drawn by something within themselves.’
‘I see. Look, if you’ll give me a minute, I’m going to try to explain a couple of things, because you’re the only person who might not think I’m crazy. Have you ever heard the expression, “Things are out of kilter in Johnson County”? It’s something my mother used to say.’
‘My wife uses it, her family have been here for generations. I actually looked it up once, kilter means in good condition. So out of kilter means that things are not in good condition, though there are more sinister interpretations having to do with death and otherworldliness.’
He took a deep breath. I could hear a rumbling behind him, like eighteen-wheelers groaning into traffic.
‘I think someone—something—is playing a really nasty trick on me. I believe things are out of kilter in Johnson County, and, for whatever reasons, that out-of-kilterness has followed me like tin cans behind a wedding car.’
Across the room, Annie used one hand to pass our daughter Karin a brown-bagged lunch, while she poured coffee for us with the other. I could hear the twins, smaller versions of Karin and Annie, rattling about in the dining room. I stretched the cord from the wall phone, pulling its whiteness taut as a baseline, until I was able to sit at the kitchen table. If I let go of the receiver it would slam against the wall as if propelled from a slingshot.
‘Did you hear me?’ asked Joe McCoy.
‘I’m thinking,’ I replied.
And I was. Joe McCoy’s words struck a very strong chord with me. I remembered how I had felt when, during one sweet, soft Iowa sunset, a voice said to me, ‘If you build it, he will come,’ and I knew instinctively that I was meant to build a baseball diamond in my cornfield.
‘Did someone tell you to do all the things you’ve done in the past few weeks?’ I asked. ‘Have you been following instructions?’
‘Not exactly. But no one’s told me not to do what I’ve done. The thing is, no matter what the newspapers, especially the tabloids, say about me, nothing I’ve done has been in character.’
I had never acted irresponsibly until I heard the voice. I had been unsuccessful, yes, but not deliberately irresponsible. If inexplicable events could happen to me they could happen to someone else whose roots were in Johnson County, Iowa.
‘Are you telling me you’re innocent? You didn’t kidnap a baby? You’re not on the run? You didn’t hijack …?’
‘Not exactly. It’s a long story.’
‘And you want to tell it to me?’
‘I’d like to.’
Karin, smelling like fresh ironing, kisses me on the cheek and bounds out the door, the screen slamming like a shot after her. Karin has her mother’s red hair, green eyes, and ten million freckles.
‘I don’t think you should come out here,’ I said, not wanting the perfection of my life threatened.
‘I don’t intend to. I’m … I’m grasping at straws. I heard that unusual things happened with time out there … at your farm. Things concerning baseball … I played baseball, you know. Major-league baseball.’
‘I know.’
‘Will you meet me in town? In Iowa City?’
I watched Karin skip off toward the road and the school bus. Yogi Berra, her brindle cat, walked after her in stately procession, his tail raised straight in the air like a beacon, knowing that his advanced age wouldn’t permit him to keep up with her, but if the bus were even a half-minute late, Yogi would arrive at the road in time to be petted before Karin left for the day.
‘Where?’
‘Pearson’s Drug Store. The soda fountain.’
‘That’s an awfully public place. You’re a fugitive. You’re known in this area. You come from Lone Tree, don’t you?’
‘Ray, one of the reasons I know something is out of sync, is that even though I’m at the top of the Most Wanted List, even though there are rewards for my capture that must total a half-million dollars, even though my picture has been on TV at least once a day for weeks and weeks, I don’t think I could get arrested if I walked into a police station with a sign around my neck saying, “Check the 10 Most Wanted List! I’m Joe McCoy!” If I did, someone at the police station would create a diversion, and eventually I’d get thrown out for loitering. I get the impression that either I’m invisible or every cop in the United States is dumber than a duffel bag.’
‘Pearson’s in an hour,’ I said.
‘I’m going to invite someone else, if that’s all right?’
‘Who?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Then how can I approve or disapprove?’
‘You can’t.’
‘Pearson’s in an hour.’ I hung up.
‘Who?’ asked Annie, plunking herself and a cup of coffee down at the table. ‘Whew! It’s gonna be a hot one,’ and she wiped her red curls back off her forehead.
‘Joe McCoy,’ I said.
‘You’re gonna meet him at Pearson’s?’
I nodded.
‘But he’s wanted for everything except … I can’t think of anything he isn’t wanted for. What if there’s a shootout?’
‘There won’t be.’
‘But why meet him? Why don’t you just call the police?’
‘I don’t think he’s really dangerous. He just wants to talk.’
‘You don’t have to call the police. I will.’
‘No.’
‘What did he say to convince you to see him?’
‘He thinks there’s something odd about all the things that have happened to him lately, that he isn’t exactly in control of his life.’
‘But what can you do for him?’
‘I don’t know, but if you recall, I have a little experience in not being entirely in control, and in dealing with magic …’
‘You didn’t kidnap a baby. Maybe he’s kidnapped the girl who’s traveling with him, too. What’s her name? Francie Bly?’
‘Annie, I took a gun when I drove off to New Hampshire looking for J.D. Salinger. And I did kidnap Jerry, though I didn’t use the gun. Maybe Joe McCoy is not entirely in control of what’s happening.’
‘But hasn’t Joe McCoy always been kind of a troublemaker?’
‘According to some.’
I was surprised to hear myself defending Joe McCoy, but then I remember the opinions of neighbors, God-fearing, generous, hard-working, but unable to grasp eccentricity, watching me plow under a portion of my corn in order to build a baseball field proposed by a disembodied voice.
‘Don’t forget the flack we took about me building the baseball field out there.’
‘I’ll never forget that!’ says Annie.
‘Remember when I spent the last of our savings to buy the lawn tractor? You were the only person in the world who didn’t think I was crazy.’
‘Who said I didn’t think you were crazy?’
Annie reaches across the table and squeezes my hand, the smile in her green eyes letting me know she didn’t think I was crazy then, or now, in spite of what people say or think. Annie is one in a million,