Chapter 18: 421 Maple
By Allen Frost
In the doctor’s black bag the soldier’s head had gone off, quiet and marble gray. The morning sun was painting Monets over the canvas big top tent.
“Do you remember where he said he lived?” George asked Sam in a sigh.
“Yes. 421 Maple.” Sam touched his forehead, “Remember? Photographic memory.”
George clasped the doctor’s kit shut. “We better take him home.”
Sam thought about it for a moment, then agreed.
Wervers got the circus to loan them some transportation so they could hurry back, get their car and drive to the studio.
After a last cup of green tea, they were freed into a jitney cart pulled by a zebra, trotting out of the circus into the other world.
The sky was mad with flying wings burning contrails. For a while the thick green canopy of cedars and maples hid the swarm from view and George was glad. A crazy war was starting and there was no way to stop it. He thought about the doctors in the cities that would be bombed. They won’t get any sleep, their distant streets will be filled with terror.
Sam interrupted him, “I never drove one of these!” His face was gleeful. He held the ringing bell reins like an antique, staring at the zebra’s amazing stripes, the look of a star struck moon man crowning him. There was no shouting motor or crushing speed velocity, the clapping hooves on the road was all they needed to hup along.
“There’s Maple,” George pointed at the green street sign pressed in a lilac tree. The zebra responded to Sam, they turned the corner. Sedans parked under the awning of leaves, lawn mown yards led to big houses. The sound of them arriving on the quiet street brought faces to windows to see a red painted miracle zebra rattling bells. Little did they know how it hid a wonder as apocalyptic as some folklore portent; they had arrived with a severed head.
George looked nervously back into the bag. “What are we going to say? He never told us what we were supposed to tell his wife.”
Sam shrugged.
They shook to the next block. A dog barked along a slatted fence.
“421,” Sam said. There on their right was the house. They clip clopped to the grassy edge of the curb and Sam pulled the reins to a stop. The zebra reached out for a mouthful of dandelions. Sam looked at George. “Let’s go.”
“Okay…” George got out and stood next to the short white fence. Rose petals patterned across the yard on the other side, scattered by the windblown night before. George read the name on the little swinging gate. “Parrot Residence,” painted on a flat piece of driftwood. George hefted the zipped bag in his hand. “Okay,” he sighed.
Sam pushed open the gate and led the way up the stone path. His shadow threw down a cloud.
“What should we say?” George hissed, hurrying behind him.
“We’ll find out what happens.”
Sam’s big hand tightened into a rumpled fist and he knocked on the door.
A woman with a baby in her arms opened the door, stood there surprised. “You’re--!” she stammered. She looked into her yard for cameras. She noticed the strange zebra contraption eating her flower bed. “Is this one of those sweepstakes?”
Sam shook his head, “No.”
“Sam Samsara,” she laughed and stepped aside. “You can come in, I’m just making tea, can you stay?”
“Yes please,” the giant had to duck under the eaves a bit. George followed quietly, carrying that bag with her husband…what was left of him. “George is my friend,” Sam told her.
“Hi,” she smiled, “Edith,” and took them by the photographs in the hallway to the kitchen. The baby stared over her shoulder at them. A teapot was steaming. “I wish Archie was here, he’ll never believe Sam Samsara was here! He used to see you every Monday when you were a sumo wrestler. Now we see you in the movies and magazines. What a world, huh?” she laughed.
“Please take a seat.” A table with a candle and half a bowl of oatmeal.
Sam sat down and rested his hand on the windowsill and asked, “Can I turn on the radio?”
“Yes, of course Mr. Samsara.”
He did so, deftly spinning the dial to his station and landed on it.
George was relieved when it was Cornelius Barter. It would have been a nightmare if Sam smashed her radio right away. Hopefully the music would last a while.
Edith opened a cupboard over the sink and took down three cups.
George startled Sam as he plopped the black bag onto the tabletop.
“Excuse me,” Sam remembered, “We have news about your husband.”
“Archie?”
“Is he in the army?”
“Yes—Oh no! Did something happen to him?” She hugged the baby tight enough to make his arms windmill. “What happened?” Then she whirled around so she wouldn’t see them tell, busied herself pouring hot water into three cups.
George glanced at Sam, wishing he had a script, something really heroic he could say, like in the movies.
“Ms. Parrot—”
“Edith,” she urged Sam.
“Your husband had to guard the circus last night, that’s why he didn’t show up yet. He wanted you to know he’d be late.”
“Oh—” she let a laugh go. “What a relief. I thought—” She turned to hide her face again.
