God's Doodle Pad
A short story. My homage to pulp detective and science fiction stories of the 1940s and 50s. Originally published in Aurealis magazine, April 2022. Artwork by Josh Hardie.
When Freddy Bannister first barged into my office he couldn’t stop talking. Now he chews at a hangnail and studies my face. He wants me to make sense of his story, and why wouldn’t I? It makes perfect sense to me. I’m about to tell him this when he jumps to his feet.
“So, what do you think?” he says. “You think I’m crazy, right? Go ahead, say it. Say, ‘Freddy, you’re crazy.’”
“Okay,” I say, “Freddy, you’re crazy.”
He flops down into his seat, slams a palm against his forehead and lets go this kind of moan sounds like rusted bed springs. “Mwaaaah, I knew it.”
“Don’t worry about it. Things make more sense when you’re crazy. You ever read Alan Watts?”
His hand covering his face, he parts two fingers and peers at me. “Who?”
“Alan Watts. He says that someone who is sane all the time is dangerous. Someone who likes his life rigid and brittle, without flexibility, is more likely to break.”
Freddy drops his hand onto his thigh. He looks around my office like he’s just woken up in a strange room. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “What the hell am I doing talking to you anyway? You’re a cop, not a shrink. I should be talking to a shrink about this.”
“I’m not a cop,” I say. “I used to be. Now I’m not. But I can help you, Freddy. That’s why Doris sent you to see me.”
“Ah, my sister. A peach, right? You and her, you used to be tight?”
“Used to be,” I say. “Not anymore.”
“Yeah. I remember you coming around when I was a kid. You brought me candy shaped like those flying saucers had sherbet inside.”
“They don’t make those anymore.”
“That’s too bad. So what happened? You married now? Kids?”
“No kids. Used to be married, but my work got in the way of things.”
Freddy laughs. Sounds like a hyena screwing a monkey. Or a monkey screwing a hyena. Either way, it twists my nerves.
“Sounds to me like you used to be a lot of things,” he says. “Used to date my sister. Used to be married. Used to be a cop. So, what are you now? A private dick?”
“An outdated term, but sure, you could call me that.”
“Except you’re a little more niche. You deal with the kind of shit nobody else touches.”
I smile. “People can’t touch something they don’t want to believe is there.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I open the desk drawer where I keep my carton of cigarettes. Kancers. Depopulating the globe since forever.
“Do you smoke, Freddy?”
“Like fire.”
“Or salmon.”
I tap a cigarette out for myself and toss the pack to Freddy. He takes two, puts one in his mouth, the other behind his ear. I burn mine with a cheap lighter got a pineapple print on its side. I hold the light out to Freddy and catch the smell of stale sweat when he leans over the desk. He sits back, takes a long drag and blows smoke out through his nostrils. Reminds me of a Chinese dragon.
I say, “So, you want to hear a story?”
Freddy laughs again. I wish he’d stopped doing that. “Sure, Pop,” he says. “Haw haw.”
“One time, this guy comes to see me, and, like you, he thinks he’s crazy. Tells me a story about a coat. An everyday, light brown trench coat, like you see a million times in the city. Now, this guy, he tells me he’s murdered a girl, a pretty blonde, twenty years old. He thinks he’s gotten away with it, and the guilt’s killing him. But he can’t confess. Do you know why?”
“’Cos he’ll swing for it.”
“That, sure. But also because his story’s so outlandish that nobody would ever believe him. And, in many ways, he’s innocent of the crime.”
“But you said he told you he murdered the girl.”
“He did. But he also told me that the guy who owned the coat before him went to the chair for murdering a girl the summer before.”
Freddy says, “I don’t follow.”
“You will. You see, all through the trial, a big city trial, this other guy claimed that a coat made him do it. That he bought it in a thrift store and once he put it on, he couldn’t take it off again. He told the prosecutor, the judge and all the other schmucks wearing blinkers that the coat became attached to him. The fibres, he said, had melded with his skin.”
“How?”
