Brandon Travis walked into Oaklands just as William Hoopes was being led from it in handcuffs. Signs warned that the floor was wet, and a member of the janitorial staff was in the process of removing what looked to have once been an aquarium. He slowed his pace and walked carefully to the reception desk.
‘What’s been going on here?’ he asked.
‘Nothing to speak of,’ the receptionist replied innocently. ‘There’s been a small misunderstanding, but it’s all sorted now. How can I help?’
‘My name’s Brandon Travis. I’m here to see my sister, Nancy Skidmore. She’s locked up here, someplace.’
The receptionist typed the name into the computer. ‘She’s in the Assisted Living Community wing, Mr Travis. If you sign your name in the visitor’s book, I’ll give you directions.’
Brandon signed his name, noted the time, and then walked down the corridor leading to the Secure Unit.
The receptionist turned to a nurse who’d been standing close by. ‘My God, did you smell that man? I doubt he’s been near a bar of soap in weeks!’
Ten minutes later, Brandon returned to the desk huffing and puffing.
‘She’s not there,’ he shouted. ‘She’s gone!’
‘Sir, please don’t raise your voice – there’s been enough excitement for one day. Now what do you mean she’s not there? Where else would she be?’
‘How the hell would I know? I’ve only just got here! All I know is that she’s not in her room. She’s not in any of the other loonies’ rooms either, and she’s not in the communal area. You work here – you go figure where else she’d be?’
The receptionist asked Brandon to take a seat while she made some calls. She did this not out of any consideration for the missing patient’s brother, but for herself: his aroma was truly foul! She phoned the head nurse in the Secure Unit to confirm Brandon’s story and then called Howard Franks, the day manager of the nursing home. ‘We have a situation, Mr Franks.’
Franks listened carefully, replaced the phone in its cradle, and then rested his head in his hands. ‘Un-fucking-believable!’ he eventually said.
Howard Franks was having a bad day, the worst he could remember in more than thirty years of healthcare administration: first the shooting and now a missing client. Word was bound to get out, and word getting out would be bad for business. The top priority for Franks was always the bottom line – dollars and cents, profit and loss. Unless the situation was contained, Oaklands would be facing an expensive lawsuit. He took a deep breath, left the safety of his office and went to meet the irate Brandon Travis.
‘Mr Travis? I’m Howard Franks, day manager of the nursing home. I gather Nancy’s gone missing.’
Brandon rose from the chair he was sitting in to take Franks’ outstretched hand, but lost his footing on the slippery floor and fell back heavily into the chair. ‘Let me give you a hand there,’ Franks said, automatically sweeping the foyer with his eyes for signs warning that the floor was wet. They were still there, thank God, so no lawsuit to be feared from Travis on this score. He led the overweight man to his office and phoned for coffee.
‘Have you had a long journey, Mr Travis?’
‘I have,’ Brandon answered. ‘I’ve come from Clarksdale, Mississippi, and travelled here by bus. It took two days! Two days of waiting in bus stations with vagrants and riding with trailer trash. Do you think I enjoyed that?
‘I did it for my sister, Mr Franks; did it out of love for her. I don’t have much in my life these days – certainly not money – but I’ve always had Nancy. But now I don’t even have her because you’ve gone and fucking lost her – and, God dammit, you were being paid good money to look after her. I want an explanation, Mr Franks, and I’ll also want recompense for the mental anguish I’m now experiencing. Do I make myself clear?’
Franks got the message loud and clear – after all, it was a money message. ‘There was an incident here this morning, Mr Travis, and it’s possible that in the confusion Nancy might have slipped out of Oaklands unnoticed – but she won’t have gotten far. I feel confident she’ll be back in her own bed by nightfall.’ Brandon looked at him sceptically.
‘There is one thing. It might just be a coincidence, Mr Travis, but this morning your sister was visited by some other relatives: Homer and Ruby Comer. Do you know them?’
‘I know them,’ Brandon said surprised, ‘but unless they came to haunt her, I don’t know what they’d be doing here.’
‘Why do you say that, Mr Travis?’
‘Because they’ve both been dead thirty years, Mr Franks!’
The day manager arranged for a taxi to take Brandon and his small rucksack to a nearby hotel, while he called the police and enquiries were made into the true identities of Homer and Ruby Comer. It would take the police a few days to pinpoint Eugene Chaney III as a person of interest. According to the visitor’s log, a man named E Chaney had previously visited Nancy at the nursing home, but had left no address. It took time for them to equate the name in the register with that of Dr Eugene Chaney III, and it was only after it was established that Chaney himself was missing from his home address – a dead dog in his wake – that the pieces started to fall into place.
If Pennsylvania had a new missing persons’ case to contend with, California had an older one – and this pertained to Eric Gole. After Eric hadn’t returned to school by Monday lunchtime, Mrs Armitage had phoned his guardian. William Strey had been unaware that Eric had even been home for the weekend, and was totally ignorant of any memorial service for his parents. He made calls – to Arthur Annandale and The Reverend Pete – and then called Mrs Armitage back: there had been no memorial service and neither had anyone seen Eric. ‘Do you think he’s run away?’ he asked.
‘IT’S RATHER LOOKING THAT WAY, MR STREY. I THINK I SHOULD CALL THE POLICE.’
Strey always had to strain to understand anything Mrs Armitage said on the phone and misheard her: ‘Who’s the priest,’ he asked. ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘NOT PRIEST, MR STREY, POLICE.’
Strey still had to think about the difference between the two words she pronounced, but eventually understood. ‘Of course, Mrs Armitage: a sensible idea. Keep me informed will you, and please give them my details. This is worrying. The boy doesn’t know it, but he’s worth a small fortune. I just hope to God he hasn’t been kidnapped.’ Mrs Armitage shuddered at the thought, and phoned the San Francisco police department even more concerned.
The detective assigned to the case was John Cooper, and his experience told him that Eric had run away rather than been kidnapped – as Strey had suggested. He arranged a meeting of all interested parties to be held at Talbot Academy on the Wednesday evening. In attendance, were Mrs Armitage, William Strey, Arthur Annandale and The Reverend Pete.
‘It’s clear to me that Eric planned his disappearance and planned it carefully,’ he told them. ‘He gave the school three weeks’ notice he’d be away for the weekend, and also concocted a clever reason for his absence – a memorial service for his parents. Straightaway, that gave him a three-day jump on anyone wanting to follow him. The questions we have to answer are two. One: why did he want to run away; and two: where did he plan to go? First, however, can someone please explain to me why a boy with normal hearing was placed in a school for the deaf? This particular aspect of the case puzzles me.’
Strey and Armitage explained the unusual circumstances that had led to Eric’s initial enrolment and continued presence at Talbot Academy. ‘Do you think he was happy here?’ Cooper asked them, ‘Because I don’t.’ They avoided the detective’s gaze, but admitted that he probably wasn’t.
‘Okay, then,’ Cooper continued. ‘We know that Eric was unhappy. He’d been recently orphaned and then stuck in a school for the deaf, where he appears to have had no close friends. Am I right in thinking this, Mrs Armitage?’ Mrs Armitage nodded. ‘So, he decides to run away and, if I’m honest, I can’t say that I blame the boy. But where does he go? Do any of you know of any friends or relatives Eric might have?’
‘He has a distant uncle in New York,’ Annandale said, ‘but he’s a ne’er-do-well and I’d be surprised if Eric had gone looking for him.’
‘What do you mean by ne’er-do-well, Mr Annandale?’ Cooper asked.
‘A good-for-nothing, an idler,’ Annandale answered.
‘I know what the damn word means! What I want to know is why you describe him this way.’
‘Well, Detective Cooper, he couldn’t come to Eric’s parents’ funeral because he was in prison at the time, and the letter he wrote Eric was just plain strange, ungodly almost.’
‘Do you remember his name?’
Annandale checked his notes. ‘His name’s Jeff Lawrence and the return address on the envelope was the Lyon Mt Correctional Facility.’ Cooper made a note of this.
‘We need to send out a description of Eric. I’ll need a recent photograph, but what are his distinguishing features, things that might help people recognise him?’
‘He’s thirteen but looks nearer ten,’ Strey said. ‘And his hands are unusually wet.’
Cooper paused from taking notes and looked at Strey. ‘Do you honestly believe he’ll be travelling around the country shaking hands with people? Do you think he’s on a book tour or something?’
Strey shrugged. ‘I was just trying to be helpful, Detective Cooper. I don’t think there’s any call for sarcasm.’
‘IT MIGHT BE WORTH MENTIONING THAT HE MAY BE MASQUERADING AS A HEARING-IMPAIRED PERSON,’ Mrs Armitage said.
‘I’ll write down deaf for that,’ Cooper said. ‘No disrespect intended, Mrs Armitage, but if I write down hearing impaired, Joe Public’s going to be looking for some kid with no ears. I’m afraid you always have to cater to the lowest common denominator when you write descriptions like this.’
Despite Cooper’s energy and determination, the investigation into Eric’s disappearance ground to a halt. Although the taxi driver remembered dropping Eric off near Union Square, and ticket clerks in San Francisco and Sacramento remembered selling one-way tickets to a boy matching Eric’s description, the trail petered out in Roseville. The uncle that Annandale had mentioned, told police sent to question him that he hadn’t seen Eric since taking him to a Paul McCartney concert five years ago, and the prison’s visiting log appeared to confirm this.
Seated at his desk that Monday afternoon, Cooper surmised that the boy could be anywhere. That Eric was about to approach Three Top Mountain with another runaway five times his age, never even crossed his mind.
Doc was about to light another cigarette when he saw Jack and Eric returning. He placed it carefully back in the pack and climbed on to the bus.
‘There was a poster of Eric at the entrance to the services building,’ Jack said. ‘It’s not the greatest of likenesses and the boy’s not happy with it.’
‘It makes me look stupid!’ Eric protested.
‘Jesus!’ Doc said. ‘It’s not for your school yearbook, Eric! Thank God it is a poor likeness. Did anyone take an interest in him?’
‘No. Most people just walk past those things, and his cycle helmet disguises his features. To be on the safe side though, I think we should buy some hair dye – that white-blonde hair of his is too distinctive. I didn’t know he was a runaway, did you?’
‘Not until a few minutes ago,’ Doc said.
They exited the interstate at US 11 and headed east towards the small town of Edinburg. There they left the highway and climbed into the George Washington National Forest. The road wound through dense woodland, its curves tight. They turned off on to a minor road and then on to an even more minor road. The hard surface turned to gravel, the gradients became steeper and the bends sharper.
‘Are you sure about this, Bob?’ Doc asked. ‘These roads don’t seem suited for a vehicle this size.’
‘Sure I sure. Jus’ gotta take care, is all. Make us a few three-point turns here an’ there. It’ll be worth it, man. You see if it ain’t.’
Doc looked at the milometer on the bus and then at his watch. They’d travelled only twenty-two miles since leaving the interstate, and it had taken them close to an hour-and-a-half. ‘How much further, is it?’ he asked.
‘’Bout a mile,’ Bob replied. He was right, but it would be another thirty minutes before he drew the bus to a halt and applied the handbrake.
‘How do you know about this fire tower?’ Jack asked him.
‘Stumbled on it. I lived in these parts fo’ a while, an’ me an’ a frien’ used to ride out in the country when we got the chance.’
‘What exactly did you ride out on?’ Doc asked.
‘A motorcycle,’ Bob said, hurriedly climbing out of the bus. Doc stared after him, a look of disbelief on his face.
It was decided that Doc and Nancy would sleep in the bottom bunks of the bus’s two-tier compartments. These beds had the advantage of greater headroom over the three-tier coffin bunks and would, Doc argued, lessen the likelihood of Nancy getting claustrophobia. At Eric’s request, it was agreed that he would sleep in the bunk Susan had written her initials on at the top of one of the three tiers; Jack would sleep two bunks below him and Bob would take the bunk opposite Jack.
Once these arrangements had been settled, Bob took two large pizzas from the fridge and mixed a salad of greens and tomatoes with a dressing of oil and vinegar. Doc excused himself, and used the time to examine the medicines Bob had procured: pills and capsules of all shapes, sizes and colours, small phials of clear liquids and syringes. He read the leaflets carefully; made notes in a pad he carried with him and figured out a regimen he hoped would keep Nancy on an even keel. He then re-joined the group in the larger lounge, closest to the kitchen.
‘Soun’s like a piece o’ work, yo’ wife,’ Bob said. ‘Why you stay with her fo’ so long, man? I’da hightailed it.’
‘The boy,’ Jack answered. ‘Even though the two of us weren’t exactly buddies, I thought maybe one day we would be. You know, father and son going fishing together – that kind of thing.’
‘Did it happen?’
‘No. It never happened because Laura didn’t want it to happen. She went out of her way to keep us distant. There was maybe one time when I thought I was getting through to Conrad and then, out of nowhere, he gets this postcard from his dead hamster.’
‘What you talkin’ ’bout, man? How can a dead hamster write a pos’card?’
‘Because Laura wrote it for him!’
‘You need to explain it from the beginnin’, Jack. I’m lost, an’ I suspec’ ever’one else is, too. You know what he’s talkin’ ’bout, Gene?’ Doc indicated he didn’t.
‘Conrad had this hamster,’ Jack began, ‘and he called it Bingo. He’d had it for about six months when it died, and you might guess that I was the only one in the house when it happened.
‘Laura and Conrad were out of town that weekend, visiting some friend of hers who was supposedly feeling lonely. I didn’t want the hamster smelling up the house and I didn’t want Conrad seeing it dead, either, so I did what anyone would have done. I wrapped it in bubble wrap and put it in the next door’s garbage can.’
‘Why the neighbour’s?’ Doc asked.
‘Because if I’d put it in ours, Conrad would have gone rummaging for it and probably tried to give it the kiss of life. God knows what kind of disease he might have caught.
‘So they get back and I tell them what’s happened, and they both break down in tears as if a person had died! I tell you, if it had been me that had died, they probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid and just got on with their lives. And what’s more, they both looked at me as if I’d killed Bingo!
‘Three weeks later, Conrad gets this postcard and I can still remember it word for word:
Dear Conrad: This is Bingo writing to you. Although
I’m dead now, I wanted you to know that I enjoyed living
with you and your mother. I didn’t like your father though,
and he was the one that killed me. All the best, Bingo.
‘That’s just plain mean,’ Nancy said, who had somehow managed to follow Jack’s story. ‘Accusing you of killing the boy’s pet. That’s awful.’
‘Exactly!’ Jack said. ‘She had no way of knowing.’
‘So, you did kill it? I thought you said you didn’.’ Bob said.
‘Only indirectly,’ Jack replied.
