From Away

by David Carkeet

  Homer’s laughter was rich. “Aren’t you always out of character? My rental car needs to be returned. I want you to do that. I flew into Bradley because Burlington would have been too risky. I’m always running into people there—the way you ran into Nick. You’ll drop the car off at the airport and take the train to Montpelier. ‘The Vermonter.’ You’ll like it. It blows a B-flat all the way from D.C. to St. Alban’s.”

  “But how am I going to get around?”

  Homer laughed again. “Good one. You steal my identity, and then you complain when I reclaim my own car.”

  Denny said nothing.

  “I didn’t answer your question—about how I know where she is right now. I read her email. Not regularly—why would I do that?—but just when I need to. I know her password.” He looked at Denny. “That’s how I learned you moved in here. She wrote to someone about Homer being back in town, and I thought, ‘What?’ Then I saw an email to her from someone who said they spotted me driving in Williston. I figured it was time to come see what was going on.” He smiled. “I admire your work. I even helped you out. I typed my password into the computer for you. Did you figure that out? I had to squeeze in from the dog pen because the doors were locked. Why do you lock them? This is Vermont.”

  Denny struggled to stay with Homer’s flow. “I lock them because someone could break in. Someone did break in, before—”

  “Me again. I came back for some music I’d written and left in the piano bench. I didn’t mean to scare my tenant off though.” Homer had completed a row in the crate. He folded the sheet over and began a new row. “The realtor will be here at 10:00 tomorrow for the walk-through. The land is protected, so the sale’s going to be a little complicated. I’ll leave the documents out for you.”

  “Protected?”

  “From development. I financed the remodeling of the barn by selling the development rights to a land trust—just the development rights, so the property itself can still change hands.” He looked around at his workshop. “I’ve got a lot to do. She gets back late tonight. She’ll probably be worn out and won’t come up here. Still, I should be gone by 9:00 to be safe. After you drop the rental off, you’ll have to catch a cab from the airport to the Windsor Locks station. The train leaves there at 3:30, so you’ll need to get out of here within the hour unless you want to spend the night in Connecticut. I parked the rental where the road loops around below the family plot. A path from the barn will get you there. It’s overgrown after three years, so be careful not to get sidetracked.” He took the car keys from his pocket and gave them to Denny. “I might be gone before you get back. Come through here and say goodbye before you go.”

  The rain had lightened to a mist. Denny had much on his mind as he walked back to the house. He could go on being Homer, but not in this house. Instead, he would be at a lake somewhere. How did one winterize a cabin? And after last night’s exploration, could he even go on being Homer? Only if he got circumcised and re-flashed Sarah. But he liked himself too much to part with even those few precious ounces.

  On his way upstairs he stopped by the phone machine to listen to the single message that had come in. It was Nick, reporting that Millie had made up a new poultice for him. Denny felt a surge of impatience with Nick and Millie and Vermont and its tiresome ways. He never wanted to hear the word “poultice” again. Nick concluded by saying he was about to leave the house and would drop it off sometime today. When would be a good time? Denny called him back in a hurry.

  “Homer,” Nick said. “I’m glad you called.” He spoke with an urgency that hadn’t been evident in the message. “Things have taken a strange turn. I need to prepare you for the worst.”

  Denny closed his eyes. Was this a new worst or a familiar one? Yesterday, in the dance meadow, his world was without limit. He wanted that expansive feeling back.

  “Lance took your picture yesterday. You must know that since you were looking right at the camera. He sent it to Braintree’s old boss, the editor of that model train magazine. The boss said it was definitely Braintree. He was so sure of it that he asked Lance to give Braintree a message—something about calling him about his old job. Which means you must look exactly like him. Lance’s theory—sorry I’m talking so fast, but Lance is on the other line. He was giving me the skinny when you called, and I’ve got to get back to him. His theory is that you’ve got some sort of Jekyll and Hyde thing going. He figures you met Braintree at the airport or somewhere, you were struck by how much you look like him, and you had the idea of pretending to be him whenever you got the urge to do something that you would never do as Homer. Like get it on with Marge Plongeur. You can ponder that while I get back to him. Stay on the line.”

