by J. D. Barker
“Did you understand it?” the girl said, still looking at my book.
“I read it twice,” I admitted. “The first time, I had to look up a lot of the words and some of the dialogue was hard. It was easier the second time.”
She leaned back and looked down at the book in her hand, also Great Expectations. “I’ve read it twelve times now. When I finish tomorrow, it will be thirteen.”
“Why not read something else?”
“What’s the point? There is nothing better.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve read lots of books. I like some of them plenty better.”
“Well, you’re just a dumb boy.”
“Are you mean to me because Estella was mean to Pip in the book?”
She chuckled at this. “You, Mr. John Edward Jack Thatch, are no Pip. I’m mean to you because you are just a dumb boy deserving of nothing more.”
“Why haven’t I ever seen you at school?”
“I don’t go to school, my teachers come to me. Six in total, every subject you could possibly imagine. I’ve been told I am very smart, possibly gifted, and to go to a public school would be a disservice.”
“Are you rich?”
“I live in a grand house, nearly a castle. We employ a staff of servants around the clock, and I want for nothing. I spend my free time traveling the world, visiting one exotic place after the next, studying people, and places, and culture. Is that what you want to hear?”
I shrugged. “If it’s the truth.”
“It is.”
“Okay.”
She fidgeted with the corner of one of her gloves, tugged at it.
“Why do you wear those?”
“It’s cold.”
“Not that cold. It wasn’t cold last time, and you wore them then, too.”
“Maybe I like them.” She slipped a finger inside the one on the right and pulled it off. Her fingers were long and slender.
“Stella.” The woman with the white hair glared, stepping closer.
Stella quickly put the glove back on. “I like them, is all.” She slipped her hands under her thighs.
“Why today? Why this bench?”
“So many questions…”
“I’ve been here a bunch of times, and you weren’t. Now today, you’re back. One year from the last time. August 8. Why?”
A smile edged her lips. “Were you looking for me?”
“No. I was…I live close by. I visit my parents a lot. That’s all.”
“You sound nervous, Jack. Do I make you nervous?”
“No,” I said, hoping the redness had left my face.
She looked up, her deep brown eyes meeting mine. “Your parents died on August 8?”
I nodded.
She leaned back into the bench, her eyes on the heavens. “Strange, the coincidences of the world.”
“My Auntie Jo says there are no coincidences.”
“Is she here with you, your Auntie Jo?”
Again, I nodded. “Back at my parents’ graves. We come every year.”
“Then maybe I’ll see you again.”
“You’re leaving? But you just—”
“Stella.” The woman with the white hair again.
Stella narrowed her eyes and settled deeper into the bench. “Not yet. I have one hour.” I got the impression she said this not for my benefit but for the two women, because she said it much louder than necessary, if only speaking to me.
I saw something then, movement in the backseat of the SUV.
A man. No, a boy. “Who’s that?”
Stella followed my gaze, then frowned. “That is David Pickford.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s nobody.”
“How old is he?”
“Why would that matter?”
“Just wondering.”
She shrugged. “Nine or ten, I suppose. Our age.”
“Is he wearing a mask?”
Her gloved hand went to my comic book, and she flipped the pages. “Forget him. Tell me about your turtles.”
I smiled and did just that. This boy watching us from the SUV, the women in white, too.
I wouldn’t see him again for thirteen years, and even that proved too soon.
2
“This is not an All-American Slam,” I said, staring at the plate Mr. Krendal set in front of me. Thanksgiving was ten days away, and Auntie Jo had been picking up as many double shifts as possible, hoping to scrape enough money together for a full turkey dinner. That meant no pizza for a while. She suspended my allowance, too. I was okay with that. I had saved up one hundred forty-one dollars. Since Auntie Jo wouldn’t take any of my money, I gave it to Mr. Triano, the building’s super, to buy a turkey and surprise her.
Elden Krendal, the owner and sole cook at Krendal’s Diner, had a policy. He allowed his employees to eat for free, provided they didn’t order off the menu but instead ate whatever was in surplus before the food expired.
A few weeks back, when Auntie Jo asked if she could share her free meal with me, Krendal wiped his thick sausage hands on his once-white apron and knelt down in front of me. “This guy is little, too little for what did you say? Eight years old?”
He wasn’t very tall, only about an inch taller than Auntie Jo, but Mr. Krendal was a big man. I imagined he nibbled away all day back in that kitchen just to maintain such a size. He probably weighed at least three hundred pounds and reminded me of a flabby Mr. Clean, the guy from those commercials, twenty years past his prime. The top of his head didn’t contain a single hair. I once overheard him say he got tired of hairnets and shaved it all off. Auntie Jo said his hair got tired of him and left on its own accord. He had an infectious smile. I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t smiling. Even when he shouted out from back in the kitchen, he did so from behind a grin.
“Nine,” I corrected him.
He shook his head. “You’re skin and bones. You’re not going to grow up to be a big strong man sharing plates with your aunt. You need a plate of your own.”
“I can’t afford—” Auntie Jo started.
