Odd Man Out

By Craig Conrad

Dutch Verlander has what he thinks is a break up argument with his girlfriend, Stephanie Dowell. Shaken, he feels that she has moved on to another lover, making him feel like the kid left without a chair in the kid's game of "Odd Man Out." He leaves the city and heads for a friend's remote vacation home in Northern Wisconsin to think about what

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors' Tranquility Press
• Release date: Sep 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961908390

Craig Conrad

Author resides in Milwaukee. Wisconsin, has been hooked on mysteries and supernatural thrillers since reading his first H.P. Lovecraft novel. He has written twenty novels, fourteen of them are Paul Rice novels, his reluctant paranormal investigator, with cameo appearances in two others that feature two of his war buddies along with two Dutch Verlander stories, and a collection of short stories.

Book preview

1

I was in the hospital again. Rosemount Memorial Hospital was becoming my second home, only this time I wasn’t a patient. I hadn’t been shot like the last two times I was in here. This time it was for Stephanie Dowell, my girlfriend, or rather ex-girlfriend, who had become ill with the covid-virus after our breakup. Losing her was extremely hard to take and was a very low point in my life, driving me away and out of the state for a time, trying to decide on what course of action to take and make sense of the remainder of my life. Dickens said it best, It was the worst of times, and so it was in more ways than one.

Losing Stephanie was bad enough, but there were other things going on around us that affected both of us at the time and everyone else. Besides my present affliction of the heart, the country was also suffering from two diseases at the same time — a year-old killer virus that was ravaging people at random, and a four-year old disease that I called the Carlson plague after our esteemed President Jarred Carlson that was killing our democracy and making a mockery of our judicial system and our Constitution.

So my love life wasn’t the only thing in peril. Our country, thanks to Carlson, was going through an identity crisis these last four years, or maybe even longer than that if you looked back far enough. Some historians did and went back to 1947 right after the end of World War Two, looking for a shift in our government’s beliefs. Presently, the nation was divided between two factions; one side wanted us to stay as a democracy, and the other opted for an autocracy with a sitting president who wanted to be a king.

The split was bad enough, but there was also the pandemic that Carlson called the Chinese disease, the one he said wasn’t any worse than the regular flu and that fake news and the Democrats were trying to make it worse than it was to make him look bad. However, Rosemount Memorial Hospital, as well as other hospitals all over the country from coast to coast were presently overflowing with patients that had the fake virus. The death count was rising rapidly every day, so much so that funeral parlors were inundated with the dead and bodies were put in cold storage until they could be buried. The hospital staff here at Rosemount wore facemasks and shields and hospital scrubs and looked worn out and ready to drop, and some did from fatigue and some from the virus.

According to Carlson, the death count was faked too. This year has been one hell of a year, the worst year since Carlson became president and slipped into the White House on a Russian shoehorn to claim the presidency, hugging the American flag in a phony display of patriotism, a flag he had never fought to defend, since draft dodgers do not fight in wars. As long as I could remember the US of A had been circling the drain and inching closer every time a Republican got voted into office as President and had control of the House and Senate, but these last four years were actually the worst that I could remember. Carlson’s administration was actually sending us down the drain, especially, these last months of the final year that Carlson was trying desperately to remain in office. He had been traveling from state to state, hopefully lying and denying his way into another term as president, dragging the Republican Party, his party now, along with him whose unpatriotic members willingly followed, refusing to throw him under the bus and kill him politically to save what was left of our democracy. I am not a politician, but you don’t have to be one to see what’s happening to this country and will continue to happen as long as we keep voting corrupt or inadequate people into office who put party before country.

It was also a year where lots of movie stars and celebrities had passed away too, along with the hundreds of thousands of virus victims, including Kirk Douglas, Olivia de Havilland, Kenny Rogers, and Little Richard, to name a few, but there were a host of others. Sad to say we also lost Alex Trebek from Jeopardy and Sean 007 Connery. It’s getting so I don’t recognize anyone in the movies or on television anymore. Some of the newer stars are good, and some aren’t, not like the ones that were dying off, but then everything seemed to be dying lately, people, our country, and our planet. Carlson’s cronies have been busy stripping the earth of its riches everywhere they could so long as they can make money and fill their pockets. They’ve even dismantled the protection of the EPA, which is the only good thing that Nixon did, in order to glean more money. Big Oil and Big Gas are even eyeing up our national parks for future exploitation. Big Business had their fingers in wars too. Wars are nothing but a racket. The poor and working-class people fight the wars and give their all, even their lives while the rich stay out of the line of fire, make millions, and risk nothing. World War Two was supposedly fought to suppress the spreading evil of the Nazis and the Japanese, and we needed to fight it, but there were still some that made millions of dollars because of it. Thinking about how the world really works, makes my stomach turn over.

