The Adventure of Jack and Stan (End)

Jack was stopped in his tracks by their stares. He looked back at his parent as they stood at the kitchen island, reaching across to hold hands and looking at him with flushed faces. “Um, hello.”

“Here comes the Hardy boy of Stoddard County,” said John.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re in the paper,” said Michelle. “Come see.”

“At the rate you’re going, we’ll need a bigger scrapbook for all the articles.”

“It’s only a weekly paper,” answered Jack, “there can’t be that many articles.”

“You might inspire them to go twice a week. Beside, this isn’t the only paper to cover it. We may have to go get the Post-Dispatch.”

Michelle put an arm around her son and pulled him to her side. “You’ll give him a big head.”

“Not our humble boy.”

“I’m talking to Jack about you.”

John made a show of puffing out his chest. “Guard your eyes. I may just pop the buttons off of my shirt.”

“Oh, please. I have laundry to put away. I think you are preparing supper.”

“At your service.”

John watched his wife leave, and when his son reached the door, he said, “Wait, Jack.”

“Yeah.”

“Just how much did you know before you went out there? Did you go thinking you’d find that woman?”

“I didn’t really know anything. I just got lucky.”

“Janet says you left her house in a hurry that afternoon.”

“I might have been inspired by Stan to get out for a while. He sees things differently.”

“Uh-huh. Do you know what that woman was doing out there?”

“What do the papers say?”

“According to the papers, she says she went to explore the countryside, got lost and had an accident. Doesn’t it seem like she strayed pretty far from Sikeston just to go sightseeing?”

“I guess so. People do strange things. Maybe she didn’t realize how far she’d gone. Someone could get turned around if they didn’t know where they were going.”

“That’s plausible.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“I guess it is.” John got up and went to the refrigerator to get food out for supper.

Jack waited for a few seconds. He turned to the door again.

“One more thing, Jack.”

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Try to be more careful.”

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“I may be very grumpy soon. Just hold on.”

Jack made his way down and over, one step at a time. He tested each step, sometimes on soil, sometimes on identifiable pieces of worn equipment, sometimes on crumbling sheets of rust. He steadied himself on the handle of an Esso gas can that was in surprisingly good shape. He slid on a painted metal sign advertising a closed seed distributor and found himself in pile of broken, brown bottles.

He reached his target and peered through the cracked window. A shadow rested its head on the steering wheel, held in place by a seat belt. Scattered papers formed a ghostly counter-form in the floor on the passenger side. He pulled the door and it groaned as it opened.

Donita Jackson didn’t look quite the same with a bruise across her forehead and her left eye swollen. Jack could see her stomach moving steadily, though she gave no other sign of breathing.

“Danny, go call an ambulance.”

**

Michelle Jones put her scissors down with a sigh. The article she clipped was still flat and crisp from a fresh newspaper, but she smooth it with her fingers anyway, being gentle so the ink wouldn’t smudge. “I suppose I’m going to be proud of this some day.”

John looked at his wife, took in her sloped shoulders and watery eyes. “You’re proud now. What is it your father always says?”

“He says, ‘Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?’ It’s from Isaiah.”

“It seems to me Jack is living by that.”

“I just wish he was more careful.”

“He seems plenty full of care to me.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“You’re right. He can be reckless sometimes. And the older he gets, the fewer the dangers from which we can protect him. But he’s okay, he’s healthy, he’s smart, he’s able, and he wants to do right. I can live with that.” John turned in unison with his wife as the back door opened.

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“I just want to go toward Sikeston, not all the way there. I bet someone in Idalia would let us use there phone. We can drive to the sheriff’s office in less than 15 minutes. Turn here and keep it slow.”

They turned down a road that made its long, windy way across the steep slope of a hill. Jack scanned the down-slope side as they descended into the darkening valley. The road widened in a spot wide enough for two cars to pass. “Stop here.”

“What is this?” asked Danny.

