The night air whirled through the downtown. Buildings stood tall under the overcast skies as late night cars zipped through the roads. People scurried through the night traversing the various bars and lounges. Some more elegant restaurants exhaled sophisticated couples as awaiting valet drivers sprang to action. An older husband and wife exited a swanky jazz club, “The Lookout House,” and bypassed the valet service. Headed to a nearby public parking garage, they walked through the cool night air. As the elderly woman tightened her mink coat, she saw a figure approaching. It was Roger staggering toward them. Although he had given his belly something to work on, the pain in his right leg and arm returned. His previous painkiller, alcohol, wasn’t in reach, and Roger was left alone to deal with the throbbing twinge hindering his journey. He didn’t notice the approaching couple, but they noticed him.
The elderly woman hated walking the street at night. Even though her brazen husband had always held her tightly, she still dreaded the creatures lurking in the darkness. She and her husband saw what they classified as an approaching bum and realized he was not yielding to their steps. The woman slowed and stepped behind her husband so both could walk in single file. As they passed Roger, the elderly woman squeezed her husband’s arm. Her nose received a blast of an unforgettable odor bellowing from Roger’s battered body. She cringed. Roger kept focused on the concrete sidewalk and didn’t even notice the couple. However, he glanced up after they had passed as he sniffed the woman’s intense perfume.
Roger’s sense of smell caused him to refocus on his surroundings. He looked up as he walked and noticed a brightly lit corner newsstand still open and eager to assist the night crowd. He saw magazines and newspapers from across the country, the world in fact, proudly displayed in rows to turn a wandering person into a staying customer. The man behind the register was the owner of the stand. He was fifty-two-years-old and took pride in his corner stand, so much so that he purposely worked the graveyard shift to protect his valuable assets. The owner was assisting a young lawyer pulling an all-nighter for an important case going to trial in the morning. He was buying some peanuts, caffeinated soda, and a copy of the latest men’s magazine to arouse his sleep-deprived brain. Roger watched the lawyer reach into his trench coat and grab a leather wallet from the inside of his suit jacket. He studied the attorney’s conforming leather gloves, the slight wrinkles of the material from the movement of his hand. Roger looked at the man as his mind refocused on the list of baffling questions. His brain felt confident declaring that he was in the city last night for dinner, but his exact intentions were still unknown. The most significant question still rang in his mind.
Where is she?
Roger held his head low and saw the front page of a newspaper. The headlines read, “Chaos on Pleasant Place Bridge.” He looked at the prominent picture plastered on the front page, but as he tried to comprehend the image of terror, he heard the voice of the lawyer.
“Crazy, huh?” the attorney asked with disbelief. He looked at Roger’s short pants and felt a hint of sympathy for the street dweller.
The image sank into Roger’s mind as he made out the aerial view of the fiery mess on the bridge. He had never seen such a horrific image, and it almost appeared fabricated, like an image received in a dream.
“That tractor-trailer just annihilated those cars. Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time,” the lawyer added.
Roger didn’t know what his reference meant. The image in front of him showed specks of vehicles scattered on the bridge like the random placement by a boy dumping his matchbox cars on the ground. The lawyer grabbed another newspaper and tossed it in front of Roger, which explained the reference.
The paper highlighted images of scattered metal and auto parts, which resembled the remains of an auto graveyard. The tractor-trailer in the center of the image dominated the frame and towered above the helpless vehicles victim to its breadth. Roger glanced at the scattered auto parts. Suddenly, the whites of his eyes exposed as his mind received a flood of thoughts. It was as if the simple black and white image in front of him answered a chunk of his piling questions. However, the answers rapidly overwhelmed him. Then, he saw something gravely familiar in the picture. It was his black SUV crunched under the trailer of the truck. Roger could not speak; he could not listen; he could only be. All at once, half of the jigsaw board jolted into place.
I was involved in the accident, Roger’s mind explained.
“I’d hate to be this guy,” the lawyer rattled off.
Roger remained detached and aloof. The lawyer squinted, assuming Roger was being coy. Little did he know, however, that while Roger’s body remained emotionless, his mind screamed with emotion.
“Hey, are you alright?” the lawyer asked.
Roger failed to respond. The lawyer shook his head and trudged off. He thought he was doing the bum a favor by indulging in conversation, but his one-sided chat only infuriated him.
