Destinations Unknown

by Gary Braunbeck

  Patrick feels a slight queasiness in his stomach, and decides that tonight, just to be safe, he will not

  (…sometimes adults sneak away like that, as well…)

  say a word about this to Anne.

  He wonders, suddenly, if the child hidden in the leaf-pile survived. Anne did not say.

  He doesn’t have to wait for the next morning’s Ally; the story is on the eleven p.m. news that night.

  Theresa Watkins, widow, age 67, had been tending the garden she kept in front of her house when a car driven by a man who (according to witnesses) must have been drunk came screaming around the corner, jumped the curb, and slammed into her before she could make it to the safety of her front porch. The driver kept going, taking out several mailboxes, trash cans, and a dog. Police had a description of the vehicle and a partial license-plate number; anyone with further information should call the number on the screen.

  “Patrick? Patrick, honey, what is it?”

  It’s only as Anne is kneeling beside his chair and cupping his face in her hands that Patrick realizes he’s weeping.

  “Honey?” says Anne, looking into his eyes. “Oh, honey—c’mon.” She embraces him. He continues weeping into her shoulder, shuddering.

  “C’mon, baby,” she whispers, stroking the back of his head. “Getting upset at news like this is my job, remember?”

  “The…the kid in the leaves,” he manages to say.

  “What?”

  He looks into her eyes; God, what kind eyes she has. “The kid who was in the leaf pile. That settlement check you issued the other day. Did the kid…did the kid die?”

  “Oh, Patrick…oh, baby, no, no, not even close. His right leg was broken and he screamed so loud that the driver hit the brakes before anything worse happened. No, honey, the little boy’s fine. He’s just fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  He falls into her arms, still weeping.

  “I’m supposed to be the one with the wild mood-swings,” says Anne. “I’ve heard of ‘sympathy pains’ but if you keep this up, I’m going to think you’re trying to steal my thunder.”

  “And I…I h-have to stay humble, right?”

  She kisses his cheek. “You’re learning. I’m so proud.”

  As he is leaving the office Wednesday night, Patrick thinks to himself: The smart thing to do is find another route home. So what if it takes another ten or fifteen minutes?

  All day long, as his clients have been whining, crying, raging, pouring out their hearts and confusion, Patrick has been distracted; he found himself apologizing to each client as they left, telling them he wasn’t feeling well.

  He has gone over a hundred different scenarios in his mind, and has settled on this one: the box man heard of Theresa Watkins’ death earlier in the day, on the radio or perhaps the noon newscasts, and writing her name on a box was his way of dealing with the sadness and helplessness he feels when hearing of such tragedies.

  That could explain it, yes—but then there is the matter of R. D. Y. 4.

  He could have overheard the mother telling one of the police officers at the scene, sure, yes, but that didn’t explain how the cruisers and ambulance—how the accident itself—just seemed to materialize between the box and turning the corner.

  You’re letting this rattle you, Patrick thinks. He is always telling his clients they shouldn’t allow other people to upset them so easily, they should try to take everything with a grain of salt; caution, Patrick tells them, forever caution. The deep end is always waiting; no reason to run toward it full-tilt-boogie.

  He almost decides on another way home, then changes his mind. He will not have his routine disrupted by the behavior of a street crazy, no matter how unnerving the last two days’ coincidences have been. Control—another thing Patrick emphasizes to his clients. Control is not something that is taken, it is something that is given.

  He will not give the box man control. What good would he be as a counselor, then? If he cannot follow his own advice, he is useless.

  Still, it takes him longer than usual to make the 21st Street intersection; it is nearly six-twenty-five by the time he arrives.

  The box man is not there.

  Patrick grins.

  There is not as much traffic now as there would have been had he arrived at his usual time, and he drives much more slowly—in fact, there is no traffic at all.

  Patrick is so relieved to be alone that he is almost on top of the box in the road before seeing it.

