The Caretaker of Lorne Field

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Sounds okay,” Jack Durkin admitted. “But it’s going to have to be close by so I can get back and forth to that field.”

  “That’s not going to be a problem. There’s quite a bit of land deeded with this cabin for us to build on. Getting back to what I was saying, along with this house being turned into a museum and gift shop, we’ll offer tours to Lorne Field so people can watch you at work, and—”

  “I ain’t allowing nothin’ that goes against the contract. No one’s allowed at Lorne Field but me.”

  Minter forced his smile wider. “Contracts can be amended—”

  “Nope. Not this one. It ain’t being changed. Not a word of it. Everything in it is written for a reason. You start messing around with it and we’re all lost.”

  ‘Please, Mr. Durkin, you need to be reasonable—”

  “I’m not allowing a single word of that contract to be changed. Not a single damn word.”

  “Is there anything in the contract against turning this home into a museum or gift shop?” Lydia asked.

  Durkin thought about it and shook his head.

  “How about against you setting up cameras down there so people can watch you work?”

  Again Durkin ended up admitting that there wasn’t.

  Lydia turned to Minter. “How about all that then?” she asked. “Would that be good enough?”

  Minter pursed his lips as he considered it. “I think that would work,” he said. “We could clear out some land behind this cabin and recreate Lorne Field. It might even be better that way. It would both add to the mystique of the actual field and give us more control. And people wouldn’t have to traipse miles through woods to get there. I’d still like to have a supply of weeds that we could laminate and sell as souvenirs.”

  Durkin’s jaw dropped as he digested what the lawyer was suggesting. “W-what do you want to do?” he stammered out, not sure he believed that he had heard right.

  “We could make a small fortune selling those weeds.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “Okay, okay.” Minter held out a hand to stop him. “I just thought I’d ask. The marketing potential could be huge for something like that. But it’s not a deal breaker.”

  “So we’re all set?” Lydia asked.

  “Well, we’ll see. The investors I talked to so far are excited, and I think I have the support of the town council. So as long your husband doesn’t have any further objections . . . ?”

  Durkin glanced at his wife and saw that her eyes were fixed on him. He also saw her still gingerly holding her injured hand. “As long as it don’t violate my contract, you and my wife can do whatever you want.” He cleared his throat. “What would be in the museum?” he asked somewhat sheepishly.

  “Quite a lot, actually. A complete history of Lorne Field, the legend of its monsters and, of course, paintings and sculptures of them, along with portraits and a short biography of each of your ancestors who’ve been Caretaker and, as your wife brilliantly suggested, video monitors so people can watch you at work. You are going to continue weeding the field, right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “I’ll be weeding the field until my eldest son takes over. As required by my contract.”

  “That’s good,” Minter said. He was still smiling broadly, but it was beginning to lose some of its luster. “It will give the whole thing an air of realism. Kind of a Colonial Williamsburg-type vibe. And of course the centerpiece for the museum will be the Caretaker’s Contract and Book of Aukowies under a glass display.”

  “How do you know about my book?”

  “Your wife told me about it.”

  Jack Durkin shifted a suspicious glance towards Lydia, then grunted as he pushed himself away from the table.

  “Let me get it for you so you can see it for yourself,” he said. “And the contract, too.”

  Durkin left the kitchen, careful to avoid the broken shards of glass littering the floor, and hobbled down the narrow basement steps. He stopped when he found the two loose stones. They weren’t pushed back as deep as they should’ve been. He knew he didn’t make that kind of mistake and guessed that either Lydia or Bert had found his hiding place, knowing that Lester wouldn’t have had the initiative. It was too bad. The hiding place had been used by the eldest Durkin ever since the cabin was built, but he decided it no longer mattered. The whole damn place was going to be made into a freak show soon anyway. But at least it would get Lydia off his back. And with video cameras at Lorne Field, people would see what the Aukowies really were. They’d all learn soon enough that this was no joke.

