"Yeah, you go back, Jack, do it again--
"Wheel turnin' 'round and 'round.
"You go back, Jack, do it again..."*
Donald Fagen's vocals had Brad in a somewhat meditative state until he began to notice a slight mist of drizzle drifting through the beams of the Jeep's headlights. There was something reassuring about once again listening to the old album-oriented rock station that he used to listen to all the time decades earlier, when he had lived in the area. When he was in college. When he was young.
That was...what?...three decades ago? he asked himself. Holy Christ. Three friggin' decades...More like three and a half decades, actually!
Brad glanced at the clock. It was a little after two o'clock in the morning.
A feeling that verged almost on premonition began to gnaw at Brad. Perhaps barreling down a dark and desolate country road at two o'clock of a drizzly morning with three or four whiskeys inside of me isn't such a good idea, he thought to himself. But he really wanted to get back home, which at this point in his journey was yet a good eighty miles away.
It had been a very long day. Brad was exhausted. He was up bright and early that morning, at five o'clock--the crack of dawn--to make the nearly two-hour drive to the memorial service. He had very little sleep the night before. Too many vivid dreams during the fleeting periods that his body allowed him to float into a state of slumber. He would suddenly wake up, and then he would be plagued with too many thoughts to fall back to sleep. He had slept for three hours at the most, and no more.
The more he thought about it, the more difficult it was to accept that Danny was gone. Forever. Danny had been seriously ill for awhile, but it just seemed a given that he would pull through it and resume normal life. Danny sure seemed convinced of that.
I had obviously assumed that too much had been granted, Brad thought to himself.
Brad and Danny became good friends during college. Both English majors, Brad was determined to become the American theater's next Eugene O'Neill, while Danny aspired to be a novelist, perhaps another David Foster Wallace. They had already been roommates for a year or two when they decided to leave Indiana and move to Chicago and get an apartment there. It seemed like the logical choice for two young men with the kinds of artistic dreams that they had, to move to the nearest big city. It was teeming with life, after all, with all of the many different varieties of human existence contained within its boundaries. A bottomless mine of drama, tragedy, and comedy for the two young aspiring writers.
But dreams float away, sooner or later. Eventually, Danny ended up moving back to Indiana to marry Kris, his college sweetheart. His dad got him a job as a long distance truck driver for the same shipping and logistics outfit that he himself had been working at for some decades. Danny and Kris raised four beautiful children.
Brad remained in the city and he eventually married as well, and ended up becoming a financial analyst. The necessity of keeping a household afloat eventually outweighed his literary ambitions after he and his wife, Diana, had a son. During Brad's last visit with Danny in the hospital in Chicago, it had occurred to them that Danny's only son was the same age as Brad's son. They realized that the two young men had never met--
Brad's train of thought was suddenly broken by a small herd of deer that broke through the mist. They darted across the road right in front of him. He let out a helpless yell as he slammed on the brakes, which he did just a split second too late. For though it briefly seemed that the entire herd had managed to get across without making any contact with Brad's Jeep, granting him a fleeting moment of relief, the front end collided with one lone and very big straggler bringing up the rear of the herd, as if the big boy had just suddenly materialized out of the air, right in front of the vehicle.
Brad saw the deer fly over the front of the car, as if into the sky above. Stunned, he cautiously pulled over to the side of the road as the Jeep limped to a stop. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel for a minute.
"...Your black cards can make you money
So you hide them when you're able,
In the land of milk and honey,
You must put them on the table.
"Yeah, you go back, Jack, do it again..."*
Brad shut off the radio. He eventually worked up the courage to step out and inspect the damage. He grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment.
The front end was completely smashed in. The radiator hissed as it bled fluid onto the cold November ground. Its peculiarly sweet, syrupy odor wafted into Brad's nostrils.
"Smells like failure," he muttered to himself.
He then walked to the rear of the vehicle and cast his flashlight's beam down the road. It illuminated the deceased deer lying on the ground about twenty feet away. Half of it was blocking part of the road. He decided to walk up to the cervine carcass for a closer inspection.
Brad didn't know much about deer, but he was fairly certain that it was a buck. Its head was disjointed at some odd angle that Brad didn't know was even possible, so that it seemed as if the animal had just turned its head to look right at Brad. Its two brown glassy eyes stared blankly into his.
Brad reached into his right pants pocket, where he usually kept his mobile, but he found nothing there. He tried the other pocket, but it wasn't in that one, either. Thinking that he must have left it in the Jeep, he walked back to it and got into the driver's seat. The flashlight revealed that there was no mobile in the little nook by the gear shift where he normally kept it while driving. He turned on the overhead light for some extra illumination. He searched all over the front seats. No dice. He opened the glove compartment. Nothing.
