Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  “And my horrible evening only got worse this morning,” replied the agent, “when I found out that my prisoner escaped last night.”

  Akash stared but said nothing.

  “Crazy, huh?” said the agent, hoping for some response from Akash.

  “People escape from jails and prisons all the time,” said Akash. “It happens every day and is all quite explainable and commonplace.”

  “You’re right, of course,” said the agent, looking down once more at his menu, “except Matthew Duncan told me he was going to escape.”

  Akash continued to stare at the agent for a moment and then looked back down at his menu. “He told you that, exactly?” he asked.

  “Well, not exactly, but he said he was not going back to Washington State with me. I think his intentions were pretty clear.”

  “And you failed to warn the sheriff of this?” Akash asked, still without looking up.

  The waiter came with the coffee and tea, took their order, and left again.

  “Oh, hell yes,” replied the agent. “Just to be safe, I actually told the sheriff to add extra security, and they put the prisoner in handcuffs inside his cell.”

  “Bad handcuffs or a poorly constructed jail, I’d say,” replied Akash. “So what are your plans to apprehend your escapee?”

  “My plans? That’s a good question. I guess, first of all, I’ll go see the sheriff and get the latest report. I’ll also give the son of a bitch a piece of my mind for not calling me last night—as soon as the escape occurred.”

  Akash smiled. “And what would you have done last night if he’d called and told you—assuming you could even hold the phone receiver in your hand? And that was a rather impressive pistol I noticed in your room. I would have found it frightening to have you wandering around the streets of Cottonwood, drunk out of your mind and waving that pistol around. Someone may well have gotten shot.”

  The agent stared at Akash for a moment. “You’ve got a point there—still, I would’ve at least appreciated the courtesy call.”

  Their breakfast came, and both ate as though they’d been without food for days. Akash had a large stack of pancakes with blueberry syrup and scrambled eggs on the side. The agent had Canadian bacon, three eggs over-easy, hash browns, and wheat toast with strawberry jam.

  They spoke very little while eating, commenting only on the smaller crowd in the diner—relating it to the departure of the stranded motorists. They also discussed the lack of a cowbell being rung and its resulting applause. The new silence of the diner seemed somehow odd by its presence—even as odd as the cowbell had originally seemed.

  When they were nearly done eating, the agent asked, “And so, while I’m out hunting down my escapee, what are your plans? Mapping more perfect circles?”

  Akash wiped his mouth with his napkin and said, “I’m actually going to go back and check all my data again to see if there’s something I’ve missed. I may even go out to the boundaries of the Dead Zone to take new readings. Something may have changed. You never know.”

  When the waiter came back with their bill, Akash insisted on paying and already had his wallet out. The agent didn’t complain but did stop the waiter before he left the table.

  “I was just wondering why it’s so quiet in here this morning?” the agent asked. “No cowbell? No cheering? What’s up with that?”

  “That’s easy—no miracles,” said the waiter. “I guess we got a big shipment of supplies in yesterday from the state or something, and then everything stopped. Who needs a miracle fridge when it’s stocked full of food?” The boy smiled and left the table.

  Once outside the diner, Akash said, “See, everything returns to normal in the light of day. As people are getting used to the Dead Zone—all the hysteria and talk of miracles goes away. The owner of this diner practically accosted me yesterday, trying to convince me of the ‘miracles’ taking place here. I think he was looking for someone with some technical notoriety and credentials to help him by putting a stamp of authenticity on his little miracle diner. He was dreaming of getting rich from the tourists. What someone won’t do to make a buck these days. Now the miracles in his diner have just as mysteriously vanished.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said the agent. “Though we still have the mystery of the Dead Zone, right?”

  “Perhaps for a while longer—but that mystery, too, will be penetrated. It’s only a matter of applying the mind and the scientific method. Think of all the foolishness that could have been avoided if the human race had discovered science a few centuries earlier. Years of superstition and chasing mystical nonsense could have been avoided.”