  He took the contract and the Book of Aukowies out of their hiding place and brought them back upstairs. He dropped them in front of the lawyer and told him to feel free to take a look at them. With the cursory glances the lawyer gave them, Durkin knew he had seen them before, which meant Lydia had found his hiding place. He felt better knowing that. He would’ve hated to think Bert would’ve been so sloppy as to leave the stones pushed only three-quarters of the way in.

  “Why don’t you read the contract more carefully,” he suggested. “I got some questions for you about it.”

  Minter showed him a puzzled smile. “What questions?”

  “Let me show you.” Jack Durkin took the contract in his hands and ran a thick index finger down the vellum paper until he found the clause he was looking for. “About what it says here—” Durkin stopped for a moment to squint hard at the paper, then he read out loud: “No person may interfere with the Caretaker from carrying out his sacred duties.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can that be legally enforced?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jack,” Lydia interrupt, “don’t bother Mr. Minter with this.”

  He ignored her and went on. “I think Sheriff Wolcott is planning to arrest me.”

  Minter blinked stupidly, but kept smiling. “Why is he planning to do that?”

  “He’s claiming I cut off my son’s thumb.”

  Minter’s face fell. “What?”

  “There was an accident today,” Lydia said. “Jack took our oldest boy, Lester, to that field to teach him how to weed and there was an accident.”

  “Is that true, Mr. Durkin? Your son had an accident today?”

  “Yep.”

  “How—I mean, what happened?”

  “My son lost his thumb.”

  “Yes I know, that part I heard. How did it happen?”

  “An Aukowie chewed it off.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Durkin shrugged. “Just what I said. Lester put his thumb too close to an Aukowie and it chewed it off.”

  Minter looked from Durkin to Lydia hoping to see that this was some kind of joke. All he saw in Lydia’s face was resignation, and in Durkin’s a stubborn earnestness.

  “You’re serious?” he said.

  “That’s what happened.”

  “And this is what you told Sheriff Wolcott?”

  “It’s what happened.”

  Minter looked back and forth at them. His wide apple-cheeked face pinched in concern. “I’ve put in a lot of time already talking to these investors and the town council. Not only that, but my reputation . . .” he started, his words choking off.

  “I’m just telling you what happened.”

  “Has your son told his side of the story to the authorities yet?”

  “No. Sheriff Wolcott told me that the doctors want him to wait until tomorrow to talk to Lester.”

  “Have you talked to your son yet?”

  “Not yet. He was crying too much after it happened and I was just trying to get him home before he bled to death.”

  Durkin wiped a hand across his jaw, then tugged at his grizzled chin as he thought about Lester and what had happened. “I’m planning to go to the hospital after dinner to see how he’s doing.”

  “They won’t let you see him,” Lydia said.

  Durkin stared at her as i
f she were crazy.

  “Neither of us are allowed to see him,” Lydia repeated dismally. “Not until Child Services finishes their investigation.”

  “That’s not right—”

  “What will your son say about what happened to him?” Minter asked, cutting him off.

  Durkin looked dumbly at the lawyer as if he had forgotten who he was. “He’ll say the same as me. That one of the Aukowies chewed off his thumb.”

  Minter lowered his head into his left hand and squeezed his eyes as if he had a migraine.

  “To answer your earlier question,” he said, “that clause would not withstand scrutiny by the courts. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. You can be arrested and sent to prison.”

  He stopped squeezing his eyes and stood up abruptly. He nodded to Lydia and Durkin. “I’ll be speaking to you soon,” he said to Lydia, then to Durkin, “If you’re arrested call me immediately. From this point on if Sheriff Wolcott or any other official asks you what happened to your son tell them it was an accident. Or better yet, don’t say a word and have them talk to me instead. And most importantly, do not make any videotapes of those weeds. Keep a low profile, do not do anything to call further attention to yourself, and do not, I repeat, do not make any videotapes of those weeds. Do we understand each other?”

  Durkin stood glumly with his arms crossed and his stare cast down to the floor.

  “Mr. Durkin, am I getting through to you?”

