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The Big Bang Theory

Prologue

A shovel can be a versatile weapon.  You can kill someone with it, and then use it to dig their grave.  And that’s what he’d done.  

He’d come quietly out of the trees into the grassy open space next to the stream, just a few feet from where the man sat on the red and green plaid blanket, his back to him, reading a slim, palm-sized book.  Another book lay on the blanket, and a small mirror, and the leavings of a picnic lunch; a peach, a half-eaten hard roll, a chicken leg, a can of cola, paper wrappers.  The sun glinted off the water that burbled and eddied around rocks and fallen logs, and there were sharp calls from the red-winged blackbirds perched in the trees or flitting among the branches high above.  The man on the blanket turned when he heard the snap of a twig underfoot, just as the other was swinging the shovel in a wide arc, but there was nothing he could do but start to lift a hand in defense.  The shovel struck the side of his face, fracturing the zygoma and the parietal bone, and he toppled over on his side.  He lifted both hands, but they were no protection against the shovel, which was coming from above now, and it came down with force on the top of his head, cracking the frontal bone, and sending a rush of blood over his face.  He fell to his back.  Then the man with the shovel stepped forward onto the blanket, jammed the sharpened point of the shovel’s blade into the other man’s throat, and pushed with his foot, as if he were digging a hole in the ground for a rosebush or a Hydrangea, ripping open the throat and the right carotid artery. 

            “You should have left her alone,” the man with the shovel said.  His shoes and the bottoms of his pants were stippled with blood.

            He dug a grave in the woods nearby, a deep grave that could be uncovered by neither animals nor weather. Into the hole with the body he threw the plaid blanket, the leftover food, and a book of poems by Emily Dickenson, sticky with blood.  He kept two of the dead man’s possessions, although he could not have explained why.

            “Justice has been done,” he said as he tamped down the earth with the back of the shovel’s blade.

Chapter 1

Lucky Lesinski glanced into his rearview mirror, and Goddammit! there was a cop car behind him. Sonofabitch!  The cop’s siren gave a quick werp-werp, and the rooftop strobe kicked on.  What now, for Christ sake?

It had been a perfect day for Lucky until then, although for Lucky the day was less than two hours old. It had taken him forty-five minutes to shower, dress, pack his suitcase, and vacate Room 26 at the Cherokee Motel. About five minutes to drive up the road to the Kopper Kettle, and another forty-five minutes to order and consume a small orange juice, two eggs over-easy with sausage links, hash browns and homemade toast, and linger over a second cup of coffee, one cream and two sugars, just the way he liked it.  Then ten minutes to gas up the Taurus at the mini-mart and be on his way. He was clean. He was full. He was optimistic. That wonderfully musty taste of an All-American breakfast lingered in his mouth, that salty, meaty, fatty, eggy, buttery taste, and Lucky even had a coffee-to-go cooling off in the built-in cup holder thoughtfully provided by the folks at Ford, coffee that would allow the leftover breakfast taste to mellow and soften naturally, and now he was headed south on Highway 43 out of Thompsonburg with the early morning summer sun, pretty as the pink inside of a clam shell, rising in a lake-blue sky.

            And the money.

            Tucked away in Lucky’s suitcase was a check for $300,000.  Made out to him, Lawrence Lesinski, Jr., payee.  A real cashier’s check, good as gold, payment guaranteed.  And another ten thousand in cash secreted in various nooks and crannies of his clothing, his suitcase, and his Taurus. All his, too. 

            The night before, his final night in Thompsonburg, Lucky had a pizza delivered to his room at the Cherokee Motel, and he’d talked the delivery guy into going across the highway to Cap’n Pete’s Party Store and bringing back a six-pack of Bud Light, and here’s five bucks for your trouble, why the hell not, Lucky was flush.  He finished two cans with his medium pepperoni, mushrooms and anchovies, sipping at a third can as he lay in bed, the lights out, the air conditioner on against the night’s heat, watching a movie about an evil doctor who did gruesome medical experiments on homeless indigents.  “I do it so others, maybe even your own wife, or your lovely daughter, might live,” was how the doctor defended his sinister activities when the cops closed in.

            Now Lucky was on his way out of town, without a home but not homeless, carefree, but not without dreams.  Perfect so far.

