In Memory of David's Buick

By Bob Saar

Someone stole songwriter Bucky Minnow's tune, David's Buicka personal ballad for his MIA brother, adrift in Viet Nam. Ripped off in the Sixties by a slithery booking agent, the song is now a Country-Western radio sensation. And Bucky wants it back.

He hits the sunset road west out of Iowa in David's old car, in search of music thief Buddy Payola and his pawn Dusty Bodine, the faded singer who is fast returning to stardom aided by Bucky's song and a magic guitar from the deep reaches of the Grand Canyon.

But others are on the hunt for Bucky Minnow. The FBI wants to kill him. His lifelong ex-girlfriend, volatile baseball hurling Lido Wan, desperately needs to save him. Shadow guitarist Dogus wants to steal Lido Wan away. And Dusty just wants to be famous again.

IN MEMORY OF DAVID'S BUICK follows a true believer on his journey down the road of discovery, through misadventures that ultimately lead to the meaning of lifeunlike we have ever suspectedand exposes the truth about what happened to all those sweater-clad Chihuahuas trapped long ago inside hot automobiles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450246828

Bob Saar

Guitarist, songwriter, filmmaker, engineer, newspaper columnist, art technician, journalist and traveler: Bob Saar is the definitive modern-day Gemini Renaissance man. He captures today’s journey through life with stories and music, his songs and essays illustrating our wanderings across those light-spangled, shadow-dappled landscapes we call our lives. Saar’s past lives and adventures in Colorado and Oregon and beyond America’s shores have led him back to his homeland, where he lurks in an old haunted mansion somewhere in the deep junglelands of backwater Iowa.

Book preview

In Memory of

David’s Buick

Bob Saar

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

In Memory of David’s Buick

Copyright © 2011 Bob Saar

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4502-4681-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-4682-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010916509

Highway 61 Revisited

Written by Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.

Cover painting by James Spring, © 1997, all rights reserved, used by permission.

Patrick Hazell and Mother Blues appear courtesy of Blue Rhythm Recordings.

All original music © 1997 by Bob Saar and BlueSky MovieMusic. All rights reserved. See BobSaar.com for ordering recordings.

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 1/5/11

Contents

Beginnings

1: Trout and Raven and Coyote

2: Little Fish

3: Lovejoy

4: David Joe Junior

5: Clam Dynasty

6: Lido Wan

7: Big Fish

8: The Other Side of the World

9: The Moon and Stars

10: Dogus

11: Mudpuppy Love

12: David’s Buick

13: One Fine Day

14: The Leaving Woman

15: Independence Day

16: Buddy Payola

17: In Memory of David’s Buick

18: The Party

19: Winter

20: Once There Was a Way

21: Death of a Big Fish

22: One Big Happy Family

23: The Dognapper

24: Warrior Rabbit

25: Dogus Takes Off

26: Lido Wan Takes Off

27: Bucky Takes Off

Journeys

28: Into the West

29: Two Bulls

30: Denverland

31: Dusty Bodine

32: Into Wyoming

33: Down in Los Angeles

34: Out of Natrona

35: Payola Redux

36: John Tanner

37: Roy Lukas

38: Dubois

39: Nebraska Bob

40: The Rat Dog Ranch

41: Airwaves

42: Rolene

43: Messages

44: Zolo

45: Into Nebraska

46: Plans

47: On the Road Again

48: The Moon and Shoulder

49: What Everyone Else Did That Day

50: The Three and the Guitar

51: The Battle of Rat Dog Ranch

52: Telephones

53: The Van Band

54: Out of Wyoming

55: Rolene Takes Off

56: Into Utah

57: Cíbola

58: Into Arizona

Destinations

59: Cameron

60: Into The Canyon

61: The End of the Rest

62: Moondogs

63: The End

64: Redwing

The band takes a bow…

Beginnings

Silence is the most powerful note you can sing.

—Warrior Rabbit

Roy—

Please write down the story and get it out so the people who want to know what happened won’t bother Lido Wan. Or Dogus. Tell them there’s no point in looking for Nebraska Bob and Rolene…or me.

Don’t worry about Bodine and Payola; the record will be number one.

—with a bone.

Bucky

1: Trout and Raven and Coyote

An old man shuffled along the bottom of the Grand Canyon, miles from the ancient village of Supai. Warrior Rabbit came to sing of his dream in the night. He followed the blue-green waters of Havasu Creek in the moonlight, wandering through red sandstone and primitive rock to the confluence with the surge of Hackataia, the Colorado. From there he turned west, hobbling along in his deerskin breeches, padding silently in his dusty moccasins.

