Fit to Die

by J. B. Stanley

Willy, James, Bennett, and Carter watched in silence as the flames were finally drenched into feeble sparks. Thick smoke spread outward like a gray fog, covering the parking lot in a gossamer layer of ash. James could feel it coating his hair and skin like a dusting of gritty sand sticking to damp flesh. Willy opened his palm in order to catch some of the minute particles that once represented his entrepreneurial dreams. From where they stood in the parking lot, on a slight rise above the bustling firemen, the men noticed the arrival of two brown patrol cars. The strip of red and blue roof lights blazed, but the sirens had not been activated. Three men hopped out of their vehicles and began to confer with the exhausted firemen. James recognized Sheriff Huckabee and deputies Keith Donovan and Glenn Truett.

  Two cars pulled up next to Bennett’s truck. James recognized Gillian’s environmentally friendly hybrid as well as Lucy’s dirty Jeep. Gillian, Lindy, and Lucy approached the dumbstruck group of men. James was delighted to see that Lindy appeared to be carrying a six-pack of soda. He felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of chalk and couldn’t wait to wash away the layer of grime that coated his tongue.

  “We saw y’all up here from the other end of the lot. Thought you might be a bit parched by now so we ran out and got you some cherry cola,” Lindy said softly, handing each of the men a cold can. Bennett thanked her and awkwardly introduced the three ladies to Carter.

  “Thank you kindly,” Willy raised his can to his lips and took a deep swig. He seemed to shake off the trance he had fallen under while watching the fire. “Nothin’ like a little cherry cola to bring things to light again. I reckon it’s not all as bad as it looks. I’ve got cherry cola, some new friends, and I’ve got a good insurance policy.”

  “I’m glad you have your sense of humor intact.” Gillian put her hand on Willy’s forearm and smiled.

  James stared at the charred structure that had promised to be a bustling ice cream parlor. The building looked like a whale beached on a square of ebony sand, long decomposed with a rib cage of black beams jutting up into the night air. Suddenly, he remembered what Brady had said about someone being trapped inside. As unobtrusively as possible, he pulled Lucy aside and shared what he had overheard the fireman report to Chief Lawrence.

  “Didn’t you tell me that old Pete Vandercamp was going to be working the weekend shifts?” Lucy asked, gripping James by the hand.

  James looked down as her soft fingers locked onto his. He covered her hand with his free one and tried to reassure her. “Yes, but it was just a kid on his bike reporting what he thought he saw. Maybe he was wrong. After all, it would have been getting dark by then. Could have just been a shadow. It could be nothing—a trick of the light.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it.” Lucy turned and pointed at the patrol cars. “After all, the Sheriff’s here,” she said worriedly as she gazed at the smoldering building. “Oh, James. I know Pete wasn’t the best of men. He drank and swore at us when we were kids and had always made lewd comments to all the pretty women in town, but no one deserves a horrible death like that. I truly hope they don’t find anyone inside.”

  James put his arm around Lucy’s shoulder but could think of nothing to say. He believed that the boy had probably seen someone and that someone would most likely turn out to be Pete Vandercamp. From where he and Lucy stood, slightly above the perimeter of tape, they watched the Sheriff pull on a pair of firemen boots and follow an agitated Chief Lawrence into the remains of the Polar Pagoda.

  “I’m going down there,” Lucy announced.

  “Wait!” James held her firmly by the arm. “You might not want to see what they find if they do find something. It might look …” he trailed off as he noticed the others staring at him.

  Gillian appeared next to James and crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you two whispering about?” she demanded.

  Willy gazed at James and Lucy and then his jaw grew slack. “Do y’all know why Johnny Law is here? Is there more bad news? There talk of arson or somethin’?”

  James decided that Willy deserved honesty. “There may be …

  um … someone might have been inside. Caught in the fire. It’s not certain, Willy,” he said as gently as he could.

  Willy shook his head emphatically. “No way, man. Nothin’ in there could have burned fast enough that …” he paused, “… Pete would have gotten out. He’s no nuclear physicist, but he’s got a survival instinct, same as the rest of us.”

  “You’re probably right,” Lindy assured him, but her round eyes betrayed her fear.

  “What’s that the Sheriff’s got in his hand?” Carter asked quietly, speaking for the first time.

