A violent kiss

29

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

While waiting at the Denver airport before my flight home, I dial University of Wisconsin Madison’s library where Charles Brauer’s album Blue Sky and Scraped Knuckles was produced. I’m following a thin trail of bread crumbs and fantasize about the mysterious man waiting for me, open arms, at its end. A helpful student answers my call. When asked about the album, she replies, “Nothing off the top of my head rings a bell, but I have a long evening ahead and would be happy to do some digging for you.”

Wasted bread. I let it go, fly home and turn in. I have a week of early call times ahead and need to put my sleuthing to rest.

But early the next morning, I receive an email from Farrah McDaniel.

Subject: Information Regarding Charles Brauer

Dear Kimberly,

My name is Farrah and I was the library student you spoke to over the phone last night about Charles Brauer. As promised, I continued to do some more digging for information about Charles’ life and I’m pretty certain I found something. During my search I came across an article in the Milwaukee Journal dated Wednesday, October 2, 1985 about a missing sailor by the name of Charles Brauer whose boat was found washed-ashore in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. I was about to dismiss it until I read that during the 1970’s Charles hosted a history-oriented series for the Wisconsin Educational Television Network, which included traveling with his dog, Ranger, a banjo and a guitar. I received further confirmation when I read that he had recently finished building a home in Ferryville, WI, where his records were also published.

I need to drive to work. But the car keys in my hand suddenly feel funny—weightless, insubstantial—sensory signals interrupted by my brainstem sounding alarm. My diaphragm retreats to higher ground.

I spend the next five days in an internet fire-walled studio, my impulsive tendencies tamed by a corporate muzzle. But once home, the beast is free and she howls under the blue glow of my screen. I’m glued to my task like an addict at a slot machine, waiting for the right combination of Google search words to fulfill my destiny. But information on Charlie’s disappearance is piecemeal. One news source posts his obituary. He’s dead? Another says his body was never found. He’s missing, not dead? I research the surviving family members and find more crumbs—a sister with oil-pastel paintings in a Grand Haven gallery, a filmmaker brother from Traverse City. I pull up the filmmaker’s profile on Facebook and scroll through pictures of his children. I zoom in on their faces and ask their features to complete me. Are you my cousins? What do you love? Is that my nose?

Each new bit of data lands in my cells like a tiny electrical storm—impatient, ungrounded, building in strength and intensity. I don’t know where or how to find shelter.

On Saturday Dave and I are eager to throw off the week’s stress with a spring ride along Portland’s waterfront. A twenty-five mile loop on single-speed bikes, the monotony of rubber-on-concrete has become a welcome, albeit seasonal, ritual for us—four spinning prayer wheels quieting the noise in our heads. Before reaching the waterfront trail, we navigate a few neighborhood streets and then a long stretch on Naito Parkway. It’s a relatively quiet street, mostly lined with trees and residential parking. Dave and I ride in single file, but I keep close, enjoying his occasional tail wag that says, We’re in this together.

I inhale spring, trying to ground myself in her resolution.

But I don’t exhale on my own accord. Instead, the budding season is shoved out of me. I don’t see the car door’s violent kiss. I don’t feel my sudden weightlessness or the pavement that follows. I only hear a voice, my voice—unwilled, guttural, coarse, and then the sound of my helmet cracking. I lay in the street wondering, Will we still grill burgers tonight?

As endorphins try to sort out a plan, linear time tangles into a tight, matted ball. Bits of asphalt puncture moments into my flesh—

I hear a young woman behind me. She’s on the phone with her dad, pacing. Clouds above accumulate. The blue behind them, unsure. A young massage student with kind eyes approaches. He offers me a few free sessions. Dave is near but not near enough, his voice in stereo, over there, then over there. The sky is more blue than grey. No, more grey than blue. The young woman approaches. Her eyes aren’t kind. She offers her hand, but to introduce herself, not to help me up. My low-angled hand-shake feels silly. Someone tells me to move out of the road. The clouds build, I try on their confidence, but grey wins.

When an ambulance arrives, an EMT prepares a shot of pain medication for the ride. “No thanks,” I say, feeling nothing—dope-happy on my own internal pharmacy. But when the vehicle takes a hard left turn, I yowl. The EMT laughs, asks again and I oblige. When reality turns into a sweet, distant syrup, I hear Dave’s voice under the blaring siren. Dave! There you are! Are you OK? He doesn’t hear my silent call, so I exit my skin to sit shotgun on his lap.

The driver calls out, “Need a vomit bag up here.” But other than asphalt studded hands and a belly full of worry and adrenaline, Dave’s ok. He flew over his bike too—not from the impact of a door but from the sound of my impact and his sudden reaction.

Together, we were right-side up in the upside down. But time and circumstance want to test this delicate balance.