Carbs and Cadavers © 2006 by J. B. Stanley.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the following people for lending their expertise: Anne C. Briggs, Deputy Kurt Jahnke of the Lane County Sheriff’s Department, my husband Timothy Stanley and the other fine physicians of Henrico Doctor’s Hospital, Barbara Hollister for her pie recipe, Judy Edwards for her equine info, Jessica Faust of Bookends, Inc., and Barbara Moore and Karl Anderson of Midnight Ink.
If more of us valued food and cheer and song
above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
—J. R. R. Tolkien, from The Hobbit
James Henry wrapped a towel around his formidable stomach and stepped onto the bathroom scale. He hesitated before looking down. He hadn’t weighed himself in over a year, but his new pants were growing tighter and tighter and several of his belts no longer fit at all. Finally, he steeled himself for the results and peered down, but he couldn’t see the numbers as the rotund, protruding flesh of his belly completely blocked them from view. This is what it must feel like to be eight months pregnant, James thought glumly.
He leaned forward, trying to read the scale without making the numbers on the dial jump around too much as he shifted his weight. When he was actually able to make out the results, James leapt backward off the scale as if it had suddenly caught fire. He frantically dried the bottoms of his wet feet and the sides of his calves, assuming that an extra thousand ounces of water must have been clinging to his body in order to produce such a number. Exhaling heavily, James stepped back onto the scale and once again examined the truth laid out in bold black-and-white digits: 275 pounds. He was more than fifty pounds overweight.
James sat down on the toilet and put his face in his hands. Over the last few months, he felt like he had been laid out at the bottom of an open grave while shovelfuls of dirt were thrown on top of him. First, his wife filed for divorce after a three-year separation so that she could marry a hotshot lawyer, then James’s mother died, forcing him to move back home to care for his sour, reclusive father, and now, on top of everything else, James was fat. The two things he had loved most—his job teaching English literature at the College of William and Mary and his wife, Jane—were both gone. Now he was an overweight, divorced, thirty-five-year-old loser living with his father.
“I’ve got to do something about myself,” he moaned aloud. “I’ve got to go on a diet.”
After weighing himself, James Henry finally got dressed and trudged wearily downstairs to make breakfast. He cracked three eggs into a bowl and mixed them vigorously with milk. The sound of the liquid slapping about in his mother’s tin mixing bowl gave him a small measure of comfort. Next, he poured the pale yellow mixture into a sizzling frying pan and then sprinkled the cooking eggs with parsley and a dash of garlic salt. He popped two bagels in the toaster and poured two glasses of orange juice while keeping an eye on the frying pan. When the surface of the eggs began to look crinkled, like a piece of plastic wrap, James expertly flipped the omelet and then covered its surface with a thick coating of shredded cheddar cheese. The toaster oven beeped. James pulled out the bagels, spread a generous layer of cream cheese over each crisp half, and then slid them neatly onto two chipped plates. He divided the omelet in half with the spatula, pushed a half onto each plate, and then called his father.
“Pop! Breakfast!”
Jackson Henry shuffled into the room wearing his usual attire: a faded plaid bathrobe over a pair of denim overalls. He glowered at the food laid out on the counter and then raised a pair of furry eyebrows as he bent over to examine his bagel more closely, a frown creasing his wrinkled face into deeper furrows.
“What kind are these?” he growled as he carried his plate over to the table.
“Cinnamon raisin,” James replied, spearing a forkful of egg. “Why?”
Jackson sat down at the kitchen table and scraped his chair loudly across the linoleum floor as he moved his thin frame closer to his plate. He began to pick raisins out of his bagel like a petulant child.
“I told you, I like sesame seed,” he grumbled, tucking a paper napkin into the neck of his shirt.
James sighed. “The store was out of those, Pop. I’ll get them next time.” He inhaled the pleasant aroma coming from his own bagel as he lifted it to his mouth. He loved the smell of cinnamon.
When James was a boy, his mother would have made homemade cinnamon rolls on a dreary October day like today. They would be waiting, perfectly warm and fresh from the oven, with rivulets of icing cascading down their steep, savory brown sides. When James came home from band practice and Jackson arrived home from a long, satisfying day’s work at Henry’s Hardware & Supply Company, the scent of cinnamon would fill the entire house.
It was the small things, like the aroma of cinnamon or the gleam on the tin mixing bowls, that made James miss his mother’s presence the most. She had died in August, just two short months ago. Physically, Jackson was perfectly healthy, but over the last decade, he had become more and more reclusive. After his hardware store was bought out by one of the big chain stores, something in Jackson seemed to wither up and die. He began to leave all of the errands into town to his wife, tinkering about in the back shed for most of the day. James’s mother complained that her husband barely talked anymore. He came inside for meals, which he didn’t finish, and to watch TV in the evenings. The only shows he watched were the game shows. He no longer read the paper or seemed to have any hobbies.
