Harley went back to thank the garage mechanic and get some more information about the road ahead and our destination.
"He said we're only about an hour and ten minutes from Centerville, but I've got to get back on the main highway. We'll have to take our chances with the highway patrol."
"That's better than running into those idiots again. Harley."
"Right. Sorry." he said again.
"It wasn't your fault. You did geat," I told him.
After we started out, the ice began to make my whole leg freeze. I took it as long as I could and then I had to tell him to pull off so I could take off the packet.
"It's swollen pretty good," he said studying my ankle. "Maybe it is broken."
"Let's just get there. Harley," I said. "I'll be all right once I can rest."
He nodded, worried, and we continued. The last fifteen minutes or so seemed to take forever, but finally we saw the sign announcing the village and we pulled off the highway and headed for Main Street.
"Do you know where to look?"
"Yes," he said.
It was one of those villages with a long main street and some side streets. All the stores were located in a row with some restaurants and small stores on some of the side streets. There was a fire station about midway and across from it was a police station and village hall. It looked like a train had once had Centerville as a stop. The tracks were gone, but the strip where they had been was still there about halfway down the main street.
Here and there we saw some pedestrians. The traffic was light. Some of the stores looked like they were closing already or had closed. The brightest window seemed to be a bar and grill called The Pit Stop.
"Mostly turn-of-the-century buildings," Harley said, nodding at the structures that leaned and looked tired. ''Not much has been built here for over a hundred years except some of the homes we've passed."
It was a sleepy little town, a place the world forgot. Major highways had been built around it, keeping people away. Except for a lumber company on the way in, there was no sign of any major business or industry. Ghosts were probably chafing at the bit, waiting to claim it. I thought. It was certainly not a town young people would come back to after they had finished school or training. When the owners of these small stores and family businesses passed on, each would disappear like a blip on a radar screen. Even the memories would scatter in the wind.
Somehow it seemed the right place for Harley's real father to be, a place to escape to, to run from your past and join citizens who were long forgotten. Just as we reached the end of the main street. Harley slowed down and turned right on a side street. I thought he was going to his father's home, but he brought us to a stop in front of a shingle that read Doctor Richards, Family Practice. It didn't look like a doctor's office. It looked like someone's home: a two-story Queen Anne with a wide front porch, cement steps and a narrow, concrete-square walkway. There was a small lawn, some pretty bushes and flowers and what looked like a swinging chair on the right.
"We can come back afterward. Harley," I said.
"No. Let's look after that ankle first. Summer," he insisted. "It might get us into trouble though," I moaned.
"We'll be fine. We're here. A little while longer won't matter." he insisted. "Just lean on me and keep off the foot," he said guiding me off the motorcycle.
He put his left arm around my waist and then literally lifted me and carried me down the walkway, up the stairs and to the front door. It was unlocked so we went right in and paused in the hallway. To the right was a small lobby, but there didn't seem to be anyone around. A moment later, however, a small woman, about fifty with a bundle of gray hair curled over her forehead and temples and bia, round dark brown eyes, came out of a door in the rear. She was wearing a white dress, It wasn't exactly a nurse's uniform, but it was close.
"Oh, what happened to you?" she cried as if she knew us for years and years.
"Motorcycle accident." Harley said. "She's hurt her ankle and we want to be sure it's not broken,"
"Of course, of course. Here," she said opening a door on her right into an examination room, "take her in and help her onto the table. I'll go get Doctor."
"That's a first," I said as Harley helped me in. "She didn't ask if we had health insurance first."
He laughed and helped me onto the
examination table. We both looked around at the diplomas on the walls. He had gone to medical schools in New York City.
"Well, what do we have here?" a short, grayhaired man in the open doorway asked. He continued to chew on something he was eating, his soft frill checks trembling with each bite. Even though his hair was all gray, cut short with a receding hairline that was beginning to show white scalp, his eyebrows had remained dark brown. He had a thick nose and a small mouth, but his face was friendly and pleasant, his eyes even a bit amused.