“He said that the threads at the cuffs burrowed into his wrists, kind of wormed their way through his veins. The collar tightened around his throat, the belt around his waist. He couldn’t even take it off to wash himself. He started to stink. But every time he tried to show anybody what was happening, the threads would retract, and he just looked like a crazy guy couldn’t even take his coat off. Didn’t take long for his girl to leave him. His boss fired him. He became a social outcast. And then, once the coat had him all to itself, he started experiencing these visions. Ugly, horrible visions of murder and blondes and blood, and a voice telling him to go out and kill him a blonde, and if he didn’t, the coat would keep him prisoner the rest of his life. So, he committed murder.”
“For the coat.”
“Right.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“Neither did the judge. Hence why, the poor bastard fried, and another young lady lost her life the following summer.”
Freddy squints at me through blue smoke. I’ve seen that look a thousand times. The eyes looking at me from the other side of the desk, searching for a glint in my eye or a twitch at the corners of my mouth. An indication, anything to tell them I’m pulling their leg. Then we’ll both break down laughing. A shared joke. What a kidder. Except I’m not here to make people laugh. We’ve got TV shows for that.
So, I let Freddy search. He won’t find any punchlines written on this face.
Search over, nothing found, he asks, “What about the coat? I mean, the cops would’ve kept a hold of it, right? For evidence?”
“Sure. If they’d have found it. You see, when they nailed the guy, he was hiding out in a tenement block. A real Hades with five floors and bad plumbing. A dive on its way to being demolished. But as long as it was standing, it housed a large number of the city’s homeless. Anyway, when the cops arrested him, he tried to show them how he couldn’t take the coat off. And guess what?”
Freddy nods slowly. “It came off.”
“You’re goddamn right it did. He unfastened the belt and it dropped to the floor, easy as you like.”
“Damn.”
“Damned is more like it. The guy was hysterical. It took four cops to drag him out of there. When one of the coppers went back inside to fetch the coat, it had gone. They guessed a bum took it for himself.”
“And the bum was the guy came to see you?”
“One and the same. He got my address from a drunk claimed he was abducted by Antalides.”
“What the hell is an Antalide?”
“An Antalide is a member of the most intelligent race in the universe. They come from the planet Antalia.”
Freddy holds up his hands. “That’s it,” he says, standing. “I’m out of here.” He points at me with two fingers holding the cigarette between them. “You’re the one who’s crazy. Not me.”
“Is that right? I just investigate, Freddy. You’re the one came to me with a story about canine humanoids.”
He takes a shaky puff on his cigarette and lowers himself back into his seat.
I take a bottle of scotch and two glasses from out of the filing cabinet behind me. “Here,” I say, pouring us both a measure. “Let’s have a drink. Maybe we can come to an understanding about what we’re dealing with here.”
He squashes his cigarette into the ashtray like he’s trying to kill it. Drinks the scotch down in one. I take a sip of mine.
“So anyway,” I say, “I agree to take this guy’s case. I ask him what he did with the coat after the murder, and he breaks down crying right here in my office. Tells me he gave it to a guy forced him out of his begging spot. Pretended like it was a peace offering.”
Freddy says, “Shitty move.”
“It was either that or leave it lying around for just anybody to find. The guy figured he’d get a little revenge seeing as he was a criminal now anyway. So, I get a description, drive to the city, and check myself into a crummy hotel for a few days. It didn’t take long for me to find the guy and the coat still on him. I tail him, witness first-hand the torture he’s going through. Course, to anybody walking by, he’s just another bum ranting about this and that. It was on the fourth night he finally got around to murder.”
“Wait. You saw that?”
“Yeah. I saw that.”
“And you didn’t try and stop him?”
“I didn’t get to him in time. It happened too fast.”
I drain the rest of my drink. Sometimes I hate this job. I pour us both another. Bolt mine down. Freddy does the same.
He says, “But you got the coat, right? I mean, it just fell off the guy?”
“Yeah. Soon as he killed the girl. He left it there in the alley. I put it inside a holdall I carried with me for when the time came.”
“So, what, you took it to the cops?”
“To tell them what? ‘Here, officer. This is the coat that killed a girl lying out in an alley.’ No. I drove back with the coat inside the bag. The damn thing squirmed around so much it fell off the seat a couple of times. When I got home, it took all my strength to keep the coat from getting a hold of me. I checked the tag in the collar, saw a name written in blue ink, faded but not enough so I couldn’t read it. It said: ‘Property of . . .’”
