by Inmon, Shawn
He took the elevator down and was pleased to see a restaurant he hadn’t noticed the night before in the lobby. It had probably been so late when he had arrived that it had been shuttered.
Never one to miss an opportunity to check an item off a To Do list, Charles walked into the café and waited to be seated.
A friendly young woman took him to a table that had a view of the street, which showed Charles it was raining outside. He regretted not having the foresight to have packed a small travel umbrella. Still, the view was infinitely preferable to the one of the brick wall in his room.
An older woman with brittle, bleached-blonde hair and voice that sounded like she might gargle with gasoline approached the table with a coffee pot and said, “Coffee, hun?”
“No more new experiences for me now. I’m at my limit.”
The woman, Barb, judging by her nametag, said, “Good information for me to have. I’ll make a note of it. How about food, then? If you don’t want coffee or food, we’re at an impasse. That’s all we have here.”
Charles brightened slightly. “Do you have a cheese omelet?”
“Of course. You sit and meditate on things and I’ll be back with a cheese omelet and toast for you in two shakes.”
Charles didn’t know how to meditate on anything. Instead, he turned his mind to the second item on his To Do list—how to get Moondog out of jail.
By the time his omelet arrived ten minutes later, he had made no progress on that beyond a vague idea of hiring a lawyer.
The omelet was fluffy and the cheese was melted perfectly inside. The toast was well-buttered and they had a selection of jams and jellies already on the table.
It was as good a start to Charles’ day as he could have hoped for.
Chapter Thirty-One
CHARLES PAID FOR HIS breakfast and wandered into the lobby. He had no plan beyond trying to find a cab and asking them to take him to jail. In a city of this size, he wasn’t sure he would end up where he wanted to be.
A sharply-dressed man stood behind a lectern in one corner of the lobby. He watched Charles with a practiced eye and when Charles passed near enough to him, he said, “Are you trying to find something in particular, sir? Perhaps I can help.”
“Do you know what jail someone would have been taken to if they were arrested at the airport?”
“JFK? Yes, I do. Do you need to get there?”
“Yes. I need to try to get my friend out of jail.”
“Certainly, sir.” There was no judgment in his tone, as though he ran into this situation every day. He turned and flagged a young man in a bellhop uniform. “Andre, would you escort this man to the cab line and tell Max he needs to get to the 75th Precinct.”
Andre didn’t reply, but nodded and led Charles outside.
Two minutes later, he was in a cab, heading for the precinct.
The cabbie dropped him off in front of a two-story brick building with a set of double doors.
Charles tentatively walked inside, unsure of where to begin.
A long desk ran parallel to the doors on the left. On the right, there were old wooden benches half-filled with an array of people. Most looked like blue collar workers who would rather be anywhere else. There were two older women who sat prim and erect, each kneading a handkerchief. One man carried a briefcase and wore a dark suit that might have been in fashion during the Eisenhower presidency.
That man’s sharp, shark eyes took in Charles. He leaped to his feet, sidled up to Charles and said, “Need a lawyer?”
Charles had never so much as tasted coffee, but the man’s breath nearly rectified that. His hair was slicked to one side and Charles could see that the collar of his white shirt was stained yellow.
Charles looked around the precinct to see if any other, more attractive options were available. None appeared immediately.
“Look,” the man said, producing a business card that identified him as ‘Bernard J. Cornish, esq.’
“I’m in here a lot. I can tell you’re new, so you must have some specific business. Do you have a lawyer already?” The man’s Brooklyn accent was so broad that Charles thought he might be making fun of him.
“No,” Charles said, shaking his head.
“Here’s the thing to do, then. I know my way around here. Ask anybody about Bernie Cornish, and they’ll tell you about me. So. You let me know what you need, I’ll see what I can see, and if I can help you out, I have a retainer agreement right here,” he said, patting his battered briefcase. “I take cash, checks, or traveler’s checks.”
“My friend was arrested last night. I want to see if I can arrange to pay his bail.”
“Depending on what he was detained for, that might be easy, or it might be hard. What’s his name?”
Charles started to say ‘Moondog’ out of force of habit, but caught himself. “Mark Masterson.”
Bernie held up a finger that revealed he was a long-term smoker and said, “Sit here. I’ll have a little palaver with the sergeant over here and see what I can find out. Capiche?”
“Umm, yes.” Charles retreated to the bench and sat down, happy to have at least someone who was on his side, no matter how disreputable they might seem.
Bernie walked to the far end of the counter, leaned across, and said, “Hey, Sarge, got a second?”
An older, white-haired man behind a desk, whose uniform appeared at least a size too small, ignored him while taking a leisurely sip of coffee.
“Come on, Sarge. I got a client.”
The older man behind the desk sighed, folded the newspaper he was reading and said, “Whadya want, Bernie. Can’t you see I’m busy here?”
Bernie wisely chose not to comment about how busy he could see the sergeant was.
“This guy over here,” Bernie hooked a thumb at Charles, “wants to post bail for a friend. Can you tell me where the guy is in the process?”