George gasped as he saw the kit bag inch forwards. He clapped his hands on it. The baby was watching over Edith’s shoulder. George opened the bag some and said, “Shhhh…” into it.
Sam whispered in a croak, “He’s alive again?”
“He must have been sleeping, I guess.”
Edith carried two cups over for them, holding her baby pressed to her. She was still a little rattled.
“He—” Sam tried, starting a new story for her.
The soldier spoke up again, “It’s okay, you can tell her.”
“What’s that?” she asked George with growing alarm.
The hidden voice called to her, “I’m in here, darling.”
“Uhh…” George stood up with the bag held closed against him.
“Is that my husband’s voice?” she pointed.
“No!” George yelped.
Then Edith’s confusion abruptly managed another nervous laugh, “This IS one of those sweepstakes, isn’t it? Is there a telephone in there?” She reached for the bag.
George grappled Sam’s arm. Cornelius Barter was fading out. “Oh no…” He reached and tried to turn off the radio, quickly, before it got crunched. To his horror, the head rolled out of the bag with a plop.
Edith screamed.
The song ended. George knocked the radio off the windowsill into the oatmeal.
Edith screamed again. The baby was crying.
The soldier stared up at the woman and child. “Who are you?”
She bit her hand in terror. “What is that?!” Her screeching son crabbed in her arms.
“She’s not my wife,” the soldier’s eyes rolled gruesomely at Sam and George.
And the radio clucked the news bulletin in a grim monotone. Sam flinched, flashed a block fist onto it, crushing it all into pulp and oatmeal.
George jumped, the head teetered, Edith screamed again.
“Sam, I think we better leave.”
“Yeahh,” the big man stood, “Sorry for this, Ms. Parrot. We found him on the beach like this. He asked to be brought here.”
“Actually,” George tried to soothe her, “We got the wrong address.”
“Thanks for the tea though,” Sam bowed to the woman, “I apologize for your radio, I’ll have a new one delivered.”
She was holding her baby and staring at the table, the shattered bowl and radio, the candle knocked down, rolled against a cup of spilled green tea, a man’s head planted in the middle.
Sam batted the head into George’s bag and they left the kitchen in a sprint, the hall, bashed out the door.
“That went well, didn’t it?” George panted, but Sam was approaching the crowd of boys ganged around the jitney. He cracked his knuckles and they turned around.
“Samsara…” It was Crybaby Johnson. “What are you doing riding this rig? You doing a circus picture?”
“No.”
“It looks like you’ll finally be doing a movie with us.”
Sam pushed through them.
“We started production today in a haunted house,” Crybaby Johnson continued.
In two strides Sam got back up in the creaking jitney. George sat next to him.
“We’ll be seeing you, Sam,” Crybaby Johnson tried to make words sound as rough as sand dollars.
Sam clicked and flicked the reins across the zebra’s back.
“Want me to count the stripes and make sure they didn’t take any?” George asked.
The Crybaby Gang stood watching them go, grown no taller than the lilies and the half eaten weeds.
“You brought me to the wrong house!” the soldier gasped inside the open bag.
“I don’t know what happened,” Sam murmured. “I thought I had photographic memory. I’m very sorry.”
“That’s alright, Mr. Samsara. Heck, after that scene my wife will be a breeze.”
“412 Maple,” George said. “That sounds right to me.”
“Yeah,” the soldier agreed. “412 Maple is where I live. Hold me up, let me see.”
George obeyed. “Just don’t fall out again.”
“Hey—a zebra!”
“There’s 412,” Sam said. “That’s the place, correct?”
“Home sweet home.”
“Alright, let’s do this right this time,” Sam said as he pulled the zebra to stop. He bounded out.
A spray of sparrows flew out of the overhanging mimosa tree.
George got down and patted the zebra for luck. Saturn Circus was stamped on the white of a stripe.
“Don’t worry fellahs, my wife isn’t loony.”
“I hope you’re right,” George replied. He kept the bag open to dapple in the light of the front yard to the porch and the screen door that Sam opened.
After a rap on the wooden frame they all waited listening. Sam rapped again and one last time. “She’s not home,” he decided.
“Look,” the soldier piped. “I don’t want to be any more trouble to you. There’s a key over the door. Just let me inside and you can go.”
George looked at Sam.
Sam shook his head. “No, we cannot risk another misfortune. We will all return later.”
“Aw! You can put me on the mantle, I’ll be fine there Mr. Samsara, honest.”
“No,” Sam burred and he looked like he was on the verge, Imperial flag unfurling in the background. It would have been the perfect time for words to match a movie.
