Happenings in Hawk Center

Sebastian here again. Yesterday turned out to be quite an eventful day. A few minutes after I published that last post Horace walked into the cafe smelling of sleep. I bought him a chocolate milk and a croissant and he sat down with me.

"How big is this town?" I asked Horace.

"Don't know," he said.

A twenty-something barista busing a table next to us said, "About twenty-five thousand."

"Thanks," I said.

Horace twisted around in his chair to face the barista. "Do you know anyone named Curtis?" he asked.

The barista, who had a neatly trimmed goatee and was wearing a baseball cap, stood up straight and scratched his ribs with one hand. "Hmm, don't think so," he said. "Does he hang out here?"

"We don't really have any idea about that," I said. "He's nineteen and he lives in this town. That's all we know."

The barista furrowed his brow. "Well... If you don't know anything about him, why are you looking for him?"

I took the email out of my pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to him. "He sent us this," I said.

The barista read the paper, then handed it back and said, "That's really weird."

"We're the Gardens," Horace said. "We're here to rescue you. We're a post-band."

"Wait," said the barista. "Do you really think that this happens?"

"The bikers?" Horace said.

"Yeah," the barista said.

We nodded.

The barista shook his head.

I glanced at Horace.

"There are no bikers who come here and take your money?" I asked.

"Nope," he said. "Sorry." Then he walked back to the coffee counter.

Horace turned back to me. "This is most unusual," he said.

I said, "Agreed."

We looked at our empty chocolate milk glasses.

"We should find Curtis," Horace said. "Ask him why he sent us that letter."

"Ok," I said. "Split up? Cover more ground?"

Horace nodded. We got up and left. Horace got in the car. I started walking.

I stopped at a lot of places with no luck. Gas stations, bars, fast food restaurants, useless antique shops. Nobody knew a nineteen-year-old named Curtis. Nobody admitted to the presence of any rampaging bikers. A little before five I walked into a store with a sign out front that said "Sport Cards - Comics." It was on a residential street with good trees, cottonwoods and sycamores, but they didn't have leaves yet.

The inside of the store was musty and brown. There were rows and rows of comic books in off-white cardboard boxes, and white plastic dividers sticking up out of them like hurdles, labeled "Spider-Man" and "X-Factor" and so on. There were three thirteen-year-old boys at the counter looking at some cards laid out on the glass. An middle-aged lady was watching them from the cash register.

"I'm looking for a nineteen-year-old named Curtis who thinks that bikers rampage through this town every spring," I said from the doorway. Everyone turned and gave me a look except for one boy. "I'm Sebastian Gardener," I said. "I'm in the Christian post-band The Gardens. He wrote us a letter. We travel the world pre-figuring the musical apocalypse," I said. "Does anybody know Curtis?"

The boy who hadn't turned to look at me now did so. "I'm Curtis," he said. I noticed the shaved hair around his ears, the stud earring in the left ear, the long hair on top, the white oversized hoodie with light blue lettering on it, the oversized white sweatpants, the Reebok soccer shoes, and the eighth-grade mustache.

"You're not nineteen," I said.

Curtis shook his head.

I stopped and thought. He didn't look like he was lying.

"But you like the Moody Blues?" I said.

Curtis didn't say anything. The other boys and the middle-aged lady all scoffed. I felt bad.

"Let's go," I said. "I'll take you to dinner or something." He followed me out the door. "When do you have to be home?" I said when we got outside.

"Like 9 or something," he said. He was looking at the ground.

"Where do you want to eat?" I said. "Pizza Hut? Wait, do you guys have a Fazoli's?"

"No," he said. "Hawk Center sucks."

"It's OK," I said. "We'll go to Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut's nice."

We started walking to where he said Pizza Hut was.

"Um, so you like our music..." I said.

"Aren't you going to ask me what the meaning of life is or something?" Curtis said. "Isn't that what you guys do? You and your brothers?"

I thought about this and then said, "The meaning of your life really isn't something words can communicate intelligibly given this context. So I don't think I'll ask you that." We walked on in silence for about a minute. "But maybe I'll ask you when we get to Pizza Hut," I said.

A few more minutes passed.

"I shouldn't have said I was nineteen," Curtis said. "But the bikers really do come."

