Last Bus to Coffeeville

by J. Paul Henderson

  It had been William Hoopes talking to the receptionist at the desk when Doc and Jack had arrived at Oaklands that morning. Unbeknownst to them, he’d been in the process of giving her an ultimatum: either she agreed to the removal of the aquarium from the foyer or he’d take matters into his own hands! The receptionist had made it clear – as she had done on many previous occasions – that the administration had no intention of removing the aquarium from the foyer and then, somewhat unprofessionally, had suggested that he tie a knot in his John Thomas. Hearing that, Hoopes had gone apoplectic and stormed out of the foyer.

  Moments after Doc had wheeled Nancy out of Oaklands, Hoopes had charged back into the reception area brandishing a Colt Python revolver. ‘Why don’t you tie a knot in this,’ he shouted at the receptionist. He’d then aimed the gun at the aquarium and fired a .357 Magnum bullet into it. The aquarium had immediately shattered and the enclosed water cascaded on to the floor. Homeless fish, gasping for breath, flapped among broken pieces of glass, and the receptionist ducked behind the desk in fear for her life. Some of the residents sitting in the foyer screamed, two women fainted and an old man clutched his heart.

  Hoopes remained standing there, the realisation of what he’d done slowly sinking in. He released his grip on the revolver and the gun dropped to the floor. Staff came running from all directions, and in the ensuing pandemonium not one of them noticed the man with unusually dark eyes side-stepping the debris and exiting through the doors to a waiting car.

  Friends Reunited

  Jack drove, while Doc sat in the backseat of the car holding Nancy’s hand. He looked at their reflections in the driver’s mirror and smiled: ‘Hey you two! No making out back there. I’ve just had the car valeted.’

  ‘Just drive, Jack!’ Doc snapped. ‘And make sure you don’t miss the turning.’

  Jack pulled the car on to Governor Rd and headed west. He passed the Medical Centre and turned left on to Bullfrog Valley Rd, and then took another left on to Wood Rd. At the intersection of Wood and Middletown Rd, he turned into the parking lot of the Stoverdale United Methodist Church, empty apart from a forty-foot bus that filled it. ‘What the hell’s that thing doing there?’ Doc wondered out loud.

  They’d arrived twenty minutes earlier than expected, and Doc worried that his well-laid plans were already starting to unravel. He’d chosen this particular location for its seclusion, to ensure that the rendezvous with Bob would go unnoticed; God only knew how many prying eyes were peering at them through the darkened windows of the bus.

  He soon found out: four – two belonging to Bob, and two belonging to a small boy wearing a bicycle helmet. ‘I’ll be damned,’ Doc said when he saw the two of them climb out of the bus.

  ‘Remember him, Nancy?’ he said. ‘It’s Bob, Bob Crenshaw! We used to ride buses with him back in the day. Looks like we’ll be riding another one with him, now.’

  ‘I remember Bob,’ Nancy said, ‘but this man’s old. Bob wasn’t old.’

  ‘We’re all old now, Nancy. He’s grown ancient like the rest of us.’

  ‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘Oh, my goodness. I thought he was dead.’

  The two old men embraced each other and then Bob embraced Nancy. ‘Hey, Nance. Beautiful as ever!’

  ‘Oh shush, Bob. You’re talking nonsense just like you always did.’

  ‘I ain’t talkin’ ’bout you Nance – I talkin’ ’bout me!’ He laughed loudly and Nancy laughed too – the first time in a long time.

  Jack and the small boy stood to the side, watching. Jack went up to the boy and introduced himself. ‘Hi, I’m Jack. What’s your name?’

  ‘Eric, sir, Eric Gole.’ They shook hands.

  ‘You just stepped out of the shower?’ Jack asked him.

  ‘No, sir, my hands are always wet: they sweat a lot. What’s wrong with your eyes?’

  ‘It’s a long story, Eric, but when I buy some stuff to get the black off, I’ll take you with me and we can get something for your hands. I used to have the same problem when I was your age: I could have cultivated watercress on them!’

  Jack was intrigued by the boy’s ingenuousness. It was like meeting a child who’d grown up on a Christmas tree farm. Why couldn’t Conrad have been like him? He shuddered at the thought of his erstwhile progeny.

