Hometown Favorite: A Novel

by BILL BARTON

  He could not remember when he had last opened his eyes or what he had last seen. Dreams and reality had concocted a strange potion of corporal images and the specters of nightmares. When the fog partially cleared, he perceived a subliminal form of angel and man holding the wet cloth and studying the effects of his work.

  "You don't look so good," the angel/man said. "You don't smell so good either" The angel/man spoke no words of comfort. Just like all the others. How many others had there been?

  "How about a bath?" the angel/man asked.

  Dewayne could not resist the impulse to chuckle, and a smile creased his flaking lips. The offer was too ludicrous. He had become so accustomed to the smells of his corroding flesh, the dank room, the medicines pumping the poisons into his system, all mixing in with the rancid smells of human and industrial deterioration coming from the great penal complex, that he assumed these smells could be in preparation for his future eternity. Could there ever be any other smell besides his putrescence?

  "I'll take that as a yes;' the angel/man said.

  Dewayne watched the creature, carrying a sack in one hand, go to the nurses' station just outside his door. He heard him smack his fist on the counter to get the nurses' attention off their manicures and social lives, and demand the ingredients and equipment for a bath. When questioned as to who was making such an adamant request, the answer was sharp.

  "An uncle, a friend, a former coach, and don't waste my time with any more of your stupid questions," the angel/man said. "Put these smoothies in the refrigerator. I'll feed him after I've given him a bath. And bring me some clean sheets and a new hospital gown too."

  The voice had provided a clue to the identity of the angel/ man, but when its tone had changed to a bark with the nurses, Dewayne instantly knew who had arrived. For the first time in a long time, Dewayne's flooding tears had laughter in its flow.

  The nurses must have believed the authority of the angel/ man and all three connections he claimed to have with Dewayne because the bathing paraphernalia arrived soon after the second smack of the fist on the counter, ending the brief Q&A between the nurses and the angel/man. Dewayne soon felt the warmth of the water and listened to the hiss and bubble sounds of liquid cleanser rubbed into his withered body.

  "I bet you've lost fifty pounds," the angel/man said, rinsing the soap off Dewayne's thigh.

  "Jake Hopper, what are you doing here?"

  "I think they really believed me when I told them I was your uncle."

  Jake Hopper was angel/man. Jake Hopper had cleaned his eyes and made it possible for him to see. Jake Hopper was washing the decaying flesh off his body. Jake Hopper was smearing the cleanser on the silver-dollar-sized bedsores on his bottom and back. Jake Hopper was cursing under his breath, while he scrubbed around the metal handcuff on Dewayne's wrist, about the medieval conditions of the hospital and the Neanderthal treatment he was receiving.

  "It's like we're in the Stone Age;" he said as he scrubbed Dewayne's bald head. "What is this place? Auschwitz?"

  He went from mumble to shout, which prompted the closing of the room door by the head nurse right after she dropped the clean sheets and hospital gown on the floor.

  "Finally they've done something useful;" Jake said as he rinsed the suds out of Dewayne's ears.

  "You know you're bathing a corpse," Dewayne said.

  "I'd heard that, and now my eyes have beheld you," Jake said. "Looks like you're going to deny the state of Texas the pleasure of executing you:"

  "The medical consensus is, it's too dangerous to operate, so the tumor is being shrunk to an acceptable size to keep me alive long enough to stand trial and coherent enough to hear my death sentence"

  "Sounds like you've got a plan"

  Jake marveled at Dewayne's weakened and degenerating shape. When he saw him last, Dewayne had come into his store with the strength and height of a Corinthian column. Now Jake was looking at a candidate for an eating disorder program. Jake worried he might be scrubbing too hard, but Dewayne assured him it felt good, almost like the massages he got from the trainers. It had been so long since he received this kind treatment, so long since someone had touched him in kindness, so long since anyone recognized he was still human.

  "Jake, tell me about my mother. What happened?"