The moon hung low in the western sky, a golden smoky lamp standing above the edge of the great chasm where Warrior Rabbit trekked. The cool night air sparkled with mystery. Small puffs of red dust flew up with each step of Warrior Rabbit’s moccasins. The canyon sneaked along in the night, a monstrous dusky snake in the rocks.

A dark-winged creature, some kind of night bird, swept along the canyon wall high above the old man. A strange animal cried out from a distant plateau away in the recesses of the chasm. Warrior Rabbit smiled, for he was very much at home in this liquid night, in his deep red secret in the earth.

Dawn spread like warm honey over the rim of the canyon when he arrived at the ancestral story-telling place beneath the outcropping of ancient limestone. He stooped under the ledge and retrieved his tortoise shell and his feather wand from their hiding place in the small cavern. Then he carefully settled his old body in the mouth of the cave. The rock hole would become delicious shade when the sun jumped into the sky.

A large redbud tree lay directly in front of the cavern, blown over by heavy winds. Larger than any found up on the rim, the tree had defied elevational logic and grown old and strong in the bottom of the canyon. Warrior Rabbit smiled at the fallen giant, for they had much in common. He had come to tell the tree the story he dreamed, and when he finished, he would make a totem of great power from the venerable trunk.

Warrior Rabbit began to sing softly, heya-heh-heya-heh-heya. Nothing special, just warming up his mind. He prepared a small fire of grasses and sage and juniper as he sang, not so much for heat as for something to do while his bones creaked and settled. The redbud tree watched him to see if perhaps a limb or two was to be sacrificed, but Warrior Rabbit did not need warmth as much as he enjoyed companionship. He would be in the sacred place for a long time.

When he felt his blood flowing smoothly, he looked up at the scant orange clouds in the sky and began to read them as easily as a child reads a fairy tale. Heya-heh-heya-heh-heya, sang Warrior Rabbit. Nothing special, just a dream he had in the night.

This is the story. This is the legend. This is how It began.

***

In the beginning were only Trout and Raven and Coyote. Inseparable, they walked over the earth and swam through the rivers and flew in the sky, all over the world. They talked together and discussed the clouds and the sky and the rivers and lakes and forests and deserts. No feature of Mother Earth escaped their eyes and their songs and their words.

They asked many questions of themselves when they talked. Why is Father Sky blue? Why do the Moon and Sun chase each other? They found answers in their dreaming and shared them when they talked.

The one question they could not answer was this: Why are we here?

Many days and nights and moons and seasons they pondered this between themselves. They talked of it at nightfall as they sat near the fire, and they worried it in the heat of the desert afternoon. It haunted their dreams.

One day Coyote said to the others: We cannot simply talk any longer. We must make a plan. We must take action.

Trout blinked in accord. Raven nodded. How can we find the answer to our question if not by talking? asked Raven aloud.

I do not know, replied Coyote, but we have talked it to death. We need to try something new. We need to find the answer.

I agree, Trout said. All this talking is getting us nowhere. We have seen our entire world as we walk and talk, yet we do not know our purpose here. How can any of this be of meaning if we can not find any meaning?

Perhaps the meaning is to just be here, and nothing more, suggested Raven. Perhaps all our talk is a waste of time.

No, no, I do not think so, Coyote countered. We are here for some higher purpose than to walk on Mother Earth and gaze up into Father Sky and wonder why we do so. We serve some higher purpose. There is more to life than talking. We follow some higher destiny, I am sure of it.

How can we find the answer by talking, anyway? Trout scoffed. We all talk at once and interrupt each other constantly.

Well, I am tired, Raven sighed, hunkering down on a broad slab of warm sandstone, and if we are going to do something different, let us sit right here and decide what it is going to be.

Coyote sat down next to Raven, then Trout sat down with them. They chewed slowly on grass stems, not far from the twin pillars of Wigeleeva, the guardians.

I think we have too many words between us, Coyote began. We talk and talk and walk and walk, and all that brings to us is words and new places to sleep. It does not bring us answers.

Perhaps we should stop talking? Raven wondered aloud.

Perhaps our purpose is merely to look for answers and never find them and talk forever, Trout offered.

Coyote frowned at Trout. But to stop talking means we would have no way to tell each other the answer, should one of us find it, Coyote informed them.

Perhaps only one of us should talk, Raven suggested, and the other two could nod in agreement and nothing more.

