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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781450230810 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 07/21/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 754 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Alison
By Paul S. Levy
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Paul S. LevyAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3080-3
Chapter One
Big Joe Silva
The words were spoken at a whisper; barely audible. "Alison, Alison, Alison." The driver reached down with his steering hand and turned off the radio in his baffled attempt to make sure what he'd heard hadn't just been in his mind. It was a shame because the last strains of Boston's "Hitch a Ride" were playing, and what musician Tom Scholz did with his guitar during that outro solo is something no one ought to miss-not for any reason. But perhaps it was necessary this time. It obviously was for Joe Silva.
Seeing on the skinny stretch of highway in Southern New Mexico's pecan belt was hard enough during the day. It was nearly impossible at night. There were only two lanes making up the road. They were separated by faded and cracked yellow lines which proved to be haystack needles more than true traffic guides. The fact that the road was wet didn't help. It had rained earlier in the evening and the old paint that made up the dividing lines had been muddied to the point where it was indistinguishable from the road itself. The possibility of running into the pickup of an oncoming farmer was legitimate. Those types of accidents are regular occurrences in this part of the country. A low thick fog had moved in over the valley and it settled right on the road Joe Silva was using to get home. He hadn't used this particular road more than a couple of times in the past year as his employment at the Sterling Pecan Farms Factory had only commenced ten months earlier. This wasn't his usual route and he'd never taken it before at night. But it was Friday and he was thoroughly exhausted. Even though Joe was a mid-level manager at the factory, his forty subordinates had thrown him a thirty eighth birthday party at one of the local bars. He'd needed to attend. The party had been great. Beer flowed freely, the food had been delicious and filling and his exhausted condition made him want to take a shorter, chancier way home. The fog simply enhanced the hazard of his already questionable eyesight. It was a chance he was willing to take though. He was tired, full, and in great need of his own bed.
What was that? Joe thought to himself after disengaging the radio. He corrected his position on the road with a minor turn of the steering wheel to the right. Silva used only his left hand for steering tonight because his right was busy balancing and protecting the sloppy, half-eaten burrito on his lap. Its position there and the fact that it was made with chili colorado-a Mexican pork, potato and red chili sauce stew-guaranteed that the front of his pants would be soiled by the time he got home. His wife had verbally chastised him on several previous occasions for eating while he drove. The foods he ate always leaked and made for the appearance that he'd pissed in his pants. It was even worse in chili colorado cases because the resulting messes had the semblance that he'd had his privates cut off. His fumbling with the burrito and sloppy attempt to salvage what was left in the Budweiser can between his legs resulted in him continually taking his foot off the accelerator to check the speedometer. Silva slowed his battered old pickup and squinted as he looked at the foggy road ahead.
"Hm," he said. "Quien sabe." Joe shook his head and lifted the collapsing burrito to his mouth. Silva was heavy set. His jet black hair and pudgy face kept most people from being able to accurately determine his age. He wore a thick black mustache under his fat round nose but kept the rest of his face clean shaven. It wasn't difficult for him to accomplish. His Mexican heritage practically assured his baby-faced appearance. His weight completed the guarantee. Joe struggled most of his adult life trying to keep his six foot three inches of height under two hundred and eighty pounds. His wife Delia had actually done most of the struggling. Her efforts to pack him healthy lunches and prepare lean, early dinners were generally unsuccessful. The meals were good enough. Lunches were usually vegetarian in nature-a small Tupperware container packed with stewed squash sautéed in tomatoes, onions and corn, called calabasitas. A second container with chunks of cantaloupe or watermelon accompanied the first. The problem with those meals was that Big Joe, as his workers called him, had the tendency to gobble up the healthy stuff and then finish things off with two burritos made especially for him by some of the older grandmas in the factory. Good stuff. Dinners, although lovingly prepared and served in appropriate portions, failed to help as he would always have at least two platefuls. The two to three tortillas he was certain to down during the evening meal were no help either. Refried beans were almost always on the dinner menu, and they were served along with rice, or pasta made with tomato sauce and cheese. The main meal portions were prepared with ground beef or chicken and cooked in one of any number of Mexican recipe styles. It was great stuff. He ate and drank too much on occasion, but he was well known at the factory as an all around nice guy and a firm but fair manager. The crew down at Sterling certainly loved him. So did his wife and his three children.
Silva was easy going. He managed by praise and encouragement-not only at work, but at home as well. Most people who met Joe for the first time caught their eyes wandering down to his teeth. He smiled all the time and his teeth were big, perfect squares of bright white. The contrast between those and his black mustache and shiny brown skin resulted in more than one curious stare from his new encounters. His teeth were so distinctive that his Anglo supervisors and co-workers referred to him by the nickname of Chicklets instead of the Big Joe used by his subordinates. On this night he wore pretty much what he could be seen wearing most of the time-dark blue, well pressed denim jeans, a yellow long-sleeve button down work shirt, light tan hiking boots and his ever-present Dallas Cowboys baseball cap. The hat was light gray and it sported a big blue star in the front. Jose S. had been written in black sharpie under the bill. It covered his short, clean cut, straight black hair but for the hint of his sideburns and the inch or so porcupine texture that stuck out the back below the hat.