The woman who had greeted us stepped up beside him and then followed him into the room.
"I'm Doctor Richards and this is my wife. Anna." he said. "So, what happened?"
"We had an accident," Harley began. "Two ways in a pickup truck harassed us on my motorcycle, and I spilled on a gavel driveway trying to get away."
"Um-hmm," Doctor Richards said, nodding as if he had expected it or had it happen at least once a day.
"She's hurt her ankle," Harley continued.
Doctor Richards stood in front of me and looked down at my ankle and then at me.
"Hurts to beat the band. huh?"
"Yes sir," I said.
"Okay, just pull yourself back a bit more and let's get that foot up where I can see it. Got to get closer to things these days." he continued, smiling at Harley and then at me. Harley helped me back on the table until my foot was up. With very, very gentle fingers, the doctor undid the laces of my sneaker and took it off. He brought down the sock and peeled it away, his fingers barely touching my skin.
"Wiggle your toes for me," he asked and I did. "Any pain?"
"Not much, a little," I said.
He studied my ankle. "Did you land on it?" "No, I rolled over on it, I think."
"I see," he said.
"We put some ice on it as soon as we could," Harley explained.
"Did you? Well, that was smart." the doctor said.
Very carefully, he began to examine my ankle, moving it every way and watching my face. He felt around it.
"Might be fractured, but I doubt it," he said.
"Looks more like strained tendons.'
"That's what she said." Harley remarked.
"Oh. You practice medicine, too, do you?" Doctor Richards asked with a smile.
"No sir."
"Her father is a therapist." Harley continued. "She knows a lot about first aid and stuff"
"Oh. That's good," Doctor Richards said nodding. "Good to have a little knowledge if you don't abuse it. However, there's also that business about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. Too many people think they can hang out a shingle like mine these days. Bad for business." he added with a silent laugh. "Well, let's get some more cold packs on this and get it strapped up. You've got to stay off it for a while, maybe a week or so, maybe more.
"You all staying with someone here in town?" he asked. Harley glanced at me quickly. Doctor Richards caught that.
"Or are you just passing through on your way to civilization?" he followed.
"No sir. We're visiting someone. Fletcher Victor," Harley said.
"Fletcher?" his wife Anna asked.
"That must be Buzz's real name," Doctor Richards told her. She smirked as if he had said a very silly thing,
"I thought it was Ed. We know everyone here, of course, but the Victors are a family that keeps to themselves. Come to think of it. I don't recall ever asking Buzz what his real name is."
"He wouldn't volunteer it," Anna muttered. "I'm surprised he sent you over here," she added. "Why didn't he have that woman work her magic instead?"
"Woman?" Harley said.
"You hav
en't been there yet?" Doctor Richards asked.
"No sir. We came here as soon as I saw your shingle. We've just arrived."
"No better advertisement for a doctor than a shingle," Doctor Richards quipped. His wife just pulled her shoulders up, lifting her small bosom.
"Yes, well, let's fix you up," he told me.
When he was finished taping my ankle, he gave me some pills for the pain and a crutch.
"You can borrow this until you have to leave," he said. "How long you planning on staying?"
I looked at Harley.
"We're not quite sure yet, sir," he said.
"Okay. No problem."
"What kind of health insurance do you have?" Anna asked me.
I did have my family's medical card. Daddy insisted I always carry it in my wallet. I gave it to her. She turned it in her hands as if she wanted to be sure it was not fake.
"Do you need any money too?" Harley asked her.
'No, this is fine,' she said.. "I'll be right back." She went out. "Let me look at that again tomorrow," Doctor Richards told me.
Harley and I thanked him. When Anna returned, she gave me a paper to sip and then nave me back my card.
"Use that crutch," Doctor Richards advised as we started out. Harley held onto me. We went back to the motorcycle and Harley worked the crutch over the bars and told me to keep the rest of it under my arm.
"I"ll go very slowly and we don't have far to go," he said.