  Denny was free to laugh, and he did. There was something deeply wrong with Lance. In possession of all the elements he needed to arrive at the truth, instead he burrowed more deeply into a muck of error.

  “I’m back,” Nick said. “And now I’m really confused. I—”

  “What prompted Lance to take my picture?”

  “Right, I didn’t explain that. Did I tell you we had someone searching Braintree’s storage locker in Illinois? His mom’s old storage locker, actually. They found a good photo of Braintree and sent it to Lance. He got it yesterday at the party on his phone. That’s when he saw the similarity, but there was some confusion about the age of that photo, and that’s when he had the idea of taking your picture and sending it to Braintree’s boss. But something brand-new is in the works. While I was talking to you just now, Lance got a call that somehow changed everything. He said I shouldn’t take any action against you. Get that—against you! I don’t know what the hell’s going on. He said he would call me back. Anyway, I’m here, so I’ll drop this thing off.”

  “Where’s ‘here’?”

  “Step out on the porch and you’ll find out. Oh, never mind. I see you. Ha, that pesky barn door again.”

  Denny eased over to the living room window and saw Nick’s car pull to a stop in front of the house. At the barn, one of Homer’s arms was wrapped around an open door, holding it steady while he did something out of view on the other side of it. At the approach of Nick’s car, he stepped out into full view—from habit, Denny guessed. Homer seemed to flinch, glanced at the house, and began walking quickly toward the car.

  Nick got out to meet him. He extended the poultice for Homer, and Homer responded by grabbing him in a bear hug and lifting him off the ground. Then they talked, mainly Nick, but Homer, too. Denny, watching, squirmed. What about his voice? The conversation seemed to go on forever. Nick finally headed back to his car. Homer stood in place until the car had descended and gone out of view. Then he walked slowly to the house. Denny met him at the front door.

  “This is for you.” Homer handed him the poultice. His face was unreadable.

  “How did you pull that off?”

  “I whispered. I told him I’d strained my voice at the party yesterday.”

  “But I was just on the phone with him, talking normally.”

  “So he said. Nice heads-up.”

  “I didn’t know he was coming, for God’s sake.”

  Homer’s face went weak and rubbery, then straightened out. “He was worried about my larynx. Worried that the loss of my voice meant something was wrong again. God, he’s so innocent.” Homer burst into tears—a terrific bawling—but then he shut it off immediately. “He said my lip seemed completely cured. I said yeah, it was doing a lot better, and he was so happy. He’s just so good.” He looked at Denny, then at his watch. “You’d better go.”

  “But I’ve got a million questions.”

  “I’ll leave all the information you need on the desk.”

  “But—”

  “Go.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  DENNY HAD TO REIN HIMSELF IN SEVERAL TIMES AS HE TOOLED south on the interstate. When his mind raced, so did he. A pullover for speeding and a check of his license could lead to a background check on his name, which would certainly land h
im in the back seat of some square-jawed, tilted-hat state trooper’s car.

  Before leaving Little Dumpling Farm, Denny had brought Homer up to date on the shaky condition of his impersonation. He had told him of Lance’s Jekyll and Hyde theory. (“I like that!” Homer said. “I should have embarked on such a career ages ago.”) But this theory, Denny explained, had probably been dumped for a new one, and here he had to tell Homer of Sarah’s flashlight-assisted exploration and her likely report to Lance. Homer’s eyes twinkled at the tale. The Jekyll and Hyde Hypothesis, Denny said, had doubtless given way to the Hypothesis of the Two Johnsons. Under Jekyll and Hyde, Denny was still taken for Homer; under the Two Johnsons, Denny was exposed as Denny.

