Welcome Cole's Blog, page 2
July 10, 2014
Welcome Cole Website
Hello to all,
I've finally completed my new and updated website. I will be announcing very soon the release of Volume II of The Blood Caeyl Memories. Hope to send it to the publisher in the next week. To all who've read the first installment, The Pleasure of Memory.
Most sincerely,
Welcome
I've finally completed my new and updated website. I will be announcing very soon the release of Volume II of The Blood Caeyl Memories. Hope to send it to the publisher in the next week. To all who've read the first installment, The Pleasure of Memory.
Most sincerely,
Welcome
March 18, 2014
Henry's Re-entry
I'm thrilled to announce that "Henry's Re-entry" was selected as a Kirkus' Indie Book of the Month Selection. It'll be in the May, 2014 edition of the Kirkus Review magazine. This is a great honor for Henry! Thanks to every one of you for your support as I venture down the rabbit hole!
March 4, 2014
Kirkus Review of Henry's Re-entry
I'm pleased and shocked to announce that my book Henry's Re-entry has received a great review from Kirkus, including receiving their Kirkus Star, awarded to books of exceptional Merit. I'm hoping and praying that this will turn into traction for the book. Thanks to everyone for their support.
Here's their review:
KIRKUS REVIEW
Cole’s (The Pleasure of Memory, 2013) novel is equal parts snark-filled road trip and bittersweet confrontation of past sins.
Henry wakes up in a gas station bathroom, crusty with vomit and missing both a shoe and his wallet. Exiting, he finds himself in New Mexico, his car nowhere in sight and his memory lost to a weekend of boozing. This is his re-entry into a miserable life spent guilt-ridden over how he treated Zoe, his wife, who’s been dead for four years. Naturally, his first stop is a bar just steps away. Clarence, the philosophically inclined bartender, insists that he drink some water. During the ensuing back and forth, Clarence calls Henry out on carrying needless emotional baggage. Eventually, Henry leaves and begins hitchhiking; he meets a string of fascinating people, including Rev. Joshua White, a social worker named Mrs. Pena, and the stunning Alice—a dangerously perfect companion who’s on a yearly pilgrimage with her siblings. Henry joins Alice and company in their van, hoping to reach California while reluctantly cleansing himself of the idea that he’s no good for people. Has Zoe’s ghost trapped him, or can Henry be salvaged from this self-destructive epic outing? Cole’s tale of impossible redemption is, sentence for sentence, a textural feast. Fabulous lines like, “He collected friends the way a lumberjack collected trees...[they] only complicated his plans,” pop on every page. Equally marvelous is his dialogue; Clarence tells Henry, “You like the drama because it makes you feel important, gives you a sense of purpose, a reason for not being dead.” Readers will savor Cole’s narrative as it unfolds across a series of conversations that are by turns probing, poignant and hilarious. From his time with Rev. White, readers learn that Henry is a relentless cynic; from Mrs. Pena, that he’s softer than he appears. Alice, with eyes like bright green kryptonite, threatens all of his bourbon-drenched defenses. By the end, readers will wish these terrific characters could stick around longer.
Cole maps out a propulsive emotional journey.
Here's their review:
KIRKUS REVIEW
Cole’s (The Pleasure of Memory, 2013) novel is equal parts snark-filled road trip and bittersweet confrontation of past sins.
Henry wakes up in a gas station bathroom, crusty with vomit and missing both a shoe and his wallet. Exiting, he finds himself in New Mexico, his car nowhere in sight and his memory lost to a weekend of boozing. This is his re-entry into a miserable life spent guilt-ridden over how he treated Zoe, his wife, who’s been dead for four years. Naturally, his first stop is a bar just steps away. Clarence, the philosophically inclined bartender, insists that he drink some water. During the ensuing back and forth, Clarence calls Henry out on carrying needless emotional baggage. Eventually, Henry leaves and begins hitchhiking; he meets a string of fascinating people, including Rev. Joshua White, a social worker named Mrs. Pena, and the stunning Alice—a dangerously perfect companion who’s on a yearly pilgrimage with her siblings. Henry joins Alice and company in their van, hoping to reach California while reluctantly cleansing himself of the idea that he’s no good for people. Has Zoe’s ghost trapped him, or can Henry be salvaged from this self-destructive epic outing? Cole’s tale of impossible redemption is, sentence for sentence, a textural feast. Fabulous lines like, “He collected friends the way a lumberjack collected trees...[they] only complicated his plans,” pop on every page. Equally marvelous is his dialogue; Clarence tells Henry, “You like the drama because it makes you feel important, gives you a sense of purpose, a reason for not being dead.” Readers will savor Cole’s narrative as it unfolds across a series of conversations that are by turns probing, poignant and hilarious. From his time with Rev. White, readers learn that Henry is a relentless cynic; from Mrs. Pena, that he’s softer than he appears. Alice, with eyes like bright green kryptonite, threatens all of his bourbon-drenched defenses. By the end, readers will wish these terrific characters could stick around longer.
Cole maps out a propulsive emotional journey.
February 23, 2014
MONICA DARKVEIL
OUTTAKE FROM HENRY'S RE-ENTRY: HENRY MEETS Henry's Re-EntryMONICA DARKVEIL
HENRY WATCHED A DARK SEDAN ROLLING TOWARD HIM.
It was a late model Impala. It was so white, it looked like a florescent light tube rolling through the darkness.
He was cold enough that he was actually starting to shake. The car was passing him in that slow, deliberate way that told him the driver was appraising him. The windows were tinted too dark to see inside. There was a magnetic sign on the passenger door that read Monica Darkveil, Psychic Counselor, and a phone number. The car slid several yards past, and then the brake lights flamed. A moment later, the reverse lights popped on, and then it rolled back toward him, moving just as lazily as it had passed.
Hope!
He bent down as the window glided open. It stopped half way. The heat wafting out from it felt like standing before a brazier.
A woman leaned over into the passenger space. She had fine, shoulder length black hair with the bangs cut square across her forehead. Her face was long and angular, and comfortable to look at. If she’d been a man, they’d have called the look rugged. In a woman, he thought the word was handsome. Or maybe winsome. He couldn’t remember.
“Riverside?” she said.
Henry felt a chill. How the hell could she know that? He looked down at the sign. Monica Darkveil, Psychic Counselor. He looked back at her. “Are you serious?” he said.
“Yes, I’m seriously going to Riverside. You want a ride or not?” She had a smoky, sensuous voice.
The heat pouring out the window was incentive enough. Henry got in.
“Man, it’s freezing out there,” he said as he buckled up.
“I know.” She quickly accelerated down the ramp and merged into the cruising lane.
She was older than him, maybe closer to forty, and thin in a nice way. She had dark eyes that looked happy to be there. She was actually quite attractive in a serious, metropolitan, no-nonsense kind of way.
“I thought this was the desert,” she said without looking at him, “What’s up with this temperature?”
“Well,” he said, “We are at altitude. Albuquerque’s a mile high, so there’s less atmosphere to keep the heat in.”
She shot him a look that felt a little annoyed. “It was rhetorical. What are you, the Vagabond Geographer?”
Henry wasn’t sure if he’d just been slapped. “No,” he said, “Just full of useless information, I guess.”
“So it seems. My name’s Monica.” She didn’t offer a hand.
“I’m Henry. Thanks for the lift.”
“Where are you going, Henry?”
“Shouldn’t you be able to tell me that?” he said, grinning.
She sent him another look. This one didn’t beat around the bush, either. “Full of useless information and an annoying sense of humor. Great. It’s going to be a long drive.”
“Sorry.” He felt his face flush. “I just meant...I mean, what with you being a psychic and all...?”
“Yeah, I got it. You’re a real hoot, Henry. Keep it up. I think I’m starting to see your future.” She put a couple fingers to her brow. “I see you in the middle of New Mexico. You’re on a dark road in the middle of the desert. You’re lost, cold, hungry...”
“Okey dokey, then,” he said, “Note to self, no more psychic jokes.”
She looked at him again, but this time she laughed. “I’m just kidding. I get that all the time. I’ve learned it’s best to shoot back quickly.”
“So, you’re really a psychic?”
“So, you’re really a hitchhiker?”
“Funny.”
“Not so much.”
She had a dry wit. He liked it. “I really appreciate the ride.”
“You already thanked me,” she said, “I find repetition tedious.”
“Sorry.” He wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers,” she said.
“Well, we’re in good company, then. I don’t usually hitchhike.”
“Perfect.”
They drove on for a few minutes in silence. Then Henry said, “So, why did you pick me up, anyway? I mean, if you usually don’t?”
She shrugged. “I sensed a quiet desperation about you. I’m a sucker for that in a man. Besides, how dangerous can a grown man wearing a Superman uniform be?”
Henry looked down at himself. His Alice overshirt was buttoned all the way up to his neck. His Superman tee wasn’t even exposed. He felt a queer chill. He wanted to say something about it, but didn’t know which way to go with it.
“Don’t make a deal out of it, Henry.” She sent him a crafty smile. “It is what it is.”
“Then, you are the real thing?” He couldn’t believe he was asking the question.
“Define real thing.”
“You really have psychic abilities.”
“I hate that word used in such context. Abilities? Whatever.”
“What do you prefer? Gift?”
“Gift.” She laughed. “That one never gets old. Is your sense of balance a gift, Henry?”
“I don’t know. Never thought of it that way.”
“How about your proprioception?”
“I’m not even sure what that is.”
“If your arm is out of sight do you still know where it is?”
“Oh, I get it,” he said, “Like position awareness.”
“Is that a gift?”
“Not really. It’s just a function of my body.”
“Ding!”
He settled back in his seat and again wondered how she’d seen his uniform. Maybe while he bent into the car when she first stopped. She probably saw down his dress shirt. There had to be something that gave it away.
“Don’t over analyze it, Henry.”
“What, are you reading my mind?”
“You can’t read a mind, Henry. It’s not a comic book.”
“Then what’s a psychic?”
“Different animal altogether.”
He laughed. “Why do I have the feeling that with you I’ll either be on the offense or defense?”
“I would guess because you’re intuitive, Henry. And because you’re right.”
“Hm, I’m liking you better by the moment,” he said. He meant it. “This is going to be a most interesting ride, isn’t it, Monica?”
“For which of us?”
He looked at her.
She chuckled. “Still kidding, Henry. Relax.”
He wasn’t sure he should. “You’re not exactly easy, are you?”
“I’ve got my darkness just like you,” she said.
Henry’s alarms started ringing. He looked over at her. “So, how’s this going to work, Monica?” he said, “Do I have to put up a barricade of mental razor wire to keep you from hearing my thoughts?”
He laughed at that. She didn’t.
“First of all,” she said, “I hear with my ears just like you. Thoughts don’t make sounds. Second, I’ve got you filtered, so you can just take a chill. Third, nobody reads minds except in the movies. We just get impressions.”
“Impressions? Meaning what?”
“Meaning I don’t hear your thoughts like Boris Karloff is whispering in my ear. I get a sense, like a picture flash.”
“Like a picture flash,” he repeated, “I don’t get it.”
“A blonde girl with the green eyes.”
Henry froze at that. Alice’s face rushed into his mind, and he suffered a pang of grief for it. “What did you say?” he asked her.
“It doesn’t matter, Henry.”
He wondered if he’d even heard her right. She couldn’t know about Alice. There was a trick in here somewhere, he just had to find it.
“Relax,” she told him, “I won’t go tiptoeing through your head uninvited, I promise.”
“Do you get these impressions often?”
“Didn’t I just tell you I have you filtered?” She threw her eyes at him. “Nobody likes worry warts, Henry. They’re dreary.”
She was no nonsense. He liked that. It put him at ease.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” he said, “I’m asking if you get impressions routinely?”
“Do you hear things routinely, Henry? Or just when you actively listen?”
“Okay, I get it. No more stupid questions. Tell me how you do it. Filter, I mean.”
The tail of the pickup truck in front of them was coming up fast. He wondered if she was going to move over. She merged into the passing lane just in time to avoid rear-ending it. The dashboard green face of the driver of the pickup gave him the what-the-hell look as they passed.
“It’s complicated,” she said, “You just learn. It’s a kind of self-preservation.”
“But, you have to actively filter things out. You can’t just not accept the impressions?”
“Henry, have you ever seen something you wished you hadn’t?”
The image of his wife hanging from the garage rafters tried to stampede into his head, but he immediately blocked it.
“Sure,” he said seriously, “Of course I have.”
“Why didn’t you will yourself not to see it when you did?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you actively anticipate you might see something unappealing, and then set your sight to avoid it?”
“Because I don’t know it’s coming,” he said. And then he grinned. “Okay, I get it. Really, I totally get it.”
“You ever see a scary movie where you squinch your eyes right before the really bad scene comes around?”
“Sure,” he said, “Pretty much every time.”
“It’s a little something like that, though you’d have to imagine it fifty times worse than a scary scene in a movie. Receiving an impression you don’t want can be ugly. There’s usually a great deal too much emotion in it.”
“What if you forget to filter?”
“One trip through the grocery store without filters, and you learn to never do it again. You only have to suffer through one dirty memory or bad intention or intense loss. It’s not usually an image so much as a pulse of raw emotion. Trust me, you adapt. Horrors abound out there, Henry. It’s why I spend most weekends in the country and far, far away from humanity.”
“That is too bizarre.” Too bizarre to be true, he thought.
“Bizarre is as bizarre does.” She looked over at him. Her face was filled with the ghostly light of oncoming traffic. “You’re a skeptic, Henry. But that’s okay. I have no need to prove anything to you.”
“So, what about me?” he said.
“What about you?”
“Are you picking anything up from me right now?”
“No, I usually put up the shields as soon as I’m within talking distance of people.”
“Oh.”
“Wait, that’s not entirely true. I actually did get something very briefly when we first spoke.”