  ‘Who’s the kid?’ Doc asked Bob. ‘And what’s he doing here?’

  ‘I’ll explain on the bus, Gene, but take my word on it, man, there a good reason fo’ him bein’ with us… Eric, c’mon over an’ meet Gene an’ Nancy.’

  The luggage and wheelchair were transferred from the car to the larger vehicle, and then all but Jack climbed on to the bus. ‘We’ll follow you, Jack,’ Doc told him. ‘You’re clear about what you have to do?’ Jack nodded. ‘And wear sunglasses, for God’s sake: you look positively strange.’

  They left Hershey behind, passed through Middletown – a municipality that had left its better days behind it – and headed towards the plumes of steam rising from the cooling towers of Three Mile Island. Bob pulled the bus into the car lot of a large pharmacy opposite Harrisburg International Airport, while Jack drove into the airport and dropped off the car at the rental agency. He then walked calmly through the short-term parking garage, crossed the airport road and climbed the railway embankment. Once certain no trains were approaching, he stepped over the tracks and carefully descended the other side of the embankment. He waited by the roadside until there was an opening in the traffic, and then crossed Highway 230 to the waiting bus.

  ‘Give me a minute will you, Doc? I need to go to the pharmacy for some things. Eric, you want to come with me?’

  They returned after a few minutes with mascara remover for Jack, and a pair of red washing-up gloves for Eric. ‘Red was the only colour they had,’ Jack explained to the others.

  Bob turned the engine and pulled the bus out of the car park. Their journey to Coffeeville had begun.

  They drove through Harrisburg, passed over the Susquehanna River and headed south on I81. They drove through rural Pennsylvania and crossed the Mason–Dixon Line into Maryland. As they approached the Potomac River, Bob slowed the bus and gave the gun he’d retrieved from Doc to Jack. ‘Throw it, man. Far as you can.’

  They entered the eastern panhandle of West Virginia and continued along the Shenandoah Valley into Virginia; the Blue Ridge Mountains visible to the east and the Appalachians to the west. Doc and Nancy sat together, and Eric sat with Jack. Bob hummed.

  ‘Is there a bee in here?’ Nancy asked.

  ‘No. Bob’s humming a tune to himself – what’s the song, Bob?

  ‘There ain’t no song.’

  ‘Well, what are you humming, then?’

  ‘I ain’t hummin’.’

  ‘And I’m not a doctor, either,’ Doc said.

  ‘No, you ain’t. You retired.’

  Doc smiled at Nancy. ‘Hasn’t changed, has he?’

  Nancy returned his smile. ‘No, he hasn’t,’ she laughed. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘It’s Bob, Nancy. You remember him? We were at Duke together.’

  ‘Oh, of course we were. Yes, I remember him now. He was that nigger friend of yours, wasn’t he? The one we thought was selling drugs? You’ll have to forgive me, Gene: I forget things all the time these days… Where are we going, by the way?’

  ‘We’re driving to Coffeeville, Nancy.’ He looked at her nervously, took her hand and squeezed it gently. The smile on Nancy’s face froze. She squeezed his hand back and turned to face him.

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Gene – thank you.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘There’s no rush, though, is there? We can take our time?’

  ‘Sure we can, Nancy. We’ll make a holiday of it.’

  Eric interrupted their conversation: ‘Have you seen my gloves, Mrs Skidmore?’

  ‘My, aren’t those nice?’ she said to him.

  ‘They’re a present from Jack. Shake my hand, Mrs Skidmore – go on, shake it.’ Nancy took hold of Eric’s hand and d
id as requested.

  ‘You shake my hand, too, Doctor Chaney.’ Doc did. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think Jack’s a man of boundless generosity, Eric, and I like your handshake, too: firm and dry.’ The beam on Eric’s face grew bigger, and he made a move to shake Bob’s hand.

  ‘Probably best not to bother Bob while he’s driving, Eric,’ Doc advised. ‘Besides, he’s humming some tune or other and I don’t want him to lose his place and have to start from the beginning again.’

