she could take shelter from Alfonse’ rocking chair glare. The weekend came, Anne was whisked away to Wisconson where she would see the world’s largest Cheese wheel. Back home, Alfonse and Marsha were freed, for a moment, from their neck-prickling paranoia.
Marsha now sat on the couch, hands folded on her lap in stark contrast to her brother’s conduct while her elderly father lounged in the easy-chair.
“We’ve gotta do something about this phenobarbital business, dad.” Said Marsha “Your wife is a menace!”
Abert gave his weak, rasping reply “Wife, Marsha, wife! Have you become so worldly as to believe my vows should be broken?”
“No, of course not. You’ll still be married but you shouldn’t live together when she’s so intent on making death do you part.”
Alfonse mulled this in his mind. “Remember when Ronald ran off from your sister? They said he was putting funny stuff in their milk. She even found a book about poisoning hidden away in his office. At least he was slick and sly enough to know when to flee for Saskatchewan.”
“Exactly!” said Marsha “Being married doesn’t mean needing to live together when the couple are at each others’ throats.”
“I’m told he wasn’t a virtuous man after leaving.” said Alfonse “But there’s no way Anne could sink to that level at her age.”
“She has to go.” said Marsha.
“She has to go” Agreed Alfonse.
On Sunday evening Anne and her daughter rolled into the drive, station wagon sparsely packed with luggage. All afternoon Marsha and Alfonse sat before the living room window, watching for their return, ready to walk into the cold at a moment’s notice. Marsha threw on her coat and helped her father do likewise. They stepped onto the porch as Anne hobbled out of the car. The evening sun cast long, cool shadows over the scene. The wind was still and no birds sang.
“Leave.” said Alfonse, voice hard as diamond.
“W-what?” Anne trembled.
“Leave and don’t ever come back with your white powders and special pancakes.”
“We’re not letting you in the door.” Marsha added “So you can either nest in the frozen silage or find somewhere else to stay.”
By this point Anne’s daughter was out of the car, an expression of indignation on her face. “You can’t do this!” she screamed.
“We’ll keep trespassers off the property whenever we see fit.” Growled Alfonse.
With that, he and Marsha walked back inside, propped a chair under the doorknob, and took up their watchful posts in the living room. It wasn’t long before the two women were back in the car, engine running for warmth. Though it was hard to see beyond the windshield, they might have been sobbing. Marsha tried not to think about it. Alfonse didn’t think about it.
The shadows lengthened till they covered the whole earth. It was only then that the car’s headlights flipped on and crawled out of the drive. This was the last Alfonse and Anne would ever see of each other. Four years later, still under Marsha’s care, Alfonse would pass away at age 92. Anne spent the rest of her life with her children as well, survinving till the year 2000, age 101, having lived in three centuries and two millennia. Stew and Heather still farm that land to this day and, in the way of farmers, have no plans to retire till death do them part.
Adendum
I don’t know if Anne ever intended to poison Alfonse or his children, and I doubt I ever will. As of this writing, the events took place over thirty years prior. By necessity, many of the details have been imagined though the narrative remains broadly accurate to Stew and Heather’s recollection of events. They were always skeptical of the poisoning story. Perhaps it was just too wild and sensational for the Jollymeadows’ tastes but I’d agree there is good reason for doubt.
For one, phenobarbital is a pretty crumby poison. At a cellular level, it raises the threshold for a nueron to be activated, essentially slowing the activity of the nervous system. Therapeutic doses are often used to treat insomnia or seizures, both of which being the result of an overactive brain. Because the central nervous system controls a number of other processes, most significantly breathing, an overdose can supress nevous funciton to the point of suffocation. As little as 2 grams can spell death. However, At the typical 50 to 100 miligrams per pill, 2 grams would add up to between 20 and 40 pills. Quite a mouthfull. Nor is it any good as a contact poison. The dusting on Alfonse’s chair would have done him no more harm than was inflicted by his own paranoia. This goes some way to explaining why phenobarbital is more associated with suicides and accidental overdoses than assasination attempts. Furthemore, though phenobarbital may have once been handed out like candy to any housewife who claimed a case of insomnia, by 1970, that had all changed. With the passing of the controlled substances act, phenobarbital was classified as a schedule IV substance requiring a perscription to acquire.
This said, I can’t quite dismiss the posibility of actual, if incompetant, poisoning attempts. The most compelling evidence for this version of events is the laboratory test. As the lore has it, a sample of the powder was sent into a lab and phenobarbital was detected. The problem, as with most thirty year old mysteries, is the lack of known details. How was it collected? How much was sent in? What tests did the lab use? Was a second sample cross checked with a seperate lab? What I am convinced of is that a test was conducted and returned with an indication of phenobarbital. That name is just too specific for me to believe the Kragens wholly imagined it. The other piece of evidence are the symptoms illicited by the special pancakes. They are non-specific, no doubt, but sleepiness is very much what we would expect from a modest dose of phenobarbital. Alfonse’s stroke on the other hand, I’m confident it was unrelated to any barbituates.
No doubt though, the oddest and most ill-defined part of this whole problem are the alleged motivations of the poisoners. Did Anne’s children really believe a swift end to her husband would solve their finacial woes? That’s a hard pill for me to swallow. Alfonse being personally unpleasant is certainly a necessary aspect, no step child could convince their mother to be compicit in offing a beloved husband, but it still isn’t sufficient. Much like with the laboratory test, the details regarding motivation are hazy and unconvincing.
Regarsless, I’m urging Keet.one resident engineer, Kietan Chipperfart, to quit his lucrative position at John Deere and earn a Ph.D in relativistic physics by building a time machine. Then we can sort this business out once and for all. More plausibly, Keet.one resident nosy historian, me, should get his butt in gear and make some inquiries. Till such time as one of us makes it happen, this has been the tale of the phenobarbital.