by Inmon, Shawn
“Good enough, Charles. I have plenty of friends, but all of them think my rockhounding hobby is a little odd, or boring, or both. I’d like to have someone to go out with.” She took a piece of paper out of her purse and jotted a number on it.
Their sandwiches arrived.
Sarah didn’t peck at her food, but tucked right in, as did Charles.
“All the fresh air makes me hungry,” Charles said around a bit of prime rib and bread.
“You can afford to put a little more meat on your frame,” Sarah said, utilizing her nurse’s eye for height-weight proportionality.
Charles didn’t dawdle after the meal was over. He wrote a check to cover the meal and tip and said, “It’s quite a drive back to Middle Falls. Maybe we can meet somewhere that’s convenient for both of us next time. Where do you live?”
“I live in Eugene, but I don’t mind driving. I call my little Toyota out there the blue bomber. She always gets me where I want to go and home again.”
“That’s not too far from Middle Falls,” Charles said. “Maybe you can come up and have dinner with Moondog and me and we can plan our next outing.”
“What’s Moondog like?”
“He’s my friend,” Charles said simply. “He teaches me things.”
He shook Sarah’s hand and was out the door, in the Civic, and down the road before she had a chance to get in her car.
Chapter Forty-Eight
ON SUNDAY EVENING, Charles went next door to Moondog’s to tell him about his adventure in Netarts.
As always, Moondog made some tea—imported from Japan on this day—and listened. When Charles had finished the story, Moondog said, “Who was it that brought up the ‘no romance’ stuff?”
“She did. I never thought to mention it because I had never thought of it at all. When I first found out I was dying, she was so kind to me. She helped me when she didn’t need to. And, she was obviously intelligent. Ever since then, I’ve thought it would be good to have another kind, intelligent friend, but since that first life, I’ve never managed much of a conversation with her.”
“Another kind, intelligent friend? Who is your first of those rare beasts?”
“You, of course,” Charles said, tilting his head quizzically. “Until yesterday, you were really my only friend. Alice Harkins was always kind as well, and she did good work at Graystone, but I never find the time to talk to her more.”
“We should invite her to dinner. I can cook for us.”
“Who, Alice?”
“Well, Alice too, if you want, but I was thinking of Sarah.”
“Yes. Sarah. That would be good. Having Alice over at the same time would be too much, don’t you think?”
“Yes—I never intended to ask Alice... never mind. Why don’t you call Sarah and invite her over for dinner? We can work around her schedule, since we don’t have to keep to any schedule, except for you dropping dead in a few weeks.”
“Exactly. I’ll go call her right now.”
“You can use my phone, if you’d like.”
“I would rather call her from my place.”
“Totally cool. Come back over and let me know what she says. Ask her if she has any favorite foods.”
Ten minutes later, Charles again knocked on Moondog’s door. “She has to work until this weekend, but she said she could come over on Friday. She also said she will eat whatever we put in front of her, like any proper guest.”
“I’ll take care of the menu, then.”
“Oh, and she asked if we play Rummy. I told her we haven’t but we’ll know the rules by Friday, so we can play after dinner.”
“Speak for yourself, Kemosabe. I happen to be quite an accomplished card player. Spend a few years hanging around a prison rec room and you will likely learn how to play cards.”
“Can you play rummy with only two people?”
“Of course.”
“Will you teach me now?”
Moondog was already up and rummaging through a kitchen drawer. He returned with a piece of paper and a blue-backed deck of Bicycle playing cards.
“Let’s play a hand with the cards face-up.”
Charles seemed completely flummoxed during the first hand.
Sometime during the second hand, something clicked.
They played the third hand with cards hidden. Charles won the next five hands and eventually the game.
“Did I say I was an accomplished card player? What I meant to say was that I worked hard to accomplish anything as a card player, but there are these naturals that always waxed me. I think we will not play any more card games until Sarah gets here, and maybe that way, I can stand a chance of finishing third.”
“I don’t think I need to play a lot more now. I have the rules and basic strategies down and I can play hands in my head now.”
“I already regret teaching you this.”
THE WEATHER WAS FINE for the next few days—an unlikely extension of Indian summer into October in Middle Falls.
Charles got in the habit of driving downtown and parking in the free parking lot, then walking around town. This had a number of positive side effects. It helped him improve his cardiovascular conditioning, and it gave him a different viewpoint on his hometown. Everything looked different when walking along a sidewalk.
Each day, he was tempted to grab the same lunch at Artie’s, but he knew that was just the formation of another habit, no matter how delicious the burgers and shakes were there. So, instead, he sought out different places to eat.
One afternoon that week, he saw a sandwich shop he had never eaten at before, so he veered toward the front door. Just as he was about to push through, he noticed a man and dog sitting beside the door. The man was dressed in layers of rags.
The man wasn’t begging. He didn’t have a cup out, and he wasn’t holding a sign. He was just sitting with his dog—a medium sized dog of uncertain heritage. Both of them had their faces turned to the sun, absorbing whatever heat there was. They both looked quite content.
Charles nodded at the man, but then noticed his eyes were closed.
