Mr. Holmes
has disappeared. That is, my Sherlock Holmes has been gone for more than three
weeks. He has been absent before on numerous occasions due to requirements of
whatever a case might require of his time. But he kept in touch. Not like this,
which is gone, gone, gone.
One morning
he was in his chair angled toward the lab and away from me and my card table
and bed, it had got so he was there every morning as I got up. He might be reading
the newspaper, our page first, of course, or studying various textbooks, or
staring thoughtfully at the lab over by the wall.
Then he was
almost always there in the armchair at the close of the day when I would be
about to fall asleep. The wind could be howling or the rain pasting the east
window, and the space heater roaring away on max and he was there. Calm and
quiet he was and ready to reply if ever I said Good Morning or Good Night – but
I never did. I now regret that. I should have told him how his being there was
an aid to me in my continuing attempt to accept my transfer to this era, under
these conditions, and what having his ongoing never-fail triumphs over Them did
help to sustain me.
He had got
here before I did. I may help him in an inconsequential way but no doubt he is
the Main Man. It seems I provide a base for him, a place to be as my “tutor”.
He really could be my tutor, though anyone who knows of such a cover such as it
is doesn’t buy it. So what? He does a lot of good. Sometimes the community
knows it, and sometimes it’s Native Americans, and sometimes it is the Air
Force, and sometimes just the two of us. So what?
But is he
gone for good? It is impossible They could have hurt him. He is of course, not
“dead” – such doesn’t apply to him. But maybe he is off on a new assignment? OK
for him but I don’t want someone else nor do I want to stay here by myself –
what purpose would it serve? I have already speculated about my cycling through
junior high over and over. Though maybe I would go onto high school, college?
Truth be
known it is the empty chair in the morning and night. What a concern! He
battles for all of us and I want him in his chair! OK. OK, I am trying to get the homework done,
be a good brother and son and accept the foibles of my friends. I am
doing that. So where is he?
I have been
spending more time upstairs – actually not more family interaction but more
being there and “there” is usually in front of the TV. Recently it was Barney Fife
giving a “hairy” rendition of the Preamble to the Constitution to prove once
you’ve got it (memorized) it’s always with you. Friendship and close
associations can be modified so that, if you accept the premise of irrevocable
change, then no shock occurs if they aren’t going to be always with you.
Remembered they can be, but not in a living format.
Neither of
us is dead. I’m doing my part. Again and again I ask – where is he. I mean is
he “here” and not on assignment elsewhere? Has his tour of duty ended here, has
he ETS’d ? In the way of a few unearthly things having an imitation of a living
format came to me one school night as I sweated over pre-calculus (we are all
patriotically, with ample funds, going to find an answer to the Russkies) I
heard a sigh for achievement, a woman’s luxuriant sound, rich and mild, surely
with a glowing countenance and velvet dress, demure with the whole scene in
coloration almost like caramel. A very beautiful woman. And I did hear it. Mom
and the others were in bed. No wind. Furnace not yakking. No space heater. I
had heard her. It came from the lab. The lab was against the east wall after
the door swung open to it farthest and the lab then went to the west wall and
South to near the furnace. Then the lab filled in the space diagonally back toward
the door. Two rows of benches and equipment and experiments were along that
dimension.
I went to
the entrance to the lab but really if Mr. Holmes put more equipment there you
would have to vault the benches to get inside the lab. I stood expectantly at
the entrance. Something was up. I smelled off to the right an electrical short
with cinnamon sprinkled on it – so it registered. I went toward the smell, and
behind an inner row of benches, was a blue fluid flow experiment. Mr. Holmes
had set it up. It had started. There were three presentations of it. In one the
blue fluid remained pooled at the bottom of a tank. An amorphous mass was inert
above the pool. In a second adjacent part of the experiment the fluid had made
it half way into the mass. The last section, the third one, had blue lines
piercing the mass. The blue pencil-thin fluid was in lines in the hundreds and multiplying
in number then and there. The mass was defeated, the pool was ascending. The
fluid shot out and up and over the container and blue splatters sounded loudly
on the concrete floor.
It was a
sign. Mr. Holmes was fine and still here.
