Rhubarb

by M. H. Van Keuren

  “A wonderful thought. I hope you’re right. Can you stay with us through the break and take a few more calls?”

  “Certainly, but if a report comes in, I may need to leave. The time window for study on circle phenomena is very small.”

  “We all understand. Stay up with us through this short commercial break, Insomniacs. We’ll be right back.”

  ~ * * * ~

  Martin’s phone waited on the hotel room desk next to the most precious piece of paper he had ever held. Nothing else, not his birth certificate, not his first driver’s license, not his passport, had come close. It held all the promise of an unsigned Declaration of Independence, an unblessed Magna Carta, a ticket that matched the Powerball. The phone’s dark screen reflected the desk lamp’s bulb like a single eye.

  What’s the problem here? Pick me up and dial, it seemed to say.

  What if she gave me the number of the Chinese takeout place in Lewistown?

  She wouldn’t do that. She knows you’ll be coming back to Brixton.

  You’re right. Everything’s fine.

  Of course I’m right, I’m a smartphone. Now, call her already. If it gets much later it’ll be creepy. Come on. Pull yourself together. No excuses.

  Okay. But maybe I should be somewhere else, so it sounds like I’m having fun.

  You have talked on a cell phone before, right? Fun sounds are distracting. The only acceptable background noises for this kind of phone call are ocean surf, you preparing a meal in a noncommercial kitchen, or a hospital PA paging you to the OR.

  Maybe I should change my shirt. I remember hearing once that your clothes make a difference in how you sound on the phone.

  Oh, good grief. Are you wearing pants? Then let’s do this.

  I need to think out what I’m going to say.

  Put the pen down. You are not writing a script. She wants a confident human being to invite her to an experience that will allow you to get to know each other as people. Period.

  Confidence. Experience. People. This sounded right. He knew he needed a smartphone. He took a deep breath and dialed.

  But what if she doesn’t answer? Should I hang up?

  Everyone—and I mean everyone—has Caller ID. If you hang up, she’ll think you’re a coward, a buttdialer, or that you’ve moved on to the next number in your disgusting little black book.

  I don’t even have a little black book.

  She won’t know that if she never gets to know you. Now man up and leave a message at the tone.

  ~ * * * ~

  “Hi, Cheryl. It’s Martin Wells. I’m coming into Brixton next Tuesday afternoon. Wanted to see if we could get together that evening. Or the next. I’ll be working the area through Thursday. If you don’t want to go out in Brixton, which I would totally understand, I’d be happy to drive us somewhere, or meet in another town. Let me know. My number is 406-555-6871. Look forward to hearing from you. Oh, and I have your pie plate. I’ll bring it with me.”

  ~ * * * ~

  “Hello, Cheryl. I left you a message a couple of days ago. I’m still planning on being in Brixton tomorrow and Wednesday nights. And bringing your pie plate. Thanks again for that, by the way. It was really good. Anyway, give me a call. 555-6871.”

  ~ * * * ~

  Martin yanked back the shower curtain and lunged, splashing water across the bathroom, but found his phone inert, and now lathered. He’d been hearing phantom rings all day.

  Would he really have answered the phone naked, with the shower still running? He rinsed the soap out of his hair. He feared that if the phone rang for real, he might not have the will to stop himself. Yep, that’s my only fear, he thought. Nothing else to fear.

  ~ * * * ~

  “We’re back with Asmir Falenta, journalist, amateur pilot, and the author of ‘The Disappearance of the Bermuda Triangle,’ the lead article in the May issue of Awake, the official magazine of Beyond Insomnia. Subscription and membership information on wakernation.com. Now, Asmir, for this article, you flew your plane around and through the Triangle itself. Were you ever afraid?”

  “How could I not be, Lee? The documented accounts, Coast Guard records, and the Lloyd’s of London registers make clear that something happens in the Triangle. The majority of these incidents are much odder, much stranger, than other losses at sea. Sudden mechanical or instrument failure, unusual radio communication interference, and changes in temporal perspectives—there are just some things you can’t prepare for.”

