Reunion at Red Paint Bay

by George Harrar

  2. Local history—why did the Red Paint People abandon their territory without a fight?

  3. Question: Has Erasmus Hall persuaded even one person to repent? (Portrait of conviction in the face of constant rejection)

  4. Ongoing series—Whatever happened to …?

  The phone rang much louder than usual, and Simon wondered if Davey had turned up the volume again, one of his little pranks. He leaned across the table, expecting to see Amy’s name on the caller ID. It was a straight shot to Bangor on the highway, and she could have made it in an hour, even in the light rain. The ID said Unknown Caller.

  “Hello?”

  No answer, no sound at all, like a dead line, or the few moments’ delay between when the telemarketer realizes his call has gone through and actually speaks. “I don’t want any,” Simon said and hung up.

  ———

  As he walked past his bedroom window later that night he noticed a car across the street. Every few seconds, the wipers passed across the windshield. A figure was barely visible on the driver’s side, a head with a flash of white on top. The face blended into the glass, indistinguishable. Simon watched for several minutes. The car’s occupant was probably pirating his neighbors’ WiFi signal. Or perhaps checking a map, searching for a way out of Red Paint. Simon considered going out to help. If he weren’t already undressing for bed, he was sure he would do just that.

  He woke into darkness, heard a faint rubbing noise, like metal against wood, and sat up. In the shadows an amorphous figure swayed side to side, as if from one foot to the other. Simon squinted to make sense of the broad shoulders, absurdly thin body, and shortened arms. It looked like some fantastic tribal costume.

  The movement stilled and the shape melted away. Simon fell back on his bed, inhaling a long, slow breath to compose himself. He hated waking this deep into the night. The sudden consciousness always confused him. What was dream and what was reality? He took another breath, sipping in air until his lungs couldn’t hold any more, then exhaling slowly. A musky breeze billowed through the open window. The night was growing a little cooler, another storm blowing up the coast. It was an unusual pattern for July.

  He curled on his side and reached out with his arm. It fell into the empty space next to him. That scared him for a moment. Amy was gone. Davey, too. The only life in the house was him, and Casper, sleeping in some soft spot. The illumined numbers on the alarm clock clicked away another minute of his life, 1:15 turning into 1:16. The night would get no darker.

  Simon shifted onto his back again. A gust of wind spilled into the room, and the human figure in the shadows seemed to dance.

  He dresses in black, head to toe, with a light cap tilted low over his eyes. He leaves the inn by the side door at midnight. No one sees him. He feels invisible, drained of flesh, consciousness without body. A few cars pass him on the way into town, and he wonders what the drivers perceive of him when they glance over.

  He parks across the street and observes the house. There’s little to note, just a single light on in the upstairs front window. After a while a shadow passes by, and the light extinguishes. He waits a suitable while longer, then gets out of the car. He strolls across the street and up the walk, in no hurry. He doesn’t bother trying the front door this time, just continues around the side. The lights next door are out, the neighbors asleep. He turns the backdoor knob. It opens.

  He listens—no dog barking, no noise at all. He steps into the kitchen and lets his eyes adjust to the dim light from some appliance on the counter. He has a choice now, turn back or continue? He continues across the kitchen toward the doorway, hesitates, then passes down the hallway to the staircase. He turns there and puts his foot on the first step. No squeaking, a solid stair covered with a thick rug. He climbs carefully, holding on to the railing. He counts as he goes, one to eleven, an unusually steep incline. At the top he looks right, into a small room with a bed against the wall. No one there. He moves on down the hall to the end where there’s another door wide open. He leans his head around the doorjamb. In the bed a body breathes, the sheet rising and falling every few seconds, the tranquil rest of someone without a care in the world. He hears air expelling from the lungs, then sucked back in again. The rhythm of it relaxes him a little, and he soon finds himself breathing in synchrony. He feels oddly peaceful, as if sleeping himself. He has already gone further than he ever imagined he could. It thrills him to be doing this, floating through the house like a phantom. He has never felt so light, almost immaterial. It’s a surprisingly pleasant sensation. He should leave, of course, before some misstep triggers a chain of events he can’t control. But he wants to see the man in his most artless state. One cannot pose in sleep. He crosses the threshold into the bedroom and glides over the hardwood floor rather than lifting his weight and putting it down again. He stops a few feet from the bed and stares. The image soon emerges from the darkness—the low hairline, the thin lips, the nose straight and narrow. An appealing face, as it was as a boy. Everything so symmetrical.