  Durkin nodded slowly.

  “Good.” He sighed heavily. “Right now I’d better go and see if I can have a talk with your son. Mrs. Durkin, what hospital is he at?”

  “First Baptist.”

  Minter nodded, repeated that he’d be speaking to them soon and headed towards the front door. Glass crunched under his tennis sneakers. He didn’t seem to notice. Lydia yelled out to him, asking whether this was going to change their plans.

  Minter stopped and gave her a tired look. “I hope not,” he said. “No, it shouldn’t. If it was an accident like you say, then it shouldn’t matter. It might make our investors skittish for a week or two, but that will hopefully be the extent of it.”

  He nodded once more to them and then hurried from the room. They heard the front door open and close only seconds later.

  Lydia sat frozen, her small wrinkled face twenty years older than earlier that evening. At that moment Jack Durkin had a good idea how his wife would look on her deathbed. It also made him think of a magician’s trick. Lower the curtain and raise it a second later to reveal that the middle-aged woman volunteer has been replaced by her elderly mother. She stared straight back at him without appearing to notice him. Slowly recognition seeped into her eyes.

  “You’re not going to ruin this for me,” she said in a quiet, dispassionate voice. “Not just for me, but for Lester and for Bert. Do you understand that?”

  “Look, I haven’t done anything.”

  “I asked if you understand me?”

  Durkin saw cold violent murder in her eyes and nodded accordingly.

  “You are going to do exactly what that lawyer told you to do. And you’re not going to say another word to anyone about a weed biting off Lester’s thumb. If you do, so help me God.”

  She stood up awkwardly, tottering for a few seconds on her feet before getting her balance. Durkin felt sick inside seeing how she held her injured hand and how swollen it had gotten.

  “You need to have a doctor look at that,” he said.

  “Only thing you should be worrying about now is how you’re going to explain to Daniel Wolcott why you didn’t have Lester’s thumb with you when you brought him home.”

  He sat and watched her leave the kitchen, then listened to the sound of her heels clacking across the living room’s hardwood floor and later on the stairs leading to the second floor. When the sounds faded, he found the broom and dust-pan and swept up the broken glass. After that he washed and dried the dishes.

  The more he thought about it the more that lawyer’s plans sounded like pie-in-the-sky dreaming to him, but if Lydia wanted to believe it then he’d let her. He didn’t see any harm coming from it, and if it gave her some hope, all the better. Eventually he’d get the town to increase his honorarium, and once that happened, Lydia would settle down. As far as Wolcott went, he pretty much expected the sheriff’s reaction to what he told him. But what else was he going to say? Make something up? He’d pay anything, though, to see Wolcott’s reaction when Lester told him his side of the story. Wolcott always treated him as a crank, as if what he did was one big joke, and he’d love to see the look on that smug bastard’s face once it dawned on him that maybe the Aukowies were something other than weeds. The only problem was if Lester couldn’t remember what happened. He had a nagging fear that that might happen. It seemed as if Lester went into shock almost immediately, and if he did and had somehow blocked out his memories of dropping the camcorder and having his thumb chewed off, then Wolcott would continue his snickering and treating him like the town loon. Worse, he’d probably arrest him and keep him from weeding Lorne Field. That thought had worried him most of the afternoon.

  Durkin fished through Lydia’s junk drawer where she kept coupons and recipes and other odds and ends. In the back of it he found a torn piece of paper that had been sitting in there for years. The ink was mostly faded, but Durkin could still make out the phone number written on it.

  He picked up the phone and called the last number he had for his brother. It had been almost ten years since Joe called and left the number with Lydia, and almost twenty-five years since Durkin last spoke to his brother. He had no idea whether the number was still good, but he prayed that it was.

  Joe answered after the fifth ring.

  “What do you know,” he said, “my big brother, Jack, calling. Never thought I’d hear from you again.”

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  Joe laughed. “Caller ID. You should get it and join the twenty-first century.”

  “Joe, I need your help.”

