Almost Heaven

by Chris Fabry

  “What’s this about?” he said.

  I leaned forward and said, “It’s about Callie Reynolds. Do you know her?”

  The muscles on one side of his face tensed. He glanced at the door and I read that as an invitation. He said something to the men at the table and then followed me outside.

  “You her brother or something?” he said, following me to my truck.

  I leaned against it and crossed my arms. “No. I just know her. I care about her.”

  He scratched at his chin and dipped his head with each sentence, like a duck walking toward water. “Okay, then listen up. I don’t know anything. I helped her on the road once when her car slid into a ditch. That’s it.”

  “You never went on a date with her?”

  “I’m married.”

  “A friend of hers said she mentioned you. That something was going on. Not that I’m accusing you. I don’t care about that.”

  “Get out of here and don’t come back.” He pointed at my chest with a fat finger and turned to leave.

  I grabbed at the back of his flannel shirt. “Wait. I need your help.”

  He stopped and turned, leveling his eyes. “What you need to do is leave. You understand? Don’t bother me again. I don’t know anything about where she is or what happened.”

  I returned his stare. “How do you know she’s missing?”

  He glanced away and cursed under his breath. I stood there, my legs and arms trembling, and at first I thought it was my nerves or fear of getting hit, but as he walked back into the Dew Drop, I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast and my levels were low. I kept a plastic bag with a couple of energy bars in the truck, but when I checked it, I remembered I ate those the last time I felt the trembles.

  I stumbled into the bar, hunting for carbohydrates, my breath short. I could feel the blood draining from my face, like the last trickle of water in a dried-up reservoir.

  “There he is again,” somebody said on my right.

  I ignored them. “I need a Coca-Cola,” I said to the bartender.

  He looked at the men coming toward me. “You need to turn around and go right back out that door.”

  “I’m a diabetic,” I said. “I have to raise my sugar levels or I’m going to—”

  “You’re out of here,” one of Larry’s friends said. He grabbed me and threw me toward the door. I hit it face forward, but he opened it and pushed me the rest of the way out until I stumbled in the gravel. I threw out my hands to catch myself and cut them.

  He yelled something at me, but I was going in and out. It’s hard to explain to somebody who’s never been through it. Think about the time in your life when you were the hungriest. When you felt like you could grab a banana and eat it peel and all. That’s what it’s like when you go low, and there’s nothing you can do but try to satisfy the craving.

  There were two others behind the man. They stood at the door with their hands on their hips. I tried to get up but my head spun and I had to stay down. I prayed and asked God to help, and then I remembered the cake frosting in my glove compartment. I crawled my way to the passenger door and fumbled around inside, knocking out the tire pressure gauge and the title and insurance papers and some tissues. The music from the bar subsided and I noticed the men had gone back inside. I grabbed the white tube and unscrewed it. Just some of this on my gums could work its way into my bloodstream enough to keep me coherent. But when I got the top off, my heart sank because the end had to be cut off. I chewed on it, but it was too thick. As I reached for my pocketknife, I felt myself falling, my body needing a jump start just like the Ford earlier. My eyes blurring, air coming in short gasps, I lay back on the gravel and called out to God for help. Send me an angel, Lord. Send me somebody.

  I heard the “disappearing dreams of yesterday” line from “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and then saw a couple of cowboy boots coming toward the truck.

  Whoever it was bent down to me and lifted my head. It was a gray-haired man with an open can of Pepsi. He held it to my lips and I took a long drink and felt the sugar and carbs hit my bloodstream. I drank the whole thing in two gulps and sat up and belched, then said, “Excuse me.” I was still trembling, but that would give me the jolt I needed and send me up.

  The man smiled at my burp. “I had a son with the sugar diabetes, and I know what it can do to you. You got type 1 or type 2?”

  He had breath that would have knocked down a steamroller, but if this was the angel God could use, I was okay with it. I held up one finger.

  He nodded. “You feeling better now?”

  “Can I get another one?” I said, some of the feeling coming back to my body. “Or maybe orange juice? You think they would have that in there?”

  He smiled. “Just stay right here.”

  I pulled myself up to the seat and tossed the cake frosting back in the glove compartment. I made a mental note to get another tube that was easier to open. My body felt tingly and hollow, almost like I wasn’t really living in it anymore, just renting. It had been a while since I’d gone that low.

  The man came back with a can of cold orange juice and I sipped at it, wondering how low my levels had gone. I needed something solid. I needed to get back to the station and put on some new tapes. But I needed to find Callie more.

  The man leaned forward against the truck in the twilight. “You have many spells like this?”

  “Not in a while. I’ll go low when I’m home sometimes, but I’m always close to something that’ll bring me back. Just kind of got caught out here.” I stuck out my hand. “Billy Allman.”

  He shook with me, and by the shape of his hands I guessed he was a tradesman. Maybe drywall or concrete. “Pleased to meet you, Billy.” He thought a minute. “You’re not the guy with the radio station, are you?”

