View Finder

by Greg Jolley

  I closed the trunk and stood briefly outside the garage, looking to the two guesthouses with my heart and hopes extended to my children. I hoped that my solution would work out and see us all in better living conditions soon.

  I LEFT the donut shop and drove to a bungalow on the east edge of Hollywood. The house was dark and stayed that way as I turned into the short and narrow driveway. A gentle rain was falling, and I waited in the Lincoln for the employee to notice the running headlights beside the small house.

  Eventually, the side door opened, and a woman came out leaving the porch light off. It was not my job to question, but I wondered about her immediately. In the headlight beams, the stocky woman staggered to the car in day-labor clothes, no makeup, and a natty cap on her untamed hair. I’d never seen an employee like her before. She found her way in a stupor past the passenger door and opened the rear door. Leaning in on the burgundy upholstery, she nearly toppled over and didn’t climb in. Instead, she looked over the seat and floorboards. Stepping back from the car, she weaved into the headlights and back inside the bungalow. I waited. I was curious about her, but most of my thoughts were on my solution, the steps needed, and the tasks required.

  Ten minutes passed before the woman reappeared. A portly, short man in similar laborer clothing followed her. He was as unsteady on his feet as she was. They were both carrying heavy bundles. When they entered the headlights, I saw the blankets that covered their loads.

  They placed the bundles in the back seat.

  The man slurred, “Wait.”

  I did, watching the two of them go back inside. He reappeared and placed a smaller bundle on the back seat between the two blankets. He closed the rear door and disappeared inside the dark house.

  I backed the Lincoln out onto the street nearly taking out two curbside garbage cans. I put the address note on the dash and steered under a streetlamp and took out the Thomas Guide. After finding the street and using my fingertip to help memorize the route, I looked into the back seat where the short bundles were washed in the streetlight. It looked like I might be delivering two dwarfs which was not as odd as it might seem. I reached back and took hold of the middle, smaller bundle that was ready to fall off the seat between the larger blanketed bodies. I placed it in my lap and carefully unwrapped the small blanket.

  My first thought was of Baby Ruth, who might have owned one, but she was too old for dolls. This one was life-size, and its arms and face were dirty, its red hair was tangled, and it wore a blue-and-white dress.

  I climbed out and opened the rear door and gently pulled the blanket away from the first mound on the seat. A sleeping little girl, perhaps five years old. I placed my face to her mouth. She was breathing. Her breath had a chemical smell that was familiar. Circling the Lincoln in the streetlight on that thin, residential street, I pulled the blanket back from the head of a second girl who looked a bit older than the other.

  With the doll in my hand, I looked up the road. Houses pressed close together on both sides as far as the headlights reached. Thinking over my years of deliveries, I tried to remember a similar delivery, and I couldn’t, and that pleased me. And helped me make a big, but easy decision.

  Back behind the wheel, I placed the doll between the sedated little girls and started the Lincoln.

  “You two game for a road trip?” I asked the rearview mirror getting the silent reply I expected.

  By dawn, we had crossed the border from California into Nevada.

  At noon, I pulled into a highway-side motel and rented a room. When I returned to the automobile with the room key, the girls were sitting up and watching me closely. I opened the rear passenger door and was greeted by the taller of the two.

  “I’m Molly. This is April. Mister, I gotta pee.”

  I jingled the room key, and she smiled.

  Inside the motel room, Molly went straight to the bathroom, and April took the chair by the window.

  “Mister,” she asked. “Can you get us something to drink? Maybe something to eat?”

  “Of course.”

  “And maybe a toothbrush?”

  The toilet was flushed, and Molly came into the room looking relieved.

  “He’s gonna feed us,” April told her.

  “Yeah? Good. No cheese on anything, please. Hate cheese.”

  I agreed, and April, the younger of the two, asked, “Is it okay if we shower while you go get food?”

  Before I could answer, Molly pointed to my goggles and said, “Those are scary.”

  I took them off and pocketed them.

