The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  Joe turned around to confirm that no one had seen him and then pulled Ernie’s right hand up into the light and repeated the process. As the nutcracker crushed his fingers, Ernie let out a groan but was unable to move.

  Joe stood up and peered down at the wretched heap of broken bones that was Ernie Pike.

  “That’s for being a cocksucker,” Joe hissed at him.

  He slipped the nutcracker back into his pocket and retrieved his beer bottle, which somehow hadn’t broken either when it came in contact with Ernie’s skull, fracturing it, or when it had rolled off the curb and tumbled into the gutter.

  When he returned to Harbor Park, he passed Ernie’s wife still sitting on the bench where Ernie had left her. She rubbed her tired feet and searched for Ernie’s white pickup truck among the traffic on Main Street, wondering why he was taking so long to come back for her. She never noticed the tall man with the sandy brown hair walking past her and back into the fair.

  Once back inside the festival grounds, Joe dropped the empty beer bottle into a nearby trash can and returned the nutcracker to the table where he’d found it, leaving it amidst a pile of paper plates, napkins and lobster remains that some slobs had thoughtlessly left behind.

  A twisted smile appeared on his face. He was feeling mischievous. Without breaking stride, he turned and headed out of the park.

  Ernie Pike’s wife was now standing near the bench craning to see over the crowd and the traffic along Main Street, hoping to see her husband’s truck. Joe sat down on the bench with a loud groan, mimicking the sound he’d heard the woman make a short time earlier when she’d deposited herself upon it.

  Hearing the sound, she turned to look at him.

  “Sorry,” he offered when their eyes met. “Were you sitting here?”

  “I’m waiting for my husband to pick me up,” she said. “I can’t imagine what’s taking him so long.” She returned her worried gaze to the long row of cars now stopped along Main Street.

  Joe lit a cigarette and allowed it to dangle at the corner of his mouth, and he inserted his lighter back into the same pocket that, until a few moments earlier, had held the nutcracker he’d used to crush Ernie Pike’s fingers. “You might have a long wait,” he said.

  She turned and looked inquisitively at him again, as if perhaps he knew something that she didn’t. “Why?”

  Joe removed the cigarette from his mouth and nodded in the direction of the northbound traffic. “If he’s stuck in that traffic, he’s gonna be a while.”

  Joe slid to the far end of the bench and patted the empty space beside him. “Here,” he offered. “Take a load off.”

  She looked again down the road— the traffic wasn’t moving at all— then she sat down on the bench beside him.

  “Did you have a nice time?” Joe asked her.

  “Oh, yes,” she announced happily. “We come every year. We love it.”

  Joe puffed on his cigarette and turned to his left to release the smoke so as not to offend the woman to his right. “This is my first time,” he said. “I almost didn’t come, but I’m real glad I did.”

  “I’m glad you had a good night,” she said.

  Joe Tibbits smiled, thinking back over the events of the evening. “Sure did,” he said. “It was a real good night.”

  He sat with her for several minutes, enjoying the irony of engaging in cheerful yet inane conversation with this woman while her husband lay busted up on a sidewalk six blocks away, waiting for someone to stumble upon him. If only Ernie Pike had made an effort to be helpful that day at the construction site when Joe showed him the photograph this never would have happened. Perhaps next time he’ll make an effort to be helpful.

  When Ernie awoke in the hospital the next morning, he had no recollection of the attack. He knew only that his head pounded and throbbed as if it was being pressed in a vise, and he was nauseous long after he’d thrown up all of the lobster, fries and assorted junk food he’d consumed at the Lobster Festival the night before. When he took a deep breath, it felt as if a jagged knife was being inserted into his collarbone, the pain radiating down his right arm. His fingers, now splinted and bandaged, ached so profoundly that he couldn’t tell if he’d broken one finger on each hand or all of them. Even through the Percocet, he couldn’t tell where one injury ended and the next began; the pain all ran together.