"What a sight I'll make, What a way to greet your father for the first time." I moaned, full of a thousand anxieties now that we were moments away. "What do you suppose the doctor's wife meant about that woman using magic?" I asked.
"Who knows, but we could use a little magic about now," Harley muttered.
How could I disagree with that?
11
Face-to-Face
.
When we turned down the street his real father
lived on. I could feel how nervous Harley was. His body stiffened to stone. We pulled up in front of the odd-looking house and for a few moments just idled there, gazing at it.
The house was located at the end of the street on a cul-de-sac it didn't share with any other home. A tall chain-link fence marked the boundaries on either side. The fence didn't look like it belonged a thousand yards near such a home, much less a few hundred. It was the sort of fence found in an industrial area, not a residential one.
The grass desperately needed to be mowed. Dandelions and weeds were everywhere. The front of the house, although also in need of pruning, wasn't as unkempt. There was a row of rhododendron bushes on both sides of the front porch. A narrow sidewalk constructed from fieldstone was bordered with bushes about knee high, but unevenly trimmed. On the right was a grand, sprawling oak tree, but on the left were the remains of another oak that looked like it had been hit by lightning years and years ago. The top was clipped off and the branches were all dead and knuckled. The bark was a sickly gray. Why anyone would keep it there was a mystery. Perhaps it served as some sort of reminder and warning about the power of nature.
Once, the unique house had a dark brown wood cladding with what must have been nearly milk white trim, porch railings and shutters. It looked like it hadn't been repainted since it had been built. Most of it was chipped and faded, and one of the windows on the second floor had been broken and covered with a sheet of plywood.
"Did you say your father told you he was a house painter?" I asked.
"Yeah," Harley said.
"I guess this is a case of the shoemaker without shoes."
"I guess."
He took a deep breath and drove us up the driveway. There was no garage. We saw a truck parked in the rear that probably belonged to his father. It was a battered panel truck with a rear bumper that had been tied with rope and some wire to keep it from falling off. I noticed a doghouse, but no signs of any dog. We could see that the grass was even higher behind the house. Off to the left there was a vegetable garden with some homemade scarecrows comprised of aluminum tins, cans and old rusted strips of metal. I recognized tomato plants and zucchini. There were stalks of corn and what looked like pea vines as well. It was a rather ambitious home garden.
The house itself looked dark. Curtains were closed on all the windows. When Harley turned off the engine, we sat there, listening and looking at the front door, over which was hung some chimes. Their musical clang and the occasional distant sound of a car horn was all we heard.
"Maybe nobody's home," Harley muttered.
"He knew you would be here today, right?"
Harley nodded, but still didn't move.
"What should we do?" I asked.
"I guess we should just go up and knock and see," he said. He dismounted and helped me.
"Careful," he said as we headed down the narrow walk. I tried keeping the tip of the crutch on the rocks.
We walked up the steps and to the front door. Our footsteps rattled the loose slats on the porch floor. Looking through the window on the right. I could see a dimly lit lamp on a side table in what was surely the living room. There was no buzzer on the door and no knocker. Harley shrugged and then tapped the door with his knuckles gently. He waited a moment and rapped it harder.
A good thirty or forty seconds went by before we heard a latch undone. As the door opened, a tall, very dark-skinned woman-- with her hair pulled up in a twist so tightly it stretched the skin on her temples and forehead-- looked out at us. She wore a dark purple dress with sleeves that came to her elbows. Even though her skin had only barely discernible wrinkles, her hair was streaked with gray. I had never seen such piercing ebony eyes. They were set above very high cheekbones. Her jawbone was sharp, giving her a narrow, harsh chin, but her lips were full, soft and when they lifted, they revealed bone white perfect teeth.
"Oui?" she said.
Harley looked at me to see if I knew what that meant. I shook my head.
"I'm Harley," he said. "I've come to see Fletcher Victor."
She shifted her eyes from him to me and then she turned and, leaving the door opened, walked back to what I thought was the doorway to the living room.
