Captain Saturday

by Robert Inman

  “Peachy could whip me in a fair fight,” Will said now.

  “Would you fight fair?”

  “Of course not.”

  Palmer shook his head. “We shouldn’t be talking about Mrs. Wingfoot Baggett like this. It’s disrespectful.”

  “But she is, as you say, one more hunk of woman. I am mildly stimulated just thinking about her.”

  Palmer gave him an odd look. There it was again, the one unresolved matter here in the shank of the summer, hanging in the air between them. He had done what Palmer asked. He had done something, even if it was wrong. Apparently it was. The ball was on Clarice’s side of the net and there was no hint of a return. Maybe he should tell Palmer that, tell him right now on their last day together before Palmer resumed his former life. He opened his mouth to speak, then…

  “Whoa!” he yelped as a green Jeep Cherokee drifted into the lane just ahead of them. He mashed down on the horn with the heel of his hand and braked sharply, the equipment-laden trailer rattling in protest behind, trying to ride up on the hitch. The Cherokee kept drifting, barely missing his front bumper.

  Palmer bolted upright. “She must be drunk.”

  Will, fighting the steering wheel, trying to keep the trailer from fish-tailing on him, got a brief glimpse of a woman behind the wheel of the Cherokee. He watched, amazed, as it kept going to the left, clear across the lane, and then smacked sideways into the concrete median with a screech of anguished metal. Holy shit. I am seeing a wreck. Sparks flew as the Cherokee plowed along the median, the entire left side scraping the concrete. Something flew off, bounced on the pavement, then thumped underneath the truck as they passed over it. The force of the impact threw the Cherokee off the concrete, back into the lane just ahead. It seemed to shudder there for a moment, then started drifting left again.

  “Dad, something’s wrong with her!”

  Will glanced in his rear-view mirror. Traffic was slowing, dodging bits of debris in the roadway. Will had the truck under control now, keeping it steady. He winced as the Cherokee bounced off the concrete again, tearing a big piece of metal from the left fender, showering the highway and the truck with glass from a shattered headlight. Will turned the steering wheel to the right, easing the truck and trailer into the center lane, out of the direct line of fire. They could see the woman clearly now, slumped forward in the shoulder harness, being slung back and forth like a rag doll as the Cherokee whacked the median again and caromed off. Her arm must be caught in the steering wheel, he thought, pulling it left.

  “She’s unconscious!”

  Another glance at the rear view mirror. There was a lot of open road behind them, traffic in all three lanes braking, giving the disaster ahead a wide berth. Somebody would be on the cell phone, calling the cops.

  Palmer pounded the dashboard. “We gotta do something!”

  “Us? What?”

  “I don’t know! She’s gonna get killed.”

  The Cherokee whanged against the concrete. Chunks of metal and glass flew, raining on the cab of the truck. They both ducked. The Cherokee was tearing itself apart. “We gotta get it stopped!” Palmer yelled.

  “How?”

  “Use the truck!”

  He had an insane thought -- an old Western movie where the hero stops the runaway buckboard by leaping from his speeding horse onto the backs of the terrified buckboard team. Only that was the movies, where the hero always won and got the girl and didn’t run the risk of splattering himself all over the Raleigh Beltline.

  The Cherokee hit the median again. Something big came loose from the front of it, got airborne and flew over the top of the Cherokee, narrowly missing the pickup as it sailed past. “Do it, Wilbur!” Palmer screamed. “Goddammit, just do it!”

  Awwwww God! He stepped on the gas and closed the distance to the Cherokee, giving it plenty of room to the right. It hit the barrier again, careened off, then smacked it again. Something banged off the side of the truck cab not far from his head. He steered with his right hand and used the left to frantically roll up the window. Just in time. Another piece of debris hit the glass, leaving a nasty crack from top to bottom.

