Days 354 and 355

Writing exercise

…

Your protagonist has just been retired from a solitary, action-packed life that had no room for family, friends, partners or holidays.

They have to reassimilate by thinking about prior family life, how they used to relax, relating the fish out of water start to, in the end, finding a way to live in a world they have no clue existed.

….

“I’m sorry,” Barnaby said in his usual matter-of-fact manner, “but this is the end. You have done your bit. Now it’s time to move on.”

Sitting next to Barnaby in the back of the limousine, I could not believe what I was hearing. “This is the end?”

“No. Just the end of your service. You have gone above and beyond. We are grateful, very grateful. But now it’s time to reintegrate back in the world.

“Where are we?”

“In the city we picked you up from all those years ago.”

“Cinnamon Falls?”

The linousine slowed, and then stopped. The shades went up on all the windows of the car, and I could see a park, the bandstand, and a row of dead-looking rose bushes. There was a layer of snow on the ground, and piled up by the side of the road.

“Your hometown.”

Was it? I was sure I came from some small backwater place, but it was so long ago, and I’d been to so many places, what I was looking at was as alien as if they had dropped me off on Mars.

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like anywhere I’d come from.”

“Well, our records don’t lie. You have your ID, which is your real name, documents to prove it, and a bank account with enough funds to tide you over till you find a job.”

“Job?”

“Yes. You know. A place where you go, toil for eight hours and then go home. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Impossible. You’ve been trained to be anyone, anywhere, and do anything. I have complete faith in you.”

“Will I see you again, anyone again?”

“No. When you get out of the car, that’s it. We never existed. Now, it’s time to go.”

I could see there was no arguing with Barnaby. He had said, a long time ago, this time would come. It had. I opened the door. A cold blast of air came in.

I shrugged. “Thanks for the ride.”

I got out, took a last look at the old man, then closed the door. I watched the car drive off until it turned the corner and disappeared.

It was the first day of the rest of my life.

…

Cinnamon Falls was one of those small, forgettable little towns scattered about the Midwest.  My parents had been ranchers, their parents before them and so on.

Other family members were shopkeepers, soldiers on the frontier, and immigrants before that. 

Now, I had no idea who they were.

My parents had died very recently, my older brother, Sherman, and his wife, Madeleine, the proverbial childhood sweetheart he’d known from grade school, who were ranchers now, were the only family I knew.

The rest had died out or moved on.

I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the bandstand.  My first kiss was under that roof, a girl called Amy Deacon, the minister’s daughter.

He was a fire and brimstone preacher of the old school who castigated his flock every Sunday about sins, and the wrath of God.  Everyone was too scared not to turn up.

I wondered what had happened to her.  Married to Archie, her prom date no doubt.  I was going to ask her but somehow never got around to it.  She was my first love, the one that really hurt when it didn’t work out.

The first flakes of snow that had been chasing us into town started to fall, and it was going to get cold.  There was no time to look up whether Sherman, my brother, was still on the farm; that was a tomorrow job.

Today I’d get a room at the hotel and decide what to do tomorrow.

The Falls Motel was old and decrepit when I left 20 years ago, and hadn’t improved except for a coat of paint.

The sign had a missing ‘l’ in Falls, and the no vacancy sign had no ‘ancy’.  There were three cars outside the 20 rooms, which meant it was not full.

Darkness was setting in as I reached the front door, and it opened with a screech from the hinges.  Perhaps that was how the receptionist knew there was a customer.

Or not.  After a minute, I banged on the desk bell, the one that had a handwritten sign that said ‘ring for service’.  Not immediate service anyway.

A girl about 15 or so came out of the back room, swaying to music that I couldn’t hear.  Ear buds.

She pulled one out and said, “What do you want?”

The obvious, I thought.  “You do have rooms for the night, don’t you?”

She looked at me like I was from another planet.  “Duh.  You want a room?”

“Please.”

She shoved a book in front of me with a pen without a lid.  “Sign in.”

I put my name and no address because I didn’t have one, then scribbled a signature.

