Always a Kicker Read online

  As the afternoon wore on, Zander had the good fortune to meet Bert and Jo who had stopped for lunch returning from a trip out East. They asked him to join them and ordered dinner. By the end of the meal, Zander had a new bartending job.

  They had spent the night at a motel around the corner on US 30. Bert had picked up the rooms and Zander hadn’t minded. He did spring for breakfast back at Ole’s and followed them out to Frisco speeding right through Denver. Zander never looked back. Bert had found him a rental cabin that he happened to own just off highway 9, between Frisco and Breckenridge. By evening Zander had moved in what little possessions he had stored in the small trunk space in the T-Bird. He went to work the next day. That was ten years ago. Now here he was looking down the bar at some guy who he didn’t know but wanted to talk to him because of his card. It made him a bit nervous. It was time to put on his stone face.

  *****

  Zander moved to the end of the bar, laid both palms down on the bar and said, “Can I help you?”

  The man put the card on the bar next to Zander’s hands.

  “Are you Zander?” he asked pointing to the card.

  “Depends on who wants to know,” Zander countered.

  “I have some questions for you if you are Zander.” The man sounded slightly irritated.

  “Me first,” Zander said, “Where did you get that card?”

  “If you are Zander, then I got it from your father,” he replied.

  Suddenly Zander just wanted to sit down. He hadn’t seen his father or mother in a very long time. This could not be good.

  “What do you want?”

  “I represent a client who is looking for someone,” the man said.

  “I generally am the one to do the missing person work around here, especially if it involves a rescue,” Zander replied.

  He had found and reunited a girl with her parents just a year ago. She had been selling flowers at the airport for a remote cult in the Northern Rockies. Kids were always getting hooked up with the wrong people and Zander had a hard time understanding the draw. Sex was usually involved and most often it was perverted. The girl would need therapy and hopefully she would be all right. They weren’t always happy endings even when the rescue went well.

  “I’ve been employed to do the missing person work on this case so you don’t have to worry about that,” the man replied.

  “Who are you and who are you looking for?”

  “My name is Fred Doyle. I’m from Des Moines and specialize in finding people. I was looking for you but now I’ve found you,” he replied.

  “So what are your questions?” Zander asked. He thought he would play along and see where this was headed.

  “Do you have any other jobs besides working here?”

  “I work at The Bridge in Breckenridge most nights,” Zander answered.

  “How long have you been working in this area?”

  “Ten years.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-five.”

  “Hometown?”

  “Hospers, Iowa.”

  “Where did you go when you left Hospers?”

  “Omaha, Nebraska.”

  “Did you work there?”

  “Tended bar at the Glass Onion.”

  “How long did you work there?”

  “Five years.”

  Fred had been writing something next to the questions he asked from the composition book he carried. It was one of those black marbled things you could buy at any dollar store. Zander used them too. He liked them because they didn’t have a spiral spine and the pages were sewn into the binding so they didn’t pull out. Fred looked uncomfortable. He was stout and his shirt collar was too tight which made him pull at his tie. His stomach was round and filled his shirt pulling his shirttails to the limit. Zander could see small beads of sweat on the top of his head through his thinning wispy hair. It wasn’t even hot. August in the mountains had semi warm days with cool evenings. Generally calling for a fire to warm up the building. The saloon used propane for their fireplace so you didn’t get that pine smell but you never had to cart wood or clean up any ashes. Zander liked the trade off. There was no fire today and the temperature couldn’t have been more than 68. So, either Fred was nervous about something, or he was overweight and out of shape. Zander thought maybe it was both.

  Fred put his pen down and looked right at Zander for the first time. “Everything appears to be in order.”

  “So now that all the information looks to be on target, what is this all about?” Zander asked.

  “It has to do with―” He checked his notes. “Sara Jane De Graff.”

  Suddenly Zander didn’t just want to sit, he needed to sit. He pulled a bar stool from under the bar and flopped on it with his elbows on the bar and face in his hands. His head had begun to hurt. He was in the room but his mind was somewhere far away.

  “There better be a good reason for you to bringing up this bullshit after all these years,” Zander spit.

  “Someone thinks she might still be alive.”

  That’s about the time Zander quit listening.

  2

  Hospers, Iowa-Tuesday June 15, 1965

  The black Mustang skidded out of the alley and shot west down Main Street; the duel glass packs were rapping. Two blocks down, the driver yanked a hard left on the wheel and the Mustang was burning rubber and slid onto Highway 33 going south right through a blind intersection bordered by two buildings on either side of the ignored stop sign. It was fortunate for the driver and passenger that no vehicles were on the road at that time of the evening.

  Highway 33 was becoming a busy connection that ran almost diagonally from Le Mars, Iowa to Mankato, Minnesota. Other roads fed into 33 and truckers traveling from Omaha to Minneapolis found this route to shave miles from their normal routes. In four years Highway 33 would become Highway 60 to align with Minnesota and eventually become a four lane.

