Fall 2011

    Baba-joon died on a morning in July. His life was simply over, suddenly and irrevocably, like the dropping and breaking of a teacup.

    He had not expected to die on the morning that he died—had not planned it, had not desired it, had not foreseen it. There was no mounting evidence to suggest that his death was imminent. There was no single precipitating factor, and no traceable chain of cause and effect.  Even in hindsight, it was difficult to settle upon a satisfactory explanation.

    Baba-joon’s final night on this earth was imprinted in the minds of his wife, children, and grandchildren in a series of images that had the clarity and precision of videographic recordings. They could not have known as they stored these images away that they were destined to play them over and over again in their imaginations, with varying sequence and intensity, for such a long time to come.

    It was odd how dissimilar and disconnected their images were. The oldest grandson Kamran had helped Baba-joon into the shower that evening, and would forever picture the scar on his grandfather’s chest, a remnant of his bypass surgery. Although the surgery had taken place several years before, the scar, which was two inches wide and bright pink, looked fresh and alive—almost angry. Kamran had known the scar existed, but was shocked and disturbed to see it at such close range. Long after the ordeal, whenever Kamran attempted to picture his grandfather, the image that pushed itself forward was of the sunken and scarred chest.

    The final image that Baba-joon’s oldest granddaughter, Ariane, was to record of her grandfather was tinged with guilt. He was sitting on the couch, and she was passing in and out of the room with a telephone in her hand. He was calling out to her each time she passed, trying in vain to get her attention with affectionate verbal jabs. She was politely attempting to hide her annoyance, but it emanated from her and she was keenly aware that her grandfather felt it.

    For Baba-joon’s young grandson, Darius, who was seven, the final image was an eerily tender one: his grandfather was calling him forward, asking him to remove his wool hat—the one he had worn for as long as Darius could remember—and demanding a kiss on the top of his bald head. Baba-joon had taught him the Farsi word for hat: kola. For months to come, Darius would continually replay the sound of his grandfather’s voice uttering the word kola and would simultaneously relive the sensation of his own lips on his grandfather’s cold, hairless head.

    Jahan, Baba-joon’s only son, would not retain a concrete image of his father on the night before he died. Instead, he would dwell on his own behavior that night—his excessive drinking, his erratic mood, and his furtive escapes to the dark basement where he had assembled a makeshift opium den and where the pipe sat warming on a hotplate.      

    Baba-joon’s daughter, Roya, in whose home all of this transpired, recorded an incoherent mixture of sound and image: the awkward way her father looked as he sat on the couch with his bird-thin legs defensively crossed beneath him; the blaring of the television set at which he stared blankly; the disorder in the kitchen where the dinner was being haphazardly prepared between drinks; the cacophony of voices which failed to form meaning.

    For Baba-joon’s wife, Jane, fifty years of images coalesced into a single picture of her husband sitting hunched over on a couch. This image was accompanied by the echo of his repeated and increasingly querulous demands for another glass of vodka. As always, she had protested half-heartedly, and then complied.

    Wife, daughter, son, grandchildren—all would replay the sound of his voice traveling across the house from the room where they had abandoned him.  At first he shouted out to them—but then, after he realized they were on another wavelength, he began to mutter to himself. His tone was plaintive, then sarcastic, then hostile, then desperate—and finally, barely audible.

    And then, of course, the sudden image of his fallen body on the living room floor, his forehead bloodied and his legs twisted awkwardly to one side. When his son lifted him from the floor and carried him to the bedroom, the role reversal was shocking, incomprehensible.

    And next, the springing into action:  the mustering of sobriety, the perfunctory family council and the collective decision to avoid the emergency room, the expeditious trip to CVS to buy gauze and peroxide and butterfly clamps, the gentle dressing of the wound, the delicate removal of shoes and belt and trademark hat and newly-purchased jeans and cowboy shirt, the slipping on of the pajamas without which he could not sleep, the careful arrangement of the pillows around the injured head.

    And after he was safely in bed, the heedless, empty continuation of merriment: the repetition of jokes everyone already knew, the corny songs dredged up from decades past, the giggles and cackles and croons, the indifferent rise in volume in one room while in the next room he silently descended.

    And finally, Jane’s voice waking them up in the half-light with the simplest, yet most important, sentence she had ever uttered: “Children, I think your father is dying.” 

    It was not until after they had rubbed their swollen eyes and massaged their pounding temples and heaved their sodden bodies out of bed that the stark reality of their mother’s statement dawned on them. Only then did they recall the scene of Baba-joon’s crumpled body on the floor and begin, groggily, to connect that picture to the words that drifted together from the tiny, pathetic sound of their mother’s voice.

    He was not dead when they came into the room, and he was not dead when they called the ambulance—on the contrary, he burst forth with sudden venomous lucidity.

    “It’s just an abrasion! Just an abrasion!” he sputtered. He was not dead when the paramedic ripped open his pajama shirt and listened to his failing heart. “Who are you?” he snarled at the grotesque crew-cut figure leaning over him with a stethoscope. “Where did you get your medical degree?” He was alive enough notice the rolls of fat bulging beneath the paramedic’s uniform, alive enough to smell the mixture of coffee and ketchup on his breath.

    He was still alive when they strapped him to the gurney and drove him away.

    There must have been a precise moment, as in all deaths, when his life ended—when the impact came and the teacup shattered. But the clocks in the hospital where he died continued their dutiful, omniscient ticking throughout the event, without a discernible pause or a rise or fall in pitch or volume. The nurses and orderlies moved through the hospital rooms soundlessly, as they had been trained to do in such moments. They spoke in whispers and adopted other-worldly expressions to suit the occasion. It was pronounced: “He is dead.” The death certificate was signed and submitted, and their work was over. Everything was clean, professional, and appropriate.

* * *   

    Greenlawn Cemetery is a sprawling oasis wedged between a gas station and a Wal-Mart on one end, a liquor store and car dealership on the other end. The green grass the cemetery’s name promises is incongruously lush, considering the asphalt that encroaches upon it from all sides. Flowers of every season and clime bloom simultaneously in a garish effusion of color, and stone angels and flags intermingle in the solemn duty of watching over the dead. The literature of Greenlawn Cemetery does not lie when it claims to tailor-make its burials to suit the wishes of the bereaved family: Muslims and Hindus and Catholics and Protestants have all been accommodated there and lie peacefully side by side.

    The funeral director was polite and solicitous: he had performed every imaginable kind of rite, he assured them, and he understood and respected their desires. He even provided, free of charge, a temporary marker to place over the mound and donated a bouquet of plastic geraniums—a favorite, he knew, among Muslims—to place in the complementary vase.

    Baba-joon was wrapped in a shroud and the simple pine box that served as his casket was hinged on one side so that his body could fall into the earth according to Muslim custom. And so he died, and so he was buried.

 * * *

    As his body tumbled into the earth, his children had the sensation that Baba-joon was tumbling not down, but backwards, through time. The teacup that was his life had fallen through another part of the time-space continuum—a part that defied ticking clocks and death certificates and numerical measurements. He had been falling toward death for a long time—forever, it seemed.

    He had probably begun to die a few years earlier, they thought. Perhaps it was when he first started to feel that his children had ceased to care about him, understand him, or even hear him; when he began to feel irrelevant; when he retired and his status as a brilliant doctor no longer carried weight; when he first looked in the mirror and saw how hollow his eyes had become; when he began to need assistance to get into or out of a car.

    In their hearts, they knew that it had begun earlier than that. He had begun to die years and years ago, maybe as far back as the time when they had returned from abroad with degrees in philosophy and anthropology and music, boasted of their alternative sexual orientation, and brought home blond “partners” whose English even his non-native ears detected as improper.

