Summertown

By Jeff Gafford

Summertown is a little hamlet in Northern Arizona that accountant Jimmy Stone, a refugee from the big city of Phoenix, has called home for the last nine years. In that time, the biggest things to happen have been the day his first wife did him the favor of leaving him for another man and the day, two years later, when he married his current wife, Tara. He’s looking forward to giving his only daughter, Jessica the biggest wedding the town has ever seen, while at the same time helping Tara play matchmaker to the deputy marshal and the school principal. But the simple pleasures of living in a small vacation town will soon to be overshadowed by the airing of a shocking secret that has been kept by the family of a man everyone in town knows to avoid. By the end of the story, people will die, relationships will be ruined and the homey veneer of Summertown will be torn away to reveal the ugly prejudice that infests it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chaparral Publishing
• Release date: Jul 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452478272

Jeff Gafford

Jeff Gafford is Manager of Broadcast Media and Cover Design at Vigilante Publishing Group LLC. He has always enjoyed writing character-driven stories and Summertown is an expression of that. He lives in the east Phoenix area with his wife, Pam and their American Eskimo, Aspen an oversized lap dog.

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Summertown

By Jeff Gafford

Copyright © 2011 Jeff Gafford

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter One

I started sprinting full-out, but that only lasted about ten paces or so. A bullet hit me in mid-stride that struck with such jarring force that it felt as if my entire body had been hit. I tumbled forward, unable to catch myself as I slammed face-first onto the forest floor. It was strange; I couldn’t feel anything and I found myself thinking about that, almost dispassionately, like an outside observer would. I felt the impact on my face when I fell, but nothing else. I couldn’t move or make a sound, but other than a kind of fuzzy headache that went from the base of my skull to the top of my head, I was thinking very clearly, trying to piece together what had just happened. The gritty pain of broken teeth and a smashed nose faded to nothing, and as I became enveloped in a feeling of disembodiment, I asked myself, Is this what dying is like? Am I already dead? Then I started thinking about my daughter Jessie and how I wanted to make sure she had everything she needed. I wanted to see my yet-to-be-born grandchildren. I wanted to tell my wife I was sorry for being a fool, that I loved her; so many things left unsaid, undone.

How did I get here? I asked whoever was out there. I’m just a small-town accountant. I don’t have an enemy in the world that I know of. This wasn’t my fight. How did I get pulled into this?

Life had been so quiet and simple for so many years in Summertown that it was hard to imagine things could ever go this wrong. As my mind hovered within the limp shell that had been my body, I looked back through recent memories to piece together where the craziness started.

As I recall, it all pretty much began about five or six months ago. My only daughter, Jessica, and Tom Shirazi, the eldest son of one of my best friends, had announced that they were getting married. Tommy was a terrific young man. He and Jessie had known each other since their sophomore year of high school, when his family moved to Summertown from Glendale, but they didn’t start dating until they both went away to NAU. Before I knew it they were engaged, with the wedding planned for June, after they both graduated. So much better than how her old man did things.

I met Jessie’s mom, Corinda, during a wild, drunken vacation that turned out to be just about the biggest mistake of my life. Corinda was, in a word, eccentric; in another word, nuts. I could think of some other words, but I can’t share them in mixed company. I was rescued from this purgatory by a pudgy little guy in a white security guard uniform who stole my darling wife away from me. I sent him a card every Christmas.

I had managed to piece together the story of their romance from eyewitness accounts (it’s hard to keep secrets in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot) and the load of manure she shoveled up for me when she asked me for the divorce. Truth is, I didn’t hear much of what she said because I was too busy shouting Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus! Somewhere between that and when I ran out the front door, yelling Free at last, free at last, praise God I’m free at last! she got the idea and shut up.

The story goes, more or less like this: She had just walked out the door of the Flagstaff Wal-Mart, where she always did the grocery shopping, when she began to swoon from the heat. How she could be overheated in Flagstaff, Arizona in the month of October, under cloudy skies, I have no clue. But for the sake of the story I was given, she swooned. Enter Nerville (yes, that’s his name. Named after his mother—just kidding), the store security guard, dressed in a dingy white uniform shirt and black polyester slacks two sizes too small. Our hero saw the poor damsel wobble on her heels and begin to fall backward, so he rushed over to her and gently dropped her on the asphalt and began fanning her with the copy of Boys’ Life he had been reading. When she came to she looked up, saw his uniform (You know I can’t resist a man in uniform, she told me. Actually no, I didn’t. If I had, I would have dropped her off at the National Guard base long ago), and her heart was his forever. Or at least until she consummated their relationship and found out that he was somewhat under-equipped for the job. But by that time, he had already moved in with her (it took all of thirty minutes to move all of his worldly goods—two trash bags full of clothes and one alarm clock radio—from his mom’s garage, where he’d been living, to her place) and taken up residence on her couch, dressed in just his boxers, stuffing his face with Goo Goo Clusters and washing them down with Shasta root beer.

