ACT 1

“WALKING DISTANCE”

WHEREIN INTRODUCTIONS ARE MADE AND EVIL IS HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

Part 1

                A blue ’87 Mustang reaches eighty-eight miles an hour on Interstate-80, passing through castrated greens and a toxic-red twilight toward the town of Springwood, Ohio. The driver is one Barry Barreaux. Barry is a tall, thick-necked, young man with an unwashed shirt and bruised knuckles. He reaches for the lucky cigarette- the last American Spirit- as guitar strings are plucked on the radio. A mouth harp sold with Snoopy's face packaged right on the box rests on the dash. The rubber antenna head of Felix the Cat bounces back and forth with a speckled grin of dirty-white tooth and black insect corpses between each groove. Brilliant speckles of torn paint flash from Felix's eyes.

        The Interstate is unforgiving, the back roads of Springwood mapped to a dream, perhaps a nightmare (the line blurs easily). Little screams and wails come from factory whistles and workers and those haunting sounds echo through the rolling hills and sparse forests. Brightly painted signs reveal rest stops for weary travelers. Expansive and numerous billboards advertise for certain manufacturers that have moved their factories into town. Mainly steel working foundries and a couple of plastic molding plants. Cars and toys. Little plastic soldiers that children buy and organize in single file? The chassis, the hood, the engine. The best propaganda.

        Barry harmonizes with a demon, starman, cat, and alien on the radio waves.

        A folded piece of stationary tucked inside a ripped envelope sits in the passenger’s seat. It reads:

                        “        Barry,

                                        Please come home. I need you.

                                                -Barbara”

        Every breath he has is a large huff as if he's being suffocated by the smoke. The cigarette sparks flicker. Barry sees a sign that reads “SPRINGWOOD CITY LIMITS”. The words stamped into reality like hot-pressed ink on cheap paper. Barry tosses the burning American Spirit to the pavement and drives away. The butt disappears to the filter as Barry’s car merges with the horizon. A guitar riff descends into a hypnotic picking of tense and manic strings. The stars that peek beyond the setting sun are diamond eyes, peering at the poor souls of Springwood with a kaleidoscopic stare.

Part 2

        Barry pulls into the Sleepy Sam’s Hideout motel. The sign out front is a caricature of an oafish old man in striped yellow and red pajamas and a night cap, yawning in his comfortable bed. It reminds Barry of Mr. Magoo or Mr. Mxylptlk from his childhood watching the morning television and reading from a dime store magazine rack. Maybe the Sandman, considering all the stardust surrounding the character. The old man’s bold outline is made of neon glowing primary colors. The painted colors of the man within the outline have rusted and peeled with age. Below the old man, interchangeable letters read, “ROOMS 4 CH3AP.” Barry takes the letter in the passenger’s seat and stuffs the stationary in his denim pocket. He leaves the empty pack of cigarettes untouched on the dashboard. Barry enters the office.

        There is a faint, unnatural hum in the room. Barry’s not sure if it’s from the lights or the fan or the machinery in the back. The clerk stands at the counter next to the logbook waiting for Barry.

        Wait, Barry actually recognizes him (oh lord,) from way back in high school. Was he a Timothy? An Anthony? No, it was Tommy. Tommy Anderson. Son of a bitch, he hasn’t aged a day. He still has pimples on his face. His bangs are evenly cut and his hair have a distinct greasy sheen to it. The kind of sheen that makes you think he never washes his hair. Last time Barry saw him, Tommy ended up in the nurse’s office with a black eye. Tommy doesn’t recognize Barry though, in fact he mostly seems apathetic. He takes Barry’s money and Barry writes an alias (Arch Hammer) in the logbook. Barry is handed a key. Barry walks away feeling like he dodged a bullet. Going to his room, Barry straightens his shoulders and lengthens his stride. He hops up the step to room 103. Room 103’s door is a turquoise, decades old door with a faulty knob and a foggy eyepiece. Beside the door is the motel’s mural of bright yellow stardust and violet space.

        Room 103 is a dump. Barry wasn’t expecting much. A plastic phone hangs off the hook with its coil tangled together in knots. Looking through the drawers, Barry finds a notepad, a phonebook, and Gideon’s Bible. After throwing what little clothes from his trunk to his closet, Barry sits down on the bed and skims through the phonebook looking for names.

        A couple of hours later, Barry laces up his Nike shoes and walks outside. The aglets are curling at the edges like a ruined rolled out of the paper, the string sticking out with little fibers. The nearest liquor store is in walking distance. Barry decides to purchase some cheap booze, buy a new pack of cigarettes, and make some phone calls.

        The rest of the night kicks the shit out of Barry.

“Barry? Is that you?”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now.”

“Barbara was a great woman. It's not your fault.”