“It’s an old dump. I think people still dump out here once in a while.” A cone of junk projected into the forested valley. Cars, appliances, tires, things rusted beyond recognition, much partly buried in rotted leaves and soil eroded from higher up the hill, rested in uneasy quiet. “Look at that.”

“Look at what?”

Jack pointed. “That car, the brown Chrysler with the vinyl roof. It’s covered in dust.”

“So, it’s another filthy old car in a dump.”

“It’s not that old. And it’s not filthy, it’s dusty. Look at your truck.”

Danny looked over his shoulder, then back down at the heap spilling down the hill. “No way. Hey, what are you doing?”

Jack stepped off the road and slid, as much on his bottom as his feet, until he stopped against the dented side of a washer. A jagged, rusty line ran diagonally across its surface where the enamel was cracked. He stood on it and looked for something equally solid.

“Damn it, Jack, how are you getting out of there?”

“Do you have a rope?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll just have to tumble down to the bottom of the hill. If I’m still alive, I’ll follow the valley out to wherever it goes. I can’t be more than five or six miles from a house, assuming someone doesn’t shoot me for trespassing. Or you could go get some help.”

“I like you better when you’re grumpy. You don’t talk so much.”

The Adventure of Jack and Stan (20)

Adcock shook his head. “We didn’t want to renew our old relationship. She just wanted to talk about how it could be now. She thought everything would be fine.

“She was being naïve. It is a small world and nothing hidden stays hidden for long. I narrowly escaped scandal once and I didn’t want her to be burdened with anything just as she was getting started.

“So I decided I’d leave. I figured I could get on somewhere else, maybe Paducah or Memphis. It might be nice to be back in a city for a while.

“Donita was upset. She thought it would all be fine. I told her it would be better to keep our distance. It would especially be better for her. I told her to be happy and not worry about me.

“I haven’t seen her since, but she called me yesterday. She wanted to change my mind. She said she’d find another job, but I told her to stay and forget about me.

“Finally she said she was going to talk to me face to face again. I told her I wouldn’t be swayed even then. I refused to meet her somewhere and she said she’d come to me if she had to.

“Apparently she never got the chance. When I saw she was missing I imagined a thousand things. Did she run away? Was she kidnapped or killed? Did she have an accident? Did she go back home to see some friends? I don’t know.

“I’ve been in torment for days. I just wanted both of us to move on with life without baggage, but now…Anyway, that’s it. You can do what you want. I don’t know where Donita is, but I’d do anything for her to be okay.”

“Let’s go,” said Jack. He and Danny got into the truck without another word. As they started to pull out he said, “Turn left instead.”

“Where are we going?” asked Danny.

“Toward Sikeston.”

“How much longer are we going to drive around? Shouldn’t we tell someone about this?”

The Adventure of Jack and Stan (19)

Adcock seemed to sag under a sudden heaviness that pulled down his shoulders, head and eyes. “I knew Donita back in St. Louis. I was fresh out of college in my first teaching job. She was a senior.

“She had a crush on me. She wasn’t much younger than I was. The attention and adoration was flattering. I happily let myself be persuaded to tutor her, give extra lessons, stay after school to help her. She didn’t need that much help, but I told myself helping good students excel was part of teaching.

“By the second semester, our relationship was drawing attention. The students were whispering. The other teachers were watching. Her parents and my principle started asking around. Our relationship was chaste, but it was still a sort of romance. We were warned to cool it.

“May came and I was informed my contract would not be renewed. Donita was shuffled off to Atlanta to spend a summer with her grandparents. I didn’t try to contact her or keep track of her. I didn’t even know she was in Cape all this time.

“You’re school was desperate for a math teacher and didn’t know why I separated from my old district, so I moved down here. You know that. After a couple of years I took a job teaching at Sikeston, but kept my little hermitage out here.” Adcock looked at his house. Yellow sunlight reflected off the wavy glass of old windows.

“Donita graduated college this month. She did well and could have taught almost anywhere. She wanted to stay near Cape and maybe work on a masters, so she accepted an offer she got from Sikeston.

