In Springdale Town (5 page)

13

Shelling plodded through the corn for what seemed days, unable to reach the edge of the field. At least he had food. The ears were mature and sweet; he stripped off the husks and ate as he went. But walking was a struggle. He found it difficult to maintain a straight path in any direction. What crazy hand had seeded these fields? No even rows here, everything random, as though planted by chance. And so early in the season–he had thought that this year’s crop wouldn’t be ready until much later, July or August.

He tried to keep the sun ahead. As a child, he had often tramped along a ditch near his house, pushing his way through tall sunflowers, slashing at them with a hunting knife. But he had known the ditch was near, a few feet to his left, and across it, the streets leading home.

At last, when the sun reached the top of a line of distant trees, he found a road. Roads like this crisscrossed the area, connecting farm, field, and town. He set off to his right, and after a hundred yards or so, a house appeared behind a tumbled stone wall. He decided to stop there and ask directions. A stone path, crowded by overrunning grasses and dandelions, led to the house, and when Shelling reached the front door, he recognized it as his own.

His front door was unlocked as usual; he turned the glass knob and stepped into his living room. Oh, home, his furniture, the two paintings by that California-based Russian artist that he had acquired in L.A., the lingering scent of last night’s tomato-basil-garlic pasta. He flopped onto the couch and sobbed. The day, its unknowable trials now passed, folded down, but the familiar objects of his life supported him. Back in his comfortable living room, that cell, the jailer...now distant.

~

When Shelling opened his eyes, the sun had set. He showered and dressed in clean clothes. Unable to remember why his car wasn’t there, he called the town’s taxi service, and when a cab arrived, he told the driver to take him to the Japanese restaurant. He remained silent all the way to town.

At the restaurant, Shelling took a seat by the front window. The empty dining room saddened him. He had thought, after seeing the women at breakfast, after the day’s ordeal, he would find the town revivified. Not this...continuation of emptiness.

Monique the waitress brought him tea. The unglazed teapot and mug had a rough shape, more likely formed by hand than by wheel. The warmth of the mug seeped into his palm and flowed up his arm. “Are these yours?” he asked. “I keep saying I want to visit your studio and never do–is tomorrow afternoon good?”

The waitress’s expression reminded him of the men at the hardware store–distant, as though inhabiting a different world. She walked back toward the kitchen, leaving Shelling to stare out at the street and the darkened store opposite. At some point he heard another customer enter but didn’t turn around to see. What was the use? He couldn’t stand the thought of another snub, another cryptic encounter. A person, even an outgoing person, soon succumbs, shrinks into solitude, even embraces it.

But that wasn’t him, wasn’t what
he
wanted. Where was Monique? He thought that he had made some progress, attempting to set up an appointment with her outside the workplace. That wall again. Things had to be done in small steps, but the time involved, he didn’t have the patience anymore. He would tell Monique he was an actor. She would want to sleep with someone who had appeared on television, who knew famous people.

Someone slid into a booth behind him; the cushion and frame creaked with the person’s weight, and Shelling heard a rumbly voice ask for tea.

14

Looking back the way we came, I saw no entry, nothing but an unbroken curve of wainscoting that rose to chest-level and, above it, plaster painted a warm terra-cotta. I stood in the middle of the room, under the multicolored dome, while Sammy circled the periphery.

“What is this place? I didn’t notice us going through a door. We were in the alley–”

“The transition is always subtle,” she said. She kept walking, trailing a finger along the surface of the wainscoting.

This made no sense. We had been walking down an alley. Which must have led directly into this place. Since my arrival in Springdale, I had been preoccupied with my past. An autopilot kind of thing, and being so closed up I wasn’t aware enough of my surroundings to notice where we were going.

“Here’s something.” She looked over at me, but I didn’t move. Who was she, really? We had met, what, an hour ago? Sammy pushed on the wainscoting and a section swung away from her. It could have shut after we had entered, but I didn’t remember coming in over there. Sammy stood by the open section, waiting for me. I joined her.

“This is ridiculous. How could somebody who has never been here find their way out after the door closed?”

“This isn’t the way we came in. It’s the way forward.”

I just stared at her, irritation building inside me.

“Patrick, I said I would show you places Caroline never took you. She’s lived in Springdale her whole life but knows nothing about this.”

It must have been obvious from my face that I still wasn’t accepting anything; she smiled and touched my cheek with her fingertips. “Springdale is a complex town, a crossroads, and we’re in its hub. We enter, we find our way through. Maybe something we experience changes the way we look at the world.”

Sammy emanated a sincerity that I found comforting–a jury would have bought it, no problem. So I smiled back. Her explanation hadn’t answered my questions, but if adventure beckoned, I was ready for it.