        All the same, told in different ways. He expects to hear more in the coming days. With little else to do but go back to the room to drink and wait and mourn, Barry goes back to the motel room to drink and wait and mourn. Static on the television bounces back and forth between plastic walls in front of a Cathode Ray Tube curved like a cornea. Warping and bending reality into the retinas. The faucet in the bathroom leaks rhythmic drops in succession.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip. Into a dream.

        The sun eventually slips through the cracks of the blinds; Barry's face is smothered by a pillow soaked with alcohol, saliva, and a few tears. The sides of Barry's mouth have dried and cracked; there are bits of sand in Barry's eye. Four-door Sedans and Aqua can be heard outside, owning the streets of Springwood. Barry wakes up soon after thinking of nothing but the buzz in his head. If he could sleep for a little while longer- oh no, there is someone he has to see. Get up Barry- you lazy asshole- get up, get in your fucking car, and drive to Chuck's.

         First a leg gets out of bed, then an arm, then the arm that's been half asleep because Barry's been on top of it too long, and eventually he's out. He wears a shirt he's worn days before: a black shirt that hugs tight. He wears his sunglasses and ballcap to mask himself from random citizens that might be old acquaintances. It's a decent disguise, if not conspicuous. The Mustang purrs as he pulls out of the parking lot.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

        Chuck opens the door. Barry takes off his glasses and looks Chuck in the eyes. There's a brief moment of silence and discomfort. They embrace as old friends do at times like these: with regret, bitterness, and a secret-but-mutually-understood elation.

        “It's good to see you. Been way too long. I only wish it was a better time.” Barry acknowledges the comment by saying “Agreed. Can I come in?”

        Chuck swings the door wide open and pulls his arm inward, then toward the living room. Barry steps in, looking at an adolescent shelter turned ruined hovel. The home had decayed beyond anything Barry had even imagined. Weeds have grown between cement cracks and climbed the pastel colored walls. The windows have more bacteria and yellow grime blotches than layers of dust and pollen. Inside, dirt spots the uncleaned carpets and scribbles of magic marker on the wall that contain the ramblings of a stoner madman: Freddie Hartman. Chuck and Barry were weed addicted punks in their high school years. They would smoke joints outside the school, leaning on walls and leering at young women. After everyone split, Barry moved on to excessive drinking and fighting any fucker that looked at him cross. Barry's tried to give both of them up. Chuck likewise went to booze, but he also developed a nasty habit of paying for pussy on the streets of Springwood's industrial district on lonely Saturday nights. Chuck's been less remorseful about it all, but he tries not to do it as often as he used to.

        Freddie never moved on from weed, in actuality he was taking a hit from a homemade bong (strung together with plastic bottles, pipes, and duct tape) the moment Barry walked in. Freddie's little sketches on one of the corners of the wall were about lizard people controlling our specific vibrations or some other nonsense. Chuck had previously recounted a summary of this to Barry over the phone, advising not to mention it in person lest he would want to hear a twenty minute rant on how everybody is a fucked up sheep stunted by calcified brains and hormones from eating genetically-modified food, suffering from shrunken dicks and man breasts.

        “Hey Fred. Nice to see you again. What are you watching?” Barry turns his entire body to the television, which has some news reporter outdoors in front of a building.

        “Oh shit, hey Barry. Long time.” Freddie smiles, his long dark hair curls on the ends and hug his neck and tug his collar. His shirt looks like it hasn't been washed in weeks. His teeth bent and yellowed, with little bits of bread and herb in between. Barry debates on whether to start the motions for a handshake or hug. Hesitation proves to decide the answer.

        “I'm sorry to hear about Barbara.”

        Barry scratches his nose. “It's fine.”

        “Hey Barry, come up here. I got something to show you.” Chuck says.

        On the stairs, Barry sees the back of Chuck's hair and the graying splinters near his ears. Barry runs his hands through his own hair. He thinks of something frightening. Freddie adds more weed to the bong. He gets it from an Altoids can he keeps in his pocket.

Flick.

SSSSS.

Blub blub.

Swoosh.

        Freddie exhales from another hit. Vapor fills the room in front of him. “It's a fucking bummer. I hope they find her killer. Give him the chair, or at least lock him up and throw away the key.” Barry doesn't say anything back. There isn't a reason to. He follows Chuck into his room.

        Chuck has changed. He's certainly gotten bigger, but he was always a husky guy even in high school. He's a bit more rougher, and his voice sounds more frustrated and- this might be speculation here- defeat. Hair combed back to not even lie about a combover.

        Chuck's room has numerous newspaper clippings and shredded comic book pages nailed to the billboard. The desk has used napkins and scrapped paper all over the place. A lava lamp sits in the corner. Robots hold damsels close to their chests and monsters hide in plain sight amongst the populace wearing human skin and bringing radioactive eyes. Headlines about mysterious deaths near the banks of an Ohio river near the edge of Springwood catch Barry's eye immediately, one in particular.

