Black Valley

by Jim Brown

  Odd? You bet, and I’m damn proud of it, Nathan thought.

  From his perch on the third floor of City Hall he could see most of downtown. The stores, made of wood or brick, were mostly one or two stories; several were boarded up. Traffic was steady but not brisk. The sidewalks were remarkably clean, gutters freshly swept, leaves collected. A pair of old oaks stood vigil on the courthouse lawn, swaying back and forth in a growing breeze like a pair of aging beauty queens waving to the masses.

  The traffic parted as a screaming fire truck raced down Main Street.

  Fire truck?

  His secretary was at the door before he could buzz her.

  “It’s just a field fire out on Douglas Road,” she said, anticipating his question. “Nothing to worry about. Sheriff Evans is at the scene. He says it will be easy to contain, but he might be late for the meeting with you, Dr. Truman, and Congressman Watkins at the Triple-D.”

  He thanked her and sat back down in his chair. His earlier euphoria gone. His thoughts hijacked.

  Two settlements. The first destroyed by fire. The second by stones.

  Fire and stones.

  The brick was seven inches long, three inches wide, charred but otherwise totally and mundanely normal– that is, if you disregarded the fact that it had just traveled through a window, through a wall, and partially through a second wall.

  Dean Truman reviewed the facts as he pedaled his ten-speed fourteen blocks from the school to downtown Black Valley. The thin, tight bicycle tires sang on the cool asphalt. The bike was Dean’s principal form of transportation and would continue to be so until winter ice and snow made two-wheeled travel unadvisable.

  Seven inches long, three inches wide, charred?

  The bicycle was a statement about the environment, or so he told everyone. “Saving the earth with every pump of the pedal.” The truth was more selfish; it was his chance to think, to daydream, to wonder.

  A window, a wall, a second wall?

  The school had called the Sheriff’s Department to report the vandalism. But a small fire in the county had tied up officers.

  Seven inches long.

  After examining the brick and finding it devoid of uniqueness Dean had turned his attention to the damage.

  “What do you hope to find by looking at a hole in the wall?” Piper had challenged. She was putting on a brave front, but she hugged herself while she talked and complained about a chill only she could detect.

  One of her special feelings? Dean wondered.

  He measured the distance from the shattered window to the floor, the distance from the hole in the wall to the floor, then the distance from where the brick stopped to the floor. “By calculating the angle of descent, while compensating for the friction of the glass, wood, and Sheetrock, then figuring in the size and weight of the object, I should be able to estimate a relative velocity. Then, by extrapolation, a point of origin.”

  “In other words, find out where he came from,” Piper said, succinctly cutting to the heart of the matter.

  “Exactly,” he confessed.

  “So who can throw a brick that fast?” Her brown eyes had a faraway look, the pupils constricted to pinpoints as she answered herself. “Obviously no one. So the question is what can throw a brick that hard?”

  “What”?

  Perhaps it was because he knew Piper’s predilection for such things, but the way she said that one word made him uncomfortable. It made him think of fictional monsters that crawl under a child’s bed and into an adult’s psyche, making that one word far more sinister than any four letters had a right to be.

  “What?”

  As he pedaled the bike onto Main Street, he ordered his mind to evaluate the question from the proper perspective, the scientific perspective.

  All things can be explained by science. All things.

  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. All things. Even “what.”

  Could the brick have been hurled from an explosion? That would explain the charring, but no one had heard a blast, and a preliminary investigation of the campus turned up nothing to suggest there had been one.

  But what? A machine? Perhaps one of those tennis cannons that fired yellow balls at weekend athletes? No. He doubted such a thing could provide the necessary lift to propel a brick, much less at such a high speed.

  Then what?

  How about a baseball pitching machine? Certainly it would have more oomph, but the question of mass still troubled him. The brick was heavy. Too heavy. Perhaps if the machine was modified?

