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“How did you pick the name Dawn? Do you mind my asking? Cause I don’t mind telling you about why I’m Franck if you want to know. It’s a little bit of a story, but that’s okay, we have a while before we land, or maybe you want to read the safety features of…”
“Wait wait slow down. Not a problem. Not a problem,” said Dawn, bemused. “No I don’t mind telling you. It was fun. I was at the beach. Well it was after one of the most fun times of my life, really. I was a senior in high school, it was right after the prom, and we were all supposed to go out to some fast food place and have a good time. Right. So Funk and I – yes, he called himself Funk because he was in love with the music – snuck away. He said he had a favorite place. You’d love it, I can tell.
“Funk had frizzy hair just like you and me. We hung out a lot and used to call ourselves the poodleheads. So what happened was, he took me out for a drive, and I was starting to think weird thoughts, like, where is he taking me? We were driving out of town and it was dark, you know, and then he turned down a dirt road, and all those horror stories came back to me, like about the weird guy with the hook for a hand attacking Lovers Lane out of the woods and the kids escape and when they get home they find a hook stuck in the door of their car, so I was sitting there worried about some weirdo in the woods but not really worried about Funk because we’re good friends although sometimes guys can turn a corner if things strike them the wrong way – or the right way, I guess, if it’s what you want. So we got out of the car, and I was trying my best to be bold and courageous and fun but also staring into every shadow and jumping at every chipmunk that moved – do chipmunks come out at night? Oh well, whatever was moving spooked me every time, but I didn’t show it and managed to laugh at his jokes and make some of my own. So we wended our way down a little path and came out of the trees and he said ‘voila!’ and I said ‘what?’ because I couldn’t see anything, but as our eyes got used to the dark, I saw a pitch black lake in front of us. He told me it was a quarry and before I knew it he was jumping in and I was standing alone by the edge, and he came up laughing and shouted out ‘come on in, it’s perfect,’ and I said ‘Funk, I have no suit, nothing to swim in’ so he said ‘then swim in nothing!’ and so I just went ahead and whipped off my clothes and into the dark water I went, and I tell you, Franck, it was the most hilarious and sparkling thing I ever did.”
Frank watched her glowing face. She was wrapped up in memories, and he smiled at her, waiting for more of the story.
"We had the best time splashing around and well, you know how you can once in a long while laugh so much it hurts? We were in this deep quarry treading black water on a moonless night and playing tag and leaping like dolphins and when we got back to the car, we dried off with an extra sweatshirt he had and no ugly guy with a hook hand appeared, so we felt just glorious as we drove back to the road, and Funk said why don’t we see the sunrise, and I said, no way, too many trees and hills, and he said, well there are no trees or hills on the beach! So we drove all the way there and lazed around on the beach and we had a wonderful rest of the night there getting all sandy, and if his parents found out anything about our being there together – never mind that we didn’t do anything they’d suspect us of doing – they would have put Funk in a public stockade and had him flogged if they could. It was all such a dream, and I felt like a new person, really. And I told him so, and he felt the same, and just then the sun started coming up. And he said that if someone is a new person and is truly reborn, they should have a new name. So he changed his name to Isaiah. And I really felt like a new person, so I was Dawn from then on. It really stuck with me.”
“Wow. I love that. You guys really hit it off. What ever happened to Funk, or Isaiah?”
“He went off the deep end.”
“What, is he crazy, or suicidal or something? What happened?”
“To me it’s totally crazy, knowing how he was when I knew him. At college, he suddenly changed. His parents were strictly religious and that’s why he got in so much huge trouble doing wild things like skinnydipping in the quarry, well they wouldn’t know that, but just staying out too late got him into serious troubles. Anyway, when he came back for Christmas break after his first semester at college, he was completely different. He had cut his hair short, wore a gray trenchcoat, was totally reserved, didn’t crack jokes any more, was studying classical Greek, and I heard from a friend that he had joined a group of four guys who went around campus singing about how they’d been saved by Jesus. They even woke up early in the morning to speak in tongues.”
“Yikes. That’s like a hundred eighty turnaround. I thought you were going to tell me he got into drugs and a funk band and spiralled down into the dumps or something.”
