What Simon Didn’t Say

by Joy Copeland

  Not counting on the person’s being gone, she continued with slow, deliberate steps. Her heart pounded in readiness as she neared the kitchen. The sound of crackling wood and the smell of smoke hit her senses in unison. Fire was confirmed by its glow through the half-glass door off the kitchen. Queen got a better look. The wooden lattice, which blocked the view from the neighboring house, was a wall of flames. Flames licked at the nearby brick.

  “Oh Lawd!” she screamed. For a second she hesitated. Should she try to extinguish the fire? No extinguisher was around. She didn’t open the door but grabbed the kitchen phone and dialed 911. “The house is on fire! Someone set fire to the house!”

  “What’s the address?”

  Queen rattled off the Brandywine address. “Hurry!”

  “Get yourself and everybody else out of the house immediately,” the operator instructed. “The fire department is on the way.”

  Bat still in hand, Queen bolted up the stairs two steps at a time. She found Mrs. Woods snoring, with the TV chattering in the background.

  “Wake up, Mrs. Woods! Wake up! We got a fire,” shouted Queen, shaking the woman.

  “Huh. Huh.” Frances Woods was disoriented. “What’s happening?”

  Queen wasted no time explaining further. She dropped the bat and scooped her confused charge from the bed like a rag doll. Heading down the stairs, she secured her footing on each step before proceeding. Clearly frightened, the older woman grabbed loose fabric on Queen’s dress and buried her face in the larger woman’s chest.

  Smoke was coming into the house.

  “Hang on, Mrs. Woods. I got you.”

  On the front porch in the bright sun, Queen could see the haze of lapping flames coming from the side of the house. Frances Woods saw it too. “Oh, God, my house is burning,” she cried. “How did this happen?”

  “Dogs and deer don’t set fires,” Queen answered. “Somebody got it in for us.” Queen sized up her next challenge: the long uneven stone steps going from the porch down to the street. Queen had carried Mrs. Woods down those steps before but never in a rush. She stood for a second to catch her breath and to adjust the weight of her load. “Okay, we’re going down again,” she warned.

  “Don’t drop me!” Frances Woods commanded.

  “Let me help you,” said a man making his way from the street. He looked sincere but too frail to be of any help.

  Queen recognized him as a neighbor but wouldn’t hand over her charge. “I got her,” she assured him.

  “You okay, Mrs. Woods?” he asked before turning to head back down. “I called 911.”

  “Then we both did,” Queen said.

  Reaching the sidewalk, Queen realized that her arms ached. Frances Woods was a small woman but, nonetheless, a load to carry. Queen sat her charge on the short stonewall that lined the front of the property. From that vantage point, the threesome looked up at the house to see billowing black smoke from the bonfire consuming the side of the house, but neither Queen nor the neighbor was going back up the stairs to check.

  “All these years, nothing like this has ever happened to me,” Frances Woods said, her voice solemn. She gathered her flimsy cotton gown around her and rested her hands across her chest. Queen put an arm around her and let the older woman lean into her.

  “I wished they’d get here,” Queen said.

  Minutes later sirens sounded in the distance. “Here they come,” said the neighbor.

  A few more neighbors emerged onto the street to watch the firemen do their job. One or two of the neighbors came over to Frances Woods to offer assistance. Queen didn’t know them. No neighbors had come to visit since she’d been working there.

  The firemen made short work of the blaze. “Not much damage,” reported a fireman who seemed to be in charge “Looks to me to be intentional. There’s got to be follow-up from the arson squad. Did anyone see anything?”

  Queen explained how she’d heard the dog barking, the crash, and then squealing tires.

  “I’d advise not staying here tonight,” said the fireman. “The damage isn’t too bad, but the house needs to air out, and I’d be worried about whoever did this coming back.”

  “She can stay with us,” offered a neighbor.

  “Queen, I need to call Zoie,” Frances Woods said. Her voice trailed.

  “Sure, Mrs. Woods. I’ll call her, and I’m calling my brother to look at the damage,” Queen said.