Freddy leans forward, his mouth open a little with the cigarette sticking to his bottom lip. “Property of who?”
“That’s confidential, kid. What I can say is that the coat once belonged to a former resident of this here town. A real scumbag. Used to beat his girlfriends. Said one day he was gonna kill one of them. But he died in a car wreck before he got a chance.”
“Jesus. So, what happened to the coat?”
“I threw it in the furnace. Could have sworn I heard it scream.”
“And the bum who came to see you?”
“I told him I believed him and that I’d destroyed the coat. He confessed soon after. Got the chair. Never mentioned anything about a coat. They never caught the other guy. He’s probably dead already.”
Freddy runs his fingers through his hair. “Man, I don’t know if I believe you.”
“Believe it, kid. We’re very far from the city. Things are different here in Potter’s Bay. You know, there is no record of anybody named Potter ever being associated with this town, nor is it situated anywhere close to the sea.”
“Yeah,” Freddy says, “I was wondering about that. You know, it took me a while to find you. Your little corner of the world don’t appear on no map.”
“We can’t be found on a map, Freddy. Only by directions.”
“Like the directions Doris gave to me.”
“That’s right.”
“And like the bum. The ones he got from the UFO guy.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
He smiles like a kid whose teacher has just given him a gold star for working out a math puzzle.
“So, my story,” he says, “it’s not that unusual to you?”
I shake my head.
“Because you’re used to unusual.”
“You’ve gotta be, living in a town like Potter’s Bay.”
“Tell me another,” he says.
“Jesus, Freddy, you want me to tuck you in after too?”
He doesn’t laugh. His face has lost the look of disbelief to make room for something else. It’s a process that’ll lead to him accepting the facts of his own story. It’s why I tell them.
“Okay,” I say. “One more, and then we’ll go over what you’ve told me. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Alright,” I say. “There was this other time, a kid came to see me, name of Hunter. He lives over in Sandal Falls, about twelve miles east of here. He was about your age. Seventeen, eighteen. Thereabouts. And he told me how he always had this feeling, from being very young, that he was incomplete. Like he had a destiny to fulfil, but not in this life or, for that matter, in this world.”
“So what? A lot of people think that way. It’s called being unfulfilled.”
“True. But Hunter had this girl, see? One of these new age types, liked to meditate, find the right frequency, all that. And she was always urging Hunter to do the same. Said he spent too much time reading comic books and watching space operas. So, eventually he caved in and agreed to meditate with her. That was when he started receiving messages.”
“Messages?”
“Yeah. From a parallel universe. A planet called Tramagem 9.”
“Jesus. Antelopes? Tramega 9? What the hell are you trying to pull here?” Freddy shakes his head. “Doris always said you were a little out there.”
“Who, me? I’m right here, feet planted. My investigations lead me out there, wherever there is, but they always lead me back to Potter’s Bay. And Freddy? It’s Antalides, not antelopes. And the name of the planet is Tramagem 9, not Tramega 9.”
I was beginning to wonder if there might be something wrong with Freddy. Considering the fact that he came to me with a story that would have landed him a stint in Bonkers, he was quick to discredit everything I said. But Doris was a very dear friend to me, still would be if I hadn’t used her as bait to draw out a nest of Vortexian arachnophibians back when we were tight. They were breeding in the sewers and about ready to come to the surface and start feeding on the townspeople. Doris created a nice diversion while I rigged the explosives that sent their souls back to Vortexia on mass. She escaped unharmed, but I guess she didn’t want to try her luck again. I miss her. The memory makes me bristle.
“Listen, kid,” I say. “Your sister and me, we go back some. I owe her. Which is why I’m doing this pro-gratis. So do me a favour. When you ask me to tell you about a case -- a case, Freddy, I don’t tell stories -- don’t discount what I’ve got to say before I get to saying it. I find it incredibly ill-mannered.”
Freddy’s face takes on an expression like a kid who’s overstepped his mark. Like he’s sassed the teacher who rewarded him for solving the math puzzle, only to find himself back at square one.
