“He knows mine, only seems fair.”
“You’re an asshole.”
The room fell silent, then—
“I think I’d like that. Not Warren, though. How about you read me whatever you read your kids, Carl? What’s their favorite story?”
“Fucking little creep. That delay is weird. Reminds me of when Houston used to talk to the astronauts.”
“Yeah, like a satellite delay on the news.”
“Too fucking weird, all of it.”
“Want to play again?”
“Might as well. Change the tape first. It’s almost out.”
—Charter Observation Team – 309
1
“Hi, Dad.” Using the nail of my finger to get into the deeper crevices, I scraped the moss from the lettering on his gravestone. “Auntie Jo had to work, so I figured I’d start with you.”
I fished Auntie Jo’s cigarette butts from Daddy’s vase and placed three purple asters in their place. Someone planted a bunch of them at the back of our building at the start of summer, and they had taken over a large corner of the small yard. “She’ll probably be by later, though, so be warned, I guess.”
Dunk and I spent the better part of the last eight months combing the cemetery and found not one match to our criteria other than the five names I had gotten from the caretaker at the office. Back in January, I took those five names to Brentwood Library. If you’re a kid, and you want help fast, tell a librarian you’re working on a school project. We only found information on one of the names—Darnell Jacobs—he died on August 8, 1802. Apparently he was an early settler in this area and built one of the first houses on Brownsville Road. He owned a small lumber company. Beyond that, we found nothing. It didn’t matter. I didn’t know what I was looking for, anyway. I guess I thought something would jump out at me.
“I don’t know if I want to go up there,” I said softly. “Part of me does. Part of me really does. I want to see Stella. I know you’d probably make fun of me for that because she’s a girl and Mommy would probably tell me to go because she is a girl, but what if Stella isn’t there? What if only the old woman is there, Ms. Oliver? I don’t ever want to see her again. But if Stella is there today, I have to go. I wish you could tell me what to do. I wish you were still here.”
I felt the tears coming on and forced them back. Daddy would probably tell me to march right up the hill and right past Ms. Oliver, and at that moment, I knew that was what I would do, what I should do, as if he had spoken the words aloud.
I spent the next thirty minutes talking to both Mommy and Daddy, and when the alarm on my watch went off at 6 p.m. I stood, scooped up my Walkman and the remaining flowers, and started up the hill.
Stella was on the bench.
2
“More coffee?”
Preacher glanced down at the mug beside him on the counter, then smiled up at Josephine Gargery. “Please.”
She eyed his hands. “What’s with the gloves? Isn’t it a little warm out for winter wear?”
Preacher looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers beneath the black leather. He smiled at her. “Circulation problems. My hands get cold easily.”
“Huh. Maybe you should move to Florida. I hear the sun down there is like magic.”
Gargery had lost weight since the last time he saw her, and she had been thin then. Now, she wore her uniform like a hanger with feet. Her skin was pale, nearly translucent. The mascara and eyeliner only accentuated the depth to which her eyes had sunken with time, the rouge on her checks a pink streak that looked anything but natural. The white of her eyes was no longer the white of her eyes, but a dull yellow that matched the cigarette stains on her teeth. Simply looking at her made Preacher feel ill, yet he retained his smile as he scooped up another bite of country-fried chicken. “You must live here. I see you whenever I come in.”
She filled his mug and returned the carafe back to the warming plate on the counter behind her. Glancing back toward the opening to the kitchen, she called out over her shoulder. “Hey, Elden, this guy says you work me like a dog and I should get at least two paid days off per week!”
The large beast of a man in the kitchen waved a spatula at her through a smoke-filled haze. “He obviously hasn’t caught you sleeping in the storage room or sneaking out for cigarettes every ten minutes when you’re supposed to be on the floor. Last I checked, chatting up the customers was not in the job description, either. Order up—” his meaty hand slapped a bell at the window, and he set a plate of steak and eggs on the sill.
Preacher learned this man was Elden Krendal, owner of this fine eatery for nearly twenty-three years. He had graced this planet for a total of sixty years and weighed in at a horrendous three-hundred and twelve pounds. His blood pressure routinely topped 140 over 110, yet that was the least of his doctor’s concerns—according to his files, that honor fell on Krendal’s cholesterol. His total level rested comfortably around 310, while his triglycerides rang in at 503 at his latest checkup. Of course, Mr. Krendal probably wasn’t aware of any of this, considering his hearing was shot and he refused to wear a hearing aid. Most likely, he just nodded as the doctor rattled off the various things competing to kill him and no doubt recommended immediate correction, possibly even hospitalization. How this man was alive at all was a medical mystery.
Gargery retrieved the plate from the window and set it before an elderly man about a dozen stools away on the opposite end of the counter, then returned. “You don’t look familiar. I know all our regulars.”
“Oh, I’m hardly a regular. I try to make it in here when I pass through town. Some of the best cooking in the city.”
Gargery chuckled. “You must be eating in all the wrong places.”
Preacher tried not to look at her hands, yet his eyes were drawn to the cigarette stains on her fingertips. He had seen her wash her hands at least three times in the past hour. How ingrained does a filth have to be to withstand the rigors of routine scrubbing? He smiled back at her. “That boy I see in here sometimes, is that your son?”
“Jack? Naw, nephew. My sister’s kid.”
“It’s good to see a boy take work seriously at such a young age. Instills good, strong values.”
“It keeps him off the street and out of trouble, is what it does. Around here, there is plenty of trouble to get into.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“He’s not working today?”
She shook her head. “Nope, not today.”
“I grew up on a farm in Illinois, corn mostly, a couple of dairy cows, a few chickens. My parents had me out there working from the time I could walk. I hated them for it back then, all my friends always off playing when I had chores. But as I got older, I realized that childhood caused me to work just a little harder than those around me, a little longer, a little smarter. I thank them for it every chance I get.”
This was a lie, of course. Preacher didn’t know his parents and never had. His folks left him at a fire station in Oklahoma only a few hours after his birth. His loving parents packed him into a cardboard box and covered his naked little body in newspaper, then simply left him on the door stoop like discarded trash. No note, no food, no nothing. This was in the fall, when the temperature routinely dropped down into the fifties at night. By the time anyone found him, he had the makings of a good cold, which later turned into full-on pneumonia and spent the next week recovering in a hospital. From there, he found his way to the Sisters of Mercy Orphanage in Lawton, where he would spend the first eight years of his life fighting with other unwanted children for the few scraps of food split among them as potential parents paraded through in search of a good find, not unlike bargain shoppers at a yard sale. Although most babies have little trouble finding a home, the singular gift his parents left him with was a congenital heart defect, and that was more than enough to ensure these baby shoppers walked right on by without giving him so much as a second glance. The nuns at Sisters of Mercy were not shy about reminding him that such a condition typically resulted from uncontrolled diabetes, alcohol or drug abuse, or exposure to industrial chemicals during pregnancy. Apparently, his mother’s dislike of him began months before his birth. No doubt his father was standing close by, with a supply of whatever she took in the months following his conception.