Charles ordered a turkey sandwich on white bread. He was expanding his culinary horizons, but he tended to order conservatively on his first trip to a new place. He thought that even if the sandwich wasn’t great, there wasn’t much you could do to mess up turkey on white.
As he so often had been in his culinary adventures, Charles was surprised and pleased by the sandwich. The bread was soft and aromatic; the turkey was flavorful and obviously cooked on site. The dill pickle spear and dollop of potato salad made it a perfect meal.
Before he left, Charles stood at the counter again and ordered a duplicate of his order to go.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” the man behind the counter said.
Five minutes later, he handed Charles the order wrapped up in a brown paper bag.
Charles stepped out into the bright sun and saw that the man and his dog were still sitting there. Still in the same pose.
“Excuse me,” Charles said. “Would you like a sandwich?”
The man kept his eyes closed for a beat, but turned his face toward Charles’ voice. When the man opened his eyes, Charles was startled at how blue they were.
“That’s kind of you, friend. Yes, I would.”
Without a second thought, Charles sat beside him and handed him the bag. “It’s turkey on white. I had one and it was delicious. I thought you might like it, too.”
“George makes the best sandwiches in town.”
The man uncurled the brown bag, reached in and took out half the sandwich. He tore that in half and offered it to his dog.
“Biff thanks you, too.”
Charles looked at the dog and it did seem like he was thankful, as the quarter-sandwich disappeared in a single gulp.
“Do you live here in Middle Falls?”
“I guess you could say so. I’ve been here since April. Starting to get a little cold at night, though. I think we might walk over to th
e freeway and see if we can catch a ride south. There aren’t a lot of advantages to being homeless, but being able to pick up stakes and move whenever I want is one.”
“Where do you stay when you’re here?”
“No place, really. Regular folks don’t want us hanging around in one spot too long.”
“You say ‘us.’ Are there a lot of homeless people in Middle Falls?”
“We are everywhere; we do our best to be invisible.” The man took the second half of the sandwich and tucked it into a tattered backpack. His dog followed the rest of the food with interest, but when it disappeared into the bag, it laid its head back down with a sigh.
Charles stood up and dug in his wallet to see how much cash he had on him. He took out what was there and thrust it at the man.
“Here. This is all I have.”
“Thank you, but you don’t need to do that.”
“I do.”
The man accepted the money—forty-seven dollars—and put it in the front pocket of his pants. “I’ll share the wealth a little today, then. Thank you kindly.”
Charles felt a strange lump in his throat, an emotion he was unaccustomed to. He reached out and shook the man’s hand.
Chapter Forty-Nine
SARAH WAS DUE FOR DINNER at 6:00 on Friday evening. At precisely that time, the intercom buzzed in Charles’ apartment.
He answered “Hello?” as if it wasn’t unusual for people to ask him to be buzzed in, although it very much was.
“It’s Sarah,” the voice on the other end crackled.
“Buzzing you up. Take the elevator to the third floor.”
Two minutes later, Sarah stepped off the elevator to find Charles waiting.
“We’re going to eat at Moondog’s, but I thought we could play cards at my place. I have a painting I want to show you.”
“Very good,” Sarah said. “To mangle my Shakespeare, lead on, Macduff.”
Charles didn’t understand what she meant at all, so he led her to Moondog’s door.
When he knocked, the door swung open as though it was spring-loaded.
Moondog had dressed for the occasion, swapping his normal tie-dyed t-shirt for a white t-shirt that had a tuxedo printed on the front. He was still wearing his Middle Falls High School gym shorts, though.
“Come in, come in!” he said, sweeping his arm as though he was a royal guard of some sort.
Many women would have fled the other way when faced with these two characters, but Sarah took it all in with aplomb.
Mark had set hors d'oeuvres out—a veggie tray with his special dip and a selection of meats and cheeses.
Sarah made herself a small plate and the three of them sat down in the living room.
“So, it’s hard for me to imagine a couple in a maternity ward one day a few decades back, looking at their squalling little baby and thinking, ‘Yes, Moondog is definitely the right name for this little fellow.’”
“Hard to imagine because it never happened, likely. My parents named me Mark and were determined to see that it stuck. I chose Moondog myself as my way of asserting my own independence in my twenties.”
“Ah. A personal rebirth.”
“Exactly. And you are Sarah, as in Sarah, Plain and Tall.”
Charles had not told Moondog that was the reference Sarah had used when she had introduced herself so many lifetimes ago.
Sarah puffed up a bit and said, “Exactly. How erudite of you to notice. It’s a new book, so I can’t say I’ve taken inspiration from it all my life, but I do now.”
Moondog excused himself and reappeared in the dining room a few minutes later with a serving tray filled with a salmon in lemon sauce, red potatoes, and asparagus.
“Dinner is served.”
“It smells lovely. Charles said you are a wonderful cook, and that you’ve been teaching him.”
“I’ve done better teaching him to cook than I did teaching him to play rummy.”
“Oh?”
“As soon as I taught him to play rummy, he had the temerity to start beating me. He still can’t make a decent gravy, though, so I take my victories where I can find them.”