Mr. Krendal waved a hand at her. “We will feed this boy until it’s coming out his ears. Maybe someday he’ll come work for me.”
“I’m going to go to college and become an astronaut or maybe a reporter for the Daily Planet,” I said.
“Or maybe a reporter in space? I imagine we need those, too,” Krendal said. “Pick out a seat, I’ll put something together for you.”
Auntie Jo nodded toward the row of stools lining the counter, but I went to a booth instead, a small booth built for two people in the far corner near the bathrooms. Over the coming weeks, this became my booth. Mr. Krendal made a small paper sign that read RESERVED FOR JACK THATCH – ASTRONAUT REPORTER in large block letters and placed it out there every day before Auntie Jo’s shift, knowing I’d probably be in, too.
Today, when he asked me what I wanted for dinner, I told him I’d like an All-American Slam like they have at Denny’s, along with a chocolate shake. He brought me a chicken sandwich on rye bread with a side order of french fries and a glass of water.
“This is a Krendal’s All-American Slam. It may vary slightly from the competition’s meal of the same name,” Mr. Krendal said. “When the kind people at Denny’s stole the name from my menu, they did not take the time to read the description. I had a similar problem with the people from McDonald’s. For nearly a year, I told them a Big Mac was supposed to be a bowl of pasta and cheese with bacon on top, but they completely ignored me. In my day, corporate theft of ideas meant something. People take no pride in their thievery anymore.”
Krendal ruffled my hair and went back to the kitchen, leaving me to eat. I always asked for a chocolate shake. He never gave me one. He insisted people were not meant to ingest all that sugar, and water was better for me, particularly my teeth. At fifty-eight years old, he had no cavities. He was also quick to point out he’d never drank chocolate shakes.
I made quick work of the chick
en sandwich and fries. The meal was delicious.
Auntie Jo fluttered around the diner as I ate. She smiled, too. I watched as she put on her best smile whenever she faced a customer. I also saw that same smile drop away the minute she turned her back on them. She didn’t much want to be here.
I was about to pack up and go back to our apartment when she dropped four dollars on the corner of my table. “I turned three tables just to get enough for some cigs. Tips are horrible today. This better turn around fast. Can you be a dear and run next door and get me two packs of Red 100s? You can keep the change.”
I wanted to say no. Auntie Jo smoked too much. This morning, she coughed for nearly five minutes straight before she even got out of bed.
If I didn’t go, she’d just buy them on her break, then she’d blame me for any lost tips while she was gone.
Snatching up the money, I started for the door. “Be right back.”
3
The sky churned with gray clouds tipped in white, and the air felt damp. It hadn’t rained yet today, but I’d be willing to bet that it would. In November in Pittsburgh, that was a pretty safe bet, not one a local would take the other side of, that’s for sure. Considering it was nearly noon, the sun should be high in the sky. Instead, I think it departed for Florida, leaving nothing but a dim bulb as replacement.
The Corner Mart grocery sat two doors down from Krendal’s on the same side of the street, so I didn’t have to cross traffic. The store took up the first floor of a wedge-shaped building, narrow at the front and widening further back, no doubt built to accommodate the odd angle of the street which had been built in such a way to accommodate the odd angle of the large hill upon which our entire block sat. Pittsburgh was not known for sprawling flatlands, only odd angles. Even the floors of our apartment dropped off at enough of an incline to propel my Matchbox cars from one end of the kitchen to the other without any help from me.
The door to the grocery triggered an electronic chime before swinging shut behind me. Although the front of the store had two large windows beside the door, every available inch of glass was covered with posters, signs, and advertisements for various items—everything from milk to beer to cigarettes and each line punctuated with an exclamation mark because a sign reading $1.25 CIGARETTES! was far better than one with only $1.25 CIGARETTES. There were corner groceries everywhere you turned in this city, and only the ones with the largest selection of exclamation marks survived.
I didn’t recognize the man behind the counter with thinning black hair and a plaid shirt about two sizes too small. He greeted me with a nod and lowered his copy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Steelers beat the Oilers yesterday, thirty to seven—the third win in a row. “What can I get for you, kid?”
The counter was a bit tall for me, but it felt a little shorter than the last time I was in here. I reached up and slid the four dollar bills as close to the man as I could. “Two packs of Marlboro Red 100s, please.”
His brow furrowed, and he returned to the newspaper, shaking his head. “You know I can’t sell them to you.”
“Why not?”
He rolled his eyes toward the sign that said YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OLD TO PURCHASE TOBACCO PRODUCTS. This sign had no exclamation mark.
“They’re not for me, they’re for my aunt.”
“Who’s your aunt?”
“Josephine Gargery. She’s working and can’t come down here right now.”
“Jo…from Krendal’s?”
I nodded.
“And they’re not for you? You’re not going to go around the corner and fire these up with your friends?”
“Smoking is disgusting. I’d never smoke. Mr. Cougin knows me. I come in here a lot.”
“Mr. Cougin isn’t working today.”
