F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

As Jack turned away he glanced again at the clippers protruding from Carl’s right sleeve. What was holding them? Maybe he didn’t want to know.

2

Back inside Jack pulled the can of coffee from the fridge. Brown Gold—“100% Colombian Coffee.” Sounded good. But he couldn’t find a coffee pot. Just a miniature French press. Jack remembered seeing a big version of this in a restaurant where he once waited tables, but had never worked one.

And he needed coffee. Now.

He flipped on his father’s computer, did a Google search for “French press,” sifted through sites about French newspapers and other sites wanting to sell him a press until he found one telling how to use one: two scoops of coffee into a small press, followed by near-boiling water at about 195–200 degrees—were they kidding? Stir after one minute. After a total of three minutes, put on the cap and push the plunger to the bottom.

Jack followed the directions using boiling water—like he was going to check the temperature, right?—and finally had his coffee. A damn good cup of coffee, he admitted, but who had time for all this rigamarole every time you wanted some?

Retired people, that’s who. And his father was one of them.

He flipped on the Weather Channel while he was waiting the required three minutes and learned that Elvis was still drifting south in the Gulf. Its sustained winds had reached seventy-eight miles per hour. That meant it had graduated from a tropical storm to a Category I hurricane. Whoopee.

Coffee in hand, he searched through the front-room desk until he found a couple of Florida maps. One was a roadmap of the state, but the other was Dade County only. That was the one he needed.

He found Pemberton Road and followed it till it intersected with South Road…the site of the accident. Out in the boonies. Way out.

Time for a road trip.

He was halfway through refolding the map—these things never wanted to go back to their original state—when a knock on the front door interrupted him. He found Anya, dressed in a bright red-and-yellow house dress, standing outside with Oyv cradled in her arms.

“Good morning,” she said. Hot, steamy air flowed around her.

Jack motioned her inside. “Come on in where it’s cool. If you’ve got half an hour, I can make you a cup of coffee.”

She shook her head as she stepped in. “No thanks, hon.”

“Sure? It’s made from beans.” He winked at her. “And on the label it says that no plants were killed during the making of Brown Gold coffee.”

She winked back. “I’ll have to try some another time.” She gestured to the map in Jack’s hand. “Planning a trip?”

“Yeah. Out to where my father got hurt.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“That’s not necessary.” Jack had planned to do a little aimless reconnoitering after checking out the intersection and didn’t know if he wanted an old lady and a yip-yip dog along.

“No trouble at all,” she told him. “Besides, you’re a newcomer and I’ve lived around here awhile. I can keep you from getting lost.”

Well…on that score, maybe she’d be more of a help than a hindrance.

“Okay. Thanks. But I want to stop at the hospital and check up on my father before we head out to the swamps.”

“That can wait till you get back,” she told him. “I was just there.”

“You were?” He was touched by her devotion. “That’s awfully nice of you. How was he?”

“When I left he was just the same as yesterday and the day before.”

“No progress?” Bummer. “How long can this go on?”

“Not much longer, hon,” Anya said with a smile. “I have a feeling he’ll be taking a turn for the better soon. Just give it a little time. But as for exploring the hinterlands, we should get started before it gets too hot.”

She had a point. “Okay. Just let me throw a few things together and I’ll be right out.”

“Oyv and I will meet you at the car.”

Jack figured he’d bring his backup .38 along—just in case. And mosquito repellent. Lots of mosquito repellent.

3

A voice had called him from his long dream of the war and he’d responded. He was glad to leave the dream…so many dead men, with pierced skulls and ruptured chests…staring at him with mournful eyes…

And then he was out of the dream and awake. He sat up. He was in a bed, in a barrack. But where were the other beds, the other soldiers? No one here but him.

Then he saw a little woman, a thin bird of a woman in some sort of uniform, mopping the floor. He spoke to her. Not volitionally. The words seemed to pop out of his mouth. He didn’t even hear them. But the woman did. Her head snapped up. Her eyes widened. Then she hurried from the room.

Where am I? he wondered.

Was this still part of the dream? If not, how did he get here?

4

Jack tried to draw Anya out during the trip but she wasn’t very responsive. He told her about the palmetto attack last night but she didn’t seem horrified or even concerned. Her only remark was that it was “very unusual.”

“How about you?” he said, shifting the subject from him to her. He wanted to know more about her. “Where are you from?”

“I moved here from Queens,” she said.

“I’d have thought you came from Long Island.”

“Well, I’ve lived there too.”

“What about your childhood? Where’d you grow up?”

“Just about everywhere, it seems.” She sighed. “It was so long ago it seems like a dream.”

This was getting nowhere. “Wherehaven’t you lived?”

“On the moon.” She smiled at him. “So what’s with all the questions?”

“Just curious. You seem to know a lot about me and my father, and you two seem close, so don’t you think it’s natural for me to want to know a little about you?”

“Not to worry. We’re not involved. We never will be. We’re just friends. Isn’t that enough?”

“I suppose it is,” Jack said.

He supposed it would have to be.

He took Pemberton Road southwest with Anya following on the map and acting as navigator. Oyv lay stretched out in the sun on the deck under the rear window. A drainage ditch paralleled the road, sometimes on the left, other times on the right. Probably served as a canal of some sort in normal times, but now it was mostly a succession of intermittent pools of stagnant water.

“They’re called borrow pits,” Anya said, as if reading his mind. “They’re where the dirt and limestone came from when they were building up these roads. This time of year they should be filled with water, with turtles and little alligators and jumping fish. Now…”

He could see what filled them now: beer cans, Snapple bottles, old tires, and hunks of algae-encrusted Styrofoam.

Coarse brown grass stretched away to either side. He spotted three white-tailed deer—a doe and two fawns—grazing near a stand of trees. As the car approached they leaped over a bush and disappeared.

He saw a sign that readPANTHER CROSSING .

“Panthers?”

Anya nodded. “They still have some around here.”

The idea of wild panthers about was a little unsettling even when in a car. Imagine seeing that sign while on foot.

“I’ve driven through here with your father a couple of times. Every time we pass that sign he says some rhyme about a ‘panther’ and ‘anther.’”

Jack had to laugh. “Ogden Nash!”

“Who?”

“He was a very clever, down-to-earth poet. No airs about his stuff. Wrote a lot for kids. Dad loved him.”

Jack remembered his father’s nightly ritual of doling out a few of Nash’s animal poems at bedtime.

He’d forgotten about those times. He made a mental note to check the bookstores when he got home and see what was still in print. Vicky would love Nash’s wordplay.