The Light

by Francis CoCo

  The Light

  by Francis Coco

  Also by Francis Coco

  Cheeking My Meds

  The Lady On The Rooftops

  “And no wonder for Satan himself keeps

  transforming himself into an angel of light.”

  St. Paul speaking of deceit

  2 COR 11:14

  “I form the Light and create the Darkness; I make

  peace and create evil.”

  Isaiah 45:7

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Chapter 1

  There are small towns and there are small towns. I’m living in the latter. I’ve spent time in small towns before, summers at my grandmother’s, for instance, who lives in a small town in Georgia, but I’ve never lived in a town as small as this.

  Fallcrest, Minnesota. That’s the town I’m in. It’s about sixty miles from Minneapolis. Why am I here? Well, that’s complicated. Actually, it isn’t that complicated. It all has to do with a guy. Doesn’t it always? Brian Neil. That’s the guy. We were dating, back home in Nashville. We’d met at the place we both worked; Sails Logistics, a trucking company and had been dating for almost a year. Things were getting serious. Very serious. He had mentioned marriage more than a few times, and had even inconspicuously asked my ring size, although he hadn’t yet proposed. He brought me home to meet his parents. Here in Fallcrest. And then he asked me to move to Fallcrest with him. He was missing home. He was missing Minnesota. He said it was the snow and the quiet and the simplicity. And I thought, Why not? What’s stopping me? And so, I came to Minnesota with him. We moved here. And then… and then, he died.

  That was two years ago. I’ve been here ever since, working at the small trucking company in town. Why haven’t I left? Gone back to Nashville? Everyone asks that. I ask myself that. The answer is, I don’t know. I’ll probably go back- eventually, but for now, I’m staying put. I’m not exactly sure why. I guess maybe because, like that old saying goes, when you don’t know what to do, do nothing. So, that’s what I’m doing. For the moment. Nothing. Just working and maybe even, just existing. Missing Brian- wondering how it is that he’d been found dead on the side of the road- that night- that horrible night. There have never been any clear answers. Never anything that has made sense. He hadn’t been hit by a car- there had been no foul play involved (according to the coroner) he wasn’t even drinking that night. He was young and healthy. And yet, he was found dead in the snow a few feet from his car. It was like he had pulled over, gotten out of the car and just, died. At twenty eight. It had been ruled natural causes- heart attack. But that had never made sense.

  But anyway, here I am. Working at Chippewa Express and living in a duplex in the center of town. Actually, it isn’t all that bad. I’ve come to like the town quite a bit. I would like it better, if Brian were still here but, I’ve come to find out one very important thing in my short life, and that is, that we have no control over anything. That sounds simple enough but I guess I’d never really understood that that was true until Brian died. He had been there one minute and he was gone the next. And so, I suppose I’ve had to accept what has happened and move on. Just like everything else in my life that has happened thus far, I have to accept it- there is no other alternative.

  I like my apartment. It has beautiful hardwood floors and a large upstairs bedroom with a big bay window that looks out over the cornfields. Like I said, it’s a duplex but mostly I’m the only one ever here as the woman who lives on the other side is a big burly truck driver and she’s gone almost all the time. Which, I like. When she does come home, she only stays a day or two and then she’s off again. So, I’m free to listen to my music as loud as I like (which isn’t very loud) and, if I have a fight with my sister on the phone, there’s no worry of having anyone on the other side of the wall hearing me. My sister is a few years younger than me and we fight quite a bit, which, is probably why I’m so hesitant to move back home. We fight much less when I’m a thousand miles away.

  I’ve made friends. Mainly, Angela, a girl from work and Max, who was Brian’s best friend since childhood. Angela works with me at Chippewa Express and Max is a bartender at Stitches, the main bar in town. There are two other bars in town but Stitches is the most popular. The three of us hang out a good bit. There isn’t much to do in this town but there is a shopping mall in Deerhedge, the next town over, and Angela and I go there and shop and get a coffee at the Starbucks and go to the antique store downtown, which has some lovely things. When we’re in town, we mostly hang out at the bar where Max works. I’ve never been a bar person because I don’t much like to drink, but I like the bar where he works because it’s small and dark and looks out onto downtown- where, much of the time, it’s snowing, so sometimes when I’m sitting in the bar, drinking a Kahlua and Creme, I feel like I’m in a snow globe. I’m the girl in the snow globe. Sometimes the snow settles and things are nice and quiet and then, sometimes, like when Brian died, it’s as if somebody picked the snow globe up and shook it- really hard- and laid it down on it’s side on the table. It feels like that, anyway.

  Angela is my age, twenty-seven. All the men go crazy for her because she’s blonde and busty and sweet. But, she’s very reserved. I’ve never even heard her curse and she’s never even had a sip of alcohol, according to her, and I believe her. When we go to Stitches she always gets a virgin Daiquiri or a virgin Margarita- never anything with alcohol. She’s only ever had one boyfriend in her life but they broke up a few months ago. He got another girl pregnant while they were dating. That girl’s name is Mary. She works with us at Chippewa Express and it’s a very uncomfortable situation for Angela. Now, she’s got a crush on Max. Max has a girlfriend so that’s not going to happen. His girlfriend, Lorelei, is a costume designer and lives in Chicago. She visits a few times a year but beyond that, there’s is a long distance relationship. And he seems devoted to her.