  Lucy peered through the dark as Sheriff Huckabee moved into the strong beam cast by the lights of the fire truck. “Those look like our standard plastic evidence bags. I can’t quite tell what’s inside.”

  “From the long neck and the fact that they look like they’re made of glass—see how the lights are reflecting on the surface—I’d say they’re liquor bottles. One in each bag,” Bennett mumbled.

  “Didn’t Pete drink Wild Turkey?” Lucy turned to James. “Remember all the empty bottles he kept in his car when we were in high school? You couldn’t pass him in the hall without breathing in whiskey.”

  “Yeah.” James nodded, a queasy feeling spreading throughout his stomach.

  “Well, one’s a Wild Turkey bottle but the other one isn’t. That’s Gentleman Jack, for sure,” Carter stated authoritatively.

  Everyone looked at the new mail carrier with surprise. “Gentleman Jack? Do you mean Jack Daniels?” Lindy asked and Carter silently nodded. “How can you tell that from this distance?”

  Carter shrugged. “Used to work at a liquor store. I could tell you what most bottles are without the labels and those two are easy ones. The labels have both turned completely black, but the shape is still obvious to me. Weird …” he trailed off.

  “What’s weird?” Bennett prodded.

  Carter jerked his shoulders again and glanced shyly toward the Sheriff. “It’s just that most folks don’t mix their whiskeys, you know. They stick to one brand pretty loyally.”

  “Don’t look at me!” Willy threw his hands in the air with a sound that was part sob, part laugh. “I’m from a dry, Baptist household. I wouldn’t know whiskey, good or bad, from cough syrup, and neither one of those bottles is mine.” He watched as an ambulance pulled into the parking lot. “Oh Lord, please tell me that poor man didn’t drink two bottles full of that damnable liquor while he was on the job tonight.”

  Lucy touched Willy’s arm as two paramedics unloaded a gurney from the back. By this time, most of the onlookers had dispersed. The fire was out and a sudden chill had appeared in the air. A few teenage boys sat in the rear of a pickup, but eventually, even they grew tired of the scene and motored noisily out of the lot and onto the street leading back to town.

  Lucy squeezed Willy’s arm with a bit more pressure, trying to lead him away from the scene. “Come on Willy, let’s get you home.”

  “I know you’re tryin’ to spare me pain, friend, but I gotta know.” Willy gently shook off Lucy’s arm and appealed to the others. “I’ve gotta go down.”

  James understood. “Then we’re coming with you.”

  As the group of seven approached what was left of the Polar Pagoda, Deputy Keith Donovan raced over to them before they could all duck under the yellow tape.

  “Whoa there, folks,” he said, holding up his hand like a traffic director. “That tape is there to keep civilians like yourselves safe from harm.” He looked directly at Lucy as he said this, deliberately taunting her for being an administrator in the Sheriff’s Department and not a bona fide member of law enforcement.

  “This is my place,” Willy said calmly and stepped over the tape. “I need to know what’s happened here.”

  “We’ll inform you in due time.” Donovan stepped in front of Willy and ran a hand through his unkempt orange hair, which was flecked with ashes and other debris. “Damn!” he y
elled, shaking his head violently as black flakes flew onto his shoulders and trickled down the front of his uniform. As he focused on dusting himself off, Willy walked briskly past him and approached Sheriff Huckabee.

  James could hear him politely introducing himself before the Sheriff could utter the slightest protest over his presence within the restricted area. The sheriff’s face was unreadable, but he shook Willy’s hand in apparent sympathy and then pulled him farther away from James and the others and began to talk in a hushed tone as he gestured between the ambulance and the ruined building. As James watched, Willy suddenly covered his face with his hands and moaned loudly. Sheriff Huckabee gazed at him with compassion and patted him awkwardly on the back.

  Spotting Willy’s friends, Huckabee’s walrus-like mustache suddenly flared in anger and he bellowed at Donovan. “Get them out of here, Deputy!”

  Although Keith Donovan did his best to push and shove the remaining six onlookers back beyond the tape, most of them, including James and Lucy, caught a clear glimpse of the gurney as it was wheeled to the silent ambulance. A figure lay unmoving under a thin shroud. James stared at the form, which was completely covered beneath a white sheet that had a sickly yellowish tinge below the headlights of the truck.

  “What happened, Keith?” Lucy asked Donovan quietly. “Is it Pete?”