“What, besides the girl with green eyes?”
“Yes.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“It wasn’t much, just a faint impression.”
“What?”
“You might not like it.”
“Seriously, is this the kind of drama you use with your paying clients? Just tell me, already.”
She looked over at him. “I saw your car.”
Henry just looked at her. His heart was pounding harder than it should. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?” he said. He wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.
“There’s a flat tire,” she said, “I think it was at a gas station or some kind of fenced lot. I’d recognize the place if I saw it. At least, I think I would. But it could be anywhere.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that, Monica,” he said, watching her.
“Was that a hit?” she said.
He was sure she already knew the answer. “Can’t speak to the flat tire,” he practically whispered, “But, otherwise...ding.”
She continued watching the road. Another wave of light washed over her face. She didn’t look particularly impressed with herself.
“How did you do that?” Henry asked carefully.
“You mean what cues did I pick up on that gave me the information.” It wasn’t a question. She still wasn’t looking at him. “It’s all right, Henry. I’ve spent my life around skeptics. It’s all good. You don’t have to believe me. In fact, I couldn’t really care less if you do or not. Most skeptics actively avoid the truth. It’s a safety issue, I believe.”
He knew she didn’t mean that vindictively or because she was offended. It was just the simple truth. “It’s nothing personal,” he said, “It’s just...you know, I’m victim of a scientific mind.”
“Want another one?” This time she looked him full on.
“Mind?”
“Impression.”
He thought about it a moment. He thought about the secrets he had locked in his dungeon. She was probably the last person he should let in. If she thought a trip through the grocery store was filled with horrors, just wait until she strolled through his garden.
Anyway, the truth was, though he had been certain she was a fake when they first met, it seems the jury had just reconvened to deliberate the decision.
“Think I’m going to pass,” he said, “Thanks all the same.”
She looked back at the road. “Suit yourself.”
“Okay,” he said, laughing, “Nice weather we’re having.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for reading. The novel "Henry's Re-entry" is available now at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
HENRY WATCHED A DARK SEDAN ROLLING TOWARD HIM.
It was a late model Impala. It was so white, it looked like a florescent light tube rolling through the darkness.
He was cold enough that he was actually starting to shake. The car was passing him in that slow, deliberate way that told him the driver was appraising him. The windows were tinted too dark to see inside. There was a magnetic sign on the passenger door that read Monica Darkveil, Psychic Counselor, and a phone number. The car slid several yards past, and then the brake lights flamed. A moment later, the reverse lights popped on, and then it rolled back toward him, moving just as lazily as it had passed.
Hope!
He bent down as the window glided open. It stopped half way. The heat wafting out from it felt like standing before a brazier.
A woman leaned over into the passenger space. She had fine, shoulder length black hair with the bangs cut square across her forehead. Her face was long and angular, and comfortable to look at. If she’d been a man, they’d have called the look rugged. In a woman, he thought the word was handsome. Or maybe winsome. He couldn’t remember.
“Riverside?” she said.
Henry felt a chill. How the hell could she know that? He looked down at the sign. Monica Darkveil, Psychic Counselor. He looked back at her. “Are you serious?” he said.
“Yes, I’m seriously going to Riverside. You want a ride or not?” She had a smoky, sensuous voice.
The heat pouring out the window was incentive enough. Henry got in.
“Man, it’s freezing out there,” he said as he buckled up.
“I know.” She quickly accelerated down the ramp and merged into the cruising lane.
She was older than him, maybe closer to forty, and thin in a nice way. She had dark eyes that looked happy to be there. She was actually quite attractive in a serious, metropolitan, no-nonsense kind of way.
“I thought this was the desert,” she said without looking at him, “What’s up with this temperature?”
“Well,” he said, “We are at altitude. Albuquerque’s a mile high, so there’s less atmosphere to keep the heat in.”
She shot him a look that felt a little annoyed. “It was rhetorical. What are you, the Vagabond Geographer?”
Henry wasn’t sure if he’d just been slapped. “No,” he said, “Just full of useless information, I guess.”
“So it seems. My name’s Monica.” She didn’t offer a hand.
“I’m Henry. Thanks for the lift.”
“Where are you going, Henry?”
“Shouldn’t you be able to tell me that?” he said, grinning.
She sent him another look. This one didn’t beat around the bush, either. “Full of useless information and an annoying sense of humor. Great. It’s going to be a long drive.”
“Sorry.” He felt his face flush. “I just meant...I mean, what with you being a psychic and all...?”
“Yeah, I got it. You’re a real hoot, Henry. Keep it up. I think I’m starting to see your future.” She put a couple fingers to her brow. “I see you in the middle of New Mexico. You’re on a dark road in the middle of the desert. You’re lost, cold, hungry...”
“Okey dokey, then,” he said, “Note to self, no more psychic jokes.”
She looked at him again, but this time she laughed. “I’m just kidding. I get that all the time. I’ve learned it’s best to shoot back quickly.”
“So, you’re really a psychic?”
“So, you’re really a hitchhiker?”
“Funny.”
“Not so much.”
She had a dry wit. He liked it. “I really appreciate the ride.”
“You already thanked me,” she said, “I find repetition tedious.”
“Sorry.” He wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers,” she said.
“Well, we’re in good company, then. I don’t usually hitchhike.”
“Perfect.”
They drove on for a few minutes in silence. Then Henry said, “So, why did you pick me up, anyway? I mean, if you usually don’t?”
She shrugged. “I sensed a quiet desperation about you. I’m a sucker for that in a man. Besides, how dangerous can a grown man wearing a Superman uniform be?”
Henry looked down at himself. His Alice overshirt was buttoned all the way up to his neck. His Superman tee wasn’t even exposed. He felt a queer chill. He wanted to say something about it, but didn’t know which way to go with it.
“Don’t make a deal out of it, Henry.” She sent him a crafty smile. “It is what it is.”
“Then, you are the real thing?” He couldn’t believe he was asking the question.
“Define real thing.”
“You really have psychic abilities.”
“I hate that word used in such context. Abilities? Whatever.”
“What do you prefer? Gift?”
“Gift.” She laughed. “That one never gets old. Is your sense of balance a gift, Henry?”
“I don’t know. Never thought of it that way.”
“How about your proprioception?”
“I’m not even sure what that is.”
“If your arm is out of sight do you still know where it is?”
“Oh, I get it,” he said, “Like position awareness.”
“Is that a gift?”
“Not really. It’s just a function of my body.”
“Ding!”
He settled back in his seat and again wondered how she’d seen his uniform. Maybe while he bent into the car when she first stopped. She probably saw down his dress shirt. There had to be something that gave it away.
“Don’t over analyze it, Henry.”
“What, are you reading my mind?”
“You can’t read a mind, Henry. It’s not a comic book.”
“Then what’s a psychic?”
“Different animal altogether.”
He laughed. “Why do I have the feeling that with you I’ll either be on the offense or defense?”
“I would guess because you’re intuitive, Henry. And because you’re right.”
“Hm, I’m liking you better by the moment,” he said. He meant it. “This is going to be a most interesting ride, isn’t it, Monica?”
“For which of us?”
He looked at her.
She chuckled. “Still kidding, Henry. Relax.”
He wasn’t sure he should. “You’re not exactly easy, are you?”
“I’ve got my darkness just like you,” she said.
Henry’s alarms started ringing. He looked over at her. “So, how’s this going to work, Monica?” he said, “Do I have to put up a barricade of mental razor wire to keep you from hearing my thoughts?”
He laughed at that. She didn’t.
“First of all,” she said, “I hear with my ears just like you. Thoughts don’t make sounds. Second, I’ve got you filtered, so you can just take a chill. Third, nobody reads minds except in the movies. We just get impressions.”
“Impressions? Meaning what?”
“Meaning I don’t hear your thoughts like Boris Karloff is whispering in my ear. I get a sense, like a picture flash.”
“Like a picture flash,” he repeated, “I don’t get it.”
“A blonde girl with the green eyes.”
Henry froze at that. Alice’s face rushed into his mind, and he suffered a pang of grief for it. “What did you say?” he asked her.
“It doesn’t matter, Henry.”
He wondered if he’d even heard her right. She couldn’t know about Alice. There was a trick in here somewhere, he just had to find it.
“Relax,” she told him, “I won’t go tiptoeing through your head uninvited, I promise.”
“Do you get these impressions often?”
“Didn’t I just tell you I have you filtered?” She threw her eyes at him. “Nobody likes worry warts, Henry. They’re dreary.”
She was no nonsense. He liked that. It put him at ease.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” he said, “I’m asking if you get impressions routinely?”
“Do you hear things routinely, Henry? Or just when you actively listen?”
“Okay, I get it. No more stupid questions. Tell me how you do it. Filter, I mean.”
The tail of the pickup truck in front of them was coming up fast. He wondered if she was going to move over. She merged into the passing lane just in time to avoid rear-ending it. The dashboard green face of the driver of the pickup gave him the what-the-hell look as they passed.
“It’s complicated,” she said, “You just learn. It’s a kind of self-preservation.”
“But, you have to actively filter things out. You can’t just not accept the impressions?”
“Henry, have you ever seen something you wished you hadn’t?”
The image of his wife hanging from the garage rafters tried to stampede into his head, but he immediately blocked it.
“Sure,” he said seriously, “Of course I have.”
“Why didn’t you will yourself not to see it when you did?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you actively anticipate you might see something unappealing, and then set your sight to avoid it?”
“Because I don’t know it’s coming,” he said. And then he grinned. “Okay, I get it. Really, I totally get it.”
“You ever see a scary movie where you squinch your eyes right before the really bad scene comes around?”
“Sure,” he said, “Pretty much every time.”
“It’s a little something like that, though you’d have to imagine it fifty times worse than a scary scene in a movie. Receiving an impression you don’t want can be ugly. There’s usually a great deal too much emotion in it.”
“What if you forget to filter?”
“One trip through the grocery store without filters, and you learn to never do it again. You only have to suffer through one dirty memory or bad intention or intense loss. It’s not usually an image so much as a pulse of raw emotion. Trust me, you adapt. Horrors abound out there, Henry. It’s why I spend most weekends in the country and far, far away from humanity.”
“That is too bizarre.” Too bizarre to be true, he thought.
“Bizarre is as bizarre does.” She looked over at him. Her face was filled with the ghostly light of oncoming traffic. “You’re a skeptic, Henry. But that’s okay. I have no need to prove anything to you.”
“So, what about me?” he said.
“What about you?”
“Are you picking anything up from me right now?”
“No, I usually put up the shields as soon as I’m within talking distance of people.”
“Oh.”
“Wait, that’s not entirely true. I actually did get something very briefly when we first spoke.”
“What, besides the girl with green eyes?”
“Yes.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“It wasn’t much, just a faint impression.”
“What?”
“You might not like it.”
“Seriously, is this the kind of drama you use with your paying clients? Just tell me, already.”
She looked over at him. “I saw your car.”
Henry just looked at her. His heart was pounding harder than it should. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?” he said. He wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.
“There’s a flat tire,” she said, “I think it was at a gas station or some kind of fenced lot. I’d recognize the place if I saw it. At least, I think I would. But it could be anywhere.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that, Monica,” he said, watching her.
“Was that a hit?” she said.
He was sure she already knew the answer. “Can’t speak to the flat tire,” he practically whispered, “But, otherwise...ding.”
She continued watching the road. Another wave of light washed over her face. She didn’t look particularly impressed with herself.
“How did you do that?” Henry asked carefully.
“You mean what cues did I pick up on that gave me the information.” It wasn’t a question. She still wasn’t looking at him. “It’s all right, Henry. I’ve spent my life around skeptics. It’s all good. You don’t have to believe me. In fact, I couldn’t really care less if you do or not. Most skeptics actively avoid the truth. It’s a safety issue, I believe.”
He knew she didn’t mean that vindictively or because she was offended. It was just the simple truth. “It’s nothing personal,” he said, “It’s just...you know, I’m victim of a scientific mind.”
“Want another one?” This time she looked him full on.
“Mind?”
“Impression.”
He thought about it a moment. He thought about the secrets he had locked in his dungeon. She was probably the last person he should let in. If she thought a trip through the grocery store was filled with horrors, just wait until she strolled through his garden.
Anyway, the truth was, though he had been certain she was a fake when they first met, it seems the jury had just reconvened to deliberate the decision.
“Think I’m going to pass,” he said, “Thanks all the same.”
She looked back at the road. “Suit yourself.”
“Okay,” he said, laughing, “Nice weather we’re having.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for reading. The novel "Henry's Re-entry" is available now at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
February 18, 2014
OUTTAKE FROM HENRY'S RE-ENTRY: HENRY MEETS MRS. PENA
HENRY STUDIED THE MAP OF NEW MEXICO.
It was sheltered behind the kiosk’s tired plexiglass armor. On the glass, just west of Albuquerque, was a blocky yellow arrow pointing at a spot on the map indicating the place he was standing. It read: You are EAT SHIT.
Though he’d never visited this desert wasteland before, he was pretty confident that EAT SHIT was not an official New Mexico Department of Transportation location. The words were hand-scrawled on the surface of the plexiglass in block-style blue lettering. He scratched a thumbnail against it and looked again.
You are EAT SHIT.
He scratched at it more vigorously, but it was evident the graffiti was there to stay. It’d remain on that public map, offending people’s sensibilities, and insulting their values, until the kiosk burned down or the state replaced the plexiglass. What the hell, he thought, wasn’t there enough routine, generic, day-to-day stupidity surrounding them already without the uneducated halfwits forcing their bullshit dysfunction into innocent people’s lives as well?
He slammed his fist against the plastic. It didn’t leave a mark. He looked around for a better weapon. There was a bit of landscaping outside the restroom. He walked over to it and sorted through some rocks until he found one just jaggy enough.
