Beeks collects himself, quietly beats suede-shod feet down the back stairway, into the shady alleyway. A stranger in a strange land, a lonely boy far from home, he'd best vanish without a trace, to the best of his abilities. And if nothing else, Beeks is an expert at the fine art of disappearance; possesses something of a genius for it.
"Here I go, here I go, here I go, off into the wild bop yonder..."
I left the house at the crack of dawn, the new day fresh, crisp, a hint of Jack Frost nipping. Hungry as a horny toad, I ate a greasy breakfast in town, then hit the Trottsville Library, read the paper and thumbed some magazines before settling down with a biography of Thomas Edison, fascinating man. Where would we be without men of his caliber? Inventors, explorers, captains of industry. Eli Whitney! Ferdinand Magellan! Henry Ford! My mind boggles whenever I take a moment to think of how each changed the course of history, in ways that are beyond the beyond. We remain forever in their debt. Look, just consider the steam engine. That made railroads a reality, pushing the industrial revolution, opening vistas for commerce, for farming.
Or Benjamin Franklin! The lightning rod, the Franklin stove, bifocals! Care to live without our streamlined postal system?
(Kids today have no idea. They just assume there's always been a cotton industry, that shirts and skirts were always store-bought, racks and racks, infinite, at your friendly local discount store. Or that there's always been a Ford V8 in the garage to ferry Pop to work, Mom to the supermarket. Or that the mail arrives like clockwork.)
Then I get into a funk thinking about how nothing I'll ever do will live up to the feats of the Great Men.
And then! And then I think: says who? I don't even know who I am, where I'm from, what I've done! For all I know, I have patents in my name! Maybe I'm a millionaire! Or a war hero! Or maybe I merely own a huge car dealership, employing dozens? I don't have a wedding ring, so no wife and kids, I guess. But other than that, who the heck knows what I've done, where I've been, who I am? Not me!
Glancing out the window, the sky's darkening, tree shadows long and slim, like samurai swords. Man, time flies when one is deep in reading! I stub out my smoke, wave ta-ta to the librarian, we'll call her Miss Sour Puss. Or Miss Castor Oil. As a youngster, she must've been the primmest member of the Temperance League of Trottsville.
I hoof it, homeward bound. Approaching Casa Moi, I'm shocked to see a painting crew putting the final touches on a primer coat, and a Bell Telephone panel truck pulling away. I skip up the steps, into my house to the sound of my new phone ringing.
"Hello?"
"Hiya, Jim! Jimmy-Jim! Mister Jim! Jimbo! How are ya, bwah?" That voice.
"I... I'm okay. I assume you're the one behind all of this..."
"Right as rain, Jimmy."
From the kitchen I hear the sizzle of cooking. I peek in and see a svelte young Japanese woman in geisha gear slicing and dicing and frying vegetables. Smells good! Ginger! She looks at me, then down, abashed. She then turns from the stove and bows to me and, I swear, I hear a big fat gong reverberating from the heavens. She’s chop-lickin' gorgeous. Stunning!
"I can tell by your silence that you’re... stunned. She's yours, Jim! For whatever your little heart desires, all expenses paid."
As I listen to that damned voice, dripping with calm authority, I look around the living room and can't help but notice that a professional cleaning crew has struck. What had been dismal and dated now sparkles, has an air of distinction. The threadbare rug's been replaced with something snappy and bright as Old Glory whipping on a breezy and sunny Fourth.
"The painters will return next week for the top coats. Say, why doncha take a look out back?" Click, bzzz.
I hang up the phone and wander in a daze to a kitchen window and see a brand new Thunderbird convertible sitting there, glorious, metallic blue, top down. I step out, the screen door slamming behind me, down a few steps, crunching orange leaves over to it. I run a palm across the sleek cool finish. The keys are in the ignition, so I hop in, fire her up. She purrs like a kitten. The girl slips in the other side and says, "Me Yoko. Me likey big car and Miss-tuh Jim. How fast this baby go?" Her kimono opens, accidentally on purpose, offering a fair view of one finely formed breast before she straightens her robe, clutching it closed at the neck, suddenly the modest mouse. Just an appetizer. The main course later. But oh! What an appetizer!
I head towards the mountains. There's a chill in the autumn air. From Wolverton Mountain we can think of something to keep us nice and toasty.
Beeks doesn't know where he is or how he got here. It's a suburb of identical ranch houses, differentiated by pastel hue, a rolling hill of them, surrounded by piney woods, Wolverton Mountain looking down. He stands before one that's the color of lemon meringue. He walks to the front door, rings the bell. He doesn't even know why he did this stupid thing, but he did. He waits, musing how the door chime sounded just like the one in the Avon commercials. "Avon calling!" No one answers. He tries the door. It opens. He enters. It's quiet as a tomb. He shuts the door and walks down a hall toward the kitchen. He stands in the kitchen for a long time listening to sullen silence. The kitchen sink faucet drips a drop. It's ping in the chrome-plated drain basket is almost startling. To the side of the kitchen, a stairway leading to the basement. Beeks flicks on the light and descends those stairs.
The basement's chilly and there's a slight scent of moist earth under the pine floor, a good smell. It reminds him of his grandmother's basement in Oakdale, Tennessee. She kept a crate of 7-Up in that dirt-floor cellar for the grand kids. Beeks smiles recalling the day he and Cousin Tyrone used a couple of bottles, shook up real good, to have a soda fight in the backyard, spraying each other on that hot August afternoon. Grandma's rheumatism didn't slow her down as she raced out of the bungalow, strap in hand, whipping and cussing them. "Wasteful! Damn you wicked boys! I pays good money! Damn! Damn! DAMN!" Beeks had welts for weeks, but it was worth it. Price paid for a good soda fight. He and Ty still laugh about that day. Grandma insists, "Never happened."
The basement walls are cinder blocks painted a pale green. In a corner squats a freezer, long and low, up against the wall, white with a brass Frigidaire badge.
At the freezer, he opens the lid and beholds the stark naked corpse of Miss Ross, covered with a lacy patina of frost. From the top of the stairs, a familiar female voice trills, "You are in some deep trouble now, boy."
She steps down the steps, a .45 in hand. It's Miss Ross!
"W-wait! How can this..."
"Shut up," says another Miss Ross, emerging from the shadows of a far corner, pointing another .45 at Beeks. Stooping, she pulls back a thick Persian carpet revealing a trap door with a heavy bolt lock. She unbolts the door, opens it, all the while a beady-eye on Beeks, pistol pointed at his heart, a heart that's thumping like a Gene Krupa tom-tom.
With the .45, Miss Ross motions to the black pit below. "There you go, Beeks!"
Down steps Beeks, into a cubby hole not big enough to stand up in. He begs and blubbers. Above him the door slams shut, tight as a tin, bonking him on his head most rudely. He hears the bolt snap shut. He's enveloped in a black that is blacker than black, a black as black as death.
Miss Ross flops the rug back into place, door and rug muffling the hysterical pleas. Miss Ross and Miss Ross head upstairs, brew a pot of oolong tea, drink it while chatting about nothing much: the weather, a game show, the price of eggs. Presently, they leave the house, lock the door behind them, cross the quiet leaf-strewn street to a Packard, get in and motor west, across plains, up and down mountains, on and on until they hit foggy Frisco town. Clang, clang goes the trolley!
In the pit, Beeks screeches like a madman until his heart finally bursts. But that was long before the gals hit San Fran.