  Frances Woods began to cough her awful cough. Both the fireman and the neighbor frowned. “Perhaps you should go to the hospital, ma’am,” the fireman said.

  “No! No! No hospital!” Frances Woods insisted. Breathless, she squeezed Queen’s shoulder to get her to do the talking.

  Queen got the signal. “She’s got medicine for that cough. I’ll call her granddaughter to come for her. In the meantime I’m taking her to my house.”

  Chapter 32

  Those You Can Trust

  With no breeze the smoke from the abandoned cigarette rose straight to the porch ceiling. A distance from the cigarette, Jahi sat alone in a weathered rocking chair. Murray’s family cabin was an ideal spot for a getaway. In a communications dead spot, it was perfect if one wanted to be isolated. Inside, his Marine Corps buddies had started their infamous poker game without him. For Jahi, being out of touch when he was kicking off his city-council run didn’t make sense. Now his decision to leave the city for a few days bugged him. His decision to run for office at all bugged him more. Alas, the deed was done. He’d made promises to his campaign backers. Oh, what had he gotten himself into?

  Other than the narrow winding road and the gravel parking pad, now covered by four vehicles, only green, a calming green surrounded the place. Exhaling, Jahi could feel his blood pressure drop. In this moment of serenity, he contemplated his situation. Deaths in his family had left a hole in his world. Two tours with the US Marines had kept him away from home for many years. Changing his name also added to the distance from family and those he loved. He didn’t plan for his new name to sever him from the past. But somehow it did.

  Then there was Tesfaneshe. They met at UDC. An exotic beauty with brains and boundless energy, she filled some of the void in his life. She saved him from the street when he was at his lowest. The truth was he could have saved himself, but he wanted to be saved by her. So Te and her young son became his family. She introduced him to her friends and relatives in the United States. Within her group, he—not she—was the immigrant. A community of Ethiopians—hardworking, joyful, and caring. They made sure he was fed and stayed healthy. Made sure he was loved. Te and he shared a bed for many years. Her son, then a wide-eyed boy, looked to him as a father.

  But his relationship with Te wouldn’t last. He had strong feelings for her but could never fully enter her world. He couldn’t be Ethiopian. Indeed, he didn’t want to be. Te’s dark eyes hid her world and experiences. She’d lived through things he couldn’t fathom—things she either would not or could not explain. He would always be the outsider, albeit a cherished one. Still, he owed her his allegiance for her years of devotion, even if he couldn’t give her all that she hoped for. Alas, he came to realize that allegiance and love were not the same.

  The gang at the cabin was from his Marine Corps unit. They’d served together many years ago in Desert Storm, the war CNN covered for the world, the war he got to see first hand. He could reminisce with the gang, count on them, and even trust them with his life. Warts and all, they were as much his family as anyone. Though he didn’t see them often, when they were together, they fell back into a comfortable groove. Except to Hank, there was no Jahi here. To his Marine Corps buddies, he was still Sarge.

  A pair of squirrels rustled the otherwise still foliage, interrupting his reverie. Snoop Dog Two turned up the volume on his boom box, blasting his medley of old rap cuts. Jahi barely tolerated the sounds. Hip hop wasn’t his thing. Maybe it was because he was older than these guys.

  Over the racket a voice in Jahi’s head filtered through. Re
member what you’ve left behind in DC: the Shelter and the city-council race. Taking time away wasn’t the most prudent thing to do, but the get-together with his Marine buddies had been planned for months, well before he made the decision to run for the city council. The next get-together probably wouldn’t happen for a couple of years. After all, everyone led busy lives and had jobs, businesses, families, and the like. Only he and Hank hadn’t married. It was just as difficult for the others to separate from their obligations for three days as it was for him. What was he missing back in DC anyway? A couple of fundraisers? A radio interview?

  Hank had twisted his arm before the trip. “Look, you can let a few things go. Tarik’s got the Shelter covered, and Cheryl ‘what’s her name’—your campaign manager—can handle things with the press, community, and church folks. So you miss a few functions. Big deal!”