The sergeant cast a quick glance at Charles, then said, “What’s the name?”
When Bernie told him, the sergeant picked up a pencil, touched the end of it to his tongue, then made a note. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Bernie turned and winked broadly at Charles, then flashed him the okay sign.
The sergeant was gone for fifteen minutes. Bernie whistled tunelessly and Charles sat very still, doing his best to pretend he was somewhere else.
When the sergeant returned, he hooked a finger at Charles to approach the desk. Bernie tried to slide in between them, but the sergeant pushed him aside with one meaty hand.
“You here for Mark Masterson?”
“Yes. I’d like to post bail for him.”
The sergeant shook his head. “Not gonna happen. When he went before the judge this morning, the prosecutor said that since Masterson was an active parolee, he would need to be a guest of ours until everything was worked out with the state of Oregon. The judge agreed. He’s not going anywhere, at least not anytime soon.”
Bernie leaned across and whispered, “Looks like your friend’s gonna need a lawyer.”
Charles ignored him, but said, “Can I see him?”
The sergeant reached beneath a desk and produced a clipboard with a thick sheaf of papers on it.
“Fill this out and bring it back to me. I’ll call your name when I can take you in.”
“You can retain me on your friend’s behalf,” Bernie said.
“Bernie, leave the poor guy alone. Don’t make me run you out of here again today.”
Bernie looked wounded, but retreated to a seat nearest the door, evaluating each new person that walked in.
Charles sat on the bench and filled in the Request for Visitation form. When he completed it, he returned the clipboard to the desk.
“Can you tell me how long until I can see him?”
The sergeant waved at all the people who were sitting on the benches. “Every one of them is waiting for the same thing you are. We’ll call your name when you can go back.”
Charles slunk back to the be
nch, catching a caustic look from Bernie, who wasn’t happy about his best lead of the day wriggling away.
Charles counted the number of people ahead of him and tried to create a formula that might tell him how long he would have to wait.
Chapter Thirty-Two
CHARLES SAT AND WAITED for two hours and thirty-seven minutes, until a young police officer opened a door at the back and said, “Charles Waters?”
Charles was so deep into working on the mathematical formula for calculating the amount of people who passed the bathroom in JFK airport that he didn’t hear his own name.
The guard paused, then repeated the name as he was shutting the door.
The repetition of his name brought Charles out of his own head and he leaped to his feet, saying, “Here! Here!” He hurried toward the police officer on feet that were stabbed with pins and needles from sitting in the same position for so long.
The officer led him to a small desk down the hall and said, “Empty your pockets, take off your watch, then I’ll need to pat you down.”
The thought of a complete stranger touching him invasively made Charles shudder. He stood still, considered turning around, going straight to JFK and booking a flight home to Middle Falls and waiting to die so that this whole mess would be behind him.
That doesn’t fix anything for Moondog, though.
Charles signed deeply, put his wallet and watch in a container and submitted to the officer frisking him.
After a brief pat down, the officer put the container with his belongings into a small locker and locked them away.
“You can get this back when your visitation is over.”
Charles nodded numbly and followed the young cop down the hallway, then through a maze of lefts and rights. He memorized the route as they took it, in case he needed to find his own way out.
Finally, they came to a gray door with a window inset. Through the window, Charles could see Moondog, sitting handcuffed at a table.
The officer keyed open the lock—again, making a very satisfying sound—and said, “You ain’t his lawyer, so you’ve got fifteen minutes. When I knock on the door, come out immediately. Don’t make me come in and get you.”
Charles nodded and walked in and sat across from Moondog.
“You’re on parole?”
“They told you, huh?”
“Yes. What did you do to be on parole?”
“Same as this—possession of an illegal substance, but with intent to distribute. Before my father died, I was pretty poor. I was delivering pizzas, but I supplemented my income by also delivering marijuana. It seemed pretty logical to me. Pizza and weed go together.”
Charles stared blankly at Moondog, as he often did when he didn’t understand what he was saying.
“One of my customers got busted for something and turned Confidential Informant to stay out of jail. He gave me up; they set me up and arrested me for delivering a lid of weed. The problem was, along with the pizzas, I had about a pound more of it in my car, waiting to be weighed and measured out. Thus, possession with intent to distribute.”
“How long were you in jail?”
“Not jail. Prison. I was in there for four and a half years. Other than naming me in his will, it was the only time my father did something nice for me. He used whatever influence he had to get me paroled. Then, he died three months later. That’s why I was surprised when I was back in the will. I would have thought he would have kicked me to the curb forever.”
“I didn’t know about any of that.”
“I can see that. You feel like you know me because you’ve spent a fair amount of time with me over all your lives. But me? I never know you more than a month at a time. Telling someone you’re a convicted drug dealer who spent four years in prison doesn’t usually come up that soon.”
“What do you think is going to happen now?”
