The Stonefly Series, Book 1

by Scott J. Holliday

  Early Jenkins

  c/o Dover Psychiatric Institute

  52419 North Main Street

  Wixom, MI 42919

  The letter was addressed to Jenna Rose. Jake set it aside and picked up the bundled letters, flipped through them like pages of a book. They were all sliced open with precision, the work of a letter opener or a sharp knife. All of them had Motown's return address, but unlike the loose letter they were addressed to Frankie, not his mom.

  Jake slid out one of Frankie's letters. It was written on ruled paper with a red line going down the left side. He recognized the notebook type from when he was at Dover. Jake's own Dover notebooks were filled with tattoo drawings—dragons, flags, wings, pin ups, and as he recalled a lot of eight balls.

  Motown's notebooks had always been filled with handwritten letters.

  Jake would like to say he recognized his friend's scrawl, but Motown hadn't allowed him to read any of his notes. The closest he'd come to seeing Motown's penmanship was when he showed him the words cut into his skin. This would be the first time Jake read anything his friend had written.

  Dear Frankie,

  I hope you're getting my letters.

  It always feels weird to write that line because if you're not, you'd never be reading this, but if you are it sounds stupid.

  Anyway, I saw the flies you sent me. They looked great. They won't let me have them because of the steel hooks, but I can see them anytime I want. They hold them up from behind the desk and show me, and I imagine a big brown trout jumping up and chomping at them.

  We had blueberry cobbler the other day. It was okay, I guess. The best part was they had some leftover blueberries so they put them in the pancakes the next day. Sweet.

  I hope this letter doesn't smell smoky. Your mom tells me my letters smell smoky. Don't smoke, okay? It's bad for you. Your dad is dumb.

  Love,

  Dad

  The letter did smell smoky. The scent brought Jake back to Dover. Back to two-handed poker and the sound of Motown's maniac laughter. Back to daytime soaps and people that can't sit still. Back to his friend.

  He refolded the note and slipped it into the envelope. He then slid the envelope into the bundle and set the bundle back in the drawer.

  He opened the letter to Jenna.

  Jenna,

  I would love to say it was nice to see you the other day, but it wasn't. It only reminded me of a life outside of this place. A life I can never have.

  I don't hate you.

  I saw your bruise. You tried to hide it, but I saw it. You can't know how that feels. I'm glad I don't know who's hurting you. I'm glad it's not me.

  Frankie's ten years old now. Sounds like he's a good kid. He would help me if he could. He doesn't need to grow up as the boy with the nuthouse dad.

  I've asked you so many times. Why won't you help me? Imagine living every day in my kind of pain. Imagine sitting inside the walls of a prison from which you can never escape.

  God, I've written this too many times. Stop imagining and help me. Please.

  Early

  One part of the letter was underlined in blue crayon—he's a good kid.

  Jake's guess was Jenna had a stack of similar letters, somewhere stashed away. He wondered how many Frankie had found and read. Probably all of them. Jake imagined what he'd do if he found a stash of letters from his mysterious father to his mother. No doubt he would read them all.

  He put Jenna's letter back in the drawer and closed it.

  He left the house and went out to his truck. Fatigue set in as he sat down in the driver's seat. He put his hands on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. He could still smell the smoke from the letters. It was clear he was desperate when he wrote Jenna. The pen had been pressed hard into the paper. Three or four notebook pages below would show the indentation. He recalled Motown writing furiously with one hand, a smoldering cigarette in the other.

  Jake looked in the rearview mirror. He despised the man looking back at him. Early Jenkins was his friend, and he wanted to die. Jake had tortured him for that last year at Dover. He had dangled a carrot in front of him and then left him behind. If he had ever been any kind of friend to him, if he had ever had any kind love for him, he should help him now.

  He checked the time. 9:15 p.m. Visiting hours were over. They started again at noon. Frankie Jenkins would die at 5:07 p.m. tomorrow, just under twenty hours from now, if Jake didn't help Motown before then. If he waited until tomorrow he'd have the five hours from noon to 5:00 to grant Frankie's wish.