  Lots of big trucks used the road and that might have ended the flight of the Mustang before it even started.

  Sara Jane turned around just in time to see Zander hit the ground.

  “Oh God! It’s Zander. I think he’s hurt. We’ve got to turn around and help him,” she cried out.

  The driver stared at her.

  “We got to haul ass or maybe you didn’t notice that we just blew up half of Main Street. Stop freaking out. Remember what we said, in for the short haul in for the long haul.” He moved his eyes back to the road.

  He felt it was important to keep focused on his driving, following the speed limit to avoid any unnecessary attention once they had left the city limits.

  “But Zander,” was all Sara Jane could say.

  “Don’t sweat it. There are things that had to be left behind. You knew that. One of them was this little friend of yours,” the man said. His voice was cold.

  “But nobody was supposed to get hurt,” she said more to herself than the man.

  “Enough,” was all he said.

  She knew that was the end of it and she stared straight ahead. Suddenly there was no joy in this new adventure.

  3

  Hospers, Iowa-Tuesday July 16, 1963

  The man’s name was Maarten Van Vugt. He was five years Sara Jane’s senior. He had grown up in Hospers with a mother in a small white-sided house in the south part of town. His mother had always been old. She tried hard to make a good home for the two of them but they were poor and had to live off the county. If Marty had a father, no one seemed to know about it. Which pretty much made he and his mother untouchables in the eyes of most of the other nuclear family town folks. Marty grew up playing baseball and doing odd jobs for people for spending money. He saved his money and bought a new Huffy bicycle because he couldn’t afford Schwinn.

  He was a small kid growing up, but he was strong. That was a good thing because he was bullied constantly, partly because he was short, partly because he was poor, but mostly because he was weird. Marty was a loner who was more comfortable fis
hing down on the Floyd River or hunting rabbits along the railroad tracks than having many close friends. In fact, the only social thing he did was to play baseball. He became quite a good catcher. The coach told him he needed to get stronger so Marty made homemade weights with coffee cans filled with concrete and attached to an inch-and-a-quarter pipe. When he mastered those, he found concrete blocks and put C-clamps on the pipe so they wouldn’t slip off and lifted until he could get six blocks off the ground without breaking a sweat. He lifted everyday and soon he became a wedge. Some kids told him he should paint himself green because he looked like The Incredible Hulk. He liked that and it made it even more satisfying when a few of the more foolish kids still tried to bully him. After a series of bloody lips and swollen noses, everyone pretty much left him alone. He reminded them often that he didn’t care if Van Vugt rhymed with fuck and they shouldn’t either. Reminding them with fists and not words.

  Lifting those weights became Marty’s transformation. The kids called him Rooster behind his back because he became a cocky son of a bitch. The adults called him Banty Rooster because of his diminutive size.

  As it happens so often, Marty became a bully himself. It was a source of pain for his mother who had weekly visits from disgruntled parents and even some visits from the town constable. Marty’s violence was increasing and he seemed to enjoy causing pain to others and that made him even more isolated.

  When he was seventeen he talked to a Marine recruiter in school and told his mother he wanted to enlist. His mother was happy to sign the papers hoping the military could straighten out what she had failed at so miserably.

  So in 1963, a year before he would have graduated, Marty joined the marines for four years. The school was happy, the town kids were happy, his mother was happy and Marty was happy, for a while.

  He went through basic training and was a model soldier. He pushed himself harder and faster than anyone in his unit and the officers took notice. Marty found something he was good at and the people around him respected him.

  He had just finished basic and was awaiting orders when he got the news that his mother had died. They said it was a cancer of some kind. She had known something was wrong but she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor so she just stayed home and died slowly. The marines gave Marty bereavement leave so he could bury his mother and settle her affairs. She really had no affairs, just a little house not worth much and some furnishings. There was no money.

  Marty flew into Omaha and took a bus to Sioux City. Switched buses at the terminal and got off at the Skelly Service Station right on highway 33. From there it was a short two-block walk to the old clapboard shack he had called home. He called the funeral home in Orange City where they had his mom on ice. He made the deal to have her body delivered when he had the money to pay for her final arrangements as the funeral director had called it.

  The neighbors came to pay their respects and brought food. Marty listened to their stories about his mother and what a good person she had been. He even pretended to care. Marty didn’t feel much. He never felt much of anything.

  He sold the house to a neighbor because the neighbor wanted more yard and would tear down the house if it would be all right with Marty. Marty could less give-a-shit. He had a yard sale to get rid of his mom’s stuff and donated the clothing and any left over furnishings to the YMCA. They picked it up right from the curb. All together he had enough for a cheap casket and a burial plot. His mother’s minister agreed to a graveyard service. There were five people in attendance including Marty and the minister.