Joe took in the aroma of the burrito, gave it a quick loving goodbye glance and then laid it on the pile of napkins to his right on the pickups front passenger seat. Too much food tonight, he thought. There was no need to overdo it any more than what had already taken place earlier at the party. But he was still thirsty. Silva reached down for the beer can he'd been protecting between his big thighs and picked it up for another mouthful. The top of the can felt cold and was wet with the combination of back-washed beer and saliva. That didn't matter to him though. "If a man can't handle his own vavas," he'd always say, "then what the heck is he doing trying to kiss on someone else?" He smiled when he thought about his own quote. He sucked in the remnant of fluid on the top of the can and took a big swig of the drink. It was refreshing and it kind of burned the back of his throat when he swallowed. The coldness of the beer felt great going down. "Ah," he said, making sure not to enjoy the moment so deeply that he'd chance closing his eyes. This road needed every bit of his concentration.
Silva squinted again and rolled his driver's side window down to let some of the evening's cool fresh air into the truck. He needed the help keeping his focus, and to reduce some of the humidity that was fogging up his front window and making it more difficult for him to see. Man, he mentally complained as he slowed the vehicle some more. The fog appeared even thicker as he entered the four mile stretch of highway that would take him right in front of the little road that led to the Sterling family mansion. He'd never seen the place before but everyone said that the house was pretty spectacular. Joe wasn't ordinarily impressed by large houses or rich people's mansions, but he had readily admitted to his wife that he was curious to see what the big twenty room place looked like. When he originally interviewed for his position at the factory he'd been given the impression that the last of his question and answer meetings would take place at the Sterling residence, and that it would be conducted by Doctor Barton J. Sterling himself. That would have been impressive. The ancient physician was the oldest living member of the Texas Sterlings; the family that had moved from the Lone Star State to the southern part of New Mexico in the late eighteen hundreds, striking it rich in the lucrative pecan farming industry. The old man wasn't actually one of the people that had moved to New Mexico, but he had been born in the mansion itself back when the family just started farming there. He was said to be right at one-hundred years old and sharp as a razor. He'd apparently practiced medicine somewhere in Southern California and had been living pretty comfortably there until the sudden and tragic death of his wife. Just a few months later he retired and returned to the Pequeno area to spend the rest of his days on his family's estate. No one at the factory talked much about the events surrounding the death of Sterling's wife. It wasn't because the place was immune to gossip-that certainly wasn't the case-but because no one really knew much about the old man other than the fact that he was still the Sterling who called the shots in the business. That excited Joe when he prepared to interview for the job. But the meeting never took place. So just like most of the employees at the Sterling Pecan Farms Factory, Big Joe Silva would only get to imagine what the family home looked like.
Joe leaned forward as if doing so would give him a better view of the dim little road on which he was traveling. It didn't. What he knew was there though were rows of huge pecan trees lining the whole four miles of the highway stretch. They were so mature that the branches of the trees on both sides of the road met to form an eerie tunnel that opened several minutes down the road into the short three open miles that ended at the city limit sign for the town of Pequeno. Silva was only around seven more miles from home now. He knew that halfway through the misty tunnel on the left side of the highway was the big iron gate that marked the start of the road that led to the Sterling mansion. By the time he'd gotten halfway through the tunnel the fog had become insufferable. But when he saw the unmistakable outline of the mansion road gate on his left he felt a strong surge of relief-enough to take another swig of his beer. Silva had barely lifted the Budweiser can to his mouth again when he heard the same thing that had originally made him turn off the radio.
"Alison, Alison." This time he only heard the name whispered twice-but it was absolutely clear. Joe pulled his baseball cap off and wiped the perspiration away from his forehead with the sleeve of his right arm. He took a big deep breath and blew the air out of his lungs through inflated cheeks and puckered red lips. He cocked his head and saw the mansion gate disappear in the fog through his driver's side mirror. Turning his eyes forward again Silva made the decision to accelerate. He didn't like what he'd just heard, and the thought that it might be something the beer and his exhausted state created in his mind didn't matter. Getting home was going to be the only cure for what he was experiencing. His own bed was looking more attractive to him now-even more than the few gulps of beer still remaining in the can in his increasingly unsteady right hand. Joe straightened up in the driver's seat and depressed the accelerator pedal with his right foot. And then he saw her.
