As they walked to the meat slicers, Ernie told Jeff the story of opening the sandwich shop, complete with due credit going to Cole for being his mentor. He told of his leaving the sewer plant and the remodel of the ice cream parlor. He even offered Jeff one of the sandwiches in the ice chest in the truck, an offer the ever-enthusiastic man declined. Cole watched as Jeff described the features, warranties and the pros and cons of half a dozen industrial strength commercial meat slicers ranging in price from just under six hundred dollars to one topping the twenty-five hundred dollar mark.
Ernie finally decided on the Merkel 829A Slicer at just over fifteen hundred dollars. Then it was off to the ovens. Cole was beginning to wonder why Ernie insisted he come along. Through the entire slicer presentation Ernie didn’t looked his way. Jeff answered all the questions, presented the shortcomings of the model Cole would have chosen anyway, and dropped a hint that the price was negotiable depending upon what else was purchased.
Ernie was in a world apart. The idea that he could bake bread in quantities great enough to meet the needs of the business that was running in his head was a thing to behold. There was no connection to the realities of this world. The consideration that he hadn’t sold one sandwich was not a factor. Cole tried without success to plant the seeds of moderation in an effort to keep him from buying something that could produce enough bread to feed the nation of Tonga on a daily basis. Jeff was even better at selling ovens than he was at selling slicers. All he had to say was The Buttercup Café and Molly’s Olde Fashioned Bakery purchased the Doyon JA14G Oven and that was enough for Ernie.
Cole tried to do a tally of what Ernie spent so far on the shop. He bought a sign, paint, built some shelves and bought a cash register. On the outside he spent, even stretching, maybe twelve hundred dollars. In the last thirty minutes he spent fifteen hundred on a meat slicer. The models selling for six or seven hundred would have easily done ten times what he would need. Now he was about to fork out twelve thousand dollars on a piece of equipment that would do nothing but bake bread. Before you could say “would you like a bag of chips with that?” Ernie purchased the Doyon JA14G Oven.
Jeff and Ernie said good-bye and shook hands like members of a secret society. The oven and the slicer were securely tied down in the back of the truck. All warranty papers and receipts were in a crisp new nine by eleven manila envelope in the cab of the truck. Ernie wore a navy blue G&L Equipment one size fits all cap. The big smile on Jeff’s face and the blank look in his eyes showed his head was busy trying to figure out how much commission he would make on thirteen thousand dollars. Cole leaned back, trying to stretch the muscles in his back before climbing into the truck for the four hour drive home. It was just before one thirty and they were on their way home.
Ernie slapped the top of the ice chest and said, “It’s a great day to be alive! Want a sam’wich?”
“Why not!” Cole replied, never being one to take the edge off another’s elation.
As they pulled onto the Cimarron Turnpike both men were lost in their thoughts and the delight of a corned beef and cucumber sandwich on a crunchy round roll. Cole rolled the taste around in his mouth trying to recognize the flavor.
“It’s lime juice,” Ernie said out of the blue. “I put it in the mayo. Gives it a kind of kick, huh?”
“I like it. Fresh and light. The roll’s really good.”
“Kind of a Kappas take on Dutch Crunch.” Ernie beamed.
“I think you got a winner!” Cole said, just before taking a big bite.
Cole wiped his face with a napkin and put it, along with the cellophane from the sandwich, in the little white plastic bag hanging on the cigarette lighter knob under the dash. Ernie hummed along with the radio, deep in thought.
The remainder of 1940 was pretty uneventful and Cole flipped the pages and read of days selling seed to farmers and nights trying to avoid Alma. George moved into Paula’s old room and settled into a life of reading books from the library and writing a book he kept locked in a box under the bed.
Cole read the last entry in the notebook twice. At first it was the list that caught his eye. How many people have made balance sheets of their lives? Here laid out in his own hand, George Sage cataloged the major events of his life and on balance determined whether he was damned.
January 3, 1941
Although I do not recall the exact date, this being a Friday night, I am somehow compelled to choose today as my anniversary. It has been one year, more or less, since I have had a drink. This would seem no mean feat for most of the world, but to me it marks a milestone of great importance.
I will take this occasion to do an inventory of my life. At the feed store we just completed an inventory to see what we have and what we lost. The boss says the only way to know if we are making a real profit is to see if anything has fallen through the cracks.
A lot has fallen through the cracks in my life so I figured it was time to see if I have had a life of profit or loss. To start with I will have to go back a ways because I lost three years before I got sober somewhere. They floated away in gutters along with the puke and piss of my drinking, carried away on my pride. If my life were to be made into a profit and loss sheet like at the store I need to take a look at the good things first.
GOOD
I was brought up in a wonderful family.
I had parents who loved me.
I never went hungry or cold as a child.
I had the love of my dear sister Effie. (I miss her tonight.)
Effie taught me to read and write.
I read the books of Charles Dickens. (Sometimes I feel like I’m one of his characters.)
I met and loved Mattie. (The greatest thing of all.)
Mattie and I had our girls Effie Louise and Lottie.
