Regrert Page 7

  Ten minutes later the dribble of rain became a monsoon. The thunder roared in untimed bursts and jagged bolts of lightening scarred the sky, landing what I was sure was incredibly too close for comfort. I had been traveling on some sort of highway--still headed West as far as I knew--and going somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy miles an hour. I slowed the car to near fifty when the rain started to increase, and by the time the rain was falling so densely--it looked like I was sitting in one of those automatic car washes, with high-pressure nozzles straying gallons of water directly onto my windshield--that I could hardly see the front of my own car, I slowed to a near crawl and took the first exit I came across. It was definitely time to stop and make camp for the night.

  The exit gave way to a two-lane road that needed to be resurfaced about ten years before my Jeep ever rolled across it. The smooth ride one usually associates with blacktop was replaced but a rumbling-bumbling trip across a surface that I couldn’t see all that well, but from driving across alone sent an image of cobblestone into my head. I looked out the windows to my left and right, and even going a mere twenty-five miles an hour I couldn’t seem to make out anything. It looked like endless fields on both sides of me, no signs of any sort of industry you usually find off highway exits--gas stations, hotels, mom and pop stores. Hell, there weren’t even any houses that I could see--of course I could see very little through the rain and the dark.

  Going slower like I was once off the exit, I was able to see a bit further in front of me, which was good because the road started to curve left and right at first, each curve accented by the bright yellow road sign depicting a bold black arrow indicating the direction one was about to maneuver. I must say I was thankful for them--I didn’t like surprises on the road in weather like I was experiencing. After following the road for what felt like forever going twenty-five, it suddenly ended with a faded STOP sign and forming a T with what another sign told me was Route 688. I sat there, looking left and then looking right. Another faded sign across Route 688 read: Jacob’s Bluff: 2 Miles, and pointed right. Since there was no indication as to where going left might lead someone, I headed right. Hoping that Jacob’s Bluff might have a place to stay for the night, or if nothing else at least a parking lot I could pull into and go inside and wait out the storm.

  The road was straight all the way. No big yellow signs scaring people with black arrows this time, and two miles later--just as the sign had promised--I was again stopped, this time in the middle of the road--traffic wasn’t an issue in the storm, I hadn’t seen a car for miles--staring at a big wooden sign on the side of the road.

  The sign was shaped like some sort of building that to me resembled a Court House, two stories with three columns lining the front and big clock tower poking out of the top. The lower half of the sign read WELCOME TO JACOB’S BLUFF. And then, THE FRIENDSHIP CAPITOL OF OKLAHOMA.

  I drove on past the sign and entered Jacob’s Bluff, thinking that surely the Friendship Capitol of Oklahoma must indeed have a place for a lonesome traveler to stay for the night.

  Thinking back on it, which I do a lot these days, scrutinizing every decision I’ve ever made, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had gone left instead of right at that STOP sign; Where I would have ended up, and if things would have turned out the same.

  Of course, that’s all I can do now.

  Wonder.

  Chapter 12

  My question as to the whereabouts of suitable lodging for the night was answered rather quickly. So quickly, in fact, that I had traveled a mere quarter mile past Jacob’s Bluff’s Welcome Sign when on the left hand side of the road I was greeted with lights. They were shining from atop a small hill that sat a good hundred yards off the road. I couldn’t make out much, other than they appeared to be coming from the inside of a house. If I hadn’t been driving so slow because of the rain, I would have blown right by the sign--which very much resembled the same make and model of the Welcome Sign that was behind me--that said in brick-red letters on a white background SANDERSON HOMESTEAD, and in smaller letters under that, BED AND BREAKFAST.

  I hit the brakes too hard and my tires skidded on the wet pavement. I quickly regained control and guided my jeep into the turn-in by the sign and started to climb the hill. It wasn’t exactly a Super 8, but desperate times called for desperate measures. No sense in pressing my luck in search of other accommodations.

  The driveway leading from the road and up to the Sanderson Homestead was gravel and continued straight up the hill and then made a curving left near the top, leading into a make-shift parking lot--also gravel--that was positioned on the side of the house.