God has a way of giving us good things despite our own efforts to screw up our lives, and the one wonderful thing that came out of that twenty-year experiment in mutual torture was our Jessie. She was nothing like her mother (thank God) except in looks, which is to say she’s a beauty without that pesky habit of wanting to suck the life out of any male that happens to be in her vicinity.

Jessie and Tom both had jobs lined up in Flagstaff, which was a forty-five minute drive away in the summer, twice that in the winter, so it wasn’t too far to visit regularly. And I had gotten used to her being gone most of the year, since she moved into a dorm on campus when she transferred from community college to the university. It was just the idea that my baby wasn’t coming back home that tore me up.

Corinda was, as usual, playing up the grieving mother routine, calling my office and blubbering to my assistant, Carol, that her baby is now a woman and she’s getting married and moving far away and how will she see her grandchildren, blah, blah, blah. Carol was an anemically thin, gray-haired lady with the sweetest, gentlest demeanor a human being could have. Not even Corinda could get her to utter an unkind word, and that fact alone speaks volumes for her character. I, on the other hand, had no trouble thinking up unkind words, and if I didn’t know it would hurt Jessie, I’d probably be able to conjure up a few unkind actions, as well.

So when I walked into the office and found Carol on the phone, speaking soothing words of comfort, I assumed it was Corinda with her usual load of horse hockey. But this time, Carol waved me over to her desk and handed me the phone, something she knew not to do if it was my ex-wife on the other end. I took the phone reluctantly, seeing the look of sympathy on Carol’s face. When I said hello, Corinda wailed and blubbered something in Spanish. Then, through all the sniffling and bawling and more blubbering, I managed to piece together what the new disaster was: Nerville had left her. No way, I thought. This man was my hero, the one who had excised the cancerous tumor from my life. It can’t be!

Wait a minute, I interrupted, hoping against hope. Check the refrigerator. Check the kitchen cabinets. Are the Shasta and Goo-Goo Clusters gone?

I already thought of that! she barked at me. That was the first thing I did when I saw all of his movies gone. All of his snacks and drinks are gone. He even took the portrait we had made! She wailed this last part so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear.

What portrait? I asked, which sparked another string of Spanish epithets (I always assume that when Corinda speaks to me, it’s something profane) ending with estupido which didn’t require a Spanish-English dictionary to translate.

Our Magicland portrait! We had somebody take our picture when we were going into the Floating Teacup ride. It was so romantic.

OK, I know it was a horrible thing, given the woman’s emotional state, but the thought of those two inside one of those little, cup-shaped kiddie-cars, their thighs oozing out the sides, flashing their pearly whites (all three of them in Nerville’s case) just got the better of me. I burst into laughter and couldn’t stop. Corinda screamed a fresh string of Spanish at me and then hung up in my ear.

Oh, Jimmy, that was not kind. Carol shook her head reprovingly. You two may have had your differences, but she is your daughter’s mother and she needs your help.

"My help! I replied, defensively. She left me, remember? She’s been perfectly happy living with the Toothless Wonder the last few years, only seeing Jessie when it was a chance to play Doting Mother in front an audience. You should have seen her at Jessie’s graduation. The only way Jessie managed to free herself from Corinda’s iron grip was to point out the honor guard at the other end of the field. The woman almost slipped on her own drool running over there."

Well then. Carol paused a moment then said, Think of who she’s going to call next. Do you think Jessie should have to worry about her mother when she has so much happening with the wedding?

I hated to admit it, but Carol was right. Jessie was the next person on Corinda’s list of torture victims and, worst of all, Jessie was bilingual, so she didn’t have the luxury of tuning out half of what her mother said like I could. I didn’t want her having to put up with that right now.

Oh, all right, I relented. But only for Jessie. The woman hasn’t called me in two years—not that I’m complaining about that—and suddenly I’m the one that has to fix her problems?

When the only reply I got was one of her Now, Jimmy, you’re better than that looks, I retreated to my office where I grudgingly picked up the phone and called Corinda. She spent only a few seconds berating me before getting to the point, which told me how upset she was.

Oh, Jimmy, she said plaintively. It’s so hard being alone. You don’t know what it’s like.

You’ve been alone for what, three hours? And you didn’t even know it until a few minutes ago. I was alone for a year before I met Tara.

Hmph. Mentioning Tara caused a sudden chill in Corinda that I could feel right through the phone. Well, she resumed, I can’t be alone that long. If I lose my Nerville, I don’t know what I will do. I don’t trust myself. I can’t be alone! She was starting in with the melodrama and I really didn’t have time for it, so I cut her off.

Corinda, don’t worry. You’ll find someone else. In fact, I’m sure you can find someone better. OK, that last part was redundant; what could possibly be worse than Nerville?

Oh, I don’t know, she said, hesitating. Do you really think I can still attract a man?

OK, Lord. I’ll go to confession right after this one. Sure, I do. You’re an attractive woman to anyone who’s drunk enough with lots of personality. Multiple personalities is more like it. Just relax and leave it in God’s hands. And may He have mercy on every man you come in contact with.

She sighed, paused, and then said, You are right, of course. I just have to go out and let myself be seen again. In my mind I heard a gavel strike, and a judge’s voice convicting me of being an accessory to crimes against humanity.

