Baker Dreams

By Steve High

Norman Baker has a cure for cancer. In Baker Dreams, Steve High weaves the factual history of Norman Baker into the fictional story of Daniel McKenna, a thirteen year old boy from Baker’s home of Muscatine, Iowa. Daniel has just lost his father to cancer and must move to Eureka Springs to help his mother care for his grandmother, who is also battling the disease. Things get perplexing when Daniel crashes into Bakers’ tombstone and discovers an old pocket-watch. Dr. Baker begins visiting the boy in his dreams. Once in Eureka Springs Daniel meets other characters that help him through the history and decide just what Baker wants and what he’s going to do about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve High
• Release date: Oct 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301138005

Steve High

Steve High enjoys creative expression through art, music, literature, and writing. He draws, paints, and provides art camps for kids. As a graphic artist, he also designs web pages and restores vintage movie posters and photographs. He listens to an eclectic collection of music. He has illustrated comics and written stories for many years. His reading interests are varied, with a tendency toward history books. After visiting the Crescent Hotel, his curiosity about Dr. Norman Baker was piqued, and it was a disappointment to him to learn that there were no biographies easily available. It was then that he decided to write his first novel. Steve lives near Kansas City with his wife, two grown children, two dogs, a cat, and a bird.

Book preview

BAKER DREAMS

By Steve High

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by

Steve High on Smashwords

Baker Dreams

Copyright © 2012 by Steve High

I would like to dedicate this book to cancer patients of the past and present who show us how to have great courage and strength through desperate times.

Intro

He could still see Dad’s face, like a waxed, wigged replica of itself. The open lid above it was heavily padded, as if insulated to keep heat in. But there was no heat there. They closed the lid. Darkness from Dad’s shoulders down swept up and flooded over his head.

The thirteen year-old boy closed his eyes. Maybe to keep the tears in, maybe because Dad’s were closed. He thought about ghosts and wondered if Dad could be one and wished he would.

The past six months of Dad’s fight with cancer had been an unbelievable nightmare. Mom’s sobbing, the drive to the graveyard, and the lowering of the coffin into the ground were all part of the awful dream.

Chapter 1

Tell the Coach

The sad sun dimmed behind heavy grey clouds as the wind pushed across the sky from out west. Daniel exhaled and pressed the tire pump handle down against the pressure of the gathered air in the tube. Gravel close by crackled, and two bikes halted at the edge of Daniel’s driveway.

Dirk. What is he doing here? Daniel wondered to himself. Zack was riding with him. Zack was his friend, but Dirk--well, Daniel had never seen him around this neighborhood before, no closer than Weed Park.

Hey Daniel, Dirk said with a smirk.

There was a pause that Daniel allowed the silence to fill.

I talked to Melissa after school today.

So? Daniel squeezed the pump’s handle.

She said you gave her a note last week.

She did, did she? Daniel’s face was hot.

Melissa let me read it, Dirk grinned. Zack looked at the ground, embarrassed.

Daniel knelt back down and unfastened the pump from the tire.

I was shocked at what you said to her. She was too. She had no idea you felt that way, Daniel.

Daniel stood tall. Dirk, what is it you want?

Don’t get mad now, I am just visiting. You going to ball practice tomorrow? Summer baseball began Saturday. That was the only time Daniel ever saw much of Dirk.

No.

Why not? Are you going over to see Melissa?

I just won’t be going to practice, Daniel said, looking down at his bike.

Your dad will find out, Dirk persisted.

Zack looked stung and stared at Dirk in disbelief.

No, he won’t. Daniel hooked the pump to the bike frame.

Dirk continued, He’s the coach. I might have to tell him.

Zack squeezed his eyes shut.

Daniel replied without looking up, He isn’t coaching anymore. His dad used to coach their ball team. Summer was the only time he had been home much.

Dirk shot back, I don’t believe that. We will see tomorrow.

Zack hung his head.

He won’t be there, Dirk. My dad is dead.

He is not.

He died of cancer.

Dirk looked at Zack, who was still staring hard at the ground. I thought that was your grandmother who had cancer, he said softly.

They both have it. Had it. Dad was buried yesterday. Mom and I are going to Arkansas to take care of Grandma.

Dirk could see in Daniel’s face that what he said was true.

Are you happy now? Zack said bitterly, under his breath to Dirk.

Sorry, I didn’t know.

Daniel threw his leg over the bike seat. He rolled up and paused at the front of Dirk’s bike. Now you do. He took off down the street.

Chapter 2

The Man with the Cart

Daniel turned right off of 5th and headed up Mulberry as fast as he could. The wind whistled in his ears, his pulse pounded in his neck, and his breath heaved in his chest. He was angry. Angry that Dirk had read the note. Angry that Melissa had given it to him. Angry that his father had died. He also was angry at himself. Angry that he never showed his dad how good he could be. How much he could put his all into something. All those years Dad was the coach of his ball team and never had Daniel cared enough about it. He could have; he could have practiced more, paid more attention, done everything his dad wanted without waiting for him to say it. He could have made his dad proud. But now it was too late. He was mostly angry at himself. Angry at his life.