‘Jeez!’
‘Don’t you start, Doc. Hell, you just killed a dog, for God’s sakes!’
‘Mercy killing,’ Doc said quickly, when he saw that all eyes had moved to him. ‘So, what happened, Jack?’ The eyes, as Doc had hoped, returned to Jack.
‘You don’t know what it was like living in that house. No one does. When it was just Laura and me, it was pretty much level-pegging. But then Conrad comes along and the pecking order changes: first Laura, then Conrad, then me. And then Laura buys a cat and the pecking order changes again: first, Laura, then Conrad, then Perseus and then me. That was bad enough, but then Conrad got Bingo and I slipped another rung down the ladder, and I was damned if I was going to play second fiddle to a hamster!
‘The weekend they were away, I opened the door to Bingo’s cage and then the front door of the house. I figured he’d shuffle his fat ass out of the house and find himself a new home somewhere else. But he didn’t. Instead he toddled off into the kitchen and climbed into the clothes dryer where I’d just put a pair of sneakers I’d washed – probably mistook it for a larger version of the wheel he had in his cage. Believe me, I had no idea he was in there, and any noise he might have made was drowned by the tumbling of the sneakers.’
‘This ain’t gonna end well, is it?’ Bob smiled.
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘My sneakers got completely messed up. I had to throw them away.’
‘I think Bob was referring to the hamster,’ Doc said.
‘Do we have to do this, Jack?’ Eric asked. The meal had ended and Jack was applying black dye to Eric’s hair.
‘You’re a man on the run, Eric, and we have to take precautions. If someone recognised you and stopped you from finding Susan, how would you feel then? Now keep still and keep your eyes closed.’
‘But what if it stays this colour?’
‘It won’t. Your hair will grow back its normal shade. You’ve got good hair, too: thick and strong. I might borrow it sometime.’
Eric smiled. ‘You say silly things, Jack. You can’t borrow someone else’s hair.’
Jack took a towel and wrapped it around Eric’s head. They went to the lounge and sat next to each other on one of the couches.
‘Did you like being a weatherman, Jack?’ Eric asked.
‘I like weather, but I didn’t enjoy being a weatherman. Weathermen are always made out to be clowns.’
‘Clowns scare me,’ Eric said. ‘I’m going to be a postman when I grow up.’
‘Why a postman?’
‘Because I’d bring people happiness every day: birthday cards and Christmas cards, letters from friends and presents.’
Eric had seemingly no concept of the rest of the mail he’d be delivering, Jack thought: utility bills, traffic fines, court summonses, tax demands, divorce papers and unwanted junk mail. ‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll become a postman, too. I’ve nothing else planned. Maybe we could become postmen together.’
Eric smiled.
‘Keep an eye on Nancy, will you, Jack? If she wakes up, tell her I’ve gone for a walk with Bob. I’ll be back soon.’
Doc and Bob left the bus and climbed the metal stairs of the fire tower. The views had long since disappeared, but the distant lights and stars above made the ascent worthwhile.
‘Pity we didn’ get here while it was light, Gene – views is special. You cain’t see nothin’ now, but the Shenandoah Valley’s down there, an’ also the seven bends o’ the North Fork River. You can see the Appalachians an’ the Blue Ridge Mountains, too.’
‘Maybe we’ll get a chance in the morning,’ Doc said. ‘How’s Marsha, by the way? She okay with you being here?’
‘She fine ’bout it. Next time you visit though, she gonna sit you down an’ give you lessons on telephone manners. Ev’dently, yo’s ain’t up to much.’
Doc smiled. ‘Did you tell her what we were doing?’
‘Kept it vague, man. Tol’ her we was jus’ helpin’ out an ol’ friend. No need fo’ her to worry.’
The common denominator in Doc and Bob’s early friendship had been Nancy, but Nancy was now an insoluble puzzle and the conversation turned to her. ‘Still looks good, don’t she?’ Bob said. ‘Hard to b’lieve, she ain’t right.’
Doc nodded. ‘It’s the wiring inside her head that’s the problem. It’s shot to pieces. She knows this – or at least she used to – and that’s why she wants to go back to Mississippi.’
‘Hell, man, her head’s gotta be messed up if she wan’s to go back there. Las’ place I’d wanna spend my final days.’
‘She’s got good memories of growing up there, and it’s where her family’s buried. She wants to be buried with them.’
‘How long you think she got, Gene? How long b’fore she dies?’
Doc shrugged. ‘There’s no way of telling, but I’m guessing not long.’
‘How you know that, man? Looks like she got a good few years yet. An’ what you gonna do – jus’ stay with her till she goes? People gonna be lookin’ fo’ you – you ever thought o’ that?’
Doc shrugged.
‘You ain’t tellin’ me somethin’, Gene. There’s somethin’ you ain’t sayin’.’
Doc looked away. ‘There’s nothing to tell, Bob. Nancy wants to die in Mississippi.’
‘It makes no sense, Gene. How you gonna hide yo’selves away an’ not be foun’. They’ll catch up with you, man, an’ when they do they’ll take her back to the home an’ you to jail.’
‘That won’t happen, Bob. Nancy doesn’t want it.’
‘Square with me, Gene. What the two o’ you plannin’?’
‘Okay, Bob. But you can’t tell Jack and you don’t talk to Nancy about it. Agreed?’
Bob nodded.
‘Nancy’s been scared of Alzheimer’s her whole life – it’s been running in her family for generations. Back when we were at Duke, she asked me if I’d bring her life to an end if she ever inherited it – before the real shit kicked in. I promised her then that I would, and another time five years ago when she asked me again. I don’t have a choice in the matter.’
Bob was taken aback. ‘Sure you got a choice, man. An’ you a doctor, Gene: you ain’t suppose’ to do things like this: you took the Oath!’
‘You just reminded me earlier today that I wasn’t a doctor, that I’d retired. Remember? I’m not acting as a doctor, Bob; I’m acting as her friend. Do you honestly think I’m happy about this?’
‘But it’s killin’, Gene, an’ killin’s wrong!’
Doc turned to Bob, suddenly annoyed. ‘How many people have you killed in your life, Bob? People who in all probability wanted to live? Nancy doesn’t want to live, for Christ’s sake!’
‘That ain’t fair, Gene, an’ you knows it.’
Immediately, Doc regretted his words and apologised. ‘I’m sorry, Bob. I didn’t mean that. It’s just that this isn’t something I enjoy talking about – or thinking about for that matter.
‘But let me ask you this. If you were on the battlefield and a friend of yours was mortally wounded, what would you do? Would you leave him to bleed out in agony or would you put him out of his misery – especially, if he asked you to?’
‘That ain’t the same thing, Gene. This diff’rent.’
‘But it isn’t, Bob! It’s exactly the same. All that’s different is the time line. It will take Nancy something like five years to bleed out, and throughout that time she’s going to be in the worst kind of agony you can imagine!’
‘All I know, Gene, is that if Marsha aksed me the same thing, I’d say no. I’d stay with her, be there fo’ her, but I wouldn’ kill her. How could I? She the love o’ my life.’
‘You’d do it because she was the love of your life,’ Doc said quietly.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
‘So, you goin’ through with it once we get to Coffeeville?’
Gene’s shoulders slumped. The conversation was exhausting him. ‘I wish I knew, Bob – I really wish I knew. I probably won’t know for sure until we get there. It’s what Nancy wants – or at least what she wanted when she was still Nancy – but is it something I want? No, it isn’t. Is it something I can do? I really don’t know.’
‘I ain’t gonna say no more on the matter, Gene, but when the time comes I hope you make the right decision: right fo’ Nancy, but right fo’ you, too. Nancy should never o’ laid somethin’ like this on you. Ain’t right.’
They fell silent, lost in their own thoughts, staring at the flickering lights far below them.
‘There is one thing, Bob,’ Doc said eventually. ‘Nancy wants this trip to be like a holiday. I can think of things to do in Nashville and Memphis, but I don’t know of anything to do between here and there. Can you suggest anything?’
Bob thought for a while. ‘Walton’s Mountain ain’t far from here, an’…’
‘There is such a place?’
‘Sure there is: over in Schuyler. An’ there’s Crawford, o’ course. I got a packet fo’ an’ ol’ friend o’ mine still livin’ there, so we got to go through there anyways. It’s a nice place an’ Nance’ll like it. We could stay a couple days or so, if you like.’
‘Who’s the friend?’
‘A guy called Merritt Crow. I stayed with him fo’ a time when I got back from Cuba. You’ll like him.’
Doc looked at him. ‘Is there something about the packet you’re not telling me?’
‘No more ’n what you ain’t tellin’ me,’ Bob smiled. ‘I’ll level with you though, Gene: it’s marijuana. I guess we all got reasons not to be caught!’
Doc smiled. ‘Okay, Walton’s Mountain first and then we’ll run some drugs into Crawford. Sounds like a plan.’
Eric was already in his bunk reading the Bible when they returned to the bus. He’d now completed the Books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and I Samuel, and the body count had risen by a further 356,825.
‘Where’s Eric got to?’ Doc asked. ‘And who’s this dark handsome stranger sleeping in his bunk?’
‘It’s me, Doctor Gene!’ Eric said excitedly. ‘Jack dyed my hair. It looks good, doesn’t it?’
‘It does, Eric. Maybe tomorrow we can persuade Jack to dye your eyebrows too. You might want to take those gloves off, by the way. It’ll give your hands a chance to breathe overnight.’
‘Will do, Doctor Gene,’ Eric answered.
Nancy and Jack sat facing each other in the lounge area, neither one speaking. ‘Gene, thank goodness you’ve come back!’ Nancy said, agitated. ‘That man’s been trying to kill me. He said he was going to put me in the washing machine!’
‘I was only joking,’ Jack said. ‘Besides, there isn’t a washing machine.’
‘Jesus, Jack!’ Doc said.
He went to a top cupboard in the kitchen and took two pills from a container. He filled a glass with water and gave it to Nancy. ‘These will make you sleep well tonight, Nancy.’
She swallowed them one at a time, eyeing Doc suspiciously. ‘You’re not trying to kill me, are you?’
‘Of course not,’ he replied evenly.
He handed her a towel and the wash bag he’d packed, and brought her a nightgown to change into. He waited while she used the bathroom, and then led her to her bunk.
Eric was the last one to turn out his light. It was at night, in the quiet of his own bed, that he always felt most alone; remembered his parents and sometimes cried. He still found it hard to believe he’d never see them again, that they were gone from his life forever. For weeks after the funeral he’d fantasised that his parents were still alive and victims of a giant misunderstanding. Maybe Mr Annandale had identified the wrong bodies and mistaken two hideously deformed strangers for his mother and father. Maybe his parents were still in Egypt, lost in the desert and sheltering in the tent of a friendly Bedouin who lived by himself in the middle of a sand dune and didn’t have a telephone. Maybe they’d lost their memories and joined a travelling circus and were training as trapeze artists. Maybe they’d been kidnapped by abductors who couldn’t read or write and didn’t know how to send a ransom note. Maybe, even, that they’d converted to Islam and were now too embarrassed to return home and face disappointing Mr Annandale and The Reverend Pete.
But for all the maybes that passed through his head, the day eventually came when a single sad and definite truth lodged there: his parents were dead, now and for all time. Once he accepted this reality, he realised that he had to start looking to himself but, to be on the safe side, also decided to place his small frame in the hands of a loving God. If God was alert to the plights of tiny sparrows and lost sheep, then Eric was certain He’d bust a gut to help an orphan boy find his only cousin. Secure in this knowledge and insulated by his own naivety, he’d journeyed safely and without fear through a world inhabited by murderers, child molesters, muggers and kidnappers, and found only kindness and good turns. (If God wasn’t looking out for Eric, then he was certainly having his fair share of good luck!)
He lay there thinking, counted his blessings, and wondered if Doc was like a modern-day Moses leading them to a Promised Land, and if he should amend his personal prayer list.
Every night, for as long as he could remember, Eric had recited the Lord’s Prayer, and followed it with a short prayer his mother had taught him:
God bless Mummy, Daddy,
Grandmas and Grandpas,
Uncles, Aunts,
Cousins and Everybody.
Please make Eric a good boy,
Amen
This night he made up his mind to refine the prayer. He’d never met his grandparents but decided to leave them on the list anyway. He had but one uncle, one cousin and, since Jeff’s divorce, no aunts; he therefore decided to start blessing Jeff and Susan by name. He also decided to include the names of the people who’d helped him since the deaths of his parents: Red Dunbar, Lily Gomez, Larry Hicks and Big Guy; Otis Sistrunk, Doctor Gene, Mrs Skidmore and Jack. (Arthur and Alice Annandale, The Reverend Pete and Walter Strey, he felt, were covered by the general description everybody.) It pleased him that his new world was becoming populated.
He tried out his new prayer and liked it:
God bless Mummy, Daddy,
Grandmas and Grandpas,
Uncle Jeff and Cousin Susan,
Red Dunbar and Lily Gomez,
Larry Hicks and Big Guy,
Otis Sistrunk and Doctor Gene,
Mrs Skidmore, Jack,
and Everybody.
Please make Eric a good boy,
Amen
A cold front had moved into the area overnight, lowering the temperature and shrouding the mountain in mist. It was now raining heavily, and pools of water had formed on the uneven surface of the road. Nancy had slept peacefully, but the change in weather appeared to depress her. Doc helped her dress and took her to the bathroom.
Bob was already in the kitchen, toasting bread and making coffee. He’d set a carton of orange juice on the counter and placed cups, bowls and packets of cereal on the table. ‘How she doin’, Gene?’
‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know. She slept well enough, but now she seems preoccupied, a bit otherworldly. I’m hoping she’ll come to once she’s properly woken up.’
They were joined by Jack and then Eric.
‘Everyone sleep okay?’ Doc asked. It seemed everyone had – apart from himself, that is. Nancy’s voice came from the bathroom; Doc braced himself as the door opened and she came storming out.
‘Did you buy this toilet paper, Arnold?’ she challenged Doc. ‘You’re a cheapskate! Do you know that? My finger went straight through it. Why on earth did I ever marry you?’
Doc made a move towards her. ‘Don’t touch me! Take your goddamn hands away from me!’ He stopped in his tracks. Eric hid behind Jack, but Bob pretended nothing untoward was happening: ‘You wan’ cereal or toast, Nance?’
‘Toast please, Bob,’ Nancy answered, and then sat in the lounge as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. ‘Where’s Gene?’ she asked. ‘Shouldn’t he be getting up?’ Doc volunteered to go find him, waited in the sleeping area for a couple of minutes and then wandered nonchalantly back into the kitchen. ‘Morning, Nancy,’ he said. ‘Morning, everyone.’
