In Search of the 25th Parallel: Sequel to Nobody Knows Where Frank Hutchison Is Buried

By Richard Siciliano

In this sequel to Nobody Knows Where Frank Hutchison Is Buried, forty years have passed and Frank Hutchison, newly retired from his job as a library custodian, has discovered on the internet that his old friend, Dick Babcock, a successful Florida restauranteur, has died. At once, his dormant guilt for causing The Experiment, their attempt at communal living, to fail resurfaces. He decides that the only way to expiate it is to visit Babcock's grave. On the way he begins to recall the events of his own life since the breakup, and slowly his idealistic dreams and hopes are rekindled, including his youthful love for Cindy, who has always represented meaning, success, creativity, and truth to him.

In Florida Frank is reunited with Babcock's widow, Laurie, the fourth member of The Experiment, and the reclusive janitor suddenly finds himself entangled in a web of emotion and indecision with Laurie, his rekindled desire to locate Cindy, and a strange woman whom he meets at the beach and who also seems to represent the possibility of resurrecting his lost idealism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543958591

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Copyright © 2018 Richard Siciliano All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN 978-1-54395-858-4 eBook 978-1-54395-859-1

to:

Jim and Michelle

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

Frank Hutchison stood in front of his stove waiting for the water to boil. His eyes, well trained over the past quarter century, were focused on the kettle and strayed neither to the left or the right. Above the stove a microwave oven protruded to the vicinity of his nose. On his left a narrow pantry nearly reached the ceiling. To the right of the stove there was a sink, with another cabinet above it, a wall clock, and a refrigerator. As long as his senses remained confined within the presence of these objects he was free to imagine that he was in a spacious and well-appointed kitchen, which had always been both a comforting and restorative reverie.

When the kettle finally began to scream he brought it to the formica table in the center of the room and filled his coffee mug. Then he sat down, and while stirring the brew of freeze-dried he tried again to picture entering the Chamber of Commerce office in Broward County. How would he introduce himself? How would he explain his mission? He had inherited the table and the four matching chairs from his mother. He peered into the depths of the gray and white, almost liquid, formica swirl, which had faded somewhat since his youth, and reasoned that though he was not a businessman, and did not resemble one, he was quite old, and sometimes that alone projected sufficient respectability to act as a substitute.

The room was quiet save for the benchmarks of his advancing life: The refrigerator gurgled on and off. The single front window was open, allowing the eternal echo of traffic to enter on the warm breeze. The burner snapped occasionally as it began to cool. On the desk behind him there was a bulky and somewhat out of date computer and a box of filed receipts that confirmed his continued existence. The front door was beside the window, and on the bare wall in front of him a forlorn ASPCA calendar stared back like a nagging timekeeper.

He had come upon Babcock’s obituary earlier that summer, shortly after he retired, while searching names on the internet of old schoolmates and former co-workers. As usual his memory had failed him, limiting his inquiries to the same few persons who, for various reasons, he had never forgotten. He had done this occasionally for many years during lunch hours at work when there was nothing else to occupy him, and had long known that Richard Babcock had become a prominent restaurateur in South Florida and had even served as president of the local Chamber. One time he had even come upon a photograph of an award ceremony over which a bald round-faced man with fluffy sideburns was presiding. That individual had been so disconnected from Frank’s recollection of his old college baseball teammate that he had at first reacted to the obituary as if it was the conclusion of a fictional movie version of Babcock’s life. But then, very slowly, the dormant guilt that had remained well-encapsulated within him had begun to invade his idle thoughts, which were most of his thoughts now that he had few other concerns in his life, and he had to admit that unless he did something to finally come to terms with the remorse he felt, he would remain burdened until his dying day.

