Chapter 4: Whirl-a-Gig

First Date

“Next weekend is the County Fair,” Karen said over dinner. She looked uncommonly excited to Gee. But her enthusiasm always affected him positively.

“It must be a big thing here,” Gee said. “I see signs and posters up all over town.” Karen looked at him questioningly.

“Gee?”

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

“Of course not. I just thought you’d be excited.”

“Why? I mean, it does look like a big deal to the town, but I don’t have a proper context for what that means. Tell me.”

“The ticket,” she said in exasperation. “Have you forgotten that you have a ticket? This could be the clue we’ve been waiting for. The clue to who you really are.”

“Oh! You know, I completely forgot. I use that little slip of paper to mark my place in The Odyssey, but the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading other books from the library and hadn’t thought about the ticket,” Gee said. “I suppose it’s important, huh?”

Karen shook her head and smiled at him. Her eyes sparkled and he lost himself in them.

“You really don’t care, do you?” she whispered. “Mead has exhausted his DNA databases and we’ve sent samples out to seven commercial DNA services. We’ve posted your picture on over a dozen social media and missing persons websites. You’re everywhere but on a milk carton, but you don’t care.”

“I have gotten some interesting responses to the ads on Craigslist. I don’t dare open them in the library, though,” Gee laughed. “Apparently there are a lot of people who ‘would like to know me,’ as they say.”

“Ugh. You can come over and use my computer if you’d like. We can sift through the responses together. I should have known there would be a lot of crack-pots wanting to take advantage of you,” Karen sighed. “But that brings us back to the one solid lead we have about who you are. The Fair.”

“It really doesn’t sound like that much fun to me.”

“It’s not for fun. Gee, that ticket is a clue to who you are. There is a reason that you acquired it and a reason you are supposed to go.”

“What reason?”

“That’s the point!” Karen said, frustration creeping into her voice. “We don’t know the reason. You have to promise me that you’ll go to the fair and even go to that ride. Just look around and observe. There’s a reason for you to be there. There has to be a reason.”

“I see your point, and I’ll go. I just don’t feel compelled about it. It would be easier if you’d go with me.”

“I...” Karen stopped and looked at Gee in silence for a minute. “That sounded an awful lot like you were asking me out, Gee.”

“I guess ... um ... We’ve been meeting together once or twice a week for the past six weeks, Karen. I’m sorry if it’s not appropriate, but I feel that meeting with you is a lot more important than working out who I am. Would you go out with me?”

“I would. But...”

“That sounds ominous. Please continue.”

“It’s just that next weekend I’m supposed to be in New York. It’s the Society for Professional Journalism Conference. I’m attending a track on investigative reporting and its relation to law enforcement and police investigation. It’s a pretty hot topic and relates to my effort to dig into trafficking,” Karen rushed on. “So, even though I would be willing ... I would like to go out with you ... to the fair ... I can’t because I won’t be in town.”

“Oh. I see. Of course. That makes sense.” Gee was dealing with simultaneous attacks of encouragement and disappointment. She couldn’t go to the fair with him, but she did want to go out with him. He felt a little like an infatuated teenager.

“Gee? If you’d like ... I mean since we’ve broached the subject ... We seem to both be interested ... Well ... We could drop the professional nonsense this evening and consider this a date. Sort of. I mean, just getting to know each other socially. I promise to stop investigating for the next hour or two. I mean...” It was obvious that Karen was having as much difficulty sorting through her feelings as Gee was. A blush crept across both their faces.

“Um ... Wow! What’s a good first date?” Gee asked. “I’d ask you to dinner, but we’ve already finished eating. I guess that was a business meeting. Now, it no longer is. Could I ... uh ... interest you in a walk? Maybe for ice cream?”

“That sounds very nice.”

Gee felt he got to know Karen beyond her professional life, and she got to see that he was more than a man with no history.

“Take the idea that all people are created equal,” Gee said. “Does that mean that every person in every stage of his or her life is equal to every other?”

“Doesn’t that require a definition of ‘equality’?” Karen responded. “People can be created with and have equal value without having equal economic or social standing.”

“Does that mean a military action is an inherent violation of equality? Not just that the enemy is of less value, but that the lives of front line soldiers—cannon fodder—have less value than those of their officers?”

Poaching

Gee strode along briskly on Sunday, still slightly euphoric over his date with Karen the night before. He’d been happy to drop the probing questions about his background and transition into more revealing conversations about what they felt and believed. They didn’t get together on Sunday, but Gee was still stoked about the relationship.

Determined to explore more of his adopted city, Gee took a new route, entering the Forest on the southern edge near Aldo Lake, where the public beach was. A fence at the end of the beach marked the city limits. A stark contrast divided the wild woods on one side of the fence and the neatly groomed nut orchard on the other. Gee walked some way along the fence, finally shifting north into the Forest.