I don’t feel any better looking over Carlson and his cronies in the cabinet. Not one of them is scientifically minded, but then what can you expect from their leader who said covid would be gone when summer came. He doesn’t believe in global warming either. He says it’s going to get cooler and he knows more than most people about the virus, but he says that about everything, which actually means he doesn’t know anything. He looks especially lost when he tries to act like he’s smart, and we all know the look he gets on his face. It’s evident that he doesn’t know the difference between climate change and daily weather, or that climates are changing for the worse.

But the worst of it came along at the beginning of the year when the plague-virus made its first appearance and has stayed with us ever since killing at random wherever it can, especially our older generation, but it’s really a non-discriminating virus — it kills people of all ages. Carlson has been downplaying and ignoring the virus since it first came on the scene "in this country supposedly saying that it came from that single Chinese person. According to Carlson, this Chinese not only infected the US, but the whole world, and contrary to Carlson’s superior knowledge about everything, it did not go away like he kept predicting it would. His supporters, more brainy thinkers, don’t believe the virus exists, that fake news made the whole thing up just so Carlson would lose the coming election. But the virus has gotten increasingly worse every day. Since then, over 500,000 people have died in this country alone, thanks to Carlson’s bungling and no federal plan to fight it, all of it for the good cause of his being reelected. It was a hell of a year.

After World War Two was winding down in Europe and Hitler fell from grace, many of the depressed German people killed themselves. One can only hope that if Carlson loses, his supporters will do the same so our country is cleansed of them. I know that’s a terrible thought, but we need a political purge if we’re ever going to get this country right the way it should be; and we haven’t been able to do that, not even when the ink finally dried on the Constitution. There were immoral people then too who were trying to impede or destroy the new democracy and we still have them with us.

But getting back to Stephanie, who fell ill from the fake virus and away from Carlson and our present political troubles, which always makes my blood boil, I have tried not to think of her since I left her, stepping out of her life, but that’s difficult to do, she is hard to forget. This year was bad enough with the pandemic running rampant everywhere without losing her too. I even thought of ending it there for a while because I was sick of the pain and the bad karma that kept happening to me in my life, and it came close, but the ordeal of these past weeks of unhinged people killing for political purposes or gain or for pure hate and then trying to kill me and my little friend, Vanna, changed my mind and, I decided to stick around for a while even though I would probably be alone for the rest of my life.

It seems that I had picked up the virus too as did hundreds of thousands of other Americans that had become stricken and didn’t know it. Fortunately, I got it early and didn’t get deathly ill like most people, so when I heard that Stephanie had come down with the virus and in hospital; I came directly here to see if they could use my convalescent plasma to help her. I still loved her regardless of how she felt about me and didn’t want her to die. Luckily, the hospital could and did use the plasma and Stephanie responded and was getting well. In a way, I felt sort of responsible for her condition since she got sick chasing after me, which she really didn’t have to do, unless she wanted to tell me in a nicer way what she had told me weeks earlier rather bluntly. She needn’t have bothered. I got the message from her loud and clear the first time — that it was over between us. I feared from the beginning of our relationship that one day it might come to an end because of our age differences, she being young, and me about twice her age. I had held my breath and hoped that it would never happen, but it did. With my track record in the love department, I should have known that our relationship wouldn’t weather the years and last. I should never have let it get started in the first place. I was kidding myself and it just gets more painful when it’s over. I wondered if it was painful for her too, but then decided that it couldn’t be because she was the one initiating the breakup and was what she wanted.

Stephanie’s parents, whom I liked, were at the hospital as was her sister, Pat, and had been since they learned of Stephanie’s condition. My sister, Katherine was there too along with all my nieces. Everyone was sitting in the waiting room, masked and impatient for news of her recovery. At present, no one could enter her room. I was surprised they allowed us to remain in the hallway and wondered how long that would last. Joe Connely showed up later as did John Kegel to see how she was doing. The only person not there was Dwayne Ross, Stephanie’s new love interest, and that was surprising since he was the one that started this whole mess in the first place. Stephanie and I had been happy since the day we finally decided to get together and become a couple, at least I thought we were, until this guy Ross unexpectedly came into the picture. That’s what started it.

2

We were still in the mask wearing stage and had been for several months thanks to the pandemic that just wouldn’t go away. I had picked up the bug from somewhere, testing positive, and was just getting over a 14-day self-quarantine. Dealing with that on a daily basis was bad enough, but now Stephanie, the supposed love of my life, had been acting differently lately, in fact all week, ever since Dwayne Ross, a student friend whom she had given a ride to, saved her life during an auto accident not far from the school, according to her and what the cops told her. She had given Ross a ride at the UWM Campus and was T-boned by another car in the process, another drunk driver. I was grateful to Ross for what he did, and I guess she was too because that’s all she had been talking about for the last week ever since it happened, and to be honest, I was getting a little tired of hearing about it.

