The Hunt Chronicles: Volume 1 (27 page)

Four weeks later, I
was sitting on a cold examination table in a chilly, sterile room staring at a
poster of what my digestive system would look like if I was twenty years
younger.  Dr.
Sellars
came in with a smile on
her face and a chart in her hand.  It was the first time we had seen each
other since the funeral two weeks ago.  She patted me on the shoulder and
sat next to me, putting her hand on my knee.  “So, how are things with
you?”

“Terrible,” I
mumbled.  “The phone won’t stop
ringing,
the news
people won’t leave me alone.  My entire life is ruined.  And now I
have this constant stomach pain.  I feel like I’m falling apart.” 
Emily smiled and stared at the poster of the digestive track with me.

“Do you know what’s
not on that diagram?”  I shrugged my shoulders.  “The melancholy
muscles aren’t there.”  I turned to her, bewildered.

“The
what?”

“You know that pain
you feel when you hear bad news, or when you know you’re about to hear
it?  That sinking you feel when you realize you’re about to spend another
night alone?  That heaviness in your shoulders when you look at your own
cold bed and realize you’d rather sleep anywhere but there?”

“Yeah, I know those
pains.”

“Well,” she said,
sliding off the table and facing me, “that’s what you’ve got and I think you
know why.”  I looked at her, then rolled my eyes and looked off to the
wall. 
You know what she is going to say
Little Reevan said. 
I sighed.  Emily came close and put her hand under my chin.  She
turned my head to face hers, and came nose to nose with me.  “You have to
talk to him,” she said softly.

“No,
absolutely not!”
  I shouted
stubbornly.

“Fine,” she said,
standing straight and heading for the door.  “There’s nothing I can
prescribe for you to take the pain away, Reevan.  There’s only one man who
can help you now, and you know it.”  She opened the door and stepped
outside.  I watched her as she walked out and then quickly stepped back in
again.  “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said.  She reached inside her lab
coat pocket and pulled out a closed fist.  She came closer and spilled the
contents onto the examination table; a dried up orchid with five petals attached,
and a sixth that was not.

I looked at her,
dumbfounded.  “You still have that?”

“Of course,” she
said.  “I found this little bugger stuck to the bottom of my purse after
you left that day,” she said as she held up the one brown petal not attached to
the rest.  “I figured you’d get a kick out of that.”  I took it from
her, stared at it,
then
dropped it next to the others.

“So where did the
other one
come
from? 
The one
in Arnold’s office?”
  I asked.  She shrugged indifferently.

“I have no
clue.  Could have been dropped there any time, I guess.”

“Well,” I said with
a trembling lower lip.  “Well, I’m sorry about, you know…”

“I forgive you,” she
said before I could finish.  “Now was that so hard?”  I thought about
the question for a moment.

“No, it
wasn’t.  In fact, it feels pretty good,” I replied.

“It can feel
better,” she said, and walked out.  I looked down at the dead plant
sitting next to me.  Then I grabbed my coat and ran to my car.

“I’m not leaving
until you open the door!”  I shouted.  His car was in the drive, so I
knew he was in there.  “Come on, Leon!  Open up!”

After a good five
minutes of pounding, Leon finally opened the door.  I assume it was Leon,
because the door swung open even though there was no one standing on the other
side.  I stepped in and stared at Leon’s back as he walked into his living
room and stared at the television.  “Say what you came to say and get
out,”
  He
sniped.

“I’m fine, thank
you, and you?”  He didn’t reply, and he didn’t laugh.

I sat down on the
couch next to him and looked at his hairy left ear.  “I’m sorry,
Leon.  I really am.”  He promptly turned off the television and
twisted, showing me more of his back.

“For
what?”
  He said.  I
rolled my eyes.  After a moment, I mumbled something inaudible.  “I’m
sorry?  They can’t hear you in the back.”

“I’m sorry I accused
you of killing your boss,” I finally said.  Leon turned to me and looked
me in the face for the first time in weeks.  I anxiously looked back at
him, looking for some sign of forgiveness.  “Don’t tell me I was the
first,” I said, and instantly regretted the sarcasm. 
How
inappropriate! 
Little Reevan barked. 
No wonder no one likes
you
.

Leon didn’t turn his
back to me again.  He didn’t hoist me up by my collar and toss me through
his front door.  He just stared back at me, his eyes twitching in their
sockets.   “If I only had a nickel for every time that happened,” he
finally said, and I started to laugh.  My heart was pounding, but it felt
so good.  I could feel my melancholy muscle pains easing, and then
disappearing altogether.

Leon stuck out his
hand and I gladly shook it.  “It hasn’t been the same not hearing you
bitch about something every ten minutes,” he said.

“It’s not the same
bitching to the dog every ten minutes, either,” I retorted.  “Did you see
me on TV down at town hall last week?  Mayor Ruskin thanked me for my
service to the town and gave me the k-”

“The key to the
town, yeah, I know.”  He stood up and smiled.  He walked around me
towards his kitchen.

“So you did watch
it.”

“Nope!”
  He said flatly as he disappeared behind me into
the kitchen.  I sat there, perplexed.

“But if you didn’t
see me on TV then how did you
kn
-”

“I was there,” he
said, poking his head around the corner.  Butterflies threw up somewhere
in my stomach.  I felt so happy and so overwhelmed; it was the best
feeling I had felt in a long time.  Leon disappeared again.  I
dropped to his couch and stared at the black screen on the television. 
Leon entered and handed me a can of store brand soda.  He took his place
next to me and we sat in silence for a few moments, each sipping our respective
pops.  “So, what’s next for The Great Reevan Hunt?”  He asked. 
I turned to him.  Then my eyebrows eventually perked up and I replied with
a smile.