“No. Well that would be terrible of course, if he went that way. But it’s sad because he had a real spark to him and then it was gone. He started giving me brochures about being saved and I just didn’t see him any more. I heard he went so far off the deep end that he broke from his family to follow a religious group and his parents tried to kidnap him back. I never found out how it ended up.”
The fellow in the window seat next to Franck needed to use the bathroom. Franck undid his seat belt, put up his tray, and Dawn did the same. They squeezed into the aisle, and the man squeezed out also but more literally, since he was quite large, and just as Franck and Dawn squeezed back into their seats, the big man excused himself again and asked to get back in. They had to repeat the whole operation because the drinks cart had just started coming down the aisle and was blocking the bathroom. The big man edged sideways between seat and seat back, hovered above his seat, and let himself drop with a thud back into his seat. Franck leaned more toward Dawn, since the man took over the armrest and then some. For quite a while, as the drinks cart slowly approached, the man was restless and let out little grunts and sighs and aromatic noises which Franck fended off by manipulating his overhead air jets to form a somewhat helpful barrier of fresh air.
“What are you going to do in Charlotte?” asked Dawn.
Franck debated with himself in the seconds that followed, about whether to start a story line about his graduate research paper, or to tell her about Robert McIver.
“I’m visiting with some cousins of my roommate’s,” he said.
“Oh, have you known them a long time?”
“No, actually, I’ve never seen them before. But they sound really nice, offered to put me up and show me around, and I have a weekend off.”
"I wish I could afford to fly places when I have a free weekend. That must be wonderful.”
“Well, I can’t afford it. That’s the beauty, or the evil maybe, of credit cards. I had no choice, I had to go.”
“Really? Why?”
“I…got my roommate in some trouble, well actually I got myself into some trouble, and I have to fix it. Or, I guess, it’s another friend’s problem, very serious problem, and I’m helping him out. Well, he’s not really a friend but I have to help him out.”
“Wait, slow down again. Start at the beginning. What is this about?”
“The beginning? No that would go back to my wild ride and that’s another flight and a half’s worth of a story.”
“Try me.”
“Hmmm. Well in a nutshell, I was in some serious heat and traffic. We don’t get traffic in Port Haven.”
“Well, that’s true, isn’t it?” said Dawn.
“You know Port Haven?”
“Yeah, I live about half hour out of town.”
“Really? Where?”
“Springham.”
“I guess I’ve heard of it. Never placed it on a map, though. I hope to. Maybe I’ll get to visit you some time.”
“Maybe. Depends on this story. I’m ready for a good one.” Dawn leaned back in her seat with a contented smile, and stretched one leg out into the aisle. Franck liked her legs and the tiny bit of skin where her jeans were torn.
“Okay, so I was stuck in traffic. Big pileup because of an accident. I couldn’t stand it. Well to be honest I was already at the end of my rope about other things, at work, and at my bank. They lead you on, you’re a day late because their due date is on Sunday one time and your paycheck doesn’t match up, and they won’t give you a break, and they rip you off.”
“Yeah, so what was the wild ride?”
“Oh, there was a big backup of cars, I was stuck between two cars and sitting right on the railroad tracks, couldn’t go forward or back up, and this train is coming. There was a woman in the car going the other way who was nice enough to warn me about the train, and here I am trapped on the tracks, in an SUV, with off-road four-wheel drive, so I thanked her for warning me and I just veered out of there and shot on down the tracks! I was sure I could beat the train to the next intersection so I just hightailed it over there but the railroad gate was down, so I just kind of squeezed between the gate and the tracks onto the embankment just as the train zoomed past me, blaring his horn in my ears. It was the wildest thing.”
Dawn leaned back wide-eyed. “Um. Yeah, I’ll say that was wild. You could have got yourself killed. Didn’t the train even slow down?”
“I don’t know, maybe it put the brakes on but I was not exactly in a position to be sure, or to count on it. I had to get the hell out of there.”
“How did you get back to the road, then?”
“Well, that’s a different story, Dawn.” He almost launched into an exciting rendition of his adventure. Images of threatening horses, a sinkhole, an encounter with a gun-wielding mafioso, and a house with a black man chained to a large hearth in the basement, all came to his mind before he discarded it for the truth.
