I was amazed as I analyzed the sequence of events that had transpired over the past week that had brought us to this moment.
It had all started when Maggie started showing houses to the new curator at the gallery. Had he not given her tickets to the Egyptian exhibit, we would never have gone to the gallery that day and met Uncle Ray.
And the words that Uncle Ray spoke to us that day were, of course, shrouded in mystery. What did he mean when he said, “My homeland is calling to you. You have been chosen?”
Only time would tell.
Then I thought of the tiny lizard in my pocket. Uncle Ray had said, “Follow the mo’o’ala. He will guide you.”
On the day of Maggie’s abduction, did I conjure up the exchange plan on my own, or did I have help?
And what caused Lottie Crabtree to run that red light and crumple my fender? It might have just been old age, but had that not happened, I would never have been in the Argentine area that night to find the burning body of Ronald Kalakoa.
And I still get shivers when I remember looking up and seeing the huge lizard staring at me from the bill board high above the burning corpse.
I fancy myself a pretty level-headed guy, and most of the time I’m like Sergeant Joe Friday from the old Dragnet show. “Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”
But I’m also smart enough to realize that there are forces operating in the universe that are above the understanding of mortal men, and sometimes those forces intervene in our lives.
What are the forces at play that cause the humpback whale to swim thousands of miles from the arctic to the Hawaiian Islands?
What compels the Monarch butterfly and the tiny hummingbird to travel half a continent twice each year?
And what was it that seemed to be leading Maggie and me into—well, into what?
As I sat pondering the two pages I had written, the phone rang, and the voice I heard on the other end was the last person I would have ever expected.
“Walt, we need to talk.”
“Dad?”
To say that my father and I were estranged would be a stretch. We didn’t hate each other. We just didn’t have anything to do with each other.
When I was growing up, my male role model was my grandfather. I spent every spare moment on his farm, and to this day I do my best to emulate the qualities that made him dear to me.
My dad, on the other hand, seemed to embody the old saying, “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.”
Now don’t get me wrong. Dad was a good provider.
While we didn’t have a lot of extras, we were comfortable. I never knew Dad to lay a finger on my mother and only on me on those rare occasions when I actually deserved it.
Dad’s problem was that he couldn’t keep his fingers off of other women. He was quite a ladies’ man.
He was an over-the-road trucker, and everyone knew he was like the sailor with a girl in every port.
I grew up in the Eisenhower post-war years. The moral climate in America was certainly different in those days. To be caught in adultery or to conceive a child out of wedlock was sufficient cause to bring shame to an entire family, unlike today, when extramarital dalliances and pregnancies are commonplace and readily accepted.
Mom was the typical gal from the old country song, “A good-hearted woman in love with a good-timin’ man.” She bravely looked the other way to spare our family the scandal and disgrace of a divorce. In those days, the woman’s place was in the home, and on her own she would have had no way to support us.
Dad would take off for several days at a time on a run to some far-off state, return for a day, and then be on the road again. It wasn’t the kind of home life that encouraged male bonding.
I do remember the days that Dad was home.
He loved three things—his cigarettes, his beer, and boxing.
Regular fixtures at our house were the Wednesday and Friday night fights brought to us in black and white by Pabst Blue Ribbon and Gillette. Sugar Ray Robinson was a household name. Dad would pop open his beer, light up a Camel, and spend the evening watching two grown men beat the crap out of each other.
When Mom passed on, I was already out of the nest, and she was the final tie that held our dysfunctional little family together. Dad went his way, and I went mine.
For a while we would call each other on birthdays and holidays, but eventually, I can’t actually tell you when, we even stopped doing that.
I heard from a mutual friend that he had taken his retirement from the Teamsters’ Union and headed west to Arizona and was living in one of those assisted living places for old folks who can care for themselves.
I knew he was out there somewhere. I guess I just didn’t care where.
“Walt, I’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re kicking me out.”
“Who is?”
“Shady Glen.”
“What’s Shady Glen?”
“It’s where I live.”
“Why are they kicking you out?”
“Here, talk to Mr. Mayview.”
“Hello, Mr. Williams? My name is Leon Mayview. I’m the executive director of the Shady Glen Assisted Living Center. I’m afraid we’ve had some, uh, issues with your father, and we’re going to have to ask him to leave.”
“What in the world could an eighty-six-year-old man do that is so terrible?”
“Well, that’s the problem. He’s not exactly acting his age.”
Oh boy! I guess it runs in the family.
“Can you be more explicit?”
“I can, but it’s a rather sensitive area.”
“Hey, I’m a cop. Don’t worry about offending my sensibilities.”
“Very well then. Your father is a horny old goat, and it’s affecting our entire resident population.”
Apparently Dad hadn’t mellowed with age.
“How so?”
