Dave Zeltserman - The Caretaker of Lorne Field

“He’ll be at that field until eight tonight.”

“Can you get him to leave early?”

“Not a snowball’s chance.”

“How about if I stop by your house tonight?”

“Fine with me.”

“What time does your family have dinner?”

“When my husband comes home. Eight o’clock usually. We should be done by nine.”

“Expect me there at nine. I’ll have a talk with your husband then, and I’m sure he’ll be as excited about our plans as we are.”

“We’ll see,” Lydia said, without much enthusiasm.

“And, Mrs. Durkin, it’s not just us. I’ve had preliminary talks with several members of the town council. There’s a lot of excitement brewing over these plans. I’ll be meeting with potential business partners tomorrow. But it would be best if you can keep him from showing videotapes he may have made to anyone, especially to the media, at least until I have a chance to talk with him.”

“He won’t be showing anyone videotapes,” Lydia promised. “At least not today.”

Paul Minter told her that was good news. He put his receptionist on the line to get driving directions to her cabin. After Lydia got off the phone, she chain-smoked through half a pack of cigarettes, then put on a fresh pot of coffee. While she waited for the coffee to brew, she heard some noises from outside. It sounded like a sick dog howling off in the distance. She looked out the kitchen window and saw her husband and Lester maybe a hundred yards away. Her husband had his arm around Lester’s waist and seemed to be half dragging and half carrying him. Her son was shirtless and looked white as a sheet. It also looked like he was dragging something with his right hand. As they got closer she could see him more clearly. His face was screwed up as if he were dying and a redness around his eyes stood out in stark contrast to the unnatural paleness of the rest of his skin, almost as if paint had been used. She could also see he was-n’t dragging anything in his right hand-that instead his shirt had been wrapped around it. She remembered him leaving the house in a green tee shirt. What was around his hand looked like it had been dyed red. She could hear him whimpering.

Lydia stood frozen as her son and husband moved closer, trying to make some sense out of the scene. Then she sprang to life and rushed out the kitchen door to meet them.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Jack Durkin told her.

Lydia brought Lester’s head to her shoulder. His eyes were squeezed tight. What looked like paint was blood that had been smeared across his face. As she whispered to him, his mouth opened wide and he whimpered like a wounded dog. Thick strands of saliva dripped from his mouth onto her blouse. She rubbed her hand across his face wiping off tears, then started kissing his cheek, his eyes, his forehead, all the while telling him that everything was going to be okay.

Her husband repeated that it wasn’t his fault. “It happened so fast,” he said flatly, his expression vacant. “I didn’t know what was happening until it was over.”

She looked away from her son to her husband, her small eyes enflamed. “What did you do to my son?” she demanded, her voice shaking.

“Nothin’.” Durkin shook his head. “I didn’t do nothin’. It wasn’t my fault.”

Lester let loose a low cry. She gently took his hand and unwrapped the shirt that had been tied around it. Underneath was a bloody mess. She saw that his thumb was missing.

“It wasn’t my fault,” her husband insisted. “He was supposed to film me while I dug up one of the Aukowies. I heard something, looked over and saw he dropped the camera. Before I could stop him he reached down for it.”

“You monster,” she said to him, her voice still shaking and barely a whisper.

Durkin flinched. “There was nothing I could do,” he said.

She flew at him, beating him over and over again in the chest, her hands clenched into tiny fists that were no bigger than small Cortland apples. Durkin stood helplessly and took it.

“There was nothin’ I could do to stop it.”

“Where’s his thumb?” she cried. Tears streamed down her raisin-like face. “What did you do with it!”

“It’s gone.”

“What do you mean it’s gone?”

“The Aukowies got it,” he said.

“You bastard!”

“There was nothin’ I could do. They took his thumb. Next thing it was gone. Nothin’ left but a pink mist.”

She flashed him a look mixed with hate and disgust and utter contempt, then led Lester away from him.

“You better take him to the hospital,” he said, acting as if Lydia were still listening to him. “I can’t. I have to go back. I have to finish weeding.” There was a desperate pleading in his eyes. He waited for her to look back at him. She didn’t. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow, then under his nose. “Lydia, there was nothin’ I could do.”

“Go to hell.” She guided Lester into the passenger seat of their car and secured the seatbelt around him. She stopped for a moment to kiss him on the cheek and forehead, then got behind the wheel. She floored the gas, revving the engine to a high pitch. Durkin stood staring helplessly. He didn’t bother to move when she backed the car out at full throttle, coming within a hair’s breadth of clipping him.

“There was nothing I could do,” he repeated to no one. He stood and watched the car race down the dirt road and saw it barely miss spinning into a tree before Lydia regained control of the wheel. When it was out of sight, he turned and headed back to Lorne Field.

The nearest hospital was two towns over in Eastham. When Lydia arrived there with Lester, the doctor handling the emergency room gave her a funny look when he saw Lester’s hand. He wanted to get Lester into surgery, but before that he had questions for her. The first one was where was the thumb. All she could do was tell him she didn’t know.

He was checking Lester’s vital signs while a nurse attached an IV and another wrapped gauze around Lester’s hand. She recognized the nurse attaching the IV as Abby Huffman’s girl. She had never seen the doctor or other nurse before, knew they weren’t from her town. The doctor asked how the injury happened.

“I don’t know. My husband says it was an accident. That’s all he told me.”

“He was with your son at the time?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone else with them?”

“Nope, just Lester and my husband.”

“What happened to the thumb?”

“All he said was it was lost. Anyway, I don’t have it and I don’t know where it is.”

“That’s too bad,” the doctor said. “It looks like a clean cut. The thumb probably could’ve been reattached.”

“H-how do you think it was cut off?”

“A knife.”

Lester was sedated when he was brought in. He started moaning. Abby Huffman’s girl told the doctor that the IV was in. He told Lydia that they were taking Lester to surgery. That not only did they need to operate on his hand, but his blood pressure was dangerously low and he needed a transfusion as quickly as possible. He looked away from her and told her that she would be escorted to a waiting area.

“I want to be with my son.”

He turned only partly to face her. He was a lean man in his early thirties with a face like a razor. The look he gave her had about as much warmth as a sheet of ice.

“We have certain rules we need to follow for cases like this,” he said.

“Cases like what?”

He ignored her, nodding instead to two orderlies standing nearby. They took hold of the gurney Lester was on and started wheeling it away. The doctor followed them. When Lydia tried to follow, the nurse that she didn’t know stepped in her way.