The Man With a Hundred Wives
by John Ryland
part 1
The old mailbox had seen better days. Faded to a dull gray and under the assault of rust and vines, it sat tilted to one side on a post that looked like a good wind would blow it over. The door hung open like the slack jaw of the proverbial village idiot. The guy that lived here probably didn’t get much mail.
Charles Brown looked at the paper in his hand again. Below the Youth Community Service of Hillburn County logo, there was a name and an address. His eyes went back to the battered mailbox before him. Barely distinguishable amid the briars that threatened to consume it, he found the address. 143½ Short Distance Road. With a heavy sigh, he turned to the home that belonged with the mailbox. He was at the right place. Unfortunately.
The old house didn’t even have the benefit of looking like it had once been a beautiful home. It looked like it had always been old and lonely. Sitting on a small, overgrown lot three blocks off the road on a narrow lane filled with potholes, the house looked like an old man on life support. What little spirit and paint it might have possessed had long since deserted it.
Charles stepped off the cracked sidewalk and onto a footpath through the tangle of weeds that led him to a set of suspiciously uneven steps. The wood groaned as he mounted them, as if it had been a long time since they’d been used. He stood on a weathered stoop and knocked on an equally weathered door. His eyes washed over the multiple colors of paint it had worn through the years by way of the various flakes and chips that time and weather had lent it.
The old man with long gray hair and a matching beard who snatched the door open was slightly out of breath and looked like he’d been interrupted in the middle of something important. The two stood in silence and stared at one another, both absorbing the quantum leap between their appearances. He was dressed in layers of old clothes, poorly matched and stood slightly bent beneath a long gray coat that hung open. His eyes, tucked deeply into his skull, narrowed, and peered at the young man suspiciously.
The young man, in his jeans and t-shirt, possessing the latest pseudo pompadour haircut shrank somewhat beneath the weight of the stare but didn’t run away. Not that he didn’t want to.
“What do you want?” the man asked in a fast-spoken sentence, almost making one word out of four.
Charles swallowed. “You signed up for community service. I’m here.” He extended a hand and for the first time noticed that the paperwork was clenched in a fist. He smoothed the single sheet against his chest, then handed it to the old man.
“You are Adolphus Zanderfield, aren’t you?”
The old man snatched the paper and turned slightly, holding it with both hands in a way that allowed the sunlight to fall on it. He looked the paper over with quick, exaggerated movements of his head, spending entirely too much time to peruse the short paragraph typed on it. Finally, satisfied, he turned back at the teenager standing on his stoop and his eyes narrowed again.
“That depends. Are you Charles Doodoo Brown? They said to expect you.”
The kid’s brow furrowed beneath the serious look the old man wore. “I’m Charles, ugh, Thomas Brown. Like it says on the paper.”
“Okay Charles, ugh, Thomas Brown. What you do to get in this predicament?”
“I stole a car, robbed a bank, and killed twelve men.”
The hair surrounding the man’s mouth moved as he pursed his lips. “You’re full of shit, Doodoo Brown. That’s probably why they call you that.”
“Nobody calls me that.”
“Sure they do. Maybe you don’t hear, but they do.”
Charles shrugged, uninterested in arguing. “Whatever.”
The old man bent closer to Charles, his silver-blue eyes peering at the kid through a handful of loose gray hair that had fallen over his face. His breathing was shallow and coarse, like he’d smoked for a very long time. Finally, he stood, keeping his eyes on Charles.
“Are you a virgin, Doodoo Brown?”
“What?” Charles shook his head. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“A boy who’s never been laid ain’t got the strength to do nothing worth doing.”
“I’ll do just fine then.” Charles looked around the yard. “Besides, it looks like you need all the help around here you can get.”
The old man stood in the doorway for another moment, then threw his head back and let out a hearty laugh. It rolled from him like music; like it was seeping from every pore of his body, filling the area with the sound of it.
Charles smiled. Anybody who could produce such a joyous sound couldn’t be all bad. Could he?
“Meet me around back. Gate’s over there.” The old man pointed to his left then closed the door hard, sending flakes of various colored paint raining onto the weathered stoop. Charles watched them flutter in the sunlight as they fell. The slow, gentleness of their movements reminded him of a snow globe he’d had as a young boy.
After carefully navigating the steps, again, Charles found another dirt path among the weeds and followed it to the side of the house. There a tall chain-link fence was being devoured by vines. The gate, rusted beyond repair, hung half open. He paused outside the gate, taking in the spectacle of the man’s private yard.
The limited viewpoint afforded him the only partial sight of the towering oak tree that dominated the whole space. Its long, arching branches creating a canopy that bathed the yard an odd, dusky feel. A few bottles of different colors hung from its lower branches, swaying ever so slightly with the movement of the tree. The ground, devoid of even a blade of grass, was as hard packed and smooth as a tile floor. Heaps of junk sat in the shade, deteriorating quietly as time marched past them.
“You coming in or just looking?”
Charles jumped and took a step back as the old man appeared in the opening before him. He watched him spin and move into the yard, then followed tentatively, shaking his head. This was either going to be the hardest or coolest twelve hours of community service he’d done yet.
Inside the gate his view expanded considerably, revealing more bottles hung from the tree in numbers that had to range in the hundreds, creating a kaleidoscope effect in the dim sunlight. At his feet, the hard-packed earth turned into an elaborate tiled pattern stretching across the yard before fading into the tangles of junk along the entirety of the fence that surrounded the property.
A low tone resonated in his mind, gathering his attention, and directing it to his right. A small shed with a covered porch sat quietly at the far end of the yard. On the porch were two rocking chairs and a hammock.