“Alright,” he says. “Jeez, I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologise, kid. Now, where was I?”
“Messages from Tramagamma . . . Trama 9.”
“Tramagem 9. Right. So, this Hunter kid, he’s getting these messages. Says they’re like a calling. Telling him how his real purpose in life lies in a universe much like our own. And in this universe, there lives a guy, much like Hunter, who feels a little incomplete too. Goes by the name of Renthu.”
“Some name.” Freddy snorts a laugh sounds like a pig in a trough. The kid’s got to work on his chuckles. I’d hate to hear his guffaw.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s pretty uncommon on Tramagem 9 too. Now, Hunter, he’s out shopping at the store one day. You know the Megamarts you see every place you go?”
“How can you miss them?” Freddy says. “They’re putting folk out of business left and right.”
“Tell me about it. They even talked about building one right here in Potter’s Bay. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. It would have looked a little out of place; if you catch my drift.”
“Yeah,” Freddy says, nodding his head a little. “I think I’m starting to.”
“Good. Now. Our boy Hunter, he finds himself wandering around the aisles, kind of lost. Filling his basket with shit he doesn’t really need, when finally, he finds himself in Aisle 9. Frozen foods. He’s counting fifteen different brands of vanilla ice-cream and he’s thinking to himself, ‘Who needs all these different brands when vanilla’s vanilla and that’s all she wrote?’”
“I can understand that.”
“And I’m glad, Freddy. It gives me hope. So, Hunter’s looking at the ice-cream and he’s asking himself, out loud, ‘Is this it? Is this all there is in this world? Fifteen brands of ice-cream?’ And a voice answers him, tells him, ‘Yes. In this world. But in the other world? You’re wanted, Hunter.’ When Hunter turns around, he sees this guy standing there. A big guy around seven feet tall, wearing a long woollen coat. Now, before Hunter can say a ‘how-do-you-do’ or ‘who-the-hell-are-you’, the guy opens his coat and there’s a shining void in there, sucks Hunter right in.”
“Aw, come on!” Freddy says. “If he went through, how the hell did he tell you all about it?”
“Because he came back, dummy. How the hell do you think?”
I take a pencil from the pot on my desk and find a pad. On it, I write: HUNTER TRAMAGEM. Turn the pad around so Freddy can see.
“What am I looking at?” he says. He looks up at me. “What?”
“Look again,” I say.
When Freddy looks back down at the paper, he sees the letters have shifted around.
RENTHU MEGAMART
He jumps back in his seat.
“Whoah! How the hell did you do that?”
“A trick I learned,” I say. “Sometimes you need to see things for yourself. But now you see, right? The same names, just a little different.”
“Like two sides of the same coin.”
“I like to think of it more as being mirrored and reversed. Parallels, if you will.”
Freddy smiles. No laugh this time. Thank God.
“Aisle 9,” he says.
“Bingo.”
“So what then?”
“He told me how he arrived in a town called Slafl Sladnas on a planet called Tramagem 9. Met Renthu, merged, had a few laughs. Imparted knowledge one to the other. Came back feeling whole.”
“Is that it? He didn’t have to help conquer an alien race or anything like that?”
“Nah. You see, this Renthu guy? It was preordained he was meant for great things, but he couldn’t get passed himself. He had to find the missing part, and once he’d done that, he could get to work making Tramagem 9 great again. Which he did.”
“Wait, wait, wait. There’s something missing here. How did Hunter come to tell you?”
“Well, just so happens that when Hunter re-materialised in frozen foods, a lady was there to see it. A nice lady who’s lived here all her life who was staying with her sister in Sandal Falls. To her, this wasn’t so weird. Hunter, on the other hand, was a little freaked out, though he did feel whole. The lady gives him my number, tells him to come talk to me. Except, Hunter doubts his own mind. The lady’s too. Thinks they’re both crazy. It takes another two trips to Aisle 9 until he believes it himself.”
“So each time he goes to buy ice-cream he gets sucked through a portal?”
“Yeah. I found out later it was a glitch at Tramagem’s end of things. They didn’t need him now that Renthu was whole, so they just kept sending him right back.”
