by Torsten Krol
“No.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t. You and her fucking?”
“No.”
“But you’d like to, right? She may be bitchy but she also witchy, you know? What’s wrong with you, she seeing some other guy?”
“No.”
“So get in there, my man. That’s a fine-looking lady going to waste. You’re really not poling her?”
“No.”
He shook his head and sighed like it’s something he’ll never understand. “You are one strange bird, Odell. There’s something about you just don’t add up. You’re the kinda guy has secrets, I can tell.”
“Secrets?”
“Uhuh, the deep and dark kind, I’m betting. The thing about secrets, they eat away at a man till he’s just a hollowed-out guy, what they call a husk.”
“A husk.”
“Right. You got any secrets to share, Odell? Or maybe you wanna be a husk.”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“You sure? I’m good at character judgment, and my mind is telling me you’re a secret-keeper.”
“Well, your mind would be wrong about that.”
He kind of snickered and kept looking across at me, which a driver shouldn’t do, he should keep his eyes on the road. We’re getting to the edge of town about then, where the streetlighting ends and the night takes over. Donnie turned on the radio and music blasted out over us, so no more talking. We turned off the main highway onto the road that goes past Dean’s place, and he slowed down a little because this is a dirt road and not so smooth riding. A car passed us going the other way, just a pair of blazing headlights set on high beam that got Donnie swearing and he flashed his own at them but they didn’t turn theirs off, real selfish behavior in my opinion, but then they’re past us and we’re driving through the dust they kicked up. “Asshole,” says Donnie. After another ten or so minutes driving along the road he pulls over and turns the music down.
“Okay, I’m gonna drop you off here. Near as I can guess it’s about where I picked you up. No way I’m going anywhere near that house again.”
I got out and he did a U-turn, throwing up dust that hung in the headlights, then he’s gone back down the road, which I was not sorry to see him go, that is not the kind of guy I can get comfortable with. I started walking, thinking about everything and trying to untangle what I think about all of it, not so easy because the letter has gone missing and I don’t know who has got this. Maybe I should not have wrote it after all, but I was feeling bad and the letter made me feel good for a little while anyway, but now I’m not so sure.
It was a nice feeling walking along the road under moonlight, swinging my arms and whistling, which I do not do so good but nobody’s around to say so. All in all I would be feeling good except for all this stuff about Dean plugging up my Happy Valve, this thing everyone has inside them that opens up every now and then for no particular reason and lets loose a blast of Happy Feelings. I have got one and I am no freak so everybody has got one of these, a good thing to have but you can’t turn it on or off, it does that itself whenever it wants, generally not too often.
I could see the house because I left a light on inside plus the porch light, not too far away now so I slowed down a little to make the walk last. Maybe I should do more moonlight walking. Then I got to the end of the driveway and turned in toward the house, which is when I stopped because there is someone parked right there in the driveway, maybe twenty yards in from the road. At first I thought it’s a federal servaylance team watching the house like Donnie thinks they are, but this is no government sedan, it’s a truck. I got closer and it’s Dean’s truck!
I got closer still and found out there’s nobody inside, just an empty cab, and the mowers are still in back there like they should be. The hood was warm so it was returned just recent by Andy Webb after Lorraine yelled at him over the phone, this is so obvious. They didn’t take it all the way up to the house because the porch light and front room lights are on and they figured someone must be home, so they drove it partway along the drive, most likely with the headlights off, and left it there and fled the scene in a backup car, which I bet was the one and only car that passed me and Donnie coming back here.
I had left the keys in the house, but the truck door was not locked so I opened it up and checked out the cab by the overhead light. Well, it looked no different than before, still with all that trash covering the floor, only the ignition wires are dangling down under the dash so they hotwired it to drive it away and return it. Well, no harm done there, but the letter to Condoleezza was gone, and my sweet little phone. I scratched around among the fast food trays and candy wrappers and kingsize Coke containers including lids and straws but could not find neither one of these Important Items, so they have been stolen even if the Dodge got brung back. I looked at the odometer and it says they have not been driving it around very much, probably just to the police garage where it got stashed for twelve hours or so and then it got returned. I only lost one day’s mowing after all and the schedule is still there with all the customer phone numbers so I can call around and explain things to them tomorrow, no problem. But I was mad about that phone.
I got out and started walking up to the house to get the truck keys, thinking to myself Andy Webb has got that letter after all, so why isn’t he out here digging up the hole in the yard where the letter says I buried Dean, so now I’m worried all over again. When I got to the porch I heard the kitchen phone start to ring and hustled out my door key to get inside fast because I’m thinking it’s Lorraine calling to apologize for acting cranky tonight and she’ll say next time I’m over at her place I can stay the night and not get sent home with Donnie Darko. Or maybe it’s Chief Webb making a prank call and he’s going to say to me something like, “We brung your truck back, but next time we won’t.”
I sprinted along the hall to the kitchen and lifted the phone. “Hello?”
“Odell? This is Chet Marchand.”
“Oh ... Chet. Hi.”