  “Yes. Enjoy the shower while I’m gone. Take your time.”

  My eyes were closed, and I could feel one of the headaches coming on appearing first as a metallic taste from the back of my mouth. I smiled for their benefit and listened to them cross the room and close and lock the bathroom door.

  I RETURNED with a paper box. Three fish burgers—no cheese, three colas, and two toothbrushes and a little tube of paste. The girls were sitting side by side at the foot of the bed and turned in unison as I entered.

  “Mister, can we?” April asked, pointing to the television.

  “It’s BB, please.”

  “What is?”

  “My name.”

  “Your name is BB?”

  Before I could confirm my name to April, Molly said, “Like the name. Didja remember about no cheese?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Thank you, BB.”

  The girls ate fast and left no scraps. Not even the errant slices of lettuce in the paper wrapper. Sitting at the window table, I ate as well.

  “Mister? Er, BB, can we ask you a favor?”

  Before I could reply, Molly added, “Have you seen April’s Baby Knucklehead?”

  “The doll in a blue and white dress? Yes. She’s still in the car. I’ll go get it.”

  “Thank you, BB,” both girls said with the cola cans at their chins.

  Both wore black satin party dresses along with knee-high, black silk stockings and black leather heels. I paused at the door.

  “Would you two like a change of clothing? Maybe something more comfortable?”

  Their faces tightened, and they squeezed closer together at the foot of the bed.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  I went out into the hot day and retrieved Baby Knucklehead who had fallen to the floorboard. Back inside the motel room, the girls were head-to-head in hushed conversation which stopped when they saw me and the doll in my hand. I gave Baby Knucklehead to April and sat down at the table. I studied my cola can while the two whispered to each other, eyes forward.

  I interrupted them, saying the word, “Yes.”

  “Huh?” Molly asked.

  “What, BB?” April chimed.

  “You can watch the television.”

  “Really?”

  “Nice!”

  I’ve no idea what they watched, but they enjoyed the television the rest of the afternoon. I found myself nodding off, reclining as best as I could, and sleeping in the chair beside the window.

  When I awoke, it was with a start. My eyes hurt, and my thoughts were fast and scattered. I scanned the room and saw Molly and April asleep at the foot of the bed in the gray glow of the television. When they awoke an hour later, it was close to 10:00 p.m. I encouraged them to use the restroom before we got back on the road.

  JUST BEFORE sunrise, I pulled off to fuel the Lincoln again and found a motel half a mile up the frontage road. We were on the outskirts of a town called Winnemucca on Highway 80. Inside the motel office, I bought a USA map and two little bottles of shampoo. I had clearly woken the night clerk who had me fill out a card after accepting cash for the room. On the “traveling with” line I wrote “my daughters.”

  Through most of the night, Molly and April had been quiet, and when rare, oncoming headlights passed, they looked to be sleeping. When the three of us and Baby Knucklehead were in our room, they stayed shoulder to shoulder on the floor before the television with their back
s against the foot of the bed.

  I told them I was going to shower and went out and got my clothes from the Lincoln. Entering the room, I pointed to the television.

  “Saturday morning cartoons.” I smiled.

  They watched me closely as I crossed to the bathroom and closed the door. I clicked the lock louder than necessary. I showered and changed in the bathroom. When I came back into the room, the girls looked at me in my clothing and appeared relieved. I had changed into weekend clothes—khaki shorts and a white shirt with my black suit and shoes in my hand.

  “You two ready for breakfast?” I asked.

  They conversed before Molly said, “Yes. Please. No cheese, okay?”

  I agreed. “Just a thought. I think I saw a store up the road. Might have swimsuits and summer clothes.”

  Their brows furrowed in unison. Molly pressed up against April.

  “There’s a swimming pool here,” I went on, and the girls looked pleased and curious.

  After breakfast, we walked to the swimming pool between the motel office and the parking lot. Molly and April swam and played in the pool while I slept on a lounge chair I dragged into the shade of a weathered, brown tree.