  As the two men stood talking in the parking lot in front of the diner, Ernie Martinelli came around from the side of the diner, carrying a large trash bag full of something. The bag didn’t appear to be heavy, as Ernie carried it easily with one hand.

  “Good morning, Mr. Martinelli,” said Akash brightly with a smile.

  “Good morning, Mr.…uh? Akash. I’m sorry, what was your last name?” said Ernie.

  “Mudali…Akash Mudali,” he said and then turned to the agent. “And this is Agent Westmore, from the state of Washington.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Agent Westmore,” said Ernie. “Are you also here investigating the Dead Zone?”

  “No, I’m actually here to pick up an escaped prisoner from our state.”

  “Oh, so you’re the one here to pick up Matthew Duncan,” said Ernie. “News travels fast in a small town, you know.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” said the agent.

  The agent didn’t know if Ernie had heard about the most recent escape, but wasn’t about to mention it.

  “News does travel fast,” said Akash. “We’ve just learned that all your miracles have ended here at your diner. Too bad for you, as your videos are your only proof now, and, of course, everyone knows a video can be tampered with. I guess your miracle goldmine diner is a bust, Mr. Martinelli.”

  After a pause, Ernie said, “You know, I hadn’t been thinking about that aspect of the miracles; however, you do bring up an interesting business idea. But anyway, you’re right, it does seem that, for now, the miracles have stopped. The shipments of food we received yesterday somehow halted the need for miracles.”

  “No miracles, no proof, no goldmine,” replied Akash.

  Ernie smiled. “No proof? Well, of course, videos can be faked, though mine were not, but I’ve got other proof as well.” Ernie held up the plastic trash bag he was carrying.

  “Do you have some more miracles in that bag, Mr. Martinelli?” asked Akash.

  Ernie shook his head and smiled. “No, just more proof of them.”

  “What sort of proof?” asked Akash, now also smiling broadly. “The bag looks very light. Maybe it’s full of angels’ wings!” He looked to the agent for a reinforcement of his own cleverness, but the agent only offered a forced and nervous half smile, as though he was somehow not sure if the bag might not, in fact, contain the feathery gossamer wings of angels.

  “Angels’ wings!” exclaimed Ernie. “Such an imagination! I’ve heard scientists need a great imagination, and you’ve proven it to me, Mr. Mudali! Are you sure you really want to see?”

  “Not really,” replied Akash, his smile suddenly vanishing. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “I’d like to see,” said the agent, showing unexpected interest.

  Ernie studied the agent’s unshaven face and the honest lines around the corners of his eyes. In a moment of certainty, like the moment when a fish would strike and he knew it was hooked, Ernie was certain he had glimpsed something unique in the lines on the agent’s face. In those lines, he felt he had instantly read the life story of a man he’d only just met—and remarkably—it was a story not unlike his own. In the lines, he saw the eternal story of every wandering soul who had ever questioned their own existence, who had stumbled in the darkness and shallow deceit of words, who had been lost in the woods of clever philosophies and human created
temples of meaningless dogma, and who was finally ready to emerge into the true sunlight—to embrace the ineffable, sacred, and wondrous mystery of it all. Ernie was humbled by what he saw.

  “A little extra confirmation, eh?” Ernie asked the agent, with a kind and simple smile.

  The agent shook his head no, as though not understanding the reference in Ernie’s question, yet he knew he could just as well have nodded his head yes, for he did want to see! A week before, he would have laughed and walked away from someone like Ernie, yet now he had to see!

  “You know what I’ve discovered these past few days?” Ernie asked as he carefully placed the bag on the ground, yet still holding his hand tightly around the top so that it didn’t open. He looked first at the agent and then to Akash. “I’ve discovered that sometimes people ask to see proof but aren’t ready to accept it when it’s given to them.”

  “Please,” said Akash, impatiently, looking like he was ready to walk away, “either show us the angel wings, or whatever, or don’t—but spare us the speeches. I’ve got lots of work to do this morning.”