I had spent that morning at Holy Cross Cemetery attending the burial of young man who had worked for me at the post office. I stood under a sunless sky in topcoat weather and listened to the Church and Chapel Minster as he gave the grave-site service. They call it felo de se, at least that’s the name they give it when someone commits suicide. James Weber was thirty-three when he decided to eat one of his guns. He was an avid hunter and an all-around good guy. That was my opinion, but his wife must have had a different one. I didn’t know the whole story, maybe he was hard to live with, or maybe she was. Whatever, she left him, divorced him, and took their two small children, a boy and a girl, with her. He lasted about a month after she walked out on him and then decided to take his life and shot himself.

I had missed the viewing at the funeral home because of my quarantine, but I made the cemetery. There were lots of post office people there, most of them I knew, having worked for me at one time or other. This was the second suicide I had attended in the last several years. The first one was during the year I retired. Both men were post office employees, both men shot themselves after their wives had left them. The last suicide burial I had attended started off a chain of events that I would rather not have to relive again. Hopefully, this one won’t turn out the same way. That thought ran through my mind as the gravesite service ended and I headed back to my car. I went alone. The burial service was scheduled early and Stephanie was in the bathroom when I left the house, and besides she didn’t know Weber, and didn’t really like to go to funerals. I climbed in my car and could hardly wait to get back home, get out of my suit, change clothes, and have a cup of coffee.

So when I got home later that morning from the funeral, after being able to get out of the house for the first time in weeks, Stephanie wasn’t in the house and must have been in the barn. I loosened my tie, went out the back door, down the deck steps, and into the yard. I started to enter the barn and then quickly stopped and backed away. Stephanie was locked in an embrace with a man I recognized as Dwayne Ross. I met him after the accident and thanked him for protecting Stephanie and saving her life, if that’s what he actually did. I guess Stephanie invited him here or brought him over for some reason. It was evident that she liked him from what I had just witnessed. I backed quietly away so they wouldn’t hear or see me, farther out of sight of the entrance, and quickly returned to the house.

I guess that scene kind of rattled me because I was a little shaky pouring myself a cup of coffee from the coffee maker, which was usually always on. I wasn’t used to seeing Stephanie in another man’s arms except my own. There was a noise on the back deck and I could hear Stephanie coming up the deck stairs and then enter the kitchen.

Oh, good, you’re back, she said, smiling at me as if nothing had just happened. I want to ask you to do something. Dwayne is here and he could use a job, and in lieu of what he did I thought you could hire him.

I was somewhat taken aback by the request and the fact that she had already told him to come here without talking to me about it first, but not completely surprised at the request. It smacked of the past and was a haunting refrain that I kept hearing, like the black cloud that follows around that guy in Li’l Abner.

Dwayne needs a job and we could use the help, she went on turning toward the stove.

We do? I said. I didn’t know we needed a person fulltime. A few years back, after my friend Dee Dee was murdered and I found the five million dollars he left for me in my mother’s basement, I was able to have a large pole-barn built on my two-acre property and started to take in abused or homeless animals, something I had thought of doing after I retired but didn’t have the money at the time. We had several cats and dogs now and even a horse and a hawk. Stephanie was a neighbor who lived down the street and started to help out with the animals and between the two of us, with an assist from the local veterinarian, we were able to handle just about everything that needed to be done.

I’m here fulltime, Stephanie reminded me.

Yes, you are. I didn’t point out that her circumstances were special, or at least I thought that they were, because of our relationship.

You’re not always here, she said, tossing me a look, evidently our relationship was no longer special to her the way she was talking.

I thought I was.

She made another disagreeable face with her eyes. I couldn’t see the rest of her face because of her mask. No, you’re not. You just returned from going back to the post office for three months, and I’ve got classes a couple of days a week now, so neither one of us are both here every day.

I went back to the post office to help out a friend. That’s something that won’t happen again. It sounded to me like she had thought this over and didn’t care if I was around or not.

She looked at me again, her eyes resting on my face. He needs a job, Dutch, and I owe him for what he did. Besides, he’s a friend. I knew him before I knew you, and he saved my life. Don’t be disagreeable. You could help him out if you wanted to."

I didn’t know what to make of I knew him before I knew you. I wasn’t sure what it implied, had she been sleeping with this guy before? Nor was I aware of being disagreeable, but I didn’t say anything at the moment. I had a bad feeling I knew where this conversation was going, someplace where all my relationships with women eventually ended up. I thought this one would last, but evidently it didn’t seem like it was going to. What whit said If you wanted to make God laugh, tell him your plans. God, knew my plans and must have gotten lots of laughs from me over the years.

Stephanie started to get the frying pan out of one of the lower kitchen cabinets and put it on one of the stove’s front burners. I’ll make you some breakfast. You left this morning without eating anything.

