“It can’t wait. I’ve got a flight in less than an hour.”
“If you’re looking for a good-bye kiss, then forget about it. I’m saving up all my tokens for Elise.”
“I could really use a ride,” he said.
I gazed in on the warmth of the Stable, at my enormous collection of vinyl records and the pad of paper and pen sitting on the coffee table, void of any legible sermon. When I turned back to the driveway, Sean was still there. Darn.
“I’d consider it a mighty big favor if you could.”
“Can’t Gracie give you a lift?”
I had practically all but forgotten about the conversation I’d had with his wife a little more than an hour earlier.
“Please, I don’t have time to ask anyone else.”
I entered the Stable anyways, but only to find my wallet and keys, which I’d left on the kitchen counter. Perhaps it was just a bad habit, but I grabbed my mini tape recorder too. I discretely slipped that into my coat pocket, and when meeting Sean again at the front door, I lamented: “I’ll probably regret this.”
“I owe you one, I promise.” Sean had little time to spare. He visually combed the driveway and then the curb beyond, and said: “Where’s the Porsche?”
I smiled. “I’ve got the next best thing.”
c
RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC WAS ONLY a passing memory in Driftwood. The cool night air felt good as we passed over Ashton River Bridge on the outskirts of town, despite the wet dog smell of a paper mill, with its various jagged mountain peaks of twisted pipes and steam generating smokestacks. With the uninhabitable wetlands surrounding it, a lot of people thought the plant a South Carolinian eyesore. No argument here, except at night, when its illumination of lights made the entire city of industry look like a fantastical dreamscape.
The local airport, which was nestled among a cluster of modest hotels and fast food joints, was still as sleepy and humble now as its origins. There was only one terminal and runway, with a dozen outgoing flights each day, at best. One could literally park their car at the curb, check their bags in at the door, and be on the plane just beyond that, in ten minutes tops, which included security.
We were passing over the Ashton River, with the paper mill to the right of us, when Sean said: “I can’t take it anymore.”
I said: “That was fast.”
Sean tightened his eyes and lips. “This piece of machinery you’re driving me around in, what is it?”
“It’s a 1985 Ford Country Squire. It’s a classic.”
“No it’s not. It’s not a classic. It’s a nightmare from my childhood. How could you even consider pulling up to the airport in this thing?”
“I don’t know. I kind of think it’s so lame its cool now, which makes it hipster.”
“No, Preacher. It’s not hipster. Skinny jeans are hipster. Clunky shoes, bulky sunglasses, vinyl records and bicycles are hipster. But this….” Sean sloppily waved a hand over the consul. “You’re kidding, right? This is all a headache inducing joke.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Just to show that I wasn’t kidding I looked at him, emotionless, flexing both nostrils and then rolling my tongue like a taco.
“What is it with you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This….”
I said: “What’s this?”
“This-this….The lame car, dating the local church girl, aspiring to be a pastor over a small flock of close-minded religious hypocrites…..” He thought about it. “I guess what I don’t understand is, why you couldn’t seal the deal and bang her.”
“Who’s her, Elise?”
Sean scowled: “No, that girl at the bar.”
“You mean yesterday, at The Guide Dog?” I fumbled with the mini-tape recorder in my coat pocket. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m saving myself for marriage. And I’ve been putting a lot of thought into Elise lately.”
“That girl wanted you.”
“I wouldn’t have slept with her had I wanted to.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he waved me off with his hand. “You want to wake up with the same woman every morning until the second coming. I don’t get it. Here she was, intoxicated beyond her own discretion, blushing at the mere sight of you.”
I pressed record.
“She was blushing from the alcohol.”
“I swear she would have kissed the ground you walked on had you asked her to. I had her friend doing jumping jacks for me, in the nude.”
I stopped him. “Sean, we’re not hanging out together to pick up girls.”
“I know you liked her. That girl didn’t want your heart. It’s was lust she was after. Don’t confuse those two.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Chivalry is dead, man. Me, I’m open minded. I say do what makes you happy, so long as it doesn’t hurt others. Why would God give us something like a baby maker, a sexual organ on the outside of our body that demands thrusting and pounding, pleasurable stimulation and all around physical aggression in order to release, always release, only to hold it inches from our fingertips and forbid us from partaking?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Because you can’t.”
“All I know is, God examines our hearts and He rejoices when He finds integrity there. Maybe it goes against the current of nature, but I believe that. There’s a road for right living, and I’m doing the very best I can to keep on the path, even as it winds through the privacy of my home, where it counts.”
“I sense a sermon on the horizon. Jeez, Preacher. What I do in privacy doesn’t concern or hurt anyone. And maybe I’m trying to teach you a thing or two, like how not to be a wedged pair of whoopee cakes all the time.”
“Why does it bother you that I’m trying so desperately to keep myself pure for my future wife?”
“You know, it doesn’t. I don’t give a quockerwodger. But you know what, if you’re not going to siphon that girl from the bar, I might just take a plonk at her….”
“She has a name.”
“They all do, Preacher. All I know is she wants it. And if you’re not going to do it, if you’re not going to fork her….”
