Father W waited another few miles while Father Troy sucked on the peppermint from the stash in the glove compartment. “I know you told Gar about who I was having dinner with last night, Mark, because he waited up to ask me about it.”
“He what?” Father Troy had fallen asleep after some prayers and had figured Gar had gone to his attic room. “I’m sorry, Father W. I know I shouldn’t have.”
“Never mind that now; we have bigger fish to fry. Did he mention that he had lived around here before or that he knew my friend Marilyn?” Father Weston gave him a look out of his dark eyes that made Father Troy regret all over again making fun of him with Gar.
“Lived here? I don’t think so. I didn’t even use her name, I don’t know why he would give you that impression,” said Father Troy.
“Yeah, well, he did. Why didn’t you tell me an FBI agent had come to the rectory to question Gar? We have got to get clear here, understand?” Father Weston’s hands clenched both sides of the wheel as he spoke, thinking about Max’s vampire theories.
“He was another vet. They just talked about Vietnam, really. It was an anonymous tip, the prejudice again, someone just picked Gar out because they could.” Father Troy felt on firmer ground now. “It’s so unjust. I hate the war as much as anyone but taking it out on the vets is crazy. Most of them were drafted. I got my deferment because of seminary school.”
“We’ve talked about this, Father Troy. You’re preaching to the choir. This isn’t about Gar being a vet.” Father W wanted to shake Father Troy. He was blind where Gar was concerned. “I understand being a priest can be difficult, the order demands much and leaves little for the personal,” Father W took a deep breath feeling like he was staring out over an emotional chasm. This was the hardest thing to do with a fellow priest, broach the subject of an attachment that was getting out of hand because every one of them had sinned and some of the sins were unforgivable in the best of men. “Do you think you can be impartial where Gar is concerned?”
“What is there to be impartial about?” Father Troy asked in a high-pitched voice.
“I’m not sure it’s going to be that easy to make it go away for Bishop Quincy,” Father Weston said as old highway 36 became West Main Street and they were on the familiar streets of Decatur. “Gar isn’t what he appears to be, Mark. I want you to believe me.”
“No.” Father Troy’s mouth closed in a narrow line and he shook his head. “I won’t believe you.”
They didn’t say any more then. The Olds pulled into the rectory driveway and they both got out, not bothering with the garage. Father Weston had made up his mind, he was going to tell Gar to leave right this moment in front of Father Troy and let the fireworks begin. Mrs. Napoli, though, was hovering by the office door when they stormed in.
“I’m sorry to spring this on you but Father Weston, you got a call from the funeral home,” said Mrs. Napoli with her apron on and polishing rag in hand.
“Yes,” said Father W impatiently. “What’s that infernal director want now? We’ve laid out what we need from him.”
“It’s not the Monsignor’s funeral that he called about. Wait, Father Troy, I think you’ll want to hear this too,” Mrs. Napoli said, her voice stopping Father Troy mid-stair.
“What is it then, Mrs. Napoli?” asked Father W as he felt the hot rush of his blood pressure rising.
“There’s been an accident. A terrible car accident. Suzanne Cleary of the Dry-Cleaner’s was dead on arrival at St. Mary’s. She’s at the funeral home now. Mr. Cleary asked that you be called. They’re expecting you. It’s another funeral for St. Patrick’s.” Mrs. Napoli crossed herself and then twisted her flowered apron in her hands thinking about how she had just sent Gar there earlier this very morning and now the poor woman was dead and it wasn’t even lunchtime. You just never knew, she thought, looking at the two priests who stood shocked in the entrance of the parish house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Into the Evening
Gar stood under the sign with the horse and carriage done in a 19th century silhouette style that marked the entrance along with the carriage lanterns to the Surrey. The sun was still a yellow ball in the sky as the Episcopal Church bells began their evening carillon. It was nearly seven, knew Gar without needing a watch, these long spring nights were so intoxicating especially now that he had located the source. He resisted the urge to open the wooden-and-brass door to Marilyn’s restaurant. His jeans were ripped, white tee torn, and he had a long scrapes on his left arm and shoulder where he had rolled on the gravel. Better just to wait here and let her find him. A rheumy-eyed old man came through the door after a few minutes with a doggy bag; he stopped a moment in front of Gar. “Kitchen’s closed,” he rasped and moved on down the street with the punchy walk of the unrepentant alcoholic. Fine, thought Gar, that’s not what I’m hungry for.