  “Now, you spoke to dockmasters, air-traffic controllers, fishermen, a Coast Guard crew, even a DEA interdiction officer. According to the people on the ground, those who deal with it on a daily basis, are there fewer unexplained disappearances or events in the Triangle today than there have been in the past?”

  “We’ve been documenting travel in the Triangle since Columbus. So as a journalist, I wondered at first if incidents were simply no longer widely reported by the media. Instead, I found a consensus that this past decade has seen the fewest strange occurrences by far.”

  “What could account for this?”

  “There are several working ideas. One is related to the natural gas bubble theory, that perhaps the release of those gases has subsided for geological reasons. But the gas bubble theory has never explained certain common phenomena, like the temporal alterations and magnetic disturbances. Some theorize that technology has improved navigation and communication: GPS systems, weather tracking, and more robust radio technology, for instance. However, that doesn’t account for the reputation of this very specific area of the sea. Technology treats the symptoms. It’s not the cure. Travelers reported strange events well into the last decade. It’s like something has subsided.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase. Do you believe we’re talking about a natural occurrence?”

  “There’s no known natural phenomenon that explains all the strangeness. I agree with Buckner and Stone that there is an artifact, or ruin, beneath the ocean floor. That this artifact was the source of some kind of energy, and that recently, within the past ten years, that power source has weakened or run out.”

  “Atlantis or aliens?”

  “That’s the $64,000 question, Lee.”

  “We’ll talk about that, and take your calls, with Asmir Falenta after this break. You’re Beyond Insomnia on the Weirdmerica Radio Network.”

  ~ * * * ~

  On Wednesday morning, Martin weighed down the end of the hardest mattress in the universe. A twenty-second walk to the breakfast room or a two-hundred-second drive to Herbert’s Corner? At least someone there would make him a waffle. None of this pour-the-batter-yourself crap. And they’d have warmed syrup in a nice glass pitcher. He shouldn’t be hungry anyway. He had eaten an entire can of Pringles during Letterman, and that Snickers around two in the morning. Plus, the co-op opened early. He could get in there, get done, and get out of town long before Cheryl arrived for her afternoon shift.

  He closed the door of his room and paused at the rail of the second-floor walkway. The roof of his truck was useless white space in a mostly empty parking lot. The sun rose over a dying town, huddled in the midst of desolation. A truck grumbled by on the highway. A meadowlark trilled much more shrilly than necessary. A mournful side of beef lowed in the distance. Martin went down to the lobby.

  Come on, Big Man, said the breakfast bar. She’s right there in the storeroom. Yep, you heard her, she just opened that box. Let’s see you make a waffle. You can’t even make toast. Oh, a blueberry yogurt? You know what a real man would have for breakfast? Not blueberry yogurt.

  The griddle beeped as she emerged from the storeroom. Martin scraped his mangled waffle onto his plate, pretending he meant to do it like that, and then turned to face her as if he had never called her. Twice.

  “Good morning,” said Vonnie.

  “Oh, hi,” said Martin. “I thought you were…Where’s Cheryl?”

  “Oh, she quit,” said Vonnie. “A couple weeks ago. She called Brenda in the middle of the nigh
t, said she was moving to Boise. Charlie promoted me to breakfast.”

  “Boise?”

  “We were all shocked,” said Vonnie. “Leavin’ her stepfather and all.”

  “Yeah,” said Martin. “Okay, thanks.”

  “Enjoy your breakfast.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “What?” asked Vonnie.

  “Did Cheryl tell anyone why she was leaving?”

  “Everyone’s saying she met a man on the Internet,” said Vonnie.

  Wake Up to the Perfect GOLDEN SUNRISE(TM) Waffle!

  Step 1: Snap plastic knife off sawing through the GOLDEN SUNRISE(TM) Waffle and Styrofoam plate.

  Step 2: Toss it all in the trash in disgust.

  Caution: Your fingers will get sticky. Do not do this in public. Do not add alcohol. Suck it up and go to work. Those screws aren’t going to bin themselves.

  Chapter 7

  Somewhere at the edge of his unconsciousness, Martin sensed a presence in his apartment. He listened, not breathing, but heard nothing. Must have been the neighbors. They always came and went at weird hours. He checked the clock. He had to be up at half past his ass to be at an account in Harlowton by seven. But as he tried to bring sleep back, he heard it again, or felt it.

