The Folds

by Clint Townsend

  Danny emerged cluthching his Doc Martens and with welder’s glasses on.

  “You ever not wear those glasses?” Butch inquired.

  Danny plopped himself in the armchair and grunted, “Sensitive eyes.” After lacing his boots, he rose to his feet and stood in front of Butch as if to signify he was ready to leave.

  After one more look over Danny’s clothes, Butch commented, “You sure didn’t get paid much at the garage, did ya?”

  Danny inspected the immaculately clean interior of Butch’s Crown Victoria as they began their long drive back to the city.

  “So…” Butch opened, nonchalantly.

  “So!” Danny volleyed, watching the rows of corn race the car.

  “You, uh…you really surprised me the other day.”

  “Really? You…the professor? Surprised?”

  “Yeah, ’cuz, uh…I never told anyone that I got sick that day.”

  “Well, you can rest assured that your little puke secret is safe with me.” He smiled. “Not much point value now in telling someone you threw up.”

  “Not now, no…thank you,” he agreed, then prodded cautiously. “But how did you know that? That it was me that was there? The head?”

  “I just do,” Danny answered shortly, returning to watch the pastures go by. “I wished for it, and now I can.”

  “You see when stuff is gonna happen or after the fact?”

  “Look,” Danny huffed, turning to face Butch. “I know Mom has probably warned you about my parlor tricks, but what and how I see things, I don’t know. I see it everywhere on everyone. Period! So I would appreciate it if we could just skip the interrogation.” He glared at Butch from behind the black lenses of his homemade glasses.

  “Is that, uh, why the whole glasses thing?”

  Danny decided to change gears and engage in Butch’s conversation “Yeah, some…well, no…not really.”

  Butch glanced from the road to Danny, waiting for an interpretation of the answer.

  “Back in town, I would see into a few people a day. ’N after that I would see ’em around town and…I just got used to it. Then we’d get busy on weekends and holidays and I started seeing way more than I care to. So I took a lens out of a welders mask and put it in these frames.” Danny felt vulnerable and exposed, lowering his guard to describe to Butch what he saw.

  “So that’s why you stayed there for so long,” Butch concluded. “Small town, same people…wouldn’t have to see strangers every day. Right?”

  Danny turned to face Butch, amazed at his perception.

  “Was it, or maybe I should ask, is it…confusing? I mean, how do you know what’s reality and not some fantasy?” asked Butch.

  Feeling frustrated and that he’s not being taken seriously, Danny suddenly barked out, “Look! I don’t expect someone like you to understand! You couldn’t and probably won’t ever understand what this is.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

  “Yes, yes, you did!” Danny finished rudely, turning to face his interrogator. “Just drive the car and wake me when we get there!” He leaned back against the headrest.

  Butch continued the drive in silence, feeling a sense of remorse for having pushed Danny so hard.

  Just over an hour later, Butch lightly nudged his snoring passenger. “Danny? Danny, wake up, son. We’ll be there in a sec.”

  Danny began to stir and stretch in the reclined seat.

  “Man, when you go to sleep, you go to sleep!” Butch complimented with a smile. “You’re like my cousin Casey! He’s a pro at sleeping. I take too long to wind down when I go to bed.”

  “If I’ve had a few all-nighters I can sleep for a day,” Danny admitted, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Where are we?”

  “I’m takin’ you to one of my favorite restaurants. Think you might like it!” Butch asserted, then complained as he came to an abrupt stop. “Aw man! I hate this intersection! On a Monday at lunch, too!”

  Danny listened to Butch’s rant as he raised his seat back.

  “Look at that! Against green lights, against traffic, people still walkin’! Geez! I’m surprised we don’t have more hit and runs on this street.”

  Danny was shocked to see hundreds of people walking in front of and beside the car. His mind flashed with pulses of light and past images of funerals, car wrecks, suicides, and horrific scenes of death. The parade of passersby continued, all of whom were completely oblivious of the mark they carried and the destiny that awaited them. Gripping the door handle tightly, he anxiously said, “Get me outta here!”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Get me outta here! Now! Now!” Danny demanded, raising his voice.