  ‘I already told you, man – I ain’t hummin’. You prob’ly got tinnitus in yo’ ears or somethin’. Anyways, you shouldn’ go raggin’ on the driver. My concentration goes – y’all go!’

  They pulled into the next rest area, where Doc decided it would be safer if Nancy remained on the bus and out of sight. He and Bob would stay, while Jack – now his eyes were back to normal – would go with Eric to the vending machines. ‘I’ll be right outside having a cigarette,’ he told Nancy.

  Bob joined him. ‘Give me one o’ those, will you, Gene?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t smoke these days.’

  ‘I don’t as normal, ‘specially roun’ Marsha, but I have one ever’ now an’ then.’ He shook a cigarette from the opened pack and lit it from the flame of Doc’s lighter.

  ‘I think we need to pull off the interstate and find somewhere quiet to spend the night,’ Doc said. ‘They’ll have probably figured out that Nancy’s missing by now, and even though they won’t know how she got out or where she’s heading, we’ll still need to play it safe. You know this neck of the woods better than I do. Any ideas?’

  Bob thought for a moment. ‘Three Top Mountain ain’t far from here. We could park up by the fire tower fo’ the night. No one’ll see us there.’

  Doc liked the idea. He took one final draw on his cigarette and then ground it underfoot.

  ‘Who’s the kid, by the way? You said there was a good reason he was riding with us.’

  4

  Eric

  Headaches

  Eric Gole’s parents were dead. This is what happened.

  Eric’s father, Daniel, looked upon life as perfect in every way except for one thing – he suffered from headaches, unordinary and severe. They came without warning and with no recognisable trigger. In a year he’d have seven such headaches, no more and no less and each headache would last for exactly seven days. No medication alleviated the pain or the accompanying nausea, and all Daniel could do was put life on hold. He would move into a spare bedroom, pull down the blinds, draw the curtains and take to his bed; for their duration he lived in a cocoon of darkness, unable to work and unable to eat. This he did with a matter-of-fact stoicism that impressed all who knew him.

  Daniel’s stoicism, however, didn’t run to not worrying about the headaches or searching for a cure. It frustrated him that while other people enjoyed fifty-two-week years, he enjoyed only forty-five of them. He felt he forever had to run to make up for lost time, especially where work was concerned, and therefore felt guilty taking any but the shortest of holidays.

  It was the pain, however, rather than his shorter working year that spurred Daniel to seek a cure. At first, he likened the pain to having a small man with a pneumatic drill tunnelling inside his head, but as he became more and more convinced that there was a natural disaster of mammoth proportion taking place there, his descriptions became more dramatic. Dependent on the news of the day, he’d variously describe his symptoms to doctors as a tsunami of pain or as a volcanic eruption of pain; other times it would be the searing pain of a wildfire or a seismic quake splitting his skull in two.

  Despite the vividness of these descriptions, and the barrage of tests he underwent over a two-year period, the doctors were left mystified. They could find no discernible cause, and certainly no sign of the brain tumour Daniel had feared. Invariably, he was turned loose to his own devices with either a firm handshake or a consoling arm around the shoulder. It was at this point that Daniel turned to the church for help.

  From birth, Daniel had been a believer; he believed in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and, given half a chance, would have also believed in any uncles, aunts, cousins or other members of an extended family God chose to reveal. From an early age he’d believed that if more people in the world were like him, then the world itself would be a better place, and while privately of the opinion that he was one of those rare individuals already born again at the time of his actual physical birth, Daniel had the political acumen to recognise the necessity of renewing his commitment to Jesus as his personal saviour in a more public forum. This he chose to do after mastering calculus in his first year of college; something he felt could never have been achieved without divine intervention.

  The church Daniel attended was a happy church full of animation, noise and drama; and a church where people were regularly slain in the Spirit by divine bolts of lightning emanating from the hands of The Reverend Pete, God’s special emissary in Santa Cruz. In this church of pogoing Christians, Daniel stood out as a champion of religious expression. As hymns were played and prayers were said, he would either jump up and down or sway from side to side, his arms high in the air, the palms of his hands facing upward, and an inane smile on his face. If God’s was a small voice of calm, as some people said, one could only wonder if it stood any real chance of being heard in this particular church. Even Eric was embarrassed by the behaviour of his father, associating his unembarrassed movements more with the antics of a circus than the House of God.