She mumbled something and a moment later, the man who I imagined to be Harley's real father appeared beside her. He looked like she had just woken him. His thick head of black and gray hair was as messed as it would be if someone had run his or her fingers through it for ten minutes. He wore a pair of coveralls, stained with blue, white, red and green paint as well as a very faded T-shirt beneath. He was barefoot, the toenail on his right foot's big toe bruised black.
Both Harley and I could only stare. It was natural for us to look for resemblances. Harley and he had similar noses and both had hazel eyes. I thought their mouths were different. Harley's being softer with thinner lips, but they had the same jaw and identically shaped ears. Like Harley, his father stood over six feet, but he had a stouter build and a thicker neck. His shoulders, however, were somewhat stooped.
What was most surprising of all. I guess, was how old he looked. Did time and hard living age him this quickly? Or was he much older than we imagined when he had met Harley's mother?
He scrubbed his cheeks vigorously to wash out the sleep and then smiled.
"Well now," he said. "Well, here you are. This is my boy," he told the tall, black lady.
She stared as if she were deaf. There was no reaction or interest in her face.
His father stepped forward.
"Come in, come in. Let me look you over. boy,"
He reached out, his hands jetting at Harley's shoulders, grasping them firmly and holding him for a moment while he drank him in and nodded.
"Just look at this kid. Suze. Is this a chip off the old block or what? Huh?" he said turning to her and being more demanding for a reaction.
"Oui, " she said. So that's her way of saving yes. I immediately concluded. "Bon, " she added.
"So," Harley's father continued, still holding him at the shoulders. "you made it pretty good. huh
?"
"Yes," Harley said. Then he glanced at me. "Well, maybe not so good. We had an accident just outside Centerville. Two guys in a pickup harassed us and I spilled trying to get away from them. Summer hurt her ankle," he continued, so nervous he had to keep talking, "I brought her right to the doctor here, and he treated her foot and gave her that crutch to use while we were here."
"No kidding?" He released Harley and turned to me, his hands on his hips. "What he call you-- Summer?"
"Yes sir," I said.
"Who is she?" he asked Harley.
"She's my best friend." he said quickly. "We kind of grew up together." he added.
"Oh. I see. Well, well have plenty of time to get acquainted.
Suze made one of her special dishes in anticipation of your arrival. She knew you'd be here in time." He leaned toward us. "She's got special powers," he whispered and winked. "Where's your things?"
"Oh. I left it all on the cycle," Harley said.
"Well, you go get it. Suze will show you places to sleep. You want two rooms. I imagine," he added with a tight, impish smile.
"Yes." Harley said immediately. "If that's okay."
"Sure. Right. Suze?"
"Pas de probleme," she replied.
"What?" Harley said. smiling.
"Oh, that's her way of saying no problem. I told you. she's Haitian. She can speak pretty good English when she wants," he added, giving her a mild look of reprimand. "She's got to get to know you a little before she does though." he added, "Go on, get your things. C'mon into the living room. meanwhile, Summer. Suze's got to fix the other room anyway."
She nodded and headed for the short stairway. Harley glanced at me as his father started to return to the living room.
"I'll be right back." he said. I nodded and followed his father.
"Have a seat, have a sear he said nodding at the well-worn sofa, the arms of which were scratched and stained. It looked like it had been left outside for years.
Everything about the room was old, tired and faded. The area rug over the dark, hardwood floors was shredded on its edges, and there looked to be small holes that resembled burns from cigarette ashes in it as well. The walls were a light brown, but here and there some white showed through where the paint looked thin. A half-dozen very inexpensive prints of countryside scenes in cheap frames were hung above the fieldstone fireplace and between the two front windows. There was a pile of newspapers and some magazines on the floor beside the oversized cushion chair Harley's father sank into across from me. He put his bare feet up on the footstool and reached over to let his white meerschaum pipe from the side table. I could see some tobacco had fallen over the table and imagined that was the reason for some of the burns in the rug.