    It was even possible, they thought, that he had begun to die slowly during the years when they were abroad, studying at the finest and most expensive American universities, at Stanford and Duke and Columbia, where they squandered the monthly allowance checks he sent on trips to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. They, who had grown up surrounded by the Alborz and Zagros Mountains! Each letter they sent home about their trips to Denver and Boston and Philadelphia must have been a death blow to their father, they now realized. They remembered, with a stab of guilt, how insensibly they had blared Bob Dylan and Santana in the car while driving with their father to Persepolis and Isfahan and Qom and Hamedan, through the Iranian landscape he wanted them to love.

    But certainly his descent into death had begun even earlier than that. He had begun dying when, as adolescents living in Iran, they insisted on wearing patches on their faded jeans and growing their sandy-colored bangs over their eyes and walking with a gait that to him seemed lopsided and aggressive and weak. American.

   Or was it even earlier, when his elegant Farsi was muffled, even to his own ears, by the nasal sounds of their American English?

    Did he begin to die as a much younger man? Could his death have begun when he returned to Iran triumphantly after thirteen years in the United States; returned with a medical degree and an American wife—their mother—and she insisted on walking barefoot, letting her fingernails get dirty, wearing her hair loose around her shoulders, refusing to put on lipstick, and laughing with her head thrown back, in direct defiance of all the social customs and rules of propriety he had grown up with?

    It was very likely that his death went back even farther that that—that it went all the way back to the moment he left Iran to go to America, abandoning the father he revered and the mother he adored, forever compromising and confusing his sense of himself.

    No, it was not possible to pinpoint Baba-joon’s death, although they would never stop trying to do so.  They would sweep up the jagged pieces of the broken teacup and move on, but Baba-joon would die, again and again, for the rest of their lives.

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    But that was years ago. There’s no money in tobacco anymore. The government pays him to let the land lie fallow, and while it doesn't make much sense to get paid for not growing anything, Solomon has given up trying to make sense of the government. He cashes the checks, just the same. It isn't much, but Solomon doesn't need much.

    He owns the house and property outright, and he has papers to prove it. No one else has any claim on this land, especially that banker who tried to change the contract on his parents just when they were ready to pay it off. Solomon still despises that slick-talking bank man who almost convinced them to buy their place a second time, as if paying for it once wasn't enough. That was more than a quarter-century ago and Solomon figures the banker—like his parents—is long dead, but that hatred remains, lodged deep between his ribs. That experience taught him to pay cash and stay clear of loan men.

    Solomon makes a little money renting some of his pasture land and a few tillable acres. That income pays his taxes, buys heating oil for the winter, and allows him to purchase the few groceries he needs. His social security is enough to cover his utilities and the co-payment on his blood pressure medicine which he often forgets to take. In the summer, he eats mostly what he grows in the garden or gathers from the wild blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and grapes. He trades the excess fruit for milk or eggs.

 * * *

    It is a summer morning, cool for the first of July, but certainly not chilly. Solomon is in the woods, and he carries a basket full of blackberries in one hand and his .22 rifle in the other, just in case he comes across a young squirrel inexperienced enough to linger on a low branch. There is plenty of sausage and bacon in the deep freeze, but Solomon won't pass up a young squirrel if the opportunity presents itself.

    The woods are growing up thick with underbrush, so he sticks to the well-worn paths. There are more blackberries growing in other places, but he decides against fighting the summer growth. When he was younger, half of the fun of picking berries was taming the underbrush with a machete. These days, he's satisfied without doing all that extra work. The berries in his basket are juicy and dark, and he's picked enough to eat fresh and more to make preserves.

    There is an old log—sponge-like in places from decay and termites—along the path where Solomon sits and rests. The day is growing hot, even in the shade of the woods. “Not much breeze today,” he says, even though no one is around to hear him. The way he sees it, he's not crazy for talking to himself, as long as he still recognizes that he's only speaking to the air.

    Flies and gnats swarm, seeking someone to pester, so he doesn't stay still for long. He comes out of the woods and onto the road up a hill and around a bend from his house. He is near where the spring bubbles up and runs water down the hill for his use. He checks the spring out of habit. It hasn't looked different for twenty years, and he doubts it will again in his lifetime, but Solomon is a creature of habit so he gives it a cursory inspection.

    Down near his house, Solomon walks along the crown of the ditch. His movement stirs up birds and dragonflies and over-sized, winged grasshoppers. His presence sends them reeling over the empty field and back again. Big bumblebees slalom through the weeds, swinging their fat bodies wide, like big-rig trucks making lazy turns. The bumblebees remind him of honeybees and he remembers he's promised Bert he'd pick extra blackberries to trade for some of Bert's honey. He decides to trade the ones he's just picked and to go back tomorrow to find more for himself.

    He is almost home, following the slow curve of the gravel road, when he hears a whimpering in the weeds. “Who all's down there?” he calls out. The grasses waiver, the weeds shiver, and the whining increases at the sound of his voice; there's a dog down in the ditch, a hound, judging by the pitch and tone. “You'd better be a good pup if I'm gonna break my neck coming down in there.” After laying the basket and gun along the side of the road, Solomon eases down the embankment, hoping that any snakes inclined to strike will get a good taste of his old, impenetrable work boots. “Just my luck if I go and get bit trying to help somebody's mutt,” he mutters. He makes clucking noises so the dog knows he's coming and listens for the dog's whining.

    Solomon pushes aside a thorny bush and there sits a little brown-eyed beagle staring up at him. The little dog tries to stand, but one of her back legs appears gimpy and she has a big cut on her hip. The cut isn't bleeding, but it looks to be causing her pain. She tries to stand again, yelps, then lays back down, panting and studying Solomon with frightened eyes. He moves toward her, holding out his hand for the dog to sniff. She licks it and resumes her whining. He reaches in and pulls her out of the bush as gently as he can, but the dog yelps in pain. “Hold on there, girl,” he says, bringing the dog close to his chest. He struggles to get back up the side of the ditch with the dog in his arms, and by the time he makes it out they are both panting. Balancing the pup the best he can, Solomon reaches down for the basket and gun.

    At the house, Solomon puts the dog and the gun on the porch and takes the berries inside where he pours himself a glass of water from the pitcher in the refrigerator. For the dog, he pours a bowl of spring water from the tap. The spring water is almost as cold as the water from the pitcher. While inside, Solomon calls Dr. Henshaw. “I found a beagle out here in my ditch,” he says. “You heard of anyone lost one?”

    “No one's called,” Doc says. People usually call Doc when they lose an animal or find one they don't know.

    “She's a little banged up. You going to be out this direction anytime soon?”

    “Depends on if your blackberries are coming in,” Doc says. “Somebody came in and poached all the ones off Cheryl's daddy's old place.”

* * * 

    Twenty years earlier, July had been hot, without a doubt. There was a fair amount of rain in the spring and the tobacco plants were coming in thick and full, but June had been dry and July started the same way. It stayed hot through the third week of August.

    Solomon was forty-one and his parents were six years gone. His neighbors seemed to like him. He was honest and hardworking and willing to lend a hand when needed. People smiled and laughed and talked to him in town or at the hardware store or when they gathered together for an auction, and yet, Solomon didn't have plans for the Independence holiday. Other folks had their own plans, and had their own people to be with, and he figured he’d just make it a day of rest. So, when the water stopped running to the house on the morning of July 4th, it wasn't a change of plans that upset him; he was upset that the interruption was his own doing. He knew the line feeding down from the spring had a leak for weeks. The wet spot in the yard was obvious, and the circle of grass that remained green while the rest of the lawn browned expanded every week. But there was a lot of work for just one man and, until Independence Day, the water had continued to run into the house, even if some of it was leaking out along the way. When he turned the kitchen faucet and only a dribble trickled out, he knew he couldn't put off the repair any longer.