  “One and the same.”

  He chuckled. “Gotta tell my wife I met you. She listens to that all the time.”

  “Just don’t tell her where we were.”

  He looked toward the door. “What was that all about? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Larry so upset, unless he’s losing at poker.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I drink in the same bar with him every afternoon. If you can know a person that way, then I do.”

  “A friend of mine is missing. To be honest, I don’t know if he knows anything or not, but I’m just trying to follow the trail and it’s getting cold.”

  “A woman?”

  I nodded.

  He scowled. “Larry’s married. Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t talk to you. Probably thought you were spying on him for his wife.”

  “I’m not here to get anybody in trouble. I got a friend who hasn’t been to work in a few days who hasn’t missed a day in years. Her family is worried sick. I’m just looking for clues.”

  The man nodded. “Stay here. Let me talk with him.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to the gas station down the road and get a PowerBar.”

  “See you in a few.”

  He patted the front of the truck like you would the head of a dog you wanted to catch a rabbit. When he disappeared inside, I drove to the gas station. I needed to get a read on my levels so I could dose, but at least I wouldn’t be going low soon. When I got back to the Dew Drop, the gray-haired man was sitting on the step outside. He came to my open window and ran his tongue around his bottom teeth.

  “I might have something for you. It wasn’t easy, but I got Larry to tell me he saw your friend last Saturday. Said they got a bite to eat and talked. It was all innocent.”

  “Uh-huh. And did Callie know he was married?”

  “We didn’t get into that. But he did say toward the end of the talk, after they’d had a little to drink, they met up with another friend of his, and when Larry took off, those two were still together.”

  I grabbed a yellow pad of paper I keep on the dashboard. That Callie would be drinking at all alarmed me, but I wasn’t in judgme
nt-passing mode. I wanted information.

  “His name is Clay Gilmore.” He gave me the man’s number. “Larry wants you to make sure you don’t mention him when you talk with him. He doesn’t want any of this coming back on him.”

  I put the pad back on the seat and turned to him. “Scripture says the deeds done in darkness will one day come into the light.”

  “Does it now? You sound like my wife.”

  “I don’t mean to. I appreciate what you did. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t helped.”

  “You’d have made it, Billy.”

  I started the truck and it fired up like an old friend. “My guess is your wife at home is praying for you.”

  “I expect you’re right about that.”

  “Tell her I said hello. And tell her I’ll be praying for you too.”

  I put the truck in reverse, and he turned and stepped toward me. “One more thing I didn’t mention. Larry said this Clay fellow ain’t right in the head. And he carries a gun. You be careful, Billy.”

  22

  I went home and switched the reels, then checked my levels, which were above 400—not good. I gave myself a correction shot, wondering if what people said about the pump being so much easier was true. I barely had enough money for insulin and I reused my needles.

  I got on the computer and did a reverse lookup on the phone number the man had given. MapQuest showed me the way, and it looked like Clay lived in a remote area of Dogwood County. I called the number but there was no answer.

  It was dark when my headlights hit Clay’s muddy driveway, and I drove all the way up to the Massey Ferguson tractor that had been parked there for a while. Weeds grew all around it. The house was dark and there was no outside light, so I kept my truck running and the lights trained on the front yard. Calling it a yard was being kind.

  I made it as far as the tractor before an old hound came running out from under the wooden stairs, barking and growling. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight, and he sniffed at me like he was sizing up a T-bone steak. I held out a hand and knelt down. He darted away. Pretty soon he came around, sniffing at me and finally licking at the back of my hand. When I stood up, he growled again, and it was a good five minutes before I could get him to trust me enough to let me get to the front door.

  I knocked hard but nobody answered. That sent the dog to barking again. I went around the back and found some farm equipment the hard way. I cupped my hand against the window. There was a little night-light on near an old telephone and papers on a desk, but no one moved inside.

  I tried the door but it was locked. Same for the front door.

  “Callie? Are you in there? It’s Billy.”

  Nothing but crickets and a panting dog behind me.

  I thought about kicking the door in, but then I had another idea. I backed up and drove down to the road and went around the bend, then turned my lights off and parked where I could see the house. If there was anybody in there, a light would come on soon. I turned on the radio low, but I couldn’t get my station out here.

  Sitting there in the dark at the side of the road, I let my mind wander. I kept my eye on the house, waiting for any light to come on, surfing through the dwindling channels on the FM side and listening to the raised ionosphere do its number on the AM band, pulling in stations from Chicago and all over. But what was going through my head was that this whole endeavor had been a failure. I don’t mind telling you that I believed the station would be a lot bigger deal than it has become. The fact is, it speaks to me every day. There is something in the music or the teaching that reaches down somewhere and makes my soul sit up and beg for more. But I guess not everybody is the same as me. Sure, I’ve had some people say that the radio station was important and helped them, but most people had only heard of it or maybe tried it once, and outside of the hollow, like here, you can’t even hear it.

