Ken Langer teaches music theory, lives in Maynard with his wife and daughter, and has written eighteen books on paganism. I met him at Sweet Bites, our local coffee shop. Ken usually stops in between dropping his daughter off at daycare and driving to work. He typically sits alone with his laptop and his latest inspiration. Our group, not so productively inclined, shares stories and laughter. Ken, not quite so focused as I thought, joined the verbal fun from afar and after a while, he permanently moved to our table and stopped writing.

Last June, Peter Langer, Ken’s eighty-year-old but very active father disappeared. Peter was still regularly collecting fossils, carving wood, trading stocks and running his apartments. Peter lived a solo life, so days went by before anyone noticed his absence. It seems he just got up from fixing his clock at his kitchen table and vanished. No trail. He left no credit card expenses, no bank withdrawals, no sightings of his bobbing head above the sage brush.

If you enter his home now, you will walk past a row of scruffy boots, all the same style, all near their discard date and all loosely laced, just as he wore them. Always up before the dawn, he’d step into his shoes and out into the desert, sometimes stopping to feed the neighborhood hounds or maybe bark back at them. Two hours later he’d return and greet his neighbor, Sam, who loved to tinker in his garage crafting custom motorcycles from parts he found at the junkyard.

I know what I know about Peter from Ken, from Peter’s neighbor, Sam, from Peter’s apartment manager, Mike, and the detective assigned to the case, another Mike. I flew out to Pahrump, Nevada, in late October because I knew in my heart that I could find Peter. Oh, just as I knew I could save Diane’s life by putting my hand on her forehead. I failed both times, but don’t feel a need to pat me on the head, because I know I’m delusional.

Ken, not so woven into the fabric of his fantasies, will someday fly to his father’s town, walk the desert cairn trail Sam and I found (the perimeter of Peter’s property is peppered with cairns), and then say his goodbyes. I want one last stab at finding Peter, but I can’t fly out there again. That town taps into my run-from-at-all-costs dark side. However, I can send my friend, Chris Grosjean (aka Goose). He’ll be in Tahoe in January and it’s only a short flight to Pahrump. To better understand the man he’s tracking, Goose will sleep in Peter’s house, talk to Sam and Mike, and then walk far past the end of the cairn trail, to the caves I did not have the time to explore.

I figure it’ll cost about $800.00 to send Goose and maybe a friend, if he can find another curious soul. I can’t afford all the costs; I spent enough last October, which is why I’m asking you all for small donations. People raise funds to walk across Antarctica. This trip has real meaning for lots of people. So please make a small donation, whatever you can, to Goose. On behalf of Ken, his lost dad, Peter, and myself, thank you.

Michael

All donations:

Chris Grosjean

54 Central St.

Acton, MA 01720