    First, he had to go up to the spring and plug the pipe at the source to keep the water from coming down the line while he worked. The lock on the cover was rusty, and it took some work to get the wood box open so he could access the concrete reservoir and plug up the hole. On the way back down to the house, Solomon heard a low moaning in the ditch. Heading up to the spring, he'd been focused on planning the work ahead of him and hadn't paid any attention to the ditch, but when he looked to see the source of the moaning, he found a girl laying there, mud-covered and just waking up. The side of her face was bruised, and she had cuts on her thin, tan legs. She wore a stained t-shirt and what Solomon first thought was skimpy underwear. It turned out she was wearing the bottom half of a bathing suit that would have been envious of the coverage a pair of panties could provide. He stood watching her for a while, until she was more fully awake, and then he said, “I'd imagine this isn't where you intended to wake up this morning.”

    The girl was obviously disoriented, and frightened. “You get back and leave me alone.”

    Solomon stared as she struggled to her feet. “Considering you are in my ditch, on my land, I reckon you're in no position to tell me to get back.”

    She scrambled up the side of the ditch, clawing at the weeds and dirt and ignoring the hand Solomon offered. Her legs were scratched and he could see the red welts of chigger bites on her otherwise smooth skin. She winced and it was obvious her foot was hurting her.

    “Do you need me to call someone?” Solomon said. “The Sheriff maybe, or the ambulance?”

    The girl stared at him. Her eyes were dark and steady and locked on him. She was disheveled, cut, bruised, and still beautiful. Solomon had to look away.

    “Don’t call anyone,” she said, finally. “I need to sort out what to do.”

    “You can come on down to the house, if you want,” he said as he turned and started back down the road. She didn't follow at first, but by the time he'd come back out of the barn with the shovel, she was standing at the end of the short, gravel driveway.

    It didn't take long to dig up the section of leaking pipe. The girl sat on the porch, drinking from a pitcher he had brought out to her and applying calamine lotion from a big pink bottle he retrieved from under the bathroom sink. She watched him work, moving so that he was never behind her when he went into the house or back down to the barn for a tool.

    It was dark when he finished filling the hole, and there were fireworks going off all over the valley. Neighbors weren't close, but the sound traveled well in the still, summer air. Solomon made sandwiches and brought them out on the porch. As he sat on the swing, the girl ate greedily.

    “There's fresh hay down in the barn,” he told her as she finished eating. It was the first thing he'd said since he'd left her standing next to the ditch, and his voice made her jump. “And I put some blankets down there, too.”

    He didn't say anything else. They sat watching the fireflies and listening to the report of bottle rockets. After a while, Solomon went to bed.

 * * *

    In the morning, Solomon pulls weeds from around the tomatoes and checks the sturdiness of the cane poles supporting the climbing beans. The beagle follows him. She's still struggling to get around and after a while she finds a shady spot near the old, empty chicken coop and naps.

    Doc comes before noon. The little dog is frightened of him and she tries to get away. She yelps and collapses when she tries to run. Doc is gentle and though she shows her teeth, she doesn't bite. “That cut will heal on its own,” he says. “But she's wrenched her back. Probably fell hard. She'll need rest, but she'll be good as new.”

    “Nobody's called concerning her?”

    Doc selects a berry from the large-size freezer bag and shakes his head. “Way I figure, if she belonged to someone local, they'd have called by now. Probably got away from somebody down at the river over the holiday, or else someone from Richmond drove out this way to dump her. Beagles can be too much for some folks.”

    Solomon calls out, “Come 'ere girl,” and the beagle walks over to him. “I don't reckon I have much need for a dog,” Solomon says, stroking her soft ears even as he says it.

    “Don't it get lonely out here, all by yourself?”

    “Gets even lonelier when you get used to someone, and then something happens to 'em.”

    Doc nods. “I can take her with me, but I can't keep her. Someone would have to claim her, or I might have to put her down.”

    Solomon says, “She can stay out here. But you'll let me know if someone calls looking for her.”

    Doc watches the dog. She isn't scared of Solomon. The beagle sits with her weight leaning against his leg. “Guess you should give her a name.”

    “I don't know that she's mine to name.” He stops rubbing her head and straightens up.

    “She's as much yours as anybody's,” Doc tells him.

    Solomon looks out over the former tobacco field. “Might as well call her Lucy, then.”

    Doc looks up and tries to steady his face. “You think that's a good idea?”

    “It's as good a name as any,” Solomon says. “And that's a name I won't have to learn.”

* * *  

    The morning after repairing the water leak that hot July, Solomon brewed some coffee and brought it out to the girl who was already sitting on the porch.

    “This is awful,” she said after tasting the coffee, then quickly added, “No offense. I mean, I appreciate it.”

    Solomon nodded. The few times he'd made coffee for more than just himself it was for other farmers who'd stopped by to talk about some boundary issue or drainage problem. They didn't have discerning tastes when it came to coffee.

    “I appreciate you letting me stay,” she said. He didn't look at her as she talked. “I'm not really sure how I got here. Or where here even is, I guess.”

    He told her where she was, but she didn't recognize the name of the closest town, or the county. He said they were about forty minutes east of Richmond, and that was finally a landmark she could identify.

    “I was visiting a friend. He's in college at Richmond. Not really a friend. A friend of a friend. Things got a little out of hand. I ended up in a boat full of people I didn't really know. I think someone put something in my drink and the next thing I remember I was waking up in a ditch with you looking down on me like some sort of Deliverance character.”

    “I just farm,” Solomon said, turning toward her. “Never did deliver anything, that I can recall.”

    The girl looked him in the eye, and smiled. “What's your name?”

    “Solomon.”

    They sat in silence for a while.

    “Don't you want to know mine?”

    “I figure you'll tell me when you're ready.”

    “Lucy,” she said, holding out her hand. Solomon took it, then quickly let go. He was startled by how small her hand felt in his. They sat side-by-side and Lucy said, “Thanks for everything. I guess I was pretty rude.”

    Solomon didn't like it when someone thanked him for a common kindness, but he said, “You're welcome,” anyway. She stood then, and stretched, her arms high over her head, her shirt riding up high to reveal the flat expanse of her midriff. She wasn’t at all self-conscious and Solomon had to look away before she noticed him looking. Solomon went inside and found an unopened package of cotton undershirts. He brought one to her. “It’s big,” he said. “It’s my size.”

    Lucy slept in the barn the first three nights. She would sit on the porch with Solomon to eat the meals he made for her, but she didn't offer any further explanation about the circumstances that led her to the ditch. Solomon wasn't the kind to ask questions. He could tell she didn't fully trust him—her dark eyes still tracked his every move—but she didn't have the same wariness; she didn't jump when he spoke and she accepted his kindnesses with a smile. By the fourth day she was dirty. Even though she'd been down to the creek to wash off, she was beginning to stink from sleeping in the barn and wearing the same clothes.

    “I need to go in to Richmond,” Solomon told her as they ate bacon and toast on the porch. “I'll be gone most of the day. You can get a proper bath while I'm gone and use the washing machine.”

    “What if I steal all of your things while you’re away?” Lucy said.

    “I don't have much worth stealing,” Solomon said. “But I reckon if you wanted to steal from me, you could do that when I'm out in the field or back in the woods.”

    Lucy finished her toast and sipped at the coffee and said, “I need some things.”

    And so Solomon, after finding the part he needed to fix his trailer, stopped at a Woolworth's and handed the woman there a piece of paper with the name of several feminine products. “I've never had to buy these kinds of things,” he said. “I'm not sure what I'm looking for.”

    In the clothing section he bought t-shirts and shorts and an assortment of hair berets. He bought some panties, choosing plain white cotton ones and guessing at the size. He started looking at the bras and realized he had no idea how to choose the correct size, so he put them back on the rack. The clerk rang up his purchases and said, “It's a difficult time when a little girl is right on the verge of womanhood. Don't be surprised if she gets to be harder to live with.” The clerk wrote her phone number on his receipt—in case he needed advice on raising a daughter, she said—but as he drove home he realized that she had noticed his bare ring finger and mistaken him for a widowed father.