  “You’re a skeptic, Mr. Mudali,” said Ernie, “and even I am not so foolish as to believe that what I have in this bag will change the heart of a skeptic—there is nothing that will change that. If you cannot produce a rainbow on a clear sunny day to the skeptic who’s never seen one, the skeptic will tell you that rainbows don’t exist. You may even explain to them that the conditions must be just right for a rainbow to form. You tell the skeptic to be open-minded and patient; just wait and the miracles will form, like the rainbow, when the conditions are right. Well, for a few days here in Cottonwood, right at my little diner, conditions were right….”

  Ernie opened the bag and pulled out an empty and flattened milk carton. “No, these are not angel wings, but perhaps something just as rare. I’ve been digging through the trash can this morning to find it. This, gentlemen, is the last milk carton delivered by the regular delivery truck to my diner last Thursday—by itself, I admit, completely unremarkable.”

  He handed the milk carton to Akash who studied it for a moment and then handed it to Agent Westmore.

  “I’m disappointed. I wanted angel wings,” said Akash. “You’ll never get tourists to come here to see that.”

  Agent Westmore studied the empty plastic container closely but said nothing.

  “Unremarkable, I admit,” said Ernie, “but there is one thing I want you to take note of on that empty carton. Please notice the expiration date and dairy-plant number on the side.”

  Agent Westmore turned the carton so he could read the information. He then handed the carton to Akash who also read the small printed numbers.

  “Now, bear with me a moment, please,” said Ernie, pulling another carton from the bag that looked similar to the first and handing it to Akash. “Look at the markings on that one.”

  Akash studied it for a moment and then handed it to the agent. “Yes, so it’s exactly the same,” said Akash. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Gentlemen, I get daily deliveries to keep my food fresh. I go through three of these cartons a day and get three more to replace them—every day. It’s easy math. You like math, right, Mr. Mudali?”

  “Please, just continue and get to the point, Mr. Martinelli,” said Akash.

  “I am. Every day, I get fresh milk,” continued Ernie, “and every day the expiration date is always, without exception, moved forward by at least a day or more on the new cartons. I never get milk two days in a row that has the same expiration date—never. Often times the dairy-plant number will vary as well. So it’s three cartons a day, all with expiration dates different than the ones I received the prior day—got it?”

  “Yeah, and usually different plant numbers,” replied Akash. “So your point being?”

  Ernie took his plastic bag and dumped it upside down in the parking lot. Dozens of empty milk containers, mixed in with egg cartons and other food packaging, tumbled across the asphalt toward the feet of Akash and the agent.

  Ernie was smiling. “Look for yourself, gentlemen—concrete physical proof. There are more than twelve empty milk containers here, and they all have the same expiration date and same dairy-plant number. If you check, you’ll see the same thing on those other cartons. There are far more cartons here with the same expiration date than I could possibly have ordered in one day. I don’t really even know which ones are the originals or which ones are the duplicates—but it doesn’t really matter, does it? There are just too many. I’ve even got the records in my office that show exactly how many cartons of milk I received last Thursday—it was three, just as I told you. You are looking at something that is impossible, yet there it is. Miracles, it would seem, don’t care what we think is impossible.”

  Akash and Agent Westmore, each holding one of the empty milk cartons, looked at each other and then back at Ernie.

  “Okay, I admit this is mildly interesting,” said Akash, “but some printed numbers on a plastic carton do not a miracle make, Mr. Martinelli.” Akash handed the empty carton back to Ernie. “Labels can be forged, mistakes in distribution made, overruns at the manufacturing plant, or someone simply forgot to change the date on the computer that prints those labels. There are hundreds of ways to fake this sort of thing—just like the video you showed me. Thank you for the show, but I’ve got some work to do now.”

