Twisting Topeka (18 page)

On the Japanese front, few Americans
knew where Manchuria was. To be honest, I had to look it up just to
make sure. In a matter of days Stalin faced the might of Germany
and Japan; a pincer movement of the highest degree.

The rest of the world looked on as the
three mighty nations warred for four years, throwing millions of
lives into the meat grinder. We could hardly call it a world war,
but in truth, with Russia’s size, it did encompass ten time
zones.

November
7
^th
1944

A Democrat in the White
House (NYT)

Overshadowed by the war,
Alf Landon drifted into the history books as the
33
^rd
president of the United States of America, succeeded by the
man he’d beaten four years previously; the bright Democrat senator
from Missouri, Harry Truman.

Alf returned to Topeka, Kansas,
stretched his farm, and rode horses for the rest of his life. As
president, he would always be remembered as the ‘world
statesman’.

November
11
^th
1948

‘
Peace in Our Time’ (London
Times)

Chamberlain, the Prime
Minister of Britain, announced
Peace in
our Time,
as hostilities between the three
world powers stumbled to a halt.

On November
11
^th
,
1948, an uneasy truce was called in the Russian steppes, neither of
the three combatants willing or able to fight through another
Russian winter. The troops stood over ground held, warmed their
hands over fires in the snow, and the leaders spoke of
peace.

  
The three
countries, once military giants, now staggered against each other
like exhausted boxers in a bloody three-way bout, punch-drunk,
bruised and broken, and a threat to no one.

Alf Landon, the unknown Governor of
Kansas, and Jesse Owens, the Buckeye Bullet, had indeed changed the
world.

My part? Michael Holt?

I get a footnote in history; that’s
all Press Secretaries ever get.

Happiness Is a Cold
Pistol

Paul Swearingen

Sherry leaned back on the bench in the
bus kiosk and sighed. It had been a long, rough week at the office,
and now all she wanted to do was to get home and see what her two
boys had cooked up for supper. They might be little pains at times,
but she’d taught them to read between the lines in recipes, and
nearly all of their meals were quite tasty.

At least she didn’t have to worry
about negotiating Topeka traffic on a Friday. Maybe in that respect
having the muffler fall off her car as she was on her way to work
this morning was a godsend, but on the other hand being told “Sure!
We can have that ready for you by five this afternoon” and then
getting a phone call at 4:30 and hearing “Oh, your car is one of
those models which we have to special order mufflers and tail pipes
for from Kansas City. But we can have it for you Monday with no
problem.”

The muffler problem seemed to be the
climax of what had been a less-than-stellar week. On Monday, one of
their longest-running IT services customers suddenly filed for
bankruptcy with no warning. The next day, the office next door
caught fire – something about a short in a copier – and they had to
evacuate the building for a couple of hours. Then on Thursday her
husband had come down with something at work the day before, and
she’d kept him home for a day, coughing and hacking. She’d taken
the bus to get home yesterday, too. At least it had been warmer
then.

They’d had to cut back on Christmas
shopping this year, too. The boys seemed to understand, although
the youngest had a rather painful look on his face as he turned
away from Sherry and his father after they’d explained that with
the downturn in business they had barely enough income to get them
through the rest of this year, much less blow money on a load of
Christmas presents. They’d just have to come up with something else
instead.

The chilly breeze rustled through the
dead leaves of the tree a few feet away, and she pulled her coat
around her more tightly and wrapped her fingers around the cold
handle of the .38 revolver she always carried with her in her coat
pocket. Another woman carrying a large purse walked up to the bus
kiosk, eyed her, and then elected to stand outside, the wind
flipping her light-brown hair occasionally.

Sherry glanced around again, checked
the time on her cell phone, and then leaned back and closed her
eyes. Another eight minutes until the bus was due. Even if she
dozed off, she’d still hear the air brakes and wake right up. Or
maybe this woman standing next to the sign would nudge her? Hardly.
You didn’t just casually approach strangers in Topeka and nudge
them, as friendly as most people here were. They still liked their
space, no matter what.

Somehow, she knew that she wasn’t
really somewhere back east, hiking through a skiff of snow along a
ridge. But the background sound of the traffic transformed into the
sound of the wind, and the sun on her face warmed her slightly. She
was all alone, but she knew that she was safe.

The sun in her face became brighter
and brighter, and she blinked and covered her eyes with her left
hand to shelter it from the blazing light from reflections of the
sun in dozens of windows from the building across the street. The
wind and noise seemed to increase, however, and she almost didn’t
hear the strangled sound as a small, dark man pulled at the strap
of the waiting woman’s purse.

Sherry pulled her hand away from her
eyes, took in the scene in a split second, and then said one word
as she stood, took three steps forward, and pulled her pistol and
pointed it at the man, cocking the hammer in the same motion.
“No!”

His eyes opened wide, and he collapsed
at her feet. “Please. Don’t shoot me.” His eyes turned upward, and
he stretched a hand towards her as if to pluck a bullet out of the
air before it could reach him.

Suddenly, the woman whose purse he’d
tried to snatch kicked him in the side – once, twice, three times.
He screamed, rolled over, and limped away, holding tightly to his
side, looked back once and then ducked his head and moving away
even more quickly.

Sherry stared at the disappearing man
and then at the woman’s sharply-pointed pumps. He would be lucky to
get away with bruised ribs, she thought.

“
You could have shot him,
you know.” The woman glared at her through tightly-compressed
lips.

