by Brian Toal
"Charlie has all kinds in the garage."
"Well, Charlie, how’s it going?" Greg walked across the Rutherford's living room in a couple rapid strides, his beefy hand outstretched. "Joyce and I and the other neighbours were damned glad to hear of your return. But by Christ, Charlie, somebody up there must have been looking out for you!"
"I guess." Charlie responded, shaking Greg's hand. "I just wish he had been looking out for the others too."
"Yeah, I suppose so." Greg said his face serious. "That must have been pretty damn awful."
"I didn’t know it had happened until a couple days later. The bridge is a good distance away from the camp.”
"Well, what the hell did happen?" Greg settled into a chair across from Charlie, as Beth retreated to the kitchen. "We read about the train derailment here in the Detroit papers. There was a big bloody forest fire and what...couldn't the train stop, or something?
"A damn long story. One that is best told over a couple of beers, but first...if you don't mind, Greg? I'd like to get that leak looked at. It’s making a hell of a mess."
Greg pushed himself out of the chair, "Sure, no problem. Work now and drink later."
Charlie did his best to grin, "There’s lots of beer in the fridge."
Charlie led the way across the living room and into the kitchen beyond. “I’ll have to get some tools from the garage first.” He said as he opened the door to the connecting hallway.
“Sure.” Greg said, nodding to Beth as he followed Charlie through the door.
“Yeah, damn thing is causing a bit of a mess downstairs.” Charlie continued as he walked down the short hall. “But I think a couple turns of a coupling should get it fixed.”
“We’ll give it a try.” Greg said, waiting as Charlie opened the door to the garage. He glanced over his shoulder as Beth entered the short hallway behind them, a damp rag in her hand.
“Come on in.” Charlie said, stepping into the garage. “I’ve got some tools around here someplace.”
Greg stepped through the doorway and stopped. "By Christ!" What the hell is that?"
"Well, we could take a look at that first, if you want." Charlie said easily, as Greg moved past him and Charlie took the damp rag from Beth’s hand. "It’s from the mining camp up north. It’s kind of interesting really."
"Shit, what the hell is it? It looks like it's...." Greg stopped as Harry stepped into the garage and walked towards him.
"Well, it’s what you could call… perfection." Charlie said as both he and Harry grabbed Greg and Charlie pressed the damp cloth across Greg’s nose and mouth.
"You will know more..." He grunted, as Greg briefly struggled in his arms, before sagging against Charlie’s chest unconscious.
"...in a couple hours," he finished as Harry grabbed the older man’s legs and lifted him up and onto the machine.
“That worked fast,” Charlie commented, as he and Harry dragged Greg’s body towards the raised portion of the machine. “What is it?”
“Cyclopropane.” Beth answered. “It is a powerful anesthetic. One or two breaths and it should bring unconsciousness to almost anyone.”
“Well, worked great for him.”
Beth nodded. “Be careful, it’s really flammable.”
“Will do.” Charlie answered casually as he positioned Greg’s head under the round metal plate.
A half hour later the phone rang in the Wren's kitchen. Joyce waited for it to complete two rings and then lifted the receiver. "Yes?"
"Hi Joyce." Beth said pleasantly. "Greg and Charlie are shooting the breeze in the living room. I wondered if you wanted to come on over for a while?"
"Sure! That sounds nice."
"Great." Come on over anytime. "Do you want coffee or tea or something a bit stronger?"
"Tea would be fine."
"Okay, I'll put the kettle on." Beth finished pleasantly.
The machine had finished with Greg, the small, round hole in his forehead already beginning to scab as both Harry and Charlie dragged his bulky frame behind some boxes by one wall. As they folded his hands across his chest and then covered him with a blanket, they heard the doorbell ring inside the house.
SEVEN - SIX
Charlie and I are having a bit of a celebration on Friday and we want to invite a few neighbours and friends by." Beth sat comfortably on another neighbour's porch, a night later.
"A celebration?"
