One More Time, New Roads

ONE MORE TIME

  New Roads

  Last in the One More Time serial

  David Lee Howells

  Copyright 2013

  Catching Up

  Sam Carney and Elsie Partlow together have taken a forlorn house that suffered the deaths of its former owners as well as the abandonment of the owner’s young boy and the family dog, from a burglary that went much further into tragedy than the perpetrator had ever imagined.

  It took years for those echoes to die down enough for a new set of hands to take the helm. Once again, a loving couple walked its floors and adorned its walls with framed images of meaning. The house-now-home seemed to rejoice with the return of canine paws once more on its wooden floors, thanks to the presence of Fawn and Jigsaw.

  The fire in its living room’s bosom that once warmed a small family did so once again, but once a week the doors swung wide open to welcome the humans inhabiting the healed home’s neighboring houses. If a domicile could be said to have a human sense, then the Carney/Partlow home would be a poster-home entitled ‘blessed and content’.

  Thoughts of the wedding they had agreed to had been put on the shelf for a short time. That was something not to be hurried but, given their age, not to be put on too far a back burner.

  What was for now more time-dependent was the launching of two small businesses, both of which came under the umbrella of ‘cottage industry’.

  Sam admitted that Elsie’s business baby would certainly be the headliner. Tuesday was quickly approaching and her appointment book was almost full for her three day work week. “BOW TO THE WOW” was the title on the tri-fold brochures that would advertise Elsie’s dog grooming business to Madison, Wisconsin dog owners. But he was content to likely be splitting his time between his fiancée’s ‘salon de la chien’ and his own new/old business of being advisor to those shopping for new and used cars.

  We join our loving couple on the porch that seemed more than anything else to announce they were now a couple. For years they took turns on whose porch they’d enjoy the evening hours. Those two homes, each filled with memories of their previous marriages, had to be lovingly released to let them each form new memories from new residents. Now, their new-traditional porch belonged to both of them. They still took turns, though, on sharing the brewing and goodie-baking. That was old-traditional.

  A Test of Resolve

  Les Rhud turned off the main road onto Trail View Drive, exhilarating in what he felt almost sure would be his future auto purchase. It was a 2004 and seemed to be clean as a whistle and shiny as, well, a whistle. It was one of the Ford Mustang evolutions, so it looked sporty enough to appeal to Les’s ego. He liked to show off to his friends. Les remembered growing up and seeing the first-line Mustang models. He’d heard they had more than their share of electrical and mechanical issues, but, “Damn they were sexy!” Surely this later model would have the bugs worked out by now.

  Les knew Sam’s savvy had saved both him and his wife a chunk of change by leading them away from what might have been some pretty hefty repair bills. He and Mathilda knew what they liked, but both admitted to themselves that shopping for the best actual value was like trying to consult a Ouija board.

  He had gotten Sam’s business announcement in the mail. What was that all about? Was Sam getting greedy in his old age? Maybe his moving into this new place set him back further financially more than he had expected.

  Looking right and left, Les judged most of the houses here to be pretty upscale, given where Sam used to live. That gal he hooked up with used to be a salon owner, he recalled. She must have been the ‘bucks babe’ to swing a deal out here. Well, if Sam wanted to be a kept man to some old biddie, more power to him. There are worse way to spend your last years on earth.

  Sam would give his freebie advice to him as always. Of course, favors might have to be returned, but what would Sam ever want from Les Rhud? His vocation was a clearing house assistant manager to a book supplier to grade and middle school libraries. Maybe he could get Sam a deal on the complete set of Dr. Suess stories.

  “205. There it is. Hey, the lady’s not too bad looking. Look at those two porch petunias. Geeze, look at that house! Crimeny, Sam, see if she has a cute daughter!”

  “Oh, crud. It’s Les Rhud.”