  “What, no pleasantries? After what, twenty, twenty-five years—that’s all I get from you, that you need help? You can’t even pretend to ask how me or my family’s doing? But then again you’re a busy man saving the world each day.”

  “What are you trying to say? That you don’t believe I save the world each day?”

  “I don’t know.” There was a long pause, then, “Look, Jack, you drank the Kool-Aid, I only sniffed it. I just don’t know.”

  “You think I’m crazy then,” Durkin said angrily. “And pa and grandpa and every other Durkin before them. And you’re the only sane one of us ’cause you got to go off to college.”

  “Jack, I’m not saying any of you are crazy, but this is something I’ve thought a lot about since leaving home. Maybe there’s some other explanation. For example, maybe the weeds secrete a mild hallucinogenic that can be absorbed through the skin when you touch them—”

  “I don’t touch them. I wear gloves.”

  “Do you wear latex gloves underneath?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then it could still be aborbed through the gloves and then into the skin. Or through the air. Or maybe the Aukowies are exactly what pa and grandpa always said they were. Anyway, don’t get mad, I’m not saying any of this to upset you. It’s been on my mind, that’s all. So how much do you need?”

  “I don’t need money from you.”

  “Then what?”

  “I might need you to take over for me.”

  “Jack—”

  “I might not be able to do this much longer.”

  “Jack, I can’t do that. I’ve got a wife and family. Three daughters and a son, not that you ever bothered to ask. I can’t just pack up and move halfway across the country.”

  “They might throw me in jail tomorrow. Somebody’s got to weed the Aukowies if I can’t. It’s only two months or so ’til first frost. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Why are you going to be thrown in jail?”
>
  Durkin rubbed some wetness from his eyes. “It’s not important,” he said. “It ain’t definite either. So you going to come if I need you to?”

  “Jack, I can’t.”

  “All I’m asking for is two months. Joe, I’ve been doing this over thirty years, and you know everything I gave up to do this. You can give me two months . . . Joe? Hello, Joe, are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here. I’m sorry, Jack, I can’t. Listen, if they’re nothing but weeds then there’s no point in me taking over for you, but if they’re what pa and grandpa said they were, then it wouldn’t make any difference whether I tried weeding them or not because they’d rip me to shreds the first day I was out there. Remember, Jack, pa spent a whole summer teaching you how to weed them. Besides, I’d be violating the contract.”

  Red flashed brightly in Durkin’s brain and burned deeply. He stood trembling as he held the phone, only half-aware of telling his brother to go fuck himself and putting the receiver down. It was a long time before the red faded and he could breathe normally again. He moved back to the kitchen table and sat down. He buried his face in his hands and wept until there was nothing left inside. Until he felt completely empty. Then he wiped his face off with the dish towel and went upstairs to join Lydia in bed.

  Chapter 7

  The next morning Jack Durkin was out of bed two hours earlier than usual. Keeping as quiet as he could, he snuck down to the kitchen, poured himself a bowl of cereal, made a cup of instant coffee and was out the door before Lydia woke up, or at least before she had a chance to come downstairs and nag at him. He was two-thirds done with his second pass of weeding when Wolcott and two town police officers, Bob Smith and Mark Griestein, approached the field. The three men walked up to him, and Wolcott told him he was under arrest for cutting off his son’s thumb.

  “It’s a long hike back to the cruiser, Jack. I’m hoping I don’t have to put handcuffs on you. You’ll come along peacefully, won’t you?”

  Durkin nodded. He looked from Wolcott to the other two men with him. Griestein’s face was a blank screen, his eyes shielded by mirrored sunglasses. Bob Smith, on the other hand, looked deeply worried. Durkin had finished his freshman year of high school before dropping out. During that year he played third base for his school’s varsity baseball team, while Bob Smith, a senior, played first. His coach thought Durkin had major league potential, and so did the scouts who came to watch him play. That was the reason he dropped out after one year; he didn’t want to hear about all the potential he had when his future was already set. But during that season him and Bob had been good friends.