“Jeez. That sucks if you want to buy ice-cream.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well, there’s a perfectly good ice-cream parlour in Sandal Falls. Joe’s. But people get lazy if they think they can buy everything in one place. It’s a shame how we behave, it really is.”
“So you didn’t believe him right away? I mean, you had to go see for yourself, like the coat guy?”
“Sure.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, we’re standing buying ice-cream when the tall guy, name of Malaram, shows up. Opens up his coat, sucks Hunter through, I follow. On the other side, Malaram tells us that it’s becoming a nuisance. He can’t ignore the calling, but he can’t return without Hunter either. So, he has to go through this goddamn pantomime every time Hunter wants ice-cream.”
Gone from Freddy’s face now is the look of incredulity. Along with it the self-satisfied smile of those who think they know all there is to know.
“What was it like? Tramagem 9, I mean.”
“Nothing special. A lot like Earth. We only stayed a couple of days. It gave me a little time to look around Slafl Sladnas, visit the library there. Truth be told, these things get blown up, like in science-fiction stories. Floating cars and all that crap? Forget about it. I showed them how to fix the glitch, brought Hunter home. Told him to maybe avoid Aisle 9 in the future, just in case. He buys his ice-cream from Joe’s Parlour now. Says he prefers it.”
“Maybe I’ll try some.”
“If you’re ever that way, you should,” I say.
“And that’s it? What happened to Hunter?”
“Hunter’s Hunter. He writes to me from time to time. He seems very fulfilled.”
Unlike Freddy.
“Is that it?” he says. “It feels a little anti-climactic.”
“Listen, kid. I fix things, I get paid. Or, in your case, I do somebody a favour. That’s all there is to it.”
“So my problem,” Freddy says, “you’re gonna fix that too?”
“I can try,” I say. “But first, let’s go over what you told me again.”
I pick up my notepad and flip back a page to Freddy’s notes.
“So, you told me things have gotten weird in your home town. That’d be . . . Jemima, right?”
“Right.”
“But nobody seems to notice but you?”
“Some do, but they’re too freaked out to talk about it.”
“And it all started when you went out to buy food for your dog. A Chihuahua?”
“Yeah. Mindy. She likes the little cans look like they got people food inside. The gourmet shit. I buy from the Megamart usually, but this time I thought I’d buy from Sir Save-a-Lot.”
“Go on.”
“So, one day, about three weeks ago, I go out to buy groceries.”
“And this was when you noticed all the aisles were filled with pet supplies. All except one aisle that has the things a human might need.”
“Yeah. One aisle with everything crammed in. Washing powder, toiletries, canned food, fresh fruit. You name it.”
“And you said everybody was shopping like usual. Nobody commented on this?”
“Nobody except for me. There was a guy stocking some shelves with frisbees. When I asked him what the deal was with all the pet stuff, he smiled at me like I was nuts. That’s when I noticed his teeth. He had teeth like an animal. So I made my way around the store, watched all these people filling their baskets with chew toys, cat litter, poop bags. But nothing a person might need. So, I go outside, and I take a look at the sign, see if it’s changed to a pet store or something. But it’s still the same. Sir Save-a-Lot.”
“Same store,” I say, “just a little different. Like a coat from Potter’s Bay, for example? Go on, Freddy.”
“Well, a lady comes out with a baby in a buggy. And the baby’s eating out of a box of dog chews with canine teeth and his Mom growls at me like she’s gonna bite me or something. It took me everything I had to go back into the store.”
“Good for you, Freddy. Sometimes you need to face the strange.”
“Be flexible, like your guy Alan Watts?”
I smile, impressed that Freddy remembered the name. There’s hope for the kid yet.
“Exactly that,” I say. “What then?”
“Okay, so I make my way over to the . . . human aisle. It feels weird calling it that, but that’s how I’ve come to know it now.”
“That’s fine, Freddy. You just carry on.”
“And in the human aisle, there are all these animals. Pets. A couple of cats taking down packets of pasta with their teeth and dropping them into baskets. There’s even a hamster knocking tins of peaches into a basket being pushed along by a goddamn Alsatian.”
Freddy lets out the guffaw I was hoping I’d never hear. It sounds like a train running over a track of grizzlies.