  The church, however, was no more successful than the doctors in curing Daniel’s headaches. The prayers of Daniel and the prayers of an entire congregation on his behalf went unanswered. A laying-on of hands similarly came to nothing, and the lightning bolts from the hands of The Reverend Pete proved an abject failure. Daniel was again turned loose to his own devices with either a firm handshake or a consoling arm around his shoulder. Reverend Pete suggested the headaches might have been sent by God as a test of his loyalty, much the same way He’d tested Abraham. ‘As long as I’m not expected to sacrifice Eric in the Mojave Desert,’ Daniel had said, slightly disconcerted by The Reverend Pete’s remark.

  At last, Daniel was thrown a life and, ultimately, death line, by a chance meeting he made at a symposium on carbon dating. Ironically, Daniel – who held the position of Associate Professor of Egyptology at Santa Cruz University – was there only reluctantly, having been delegated by his colleagues in the Archaeology Department during an absence.

  On the afternoon of the symposium’s first day, a man wearing green tweeds and a polka dot bow-tie climbed the short flight of stairs to the podium. Professor Mitchell Bennett was an unembarrassed creationist, and the paper he delivered to the assembled delegates contended that Carbon 14 not only challenged the widely held assumption that the earth was of an ancient age, but proved beyond doubt that the earth was little more than 6,000 years old. As Carbon 14 could only survive for 5,730 years, he argued, how could it possibly be found in rocks and fossils previously judged to be hundreds of millions years old? Moreover, laboratory tests he’d recently conducted on samples of coal and diamonds corroborated this thesis. On completion of the paper’s delivery, Professor Bennett stood down from the podium to the sound of a throat clearing, and what he would later describe to sympathetic friends as a scientific silence of rapturous proportion.

  During a coffee break on the second day of the conference, Daniel approached Bennett to congratulate him on his paper. He confided in Mitchell that he too was a creationist, but for reasons of self-preservation had not yet divulged this to his own colleagues at Santa Cruz University, and had therefore felt unable to applaud publicly. It was, however, his cough that Mitchell would have heard.

  For no particular reason, other than the fact that all professional conversation between the two men had dried up, Daniel mentioned to Mitchell the problem of his recurring and unresolved headaches. Although Bennett had no comparable personal experience, he di
d know of an herbalist who had successfully treated a friend of his for rheumatoid arthritis; again, this after mainstream medical practice had drawn a blank. As luck would have it, the herbalist, whose name was Arthur Annandale, lived in Santa Cruz.

  Arthur Annandale was a man in his early sixties. He had a slim frame, a bald head, kindly eyes that swam happily behind thick spectacle lenses, and hammer toes. He listened intently as Daniel described his headaches and the various tests doctors had run. It was the time sequence of the headaches that captured Annandale’s attention: seven headaches a year, each lasting precisely seven days. He questioned Daniel carefully on this particular point and, when confident that no other time sequences were involved, excused himself and went through a door to his laboratory. The clomping noise Annandale made when he walked drew Daniel’s attention to his feet. He was surprised to see Arthur wearing what appeared to be either a pair of large hoofs or two small boxes.

  Arthur returned to the consultation room after an elapse of some fifteen minutes and holding two brown bottles. He told Daniel he was confident he could help him. The medicines, he explained, wouldn’t work immediately, but over a period of time would shorten the length of the headaches and eventually eradicate them altogether. One bottle (marked Bottle 1) contained a liquid mixture of herbs that Daniel was instructed to take orally at the onset of each headache: an initial dosage of ten millilitres followed by subsequent doses of five millilitres every six hours until the headache was gone. The liquid in the second bottle (marked Bottle 2) was to be used for preparing a poultice that Daniel should place over his forehead; Annandale emphasised that no more than two poultices in any one twenty-four-hour period should be applied. Both bottles should be stored in a refrigerator and the contents thrown away three months after opening; the bottles, however, should be returned to the herbalist’s office for reuse. Daniel was then instructed to make another appointment after the end of his next headache which, Annandale assured him, would surely come.