Although no longer working, Frank had not altered the structure of his daily life. He still walked the two miles to the Albany city library almost every morning, but instead of unlocking the doors and raising the flag he simply turned around and walked home. He ate his meals at the same times of day and attended to his other chores as he had during all the years of his employment as a civil service janitor. He knew that he did not have to, but it was a way to temporarily avoid acknowledging that he had at last arrived in the future. One day a notion came to him that he might be able to expiate the guilt by going to Florida and paying his respects to Babcock in person, whether it be at a gravesite or in the Chamber office where his friend had presided. Maybe he could have a therapeutic talk with a few of Dick’s friends and associates, for it was always easier to confess to a stranger who had no way to verify statements that were presented as facts. Although driving so far seemed daunting he tried to convince himself that people, especially retired people, did it every day, and that it was basically a single highway there and back.

So he began to make preliminary and indefinite arrangements for the trip by outlining them, as he had always done with everything else, in a notebook, starting with the basic requirements for an extended journey such as buying new tires and getting a tune-up and evaluating his summer wardrobe. Then he set up automatic payments for most of his bills and obtained travel guides and road maps from the AAA. Finally he purchased a cell phone and taught himself how to use it. Another way to look at it, he told himself, was that these were all things that as a retiree he would need to make part of his life anyway.

He kept reminding himself that no one was forcing him to go anywhere, and that there was a real possibility that somewhere along the way, such as at the New York state line, he would realize that what he was doing was pointless and turn around and come back. But at the same time a lost part of himself that had something to do with hope was whispering that perhaps his life’s adventures were not yet finished , and that the trip would be the pathway to find where they, as well as Dick, were buried.

He looked out the window at his landlord’s house across the street. It was in a row of century old homes that were partly obscured by the shade trees that lined the sidewalk, in sharp contrast to the featureless pastel quadriplexes on Frank’s side with their bare front yards and outdoor staircases. Suddenly Frank was overwhelmed by an impulse. His forehead became damp, and it was not due to either the coffee or the warm air, but more resembled the chronic malarial episodes of colonial Englishmen that he had read about in old novels. Could it be the consequence of obsessing too much about his days with Babcock in college and Virginia, when formless impulses had plagued his life and ultimately been his undoing?

It was nearly eleven o’clock. If Rudi was home it would be a proper hour to visit him and pay a month’s rent in advance and give some excuse about where he was going and why. The trip might only take a week but it would be a relief to know that at least one other human being was aware of his plans so that in the event he was killed in a highway accident there would be someone to arrange for the disposal of his body and settle his few affairs.

Long ago, other obstacles had clouded his future, the draft and the war. It was strange to even be thinking about them again and a time when over half of the people now alive had not yet been born. He and Dick had not succumbed. They had devised an evasion. Frank could still picture the tiny room in the music department at the University where they had listened to Library of Congress records, including those of Frank Hutchison, and discussed scheme after scheme. Then there had been the nights at the Fellowship Hall where many of the disaffected would hang out, including Laurie and finally Cindy, and where they had created the idea of The Experiment.

They discovered my desiccated body in my apartment, he said to the mailboxes as he descended the stairs and walked to the street, which, night and day, was lined bumper to bumper on both sides with parked cars. ...I had been dead for six months. He found a small space between two vehicles and shimmied between them and then was forced to do the same on the other side of the street to access that sidewalk. Rudi’s front door was about thirty feet above street level. Cracked steps bordered by once ornate stone walls rose to the vestibule entrance. Nothing had changed in the quarter century that Frank had lived in the neighborhood. Rudi had seemed to be an old man then though he must only have been in his forties, and to Frank he was still an old man relative to himself. Frank paused on the steps to assume the janitorial demeanor that he had always displayed in his landlord’s presence. He spit on a large twisted root and ran his hand through his still-thick hair. Out of habit he was dressed in a dark blue shirt and gray work pants even though it was August. He rang the doorbell and stepped back from the screen, assuming a grin and stuffing his fingers into his pockets.

Rudi’s face appeared where there had only been semi-opaque wire mesh. He was chewing and there were crumbs around his mouth. As his hairline had receded his salty brows and eyes had grown larger, though not more perspicacious. Frank had always thought it unusual that though he was elderly he remained very tall. Rudi had broad shoulders and thick arms that were accentuated by his horizontally striped t-shirt. His reddish skin, which on a young person would have seemed raw, looked instead as shiny and impervious as a stewed chicken’s.

