Category: Fiction

Central Florida is a little bit crazy. It’s not Panhandle crazy, but it’s damn close. They say the farther north you go, the more southern it gets. Trouble is, I didn’t have to go too far north for things to stop making a whole lot of sense. I think it was the age that did it to me. I thought I had felt the age of a lot of places. I’ve walked the Grand Canyon, touched the Colorado River as it wears away another layer of rock, and breathed the red Arizona dust as it drifted past a browning cactus hundreds of years in the making. But took a cellphone picture of that Cactus. I’ve stood at the peak of a ski mountain in the Rockies in a blizzard and felt the elemental rhythm of a minor blizzard as it whipped around a little coffee shop at the top of a mountain that they told me had formed millions of years ago. Then I texted my wife. I probably told her to leave me alone. Who doesn’t enjoy feeling like they went back in time a century, two centuries, free to escape the illusion at any moment? Maybe that’s just the writer in me. I enjoy a bit of fantasy. It’s refreshing.

Deland, Florida is a little different. It’s aged charm is as refreshing as a blast of shotgun pellets to the leg as you step onto private property. There are stories. The feeling of age, of the past, is more visceral there. It’s in the sparse farmland. It’s in the pastures populated with a few cows and the occasional rough-looking black bull laying under a pine. They have Civil War reenactments everywhere. They have their own battles to reenact in Florida. It takes some truly single-minded and dedicated amatuer historians to butcher a Seminole war reenactment and have fun doing it. I was in Deland for one of these events. I sat with a friend in front of a violent little stage. Quaint in the worse sense of the word. Rural Florida doesn’t do quaint well.

A tiny, knotty, natural deep brown picket fence separated the old, white-bearded men and the scattered families sitting on colorful striped beach towels with picnic baskets from the little clearing where the fighting would be staged. It was backed by tall pines, branchless except for the very top, packed tightly enough to form a solid backdrop. The Seminoles filtered in from a thin, red clay path on the left, wearing the tall red and yellow feathered headdresses of the popular imagination and carrying rifles. The federal troops came from the right, uniform in their navy blue but following a Confederate flag. The crowd cheered. Where was the respect? I wondered. I asked the man next to me, sitting on the ground on a spread out newspaper, about the flag. “This is Deland, son,” was all he could muster. Dee-land, he called it. I was angry, quickly. Out came my gun, again. My shots mixed with the musket blanks in the humid air. I didn’t shoot at anyone, of course. Just shots into the air. I had to say something. What was I to do? The flag was just uncivilized, disrespectful, even. The arrest was unnecessary, really.

My friends at school always kidded, calling me a hick because I was from Tampa, not Glencoe, Winnetka, or Westchester. Not me, I thought. These were the real hicks, sitting here at this scene. How could they be so intolerant, so stuck to their ugly heritage? I can tell you I’ve never been so violent anywhere else. Well behaved, always. Hell, I went to the University of Chicago. My friend eventually graduated from Virginia. That took discipline. More at Chicago than UVA, but that’s besides the point. Maybe it was the look of those pines. Probably, I just got a little upset by those damn Confederate flags. How uncivilized. Must have been that Deland air.

 

Her stories would always put him to sleep. They didn’t put him down because they were boring or slow or because he didn’t want to keep listening. All he wanted to do was to hear the rest of the story. They put him to sleep because he was listening so closely to her voice, for the moments when her accent would come out just a little bit more, and for the moments when she sounded just like him. He didn’t know where she got her material from because she hadn’t been a farmer. At that age, he probably didn’t even know what she had or hadn’t been, just that she was from Georgia and that all he knew about Georgia was Atlanta and the Braves and boiled peanuts and the long drive on the interstate to his other grandparent’s house in South Carolina. He would listen so hard to the twang and the rhythm and the names that he would fall asleep in her bed after a minute or two. He never remembered the end of her stories even she asked him about them in the morning and his parents would ask me about them when they came to pick me up from her little apartment with the green tree with the pink flowers and the black iron gate in front. “It was about Farmer Green and his cows,” he could say, or “It was about Farmer Johnson and his son and the fair,” he could say. But he would never remember what happened to Farmer Green of Farmer Brown or Farmer Johnson or Farmer Dillon. “Farmer Johnson woke up one morning and wanted to plant some peas. The day was bright, the soil was empty, and his had a mule.” After a sentence he would be asleep. “Farmer Brown wanted to but his wife a new pig. She was tall, she had been nice, and she wanted a new pet.” The next thing he could remember after those beginnings was her tapping him on the head in the morning to get out of bed. “Wipe the sleep out of your eyes,” she would say and hand him a cold washcloth before reminding him that she knew he didn’t want to but she had to get him up and dressed for church with his mom and maybe his dad if it was an important day. He didn’t remember the beginning or middle or end of church because he spent too much time drawing a farmer or his cow in the hymnal and trying to remember how her story began and imagining what happened after he fell asleep.

————-

His third second cousin was born to his mother’s sister’s daughter when he was twelve. Sometime he felt like he had too many cousins to know them well and sometimes he wanted more cousins. But this was a second cousin and his name was Malachi. Malachi’s brother was named Joshua. His aunt thought Malachi sounded Jewish but she didn’t tell her daughter, just his mother. “But it’s from the Bible,” his mom had said. “I don’t care, it sounds too Jewish. Why not Joseph? Joshua and Joseph would sound nice. It would sound right because they both begin with J.”

