“Yep, I do,” Drew said.
My dad studied Drew for a moment. “I was sitting in this bar the night it happened. Our whole life changed. It started right here.” He walked over to the barstool he was sitting on that night. “I was sitting right here when the preacher came storming in, probably the first time he’d ever darkened the door of the place. I wound up in prison for something I didn’t do, and your whole lives changed.” He looked at Drew. “Why on earth would you want to buy this place? I would think it had nothing but terrible memories.”
Drew went behind the bar and poured us each a glass of seltzer water. “It had good memories for me. I spent a lot of time here after you went to jail, Pop. Nate was gone and Mama was busy with who knows what, and this was where my buddies hung out. It was family. The clientele has changed over the years, but not me. I’m still here. I wanted to make sure the place didn’t go under, so when Ivan was going to sell it or close it down, I did what I could to keep it open.”
“Is it making any money?”
“I’m breaking even. Paying bills. Some months I make a profit.”
Pop slid onto the barstool he was on that night and leaned on the bar. “I was drinking a vodka tonic,” he said. “It was probably my sixth. I should’ve stopped after the second or third, but I kept going like I always did. Could barely walk by the time Strickland came storming in.”
I took a stool a couple down from him and sipped my water. It was terrible. “Why do we have to dredge up these memories? Can’t you just be happy that you’re pardoned now and it’s all over? Just leave it alone and get on with your life.”
Pop slammed his fist on the counter, shaking the bowls that usually held peanuts. “Because I didn’t do it!”
“What does it even matter?” I asked. “Why do you care what anybody in this town believes?”
“It’s a matter of personal honor. I’m not a killer. I may have been a drunk, but I didn’t murder anybody.”
“So what do you want to do here?” Drew asked in a less irritated voice than mine.
“We’re going to reconstruct.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Drew speared me with a look and shut me up.
“So . . . I’m sitting here drinking, minding my own business. Drinking way too much. We’ve established that. They were playing that song, that ‘Whipping Post’ song. It was loud, way too loud. And the place was about half full.”
“Who was here that night, Pop?” Drew asked as though he was taking this seriously.
Pop looked around, remembering. “Ed Jenkins was right here, two seats down to my right. And next to him I think was that kid, Jacob Ferrell. And over there on the corner, Leon had his usual seat. And Danny Brown was next to him.”
He turned to his left, and I could see him studying his mental photo. “I think Wilma was sitting right there. She was with Bobby Thornton. They didn’t usually sit at the bar, but their favorite table was taken, so they came up here and ordered. Guess they were waiting for somebody to leave. And down on the end there, I’m pretty sure was George Belmont. Hertzog was sitting next to him.”
“Jack?” I asked, suddenly interested.
“No, William. I liked to call him Willy because he hated that.”
We all chuckled. “He usually sat there so he could see everybody who came in. Pretentious blowhard.”
“What about at the tables?” Drew asked. “You remember any of the people at the tables?”
Pop turned his stool and looked back over the tables. “You’ve changed it. Painted the place.”
“Yeah, a little upkeep. Tried to give it a fresher look. I bought new tables about three years ago. The old ones were looking bad.”
Pop closed his eyes. “I don’t really remember who else was here. I was facing the bar. The bartender was Eugene that night.”
“So when Strickland came in, did he come straight to you?” Drew asked.
Pop chuckled. “When he walked in, it was like there was this audible gasp in the room. Even with all the voices and the noise, you could hear it. It wasn’t often the Baptist preacher showed up in the bar on a Saturday night. Or any night, for that matter. I looked over and saw him scanning the faces, and his eyes were livid, like he was about to call fire and brimstone down on somebody. And then he saw me and cut through the crowd. Got right up in my face.”
I felt my muscles tense, my burns pulling. “What did he say?”
“He told me to get on the phone and find you. Said you had his daughter and he wanted her back at home within ten minutes or he was calling the cops.”
I looked down at my hands.
“If I’d had a clear mind, I probably would’ve just done it. Got you on the phone, told you to get his daughter back home. I’ve relived it a thousand times, tried to replay it in my mind. How things would’ve been different if I had. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. Instead, I stood up and said, ‘What’s the matter, Preacher? My son isn’t good enough for you?’”
I rubbed my jaw and sighed. “It didn’t have to be a thing.”
“What did he say?” Drew asked, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.
“He said, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Get him on the phone!’ He grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me. What am I gonna do? Just sit there? I reacted. I brought my arms up and knocked his arms aside, and then I lunged at him.”
I hated this. “Were you fighting for me, or for you?” I asked.
My dad looked at me and shook his head. “You make a good point, son. I think I was fighting for both of us. But mostly I was embarrassed.” His face turned red, and he looked down at the bar. “I didn’t like the preacher confronting me in front of a bunch of people. No man would.”
“So you lunged at him,” Drew prompted. “Did you hit him?”
“No, I knocked the stool over and a couple of glasses got knocked over and broke. I was clumsy so I didn’t get a punch in, but I tried. Next thing I knew, Eugene came around the counter. He grabbed both of us and walked us hard toward the door. ‘Take it to the parking lot!’ So we stumbled out the door.”
Pop slid off his stool and stepped toward the door. We followed him out. “When we got out here I lunged at him again, but this time he moved out of the way. I was so drunk I fell. I scrambled back up. I was only a few steps from my truck, so I opened the door, and Strickland came at me again, yelling, ‘Call your son! Call him right now! Tell him what I said.’”
“And you still didn’t,” I said.
“I told him if he wanted his daughter, he should call her himself. He started toward me again, his arms in the air like he was about to grab my head and slam it against my truck, but then something happened and he stopped himself. His hands dropped to his sides. It was the darndest thing. I was bracing, ready to go at him again. And then he just walked away. I watched him as he opened his car door. He turned back to me. ‘Call your boy,’ he said. ‘Find him!’ And he drove away. I stood there yelling after him, cussing him, like that dude in Monty Python who’d had his arms and legs chopped off but kept yelling, ‘Come back and get what’s comin’ to ya!’”