‘About time too, Gene,’ Nancy said. ‘We’re about to eat breakfast!’
After the breakfast plates had been cleared, they prepared to leave the mountain.
‘How are you going to turn the bus around?’ Doc asked Bob.
‘I ain’t. I’m gonna follow the road down the other side o’ the hill.’
‘Have you been down there before?’
‘No, but I’m guessin’ it ain’t no diff’rent from the road we jus’ drove up.’
Bob started the engine, and carefully edged the bus down the single track dirt road that cut its way through the mountain. It was steeper than yesterday’s road and took longer to navigate. Bob managed to get the bus around the first two curves, but came to an abrupt halt at the next turn – a hairpin.
‘Hmmm. This ain’t lookin’ good, Gene. I could maybe get us roun’ this one, but I’m wonderin’ how many more o’ these bends there is. Las’ thing we need is to get the bus stuck. I think we need to send out a scoutin’ party.’
‘Hey Jack, can you walk down the road a distance and see what it’s like down there?’ Doc asked.
‘Can I go with Jack, Doctor Gene?’ Eric asked. ‘I’ve got an umbrella.’
‘Okay with me,’ Jack said. ‘Open the door, Bob.’
Bob opened the door and Jack walked straight into the hillside – a mere two inches from the opening – and bounced back into the bus. ‘I guess I won’t be leaving through this exit,’ he said. ‘Open the back door, will you?’
The problem of leaving the bus through the rear door was the polar opposite of trying to leave through the front door. Although there was nothing to prevent Jack from exiting the vehicle, neither was there any ground for him to rest his feet on: while the bus’s wheels remained on the road, its body overhung a void. ‘I’m going to need some help back here, Bob,’ Jack shouted.
Bob joined him, and stood at the door scratching his head. ‘I’ll have to lower you,’ he said. ‘Take my hand.’ Jack took it, and while Bob slowly lowered him, his feet searched for the hillside. ‘Okay, Bob, I’m there. You can let go now.’ Bob let go and Jack slithered down the slope to the road below.
Jack walked for a half mile before turning back. He disturbed a couple of white-tailed deer and a red-tailed hawk, but what he saw of the road told him it wouldn’t be possible for the bus to descend any further. He climbed back to the rear entrance where Bob was waiting. ‘Too many switchbacks, Bob. You’ll never get the bus round them.’
There was no alternative but to reverse the bus up the road and back to where they’d started out. It wouldn’t be easy.
‘I need a point man front o’ bus an’ one at back,’ Bob said. ‘I’ll lower you firs’, Jack, an’ then you, Gene.’
Jack found his footing and then waited for Doc to be lowered.
‘Man, Gene, you mus’ weigh the same as a damn elephan’,’ Bob gasped. ‘Get ready to catch him, Jack, I cain’t hol’ him much longer.’ He suddenly lost his grip and the weight of Doc sent both him and Jack sprawling down the hillside. ‘You okay?’ Bob shouted after them.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Jack said, ‘but we’re alive – and Doc’s going on a diet once we get back on the bus!’
‘Jesus, I’m too old for these shenanigans,’ Doc complained. ‘Look at my pants!’
‘You take the front and I’ll take the back, Doc. You want a hand getting there?’
‘No, I can manage. Why the hell did Bob have to drive down a road like this? We’ll look well if the bus gets stuck.’
After they were both in position, Bob put the bus into reverse and slowly applied the accelerator. The front wheels skidded, eventually gripped, and the bus moved steadily backwards until Jack shouted out. ‘You’re going into the side of the hill, Bob!’
Bob let the bus slide forward, and then mistakenly applied the accelerator and sent Doc scurrying.
‘Dammit, Bob, you almost killed me!’ Doc shouted.
Bob broke into a smile, adjusted the turn of the wheel and reversed again.
Ever more mindful of the clay wall Bob had almost driven into, Jack completely forgot about the drop at the other side of the track, and before he’d noticed what was happening the nearside rear wheels slipped over the edge and the bus lurched.
‘Holy shit!’ Bob yelled, and immediately pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor. The bus juddered for a few seconds and then shot forward, hitting the hillside hard and sending Doc again running for cover.
Jack moved to the front of the bus to talk strategy with Doc and Bob. ‘Do you think we should get help?’ he suggested.
‘We’re not in a position to get help!’ Doc retorted. ‘We’ve got a kidnap and a runaway on board. And the bus is stolen!’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Jack said.
‘Neither did I till yesterday!’
‘Don’t go blamin’ me – it was all I could get hol’ of at such short notice! Anyway, it ain’t as if the vehicle’s hot. Bus was stole five years ago.’ Bob said. ‘No one’ll be lookin’ fo’ it now.’
‘Is there anything else either one of you thinks I should know?’ Jack asked.
‘I got drugs fo’ a friend o’ mine, but that’s ’bout it.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Jack exclaimed. ‘If we ever get off this damn mountain, I’m going to dye my hair!’
Eventually they managed to get the bus back up the track, but it took them more than two hours of edging backwards, then forwards and then backwards again; sometimes moving a few feet and sometimes only inches. Surprisingly, the bus suffered only minor scratches and two small dents.
Back at the fire tower, Doc and Jack remained outside the bus while Bob executed a one-hundred-and-two-point manoeuvre – Eric counted each turn of the wheel. Eventually the bus was turned around, but another hour had now passed.
Nancy, who had slept through the excitement, woke up as Doc re-entered the lounge, his clothes wet and his pants covered in mud. ‘What time is it, Gene?’ she asked.
‘Just gone noon,’ Doc answered.
‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘About three hours, give or take.’
‘And where are we now?’
‘About two feet from where we were when you fell asleep!’ Doc sighed.
The bus slowly retraced its steps to the interstate. ‘You think they mighta mentioned some place that the road ain’t suitable fo’ vehicles like this,’ Bob grumbled.
‘They did,’ Eric said. ‘We passed a sign yesterday. It said: “WARNING – No Access to Trailers, Motor Homes and RVs”.’
‘Come to think, I did see a warnin’ sign,’ Bob said thoughtfully. ‘Musta missed that bit.’
It took them a further two hours to reach the interstate, and they then continued their journey south. ‘We can get us a late lunch in Staunton,’ Bob said. ‘I know a real good diner there.’
For the next sixty miles, Doc and Nancy snoozed. Jack went to the front of the bus and chatted with Bob, while Eric finished reading I Kings and updated his notebook: another 306,393 dead.
They arrived in Staunton and entered the diner. As Doc looked through the menu, he realised he was in his dream restaurant and saliva started to trickle from the corner of his mouth. He looked at his watch. ‘Be ready to order when the waitress gets here,’ he said. ‘It’s past two already and we need to get to Walton’s Mountain before it closes. What time did you say it closed, Bob?’
‘’Bout six, I think.’
‘Here she comes. I’ll order for you, Nancy.’
Doc ordered first: meat loaf, mushroom gravy and green lima beans for him; pan fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for Nancy – and a plate of corn bread for all to share. Bob opted for fried clams, turnip greens and pickled beets, while Jack picked out the pork ribs, yams and baked tomatoes.
‘What are you going to eat, Eric?’ Doc prompted him.
‘I’ll have the same as Jack,’ Eric replied.
When the food had been eaten, Doc called the waitress back to the booth and everyone, except Nancy, ordered slices of pie: coconut cream, pecan, lemon and cherry.
Bob noticed Eric staring at the young waitress. ‘You ol’ hound dog, Eric. You checkin’ out the waitress?’ Eric turned as red as the washing-up gloves he was wearing and immediately denied it.
‘Nothin’ to be ashamed o’, boy. She pretty as a picture. If I was fifty years younger, I’d be thinkin’ o’ movin’ to Staunton an’ eatin’ all my meals here. Ha!’
While the others ate their pie, Nancy kept staring at a man sitting at the counter. He was wearing a light-coloured suit and appeared to be in his late fifties. ‘Gene, I think that’s my father,’ she whispered. ‘Why doesn’t he come over?’
‘Your father’s dead, Nancy,’ Doc said gently. ‘It’s probably just someone who reminds you of him.’
‘My father’s not dead, Gene. I know he never liked you, but there’s no need for you to say such mean things about him. It’s him! I wouldn’t make a mistake like that.’
‘Look at him, Nancy. He’s younger than you are. How can he be your father?’
‘You’re being silly. He’s not younger than I am. How old do you think I am?’
‘You’re four years younger than me, Nancy. You’re just about to turn sixty-eight.’ Nancy stared at him. Doc opened her purse, took out a small mirror and handed it to her. Nancy looked at the reflection. ‘Oh my, Gene. I’m old. When did I get old like this?’
‘When you weren’t looking, Nancy. The same way we all did.’
‘My parents are dead, then?’
‘I’m afraid so, yes. My parents are dead, too, Nancy. So are Bob’s and Jack’s. And Eric’s parents are also dead. We’re all orphans here, Nancy. We have to take care of each other now.’
Afraid of how Nancy might react, he signalled for the waitress to bring the check. Nancy sat quietly, but still glanced at the man sitting at the counter.
‘What yo’ name, chil’?’ Bob asked the waitress when she brought them the check.
‘The same name that’s on my badge,’ she smiled.
‘He doesn’t read signs too well,’ Jack said. ‘You might just want to tell him and get it overed with.’
‘Camille,’ the girl answered.
‘That a pretty name. I’m Otis, an’ I wanna introduce you to a friend o’ mine – this here is Eric.’ Eric looked at her petrified, but Camille was kind and smiled at him.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eric,’ she said, taking his hand and shaking it. ‘I like your gloves.’
Eric’s voice got stuck somewhere deep in his throat and he was unable to utter a single word.
‘Your name’s not Otis,’ Nancy said. ‘You shouldn’t tell lies like that. The next thing you’ll be saying is that you’re white!’
‘Okay, let’s make a move,’ Doc said quickly. ‘Bob’s got another mountain to drive up – and you know how long it takes him.’
He paid the bill in notes and left Camille a generous tip. As they left the diner, Nancy escaped from his arm and stepped towards the man sitting at the counter. When she got within range, she swung her bag and hit him hard on the back. In no uncertain terms she told him never to pretend to be her father again. ‘It isn’t funny!’
Doc took Nancy’s arm and guided her firmly away from the man and towards the door. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he turned and said to the man.
‘Don’t apologise to him, Gene,’ Nancy snapped. ‘That man’s pure evil!’
The door closed shut behind them and the man at the counter was left wondering what the hell had just happened.
They headed east on Highway 250. ‘This is a pretty town,’ Nancy said, as the bus rolled through Waynesboro. ‘I wonder who lives here.’
‘My guess would be the people of Waynesboro,’ Jack said.
They climbed into the Blue Ridge Mountains, heading first south on Highway 6 and then east. They passed vineyards at Cardinal Point and the first traces of kudzu. The area was still overwhelmingly wooded and the leaves were now starting to turn: splashes of red, orange, yellow and purple. They finished their journey on country roads and arrived at Walton’s Mountain shortly after five. There were no visible lights and the car park was empty.
‘Looks a bit quiet,’ Doc said. ‘Are you sure it’s open?’
Bob climbed out of the bus and walked across the uneven surface of the car park to the entrance of an unprepossessing brick building. There was a notice board there with the opening hours printed on it: 10 am-4 pm.
‘Damn, if it ain’t shut,’ Bob called.
‘Try the door, Otis,’ Eric called back. ‘The Waltons never used to lock their door at night.’
Bob laughed at the boy’s naivety, but turned the door’s handle anyway. ‘Well, I’ll be…’ he said.
The door opened.
The Waltons was a television series that aired 1972–81. In hour-long episodes, it told the story of an extended family living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the years of the Great Depression. The key to the series was young John Boy Walton, an aspiring writer, and his was the voice that introduced each week’s episode – albeit, the voice of a grown-up John Boy now living in New York and recollecting his mountain days from the vantage point of an air-conditioned skyscraper. The times portrayed in the series were simpler and less complicated than the years of its broadcast, and the storyline of each episode was invariably positive: friends and neighbours pulling together to overcome personal and economic hardships. Every instalment ended with the Waltons tucked up in bed and saying goodnight to each other: ‘Goodnight, John Boy; goodnight, Mary Ellen; goodnight, Jason; goodnight, Erin; goodnight…’
The programme became a ratings success, and television audiences found themselves longing to return to this bye-gone age of community. They coveted its certainty, and sought to recapture the time when God had been feared, values been traditional and families close-knit and loving. They hungered for the days when everyone had known and talked to each other and loneliness was only a word, and dreamt of finding a time warp, of climbing into it and travelling back to the time of The Waltons. They would turn their backs on the materialism and convenience of their present, and take with them only the barest of necessities, the one thing they still considered essential – nuclear weapons!
The utopian times they imagined, however, were distant, long-gone and destined never to return. That they were illusory and made of celluloid mattered little to the millions of viewers who watched the programme. For them, these times had existed, and each week they lost themselves in the lives and struggles of the people who lived on Walton’s Mountain, and conveniently forgot that the actor playing Grandpa Walton had, at one time, been a member of the Communist Party.
Doc stood in the car park with his hands on his hips taking in their new surroundings. ‘You’re sure this is Walton’s Mountain? It looks nothing like it.’
‘It ain’t the actual mountain, no,’ Bob said. ‘This is Walton’s Mountain Museum. There’s a diff’rence, but it’s close you gonna get – realer ’n the real thing, anyways.’ Doc waited for an explanation.
‘The real thing’s a sham, Gene – an’ the mountain, too. House an’ rest of it’s in California, back o’ Warner Bros Studios. This here,’ he said, pointing to the brick building in front of them, ‘is where Earl Hamner went to school. Schuyler’s where he growed up an’ he’s the one what wrote The Waltons. It’s his story, man. He’s the real John Boy!’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I read trash magazines. Buy ’em at the supermarket.’
Eric and Nancy joined them, Eric holding on to Nancy’s hand. ‘I said the door would be unlocked, Otis,’ Eric said proudly. ‘Did you hear me tell him, Doctor Gene?’
‘I did, Eric. Now, where’s Jack got to?’
‘He’s combing his hair.’
Doc rolled his eyes. He was about to go and get him when he saw his godson step from the bus pulling strands of hair from a comb and looking wistful.
‘Come on, Jack! We haven’t got all day.’
‘The day’s already gone, Doc. We’ve got the whole damn night to tour this place.’
They walked carefully into the old schoolhouse where Bob was searching the walls with the beam of a small torch. ‘What are you looking for?’ Doc asked.
‘A light switch. How else we gonna see this place?’
He located a long row of switches and tested each one until satisfied with the degree of illumination. ‘Man, I shoulda worked in the theatre fo’ a livin’: I gotta gift fo’ this.’