“Where shall I start? Let’s see. Ah, yes. We have no problem with our residents forming personal relationships. It’s actually quite therapeutic in most cases. But your father has carried it to the extreme. I would imagine he has bedded every ambulatory woman at Shady Glen.”
“But isn’t that one of those personal things between consenting adults?”
“We let it go at that at first, but then things began to escalate.”
“Go on.”
“One day our orderlies discovered that our regular Friday night bingo had evolved, through your father’s influence, into ‘bedroom bingo.’ The winner of the blackout game got to spend the night with the partner of their choosing.”
“May I assume, then, that there was a significant increase in bingo participation?”
“Ah, sarcasm. I can see that the nut didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Sorry about that. Please go on.”
“We, of course, encourage hobbies such as the chess club and the camera club, but the VP club was just too much.”
“VP?”
“Yes, the ‘Viagra Poppers.’ It was formed by your father, who felt it was his role to educate his peers and encourage the use of the little pill. Their motto is, ‘Better living through chemistry.’”
“It’s hard to argue with the logic.”
“I can see that this is going nowhere.”
“I guess I don’t understand why this couldn’t have been handled in house by your staff.”
“We certainly tried. It was bad enough when we had to break up a fist fight between two elderly residents over who owned a box of condoms, but it got out of hand when the residents’ families got involved.”
This couldn’t be good.
“Just imagine the outrage when Mrs. Whipple’s children found a dildo in her nightstand. They, of course, demanded to know what kind of an operation we were running here.”
“Yes, that would be hard to explain.”
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was when we found your fa
ther and Myrtle Mincus in the sitz bath, au natural.”
“Oops! So what are we talking about here?”
“We have terminated your father’s residency at Shady Glen. He is paid to the end of the month. He must vacate by then.”
“But that’s only two weeks away.”
“Indeed it is. And none too soon as far as we’re concerned.”
“So why call me?”
“That was your father’s idea. It’s of no concern to us as long as he is out of here by the end of the month.”
“Swell. Put him back on the phone.”
“Walter?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“What am I going to do?”
“First things first. Where exactly are you?”
“Sun City, Arizona.”
“Give me your contact number, and let me make some calls.”
I took his number and booted up my computer.
There must be dozens of retirement complexes in Sun City. I’d work on finding one with a vacancy and get him transferred.
Sure enough, there were several pages of listings. I printed the pages and started making calls.
I soon found that each conversation ended the same way.
“Hello, is this the Bear Creek Retirement Village?”
“Indeed it is. How may I help you?”
“Do you have any vacancies?”
“Why, yes, I believe we do. Let me check. By the way, whom would this be for?”
“A Mr. John Williams.”
Long pause. “Oh, I’m so very sorry. It looks like our last vacancy was taken this morning.”
Hmm. I was beginning to see a pattern.
Then it struck me. They have a “bad dog” list.
When I owned apartments, I was a member of the
Landlord’s Association. I attended every meeting so I wouldn’t miss out on the “bad dog” list.
Unfortunately, there are folks out there who have learned to use and abuse the legal system. They would move into a residence, pay the first month’s rent and deposit, and then pay no more. The eviction laws being what they are make it possible for these pikers to remain in the property sometimes for months. When they finally have to leave, they just move on to the next poor landlord who doesn’t bother to check references, and the scam starts all over again.
There was a large chalkboard in one corner of the landlord’s meeting room, and every month the names of the offending tenants were posted as a warning to the other members. We avoided these “bad dogs” like the plague.
It was soon apparent that my father was on such a list with the retirement complexes.
I gave Maggie a call and told her we needed to talk.
I picked Maggie up at her apartment, and we headed to Mel’s Diner for supper.
Mel’s is a throwback to the diners of the 1950s—no frou-frou stuff, just real food and lots of it. Everything tastes wonderful because it’s cooked in butter. It’s what my mom used to call “comfort food,” and that’s exactly what I needed tonight.
Maggie was shocked when I told her of my conversation. She had never heard me speak of my father and just assumed that he, like my mom, had passed away.
I figured that since we were getting married, she deserved to know about all of the skeletons in my closet.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Why do I have to do anything? I haven’t heard from the guy in years. I didn’t really like him that much when he was around. I probably wouldn’t recognize him if I met him on the street.”
“Because he’s your father. That’s why.”
That’s not the answer I wanted to hear.
I know people for whom family is everything. They fight and they bicker and they moan and groan, but they can’t seem to make it through the day without either calling or seeing each other. For them, the old saying, “Blood is thicker than water,” is absolutely true.
But not for me.
I have never understood why people suffer with folks they don’t really like just because they’re related.
It’s probably a character flaw.
“I still don’t understand why it’s my problem.”
“Well, let’s start from the beginning. Whether you like it or not, the same blood runs through your veins. How old were you when you left home?”
