The Other Mr. Bax

by Rodney Jones

  She drove down the following Friday, arriving at her sister’s apartment near Mac Dill Air Force Base just before sunset. She was more than familiar with the area. Her and her sister had spent a significant portion of their youth in that neighborhood. Their father was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base from the time she was thirteen until her completion of high school.

  With open cartons of Chinese take-out scattered across the coffee table, the two spent the first evening catching up on each other’s lives.

  “Bummer that you and Jeff didn’t work out,” Brenda said.

  “I never said that.”

  Brenda struggled with a stray noodle, clinging stubbornly to her lower lip. “Bummer.”

  Joyce rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, you know what else is a bummer? I have to work tomorrow.”

  “Shit. Do you?”

  “Sorry. I’ll see if I can take a weekday off,” Brenda said.

  Joyce’s shoulders dropped. “Uh… so, what am I going to do… like tomorrow?”

  “The beach?”

  “You mean start out with a nice sunburn.”

  Brenda made a eureka-face. “The mall!”

  “Huh uh.”

  “I’m trying to think of things that aren’t so touristy,” Brenda said.

  “I’d rather be a tourist.”

  “Well, then, Disney World.”

  “Remember going to the Dalí Museum when we were kids?”

  “Oh, yeah… yeah.”

  “Where is that?” Joyce dipped her eggroll in soy sauce and bit into it.

  “A few blocks south of the pier. St. Pete.”

  The Saint Petersburg Pier… Joyce again glanced at the drawing Roland had given her. It didn’t seem that long ago, but it was. It had been over sixteen years. She looked at the clock on the shelf below the TV—6:14. The house seemed all at once too quiet. She leaned forward—annoyed, concerned, trying to ignore the tension building within her muscles. The clock—its numbers offered no clue as to what had come before, or what was to follow.

  Where the hell are you? You knew I was hungry, and you just up and leave? Another walk?

  It didn’t make sense. They’d only just returned from a long hike on the res. She’d assumed that, like her, Roland would be eager for lunch. She thought she’d made it clear that she was hungry.

  Left without saying a thing. This is… “It’s not right,” she whispered. She rose from the chair, stepped into the kitchen, scanned a list of numbers she kept pinned by the phone, and stopped at Carole’s, their nearest neighbor. She lifted the handset, thought about what she would say, her fingers hesitating over the buttons, then finally tapped in the number. It rang once, twice, a third time. A voice broke in. “You’ve reached How and Carole Brown—”

  She returned the phone to its base. “Shit.” 6:29 became 6:30. She picked the phone up again and tapped in her sister’s number.

  A moment later—“Hello?”

  “Brenda. Hey. Did you get my e-mail?”

  “Uh… I haven’t had a chance to check today.”

  “Yeah, well, anyway, I wrote you one while Roland was making lunch.” Joyce looked down at the knife on the counter. “I was upstairs, at the computer. When I came down, he wasn’t here… and he hasn’t come back. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Uh…”

  Joyce sighed. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

  “What’s nothing?”

  “He just up and left. Didn’t say a thing. His car’s here, but he’s not. Does that make sense? I mean, it’s not like Roland to pull crap like this.”

  “Could he have gone somewhere with a friend? Someone came by and picked him up?”

  “It’s not like him, Brenda. Hell, he knows I’d beat the holy crap out of him if he took off without letting me know.” She again sighed. “That doesn’t sound too possessive or controlling, does it?”

  “Borderline… Maybe he was thinking he’d only be gone a minute, and then had some kind of trouble… a flat or something, you know?”

  “You know what bothers me?” The pile of shredded lettuce waiting on the cutting board was beginning to wilt.

  “What?”

  “The knife on the floor. He dropped a knife on the floor, but then just left it lying there. That bothers me.”

  “Maybe he didn’t realize…”

  Together, they devised a number of scenarios to account for the knife, and then Roland’s absence—all innocuous, while also unlikely. Innocuous, though, was precisely what Joyce was aiming for. Regardless of her earlier premonition, deep down, she was convinced he would show up at any minute with an explanation absolving him of any wrongdoing.