  So anyway, those are my friends; Angela and Max. That’s it. Actually, I think two friends is more than enough. I’ve never been all that social. Before them it was mostly Brian and I. Most times, it was only Brian and I. Sometimes I think they try to keep me busy to keep me from thinking of him. I hate to tell them that that doesn’t work. I think about him a lot. And I wonder. I wonder what happened to him, I wonder why it had to happen to him and I wonder what might have been had whatever happened to him, not have happened. But those are a bunch of what-ifs and you can’t live your life with what ifs.

  Chapter 2

  We were having a Halloween party at work. I was in charge of decorating the break room. Me and a girl named Robin. I stopped that morning on my way to work at the Shop n’ Save and picked up orange and black streamers and balloons and paper table cloths with jack-o-lanterns all over them. Robin brought paper plates and napkins and plastic silverware.

  I stood in stocking feet on the break room counter, on my tip toes, tacking balloons up in the corner. Robin was over by the refreshments table, sticking a celery stick into a Hidden Valley Ranch dip, that Tori brought. She pushed a chair out from the table and sat down and crunched into the celery stick.

  “Good?” I said, looking down at her.

  “Oh my God,” she said, “I used to make this at home. I’d forgotten how delicious
it was- really easy to make too, just sour cream and ranch dip...”

  I sat down on the counter and then jumped off. I slid my feet back into my ballet slippers which I’d kicked off and left beneath the chair in the corner. I came to work that morning in my Ugg boots but they didn’t go so well with the skirt I was wearing so, once I got to my desk, I changed into my flats. That’s one thing about the Midwest, when it’s wintertime, you might as well forget wearing cute shoes. At least you can forget about it when you’re outside.

  Robin reached for a brownie and said, “Don’t tell anybody that I’m eating this stuff, I know we’re supposed to wait until the party but I am positively starving...”

  Truthfully, Robin was always starving. Most times, she kept a twelve inch Subway sandwich in her desk drawer and when she thought no one was looking, she would pull the drawer open quietly and pull out the monstrous sandwich, take a bite and then carefully place it back into the drawer and slowly shut it. Actually, it was pretty funny to watch. Macy says that Robin eats her feelings. That may be true, but I’m not a Psychologist so I don’t really care to figure her out. All I know is that Robin’s appetite is strong.

  “You want a brownie?” she said, pushing a chunkful of brownie into her mouth and holding the plate up at me and raising her eyebrows.

  “No. Thank you, though.”

  She pulled the cellophane wrapper back over the plate and sat it back down on the table.

  “They aren’t so great anyway,” she mumbled, licking her fingers.

  Just then, Betsy came in, carrying a plate of little sandwiches.

  “Ham and Provolone,” she said, as Robin eyed the plate suspiciously. She sat the plate down and turned and left.

  When the break room door had closed behind her, Robin reached out and took one of the small sandwiches, “Just one,” she said and covered it back with aluminum foil.

  _____

  “Hey, we’re going to Stitches after work, right?” said Angela, coming up to my desk and perching herself on the corner. We still had an hour before time to get off work. I was planning on going straight home, changing into my bunny rabbit pajamas and drinking hot chocolate in front of the television until time for bed. From the large window that overtook our office wall behind her I could see that the wind was up- the leaves were blowing, whirling up in the air. Fall. My favorite time of year.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, looking up at her, “It’s a Tuesday...”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “You want to go because… Angela, he has a girlfriend… they’re serious...”

  “They can’t be that serious, he hardly even talks about her.”

  I was about to explain to her that that was never going to happen when she giggled and said, “Hey, I like your bush,”

  “My wha-?” I followed her gaze to the big plant that Sylvia, the owner’s wife, had placed behind my desk that morning. She liked to decorate the office. She thought of herself as a real Martha Stewart.

  “Isn’t that thing hideous?” I said, turning to look at it.

  “Is it fake?”

  “Yes, can’t you tell? Is anything in nature that green?”

  “It looks fluorescent.”

  I reached out and touched one of the plastic leaves, “It’s awful, absolutely awful.”

  “Well, she put an object d’art on the wall behind my desk.”

  “Dogs playing poker?”

  Angela laughed, “Close. It looks like those pastel paintings that hang in hotel rooms. Ugly as hell.”

  _____

  We walked into Stitches. Since it was a Tuesday, there were only a handful of people. Angela went straight for the bar, so she could sit and swoon over Max and I followed along behind her. Her crush on him was getting downright embarrassing.