“Nineteen.”
“So for nineteen years, he put a roof over your head and provided food to eat and clothes to wear?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“And exactly what have you done for him?”
“Well, uh … oh crap, Maggie. I thought you’d understand.”
“Did you expect me to tell you to put him adrift on an iceberg like the Eskimos do?”
“Well, no, but—”
“But nothing. He’s your father, and if you don’t step up to the plate, I’m going to wonder if you’re actually the man I thought you were.”
See? This is exactly why you shouldn’t ask for advice if you don’t want to hear the answer.
Earlier in the day, I had been in awe at the forces that seemed to be at play in my life as it applied to the Kalakoa case, but with further reflection, I began to wonder if some power had control over every other aspect of my life as well.
I have five apartments in my building in addition to my own. I rarely have a vacancy. All my tenants except Jerry had been with me for over ten years.
But recently, eighty-six-year-old Mrs. Basset finally gave in to her family and moved into a nursing home.
Was it coincidence or something else that my long-lost father called needing a place to live at the very moment I had a vacant unit?
My father was ecstatic when I called and invited him to live in my building. I mailed him a one-way ticket to Kansas City and made arrangements to pick him up at the airport. The flight landed on time, and I waited patiently at the gate as the passengers deplaned.
When it seemed that everyone had exited the aircraft, I began to worry. Where was my father?
Just then, an elderly gentleman with a full head of wavy gray hair exited the runway—in handcuffs!
I was approached by a stern-looking gent and a very comely flight attendant.
“Mr. Williams?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Is this your father?”
I looked at the old gentleman I hadn’t seen in years, and he nodded.
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“My name is Grant, and I’m a federal air marshal. Your father is under arrest for assaulting a flight attendant.”
My mouth dropped open, and I just stood there dumbfounded.
Finally, Dad spoke. “All I did was pinch her on the butt.”
I held my hand to my head and just stared at the old guy in disbelief. I looked at the attractive flight attendant and thought I detected a smile cross her lips. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my badge.
“If no one was injured, I wonder if maybe we could just chalk this up to senility and turn him over to me as a professional courtesy.”
I looked imploringly at the flight attendant.
She gave me a wink. “I think maybe we can work something out if he promises never to do it again.”
I gave Dad a stern look.
“Absolutely! I promise to behave.”
Grant uncuffed him, and they walked away, trying their best not to laugh out loud.
I turned to my father. “Dad!”
“I know. I know. But she was a real looker, wasn’t she, son?”
Heaven help me! What have I done?
CHAPTER 7
I felt that it was appropriate to warn the other residents of the building of our new neighbor, and it appeared that they listened. Everyone was waiting on the front porch when we pulled up to the curb.
I made the introductions all around, and the repartee that ensued was like a well-rehearsed play.
Jerry, or “Jerry the Joker” as we call him, thinks he is Kansas City’s version of Rodney Dangerfield. His
constant patter was driving us all batty until we introduced him to amateur night at the comedy club.
“Hi, Mr. Williams. I understand that you were an over-the-road trucker.”
“Yep, I was. But you can call me Big John or just
John.”
“Well, you know old truckers never die. They just get a new Peterbilt.”
“You’re right about that, Sonny, but I’m still drivin’ the old one. You know what Groucho Marx said, ‘A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.’”
I thought maybe Jerry had met his match.
Then Willie jumped in. “Why dey call you Big John? You ain’t even six feet tall.”
“They weren’t referring to six feet. They were referring to six inches.”
Willie wasn’t impressed.
“Only six inches long?”
“No, my friend. Six inches from the ground.”
Now Willie was impressed.
Then Dad turned his attention to eighty-three-year-old Bernice Crenshaw.
“Tell me your name again, dear.”
“Bernice,” she replied coyly.
“Ah, Bernice. A lovely name. I just know we’re going to get along famously.” With a move that Clark Gable would have envied, he bowed and planted a kiss on Bernice’s outstretched hand.
I think the professor summed up what we were all thinking.
“The follies which a man regrets most in his life are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.”
Dad certainly made the most of his opportunities. I took Dad to his apartment, and he unpacked. It didn’t take long, and soon we were back on the front porch. Everyone was rocking and talking and just enjoying the balmy day.
On more than one occasion, I had shared stubborn police cases with this austere group and was rewarded with insights that proved invaluable in bringing the case to a successful conclusion.
I perched on the porch rail and brought my friends up to date on the Kalakoa murders and missing artifacts. Everyone sat in silence and let the information sink in.
Finally, the professor spoke.
“I can certainly understand the spiritual overtones of the case, but these atrocities were not committed by the gods. They were committed by zealous men who believe they are appeasing angry gods.”
[Lady Justice 03] - Lady Justice Gets Lei'd Page 6