No, said Trout, that will not work because the one who talks may not be the one who truly has the answer.

Well, we could take turns, offered Raven.

No, said Coyote, for which of us is willing to stop talking?

Brother Sun leaped across the sky and the shadows slithered from their nests in the East and flew after Sun. Night fell in the deep canyon as the three beings sat together in silence. Mother Earth warmed them with her huge brown body. Sister Moon rose in the sky, and when all the shadows had run together into one vast lake of darkness, the canopy sparkled with stars.

Finally, Coyote looked at the other two and spoke. I have an idea, Coyote said, gazing up into the heavens. I think I know how we can solve this dilemma.

Trout also had been thinking hard. Our problem is immense. We must divide it into pieces.

Raven had been contemplating along with them. Each one of us will take a piece and puzzle it out alone.

They both looked at Coyote. What was your idea? their eyes asked.

Yes, Coyote accorded, that is to be our plan.

Raven and Trout both began talking excitedly at once. But, how will we keep from talking? How will we tell each other when we have solved our piece of this puzzle? We will hinder each other’s thoughts again and again and it will not work, the two squawked in unison.

Coyote raised a hand and they quieted. Our plan will work, Coyote said, for I have an idea. Coyote waited until the only sound was the night wind sighing in the creosote bushes. Raven and Trout waited for Coyote to divulge his notion, and at last, Coyote continued: We will go in separate directions and seek our answers alone.

Trout and Raven sat in silence. Finally, Raven spoke. That is good, Coyote, but what if, say, Trout finds one answer before Raven finds another? Then Trout will go blundering all over the face of our Mother, talking excitedly about the discovery, and Raven will have no peace in which to meditate and seek different answers. What then?

We will each speak a different tongue, Coyote said. That way we can not interrupt each other.

But, Trout sputtered, how will we be able to share our answers when we have attained them all?

Yes, this sounds impossible, Raven reluctantly agreed.

It is simple, Coyote told them, as the wind blew the stars across the sky. We each will create our own secret language and inscribe the key to it on a stone. Then we will engrave the language of the Mother Earth, the common language we now share, on that same stone. When we have our answers, we each will return to the stone and wait for the others. When we have all arrived, we will each and all again converse in our language of Mother Earth, just as we are speaking at this moment. In that way we will share our answers, and thus we shall discover the riddle of why we are here.

I see, said Raven. This stone will teach each of us how to remember the language of Mother Earth.

Yes, Trout concurred, we will be able to teach ourselves our common language when we return. Trout paused. "For we will be the creators."

The three friends sat in silence for a long time.

There is a problem, Coyote said quietly.

Yes, Trout agreed, there is a problem.

A big problem, Raven concluded.

They sat in silence as time flowed over them. Thinking about not talking made them wait for each other, and this was new to them.

We might take many moons to solve our pieces of this puzzle, Coyote said, and in that time it is possible we will forget where we placed the language stone.

We will not be able to find each other, said Raven.

We will not be able to talk to each other if we forget our meeting place, concluded Trout.

We need a keeper, said Coyote.

Yes, a keeper, Raven agreed.

A keeper? Trout put in.

We will create a creature to watch over Mother Earth while we are away on our journeys, Coyote suggested.

This creature will keep the language stone for us, said Raven, warming to the idea.

And we will write the instructions for this creature on the stone so that it will not forget! Trout exclaimed.

Yes, Raven agreed, because this creature will not be as shrewd as we are, and it will need to be taught. Raven paused, crestfallen. And that is exactly my point. The others waited. If this creature is not as clever as we are, Raven went on, how will it ever do our job of protecting our Mother? How can we be sure we will have a home to return to at all?

We must instruct it on that, also, Coyote offered. We will write our instructions in the sky so that they can never be lost. Each time this creature forgets, it will look up and Father Sky will tell it the answer.

Yes, I see, Raven agreed. We will each write on the stone, and we will place three stars in the night sky, one each for Trout and Raven and Coyote, all pointing the way we have gone. This will remind the creature to watch in that direction for our return.

Yes, that is good, Raven, Trout concurred. We will all leave in the same direction, and our stars will be our own compass, should we lose our way back to the stone.

What will we call this creature? Raven asked.

"It is an it," Trout pointed out.

So be It, said Coyote.

They looked at each other nervously and chewed their grass stems. None objected to the scheme. None voiced another idea.

After a time they began to gather reeds and mud from the river to make the creature they called It.

At last, It stood before them. It looked at them. What am I?