“Card or cash.”

“Cash.”  I pulled out my wallet.

“A hundred bucks.”

It was a bit more than the last time I stayed there.

She slapped a key with the number 10 attached to it.  “You want breakfast, the diner’s 200 yards up the road.  Leave by 10 am.”

By the time I got to the door, she was gone.

The snow was falling harder by the time I reached the door.  Two rooms I passed that had cars out the front had TVs blaring. 

When I opened the door, I was greeted by a combination of disuse and disinfectant.  It could be worse.  It could be better.

The bathroom had soap and shampoo, the bed had clean sheets, and the TV had CNN.  It was as much as anyone could hope for.

…

Like any time in a new or different city, I woke slightly disoriented.  It took a minute or two to remember who I was and why I was there.  Not on an operation, but as a cast-off.

It was still dark, but early, about the time I usually woke.  The snow had stopped, but the cold had become more intense.  I put the air conditioner on, but it only blew cold air.

I dressed and headed up to the diner.

It was once owned by a relative, but it was clear that someone else owned it now.  None of my relatives was Chinese.  I sat at the counter, and a middle-aged lady who looked like one of my grade teachers served coffee.

There were a half dozen customers, some sitting in booths, and the chef behind the servers was looking busy.  He shoved two plates of fried stuff on the servery and banged a bell.  The middle-aged lady collected and delivered them to a man and a woman in a booth.

They had been arguing quietly as I came in and were now looking at me.  Townspeople trying to identify a stranger, perhaps.

The middle-aged lady returned.  “From outta town?”

“Yes and no.  I’ll have the special.”

It didn’t say what it was, but it was one of three items on the menu board above the servery.

She wrote it down and gave it to the chef.

The coffee was oddly good.

A police car pulled up outside the diner in a specially marked parking space and a Deputy got out.  He was slightly older than me, bigger and stronger and in his tailored uniform looked good.

Ben Frasher.  Dad was a sheriff; his dad was a sheriff, it was how things worked.  Ben, though, had been a wild youth, so it was a surprise to see he had followed in his father’s footsteps.

He adjusted the uniform after getting out, holstered the gun, looked at his reflection on the car window, and then came in.

A younger girl, a waitress, comes bounding out of the back.  “Deputy Frasher, the usual?”

He smiled.  “Of course, Daisy.”  A nod to the middle-aged lady, a quick look around at the customers, and then stopping at me.

I’d changed considerably in 20 years, and he might not recognise me.

“Jack Dawson?”  There was incredulity in his tone.

“It might not be.”

“But there again, it might.  When did you get back?”

To him, it seemed like it was only yesterday I left town.

“Last night.”

He came over and sat on the seat next to mine.  I would have preferred he hadn’t but he was the law.

“Been home?”

“No.”

“Going home?”

“Depends.”

My brother was either going to welcome me or shoot me.  He had threatened the latter when I told him I had to go.  It wasn’t for the reasons he thought it was, and definitely not the lies certain people spread after I was gone.

20 years was a long time, maybe they’d forgotten, but knowing this town, I doubted it.

“You won’t be welcome.”

An understatement.  “It’s been a long time.”

“I can take you, if you like.  It might help prevent trouble.”

It might, or I might not get there.  The Frashers, father and sons, never liked us.  “I’ve got to collect a car and take myself.  Thanks for offering.”

The young waitress put a takeaway cup of coffee on the counter in front of him and smiled.

He nodded in her direction.  “Thanks, Daisy.”  He picked it up and walked slowly towards the door, then stopped and turned.  “No trouble.  This is a peaceful town now.”

…

It was odd that he thought that I would be the one to start any trouble when, on the first instance, in what could only be described as an ambush, father and son Frasher came after my brother and me based on a lie.

And if anything, the only one in our family who had the right to pick up a shotgun and use it, it would be me, not my brother.  We both knew who the problem was and who took the fall, but it was how they spun the story after I left.

I was never expected to come back.  I never expected that I would be deposited back in my hometown. 