    When he got home, he found Lucy asleep on the couch, her body clean and her clothes fresh. When she woke, she stretched like an old barn cat waking after sunning in the yard. Solomon caught himself staring at the long, flawless lines of her body and quickly turned back toward the kitchen.

    “I hope you don't mind,” she said. “I pretty much ruined one of your razors.” She was in the kitchen, behind him. She put one foot up on a chair and ran her hands over a tanned leg, smooth and clean. The scratches and bug bites had healed. Solomon turned away again, and focused on pouring a glass of water from the tap to control his breathing.

    “I have plenty of razors,” he said. “You're welcome to them.”

    Lucy looked through the bags. “You didn't have to buy these things.”

    “I don't have anything fit for you to wear. And you can't keep wearing the same thing over and over.”

    “Thank you,” she said, pulling the items from the bag. “It's very nice of you.”

    After dinner that night—which they ate at the table, instead of on the porch—Lucy went upstairs and slept in one of the guest beds. When she came downstairs after midnight she found Solomon sitting at the kitchen table, looking through a farm catalog, making notes on a piece he'd cut from a grocery sack.

    “Don't you need sleep?” she asked.

    “It's been six years since anyone's been in this house, besides me. I'm feeling responsible to keep watch.”

    Lucy went to the refrigerator. She stood in the light of the open door. The outline of her body beneath the thin cotton of her t-shirt was clear. Solomon didn't look away.

    “You should sleep,” she said, closing the door. “Otherwise, I'll go back out to the barn.”

 * * *

    Solomon never understood people letting dogs inside the house, but when that little beagle darts inside—right between his legs, before he can even holler at her—he only makes a half-hearted attempt to get her out. She sits at his feet as he watches television and sleeps on the floor at the foot of his bed. A few times she tests the boundaries and jumps on the bed, but Solomon puts her back on the floor. He has to draw the line somewhere.

    She's well behaved, for a beagle. Her nose gets the best of her sometimes, but she comes back when he calls. She likes to explore in the old barn, as long as Solomon goes with her, and she's content to pass lazy afternoons napping on the porch next to Solomon as he dozes in the rocking chair. She likes rides in the truck the best. She sticks her head out the window and sniffs up all the smells of the countryside.

    Over the following weeks, Solomon collects a collar, a leash, two ceramic dog bowls, and a plastic tube of tennis balls she likes to chase. Doc calls—four weeks after Solomon found her—and says that no one has claimed the dog, but he's found a hunter who would take her now that she's healed. “He'll pay seventy-five dollars for her,” Doc tells him.

    “I don't need seventy-five dollars,” Solomon replies. “Lucy-girl is used to it here. I'll just keep her around.”

    Half way through the month the August heat is interrupted by a gray, gloomy cold front. Solomon takes Lucy on her leash into the woods and then unclips the leash. They hunt together and she's good about staying close and coming back when he calls. When she flushes her first rabbit, she screams out a baying beagle howl and her own voice startles her. She runs back to Solomon, who laughs and picks her up. “You didn't know you were an old hound dog, did you Lucy-girl?” Lucy licks his face and they head back toward the house.

 * * *

    The girl had been sleeping inside the house for a week and Solomon was growing accustomed to her presence. His life went on much as it had before, except now there was someone else in the house when he came back in every evening. After that first night, he resumed his regular pattern of sleeping and rising early, going out to tend the animals before moving on to his crop-related duties. He had someone to talk to, but Solomon found he rarely had much to say.

    When he came into the house for lunch or after the day's work was done, Solomon would find Lucy on the couch, the box fan turned toward her. She complained of the heat saying she'd forgotten what it was like to live without air conditioning. Lucy watched television throughout the day, and Solomon showed her how to turn the antenna pole out next to the porch in order to pick up different stations. During dinner Lucy would ask about his day and press him for details about his farming. She didn't know much about keeping chickens or cows, and the process of growing tobacco seemed to interest her. She said she had lived in an old farmhouse once, surrounded on three sides by corn in the summer and isolated in a vast sea of openness the rest of the year. But they didn't farm, she told him; it was just a place her parents rented.

    On a Sunday night they were eating dinner and Lucy asked about Solomon's family, referring to photos on the wall above the red velvet sofa. He told her about his parents who had died six years earlier and his only sister who had died when she was just a few days old. He told her about the aunt—his mother's sister—who he visited every Saturday, though she really didn't know who he was any more. He didn't mention a wife or girlfriend or give any indication that romance ever played a role in his life.

    “You've never asked anything about me,” she said after he finished talking. They had moved out to the porch and were sitting side by side on the swing, watching lightening in the distance. A mountain stood between them and the storm, but they watched the flashes illuminate the sky behind the mountain and counted the seconds until they heard the thunder.

    “Six seconds,” Solomon said. “Just over a mile away. Probably going to swing right around that mountain and down into this hollow.”

    Lucy put her feet down to stop the gentle swinging. “Aren't you curious about me?” she said. “Who I am? Where I come from? How long I plan to stay?”

    “How long are you planning to stay?” Solomon asked.

    Lucy said, “I don't know.”

    “If you don't know, I guess it didn't do much good to ask,” Solomon said. They stared ahead at the light show in the distance. “Do you really want me to ask about your family?”

    “Not really,” Lucy said. “I just wanted to know if you even cared.”

    The thunder rolled through the valley again—a deep rumbling that vibrated through the earth and traveled up the supporting timbers of the porch, down the chain holding the swing, and caused the still swing to vibrate.

    “I figure you can tell me what you want me to know,” he said. Lucy lifted her feet and he moved his legs so the swing began moving again. “You're welcome to stay here if you don't have anywhere else to go. Or, I'll take you into town if you want to take the bus somewhere. And the phone is available if you need to call someone to come get you.”

    “That phone,” she said. “It rings all the time. You never answer it.”

    Solomon sensed that she was changing the subject, so he explained to her how a shared telephone line worked, and he told her about Linda Jane who lived up on the hillside and listened in on everyone's conversations. There wasn’t much that was kept a secret in that valley.

    “Are you always this nice to strangers?” she asked. The wind was picking up and it started to rain lightly, the bigger drops pinging off of the tin roof, making a kind of music.

    “My mother taught me to treat strangers like you would your own family.”

    “Even ones you find passed out in your ditch?”

    “Mother never specifically mentioned that,” he said. “I suppose it all depends on who you find there.”

    The rain blew onto the porch so they went inside. The thunder and wind were intense, but Solomon had slept through worse. He fell asleep and ignored the storm until he felt the weight of Lucy in his bed. He didn't turn toward her and they didn't touch, but after the storm had quieted and the thunder faded into the distance she didn't leave. She turned over and slept, and he lay listening to her breathing until long past the time he normally got up to start the day.

 * * *

    The dog follows Solomon into the woods, then runs ahead with her nose to the ground and the white tip of her tail tracing the zig-zag of her path. She's always eager for a hunt now, comfortable with the freedom Solomon gives her and confident in the baying of her voice. He lets her run ahead but calls her back before she's too far gone. She hurries back and sits at his feet, looking up at him with happy, panting expectancy.

    Solomon is used to her. He knows she doesn't understand him—though she's quick to learn favorite words like drink, treat, and truck—but he talks to her all day anyway. He laughs when she looks at him with her big, brown eyes and tilts her head to the side as if trying to decode his words. She's obedient, always coming back when he calls. He only tells her “no” once; she's so hurt by it, Solomon vows not to use the word again unless the dog is in danger.

    “It's getting cool early this year,” he says. Lucy rolls in a pile of early-autumn leaves, snapping at the tip of her tail as she wallows. “Silly dog. Come here.”

    Lucy stops, springs to her feet, and bounds to where Solomon sits on a stump. She circles him twice, then stands on her hind legs with her paws on his knee. She pants, her tongue hanging from the side of her mouth. Solomon rubs her head and picks off a few burs that cling to the tips of her long ears.