  The house itself was a bit rundown--I could tell this even squinting though the rain on my windshield--but in her prime I bet she was a beauty. It was a very large, two-story farm house, painted white with either black or blue trim--It was hard to tell in the night--and a large porch that wrapped all the way around. Along the outside of the porch were rows of flowers and small bushes and shrubs. A few posts from the railing around the deck were missing and one shutter on the right side of a second story window was hanging slanted. I could see one gutter sagging along the roof. Yeah, it was a bit run-down, but it wasn’t some fleabag motel either, as far as I could tell. I needed a bed, and in the morning I assumed I would need breakfast. Sanderson Homestead it was.

  I killed the engine, cut off the headlights and jumped out of my jeep and into the rain that didn’t seem to be getting tired quite yet and was still coming down full force. I rounded the front of the house and as I was taking the steps up the porch to the front door I had a brief moment of hesitation. What if they’re closed for the night? What are the hours for a home B&B? I had no idea. My final conclusion was that the lights were on, so somebody would more than likely answer the door. The worst that could happen was I get turned away because of the late hour, or maybe because they were full. Then I’d just walk back to my jeep, probably feeling much like The Virgin Mary and Joseph must have felt, and gone off to find a stable somewhere.

  I rapped on the door with three quick knocks, and then noticed the doorbell, glowing dimly next to the handle. I rang this too, covering all the bases.

  Almost immediately the door swung open and I was greeted by an elder gentleman probably in his late sixties, or maybe a spry seventy, wearing faded blue jeans held up by green suspenders and a blue and black checkered short-sleeved flannel shirt. He was a bit shorter than me, five-ten maybe, and what was once probably a thick head of hair was now a thin mess of gray and tangles. He was smiling, and although his expression was pleasant, his face was hard and weathered.

  Before I could even say Hi he was stepping aside and quickly gesturing me to come inside.

  "Come on in, now. C’mon, C’mon." He waved me inside the house.

  I stepped inside and stopped on top of a brown and yellow welcome mat with the picture of a pineapple on it, dirty and smeared from traffic. I wiped away some of the water that had begun to drip down from my hair and into my eyes and then turned to the old man, who was already handing me a towel. I thanked him, took it, and dried my head the best I could.

  "Quite a monster going on out there, ain’t it?" He was reaching back out for the towel and I handed it back. "Oh yeah. Cats and dogs and all that shi… stuff."

  He grinned. "Cows and horses more like it I’d say. Yessir." He laughed and pointed down to my wet sneakers. "Hope you don’t mind if I ask you to leave those here by the door. Ordinarily Minnie wouldn’t mind, but with the rain and mud and all, no need to take chances."

  I nodded and kicked off my shoes, setting them neatly by the door along with a pair of black hiking boots. I stood back up and waited for more instructions. I’d never been to a Bed and Breakfast before and wasn’t exactly sure of protocol. Did I just go run around the upstairs like kids exploring their new house and find a room I like and yell out, "I want this one!"

  I didn’t think so.

  "Oh my goodness!" the man smacked his
forehead. "I almost forgot." He stuck out the hand he’d just slapped himself with, offering the shake. "I’m Ralph. Ralph Sanderson. This is my wife Minnie and mine’s house. Been here fifty-one years we have. Be fifty-two this winter. Only been running the B&B though for the last three. Get kinda bored when you get old, you’ll see. Gotta find something to keep ya busy. No sense in going to the grave already layin’ down. That’s what my Pop always told me, and by God I listened."

  Ralph, apparently, was a chatter box right out of the gate. The kind of guy who if you were left alone with long enough would probably tell you his entire life’s story, and not the Reader’s Digest Condensed version either. I liked him.

  I took his hand and shook it. "Hi Ralph. I’m Dan." His grip was firm for a man his age, and when we let each other’s hands go he headed down a hallway to the left and waved for me to follow.