  It didn’t take much arm-twisting to convince Jahi to come. He needed to get away. His mind was clouded in the days leading up to his decision to run. He never envisioned himself with a career in politics. Didn’t his strength lie in being on the outside, agitating for change from the perimeter, rather than in drowning inside the bureaucratic cesspool? But he succumbed to the pressure. Reverend Simmons, of Canaan Valley Methodist, along with a few others of the same ilk, had been very persuasive. “We need your fresh thinking. We need your energy to make things happen in this city,” Simmons told him. “It’s time to turn the heat up from the inside. Being on the city council, you can bring about the change you’ve been talking about more directly.”

  At the time it sounded good. And Jahi had partly believed Simmons. Now he wasn’t so sure. The past week had been such a whirlwind. In the confusion surrounding his decision to run, he hadn’t even bothered to tell key friends and allies that he was running. Jahi looked out over the switchbacks of the winding road that ended a little past the cabin’s gravel driveway. He sighed. “Without my phone I can’t call them now.”

  Snoop emerged from the house, Budweiser in hand. “Need another beer, Sarge?” he asked, pointing to Jahi’s empty can on the railing ledge.

  “No, thanks,” Jahi answered. “I’m okay. But why don’t you blast something mellow?”

  Snoop grinned wide, showing his perfect white teeth. “Mellow, huh. I forgot you’re not into my groove,” Snoop said, giving the request some thought. “That’s okay. I’ll change it up. I know just the jams.”

  Snoop reentered the house and within less than a minute, the harsh rap sounds were replaced by the smooth sound of the Isley Brothers’ “Summer Breeze.”

  “Hey, Sarge! Thank God you got Snoop to turn off that noise!” came the call from the house, accompanied by boisterous laughter.

  Snoop came back to the porch and leaned into the railing; within seconds he was followed by Murray, their weekend host.

  “By the way, Sarge, if you need to use a phone, I’ve got mine,” said Snoop.

  Jahi’s new iPhone had slipped from its holster and into the stream, where they’d gone to fish. The plop of the phone hitting the water caught Jahi’s attention right away. Cursing himself, he managed to retrieve the phone before it embedded itself in the stream’s silt bottom. The water had done its work, entering the device’s cracked screen and rendering it dead.

  “Hey, Dog, we all got cell phones to lend him,” Murray interjected from just inside the door. “But Bro having a phone ain’t the point. Have you checked your signal lately?”

  “Nope, but I always have good coverage,” Snoop replied with cocky confidence.

  Murray laughed. “Dog, just check it.”

  With raised eyebrows Snoop looked at his phone’s signal strength. Zero bars.

  Watching the look of disbelief on Snoop’s face, Murray snickered.

  Snoop held his phone up in one direction and then the other. He then moved to the other side of the long porch, trying to pick up a signal. “Damn! Ain’t this some shit! I’m supposed to get coverage wherever. Jeez, no wonder I ain’t getting no calls,” he moaned.

  “Hey, Dog. You expecting a call from one of your shorties?” Vince Tilman called out to him from the house. Tilman’s comment brought on a wave of frat-boy hoots and howls. Jahi alone was quiet.

  “You’re all just wrong,” Snoop said. “Trying to get me in trouble. And I will be in trouble if my wife calls and she can’t get ahold of me. Could be something with the kids. This ain’t funny.”

  “We got your back, Dog. We’ll explain to Lu that you were here with us,” Tilman said.

  Each of the other three checked their phones. No one had a signal. “No surprise here,” Tuney said, “I checked as soon as we got here.”

  “Sorry, guys. I don’t think anyone will be getting any calls unless it’s by satellite phone. See that mountain over there,” Murray said, pointing ahead in the distance. “That piece of landscape is blocking cell coverage.” The men looked in unison at the rounded peak in the distance. Mt. Noble, as it was called, was a stump by Colorado standards but, nevertheless, presented a mass of Pennsylvania rock. “Yeah, the cell tower is on the other side, gentlemen,” continued Murray. “For all intent and purposes, for the next couple of days, we’re incommunicado. No cell signal, radio, or TV. My wife’s family is too cheap to put in a landline or cable. You can stand it for a couple of days, can’t you? It makes it a real ‘off the grid’ retreat.”

