The Orange Salamander describes a small-town mystery, but ‘small-town mystery’ is as conventional as the story’s description gets. If you mixed a hard-boiled crime story with a cyberpunk novel, and asked a non-writer to write it, The Orange Salamander is what you might get.
The sound of waves crashing against the beach repeats every 42 seconds. Less than a minute and a seagull squawks again.
I could measure time easily if the pattern repeated every 60 seconds. Instead: 42, 84, 126. Two minutes gone. Forever.
I reach up, turn off the machine. Without ocean sounds, I can’t sleep. Is my conscience heavy? No, I’m just masking the sounds of town.
No ocean nearby. No seagulls. Just students, dogs, drunks. I like the first two, tolerate the third. It’s my sensitive side.
Millhaven: rural college town, miles from the big city. Locals, immigrants, newcomers, students. Four towns: unshaken, unstirred.
I live downtown, above the Agneau Grille, a Tunisian restaurant. Tasty lamb requires no passport.
Restaurants, bars, small shops behind aging facades. Banners welcoming returning students, faded flyers in windows.
Outside, cool autumn air. Cigarette butts on sidewalk – tokens of indifference, rebellion. I smile, lighting a Lucky Strike.
A fat man walks by, eyeing a bakery’s cherry pie. The bakers are brothers, nicknamed the Pie Men. They do everything together.
A scone and a cup of kona to go. Real kona, but Hawaiian means something else to the Pie Men, Ronnie and Donnie. They seem almost sober.
How are you, Ronnie asks. We saw Sophie. Ex-wife number two, back on campus after sabbatical. His way of warning me. Thanks.
The mayor walks in. Our first mayor, first term. Gray hair, gray suit, blue tie, blue blood of Millhaven’s hue. Pale blue, watercolor.
The mayor glances dismissively my way. He opposed the office, ran when we adopted it, will rely on apathy to hold it. Not a bad bet.
Part-time mayor, full-time defender of convention, tradition, propriety. Private club manners, if the club’s small, decaying, dull.
We’re a town without left or right – incumbency is the only political party. Get office, justify conduct, keep office. Our way, since forever.
People drift to work, starting early to end early. Local notables pass outside, the mayor leaves, to make Millhaven more orderly
Lyons, the university president for a decade, passes – a smug and subtle cheerleader Does what town fathers ask Considers student silence golden
Phil Bartram, city planning consultant, here a year, seems longer Thinks a half-Windsor’s a short arisocrat Crush on Felicia the MBA
Felicia the MBA, of the college-city-business task force We’ve a task force for every issue incumbents won’t tackle Say, 8 or 9, minimum
City workers hang a banner across Main Street with Millhaven’s logo and a new slogan: We’ll Make Our Way Your Way – Just You Wait!
Last real danger was two years ago, ending in capture and commitment of Loretta a.k.a. ‘Lottie the Psycho’ Only caught after confession on live TV
Since Lottie, garden variety crime and administrative mediocrity are enjoying an extended run before packed houses each night
Felicia the MBA: friends with ex-wife #2, still cordial Smart, hard-working, clever What we’d like to be if we stopped insisting we already were
Elderly Betty Crockman walks by Called Betty Crock o’ for her b.s. Sure she hears God’s voice in her own humble opinions
I step inside Felicia’s office She looks concerned Have you ever seen something like this? she asks, as she pushes a small metal case toward me
Small pewter box, unmarked Inside: orange plastic salamander & note, folded in thirds
The note: ‘Walk Swim More Talk Write More Never a Chore’ Notebook paper, cut unevenly, folded awkwardly
Odd handwriting in blue ink Confident, bold Spoof? Mental patient? Politician? All possibilities
Felicia asks me what it means I don’t know Unusual acquaintances? Anyone/anything different? She stares back at me
Salamander left at her office door this morning I take the items, head to my place to ponder The Clergyman drives past
Clergyman: If gossip were Doctrine, he’d be a bishop Scurries for info like a pigeon for breadcrumbs, hoping for bits to drop
My apt: bdrm, lr, den books computer dog-crap DSL connection parrot named Ludwig Scandinavian austerity
All my ex-wives use Microsoft – justification for annulment Only Apple here No crashes OS X boots fast, Safari ready
Search of note’s message – nothing but Irrelevant, Unlikely Google, deep web nothing Lyrics? Poem? Stoner talk? Why now? Why Felicia?
