6 Short Stories

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  David grabbed out another cigarette and lit it. "I don't want you to die, too," he muttered.

  Fox snorted. "That makes two of us."

  *****

  The day before the first blow at the ammunition plant since 1985, David was moved off the production floor and given a desk job.

  Some people would have been thrilled to get off the floor and into a cushy job in the office. Some people would have sold their first-born child for a chance to break away from the dangerous, sweaty, filthy work of building bombs every day.

  But since David knew only too well why he was being moved, it was a terrible blow. He was being moved because no one wanted to work with him, because everyone on the production floor was terrified that one of these days his luck would catch up with him again at the same time that a bomb was in the room.

  So he was put in the office and told he'd be training for bookkeeping work. David figured that if he'd actually done anything wrong and given them an excuse, the higher-ups would just as soon have fired him and gotten him away from the place all together. He guessed that maybe they were hoping he'd decide to leave anyway.

  Just like that, he was off the work he'd been doing for eighteen years. No more building bombs.

  Surprisingly, as hard as the work had been, he missed it as soon as his butt hit the chair. He'd never wanted to be chained to a desk for eight hours a day, five days a week. He'd never wanted to stop doing the same work that his father and grandfather had done before him; it had made him feel connected to them, like he was upholding a family tradition.

  Mostly, though, David missed the friends he'd worked with for all those years...not that they would miss him. In fact, David had a feeling that they would feel relieved now that he was tucked away in an office away from all that explosive.

  The worst of it was, he had to admit that he felt relieved, too. At least he wouldn't have to worry about blowing up the friends he cared about, even if they were a lot closer to being ex-friends.

  The farther he was from those bombs, the better.

  At least that was what he thought.

  *****

  The next morning, he was sitting at his desk, playing solitaire on the computer, when the bomb blew.

  As it turned out, the girls in the office didn't want to work with him any more than the people on the production floor. They wouldn't train him, wouldn't give him work to do, and would barely even speak to him. One of them, Betsy Patino, was pregnant, and she conspicuously avoided walking near him or even looking in his direction.

  He understood why, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

  Around eleven o'clock, he was playing computer solitaire and the girls were all out in the hallway on break. David checked the clock for the umpteenth time in the past fifteen minutes, wishing that lunch would hurry up and get there so he could stretch his legs and smoke a cigarette or three.

  Then, he heard the explosion.

  It sounded like a sonic boom, only a dozen times louder. Like the eruption of a volcano might sound to someone standing on the side of the volcano.

  All the windows in the office shattered at once, blowing glass inward in a glittering shower. Bits of glass punched into his skin as he flung up an arm to try to shield his face.

  Seconds later, the shockwave rumbled through, knocking him from his chair, knocking everything in the office to the floor. His head struck the wall on his way down, and he slid into unconsciousness.

  And his last thought as he faded, as the sirens wailed all around and people screamed in the distance, was Thank God Betsy wasn't in here when all that glass went flying.

  *****

  At first, when he woke up in the hospital, David didn't remember what had happened. Disoriented, he looked around the room, trying to figure out where he was and how he had gotten there.

  Then, when he reached up and felt the stitches in his face, it all came back to him. The shattering glass biting into his flesh. The shockwave.

  The explosion.

  Later, a nurse filled him in. The look on her face as she talked to him was one of open disgust. Her hands, as they changed the dressings on his arms, were not gentle.

  Seventy-nine people dead. Dozens more injured, some critically.

  Seventy-nine. Like the year his father had died.

  Seventy-nine.

  He wept as he thought of them all, as he wondered what their names were. The next morning, on his way out of town, he read the list in the newspaper, and he wept again, right in the parking lot of the gas station.

  Judy Krulwicki. Maxine Lombard. Billy Webb.

  And one name in particular. He cried at that one, especially, though he knew before he read it in print.

  As soon as he'd gotten out of the hospital the night of the explosion, he'd driven to Fox's ranch. Fox Brazos wasn't there.

  And he was never coming back.

  *****

  David wasn't coming back, either.

  He'd done nothing wrong, had broken no law, had not even been in the plant when the bomb had blown...but he knew better than to go anywhere near the place again.

  He knew better than to show his face in town again, too. After driving out to Fox's place, he'd loaded as many of his possessions as he could into the Explorer, led Lucy to the front seat, and hit the road. If he'd tried to stay, the people of Clover, Texas would have moved him out the hard way anyway...maybe even the dead way.

  He'd take care of the rest of it later, from a safe distance...quitting his job, quitting his pastorship, selling the house. For now, the best thing he could do was get the hell out. Drive as far from there as he could.

  And never, ever come back.

  *****

  David drove from one cheap motel along the interstate to the next, feeling like a fugitive. For days, he thought only of the disasters he'd left behind, the death and destruction in his wake. Fox Brazos and the rest.