            Highway 43 out of Thompsonburg looked far different from the way it had when he’d left the first time, over thirty years before. Back when he was growing up here the road out this far had been a quiet two-laner with open fields and lots of trees.  Now it was a busy four-laner with fast food joints and muffler shops and supermarkets and discount stores and motels with swimming pools.  He’d barely recognized the town when he’d pulled in two days ago.  And he’d almost got away again. Almost gone. Past the Chop Suey joint that looked like some local business genius’s idea of a Chinese pagoda, painted red with a weird gold roof and a pair of stone Fu Manchu dogs standing guard at the front door. Past the dry cleaner that looked like a Swiss chalet and the bank that looked like a plantation house. Maybe it should have occurred to Lucky that some things weren’t what they seemed, and that his perfect-day-so-far might be an illusion, too. 

            Because then the cop, the siren’s werp-werp, and the red, white and blue strobes flashing.

            He pulled to the curb, killed the engine and watched in his rearview mirror as Deputy Perry Fiusko, for that was the cop’s full name as Lucky would discover the next day when he saw it in the newspaper, fussed with something inside his car, taking his time, fooling around, making Lucky wait. Then, looking bored, he finally stirred himself, showing a little energy, pushing the cruiser’s door open, Lucky noticing the Dixon County Sheriff’s seal on the door, a gold circle with a star in the middle of it.

            Lucky buzzed down the window, then watched in the mirror as the deputy approached.  A big one, at least burly on top, wide shoulders and a chest like an old-fashioned safe and upper-arms bulging against the polyester of his brown uniform shirt, the god-awful brown you only see on Sheriff’s uniforms.  Sheriff shit-brown. But from the waist down skinny, the whole effect being like a moose, Lucky thought, the big bulky top and the skinny, fragile-looking legs. 

But hold on.

There was something unsettling about the guy’s face, something Lucky could not quite figure out. That face, Lucky thought.  What’s wrong with that face?

And when the deputy reached the car and leaned over, lowering that face to the Taurus’s open window, level with Lucky’s face, Lucky realized with a jolt what the problem was. It was the nose.  The smallest nose on an adult male face that he had ever seen in his whole life, several decades of seeing noses, this one so small Lucky could only stare at it, slack-jawed, until he realized he was staring and tore his eyes away and snapped his mouth shut. The nose was that small. As small as the end of a thumb, the nostrils like the ends of soda straws.  And the proportions were all wrong. His face was broader than most, and flat, his cheekbones flat and high, his eyes wide-apart, his eyebrows pale gold, making his thumbtip nose look even more absurd, stuck there in the middle of that wide, flat field of pale pink flesh. The nose was so small Lucky could not understand how the deputy’s aviator-style mirror shades stayed in place, balanced so precariously on that tiny bridge, and God, Lucky was staring again, stop it!

“Your license, registration, and proof of insurance please,” the deputy said.  His voice was high and soft, a little rough at the edge.

“Not speeding, was I, officer Fiusko?” Lucky asked, reading off the deputy’s name tag.

Lucky was pretty sure this didn’t have anything to do with his driving. He’d been going maybe 35, dinking along in the right lane. Cars had been passing him. He’d been in no hurry.  He’d been feeling relaxed and leisurely in his new wealth and freedom.

“Your license, registration, and proof of insurance please,” Deputy Fiusko repeated in precisely the same tone of voice, the same inflection, like a recording. 

Lucky fished his wallet out of his back pocket, angling it so the deputy wouldn’t see the neat stack of bills it held, then pried his driver’s license loose from its little pocket and handed it through the open window.

“Didn’t run a red light, did I?” 

Deputy Fiusko took the license without looking at it and waited. Lucky gestured with his head towards the glove box, the deputy nodded, and Lucky leaned over, opened it, and took out the envelope that held his registration and insurance card.  The back of his hand brushed another envelope, a standard No. 10 white business envelope from the Lumberman’s Bank, sealed, that held twenty one-hundred-dollar bills. He passed the documents through the open window.

“Broken taillight or something, officer?” he asked.

Cars rumbled by, then a semi belching blue smoke, and a long flatbed truck with a load of bricks, kicking up dust. The sun was a little higher in the sky now, and bright yellow, preparing to do serious work.  The dreamy, perfect dawn had passed.

“Wait here, Lawrence.” the deputy said, and the face and the nose were gone.

Lucky hated it when cops called you by your first name, like they were talking to a child. Their own first name was never on their name tag... You had to call them officer, or deputy, something respectful. They got to call you Lawrence, or Larry. Well, Lawrence, you’ve been a bad boy.

