When I had finished, we connected our two parts with gigantic safety pins and added my jeans and sweatshirt. The result was a fantastic, headless monster—half Frankenstein creation, half Columbia linebacker. I christened him Ichabod after Washington Irving’s headless horseman. (I had studied a few things besides biology and organic chemistry.)
“That where you went to school?” Paul tapped the black letters spread across Ichabod’s new chest.
I nodded. “But football was never our strong point.”
“We wanted our boy to go to college,” he said. “Rutgers. But he was always more interested in tinkering with his bike than reading books. He ended up at the local vocational school, in the plumbing class.”
“That’s a good trade. Very lucrative,” I said. “My dad did both. He’s a printer. He went to college and then opened his own print shop. He’s had a lifetime of tinkering, and I don’t know any man who’s been happier—with his career, at least.”
“Huh.”
“I took a boyfriend of mine to his print shop once. And you know what he said? ‘Your father’s such an intelligent man, why doesn’t he open a chain of print shops and just manage them?’ He missed the whole point. Jackass!”
Paul stopped fussing with the scarecrow and looked at me. “I think I’d like your father.”
Together, we held our headless monster up to the wooden T to see if he was a good fit. Perfect. We took him down again.
“How did you come to be a doctor?”
“My dad’s idea. I liked to tinker, too. I would have been happy hanging around the print shop. But Dad had other plans. He had this idea that his only child should have a “profession,” not just a trade like him. He didn’t know that medicine was going to turn into a corporate monster … .” I fit a sneaker to one straw leg, twisted its laces around the ankle, and pulled them tight. “ … And instead of having an office on the corner—their own private domain—they’d be assigned a cubical, á la Dilbert, with Ivan watching them—in the form of government agencies, insurance companies, peer-review committees …”
Paul looked at me quizzically.
“Sorry. I’ll get off my soapbox.” I looked at our new creation critically. “What about the head?”
From a paper bag, Paul pulled out a deflated basketball. With a bicycle pump, he pumped the ball until it was about the size of an average human head and sealed it off. Before I could beef about the tangerine color and the lack of features, he whipped out a beige tote bag and pulled it over the ball.
“And how … ?”
Before I could finish, Paul produced from his pocket a spool of heavy thread and a wicked-looking needle. “I used to mend sails,” he said, and went to work sewing the bottom of the tote bag to the top of my Columbia sweatshirt. When he had finished, our monster had a head, but no neck. Oh, well, most linebackers were neckless, too.
“He needs a hat.” Sadly, I thought of my stolen scarecrow’s floppy straw hat.
From his magical paper bag, Paul drew a straw hat, almost identical to that of the other scarecrow.
“I’ll leave the face up to you,” he said, pressing a box of magic markers into my hand. “You’re the one who’s going to have to live with him.”
The box was marked waterproof.
“That’s in case you ever own a field and want to put him in it.”
He had thought of everything.
I set to work to make a face as close to the one of my friend in The Wizard of Oz as possible. Two bright blue eyes, a pink nose, and a scarlet, upturned mouth.
“He looks more like a clown,” Paul observed.
I shrugged. I never claimed to be an artist.
“He looks cheerful, at least. Come on. It’s time to hang him up,” he said.
Together, with the rest of the twine, we anchored him to the cross.
“This feels sort of like a crucifixion,” I murmured.
Paul, intent on his work, made no reply.
When we were done, we stepped back to admire our masterpiece.
“Not bad,” Paul said. “If I do say so myself.”
“It’s a shame he should be denied his life’s work,” I said. “He ought to have a crack at scaring crows.”
“Well, you could lend him out in the spring. I know a farmer who would be glad to get him. Old man Perkins. He lost one recently.”
“Stolen?” I asked glumly.
He nodded. “And someone put a dead man in its place.”
“Oh, yeah.” I remembered the news article.
“They still haven’t identified the body.”
“How come?”
“Under the scarecrow outfit, he was stark naked.”
“Couldn’t they trace him through his dental work or DNA?”
“They tried all that, but it seems he was from out of town. A stranger.”
“What’s going on down there?” Maggie was back from church.
“Coming!” Paul shouldered our new creation.
As he started up the stairs, Ichabod’s hat fell off. Despite his fine new head, I’m afraid that name would stick. (Just so long as no one called him “Icky.”) I grabbed the hat and followed them up the stairs.
“There’s my hat!” cried Maggie. “I was looking all over for it.”
“Whoops!” I handed it to her.
Paul ignored my glare.
CHAPTER 21
After introducing Ichabod to his new quarters, I took off on my bike again. I was able to say “my” now with more authority. I had just presented Maggie with a check for that first installment.
I decided to tool around the neighborhood. I wanted to familiarize myself with the territory, so when (if) I had another house call, I would know how to get there.
When I had mastered the five square miles around the Oakview Motor Lodge, I decided to go further afield. (“Afield” is right. That’s all there was.) I had brought a map, but of course there were no road signs, which rendered it practically useless. A compass would have been more to the point. I snickered at my own joke. (There was no one for miles to share it with.)
