SOME WE RUN FROM
A Preacher Serial Novella
NOEL J. HADLEY
Copyright © 2017 by Noel J. Hadley
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever
Hadley, Noel J. 1980 –
Some We Run From
For Eric
Wide-eyed at your discoveries
SOME WE RUN FROM
JOE PREACHER WAS STILL CASTING his eternal smile from within the wooden frame that held him when I awoke on the couch. Pink and purple light refracting off the glassy mist of the Ashton River and the coo of a mourning dove gave credential to my theory that it was still too early in the day for assigning credentials. The bottle of Bourbon, which I’d only sipped sparingly from, was cradled like an infant in my arms, along with Joe, who was perched on my chest, and a Bible, opened to somewhere in Proverbs. The hound dog towered over me, looking very much like the devil with his leotards on. All four paws straddled either side of my ribs, and his nose couldn’t have been more than an inch from mine. I was almost certain of it, he was plotting my murder. The Sisters had probably trained him for the task in their absence.
And another thing, my turntable was turning. The Andrews Sisters, Shoo Shoo Baby. A fragrant trail of bacon and eggs lifted from the kitchen, further challenging any notion that I was alone in the Stable, as did the aroma of coffee. Blueberry pancakes. And grease – lots and lots of grease.
“Get off me,” I pushed the hound.
The hound protested, but in the end I succeeded, and stammered towards the mystery intruder. Murderers wouldn’t take the time to brew coffee before ending my life, would they?
“Good morning, sunshine,” Craig was busy shaking his rump at the kitchen stove, which was barely kept contained in that Kimono mini-skirt of his, and lip-synching, it appeared, to all of Patty Andrews cues, now that the sibling trio was a chorus deep into The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. She did always have the best lines.
The kitchen didn’t look at all as it smelled. Quite the opposite, it was a complete disaster zone. Mounds of pancake batter lay in puddles across the counter. They dribbled down cabinets to the floor. Several eggshells were murdered and lying in puddles of their own yoke. The hound was already at work, licking batter up with his tongue, and some sort of grease bomb had exploded over the stove.
I stood there in disbelief, rubbing my eyes for a time, and then said: “Craig, what are you doing in my kitchen?”
“Aw, man. Didn’t the Sisters tell you? The kitchen’s been stripped in the Rec Room. The contractor’s out of town and won’t be able to get to it for another week at the earliest.”
“So I take it you’ll be utilizing this space for the remainder of your stay.”
“Hey, it’s like I said last night. You won’t even know I’m here.”
“Where’s Debbie?”
“Debbie’s a night owl. She’ll probably be out for the count until noon. A guy simply can’t get any sleep around her. I mean, look at me, I’m a mess.” Craig directed my attention to the dark spots circling below his eyes. “But me on the other hand, sleep or no sleep, I’m a morning person.”
“This must be what a hangover feels like.” I gently pressed the palm of both hands to my forehead.
“I think I get what you’re saying.” With a growing sense of sobriety, Craig turned side-to-side. “This used to be breakfast once.”
“Uh-huh, and I used to be the proud owner of a fully refurbished 1949 CHAMBERS stove, C-90 model. It was considered the Cadillac of its day, you know.”
Craig studied the stove for a time. “It might not be as refurbished as it once was.”
The fridge was also a restored beauty of the past, a SERVIS from the fifties with an ice box on the bottom and a new motor to keep it smoothly running. That too had all the markings of recent battle.
“I’ve never seen anyone charcoal eggs before.”
“The Boy Scouts taught me everything I know about cooking.”
“Well, at least you didn’t burn the coffee.”
Craig sunk onto a stool, that too was an antique, and rested his chin on a hand. “The Boy Scouts didn’t have merit badges on the brewing of coffee.”
“Thank the Lord.”
I dialed CHAMBERS to four-hundred, retrieved a nine-inch cake pan from the cabinet and lightly greased it. In a large bowl I combined one cup of flour, another cup of cornmeal, two-thirds sugar, a teaspoon of salt with roughly three and one-half teaspoons of baking powder mixed with a cup of milk and a third cup of vegetable oil.
“Are there any eggs to spare?”
“I think there’s one survivor of the Kitchen Morning Massacre in the fridge.”
“That’ll do.” I opened SERVIS, cracked it open and dropped it in the bowl, mixed it all together and poured the batter into the greased pan.
“How did you do that? You made that in less than five minutes.” Craig studied the ingredients in the pan. “What is it?”
“It should be cornbread in about twenty to twenty-five minutes.”
I slid my makings onto the center rack, closed the oven, and then sighed with disparity at the mess that remained. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going across the street to check on Michael.”
“Hey, take your time. Go mountain biking or jump out of an airplane or something. JUST LIVE A LITTLE! Live is a vacation, man. Give me like four hours and I’ll have this place spic and span by the time the cornbread is ready.”
I popped my head back into the kitchen. “The cornbread will be ready in twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. I’ll have this place cleaned up in twenty minutes.”
c
THE OLDEST WEBBER GIRL ENGAGED the sidewalks of Oak Row in a furious hurry. I took one look at the Army issued duffel slung over her shoulder and said: “Leaving so soon?”