In the doctor’s black bag the soldier’s head had gone off, quiet and marble gray. The morning sun was painting Monets over the canvas big top tent.
“Do you remember where he said he lived?” George asked Sam in a sigh.
“Yes. 421 Maple.” Sam touched his forehead, “Remember? Photographic memory.”
George clasped the doctor’s kit shut. “We better take him home.”
Sam thought about it for a moment, then agreed.
Wervers got the circus to loan them some transportation so they could hurry back, get their car and drive to the studio.
After a last cup of green tea, they were freed into a jitney cart pulled by a zebra, trotting out of the circus into the other world.
The sky was mad with flying wings burning contrails. For a while the thick green canopy of cedars and maples hid the swarm from view and George was glad. A crazy war was starting and there was no way to stop it. He thought about the doctors in the cities that would be bombed. They won’t get any sleep, their distant streets will be filled with terror.
Sam interrupted him, “I never drove one of these!” His face was gleeful. He held the ringing bell reins like an antique, staring at the zebra’s amazing stripes, the look of a star struck moon man crowning him. There was no shouting motor or crushing speed velocity, the clapping hooves on the road was all they needed to hup along.
“There’s Maple,” George pointed at the green street sign pressed in a lilac tree. The zebra responded to Sam, they turned the corner. Sedans parked under the awning of leaves, lawn mown yards led to big houses. The sound of them arriving on the quiet street brought faces to windows to see a red painted miracle zebra rattling bells. Little did they know how it hid a wonder as apocalyptic as some folklore portent; they had arrived with a severed head.
George looked nervously back into the bag. “What are we going to say? He never told us what we were supposed to tell his wife.”
Sam shrugged.
They shook to the next block. A dog barked along a slatted fence.
“421,” Sam said. There on their right was the house. They clip clopped to the grassy edge of the curb and Sam pulled the reins to a stop. The zebra reached out for a mouthful of dandelions. Sam looked at George. “Let’s go.”
“Okay…” George got out and stood next to the short white fence. Rose petals patterned across the yard on the other side, scattered by the windblown night before. George read the name on the little swinging gate. “Parrot Residence,” painted on a flat piece of driftwood. George hefted the zipped bag in his hand. “Okay,” he sighed.
Sam pushed open the gate and led the way up the stone path. His shadow threw down a cloud.
“What should we say?” George hissed, hurrying behind him.
“We’ll find out what happens.”
Sam’s big hand tightened into a rumpled fist and he knocked on the door.
A woman with a baby in her arms opened the door, stood there surprised. “You’re--!” she stammered. She looked into her yard for cameras. She noticed the strange zebra contraption eating her flower bed. “Is this one of those sweepstakes?”
Sam shook his head, “No.”
“Sam Samsara,” she laughed and stepped aside. “You can come in, I’m just making tea, can you stay?”
“Yes please,” the giant had to duck under the eaves a bit. George followed quietly, carrying that bag with her husband…what was left of him. “George is my friend,” Sam told her.
“Hi,” she smiled, “Edith,” and took them by the photographs in the hallway to the kitchen. The baby stared over her shoulder at them. A teapot was steaming. “I wish Archie was here, he’ll never believe Sam Samsara was here! He used to see you every Monday when you were a sumo wrestler. Now we see you in the movies and magazines. What a world, huh?” she laughed.
“Please take a seat.” A table with a candle and half a bowl of oatmeal.
Sam sat down and rested his hand on the windowsill and asked, “Can I turn on the radio?”
“Yes, of course Mr. Samsara.”
He did so, deftly spinning the dial to his station and landed on it.
George was relieved when it was Cornelius Barter. It would have been a nightmare if Sam smashed her radio right away. Hopefully the music would last a while.
Edith opened a cupboard over the sink and took down three cups.
George startled Sam as he plopped the black bag onto the tabletop.
“Excuse me,” Sam remembered, “We have news about your husband.”
“Archie?”
“Is he in the army?”
“Yes—Oh no! Did something happen to him?” She hugged the baby tight enough to make his arms windmill. “What happened?” Then she whirled around so she wouldn’t see them tell, busied herself pouring hot water into three cups.
George glanced at Sam, wishing he had a script, something really heroic he could say, like in the movies.
“Ms. Parrot—”
“Edith,” she urged Sam.
“Your husband had to guard the circus last night, that’s why he didn’t show up yet. He wanted you to know he’d be late.”
“Oh—” she let a laugh go. “What a relief. I thought—” She turned to hide her face again.