They found themselves standing in a large school hall, empty but for a few tables. The old classrooms leading from it had been converted into replicas of rooms featured in the series: John Boy’s bedroom, the Waltons’ kitchen and living rooms, Ike Godsey’s store and the Baldwin Sisters’ recipe room.
They wandered from room to room, at first as a group and then in ones and twos. They walked into John Boy’s bedroom and saw a writing table; moved on to Ike Godsey’s store and saw an old crank telephone; entered the Waltons’ living room and saw a radio, and in their kitchen, an ironing board. Finally, they went into the Baldwin Sisters’ room and saw a sour mash whiskey still.
‘Well, weren’t that somethin’?’ Bob laughed.
‘Not really,’ Jack replied. ‘It looks like kids did it. I mean, we’re not talking professionalism here, are we? More like enthusiastic amateurs. How much do they charge for this?’
‘Seven bucks,’ Bob said.
‘I liked it,’ Eric said enthusiastically. ‘I saw John Boy’s spectacles, his fountain pen and his typewriter. He used to write all the time – did you know that?’
‘Sure, I knew it,’ Jack said. ‘Who could forget Mr Goody Two Shoes? I used to get tired of my parents telling me I should be more like him. The best day of my life was when he left the show.’
Doc joined them, slightly breathless. ‘Have any of you seen Nancy?’
‘I thought she was with you,’ Jack answered.
‘She was, but I lost her when she went to the restroom.’
‘She musta gone back to one o’ the rooms then, Gene. She ain’t passed us by.’
Doc went in search of Nancy and found her rummaging through Ike Godsey’s store, stuffing T-shirts, coffee mugs and fridge magnets into a plastic bag. ‘We’ll take these for the children, Gene. They’ll be sorry to have missed this.’
‘What children?’
Nancy looked at him as if he was being purposely obtuse. ‘The children at Milton Hershey, of course! What other children would I be talking about? I teach there – or have you forgotten?’
‘We can’t take these things, Nancy. There’s no one to pay.’
‘You don’t have to pay for them, silly. They’re free. We’re meant to take them.’ The expression on Nancy’s face became fixed, and she pulled the bag away from Doc, well out of his reach.
‘Okay, Nancy, but we need to leave. The others are waiting for us.’
Nancy quickly helped herself to some postcards and then followed Doc into the main hall.
‘Watch Nancy for a minute, will you, Bob?’ Doc asked.
He then returned to Ike Godsey’s store, peeled off five twenty dollar bills and placed them on the counter. He figured there was no need to add larceny to the list of charges they already faced.
They ate pizza again that evening, and after the meal had finished, Doc loosened the belt of his pants. He went to the sleeping area for the box where he kept Nancy’s medicines. Eric and Nancy were chatting happily there, and Eric was now wearing a T-shirt Nancy had given him. It was mauve with a drawing of the Walton’s house on the front (the one in California), and underneath it the inscription: Good night Mama …’night Daddy … good night John Boy. Nancy was telling Eric about the children in her class and Doc left just as Eric asked her if any of them had been deaf.
Doc still wasn’t sure if the dosages he was prescribing Nancy were correct, or if the combinations he’d decided upon complemented or worked against each other. He’d noticed that her mood swings were sudden and unpredictable and that she agitated easily. This was certainly the nature of the disease, but even so, he should have been able to control it better. He sat down in the lounge and started to review the information accompanying the pills, amending his notes and recalculating dosages.
Seemingly apropos of nothing, Jack asked Doc what he thought of the name Zebulon, and if he’d had a son would he have ever considered calling him by that name.
‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Just curious. Why did you call your daughter Esther?’
‘Beth came up with the name. She liked the sound of it – and I liked it too. Why?’
‘Because there are times when I wish my parents had come up with something a bit more imaginative than Jack: it’s a bit ordinary, isn’t it?’
‘You are ordinary. It suits you just fine. And if you think about it, it could have been a lot worse: your dad was called Sydney and your grandfather was called Walter. The day they were born, they both sounded like they were eighty years old. You got off easy, kid. If you changed your name to Zebulon Guravitch, anyone seeing it written down would think you were a hundred and ten, never mind eighty. If I were you, I’d stick with Jack.’
‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. I must admit though, I do like the sound of Zebulon. You don’t know what the name means, do you?’
‘No, but Bob probably will. He seems to know all kinds of junk these days. Hey Bob, what’s the derivation of Zebulon?’
‘He was one o’ Jacob’s sons. Name means intercourse.’
‘Maybe not Zebulon, then.’ Jack concluded.
Doc drew the conversation to a close. ‘Time to turn in, gentlemen. We need to be up early tomorrow morning and be ready to leave before anyone arrives. I’ll use the bathroom first and get Nancy ready for bed.’
After the lights in the bus had been extinguished and they were lying in their beds preparing for sleep, a small voice rang out:
‘Goodnight, Mrs Skidmore… goodnight, Doctor Gene… goodnight, Otis… goodnight, Jack.’
‘Goodnight, Eric,’ Doc said. ‘Now, go to sleep.’
In the morning, Eric was gone.
Bob was the first to notice Eric’s absence. ‘Where’s Bible Boy at?’ he asked, once everyone was dressed and in the kitchen.
‘He’s probably still in bed,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ll go get him.’
Eric, however, wasn’t in his bed or anywhere else on the bus. ‘Where the hell’s the boy got to?’ Doc asked.
‘I’ll check outside,’ Jack said. ‘Maybe he’s gone for a walk.’
Jack stood in the car park and listened. He called Eric’s name but there was no response. He walked across the gravel to the museum and tried the door. It was locked. He looked around and saw an empty house across the road and below it a gift shop. He went to them and tried both doors but they too were locked. He called out Eric’s name again, his voice travelling through the silence like wire through a slab of cheese.
‘There’s no sign of him, Doc,’ Jack said, now slightly alarmed. ‘You don’t think he’s run off, do you?’
‘Why would he do that, and where would he go? We’re in the middle of nowhere here, and his rucksack’s still on the bus. He’s got to be somewhere close. Did you try the museum? He might have gone back in there for a last look.’
‘The door’s locked. He can’t be in there.’
‘I was last out an’ I didn’ lock it,’ Bob said. ‘Left it jus’ like we found it. Soun’s like he gone back in an’ the door’s locked shut behind him. I’ll come take a look with you.’
Jack and Bob circled the building, knocking on windows and shouting Eric’s name. Still, there was no response.
‘It’s getting light and there’ll be people driving by soon,’ Jack said. ‘Can’t you break in or something?’
‘Why you aks me that? A black man able to break in buildin’s a white man cain’t?’
‘I didn’t mean it that way, Bob. It’s just that, well, you’re more resourceful than we are.’
‘An’ how you figure that?’
‘You found the light switch!’ Jack said, somewhat unconvincingly.
They circled the building again and checked for any open windows. They found one at the rear, a high restroom window slightly proud of its frame. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to climb through it, Bob?’
‘Hell no, I cain’t fit through that! This a job fo’ a skinny white boy.’
‘I’m thinner than you are, but I’m not skinny. I’m not sure I could squeeze through it.’
‘You the neares’ thing we got, so stop yappin’ an’ climb on my shoulders.’
Bob squatted to allow Jack to clamber on to his shoulders and then slowly rose. Jack pushed at the window and it opened. He called out Eric’s name again, but there was still no reply. He put his arms through the opening and then his head, slowly manoeuvring his body forward. His feet left Bob’s shoulders and he continued wriggling until his hips caught.
‘I’m stuck, Bob!’ he yelled. ‘You’ll have to push me!’
‘I cain’t even reach you, man. You sure you stuck?’
‘Of course I’m stuck! Do something for Christ’s sake, will you! I’m in danger of losing my manhood.’
‘I’ll go get Gene,’ Bob said, smiling.
Despite the seriousness of the situation and the increasing likelihood of having to leave Eric behind, Doc burst out laughing when he saw Jack’s legs sticking through the window.
‘This isn’t funny!’ Jack shouted.
‘How’s your hair, Jack? Is that okay?’
‘Fuck off, Doc! Maybe you could do something useful and help Bob get me out of here before people start to arrive.’
‘Boy’s right, Gene. We need to get movin’. Climb on my shoulders an’ then try an’ ease him through the hole.’
Bob squatted again, but this time rose with much greater difficulty. ‘Hell, Gene,’ he gasped. ‘Fo’ a live man, you a dead muthafuckin’ weight. Why you let yo’self get like this?’
Bob’s legs started to wobble and Doc swayed dangerously. He grabbed on to Jack’s legs to stop himself from toppling and Jack yelled. Doc apologised, but even now couldn’t stop chuckling. He eased and pushed Jack’s hips until they were free from the grasp of the frame, and his godson shot through the window. There was thump, followed by a loud groan.
‘You okay, Jack?’ Doc asked, for the first time concerned.
‘What do you think? I’ve just fallen six feet on to a tiled floor!’
‘He’s okay,’ Doc said, turning to Bob and smiling again. ‘Bob and I will go back to the bus, Jack. We’ll see you there.’
‘But what if Eric isn’t in here? What do we do then?’
‘Let’s have that conversation once we know. Now start looking!’
It was eerily quiet inside. Jack left the restroom and checked rooms as he came to them. Finally, and with relief, he found Eric sleeping soundly in John Boy’s bed. There was a strange, almost serene look on the boy’s face, but when Jack shook his shoulder and spoke his name, a look of acute pain crossed over it and Eric’s body convulsed.
‘Hey, Eric, wake up, kid. You’re having a nightmare. We thought we’d lost you, little man.’
Eric’s eyes opened and his body jerked upright. He was breathing heavily, palpitating and looked terrified. He scrambled out of the bed and rushed past Jack. ‘What the hell was all that about?’ Jack wondered. He straightened the sheets, tucked them into the bed and then smoothed the bedspread. Once he was sure all traces of Eric had been removed, he left the room, let himself out of the museum and returned to the bus.
‘What’s wrong with Eric?’ Doc asked.
‘I think he’s had a nightmare,’ Jack replied. ‘Why?’
‘He just dashed straight past everyone and into the bathroom. He’s still in there.’
Jack knocked on the bathroom door. ‘You okay in there, Eric? Need any help?’ He thought he heard the sound of sobbing, but then Eric answered.
‘I’m alright, Jack. I’ll be out soon.’
‘Okay, but watch your balance: the bus is about to set off. I’ll leave your breakfast on the table and you can join us up front when you’re ready.’
Bob was already sitting at the wheel, but Doc and Nancy were still in the rear lounge. ‘Is he going to be alright by himself?’ Nancy asked.
‘I think so,’ Jack replied. ‘He just needs time to get over his dream.’
‘I wonder what he was dreaming about.’ Nancy mused. ‘You should know, Gene. You’re his father.’
‘He’s not my son, Nancy.’
‘Is he my son, then?’ Nancy asked.
‘No, he’s an orphan, Nancy. We’re his friends. We’re helping him find his cousin – she’s going to look after him.’
‘The poor boy,’ she said. ‘It must be awful not to have parents. I’ll be glad when I see mine again. This time, I’m not leaving them.’
Bob started the bus. ‘I think that track yonder might be a short cut to the main road. Might give it a try.’
‘Just go back the way you came,’ Doc said. ‘We don’t need a repeat of yesterday’s performance.’
‘You the boss man, Gene. Jus’ tryin’ to save you some gas money, is all.’
Bob drove the bus slowly down the deserted road and back in the direction of Highway 6. They’d decided to head west, connect with I151 and follow Skyline Drive along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There was little traffic, and little movement in the houses they passed. It was 6:45 am and the morning was overcast.
Eric joined them in the front lounge. He was unusually quiet and sat reading the Bible. Doc couldn’t be sure from where he sat, but it appeared that Eric was reading the Book of Genesis again – the same verses over and over. He caught Eric’s eye and smiled at him: ‘You didn’t lose count, did you?’
Eric was about to say something when his voice caught and he started to sob uncontrollably. Tears poured from his eyes and dripped from his cheeks on to his Walton’s Mountain T-shirt. His small body quivered, and when he attempted to catch his breath he made strange, high-pitched braying noises. Jack went to Eric’s side and pulled the boy towards him. ‘It’s okay, Eric. It’s okay.’ He waited for the emotion to drain, and once he’d felt the boy’s body go limp in his arms, took hold of his red washing-up-gloved hand and led him to the rear lounge. Five minutes went by and then Jack returned by himself.
‘He thinks he’s dying and wants to talk to you, Doc. My guess is it’s a New Orleans matter.’
When Doc joined the practice in Maryland, he entered a world of code and euphemism. The practice had been led by Paul Hargrove, a doctor in his early sixties, a native of the town and a man both traditional and obdurate in his views. He insisted that junior doctors follow his own dress code and wear dark suits, white shirts and bow ties. He was equally adamant that they have a smile on their face and a shine on their shoes (preferably black) at all times. ‘The community looks up to us,’ he admonished. ‘We should neither disappoint nor offend them!’ He warned them against public crapulence (a sackable offence), and encouraged them to attend church every Sunday – preferably the Episcopalian service.
When it came to examinations of patients below the waist, Hargrove was particularly stiff-necked: he wanted no mention of either penises or vaginas. Although he allowed for the fact that these were bona fide medical terms, he was emphatic in his belief that both caused offence and distress to patients. The only expression he would permit them to use was Down Below. He contended, however, that at heart he was a tolerant man, and would be willing to review the situation if any doctor were able to coin an equally anodyne representation of the subject matter at hand – or rather – down below. He doubted, however, that this was a possibility.
Doc had been one of two junior doctors in the practice. He found the whole idea of using the description Down Below ridiculous, but from a position of powerlessness proceeded to use the phrase and gave the matter little more thought. The other junior doctor, however, made it his mission in life to find an expression of equal blandness, and eventually proved successful. His first suggestion, that they use the term South of the Border, was rejected by Hargrove on the grounds that it was too Mexican. It was then he came up with the phrase Way down Yonder.
It was taken from Way down Yonder in New Orleans, a song written in the early nineteen-twenties and recorded by various artists. Freddy Cannon’s version was the most recent, but the recording familiar to the doctor was Louis Armstrong’s. He was listening to the album at home one evening and sat bolt upright when he heard the lyric:
Way down yonder in New Orleans
in the land of dreamy scenes
there’s a Garden of Eden… you know what I mean
Garden of Eden was the first phrase to resonate, but was quickly dismissed: Hargrove would have judged it too suggestive. But Way down Yonder, he believed, was in with a strong chance. He brought it up at the following day’s practice meeting and Hargrove considered it carefully – longer than he usually considered such suggestions. Eventually, he shook his head. ‘It’s too black, too rural,’ he said. ‘But, repeat the first line again, will you?’ The junior doctor did.