Who in the hell walks around with a blue Sharpie in their pocket anyway? And if you do go to the effort of carrying a blue Sharpie around with you, aren’t you inherently obligated to come up with something more profound, or at least wittier, than EAT SHIT before you use it? Why go to the trouble of carrying the damned pen if that’s the most original bit of homespun philosophy you can come up with? It didn’t make sense.
He walked back to the map.
You are EAT SHIT.
Genius! This country was quickly becoming a moron’s paradise.
He guarded his eyes and slammed the rock against the offensive spot. This time he was rewarded with a lovely pair of cracks that intersected precisely over the naughty words, just exactly as if the Lord himself had driven over from heaven and Xed them out himself.
There, mission accomplished! Now maybe it’d get replaced, thus sparing some passing widow or roving boy scout leader or impressionable Tween the grievance of bearing witness to the grimmest of America’s moral turpitude. Another good deed to help offset his karmic debt. He had the feeling Josho would approve. He tossed the rock into the shrubs.
He traced the line of Interstate 40 west under the cracks, across New Mexico, and into Arizona. And then he traced the route again. And again. Much to his surprise and delight, his ride with Josho had taken him three hours in completely the wrong direction.
The revelation left him speechless. This outing simply kept getting better and better. It was his Magnum Opus, a monument to his self-immolation. “You’re a regular rocket surgeon,” he whispered to himself, “Seriously brilliant. You should buy yourself a trophy.”
“Do you need a lift to a shelter?”
Henry nearly jumped out of his skin.
He wheeled around to find a middle-aged Hispanic woman in a lavender pantsuit standing immediately behind him. Her hair was tied back so tightly he was inclined to wince in sympathy for it. Shadows cast by the mercury light above and behind her obscured the details of her features. Secured over her left shoulder was a shiny square purse on a long strap that’d somehow teleported out of the seventies. It was the size of a detergent box and so white it seemed to glow of its own accord.
“Do you have problems with your hearing?” she said. Her tone implied she already had the answer.
He didn’t know how to reply to that. Judging by the woman’s stiff posture and puritan-grade scowl, he was confident none of the possible responses sparking through his head were the right one.
“I asked you a question, sir,” she said sternly.
“I’m sorry?” he said, more to stall than outwit her.
“Do. You. Need. A lift? To a shelter or elsewhere? I’m not inclined to ask again.”
“A shelter?” he said, “Do I look like I need—”
He stopped and looked down at his attire. The dry cleaner’s starch had pretty much bailed on what was left of his dress shirt, and Josho’s soap hadn’t so much cleaned the vomit stain out of his slacks as enhanced its sheen.
He drew a hand down his shirt to smooth it. He surprised himself by blushing. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, “I believe we’re actually pretty well set here. But, uh…but, thanks all the same. I guess.”
As the woman stepped closer, turning just slightly so that her features drifted into the flood of the stark mercury light. She wore a harsh expression that was miles too close to the nuns of his youth. One hand fortified the crisp white purse strap running down her shoulder and the other was mounted securely against her hip. Her gaze was locked on him like a bobcat waiting for a rabbit to run.
“Do I look like a fool?” she said seriously.
“Mm...no,” he said carefully, “Then again, I just met you, so I’m not sure I’m really the most qualified person to—”
“You cannot lie to me, young man, so it’ll save you a great deal of energy if you simply and sincerely resolve yourself to not attempt it.”
He swallowed. Hard. “Roger that,” he said, for lack of anything smarter.
“Do you have a place to stay tonight?” Her tone was efficiently administrative.
“Sure. I mean, of course I do.” He’d never had so intense an urge to run away from anyone before in his life.
“Do you have transportation?” she pressed.
“Yes, obviously,” he said, faking a laugh, “It’s right over there.” He hiked a thumb off toward the parking lot.
She stepped a bit closer. “What did I just tell you about lying to me?”
He couldn’t find his voice. She scared the hell out of him.
“Lying is a sin, sir. A sin, and a complete waste of energy.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
He studied her for a beat or two. It was becoming rapidly clear that this woman was not one to screw with. This one ate her young. If he was ever inclined to take the route of feigned respect, this was probably the time to do so.
“Well?” she said sharply, “Do you believe yourself in possession of a particularly sharp wit? That you’re some kind of funnyman, perhaps?”
“No, ma’am,” he said carefully, “Actually, I’m just trying not to get hurt.”
They looked at each other for a time as the highway buzzed in the background. It sounded like the cars were speeding up as they passed the rest area, like maybe they were trying to get by this place as quickly as possible because they knew the Agent of Honor was lurking inside.
“Do you have a place to stay tonight?” she asked again.
He just looked at her. He didn’t know which response would result in the least amount of pain. He could feel her eyes dissecting his intentions like a pair of lasers.
“I don’t find your stubbornness any cuter than your wit,” she said, “Or are you just having trouble understanding me?”
“No, ma’am. I understand you fine.”
“Then why do you refuse to answer?”
“Well, to be honest, you make me a little nervous.”
She watched him for a moment. Her expression might even have softened a bit, though he couldn’t be certain.
Finally, she began digging through her white purse, which was still so bright against the shadows he had to squint to look directly at it. “My name is Mrs. Pena,” she said, “I’m a Bernalillo County Social Worker. I also volunteer at several homeless shelters. I can arrange a ride to the nearest one for you.” She pulled an old-school cell phone from her purse and flipped it open smartly. “You’ll be safe there. Perhaps you can get yourself cleaned up.”
“What are you doing?” he said.
“You look like you could use some food,” she said as she began pressing numbers into the phone, “When did you last eat? And please know that wine does not count as food, even if it is bred from grapes.”
“Seriously,” he said, “What...what are you doing with the phone?”
“I’m calling the New Mexico State Police to get you a ride.”
“What? No!” he said quickly, “Are you crazy? Don’t—”
Her eyes threw solar flares at him. “What did you say to me?”
“Nothing! I mean, I didn’t mean literally crazy. I meant…
please, look, you don’t have to do this!”
She put the phone to her ear. “It’s not a problem, sir. I’m happy to help.” She didn’t look like she was.
“No!” Henry said, waving his hands before her, “Please! I’m not homeless. I swear it! I’m just traveling. I’m passing through on my way to my home in California and I ran into some troubles, nothing more. Please, hang up. Please! I don’t need the trouble!”
She watched him with the phone to her ear for what seemed like the longest moment of his life. And then, much to his surprise and relief, she slowly pulled it away and flipped it shut.
“Thank you,” he said, “God, thank you. I’m just traveling, I promise you. I just...I’m taking a road trip, nothing more. I got a little wild last night, which explains my appearance, but I don’t need a place to stay, and I don’t mean anyone any trouble. I’m not homeless, I give you my word.”
“You can put your hands down now, sir.”
He realized he was still holding his palms up at her, and quickly threw them behind his back. “Sorry,” he said quickly. He added, “Thank you,” as an afterthought.
After another prolonged examination with her laser eyes, she said, “I’m going to ask you a question.” She held the closed phone up between them like it was the microphone to a lie detector. “If I am dissatisfied with your response, I promise you I will place the call to the state police. There are vagrancy laws in this state, after all. Do you understand me?”
Henry didn’t know what to make of this. The day behind him was already one for the books, but this moment felt like a psychotic episode. Maybe it was the Vicodin, maybe it was the hangover, maybe he’d finally lost his mind. He had the strangest urge to look around for cameras.
“Are you fleeing the law, sir?”
Should’ve seen that one coming. “No, ma’am,” he said, “I’ve never even been arrested. Had a speeding ticket once, but that was years ago.”
Her eyes reflected doubt.
“I swear it, Mrs. Pena,” he said urgently, “It’s the absolute truth, so help me Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.”
Her lips pursed just a bit at that. She was studying him too closely. After what seemed like days, she nodded and dropped her phone back in her purse.
“All right,” she said, still watching him, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. This time.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t. I’ve just finished up the strangest goddamn day of my—”
She threw him a glare that left a mark.
“Sorry!” he said quickly, probably too quickly, “I don’t mean to offend.”
“Well, you don’t,” she said, “But your language most certainly does.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, “Seriously, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just working my way home. That’s all of it. I’m not here to bother anyone. I’m not a threat to society. I just wanted to get cleaned up a bit.”
She gave him a cursory examination, and then said, “I see.”
They again stood looking at each other in the suffocating light of the mercury lamp. The silence was murder. He wanted to leave, but didn’t know how. She had a queer kind of grip on him. Desperate to fill the void with something, anything, he glanced around at the restrooms and vending area, and said, “Do you have an office here or something?”
“Is that sarcasm?” she said.
His heart nearly kicked its way out of its cage. “No, ma’am.”
“I’m not sure I like your tone,” she said. He had the feeling she used that line a lot.
“I meant no disrespect,” he said, “I just meant...well, isn’t it a little odd to approach a strange man at a rest area and ask him if he needs a ride?” He immediately regretted the question.
Her expression shifted a bit at that. “What are you implying?” she said.
“What? Nothing! I mean...not like that. It’s just, you know, a little weird. I mean, from where I’m standing and all.”
She looked momentarily indignant, but quickly recovered. “I take my work seriously,” she said, pressing a hand alongside her head, as if she could somehow make her hair even tighter, “I see a person in need, and I act on it. I see another who may be a threat to passersby and I do the same. It’s in my nature. It’s also my responsibility.”
“I see.” He didn’t.
“I had a site visit this evening. I was on my way home and needed to stop to...” She flushed a bit and then simply shrugged.
“I understand,” he said. He sure as hell didn’t want any details.
Once again, they stood looking at each other in atomic silence. Moths were trying to kill themselves against the buzzing mercury light above them. Cars growled along the highway beyond the rest area. Somewhere off in the night, a coyote screamed.
Then she looked up at him and said, “When was the last time you ate?”
He looked at his feet and drew his hair back across his head. It was still wet from washing it. He sifted back through the last twenty-four hours. He remembered eating lunch at his desk yesterday, but pretty much everything after ten p.m. was in hiding.
“I asked you a question, sir.”
“I honestly don’t know, ma’am.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out the tortured twenty. “I’ve got cash, but no change for the vending. No one seems interested in breaking it for me. I’ve asked, but...well, people pretty much take a wide berth when they see me coming.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said, “You smell like shit.”
Henry startled himself by laughing. “Yes,” he said, shaking his head, “Yes, I do. Although, for the record, I did wash up. It just didn’t seem to take.”
He saw her mouth twitch at that. It was barely perceptible and passed quicker than a wink, but a smile did tease her.
He stretched the twenty tautly between his fingers. “Mrs. Pena,” he said, smiling at her, “If you could somehow manage to break this, I can get a candy bar or bag of chips. I don’t need exact change, just a couple bucks. You can keep the difference.”
“Do I look like I need your change, sir?”
“No. I mean...that’s not what I meant. I just...well, I’m a little desperate, that’s all.”
Mrs. Pena’s laser eyes burned into the bill held up before her. Then they returned their fire to him. “I can’t help you, sir,” she said.
The bill drifted lower. “I see,” he said, nodding, “Sure. No problem. I understand. Thanks anyway.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Um...”
“You don’t know?”
“Of course, I know,” he said, “It’s Henry, actually.”
“You don’t seem confident of that.”
“No, it’s definitely Henry.”
“Are you an honest man, Henry?”
“What?”
“Which part didn’t you understand? The words? Or their context in the question?”
Henry again suspected there was no right answer. “I am an honest man,” he said, “For the most part.”
Her brow lifted.
“I mean, I am one hundred per cent an honest man so far as my relationship with you is concerned.” Nice recovery.
Her eyes were fierce, her gaze physical. He was sure she was going to either leave, or call the police and then leave. Finally, she turned away, and he’d never felt more thankful for any human act in his entire life.
But then, just as he was about to run as far away as possible, he heard her say, “Follow me, Henry.”
Henry didn’t know why he complied, but he did exactly as he was told. He grabbed his gear, a soiled brown paper bag with the supplies Josho had donated to his cause, and followed her to her car. It was parked down at the end of a long line of cement stairs in the first stall after the handicap spaces directly beneath the flood of another mercury security light. She was a prudent woman, Mrs. Pena.
When they were a dozen paces from the car, she turned and threw a hand up at him. “Stay there,” she said, pointing at a picnic table. When she seemed confident he’d comply, she stepped off the curb and walked to her car.
A few moments later, she returned carrying what looked like a pizza box and a couple dark plastic soda bottles.
It was sheltered behind the kiosk’s tired plexiglass armor. On the glass, just west of Albuquerque, was a blocky yellow arrow pointing at a spot on the map indicating the place he was standing. It read: You are EAT SHIT.
Though he’d never visited this desert wasteland before, he was pretty confident that EAT SHIT was not an official New Mexico Department of Transportation location. The words were hand-scrawled on the surface of the plexiglass in block-style blue lettering. He scratched a thumbnail against it and looked again.
You are EAT SHIT.
He scratched at it more vigorously, but it was evident the graffiti was there to stay. It’d remain on that public map, offending people’s sensibilities, and insulting their values, until the kiosk burned down or the state replaced the plexiglass. What the hell, he thought, wasn’t there enough routine, generic, day-to-day stupidity surrounding them already without the uneducated halfwits forcing their bullshit dysfunction into innocent people’s lives as well?
He slammed his fist against the plastic. It didn’t leave a mark. He looked around for a better weapon. There was a bit of landscaping outside the restroom. He walked over to it and sorted through some rocks until he found one just jaggy enough.
Who in the hell walks around with a blue Sharpie in their pocket anyway? And if you do go to the effort of carrying a blue Sharpie around with you, aren’t you inherently obligated to come up with something more profound, or at least wittier, than EAT SHIT before you use it? Why go to the trouble of carrying the damned pen if that’s the most original bit of homespun philosophy you can come up with? It didn’t make sense.
He walked back to the map.