Confident
that Mr. Holmes would soon show, I gave more undivided attention to playing my
bit part in the great Cold War struggle, for as much as my homework could
contribute. My hard concentration on my math was broken when I had to look
around for my slide rule to get on with it. I then could hear my Mom upstairs
calling out about a phone call. About a tutor. Tutor! I was out of the room in
two giant steps and bounded up the stairs. I paused for composure before I
entered the dining area (also containing a washing machine shrouded in fine
linen in a corner). I walked in to take the receiver from Mom. “Sorry,” I said
to her. She had no problem with it, having other fish to fry elsewhere in the
ruckus-filled house.
Sherlock!
Holmes! (Pausing, calm and composed? Well try for it.) Mr. Holmes, good to hear
from you again.
Ah, yes
indeed, and I am very sorry my dear boy, for having taken such a very long time
to contact you, I was trying to infiltrate Them and one thing led to another
and I did not do as I had hoped. I shall stop by in a few hours with a guest.
Is that acceptable?
A guest
downstairs?
Of course,
of course, I should have made that clear. Another “student”.
Sure thing.
The phone
went dead. I returned to my study and after a few hours I heard two set of
shoes navigating down the stairs. The door opened wide and in stepped a Zeegler!
For a split second I thought it could be Mr. Holmes in disguise, but Mr. Holmes
was close behind the Zeegler.
The Zeegler
stopped a few steps inside the room so the door could close. Mr. Holmes moved
ahead of the Zeegler and indicated the Zeegler should sit in my chair at the
card table, I was on the bed. Mr. Holmes remained standing very near to the
Zeegler. One of Mr. Holmes arms was inside his coat.
Mr. Holmes –
I thought you would care to speak with a Zeegler. This is a rare opportunity
for us to get to know a Zeegler. Of course he can ask about us.
So I was to
cross-examine the Zeegler. I assumed Mr. Holmes had already conversed with the
Zeegler, to no avail. Therefore, I was to query on a lower plane of
interaction. High road vs. low.
So: How are
you trained? No response, no sound, no movement. How old are you? Where were
you born?
Mr. Holmes
interjected – I believe they “come about.” They persist unless pierced in
combat as we well know.
Me- So they
are clones?
Mr. Holmes
shrugged. And I then couldn’t remember if we had gotten to “cloning” in our
conversations.
Me- Well,
then, do you prefer guns or spears or knives?
Now that got
a rise. He looked at me and he said they had never used spears.
Oh but you
did, Mr. Holmes and I were once attacked by hundreds of Zeeglers carrying
spears.
He shouted,
No spears! And he rose from the chair and twisted toward me and lunged for me.
He was about half way to me when Mr. Holmes brought a revolver butt from his
coat down on the back of the Zeegler’s neck. He fell into a nondescript heap at
that half way mark between the chair and the bed. Mr. Holmes effortlessly
picked up the Zeegler and seated him in my chair. Then Mr. Holmes stepped
quickly into the lab and returned with a rope. The rope went around the
Zeegler’s neck, then around his wrists and then around his ankles. Mr. Holmes
held the end of the rope as he stood over the Zeegler.
The
Zeegler’s head was against his wrists and his wrists were on his knees.
Uncomfortable it looked to me.
Mr. Holmes –
Please be so kind as to be more courteous toward by colleague.
The Zeegler
actually smiled or at least showed his teeth to me and seemed to regret his
action, beg for forgiveness, and silently plead for an alteration in how he was
situated. Uncomfortable no doubt.
The Zeegler
said – I have no spear.
Me – Well
certainly some may and some may not have a use for a spear. I meant not to
insult you by forcing a spear on you.
I smiled. I
guess the Zeegler did too. I looked at Mr. Holmes for guidance.
Me - Well
then let’s chat about nothing in particular (when I had every intention of
mining something useful from whatever I got out of him).
I said “let’s
chat” again. I then also looked at Mr. Holmes.
My
colleague, said Mr. Holmes, is desirous of being friendly toward you. For your
next infraction I shall shoot you.
The Zeegler
blankly looked up at Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes extracted a huge knife, like a
Bowie knife, from his coat. He swiftly made three motions to cut the knots at
the Zeegler’s knees, then wrists, and then the neck.
