The Second Letter

by Robert Lane

  I heard again from the seat where gold chain used to be but that was now occupied by the old man in the hat.

  “She said I could find you here.” My peripheral vision caught him as he stared at me.

  “She say it once or she stutter like you?” I asked in an acid tone that would hopefully put him down. Here’s a clue, bozo, if I want to talk, I’ll start the conversation.

  “Pardon me?”

  I glanced at him and was met with a sincere and innocent look. What a jerk. No wonder I drink; at least then I have an excuse for my boorish behavior.

  “Who said you could find me here?”

  “Your friend, Miss Kathleen. Maybe you are not the right person. I am looking for a man named Jake Travis.”

  Chad dropped off another drink and I took a large sip of the greyhound and wished I had stuck with beer. But I knew it didn’t matter; the bottle wasn’t going to help me find any truths today. But, hey, no harm in trying.

  “Where did you run into my friend?” I asked.

  “She came over to see Miss Sophia today.”

  “Miss Sophia,” I said and wondered where this was going and if I wanted to follow.

  “Yes, sir. I work for Miss Sophia.”

  “And you are?”

  “Alejo.”

  “No, I mean, what do you do for Miss Sophia?”

  “I am their gardener. Been working for her and Mr. Escobar for three years now. But it all went bad and they hauled him off to jail just the other night. A terrible thing. Miss Kathleen has been there letting Miss Sophia cry on her shoulder. She is a fine woman.”

  I didn’t know, nor did I care, which woman he was referring to. “Your ex-boss had a few legal issues. The world will be a better place with him behind bars.”

  “I understand that. He did have a fine taste in music, though. I don’t think he was that bad, I really don’t. I think he just got lost.”

  He never took his eyes off me and had an easy way of talking, as if nothing were of real concern to him. A pair of silicone tits so tight you could pop them just by staring moved off to his left. A blue star tattoo rested high on the right breast. Am I missing something here? My eyes ran from that. I glanced up at the screen just in time to see someone catch a deep fly to center. A dozen seats away a guy, a drink holder, who’d been staring at the screen as if the sand and the water weren’t even there, pounded his fist on the bar and shouted “Yes!” when the little man on the television secured the ball in his leather glove. There’s just a truckload of shit that I don’t understand. I turned back to my stool companion.

  “What brings you into my neighborhood?” I asked.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why do you seek me?”

  “Just to tell you. Miss Kathleen thought you would like to know. But there is nothing you can do for me.”

  “Know what?”

  “That I told Mr. Escobar and Elvis about the letter in the back corner of Miss Dorothy’s house.”

  I reappraised my stool mate, but he was the same good and gentle man that I made him to be. He was probably north of eighty and was thin like he’d been thin his whole life, not frail because of age. There was an aura of calmness around him that was incongruous with the beach bar vibe.

  “And how did you know about it?” I asked.

  “I worked for Mrs. Dorothy Harrison for thirty years.” He laid it down proud.

  I shoved my drink away. It was too damn sweet. “You worked for her?”

  “Yes, sir. I was her gardener.”

  “Alejo, right?”

  “My friends call me Angelo. That is what Miss Dorothy—that is what I called Mrs. Harrison—always called me.”

  “Tell me, Angelo, what was she like?” I figured I might as well delve into the past; I’d certainly made a mess of the present.

  And then a small smile as he—who was not really at the bar in the same sense as the others were, trying to torque their lives with alcohol and flesh—slipped even further into his quiet world.

  “Those were the best years, Mr. Jake.” He gave a slight nod of his head. “She was a fine woman and treated me just fine too. There wasn’t that much work to do, but we enjoyed talking to each other and would just sit on her front porch and visit with her neighbors. You got to understand, there was always people around her. That is just the way she was. She never wanted anyone to knock on the door. She said true friends just walk right in, and she had a lot of true friends. We had nice times. When the Lord wants, he can make good years. But she missed him. I could tell.”

  “Who?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Who did she miss?”

  “Oh. Her husband, Jim. He passed not long after they moved to Pass-a-Grille. But she missed him. I could tell, and she knew that I could tell.”

  “Did she ever have another man in her life?” I was already into the question before I wondered why I even cared.

  “No. No, sir. We talked about that after I lost my Lucille and Rose. I did not mean to get into all this with you.” He looked down. It was the first time he had dropped eye contact with me.

  “I’m sorry about your loss. Who were they?” He had my full attention, which wasn’t saying much.

  He looked up, and if the sadness was there before, I didn’t see it. I wished I hadn’t blurted my question out so forcefully. I thought of Kathleen asking Sophia if her mother was still alive. I thought it came out too harsh, but my tone sounded egregiously worse.

  “Lucille was my love. She died, along with little Rose, the day she tried to bring her into this world. I think Miss Dorothy cried as much as I did. No. No, that’s not right. She cried even more. She and Jim could never have any children and she was looking forward to mine like it was her own.”

  “I’m sorry.” It sounded even weaker than the first time I said it.

