Page 44 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“Lots of complaining for a couple of fossils with no car,” Herb smirks. He hands back a packet of Twizzlers to share, and we all drive in silence for a long while. We pass empty fields of snow, and pine forests with all the tree branches weighed down by weeks of heavy snowfall. The sky is overcast and the air is still, eerily quiet. When we get to town we stop at all Bernie’s favorite places—the VFW where Kevin Willits, who has worked there for twenty-three years, polishes beer mugs with a bar towel and watchesWheel of Fortuneon the TV above the pub tables. Nobody else is there; we go to the Trout but it’s closed, then the Cupcake Gourmet, and the bait shop, and then Mario’s taco shop where we all stay and have lunch in an old wooden booth near the front window.

Of course, we don’t expect to find Bernie just sitting at one of these places in plain sight while the whole world is out looking for him, but what else can we do? We have to dosomething. Herb orders the chicken enchilada burrito combo and chews with his mouth open, but the rest of us just push tortilla chips around on our plates and don’t know what to say to one another.

“Who called him? Who would he have left with?” Mort asks, but he’s just repeating something we have asked each other over and over already. Nobody has a clue.

“Well, it has to be someone. He wouldn’t get too far in subzero weather and we’d have found him frozen solid in a snowbank by now within a mile of the church potluck, that’s for damn sure,” Millie says, but she has already said some variation of this sentiment a dozen times today. Still, we all nod in agreement.

Mort stirs his peppermint tea and Herb doesn’t chide him for ordering peppermint tea at a Mexican restaurant the way he usually would,and nobody gives Millie any sour looks about ordering a margarita before noon. We all stare at our phones or out the window and a sad ballad from the 1990s plays that I can’t recall the name of, but it makes Herb push away his plate and dot a tear, although he would never admit it.

Back in the van, the Styrofoam take-out containers fill the interior with refried bean and onion aromas, and Millie is sipping a third margarita from a paper cup. Mort is so quiet that I am beginning to worry about him and how he will handle his good friend missing.

I suggest that we go back to the Ole and record a live podcast where we implore anyone with any information about Bernie Adler to call in, but Herb reminds me that we only have our cell phones to take calls, and the last thing we want to do is get ourselves murdered in our beds because some nutter has our personal information, so we decide against the tip line and go with opening up an email address folks can write in to with information. We all decide this is a sound idea and the best use of our efforts, and so we drive back across snowy roads to the Oleander’s, on a mission to do everything we can to find our sweet Bernie.

While everyone is shaking out wet boots and hanging coats and hats on the hooks next to the front windows, I see Shelby through the crack in the office door. She’s sitting at her desk and staring down at a garbage bag on the floor. It looks like wires and electrical stuff, and the look across her face is one of despair, I think, but it’s just a glance so I can’t really be sure. She quickly collects herself and comes out of the office door, closing it behind her. I see Evan at the small computer desk, looking at some video footage on the computer, so I don’t disturb him. But even from just his profile, he seems to share the same distraught look as Shelby. I wonder if there has been news. My heart speeds up and I feel a small wave of nausea rise within me.

“His car’s gone,” Shelby comes out and says before any of us have even sat down. Mort is wiping his glasses and Millie is warming herself in front of the gas fireplace. Herb and I stand in the middle of the rec room staring at her, trying to make sense of what she’s saying.

“Whose car? What car?” I ask. Shelby sits on the arm of the couch and sighs.

“Bernie’s car.”

“Bernie doesn’t drive,” Millie says unnecessarily loudly and with unearned authority.

“His old Firebird in the back parking lot?” Mort asks, putting his glasses back on. “I thought it didn’t run.”

“And he doesn’t drive!” Millie says again, tipsily, carefully trying to sit herself down on the brick hearth.

“I know,” Shelby says, “but itmustrun, because it’s not there. And I suppose just because he let his license expire however long ago doesn’t mean he’s incapable of driving. I just can’t imagine the reason behind it—where he would have gone without telling anyone.”

“But maybe it’s a good thing,” Herb says. “If he drove on his own, even for some crazy reason, there’s a better chance he’s safe.”

“I don’t see anything,” Evan says, hitting Pause on the video and swiveling towards us on his chair. “I think we need to add cameras on the light pole in the parking lot since the ones we have don’t catch that dark lot way back there…and it butts up to the woods, so it’s pitch-black. See?” he says, rewinding the video as Shelby goes to look over his shoulder and scan the footage he shows her.

“Shit,” Shelby mutters at the grainy, useless footage.

“He was here yesterday at breakfast you said, right?” Evan asks.

“Yes,” Mort says. “He put maple syrup on his scrambled eggs and I told him he was a Neanderthal.” He hangs his head at the memory,and I suppose he wonders if it’s the last thing he said to his friend and wishes it were something kinder, even if he was just poking fun.

“And what time was that?” Evan asks.

“Around eight,” I say, because I was at the table having my coffee then myself.

“So between 8:00 a.m. and when it was noticed that he was gone, which was 12:40 you said…it seems like that’s when he would have taken the car—either before the potluck, or he came back and got it. But I don’t even see him on camera walking back that way.” Evan scans the footage ahead and pauses on different spots.

“Unless he went out of his way to walk around the wooded area and access the lot from behind if he was avoiding the cameras. Which he probably was if he was planning some strange escape without telling us,” Herb says, and I nod in agreement.

“Maybe,” Evan says. “But if someone else wants to look through the video with fresh eyes to make sure I’m not missing anything, feel free.”

“Thanks, Evan,” Shelby says. I walk to the kitchenette and microwave a mug of hot water, putting a Lipton tea bag inside, then sit on the ottoman next to Herb, and we’re all quiet again. There is a palpable sense of dread, and even though the car might be a good thing, it’s bizarre, and for some reason, I feel this overwhelming suspicion that it’s actually very, very bad, and I don’t quite know why.

“We thought we’d do an episode this afternoon—a live one, and set up an email address for people to write in with tips,” I say.

“Good idea,” Shelby says. “Let me know if I can help,” and then she stands and disappears back inside the office again, closing the door with a soft click.

We decide to use the computer in the rec room. Evan promised to stay vigilant near the main doors, so Mort shuffles around,setting up mics and untwisting cords, and I can’t help but think over and over about that sign-in sheet at the hospital. The whole place is still in the dark ages, so when a visitor signs in, they don’t always write down the patient or room number. I can’t imagine anyone has even looked at that sign-in sheet in a decade.

The last name Blacklock was signed in many times over the last six months, but often with different first names. Odd first names: Duke, Cornelius, Buster…it was as if somebody was trying to make sure their real name wasn’t recorded and wrote down ridiculous fake names, but why, and what does that mean? I went as far as to look up this surname in the town records and I didn’t find anything. This is significant. I’m sure Riley is looking into it since I brought all of this to his attention, but I need to understand how it’s connected. Blacklock.

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