Amanda huffed and panted, “What does it look like?”
“It looks like you’re enlisting. They’ll make you do push-ups, you know.”
“It’s Herb’s, okay?”
“Since when have you started calling your father Herb?”
“Since forever, okay? Can’t you stay up to date on anything?”
“Where do you intend to go?”
Amanda relieved her shoulder of the duffel, strenuously draping it at her feet, and with a sigh of relief, she said: “Far away from this place, as far away as I can get.”
“I take it you had a talk with your Mother.”
“Talk is a nice way to put it. She’s denying the whole thing, even the fact that Britney had a diary once. And I stress had. I practically tore her entire bedroom apart looking for it, after she stole it. And it makes me sick. Sick! I simply can’t live under their roof anymore.”
“Wait, Britney had a diary?”
“You are slow. I had it in my safe keeping up until last night.”
“Why would Margret steal it?”
“Because…. It said everything. Mom and reality have never cohabitated well. She can’t tolerate knowing what’s written in those pages.”
“Everything….like cutting?”
Amanda seemed stunned for the moment, delivering her very first measure of eye contact that morning, and said: “That’s nothing. Cutting is just the beginning of the rabbit hole.”
“Look, if there’s something going on.”
“What does it matter?” Amanda attempted to sling the duffel over her shoulder. It was successful, but not without a secretion of sweat, and pushed past me in such fluster that I had to jump back so as to avoid collision with the bulk she was carrying.
I said: “Don’t throw your life away. Not like this.”
“I’ll be eighteen this weekend. I’m practically an adult. I can make my own decisions.”
“Amanda,” I said, and waited for a response.
She stopped in her tracks without ever turning around. The crowning sunrise poured onto selective branches of oak, which dominated both sides of the street, forming one great canopy, underneath of which she stood, and the light painted the moss that hung from them. It was almost like a scene from Gone With the Wind, only it wasn’t. I envisioned myself and Elise on this very plot of earth and considered setting up an outdoor sound system so that we could practice kissing to Max Steiner’s original score, once she returned.
In the meantime, Amanda said: “You gonna stop me?”
I took that to be a teenage challenge, a lose-lose match-up which I didn’t intend to enter. “No, I’m not. I was your age once, and so you’re entitled to make your own mistakes. Whatever happens, just don’t end up like your sister.”
“I won’t.”
“Take care of yourself. And if you need anything, and I mean anything, you know where to find me.”
“There’s one thing,” she said.
“Anything.”
“Look after my sister.”
“You mean Jennifer….”
She turned around now. “It’s Jessica.”
“I knew that.”
“Uh-huh, just look after her.” And then something else entirely crossed her mind. “You really want to be of help?”
“You know I do.”
“Somebody needs to tell my mom, about Britney washing up on the shore. I didn’t have the courage.”
“Is she home?”
“She’s left for the day.”
“Where is she?” Me.
“She’s a secretary at First Truth Bible Church.”
It was the church I was raised in. More-so lived in, since it also contained a parsonage on property. A visit to First Truth meant a possible confrontation with my father.
“Yikes,” was my response to that.
“Can you tell her?”
“I’ll give her the report, of the dead body on the beach.”
“No, it can’t wait. Can you just tell her now? The girl on the beach is her. It’s Britney. I know it is. My mom needs to know, she and that creepo who’s been pulling the posters down.”
I considered my entire childhood in that holier-than-thou cult that had the audacity to refer to itself as First Truth with Bible and Church confused in the mix. My mother came to mind, and my budding siblings, still too young to escape that place as I had. The last thing I ever wanted to do was go there.
My answer was a half promise.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
c
I CALLED MICHAEL’S NAME several times, and in every room of his house, including the bed that I’d tucked him into only hours earlier. The glass of water that I laid out on the nightstand was drunk, the pills were swallowed, and the mixing bowl was undeniably vomited in. But my friend was gone.
He did however leave a note on his bed. It read:
SORRY PREACHER,
YOU MISSED THE RAPTURE, – GOD
Very funny, I thought. A hangover that very well could have toppled the Berlin wall, thereby singlehandedly ending the Cold War hadn’t halted his sense of humor.
There was still one place I thought to find him, and it wasn’t heaven.
c
THE GUIDE DOG WASN’T YET OPEN for business, but I apprehended Michael on its Bay Street entrance anyhow. He was looking both soggy and miserable from all that had transpired on the night prior. Frankly I expected worse. He was retrieving a ring of keys from his pocket and sorting through them when I approached from behind.
With sunglasses hung crookedly over his head, his sluggish pronunciation of words competed with the crashing waves of the ocean: “About last night. That entire episode wasn’t…me.”
I patted him on the back, but the pain from his hangover had expanded from his skull and traveled as far south as his shoulder blades. Michael stiffened several other joints too.
I said. “It was like watching Ivan Drago take down Apollo Creed. Have you spoken with Desarae?”
“No, have you?”