Marilyn shrugged her crimson cardigan on over her black uniform and smiled at Scott, still struggling to make the till balance with the checks as the adding machine wheezed and clicked. Some things never changed. She waved and slipped out the door, enjoying the carillon’s chiming version of some hymn she couldn’t name but dimly knew. She breathed deeply, wishing that the spring would never end. She felt like she was the one unfolding after a too long a sleep. For the first time in way too many years every nerve ending was tingling with possibilities. So when Gar was right there, leaning on the bricks underneath the sign with a shy grin on his face, it felt like some kind of vindication. She was alive. Not some waitress on the wrong side of thirty-five but a woman of mystery and sensuality.
“Hey you. They let you right out at seven tonight,” Gar said, like it had been his habit to walk her home for years.
“Slow day,” she said, and then took in his ripped clothes and the long scrape with dried blood on his arm. “What happened, are you okay?” She couldn’t help herself; she came right up to him and lightly touched his arm. He winced but didn’t back away and her heart sang at this even as the carillon faded.
“I fell off my bike. It’s nothing,” Gar said. “If you let me walk you home, that is.”
“Where is it?” she asked, her breasts heaving under the tightly woven rayon fabric.
“Trashed.” Gar laughed a little, wanting to touch her, pull her to him, but holding it in, he couldn’t lose control, not now.
Scanning the street out of habit and the knowledge that today he had let his temper get a little away from him with the Cleary woman, Gar saw the navy blue Olds just as it was making the turn onto Church street where the Surrey was located. He swiftly took Marilyn’s wrist and pulled her around the corner of the restaurant building that ran along the railroad tracks where he had jumped off the train just a few weeks ago. “I just want to kiss you and I don’t want anyone to see,” he said quickly as her eyes widened in surprise. Then without waiting for her reply he gently pressed his lips against hers, a little rosebud of happiness, and quickly withdrew as if he was afraid he had overstepped his bounds. Marilyn felt herself melting into him in that split second like their bodies were made to be fused together. She felt a sudden dizziness when he released her so quickly. She wanted tongues, where was his tongue in her mouth? She almost howled in disappointment but held it in; she didn’t want to let him know just how desperately she wanted him.
“I love to walk the rails. Will you walk with me?” he said, letting her go completely and balancing on one of the dark rusty steel lines.
“It’s dangerous,” Marilyn said. She couldn’t help herself; being raised in Decatur meant you knew enough to stay off the tracks.
“Life is dangerous. Beside you know I would never let anything happen to my lady,” Gar said as he danced down the train line in perfect balance. Marilyn couldn’t help herself, she placed her slippered feet on the rail and extended her hand, he grasped it in his own, and they swayed down the track way. The wooden ties had weeds pushing up underneath their beds and the railroad snaked along the backs of buildings but it was like they were
on steel ribbons to Marilyn, playing hooky from the real world. She snagged a cigarette from her shoulder bag and lit it, inhaling deeply, feeling a nicotine rush that she hadn’t experienced since she was sixteen and smoked in secret from her mother on another set of tracks that the dead end of West William ran into. Then, as now, the sky wheeled overhead and anything was possible.
“Give me a puff,” said Gar, feeling the vibrations of the rails thrumming under the soles of his feet. A train was up the line. He took a puff of the cigarette, not really wanting it, just wanting to brush Marilyn’s fingers as she passed it to him.
Marilyn felt like a teenager again, smoking on the train tracks, balancing on the line with a beautiful boy, well man, but to her he seemed so young and carefree that the dumpy backs of buildings and weedy lots looked romantic. A train whistle sounded in the distance, she looked down the tracks, her black ballet flats still balanced on the steel rail. “A train’s coming,” she said.
“Do you want to hop it?” Gar asked flashing a grin. “It should slow down enough when it reaches downtown. It’s slowing down now, I can feel it.”
