by Gregory Hill
Kitch is pictured in black and white in a defensive stance, one hand up, one hand down. Not the most dynamic of photos, but those were the times. He’s wearing his Kentucky Colonels uniform with number thirty-one on his chest. Since it was his rookie card, and since Kitch had yet to accumulate any stats as a professional basketball player, the back of the card indicates only that he averaged 16.2 points and 9.6 rebounds in his single season with the Southern Colorado State College Warblers. And this dandy of a paragraph:
With only a year of junior college ball under his belt, the dynamic “Cowboy” Kitch Riles has made the leap into ABA where he’s sure to turn heads. Hometown: Dorsey, Colorado. Quote: “I’m in it to win it!”
I knew there was something about Dorsey. Shit. I’m ten miles from the boyhood home of the most underreported sports enigma of the modern era. And I’m less than twenty feet from a woman who I presume was sweet on Kitch. I bet they went to prom together. I bet Charlene has a box full of Kitch Riles memorabilia under her bed. Maybe she even knows how he died.
I chewed a celery stick, leaning against the counter opposite Charlene, wondering what manner of tales she could tell about young Kitch. After I finished my snack, I returned the Kitch card to the billfold and put the billfold back under the counter.
*
I’m going to go outside now and I’m going to find Charlene’s house. I must see how this straight-haired falsifier of nametags lives, I must find the hypothetical box of sports memorabilia under her hypothetical bed.
The houses in Keaton don’t actually have street addresses. It’s the kind of place you just write “Farmer Jones, Keaton” on the envelope and the postman delivers your letter. Fortunately for me, each mailbox includes a small wooden sign with the resident’s name routed into it. I imagine some old tinkerer-type made them as a favor for everyone.
A walk down the paved street quickly yields a box with C. Morning dangling below. It’s half a block from the store. Sweet commute. The house is surrounded by a white picket fence, freshly painted. The flagstone path to the front door is bordered with irises. The lawn consists of rocks and cacti and not a single weed. A hand-crafted crafty six-foot-tall two-dimensional plywood daisy is staked in the dirt next to the front door. Before entering the house, I circle around back. C. Morning’s vegetable garden is enjoying the last full bloom of the summer. Fat tomatoes, carrots, the whole twenty-seven feet.
I pass thru the garden and enter the house via the back door. It’s a perfectly normal place, which disappoints me. I was hoping for some flair, a saltwater fish tank, at least. Instead, it’s a country home with doilies on the tables and, in the kitchen, an art deco sink painted white so many times it looks like it’s been slathered in mayonnaise. It appears that Charlene lives alone. No photos anywhere, much less a family portrait.
Into the living room. I’m pleased to see that her TV is a ten-inch cathode-ray-tube antique. She owns an old record player with a dusty copy of America’s Greatest Hits on the turntable. The latest edition of the Strattford Messenger is folded upon the coffee table.
Into the bedroom. The bed is covered with a grandma quilt sewn into a Fibonacci sunflower, bursting in colors that match the approaching sunset in the window beyond. No art on the walls. The nightstand has a bottle of lotion on it. Charlene’s closet contains country blouses, quality shoes, cowboy boots, moon boots.
This is all nice, but I’m looking for a box of Kitch Riles clues, ephemera, memorabilia, whatnot. Under the bed, pronto.
Just as I predicted, I found it, maybe. The box is an old wooden army ammo crate roughly the size of a cocker spaniel’s coffin. I drag it out to the middle of the rug. It’s shaggy with dust bunnies and fastened shut with a shiny padlock.
Stupid padlock. Now I’m gonna have to go thru all of Charlene’s nooks and crannies in search of a key, with all the guilt and shame that’ll come with disobeying my Personal Prime Directive.
Did you see that? I am developing a conscience. Imagine the Narwhal Slotterfield of just a few Vero-seconds ago. I’d have torn into that box. I’d have made that padlock suffer. But I’m a decent human being and I don’t break stuff.
I’ve never, ever, in my entire life coveted a thing because it had been touched by an athlete. But this is different. Maybe there’s a Bobby Flowers card in there, from before cocaine destroyed his career. Or a deflated ABA ball. God, a jersey with actual sweat stains! Love letters from Kitch! Lurid Polaroids that confirm the nature of his mysterious disappearance!