  Close to the bone.

  It crossed Jake's mind to go to Dover and shake the fences, pleading to get in, but that would look like madness. They might not just let him in, but check him in.

  No. It was time for patience. Ending Darnell Collins had been easy. He didn't have to think. The man was a kidnapper and a murderer. Ghost Mother, as it were. What's more, he'd been shot and was already dying. Jake had simply hastened him along.

  It wouldn't be so straightforward with Motown. He had to come up with a plan. For that he needed rest and time to think.

  He drove back home.

  45

  Ray Westerhouse was leaning against the bricks of the alley behind his barbershop. The shop's back door was propped open with a wooden wedge, allowing meager light to shine through and spread out on the concrete below. Jake pulled into his spot and got out of the truck, waved to Ray.

  Ray signaled for Jake to come over.

  Jake moved down the alley and came to Ray's side.

  Ray used sign language to say, "You still need a haircut."

  "Kinda late, isn't it?"

  Ray pursed his lips and shook his head.

  They went into the empty shop. On the countertops there were jars filled with blue Barbicide, combs, and scissors. They seemed to glow in the low shine of the single fluorescent overhead light and the barber pole twirling in the window.

  Ray gestured toward the first chair. Jake took a seat. Ray clipped a paper around Jake's neck, and then unrolled a fresh cutting cape. He flitted it over Jacob with a flourish. The air cooled Jake as the cape landed on him and gave him its weight. It had a clean scent, not unlike the scents Jake found in his own shop. It occurred to him, then, that the main difference between what he and Ray did was that he added to people while Ray subtracted from them. He was a painter where Ray was a sculptor. However, they shared the medium of the humanity.

  Most patrons sat turned away from the mirror while Ray cut their hair, but whenever he cut Jake's, Ray turned him to the mirror so they could talk. In the barbershop world, the talking was as important as the cut, if not more. Jake felt that most people should never need to visit a shrink, but just make sure they went for a good haircut once a month.

  "High and tight?" Ray said to Jake in the mirror.

  "Whatever you think looks best."

  Ray turned on his clippers and got to work. Jake couldn't hear the buzzing, but he felt it once the clippers touched his skin. It was another thing they shared—the buzzing instruments, the electricity, and steel against flesh.

  Jake closed his eyes to the sensation of the clippers moving across his neck, above and around his right ear, up his temple. Then the same for the other side. Ray's touch was confident and smooth. There were no unintentional movements, no guesses. He possessed the skill of a master craftsman. An achievement one could only earn over a lifetime of dedication.

  Into the mirror, Jake said, "You never told me about Tasha."

  "Sure I have," Ray said.

  "You told me the good things. You told me about her smile and her laughter, and how she tried so hard, but could never cook an over-medium egg."

  Ray smirked, eyes still on Jake's hair.

  "But you never said what it's been like since she's been gone."

  Ray stopped cutting. He engaged Jake's eyes in the mirror. "Why would I want to talk about that?"

  "I don't know how it would feel," Jake said, "to lose someone I love."

&nbs
p; "Trust me, you don't want to know."

  "But if I have to know?"

  "Is someone dying?"

  "No. But someone might."

  Ray returned to cutting. He finished the back and sides, and then moved on to the top. First, he sprayed Jake's hair down with water, then he pulled a comb through and cut back some of the length before chopping away volume with thinning scissors. Jake's hair remained long, but lost some of the bulk, making it more manageable. While he worked, Ray spoke, careful to keep himself positioned to allow Jake to read his lips.

  "The loss is stunning. At first you deny it, telling yourself that something must be wrong, you must be in a bad dream. You tell yourself this until one day—could be days or weeks later—you don't wake up from the nightmare, and finally you accept that it's real.