Sherry uncocked the revolver, shook
her head, and slid the pistol back into her pocket. She met the
woman’s glare and then glanced down the street. You’re welcome, she
thought, little man who may not realize that he had just received
the most significant Christmas present of anyone in Topeka. And she
knew that if she’d shot him there would have been repercussions
that could have stretched for years. No, happiness was definitely a
cold pistol, not a warm one.

Psychic Shift

Annabelle
Corrick

“
The act of creation … a
double-minded transitory state of unstable equilibrium where the
balance of both emotion and thought is disturbed
.”

—
Arthur Koestler,
Act of Creation

Callie and Pam set out for their
first-ever hike on the kind of gorgeous spring day that all
moderately well-to-do children in the Midwest in the 1950s took for
granted as to be enjoyed. But for Josh Brindsly, even though he
walked in the most expensive shoes money could buy from Gucci, not
to mention his grey cashmere sweater and wool-blend slacks; the
beauty of the day hardly mattered. It was to be his
last.

He had not enjoyed any day for too
long a time. The years of psychoanalysis had only proven that his
demons would not go away. He had tried his best to destroy himself
with alcohol and drugs, but his parents had intervened. They had
sent him to the middle of nowhere--to the pricey “Psychiatric
Center of the World” in Topeka, Kansas so that he would be cured.
They were willing to shell out big bucks for as long as it took,
paying the Menninger Clinic as well as their own security apparatus
to make sure he stayed for however long it would take.

*****

“
Let’s head west on Sixth
Street,” Callie suggested excitedly. Her slender, agile frame
skipped ahead while her heavier friend trudged to keep up. They
both lived on Seventh Street, just one cross street
apart.

“
Sure, okay,” Pam agreed.
They carried satchels with necessary getaway items including water
and goodies to share on their adventurous journey.

Callie wore jeans along with tennis
shoes recently purchased for her summer lessons at Hughes Courts.
Her T-shirt, however, had been handed down from older siblings.
Even with some natural shrinkage, it hung as loosely on her slight
frame as a Halloween sheet. Her blondish hair looked disheveled,
the barrette her mom had employed long since gone AWOL.

Pam wore saddle shoes good for
everything including school and hopscotch. Her pedal pushers and
matching blouse, handmade for the eldest, looked overly frilly on
her large-boned frame. Only a few wiry, dark locks dangled off from
her braided pigtails.

Neither girl looked appropriately
dressed and groomed for each other or for the pristine grounds to
the right.

“
Let’s explore over there,”
Pam waved northward. They had continued walking west. “I like the
looks of this side street. It’s an entrance to something.” They
turned into the grounds, staring at the low-clipped grass and
finely-shaped spirea bushes bordered with rows of pink tulips,
yellow daffodils, and orange marigolds. The air hung thick with the
aroma of spring pollens. The bushes had already sprouted white
buds.

“
Wow! Looks real neat,”
Callie exclaimed. Across to the south ranged blocks of small houses
where crabgrass and weeds sprang randomly here and there. Both
girls had seen the plain State Hospital grounds to the east where
neighborhood boys gathered to play baseball and football, but
neither they nor the boys had ever ventured onto the more secluded
Menninger Foundation’s premises. Nor had much knowledge of the
place ever entered the minds of these fifth graders.

“
Look over there at that
path.” Pam pointed right where a swath of white gravel curved
eastward. They walked deeper into the grounds. The background
chorus of buzzing insects and chirping birds ratcheted up a couple
of decibels, seeming to mute their words.

“
Hey, weird,” Callie called
out. “It stops at that big hedge.” The girls stared at the distant
sight—evergreen bushes rising above their heads contrasting with
the lighter spirea leaves and brightly-colored flowers. They crept
along the path until they heard a whistled tune. Pam pulled Callie
off the path, finding a decorative boulder to hide behind. A
caretaker emerged from a side path and strode by, unaware of the
rapt attention he had evoked.

“
Okay, he’s gone,” Callie
whispered into her friend’s ear.

“
So why not talk out loud?”
Pam jabbed her friend while they resumed their stealthy
progress.

“
Because this is a place
where we’re not supposed to be,” Callie giggled. “But I love it. I
know there’s something behind that hedge. What? What will we
find?”

*****

Josh Brindsly heaved the
shoulders of his angular, tall frame. Why didn’t the public go for
his perfect looks? Why did his agent say his perfection was too
much—too sharply refined for today’s leading male roles? Nowadays,
moviegoers preferred rough and tough-looking guys like Humphrey
Bogart, Richard Burton, and Marlon Brando. What was with all this
anti-hero stuff anyway? Everything had gotten so confused. Only ten
years ago he would have been the next Robert Taylor. Why not now?
Taylor himself was hardly extinct. He had starred not so long ago
in
Ivanhoe
and
Quo Vadis
. Josh knew his own acting expressions were as good or
better. Why was his agent so dismissive?

Probably because it wasn’t just his
lack of ruggedness. One day his agent was so good as to explain
that he had no distinguishing feature such as Gary Cooper’s extra
height, Paul Newman’s intense blue eyes, or Cary Grant’s ageless
charm. That deficiency contributed to his lack of something very
necessary but difficult to define: charisma. Hence, the bit parts
and character roles. If he had been acting for his livelihood,
being so relegated wouldn’t matter very much. But he had another
problem besides his looks and personality—a family drenched in
dough.

The caretaker came
wandering in through the narrow gate at the northeast edge of the
meditation garden. He was carrying clippers and snip, snip,
snipping at the yew bushes that formed the high hedge.
Caretaker, my you-know-what
, Brindsly thought. Another spy, he’d known the first time
he’d encountered Amos months ago.

“
Hey there, Mr. Josh,” Amos
bellowed. “Top a the mornin’ to ya.”