  Akash walked off toward the Cottonwood Inn while Agent Westmore stood still for a moment, staring down at the empty cartons at his feet and the one he was holding. Ernie said nothing. He watched Akash cross the street and then looked back at the agent.

  “I guess he wasn’t impressed,” said the agent.

  “I guess not,” replied Ernie. “How about you?”

  “I’ve seen too much of this.”

  “Too much of what?” asked Ernie.

  “Breadcrumbs.”

  “Breadcrumbs?”

  The agent didn’t reply but knelt down and began scooping up a few cartons at a time off the ground, putting them back into the bag while Ernie held it open.

  “I think Akash Mudali is a fool,” said Ernie.

  The agent looked at him. “Oh? How so?”

  “He lacks faith in the unseen things of the universe. Anything he can’t see or measure, he rejects. If it can’t be quantified and categorized, it’s like it doesn’t even exist to him. But I think some things—maybe the most important things—can’t ever be measured or even seen sometimes—and therein lies their true value. Try to measure the way your newborn’s first smile made you feel—you can’t! Yet, those moments are the most real things in the world! Poor Mr. Mudali. He’s trapped by his rigid mind, and in trying to define and box in what he considers possible—he has missed what is true.”

  “Missed it? I’m not so sure of that. He knows lots of things that are true—it’s just a different kind of truth. He just sees the universe differently. As for me, I’m not so sure I know anything about what’s true anymore.”

  “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” replied Ernie.

  “Did you make that up?” asked the agent.

  “No,” Ernie answered as they finished picking up all the empty containers off the ground, and Ernie stood holding the full bag. He smiled at the agent and added, “Socrates said that.”

  The agent chuckled. “And here I thought you were just the owner of a little diner in Cottonwood, Colorado—but you’re a closet philosopher!”

  “Nope, just a simple cook. That was the only quote by Socrates my father knew, or maybe the only quote by anyone that he knew. He repeated it constantly when I was just learning how to cook. I’d make a mistake, burn something or add too much of this or that ingredient, and then I’d call myself ‘stupid.’ My father would hear me and invariably say that quote. I got better at cooking.”

  “I like it,” said the agent.

  “Me, too,” replied Ernie, “and it has very recently come to mean a great deal more to me.” He paused for a moment and ask
ed, “So, are you going to tell me what you meant by the ‘breadcrumbs’ statement before?”

  The agent looked at him. “It’s a long story, and maybe I’ll tell you all about it sometime, but right now those breadcrumbs have reminded me of a certain trail I need to follow.”

  The agent left Ernie at his diner and headed directly up Main Street toward the sheriff’s office. His thoughts were a mixture of empty milk cartons all stamped with the same numbers, combined with the words Superintendent Tremont had said to him earlier regarding recapturing Matthew Duncan—your career might depend on it. In the midst of these confusing and diverging thoughts, the agent climbed the stairs and opened the door to the sheriff’s office.

  Eighty-Five

  Bound

  Though her eyes were open, Rebecca could feel a cloth or bandana of some sort wrapped tightly across them. She lay on her left side, and the hard floor beneath her felt cool. The air was damp and musty. Her hands were bound behind her back, and her fingers felt numb. There was an odd taste in her mouth. She thought the taste may have come from a second cloth tied behind her neck, running across her mouth nearly gagging her, but she began to think it was something else—like the aftertaste of something. The right side of her body burned and ached. As she slowly regained her full senses, she realized she was on some sort of cloth or blanket, but it was not thick, and through it, the coldness and hardness of the floor easily penetrated. She quickly surmised she was lying on the concrete floor of a basement.

  As more awareness crept in, the full scope of the events leading up to her current situation streamed back to her. She remembered being run off the road and riding her bike through the dark woods. She remembered being knocked off by a tree branch. Was it a tree branch? Yes, it must have been. She had then walked carefully along the hillside through the darkness. She tried using her cell phone, but it was missing. Cautiously, she had gotten back onto the highway and began pedaling hard toward work. I’m going to make it! Then blackness…