Smoke Signals

I ought to apologize for my absence as of late. February was too much for storytelling. But now that it's March, I've resolved to hike out of this winter's solid repetition of steel gray skies and bone-chill cold. March is here, Mrs. Owens' daffodils are peeking up a good inch or two, and I will tell another story.

When I first came to Confluence a number of years ago, I did so in a burst of youthful idealism. Somewhere in my thick, recently educated skull, I'd figured that there were few things left in life that were pure, and I was determined to find whatever I could and save it before it was too late. (If that sounds like an opaque glossing over of my mentality at the time, please understand it's purposeful. That'll be the subject of another story later on.)

Anyway, I showed up in this sleepy town driving an old Jeep Wagoneer. All of my possessions were in the back seats of the truck. It was summertime, and my air conditioning never worked, and I had tooled through the hills looking for the right place to stop, looking for something that felt right, something that resonated deep within. I was looking for some kind of sign, as if God would put a bully hand in my face. It never occurred to me that such a sign might be a busted radiator hose on the side of a two lane highway four miles outside of town.

But there I was, steam bellowing from under the hood of the Jeep, when a man named Vic pulled up behind me on the shoulder. He was driving a contraption I still can only describe as akin to the vehicle featured in the Beverly Hillbillies. In all reality, it was a 1950s model fire truck, but rust had ruined any of its red color and a hundred odds and ends hung off its sides as he guided it to a stop behind me.

"Overheating?" he shouted from the window.

"Busted hose," I said.

Vic shut off the fire engine's diesel motor and walked up to peer under my hood. Steam still poured from the engine block. He was a square man, with thick shoulders, and a head full of wiry silver hair. "Well, you're in luck. I've got an old Dodge engine block up at the house, and I figure a hose off one will work in place of this one."

"That's awfully kind," I began, "but it's no trouble for me to pick up a new hose. Would you mind giving me a lift to a garage or parts store? I think I can probably fix it."

"I'd be obliged, but you're forgetting that it's Sunday. Blue laws keep the parts house closed. Besides," he said, peering at his watch, "Mr. Cloer's still up at church anyway. Won't be out till well after dark."

We both stood there, an old man and a young one, staring helplessly at my motor.

"Well, come on up to the house," Vic said.

I walked with him back to the fire engine, which grew larger with each step. Vic's Curiosities and Antiques was painted in faded gold letters on the doors. The engine roared to life, and we were off. I took another look back at my Jeep in the rattling side mirror, its front section puffing away like a sad signal fire.

We introduced ourselves--rather, Vic introduced himself. He lived up at the top of the mountain, as he called it, and ran an antique store in town. Lived in Confluence his whole life, but--and this is important, he said--he didn't think of himself as being of here.

Yes, this was how I first came to Confluence. By accident, by coincidence, by sheer serendipity, in the shotgun side of a fire engine, driven by its Wrestler of the Year, 1954. We passed along the river road, then turned up the steep drive just past the old Watts Store. We bumped along the pothole filled road. Suddenly we veered into a muddy driveway and stopped.

"Just a second," Vic said, fishing around in the floorboard. We had pulled up to a cinder block house with bedsheets in the windows. The door stood open, and a young girl, maybe my age at the time, with ratty brown hair slinked up to it. She was barefoot, wearing only a dirty t-shirt and a pair of cut-off jean shorts. "Got it," Vic said, producing a grocery bag containing a single loaf of white bread.

To this day, I've never asked Vic who he was bringing bread to, and I've never found out.

Vic's house was, indeed, at the very top of the hill. He had a view of the western slope, away from town, looking out into the Tsalave valley. His house was modest, nothing extraordinary, but as we pulled around the side of the yard, I found myself staring at a metal garage that was at least twice the size of the main dwelling. Vic killed the engine, and we approached a side door. It wasn't until he was negotiating a fist full of keys that I noticed the garage had no bay doors--only a large, singular door about thirty feet across.

And if you are wondering, yes, the entire time I was fully aware of the fact that I had broken down on the side of the road, accepted a ride from a stranger in a retired emergency vehicle, observed said stranger deliver groceries to a woman who by all appearances could have been a redneck hooker, and waited patiently as said stranger brought me to a garage larger than his house and, for all I knew, potentially the place where he meticulously dismembered his victims' bodies before wrapping them in plastic and freezing them. Like I said, I was young and idealistic. I was actually proud of the fact that I had followed this man here.

The large, sliding door, it turns out, was to allow the helicopter to be wheeled in and out. Vic didn't have a garage, he had a hangar. Well, there were cars, too: a perfectly restored 1957 Cadillac, a vintage Porsche, a convertible Pontiac Comet, and a Shelby Cobra. It was the perfect moment for me to emit some kind of low whistle, but my jaw had dropped so far open that I couldn't purse my lips.

"This..." I eventually stammered, "isn't what I expected."

"Aw, the old truck's mostly for show," Vic said. "I park it in front of the shop, and it brings people in."

"What do you sell in there?" I asked.

"Old stuff."

"What kind of old stuff?"

Vic didn't respond. He had pulled an old sheet off an engine block, and he was using a pocket knife to unscrew the clamps on the hose. Then he scraped the thermostat off--"Just in case"--grabbed a tube of silicon and a five gallon jug of water, and in a flash we were back in the truck, rattling back down the steep drive, and back at my Jeep. I felt as though I'd entered a time warp.

The sun was setting by the time we finished the repair. Although I knew my way around an engine, I let Vic do a lot of the work. I was still stunned a bit by him: he had a regal air but nothing about him fit together. He was stocky, definitely with the build of an old wrestler, but if his fingers were thick with strength, his mind was nimble with smarts. He didn't mind grease under his fingernails, but judging from his helicopter and vintage car collection, I estimated he didn't spend his entire life doing this kind of work.

"This is a patch job, son," he said when he'd finished. "I can't believe I didn't ask, but have you much farther to go?"

I hesitated. Truth was, I didn't know where I was going. "Not really," I found myself saying. "Maybe I'll just pull into town for the night and see how it holds."

And that was that. My decision to spend a day or two in Confluence was based entirely on whether or not a radiator hose stayed put. It did, for another several weeks. I've been here a lot longer than that.

My father had given me a modest sum of money after I'd graduated college, and the next day I used part of that to secure an apartment behind Mrs. Cooley's house. And later that afternoon, on my way to pick up supplies, I passed by Vic's store and decided to stop in and say hello.

to be continued...