the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush, the water running in the sink, the dowel on the holder creaking just a bit as she hung a towel, and then the familiar stealthy squeak of the mirrored medicine cabinet door.
Ah, I thought. A snooper.
She came back out, took a running start and jumped on the bed right next to me. I instinctively covered my crotch in case she missed the landing. “Relax, big guy. I won’t hurt you.”
“Mmm, we’ll see,” I said. “What are you doing in there?”
“Girl stuff. Don’t you worry about it. Maybe a little poking around, too.”
I rolled onto my side to face her. She lay on her back and the moonlight that spilled in from the bedroom window bled across the swell of her breasts. “Find anything incriminating?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I did,” she said as she sat back up. She swung her legs to the opposite side of the bed, away from me. “It’s good and bad.”
I propped myself up on one arm and reached over and placed my hand on her back. “What is it?”
“Well, the bad news is I found a prescription bottle of unidentifiable pills, with no label on the bottle.”
“Yeah? That’s easily explainable. What’s the good news?”
Sandy reached down to the floor and pulled something out of her purse, then turned back toward me, an evil grin on her face. “The good news is, I have handcuffs,” she said, as she twirled the cuffs around her index finger. “And I know how to use them.”
Sidney Wells, Jr. sat on her front porch, a cigarette at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes moved back and forth between the little pile of ash at her feet and the street corner a half block away. She saw the headlights sweep through the turn, then extinguish as the car pulled up and stopped in front of the house. Amanda Pate climbed out, tugged a bit at her skirt, then walked up and sat down next to Junior. “The fuck you been,” Junior said. “You’re over an hour late.”
Amanda picked up the pack of cigarettes next to Junior, shook one out and lit up. “Samuel was up late. I had to wait until he took his sleeping pills. I told you it might be a while.” She took a long drag and held her smoke for a few seconds before blowing it out the corner of her mouth. “So, anyway, I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, you are,” Junior said. “And I still think it’s a bad idea. We agreed we were going to lay sort of low until this was over. That was the plan, anyway. So what’s so fucking important that you had to come slumming down here after midnight?”
Amanda lifted her ass off the porch a little and tugged at her skirt some more. “I’m just nervous,” she said. “It threw me a little when the cops came to my house today. And it wasn’t just any cop. It was Virgil Fucking Jones. I know him, Sid. Or knew him, anyway. I went to high school with him.”
Junior snorted. “Uh huh. What was that, twenty years ago?”
“That’s not the point.”
“So what is?”
“The point is what I just said. I know him, or knew him anyway. We had a thing. It was a one time thing, but I never forgot it, or him. I’ve sort of followed him his whole career.”
“So?”
“So get on the internet and look him up. He’s good. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. He’s like super cop or something. He does not fuck around. He works for the Governor for fuck sake. And so on day fucking one when he shows up at my front door and starts asking questions, yeah, I’m nervous.”
“What did you say?”
Amanda flicked her cigarette into the weeds next to the porch. “I didn’t say anything. He wanted to speak with Samuel and me about Dugan, but Samuel was at the church.”
“That it?” Junior said.
“Yeah, except he went to the church and spoke with Samuel.”
“Tell me about that.”
“I can’t,” Amanda said. “Samuel didn’t say anything about it.”
“So don’t worry about it then. We knew going in that they were going to look at Samuel. We want them to, remember? So just relax. It’s all good.”
“But so soon, Sid? I mean, the first day? And now this cop, I’m telling you baby, he’s bad news. Junior thought about that for a few minutes. “So maybe we move on the cop.”
“You think?”
“I don’t see why not,” Junior said. “Might give us a little misdirection. Let me talk to the old man about it.”
“Oh, god, he’s not here is he?”
“Yeah, so?”
“He doesn’t like me. Doesn’t like us.”
“He doesn’t like anyone, Amanda. I can handle him, so don’t get your panties in a wad over it, okay?”
Amanda spread her legs open far enough that her knee touched Junior’s. “I can’t. I’m not wearing any panties.”
Junior ran her hand up the inside of Amanda’s thigh, all the way to her bush. Felt the moisture and the warmth as she slid first one finger inside her, then another. Amanda tipped her head back and let out a little moan. “Maybe we should go inside.”
Junior leaned over and kissed her hard, then said, “We’ll have to be quiet this time.”
“I can do quiet,” Amanda said. “Might be fun.”
As a young child my parents insisted that I attend Sunday School. Every Sunday our teacher would rattle on for an hour about heaven, hell, the bible, and all things good and scary that, in their entirety, encompass Catholicism as a whole. I pretty much hated it. But one thing has stuck with me all these years, a small little lesson that remains trapped in my brain. My teacher once helped our class better understand the concept of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and how they are all one and the same. She did this by using the analogy of an egg. It did not matter what part of the egg you looked at, the shell, the white, or the yoke, an egg is an egg is an egg, she would say. Later in life I grew to believe that the mind, body, spirit, and soul are connected together in much the same way. But just as gravity holds the mind and the body firmly to earth, I believe that the spirit and soul are tethered to something greater than just our physical selves. I also believe they are forever connected to where we once were, and one day where we will be again. Could it be then, that the same force holds sway in our lives in ways we sometimes can not envision, often until much later in life, if ever at all?
You decide. But before you do, consider this…
Sandy and I had moved from the bedroom to the sofa. I pressed a button on a remote and the gas logs in the fireplace lit up automatically, the glow of the flames dancing across the room. Very suave, I know. I watched Sandy stare at the fire, then she looked at over toward my office, squeezed my hand and said, “Tell me about the turn-out helmet.”
I blinked in surprise, then let go of her hand and walked into my office. On the credenza behind my desk is a fireman’s helmet, still stained with soot, the eye shield cracked diagonally across its entire length. I picked up the helmet and carried it to the sofa and handed it to her. “Hell of a story from a long time ago,” I said.
“Would you tell me about it?”
I nodded, my vision suddenly blurry. “I will, but I’d like to ask you something first.”
Sandy held the helmet in her lap, tracing the outline of the crest above the visor, her fingers trembling as if charged with an electrical current. “Okay.”
“You called it a turn-out helmet. That’s a term firemen use.”
“My father was a fireman,” Sandy said, staring at the flames. Her movements were almost imperceptible, but she was rocking back and forth on the sofa, the helmet in her arms. “Tell me your story, Jonesy.”
I must have held that helmet a thousand times over the years. I would probably hold it a thousand more before I die. It was part of who I am, part of why I am alive today. “One of the worst days of my life,” I said.
Sandy nodded, still looking at the fire, but she didn’t speak, so I told her the story. I told her about the time when I was just a boy, only five years old, and what happened that fateful day on my birthday.
My mother had wanted carpet in the kitchen. It seemed like such an extravagant thing at the time, but my parents could afford it and everyone agreed just how neat it would be to have wall to wall carpeting in the kitchen
