Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  “Why are you lying to me?” asked the sheriff. “You think I’m some fool kid you tell your stories to down in front of Masterson’s?”

  “Those ‘fool kids’ have become some of the wisest people I know, Sheriff,” replied Carl. “Now, how ‘bout you let me finish my story, so at least I can feel good that I told you the truth—what you do with it is your decision.”

  The sheriff remained silent, and Carl continued: “So, I finally got to Grand Junction and parked Ned’s car at the airport. I left an envelope on the seat with some money in it to pay Ned for all the trouble. I never learned to write like sighted people, so I punched a Braille message in the envelope, thanking Ned for the use of his car and telling folks not to worry about me. I was okay and would be back, eventually. Then I bought a ticket back to Louisiana and was like a little child on the flight—looking out the window the whole time. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever imagined—soaring above the clouds, the little cities, mountains, rivers, and lakes—all of it so beautiful down below. To go from being blind to seeing the world from the window of a plane—well, it’s as close to heaven as I might ever get.

  “Now, most of my family is dead or moved away from Louisiana, but there was one special person, in particular, I was looking forward to seeing and was the real reason I even went back. Her name is Isabella. She was the love of my life, Sheriff. When I was much younger, I’d touched her face, her soft body, and held her hands, but I’d never gazed upon her face or looked into her eyes.

  “Isabella wanted me to marry her at one time—she begged me. She was fully-sighted, and in my stubborn and stupid heart, I refused her. I thought she deserved better than me. A beautiful young woman with a blind guy seemed like a bad fit, even though she told me over and over that no sighted man had ever touched her the way I had. She told me that when a sighted man touched her, it seemed he would touch for his pleasure, but when I touched her, it was a gift to her. When I touched her, I wanted to give her something.

  “So, being a foolish young man, I left Isabella behind and moved away, eventually winding up here in Cottonwood. She learned Braille just so we could keep in touch by letters, and we’ve had the occasional phone calls as well, over the years. She would send me address labels with her address printed on them so I could get letters to her. She was in love with me, and I loved her, but in all those years, I stayed stubborn, and she never married. When I was given my eyesight, the first face I thought of—the first face I really wanted to look at—was Isabella’s.

  “When I got to Louisiana, I decided I wanted to surprise her, so instead of calling her and having her pick me up at the airport, I took a taxi to her house. I had it stop down the street and asked the taxi driver to point out her house for me. I walked right up to the house and rang the doorbell. After a minute or so, a beautiful old woman answered the door. From the structure of her face, which I’d caressed so many years before, and her voice, I knew immediately it was Isabella. ‘May I help you?’ she asked, but I couldn’t even speak. She was so beautiful, and I found myself staring at her, and because she could see that I was a sighted person, she had no idea it was me.

  “She almost closed the door right then in my face, but through my tightened throat, I managed to get out, ‘Hello Isabella.’ She stared at me for just a second and said, ‘Pardon me, but do I know you?’ I didn’t know what to say next. I was confused that she didn’t recognize me immediately. ‘It’s me, Carl…Carl Taylor,’ I replied.

  “You know what she did next, Sheriff? The last thing I expected the love of my life to do after so many years apart—she slammed the door right in my face. I suppose she didn’t believe what she had seen, so closing the door was her way of blocking it out, and that’s just human nature, I guess. When a miracle first appears on the doorstep of our life—we often close the door in its face, hoping it will go away.

  “But I hadn’t come all that way just to walk away from her. Instead, I walked several blocks to find a pay phone. I called her up and just talked to her. It sure took some convincing and a pocketful of change, but eventually she let me come back to her house and let me inside. There were lots of tears shed that day, and finally—we had our beautiful reunion.

  “I think it really took Isabella a few days to fully accept the truth of my sightedness, and one day I finally said to her, ‘I’ve been a fool and blind in more ways than one over my lifetime. My heart was stubborn once, but I want to marry you, Isabella. I want to do what I should have done so many years ago.’ She didn’t hesitate at all, though she did make me promise that I would never forget how to touch her—now that I was sighted—the way I did when I was blind. I vowed to her that I would never forget that touching someone was a gift to them, and if it brings them joy, that joy becomes your gift in return. She’ll be moving up here in a few weeks, once she sells her house and wraps up her personal affairs down there. So that’s the truth, exactly as it happened, Sheriff. Do with it as you wish, and draw the conclusions that you want.”

  Sheriff O’Neil was silent and was no longer looking at Carl, but staring at something past him or even through him. As he stared, he took a few more sips of beer. The two men sat in the silence of the room for a while, surrounded by the hundreds of Carl’s knickknack friends adorning the walls and shelves. The Pyramid of Giza and the Tower of London were no longer cheering the return of their friend—they were waiting in silence.

  “A fool,” the sheriff finally said. It was barely audible, and the sheriff was still staring past Carl.

  “Pardon me?” replied Carl. “Who’s a fool?”