There weren’t as many people in this section of the Forest as he’d seen in the central part, nearer to downtown. Gee soon had his shoes off and tied to his belt as he walked among the trees. A broken branch lying nearby looked like a perfect walking stick. Gee picked it up, trimmed a couple of twigs from the branch and began swinging it with each step. He even whistled a little tune as he hiked.

To him it was a tune. Gee wasn’t certain if anyone else would be able to tell. He had a feeling the tune he was hearing in his head was not what was coming from between his lips.

“Stop where you are and drop the stick,” a young but authoritative voice said behind him. Gee froze and let the stick fall to the ground. “Turn around, poacher,” the man commanded. Gee turned to face a man in the obvious dress of a forester. He wore a pith helmet, short sleeved khaki shirt, cargo shorts, and hiking boots with over-the-calf socks. Gee supposed he could be a Boy Scout.

“I don’t think I’ve poached anything. I haven’t even seen any animals in the woods,” Gee said. “I’m Gee, George Evars. I’m new here.”

“Oh, you. Sorry, I’d never met you. Have you had an orientation session on the Forest yet?”

“Orientation?”

“I swear, people can be so inept when it comes to protecting our resources. That’s why there are four times as many foresters as there are police in Rosebud Falls. I’m Jonathon Lazorack. If you don’t recognize the outfit, I’m one of forty foresters who manage this area. Since you haven’t been through orientation, I’ll let you off with just a warning,” Jonathon said. He reached in his pocket for a small booklet titled ‘Rules of the Forest.’ “Okay. You’ll get one of these at orientation. You’ve been here a month already, haven’t you? I can’t believe no one gave you a rulebook. Here we are. ‘Poaching is defined as moving or removing any resources from the Forest proper, whether living or dead, plant, animal, or mineral, unless directed by an active duty forester or his agent.’ That stick you were carrying toward the edge of the forest is worth thirty days in jail.”

“Wow! That’s pretty extreme.”

“Second offense is a felony conviction. The law is patterned almost word for word after some of the countries who have had problems with their antiquities being stolen. It’s proven enforceable in local courts, as well. Did you know there was a twelve-year-old boy who served a week in an Athens jail last year for picking up a pebble on the Acropolis and putting it in his pocket?”

“And you treat the Forest like they treat the Parthenon,” Gee breathed. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah. I get that. There’s no orientation this week because of the fair, but I’ll expect to see you at the library on the Saturday morning following the fair. Believe me, you don’t want to be stopped a second time,” Jonathon said. Just as quickly as the surprising warning, Jonathon’s persona changed. Now that he’d done his job, it seemed he was curious about the new guy in town. “Tell me about yourself, Gee. What do you think of our Forest?”

“It’s really beautiful, Jonathon. I’ve never been in a forest where there was no undergrowth.”

“We call it Forest, but in the strictest sense you could say it was an orchard. There is only one kind of tree in the entire 1,200 acres and we care for them like the lifeblood of our community that they are.”

“And you keep the whole area mulched?”

“People like to walk out here in their bare feet—like you. We do a lot of sawing up at the mill, so all the sawdust comes to the Forest. It makes it easier to pick the nuts, too,” Jonathon said. “Since we keep the undergrowth down, the mulch also helps prevent runoff and erosion.”

“I heard everyone works during Harvest. When is that?”

“Sometime in September or October. We make the decision based on the nut-fall from the trees. It’s exciting, but it’s also when the problems start. We double the number of foresters with trained volunteers and there’s an equally big squad of security people. The north, east, and south sides of the Forest are fenced, but there are only intermittent fences on the town side. We have to balance protection with access and there will be a thousand tourists flooding into town that week as well. The fair next weekend is miniscule compared to the one during Harvest.”

“You are really enthusiastic about it. You must love your job,” Gee said smiling.

“I do. I love this old Forest. All I ever wanted was to be a forester. It was a pain to go to the College of Forestry. They have some strange ideas about forest management out West. Different kind of forests. Mostly about managing fire threat and logging. Here, we’re more like arborists. I was also away from the two things in life that I love most and couldn’t wait to get back.”

Jonathon liked to talk and while they walked through the forest he led them to an old tree.

“I want to be like this tree,” Jonathon sighed. “My grandfather wanted to be this tree. It has stood here for 150 years. Look how straight and tall it is. Over a hundred feet. The bole—that’s the trunk, really—is a yard wide. The canopy shelters an area of fifty feet. It will be the last tree harvested this year with a big celebration and will drop between ten and fifteen bushels of nuts. But that’s half of what it dropped when I was little. This old tree is dying. When the nuts have been gathered and the deadwood harvested—around the first of November—forty foresters will gather around this old man. We’ll scale, lop the limbs, and bring him down in ten-foot sections. He’ll go to the mill and be dried and turned into high-grade lumber that will go out to furniture makers around the county. In another 150 years, some little kid will be sitting at a table made from the wood of this old man, coloring in a book about trees, and dreaming of becoming a forester. That little kid’s great grandchild might sit at the same table. These are our trees. These are our life. Growing up in the Forest is only the beginning.”