“That is pretty funny,” I say, straight-faced. “So then what happened?”
“Now get this,” he says. “They all turn around to look at me, and the Alsatian smiles. But his teeth are neater than a movie star’s and whiter than snow. He has human teeth. Can you believe that?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Freddy laughs again. “Yeah, why the hell not!” He shakes his head. “Half the town have canine teeth, the other half are growing feathers. Half have cat’s eyes, the rest have claws. Why not!”
“And their pets?”
“I hardly ever see pets anymore. I guess they’re all home watching TV.”
“And Doris, how’s she doing?”
“She’s fine. She shops at the Megamart.”
Even domestic commerce can get a hold of the purest of souls. I roll a crick out of my neck.
“Okay,” I say. “You can stay at my place for a couple of days while I go look into it.” I pass him a key from out of my pocket. “Don’t steal anything, don’t piss on the toilet seat, and don’t answer the phone.”
He puts the key in his jeans pocket.
“Thanks. What do you think it is?”
“Something strange, that’s for sure. But strange is my business and my business is strange, so I’m guessing I’ll have it solved by this evening.”
#
The drive to Jemima takes three hours. I make it in thirteen seconds by way of a portal at the back of the laundromat.
I pull into the parking lot of Sir Save-a-Lot and scope the customers coming and going. They all have animal mutations. The only true animals I see are a half dozen guinea pigs dragging a bag filled with beer and nachos. I honk the horn at them as they pass the front of my car. They all smile my way. Teeth like the goddamn Bee Gees.
I walk into the store and read the labels on the sacks of dried dog food, the tins of cat food, the bird feed. They all bear the same mark of a manufacturer based in Potter’s Bay. Doodle’s Wholesale. No surprises there.
I see a kid with acne on his cheeks and a shell on his back. He’s restocking a shelf with sawdust. I ask him can I talk to the manager.
The manager’s a big guy looks like he eats his fair share of Boneo, Felix and Trill. He has a wet nose and bright eyes that look eager to please. He also has long whiskers and a feather or two poking out of a head of bushy red hair. Greed irritates me. I dislike him immediately.
“So,” I say, “you’ve been buying your stock from Doodle’s Wholesale?”
“That’s right,” the manager says. “I told them I didn’t want the place to turn into a pet store, but they told me I wouldn’t have to. They insisted, said my customers would adjust. Besides, they undercut the other guys by almost fifteen percent. I’ve gotta compete with the Megamart or I’m out of business.”
“And it doesn’t bother you that their product might be having an adverse effect on the town?”
“Oh, these?” he says, prodding at his incisors with the tip of a chubby finger. “A small price to pay. Being human can be so the same, don’t you think?”
“And what about the people who stay the same?”
“If you’re talking about the same people who shop at the Megamart, they’ve always looked at us a little strangely anyway. There’s always been that divide. You shop here, I shop there. Never the twain shall meet.”
“I hear you,” I say. “But my problem is this. Where your supplier comes from is an unusual place. Things can get a little strange. Sometimes, the strange walks around and finds itself in places where it runs the risk of exposing itself. It upsets the balance. I’m in the employ of those whose job it is to ensure that things stay on a nice, even keel.”
To show him how even, I hold out my hand, palm down. Steady as a rock.
“So, what I’m gonna to do is I’m gonna give you the card for a very reliable, very inexpensive wholesaler. They can get you anything you want without the added whiskers. How’s that sound?”
“Maybe I like my new whiskers,” he says.
“And what about the rest of the town. Do they like their new look?”
“They didn’t at first, but they’re getting used to it. The economy’s in a bad way. People don’t worry so much about what they’re consuming as long as they’re saving a dollar.”
I nod like I’m agreeing with him. Then I grab him by his whiskers and pull his bulk onto the desk.
“Listen to me, pussycat,” I say. “You can either take the number I’m giving to you, or I can bring somebody else here to restore the balance their way. But believe me, you don’t want that.”
The manager’s panting now. Looks more like an animal than ever.
“Okay, okay,” he says. “I’ll call them. But they better be good, or I’m finished.”