————-

They had liked London and Paris. They said that London felt very American with its English and well-dressed people and tradition and fried food at the fish and chips shops. Paris was nice because the people treated the tourists so well and because they had had low expectations about the manners of the people in France. The restaurant across the street from the hotel opened ten minutes early one night to serve them drinks and to serve him a Coke and they were surprised at how polite the owner was and how happy the service was. South America wasn’t like London or Paris because no one spoke English. He thought he could try Spanish but then he was too embarrassed and this parents thought they would give it a try. They mostly butchered simple orders and asking for directions and he felt embarrassed and they acted like it was all part of the plan. He read an article about Che and found out that he had travelled to Peru and visited Macchhu Picchu. He asked his parents if they knew about Che and they mumbled to each other before saying they had heard of him and seen those t-shirts. He said he was a communist and many people in Peru had loved him. They said he was a communist and that they were not a communist family.

————–

The house in South Carolina was green with a brown roof. It was hide, spreading out in a half circle in front of a driveway that was a full circle of grey rocks. They were white with black lines and looked like little bits of marble that hurt his feet when he walked outside without shoes to swing on the swing or throw rocks at the trees or walls. It sat low behind the street and looked small and flat from the curving mountain road. Inside, it was large and wide and had a porch on the back that was supported by tall wooden beams and overlooked the low mountains beyond the backyard. People they met in Colorado and Utah when they went skiing called them hills, but his grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles always called it “Going up to the mountains” no matter if they were really mountains or not. He and his parents and grandparents always went to a nice dinner up on one of the nearby hills or mountains the first night they were at the house in the summer. He peeked at the bill one night. It was $686 and some change. That number stuck in his head every time they drove up to the house and every time they drove out of the driveway, the little marbley rocks crunching and rumbling under the tires of the SUV as they pulled away from the front door. His parents had friends who also had souses nearby. Some were in the next town, fifteen minutes away, and others were a couple hours away, near the North Carolina border farther to the western part of the state. He visited one of those houses one night. Usually he stayed with his grandparents when his parents visited friends. It was more fun when his cousins and ants and uncles were there and his aunts and uncles went with his parents so his cousins and him could have fun and eat dinner with his grandparents. The house they visited was huge but his parents said it was tacky and didn’t look good in its town.

————-

At lunch after church on Sundays his mom and his aunt like to sit close together and talk quietly. They thought they were being quiet but he could always hear them. Sometimes when he heard them talking about him he would tell his mom, sometimes if he wanted to hear the rest of what they were saying he wouldn’t say anything so they would keep talking and not get quieter. Usually they talked about the sermon and why they didn’t like it or who they had seen at church whom they hadn’t seen in weeks or who hadn’t been coming to Bible study or Christian book club. All those names put him to sleep so he ordered coffee. Every week one of his aunts would ask him when he started drinking coffee and he would look at his grandparents. They usually were playing with one of his cousins so he just said he thought he would give coffee a try.

 

Emmett was crooning again. That’s what he called it. His harmonica was squeaky and he wasn’t quite singing, but he loved a tradition. “It’s late at night, we’ve already been in a fight, shot Barty’s ass, bagged his old lass, and the day is all out of light.”

Clark chortled. Another tradition. Most of the sound was trapped in his round gut as it bounced with laughter, shaking the flimsy canvas tent that propped up his heavy, even rounder head.

Pat sneered, the edges of his mouth turning downward. Emmett was getting louder. Clark kept laughing. “That shit was ugly,” he muttered. “We’re gettin’ sloppy. Not smooth. And you didn’t bag nobody’s lass.”

Emmett sang on, his bursts on the harmonica getting punchier. “Busted into the inn, used our plan, found our man, and now he’s dead as a clam.”

Clark roared.

Pat’s frown drooped further towards his chin.

Emmett squatted next to Clark by the tent. Pat stood across the low fire from the pair, re-buckling each of his saddlebags.

Emmett began, “Don’t get so hot, big shot. Clam down. We did our job.”

“We did an ugly job,” said Pat.

“Well, Now’s the easy bit. Let the fire burn tonight. The sheriff might come after us in the morning. He thinks he knows we’re here. Get him headed this way, ride back past the town when we see him coming. Leave him in the dust. Oldest trick in the book. Older than Clark’s lady friends,” said Emmett.

Pat smiled thinly and briefly, but not at the plan. Sometimes he couldn’t help it. But he was forcing it more and more often. “Fucking wiseass,” he thought. “What if we just headed out tonight?” he asked.

Emmett didn’t respond. Pat wondered if he listened anymore. Clark was still slumped against the tent, probably not worried about a thing. At least he had stopped laughing.

“It’s a high sky tonight. Lotsa stars. Should be a warm morning. Dry too,” Emmett said.

“Right again, boss,” responded Clark.

Pat looked straight ahead over the ridge. His eyes turned upwards and squinted at the stars, unsure. The sky above Acoma looked high. Just as high as the night before. Just as high as it looked in Fort Smith and Walton and Pueblo. He couldn’t tell the difference. He settled on, “If you say so, Emmett.”

Pat crawled through the flap of his tent and reached into the corner, under his pack. He didn’t have to reach far; he barely fit inside the tent. He slid out a brown envelope and three neatly folded pieces of cheap paper and began to read the letter from his brother again. He thought about the offer: a farm back home in Dalton, in northwest Georgia, a house with his brother, a chance to face his family again. Only a three-day ride from where he sat. The income would be tenuous. Working with Emmett and Clark paid well and paid regularly. It was hard to imagine leaving those two. Not that he hadn’t. He had, and often. He couldn’t leave just yet. Maybe when he had something sizeable saved up. Maybe in a year.