  “All right, hold on…we gotta red light and need to wait for these people to—”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Danny yelled, slamming his left foot on top of Butch’s right foot on the gas. He grabbed the steering wheel with his left hand and shouted, “Get me outta here! Go! Go! Go!”

  The Crown Victoria lurched forward with squealing tires, almost hitting several pedestrians. “Danny! Danny! Stop it!” Butch pleaded as he tried to regain control of the vehicle. “Danny, let go! You’re gonna kill us!”

  “Move!” Danny screamed at the pedestrians and cars. “Get outta the way! C’mon!”

  Butch elbowed Danny in his left side, knocking the breath out of him. He regained control of the vehicle and swerved to the right, narrowly missing a mother and her baby as they crossed the street. Butch turned onto a side street and brought the car to a screeching stop. “Are ya just trying to kill us?” he shouted with his eyes wide open, breathless and sweating.

  “Man! I told you I didn’t like being ’round a lotta people!” Danny said angrily, breathlessly.

  “I’m sorry! Okay?” Butch snapped. After taking an opportunity to catch his breath and calm down, he tried to make light of the situation. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you couldn’t sit at stoplights like that!”

  Danny squinted his eyes with a double take at Butch, unsure of what he just heard. “What? I don’t have a problem sitting at stupid stoplights!”

  “No! Really!” Butch promised, trying to not smile. “For now on, no stoplights or intersections for you!”

  “I can sit at stoplights all day!” Danny quipped, irritated. “I’ve actually driven myself to a stoplight once or twice in my life. We even had a couple of intersections with stoplights back in town!”

  Butch couldn’t contain his laughter at Danny, who, after listening to himself, began to laugh, as well.

  The two men exited the car and headed toward the alley off the side street “Where are we?” Danny asked, pausing to look around.

  Butch walked ahead of him and pulled back the glass door of the restaurant, declaring triumphantly, “This is the home of the best onion burger in Texas!”

  “We drove over an hour for this?” Danny replied, looking at the junked and dirty alley. “We’re eating in there?”

  “What’s wrong? C’mon! Oh! I get it,” Butch said, releasing the door, “you’re afraid you might see one of your little lights, huh?” He stood in front of Danny with his hands on his hips, biting the inside of his lip.

  “You don’t believe me, do ya?” Danny accused.

  “Whether I do or don’t believe you is irrelevant! The point is, whatever it is you think you got, if ya really got it, you’re the one who’s gonna live with it.”

  Danny turned away, trying to ignore Butch’s impromptu sermon.

  “Don’t turn away from me when I’m talking to you!” Butch ordered, grabbing Danny by the arm. “We’re just…talking.” Only after he turned him around did Butch relax his grip on Danny. “If you get cancer, just because you stay in your house doesn’t mean the cancer’s gonna get better or go away! At home you got it, work you got it, at school, with your wife, wherever, you got cancer. So deal with it and do what you can! Make the best of this ’cuz your momma’s not, I’m not, and no one else is gonna be h
ere to hold your hand, blow your nose, and wipe your butt!” With that being said, he did an about-face, walked back to the restaurant, and ended the conversation. “And I want an onion burger!”

  Danny reluctantly and sluggishly inched his way to the open door.

  They entered the small downtown diner, packed with the local lunch crowd, and forced their way to the last open table, a booth on the end of the row in the corner. Butch liked to sit with his back to the wall so he could see all who entered and left the building. Danny slid into the other side of the booth with his back to the door. A kindly, older waitress with dyed platinum-blond hair and a fake red silk corsage on her blouse was delivering lunch to the table next to Butch and Danny. She placed the plates in front of the patrons and leaned over to ask, “Can I getcha somethin’ t’ drink, hun?”

  “Ice tea for me,” Butch replied. “Danny?”

  “DP,” Danny grumbled. “Man! Why’d we have to come here?”

  “The atmosphere is good,” Butch answered. A period of silence passed before he again spoke. “So do I got one?”

  “One what?”

  “One of your little colors. What do you call ’em?”

  “A fold.”

  “A what?”

  “A fold! I call it a fold, okay?” Danny snapped.

