Simon guessed he might have been a day trader with success to burn. Or he had a trust fund. Whatever Roy's reason for being there, it had been a while since Simon visited, but he was pretty sure there were several Cohens residing in that sunken field shaded by a large hill in the west.
As for Buck Tanner? He was an obese stereotypical shirtless redneck with permanent sunburn that he wore like a five o'clock shadow. Wore nothing but a red Confederacy hat (he had no connection to the history of the south, he just liked Dukes of Hazzard and didn't relate the two notions) and ripped denim overalls with the suspension straps hanging down. Underwear was optional and typically not preferred, leaving the crack to air. Buck was eternally squinting. In most ways, he wasn’t terribly sharp. He wound up at the Saint Croix Hospital in Black Mountain Township after confusing his domestic swill with formaldehyde once. Another time he ate a turkey raw and called it American sushi. Right back to the hospital. You couldn't tell him otherwise about things, either. The man would get positively Jessie-like if someone needled him about right and wrong when his mind was set.
And of course, it didn’t help that his wife and kids were all fairly obnoxious. But despite everything, he was almost genius in making his way of life somehow function effectively. Buck didn’t work for a living. He hunted often. And when he wasn’t doing that, Buck built vehicles out of the most unexpected things. He started with making a ride-about-town with a lawn mower one day and got the idea to go from there.
From there on, you could see the Tanner clan scooting around town on motorized washing machines with wheels. Or maybe a surfboard converted into a scooter. Once, he even had a discarded bulldozer converted into the world’s slowest trike. His ideas were outlandish, but people loved to watch whatever Buck came up with. And the junkyard guys absolutely adored him.
Lastly, it’s inevitable that every town will have one true dyed-in-the-wool jackass living in it. He lived on Millburn Boulevard; a belligerent retiree known as Gus Nestlewick. Gus could have been likable for his quirk, but he made Jessie’s casual stand offishness looking gleaming. Gus just seemed to hate people. Anyone, for no discernable reason. No pattern, rhyme, or reason. But he was creative about it, as well as clearly determined to punish all human life until the end of his days. He was the plague upon mankind that the bible never recorded.
Gus was also known as ‘The Floater‘. He would take a lawnchair, attach a cooler for a foot rest, and then would tie some large high grade balloons filled with helium. Just enough to float about sixty to ninety feet above the ground. Then he’d go wherever the wind took him and simply proceed to harass everyone below him like he was some untouchable god being.
His most common tactic was pelting people from that height with bright yellow happy faced water balloons with DEATH FROM ABOVE lovingly written on the back with a thick black marker. His aim at that height was unreal. No one was safe. Old church ladies? Soaked. Little kids. The more, the better. Bam. Cops? He didn’t care. Hopefully, the balloons were only filled with water, but there weren’t any porta-potties up in the sky so sometimes...
He didn’t stop at that. The Floater sometimes dropped old composting vegetables at driving cars. Banana peels were his favorite, apparently. Then he had a megaphone and started incoherently screaming lyrics to a greatest hits album of the Rolling Stones for four hours. Another time, he was said to have rained down thumb tacks in the street in front of a Mardis Gras parade. What possessed this man to show such outright contempt for all human life, no one ever knew. The world was his enemy.
He wasn’t always untouchable, however. The Tanners regularly fired BB Guns at his balloons after he turned their newly put together makeshift pool into a giant tub of flavorless gelatin. Mrs. Tanner and Dooley Tanner were stuck for three hours before the substance became liquid enough to move in. Another time, some local punks duct tapped him to his chair and then added three times as many balloons, causing him to be a seen by some airline pilots some thirty thousand feet up. They found him two states over with frostbite after a week. And there were many occasions where he was arrested on small charges for being a public nuisance, but a lot of the misdemeanors were oddly hard to stick on Gus, as if he were made of Teflon. And despite a fine or prison time, he’d be at it again very soon.
But today, Simon wasn’t thinking about those people. Well, not entirely. He hoped Gus was in county jail, as frequently having to scan the tree line could get irritating. No, today Simon was keeping his eyes peeled for a certain redheaded young lady who could be seen walking the train tracks like clockwork on this particular day. She had the best smile. Enough to warm up an otherwise miserable rainy Saturday of work.
They always made eye contact, whether he was driving or walking, and she’d smile so pleasantly, but he rarely seemed to get her attention beyond that. He offered her a ride on two separate occasions to wherever she was going, but she politely declined both times and didn’t miss a beat with her walking. He tried to think of something to say, but he wasn’t sure what. He didn’t want to come off as creepy either. It had been a good many years since he had a consistent girlfriend. Ramone set him up occasionally, but the chemistry was rarely ever there with his flock.