You are EAT SHIT.
Genius! This country was quickly becoming a moron’s paradise.
He guarded his eyes and slammed the rock against the offensive spot. This time he was rewarded with a lovely pair of cracks that intersected precisely over the naughty words, just exactly as if the Lord himself had driven over from heaven and Xed them out himself.
There, mission accomplished! Now maybe it’d get replaced, thus sparing some passing widow or roving boy scout leader or impressionable Tween the grievance of bearing witness to the grimmest of America’s moral turpitude. Another good deed to help offset his karmic debt. He had the feeling Josho would approve. He tossed the rock into the shrubs.
He traced the line of Interstate 40 west under the cracks, across New Mexico, and into Arizona. And then he traced the route again. And again. Much to his surprise and delight, his ride with Josho had taken him three hours in completely the wrong direction.
The revelation left him speechless. This outing simply kept getting better and better. It was his Magnum Opus, a monument to his self-immolation. “You’re a regular rocket surgeon,” he whispered to himself, “Seriously brilliant. You should buy yourself a trophy.”
“Do you need a lift to a shelter?”
Henry nearly jumped out of his skin.
He wheeled around to find a middle-aged Hispanic woman in a lavender pantsuit standing immediately behind him. Her hair was tied back so tightly he was inclined to wince in sympathy for it. Shadows cast by the mercury light above and behind her obscured the details of her features. Secured over her left shoulder was a shiny square purse on a long strap that’d somehow teleported out of the seventies. It was the size of a detergent box and so white it seemed to glow of its own accord.
“Do you have problems with your hearing?” she said. Her tone implied she already had the answer.
He didn’t know how to reply to that. Judging by the woman’s stiff posture and puritan-grade scowl, he was confident none of the possible responses sparking through his head were the right one.
“I asked you a question, sir,” she said sternly.
“I’m sorry?” he said, more to stall than outwit her.
“Do. You. Need. A lift? To a shelter or elsewhere? I’m not inclined to ask again.”
“A shelter?” he said, “Do I look like I need—”
He stopped and looked down at his attire. The dry cleaner’s starch had pretty much bailed on what was left of his dress shirt, and Josho’s soap hadn’t so much cleaned the vomit stain out of his slacks as enhanced its sheen.
He drew a hand down his shirt to smooth it. He surprised himself by blushing. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, “I believe we’re actually pretty well set here. But, uh…but, thanks all the same. I guess.”
As the woman stepped closer, turning just slightly so that her features drifted into the flood of the stark mercury light. She wore a harsh expression that was miles too close to the nuns of his youth. One hand fortified the crisp white purse strap running down her shoulder and the other was mounted securely against her hip. Her gaze was locked on him like a bobcat waiting for a rabbit to run.
“Do I look like a fool?” she said seriously.
“Mm...no,” he said carefully, “Then again, I just met you, so I’m not sure I’m really the most qualified person to—”
“You cannot lie to me, young man, so it’ll save you a great deal of energy if you simply and sincerely resolve yourself to not attempt it.”
He swallowed. Hard. “Roger that,” he said, for lack of anything smarter.
“Do you have a place to stay tonight?” Her tone was efficiently administrative.
“Sure. I mean, of course I do.” He’d never had so intense an urge to run away from anyone before in his life.
“Do you have transportation?” she pressed.
“Yes, obviously,” he said, faking a laugh, “It’s right over there.” He hiked a thumb off toward the parking lot.
She stepped a bit closer. “What did I just tell you about lying to me?”
He couldn’t find his voice. She scared the hell out of him.
“Lying is a sin, sir. A sin, and a complete waste of energy.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
He studied her for a beat or two. It was becoming rapidly clear that this woman was not one to screw with. This one ate her young. If he was ever inclined to take the route of feigned respect, this was probably the time to do so.
“Well?” she said sharply, “Do you believe yourself in possession of a particularly sharp wit? That you’re some kind of funnyman, perhaps?”
“No, ma’am,” he said carefully, “Actually, I’m just trying not to get hurt.”
They looked at each other for a time as the highway buzzed in the background. It sounded like the cars were speeding up as they passed the rest area, like maybe they were trying to get by this place as quickly as possible because they knew the Agent of Honor was lurking inside.
“Do you have a place to stay tonight?” she asked again.
He just looked at her. He didn’t know which response would result in the least amount of pain. He could feel her eyes dissecting his intentions like a pair of lasers.
“I don’t find your stubbornness any cuter than your wit,” she said, “Or are you just having trouble understanding me?”
“No, ma’am. I understand you fine.”
“Then why do you refuse to answer?”
“Well, to be honest, you make me a little nervous.”
She watched him for a moment. Her expression might even have softened a bit, though he couldn’t be certain.
Finally, she began digging through her white purse, which was still so bright against the shadows he had to squint to look directly at it. “My name is Mrs. Pena,” she said, “I’m a Bernalillo County Social Worker. I also volunteer at several homeless shelters. I can arrange a ride to the nearest one for you.” She pulled an old-school cell phone from her purse and flipped it open smartly. “You’ll be safe there. Perhaps you can get yourself cleaned up.”
“What are you doing?” he said.
“You look like you could use some food,” she said as she began pressing numbers into the phone, “When did you last eat? And please know that wine does not count as food, even if it is bred from grapes.”
“Seriously,” he said, “What...what are you doing with the phone?”
“I’m calling the New Mexico State Police to get you a ride.”
“What? No!” he said quickly, “Are you crazy? Don’t—”
Her eyes threw solar flares at him. “What did you say to me?”
“Nothing! I mean, I didn’t mean literally crazy. I meant…
please, look, you don’t have to do this!”
She put the phone to her ear. “It’s not a problem, sir. I’m happy to help.” She didn’t look like she was.
“No!” Henry said, waving his hands before her, “Please! I’m not homeless. I swear it! I’m just traveling. I’m passing through on my way to my home in California and I ran into some troubles, nothing more. Please, hang up. Please! I don’t need the trouble!”
She watched him with the phone to her ear for what seemed like the longest moment of his life. And then, much to his surprise and relief, she slowly pulled it away and flipped it shut.
“Thank you,” he said, “God, thank you. I’m just traveling, I promise you. I just...I’m taking a road trip, nothing more. I got a little wild last night, which explains my appearance, but I don’t need a place to stay, and I don’t mean anyone any trouble. I’m not homeless, I give you my word.”
“You can put your hands down now, sir.”
He realized he was still holding his palms up at her, and quickly threw them behind his back. “Sorry,” he said quickly. He added, “Thank you,” as an afterthought.
After another prolonged examination with her laser eyes, she said, “I’m going to ask you a question.” She held the closed phone up between them like it was the microphone to a lie detector. “If I am dissatisfied with your response, I promise you I will place the call to the state police. There are vagrancy laws in this state, after all. Do you understand me?”
Henry didn’t know what to make of this. The day behind him was already one for the books, but this moment felt like a psychotic episode. Maybe it was the Vicodin, maybe it was the hangover, maybe he’d finally lost his mind. He had the strangest urge to look around for cameras.
“Are you fleeing the law, sir?”
Should’ve seen that one coming. “No, ma’am,” he said, “I’ve never even been arrested. Had a speeding ticket once, but that was years ago.”
Her eyes reflected doubt.
“I swear it, Mrs. Pena,” he said urgently, “It’s the absolute truth, so help me Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.”
Her lips pursed just a bit at that. She was studying him too closely. After what seemed like days, she nodded and dropped her phone back in her purse.
“All right,” she said, still watching him, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. This time.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t. I’ve just finished up the strangest goddamn day of my—”
She threw him a glare that left a mark.
“Sorry!” he said quickly, probably too quickly, “I don’t mean to offend.”
“Well, you don’t,” she said, “But your language most certainly does.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, “Seriously, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just working my way home. That’s all of it. I’m not here to bother anyone. I’m not a threat to society. I just wanted to get cleaned up a bit.”
She gave him a cursory examination, and then said, “I see.”
They again stood looking at each other in the suffocating light of the mercury lamp. The silence was murder. He wanted to leave, but didn’t know how. She had a queer kind of grip on him. Desperate to fill the void with something, anything, he glanced around at the restrooms and vending area, and said, “Do you have an office here or something?”
“Is that sarcasm?” she said.
His heart nearly kicked its way out of its cage. “No, ma’am.”
“I’m not sure I like your tone,” she said. He had the feeling she used that line a lot.
“I meant no disrespect,” he said, “I just meant...well, isn’t it a little odd to approach a strange man at a rest area and ask him if he needs a ride?” He immediately regretted the question.
Her expression shifted a bit at that. “What are you implying?” she said.
“What? Nothing! I mean...not like that. It’s just, you know, a little weird. I mean, from where I’m standing and all.”
She looked momentarily indignant, but quickly recovered. “I take my work seriously,” she said, pressing a hand alongside her head, as if she could somehow make her hair even tighter, “I see a person in need, and I act on it. I see another who may be a threat to passersby and I do the same. It’s in my nature. It’s also my responsibility.”
“I see.” He didn’t.
“I had a site visit this evening. I was on my way home and needed to stop to...” She flushed a bit and then simply shrugged.
“I understand,” he said. He sure as hell didn’t want any details.
Once again, they stood looking at each other in atomic silence. Moths were trying to kill themselves against the buzzing mercury light above them. Cars growled along the highway beyond the rest area. Somewhere off in the night, a coyote screamed.
Then she looked up at him and said, “When was the last time you ate?”
He looked at his feet and drew his hair back across his head. It was still wet from washing it. He sifted back through the last twenty-four hours. He remembered eating lunch at his desk yesterday, but pretty much everything after ten p.m. was in hiding.
“I asked you a question, sir.”
“I honestly don’t know, ma’am.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out the tortured twenty. “I’ve got cash, but no change for the vending. No one seems interested in breaking it for me. I’ve asked, but...well, people pretty much take a wide berth when they see me coming.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said, “You smell like shit.”
Henry startled himself by laughing. “Yes,” he said, shaking his head, “Yes, I do. Although, for the record, I did wash up. It just didn’t seem to take.”
He saw her mouth twitch at that. It was barely perceptible and passed quicker than a wink, but a smile did tease her.
He stretched the twenty tautly between his fingers. “Mrs. Pena,” he said, smiling at her, “If you could somehow manage to break this, I can get a candy bar or bag of chips. I don’t need exact change, just a couple bucks. You can keep the difference.”
“Do I look like I need your change, sir?”
“No. I mean...that’s not what I meant. I just...well, I’m a little desperate, that’s all.”
Mrs. Pena’s laser eyes burned into the bill held up before her. Then they returned their fire to him. “I can’t help you, sir,” she said.
The bill drifted lower. “I see,” he said, nodding, “Sure. No problem. I understand. Thanks anyway.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Um...”
“You don’t know?”
“Of course, I know,” he said, “It’s Henry, actually.”
“You don’t seem confident of that.”
“No, it’s definitely Henry.”
“Are you an honest man, Henry?”
“What?”
“Which part didn’t you understand? The words? Or their context in the question?”
Henry again suspected there was no right answer. “I am an honest man,” he said, “For the most part.”
Her brow lifted.
“I mean, I am one hundred per cent an honest man so far as my relationship with you is concerned.” Nice recovery.
Her eyes were fierce, her gaze physical. He was sure she was going to either leave, or call the police and then leave. Finally, she turned away, and he’d never felt more thankful for any human act in his entire life.
But then, just as he was about to run as far away as possible, he heard her say, “Follow me, Henry.”
Henry didn’t know why he complied, but he did exactly as he was told. He grabbed his gear, a soiled brown paper bag with the supplies Josho had donated to his cause, and followed her to her car. It was parked down at the end of a long line of cement stairs in the first stall after the handicap spaces directly beneath the flood of another mercury security light. She was a prudent woman, Mrs. Pena.
When they were a dozen paces from the car, she turned and threw a hand up at him. “Stay there,” she said, pointing at a picnic table. When she seemed confident he’d comply, she stepped off the curb and walked to her car.
A few moments later, she returned carrying what looked like a pizza box and a couple dark plastic soda bottles.
February 17, 2014
Excerpt from Henry's Re-entry: Henry Meets Josho
HENRY SAT ON THE GUARDRAIL, SLOWLY BROILING IN THE MURDEROUS HEAT.
It was like sitting in front of an open smelt furnace. It felt like the sun had burned all the oxygen out of the air so that every breath scalded his lungs.
He was beginning to wish he hadn’t been so short sighted about Clarence’s recommendation on the water. He looked back through the atomic heat waves at the aging bar simmering in the distance behind him. If that sorry old paleface Indian hadn’t sent him on his merry way on such a sour note, he’d be tempted to crawl his way back over and beg for a glass.
Then again, the hour they’d spent together had been like drinking with Nostradamus, nothing but dour observations and unhealthy prognostications. The man was so full of hot gas, it was a wonder the place didn’t go up in flames every time he farted. What a bunch of bullshit. And the sorriest thing about it was that he’d damned near succumbed to the old bastard’s Roy Rogers counseling. No, it was much better out here in the open, heat or no heat.
Unfortunately, four hours baking on this guardrail had pretty well smothered his faith in hitchhiking. The day was closing in quick and the thumb he was trolling the road with had only pulled in a couple nibbles. His first ride had driven him a solid hundred feet before kicking him out. With the second ride, he’d barely opened the door before it pulled away without so much as a ‘by your leave’. He figured it had to be the smell. He smelled like shit.
A road weary late model sedan materialized from the dense heat vapors flooding the highway. The dust had tainted its burgundy finish to a tawny haze the color of the smog that perpetually hugged LA.
Henry stuck his thumb out half-heartedly, and with no expectations of a bite. The car buzzed by exactly as he expected. But then, completely against plan, the brake lights flamed and the car veered off onto the shoulder and came to a stop in a plume of dust. Henry ran toward it as fast as his blisters allowed.
