The Deputy wasn’t invited but there she is. She detects our whereabouts. She always does.
The Real Estate Agent calls it “the club,” but this place is really more of an excuse to eat cheeseburgers and stare into the ravine.
We meet weekly at the agreed-upon time. Our itinerary is unimportant. Let’s say that a whirlpool of pacts have developed between us.
The Laundromat Owner is struggling to become a painter. He tells us that someone burgled one of his paintings that was hanging on his laundromat office door. His confidence appears to be bolstered by the incident.
The Fortune Teller hands a glass to the Conductor and says, “This isn’t Pepsi.”
The Deputy reminds us she is the descendent of a Swedish king. Everybody pretends not to hear her.
She laughs and says, “Companionship.”
Mysterious signals and maneuverings punctuate the atmosphere between the Real Estate Agent and the Unemployed Moon Worshiper. They have an understanding.
The Conductor unbudges an object from his bag and asks us to admire it.
“Is that a bone? A human bone? Are you putting one over on us? In front of a narc, no less,” says the Laundromat Owner.
The Conductor manipulates it around in a semicircle so we can get a good look.
I see all my past dealings in that marrow.
“The best questions are the ones we don’t have answers to. I keep it on my front stoop so the neighbors will leave me alone,” the Conductor replies.
I see my turn and I take it. The situation calls for it.
“Speaking of being left alone, did you read the papers?”
The Fortune Teller nods too early.
I continue, “This man, he apparently gets sick of his life, his family, his whole deal. Then his wife wakes up next to a stranger, and not in a metaphorical sense. This other man is mostly similar to the one she married. He is passable in certain circles. But his nose is straighter, his legs a half inch longer. And he has a cheek mole. She never saw it coming.”
The Deputy almost interjects, but her pendular confidence wanes in our presence.
“And he doesn’t stop there. The surrogate man finds hidden notes along the baseboards, in the woodshed, and even miraculously sealed inside a frozen bag of Bird’s Eye peas. These notes are further instructions on how to live out the life the other had abandoned. Which probably meant he planned never to return. The absconded man was probably taking his resentment for a walk. Or a series of excursions, more like.”
“Was the surrogate held against his will?” the Laundromat Owner asks.
“Ah, that’s what everybody asks. The surrogate seems to have made himself quite at home. He even fixed some mangled wiring in their dining room.”
The secret society crowd is dare-I-say captivated.
“Still, if I was that wife I would’ve carried him to the police station by now.”
The Real Estate Agent gesticulates to reinforce her comment, knocking over my backpack. My binoculars clatter on our hangout’s hardwood.
Now the Fortune Teller hands me a drink.
“Here you go, Leroy. Good for the nerves,” she says.
“But this is not…tell me this is not…” I say.
And if it isn’t clear by now, they are onto me. I’d told my own account too boastfully perhaps.
But we could not yet hear the accusations of the townspeople––or whatever they like to be called––resounding in the night outside our front door.
Claire Hopple is the author of five books. Her fiction has appeared in Wigleaf, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Peach Mag, Forever Mag, and others. She is the fiction editor at XRAY. More at clairehopple.com.
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