He sat down outside his tent and returned to gazing over the ridge. Acoma wasn’t one of the cozy little circles of homey light that they put in the Eastern papers. Pat saw a thin line in the dust, a flat, painted interruption of the plain not fit for even a night’s sleep. It wasn’t life in the boomtowns further west or the bigger settlements in Texas or Missouri. There was no nightlife, only a few shops, and inn, a tavern, a post office, and a three-cell jail. So they slept on the ridge.

“We can’t be touched,” Emmett had barked as they rode out of the town just a few hours earlier to the ridge. “We’re known. We are feared. Just like my beard. The law never interferes.”

“Quit rhyming now, please.” Pat wondered if they were too known after what they did to Willy.

“I’m too tired, Emmett,” was Clark’s only protest. “Let’s find a few beds.”

“Best bed we’ve had in months was in Joplin. Big payday, a night with that girl missing all those fingers, and a soft bed. You’ve been gripin’ ever since, Patty.”

“That’s where you bought that damn harmonica. And those books. Nothing but trouble since. We’re not gettin’ paid enough and we’re in some mean parts. Willy was an easy one. Jody, Billy, they were some fighters. Sam took three shots before we could be sure we were done.”

Emmett shrugged. “I’m gonna turn this thing around for us real soon. Don’t you boys worry.”

Clark patted his belly. “Amen, boss. One job at a time.”

Pat looked down at his hard leather boots and chewed his lip. “Well, I’ll ready for that when you are, Emmett.”

He read the letter again before falling asleep. It wasn’t the right time. Maybe after a few more jobs. Maybe in a month or two.

…

The Sun rose early and it rose hot. Pat knew that Emmett had been right. He scratched his head as he stood up from his mat.

Emmett was singing already. Pat couldn’t be sure if it was the light, the heat, or the singing that woke him. It was usually the singing. Or the damn harmonica.

“Hey, today is oh so hot, but we’re after a better lot, want to make it to the top, so we make our guns go “Pop.”

Emmett hadn’t been right often. Sunrise and sunset looked the same from the ridge. The Sun simply moved in a different direction. It was all dark reds and browns as the red New Mexican rock lit up. Acoma still looked flat and thin. It was uglier in the morning without its lights on. He squinted again, this time at the town, then at the plain behind it. This wasn’t the scene he had imagined two years ago. He wondered if it might be cooler on a farm. He could sit under a wide oak. Or he could go inside. It had to be cooler in a farmhouse than a tent.

He met Emmett and Clark at First Baptist in Vernon, two hundred miles east of Acoma. They all shopped at McDermott’s when in the town. Pat favored the stores hats, Emmett trusted the shopkeeper with his tailoring, and Clark bought his boots there. The shopkeeper knew them both well enough to know what Emmett did for a living and that Pat wanted something to do for a living, so he introduced them at a Sunday service. The saloon invited too many prying eyes. Church was an easy cover. The first job was from a deacon, anyway. He wanted the preacher’s job. Pat was just a lookout for that first time, and Emmett did the dirty work. It was a convenient relationship. It meant steady stream of jobs. After two years of chasing stagecoaches, Pat was in need of regular work. He wasn’t fond of preachers or anyone, really, so the work suited him.

…

Emmett and Clark woke late. A shrill flourish on the harmonica form Emmett signaled his rising, and a shout from Clark meant that he was up but not happy about it.

“Patty, you seen the sheriff and his boys yet?” shouted Emmett from behind the tent.

“Would I have let your lazy ass sleep if I had?” Pat answered.

“Huh, well you’re at it already then,” grumbled Emmett.

Clark grunted and rolled back to his pillow as Emmett threw open the flap. He had two small rectangular books in his hand, each with a dark blue cover. A Bible and a journal. He sat on the biggest rock near the fire, closed his eyes, and flipped through the Bible’s pages. When he opened his eyes, he began reading where his fingers rested. He read loudly and with gusto. Pat began to look for kindling for a new fire to cook breakfast. He walked away from the camp. When he was out of sight, he sat, red dust gathering on his pants and boots. He ran his hand through his overgrown black hair, imagining he had a mirror. Pat thought he might see the beginnings of a beard on his cheeks. He would look beaten, with dark eyes and lengthening wrinkles on his forehead barely hidden by the shadow cast down to his eyebrows by his hat. Even his hat was worn, having been turned a lighter shade of brown by the sun. He could still hear Emmett’s voice. He could remember when he would not have minded that voice, the reading, the singing. Things had worked at one point. Things might work better at the farm. Maybe he would stay for one more job. Maybe he would go home in a week.

…

Pat returned to the camp. He had gathered a few twigs, not enough to start the fire.

“You’re done with that, Emmett?”“Yep, got my fill of the good word for the morning. Stay and listen, Patty. We can talk about it.”

“It’s not for me. Clark’s your audience. Preach to him.”

“Not preaching, just reading. Leading, reading, greeting.”

“Sure.”

Emmett’s eyes lingered on Pat for a moment. “I’ll find the kindling, then. Keep watching the trail, Patty. We should have company soon.”

Pat sat, hunched, head resting on his right fist. He could handle vulgar Emmett, bragging and blowing on the harmonica all night after a job. He could handle pious Emmett, so devoted to his Bible in between jobs. But things were becoming more complicated. A year of this work. That was pressure. Pat felt it, Emmett felt it, even Clark felt it. Pat was feeling it more and more each time.