Well, Frankie... he began, swallowing and looking down at his visitor. Whatever Frank had ever said to him Rudi had taken as a question, raising the volume of his voice to answer. I keep forgetting that you’re one of us now, on the loose, unproductive, and looking for trouble. This was a joke, but was not followed by an invitation to come inside. They had spent days together working on the wiring in Rudi’s various rental units but Frank had never entered that door. Instead Rudi produced a handkerchief, wiped his mouth, and stepped outside, though remaining a step above his tenant. It ain’t a complaint about some baby hollering, and I know your toilet ain’t stuck. I know your lights aren’t out. You’d call Frank to come and repair them if they were. Since this could be interpreted as a compliment, in his imagination Frank attached a smile onto the still smacking lips. He had long ago estimated that the landlord must be about a dozen years older than himself which would put him well into his seventies. That would eventually loom as another problem should Frank return alive from Florida, the prospect of a new landlord one of these days and probably a huge rent increase. It was ironic that for so long, although he had battled the perceived fascism of members of older generations he had unconsciously relied on the stability and security they represented. Now, more and more, those few who remained were coming to be of no value or help at all.

…I just have a request, he heard himself explain, and was aware that he was rubbing his forehead and squinting. How many times had he wondered how that mysterious transformation had occurred when all of the people who owned and controlled society, from waitresses to the president, and who had always been older than he was, had suddenly all become younger. He had speculated that if he had been able to anticipate that line in time he could have prevented it from leaving him its helpless victim. Babcock, in his businessman’s world, had without doubt been prepared and had crossed it successfully and had used his new position on the far side to his advantage.

...Look at the lawn over there, Rudi interrupted, as if he had not heard or understood. The sun burns the hell out of it every year. All them kids I got now tear it up anyhow, so that’s why I shut off the sprinklers and just leave it be. Some cultures don’t appreciate grass.

Frank did not turn around. Instead he addressed Rudi’s slippers and the heavy white socks within them. …I’m going to be gone possibly for quite awhile so I thought I’d pay the rent in advance.

Pay the rent? Senior moment, Frank! You already paid it.

I mean, a month in advance... He took the check out of his pocket and offered it.

Rudi’s chin suddenly snapped downward. You ain’t planning on moving, are you? Well, now. Going on a vacation? I didn’t think you knew what a vacation was.

I…an old friend of mine passed away down in Florida so I’m going down there to pay my respects.

…Florida, huh? The check was snatched and disappeared at once into Rudi’s shirt pocket. Frankie, I can never remember you taking a vacation before any time, in all these years. You’re kind of an anomaly in that regard.

Frank tried to smile with feigned culpability.

But now that you’re retired, why, I’m glad to see that you realize it’s high time you started treating yourself, it ain’t too late. It’ll be good for you. Take the worry lines off your forehead. Going to fly down to where, Orlando, Tampa, Miami Beach?

Actually, it’s just going to be a quick trip, but I could be delayed unexpectedly. I’m going to drive to Fort Lauderdale.

Drive all that way? Hell, that ain’t no vacation. You got to go in style at your age. Reward yourself. Take first class and get some respect and enjoyment. Just remember that these days you got to stand in a long line before you can board. So don’t wear no socks or drawers with holes.

Frank shrugged. I would only have to rent a car when I got there, anyway. I’d rather take my own. Look, I wanted to know if you could take care of my mail?

Fort...Lauderdale. He stretched out the name. Well, I’m sorry to hear about your loss, but that’s what seems to happen to many of the fellows as soon as they stop working. They wait thirty years for their freedom and then they knock right off. The insurance companies and the retirement boards factor that into their budgets. Yeah, the fellows let their guard down and adopt bad habits. That’s why I try to stay busy. You have relations down there?

No, I’ve never been there, I just...