The Zeegler
stiffened, gulped, and then relaxed in the chair.
I asked
questions about the weather, uniforms, food (3 squares a day?), bunks in
barracks, cars, trucks, school buses, freight trains, snowflakes, high winds,
and so on. I was asking about his
favorite day of the week, assuring the Zeegler that mine was on the weekend and
I named each day. On “Saturday” I perceived a twitch, I’ll call it that, anyway
his countenance flickered. On the streets of Cheyenne, favorites of, he had a
tiny “reply” to Lincolnway and for what was his favorite kind of building I
meant such as wood, brick, concrete, and adobe with an aside on use, form and
function, he had an unspoken preference for adobe.
We “chatted”
without a word from him for another half hour. Finally I looked at Mr. Holmes
and back at the Zeegler and back to Mr. Holmes.
Mr. Holmes
to the Zeegler – I suppose this has been a waste of time. I had hoped we could
have had a congenial expression of companionship – on some level. Well and good
if such does not become you. As things are, we will meet again. Be gone.
The Zeegler
got up, went to the door, and left. As simple as that.
Mr. Holmes –
So then, an adobe structure on Lincolnway to be visited by us this Saturday.
Mr. Holmes
did briefly relate to me his infiltration. He had himself captured. That status
did not prove useful so he disappeared in their midst and became a Zeegler.
Then he captured a Zeegler – the one that I chatted with.
But then why
were we concerned about Saturday on Lincolnway with adobe?
Mr. Holmes –
Rather amusing to be off to thwart Them but not knowing how or why.
Me – Sorry,
I just realized I haven’t been reading the newspaper of late. They are there. I
pointed at a pile of papers beside his armchair.
Mr. Holmes –
Ah well then, let us have a go at acquiring news of Them.
He picked up
a paper and then turned to “our page”. I did the same with another issue and
others. The more recent issues had a small, and on our page, ad of a Cure-All
as a tonic, elixir, modern super medicine, fit of the fittest and so on across
many small ads on our page.
Mr. Holmes –
No doubt the “cure” will in and of itself become an illness second to none.
What?
Me – Oh
undoubtedly. Saturday?
Mr. Holmes –
Delivery? Shipment? Manufacture? Our presence will resolve it. But what
building?
Me – I know
of only one adobe directly on Lincolnway. I mean an adobe “house” and an adobe
“bunkhouse”.
At this site
there has been a cooperative effort involving my school and a trucking company
called DBN, meaning Drive by Night, from the film “They Drive by Night” with
Raft, Bogart, Ann Sheridan, and Ida Lupino. The DBN is located at a “house,”
really only a bedroom for Miguel’s father, and what is called the “bunkhouse”.
Both are on a large paved lot. The house seems to sit in a parking lot. The lot
is large and slopes from the bunkhouse at the top of the slope and from the
north then down to the house and further on down to Lincolnway. On the east is
Beacon Street and along it the company trucks park before beginning a night
run. The drivers sleep in the bunkhouse during the day if they so choose.
Miguel’s father
manages the operations. I went there to return Miguel’s visits to our house (we
then rented a house not far from the adobe structures.) I would wake up
Miguel’s father. He was a baseball nut. Ok guy, usually asleep during the day,
mostly spoke Spanish and had a bat, ball, and mitt in bed with him.
Along the
west side of the lot, which drops off down to the alley, are grates cut into
the rock wall. Coals can be place in the grates and hot dogs and Pepsi are
available some Friday evenings, courtesy of the school and DBN. Boys and girls
attend. Whichever sex predominates in numbers has dibs on the bunkhouse for
that night, if they want. We then lived close enough that I preferred to go
home since I had seen the object of my then desires, Betty Carlson, and usually
my conversation with her was in opposition to a restful bunkhouse night.