  “Oh, come on, Lucy,” he answered crossly instead. “You’ll stick your nose into everything soon enough. I’m sure you’ll have read every single one of our reports and tell all your friends here every tiny, little detail by noon tomorrow.”

  Lucy’s brow clouded. “Well since I have to type the reports, I guess I will be reading them, but it doesn’t take a deputy to know that Pete was scheduled to be working in that ice cream shop tonight. If it’s not Pete, then who is it?”

  Her taunting succeeded in confirming their worst fears. Donovan gave James a final shove directly into the tape and spat, “So it’s Pete. Good for you, Miss I-Went-To-College. But since you can’t get near the scene, bein’ it’s a crime scene, I guess you won’t be figurin’ out how exactly Pete met his fiery end, now will you?”

  “I guess I’d have to start by wondering if he drank all of the contents of those two whiskey bottles you brought out as evidence,” Lucy said, using a mockingly innocent tone.

  Donovan’s freckled white skin grew mottled with anger. “I’ve got work to do! Why don’t you and your friends go hang out at the Shoney’s buffet and let the rest of us do our jobs?” And with that rejoinder, Donovan stalked away.

  The group watched as Donovan began to confer animatedly with Sheriff Huckabee. As they spoke, the paramedics slammed the rear door of the ambulance, asked Huckabee to apply his signature to a document on their clipboard, and then drove off. The ambulance wheels crunched over small pieces of wood and dark shards of broken glass, and then glided silently through the empty parking lot and out of view over the top of the hill. Huckabee followed the departing vehicle with his eyes while pulling roughly on his mustache, then he sighed loudly, checked his watch, and gestured toward Willy. After placing a kind hand on the man’s shoulder, Huckabee steered him over to Donovan’s car and opened the passenger door for him. He then gesticulated at Donovan, indicating that the deputy should chauffeur Willy back to his car. Before sliding into the patrol car, Willy looked up at his new friends and gave them a small wave accompanied by the best smile he could muster. They all waved back, but none could force smiles to their own lips.

  “It’s getting late.” Gillian glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a toy poodle coming in at eight tomorrow for the works.” She sighed. “I wish there was something we could do for that poor man.”

  “Yeah, poor Willy.” Lucy gazed at their new friend as he faced forward inside the sheriff’s patrol car. “What’s he going to do now?”

  “Lord only knows,” Bennett sighed. “He’ll have to find somethin’ to do to keep him on his feet until his place is rebuilt. Come on, men. Mondays are always busy at the post office. The mail never sleeps, so we’d better.”

  Lindy gave everyone a quick hug as she and Gillian turned to leave. “I wish our last night out before the diet starts had been more uplifting. We must tell Willy we’ll all help him in any way we can. See y’all at tomorrow’s Witness to Fitness meeting. At least we get to see Ronnie. She’s so sweet! She’s sure to cheer us all up!”

  “Yeah, see you then,” James mumbled miserably. He didn’t think he could stomach Ronnie’s chipper demeanor after such a sobering evening. He watched as the rising smoke began to dissipate and mingle with a group of silvery clouds high above them. Stars winked in and out of the gray veil as if too shy to allow themselves to be seen.

  Life can change so quickly, James thought, reflecting on his own life and Willy’s recent tragedy. He thought of Pete and what his dreams must have been when he was a young man. No one planned on being a drunken janitor, so what had happened? Did he fail to pursue a higher education? Was he afraid to take risks and therefore ended up living from bottle to bottle as he searched for just enough part-time work to keep the wolves at bay?

  James turned to watch Lucy’s form recede toward the other end of the parking lot. Suddenly, he was overtaken with the desire to connect with her.

  He glanced over at Bennett who was unlocking the door to his truck. “You coming James?” he called as he hopped in.

  “No. Go on without me,” James answered and then clumsily jogged in Lucy’s direction. “Lucy!” he shouted. She stopped and pivoted, her face a mixture of alarm and curiosity.

  James panted as he caught up to her. “God, I hate running.” He put a hand over his aching lungs. “Man’s body just isn’t designed for that kind of exercise. Listen. Could I … ?”

  Lucy looked at him with a small measure of impatience. “It’s pretty late, James.”

  “I know, I know.” James inhaled a gulp of foggy air. “Could you give me a lift back to my car?”