  “Sam, you’re getting better at your poetry. Who’s Les Rhud? He the guy in that sports car that…uh oh.” Elsie saw the dealer plate once the car had gotten around to parking close enough. From what she could see behind the tinted windshield, the driver was no teenager. She made a mental bet that the driver was one of those guys suffering from either a second childhood or a midlife crisis. She wondered for a moment whether there was a difference.

  “Yeah. Uh oh. I helped Les a few times with family auto purchases. Saved them money and headaches, but Les is the type whose gratitude suffers from short term memory loss. Let’s see. He’s pretty heavy and a drama king. Watch this. It’ll be the opening act of Shakespear’s MacBreadth.”

  True to form, Les Rhud huffed and grunted his way out of the Mustang. It wasn’t that there was insufficient room for entering or exiting the vehicle. Les could make a labored performance just getting in or out of his front door…more or Les.

  “Giggle. Oh, he’s good. He’s even got his cheeks to redden. Now Sam. Remember your promise to yourself. If that’s the car he’s shooting for, then he’s no charity case. Stand your ground, hubby to be. I’ll be your cheer leader.”

  Jigsaw and Fawn took a passing interest in the newcomer. There weren’t any canines in that dark-colored dog-ride-machine, and the human didn’t have any visible bags that might contain a doggie treat. The human only barked out in that strange language they use something that sounded like, “Hey Sam! Warm day, huh? So, what do you think of her?”

  Sam felt Elsie’s hand on his. It wasn’t easy to change your stripes and he felt a twinge of guilt over being greedy, or something like that. But her hand pressed away most of his reticence. Well, if there had to be a test case, at least it was Les Rhud, who had trouble being less rude. “Elsie? Why, I think she’s one of the best things to happen in my life.” That got a reassuring hand-squeeze.

  Les wasn’t stupid, but he could be said to be a bit slow in the uptake. He looked at the car. Elsie? Was that a subset brand of Mustangs? If one is patient, bubbles rise to the surface eventually, whether they travel through water or molasses.

  “Oh! I get it. You must be Elsie. I’m Les, Les Rhud. Sam and me we go way back. We’re old friends, always ready to help each other out. Right, Sam old buddy?”

  Here goes. “Sure, Les. I’m so glad you want to help me out with launching my new business. I’ve got Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning slots open. When can I pencil you in?”

  Elsie and both dogs would follow the volleys like it was a cross between a tennis match and a debate club. Six eyes swung to the newcomer.

  “Sure, sure, you gotta pay for your mansion somehow. Look, I’ll bring her back next week for a full going over. I just want a quick opinion. I trust my old bud’s experience in these matters. Just take a moment, I’m sure.”

  Three heads followed the ball to the other court. “Sure, sure. Quick opinion? It’s shiny. You want something that you can take to the bank, or rather will keep you from taking too much out of your bank, make an appointment. Come on, Les. You know from the past I’m well worth it.”

  Master’s words stopped, switch courts, stranger’s words started. “Now, Sam. Is that fair…taking financial advantage of our friendship? I didn’t think you were that kind.”

  Rules of the game changed. Elsie heard and understood the words, and Sam could feel her r
eaction by how her hand tensed around his. That grounded him and prevented him from blurting out a response to the thrown gauntlet. Bless her, he thought. Fawn and Jigsaw sensed the change in attitudes by their owners. Jigsaw brought his ears back, while Fawn gave a very quite growl.

  “Well, Les, sorry to disappoint. We old folk gotta make hay in between naps. You should see what they’re charging me for my Viagra prescription.”

  The dogs witnessed their mistress sputter, then commandeer the entire plate of remaining oatmeal cookies. Maybe they’d get something out of this after all.

  Sam’s response pulled out several rugs from Mr. Rhud. His mind was bouncing like a pinball between the performance medication reference, the lady who the reference made likely applied to, the refusal of Sam to capitulate and give him what he wanted, two suddenly grumpy looking canines, and finally the house that made his own look like a migrant worker shack. The heck with it.

