Dupree's Rebirth

by Micheal Maxwell

  “Actually I am cracked, but it’s letting the poison out. I am more alive and happier than I can ever remember being, except maybe when I was a kid.”

  “What’s your secret?” Mary Ann asked.

  “Maybe it’s just knowing when enough is enough. Like you and Ruben. There comes a time when your self-preservation is more important than anything else. I reached that point and just took off. I didn’t plan it, I didn’t prepare, just turned left when I was supposed to, expected to, ought to, have turned right. This train is full of run-tos and run-aways.

  “I met a kid of twenty-three and an old guy of ninety-three, and both of them are on a journey. They knew exactly where they were bound and I don’t mean a town. I mean, where they wanted, needed, to be. You’re on the same kind of journey. That lake is the race’s end. The old man wants to die on a train. The kid wants to sing his own songs, and this train is the conduit we are all passing through.

  “The difference is I am just starting my journey, feeling my way, finding where I belong and just enjoying the ride. The question is, are the three of you road signs along my way? Who was it that said when you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there?”

  “I bet you were a trip in the sixties.”

  “I wasn’t born yet,” Dupree teased.

  “Well, you would have been.”

  “So who did you run away from this time?”

  “This time is different,” Mary Ann began. “This time I am running to not hurt others.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t want my wonderful husband and three kids to see me wither, all doped out on morphine, and die an ashen gray skeleton. When I left a month ago, except for the Chemo Scarf Chic,” she struck a pose, palms out behind her head, “I looked and acted normal.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “North Carolina. You?”

  “L.A.”

  “Same question. Who’d you run away from?”

  “Why am I telling you all this stuff?” Dupree stopped dead.

  “Because I don’t matter, I’m dying, you’ll never see me again. You need to. You know, there is great freedom in the intimacy of strangers. I’ve had this conversation, or one like it, a hundred times in the last month. They were people who have jobs, families, dreams, and secrets that no one knows about. Along comes a dying woman and they spill their innermost secrets and don’t look back.

  “Look how deep we’ve gotten in less than five minutes. You already know me better than my next-door neighbor, and the folks who come for barbecue back home.

  “You know what I wish? I wish I could see the healing after I leave. I’m like an all at once shrink, priest, and best friend they never had.”

  “I left a wife and two kids,” Dupree said flatly.

  “They love you?”

  “No.”

  “Wow. You didn’t even have to think.”

  “Didn’t need to.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “Because I don’t love them. It is a horrible thing to admit, I know. But, I’ve had a thousand miles on and off to think it through. I should have taken the higher road years ago. Probably in the first couple of years I was married, before kids.”

  “You think they are looking for you?” Dupree asked.

  “Don’t care. This is about me.”

  “That’s kind of selfish, isn’t it?”

  “Look who’s talking! You rich?”

  “I’m wealthy by most standards, I guess.”

  “And you just walked off.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Lord, you are a miracle!”

  Dupree laughed heartily. “How do you figure?”

  “Because no one gives up money unless they are a true believer.”

  “I don’t believe in anything,” Dupree replied.

  “I don’t mean in a spiritual sense. I mean you are beyond committed. Kind of like the story of the chicken and the hog who questioned who loved the farmer more. It was the hog, and you’re the hog.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “The chicken was dedicated to the farmer because it lays an egg every day. But the hog is fully committed because he provides the bacon.”

  “So what you’re saying is, ‘I have gone whole hog?’” Dupree grinned.

  “Very good!” Mary Ann clapped her hands.

  “We will be arriving in Portland Station in five minutes. Passengers continuing on will have a forty-five-minute layover. Those of you leaving us, be sure and collect all your belongings before exiting the train, and thank you for traveling Amtrak!”

  “That’ll be me!” Mary Ann said, “I’m collecting some meds and hunkering down until the nausea passes. Nice to meet you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  “I wish you peace,” Dupree said softly.

  “Don’t get all mushy with me. I chose this trip. I am going out on my terms.”

