The Rough English Equivalent (The Jack Mason Saga Book 1)

by Stan Hayes

  Jack snapped his head up to look Moses in the eye. “Box? I’ve thought about it a time or two since you set the gym up, but I don’t know much about it. Neither does Ricky. Would you have time to coach us some?”

  “Sure,” said Moses. “Otherwise I wouldn’ta brought it up. Can’t have y’all beatin’ on each other just any ole damn way. Wanta get started right away? Might take Ricky’s mind off his troubles if we did.”

  “Yeah, let’s do. How ’bout tomorrow afternoon, since it’s Wednesday?”

  “You got a deal, shitbird.”

  “Oh, you know what? His folks might not let ’im outa the house unless you ask ’em. Wouldja mind callin’ Mr. Terrell?”

  “Not a bit,” said Moses.

  “Hey, Jack!” Walt Jefferson trotted up the hill to catch up with him, as Jack slung a leg over the Harley.

  “Hey, Jefferson. What’s up?”

  “You’re askin’ me? This whole damn place is up, and you know it. I can’t believe you hab’mnt had two dozen fights by now.”

  You’re kiddin’. Ain’t nobody much mad at me. Ricky neither. Hop on an’ we’ll run out’n see ’im.”

  “I bed’ not,” Walt said, fidgeting. “If anybody saw me an’ told my old man, I’d be in deep shit.”

  “What the hell for? Ridin’ on this? Your brother’s got two of ’em.”

  “Yeah. And that’s part of th’ reason. I gotta be Sammy Straightarrow because Charlie ain’t.”

  “Bad deal, man. Don’t put up with that shit.”

  “Hunh. You dawno my old man.”

  “That’s true.” And damn glad I don’t, Jack thought. He’s just decided on his own to make you the older brother, whether you’re up to it or not.

  “Oh, I wanted to ask you sump’m else,” Walt said.

  “What’s that?”

  “J’you wanta work in the mill this summer? He said they’d hire a couple of my friends to work with me. Dollar and a quarter an hour.”

  “Guess not, buddy. I spend August in New York with my dad, you know.”

  “You could still work June and July. C’mon, it’ll be fun workin’ together.”

  “Naw, I don’t think so. I’m already workin’ nights at the Winston; sounds like a little too much, even for a stud like me. Didn’t you tell me you were deaf for a couple of hours after you got off every day?

  “Aw, yeah, but that was in the weave room. I’m not workin’ in there again. we can work in th’ spinnin’ room. That’s where the good-lookin’ women are.”

  “Sounds good, man, but I just can’t make it work.” Jesus Christ, Jack thought, when’s he going to get the message?

  “Well, OK, but if anything changes- if you don’t go in New York or sump’m, let me know, awright? There’s really not many people I’d wanta take out there. Most all the bastards we know’re fuckin’ lazy. They’d prob’ly get fired and embarrass the hell out of me.”

  “I will, Jefferson, but there ain’t much chance of it, so don’t count on me.” About last thing I wanta do, he thought, is learn to be a linthead.

  “Hello?”

  “Serena.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Nola Thomas.”

  “Oh, hi, Miz Nola.”

  “I thought you’d like to know that Diana Bishop just told me that they’d met with the Terrell, McNeil and Rogers families today. The twins told him that the baby was Preston’s, and that she’d been seeing him while she and Rick were together. They told them exactly when and where it happened, all the details down to what they both were wearing. Trisha was so shocked by how much they knew that she broke down and admitted it, saying that Preston had told her he wouldn’t marry her because she’d been intimate with Ricky. Mr. Terrell told Dr. McNeil he intended to go with him to Principal Martin today and tell him the truth of this matter.”

  “My God!” said Serena. “That’s wonderful.”

  “I thought you’d like to know. And I have another small piece of information.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes. Apparently Mr. Terrell has some friends who’ve suggested to him that Ricky should apply for admission to Taylor School, up in Chattanooga. From what the twins could tell, he’s already done it.”

  “My goodness; that really is a new development.”