You might also be thinking about finding a senior community, I bet, huh? A condo? Let me tell you. He finally broke into an unmistakable leer. Everybody knows there’s an excess of widows and divorcees in those places, lots of them come from up here. They get left with a mess of loot, sometimes from three or four husbands. Lots of gals who’re probably about your age. He searched Frank’s face. Let me advise you, though, it’s better if you steer clear of the younger ones who’re just out for your dough. Forget about the siren call of youth, some dame with lipstick an inch thick and implants. That ain’t youth. Now, now what I mean is, all you got to remember is that when you meet an intelligent one you got to say to yourself, This gal was born about the same time as me. We were the same age in school. Then, see, you find yourself looking through her face like it’s a cheesecloth, and what you see is the real her, the way she was at the time when you were still the real you. I mean, the insides of her. Then she don’t look old no more. You can just imagine her with a beehive and a miniskirt, right, thin as a rail? Remember? Them bare knees? He laughed. Because meanwhile, you see, she’s gonna’ be looking through that cheesecloth that’s in front of YOUR face, and YOUR wrinkles and bald head, ‘course you got all your hair so you’re pretty lucky in that respect, ball one in the count to you, it must have been due to you working indoors all these years, but anyway, she’s seeing you the way you were, you know, slicked back hair and a belt with two buckles in the front...dime loafers. Yes sir.

Frank was uncertain what generation Rudi was referring to. He himself had lived through so many. What about the very brief one when all the girls looked like Carolyn Hester and wore black tights and the professors were more conservative than the students?

What about you, Rudi? When are you going make the move?

Rudi’s shoulders straightened slightly because Frank had seldom asked him a personal question. Me? I’ve already made my move. I have my senior community right there. He pointed up at the roof line above them which at close range Frank could see badly needed paint. You think my wife is ever going to want to pull up stakes? This here house, it’s already in trust to my daughter, my grandkids, and my great grandkids. Including the walnut shells over there on your side.

The walnut shells were the quadriplexes in which Frank resided.

Who the heck in their right mind would want to leave New York for Florida? Say, sounds like you’re all ready to jump in the car. All you got to do is leave a shoe box inside your door an’ I’ll dump your mail into it. Glad to be of help. Got any plants that’ll need watering, any cats or turtles to feed?

Frank dutifully laughed. He had accomplished his mission. But had the titanic nature of his prospective pilgrimage somehow been trivialized?

I’ll tell you what, I’d take a look at the Georgia coast on my way back if I was you. They got everything there that Florida got, and a lot cheaper. Unless you go for big glitzy restaurants and night clubs that are supposed to be like the ones in New York City. When do you want me to start keeping an eye on things for you?

Monday. He tendered his thanks, but in a casual way as if Rudi had loaned him a crescent wrench, and turned away.

...Have a good drive, then, Frankie. That’s a good idea. Better to take off on a weekday when everything along the way’s open. Try to time it so you hit all the city beltways between the rush hours. How long you say you’d be gone?

I figure a week, or two at the most, Frank called back as he descended the steps. He wanted to add, or maybe longer, because it always felt lucky to underestimate his success. ...I’ll let you know, I’ll mail you a postcard. And I will definitely check out Georgia."

As he turned away again he became disoriented for a moment trying to simultaneously watch his feet and comprehend that he had just committed himself to something that had fifteen minutes before been safely indefinite. Instead of crossing the street he turned toward downtown and walked an entire block before realizing it. What have I just done? he thought. I said too much and now to save face I have to go somewhere, disappear for a week and let Rudi get my mail and believe that I’m finally acting like a normal unattached retiree. Why has everything important that I have ever longed to do turned into a death wish rather than incipient pleasure? Is that why for a quarter century I haven’t advanced an inch?

Now here he was, like a lemming, on way to the library. Through heat, rain, and snow, through blizzard and nor’easter, for decades only the flu had ever stopped him, so that the library lights would be on and the furnace going when the staff arrived. These days he contented himself with making a loop around the block and buying a newspaper or a sandwich on the way back and thus far he had not run into any of his former co-workers.