  The chest heaves, and he steps behind the clothes stand. The body rises up, seems to look around, then falls back on the bed. After a few minutes, the breathing becomes regular again, and he reappears from the shadows. On the dresser he sees a letter opener, with its long, thin blade. He picks it up in the soft leather of his glove. The body stirs in the bed, the arms shaking, as if tied down. He muffles his own breath with his hand and leans over. He sees the eyeballs fluttering under their lids, the reflection of dreaming. Of what? He feels an odd desire to know, to rouse the sleeper from his sleep and ask what he dreams of. Falling down a flight of stairs, perhaps, something cliché like that, a mind on the verge of giving in to its deepest urges. Or perhaps just a confusion of images, the random firings of a restless brain. Still, there could be meaning in what seems like chaos, if one looks long enough.

  Then what would the disturber of dreams do—run? Thrust the knife? It would surprise him to find he’s capable of doing that, but who would have predicted that he could go this far? A gust of wind brushes through the trees outside and bursts into the room, whipping the thin blue curtains against the window frame. The sudden cool air shivers his bare arms. The temperature is dropping, a cold front moving in as predicted. Why wouldn’t a person lower the window on his way to bed? Didn’t he listen to the eleven o’clock forecast? A careful man takes note of the changing weather and adjusts his window for the temperature that would come, not that already is.

  His hand eases its grip on the knife. His arm hangs limply against the leg, the blade pointing downward, harmless. The fleeting impulse to kill evaporates from his consciousness. He has come tonight just to satisfy his curiosity—he might even admit that it is an obsession. The letter opener lying on the bureau was pure coincidence. It could have been put away in a drawer, mixed in with pads and pens, or not existed at all in this particular place. Then the thought of killing would not have occurred to him. Plunging a blade, even a dull one, into someone shouldn’t be a matter of circumstance.

  And so the uninvited visitor leaves as he has come, with silent footsteps. He glances into the room across the hall again. A light circle of fur rests against the pillow at the top of the bed. He admires the way cats above all species can ignore the comings and goings of humans that don’t concern them. It would be relaxing not to pay attention. He resists the temptation to go in and pet the animal. He has already stayed longer than is perhaps wise. He regrets not having the time to see more of the house—the layout of the downstairs, the angles and spaces. He appreciates the softness of the carpet under his feet and the dim overhead light as he descends the stairs. His own apartment is so cold and bright. He leaves the letter opener on the bottom step, pushed under the rug, where the bulge of it may be noticed in a day or two. An experienced intruder wouldn’t purposely disturb the scene, of course. There would remain on the carpet the faint imprints of his shoes—a common size—and in the air, linger the scent of some mild soap, not easily named. Otherwise not a
trace.

  Stepping out into the mist, he flips up the collar to his jacket. The slight bite to the air makes his skin shiver. He feels good realizing that he doesn’t have to do anything drastic right away. Violating the sanctity of this man’s home is enough, at least for one cool, moist night.

  Summer carnival was coming to Red Paint. Simon watched from his desk as workers set up the two rows of blue canvas tents, creating a makeshift midway. It amazed him how quickly they could turn the Common into an amusement park. In three days would come its destruction, leaving no trace of it beyond marks in the grass as the carnival moved on to a neighboring town.

  He sensed movement toward his desk and looked up. A short, husky man dressed in jeans and red plaid shirt had his hand out. “Dan LeBeau. We met at a Chamber lunch a few months ago. I own LeBeau’s Hardware.”