The trunk and rear bumper of this current
opportunity were tagged like a train car with the automobile equivalent of graffiti. Each of the dozen haphazardly applied bumper stickers verbalized some variation on the theme of Jesus saving his undeserving ass. With his luck, this would be the ride that actually took him somewhere.
He grabbed the latch and pulled the door open. The chilled air rushing out through the open door felt like a dive into a cool spring.
“Howdy, son,” a voice called from the other side of the cabin.
“I appreciate the ride,” Henry said as he slid into the passenger seat.
As he settled into place, he wondered if there was going to be enough room for both of them. The man was huge, easily three hundred pounds. He was dressed in a well-travelled black suit that looked a half size too small. He wore a tired white shirt with a dull black tie. His head looked like it’d been scooped onto his collar without benefit of a neck, erupting from his suit like a fat red balloon swelling up from a collar an inch too tight. The bottom of the steering wheel was clenched convincingly against his belly.
Henry was barely onboard when the man leaned across the divider between the seats and peered out the still open passenger’s door. His voluminous head was painted with a ruddy, jowly face. The head hovered there for several beats, practically leaning against Henry’s chest as the man scanned the roadside beyond.
The man’s eyes eventually rolled up toward him. “Where’s your gear, son?” The head didn’t withdraw.
Henry retreated as far back into his seat as he could manage. He worried the giant head might pop right there in front of him, and he sure as hell didn’t need any more stains.
“My gear?” he asked without breathing.
The man slowly withdrew back into his own seat, and scratched at the Caesar’s crown of greasy hair pasted to the folds on the back of his head. “Your luggage,” he said like he was speaking to a foreigner, “Your suitcase? Backpack? Duffel bag? Sack? Where’s your gear?”
“Oh, my gear!” Henry said as he pulled the door shut, “It’s in my car.”
The man looked at him like he was trying to interpret code. “Well, where’s your car, son?”
“I suspect it might be on its way home.” Henry smiled as insincerely as he could manage.
“On its way home?”
“Not to worry. It’s had a lot of experience.”
The man smiled and nodded politely, the way one does when a stranger mentions the Voices. Then he turned to the steering wheel and seized the shifter. But he didn’t engage the drive. Instead, he paused, and then threw Henry a look that made him feel like he should empty his pockets.
“I’m going to be straight with you, son,” the man said carefully, “As you can see by my luggage, I’m a man of the Lord, praise His glory.”
Henry glanced at the indicated back seat. The robes hanging on the door looked decidedly clerical. There was also a worn brown bible sitting on the backseat and a string of dangling blue crucifixes lining the rear window like Low Riders for Jesus.
“I see,” Henry said. How could he not?
“As a man of God, I’m inclined to help folks in need, which is why I offered you, a man I don’t even know, a ride. You see, even through the dust on my windows, even at sixty miles per hour, I could see by your...eh, appearance...I could see that you were in need of some assistance.”
“Well, I appreciate your—”
“But I am compelled to be straight with you, son. I simply have no tolerance for the consumption of alcohol. Alcohol is the dark serum that turns a good man into Mr. Hyde.”
Mr. Hyde? Henry felt the ground dropping beneath him. He might just as well get out now and avoid the drama.
The man’s brow was so low on his face, it looked like an impending landslide. “It’s not my place to cast judgment,” he said carefully, “And I mean you no disrespect. However…”
Henry glanced out at the heat waves beckoning to him from the endless scrubs, and he suffered a moment’s panic. He couldn’t face that heat, not again.
“…I can smell the liquor on your breath. It’s quite strong and it’s quite recent. I have had some sorry experiences with that same affliction myself, a history for which I pray daily for forgiveness.”
“Liquor?” Henry said matter-of-factly, “No, sir. You’re mistaken.”
“Son, I cannot suffer a liar.”
“I’m not lying.” He was absolutely lying. Poorly.
The man threw a chunky finger up between them. “The devil is the father of lies,” he said, “The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is only for a moment. Proverbs 12:19.” Then he extended that same finger out at the passenger door like the Ghost of Christmas Future showing Scrooge his grave. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to disembark this vehicle, my friend, though I wish you the best of luck. I most sincerely do.”
Henry thought fast. He was too sick to lose this ride. The cold air flowing over his feet and legs felt like a lifeline. He couldn’t possibly bear another minute in that damned sun. He was trapped, and in that moment of desperation, he resorted to the truth.
“I shouldn’t have lied,” he said plainly, and hopefully not too quickly, “I’ve had a couple drinks, it’s true. And I don’t normally drink so early in the day, but...well, the truth is…”
“Yes?”
“The truth is…”
“What is the truth, son?”
Think fast, Henry. “The truth is…well, it…well, for all its negative influences, it does numb the pain.”
The man was staring at him like he was never going to stop. His eyes were large and widely spaced, and they were darkly ringed, like he hadn’t had much time for sleep in the last year or so. The left eye appeared more interested in what was happening out in front of the car than straight ahead. Yet they still radiated all the intensity of a wildfire. And just as Henry was convinced he should simply leave of his own accord and avoid the scene that was inevitably to follow, the big man withdrew into his own seat, sliding back across the car like a garbage scow backing up to a dock.
“Pain?” the man said, “How do you mean, pain?” His posture had relaxed, but his eyes remained metal detectors. They offered no quarter. He was ready to arrest a lie on sight.
Henry considered the question. There were so many possibilities. He thought about explaining how he’d awakened on the floor of a gas station bathroom with no jacket, no wallet, no belt or tie, a missing shoe, and no memory of how he’d ended up there, but that was too close to the truth. Anyway, he knew exactly how he ended up there. He knew the reason, anyway, it was just the specifics he lacked. No, he had to find a different excuse.
“I’m waiting, son.”
“It’s complicated,” Henry said, for lack of a more convincing tack.
“That’s the best you’ve got?” the man said, “It’s complicated? Well, life’s complicated, son. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave.” He rolled over into Henry’s seat again and reached across for the door handle, more insistently this time.
“I’m in mourning,” Henry said quickly. Too quickly, probably. Too quickly, almost certainly. It was a cheap, dirty resort that he instantly regretted. Not that it mattered. The man was bound to see his desperation as clearly as his black eye anyway. Game over. Thanks for playing.
But then, to his surprise, the man actually paused with his sweaty head hovering inches from Henry’s face. Henry again tried not to breathe. “Mourning?” the man asked seriously.
A chink in the armor. Henry had used a semblance of the truth to keep it honest, and it had worked, but he now had to tread very carefully. If he got too close, it could bring him down.
“I lost my wife,” Henry said. He didn’t mention that it was four years ago. He also didn’t mention that he’d murdered her, or that he was a soulless asshole who was full throttle into a four-year suicide mission. Man, this was a new low even for him.
The man retreated into his seat. His brow slowly receded back up over his forehead, and a kind of sad darkness seemed to fill him. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said so softly it seemed unreal, “That’s…most unfortunate.”
The words landed like a knife pinning a note to Henry’s chest with the words ‘Soulless Asshole’ scrawled on it. I’m sorry for your loss. The words threatened to drop the hangman’s gangplank beneath him.
“Arrogance should be punished,” the man said suddenly and in a startlingly robust voice, “So that people who don’t know anything better can learn a lesson from it. If you are wise, you will learn when you are corrected. Proverbs 19:25.”
Henry didn’t even have a clue what that meant.
“I’m sorry, son. I’m told I’m inclined toward haughtiness. It’s a form of arrogance. It means blatantly disdainful.”
“I know what haughtiness means,” Henry said without knowing why.
“It’s a sin. And sadly, I’m greatly drawn to it. It’s the reason my wife has...well, moved on.”
Henry had no inclination to ask, but he sincerely prayed she wasn’t dead. He had no wish to share that burden with the man.
“My arrogance is like an affliction,” the man continued, “I pray on it often and with deep humility.”
Deep humility? Henry was beginning to hope he’d be asked to leave again.
“I’d like to ask you to forgive me,” the man continued, “I had no right to accuse you of lying, especially given your...your unfortunate situation.”
“Forgive you?” Henry’s stomach twisted. Forgiveness wasn’t a tool he typically kept sharpened. Vindictiveness, spite, and resentment more clearly defined his toolshed.
“Please, son. I am truly sorry.”
The man was looking at Henry from an expression of deep, almost surreal humility. Henry suddenly worried he was going to be asked to pray with him, maybe get out of the car and kneel in the hot gravel together, maybe even hold hands. He tried to think of an exit strategy before the dreaded event could materialize.
But before he could be called upon to prostrate himself before God, the man abruptly relaxed. He smiled and nodded, and then he threw the car into gear and yanked them roughly out onto the highway.
And as they accelerated down that burning highway with a delicious winter breeze hissing out from beneath the dash, Henry leaned back in his seat and drew a thankful breath, whispering “Thank God Almighty.” He even threw in a complimentary ‘Amen’ just for good measure.
It was like sitting in front of an open smelt furnace. It felt like the sun had burned all the oxygen out of the air so that every breath scalded his lungs.
He was beginning to wish he hadn’t been so short sighted about Clarence’s recommendation on the water. He looked back through the atomic heat waves at the aging bar simmering in the distance behind him. If that sorry old paleface Indian hadn’t sent him on his merry way on such a sour note, he’d be tempted to crawl his way back over and beg for a glass.
Then again, the hour they’d spent together had been like drinking with Nostradamus, nothing but dour observations and unhealthy prognostications. The man was so full of hot gas, it was a wonder the place didn’t go up in flames every time he farted. What a bunch of bullshit. And the sorriest thing about it was that he’d damned near succumbed to the old bastard’s Roy Rogers counseling. No, it was much better out here in the open, heat or no heat.
Unfortunately, four hours baking on this guardrail had pretty well smothered his faith in hitchhiking. The day was closing in quick and the thumb he was trolling the road with had only pulled in a couple nibbles. His first ride had driven him a solid hundred feet before kicking him out. With the second ride, he’d barely opened the door before it pulled away without so much as a ‘by your leave’. He figured it had to be the smell. He smelled like shit.
A road weary late model sedan materialized from the dense heat vapors flooding the highway. The dust had tainted its burgundy finish to a tawny haze the color of the smog that perpetually hugged LA.
Henry stuck his thumb out half-heartedly, and with no expectations of a bite. The car buzzed by exactly as he expected. But then, completely against plan, the brake lights flamed and the car veered off onto the shoulder and came to a stop in a plume of dust. Henry ran toward it as fast as his blisters allowed.
The trunk and rear bumper of this current
opportunity were tagged like a train car with the automobile equivalent of graffiti. Each of the dozen haphazardly applied bumper stickers verbalized some variation on the theme of Jesus saving his undeserving ass. With his luck, this would be the ride that actually took him somewhere.
He grabbed the latch and pulled the door open. The chilled air rushing out through the open door felt like a dive into a cool spring.
“Howdy, son,” a voice called from the other side of the cabin.
“I appreciate the ride,” Henry said as he slid into the passenger seat.
As he settled into place, he wondered if there was going to be enough room for both of them. The man was huge, easily three hundred pounds. He was dressed in a well-travelled black suit that looked a half size too small. He wore a tired white shirt with a dull black tie. His head looked like it’d been scooped onto his collar without benefit of a neck, erupting from his suit like a fat red balloon swelling up from a collar an inch too tight. The bottom of the steering wheel was clenched convincingly against his belly.
Henry was barely onboard when the man leaned across the divider between the seats and peered out the still open passenger’s door. His voluminous head was painted with a ruddy, jowly face. The head hovered there for several beats, practically leaning against Henry’s chest as the man scanned the roadside beyond.
The man’s eyes eventually rolled up toward him. “Where’s your gear, son?” The head didn’t withdraw.
Henry retreated as far back into his seat as he could manage. He worried the giant head might pop right there in front of him, and he sure as hell didn’t need any more stains.
“My gear?” he asked without breathing.
The man slowly withdrew back into his own seat, and scratched at the Caesar’s crown of greasy hair pasted to the folds on the back of his head. “Your luggage,” he said like he was speaking to a foreigner, “Your suitcase? Backpack? Duffel bag? Sack? Where’s your gear?”
“Oh, my gear!” Henry said as he pulled the door shut, “It’s in my car.”
The man looked at him like he was trying to interpret code. “Well, where’s your car, son?”
“I suspect it might be on its way home.” Henry smiled as insincerely as he could manage.
“On its way home?”
“Not to worry. It’s had a lot of experience.”
The man smiled and nodded politely, the way one does when a stranger mentions the Voices. Then he turned to the steering wheel and seized the shifter. But he didn’t engage the drive. Instead, he paused, and then threw Henry a look that made him feel like he should empty his pockets.
“I’m going to be straight with you, son,” the man said carefully, “As you can see by my luggage, I’m a man of the Lord, praise His glory.”
Henry glanced at the indicated back seat. The robes hanging on the door looked decidedly clerical. There was also a worn brown bible sitting on the backseat and a string of dangling blue crucifixes lining the rear window like Low Riders for Jesus.
“I see,” Henry said. How could he not?
“As a man of God, I’m inclined to help folks in need, which is why I offered you, a man I don’t even know, a ride. You see, even through the dust on my windows, even at sixty miles per hour, I could see by your...eh, appearance...I could see that you were in need of some assistance.”
“Well, I appreciate your—”
“But I am compelled to be straight with you, son. I simply have no tolerance for the consumption of alcohol. Alcohol is the dark serum that turns a good man into Mr. Hyde.”
Mr. Hyde? Henry felt the ground dropping beneath him. He might just as well get out now and avoid the drama.
The man’s brow was so low on his face, it looked like an impending landslide. “It’s not my place to cast judgment,” he said carefully, “And I mean you no disrespect. However…”
Henry glanced out at the heat waves beckoning to him from the endless scrubs, and he suffered a moment’s panic. He couldn’t face that heat, not again.