The three animals looked at each other. You are It.

Then Trout and Raven and Coyote spoke to It in the language of Mother Earth, for which there are no words.

You must care for our Mother’s life as you would your own. Trout placed a star high overhead.

Oh, I will, the It said.

And if one of us returns, you must teach that one our common language, they instructed. Raven added a second star.

Oh, I will, the It said.

You must protect this stone we give you, they said, setting it before It. Coyote waved a hand and a third star appeared.

Oh, I will, the It said.

You must watch the night to see where we have gone and from whence we will return, they said in unison, pointing at the line of stars that hung in the cold black sky.

Oh, I will, the It said.

And so the trout chose to swim the waters, and the raven chose to sail the winds, and the coyote chose to walk the hills.

The trout said to itself, I will create helpers to swim the waters, and we will sing the legend from the sea to the rivers each year and tell all how to return to the land.

The raven said to itself, I will create helpers and we will sing my song in the big blue sky to teach each other the way home.

The coyote finally said to itself, This is a big job. I will create helpers and we will walk the hills together. I will teach them the legend at night by singing the song in my new language.

Then the three friends said goodbye to each other, speaking for the last time.

I am so happy I am free, said the trout, beginning the circle of farewells.

I am so happy I am free, repeated the raven.

I am so happy I am free, concluded the coyote, and they went into the world in their new forms to search for the meaning of life.

The It sat by itself for a long time.

After some time, It said to itself, I should go find Trout and Raven and Coyote and see if it is all right for me to leave this place while I wait.

It placed the stone carefully on the ground beneath an overhanging ledge and went to find Trout and Raven and Coyote.

***

And, of course, It never found the way back to the stone, and now trout and raven and coyote and their helpers wander the earth, unable to share their discoveries. The coyotes howl to pass the legend down through time, and the fish swim out of the ocean into the rivers to tell the story each year, and the birds fly north and south and north again, searching for the stone.

The song of Mother Earth flashes in the eyes of Father Sky with each thunderstorm that walks the plains, and the clouds tell the story over and over each beautiful day, and the birds and fish and animals all know the secret of why they are here, but It does not. It cannot hear the Voice. It wanders in bewilderment over the earth, forever lost, forever alone, forever searching for the secret on the stone.

***

Warrior Rabbit finished talking to the redbud tree. And I know where it is, he said in a language for which there are no words.

2: Little Fish

Joe Minnow stood at the edge of the ragged field and watched the wind coming off the river. It blew through the grasses and brush, rippling the large field all the way from the old stone building by the railroad tracks to the limestone bluff on the west end of the acreage. The tiny town was a full-time weed lot, and all that projected above the swaying expanse was a single two-story house. It stood alone at the opposite end of the road, back porch against the bluff, staring sadly down the long street to the river. The property was obviously abandoned. Protecting its past with overgrown blackberry vines, the distressed house whispered in the wind to the man: My taxes are not paid. No one cares. I am alone.

Joe was home from the war and looking to start a life along the river. He planned a banking career. He liked the look of the house. He had found it by accident, driving back roads between the Mississippi river towns of Muscatine and Burlington. He squinted into the cold spring breeze and imagined the place as it could be, with new windows and paint and shutters, a young wife hanging laundry in the yard. The wind murmured in his ear, and he peered at the stone rail station that huddled down by the river, and it transformed into a garage full of family automobiles.

I have secrets.

Somewhere beneath the burdock and milkweed was a road linking the two buildings. Joe squinted again at the huge weedy field that ran for a quarter mile between the structures. The wind gusted and talked, and Joe Minnow listened. He saw his future children playing baseball on a vast expanse of perfect green grass. He saw his future wife pouring lemonade on the porch. He saw prosperity and glory and days gone by and days to come.

Try me.

Joe Minnow squinted and saw his future.

Dust blew into his eyes and he blinked. He pulled his fedora down over his glasses, then climbed into his car and drove back to Burlington. The next day, he looked up the house in the county records. When he discovered that the property was indeed ownerless, he bought the house, the street and the station.

Joe Minnow was the new owner of Redwing, Iowa, a town consisting of exactly one house, one road and one railway station.

And now one resident.

One year later he married the blonde and giddy Florence Dunbar, and they began their life together in Redwing.