  He slows further. The box could not look any more grotesque were it covered in fresh placenta and wriggling; was he imagining its moving like that?

  Of course it’s moving, you idiot, he thinks. There’s wind, isn’t there? This is, after all, Ohio in September; there’s always wind.

  There are still no cars in his lane. Patrick continues crawling forward, the box suddenly stilled and waiting.

  After checking his rear-view mirror (Where the hell is all the traffic?), Patrick stops the car and gets out. He stands there, protected behind his opened door, staring. The wind whistles past his ears. For a moment he imagines he hears the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly playing somewhere, and nearly smiles.

  This. Is. Ridiculous.

  It’s just a box, after all. It’s nothing more than what

  (Box children)

  it appears to be.

  So why can’t you just ignore it?

  Patrick knows the answer to this, though he doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact. He cannot ignore the box because he remembers the other boxes, the other days, the other games he and the box man have played; and the part of him that is very much like Anne’s father, the part of him that wonders, that considers, the part of him that in its own way believes, cannot dismiss the possibility that—

  —stop it. Right. The. Hell. Now.

  If a client were to tell him something like this, he would strongly suggest they check themselves into the Psych Ward at Cedar Hill Memorial.

  Patrick begins to get back in the car (amazed there is still no traffic at what is usually the busiest intersection in the city), then pauses, continues getting inside, stops, curses loudly, climbs out, and walks toward the box.

  At first he cannot see any writing on either the top or front. Without touching it or moving it with his foot, Patrick steps to the left and looks—nothing. He leans toward the right side—still no writing. He takes a deep breath and walks around to the other side—Ronald Jerome Ridenbaugh, 17

  —okay, this still means nothing. Just like the others, the box man could have heard about this beforehand.

  He looks around.

  The empty road is eerie and threatening. Patrick starts moving away, then turns around, kneels, and lifts up the box, peeking underneath.

  He feels incredibly silly, and goes quickly to the car. He puts it into drive, noting the time—six thirty-four p.m.—as he drives over the box, turns the corner, and heads toward home.

  He glances in his rear-view mirror.

  The box man is still not there.

  But neither is the box.

  He forces himself to be jovial with Anne during dinner, and senses that she knows he’s forcing it but, being Anne, she goes along with his mood, telling him a joke she heard at the office, asking about a film she’d like to see this weekend—would he like to go, as well? He would? Wonderful—and reminding him again of their appointment with Dr. Bev tomorrow afternoon.

  “I was thinking,” says Anne, “that we could ask her to make two copies of the sonogram and afterward, go over to that frame store in the mall and have it framed for Mom. I think it would mean a lot to her. You know, don’t you, that Friday would have been hers and Dad’s fortieth wedding anniversary?”

  “I’d almost forgotten,” says Patrick. “You’re right—that would make a wonderful present.”

  “I was thinking,” Anne says, folding her napkin and pushing her plate away, “that—and this is negotiable, it has to be a mutual
decision—but I was thinking that if...well, if we find out it’s a boy—”

  Patrick beats her to the punch line. “You bet your perfect ass we’ll name him after your dad. Hell, Anne, you didn’t even have to ask.”

  He could swim a thousand raging rivers on the memory of the smile she gives him at that moment.

  It’s three a.m. when Patrick opens his eyes, completely wide-awake. He remembers dreaming of a road composed totally of boxes, something out of an M.C. Escher painting, each box containing smaller ones, each smaller box so wet and wrinkled from the rain its flaps form squalling faces.

  He looks over at Anne, who is deep asleep; he gently kisses her forehead, and climbs out of bed.

  In the living room he turns on the television, careful to make sure the volume is low, and flips through the cable channels until he comes to the local news/community announcements scroll for that day.

