seated at the counter, just a kid, laughing with your buddies. I didn’t have the right to drag her out of the light, but if I didn’t, things were going to go badly for a whole lot of people. I don’t understand why the world always seems to require sacrifice to do the right thing, but even after all these years I still had every intention of avoiding it. I haven’t managed it yet, but there’s always a first time.
There wasn’t anything else to say, so we finished eating in silence.
9
We stopped at a store on the way to the airport so that I could get two duffel bags and fill one of them with toiletries and clothes. The store was too big and sterile, and the shirts seemed like they were made of less fabric than they used to be. In fact, everything seemed to be TV props of the real thing, brighter and slicker, but also flimsy and insubstantial. Disposable. Anne geared up as well, just with more clothes and double the toiletries. I paid for everything.
Standing out in the parking lot, I transferred the remaining contents of the battered metal toolbox to the empty duffel. An early fall rain was coming, and streamers of cool air whipped past me, carrying fine droplets and the scent of electricity.
I borrowed Anne’s cell phone as we drove towards the airport and dialed Henry’s number from memory. Anne kept glancing at me as she drove, then looking away as if she weren’t curious.
“Henry, it’s Abe. I’m coming to see you tonight. Yep. That’s right. You’re still as sharp as you ever were. See you tonight.” I handed the phone back.
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d be ready for us.”
“You didn’t warn him about the bags, that they were going to his house.”
“I didn’t have to, he knew as soon as he heard my voice. We haven’t spoken in thirty years, and all of a sudden I call him out of the blue and say I’m on my way to his house?” I looked out of the rain-flecked window and watched the thunderheads flicker with internal lights overhead. “No matter what else he might be, Henry’s still the smartest man I ever met.”
As with most daytime showers, the sun was still shining between the thin clouds, painting the gray cotton with summits of liquid gold. A faint rainbow shone in the distance, seeming to pace the car as I watched out of the speckled window.
“Abe, what’s going on?”
I shrugged. “Let’s hope Henry can tell us both. And that we get there in time to hear it.”
“I hope the bags do show up. I owe them for my grandfather.”
“Yeah, that’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about. That shot with my gun was pretty impressive.”
She shrugged and looked away.
“I’m serious. Tell me about it.”
“Not much to tell. My grandfather taught me to shoot, and then had me enrolled in classes and signed up for competitions pretty much the whole time I was growing up. I was at the range every weekend when my friends were all at the mall, which did wonders for my social status. He even insisted I learn some hand to hand stuff from his Army training, which seemed pretty pointless. I asked what it was all for, and he said that in his day, men were better behaved, but now he figured I needed to be able to explain to a date that no means no. Preferably while I was driving him to the emergency room.”
I had to laugh at that. Getting grabby with Patty’s granddaughter would have led to quite the exciting evening for her dates, just not in the way they imagined.
“That’s a great idea, but I don’t think that’s really why he did it. I think that the old bastard knew all along that you had his gift. He was preparing you to do what he used to do, if it came down to that. Patty was pretty good in a scrape himself, but of course he got his training from the Brits at Achnacarry with the rest of us. Maybe he didn’t go through the whole course, but he did enough.”
“Achnacarry?”
“Scotland. It’s where all of us were trained, back in the ‘40s. The British had real commandos and we didn’t, so Uncle Sam pulled a bunch of us from the 34th Infantry and gave us to the Brits to train. Your grandfather and the Professor showed up at the end. They were more honorary Rangers than anything else. We had four head-kickers plus those two, whom we were assigned to protect.”
“My grandfather was in for his nose, right? Why Henry?”
“Doesn’t do much good to find the bad stuff if you don’t know what it is or what to do about it when you get there. Didn’t Patrick ever tell you any of this?”
“He didn’t like to talk about it.”
“Me neither to tell the truth.”
“Oh. Sorry.” And just like that, she turned on the radio and dropped it. I was both surprised and grateful for the gesture.
Austin Straubel International Airport was originally named for the first aviator from Brown County to die in the war, back in 1942. I didn’t know if the stream of people that swirled around us like we were a rock in a current knew that, but it was kind of a big deal back then. No matter what branch you served in, or where you lived or fought, he was one of us. It was satisfying to see him remembered, as if that remembrance were for us as well.
Of course, the noble history of the airport didn’t make up for the reality of modern air travel. We spent the next five hours in a cramped flying bus full of people studiously ignoring the undignified accommodations and each other.
I received fifteen cents worth of soda in a tiny plastic cup while trying to keep my knees from rubbing the seat in front of me. It was like being in a dog kennel one size too small, but without the ability to lie down.
I remembered taking trips with Maggie back in the ‘60s to visit friends, and it seems like with so many other things, in my memory those trips were more elegant and comfortable. Of course, fewer people could afford to do it back then, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.
Coming out of the airport into the soft, fragrant night air of North Carolina was worth the ordeal. I took a deep swig of the heavy air and felt my shoulders and face relax right away. It was warmer here, as if even the seasons were more relaxed.
We had to take a shuttle bus to get to the rental car center, which was a quick way to get to a slow moving line, where I rented the cheapest SUV they had.
I’m not a fan of SUVs for most things, since I expect a truck to work hauling manure and hay on the farm and I’m not interested in sharing cabin space with a hundred pounds of cow shit, but I figured the extra room and ground clearance couldn’t hurt for what lay ahead.
It took over an hour to reach Henry’s place from the airport, much of it down dark and deserted blacktop roads, past the outskirts of the small town of Linwood. The lonely plot of land that Henry had purchased after the war was situated on the edge of a large stand of pine trees far back from the highway.
The only indication that someone lived here was a break in the endless line of trees along the highway and a massive brick mailbox with an iron plate on top with the word “Monroe” stenciled on it in white paint.
He ended up living on the backside of nowhere for the same reason that I had moved back to the farm after the war. Walking through the destruction of Europe, literally climbing over chunks of masonry from buildings five hundred years old, or around the smoking remains of a newly built cafe, had changed the way we viewed civilization.
Buildings looked like pre-ruins when we got back, and the teeming masses that inhabited them seemed fragile and temporary. Only the mud and trees and hills seemed permanent and reliable.
I turned into Henry’s carefully raked, quarter-mile-long gravel driveway and stopped after about twenty yards, leaving the lights and engine running.
“Why are we stopping?” asked Anne.
“Because we don’t want to get shot.” After a few seconds of sitting in the dark, a powerfully built black man