  He gave me a dismissive smile. “It was all a long time ago. But you know, I always wondered what it would have been like to raise a little girl. For some reason, that’s the thought I can’t get out of my head.” He leaned in just a little and brought his volume down a couple of notches. “I never should have told them about that letter.”

  “A lot of good came from that letter.”

  “You know, we never talked about it,” Angelo said. “Except late that year Miss Dorothy told me the man who brought her the letter died. She wasn’t a woman who carried her sadness, but she carried that for quite a few days.”

  “November 29, 1961,” I said.

  “That’s right, but it’s the day before that I remember.”

  “The day before Theodore Sullivan died?”

  “That’s his name. I can never remember it. Yes, sir. Miss Dorothy was in the Keys for a few days, and I worked around the house that day and her phone just rang and rang and rang. I didn’t know if I should answer it or not. I don’t know…it just didn’t seem my place.” Angelo leaned in even closer to me. “You don’t think, do you, Mr. Jake, that that phone ringing, like an alarm clock in an empty house, had anything to do with Mr. Sullivan?”

  “I can’t see how.” And then, because of my desire to not have Angelo dwell on what might have been I asked, “Did you tell Miss Dorothy?”

  “I should have,” he said. “I should have, shouldn’t I?”

  “I wouldn’t give it a second thought.” As heard my words I knew that he’d given it decades of thought. I wanted to change direction and remembered seeing an older man picking up sticks when I first went to the museum, and although I didn’t get a good look at him, I’d make him any day for the old man sitting next to me.

  “Do you ever go back to the old house?” I asked him. “It’s a museum now, as I’m sure you know.”

  “No. It was just too sad after Miss Dorothy died.” He looked away from me for the second time.

  I let it go.

  “Where do you live now?”

  “Well,” Angelo smiled at me and sa
t up even straighter, “in my mind, I guess, I am still there with Miss Dorothy and my Lucille. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t get much out of the noise of the world. Miss Dorothy used to swim at night out in the Gulf. She said that when she swam, she lost sense of time and Jim was there in the water with her. Said that all those days came back, and everything she ever knew or experienced was there in the water like it was just waiting for her. I don’t do much swimming, but all my lost days stay in my heart and I choose where and when to live, and when I’m at the…I still live with my Lucille and work for Miss Dorothy. Yes, sir. That is where I live. Where I float and kick and the days aren’t lost.”

  Chad circled back in front of me. “That not hit the spot, Jake?” My greyhound, in my bar space in front of me, had been largely ignored.

  “A little sweet,” I said.

  “Make you something else?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Try it at home with fresh-squeezed red grapefruit, it’s a whole new concoction. Not nearly as sweet.”

  “I’ll do that.” He moved on, sensing my lack of enthusiasm, and I felt bad for not talking more to him. Lord knows he’s listened to me plenty of times, whether he wanted to or not.

  “Did you ever love anyone else?” I don’t know where it came from or why I valued this man’s opinion, other than I was at that point where I would take anyone’s opinion over mine.

  “Oh no.” Angelo shook his head. “You only love once in your life, or it is not true love. Miss Dorothy and I talked about that. If you are lucky, she said, love kisses you once.” Angelo spoke as if he was reciting a deeply held mantra. “I am a lucky man. I carry memories that most people can only dream.

  “Only thing is, that thing luck is an odd bird, Mr. Jake. Miss Dorothy told me once that she thought it took plain old luck to live to an old age. But when she got there she knew more dead people than living, and now that I’m there I know that to be true and I wonder what type of luck you call that.”

  Sweet or not, I needed a stiff one. I grabbed my drink and took a healthy swig.

  “I’m glad you’re happy,” I said, not being able to come up with anything better and thinking how poor it sounded. Angelo looked at his feet, and I congratulated myself on screwing up such a simple rejoinder. “Angelo?” But his head was down for the third time, and for some reason it seemed the saddest damn thing, and I wondered if he regretted taking flabby guy’s seat.

  “After Lucille and Rose died, I never left these islands,” he said with his head still bent. “When I was young,” he said softly and then stopped. The bar noise was that much louder. I wished to hell that they all would just go away.

  “When I was young,” Angelo’s voice came from down a long road, “I was afraid of dying before I had a chance to live, and now that I am an old man, I am afraid of dying without ever having lived.”

  It floated out as a melodic drift, the bastard child of music and words, and after that symphony of a sentence, I drained my glass. I wished there was more. But I had work to do. Angelo had sparked an idea, and when the stallion of opportunity comes galloping by, you’ve got to throw your ass on the saddle, because it does not slow down.

  “If you do not mind,” Angelo said as he looked back to me, “what was that letter about?”

  “You said she never mentioned it again?”

  “No, sir. I don’t think she cared. I think she was trying to leave all that behind her.”

  “Did she assume there was just the single letter inside?”

  “Yes, sir, for all I know.”

  “It wasn’t about anything. Not anymore.”

  My turn to look away from him. A wedding party trudged through the sand, and one of the elderly guests was in a wheelchair. It was modified with large wide black tires, and the young man in a dark suit behind it leaned in hard, but only seemed to push it deeper into the sand.