“Sorry to call you up so late, Odell, but I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon and evening. Your new phone seems to have the ring tone turned way down.”
“No, it’s been stolen.”
“Stolen?”
“Along with my truck ... Dean’s truck. They just now brung it back.”
“Your truck was stolen? This is the lawnmowing truck, you mean?”
“That’s the one, stolen this morning while I’m at the funeral, only now they brung it back okay, safe and sound. But they took the phone.”
“Oh no, your brand-new phone . . .”
“Yeah, they took it, all right, I looked for it but it’s gone.”
“Well, that is a shame I have to say. It’s a world of thieves out there.”
I’m thinking that must be true because Donnie D said the same thing not twenty minutes ago, but of course I can’t talk about that with someone like Chet Marchand, he’d be disappointed to hear I’m not only not a Christian, I hang out with drug dealers.
“The reason I’ve been calling, Odell, is on the way back to Topeka I got to thinking, and I made a call to Reverend Jerome concerning you.”
“Me?”
“That’s right, Odell. What the idea was, is how would you feel about coming to Topeka for Preacher Bob’s Fourth of July Revival?”
“Fourth of July?”
“That’s right. This is an important time for America, Odell, with this election coming up on us next year, a time for doing what’s right, for holding firm and not giving way to weakness and compromise. Those two things are just another way of saying Defeat. Bob and I are very much aware of the public mood and Bob wants to serve up his followers with a real American celebration on the fourth, something special that’ll lift our hearts and get the political blood racing. Guess who the celebrity guest will be, Odell. He’ll be giving a speech that we know will be a great speech, a stirring speech.”
“Uh, the President?”
“Close but no c
igar. Try the next President.”
“Senator Ketchum?”
“God willing, and we want you to be there as well, Odell.”
“Well, I...I don’t know. I don’t think I could give a very good speech, Chet, not even if it was wrote out for me by a speechwriting guy . . .”
“Odell, sorry, I seem to have miscommunicated here. We don’t want you to give a speech, that’ll be Senator Ketchum’s role, plus an introductory speech by Bob, of course. No, we’re inviting you to attend as a guest, a special attendee behind the scenes, as it were. You’ll get to meet the senator and Preacher Bob too, but you don’t have to worry about publicity, I know you’ve had it rough about your association with Dean Lowry. No, you’d be there as kind of a special secret guest, that’s all, away from the cameras so you won’t get any unwelcome attention from the media. You’re probably asking yourself why Bob is doing this, aren’t you, Odell.”
“Kind of.”
“Because Preacher Bob is that kind of guy. There it is.”
“Uhuh.”
“Tell me you’re interested, Odell. Tell me you’ll be there. I want you to know I am not proselytizing, merely extending an invitation to someone I’d like to call a friend.”
“Well...okay, sure.”
“It’ll be a huge crowd. We’ve made arrangements to take over one of Topeka’s biggest parks, so it’ll be an open-air gathering with a stage and lots of free food for everyone. We’re expecting in excess of ten thousand souls.”
“Wow, that’s big, all right.”
“Big and special. You won’t regret this, Odell. And your truck has been brought back, you say?”
“Parked out there along the driveway.”
“That’s good, that’s your transport taken care of. We’ll compensate you for your gas consumption on the trip, Odell, a big truck like that will burn a hole in your pocket the way those OPEC countries have got us paying a fortune at the gas pump nowadays. But then again, bigger is safer, they say. Big American cars and trucks are what all of us should be driving, but people are turning away from them for smaller imports. That’s a bad thing, Odell, an unpatriotic thing... But don’t get me started on that subject. And, Odell? As a special reward for your attendance, I think I can guarantee Preacher Bob and I will provide you with another cell phone at no charge. In fact, you can count on it.”
“That’s real ...that’s a very generous thing, Chet, thank you.”
“No thanks required, Odell. Just you be there on the fourth, and make sure nobody steals your truck again in the meantime, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Well, I’ll let you enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“Okay then.”
“Bye, Odell.”
“Bye, Chet.”
We hung up and I had to shake my head this is so surprising, getting invited to a big show like this will be with Preacher Bob and Senator Ketchum and who knows who-all else besides. And another good thing about this – when Chief Webb starts waving my letter around that says I killed Dean I can say I have got friends in High Places as the saying goes, being backstage with Preacher Bob and Senator Ketchum like Chet wants. It was Chet talking to me on Sunday that made me write the letter that will get me in trouble anytime now, and Chet calling me just now that will get me out of that selfsame trouble, so this is just perfect!
Of course it would be better if I didn’t ever have wrote that letter, especially seeing as I don’t know where it is right now, maybe still in the truck, lost in all that crap on the floor, maybe the phone too, I just couldn’t see them with only that tiny little overhead light to see by. Maybe I should go out there with a flashlight and give the cab floor a real good going-over to be sure about this and not worry anymore about who has got that letter. Then I had a better idea. I’m still standing next to the phone, thinking hard, and it struck me all I have to do is call my cell number and if the phone is still someplace in the truck it’ll ring and I’ll find it easy by following the sound. That was a good plan, so I concentrated, remembering the number, and then I called it up.
