In Springdale Town

by Robert Freeman Wexler

  “Why not let me show you what’s new around here since you left?”

  Despite my desire for solitude, I found myself unwilling to cleave myself from her company.

  “I know a place Caroline never would have taken you.”

  11

  When had Shelling last eaten? His stomach was a shrunken, leathery thing. He found himself in a narrow room facing two square windows set high, near the ceiling. No furniture but the wooden chair on which he sat, cushioned by a piece of folded burlap. A vent on the wall behind him blew air across the top of his head. Spiders had crafted nests in all the corners. From the windows, the entering light radiated a pinkish glow.

  Lethargy gripped him. Shouldn’t he demand to see a lawyer? He had acted in cop and lawyer shows–you can’t shut someone up like this. Must be something in the atmosphere that kept him from fighting, the white air of the narrow room. The vent stopped blowing. At first, the quiet pleased him. Each molecule of silence emerged, one after another. He pictured them waltzing in loose swirls of air, forming patterns more intricate than snowflakes. Untouchable they swam, free of the clinging spiderwebs.

  But after a time, Shelling grew tired of observing the dancing silence. He found himself longing to hear Mozart, a piano sonata to fill the empty spaces.

  Now restless, he rose and paced the room, measuring it with his steps: seven steps wide and twenty-eight deep. Did it mean something that the room’s depth was divisible by its width? He stopped in a corner to examine the spider webs, whorls of filament rising from floor to ceiling. When he had moved into his farmhouse, he found it full of webs–in corners, doorways, along the base of the kitchen cabinets–and he eradicated all as he encountered them. These, he left undisturbed, for they gave him something to observe besides the white walls and the door, a slab of heavy metal with no knob.

  Lost in his examination of the webs, Shelling needed several repetitions of a hollow clanging thump to register the sound. Suddenly filled with nervous energy, he rushed back to his chair, turned it to face the door and sat, trying to calm his heartbeat. Another clang, then a scraping sound from a mechanism inside the door, and it swung outward. A man in a dark blue uniform came into view outside the door. The top of the jamb obscured his face, and he had to dip his head and turn sideways to enter.

  The man straightened. He had a russet potato of a face, and a dark blue helmet hung low over his forehead. “Come on now,” he said in a rumbly voice. Though obviously some sort of policeman or jailer, he wore no visible gun.

  “Where am I? What do you want from me? I won’t be–” The policeman-jailer’s unresponsiveness stifled Shelling’s protests, and he decided to stay in the chair–would not go anywhere until the man answered.

  Once, in fifth or sixth grade, Shelling’s teacher had tried to send him to the principal’s office, but he had refused to go. Despite her command, he remained at his desk, and when she tried to pull him away, he had gripped its sides so firmly she couldn’t dislodge him.

  “C’mon, no funny stuff,” the jailer said. He moved behind Shelling’s chair and tipped it forward, forcing Shelling to stand. The jailer was huge, well over a foot taller than Shelling–so large that Shelling couldn’t see all of him without stepping back. He flattened against the wall, facing his jailer. He couldn’t fight, not this...human monolith. The jailer motioned for Shelling to precede him. They entered a narrow hall filled with a reddish light; twenty feet or so farther they reached another metal door, which swung open.

  “Right turn,” the jailer said.

  This new passage ran straight, with the same red light and a worn, asbestos tile floor. Shelling tried to estimate the corridor’s length, but the featureless passage numbed him. No other doors appeared, and they continued without pause. From behind, he could sense the bulk of his escort, and he labored to remain ahead of the man’s heavy stride. The jailer’s breathing echoed from the walls and ceiling, a living, writhing sound that encircled them as they walked, formed a path for them through the center of the hall.

  Disconnected thoughts and observations flooded Shelling’s mind. No other doors here, no rooms. Lost. Subterranean passage...ending where? This man, this jailer, his steps, his stride deliberate, each identical to the ones preceding...giant robot man...maybe only the one speed. Run? Can’t run. Viscous atmosphere pressed, like the oatmeal in the movie theater. He longed to be back in his farmhouse bed. This passage bore through the heart of the planet. The walls closed over him, suffocating, so heavy with the weight of earth overhead, all the cities rivers mountains....

