Star-Spangled Rejects (The Heavenly Grille Café Book 3)
Page 3
He stood up and closed his eyes. He lowered his head and said, “Oh, God…I am so sorry…so very sorry that this happened to you. Nobody was supposed to get hurt…”
Jimmy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen and he knew that he was no longer alone in the clearing. He was almost afraid to open his eyes—he was afraid that he would see the smiling face of the old man they had encountered last night; instead, when he opened his eyes, he saw another old man standing behind a bush, watching him. The man leaned casually against a tree, and appeared to be in his late sixties, but his physique was not that of an old man. He was tall and lean, with black and silver hair; his mustache and beard were both solid white. He wore an old denim jacket and a black, non-descript baseball cap that covered most of his bushy brows; his jeans were well-worn but clean, and his boots showed signs that he had walked more than a mile through the Georgia red mud. Jimmy took it all in, but he was unable to speak. His tongue felt like it had swollen to three times its normal size inside his mouth.
Skipper walked slowly from behind the bush; he never took his eyes off the young kid that stood nervously, twenty feet away. “You’re one of them.”
Jimmy tried to swallow, but found that he had no spit to assist him with that endeavor. “What?”
Skipper was within ten feet of the boy now. “Yeah, you’re one of them, alright. I was in the bushes over there when you and your buddies stumbled over each other, laughing and egging one another on. They wanted you to kick over the boxes, tear down the tents…”
Jimmy shook his head. “Mister, I don’t know who you are, or what you’re talking about. You need to back off…stay away from me…” He was close to hyperventilating.
Skipper continued a forward motion. He shook his head. “No…I don’t think so. You and your friends killed an innocent man last night. The only thing poor Norman was guilty of, was waking up in the middle of the night, and wanting an extra piece of cake. That’s the only reason he was even awake when you and your gang crept into our area. All of you thought it was fun to push him around, watch an old man fall and try to get up again and again. He never stood a chance against the four of you. So…where’s the rest of your gang? Did you come back to make sure you didn’t leave any evidence behind? You’re too late. The cops have already gathered all the evidence they need.”
Jimmy shook his head again. “No, it wasn’t like that —we didn’t mean to hurt anybody…” He stopped short and realized, too late, that he had said too much. He clinched his fists and looked up, ready to defend himself against the old man, but, the old man was gone. Jimmy spun around, looking in all directions, but the old man had disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.
A slight rustling of leaves brought Jimmy back around to the spot where the old man had recently stood.
Stella Sieber wrinkled her nose and stared hard at Jimmy Crennan. She shook her head vehemently from side to side and began to back away. “No!” she screamed. “You can’t have it back. He gave it to ME! The money is mine and I’m gonna keep it…you can’t have it back! I told him I would keep quiet about what y’all done to old Norman, and I will.” She checked the spot inside her bra where she had tucked the hundred dollar bill that Kirk Blankenship had given her while she stood next to the concrete overpass, staring down into the lifeless eyes of Norman Weissman. “You can’t have it back!” she screamed as she turned and ran back into the woods.
Jimmy brought both hands to his face and pushed his cheeks together. He walked backwards a few feet before he turned and ran away from the campsite, and rushed back to the café’s parking lot. He stopped beside his mom’s car to catch his breath before he went back inside. “Oh, God, I am so, so sorry…” he inhaled deeply, opened his eyes, and stood erect. He turned to look back at the woods across the street, and saw the old man standing on the side of the road, staring back at him.
Jimmy turned and ran inside the café. He made his way back to the booth where his mother waited for him. He cast a sideways-glance out the window, into the woods across the street.
The old man was gone.
CHAPTER 3
Skipper’s and Jason’s Stories
The temperature had warmed to a pleasant 52 degrees by noon, and Skipper stretched out his long legs in front of him, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the warmth of the sun upon his tired eyelids. He could not remember the last time he had slept through the night, or the last time he had closed his eyes and not had the horrifying nightmares invade his sleep.
He sighed deeply and thought about the young boy from the diner. He never intended to say anything to the boy; and, he never intended to get involved in what happened to Norman Weissman. It had been a long time since he had spoken that many consecutive words, and he was surprised that his voice still functioned.
He sat up straighter and removed a weathered, black-and-white composition book from his backpack. The war poems that he had written over the years rested within those pages; they had been his salvation—they had kept him relatively sane. Writing them had been therapeutic—had saved him from doing what so many other Veterans had done after the horrors they had witnessed in battle. He still wanted to do it—to die—every day, but he was still here. He opened the composition book to a poem that summed up life for him. He had titled it, “Flight 341”, his returning flight number home from his last battle in 1970:
Crossing the great Pacific waters one last time
Mighty ships collide with the setting sun;
In the wake of tomorrow, there will always be sorrow
For those of us aboard Flight 341.
Soaring above the jungles of pain and despair
Heaven descends to meet the darkened sea;
Sounds of war fade away, except for those who stay
To pay for the cost of being free.
There was angry silence as we flew through the clouds
Knowing we fought a war that was never won;
To the guys left below, we hope they all know
Our prayers were with them on Flight 341.