“She didn’t know I worked there until after she accepted the job. She looked me up and called me so I wouldn’t be surprised. She wanted to meet with me and talk it out. That was Saturday.”

“So what?” said Danny. “She’s and adult. You two can do what you want now.”

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“If you want to drive, get a car. How do you know your way around out here?” said Danny.

“My grandfather farms a place out here. It has some woods and an old cemetery tucked in the back. We gather walnuts there.”

Danny acknowledged this information with a nod and a jutted chin. Trees closed in around the road so it was only spotted with sunlight in the general shade. He rested his elbow in the open window and inhaled the greenery and dust. “It’s nice out here.”

“Yeah,” answered Jack. “We’re almost there.”

The house was old and had once been in ill repair. It had a new roof and paint, but showed signs of scores of little improvements that were still needed. It was late enough in the afternoon for the tall trees that surrounded the lot on three sides to cast some shade on the house. Richard Adcock kneeled by the porch that stretched across the entire front of the house, nailing down new boards. He looked up when the dusty little truck pulled into his drive and walked over to greet them. “Hello, boys, what are you doing out here?”

Danny leaned against his truck and shrugged. He looked toward Jack.

“We’re here to ask you about that missing woman,” said Jack, “Donita Jackson.”

Danny and Adcock stared at him with hanging jaws. Adcock said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You were with her in Sikeston on Saturday, just before she disappeared. I was there. I saw you. I can prove it.” Jack paused, swallowed, steadied his voice. “If I saw you, other did. The police may have your description already. How long will it be before they’re knocking on your door?”

“I don’t know what happened to her. You should go home.”

“I think you know something. Soon you’ll be talking to someone who can compel and answer. Come on, Danny. Good luck, Mr. Adcock.” Jack reached to open the truck door, keeping his eyes on Adcock. He rested his hand on the latch-handle for a second before pulling it.

The Adventure of Jack and Stan (17)

“Come in Jack,” said Janet. “I’m just cleaning up. Stan drew some scenes from the reunion. Maybe he’ll show them to you.”

“Hello, Stan. Do you mind if I take a look at your pictures?” asked Jack.

“Sure,” Stan answered. He didn’t look up from this book.

Jack sat on the couch and took the pages into his lap. After looking at each drawing, he would move it from the top of the pile to the bottom.

Stan’s drawings were very detailed, but somehow things appeared flattened out. They were more precise than comic books, but just as two-dimensional and less dynamic. They were like very complex exercises in projective geometry.

Jack thought how unlike reunion pictures they were. He knew his mothers photos would be portraits of groups and special individuals. They would be full of family faces. Stan’s drawings were more like landscapes that just happened to have people in them. Most of the faces were familiar, but many were strangers. There was one portrait of Lisa; she must have asked Stan to draw her.

Jack shook his head as he looked at the faces. It seemed odd that with a few lines Stan could capture likenesses of people whose names and relationships he could only vaguely recall.

Jack caught himself when he saw a face that was familiar, but not in the family. He was a little surprised that he recognized the man out of context. There was nothing unusual about the scene. Many people spend a beautiful Saturday at the park. Young men often talk to young women. Judging from the hair and the contours of the mostly turned away face, he guessed she was black, but a mixed couple in Sikeston wasn’t especially odd.

“Hey, Stan, do you remember this?” Jack held up the picture.

Stan looked at it, and then looked up toward a corner of the ceiling. “Yes.”

“What color was this woman’s shirt?”

“Green.”

“I must be crazy. Can I take this picture?”

Stan nodded.

“Thanks. You’re amazing. I’ll see you later.”

It only took a few minutes to walk to Danny’s house. “Have you been sleeping?” asked Jack.

Danny took his hands down from rubbing his puffy eyes. He popped open a cola and took a long drink. “Yeah. So what?”

“Do you recognize this guy?” Jack held up Stan’s drawing.

“That looks like Old’ Dick and Cock.”