  ~

  Gasping, Shelling stopped, unable to take another step along the limitless path. Behind him, the jailer also stopped. The man’s broad hands pushed against Shelling’s back, and he cried out as he tumbled forward. Rough stalks pressed against his face. He heard a door clang shut, but when he sat up, he found himself alone in a cornfield.

  12

  “You ever have flying dreams?” Sammy asked. She pointed to the east, where a wave of passing rain clouds hung. “I become lost in the clouds every time. Can’t tell up, down, whatever.”

  “So where are we headed first then?” I asked, though I was thinking of telling her I had changed my mind again.

  “I grew up around here,” she said. “I was gone a while, Waterloo College in Austin, stayed there several years after graduating. I got my first book published when I was in Austin. I guess I didn’t want to come back here till I had some success. It’s the kind of town that draws people back.” She smiled. “So you better be careful.”

  I followed her into an alley between the rug shop and the Japanese restaurant. I had never noticed the alley before, but figured that it led through to the next street, the train station, fire house, movie theater. I was feeling kind of detached, and willing to be led. I had begun the day expecting to go home. Changing my mind about that led to meeting Sammy, so allowing her to guide me on an adventure seemed right. My whole point of staying was to face my past, prove–to myself anyway–that a town, this town, couldn’t control me.

  “Springdale is a great place,” she said, somehow picking up on my thoughts. “I guess you weren’t allowed to see the best of it though. In a way, it’s two towns. There are the bored would-be socialite types. Like Caroline and her friends. And an artistic and intellectual side, related to the college of course but not only people on faculty. It’s more like an attraction anchored by the college, but extending beyond it.”

  “Well, I never saw any of that. Unless you would call Skippy Brisbane an artist. I think she has a computer program that assembles her romance plots.” Sammy laughed and, walking close to me, slipped a hand between my bicep and my side. I asked her if she was working on a new novel. “Not to insult you by following a comment on Brisbane with a question about your writing, of course.”

  She laughed again and squeezed my arm, and my whole body tingled. “I’m doing something quasi-historical,” she said. “I’m more after mood than historical accuracy. It’s about Diogenes of Lesbos.”{note 13}

  ~

  It seemed like we had been going for some time. The walls on either side remained a uniform red brick, but the surface beneath our feet had changed from pavement to hard-packed earth. The alley darkened, and I shivered, though the air didn’t feel any cooler. I looked up. Despite the gloom down here, blue sky filled the space between the buildings, and sunlight reflected off a low cloud, but the light couldn’t seem to reach us. It reminded me of that Magritte painting, the one where the street is dark even though a daytime sky hovers over it.{note 14}

  Maybe twenty yards on, the light increased, but when I looked up again, the sky had vanished, replaced by a domed ceiling painted in abstract shapes of color, shades of red and orange, with black streaks. Somehow, we had entered a vast, circular space, illuminated by recessed lighting. A railing ran around the diameter of the dome at about second-story level.

  I stopped. “Hey,” I said. Sammy turned to face me. “Where the fuck are we?”
>
  13

  Shelling plodded through the corn for what seemed days, unable to reach the edge of the field. At least he had food. The ears were mature and sweet; he stripped off the husks and ate as he went. But walking was a struggle. He found it difficult to maintain a straight path in any direction. What crazy hand had seeded these fields? No even rows here, everything random, as though planted by chance. And so early in the season–he had thought that this year’s crop wouldn’t be ready until much later, July or August.

  He tried to keep the sun ahead. As a child, he had often tramped along a ditch near his house, pushing his way through tall sunflowers, slashing at them with a hunting knife. But he had known the ditch was near, a few feet to his left, and across it, the streets leading home.

