This is the story of Ray Tucker. Not the whole story, just the events of one night from three days ago. And to be perfectly honest, Ray is not even his real name.

Herein lies the dilemma for us writers. You find a story that needs to be told, but there are concerns for privacy. Sometimes a writer can just blow right past privacy issues, use the real names, and embarrass the heck out of, say, his next-door neighbor.

But sometimes, the writer needs to go special lengths to conceal the identities of his characters and the location of the events. Like, when the police are involved. And the K-9 dogs show up. And certain personal medical conditions are revealed, which are protected by HIPPA laws which could, in turn, land the writer in jail for violating the afore mentioned Ray’s privacy rights.

Duvall, Georgia. This is Ray’s town. This is also the fictitious town I made up a couple of years ago. One day I hope to write a book about Duvall and the characters that give it its charm. And if I ever do, I figure Ray would be one of those characters.

So, in order to tell this story, we might as well start there.

Ray lives at a place called Twin Oaks. You take a right at the east end of town, just past Bowman’s Tractor Sales. You head out Silver Creek Road a few miles and Twin Oaks sits off to the right.

The land used to belong to Tommy Grady’s great granddaddy. The dairy’s been gone for years now, but the two massive oaks still stand at the end of the drive near the road. When the home for senior citizens was built out here twenty years ago, naming it was easy.

Twin Oaks is an independent living facility. It’s not a nursing home. Nurses and doctors do come by from time to time, but there’s no full-time medical staff, no hospital beds, no aroma of bedpans.

If you sign up for Twin Oaks, you have two choices. You can live in the cottages and be fully independent, drive your own car, and cook your own meals. The apartments are tiny but efficient. If that’s too much for you, you can stay in the main building which is like a big hotel with laundry service and a nice cafeteria where you can eat all your meals.

Ray lives in the main building. He’s 82, but he can still dress himself and take care of his own personal hygiene. He’s never been interested in doing his own laundry and he hates to cook. Twin Oaks is perfect for him.

Ray grew up in Duvall. He’s never been anywhere much else in his life, except for two tours of duty in Vietnam. He’s been widowed for 10 years. Sally went rather quickly. Cancer. He tried living on his own for about five years, but with no kids around to help out, he made his choice.

The residents of Twin Oaks can come and go as they please. There’s no curfew. No guards at the door. They’re not treated like children. The only thing the staff asks of its residents is, if they leave the building to go somewhere, please sign out “so we know where you are.”

Three nights ago, Ray didn’t sign out.

Everybody knows that Ray loves to go for a walk. It’s the one thing he can still do that allows him a sense of real freedom. Plus, it’s good for the old bones and tired legs.

And Ray loves to walk with his shirt off. At first, he would leave his room shirtless to go for a walk, but the staff kept telling him, “Ray, you need to keep your shirt on.” So, Ray just learned to wait until he got out the front doors before removing his shirt.

One time, he strutted past Miss Cora and Miss Jean, who were sitting outside in the rocking chairs by the sidewalk. Ray ripped off his shirt, flung it to Miss Cora, and said, “Hold this ‘til I get back.” Miss Cora has never looked Ray in the eye since.

Ray always walks in the daytime. Never at night.

So, the other night when Marilyn, one of the staff at Twin Oaks, went to the Manager on Duty and said, “We can’t find Ray,” things got a little exciting.

“He’s probably just visiting down the hall with John.”

The two of them could swap war stories for hours.

“No, I looked.”

The staff got together and looked in all the usual places. Still, no Ray.

Here’s where the Duvall Police department got involved. Two cars showed up. The one that was on duty, and the one driven by Jimmy, who was off duty at home, listening to his scanner. He was alone, bored, and decided that a “missing person” call might be more interesting than TV.

The police organized a complete search of the building. Every room. Every closet. Every corner. Ray was nowhere to be seen.

The staff of Twin Oaks was genuinely worried by now. Ray could be in trouble somewhere. What if he’s lost in the woods? Not far down the hill across the old pasture is Mr. Grady’s fishing pond. What if Ray wandered off, got confused and fell in the water?

Barney and Jimmy made the decision to call in the sheriff’s department.

I wasn’t there, but I know the people who witnessed the search. The blue glow from the police cruisers parked around the building lit up the night sky. The K-9 unit got involved. The dogs sniffed one of Ray’s shirts and headed out toward the woods. The county deputies even put a drone in the air with a night vision infra-red camera.

“If he’s out there, we’ll see him on the thermal imaging.”

On his way back to Twin Oaks, Ray could see the circus from a half mile away. It never occurred to him that all the excitement might be about him. He had gone down to the cottages to visit a friend and later drove into town.

He walked past the blue lights shielding his eyes and through the front doors into the lobby.

“What’s all the excitement about?” he asked.

Marilyn turned at his voice and gave him the hug of a lifetime. For about two seconds she was glad to see him, and then she remembered.

“Ray Tucker, where have you been? We’ve got all these people out in the middle of the night looking for you.”

Ray spoke with a slur because of a stroke a few years back. His words were not clear, but Marilyn was used to it.

“I wanted some ice cream. So, I walked over to Catherine’s cottage and asked her if she wanted some ice cream. She said, ‘I reckon so’. We got in her car and drove down to the DQ in town.”

“You should’ve signed out Ray. You nearly scared us all to death.”

Marilyn scolded him, “I sure hope you enjoyed that ice cream.”

Ray grinned, “Shucks, it wuz real good.”

Except, in the real story, he used the other “sh” word.