  Homer quickly but calmly voiced the next likely developments: Nick’s partner would brief Nick, if he hadn’t already. After Nick recovered from the shock, the two detectives would drive to the farm to expose Denny as a fraud. Homer would welcome them. If they wanted to see him naked, they could see him naked. If Nick tried to stump him with questions about a shared past that only the real Homer could answer, who better to prove that Homer was Homer than Homer? Denny liked the plan. Nick would be relieved, and wienie Lance would be thrown into his deepest confusion yet. Denny gave Homer his cell phone number with instructions to call if anything went awry, and Homer gave Denny his own cell number. He also gave him a special going-away present: the password to Sarah’s email account. “You’ll want to stay a step ahead of her,” Homer said in farewell.

  Now, impatient for information, Denny pulled into a rest stop in southern Vermont and called Homer, who immediately answered with “Nervous fellow, aren’t you?” He had nothing to report and said he was about to leave for St. Johnsbury to pick up the French horn. Denny then called Nick. When he didn’t answer, Denny left a message—a whispered message—asking him to call his cell number back to let him know what Lance had told him, if anything. Denny doubted that Nick would return the call. It occurred to him that he might have blundered by calling in the first place. What if Homer’s prediction of Nick’s next move was correct? Denny could have left this message precisely when Nick was at the farm, and Homer couldn’t be in two places at once.

  Weary of the churning in his head, Denny turned on the radio. He was surprised by what he heard—the murmuring of a crowd, as in an auditorium, and then a female voice saying, “Number seven.” The crowd fell silent when a guitar began to play a slow melody. A pause, more murmuring, then “Number eight.” He realized he was listening to a CD, and he popped it out and read the label: “April Quartet Favors.” Homer had been listening to it in the rental car, for old times’ sake, perhaps, and he must have forgotten it. Denny slid it back in. He resisted the urge to skip from the beginning to number 18. He wanted to experience the event as Homer had experienced it in college.

  It was as if Denny were there. The muttering, the wisecracking, and, finally, number 18. After one hearing, Denny was about to hit the reverse button to hear it again, but cries from the crowd stopped his hand. It was Homer’s competition demanding a replay of number 18. It played, and they called for it again and again. It was pretty, Denny would give him that. Beautiful? Denny hummed it. Now it was beautiful.

  From the beginning, Denny had assumed that Homer had left Vermont for a bad reason—because someone was coming after him, if not Warren Boren then someone else, or because he had done something regrettable, even criminal. But Homer had left Vermont for a good reason. “For a song,” as he had said.

  Later, Denny’s cell phone rang. It was not a live call but rather a voicemail alert to a call that must have come in when he was driving through a dead zone. He listened to the message. It was Nick, calling from town and saying that he hadn’t heard back from Lance. In fact, Lance was nowhere to be found and wasn’t picking up his calls. Nick had no idea what was going on but would keep him posted.

  Denny breathed a little more easily. Good old Nick.

  It had been thoughtful of Homer to imagine Denny enjoying the train ride back to Montpelier. But trains are no fun when you’re in a hurry. Denny wanted only to be at Little Dumpling Farm. He wanted to be sure the whole plan hadn’t gone to smash. Vermont’s uneven roadbed threw him from side to side, creating general agitation all the way home.

  He disembarked at the Montpelier station with a handful of other passengers. It was almost midnight, and a ticket agent standing under the single light on the platform greeted them one by one. She seemed to give Denny, the last to exit, an especially warm welcome before hurrying to the parking lot, her job done. The other passengers stepped with similar purpose as they met loved ones or evoked beeps from their waiting cars. Denny felt a wave of loneliness—something he hadn’t felt in a while—which gave way to the more manageable specific regret that he hadn’t arranged for a taxi in advance. What was the chance of one waiting at this hour in this remote spot?

  But he was in luck. A solitary cab stood at the end of the platform. The dim light of the station reached just far enough to outline its driver sitting on the middle of the hood, his legs crossed beneath him. A cigarette end flashed with his draw on it. The other travelers shook their heads at his repeated “Taxi? Taxi?”—a marketing message that struck Denny as inane since the taxi was obviously a taxi. The cabbie slid off the hood and flicked his cigarette away. Denny suddenly recognized the furtive, coyote-like posture.

  “Sparky!”