  We sat down at the bar stools and Max, wiping out a shot glass with a towel, came over and said hello. He was cute. I’d never been able to look at him that way because he was Brian’s best friend (or he had been) but I could certainly see what she saw in him. Dressed in his red and gray flannel shirt and old, ripped Levi’s, I had to admit, they really would be an impressive couple.

  I didn’t even have to ask and Max made me a Kahlua and Creme and sat it down in front of me. He knew it was my favorite drink.

  “Thank you,” I said, “after this, I think I’ll have some chili… is the kitchen open?”

  Sometime it wasn’t. It really did just depend on if Morlen, the cook had shown up or not. He was the only cook. He was a manic depressive and sometimes alcoholic who refused to take his meds, so, most times it was a coin toss as to whether he was going to show up or not. When he did, he could cook his ass off and the food was delicious. When he didn’t, the only thing to eat were peanuts and Chex mix.

  “Kitchen’s open,” Max said smiling and reaching for a glass so he could make Angela a virgin Strawberry Daiquiri.

  “You’re the only girl I know who spends so much time at a bar and doesn’t even drink,” he said, as he slid the Daiquiri across the table to her.

  She giggled and leaned forward, both elbows on the bar, and said something about her body being a temple. Her long blonde hair fell down onto her shoulders and she flipped it back, in the cutest way. She was doing her best to be adorable. Max poured himself a shot of vodka and looked around before gunning it.

  “Drinking on the job?” Angela said, smiling and picking up her drink, “I might have to report you.”

  “Just one shot. It settles my stomach.”

  Angela and I sat and talked as Max tended the bar. Every so often, when he wasn’t busy he came over and talked with us. We talked about the Pharmacist, in town, who was on trial for murder. That was the biggest story Fallcrest had had in a while and it was a big deal. The Pharmacist was dating a lawyer, a woman in her thirties who was addicted to Methadone. He would go into the Pharmacy at night when everyone had gone home and steal Methadone and come back and shoot her up with it. When she’d died, it had happened in the Pharmacy-in the back room. The two of them had slipped in the back and in the dark, he’d injected her with the drugs and accidentally killed her. It was all over the papers and always on the news. It was shocking to me because, besides the fact that this was going on in the small town, it was the idea that she was a lawyer addicted to Methadone and shooting up, which, absolutely blew my mind. Two professionals being involved in such a hardcore thing was shocking, to say the least. That was probably why it was such a sensational story and why everyone in town was talking about it.

  At the end of the night the bar had cleared out and besides Angela and I, there was only one other customer, an old guy sitting at the end of the bar, half asleep, his arm bent and his head resting on it. An empty beer mug sat in front of him. Every once in a while he would let out a snort and with a start, would jerk his head up and say, “What?” and look around, before dropping his head back down and nodding off again.

  Max came out from behind the bar to where Angela and I were sitting at one of the tables that sat in front of the window that looked out onto the downtown area. We’d moved over to a table once Angela had grown tired of making eyes at Max. I think being on constantly for his sake was wearing her out a little. Once we’d moved away from the bar, she had relaxed, and become more like her normal self.

  Max pulled out a chair and sat down beside Angela and across from me and lit a cigarette.

  “Some guy was in here talking about some crazy stuff earlier,” he said, smiling and blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth.

  “What kind of crazy stuff?” said Angela.

  Max shook his head and leaned back in his chair, “He said he saw some kind of goblin or something in the road… said it turned and walked into the cornfields.”

  “Goblin?” I said.

  “People tend to do that before Halloween, I’ve noticed,” said Max, “they like to tell their spooky stories around this time of year, I guess cause it’s the season for that.”

  “Yeah but, a goblin? What
’s a goblin even look like?”

  Max laughed, “Hell if I know! I’ve heard it all, though. One thing about being a bartender, you hear all kinds of things.”

  “What did he say though?” said Angela, “about the goblin? What did he say it did?”

  “Eh, didn’t do anything really, it just uh, you know, was standing behind his car, a few nights ago, he said he saw it in his driver’s mirror but that, as soon as he spotted it, it turned and walked into the cornfields.”

  “How much had he had to drink?” I asked, “you didn’t let him drink and drive did you?”

  “Very funny,” Max replied, taking a drag and then leaning forward to smash his cigarette out in the ashtray that sat in the middle of the table, “I hadn’t served him anything, he hadn’t even been here. In fact, I’m sure if he were driving, he was stone cold sober.”

  “Is the kitchen closed?” Angela said, peering over my shoulder towards the kitchen door.

  “Yeah, Morlen closed it up and went home about twenty minutes ago– why? Are you hungry?”

  “I’m dying for something sweet… what have y’all got?”

  Max waved his hand, “You don’t want anything from here. As far as deserts go, we’ve got pie on the menu but, you don’t want it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because no one ever gets desert- we’ve got two pies in the freezer and they’ve been there since I started working here and God-knows how long before that.”

  “Why do they keep them?” Angela said, “Why not throw them out?”

  “Hell if I know. I guess so they can keep them on the menu? But if ever anyone orders a slice I talk them out of it.”