  This bridge had to be crossed, and it was best to be swift and honest with his words.

  "They said cardiac arrest. When I got to her, she was gone."

  Dewayne imagined Cherie crumpled lifeless on the floor and he began to sob, but his eyes did not supply him with any tears. He emptied his sorrow in dry heaves, and Jake paused from giving Dewayne his bath and put his arm over his frail shoulders to support him until he had spilled his grief.

  In the midst of his weeping, Dewayne marveled that the one man who had shown him kindness by burying his dead mother was the one he had been angry with and rude to the last time they had seen each other.

  "It was a nice funeral;" Jake said. "I cleaned her house and closed it up and left the keys with the neighbors. I stayed drunk for several days and got sober long enough to sell my barbecue business to the first offer with hard cash, a barbecue chain with eyes on a franchise in Springdale. Then I went back to drinking and watching the news-it is a deadly cocktail-but I got so mad watching reports about you, I couldn't seem to stay drunk. I drank, but it did no good."

  "Why did you come to see me?" Dewayne's voice was desert dry.

  Jake sat on the bed and dried off the water and suds on Dewayne's chest. He pushed gently on Dewayne's skin, mopping the excess water, and each time he applied the slightest pressure of the towel down onto his chest, it felt as if he were pressing into mush.

  "To give you a bath, I guess," Jake whispered, and Dewayne laughed at the absurdity of the answer. But Jake continued. "And for the memory of Jesse Webb. I turned my back once. Won't do it again."

  Dewayne's laughter turned to sharp tears, and he covered his eyes with his bare arm.

  "You keep crying, I'll never finish your bath."

  "I killed my mama;" Dewayne said and lowered his arm from his face.

  "Cherie Jobe didn't raise a boy to kill nobody;" Jake said, a sternness rising in his voice that neither man wanted to hear. "Now I've been sober for a week, maybe a few days longer, hard to tell, but it's been a good stretch since I've had a drink, so I'm grouchy if you haven't noticed. Patience is for monks, so don't make me lose mine with stupid comments."

  Jake stood and draped the wet towel over the railing at the end of the bed. He collected the stuff he had used to give Dewayne a bath and left the room. A few moments later, he returned with a smoothie.

  "They don't know how to feed an athlete around here." Jake set the cup and spoon on the windowsill. "When's the last time you've been out of that bed?"

  Dewayne just shrugged his shoulders.

  "Then it's time to breathe those bed sores."

  Jake hoisted Dewayne's naked body out of the bed and helped him position himself against the windowsill, the dangling chain connecting him to the bed as a constant reminder of his prisoner status. The air flowed around Dewayne's body like a cool, soothing breath. His first taste of smoothie burned his raw mouth and tongue, and he had to spit a portion of it back into the cup, but he swallowed the rest. For the first time in weeks, he felt the pleasure of something flowing down his throat.

  As Jake finished making the bed, he fought to control his anger about Dewayne's appalling condition. He squeezed ointment on each bed sore and then fanned the application with the new hospital gown until it dried. He helped Dewayne put on the gown and guided him back into bed.

  "So now you've seen firsthand God's little morality play," Dewayne said. "Hope it was worth the drive from Springdale"

  "Is that your way of saying thank you?" Jake asked.

  "You can do me one last favor before you go. You can finish this now. You've cleaned me up for burial; now send me to my Maker."

  "That must be the smoothie talking."

&nb
sp; "The door is closed. You've driven everybody out. I'm ready. I'm chained up like my ancestors so I won't run off." Dewayne jerked the pillow from beneath his head and tossed it to Jake, belying his admission of weakness.

  Jake felt a jolt of alarm. He knew too well what despair could do to a man.

  "Put the pillow over my head. Finish it, Jake. Finish it. Finish me." "

  I never thought I'd be asked to play God," Jake said, kneading the pillow.