…

The Acoma job had felt risky. “Let’s pass this time,” Pat had suggested. “Slim fee, anyway, for a long trip.”

“No sir, we gotta stay sharp. We’re lazy. And we need cash now. Any way, any how. Need cash now.”

“It’d be good to have some money,” added Clark.

“I’m with you boys, but it’s against my better judgment,” Pat had conceded.

Emmett was pleased. “Hey! We got ‘em. Pack it up, we’re headed to Acoma,” he shouted at Clark. “In-n-out no problem. This Willy’s a drunk anyway. Find the bar, sweet talk him back to the motel, finish him off, easy money.”

It had been easy money. They were good at their jobs. The last one hadn’t been so easy or so money. It was in Claremore. Bigger town, bigger risks. They had more guns between the three of them than all the law in Acoma. Claremore had a thousand people and about twice as many guns. They found Jim Davis at the general store. Emmett and Pat fired right there by the flour and sugar. They both found the target, but Pat promptly vomited on his boots. He had thought about the job too much the night before. Emmett could think about it and feel right. Pat wasn’t so sturdy. He slipped in it on his way out and camped that night ashamed. Ashamed to be afraid of what he was doing. Ashamed that his partners didn’t care.

“Ohhh, Patty chucked on his boots, but we’ll still get our loot. He slipped and tripped and dipped. Shoot, that was a hoot,” Emmett had sung. That was one of Clark’s favorites. That was when the singing had stopped being funny. The harmonica sounded harsh, its natural tones distorted, forced into a tune that Pat didn’t want to hear. The Bible reading was hardly tolerable from that point.

…

Pat sat at the edge of the ridge for most of the day, watching the trail. He had eaten a tiny lunch of cold beans and a piece of bacon by the fire that Emmett insisted on keeping alive. About four hours after returning to the edge, he saw a grey horse carrying a in a brown shirt headed down the trail towards the ridge. Six horses followed, each with a rider in a brown shirt. “Looks like the sheriff,” he called.

“Let’s get movin’,” called Emmett. “Split up, like usual?”

Pat was ready for this. “No, why don’t you take Clark, Emmett? You two head north past the town. I’ll head south. You did the dirty work last time, anyway,” said Pat.

“Do what you want, Patty. Catch up in Durango before we head west again.”

“I’ll find you two. Don’t wait up.”

…

Pat headed south for three days. He passed a travelling preacher on the road. Neither stopped to talk. He saw a roving gun salesman park his coach outside Gallup. He almost made a stop there. It was a cloudy evening, though, so he towards Durango. It would be another day before he made it into town. He wondered if Emmett had waited. He pitched a tent before sundown and cooked himself dinner. He thought about how long it would take him to reach Dalton. Two and a half days if he hustled. Three days at his regular pace. Three times as long as it would take him to get to Durango. But maybe Emmett and Clark were already gone. They could be headed to the next job just outside of Chapman, two more days north. That would mean hard riding to catch up and a lot of hoping that they didn’t do the job without him. He wouldn’t get paid if they did. If he caught them, it would be another month of that harmonica before he got a break. Maybe he could do this job and then head home. That would mean two days of riding north, making the trip home five days of rough going. Maybe that wasn’t so bad. He had ridden for nine days straight from Western Mexico to North Texas after a job went bad. Maybe a week was worth it. Maybe he could get away from that singing and that harmonica. Five days to Dalton. Maybe it was time.

“I-4 is quiet. It’s always dark on these drives, but tonight it’s quiet. The trucks flow past, their drivers heads locked straight ahead, eyes on the grey road. It is foggy and getting foggier, no time to look away from the red taillights of the car ahead, two tiny, smooth red guides along fog-clogged turns. The trucks pass slowly. The names on the doors reveal little about their cargo, only allowing a glimpse at the length of their drivers’ boredom, for how long their eyes have drilled forward, hands tight on the wheel. Thompson Transportation. Atlanta, Georgia. Levy Cargo. Orlando, Florida. Johnson Trucking. Kansas City. Atlas Transportation. Macon, Georgia.

My eyes rest still as the sides of the trucks, steely curtains shimmering in the wet, heavy fog, roll forward, revealing the layer of trees that lined the interstate and the flat land behind it. There would be cows and horses and piles of hay behind the trees, small farmhouses, pickup trucks, and tractors visible in the day but hidden as we continued north. Gabe had played music earlier. A mix for the trip. Nickelback and Coldplay. ‘It’s just some easy listening.’ ‘This is terrible,’ I muttered, twisting the dial back and restoring silence. ‘That’s my song,’ said Gabe. I left it off. It has been three and a half hours without music now, and the quiet was total. Nothing moved outside the car, save for the trucks past my window, and nothing moved inside.”

“‘It’s been a few hours,’ said Allie from the backseat. ‘I’ll take over for a while. At least until Daytona.’ From Gabe, ‘Jesus Christ, finally some relief. Maybe you can cover the last leg when Allie gets tired?’ I said nothing. He knew I would drive, but he knew he wasn’t going to get any conversation out of me this late. We passed a sign for the next exit. Exit 16. Orlando: 30 Miles. Deland: 70 Miles. Daytona Beach: 90 Miles. St. Augustine: 170 Miles. Right: Wendy’s. Burger King. Left: BP. Shell. We went left. I was starving. Gabe and Annie had eaten before they picked me up from work. I hadn’t since breakfast. The restaurants were just past the overpass, maybe a half mile. Gabe and Allie would be a while filling up. Wouldn’t notice a thing. I grabbed my phone and wallet out of the front seat, popped the trunk, and lifted out my little duffle with two changes of clothes. I head down the road, the air wet but cooling, expanding my resolve to leave my cousins behind, if only for a day. We would have to see each other in two mornings anyway. There was no avoiding it. But I could buy a little time.”