The sun reflected from the windows of the passing cars, rendering an impersonality to the route he could have traversed blindfolded had it ever been necessary. He began to sweat and feel his isolation and loneliness. He had always imagined South Florida as a place of wide palm shaded boulevards made from crushed sea shells, blood red sunsets, and gaudy neon signs, and, of course, Dick and Laurie around every corner. What was he going to do when he got there that he couldn’t do online or by telephone? Why hadn’t Rudi suggested an alternative means of resolving his guilt? Perhaps he could make the round trip in just four days. Touch Dick’s grave as if it was second base. If you followed a railroad track to the horizon didn’t it end at a single point? You got all that way and put your foot on the last tie and spit and said, I’ll be amazed! and then you turned around and started for home.

The other room in Frank’s apartment was twice as large as the kitchen and he had divided it into a bedroom and a living room. The rear wall was a long closet with sliding doors, before which his bed and nightstand and dresser were arranged. The front corner had two windows, one of which faced its twin in the neighboring walnut, necessitating the shade to remain permanently down. The other corner contained bookshelves that contained most of Frank’s worldly possessions. There was also a television set on a cart, two chairs with chenille slipcovers, and, in a nest of wire on the floor his stereo and the tall wooden speakers that he had dreamed of owning for many years, until they became obsolete and he was able to purchase two in a Salvation Army store.

He collapsed resignedly onto one of the chairs, threw a leg over the arm and gratefully discovered that the Mets game was about to begin. He had been sweating outside but now his hands were cold. The slow pace of the game with its interminable replays soon got on his nerves. How was he going to endure the wait until Monday? Why had he said that he was going to leave on Monday? Why did he feel that he had promised someone something? Thousands of people undoubtedly drove up and down I-95 every day and didn’t think twice about it. Including hordes of oldsters in huge motorhomes. But no matter how he rationalized he knew that for him the trip would be life-disrupting and possibly life-ending. Maybe if his life had been cluttered with commonplace events that centered around family and friends he wouldn’t be thinking twice about it. His last girlfriend, Dori, had been a spinster and yet with her large menagerie of relatives her days had been a never-ending mare’s nest of responsibilities and pointless obligations. For years the option of giving up his solitary existence and joining her clan had been open to him. He would have had to surrender his sense of self to do so, but in return every departure from routine might not have seemed fatal.

It took the balance of the game before he suddenly sat up and realized that there was no need to wait until Monday just because that was the day when people went back to work. He had no work except to drive to Babcock’s grave. He could grab his keys and jump in the car and leave in five minutes, or at midnight, or as soon as he could pack. I’m gonna’ freaking go! he shouted at the screen and pushed the ‘off’ button on the remote. I’m gonna’ exorcise myself and be back before I know it and maybe I won’t need to think about Dick Babcock or Cindy or Virginia ever again!

Hearing the exasperation in his own voice relaxed him at once. Early on Sunday morning there would not likely be thieves about to see him loading the car, and the highways would be deserted. Tomorrow was Saturday and he had all day to complete his final preparations. He went into the kitchen and began a new list of things to do. Perhaps he was obsessive about lists but he had long ago lost confidence in his memory, and composing one was the equivalent of a discussion with an empathetic friend, who in actuality was always himself.

The following morning he gassed up his car and then circled the block until he found a parking space almost in front of Rudi’s house. The car was a mid-sized Chevrolet that he had purchased from Hertz. It was somewhat boxier than most of its contemporaries but it came with many extras that he would never have thought of buying himself. Since it was blue he had named it ‘Blooey’, because, though it had never given him any major trouble, it was still a machine and could therefore explode, so ‘(Ka)Blooey’ seemed more appropriate than a reference to its color. And in its favor, though it lacked a personality it had a large trunk and a roomy rear seat and could have probably, had he wished, transported the entire contents of his apartment to Florida. The many years during which he had not driven had prevented Frank from ever entirely bonding with an automobile. Cars had always put him on the defensive and caused him to expect the worst. Blooey had taken him safely to Cooperstown and Niagara Falls, but it spent most of its time gathering dust on the street.