Danny referred to Richard Adcock, who had been a math teacher at their school for a year. Richard Adcock had an unfortunate name for a high school teacher. He was young and handsome, baby-faced and athletic, and the girls talked about him incessantly in spite of his aloofness and down-to-business manners. The boys hated him.

“Do you think he still lives out by Idalia?” asked Jack.

Danny shrugged. “Maybe. He used to ride in with Mrs. Dryer.” It was said that Mrs. Dryer knew some much about Civil War history because of her first-hand recollections. “She lives in Circle City. It’s not far from there to Sikeston. Isn’t that where he teaches now?”

“How would you like to go for a drive?”

“As in me drive you somewhere?”

“You have a truck. I have a couple of bucks for gas.”

Danny looked out the window. Little yellow squares reflected in his eyes. The hum of the air conditioner ceased. “What the hell. Let’s go.”

There is a long flat stretch of Route E on a plateau just west of Idalia where the road turns down hill and enters the flatland south of Crowley’s Ridge. Danny and Jack turned off halfway down that hill to enter the maze of gravel roads that wind through the highland.

After a minute, Jack said, “Turn here, it’s quicker.” A few minutes later he directed, “Slow down, there is a sharp curve here and you’ll put us in the treetops.”

The Adventure of Jack and Stan (16)

“I can’t say that I blame you. If you’re going to be sour, you might as well have some coffee.”

“Do you mind making a stop after work? I want to drop off some film.”

“Are they pictures of your girlfriend?”

Jack looked out the window again. He saw the billboard with the big, yellow flower that welcomed them to Dexter. “No. Family reunion.”

“So? Your family is from Arkansas, right?”

“Are you going to be like this all day?”

“I’m just getting warmed up, Jack.”

Jack and Danny worked from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jack was pleased that Danny’s chatter reduced as the heat rose. On balance, it still got hot too soon. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” their boss told them. “By August you’ll be wishing for this nice whether. Now, be sure to drink plenty of water. And wear some sunscreen.”

Danny eventually regained his loquaciousness. “Do you know my favorite part of quitting at 2 o’clock?”

“What?”

“The quitting part.” Danny stretched, leaning back as he straddled the peak of the roof. They had stripped the old roofing, gratefully found the plywood in good shape, and rolled out the tarpaper. Jack surveyed their worked and picked up his tools. Danny flexed his arms. “We’re going to get buff doing this. Show me your pythons, Jack.”

“Later. I want to save some energy for getting down the ladder.”

Jack’s favorite part of quitting at 2 o’clock was that he could enjoy the long summer afternoons that lingered into the nighttime without worries and obligations. One of the first things he did after cleaning up was visit Stan. Janet and Ward kept their air conditioner cranked up to cool the house more than Jack’s father would allow.

Janet let him in the front door. She held a bottle of window cleaner and a rag in one hand. Jack saw there were vacuum marks in the carpet and everything was put away. Even Stan was tidy as he knelt by the coffee table, leaning over a stack of drawings and reading a book. It was collection of James Bond short stories. On Memorial Day afternoon, they had read “The Property of a Lady.”

The Adventure of Jack and Stan (15)

“But it’s not a school night.”

John said, “But you have to be at work early, so scoot.”

Jack sat on the edge of his bed and picked up a paperback copy of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. He had borrowed it from Stan. He was hooked and making his way through his cousins library of mysteries. Kidnapped was more adventure than mystery, but the story was kicked off by a crime.

He flipped the pages, stirring a slight breeze he felt on his face. He looked at the book in his hands and felt the tension and soreness that crawled from his fingers to his shoulders. He pictured the sunrise and the thousands of times he’d lift a hammer the next day. As he reached to turn out the light, he swept the image from his mind.

**

Jack looked at his watch. It was 5:45 a.m. “Come on Danny, we’re going to be late?”

He heard an accelerating engine and looked up to see Danny coming in his little, white Nissan truck. It was covered in dust and rusting around the wheel wells. Jack barely waited for it to stop before jumping in.