  The sheriff did not answer immediately, but stood up from the chair, picked up the few remaining beer cans that were unopened, and moved almost trancelike toward the front door. Without so much as a nod or a glance in Carl’s direction, the sheriff opened the front door and stopped, looking out into the darkness of the Cottonwood night. “It is good to see you again, Carl. I’m happy for you.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” replied Carl, but the words were said to a closing door, as the sheriff had already disappeared into the night.

  Carl spent much of the remainder of his night sitting in his living room, reacquainting himself with his old friends. As he touched them and looked at them, he realized that the visual sense of them added the dimension of color and light; however, in these miniatures, the play of color and light off of them was not important, for it told him nothing about the way actual sunlight might dance and play off of the real objects themselves. As Carl fell asleep that night, he imagined himself and Isabella standing hand in hand before the real Eiffel Tower, watching the real sun and real shadows dance among its dark, but glorious, soaring strands of steel.

  One Hundred Six

  The Buzz at Ernie’s

  As was the case with the memorial service, a standing-room-only crowd gathered afterwards at Ernie’s Diner. They came both to enjoy the free food and also to talk about the remarkable series of events that had transpired at the service, culminating with the entrance of the formerly Old Blind Carl, who had instantly become—just Carl. The diner was abuzz with lively conversation, as Ernie and his staff continually replenished large trays of food and drinks. The entire diner staff agreed to work the evening without pay as their contribution to the efforts, and considering the amount of food he was going through, Ernie was most grateful for their generous offers. And though his miracle fridge had stopped producing the miraculously appearing food weeks before—once he’d started receiving regular shipments, Ernie wished—for at least one night, there might be a resumption of the never-ending free supply. He was, however, too busy cooking and serving food to ever stop and check on his wish.

  Carl Taylor’s restored eyesight was by far the most common topic of conversation, but sprinkled throughout the diner were also small groups of people who were interested in what Amida and Takara Yamamoto had revealed during the service, as well as in what Chelsea Reese had related. Chelsea stayed only a short time at the diner. She h
ad been carrying Carl’s cane with her, and since Carl himself was not present, it seemed everyone wanted to hold the cane, even if only for a moment—as though it had become some sacred object to many of them, imbued with some special power unto itself. Chelsea grew tired of the constant demands to touch and hold the cane, seeing it almost as an invasion of Carl’s private life. She had read his story in a private moment, after the cane had been offered specifically to her. Finally ready for the comfort and privacy of home, Chelsea politely retrieved the cane from yet one more admiring devotee and taking her father with her, left for home.

  Amanda, however, stayed. Her daughter had become something of an instant celebrity in the town, and she meant to ride on the coattails of that notoriety as long as it had momentum.

  “I thought there was something very special about Matthew Duncan from the moment I saw him,” Amanda boasted to the small group gathered around her. “I could see it in his eyes.”

  “From what you told us before, it wasn’t his eyes you first saw,” said Bethany Crawford as she nibbled on a small tuna salad sandwich. “I believe you told us you saw him naked up in the river, didn’t you?”

  The group let out a healthy round of chuckles as Amanda blushed. She glanced around at all the eyes that were suddenly on her. “Well, yes, that’s true…but later, well, Chelsea and I sat right across the table from him, right in this diner, and when I looked into his sparkling blue eyes, I immediately saw something saintly, I saw—”

  “That’s a bunch of horseshit, Amanda,” said Sparky, who had been standing just behind her, out of her eyesight but close enough to hear.

  Amanda spun around, and all the others looked at Sparky as well. They’d never seen him challenge anyone before, and now he’d somehow chosen to challenge the gossip queen of Cottonwood on the night he found his true voice.

  “I beg your pardon?” replied Amanda, growing red in the face. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Sparky smiled. “I’m not calling you anything, but your words say one thing, and the facts say another.” Sparky looked at the group, his face was relaxed, his voice calm. “You see, everyone, on the night in question, I was also in this diner. I had followed Matthew down here under orders from the sheriff. Amanda is correct—she did sit across the table from him. But what she left out was the little fact that she dragged me outside to talk, apparently after Matthew had given the cane to Chelsea. Rather than implying that Matthew was a saint, she more than strongly suggested to me that he’d done something nasty to Carl—and that’s why he had the cane. This is exactly how it happened that night, and so now you can all stay here and listen to the rest of her story, but just keep in mind the difference between words and truth.” Sparky smiled at Amanda, turned, and walked away.

  Speechless for the first time in a long time, Amanda watched Sparky walk away. When she turned back to the rest of the group, it had dissolved away like a dissipating cloud to mix with other groups in the diner.

  On the other side of the diner, Vince Pasternack was chomping down on a meatball sub. “I have my suspicions that we’re all being duped, somehow,” he said. “I listened to all those fancy words today, and saw Carl walking around with his eyesight and all, but it just don’t add up to any so-called miracle in my book. I’m wonderin’ who paid Carl off? Who got to him?”

  “Paid him off?” asked Annette Martinelli, who had been helping to serve food but had stopped for a moment to pick up the large supply of dirty dishes accumulating near Vince.

