“Anyway, I come around a corner, it’s not even that far from here in fact, I’m almost home for God’s sake, I come around a corner and wham! Some stupid chick’s running along the side of the road, she’s right there in the road, I had nowhere to go and I hit her! Sure, I was a little drunk and maybe driving too close to the shoulder—okay, technically I was on the shoulder—but good Christ I never saw her!
“So I stop the car to see if she’s okay, but of course she’s not okay, none of what’s left of her is okay. She’s dead, in fact, but here’s the unbelievable part, the part I have never been able to understand: no one is around! Not one single, solitary witness! So do what anyone would do; I jump back in my car and finish the drive home, suddenly stone-cold sober. There was nothing I could do for that chick anyway, right?
“I’ll tell you this, though, and it’s amazing how it happens—you want to sober up fast, run someone over in your car. Works every time.”
The stranger paused for a moment to take a drink of his beer and the man who used to be Jim Robertson watched him steadily. Jim finally glanced down at the scarred wooden table before taking a sip of his own beer, now almost empty. He waited for the stranger to continue.
“I know what you’re thinking, I can see it in your eyes,” the stranger said defensively. “I left her there; how could I just leave her there? But here’s the thing, friend. She was dead, there was nothing I could do for her, not a goddamned thing. I still had a family to support. What would be the point of my life getting ruined too, you know?
“I found out later this stupid chick was kind of a local hero, she was some Olympic gymnast or something. Won a medal, silver, I think it was, but it’s been so long I can’t exactly remember for sure.
“I’ve never told anyone that story, not even my wife, not even when she saw the damage to the car and asked what the hell had happened. She still thinks I hit a deer. But you wanted to know the worst thing I ever did, so there you go.” The stranger sat back, seemingly winded, or maybe just amazed he had actually told someone his story after twenty years. He took a long swallow and drained his mug, leaving a thin trace of foam running down the inside of the glass and pooling on the bottom.
The man who used to be Jim Robertson had listened without interrupting once. Now he shook his head in mute agreement that that had been one stupid chick. He bought the stranger another beer before abruptly leaving, apologizing but saying he was late for an urgent appointment. He realized how ridiculous that sounded but didn’t care.
Jim hurriedly walked the six blocks to where he kept his car stored in a long-term parking garage. It was a 1984 Lincoln Town Car, a huge, gas-guzzling land-yacht, and it was the only thing he still had left from his former life. He turned the key and the big engine rumbled to life as he had known it would. He drove slowly and carefully out of the garage and to his destination. It would not do to get pulled over for DUI now, of all times. This truly was an urgent appointment.
When the man who used to be Jim Robertson reached his destination, he pulled neatly to the curb and waited. He hoped against hope he was not too late. The car sat idling patiently, its finish marred by the decades it had spent mostly sitting in storage. The once-gleaming black paint job now looked gray and pitted, but the engine ran like a Swiss watch, and that was all the man cared about.
A few minutes later, the door to the Lucky Leprechaun opened and into the dwindling late-afternoon sunshine walked the stranger. Fast-food wrappers and other trash on the sidewalk swirled around the stranger’s feet as the late-fall winds whipped and gusted. The stranger pulled his collar up against the cold.
The man who used to be Jim Robertson slammed the accelerator to the floor and the big car shot across the street to the sound of squealing tires and screaming witnesses.
The stranger never had a chance. Jim Robertson’s big Lincoln hit him doing forty and drove him into the brick front wall of the Lucky Leprechaun like a nail gun shooting a spike through a sheet of cardboard. Thick black smoke poured from the car’s engine. The stranger disappeared, crushed to death somewhere amidst the wreckage of smashed brick wall, twisted automotive sheet metal, billowing smoke and gushing radiator fluid.
The police arrived just five minutes later, and when they did they found the man who used to be Jim Robertson, still sitting in the driver’s seat of the Lincoln, listening to music and waiting patiently for them. Frank Sinatra serenaded him from the car’s tape deck, and in his hands he held Jenny’s 1984 Olympic Silver medal. He turned it over and over in his hands as he hummed along with Frank.