“…I can smell the liquor on your breath. It’s quite strong and it’s quite recent. I have had some sorry experiences with that same affliction myself, a history for which I pray daily for forgiveness.”
“Liquor?” Henry said matter-of-factly, “No, sir. You’re mistaken.”
“Son, I cannot suffer a liar.”
“I’m not lying.” He was absolutely lying. Poorly.
The man threw a chunky finger up between them. “The devil is the father of lies,” he said, “The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is only for a moment. Proverbs 12:19.” Then he extended that same finger out at the passenger door like the Ghost of Christmas Future showing Scrooge his grave. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to disembark this vehicle, my friend, though I wish you the best of luck. I most sincerely do.”
Henry thought fast. He was too sick to lose this ride. The cold air flowing over his feet and legs felt like a lifeline. He couldn’t possibly bear another minute in that damned sun. He was trapped, and in that moment of desperation, he resorted to the truth.
“I shouldn’t have lied,” he said plainly, and hopefully not too quickly, “I’ve had a couple drinks, it’s true. And I don’t normally drink so early in the day, but...well, the truth is…”
“Yes?”
“The truth is…”
“What is the truth, son?”
Think fast, Henry. “The truth is…well, it…well, for all its negative influences, it does numb the pain.”
The man was staring at him like he was never going to stop. His eyes were large and widely spaced, and they were darkly ringed, like he hadn’t had much time for sleep in the last year or so. The left eye appeared more interested in what was happening out in front of the car than straight ahead. Yet they still radiated all the intensity of a wildfire. And just as Henry was convinced he should simply leave of his own accord and avoid the scene that was inevitably to follow, the big man withdrew into his own seat, sliding back across the car like a garbage scow backing up to a dock.
“Pain?” the man said, “How do you mean, pain?” His posture had relaxed, but his eyes remained metal detectors. They offered no quarter. He was ready to arrest a lie on sight.
Henry considered the question. There were so many possibilities. He thought about explaining how he’d awakened on the floor of a gas station bathroom with no jacket, no wallet, no belt or tie, a missing shoe, and no memory of how he’d ended up there, but that was too close to the truth. Anyway, he knew exactly how he ended up there. He knew the reason, anyway, it was just the specifics he lacked. No, he had to find a different excuse.
“I’m waiting, son.”
“It’s complicated,” Henry said, for lack of a more convincing tack.
“That’s the best you’ve got?” the man said, “It’s complicated? Well, life’s complicated, son. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave.” He rolled over into Henry’s seat again and reached across for the door handle, more insistently this time.
“I’m in mourning,” Henry said quickly. Too quickly, probably. Too quickly, almost certainly. It was a cheap, dirty resort that he instantly regretted. Not that it mattered. The man was bound to see his desperation as clearly as his black eye anyway. Game over. Thanks for playing.
But then, to his surprise, the man actually paused with his sweaty head hovering inches from Henry’s face. Henry again tried not to breathe. “Mourning?” the man asked seriously.
A chink in the armor. Henry had used a semblance of the truth to keep it honest, and it had worked, but he now had to tread very carefully. If he got too close, it could bring him down.
“I lost my wife,” Henry said. He didn’t mention that it was four years ago. He also didn’t mention that he’d murdered her, or that he was a soulless asshole who was full throttle into a four-year suicide mission. Man, this was a new low even for him.
The man retreated into his seat. His brow slowly receded back up over his forehead, and a kind of sad darkness seemed to fill him. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said so softly it seemed unreal, “That’s…most unfortunate.”
The words landed like a knife pinning a note to Henry’s chest with the words ‘Soulless Asshole’ scrawled on it. I’m sorry for your loss. The words threatened to drop the hangman’s gangplank beneath him.
“Arrogance should be punished,” the man said suddenly and in a startlingly robust voice, “So that people who don’t know anything better can learn a lesson from it. If you are wise, you will learn when you are corrected. Proverbs 19:25.”
Henry didn’t even have a clue what that meant.
“I’m sorry, son. I’m told I’m inclined toward haughtiness. It’s a form of arrogance. It means blatantly disdainful.”
“I know what haughtiness means,” Henry said without knowing why.
“It’s a sin. And sadly, I’m greatly drawn to it. It’s the reason my wife has...well, moved on.”
Henry had no inclination to ask, but he sincerely prayed she wasn’t dead. He had no wish to share that burden with the man.
“My arrogance is like an affliction,” the man continued, “I pray on it often and with deep humility.”
Deep humility? Henry was beginning to hope he’d be asked to leave again.
“I’d like to ask you to forgive me,” the man continued, “I had no right to accuse you of lying, especially given your...your unfortunate situation.”
“Forgive you?” Henry’s stomach twisted. Forgiveness wasn’t a tool he typically kept sharpened. Vindictiveness, spite, and resentment more clearly defined his toolshed.
“Please, son. I am truly sorry.”
The man was looking at Henry from an expression of deep, almost surreal humility. Henry suddenly worried he was going to be asked to pray with him, maybe get out of the car and kneel in the hot gravel together, maybe even hold hands. He tried to think of an exit strategy before the dreaded event could materialize.
But before he could be called upon to prostrate himself before God, the man abruptly relaxed. He smiled and nodded, and then he threw the car into gear and yanked them roughly out onto the highway.
And as they accelerated down that burning highway with a delicious winter breeze hissing out from beneath the dash, Henry leaned back in his seat and drew a thankful breath, whispering “Thank God Almighty.” He even threw in a complimentary ‘Amen’ just for good measure.
February 14, 2014
Excerpt from Henry's Re-entry: Henry Meets Clarence
HENRY STOPPED BEFORE A SCARRED WOODEN STOOL CAPPED WITH A WORN OUT GREEN NAUGHAHIDE SEAT.
A woman’s nasally voice resonated from somewhere back in the shadows. She was singing a sorry song about wandering around alone in the middle of the night looking for a supposed lover who clearly didn’t want shit to do with her.
He groped his way up onto the seat, and leaned heavily into the faded Formica bar counter.
The long wooden back bar looked like a refugee from a western movie set, complete with a warped mirror bearing a spider-web crack at one corner that looked unnervingly like a gunshot wound. A pair of Grecian-like pillars stood at opposing ends of the bar, each supported by a naked, portly woman with a cherub smile and breasts one size too small for her body. A clock with no crystal and a yellowing face listed languidly on a dusty shelf above the bottles. The second hand hobbled forward in palsied beats as it counted down his wait. It told Henry it was three forty-seven, but Henry was pretty sure it told everyone that.
The space running in between the front and back bar was devoid of life. Where the hell was the bartender? He needed his bloody medicine. He drummed his fingers on the scarred counter as he looked out into the tables. Maybe there was a barmaid around.
Cigarette smoke swirled the room, as thick and physical as water tainted by drops of milk. The ghosts of two old cowpokes haunted a table beneath a dusty ceiling lamp made from an old wagon wheel. They hunched under their sweaty cowboy hats, holding onto their sweatier beer cans like lifelines. Two more cowpunchers huddled in the back behind a pool table that’d been old when jukeboxes made their debut. They were leaning languidly into their pool sticks with the remnants of cigarettes pasted to their lips. They looked like they were serving a sentence, like they’d been playing that very same game for years now and had no hope of finishing it anytime soon. The sight gave Henry pause.
He wondered for just an instant if maybe his outing had been a success after all. Maybe the alcohol had finally driven him into a tree somewhere in the emptiness of the Wild, Wild West, and this was some kind of divine intervention, punishment for a life so poorly executed. Maybe he was doomed to an eternity haunting the planks of a backcountry saloon, alone and forgotten, and listening to classically depressing old country western singers.
Yet, even as he considered such a sentence, he knew it was little more than wishful thinking. It could never go that easily, not for him. Dying now would be like declaring karmic bankruptcy. He still had a lifetime of penance to pay, a lifetime of regret and guilt to endure. He’d taken everything she had. He’d taken her heartbeat, for Christ’s sake! A mortal lifetime suffering in atonement for his deeds would barely pay the interest on a crime like that. The principle would start when hell claimed him.
“What are you drinking, boy?”
Henry nearly jumped off the stool. The bartender might as well have materialized from the smoke.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Henry snapped at the man.
“Chicago, originally. But I’ve lived mostly right here.”
Henry just looked at him. The bartender was like the comic relief in an otherwise serious John Wayne movie. He was a ninety-year-old version of Stan Laurel, complete with a shock of white hair and an expression of shrewd bewilderment. He wore a denim work shirt with matching yokes, and pearl snaps buttoned up to his Adam’s apple. The frayed collar was choked into compliance by a cheesy turquoise bola. It almost made him blend in.
“What are you drinking?” the bartender asked again. He didn’t sound like he cared.
Henry slid his last rumpled twenty across the fossilized rings left by long extinct beer bottles. “Direct and straight to the point,” he said, “I admire that in a bartender.”
“No need to butter me up,” the bartender said, “I’m obligated to serve you unless you’re drunk or violent. What would you like?”
“Bourbon.”
“Rocks?”
“Neat.”
“House?”
Henry looked down at the twenty pinned between his fingers. “Sadly, yes.”
“Judging by your smell and the telltale glow of an unhappy liver, I’d say water would be your wiser choice.”
Henry scowled at him. “Trying to poison me? Just be a good old cowpoke and bring me my medicine.”
The bartender shrugged and turned away.
“Water,” Henry said with a little laugh, “Plan’s too near to perfect to ruin now.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands back across his scalp. He massaged his temples and brow, and tried to coax the agony away. Chicago, he thought. Hilarious. The old prick was a real joker.
“Here you go, boy.”
Henry flinched again. He scowled up at the old man. “What the hell!” he said, “You know it’s rude to sneak up on people, right? I mean, that’s a true statement pretty much everywhere, even out here in purgatory.”
The bartender slid a drink across the counter. But instead of his bourbon, Henry found a sweating glass of water. A glob of stale looking ice floated miserably at the top of it. The old man was holding his bourbon back on the counter behind the poison.
“What’s this?” Henry asked him.
“You look like hell,” the man said as casually as if observing the weather.
“Well, of course I do, Slim. It’s perfectly keeping with the plan.”
“Gonna get yourself a kidney infection.” The man actually looked serious.
“I ordered bourbon,” Henry said seriously, “I didn’t ask for—”
“Drink.”
Henry studied him a moment. The old man studied him back. Even for such a cartoonish morning-after, this was too surreal.
“Let me get this straight,” Henry said, “You’re holding my liquor hostage until I pay up by drinking the poison?”
“You’re a quick study, boy,” the old man said, “Direct and to the point. I like that in a customer.”
“You’re blackmailing me?”
The bartender shrugged and sniffed. “More like extortion, I expect.”
“Extortion?”
“It means getting something from a person through the abuse of one’s office or position of authority.”
“I know what extortion means! I mean, what gives you the right to hold back my drink?”
A wry grin pushed the old man’s thick wrinkles out of alignment. “I’m the bartender. You don’t like it, there’s another bar thirty miles due east of here. You could probably thumb it in about a week. Naturally, that would be depending on the traffic.”
A woman’s nasally voice resonated from somewhere back in the shadows. She was singing a sorry song about wandering around alone in the middle of the night looking for a supposed lover who clearly didn’t want shit to do with her.
He groped his way up onto the seat, and leaned heavily into the faded Formica bar counter.
The long wooden back bar looked like a refugee from a western movie set, complete with a warped mirror bearing a spider-web crack at one corner that looked unnervingly like a gunshot wound. A pair of Grecian-like pillars stood at opposing ends of the bar, each supported by a naked, portly woman with a cherub smile and breasts one size too small for her body. A clock with no crystal and a yellowing face listed languidly on a dusty shelf above the bottles. The second hand hobbled forward in palsied beats as it counted down his wait. It told Henry it was three forty-seven, but Henry was pretty sure it told everyone that.
The space running in between the front and back bar was devoid of life. Where the hell was the bartender? He needed his bloody medicine. He drummed his fingers on the scarred counter as he looked out into the tables. Maybe there was a barmaid around.
Cigarette smoke swirled the room, as thick and physical as water tainted by drops of milk. The ghosts of two old cowpokes haunted a table beneath a dusty ceiling lamp made from an old wagon wheel. They hunched under their sweaty cowboy hats, holding onto their sweatier beer cans like lifelines. Two more cowpunchers huddled in the back behind a pool table that’d been old when jukeboxes made their debut. They were leaning languidly into their pool sticks with the remnants of cigarettes pasted to their lips. They looked like they were serving a sentence, like they’d been playing that very same game for years now and had no hope of finishing it anytime soon. The sight gave Henry pause.
He wondered for just an instant if maybe his outing had been a success after all. Maybe the alcohol had finally driven him into a tree somewhere in the emptiness of the Wild, Wild West, and this was some kind of divine intervention, punishment for a life so poorly executed. Maybe he was doomed to an eternity haunting the planks of a backcountry saloon, alone and forgotten, and listening to classically depressing old country western singers.
Yet, even as he considered such a sentence, he knew it was little more than wishful thinking. It could never go that easily, not for him. Dying now would be like declaring karmic bankruptcy. He still had a lifetime of penance to pay, a lifetime of regret and guilt to endure. He’d taken everything she had. He’d taken her heartbeat, for Christ’s sake! A mortal lifetime suffering in atonement for his deeds would barely pay the interest on a crime like that. The principle would start when hell claimed him.
“What are you drinking, boy?”
Henry nearly jumped off the stool. The bartender might as well have materialized from the smoke.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Henry snapped at the man.
“Chicago, originally. But I’ve lived mostly right here.”
