Away with the Fishes

by Stephanie Siciarz

  Randolph and Jarvis had just finished their stormy tale when Trevor picked up the phone. First he called his brother-in-law, Ernest, who had a truck with a hitch on it and was happy to rescue Dodger’s bus. He called Patience to tell her he wouldn’t be home for a while. And he called Bruce, because Bruce was a newsman in search of news, and so a friend in need. Also, Bruce was the only one of them who owned a camera. Trevor thought they ought to shoot the scene, and Raoul, who had experience in such matters, agreed.

  “The scene of what?” Branson asked.

  “If we knew that we wouldn’t be here puzzling over a mashed-up bike in flour dust at midnight, would we?” Trevor told him.

  As a matter of fact, it was hardly eleven-thirty, but they were indeed standing in front of Trevor’s Bakery, gazing perplexed into the back of the bakery truck at the bicycle the boys had carried home. Randolph wanted to get it out, but Raoul thought it best to photograph the bike as it was, just once-removed from the scene of the crime, not twice.

  “What crime?” Branson asked. “The boys said they looked for clues and there weren’t any.”

  “Since when does no clue mean no crime?” Raoul asked, though it was more an observation than a question.

  “Don’t the police have cameras? Maybe we should just call the police,” Branson suggested. In response, Trevor looked knowingly at Raoul and did something of a cough and a snort combined. It was the sound he made whenever he wished to remind Branson that his years off Oh had rubbed away a few layers of islander varnish.

  “The police? They’ll fill out a dozen forms, cite me for covering the evidence in flour, and call in experts from Killig who’ll file a report.” (Killig is Oh’s island neighbor, known for its rum and for robbing Oh of a lucrative pineapple trade.) Though Raoul counted himself among Oh’s government ranks and almost took offense at Trevor’s characterization, over the years he had witnessed more than one pickle at the hands of the Island Police, and so he held his tongue.

  Trevor cough-snorted again and went on. “Then our police will file a report about their report and before you know it, the trail’s gone cold.”

  “What trail?” Branson asked.

  “The trail from the bike to its rider,” Trevor said with a bit too much glee.

  Though Branson listened to his best friend sort out the islanders’ troubles every evening at the bakery, he forgot how much Trevor fancied a really good riddle. Which is what the mystery of the mangled bicycle was becoming.

  “Have it your way,” Branson said and let his hands fall to his legs with a loud slap. It was the sound he made whenever he wished to acknowledge his thin islander veneer (a Bowles hallmark, alas, this thinness). Which was not so thin, mind you, that he didn’t guess Trevor’s ulterior motive for involving the Morning Crier.

  Trevor wanted to stir up talk, a foolproof island remedy for any island problem. In this, too, Raoul agreed with him. Though Raoul himself was a man of few words, and much preferred the permanency of those printed in his library books, he had long since discovered the power of some old-fashioned island gossip.

  Bruce arrived shortly after (he only lived a few minutes away on foot) and began to assemble his reportage of dog-eared notepad pages on which he scribbled Randolph’s and Jarvis’s account, and snapshots of the bike from every angle. Raoul and Trevor finally allowed the removal of the bike remains from the truck, and Bruce photographed them upright, too, or as close to upright as the boys could hold them.

  “If you don’t mind, Trevor, I’ll get a start on the story here, while it’s all fresh.” Bruce tapped his temple with his index finger and cleared some space on the counter. “I might need to ask the boys for more details as I go along.”

  “Suit yourself,” Trevor said. “We have to wait for Ernest anyway.”

  Wait they did, Trevor, his son Randolph, Jarvis the bus conductor, Branson, and Raoul, in silence, seated on the low concrete step outside the bakery. Randolph and Jarvis, still shaken by their discovery, drank beer from sweaty brown bottles with slippery labels. Trevor drew with his fingers in the dirt between his feet, and Branson stared at the moon, fuller-faced than any he could remember for quite some time. He half-noticed that the tree-frogs and crickets, too, chirped louder than they had in weeks.