  "Why not? Why not play God, Jake? You're as good as anyone. The God I believe in has gone AWOL. `Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever' Who would write such a thing? Why would God want that lie written about him?"

  "I wouldn't presume. I don't know that much about-"

  "You know what I know? I'm universally hated for something I didn't do, but the funny thing is, I despise myself more than anyone ever could. I despise myself for ever being born. I despise myself for believing God really cared about me, for believing he watched over me. I feel like a fool, and I'm going to my grave without hope"

  "None of this is over till it's over;" Jake said.

  "Well, there's the quote for the day." Dewayne yanked hard on his prison bracelet. "Look at me, Jake. You may be the last person outside these walls who ever sees me again, who ever hears my voice. Take a good look. Listen real well. I'm never going home again. I'm never going to see my wife or my child or my mama again. I'm never going to play football. I'm going to one place, my grave, and taking my bitterness with me. Do you know how scary that is? Do you know how frightened I am?"

  "I can only imagine ... I can-"

  "No. You can't imagine. You haven't the capacity to come anywhere near imagining the horror I feel. I think about what happened to those kids. I dream about them so much, I sometimes think I actually did what they accuse me of, and that's the worst horror of all. I actually can imagine doing the crime. So I feel like I deserve all this ... this punishment. Why didn't I just die at birth? Why couldn't I have been born with half a brain or without arms or legs? I could have lived and died without ever knowing God went around looking for targets. Who is safe with this kind of God lurking about in the universe? Who is safe? My child wasn't safe ... my niece and nephew. Who is safe? Not even my innocent mama was safe. Her only crime was bringing me into the world. Do you know how much I hate God for letting her die with the last thought in her heart that her son had killed those children? She went to her grave believing her son was a murderer. I've never done anything ... anything to hurt my mother"

  Jake began to think this suffering was too much for one person to bear. It would be merciful to see this pain end. This was beyond human capacity to accept as life's offering with no way to fight back.

  "Have pity on me, Jake ... have pity. The hand of God has touched me, and this is what is left of me. I'd just like to know what God has against me ... and if all that's happened brings him some kind of perverse pleasure. I can say I'm innocent all day long, but who would believe me?"

  "Maybe me," Jake whispered. "Maybe me"

  As Jake began to shuffle toward Dewayne with the pillow pressed against his chest, an uncanny eagerness mounted within Dewayne, an eagerness to see the end.

  Maybe Jake is going to grant my wish after all, he thought. Maybe he will take pity on me. There would be such relief by so kind an act. For all the bluster from the outside world demanding justice and revenge, there would be more relief than disappointment were he to quietly breathe his last.

  Jake raised the pillow toward Dewayne's head. It was coming. Jake was going to do it, and Dewayne closed his eyes, prepared for the soft synthetic folds to conform around his face. He was calm. Fear had departed. He felt Jake's hand slip in behind his back. The agony was about to end. He resisted the instinct to preserve his life and blew out all remaining breath. This would make the passing quicker.

  But the course was reversed at the last minute. Jake's firm hand eased Dewayne forward and wedged the pillow behind his head. Jake placed his hands on each side of Dewayne's face and kissed the top of his head.

  "Find someone else to be God," he said and walked toward the door.

  "Jake ..

  Jake paused at the door and turned around to face Dewayne. "You had strength enough to toss me the pillow and strength enough to rail against God. Those are signs that let me know you have strength enough to live"

  Jake slipped out of the room, allowing the door to close on its own.

  Hathaway sat in his rental car in the parking lot of the Costa Rican National Bank in Dominical and checked his appearance in the mirror. Appearance was important when dealing with bank executives, especially when he was including them in a criminal investigation. Not only was appearance important but also timing. Surprise the executives early before the day gets started, and they cannot blow you off with the excuse of tight schedules. So Hathaway gave one last glance in the mirrortweaked the tie, brushed the dandruff off the suit coat, cocked his hat just so-before he walked toward the bank entrance just as the doors were being unlocked for the first customers.