  BESIDES SWIMSUITS, I had bought four pairs of shorts and shirts for the girls. Back in the room an hour before sundown, the girls locked themselves in the bathroom with the new clothes and their little bottles of shampoo. Entering the front room, April told me they had draped their swimsuits for drying, and Molly was carrying their prior black clothing.

  “Can we throw these away?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Use a pillowcase,” April suggested. She started to climb onto the bed to grab a pillow but stepped back and circled and pulled it from the side. She removed the pillowcase and helped Molly push their clothes inside.

  “Where?” April asked me.

  “Garbage can.” I smiled, and she did too.

  “There’s this.” Molly pulled her hand from the pillowcase before pushing it into the wastebasket. She held a small paper bag. “I think this one is April’s. I can get you mine if you like?”

  “Let me see,” I replied, already suspecting, but hoping I was wrong. Molly handed me the bag, and I watched her worried expression as I felt inside. My fingers touched a handkerchief wrapped around a little tin bottle.

  “Want me to get mine, too?” she asked, looking sad and expecting disappointment.

  “No, thank you,” I answered as kindly as I knew how.

  Her shoulders relaxed, and she went to April and took her hand and led her to the floor before the television.

  “Mister BB? Can we?” Molly asked.

  “Of course. Maybe there’re more cartoons?”

  “Too late in the day for those,” Molly informed me. The television warmed up with the sounds of manic carnage and canned laughter.

  It was the curiosity and a lack of foresight that led me to pull the handkerchief from the crinkled little bag and remove the tin bottle. I remember thinking about how many of these I had seen and delivered. I also recalled similar bottles and rags from my Seabee days. I wish I had reflected on what I had seen in the morning’s after, but I didn’t.

  I watched my left hand twist the cap off. I watched my right hand place the handkerchief over the bottle mouth. I watched my left hand tip and spill moisture on the cloth. My right hand raised this to my nose and mouth.

  IT WAS perhaps the next day, but I could have easily lost two. I came to, squatting in the shower. The water was crisp and cold, and I wore a swimsuit and my black suit jacket and my green tie, which wasn’t knotted but draped around my neck. I left the shower running and found my feet and walked dripping from the bathroom. The motel room was tidy, save a collection of Coke cans and a half-empty bottle of something called Ten High in the clutter on the table. I stared and blinked and realized after a minute that this was a different motel room. Next, I remembered the existence of Molly and April and saw that they were gone.

  I sat on the side of the made-up bed and slowly pulled my damp upper clothes off—the suit jacket and green tie. I sat there in my bare feet and my new pair of swim trunks with flashes of memories, mostly discordant images playing. I felt regret and remorse flushing my entire body with heat.

  There was a note written on a napkin on top of the television.

  Mr. BB,

  Thank you for being nice and letting us go swimming. You have been conked out. April and I got hungry and want to go home and borrowed dollars from you. I will pay you back.

  Molly

  I walked unsteadily to the bathroom and used a towel to dry my hair and upper body. I retrieved my socks and shoes from the shower pan and went back into the room. The television was glowing but silent, and I went to the door in search of the two little girls.

  The Lincoln was parked on the far side of the lot all by itself. I saw it had been in a wreck. The right-side fender was crunched, and the tires were caked with dirt. The motel grounds didn’t look familiar, and I felt a new fear—we had traveled. An eastern wind was blowing warm rain, and I walked the small motel grounds twice looking for Molly and April. I thought they might be at the swimming pool, but the place didn’t have one. Before I started knocking on doors, I decided to ask after them at the office.

  “I’m still near Winnemucca?”

  “Not even close, guy. You’re in Utah. Near Provo.”

  “Provo?”

  “Well, yeah. Provo, east of Salt Lake City.”

  “I was traveling with…”

  “Those two darlings. I know.”

  “Have you seen them?”

  “Yeah, mister. They left with their mom. That was their mom, right? She had her own room is why I ask. They loaded up on candy and pop and left with her in the station wagon. Going south I think she said. You owe for the second night.”

