“What do you mean?”
“I do call-in shows on the weekends. A yard-sale show on Saturdays—‘I’ve got a rototiller, Ellen, almost brand-new, but I can’t make the payments and I’ll take the best offer over fifty bucks.’ Like that. On Sundays, it’s politics. Folks call in to flay Rush Limbaugh or talk about how Glenn Beck should run for president. I know voices. If you’d been friends with Harry back in the Rec days, you’d be in your sixties, but you’re not. You sound like you’re no more than thirty-five.”
Jesus, right on the money. “People tell me I sound a lot younger than my age. I bet they tell you the same.”
“Nice try,” she said flatly, and all at once shedidsound older. “I’ve had years of training to put that sunshine in my voice. Have you?”
I couldn’t think of a response, so I kept silent.
“Also, no one calls to check up on someone they chummed around with when they were in grammar school. Not fifty years later, they don’t.”
Might as well hang up,I thought.I got what I called for, and more than I bargained for. I’ll just hang up.But the phone felt glued to my ear. I’m not sure I could have dropped it if I’d seen fire racing up my living room curtains.
When she spoke again, there was a catch in her voice. “Are you him?”
“I don’t know what you—”
“There was somebody else there that night. Harry saw him and so did I. Are you him?”
“What night?” Only it came outwhu-nigh,because my lips had gone numb. It felt as if someone had put a mask over my face. One lined with snow.
“Harry said it was his good angel. I think you’re him. So where were you?”
Now she was the one who sounded unclear, because she’d begun crying.
“Ma’am… Ellen… you’re not making any sen—”
“I took him to the airport after he got his orders and his leave was over. He was going to Nam, and I told him to watch his ass. He said, ‘Don’t worry, Sis, I’ve got a guardian angel to watch out for me, remember?’ So where were you on the sixth of February in 1968, Mr. Angel? Where were you when my brother died at Khe Sanh?Where were you then, you son of a bitch?”
She said something else, but I don’t know what it was. By then she was crying too hard. I hung up the phone. I went into the bathroom. I got into the bathtub, pulled the curtain, and put my head between my knees so I was looking at the rubber mat with the yellow daisies on it. Then I screamed. Once. Twice. Three times. And here is the worst: I didn’t just wish Al had never spoken to me about his goddamned rabbit-hole. It went farther than that. I wished him dead.
9
I got a bad feeling when I pulled into his driveway and saw the house was entirely dark. It got worse when I tried the door and found it unlocked.
“Al?”
Nothing.
I found a light switch and flipped it. The main living area had the sterile neatness of rooms that are cleaned regularly but no longer much used. The walls were covered with framed photographs. Almost all were of people I didn’t know—Al’s relatives, I assumed—but I recognized the couple in the one hanging over the couch: John and Jacqueline Kennedy. They were at the seashore, probably Hyannis Port, and had their arms around each other. There was a smell of Glade in the air, not quite masking the sickroom smell coming from deeper in the house. Somewhere,very low, The Temptations were singing “My Girl.” Sunshine on a cloudy day, and all of that.
“Al? You here?”
Where else? Studio Nine in Portland, dancing disco and trying to pick up college girls? I knew better. I had made a wish, and sometimes wishes are granted.
I fumbled for the kitchen switches, found them, and flooded the room with enough fluorescent light to take out an appendix by. On the table was a plastic medicine-caddy, the kind that holds a week’s worth of pills. Most of those caddies are small enough to fit into a pocket or purse, but this one was almost as big as an encyclopedia. Next to it was a message scribbled on a piece of Ziggy notepaper:If you forget your 8-o’clockies, I’LL KILL YOU!!!! Doris.
“My Girl” finished and “Just My Imagination” started. I followed the music into the sickroom stench. Al was in bed. He looked relatively peaceful. At the end, a single tear had trickled from the outer corner of each closed eye. The tracks were still wet enough to gleam. The multidisc CD player was on the night table to his left. There was a note on the table, too, with a pill bottle on top to hold it down. It wouldn’t have served as much of a paperweight in even a light draft, because it was empty. I looked at the label: OxyContin, twenty milligrams. I picked up the note.
Sorry, buddy, couldn’t wait. Too much pain. You have the key to the diner and you know what to do. Don’t kid yourself that you can try again, either, because too much can happen. Do it right the first time. Maybe you’re mad at me for getting you into this. I would be, in your shoes. But don’t back down. Please don’t do that. Tin box is under the bed. There’s another $500 or so inside that I saved back.
It’s on you, buddy. About 2 hours after Doris finds me in the morning, the landlord will probably padlock the diner, so it has to be tonight. Save him, okay? Save Kennedy and everything changes.
Please.
Al
You bastard,I thought.You knew I might have second thoughts, and this is how you took care of them, right?