“Isn’t he the owner, though? If he is okay with selling cigarettes to me, then you should be able to sell them to me, too, right? If you don’t, then Auntie Jo will have to leave work to come over here. If that happens, she’s gonna be mad, probably Mr. Krendal, too. Then both of them are liable to complain to Mr. Cougin, and he’s going to take it out on you. All of that can be avoided if you just sell them to me. I don’t much like confrontation, and I imagine you don’t, either. Besides, I’m not a narc. I’m one of the good guys.”
He bit at the inside of his cheek, glanced down at the corner of his newspaper as if someone printed the answer directly under the Steeler win, then blew out a breath and pulled two packs of cigarettes down from the overhead rack. “Nobody likes confrontation.”
“Nope,” I agreed. “Nobody.”
He handed back a dollar and thirty-eight cents with the cigarettes.
“Thank you.” I took the change and the cigarettes and headed for the the comic rack at the back of the store. I already owned most of the good ones, but there was one in particular I had my eye on: Superman annual volume one, number eleven. I found it when I was in here on Tuesday, but I only had seventy-three cents with me, not enough to cover the steep dollar and twenty-five cent price tag on this particular book, so I hid it behind Strawberry Shortcake number four on the top shelf, someplace no self-respecting comic lover would go, and hoped it would be there when I came back. It was, and I snatched it down. I was flipping through the book, when the chime above the store’s front door went off. I barely heard the muffled sounds of traffic and the shuffle of feet before the door closed again.
“Everything in the register, now!”
The voice was loud and gruff, coming from the front of the store at my back.
“Okay, sure, just calm down.” This was the man behind the counter. “It’s all yours, I don’t—”
The explosion of a gunshot rattled the poster and sign-covered windows.
I dropped the cigarettes.
What happened next, happened fast.
I turned as the gunman did. I watched in slow motion as he spun around, long, greasy red hair swinging behind him catching in the hood of his filthy navy sweatshirt, his arm coming up, the gun pointing toward me, smoke still trailing from the barrel.
He squeezed the trigger not once but twice.
My heart burst with pain, a thud stronger than any I had ever felt.
A wetness bloomed on my leg, my thigh, a growing mass of warmth.
The gun clicked.
Two empty clicks.
No shot. No bullet. Some kind of misfire.
The gunman frowned at the weapon, nearly threw it at me, then turned back to the register and scooped out the cash, shoving the bills into his pockets. When he got the last of them, he took a step toward me, his eyes wild. “I know what you look like, kid. I never forget a face. You say a fucking word, and I’ll hunt your ass down. I’ll slice you open and hang you from a fucking streetlight.”
A moment later, he was gone and I was alone.
I looked down at my leg. I had wet my pants. I didn’t care.
I stood there. I don’t know how long. I couldn’t move.
Eventually, I found the strength to wander back to Krendal’s and summon help.
August 8, 1986
Ten Years Old
Log 08/08/1986—
Interview with Dr. Helen Durgin. Subject “D” appears agitated.
Audio/video recording.
“I’d like to talk about your parents.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You need to. It’s best we all understand what happened.”
“I don’t remember. I was little then.”
“You remember. I think you remember everything that happened that day.”
Silence.
“It wasn’t your fault, David. You were only two. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“I don’t want to.”
Dr. Durgin sighed. “What would you like to talk about?”
“How come nobody else ever comes to visit me?”
“You know why.”
“But you’re not afraid. You come.”
“I’m deaf, David. I can’t actually
hear you. I read your lips.”
“And that’s why you’re not afraid?”
“That’s why I’m able to visit with you.”
“So if you could hear, you wouldn’t visit me anymore?”
“I would like to, but they probably wouldn’t let me.”
“You’d talk to me through the speakers, though? Like everyone else?”
“If they let me.”
“Dr. Peavy used to come in and visit with me. He wasn’t deaf.”
“But he doesn’t anymore, does he, David? Do you remember what happened to Dr. Peavy?”
“Yes. Dr. Peavy was mean to me. I made him stop.”
“That was two weeks after your parents. If you remember what happened to Dr. Peavy, then you certainly remember what happened to them.”
Silence.
“David?”
“I’m tired. Can we stop now?”
“Were your parents mean to you? Like Dr. Peavy?”
“My daddy was.”
“And you made him stop?”
Silence.
“David, you have to speak aloud, for the record. You made your father stop?”
“Yes.”
“How did you make your father stop?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I think you do.”
“He wasn’t supposed to hurt Mommy.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
David said nothing.
—Charter Observation Team – 309
1
“Read.”
“Oh, come on.”
Auntie Jo’s gaze fixed on me, her lips pursed tight over the nub of a cigarette dangling from her mouth. “Read.”
I rolled my eyes. “Kaitlyn Gargery Thatch. February 16, 1958 to August 8, 1980. Loving wife, mother, and sister. Can I go now?”
Auntie Jo narrowed her eyes and lit another cigarette. “Where exactly do you run off to?”
I snatched my comic book off the blanket. “Just over the hill, there’s a bench up there where I can read.”