"Why doesn't anybody else say so?" I said.

Curtis said, "Oh, it's my sister!" He waved to a girl playing hacky-sack in a circle with three guys in front of a Kum & Go gas station. She trotted over toward us. She had fake maroon hair and some kind of dragon tattoo climbing up her neck from underneath her flannel shirts. She was wearing at least two flannel shirts. Possibly three.

"Hey Curtis," she said. She hugged her brother. She seemed to be in her early twenties.

"This is Jessie," Curtis said.

"Hi," I said.

Jessie looked toward her brother and said slowly, "Watcha doin' walking around with a guy with a mustache, Curtis?"

Before things could get really awkward, Curtis said, "He's in my ninth favorite band, the Gardens. They're dislodged evangelists."

"They're that folk band you like?"

"Yeah. You wanna come to Pizza Hut with us?"

"Sure," Jessie said.

"We're walking," I said. Then we all started walking together and Jessie waved bye to her hacky sack friends. "Jessie, do bikers terrorize this town every spring?" I said.

"Pretty much," she said.

"Are some people unaware of this?" I said. "Because when I ask them about it they're as silent as stones at the bottom of a smooth black lake."

"That was an awesome metaphor," Jessie said. "Are you into vampires?"

"In their restlessness many people will construct alternate identities they'd rather inhabit than face the tedium and inanity of their lives as actually lived, but I don't honestly know why so many people's alternate identities involve vampires," I said. "Is it the blood or the costumes?"

"It's the night," said Jessie. Then we all walked on in silence for another couple minutes.

I cleared my throat and said, "So why doesn't anyone else admit to there being bikers who terrorize Hawk Center, Nebraska? Or is it that there are no bikers and you two are saying that there are for some reason?"

"I think people are embarrassed," Curtis said.

"Yeah, that's probably it," Jessie said.

"Here's Pizza Hut," Curtis said.

"Let's get pizza," Jessie said.

And we all walked inside.

At this point I started wondering where Horace was, how we would find each other, and where I would sleep.

I was also wondering, obviously, if bikers actually came every spring to terrorize this town or not.

But then I stopped wondering about this because there were three bikers sitting at one of the tables. And Curtis and Jessie stopped walking. They also seemed to stopped breathing. They looked scared.

"That's three of them," whispered Jessie.

"They're probably scoping us out to make sure the National Guard isn't here," whispered Curtis.

The bikers were all men, large and hairy and covered in leather and steel and ink.

"I'm not afraid of bikers," I said. "My brother Horace is around here somewhere and he's really strong. Let's get pizza."

This seemed to calm Jessie and Curtis down. We sat down and ordered some pizza. We all drank some Cokes. The bikers didn't pay attention to us. They were drinking orange pop and eating salad.

"I need somewhere to stay tonight," I said. "I don't know where Horace is."

"There are some motels around here somewhere," said Curtis.

"I work at a 7-11," said Jessie. "My friend Jack is taking my shift tonight. I bet he'd let you sleep in the back room."

I said, "That sounds ideal."

Curtis said in a whisper, "I don't really feel comfortable discussing the bikers when there are bikers in the room."

I nodded.

Our pizza came and we ate it. Then we had some dessert. By then it was dark.

"I'll take you to 7-11," Jessie said.

"Let's all meet up tomorrow. At Winfield's. Maybe Horace will show up. Afternoon," I said.

They nodded. I said bye to Curtis and Jessie walked with me to 7-11. She introduced me to Jack, who was a scraggly hippie-looking guy. Jack and I talked about poetry for a while. He likes Andrew Marvell a whole lot. I told him that I had met lots of convenience store clerks who were big Andrew Marvell fans, and he seemed to take comfort in this.

Then I went to the back room and lay down under a table. Jack gave me an old coat somebody had left there to use as a blanket and a couple of rolls of toilet paper to use as a pillow. It was pretty good.

I woke up around dawn and Jack was just leaving. We fixed up the back room so no one would know I slept there. Then I went to Winfield's. And here I am again. Chocolate milk, donut, blog.

I'll stay here until Curtis and Jessie come.

Horace, if you're reading this, hopefully you'll come too.

Leo, if you're reading this, how's your speaking tour going?