  Only Raoul’s mind was racing. He was troubled, he was. By the hot-pink message that had sent him scrambling to the bakery, by the news of Bruce’s anonymous ad, by the bent and twisted bicycle the baker’s son had found in the road. It seemed a terrific coincidence that bikes were turning up in newspapers and on shortcuts alike, or that Bruce and Raoul should both receive unsigned letters in the space of two days. As much as Raoul hated to admit it, it seemed that Trevor had got it right. Oh was wide awake, and the rainy moon was just the beginning. Unless—and Raoul thought this the better guess by far—the rain was the only real coincidence and he could find some connection between the BAKER, the bicycle, and the bashful bachelor hungry for a wife.

  While Raoul wondered how to go about such a strange and formidable undertaking, his head a-buzz with more questions than answers, Ernest Peachtree pulled up to the bakery. His noisy exhaust pipe battled the reggae tune that poured from his truck’s radio, the cacophony accentuated by hoots of his horn.

  “Good night, all. Good night!” he shouted from the open window as he wildly swung the vehicle into the small lot in front of the bakery. He cut the motor and hopped out. Jarvis stood to greet him. “Thanks, man. Good of you to help,” he said.

  “Doesn’t sound like Dodger, getting himself stuck in a ditch,” Ernest answered. “What happened?”

  “He listened to the police, that’s what.”

  “Police?” Ernest was confused.

  “I’ll explain it on the way,” Jarvis said as he patted him on the back. “Let’s go rescue the bus.”

  “Hold up!” Ernest said. “Trevor, you got a bun or something? I’m hungry.”

  They all went inside and Trevor gave Ernest warm bread with some sausages from a tin.

  “Bruce! What are you doing here?” Ernest asked cheerfully, when he saw Bruce at work over his notepad. It struck him, then, that the presence of Raoul Orlean there, at that hour, was unusual as well. “What’s going on?” Ernest asked, filled suddenly with more worry than cheer.

  “Randolph and Jarvis found a bike in the road and Bruce is writing a story about it for the paper,” Trevor explained.

  “You mean a lost and found kind of thing?” asked Ernest.

  “Something like that,” Bruce said, with a strange smile on his lips. Strange enough that Trevor and Branson exchanged a puzzled look, and Raoul’s fly pitched in his head.

  “Jarvis will tell you the whole story on the way. Go ahead and get Dodger now. I’ll wait up for you here,” Trevor said.

  “Wait!” Bruce shouted, waving his tattered notepad in the air and following after Ernest. “Can you drop me at the Crier first? I want to get this in tomorrow’s edition.”

  “Sure. Let’s roll.”

  The rest of that night went uneventfully enough (what happened in the morning was far more intriguing). Ernest and Jarvis found Dodger asleep in his bus and pulled the bus from the ditch. The vehicle was undamaged, so once freed, Dodger was up and running. He took Jarvis home and then went home to bed himself. Raoul went home, too, where he had some explaining to do to Ms. Lila, about his whereabouts that evening and his painting that day. Back at the bakery, Randolph, Trevor, and Branson played dominoes until Ernest returned. When he did, they re-examined the evening’s events all over again (the ad in the Morning Crier, the night’s rain, Dodger’s bus, the breadfruit, the bicycle, Bruce) in light of Ernest Peachtree’s new and fresh perspective.

  Little did they know, an even fresher one was taking shape inside the grimy-windowed newspaper offices a few doors down the road.