“The Burger King is deserted. One car sits in the furthest corner of the parking lot, straddling two spaces. An employee’s, probably. The front of the parking lot is bright, the yellow light from the streetlights along the road cooking the foggy air, but the corner is dark. The car wouldn’t be missed for an hour. Maybe even a few hours, if the guy inside is working a long shift. Each window is up, so this will not be fun. I walk around to the back passenger side window and elbowed the glass. Ella had taught me that move. ‘Don’t shatter the glass where you put your ass. Shatter it where your friends put theirs.’ This time, the window rips away from the rubber holding it in place and falls out in one piece. The car is old. There won’t be anyone in the back, anyway.”

“I head northeast towards St. Augustine, our final destination, now only my destination. It takes only ten minutes for the regret to set in. I knew it might happen, what with completely ignoring my cousins for hours leaving them at a roadside gas station. It is worth the risk any way. I can handle a regretful drive; I’ve had a few. I can’t handle bad music and sad conversation. It had started right away. ‘How are you feeling? We know it’s tough. It’s been tough for us too. It’s so, so hard losing a mother. And we’re sure it’s tough on you to lose an aunt. Auntie Ella, you always called her. We know how close you two were. You two had some great times didn’t you?’ ‘Yeah,’ is all she got back. All I could think was, ‘Too soon. Too soon. Gone too soon.’ ‘We just think this will be a celebration of her life. You know she loved that town, don’t you. Remember when we were in high school and she brought us all there?’ I remember. ‘Sort of.’ ‘Oh, it was so nice. We walked across the bridge, took a tour of the fort, visited all the haunted buildings. And we stayed at that little old hotel. I think that’s my favorite memory of Mom. Everything was so perfect. It was winter, the whole city was lit up. Seems like yesterday that we were there. I’m so glad we have those good times…’”

I’m glad, but not for those times. I remember my cousins then, both eight years younger than me. They were nine when we were there. I was seventeen. They saw the lights and the old town and the pretty bridge and the nice history. I saw why I was there and why I was supposed to look at the old town and the lights and the bridge and the history. He was gone too soon. It was all the priest could say at the wake. ‘Too soon. We lost him too soon.’ My father had been there after the divorce. His wife didn’t even think about custody. She was gone. He was left. Then he was gone. Too soon. The trip was a distraction. My eight year old cousins missed their uncle. They didn’t get it. They didn’t deserve Ella. They wouldn’t have even deserved my father. The sights and sounds of a new city made them smile. The history and the beauty just made me think. It’ll probably do the same thing this time. Another trip to St. Augustine. Same cousins, same reason. And more thinking.”

“I get to the city by six that morning. I pull behind a tiny ice cream shop on Valencia Road and leave the car there. I toss the license plate in the dumpster. Not that I was worried it would be found. The old district of St. Augustine is a long way from and I-4 Burger King. It’s an easy walk to my hotel with a duffel bag, two blocks at the most. Down the hall to the left are the stairs. There is no elevator in The Bridge Inn. Nor should there be. The city is painfully authentic. There is nothing to do now, so I fall onto the bed. I fall asleep an hour later.”

“It’s eight when I wake up. The windows facing over the water are dark. The air is dry. A walk outside would be nice. Some city air. Eight flights of stairs later, I was on Kings Street. The Lion Bridge is to my right, spanning the short stretch of water, golden in the light of the old lamps lining the sidewalks, to Anastasia Island. To my left are three tiny storefronts of pubs. The Garden, The Saint, and Jose’s. I walk past all three, but they are too crowded. It is only eight, still too early for the feeling I liked. I enjoy a bar that was almost empty and getting emptier. Maybe in a few hours I would be back. Straight ahead is a wide park with old Spanish cannons marking each corner.”

“I walk towards its main path. ‘Plaza de Constitucion’ reads an old, black iron sign marking the entrance. Short palms cast wide shadows across the grass and the cracking concrete, marked by fragments of shells. Four old metal benches, black but beginning to rust faced a tall monument, one on each side. An iron statue stands on the monument. I can’t read the inscription, but it is some Spaniard, a conquistador. His helmet has that familiar shape. His garb is elaborate and his sword is drawn. A boy, six or seven, sits with his father on the bench facing the monument’s side. He holds a tiny brass canon, probably purchased from one of the many souvenir shops bordering the square. I sit on the bench at the front of the monument. It is hard but held my back well, offering welcome support after my hours in old car from Burger King. I watch the boy mime a battle as he handles the canon. He sees that I am looking. Distracted, he drops the toy; it clangs off the ground with a muffled ring. Eyes wide, he begins to sniffle and then cry. His father whisks him away, back towards the stores.”