  Sometimes God has his hand on people in spite of their trials. He walks with them through the fire and they know they are on the right path. At other times, God gives people over to their own desires, and the problems and difficulties they find are of their own accord.

  But then there are people like me, who think they are doing exactly what God wants them to do, and they plow through everything that is thrown at them and in the end they’re nowhere closer to God than when they started.

  That’s what I was thinking right then, and I guess the other thing, if I was to be honest about it, was that the love of a good woman had been wasted in the process. I had just spent the past few years digging a lonely hole, and there was nothing at the end of it but four sides of dirt and a long way to climb.

  You get to thinking that way and there’s not a person in the world who can pull you back. You have to come to your senses yourself through the power of God. His ways are not our ways. The way he guides is not the way we would do it. Look at Job and the senseless things that happened to him. In the end, Job found out that God was the one in control, even though he’d allowed Satan to buffet his servant. And every time I think about Paul chained to a Roman soldier or two, I keep thinking he must have felt like everything he was doing was just spinning his wheels in the sand.

  Once I got on that path, things made more sense. I wasn’t doing something for nothing, even though at times it felt like it. In the middle of all life had thrown at me, God seemed to be doing something good with my heart. Why was I out here in the middle of nowhere looking for somebody who was just a friend? Was God trying to tell me that Callie meant a lot more to me than I was willing to let on?

  I was about to get out of the truck and walk around the perimeter of the house again when two headlights shone behind me, coming around the bend. The car slowed when it got to me. I rolled down the window and could see by his dashboard light that it was an older man, unshaven, a bulge in his jaw.

  “Can I help you?” he said with a West Virginia drawl that would have curled a northerner’s hair.

  “Just looking for Clay Gilmore. He lives here, right?”

  The man spat moon-glistened brown juice onto the road. “Been right up there since the day he was born. Crazy Clay.”

  “Why do you call him that?” I said.

  “Not just me; everybody does. You know him?”

  “Not really.”

  “Figures. If you knew him, you wouldn’t be sitting down here next to his driveway. Boy ain’t right in the head, if you know what I mean. Comes and goes at all hours. We usually just stay out of his way when we see him coming.”

  “He have family around here?”

  He spat again. “Not a one. His mama and daddy died in that house and he buried them in the backyard the next day. Nobody found out about it for a few months when we didn’t see them sitting in their lawn chairs.”

  I opened my door and stood in the road. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. A woman friend. You haven’t seen Clay with a lady, have you?”

  He laughed and it rattled around in his throat. “Last time I saw a woman go near Clay’s house was when a female police officer came out here to investigate some missing person report. One of his dogs pert nigh took one of her legs off.”

  Something inside didn’t feel right and I got the worst feeling about Callie. “I don’t see his truck up there. You have any idea if he’s here?”

  “If his truck ain’t there, he’s not there.”

  “Know where he could be?”

  The man shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. I hear he spends a lot of time down at the Dew Drop. If it was in the fall, I’d say he was at the hunting cabin he has in Kentucky.”

  “He has a hunting cabin?”

  “Yeah, as if he needed it. We got enough deer and squirrels around here to keep the freezer stocked. That’s if you’re a good-enough shot. I hear the cabin isn’t much, but it’s remote.”

  “You ever been there?”

  He blew air through his lips. “Right. He’d never let anybody get near that place, I don’t think. Maybe so
me of the fellows he goes hunting with.”

  “Like who?”

  He spat again and rubbed his chin with a hand. “There’s an old boy up the hollow who may have been there. Oakley Chambers. He went to school with Clay. Until eighth grade, when he dropped out. He might know something if anybody does.”

  He gave me the backwoods directions, including a tree I would notice and the driveway that had a gate at the end of it. I thanked the man and he drove away. Before I left, I thought about getting into Clay’s house and making sure Callie wasn’t there, but from what I could see, nothing had stirred inside since I’d been sitting there.

  * * *

  The glow of a television lit the inside of Oakley Chambers’s house. He was watching something on ESPN and carried a Coors Light can with him when he came to the door. I mentioned the fellow’s name who gave me his address and that I was trying to locate Clay Gilmore.

  He tossed the can past me into the yard. “What for? You trying to dig yourself an early grave?”

  “Not at all. I’m trying to find a friend of mine. Somebody said Clay might know where she is.”

  “She?” he said.

  “Yeah, our mail lady, Callie Reynolds. She lives over in Dogwood.”

  He pursed his lips. “Can’t help you.”

  “Please,” I said, putting my hand on the door as he reached to close it. “Callie means a lot to me. The old guy said Clay has a cabin in Kentucky. Can you tell me where it is? give me a phone number?”

  “That place doesn’t even have electricity. No phone. And even if you could find it, your friend’s not going to be there.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Because Clay don’t take chances like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said.” He leveled his gaze at me. “You got a death wish?”

  “No, I’m just desperate. Can you tell me how to get there?”

  He shook his head and I reached in my back pocket. The man ducked behind the door and I put up my hand to show him I didn’t mean any harm.