Across from
the lot, across the alley, was a used car lot that Mr. Holmes and I would make
use of post our visit to the bunkhouse. That visit occurred Saturday night,
late. Mr. Holmes was in disguise as a Zeegler. I was his prisoner and we went downstairs,
after entry, to a football-sized expanse of manufacturing apparatus that looked
like the second football-sized area under the first one. At the first sublevel,
Mr. Holmes extracted huge bags of sand from within his Zeegler duds. We began
to run along the corridors flinging the sand into the works. Then Mr. Holmes
grabbed two crowbars from a wall cabinet, and we sprinted along smashing left
and right, up and down the aisles. Down to the second sublevel we went using
the crowbars to brace shut a large door behind us. Mr. Holmes pulled out two
revolvers from his coat (he had changed back to himself) and tossed me a third
one. He was shooting out three manufacturing sifters or pumps or sorters –
whathaveyou- with one shot. He walked eyes closed and pointed left and right
with one revolver in each direction. I more modestly might get two with one
shot. And I kept my eyes open.
The Zeeglers
were coming, the Zeeglers were coming. We were in a narrow corridor beyond the
production area and the Zeeglers were four abreast coming at us. Mr. Holmes got
three from right to left and I got the leftmost one as they, of course, advanced
inches on us everytime a line of them disappeared. Not to accept the
inevitable, M. Holmes shot out the electrical boxes. Even in the dark he and I
kept firing since the barrel flashes gave tiny, but enough, illumination, and
it was a straight corridor so I kept the weapon pointed on the same line.
Mr. Holmes
said “go left” and I smacked into a door, which on opening, led further west, I
gathered. The door was slammed shut by Mr. Holmes as the Zeeglers pounded on
it. Cracks from somewhere showed light. We went there and opened a chute to the
outside. The “outside” was the west edge of the truckers’ lot and the light was
from across the alley in the used car lot, closed to customers.
Not closed
to escapees from the wrath of the Zeeglers. We low-crawled among the vehicles
looking for keys in the ignition. Found one. We got in. We pushed it off the
lot and down the slope to Lincolnway which also sloped down. We coasted to the
intersection of the Sinclair station and the motel. Then right until near 15th
Street. We tried it and it started. With me steering and Mr. Holmes working the
pedals, we made it to less than a mile from home.
The
transition from Saturday to Sunday was very short for me. Mom was calling down
about breakfast and I had only started to sleep. Couldn’t stay in bed. If I did
she would come down and Mr. Holmes and I would have had to have a “lesson’
underway. Therefore, I went up to pancakes prepared on a flat grill that were
thin, crispy at the edges, with maple syrup streaming down the sides and
ice-cold milk in a huge glass. We all had a delicious time.
Only an hour
later after my return to Mr. Holmes did sleep overpower me. Mr. Holmes kept
watch and could run interference with any interaction with the upstairs
element. I couldn’t sleep long. I had a couple of big tests on Monday. To get
the official results of our intervention at the bunkhouse, we would need
Monday’s paper.
I could
study since we weren’t trying a church. Mom took us to a different church for a
trial period on some Sundays. Not Catholic, since Mom felt they would
compromise you somehow and then convert you. Once converted, you owed them,
they owned you. As a Church member you remained one, no amount of nays got you
off… so Mom said. But this Sunday we had a break. Usually we attended Bible
study while the grownups were at services. We wore Sunday best, and for me,
that was like singing at the VA when I met Grady.
I had to
come awake for lunch, or dinner as it was called on Sundays. Mr. Holmes said he
was going downtown, or nearly there, to the bunkhouse. Upon his return in the
evening about suppertime, he said it seemed as before on the lot at Beacon and
Lincolnway.
Monday’s
paper had no ads for Cure-All and instead there was a short article about a
local maker of medicinals had gone out of business. End of story. So then I
wanted to say something to Mr. Holmes about his presence being pleasantly felt
day and night if he was in the armchair as I began and ended my day. But how to
say it? Could I prevail upon you to be in your chair at certain times? No,
wouldn’t do.
Ok – Mr.
Holmes, it is good to see you there (pointing) AM and PM. At such times I know
nothing is amiss.
He had a
pipe in his left hand. He stopped bringing it to his teeth. The pipe went in
his coat. He stood up, went behind the chair, grabbed each armrest, and lifted
and rotated the chair some degrees toward my direction. Then he sat down.
Ah, he said,
the pleasure is all mine, and he smiled.
I tipped my
invisible hat to him.