“What do you think really happened?” Teary asked El-Don, turning away from the screen.
“You can always count on God’s helping hand,” El-Don said automatically. It could have very well been Jesus who had helped the chief of police to foil the break-in at Dick’s Sporting Goods Store.
"The consensus is that the lost copies of Beloved are irretrievable," the newscaster was saying, "DiSantis claims this is perfectly fine by him, stating, 'The main threat to our nation is exposing our childrens' eyes to historical violence in fine print.'"
El-Don looked up, thinking about the idea of historical violence in fine print. He wasn't comfortable with banning books, but he also wasn't too uncomfortable about banning books, after all he had been involved in a major literary heist in Longmont, Colorado. The thing is, he didn't want anyone to know about it. Not even Teary knew and he couldn't tell her because of the brotherhood oath. And things were getting complicated and, unfortunately for him, about to get more complicated.
“Don’t you think the hole in the store wall is a little too big for a Mitsubishi Colt?” Teary looked perturbed.
“Chief Noel cuffed those Floridian crooks darn quick after the alarm went off,” El-Don said, focusing on the outcome of the event in the parking lot of Dick’s Sporting Goods Store. He always voted Democrat.
“It just doesn’t seem like Rob DiSantis drove his car through the wall. The Mitsubishi doesn’t have a dent in it.” Teary was peeling herself a hard boiled egg for breakfast before church. Teary was secretly registered as a Republican. The League of Republican Women Voters was an active tab on her excel sheet.
“It was Aron Bean behind the wheel,” El-Don corrected his wife, watching the screen.
“They weren’t even driving American,” Teary said peevishly. She hated it when El-Don corrected her.
“Law enforcement detained Bean on a DUI and destruction of property,” the newscaster read. "While Bean claimed that it was the spirit of the crusade that stirred his blood to chase the truck with the man wearing the box in the back, Bean plans to contest the DUI charge." The newscaster turned to his colleague, "Well, this is certainly the strangest story I have ever reported. What do you make of that, Bill?"
“What about the books?” Teary persisted. “DiSantis swore that a man wearing a cardboard box harpooned the banned books they had collected from the school libraries. One clean sweep, multiple copies of Toni Morrison’s Beloved speared, just like that.” Teary snapped her fingers.
“DiSantis must have been hallucinating,” El-Don said, thinking again of the blue eyes and the young woman driving the Camaro. “You just saw there was nothing on the surveillance video to support that kind of wild claim at the storage unit.” Little did El-Don realize that soon he would be the one prone to hallucinations.
“Hmmm. Of course DiSantis changed his story and his lawyer is now saying that they had to go into the store to get some more bullets. In the name of self defense,” Teary said and frowned. “Against a man in a cardboard box.”
"Paper," El-Don thought, "can be dangerous." He startled. He didn't know where this thought came from, it just happened.
They picked up the flowers at Longmont Florist before dropping Julie off at the Care Day for free dental work. Julie needed three fillings replaced and they couldn’t afford it. The Christmas initiative at Comfort Dental to benefit the community was a welcome relief. Roy hoped Julie would be less snappy after the fillings were replaced.
In the driver’s seat Roy was worried. He didn’t like being behind on the bills. In the case of the utility bill, he wasn’t the only one in Longmont Colorado unable to pay the bill on time. The new system turned off the auto payment function and now, like many others, he had to pay a twenty dollar penalty fee on top of the outstanding amount and to get this all straightened out he had to go down to the billing office. But somehow the billing was now being processed through the state of Virginia. What else was going to go wrong in the world?
In the back seat of the van, Blessing and Taylor were playing rock paper scissors. To Roy, seeing the kids playing rock paper scissors was very reassuring.
Emery was standing by the curb outside of the hospital with a cart on which to load the flowers. Roy and Blessing set the buckets holding the bouquets of flowers on the cart. Emery told Roy that her mom would drive Blessing back home. The girls pushed the cart into the hospital lobby.