Simon knew admittedly very little about her. She had short burgundy to auburn hair (depending on the lighting) with tiny pigtails on either side of the back of her ears, which were knotted around toy jacks and rubber bands. She dressed kind of punkish, like was going to a concert- all red/black plaid mini-skirt, and usually a jacket or open sleeved vest over some band shirt in black, although he couldn’t make out which group it was. She followed this up with fingerless black gloves with long red nails like a sparkle flecked paint job on a car. Practically claws in appearance. From there, she had black fishnet thigh hi’s and knee length black boots, almost military in appearance. And of course, that sassy belt she wore over the skirt from which dangled random little vending machine figurines. She had potent dark red lipstick which almost made him drive in a ditch when he craned his head to watch her flash a quick smile in his direction. And dusky black eye makeup. Hot damn, Simon thought.
Despite all her style, she wasn’t frail looking. She walked with a confident step, following the tracks, stopping for essentially nothing. Wherever she went and wherever she was from, she punctual along the way. He was certain of that much. She was also hard to approach in general, even for Ramone.
During the past, Ramone; in his typical tail chasing, decided to try asking her out after hearing Simon going on and on about her. Ramone later apologized to Simon sheepishly for even attempting this and confessed how casually she turned him down before he could even finish his introductory come-on line. And this only after he tried several times, shot down embarrassingly each one, and managed to get nothing more than her name out of the encounter.
"Vikktorea, with two k’s, she said," a buzzed Ramone told Simon at a bar one night. "Dude, I don’t blame you for falling for her. She’s... all kinds of wow. I’d love to know what her story is, but I don’t think she lives in town. Also, just putting this out there... she does wear A LOT of plaid. I mean, you know what they say about girls in black and red plaid, right?"
Simon blinked. "No, what do they say?" Simon would only realize the implication later. He was getting pretty buzzed by this point on their second tall pitcher of beer in a relatively short period of time.
Ramone spelled it out for him in a silly rhyme. "Simon... the matter is, you’re a helluva guy. But the very same problem means you’re an ‘XY‘. Half of that equation with her might not fit, so like OJ Simpson’s lawyer said, you must acquit."
"Uhh... what? I'm not sure I get what you're implying... that we're incompatible for some reason? Why does she keep smiling at me then?" Simon slurred, rubbing his forehead. He had no idea what Ramone was going on about, but it was a little more boorish than usual from him. He was getting further in his cups.
"Maybe she smiles at everybody. Smiled at me too, I recall." Ramone shrugged, giving up trying t
o be somewhere between inappropriate and funny. "Sometimes we get crushes on someone and there isn’t much we can do. And for the record and fifth time by my counting, I am damn sorry I tried to ask her out. I wasn’t thinking. I was not being a good friend."
"Keep the mini-tacos and beer coming... and I might accept that, ya miserable jerk." Simon couldn’t get too mad; although his playful tone didn't come with a true smile either. Ramone’s lack of success at least let him know her name. It was a pretty name, stylish like her. If only he could think of something to say! He wasn’t some bumbling awkward teenager anymore...
Simon snapped back to reality, realizing he’d been mercifully daydreaming again, at least for the last hour. He hoped that mindset would have lasted a bit longer. There were a couple of old gossiping ladies on this block who sat on their porch every waking daylight hour, yammering on and on, criticizing this and that. Anyone caught in their galactic tractor field of blurry eyesight was drawn in to be forced to answer inane questions and experience their will to live slowly diminish. They were kind of similar to Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show, except those cloth puppets were more entertaining than these leathery ones.
Simon could already hear them on his approach, several houses away. There was no avoiding this. They complained if they didn’t get their coupons. They complained if he didn’t deliver it to their porch. And they were almost always out there, waiting with intrusive questions. "You do you look like a beatnik with that facial hair, you know. Are poetry sessions hip again?" "Did you go to college for this? Didn’t you used to make fast food?" "Maybe if you got a real job, you’d get a nice girlfriend. Don’t you want to do well in life?" He drew nearer and nearer. Only a miracle would save him from these soul destroying elderly harpies now.
Sighing deeply, he readied his rolled up pile of bagged coupons and crossed the front lawn’s hedgerow to walk up their horrible little walkway. He wasn’t even sure which one of them owned the place. It looked like a mauve colored gingerbread house, he thought.
That’s when he saw it slowly trolling up from the end of the road at the bottom of the hill. His eyes widened and he immediately came to a dead stop. Scratched, but completely clean otherwise. No plates. A black Lincoln.
"Shit..." He suddenly didn’t a damn about the old hags, tossing his roll over the hedge. It happened to land on the door mat next to one of them, not that either noticed. Simon felt a cold sweat run down his back. He was positive this was one of the cars. How many black Lincolns dared cruise around in a small cop town without plates? And it drove far too slow for the modest rainfall, practically coasting. That meant there was time to get out of sight.
He ducked into the side of the hedgerows, but one of the ladies' small yappy toy dogs started making a scene. "Oh Ethel, do you hear that? Something got your little Grover all worked up. Did he find a mole again?" Simon could hear one of the horrid old women come down the stoop of stairs to have a look. He had to get between the buildings- no way he could risk drawing their ire now. Damn toy dogs, he thought.
As the car reached his position, Simon ducked behind some garbage cans by another neighbor’s sidewalk. He peered cautiously through the gap. The car came to a smooth stop in the middle of the street. "Oh, come the fuck on. He saw me??" he grumbled under his breath.
