The Home for Wayward Clocks (39 page)

Another ramp, another circular staircase. And the same banquet hall. James could see the first staircase on the opposite side. But this time, a man stood on the bottom step, looking at James. “Shit,” James said, he hoped softly, and watched as the man approached.

He said something and James shook his head. “I’m sorry,” James said, “but I can’t hear. I had an accident a while ago and it took my hearing. It’s probably coming back.” He felt like the more he said this, the more likely it was.

The man stood for a moment and James read the name badge pinned crookedly to his left lapel. Philip. Philip laced James’ arm through his and led him away. They went up the second spiral staircase and eventually came out at the front desk. Philip rummaged around and produced hotel stationary and a white pen with “The Clock Tower Resort” printed on it in big black letters. All of the O’s looked like clock faces. “Were you looking for something?” Philip wrote. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” James said. “I know it’s late, but I wanted to check out the hours of the Time Museum. I wanted to be there at opening in the morning.”

Philip shook his head and James’ heart hesitated. He watched while Philip wrote another note.

“The museum hasn’t been here for years. The owner auctioned off a lot of the clocks and the rest were sent for exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.” He handed a brochure over with the note.

“Years?” James’ hand shook as he took the brochure. He couldn’t imagine it. This was the museum’s home. This was where the clocks lived. James remembered the employees, bustling around, winding and checking to make sure everything was fine. Where did they go? What parts of the world were the clocks in now?

James fumbled with the brochure, trying to open it. “The Gebhard Clock?” he asked. “The Gebhard Astronomical and World Clock?”

Out of his peripheral vision, James saw Philip’s fingers flicker and wave. He was talking again, the idiot. Then one finger flipped a page of the brochure and pointed. There was a picture of the Gebhard Clock. It was surrounded by neon and chrome.

It was in Chicago. James just came from Chicago and he didn’t even know it was there. He didn’t hear it. It didn’t reach out to him.

But how could it? James was deaf.

He thought of all the clocks in the Home, even the ones in his hotel room, still touching him although he couldn’t hear. Briefly, James touched his chest, feeling for his heart.

But that Gebhard Clock, it stayed away. All these years, James thought of it, pictured it, dreamed that he had a connection with it. Against his cheek, James could still feel the pulse of its pendulum when he leaned his face against its immense wooden body. The pulse and the warmth, the steady rhythm of the huge heart of that clock, allowed to beat only so long each day.

But it never even let James know that it moved. It didn’t even let James know when he was within a few miles of it. Imagine.

James thought again of his clocks at home and suddenly, he wondered if they even knew he was gone. If they knew he left one day, left in the sun of mid-morning so they could see him, so they could see he didn’t disappear into a fog. Because of them, James would never let the fog take him.

Choking out a thank you, James shoved the brochure into his robe pocket and went back to his room. He locked the door and stumbled to the bed. It was after five now and still dark. Pulling the blanket up to his chin, James shivered, and he held the miniature mantel against his chest. He watched the skeleton clock, seeing each gear move, each cog slip into place, the pendulum moving at an even back-and-forth.

James remembered that weekend with Diana and with the Gebhard Clock. Diana watched as he begged the employee and then slid with his permission up against the clock’s solid wall. James’ hand touched the wood and it was warm, as warm as living human skin. When he pressed his cheek against it and felt that pulse, something resonated and he closed his eyes and fell into a darkness that wasn’t cold and silent, but full of sounds. The beat of a heart. The rushing of blood. The whisper of skin against skin, the touch separate from James but still there, going over his head, his shoulders, his hips. His legs threatened to buckle, but James stood there and listened and felt that warmth and knew he was where he always wanted to be.

James felt something from that clock. He felt something from every clock, but that particular one, in its immense size, brought the feeling all around him. It loved James and he could hear it with every beat of its heart.

That’s what James had thought. But now, he didn’t seem to matter.

James clutched the miniature mantel and even though it didn’t have a pendulum, it didn’t have a heart, he still felt its warmth spread to him. All the clocks in the room seemed to close in on James, a soft protective circle. They were there, it wasn’t his imagination, and he felt grateful.

