I laid down on the bed, sweeping the shirts and pants off onto the floor with my hand, and remembered that they’d found the check stubs. I’d been cashing the checks down at the bank and saving the money. By that time I’d had a few hundred dollars sitting in an envelope under the bed. I’d never expected anyone to look for it.
“This all goes in your college fund,” my father said, then he asked “Where is all the money I sent with you to pay for the lessons?” He followed me back upstairs while I dug out the other envelope that I’d put behind a stack of old encyclopedias against the back wall of the closet. “I’m counting this; if there is even a dime missing, you’re repaying me,” he’d said. There wasn’t. I hadn’t spent any of the money he’d given me. Sarah told me years later that it was the number of times I’d been to the movies that week. Mom had decided that since I didn’t have enough money in my allowance to go that often, I must’ve been up to mischief, as she said. That was mom’s way of talking. That’s how I knew that Sarah hadn’t tipped them off.
I hadn’t planned on a nap. Usually the only way to stop the headache/nosebleed, though, was to lay face-up on the bed and slow my breathing down. I hadn’t thought I was that tired. I remembered looking at the patterns on the ceiling.
I woke to the room in dim light. ‘Five or six,’ I thought. I wondered how it had gotten so late. Downstairs, I heard someone moving pots and pans around. Mom must’ve come home. My bedroom door was closed, as well; she’d been up here. I knew that because my father would have never thought to close it. Shaky images ran through my head; small flutters of pictures. I tried to remember the dream I’d just come up from, but nothing was left of it. I thought about divers, and how they die if they come up from deep water too quick. My palms were dry, and my body was overheated.
I sat up; looked at the mess on the floor. Oh, I thought, headache. I wanted to bend forward and start putting things back in piles, but I didn’t. My arms were thick and heavy, and my skin was stretched dry.
The flickers in my head slowed some, and I noticed more than once an image of me in front of a mirror, looking at my face. The image had the feel of déjà vu, as though I’d seen this face somewhere before. Looking back on it, I thought, ridiculous: it was my face. In the dream, it hadn’t been my face.
I stood up. Going down the stairs, each step felt like it should be sending shoots of pain through my skull, but wasn’t. It was like I was aware of the pain, but only from a great distance. I’m sure Sarah would say something like ‘better living through chemicals, Michael?’ The downstairs was dark; dust floating through the dim rooms made strange webs of light in the air. The television was off. On the kitchen table was a note.
‘Gone with your mother to dinner with Millicent Barnes and her husband. Their grandkids are in town. Your mother’s idea. Back by ten. Food in fridge. –dad’
I opened the refrigerator. He was right; my mother had packed everything away into neat compartments and bins. She’d stretched plastic so tight over things that water had beaded up on the inside. Tomatoes, celery, lemons; the clear front on the crisper showed everything inside it. Moving the plate of turkey aside, I found a bottle of white wine. My face scrunched up. Wine? They’d never liked wine before. I thought, Sarah must’ve left it. I pulled it out and set it on the counter. I pulled the plate of turkey and set it down, too. I closed the refrigerator door and rummaged for a corkscrew. I found one after about ten minutes of opening random drawers, but it was so dull that it took me another ten to get the cork out.
I put my nose to the lip of the bottle. It smelled okay. I upended the bottle. Susan would’ve hated it. It was sweet and not very dry. Something nagged at the back of my mind, though. There was something I was supposed to do, and I couldn’t remember what it was.
I took the bottle and the plate into the living room. The remote control was settled into the cushion. I clicked on the television. A blank-faced blonde in a red sports jacket was facing front. Next to her, someone had posted a graphic of a skeleton with a question mark. I turned the volume up, and took a swig from the bottle.
“—bodies of four American civilian contractors were dragged through the streets. This brings the total dead since the President declared an end to the conflict to a staggering—.” I flipped channels.
On the next channel was a woman who looked almost identical to the first, only this one had black hair. Her sports jacket was blue. “—our top story tonight. News Five has confirmed that the bones found just outside Eukiah city limits this week have been transported here and are in the care of the County Coroner, James Clarke. News Five has also learned that assisting on the case is Placerville’s own doctor Robert Gantner. Our reporter was told, I quote, ‘the examination could take as little as two days, or maybe as much as a week’. Of course, News Five will keep you posted—.” I took another swig. Gantner, I thought, then it hit me: he’d asked me to meet him tonight for a couple of beers. I thought for a second, looking down at the turkey. It looked gray and dry. That was plenty enough thinking for me.
They’d taken the car, of course, and I hadn’t rented one when I got in. It wasn’t so bad, though; it was still around dusk, so the temperature hadn’t dropped too far yet. The walk was nice. I found myself looking at everything I passed and thinking things like, My first kiss—Mandy Killinger—Kinger?—, and feeling ashamed when I couldn’t remember the last names. My first can of beer, when I passed the high school football field. All of the stories came flooding back; things I hadn’t even thought of last time I was here.
I passed the grocery store, and wondered if Alvin was working. A young woman with long brown hair was getting out of some foreign compact car as I watched. Her door slammed and she walked toward the doors. I wondered if I’d ever known her. She could have been any one of a thousand girls I’d been in school with. I decided I didn’t; there was nothing familiar about her.
Further down the road, a stray dog peeked out from behind a dumpster. I whistled for it to come over, and it lowered its head as though it might. At the last minute, though, it bolted off toward some houses. It looked near death, thin and knobby.
Finally, I came to the side street that led toward the train tracks. He turned his feet down Upham Boulevard, and wondered at that name a moment. Everyone from Placerville pronounced it the same way, I thought, and said it out loud “Up Ham” I said. You could always tell when someone was from outside, because they said “You Fam”. Sarah was one of those. Even though she had grown up in town, she’d never gotten that right.
From the time any kid was about twelve, they knew where Sully’s was. More important, they all knew the legend of Sully, himself. Sully Baker had just returned from what he, to his dying day, called “double-yah-double-yah-two”. He’d gotten on a train in New York and had been on his way to Montgomery, Alabama, the story goes.
The train had stopped a number of times for food and to change conductors, but it had to stop somewhere just short of what is vaguely called “the south” because most of the railroad lines in the south had been constructed during the Civil War. For any number of reasons, the story went, the Southern leaders decided that they didn’t want to have the same gauge railing for locomotives as the North. For this reason, and because of the enormous cost of tearing up and re-laying the track, for quite some time anyone traveling from “the north” to “the south” had to get off of a train fit for the size track it was on, and switch to another which could continue on the different size track.