        Barbara's article on the board reads “LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD AFTER 4 DAYS OF SEARCHING”. Her photograph shows her sharing a meal underneath the moonlight with her fiance. She's smiling. Barry never met her fiance, he left town way too soon for that. He wonders who took the picture. Beside her article is an image from an old comic book of a young brunette trapped in a barn fire, waiting for a lone ranger to save her.

        “What the fuck have you been doing here Chuck?” Barry is in disbelief.

        “Call it a pet project Barry. Julius and I have been researching on our own about what's happened to here. He dug through some of The Springwood Sentinel's archives and... just look here.”

        Chuck takes one of the articles off the board and hands it to Barry. “1983. Margaret Walker. That's the earliest one. Read it, you'll see it's the same description as what happened to Barbara. All of them are. The most written about victim is Catherine Connor. Her story circulated throughout the entire midwest.”

        “You said all of them?”

        Chuck gives a hesitant sigh, as if he's too overwhelmed to answer. “Where they were, how they died. Yeah. Ages kind of vary, but never younger than twenty, never older than twenty-eight.”

        Barry gulps. His throat is dry. “Do you something to drink around here?”

        “Sure, I can get you a pop or something. Pepsi fine?”

        Barry nods. “Yeah, that's fine. Thanks.”

        Chuck walks out of the door. Barry can almost overhear the conversation between Chuck and Freddie. Freddie's stopped watching the news and now has started watching Rocko's Modern Life. He's singing along with the B-52's to the theme. It's easy to hear Chuck's thunderous and booming voice yelling to Freddie about getting a job and how he's too old to be a child anymore, but Barry finds difficulty hearing Freddie's voice. He imagines it would be a low mutter, “Come on. Stop hassling me, I'm not messing with your shit and telling you what to do.” Something like that at least.

        Barry continues looking at the wall, both horrified and overwhelmed. He takes the Barbara article off the wall and examines it. She's so young in the photograph, yet Barry wasn't even around for her to take it. She basically grew up without him. He feels a pang of guilt in his chest, did he abandon her to this fate? He puts the shred in his pocket. Underneath Barbara's article was the follow-up panel to the comic. Here, the masked marauder and the damsel ride his mustang into the sunset, with the mustachioed menace that he obviously defeated between these panels only mentioned in a yellow box. Beside that? A torn half-page detailing a cheap golden age comic long forgotten with a damsel in rags named Olga Mesmer.

        Olga Mesmer had the power to see through things with her X-Ray vision. She was created before Superman, she was one of the first super-powered heroes (note: not a superhero). Barry looks at Olga for a bit, she bewitches Barry. A victimized hero, a damsel in rags and shackles, a creature that carries the power and will of the divine.

         “I forgot to ask, have you met Julius?” Chuck returns, slightly more exhausted due to the sibling spat, with a glass of ice and an unopened can of Pepsi for Barry. Barry takes the glass and sets it down. He takes the Pepsi from Chuck and opens it. He starts to drink it warm. He exhales brown cola on his breath.

        “Chuck, when was the last time I was in town? Of course I haven't.”

        Chuck looks wounded. “Shit, you're right-I'm dumb. Well, trust me, he's a weird one. Laurie set the two up on a blind date a year or two ago. I never understood what Barb saw in the guy. They were inseparable for a long time, but whenever he was around me it always seemed like he was wearing clothes that didn't fit. Figuratively speaking, you know what I mean?”

        Barry actually doesn't, but he nods anyways. The Pepsi's a bit too sweet, Barry can feel it in his teeth. He finishes it anyways, sometime through Chuck chewing on about awkward dates and conversations with Julius and Barbara.

        “I mean back in those days I only got momentary, uh, moments of the guy. I think I'm probably making him sound worse than he is, he's not that bad though. He's good. I've gotten to know him a bit more now that all of... this has been happening. It all just takes some getting used to. You should probably meet him soon. How long are you staying in Springwood?”

        Barry picks up some of the ice from the glass and chews it in his mouth. The ice muffles the response. “As long as I need to be. Probably not any more than a few days, give or take. I'm not going to the funeral.”

        “You're not going to the funeral?”

        “No I don't think that's a good idea. I'm not here to mourn. I'll mourn on my time. People don't want me here, I don't want to be here, Chuck.” Barry says in a low, subdued voice.

        “Are you going to talk to Veronica or Laurie at all this trip or-”

        “-Maybe. Why? Have they asked about me?”

        “Well yeah Barry, your sister just died. Everyone's asking about you. They're all asking me because I'm the only guy that can give them answers, but I don't know what you're doing half the time. You don't tell me anything. Just call them yourself. They want to talk to you. All of them. Even Laurie-actually- especially Laurie.”

        Especially Laurie? Especially Laurie. That remains in Barry's mind as the conversation drifts away to what Chuck's been doing the past few years. Freddie giggles in the back. Barbara's image hugs the letter whilst in Barry's pocket. Barry's back home. That terrifies him.