  “What do I gotta do to get one? Does it just pop up?”

  “You still don’t get it, do ya?! I can’t control this! They just appear.”

  “You know…I went to school for years. Studied hard to get ahead; did research papers, case profiles, went to institutions, professional seminars, met with doctors, specialists and scientists, you name it, I did it…to figure out the whys, the hows, where’s the body, what’s their identity…and you just see it?”

  Danny sat with his arms folded in front of him.

  “Dr. Pepper and an iced tea.” The waitress repeated the drink order as she placed the glasses down on the worn, Formica tabletop. “You boys ready to order?” she asked.

  Before Danny even had a chance to look at the menu, Butch recited, “Two onion burgers. Heavy on the onions and two fries.”

  “Two onions and two spuds. Give me a few, Darlin’,” she repeated with a wink.

  “Tell you what…” Butch told Danny when the waitress left. “I’m gonna help you! Starting today, right here, right now.”

  “You’re gonna help me.”

  “Yep!”

  “You!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Uh-huh…yeah.”

  “I’m gonna help you first by introducing you to the best onion burger you’ll ever have…” Butch announced, adding lemon juice to his tea.

  “Then?” asked Danny.

  “Then you’re gonna learn to use this for somethin’ good.”

  “This? What do you mean ‘this’?”

  “You know.” Butch motioned to his head and eyes. “That whole… thing.”

  “Oh! Okay, whatever,” Danny said mockingly and turned away.

  “No! Don’t do that to yourself!” Butch snapped, grabbing Danny’s attention. “C’mon, say it with me! ‘I’m gonna learn to use this for somethin’ good.’”

  Danny stared at Butch intensely from behind the dark lenses of his glasses.

  “I didn’t hear you!” Butch smiled and extended his hand across the table. “Say it like you was Anthony Robbins or Zig Ziglar!”

  Danny looked down at Butch’s open hand, not really knowing what to do.

  “Go on…take my hand. Take off the glasses, son, and quit hidin’…c’mon, let’s see those eyes,’” he persisted. “It’s okay. We’re jus’ friends talking and havin’ a burger.”

  Danny slowly reached up and removed his glasses, but bowed his head and cast his eyes downward.

  “All right,” Butch congratulated tenderly, smiling. “Now, ‘I’m gonna learn to use this for somethin’ good!’”

  Danny meekly extended his right hand as Butch spoke.

  Butch suddenly lashed out and firmly grasped Danny’s hand, pulling him to the edge of the table. “Good! Now, c’mon, say it with me: ‘I’m gonna learn to use this for somethin’ good.’”

  Danny softly repeated the words, but did not raise his eyes to his new friend.

  “Again!” Butch demanded encouragingly, squeezing Danny’s hand.

  Danny squeezed back, smiling slightly as both men repeated the statement with more vigor. “I’m gonna learn to use this for somethin’ good.” The two men sat hand in hand, locked eye to eye as the smile on Danny’s face began to widen.

  “All right!” Butch affirmed, releasing his grip. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Purple.”

  “‘Scuse me?”

  “I said purple. Your fold is purple,” Danny explained before taking a straw full of his Dr. Pepper.

  “It is? Huh! Purple. Never really been a purple fan.”

  “No?” Danny asked. “Well hey, man, it looks good on you!”

  “Really! You sure?” Butch asked, looking at his shoulders.

  “Sure I’m sure! Good lookin’ guy like you? You go and get yourself a dark purple button up like a Versace or sumpn’…like what Tim McGraw and Kenney Chesney wear? Hoo! You’d hafta beat ’em off ya!”

  After taking a moment to contemplate the possibilities, Butch explained, “I’ve always seen myself as more of a conservative dresser, like white or pastels or light-blue shirts with khaki trousers. You know, can’t be too flashy with what I do.”

  “Oh, I can definitely see that!” Danny agreed without hesitation.

  “What about them? What do you see with them?” he asked with a nudge of his head toward the guests.

  Danny turned to look over the unknowing diners and their signs of life. After surveying the room, he turned to Butch and coldly asked, “Which ones?”

