III. Boy
There are certain pleasures in life that occupy the flow of one's thoughts like flower petals along a rocky stream. They are cast on the twisting currents of the mind's endless passage for sensation and emotion, presenting themselves at random moments as bright slivers of color on an otherwise dreary afternoon, or as keepsakes, set adrift in another time, returned to the reaching peninsulas of memory to be picked up, examined, loved, and then, ultimately, set adrift again.
Scott Wesley Bremman loved to drive in the rain. He loved the sound of tires on wet pavement. He took comfort in the purr of an engine, well-tuned, inducting moisturized air. He was soothed and somehow reassured by the steady, mechanical sweep of windshield wipers as they cleared away the water to reveal the colorless landscape beyond.
Without color, but not without value. While the terrain beyond--the open fields between Norwalk and Sandusky--looked nothing at all the way it did in late Autumn, Scott was nevertheless reminded of the poem My November Guest by Robert Frost. My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, its author had lamented at one point.
As it so happened, she was.
When the brown-haired, dark-complexioned girl sitting in the passenger seat had called him from out of nowhere, he’d been unable to speak. This was a far cry from how things used to be. Once, he had told this girl he loved her. His delivery had been far from eloquent, yet when Ingrid Semeska's voice came through the receiver, telling him hello, he wanted nothing more than to run to wherever she was at and hold on for all life was worth.
He’d stammered at first. Fumbled greetings were exchanged. Ingrid then gave him a sketchy outline of her predicament, and he drove to Norwalk to fetch her. She was waiting at Dairy Mart, across the street from the phone booth from which she'd called, soaking wet and shivering.
Those shivers, at least, had passed, what with the car's heater going. But in glancing at her from time to time, Scott could see Ingrid felt very alone and very frightened. Her eyes told the tale--they remained fixed on the lights of Sandusky, as if exhausted from too much input. There were clues in her hands as well. Her fingers kept opening and closing, opening and closing. What, Scott wondered, was she wishing she could grasp? Finally, it was in the little sighs she fetched from time to time. Of the three, these were the most heart-wrenching. They were the sighs of a girl who wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.
"I don't want to get you into trouble," she insisted for the fifth time. "I'm so sorry about this, Scott."
"I want to help," Scott managed. "Have you eaten? We could stop at any one of these places coming up on the strip."
"I haven't. But I'd like to put on some dry clothes before anything else."
"I'll order something in. Chinese. How are your chopstick skills?"
"I make my living holding long, slender objects, Scott." She paused. "Oh God, I set myself up with that line.”
Scott smiled.
“Shut up,” Ingrid said. “Drive.”
They had reached Sandusky. Its proximity to Lake Erie made it something of a summer tourist town. They rode past a great many hotels and restaurants. There was the mall, a water park, a putt-putt golf course. There were pizza parlors and used car lots, ice cream stands and beer gardens.
Scott's apartment was off Columbus Avenue, at a house that had once been a bed and breakfast but now served as a triplex. They went inside. He showed Ingrid where the bathroom was; she thanked him and closed the door to get changed. Scott then went to the telephone. By a little after six, they were both in the kitchen eating fried rice with baby corn. Some further desultory conversation was made over the meal. Ingrid asked what the neighborhood was like--dangerous, or just vaguely unsettling? Scott allowed it was the latter, albeit most of the time it was perfectly safe.
"You're too close to Broadway," the other remarked.
"It only gets ugly at night. And even then you have to be way down by the Ford plant before you need a gun."
She chuckled. "Good to know. Are you working near here?"
He nodded, chewing. "At the Blue Jay Valu. Meat department. Patty grinder and clean-up boy. Lackey in other words."
Ingrid's gaze went to the living room. "I like the apartment."
"I got lucky with it. The landlord is the friend of a friend of a friend."
They went on eating, until Scott with tactful care shifted the conversation to the offensive. He asked how the last two years had been for her. This earned a shrug from the other side of the table. The ruse did not fool him; back during the final, dying days of their romance, Ingrid had often used this same shrug. Any question of weight would trigger it. Nothing's wrong, no problem. When she gave it this time, he decided to press a little further.
"Just in and out of school?" he asked.
"Pretty much. Tests and term papers, you know. You've been there and done it."
"Got a summer job lined up?"
"As a matter of fact I do."
She told him about her call to Tom Rolling. Outside, the rain had tapered to a drizzle, but a stormy breeze had begun to pick up again, lifting the kitchen curtain.
"You start back tomorrow?" Scott asked, a little surprised by her return to the amusement park.
"One PM."
"My shift starts at two. I can give you a ride in."
"Just to the causeway if it's all right. There should be a shuttle there."
"Did you enroll in that work program at school? D.E.C.A. I think it's called."
Ingrid put down her fork. "I should call my mom. Tell her where I've gone. Try to smooth things over."
Now Scott was the one who shrugged. "Sure. But," he added, raising his hand to halt the girl as she was standing up.
Ingrid looked at him, hair lifting in the breeze. "Yes?"
