Just North of Nowhere (16 page)

“Who?” Ruth said. “Who?”

“I’m not saying. You got to go sometime!”

The season ended. The show was canceled. Eugene fled L.A.

He took his time in New York—three months—then slid into an agency job. Those cowpoke pooches wrangling that herd of Maxi-Beef Steers® to the Full-Feast Corral? That was Eugene’s. The German rats swilling DAP® at the Rathskeller? His, too. The lady jocks sniffing like a pack of wolves in the guy's locker room? Almost snagged a Clio with that one!

Cancel him? Huh!

Money was good.

Life sucked. L.A. ruins people for living anywhere
but
, he figured. But Christ, cranking out 22 per season and sweating renewal? That wasn’t the dream. That was not what took him into the business of show.

Every day on the subway Eugene wondered why everyone near him was way too stupid and talked way too loud about it. Took him less than a year to realize: it wasn't him. All conversations were loud. Everyone was stupid. How else could he sell French toast
mix
(“
Just add
your
egg,
your
milk and DIP!”
) to anyone with a brain?

In a few months he hated everyone. In less than a year he hated himself. That’s when he started worrying. He sensed, yes, in every face-time exchange, part of him was close to . . .

He was close to taking action! That was it: He was c
He
lose to
doing
something.

One evening on the subway (it hadn't been a great day), he was trying to read. A kid's book. He was tired of big lit, “serious” books. The jerk behind him was way too loud, talking about. . . Well, about something. The guy's voice was off: nasal, he sounded like he had a cold – but he didn't. Throaty, he sounded definitive – having experienced nothing! Without looking, Eugene could tell. Every fifth word was “game” or “ball,” that kind of jerk.

Finally, Eugene turned, looked the dude right in his fucking eyes and. . .

. . .Holy Christ, he knew him, a guy from way back, freshman year. A guy – no friend, just a guy – who’d dated Leslie, for crineoutloud, dated her after. After.

Then, no. Of course it wasn't him. The subway guy was a frat rat. Just out of school, heading uptown from one of those downtown jobs they handed out to kiddies with their MBAs these days (
eighty-five klicks out of the gate figuring the guy'll credit-out at hundred and twenty per, Christ!
). No. This guy wasn't anything like the school guy who'd dated Les. That guy’d be, well,
his
age, Jesus! Eugene still wanted to leap over the seat and bite the guy's nose. . .

That was it! The something he wanted to do! Clamp teeth on this guy's – anyguy’s – rhinoplastied toker and feel the thing snap, crack, and spurt.

Eugene’s laugh was so unexpected he damn-near snotted the guy. The sudden laugh from a stranger shut the moron up, anyway. Made him look. Made him wonder! Eugene laughed again, a chuckle; pretended he saw something going down in the back of the car.

He turned back to
Uncle Wiggily
but couldn't stay burrowed in with the old bunny. Who the hell could believe in that crap? Monsters in the deep woods? Monsters dispatched by an old rabbit gentleman?

Who could believe in monsters, period! Who could believe anything, jaw muscles bunching as his were, laughing aloud to himself? Who could focus even on Wiggily while feeling that kinesthetic nose between his too real teeth: crunch, crackle, squirt.

A month later, maybe less, he ditched the agency and started driving. Something said:
Feminine Hygiene ain’t the dream, Eugene!
He drove and drove; had no goal other than to stop somewhere, sometime and write the perfect something: perfect book, screenplay, even, fuck, the perfect poem. Some perfect anything. Get his statuette, medal, whatever they gave for poetry, and go never near L.A., New York or places like them, ever again. The Award (whichever it was) didn't mean a thing. “Not a damn thing!” he said nodding to the evening. It was just
The Thing
: the thing that would let him work anywhere. Anyplace he wanted. The thing that would light his chops; show he could do what he wanted when and where. Even in a place like. . .

. . .a road sign resolved out of the twilight. . .

. . .Bluffton. Even in a place like Bluffton – Pop 671.

He swerved off the road (fishtail squeal, a slo-mo gravel spray) and shot down to the main street and. . .

Jesus Christ!
Pretty place! Victorian jewel box! He started drafting in his head:

EXT. EVENING. Wide shot: A small town… The place is BLUFFTON. High bluffs enclose the place. It is a Victorian jewelbox…

ANGLE ON: A RIVER. IT wriggles through, late evening light twinkles from the…

Cut the cute crap
he said to himself

A SMALL RIVER cuts through town. IT runs parallel with the main street, COMMONWEALTH.

       
Cliché name. He’d come up with something better. Later. Later

Side streets intersect.

MONTAGE: EXT. EARLY EVENING. PAN: COMMONWEALTH STREET
(he had to come up with something better!)
Old shops with clean, fresh facades. THE WURST HAUS, THE AMERICAN HOUSE – EATS… Sidewalks are raised. Covered boardwalks like a western town.

You’re kidding me. This is all restored? Right? Who lives here anyway? Swedes. Indians? They use that river? Too many rocks, rapids, whatever.

MONTAGE: EXT. EARLY EVENING. LONG SHOT A TOWN PARK at one end of town. A white gazebo casts a long shadow.

EXT. EVENING. A small hydroelectric dam. The spillway roars.

Who stays in a place like this after he grows up?

EXT. EVENING. COMMONWEALTH.

Amish carriages make their way toward the bluff as night begins.

Eugene spoke to his pocket Perlcorder: “What secrets are we looking for? What mysteries hide behind those pretty facades? Those farmers? What the hell are they? Amish, Mennonite, whatever. What do they really? They’re leaving town. It’s sunset. What do they have to do with this?”