Joe and Flo painted the two-story house white, and trimmed it in deep green. They repaired the plumbing, the floors, the walls and the ceilings. They replaced the broken glass in the windows, put up screens, washed out the entire structure, and painted each room and hall in turn. They scrubbed the station inside and out, until the yellow-gray limestone blocks looked newly quarried. They swept pearly clamshell dust into huge piles on either side. They repaired the stained glass windows and re-hung the old oak door. They built a small garage behind it, on the river side, and parked their brand-new Buick Super there, the first new model since the big war. All the car companies had stopped building cars then, concentrating instead on tanks and Jeeps and such. The Minnow’s new Super looked exactly like the pre-war model, but Joe did not care. That was what prosperity was all about.

Joe and Flo spent cool mornings brush-hogging weeds around the property. They worked sweaty afternoons chopping down small trees along Main Street, the only street in Redwing. They grew slick with sweat in the sweltering evenings, digging up the broad sweep of the roadway. When the time came to pave it, they laced the cement with the pearl dust of a bygone clam industry that had once thrived along the river.

I have secrets.

Main Street in Redwing glowed pink as a Rocky Mountain sunset.

One night near the end of the summer, they sat on the porch, eating one of Flo’s pulpy casseroles and discussing the small prairie stretching before them. Joe wanted to plant a mix of ryegrass and fescue and buffalo grass, topped off with a healthy dose of good old Kentucky Blue.

I want a lawn that never quits, Joe said.

The weedy pasture was shoveled under and replanted. The combination of grasses thrived in the muggy summers at the edge of the river, and the Redwing yard grew lush and thick and greener than the Emerald City of Oz. It was a xeriscape to be envied by all.

Who’s going to mow this place? Joe asked. Flo sat next to him on one of the folding wooden chairs they had found in the station. She handed him an iced tea. He took it and pecked her on her cheek.

Well, dear, Flo said. I’ve got a bun in the oven. She waited.

Joe gazed at the river. It rolled away at the end of the curving pink smile of his very own Main Street. The lawn loomed large in the failing light. He sipped his tea. What? I’m sorry…what, dear? He took her hand. You were saying?

Flo leaned back and looked at her husband. I’m pregnant. Then she put her head on Joe’s shoulder and sighed.

Joe put his arm around his pretty wife and squeezed her.

Let’s hope it’s a boy, he said.

Mm-hmm, Flo cooed.

We need someone to mow this lawn.

***

Flo Minnow first spawned in 1947, a squalling son named David Joe Junior. The name honored both her father and her husband.

Ostensibly, Joe Minnow’s rise into the upper echelon of banking proved to be more interesting than his marital fun time, and when Flo announced her second pregnancy three years later, Joe Minnow took it as a minor disturbance during supper.

You’re what, dear? he asked, salting his casserole. He was thinking about the banking life and his day at Farmer City Bank.

Pregnant. I just found out today from Doctor Lovejoy.

Who, Amos? Hmm. And what did Amos say about you?

"He said I was pregnant; I just told you that. Flo did not fluster easily; she took her husband’s vague inattention in stride. Don’t salt your food so much."

Well, that’s a hell of a note, Joe Minnow said, halting the saltcellar in midair. He resumed shaking when Flo turned to wipe her son’s face.

Pop swore, goddammit, chanted David Joe Junior.

Don’t you like your casserole, dear?

What? No, it’s fine, it’s fine. Pass the bread, please.

Well, what do you think? Flo asked, patting her stomach and smiling brightly. Flour and casserole drippings clung to her green gingham dress.

Joe did not notice. He glared at his plate. I think we’ll all die of clogged arteries if you don’t stop feeding us these damned casseroles all the time, Flo. I’m almost forty, you know. Joe stared sullenly at his dinner. Even meat loaf would be a break.

"Pop is stopped up like the toilet, Mom! He was in there forever today."

No, dear…I mean, what do you think of my condition? Flo asked, beaming happily. She poised over him, ready to shovel more casserole onto his plate.

Joe stared blankly at his wife. It’s fine, dear, and you know I think you’re attractive, he intoned automatically.

"No, I mean I’m pregnant."

Oh. Now Joe understood his wife’s refusal to let him eat dinner in peace. Oh. Well, now that’s a hell of a note, dear. I suppose we’ll have to name it soon.

Helluvanote, David Joe Junior chanted. Helluvanote, helluvanote, Mom’s got a helluvanote.

***

The second son was born in the spring, and the Minnows found the time to name him: Buckingham Standifin Minnow.

Distinguished, Joe said. But your grandfather’s name still seems odd to me.

Yes, dear, but it’s kind of classy, Flo offered, and besides, that’s what middle names are for. Differentness. Remembering those who might otherwise be forgotten.