  “Fine, Sam, be that way. Enjoy your friggin Taj Mahal. I like the car and trust the dealer. I don’t need your help.” With that, Mr. Rhud took his appreciated leave. The Ford exited the stage with more vigor than it displayed with its entrance…after Les Rhud woofed and huffed his way into the driver’s seat.

  “I’m proud of you, Sam. Have a cookie. The rest are mine. Viagra?!”

  “No, thanks. With you, I don’t need it. Just the cookie, please.”

  She gave him the plate, keeping one cookie for herself. “Smoothie. Good one, though. But you’re smirking more than you should be. What’s on your mind now, besides the obvious?”

  “Cupping of the drive wheels for one. I spotted it when he parked. That smoke when he upshifted? Not good. There was a tapping from the engine on acceleration. Also not good. Mr. Rhud, if he does buy that car, is going to be in for an object lesson in the value of automotive financial consulting.”

  “Sam, my love, sometimes you can be just a little scary.” She got up and made to bring in the cups and carafe into the house. Before she closed the door, she added, “I like your kind of scary. Bring in the dogs when you’re done with your first reward.” Sam caught Elsie’s wink. Once she was out of sight, he shortened his snack time by giving the last cookies to the dogs.

  Sam had his priorities straight.

  Something wasn’t right. A pleasant evening of being frisky would usually guarantee a full night’s sleep. Elsie was starting to wake up and, other than a feeling of agita and disquiet, there was no obvious reason to leave her dreams behind. Had there been a bad dream?

  There was enough of the sleep state left to allow a better recall of dreams. The plot was already fading to the point of being elusive, but the scene of her standing before her old high school was still mostly fresh. Willing them back to mind, she found herself slipping back to and into them.

  There were alarms going off, distant but growing louder, and the students in the school were leaving the building. So many of them. It looked like a scholastic ant hill that someone had stirred up, as there were boys and girls pouring out of the doors, the windows, and even some who were trying to figure out how to get off the roof.

  She took her cell phone and tried to activate it, but the ON button wasn’t cooperating. What was wrong with that thing? Elsie put it to her ear, but all she could hear over the growing alarm sounds was something like a gentle snoring. She wondered if that was a snooze-alarm app. She put the thing back in her Pretty Pony lunch box (?) and looked for Sam. Where was he? Elsie could see more students gathering before the school, milling about. A fire drill? A fire? Wait, she could make out some of her old teachers. There was Mrs. Dearman and Miss Veldtman, Mrs. Rogers and Mr. Howard. But weren’t they her grade school teachers? This was high school. Maybe someone figured out that it was a good idea for one teacher to follow their class throughout all the grades. It was a thought she remembered having more than once.

  There! She spotted Sam talking to Miss Jubar, whom she remembered from sixth grade. All her teachers were here? No wonder there were so many students. They must have merged all the schools, for the students were still pouring out of the building. What is with those alarms? The school itself, the building, was calling to her to go to Sam, to get his attention. “Go to Sam, Elsie, get his attention, please, there’s trouble, there’s…”

  Elsie became fully awake, but the dream image and feelings remained clear. That didn’t happen often. When it did, it often meant something meaningful had happened.

  Sirens. She heard a louder one suddenly stop, but there were more that seemed far off. She listened. The others were getting louder. Her eyes started to have their input paid attention to. The beautifully large window that normally showed a wonderful vista of the Sugar River valley and local trees were almost dark, like they should be, almost. There was something different; so different that it took a while to register. She could see pulses of lighting on some of the branches, yellow, red, blue.

  The pieces of the puzzle started to snap into place. She had seen that vision before in a different window, a marriage ago. If any sleep had been holding on, it left. Raul! He had been sick that day, very sick. She woke up to his coughing badly and she called 911. It had been in the wee hours, and the ambulance and police came. Those lights through the windows were now on trees instead of neighbor’s houses, but the pattern was similar.