Free Ride

I’m stalking him. Rena had to admit the truth. She’d become fascinated with the newcomer in town and eventually infatuated with the mystery man who had no memory. She flirted shamelessly with him, but he just took it in good humor and let her suggestive remarks slide.

She’d talked to Pastor Beck in the Young Singles class at church. It was easy to talk to the minister. He seemed to understand her desires and fantasies.

“God gives us our desires as well as our intelligence,” he said. “Our desires make us aware of opportunities and our intelligence helps us discern God’s will regarding them. Explore what it is that attracts you to this young man and invite him to join you in fellowship here in church. Perhaps you are an instrument of God’s grace to bring him to salvation.”

Pastor Beck had prayed with her and given her communion. She always felt filled with the Holy Spirit after communion. When he placed the wafer on her tongue, her fantasies burst forth in a way that could only be inspired by the Spirit. She was determined to entice Gee to join her at church.

“Hey, handsome,” Rena said when she saw Gee on Friday morning. She’d just applied a coat of bright red lipstick that matched the new bright red hair color she was sporting. It had been so much work to get just this shade of red. She’d dyed her eyebrows the same color. Gee looked up from the bacon he was slicing and stopped the spinning blade.

“Rena, you’ve outdone yourself,” he laughed. “Does the fire department know you stole their paint?”

“The fire department wants to hose me down because I’m so hot!” she fired back at him. “How about you, Gee? Do you want to hose me down?”

“That’s not something that crossed my mind,” he said. “Oh, listen! They’re doing an interview with Troy on the radio.” That change of subject was too obvious for even Rena to miss. She wanted to storm off and let him regret what he was missing, but she wasn’t sure he’d regret it.

“This is Leslie Lake filling in for Troy Cavanaugh on the morning show. And I have Troy on the line with me. Good morning from your hometown, Troy,” the announcer said.

“Good morning, Leslie. And good morning to all the fine folks in Rosebud Falls.”

“Troy, how does it feel to be presented with a peer award for your radio broadcasting?”

“It’s really an honor, Leslie. When I came to New York for the joint Radio Television Digital News Association and Society of Professional Journalists Conference, I really had no expectation of receiving an award. I credit the people of Rosebud Falls for keeping life interesting outside our window on Main Street. That’s really what the morning show is about. The people of Rosebud Falls.”

Rena wanted to pull Gee’s attention back to her. She had worked hard for this look. But Gee looked like he was a million miles away. He looked ... troubled. Maybe she could help.

“Are you going to the Fair this weekend?” she asked. “I plan to spend the rest of the weekend there as soon as I get off work tonight.”

“Uh ... Oh ... yes. I’m going to stop by tomorrow.”

“I’ll watch for you. You can buy me cotton candy.”

“Sure. I’ll see you there.” He sounded so vacant. But meeting at the fair was good. She could almost convince herself it was a date.

Maybe.

On Saturday, Gee worked his usual morning shift at the market. It was only when Nathan and Marian packed up Devon in the stroller that he decided to join them on the walk to the fair. He showed his pass to the ticket-taker and she merely waved him through. She didn’t collect the pass, stamp his hand, or ask any questions. It was almost as if she didn’t really see him.

“We’re going to get Devon a balloon and some frozen yogurt so we can spend some time seeing the exhibits,” Nathan said as soon as they were through the gate. “Catch up with you later!” With that, Marian, Nathan, and Devon were off on their own adventure and Gee was alone. Food booths lined both sides of the passage and he stopped for a sausage at Zeigler’s, remembering the excellent hamburger he’d had his first night in Rosebud Falls. Somehow the sausage fell short of his expectations and the curly fries were dripping in grease. He dumped half the meal in a bin and continued on. He was sure the fries he shared with Karen had been much better.

At the end of the aisle, a long line marked the location of the Jitterz coffee stand. He joined the line and finally made it to the front.

“Well, Mr. Gee, how are you doing today,” said Violet Lanahan, the owner’s daughter.

“Miss Violet, I’m better for seeing you and knowing your fine coffee is soon to be in my hands,” he answered. Violet smiled at him, stunning white teeth contrasting with her caramel skin. She had dark eyes that darted around her surroundings, always on the move. Most striking, however, was her red hair—not bottle red like Rena’s, but the ginger hair of her Irish father. “Are you working alone today?” he asked. “With a line like this, I’d expect Elaine to be with you.”