Out stepped a wiry man in a black business suit, tie over the hint of a white shirt, and a fedora. His glasses were darkly tinted, the thick coke bottle shaped kind from the fifties, form fitted to his eyes. He looked gaunt, sallow, and not particularly of good humor. His face had sharp cheekbones and not an ounce of hair. Simon then realized who he looked like, and it was the same passing face he saw in one of those cars yesterday, as he was familiar with the visage but wasn’t able to place it then. He reminded Simon greatly of Slugworth from the Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. Not that it helped.
The man in black stared at the two houses. The one where Simon hid and the one with the old ladies gossiping. He seemed to have an idea a certain someone was near. The loud yappy dog started going on immediately, but at the stranger this time. Maybe it was enough, but he began to turn there to investigate.
Simon was not going to wait around to be spotted. He was certain the man in black recognized him from last night. Not that it would be hard with his permanently worn sunglasses and sideburns. Maybe they were all looking for him and his friends? Not looking to take a chance, Simon dashed into the backyard of the other neighbor's house and proceeded to hop the fence. People would have to go without their circulars for the time being. When he zig zagged two and a half blocks over, he crouched down behind the cover of a homeowner’s white painted lion statue as if he were tying his shoes and proceeded to make some calls on his cellphone.
"Ooh, Ethel! Look at this gentlemen! Such a fine pressed suit even in the rain." The two old ladies intercepted the man in black when he peeked past the hedge row and the yappy dog began going off again. "So that’s what my Grover was carrying on about!" Ethel and Maude stood up slowly and approached the man in black, who seemed to ignore them while glancing about the front yard.
"How do you do? I’m Maude, this is my friend, Ethel. What brings such a handsome gentleman caller to my front porch? You don’t look like any meter reader I’ve ever seen."
The man observed them briefly and then promptly tried to ignore them, scanning about. His gaze locked onto the porch. Pushing past the two old biddies, he strode right up and seized the plastic covered circular Simon threw in a panic. In a gloved hand, he studied it intently.
"Oh! Are you that young man’s route supervisor? I’ll have you know he’s very rude to his elders. Try to talk to him and he just mumbles! Say, would you like to get out of the rain for a moment and come in for tea? We have Earl Grey. Ethel brought some over today." Proudly, Ethel nodded upon hearing herself being referenced.
The man turned about to face them again, his face as expressionless as before. "The male who delivered this, where is he?" he asked firmly in a succinct baritone voice.
"What’s that? Yes, you could call it mail," Maude responded.
"No, no, dear, he asked if that Simpson boy delivers the mail," Ethel corrected her friend.
"Where is he?" the man repeated, this time in a business-like monotone.
"The boy with the funny hair is named Simpson? I thought it was Samuel. Or he has a last name that sounds like Lemon. Like the citrus. Maybe he came by earlier. He’d be down the street by now," said Maude. "We usually see him. Did you know he doesn’t have a girlfriend of his own at that age??"
"To say the least, I was shocked," Ethel added with debatable sincerity.
The man in black had no immediately clear reaction, caught up in their nonsense. They didn’t knowingly intend to do so, but they were buying Simon valuable time. Meanwhile, several blocks away...
Jessie let things go to voice mail twice by now. Ramone wasn’t picking up either. They were likely busy right now, but Simon thought their timing couldn’t be any worse. He pondered calling the cops, but it didn’t strike him as a good idea. He wasn’t clear who this guy was or who he worked for. And if it came down to admitting things from yesterday after Jessie was involved with the other man’s death... trespassing on federal property might be the least of their problems.
He decided to simply take the easy way out of this. The man hadn’t followed him yet for whatever reason. It would be best to just get out of this place, maybe finish the route quickly, and lay low somewhere. Home was his first thought, but he wasn’t sure if it was a bright idea. Although if he avoided it, might they just wait for him to eventually come back and just not park cars outside? He’d rather not get jumped. It was his house. Did they even know where he lived or did one of them just get lucky finding him now?
High tailing it back to the van, he realized he didn’t care if his boss called him asking where the circulars for this part of town were. It was windy, he’d say, if he had to completely bail on work. There were only two blocks l
eft to do here and nothing was worth the risk of this right now. Maybe later, if his nerves steadied.
CHAPTER 5
Jessie was sitting in his blue plastic roller chair in his cluttered burrow of gadgets and forgotten components. He’d pulled an early shift at the Fix-It shop to clear his mind... he hadn’t slept well from a mixture of self-assigned guilt and confusion from the night’s earlier events. The purposeful work hadn't distracted him as much as he had hoped.
Nestled in his den of obsolete technology, he was sitting before his home computer with a wired headset. His cellphone sat silent with several missed calls on the other side of the room. He felt the things were intrusive and distracting, like an electronic leash everyone agreed to.
Jessie was following up on one of his favorite activities online: reading The Akashic Memory; the paranormal and conspiracy forum Ramone often mocked. The notebook with the strange writings sat next to him.
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