"Well, a thanksgiving party. Charlie is safe, Todd is getting better. A thank you party for all of your cards and letters."
“We’d be glad to come, dear." Helen Logan spoke up. "But are you sure? I mean...that you will be up to having guests so soon after all you have been through?"
"Oh yes. Charlie is grateful to be home safely and although Todd can't attend, he’ll love hearing about it."
"Well yes, I guess. Now if you need any help you just let me know. Tom and I would help out in any way, we could."
"Why thanks." Beth stood up, preparing to leave. "I know it’s short notice, but I hope both of you can attend."
"Would you like a coffee, before you go?" Helen asked, "it’d be no trouble."
"No thanks. I want to get along to some others. Friday is only two days away and I’d like to give everyone as much notice as I can."
"Okay. What time on Friday?"
"8:00, would be fine."
"We’ll look forward to it." Helen and Tom smiled as Beth turned and climbed down the three steps, to the sidewalk.
"Remember, give me a call if you need anything." Helen, called after her.
"I’m not sure she has much to celebrate." Tom muttered as he watched Beth climb the steps of their neighbour across the street. "If my kid was still in hospital and a bunch of my friends had been killed in a train wreck. I'd be kind'a happy with life's simpler pleasures, rather than inviting the neighbours over for a get together."
"Well, yes..." Helen replied. "But she’s had it tough for so long, she’s probably dying for some enjoyment and laughter."
"I suppose. But still, a block party of neighbours. I could think of a lot of better ways to find enjoyment and laughter."
"Oh, Tom! Stop it! Charlie and Beth are fine people and if this is their way of getting over some of their pain, then you have no right to be making fun."
"Yeah, that's true. But it gives you an idea of what their social circle is like."
"Oh, Tom!" Helen exclaimed. "You just leave poor Beth alone and you be social on Friday!"
Tom chuckled. "Oh, I’ll be social. A party is a party and I rarely turn down an invitation to one. And, well look at that..." Tom watched Beth move on to another house. "She’s going to the MacTavish's. If she invites old Gareth, then it really will be a party."
"Tom, now you just watch your manners."
It was a clear night on Friday evening, the Detroit skyline bright in the distance. As 8:00 came and went, more and more couples arrived at the Rutherford’s front door. A few cars pulled up out front as well, their occupants unwilling to walk the few hundred feet.
Inside, Charlie sat in one of the stuffed chairs, greeting the arriving couples from his seated position as they clustered around him asking of his health, but really wishing to hear some tales. Old Gareth MacTavish arrived, marched up to Charlie and congratulated him on his fortitude and strength during this crisis, and then promptly launched into his own stories from his years serving with the Black Watch. But he had brought along a full bottle of Chivas, and as the level dropped, the more inspired he became, soon leaving the living room to search out a less competitive audience. Almost all of those that Beth had invited arrived. The stories surrounding the recent lives of the Rutherford's was too much of an inducement to pass off the invitation lightly. The house was almost full. Certainly, there were no available seats remaining in the living room and couples stood, clumped in small groups, chatting about the various concerns all neighbours have in common.
Beth remained always in the kitchen, helping to arrange the arriving sn
acks and always magically creating more room in the refrigerator for the ever-increasing amounts of beer. Couples drifted in and out of the kitchen, moving from the living room and other parts of the main floor in their search for more refreshments or to nibble at some of the comestibles.
During the evening, Beth would often find herself alone with a couple, where the husband and wife were both present. Then she would suggest that they could help her carry some goodies in from the cool of the garage. Of course, they would always agree and Harry and three couples they had invited over individually on the preceding nights would handle the new arrivals.
It was really quite easy. Beth would send the husband out into the back yard to fetch another case of beer, then lead the wife down the short corridor to the garage. By the time the unsuspecting male had created enough room in the fridge, it would be time to lead him off into the garage as well. Seven people, a few drops of Cyclopropane and the setup could be repeated again.