“
Watcha
got?

Two months later,
Leon and I were sitting at my kitchen table, and there was a For Sale sign in
my front yard.  “California?”  Leon asked.

“Too many weird
people,” I replied, tossing Niki a bit of sausage.

“New York?”

“Too
many rude people.”

“Oh, I know. 
Florida?”  Leon said with a smile.

“Too many old
people,” I answered.  Leon gave me a
have you looked in the mirror?
look
.  “I’m old, but not Florida old.”

“Are you sure you
want to move, Reevan?  You’ve been in Pendleton a long time.”

“Yeah, I’m sure
Leon.  The past few months have taught me a lot about myself, and I found
out I don’t like a lot of it.  I’m tired of spending my days on a couch in
front of a TV, reminiscing about the days when I was a valuable member of society. 
I need a change.”

“But you have
changed!”  He exclaimed. 
“For God’s sake, Reevan.
 
You’ve been walking Niki two miles every morning.  You’re up at nine
o’clock trimming your hedges or sweeping your garage or pruning your fig
tree.  You’re doing great, Reevan.  You’ve changed your routines,
isn’t that enough?”  I looked at my friend across the table, and I sensed
that he already knew what my answer would be.  I said it, if for no other
reason than I thought he really needed to hear it.

“No, it’s not. 
I’m not content cutting my grass, and I’m not content spending my days
alone.  I’m also not crazy about news people going through my
garbage.  Pendleton has been good to me, and I’ll miss it very much, but I
think this chapter of my life is over.  For the first time in my life, I’m
looking forward to the next one.”  Leon finally smiled, and by doing so
proved I wasn’t insane.

“Texas?”  Leon
said after a while.

“Too
many people with guns.”

“Canada?”

“Too
many French people.”

“France?”

“Too
many American-hating French people.”

“Reevan, this is
ridiculous!  There must be one place you’ve always wanted to go, isn‘t
there?”  I looked at Leon then, the way Niki looks at me when I say the
words or cookie or sausage.  I finally smiled and answered him.

“Actually, there
is.”

That night, for the
first time in who knows how long, I slept in my bed.  It was weird at
first, like when you tell someone you’ll call them and you never do, only to
bump into them somewhere else.  It felt like I was having an affair with
my bed behind my recliner’s back.

I walked through my
entire day as I lay there staring up at the ceiling.  I replayed my walk
with Niki, and then my trip to the library to return some books and then my
trip to
Dunlowe
Caterers.  Simon’s father
encouraged me to stop by anytime for a free meal, and I was in downtown, so I
did.  Simon looked well, and his dad was wearing a smile I didn’t think
father’s like him possessed.  I remember that when
I got home and could
smell mom’s sauce
..
  The whole house was filled
with the smells are mom’s triumph over the culinary arts.  I threw my coat
over a chair at the kitchen table and hugged my mom from behind as she stirred
something in a pot on the stove.  “Wash up,” she had said.  “You’re
just in time.”  I did as I was told and headed for the bathroom. 

Moments later, I
heard my mother scream in terror, and something heavy hit the ground.  I
rushed back to the kitchen to see my mother on the hardwood floor, flat on her
back, still in her apron.  Something small, black and furry was crawling
its way up her arm.  I ran to my mother and clutched at the tiny beast,
grabbing it and flinging it across the room.  It felt so weird, fuzzy but
rubbery like a tire with hair.  I put my mother’s head on my lap and
called her name.  I looked across the room to see her attacker, a tiny
bat, stumbling its way across the floor.  Bats in the New England weren’t
uncommon, but I guess finding one in your son’s pocket isn’t as common as you
might think.

My mother awoke
slowly to my smiling face.  She sat up and clawed at her own arm, as if
she could still feel the small creature on her skin.  She immediately
turned to me and slapped me across the face.  The feeling of red hot pain
was a first.  I covered my burning cheek with my hand and stared at my
mother who was breathing heavily. 

We both sat there
on the floor, our breathing slowly returning to normal.  I didn’t cry; the
pain was there but not the emotion.  My mother finally turned to me, and I
thought she was going to slap me again.  Instead, she put her arm around
me and pulled me close.  She put her hand on my cheek and I put my head on
her shoulder.  There, on the floor, we began to laugh.  My father
walked in a few seconds later and looked at us both like we had lost our minds.

I helped my
mother off the floor, and minutes later my father was laughing at the dinner
table as we told him the tale. Somewhere in the living room, a tiny, harmless
fruit bat had gotten comfortable underneath our couch.  We wouldn’t think
about him again that day until my sister Madeline came home from work and
screamed when something tried to climb up her leg.

I woke up the next
morning with an irresistible smile.  I rolled over to find myself
face-to-face with Niki, who was apparently completely on board with my new plan
of sleeping in an actual bed.  She licked me across the face, and I
laughed out loud as I wiped away a layer of slimy love.  I started
scratching her tummy, and she plopped her head atop my pillow.  “Big move
coming up, girl,” I said to her.  Her tail flopped against my legs. 
“Big move, big drive, at least two days on the road, I figure.  The good
news is I have a great story to tell you on the way.”

Not long after that,
I was on the road to my new home, and my new lease on life.  With my only
friend next to me and all of my worldly possessions hitched behind me, I
couldn’t help but think of something I had read years before.  Then I
couldn’t help but think that Arnold Medley would have appreciated it very much:

The most
beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

It is
the source of all true art and science.

Albert
Einstein