A cool breeze whisked through and brushed the newspapers, causing them to crinkle in unison. Roger maintained focus on the image as the twinge in his body seemed to intensify. Then, his mind shifted to the thought of Lois. For a moment, he prepared to dart toward her rescue on the Pleasant Place Bridge, but he quickly recognized it was useless. Although he had slept through the passing on his journey into the city, Jack the trucker explained the bridge’s reopening. Roger’s black, late-model SUV was gone forever, but he hoped the fate of his wife was not the same. Roger yearned for her now more than ever.
“Lois, where are you?” Roger asked under his breath.
He used all of his energy to channel his thoughts to the aligning puzzle pieces. Suddenly, he found himself trapped in the middle of his vision. He felt like a puppet forced to follow his shell through the world of his distressed mind.
Roger was back driving his SUV. He glanced over and saw his wife in a killer black dress that contoured her curvy figure. The cruising V8 engine purred like a well-tamed lion. Up ahead, the Pleasant Place Bridge stood tall under the night sky. Then, in a burst, Roger’s view filled with erupting flames. He heard screams of panic as he attempted to navigate through the fiery terror. His resistance was worthless as flames burst into the cabin. Lois suddenly became trapped. She cried for help. Roger tried to break his horrifying trance, but it was useless.
Suddenly, he heard a raspy voice, “Hey! You okay?”
Roger searched for the voice in his vision, but an inferno consumed his view. The voice returned, this time more prominent, “Yo, can you hear me?”
Roger snapped out of his coma. He blinked his eyes rapidly as the newspaper came back into focus.
“You alright there, mister? You don’t look so good,” the voice once again said.
Roger turned and saw a short male creature in his mid-thirties. He was barely five feet seven inches and had the face of a weasel, complete with a frail frame. Spots of food condiments splattered his ratty clothes. His hair was greasy and his teeth were yellow. The man was the type who even the rats avoided on the street.
Roger caught his breath from the sight, but the breath contained the rancid smell of perspiration infested with multiplying bacteria from weeks without a bath. He turned his head to acquire a fresh breath of night air.
As Roger studied the beady-eyed man, he realized that his own appearance was not much different. While the adage explained, “opposites attract,” Roger’s luck with random strangers seemed to dwell on the lower echelon of society. The hobo reached out and patted Roger on the back. There was no way to ignore this prying person as he invaded Roger’s space. Roger figured the best thing to do was to brush the weed off his back.
“I’m okay…just…confused,” Roger replied while staring off at the traveling cars.
“You really should be careful out here. This city is dangerous at night,” the critter responded.
He extended his hand with a smile. The man’s quick actions puzzled Roger, as his brain had no time to comprehend.
“Miles is the name, Miles Ka
y.”
Roger looked away, but his cordial behavior ingrained from his professional career forced him to reach out.
Miles’ hand was cold and felt rough like fine-grit sandpaper from years of living on the street. He was a man with a dark past, dropping out of high school, leaving an abusive home, and working odd jobs. This had been his life for years, and when he had finally exhausted the various fast food chains across the city, including Buddy Burger, the poorly educated man left for the streets. While he lacked book smarts, he made up for it with his wit and gut instincts. These kept him alive, and he used his survival tactics to keep his body fed enough so he would not starve like a homeless dog. While his outward appearance would make a paralyzed person run for his life, Roger somehow accepted him for…him.
“I’m Roger. I just had a rough day,” he said.
Miles glanced at Roger’s high pants. “Well, didn’t we all. Where’d you come from? A flood?”
“It’s a long story. I’m trying to figure out what happened yesterday.”
Roger realized he had probably said too much. He usually asked the questions at the office prying for information from clients with his subtle tactics, but on the street things seemed to be backwards. Miles appeared to flip the tables and, after all, Roger was now a client in the street man’s office. Roger turned and faltered away, hoping Miles would get the hint, but just as he stepped a few feet from his spot, Miles quickly followed.
“I’m forgetful too. I don’t even know what day it is today. Ask me if I care. Go on,” Miles insisted as he tugged Roger’s shirt.
“I can tell you don’t care. Yesterday…well, I’m trying to figure out where I was,” Roger stuttered.
