Out Of The Universe Endlessly Calling

by

Tom Sheehan

Far ahead of him Knock Craften could see the last of the lead-pack bike riders sprinting around a slow bend in the road. The Pan Mass Challenge 200-mile bike ride across the state to raise funds for cancer was in full bore. 3600 riders on the move for two days, Sturbridge to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod. Then the yellow shirt of that rider disappeared, roadside greenery swallowing it up. Behind Knock the 27 riders of his team spread out in a long line, their purple shirts making them look like a hive of bees on the move, the cluster lengthened by their arduous travel. Team Vanish they called themselves, in hopes of eradicating the disease. Eighty-five miles had flown under their wheels since their early morning start in Sturbridge. Now, again as it had all morning, the impulse was coming on strong, from its unknown and ethereal source, but this time it had an uninterrupted resonance. And it was pulling at him, having an oblique reference coming out of trees and brush on his right. It was irrefutable, that calling, a pulling, the impulse of gods he thought.

Then he saw a break in the trees and an angled road slamming off to the southeast, sidelined by trees, stones of an old stonewall marker. That limitless call was entirely for him and he knew he was going down that road. He jerked up on the seat, jammed down on the pedals, sprinted ahead of his team, and turned down the side road. Almost to a man the team twisted like a whisper into that detour and swung in behind him. He appeared to be the captain of a ship, or the queen bee switching hive locations.

One man of his team, though, the last in line, did not make that turn.

That rider cursed vehemently, looking ahead to where the last yellow jersey had gone out of sight, where the road to the layover stop in Bourne waited. Spitting in the gutter, he hollered, "Cocky son of a bitch is going the wrong way. Wait'll they get him in front of the cameras, his mighty ass will be mud." Paris Gallber could almost see the whole scenario. His mouth watered at the image.

Gallber, of course, had no idea that for twenty-seven years of Knock Craften's life, music endlessly called him out of the spread of the universe, coming on him at odd times like a homing intelligence, but one without a language. Never once had he told anybody about it, not his parents, or his siblings, or his best friend, John Wellborn, who he knew was in the pack behind him. And it was only in his start into adolescence that he realized not everybody heard this song. If asked to explain he would not have said it was music, but more an awareness of something far beyond the capability of his mind to understand. Out of a void it came, possibly down the crook of centuries, or on an uncharted line from the vast unknown.

But it came directly to him.

Now here he was, on his bicycle, a $2400 beauty, leading his team in this 200-mile ride to raise funds for cancer research, with 80 or 85 miles behind them. The hills of western Massachusetts had been steep, at times the traffic heavy. The humidity was a factor for some of the older riders, and the August noon sun was a hammer beating on all of them. The frequent water stops were a gift, and though they were not in a race, he could feel the energy trying to bust loose in his frame. But, as promised, they were going to ride as a team, to finish as a team.

How could he possibly explain this last move of his, this offhand spurt down a strange road?

Paris Gallber was trying to do just that at the curve at the lake, stopping at a news van, pointing back over his shoulder. "I don't know what's wrong with the captain of my team, but he just took the whole damn crew down a wrong road! Can you imagine such idiocy, such lack of planning. Thinks he's the big-time honcho on this ride. I'll bet the other news hounds will be all over his case before this day is over!" Sweat poured off his face, a twist of one corner of his mouth caught pellets of that perspiration as if they were his sole sustenance of ride.

Yet down a long grade of that strange road, his wheels catching sunlight like the blades of a fan, like the magic of a spinning semaphore flashing a hidden message, Knock Craften sped. Trees leaned in over his right side, and he expected, in shade, to find a breath of cooler air. Surprise hit him; there was no cooler air. The bank of shadow he was in delivered the same burning glare of heat as the open road free of shadow or shade. This, he knew, was doubt and non-acceptance rearing its head. Many times, with the resonance, the calling, at him, he had felt the same way, as if inadequate, unworthy of what was coming.

John Wellborn, his old and loyal friend, came up alongside him, head crouched, on his run, legs still ramming their piston power. John was merely making a bodily announcement, saying nothing, but broadcasting alertness, as if to say, "Knock, do you know what you're up to?" There had been long nights for them when they had no need of talk, the stars best company or the wind in the pines on a fishing trip, or the quiet summation the way some special days with friends find their end.

