American Elsewhere

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  All around her the town is coming to life. An old woman wobbles out on her porch with a watering can to fuss with a splendid bougainvillea that appears to need no attention at all. Fathers climb into their sedans and trucks and—rarely—their luxury cars and slowly cruise out onto the cement streets. Eventually Mona realizes she does not think of them as just men: they are all fathers, they have to be, for why else would they wear such bland but imposing suits and plaid shirts, and choose such stolid, unassuming hairstyles? For God’s sake, one of them is even smoking a pipe.

  On one street a clutch of aproned mothers herd their children out onto their driveways and into cars, each child swinging a tiny tin lunchbox. Mona slows a little as she passes them. Though she wants to ignore it, the perfection of the scene is powerfully striking.

  No, she thinks. Not today. I won’t go there today.

  She speeds up.

  She passes the diner, whose enormous, curving neon sign says CHLOE’S. It’s evidently a hot spot, with parking spaces rapidly disappearing even as Mona watches. But what she finds most curious about it is what is happening in the back alley. She slows again to watch: there are two women there, each in pale pink waitress uniforms with their hair up and little white caps nestled in the exact center. One is much older and more mature, holding herself with the posture of a confident, seasoned veteran. She stands to the side and watches the other, a girl not even out of her teens. The girl is walking down the alley in a measured stride with a waiting tray balanced in one hand. The veteran watches keenly and barks out an order, and the girl makes an abrupt turn and paces from one side of the alley to the other. On the tray, Mona sees, are five pie pans, but they do not contain pies, but marbles. One pan shifts a little bit—just a centimeter to the left or so—and the marbles clatter around in the pan. The girl blanches but recovers, ferrying the tray of marbles back across the alley with a grim face and more care than a surgeon. Practice, Mona thinks, and she smiles as she passes them.

  Mona has not yet considered living here in Wink. She’s inherited a house but not a life, and she has determinedly avoided having a life for several years, choosing instead barren roads and empty motel rooms. Yet now, somewhere in one of the closets in the back of her mind, she imagines what it would be like to live in this tiny town, where carrying pies is a serious, studied art and the sprinklers put on a balletic performance every morning.

  She warms to the idea. The world has been so big to her for the past years that it is very inviting to imagine it so small.

  No wonder her mother was happy here. Though the town is odd, it seems it would be difficult to be unhappy here. It is like a place Mona dreamed about once, but she can’t remember when or what exactly she dreamed about. There is something to these clean streets and swaying pines that sends a stir of echoes fluttering up in her mind.

  Her tour of the town is not entirely peaceful, she notices. Everywhere she goes, people watch her. She can’t blame them: she cannot imagine anything more out of place than the Charger, with its bright red paint and guttering engine, not to mention its driver, who is looking back at them from behind silvered glasses and years of careful cynicism. But they are not just surprised, nor are they mistrustful: it is as if they are waiting for something, like this bright red muscle car and its strange driver are just a loose end someone will soon take care of.

  The park at the center of town is quite large, constructed in a perfect circle with the clean white stone courthouse in one half. But it is the structure in the other half that attracts Mona’s attention: at first she thinks it is just a huge white ball the size of a small building, but as she pulls into the courthouse parking lot she sees its curves are actually angled, formed of tiny triangles. It looks like a smaller version of that enormous, spherical structure she always glimpsed in the ads for Walt Disney World as a kid. There is no sign indicating why this space-age-looking sculpture sits in this picturesque little park. It is as if it’s rolled here from down out of the mountains, and no one’s bothered to move it.

  Mona immediately stops when she walks through the front doors of the courthouse, for the interior is in such extreme contrast to the exterior that it takes her brain a moment to process it. On the outside it is a happy little white building, yet its interior, or at least its lobby, is musty and dim. She takes off her sunglasses, but it makes no difference: the floors are a dark, sick yellow marble, and the walls are neglected imitation wood. Somewhere an air-conditioning unit clunks asthmatically, and there is a dusty breeze rippling through the close air.