Note’s meaning? Walk, Swim More – salamanders walk & swim, what more? Orange ones live in Midwest, in forest streams
‘Talk Write More’ What’s more? Read, publish, photograph, film? Handwriting’s bold, in blue ink
Toy salamander’s made in China, like toys, textiles, government corruption, dissidents People’s Republic mass produces everything
Notebook paper, cut from a composition book, wide ruled Pewter box has no other contents
Library visit: small, modern, expanding A book on salamanders, few on amphibians On the shelf, a book not listed online: Salamanders and You
Unlisted salamander book: page 12, in margin, bold blue marker: ‘Not old books, but new pages, form the plan’
2 Millhaven clues: salamander & note, marginalia in library book. Plan, plot, mystery.
If a plan, then a planner. Phil the city consultant? Crush on Felicia the MBA. Time for a visit.
Phil’s office: shambles, papers everywhere, wrapper from yesterday’s egg salad on rye, half-eaten pickle, gum, few scattered trading cards
Phil’s books: dictionary, directory, Time, Newsweek, Government’s Your Co-Pilot, Zoning for Social Control, Pride in Planning, Farmers’ Almanac
Could Phil the planner have left the salamander with Felicia? I scan his office – no hint of nature-loving in him.
Will you be at the community meeting? Phil asks Yes, I reply Felicia will coordinate it, I observe Phil looks up, about to speak
Small-talk with Phil. Nothing unusual about him, unless one correctly concludes that planning others’ lives is unusual
He’s downcast, and volunteers that Felicia hasn’t returned his voicemail from last week
No one ever hears from Phil, he has a poor feel for the community, and the one person he calls doesn’t know he’s alive
I wonder: What is it with all the screwball weirdos in this town sending each other salamanders and ill-timed birthday cards?
In other places, people see ghosts, or werewolves, or Bigfoot Not a single extraterrestrial – it’s 100% terrestrial weirdness in Millhaven
Outside, I see the Millhaven police chief’s latest energy-saver: a three-wheeled cart powered by a human cyclist, like an old ice cream cart
Police carts debuted last month Uniformed officers, horn, lights & message banner: Community policing – We’re green to save you green
Millhaven’s four towns: locals, students, immigrants, newcomers Immigrants are newcomers, but some locals see a distinction
Immigrants came as migrant workers, now stay as factory laborers Over 10% of town, but official statistics undercount
Who’d come to America to send a toy salamander? Weirdness like this is homegrown, isn’t it?
Students, locals, newcomers? How about a campus visit, to see if someone there might have a message for Felicia? Administration first.
Lyons has been college president for years Dislikes student activism Attends any local society party
Felicia’s smart, assertive, industrious – too much of these for Lyons’s taste, whose favorite person stares back from a mirror
Baxter, the Director of Administrative Direction? Unlikely – no one ever sees him, or knows what he does
Jane Crowton, the Director of Counseling, famous for the ‘Words Hurt’ campaign for speech restrictions on campus? Maybe
I’ll visit the anti-speech Jane Crowton – who hates me since I pointed out she was a narrow scold – to see what she might say
Counseling Director Crowton’s at her desk, proposed new speech code -HUSH – Help the University Silence Hate – before her
Crowton’s examples of hate speech – Racism, Sexism, Capitalism, Masculinism, Growthism, Meatism, Petroleumism, Expressionism, Individualism
She’s no ordinary progressive – Jane Crowton’s a defender of all things status quo in Millhaven as they were, are, and must always be
Crowton serves on city committees, runs interference for appointees and entrenched incumbents, justifies municipal policy at every turn
Crowton looks at me as though I were something the cat brought in – What do you want? So I ask: Ever send anyone a toy salamander?