  "Next comes the guilt. The real guilt. The guilt that only comes after the flowers have wilted and the casseroles dishes have been returned. What could you have done differently? The big things and the little things. Maybe if you had never come into this person's life, they would still be alive. You should never have said hello, you should never have asked for more time with them, you should have let them go after that one fight. Or maybe if you'd just taken less time in the shower that morning, or if you'd made pancakes instead of waffles, took her out for breakfast instead of rushing out the door.

  "These things come at you and you play their game. You play because it feels good to accept the blame. It's the only thing that makes sense. You question everything. You beat the hell out of yourself until you realize it's no good. No matter what you could have done, or shouldn't have done, well... you didn't, and you did, and there's no changing any of it. Their life is over and yours is not. Period.

  "So you stop blaming yourself and start asking, what should I do now? All your life you were working toward this goal, to be with this person, to be a good person for them and with them. All your life was centered around this one thing, but now it's gone and you're left without purpose."

  Ray shrugged.

  "But what about this shop?" Jake said. "What about what you do for people every day? That's not a worthwhile purpose?"

  Ray lathered up the back of Jake's neck with shaving cream. He unclipped the neck paper and used a straight razor to shave away the hair down toward Jake's shoulders. Once he was done, he held up a mirror behind Jake's head, showing him the work he'd done in the back.

  Jake nodded. "Looks great."

  Ray rubbed some product over his hands and ran it through Jake's hair, slicking it back and forming it into a nice shape, but certainly one from a bygone era. Jake would shake it out once he left, but in the meantime he'd accept Ray's styling.

  Ray spun the chair, untied the cutting cape, and deftly removed it without getting hair on Jake or his clothing.

  Jake stood.

  Ray took his time putting his combs and scissors back into the jars of Barbicide. He brushed the hair out of his clippers and hung them on a hook beneath the countertop. When there was nothing more to clean or arrange, he picked up his eyes and found Jake in the mirror. "You want me to tell you that I found my purpose here, at this shop, don't you? You want me to say it's okay to be without Tasha because I have this place?"

  "No," Jake said. "I just-"

  "It's not that simple," Ray said. "I have this shop and it distracts my mind. I'm able to lean into my work and, for a moment here and there, I can forget. I can stand calmly and not feel the pain of loss, but it's only temporary. Once the lights go out and that damn pole stops spinning I go home to an empty house. She's not there, she never will be there, and there's nothing that can make up for that."

  "I'm sorry," Jake said.

  "Oh, hell no," Ray said. He turned to Jake. "Don't you ever feel sorry for me, young man. I've chosen this path, understand? I could have tried to replace her. I could have gone ahead and found someone else, maybe started a family and had some grandkids. I could have done those things, and maybe I should have. But I decided on a different path. I decided to let my pain consume me for the rest of my days. You don't have to be like me."

  "But what if the pain is too much for me, too?"

  "You're missing my point, Jake. What I'm telling you is pain is a choice. It's the choice I've made, but it doesn't have to be the choice you make."

  46

  Day Six

  At 5:00 a.m. Jake got out of bed and found his waders, his rod, and his creel. He tapped the hook patch on his chest, ensuring Frankie Jenkins's stoneflies were there. He picked up his phone and checked for messages, found none.

  He drove out to Dover and parked at the launch site at the middle branch of The Tobacco River.

  Cecilia.

  He stepped out into the dark morning and breathed in, acknowledging the secret pleasure that comes with being awake so early, with being active at an hour when most other people are still asleep, and with stepping off solid ground and into a river's flow.

  He stayed still for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once he could see, he moved slowly upstream toward a now familiar fishing hole. Being downstream, he wasn't worried about kicking up silt to spook the fish. He stopped well short of the hole, clamped the fly rod in his armpit, and produced one of Frankie's stoneflies. He tied the fly on and let it dangle for a moment, watching it dance on air. It looked as tasty as he remembered.

  The sun lifted an eyebrow to the world, and Jake could now see caddisflies pitching up and away from the water before dropping back down to the surface like yo-yos. The trout were casually feeding on them.