  Neither spoke until the train came to a stop.

  “See ya around, Dupree.” Mary Ann picked up her small satchel and walked away.

  Portland was enormous compared to the small town stops the train made since Dupree came aboard. With the exception of Salem, this was the only station that seemed to have history. Dupree stood and changed to the opposite side of the table when Mary Ann left.

  He looked out the window in time to see her turn, find him and wave. He returned her good-bye and smiled. A few moments later he saw Foster James.

  He stood guitar case in one hand and a backpack in the other. Clinging to his arm was a girl. She too held a backpack. She was dressed in black tights, a short skirt, a long gray sweater, and on her head, she wore a black beret. Her long blond hair nearly reached her waist. She turned slightly and Dupree could see a very plain, very pale face, partially hidden by large, round, black-rimmed glasses. If the kid from Merced wanted the archetypical, artsy-fartsy, bohemian girlfriend, looks-wise anyway, he hit a home run.

  It didn’t take hearing words for Dupree to tell that they were planning a life of music, art, and hipness, all on the platform of the Portland, Oregon train station. The only question was if he was going home with her to meet her parents. Good for them, he thought, as they walked away arm in arm.

  Hundreds of people filled the station. In the distance, Dupree could see shops, restaurants, and an information booth. He decided he would go for a walk since the announcement said they would have forty-five minutes in the station. That would be plenty of time, he thought, to get a fresh, real cup of coffee, and perhaps a magazine or sandwich.

  “Would you mind saving this seat for me?” Dupree asked the man across the aisle.

  “I’ll see what I can do. No promises. Here.” The man tossed Dupree his coat and umbrella. “That should do the trick.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Yep.” The man went back to his tattered paperback.

  The platform smelled of diesel and humanity. Everywhere people swirled, dodged, and bumped into each other. Uncooperative, wobbly-wheeled suitcases brought forward progress to a halt as hurried passengers cursed and fought them. Camouflage uniformed military personnel, toting huge duffel bags, moved straight ahead with determined movement through the crowd.

  Dupree adjusted his pack to ride comfortably across his midsection and rested his arm across the top. He pressed through the crowd like a battered salmon swimming upstream. Once free of the congestion, it could have been in any mall in America. The need to shop in transportation centers always baffled Dupree.

  Was the impulsive urge to buy so strong that humanity could be tempted with all manner seemingly irresistible products, even as they rushed to catch a plane or train? The marketing guru’s plans seemed to be working.

  As Dupree stopped to get his bearing and determined which way to go, he could see from where he stood the choices of Dutch Brothers, Peet’s, and the ever-present Starbucks. Do people really need three kinds of coffee at a train station? Whatever happened to diners with waiters in paper caps an
d white aprons pouring strong coffee into heavy white mugs? The image from an old black and white movie came rushing back to Dupree.

  The windmill logo won out and Dupree bought coffee from Dutch Bothers. The choices for a sandwich were narrower, but the proximity of Togo’s made it the easy choice. Dupree found he enjoyed being an average consumer. Now, for a newspaper, or a copy of The New Yorker.

  To find a newsstand Dupree was forced to walk considerably farther than for food. The tiny kiosk of magazines, gum, and papers was almost missed. Dupree approached with the anticipation of getting some substantial reading material instead of the mindless dreck he tried to wade through earlier.

  His breath seemed to explode silently inward as Dupree read the headline: Nationwide Manhunt Continues for Prominent L.A. Attorney. He stood motionless. His escape was so personal, the load lifted so completely, he hadn’t considered the ramifications.

  Of course they would search for him, of course the news would cover it, of course appeals would be made for his return. As he paid for the paper, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the counter in the little shop. He looked down at the stock portrait of himself below the headline in the paper. Four days’ growth of beard, two black eyes, and not a drop of expensive barber salon product in his hair, it would take more than a casual glance to make a connection. All the same, he thought, something must be done.