James had always assumed his mother would live to a ripe old age. She was vivacious and full of life, constantly working on some charitable venture or volunteering at the local elementary school. She walked three miles every morning and had never smoked a day in her life, so when she had a sudden
heart attack in her sleep, James was completely stunned and devastated. He knew her death marked the end of his life as a professor in Williamsburg. He could not leave his father to fend for himself, nor did he feel right putting him in a nursing home. James was their only child and his mother would have wanted him to move back to Quincy’s Gap in order to care for his father, so he did.
After painfully handing in his resignation to the English Department chair, James packed his old Bronco full with his belongings—mostly books—and gave the key to his cozy brick townhouse back to the rental agency. He took a final walk through the streets of historic Williamsburg, early in the morning before the crowds arrived, and marveled at how beautiful the trees looked lining the gravel road stretching toward the campus of William and Mary. The morning sun set the autumn leaves ablaze as if bidding James a fiery farewell.
He took the hint, filled up a thermos of Sumatra Blend at the coffee house, and then drove four hours west, to the hometown he only visited during Christmas and summer breaks. Boasting one main street and a population of two thousand Virginians, Quincy’s Gap was a picturesque burg nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. Settled beneath the impressive shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it was a pastoral, tranquil place where farms formed an emerald-and-saffron checkerboard when viewed from the air and horses roamed over hilly pastures.
In the middle of these farms, the town arose as a neat square of historic wood and brick buildings. Beyond the town proper were two strip malls. One was comprised of Home Doctor, the mammoth hardware store, and a Dollar General. The second housed the Winn-Dixie, the video rental store, a nail salon, pet groomers, and an Italian restaurant. Other than Dolly’s Diner and the drive-in movie theater, which only operated during the spring and summer months, all of the town’s shops and eateries were on Main Street. The tiny side streets housed the municipal buildings, lawyers and medical offices, and the three homes listed on the National Register that were open to the public for a small charge.
James Henry had returned to Quincy’s Gap just in time to fill the vacancy of head librarian for the county’s main library branch. His salary was sharply reduced from what he had earned at William and Mary, but his living expenses were, too. James moved into his old room, lovingly maintained by his late mother as a shrine to her only child. Every toy soldier, comic book, baseball glove, and even the tattered posters of various rock ’n’ roll icons were still scotch-taped to the walls as if James were planning to bring a son of his own home to play in his childhood room. But James had no children. What he had instead was a lot of heavy baggage—both emotional and physical.
His life-altering move had taken place almost two months ago, and James had come to believe that returning to Quincy’s Gap signaled the end of any chance of happiness. He would grow old in a place where he had spent torturous years as an awkward boy, followed by four more years as a solitary, unpopular teenager, and finally, as an unmemorable college student returning home during semester breaks.
Staring at his half-eaten bagel, James snapped out of his self-pitying reverie and shifted his weight on the uncomfortable metal chair with the cracked seat cushion and tried to read a newly released piece of historical fiction about a boy growing up in Afghanistan. He had a few minutes to spare before heading to work, and he desperately wanted to know if the boy would win the coveted kite contest so exhilaratingly described by the author. As James read, Jackson scraped his chair noisily away from the table and shuffled back to the den, leaving half of his egg uneaten and a completely pulverized bagel on his plate.
It began to rain just as James finished his breakfast, licking globs of cream cheese from his fingers. He peered out at the gray skies, checked his watch, and then fixed himself a tuna sandwich for lunch, wrapping it gingerly in tinfoil along with two dill pickle spears. He grabbed an apple and a snack-sized bag of cheese puffs and packed them all into his leather tote bag. Hesitating, he took a second bag of cheese puffs from the pantry and added those to the tote as well.
James loved cheese puffs. They had been his favorite snack for as long as he could remember. As a boy, he ate them at the movies, in front of the TV, and while doing homework. At the library, he now ate cheese puffs with his right hand so that his left would be clean enough to turn the pages of whatever library book he was reading during his lunch break. Even when he was a professor, he had often gotten the orange dust on his student’s papers, for he liked to enjoy a treat while grading essays. James was well aware that he had earned the nickname of Professor Puff, and though he hated the idea that the moniker had a double meaning, the satisfaction he received from the cheesy, crispy crunchiness of cheese puffs far outweighed what his students called him behind his back.