She felt the vibrations lessen through the thin ballet flats; then they trembled and stopped. “You’re right,” she said in amazement.
“Of course I am,” he said. “You don’t have to be a professor to know things.”
Marilyn felt a little chill. He didn’t know about her work with Max, she had never mentioned it.
Gar saw the silky fuzz on her creamy skin rise. He shouldn’t have fished about the professor, the date the priest had set her up with. She was startled. “Hey, I’m just blabbing. Trains make me giddy,” he said in a reassuring way, pivoting on the track with a dancer’s grace.
Marilyn realized with a start that Gar was the man she had seen jumping down from the train weeks ago when she was looking out the Surrey’s kitchen window. It had to be him. Kismet, she thought, I felt something about him right away. “You hop trains a lot?” she asked.
“Gypsy king, Pauper Prince,” he laughed spreading his arms wide, “I travel by any mode.”
Marilyn shook her head, a smile playing over her red-lipsticked lips as she smoked. “You’re like no one I’ve ever met before, but it’s like I’ve known you forever.”
Gar felt a flush of pleasure. The source recognized him. It lessened the emptiness even as it fed the hunger. He stood balanced on the rail looking at her with open desire, watching her every movement as she smoked.
Marilyn threw her cigarette butt into the dandelions, tall grass, and Indian paintbrush as the train whistle sounded again but neither of them moved. The train was continuing down the track, but that didn’t matter, the only thing that mattered was this moment with Gar. The snub-nosed engine was visible less than three blocks away as it rounded a bend.
“I saw you before,” Marilyn said, her eyes now locked on Gar’s eyes, those eyes, with the gold flecks that seemed to shower out onto the tracks like embers spraying off an inner fire. They were so deeply familiar. The train whistle blew and it was just annoying now, the vibrations beginning to run up into her knees. “You hopped down from a freight train here right by the Surrey, I was looking out the window.”
“I was coming to find you,” Gar said, reaching his hand out to her on the other side of the rails. The whistle was now sounding a double blast. It was about a block away from them as they balanced on the lines, hands outstretched like circus performers. “Look at me, just look at me Marilyn,” he breathed, his fingers laced into hers. He loved the way the oncoming freight train made her cheeks flush, her ripe body trapped in the tight-fitting black uniform. Not here though, he wouldn’t take her here, it would be a mess, not the beautiful fulfillment he had been in the constant ravenous hunt for. “Now I have you,” he said, pulling her off the rails and into his body, stepping back onto the gravel, wrapping himself in a protective cocoon around her as the train kept coming, roaring past them with blood-red box car after box car rattling by, not slowing at all as it cut through the town.
They walked home then, not stopping at the Front Porch, but with the intent and pace of two people who have found for an instant exactly what they were looking for. When they got to Marilyn’s duplex she opened the door with a whisper, “I have to let Rowley out first.” Gar nodded solemnly, breathing the air, testing the molecules in his nostrils and lungs in the dim entrance way. Was this the moment he had been waiting for, he wanted to ask the air, the shadows, the universe. So much time, so much loneliness, so much emptiness had been endured and the sweet siren of renewal, a new beginning with the source inside of him beckoned. His heart was pounding as he followed her up the shabby staircase to her apartment. Rowley was whining and gave a sharp welcoming bark as she opened the door.
After the long hours in the apartment, sleeping and looking out the bedroom window, Rowley was ecstatic to have Marilyn home again, but there, that man was with her, the one with the funny smell, like a faint toxic whisper rising off his skin, stronger now than it had been in the graveyard. He didn’t like it, the urge to pee shriveling in his long body. He considered his options: growling might make the man back away, but he was big with strong hands and a long scrape along his shoulder and arm. Able to withstand pain, Rowley thought, pressing down the urge to bite him. Marilyn would be very upset if he did that, he could tell from the way she moved, and the warm musky scent her body was exuding meant that she liked this strange man very much. He had been fooled at first too, with the ball throwing, but he was way past that now.