  Don’t do this, he thinks, but is compelled by the memory of the dream to remain where he is. He reads the various stories and notices as they scroll along: a city council vote on a zoning issue, a bake sale at St. Francis, a fund-raiser for a new addition to the community center, cars for sale, an open house adoption day at the city animal shelter, obituaries, funeral schedules, then the scroll begins again with today’s top local stories—

  —the first of which tells how one Ronald Jerome Ridenbaugh, age 17, was killed in a single-car accident when he lost control of his vehicle on one of the many tight curves along Cherry Valley Road and plowed head-on into a bulldozer left parked at a nearby construction site. He was killed instantly. His death was witnessed by several construction workers who had just quit for the day. Police and ambulance were called. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

  The accident occurred at six-thirty-five p.m.

  Patrick turns off the television. He is neither shocked nor confused—he is, rather, almost relieved. A stillness fills his core, chill but not quite cold, as resignation so often comes. He’d known two days ago it would come to this; perhaps part of him even hoped it would come to this.

  He dresses quietly in the laundry room, takes his coat and car keys, locks the front door behind him (not turning on the porch light, its buzz might wake Anne), and drives away.

  It seems to him that the roads are strangely deserted; even at this hour there should be at least a police cruiser, a delivery van, a street maintenance vehicle—

  something else besides his car on the road.

  He notices the first box before he’s even reached the 11th Street intersection; he can’t see if there’s writing on it or not.

  The next box he spots skittering along the sidewalk a few blocks later.

  A third box sets by a fire hydrant, one flap caught by the wind and tapping the ground like the foot of an impatient pedestrian waiting for a light change.

  He loses count of how many boxes he spots along the way. Each time he looks in his rear-view mirror, he sees a new one moving somewhere; darting behind a tree, spinning across the road, tumbling along a sidewalk.

  Busy guy, aren’t you? he thinks.

  He takes the necessary turns, catches the loop, and a few minutes later find himself on the deserted stretch of highway that will take him into the right lane on the 21st Street exit.

  Patrick does not bother checking his mirrors or using signals; there are no other cars tonight. And there won’t be.

  But there will be the box man.

  There has probably always been the box man.

  As he nears the intersection, the world surrounding him seems to exist only within the beams of his headlights; the streetlights, motel and gas station signs, even the moonlight begins to fade, fade, fade into memory and shadow until there remains just the road in front of him; were he to stop and open the car door to get out, he would fall forever downward into darkness: there is nothing except the illuminated portion of highway in the beams.

  And the box man.

  Standing very still.

  Box in hand.

  Patrick slows to a stop. The box man steps into the center of the headlight beams as if he, too, knows there is only corporeality in this light alone. Patrick wonders: if he were to suddenly snap off the headlights, would the box man tumble down into the abyss, never to write and then cross-out another name again? Or would there just be a new box man to take his place at another intersection and choose a different driver as this box man had chosen him?

  Patrick thinks: What are you?

  As if hearing Patrick’s thoughts, the box man smiles and mouths two short, simple words that strike as hard as bullets into Patrick’s chest:

  Thanks, partner.

  He writes something on the large box he’s holding, then tips the box onto its corner at the end of his index finger and begins spinning it like a basketball. He stares at Patrick for a moment, then pulls his hand away.

  The box remains spinning in the air.

  The box man begins to laugh but Patrick does not hear it for the blood pounding in his temples; he slams the car into reverse and backs up, tires squealing loudly. He keeps moving until the box man is very small in the beams, then stops, pushes the car into gear, thinks, I will not be your executioner anymore, and presses down on the gas.

  The box man shakes his head but does not move from the center of the beams; instead, he grabs the spinning box, drops it in the road, and sits on top of it, elbow on knee, head resting on his fist, Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker for the pre-rush-hour crowd.

  Patrick closes his eyes as he gives the engine one last burst of power and does not open them again until he feels the hard, fast, violent whump! of bone and flesh meeting metal and momentum. He feels the car rise and fall as it rolls over the box man’s body. He puts it in reverse and backs over him again, then forward once more—hearing a deeply satisfying crunch under the wheels—before turning the corner and heading toward home.

