Vanishing Point

K. Huebner

They came down from the hills one day in an old green station
wagon, with curtains in the windows and dents in the fenders. No
one could remember how long they had been gone; they only
said “We were staying in a trailer in an apple orchard; it was
beautiful in the spring.” The woman’s watch didn’t work
anymore and she was thinking about having it fixed, so they
drove their station wagon into town and parked it by the central
fountain where there were a great many tulips and some peculiar
municipal sculptures. All of their old friends appeared pleased to
see them, and one person, a man called Max, said “Are you
staying long? You’re welcome to spend the night in our spare
bedroom.”
They accepted the offer, and that evening went to his house. It
was a building of medium size, larger than seemed strictly
necessary for a couple without children or other dependents, but
neatly furnished with wrought-iron lawn furniture and few
ornaments. The bedroom was more opulently fitted with printed
India hangings and futons; the dining room table had as a
centerpiece an obese pottery dwarf with a red and white spotted
Originally published in Forbidden Lines 7
cap just like an Amanita.
“How interesting,” said the woman, whose name was Pauline.
“You used to live quite differently. Where did you get the
dwarf?”
“Oh, I stole that one night from a lawn down the block,” said
their host, serving them each a slab a tofu. “As for the rest, it’s
largely my wife’s influence. I don’t think you’ve met her; she’s
gone to Boston for a master class in dance therapy.”
“Indeed,” said the woman. She poked her tofu with a fork and
saw it shudder, glistening like an albino slug.

In the morning, Pauline and her companion took the stopped

watch to a Timex store for repairs. The salesman shook and
examined the watch, and set it down on the glass counter. “It’s
got demons in it,” he said. “We’ll have to lure them out with a
piece of cheese before we can assess the damage.”
“That’s terrible,” remarked Pauline’s companion Gunter.
“What if they don’t like cheese?”
“Oh, they like cheese all right,” said the clerk, “nothing better.
The question is, which kind of cheese?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it used to be that the kind of demons who would
inhabit a Timex were perfectly content with Velveeta,” said the
clerk, “but these days you never know. They might not touch
anything but Roquefort and Brie, or they might insist on Gjetost
with butter.”
“Not even a demon would put butter on Gjetost,” said
Pauline.
“Not even a demon would eat Gjetost,” said her companion.
“You never know, with demons,” said the clerk. “That’s one
of the reasons we’re very fortunate in our location: there’s a
Hickory Farms next door and they give free samples. We keep a
few pieces of the more ordinary sorts of cheese in our
refrigerator, but nowadays there’s no telling what supplies might
be needed from day to day.”
“This sounds extremely complex,” said Gunter. “I wasn’t
aware that one had to have a degree in demonology to fix
watches. Maybe it would be cheaper just to get a new watch.”

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Huebner: Vanishing Point

“Maybe,” said Pauline, “but I’ve never seen a watch exorcised

and I’m longing to see it done.”
“We’ll try the Velveeta first,” said the clerk with a hint of
condescension; “it’s cheaper. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be just a
moment.” He disappeared through a swinging door, exactly like
a shoe salesman, and returned with a foil-wrapped hunk of
Velveeta.
“Here, we’ll try this on for size. It’s important not to let them
get at the whole cheese,” he said as he pared away a sliver. “They
might become aroused and ravenous, and their actions
unpredictable. The best thing to do is to simply lay the cheese
beside the watch, close enough for them to inhale its scent yet
not so intimately that the watch becomes greasy—”
There was no reaction whatever from either the watch or the
cheese.
“They probably overheard you talking about Brie and are
afraid of seeming crass,” remarked Gunter. “Any minute now
they’ll demand a tour of Hickory Farms.”
“Highly unlikely,” said the clerk icily. “Even if they did, it
wouldn’t cost you anything to stroll down the aisle accepting free
samples. Even the acting ability required would be minor.”
The owner of the watch looked annoyed, for she had once
acted minor roles in a number of minor plays, all of which had
required only minor ability. “Try the Swiss on them,” she said,
like a Roman empress commanding the Christians to the lions.
“They’ll be wanting Gorgonzola next,” said Gunter.
But the clerk set a chunk of Swiss with full, well-defined holes
beside the watch, and almost immediately, with only the slightest
hesitation for, perhaps, species identification, the cheese
vanished.
“Aha!” said the clerk, seizing the watch and marking a large X
on its face with a black grease pencil. “That’ll fix them!”
“What have you put on my watch?” demanded Pauline.
“A cootie shot, of course,” said the clerk. “There must be
some means of preventing them from returning to the watch, and
cootie shots are by far the simplest method.”
3
 “I haven’t had a cootie shot since I was ten years old,” said
Pauline, “but I can’t say I’ve seen any sign of demonic
possession.”
“On the contrary,” said Gunter, “when you put away childish
things you put away cootie shots, whereupon you were promptly
ravaged by adolescence. What could be more demonic than
that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps adulthood.”
The clerk evinced no interest in her personal history and
development. “The repairs should be completed by Thursday,”
he said. He dropped the watch into a white gift box, closed the
lid, and secreted it in a drawer.