  “Well, whatever the case is, I’ll still beat the crap out of him.”

  Her sister laughed. “And he’s aware of that?”

  “Am I being ridiculous?”

  “No, no, you’ve surpassed that.”

  The topic shifted to books, movies, Brenda’s recent trip to Vancouver, and the weather—both Phoenix’s, where Joyce lived, and Santa Clarita’s, where Brenda lived—working toward goodbyes, after which Joyce agreed to call again, should she feel the need.

  “Call anyway,” Brenda said. “I’m too curious. And show him no mercy.”

  Feeling more settled, Joyce set the phone down—her fears talked away, or pushed to the side, while the hunger she’d been ignoring reasserted itself. Using the vegetables Roland had already prepped, she assembled a rollup, poured a glass of wine, then took a seat at the dining table. A patch of sunlight, from the window at her left, lay across the table. She gazed out toward Mineral Butte, about a half-mile away. Beyond it, the mountains appeared flat, dusty-mauve. The butte evoked memories of summer nights—her and Roland upon its roof, stargazing, and making love and dreams. Any other time, she would’ve appreciated the view. It instead invoked a peculiar feeling: a mix of anger and fear, which she didn’t want to acknowledge. Roland, after all, had only been gone a few hours. But then his leaving unannounced was something he’d rarely done before—only once, that she could remember. He was upset at the time… very upset.

  She took a bite from her rollup—her thoughts drifting from the conversation with her sister, to Roland, then skipping to the day following her arrival in Tampa—all those years ago.

  Her sister had left for work by the time she woke that first morning there. Joyce had her day pretty well planned out: the Dalí Museum, lunch at Ted Peter’s Seafood Shack, a walk on the beach, and then back to the apartment to spend the evening with her sister. She put the couch she’d slept on back in order, showered, dressed, helped herself to a bowl of granola, then headed out for the day.

  As was typical of Florida, the day was hot, humid, and sunny. Her drive into downtown Saint Petersburg was dotted with memories of her earlier life there: Tampa Gardens, Disney World, high school, a canoe trip with old friends, a Zappa concert. She wondered about the boy who’d taken her to the concert, Alec Walker—their first and only date. Fifth Street… Alec… talked like he had only minutes left to live. 1957 Chevy… the poor kid… Fourth Street… Was that my first-ever rock concert? No, it was that really big place on Kennedy. Who was it? Chicago? Third Street…

  Joyce was about to make a right turn when she noticed a crowd of people mingling about the park near the South Yacht Basin, a block ahead of her car. A banner stretching across the road read, “Mainsail Art Festival.” On impulse, she turned left, found a public garage near the park, and left her car there.

  The park was laid out like a miniature village with displays of paintings, sculptures, and various crafts, lining shaded, grassy lanes—and people shuffling about in every direction—dense crowds around some displays, a thin smattering around others. The air carried the fried food smell of a carnival: sausage, onions, peppers, potatoes. Joyce entered a small, white, tent-like structure with watercolors hanging, inside and out, from its walls. The paintings were mostly cityscapes, the older parts of southern coastal villages, traditional in style, and skillful
ly rendered. She stepped out and around to her right to look at the work hanging outside the tent. An old man under a white, Panama hat, a rather bulbous nose, and a tired smile on his whiskered face, sat in a chair near the display.

  “How ya today, Miss?”

  Joyce gave him a quick smile. “Fine, thank you.” She pointed to the painting hanging next to her. “These yours?”

  “Been painting for over thirty years now. This is my sixth year here at this show. Not what it used to be, though.”

  Joyce glanced from the art to the artist, wondering what wasn’t what it used to be.

  “Used to be more fussy who they let show at these things. See that crazy kid with the sticks in the ground down the way?” The man tipped his head to his right. “Whaddaya make of that? Art?” He shrugged. “You just wait and see. They’ll go an’ pin a ribbon on those sticks before it’s over. Simply amazes me.”