As these thoughts nagged at Lucky, another thought, even more important than this casual first-name business peeked out from behind his annoyance, but before he could discern it clearly the thought ducked back, out of sight. He glanced into the rearview mirror and watched the deputy fiddling with something, writing something down, looking through some papers, whatever, and then the hidden thought jumped out, front and center, making Lucky’s breath catch.  This cop had known Lucky’s name.  He hadn’t looked at his license, hadn’t looked at his registration or his insurance card, took them without even glancing at them, and yet this stranger had known his name. He’d called him Lawrence.

Deputy Moose was clicking back up the pavement towards Lucky’s car.  His face appeared in the open window.

“What’s this about, officer?” Lucky asked.

“Take this, Lawrence,” he said, and handed a piece of paper through the open window, plain white paper folded twice.  Lucky took it. “Go there, now,” Deputy Fiusko said.

“Go where?” Lucky asked.

Deputy Fiusko held out the license, and the envelope that held the registration and insurance card, but when Lucky tried to take them, he pulled them back, out of reach.

“Go now,” he said.  “Understand?”

“I hear you.”

The deputy handed over the license and envelope, then moose-clicked back to his car, made a careful U-turn, and drove away towards the center of town.  Lucky unfolded the paper. At the top were the words RIGHT NOW!  Below that was a map, a few roads, a small square, probably a house, marked with an “X”, and an address.

Lucky should have ignored the piece of paper, just driven away, left Thompsonburg like he’d intended, this time forever.  He didn’t have to do what this Fiusko character ordered him to do.  This was still a free country, for Christ sake. The sun was a little higher, a little hotter.  He glanced at the map again, took a sip of his now tepid coffee-to-go, started the Taurus, waited for another truck with a load of bricks to pass, then pulled away from the curb.

Chapter 2

Lucky had grown up in Thompsonburg, but he wasn’t called Lucky until he was nine or ten. He was named Lawrence, after his dad, so everybody called him Little Larry, and of course, they started calling his dad Big Larry.  Thompsonburg started off with a different name, too.  A hundred years before, when it was little more than a few intersecting lines drawn on a plat map, it was called Green River.  But the lumber baron Jehosephat Thompson had other ideas, using a $10 wildcat note drawn on the Mechanics Bank of Louisville, Kentucky to bribe a dim-witted Dixon County land surveyor into changing the name to Thompsonburg.  And an impressive-looking bill it was, a masterpiece of the currency-maker’s art, big and colorful with lots of fancy engraving and official-looking curlicues and seals and shields and a portrait of someone who looked very important with bushy, white sideburns, wearing a high starched collar and a loosely-knotted necktie.  Who would not think such a bill valuable?  But alas, it was worthless, as the surveyor discovered too late.

About that time Chicago was rebuilding after the Great Fire of 1871, and the city needed lumber.  The stately white pines of Dixon County, growing towards the heavens since before there was an America, were sacrificed for the building boom.  Brawny men were needed, and brawny men there came, from Denmark and Sweden and Finland, Petersons and Andersons and Nielsons and Nelsons and Ericsons and Hansons, men with axes and saws and mules, and they laid waste the landscape, leaving an endless vista of wounded earth and ragged stumps beyond counting, bestowing on a handful of them immense wealth and power.  One of the fortunate handful was Jehosephat Thompson.

The Thompsons didn’t live all that long in Thompsonburg, just long enough for Jehosephat to get his lumber business going, build a mansion befitting a man of means and discrimination, and get his family’s names put up all over town.  It took about fifty years for Thompson Land and Timber to finish cutting, milling and shipping off several hundred million board feet of lumber to the Windy City, leaving nary a pine tree standing for miles in every direction.  But the gods of good fortune were keeping an eye on Dixon County.  About the time that the lumber ran out in the 1920s, a local farmer, Walter Mongo, discovered easily accessible shale and clay deposits on his property a little east of town, and Dixon County was blessed with its second great industry – bricks. 

By the time Little Larry was growing up in Thompsonburg, second growth timber covered much of the land that hadn’t been turned into apple orchards or soy or snap bean fields, and the Mongo Brick Company employed several hundred men and women, including Big Larry who was a foreman in the factory’s pug mill. 