In the afternoon he began to pack, including almost his entire wardrobe except for the winter clothes. Gradually, as his closet emptied and his virtual bedroom was obliterated with a line of suitcases and bags the spacious apartment that he had spent so many years creating began to shrink into the ‘one room studio’ that he officially rented. The kitchen table became a pile of odds and ends that he thought he might need in an emergency on the road. At some point it again occurred to him that there was a fair chance that he might not return. What, then, would happen to this apartment? What would Rudi do? Would he have the intelligence or the integrity to call the police?

Packing, therefore, was only half of what he really had to do. He also had to decide the fate of everything that he was going to leave behind. The middle shelves in the corner held the books and records and other objects that he used all the time. But the uppermost and lowest shelves had, for all the years he’d lived there, in a way been his virtual attic and cellar, places to stack things that he did not want to throw away or think about. Would they now be the means by which whoever finally broke into the apartment identified the recluse who had lived there? Would they become his legacy? Some were personal and uncomfortably revealing, old tax returns and years of pay stubs and bank statements. There were envelopes with letters and Christmas cards and photographs. Rudi or the cops would have access to all of this. It might end up in a dumpster and then in the hands of foraging criminals who would be able to assume or sell the identity of Frank Hutchison.

The longer he thought about it the less likely it seemed that he could manage to drive to Florida and back without experiencing some untoward accident. Would Rudi be motivated to notify Social Security and the retirement board and the bank? Would he neglect to lock the door and allow the neighbors to ransack everything? How would Frank be remembered by the library’s director as she stood by the formica table trying to make sense of her late employee’s life?

He went outside to the dumpster for an empty box to hold his mail and when he returned he tried to look at everything as if he was his own best friend who was entering the apartment in the role of a post-mortem good samaritan. It might be wise to leave certain information where Rudi or the authorities could find it. So he arranged his current income and financial records on his desk with a list of telephone numbers. Then he made a sign for the table that directed them to the desk.

It was strange that he possessed nothing relevant to his friendship with Dick Babcock. Not a letter or a picture or a wooden nickel. He thought he could remember Dick’s youthful face but at times could not recall his own. The photographs that he did have were mostly snapshots from library office parties. There were a few that his mother had given him and several class pictures from grade school. Not the stuff from which to form an impression of who Frank Hutchison the man had been.

The bottom shelf was thick with dust. He got down on his knees and rummaged along it. In a brittle plastic bag his baseball glove had remained undisturbed for decades with a yellowed ball still inside it. Stained by the dirt of Hawk Stadium! Perhaps a scientist could have found Dick’s DNA on it from the times he had demonstrated how to throw a spitter. Surely they would have found microscopic traces of Rufus and Big Bubba. Alongside the bag there was a tiny wooden box, the ashes of Frank Hutchison the cat. He wiped the dust off with his fingers and his shirttail. Rudi or anyone else would throw the box away at once without a thought for the wonderful creature, his alter ego, inside. Frank again experienced regret that he had not been able to care for the cat during its last days, and that he had so seldom gone to his mother’s to play with it.

The final time had been a year or so after he had returned to Albany. He was visiting his mother and she had left to go to the store or something and while he waited for her he had dragged a kitchen chair into the backyard, left the door open, and put on one of the anthology records that he fortunately had not taken to Virginia. At that time he was sneaking in and out of the neighborhood and trying not to do anything to draw attention to his presence there, but that afternoon he had become so inwardly directed that he had forgotten his paranoia and could have been ten or twelve or fourteen years old again. He had faced the chair toward the wire fence that separated the yard from the undeveloped lots that bordered it. Growing up, living beside that wasteland in the last little house on the street had made it seem as if he was at the edge of the wilderness, and he had taught himself to see nothing other than forest and prairie. The cat had become so weak and lethargic at that point that he couldn’t jump into Frank’s lap, so Frank had picked him up and cradled him, fur and bones that felt as if they were about to fall apart. He had stroked his back and Frank had sung his ragged old purr and then from behind them Frank Hutchison the musician was playing the Logan County Blues and the notes from his slide guitar were streaming past and up into the sky, which was bright yellow and casting shadows without a sun. Frank, who had never adopted many conventional religious beliefs, had in that moment suddenly wondered if heaven would be this way when he got to it, an invisible God emitting a bright eternal music through the timelessness of eternity, yet so close that one would never feel alone even though no other spirits were in sight, no one except himself and the cat and Hutchison’s blues as their special angels’ song. They would never be alone or stiff or sore or cold or hurting or caged or wanting in any way for evermore.

