This is an Unexpected Bump for Sure - Chapter 3
“Where you been?”
“At a dock.”
“Are you sick?”
“Not that kind of doc.”
“Oh, dock.”
“Right, dock.”
“How’d you get there?>”
“Dunno. Just did.”
“Good.”
“Well, yeah. I got loads of cash and gave some vagrantish looking guy my credit card so anyone looking for me would find him.”
“Cash is a good idea.”
“For sure.”
“Well, let’s get checked in at this motel you’re so fond of, ok?”
“Good idea.”
There it was. Middle of nowhere. Once had to be somewhere or else it wouldn’t a been there at all.
Looked in the window and saw my face big as you please on a poster on the wall.
“I’m wanted.”
“I see that.”
We sat at the picnic table under the tree.
“What now?”
“Let’s find the dock.”
“Weird. A dock from a desert.”
“Yeah it’s there all right.”
“How’d you disappear?”
“Right there somewhere,” pointing to the side of the road where she’d gotten out of the pickup.
She walked over to it and just stood there. I walked up beside her.
“Where is it?”
“Dunno.”
“What’s the wind?”
“Wind?”
“Whirlwind.”
“Oh, whirlwind.”
Cloe and me back at the dock. Or me back at the dock – Cloe’s first time.
“There’s the guy.”
“Him?”
“Yeah. Hey!”
“What?”
“We need a favor.”
“Nice looking woman you got with you.”
“Wait a minute – what are you thinking of?’
“It just came to me.”
“What?”
“Get the guy to check us in.”
“At the motel?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatta ya want?”
“Hold on. Yeah at the motel.”
“How’s he gonna get there?”
“Door.”
“Door?”
“Yeah, door.”
“You think?”
“Yeah.”
“Whattaya want?”
“Check us in at this motel?”
“What motel?”
“The one we’re taking you to.”
“With her?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“I want to splash my feet in the water first.”
“Go buy yourself a hamburger. When you come back we’ll be ready.”
“You know,” she said, as we walked down to the end of the dock where it just slid into the water, “you think he can go through the door?”
“It’s what came to me.”
“SHRIEK!!!”
“What?”
“Look at my feet!”
“They aren’t there.”
“No foolin’. But I can feel them. They are there.”
“But they don’t look like it.”
She dipped her hand in the water. It disappeared.
“Unexplained phenomena.”
“Let’s get up before anything else happens.”
And she slipped, dipped in the water. All I could see was her hair and her clothes. I reached out and she grabbed my hand.
“Where’s my hand? Where’s my arm? Where’s my other arm? My legs?!!!”
“Stay there and just be a bundle of clothes lying on the dock.”
“Where’d she go?”
“Swimming.”
“Left her clothes on the dock.”
“Yeah. She’ll need makeup when she gets out.”
He looked hard at the water, searching for her swimming.
“Makeup?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know what kind of makeup I need!”
“You’ll just have to go with him.”
“Like this?”
“Well . . . “
The guy was still searching the water for her. She was sort of hiding to the side, trying to keep down low, still trying to look like just a pile of clothes.
“Where can you get makeup,” I asked him.
He pointed up to the town, “There’s a pharmacy about 2 blocks up –over there.”
I turned to see what she was doing, the hair dipped in the water then disappeared, then her shirt unbuttoned to reveal nothing. Then it was off to reveal a bra and then the bra came off and the pants and underwear and shoes. Nothing was revealed.
“I’m not going with him. You go on and I’ll follow.”
Guy turned around, peering at the water.
“I’ll go get it.”
“But I know the guy behind the counter.”
“I can get it.”
“But she said you didn’t know . . . “
“She was talking about you.”
Went to the pharmacy, opened the door, let it close.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry.”
It was good no one noticed. I pulled the door more open so she could go through. She brushed by me.
Makeup fell to the floor. Different kinds, eye shadow, stuff, dark glasses. I figured that’s what she wanted. Lots of the packed stuff. Whatever it was.
Go back to the dock. I get an idea.
“You,” talking to the guy, “walk to that spot.”
He does and disappears.
While she’s getting her clothes on and makeup and stuff, I take mine all off.
“What . . . ?”
“Getting invisible.”
“Gonna be like what you told me . . . turn visible all of a sudden while you’re naked.”
”Take my clothes.”
I dip. I disappear.
“Ready?”
“Yeah, you whom I cannot see.”
Back to the desert. Guy is standing there. He just sees Cloe.
“Where’d your guy go?”
“He’s coming. Just need the room.”
“Make it two,” I whisper in her ear.
“Two rooms. One for you and one for us.”
The guy looked disappointed.
So here we are in the room. She unbuttons her shirt to show me that she’s invisible in the middle.
“That way I can time when I turn visible again.”
“Great idea. And if you are asleep, I can check.”
That invisible hand hits hard.
“How do you come up with these things? Like the dock. That was a total surprise.”
“Thoughts sometimes, but a lot of dreams. A lot had to do with dreams.”
“The dock was a dream?”
“Yeah. Funny isn’t it? And now there’s another where I’m riding a unicycle down an alley toward a house I used to live in and end up in a shopping area. My shopping areas are funny. Like this kid I’ve dreamed of before. Or similar. Before I was walking along a shopping area I know, but it was laid out differently, with little alcoves – that’s not right – the stores are lining a square type area – three sides, and there are several of these little squares lined on three sides by stores, with the front open to the street.
This was similar, only it had neon lights on the stores and framing the tops of the buildings – or making a horizontal line just above the stores, from one end of the shopping area to the other. This latest one had changed. New culture of people was there. And here I am riding up to it on my unicycle.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“How would I know? Only that I need to keep it in memory. It has to be significant. Anyway, it’s like everything else. I just don’t just write this. It comes to me. I’m not so much in control of it as it is in control of me. Some people reading will think I am in control and definitely writing this.
“Things just come to me. Everything. I add a little here and there. Gotta make it make sense.”
She laughs.
“What?”
“When had this ever made sense?”
I am silenced.