No one would greet us with flowers and cheer
They would cuss us and spit in our face;
With San Francisco in view, all of us knew
We’d be like lepers of the human race.
We were neither villains of terror, nor demons from Hell
Just someone’s American son;
We only hope and pray, that maybe some day
Homecomings will be different for Flight 341.
Skipper closed his eyes and remembered his homecoming flights from his three tours in Vietnam. There had never been a “Welcome Home” for him or his fellow soldiers. Each homecoming had been worse than the one before, and he felt less and less significant with each one. Each homecoming, also, brought more nightmares into his life. So many young soldiers died in that thankless war, and he had never been able to fully understand why he hadn’t—why he was still here.
Skipper never heard the approaching footsteps.
The policeman nudged Skipper’s muddy boat. “Okay, Buddy, you need to move along now. There’s no loitering in the parks.”
Skipper’s muscles tensed automatically, and he fought the insatiable urge to inflict bodily harm upon the police officer. He hated being around people in general, but especially the young, arrogant members of the police force who appeared to be more impressed with the power and authority their uniforms provided them, than they were in actually serving and protecting. He held up his composition book for visual inspection. “I’m not loitering, officer. I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet while writing some poetry.”
“Is that so?” the officer replied.
Skipper took a closer look at the officer, who had sat down on the bench beside him and removed his cap. He wasn’t as young as Skipper had first thought him to be, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t still arrogant and self-serving. “Yeah, that is so,” Skipper replied. “But, if it’s a problem, I’ll be glad to find another bench, in another park.”<
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The officer nodded toward the composition book. “Mind if I look at that?”
Skipper surprised himself; he never allowed anyone to read his poetry. They were his private thoughts, and they belonged to only him. He shrugged and handed the book to the officer. “Knock yourself out, but opinions are a dime a dozen, and I’ve had a life time of them, so kindly keep yours to yourself, okay?”
The two men sat in silence for the next fifteen minutes while Officer Thomas O’Brady scanned through the old composition book that held at least a hundred poems written over one man’s life time.
Officer O’Brady cleared his throat and handed the book back to Skipper. “I wish I had time to read all of these. I’m certainly no expert at poetry, and, I know you don’t want or need my opinion, but…these are very good. Am I right in guessing that you served in Viet Nam?”
Skipper’s brows pulled inward and he nodded.
“I thought so,” Officer O’Brady smiled. “I never knew my father. My mother was pregnant with me when he was shipped to Nam in 1973. He never made it back.”
Skipper looked more closely at the officer. “You don’t look old enough to have had a father who served in Nam.”
“Baby-face O’Brady — that’s what they all call me. I’ll be forty-four in a few months. Dad was only twenty-four when most of his company got hit.” He looked at Skipper for a long moment. “He’d probably be about your age, if he had lived.”
Skipper shook his head. “I’m a bit older than I look, too.” He paused slightly before he did something that he had not done in many years. He reached out to shake hands with the man sitting beside him. “They call me Skipper. My last tour in Nam was in 1970. I retired from the Army in 1977, and I was seventy-six years old last month.” He had no idea why he was revealing so much about himself to a total stranger, and to a cop at that.
Thomas shook his head and grinned. “Wow, you’re pretty well-preserved.”
Skipper pursed his lips together and did something else he had not done in years. He smiled. “Yeah, alcohol preserves old fossils like me.”
Officer O’Brady stood up and Skipper followed suit. He began to pack his book into his backpack when the officer stopped him. “Take your time, Skipper. Stay as long as you like. It’s a nice day right now, but the night will be cold again. There’s a men’s shelter just a few blocks down…”
Skipper held up his hand. “Thanks, I know the place, but, I’ll be fine.”
The officer nodded and turned to leave, but stopped and turned back around to face Skipper. “One more thing, sir…welcome home, and, thank you for your service!”
Skipper raised his brows. It took a lot these days to surprise him, but Officer Thomas O’Brady had certainly done that. He took a deep breath and nodded. “Thanks.” He watched the officer walk away and sat back down on the bench. He removed the grilled meatloaf sandwich from his backpack and stared at it for a long moment. He knew that Norman had left the sandwich but taken Skipper’s piece of buttermilk cake from his sleeping bag the night before.
He ate the sandwich in silence and threw the crumbs in the direction of some visiting pigeons. He chased it with some bottled water that he always kept in his backpack. He wished he had the piece of cake to eat—the buttermilk cake that Norman Weissman loved so much—and, a lump stuck in his throat. He took out his composition book again, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the steel bench. “Rest in peace, Norman; you’re in a much better place than the rest of us now.”
Jason Benton sat on his own bench about a half-mile north of where Skipper sat. He had not been back to the camp site since Norman Weissman had been killed. He had not seen what happened, and he did not know who was to blame. He had awakened around 2:30 AM, unable to sleep due to the constant nightmares and flashbacks that invaded his mind—one flashback in particular—so he had gone for one of his many late-night walks.