  One thing he took comfort in, though, was the anonymity of his existence on the road. He used his credit card to pay for things, but otherwise, he ceased to be Reverend David Halloran. People saw him, but didn't know who he was. They didn't know his history and didn't care. When he walked toward them, they didn't duck into doorways or make sudden detours to avoid him. If he said hello, they answered instead of keeping silent and casting an angry look at him.

  He was without a home, without a job, without his friends...but in many ways, his life was better than it had been in a long time.

  No one on the road knew that the people of Clover, Texas blamed him for the gas line explosion or the blow at the plant. It hadn't gone out in the newspapers or on the TV news, and how could it? No one could prove that his bad luck was to blame for the catastrophes. It would always be a fact in Clover, Texas, but the rest of the world would never know.

  So David ate in truck stops and diners and slept in ratty rooms and had terrible nightmares...but actually felt sporadic peace and normality. Humanity.

  And when he crossed the border into Louisiana, he felt the sweetest relief he could imagine. Just leaving Texas behind made him feel like he was through the worst of it. Like maybe he was throwing off the weight of the curse that had hung over him all his life.

  *****

  David drove onward without a destination in mind, just rolling away from the past. Leaving the interstate, he took to the back roads, wandering through the swamp country amid the cypress and Spanish moss.

  It was at a rundown snack shack in the middle of nowhere that he worked his first miracle.

  It was around lunchtime when he pulled up to the place and parked in the dusty strip alongside the ramshackle front porch. Rolling down the windows for Lucy, who was already panting from the heat, he got out of the Explorer and stepped inside the place. The smell of fried bacon lay heavy in the hot, humid air, and he suddenly realized he was hungry for bacon and eggs.

  At the jingle of the bell on the front door, a

  middle-aged black woman stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her
dirty white apron. The gold crucifix she wore stood out against the deep ebony of her throat.

  "Hello," she said with a smile.

  "Hello," said David. "That bacon sure smells good."

  "Why, thank you," said the woman. "I make a mean bacon and egg po'boy."

  "That's what I want," said David, nodding. "And a coke."

  "It'll just be a couple minutes," said the woman. She gestured at one of the four battered tables in the room. "Take a load off. Want some water while you wait?"

  "Please," said David, managing to muster a smile. "I don't suppose you could put some in a little bowl for my dog?"

  "Why, sure!" said the woman, looking past him to the Explorer outside the front door. "Oh, that looks like a beautiful animal."

  "Her name's Lucy," he said. Then, for no good reason other than that he liked her, he said, "I'm David."

  "Nice to meet you, David," said the woman, stepping forward and reaching out to shake his hand. "I'm Tonya."

  He took her hand. "Nice to meet you, Tonya."

  At the instant his hand touched hers, she jumped back as if she'd felt a shock. "Oh!" she said, wobbling unsteadily. "What was that?"

  David frowned. He'd felt nothing.

  "What was what?" he said, reaching for her elbow to steady her.

  She cried out again and jumped. This time, she collapsed on the board floor of the shack.

  David crouched down beside her. "Tonya?" he said, reaching to touch her but pulling his hand away, afraid that whatever he'd done would happen again. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes," she said. "Just a little dizzy."

  Slowly, she pulled herself to her feet along the edge of the little counter where the ancient cash register sat. "That was really something. Never felt anything like it."

  Placing her hands on her lower back, she stretched...and then stopped. Wincing, she gingerly turned at the waist, twisting first one way, then the other.

  "Well," she said, looking puzzled. "That's certainly something."

  "Is something wrong?" said David, worried that his Bad New Days weren't as over as he'd thought, and Tonya would be the latest victim.

  "Something's right," said Tonya with a smile. "I've had terrible back trouble all my life...terrible trouble...and now it's gone. It's just gone."

  David watched as she leaned back, then forward, testing her back. "That's great," he said, not knowing what to think of it. "Maybe you knocked something back where it should be."

  "Uh-uh," said Tonya, shaking her head. "It's just gone. Completely gone. You some kind of healer or something?"

  More like the exact opposite, thought David. "No, I'm not. But wow. I'm glad you're feeling better."

  "You and me both," said Tonya, and then she stepped forward to jab a finger at his chest. "Whatever you did, thanks. I'm in such a good mood now, lunch is on the house."

  David shook his head. "You don't have to do that, really."

  "It's the least I can do," said Tonya, rubbing her spine as she turned and headed into the kitchen. "And you're getting' a lot better than a bacon and egg po'boy, I'll tell you what."

  *****

  As he drove on through the rest of the day, David didn't think much about what had happened in the snack shack. Until he came across the accident.

  Rounding a bend on a crumbling two-lane in a dense stretch of swamp, he saw a pickup on its side in a ditch, steam gushing from the front end. Worse than that, he saw a man lying on the pavement, thrown clear by the crash.

  Pulling up behind the body in the road, David flung the door open and jumped out of the Explorer. Running over, he looked down at the man...and felt his stomach churn at the sight.