‘What about New Orleans? Why don’t we refer to Down Below as New Orleans?’ Hargrove suggested. ‘It’s a city with a good reputation, it’s in the south of the United States rather than Mexico, and they serve good food there, too. I like the idea!’
The junior doctor winked at Doc, and Doc smiled back. That night, they went to a local bar and celebrated the junior doctor’s triumph.
Only once did the maxim cause confusion and then, only after Doc had retired from practice. At the time he’d been walking through a department store and been accosted by a middle-aged woman. Her face was familiar, but he wasn’t sure why.
‘Hi, Doctor Chaney, how are you?’ she’d said. ‘I’m Gwen Collins. I used to be a patient of yours.’
‘So you did, Gwen. I’m well thank you, and how are you?’
‘There’s been a terrible disaster in New Orleans, Dr Chaney!’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to see your new doctor about that, Gwen – I’m retired these days. Good luck to you.’ And with that, he’d walked briskly away. It was only after he’d returned home and listened to CNN, that he realised she’d been talking about Hurricane Katrina.
Doc walked to the rear of the bus where Eric was sitting. The boy was calmer now but still visibly upset. He sat beside him and, in a practised bedside manner, asked Eric what was troubling him. His style was both sympathetic and disarming; worthy of first place in any medical death bed competition, and it therefore surprised him when Eric burst into tears again.
Eric had been woken during the night by the sounds of Doc and Bob snoring. He was on the verge of falling back to sleep again when Nancy had started to make strange whimpering noises, and Jack to talk in his sleep: ‘Tell it to my ex-wife, buddy… You try telling her… Fuck Bingo… Heavy downpours tomorrow, folks: don’t forget your umbrellas.’ The noises disquieted him and made him think of the empty bed in John Boy’s room. Careful not to disturb Jack, he’d climbed down from the bunk, quietly put on his sneakers and walked the short distance to the brick schoolhouse. Once there, he’d made his way to John Boy’s room and climbed into bed. Within minutes he was fast asleep.
He told Doc he’d been dreaming, but remained tight-lipped as to the exact nature of his dream. All he would say was that his thing down there – pointing to his pecker – had grown in size and, as he awoke, sticky stuff had started to spurt from it. He knew from the accompanying sensation that something bad had happened, that he’d done wrong and would now probably die.
Doc smiled at Eric. ‘You needn’t worry yourself about this, young man. It’s all part of growing up: it happens to everybody. It’s happened to me, it’s happened to Bob and it’s happened to Jack. What you had was a wet dream. They just happen. But tell me, why do you think something bad happened?’
‘It felt too good to be right,’ Eric said. ‘And in the Bible it says that God kills people for this. He killed a man called Onan.’
‘I don’t know much about Onan, Eric; but Bob, Jack and I are all still alive: He hasn’t killed us. You mustn’t worry and get yourself upset over something as unimportant as this. You haven’t done anything wrong and believe me, it will happen again. Like it or not, it’s going to be a part of your life from now on.’
Eric went to the bathroom to wash his face and Doc returned to the others. Jack looked at him expectantly.
‘You’re Jewish, Jack: what do you know about Onan?’
‘Why would I know any more about onions than the next person, just because I’m Jewish? It’s a vegetable and it’s used for cooking. What more is there to know?’
‘Not onions, you dimwit – Onan! He was a vegetable of the Biblical variety and God cooked him. Now does his name ring a bell?’
‘I’ve never heard of him. You know my family was never practising. I’m not sure we even had a Torah in the house, let alone a Bible.’
Doc turned to Bob: ‘Hey, Bob. Do you know anything about Onan?’
‘Know all ’bout the man. People think he was a masturbator but he weren’t: he was a birth control man. Used to withdraw his John Thomas b’fore he came, an’ that’s why his seed splashed on the ground. It mo’ likely Eric thinks he did somethin’ ungodly ’cos he left a stain in John Boy’s bed. Ha!’
‘The boy’s growing up, Jack,’ Doc said. ‘He needs to know the facts of life. You’re closest to him in age and the two of you seem to be hitting it off. I think he’d be more comfortable hearing them from you than he would from either me or Bob. How about it?’
‘Jesus, Doc! Do I have to? I’ve never done anything like this before in my life, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I even know all the facts.’
‘You know enough – and I’m counting on you. Do it now, will you? He’s in the back lounge and the occasion seems right.’
Jack grimaced, but got to his feet and walked slowly to the rear of the bus. Forty minutes later the two of them returned, Jack as red as a beetroot and Eric as white as a sheet.
‘Don’t even ask!’ Jack said to Doc. He sat down and folded his arms. Eric sat beside him and opened the Bible. Doc was relieved to see him reading II Kings.
The fog thickened, and any views they might have enjoyed from the ridge were effectively blanketed. They decided to turn off Skyline Drive and head back to the interstate. It was a good decision: there were checkpoints on the road ahead, and if Bob had troubled himself to read the signs, he would have known that their vehicle had no actual right being on the road.
They descended the steep side of the mountain and followed a route that took them through Augusta and Rockbridge counties and past the small communities of Steeles Tavern and Vesuvius. They rejoined the interstate close to Buena Vista and followed it south, merging seamlessly into a stream of trucks and buses heading in the same direction. The tour bus, Doc was pleased to note, blended right in.
The interstate was a world unto itself, dotted with visitors’ centres, rest areas and exit developments more thriving than the towns they served. Like old-fashioned barkers standing outside a club, unremitting billboards touted for custom and tempted motorists to leave the interstate and spend money at nearby attractions. Towns proclaimed themselves to be the birth, residency or burial place of past presidents, generals and other notables: Woodrow Wilson, Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson among them. They left the I81 at Christiansburg, where Davy Crockett had once worked in a hatter’s shop, and headed towards the small town of Crawford. Or, at least – it used to be small.
‘Man, this place has growed,’ Bob said. ‘Used to be way smaller ’n this.’
‘How long has it been since you were here?’ Jack asked.
‘Forty years – maybe more.’
‘And you’re surprised it’s changed?’
‘Surprised it’s bigger, yeah. If anythin’, I thought it woulda been smaller.’
‘It’s still not big though, is it?’ Doc said.
‘Maybe not to you, but it sure ain’t the same.’
Bob pulled into Merritt’s driveway and parked at the rear of the house. Taking a slip of paper from his pocket, he punched the numbers written there into his cell phone. ‘We arrived an’ parked up, Merritt. You wan’ us to wait here fo’ you?’ He then hung up.
‘Did you just leave him a message?’ Doc asked.
‘Didn’t need to. I was talkin’ to the man.’
‘That was a conversation?’ Jack asked, somewhat incredulous. ‘How long has it been since you’ve seen him?’
‘’Bout forty years, but we talk an’ stuff. He don’t like usin’ phones.’
‘So what’s the plan? Do we wait here?’
‘Yeah: he says he’ll be right over. Jus’ needs to lock up.’
Crawford had changed. The town’s population had maybe quadrupled in size since Bob had lived there, and Merritt’s house – which had been on the outskirts – was now almost at its centre. Developers and realtors were in the ascendant, and old downtown buildings had either been gentrified or torn down and replaced by newer structures in the style of fucking twee. In the name of progress, the old era had been pushed to one side and superseded by a fake New Age of organic foods, complementary medicines, low carbon footprints and a contrived spirit of togetherness. The past had been re-written, and all traces of hippy drug culture erased from the town’s history as ruthlessly as images of disgraced Politburo members in the time of Stalin had been wiped from official photographs.
Although by any standards the town was still small, it now gave the impression of a town flexing its muscles, a town preparing itself for bigger and better things. A powerful PR machine promoted the area’s natural beauty, its music and its art. It encouraged people to visit the town, stay overnight in one of the many bed-and-breakfast establishments, eat in its restaurants and sample its wineries. It organised beer and wine festivals; orchestrated markets that sold gourmet, health and organic foods; and arranged activities that exemplified the area’s commitment to rural living: how to make apple butter, how to dry fruits and vegetables, how to husk corn.
The dumping ground for all such information was the town’s Chamber of Commerce, a small shop front located on Main Street and staffed by volunteers and part-time employees on minimum wage. Merritt Crow belonged to the latter category and had few qualms about leaving the office thirty minutes early. He stuck a notice to the inside of the glass door apologising for any inconvenience, grabbed his cane and set off in the direction of home. It was only a short walk and took less than ten minutes. He stopped at the entrance to his driveway and looked down. ‘Goddamn son-of-a-bitch!’ he muttered, and then walked to the rear of the house.
‘Goddamn, Merritt! You look like a muthafuckin’ elephant! What happened to yo’ ears, man?’ Bob exclaimed.
‘Is that any way to greet an old friend, T-Bone? Now come here and give this man a hug!’
Jack’s explanation of the facts of life was still fresh in Eric’s mind, and on seeing the two men embrace he turned to his older friend. ‘Are they happy?’ he mouthed quietly.
‘I should think so,’ Jack said. ‘From what Bob said, they haven’t seen each other for forty years.’
‘No, I mean… are they happy men, those men who…?’
It suddenly dawned on Jack what Eric was talking about. ‘The word’s gay, Eric, not happy, and no, they’re not gay, not a chance of it. It’s okay for men to hug each other. It’s the other stuff…’
‘I see your conversation with Eric went well,’ Doc said.
‘At least I had the conversation!’ Jack responded. ‘I didn’t hear you volunteering.’
‘Hey! Come an’ meet Merritt Crow,’ Bob called to them. ‘An’ don’t go mentionin’ his ears, neither – man appears to be sensitive ’bout ’em.’
Merritt smiled and asked them to follow him to the front of the house. Eric couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s ears and from a safe distance again whispered to Jack. ‘Have you seen the size of his ears?’
‘Yeah,’ Jack whispered back. ‘They look like ping-pong paddles, don’t they?’
Merritt’s ears were the same size they’d always been. When Bob had known him, Merritt’s hair had been long and covered his ears. Bob had only ever seen their tips and had been completely unaware of the giant icebergs lurking below.
‘Why we not usin’ the back door?’ Bob asked.
‘I want to show you something,’ Merritt explained. ‘Get your opinion on it.’
He stopped at the entrance to the drive at the same spot where he’d hesitated only a few minutes earlier. ‘Look at this shit, will you?’
The six of them gathered around a large pile of excrement and stood there like mourners at an open grave.
‘Why we standin’ here lookin’ at a pile o’ horseshit, Merritt? This a new touris’ ’traction or somethin’?’
‘Every day a guy rides by my house with a towel on his head, and every day his horse takes a dump here. The one time I saw it happen, I grabbed hold of the horse’s reins and gave the man a piece of my mind, asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. I told him he should carry a shovel with him, stick the shit in his saddle bags and take it home with him. If he’d been walking a dog he’d have had to have done that, and that horse of his drops the equivalent of two months’ dog shit at a time!’
‘Who’s the man an’ what the towel ’bout? He an Arab?’
‘No, his name’s Spencer Havercroft. He’s one of the realtors in town and a vain son-of-a-bitch. Every morning he washes his hair, wraps it in a towel and rides into town to get it blow-dried and waved at one of the salons. They shape it into something like a surfing wave that’s just about to break – a bit like that guy in Hawaii Five-O.’
‘Jack Lord,’ Nancy said absent-mindedly. ‘I don’t remember him riding a horse, though.’
‘Maybe he rode seahorses, Mrs Skidmore,’ Eric suggested helpfully.
Merritt looked confused for a second, but continued. ‘He’s a tightwad, too. All his money and he still washes his own hair to save himself a few bucks at the salon…
‘Anyway, he won’t apologise and he won’t change his ways. He told me I should pay him for his horse’s trouble; how horseshit’s a valuable commodity these days and I should put it on my roses. I asked him if he saw any roses in my garden. He said he didn’t, but then told me I should go and buy some and brighten the place up. He said my house was letting the whole town down, disgracing the community. “If you ever decide to sell it,” he said, “let me know and I’ll send in the bulldozers.” I told him he could fuck off, and then the horse reared and knocked me over. That’s how I sprained my damned ankle,’ he said, pointing to the bone with his cane.
‘Anyway, I’ve got a councillor coming round tomorrow and I’m going to take the matter up with her… Shall we go inside?’
Entering Merritt’s house, for Bob, was like entering a time capsule: the room was smaller than he remembered, but otherwise absolutely nothing appeared to have changed. A guilty thought crossed his mind: Merritt’s living room was little different from Fred Finkel’s.
‘Surprised?’ Merritt asked, noticing the expression on Bob’s face.
‘Kinda,’ Bob said, ‘I thought it mighta changed some.’
Merritt smiled at him. ‘Oh but it has, T-Bone. The house has been completely reconfigured. The room we’re standing in now is for show. It’s where I receive unwanted callers, and this is where I’ll receive the council woman tomorrow – even though it’s me that’s asked her here. Remember that door there?’ He pointed with his stick to a door on the far wall.
‘Sure I remem’er. Leads into the backyard.’
‘Not anymore,’ Merritt replied.
He opened the door and revealed to his guests a large open-planned living space. Its style was modern and its furnishings expensive: large couches, comfortable armchairs, metal framed tables with glass tops, polished oak floorboards and oriental rugs. Two life-sized crow sculptures stared down on the room from roosts close to the ceiling, one carved from bog oak and the other assembled from pieces of felt, leather and metal, and a large ceramic hippopotamus stared languidly from a corner position.
To one side of the room was a kitchen area with a tiled floor, granite worktops and state-of-the-art appliances, and leading from it – and back into the original building – a hallway with doors to three bedrooms and a marble-floored bathroom.
‘It’s Italian,’ Merritt said when he saw them admiring the bathroom floor. ‘Cost a small fortune but worth every cent. Laid it myself.’
‘Okay if we take a shower, Merritt? None of us has showered fo’ two days, an’ though I b’lieve my own scent to be a thing o’ natural beauty, I ain’t so sure ’bout Gene an’ the others.’
‘Sure, it’s okay. And take any clothes you need laundering into the utility room. Decide amongst yourselves who’s going to sleep in the bedrooms and who’ll take the couches. I’ll go get some towels.’
It was decided that Doc and Nancy would sleep in one of the two available bedrooms, Bob in the other, and that Jack and Eric would remain on the bus.
‘Y’all go ahead,’ Bob said. ‘I’m gonna talk to Merritt an’ find out what he done to my damn house while I been away – and, more to the point, how the hell he paid fo’ it all.’