The Road to Olathe
Another online magazine no longer with us is Crime and Suspense. I especially miss this webzine because its editor, Tony Burton, offered me my very first short story acceptance, for the July, 2007 issue. There was no pay involved, but that didn’t lessen the excitement I felt at seeing my creation take its place among those of some other very talented crime fiction writers. “The Road to Olathe” tells of a fictional encounter in depression-era Kansas between a family on the verge of losing their farm and a stranger passing through, who isn’t exactly what—or who—he appears to be. This story went on to be featured in a C&S anthology of ten of Burton’s favorite stories culled from the magazine’s 2007 issues titled TEN FOR TEN, released in July, 2008.
This here’s a story I’ve never told anyone, mostly on account of I didn’t really think anybody’d believe it. Hell, I was married to my beautiful Mae, My Little Mae-Flower, for fifty-seven years, and I never even told her this. Why? Because I knew just how unlikely it would sound.
The thing is, though, I’ve been on this here earth for eighty-seven years now and I’ve discovered that the older you get, the less attention people pay to anything you say anyway. So maybe I chose now to tell my story simply because I’m longing for a little attention, but whatever the reason, I swear on my Mae-Flower’s grave that every word is true and accurate.
Memory is a strange thing. You don’t have to take my word for it, just wait until you get to be my age and see if you don’t agree. Look at my situation— sometimes I forget what I ate for breakfast before I even get to lunch. That in itself ain’t so bad, though. At least I never get tired of the meals they serve day after day in this place. Everybody else complains to high heaven about the food here, they say it’s boring and bland, but me? Nosirree, every breakfast, lunch and dinner is a new and delightful treat as far as I’m concerned.
That said, I have a perfect recollection of the incident I’m going to relate (I know, I should stop telling you I’m going to tell you and just get on with it. All things in good time, though. I’m just glad to have a little company). Even though this thing I’m going to tell you about happened close to three-quarters of a century ago, it may as well have been yesterday, it’s that clear in my mind.
You see, I grew up in a little farming community in Kansas during the Great Depression, and let me tell you, if there’s a bigger misnomer than calling it the “Great” Depression, I can’t imagine what it might be. The Horrible Depression, sure, I could live with that, or maybe the Dirt-Poor Hardscrabble Try To Stay Alive Depression, that would cover it too, but Great Depression? No sir, not the way I remember it.
Kansas in the 1930’s was right smack in the middle of what they called the Dust Bowl, on account of the heat and lack of rain making it darn near impossible to grow a crop of anythin’ but dust. You prob’ly recall learning about the Dust Bowl in school, but if you grew up in it, like I did, I guarantee you never forgot what it was like to try and take a deep breath of fresh air and get nothin’ but hot, dry wind and dirt about choking you to death.
Anyway, that was the situation in the spring of 1934. I was fourteen years old, young and strong, working next to my daddy every day in the fields, trying to grow enough wheat so’s we could make some money and maybe have something to eat besides potatoes for dinner once in a while. Farms in them days weren’t like they are now, where everythin’s computerized and all the equipment looks like
the space shuttle or somethin’, all shiny and fancy-looking.
Back in them days, the whole family worked in the fields, even little Dorothy, my younger sister, who in 1934 would have been just seven years old. Didn’t matter, she was out there pullin’ weeds while daddy and I were plowing the fields, planting wheat, or watering the crops whenever we were able.
Seemed like every day was the same in the spring and summer of 1934. We would watch the sun rise from the barn or the fields, work all day in the brutal heat, and then watch the sun set again before calling it a day. None of that bothered us, though, that’s just the way it was—if you expected to eat, you expected to have to work.
Now here’s where it starts to get interestin’. One day in, oh, I guess it was prob’ly the middle of May or so, a fine Ford automobile come motoring along the road toward Olathe. Well, we didn’t get much traffic along the narrow, rutted dirt track that ran beside our farmhouse, unless you counted the horses and pickup trucks that would pass by once or twice a day carrying supplies to the general store, so naturally we all stopped what we was doing to watch it go by.
