Gary Braunbeck - Keepers

I looked up, and there it was; deserted, neglected, falling only slightly to decay.

“Carson, stop, we’re going home.” I was now seriously creeped out. Unless the fantasy before me is up on a movie or television screen I really have no use for it, nor it for me.

“I can’t! ” Carson yelled back at me. “Long-Lost says I gotta.”

“Long-Lost is not driving the car, and Long-Lost sure as hell isn’t the one taking care of you, so Long-Lost can go fuck himself!” Even I was shocked to hear that word come out of my mouth, which should have given me some indication of how panicked I was becoming, but at that moment I was too caught up in wanting to get the hell away from there so I could start denying any of this had happened to care about my language.

Carson whirled around and pleaded. “Please, UncGil? I just gotta do this.”

“I said no.”

Now he glared at me. For a few moments we stood there like two half-assed cowboys in some showdown from a Sergio Leone Western epic, then I stormed across to Carson and grabbed his arm, which was stupid, because my nephew, though not very tall, is nonetheless a beefy and very compact man, one whose physical strength is easy to overlook.

He jerked away and I made to grab him again, but this time he was ready and met my movements with a swinging elbow that caught me in the center of the chest, knocking the wind and about three years of life out of me. I dropped to my knees and began to fall forward, stopping myself with my hands. I stayed that way for several moments, my vision blurry and lungs screaming for air. I looked down at the soil under my hands. I remember thinking how very much like clay the soil felt. I wondered if I could possibly dig up several handfuls and fashion them into clay crutches, because there was no way in hell I was going to able to get up under my own power.

Carson helped me up. He was crying. He hugged me tight, saying, “I’m sorry, UncGil, I’m sorry, I love you, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t! ”

“It’s… it’s okay… okay, Carson. Come on, let’s… whew!… let’s get back to the car so I can sit down, all right?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Me, too.”

Ten years and several rest stops later we were finally back in the car. I leaned against the seat and waited for my chest to stop hurting. I’m still waiting, but eventually I was able to rally, turn the car around, and drive out. We had to wait to turn off Arboretum Road because the traffic was starting to get heavy. On my third attempt we were almost broadsided by the #48 express bus that ran between Cedar Hill, Buckeye Lake, and Columbus, but managed to get back on the road in one piece.

Carson looked behind us.

“What is it?” I asked.

“What bus was that?”

“The number forty-eight express. Why?”

He shrugged-a bit too nonchalantly, but that didn’t really register at the time. “I dunno.”

Back home that night there was no comic book reading. Carson demanded that I sit on the couch and watch TV and relax, he’d take care of me. I kept telling him that I was feeling much better, everything was okay-just make sure he never hit me again-but he wouldn’t hear of it. He was going to take care of me, even make dinner.

Dinner turned out to be grilled cheese sandwiches, underdone on one side, overdone on the other, but seeing how proud he was of his accomplishment, I ate two and told him they were the best grilled cheeses I’d ever had. The truth was, they were. His company did a lot to enhance their taste.

The rest of our week together was more subdued than usual. Except for a trip to a comic book store to see if they had the new Spider-Man (I knew damn well he was looking for a new Modoc, but didn’t say anything), nothing happened to remind me of the events at the truck stop and Audubon’s Graveyard. I am very good at denial.

I took Carson back to the group home the following Monday. He gave me a long, hard hug on the front steps before going back inside. I stood staring at the door after it closed behind him. The empty space where he’d stood a few moments before seemed to hum with his absence.

The next few weeks kept me very busy preparing for the opening of the Columbus store. Cheryl, the other employees, and I spent many long hours cataloging the inventory, moving displays, changing the locations of various areas (“I really think the prints should be over here…,” “Maybe the movies should be closer to the middle of the store than right up front…,” “Is there any way to have the CDs closer to the posters…?”), and generally making ourselves crazy.

The store opened. It was a big hit. I drove Cheryl home from the store one afternoon. We saw an old man chase his hat across the highway. Two black dogs watched everything. I came home to find a dying dog on my lawn. A woman whom I thought to be dead for the past twenty years sent me a package full of memories. And Carson disappeared from the group home.

A day in the life.

(Leaving a few things out there, aren’t you, pal?)

Shut. Up.

By the time I arrived at the group home, NPR was reporting that seventeen whales had beached themselves along the Maine coastline, and the local newsbreak reported that a group of hikers had seen what was described as a “dragon” near a wooded area at Buckeye Lake.

Okay, it wasn’t an elephant at the Twenty-first Street exit, but it was still funny. I’d have to make sure to tell Carson. After I finished being angry. And scared.

Suddenly so scared.

Cindy, one of the certified habilitation specialists who stayed at the group home, was waiting for me.

The neighborhood was amazingly quiet; no birds sang, no dogs barked, no cats yowled.

“I’m so sorry about this,” Cindy said as I joined her on the porch. “He complained about having a headache right after lunch and asked to be excused from afternoon workshop duties today. I sent him up to his room so he could lie down. I went up to give him your message after you called and-well, come on in, you can see for yourself.”

We went up to Carson’s room. Cindy showed me how he’d tied his bedsheets together and used them to shimmy down from his window onto the roof of the back porch. From there it was simple to grab one of the thick branches of the tree beside the house and climb down to the ground. I shook my head at the sight. Carson might have Down’s syndrome but it didn’t exclude him from possessing the same adventurous-sometimes even devious-imagination of a typical nine-year-old boy.

“I found this on his pillow.” Cindy offered me a folded slip of paper. I opened the note and read it, then became dizzy.

Carson’s spelling needed work, but the meaning was clear enough:

Longlost sayz the keeperz are comeing n he kneedz to talk to yoo.

Leaning on the windowsill and blinking the dizziness away, I saw a hand-sized cluster of what looked like small sticks lying near the roof gutter. If Cindy noticed them she gave no indication. But I knew damned well what they meant.

“I might have an idea where to find him.”

Cindy rubbed her eyes, her shoulders slumping in relief. “I was hoping you’d say something like that.”

“Have you called anyone else?”

She shook her head. “Only the sheriff. It’s standard procedure when one of the residents wanders off-not that it happens all that much but-”

I raised a hand, stopping her. “You don’t need to defend yourself to me, okay? I’m not upset and I won’t lodge any complaints with the AARC board.” My guess was she needed to hear that. The Association for the Advancement of Retarded Citizens sponsored this group home, which at any given time was staffed by two specialists and three trained volunteers, all of whom were expected to keep precise tabs on twelve residents. I couldn’t blame them. No one can be expected to keep track of twelve developmentally disabled human beings-ranging in age from thirteen to sixty-every second of every minute of every day.