Agent Orange Train Redux

EVERY TALE STARTS SOMEWHERE AND (GOES SOMEWHERE) HERE’S MINE

CHAPTER 26 AGENT ORANGE TRAIN REDUX SPRING 1981 UNTIL JUNE 25TH

On a Friday in late March, Mel retired to a fern bed for a session with Aimée and me. As if Aimée weren’t aware, he recounted the Brainiac’s efforts in favor of the city’s children, giving George Kern credit for the pyramidal roof explanation, adding Kern owned a Prospect Avenue bicycle shop.

With Mel’s use of Prospect, Aimée initiated a discourse about the importance of names, explaining how she and Joseph had named their manor land Preservation. While she couldn’t recall who named Prospect avenue she hoped they were similarly insightful, gezellig as she put it.

I hadn’t seen the departed Marines, neither Sgt. Davis nor Lance Corporal Higgins and that Corpsman in weeks. Before departing,

Aimée made sure Mel heard what she said. “Mel, I’ll be seeing you soon. I love you, Marine.”

And no, I wasn’t left out. “You, too, Pup!” VFW sign-in sheets don’t reveal if Mel commemorated the 37th anniversary of the 6th Marines Okinawa landings there. But neither he, Sgt. Davis, Lance Corporal Higgins nor their Corpsman neglected the anniversary.

As I explained in the wake of the dognapping, humans don’t always hear my voice but smarter ones know it exists. Due to events others will now describe, my Cliff-era was ending.

HOUND’S VOICE LARGELY DISAPPEARS When Mel went missing, Melanie called the police, crying through the worst of worries. When the missing persons call occurred, Sgt. Vince was signing out, anticipating a Saturday dayoff. While concerned with Mel’s cliff wandering, Vince was hardly worried about gangster activity there. Instead, he feared another veteran-inflicted gunshot.

Before leaving Vince called to let his wife know he would be a bit late returning home. Searching the fern beds just east of Goose Neck drive, Vince discovered Mel’s remains. Damp newspaper pages had been laid out as if Mel anticipated his end. Checking for a pulse but finding none, Vince noted the cyanotic hue of a natural death, likely due to cardiac causes but thankfully, not suicide.

While radioing, Vince knelt beside Mel’s body, firing positions of rescuer and fallen, those of two American GI’s. A city official, its coroner, but for Saturday a Cliff drive hiker, approached them.

Confirming the absence of a pulse, the coroner – hiker detected movement about fifty yards away along a tree line, questioning Vince whether the shepherd he spotted there could be the dead man’s dog.

Startled, Vince stared at Hound who responded in kind. “They’ve likely spent time together but I’m almost certain that dog was the one taken at Harold’s Drive-Inn.” Given the unusual features of coroner-cop collaboration, Vince’s captain approved removal of Mel’s remains. As the ambulance

departed, Vince dog-whistled the shepherd. Rather surprisingly Hound complied, launching into the back seat of Vince’s car.

As they departed, Hound peered out the rear window, appearing to search for an unseen person. Vince was surprised Hound didn’t smell bad after living on his own but what about the lilac aroma?

Following a stop to research a Grandview address, Vince drove Hound to Gee&Leo’s home there. Knocking twice, his words were extinguished ahead of his dog question. The ladies first hugged Hound and then hugged Vince. Following Hound’s reunion with his owners and kennelmates, Max and Blaze, Vince informed them he needed to leave.

As Gee&Leo walked him out Hound took the point, secured by a special lead. Gee explained how they had tacked a lost poster on a St. Paul Seminary light pole. Ten days later they had received an interesting, yet disappointing, call from its grounds keeper who had discovered a clip-less lead abandoned beside a double-trunk box elder. They had paid a cobbler to install a new clip, hoping Hound would find his way home.

The three remaining Brainiacs, Woz, Racer and Brooklyn, plus George Kern, sat together at Mel’s funeral. The flower sprays were fairly customary excepting a magnificent display of cliff brake ferns.

The funeral director read donor names aloud, saving the fern for last. Its tag bore a horizontal representation of Belgium’s black, gold and red flag, calligraphy-quality lettering announcing long-departed pioneers.