“Why? You on the run from somebody? Do you work for the government? Well, maybe I’m asking too many questions. Okay, I will help you. Just do what my daddy always says. God rest his soul. He was a good man. Died too young.”
Roger had enough of the weasel. He shook his head and turned to walk away. This time, his steps were more prominent against the cold, hard concrete. The pain in his body suddenly subsided as the natural drug, adrenaline, flowed through his veins. Then in a flash, the leech lunged for Roger, this time using his body to block Roger’s retreat.
“Whoa! Okay. Okay. I would say to retrace your steps. What did you do from when you got up till when you didn’t remember? Then just go from there,” Miles explained.
Roger looked across the street at a blind man walking the sidewalk led by a seeing-eye dog. He pondered Miles’ advice and, while the short fellow didn’t seem to know when to stop talking, he did make an ounce of sense with his comment.
“Well, that’s actually a good idea,” Roger said as he focused on the dog looking both ways before guiding the man across the street.
“I told you my daddy was a smart man,” Miles added.
“I remember coming home from work, then seeing my wife,” Roger explained, scratching his head.
“Then?”
The vivid black and white images in the newspapers clouded Roger’s progression through his memory, but he did his best to keep his train of thought on track. He remembered the reason he gravitated to the city in the first place, the reason he trekked down the road, hitched a ride from a shameless trucker, and even fought to curb his hunger.
“I remember going to eat somewhere downtown,” he continued.
Abruptly, his mind hit a wall of fire. Roger watched as the blind man walked toward them. He was tall and wore a dark trench coat with his face covered with dark glasses, making him look out-of-place for a walk at night. The furry Labrador leading the way turned Roger’s gawks of bafflement into stares of empathy. The dog reached the two street dwellers dithering on the sidewalk and sniffed Roger’s ankle. As he felt the dog’s breath, the animal licked Roger’s exposed skin. Roger did not pull away from the dog’s warm tongue as his energy diverted to the skin of his ankle. Then the blind man passed on his way, unaware of the dog’s diversion. Suddenly, it happened, a moment of clarity. Roger looked at the bright city lights with a piece of knowledge he had so desperately sought.
“Yeah, that’s right. The Hideaway on Fourth Street. I need to get over there,” he said as he perked up.
“Hey. That’s a good idea. But Fourth Street? That’s a walk to China on foot,” Miles said.
Roger knew it was several miles from his spot, but he didn’t care. He began to walk toward the heart of the city where the next leg of his journey awaited. Miles, like a lost child, followed Roger’s lead, but then the lost businessman stopped abruptly.
“Whoa, where are you going?” Roger asked.
Miles licked his lips as he confided in Roger. “Hey. I wanna help you. These streets can get pretty scary at night. I know them like the back of my hand. My daddy always said help a man on a mission. Or was it beware of a man on a mission?”
“What do you want out of this? Huh?” Roger barked. He knew to be wary of people who talked fast as they usually tried to mask their agenda in words battering your ears like a prizefighter.
“Nothing, honest. Hey. I don’t have much to do. I usually just roam the streets. I don’t really have a place to live. I was staying in some guy’s car up there on the north side. It didn’t have a driver’s side door though, so it was kinda breezy at night,” Miles explained.
He looked at Roger as a person he could help, a fellow drifter with an actual purpose. Miles was being sincere when he explained his typical day. Most of the time he lived without a purpose, a feeling that was best left to the dead. He had no place to be, no errands to run, no clock to watch. The proverb asked the question whether a tree that fell in the woods made a noise if no one was there to listen to it. Miles asked himself a similar question every day, “If a bum screams before he dies on the streets, has he influenced the world in some way if no one stops to listen?”
Roger studied him and saw a twitch to his right eyelid. Although his fast-talking took some time to digest, Roger realized the man did have some interesting insight into solving his problem.
The observation from a third party may actually hold some value, he thought.
“Okay, okay,” Roger finally replied.
Like a child getting clearance to go out and play, Miles smiled and stood next to Roger. Both men trudged down the sidewalk on their long walk through the night. Clouds enwrapped the city and stole the starry sky, but Roger didn’t need the stars for direction. He knew exactly where he had to go, a place that he hoped would hold the answer to the ultimate question—where is Lois?
Chapter 16
Clouded Rainbow Page 15