The Other Mr. Bax

by Rodney Jones

  “Absolutely,” Kate said.

  “I know, I know… I can’t help it. I keep wondering—”

  “Don’t apologize. This is why I came. To do something.”

  “Yeah, right. Sometimes you just have to do something—anything. It keeps the energy moving forward.”

  The tunnel opened to a field of late-blooming wild flowers—a clearing of tall grasses, goldenrod, New England asters, and purple loosestrife. The meadow was aglow from the low sun directly ahead. A narrow, grassy footpath wound through the meadow, then disappeared into the woods, fifty yards away.

  “It’s beautiful,” Kate said, trying to take it all in while keeping up with Dana.

  A short distance before the edge of the trees, Dana stopped and turned. “You think we should call for him?”

  “Call?”

  Dana turned toward the woods, then after hesitating, regretting she’d not come earlier, she called, “Roland!” With Kate just behind her, she stepped past the first trees. Beams of sunlight angled through a canopy of fall colors, producing scattered patches of light on the leaf-covered floor of the woods. With the exception of a small number of beech trees, the woods were maples, all relatively young, most, near thirty feet in height. She again called, “Roland!”

  There was no one among the trees, nothing to disturb, yet her intrusion felt blaringly irreverent; the woods were too beautiful, too serene to harbor anything analogous to her fears. She turned to Kate, and pointed south—“You want to go that way?”—then, indicating the opposite direction, she added, “I’ll go this way.” She pivoted to her right, taking in the woods, sizing it up. “It’s not very big; you can’t get lost in here.”

  Kate stared off toward her assigned direction, as though considering her options. “We’ll meet back here then?”

  Dana nodded, then wandered off toward the north—dried twigs and leaves crunching beneath her feet. She stopped near a silver-barked beech, just beyond which was a small clearing. At the sound of Kate calling her brother’s name, she turned and caught the yellow of Kate’s sweatshirt among the trees, a hundred feet or so back.

  This is stupid.

  A rooster crowed in the distance.

  “He’s not here,” she whispered.

  A twig snapped beneath her foot. Her eyes shifted toward a rustling of branches. Three startled deer bound through the trees, no more than ten yards ahead. She froze. The deer vanished as quickly as they appeared. Dana stood there, waiting, allowing her heart to settle. She thought of Roland, thought about the last time she saw him. He was asleep. She had no sense that anything had changed between them; there had been nothing unusual about his recent behavior. Her thoughts drifted back to her and Roland’s first night together, to that moment of discovery and revelation, that curious feeling of familiarity, rich with excitement and a sense of destiny. Then all the years of ups and downs, and the past so-many-years of mostly flatness—as if they’d forgotten where they had come from, or that it ever mattered.

  As she stepped through a patch of May apples near the edge of the woods, a tiny glint of light struck the corner of her eye. She turned and watched as the sun eased down behind a row of trees across an empty field of grass. Again, the rooster crowed. She willed the rays of the setting sun to cleanse her of her fears but, before it had a chance, it dropped from sight. She searched the woods to her left, looking for Kate. All she could see though was brush and trees, and all she could hear was a low rumble of distant traffic and the occasional but persistent crow of the rooster.

  “Where is he?” she whispered. She closed her eyes, took a slow, deep breath, and searched for that feeling of connection she’d had the other day while in her backyard—that rare moment of peace. The sound of a branch snapping drew her attention to Kate’s approach.

  “This was a dumb idea,” Dana said.

  Kate shrugged. “You had a feeling. How can you know unless you follow it? And besides, it’s beautiful out here.”

  They left the woods on the same path they had come in on—Dana walking ahead of Kate with perhaps a slower gait than the one she arrived with. Without looking back, she said, “I don’t think it’s intuition. Feelings… like the one I have now, the feeling he’s not here… or anywhere. I can so easily convince myself that that’s real.” She stopped and turned. “I’m just fumbling around in the dark—not really sure about anything.”

  Kate glanced back toward the woods—now deep in shadow. “How about we go out for dinner?”

