Where’s Danny?
by Howard E. Vogl
I looked up from a spartan chrome desk at the cold winter light slicing through the empty showroom. A quick glance over my shoulder told me the manager wasn’t around. Alone, I flipped open my laptop and went to Zillow, a pastime I engaged in whenever sales at the dealership were slow.
Dragging the map across the screen, I navigated to the east side of Buffalo, where I had lived as a child. An old two-story on North Ogden Street for sale caught my eye. It was the house where my childhood friend Danny lived. At least until he disappeared.
“Not going to sell any vehicles that way.”
I spun to see the manager’s pockmarked face.
“Just curious. It’s slow and I thought—”
“If you were thinking you’d be studying the specifications of the vehicles we have in inventory, in case a sale walks in.”
Satisfied, he clopped over to assault a co-worker examining her nails. I pulled up the list of vehicles but, after a few minutes, I drifted back to the house on North Ogden and scrolled through photos of the interior. At the basement, I paused. It was the place where Danny and I played board games to pass the cold winter days. A musty chill engulfed me as the memory of Danny’s empty desk at school came into focus.
* * *
The January sale interrupted my thoughts of the house and Danny. People milled about the showroom kicking tires and rounding their backs to check window stickers. I was sitting in the passenger seat of a luxury SUV trying to close a deal when that musty chill returned. The dashboard of the SUV dissolved, and I was back in the basement with Danny. We were playing Monopoly when the furnace kicked on. I slid closer to warm myself and bumped into the shelves tucked into a small alcove next to the furnace. Six wooden planks crammed with knickknacks, empty mason jars, and boxes draped in cobwebs.
“I like it, but you’ll have to do better,” a voice said.
I turned to see a green and white striped polo shirt stuffed behind the steering wheel.
“Do what?”
“The price, man. What do you think I mean?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, getting out.
I led him over to the office and went back to my desk. Then I scrolled through pictures of the house until I came to the basement. The shelves were gone, and in their place, a brick wall. The bricks were uneven, and mortar ran down the cracks like ice cream on a hot summer day. I took a sharp breath and my thoughts drifted back to the time Danny disappeared.
For days Danny’s desk at school was empty, and no one said why. By the end of the week, I mustered the courage to go to his house. Courage was hard to come by because, like everyone else on the block, I feared Danny’s father. I rapped on the glass. The door opened an inch, and a grizzled face filled the gap.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Is Danny okay?”
“He’s sick,” his father said, and he slammed the door.
I walked away feeling that something had happened, not knowing what.
The following Monday, I ambled into the classroom and saw Danny sitting at his desk. I bounced over and said hello, but Danny stared straight ahead as if some part of him was still absent. After school, I ran down the street and caught up with him. We walked together, but he acted as if I wasn’t there.
Finally, I grabbed his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
That’s when Danny started to cry. He pulled away from me and ran. I followed, but Danny was always faster than me. He turned the corner and disappeared into his house. When I got there, I raised my fist to knock on the door. Then I remembered his father. Sulking, I kicked a stone off the steps and went home.
“You just left him there?”
I turned to see crater-face. He had an icy stare. The kind he always had when he was about to fire someone.
“We lost a big sale because of you. Explain why you did what you did before I tell you to clean out your desk.”
“Sorry. I felt sick, thought I was going to throw up.”
“Are you better now?” he said.
“No, not really.”
I watched as the creases in his face softened, signaling I still had my job.
“Then, I suggest you logout and go home. Call the office in the morning if you’re not better.”
On the drive home, I really did feel sick, but all I could think about was losing my best friend. When I got back to my apartment, I opened my laptop and stared at the photo of the basement, trying to reconstruct it as it was, but all I could recall was that Danny was gone.
* * *
Maybe it was courage, more likely desperation that propelled me, but after a week of watching Danny disappear into his house, I knocked on the door. I squinted, expecting his father.
Instead, Danny’s pale blue eyes poked into the light. “Yeah?” he said.