 * * *

    After the night of the storm—that first night when she found her way into his bed—Lucy began going with Solomon when he checked the fields and fed the animals, and she started cooking some of the meals. In the weeks that followed, she became part of Solomon's regular routine. She continued to sleep in his bed, even when the weather wasn't bad. Neither of them spoke about it during the day and at night he wouldn't even look at her when she crawled in beside him. They didn't speak or touch, but her physical presence was constant, like a low-voltage electricity he grew accustomed to.

 * * *

    The first snow of the winter is heavier than the weatherman predicted. Solomon considers skipping the morning walk, but Lucy runs in circles at his feet, screaming herself hoarse.

    “You aren't gonna like it so well when we get out in all this mess,” he tells her, but when he opens the door Lucy bounds out into the snow, leaping and jumping. She plows through drifts that are almost as tall as she is. She gets to the end of the drive and turns back as if questioning why Solomon is still standing on the back step.

    In the woods they both find it difficult to walk. The snow is just deep enough to make the path unclear. Solomon slips and stumbles. He holds onto a tree trunk to stay upright. Lucy is more agile, but she slips several times too. She shakes off the snow and continues on.

    When Solomon slips trying to find footing on an ice-covered rock, he says, “That's about enough of all this. We're gonna break our necks.”

    Lucy is up ahead, walking the crest of a ridge when she catches a scent, lets out a howl, and bounds over the ridge-line, out of sight. Solomon calls out and starts after her, but by the time he gets up to the ridge she hasn't come back. On the other side of the ridge the land falls sharply and Solomon sees Lucy running along the creek bed. He calls out, “No, Lucy! Come back here!” But she's already far off and she's howling as she plunges ahead.

    Solomon takes off after her, holding tree trunks as he slides recklessly down into the creek bed. The creek is rocky and slick with frozen run-off. Solomon tries to keep up, but falls several times. He can't hear her anymore and he's worried because they've never been in this part of the woods before. He stumbles on, yelling for Lucy, until his foot slips on an icy rock and he falls, landing heavily on his right side. His ankle throbs and his breathing is labored. The cold air burns his lungs but he's focused on the pain in his ankle and the ache in his hip and shoulder.

    When his breathing slows, Solomon sits still, listening for Lucy. He calls for her several times, but she doesn't come. Tears sting the corners of his eyes, and he is disgusted by the thought of crying over a dog.

    He is able to walk, but the ankle is tender and his hip causes him to catch his breath with every step. It takes forty-five minutes to climb to the top of the ridge and he has to crawl part of the way. His face is cold—with frozen streaks tracing a line from his eyes to his stubbled jaw—but he's sweating profusely inside his snowsuit. He tries calling her name. His voice is weak. He stops to listen before he stumbles back toward the house. He doesn't hear her anywhere.

 * * *

    Lucy slept in Solomon's bed for weeks. He grew used to the weight and warmth of someone sleeping so close. One night, another storm was blowing rain hard against the windows and they lay awake.

    “I used to love storms,” Lucy said. “When I was little.”

    He still had not asked about her past. He wanted to know more about her, but he remained silent, afraid that any words might break the spell of the previous weeks.

    After a few minutes, Lucy continued, “One night—I was almost seven—I sat in my parents’ living room, in a chair near the big picture window that looked out over open fields of wheat. We always lived out near farming land because my daddy hated the city. He taught in a new place every few years and he'd rent a house out in the country, surrounded by fields. Corn one year. Wheat or soy beans another. No neighbors. No city lights. That night, I sat there with the inside lights shut off, watching the lightning making patterns in the sky, off in the distance.”

    Solomon figured she was from somewhere north of Kentucky, but he wasn't sure where exactly. To see lightning at a great distance, he imagined, would mean she came from somewhere flat. Indiana or Iowa. Maybe even Kansas.

    “What I didn’t know was that my daddy was driving back from visiting my grandparents. Driving along the interstate, straight through the heart of that storm. He was a careful driver—a careful man all around—but there was a trucker who couldn't see in the rain and was running late on his delivery. My mother told me she didn’t even recognize my father's car when they let her look at it in the State Police impound lot.”

    Solomon could hear her sorrow and he turned his head to look at her. In a flash of lightning he saw her: eyes tight, arms at her side, fists clinched, and tears streaming down her cheeks. It was one of the images he would always remember, even years later—Lucy illuminated by the harsh white, instant light of the window, both beautiful and sad.

    The other memory that would survive the years came next. Lucy reached her hand out and took his. His hands felt clumsy; they were blunt instruments compared to the long, delicate fingers tentatively exploring the calloused pads of his fingers and the deep ridges of his knuckles. He dared not move, like a man who's had a butterfly inadvertently land on his knee as he sits on a swing. He kept still, hoping to not scare off the beautiful creature touching him. Lucy shifted, pulled back the covers, and moved to straddle Solomon. He was surprised by how insubstantial she felt on top of him. In the flashing light he studied her, sleek and fit and beautiful. He had to look away, but she put her hands on the sides of his face and held his head still as she leaned forward.

    Solomon had never really kissed a girl and certainly had never found himself in such an intimate position. Regardless of actual experience, he was fully aware of the kinds of physical reactions that such contact would initiate. He felt his face flush with embarrassment.

    Lucy broke the kiss to whisper, “It's alright.” The rest of his life, he would hear her repeat, “It's alright.”

    The storm raged outside but the sounds of thunder and the rain on the tin roof faded and other, less familiar, sounds took their place. Sounds he'd never heard before; sounds he’d never made before; sounds that continued long into the night, rising and falling in crescendos like waves of the ocean—intensified, faded, then repeated, renewed—until long after the storm had passed. When they finally slept, the sun was casting its first light into the eastern sky and there was no distance between them.

    Solomon woke to the sound of the phone ringing in the pattern that told him the call was meant for him on the shared line. Waking so late in the day was disorienting. He noticed Lucy's absence from the bed and immediately felt something like regret.

    “Solomon. You're home.” The voice on the line said.

    “I appear to be.”

    “Your truck is out here by the highway, parked off the road a little bit, with no one around. The keys are in the ignition. It didn't seem right.”

    He recognized Deputy Crawford's voice.

    “The highway?”

    As the deputy explained, Solomon found the note on his table. Lucy was gone. She realized how worried her mother must be, and told him a woman who had lost her husband deserved better than to lose a daughter too. She would leave the truck somewhere on the highway. Someone could take him to pick it up. That kind vet who’d been out to help with the calves, maybe. Or Bert.

    “Solomon, did you hear me?” the Deputy said.

    “I'll have Bert take me out there,” Solomon said, his mind shifting to focus on what he needed to do. “Sorry for all the trouble.”

    “It's no trouble,” Deputy Crawford said. “I was just concerned, that's all. It didn't seem like you. Is everything alright out there?”

    “It’s alright,” Solomon said. His voice was weak. “I reckon everything's about like it's always been.”

    In the spring, Solomon walks along the ridge. His ankle is still weak and the dull, constant ache in his hip has persisted through the winter. He walks slowly, carefully. He feels his age more than ever.

    The spring rains have filled the creek and Solomon sticks to the ridge. The creek winds its way into Bert Walton's property. Solomon usually respects Bert's property line, but he presses on, stepping over the remnants of the old barbed-wire fence. The ridgeline falls slowly until Solomon is walking along the edge of the creek where it widens out into a deep, clear pool.

    It is there, beside that creek-fed pool, that he finds the tattered remains of the red collar. And there, beneath a layer of leaves and twigs—after pushing the detritus around with the stick he's using to steady his walking—Solomon finds several, scattered, small, white bones. 

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    “Merde!”