  The bank executive who handled all international transactions was not a gracious or accommodating man and did not appreciate unannounced visits to ask troublesome questions regarding clients he knew very little about. All he cared about was holding and managing their wealth. When the executive's assistant informed him a Detective Hathaway all the way from Houston, Texas, would like to see him regarding a recent transfer to his bank of a significant sum, he bluntly told her the detective would have to wait. When Hathaway asked how long the wait might be, she smiled and offered him a seat, a selection of beverages, and his choice of reading materials, including English language magazines and newspapers. So much for Hathaway's theory of appearance and timing giving him an advantage, but he turned this minor obstacle into an opportunity-all a part of the constant need to adjust to any condition of the job. His line of work was not for the faint of heart, the impatient, or the easily frustrated.

  For Detective Hathaway it was time to use the charm offensive on Ms. Rachel Almendarez. It began with the verbal appreciation for playing the hostess when he accepted the coffee she handed him-she must be way too busy for such niceties-and then moved to the plea for knowledge of the interesting places one should visit while in Dominical, which then flowed into questioning her about where she and her husband went when in the mood for entertainment. There was no Mr. Almendarez or significant other, and with this discovery, the charm offensive intensified. He did not go beyond the good taste of complimenting her youthful appearance, which he purposefully estimated to be well below her actual age, but it got the desired response of a blushing smile and a sly admission he had been well off the mark. If he couldn't read clues better than that, he must not be a very good detective, she told him, and Hathaway went right to the edge of going overboard when he laughed at her goodnatured but personal jab.

  The door of the bank executive's office opened just as Hathaway and Almendarez were finishing their enjoyment of her joke. After a brisk handshake, Hathaway saw the executive would not indulge in chitchat nor was he about to invite him to bring his coffee into his office. He had hoped to be able to show the executive pictures from the crime scene and one of Tyler, always a good motivator for compliance. But this was not to happen, so he had to make his request in front of Ms. Almendarez. His conversation with her had been frivolous and flattering. His words now turned to murder and thievery, and he hoped this might work to his advantage since he was forced to raise this subject in her presence.

  Hathaway handed a piece of paper to the executive with the exact numbers, date, and sum he had received from his friend at Treasury and asked if the executive could verify the accuracy. He could do this without compromising international law; however, he knew the executive did not have to acquiesce. When the executive asked why, Hathaway explained the importance of such a transaction to his murder case. The executive remained disinterested in Hathawa
y's explanation, but he handed the paper to Ms. Almendarez and instructed her to fulfill the detective's wish. While Ms. Almendarez typed in the correct information, the executive spent the time looking alternately at his watch and objects on his assistant's desk, feigning interest in personal trinkets he had long since forgotten even existed.

  Once the computer screen verified the accuracy of Hathaway's information, the executive considered he had finished his obligation and denied the detective's plea to reveal who had received the funds and where he might find him. Hathaway took one last stab, showed both a picture of Tyler, and asked if they might have seen him in the bank at any time. The executive was quick to respond with a curt no, but Hathaway was not looking at him. His eyes fixed on Ms. Almendarez.

  "His name is Tyler Rogan, but he's probably using an alias;' Hathaway said. "He's wanted for triple murder in Houston.'

  The executive took the picture of Tyler out of Ms. Almen- darez's hand and gave it back to Hathaway. He was very sorry, but to his knowledge, this man had not been in the bank. With international law behind him, he bid Hathaway good luck as he escorted him to the bank doors. Hathaway watched him return to his office and close the door, then he turned on his heels and exited the bank.

  Still fifty feet from his car, Hathaway pushed the beeper unlocking his front door.

  He heard his name called and turned to see Ms. Almendarez waving as she approached him in the parking lot; she wanted to give him his hat. He might have one more shot with this ploy. She placed the hat in his hand and, without saying a word, began marching back to the front entrance.