ALAN QUINN | PART 2: DETECTIVE QUINN, CHAPTER 2

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    Main Street made the town. It clung tightly to its old western motif while complimenting Ashton’s population of a thousand people with re-purposed 19th century buildings. I had to give Dad props for moving us to a one horse town.
  Mom loathed Ashton. She compared it to a glutinous python constricting her throat. Dad liked it because it was small, but they still had enough churches to cater to a big city. I was never clear on his obsession with churches, but he said a non-denominational church that went by Healing Waters was going to host the meetings for the Dream Chasers going forward. From what I understood, the group continued meeting long after his disappearance, which rubbed me the wrong way. I at least appreciated living by vintage shops like Victor’s.
  I wasn’t alone. Every day that I walked around town, I always noticed a girl with red hair window shopping around the bookstore. Her hair was dyed, but it blended well with her tan skin. If I ever close enough to see her green eyes, I could hear her humming. I knew she wasn’t singing fully, but I imagined she had a beautiful voice. My favorite about her was the fact that she was probably my age. I wanted to be friends, but I didn’t know what to say.
  I think I lied earlier. Yes, I’ve been riding around town trying to see if people had seen my dad, but that isn’t the only reason. I learned quickly that the red headed girl would show up to Victor’s around the same time every day. Sometimes she would go in and sometimes she wouldn’t. In my head, I had practiced a monologue to say to her when I finally found the courage, but I’d be lucky to get the word hello out. Sure, it’d be easy to segway a conversation about my missing father, but somehow I didn’t think it’d be good to have that as her first memory of me. I didn’t know much about having friends, but I had enough people feeling sorry for me between Mom and the Dream Chasers.
 
  The red headed girl popped into my mind as I picked up my bike. I checked to make sure the mechanics remained in order, hopped on, and put my feet to the pedals. It didn’t take long to ride the few blocks required to get from our beat up old house and the road leading to Main Street. The roasting summer sunlight reflected off of my spokes, making it difficult to keep my eyes open as bumped and slid over the red mud that made up our terrain.
  To get my focus off of the penetrating sunlight, I examined all of the street signs I passed along the way. The street signs were a proud staple for the town. Harkening bad to a love of religion and football, you can find a Bear Bryant Cove neighborhood on one side of the street across the way from Gabriel’s Pearly Drive. While it was my first time living in the United States, isolation living with my parents stripped me from any European accent. I at least had that going for me even though I didn’t understand Ashton’s aesthetic half the time.
  As I got closer to Victor’s, I could see the store was packed to capacity with people who must have traveled from all over the state, considering they almost matched the town’s population person for person. A line stretched from the door all the way down to the barber shop at the end of the street. If I was going to appeal to the masses with my flier, that may be the way to go. I couldn’t image that all of them would deny a flier if I handed it to them.
  I parked the bike in the alleyway between Victor’s and a small office and ran up to one of the customers. He was a man donned in a shiny, purple suit. He definitely stuck out, but didn’t mind turning his pale nose up so high that he might as well have begged insects to fly in, assuming his bleached blonde hair didn’t attract them first.
  I tried several ways to get his attention from saying hello to standing in front of him but nothing did the trick. I didn’t know why I even bothered, but now I was driven by pure determination. I pulled on his purple blazer which grabbed his attention immediately.  When he finally looked me in the eye, I said, “Excuse me, sir?” He responded by swatting at me with one hand while he protected a large object the size of a phone book with the other. I continued, “I’m sorry, Sir, but can I ask you a quick question?”
   He reluctantly lowered his gaze, choosing to address me as an annoying fly. His voice was high-pitched and sharp, almost cartoonish in tone, when he finally spoke, “Why did you touch my jacket? Tell me exactly why you touched my jacket?”
  “You weren’t paying attention to me.” I was caught off guard. I didn’t know what to say.
  “And that is a socially acceptable reason to tug on someone’s clothes? You are so inheritably stupid that I am surprised you put on shoes this morning. What are you, anyways? A local?”
  This being one of the first times I spoke to a stranger on my own, I wasn’t ready for him to be so rude. I looked around to see if anyone else in line heard what the man had said, but no one else was paying attention. Most of the people in line were too preoccupied with fanning themselves from the heat instead. A man at the end of the line was looking in my direction, but I’m sure he just thought I was breaking in line.
  I chose not to argue with the man in the purple suit. I said, “Yep, this is my town. Don’t you love the humidity? Anyways, everyone looks pretty excited. I just wanted to know who everybody was here to see.”
  He tapped his book, “Who is everybody here to see? Boy, if you were a bit more cultured, you wouldn’t have to ask that question,” he took a deep breath, realizing how rude he had been. His voice went down a few levels, “The man inside is one of the greatest minds of our generation. He is splendiferous, he transcends time and, and some would say he was god-like.”
  “What is a man like that doing in Ashton?”
  “I don’t know, kid, but for some reason he did choose this silly town to sign copies of his book.” He gripped the book with both hands and held it to his heart. “This book changed my life. Why don’t you wait in the back of the line and maybe you’ll get a chance to meet him too. Sorry for being rude, but I spent good money on this suit. Purple was very necessary.”
  I took a few steps back and noticed Mr. Bleach Blonde was not the only person in line wearing a purple suit. I hoped it would all make sense soon, but singing show tunes with drunken Mom was beginning to sound like the tame option for the day. Each person was equally excited about the signing just as my dad had been when he first wore his belt as a headband.  The thought made me consider asking the man if he was familiar with Draio and perhaps he may have heard of my father. I reached into my book bag for my fliers, but the man stopped me.
  He said, “I don’t know what you are about to hand me, but I’d like to stop you from wasting your time. I’m sure someone in the back of the line would be interested.”
  I opened my mouth to object, but he clamped my mouth shut with his finger and thumb. He whispered harshly, “I will be damned if an insolent child continues to interrupt the memorization of what I plan to say to Darius once I’m inside. Now, get in the back of the line.” With that, he faced forward and returned to the nose upright position I had first found him in.
  My heart squeezed when he said the name. Between Dad running away and this book signing, it was too much of a coincidence. Could this be the Darius? My emotions were a melted pile of silly putty as I bounced between the excitement of finally meeting this very important fixture in my family’s life and the fury from wanting to punish him for making my father crazy.
  I snuck a glance at the book the man was clinging to so tightly. In big fancy letters it read: Dream of Draio by Darius Sinclaire. The cover featured an African man dressed in a cloak. In front of him were several monks leaned in prayer while a dragon flew above. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, the man held the throats of two shadow-like figures in his hands while his arms were stretched outward like Jesus on the cross. Worried enough that Dad had been in a cult this whole time, I also wondered if an overtly religious town like Ashton was aware what this book signing was truly all about.  
   It was all a little bit much, I thought, but I figured if I were going to get the awareness out there about Dad, the size and scope of Darius’ audience made them perfect for my handouts.