“I stand, intending to head deeper into the town’s old section. I walk first across the square to what looked like an exhibition. As I walk closer, a few dozen tiny stalls came into sight, their owners lounging nearby in green or blue lawn chairs, talking to one another. A mother and her two children browse. Someone sits at the far side of the group of stalls, facing back towards the center of the square where the statue stood. A tall easel rests in front of him or her, an even taller, narrow canvas blocking a torso and a face. Only a pair of black velcro sandals and short, dark legs are visible beneath easel and canvas. I start towards the sandals, admiring as I move the paintings and photos for sale at each stall. Images of the bridge, the square, the city’s several Spanish cathedrals and old fort. The paintings are small, unadorned, selling for $25. The artists turned vendors have flyers advertising studios and websites but seemed uninterested in selling their work. Instead, they talked, unconcerned. The mother with her two children purchases a painting as I walk past her. The artist thanks her without looking up and goes on talking. It is easy to be calm here. No one looks, no one asks. Things are slow. Business is slow, but no one cares. The painter in sandals peeks around his canvas and his eyes pop open in surprise. He waves me over, pointing at his work. I step behind his chair, and old metal foldable with ‘Flagler College’ painted on the back in blue letters.”

“His hair is long and white, hanging to his shoulder and held back by a plain grey bucket hat, its strings swinging loosely against his chest. He wears a paint-encrusted pair of baggy khaki shorts, frayed at the hem and, and a long sleeve white tee shirt that states ‘St. Augustine New Years 1987.’ I get the feeling he has been doing the same thing for a while. Years, maybe decades. Sitting, painting, and selling enough work to keep painting. I look at what was a painting materializing from the ground up. The thin but deep image captures the nearest stalls in the foreground. I recognize myself, hands in pockets and head turned down as I browse, in the painting’s center. The man has given me a head of salt and pepper hair, and I looked shorter than I like to imagine. Slimmer, too. My jacket droops over my shoulders, and a shadow creeps up my face, reaching my cheekbone. I am not flattered, but the painting captures something. Something Ella would have liked. He has placed strings of lights in the trees and red and green bows on each stall. The trees twinkle and the stalls shine, getting a brighter, cleaner treatment than they deserve. The painting is warm, but my image, the figure in the middle, dark, sinks away into lighter areas. I can appreciate the sentiment. The statue’s head is not painted, a hole of white above the lights that top the trees. The man signs the painting, sticks it into my chest, and rubs his thumb against his index and middle fingers. I scramble in my wallet for $25; he smiles.”

“Now the painting is under my arm. I’m not ready to head back to my room so it’s carry it or lose it. That would mean losing $25. I have to pay Gabe and Allie for gas for the trip home, so the idea of trashing the painting bothers me. I keep it. I turn out of the square back onto Kings. I head for the hotel. I look at the pubs, more hopeful this time. It’s only been an hour. They’re still too crowded. I like to drink alone so I don’t say anything stupid. Ella did the same. She loved an old Hemingway quote. ‘I drink to make other people more interesting.’ She wouldn’t want me drinking there. I wasn’t interested in anyone in the bars, so I moved on.”

“It’s Saturday morning now. I hadn’t slept well. Nerves are killing me. My stomach is hot. Burning then settling and burning again as I grow more and more anxious. My forehead warms with sweat, then cools in the room’s blustery air conditioning. I shaved twice and brushed my teeth again. I remembered another funeral. The only one I had attended with my cousins. I sat in the front row. Special access for immediate family. My cousins sat behind me. They were crying. Gabe was ashamed, but the tears slipped out. Everyone in my row was crying, some loudly. I didn’t. And probably couldn’t. He had been gone for three days already. Too soon, but he was gone. This was just a ceremony. I held the white rose he priest had given me in my right hand and tapped it thorns with my left. I felt Ella’s grip on my shoulders and turned. She wore the expression I thought I had put on. Heartbroken but firm. As the chests rose and fell beside us with grief, as cries swelled, crested, and fell silent, we stood holding one another, silent and still. It seems trivial now.”

“I walk to the church. I have my duffel with me, a corner of the painting jutting out in dark blue, green, and yellow. The church is on Kings. It takes three minutes to reach its door. ‘Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine’ arches over the entrance. I didn’t know it would be a cathedral. Impressive, I guess. But this means a long service. Chanting and incense. It will be hot. Oh well. An hour and a half for Ella. I step inside. It’s too dark. The falling night outside feels more reverent. I look for a seat in the back. They’re taken. No one wants to sit in the front at a funeral. Before I have to move towards the front, a priest steps to the center of the church. ‘Ella Louise’s children would like to say a few words. We know she was gone too soon, but let us remember that she is in a better place.’ I never like that name. ‘Ella Louise.’ It sounded too aged. Anyway, this didn’t feel very Catholic. I had expected a procession. I looked around. A group of kids in white robes were seated behind the priest. One held a tall cross. The procession already happened. I was late. They changed the time. Maybe I should have talked to them in the car. Or turned my phone on. I’m not waiting to see this display. I pull the painting out of the bag and walk down the center aisle. I pass my cousins. They’re weeping. They don’t get it. I hope my face is blank. I approach the closed casket and place the painting flat on top. No one needs to see it. It’s not for them. I turn for the exit but I pause. This was new. I wouldn’t see my cousins again. I wouldn’t be back in St. Augustine. I wouldn’t be back in a church until someone else died. Maybe this is over. I’m not sure what that means, but I don’t have to watch them carry the casket to the hearse.”

“I jog around the church to the parking lot at its rear. I can see the square and the monument. The stalls are empty and will probably be empty until dusk. I look for the newest car in the lot. It’s grey. An Audi. 2013 or 2014. Could be 2012. I was never a car guy. I knock out a back window. This time the alarm goes off. I reach under the steering wheel and feel for three wires. I pull and the alarm stops. Ella taught me that trick, too. Maybe she wasn’t the best influence. I chuckle. She was the only influence. The car starts easily and I cover the one block to Valencia quickly. There is no traffic and I find the ice cream shop easily. The store is busy and has probably been busy all day. The car from the Burger King is gone. I find the license plate where I left it and swap it with the Audi’s plate. The car idles quietly. Back in the driver’s seat I glance at the fuel gauge. I am headed out. I won’t have to pay my cousins for gas.”