Josie, Connie and George born with Alma.
Moved to Colorado.
Father O’Malley took me in.
I got sober.
Came home.
Got a job.
Paula got married.
Paula said I would always be her dad.
One year without drinking.
BAD
Disobeyed Papa and Mama and played with Lloyd Perry as a boy.
Tornado hit Orvin.
Effie got hurt.
I took my first drink with Lloyd.
Spanish flu hit.
I lost Mama and Effie.
Papa went crazy.
Papa died.
I gave in to lust with Alma
Mattie left town.
Alma deceived me into marrying her.
My Mattie was murdered.
I got revenge.
Effie Louise died.
Drink took control.
18 good - 13 bad.
It seems to me that if sitting here tonight my good outweighs the bad in life, I show a profit. I place no blame for the things on these two lists. I had to choose which road to take.
I do have regrets. I should have been a man and married Mattie. I should have moved to California or Mexico or the back side of the moon to have been with her. Had I done that, we could be together now, Effie Louise would be alive and little Lottie would be with us. This does not mean I do not love my other children. The life they have lived I sometimes feel is not worth the living. I fear that living in a loveless home will give them a bad impression of what love between a husband and wife can be and that makes me wish that I had run from Alma.
Another great regret that I live with is the loss of Lottie. It would have broken Mattie’s heart if she had seen me leave Lottie with strangers. I am a coward. I should have faced up to Alma and ruled my home. I should never have given up my child.
I sent a letter while in the sanitarium to Thomas and Lucille Hardin in Orvin to try and find Lottie. The letter came back. One of the Sisters contacted the Catholic Church in Orvin and they were unable to find out anything about the Hardins. Now I will never find my little girl.
I know now my sins will keep me from heaven above. All
hope of ever seeing my Mattie again is lost.
Cole closed his eyes and let the notebook fall closed on his lap. He leaned his head against the side window and tried to picture the old photos of his grandparents. He saw his father’s face as he stood dressed in bib overalls in front of a raw wood wall. A wide toothless grin conveyed his excitement at getting his picture taken. His aunts gave the camera coy yet sensual smiles and tried to look mature. His grandmother looked at the camera with an utter lack of expression. Her lined face that no one would even be generous enough to call plain, though expressionless, told the world she was apart from the group she stood with. And behind the group stood his grandfather, tall and broad shouldered in a suit and tie, a fedora cocked slightly to the side with the brim folded down. A half burned cigarette hung from the side of his mouth. On his face was an expression that Cole always saw as toughness, with a devil-may-care sneer. He now understood it was the look of a man who lived a life of quiet loss and alienation; even when standing with his own children, memories hung on him like a choir of ghosts.
With the images of old black and white photos melding into the moving characters of a disjointed dream, Cole fell asleep. George was speaking in exaggerated thirties gangster slang and Alma was clucking and pecking at him like a cartoon chicken. Her hooked nose became a beak and her head darted back and forth as the staccato clucking shot at George. The boy in the overalls spoke to Cole in his father’s voice and told him not to worry, he would be fine. His aunts who he never met told him that Georgie told them all about his son the famous newspaperman from Chicago. Cole heard his voice trying to tell his father about Ellie and Erin and living in San Francisco. He tried to tell him not to judge his father too harshly and pleaded with the boy to reach out to him and love him.
A pothole on the highway jarred the truck and banged Cole’s head against the window and he sat up with a dazed expression.
“Sorry about that. I couldn’t decide which would be worse, swerving the hole in the road or hitting it straight on. Guess I thought too long.” Ernie smiled and shifted in his seat. “My ass is about to fall off. You ready for a pit stop?”
“Yeah, sounds good. How long have I been out?”
“A good two hours. You ever sleep at home? Damn. It’s like you got that narco disease.”
“Might be the company.” Cole flashed Ernie a toothy grin.
“The hell you say, you want to walk?”
“How far is it?” Cole teased.
“Next exit.”
“What?”
“Starbucks. Maybe that will keep you awake.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The two men went in to the coffee shop and Ernie was in full study mode. He bought three different pastries, took a menu, studied the counter, shelves of mugs and coffees, and even picked up a chair to determine the weight.
As they got back into the truck Ernie turned back and looked at the front of the store. “That is one hell of an operation.” He reached in the bag and broke off a piece of chocolate chip scone. “Little dry, but with coffee it probably is fine.”
“Think so?”
“Try for yourself.”
For the next half hour Ernie explained to Cole how the most successful coffee chain on the planet could be improved. Cole for his part sat quietly eating the pastries and thoroughly enjoying his mocha. He had truly created a monster.
They unloaded the slicer and oven at the shop and Cole was a captive until Ernie unwrapped each item, and plugged them in, and turned all the knobs and switches. Content that the oven would heat up, and the slicer would slice, they finally headed for home.
The welcome sound of gravel under the tires made Cole want to jump from the truck and run the fifty yards to the house. It was seven fifteen when Cole walked into the kitchen.
