“Yeah,” Deon said. “I like it.”
“Phoenix,” Clay said. He nodded. “It does have a ring to it.”
“I like it,” Karin said.
“Me, too,” Marcus added.
“Alright,” Jake said, smiling. “Hereinafter, we will be known as Phoenix.”
“Well then, in that case we should change our radio call sign from Mickey Mouse to Phoenix,” Willie suggested.
“I agree,” Jake said. “From now on my call sign is Phoenix One.”
“I’ve got somethin’ else to bring up,” Clay said.
“Now’s the time to do it,” Jake replied.
“Major—I mean, Jake, I know you said we aren’t in the Army anymore. But the truth is, while we were in the Army, we had a standard operating procedure. And even if we aren’t in the Army, I think we still need some structure. I mean, all you have to do is look at what’s going on all around us now to know that we must have some SOP. I know you don’t want to be a major anymore, but how about you taking charge, as a civilian, of our group?”
“We are all together in this,” Jake said. “I don’t want to presume.”
“You wouldn’t be presuming, and I agree with Clay,” John said. “We do need some SOP, and you are the one who started Phoenix, so I think it only makes sense that you be our leader. We can still remain on a first-name basis.” John smiled. “I sort of like calling officers by their first names.”
“I concur,” Marcus said. “Jake should be our leader.”
“Count me in,” Deon added.
Willie, Julie, and Karin quickly added their own support for the idea.
“Alright,” Jake said. “I accept. Now, what do you say we get back out to the post and get busy?”
“Go out to the post and get busy? Jesus, give the man a little authority and he goes all power mad on us,” John said.
The others laughed.
“Ellen, where is my typewriter?” Bob Varney asked.
“It’s in the very back of the storeroom off your office,” Ellen said. “Way in the back. Why do you ask?”
“I’m going to write,” Bob said.
“I really . . .” Ellen started to say that she really thought it would be a waste of time, but she stopped in midsentence. She had lived with this man for over forty years and she knew him inside out. And she knew that he needed to write, and if truth be told, she needed it as well. She needed a sense of continuity to her life, and having her husband write books, whether they were ever published or not, was that continuity.
“I really think that is a good idea,” she said.
Bob leaned over to kiss her. “Thanks for not trying to talk me out of it,” he said.
It had been almost thirty years since Bob Varney last used a typewriter, but he had kept his old Smith-Corona portable all those years, keeping it in good shape, and keeping it in fresh typewriter ribbons. Retrieving it from the back of the storeroom, he opened the case, then blew and brushed the dust and cobwebs away. That done, he rolled two pieces of paper into the typewriter, using the second page as a pad against the platen because when he took typing in high school his typing teacher, Miss Sidwell, had told her students to do that.
Using the lever, he counted down eleven double-spaces before he typed:
Lilies Are for Dying
by
Robert Varney
Chapter One
John Hughes had what is called a very structured personality. Every morning he had one soft-boiled egg, a dry piece of toast, and half a grapefruit. He drove to work by the same route every day, and crossed the intersection of Greer and Elm at exactly the same time. That’s why he was passing Elmer’s Liquor Store just in time to see Elmer being shot.
“Charley, listen to this and tell me what you think,” Bob said to his dog. He read the opening paragraph aloud. “Is that a grabber?”
Charley was lying under the desk with his head on Bob’s foot. This was the normal position for writer and dog when a book was in progress. But that was the only normal thing about the setup. Bob was writing this book on a typewriter, and he knew this book was going nowhere.
His agent had told him that he need not waste his time writing any of the three books that remained on his contact, but his agent didn’t understand. Bob didn’t write because it was his job, Bob wrote because he
He returned to the book, listening to the tap, tap, tap of the keys, remembering that sound from years ago and, oddly, being comforted by it, as if it could take him back to another time and another place when things were as they should be.
As he continued to write through the morning, the pages began to pile up on the right side of the typewriter, and he remembered that as well, recalling the sense of satisfaction he got from watching the pile of pages grow. He had mentioned to his father once how he enjoyed watching the pile of pages grow, and his father, who had been a farmer, compared it to watching a crop being “made,” as in “Are you making any cotton?” It’s funny, Bob didn’t realize until now, how much he missed watching the pile of pages grow. Seeing the word-count number increase at the bottom of the computer screen was never the same thing.
From his office he could see the Gulf through the front windows and Mobile Bay through the back windows. He saw a boat about a mile offshore and figured it must be a fishing boat. Was he catching fish to eat? Or to barter? Probably a little of both, he decided.
“It is good to see you writing, again,” Ellen said, coming up behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders.
“You do realize that it is a complete exercise in futility, don’t you?” Bob asked.
“Not futile,” Ellen said. “It doesn’t matter that it isn’t going anywhere, it is restoring a sense of balance to our lives. It gives the illusion that everything is as it was, and I need that. We need it.”
Bob lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “We were born twenty years too late,” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“If we had been born twenty years earlier, we would more than likely be gone by now, and we would have left the world while it was still sane.”
“What’s going to happen to us, Bob?”
“Nothing,” Bob said. “We’re going to ride it out and, in the long run, we’ll be okay. Just don’t be planning any trips to New York or Chicago. Or even into Gulf Shores,” he said.
“Maybe I’ll start my romance novel,” Ellen said.
“Ha! You’ve been saying you were going to write a romance novel for the last forty-five years.”
“I know, but other things kept coming up,” Ellen said. “This time I’m going to do it, for sure. I’ve got a bunch of yellow tablets and a bunch of pencils. And the time to do it.”
“Good for you,” Bob said. “You start it. If you need help, just ask.”
Jake and Karin were the last two to leave Ozark and head out to Fort Rucker, the others having left two days earlier. They were halfway to the post when they saw a pickup truck with a trailer, crossways on the road, blocking any possibility of passage.