Of course, a couple times during the night, someone would come to Beth and say something like, "You know, I was just talking to......and now I can't find them anywhere." And Beth would reply, concern in her voice. "Yes, they phoned home and their baby-sitter said there was a problem with their youngest, and so they both had to leave immediately." Only once was there a muffled crash, but the two closed doors and the short hallway in between disguised the significance and besides an imperceptible pause in the conversation, the small groups in the house continued with their chatter.
Of course, some left early, out the front door - they would have to be invited back another time.
But others stayed far too late.
SEVEN - SEVEN
The days following the party passed quickly. A two block stretch of Oakwood Street was indeed a different place. Not that there was anything new to see. The houses were the same, the same cars were parked in the same driveways. People went to work and then returned, like they had been doing for years previously. The only noticeable differences, and one would have had to be intimately familiar with the neighbourhood as well as a superb observer to notice them were - Gareth MacTavish's empty liquor bottles, piled weekly by the curb, were gone. The Rutherfords had more visitors than ever before, and when the grass needed cutting or the garbage taken out, the whole street seemed to do it at once.
Definitely the Rutherford's had more visitors. The Stevens who had been at the party, stopped by, with their very good friends, the Wilsons. "Jim Wilson is in banking you know," they said proudly as they introduced them to the Rutherford's.
The Nielsons who had been one of the last to attempt to leave, brought the Garretts. "Julie, was elected to city council this spring. Isn't it wonderful?"
The Logans from down the block, brought over a very large man. "This is Jonathan Whitmore. He defended the men who robbed the Sears store, two Christmases ago. Remember?"
The Wrens, from next door, brought over another older couple. "George's sister married a man, whose brother is a Senator."
The French's brought by the Franklins. "Bill is with the Police force, you know. He has been with them for twelve years."
And of course, there were plenty of young guests arriving at their front door. Sent to the Rutherfords on some errand or other, only to arrive back at home two or three hours later quite subdued, excellently disciplined and most helpful.
Yes, it was rapidly becoming an ideal neighbourhood in which to live. The Steven's older boy no longer worked on his car in the driveway, bellowing oily clouds of smoke and noise on Saturday mornings. True, the car was still there, but the three additional sets of tires and the extra engine were in the garage and the car sat under a tarp at the edge of the driveway. The Nielson's seventeen-year-old daughter still spent most nights alone, as her parents showed prospective buyers, homes in the suburbs. But the unruly group of teenagers who had spent most of their evenings congregated about the wooden porch out front were no longer. Gone. Vanished. Never to be seen. Diane Nielson's teachers would have had something to say about her miraculously improved grades as well - but nobody asked them. And when old lady Patterson's backdoor was smashed in and the poor lady thrown to her kitchen floor by the same two guys who had robbed her only four months previously. They were surprised - astonished even - when three minutes after they had arrived, the front and back doors had burst open with twenty very serious and equally silent neighbours armed with an assortment of clubs, guns and other weapons of destruction.
Battered, beaten and bruised, running for their lives down the street, they swore they would never, never in all of their remaining years return to this neighbourhood. The Neighbourhood Watch Program on Oakwood Street was unlike any other they had ever encountered.
Yes, within a two-block radius of the Rutherford's moderate home, the neighbourhood was indeed becoming a safe, virtuous place to live.
The Rutherfords visited a lot too. Driving about in their newly financed recreational vehicle.
They attended a party at the Garretts, where Julie was entertaining some members of council.
They were invited to quite an exquisite garden party at the Whitmores, where one of the lawyers present had a brother high up in the FBI.
They attended quite a splendid bash at the Franklins and watched the deputy commissioner of the Detroit Police Department get quite drunk. Falling down drunk in fact. Excellent!
It was a very busy time indeed and all of them were concerned with just two things. Protect their common bond - and get the boy back. Together and as they grew, they could enact many of the changes necessary, but only the boy could achieve their final objective. Definitely they needed that boy!