Merritt grasped the opportunity to explain the new spatial arrangements with both hands: it had been a labour of love that had taken him more than twenty years to complete. ‘I had some help in the early days, but once the structural work was completed, I pretty much did it on my own. It took a while, but I enjoyed doing it and it kept me occupied.’
After Bob had left Crawford for Seattle, Merritt had set up a small building services company and found work easy to come by. He’d built extensions, made renovations, installed bathrooms and kitchens, repaired roofs and painted houses. His rates had been reasonable and his reputation had grown by word of mouth. He’d made a good living. His needs had been few and he lived frugally; the money he saved he invested in his own property, never once stinting on the quality of materials used and never cutting corners. The only thing Merritt wished for now was that the house was located elsewhere – some place other than Crawford.
‘You done good, Merritt, ‘specially fo’ a man who don’t look strong enough to lift a hammer. I fixed up an ol’ cabin in the Klamath Mountains, but it ain’t near as well finished as this. If I’da knowed you was this good, I’da hired you myself.’
Doc walked into the room. ‘That’s an excellent shower you have there, Merritt – blew the cobwebs right off. The bathroom’s free now, Bob, if you want to get cleaned up.’
Bob went to the bus for his wash bag and then to the bathroom. The sound of his voice carried over the noise of the water: Drove into Crawford, I got them Crawford blues, Drove into Crawford… ‘Quite a tunesmith, isn’t he?’ Doc said to Merritt.
‘It’s a damn sight more melodic than his humming,’ Merritt laughed. ‘He just about drove me crazy with that buzzing noise of his when he lived here.’
‘And I’ll bet he always denied he was humming, right?’
‘Always did,’ Merritt said. ‘Beats me how he ended up with a good-looking girl like Marsha. I’m figuring she’s deaf or something.’
Doc laughed. ‘I appreciate you putting us up, Merritt. I don’t know if Bob’s told you, but Nancy’s not doing too good. She has dementia, so her behaviour’s a bit unpredictable. Don’t take any notice if she says mean things to you: she won’t intend them.’
‘There’s nothing to thank me for, Gene: I’m glad of the company. And don’t go worrying about Nancy, either. I’ve had a couple of friends go down the same hill she’s going down, so I know the drill.’
‘I wish I did,’ Doc replied solemnly. ‘I’m still trying to figure out her medication but, touch wood, I think we’re heading in the right direction. She’s had a good day today… Can we take you out to dinner tonight, by the way?’
‘No need, Gene. I’ve got a ham baking in the oven and you’ll be my guests this evening. Maybe tomorrow night.’
‘It’s a deal,’ Doc said.
‘What’s a deal?’ Jack asked. He and Eric had just entered the room.
‘Life,’ Doc replied.
After the others had retired for the night, Bob and Merritt poured the remaining wine into their glasses and moved into the living room.
‘You got the marijuana?’ Merritt asked.
‘Yeah, medicinal quality, too: courtesy o’ the state government of Oregon. But how come you cain’t get it here no mo’? Used to be easier ’n gettin’ a carton o’ milk.’
‘The place has changed, T-Bone,’ Merritt bemoaned. ‘It used to be a frontier town but not anymore. It’s all law-abiding now, cleaner than Caesar’s wife. A bunch of new people moved in and took over. They know about the town’s past, but they don’t want anything to do with it. They’ve eradicated everything that made it special. Said it was bad for business, bad for the town’s image and the community’s future.
‘Community’s the big word ’round here these days. I hate that fucking word! We’re supposed to care for each other and be able to put a name to every face we see. In our day, everyone used to keep to themselves and mind their own business, and that’s the way I liked it. No one pried, asked you for your life story or your five-year plan. People had secrets to keep, pasts they’d rather forget and they figured that other people did too. Now it’s all gone topsy-turvy, and we’re expected to tell everyone our business and spill our goddamned guts to complete strangers.
‘These days the place is chock full of do-gooders and busybodies, doing their own kind of good and interfering in peoples’ lives without a person’s say-so. If I was younger, I’d move, but it’s too late for that so I guess I’ll just have to die here and hope to God I inconvenience them – not that any of them here believes in death. They seem to think that perfumed candles and a bunch of wrist bands will keep them going for ever. Fucking idiots, the lot of ’em!’
‘Man alive!’ Bob said. ‘An’ all I was thinkin’ was it bigger.’
‘It’s bigger, too,’ Merritt said. ‘Once was I could just reverse into the road and not worry about colliding with a passing car. Nowadays I’ve got to look before I back out of the drive. I tell you though, I’m sorely tempted to wait for that Spencer guy and just slam my damn car into his horse – plead senility or deafness or something. If I did do that though, you can bet your bottom dollar they’d have me in a nursing home before either of us could blink. My disappearance would be just another part of the beautification process.’
‘That’s what they did with Nancy,’ Bob said. ‘An’ all she did was leave her house door open an’ go fo’ a walk. You kill a horse an’ they’ll more ’n likely strap you in a chair an’ shoot bolts o’ ’lectricity through yo’ body. You don’t wanna go endin’ yo’ journey that way. Ha!’
‘I hate that fucking word, too’ Merritt said.
‘What word?’
‘Journey! I hate it almost as much as I hate the word community, or when some numskull mother refers to her daughter as her best friend. Every last one of these sapheads has been on a damned journey. They cross the road and they think they’ve been on a journey; they see some guy whittling a piece of wood on his porch and that’s another journey; and they pass some old crone taking a dog for a walk and they describe that as a journey, too. You and me, T-Bone, we’ve been on journeys; these people just rattle around inside their own empty heads and go nowhere.’
Nancy slept well that night and woke refreshed. Doc’s sleep, however, had been more fitful than usual. The last time he’d slept with a woman had been the night he’d slept with Beth, and the following day she’d been killed. He hadn’t been able to relax. It wasn’t that he believed any woman he slept with would die the next day, but found himself forever looking over at Nancy and checking on her. Every time she moved or made a whimpering noise, he worried she would wake up and wonder who the hell he was, what he was doing in the same bed as her and start screaming.
Over breakfast, Merritt broached the subject of rum buns. ‘I don’t suppose any of you knows how to make them?’
‘I know how to make them,’ Nancy said. ‘They’re easy as pie.’
‘You do? I don’t suppose you’d make some while you’re here, would you, Nancy?’
‘I’ll be glad to, Granddad,’ Nancy replied. ‘Let me take a look through your cupboards and see what ingredients you have and what you’re missing, and Gene and I will go to the store and buy what’s necessary. Is that alright with you, Gene?’
‘Sure. It’ll give us a chance to see the town. How do you know how to make these buns? I’ve never even heard of them.’
‘Arnold grew up in Washington DC,’ Nancy replied. ‘He loved rum buns.’
Doc took hold of Nancy’s arm and they walked the short distance to the town’s centre. The day had yet to warm up and the temperature still hovered in the low forties. The sun looked more like a lozenge with the goodness sucked out of it than a potential source of heat. Nancy’s nose had started to turn red, but she was smiling. ‘What a beautiful day this is,’ she said to him. ‘It reminds me of Mississippi.’
The streets of the town were dominated by studios that sold ceramics, jewellery, lutes, stained glass, textiles and wood carvings; and galleries that exhibited the work of local artists: acrylics, charcoals, oils, pastels and watercolours. Interspersed were coffee shops, bookshops, fabric stores and a large country store selling food and clothing.
Doc and Nancy looked around several of the galleries and studios but didn’t buy anything – what point would there have been at their time of life? They stepped into a small restaurant and ordered coffee and cake.
‘I’m enjoying today, Gene. I like this town. Did Bob used to drive buses here, too?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. I don’t think they have buses.’
‘After all the unpleasantness the three of us went through, I wonder why he decided to become a bus driver. I don’t think I ever went on a bus again.’
‘You remember the trip?’ Doc asked.
‘It’s not something you easily forget, Gene. I’ve never been as embarrassed as when that driver came to look at our tickets and we didn’t have any. Do you remember how he made us get off the bus and then set it on fire?’
Doc often found it easier to go with the flow than correct Nancy’s memories. They did no harm. He did, however, miss the time when he’d felt free to tease her and make jokes at her expense. But there was a mountain between now and then and, for him, these were only half conversations. He was as much an onlooker as an interested party.
‘Did you ever tell your parents about the bus ride?’ Nancy asked.
‘Sure I did, didn’t you?’
‘I’m not sure. I think my father was sympathetic to buses, but he never felt free to express his opinions publicly. I don’t think many people in Mississippi did, either. And, of course, Arnold hated them. He was concerned by the amount of gas they guzzled and said they were bad for the environment. That man! He was always concerned about resources.’
‘Do you think Arnold ever thought that perhaps you were the most precious resource in the world, Nancy?’
‘What a sweet thing to say, Gene. I really don’t know.’
‘Well you are, and never forget that. Now let’s go to the store and buy those ingredients. You have some baking to do.’
They were the only customers in the country store. Doc took out the piece of paper Nancy had written on and read through the list with difficulty. They were looking for raisins, cinnamon, icing sugar, nutmeg and a bottle of Myer’s Rum – Jamaican dark rum blended from nine other rums. Nancy had insisted on this brand.
They found what they were looking for and took them to the old-fashioned check-out. ‘Make sure this time that you pay for these items, Gene,’ Nancy said. ‘We’re not on Walton’s Mountain now!’ She looked at the two women behind the counter and gave them a conspiratorial wink, as if to say: Men! What can you do with them? The women laughed and fell into conversation with Nancy. Doc, meanwhile, counted out the money and placed it on the counter.
‘What do you think of our bear, Nancy?’ one of the women asked her. ‘It’s the town’s mascot.’
‘It’s the most beautiful bear I’ve ever seen,’ Nancy said. ‘I wish it were mine.’
Doc looked at the bear and wondered if it was the same bear Nancy was looking at. What beauty could there possibly be in a cheap-looking black bear dressed in a Crawford T-shirt and holding a Crawford pennant in its paw? At best, it belonged in a fairground: a prize for some young sap trying to impress his girlfriend.
The two women had fallen in love with Nancy: in their book, there was no person more lovable than a mild-mannered senior citizen as dumb and undemanding as they were. As Nancy walked towards the door, however, her demeanour changed, and all sweetness and light disappeared. She turned to the two smiling women and called out to them: ‘Someone should set fire to that bear,’ she said. ‘It’s as ugly as sin! And don’t expect me to shop here again! Come on, Gene,’ she commanded. ‘We have rum buns to make.’
Doc shrugged his shoulders and gave the women an apologetic smile, as if to say: ‘I’m just a man. What can I do?’
It was just after eleven thirty when Councillor Alexx Calhoun knocked on the door. ‘Hi, Merritt,’ she said breezily, walking into the old lounge. ‘My oh my, what did this room do to upset you?’
‘I didn’t ask you here to discuss my living room, Alexx. It’s Spencer Havercroft that pisses me off, not the room. This is a friend of mine, by the way.’
‘Hi, Merritt’s friend! My name’s Alexx. Alexx with two Xs.’
‘T-Bone Tribble,’ Bob replied, holding out his hand. ‘Two Ts, three Bs.’
‘Alexx is from Portland,’ Merritt said. ‘She moved here two years ago.’
‘Portland, Maine, or the main Portland?’ Bob asked.
‘Portland, Oregon,’ Alexx said hesitantly. ‘I only had one X to my name then, though.’ Alexx was an overly cheerful birdlike creature closing in on sixty. When she’d been fifty-five, a man called Mike Calhoun had walked into the bar where she spent her evenings and stumbled into her life. Mike had been on vacation with his wife and son visiting her brother and his family. They’d been there only two days when his wife informed him that she wanted a divorce: she was tired of Crawford and tired of him. In particular, she was tired of him sharing their private lives with everyone else living in Crawford. ‘If I want people to know I haven’t had an orgasm in fifteen years,’ she’d said, ‘then I’ll tell them myself. I don’t need you to tell them for me!’
‘Honey, I had…’
‘Forget it, Mike. It’s over!’
‘It came right out of the blue,’ Mike said to Alexx. ‘I had no idea she felt that way.’
Alexx had gone to the bar to buy a round of drinks when Mike had struck up the conversation. He’d been sitting on a stool next to where she was standing, and had just started to pour out his troubles. Alexx had delivered the drinks to her friends, returned to the bar and then sat on the stool next to Mike. She had remained there for the rest of the evening, while Mike told her of Crawford and the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. ‘You should visit,’ he said.
A year later she did. After meeting in the bar, she and Mike emailed every day and talked on the phone every other day. Alexx fell in love with Mike and, after visiting the town, also fell in love with Crawford. It was then that she added another X to her name – a kiss for Mike, a kiss for Crawford and a kiss to the world. She went back to Portland, handed in her notice and a month later returned to Crawford and moved in with Mike Calhoun. Two years after arriving in the town, she ran for office and was elected to the council. Shortly thereafter, she received a phone call from Merritt Crow, who wanted to discuss the matter of horseshit with her.
‘There’s nothing I can do about this, Merritt. There’s no ordinance that covers it.’
‘Then tell me why there’s an ordinance covering dog shit,’ Merritt replied.
‘Because there are more of them,’ Alexx replied. ‘They’re domestic pets and they live among us.’
‘What’s a horse then – a wild animal?’
Alexx thought for a moment. ‘Not a wild animal – I’d say it was more of a trained animal.’
‘Then why can’t Havercroft train it not to take a dump outside my house every morning? It strikes me he’s trained it to do just the opposite!’
‘Oh, I’m sure he hasn’t, Merritt. I know Spencer, and he’s not that kind of person. It’s coincidence, that’s all it can be. What I’ll do though is have a quiet word with him and tell him of your concerns.’
‘He already knows about my concerns, Alexx. He just doesn’t care about them! He’s more worried about the paint on my house than he is me.’
‘Hmmm. Well, as a matter of fact, Merritt, your house has been mentioned by a few people. It is a bit of an eyesore, isn’t it? I’m sure if you gave it a lick of paint, Spencer would look upon it as a gesture of goodwill and maybe do something about his horse. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?’
Merritt sat there grinding his teeth and Bob started to hum. Alexx’s discomfort was spared, however, when Jack and Eric walked into the room. ‘I’m going to take Eric into town and buy him some undershorts and T-shirts,’ Jack announced.
Alexx stood up and held out her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Alexx – two Xs. The second X is a kiss.’
To avoid any awkward questions, Bob saw fit to introduce Jack and Eric as uncle and nephew. Alexx insisted they sit and join them for a while, determined to bring the conversation about Spencer Havercroft’s horse to an end.