  They were parallel with the Cherokee now. Heart in his throat, blood pounding in his ears, breath coming in gasps. “Hold on!” he yelled. Palmer grabbed the door handle with one hand and gripped the edge of the seat with the other. Will gave it a little more gas, pulling the truck a couple of yards ahead of the Cherokee. Then he gritted his teeth and turned the steering wheel sharply to the left. A horrible explosion of grinding metal as the Cherokee hit the pickup just behind the cab. The impact almost tore the wheel from his hands. He fought frantically to hold on, pulling hard left, forcing the Cherokee into the barrier, trapping it between the pickup and the concrete, the two vehicles locked in death grip. The side window shattered, glass peppered his face. Then a powerful blow to his head as it smacked against the door frame. Glasses flying, blood in his eyes. Palmer screaming. He manhandled the steering wheel, using the weight of the truck and the trailer full of equipment to battle the Cherokee. His foot found the brake and he jammed down hard. Smell of burning rubber from the squawling tires, everything coming unhinged. In the rear view mirror he saw something big and yellow launched from the trailer -- the Hy-Ryder. Then the trailer itself, the left side rising up in the air, toppling to the right, another terrible screech of metal as the trailer floundered on its right side onto the highway, spilling equipment and gas cans, trying to tear loose from the truck. A sudden eruption of flame back somewhere behind. He couldn’t see now, but he stood on the brake, willing the careening mass of blasted, agonized metal to a grinding stop. Smoke. Fire. Stench of disaster. And then he blacked out.

  *****

  He didn’t remember sitting up on the stretcher, didn’t remember talking to the firefighters or the paramedic who was trying to get him to lie back down, but there he was on the front page of the Raleigh News and Observer, looking like a survivor of a terrorist bombing -- singed hair and beard, face blackened and blood-streaked. He stared for a long time at the photo, and at the one next to it, an old picture of him standing in front of the weather map at Channel Seven. They didn’t look at all like the same person. But then, he thought, they weren’t. The guy at the weather map was a figment of somebody’s imagination. A made-up thing, like a cowboy hero rescuing a pretty girl from a runaway buckboard.

  “You look like hell,” Palmer said. He sat on the edge of Will’s hospital bed. There was a strip of white bandage high on Palmer’s forehead. Five stitches to close the cut made by a piece of flying glass. But otherwise, he was unhurt.

  “I feel like hell.” He would have nodded, but it still made him a little woozy to move his head. Concussion. Compound fracture of his left arm just below the elbow. Enough bumps and bruises to make him feel ancient and used up. The young woman in the Cherokee had come out of it best of all. Not a scratch on her, even after all that hurtling and smashing and coming-apart. A month pregnant, and no damage there, either. Probably what caused her to black out, the doctor had told the News and Observer .

  Will had a sudden rush of panic. “The customers…”

  “Buddy’s Lawn and Landscaping,” Palmer said. “I gave ’em the list. They’ll take care of everybody and send you half the money.” Palmer took the paper from him and turned to an inside page where there were more photos and sidebar articles. He folded it so Will could hold it in one hand and read:

  …owner Buddy Slayton said his company would also provide Baggett with equipment while he replaces his own, all of which was destroyed in the wreck. “This guy’s a credit to lawn care professionals everywhere,” Slayton said.

  Palmer took the paper from him and put it on a table next to the window. There was a big stack of get-well cards there and some flowers sent by the young woman who had interviewed him for Dan Rather’s newscast. There had been a lot of other flowers, but at his insistence, they had sent most of them on to a nursing home recommended by Dahlia Spence.

  �
��My dad the hero,” Palmer said drily.

  “It was your idea,” Will said.

  “That’s what you kept yelling at the scene. ‘It was his goddamned idea.’ Like I was insane or something.”

  “I would have cut and run.”

  “But what are you gonna do with your son sitting there beside you yelling, ‘ Do it! ’?”

  “Yeah.”

  Palmer headed for the door. “Get some sleep.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To be a doctor.”

  “Next time, maybe you can sew me up.”