Maybe Barnaby didn’t know what he had done, but that was hard to believe when he often bragged that he knew everything and could be trusted.  This was just the sort of stunt he would pull, either as a test or an active scenario.

It was not a test.

It was a scenario that was designed to take a problem off his hands.

The middle-aged server dropped a takeaway coffee on the counter in front of me.  “It’s cold out, and you’ll need it.”

“You weren’t one of my grade teachers, were you?  Miss Penman?”  I thought I recognised her.

She smiled.  “My mother.  You’re Jack Dawson.  She always said you were one of the good ones.  I didn’t believe for a moment you were the one who burned the Frasher barn down.  They haven’t improved over the years, doubt they ever will.  You were lucky to escape this place.”

She picked up the empty plate.  “Don’t hang around.  Go see your brother, then leave quietly.  The town is not the same any more.”

I’d seen that expression before, many times.  Fear.  And sadness.

“I’m not planning on staying.  I wasn’t planning on visiting, but sometimes shit happens.”

“That it does.”

…

The car rental place had three cars out front.  The storefront had been recently painted, and the windows looked new.

It looked to me like they’d been replaced, and a closer look, before going in showed glass fragments inside, under the ledge.

Intimidation?

The man behind the counter was not a local.  The car company was a branch of a well known brand.  He looked up as I came in.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a car booked.”

“Name?”

“Dawson.”

He looked at his computer and frowned.  “This tells me you cancelled the booking.”

“Ten minutes ago?”

He looked at the screen.  He shook his head and didn’t look at me.

“Frasher called you.  Which car was set aside?”

“The red Acura.”

I held out my hand.  “Don’t mess with the people who made the booking.  Frasher is about to find that out.”

He took the key off the wall rack and gave it to me.  “There’s no excess if you have an accident.  Try to return it in the same condition as you picked it up.  A full tank of gas would be appreciated.  Have a nice day, Mr Dawson.”

Before I got in the car, I looked up and down the street.  Next block, tucked in behind a Ford, was a cruiser.  Watching and waiting.

The Frashers were worried.  My return caused them more angst than my family simply because  I was the one who knew the truth.

…

I got in the car, pulled out of the parking space and onto the main road that passed through the town, and then on to the cross road five miles outside of town.

The police cruiser followed me, keeping pace.

At the intersection where the lane to what used to mt home and the main road in and out of town, two cruisers and a large Suburban, the vehicle of choice for the current sheriff, blocked the three roads.

Another cruiser joined the one behind me, and when I stopped, about five cars from the road block, they stopped a similar distance behind me.

An odd thought popped into my head: if I had a gang, they could be robbing the main street shops right now because all the police were here.

I typed a message on the phone and sent it to the one number in my contact list, then got out of the car.  I did not have a weapon like I would usually, so it was an unusual feeling.

It is, I thought, what it is.  not the time to be worrying about consequences.

The sheriff and his mentors did likewise; those other than the sheriff waited by their cars, weapons drawn but not pointing them at me.

Yet.

I walked to the front of my car and leaned against the bonnet, hands where they could see them.  Deputies in this country had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. 

The sheriff walked five steps towards me and stopped.

“Sheriff Frasher,” I said in my most congenial tone.  What came out sounded like I was being strangled.

“Jack.”  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if his boots were new and hurting his feet.  Then, “You need to turn around and go back to the airport, and back to where you came from.  This town doesn’t need or want you.”

“I think that’s more about you not wanting me here, Sheriff.”

“I want what’s best for the town.  That means not having you here to stir up trouble.”

I looked around at the deputies by their vehicles.  Three of them were Frashers.  I guess anyone could be a Deputy these days.

“I’m not here to stir up trouble.  I’m just here to see my brother, but with all this attention, I have to wonder why you don’t want me to see him.”

“He might not want to see you.”

True, but the sheriff could not know that for sure.  “Well, be that as it may, I will still be visiting my brother.”

“Just… ” His cell phone started ringing. 

I saw him look at the screen with a perplexed expression before answering.  The stiffening of the shoulders and the almost standing to attention told me this was neither a conversation he wanted, but, most of all, wasn’t expecting.