I suppose. Anyway, it will look terrific on a bank loan, someday, Joe added. "No confusion about who he is."

Look, his eyes are so green. Isn’t he just the cutest thing?

Money green, they are, Joe joked. He’ll make a fine young banker.

He was wrong. Buckingham Standifin Minnow was destined to work in the green, but his medium was not to be money.

The baby lay on his back in the bassinet, reaching his arms into the air. He pawed frantically through the casserole-laden atmosphere at the child toy that dangled above him. It was a brightly colored ball, swinging in his baby heaven, just out of his pudgy reach. His parents chattered on, oblivious to his struggling. He lunged at the swinging orb. He gasped silently in frustration. His small, still-reptilian mind silently shouted in baby-frustration, help me! Then he began to cry.

Oh, dear, look; he wants us to hold him. Flo snatched him up into her warm, damp embrace. Ground meat and vegetable droppings clung to her forearms, and one viscous glob smeared the baby’s cheek.

No! I want that thing! I want that round thing! Put me down and give it to me! The baby labored mightily to clutch the ball.

Doesn’t seem to help much, Flo. Maybe he’s hungry. Joe glowered at the gallimaufrous sludge on his plate. Is he too young to be introduced to this culinary marvel?

Flo cuddled. Joe frowned. Buckingham struggled. David Joe Junior was nowhere to be seen. The Minnow family drifted down the stream of life, onward toward the dark ocean that awaits us all.

***

A bone-white ball floated in a deep blue bowl.

Few people in the small Midwestern park looked up at the moon in the evening sky. A handful heard the dark bird slipping overhead through the summer breeze. Most noticed nothing at all. Only the boy saw things as they actually happened.

It came to him in slow motion, pushing through the sweet summer air. His left hand moved to intercept the ball. The glove began the journey to its destination; his body knew the ball would be there.

The moment before it reached him, he saw the stick sneaking along behind the ball. The hickory bat spun through the evening air in a perfect dance with the ball, never losing, never gaining, always parallel in space and time, coming right at him. He saw the red stitching, the stuffed leather, and he knew his hand must try to block the flight of the ball. He knew he was unable to move out of the charging bat’s path and still catch the ball. Still he knew he must catch the ball.

White ball, black stick, blue fading sky. He saw this pattern, these shapes and colors, and he knew they were significant. Twelve years old, and he knew the picture mattered more than the pain he was about to endure. The sphere gleamed in the light. The stick spun as though in slow motion, making a faint whup-whup-whup sound as it traveled through the cool evening air. The sky darkened slightly behind the shapes as they moved in his immediate universe, across that perfect backdrop, and something in his mind clicked. The alien word sumáaga flashed like a meteor across his thoughts.

The ball hit his glove as he lunged to his left, but there was no time. The spinning bat slammed into his face, smashing him to the ground. The ball spilled from the pitifully small leather glove onto the cool green grass.

The boy rolled onto his back. Straight overhead a black bird circled in the cobalt depths, head cocked, looking down at him. The boy saw the shine of dark eye as it soared in circles above him. The tips of its wings curved and flexed, but it was time and not the breeze that floated the strange bird.

Then the stars exploded in his eyes and blackness roared over the small Midwestern park, filling up the young boy’s head. The people and noise and lights disappeared into the deep blue night as he began the long fall into unconsciousness. The spinning stick and ball chased him down into oblivion.

As he faded away he saw the raven-thing diving out of the falling night, following after him. He screamed silently. Then boy and the bird and the stick and the ball swirled down together until the whirlpool turned to blackness.

3: Lovejoy

Bucky Minnow swam up through a nightmare and opened his eyes. Amos Lovejoy loomed over him, ramrod straight and narrow in his spotless white smock. The doctor clasped his hands behind his back as he peered at Bucky’s puffy face.

Hello, young man. How do we feel today, hmm?

I feel horrible. I feel stupid. I feel like an idiot.

This seeped out of his tightly wired jaw as, Murf-murf-murf. His head pounded; his lips were swollen and numb. His mouth felt like it was stuffed with bratwurst.

Well, you’ll be out of here one day, boy, but you won’t be playing any more baseball this summer, Lovejoy advised, smiling; "unless you move into right field, that is. Ha. Nothing ever happens there at your age, am I right?" He chuckled and patted Bucky on the shoulder, causing him to wince. Lovejoy’s left hand remained behind his back.