After making the rounds, Emery and Blessing sat down in a quiet corner of the hospital and waited for Mila. Blessing told Emery about the plan to spend time over the Christmas break at Carmen’s house ro learn bookkeeping.
“That’s a good skill to have,” Emery said encouragingly. “How’s your folder going?”
“Not bad,” Blessing said. “I think.” Blessing didn’t have a clue what kind of money Emery was earning as a Candy Striper. “What about you?”
“I managed to set five hundred aside.” Emery said. “My parents know about some of the jobs.”
So five hundred was only part of the money Emery had earned. “But it’s your money!” Blessing said. How much money did Emery have?
Emery sighed. “Here comes Mila.”
Mila took in the sight of her two friends. “Hey, so how much did you ladies make today?”
“We split the fifty bucks from tips.” Emery said. “But we’re giving the teddy bear to you for John.”
“That’s so sweet!” Mila set a bag of donut holes down on the table.
Blessing opened the bag.
“Some people are really sick!” Mila blurted out as she sat down.
Emery looked up from inspecting her donut hole. “Like yeah, we’re in a hospital. Or do you mean sick like sick in the head?”
“Yeah, like sick in the head,” Mila explained that she had just dropped Juanito off at his grandmother’s house. “My kinda-mother-in-law showed me this letter she got in the mail. Some asshole saying that she wasn’t Jewish enough because she ate pork at her book club meeting.”
“Wha?” Blessing said.
“It’s crazy!” Mila said and rolled her eyes.
“Who wrote the letter?” Emery asked.
“Not signed, no return address.” Mila said.
“Did she eat pork at the book club meeting?” Blessing asked.
“Not that she remembers,” Mila said.
“Is she Jewish?” Emery asked.
“Yes, but she’s not actively involved in Jewish things. Tristan’s dad is not Jewish.” Mila said.
“So….why would someone send that letter to her?” Blessing asked.
“She went to the meeting, right?” Emery asked.
“She went to the meeting, she might have eaten pork because she eats pork anyway, but the strangest thing is that the meeting that she was supposed to be at where she was also supposed to be eating pork never happened.”
“Wha?” Blessing said.
“It’s like the date of the meeting was not the date of the actual meeting.”
“I don’t get it,” Emery said.
“You mean the letter said that she was at a meeting that never took place, and that she was eating pork at that meeting?” Blessing said.
“Bingo.” Mila sat back.
“That is just too weird.” Blessing said.
“Yeah, Lilith doesn’t want to go to the police. But she’s kinda freaked out.”
“Sounds like something Donna would do.” Emery said.
“Yeah, it does sound like something Donna would do,” Blessing said.
“That’s one crazy bitch,” Mila said, thinking of the teenager who had gotten suspended for insisting that the French teacher had offered everyone a drop of absinthe in class. The French teacher didn’t know much French and didn’t make her students do anything other than recite verb conjugations.
“You wanna know something really strange?” Emery said.
“Wha?” Blessing said.
“There was this guy here,” Emery said. She described Gator Matcha. “Thin. Droopy kind of guy. He asked me to extend his hotel room.”
“You went to his hotel room?” Mila asked.
“Not with him. He was in the hospital when I went to the hotel to extend the stay so that when he got out, he still had his hotel room.” Emery explained.
“What was wrong with him?” Blessing asked.
“They ran some tests but couldn’t find anything. He got better after a few days. Maybe it was something he ate.”
“So what was strange?” Mila said.
“His hotel room.”
“You went into his hotel room?” Mila asked.
“Yeah, because he asked me to get something,”
“What was it?” Blessing asked.
Emery hesitated. “Some kind of medication.”
“Medication, my ass,” Mila said. “I bet you it was drugs.”
“Theoretically, it's all the same thing,” Emery said. “But there was a lot of it. And a pile of cash.”
“What did the dope look like?”
“Came in medicine bottles.”
“Did you take any?”
“No way!” Emery said. “I just picked up what he asked me to bring him.”