Henry just looked at him. The bartender was like the comic relief in an otherwise serious John Wayne movie. He was a ninety-year-old version of Stan Laurel, complete with a shock of white hair and an expression of shrewd bewilderment. He wore a denim work shirt with matching yokes, and pearl snaps buttoned up to his Adam’s apple. The frayed collar was choked into compliance by a cheesy turquoise bola. It almost made him blend in.
“What are you drinking?” the bartender asked again. He didn’t sound like he cared.
Henry slid his last rumpled twenty across the fossilized rings left by long extinct beer bottles. “Direct and straight to the point,” he said, “I admire that in a bartender.”
“No need to butter me up,” the bartender said, “I’m obligated to serve you unless you’re drunk or violent. What would you like?”
“Bourbon.”
“Rocks?”
“Neat.”
“House?”
Henry looked down at the twenty pinned between his fingers. “Sadly, yes.”
“Judging by your smell and the telltale glow of an unhappy liver, I’d say water would be your wiser choice.”
Henry scowled at him. “Trying to poison me? Just be a good old cowpoke and bring me my medicine.”
The bartender shrugged and turned away.
“Water,” Henry said with a little laugh, “Plan’s too near to perfect to ruin now.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands back across his scalp. He massaged his temples and brow, and tried to coax the agony away. Chicago, he thought. Hilarious. The old prick was a real joker.
“Here you go, boy.”
Henry flinched again. He scowled up at the old man. “What the hell!” he said, “You know it’s rude to sneak up on people, right? I mean, that’s a true statement pretty much everywhere, even out here in purgatory.”
The bartender slid a drink across the counter. But instead of his bourbon, Henry found a sweating glass of water. A glob of stale looking ice floated miserably at the top of it. The old man was holding his bourbon back on the counter behind the poison.
“What’s this?” Henry asked him.
“You look like hell,” the man said as casually as if observing the weather.
“Well, of course I do, Slim. It’s perfectly keeping with the plan.”
“Gonna get yourself a kidney infection.” The man actually looked serious.
“I ordered bourbon,” Henry said seriously, “I didn’t ask for—”
“Drink.”
Henry studied him a moment. The old man studied him back. Even for such a cartoonish morning-after, this was too surreal.
“Let me get this straight,” Henry said, “You’re holding my liquor hostage until I pay up by drinking the poison?”
“You’re a quick study, boy,” the old man said, “Direct and to the point. I like that in a customer.”
“You’re blackmailing me?”
The bartender shrugged and sniffed. “More like extortion, I expect.”
“Extortion?”
“It means getting something from a person through the abuse of one’s office or position of authority.”
“I know what extortion means! I mean, what gives you the right to hold back my drink?”
A wry grin pushed the old man’s thick wrinkles out of alignment. “I’m the bartender. You don’t like it, there’s another bar thirty miles due east of here. You could probably thumb it in about a week. Naturally, that would be depending on the traffic.”
Excerpt from Henry's Re-entry: Henry Meets Clarence
HENRY STOPPED BEFORE A SCARRED WOODEN STOOL CAPPED WITH A WORN OUT GREEN NAUGHAHIDE SEAT.
A woman’s nasally voice resonated from somewhere back in the shadows. She was singing a sorry song about wandering around alone in the middle of the night looking for a supposed lover who clearly didn’t want shit to do with her.
He groped his way up onto the seat, and leaned heavily into the faded Formica bar counter.
The long wooden back bar looked like a refugee from a western movie set, complete with a warped mirror bearing a spider-web crack at one corner that looked unnervingly like a gunshot wound. A pair of Grecian-like pillars stood at opposing ends of the bar, each supported by a naked, portly woman with a cherub smile and breasts one size too small for her body. A clock with no crystal and a yellowing face listed languidly on a dusty shelf above the bottles. The second hand hobbled forward in palsied beats as it counted down his wait. It told Henry it was three forty-seven, but Henry was pretty sure it told everyone that.
The space running in between the front and back bar was devoid of life. Where the hell was the bartender? He needed his bloody medicine. He drummed his fingers on the scarred counter as he looked out into the tables. Maybe there was a barmaid around.
Cigarette smoke swirled the room, as thick and physical as water tainted by drops of milk. The ghosts of two old cowpokes haunted a table beneath a dusty ceiling lamp made from an old wagon wheel. They hunched under their sweaty cowboy hats, holding onto their sweatier beer cans like lifelines. Two more cowpunchers huddled in the back behind a pool table that’d been old when jukeboxes made their debut. They were leaning languidly into their pool sticks with the remnants of cigarettes pasted to their lips. They looked like they were serving a sentence, like they’d been playing that very same game for years now and had no hope of finishing it anytime soon. The sight gave Henry pause.
He wondered for just an instant if maybe his outing had been a success after all. Maybe the alcohol had finally driven him into a tree somewhere in the emptiness of the Wild, Wild West, and this was some kind of divine intervention, punishment for a life so poorly executed. Maybe he was doomed to an eternity haunting the planks of a backcountry saloon, alone and forgotten, and listening to classically depressing old country western singers.
Yet, even as he considered such a sentence, he knew it was little more than wishful thinking. It could never go that easily, not for him. Dying now would be like declaring karmic bankruptcy. He still had a lifetime of penance to pay, a lifetime of regret and guilt to endure. He’d taken everything she had. He’d taken her heartbeat, for Christ’s sake! A mortal lifetime suffering in atonement for his deeds would barely pay the interest on a crime like that. The principle would start when hell claimed him.
“What are you drinking, boy?”
Henry nearly jumped off the stool. The bartender might as well have materialized from the smoke.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Henry snapped at the man.
“Chicago, originally. But I’ve lived mostly right here.”
Henry just looked at him. The bartender was like the comic relief in an otherwise serious John Wayne movie. He was a ninety-year-old version of Stan Laurel, complete with a shock of white hair and an expression of shrewd bewilderment. He wore a denim work shirt with matching yokes, and pearl snaps buttoned up to his Adam’s apple. The frayed collar was choked into compliance by a cheesy turquoise bola. It almost made him blend in.
“What are you drinking?” the bartender asked again. He didn’t sound like he cared.
Henry slid his last rumpled twenty across the fossilized rings left by long extinct beer bottles. “Direct and straight to the point,” he said, “I admire that in a bartender.”
“No need to butter me up,” the bartender said, “I’m obligated to serve you unless you’re drunk or violent. What would you like?”
“Bourbon.”
“Rocks?”
“Neat.”
“House?”
Henry looked down at the twenty pinned between his fingers. “Sadly, yes.”
“Judging by your smell and the telltale glow of an unhappy liver, I’d say water would be your wiser choice.”
Henry scowled at him. “Trying to poison me? Just be a good old cowpoke and bring me my medicine.”
The bartender shrugged and turned away.
“Water,” Henry said with a little laugh, “Plan’s too near to perfect to ruin now.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands back across his scalp. He massaged his temples and brow, and tried to coax the agony away. Chicago, he thought. Hilarious. The old prick was a real joker.
“Here you go, boy.”
Henry flinched again. He scowled up at the old man. “What the hell!” he said, “You know it’s rude to sneak up on people, right? I mean, that’s a true statement pretty much everywhere, even out here in purgatory.”
The bartender slid a drink across the counter. But instead of his bourbon, Henry found a sweating glass of water. A glob of stale looking ice floated miserably at the top of it. The old man was holding his bourbon back on the counter behind the poison.
“What’s this?” Henry asked him.
“You look like hell,” the man said as casually as if observing the weather.
“Well, of course I do, Slim. It’s perfectly keeping with the plan.”
“Gonna get yourself a kidney infection.” The man actually looked serious.
“I ordered bourbon,” Henry said seriously, “I didn’t ask for—”
“Drink.”
Henry studied him a moment. The old man studied him back. Even for such a cartoonish morning-after, this was too surreal.
“Let me get this straight,” Henry said, “You’re holding my liquor hostage until I pay up by drinking the poison?”
“You’re a quick study, boy,” the old man said, “Direct and to the point. I like that in a customer.”
“You’re blackmailing me?”
The bartender shrugged and sniffed. “More like extortion, I expect.”
“Extortion?”
“It means getting something from a person through the abuse of one’s office or position of authority.”
“I know what extortion means! I mean, what gives you the right to hold back my drink?”
A wry grin pushed the old man’s thick wrinkles out of alignment. “I’m the bartender. You don’t like it, there’s another bar thirty miles due east of here. You could probably thumb it in about a week. Naturally, that would be depending on the traffic.”
A woman’s nasally voice resonated from somewhere back in the shadows. She was singing a sorry song about wandering around alone in the middle of the night looking for a supposed lover who clearly didn’t want shit to do with her.
He groped his way up onto the seat, and leaned heavily into the faded Formica bar counter.
The long wooden back bar looked like a refugee from a western movie set, complete with a warped mirror bearing a spider-web crack at one corner that looked unnervingly like a gunshot wound. A pair of Grecian-like pillars stood at opposing ends of the bar, each supported by a naked, portly woman with a cherub smile and breasts one size too small for her body. A clock with no crystal and a yellowing face listed languidly on a dusty shelf above the bottles. The second hand hobbled forward in palsied beats as it counted down his wait. It told Henry it was three forty-seven, but Henry was pretty sure it told everyone that.
The space running in between the front and back bar was devoid of life. Where the hell was the bartender? He needed his bloody medicine. He drummed his fingers on the scarred counter as he looked out into the tables. Maybe there was a barmaid around.
Cigarette smoke swirled the room, as thick and physical as water tainted by drops of milk. The ghosts of two old cowpokes haunted a table beneath a dusty ceiling lamp made from an old wagon wheel. They hunched under their sweaty cowboy hats, holding onto their sweatier beer cans like lifelines. Two more cowpunchers huddled in the back behind a pool table that’d been old when jukeboxes made their debut. They were leaning languidly into their pool sticks with the remnants of cigarettes pasted to their lips. They looked like they were serving a sentence, like they’d been playing that very same game for years now and had no hope of finishing it anytime soon. The sight gave Henry pause.
He wondered for just an instant if maybe his outing had been a success after all. Maybe the alcohol had finally driven him into a tree somewhere in the emptiness of the Wild, Wild West, and this was some kind of divine intervention, punishment for a life so poorly executed. Maybe he was doomed to an eternity haunting the planks of a backcountry saloon, alone and forgotten, and listening to classically depressing old country western singers.
Yet, even as he considered such a sentence, he knew it was little more than wishful thinking. It could never go that easily, not for him. Dying now would be like declaring karmic bankruptcy. He still had a lifetime of penance to pay, a lifetime of regret and guilt to endure. He’d taken everything she had. He’d taken her heartbeat, for Christ’s sake! A mortal lifetime suffering in atonement for his deeds would barely pay the interest on a crime like that. The principle would start when hell claimed him.
“What are you drinking, boy?”
Henry nearly jumped off the stool. The bartender might as well have materialized from the smoke.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Henry snapped at the man.
“Chicago, originally. But I’ve lived mostly right here.”
Henry just looked at him. The bartender was like the comic relief in an otherwise serious John Wayne movie. He was a ninety-year-old version of Stan Laurel, complete with a shock of white hair and an expression of shrewd bewilderment. He wore a denim work shirt with matching yokes, and pearl snaps buttoned up to his Adam’s apple. The frayed collar was choked into compliance by a cheesy turquoise bola. It almost made him blend in.
“What are you drinking?” the bartender asked again. He didn’t sound like he cared.
Henry slid his last rumpled twenty across the fossilized rings left by long extinct beer bottles. “Direct and straight to the point,” he said, “I admire that in a bartender.”
“No need to butter me up,” the bartender said, “I’m obligated to serve you unless you’re drunk or violent. What would you like?”
“Bourbon.”
“Rocks?”
“Neat.”
“House?”
Henry looked down at the twenty pinned between his fingers. “Sadly, yes.”
“Judging by your smell and the telltale glow of an unhappy liver, I’d say water would be your wiser choice.”
Henry scowled at him. “Trying to poison me? Just be a good old cowpoke and bring me my medicine.”
The bartender shrugged and turned away.
“Water,” Henry said with a little laugh, “Plan’s too near to perfect to ruin now.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands back across his scalp. He massaged his temples and brow, and tried to coax the agony away. Chicago, he thought. Hilarious. The old prick was a real joker.
“Here you go, boy.”
Henry flinched again. He scowled up at the old man. “What the hell!” he said, “You know it’s rude to sneak up on people, right? I mean, that’s a true statement pretty much everywhere, even out here in purgatory.”
The bartender slid a drink across the counter. But instead of his bourbon, Henry found a sweating glass of water. A glob of stale looking ice floated miserably at the top of it. The old man was holding his bourbon back on the counter behind the poison.
“What’s this?” Henry asked him.
“You look like hell,” the man said as casually as if observing the weather.
“Well, of course I do, Slim. It’s perfectly keeping with the plan.”
“Gonna get yourself a kidney infection.” The man actually looked serious.
“I ordered bourbon,” Henry said seriously, “I didn’t ask for—”
“Drink.”
Henry studied him a moment. The old man studied him back. Even for such a cartoonish morning-after, this was too surreal.
“Let me get this straight,” Henry said, “You’re holding my liquor hostage until I pay up by drinking the poison?”
“You’re a quick study, boy,” the old man said, “Direct and to the point. I like that in a customer.”
“You’re blackmailing me?”
The bartender shrugged and sniffed. “More like extortion, I expect.”
“Extortion?”
“It means getting something from a person through the abuse of one’s office or position of authority.”
“I know what extortion means! I mean, what gives you the right to hold back my drink?”
A wry grin pushed the old man’s thick wrinkles out of alignment. “I’m the bartender. You don’t like it, there’s another bar thirty miles due east of here. You could probably thumb it in about a week. Naturally, that would be depending on the traffic.”
February 13, 2014
Henry Meets Alice
HENRY WAS STILL PARKED ON THE GUARDRAIL, THUMBING USELESSLY FOR A RIDE.