  A half-moon glowed in the eastern sky, while the rooster kept up its meaningless protest. Climbing into the driver’s seat of her car, Dana recalled once confiding in Roland her uncertainty regarding his family’s opinion of her. Being, for the most part, agnostics, had they ever questioned her somewhat-eclectic spiritual beliefs?

  Chapter thirty-two – broken message

  Driving west on North French Road, Dana described the strange vision she had earlier in the day, while out by herself walking. Kate responded with a polite comment, which was followed by quiet for the next half-mile or so. But then Kate said, “I’ve been meaning to ask if you’ve called any of his friends or co-workers?”

  Keeping her eyes on the road, Dana replied, “Yeah,” then straightened, cocked her head slightly—“The blue shirt, though… dark-blue with thin red stripes. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Kate turned. Her brow creased. “The street corner?’

  “Nothing appears to be gone. I looked. It’s like he left the house with only the clothes on his back.”

  “Maybe it’s like he said in the note, right? He’d simply gone out for a walk.”

  “I’ve never seen that shirt before.”

  “What was he wearing when you left the house that morning?”

  “He was still in bed.”

  “Oh.” Kate nodded.

  As another stretch of quiet passed, Dana drummed the steering wheel with her fingers, as if keeping time to a march. “And the note…” She stared ahead. “That’s what really bothers me. If it wasn’t for that, I’d suspect he maybe ran off with some woman. At least I’d have that as an option.”

  “But would he have been so secretive?”

  “No, he’d let me know, somehow. I’m pretty sure he would’ve.” Dana flipped the left turn signal, then stopped and waited for an opening in the traffic.

  “Yeah, he would’ve told someone,” Kate said.

  “I went to the police this morning. It’s just not the kind of thing they get excited about. If he were a young kid, or some cute blonde…”

  Kate and Dana stood before a sign instructing them to “Wait to be seated.” The restaurant’s host—a tall, dark-haired man with chiseled, outdoor-model features—approached from an open door at the back, greeted them, then led them to a small table in a dimly lit corner. A hurricane lamp, the size of a soda glass, glowed near the center of the table. A silky, male voice, singing Night and Day emanated at low volume from hidden speakers. The host handed them menus and informed them that their waiter would be with them shortly. Kate’s eyes skipped from one end of the room to the other, going from the art on the walls to the windows, then, bumping into Dana’s lost gaze, she smiled and opened her menu.

  “Their pizzas are good.” Dana pointed to her left. A young man wearing a chef’s hat pulled a large, wooden spatula from the arched opening of an oven, resembling a brick igloo.

  “Wanna split one?” Kate said.

  The conversation shifted from work to soap and shampoo, travel plans, beans and rice, and past camping trips. Though the conversation was kept light, the topics incidental, Roland’s disappearance inflicted a subtle but relentless pressure. Unable to ignore it any longer, Dana said, “If I could convince myself that he decided to go on a trip, and just forgot to mention it to me… forgot his toothbrush too.”

  “He’ll get there, and then it’ll come to him. Duh.” Kate slapped a hand to her forehead. “If I should ever come up missing,” she said, “I’d suggest you lean toward your forgot
-her-toothbrush scenario.”

  Returning home, Dana kept to the back-roads, passing through the village of Clarence Center. It’d been a long day, and being home in bed was uppermost on her mind. Kate, slouched in the passenger seat, gazing out the window to her right, seemingly as tired as Dana was. They passed the lit porch of a café where the scent of coffee drifted out onto the sidewalk and into the street. A recent memory of Roland, seated across from her at a small, round table, came to mind—that same shop—the two of them having an easy, relaxed exchange of ideas and opinions. Kate interrupted her musings with a comment about the condition of the road, which morphed into a brief discussion about state taxes and real-estate costs, then on to the new tile Kate had recently put down in her bathroom.

  Ten minutes later, Dane turned onto Main Street, but then, two blocks farther, encountered a barricade of fire-trucks, ambulances, and police cars—red lights flashing up and down the street. A policeman in a reflective vest waved a flashlight, directing her down the street to her left.

  “Jesus, the entire town is on fire?” Kate said.