  Lying still, Martin stretched out his other senses and found fear. Was this the paralysis all the abductees talked about on BI? Who was there? An ax murderer or a gray alien, with the shiny, teardrop eyes, no taller than a seventh-grader and twice as dangerous? It crept closer. If this was a dream, he’d have awoken by now.

  Martin willed himself to wiggle a toe, to adjust his tongue, anything, but couldn’t. He heard a strained exhalation. A hiss and a whiff. A wheezing suck. One breath. Then another. Move, Martin. Move. It’s not here to hug you and take you to an intergalactic love-in. It’s here to probe you in all the ways you’d rather not be probed. Because that’s what they do. Haven’t you ever listened to the stupid show? Get up.

  Suck. Hiss. Wheeze.

  Suck. Hiss. Wheeze.

  A clammy paw of flesh clamped over his mouth, and a retina-destroying light stabbed his eyes.

  “Where is she?” a vicious whisper rasped. Martin screamed into the flesh over his mouth, fearing the end, or a really bad beginning. “You have no right, you bastard.”

  Martin’s muffled scream ran short of breath, but ended abruptly when the light flicked away and he recognized, in a half-second, the stubble on the unshaveable jowls, the nostril hair poking into the holes in the cannula.

  Martin fought free of the hand and his sheets, tumbling to the safety of the far side of the bed. “What the hell? Stewart?” The flashlight blinded him again as he got to his feet. Martin fumbled for the bedside lamp and knocked it over getting it on. The resulting shadows were as strange as the unlikely presence of Stewart Campion in his bedroom. He was wearing the enormous sunglasses, the ones he’d put on that evening before dinner.

  “Where is she?” Stewart demanded again. “I don’t know who you are, but I want her returned. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Cheryl doesn’t know the recipe. She never did.” Stewart struggled pathetically with a pocket until he yanked an object free and brandished it at Martin—a FastNCo. Model 25-C. Stewart had probably bought it, and its PIC #6598 three-quarter-inch staples, at Lester’s co-op.

  “That’s a staple gun,” said Martin.

  “You wanna test that theory?” Stewart breathed hard but kept the gun up, his trembling hand wrapped around the trigger handle.

  “I’m going to call the police now,” said Martin.

  “You’re not like the others, but I’m not going to fall for it. What have you done with Cheryl?”

  “She never called me back. They said she went to Boise,” said Martin. Martin’s skin shrank. Was he being blamed for something?

  “You don’t think I see what’s happening? I…wrote…the goddamn playbook…on this.” Stewart’s labored breathing filled the gaps between his words, and the gun hand drifted.

  “You’re going to pass out. Why don’t you go out in the living room and sit down? Let me put on some pants, and we’ll talk.”

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” said Stewart.

  Martin edged around the bed, letting Stewart hold onto his illusion of fearsomeness. He pulled on a pair of khakis and yesterday’s T-shirt. “I’m going out to the living room.” He half-expected a staple to the back, but Stewart followed, wheezing hard.

  “How did you get in here?” Martin asked.

  “Anyone can pick a lock, boy,” said Stewart.

  “How did you know where I live?”

  “I followed you. What do you think?”

  “Look, I’m not actually calling the cops. But sit down. I don’t want to have to call an ambulance.” Martin waved to the La-Z-Boy.

  Stewart held the staple gun out for a few more seconds, then shuffled to the chair. He lowered himself to a seat with a groan, took off the sunglasses, and tucked them in a shirt pocket. He sucked in several deep breaths. “Who are you? Where are you from?”

  “Stewart? I’m Martin Wells. I’m from Billings. I’m the FastNCo. rep. We met about a month ago when I came over to your house for dinner.”

  “I’m not senile, Martin. I want the truth,” said Stewart.

  “Who do you think I’m supposed to be?”

  “Your dermis beats the glasses. Something new?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Martin.