He sat doubled forward with his face in his hands, nearly at the cusp of sleep when the dirty yellow conversion van roared past. It barreled another fifty yards down the on-ramp before the brake lights flared. It stopped like the driver wasn’t in on the plan. Then the reverse lights popped on, and it was suddenly weaving back at him.
He rolled backward off the guardrail just in time to avoid losing a leg. He landed on his back in the gravel on the other side. The fender of the van screeched along the railing before jerking to a stop just a few yards past him.
He scrambled to his knees and hunkered down behind the thick post supporting the heavy metal rail. His heart was pounding. For just an instant, he envisioned himself enslaved as a meth lab tech somewhere in deepest, darkest New Mexico. It wouldn’t exactly be undeserved.
For several beats, the van only sat there, engine running, music thumping, a small orange spot glowing behind the dark windshield. Then the orange dot flared, and the gears shifted, and the van eased slowly forward. The fender and side door screeched mournfully as they slid free of the guardrail.
It stopped directly in front of him, so close he could’ve reached out and touched the fresh scar running along the side panel. The vibrations of the stereo pumped against his chest even through the closed door. His panic was just cresting when the van abruptly fell silent.
He was planning his retreat as the side door slid open. A girl squatted just inside, holding onto the inside roof of the open hatch like she was ushering skydivers out into wild blue yonder. She was dressed in Desert Storm camo pants, a tight wifebeater that glowed neon white in the streetlight, and a twisted mess of shoulder-length hair that was the color of a paint store accident.
“Hey,” she said, grinning around a cigarette.
“Hey,” he said back.
“How’s it going?” She pulled the cigarette from her mouth.
“Well, you know…pretty good. Just sitting here enjoying the evening.” He immediately regretted the sarcasm.
“Did you lose something back there?” she said, “Or are you just hiding?”
He realized he was still hunkered down behind the guardrail. He stood up and slipped his hands in his pockets. “No,” he said, “Not hiding so much as taking cover.”
She laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. Nancy has balance issues.”
“Balance issues?”
“He favors the accelerator at the expense of the brake. No balance. Get it?”
“Oh, sure. I get it.” He didn’t.
Still gripping the inside top of the door with one hand, she leaned a bit further out of the van and half-cupped her mouth toward him, saying in apparent confidence, “Truth is, he’s just a lousy driver when he’s stoned. But he’s sensitive about it, so...” She raised a finger to her lips.
“Wait,” Henry said, “You said the driver’s name was Nancy.”
“Yeah, I did,” she said back, “Because, coincidentally, that’s what it is.”
Henry thought about that. “But you just said ‘he’.”
“Look, Superman,” she said, smiling wider, “You want to discuss gender identity at one in the morning, or do you want a ride? Cause it’s late, and we really need to hit the road.”
She had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. They simmered against a pleasant face that looked like someone actually lived there. And if that weren’t incentive enough, he figured just about anyplace else on earth had to be better than this bloody on-ramp.
He sat doubled forward with his face in his hands, nearly at the cusp of sleep when the dirty yellow conversion van roared past. It barreled another fifty yards down the on-ramp before the brake lights flared. It stopped like the driver wasn’t in on the plan. Then the reverse lights popped on, and it was suddenly weaving back at him.
He rolled backward off the guardrail just in time to avoid losing a leg. He landed on his back in the gravel on the other side. The fender of the van screeched along the railing before jerking to a stop just a few yards past him.
He scrambled to his knees and hunkered down behind the thick post supporting the heavy metal rail. His heart was pounding. For just an instant, he envisioned himself enslaved as a meth lab tech somewhere in deepest, darkest New Mexico. It wouldn’t exactly be undeserved.
For several beats, the van only sat there, engine running, music thumping, a small orange spot glowing behind the dark windshield. Then the orange dot flared, and the gears shifted, and the van eased slowly forward. The fender and side door screeched mournfully as they slid free of the guardrail.
It stopped directly in front of him, so close he could’ve reached out and touched the fresh scar running along the side panel. The vibrations of the stereo pumped against his chest even through the closed door. His panic was just cresting when the van abruptly fell silent.
He was planning his retreat as the side door slid open. A girl squatted just inside, holding onto the inside roof of the open hatch like she was ushering skydivers out into wild blue yonder. She was dressed in Desert Storm camo pants, a tight wifebeater that glowed neon white in the streetlight, and a twisted mess of shoulder-length hair that was the color of a paint store accident.
“Hey,” she said, grinning around a cigarette.
“Hey,” he said back.
“How’s it going?” She pulled the cigarette from her mouth.
“Well, you know…pretty good. Just sitting here enjoying the evening.” He immediately regretted the sarcasm.
“Did you lose something back there?” she said, “Or are you just hiding?”
He realized he was still hunkered down behind the guardrail. He stood up and slipped his hands in his pockets. “No,” he said, “Not hiding so much as taking cover.”
She laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. Nancy has balance issues.”
“Balance issues?”
“He favors the accelerator at the expense of the brake. No balance. Get it?”
“Oh, sure. I get it.” He didn’t.
Still gripping the inside top of the door with one hand, she leaned a bit further out of the van and half-cupped her mouth toward him, saying in apparent confidence, “Truth is, he’s just a lousy driver when he’s stoned. But he’s sensitive about it, so...” She raised a finger to her lips.
“Wait,” Henry said, “You said the driver’s name was Nancy.”
“Yeah, I did,” she said back, “Because, coincidentally, that’s what it is.”
Henry thought about that. “But you just said ‘he’.”
“Look, Superman,” she said, smiling wider, “You want to discuss gender identity at one in the morning, or do you want a ride? Cause it’s late, and we really need to hit the road.”
She had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. They simmered against a pleasant face that looked like someone actually lived there. And if that weren’t incentive enough, he figured just about anyplace else on earth had to be better than this bloody on-ramp.
January 24, 2014
Henry's Re-entry
Welcome Cole Interview of Henry Smith
I was visiting Riverside on assignment for the metro rag I worked for in LA back in those days. I was there to interview a cop about an incident involving his sidearm, a dog, and a poorly thought out gunshot. Seemed dog shootings had suddenly come in vogue for middling-sized cities in the west, and our readers had developed a morbid passion for reading about them
It was Friday afternoon. I was waiting to interview a cop about an incident involving his sidearm, a dog, and a poorly thought out gunshot. I was in a dump called the The Slammed Dunk. It was your usual old mid-grade sports bar, replete with assorted undersize flat screen TVs boasting the wrong resolution, ancient urinals with ice shoveled in the bottom because the flushing mechanism had long since given up hope, and the choking reek of smoldering coffee that no one ever ordered.
Come five o’clock, the cop was three hours overdue. I was about to hit it when this guy in an expensive black suit and starched white shirt pours into the bar. He had his tie off before he even found the stool. He was youngish, mid-thirties, with dark hair tousled just enough to not look intentional. I normally wouldn’t have looked twice, but as he parked it next to me, I caught a chill. This guy had some kind of dark aura, dark in a dirty hands kind of way, dark in a nothing left to lose kind of way. He had a look in his eyes that would send a priest crossing the street, and his smile was more of a warning shot than a greeting.
Still not sure why I turned the recorder on when any sane person would have been sliding down a couple stools. Habit, maybe. Perverse curiosity, more likely. Here’s what I caught of the conversation, post introductions:
ME: You from here? Riverside, I mean?
HENRY: Brother, no one is born in Riverside. People get sentenced to live here.
ME: I don’t know, seems nicer than LA. Where are you from, then?
HENRY: Midwest. Michigan, to be precise. (Finishes his drink)
ME: You’re a long way out. You still have family there? Friends?
HENRY: (Laughs) Friends. Hilarious.
ME: You must have friends.
HENRY: Pal, I collect friends the way a lumberjack collects trees. (Pounds the bar and calls out for a refill)
ME: You’re really hitting it pretty good this afternoon. Big plans this evening? (I laugh. Henry does not)
HENRY: Plans. You’re a regular comedian.
ME: You’ve put down three scotches in less than an hour. You in a hurry? It’s not even six yet.
HENRY: What are you, my girlfriend?
ME: No, just making an observ--
HENRY: I’m prepping myself.
ME: Prepping yourself? For what?
HENRY: Sadly, I’m here for a party.
ME: Special occasion or just good times?
HENRY: Good times. (Snorts at that) Damn, you’re good. No, it’s a Good Riddance Party.
ME: Good riddance? You mean like a Goodbye Party?
HENRY: Trust me, there’ll be nothing good about it. Can’t stand these people.
ME: Okay. So…who exactly are you bidding good riddance to?
HENRY: Me.
(Long moment of silence as I try to make sense of it)
ME: You?
HENRY: (Takes a long drink, says nothing)
ME: Where are you going?
HENRY: (Laughs) Don’t know, don’t care.
ME: You’re leaving, but have no idea where you’re leaving to? That doesn’t make sense.
HENRY: Makes perfect sense. Maybe I’ll have an adventure, hit some exotic locales, meet the exciting natives, have some fun, do some damage. Maybe I’ll run into some persons of interest, maybe meet a woman.
ME: Sounds gutsy.
HENRY: Yeah, not so sure guts have anything to do with it. Just the opposite, I expect.
(Several moments of heavy silence)
HENRY: Then again, maybe I’ll just park it right here on this stool and stay the course. (Sends me a look that I can feel more than see) See, it doesn’t much matter where I go or where I stay. Her ghost will find me. Her ghost’ll find me whether I stay, run, or jump off a building. I’m a murderer, and she’ll never let me forget it. (Pounds down the last of his drink, then reaches over and turns off my recorder) Sorry, pal, conversation’s over.
Had I know I’d run into Henry again, had I known our conversation would mark the last few minutes before he threw himself off the train, I’d have turned it on sooner. Months later, when I called on him again, when I learned the freakishly bizarre story of the three life-changing days following our conversation, I knew I had to write the book.
I was visiting Riverside on assignment for the metro rag I worked for in LA back in those days. I was there to interview a cop about an incident involving his sidearm, a dog, and a poorly thought out gunshot. Seemed dog shootings had suddenly come in vogue for middling-sized cities in the west, and our readers had developed a morbid passion for reading about them
It was Friday afternoon. I was waiting to interview a cop about an incident involving his sidearm, a dog, and a poorly thought out gunshot. I was in a dump called the The Slammed Dunk. It was your usual old mid-grade sports bar, replete with assorted undersize flat screen TVs boasting the wrong resolution, ancient urinals with ice shoveled in the bottom because the flushing mechanism had long since given up hope, and the choking reek of smoldering coffee that no one ever ordered.
Come five o’clock, the cop was three hours overdue. I was about to hit it when this guy in an expensive black suit and starched white shirt pours into the bar. He had his tie off before he even found the stool. He was youngish, mid-thirties, with dark hair tousled just enough to not look intentional. I normally wouldn’t have looked twice, but as he parked it next to me, I caught a chill. This guy had some kind of dark aura, dark in a dirty hands kind of way, dark in a nothing left to lose kind of way. He had a look in his eyes that would send a priest crossing the street, and his smile was more of a warning shot than a greeting.
Still not sure why I turned the recorder on when any sane person would have been sliding down a couple stools. Habit, maybe. Perverse curiosity, more likely. Here’s what I caught of the conversation, post introductions:
ME: You from here? Riverside, I mean?
HENRY: Brother, no one is born in Riverside. People get sentenced to live here.
ME: I don’t know, seems nicer than LA. Where are you from, then?
HENRY: Midwest. Michigan, to be precise. (Finishes his drink)
ME: You’re a long way out. You still have family there? Friends?
HENRY: (Laughs) Friends. Hilarious.
ME: You must have friends.
HENRY: Pal, I collect friends the way a lumberjack collects trees. (Pounds the bar and calls out for a refill)
ME: You’re really hitting it pretty good this afternoon. Big plans this evening? (I laugh. Henry does not)
HENRY: Plans. You’re a regular comedian.
ME: You’ve put down three scotches in less than an hour. You in a hurry? It’s not even six yet.
HENRY: What are you, my girlfriend?
ME: No, just making an observ--
HENRY: I’m prepping myself.
ME: Prepping yourself? For what?
HENRY: Sadly, I’m here for a party.
ME: Special occasion or just good times?
HENRY: Good times. (Snorts at that) Damn, you’re good. No, it’s a Good Riddance Party.
ME: Good riddance? You mean like a Goodbye Party?
HENRY: Trust me, there’ll be nothing good about it. Can’t stand these people.
ME: Okay. So…who exactly are you bidding good riddance to?
HENRY: Me.
(Long moment of silence as I try to make sense of it)
ME: You?
HENRY: (Takes a long drink, says nothing)
ME: Where are you going?
HENRY: (Laughs) Don’t know, don’t care.
ME: You’re leaving, but have no idea where you’re leaving to? That doesn’t make sense.
HENRY: Makes perfect sense. Maybe I’ll have an adventure, hit some exotic locales, meet the exciting natives, have some fun, do some damage. Maybe I’ll run into some persons of interest, maybe meet a woman.
ME: Sounds gutsy.
HENRY: Yeah, not so sure guts have anything to do with it. Just the opposite, I expect.
(Several moments of heavy silence)
HENRY: Then again, maybe I’ll just park it right here on this stool and stay the course. (Sends me a look that I can feel more than see) See, it doesn’t much matter where I go or where I stay. Her ghost will find me. Her ghost’ll find me whether I stay, run, or jump off a building. I’m a murderer, and she’ll never let me forget it. (Pounds down the last of his drink, then reaches over and turns off my recorder) Sorry, pal, conversation’s over.
Had I know I’d run into Henry again, had I known our conversation would mark the last few minutes before he threw himself off the train, I’d have turned it on sooner. Months later, when I called on him again, when I learned the freakishly bizarre story of the three life-changing days following our conversation, I knew I had to write the book.