I guess I have to take you with me, Frank said, climbing to his feet. He took the box to the table where he had also piled his maps and AAA books and all the rest of the items that would ride in the front seat with him. There were no other secrets on the shelves to destroy or conceal. When he departed his real life would be going to Florida with him.

Supper was everything in the refrigerator that would not remain fresh for a week. Since he subsisted mainly on frozen food it was not a difficult accomplishment. Then he sat at his desk and turned on the computer that the library had sold to him for the amount it would have taken them to recycle it. Frank liked it because the big box under the desk grew hot after about fifteen minutes and seemed to match his stereo system. He spent the evening rereading everything about Babcock that he could find and researching the cities through which he would pass and calculating the mileage to Florida. He thought he might as well head inland and take the interstate that now ran through the Valley of Virginia and at some point experience the sensation of passing directly over what had once been their home on Allen’s Hill.

I let things get out of hand today, he thought. I began to act like a twenty-three year old. It was one thing to assemble maps and short sleeved shirts, but it had turned into tearing apart his home and his retirement, as if he had subconsciously wanted to do it all along, Dick or no Dick. All the years that he had waited for the peaceful and secure part of his life to finally arrive! It still wasn’t too late to just put everything back and call it a summer housecleaning, screw it and send Laurie a sympathy card in care of the Broward Chamber of Commerce. Or find a therapist, or do nothing at all and coexist with his guilt as he had already done for most of his life.

He finally decided to pretend that he was just going back to work tomorrow. He set the alarm for the time he had normally awakened on weekdays, got into bed, and turned on the radio. Old routines could sometimes be almost as comforting as old friends or memories. Almost. He imagined himself in the library respectfully greeting his co-workers as they arrived, broom in hand. He was asleep almost at once and slept through the night.

When the alarm went off he woke up scowling and forgetful, wondering why the clock was suddenly malfunctioning. At the same time he was amazed and pleased because he had for once made it through the night without having to use the bathroom. That was the kind of small victory that, at his stage of life, briefly revived his optimism that almost anything was still possible.

As he showered it felt more and more like a normal workday, perhaps a temporary assignment for a few days in an unfamiliar branch library building. He dressed in his usual janitorial clothes and hurriedly breakfasted on toast and coffee. Then he ceremoniously poured the rest of the milk in the carton down the drain.

Despite these efforts to reclaim normality the apartment still looked as if it had been ransacked. As he stood in the doorway between rooms he experienced a flash of self-awareness that disappeared as quickly as he comprehended it. His life seemed to have been little more than a struggle to maintain stability. It had been continually disrupted by unruly manifestations of himself that had intruded bearing outlandish passions and desires. Now he had given in to another, elderly obsession, that almost overnight had pillaged his existence and was about to kidnap him. That was what Rudi and the police would think: That he had been robbed and kidnapped.

Frank exhaled and picked up the first two suitcases, and tried to tiptoe down the stairway to avoid alerting his neighbors, from whose units sounds of crying infants and barking dogs could be heard any time of day or night. Back when he had moved into the building it had been entirely occupied by single adults who had acknowledged each other with tepid but conventional familiarity. But they had long since been replaced by families who, when they encountered him, seemed to wonder with not a little hostility why a solitary old man was taking up a space in which many people could live.