  The injuries would leave Ernie unable to work through the rest of the season and throughout the winter, which was precisely what Joe Tibbits had in mind when he applied the nutcracker to Ernie’s fingers. It would be months before he could firmly grip his hammer and even longer before he could swing it with any authority. Throughout his recovery, he wondered why anyone would have done this to him.

  The police told him the attack appeared to be personally motivated— that was the term they used. Nothing was stolen, and the crushing of the fingers on each hand, by what was determined by the damage to the bones and the markings left on his skin to be a nutcracker, led them to the conclusion that this wasn’t a simple mugging. Nor did they believe it was a random act of violence. However, despite their questions, Ernie Pike couldn’t for the life of him understand what he might have done to deserve this. He had no idea that the beating was retaliation for his refusal to look at a photograph of a man he didn’t know.

  15

  Prodigal Son

  During the month of August, the peak of tourist season on Mount Desert Island, Peter Langston knew that interior work was difficult to come by. Few people wanted the all-too-brief summer disrupted with a kitchen remodel or an interior renovation. As a result, he sometimes had to fall back on what he’d previously deemed ‘young man’s work’ when he had a gap in his schedule and accept the occasional roofing or siding job, usually as a favor to a friend.

  In mid-August, Peter and James found themselves hanging new siding and reshingling the roof of an old Victorian home in Somesville. For most of the day on Wednesday, they’d been keeping one eye on the sky, which had grown gray and ominous, threatening a late summer torrent that could set them back days. It was exhausting work, and James’s muscles ached from endless hours of labor at a grueling pace as they tried to get ahead of the approaching storm.

  When Peter suggested working overtime to get the job finished at the Somesville house before the rain hit, James agreed, even though he questioned whether he could endure an even longer day of such demanding work. He agreed in part because he knew Peter wanted to continue working, but also because finishing the job that day meant he wouldn’t be subjected to another day of it.

  When they finally finished on Wednesday evening, James ached in every joint, and he wanted nothing more than to return to his tiny apartment for a hot meal and a good night’s sleep. He stopped briefly to visit with Ruth and to retrieve Max, who had spent his day with her.

  As he climbed the long staircase to his apartment, he could hear the phone ringing, and although he tried to quicken his stride, he couldn’t summon the energy. He worked his way up the stairs, listening to the ringing of the phone, expecting it to stop long before he reached his door— wishing it would.

  Max pushed in ahead of him and searched frantically for his favorite toy to offer James, and he looked dejected as James stepped around him to get to the phone, offering him little more than a quick pat on the head.

  James was surprised to hear Kate’s voice when he answered.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” Kate said.

  “I was at work,” James told her. “I just walked in.”

  In the open doorway to the apartment, Max stood solemnly with his head hung low, and James could see that he needed to go outside. “Just a second,” he said to Kate, and he pulled the phone away from his ear. He looked at Max. “You were just out there, dummy,” he said to the dog. “Go ahead.” Max charged out the door and down the steps; he didn’t need to be told twice.

  “Edward!” Kate shouted into the phone.

  The sou
nd of that name threw him off balance. He was about to scold her for using it, when he was overcome with a sense that something was wrong, and he let it pass.

  “Sorry,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s dad,” Kate said.

  James felt his stomach tense. He couldn’t speak.

  “Are you still there?” Kate asked.

  “What happened?”

  “He had another stroke,” Kate said, her voice trembling. “They moved him to the hospital.”

  “How is he?” James asked her.

  “How do you think he is?” Kate said angrily. “He’s dying!”

  She didn’t mean to snap at her brother, but she was angry with him for leaving her to care for their father on her own. She certainly had a right to be upset, she thought. After all, it was she who visited him at the nursing home every evening. It was she who helped to feed him and clean up after him. And it was she who was with him now, when all she could do was to watch him die. It was an excruciating thing to witness, and although she knew that Edward shared her pain, she found herself both resenting and envying her brother for his distance from the unpleasantness of watching their father wither away.