The heat of the afternoon was beginning to rise from the asphalt
as they returned to the station wagon.
“I want to buy that car,” said Pauline suddenly, stuffing the
receipt for the watch into her pocket. The car in question was a
glossy black Alfa with impeccable leather upholstery; it had
everything except its turn signals.
“Don’t you think it might be expensive?” said Gunter.
“Oh, that’s entirely beside the point,” said Pauline. “What it
needs, though, is a ‘For Sale’ sign.”
She went to the station wagon and located a piece of white
shirt cardboard under a pile of army blankets. Writing the words
‘For Sale’ in bold black print, she placed it in the window of the
Alfa.
“It wants only one thing,” she said critically as she viewed the
effect. “It has no phone number.”
“A local number is best,” said Gunter. “574 is a nice prefix.”
“Yes, 574-0102... Now we must make a note of it,” said
Pauline, removing a small green book from Gunter’s pocket.
“Otherwise I might forget.”

On Thursday, the day that the watch was to be ready, Pauline

said “Give me your green notebook; I must call about the black
Alfa.”
“Oh, must you really?” said Gunter, handing her the
notebook. “Are you sure that it’s necessary?”

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Huebner: Vanishing Point

“Oh yes,” said she. “It is very important that I get the black
Alfa before someone else snaps it up.”
“But what if you can’t afford it?” said Gunter.
“I don’t think it will be too expensive; after all, there are very
few things in life that I can’t handle.”
There was a policeman standing across the road observing the
station wagon, so she opened the back gate and changed her shirt
for one of a violent red and white Hawaiian pattern. The
policeman hurried away.
“You see,” she said, “he is not going to arrest us for vagrancy
after all.” Then she got out of the station wagon and located a
phone booth, where she stood on one leg like a flamingo and
dialed, with a kind of careful abandon, the number 574-0102.
The connection rang twice, then was lifted. “You’re calling
about the black Alfa,” said the voice on the other end.
“Yes,” said Pauline.
“At four o’clock you must bring your watch and put it next to
the fire hydrant where the car is parked.”
“Yes,” said Pauline.
The line went dead, and she returned to Gunter, who was
lounging in the back of the station wagon eating a sandwich.
“How much?” he inquired.
“My watch,” she said. “At four o’clock.”
“What about the DMV?” he asked.
“Extraneous,” she said.
“I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Believe me,” said Pauline vigorously. “Do you think I am
stupid?”
“Sometimes,” said Gunter.

They went to pick up the watch at the Timex store; Pauline

carried it for a while in the paper sack in which the clerk had
placed it, and then handed it to Gunter, who put it in his pocket.
They wandered down a number of streets, some busy and
commercial with the traffic of the less prestigious businesses, and
some the older residential districts where the trees were broad
5
and the houses had oriel or diamond windows. They halted to
investigate one yard, flanked by two of abundant flowers and
foliage, which was geometrically laid out in sections of white rock,
red lava, and concrete stepping stones. There were other red and
white yards in the neighborhood, but this one was ornamented
with twenty or forty sticks of driftwood planted in the rocks and
poking up into the air like a series of antlers.
“I’ve never seen the like,” said Gunter appreciatively. “Do you
think that there can be anything to equal it in all the town?”
At this point a woman clad in gardening clothes emerged from
one of the neighboring gates.
“I knew it was you,” she remarked, her trowel in her hand.
“Come and have a cup of tea. I knew you would show up sooner
or later.”
This woman’s name was Katya; she was the former lover of
both Gunter and Pauline. Her smooth black hair fell to her
shoulders as they followed her along the garden path to the
kitchen, evoking endless memories under the lilacs and
bougainvilleas that overflowed the walk. No one might guess
precisely what passed in her mind, but she was renowned both
for her acuity and her tenderness.
She heated water in the tiled kitchen between garlands of
garlic, and then led them back into the garden to a rickety table.
“You have lived in the hills,” she said, pouring the tea from a
chipped pot. The matter-of-fact sensuality of her hands and
bosom recalled to them their former lives, which they did not,
however, discuss.
“Of course,” said Pauline. “There are orchards and forests in
the hills.”
“And ravines,” remarked Katya, handing them their cups.
“There have always been murders in the mountains.” She
smiled. “There are too many people there who have had trouble
with PCP and who are too fond of their hunting knives and
shotguns.”
“That’s only common knowledge,” said Pauline. “But murders
don’t interest me. Tell Gunter; he reads murder mysteries and
sensational news items.”
“As many as I can get my hands on,” said he. “I have become