  "C’mon, C’mon. Let’s get you checked in." He said this and then stopped half-way down the hall, so suddenly that I almost ran him over. "Oh, you are here for a room, right? I just figured, given it was getting late and all you weren’t here to try and sell something."

  I laughed and shook my head. "Nothing to sell. Just need a place to stay and get out of this weather."

  "Good. Will you believe some fool came up here from some big city a few months back and tried to sell me some religion?"

  I didn’t laugh right then and there, but later, when I was alone, I thought back to what Ralph said, "Sell me some religion," sell me, and thought it was just about the funniest damned thing I’d heard anybody ever say.

  "Oh?" I said, not sure what he meant.

  "Yessir. Came up the driveway--walked up the driveway--wearing some nice fancy black suit and carrying a bunch of pamphlets and brochure looking things. I seen him coming the whole way, happened to glance out the window in passin’ and saw him walking up. I thought maybe his car broke down or something. But then when I greeted him at the door he starts asking me why I think God lets bad things happen to good people, and if God’s responsible for natural disasters. Then he starts tellin’ me the Bible is incomplete, that it’s missing chapters. He gives me some of his pamphlets and tells me that if I have any questions or want him to come back after I read them that I can call some telephone number and he’d be happy to discuss my…how’d he say it? My rebirth."

  He looked at me with a look that I felt was disgust and then he burst out laughing, a high-pitched squeal, and slapped his knee.

  "I said, Sonny I done been a Baptist for over sixty years. Been going to the same church down on King’s street for over sixty years, and done read the good book cover to cover more than once in sixty years, and you trying to tell me that my way is wrong and your way is right and I’m just supposed to drop what I know and come follow you and your suit-wearing walkin’ type? And he says Yessir, that’s right. And you know what I told him?"

  I’m already smiling ear to ear. "What’s that?"

  "I told him to get the hell off my porch."

  With this we both burst out laughing, Ralph with his high-pitched squeal, and me bending over and holding my gut, which was starting to ache.

  When we both had had our laughs, I followed Ralph to the end of the hall which opened up into a den that had been converted into a…lobby, I guess you would call it. On one side there was an old wooden desk with a wooden stool behind it. The walls were lined with pictures of old buildings, fields, woods, and various groups of people, all looking like they had been taken around the time Ralph was probably my age. I guessed they were all probably pictures of Jacob’s Bluff and the community. Ralph was promoting his town through his business. To the right there was a couch, enclosed by small tables on each side, each with a lamp, and littered with small flyers and brochures and restaurant menus. Ralph walked around the desk, eased himself down onto the stool and flipped open a big green Log Book.

  "Okay, Dan my boy," he said, picking up a pen and scribbling on the page he had turned to. "Last name?"

  "Dawkins," I said a bit nervously. I didn’t know if good ole Ralph was much of a reader, or if he kept up with book news at all, but I had feeling that if he recognized my name, and I then verified that "Yes, I’m that Dan Dawkins," he’d be on the phone the rest of the night calling every bloody friend he had in Jacob’s Bluff going on and on about who just checked into his Bed and Breakfast.

  Ralph didn’t even look up when I said it, he just went on with, "And how many nights ya stayin’? Rates fifty a night for a single. You a single, right? Ain’t got a pretty girl waiting out in the car do ya?"

  And just like that, with a few simple words from a simple old man, I was knocked back into the world I had briefly--thanks again to the little old man--climbed out of.

  "Yes," I said closing my eyes and forcing back some tears that were trying to make their move. "I’m a single. And just the one night. I’ll be gone tomorrow."

  I started to pull out my wallet and Ralph held up a hand like a traffic cop.

  "No, no. Pay when you leave ‘round here. So you can make sure everything is to your likin’. You got a bag out in your car?"

  "Oh, yeah. I’ll run out and get it."

  When I came back inside after re-soaking myself in my dash to get my suitcase out of my jeep, I kicked off my shoes by the door again and heard Ralph say, "Come on up, I’ll show you to your room."