Back then Thompsonburg had two main streets that crossed like a plus sign, and one traffic light.  While the town was awake, it acted like a regular stoplight – red, yellow and green both ways. At midnight it became a blinker – flashing red one way and yellow the other. One of the main streets, the one called Thompson Avenue, also called State Highway 43, actually came from someplace else from one direction and went someplace else in the other direction, a big city about an hour away to the north and the brand new Interstate Highway 96 about an hour away to the south.  The other main street, the one that crossed Thompson Avenue at the traffic light, was called Emily Street, named for Jehosephat’s wife, and it didn’t go very far in either direction, petering out into the farmlands of Dixon County in one direction and dead-ending into Thompson Lake at the edge of town, in the other.  Running parallel to Emily Street were streets called Margaret, Grace, Paul, Gladys, Caleb, and Julia – the Thompson kids, now all long dead – and then several streets named for trees – Oak, Maple, Elm and so forth.  Running parallel to Thompson Avenue were streets named First, Second, Third and so on up to Ninth, and then a series of streets named for famous universities like Cambridge and Harvard and Oxford. The Lesinskis lived at 401 Julia Street.

The tallest commercial building in Thompsonburg was the City Center Building, a grand three stories of yellow Mongo brick at the corner of Thompson and Emily. There was a branch of the Lumberman’s Bank on the street level and dentists and lawyers and insurance offices on the upper floors.  On the other three corners of Thompson and Emily were the Lakeview Pharmacy, which did not have a view of Thompson Lake, Emil’s Mobil gas station, and a Ben Franklin store.  There were a couple of cafés downtown too, the Sunrise and the Old Sveden House, and a six-pack of taverns, and businesses like a shoe store, a dry goods and haberdashery, and a combination hardware and feed store. And there were twenty churches in Thompsonburg – from Holy Roller to Episcopal and everything in between.  Practically every building downtown built after 1930 was made of Mongo brick. 

Two blocks east of the Thompson-Emily intersection was City Park, a square block of lush green lawn and stately elms, bisected by sidewalks corner-to-corner, with a modest circular fountain, something like a giant concrete cereal bowl, in the center.  On the park’s east side was the Dixon County Courthouse, and facing it across the greensward was the courthouse’s near twin, Thompsonburg City Hall.  The buildings had been constructed within a few years of each other in the 1880s at a cost of $30,000 each, both designed by a noted Grand Rapids architect in the Richardsonian Romanesque style of pillars and arched windows, made of deep red sandstone taken from the Jacobsville quarry on a Keweenaw Peninsula of the far north of Upper Michigan.  This same quarry had provided the sandstone used to build the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, according to the State of Michigan Historical Site marker.  The County Courthouse had a clock tower with a bell 45-inches across and weighing 2,564 lbs, made at the Buckeye Bell Foundry, which tolled the hour. It was a point of city pride that the four-faced clock had stopped only twice in over a hundred years, once when the two-story tall iron pendulum that moved it was disconnected and replaced by a shiny black electric motor about the size of two fists, and once when that electric motor was serviced in 1955.  The City Hall had no clock tower.

Little Larry loved the flying red horse on the tall pole in front of Emil’s Mobil, but what did he know of Pegasus and Medusa and Perseus?  For that matter, what did most folks in Thompsonburg know or care about such things as gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters.  They had their own lives to live. When Lucky was growing up there, everybody in Thompsonburg knew everybody else, as is the nature of the small town.  And everybody knew everybody else’s business, which made people a bit more tolerant.  The Nielsen’s knew about the Gentry’s constant money problems, but the Gentrys knew that John Nielsen drank too much, and they all knew about Sharlene Dagget running out on Percy Dagget, leaving him and the kids high and dry, but the Dagget clan knew about the Nielsens and the Gentrys, so what difference did it make?

And what did the town know about the Lesinskis?  Well, pretty typical stuff.  They knew that Big Larry had been kind of a hell-raiser at Thompsonburg High, and that Anna Mickelsen was, too, even though she was the daughter of the Reverend Melvin Mickelson, pastor of the Grace Apostolic Church.  Anna had seemed a little big in the belly when Big Larry married her the summer after graduation, 1950, and their first baby, Little Larry, came a bit early.  After they had their second son, named Mel after her father, Anna had some female problems and that was the end of babies for the Lesinskis.  A narrow-thinker or two at the Grace Apostolic Church thought they saw God’s righteous hand in that.