"Well," Scott went on. He licked his lips, unsure of how to continue. This condition was so common with him that he'd long been aware of its antidote: Force. "Don't...you know...tell her you've shacked up with some twenty-year-old guy. I mean—“
She slid her chair in. "Nah, don't worry. I'll tell her I'm bunking with Brad Daugherty up in Cleveland."
"Atta girl."
She smiled. In that moment Scott supposed he was still in love. It had come on with painful abruptness back at Norwalk High. A shock of brown hair, curling to a point in the center of a slender back, was all it had taken. Love.
He had later proclaimed it to her rather stupidly on a rainy morning by her locker, without so much as an introduction, or even an hello. It was utter surrender, after weeks of yearning, to the emotion which had overcome him--an emotion which, even to this day, he did not fully understand. Ingrid was pretty, to be sure. Beautiful even. But there had been a lot of beautiful girls going to Norwalk at the time; none of them had captured his attention for very long. What it was about Ingrid remained a mystery--a flower pressed between the pages of a used book. He could not even lay blame on that old stand-by about it being something in her eyes, because he had fallen in love with her before ever seeing her face.
He cleaned the table and left to give her some privacy with the telephone. A suspicion lingered that she had not been altogether truthful about what happened at her house today. If this was the case, then "smoothing things over" was probably not the proper way to define the goal of the call. All the same, Scott left her to it. He lay back on his bed with an auto magazine and waited. Ingrid's voice soon came from the next room, low at first, then a bit louder. Towards the end of the call her tone took on a pleading quality that twisted his heart. The whole ordeal took about ten minutes. After that, she was standing in the bedroom with him, the smile on her face long gone, the light in her eyes extinguished.
"She's giving me two days," she said. "Two days to come home. After that, she calls the police."
"Damn."
"Oh it could have been worse. Nancy doesn't yield to anything, but I think the way Randy was acting might have creeped her out a little."
"How was Randy acting?"
The shrug came again. "Pissed. But I guess it all turned out for the better. I've got two days to let the dust settle."
Scott nodded in a mixture of confusion and empathy. That ghostly suspicion was stronger now. There was no sense entertaining it though. Ingrid did not look like she'd be willing to answer more of his questions at the moment. She looked exhausted and worried.
They watched television in the living room for awhile, a bag of popcorn between them, like lovers on a movie date. Afterward, Scott set up a bed for himself on the couch, giving Ingrid the bedroom. She assured him she had not revealed her whereabouts to Nancy, nor even given her a number to call. There would be no surprise midnight rings from angry foster mothers. This was a good thing, because Scott found himself lying awake until well after this time, staring at the ceiling.
It was only now he felt stunned at having Ingrid back in his life, two years after she'd walked away from their relationship. Strange, for though he had allowed her to drift away from him (silently, like a sailboat broken away from its mooring), he had never fully put her out of his mind. Now she was back. And still in pain.
There was something more to that pain today. Ingrid was no longer just a down-spirited girl with a chemical imbalance. Something recent had happened to her, and she had for whatever reason reached out for help.
But how could he help? The question vexed him. What did she need? Shelter, certainly. That much at least he'd been able to accommodate. As for the rest of it, he just didn't know.
His subconscious had nothing to say on the matter. When at last he fell asleep, there were no enlightening dreams. Hours later, he awoke to find Ingrid already up and about. They breakfasted without talking while The Price Is Right game show burbled from the television. Very little talk went on in the car as well, as he drove her to the causeway. He asked what time she would be getting off work; she told him probably ten. And then, she was opening the door, to get out next to the depot where the shuttle would take her to the park.
"Goodbye, Scott," she said. "Thank you...a lot, for helping me yesterday."
"I'll see you tonight," he replied, as if to remind her of the fact.
She gave a small smile at this, before closing the door and walking away.
Scott did not immediately drive off; he watched her instead, until she disappeared inside the depot. Her hair was still the same--still coming down to that curled point at the center of her back. His love for her remained constant as well. This time around, however, it would need to be even stronger. Otherwise, she would drift away once more. Drift away without the strength to call for help again.
***
That day at the grocery store was more frenzied than most. Memorial Day was less than a week off, which meant customers were pouring in by the thousands for cookout essentials. A great many of these had to do with the meat department, where Scott worked. Faces jammed the front of the counter. The service bell rang and rang. And while Scott was not a butcher, he did more or less everything else, from slicing hams to grinding patties to cubing steaks. All of these were done in a near mad rush to keep up with demand. At 5PM the butchers went home, leaving Scott to clean the equipment and floors. All the while, customers kept coming. He got the cuber taken apart and cleaned, only to have to reassemble it and use it again. Ground chuck was on sale at eighty-nine cents a pound; it flew off the shelf fast as he could put it there. One customer wanted a bone-in ham sliced. Scott, though not so good with the band saw, managed the trick, but found the task had put him well behind on cleaning the fish case. He twisted his ankle in a puddle of blood left by one of the butchers. He dropped a lug full of ground round on cooler floor.