  Palmer stopped in the open doorway. “A helluvan end to the summer.” He smiled, mostly to himself. “A helluva summer.” He hesitated for a moment and then he said, “I told Daddy Sid and Mama Consuela. About medical school and everything.”

  “Everything?”

  He nodded. “It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “What did they say?”

  Palmer smiled again. “They just went right on with their dinner.”

  *****

  “ It will be,” Morris deLesseps said, the “damndest press conference in the history of Raleigh.” He sat in a chair next to Will’s bed, one trim leg hiked over the other. He was wearing jeans, scuffed work boots, and a short-sleeved denim shirt, open a few buttons from the top, revealing chest hair. A hard hat, the kind construction workers wore, was on the floor beside him. He was, he had explained, doing all the legal work for a developer who was adding a couple of hundred acres worth of apartments and homes to North Raleigh’s sprawl. Spending a lot of time on the job site, he said. Fascinated by heavy equipment, he said. They had even let him drive a bulldozer.

  “The Mayor will present you with a framed resolution passed by the City Council, commending you for your act of bravery,” Morris said, “and he’ll announce that you’ve been nominated for a Carnegie Hero’s Medal.”

  Morris went on to say that the Governor would also attend and present Will with a full pardon, expunging from his record any mention of past misdeeds. Along with the pardon, he would receive from the Governor the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’s highest award for distinguished citizenship.

  The Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with the Raleigh Professional Lawn Care Association, would present him with the keys to a new Ford truck to replace the one that had been totaled in the wreck.

  And the Raleigh Coalition of Garden Clubs would make him an honorary member. Will could see the fine hand of Dahlia Spence in that.

  “But here’s the kicker,” Morris said. “The deal to sell Channel Seven has fallen through.”

  “What? I thought the FCC had approved it.”

  “They did. But Spectrum, it turns out, is in deep financial doo-doo. Debt overload, maybe some hanky-panky with the books. The chairman of the board has resigned. Auditors are crawling all over the place. So they’ve pulled the plug on the Channel Seven purchase.”

  “Ox in the ditch,” Will offered, trying for something that would go along with Morris’s construction persona.

  “Yeah. Well, they had to pay a million dollars to get out of the deal, so now Roger Simpson’s still got his TV station. He’s decided he likes being the boss, so he’s going to keep it. And,” he paused for effect, “he wants you back.”

  Will felt his mouth drop open, but nothing came out.

  “Name your price. An ironclad lifetime contract.”

  “Why?” Will managed.

  “They also are in deep doo-doo too. They came in second in the ratings in July. Place is in chaos. And here you are, a front-page gen-you-wine gold-plated hero. Prophet with honor in your own country. Savior of Channel Seven. As I said, name your price. They’d like to announce at the press conference that you’ll be back.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Will,” Morris said, “it’s time for you to return to reality.”

  “Which is?”

  “You’re gonna get it all back, old son. The fickle finger of fate has turned. It’s no longer pointing at Will Baggett.”

  “Get it all back, huh?”

  “Fame and fortune, old son. They’ve already ordered billboards.”

  “Well,” Will said, “I’ll be damned.”

  *****

  Wingfoot and Peachy came the next day, back now from Jackson Hole and catching a plane in Raleigh for Nashville. Peachy’s song was Number One in Billboard. Will winced when she gave him a hearty hug. But it felt good. It had been a while since a woman had hugged him.

  He told them about the press conference. The pardon. Channel Seven.

  “Have you said yes?” Wingfoot asked.

  “I told Morris I’d think about it.”

  “Well, think about this, too. We need somebody to run the nursery.”

  “But I can’t speak Spanish,” Will said.

  “You could learn,” Peachy put in. “You didn’t know anything about running a lawn service three months ago, but you’ve learned. And Cisco is making some headway in English.”

  “You could live with Min and commute,” Wingfoot said. “She told me to tell you she’d love to have you. For sure while you mend, and for as long as you want to stay afterward.”

