XX. Champions
Friday, September 21, 1990.
Summer had left the progressive region, but forgot to close the door on its way out, allowing a stubborn, stifling heat to linger, too curious for its own good about the goings on of its celebrants after all the holiday parades had ended, and all the backyard swimming pools were drained, folded up, and put away. Cedar Point, the giant amusement park which many enthusiasts considered to be the jewel of Lake Erie, had been open for business on weekends only since Labor Day, but because of the weather its trade remained steady; the celebrants, it seemed, were not quite ready to give up on the season yet either.
Until tonight.
The Ship-to-Shore was almost empty. Ingrid Felton stood behind the cash register thinking about nothing at all. She was content to watch the world pass on the midway, in particular the children. Many of them were even now with their parents in the twilight, clutching balloons, lollipops, and overpriced souvenirs of all shapes and sizes. Sounds of their laughter rang like music. Occasionally her eye would wander to the scenery above, from which a broken rain of pealing screams fell, born of some thrill ride over the trees. Dominating it all, of course, majestic, was the Ferris wheel, its lights twinkling as if with ambition to join the very stars themselves.
A man dressed as a pirate to fit the theme of the restaurant was waiting tables tonight. He was new, and lacked experience, but for a month now there'd been no complaints about his conduct. This came as no surprise to Ingrid. The man possessed a certain knack for getting the hang of things over time. At present he was standing at the entrance, relishing the reactions from passers by. He waved at the children and handed them balloons. He said pirate things like Argh! and Avast ye scurvy scallowags! This last earned him a lot of strange glances, but Ingrid allowed it, until finally, at just after eight o'clock, his wish to commit social suicide had achieved for her its maximum number of cringes, and she left the counter to put a stop to the show.
"Pardon me, Captain Hook," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. The pirate turned. And yes, the costume was a wonder to behold, with its red jacket, its plastic gold buttons, and its tricorn stapled with long black hair. But what made it all work so well were the scars on his face, and the eye-patch, which were as genuine as the smile he now offered. "You're scaring away potential customers."
Scott Bremman glanced at the midway for a moment. "No. Come on, am I that good?"
"Oh you've got this buccaneer thing down to an art." She stood on tip-toe to give him a kiss. "Why don't you go swab the deck or something while I close the grill?"
"Aye-aye, Madame."
In fact there were very few things left to do, and by nine o'clock they were ready to go home. They waited for closing time at one of the tables, holding hands and talking about the summer gone by. At nine-fifteen Scott got up to hang a CLOSED sign on the Ship-to-Shore’s little gate. He wasn't quite quick enough, as one final customer slipped in, a female Ingrid's age, and one she knew.
"Ingrid?" the girl asked, grinning ear to ear.
The lake breeze lifted Ingrid's hair--which she had left long--as she stood. "Trixie Keefer!" She gave her friend a hug and they both laughed for a minute over how long it had been. A few lighthearted jokes were made about the heat, about school (Martin Prewski in particular). "Sit down, sit down," Ingrid insisted, "can I have Scott get you something? Coke? Sprite? A hot dog?"
"Gosh no, but thanks. I heard you were managing the restaurant now and was hoping to catch you before going home."
"Well...I'm sort of the unofficial manager. I'm not old enough yet to govern the helm, so to speak, so Scott's playing decoy for now."
Trixie looked at Scott, who was hanging his jacket on a hook near the bar. "The pirate?" she asked with a knowing grin. "Yes, I've heard you've been eating a few hot dogs yourself."
Ingrid laughed. It had been almost a year since she'd talked to Trixie, but the edge in her humor was still as tart and precise as the pixie haircut she wore. "You know an awful lot, Trixie. Who's been whispering in your ear?"
"My own boyfriend is a bellhop at Hotel Breakers. He's seen you working here now that Lisa's gone and put two and two together."
Ingrid found not long after her arrival back home that Lisa had shut her affairs in Sandusky with word she was relocating to another state, and no one thus far had come forward with questions. No doubt her story had been just simple enough to believe, like the ones she'd left behind to fill the gaps for her daughter.
"When are you coming back to school?" Trixie wondered. "Danielle's been asking about you. Some of the other girls too."
"Never," Ingrid decreed. "I'm figuring on correspondence courses for my GED instead. Scott and I are going to hunker down for the winter over on Erie Street--"
"I bet," Trixie said with a raised brow.
"--we've got a baby on the way."
"You what?"