  “Yes, it is; I wonder if any of these troglodytes’ll learn anything from it. ’Bye, dear.”

  “Good mornin’, Miz Mason; hiya, Jerry,” said Moses as he walked up to the hotel’s front desk. She looked up from the work schedule at which she and Jerry McClain, the assistant manager, had been looking. Jerry nodded and smiled a return greeting.

  “Mose. Hey. You here to see me?” she asked.

  “None other, my dear, if you have a minute.”

  “Sure. Just hang on while we finish this one thing.”

  Moses walked into the café and sat down, making small talk with Reba as she brought coffee. “Miz Mason’ll be here in just a minute,” he said to her. “Might as well bring another cup.”

  They sat at adjacent sides of the table, Reba pretending not to watch from the counter, betraying her intent with the trace of a benevolent smile. “Hey, sailor. Didn’t expect to see you today,” said Serena. “What’s up?”

  “Wanted to see if you’d set up Jack’s summer trip to New York,” he said. “Feingold, one of our brewers, is having its annual distributors’ meeting there next month, and I thought maybe he could drive up with me.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “The meeting’s the second week in June. I thought we might leave in time for a nice leisurely trip, a few days before I have to be there.”

  “So the first week in June, give or take.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, you know he’d love it, specially helping you drive. It’s been a hell of a year for him, all things considered.”

  “Yeah. For all concerned in th’ fuhbawl fiasco. At least that little girl didn’t hafta face bein’ a teen-age mother.”

  Serena’s face sobered. “What she did have to face was enough. A miscarriage’s a hard thing to go through; I don’t think a man can understand what it does to the mother. It’s not too much different from having a full-term baby die.”

  “I’ll call Larry this afternoon. We’d been thinking about a little later on, but it’s fine with me if it is with him. And I think you’d enjoy meeting him.”

  “You kiddin’? One of the real heroes of World War II, even if you did find him to be a pain in the ass? I’d love it.”

  “Well, being a pain in the ass’s one thing you have in common.”

  “Thanks. He’s never been down here?”

  She released the ironic version of her down-deep chuckle. “Never. Not that I expected it. He’s got a deep-seated aversion to all things Confederate. He told me before we got married; ‘I’ll do anything for you but set foot in Georgia.’ He wasn’t just being snotty, although he has a talent for it; the thought of it scared the shit out of him.”

  “And what’d you say to that?”

  “I thanked him on behalf of all Georgians and said, ‘Just tell your folks, from whom I suppose you inherited your crackerphobia, not to expect us out there at that rock pile of theirs any more.’ That’s how it’s been.”

  “Rock pile?”

  “The Mason manse. Out in Oyster Bay.”

  Moses’ right eyebrow went up momentarily. “Well,” he said, smiling. “Little country girl nailed a patrician!”

  “If you mean his folks’re cob-up-the-ass Yankees with a buck or two, then give the man a kewpie doll. I laid eyes on ’em a grand total of three times in my life, which puts me three up on Larry in spouse-parental contact.”

  He shook his head, sadly. “That’s the goddamnedest thing I ever heard. Anybody that’d pass on takin’ a decent part in Jack’s life because of- what? Geography?”

  “Larry turned his back on what they wanted him to do, which was to marry Miss High School Sweetheart, the daughter of some other Oyster
Bay family. It was something boys like him just didn’t do, and it nearly broke his relationship with them, permanently. Jack was almost two before they saw him for the first time.”

  “So how is it now?”

  “Not so bad. As you said, ‘One of the real heroes of World War II…’ They weren’t about to pass on that reflected glory. Larry and Jack usually go out to see ’em when he goes up.”

  “Some deal,” he said. They don’t deserve him, he thought; no fuckin’ way.

  He rapped on the door to the hotel roof just after dark. “Who is it?”

  “Mose.”

  “Hi,” Serena said as she pulled it open. “Push from your side. It’s gotten so it sticks.” He pushed, and the door swung open.

  “You need a good stout turnbuckle on that thing,” he said as he pushed it shut and dropped the bar in place. “It’s just sagging a little.”