    The barkeep slid a small pitcher along the metal surface. He smiled. The smile quickly faded and then disappeared altogether. The intense steel of the ancient eyes forced the barkeep to turn away. He lifted a rag and began vigorously polishing a glass.             
The gray eyes returned to the mirror searching familiar surroundings. Early sun reflected off mirrored pictures mounted carelessly on crude stone walls. Wooden chairs sat randomly about plastic coated tables. Familiar faces were scattered about, some barely visible over Le Monde, a few passively sipping deep dark coffee, others animated in political debate. The thought flashed through his mind. ‘How many mornings has it been?’ The eyes closed. ‘How many more are left?’

    “Merde!” The word startled the barkeep; he turned toward his customer, expecting more. Nothing came. He shrugged, grasped the coins lying loosely on the bar and returned to his duties. A hand was extended, and the small pitcher with its crimson contents was raised. The bent form shuffled toward a corner table which afforded an open view over the awakening neighborhood.

    The ruby liquid splashed from the pitcher. A faint smile flickered. The first sip always warmed him, always brought contentment. Yes, morning wine was the solution. If only world leaders understood its value. Sip a glass with the enemy and land disputes no longer matter; religious differences fade; jealousies mellow; old wounds heal. He swirled it thoughtfully. If only! If only it could resolve those yearnings. If only it could restore what was no longer part of him. A grimace settled over the sunken cheeks and thin lips. If only he could have one more chance.

    The grey eyes blinked. His gaze was drawn toward a leafy park across the intersection from his morning perch. Suddenly, the steel melted. The grimace softened. A bland smile surfaced. Children skipped to the corner. Voices of innocent joy echoed through the din of traffic. He watched. They paused at the corner, clasped hands and carefully checked for danger. The larger hand, that of a boy in a crisp blue school uniform, enclosed tiny fingers. He bent to whisper to a young girl, obviously a sister entrusted to his care. Her dark skirt and pale yellow blouse bounced impatiently, dancing to an inborn rhythm. The light turned, traffic halted, and together they skipped on. He followed them until they were absorbed into the cacophony of Paris.

    “Merde!” He bent forward and lifted the glass. A mouthful hesitated on his tongue. Finally he swallowed. The gray eyes closed. Through the decades floated memories. The thrill of Bastille Day exploded, summer at its glorious best. They ran through the morning dew. Laughter rang in the walled garden. They munched fruit and bread. Stories told by older relatives captivated them. They were history. Respect flowed through every generation. Why had it disappeared? No one listened anymore. No one needed to hear the stories.

    “Merde!” A second warming sip reawakened the reverie. Christmas was special. Gifts fashioned lovingly were given with expectation. The crackle of the fire chased away frigid December breezes. And the laughter around the table, the laughter of his father and his mother intermingled with the giggles of his sister, still echoed in his memory. Yes, his sister, the littlest angel who so vexed him but who also brought joy and warmth into their lives. Why did she have to die? Why did she kill the love, stab the heart out of his parents and sentence him to childhood without smiles. He stared into the angelic face framed by satin and surrounded by flowers. Then they closed the lid to the coffin and carried away his youth.

    Tires screeched and horns blared. He blinked the vision away and stared deeply into the crimson liquid. The wrinkled forehead moved noiselessly from side to side.

    “Merde!”

    He raised the glass to his lips. Warmth cascaded. He smiled. It was good, morning wine. Sunshine and earth flow deep, proclaiming the miracle in each grape. Man’s true potential unleashed. How many mysteries of creation were unearthed due to a sip of morning wine? The genius of the Greeks was fueled by it. Plato, Socrates, Sophocles reclined in the glow of the Gods’ world sipping and debating, swilling and writing. Caesar planned conquests surrounded by comrades who understood that a bowl of morning wine stimulated creativity and generated greatness. 

    The aged forehead wrinkled and the eyes narrowed. Today, the world stumbles along following stoic autocrats, afraid to allow their minds to roam, terrified to be viewed as innovative, desperately guarding mediocrity, solely driven by self preservation. If only! If only they would share a glass in the sunshine of early morning, the freshness of the day would engender brilliance, foster brotherhood, dissipate hatred and mistrust. But they are fools. They will continue to be fools and the world will continue to wobble on its axis. He leaned back and unsteadily raised the glass. 

    “Merde!”

    Clicking heels captivated him. He squinted into the early light. Dark nylon stockings framed sculpted calves. Black skirt caressed shapely buttocks. White satin blouse hugged shoulders crying desperately to be rubbed with warm oil. Brilliant orange scarf wrapped possessively around slender neck muscles patiently awaiting eager damp lips. He stared until she was gone. The gray eyes closed. He sat motionless.           

    Ah, Monique. She opened the door. Green eyes darted suspiciously about the hallway before gentle long fingers clasped his sleeve and led him into paradise. A sigh hissed. He lifted the glass and stared. The months they spent in passion, loving with abandon, living with no thought of tomorrow. But tomorrow came. The Nazis took Paris and heaven became hell. When he returned that cold January day, she was gone. Overturned lamps and a broken mirror told the story. 

    The gray eyes moistened. He drank deeply. It was then that morning wine became his savior. Amid the shadows in the rubble of life, it gave warmth and companionship. Amid the dark cloud of occupation, it gave him will and inspiration. Amid the flood of sorrow and loss, it offered perspective and consolation. Never before had its great powers been revealed to him. It heals. It comforts. It inspires. The warmth of the sun, the cleansing regeneration of the rains, the sustainability of the earth, the perfume of the flowers, the mystery of the mists all captured within each small purple grape, all expressed in the symphony of each sip, each whiff of herbal breath.

    But she was gone. Never again had he clutched the essence of life or basked in the love of a special woman. Never again had whispered oaths or tender brushes of skin fulfilled desires. Many faceless encounters ensued, but never again did the sun burst through the gloom of night.  

    “Merde!” The shoulders hunched forward. The fingers trembled. Then victoriously they enwrapped the glass, brought it to the thin lips and guided the crimson nectar. Warmth frolicked. The eyes blinked. He gazed into the growing bustle. Paris had awakened. 

    Motorbikes dodged monolithic delivery trucks. Bicyclists peddled, coasted, hesitated and then zipped on toward their daily conquests. Ah, those conquests. He blinked. A blue beret bobbed along. A face emerged under the beret and soon the whole man was exposed to him, waiting for the light to change. The stoic grimace, the scarf thrust over the shoulder, the britches tethered against the spokes, the briefcase secured tightly to the frame he recognized. Thousands of them paraded daily before his throne, joy sucked from their beings by the mission. Kneel daily at the altar of mammon, sacrifice ingenuity to guarantee success. For many years he was one of them. He sacrificed creativity for productivity. He danced the puppet’s waltz, numbly following the marionette’s lead. If only! If only he had remembered. If only they would pause to sip morning wine. Creative surges would christen them as innovators, lead them to greatness!

    “Merde!” He raised the glass and stared. It was empty. Slowly, purposely he reached for the small pitcher, lifted it and poured the remaining wine. The clink as he replaced it on the plastic of the table distracted him. He gazed. A single drop slid from the lip down toward the curve of the base. He reached out a bony finger, tremulously stopping its descent. He brought the drop to his mouth placing it gently on his tongue. The steel gray eyes closed. He sat as if in a trance. Morning wine is not to be wasted. 

    Sadler awoke to the blare of the radio on the nightstand and immediately rolled over on his side and shut it off. He knew what day it was and was afraid he might hear his name mentioned on the newscast as the fool who blew up half a town. That was five years ago but sometimes it seemed as if it were just the other day. Still, after all this time, he was asked about it, especially as the anniversary approached. The past week three reporters telephoned him but, as ever, he declined their requests for interviews. What he had to say had already been said, shortly after the explosion, and he never intended to speak about it again.

    Groggily he sat up on the edge of the bed, idly rubbing the back of his right leg. He could still remember the burning ache there when he ran block after block that night to the red truck full of explosives.