It rung once, then all of a sudden I got picked up by an invisible hand and flung against the kitchen wall, which give way when that happened and the wall and me and the refrigerator and some other household items were moving along together through the air it seemed like, and I’m thinking this must be some kind of crazy dream that’s happening, did I fall asleep with the phone in my hand? Then the wall slowed down a little so I caught up and was flung hard against it while the refrigerator went on by, still going fast. Then me and the wall begun falling down, it felt like, but I can’t hear a thing, a deaf man’s dream. This is all going on around me very slow and quiet. Now I’m dreaming about the house all shattered to smithereens somehow and flying through the air alongside me and the wall I’m bumping up against. Then it’s the grandaddy clock comes sailing by, turning slow and stately in the air with the pendulum sticking out at a crazy angle and the dial separating from the rest and showing the curly springs and gadgets behind. Here comes the front porch rocker turning over and over very slow with the cushions like fat wingless birds flying alongside looking for someplace to land. I wanted to reach out and grab one of them but I can’t seem to move, the way you get in dreams, and so those cushions kept on going past me because I’m slowing down, pushing harder against the kitchen wall which is leaning over now and turning in a slow circle under the moon, so I have gone and dreamed myself outside, one of those flying dreams you hear about, only I’m spinning too so the moon keeps going in silent circles up there.
Then there’s this big eclipse that happened and everything went dark very fast.
FOURTEEN
Now, you will have read in the newspapers about those people that wake up in bed and there has gotten to be some aliens in the room all standing around looking strange and communicating telepathically, this has been on TV also. That’s how I knew something very unusual had happened to me, drugs or something to make me think I’m surrounded by aliens that are giving me commands I don’t understand. Maybe Donnie D spiked my drink, he’s a drug dealer, only we did not have any drinks. And this is not my room anyway, Dean’s room, that is, and this is not my bed. One of the tall thin aliens was disguised like a nurse, all in white and blue, and another one has got a special probe device around his neck to insert the locator bug up my nose so they can always find me even if I run to the ends of the earth, only it looks like a regular stethoscope so I don’t get alarmed and fight back when the bug goes in.
“Can you hear me?” he says.
He almost looked human, but you can always tell if it’s an alien by the way the edges of the face have got makeup to hide where the mask ends, the mask that hides the lizard face underneath, so I was not going to be fooled into talking when I’m not ready for alien interrogation and a nasal implant. Or else this is still a dream I’m having, only now it hurts. My hand hurts and my head hurts and my shoulder, also one knee. I have got bandages around my head and my right hand which is kind of throbbing.
“Mr Deefus, can you hear me?”
“Uh...”
“Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”
He gave himself away there because he forgot to hide those extra alien fingers for a total of seven. These aliens are not so clever as you might think, only technogistically more advanced than we are just yet. But I was ready now to fool him into thinking I don’t know what’s going on. This is a white room inside the mother ship for sure.
“Five . . .” I croaked, and he looked pleased.
“Good. Do you know what happened to you?”
“I saw the moon . . .”
That wasn’t the right answer. He leaned in closer till his humanoid mask was long as a cartoon face. “There was an explosion,” he says. “The house was destroyed. You’re very lucky to be alive.”
So now I’m thinking did the propane tank explode or what? And maybe these people are not aliens, just people, hospital people. In which case somet
hing real has happened, not a dream after all. That propane tank had not looked like it was in good shape but the propane delivery company is supposed to tell you if it needs fixing, so obviously Dean had ignored the warning is what I thought.
“A bomb,” says the doctor, which I can see now he’s a real doctor and the nurse is a real nurse, and those two over there in the suits watching me close look like cops. I had heard that word before – bomb – but couldn’t think what one of those was. It sounded like something round and full – bommmmmm – kind of like a propane tank, but that wasn’t it.
“A truck bomb,” he says.
I thought about trucks and come up with Dean’s truck, the old Dodge with the lawnmowers in back of it, but it wasn’t in such bad shape you could call it a bomb, not even a junker like my Monte Carlo, so there is still confusion in my mind about this.
“Can we talk to him?” asks one of the suits.
The doctor looked into my eyes like he’s trying to make up his mind. He has got a small mole on his cheek. “Are you able to talk for a little while, Mr Deefus?”
“Uhuh . . .”
The two cops come closer and the doctor and nurse slid away out of sight with the doc saying over his shoulder, “Not for too long.”
Then they’re hovering close beside the bed, both of them. “How are you today, Mr Deefus?” says the one without the glasses. “Agent Kraus and Agent Deedle, do you remember us from last week?” So they aren’t cops, they’re FBI, now I remember.
“Uhuh.”
They dragged over some plastic chairs and sat down.
“Are you in much pain, Mr Deefus?”
“Uhuh.”
“Well, we’ll go as fast as we can so you don’t get inconvenienced. There’s some questions need answering about this incident. We’ve been told the truck was stolen, is that right?”