Then, his bike slowed, and the ride got rough. He jumped the curb and got up on the sidewalk. He stopped and stood there, looking down at his front tire. It was flat again. He sat back on the seat and began to slowly pedal forward.

Son, a voice called from up ahead, shooting a spark of fear through him. Son, you better walk that bike. That tire is flat, whether you want it to be or not. You are going to have to walk that bike or you will ruin your tire, the tube and the wheel.

The man was standing at the back of a trailer hooked to a pickup. He was unfastening some ropes and straps around a covered form. Daniel hopped off his bike and started walking up the sidewalk.

Could you help me for a minute, son? The man had one arm between the trailer side and the covered object in it. I have dropped the keys back here and I cannot get my fat arm back there to get it. Would you see if you can reach it?

Laying his bike down in the grass, Daniel stepped over the trailer’s ramp to the man and reached between the trailer wall, feeling for keys. He handed them to the man, who did not take them.

Go ahead and unlock that lock and help me push this down the ramp and up to the house. He pointed to the lock and moved to the front to push. Daniel twisted the key in the lock, and the last strap fell away.

The object was on wheels and was hidden by a tarp. Daniel was taller than the square base, but the tarp stretched over some uneven things reaching above him. He put his hand near the top to keep it from rolling down the ramp. The man called from the other side, Careful not to grip the pipes on the top, we don’t want to bend them. This is nearly a hundred years old. Daniel quickly moved his hand back down to the bottom.

The man continued as they rolled the object down the ramp, You have to wonder how many river towns this has been to over the years, calling in people from all over, notifying them of the steamboat’s arrival. Lots of people, long gone now, have been touched by it. Music has a magic to it, you know.

 Daniel was looking up at the old building. The Laura Musser house was now an art museum. Had Daniel ever been inside, he would have a clearer picture of all the steamboats that used to come to his town, for many paintings and photographs of them hung on the walls there.

Much of the river activity back then in Muscatine had to do with small clamming boats with racks of hanging lines of hooks and poles that harvested the clams from the river beds of the Mississippi and the other rivers flowing into her. The mussels were put in hot water, where they would open. The meat was then taken out, and the shells were sent to one of the town’s several button factories where they were stamped into buttons. The Pearl of the Mississippi was the city’s nickname.

Throw that corner of the tarp up over the top. Thank you, son, the man said, tossing an untied rope over toward Daniel. Daniel took the freed corner and threw it back to the man as he stepped around, folding the tarp up. The sides of the object were bright red with gold, swirling shapes decorating the edges. Rows of golden cylinders looked down on a keyboard.

What is this? Daniel asked looking at the rows of golden pipes stair-stepping upward over the keyboard.

Its a calliaphone. It plays music. The man went off to greet others coming from the museum. He looked back as Daniel headed down the driveway, Thanks. And don’t forget to walk that bike until you get the tube fixed.

As Daniel returned to his bike, Zack came riding up Mulberry and swerved up the sidewalk, arriving near Daniel’s bike.

Chapter 3

Hologram in Your Heart

Pointing to his flat tire, Daniel sat in the grass beside the bike. Zack nodded, lay his bike down, and sat beside him.

Zack slapped his knees, shook his head and looked at Daniel, I’m sorry, Daniel. I thought it was weird that Dirk wanted to come with me. I didn’t know anything about the note to Melissa, or anything about Melissa.

Nothing to know, really. It was just a note, Daniel said balancing his heel on his wheel spokes.

Did you ask her out or something?

No, I just was telling her how I felt about her. It was dumb. I never thought she would show anybody, especially Dirk. I didn’t think she would do that.

Were you and her friends? I mean, I never heard you talk about her or anything.

I sit behind her in chemistry. We worked in a group together. I liked to think she was my friend. I guess we never talked much. She’s kinda quiet.

She’s not so quiet around her friends that I saw. Maybe she doesn’t have any friends in chemistry.

Guess not. A dark, empty space swelled up inside Daniel, and a pressure grew in his forehead, pressing behind his eyes. The realization that Melissa was not his friend took something from him, and he tried to explain it to Zack. How he felt comfort sitting in class with her, listening to her and watching her. He thought of her at night as he went to sleep, a gentle face that blocked troubling thoughts. She was something good in life that he could focus on. It made her his hero. Zack seemed to understand; he was good at that.

Zack suggested she was like a hologram in Daniel’s heart--a very real image and sound that lived there, that kept Daniel safe. Appearing real, but not real. Daniel saw he was right, and that heavy empty space inside began to turn to sadness. The suddenness of Dad’s sickness filled his head. Daniel thought of how the cancer diagnosis had been too unbelievable for him at first. It couldn’t be, for they had been dealing with Grandma’s cancer for over a year. Life would not be so unfair. And then Daniel thought of Dad’s grave. He was gone, gone forever. And all Daniel had was a hologram in his heart, a false vision of someone else, but now that was gone too.

How can a person survive all this sadness? Daniel wondered aloud with words his tight throat