* * * 

    “You got a radio in this jalopy, driver?” a passenger asked as Sadler negotiated the shuttle van past the taxi rank at the north end of the air terminal.

    Quickly he glanced at the disheveled man in the rearview mirror. “Yep.”

    “How about turning it on? I’d like to catch up on the baseball scores from last night’s games.”

He was surprised by the request and reluctantly switched on the radio. He had been driving an airport shuttle van for nearly three years and seldom did any passengers ask him to turn on the radio. Usually they were too busy talking with one another to be bothered with anything else. Most of the time they were not even aware when they reached their hotels.

    About half a mile from the first hotel he was scheduled to stop at, he heard the report he was dreading to hear this morning:

“Today marks the fifth anniversary of the terrible

blast that destroyed much of Crescent City. Eleven

people were killed, over a hundred injured, and more

than 100 buildings left in ruins, including a Catholic

church, when a delivery truck hauling tons of high

explosives caught on fire.”

    “A cousin of mine was living in Crescent City when that happened,” one of the passengers remarked at the end of the report. “She said she thought someone had dropped a bomb on the town.”

    “Was she one of the ones hurt?” another passenger asked.

    “No, thank God, but a neighbor of hers was out on her lawn at the time and the force of the blast drove her straight through her dining room window.”

    “Good Lord.”

    “Her face was a sight, I guess.”

    “But she survived?”

    “If not illegal.”

    “You wish someone that careless and stupid suffered some, too, but I understand he was asleep in his motel room at the time and never suffered a scratch.”

    Sadler, glaring at the agitated woman in the rearview mirror, was tempted to correct some of her comments but kept silent as usual and proceeded through another busy intersection.

* * * 

    A worn penny rolled against the side of Sadler’s left heel as he started to board the van, and he turned around and picked it up and handed it to the stooped man standing behind him. “Here, you dropped this I believe.”

    The gentleman shook his weary head. “No, it’s not mine.”

    “You sure?”

    “I am.”

    “You haven’t seen anything like I’ve seen,” he blurted out, after Cullen described a pile-up on Badger Road he saw that involved close to a dozen cars and trucks.

    “Is that so?”

    “Not even close, brother. I saw a whole town go up in smoke.”

    “What are you talking about, Neil?”

    “I was the driver of the delivery truck that blew up half of Crescent City .”

    “Jesus, are you serious?”

    “I couldn’t be anymore serious. And I got the hate mail to prove it. Stacks and stacks of letters and cards.”

    Cullen was silent for a long moment, not sure how to respond to the disclosure. “Of course, I remember hearing about it when it happened, it was all over the news,” he said finally. “But I can’t remember if you were charged with anything?”

    “A lot of people wanted to see me in jail, all right, especially the mayor of the town, but that didn’t happen. Thank God.”

    “You’re fortunate.”

    “I know.”

    “You recall that Krugman kid a few months ago who set his apartment house on fire? He got ten years behind bars and I believe only one person died in the blaze.”

    Sadler’s eyes flared in anger, insulted by the comparison. “Christ, man, he was an arsonist and should have gone to jail. He wanted to do what he did. I didn’t want to do anything that night but get a good night’s sleep.”

    “Oh, I understand that, Neil.”

    “Then how could you compare me to such a person?”

    “I didn’t mean to. I was---“

    “Of course you did.”

    “Honestly, I didn’t.”

    “The hell you didn’t!”

    “Come on, Neil. Swear to God, I didn’t mean anything of the kind.”

    Not saying another word, he stormed out of the bar, swearing to himself that never again would he volunteer to anyone that he drove the dynamite truck that decimated a town.

* * *  

    Sadler could not help but smile as he approached a diner a few blocks east of the terminal and saw the message on its electric signboard:  “Relish Today Ketchup Tomorrow.”

If only that were possible, he thought, chugging past the sign.

    “I know you couldn’t have caused the explosion.”

    “I didn’t, Vera. I swear.”

    “I know that, sweetheart,” she said, trying to console him. “So how did it happen?”

He sighed. “I didn’t pull into town until after the supply store closed. Because it was so late the folks there told me the explosives would be unloaded the next morning. I wasn’t really comfortable with that but was assured a night guard would keep an eye on it. So I did as they said and locked the truck up and walked to the motel down the street. What no one expected to happen, however, was that for whatever reason a fire broke out in the supply store and it spread and eventually set the truck on fire.”

    “You never should have left it on the street, regardless of what you were told.”

    “I know but that’s where the people who purchased the explosives wanted it.”

    “You should never have done it.”

    “I know, Vera. God knows, I know.”

    Without her support, he didn’t know if he could have coped with all the abuse heaped on him those initial days after the blast. She opened all the hate mail sent to him, answered the angry middle of the night telephone calls. One night someone even left a bundle of burning newspapers on their front lawn, which she put out with the garden hose. He was so devastated by what happened in Crescent City he could barely get out of bed in the morning, sometimes almost wished he had been one of those killed in the blast. Vera was the one who urged him to get out of the house after the first couple of days of seclusion and to accompany her to the market and the pharmacy and the feed store.

    Despite how grateful he was to her, he could never again be the jovial, carefree person she married because he was just so shattered by what happened.  It may not have been entirely his fault but certainly, if he hadn’t parked the truck where he did, there would not have been an explosion.  He could not rid that fact from his mind, though he tried daily with can after can of malt liquor.

* * * 

    “For how long?”

    “For as long as it’s necessary.”

    “Necessary for what?”

    “For you to get back to who you were.”

    “That’ll never happen, Vera.”

    “I know.”

* * *  

* * *  

He flinched, worried that she remembered seeing his picture in the paper five years ago. “No, I don’t believe so.”

    “You sure look familiar, mister.”

    “Well, you know what they say, everyone has someone who looks like them somewhere.”

    “Maybe so,” she said, not sounding convinced, as she continued down the aisle.

    Relieved, he breathed slowly, hoping no one else boarding the van thought they recognized him. Certainly not anyone like that woman who approached him in a grocery store a few months after the blast and, without saying a word, slapped him hard across the face. There was no doubt in her mind about his identity.

    “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced over the speaker, “this is the downtown shuttle and we should be departing in about five minutes so be sure all of your luggage is on board.”

Maybe that’s what he should do, he thought, as he held the microphone against his mouth. Let everyone aboard the van know that he was the one who blew up Crescent City. Certainly that woman in the ridiculous straw hat would be pleased to know that she had indeed seen him before five years ago.

    “Before we leave, folks, I believe I should tell you something that might cause you to decide to ride another shuttle this afternoon. I was the driver of the dynamite truck that destroyed nearly half of Crescent City five years ago today. Some of you, no doubt, think I should have gone to prison for that, and maybe you’re right. I know the authorities considered bringing manslaughter charges against me but, instead, decided to bring them against the company I drove for because it was their policy to allow drivers to park their trucks on public streets. I am guilty of monumental stupidity…about that there is no question. I should never have left the truck unattended as I was told to do but should have stayed in it all right. That would have been the smart thing to do but I didn’t do it and for that I can never forgive myself and can’t expect anyone else to forgive me.”

    “Excuse me, driver,” a passenger seated directly behind him whispered, “but shouldn’t we be on our way. It’s been more than five minutes.”

    Jarred by the remark, he quickly put the microphone back in its carrier, wishing he had the nerve to make the apology to his passengers that he had made in his head.

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Voice of the Midlands

by Jan Wiezorek

    Walking dusty roads was not what Trevor had in mind when he signed up to be an advance man for an ensemble of flamenco dancers and guitarists from Spain. But that was before his ’78 Mercury broke down outside of Nebraska City. It looked like a long, dusty walk was in store for him. But then she came by wearing a large, flowery housedress and driving a sleek, black Mercedes-Benz, quite unusual, he thought, by rural standards.      