James needed to get home to his clocks. To all of them. He needed their embrace.

But there was more.

When he thought of his clocks now, James saw Cooley’s thin back, her bright purple hair shimmering with her body’s effort to wind a clock. He saw her long fingers, wrapped around a key or a chain, and he saw those same fingers guided by his as she helped him insert a piece into her acorn clock. He saw Ione, her lavender feather duster in a back pocket, busily polishing clocks in the living room, the den, the dining room and bedrooms. He felt her arms around him again, pressing James to her chest as he shook in fear and frustration. He saw Gene at the diner, cooking his dinner, and Molly delivering it, complete with two slices of pie, one cherry, one apple. Neal looking in the back door. Doc taking his pulse, patting his shoulder.

And everywhere, everywhere in his mind was Diana. James felt her lips again, her arms, and the most secret parts of her body. He saw her smile, her frown, felt her come up behind him and wrap her arms around his shoulders as she whispered outrageous things in his ear. Outrageous things that made his heart beat in a new rhythm. And as much as James felt her, the texture of her absence was ten times greater. The more he felt her, remembered her, the more he realized she was gone. He let her go.

At the resort that last weekend, James felt her behind him as he stepped up to the Gebhard Clock and he felt his connection with Diana break as he closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into that dark place. His heart changed pace again and this time, it echoed that clock, shuddered, then beat evenly within its broad shoulders, and Diana, their rhythm severed, spun away.

James wished he asked her to stand next to him that day. He wanted her cheek near his as they both listened to the great clock’s heart. He wished he had that clock nightgown to hold, along with this little clock in his arms. He wished her body was still in that nightgown, her breast under his hand. The nightgown would be old, she would be old, but it just wouldn’t matter.

James had to get home. He had to put Diana’s heart into this little clock and feel its beat again. And he had to see them all, touch them all, even if he couldn’t hear them.

All of them. Not just the clocks. James needed the flesh and blood warmth of everyone. They couldn’t spin away.

J
ames left the next morning, even though he had no sleep. Philip was off duty so he explained to the daytime folks at the front desk that since the Time Museum was no longer there, he had no reason to stay in Rockford. They didn’t make James pay for an extra day. He loaded the car and headed toward home.

He thought he could make it the whole way, but around noon, his eyes kept threatening to close. Finally, he pulled over at a fast food joint, had lunch, then curled up in the back seat of his car. Exhaustion crept over James like a blanket, a full thick blanket, not the too-thin one at the resort, and his bones sunk into the seat and he fell asleep.

When James woke up, it was still light, but it took him a few minutes to get oriented. Eventually, he sat up, let himself out and walked slowly into the restaurant to use the restroom. He bought a cup of coffee and a hot apple pie for the road. It was only four o’clock…it would be six by the time he got home.

Despite the sleep and the coffee, James still struggled. There was nothing more boring than driving through Iowa. But partway through, he began to notice something odd. A whang sound, something electrical, that blipped in and out of his consciousness like a mosquito. James kept questioning if he heard anything or if it was just the messed-up jumble in his head. It kept popping in and out at uneven intervals and finally, James pulled over at a wayside to listen.

Turning his head in every direction, James tried to hone in on the sound. He needed to know if it was there at all. Maybe it was a phantom sound, like the phantom pains people have when they lose a limb. But then James began to capture it. It was low and he kept bending to hear it, and it was to his right, so he tilted and tilted, until he was face level with the car’s stereo system. And that’s when he saw it: the bright green numbers of a radio station. The car stereo was on.

Quickly, James pressed his left ear against it. There was something, but it was soft and it seemed to stay just out of his reach. Then he twisted himself into a pretzel and put his right ear against the radio. And the sound burst through. Electric guitar, James thought, and a drum. It zinged around inside his head and he tried to clear it, to make the sound louder and constant, but it faded and shot back like a ping-pong ball. James listened for a while, closing his eyes and hearing the sound as the color blue, dancing back and forth across his eyelids.

It was all coming back. There was no probably about it.