"A baby on the way," Ingrid repeated, enjoying the petrified expression on her friend's face. "I'm twelve weeks in. Everything is in working order so far, according to the doctor I've been seeing. And this guy," she went on, patting Scott's leg as he approached the table, "is the happy father-to-be. He'd better be happy anyway."
"He's ecstatic," Scott said.
"Trixie you met Scott once a couple years ago. Here he is again, a changed man. Scott this is Trixie Keefer."
"I remember. It's nice to see you again."
The girl nodded, but her mouth was still hanging open. "I am so totally out of touch with the world," she said, sounding like she was confessing the fact more to herself than the others.
"I'll leave you ladies to talk while I finish putting the chairs up," Scott said.
Ingrid warned Trixie to close her mouth before she wound up swallowing a midge. But her friend was still dazed. She watched Scott busy himself in the lounge, lost under whatever spell the idea of Ingrid having a baby had put her under.
"Trixie this is Houston," Ingrid smiled, "please come in."
It did something. The girl blinked and gave Ingrid a long look-over. "I'm assessing you," she said, all traces of humor flown from her voice. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all," Ingrid said. "Finding anything interesting?"
"Anything interesting?" the other repeated. "Look at you, Ingrid! Look how happy you are! You know the last time we talked I was worried you were going to wander off somewhere and...oh, I don't know. Do something crazy. Now we're together again and I get this girl who looks like she's just been to a wishing well."
"It wasn't quite like that, Trixie, but you're close. I certainly discovered some things."
"Like what?"
"You've had enough surprises for now."
"Fair enough. But Ingrid?" She'd been leaning in her chair with her legs crossed during their chat; now she came forward. "You really are happy. I can see it."
"I am. I'm happy, and I'm excited about Scott and the baby, the life we're going to have together--" Trixie giggled. "What?" Ingrid laughed back. "What'd I say?"
"Everything, girl." She leaned in close for another hug. "I love this," Ingrid heard her say, the words dripping with tears of sincerity. "Truly. It's the new you."
They talked about other, lighter things until the park closed. Two weeks later, on a stormy night, the park closed for the year.
***
Ingrid spent October with Scott at the Erie Street house. During that month summer finally acquiesced to a full departure, allowing cooler air to sweep from the north. The leaves turned dry and fell, spicing the air with their crisp scent. Every Sunday afternoon Scott would rake them off the back lawn while Ingrid swept the porch. News from the world came and went. On October fourth Ingrid stopped what she was doing to watch a bulletin on television about a rebel uprising in the Philippines. It inspired her to write a letter to Mark Abunda, which she sent on the very next day. During that same week she met Scott's family for the first time. They'd been asking a ton of questions (the mother in particular) about the high school sweetheart who'd popped back into his life after a two-year vanishing act, and since they'd missed making her acquaintance the first time, would it not be a chore to bring her around the house on some weekend in the near future? Scott brought the request to Ingrid, which she accepted, knowing full well that to play hide-and-seek from his relatives would only arouse further suspicion. Indeed, she had some questions of her own in regard to what, if anything, Scott was telling them these days about June and July.
"I told them we eloped," Scott said on the night before the meet and greet.
Ingrid dropped her toothbrush, trying not to get gel up her nose as she laughed. "For two months? And did we get married during this fabulous getaway? Because my ring finger is still bare, Romeo."
"It was not the best story in the world, but I thought it was the only one my mom would entertain."
"And how did she take it?"
"She thinks we're both ridiculous. Especially since while we were away I got robbed and wound up losing an eye."
"Defending the damsel in distress no doubt."
"I did tell them that as a matter of fact. It made...the shock of what happened to me a little easier for everyone to take."
Ingrid touched his eye-patch. "I'm glad you told them that," she said, "because that's exactly what you were doing."
"In Detroit, no less," he smiled.
"Yes, you romantic fool. Eloping with the girl of your dreams to Detroit."
***
The weather turned warm again for Halloween. On the twenty-eighth (Sunday) an almost balmy breeze visited the rust belt, lifting its leaves to the skies for days to come. Wednesday afternoon found Ingrid walking home with Scott from an early supper. Wind chimes sang from porches. Jack-o-lanterns grinned on stone steps. Ingrid had decided to dress as a clown for giving away candy later on, and was about to pitch her idea for a make-up scheme to Scott when they arrived at Lisa's house to find a man sitting on the porch swing.
Her feet stopped on the front walk. "Who's that?" she asked. But something had already clicked on its own. The man was tall and slender, with straight, dry husks of blond hair growing from the rim of the dress hat he wore.