It makes my ears tickle.
I looked all over Charlene’s house and I couldn’t find that damnable key. And, you know, I’m not sure I could even make a key work. Padlocks are complex mechanisms. If I can’t pedal a bicycle, then who says a key will turn a padlock.
You want me to bust the box open. But look what happened after I read Vero’s diary. In case you don’t remember, I almost blew her head off. No, sir. No can do, at least not yet. I’m not gonna mess things up for anyone anymore, not least C. Morning, who is leaning on the counter in yonder store, waiting to get off work.
I slid the box back under the bed and left C. Morning’s house and headed back to Holliday. I’ll come back, Keaton, don’t you worry.
42
On the way back to Holliday, a half mile out, I pass my ditch-bound semi for—what is it now—the fourth time? The sixth time? The front portion of the tractor portion of the tractor-trailer has collided with the ditch, crushing itself flat.
Our driver remains seated in the middle of the road, jaw even more slack than it was last time I saw him. I hope he appreciates the fact that he isn’t in the truck, as otherwise he’d be highly perforated.
The truck’s underslung fuel tanks remain intact, but I doubt they will remain so for much longer. I watch for several heartbeats. A sharp streak creeps up the center of the windshield and then spreads until the safety glass is decorated with spiderwebbed traces. It’s hypnotic. I could watch this for days, but I won’t.
To Cookie’s Palace Diner.
Things have progressed. Old Timer’s face has assumed the stern look of a patriot whose yellow ribbon magnet has gone missing from the tailgate of his pickup. He has knocked over his music stand, presumably without taking the time to digest the letter I’d so carefully composed. He’s reaching toward the back of his britches where—lookee!—a small pistol is wedged into his big butt crack. Christ almighty. What’s with these people? I’m going to have to start frisking them before I start freaking them out.
Old Timer’s eyes are focused squarely on Cookie, who has now completely emerged from the kitchen. Cookie, it should be noted, is carrying a meat cleaver. His expression suggests that he’d happily remove the hand of whoever is responsible for all this goddamned nonsense. For reasons that I can’t entirely suss out, this expression is directed toward Old Timer. Perhaps they have a history of distrust.
Sandy may or may not have attempted to read her note, but the emerging conflict between Cookie and Old Timer has proven to be too much of a distraction for her to focus on some silly words on a magical sheet of paper. Instead, we find her with palms raised, aimed, respectively, at the two men. Her face is begging the participants to engage in a moment of self-reflection. As in, “Cool it, you dopes.”
Bless her soul, Vero is the most lovely human on earth. She’s in her chair, as upright as a yoga instructor. Further contributing to the yoga-look, her mouth is in the self-satisfied smirk of one who knows something that everybody else doesn’t. Completing the picture, her eyes—her lovely brown eyes—are closed in a state of gentle contemplation.
She has read my note, she has understood my note, and she’s ready to get the hell out of here.
With great care, I lift Vero into the air and flatten her into a horizontally-floating magician’s assistant pose. With her arranged thusly, it’s a cinch to drag her feet-first thru the air.
I pillage one final bottle of water from the Palace’s fridge and bid the occupants adios, but not before I pluck t
he gun from Old Timer’s crack and remove the cleaver from Cookie’s fist. I bring both weapons to the kitchen and guide them into the vat of French-fry oil, pressing them to the bottom with a metal spatula.
The worst that’ll happen now is that someone will poke someone else in the sternum and then Sandy will tell everybody to shut the hell up and eat some pie. And what the hell happened to all the pie? Where’s the fucking pie? If somebody doesn’t reveal the location of seven slices of cherry, two of rhubarb, and five of pecan, eyes are going to roll.
Aw, hell, Sandy. After all you’ve done for me, I can’t leave you like this.
I scrawl a note on one of her tickets.
It was me. I took the pie. You can have my car. Here’s the keys. Your tip is in your right shoe.
I leave my keys on the counter. Then I pull off Sandy’s shoe and place six flattened twenties on the insole and put the shoe back on her foot and that spells the end of my relationship with Cookie’s Palace Diner.
Fry on, my friends.