  An obese security guard at the front desk looks up from his book when she enters. She watches as his eyes perform a motion very familiar to her: they widen a little, then leap down to her feet and slowly trail up her body, taking in every detail. It is disappointingly predictable, a ritual that must be completed before she can begin a conversation with nearly any man (and the occasional woman). With his eyes still fixed on her, the guard mindlessly turns a page in his book—The Secret Joys of Lake Champlain—but says nothing.

  “I’m here to see Mrs. Benjamin,” says Mona.

  The guard continues staring at her with his little eyes. Then he nods his head. Mona is not sure what this gesture means, but she walks ahead into the dark hallway. She glances back and sees the guard is leaning forward in his seat, head craned out to stare at her. Even while he is in this position one of his hands turns another page in his book, though his attention is nowhere near the text.

  The hall ends in a series of strange decorations. First is a large, colorful mural that is familiar to Mona, though she can’t say where she saw it: it shows a green atomic model of an element encased in a ray of gold light. Beside this optimistic sight is a display case with many taxidermied specimens of local fauna. The little songbirds are fixed in the same position as the hawks—wings raised up and head ducked forward, a raptor beginning its dive-bomb—as if the taxidermist knew only one pose for birds. Next to the display case is a door with a framed picture hanging from the exact center. Its frame is curling and gilded, like something in a museum, though it needs dusting. Under the glass is a piece of parchment with a single word written on it in careful calligraphy. It reads STAIRS.

  Mona looks back again. The guard is still in the same pose, leaning forward and watching her with unabashed fascination. She hears a little flit and though she cannot see she knows he’s turned another page. Then she opens the door and starts down the stairs.

  When Mona reaches the bottom it’s so dark it takes her eyes a moment to adjust. It looks almost like a forest, many trunks with spindly branches at the top and a thin white light filtering through from above…

  It is not a forest, she sees: she is looking at dozens and dozens of immense wooden filing cabinets all along the walls. Piled on the tops of the cabinets are mounted heads, mostly deer, lying on their backs with their horns rising up in spiked tangles. There are so many horns that they look almost like tree branches, and now that her eyes have adjusted she sees that there are many types of horns, some the traditional twelve-point, some curling rams’ horns, so there must be many species.

  Mona walks forward into the labyrinth of filing cabinets. As she moves she finds there is another scent in the air, buried below the aroma of old paper and formaldehyde, something like rotten pine. She rounds a corner and sees there is a big wooden table ahead, and unlike the rest of the furniture in this place it has a surface that is clear, except for four things: a box labeled OUT, a box labeled IN (both empty), a small desk light, and a cup of tea sitting on a saucer. Hanging from the front of the desk is a sign so similar to the one on the stairway door she’s sure it was made by the same person. This one reads M. BENJAMIN!

  Mona walks to the front of the desk. The tea stinks horribly: it is a thick, muddy, piney concoction that has left a dark brown residue on the sides of the cup. It does not look like something the human digestive system could make any sense of.

  “Hello?” she calls.

  There is a flurry of noise f
rom among the cabinets behind the desk. “Hello?” says a voice, surprised. Then a woman emerges from some hidden passageway in the back. Though she is quite elderly, seventy at least, she is still enormous, over six feet tall, with wide shoulders and big hands. Yet she is dressed in the most matronly way possible: her hair is an immense, gray-blond cloud, and her dress suffers from an abundance of purple fabric and gray polka dots. A string of thick pearls rings her skinny neck. She blinks quickly as she totters out of the shadows to the desk. “Oh,” she says when she sees Mona. “Hello.” With a long, soft grunt, she sits down, face politely puzzled.

  “I’m here about a house, ma’am,” Mona says.

  “Which house?” asks the woman, and she fixes a set of spectacles to her nose.

  “Uh, this one on Larchmont here. I inherited it.”