“I think you’re going to have to finish this adventure on your own. Being arrested with weed—even the little bit I had on me—is a violation of my parole. The great state of Oregon doesn’t have much of a sense of humor about these things. Whenever New York gets done with me, they’re going to want me back to serve out the rest of my sentence, probably.”
“How long is that?”
“Almost six years.”
“This is my fault. I’m sorry. You’ve tried to help me and now you’re in a worse situation because of it.”
Moondog shrugged.
“Karma. I brought it on myself, ultimately, and now the bill has come due. It kind of hung over my head anyway. Now I’ll have it out of the way. I’ll have Freddy shut up my condo for me and it’ll still be waiting for me when I get out.”
Moondog hesitated, looking deep into Charles eyes.
“You’ll be gone though, won’t you?”
“Yes. I’ll die in a few weeks and wake up in Dr. Masin’s office. You’ll be living next door to me but not have any real idea who I am.”
“There’s no reason for you to stay here any longer. They’re going to move me to the Queens Detention Center tomorrow. I’ll be locked up there until they send me back to Oregon. You should go see your museum, the Statue of Liberty, and whatever else you want to see, then go home.”
The young officer rapped three times on the heavy door. “Time’s up!”
Charles remembered the warning he had received and stood up quickly.
Moondog reached a handcuffed hand out to shake Charles’ own.
“Don’t blame yourself, Charles, this is all on me.”
CHARLES DIDN’T GO TO the Goudreau Museum after all. Nor did he go to see the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, or the Museum of Modern Art.
He also didn’t go to JFK and book the first flight back to Middle Falls.
Instead, he extended his time at his hotel and spent the next sixteen days visiting Moondog at the Queens Detention Center every chance he got. Visiting hours were allowed four days a week, but visitation was only allowed to half the alphabet at a time. That meant that Charles was allowed to visit on Wednesdays and Fridays.
During those visits, Charles did his best to make himself useful. He took notes about the arrangements that Charles wanted Freddy to make back at the condo, including taking his plants out, making sure the heat was set to sixty-five degrees, and buying and setting a number of timers to turn his lights on and off automatically.
“I would hire someone else to make sure Freddy doesn’t move in while you are incarcerated,” Charles said.
“Good idea. I’ll ask my cousin to come by once a month and check on things.”
Charles also hired the best attorney he could—not surprisingly, it wasn’t Bernie—to help Moondog through the trials that were ahead of him.
Finally, Charles knew he had done everything he could to help, but by then, it was the day before Halloween and he knew he had waited too long to go home.
Halloween was on a Monday, so there were no visiting hours. Charles said goodbye to this version of Moondog, who he knew he would never see again, and spent a quiet weekend in the hotel that had come to seem like a home away from home.
At 10:45 on Halloween morning, Charles sat patiently in the small chair he had covered with a sheet, waiting to die.
He had done this so many times that it held no fear or uncertainty. He quieted his mind and waited for the inevitable.
And waited.
When he finally glanced at his watch, it read 10:49.
Is this done? All I had to do was leave Middle Falls and this curse is broken?
Charles stood up and swung his arms from side to side in a light callisthenic.
He didn’t want to make a quick assumption, but he was definitely still alive, still in New York, still in this life.
He waited for fifteen minutes to make sure, then went downstairs to the café in the lobby.
Barb, who had been serving him the same two meals for the previous two weeks—either a cheese omelet or a steak done medium well—waved him to his normal table.
“Omelet this morning then, hon?”
Charles nodded.
When he finished his late breakfast, Charles walked into the lobby in something of a daze. He hadn’t planned on being alive at this point, but now knew he needed to make something of a plan.
He took the elevator up to his room and sat on the sheet-covered chair. He took his notebook out and began making plans for this new, extended life.
At 1:45 p.m.—10:45 a.m. in Oregon—Charles fell over dead.
Chapter Thirty-Three
CHARLES WATERS OPENED his eyes.
Dr. Masin was in the middle of his fatal diagnosis, as he always was.
Charles instantly realized what happened.
It’s not 10:45 a.m. on Halloween. It’s that particular moment in time wherever I am. An odd consistency. And, it obviously doesn’t matter where I am when I die, because here I am again.
Charles sat quietly, listening to Dr. Masin give his heartfelt speech, which had no impact whatsoever on him. He thanked the doctor and walked outside.
Same people, same car alarm, same distracted driver he had seen so many times before.
Charles had often wished he had received the bad news on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, so he wouldn’t have to start each life off with a bus ride.
As he climbed aboard the bus and found the same seat that was always empty at the beginning of each life, he felt a guilty burden still tugging at his subconscious. Somewhere, he knew, Moondog was sitting in a jail cell in the Queens Detention Center.
When he got home to his condo—the weeks in New York were the longest he had been away from home since he had purchased it—it felt comfortingly the same as it always did.
He thought of going directly next door to Moondog’s to tell him about their misadventure, but it was only late afternoon and he knew Moondog was likely still asleep.
After everything that had happened to them, he also didn’t know if he could face him.