  He chewed on this idea and decided it had the best flavor so far. A baseball pitching machine, or something like it, perhaps something used in construction that he wasn’t aware of, or even something created just for that purpose.

  Still . . .

  An unwanted thought lingered in his mind like a bitter aftertaste. He had been looking out the window when the brick burst into the room. And the brick seemed to have come from nowhere. The question repeated, this time in Piper’s voice.

  “What?”

  Dean parked his ten-speed in the bike rack, stretched, and took a deep breath. He could detect the faint scent of wet pine mingled with the contradicting odor of smoke. On the horizon, what had been a thin line of clouds was growing, thickening; deep bruise-colored cumuli squirmed and rolled like a nest of angry, writhing snakes. A breeze, light but edged in ice, slid into town like an advance scout for a weather-borne army that was amassing and waiting just beyond the hill.

  “What?”

  Mavis Connetti rang up the customer, thanked him for stopping in, then closed the till. It was late, too late for lunch, too early for dinner, but the Triple-D was more than half-full. Laughter rose in puffs, like dust being beaten from an ancient rug, while the moderate clatter of silverware on ceramic plates provided a continuous, almost restful background noise. The air was thick with the smell of cooked meat: burgers, steaks, and ham and the overlaying scent of baking bread.

  The tarnished bell over the front door tingled. Mavis looked up and smiled.

  Dean.

  Tall and excessively lean, Dr. Dean Truman moved with a graceless yet effective long-legged stride. His eyes were squinted, his thoughts elsewhere. His hair was mussed from riding his bike, without a helmet, she noted. He tried to smooth his hair with the palm of his hand as he took his usual table by the large front window. He sat down; his cowlick popped up.

  A waitress pulled her pad from her apron and took a step toward Dean’s table. Mavis waved her off. The waitress grinned.

  Officially the restaurant was named the Downtown Daily Diner, but everyone in town knew it as The Triple-D, a name that had more to do with Mavis’ spectacular breasts than any alliteration. She didn’t mind. She had long since come to terms with her own anatomy, choosing not to take offense at the proffered sexual innuendo, but deal with it instead with good humor and leniency. And she had become quite efficient at giving as good as she got, frequently skewering anyone who was naive enough to think her bra size and I.Q. were in inverse proportion.

  She picked up her own pad and headed for Dean’s booth.

  She had returned to Black Valley twelve years ago, giving up a prominent career with a brokerage firm in New York City after her father suffered a debilitating stroke. Taking over the family business was a temporary fix. When her father died, it became permanent. She had, somehow, managed to stay in business despite the dwindling economy. But now, like everyone else, she was at the end of her fiscal rope. She could keep the diner open another month, maybe two, but no longer. Unless Dean Truman said yes to NxTech.

  It bothered her that both her professional and personal life centered on Dr. Dean T. Truman.

  She licked her lips and squared her shoulders, unconsciously touching her hair and straightening her blouse. She felt nervous and uncomfortable, like a school girl at th
e spring mixer.

  Mavis and Dean had dated off and on for more than three years. Everyone thought of them as a couple; everyone thought they would marry. But the relationship had become stagnant, threatening to collapse from its own weight. Eight weeks ago she had laid down the law. “Either we take our relationship to the next level or it’s over.”

  He had been surprised and distraught. But not enough to propose.

  Since their breakup Mavis had had plenty of time to reevaluate, to study how the relationship went wrong. Her conclusions were disturbing. It wasn’t just the lack of a proposal; it was a lack of depth. Despite three years of dating, their relationship remained shallow. A fact underscored in fluorescent yellow by his refusal to let her even enter his house.

  His house?

  What was it about that hovel? What was he hiding?

  “If you’re afraid I’ll be bothered by the mess, don’t be. I know how bachelors live,” she had reassured him.

  “It’s not that, it’s just . . .” but he never finished the sentence, never offered an explanation. And never let her inside.