  Simon took the hand in an awkward grip, palm to fingers, and let go quickly. “Right, Dan,” he said as if having a clear memory of the man. People expected to be remembered by the editor of their town paper. “What can I do for you?”

  LeBeau glanced about the newsroom. In the corner Carole was typing into her computer, her headphones on. He nodded her way. “Your police reporter, she called me for her story.”

  “What story is that?”

  “I’ve got a finance manager, Bonnie, been with me for eight years. I found out this week she’s been stealing from me. It started out small, a few hundred dollars here and there. Then it got to moving thousands of dollars at a time into fake accounts, pretending to pay bills.”

  “So you turned her in to the police, and Carole has the copy?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t run the story.”

  “We can’t?”

  “It’ll kill my reputation around here.”

  Simon wrapped up the remains of his tuna sandwich and glanced out the window. A long truck marked WORLD’S BEST MOBILE PETTING ZOO pulled up on Mechanic Street. There were no windows in the huge vehicle, which made him wonder, did North American Traveling Amusements Inc. treat its animals humanely? He could assign someone to go undercover and find out—Rigero, maybe, as an itinerant worker. But if the story closed down the carnival, the Register would never be forgiven.

  “So,” LeBeau said, “you can understand my position.”

  As far as Simon could tell, that position boiled down to I’ll be embarrassed, so you can’t run the story. “From my experience, readers always sympathize with the injured party,” he said. “They may be surprised you didn’t catch on sooner, but they won’t blame you. They’ll think you’re a good guy who got taken advantage of.”

  LeBeau stepped closer to the desk. “Who’s going to buy paints and brushes from somebody who can’t keep track of tens of thousands of dollars? Some people already think I’m soaking them.”

  “Are you?” The question was abrupt, but Simon was glad he said it in just that way. He had bought from LeBeau’s many times.

  LeBeau cocked his head. “You charge what people are willing to pay. That’s the way it works.”

  “It works that way because you have no competition. You have what, three stores?”

  “Four. We just opened in Rawley.”

  “So you have the only four hardware stores within thirty miles of here.”

  LeBeau looked out of the window for a moment, conjuring his next argument. “Look, I’m a private company. My financial numbers are nobody’s business. I’m not pressing charges against Bonnie. We’re going to work it out between us.”

  Simon glanced over at Carole. “I’m afraid you made it public the moment you called the police.”

  LeBeau picked up the snow globe on Simon’s desk and shook it. Little flakes of white floated through the liquid, landing on the small skyline of Portland. “I advertise in the Register,” he said. “I was thinking of doing a big promotion for our new store.”

  Simon stood up. “Advertising and editorial are separate departments, Dan. We can’t pick and choose what to run from the police log. It’s often embarrassing to someone, even advertisers.”

  “I didn’t see you running a picture of the graffiti on your door a week ago. Wasn’t that news, somebody scrawling RAPIST on the front door of the Register?” He said the word louder than the rest, and even Carole with her earphones in looked over.

  “You’re getting desperate now.”

  LeBeau tossed the snow globe between his hands. “A lot of folks around here would like to know if our friendly little town paper is hiding a sexual predator.”

  Simon moved toward the door, inducing LeBeau to follow. “We’re not hiding anything, Dan. But we do have a reputation to keep up for reporting all the local news, not just some of it.”

  “Right, you make your reputation by ruining mine. That make you feel good?”

  It was his job to report the news, regardless of whom it hurt. Journalists did that every day all over the country. What did he feel about it—proud, satisfied, sorry at times?

  LeBeau dropped the plastic globe in Simon’s hand. “I didn’t think you’d have an answer for that.”

  As Simon turned into the driveway of his home, there was the Volvo, parked slightly crooked, Amy’s trademark. He pushed in the front door and saw her black sandals in the hallway, as if she had stepped out of them midstride. It always relieved him to see the tracks of her around the house.