  “What do you mean which ones? Them over there. Or do they all have ’em?”

  “Yep! Right down to the grill cook.”

  Butch looked around the room, to Danny, back to the guests, and once more to Danny.

  Knowing that Butch was still a skeptic of his morbid talent, Danny energetically stated, “Say! I got an idea. Since you’re so interested and want so bad to be helpful, Mr. College Professor Detective, why don’t you pick any three and I’ll tell you how it’ll happen?”

  Butch leaned back in the booth, unsure as to how he should address the challenge laid before him. “How what’ll happen?”

  “How they’ll die.”

  After contemplating the outcome, Butch lowballed Danny’s challenge, laughing nervously. “You almost had me there for a second! Man, oh man! You’re good!”

  “No! Don’t do that to me,” Danny demanded with a pound of his fist. “C’mon, you’re supposed to be helpin’ me! ’Member?” he reminded his counselor. “Or do you just say that to make yourself feel better?”

  “No, I said I’ll help you and I’m gonna help you,” Butch answered nervously, timidly.

  “Let me help you now!” Danny offered boldly and stood up beside the table. “I’ll pick out the three that are gonna be happening soon! And I mean real soon!”

  Butch tried his best to diffuse the situation as several of the diners turned to watch the spectacle. “No, that’s not necessary. Look, you don’t have to—”

  “Oh, yes I do!” Danny interjected, speaking loudly as he slowly backed away from Butch. “‘Cuz I think that you think I’m a nut job whacko and that this is just some kinda hoax. Right?” He held his arms out wide, waiting for an answer.

  Butch sat silently, helplessly, embarrassed at not knowing how to address Danny’s behavior or accusations. He could feel the eyes of the customers focus on him as Danny continued. “‘Cuz it makes sense to you that it would be stupid for me to think that I would know that…” He quickly turned and waved his hand through a bright white fold on an elderly woman’s right shoulder. Images of the woman’s last living moments flashed through his brain as he overexaggerated the experience and flung himself on top o
f their table, screaming, “Oh! Oh my God! It’s horrible! Friday, Mabel, Friday! Your…heart’s…gonna…stop! Ooohhh!”

  Mabel’s lunch flew from the table and landed on the floor with a mighty crash.

  Danny rolled on to his side and grabbed Mabel’s son Red by his shirt collar. “Red!” he yelled to the middle-aged, pear-shaped son as their drinks spilled to the floor. “Sunday! You’re gonna find her Sunday when you go to pick her up for church!”

  “Danny!” Butch yelled over the panic-stricken crowd as they rose to their feet. “Danny, stop it, that’s enough!” He apologized profusely as he fought his way through the mesmerized mass. “I’m awful sorry folks, he…Danny!” Butch tried in vain to calm everyone down and take control of the situation. “It’s okay, folks! I’m a police officer! Everything’s all right! Ya’ll go on back to your lunches!” But the patrons ignored him and crowded around Mabel’s table.

  Danny spotted an older black woman sitting by herself with a red fold above her right shoulder and dismounted the tabletop. She remained frozen in her chair as the madman approached and waved his hand by her neck. “Sally! Sally! Don’t drive your car! It’s too dangerous!” he pleaded.

  The frightened patrons streamed out of the restaurant and down the alley to safety. Butch pushed upstream against the fleeing throng and grabbed Danny from behind, wrestling him to the ground.

  Sally’s mood quickly changed from fear to anger and resentment as she gathered her purse and dismissed Danny’s ominous request. “No one gon’ tell me not drive my car! My car, my own business! Ain’t no problem wit’ my car!”

  As he and Butch tousled about, Danny started to laugh, almost madly, insanely. He peered into the kitchen and noticed the grill cook, Bob, watching the action. Danny elbowed Butch in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, scrambled to his feet, and dashed into the kitchen.

  The waitress, Joyce, tried to calm her customers down through the melee, but they continued to leave the restaurant in droves. “Sally, I’m sorry, hon!” she apologized, then nudged Butch in the rear as he struggled to regain his breath. “Why don’t ya get him outta here ’stead a scarin’ all our cusmers away?”