Somehow, though, he was able to get done by 8PM. Traffic on the way to the causeway was moderate. It took almost thirty minutes to reach High Street, and then another fifteen to drive across the bridge to the park's prodigious entrance. Whether or not Ingrid was still in the park was of no concern: She'd called the store earlier to inform him that yes, she would indeed be working in front of The Upside-Down House until ten. Scott told her he would be at the depot to pick her up, but had a change of heart as he drove, and now wanted to meet her inside the gates.
The ticket girls were not about to let this happen for free. Admission fees were high, though they did come down a notch after 5PM. By the time Scott set foot on the main midway, his wallet was a good deal lighter. All the same, it was an almost ethereal pleasure that came over him as his eyes took in the park. His last visit to Cedar Point had been as a young boy; thus, the whole place seemed new again, and full of wonders already.
Children ran everywhere, screaming their delight. Some of them carried cotton candy, others licked gigantic lollipops. Others still waved glo-sticks, painting the balmy air. Screams of a different order came from above, where a thrill ride dropped harnessed passengers from a steel tower. To Scott's right, a group of teenagers clapped and laughed over a man juggling beer steins. To his left was a picnic area, where lanterns swayed in a maple tree copse.
There were two methods for reaching Frontiertown: practical and chaotic. The practical method involved using the fold-out map all park guests were given upon traversal of the gates. Looking at this map, Scott could see it wouldn't take very long. All he needed to do was veer left at the end of the main midway (a giant Ferris wheel stood at this spot, serving as a perfect landmark), and then cross a set of narrow-gauge railroad tracks. This would put him right where he wanted to be. All the same, he couldn't help but allow his footsteps to be influenced by a certain element of the chaotic. The park was simply too vast, its wonders too rich, to pass through in the manner that a crow would fly.
He walked to the Ferris wheel and over the tracks. Then, rather than continue straight down the midway--which had changed from concrete to dirt--he turned right, where a smaller path led into another copse of trees, this one more dense and florid. Violet petals rained from their boughs on a whispering breeze. Pinwheels, their shafts planted like the stems of flowers, spun above tall blades of grass. A man on a bench strummed a guitar.
At the other end of the copse he once again set foot on the midway. Harsher music from a mock saloon assaulted his ears. More lanterns swung and swayed, these from wooden posts that also served as street signs. The names of these streets, Scott guessed, were influenced by whatever attraction happened to be addressed upon them. Log Jam Place was a popular one--a long queue of chattering people waited here, eager to brave the water ride looming above. Mine Ride Avenue, where a wooden roller coaster that dated back to the 1960s was still in operation, was also well-loved. But the one that caught Scott's eye had nothing at all to do with heights and plummets. It was called the Upside-Down House Way, and this was where he turned, with his heart growing more and more light with every step, and his thoughts spinning, so by the time he laid eyes on Ingrid again, his elation was of a kind that no thrill ride, be it of wood, water, or wire rope, could ever replicate.
***
"Draw him with the biggest mouth and the most rounded eyes that you can," a woman with sunburned skin was saying. "I mean he was gob smacked by that ghost in the mirror."
Ingrid smiled and nodded, her slender arm winging away over a portable draft-board. The woman’s husband was also smiling, though he looked humiliated.
"Gob smacked, I tell you!"
"All right, honey, all right."
"Did you shit yourself?"
"That's enough."
Scott watched as Ingrid worked. She was dressed in the blue blouse and pink cotton skirt she'd put on earlier in the day. Her lips were pressed in concentration. A pair of pink spectacles rested on her nose. This last came as somewhat of a shock; Scott had never seen her in glasses before. They lent her face, which was already studious, an air of professionalism that bordered on the mechanical—except they were pink. Ingrid, he remembered, though a dour girl, had never been one to shy from color, and he found himself wondering for the first time if perhaps this was in defense against the many black and white pictures she created. Working with pencils and charcoal on a constant basis perhaps stirred a craving in her for things more prismatic when not in the studio.
After ten minutes the couple left with their picture. Like an assassin on the hunt, Scott broke cover. Though The Upside-Down House was well lit, there were plenty of screams coming from inside to cover his footsteps. Ingrid was looking the other way, at a large dog that had broken out of the pet-check station. Next to her was a sign that read:
SKETCH ARTIST!
Portraits, Caricatures, Dreams and Wishes!
$5.00
Much to his amusement, Scott was able to walk to her workstation without her noticing at all. He could now smell her perfume and shampoo. Her gaze was still resting on the dog.
"Hey Artemisia," he said, "can I get a portrait done? Only no torture scenes, please."
Ingrid whirled around, her eyes wide. "Scott!" she almost gusted. Then: "My gosh, you came all the way into the park to get me?"
"I had to see the genius at work. I hope you're not mad."
"No, I'm not mad. But..." She laughed. "Scott, admission isn't free. Honest, I would have met you on the other side of the causeway."
"I know. But there's also the fact I haven't seen this place in so many years. I guess I got tempted."
Ingrid glanced at her watch. "Well I'm outta here in fifteen minutes, if you don't mind waiting."
"Not at all."
No one else asked to have a picture done. At ten o'clock, Ing