Another low tone of a slightly different pitch washed over him, and his eyes scanned the yard for the source.
A massive wind chime hung from one of the lower limbs of the tree. The tubes ranged from eight to ten feet long and were at least a foot in diameter each. At the center, dangling beneath an ornately carved wooden clapper, a shiny piece of blue and white metal swayed gently in the breeze.
Charles reached out his hand and gingerly tilted the sail of the wind chime to afford him a better view. His eyes narrowed slightly, confirming that the metal sitting heavy in his hand was indeed a genuine Alpha Romero hubcap center emblem.
“Like that? I made it.”
Charles jumped, releasing the emblem. It swung on its wire and struck one of the tubes, producing a low note that resonated through his body and across the yard. He looked around, surprised at his position. He remembered seeing the emblem from the gate, but not crossing the yard.
“Pretty cool,” he replied as casually as he could.
“The piece there is intriguing. It refers to a local legend of a dragon that tormented the area and was later slaughtered by the Squire of Angera named Uberto.”
“It’s an Alpha Romero hubcap centerpiece,” Charles said flatly.
The old man shook his head. “Yes, I suppose it is at that.” He turned to walk toward the shed but stopped and faced him again. “You’re going to want to be careful, Doodoo Brown, things aren’t always what they appear. Open your mind, kiddo, before you miss out on some wonderful things in this life.”
Charles watched the old man walk toward the shed, suddenly aware that he had a slight limp. His old, worn out boots plodded along over the sea of elaborate tiles, sending up tiny clouds of colored dust as his footprints obliterated the artwork on the tiles.
Sweeping his own eyes down to his own feet, Charles toed the ground, scrubbing up the powder that created the design on what he thought was tile. He bent and pinched up the dust, mixing the red and blue powder on his fingertips. Had the ground been covered with tile before? Or was it just an illusion, or a mistake on his part?
As he blew the powder from his fingertips, a strange dizzying sensation fell over him, like his equilibrium was suddenly off. Or was it off before and just now fell into place?
He looked around, expecting to find the old man. His voice was close, almost in his ear, but the noises of clutter being shoved around in the shed told him that the man was still there. Had he heard the voice, or just imagined it?
Charles blew the rest of the powder from his fingertips and watched it settle to the ground, wondering why anyone would go through so much trouble for something so temporary. The hours taken to create the look had to be immeasurable, but then he plodded across it like it was nothing.
“You see, young man, nothing is as simple as what we see.” The old man exited the shed carrying a large piece of wood. He stabbed one end into the ground and spun it, revealing an image almost identical to the sail on the wind chimes. “This is a shield of the army of Ottone Visconti, archbishop of Angera, used on the First Crusades.”
Charles rose and crossed the yard, then kneeled to look at the piece being held upright by the old man’s boney hand. His fingers washed over the heavy, beautifully painted wood. His pointer finger found a deep, long gash and followed it, mesmerized by the intricate beauty of the shield and the savagery of the violence thrust upon it.
“Arise, Sir Doodoo,” the old man said with a laugh.
Charles shook his head and stood quickly, taking a step back as his mind returned to itself. “What the hell?”
“What the hell what?”
Charles rubbed the back of his neck. “Nothing. it’s just that...”
The old man threw his head back, again filling the air with his melodious laugh.
“It’s okay, Sir Charles. Things can sometimes take a few minutes to make sense, or maybe a few years. Who knows? I’m not an expert on this stuff.”
“This stuff?”
He threw his hands out, motioning to the entirety of the lot.
“All this. Everything. It’s a bit much to take in.” The shield fell to the ground with a heavy thud as he released it and walked toward Charles, now ten feet away.
Nothing here will harm you. Do not be afraid.
“I’m not afraid,” Charles replied.
The man stopped before him and smiled. “I never said you were.”
Charles forced a smile, still confused. Had the old guy actually said he was scared? Or did he imagine he’d said it? He heard his voice say it, but did he actually say it?
“See?” the old man asked.
Charles turned to find him forty feet away, standing at the back of the house. The weathered boards of the wall next to him were nearly covered with a wide assortment of gears and gadgets, all intricately woven together to form a tapestry of rusty metal.
“Nothing is as it appears.” The old man stretched a hand out of the arm of the heavy wool coat and laid a finger against a tooth of the gear closest to him. With a slight flick of his finger, he set the small gear, not much bigger than a silver dollar, into motion. It spun on its axis for a moment, then fell against another, engaging that gear and moving it. That gear then set another into motion. The movement spread across the wall and gears, each spinning at different speeds as it engaged the gear next to it, the size of which increased with each passage of momentum.
Charles stood before the wall, his eyes following the spread of movement as each gear engaged and set the next into motion. When the trail was finished, zigzagging back and forth across the wall, a massive gear at the bottom left began to turn slowly. He stared at the massive piece of rusted metal wondering what kind of equipment it could have been taken from. A gear three feet across would surely have been housed in a monstrosity of a machine, the likes of which he’d never seen.
The sound of the gears in motion fell on him like a buzz of a million bees as metal met metal in a smooth, seamless dance. The gears, countless in numbers and size, and shades of rust, filled his mind with a music he’d never heard but suddenly longed to know intimately. He stood, mouth slightly agape in wonder, as the sound enveloped him, transporting him to a state of mind that lent him a peace and calm he’d never experienced before. He was everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. He was asleep and awake, loved and in love at the same time. He existed, and he didn’t.
Copyright © 2021 by John Ryland