Then he took off again. If James’ hearing was coming back, he wanted to hear his clocks. He had to hurry now, but he could still be there before the six-o’clock chime.

When James drove in, only a few lit windows welcomed him home. But when he stepped out of the car, Cooley threw open the front door. She ran down the path and before James knew it, she had her arms wrapped around his waist. He hesitated a moment, then hugged her back. She was so thin, he could feel every bone.

It felt odd holding her. James touched the backs of ribs and shoulder blades, sticking out sharp from her skin to his, but he felt something else too. Warmth. She sent out a heat that was foreign to James. She wasn’t like Diana or his mother, or even Ione. The heat wasn’t the roll of passion or the sear of hatred or even the snugged-up feel of comfort. It was something else. Something new and young and vibrant. There was a throbbing in her too, a steady bump that resounded from her chest to James and there was an echo where her wrists pressed into his back. Her heartbeat.

James held her just a bit longer, to feel that young life which he never felt within his own skin, thrumming through his own veins, and then he stepped back. She smiled at James and looked quickly away.

Ione and Neal came around the back, Ione pulling on her coat, apparently getting ready to leave. Then they caught sight of James and hurried over to the car. All their mouths were moving, but nothing got through. James wished they sounded like electric guitars.

“Wait!” he said and held up his hand. “I still can’t hear, although I’m going to. Let’s get inside and get the notebook out. Everyone grab a box.”

With all those hands, it didn’t take long to unload the car. Cooley was the first to find the notebook and she started scribbling in it. Then she handed it to James.

“Y R U home????? U said U’d be gone 4 a couple days!”

James explained about the Time Museum while Ione grabbed the notebook and then Cooley grabbed it from her. Eventually, it returned to James.

“So you’re hearing is going too be ok?”

“U shud have checked B4 U left! I cud have looked on the internet!”

“My hearing is going to be fine,” James said. “The doctor said just what Doc has been saying here. He said sounds would come back to me gradually.” James started opening boxes. “On the way home, I began to hear bits and pieces. Mostly with my right ear.”

They pressed toward him, all talking at once, and suddenly, while James was happy to see them, he also wanted to be alone. Even in his silence, this was still too much commotion for him to handle. He just wanted to tinker with the clocks, eat some supper, and go to bed.

“Hey,” he said and patted everyone’s shoulder. He left his hand on Cooley, drawing her a little bit closer. “If it’s all right with you, I just want to unpack and go to bed. I’m really tired. Would it be okay if we all just talked tomorrow?”

Cooley and Neal nodded and Ione wrote in the notebook. “Of course you should rest,” she said. “Their’s leftover stew in the crockpot.” Then Neal and Ione headed for the front door.

“Cooley,” James asked, “are all the clocks wound? Do I need to know anything?”

She shook her head and gave the A-okay sign with her fingers. Then she hugged James again and for a moment, he relished it. Her head fit neatly under his chin and he felt her relax against him. James patted her back. Then she smiled and left.

Moving through his house, James began to find new homes for the clocks from Abandoned Here. He made notes on the clipboard so that he could add them to the daily schedule. He wound each one and felt the cases for the steady vibration as they resumed their work.

After a bit, James only had the miniature mantel and the skeleton clock left. He knew the mantel was going down in the workshop for now, it had to be fixed, but what about the skeleton? He set it in several places, including next to his mother’s anniversary clock on his bedside table, but nothing seemed to work. The skeleton didn’t feel settled. Eventually, James brought both clocks down to the workshop and placed them on his bench.

Cooley’s acorn clock rested on its towel, almost completely put back together. James would finish that first, then start on Diana’s clock. He pulled out her remains, the movement and the gold six and the hands, and brought them to the mantel. It would work, he could see it. The movement could be mounted inside the mantel. Some soldering and connecting, and both clocks would live again. He thought about that, Diana’s movement in a foreign body, the mantel clock accepting a foreign heart and both of them working together. He touched the mantel’s case and it sent its warmth through his fingers. The desire to run was there. It would work. And somehow, James would incorporate the number six and the hands. Even if they just nestled inside the clock’s case.