Nobody Bats a Thousand (17 page)

“Oh, you know Cayce?
A great seeker and mystic.
  I think he proved more than anyone that dreams are magical. I don’t mean dreams like plans for fame and fortune, but the dreams one has while asleep. Don’t ever ignore or underestimate them. But his thoughts on the secret to life to be found in a hidden room in the great tomb, well, I’m ambivalent on that one. What if he meant the mystery itself was the solution? I mean when the mystery is solved, the story is over, right? When the mystery is solved what reason would there be to go on?”

“With all due respect, Hoyt, how long do
you
plan to go on? With a heart condition, is that stuff good for you?” Bill pointed to the freestanding pipe. “And is it wise to be living up here by
yourself
, miles from town?”

Bringham smiled. “My heart attack wasn’t or isn’t a condition. It was an occurrence. Now I can’t say whether it’s meditation, or change in diet and lifestyle, or help from my hookah, but I’m in the best health I’ve been in years. I haven’t
drank
in over a year and my blood pressure is way down. As far as living alone, those mutts outside are great compa
ny, and this splendid isolation.” H
is smile grew and he looked up at the ceiling as if he were looking at open sky. “I think anyone would be better off if they would or could give it a try. I have music and time to read for pleasure. Who do you know who
reads anymore?
That television.”
H
e pointed to the tiny TV in the corner of the room, “I try not to let it become too big of a distraction or burden, but it gets all the local channels, which keeps me f
rom feeling like a total hermit
though I do find myself
sitting and staring at your new channel whenever I go off course and overdo my Prop.
215 medication.”

“How did you know Channel 63 was mine?”

“I’m not
totally
out of the loop.
” Bringham grinned. “Interesting test pattern I must say.”

“That’s what I tell the FCC it is, and my lawyers tell me that no matter how much the Feds don’t like it there
’s nothing they can do about it.” N
ow Bill smiled. “Interesting thing though is people call me all the time wanting to buy ad time. Go figure?”

Bringham laughed, and then stretched his arms and legs. “Well, I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed the company, but I know you are just being polite. I assume you came up here for more than just chit-chat.”

Bill nodded, pulled a large photo from a brown envelope and handed it to Bringham. “It’s just a shot in the dark but we were hoping you might have seen this thing.” 

Bringham stared at the picture from several different angles and distances for about twenty seconds before he smiled and lightly nodded his entire thin body in rhythm as if a holy connection had just been made. “I have.”

Mary Jean lurched forward so quickly she nearly slipped off the couch.
“Really?
Where?”

“A strange little woman tracked me down at the organic produce market on L Street. I go there every other Monday religiously. She thought I still collected pieces and I might be i
nterested in that piece of crap.” H
e shook his head at the photo. “Man that thing is ugly.”

“Never mind that.
Was that it? What else did she say?”

“Well, she was a bit rude, especially when I told her it wasn’t actually a pyramid but more like an obelisk, and I wouldn’t have been interested in it even when I was interested in collecting pyramid related things.”

“And that was it? She left you alone?”

“Not right away, but she left when I suggested she it
take
by my twins’ place. They have a little store which specializes almost exclusively in worthless crap.”

“Your twins?”

“Identical twins from my second marriage, KC and Edgar.
They have the
House of the Unusual
on Kern Street. Not much of a business, but it keeps them out of trouble.”

“Well, that’s o
ur next stop then, thanks, Hoyt.
” Bill stood and offered his hand.

Outside Bringham lead MJ through his pack of dogs and opened the car door for her. MJ started to sit but stopped. “I got to ask you, I’ve seen people change, and like become reformed drunks or over-the-edge Jesus freaks, but you are
sooo
different than I remember. So what exactly happened to you?”

Bringham locked his eyes deeply into Mary Jean’s.

“Sorry I didn’t mean it to c
ome out like that, I just meant,
” Mary Jean started to stammer.

“No, no, dear, no offense taken, but let me ask
you
a question. Have you ever heard the expressions OBE, or NDE, or second self?”

“Huh?”

“Well there’s no reason to get into it then, things can’t be forced. Let’s just say I saw the light. A very bright light, and now I’m
much happier than I was before.
” Bringham gently took her hand, helped her into the car, shut the door, and said goodbye to her and Bill. Waving and smiling, Bringham became a tiny figure in Bill’s mirror as he turned off the p
roperty
beginning the journey back to Ashland.

Five miles later, as they passed below the dam, dusk was calmly settling in with the final demise of orange light stretched across the broad horizon to the right. Bill’s pace was still deliberate. Mozart was still on the stereo.

“Well? What do you think?” Mary Jean had tried to mute her enthusiasm but couldn’t hold out any longer.

“I think Hoyt Bringham is real close to being booked into a padded room in a place where all the happy people go.”

“No, about my clock.
Even if he were totally nuts how could he have made up that stuff about meeting Patty?”

“It’
s a lead, nothing more,
Queenie
.
” Bill turned on his headlights.

Mary Jean brushed her hair back from her face as she thought. “That
was
different though. What a change, I mean the guy
used
to be the Citizen Kane of Ashland.”

“Yeah, except now instead of looking for Rosebud, he’s
just looking for some good bud.
” Bill looked at Mary Jean. “
It’s like he didn’t discover the 60’s until the 90’s when he was in his 70’s.”