  “You want to see a little of the world?” I asked when I returned to him.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Would you like to travel?”

  “It would be nice. I don’t feel old. Fact is I feel pretty good. Lucille and Dorothy have been telling me I still got a long way to run. Listen to me.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “You probably think I am an old man that has gone nuts.”

  “No, Angelo. I don’t think you’re an old nut. I think you’re a young nut.”

  We both got a chuckle out of that, and then I gave him my plan and told him that he didn’t have much time to think about it. He said he had been thinking about it for thirty years and asked if that was enough time. I inquired if I could do anything for him after he was gone.

  “Not really,” he said.

  “Are your certain? I don’t mind the least.”

  “Well, you could take care of Hadley III,” he said. “She’s old and stuck in her ways and probably be happier staying here. I could leave her with the neighbor woman, but she does not like Hadley bringing her mice and birds, and Hadley don’t like her at all. Those two just don’t hum the same song.”

  “And Hadley is?”

  “Hadley III. I don’t want to be disrespectful of the two before her. She’s my cat. I appreciate it very much. Sure you don’t mind?”

  “No. No problem at all.”

  CHAPTER 40

  It was the following evening and the second letter lay on top of the Copacabana ashtray where it had landed when it slipped out of my hands the previous day. I wondered if the letter found comfort resting on a relic from its own time and even though it was a total bullshit thought it worked for me.

  Morgan decided to sail at night, and Morgan was very comfortable with the night. Garrett planned to ride shotgun. I told him I could use a trip myself. He told me that I needed to face my problems and not sail away from them.

  What a chum.

  Angelo stood beside me with a blue-and-white Pan Am luggage tag on his suitcase. I wondered where he had gotten the tag. That bird hadn’t flown in a long time. His shirttail was tucked in, and he provided me detailed instructions regarding Hadley III. His excitement was tangible enough to scare the baitfish. Unlike when I met him sitting at the bar, I had a chance to see him moving, and his agile body was not close to his age. Angelo certainly still did have a long way to run. Apart from the excitement, he displayed no apprehension. No hesitation. Thirty years.

  I put Angelo on the boat and bade farewell to Maria and Rosa. I told them I would be down in a few months to visit them.

  Morgan assured me that his lady friend on St. Kitts insisted it was no big deal, even had a room awaiting them. That confirmed my belief that he had done similar acts in the past. As Moon Child pulled away from my dock, I got a glimpse of Angelo with Rosa on his hip. I thought how strange that when you think that life has forgotten about you it circles back in the most unpredictable and mysterious manner. I realized that I’d forgotten to ask Maria what she was thinking when she squeezed my hand as we faced Victor. I’d save it for my visit. Or not. I heard the main sail flutter and a dolphin blow.

  I changed into summer slacks and a buttoned shirt. I picked up the second letter, I’m not sure why, and stuffed it in my right pants pocket. I fired up my eight cylinders and drove over the bridge to attend the museum fund-raiser with Kathleen. It was about a mile away.

  A lesser man would have pedaled. But everybody’s concerned about the environment and natural resources, so I wanted to abuse them as much as I could. Let Mother Earth know that I was once here and didn’t give a damn. That way she knows that I feel about her the same way she feels about me.

  People spilled out of the museum’s front door and a small jazz combo performed in the side yard. I wasn’t in the mood for the shoulder-to-shoulder, hi-it’s-so-nice-to-meet-whoever-the heck-you-are scene. I headed to the old car.

  Dorothy Harrison’s 1959 Buick, as Kathleen said it would be, was parked directly in front of the museum. The deuce and a quarter had its top down, and a pair of geezers stroked her fins like they were copping their first fee
l in junior high. I circled the car and ran my left hand over its silky massive skin. A 747 could land on her hood. I recalled my earlier sense of puzzlement that recent events can so quickly fade and be cataloged with those of the distant past. But this was the opposite. The feel of the steel, the hardness of the perfectly formed surface, brought the past up to me like a powerful force rising off the ocean floor. Those events that belonged long ago erupted through the surface and washed over me. As if they were drowning me in meaning and importance to my life, but I could not see why or what was required of me.

  “You’re not coming inside?” Kathleen’s voice, once again, turned me around. She wore a black strapless dress that stopped just short of her knees and her hair was plastered tight behind her head. She looked like she was in the business of looking good.

  “Crowds and I don’t get along, and you’ve got a large one. A successful night?”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  Oh boy. Here we go.

  “Guess we will.” Great Zeus, is that all I have?

  “I need to be with the guests,” Kathleen said. Her eyes were as level and as noncommittal as her voice. She turned and strolled away.

  My left hand was on the deuce and a quarter, and I put my right hand in my pocket and felt the letter. It was like connecting two ends of a battery and completing a circuit. It hit me hard and just blew out of me.

  My mind, junked with random thoughts that rendered it barely operational at times, and my emotions, which knew no leash, were now joined and focused to their greatest capacity as if the whole world had been poured into a giant funnel and the only thing that leaked out of the bottom was a single word.