never had any kids of course, but when I’m with her…I feel like…I feel like I’m a-”
Shep put a hand on her shoulder. “I know how you feel. You don’t have to explain.”
Nina looked into Shepherd’s eyes. His fatherly eyes.
“I guess not,” she said and placed a hand over his. “I guess not.”
Denise moved into the kitchen. “What is this? A refrigerator? Does it work?”
Nina called, “It will when I plug it back in! Have to save power when we’re not home, you know.”
“Power? Cool. Like, we can watch movies and eat popcorn and-”
“Hey! Hey,” Nina said. “Look, don’t you go getting ideas that this is some sort of big slumber party. You are going to school, kiddo, and you’ll have homework and you’re going to learn to shoot and-”
“Relax,” Denise rounded the corner and smiled at Nina. “I know. Geez, don’t get all hyper… mom. ”
Denise disappeared down the hallway again.
“Is this your closet? Oh boy, did I get here just in time or what. Don’t worry; I’m all over it…”
Nina shook her head, smiling.
Dante Jones pointed at the shot glass. The bartender filled it with something again, maybe old Jack Daniels, maybe Jagermeister, maybe one of the new concoctions making the rounds.
It did not matter. Whatever it was, he would drink it and he did not have a tab to worry about. It paid to be Chief of Internal Security. You often found you had more friends than you realized.
The door to the center-city Wilkes-Barre bar creaked open. A few beams of late afternoon sunshine shot in, turning the man who opened the door into a silhouette.
Dante did not notice the man who sat down next to him until he spoke.
“Early night cap, Dante?”
Jones looked, saw who it was, and sneered in disgust.
“What do you want, Evan?”
“Wow, that’s not a very nice way to greet a friend.”
“A friend?” The choice of words surprised Dante.
“Yeah. I thought we had, well, after the time we spent in North Carolina I thought we had bonded or something.”
Jones told Godfrey, “Since then a lot of my people have been forced to whack yours with night sticks and tear gas. Don’t think I don’t know about this candle light vigil thing this weekend. You damn well better not pull any shit outside the estate.”
“Hey, easy,” Evan said. “You know, I’m not behind every protest. I can’t be. There’s been too many of them. And you know what? There are more coming. Believe it or not, old Evan Godfrey isn’t the bad guy all the time.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“I’ll give you my personal word Dante. My personal word that the vigil will be non-violent. I know the kind of position that would put you in. You’ve been in enough tough positions the last few years. I promise.”
Dante cocked his head. “Tough positions? What are you talking about?”
“Well, like Dubois for instance when a bunch of Red Hands took that town out and I.S. got a bloody nose. Like trying to protect all the caravans and trains and shipyards when you don’t have enough manpower. You know a lot of people blame Internal Security. They say you’re not doing your job.”
“Well screw them!” Dante said a little loud. “Do they know what we have to work with? Do they know how tough this job is? Resources are-”
“Resources are thin, yeah,” Evan agreed.
“Right.”
“You’re doing the best you can with what you’ve got.”
“Hell yeah,” Dante nodded.
“You’ve got good people working for you. They’re trying their best.”
“Damn straight.”
“Things have got to change.”
“Shit, you can say that again-” Dante caught himself in mid sentence. He turned toward Evan with anger… breathed…then relaxed. “You know, Evan, you lived around here, right?”
“What? You mean Wilkes-Barre? Northeast PA? Yeah, I moved here before graduate school.”
“Back before ‘all this’, this bar wasn’t where we’d see a bunch of guys like you.”
“Guys like me? What, college guys?”
Dante answered, “White folk.”
“Oh,” Evan glanced around. He saw a black bartender but both white and black customers at tables and bar stools.
“Since things went to Hell, I come in here and it doesn’t matter what you look like. You know why? I’ll tell you why. Because when alien monsters start killing everyone, suddenly whether you’re black or white or red doesn’t matter much. Suddenly, you don’t see a redneck or a gang-banger, or some other stereotype, you see just a guy. Because you’re so damned happy that he’s a guy and not a friggin’ blob of Green Pudding that wants to suck your intestines through your nose.”
Dante paused, sipped half his shot, and continued, “So look, all it took was the extermination of ninety-nine percent of humanity, and what have we got? True equality. Real peace between the races. Probably not the way Reverend Jackson wanted to get there, I figure. But still, all the same, we’re there.”
Evan started, “Dante-”
“He’s my friend. We’ve been friends since a long time ago. He wasn’t tough like he is now. He didn’t know everything. Hell, he couldn’t find his butt with both hands without my help. Half the time he followed me around like a puppy dog. But back when the world drew big fat ugly lines between people Trevor knew it was wrong.”
“That’s great.”
Dante said, “Trevor used to come here, with me. He used to come to this bar. I never saw you in here, Evan.”
“I’m here now.”
Dante snorted as if to say ‘big deal.’
Evan pushed, “You just lied to me, Dante.”
Jones, with alcohol in his veins, was not the person you called a liar. He sat straight in his bar stool, cocked his head back, and appeared ready to start a fight.
Evan diffused his anger. “Trevor never came in here with you. Maybe Richard Stone, but Trevor didn’t exist back then. Trevor didn’t exist until there were Stumphides, Ghouls, and Gremmies in the streets. Think about that, Dante. Is that still your friend out there at the estate, or is it someone else?”
Jones returned his attention to his drink so fast that it was obvious he had thought about that. Thought about it a lot. Especially since New Winnabow.
“He is in over his head, Dante. He may be a good man at heart, but he has taken it upon himself to make a lot of hard decisions. It’s too much for him. He needs help, whether he admits it or not.”
Dante quietly examined his glass.
“You’ve been in here a lot, lately,” Evan said.
“How do you know that, Evan? You spying on me?”
“You weren’t known as a big drinker before, Dante. So that tells me something is bothering this man. I know it has a lot to do with New Winnabow. We were there, together. We got to know those people. Maybe Trevor didn’t think he had any choice. Maybe he just couldn’t see a way out of it. But what about next time, Dante? If the decisions stay on his shoulders alone then there may be a lot more New Winnabows. And guess what, buddy, no amount of drinking is going to chase those ghosts out of your head.”
Dante took a slow sip of the drink.
“I just want you to know,” Evan told him. “I want you to know that you have a friend in me. With everything going down, well, maybe the two of us can keep a lid on some of it. Keep it from getting out of control.”
Dante Jones put the glass down, turned to Godfrey, and said in a wavering voice, “He’s my friend.”