  There was a chorus of curses and groans.

  “Brothers, don’t panic. There’s a landline three miles down the mountain, at the ranger station,” Murray explained. “And if you drive a couple of miles past there, you’ll pick up a cell tower, no problems.”

  “Ooh! Isolation,” Snoop said. “For real.”

  “Sarge, you’re awful quiet over there. Hope you’ve got insurance on that thing,” said Tuney, referring to Jahi’s dead phone. “And speaking of dust,” Tuney said, invoking the group’s cue to change topics originating from their time in Desert Storm.

  “Dust what?” Murray butted in, pretending to be confused with the instruction. “Who said anything about dust?”

  “Okay, speaking of whatever, I learned last week that Ace Henderson passed,” said Tuney.

  “Aww, man, not Ace,” Murray said, moaning. The smile vanished from each man’s face. There was a long, heavy silence before the questions of how and why Ace had died came rapid fire.

  Tuney explained that he found out from Ace’s daughter, who’d found out that her father died two whole weeks after it had happened. In the last years of his life, Ace had been homeless.

  “Damn,” Snoop said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Sarge, did you know about Ace’s situation?” Murray asked.

  “No, I didn’t know,” Jahi answered solemnly.

  “Ace, may you rest in peace,” Tuney said with a bowed head.

  “Yeah, rest in peace,” they all chimed in.

  There was a long silence and a chill in the summer’s heat. News of Ace’s demise put a damper on the group. No one knew what to say.

  “Hey, Sarge. Hank says you’re running for DC Council,” Murray said, changing the subject.

  “Are you ‘speaking of dust’ again?” Jahi asked rhetorically.

  “Yeah, Sarge. I’m having a hard time digesting you as a politico. I don’t see you in a suit,” piped in Roger. “Will they let you wear camo and combat boots to meetings?”

  They all laughed, breaking the tension of the somber news of Ace’s passing. But little did they know that Jahi actually owned two suits and that he even rented a tux on occasion, all in the name of helping the homeless. He wished that Hank had kept his mouth shut. He meant to ask Hank to keep his candidacy on the QT. But somehow that thought got away from him on their drive up. Their conversation got stuck on subjects like what was needed back at the Shelter’s kitchen, their days together in Iraq, and an obvious question mark: Should he be running for an elected office at all?

  “Hank’s got a big mouth,” Jahi said flatly. Hank was not there to defend himself. He was insi
de cooking up the fish they’d caught that morning.

  Moments later Hank poked his head onto the porch and announced, “Lunch in twenty minutes.”

  With the announcement of food, most of the group filed past Hank, lured by the smell of frying fish.

  “Hank, got a minute?” Jahi asked.

  “Don’t want to burn our catch. But what’s up?” Hank answered, stepping on to the porch, still clad in his white apron, a dishcloth slung over his shoulder.

  Jahi waited until Tuney went inside before speaking. “Hank, I’m thinking I need to get back.” His voice was low.

  “No!” whined Hank. “You can’t be serious!”

  “Yeah, I’m feeling guilty. And I got a strange feeling something is going on back there.”

  “Something is always going on back there. The question is, do you need to be a part of it?” Hank was clearly frustrated. “I thought you said that Tarik had things under control. I thought you ‘cleared the calendar.’”

  “I think Tarik does have things under control. I’m talking about the campaign.”

  “Cheryl was pretty upset that you were taking a hiatus with the election only six weeks away. Look, I have to get back to the food. Let’s talk after lunch.”

  After stuffing themselves on lunch, the group was mellow and full of self-praise. After all, they were eating what they had caught.

  “Hank, that was a great lunch. Now whatcha gonna fix for dinner?” Murray asked while his lunch settled in his belly.