  “Yeah, paid him off,” replied Vince. “You know, the government has advanced technology that can pretty much cure any disease—including blindness. They got it from the aliens after Roswell. I think that whatever the government did to cause this Dead Zone—well, Carl somehow knew about it. He sensed it with the heightened senses that all blind people have. It’s so obvious now. They hushed him up with the bribe of curing his blindness. They took him away and gave him some kind of advanced alien-based medical treatment. He’s been gone all this time healing—probably underground—over at Area 51. How convenient that Carl would come back now. What better way to get our minds off of the real cause of the Dead Zone—which is secret government testing.”

  Annette hadn’t the words to respond. Fortunately, Akash Mudali had been standing off to the side listening and stepped forward to rescue her from Vince’s ranting.

  “Hello again, Vince,” Akash said, smiling.

  Vince stared at Akash for a moment. “Oh, Mumbali, was it? I didn’t know you were still in town.”

  “Actually, it’s Mudali, and I haven’t been in town,” replied Akash. “I only came back today, just for the service.”

  “Now, that’s convenient,” responded Vince.

  Shaking her head, Annette walked away with a tray full of Vince’s dirty dishes, but several other people were still standing nearby, listening to Vince’s conjectures.

  “It’s actually a long drive from Denver, but I’m thinking you meant something else by the word convenient,” said Akash.

  “Yeah, like was I getting too close to the truth for you?”

  Akash took a sip of his chocolate shake and smiled. “Truth? Is that what you call your theories?” Akash held up the shake and looked at it. “You know, I suspect there’s more truth in this chocolate shake than in all the words I just heard coming from your mouth.” He looked back at Vince. “While I’m sure there are undoubtedly conspiracies in this world, the greatest conspiracies the human mind could ever conceive fall infinitely short of the mysteries only the heart can perceive.”

  Vince had as dumbfound of a look on his face as his own words had inspired only moments before on Annette’s. Then slowly, the vacant look transformed into a wide, full-faced grin. “You’ve learned government-speak very well, Mr. Mumbali, if that even is your last name.”

  Akash prepared to correct him once again, but realized the futility—Vince wouldn’t believe him anyway.

  “I know the routine,” Vince continued. “If they start gettin’ close, throw up a smoke screen, baffle them with bullshit. Well, you can’t shut me up. I’m right in the middle of the Dead Zone, and I intend to keep tellin’ the whole world the truth.”

  Akash paused and then smiled. “I just figured it out! You’re Deadzonemechanic, aren’t you?!”

  Vince remained silent, but his eyes said enough, as he glanced nervously at the others who were listening in on the conversation.

  “I find the Internet a very useful and sometimes entertaining source of information,” Akash continued, “and I scoured many web sites when the Dead Zone first began—just because I was curious to see what the buzz on the Internet was, about the cause of the phenomenon.”

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

  “Now that’s the first true thing I think you’ve said,” Akash replied, still smiling. “But don’t worry, Vince, your secret is safe with me. Though I must tell you, I’ve found the Internet to be like a vast dung heap, scattered here and there by only a very few diamonds. Be a diamond hunter—not a fly.”

  With that, Akash smiled, raised his chocolate shake in a toast to everyone in the group, took a sip, and walked away. He headed straight toward Ernie Martinelli, preparing to give him one of the most sincere apologies he’d ever offered in his life.

  In one final corner of the diner, Rebecca sat at a booth with her mother and David Westmore. David was also enjoying a chocolate shake. He’d poured a little of it into a small glass to share with Diane. He’d already told the two women about his relocation to Cottonwood and his interview at the Home on Monday.

  “I just want to know,” said Diane, after licking some chocolate shake from a spoon, “why did you choose to shoot Eddie that day? You came all the way from Washington to bring Matthew back, and then you made a split-second decision to shoot a complete stranger rather than your escapee.”

  David stopped sipping his shake and smiled. He glanced at Rebecca and then looked at Diane. “If I told you why, it would be a lie.
Whatever I told you the reason was, if I put it into words, I would be lying to you. Sure, there were lots of little things—small breadcrumbs left for me—all reasons why I even ended up at Abyss Falls that day. But there I found myself, with a gun in my hand, pointed at a mystery, and I can only tell you that I followed my heart, and it was only afterwards that my mind accepted the inescapable truth behind that decision.”

  Rebecca smiled and nodded. “That answer makes perfect sense to me,” she said.

  Diane glanced at her daughter and then looked back to David. “Now, I don’t claim to fully understand it, but it makes sense to me as well, and I guess that’s exactly what you’re saying, right? We can find things to be true, without knowing why they are true or without even putting that truth into words?”

  David smiled. “A rose by any other name…” he said as he raised the chocolate milkshake in toast to Diane’s realization and to the new rose he saw possibly ready to bloom in his life.

  One Hundred Seven

  Star Hidden

  It is no coincidence that the majority of the human body is composed of exactly the same substance as the largest area of the earth’s surface—water—and in remarkably close to the same ratio. The earth’s surface can be thought of as the “living skin” of the planet, or as scientists call it—the biosphere. Water and life go hand in hand, and so wherever scientists look for life anywhere in the universe, they first look for water.