It was perfect. Big old houses. Catholic church on one hill, Protestant something on another. People in flannel. People who'd lived here all their lives. “Do people ever come back here? To retire? Do they come back here because they can’t hack the real world?”

Eugene walked past the real estate office. For sale. Prices? Good.
Good? Great!
Huh,
Eugene thought. He spoke into his Perlcorder: “course real estate values stink in, what is it? Bluffton. What's to do here? You can't eat beauty. Where the hell is this, anyway? Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa?”

He clicked off the machine. He looked around. He pressed record again: “It’s just Bluffton,” he said.

EXT. BLUFFTON STREET. EARLY EVENING. Evening light is cool blue. Twilight is red on the high horizon.

He pulled up to the hotel:

ANGLE ON HOTEL SIGN:
“THE BLUFFS
BED AND BREAKFAST”

The Bluffs was perfect. Victorian. A little clutter, no dust.

He checked in. No problem. Plenty of rooms. “How come?” he asked.

“We’re between seasons,” the clerk said. “You’re lucky.” Nice. So nice.

Eugene threw his valise on the bed, changed into walking around clothes, and went out to find the beauty shot.

Evening cooled his nose and lungs. “Between seasons,” he said to the recorder, “on the edge: the head of one, tail of another.” He had to think a moment to remember which edge he was on.

Whatever, the air tasted good. He put the recorder in his pocket.

He walked easily. The sidewalk felt right. People ignored him or nodded and smiled. Passing conversations were quiet, serious but with smiles. They spoke of food, business, or small problems. He went into a bar. THE bar, so far as he knew.

INT. EVENING. THE WAGON WHEEL INN. The place is dark, friendly. Neon above the bar and on the wall casts warm, flowing light over the people and place. The crowd is scattered and quiet. Private. These are farm workers and shopkeepers… You can almost smell the. . .

Eugene breathed deeply.

. . .pleasant remnants of stale beer, old smoke, and sweat. The place smells like work and friendship.

He stopped thinking and breathed again.

…and the past!

The smell of the past?

What the hell, he liked it.

Ah!
There they were! The electric sign on the wall behind the register. His rats, the one’s he’d invented, sloshing DAP in their rat-built. . .

He figured to keep quiet about his part in that piece of millennial brewery art.

The beer that was in front of him was not DAP. It was cheap, cold and the third one was free. The juke box?

FOLLOWING. ANGLE ON: A WURLITZER JUKE BOX, circa 1945…

Eugene wandered over. He leaned on the juke with both hands. There was himself, reflected, bent over, front-lit by bubbling neon…

EUGENE thinks about. . .

       
Christ! The selection!
He could have stayed all night, punched every button.
And these? Hot. Warm. Cool. Scary. Wet.
He took a note to ask.

Instead, he left. Checked one restaurant.

Faux!

Another.

Generic.

Then, at the far end—the river end—of town:

EXT. EVENING. THE AMERICAN HOUSE – EATS restaurant.

The place was bright, white, and advertised
Great American Pie.

He spoke to the machine: “Note: Everything you need to know about a diner, a town – no, no: You can tell everything about a
people
by the pie they make, the pie they love.” He waited a moment before rewinding and listening. He’d made it up on the spot but it was authoritative. Eugene was back!

Then he took another note to check the source.

But,
fuck!
The pie
was
good! He had cherry. He tried the Apple and it was so good it was a Goddamn Americana cliché.
Jesu Joy!
He sucked it down. Peach was next and he damn near ordered a fourth (banana cream) but stopped when he realized people were watching.

He went with it. “This. Is. Just. Great. Pie!” he said to the room. Should have been a clap line! Everyone smiled at least. One or two almost laughed. The old guy in the front booth – must have been a hundred – he ignored him, but,
fuck, he’s deaf
, Eugene figured.

The bill came to: Christ, less than a New York
macchiato
!

That wasn't the point, for Christ sake. The owner – he figured the old lady was the owner – thanked him for stopping in and asked if he was passing through or was he here for the hiking, camping, or what?

“For the living,” he said, “Just for the life is all,” he said.

She smiled. That was a good thing, she said, “wouldn't want to be feeding another dead man,” she said.

Half the joint laughed out loud at that one! Eugene couldn’t figure it but what the hell? He relaxed and joined her. When she left, he took a note about the ‘another dead men’ line. It was, well, interesting.

It had gotten night dark while he was going pie hog. The street was quiet and he felt gentle. He walked toward the river to listen to the water and to test whether it spoke to him.

EXT. BLUFFTON STREET. NIGHT. Dim light. Starlight. The river is heard in the near distance.

Beyond the restaurant was a parking lot. At the far edge, a barn: “The Compass Playhouse.” Except for a few cars parked near the theater, the lot was empty. A slit of light cut from the barn doors. Passing, on his way to the river, Eugene heard shouts, cheers. He listened: Shakespeare in the night; fictive passion, rehearsed. The river rippled over the words. The moon rested on the bluff. A bird swooped from there and the rush of its passing moaned in Eugene’s heart.

The voice spoke from the barn: “If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended. That you have but slumbered here whilst these visions did appear.”

It wasn't a dream. He was home. This was home. Home again, home again.

Then Leslie ran past him in the moonlight. She screamed then laughed. Running full from the river's woods, two kids nearly scooted into him before they realized an adult stood in the night in their way. Twelve years each, maybe. No apologies. They jigged around the pillars of his legs and gut-shrieked toward town.