The image was simultaneously hypnotizing and terrifying. It was a little girl. She stood in the middle of his lane but didn't appear to actually be touching the ground. Her light blond hair was worn loose, a little longer than shoulder length and it didn't provide much contrast with the color of her face. She looked to be around six years old. There was mistiness to her appearance, like she was part of the fog itself. She had big blue eyes and a small turned up nose that allowed Joe to see the two puny black holes that were her nostrils. Her ears were small turned out cups on the sides of her head and her diminutive mouth was a shiny, deep red leaf above her chin. The child held out her hands, beckoning silently to the frightened driver. Joe had no first thought. It happened in a matter of a split second. He could only look and react. All he noticed before he jerked the steering wheel to the right was that her pink and white nightgown failed to do two things; actually end to reveal her feet and legs, and reflect the beam of his head lights. They seemed to go right through her.
The shriek of the tires on the damp pavement was only equaled by the ridiculous scream that came out of Joe's mouth. The decibel had to be at the same level. It certainly was in Joe's head. He closed his eyes and covered them with his right forearm, spraying what was left of the contents of the beer can he was now crushing in his hand. The truck, which was only traveling at around fifty miles an hour, had its back side skid to the left and come into the opposing highway lane. Then as he released the brake out of sheer reaction the vehicle jumped forward. Its front tires caught the unguarded and unpaved side of the road. Silva could find no way to control the truck because of the steep decline from the road to the trees. He yanked on the steering wheel without any legitimate reaction from the vehicle and it dove down the short drop into the pecan grove. There was no give in the trunk of the massive tree into which Joe's hopeless pickup slammed. There was however, plenty of give in Joe's chest, stomach, and forehead. The bill of his baseball cap caught the window right before he did and jumped up off his head. Silva felt the steering wheel smack against his sternum and belly just before he saw the windshield crack with the impact of his own brow. He felt no real pain as the already dark night went completely black.
Alison, Alison, don't be sad. I'm gonna help you find your dad.
Doctor Barton Jonah Sterling
It was late but Barton Sterling was still awake. That was hardly unusual for the old gentleman. He wasn't much of a sleeper. In the past seventy-three years he probably hadn't slept more than two hours straight on any given night. His inability to fall asleep this night was no surprise. What was odd was that he'd yet to get into bed. He had no physical ailments that kept him from bonding with his mattress. He got to bed by a decent hour on most evenings; he simply wouldn't sleep. Sterling spent most nights lying motionless on his back, hoping for sleep and thinking about one or more of the patients he'd treated during his extensive career-how they were doing, what they were doing for a living, what they weren't doing. There were the normal worries about how his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren were doing. He thought often and deeply about what had happened to his aging wife several months earlier and wondered how he would manage since she'd died first-something that had fallen far out of what he'd planned for their lives. All of those were things he considered usual suspects in his battle with insomnia. On this night though, Sterling couldn't manage to peel himself away from the old desk and chair that were set in front of his big bedroom window.
The coolness of the rural night in union with the humidity from the earlier rainfall had caused a thick low fog to develop. It folded itself across the valley and the entire Sterling estate, covering the multitude of pecan trees up past their trunks to about the halfway points of their foliage. They looked like giant broccoli pieces pushing their ways up through thick creamy soup. The view of the panorama was spectacular from where the old man sat in the mansions northwest corner bedroom on its third floor. His wasn't the largest room in the place, but it was definitely ample enough for him. Sterling didn't like the room though. For him it was nothing more than a prison cell to which he was banished on a nightly basis. And other than a little repose from the chatter in the house it provided him with nothing more than hours of boredom and frustration. But he was somewhat mesmerized by the pretty scenery set before him this night. From his bedroom window he could see the little guest or servant's house at the northwestern edge of the lawn. Also visible was most of the mammoth yard making up the front of the estate grounds. It began at the front of the house and stretched fifty yards out. The width was twice the length of the mansion itself so the building sat picturesquely in the middle with the lawn coming out from both sides one quarter the length of the house. The entire first floor of the big building was bordered by a raised covered deck. An attractive cobblestone walkway began at the bottom of the five steps that led up to the main entryway. It went straight for around ten yards then fanned out into five separate paths-one that kept the walkways original direction, and two more on each side that went in perfect symmetrical outward curves to the ends of the lawn. At the beginning of the fan points and outward, the paths were bordered with hedges of hearty short evergreens that were alive with avian activity during the day. The place was almost as noisy at night with the sounds of crickets and nightingales. There were no artificial lights on the lawn itself so the walkways weren't easily visible in the dark hours unless the moon happened to be full. Electric lamps lined the two auto paths that came from the back of the mansion and trailed around the outskirts of the lawn to meet again at the far front of the lawn. Those provided some illumination but they weren't on tonight. Barton had to depend on the weak moonlight and his ancient eyes to continue viewing what little there was to see this night. He found himself hoping that a coyote, raccoon or skunk would wander onto the landscape.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Alison by Paul S. Levy Copyright © 2010 by Paul S. Levy. Excerpted by permission.
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