Then again, maybe you could get a job mowing the diamond. The doctor tittered at his little joke. Amos Lovejoy hated children. To the people of Burlington he appeared to be a kindly man with an accomplished, sophisticated manner. The people of Burlington had never witnessed Amos Lovejoy at home alone.

Lovejoy chortled at his good fortune on this day in the Eisenhower fifties. The small boy with the broken jaw was a gratuity from the heavens. Why, it might take months for that injury to heal! He smiled in anticipation of the new deceptions he would create, fooling the imbecilic parents and trapping the boy in his white antiseptic lair, allowing him, the cunning doctor, to wallow deep in the rotten stink of his abomination.

Now, young man, I think you should have this, he sniggered, pulling a small hypodermic needle from behind his back. Fluid dribbled from the evil hole at the tip. Bucky eyed it wildly, like a horse confronted by a coiled rattler. This will help you sleep, boy.

Before Bucky could react, Doctor Lovejoy rolled him roughly onto his stomach and plunged the spike into the boy’s buttocks. Bucky yelped. A small giggle bubbled from Lovejoy’s lips. He would work while his patient slept.

Amos Lovejoy loved his job.

Bucky drifted into a vague backwater place between sleep and nothingness, and he dreamed long and fitfully of sticks and orbs that swirled endlessly through the moon and stars while an old man laughed from the bowels of the earth.

***

The moon rose high, and an alien silver light flowed through the corridors of the building, washing into the room, flooding the walls and the bed and the boy. The room and everything in it filled up with the light. The boy lay there, knowing it was a gift, the deep reflection of a more powerful being. He knew this light; he had seen it somewhere before in a dream. He turned to the window and said to the sumáaje floating there, who are you? The dog-grin face floated silently, saying nothing.

***

Bucky huddled in fear under the white hospital linen. Amos Lovejoy was making his rounds. The boy could feel the man drawing near.

A stainless steel cage surrounded the child’s head, pinning jaw to skull, skull to shoulders. The cage was a large cube of chrome-plated tubes. It framed his head from crown to shoulders like the grillwork of some monstrous Cadillac.

Bucky had no broken bones; nonetheless, the Lovejoy machine clamped his teeth together so tightly he could not move his jaw. Unable to speak, he was at the doctor’s mercy. Soon Lovejoy would enter the private room and pull a wicked gleaming wrench from his smock. Then he would adjust his medieval device, tightening and twisting, gurgling with merriment upon the groans of misery that seeped from the boy’s swollen lips.

***

His mother came to see him every day. Flo smiled and chattered and fidgeted over him, a fussing hen. No matter how horribly he might murf, Flo beamed down on him with love. She hovered over his small world, smoothing the sheets and brushing his hair, oblivious to his real pain. It was as though Flo did not believe the accident had actually happened.

Murf! Bucky cried at her one day. Getting her attention, he began to laugh through the steel wires that held his jaw together. Then he deliberately began to cry. Crocodile tears wet the linen. Laughing and crying, he watched her closely.

There, there… Flo cooed, polishing the chromework bolted across her son’s face, soon you’ll be out of that dreadful thing and ready to fatten yourself on my casseroles. Flo wiped his chin and prattled on. Of course, Doctor Lovejoy says you won’t be playing any more baseball.

Bucky stared at her in stony silence, a raccoon in a cage.

Well, don’t worry, something else will come along, she told him.

Bucky rolled his eyes.

No disaster was too specific for Flo Minnow, no circumstance a final issue. She believed in the healing powers of love and patience and casserole. Something else will come along.

The only things that came along for him now were Flo Minnow and Doctor Lovejoy, the yin and yang of his life, river and desert, day and night. He suffered the biography that stretched before him, as flat and white and sterile as the hospital bed he lived upon.

The dreams he plunged into disturbed him more than did his vacuous mother. They descended upon him each time Lovejoy stabbed him with the cruel needle, dragging him in and out of bizarre worlds filled with visions he did not comprehend. At times the dreams were rich with color and sound, but more often they were as antiseptic as his hospital room. No color. No motion. In the dreams, the sun went up and down and the world was flat-and-white then flat-and-black then flat-and-white again. He imagined it was the same as death, and he cried alone until he slept.

***

Amos Lovejoy swept into the room and closed the door behind him. He locked it, never taking his eyes off the weeping boy. The click of the lock rang loudly in the cubicle. Well, mercy me, look at you. Unhappy, are we? he sneered. His hand dropped into the pocket of his smock. The syringe appeared. Let me fix those tears, boy.