She stooped and passed through the doorway. I followed. Inside, the ceiling was too low to stand erect. The passage appeared to continue in a straight line, lit from a source I couldn’t identify. The indirect light had a misty quality, making it hard to judge distance. A click from behind made me turn. The wainscoting door had swung shut behind us. I pushed, but could find no way to open it.

Sammy held my wrist. “You can’t do that. There’s only one way to go when you’re in here. Come on.” She turned away and I had no choice but to follow. My neck started to ache from walking hunched. Sammy was only an inch or so shorter than me, so she didn’t have it any easier. For some reason, I was wondering what time I would be returning to the bed and breakfast. Those places were often weird about their guest’s hours.

“It’s always different here, each time you come,” Sammy said. “Sometimes these corridors run straight out to the cornfields. It’s better when the ceiling’s higher. I feel like I’m walking on chicken strings in here.”

~

After forty yards or so of this, we reached a cylindrical room with a ceiling about twelve feet high. “This is way better,” Sammy said as we straightened. I reached back to rub my neck with both hands. “Let me,” she said, and began kneading my shoulders. I could feel her breasts against my back. Her hair smelled perfect, some kind of mint and rosemary scent.
{note 15}
I liked having her near. It was funny–aside from a brief conversation at that party back when I lived here, we had met only that morning, but I felt as though we had a connection that went deeper. I suppose that explained why I wasn’t more anxious about this place she had brought me–I had some innate trust in her. And I wasn’t anybody’s timid waffle. I liked to explore. But I had wanted to spend today in, I don’t know, solitary contemplation.

“I appreciate you bringing me here,” I said. “Wherever ‘here’ is.”

She stopped massaging but left her hands on my shoulders. They felt warm there, strong guides. “We picked a good day. This place isn’t always so easy to reach. Sometimes the entry doesn’t appear.” She pushed my right shoulder and pulled my left, turning me around. Her face had a soft expression, thoughtful, and I felt that connection again. “I wanted to share some of the real Springdale with you.”

“Sammy...I, I appreciate that. But this–” I waved my hands around. “It doesn’t make any sense. These rooms and passages leading nowhere. Anyway, I guess we have to go back now.” I hunched over and turned into the low corridor from which we had just emerged, but before I could go any farther, Sammy grabbed my arm and yanked me back.

“You can’t do that!” She had a bark that I hadn’t expected. She still held my arm, which started to throb. I shook her grip loose.

“What’s–”

“I told you before. You can only go one way.” She rubbed my arm gently, as if smoothing out the spot she had held. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.” She moved closer and touched my face with her other hand. “This place is sort of a sophisticated funhouse. It has rules, though, and they have to be followed. The main rule is you always move forward. To advance from here, we have to find another door.”

15

Shelling loved yellowtail the most, followed by tuna and salmon. Before finding consistent TV work in L.A., he couldn’t afford sushi. Sometimes he would order a cup of miso and one piece of fish and make it last as long as possible. He wasn’t a glutton, but now, with no financial worries, he wouldn’t deny himself the pleasures. He had been thrilled to discover that his new town possessed such a fine Japanese restaurant. What was it Kinsey-Moore had said in her essay on gastronomy? “The path to flavor, though often blocked by under-seasoning, over-saucing, improper cooking, and so many more obstacles that it makes one hesitate, has at its end rewards ample enough to make all trials worthwhile.”
{note 16}

This joyful trinity: fine food, drink, and congenial companions was what made all the Hollywood crap bearable. Crazy how much money the people out there threw around, even to pay small-time actors like him. Though never in a starring role, he had always found consistent work and had invested his earnings well, never wasting money on ridiculous expenditures like sports cars and trendy Albanian clothes. He had known others, friends from his early years, people who had shopped in the same thrift stores, but who, after “making it,” spent everything they earned and more, a never-ending deluge that inevitably turned into over-extended credit and the forced-liquidation of expensive toys as soon as the sources of income dissipated for any length of time over a month.

Something heavy approached, a presence forceful and unavoidable, and a hand landed on his shoulder, where it stayed, pressing with an insistence that caused him to look up, discovering beside him the massive blue-uniformed man who had taken him from the narrow room, and who was now holding his shoulder with a wide and formidable hand. The man beckoned with his other hand, and Shelling rose, leaving sushi and contentment.

Outside, the man steered him up the street to a dim alley between the Japanese restaurant and the rug shop. Shelling stopped at the black maw of the alley. “What’s this all about? I have rights, you know.”

He tried to turn, but the man’s fingers clamped onto his shoulders. Shelling refused to move. Let the man push him. Instead, the man slipped his hands under Shelling’s armpits and lifted. Shelling squirmed, trying to break the policeman’s hold. He swung his legs back and forth, kicking at the man, but nothing had an effect. The policeman-jailer kept walking.