  Dana twisted her head for another look as she turned the corner. It appeared as though every fire-truck in the county was there. Farther up the street, a hook-and-ladder, extended above a two-story building, was at the center of the activity. Smoke billowed from the building below the ladder, or one near it; it was difficult to judge from her perspective.

  The detour took them a block north of Main, then east to Parkview. Emergency vehicles were lined up all the way to Dana’s house and a little beyond. “My god,” she said. A long red truck was parked across the street, before the post office, and another sat in front of her house, its lights flashing like all the others, its hefty front bumper nearly blocking her driveway. Two firemen stood around the hydrant at the corner of her tiny front lawn. One talked into a radio and watched as the other, pulling on a huge wrench, twisted the valve at the top of the hydrant. The fat, beige hose attached to the side of the hydrant went limp.

  Dana eased her car in past the fire-truck and onto her driveway, stopped momentarily near the backdoor to let Kate out, then pulled into the garage, alongside Roland’s car. Bed—she imagined sinking into her pillows, noticeably softer after a long, hard day—the cozy mattress beneath her, the feather-light comforter, caressing her as though they might actually care.

  As the garage door came down, she stepped past the corner of the privacy fence bordering the backyard. Kate had walked down to the entrance of the driveway and was standing near the street, waving for her to join her.

  “Looks like Christmas,” Kate yelled. “Wanna go check it out?”

  Dana held back a sigh.

  They crossed the street, then followed the sidewalk bordering the park. Flashing lights reflected from puddles in the street and from the windows of vehicles and storefronts—a riot of unsynchronized pulses. Dana caught a thin mix of smoky odors—an almost pleasant smell. A man dressed in black and yellow firefighting gear stood on the corner watching the activity around the hook-and-ladder. The radio in his coat pocket cracked, hissed, and quacked. She stepped up alongside him and said, “What’s burning?”

  He pointed. “The building behind the Crate and Barrel… storage or inventory.”

  “An impressive crew,” she said.

  He chuckled. “Better not to take chances… so close to businesses like this.” His radio squawked. He lifted it to his mouth and said, “Okay, Mike, take the twenty-seven home then.”

  Plastic, wood, wax, incense: Dana ran down a mental checklist of products she’d seen in the little store across the street. She detected hints of each in the air. She stepped over to where Kate stood, staring across the street, toward the bulk of the action. “It’s just that small building in the back burning.”

  “Really?” Kate said. “All this for a garage?”

  “It’s storage for the store there.” Dana pointed toward the dark entrance of the shop. After watching the bustle for a minute or so more, she added, “About ready to call it a day?”

  The answering machine in the breakfast nook beeped as Dana came in the back door. She pressed a button on the machine, then waited as the motor, gears, and spindles, whirled, paused, whirled, clicked, whirled some more… then, after nearly a minute of that, it emitted a long, high-pitched, electronic tone, followed by—“Hi, Dana, it’s Brian, I just”—and nothing more.

  “Stupid piece of crap!” Dana said.

  “That was Brian, huh?” Kate had come in just behind her and took a seat at the table.

  “I only got the beginning of the message. Do you know his number off the top of your head?”

  “Uh, yeah. Five four two, six two two one.”

  Dana picked the phone up. “Area code seven six…? There’s no dial tone.”

  She went to the wall-mounted phone in Roland’s studio.

  “It’s dead too.”

  “The fire,” Kate said.

  “Why would Brian be calling?”

  “Wanna go to a pay phone?”

  Dana grabbed up the phone again, pressed it to her ear, then dropped it back in its cradle. She looked at the clock on the stove: 10:53. “No. I’ll try in the morning.”

  The bed was everything she had anticipated. She packed Roland’s pillows alongside her and threw a leg over them. The low rumble of a fire truck pulling away bled through the bedroom walls. She thought of Roland, visualized him standing at his easel, a paintbrush in his hand. She thought of the painting he’d just finished, and the boulders it brought to mind, which led to sequoia trees, their tiny pine cones, then Florida, popcorn, nutritional yeast, and the number 17.