He had just turned twenty-three years old when he received his orders for Iraq. It was his first of two tours in that God-forsaken country. He had only been there for thirty-seven days when he got up close and personal with his first taste of death. He had become friends with another young soldier who was, also, serving his first tour away from family and friends—a strong, muscular Italian from Queens, New York — Dante Fiorello. Their squad was on a routine patrol, and he and Dante had been comparing notes about the girls waiting for them back home. They were walking down a dirt path, with nothing but trees and brush on either side, when Jason had stopped to re-tie his boot lace, and fallen a few feet behind his friend. One minute, Dante was using his cupped hands to describe the best feature of Miss Bambi Constanza, and the next minute he had simply vaporized after having stepped on a buried improvised explosive device (IED). The explosion blew Jason fifteen feet backward, and when he tried to open his eyes, something warm and gooey prevented him from being able to do so—his friend’s brains and entrails were splattered all over him. He was extremely lucky that the noise-induced hearing loss he experienced was only temporary. He only wished that he could say the same about the flashbacks and nightmares he continued to have, almost eight years later, about that day.
“Hey there, handsome, you got any boom?” the southern, female voice shook Jason out of his reverie.
Jason stood up to see a teenage girl, probably around sixteen years old staring at him. She was with three male teenagers; and, judging from their clothing and manner, they all appeared to be from better-to-well-off families. “No…that stuff will kill you.”
Kirk Blankenship was leading the group back to his 2016, black Toyota Land Cruiser. It was definitely advantageous to have a father who owned the three highest profitable car dealerships in the tri-county area. He usually had his choice of wheels to drive at any given time. “Get away from that loser, Kristy. You might catch something,” he snickered as he deliberately brushed against Jason’s brown, cracked-leather jacket.
Kristy pouted and stomped her foot. “But I need a hit of something…anything!”
Kirk jerked her by the forearm and pulled her along the path that led to the parking lot. “I’ll give you a hit of something if you don’t get moving. Now! Get going—or I’ll leave you here with your new plaything.”
Jason took three steps forward and grabbed Kirk by the wrist. “Let her go. Let her go now.”
Kirk pursed his lips together and was about to deliver a punch to the gut of the loser that had dared to interfere with his afternoon delight. He swung his right fist back, but stopped when he saw a police officer walking in their direction. He stared defiantly at the man in the leather jacket and grinned. “You just got lucky…real lucky.” He dropped Kristy’s arm and commanded his group. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The two male friends in his group had seen the cop walking in their direction. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” one of them agreed.
Officer Thomas O’Brady was at the tail end of his daily route, and he suspected trouble when he saw the group of teenagers up ahead. He recognized Kirk Blankenship, who had been in trouble with the local police more times than he could count. He stopped when he reached the man wearing a worn leather jacket, even more worn-out jeans, and a black, knit cap pulled over his ears. “Any trouble here?” he queried.
Jason walked back to the bench and retrieved his backpack. He looked at the police officer and thought, not for the first time, that that could be him. He had always wanted to go into law enforcement, but after his military discharge four years ago, he had decided that it was probably too late. He doubted if he could pass the required psychological testing. “No.”
“Are you sure?” Officer O’Brady grinned. “I recognize one in that bunch, and he is trouble with a capital T. It wouldn’t be the first time that his group has ganged up on someone, just for fun.”
Jason continued to stare at Officer O’Brady. “No, no trouble. They were just being typical teenagers.” He began to walk in the direction from which the police officer had come.
Jason looked back at the officer and nodded.
He continued to walk for the next two hours until he found himself standing at the wood line across from the Heavenly Grille Café. He looked at the yellow crime tape that sectioned off a city block, and slipped beneath it. He walked closer to their burned-out camp fire and remembered Larry, Curly, and Moe cracking jokes the night before. He walked about another thirty feet to where he had bedded down beneath two giant pine trees. He turned left and walked another fifty feet to the concrete overpass wall. He stared down at the brown, circular blob in the dirt that had been Norman Weissman’s blood. He stared at the wall where the blood spatters obviously began.
“What happened to you, Norman?” he spoke softly. “You didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserves to die this way.” He was startled by a noise that came from behind him. He turned around quickly and saw PJ crawling out of her make-shift tent. “PJ?”
PJ looked back and forth from Jason to her make-shift tent. “I…I had to come back for the rest of my stuff, but…it’s all gone. Someone took all my stuff. I knew I should have grabbed it all when I ran, but, I just wasn’t thinking straight.”
Jason thought that she looked like a lost child in a busy mall. “PJ? Did you see what happened here last night?”
PJ’s eyes grew round with fright and she shook her head vigorously from side to side. She had seen some of what happened, but she knew better than to admit that to anyone, not even to Jason. “No,” she whispered as she began to back away. “No! I didn’t see anything. Not anything!” She turned and ran toward the busy highway that separated their camp ground from the diner across the street.
“PJ! Wait!” Jason called after her. He stopped in his tracks when he heard the blowing horn and screeching tires. “Oh, dear God…no!”
Peggy Jensen lay upon the black asphalt, one leg and one arm splayed in unnatural positions. Blood oozed from her nose and ears. She wouldn’t have to worry about a place to stay that night.