  I paid him for the mysterious second night and started the Lincoln. Across the parking lot, a solo blackbird was perched on a power line. It looked to me like it was eyeing the Lincoln and me. The bird looked capable of flight but undecided. I drove the car in circles in the parking lot to decide if it would run okay. The long, black car felt steady and capable.

  The woman who had saved—rescued—Molly and April from me was a mystery. Perhaps a Good Samaritan. That was my hope. I opened the map on the passenger seat and found Provo and saw that I had somehow stayed on course, headed east. Looking up, I saw that, like me, the blackbird had chosen flight.

  Scene 12

  Finding Ann Arbor was easy, but it took me two days of sleeping in the Lincoln and driving the one- and two-lane country roads before I stumbled onto Our Road.

  The last time I’d seen the cottage, it was snow covered. Now in the heat of July, everything was green and overgrown. I guessed at the location of the driveway and turned in. The grass and plants were tall, and the trees hung low. What I could see of the lake was smooth and blue, a few shades darker than the hot summer sky. Climbing out, I was greeted by hot air that made my clothes cling to my skin. I walked onto the property, aiming toward what I believed were the steps down to the cottage. It looked like the place had been abandoned or forgotten by IM’s family. I formed a new path down to the small house and walked its side to the back which faced the lake. There were happy, loud voices from the water and motorboats and pontoon boats in the distance going in all directions. I was sweating and slapping at mosquitos, and I turned from the view and tried the back door, finding it locked. I tried the front door on the side of the cottage, and it was locked as well. I walked around to the other side to the kitchen window.

  The window latch was set, but the glass had been punched out, and a dirty, gray sweater lay over the sill. I climbed inside using a metal milk crate as a step.

  The inside of the cottage was in shambles. It looked like a weekend party fort for teenagers and the full-time residence of mice and rats. The counters were covered with dust, spills, litter, and decoratively placed empty liquor bottles. It was dark save the light f
rom the broken window, so I let more light in by opening the back door facing the lake. I went to the couch and cleared a space by shoving trash and clothing onto the floor. I remembered the couch from years before. It was where I had slept and sat while IM and Heidi Ho carried on up in the loft. I recalled sitting there with my collection of 3D reels and my viewer as snow fell and the cottage grew cold during the winter nights. A second memory played like a newsreel. A long-ago night of reverie and fireworks farther along the lake. A party that had ended in the fiery death of a kind boy who had been trying to bring me food.

  The couch had a bad smell—dried urine and dust and alcohol. Listening to the sounds from the lake, I looked around and began a list of what could be done to make the place livable. I saw all I could do and imagined the place and yards cleaned and swept and aired and repaired. I could see the drapes open and the summer light filtering in and scrubbing the room with warmth.

  I thought about Molly and April and even Baby Knucklehead. I hoped they were safe with the mystery woman. I bit the inside of my cheek wishing I had fought my curiosity with the little tin bottle. That done, my thoughts turned to Pierce. And Jared. And Baby Ruth.

  I left the cottage through the kitchen window after closing and locking the lake-view door knowing I would never return. After climbing to the Lincoln, I opened the trunk and took out all the garden tools I had packed in Hollywood.

  It took many short digs and looking around trying to remember before I hazarded my best guess as to where IM was buried.

  I began to dig in earnest.

  I experienced a new form of gratitude that summer afternoon. The sky was hot and blue, and I could hear passing boats in the cooling breezes. I was grateful that rotted clothing covered my father’s bones and stiff muscle tissue. When I located his raised knees, I turned my digging toward the lake in search of his shoes. With his left shoe partially uncovered, I backed up and dug in the area in front of his feet. I was grateful that there was no need to uncover his head, his skull. I was grateful that there was enough room in the hole for me to dig at a new angle. I stopped one time, dirty and slick with sweat, and looked at what showed of IM—his bony thigh and leg bones inside tattered cloth extending out from the dirt wall. And last, I was grateful when I opened the filthy briefcase before him.