  “Well, now I’m curious.” She grinned. “I’ll have to have a peek at that.”

  The old man rolled his eyes and shook his head. “What is that? They call it controversy, don’t they… which automatically makes it good.” He chuckled.

  Joyce complimented the man on his work, wished him luck, then continued her exploration. The majority of displays she passed attracted no more than a cursory glance. To her left was a crowd of people absorbed by what appeared to be framed illustrations from children’s books, and to her right, largely devoid of spectators, was a display of drawings that looked promisingly different. She stepped in for a closer look.

  The drawings were done with pen and ink, black on white, in an abstract style. Upon close inspection, she saw they were far more intricate than was apparent from the walkway. The images were composed primarily of tiny, abstract characters, which called to mind alphabetic symbols, reminiscent of Chinese, though unlike any she had seen before. As characters form words on a page, these formed clearly discernable images, which seemed to convey a different mood than the characters they arose from. She scanned the vicinity, searching for an artist, a middle-aged man with a stereo-typical Jon Gnagy goatee and wrap-around shades. No one stepped forward. After browsing the display for information about the artist, and finding none, she examined the signature on one of the drawings. Roland Bax… A name from the past—a boy she’d met in second grade, the only name she could now recall from her short time in Selma. She spent some time with each piece, giving particular attention to a large, Kandinsky-esque drawing. Roland Bax… She glanced over her shoulder toward an empty director’s chair before moving on to the neighboring display—then the next.

  Farther up the lane, she stopped to look over some handcrafted jewelry—the boy from elementary school distracting her, swinging back and forth in her mind. Roland… How many Rolands have I met? One? And Baxes? Uno. Isn’t that just the craziest coincidence?

  It’d been a long while since she last thought of him, Regrets at not having said goodbye played an intrinsic part in those memories. She had known, even then—soon after her family’s move to Selma, in fact—that they would be there for only a short time. She simply wanted what the other kids wanted: friends, popularity, stability. Convinced that if Roland knew of her family’s curse—keep moving or suffer normality—he would not have been so accepting of her, and likely would not have been as invested in her. So she kept it to herself.

  She slipped a ring on her finger—turquoise set in silver. One day Selma, the next, Indianapolis—the move she most despised. She studied the ring, turning her hand at various angles, then pulled it from her finger and returned it to its display. Yeah, but the world is a safer place because of the sacrifices I made. Right.

  After browsing a few more displays, Joyce came to a sectioned-off area of grass with an arrangement of painted wood slats shoved into the ground. Two boys darted in and out, as though the installation was a conceptual piece of playground equipment. She thought of the old man with the Panama hat, and his prediction, and imagined herself judging the fair. Who were the winners? The potter with the large, black and red bowls, the photos of the Burning Man festival, the pen and ink drawings…

  Stashed away in the recesses of her mind, was a picture of a boy, eight or nine years old, perched next to her on the seat of a swing. It was in there somewhere, but she would never find it; she’d lost track it years before. And there was a place in her heart, so deep and so well-hidden by reason, that she had long ago disregarded its significance. Something, however, had just stirred there—though barely discernable—and then retreated into that nebulous gray record of sketchy beginnings and ends.

  After perusing the remaining exhibits, Joyce returned to the pen and ink drawings for second look. A man wrestling with a fat sandwich was perched in the chair that had, before, been empty. Tearing off a bite, he peered over the top of his bun, and then, while struggling with a mouthful, acknowledged her with a pinky wave and a quick nod. Joyce stepped in closer to examine the details in one of his drawings. The work was loosely objective; a tavern scene with a bizarre caricature of a man, who appeared miserably inebriated, slumping over a messy bar. The details, like ideas hidden within ideas, were abstract and playfully expressive. She cocked her head to the side and studied the jigsaw characters that formed the annoyed-looking bartender. I like this. It’s clever and quirky. It reminds me of—

  “Can I be of any help?”

  She started, spun around—a nametag, right there, Roland Bax, almost chin level. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristled as their eyes met.

  Before she could gather a reply, he said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to creep up on you.”