  Jake pulled in his line and kinked his elbow, sending the rod straight up from his hand. First a small backstroke, then a quick forward jab and he had the line up and arcing over his head. He acknowledged the purity in the arc, in the efficient movement. Another backstroke and Frankie's stonefly zipped by his head. With a final forward movement Jake cast the stonefly past the hole and let it fall and drift.

  The first pass produced nothing.

  Jake cast again and let it drift.

  Still nothing.

  He cast again.

  A fish hit the stonefly hard. Jake set the hook and let the fish run. It danced on the surface for a bit, flipping in and out of the water, then it settled and swam straight away.

  Jake started the fish back in, reeling slowly. It fought the pull, but the hook was well set. It flapped and wriggled, went this way for a minute or two, but soon grew tired. The struggle was over, and Jake had a solid, twenty-inch brown.

  Into the creel it went, and Jake moved upriver.

  At every hole up the river Jake pulled in a good fish. Soon his creel weighed heavily on his hip.

  By noon he had a bounty.

  As Jake rounded a bend he came to the Collins's dock. Just as five days before, Frankie Jenkins sat at the end. His knees were pulled up close to his chest. His arms were hooked around his legs. If Jake didn't know better, he'd swear he was looking at Motown. All the boy needed was a filter-less Camel and a devilish grin.

  Frankie saw Jake coming.

  "Rough night?" Jake said as he approached.

  "Kinda shitty," Frankie said with a smirk.

  "How's your mom?"

  "She'll be okay," Frankie said. "She's been crying a lot, but it'll pass. Nice haircut."

  Jake smirked and rubbed his hand through his hair.

  "You using them stoneflies?"

  Jake showed Frankie the interior of his creel.

  Frankie nodded, self-assured. The bruise on his neck was gone.

  "Shore lunch?"

  Frankie jumped up so fast it startled Jake. "Be right back." He ran down the dock and into the woods.

  Jake climbed onto the dock and set down his fly rod. He peeled off his waders and began collecting twigs and leaves for a fire. With a few rocks from the shore he made a small pit and got the kindling set up. Lastly, he dragged over a log for a makeshift bench. He sat down on the log and soaked in the sun. It warmed his skin. His body was humming as the quic
kening coursed through his veins. He acknowledged it, became one with it. He'd need the strength for what he must do. The plan had come to him like a dream. Such a simple thing, and yet still a long shot. It was just a matter of getting Frankie to help.

  The boy came back to the dock with a plastic grocery bag hooked over his wrist. In the bag was a box of Ohio Blue Tip kitchen matches, salt and pepper, a party-size bag of cheese puffs, and two bottles of Faygo soda—one Rock and Rye and one Moon Mist.

  "Think we'll have enough cheese puffs?" Jake said.

  Frankie looked at Jake seriously. "You can never have enough cheese puffs."

  Jake laughed while Frankie got to work on the fire. He had it going in seconds. Jake cleaned two of the smaller trout and put them on sticks. With a quick salt-and-pepper rub to either side they were ready to cook. He handed one to Frankie.

  The boy turned his trout over in the flames. His fingertips were orange from cheese puff dust. He looked at Jake and chuckled, noting Jake's upper lip was Rock and Rye red.

  Jake wiped it with his sleeve to no avail.

  Frankie's eyes went back to his trout. Delight remained on his face. He said, "What fish wears spurs and always shoots first?"

  "No idea."

  "Billy the Cod."

  "Good one."

  "I know a better one."

  "Let's hear it."

  "Really?" he said. "You want to hear it?"

  "Of course."

  Frankie looked into the fire as he spoke. "What do you call an alligator in a vest?"

  Jake thought for a moment, but found himself stumped. "I give up."

  Frankie smirked. "An investigator."

  They laughed and ate trout off their sticks like corn dogs, made it down to the bones in seconds. Jake cleaned two more and started setting them up.

  "My dad told me those jokes," Frankie said. "Well, I guess he didn't tell me. He wrote them in a letter."

  Jake seasoned a trout and handed it to the boy. "Your dad's a funny guy."