***

Bucky curled in his polished chrome prison, awash in the fragrance from Flo Minnow’s newest odiferous floral offering. Doctor Lovejoy was there with her, poking Bucky with sunny concern for Flo’s benefit. He beamed with approval when a nurse placed the pain pill and glass of water by the bed. The bulge of the syringe was visible in his smock, but Bucky knew Lovejoy would not unholster it in front of his mother. David Joe Junior sprawled in a green vinyl visiting chair, chewing gum and watching television. He did not notice when Lovejoy and Flo left the room. The Chicago Cubs were killing the Dodgers at Wrigley Field.

Hey, bro, look at this, David Joe Junior marveled at the television, you don’t see this every day.

Murf, Bucky agreed, holding one hand out with his thumb up.

The boys watched in silence for a while. Bucky thumped his hands on the mattress to get David Joe Junior’s attention; when his brother noticed, Bucky motioned for the pencil and notepad that Flo had moved away from his bedside, out of reach. David Joe Junior cracked his gum and handed them to him before returning his attention to the game.

Bucky scrawled for a few moments, then rapped his pencil on the pad of paper. David Joe Junior turned and Bucky held it out to him.

David Joe Junior read the confused scrawl:

it will cause me pain

to lie in bed no more

because he is crazy

not him—the other one

a bird on the river

told me so

a white line

Huh? What’s this? David Joe Junior asked, looking up from the paper.

Murf, murf, Bucky motioned for the pad, and David Joe Junior leaned over to hand it back to him. Bucky scribbled for a moment and tossed it to his brother:

poem about being here

David Joe Junior read the note and looked at Bucky.

What do you mean, a poem? he snorted. This doesn’t rhyme. He flipped the white pad at Bucky, and it bounced off the steel cage onto his chest. Bucky winced.

Oops, sorry, David Joe Junior said. He retrieved the pad sheepishly. Hey, what’s that about, anyway? Who’s crazy?

Murf, Bucky murfed with a small twist of his head, indicating the door. Murf.

"You mean mom is crazy? Heck, what else is new?" David Joe Junior laughed.

Murf! Murf-murf! Bucky gabbled. He paddled both hands furiously in front of him, wanting the notepad. David Joe Junior slid it across the bed this time, not taking his eyes off his brother. Bucky wrote quickly and backhanded the writing tablet at David Joe Junior:

lovejoy

David Joe Junior ruminated thoughtfully and sighed. His brother was muddled on painkillers again. He tilted his head to one side and looked at Bucky. I get it. You’re drifting off into Never-Neverland, huh? He waited for Bucky’s eyelids to droop. Instead, the boy jerked his eyes at the table by his bed. David Joe Junior saw the pain tablet still sitting there.

Murf, Bucky intoned solemnly.

Suddenly David Joe Junior was frightened. If Bucky was not doped up, then was he thinking clearly? Was he right about Lovejoy? Was he brain-damaged? David Joe Junior moved closer to the side of the bed, kneeling on the floor next to Bucky.

"You mean Doctor Lovejoy is nuts?" he whispered.

Bucky scratched on the note pad and thrust it at David Joe Junior:

tortures me—does things when I’m unconscious

What kind of things?

jaw is OK now no pain

Your jaw is okay? What do you mean?

get a wrench, remove cage—think I can talk

"You can talk? You don’t need that cage?"

noises in my head

metal like antenna i think

David Joe Junior stood slowly and sighed a second time. Bucky was brain-damaged; he was sure of that now. He looked at the poem once more—there was the first clue. Bucky believed the doctor was torturing him, he heard noises in his head, and on top of everything, he was unable to rhyme, or at least, he was not aware that he was not rhyming.

The baseball game droned on in the background, and Bucky wrote:

sumáaga

Huh? David Joe Junior said when he read it.

don’t know what it means

hear it in my head

feels right

bird—stick—sumáaga

Bucky, listen. Give me a rhyme for moon.

Bucky looked strangely at David Joe Junior for a minute. Then he shrugged resignedly, gazed up at the ceiling, and said, Murf.

David Joe Junior gave him the pad:

love

David Joe Junior handed him the pad again. Like spoon, he hinted.

light

David Joe Junior tossed the pad onto the bed and looked sadly down at his brother. Bucky snatched the paper and wrote furiously, ripped off the top sheet, and shoved it against David Joe Junior’s stomach until his brother took it.

life, dogs, music!

river!

David Joe Junior looked down at his little brother. He pretended not to be alarmed, and he nervously popped a gum-bubble to cover himself. This was serious. He