“I got myself in trouble, is what I did. I drove over a field and damaged what looked like a hill but turned out to be the entrance to an Underground Railway tunnel. And then I got blocked by a car in the driveway of a house and this banker guy comes out to talk to me and, I can’t really believe the balls it took to do this, but I acted like the owner of the house and actually gave the guy a tour of a house I’d never been in.”
“What a lark!” Dawn exclaimed. “So how did you get in trouble?”
“I signed something.”
“You signed something. That’s all you’re going to tell me.”
“Well, this guy said he needed a witness so I signed.”
“And? He was lying.”
“Yeah.”
“So? Come on, out with it. You’re almost run over by a train, you crash into a tunnel, impersonate a houseowner, your nerves are shot, naturally you do something stupid. What was it? Let me guess, a rental car agreement. A cable TV contract. A loan. Rights to your first-born child. If you did that I’m never going to marry you, kiddo.”
“Marry me?”
“I thought you’d never ask. Let me sleep on it. What did you sign?”
“The paper turned out to be a quit-claim deed. Since he thought I was the owner, he got me to sign the property to him.”
“That was stupid. I can’t believe you did that.”
“See? What happened to my nerves being shot, and all that?”
“No, that was just…so are you in trouble with the law now? Are you on the run?”
“No, no, no. But…”
“What. The scam artist is onto you and you’re running from him.”
“Not exactly. He’s onto me. But he wants me to get the real owner to sign.”
“No way! Now that would be dumb on top of stupid! Where is the guy? He doesn’t actually live there?”
“His wife was dying, so he took her to North Carolina and hasn’t come back. I’m trying to find him. I think Bob’s cousins might have some clues.”
“Hmm. What’s your plan?”
“I don’t have one. Bob’s mother told them I was a graduate student doing research.”
“So be one. But, something tells me you’re out of your league. Is this scam guy in the mafia or something?”
“I don’t think so. He is kind of like a mole in the bank.”
“You are in so much trouble that I don’t think anyone should touch you with a ten-foot pole. I’m not even sure I want to sit next to a protocon.”
“What’s a protocon?”
“You’ve heard of an ex-con? A guy that used to be in prison? A protocon is a guy that’s headed there.”
“Did you make that up?”
“See you even have a striped hat like in prison. You’re all set. Give me that.” She grabbed his hat.
“Hey! Nobody gets my hat. Give it back!” He grabbed at it but she turned toward the aisle and he had to reach over her. Dawn suddenly turned back and she was in his arms.
“Oh my God look at all those bugs crawling under where your hat was!”
“What! What!” Franck retreated to his chair to frantically sift through his hair.
“Just kidding. Had you going!”
“You…” but he was interrupted by a calm, pleasant voice.
“Something to drink?” smiled the flight attendant. They stopped their scuffle and ordered drinks, as did the suffering man in the window seat.
"Where did you get that hat?"
"An old girlfriend from college. We went on a trip together once and she bought it for me. Donna. On our flight home she placed it on my head as if it were an engagement ring. But nothing came of that. I haven't seen her for years. She played violin too."
"Really?"
“Sorry, kids," said the man in the window seat, "But…”
Franck and Dawn picked up their drinks, folded up their trays, Franck remembering suddenly that you can’t stand up with your seat belt attached, and squeezed out into the aisle, followed by a very anxious, large, but kindly gentleman, who made his way down the aisle to wait in a short line of jittery passengers.
As they squeezed back in without spilling too much on themselves and their seats, Dawn said, “I think you’re going to need all the help you can get, Franck.”
“I asked Bob to come with me, but he had a hot date with someone at his office. I’m going to have to handle it somehow or on Monday I’m heading to the clink, or worse.”
“All passengers please return to your seats as we prepare for landing. Buckle your seat belts, and return your tray and seat-back to a locked and upright position.”
A moment later, a frustrated large man asked to be let into his seat again.
Dawn handed Franck a card. “My cellphone’s on there. After my gig tonight, I’m free till Sunday. I’m a good sleuth.”