  Only in an old train station can you still find a telephone booth. This remnant of pre-cellular communications was like a beacon of hope to Dupree. He put his sandwich and coffee on the tiny metal shelf, and the newspaper under his arm.

  He took the handful of change from his pocket and deposited the required amount into the slot. The eleven numbers buttons were pushed in rapid succession.

  Three rings and the call was answered.

  “Give me Ingrid,” Dupree demanded.

  “Mister…”

  “Do it!” Dupree cut in.

  “Yes sir, please hold on.”

  “This is Ingrid.” The strong in-charge voice of Dupree’s secretary came on the line. She was a granite pyre in his life. She was never sick; she never took time off. Dupree, the firm, and her job were all that mattered in her world. If she was married, had children, a house, apartment, pets, or a dying mother, Dupree never knew, or cared.

  She got a thousand-dollar bonus on her birthday and Christmas. She bought him lunch, made coffee, took dictation, assigned research to the clerks, and bought his wife and children Christmas, birthday, graduation, and anniversary gifts.

  “Dupree.”

  “Oh my God, where are you?” She shattered the veil of formality. “I, I mean, we have been worried sick!”

  “Take a message, would you?”

  “Of course, yes sir. Ready. What is it?”

  “Tell Mr. Hutchinson to see the dogs are called off.” Dupree slammed the receiver down in its cradle.

  Martin Hutchinson, senior partner and grandson of the firm’s founder, was as close to a friend as Dupree had. They were not laugh and joke, play golf, or go to a ballgame friends, they were friendly trusted coworkers. If Dupree ever needed to confide in someone, it would be Hutchinson. In twenty years, it only happened once. Then it turned out to be unnecessary. They shared a stiff drink when Martin Hutchinson’s father, Vernon, died, but no tears were shed.

  He would know what Dupree wanted. He would personally make the call to the Chief of Police. The calls to the influential media connections the firm kept on a comfortable retainer would be assigned to one of the other partners under a need to know, and in this case, nothing, basis.

  With any luck, the story would be dead by the next twenty-four-hour news cycle. A statement so obtuse, you would not be able to find meaning with a microscope, will be released by the news outlets that will put their subsidiaries completely off the story. The police will shift their focus to a more sensational case and Dupree’s disappearance will just fall off the radar, with any luck.

  Dupree quickly returned to his seat in the observation car. It was no longer empty so he moved several rows forward. He preferred the anonymity of the back-right corner seat. It was not to be.

  Within a few minutes of their departure, an announcement was made that the train entered the State of Washington. Dupree took his ticket from his pocket and reviewed his itinerary. In Tacoma, he would leave the train and catch a bus to the Okanogan Highlands in the northeast corner of the state, and his destination, White Owl.

  “Ticket please.” The conductor began repeating as he entered the car.

  “How long to Tacoma?” Dupree asked as his ticket was punched.

  The conductor looked at his watch “Three hours, thirty-eight minutes.”

  “Wow.” Dupree expressed how impressed he was.

  “Give or take thirty or forty minutes.” The conductor grinned and moved on.

  The newspaper article was vague about the details of Dupree’s disappearance. As to plan, the focus of the search for the first two days was south of Los Angeles. It told of his car being found at the rest stop. A plea was made for anyone stopping on the day of his disappearance to report any sighting of Dupree. A woman reported she saw him walking his dog. A trucker said he saw him talking to a woman in a pickup truck about three in the afternoon. The third, and to Dupree the funniest report, was that he was in an altercation with a group of bikers. The cause was not known, but there was a lot of yelling and screaming shortly before he was rescued by a man in a Ford Bronco.

  None were credible witnesses. If Dupree read the article first, he probably would never have made the call to his office.

  His wife Diane, in typical overdramatic fashion, spoke of her love for her husband, the brilliant lawyer, philanthropist, and past president of Hill Glen Golf and Country Club. She asked that anyone with any information please come forward so that her college sweetheart, husband, and loving, inspirational father to her exceptional children, could come home to them. If the worst should have happened, she knew he would be in a better place. Then according to the reporter, she collapsed into the arms of her grieving son, Eric.