He found Blooey sandwiched between two vehicles that had left him with about a ten inch space in front and no more than three inches in the rear. The sky was starless and the air humid. There appeared to be no one out yet on either side of the street so he quickly stowed the suitcases in the trunk and went back for more. Then he carefully arranged the passenger seat with Frank Hutchison’s box in the middle encircled by his maps and notebooks, eye drops, gum, and all the other things that he thought he might need to reach for as he drove. He straightened his desk one last time, repositioned the mail carton, and shut off the lights. Leaving home for a less than happy purpose was something he had done too many times in his life, and though he could not specifically recall any of them at the moment, the feeling had always been the same whether the circumstances had been happy or sad: Fear, regret, and doubt. Would approaching death on the highway feel the same? A moment later he was standing on the sidewalk congratulating himself on his efficiency because packing would probably turn out to have been the most difficult part of the trip.

Here we go, he said telepathically to Frank Hutchison’s box. I don’t know why I neglected you for so many years. I should have had you on my desk as a weightless paperweight, an avatar, or a muse. Visitors would have assumed that your box contained paper clips. But no more, your exile is over. Actually, I am now about at the age that you were in feline years when I adopted you, so you are in turn going to have to be patient with me from now on as well.

He turned the ignition key and left the headlights on, and though he had brought along a handful of CD’s he turned the radio to the news station, feeling the need to remain in communication with a benign entity outside the car. Then he began the process of turning the wheel as far as it would go, inching forward, and then reversing the actions while backing up. He had repeated this a couple of times when he realized that he had forgotten his clock radio. Damn it! he shouted and with a clunk butted the vehicle behind him.

Of all the crap! We might never make it down the block, he muttered as he reluctantly got out of the car to assess the damage. Blooey was fine but there was a small dent on the bumper of the other car that might or might not already have been there. He did not recognize the vehicle as belonging to any of the other walnut residents. The neighborhood was still silent and deserted except for the noise that he himself was making. But a police car could appear any moment. And though the clouds were threatening the sky was slowly getting lighter. Even if there is a dent, Frank, nobody will be able to link us to it, especially if we’re absent for a week. What’s the chance that this guy memorized my license number after he parked last night? It’s time I removed the Hertz logo anyway. When we get back we’ll park on the other side of the block and Blooey will be officially generic. What do you think?

Instead of receiving an answer he experienced another flashback to the years when he had been evading the FBI and had otherwise remained meticulously and obsessively within the law. Sweating nevertheless, he resumed maneuvering to free the car from the space and in a few minutes they were tooling through the gloom along the quiet streets toward the I-87 onramp. Frank focused every ounce of his being on merging into the early traffic smoothly. He had no intention of passing anyone or even changing lanes the whole way to Florida as long as the car was running well and everyone else on the road left him alone.

It already felt like he needed to go to the bathroom. Keep a sharp lookout for MacDonald’s signs and highway rest stops, he again said telepathically to the cat’s ashes, while he reset the trip odometer to zero.

From the moment he had conceived the idea of visiting Babcock’s grave he had wondered how he would feel when he crossed the New York state line into Pennsylvania. Would he experience some sort of physical or psychological release? Would he be twenty-three again? As the exit signs passed he couldn’t stop himself from counting down the miles to the border and turning them into minutes. It could hardly be as joyous as the first crossing in Babcock’s truck, driving into the rest of the world with Cindy pressed against his shoulder and Laurie across his lap. And anyway, they had gone all the way to Virginia on the old federal highways. This time it would be one old man and a dead cat traveling at turnpike speed,

He would probably never be able to shed the belief that somewhere in a dusty cabinet at the FBI building in Washington, among the thousands of unresolved investigations, his own resided. The agents who had been assigned to it so many years ago would have long since retired or died, but part of him was still convinced that had he ever applied for a job that required a security clearance or ever had the notion to run for a public office his crime would have resurfaced, forcing him once again into hiding or flight.

The state line was a goal line. All of the other players were far behind him now, or far in front. Ball in hand he took a deep breath and slowly let it out and cruised past the welcome sign, except that he entered New Jersey instead.

After a slow and defensive morning beset by intermittent showers he had abruptly decided