Next thing we know, danged if it didn’t turn right into the dooryard and pull up in front of the house! No one we knew even owned an automobile, exceptin’ for one of my daddy’s distant cousins, who lived outside Chicago and made his money deliverin’ moonshine whiskey to speakeasies—clubs that didn’t even officially exist, if you catch my meanin’.
Naturally, by this time we was all mighty curious, so the whole entire family started toward the house to see what the visitor wanted. We weren’t worried about being robbed or anything, hell, we had nothin’ any self-respectin’ thief would want anyway.
Out of the Ford jumped a young man, travelin’ alone, kind of a handsome fella in a rugged-looking way. He was around thirty years of age, give or take a year or two either way, with dark, wavy hair and a ropy, sorta muscular look about him. He started across the field to meet us and promptly stepped in a rut and down he went like a sack of potatoes. That little scene struck me as funny, bein’ fourteen and all, but I could see my daddy was a little worried for the stranger. Here our visitor had hurt himself and we hadn’t even met him yet!
Well, I was the youngest, except for Dorothy of course and I could outrun her with one foot tied behind my back, so I dashed up to the stranger before the rest of my family was even close. I was breathin’ kinda heavy and the fella says, “Whoa there, son, don’t never run like that less there’s somebody chasin’ ya. There ain’t nobody chasin’ ya, is there?”
I remember I broke out into a wide grin and said, “No sir, nobody’s chasin’ me.”
“Then slow down and help me up,” he answered, giving me an arm to pull him up with.
By this time my daddy’d joined us, and helped steady the man as he wobbled, gingerly putting just a little weight on his right foot and then immediately lifting it again, wincing in pain.
“I hope that ankle ain’t broke,” Daddy volunteered. “My wife does some nursin’, she’ll have a look at it and hopefully fix you right up. Let’s get him inside,” he told me, and we stood on either side of the young man, supporting his weight as we walked him into the house.
Once we got our visitor comfortable in the kitchen, injured leg propped on the table, Mama rolled up his pant leg and started poking and prodding the limb, which was already swelling and turning interesting shades of purple. The stranger seemed oblivious to the pain it must have been causing. He chuckled and told us, “All I wanted to do was make sure I was on the road to Olathe, and here I’ve gone and disrupted your whole family’s routine.”
At that I snickered. “Mister, it’s prob’ly 120 degrees in that wheat field. You didn’t disrupt a thing as far as I’m concerned.”
My daddy pushed his straw hat back on his head. “Nah,” he said. “It won’t be 120 for at least another couple of hours. We’ll be back out there long before then.”
The visitor laughed at my expression and my daddy asked him, “What brings you to Olathe, mister…”
“JD,” he said. “My friends call me JD, and I must say I count you fine folks as friends already. The hospitality you’re showing me is something I won’t soon forget.”
“JD it is, then,” answered Daddy. “My name is Hiram, and this here nurse is my wife Lucy. You’ve met Stephen and Dorothy already,” he finished, indicating me and my sister.
The stranger nodded to us all. “To answer your question Hiram, I’m due in Olathe next week on business and I decided to drive up a little early and get the lay of the land, so to speak. You know, enjoy a little fresh air.”
“What sort of work do you do, JD?”
“I deal in paper goods.”
By this time Mama had finished her inspection of JD’s injured ankle, telling him it appeared to be no worse than a mild sprain, and that he should stay off it for a day or two and then he’d be right as rain.
Daddy spoke up immediately, telling him, “We’d love to have you stay with us until you’re feeling well enough to drive, JD. We’ve got a spare bedroom you’re welcome to use. I’m afraid we can’t offer much in the way of entertainment, but there’s plenty of food and Lucy’s cooking is the finest in the county.”
Mama beamed and JD answered, “I’m much obliged, Hiram. That would be wonderful, as long as it’s not too much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” answered my daddy. “It’s the least we can do.” He helped our guest to his room while Dorothy and I started back out to the fields, the excitement over for now.