Knock recalled how he had almost told John one night about the sounds in his ears, the ringing, the music, the endless call from an unknown place. He remembered, too well, how feeble, hysterical and unbelievable it would have sounded. On John's face there had been some kind of expectation, awaiting an explanation as to what had controlled much of Knock's attention and thinking all through their bonding years. But John was the kind of friend who knew better than ask. He simply trusted Knock. Here again, neither warning nor declaration was needed.

Paris Gallber orated to reporters and cameramen from three news vans alongside the road. Still astride his bike and leaning on a guardrail, his hands flew in the air and pointed back down the road as if someone was drowning and they weren't looking at the right spot. "Oh, I'll finish my ride, that's for sure, but I am not taking any shortcut, nor leading my teammates on a wild goose chase down any lonely and forgotten road. You can bet on that! I don't know what happened to the team captain. Like that," and he snapped his fingers, "he plunged down that side road and they all followed him, like he was the Pied Piper for god's sake. The Pied Piper! Can you imagine that! Can you?" And then, the way one might seem to be adjusting his anger, the subtle invasion of an ironic stiletto came into play. "I really don't know what you guys are going to do with all of this."

At that precise moment the lifelong calling from elsewhere in the universe, whether demonic or godlike, came with unerring clarity to Knock Craften as John Wellborn slowed back into the pack of riders.

Knock's gaze swept down the long grade of that unknown road, the shade and shadows suddenly cooler, the trees thicker on one side and a corral fence of split rails leaping away on his left side, leading perhaps a hundred yards downhill to the simple whiteness of a small house. On a short piece of lawn he saw a little boy, about five, on a tricycle, a cowboy hat atop his head, possibly a future biker in the event he was now in. Knock hoped that cancer would never touch this child. Too many had he seen, too few could he help, and this ride was the only way he could help, if indeed he hadn't screwed it up. He wondered if this youngster was a sign, a very special Pedal Partner from out of the blue.

Then, materializing from the opposite end of the road, a dark automobile pulled up beside the child. A man got out, his body language precisely clear to Knock Craften who detected a sense of urgency and suspicion about how the man moved warily, craftily, slyly. In a flicker, the man was beside the child, and lifted him off his tricycle. The cowboy hat fell to the ground, and long blonde hair was loosed, revealing a little girl who he firmly clutched and raced back to his car.

On a side road, a forgotten road, leading his team away from their sworn and vouchsafed objective, Knock Craften was immediately in possession of that which had been coming to him all his life. He screamed, "John!" and pointed down the road. The tussling child in the man's arms was clearly visible, now a mere forty yards away, her legs and arms waving and kicking, the terror of her screams filling the shade and the shadows of the roadway. John Wellborn yelled out in alarm and anger. Legs pumping wildly, anger loose and free, the rigors of the long ride from Sturbridge lost in a fraction of a second, Knock, John and the team zipped down the road and before that dread man could wrestle the struggling child into the car, even as the child's mother raced across the short span of lawn, Team Vanish was all over him.

They held him in place for the police who came in minutes from a traffic spot on the main road. John Wellborn sat astride his chest the whole while, a few times threatening the man that he'd thoroughly pummel him again. The news press, replying to their radio alerts, were in hot pursuit behind the authorities.

Paris Gallber, back on the main route, really had no idea what the newsmen were going to do with the story of Knock Craften, bike rider, and his teammates of Team Vanish.

As the man was led away in handcuffs, John noticed Knock crouched, talking to the little girl and her mother. He smiled and remounted his bike. His old pal, once safely at the end of this journey, would not be long from telling him secrets.

§ § §

Eleven years retired, Tom Sheehan operates with his partner, Larry Bucaria, Newwriters.com, helping writers find publishing space.

He is co-editor of the sold-out "A Gathering of Memories, Saugus 1900-2000," a nostalgic and historical 452-page look at his hometown, Saugus, MA, just north of Boston. Their committee borrowed $60,000 to print the book and paid it off five weeks after receipt of books.

He has work in Paumanok Review, 3amMagazine, Small Spiral Notebook, Dakota House, Stirring, Samsara, Comrades, Split Shot, Melange, Red River, Nefarious, Carnelian, New Works Review, Eclectica, Slow Trains, Clackamas Review, etc.

A print novel, "Vigilantes East," has just been released by Publish America, and another, "An Accountable Death," is serialized on 3amMagazine.

He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize XXVII and awarded a 2001 Silver Rose Award for Excellence in the Art of the Short Story by American Renaissance for the Twenty-first Century (ART).

You can reach Tom at: tomsheehan@attbi.com .

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