  “Of course.” She nodded and James was grateful she hadn’t asked why he wasn’t riding back with Bennett and Carter. The inside of her car still doubled as a trash receptacle. James remembered that the last time he had ridden in it, the passenger seat had been entirely covered by used napkins, clothing catalogues, old newspapers, gum wrappers, and paper bags. Lucy swept the debris into the back seat as James sat down, nudging aside a few soda cans as they rolled around his feet.

  They pulled onto the main road and James knew that he only had a few, precious minutes with Lucy, as it wouldn’t take long to reach the library lot. To James, it seemed as though he had parked the Bronco on a completely different night. He shared this thought with Lucy.

  “You just never know what’s around the bend,” she agreed, shaking her head.

  James gathered up his courage and spoke what was on his mind. “Lucy, I just wanted to ask you … I … um … if you would have coffee with me after work on Tuesday.”

  Lucy’s face lightened up. “Of course I would. Any particular reason?”

  James felt encouraged by her warm smile. “I need to talk to you about … well, about a couple of things.”

  “Sounds good,” she nodded and then glanced at him sideways while flashing him one of her dazzling smiles. “If you beat me there, I’ll take a mocha latte.”

  “That’s probably not going to be on our diet,” James laughed as they pulled up next to his Bronco.

  “Ugh, that’s right.” Lucy frowned, putting the Jeep in park as the engine idled. “Okay, a decaf with skim then. I guess I have to get used to making some sacrifices again. I hope this all works out for us James.”

  James didn’t know whether she was referring to their diet plans or to something more important, such as their relationship. “I hope so, too,” he answered as he got out of the car.

  As he drove toward home, Lucy’s smile temporarily banished all thoughts of the fire and of poor Pete Vandercamp. In fact, James was already dreaming of how he would look after losing twenty pounds, of a successful date with Lucy on T
uesday, and after that, perhaps a whole new future.

  James took a bite of his sandwich and frowned. Two slices of fat-free turkey along with lettuce, tomato, and mustard on whole wheat wasn’t too exciting and he had a hard time enjoying any sandwich without adding his customary three creamy slices of American cheese. He was crossly examining the sliced Granny Smith apple and microscopic packet of sugar-free chocolate cookie wafers he planned to have after wolfing down his sandwich when Scott Fitzgerald, one of the library’s four staff members, entered the break room.

  “Looks healthy, Professor,” the lanky young man in his mid-twenties said as he grabbed a brown bag from the fridge. Pushing his horn-rimmed glasses farther up his thin nose he examined his boss’s fare while pulling out an enormous hoagie filled with salami, pepperoni, and several slices of mozzarella from his own lunch sack. James glanced at Scott’s loaded sandwich, large bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, and package of Hostess cupcakes with envy.

  “So how’s the new diet working out?” Scott asked, brushing aside a sandy-colored lock of unruly hair from his forehead before taking a gargantuan bite of his hoagie.

  “I’ve really just started,” James answered once his own mouth was empty. “We’ve got our first exercise class tonight.”

  “Yuck. I hate exercising.” Scott took another bite and a trickle of vinegar ran down his angular chin. He chewed feverishly, as if someone intended to steal his food and then hastily swallowed. “Guess Francis and I are pretty lucky, having the metabolisms we have. Shoot, we try to gain weight but never seem to be able to.” Scott paused, unaware that his boss was glaring at him. “Did you get a load of the new Robert Jordan book? Almost eight hundred pages! I can’t wait to get it home. I’ll probably stay up all night tonight. Francis won’t even notice ’cause he’s got the new Neal Stephenson to keep him busy.”

  James couldn’t help but grin as Scott rambled on about his and his twin brother’s recent reads in the science fiction and fantasy realms. Even though they were named after a famous twentieth century American author, Francis and Scott Fitzgerald had little interest in classical literature. They were savvy mathematicians, quick at solving complex logistical problems, and were compulsively organized. James enjoyed working with them more than any of the professors from his former department at William & Mary. For one, the twins were the most enthusiastic employees he had ever seen. They worked tirelessly and were completely devoted to seeing that every patron’s needs were met. In addition, they were continuously dreaming up new schemes on how to improve their library branch. However, not even the sharp-minded twins had been able to come up with a fundraiser idea that would allow for the purchase of several new computers, which were so desperately needed.