Only he didn’t say FORK.
“Don’t say fork.”
Sean waved me off with his hand. “…Then I will.”
“How does Gracie feel about that?”
Sean growled.
“What did you say?”
“How does Gracie…?” I didn’t finish my sentence.
“I know what you said.” His face had apparently reeled into the dark and ugly abyss while I was looking on the road ahead. “Don’t ever bring Gracie into this again, do you understand me? My private life does not concern her.”
“What if you get an STD…HIV…chlamydia…herpes? How would that be fair to Gracie?”
“My private life does not concern you or her and I don’t care about your rules.” Veins protruded from his neck and head. “You think you’re so morally superior to me in every way that you can hold me hostage to some children’s story fantasy. I’m not a child.”
I’m starting to think you are, is what I thought to myself as we turned down the street that curved in a u-shape around to the airport, then said: “Sean, what happened to us? We’ve changed.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m exactly the man I’ve always been. You’ve done all the changing. You should have stuck with sleuth work, peeping in through little girls’ bedroom windows and taking pervert pictures. The priesthood is not your calling.”
There wasn’t another living soul as I pulled up to the curb. I said: “How about we let the congregation decide?”
“Whatever.”
Sean slung the carry-on bag over his shoulder, the only worldly possessions he’d thought to bring, and grafted towards the Lilliputian sized airport. There was a single plane on the runway. It was clearly ready to depart. He advanced a single half-step then stopped where he stood, once more
spun around and said: “Look Preacher, I’m sorry if I got off on the wrong foot tonight. I really do appreciate the favor.”
“Are you still planning to go to church this Sunday, if you’re back in town? I could use the cheering section.”
“You’ll never drop this until I go.”
“Nope,” I said. “Where are you headed?”
“New York. Just please don’t ask why.”
“Business or pleasure?”
Sean grinned, “I’ll send you a postcard of the Big Apple.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question,” I said.
But before I could pronounce answer my question, both double-sliding doors clamped their teeth around Parker, thereby swallowing him whole.
Almost ironic, I thought, how Sean and Elise were taking the exact same airliner to JFK, final flight of the night, and the very place I’d just run almost a thousand miles from. I then considered my close proximity to Elise, the rejuvenating energy of her goodbye kisses, and the excitable enhancement of spiritual beauty that would surely be revealed with each loosened button of her blouse. Sean had none of those qualities.
I remained parked in place until the plane lifted off the tarmac, which I took as my cue to leave.
c
BEFORE TURNING IN FOR THE NIGHT I decided to check up on Michael’s progress with the booze. I parked the Ford Country Squire on my side of the oak-line street. It was only then that I noticed Sean Parker’s passport on the passenger-side floor, and on closer inspection, his wallet.
“That’s strange,” I said to myself, inspecting both objects on the short walk to Michael’s porch. “If he accidently left his wallet and passport in the car, why didn’t he come back for it?”
But I asked the far more perplexing question when opening the door to his house: “Why did he need a passport if he’s flying to Manhattan?”
c
THAT’S ALSO WHERE I HAD MY SECOND runaway dog sighting of the night. Michael Holmes was struggling through a terrible rendition of Dean Martin’s ‘You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You’ the moment I opened the front door. Holmes was sprawled out on the bathroom floor. The hound was making good use of smelling his butt while he was down for the count, and I thought: What a mess. Sweaty cheeks hugged the stump of porcelain, paying no mind to splatters of urine that neither he nor Desarae had gotten around to cleaning that week. Oatmeal-like bile surrounded the floor around his mouth. And much of what didn’t land in either the can or toilet ended up on his shirt.
“I’m drunk,” Holmes said without ever finding the physical strength to look at me.
“Well, you had me fooled,” I said.
“The floor’s spinning.”
“Liquor stores close by seven in this county.”
“I had Richie pull a bottle off the shelf at The Guide Dog. I decided I’d be better off drinking alone.”
That very bottle had yet to flee the crime scene. It was sprawled over next to Michael. This one too was a Kentucky Bourbon like the last. When I picked it up, hardly a serving remained.
“Michael, there’s twenty-five ounces in here.”
“It was half empty when I started,” he said.
“Let’s not forget to send Richie a thank-you note for his splendid humanitarian effort.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather you not see me like this.”
“Too late. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
It was a struggle lifting him up and off the floor. There were no pleasantries in his smell either. He weighed slightly more than me, and it was mostly dead weight, but I soon managed one arm around my neck, and then started our trek down the hall.
He said: “You know that scene from the Bodyguard?”
“Singing Whitney Houston while being carried in your arms is above my pay grade.”
He said: “How about the Lonely Goatherd then?”
I didn’t answer as I laid him out in bed. I ironed a single sheet over his body and then made a round trip to the kitchen, where I filled water in an E.T. glass that was originally sold at Pizza Hut in 1982, popped open a plastic bottle of Aspirin, and scavenged two mixing bowls of various sizes.
I nestled the bowls next to him in bed and said: “Here’s your expedition to the bathroom. Now where’s my goodnight kiss?”
