'Just Hap.'
'Okay, Hap”
'Bye.”
'Bye.'
Yeah, call ole Hap, he was sure a helper, a big fixer. I went out of there and along the hall and the smell of the hospital was stronger than ever.
I drove over to Leonard's. The crack house had not been replaced. It was just a black spot splattered by rain.
I knocked on the door and Leonard answered. He was wearing a heavy coat and his face was puffy and marked with bruises and some stitches the vet should have put in but wouldn't, but the LaBorde doctor had.
He looked better though. He walked pretty well. He said, 'You ole bastard,' and threw open the screen and we hugged. We hugged hard and long, patting each other on the back.
'I've missed you,' he said.
'Man, I feel like a fruit, hugging a fruit.'
Leonard laughed. 'Come in, buddy.'
I came in. Raul looked at me, tried to smile, but he wasn't glad to see me. He was also wearing a coat, which surprised me. The house was warm. Leonard didn't pay Raul any mind. He said, 'I'm cooking out back, come on.'
'In the rain?”
'Nope. Come on. Leave your coat on.'
Leonard limped a little as he went. I followed through the kitchen, onto the back porch, or where it used to be. There was a big screened-in porch now with a concrete floor. The rain was blasting on the roof and some of it was blowing through the screen. It was cold out there. In the middle of the porch was a cooker and it was smoking with hamburgers and hot dogs.
'This is nice,' I said. 'I didn't know this was here.'
'I started it before we went to Grovetown, before all this goddammit rain started. You spent the night here, I meant to show it to you. But my mind wasn't on it and you didn't go out the back way, so it never got mentioned. What do you think? Needs some touches yet, but I like it. It'll be nice in the summer. Wire's thick enough to keep the big bugs out. Skeeters'll get in though. They can get through anything.'
'That's the truth. What about the two guys with the bowling ball heads?”
'Clinton and Leon. Guess they're all right. They were here while I was in the hospital. Those fellas are all right, provided you don't have to spend more than thirty minutes at a stretch with them.'
'So no trouble while you were gone.'
'Leon sat on the commode and it fell through the floor with him. I talked to him on the phone at the hospital. He and Clinton got some lumber and fixed the flooring. It was old and rotten under there. Only complaint Leon had was that when he fell through the commode overturned and he got shit on him.'
Raul came out. He had his hands in his pockets and looked cold. He said, 'I told Leonard this wasn't cookout weather, even on the porch, but he wouldn't listen. You don't listen to me, do you, Lenny?'
'Nope,' Leonard said, and smiled.
'He doesn't listen to anybody but you, Hap. He listens to you.'
'Raul,' Leonard warned.
'Oh yeah, I don't want to embarrass you in front of Hap. Anybody but him.'
'Let's don't start,' Leonard said.
Raul turned and went back inside.
I said, 'I shouldn't have come.'
'Yeah, you should. Here, help me carry this stuff in.'
We ate in the kitchen. Raul joined us, but he wasn't exactly talky. When Leonard paused to go to the facilities, I said, 'Raul, I didn't mean to cause trouble.”
'I know,' he said. 'It's not you. It's me and him. It's lots of things.'
Leonard came back. He said to me: 'I think I know why you came, Hap.'
'I missed you.'
“Besides that. We're going back to Grovetown, aren't we?'
'I've got to. I can't keep doing like I'm doing. I'm sleeping with a goddamn revolver, Leonard. You know me. Does that sound like me?'
'I sleep with a shotgun nearby
'But that sounds like you.”
Leonard studied my face for a moment, said, 'I cry at night. I just break down crying. Does that sound like me?'
'Are vanilla cookies involved?' I said. 'I can see you crying over cookies. By the way, Charlie ate the ones I keep at the house for you.'