“I’ll let you know if I do.”
Michael opened the door. He murmured: “I just came inside for some coffee.”
“I’ll feed the dog,” I said, and proceeded to fill a water bowl that was reserved for this very specific purpose, which would later in the day remain out front on the sidewalk for all pedestrian dogs, customers or not. The hound went right at it.
Despite a hangover from hell, Michael turned the lights on anyhow. He immediately pressed five fingers to his forehead, even squinting beneath those sunglasses of his, and slumped down behind the bar, where he went to immediate but steady work on the coffee.
“You drank almost an entire bottle of Bourbon. Men have been killed for less. Even Goliath’s kill shot couldn’t have hurt this bad.”
“There were a few moments when I wanted to die.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I pulled Britney Webber’s missing-in-action announcement from my pocket, unfolded it, and situated both cheeks on a bar stool, where I could take a closer look at it. Michael then opened up a new can of Folgers and inhaled a welcoming aroma. A liberal helping of grains filled the paper filter.
“We will. I just think I still need to reflect on the details of our estrangement myself. The details are a bit fuzzy at the moment.” He returned a hand to his head and groaned. “I recall making an ass of myself in front of your ex-girlfriend.”
“Don’t forget your mother-in-law.”
“Andrea saw that?”
“I’m afraid so, and Bob.”
“I’ll never hear the end of it.” He then nudged his chin at the crinkled paper, etched on its corners with ugly tape. “What’s that?”
I said: “Remember the little girl who lives next door?”
With water pouring into the coffee pot he said: “Of course, Britney. She’s the under-aged girl you said you were dreaming about.”
I was referring to the subject of my serial dreams, and not the girl herself, when I held the MISSING poster up for him. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“That looks pretty bad,” he said, probably citing the fact that she was missing, not my dreams. He then had a spark of revelation, despite the current dehydration shriveling his brain due to alcohol. “The police activity on the beach last night – is that what this is about?”
“The hound here discovered a body on the beach. They weren’t able to identify it, but I think it was hers.”
“I should probably ask if this hound of yours has a name.”
The hound sat there dumbly staring at us with his tongue hanging out. I said: “I’ve asked him the same.”
“And you’re so certain it’s her because of those dreams.”
“Two weeks ago, on my first night back in town, I was standing out front of Preacher House. It was probably nearing midnight, when Britney Webber comes down the sidewalk with a backpack on, miserably sobbing. I mean, she was really sobbing. I stopped her and asked if everything was okay, but….”
“You were some big scary dude and she was a little girl.”
“Michael, I caught a glimpse of her arms. She was a cutter. A couple of them were fresh.” Grief dictated my tone of voice as I stared down at Britney’s picture. “I don’t understand how everybody else around her could glaze right over them, including myself.”
“Girls do a good job of hiding those things.”
“I just stood there watching her wipe those tears from her cheeks, the snot from her nose, pulling both sleeves over her wrists, – and yet I did nothing to help her.”
“To be fair, you were a little shell shocked, Preacher. That entire Twin Towers disaster… The entire nation is still reeling from it, and likely will for years.”
“I was running. I’ve been running ever since Joe’s fune
ral.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” he said. “You had nothing to do with those cuts or the tears that drove her away.”
“Blaming myself is what drives me. You know that.”
“I take it you’re going to do something about it, then.”
I opened my mouth to answer his question, but then someone else said (with an unmistakable yawn in his voice): “Hey, if you’re brewing coffee, be sure and pour me a cup.”
That someone spoke from beneath the bar, and on closer inspection, that someone was Phil. Phil Hubble, a regular here. Phil was tall and skinny with predominantly mousy features. His mouth was wide, teeth bold but jagged in places and yellow, and his eyes practically bulged from his small oval-shaped head. All he needed were whiskers and the ensemble would be complete.
“It’s seven in the morning,” Michael gave careful observance of his wristwatch, somehow not a bit surprised at the intrusion. I wasn’t either. “What are you doing underneath my bar?”
“I could say the same thing as you.” Phil.
“I own it.” Michael.
Phil pondered that fact for a moment, rolling his massive eyes upwards. They blinked, very much as a gecko would. He licked his lips, pleasantly nodded his head, and said: “Didn’t I tell you? My old lady kicked me out.”
“No, I don’t believe you brought it up,” Michael sighed. “In all the time that you sat here last night, you never once brought it up. Just so you know we’re not roommates now.”
Slumping down at my side, Phil held both hands up and said: “It’s okay. I can see that you’re busy, perhaps a little distracted. We can discuss the details of our arrangement at a later hour.”
“There will be no later hour.”
Michael poured what coffee had brewed into the first of three mugs. I instructed that the second be a paper cup, to-go. “I’ve got some corn bread in the oven, and I’m afraid Craig might burn the kitchen down.”
“Who’s Craig?” Phil said. “Is there something you’ve been keeping from us?”
I was happy to accept the coffee, and said: “He’s a nudist, he and his wife. They’re vacationing from Savannah for the week.”
Some We Run From (Preacher Book 2) Page 1