Shelling had appeared in a short-lived television series starring that former professional football player, the one with the state of Texas tattooed on his scalp. The man’s size and intimidating interactions with the rest of the cast had upset the delicate essence of creating the show. Once, for fun, the man had grabbed Shelling from behind, encircling his neck with a chokehold that he didn’t release until Shelling began to pass out. The man had laughed his “huh huh huh” laugh, and what could Shelling do?

But this new situation was opposite. There was a peacefulness to being carried, as though the act stripped Shelling of responsibility. He felt outside himself, and imagined what it would be like to gaze upon this scene–the dark-uniformed man carrying his burden, some recalcitrant youngster, down the alley. The massive jailer transported Shelling farther than he would have thought possible in this small town. Had they perhaps left the town, penetrated some intersecting region accessible only to this man?

At some point they must have passed into a building, though Shelling noticed no transition from open alley to closed-in corridor, identical to the corridor he and his jailer had traversed earlier.

16

Sammy and I chose opposite directions, but reached the moving panel at the same time. This one opened to a closet with a metal ladder emerging through a hole in the floor. We descended, Sammy first. The cold of the rungs bothered me, and I had to concentrate on not going so fast I trampled Sammy’s fingers. The light in the tube grew dimmer as we descended, though it appeared to follow us, illumining the nearest rungs. Above, everything was dark; I didn’t look down any farther than the next rung and the top of Sammy’s head. My shoulder muscles burned from the effort. Sammy’s breathing rasped, a heavy sound from deep in her throat.

How much longer would this ladder to nowhere continue? The air down here...thin...insufficient. The walls, the tube, constricted, so hard to squeeze through. Something grabbed my ankles, held them. I tried to kick them free. I would not become trapped, not here, not before seeing one last time the glitter of sun on water, hearing waves caress the shore.

“Patrick!”

Who here knew my name? Not the others–they cared for nothing but their own petty squabbles. This dream amber-trapped me, forced its will.

“Stop moving. Breathe, Patrick, breathe.” I became aware of Sammy’s hands gripping my ankles. I looked down. She had hooked her feet and knees onto the ladder for support. “You were panicking,” she said.

“I’m okay now.” I must have sounded uncertain because she didn’t release me. She talked, not really saying anything, but the sound of her voice soothed me, and she stroked my calf with her fingers. My breath settled, air sliding in and out of my tender throat.

She slipped her hands from my ankles and started down. I hesitated, though not for long. Sammy kept talking; obviously she thought I needed help staying calm. Who had put her in charge anyway? A ladder. I could go down a fucking ladder without coddling. I knew how to handle myself pretty well, no matter the circumstances.

I glanced down at the top of her head. She cared about me, didn’t want me to injure myself. And she had brought me to this place to share an experience before I left town.

“Looks like we’re nearly there,” she said. “Somewhere, anyway,” she muttered.

Careful to maintain my desperate grip on the rungs, I leaned out, trying to see what lay beyond her, at the base of the ladder. There was a pinkish surface, difficult to make out in the dim light.

“Hold up,” she said. “Looks like the ladder ends a few feet from the bottom. I’m going to grab the lowest rung with my hands and drop.” She worked her way down rung by rung, then slid her right foot off, followed by the left.

“How far?” I asked, but she had already let go.

She cried, “Wheee!” as she dropped, holding her glasses to her face the way a scuba diver holds the mask. Her feet reached the surface. “It’s spongy foamy–” Her legs and then her body disappeared into the pinkish mass, cutting off the rest of her words.

I scuttled down the remaining rungs and, not wanting to drop directly over her, pushed off. The stuff met my falling body and pulled me in. It had a thin membrane that made a little “shoup” kind of noise, then I sank into a mass of translucent jelly. Before I could think, I inhaled. The stuff sluiced into my mouth and throat, but instead of choking, I felt refreshed, as though the jelly contained an oxygen-rich mix–a viscous, breathable swimming pool. I folded onto my stomach and swung my arms out toward my head, attempting a slow breaststroke toward, I hoped, Sammy. The vat of jelly disoriented me. Light came from somewhere, maybe the jelly itself. Although I could see through the stuff, I had nothing with which to orient myself. The tube containing the ladder hadn’t been more than three feet across, but I had no way of knowing the size of this jelly tank. I wanted to find a wall and gain comfort from its solidity. I tried a breaststroke, my version of one anyway. I had never been much of a swimmer, but this–no worries about squirting water up my nose or having to match the strokes with my breathing–was kind of nice.

Stopping, I hung in the stuff and looked around to see if my swimming had brought me to anything recognizable. Off to my right I saw a shape darker than the jelly, and I set off toward it.