  The sad truth was, in some ways, he was still in love with his first wife -- still pining for Judy. Was that why he wouldn’t let her inside his home? Their home? Maybe, but Judy had been dead for twenty-one years. What sort of secret could you keep that long?

  Dean had just sat down when the bell over the door announced the arrival of Mayor Nathan Perkins. Time had been good to him, adding a little weight to his frame, while brush strokes of gray gave him a more dignified look. His glasses were still as thick as a beer bottle, and at times his magnified eyes made him look like a character from a Disney cartoon.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” Nathan said, sliding into the booth.

  “Just got here myself. But John may not make it.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Fire out on Douglas Road.”

  Mavis Connetti brought over two glasses of water and smiled. “Evening, Dean, Mayor. What will it be? Full deal, or sit and sip.” She was a tall woman – statuesque was the word that came to Dean’s mind – with long raven hair and a round, friendly face. She also had, to quote Clyde Watkins, the “nicest rack in western Oregon, if not the whole state.”

  “Just coffee for me,” Dean said.

  “I haven’t had lunch. Give me the Number Four; no mustard and extra fries,” Nathan ordered. Then, grinning like a seventh grader with a secret, he added, “So why is it that when I, your beloved mayor and humble civil servant, come in by myself, I never get waited on by the owner?”

  “What can I say?” Mavis said, sticking her pencil behind her ear. “I’ve just got a thing for guys with really big . . . ” She stopped.

  Dean felt a pause in the air.

  “. . . brains,” she finished. Then, wearing a mischievous grin, she leaned down and kissed Dean gently on the cheek. Her breast caressed his arm. She knew it, as well as the effect it was having on him. A small smile of victory brushed her face as the professor’s cheeks burned red.

  Both men watched her go, appreciating the view. “She’s a looker, Dean. Something special. You two still dating?”

  Dean shrugged. “Sort of.”

  Nathan shook his head, then pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, as much from habit as from need. “Sort of ? A woman like that you don’t just leave waiting. Somebody is bound to snap her up.”

  “It’s too soon,” Dean said. He traced circles with his finger on the linoleum-topped table.

  “Too soon? It’s been, what? Twenty-one years? Longer maybe?” Nathan reached out and put his hand on Dean’s. “Look, as your friend I’m telling you, it’s time to move on.”

  Someone laughed. They both looked across the room where four men sat in a corner booth. All but one were cackling. Dean smiled. It was a safe guess that the fourth man had made a lewd remark and Mavis Connetti had deftly and effectively cut him off at the knees.

  Nathan was right, she was something special. But . . .

  “Sure your work is important, but so is living. Judy knew that. And when she was with you, you knew that, too.”

  Twenty-one years? Had it really been that long? It seemed like only yesterday that Judy had suffered her first heart attack. Then three weeks later his wife, his friend, his soul mate, was gone. Reduced to a memory. A bioelectric spark; existing only in the electro-chemical exchange between synapses in his brain.

  After her death Dean had spent three months locked in the cold, whitewashed clapboard house that had been their home. When friends tried to visit, he shooed them away. Only John Evans and Nathan Perkins had been allowed through the sacred doorway and even they were carefully restricted to the small, cluttered den.

  “Jesus, Dean, you act like you’re hiding something,” John had remarked. It was their last visit. After that no one was allowed in - no one.

  Dean occupied himself with tears and self-pity and, finally, with the search for a family heirloom, a locket – a gift to Judy on her thirteenth birthday from her grandmother. She was never without it. Silver and heart-shaped, the locket was embossed with delicate roses on the front and back. It opened with a simple spring lock. After they were married, Judy had placed a photograph of Dean on one side and herself on the other.

  If he could just rub his fingers across the surface of that locket . . . Somehow he felt that modest gesture would bring atonement, closure. But the locket was nowhere to be found. Like Judy, it seemed to have vanished from the world.

  Westcroft College was a simple school with a small faculty and nominal enrollment. But Dean had come to love it. When he returned to school, he threw himself into his work. And, as a result later, won the Nobel Prize in physics.