George gasped as he saw the kit bag inch forwards. He clapped his hands on it. The baby was watching over Edith’s shoulder. George opened the bag some and said, “Shhhh…” into it.
Sam whispered in a croak, “He’s alive again?”
“He must have been sleeping, I guess.”
Edith carried two cups over for them, holding her baby pressed to her. She was still a little rattled.
“He—” Sam tried, starting a new story for her.
The soldier spoke up again, “It’s okay, you can tell her.”
“What’s that?” she asked George with growing alarm.
The hidden voice called to her, “I’m in here, darling.”
“Uhh…” George stood up with the bag held closed against him.
“Is that my husband’s voice?” she pointed.
“No!” George yelped.
Then Edith’s confusion abruptly managed another nervous laugh, “This IS one of those sweepstakes, isn’t it? Is there a telephone in there?” She reached for the bag.
George grappled Sam’s arm. Cornelius Barter was fading out. “Oh no…” He reached and tried to turn off the radio, quickly, before it got crunched. To his horror, the head rolled out of the bag with a plop.
Edith screamed.
The song ended. George knocked the radio off the windowsill into the oatmeal.
Edith screamed again. The baby was crying.
The soldier stared up at the woman and child. “Who are you?”
She bit her hand in terror. “What is that?!” Her screeching son crabbed in her arms.
“She’s not my wife,” the soldier’s eyes rolled gruesomely at Sam and George.
And the radio clucked the news bulletin in a grim monotone. Sam flinched, flashed a block fist onto it, crushing it all into pulp and oatmeal.
George jumped, the head teetered, Edith screamed again.
“Sam, I think we better leave.”
“Yeahh,” the big man stood, “Sorry for this, Ms. Parrot. We found him on the beach like this. He asked to be brought here.”
“Actually,” George tried to soothe her, “We got the wrong address.”
“Thanks for the tea though,” Sam bowed to the woman, “I apologize for your radio, I’ll have a new one delivered.”
She was holding her baby and staring at the table, the shattered bowl and radio, the candle knocked down, rolled against a cup of spilled green tea, a man’s head planted in the middle.
Sam batted the head into George’s bag and they left the kitchen in a sprint, the hall, bashed out the door.
“That went well, didn’t it?” George panted, but Sam was approaching the crowd of boys ganged around the jitney. He cracked his knuckles and they turned around.
“Samsara…” It was Crybaby Johnson. “What are you doing riding this rig? You doing a circus picture?”
“No.”
“It looks like you’ll finally be doing a movie with us.”
Sam pushed through them.
“We started production today in a haunted house,” Crybaby Johnson continued.
In two strides Sam got back up in the creaking jitney. George sat next to him.
“We’ll be seeing you, Sam,” Crybaby Johnson tried to make words sound as rough as sand dollars.
Sam clicked and flicked the reins across the zebra’s back.
“Want me to count the stripes and make sure they didn’t take any?” George asked.
The Crybaby Gang stood watching them go, grown no taller than the lilies and the half eaten weeds.
“You brought me to the wrong house!” the soldier gasped inside the open bag.
“I don’t know what happened,” Sam murmured. “I thought I had photographic memory. I’m very sorry.”
“That’s alright, Mr. Samsara. Heck, after that scene my wife will be a breeze.”
“412 Maple,” George said. “That sounds right to me.”
“Yeah,” the soldier agreed. “412 Maple is where I live. Hold me up, let me see.”
George obeyed. “Just don’t fall out again.”
“Hey—a zebra!”
“There’s 412,” Sam said. “That’s the place, correct?”
“Home sweet home.”
“Alright, let’s do this right this time,” Sam said as he pulled the zebra to stop. He bounded out.
A spray of sparrows flew out of the overhanging mimosa tree.
George got down and patted the zebra for luck. Saturn Circus was stamped on the white of a stripe.
“Don’t worry fellahs, my wife isn’t loony.”
“I hope you’re right,” George replied. He kept the bag open to dapple in the light of the front yard to the porch and the screen door that Sam opened.
After a rap on the wooden frame they all waited listening. Sam rapped again and one last time. “She’s not home,” he decided.
“Look,” the soldier piped. “I don’t want to be any more trouble to you. There’s a key over the door. Just let me inside and you can go.”
George looked at Sam.
Sam shook his head. “No, we cannot risk another misfortune. We will all return later.”
“Aw! You can put me on the mantle, I’ll be fine there Mr. Samsara, honest.”
“No,” Sam burred and he looked like he was on the verge, Imperial flag unfurling in the background. It would have been the perfect time for words to match a movie.
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