JOSEPH & AIMÉE BRICHAUT GUINOTTE, TROOST POINT– L’EDIFICE, TOWN OF KANZA. Who knows when a guardian angel accepts an assignment or relinquishes same. Perhaps Aimée found peace when the Brainiacs resolved the contamination riddle. Hound lay beside Mel’s flagdraped casket, chin-on-paws, recalling occasions he had attempted to comfort Mel, hoping Mel would mimic his chin-on-paws posture.

Hound was silent until the flag-folding when he howled Mel’s requiem.

OHHK –

IN

- AAAH - WAAH.

As the funeral caravan proceeded down Belmont, parents and their children paused, acknowledging Lead Man’s Town&Country as it brought-up-the-drag. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

(June 25th 1981). Brooklyn and Woz invited Racer to a working breakfast, one scheduled for Thursday at the Muehlebach hotel.

Brooklyn had hinted to Racer they needed to discuss lab funding issues causing Racer to linger chain-locking his bike to the hotel’s M-G-C gas meter.

Inside its cavernous lobby he was astonished to find Kern pushing Margo in the K-L-W loaner wheelchair. Inquiring where they were going, Kern winked. “Cookie and I are having breakfast with you.”

Finding a seat, Racer listened as Margo tapped out her take on Watermelon Man with Muehlebach-furnished flatware. He admired her engagement ring. Amidst breakfast small talk, Racer savored fresh-squeezed orange juice, possibly anticipating a post-breakfast trifecta, one in which he would secrete a Danish pastry in each of three bike jersey pockets.

As other invitees arrived, Racer was surprised that neither Brooklyn nor Dr. Wozniak convened the meeting. Finally Kern tapped a water glass, signaling meeting start.

George thanked Racer for his hard work at K-L-W, but more so for his efforts on behalf of the city’s children. Consuelo thanked the Brainiacs, noting not only their professionalism but their honesty.

With those preliminary heats completed, Kern explained the reason for the meeting, sharing how Racer had petitioned him about coaching or mentorship. While finding the request flattering, George expressed his reservations about committing his friend to a life spent behind ‘bars, those of a bicycle. George curiously added that the meeting date, June 25th, corresponded to the 57th anniversary of his signature victory.

Inspecting George’s layered shirts, Racer was confident the inner one concealed Robert’s letter. Racer lowered his eyes listening to his friend credit Robert X. Anthony for K-L-W’s successes, imagining a younger George summoned to a law office, possibly to

pay for a funeral, only to discover he had inherited a store, one that pivoted between all-things-bicycle and mitzvah generosity.

Moving past K-L-W’s origins George described a reimbursed plan he had negotiated with the school’s registrar that would enroll Racer in a novel medical - public health curriculum. Margo interrupted, describing a call she had placed to Dean E. Gray Dimond on Racer’s behalf, sharing how Dimond joked that Racer would likely be the only velo-chemist at the gross anatomy table.

Consuelo adjourned the meeting. We’ll get out of your way Racer so you can get to your anatomy class. By the way, you’re twenty-minutes late, class commenced at nine.

While others lingered to congratulate the newly engaged KernCookie pair Racer excused himself, but not before promising Kern he would see him that Friday evening.

As dusk approached on June 25th 1981 Racer strapped an amber front/red rear leg light, pedaling north on Belmont. Past the Northeast athletic fields, his world felt warm, inviting really, as he listened to a strengthening chorus of male cicadas. He made a right turn onto a private road, crossing four sets of railroad tracks, carefully meeting each set on a perpendicular. Combinations of broken road surfaces, rough grade crossings and poor illumination impeded riding, forcing him to walk. Near the final set of tracks, Racer witnessed a young brakeman directing a switch engine’s movement, hoping he had benefitted from a safety advocate like Vito.

But Racer hadn’t come to witness yard switching, he came to say goodbye. Even though its spray booms were chain-locked back, Weeds, trees & turf had found a home there, too.

If good news hadn’t arrived for Racer in straw hats, it had in the persons of George Kern, Land Lady, Brooklyn and more recently, Morris. Decades past Robert X. Anthony’s orphanage days another infant had been surrendered at 23rd and Walrond. His legal name was Damian X. Race but a Catholic sister had favored him with a nickname, making him their Racer.

EVERY DAY ON THE RAILROAD WAS THE SAME. THEN AGAIN, THEY WERE DIFFERENT.