“Where you been? Are you mad at me?”
Danny turned to look behind him. “My mom, she’s gone.”
“What?”
“Shush,” he said putting a finger to his lips.
“My mom, she left,” he said.
“Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Can I come in?”
Danny’s lip quivered. “Better not. I’ll talk to you later.”
But Danny never did. After that day we were strangers, and I never went back to his house. A year later, the house went up for sale, and I never saw Danny again.
I ran my finger over the screen, tracing the lines of the brick wall, and my sickness morphed into suspicion. For two days I stayed in my apartment, not knowing what to do. On Thursday, the answer came. I would buy the house.
* * *
I stood in front of the porch steps as a silver BMW pulled to the curb. A freckle-faced young woman in a dark blue suit jumped out and extended her hand. “The yard needs a little work,” she said, “but I’m sure you can see the potential.”
I nodded, anxious to go inside. We went up the steps and she fumbled with the code on the key box.
“Doesn’t seem to work,” she said. “Just a minute, I’ll call the office.”
She made the call while I jiggled like a kid needing to go to the bathroom.
“Got it,” she said smiling. “I had the numbers reversed.”
We went from one room to the next as she extolled the virtues of the house.
“What about the basement?” I asked.
“Well, it’s just—”
“I understand. Wait here, I’ll go down. I’d like to check out the furnace.”
She let out a breath and smiled. “Sorry, but you know how it is.”
“Of course. I’ll only be a minute.”
I opened the cellar door and dragged my fingers along the wall to locate the light switch. As I walked down the stairs that musty chill rose from the basement and surrounded me. Eyes half shut, I took a step, then another, and another, finally banging my heel on the concrete floor. I opened my eyes and turned to the furnace, smaller, more modern now. To the right of it was the wall.
I ran my hand along the bricks. Then I poked a fingernail into the mortar. It was solid.
“How’s it going down there?” the agent asked.
I clapped a film of red dust from my hands and climbed the stairs. At the top, I said, “It looks good, but I’d like to have someone inspect it.”
She nodded.
* * *
On Friday, I was back at the showroom setting up an appointment with the home inspector when a customer walked in. He was tall and had blond hair that matched a closely trimmed beard. He walked over to a red coupe near the front of the showroom. Then he circled the car and stuck his head inside. For a moment, I did nothing.
Crater-face always told us to wait when someone walks around a vehicle. If the first thing they look at is the window sticker, they’re not serious, but if they poke their head inside, they’re imagining it’s theirs, and it was our job to help them realize their dream. I counted to twenty and strolled over.
“Nice, isn’t it?” I said.
“Don’t recognize me, do you?”
He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him.
“Remember how we’d play Monopoly in the basement?”
A smile exploded across my face. “Danny!”
He held out his hand, and I grabbed it with both of mine.
“I live in Toronto now,” he said. “Been there for a while.”
A tsunami of thoughts flooded my mind. I was fifteen again, ready to drop everything and play games with my best friend. But then the dark realization of the brick wall leaped into my mind.
“You know the house you used to live in?”
“That’s why I’m here. The realtor called. They had a question about the title. Nothing really. But when I heard the name of the buyer, I couldn’t resist driving down to see you.”
I squeezed Danny’s shoulder and led him outside. “We need to talk. I know this is going to be difficult, but when you said your mother left—”
“That was a tough time,” Danny said, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking down at the pavement.
“Listen to me,” I pleaded.
“About what?”
“Your mother.”
“My mother? She lives in a small apartment two blocks from me.”
My legs buckled and Danny wrapped his arms around me.
“You okay?” he said.
“Your mother, she’s alive?”
“Alive and well.”
“But she disappeared?”
“She left because my father was abusing her, and she lost custody of me. You know how it was back then. But eventually we were reunited.”
“What about your father?”
Danny kicked a tire. “That’s the other reason I came to see you.”
I just stared at him.
“Let’s go for a test drive. I need to tell you something about the basement.”
Copyright © 2023 by Howard E. Vogl