    “Need a ride, son?” Mrs. Jeffreys asked. He wasn’t her son, but he could certainly pretend to be if it meant getting out of this forsaken place and onto the radio station by 6.   

    “Well, I’m trying to make it to the college, but I think my fan belt broke, ma’am,” Trevor said. He took his white cotton shirtsleeve and wiped the sweat and dirt from his brow. Then he wiped his neck with a soiled linen handkerchief that hung from his back left pocket. “Is there any chance you could take me there?”

    “Hurry on, then,” she said. “I’ve got the Ladies’ Guild meeting at 8, and I promised the girls I’d fix my apple chicken stew if they’d bring the broccoli salad and raspberry peach pie.”  A new layer of dust had just settled on the gravel, hunger in his stomach, and a layer of filthy, gritty film on his pores and the toes of his brown Oxford shoes. She reached over to the passenger side to open the door and he sat in leather, relieved to have been saved from waiting who knows how long on the quiet back road to the college. A deep ditch of weeds ran parallel to the road on both sides, and high towers of green-and-gold corn made it difficult for him to focus on anything but the route ahead and the incessant, but good-natured, monologues of Mrs. Jeffreys. 

    “I would have taken the two-laner, but there’s construction just north of here, as you probably already know, so here I am—and I’m certainly glad to have found you,” she said. “Never many folks out this way. You could have been waiting here till the cows came home before you'd find anyone to help you. We’ll take care of you Nebraska-style and get you on your way,” she said in her homespun manner. She had a way of speaking, he thought, that called for one to nod or just plain grunt before she’d continue on with her storytelling.  He gave her a nod. 

    “So, you’re studying at the college, are you?” she asked. 

    “No, I’m—”

    “Well, if you’re studying at the college, you must know Professor Gill. Why, he’s been there since before the college even had a campus.” She slapped the steering wheel and laughed at herself all the way up to the sharp right turn past the field of healthy, green soybeans. 

    “No, I’m not studying at the college; I’m going to the radio station,” he said, filled with thanks that she let him finish a sentence. 

    “The Voice of the Midlands. I know it well. Every evening I turn on Tom Catchitore—and he talks and talks for the extension service. You know, you can learn a lot about gardening and crops, homemaking and upkeep, if you listen to Tom Catchitore,” she said. “I suppose you listen to Tom Catchitore every night, too, don’t you?” 

    “No, I’m not from around here,” he said. “I don’t even know a Tom.”

    “If you don’t live around here, why are you going to the college?” she asked, turning toward him and almost driving the Mercedes into a ditch near the wheat field shining out her left window.

    “Like I said, I’m going to be on the radio—at 6 p.m.” he said. “Do you know what time it is now?  I didn’t wind my watch.”

    “On the radio!” she said. “Well, I had better get home so I can listen to you, or turn you on in the car. Why, you’re famous, aren’t you? You’re not the doctor who saved that leukemia patient, are you? Tom Catchitore was just talking about you last week. Is that you?” she asked, smiling at him with one eye and keeping the car on the gravel with the other. 

    “No, I haven’t saved anyone,” he said.

    “Well, you must have done something if Tom Catchitore wants you on his radio show!” she said.    

    “No, I’m just going to talk. Say, do you have the time?”

    “I’d say it’s about 5:30, so we’d better rush to get you on the radio. I don’t believe I’ve ever met a radio person before.”

    “Good.” Just when he thought she might stop talking and come up for air, she started again.

    “So what are you and Tom Catchitore going to talk about?”

    “I’m an advance man for Flamenco Toledo.”

    “I’m not sure I catch your drift,” she said. 

    “I am promoting next week’s flamenco dance concert at the college auditorium. So, I’m going to tell Tom Catchitore all about the Spanish dancers and musicians in the troupe. There’s only one performance, and we hope to have a sellout.”

    “My word!” she said. “All the way from Spain. And they’re coming right here to the college, you say?”

    “Right. Here are some free tickets for you and the ladies. I think you’ll like what you see and hear.” He took six tickets stamped “Complimentary” from his shirt pocket and put them on the dash near the windshield.  

    “My, that’s nice of you. Now, are you a dancer, too?” she asked.

    He looked at his waist, bulging a bit, and sucked it in. “No, I just build up interest in the performance so we can sell out the house. That’s why I’m on the radio—to sell tickets.”

    “Oh. Where are you from?” she asked in her motherly way. 

    “Chicago, and I’ve been traveling the Midlands going from town to town. Mind if I ask how you got this car? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one as nice as this in Chicago,” he said.

    “Oh, my word,” she said. “It was murder to get it.” She chuckled like she had just heard a joke from one of her Guild ladies. “You must make a good living as an advance man. Is that right?”

    “I do alright, especially when my car doesn’t break down!”

    “Well, honey, I’ll help you get her fixed. My son’s a mechanic—runs Jeffreys’s Garage—and I bet he can drop by and tow your car to his garage after work tonight. I’m Mrs. Jeffreys.”

    “Thanks, Mrs. Jeffreys.  I’m Trevor. That would be great.”

    She sped up a bit as the Mercedes was about to cross the one-lane steel bridge that spanned a narrow, deep creek. That creek flowed right into the Missouri River. From there the river ran down into the states of Missouri and Kansas—providing life-giving water to the fields not far away. 

    Mrs. Jeffreys laughed as she plowed the accelerator and then hit the brakes all the way to the floor. The car heaved and bounced. It stopped up short right on the middle of the bridge, forcing Trevor forward before he could brace himself. His head hit a panel of polished wood just below the dashboard at full force, causing what may have been a concussion. In Trevor’s dazed state, about all he could do was grunt. 

    “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Jeffreys said. She put the car in park, opened her door, and ran to the passenger side. She heaved him out of the car and onto floor of the bridge. “Well, I see you’re still breathing—still alive,” she said. “We’ll fix that.”

    Then, inside the rear passenger side, she grabbed the Louisville Slugger and cracked it as hard as she could against Trevor’s head lying on the bridge floor. Next, she checked Trevor’s right back pocket and took his leather wallet. She found it loaded with as many $100 bills as it could carry. 

    Mrs. Jeffreys noticed a gap in the design of the steel bridge frame would enable her to kick and roll Trevor right off the bridge and into the fast-moving current in seconds flat. “By morning, your body will be halfway to Kansas,” she said to him, obviously pleased with herself. She began her kicking, pushing, and rolling. Digging her right heal into Trevor’s thigh, she stiff-legged him all the way to the right edge of the bridge. HissHi heavier mid-section fell off the side first, and then the rest of the body slid easily. A scraped line of dust and dirt extended from the car door to the very edge of the bridge.

    “Goodbye now, Trevor,” she said. “Glad to have met you.” She watched the body float, drift, and sink in the swift and flowing creek, and she whipped the bat underhand into the water below.  It floated for as far as she could see it before the creek turned south, moving toward the Missouri River. 

    Mrs. Jeffreys backed up the Mercedes. It took several tries and many turns back and forth on the steering wheel before she brought the big, black automobile fully around in the opposite direction on the road. Eventually, she pointed the hood toward Nebraska City.

    “I’ll have to get home pronto if I’m to fix that apple chicken stew for the ladies,” she said to herself. Her stomach growled just as she imagined a fine plate of stew and all the fixings. 

    And then it was time once again for her favorite radio show: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Voice of the Midlands. I’m Tom Catchitore. Just a program note. Our guest, Trevor DeYoung, has been delayed, so this evening we’ll feature music from Spain. Spanish recordings by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. By the way, the college will host a troupe of Spanish dancers and guitarists called Flamenco Toledo at 8 p.m. next Saturday evening at the campus auditorium. Tickets are on sale at the auditorium box office. And now, music from Spain.”  

    Bold strains played through the speakers. Wheels spun on gravel, kicking up a cloud of dust that was visible for one-quarter mile behind the black Mercedes en route for Jeffreys' Garage.

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