The Astronaut

Augie Williams sat in a rumbling van with a blindfold over his eyes thinking of how he’d always aspired to be an astronaut. It’s a stupid ambition that every kid seems to go through, but, for Augie, he never really grew out of it. Sure he didn’t become an astronaut, far from it, but the dream had never actually died. Even now, in his small and run-down apartment in the middle of the city, sat dozens of models of space shuttles and Apollo rockets. He even had a waist-high, completely accurate, insanely expensive, scale model of the Apollo 13 LEM sitting in what was supposed to be a very lovely sun drenched breakfast nook but instead was actually a small recreation of the moon (complete with actual moon dust). He loved the irony that the Apollo 13 LEM had never actually landed on the moon, and anybody who made a mention of that fact became an instant best-friend for life.

But alas, Augie was far from ever becoming an astronaut. In his mind, he was the complete opposite, although it’s hard to see how private investigator is the opposite of astronaut. Augie’d tried to get into the Air Force, but his eye sight was too bad to be a pilot. Instead, he settled for the police academy. Sadly, though, despite having a knack for investigation, he didn’t have the heart for actual police work. This was later confirmed when he missed an opportunity to gun down a drug dealer and got a bullet in the arm and a frivolous lawsuit for it. So he retired early and partnered with an old friend to form a private investigation firm. Eventually the partner quit for bigger and better things and Augie stayed where he was. To Augie, he became the poster boy for the term “settling for second best.” To the rest of the world, Augie was a pretty good PI.

All this to say that when an actual space shuttle pilot walked into his office one dreary Thursday, Augie could hardly contain his excitement. He knew the guy was an actual space shuttle pilot for two reasons. One: he had the very distinct military look about him, especially the haircut. And two: he had a special pin on his jacket awarded specifically to pilots who had been in space (Augie himself had two replications of the very same pin in the second drawer of his nightstand).

The pilot had sat down in front of his rather shabby desk and looked him in the eye, “My lesbo-sister has gone missing.”

“Okay, sir…” Augie said, trying to hide the excited squeak in his voice as he reached for his notebook. “Have you contacted the police? Filed a missing persons?”

The pilot snorted. “I tried. They gave me some bullshit about having to wait a week or something. I know when my sister is missing and she’s missing. She hasn’t called me and she’s not answering her phone. The girl has no life. She always answers her phone.”

“Okay… So you want me to find her.”

“Damn right. And don’t call me sir. I was just a pilot; I call people sir, not the other way around.”

“Absolutely…. Captain… mister…?” The pilot gave Augie an impatient look. He cleared his throat and barreled on. “So what’s the story with your sister? You say she’s a lesbian?”

“Yes indeedy. Well, not really. I actually have no idea if she’s really lesbo or not. But she hasn’t had a date. Ever. And she’s thirty. And the way I take that is that she’s either ugly or lesbo. And she ain’t ugly.”

“Perhaps she’s just shy…”

“Shy? If you’re a woman and you’re in your late twenties and you haven’t had a date then it doesn’t matter how shy you are. You get a date. That’s the way it is. Unless, of course, you’re dating other women. Those don’t count. It doesn’t matter. Look, detective, what does matter is that she’s missing and I want to find her. And I’m willing to pay.”

“Okay, well… I’ll need some pictures and all the info you have on her. Specifically her last known whereabouts.”

“Well, that’d be Walkinville.”

“Walkinville?”

“Yes. Walkinville. Why? Is there a problem?”

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I’ve heard about Walkinville before. It’s supposed to be a pretty strange town with some pretty strange occurances.”

“Strange how?”

“Let’s just say that it makes David Lynch seem normal.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. My fee is three hundred up front, a hundred per day, plus expenses.”

“So can you find her?”

“I don’t make promises.”

“Good. I don’t pay for promises. I pay for results.”

And with that he started discussing all the details he knew of her and her disappearance. She was an out of luck english major who jumped from job to job. She’d do some temp work here and some retail work there and then she’d move on. Her brother helped her out occasionally with the bills and health insurance and such, but she was a pretty typical loner type. She moved from town to town with each new job and she had just recently moved to Walkinville with a new one, but that’s all he knew about the move. She had no friends, no acquaintances, and, really, nobody else who would ever be interested in her whereabouts. After a while of this and acquiring a picture and his up front costs, the man who represented all of Augie’s dreams shook his hand and said, “Just find her,” before walking out the door. And by the end of the day he headed to Walkinville looking for the girl with essentially only her picture and her name, Charlotte.

Walkinville may be a smaller town, but it’s still big enough to get lost in. And, unfortunately, Augie didn’t have any contacts in Walkinville since he usually made sure to steer away from it. So Augie had to do some old fashioned police work, which meant that, armed with a photograph, he was in for some serious pavement pounding and door banging going to any public place a girl like Charlotte could be seen. Libraries, grocery stores, diners, and even bars. And, of course, he got the usual answers:

“You seen this girl?”