  He sees nothing but blackness in his rear-view mirror. There is nothing behind him, nothing on either side, nothing above; there is only what exists in the headlights beams.

  Gradually, bits and pieces of the world begin fading back into focus; a tree here, a front porch there, a street sign emerging from the pre-dawn mist like a soldier from battle. Patrick has been following his route more from memory than any discernable landmarks, but now the world is returning, albeit slowly; enough so that he knows where he is, and that home is not far away. Soon he recognizes sections the stately Victorian home that sets on the corner of his street, and he turns. Moving forward, he sees the trees, porches, sidewalks, and well-tended gardens of his neighborhood moving forward into moonlight, into streetlight, into visibar light, and now he’s blinking, that queasiness returning to his stomach as the flashing lights reveal the cruiser underneath them, then the yellow tape cordoning off an area in the middle of the street, then the ambulance with the opened back doors and gurney being rolled toward the sheeted figure lying near a slanted car with the crumpled grille and shattered, blood-spattered windshield, and before he’s even come to a complete stop there’s Mr. Keyser, their neighbor, a widower, walking toward the car with tears in his eyes and as Patrick rolls down the window he looks toward his house and thinks, I didn’t turn on the porch light; why is it on?, and then Mr. Keyser is leaning down, wiping his eyes, and shaking badly as he says, “Oh, Patrick, oh, my dear boy, there’s been a terrible, terrible accident….”

  Congestion

  (Thumpitty-thump-thump-thu…)

  Had to do it yourself, didn’t you? Had to bite the metaphorical bullet and drive yourself to the hospital. Had to ignore every goddamned warning the doctors have been issuing for the past year-and-a-half and do it your way, your way, your way or the highway.

  Hey speaking of…isn’t this a lovely traffic jam surrounding you? Cars to the left of you, cars to the right, cars up your ass and down your throat, nobody moving, nobody getting anywhere, and the exhaust fumes hanging around like vagrants outside a bus station on Friday night.

  And let’s not
forget the air-conditioning in your own resplendent example of modern American automobile manufacturing. You remember, right? The air-conditioner that you should have gotten repaired a week ago but kept putting it off because, gosh-oh-golly-gee, you’re a busy guy and, besides, it’s—what?—mid-September, the official start of Fall only days away, so why bother with it now, it’s not like any unexpectedly high temperatures are going to sneak up and surprise you, no, not here in God’s own wonderful white-bread Midwest, that never happens, nosiree.

  (Thumpitty-thump-thump-thu…)

  So how come the back of your shirt is glued to the seat? Why do you suppose it is that you have to keep reaching up every fifteen seconds to wipe the sweat from your eyes? Oh, and there’s also that steady trickle of perspiration that keeps sliding slowly, slowly, slooooooowly down the center of your middle-aged chest, pooling in the little grotto between your middle-aged man-boobs.

  Yes, it happened—at age forty-mumble-mumble you’ve grown man-boobs; okay, maybe they’re not particularly big or pendulous, but they’re boobs nonetheless. You’ve seen enough boobs to know a pair on sight, and what you’ve got hanging there under your sweat-drenched shirt, those are definitely protuberances of the boob variety. Should have laid off the rich foods, pal; should have exercised more, or some, or at all, but this isn’t really the time to point fingers, is it? No, not with the ninety-something degrees baking you inside and out, not with the traffic, not with the exhaust fumes that you have no choice but to breathe in because the only alternative is to roll up the windows and if you do that, the inside of this car becomes a crock pot in two minutes.

  What to do, what to do?

  You flip open the cell phone to check the charge. Full. Okay, so, you could call 911, tell ‘em what’s happening, but what good is that going to do? You think an ambulance is going to be able to get to you? Not through this congestion, not in this universe or any other where the laws of physics rule and rock. Sure, maybe there could be some divine intervention-type action and the cars would part like the Red Sea, but you probably shouldn’t bet the farm on that one. Nope—the only way out is up, a Life-Flight helicopter, salvation from above.