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Huebner: Vanishing Point

terribly well-educated that way—I know now that the Russians

have conferences with extra-terrestrial aliens and that the best way
not to mass-murdered is to hide in a well-stocked clothes closet.”
“I don’t know anyone with a well-stocked clothes closet,” said
Pauline. “But I have a watch that was recently infested with
demons.”
The watch was brought out for Katya to look at, but she only
laughed. “You have a lot to learn and a long way to go,” she said.
“Maybe,” said Pauline, “but I’ll be going in style. This
afternoon I am going to buy myself a black Alfa.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” said Katya with a smile. “In a place
like this, a woman without a car is like a man without a cock.”
But she herself had no car.
“It is a wonderful car,” said Pauline. “It has no turn signals.
After all, no one has ever known how I will turn out.”
“Just so long as you can still turn,” said Katya. “Take care of
your directions and don’t forget your altimeter when you drive.”
And she began to talk about the hills again, baiting Pauline good-
naturedly if not altogether kindly about their dangers and
implying that Pauline was of a wild and headstrong nature: “Of
course, there are bears out there, and wildcats, neither of which I
am personally afraid of except in a purely physical sense, but I
wonder if Pauline is afraid of anything at all.”
“Except herself,” threw in Gunter.
“I am not afraid of myself,” said Pauline angrily. “You like to
imagine that I have more flaws than normal to accompany my
strengths. I am no more afraid of myself than anyone else—” she
looked at Katya— “Think of the times when I kissed you under
the blooming cherry trees in the evening, of how we pressed our
breasts together in the dusk and desired the hills as much as each
other, how we watched them darken in their green and become
fully mysterious black humps. I am not afraid of the hills and not
afraid of myself; I am not afraid of my actions nor of black Alfas
without turn signals.”
“And yet...” said Katya. And the eyes of all three suddenly
became almost complicitous.
7
 But at four o’clock Pauline was insistent that she must take her
watch and go get the Alfa. Gunter accompanied her as they
returned to the station wagon, where she exchanged her saddle
shoes for a pair of sky blue satin flats and emptied her pockets of
all notes, kleenexes, and identification papers. Then they walked
to the fire hydrant where the Alfa reposed, gleaming and secretly
winking, with not a single ticket on its windscreen.
“There it is,” said Pauline with an answering gleam in her eye,
like a seductive and proprietary woman before an idol.
“Yes indeed,” said Gunter, running his hand through his hair.
Pauline placed her watch in the shade of the fire hydrant,
stood up, and flashed a smile in no particular direction. Then she
swung open the door to the driver’s seat and leapt in like an
animal.
She sank into the smooth and fragrant leather; she settled
herself in the seat and checked the dials. There was no clock, but
there was, as Katya had suggested, an altimeter.
“I am going to take a trial run,” she called to Gunter as she
started the engine and put her foot on the gas. The sound of the
engine was almost heavenly.
“Don’t let me stop you,” said Gunter as she went by.
“Oh no,” she laughed, “I wouldn’t!” And he watched her sail
down the street towards the open countryside, gaining speed as
she went.
She disappeared then, vanishing into the air down the road:
there was not even a puff of dust to mark where she had been.
“Oh Pauline,” said Gunter as he gazed at her vanishing point,
“you have forgotten your watch...” But the watch was a
dysfunctional as before.

END