What the hell did I do with my phone? Now frantic, Brad beamed the flashlight all over the floor, on both ends of the Jeep, front and back. He shoved his hand down the crevices of all the seats in the vehicle.
It then dawned on him that he must have left it at Lance's house.
Lance was another old college friend, who Brad saw at the memorial service. They ended up back at Lance's house after the graveside ceremony. Lance's wife was out of town for some sort of getaway with friends. They ended up sharing some of Lance's whiskey, and they reminisced about old times. Brad recalled pulling out his mobile at one point to text Diana, to let her know that he was probably going to be getting back home late. He was now fairly certain that the alcohol had heightened his usual absent mindedness and that he must have left Lance's house without grabbing his mobile.
He stepped out of the Jeep and looked down the road. There was no sign of any traffic from either direction. What the hell am I going to do now? he wondered.
He walked back to the dead deer. He felt some inexplicable need to get a better look at the poor dead creature. He got down on his haunches and he shined his flashlight right into the animal's vacant eyes. He had no idea what he expected to find, but there wasn't anything lurking in the pair of brown marbles that revealed itself to him. He stood back up.
As he pondered his options, Brad thought he caught a glimpse of some sort of shadowy figure moving in the woods. He directed the flashlight's beam through the dark trees.
"Hello?" he called out. He was hoping that it was a nearby resident who had perhaps heard his accident and came out to investigate. Maybe they would help him. He waited a few seconds for an answer before calling out again.
"Who's there?"
His flashlight's beam caught a glimpse of the shadowy figure moving once again in the midst of the trees. Brad cautiously advanced closer, until he was just about at the edge of the woods.
"Hello?"
It suddenly occurred to him--Who the hell is skulking about in the woods at this time of night? Maybe it isn't a helpful person. What if...what if...it's...a BAD person?
The shadow seemed to loom larger and larger as it stalked through the trees toward Brad. For a brief moment, it seemed to him that it was a grizzly bear that was lumbering towards him. Suddenly gripped with fear, Brad stumbled backwards a few paces.
The figure finally stepped out of the trees and into the open clearing and moonlight, and stopped right in front of Brad.
It was no grizzly bear. It was Danny. Danny stopped and just stood where he was, as alive as ever. He smiled broadly at Brad.
Brad nearly stopped breathing. How much did I actually drink? It was only a couple of whiskeys, wasn't it? Dazed, blinking, Brad stumbled back a few more paces.
"Hey, Brad! What's up?"
"Danny? What the...what the hell, man?"
"What?"
"Aren't you...dead?"
Danny thought to himself for a moment before he replied. "Yeah...yeah, I guess I am dead, right?"
"So what are you doing here, if you are in fact dead?"
Danny reflected for a moment, then said, "That is an excellent question, Brad." Brad hadn't even noticed that Danny had been holding a bottle of beer in his hand until he lifted it to his mouth to drink.
"Where did you get the beer?" asked Brad.
"Um...I don't remember, actually," replied Danny, holding up the bottle for a close examination.
"They handed you a beer when you got to the pearly gates?"
Danny chuckled. "You know what? Yeah, I think that is what happened, now that I think of it. I just strode up to the gateway of heaven, and St. Peter handed me a beer. I think he even said, 'Welcome to the party, son.'"
Brad laughed. "I am so sorry to see you go, you son of a bitch."
"So what seems to be the problem here?" asked Danny.
"Well, I hit a deer on my way home."
Danny walked up to the lifeless creature to get a good look at it. "Hell, that's a buck, Brad. Nice shot."
"Gosh, thanks, Danny, but I wasn't out deer hunting. I was driving home. And now my front end is all messed up."
"Or maybe that's a stag," said Danny. "That could be a stag. I forget how you tell the difference."
"It's, what, two, two-thirty in the morning?" asked Brad. "I'm stuck out here in the Indiana countryside, nobody around for miles. What the hell am I going to do?"
"Don't you have a mobile?"
"I think I left it at Lance's house."
"Ah, well, that sucks," said Danny. "How is Lance doing these days?"
"Okay, I guess. Hasn't changed much. What the hell am I going to do, Danny?"
"Ah, don't worry. You'll be fine."
"I'll be fine?"
"Yeah, you'll be fine. Everything will work out alright."
Brad looked at Danny for a long moment. "I don't know, Danny," he said. "I don't feel very fine about much of anything these days. Things aren't exactly so great in my world. This situation is just the latest cock-up."
"What are you talking about?" asked Danny. "You've got a great wife, a great job, a great kid..."