I wasn’t aware that I was being selfish. I said finally, and helped myself to more coffee, not conscious of having drained my first cup. I suppose you want him here. It sounds that way.

She stopped fussing with the frying pan and focused on me again. What’s that supposed to mean?

I met her eyes. It doesn’t mean anything; it’s just a simple statement of an obvious fact.

I just want to help him, and he could use a job. Jobs are hard to come by these days and I know you can afford to hire him.

Fine, I said, feeling my stomach turn sour, wondering what the real reason was, but afraid that I already knew. Then by all means help him.

She took the eggs out of the refrigerator.

Don’t bother with breakfast, I’m not hungry, I said. I had suddenly lost my appetite for any food, not sure I could even keep it down if I ate.

She shot me a questioning look. What’s wrong with you?

I met her eyes. Nothing, what’s wrong with you?

You don’t want him here? Is that it?

But you do, so I said it was okay.

Stephanie turned away from the stove and gave me a knowing look as if some enlightening thought had just come to her. What’s the matter, Dutch, don’t you trust me?

I thought I could.

And now you can’t, is that it? Her eyes turned cold and her face stiffened. She was getting angry. What do you want a guarantee? She paused and then flung more words at me, Fuck you, Dutch, if that’s what you think.

Her words were like a slap in the face, totally unexpected. It was like a verbal sucker punch, a deja vu strike straight to the body, words I had heard before, and not so long ago. She had never snapped at me before, never said anything like that to me before. This was so unlike her. I never expected to hear those words from her. It was a Stephanie I had not seen before, and for a moment my mind went back in time and I saw Carrol Rash standing there before me and glaring at me defiantly like she had years ago before our breakup.

Wow, I said, a little shell-shocked at the verbal attack. I half smiled to myself at what was happening — what I dreaded might happen and hoped never would. Her words had stung me and I didn’t know what else to say in response.

My reaction seemed to get Stephanie angrier. You think this is funny?

I shook my head. No, I don’t think It’s funny at all. I’m just smiling at myself for being stupid, and no one has ever loved me enough to give me a guarantee. The joke is on me. It’s just that this day got here sooner than I thought it would, that’s all. I was hoping that it wouldn’t come at all, but dreaded that it might, and maybe that’s a good thing that it got here faster than I thought it would. Better now than having to deal with it later in life when I’m even older. Yeah, better now, I guess. I said that and told myself that, but it was a shaky affirmation on my part.

She frowned, her face still expressing anger. What are you talking about?

I’m talking about what you just told me. Your words have given a new meaning to our supposed relationship. You know, someone else said those exact same words to me not too long ago. Maybe a guy my age and with my track record needs a guarantee, I said. I guess I should probably ask for one next time I get involved, if there ever is a next time — maybe it’s better if there isn’t. I paused for a moment, feeling the walls of the house starting to close in on me, feeling I shouldn’t be here, anywhere but here. I felt awkward, like I didn’t belong there with her. I looked at my coffee and didn’t want it anymore. Tell your friend he has a job. I spilled my coffee in the sink, rinsed my cup, and put the cup there too. I had an overwhelming urge to leave, to run, to just get the hell out of there. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I dropped my eyes and avoided looking at her. I just couldn’t stand being there. I needed to get away.

Dutch, she started, looking at me, reading my face, her eyes changing. I... didn’t mean... that... what I said...

I put up my hand up in a stopping gesture. Don’t, enough’s been said. You spoke your mind, what you obviously feel. Probably what you’ve been feeling for a long time. I headed for the door. I got the message loud and clear. You spoke your feelings and that’s okay. That’s the way it is. That’s good to know.

Where are you going? Don’t leave.

I turned and looked back at her for a moment. I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I can’t be here now. I have to leave.

Dutch, please, don’t go anywhere, I’m sorry, Stephanie said, but I was already out the door and getting in my car. I saw her stepping outside the front door as I pulled out of my driveway. I just had to get away. I didn’t want to go through this again. I went through this once before, maybe more than once if you count bad marriages and rocky romances. I didn’t want to suffer through it again. I was weary of it, tired of it. No more.

Hours later, I didn’t really remember where I had been all day, thoughts of Stephanie clouded out my memory. We had only been together for a couple of years, and I thought that this time it would take, that she was the one, only I guess it didn’t: It was built on frailties of hope and nothing else. I know I did a lot of city driving and eventually wound up at Chuck’s tavern drinking as the day was passing and turning into night. Chuck was a friend and a war-buddy. After a few drinks, I knew I shouldn’t be driving anywhere, not anymore, and I didn’t feel like going back to the house and seeing Stephanie.

You shouldn’t drive, Dutch, Chuck said. Let me call you a cab so you can go home.

I shook my head. No, no cab. I don’t want to go home.

Trouble?

Resolutions, I said. I’ll go next door and get a room at the motel.

Chuck