“Let’s go.”

“Good morning to you, too, Jack.” Danny made a production of looking behind as he backed out of the driveway. He revved the engine as he engaged first gear and sent a puff of smoke out the tailpipe.

“Do I smell coffee?”

“Yeah, do you want a sip?”

“No. I want to sleep another hour or two.”

“It’ll get you going.”

“No, thanks.”

Danny turned onto the highway and began speeding toward Dexter. “Are you going to be like this every morning?”

“Like what?”

“Grumpy.”

Jack felt himself tense up defensively and hold his breath. He looked out the window at a garbage truck waiting at the gates of the landfill. He exhaled and put his frustration on that truck like the load of shingles he’d soon be scraping off some roof. “Yes, I’m going to be grumpy every morning.”

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Jack sipped from the dripping cup and shrugged. “I just hang out with him some. He only lives a couple of blocks away. It’s no big deal.”

“When I was little, I used to feel sorry for him.”

“You’re still little.”

Lisa punched his arm. “You’re still mean to girls. To think I almost looked up to you.”

“Does feeling sorry for Stan make you feel bad? Does it get your stomach in knot?”

Lisa looked down and examined a new grass stain on the edge of her white shoe. The pink left her face, then rushed back redder than before. “Yeah.”

“Then go do something about it. You’ll still have time to bounce soccer balls off of people’s heads.”

**

Ward sorted through the mail. Janet got home first, to be with Stan in the afternoons, but she always left the mail in the box for him as a treat. “Hey, Janet, there is a letter here for Stan.”

“What? Who is it from?”

“Lisa Jameson in St. Charles. Isn’t that Tom’s girl?”

“Yes. Maybe it’s about the reunion. She sat with Stan for about an hour, trying to chat him up.”

“And listening to statistics on Cardinal baseball players. I didn’t think she could be still or quiet for more than fifteen minutes.”

“She’s still a girl. She has a lot of energy. Come here, Stanley, you have a letter.”

Stan took the letter in both hands and looked at it.

“Open it, honey.”

Stan fumbled with the envelope as if he’d never opened on before. Maybe he a hadn’t. He unfolded the pale blue sheet that was neatly creased to form almost even thirds. He studied the curly handwriting intensely, refolded the letter, tucked it back in the envelope and lay in on top of the unopened mail. “Thanks,” he said as he returned to watching a baseball game.

Ward and Janet almost bumped heads reaching for the letter. They looked at each other with wide eyes. Ward whispered, “He won’t notice.” So they opened the letter.

Dear Stan,

It was nice to see you see you at the reunion. I enjoyed talking to you. Go Cards!

Please say hello to your parents for me. My dad says, “Tell Janet, ‘Girls are squirrels.’”

Say hello to Jack for me, too. He is a good cousin and a good friend to you. I hope I can be your friend, too.

I’ll see you next year if not sooner. Take care.

Love,

Lisa

**

Local news, by televisions standards, encompassed parts of five states. The headline was from Cape Girardeau.

Donita Jackson of Cape Girardeau is still missing after disappearing over the weekend. Police have new leads in the case.

Sightings fitting the description of Jackson and her vehicle were reported in Sikeston over the weekend, particularly in the northern part of town in the area of the airport and Rotary Park. We have confirmed that she was to take a position as an elementary school teacher there. Her roommate reported that she was supposed to be looking for an apartment in Sikeston on the day she went missing.

Jackson is a St. Louis-native and graduated from Southeast Missouri State University this month. She is described as a black woman, 22 years old, 5 feet 4 inches tall and 150 pounds. She was last seen wearing dark blue jeans and green tee shirt.

Police are still treating this as a missing persons case. If you have any information about whereabouts of Jackson, please call the Cape Girardeau city police department.

“Hey, mom.”

“Yes, Jack.”

“Have you had the pictures from the reunion developed?”

“Can I drop them off tomorrow?”

“Sure, if you want. Isn’t it about time for you get to bed?”