  *****

  That same year Sara Jane had taken part in a school project that involved writing Christmas letters to area servicemen. She was assigned to write to a Maarten Van Vugt because he was from her hometown. She wrote a nice long letter as only a thirteen year old could. Marty answered her out of obligation. Then she wrote again and soon the letters were part of a weekly delivery. She was thirteen going on twenty-three. Her letters were full of sexual innuendo and it was fascinating to Marty. He wrote back without any sexual references just in case her parents were reading the letters, but he knew that when he returned home that this young pussy was going to get laid.

  Sara Jane sent him pictures of her in shorts and small tops. She had one of her friends take some almost naked photos of her with the parent’s Polaroid. She would send him one in each letter. Sara Jane thought this was great fun. He was a long way away so she didn’t fear getting caught. He seemed nice enough in his letters and he didn’t mention the photos so she was comfortable letting her parents read the letters if they asked.

  Then there was the death. Marty was back and things got complicated. Sara Jane was one of those in attendance at the funeral. When it was over, she hung around to talk to Marty.

  “Hello, Marty. I’m sorry about your mother.”

  “Thanks,” was all he said. He had already been planning to score with Sara Jane before he had to go back. But he had to be careful. She was thirteen and he was eighteen. He didn’t need a rape charge hanging over his head. He didn’t realize that Sara Jane was playing sex games with neighborhood boys since she was twelve. She had never gone “all the way” but it had been close. In many ways, she was more experienced than Marty ever could or would be.

  “Would you like to meet somewhere later?” Sara Jane asked.

  “If you have any more pictures,” he said and winked.

  “Who needs pictures when you’ve got the real thing,” she said as she arched her back pushing her breasts out for him to see.

  “I thought I’d take a walk down to the ball diamond later this evening. I want to see the place before I have to go back,” he said.

  “How about we meet around eight? I should be finished at the café about that time.”

  “See you then,” Marty said and forced a smile as he hurried to catch a ride back to town with the minister.

  Sara Jane had ridden her bike and left it in the evergreen trees that surrounded the cemetery. She waited until everyone had left before she decided to go back to town. Sara Jane hated the fact that she couldn’t drive and she always was looking for some guy with a car so she could ditch the bike. She always made sure her driver got almost everything he wanted.

  Now she was meeting this military man and he didn’t have a car either. Sara Jane thought he was cute enough and it might lead to something bigger. She was always looking for something bigger.

  Marty took his time back at the house. The neighbor was letting him stay until he had to go back to being a marine even though the deal on the house was done.

  He took off his dress blues and took a long shower to cool off. He ate the one remaining can of peaches that was left in the cupboard. There was still some food in the refrigerator but he would just leave it when he took off the next day. He looked around the little house as he sat in his towel eating the peaches from the can. He had kept one chair and his bed, which he had moved to the main floor because it was hotter than a cocksucker upstairs. He would leave those two things as well. He would never return, a clean break. On the back of the chair were the only two possessions he would keep. His catcher’s mitt and a baseball from the state baseball game he had played in as an eleventh grader. The only other thing he wanted was to walk to the ballpark once more. It had been really his only joy. Joy was not something Marty had much of in his life.

  It was quiet in the house. There were no electric distractions. Marty decided to take a nap and when he woke it was close to seven. He put on his olive drab utility uniform. If he went to the ball field now, he would have a good hour before Sara Jane showed. Before he did, he made the short walk to the Skelly Station to buy some condoms. He had listened well to the drill instructors and never had sex without using one. He didn’t need any kids running around and certainly didn’t need a dose of the clap.

  In this case, he didn’t need to leave any evidence if Sara Jane had some second thoughts about getting balled. When you wanted to buy rubbers at the gas station, all
you had to say was “I need some head caskets for my hot rod.” There was a box under the counter and for a buck you got a package of three. He had tried Trojans from the PX when he picked up the camp girls but he didn’t like the smell. That smell always reminded him that these girls came at a price. It was seldom that having sex on liberty nights didn’t cost him. The world’s oldest profession seemed like a good business and something he wouldn’t mind looking into later.

  The gas station sold Gold Dollars and he liked those. They were packed in a gold foil that was strong and the round dollar shaped package fit in his wallet quite well. They had no smell.

  The sun was in the west as he walked to the diamond. It was an older ball field. It had tall wooden fences surrounding the entire field so people had to pay to see the games. The bleachers were also wooden and completely enclosed with a large wooden canopy over them to keep the fans out of the sun and sometimes some light rain. The field was usually deserted when there was no game because it was impossible to drive into the complex. There was a chain padlocked between two posts on non-game nights. Marty was not unaware of that little fact.

  He had his mitt and ball and it felt like he was back in high school. He walked the bases, threw the ball against the backstop a few times, and kicked up the dirt around home plate. It was nice. But it wasn’t the same, disappointing somehow. After a half hour of reminiscing, Marty decided to sit in the wooden stands behind home plate. When he rounded the opening in the fence next to the dugout, he saw that Sara Jane was already there. She had a blanket spread on the floor in front of the top row of bleachers and was sitting right in the center of it.

  “I didn’t see you come in,” Marty said.

  “Got off early. Pretty dead in town tonight.”