“Nope.”

“Nu-uh.”

“Maybe, but I’m not sure. It coulda been someone else.”

And, it being Walkinville, he got more than a fair share the unusual ones too:

“Yes, of course, in a past life.”

“Why yes, that’s my estranged daughter Mary.”

“Nope, but I know she’s dead… my psychic told me all about it.”

“Yup. Right there in that picture.”

“You know what? I think I’m her.” This last one would’ve been great if the speaker had actually been female.

All in all, the biggest conclusion Augie’d come up with was that Walkinville’s a tough town to do actual police work in. He wondered how the cops handled it. Or if there were even any cops at all. He hadn’t seen any so far. Well, he’d have to find out sooner or later. Consulting the local police is SOP for every Private Investigator, but he was avoiding it for as long as possible. He’d been in the force long enough to not like cops very much. Luckily though (or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it), he got his break before then.

He’d been in Walkinville two days and visited about fifty different businesses when he got half a lead that Charlotte had been living in a typical suburban neighborhood called “Leafy Pines.” So he drove there and decided he’d go house to house to find out where she might’ve lived in the neighborhood. The first one he came to was assuredly the biggest house in the whole Pines. It was a monster Tudor with a sign out front reading, “Home Owners Association and Druids of the Order of The Magic Fridge.” Typical Walkinville flair. He knocked on the door and there was a long pause before he heard a shuffle behind it. It opened revealing a short, bespectacled fellow who had hurriedly put on a purple, hooded robe.

“How may the Order of The Magic Fridge help you, sir?”

“Firstly, don’t call me sir. I’m just a PI; I call people sir, not the other way around. And secondly, I was wondering if you had seen this girl.” Augie held up his picture of the thirty-year-old. “She goes by the name Charlotte and might be living in the area.”

The bespectacled man snatched the photo and studied it for a bit. “Hmm… yes, yes. I do believe that this woman was living here in this very house as a tenant.”

“Really? Is she here?”

“No. Not anymore.”

“Do you know where she went?”

The robed, little man gave Augie a look that made him feel uneasy. His old cop senses were going off like fire alarms. “Unfortunately no.”

“Well, thank you very much, sir, for your time.” Augie said and he was prepared to go but the little man still held his photograph. “I’m going to be needing that back,” he said. holding out his hand.

“I can show you her old room if you’d like?” Said the little man. Augie paused. His instincts were telling him to get away from that place, but his instincts had been wrong before and his shoulder reminded him every time it rained. This was his first real lead in two days and he really wanted to finish this case up quickly to impress his astronaut client.

“Okay.” He said, making up his mind. “Show me where to go.” And he followed the man further into the house.

And just then a blindfold went around his eyes and a blackjack went to his head. Which, for Augie, meant space women were now serving him drinks on the moon. He liked the moon.

###

Augie awoke to the sound of a rumbling van. He still had the blindfold on and he was apparently tied up because he was having a hard time moving his arms or legs. So he just sat there and thought of how he always wanted to be an astronaut.

After a while, he heard the sound of the van door sliding open and then hands roughly untied him. Then they pulled him out to an open spot, and the blindfold was jerked off revealing brightness which slowly faded to an open, sunny field in the middle of nowhere with a rusty walk-in fridge propped up in the middle of it. The whole field was surrounded by middle aged people in purple robes. All of them humming a single note, filling the air with a kind of hypnotic buzz.

Four druids were holding him, while another stepping toward him. This one dressed in purple and gold as well as a bow tie. “Greetings fellow members of the Leafy Pines Home Owners Association and Order of the Magic Fridge. I have gathered us here to announce that this great man…”

“Me? A great man? Shucks you guys…” Augie’s usual defense mechanism is sarcasm laced with panic.

The druid with a bow tie frowned at him. “This great man… has come to us wishing, like the great woman before him, to traverse through the portal within the magic fridge to the world beyond! This is as payment to the Magic Fridge as dues in advance for next year in accordance to the Accords of our Order and the HOA agreement we’ve all signed.”

Augie looked doubtfully at the dilapidated fridge standing slightly askew in the middle of the grassy field. The grass was growing high around it and flies buzzed around it. It looked like discarded junk. A remnant of the sixties that probably smelled. “Portal?”

The bow-tied druid ignored him and turned towards his fellow HOA members. “This magic fridge, which can only be opened and entered from this world, is one which we all are familiar with, having lost so many brothers to it before. It is with great humility that we accept this great man’s offer to willingly sacrifice himself for our very survival and the continuance of the services which are required to maintain the community of Leafy Pines.”

“Wait a sec!” Augie shouted. “I said no such thing!”

“There was no need. Your heart said all your mind and mouth couldn’t. And now you shall enter the fridge. And we shall consume the holy lemonade and cookies so graciously provided by Ms. Hammond of 208 Shady Lane!”