That evening we received our second visitor of the day. The First National Bank in Olathe held the mortgage on our farm and the bank’s president, Elmer Dressler, had scheduled a meeting with Mama and Daddy for eight o’clock. I know that sounds strange in this day and age, a bank president coming to someone’s home for a meeting, but that’s how it was done back in those days, especially with farmers. People workin’ a farm couldn’t be expected to give up half a day just to travel into town for a meetin’, so it was common for the meetin’ to come to them.
JD was resting in his room, no doubt recovering from overstuffing himself on Mama’s turkey dinner, when Mr. Dressler knocked on the front door promptly at eight o’clock. Dorothy and I were shooed out of the sitting room when Mama ushered the bank president in, but that farmhouse was old and drafty and I could hear every word.
At the age of fourteen I wasn’t too interested in the boring affairs of adults, particularly my folks, but something in the strained tone of voice Daddy was using when he greeted Mr. Dressler got my attention and held it.
After the small talk that was considered a necessity back in those days was dispensed with, Mr. Dressler got right to the point. “Hiram, I’ve known you folks forever it seems like, and it hurts to have to tell you this, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to foreclose on the farm. I went to bat for you with the board, but there is simply no way you will be able to make enough money this year from the wheat to meet your four thousand dollar obligation.”
Now, I was just a simple country kid. I quit school after the fifth grade to work on the farm, but that don’t make me stupid. Maybe I didn’t understand all the big words, like “foreclose” and “obligation,” but I knew bad news when I heard it. My daddy knew it, too. He responded by asking for a little more time, and Mr. Dressler told him the board’s decision was final, that Mama and Daddy had had all the time they were going to get.
After that, voices got raised and feelins got hurt. Mr. Dressler ended up storming out of the house with his tie askew, a sheaf of papers sticking haphazardly out of his fine leather briefcase, which he had obviously slammed shut in a hurry. Mama and Daddy huddled in the sitting room for the rest of the evening, sending Dorothy and me to bed and talking in low tones.
The next morning at breakfast, Daddy was still pale and Mama had been crying, you could tell. Everythin’ else was the same as ever, though. We ate breakfast way before sunrise and we still had chores to attend to. Nei
ther Mama nor Daddy volunteered any information to us kids on what had happened during the meeting with Mr. Dressler, but I had a pretty good idea anyway. Like I said, I’m a simple guy, not a stupid one.
JD came down the stairs while we was eating and joined us. “Hiram,” he said, “as you know the walls are pretty thin in a lot of these old farmhouses.”
My daddy held up a hand, stopping JD. “Please accept my apology for interrupting your rest last night. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand with Mr. Dressler like they did.”
“No, no,” JD exclaimed. “That’s not my meanin’. I’ve done farming in my life when I was a youngster, not much older than your handsome son is right now, in fact. Potatoes, it was, in my case, not wheat, but farmin’ is farmin’. I wanted to tell you that I understand your plight and I don’t think you should concern yourselves too much with what that banker fella said last night.”
A rueful smile crossed Daddy’s face and he said, “This ain’t the first time we’ve had to ask Mr. Dressler for an extension, but I’m afraid the bank has run out of patience this time.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” answered JD. “I’m just tryin’ to say that you shouldn’t be too worried about it. I have a feelin’ things are going to change for your family very soon.” He winked at Mama and grinned at Daddy, while they glanced at each other in confusion.
JD just nodded, almost as if to himself, and kept talking. “Yeah,” he said, “it’ll take them bankers a few weeks to get their paperwork together and all. By then, I’m sure everything will be all straightened out for you folks.” He spoke in an offhand manner, like we was discussin’ the weather forecast, not the fact that we were about to be evicted from the farm our family had worked for generations.
Daddy looked dubious but was too polite to call JD on his outlandish statement. I knew what Daddy was thinkin’ and he was right. Nothing was going to change over the next couple of weeks. Even if we could harvest the wheat and sell it, which we couldn’t, it was way too early in the season for that, we still wouldn’t be able to raise the four thousand dollars that Mr. Dressler had told my daddy and mama we owed the bank.
Postcards from the Apocalypse Page 3