And this is how Little Larry became Lucky.  It was after dinner on a steam bath August night and Little Larry was playing on the broad front porch of the house on Julia Street with his brother Mel and another kid or two from the neighborhood.  Big Larry and Anna were out there too, enjoying the evening, and maybe the neighbors from across the street – who remembers exactly?  And who remembers what the kids were playing, probably throwing a baseball across the expanse of the porch, over the heads of the adults.  “Hey, cut that out! You’re gonna kill somebody!” Big Larry might have warned.

The sky before sunset that evening was an unnatural color, an ominous color, the color of plums, a color that made you think something awful was about to happen. Like maybe the Russians coming, Little Larry thought.  There was talk among his school chums about the Russians sending planes to drop atomic bombs on the United States. During atomic bomb drills at Warren G. Harding Elementary, a siren would wail and the kids would scramble under their desks.

“In the event of an atomic explosion there will be a flash of bright light,” warned the dry, precise male voice on the film the students were made to watch.  “Do not look in the direction of this bright flash of light.”  On the screen, in black and white, was a pastoral scene, a bucolic landscape not unlike the countryside around Thompsonburg.  Then the screen went white, like the atomic flash, and then back to normal, and a fat column of smoke rose from the land trailing wispy tendrils, with a soft-edged, smoky mushroom cap on top. An atomic bomb.

If you looked at the flash it would melt your eyeballs, was the consensus among Little Larry’s third grade classmates.  Melt ’em so they’d just run out of your eyeholes like syrup.

And maybe that’s what Little Larry was thinking about, the eerie color of the sky, Russian planes coming, and his eyeballs turning to syrup, when Mel threw the baseball over his head and he ran back to catch it and ran into the porch railing and just tumbled right over the railing and into his mother’s prized English rose bush below. It was strange. One moment he was just running back a few steps, and then suddenly he was upside down in the air, it puzzled him for a moment, and then he crashed into the rosebush head first.

Looking back on it many years later he was confused by the sequence of events, because he remembered his father springing from his chair, putting one hand on the railing and vaulting over it to the ground below.  And without regard for his own discomfort, Big Larry pushed aside the thorny branches of the rose bush with his bare hands and carefully lifted his son from their spiny clutches and set him down on the ground. But how could Little Larry have seen all this, since he was stunned and lying in a rose bush.  But this is what he remembered, and this memory was important to him, because until then he had no idea that his father could act so decisively, with such heroism, with such athleticism, with such purpose, to save him.

“You’re lucky you didn’t poke your eye out,” Anna Lesinski scolded as she cleaned up the scratches and dirt smears on his face and arms with a washcloth soaked in the bathroom sink, Little Larry sitting, subdued, on the toilet seat, submitting meekly to his mother’s ministrations.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck,” Big Larry said, watching from the bathroom doorway.

“You’re lucky Daddy was there,” Mel said.

“You’re a pretty lucky kid,” the neighbor lady told him when he returned to the porch.

From then on, Little Larry Lesinski was Lucky Lesinski.  He liked the name Lucky. It wasn’t a borrowed name, a used name, a hand-me-down name from his father. It was a new name, all his own.   But having the name didn’t make him a particularly lucky person. Like anyone else, through the years, he had equal parts of good luck, bad luck, and no luck at all.

Chapter 3

            It was good luck to be a Lesinski, Lucky learned early in life.  He could have been born into some other family, maybe been a Kleeber, what a disaster that would have been, old man Kleeber always beating on his two kids, with a leather belt, everybody said.  The Kleeber twins, Kenny and Karen, were Lucky’s own age.  Some days it was embarrassing to be around them, you could tell they’d got it the night before, their bodies exuding the unmistakable odor of humiliation, listless and sagging, turning their faces away from the other kids, who avoided them.  The teachers left them alone, too, wouldn’t call on them, wouldn’t direct attention their way.  Sometimes, when Lucky was in bed waiting for sleep, he thought about Kenny and Karen being whipped with a leather belt.  A movie would pop up, unbidden, in Lucky’s brain, a movie of the Kleeber kids running from their father, screaming, crying, finally being cornered in their bedroom, and their father swinging the belt and the kids cringing, trying to avoid the lash, their faces red and twisted and wet, and in the movie there would always be a few frames of Karen’s pale bare bottom defiled by the lash of the belt, and a swelling red welt.  But the movie was too awful, too shameful, and Lucky would push it back, try to think of something else, like the map of Africa he’d seen in school that day, and what Madagascar might be like, or how cool it would be to operate one of those huge steam shovels at the Mongo clay quarry, anything to avoid watching the movie of Mr. Kleeber beating Kenny and Karen with his belt.