"Yeah, it all sounds good, the way you put it. Real nice. But it all keeps getting more and more complicated as the years go on. A hell of a lot more complicated. I'm always asking myself how my life got so complicated, and I can never come up with an answer."
"Brad. Look at me."
"I am looking at you."
"No. Really, really look at me." Brad looked deeply into Danny's eyes.
"Everything is going to be okay," said Danny. "You're going to be just fine. Trust me, okay? Whatever it is that's going on in your life right now, whatever challenges or problems that you're having, just...have some faith, brother."
There was suddenly a howl not too far off in the distance. Brad walked a little in the direction of where it was coming from. There was another howl, even louder and longer than the last one.
"Holy crap," said Brad. "Was that a coyote? I don't think I've ever--"
He turned around to face Danny, but he was gone. Brad called out, "Danny?" He walked up and down the road, and to the edge of the forest, calling out Danny's name, but there was no answer.
As he stood off by the side of the dark country road, asking himself if he was losing his mind or perhaps just a little drunk, a pair of headlights suddenly appeared in the distance. Brad stood frozen where he was as the approach of the headlights slowed down to a crawl, and a F-150 pick-up pulled over beside him.
A rather tall, large man stepped out of the driver's side of the cab. He was dressed in camouflage from head to toe, with a bright orange vest adorning his torso. His gaze was fixed on the dead deer that laid still on the ground about twenty or thirty feet away. The man barely acknowledged Brad when he stepped out, granting him only a fleeting nod. He walked straight to the dead animal. Brad cautiously trailed behind him.
Brad observed the man as he kneeled down to inspect the recently deceased. The man gently felt the creature's antlers with his gloved fingers. He then lifted the creature's chin and looked closely for about twenty or thirty seconds, after which he stood up and slowly walked around to the other side of the carcass.
"You keeping it?" the man asked Brad.
"Beg your pardon?" asked Brad.
"I assume you're the one who killed it, correct?"
"Yes, by accident. A herd of deer just...bolted across the road right in front of me--"
"Don't matter how it happened. A kill is a kill. You going to keep it?"
"Um, no. I wasn't planning on taking it anywhere."
"You sure? This here is an 8-point buck, my friend."
"I'm sure. I'm not a hunter. I don't even live around here."
"You mind if I take it?"
"Sure," answered Brad. "I mean, no. I don't mind at all. Have at it."
The man smiled. "Thanks, man. Appreciate it."
"No problem. All I ask is that you call a tow truck for me. Hitting that buck pretty much decimated my front end, and I've apparently lost my cell phone somewhere."
"Sure thing, friend," said the man as he pulled his phone out of a pocket and started dialing. "And I can do you one better. I know a guy who has an auto repair shop in town. He'll get you fixed up at a discount."
"Oh, that would be great. Thank you."
"There's a motel in town, too, if you don't have a place to stay while you get your car fixed. The vacancy sign was lit up when I drove by there a little bit ago. I know the night clerk working tonight. She can set you up. She's a sweet little gal."
Brad thanked the man profusely. The man, who introduced himself as Lucas, waited with him for the tow truck to show up. Lucas then gave Brad a lift to the motel that Lucas had mentioned earlier. He regaled Brad with a rather detailed story about a hunting trip he had just taken up north to Michigan's Upper Peninsula with a bunch of buddies, but it had turned out to be a bust. Nobody had managed to bag anything, and a couple of the men were starting to take out their frustrations on the others. Lucas decided to bail out of the trip early and was nearly home when he encountered Brad and his deceased buck.
"But isn't that something? Off on a hunting trip in the U-P for three or four days, couldn't hit diddly-squat, then I'm driving home at about, what, three o'clock in the morning, and lo and behold, I come across a dead 8-point buck off the side of the road, just lying there as ready for the taking as you please, only six or seven miles from my house." Lucas laughed. "I mean, isn't that something? I don't know if they call that a coincidence, or synchronicity, or what, but it sure is weird, isn't it? I guess it really can be like what the good book says, 'seek and ye shall find.' But hell, sometimes you don't even have to seek! You can just stumble right across it when your mind is somewhere else."
Sitting in the cab of Lucas' truck as it barreled down a country road in northern Indiana, just a few hours before daybreak, Brad smiled at Lucas' observation. For a brief moment, he thought he caught a glimpse of Danny in the rear view mirror, as if he was riding along in the truck's bed. Danny had a great big ear-to-ear grin on his face as he hoisted a bottle of beer, as if in a toast to Brad. Startled, Brad quickly turned around to look through the cab's rear window.
But Danny was gone.
______________________________________________________________________________
*Copyright 1972 by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker
