A Novel: Signs Following (Chapter One)

I'm having some timeline issues, and I expect some changes (as well as a hard edit) will be made soon.

"No, no Darrel, pick me, me!

"Wouldn't you rather have me instead, Darrel?

"Shut up, you. It's me he wants. Me!

"You'll soon see. Soon enough.

Darrel exchanged glances with Lynette and Jeanette, his eyes moving madcrazy from one girl to the other then back again. He was aware that they were toying with him, one more than the other; he knew that they were aware of his inability to decide between them. How they played that aspect of his personality. How happy he was to be played.

Midday. June 21. Summer solstice. 1994. Friday. Freaky Friday; a day of import in Dearing, Georgia.

Darrel walked Midway Lane with Lynette and Jeanette, often turning around and walking backwards in order to see them better. Their odd staggered shuffle, which propelled them forward almost spitefully, was unpleasant to watch at first. Only after a long moment of observation could one see the grace with which they moved despite the thick band of flesh that connected them, preventing independent movement. One girl side-stepped forward, a small hitch in stance, almost a jump; the other girl side-stepped forward, a small hitch in stance, almost a jump, and thus the twins gained forward momentum. They rolled together, exhibiting patience and grace and undulating dance-like steps. A show: lovely, bizarre, arresting.

The black tar in the pavement held no sheen under a high sun, though it seemed to reflect light all the same. Its luster came from some unknown source, perhaps only the heat bringing it near its melting point. Darrel knew if he stooped down with a stick to disturb the muck, it would be as soft and pliable as play doh that had been shaped at length in a pair of small warm hands.

He wore his signature summer apparel: denim cutoffs, no shirt, and plastic flip-flops from the dollar store in Thomson. Gone were the markings of boyhood: the freckles, the thin hair, and the rib bones stretching his flesh. Darrel had grown up lean and strong, his hair becoming thick and a darker shade of blonde, like a California surfer, sinewy muscles padding the bones that had once protruded from every joint in his body.

Neither Darrel, nor the twins, nor any of the other Dearing reared children had ever left the community, but once a month a troop of three men and three women made the trek in a beat up Volkswagen hippy van to procure supplies and general necessities, Darrel's flip-flops belonging in the second category. He wore them year round, even in the damp cold of winter only then with a pair of woolen socks bunched between toe one and toe two of each foot.

Unusually cool air danced and swirled along the curb stirring mown grass and bubblegum wrappers into brief bursts of flight as if they were caught in tiny twisters. Still hot by any standards set above the Mason-Dixon line, the thermometer screwed to the side of Berkeley General Store stood at 86 degrees”a virtual cooling trend in the heart of the south in June.

Midway Lane was long and narrow and utterly straight. Its actual name was the Augusta Highway, but for five miles through Dearing, it was Midway Lane. Travelers passing through would only see a glimpse of the strangeness within Dearing: maybe a rare sighting of Sherrie the Turtle Woman waddling along impossibly fast on hands and feet, or perhaps Renaud the Wolf-man, dressed impeccably in a stylish, tailored suit created at no small fee by the talented hands of some of the township's daughters. If the travelers should need to gas up their rig before hopping the interstate to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, they could do so at Berkeley's. Upon entering the small store, they would be awash in a blend of everything and anything cultural from old wooden pickle barrels to Indian totems to posters of circus acts renowned the world over, most of whom had visited Dearing at one time or another over the years.

Darrel saw only sameness when he gazed about, unique and colorful, but still just sameness. The twins had taken to giggling since they turned nineteen, which confused Darrel, but he maintained in his heart that their company was better than spending time with anyone else he knew.

What about the boy?

He ignored the inner voice that questioned him and grinned like a fool at some silly thing Jeanette had just said. She, and Lynette, too, responded with a fresh round of giggles.

The girls were dressed alike in culottes and tank tops: Jeanette's a beguiling green to match her lovely eyes, Lynette's a flattering contrast of burnt orange which highlighted the color in her cheekbones. Darrel was as befuddled as he ever was in the company of the twins, but at the same time, he was relaxed and at ease. At seventeen, he knew that the befuddlement arose from sexual tension. He sensed either or both of the girls were willing to explore those feelings with him, but he was inexperienced and unsure of how to proceed. So he waited for enlightenment, or perhaps a clever shift of moon phase, to reveal how best to choose and court just one of the girls. Although his youthful dreams often featured both young ladies, he despaired of overcoming his shyness enough to pursue them both.

Darrel could not conceive of a world that did not contain Jeanette and Lynette. Secretly, he had searched Dr. Rudy's encyclopedia set and determined the nature of their affliction. They were pygopagus conjoined twins, connected at either the lower back or the buttocks or perhaps both. Unlike some of the other types of conjoined twins, Lynette and Jeanette most likely shared only a spinal cord and no major organs. The first modern day successful separation of pygopagus twins had been performed in 1953 on twin girls eight days old. Both survived the surgery but one of the women committed suicide in 1985.

Darrel grew chilled at the thought that perhaps Catherine Mouton had somehow been less equipped to deal with her affliction while her sister, Caroline, had managed just fine. His good sense told him that the lady had most likely been depressed about issues other than having been a pygopagus conjoined twin, especially with the knowledge that she couldn't possibly hold any memories of the time before their surgery, but the thought of either Jeanette or Lynette disappearing from his world for any reason at all caused him to think irrationally, much in the same way an overprotective mother might imagine horrors over which she had no control delivered to her small child.

The pages in that volume of the encyclopedia had been marked and the crease in the spine of the book revealed that it had been opened to those pages many times, especially the segments that discussed surgical separation. There even appeared to be a stain of chocolate sauce covering the page number. The encyclopedia revealed that Dr. Rudy, a chocolate lover, had no doubt studied the book and then probably recovered even more information about conjoined twin separation inside his medical journals and research materials. Darrel grew uneasy, as he always did when he formed the mental picture of Jeanette and Lynette under a surgical knife. Those mental pictures were a frequent occurrence now that he had seen and read about conjoined twin separation.

He shook his head, clearing away the ridiculous notion that Dr. Rudy would ever consider performing surgery on anyone in the community, let alone Bernice's money-train-in-the-making. Darrel even called up the memory of the time an ambulance had been called in from Thomson simply because of Monroe's swollen tonsils. He had returned from the hospital, sans tonsils, four days later with tales of ice cream and nurses in tight uniforms and an altogether worldly account of a city the youth of Dearing could never hope to see. On the other hand, Monroe the Shadow-Boy had been out in the world before and knew the allure of embellishment. Though young at thirty-two, he was one of the last successful sideshow acts of modern times and had only retired because of health conditions brought about by his emaciated state.

Down Midway Lane, upon which the three strolled on an unusually cool southern day, people began to emerge with tables and crafts and jars of homemade jam.

Through eyes half-closed against the intrusion of noon sunshine that could slash at his vision and render him temporarily blind, Darrel watched the preparations begin with something akin to dread. He reached out and took hold of the nearest twin's hand, squeezing hard until she grunted and snatched away from him. When he tore his eyes from the scene before him and looked into hers, Jeanette's, he was almost frightened by a darkness that had settled coldly into her gaze. He blinked, looked again, this time finding only familiar merriment.

"Is your Ma going to put up a table this year? Jeanette asked.

Darrel kicked at a pebble and tried to shake off his feeling of foreboding.

"I'm not sure. Think so. She usually does.

"I hope she brings samples of her jelly tray again. I'm going to buy some teacakes from Mrs. Sanchez and spread them with every flavor of jelly your Ma brings. This from Lynette, the more reserved of the girls.

She reached out and took Darrel's right hand, the one Jeanette had cast aside, and twined her fingers with his drawing him closer to her side. Jeanette shot daggers at her sister from between lush black lashes and then fell silent. Darrel just walked with them both, somehow keeping time to the strange beat at which they ambulated, his heart flip-flopping to the tune of the footwear he wore upon his feet.

They passed the festival preparations at last, but as Darrel glanced over his shoulder, he spied shade in motion, watery, dark, stealthy.

##

Dr. Rudy gazed upon Midway Lane from his second floor office window, approval painting the lines on his face in happy shades of natural blush. His congregation seemed to be moving as one, working together to prepare the town for festival.

Rudy was pleased. He sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and reveled in sensory overload.

Summer Solstice on Freaky Friday; an uncommon occurrence. The last time, he had failed in his mission. He realized now that his players had been far too young to work effectively as a team, albeit an unknowing team. Darrel, Rudy's only current concern, had resisted most of the suggestions he had attempted to implant. The key to Darrel lay with the twins. Where the twins traveled, Darrel would follow. The doctor had seen to that.

His breathing increased a notch, a fine layer of perspiration breaking upon his brow, his heart gaining momentum toward a culmination, for which the scene below his office was only partly responsible.

The lane was sun dappled, leafy branches from the oaks and maples casting cool shadows along the weathered blacktop. Shingled hip roofs, gabled roofs, and tin roofs seemed to shimmer and groan in mock protest whenever the breeze disturbed the shade that bathed them in coolness.

Rudy staggered on his feet and released a restrained but sustained groan. Once it passed, he picked up a small crystal saucer, spending a few seconds arranging and mixing its contents: benzoylmethylecgonine, common street cocaine, and the bitter powder derived from the seed of the Strychnos nux-vomica tree, otherwise known as strychnine. When he had the mixture perfectly blended and arranged into two thin lines, he lifted a rolled up 1861 five dollar confederate note and inhaled half the contents up one slightly flared nostril. Glancing down at a flaxen haired woman who was just raising the zipper of Rudy's creased Levis, he grinned and lowered the saucer to her level. Sarah Dawkins swallowed the contents of her mouth then accepted the saucer and the note. She inhaled the other half of the chemical cocktail then stood and put on her daisy-covered summer dress.

The king and his queen surveyed the preparations below from their throne room on the second floor of Dr. Rudy's office. In unison they whispered, "Blessed be the day of His arrival."