Absolutely. I’m going to hell. There are plenty of good men out there. And if they’re smart they’ll see you coming and run for their lives. You’re still young. Straight to hell, no detours. Go out and have fun. I extricated myself while I could. Gotta go, Corinda, I have lots of monthlies to do. Bye. I put the phone down before she could reply, then walked to the front door.

Has she calmed down? Carol asked.

Oh yeah, she’s fine, I reassured her. She’s getting ready to go looking for another victim. I walked out the door before she could chide me again for my unkindness. I didn’t drink much, still don’t, but at that moment I felt like having a tall glass of British ale at Old Smokie’s Tavern up the road. When I got back it was too late to get anything done, so I sent Carol home, locked up and headed to the old homestead myself. I didn’t hear of Corinda for a couple of months or so, but when I did, it was a doozy.

Chapter Two

I had been working for about three hours straight, trying to keep up with the tall stack of tax returns on my desk that just seemed to get taller, when my eyes started going out of focus and I got a headache. So I told Carol I was going for my morning caffeine fix and walked down the road to the Little Creek Café, the coffee shop owned and run by Ken and Min Shirazi, my future in-laws.

It was a beautiful mid-April day, and although it was a little too early for the wildflowers that usually sprang up along the highway where Summertown was situated, the crystal-clear sky and the scent of pines carried on the chilly breeze was invigorating. As I walked past the storefronts that comprised the town’s business district, I thought of how the town had changed over the years.

Summertown was established in 1960 by Keith Tubman, a real estate broker, who envisioned a sprawling retirement community like the ones they had in Phoenix and Tucson, complete with a golf course and swimming pools, restaurants and a rest home. What he didn’t take into account was the obvious: extremely cold winters. Not arctic, mind you, and not the damp, bone-chilling cold of the Midwest, but much too cold to attract retirement-aged people seeking a pleasant climate to live out their sunset years in comfort and leisure. Besides the climate, a lack of healthcare facilities within twenty-five miles and a lone ambulance company ten miles away—and frequent road closures during the winter months due to severe road conditions—kept all but the hardiest from buying lots in the master planned development. From 1960 to 1971, there were only 200 year-round residents and another 300 or so summer visitors.

In the end, what kept the town alive were the fishing, boating, hiking and camping opportunities in the summer at Lake Mary and Stoneman Lake and the beautiful white landscapes in the winter that inspired many visitors to break out their snow sleds and cross-country skis and take advantage of the gently sloping terrain around the town’s outskirts. What Tubman had envisioned as a Northern Arizona Sun City ended up as a tiny vacation town with only a few retirees in permanent residence. As the roads improved and surrounding towns like Payson grew, Summertown grew as well. By the time I had decided to move my family—despite the protests of my wife—to a smaller, cooler place, Summertown had 2,000 permanent residents, a small charter school with eighty-five elementary and thirty-two high school students and several businesses established along State Highway 487, or Lake Mary Road, as it was more commonly called. They even had their own marshal’s office, a two-man law enforcement agency established back in the late sixties to serve in the dual capacities of peace officers and emergency medical personnel. Then, with the modernization of the Blue Ridge Fire Station in Happy Jack a few miles south in the early nineties, the marshal’s office was free to concentrate on police work.

The only original building in the business district was the general store/contract post office owned by town mayor Pedro Mendoza, a retired mail carrier from Yuma who had dreamed of living somewhere he could enjoy seasons that actually changed. I could definitely relate to that, since I grew up in Phoenix and had wanted the same thing. The other businesses that sprouted up alongside the store were Todd Webb’s Auto Repair; Old Smokie’s Tavern, a place that was the same as it was when it was first opened back in ’78; Corinda’s little beauty parlor, established the first year we moved to Summertown and doing good business ever since, partly because she could gossip with the best of them in town, partly because she flirted with all the old men who came in for a hair cut, but mostly because I did her books—still did them, as stipulated in the divorce agreement—receiving them by email so that we would never have to see one another. My office was located at the opposite end of the street from my ex-wife’s—and yes, I did that on purpose. When I was married to her, I wanted to enjoy spending my days away from her. When we divorced it made it easier to avoid her. The Little Creek Café sat on the south side of Mendoza’s General Store, the only business in the area with an asphalt parking area to accommodate customers all year long.

Ken and I pretty much hit it off from the first day we met. He was a retired sergeant in the Air Force who spent the last five years of his career in Glendale. They had three terrific boys, the oldest of whom I was particularly partial to, since he was about to be my son-in-law. They started vacationing in Summertown a few years before he called it quits. The first visit was a week in one of our rental cabins, the second year they bought a small vacation house in the middle of town, and; the third year they started making plans to move up permanently. When they took a look at the old Summertown Café which had been closed for several years due to the death of the prior owner (no one else in town was interested in running a restaurant at the time), they took it on as a challenge and bought it, changed its name and completely remodeled it. They did good business with the folks in town, as well as the truckers, foresters and vacationers in the area since it was the easiest eatery to get to for several