Pausing at a remote intersection (they were all remote), I noticed a bright green field in the midst of all the brown ones. Green in November? Puzzling over this freak of nature, I heard a pickup truck trundle up behind me. I didn’t move. There was plenty of room for it to go around me.
The motor behind me continued to throb and a faintly familiar male voice shouted, “Lost?”
Turning, I saw Robin Hood. For once his expression was uncool. Dumbstruck was the only word for it. Immediately spoiling my advantage, I grinned.
Matching my grin, he climbed out and came over.
(The desolate nature of South Jersey can be proved by the fact that not a single vehicle passed us during our exchange.)
“Did I wake you?” He had recovered his cool.
“I was just wondering why that field is so bright green in the middle of November.”
“Winter wheat,” he said.
“Since you’re so smart, what kind of bird lives there?” I pointed to an elaborate black and yellow cone fitted to the top of a tall, stainless steel pole.
“A noisy one.” He laughed. “That’s an emergency siren for the nuclear power plant. There are dozens of them around here.”
That shut me up.
“Where you headed?” He reached for my map.
“I’d like to get back to the Oakview Motor Lodge.”
“That’s easy. You’re here.” He pointed to a crossroad. “Crab’s Neck and Possum Hollow roads.”
How I longed for Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street! “They have a peculiar habit of not supplying road signs around here.” I was instantly horrified at my snide Madison Avenue tone.
“Oh, they supply them all right. But as soon as the signs go up, they take ’em down.”
“They? Who? Kids?”
He shook his head. “Grownups, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“They don’t want people
to find this place. The wrong people.”
“Like me?”
He shrugged.
“Don’t they ever get caught?”
“They’re good at it. Besides, there’s sort of an unspoken law that you look the other way.”
“Well, everybody’s good at something,” I said. “Do you know Bullwinkle?”
“The moose?” He nodded.
“He had one talent—he could remember everything he had for breakfast since he was born.”
“No kidding.” He laughed.
Why was he staring over my shoulder?
“See that field?” He pointed behind me.
I turned.
“That belongs to old man Perkins. His scarecrow was stolen—”
“—and a dead man took its place. One of your quaint local customs?”
Abashed, he changed the subject. “By the way, how is your scarecrow?”
I told him about the theft.
Our eyes locked for a second. “Do you think … ?”
He shrugged.
“Anyway,” I went on, “I have a replacement.” And to my astonishment I found myself telling him about Ichabod. When I had finished, I waited tensely for his derisive laugh.
He smiled instead. “I’d like to see him.” Then he spoiled it with his next question, “How’s the doctor business?”
“It’s not a business,” I snapped. “Or, at least it shouldn’t be,” I modified.
“Point taken.”
“Sorry.” I stuffed the map in my saddlebag. What’s the matter with me? Why am I turning off this perfectly nice guy? “That’s a sore point with me,” I explained. “As for doctoring—I don’t know if I can make a go of it here. This place isn’t exactly overpopulated.” I scanned the empty fields. “And the people I’ve met so far look pretty healthy.”
“Wait ’til winter sets in. You’ll have plenty of bus … er … patients. I’ll try to steer some your way.”
“Don’t break your back.” There I go again. Maybe I should see a shrink. Anxious to get away before I said something worse, I pressed the starter. My bike revved up with a ripple of sound.
His truck, on the other hand, coughed three times, and when it finally caught, backfired. The last I saw of him, he was careening—much too fast—down Possum Hollow Road … or was it Crab’s Neck?
I trundled along—smooth as silk—and wondered why I didn’t feel more satisfaction.
CHAPTER 22
As Thanksgiving neared, I had become as much a fixture in South Jersey as the nuclear cooling tower. My cherry red scarf flapping behind me was as familiar as that cloud of vapor hanging over the tower. As I tore around the neighborhood on my bike, people waved and called out, “Hi, Doc.” or “Way to go, Doc!” (Now if I could just get them in the office!) I wondered what would replace my red scarf in the summer months. A red sunbonnet?
I had three invitations for Thanksgiving dinner—from Maggie, from Becca, and, of course, from Dad. But his was only half-hearted. What he was really angling for was an invitation to come to South Jersey and find out what I was up to. I wasn’t ready for that.
I couldn’t make up my mind which of the other two invitations to accept.
The practice was picking up a little. Locally, I had removed a fishhook, treated a snakebite, and dug a bullet out of a hunter. (He’d shot himself in the foot.) On the motel front, I had treated an acute case of diverticulitis, diagnosed walking pneumonia, and prescribed for the cystitis of half a honeymoon couple. All adults, thank God. On the home front, everything was going smoothly, too. I’d traded the king-size bed in my room for an attractive futon, bought a coffee-grinder and a couple of bright throw rugs. When (if) my income ever stabilized, I’d buy a rug big enough to cover that whole shit-brown wall-to-wall.
But my office was where I spent most of my time.