‘You’ll love this town,’ she told them. ‘I came here as a visitor and loved it so much I decided to stay. And I’m so glad I did. For the first time in my life I feel a part of something truly special. The people here are so friendly and there’s always lots to do. Last Sunday lunchtime, for instance, my partner Mike and I were invited to a neighbour’s house…’
‘Is Mike a cowboy?’ Eric asked.
‘Why do you ask that?’ Alexx smiled.
‘You said he was your partner – like in cowboy movies.’
Alexx chortled. ‘No, Eric, he’s not a cowboy. He’s just the most special person in my life, honey – he’s my life partner.’
Eric was left none the wiser but allowed Alexx to continue her story. ‘Anyway, like I was saying, Mike and I were invited to a neighbour’s house for Sunday lunch, and it was the most delicious meal you could have imagined. And afterwards, we were sitting talking when five deer come into the yard and started to eat the grass. It was so magical. Have you ever seen deer eat grass, Eric?’ Eric said he hadn’t.
‘I have an idea,’ Alexx said to Merritt. ‘Why don’t I walk into town with Jack and Eric, show them the new museum and take them to a really unusual house owned by a friend of mine?’ Merritt had no objections. ‘And about that problem of yours, Merritt; I promise I’ll look into it. Give me a day or so and I’ll get back to you. And don’t forget the open mic tonight. Mike’s counting on you being there.’
She was about to leave when she remembered something else. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to make a contribution to the animal refuge, would you?’
‘You suppose right,’ Merritt said.
‘Shame on you, Merritt. You don’t have anything against charity, do you?’ she teased.
‘I have nothing against charity, Alexx,’ Merritt said matter-of-factly. ‘I just don’t like the idea of giving money to it.’ He then brought the conversation to an end by shutting the door on her.
Bob looked at Merritt. ‘That’s an hour o’ my life I ain’t never gettin’ back.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Merritt said.
‘So, how long are you staying in Crawford?’ Alexx asked.
‘We’re leaving tomorrow morning,’ Jack replied. ‘Heading for Nashville.’
‘If it’s music you’re after, you’d do better staying here in Crawford,’ Alexx chuckled. ‘We’ve got all kinds: bluegrass, blues, Celtic jam, folk, gospel, mountain, smooth jazz, traditional string band and even world music. You name it; we’ve got it! It’s a pity you can’t stay till the weekend.’
‘Did you know that you list things alphabetically?’ Jack asked. ‘The types of music you just mentioned: you listed them all in alphabetical order.’
‘It’s the only way I can remember things,’ Alexx laughed. ‘The town’s growing and the number of tourists coming here is increasing every year. The day’s going to come when Crawford needs its own tour guide, and I’m aiming to be that person. I’ve been practising my socks off for months, but you’re the first person to have ever sussed me – you bad man.’
‘Jack’s not bad, Ms Alexx,’ Eric said, alarmed that she might think this. ‘He bought me these gloves.’
‘Oh honey, of course he’s not! And your gloves are just lovely. It’s just a figure of speech. I was teasing Jack. I’d never say anything to hurt another person – I’m too giving for that. That’s why I want to be a tour guide: to give back to the town a small fraction of what it’s given me, and also to help the people who come to visit.
‘Do you know the first words I ever spoke as a child?’ Alexx asked them. Both Jack and Eric confessed they didn’t. ‘I want to help people. Can you believe that? My mother swears on the Bible that it’s true – and you know something? I believe her.
‘But listen to me blathering on like this. I want to hear about you two. What are you going to be doing in Nashville?’
‘We’re going to visit Eric’s cousin,’ Jack said. ‘She moved there recently and Eric hasn’t seen her for a while.’
‘That’ll be nice for you, Eric,’ Alexx said. ‘What does she do there? She’s not a famous singer, is she?’
‘No,’ Eric replied. ‘She works in chocolate.’
‘Ooh, chocolate,’ Alexx gasped. ‘I go bananas for chocolate! It’s my one weakness. It’s the only thing that stopped me from becoming a nun.’
Jack raised an eyebrow at that statement, but refused to ask for an explanation: he wanted to deflect the conversation from the personal to the mundane. He particularly didn’t want Alexx asking Eric any more questions – there was no telling what the boy might say in reply. His small friend, he had to confess, hadn’t been born yesterday, but that very morning!
‘This house that belongs to your friend, Alexx? Why is it unusual?’
‘You’ll soon see. It’s right across the street there.’
From the front, the house she pointed to looked like any other house: one storey and wooden. It’s only distinguishing feature was a totem pole stuck in the lawn.
‘I wonder how Jimmy will be dressed today.’ Alexx said. ‘He’s got all kinds of outfits: a Confederate outfit, a cowboy outfit, a Davy Crockett outfit, a General Custer outfit and an Indian outfit.’ (Again, the listing was alphabetical.) She knocked on the door. ‘Hi, Jimmy, are you in there? It’s Alexx; I’ve brought some visitors to see you.’
‘It was really interesting, Mrs Skidmore,’ Eric said. ‘We went to this house with dead animals in it and Jack started sneezing. Mr Jimmy had paintings of wild animals in his backyard as well, and he said he was going to build an African village in it. And then Ms Alexx took us to a museum which wasn’t as interesting, and Jack said it was full of nothing and that he was older than most of the things in it. And then we went to a store and Jack bought me some underwear, another pair of washing-up gloves, a pair of jeans and a shirt. He said I had to look smart when I meet Susan.’
‘Who’s Susan, dear?’ Nancy asked him.
‘She’s my cousin, Mrs Skidmore. Me and Jack are going to look for her when we get to Nashville.’
‘That sounds nice. Do your parents know where you are?’
Eric’s excitement waned at the mention of his parents and he became serious. ‘I think they do. They’re both dead now, but Reverend Pete said they’d always be looking down on me and checking that I was alright.’ (Eric was hoping that his parents had been taking a nap when he he’d had his accident in John Boy’s bed: he wouldn’t have wanted them seeing that.)
‘I’m sure they are, Eric,’ Nancy said. ‘And they’ll be very proud of you, too. Now if you don’t mind I’m going to lie down for a moment. I went for a walk with Arnold this morning and he just about wore me out. If you see him, will you tell him where I’ve gone?’
Eric was puzzled. He didn’t know who or where Arnold was, but Doc was sitting on the couch right next to her, and he’d been the one to go for a walk with her. Sometimes, all the names confused him: some people called Doc, Gene; some people called Otis, Bob, and Merritt called Otis, T-Bone.
Nancy left the room and Doc started to tell them of the walk they’d taken that morning, and how Nancy had wanted to set fire to the bear in the country store. Bob and Merritt laughed; Jack didn’t.
‘We’re not making fun of Nancy, Jack,’ Doc said. ‘The only way you can get through some things in life is by seeing their funny side – and you don’t see that too often with Nancy.’
‘Sorry, Doc, I wasn’t judging you. I was thinking of something else.’
‘How was your time with Alexx? Was she a good tour guide?’ Merritt asked.
‘She laughs too much,’ Jack said. ‘I’m suspicious of people who laugh as easily as she does. They want to be liked but they don’t want you to know them, and so they use laughter as a deflector – like flak. I reckon I could have spent a whole week in her company and still not known her.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Merritt said. ‘People know where she’s from and what she did for a living, but no more than that. The irony of it is that she’s living with Mike Calhoun, and he’s the most open person in town. People call him Open Mike because he doesn’t draw a line at telling people his personal information. He’s too honest for his own good, and there are times when I think he even drives Alexx to distraction.
‘I bumped into them on the street one time and the three of us fell into conversation. I asked Mike how his son was doing and he hummed and hawed for a moment, and was just about to tell me when Alexx jumped into the conversation and said he was doing fine, just working through a few behavioural problems. I figured I’d just been given notice that this topic of conversation was off-limits, when Open Mike pipes up and tells me his son keeps stabbing people! You should have seen the look she gave him. And then she stepped in to try and retrieve the situation: “He’s getting help though, isn’t he Mike? He’s enrolled in a good programme?” And Mike just says: “Yeah, he’s been sent to Folsom Prison for two years.” I couldn’t help but smile at that.
‘For all her laughter, I don’t think Alexx has a sense of humour – not one that amounts to much, anyway; and she’s too blinkered to pick up on nuances and double meanings. You know how she makes a big deal of spelling her name with two Xs? Well, in the election, she had these posters made up which read: Put your X next to Alexx’s name and make her Triple X, and then had to withdraw them.’ Merritt started to laugh. ‘She had people thinking she was going to make Crawford a part of the adult entertainment industry and star in the movies herself. Who the hell would have voted for her if they thought they’d have to see her buck naked?’
There was a beeping noise. ‘That’ll be the dryer,’ Merritt said. ‘That was the last load, so you might want to retrieve your clothes and start folding them away. I’ll start making dinner. I hope to God I can get that naked image of Alexx out of my head before we eat.’
‘You sure we can’t take you out to dinner?’ Doc asked.
‘Thanks, Gene, but there’s no time. After we’ve eaten Nancy’s going to show me how to make rum buns, and besides, it’s open mic tonight so the restaurants will be shutting early. You should go to it, by the way. I can look after Nancy and Eric.’
‘Let me think about it,’ Doc said.
Nancy lay on the bed thinking, awakened by voices from another room. There was a fluttery feeling in her stomach and she looked around the room anxiously, trying hard to anchor herself to the surroundings. It wasn’t her own room, she knew that, and this wasn’t the bed she shared with Arnold. For an awful moment she thought she was back in the nursing home, but then remembered being taken from there by two men, one of whom she’d known. But what was his name? A bus also came to mind and a dead black man who drove it for a living. But why did he eat with them, sleep in the same room as them? Niggers didn’t do that.
And then she remembered: she was at her grandfather’s house and she’d gone there to bake for him. A wave of relief swept over her, but just as quickly dissolved. What was she going to bake for him and what day was it? What time was it and what was the year? How old was she: was she a child or had she grown up? And where were her parents; where was Ruby? She never went anywhere without Ruby; why wasn’t Ruby in the room with her?
She thought she could smell the wet loam of the cotton fields and hear the familiar noises of Oaklands – Dora clattering pans in the kitchen and Ezra’s deep voice. Was it a school day or was it the weekend?
The door opened and Gene walked in. Once more the anchor took its unsteady hold on the ocean’s floor. ‘How are you doing, old girl?’ he asked.
Nancy tried to smile but started to cry. ‘Is it always going to be like this, Gene? Will it ever get any better?’
Doc took her in his arms and tried to console her. Afterwards he thought he should have lied to her, told her it was all going to work out fine. ‘No, Nancy. I wish it wasn’t so, but it’s always going to be like this. But I’ll always be with you and we’ll get through it together. Now dry those tears.’
He knew he should have acted sooner, taken Nancy to Coffeeville months ago and been truer to his word. It was what Nancy had asked him to do, and that he hadn’t done so was down to his own selfishness: he hadn’t wanted to lose her again – however imperfect she might be. She now hovered on the brink of being lost to herself and to all those around her; it was what she’d always dreaded, and he couldn’t help but feel he’d failed her.
He got a tissue and brought it to her. Nancy sat up and moved her legs off the bed and dabbed at her eyes. Doc picked up her hairbrush and ran it through her flattened hair, and then stepped back to take a good look at her. ‘Good as new,’ he said. He then popped a couple of pills from their securing foil. ‘Take these, Nancy: they’ll make you feel better; get rid of those butterflies.’ Nancy put them in her mouth and washed them down with water from a bedside glass.
‘Everything’s so muddled, Gene. Sometimes I think my parents are alive and other times I’m not sure. Are they alive? Is that why we’re going to Coffeeville?’
‘Your parents were good people, Nancy, but they’ve left us now. A part of them lives on in you – and that’s the way it should be – but it would be selfish and cruel of us to expect them to be alive still. You’ll bump into their memories in Coffeeville though, and that’s something to look forward to. Even though you won’t see them, they’ll be close by.’
‘You won’t ever leave me, will you, Gene? You’ll always stay with me?’
‘Always, Nancy – wherever you go, I’ll go.’
‘You’re a good person, Gene. What did I do to deserve you? I hope someday you’ll be rewarded.’
‘I’m not sure about either of those things, Nancy, but you can reward me now with a smile.’
Nancy obliged and then took hold of his hand and walked with him to the dining table. ‘Just like old times,’ Doc thought to himself, remembering the evenings they’d walked down the stairs at Oaklands together.
‘It’s lasagne,’ Merritt announced, in case it wasn’t obvious from the food’s appearance. ‘Pass your plates and then help yourselves to salad.’
‘Don’t give Nancy a big piece,’ Doc said. ‘Her appetite’s not up to much these days.’
‘Too late, Gene, but she’s welcome to leave anything she can’t eat – I won’t be offended. If you leave food on your plate though, I might well be.’
It was halfway through the meal when Eric started to whisper to Jack. ‘No whispering at the table, young man,’ Nancy scolded. ‘It’s bad manners!’
‘Sorry, Mrs Skidmore.’
‘What did you say, anyway?’ Jack asked him. ‘I didn’t catch it.’ Eric mumbled something while keeping his eyes firmly on the table. ‘I didn’t catch that, either,’ Jack said. ‘You’ll have to speak up.’
‘One of Mr Crow’s ears is missing,’ Eric said in a loud voice.
Merritt’s hand immediately went to the side of his head. ‘Nobody move! I’ll explain later.’ Nobody did move: they were stunned into immobility. Nancy was the first to speak.
‘Oh my God, Gene, the man’s got leprosy!’
‘Nonsense, Nancy. Crawford might have horseshit on its streets, but I doubt it has an outbreak of leprosy. Let’s wait for Merritt to explain.’
Nancy wasn’t so easily convinced and spat the food in her mouth on to the table. Doc used his napkin to wipe it up, while Merritt crawled around on his hands and knees looking for his ear.
‘Got it!’ he exclaimed from the kitchen. ‘All the steam must have weakened the glue. Excuse me a minute, will you?’ He then disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later with two ears. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘It happens sometimes, but fortunately not too often. I’ll explain…’ He picked up his fork and ate while he spoke, unwilling for the food on his plate to go cold.
‘Do you remember the last words you said to me when you left Crawford, T-Bone?’
‘Who’s T-Bone?’ Nancy asked.
‘Otis,’ Eric said.
‘Bob,’ Doc clarified.
‘My las’ words?’ Bob asked. ‘How I suppose’ to remem’er what I said forty years ago? I’m guessin’ I said somethin’ like goodbye.’
‘Your last words were Get that lump on your neck seen to and I should have listened to you. At the time I thought it was a sebaceous cyst, but it turned out to be Hodgkin’s disease, and by the time it was diagnosed the cancer had spread to my ear. The chemo got rid of the cancer but they had to amputate my ear. They made me a new one out of rubber. I take it off at nights and stick it back on with theatrical glue in the morning. Nowadays they do things differently, put in a titanium implant and attach the ear to it, but I can’t be bothered going through another operation at my age. Rubber and glue does for me.’
