Freak City Page 6
Chapter Six
As he tooled home down the boulevard, Seth McDuffie thought again about how his little yellow Carmen Ghia convertible had won him Jolene's heart. She had been standing on a downtown sidewalk getting ready to cross the street when she saw him pull up to the stop sign and actually come to a complete stop to let her cross. She came right over to him and he'd thought it was to thank him for stopping, or then maybe secondarily she'd thought he was cute but no, she wanted to ask about the car, what kind it was, how old it was, where he'd gotten it, how much it cost. She had so many questions all at once, so he just said "why don't you get in and we'll go somewhere and talk about it,” and amazingly enough, she did.
They drove over to the Seal Rock Cafe and he told her everything she could possibly want to know about the car. By the end of that date the car was practically hers, seeing as he was going to be her new boyfriend and was probably going to move in to her place and he would probably let her drive it, which was really at the bottom of it all. A pretty good deal, he told himself. After all, he'd found it in a junkyard and gotten it almost for free, put it back together himself on evenings and weekends as he scraped together the money for parts and paint and wheels. Took him two years almost, and ever since then that car had been his baby, like a baby even with all the care and maintenance and attention it required. And he did let Jolene drive it. Hell, if that was the price of admission it was worth it, well worth it. The way he saw it, he'd never before even met what he called 'a woman of quality'. He couldn't pin down what that meant, only that he knew it when he saw it and Jolene was definitely it.
The garage at their house was unusual in that it was actually used for parking a car inside. It might have been the only garage on the block that wasn't a bedroom or den or storage bin inside. And the automatic door opener even worked, and Seth used it and drove the tiny car right in. Getting out, he walked around the car twice, inspecting the coat and the chrome to make sure it was still in perfect shape. Sometimes he almost hated taking it out into the wide and dirty world. You deserve better, he said to the car, a world where there is no traffic and there is no smog, not even your own, where you can drive a million miles on nothing but the good sweet air. He was still dreaming of inventing a combustion engine that combusted nothing at all. Upstairs he heard the sound of voices coming from the front of the house. He recognized Jolene's and headed toward the sound like a moth to fire.
Coming into the front bedroom he saw her pacing the floor, while new roomie Argus sat on the only chair in front of the little table and seemed to be staring out the window.
"Hey man, what's shakin'?" Seth said.
"Hi honey,” Jolene skipped over and stood on her toes to give him a light hug and a peck on the cheek before tripping off.
"We're stumped,” she announced as if that were a victory.
"Oh yeah, the mystery,” he remembered and he walked over to where Argus was now looking up at him.
"So, this is the famous pile of junk,” he said, looking down at the table.
"Seems that's exactly what it is,” Argus replied.
"Funny,” Seth said. "Someone sure went to some trouble to put that all together. Did you say everything was wrapped up in those newspaper articles?"
"Yeah,” Argus told him.
"A couple of those articles have the dates written on them in pen,” Seth said, thinking aloud. He had a habit of doing that.
"I guess so,” Argus said. "Think that means something?"
"You'd have to go with the idea that everything means something here."
"You're right,” Jolene declared. She stood next to Seth with her arm around his waist. "I've just been looking at the big picture trying to see a general pattern."
"You might want to take it piece by piece,” Seth suggested. He picked up one of the photos, the one with the two boys in the playground. Turning it over he muttered,
"Someone wrote the date on this one too"
Argus turned over all the rest of the photos and pointed at them. The others nodded. Dates were written on the backs of each photo, not with the same pen, and not by the same hand, but each one was dated.
"All the articles have dates too,” Seth said. "I only noticed the one that was written in ink; the others have their date from the paper itself."
"It doesn't look like any of the dates are the same,” Jolene said, now studying that item.
"That might be your pattern,” Seth suggested.
"I'll re-arrange them,” Argus said. "We need more space,” and Jolene said,
"Let's take them out to the kitchen.”
Argus picked up the pile and the three moved off as she'd indicated. Seth decided to make some tea so he was getting that together while Argus and Jolene spread out the photos and articles again and started putting them in chronological order. Seth's guess proved interesting and soon they had formed two lines of seven items each. Jolene decided to make a list that she could walk around with. She wrote down the following:
August 6, 1986 - story, Harold Miner III's 23rd birthday party
March 28, 1988 - photo, two old men in park playing cards
November 11, 1989 - story, book review of 'The Witchcraft of Positive Thinking"
July 11, 1991 - photo, neighborhood produce market
March 2, 1993 - story, death of a woman named Cyrilla Pak
October 23, 1994 - photo, two boys on seesaw at playground
June 14, 1996 - story, city mayor convicted of bribery charges
February 4, 1998 - story, collapse of Fulsom Towers office building
September 27, 1999 - photo, family in front of fence and house
May 19, 2001 - photo, two red cars in an office park
January 9, 2003 - story, Sea Dragons Stadium demolished
August 31, 2004 - photo, Spring River office building
April 23, 2006 - photo, old woman in black in a garden
December 14, 2007 - story, kidnapping and secret room in house.
"Well, that's different at least,” Seth said, arriving at the kitchen table with a pot and three cups.
"Different and yet the same,” Argus shrugged.
"Is there anything about any of those dates that mean anything to you?" Seth asked.
"Just the first one,” Argus replied. "That was the day I was born. August 6, 1986"
"No way!,” Jolene nearly shouted. "That's got to mean something!"
"Yup,” Seth agreed. "Maybe we can say that this thing was definitely intended for you."
"Maybe,” Argus said. "It would be a hell of a coincidence otherwise."
"It's a start,” Jolene said. "Now we're getting somewhere."