“She will be. First, she has to be a star. You should go catch the quartet. She sings with her three cousins.” Violet looked at her watch. “They perform in ten minutes.” Gee took his coffee with thanks to Violet and made his way to the stage where a crowd was already gathering.

Applause greeted the Nussbaum Quartet as they walked on stage but died quickly as the smallest of the quartet, a cutie in a barely legal denim mini skirt, opened her mouth to sing. She started a scat rhythm that was helped immensely by the microphone close to her mouth. She had a nice voice, but Gee wasn’t sure it would carry past the first row without the microphone. Her bright blue eyes, highlighted by dark liner, were enough to light up the stage.

Her vocalese was joined by a young man’s baritone. He towered over his cousins and looked like he just walked off the cover of GQ magazine. He had chiseled good looks and a presence that said he knew he was handsome.

When the third member of the quartet joined in, Gee remembered Troy Cavanaugh’s comment the first day they met. Krystal Nussbaum, beauty queen, could have won the state pageant if she had her cousin’s voice. She began a counterpoint singing in a higher range than the other two.

Elaine, the only member of the quartet Gee met previously, looked sad and out of place at the right end of the quartet. Her mike was a little farther from the others, which only served to accent the fact that she carried several more pounds than her female cousins. When she opened her mouth, though, nothing else mattered.

Troy had described her as having the voice of an angel, but it was more than that. When she began to sing “The Sun is Rising,” the three individual voices of her cousins suddenly gelled around her. The change that came over Elaine when she sang was heart-stopping. She glowed as the notes poured forth; she was what made her cousins beautiful.

After the quartet’s performance, Gee moved away from the crowds toward the mercantile building. Amidst the typical demonstrations of blenders, vacuum cleaners, cookware, and cutlery, the mercantile at the county fair included exhibits by several of the local furniture craftsmen. Slater Craft exhibited a new stain derived from the bark of the Rose Hickory applied to a white oak table. It was among many furniture offerings attempting to get the look of the Rose Hickory without having access to the wood.

Gee stopped abruptly in front of Forest Custom Furnishing’s booth. The furniture exhibited was exquisite. Several different styles were represented. Gee could see instantly the difference between the stained oak furniture up the aisle and the genuine Rose Hickory. It was beautiful and begged to be touched, stroked along its satin finish.

“That’s genuine Rose Hickory, Gee. There is no finer furniture wood in the world and we at Forest are the premier craftsmen in its use.” Gee smiled at the thin man and recognized him from basketball.

“Luke! Is this your company?”

“It is. Please forgive my pride and bragging about it.” Luke was several inches taller than Gee, but probably lighter in weight.

“There is no question about what a difference there is between this and the look-alike up the aisle here.”

“There’s nothing at all wrong with what Slater produces. It’s good quality furniture. It just isn’t Rose Hickory. Some people can’t tell the difference. I’m glad to see you can.”

“I suppose it could be your stain and finishing technique. It brings out the color. I didn’t realize what a beautiful grain the hickory has.”

“You are right about the finishing technique. Good eye. But there is no stain applied to this wood. And the finish is created here in town at Larue chemicals. It is regulated and won’t be available outside Rosebud Falls for at least five more years. The finish is an oil distilled from the nuts of the Rose Hickory. It penetrates the wood and hardens, giving this satiny hand,” Luke said.

“Just for curiosity’s sake, what does a table like this cost?” Gee could already see a table like this in Nathan and Marian’s dining room. Perhaps a little smaller than this one.

“This table? This would sell for about five thousand dollars new. This one is old, so it would probably go for twice that. Of course, this table isn’t for sale. All our work is custom. We build the furniture to match the customer’s exact specifications.”

“Thank you for the education. I’d love to visit your shop sometime.”

“I’ll see that you get a good tour. There is a limited amount of wood available to craftsmen each year, which is what keeps the price high. That, and we care about what we make. This table will be around for hundreds of years. In fact, it is already nearly a hundred years old.”

Here Now

Gee continued through and out of the mercantile building. He let his feet take him where they would and wandered onto the midway. He spotted the unmistakable fire engine red hair of Rena and turned abruptly away, hoping she hadn’t noticed him. He found himself looking up at a frightening ride. It was like a Ferris wheel, but this was no ride for romance. Passengers stood in cages located at intervals around the standing wheel. Instead of riding straight up and maintaining their orientation to the ground, though, these cages flipped over randomly. Extremely boisterous teens could rock the cage, pumping it like a swing until it rolled over. Bright letters in the center of the contraption advertised the Whirl-a-Gig.

“I knew you’d get here eventually, Gee,” the ride carny called. Gee looked at the bald man operating the ride and taking tickets. “Going to go around a few times?”