Charles ate quietly, but it was obvious he was pleased to see that his two friends were hitting it off.
When dinner was done, Moondog cleared the plates and served chocolate mousse for desert.
When those dishes had been added to the pile in the kitchen, Charles said, “Let’s go to my place. I want to show you my painting, and then we can play rummy. I’ve been thinking about it a lot the last few days.”
Moondog leaned over to Sarah and said, “That spells trouble for us, I’m afraid. When Charles says he’s been thinking about something, that means he’s been obsessing about it.”
“I can’t be too worried. I put myself through nursing school playing hearts and rummy for a penny a point and he just learned to play this week.”
Moondog smiled mysteriously and they walked down the hall to Charles’ condo.
“Oh,” Sarah said when she walked in. “Just like Moondog’s, but plainer.”
“It used to be plainer still, but Moondog took me to a store where I found this painting.”
Charles flipped all the lights in the condo on and led Sarah to Ephemerata.
“Well,” Sarah said. “It’s quite something, isn’t it? A bit overwhelming in a way. At first, it looks like a casual pattern, but if you study it a bit, other subtleties emerge, don’t they?”
“I knew you would understand it,” Charles said.
They stared at the painting for a few minutes, Sarah turning her head a bit left, then a bit right, then taking a few steps back. All the while Charles looked at Sarah, pleased to see her take it in.
Finally, Charles said, “Let’s sit down at the dining room table and play cards. I bought an extra deck, just in case one didn’t have all fifty-two cards.”
Sarah glanced at Moondog, then back at Charles. “Does that happen often?”
“No way to know. I’ve never bought cards before. It’s certainly within the realm of possibility, though.”
Sarah took the fresh deck out and shuffled the cards expertly, then cut for the first deal, which Moondog won. It proved to be the last thing he won that evening.
It was a hard-fought, toe-to-toe battle between Sarah and Charles as they traded hand after hand.
Sarah won the first game, Charles the second, and it came down to the last hand in the third, when Sarah got rummy, and the victory.
“Seriously, Charles, please tell me Moondog was kidding when he said you only learned to play this week.”
Seriously, Charles said, “I’ve never played any card game before this week.”
“I think I need to brush up on my bridge and teach that to you, then. We might be able to enter a few tournaments later this year.”
Charles and Moondog glanced at each other. They had discussed how, if at all, they could tell Sarah about Charles’ upcoming demise. They had come up empty.
“If there’s enough time, I would like that very much.”
Chapter Fifty
THE REST OF THIS LIFE passed too quickly for Charles’ taste.
Sarah invited the two of them to her home the following weekend and they gladly accepted.
Charles increased his walks around town, now specifically seeking people who were down on their luck and making sure he withdrew at least a few hundred dollars each day so he had some money to help them.
Once, he stumbled upon an older woman dressed in many layers. It was raining and she had taken shelter inside the alcove of a deserted building. Charles spotted her there and asked if she minded if he stood with her until the rain ended.
She seemed to have all her worldly possessions with her in a Safeway shopping cart that had seen better days.
When the rain eased up, Charles asked her if she’d like a meal at the small Mexican restaurant across the street.
“You’re not trying to pull any funny stuff, are ya?” she inquired shrew
dly.
“My friends tell me I’m the least funny person they’ve ever met. I was thinking it would be nice for us to share a meal. They have very good tamales there.”
She stashed her cart behind some bushes, then crossed the street to the restaurant.
The server took in the woman’s tattered clothes, but didn’t say anything other than, Senor, Senora, come with me.”
The server brought back chips, salsa, and bean dip for the two of them, took their order and disappeared.
The woman hit the chips and dips hard. Before the waiter brought them their drinks, the bowl was empty.
“I’ll bring you another,” the waiter said.
Charles still didn’t know how to make small talk with people he didn’t know, so he mostly sat and watched the woman eat, which somehow made him happy.
They both had ordered the tamale meal and again the woman tore into it with gusto. She used her corn tortilla to wipe up the last of the tamale sauce, then looked at Charles plate, which he hadn’t touched.
“Don’t like yours?”
“I thought I was hungry, but I wasn’t. I’ll get it to go.”
The waiter brought the bill, which Charles paid and asked for a doggy bag for his own lunch. The waiter smiled, took it to the kitchen and made the order to go.
Outside the restaurant, Charles gave the woman the bag. He reached into his pocket and took out fifty dollars. As he was handing it to her, a man in a business suit walked by and said, “She’ll just buy booze with that you know.”
Charles handed the money to the woman and said, “It doesn’t matter what she does with it. It’s her money.”
Charles said goodbye to the woman and walked a few blocks to where Thomas Weaver’s office was. For the second time, he made arrangements for his estate to pass on to Moondog.
Charles and Moondog didn’t live together in this life, as they had in the previous, but they still spent about the same amount of time together.
Moondog stopped inviting Charles over for dinner and it just became a standing appointment. When dinner was done and Charles had helped clean up, they sat in the living room. Moondog would either put some music on or get his acoustic guitar out and strum a few chords. He wasn’t very good, but Charles had absolutely no ear for music, so he never complained.