I glided Vero out the front door of the diner and left her floating next to my car while I made one last visit to Holliday elementary/middle/high school. Just a sweep to see if there was anything I could use for the trip. Well, really, I was looking for a specific article of clothing. I went to the boy’s locker room, and therein found the customary storage closet full of shoulder pads and helmets and badminton racquets, none of which I cared about. The thing I did care about was hanging on a coat hanger that was hanging from the plumbing that ran along the ceiling of the closet. ’Twas a black-and-white-striped referee’s shirt. I ran my fingers over the cotton-poly blend, loving its silky looseness. Blessed be the gods of garmentry, the shirt was an XXL.
Narwhal is a zebra.
Before I left Holliday altogether, I took one last look at the daredevil Cessna thru the telescope. The plane was now pointed straight at the earth, still way the hell up in the sky, the occupants still having the time of their lives.
Fly on, my one-legged seagull.
I begin the trek to Keaton, my hands pressing gently upon Vero’s shoulders, she on her back, feet-first floating in front of me.
A half-mile out of town, we pass the semi. The truck has begun to jackknife and the trailer is spilling wheat out from under the canvas. The front end has plowed three feet into the ditch’s soil, with the cab compressing into a flat bulldog face with tears of glass popping out of its windshield. One of the truck’s chrome underslung fuel tanks has begun to buckle. I float Vero behind the truck and leave her hovering next to the driver, who is just now starting to grasp the implausibility of his situation.
I stand next to the cab of the truck. Over the course of several heartbeats, the rightmost fuel tank expands like a blistering balloon, and then bulges and glows and stretches until cracks appear in the seams. The cracks stretch wider and wider, peeling outward until they split. Freed to the open air, the vapor and diesel glow and billow and blossom and eventually evolve into a flaming cloud, expanding until it’s a sun the size of a whale’s brain, complete with folded sulci traced in carbon black. It’s hot. I step back. Time creeps and the fireball grows, donutting around itself like an atomic explosion. Filigrees of black smoke twine around spheroidal balls of ghostly convections. It’s really amazing.
So long, Mack.
Vero and I resume our journey. I look back once, after a mile. The fireball continues to grow. I can’t tell from this distance, but the fire may very well be spreading. I hadn’t considered the dry weeds in the ditch. Hell. You can’t put ‘em all out.
43
We’re in Keaton, at Charlene’s house, in the backyard. A robin is perched on a white fence picket. I’ve placed Vero in a wicker chair. I can already tell that these new environs are a massive improvement over the diner.
A mile before we reached Keaton, my right knee started making a clunking noise. It’s not painful, but it is unnatural. One suspects a chunk of cartilage has come loose. I’m going eat a half-gallon of water and fall asleep.
I awoke in Charlene’s bed, atop her Fibonacci grandma quilt, with the evening sunlight casting the walls a homey tinge of orange. Shoes on, stretch, and then up and out to the backyard to say hello to my true love. She was still seated as I’d left her, but now her eyes were opened wide, her mouth gaping in a state of complete joy.
Do you know how it feels to be trusted completely? Vero closes her eyes in a tiny diner full of hostiles and opens them a moment later to find herself in an Edenic country garden. An Edenic country garden is precisely the type of place Vero and I would make fun of under normal circumstances. But she gets it, she gets that something strange is going on. She’s ready for anything, even though she can’t possibly have a clue.
Still, I can’t expect Vero to tolerate this forever. It’s time I explained what’s happening, in as few words as possible.
Please read quickly.
I love you.
I am healthy. I am well. I don’t know why, but I am in a different time stream from yours. I’m moving too quickly for you to see me.
Using the pencil to your right, please answer the questions below:
Are you comfortable? Y or N
Do you trust me? Y or N
It’s not exactly an explanation, but it’ll have to do. I placed the note and a pencil on a TV tray and placed the tray in front of where Vero was sitting. I also plucked a daisy from the garden and set it in an antique green soda bottle I found on the windowsill in front of Charlene’s sink, and put that on the TV tray.
I still want to get into that box that’s under Charlene’s bed, and I still want to do so without smashing it open. Since the key to the lock is not in Charlene’s house, then I suspect it’s on Charlene’s person. To the Keaton Cooperative grocery store, ye bloodthirsty possémen.
People wear tight clothing out here. Given the blistering heat, I do not understand why. Fashion is a powerful subtractor of common sense.