  *

  Hit-and-Run on Thyme Shortcut

  Baker, bus driver key witnesses

  Late last night on the secondary road that leads from town t
o Thyme, an unidentified motorist collided with a bicycle, knocking a female cyclist, also unidentified, to the ground. The bicycle, which was badly damaged, was discovered in the road by baker Randolph Rouge of Port-St. Luke and bus driver Jarvis Coutrelle of Beaureveille, who were forced to take the shortcut after last night’s storm downed a tree, blocking the primary Thyme road. Though the two young men acted quickly at the scene of the crime, their efforts to apprehend the guilty party were fruitless. Equally futile were their attempts to identify the injured young woman, who fled the scene presumably in search of medical care. Rouge and Coutrelle proceeded to clear the road of all evidence, namely one lady’s bike, silver with yellow handles and yellow seat, which they carried back to Port-St. Luke, careful to preserve its integrity in light of the soon-to-be-ongoing police investigation. It is unclear if road conditions played a role in the accident. When questioned as to the velocity at which the hit-and-run driver was moving, Rouge exclaimed, “I didn’t see a thing!” prompting this reporter to speculate that both the driver’s breakneck speed and the wet and bumpy backroad were contributing factors. The attempted vehicular homicide of a female cyclist is particularly noteworthy in view of an advertisement published in this same newspaper only yesterday, in which a female cyclist with cooking skills and dainty hands was sought. It is unknown whether the missing victim possesses these attributes. This reporter is moved to speculate that she does, and to appeal to the citizenry of Oh to disclose any information that might bring to justice the dangerous driver, and evil thwarter of romance, responsible for this shameful act.

  *

  Ah, Bruce! His journalistic integrity as in need of a dusting as was the floury bike!

  If you’re wondering how he could have made such a mess of the facts, you needn’t. He would tell you it wasn’t a mess at all, but a calculated and pointedly crafted interpretation of the events. He too was a believer in the island philosophy that talk leads to truths—and to Bruce it didn’t matter if the talk was triggered by a few little black-and-white lies.

  7

  Though Raoul Orlean was not a big believer in luck, of the good kind or the bad, even he had to admit what a stroke of good fortune it was to find Ms. Lila softly snoring under the sheets as he tiptoed into the bedroom. Raoul had had an exhausting day. He had painted one whole side of the cottage, crept through the bush for clues, strained his brain on a rosy-pink riddle, and stayed at Trevor’s Bakery far later than he had planned, lending his official expertise to the evening’s ado. His head ached from the fly that taunted him, his hands itched from the solvent he had used to clean them, and the last thing he wanted to do was explain to his wife why he hadn’t managed to “get a first coat on all the way round,” or why one of the cottage walls was covered with letters. Heaving a sigh of relief, and thanking his lucky stars before he could stop himself (he was on principle against such superstitious practices), Raoul slid gently into bed alongside her and immediately fell asleep.

  When he awoke, Ms. Lila’s side of the bed was empty. She was already up and at her morning’s ablutions and duties, and in the easy quiet of the bedroom, Raoul stretched and smiled, calm and rested. It wasn’t long, however, before the events of the previous day came to mind—the graffiti, the bakery, the bike, the bachelor fisherman. When they did, Raoul was filled with a sluggish, heavy dread, his predilection for truths-plain-as-noses-on-faces prodding the fly in his head to a frenzy.

  “Good morning,” his wife greeted him, as he dragged himself into the kitchen and slumped into a chair. “What’s the matter with you? Too much to drink last night?”

  “Nah,” Raoul replied. “What I have can’t be fixed with a stiff cup of tea.”

  Ms. Lila rushed over to him, concerned, and touched his forehead. “You don’t feel fevered,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “Have you seen the house?” he asked her, motioning with his chin towards the out of doors.

  “Ooh, I almost forgot!” She clapped her hands together. “I went to the market after the library closed. My hands were so full when I came home, I walked straight in. By the time I thought to go back out and have a look, the rain was coming. Did you get very far?”

  “Well,” Raoul began, and he went on to tell her in painstaking detail about everything that had happened. He told her about the first wall he painted and about the message he found, and how after that he went to look for a baker, and how at the bakery he found Bruce, who had also found a message, one that happened to involve a bike, and, to conclude, he told her about the hit-and-run.

  “And?” she said, when he had finished.

  “And what?”

  “And what does any of that have to do with anything?”

  Raoul was flabbergasted. “Don’t you see? Some hooligan is on the loose and sending secret messages! Now there’s been a hit-and-run besides!”

  Ms. Lila, dear heart, was used to the frenzies to which her husband was prone, the random variables he tried to string together into neat equations, and she sometimes heard the flies in his head buzzing even before he did. She was sure she heard one now—one that was going to interfere with the repainting of her cottage—and she meant to put her foot down and squash it.

  “Not that this hooligan, assuming he exists, is any business of yours,” she told him, “but let’s go have a look at this nonsense you’re talking about.” She spun on her heel and headed outside, Raoul trailing behind.