  “Amy?”

  There was silence for a few seconds, then: “In here.”

  He hurried to the kitchen where she was standing at the sink, opening a can. He wrapped his arms around her and she twisted her head so that their cheeks rubbed against each other. He loved the smooth feel of her skin, unlike any other sensation he could think of. It was pure Amy.

  She checked her watch. “You’re home early.”

  “That’s because I’m taking you out on the town tonight.”

  “Which town?”

  “Red Paint, of course. The carnival is back.”

  She shifted around inside his arms to face him. “You get like a little kid this time every summer.”

  “If you can’t get excited when you go to a carnival, you must be dead.”

  She pulled back slightly. “Davey stays with us this year, no running off on his own.”

  “He is eleven, Amy.”

  “Eleven going on eight.”

  Simon leaned in for a kiss and tasted something different—new lipstick? New toothpaste? “We don’t kiss much anymore,” he said when they broke apart. “Why is that?”

  “I haven’t been keeping score,” she said and then kissed him again, “but you can add one more to our total.” She turned away, toward the refrigerator. “When you go upstairs, tell Davey to wash for dinner. I’m throwing together a vegetable soup. It’s all I have the energy to make.”

  Simon headed down the hallway, grabbing his briefcase as he went, and turned up the stairs. At the top he stopped outside his son’s room, listening for a moment. Not spying really, more information gathering, as he’d do in the bank or supermarket, trying to pick up on what people were talking about. He heard an unfamiliar voice on the other side of the door, lower-pitched and slower-paced than Davey’s usual rapid-fire delivery. He tried to distinguish words but could only make out “Yeah” and “Nah.” He knocked. Nothing. He waited a few seconds and knocked again, harder. Still nothing. Simon nudged open the door and peeked around it. “Davey?”

  The boy sat cross-legged on his bed, propped up by pillows, the phone at one ear, his earbud in the other. “I got to get off now,” he said with exaggerated loudness, “on account of my father has invaded my room.” He hung up the receiver.

  “It’s time for dinner, and afterward we’re all going to the carnival together.”

  The boy’s face contorted into a mixture of disbelief and resignation. “You mean I have to go with you guys?”

  “Mom’s orders. Go with us or not at all.”

  Small white lights stretched between the trees down both sides of the Common, illuminating the green as if i
t were a large rectangular stage suspended in the black of space. The air burst with sounds of a banjo band and kids yelling and one strong-lunged baby crying. They walked down the crowded midway, bumped and brushed at every step. Simon reached ahead to tap Amy’s shoulder. “This is the most crowded I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “You can barely move.”

  She licked her chocolate cone. “Where’s Davey?”

  He looked back into the swirling lights of the Merry-Go-Round, trying to pick out the slight form of their son. “By that booth with the water guns,” Simon said, vaguely pointing. “Around there.”

  “You see him?”

  “Not this second, but—”

  “You said you were watching him.”

  Simon rose up on his toes, looking for the telltale blue cap. “Okay, I see him. But this is ridiculous. We can’t keep our eyes on him every second just because we spooked ourselves one time.”

  She moved in closer so he could hear her. “I didn’t spook myself. The person Davey saw at the front door spooked me.”

  “It could have just been somebody coming around selling something.”

  “At eight o’clock on a Thursday night? And why didn’t he ring the bell?” They’d gone over this before. He didn’t have all the answers. “A carnival is exactly where predators hang out and snatch kids,” she said.

  “If he’s not safe in the center of Red Paint, we might as well move to Canada.”

  Amy gestured with her cone toward the tent. “What’s he doing now?”

  A quizzical expression flashed across Simon’s face before he could stop it. “He’s just talking to someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t tell from here, some man maybe.”

  “A man?” Amy pushed her way against the tide of people. “Davey!” she yelled with an urgency in her voice that made everyone stop and look. Twenty yards away, the boy waved and waded into the crowd toward them. For a moment they lost sight of him, then he popped up next to them.