  The man's eyes were wide open, but there was no life in them. A burst of crimson spread out from beneath his long, gray hair, blood soaking into the gray pavement like water into a sponge.

  David looked away, then back. It was a terrible sight, but he forced himself to crouch alongside the victim, intending to say a prayer for his soul.

  "Lord Jesus," he said, extending a hand, placing it lightly on the man's chest. "Bless the soul of this child of God. Bring him into your kingdom, that he may share in the light of your precious love."

  David was about to say "amen" when it happened.

  The word caught in his throat. He pulled his hand away and fell back onto the pavement.

  He had felt the man's chest move.

  He had felt the man breathe. Once. Twice.

  Unable to believe it, David scrambled back over and placed his palm on the man's chest again. It rose.

  It fell.

  As David jerked his hand away again, he heard it: a sudden, sharp intake of breath.

  The man stirred and looked up at him from the pavement.

  "Where am I?" he said in a raspy voice. "What happened?"

  David smiled. "You had a fender bender," he said. "Nothing to worry about."

  *****

  That night, as he sat in a dark barroom in Baton Rouge, David wondered what he should do next.

  As hard as it was to believe, he seemed to have been given the power to heal. And not just heal.

  He was pretty sure he had brought the man on the road back to life.

  It didn't make sense. After all, David was the bringer of death and destruction. He had lost everyone close to him in one accident or another over the years.

  And now, all of a sudden, he was a healer. A resurrector.

  It did not seem possible.

  But what if it was? What if, after all the disasters that had followed him through life, he had been given this power? What if, finally, he had the ability to make up for some of the suffering that had occurred around him?

  What was the extent of it? How long would it last? Was it possible that it was gone already, that it had only been his for as long as it took to help Tonya in the snack shack and the man on the road?

  His head was so full of questions, he didn't hear the woman at first when she spoke to him from the next barstool.

  "I said, I haven't seen you here before," she said, finally catching his attention.

  David snapped out of his reverie and looked over. The woman was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, and pretty. She had long, blonde hair, parted in the middle and combed straight and glossy to the middle of her back. She had an oval face with soft green eyes and full lips painted candy apple red.

  "I haven't been here before," said David with a slight smile. "I'm new in town."

  "Well, I'm pleased to meet you," said the woman. "I'm Ruthie."

  "I'm David." He gave her a little wave with his cigarette hand.

  Ruthie ran her fingers along the low-cut scooped neck of her dress, drawing his eyes to the visible tops of her breasts. "It's a good thing you met me, David," she said playfully. "I'm in charge of hospitality for the city of Baton Rouge."

  "Oh, yeah?" said David, though he figured she was joking. "Then I'm extra glad to meet you, Ruthie."

  "My job is to keep visitors to our fine city happy," said Ruthie. "It's what I do best."

  "Well, that sounds like an interesting job," said David.

  "Oh, it is," said Ruthie. "Would you like me to make you happy, David?"

  David laughed. "You've made me happy just by talking to me."

  "Well, that's fantastic," said Ruthie, flashing a wide smile. "But I'll bet I can make you even happier. I'm good at my job."

  "I'm sure you are," said David, "but I better not. I appreciate the offer, though."

  Ruthie leaned closer and played with her hair, tucking it behind the ear on one side. "Are you sure you aren't up for a little fun? I'm telling you, when it comes to hospitality, I'm the best."

  "No, thanks," said David.

  Ruthie stared into his eyes. "I'm just talking about a little fun, David. Hands only."

  "Hands only?" he said, frowning.

  "It's perfectly safe," she said. "You don't catch AIDS from a hand job."

  Suddenly, David was interested...but not for the reason she
would have expected. Nodding, he reached for his cigarettes on the bar and drew one out of the pack.

  "You have AIDS," he said, lighting the cigarette with a match from one of the matchbooks on the bar.

  Ruthie shrugged. "Like I said, hand jobs are my specialty."

  David thought for a moment, inhaling from the cigarette. Ruthie leaned back from him, but her eyes never left his face.

  "I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll pay for your time, if you'll let me try something."

  Ruthie frowned. "What?" she said.

  "Take my hand," said David, reaching over.

  She hesitated, looking suspicious...and then she reached out.

  *****

  The next day, David boarded Lucy at a kennel and went with Ruthie to the clinic for her checkup.

  "I really don't understand what your fascination is with my doctor's appointment," she said.

  David glanced over from the driver's side of the Explorer. "I'm just curious," he said. "Nothing weird, I promise."

  "Too late for that," said Ruthie. "But hey, if it gets you off going to the doctor with me, then whatever. As long as you're paying."

  "I'm paying," said David. "And I'm paying for your appointment."

  "Really? Well, thanks." She was silent for a moment, and David thought he could feel her eyes on him, sizing him up. "You seem like an okay guy, David. I mean, who knows, right? But I guess you seem okay."

  "Thanks," said David, pulling into the clinic parking lot. "You seem okay, too."

  *****