  “Sam! Wake up!”

  “Hmph? Wha? Elsie? I was having the strangest dream. Wait…”

  “It’s no dream, Sam. Something’s wrong. Look out the window. Those are emergency vehicle lights, out front I think. The sirens woke me up (did they?). A loud one stopped, but you can hear the others coming.”

  Sam bounded out of bed and flipped on the light. Elsie took his cue and opened up the closet sliding door and tossed him his robe while pulling hers out as well. They both jammed on the slippers and headed for the front door, Fawn and Jigsaw in hot pursuit and whining. The excitement had amplified their morning outing needs.

  “Sam, go check it out. I’ll put the dogs out back.” Elsie clucked her ‘going out’ sequence. That bit of normalcy in this unusual human flurry of activity was reassuring to both pets, so they willingly followed Elsie to the back door. But it was dark. That was unusual for morning activities and both dogs halted. They felt it, too. Something was not right. “Go on, you two. It’ll be all right, Fawn, Jigsaw, go on.”

  That was enough, and bladder needs took over their caution circuits. In sympathy, Elsie had to make a very hurried pit stop as well before joining Sam to see what he had discovered. The front door was open with just the screen door still shut. The flashing lights were much brighter and the siren sounds were tripled in sound levels. Sam was there, waiting for her, watching down the road.

  “Elsie, look.”

  She stepped outside and welcomed his arm around her. About two hundred feet down the street were at least four vehicles that had their light bars going. Two were police cars, one looked like a station-wagon and another was some kind of fire truck…smaller than anything used for putting out fires, though. From the sound of it, more yet were on their way.

  The flashing lights made it difficult to focus on what was going on, but the small fire department truck had an elevated light bar that focused enough illumination on one house to make it clear where everyone’s interest was aimed.

  There were people, neighbors, black shadows whose outlines were strobed in the colors of red, blue and yellow like some hellish discotheque. No one was dancing. There were voices, radio voices. You could tell with the clicking sounds before and after transmission and the tone change that radios gave their reports. Radio sentences were clipped, brief, to the point, but with an odd matter-of-factness quality.

  “Sam, can you see whose house it is? I don’t see any fire.”

  “No. I don’t know who lives there. Come on. The dogs will be ok in the back for now. Let’s go see what’s going on.”

  Minu
tes later, the engaged couple were merging into the pattern of whispering milling, trying to find someone who knew what the story was. Visual cues helped pare down the possibilities, since no flames were in evidence. There wasn’t even a whisp of smoke illuminated by the spotlights that three emergency vehicles now had trained on the yard and home front.

  Men in yellow jackets and pants that had reflective linings either moved about or engaged in their own inner circle gatherings, waiting to be instructed to so something. Anne and Gary D’Angelo, their immediate neighbors, wound up being the main couple to stick with Elsie and Sam.

  “That’s the Ricks’ place. Ben and Hazel. Retired couple. God, I hope there wasn’t a heart attack or something.” Gary’s son, Scott, mowed lawns for the neighborhood homes. Most of the people he worked for were either retirees or couples who were holding down too many jobs.

  His wife added, “Very nice couple. They always had either iced tea or lemonade for Scott when he mowed. They didn’t have any health issues, did they?”

  Gary didn’t recall any, but said that you never knew when people got older. He immediately regretted the utterance, given the age of their neighbors. Sam and Elsie didn’t respond. It was a statement of truth, so what could they do but bow to the reality? Sam felt moved to nudge the communion beyond the awkward moment.

  “Yeah, I hear that. Every morning, Elsie and I celebrate waking up, then go back to sleep.”

  “We do nothing of the kind. Well, we do celebrate waking…wait, what did you mean by…oh, dear.” She had taken the obscure innuendo and highlighted it clearly for its originally intended meaning. Sam was most pleased, despite what it would cost him later in punitive nibble fees. “Sam, you are incorrigible.”