“Pop!” James called over the sounds of contestants screaming on The Price Is Right. “There are some cold cuts in the fridge for you to make a sandwich for lunch. And there’s some canned beef and barley soup in the pantry.”
Jackson didn’t reply, but James knew there was nothing wrong with his father’s hearing. In fact, he had grown accustomed to his father’s silence. Jackson hadn’t had much to say since he sold the hardware store, and when he did speak, his words were usually critical or strung together to form a complaint. James preferred it when his father was in one of his quiet moods. He wondered how his mother had put up with such morose company, but then again, she had had a way of bringing out the best in everyone.
Heading out to his Bronco, James ignored his reflection in the glass of the storm door. His handsome face looked swollen and weighed down by a rapidly enlarging double chin. He carried his extra weight well—it was evenly distributed over a big-boned, six-foot frame, but his stomach bulged far out over his waistline and his jowls were becoming a distraction. People no longer noticed his intelligent, golden-brown eyes, sincere smile, aquiline nose, or soft waves of nutmeg-colored hair. They became hypnotized by the shaking flesh on his cheeks, sliding their library books across the desk to be checked out in a bit of a stupor.
“Good Morning, Professor Henry,” was the chorused greeting that James received ten minutes later at the library’s front door. It was the same one he had heard every day since he had taken the job a month ago. Francis and Scott Fitzgerald, the twins who formed the library’s only other staff members, aside from a retired schoolteacher who worked part-time, were always waiting to be let in by the time James arrived at eight forty-five.
The twins were long-limbed, brainy bibliophiles who were given up for adoption at birth and spent most of their lives living in a series of foster homes. Luckily, they had never been separated, and the last of their foster homes, which was the one they lived in throughout high school, was a unique place. Their foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sloane, owned a bookstore and were die-hard fans of early American literature. The Sloanes believed that fate had brought them together with the brilliant young men named after one of their favorite writers.
Francis and Scott were encouraged to attend the local community college, and the Sloanes helped them acquire scholarships. The boys were so thorough in applying for grants and scholarships that they were able to graduate without any debt. Immediately after graduation, they searched for a job in libraries across Virginia in which they could both be hired together. Only Quincy’s Gap offered them both identical jobs.
Francis raised a lanky arm to hold the door open for James and then for his brother, who issued a forceful head bob in gratitude that shook his wild curls of unkempt hair. The young men had attractive faces well hidden behind thick glasses, and when they were not re-shelving books or helping patrons, both would be peering intently at a computer screen or rifling through the pages of a book. James immediately liked their quirkiness as well as their proficiency and punctuality. So far, things had run smoothly at the King Street Branch.
Perhaps living in Quincy’s Gap wouldn’t be all that bad, James thought hopefully as he tried to put the morning’s negativity behind him. The presence of the tidy stacks of books and the Fitzgerald brothers’
quirky optimism always seemed to lend him solace when he was feeling down.
“More cheese puffs, Professor?” Francis asked him as James emptied his lunch from his tote bag in order to store his sandwich in the staff fridge.
James nodded, slightly embarrassed.
“I’m a sour cream and onion chip man, myself.”
“Poor choice, F. Salt and vinegar is clearly the superior chip,” Scott quipped.
“Oh! Customer!” Francis exclaimed, hurling his lunch onto the rectangular table where the three men took turns eating lunch and reading. He strode out to the circulation desk while Scott carefully arranged everyone’s sandwiches in a neat row within the fridge. James could hear Francis whispering to someone even though there were no other patrons in the library. Once the clock struck nine, the twins would whisper until their shift was over at five.
Francis poked his head back in the staff room. “There’s a lady out there, Professor. She says she needs to ask you about hanging a notice on the lobby bulletin board.”
“Certainly,” James said, almost repeating a reminder to the twins that they could call him by his first name, but he had told them several times and they seemed determined to call him “Professor.” Truthfully, James liked the title. It made him feel dignified and more significant than a small-town librarian each time one of the brothers uttered the word.
Out at the circulation desk a woman was leafing through the latest edition of People magazine. When she saw James, she smiled in a friendly fashion and extended a hand bearing small, delicate fingers. “I’m Rosalind, the art teacher up at Blue Ridge High.”
James returned the handshake, staring at the young woman’s round face as he introduced himself. In fact, all of her was round. She had saucerlike brown eyes, large breasts, a thick waist, and wide hips that only tapered slightly down to short, plump legs. Her hair was a shiny black that reflected a pleasant sheen from the overhead lights and was constricted into a twist held by two lacquered spikes resembling a pair of chopsticks. Her skin was a very light tan, as if made out of café au lait. James looked back down at her petite hands, one of which held a neon pink flyer.
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