He leaned forward in the last pew, his head resting heavily on two clenched fists, eyes slowly, gradually, barely closing. He ran his right hand over the back of his neck. Still wet. It had been raining. Cold rain. Rain that dulled the body. It was better to not feel than to feel each stinging, pricking drop. The sky was deep, and the rain dropped onto street from its depth. And endless recession of water into the sky and an endless stream of water against the church roof. The funeral had begun an hour ago. Roy was a nervous thinker. Expansive, though. “I’m a bloody cliche. Back fucking row of the church, wet, dirty, doubting. I pulled this right out of a damn movie. A cheap crime novel. I could write the scene now. ‘I walk through the buildings, steep, sheer cliffs graying, darkening, now colorless as the moon rises towards the crest of the sky and the fog filled the tight spaces above the street, a hazy sea filling the tight spaces between the buildings that seemingly leaned closer together as they stretch higher. My cheap boots splash among the dark water pooled between the street stones, a result of the seemingly endless and omnipresent rain and flat black clouds of the past weeks. Even now a light drizzle melts into the smoky fog to make sight almost impossible save for the bluish light from the rose window in the front of the church.’ A damn cliche. Death is always so damn cliche. We all come back to the church. Hug Pastor Harnish. ‘Last time I saw you you were ye high.’ ‘I know, I’ve drifted away. Glad to be back though.’ ‘We are here to celebrate her life, not mourn her.’ ‘Well said indeed, Pastor.’ Crying when Aunt Megan called with the news. ‘So damn sad, ‘innit? So sad.’ Cliche again. Saw Uncle Lee, all the cousins. The book in my hand feels more and more comfortable by the familiar face. Hmmm, less cliche. It’s nice though, I guess. To be back, same church, same book in my hand. Oh I remember wearing those letters of the cover, thumbing over them as a lad. Anxious, restless for Sunday school to be over then. Lost the L-E. Ha, didn’t I have a little pious phase after that. Rubbed the I-B right off listening to Pastor every week. Then just thinking. The Pastor even joked about that didn’t he. ‘Couldn’t kick you out of the classroom all those years ago, can’t force you in now, huh Roy? And you’ll be at the pulpit?’ He never was very funny. Was that why I stopped going? I hope not. Oh good lord, I hope not. I think it was Ryne. I know what he would say now. “Throw ‘at litt-el book in tha river and let’s do some bidness.’ He was never much for faith. ‘In this game, gotta trust but verify. Clever, ‘innit. Churchill’s little diddy, that one.’ Ryne wasn’t one for accuracy, either. ‘Yesterday, my troubles seemed so far away.’ ‘That’s a one from Sinatra,” he liked to say. Ah, what a thing to be thinking about now. Ryne and music and quotes. Papa was gone and now Gram too. How much she had done for me. Wakefield had been rough. I was without this damn book. Gram was there, when I was inside and when I got outside. This crucifix they’ve given me is so cold. Gold, hard, thin, Jesus’s body so hollow, so dead. It was blessed, they said. It’s no more than a trinket. It might as well be a little Buddha, one of those cheap green ones they sell in Chinatown on London with a $3.99 sticker on the bottom. Gram was more. Just more. More than I am. It’s all on me too. He’s calling me up now. ‘And now Victoria’s grandson has a few words to say.’ Not a good time. Really shouldn’t even have come. Running late anyway.”

Ray stepped outside. It was still raining.The rain was less heavy now. The sky had turned from a brutal evening black. There was more blue. He began to think again. “What changed? Why am I back? The church, the book, the words, it’s nice. All very orderly. The Catholic Church is still Catholic, that’s for damn sure. And isn’t that how I like it. ‘Holy, Holy, Holy Lord.’ ‘Veni, Sancte Spiritus… Veni, Sancte Spiritus.’ Pretty and orderly. I’m out here alone. I need some order. How did Jenny put it back then? Things were good then. Worst of it was that she had me pinned. Knew who I was. Always half-mocking wasn’t she? That’s why it didn’t work. Bollocks. Hated that bloody passive-aggressive shit. She liked to describe me in her writerly way. ‘I’m a tiny black pebble on the southern shore, blown by the wind into the air. Beaten by the air, dragged along the ground. I am eroded to the core. My core is soft, a few grains of sand barely connected. I am where I am taken. I land in a church, on a road, by the beach. I am kicked about by schoolchildren, grounded by car tires. I am indeterminate, floating. The wind determines where I go. The wind determines me.’ Maybe she was right. She always could write. That didn’t help her love. Damned sure didn’t help me love her. At least I’m alone now. Free to work. Don’t have to explain myself to anyone. Gram knew all about my work. She never did like it but at least she understood. Jenny could never know. Maybe that was rough. So little honesty. Doesn’t matter now. Work’s easier when one’s unattached. Just stay attached to the book.”