  I looked straight ahead, following his voice, and up to the top of a staircase that lead up from the front door to the second floor. Ralph was standing at the head of the stairs, holding a stack of towels and nodding for me to come up. I did.

  A hall ran perpendicular to the top of the stairs. To the far left, over top of the "lobby" was one single closed door that I assumed was Ralph and Minnie’s bedroom. To the right, the hall stretched longer and had two doors on the side and, just like the opposite direction, a third door at the end. My room turned out to be that one.

  "This one here is the biggest of the two," Ralph said, opening the door and placing the towels on the bed. "Figured you can have this one since you’re the only guest and don’t really expect anyone else tonight. Didn’t expect you t’be honest."

  The room was a good size. Full size bed in the middle, loveseat against one wall and a little TV stand with a fairly modern looking TV atop it in the corner. The room was decorated in Early American Grandma--no doubt by the mysterious, yet to be seen Minnie--and was cozy enough.

  "Bathroom is the first door as you come up the steps." Ralph said, looking around and inspecting the room, as if making sure everything was as it should be. "Minnie and I get up pretty early, but don’t let that bother you none. You sleep till ya feel like. Ain’t no check out time, this ain't no Double Tree. Minnie’ll make ya something to eat when you come down."

  I thanked him, told him everything was fine, and then Ralph went out, closing the door behind him.

  Exhausted, I changed into some mesh shorts and a t-shirt, made a trip to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and then climbed into bed.

  I turned off the bedside lamp and lay alone in dark, listening to the beating rain on the roof of the farmhouse.

  That was my first night in Jacob’s Bluff.

  Chapter 13

  I woke up the next morning from a sleep that was so deep and wonderful that I wished the sun would have just called in sick for the day, letting the darkness fill the sky for another twelve hours or so and allowing me to continue on, uninterrupted, in peaceful slumber.

  The harsh reality, though, is that the sun is always going to come up, and it succeeded that morning in waking me--one quite familiar with the harsh reality of things--by shining brightly onto a metallic picture frame sitting atop the bedside table and reflecting piercingly into my eyes. Grumbling, I sat up in the bed and looked around. My sleep had been hard and dreamless, good, and after being rudely awakened by the picture frame it took me a few seconds to remember where I was and to get my wits about me.

  Images and little sound bits of the previous night quickly flipped thr
ough my head like an elementary classroom film-strip. Only instead of boring little lectures on the hibernation of bears, or the process of photosynthesis, my film-strip was simply titled Dan meets Ralph: Sleeps on bed.

  Yep, the thunderstorm, Jacob’s Bluff, the Sanderson Homestead, Ralph, they all resurfaced. I got out of bed and stood there in my boxers for a second, stretching and searching for my travel bag that held my toothbrush. After quickly tossing on my t-shirt and shorts I opened the bedroom door, toothbrush in hand, and padded barefoot down the hall to the bathroom.

  The door to Ralph and Minnie’s bedroom was still closed, and for a moment I thought that they might still be asleep. But, as I neared the bathroom, voices made their way up the stairs from the level below. One I recognized well, Ralph, the other was female and feeble, not to mention a bit squeaky, and I presumed this to be Minnie.

  I went into the bathroom and closed the door. I peed and brushed my teeth and splashed some cold water on my face for good measure. It was as I turned to leave that I for the first time noticed the full length mirror fastened to the back of the bathroom door. I stood, staring at myself with what I can only describe as disbelief.

  I didn’t know then if Ralph had any cows on that land of his, but I looked like something one of them might have squirted out of their ass and you didn’t want to step in. How’s that for harsh reality.

  At six feet, I had never been considered extremely tall. Above average, sure, but never tall. What I did manage to do during high school--mostly thanks to a grueling football training program--and maintain through out most of college and my then adult life was to bulk up with a decent amount of muscle for a powerful physique. In other words, I could turn a few heads of my own if my shirt happened to find its way off. Also because of football and my general enjoyment of being outdoors--mowing the grass, going hiking, even just reading in the back yard--I usually managed to keep up a pretty good tan.