On the plus side, with the tightness of her jeans, I didn’t have to actually stick my hands into Charlene’s pants’ pockets in order to determine their contents. I rubbed my thumb over the pocket area and found no bas relief to indicate any contents at all.
This was after I’d checked her wallet again and found nothing of interest other than the Kitch Riles ABA rookie card, which I again stared at for several moments.
Purse and pockets out of the running, I reached for the silver chain that was looped around her neck. The plumb of the chain dangled into her blouse, disappearing into the crevasse of her boobs. I had been tempted all along, but decorum insisted that I save it for last. I carefully tugged the chain upward, aware of the fact that it was rubbing on skin that one should never disturb without the permission of the owner, and extracted the weight on the end.
The weight was a key.
The contents of the box are spread before me on Charlene’s kitchen table. Newspaper clippings, stacked more or less in sequential order. They start on January 8, 1976. Cue the frantic music and the spinning newspaper montage:
LOCAL HOOPSTER GOES MISSING
Strattford Messenger, Jan 8, 1976
NO SIGN OF MISSING RILES
Denver Post, Jan 9, 1976
FOUL PLAY IN BASKETBALL DISAPPEARANCE?
Rocky Mountain News, Jan 10, 1976
COLONELS DEDICATE REST OF SEASON TO ABSENT KITCH
Louisville Courier-Journal, Jan 12, 1976
RILES’ BROTHER MISSING AS WELL
Strattford Messenger, Jan 15, 1976
I should point out that each article includes photos of the brothers, the same two photos every time, as supplied by the Dorton High School yearbook staff. First, the older brother, John Riles. His is a senior picture, the classic me-and-my-horse pose endemic to kids who have horses: horse in a stall, John standing next to it, wearing a bolo tie, staring into space, ready to get this shit over with so he can get back to milking the cows.
Kitch Riles, in-game wearing his Dorton Rangers high school basketball unifor
m. It’s a good picture, better than the one on his rookie card. It’s a close-up of him tearing a rebound off the edge of the rim. His arms are thin and strong. Even in the yellowing, pixelated newsprint, you can see the wicked glee in his eyes, the sweat flying off his nose.
We now return to our headlines.
COACH: “KITCH NEVER HAD DRUG PROBLEM”
Rocky Mountain News, Jan 16, 1976
NEW LEAD IN RILES CASE: HE WENT HOME
Denver Post, Jan 24, 1976
CONFLICT BETWEEN BROTHERS
MAY HAVE LED TO VIOLENCE
Rocky Mountain News, Jan 25, 1976
RILES INVESTIGATION EXPANDS TO PERU
Denver Post, Jan 27, 1976
ALL-STAR GAME HONORS MISSING MAVERICK
Louisville Courier-Journal, Jan 28, 1976
POLICE CLEAR SOUTH AMERICANS IN RILES
DISAPPEARANCE
Rocky Mountain News, Jan 31, 1976
LOCALS HELP FEDS SEARCH FOR RILES BOYS:
NO LUCK
Strattford Messenger, Feb 12, 1976
KITCH’S LOVER GRANTED PERMISSION TO RETURN
TO FRANCE
Rocky Mountain News, Feb 14, 1976
KITCH-LESS COLONELS BOUNCED FROM PLAYOFFS
Louisville Courier-Journal, Apr 29, 1976
LOOKING BACK: SO MUCH POTENTIAL,
SO MUCH SORROW
Strattford Messenger, April 30, 1976
CLUELESS COPS CALL OFF KITCH CASE
Denver Post, August 15, 1976
You get the gist. From the articles themselves, I gather that, on the morning of January 1, 1976, Kitch Riles drove a rented Corvette from Denver to the home of his brother, John, who lived six miles north and west of Dorsey, and then the brothers disappeared.
Then, a whole new headline, a whole new subject, a whole new twist:
MYSTERY BABY AT COURTHOUSE
Strattford Messenger, Sept 9, 1976
Our story thereupon veers hard left. On September third, 1976, a newborn child was deposited at the doorstep of the Strattford County courthouse. The long of it consumes several consecutive weeks of front-page headlines in the Strattford Messenger. The short of it is: a teeny, cute, possibly premature infant boy shows up at the courthouse, no parents come forward, and, after much debate, the kid is sent to an adoption agency in Denver.