  He tried to picture himself back on the banks of the Cape Fear, for good this time -- letting the evenings settle gently around him after a long day among the rows of growing plants, watching the tugs and barges pass on the river, leaving wakes that lapped gently against the marshes where old Barney snoozed. Just sit and feel the quickening breeze off the ocean that would soothe the afternoon’s heat, and then eventually a thundershower to chase him inside. Easy to stay a night and a morrow and beyond, to sleep among the massive mahogany pieces upstairs and let time spin out on its own and carry him along like the Cape Fear current, down to the sea and out where creatures large and small swam among the graves of the missing. Souls of seamen -- shipwrecked on treacherous shoals, foundered in raging seas, torpedoed by German U-Boats. Four people in an airplane. All resting quietly, lost to the living, who -- by bits and pieces -- had to seek them out, wherever and whoever they were, and then go about reclaiming them. It was, he thought, a sort of deep sea diving.

  “Why me?” he asked.

  “Because you’re ready to start growing things. Some folks make things grow and some folks cut things down, and I think you’ve progressed to the point that you’re a grower, not a cutter.”

  “It’s a nice offer,” Will said.

  “You can buy into the business.”

  “That would be good.”

  “So?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  *****

  He lay awake in the after-midnight darkness pondering it all. A nurse came in and gave him a pain pill, and he thought he might sleep after that. But all it did was muddle his mind. So about four o’clock he got up and somehow managed to pull on clothes over his broken arm and aching body. He opened the door and peered into the hallway. He could hear a mutter of voices down at the nurse’s station, but there was nobody in sight. He closed the door behind him and headed for the elevator.

  Downstairs, a woman in a nurse’s uniform was getting out of a cab. He took it and went to an all-night coffee shop on Hillsborough Street, thinly populated with bleary-eyed college students who gave him odd looks. His clothes were the ones he had been wearing in the truck on the Beltline. He felt his face. A couple of days of stubble, bandage covering stitches on his chin.

  Coffee helped. He drank three cups, then paid and went outside and stood on the sidewalk in the cool air. Summer nearly gone, Fall a few weeks away. And then the rest of his life, whatever he chose to do with it. An occasional car passed, but the street was mostly quiet. There was just the faintest hint of approaching dawn over downtown to the east, down where they would be setting up in a couple of days in the State Capitol rotunda for the press conference to welcome him back to…what was it Morris had called it? Reality?

  He looked up, seeing the dim outlin
e of stratocumulus clouds beyond the glare of the streetlamps. The untrained observer might see stratocumulus and think rain was on the way. But a weatherman knew better. Not much moisture there. Probably clearing by mid-morning. A good day. For whatever.

  He felt clear-headed now. Not very quick at all, but very much alive. It came to him then, the thing he had been gnawing at since Morris had showed up, and then Wingfoot and Peachy. Worrying it like a dog with a bone. And now it came to him, what he should do with the next few minutes of his life.

  He started walking. Maybe some other stuff would come to him.

  It did.

  By the time he had gone the first block, limping along and feeling ancient, he had decided that he didn’t want to be Raleigh’s Most Popular Weatherman any more. And as much as he felt drawn to the Cape Fear and Pender County, to river bank and fields of growing things, he knew that wasn’t the right thing either. Easy, but not right.

  He stopped, full of the knowledge of it. There was a pay phone across the street.

  “Up early,” he said when Palmer answered.

  “Yeah. Studying gross anatomy.”

  “There’s nothing gross about anatomy,” Will said. “The human body is a beautiful thing.”

  Palmer laughed. “Not the way I get to see the human body.” It was a good, easy laugh.

  “Have you named your cadaver?”

  “Mabel. About forty-five years old, five-three, just over a hundred pounds. Died of asphyxiation. May have been a house fire, but no tissue damage.”

  “Wonder what her history is.”

  “They don’t tell you that.”

  “Everybody’s got a history.”

  “Well,” Palmer said, “I guess Mabel’s history just belongs to Mabel.”

  “It’ll have to do, I suppose.”

  “How are you feeling?” Palmer asked.

  “My physical condition?”