  The D’Angelos managed to laugh a bit, which lightened the mood a little. The scene didn’t allow for much more than that. It was chilly enough to where the men were holding their women close for mutual warmth, with their breath just barely visible in the wee-hour air. The air was all the chillier for the longer term residents, for they had stood in a similar crowd, years ago; the night of the murder of the Thurgesons.

  Jack Russell, who actually did own a dog whose breed mimicked his name, recognized Gary and Anne next to the ‘new folk’, whom he also recognized as hosts of the weekly Romp gathering. Jack was single, nowadays. His ex complained that he was as wired as his dog. “Got the dope. Overheard stuff on their radios. Carbon monoxide warning. Furnace malfunction. The Ricks are OK, they think. They’ll be coming out in a sec. There they are. One of them, anyway. That’s Hazel. Oxygen mask, typical treatment. They’ll be off for the ER. There comes Ben. Same story. Probably be fine. I’ll go spread the word.” Off went Jack.

  Elsie whistled. “Sam, you ever hear that a pet and their owner start resembling each other?”

  “Yeah. His pooch…oh, yeah, ‘Octane’, moves like Jack talks.”

  Gary sadly nodded as Anne added, “I’m afraid so. His ex, Maddy, poor girl. She tried to get him on meds and finally wound up taking them herself. Could you imagine a house full of their babies? It would be like giant fleas in diapers.”

  Elsie asked, “Sam? We have alarms in the house, don’t we?”

  “We do, Dear. But they just screech with heat, smoke, or carbon monoxide detection. The furnace was just checked, so it should be good for a decade or three longer. Still…Gary, Anne? Are you connected to one of those monitored alarm companies?”

  Anne answered, “We were considering it, but we’re decided on it now, aren’t we, DEAR?”

  Sam asked who most of the locals used. Gary said that most of the window signage monitoring companies left indicated was Madison Monitoring. “They charge about $30 a month, but will install all the electronics and equipment for free.”

  All four looked at the ambulances leaving, each with a member of the Ricks family on board. Thirty dollars a month didn’t seem like an unreasonable expenditure at that moment. Sam, ever the action step spirit, cupped his hands and called out that the D’Angelos and he were going to call Madison Monitoring tomorrow morning, and would anyone else want to get in on a group request. By the time the desire to get back home overcame all other considerations (bathroom needs added to the incentive), Sam had four other couples add their name to the call list…and Jack Russell’s.

  Sleep resisted Sam and Elsie. There was just the blush of dawn in the east-facing window, gently putting the stars to bed, when Elsie sighed. Sam cradled Elsie closer and let her know he was awake and listening.

  “Gary was right, you know. Old people never know when they’ll stop seeing the ones they love.”

  “I don’t feel old. Do you?”

  “No, Sam, not inside of me. But there’s a stranger who hides behind the window in the bathroom over the sink. I don’t know who she is, but she’s wrinkled and her hair’s mostly gray. And don’t get me started on what’s sagging.”

  Sam almost made the error of attempted humor by singing the chorus of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariots’, but a saving grace of sanity stayed his childishness. Still, it helped affirm that he, too, didn’t seem to fit into the mindset he had always associated with ‘old people’. Still, he had to be himself…so he compromised. “Your mirror-stranger’s sagging is just ornamental. The sagging of my stranger’s image represents a major loss of function.”

  It worked. Elsie snorted and shook him a little. “Oh, you. Sam, you do fine in that department. Well, we don’t have yesterday anymore, and tomorrow never gets here, does it? Guess we’ll just have to be happy right now.”

  With that, the couple snuggled closer and began to relax into a post-excitement nap when Sam’s eyes popped open. “The dogs! We left them out back!” Sam tossed off the covers and made for the back door.

  Elsie didn’t move. She just laid there, wondering if she had just witnessed a clear warning of senility in both of them. Maybe, she thought, they had better get a move on with the marriage while they both could still remember who each other was.