  “Inherited it?” asks the woman. “Oh. And… are you a current resident?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not, but I have all the paperwork here, or at least, you know, a hell of a lot of it,” says Mona. She produces her folder with all the documentation and begins to hand the pages out to the woman, who is presumably Mrs. Benjamin.

  Mona expects her to begin sorting through them officiously, like any world-weary bureaucrat, but Mrs. Benjamin simply holds one paper—the copy of the will—and stares helplessly at the rest of the pile. “Oh,” she says. Then, hopefully, “Are you sure?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Are you sure you inherited a house here? I must admit, it’s not very common. Most properties bequeathed are usually bequeathed to people already living here.”

  “I’m just going by what the paper says,” says Mona. “I had a couple of courts say it was all legit back in Texas, and I’d hate to have come all this way for nothing. I understand the will expires in less than a week, too.”

  “I see,” says Mrs. Benjamin. Finally she begins to pick through the paperwork. “And you would be Mrs. Bright?”

  “Miss. Yes.”

  Mona expects her to ask for identification, but she says, “Wait. I remember you… weren’t you in the red car yesterday? At the funeral?”

  “Uh, yes. That was me.”

  “Ah,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “You were the source of a bit of gossip, my dear.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh, these things happen,” says Mrs. Benjamin carelessly. “Honestly, it helped lighten the mood a little.”

  “Who passed away, if I might ask?”

  “Mr. Weringer.” She looks at Mona like this should mean something. When Mona does not react, she asks, “Did you know him?”

  “I just got in last night, ma’am.”

  “I see. Well, he was… a very well-respected member of the town. We’ve been all in a tizzy ever since.”

  “How’d he die?”

  But Mrs. Benjamin has turned her attention to the papers, squinting at the faint, staggered writing. “I don’t recall any Brights ever living here…”

  “The original owner was Laura Alvarez.”

  “I do not recall any Alvarezes, either,” she says, with an inflection that implies—and I would. A thought strikes her, and she peers up at Mona and asks, “Can you please step back a little?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Can you step back? Into the light? So I can see you better.”

  Mona obliges her, and Mrs. Benjamin peers at her through her tiny spectacles. Through their lenses the old woman’s eyes appear very far back in her head, like they are too small for their sockets, and she looks at Mona as if searching for something in her face, some familiarity or flaw that would tell her far more about Mona than any crumbling old paperwork.

  “Are you really sure about this, my dear?” she asks finally. “You don’t seem like someone who should be here… perhaps you ought to go home.”

  “Excuse me?” says Mona, indignant.

  “I see,” says Mrs. Benjamin mildly. “Well. If you are sure, then you are sure. Your paperwork seems to all be in order. It shouldn’t be an issue. Let me check a few things.” She stands, smiles at Mona, and hobbles off into the cabinets.

  “I am so sorry for my rudeness,” says Mrs. Benjamin’s voice from the back. “You surprised me. We have not had any new arrivals here for years. I should’ve introduced myself—my name is Mrs. Benjamin.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured,” says Mona. “You do all the court work here?”

  “I do. There’s not a lot of activity. So I mostly do crosswords, but please don’t tell anyone.” She laughs. Mona suspects it’s a well-worn joke she enjoys trotting out.

  “You seem to, uh… have quite a few deer heads in here.”

  “Oh, yes. Storage, you see. They used to have them all throughout the courthouse. I am not sure why, but dead things were the primary decoration in Wink for many years. Now I’m stuck with them down here. But they do make me feel a little less lonely on slow days.”

  Mona glances into the frozen amber stare of one ratty old buck’s head. She has no idea how anyone could take comfort from such a thing.

  There is the sound of old, creaky drawers being pulled. “Larchmont… I believe I know the house, actually,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “It is abandoned.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “For a while it wasn’t. After its initial abandonment, possession was ceded to the town. Someone scooped it up and it was rented out to a family who lived there for a short time.”

  “But you don’t have any record of a previous owner?”

  “My records go back to 1978, and indicate it was abandoned,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “But then my predecessor was not the most organized of people. It was swiftly abandoned again, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh. There was a mishap.”