  Her dreams were mostly false starts—people, places, and moments going nowhere, then moving on to more of the same. But out of that randomness, a forest of trees emerged. As Dana walked through the woods, sunlight streaked down through a fall canopy of leaves, scattering pools of glowing yellow light over the forest floor, much like before, when she and Kate were there. Several yards ahead, a campfire burned. A small green and white tent sat anchored to the ground nearby. She bent down before its open flap and peered inside. Two sleeping bags lay inside, neat and tidy—too tidy—wrong, as if they, the tent, the bags, and the fire, were there for show, a fake, storefront display. She stood, turned, and stared into the surrounding woods— Roland?—fearful of what she might manifest—Don’t do this—certain it would be horrible.

  Go, go, go… with every ounce of strength—a violent will—she jerked awake.

  She let out a huff, then relaxed into her pillow and stared at the ceiling, aware of her breathing, daring not to close her eyes. She had escaped the dream, but its chilly residue clung to her. Were she to go back to sleep, it would likely be there waiting for her.

  Chapter thirty-three – Anna

  A white pickup truck was parked at the far end of the trailer. Roland stood off to the side of the front steps, listening to the voices coming from inside: a woman’s occasional “uh huh” and “yeah,” and Fred’s low, indistinct murmur. Fred’s daughter… He had mentioned, earlier, that she’d probably be visiting that evening.

  Once again, Roland’s eyes dropped to the tear in the knee of his pants. He brushed away a spot of dirt, then stepped up to the trailer door—just a screen in a hinged wooden frame. Warmth, sizzling, and the smell of onions, meat, and cigarette smoke drifted through the screen. Fred was seated at a table with tall-back bench seats to either side of it—a crude version of a diner-booth. Roland tapped on the doorframe, which slapped and rattled from looseness.

  “Ahh… so you do have a sense of direction.” Fred gestured toward the other side of the table. “Have a seat.”

  Stepping up into the trailer, Roland gently guided the complaining, spring-tense door shut behind him, then stood, just inside, pestered by self-consciousness. To his left, a woman stood over a sizzling skillet. She had a round face with humorless, burnt-umber eyes. Her gray-streaked black hair was pulled back into a long braid. She was short, five two o
r three, plump, fortyish, and dressed as though she was going out line dancing—a western style blouse, snug fitting jeans, and boots with an intricate, Native-American pattern of tiny, colored glass beads sewn up the sides. The woman briefly looked his way then returned to her cooking.

  “My daughter, Anna,” Fred said.

  Roland worked a smile onto his face. “Pleased to meet you.”

  She turned, then glanced down at his knees before turning back to the stove top. “You’re Roland.”

  “Yeah.”

  The trailer, with the exception of details, appeared very much as he had imagined. Immediately to his right was a small living room with three windows, one in each of the paneled walls. No curtains. A portrait of Elvis Presley on black velvet hung near the corner. Against the end-wall, under the largest of the three windows, was a sofa—its arms tattered; an old, stained, tan-colored blanket covered the bulk of it. To the left of that sat a wooden end table. No TV. A waist high partition separated the living area from the dining area. In the corner opposite the sofa, vaguely resembling a TV, sat a gas stove. Roland had grown up with one like it. He remembered lying before it, enjoying its radiant heat on cold, winter days, mesmerized by the contrast between its blue flames and its hot, orange, glowing ceramic elements.

  The floor in the living room was sub-flooring—simply raw plywood. The carpeting had apparently been removed, and a six-foot square, dirt-stained rug, featuring the image of a wolf, lay in its place. Linoleum covered the floor of the eat-in kitchen, similar to the kitchen floor of the farmhouse in Selma where Roland had spent his childhood—beige, speckled with salt and pepper, and dime-size, chocolate flecks.

  “Take a load off.” Fred gestured toward the bench opposite him.

  Roland slid in and folded his hands in his lap. The Formica tabletop showed evidence of years of use. The geometric pattern of red, quarter-sized circles, a black asterisk in each, was worn in spots to an off-white color, suggesting areas of habitual occupancy. A half-dozen cigarette burns marked Fred’s territory. A foot above the table, at the far end, the edge adjoining the wall, was a small, naked window, revealing a deep-azure sky through a filter of multi-year, smoky residue and dust.