  “Oh, brother,” Dupree said aloud.

  The article went on to give quotes from Martin Hutchinson and two of the younger partners at the firm. They spoke, from statements obviously prepared by the PR department, about “the dedication Dupree showed to the law and his unflinching determination to get to the truth, in every case, no matter how small, or seemingly trivial they may seem to the rest of the world. He fought for them as if they were the biggest corporate case their firm took on.”

  “My God, I wish I could fire whoever wrote that crap,” Dupree muttered.

  For the next hour, Dupree read the rest of the paper cover to cover. It wasn’t that he was particularly interested in the twelve obituaries or the premiere of this year’s Ladies Garden Society Grand Tour. He wanted something to get his mind off the fact that his great escape could be scuttled by his own recklessness.

  How many people did he tell that he was a lawyer from L.A? How many people did he tell he was an attorney? Weavers would never give him away; neither would Mary Ann, but the fame-hungry Foster James may report seeing him as a way to get his name, songs, and new band in the news. The old lawyer could hardly remember his own name, so by the time he found someone to tell, if indeed he bothered, he would never remember the details.

  Dupree took a deep breath and sighed. What am I worried about, he thought. He didn’t use any credit cards, or stay anywhere they required ID. He got off the train twice. He was wearing clothes that didn’t belong to him a week ago. No suit, no tie, and no expensive Italian shoes. His hair was no longer plastered down with gel, not shaving produced a fairly-thick salt and pepper covering, and then there were the black eyes. Dupree grinned; the way he looked he would get kicked out of the lobby of his own building. He told himself to relax, enjoy the ride, and let the chips fall where they may.

  As a young lawyer, he dealt with the estate of a man who disappeared from his greed
y heirs. Leland Johan Nilsson had only been missing five days when his daughter, her dim wit jock brother, and their overbearing, spendaholic mother sat in his small office and demanded access to Nilsson’s bank accounts, stock portfolio, and business assets.

  The problem was none of their names appeared on any documents pertaining to the missing man’s money.

  “But I’m his wife!” Dupree remembered the fiery redhead screaming across his paper and folder laden desk.

  “I know daddy wouldn’t want me to do without.” The daughter laid on the deep cleavage, false eyelash batting, sex for favors hard-sell on the young Dupree.

  “What about our Lakers tickets? The deposit is due next week!” Who cares about dad when there is basketball at stake? The son was not a bit subtle in his concerns.

  To Dupree’s delight, nothing could be done for them. Without the knowledge of his distraught family members, Leland Nilsson prepared files, kept in the office, with the strict instruction that in case of his mysterious disappearance or sudden death, his wife and children were to receive absolutely nothing.

  The State of California requires a person who simply disappears must remain so for a period of seven years before they can be legally declared dead. There was no indication of abduction, no ransom note, there was no evidence of foul play in either his office or home. He attended a party with his wife the night before his disappearance, and according to friends and associates, was in rare form, cracking jokes, telling stories and being in better spirits than they had seen him in months. He even danced with his wife! So, suicide was ruled out by one and all.

  The case sludged on for six years. Through the marriage and divorce of his daughter twice, four DUI arrests of the angry, sports betting, loser son, and the sordid affairs of his wife and the subsequent repossession of the family home because, oddly enough, it was solely in her name.

  On the anniversary of his disappearance, a registered letter arrived requiring the signature of his new partner Dupree. In the letter was a photo of Mr. Nilsson in a pair of khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. His arm was around a beautiful, considerably younger, large breasted, dark-skinned Polynesian woman. The letter stated that he would like all his assets, whatever they may be, transferred to the account number attached in Bora Bora, and a request that the process be started for the divorce from his unfaithful wife, and complete power of attorney for Dupree, duly processed and notarized by the U.S. Deputy Consulate of Tahiti, James, E. Kincaid.