  “What, is it haunted or something?”

  A goose cry of laughter sounds from the cabinets. “Haunted?” says Mrs. Benjamin, delighted. “Oh, no, no. It was one of the buildings struck by lightning. Hit the little girl, who was bathing in the tub at the time.”

  “My God,” says Mona. “Was she all right?”

  “No,” says Mrs. Benjamin primly. She hobbles back out of the cabinet passageways. “Here we are. This will only take a moment for me to get everything filled out and filed. I have the number of the locksmith. You should be able to move into the house this afternoon, if you’d like.”

  “That fast? I thought there’d be more of a turnaround time.”

  “Well, I suppose there normally would be, as it needs to be approved by various officials of several different agencies… but luckily for you, these are all me. And I approve. Isn’t that nice of me?” She takes out a tackle box full of rubber stamps and begins applying them to Mona’s paperwork with a surprising ferocity.

  “What happened to the house after it got struck by lightning? Is it all right?”

  “Oh, it’s fine,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “Unlike some of the others. But it was never rented out again after, I know that. It was eventually abandoned again.”

  “Pardon me, but did you say other buildings were hit by lightning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like… in the same storm?”

  Mrs. Benjamin looks up at her. “Oh, has no one told you about the lightning storm yet?”

  “I just got in last night,” she says again.

  “It was a historic event for the town,” says Mrs. Benjamin, with the relish of a gossip revisiting an old tragedy. “Many buildings were struck and burned down. Some pessimistic people believe we never recovered. I don’t agree with that, but it certainly was something. Why, it hit one of the trees in the park and split it in half. It even hit the dome, but, well, the dome being the dome, no damage was done.”

  “Is that that… ball thing out front?”

  “Yes, in the park. It is a”—she thinks—“a geodesic dome. A model of what they thought future architecture would look like. They constructed it long ago, back when the town was first built, I think. They were dead wrong, of course.” Mrs. Benjamin takes a breath. “My God,
I’ve just about used up all the air in here, haven’t I? And heaven knows there wasn’t much to start with.” She glances at Mona, sensing an audience, and asks, “Are you interested in the town’s history much, dear?”

  At first Mona wants to say no, she isn’t. Small-town history is the same all over. Yet this is not just any town: this is her mother’s hometown. She feels an unexpected duty to hear more of this place, to give its history context and color in her head, and perhaps doing so would color in a bit of her mother, too. She might even learn why her mother was here, and why she left. “You know what, I think I’d enjoy that,” she says.

  “Excellent. You must come around tomorrow and have lunch with me and the rest of the girls. It’ll serve as a good greeting from all of us. Now, don’t get the wrong impression—they are not all old hens like me. Some of them are sprightly young things, like yourself. And I assure you, I keep my house in much better order than I do my office. I’ll be curious to hear what you think of my tea.”

  Mona glances down at the cup of stinking brown swill. She is speechless at the idea of drinking it.

  “Do you know what the secret ingredient is?” asks Mrs. Benjamin, and her eyes grow wide and her voice a little soft. Somewhere a clunking air conditioner gets louder, building to a moan.

  “No,” says Mona.

  “It’s resin,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “The blood or pitch of a pine. You find it while walking in the woods, usually. All the trees will be hale and hearty, but then you’ll see one that will have a ragged wound, or some unsightly bulge. The tree will look a little bent, perhaps, or its leaves will have an orange tint to them. That is because the tree is dying, you see. It is bleeding out. The bulges are what I prefer, their resin is white or yellow and is quite viscous. It looks almost like butter. It gives such a good taste to the tea. Of course, it is pretty solid stuff. They use it to make torches, after all. You have to dissolve it in a little bit of wood alcohol… it’s the only way to get it down.” She smiles, and Mona sees her teeth are small and amber-brown, just like the eyes of the goats and deer around her, and they glisten queerly in the faint light of the basement. “Perhaps I’ll make you some. It makes the rest of the day go so much better.”