To tell the truth, neither was I, nor at least not as soon as this.  But then Barnarby always knew how to put the wind up people, people whom others never dared to try.

I heard the sheriff distinctly say no several times, and ‘of course’ once near the end of the conversation.

A few seconds later, it was over.  After another long, mournful glare at the screen, he put the phone back in his pocket.

Then he looked at me with a curious expression. 

“Just who the hell are you?”

“No one.  I’m sure if you looked me up, you would find no trace of me from the day I left this town till I arrived back yesterday.”

“Then how…”

“That is a long story.”

A sudden gust of wind came from the north, bringing with it the promise of more snow.  It was not the time to be standing around talking.

I shivered, partly because of the cold, but mostly from a momentary memory of another time, in another country, with similar people, people obsessed with wealth and power.

Frasher was either too stupid or too stubborn to let this go.

“Enlighten me.”

I sighed.  Light snow started to fall out of the sky.  The wind picked up, and a blizzard was in the offing.  I left in a blizzard; to me, it was an omen.

“Giles Bentley, Sheriff.”  I held up my cell phone.  “You have a choice.  Now.  In five minutes, you won’t.  I’m sure you and your deputies have better things to do.”

He still didn’t look happy, but then, once I mentioned the name that had not been mentioned before, he didn’t have much of a choice.  And given his expression, he knew he had overstepped.

“Wrap it up, boys, and get back to work.  Now.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.  The snow was coming down much thicker and settling on everything.  In another half hour, we would be snowed in.

I got back in my car and started the engine.  By the time I was ready to drive, all but the Sheriff’s vehicle had gone.  A last look at me, he got in his vehicle and moved to the side of the road.

As I drove past, I could see him on his cell phone, talking and gesturing, like a man who knew his time was up.

…

Everybody had a piper they had to pay.  Frasher was no exception.  Barnaby was no exception.  Neither was I.  There was always someone above our pay grade pulling strings.

My father made a mistake 20 years ago, and I paid the price for that mistake.  No one but my father and Giles Bentley knew exactly what it was, and Frasher had been the one to oversee it.

Lies had been told by all three to cover it up.

I was never supposed to return to Cinnamon Falls, but Frasher senior and my father had both died recently, and Barnaby decided that I should not be punished any more.

It was the subject of a text I received just as I was about to finally get to sleep.  Typical poor timing that was Barnaby’s melodic operandi.

I hadn’t been retired.  I had been released, my sentence over.  My troubles were over. 

I drove those last five miles, wondering if I could ever just close my eyes and sleep peacefully, the sort of sleep where you weren’t expecting trouble, where you no longer had to look over your shoulder.  A 20-year habit that would be hard to break.

I drove under the sign that announced you were entering the Excelsior Ranch, the Dawson family home for over a hundred and fifty years, reputedly won by Alexander Dawson in a card game.

Such stories were told and retold until they became just that, stories with no basis in fact; they just sounded good on paper.

The thing is, it was true, we had the piece of paper, signed by the hapless Bentley, the gambler and wastrel relative, who lost it in a card game, a document witnessed by a Frasher.

It was a story that changed depending on who told it.  Now it didn’t matter.  All promises and obligations were discharged.  The Excelsior belonged to the Dawsons.  The County Sheriff would always be a Frasher, and the Bentleys they had a presidential candidate that didn’t need a scandal.

I felt sorry for Sheriff Frasher.  Well, maybe not.  The Grashers always were dumb as dog shit.

I stopped the car at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the verandah where Sherman and Madeleine were waiting.

I got out, and for a moment the snow stopped swirling.  Long enough for me to get up the stairs and under cover.

“Jack.”  Sherman held out his hand.

“Sherman.”  I took it, and we shook hands like two men sealing a deal.

Then it was hugs all round until I saw Amy Deacon standing back.  She smiled and said, in her usual laconic manner, “You are a sight for sore eyes, young Jack.”

I was home, once and for all.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025