“Did he tip you?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“A thousand.”
“But you said you’ve saved five hundred in cash.” Blessing said.
“Five hundred plus a thousand.” Emery admitted.
“But what was strange then about his room?” Mila asked.
“Gator had some big cardboard cutouts of people in his room.”
“Gator!” Mila exclaimed. “I know who you are talking about. Was he with some senior chick in a blond wig?”
“Yeah. A flat chested Dolly Parton. She showed up when he was discharged.”
“Blond wig!” Blessing exclaimed. “I bet that’s Tirzah Pyrestone.”
“Mila,” Emery said, not interested in hearing about Tirzah Pyrestone again, “you didn’t drive by yourself, did you?”
“Relax. My brother was with me when I dropped off Juanito.” Mila said.
After their night of bar crawling in Boulder, Keith Abbott and John Veglia climbed back into the Plymouth Fury. It was now parked in front of the El Cerrito Barber Shop on San Pablo Avenue. Between the hours of three and five a.m. the very first owner (firmly confirmed deceased) of the California business offered free haircuts to those who frequented the immortal realm. The establishment declined any type of publicity about this matter. You either had to know about it or not know about it. Which was typical when anyone mentioned the subject of San Pablo Avenue in passing conversation.
Keith wanted to drive since John had been the one to direct the Plymouth’s nose towards the wall of McCarthy’s Pub and out of Colorado. “It’s my turn,” Keith said, sporting his neatly trimmed hair and beard.
“Well, since you’re looking like Victor Hugo, you might as well take the wheel.” John said.
“Can you say Hugo with the correct French pronunciation?” Keith asked as he sped down San Pablo towards Oakland.
“I might lose my breakfast toast if I tried,” John said mildly. “Where are we going?”
“Let’s cut out to Beer Springs,” Keith said. “But we’ll make a few stops on the way.”
“A little bump here and there,” John smiled as the Plymouth Fury shot over the potholes in the road.
The Bay Area is a soggy and grey place in December. San Francisco hung suspended somewhere within a shifting lucence as the shades of grey moved with the wind and the rain. The car felt cold. Keith turned up the heat which fogged up the windows. John cracked open the side window. Keith wiped his half of the windshield with the end of his white shawl. They were on the Bay Bridge now and the only traffic was delivery trucks and blue collar workers in Toyotas on their way to the early shift at the airport. Keith suddenly held up the eight track tape that was next to him. After that short stop before the bridge, the poets were feeling energized.
“Creedence Clearwater Revival,” John said and pushed the eight track tape into the tape player.
Well, take me back to down to cool water flow, ya’ll Let me remember things I love, Lord Stopping at the log where catfish bite….
“I don't ever recall that we went catfishing before,” John said diplomatically. “But barefoot girls dancing in the moonlight does jar my memory.”
In Monterey, as Keith Abbott and John Veglia walked into Beer Springs, the fog horn sounded. The fog was definitely coming in.
Once the fog cleared you could see Persephone Abbott sitting at her little table in Amsterdam. Her hair was turning white and the pattern of white streaks through the grey hair matched the pattern Keith’s hair had undergone over the years leading up to his death. Persephone had made a promise to her father as he lay dying in Longmont, Colorado that she would find him.
Persephone and Keith once wrote a novel together in Monterey.
“And then the fog comes…” Persephone said to Keith. Persephone was five then.
“And when the fog clears, everything is different,” Keith said to his daughter, who sat by his knee.
“Yes,” Persephone said with satisfaction.
At his desk Keith punched the keys on his typewriter. In 1973 the typewriter made a heavy popping sound that Persephone always liked to hear. She also liked the sound of the fog horn.
Tags: #keithabbott #keithkumasenabbott #persephoneabbott #plymouthfury #poisonpen #mast #filisteinsdatter #longmont #colorado #rhinoritz #zen #monterey #bayarea #longmontflorist #tirzah #pyrestone #johnveglia #ernesthemingway #chevytruck #dickssportinggoods
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