“Trust me,” I say, pushing him back into his chair. “I hate the Megamart as much as the next guy. They’re destroying towns like yours. And you do have a nice town here.” I place the card on his desk. “It’s been nice talking to you,” I say. “Maybe next time I can buy you a saucer of milk.”
Sometimes I love this job.
I put a call in to my boss and within an hour a fleet of trucks arrive from Doodle’s Wholesale. By the morning, they’ve cleared out the store and the budget shoppers are back to having too much choice. Their pets, on the other hand, are left feeling like second-class sentient beings again. Sucks for some but not for all. Such is life.
Before I drive back to Potter’s Bay, I swing by Doris’s street and park outside her house. I see her washing dishes at the kitchen window. The steam from the water and the glow from the ceiling light illuminate her in ways I could only imagine in my dreams. I keep the image in my mind and make the trip back to Potter’s Bay. I don’t bother with the portal this time. Sometimes it’s nice to take a long drive.
#
Freddy’s alright. Nothing’s missing, the toilet seat’s clean, and I have eight new messages on my answering machine. Seems like it’s getting harder to contain the strange these days.
Freddy’s sitting in my armchair smoking a cigarette. He jumps up like he’s been prodded in the ass with a hot poker.
“Hey,” he says. “How’d it go? Did you find out the what and the why?”
I lower myself into the armchair while Freddy looks for another place to sit. He settles for the edge of the coffee table.
“The ‘what’ is Doodle’s Wholesale,” I say. “They operate out of Potter’s Bay. Got a big warehouse on the edge of town. It holds enough of everything to supply every cut-price grocery store within a billion-mile radius. That includes Sir Save-a-Lot. Seems like the manager there puts profit over his customers’ well-being. That’s the ‘why’. Messed up the order of things a little bit, that’s all. I set him straight. He’ll be ordering from a regular wholesaler from now on.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. It was a piece of cake, Freddy. My boss talked to Doodle’s Wholesale. Told them to supply on a strictly intergalactic level, some place far away from humankind. And more importantly, Jemima’s back to how you like it again.”
Freddy lets out this long sigh like he’s deflating. For a second there I think his clothes are gonna crumple into a heap on the floor without Freddy Bannister inside.
“Thank God,” he says.
“You should. You see, all this here in Potter’s Bay, killer coats, ninth aisles, food that messes with a species’ dental make-up? Here it’s okay, but out there beyond the border, it’s not okay.” I sit forward, elbows resting on my knees. “Think of it like this. If the world as we know it is a creation of God’s design, thought out in meticulous detail, drawn like a blueprint, then Potter’s Bay is his doodle pad. It’s where he lets his imagination wander while he’s perfecting the order of things. It’s like when you’re trying to remembering what to include on your grocery list. You might have a little scratch pad where you draw little effigies, patterns, and whatnot.”
“Doodles,” Freddy says.
I smile at my star pupil.
“Exactly. Now, for the average fella a doodle can be screwed up and thrown in the trash. For God, on the other hand, everything he touches resonates. Even his most insignificant sketches have their place within his great design. So, they need a home. That home is Potter’s Bay.”
Freddy’s face relaxes.
“Wow,” he says.
Such a great word, ‘Wow’. It says so much using only two letters. And when you flip it around, it stays the same.
Freddy stands. Says, “One more question before I go. Where do you come into all of this?”
“Me?” I say. “I’m put here by a higher power to make sure the doodles are kept in check. Nothing more, nothing less.”
A slow nod from Freddy, and I’m done.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I got work to do.”
“Sure,” Freddy says. “I better get back to Mindy anyway. You know, maybe you could come visit. I’m sure Doris would love to see you again.”
“Maybe,” I say. “I’ll see if I can get a hold of those flyer saucer candies you liked so much.”
Freddy laughs, but it’s quieter this time. Sounds like leaves rustling.
“I don’t think I wanna see flying saucers anytime soon,” he says.
We shake hands by the door, and he walks off in the direction of the train station. I’d offer a lift, but I don’t feel like another long drive and portals can be a little glitchy. The last thing Freddy needs now is to wind up talking to a guy called Fryded looks just like him.
Besides, I’ve got another eight calls to answer.
THE END
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