  “Uh…” She practically had to coax the words from her mouth. “I really like your art pictures… art works… your art.” Her face bloomed with heat.

  “Thank you. It’s one of my favorites.” He indicated the drawing she’d been admiring. “One of my more spontaneous and… I think you’re the first to ever notice it.” He grinned. “And right there is why I make art, you know—attention and praise.”

  She again looked at the drawing, wondering if she was hearing a sales pitch. “I was here a bit ago, when you were… You weren’t here. They’re all really fascinating though.”

  He threw his hands up. “I just can’t get enough of that.”

  “You’re making fun.”

  His eyes were all at once serious. “Having fun. And maybe being a little naïve.”

  “Okay.”

  “Who doesn’t thrive on praise?” he said. “I joke about my motives for making art because I sound too much like a cliché otherwise.”

  Joyce glanced into his eyes—deep set, dark, intense, but inviting when he smiled. She was painfully aware of every word she spoke—aware of her hands, her feet, her lips, her eyes, aware of her awareness. She noted his height—nearly a head taller than she—and his hair—black with a smattering of white, cut short, Caesar style, short bangs, no part. She wanted to stare, not because she found him attractive, which she did, but for a reason she couldn’t quite get at.

  “Are you from around here?” she said.

  “Illinois. I just came down for a couple weeks to try my hand at the festivals. A kind of exploratory vacation.”

  A couple in their fifties stepped up to his display, giving each piece a glance before the woman stopped to inspect a particular drawing more closely.

  “I’m obviously no expert,” Joyce said, “though I’d imagine you’d be doing okay here with the awards they offer.” She held up a festival pamphlet she’d picked up on her way in.

  He shrugged. “I manage to cover my expenses and maybe take home some change.” His eyes swung toward the display to the north of his—life-size wooden ducks—then back to his. “It’s fun though.”

  “Well, I’d be surprised if you didn’t take the top prize.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re one of the judges, aren’t you?”

  The woman who had been looking at his drawing broke in. “Excuse me. Are these prints?”

  Ro
land turned to Joyce, lowered his voice. “Would you excuse me for a moment.”

  As he moved off toward his potential sale, she whispered, “Good luck.”

  She returned to the drawing they’d been discussing, and every so often glanced toward Roland as he engaged his prospective buyers. She overheard the husband asking how much time was involved in a particular drawing and then another. The wife wanted to know if he had anything with color in it. A second couple stepped up, and the first walked away. Roland introduced himself to the new couple, who were even more inquisitive than the first: the husband asked about his technique, wanting to know what it was called, where he studied, who his influences were.

  Joyce stepped around to the outside of his display and pretended to study a drawing hanging there. The conversation taking place inside the display was engagingly transpicuous: Roland talking about impressionism and expressionism, and a piece he’d recently completed. And then, there they were, coming around the corner to see the drawing he was describing, which happened to be the one she was standing before. She stepped back out of the way. The wife stepped forward, taking her place. Roland slipped Joyce a sheepish, embarrassed smile, and an apologetic shrug. She took another few steps back.

  Someone walked by, stepping directly in front of her. She turned and realized she was standing just inside the aisleway. “Excuse me,” she said, stepping out of the way of the oncoming traffic. The word “groupie” popped into her head. Feeling eyes upon her, she covertly scanned the faces of the shifting crowd around her, but no one appeared interested. Twiddle your thumbs, scratch your butt. He did say, a moment. She snuck another peek at Roland—his back to her, standing there, sandwiched between the man and his wife, pointing to specifics within the drawing. Joyce peered up the grassy lane to her left, then the opposite direction. Like a puppy waiting for its master… Letting her ambiguity and impatience go with a huff, she wandered off into the flow of people, thinking: Was that rude? No. Why? No. Jesus, Joyce, it was. Yeah… oh, but don’t interrupt, that’d be rude. So why not wait? For how long? Just walk away. You don’t even know the guy. Interrupting would definitely have been rude. Rude. Rude… rude, rude, rude. Shit!