Death in the Polka Dot Shoes Read Free Page B

cutting the wood himself from white cedar he had plucked from the forests of Maine and carried to Maryland on the roof of his car. As a boy, I will never forget the sight of a small gray station wagon, with two six-inch square, twenty-foot long pieces of lumber strapped to the top so they hung over the windshield like licorice sticks. He drove all the way from Maine to Maryland with his wife hiding her face in shame beside him. The police stopped him twice but never gave him a ticket. Mansfield was a man’s man who had traveled the world, engaging himself in exploits which always seemed to end in a near death experience. And I did indeed intend to stop by his home for a visit, if only to ask if he had heard any strange stories about my brother. Now we had a Resort to discuss.
    â€œCan I come by to see you, Burl?” I asked.
    â€œSure,” he said. “Love to have you. Bring some wind and we’ll do a little sailing.”
    I wanted to get back to Washington before dark, just to be home and sort out my thoughts. I hadn’t spent much time at the church with my brother’s wife and baby, but we had already shed so many tears together, I just walked away. I wanted to make a quick pass by the Bayfront Inn and take a look at my brother’s boat, anchored next to the garden dock. The Bayfront didn’t have any rooms, but did have a bar and restaurant beside seventeen slips for crab boats and charter fishing boats.
    Somehow, when death stops the world for you, you expect it to stop for everyone. It doesn’t. On Sunday afternoon at the Bayfront, a deejay named Footloose played heavy metal music for bikers, girlfriends, and locals who filled the six picnic tables on the dock. I used to move easily in this world. But now, instead of recognizing the biker babe in the black jacket and tattoos as the mother of an old friend, I saw her as slightly threatening, someone I didn’t know and shouldn’t make eye contact with. The cycles were lined up in front of the building. My God, I exclaimed to myself as I realized the biker babe was Hank’s mom, about to get on a maroon Harley Davidson with highly polished chrome and a small bumper sticker that said “Save the Bay.” She had to be sixty. And the identical maroon Harley parked next to her must mean that Hank Sr. was still in the building. Hank Jr. was my best friend in high school because he wanted to be an accountant. We had a natural friendship, based on a mutual ambition to get out of Parkers. Actually, he had done well in life, becoming a dot com millionaire of some kind, and probably buying those motorcycles for his parents. As far as I knew, they were still running crab pots out of the West River. But obviously, their lives had assumed a new flair.
    I began to fear that the psychological distance between Washington, where I had lived for more than ten years now, and Parkers is much greater than the geography suggests. When you drive to Parkers, the land begins to flatten out as you get closer to the Chesapeake Bay. There aren’t any housing developments torn into the side of the road with brick entrance markers, only wood frame homes of varying sizes, sometimes adorned with brick or stone, but always carrying that unmistakable design of the amateur owner architect who has added a room or two. They telescope down in size the closer you get to Parkers, and you realize this is a place nobody goes through. It’s not on the way to anywhere. You have to seek it out, or know someone who lives there or at least used to.
    The combination gas station and liquor store is the first commercial landmark that welcomes you to town with a handmade sign that says, “ATM Inside.” There are a half dozen bank branches tucked away in the corner of roadside buildings constructed for real estate offices and insurance agencies. But the gas station and liquor store comprise the economic center of the community. There is no town center in a