And with that the humming increased and the buzz in the air got louder. Augie shrugged. You couldn’t really argue with a man in a purple and gold bathrobe. He figured he would just open the fridge and walk away after they drove off. And at least he found out why Charlotte left Leafy Pines. Then the four druids holding Augie tightened their grip and started chanting what sounded like “All cars shall be parked in driveways and not on the road. All members must seek prior approval from the order before erecting any accessory buildings. All garbage bins must not be visible from the road…” as they started to manhandle him towards the fridge. Augie struggled a little bit, but gave up as they shoved him in and closed the door.

It was dark, of course, and it, as predicted, reeked. Augie breathed a sigh and felt around for a handle or something, a lot of these old fridges had handles on the inside to prevent people from being locked in. But he couldn’t feel anything, and even stranger was that the walls felt oddly wooden. Augie was sure he hadn’t seen any wood when he saw the fridge on the field. So, not finding a handle, he started pushing on the walls around him to see if any would open. He felt one budge a little, but it felt slightly stuck. So he gathered his strength, took a deep breath, and slammed into it with all his weight. And, WHOOMPF, he fell out.

Augie blinked and found himself not in the field, but in an old cellar dimly lit by sunlight peaking in from a door in the back. Augie looked around trying to logically explain away in his mind the incomprehensible fact that he had just transported from an open field into a rather dank and dark little room with what seemed to be a wooden replica of the very fridge he was just thrown into, as well as some wine and what looked like barrels of apples.

A scuffle at the cellar door shook Augie out of his little stupor. But he descended right back into another one when he saw what came through the door.

He would later think on how amazing it was how quickly all the mysteries he’d just experienced in Walkinville melted away the minute he laid eyes on the woman who calmly stepped into the cellar he was lying in. She was wearing an old fashioned dress, carrying a basket of apples, and she had her dark brown hair tied up in such a way as to perfectly frame her captivating face. She stepped down into the cellar, saw Augie, and immediately dropped her basket, apples spilling everywhere. She looked down at Augie, then over to the fridge, then back at Augie, then over to the fridge, and then back at Augie again.”

“My…” she said, “You startled me.”

“Sorry about that.” It was all Augie could think to say as he stood up and brushed himself off.

“You must be from Walkinville.”

“What?” Now it was Augie who was stunned. “What makes you say that?”

“You had to have come through that stupid fridge those morons like to push people through. Because I haven’t seen you before and the way you’re dressed doesn’t exactly fit in around here.”

Augie nodded, then shrugged, then looked around. “And… where is here exactly?”

“Well… you’re far away from Walkinville, that’s for sure.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Augie looked back at the fridge with a growing knot in his stomach.

“There’s no other way to say this. So I’m just going to say it. You’re in the magical land of Reeseroper.”

“The what?” Augie asked in a dead voice.

“The magical land of Reeseroper. It’s a land, and it’s magical. Meaning it’s got magic. Pretty far-fetched I know, but you’ll just have to get used to it. Why do you think I store apples in a cellar?”

“For cidar?”

“Hardly. They’re-“

“Magic?”

She nodded.

“You’ll have to excuse me. It’s going to take me a while to absorb all this.”

“You have all the time in the world. That fridge was a one way trip.”

Augie sighed and rubbed his eyes. “And I’ve got a client waiting for me. A client with money. An astronaut client with money.”

“Well, it’s not so bad here. I’ve been here for a year ever since that stupid HOA threw me in that fridge.”

“Wait…” He suddenly recognized her. She looked different from her picture, which, frankly, didn’t do her justice.

But he was sure it was her. “You’re Charlotte, aren’t you?”

“Yes! How did you know?”

“Well, my name is Augie Williams. I’m a PI, and your brother hired me to find you.”

“Really? How sweet of him. He’s a pilot you know?”

“I know. He flies the space shuttle.”

“Space shuttle? No, he’s just an airline pilot. No military training whatsoever.”

“What?” Augie furrowed his brow. “What about the astronaut pin he wears?”

“Oh that’s just some silly replica I gave him years ago. He used to be really into that NASA stuff.”

Augie slumped down onto a nearby barrel, his heart filling with despair and failure. “Some investigator I am.”

“Don’t be silly. You aren’t the first to think it.”

“I’m sure I’m the first one to get thrown into the magical land of Reeseroper.”

She put down her basket and put her hand on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and turned his head but she gently pushed it back with her other hand on her cheek. He opened his eyes to see hers looking into them.
“I told you. It’s not that bad.”

The little bit of sunlight framed her face. And Augie couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were the most captivating shade of blue he’d ever seen. And he smiled.

“I guess it isn’t.” Augie said with a smile. And then a thought occurred to him. “Uh…You aren’t a lesbian are you?”
# # #

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