  “It’s not the only damn thing,” she said through her teeth, intending it to sound funny, he thought, but he felt the thread of sadness, and she knew that he did.

  “What’s this, some veiled reference to the advancing years? Take it down the street.”

  “In case you’d forgotten, I’ll be forty next month. While you and Jack’re kicking your heels up in New York, I’ll be stuck here in Bisque, working my ass off.”

  “Guess it’s out of the question for you to come along.”

  She turned to look at him, to see if he meant it. “I’ve got a good mind to do it. If it was just a week, I would. I need to get away from this thing-” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at her current work in progress- “for awhile.”

  Moses refilled her glass from an almost full bottle of Sancerre and filled a fresh one for himself. He walked over to the workstand; he felt, for a moment, the tangle of shapes moving under his gaze. As he worked to stifle the grin that it kindled inside him, he was absolutely sure of one thing; he’d never seen anything remotely like it. As he looked, the mass devolved into a long snaky penis, looped around a stalk that rose from a watermelon patch (well, there were 2 big watermelons). The head, a crossbreed of pit viper and prepuce, was hooded by the bloom at the stalk’s top. He thought he recognized it; a Venus Flytrap.

  “Holy shit,” he said with a grin. “Has it got a name yet?”

  “A working name… Penis Flytrap,” she said. “You’re familiar with the term homage?”

  “An homage usually honors a particular person, doesn’t it? Who’s the lucky homagee?”

  “You. This is you, relative to me.”

  “Should I be flattered?”

  “Let’s see what the critics have to say, if it survives in this incarnation.”

  “Well, critics be damned, I’m choosin’ to be flattered, ’til you say different. Wish my balls were that pretty.”

  “Those aren’t your balls. Those are juicy watermelons, full of the promise of your love and the seeds of reality.”

  “I see. What about the dick part?”

  She moved next to him, reaching out to take the wedge of the head in her hand. “Oh, you see a dick in there, do you? Can’t fool you for a minute. Tempting little thing, ain’t it? Make a girl lose her way, if she’s not careful.”

  “Is that what I do to you? Tempt you off the straight and narrow? I must’ve missed something.”

  “Well, this is a sort of retrospective of temptation. It’s about what I felt when we were first together.”

  “Hm. So how’s dat ol’ snake today? Lost a little potency, would you say?”

  “Oh, no,” she protested. “Not the last time I checked. It’s a question of perception. If I were doing this to represent my feelings about you today, I’d probably go with different imagery.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’d have to think about it. Smaller, cuter snake, maybe, on a bunch of bananas, floating on a raft. Something like that.”

  “Sounds friendlier. That’s encouraging.”

  “May be, but I doubt I’ll ever do it.”

  “Really?”

  “Think about it for a minute, and look again. Would you rather be this, or ride a bunch of bananas on a gondola to God knows where?”

  “Since it’s inside your head, I guess I’ll skip the gondola. Rather be ugly than cute.”

  “Well,” she said, “I’m sorry you think it’s ugly. I’m going for imposing, confounding, tantalizing, threatening. Unique. Ugly doesn’t come into it at all for me. You’ve led me a merry chase, you wildass sonavabitch.”

  Moses smiled, shaking his head. “Likewise. Well, you know by now what my sense of art’s like. To say nothing of my sense of gratitude. How many people can say they’ve inspired a work of art?”

  “About as many as can say that they had alfresco sex with the artist, I guess.”

  “Ours isn’t just alfresco,” he said as he looked out over the street. “It’s alfresco at altitude.”

  “Jesus. It’s been almost seven years since you came up here that night. Doesn’t seem that long, huh?”

  “Could be yesterday for me,” Moses said, turning her face to him, kissing her lightly.

  The green eyes searched his. “Gonna show Jack the sights?”

  “I thought we’d look around the old town a little, if his Dad’s OK with it.”

  She blew out her cheeks. “OK with it? He’ll be better than that. From what Jack tells me, I don’t think Larry knows what to do with him. Up to now he seems to fall back on movies and the ritual campus tour.”