“But he seemed so…so serene.”

“
Yeah, s
o did Frances Farmer after her lobotomy.”

“Geez, why are you so down on the guy? Like you’re not strange, like I’m not strange, like everybody’s not a little weird…but what about that OTB stuff?”

“OBE, NDE, out of body experiences, near death exper
iences.
” Bill turned the music down a notch. “I don’t begrudge anybody any weird
beliefs,
one’s as good as another as far as I’m concerned. Hell, he could become a Hare Krishna and dance around in the ai
rport for all I care, it’s just
.” H
e quickly pa
used.”A
h,
forget it.”

“You
know I won’t.
” MJ smiled. “So you might as well finish your thought.”

Bill changed hands on the steering wheel, and nodded his head.  “You can be a real persistent pain in the ass, can’t you?”

“Among other things, and I’m proud of each and every one of my personality disorders. They set me apart…so?”

“So…so he reminds me of my old man because he’s so
sure
. My old man was totally convinced about all that Mormon Church bullshit, and
Bringham’s
stuck on and
convinced
about this
Pyram
id Power, New Age bullshit.” H
e
briefly
looked at Mary Jean with a cold stare.

“Well, he really seemed deeply into a lot of complex stuff.”

“Sometimes people are so simple they
seem
complicated.” H
e turned briefly to MJ.  “I’m sorry, but people who are
so certain
about matters of faith really piss me off.”

“Don’t look at me. I’m an atheist. When you die you die and that’s it.”

“I’ll go you one better,” Bill seemed to lighten his tone.  “What if there is no time, no past or future and everything is really happening at once and we just divide it up into time to keep things interesting? Of course there is always the possibility that none of this is really happening at all, that there are no people, that this is all just a dream.”

“Yeah, right, and I’m dreaming that I’m a broke over-educated, fifty-year-old waitress with a worthless degree in Anthropology. I don’t think so. I think I’d be dreaming I won the Lotto and was still twenty-five with a perfect body.”

“Then it wouldn’t be
your
dream. It would be somebody else’s. That’s the problem in figuring all this out. Like right now are we in your dream or mine?”

Mary Jean furrowed her brow and folded her arms across her chest.  “I just want my clock.”

“We’ll be in the Pyramid District in five minutes,” Bill said as he started onto the freeway entrance, which would take them in a big loop around town to their destination, “and then we will see what we will see.”

KC & Edgar’s
House of the Unusual
was on Kern Street, one of four little shops in an old brown-brick building on the west side of the two-lane, one-way street. Bill parked against the curb directly under a stree
t light, which had blossomed brightly
in reaction to the night’s swift arrival.

Mary Jean was out of the car first and quickly on the sidewalk in front of the store, rattling the handle of the locked door while she starred directly into a small square sign pointing out the store’s hours of business.

“Open Tuesday through Saturday two to five PM?
What kind of hours are those?” S
he jerked the door handle several more times.

“The kind for lazy rich kids w
ho don’t need to make any money.
”
Bill was now just a few feet behind her.

“What are we going to do?”

“Wait until two o’clock tomorrow I suppose.”

Mary Jean shaded her face as she pressed it against one of the large windows.  “Look at all that crap. It’s
like a giant yard sale gone bad.” S
he moved a few steps to her left to another window.
“OH MY GOD!
 
THERE’S MY CLOCK!” S
he was bouncing up and down as she
pointed,
turned to Bill, then back to the window.

Bill looked inside, squinting to focus. “Eureka. Well, we’ll come back tomorrow—”

“TOMMORROW!
  But my clock’s right there. I can see it. It’s right there! There has to be something we can do.”

“I suppose there is, but a B&E rap doesn’t figure into my plans for tonight. Look, nobody’s bought that ugly thing so far. I don’t think we’ll be fighting a line to buy it tomorrow.”

MJ’s frustration began to manifest. She was struggling to vent when she saw, three doors down, a big, burly biker with a full beard and dirty hair hanging past his shoulders. Kneeling, he was using a flashlight to inspect something on his dressed-out Harley. Mary Jean recognized him as the owner of the
head shop
just behind
him. She nearly ran down the sidewalk
until she was standing over him.

“Hi,” she said, wasting a big smile as he merely grunted and barely looked up from his work. “I was wondering if you knew anything about the two kids who have the s
tore at the end of the building.
”

“I know that
them
and their whole family are a bunch of rich fuck-heads, and their step-mom is getting
ready to tear down the Pyramid.” H
e looked up at Mary Jean for the first time.
“That little slut.
Can you imagine what bad Karma that’s going to bring? I’d leave the neighborhood right now if the rent wasn’t so cheap.” He clicked off his flashlight and came up from his knees until his head was a full foot higher than Mary Jean’s. “Hey, I know you, Moon Glow incense.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, about a year ago I ordered six boxes of Moon Glow incense because you were in here ranting and raving about how much you loved the stuff.”

“Oh yeah, right.
”
MJ began to recall her short-lived infatuation. “Well, I’ve been out of the country. Do you have any left?”

“Six boxes.”

“I’ve just gotten settled back in. I was meaning to come over here… ”

“So you are looking for the Glitter Twins?”

“What?”

“The Bringham boys.”

“Oh, yes, yes, you see it’s a long
story

”