  “Don’t give me that,” said Stewart. Then he coughed, coughed again, and then couldn’t stop. He dropped the staple gun. As Stewart bent forward, hacking spittle and phlegm onto his lap, Martin feared to upset him even more by leaving the room. But then, as much to keep his own stomach from turning, he fetched Stewart a glass of water.

  “Thanks,” Stewart managed between the lingering coughs. Stewart took a few sips, coughed a few more times. Then he leaned back in the recliner, the fight gone.

  “Should you be in a hospital or something?” Martin asked.

  “I’m fine,” said Stewart.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I was so sure,” said Stewart.

  “You think I’m to blame for Cheryl leaving town?” asked Martin.

  “She baked you a pie.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” asked Martin.

  “It’s everything,” said Stewart.

  “You’re not making any sense,” said Martin.

  “I tried to protect her from all this.”

  “All what?”

  “The pie. The rhubarb pie. No…”

  “Stewart?” asked Martin. But Stewart was asleep, his rasps irregular and not quite deep enough.

  ~ * * * ~

  The smell from the Mr. Coffee hadn’t woken Stewart, so Martin slammed the microwave door on the Jimmy Dean sausages and set it going with as many beeps as possible. That did the trick. Stewart stirred under his blanket, lowered the recliner’s footrest, and rose into a patch of thin sunlight. Martin poured a mug of coffee and set it on the kitchen table next to the staple gun, recovered from the floor. Stewart shuffled in, considered the gun, considered Martin, and then sat.

  “‘Coffee is the only cure for Monday,’” Stewart read from his mug. He considered the orange cat. “It’s not Monday.”

  “Just drink the coffee,” said Martin.

  After the toaster popped, Martin set a plate in front of Stewart and then sat down with his own. “Eat,” he said. He’d hoped the breakfast would give Stewart the chance to offer an apology, an explanation, or even his thanks, but their plates were almost empty when Martin broke the stalemate.

  “Is Cheryl in trouble?”

  “Never you mind about that,” said Stewart.

  “Is it something to do with the guy she met on the Internet? The guy in Boise?”

  Stewart finished off his toast.

  “I mean, s
he doesn’t seem like the type to run off like that. But you tell me. I barely know her,” said Martin.

  “She’s—” Stewart broke off. “It’s not your problem.”

  “Certainly seemed to be my problem last night,” said Martin. Stewart sighed a growling breath and shoveled in a bite of scrambled eggs. “You were going on about the rhubarb pie.”

  “I was upset, not thinking clearly. I’ve been sick, you know,” said Stewart. “It was a mistake to come here.”

  “I’m sorry you think I would do anything to hurt your daughter,” said Martin. “Sorry. Stepdaughter.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “If you think she’s in trouble, why don’t you let me help you? We can talk to the police. I could go to Boise and look for her.”

  “I don’t need your help,” said Stewart.

  “And you’re in any condition…?”

  “That’s none of your business.” Stewart sawed at a sausage with the side of his fork, but before he ate a bite, he picked up his oxygen pack and squinted at the dial. “Jesus,” he hissed.

  Martin found a fresh tank on the floor of Stewart’s Skylark, parked out on the street. “You’re driving home?” Martin asked as he helped Stewart switch the tanks on the regulator.

  “Where else am I going to go?”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?”

  “I’m sorry for busting in on you,” said Stewart. “And for blaming you.”

  “Hey, it’s forgivable. You love her,” said Martin.

  Martin waited until the Skylark’s blue exhaust had dissipated to worry about being late for work.

  ~ * * * ~

  Martin flopped on a bed of the Holiday Inn Express in Belgrade and kicked off his shoes. All he could see behind his eyelids were two-inch galvanized nails, seven-sixteenths-inch stainless steel lock washers, three-eighths-inch zinc-finished hex nuts, and a variety of Phillips pan head screws. Vaguely satisfied customers in Harlowton, White Sulphur Springs, Townsend, and Three Forks had been duly restocked for another forty-odd days. Tomorrow, Belgrade, Bozeman, Livingston, and Big Timber would be sated in their never-ending lust for hardware. What did people use all this stuff for, anyway? What did they build? What was so important that it had to be fixed? Had any of them ever given a second thought to the person who fills all those little bins?