  James lowered himself onto the sofa. He tried to imagine his father wasting away in a hospital bed, waiting to die, but the image eluded him. His father had always been such an imposing and vigorous man, it was impossible to think of him as he now was— a frail skeleton of a man with vacant eyes, dependent upon strangers for absolutely everything.

  “Are you with him?” James asked.

  “I’ve been here all afternoon,” Kate said. She paused for a moment, clearly wrestling with the same painful image that James was. “I don’t think he has much time, Edward.”

  This time, he didn’t even notice that she’d called him Edward. The word seemed to have no meaning to him now. “Is he conscious?” James asked. “Do you think he knows what’s happening?”

  “They’re giving him morphine,” Kate said solemnly. “So he’s drifting in and out.” James could hear her sobbing into the phone. “Mostly he’s just sleeping.”

  “Which hospital is he in?” James asked.

  “Miriam,” Kate replied.

  “Okay,” James said. “I’m on my way.”

  He was on his feet again, about to hang up the phone and gather up a change of clothes when Kate shouted into the phone.

  “You can’t come down here!” Kate said. “Someone will see you.”

  James ignored her warning. “I should be there by dawn.”

  “I don’t know if he’s going to get through the night,” Kate told him.

  “Tell him I love him,” James said. “I’m leaving right now.” He hung up the phone before she could protest again.

  He took a quick shower and then called Peter to give him the news and to tell him that he wouldn’t be at work the following morning. He quickly gathered up a change of clothes, tossing them into a small duffel bag, and then hurried down the stairs with Max eagerly following close behind. He tossed the bag onto the passenger seat of the Jeep, and then he walked over and knocked lightly on Ruth’s door. She was cheerful as always when she answered and Max wagged his tail at the sight of her.

  “Sorry to bother you, Ruth,” James said. “I just got a call from Kate and my father’s in the hospital, so I need to go down there. I was wondering if Max could stay with you until I get back.”

  “Of course, dear,” Ruth assured him. Her face was full of motherly concern. “Will your father be okay?”

  James drew a deep breath. “Not this time,” he said, his voice breaking.

  Ruth stepped forward and wrapped him in a motherly embrace that was so comforting that James found it hard to draw away. When he did, he instinctively kissed her on the cheek and thanked her, and then hurried to the Jeep and drove away.

  The drive from Southwest Harbor to Providence would normally take a little less than seven hours if he were to drive straight through, but James was tired after a long day of work, and he knew he’d have to pull over at some point to get some sleep. He stopped for coffee in Ellsworth and proceeded up Route 1A to Bangor, bypassing the scenic drive down Coastal Route One in favor of the faster trip down the interstate that he hoped would save him valuable time. By the time he reached Portland, he was fighting sleep. It had been a long, exhausting day and he’d been running on adrenaline and caffeine since he spoke to Kate, but watching the endless stream of white lines flowing past his headlight beams as he made his way south along the Maine Turnpike was like a sedative. Still, he pressed on, blasting the radio to help him remain alert.

  His thoughts constantly drifted to memories of his father and the time they shared as he was growing up. He vividly remembered a game of catch in the backyard that ended when the ball sailed through the kitchen window, and how his father patiently draped his arm across his shoulders and walked calmly inside with him as if cleaning up the shattered glass was just one more thing for them to do together.

  He remembered the day after he totaled his car when he was seventeen. He’d been driving with Madeleine Weeks when he went off the road and struck a tree. Both he and Madeleine had suffered only bruises and minor cuts, but the next day Edward was anxious about getting behind the wheel again. His father tossed him the keys to his Oldsmobile and insisted Edward drive him to the Weeks’ home across town to check on Madeleine and apologize again to her parents for his recklessness. It had been a lesson in taking responsibility and facing his fears that would stay with him all his life.

  Most of all, he remembered the days and nights spent working on the boat, and the thrill of putting it in the water for the first time each year. They always stood side-by-side at the wheel, shirtless and tanned, the wind whipping through their hair as they skimmed across Lake Winnipesaukee as if they were flying.