He was back at the bar. The rain, just a drizzle. It had let up. The funeral, the eulogy he never gave, are distant memories. The rain was lighter and the church seemed a world away. It was just down the block. The rain had been so total, so encompassing before the service. Everything seemed different now. It couldn’t be the same world. Gram was gone. But in this world, the world without rain, she wasn’t being buried now. This world was warm. Henry’s Tavern. Back home, in truth. “It’s still dingy. No one notices me in here. The two leather jackets huddle in the corner. Two guns one the table. That would seem damn brazen elsewhere. Not here. A few pounds and cards on the table at a bar. Routine. Bottles on the table. Fine. A few guns on the table. Routine at Henry’s. What am I drinking tonight? What would Gram have me drinking tonight? She was a Jack and Coke woman. She’d probably not like me skipping out on the funeral. With the eulogy to give and all. So something strong for me. Real strong. ‘A pint and a scotch. That’ll do, bartender.’ New guy behind the bar. So it has been a while. Mass and alcohol. What am I, Irish? Slow down, Roy. Look. Think. Find the guy. ‘Henry’s. 10 PM. New Job,’ said the note. Couldn’t be the old Arsenal shirt in the middle of the room. Too calm, too happy. This is real life shit. People get nervous about life and death. Especially taking a life and making it a death. The ponytail at the end of the bar? He’s hammered, so no. The black shirt and black watch to my right. Of course. He’s sleek, moneyed. Sleazy though. He meets a lot of people. Most love him. Some hate him. he’s ambitious. A politician, maybe. Needs people out of his way. I tap him on the shoulder. He shakes my hand, smiles. A real smile. So he will be relieved when this is over. Hands me an envelope. Money and a name. Smart, clean. I bring in the jobs now. Ryne still does the work, though.”

Three in the morning. No more rain, just water. Puddles and humidity. The darkness outside the church was profound. Just like anything outside or inside the church. At least for Roy. “How had Ryne known? He told it all. Must have know the guy from Henry’s. This was a political. These blasted politics. Have some damn respect for tradition. For faith. Damn it all, I make my money off these politics. Stop complaining and get to work straight away. Another election. Didn’t know Harnish was politically active. Never mentioned it to me. But so conservative? And so popular? Surprising. He was a charismatic one, though. Made me feel comfortable at the funeral last night. Took him ten minutes to convince me to speak. I barely had time to think. I can see how he could be dangerous. A whisper here, a little God talk there and he might get the Catholic vote all fired up. No matter to me. Haven’t voted in decades. No politics between me and the book. Would only blur the lines. Huh, doesn’t the government always pays well. Especially the Party. All those tax dollars to use. Must be worth the money. Quiet the opponents, get more of it next time around. Makes sense. ‘Focus, Roy.’ ‘I got it, Ry. Be quiet.’ I always got like this during a job. Right before the hit. The mind wandered. A coping mechanism, I’ve heard. Wrong, I say. I’ve got the little blue book to cope. I’m right with it and right with God. And I had been right with the Pastor. Probably not so much anymore. Still, why cope? My mind just wanders. Can’t help it. Last time, we were after a mayoral candidate in Bristol. We’re at his office door. Ryne’s impatient as always. ‘C’mon Roy, get at it.’ My tool was in the lock. Just a twist and we’re in the office. One shot, job done. No sign of forced entry, no trace of Roy or Ryne. Trouble is, I’m sitting there thinking about my first job. Alice and I were done. This was before Jenny. The book was still in my life. I was at Mass on Sundays, reading the book all the time. Still had to make money somehow. He told me later about why he picked me. ‘Easy. Sit in the back pew. Find the poorest, strongest bloke on his way out. You believe in the book. You’ll sure as hell believe whatever I tell you. I’m less of a bullshitter than that preacher. And I got more money than he does.’ That’s all it was. I looked sad, looked poor. A week later and we’ve offed Ryne’s ex-wife. He couldn’t pay anymore child support. He had to kick me in the back of the head before I snapped out of it and opened the door. The rest is history. Literally. The mayor’s death was in the papers. Anyway, Pastor Harnish sleeps in a little room in the annex. Down the center aisle, around the altar, through the back door. I’m kicking open the door, the Pastor pops awake. Ryne pulls the trigger and its over. Someone in the capital wins an election by a few more points now. I pay my rent for another three months. Ryne just gets a fix. Ryne’s voice ‘Got ‘im. Look at you, Roy. Back in church, back in bidnes. All rainbows and sunshine now, ‘innit Roy? Say, you still carrying that book about withca? Maybe you could fill in for that poor preacher man.’ ‘Fuck off Ryne. See you for the next job.’”

Late morning. The rain gone, a rare sunny day in Blackpool. Roy sat up in bed, no trace of a hangover, even less regret so early in the day. He gave the book at his bedside a tap. He was working on the B now, its flaky cheap golden print crumbling away from the leathery, deep blue cover. So he drove. East out of Blackpool. Out of Blackpool was the important part. The B was nearly gone. Soon Roy would be working on the blue cover. His thumb would turn blue. The sun shot into the windshield, the glare distracting from the road. It was the kind of heat that could melt a book cover and burn a face. It was hot. “A good sign. A good omen. Another bright, sunny, faithful day. Not that they’re common. Not in the past few years at least. The norm from now on, though. Past Preston, past Burnley, past Bradford, Leeds. Past Beeston and Barnsley and Worksop and Lincoln. Isn’t there a little tune to that? Mum loved to sing it. Screw it. Too rattled to remember. It’s been like this for a while. Can’t remember the good times. Just the bad ones. The killing and the book. Johnson, Smyth, Doncaster, Blair, Canter. The names run through my head. Names handed to me on a slip of paper. Payment delivered, the job done. How could I do it? How could I do it and read the book and go to Mass? It’s all doubt. Ignore it. It’s me and the book now. The gold letters are gone. We’ve been together a long time. We’ll be fine. Jolly. Just have to wait for a new job.”