“Don’t take this personal, but I’d rather kiss a hound.”
“That can be arranged.” I set the glass of water and four capsules on the in-table. “You know where to find me if you need either myself or the hound.”
The light switch was flipped off, and in the darkness Michael murmured: “Why is there a dog in my house?”
Before I could answer the question with a question of my own, because frankly I didn’t have a clue, Michael had fallen asleep, and the hound, – the very dog that had been vexing me all evening, had run away again.
c
OR WERE THERE TWO HOUNDS, I considered that thought while cautiously climbing the front porch of PREACHER HOUSE, being careful not to wake the beast inside by jangling keys or creaking centuries-old planks of wood. Maybe the entire town was being overrun by a militant overthrow of them.
Rather than unlocking the front door, I simply bent down on one knee and opened the mail slot. A set of eyes, nose and leather drapes for ears was staring right back.
The hound let out a woof.
The slot clamped shut and I said: “Just checking.”
c
SEAN’S WALLET AND PASSPORT were disposed of on the table with the stack of hundred dollar bills – I still didn’t know what amount. I half-expected him to call me up asking for them as I sorted through a bundle of wood that I’d snatched from the side of PREACHER HOUSE, carefully selecting the makings of a perfect fire. After arranging them like a pro into a teepee of sorts I struck a match. Three matches followed. The fifth took. Two ounces of Kentucky Bourbon were poured into a coffee mug. I put a record on then I sat down in the darkness, on the very couch where, only hours earlier, Elise and I had been pronouncing one very long goodnight kiss on, and watched the illuminating fire that I’d created dance across the Stable walls, all backed to the music of Keith Jarrett.
The silver recorder was then retrieved from my pocket. I rewound it, pressed the stop button at random, and then play. After a few seconds of snooping in on my own private conversation I pressed stop and ejected the tape. I felt dirty. I wanted Sean Parker’s soul, not Gracie’s money. I rotated the mini-tape in my fingertips for a time, and then without even granting myself premeditated notice, I obeyed my subconscious instincts and tossed it into the flames.
There was a framed picture of Joe Preacher on the mantle. I lifted that up and returned to the couch. In the photo my former partner had his arms around me. The thought that Joe would die in only a matter of weeks never entered our minds as we smiled into the eye of the lens.
I said: “Why did it have to be you, Joe? When the planes hit, and we were trapped with the heat and the smoke and the expiring screams of many, I was supposed to be the one to die, not you.”
Joe chose to smile back at me rather than say anything.
“I haven’t told you this yet, but on my first night here in Driftwood I saw this little girl walking right past me on the street. She couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, and she was sobbing. I asked her if everything was alright, and I’ll never forgive myself how, in the midst of those tears, she sobbed No, and yet I let her keep on walking. She was a cutter, Joe. I saw her wrists – fresh ones too.”
I helped myself to another sip of Bourbon.
“At night, when I finally face up to the impossibility of staying awake, I succumb to dreams of the North Tower. I dream of fire and smoke, good-bye cell phone calls, falling bodies, and blood. You know what it was like. I dream of my descent down a good many of the two-thousand steps that formed the stairwells of that tomb, and the pulverized steel and concrete that filled my lungs thereafter.”
“But then I dream of other things. I dream of that
little girl with the cuts on her arms. She’s wearing a flowing white dress, arms outstretched as she floats beneath the surface of the ocean, looking so peaceful in her own eternal journey. And yet every time her eyes open. She looks right at me. She begins violently clawing at my legs, manages to hook an ankle, and with all the desperation of a drowning victim drags me down into the abyss, looking very much now like the corpse I found on the beach this morning. It’s true. I saw her today, Joe. It’s her. And it’s my fault. I’ll never forgive myself for not helping her, all because I was trying to run from my own hauntings. And every night in my dreams, it’s with terror-filled pupils that her lips form the empty words which her water-filled lungs are otherwise unable to pronounce. But I can unmistakably make them out. She says: Help me.”
c
I WOKE TO THE BEAUTIFUL RING of my landline phone. Beautiful because I immediately knew its caller and, utilizing my best Tom Hanks impression, said: “Forrest Gump Dating Service, where life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”
Elise said: “Were you asleep?”
“After that goodbye kiss I could run a marathon,” I said.
“I simply had to call you the moment I arrived. Tell me about your night. I want to know everything from the moment I left.”
We talked without reservations, Elise and me, well into the blackest hours of the night. We talked about Desarae and Elizabeth, Andrea her mother, Sean and Gracie Parker and the sea that surrendered Britney. When we were finally through conversing, but not for lack of words, I hung up the phone and fell asleep on the couch with only the glowing ashy remains of my fire and the picture of Joe in my arms to warm me. And then I dreamt.
I dreamt of a good many things, everything that I’d just described to Joe. I dreamt on all of that and more.
Noel J. Hadley is the author of several books of poetry and the Preacher series of serial novellas. As a nationwide photographer he has documented weddings in almost every single state of the country. A former native of Southern California, he currently resides with his wife, twin sons, and dogs in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Sea Surrendered Her (Preacher Book 1) Page 6