Weary from eight plus hours on the road, Cole tossed his backpack on the table, and went to the sink and washed his face and hands. As he dried his face he spotted his cell phone. He had completely forgotten about it. There it lay still plugged into the wall to charge. The little red light flashed telling him he missed three calls. Pushing the message button and holding the phone to his ear Cole waited to see whose calls he missed.
“Ten more days! Did you forget your phone again? Silly goose.” Kelly was call one.
“Gran’pa where are you? Gran’pa it’s me, where are you? Bye.” The phone beeped, number two was Jenny.
“Cole, call me when you get the chance. Any way you can get back here sooner? Chou got in a car wreck and I could really use some back up. Call me.” Chuck Waddell was the third message.
Cole was not in the mood to be chatty. His ears still hummed from the hours on the road. He probably had a half hour of good sunlight left so he got his bike and went for a ride.
TWENTY-ONE
The evening was warm and he worked up a sweat as he pedaled fast and hard back to the house. It felt good to stretch out his muscles and fill his heaving lungs. He thought he must have looked a ridiculous sight standing over the handlebars of a big butt seat beach cruiser pumping his legs like Lance Armstrong. It didn’t matter, there was no one to see, and so what if there were.
He showered and dressed in a Maxwell Street Blues Festival t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts and made his way back downstairs. He walked aimlessly around the house. He went from room to room looking for something, not quite sure what it was. In the office he poked around the desk and scanned the yellow pad of notes he made about “living in the country” for the article Chuck Waddell suggested.
Almost without thinking Cole tore the top sheet from the notepad and wadded it up. The notes smacked of a Mother Earth News letter to the editor. He realized he neither believed nor found what he wrote the least bit interesting. He tossed the yellow pad back on the desk and went to the living room. On the arm of the sofa was the book Kelly had been reading while she was there. The two-inch thick paperback bore the ominous title Death Stalks the Docks. A funny book for someone who lives on a floating house, he thought, scanning the back cover.
“A sinister stranger or member of the quirky community? The face of horror could be as close as your next-door neighbor. The small houseboat community of Seattle is terrorized by vicious attacks. With no clues or physical evidence, Detective Saul Carter goes undercover as poet in residence in this community of artists, old hippies and more than one old secret. Bestselling author A. J. Ryan brings his keen eye for detail, intriguing characters and spellbinding plot twists to the rainy northwest to tell this story of terror and suspense.”
“Oh brother,” Cole groaned.
The edge of Kelly’s bookmark caught his eye and he opened the book to the page it marked. She used a snapshot of him sound asleep on the back deck of her floating house to mark her spot. He had never seen the picture. A melancholy wave came over Cole; he missed Kelly terribly. He smiled at the image of him, dead to the world, stretched out in the hammock looking completely at peace, and closed the book.
He walked to the kitchen and opened his backpack and removed the three notebooks he took with him to Tulsa. George Sage was now forty years old. His children were nearly grown and another World War was about to start. The life Cole so closely followed through so much tragedy and so many years, was drawing to a close. There were far fewer years ahead of George Sage than behind him. In a mere fifteen years his life would end, and the writing would stop.
Cole walked the notebooks back to the shelves in the living room. The balance of the shelves had shifted. It struck Cole how many of the books he read. The left shelf now only contained six notebooks. The right shelf neatly displayed the years of journals that brought him to where he was. As he put the three Tulsa notebooks on the shelf a thought crossed Cole’s mind, just a couple fleeting phrases, a snippet, not even a complete thought really, but a revelation of sorts. In all of the notebooks there was not one word of George’s views of politics. Having built a career acting as a political watchdog for the little guy, challenging, dissecting and holding the
government accountable, Cole was puzzled why he hadn’t noticed something so much a part of his own life absent from the life he spent so many hours studying.
The six remaining notebooks slid down the shelf and lay at a forty-five degree angle atop each other. The dates, as always, were printed in a clear crisp hand on the cover, a level of penmanship seldom matched on the inside of the notebooks. Cole shuffled through and found May 1941, the oldest date, and pulled it from the shelf. At almost the same instant an avalanche of the five remaining notebooks cascaded over the edge of the shelf. Cole frantically tried to catch the notebooks on their way down but to no avail.
The cover split and popped off one notebook as its corner hit the floor. Another notebook laid sprattled, pages open to the center seam; a third was propped up like a miniature A-frame cabin. Cole bent to pick them up and as he lifted the little A-frame, a single tri-folded sheet of paper fell from its pages. Throughout his reading Cole found little if anything of interest tucked away between the pages of the notebooks. Here and there he found a ticket stub, an unidentified child’s drawing, and one or two newspaper clippings.
Cole looked down at the powder blue paper. As he picked it up he realized there were two sheets. It wasn’t just paper either; it was stationary, not expensive, but with a faint floral pattern showing from the reverse side. He set the notebooks back on the shelf and unfolded the stationary. A fine feminine script in peacock blue ink began just below the faint border of sweet peas. Cole read the salutation and his eyes flashed to the signature at the bottom of the second sheet. This was something special. He crossed to the couch and sat down and began to read.
December 23, 1956
Cole Dust Cole Page 28