  But in truth he would have rather had the locket.

  Three years ago earlier Mavis Connetti had asked him out. Despite himself, he had enjoyed her companionship. She was very different from Judy, and that dissimilarity helped.

  They had necked in the car like a couple of high school kids, but when she had proposed spending the night with him, he faltered. He could tell she was hurt and embarrassed. He yearned to reassure her, to tell her it wasn’t her fault.

  “Why won’t you invite me in?” she had finally asked.

  Because I can’t. He longed to say. The same reason I can’t let anyone in.

  Since then their relationship had cooled. The flirting continued, but so far Dean was stuck in neutral.

  “How’s Ava?” Dean asked, hoping to change their conversation and his thoughts. Mention of Nathan’s young bride brought a smile to his lips. “Great, absolutely great.” He pulled a napkin from a chrome dispenser and wiped away a smudge on the Formica.

  “If someone had told me twenty years ago that someday I’d have a woman like Ava, I wouldn’t have believed them. I mean, jeez, a guy like me married to a girl like that?” Nathan shook his head. “I tell you, I must be the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.”

  Nathan and Ava had been married less than a year, their union still a mystery to many, but Dean understood it. In appearance they were opposites. She was flashy, young, a bit gaudy but attractive, drawn to bright colors and grandiose ideas; he was conservative, detail-oriented, and no-nonsense. Yet Dean could honestly say he had never seen a happier couple.

  “Jenkins Jones and Meredith Gamble came to see me about Ava’s painting in the city council room.” Nathan said.

  Ava was a aspiring painter whose work looked more like an artist’s drop cloth than art. Recently she had taken to “sprucing up city hall” by donating several of her brighter, more eye-numbing pieces.

  “And?”

  “Meredith said the colors clashed with the decor. Jenkins was a little more to the point. He described it as, quote ‘butt-ugly – in fact, perhaps the most butt-ugly painting ever produced in the entire butt-ugly world.’.”

  Both men laughed.

  �
��So, what are you going to do?” Dean asked.

  Nathan shrugged and pushed up his glasses. “What can I do? Jenkins Jones is chairman of the city council, Meredith Gamble, his second, but Ava’s my wife.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m siding with the one who keeps me warm at night.”

  “Jenkins.”

  Nathan made a face, but his smile never diminished. “I took the painting down and hid it in my office. Ava almost never goes into the city council chamber, and when I know she’s going to, I’ll just slip in first and hang it up.”

  Dean laughed so hard he choked.

  “It’s worth it, let me tell you. Which is why I say you should not let a woman like Mavis get away.”

  Dean shifted uneasily in his seat just as the bell over the door rang. “Look who finally showed up,” he said.

  Congressman Clyde Watkins entered the Triple-D. Greeted by a flutter of handshakes and backslapping, he slowly made his way toward Dean and Nathan.

  “Hey, hey, guys.” He held his hand up, fingers spread. “Flash Five, stay alive . . .”

  “Flash Four, group no more,” Nathan replied. “You need new material.”

  “Sorry I’m late, got waylaid glad-handing in Eugene. God, those people love to debate. There were protestors outside the assembly hall decrying the destruction of the old-growth forest, using signs made out of” – he paused for effect – “paper. Hello, can anyone say hypocrisy?”

  Dean chuckled.

  Nathan shook his head. “I thought you were for the environment.”

  Clyde took a seat, then took a sip of Nathan’s coffee. “I am, as long as it doesn’t piss off the timber barons.”

  “Now, that’s hypocritical,” Nathan proclaimed. “And ew, gross, you’ve ruined my coffee.”

  “Come on, Nathan, you’re a politician. You know how it works. Money makes the wheels go round. No money, no campaign; no campaign, no reelection, no reelection no way to help anybody. Politics. And what do you mean, ‘gross?’ My germs aren’t good enough for you?”