  “Well, maybe we can see some stuff that’ll keep a sixteen-year-old interested,” said Jack.

  “I’m sure y’all’re gonna have a good time. Now, how about a little inspiration for the struggling artist?”

  Moses was walking down the hall to his office when he saw them coming; he paused to meet them. Dissimilar in height, weight and color, one in a dark blue suit and one in gray, and one sandy blond and one Mediterranean dark. Identical unstylish briefcases of reddish tan. They came solemnly, deliberately up the steps and through the double glass doors. Mutt ’n Jeff, thought Moses, who spoke first. “Good morning.”

  “Good Morning,” said the dark one, speaking through his Roman nose in a voice made flat by a multitude of routine interrogations like the one he was about to conduct. “Mr. Kubielski?”

  “Yes. What can I do for you?”

  “My name’s Long; this is Franklin.” They held their credentials out to him. They contained their pictures and the words that Long repeated, “U.S. Army Security Agency. We’d like to speak with you in private, sir, for a few minutes.”

  “All right. Step into my office here and we’ll shut the door. Please, have a seat,” Moses said as he closed the door. “Would you gents care for coffee?”

  “No, thank you sir.”

  “Then how can I help you?”

  “Sheriff McDaniel told us that you were acquainted with a Michael Porter from Spartanburg, South Carolina, Mr. Kubielski. Is that correct?” Long asked as he opened his coat to pull a notebook from an inside pocket. Moses caught a glimpse of shiny, deep brown leather under his left arm.

  “Mickey Porter? Yes, I know him. “Haven’t seen him for awhile.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “A couple of years, I guess. He’s more an acquaintance than a friend. Drives over to eat at the hotel’s café. Or used to. As I say, I haven’t seen him for quite awhile.”

  “Has he ever mentioned the kind of work that he did to you?”

  “Yes, in the only conversation that I’ve ever had with him. He’s a mutual acquaintance…”

  “What did he say he did?” interrupted Franklin.

  “Said he was in the security force at the Savannah River plant.”

  “He did. Did he say that he was in the Army?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know anything about the place that he referred to?”

  “Some people around here call it ‘the A-bomb factory’.”

  “They do, do they,” said Long with a quick grim
ace, the outsize pores in the skin of his nose a miniature moonscape. “Did Mr. Porter refer to it that way?”

  “No. He said that what was going on there was classified, but that there were no bombs being made.”

  “Did he have anything else to say about his Army duty?” Franklin asked.

  “He said that he’d been at Los Alamos, in the security force there.”

  The security men exchanged a brief glance. “Did he mention anything unusual that happened to him while was there?” asked Long.

  Moses was slow to answer; he looked at each of the men in turn. Then he said, “He told me about a man that was killed doing an experiment.”

  “Did he tell you how he knew about this- accident?”

  “He said that he was in the room with the man when it happened.”

  “And did he tell you,” asked Long, “what the man was doing when the accident happened?”

  “He said that he was stacking bricks around a ball of metal, and that a blue flash bounced off the wall that he was facing. When he turned to look at what happened, the man said ‘It went critical.’ ”

  “Did he tell you what he thought that meant?”

  “No. He just said that when he visited the man in the hospital, he was ‘blown up like a balloon’ and in a lot of pain. And that he died pretty soon after that.”

  “Did he say what he thought killed the man?”

  “No. I guess he thought it was obvious.”

  “Well,” Long said, swiveling his head from side to side, stretching his neck so that his adam’s apple dropped to the top of his shirt collar and against the knot of his tie, “it’s likely that he did. After all, he was there. Even though he left pretty soon after the accident. He was hospitalized briefly as a precaution, then transferred from Los Alamos up to Western Defense Command headquarters at The Presidio in San Francisco.”

  “Yes. He did mention that. Said he got an extra stripe.”

  “Yes, that’s right. He was promoted to Staff Sergeant. And a short time later he was honorably discharged on medical grounds.”

  Moses made no effort to hide his surprise. “I thought that he was still in the Army.”