‘Why didn’t you say somethin’, man? You shoulda said.’
‘Why? What good would it have done? I wasn’t going to die and you had your own life to sort out. Cancer’s a conversation stopper, and I didn’t want people phoning me up the whole time and fumbling for words.’
‘Is that what the packet’s all ’bout?’ Bob asked.
‘In a way. If I ever need to have chemo again – and the chances are that I will – then it comes in handy: counteracts some of the side effects. Chemo’s brutal, man. It works, but it takes a lot of the good life out of you at the same time.’
‘Thank goodness it was only cancer,’ Nancy said, picking up her fork again. ‘I thought you had leprosy.’
‘I already told you, Nancy,’ Doc said. ‘You can’t get leprosy in this country.’
‘You can if you eat the ends of bananas,’ Eric said. ‘My daddy told me so, and Mr Annandale told him.’
Jack decided to stay and play Monopoly with Eric, and Doc and Bob went to the town’s open mic event by themselves. The event was held in one of Crawford’s larger bars close to the country store, and by the time Doc and Bob arrived there the room was already starting to fill. They sat down at a table and ordered beers from a waitress. Alexx was sitting at a table close by and waved to Bob when she saw him. Open Mike stood at the far end of the room, tapping the microphone with a ballpoint pen and checking that the sound system was in good working order.
Mike Calhoun – or Open Mike as people called him – had left school at the age of eighteen and gone to work at the town’s one and only gas station. He’d had no interest in going to college and, if he had gone, would have had little idea of what to study. His one interest in life was gasoline, and from an early age had been intent on forging a career in petrol pump attendancy.
After twenty years of pumping gas, Mike unexpectedly inherited the gas station from its owner, and welcomed this new responsibility. He painted the outside of the station, white-walled the curbs surrounding the pumps, hung baskets of flowers and hoisted an American flag. He placed a bench by the door to encourage people to sit for a while – customers and non-customers – and started to stock soft drinks, confectionery and cigarettes. He didn’t have the capital to upgrade the pumps or the underground tanks, but he ensured they remained in good working condition. With time, the gas station became fashionably retro in appearance, and Mike contributed to the old-fashioned feel by continuing to give a full service: he put gas into the tank of every car that rolled on to its forecourt, checked oil levels and washed windscreens.
When he was thirty-nine, Mike married a girl he’d been dating on-and-off since the age of sixteen. Her name was Josie. It took twenty-three years and Mike’s inheritance of the gas station for her to fall in love with him, but only three months of marriage to fall right back out again. In truth, Mike had always been her fall-back position, someone she was prepared to settle for if no better offers came her way. No better offers did, and when the alarm bell on her biological clock started to ring, and it looked as if Mike might have prospects after all, she agreed to marry him.
Josie conceived almost immediately and, thereafter, had no further use for Mike. The smell of gasoline that permeated his pores began to irritate her, and she resented his refusal to shower when he came home from work. Mike insisted that one shower a day was sufficient for any person, and that two would only deplete the natural oils in his body. ‘Suit yourself,’ Josie had said to him one day; ‘but if you ever go up like a torch when I light a cigarette, I don’t want anyone blaming me!’ The marriage ended in Portland, the same day Mike met Alexx.
Mike Calhoun had lived and breathed gasoline fumes his entire adult life, and it was thought by some that the fumes had addled his brain – why else would anyone tell everyone his confidential business? Whatever the reason, Mike was a man who navel-gazed into his soul on a daily basis and usually came up with a medical condition, which he would then share with all and sundry. From the verruca on his foot to the lichen planus on his tongue, from the polyps in his urethra to the sebaceous growths on his torso, the whole town was intimate with Mike’s intermittent medical problems. Most would avoid getting entangled in such conversations and simply say: ‘Sorry to hear that Mike. Hope it clears up soon.’
There were a few, however, who would gladly discuss these ailments with him, and share ailments of their own. The man he’d told about his jock itch, for instance, had commented that if that was the sum total of his worries, then he was a lucky man indeed; he personally had the seven-year itch and that was far worse. It was the wrong thing to have told Mike. When the man’s wife came to fuel her car the following week, Mike asked her how her husband’s seven-year itch was coming along. ‘It’s just about to come to an end,’ she’d said abruptly, and then driven off with the gas nozzle still attached to the car.
Despite such unintentional indiscretions, Open Mike was a popular man in town. People felt safe and comfortable around him, as they would any person they felt superior to, and when it came to finding someone to host a proposed open mic event, his was the name mentioned by most. He had a nice sounding voice, a relaxed and easy manner and, moreover, an interest in poetry – or at least words that rhymed. Mike liked words, wrote them down and then listed other words that were similar sounding. Two words, however, continued to confound him: orange and silver; he could find no words that rhymed with either.
Mike could never write poetry, but he admired those people who did, and eventually came to appreciate even poetry that didn’t rhyme. He was happy to accept the position of emcee and under his tutelage the open mic for writers and poets became a popular monthly event.
The theme of the open mic that evening was poetry of fifty words or fewer.
‘Hi folks and welcome. It’s good to see so many of you here tonight, and I can guarantee you that you won’t go home disappointed. We’ve got a great line-up, but before we get things started there are a couple of notices.
‘There’s a new exhibition of paintings by Evelyn Tate opening at the Brick Factory next week, and let me tell you these things are works of beauty – especially when you consider that Evelyn’s arthritis means she can’t hold a brush anymore and has to paint with her knuckles.
‘Second one is to alert you to the fact that Dave Palmer’s coming to town this weekend and he’ll be playing right here on Saturday night. Dave believes that only innovation and self-expression can ensure the survival of traditional American music, and to this end he’ll be playing many of his favourite nineteenth century banjo pieces on a moog synthesiser. Something to look forward to, I think.
‘On a personal note, you might remember me mentioning to some of you that I’d been noticing traces of blood in my morning stools and was concerned that I might have bowel cancer. Well I’m glad to say that I haven’t, and all the tests came back clear. It seems my haemorrhoids were playing up and I should have been using the ointment on a more regular basis.’
A big cheer came from the floor and Mike smiled. ‘Okay everyone, I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s time to simmer down and bring on our first reader. First up, we’ve got Chuck Harrison and his poem’s entitled Caroline. There was a murmur of apprehension in the audience as Chuck took to the small stage: he and his wife, Caroline, had recently divorced, and Caroline was sitting in the room with her new beau.
You use people, you used me
you use the dead, your family
You take from strangers, you take from friends
you take from women, you take from men
You need Valium, you need drink
you need guidance, you need a shrink
you think in mono, you talk shit
you’re all ass, you’re all tit
The uncomfortable silence at the poem’s end was broken by Caroline. ‘That’s fifty-four words, Chuck. Never could get things right, could you?’ There was a muffle of repressed laughter and Mike hurried to take the microphone from Chuck.
‘Bad luck, Chuck,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid that disqualifies you on this occasion, but keep the poems coming.’ Chuck walked off the stage and made for the exit. ‘Bitch!’ he said to Caroline as he brushed past her.
Mike looked at his notes and then called Cheryl Nelson to the platform. Cheryl was an active member of the local church and had just celebrated her twenty-second birthday. Her poem was entitled Things Go Better with Coca-Cola
Christ in the ruins of our love
of possessions and concessions
to ourselves
Smile down at the wounds in your flesh
and muse:
would things have gone better
without Coca-Cola?
Again, the audience applauded. ‘That’s a deep one, Cheryl,’ Mike said. ‘I think you’ve given us all something to think about there!’
Doc drained his glass and gestured for the waitress to bring refills.
Meanwhile, Mike was introducing Kurt Wolfe, an artist who’d recently returned from a year in Nepal after suffering a nervous breakdown. ‘Kurt’s going to read two poems tonight. I know this is unusual, but they’re both very short and it would be a waste of time me sitting down if he just read the one. Kurt tells me that Nepal taught him the virtues of minimalism, so let’s see what he’s got in store for us tonight.’
Kurt stepped to the microphone, closed his eyes and remained silent for a minute. He then opened his eyes and started to shout:
KATHMANDU
DOGMANDON’T
There was a momentary silence while the audience waited for Kurt to continue. When he didn’t, and it became apparent that the poem had ended, they broke into polite, if puzzled, applause.
‘Thank you. Thank you very much,’ Kurt said. ‘You’ve given me a lot. The second poem I want to read is called Punctuated Free Love. It came to me while I was visiting the source of the Bagmati River close to Bagdwaar. There was a dead goat in the water.’
Comma sutra
Period missed
Pause pregnant
Mike had never heard such balderdash and neither had most of the other people in the room. It seemed that Nepal had done Kurt no good at all. ‘Thanks, thanks Kurt,’ he stammered. ‘Let’s hear it for Kurt, everybody; it’s good to have him home.’ In turn, Kurt thanked Mike and kissed him on both cheeks.
‘We’ll take a short break,’ Mike announced, slightly nonplussed. ‘Stretch your legs, use the bathrooms and order more drinks. We’ll be starting back in fifteen minutes.’
‘How ’bout we get us a cigarette, Gene?’ Bob suggested, and the two of them left their table and joined the one other person in Crawford who still smoked. ‘This is a hoot, man. Glad we come?’
‘I am. It’s a pity Jack didn’t come with us. He’d have enjoyed this – and for all the wrong reasons, too.’
‘I hated po’try at school; al’ays thought that it was drug addicts or gays what wrote it. I don’t think that now, though. After tonight, I know buffoons can write it, too. Ha!’
A woman came to the door and announced they were ready to start. While Bob bought more beer, Doc sat at the table casting furtive glances in Caroline’s direction.
‘You twice her age, man,’ Bob said when he returned to the table. ‘You should be ’shamed o’ yo’self.’
Doc ignored him, thankful that Open Mike had taken to the platform again. Another fifteen poems were read that evening, but only Alexx’s resonated with Doc and Bob.
Alexx told the audience that her poem had been written as a tribute to Mike – the love of her life, and a man who still made her weak at the knees.
Oh my love, you’re so lovely
and I my love am so ugly
In your presence I feel small
my nerves cause me to feel sick
I want to vomit
all over your carpet
A tear came to Mike’s eye when he heard the poem and the two of them embraced. The room erupted into cheers and wolf whistles, fortunately sufficient in decibel to hide the roars of laughter coming from Doc and Bob.
‘Place smells good!’ Bob said. ‘I’m fig’rin’ you got yo’ rum buns made.’
Merritt smiled. ‘Nancy did good, Gene. Best damn rum buns I’ve tasted.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, Merritt. How was Nancy?’
‘She was fine. Turns out we both have a common interest in memory loss, but a total recall of growing up in the 1950s. We spent the evening down memory lane and had us a ball.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘She’s getting ready to turn in.’ On hearing that, Doc excused himself and went to check on her.
‘So where’s my rum bun? You saved me one, right?’ Bob asked.
Merritt looked uncomfortable at the question and didn’t answer immediately. ‘We ate them all,’ Eric said. ‘Mrs Skidmore said they had to be eaten fresh or not at all.’
‘Sorry,’ Merritt said. ‘I was going to save you one, but they were just too damned good.’
‘How many Nancy make?’ Bob asked.
‘Ten,’ Eric said.
‘An’ the four o’ you ate all ten of ’em! I cain’t believe it.’
‘Merritt ate five,’ Eric said. ‘Jack and I had two each, and Mrs Skidmore had one.’
‘Five! Goddamn, Merritt, I hope you get indigestion tonight!’
‘I beat Jack,’ Eric said. ‘I beat him at Monopoly and then we played Snap and I beat him at that, too. Do you want to play a game, Otis?’
‘Not at this hour. Time we was all turnin’ in. Got us an early start in the mornin’.’
‘Good call, Bob. He cheats like you wouldn’t believe. If my name was Esau, he’d have my birthright by now. We should start calling him Jacob.’
Eric cleared the board from the table and put it back in the cupboard. He and Jack then said their goodnights and returned to the bus.
‘We never said goodnight to Mrs Skidmore and Doctor Gene,’ Eric said.
‘We’ll say it to them when we see them in the morning, Jacob.’
‘And stop calling me Jacob – Esau!’ As Jack could remember, it was the first joke Eric had made. He smiled.
It was another cold morning, but at least the day had started dry. Jack and Eric went into the house and joined the others for breakfast. Merritt had made pancakes and fried some bacon. He poured coffee into their cups and then sat down at the table with them.
‘I’m expectin’ you sometime in the New Year, Merritt, an’ I ain’t wantin’ to hear no excuses. Chamber o’ Commerce ain’t gonna’ miss you fo’ a couple o’ weeks an’ the change’ll do you good. Get you away from all that horseshit. I’m bettin’ once you ain’t here, Spencer’s horse’ll get itself all constipated an’ there’ll be nothin’ for you to shovel once you get back.’
‘I will, T-Bone. I promise. My ankle will have mended by then.’
‘I’ll pick you up at the airport; we’ll stay a few days in Seattle an’ then head to the mountain cabin. Might well put you to work there.’
Doc said nothing. He envied the plans they were making, the futures they could look forward to.
‘Can I have Mrs Skidmore’s other pancake?’ Eric asked.
‘Sure,’ Doc said. ‘It doesn’t look like she’ll be eating it.’
‘I can make some more,’ Merritt said. They thanked him but declined his offer. It was time to make tracks.
‘If you’da offered me a rum bun, I’da said yes, Merritt, but I keep forgettin’ you ate ’em all.’
‘I guess this is as good a time to go as any,’ Doc smiled. ‘I’ll go pack.’
‘We’re packed aren’t we, Jack?’ Eric said.
‘We never unpacked. Did you pick up your washed clothes?’
‘No one picked up their clothes,’ Merritt said. ‘I put them in the bus – front lounge. You’ll need to sort them.’
Doc carried his and Nancy’s bags into the lounge and waited there while Bob finished using the bathroom.
‘He’s taking a long time in there, isn’t he?’ Jack asked. ‘How long does it take him to do a dump?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, and I’m sure it’s something that Nancy doesn’t want to know either. Sometimes…’ He shook his head.
‘Man alive, I got to get me mo’ reg’lar,’ Bob said, when he joined them. ‘That was like givin’ birth to a baby!’
As they left the house, Bob turned to Merritt. ‘One mo’ thing, Merritt.’
‘What’s that, T-Bone?’ Merritt asked.
‘Get that lump on your neck seen to!’
Merritt’s hand reflexively touched the long scar there. ‘What lump?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Yo’ damned head, man! Ha!’