Something Missing_ A Novel - Matthew Dicks [9]
Martin was riding his mountain bike today because of the roll of a 3 that he had made on his ten-sided die over breakfast earlier this morning. Had the die come up a 1 or a 2, Martin would be walking the mile or so to his car. A 3, 4, or 5 placed him on his mountain bike; a 6, 7, or 8 would have had Martin parking his Subaru Outback in the lot adjoining the swimming pool and basketball courts. A 9 or a 0 would’ve had Martin jogging back to his vehicle. Martin had experimented with other modes of transportation in the past, including Rollerblades, skateboards, and a brief flirtation with the possibility of a motorized wheelchair, but each of these, he’d realized, attracted more attention than necessary, so Martin had decided to stick with the ordinary. Ordinary, at least on the outside, was safest for someone trying to remain inconspicuous.
Had Martin been able to alter his physical stature, he might have shaven an inch off his 5′ 11″ frame, favoring the 5′ 10″ of the average American male. He did, however, make a concerted effort to keep his weight around 180 pounds, the average weight for a white American male aged 30–39 years. In addition to his weight, Martin kept himself clean-shaven at all times and wore no jewelry in hopes of eliminating any distinguishing marks from his person. He was a good-looking man, he knew, but he also knew that he wasn’t too good-looking, and this pleased Martin more than it would most. Excess in appearance was to be avoided at all costs.
Martin’s greatest concern was his ears. Though they were not excessively large, they were positioned on his head at such an angle to appear so, jutting out like the bolts from Frankenstein’s neck. As a child, his classmates had made fun of his ears, referring to Martin as “Dumbo” and “Big Ears,” both names failing to impress Martin even back then. Despite the ineffectiveness of his classmates’ verbal abuse, Martin had tried to readjust his ears so that they would appear more normal. In sixth grade he used superglue to pin his ears to the side of his head, and although the glue held his ears back for more than three days before losing its potency, it failed to permanently alter the orientation of his ears in any discernible way. He tried this method several more times that year until the jeers of his classmates, who noticed the change in his physiology and accurately deduced the cause, forced Martin to abandon the attempt. Hats, it turned out, were Martin’s most effective means of concealing his ears, and therefore he wore them often, as he did on this day.
In addition to the change of hats, Martin had also removed his blue button-down work shirt, stuffing it into his backpack and revealing a yellow and black long-sleeved cycling jersey beneath. A pair of mirrored sunglasses had been added to cover his clear blue eyes, and once he had mounted his bike, an aerodynamic helmet had been planted atop the Cardinals cap to complete the image.
Today Martin’s path would take him west around the duck pond, following the paved path onto the bridge by the picturesque Mill Pond Waterfall. Many a couple, dressed in pale gown and tuxedo, had stood on that bridge overlooking the falls, unwittingly beginning their divorce proceedings with the simple phrase “I do.” From the bridge, Martin would leave the path, pedaling across a soccer field out to Willard Avenue, where he would double back to his car, parked at the foot of the falls.
This was just one