  The cabbie cringed as if fearing the long arm of the law. But when he saw Denny approaching, he grinned and stood nearly upright. “Bet you didn’t expect to see me here, Homer. That’s me through and through. The original bad penny. Yes, sir.” He seemed prepared to extend the self-tributes, but Denny interrupted him:

  “You’re driving a cab? You shouldn’t be driving at all.”

  “Au contrary. I’m legit. Who woulda thunk it, huh?”

  “Is this your cab?”

  “Wrong again. Abe Goodlow’s. I’m subbin’ while he gets a new hip from some overchargin’ sawbones down to Hanover.”

  “Well, I need a ride.”

  Sparky’s head bobbed in furious agreement. “I done it again. I knew I’d get a fare if I come here. Enterprise is my middle name.” His face suddenly went somber. “I got to charge you, Homer. I got to.”

  “No problem.”

  “No freebies. Abe said.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.” As Denny got into the front seat, it occurred to him that he had no story to explain his arrival from the south by train. But then he realized he wouldn’t need one. After all, he was back in Sparky World, which contained only one organism of real value and interest, and that organism could presently be heard emptying its bladder behind the cab.

  As they drove out of the lot, Denny asked Sparky how he happened to get his license back. Sparky said nothing, so after a moment Denny repeated the question.

  “Dang it, I can’t tell you, Homer. I was hopin’ you’d get the hint when I didn’t answer, but you sure didn’t.”

  “Oh, sorry,” said Denny.

  After a long silence, Sparky said, “Dang it all, I just can’t.”

  “Fine,” Denny said.

  Sparky made an impatient noise, as if Denny had been hounding him all night for a full accounting. “All right then. Long story short, I got friends in high places.”

  Denny was silent. He was mainly thinking about how this actually was a long story short.

  “That’s right. Friends.”

  Denny looked out his window.

  “Not so much friends as a friend. And not really a friend. Just a certain personage I got over a barrel. Someone I got the drop on. Yep. I got the drop on him. You got to get up early in the mornin’ to beat ol’ Sparky. They don’t make ’em—”

  “Is it Lance?”

  The name produced a one-man-band effect of sundry noises from Sparky, which finally issued into a series of snorts. “Don’t you pump me no more. I mean it, big guy. I’m drained. The well is empty.”

  Ordinarily, Denny would have n
ever put these two men together, but Sparky’s language had made Lance pop into Denny’s head. He remembered the phrase “got the drop on” from when they had all been at Sparky’s house—when Sparky had waved his urine-filled water pistol at Lance and joked that he “got the drop on” him. But Lance would not pull strings to get Sparky’s license reinstated just because he had been threatened by a water pistol. What could Sparky possibly have on him that would make him subject to his influence?

  Sparky turned onto a main road. Ahead and to Denny’s left, the golden Statehouse dome, lit by floodlights, rose like a local sun. Sparky cruised through a red light and then turned left through another one. Denny looked at him.

  “Coppers are bustin’ up a high school party on Murray Hill. We can make our own law.” Sparky raced through downtown, which had retired for the night some time earlier, at about 40 miles per hour. When they reached Highway 12, he was limited by its engineering to a speed of 70 in the 40 zone.

  “Hey, Homer. Remember this?” Sparky turned off his car lights.

  “Not really,” Denny said, shifting in his seat.

  “How about this then?” Sparky eased the car into the lane for oncoming traffic. He looked at Denny. “Bring back memories?”

  A distant glimmer of headlights made Denny shout, and Sparky moved back into the right lane. But he kept his lights off. The other car shot by, and its driver honked to alert Sparky that his lights were off.

  “A two-pointer!” Sparky said. “Made you shout and made him honk!”

  Denny gritted his teeth. He couldn’t imagine Homer at any age participating willingly in this game. Soon they reached Horn of the Moon Road, and its mud and ruts made Sparky turn on his lights and slowed him down. He had satisfied the impulse that had seized him, and for the rest of the drive he seemed almost depressed, like a drug user coming down from a high. At the foot of the driveway, he stopped and peered up the hill.

  “Looks kinda gooey, Homer. I’ll drop you off here. The fare is twenty even. That’s just the fare.”