  Then his mind wandered to that last afternoon they shared aboard the boat after his father’s first stroke, and that moment after they returned to shore when his father took his hand and pressed it against the glistening hull one last time. Some of his father’s lessons were more subtle than others, and some of them were unspoken moments when his meaning was made clear in a simple glance or in the touch of a hand to wet mahogany.

  By the time he reached Kennebunk, it was raining heavily, and the steady rhythm of the wipers slapping against the windshield only added to the hypnotic effect of the long drive. He pulled off the highway at the rest area and parked the Jeep. Turning off the engine, he closed his tired eyes, just for a moment.

  It was a surprisingly peaceful sleep, and he dreamed of a time when his family was happily intact. They were riding in the old white Pontiac station wagon they owned when Edward and Kate were children. It was their mother’s car, but in his dream their father was driving. Their mother was sitting in the passenger seat, her arm draped around Kate who was sitting in the middle of the front seat between her parents quietly reading a children’s book, as she so often did when they were small. Edward shared the back seat with Caesar, their aging German Shepherd, who in his final years had a vulgar habit of farting prolifically on long car trips. But in Edward’s dream, they were all joyful and filled with the anticipation that always accompanied those annual treks to the lake for their week-long summer vacations. His mother was still with them, his father was alert and healthy, and the breeze that blew in through the open windows was refreshing and warm and blissfully free of Caesar’s vile funk.

  At the hospital, Kate and Kenny sat at Bud Moody’s bedside listening to him breathe. Whenever his breathing became strained, Kenny retrieved the nurse who pushed another dose of morphine into Bud’s IV.

  Through all of it, Kate spoke quietly to her father to remind him she was still there at his side. The doctors had told her that, although he might not respond, he was most likely able to hear her voice, so she tried to be upbeat whenever she spoke to him despite an overwhelming urge to bury her face in the sheets and cry. She held her father’s ha
nd, gently stroking his fingers, just in case the doctors were wrong and that touch was their only link, the only way to assure him he wasn’t alone.

  At three o’clock in the morning, Kenny tried to persuade Kate to take a nap in the vacant bed near the window, but she refused, worried that her father might wake up, just for a moment, to find that she was no longer there.

  “You go ahead,” she told Kenny. “I’m not going to, but there’s no need for both of us to stay awake.”

  Shortly after Kenny fell asleep, the nurse stepped into the room to listen to Bud Moody’s shallow breathing and to turn him slightly on the mattress. Her name was Eleanor, and she’d been there almost since Kate arrived. She touched Kate on the shoulder.

  “Can I get you anything?” she whispered.

  Kate looked sadly up at the nurse, her eyes vacant from worry and lack of sleep, and she shook her head.

  Eleanor glanced at Kenny who was, by now, sleeping soundly in the adjacent bed. “You should get some sleep, too,” she told Kate.

  Kate returned her attention to her father and tried to blink the sleep from her eyes. “I’m okay,” she assured the nurse.

  On her way out of the room, Eleanor draped a blanket over Kate’s shoulders. “If you need anything at all, just let me know,” she said. She patted Kate on the shoulder and left her to return to her vigil.

  Sitting there in the dimly-lit room, she thought about Edward, driving through the night to be at their father’s side. She considered the risk he was taking, returning home where anyone might recognize him. She still had no idea how he’d be able to visit with their father without Kenny seeing him. She looked up at the clock, wondering if Edward was going to come walking through the door at any moment.

  It was precisely at that moment that James awoke in the rest area parking lot. He was startled at first, confused by his strange surroundings, and he sat for a moment listening to the rumble and hum of the cars and trucks passing on the interstate and the steady thrumming of the rain on the roof of the Jeep. He suddenly remembered the urgency of his journey, and he peered at his watch to determine how long he’d slept. It was just after four o’clock in the morning; he’d slept for more than an hour.