Paul, true to his promise, had lent me one of the three cabins in front of the motel to use as an office—rent-free. It was up to me to decorate it, furnish it, and figure out a way to heat it. I chose Cabin 3 because it was in the best condition (which doesn’t say much for the other two). When I walked in, the smell of must, mildew, and mouse turds overwhelmed me. There were mouse nests in every corner and spider webs on every windowsill. The walls were bare wood full of knotholes, and there were huge gaps between the floorboards. The toilet had a cracked wooden seat and a chain for flushing—but the last time it had seen water was probably when Noah did. Ditto the sink. I had my work cut out for me. There was electricity, which was good, because it enabled me to work at night. And that’s where you could find me most nights, either painting or pounding or paper-hanging. Sometimes I had help from Paul and Jack-the-night-clerk. But more often, it was just advice. One night both of them were there, sitting around joshing me while I worked, until I suggested if they wanted to party, they should try Harry’s Bar and Grill. They cast me hurt looks and left. I felt bad afterward. The next night I bought a couple of cases of beer and invited them down. But Maggie got wind of it and said it wouldn’t look good for the customers to see the help carousing. And that was the end of it.
Otherwise everything was pretty serene. One of the striking things about this place was the silence, especially as winter approached and the birds headed south. After Manhattan, where horns blew and sirens screamed night and day, this absence of sound was a shock. It was like being tucked inside a box filled with cotton. The racket my bike made was almost a sacrilege. I bought a new muffler and kept the noise to a minimum.
One day I was riding home from a motel call—a woman had burnt her hand on the coffee maker—and the silence was violently shattered. Out of nowhere, the sharp bleat of sirens pierced my ears. I almost ran my bike off the road. What the hell? I stared around me, looking for the source. My eyes were drawn to a black and yellow cone affixed to a stainless steel pole. Oh my God. A leak at the nuclear power plant?
I tore home and burst into the motel lobby. Everything appeared peaceful. No one was rushing around, herding patrons into the cellar. Paul looked up sleepily from his newspaper. “Forget something?”
“The sirens …”
“Oh, just a practice session. They do it every month. I should have warned you.”
My attempt to look nonchalant was a complete failure. I slumped into a chair to recover.
Paul went back to his newspaper.
Shortly afterward, the nightmares began. They always began with sirens screaming. One night I rushed out of the motel to find people lying all over the parking lot with radiation burns, moaning. I was the only doctor around and all I had to relieve their suffering were the contents of my little medical kit. As I ran from one to the other, I stumbled over something. A bow and an arrow. I picked them up and started shooting the people who were moaning the loudest. When I woke up, I was trembling. This dream recurred with slight variations—I tripped over a shotgun, the people were lying in a field, I couldn’t find my medical kit.
The last time it happened, I sat up in bed, turned on all the lights, and remembered some advice my father had once given me: “If you’re afraid of something, face it.” The occasion had been a Madame Dupont, my high school French teacher, who had picked on me constantly. She terrified me. On my father’s advice, I went to see her. “Why don’t you like me?” I had asked. She was so embarrassed, she treated me with the greatest respect for the rest of the term.
The next day I made an appointment to tour the nuclear power plant.
The tour itself was uninspiring. If you’ve been to an electric generator plant, multiply that a hundred times, add some computers, a few mute employees in green tank suits prowling around, and presto—you’ll have a nuclear power plant. The only interesting piece of information provided by our tour guide was: “This plant has the capacity to generate thirty-three million kilowatts of electricity—enough to supply the entire city of New York on an average day.” Wow!
The only jolt I got was at the end of the tour, when the security guard opened the door to let me o
ut and I recognized him. Mr. Doughboy.
His eyes shifted when I tried to meet them. But it was hardly the place to confront him about an unpaid motel bill. His supervisor, who had also served as the tour guide, was hovering nearby, and I had no desire to get Doughboy fired. He would be in a better position to make good on his debt if he remained employed. I picked up my bike in the parking lot and sped home.
Paul was not even moderately interested in my discovery and adamantly refused to accompany me the next day to follow up on it.
“If I were you, I’d let sleeping dogs lie,” he warned, and refused to discuss the subject further.
I thought of mentioning it to Maggie. She had more respect for cold cash than her husband. But in the end, I decided to go alone. By this time, I realized it wasn’t the unpaid bill I that bothered me; it was the goon himself. There was something creepy about him.
I planned my visit for the same time as the previous day, hoping Doughboy would be on duty again. But when I arrived at the plant, a different security guard opened the door. Instead of my pudgy, pasty “friend,” a slim, attractive woman let me in.
“Where is the guard who was on duty yesterday?” I asked.
She turned to the supervisor who was observing me through his glass booth. “Where is Milac?”
“He quit.”
“When?” I asked sharply.
“Last night.”
“Did he give any reason?”
“Not to me.” He shrugged. “But I think there was some question about his security clearance.”
I thought fast. “I’m a friend of his. Could you give me his phone number? I’d like to get in touch with him.” If his phone number was the same as Becca’s, I’d know my hunch was right.
He looked me over. “D’ya have any references?”
I gave him Paul’s name and the motel number.
After making the call, he looked at me quizzically. “Your reference wasn’t too happy.”
“Oh?” I tried to look innocent. “What did he say?”
“Something about ‘letting dogs lie.’ Who is this Milac—an old boyfriend?” He snickered.
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