  After duly admiring the first coat of paint on the one finished wall (she was quite pleased with her choice of color), she turned and looked at the message on the second wall.

  “See?” Raoul gushed, feeling vindicated by the strangeness of the writing. “FIND A BAKER. So that’s what I did. I went to Trevor’s Bakery for clues.”

  “That doesn’t say FIND A BAKER,” Ms. Lila objected. “This one’s an R,” and she touched the letter in the middle. “And see this? It’s a definite dot. The message isn’t FIND A BAKER, it’s FIND R. BAKER.”

  “What’s an R. Baker?” Raoul asked her.

  “Not what,” she a answered impatiently. “Who!”

  “What does that mean? Who’s R. BAKER? And why should I go looking for him?”

  “My point exactly. Unless he’s a housepainter, I suggest you put him right out of your mind, cover up this mess as soon as you get home from work, and get on with it. The rain’s good and broke now. We’ll only have a few more weeks of sun before the wet season, and I’ll not have the house looking like a striped Easter egg for half of the year!”

  “But what if this is evidence?” Raoul pleaded.

  “Evidence of what?” Ms. Lila asked him sternly.

  Raoul of course had no answer to this. He simply stood, mute, looking at his wife.

  “I thought so!” she said and went inside to prepare his breakfast. “Hurry now, or you’ll be late to the office.”

  At the headquarters of Customs and Excise later that morning, Raoul struggled to focus at his desk. He read and re-read Bruce’s report in the Crier, trying to figure out how the bicycle accident might be connected to the lonely-hearted fisherman—if, indeed, it was—and what possible reason the same anonymous fisherman might have for painting strange instructions on the side of Raoul’s cottage. Try though he might, Raoul could read nothing between the printed lines of the paper to help him make sense of the nonsense of the day and night before. On the contrary, the more he reflected and mulled things over, the murkier they became. Still, these were no random events that Raoul could just ignore. They couldn’t be! He would have to do some sleuthing. How else to free the plain and simple truth from the words and letters and messages in which it was so mysteriously entangled?

  First, though, official duty called. Raoul folded the newspaper in half and tucked it in his drawer, then he turned back to the work on his desk. There were budget ledgers to review, import (and export) applications to process and approve, and holiday requests to sign off on from at least a dozen members of his staff. As he worked, turning pages and shuff
ling forms and signing and stamping and stapling, he noticed every letter in a way he never had before. It seemed that every word spoke directly to him, as sure as if it were standing in front of him wagging its finger at his nose. The entries in his ledgers hissed and twisted, like little black snakes on soft, green grass. The alphabet tabs of his accordion folders sprang to life and whispered to each other. The carbon-copy request forms mocked him, flaunting their layers of pink and yellow that displayed the same words over and over, as permanent as paint. Raoul rattled his head back and forth and repeatedly blinked his eyes, which he focused squarely on a dull and empty grey wall. “What’s going on?” he asked it, irritated.

  He put his hand to his ear and listened, but he could hear only the sounds that sneaked in, diluted, from beyond his office door: the muffled conversations of his coworkers, the ring of a phone, the whir of a pencil sharpener. From the window behind his head, he heard the brush of leaf against leaf and the distant tinkling of a windchime. (The breeze hadn’t died down since the night before.) He did not hear a single hiss or whisper. Nor, as near as he could tell, was any slip of a form making fun of him. Reassured, he rattled his head again and returned to his business.

  The minute he did, the words were at it again. The A’s and R’s toyed with him, morphing one into the other and back. Signatures disappeared before his eyes, rendering every request and memo an unsigned taunt. And—could it be?—Raoul swore the pale pink pages before him blushed playfully to bright rose.

  “Ahh!” Raoul spat, fed up. In one violent move, he stood up and pushed the chair away from his desk with the backs of his knees. There was no getting any work done, not with this fresh pink fly buzzing in his head and his ledgers hissing and spitting. He decided to take an early lunch. Perhaps some sea air would clear his mind, he thought, and he set out on foot for the harbor in the heart of town.