He tried a growl, low, menacing, slouching himself down and tucking his tail. Marilyn couldn’t smell like he could, she didn’t yet know there was something wrong with the man. “Rowley!” Marilyn scolded. “It’s Gar. You know Gar. He threw the ball to you, remember?” She crouched down, rubbing his ears and gave him a searching look. It was odd, Rowley didn’t growl at people. Rowley kept his eye on the man the whole time, he didn’t even flinch when he growled, the man called Gar wasn’t afraid, not at all; in fact, the noxious smell added another layer, this one like scorched fabric, like when Marilyn left the iron on that one time, something was burning now, and Rowley knew it was the man thinking about killing him.
Gar liked animals as long as they liked him but the dog was getting on his nerves. He remembered the elephant Satta, who had been a great favorite, a magnificent beast, he loved riding her around the grounds of the old monastery until she had rejected him, rearing up and trumpeting her bellows, with the idiot novice who had been just a touch too clever crushed underneath her hooves. Satta had realized with a sorrowful look in her ostrich egg-sized eye that Gar had tricked her into killing the young friend of the source. The elephant wound up bitterly regretting rejecting him, as would this dog, Gar thought, clenching his insides together to control the urge to make the dog regret it now. “It’s okay,” he said instead, and moved out of the way so Marilyn could grab the leash and let the cur out.
With the man waiting at the apartment door, Marilyn and Rowley thundered down the stairs as Harry the Pill banged on his door to indicate that they were making too much noise again. Once out in the yard, Rowley gave a strong pull on the leash, trying to yank Marilyn out on the street and away from the house. “What’s wrong with you tonight, honey?” Marilyn asked, but her tone wasn’t angry, just worried. It tore at Rowley’s heart that he couldn’t make her understand. Humans were so dense sometimes. “Look, we’ll go for a walk later. I’ve got company,” she said pulling on him. He went with her because she needed him, what else could he do? She was his mistress.
Gar was in her apartment when they got back upstairs, sitting at her dinette like he lived there. “Say, do you mind if I take a shower?” he asked. “I feel all scruffy from my fall on the bike.” He knew from experience water would hasten his healing.
Marilyn inhaled in surprise. “Sure,” she said lightly, not wanting to ruin the mood by acting surprised that a man she had really only seen a couple of times was wanting to take a shower in her apartmen
t. Rowley had calmed down, lying with his head over crossed paws on the kitchen floor, watching her out of half closed eyes. “You never did tell me what happened.”
Gar jerked his thumb out to the narrow hallway. “Bathroom thatta way I’m guessing,” he said and pulled his white tee up over his head and off with an easy shrug revealing his pecs. They were stunning, you had to admit, thought Marilyn, thinking about how her own body would look against his. Slinging the tee over the chair back he walked down the hallway to the bathroom with a rolling gait, swaying his hips. He left the bathroom door slightly ajar so you could just see if you were really looking his trousers in a pool by the door. The sound of the shower was like rain in the apartment, with a little billow of steam, nothing so ordinary had ever seemed so sexy to Marilyn in her life. He came out of the bathroom with one of Marilyn’s green striped towels wrapped around his waist, looking like some kind of pool boy-cum-African prince. With the dried blood washed off his arm, the scrape from his fall didn’t look so bad.
He came up behind Marilyn as she sat in her kitchen facing the full-length hallway mirror that she used to check her appearance every morning before leaving the house. “I like your place, feels good,” he said looking around at the modest apartment. A small painting of a circus elephant without a frame was propped against a wall in the living room with a saggy old couch covered by an orange throw. There was a poster of a dark haired woman in a pink dress crawling towards a weathered house. A couple of small framed photos, a goofy set of porcelain squirrels with berets on, a stuffed bear with a bandana wrapped at a rakish angle around its head propped on the sofa and a toy rubber monkey holding a banana sat on the kidney-shaped coffee table. In the one bookcase there were some paperbacks, poetry collections it seemed mostly and some old encyclopedias, but crammed on top of it were a collection of antique looking glass bottles in all shapes and sizes filled with colored liquids both bright and murky. Scattered on the floor looked to be the dog’s toys, a ball, and a neon yellow chew bone. “You like toys?” he said smiling.
Decatur Page 20