CHAPTER EIGHT
ONE
"Dad, why do you always have to stop at those weigh scales?" Chris asked, settling down in the big passenger seat as his father accelerated the rig out of yet another weigh station.
"Well, they’re supposed to do more than just weigh the truck. They’re also supposed to look the truck over and make sure it’s safe and has the right permits."
"What do you mean safe?"
"Well usually, as you know, we just drive over the scales and providing we are not over-weight, they let us drive on through. But sometimes they will stop me and put the truck through a safety inspection. Check the brakes, springs, lights and other stuff."
"Do they pull you over much?"
"No, not this truck. It's pretty much new and they know that. Probably they wouldn't find anything wrong with it, so they would just waste their time. A couple of my older rigs get pulled over now and then, but I keep them up to standard. B+T trucking doesn't like to get tickets."
"You get a ticket if it’s not safe?"
Bob laughed, "Yeah, a good sized one too. Used to be, Chris my man, when you were a truck driver, all you did was drive the truck. But now every state has its own regulations. Some states only allow so much weight per axle, others allow more. Some states make you get permits for certain loads, others don't. It’s a real bastard just trying to remember it all. And if I screw up...wham. I get a ticket, B+T gets a ticket and everybody screams. Ain't as much fun as it used to be."
"But you like driving trucks, don't you?"
Bob sighed. "I don’t know... it ain't really much of a life. You get to see a whole whack of country. In fact, with the exception of Hawaii, I've seen it all."
"Even Alaska?" Chris asked.
"Yeah, I've been there twice. But as you know Chris, I don't get home often and with all these new regulations a lot of the fun of making-miles is gone too."
"But you still like it don't you?" Chris persisted.
Bob sat silent for a moment his eyes on the highway ahead. "I'd have to say...no. Not any more. But it’s what I do and I'm pretty much stuck with it now."
"But you seem to like driving. I mean when you’re home you’re always telling stories about what you saw and what you did. It sounds like fun to me."
Bob laughed. "Well, it’s probably better than being stuck in some office or some
thing. I don't think I could put up with sitting in front of a computer, pushing keys. But the lifestyle kind of sucks. Yeah, it makes for great stories, but not much of a home-life and it’s not a great way to make friends. You are always moving on."
Chris was silent, staring at the highway as it rolled beneath the rig.
His father continued. "And now with all these new regulations, it’s difficult to do even what I most enjoy and that’s the driving part. Now you’re only allowed to drive a certain number of hours per day. I have to fill out logbooks, telling where I’ve been and when I slept and when I ate and all that sort of stuff. And the money isn’t as good as it used to be and...well maybe I'm just getting a little past it all." Bob reached over and gently grasped his son's shoulder, "but in a couple of years I can retire, sell off the other trucks and go do what I want. It’s worked out all right for me, but I wouldn't want to be starting out in this business now."
Chris nodded. "Yeah, Mom told me you and her would be able to retire real early. What are you going to do then? I mean like, I'll only be fifteen or something. I'll still have to go to school."
Bob affectionately shook his son's shoulder and then returned his hand to the wheel. "Don't you worry much about that. Your Mom has her business, which in spite of my initial doubts, turns a tidy profit and I’ll find something to amuse myself. That you can be sure of."
Chris nodded and then added. "I wonder where I’ll be when I’m fifteen. I mean, I could go on to New Brighten High like everyone else and do my schooling, but...will they let me?"
Bob glanced over at his son, but Chris was staring, fixated through the windshield at the road below. "Well, it’s probably a bit early to be worrying what you’ll be doing when you’re fifteen. By the time that comes around, this problem will be long behind us."
"You think so?" Chris turned to look at his father. "You think they’ll let me go back to school. Like a normal school, with other kids and all that?"
"Probably...I mean I don't know...I guess it all depends on how this thing works out. You seem to be able to control yourself. You haven't had any recurrences like what happened in Detroit and your Mom and I guess that if it continues that way, then maybe you can show everybody how you do it. Teach them a few things, help them understand it, and then they may leave you pretty much alone after that."