  At last, when the sun reached the top of a line of distant trees, he found a road. Roads like this crisscrossed the area, connecting farm, field, and town. He set off to his right, and after a hundred yards or so, a house appeared behind a tumbled stone wall. He decided to stop there and ask directions. A stone path, crowded by overrunning grasses and dandelions, led to the house, and when Shelling reached the front door, he recognized it as his own.

  His front door was unlocked as usual; he turned the glass knob and stepped into his living room. Oh, home, his furniture, the two paintings by that California-based Russian artist that he had acquired in L.A., the lingering scent of last night’s tomato-basil-garlic pasta. He flopped onto the couch and sobbed. The day, its unknowable trials now passed, folded down, but the familiar objects of his life supported him. Back in his comfortable living room, that cell, the jailer...now distant.

  ~

  When Shelling opened his eyes, the sun had set. He showered and dressed in clean clothes. Unable to remember why his car wasn’t there, he called the town’s taxi service, and when a cab arrived, he told the driver to take him to the Japanese restaurant. He remained silent all the way to town.

  At the restaurant, Shelling took a seat by the front window. The empty dining room saddened him. He had thought, after seeing the women at breakfast, after the day’s ordeal, he would find the town revivified. Not this...continuation of emptiness.

  Monique the waitress brought him tea. The unglazed teapot and mug had a rough shape, more likely formed by hand than by wheel. The warmth of the mug seeped into his palm and flowed up his arm. “Are these yours?” he asked. “I keep saying I want to visit your studio and never do–is tomorrow afternoon good?”

  The waitress’s expression reminded him of the men at the hardware store–distant, as though inhabiting a different world. She walked back toward the kitchen, leaving Shelling to stare out at the street and the darkened store opposite. At some point he heard another customer enter but didn’t turn around to see. What was the use? He couldn’t stand the thought of another snub, another cryptic encounter. A person, even an outgoing person, soon succumbs, shrinks into solitude, even embraces it.

  But that wasn’t him, wasn’t what he wanted. Where was Monique? He thought that he had made some progress, attempting to set up an appointment with her outside the workplace. That wall again. Things had to be done in small steps, but the time involved, he didn’t have the patience anymore. He would tell Monique he was an actor. She would want to sleep with someone who had appeared on television, who knew famous people.

  Someone slid into a booth behind him; the cushion and frame creaked with the person’s weight, and Shelling heard a rumbly voice ask for tea.

  14

  Looking back the way we came, I saw no entry, nothing but an unbroken curve of wainscoting that rose to chest-level and, above it, plaster painted a warm terra-cotta. I stood in the middle of the room, under the multicolored dome, while Sammy circled the periphery.

  “What is this place? I didn’t notice us going through a door. We were in the alley–”

  “The transition is always subtle,” she said. She kept walking, trailing a finger along the surface of the wainscoting.

  This made no sense. We had been walking down an alley. Which must have led directly into this place. Since my arrival in Springdale, I had been preoccupied with my past. An autopilot kind of thing, and being so closed up I wasn’t aware enough of my surroundings to notice where we were going.

  “Here’s something.” She looked over at me, but I didn’t move. Who was she, really? We had met, what, an hour ago? Sammy pushed on the wainscoting and a section swung away from her. It could have shut after we had entered, but I didn’t remember coming in over there. Sammy stood by the open section, waiting for me. I joined her.

  “This is ridiculous. How could somebody who has never been here find their way out after the door closed?”

  “This isn’t the way we came in. It’s the way forward.”

  I just stared at her, irritation building inside me.

  “Patrick, I said I would show you places Caroline never took you. She’s lived in Springdale her whole life but knows nothing about this.”

  It must have been obvious from my face that I still wasn’t accepting anything; she smiled and touched my cheek with her fingertips. “Springdale is a complex town, a crossroads, and we’re in its hub. We enter, we find our way through. Maybe something we experience changes the way we look at the world.”

  Sammy emanated a sincerity that I found comforting–a jury would have bought it, no problem. So I smiled back. Her explanation hadn’t answered my questions, but if adventure beckoned, I was ready for it.