"I recognize him," Scott said pensively.
The man recognized them too. Noticing their scrutiny, he stood up, came to the edge of the porch, and with a bow said: "Lady and gentleman. Please forgive me for intruding. It is a pleasure to see the both of you again."
"Hello, O'Connor," Ingrid said, tightening her hold around Scott's waist. "What can we do for you?"
In twenty minutes they were having tea and cake at the kitchen table. Ever dignified, O'Connor complimented Ingrid on her baking while making pleasant observations regarding the decor of the house. But his politeness was a screen, Ingrid knew; of course it was, and she waited with mounting tension for him to arrive at the true purpose of his visit, and not five minutes later, he did just that.
The region they'd left was no longer a place of romantic love, he proclaimed. Had this news reached their ears? When Ingrid told him that it hadn't, O'Connor went on to say that Cambridge was now being worshipped as a kind of god for seeing the error of his ways and giving his life to correct them, while on the other side of the coin, lynch mobs were in search of Ingrid, ready to put her head on a stake for the hardships she'd visited upon their saint. At this point Ingrid became worried about Darren's well-being, but when she asked after it, O'Connor could provide no news.
Scott spoke up not long after. "What is it that you'd like us to do, Mister O'Connor?" he asked.
"Come back to the region with me," he replied, "give it the blood that it needs. Martyr yourselves."
"What?"
"The region will never be the place of love it once was unless the two of you die, Mister Bremman. You and Miss Felton represent the closure that it needs. The finality of its tumult."
"Forget it," Scott said flatly. "You can leave now."
“Mister Bremman,” O’Connor went on, “Woodward Cambridge may have been misguided, but out of love for the region, I believed in his ideals. He made me feel it could one day be an even better, more powerful place. Today I only want what once was. And I am prepared to go to…great lengths in order to achieve it.”
Ingrid began to realize that inviting O'Connor into the house had been a terrible mistake. She looked at Scott, who was standing his ground like a sentinel. He too understood the danger.
“Heal the region,” O’Connor entreatied, “please. Both of you.”
“Get out,” Scott warned.
"Before you refuse I want you to consider the police are still looking for you in this region," O'Connor pointed out.
"I imagine the police are still very confused about what happened the night I left Norwalk," Scott came back with, "confused and more than a little embarrassed. Also, I woke up three months ago in a Detroit hospital with one eye and about a hundred scars. I don't look like the man they're hunting anymore."
O'Connor tilted his head.
"I was hurt and dying," Scott explained, "at a crossing place in the region, with the interstice wide open. So I went through and into a part of the progressive that was--is--also dying."
"I see," the other man replied. "How fortunate for you both."
"We did our work in the region. The dambuhala are gone. We're shut of that place."
At these words O'Connor laid another one of his cards on the table--one that first surprised Ingrid but then made her angry.
"Ah, but are they gone, Mister Bremman? Were you able to kill the one that was sent to...ignite a certain grief in Lisa Felton? Or were the confused and embarrassed members of your police force too quick to give you a chance?"
"That one's dead by now," Ingrid broke in, "and even if it's not, my husband's right: We are shut."
"Very well," O'Connor sighed, rising from the table to his full height, which was a good three inches more than Scott's. “Madame,” he continued to Ingrid, “you are decidedly precise in your ever so curt deduction. You are indeed shut.”
And his eyes turned red, and his teeth grew into fangs that scratched the flesh of his chin. Frozen in terror, Ingrid saw a talon rise from under the table where his hand had been. The talon swiped at her face. She screamed a word--a word that might have been Lisa! or Wesley! Scott dove forward. Blood flew, splattering the mantle pictures Lisa had put up months before. One of them, taken at the Ship-to-Shore, showed Ingrid sitting at a table with Lake Erie in the background, and though she was smiling for the camera, a shadow lay across her expression, as if she didn't really believe the lie the photo would later tell, of her being happy, and never would.
Outside, dozens of trick-or-treaters had begun their pilgrimage for candy. The blood-curdling screams coming from the house got them even further into the spirit of things. One of them, a young boy dressed as a vampire, looked into the sky and hollered Happy Halloween! while walking single file with his brother and sister, mindful of the traffic, of the other children, of the broken, uneven sidewalk. Mindful, ever so mindful.
***
For in a realm of chaos there is no striving but towards order. Seeds carried on the wind must settle; wounds opened in battle must heal. There is no eternity but for that. Regions are different, passions are different, but their cycles repeat, and they are always the same.
We are born, we destroy ourselves, and then we are born again.