  She stooped and passed through the doorway. I followed. Inside, the ceiling was too low to stand erect. The passage appeared to continue in a straight line, lit from a source I couldn’t identify. The indirect light had a misty quality, making it hard to judge distance. A click from behind made me turn. The wainscoting door had swung shut behind us. I pushed, but could find no way to open it.

  Sammy held my wrist. “You can’t do that. There’s only one way to go when you’re in here. Come on.” She turned away and I had no choice but to follow. My neck started to ache from walking hunched. Sammy was only an inch or so shorter than me, so she didn’t have it any easier. For some reason, I was wondering what time I would be returning to the bed and breakfast. Those places were often weird about their guest’s hours.

  “It’s always different here, each time you come,” Sammy said. “Sometimes these corridors run straight out to the cornfields. It’s better when the ceiling’s higher. I feel like I’m walking on chicken strings in here.”

  ~

  After forty yards or so of this, we reached a cylindrical room with a ceiling about twelve feet high. “This is way better,” Sammy said as we straightened. I reached back to rub my neck with both hands. “Let me,” she said, and began kneading my shoulders. I could feel her breasts against my back. Her hair smelled perfect, some kind of mint and rosemary scent.{note 15} I liked having her near. It was funny–aside from a brief conversation at that party back when I lived here, we had met only that morning, but I felt as though we had a connection that went deeper. I suppose that explained why I wasn’t more anxious about this place she had brought me–I had some innate trust in her. And I wasn’t anybody’s timid waffle. I liked to explore. But I had wanted to spend today in, I don’t know, solitary contemplation.

  “I appreciate you bringing me here,” I said. “Wherever ‘here’ is.”

  She stopped massaging but left her hands on my shoulders. They felt warm there, strong guides. “We picked a good day. This place isn’t always so easy to reach. Sometimes the entry doesn’t appear.” She pushed my right shoulder and pulled my left, turning me around. Her face had a soft expression, thoughtful, and I felt that connection again. “I wanted to share some of the real Springdale with you.”

  “Sammy...I, I appreciate that. But this–” I waved my hands around. “It doesn’t make any sense. These rooms and passages leading nowhere. Anyway, I guess we have to go back now.” I hunched over and turned into the low corridor from which we had just emerged, but before I could go any farthe
r, Sammy grabbed my arm and yanked me back.

  “You can’t do that!” She had a bark that I hadn’t expected. She still held my arm, which started to throb. I shook her grip loose.

  “What’s–”

  “I told you before. You can only go one way.” She rubbed my arm gently, as if smoothing out the spot she had held. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.” She moved closer and touched my face with her other hand. “This place is sort of a sophisticated funhouse. It has rules, though, and they have to be followed. The main rule is you always move forward. To advance from here, we have to find another door.”

  15

  Shelling loved yellowtail the most, followed by tuna and salmon. Before finding consistent TV work in L.A., he couldn’t afford sushi. Sometimes he would order a cup of miso and one piece of fish and make it last as long as possible. He wasn’t a glutton, but now, with no financial worries, he wouldn’t deny himself the pleasures. He had been thrilled to discover that his new town possessed such a fine Japanese restaurant. What was it Kinsey-Moore had said in her essay on gastronomy? “The path to flavor, though often blocked by under-seasoning, over-saucing, improper cooking, and so many more obstacles that it makes one hesitate, has at its end rewards ample enough to make all trials worthwhile.”{note 16}

  This joyful trinity: fine food, drink, and congenial companions was what made all the Hollywood crap bearable. Crazy how much money the people out there threw around, even to pay small-time actors like him. Though never in a starring role, he had always found consistent work and had invested his earnings well, never wasting money on ridiculous expenditures like sports cars and trendy Albanian clothes. He had known others, friends from his early years, people who had shopped in the same thrift stores, but who, after “making it,” spent everything they earned and more, a never-ending deluge that inevitably turned into over-extended credit and the forced-liquidation of expensive toys as soon as the sources of income dissipated for any length of time over a month.