          When they were fourteen or so, Kenny and Lucky tried to be pals for about a year, hanging out at lunch, and walking home together after school.  The Kleebers lived on Julia Street too, but a few blocks past the Lesinskis, out at the edge of town where the houses were shabbier and farther apart, and the street was dirt.  Karen usually walked with them, the twins sticking pretty close to each other going to and from school.  During that summer Kenny often came by Lucky’s house after dinner and they’d take off on their bikes, maybe ride out to the quarry or to Thompson Lake or just around town, racing up side streets and down alleys, banking around corners at speed, cutting up driveways and across sidewalks and lawns.  Almost every afternoon they’d hang out for a while at Emil’s Mobil, watching Emil under the hoist in his perfectly pressed coveralls, giving a lube job, maybe to old man Mongo’s black Caddy DeVille.  There it was, in all of its battleship glory, sitting atop the slick, oiled pole, and Emil pushing a long-nosed grease gun into some unseen part of the undercarriage, the grease gun's hose snaking along the cement floor, jumping with a hiss and a clunk when Emil squeezed the gun’s trigger.

         “Don’t get too close,” Emil would warn them.  “And I thought I warned you before, don’t run over the bell hose with your goddamned bikes.”

         “Sorry, Emil,” Lucky would say.

         Kenny would remain silent.

           Kenny never talked about his father, or anything about his family for that matter. Lucky and Kenny usually talked about how cool it would be to drive the big trucks that rumbled back and forth between the quarry and the pug mill, or they talked about cars, El Caminos and Vettes and T-Birds and Furys, the wheels of their dreams.  And once somebody drove slowly through town in a black Ferrari Dino 246 GT, but they couldn’t see the driver, and they never saw the car again.

            Sometimes Kenny did weird stuff that made Lucky nervous, like stealing a bottle of Pepsi out of Emil’s cooler, or throwing rocks at street lights until he broke them.

            One afternoon Kenny arrived at Lucky’s house with a blue canvas gym bag slung over his handlebars. Lucky asked about it, but Kenny didn’t answer. They pedaled over to the lake, then left their bikes by the boat launch and took a path through the trees to a secluded spot along the shore where Kenny unzipped the bag.  Inside was a cat, battered and barely alive, panting quickly through its open mouth, a rope around its neck.  Blood matted the fur of its head and oozed from its nose.  One eye was smashed shut, the other open, staring at the boys.  Lucky felt sick.

            “Bye, bye, kitty,” Kenny said.

            He held the end of the rope and began swinging the cat in a big circle, then let it go and it flew out over the water and splashed into the lake.  The animal thrashed about for a bit, then was finally still, but it continued to float, the rope curled along the surface of the water like a swimming snake.  After that, Lucky didn’t hang out with Kenny anymore. 

Yes, Lucky was sure glad he was a Lesinski and not a Kleeber.

It was mostly bad luck, though, to have the minister of an Apostolic church for a granddad.  Big Larry called his father-in-law “the preacher,” not always in the kindest tone.  “Sounds like the preacher talking,” his dad would say when his mom disapproved of some skit on the Benny Hill Show, or he’d say to Lucky, “Don’t tell the preacher I said that,” when he used a word like damn or hell.

Every Lord’s Day started with Sunday school and then a long morning service with a mind-numbing sermon about some obscure part of the Holy Bible, “the Divinely-inspired word of God” the preacher would cry from the pulpit with a quiver in his voice.  Every Sunday evening it was the Youth Under Grace meeting where Lucky had to memorize Bible verses and give his testimony, about how he was a sinner, but saved by grace, whatever that meant. And the day of worship wasn’t over yet, because then there was the Experience a Touch of Grace Sunday night service, with lots of singing by the congregation and special music from a trumpet trio or a piano player, or maybe the Men of Grace Quartet, or the Pearls of Grace Ladies Trio.  Then the preacher would let go with a rip-roaring sermon, with a little mumbo-jumbo thrown in that was the Holy Spirit talking, gibberish that nobody could understand. And then the preacher would give a long invitation to come down and be saved, and the choir would softly sing, over and over again, “Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me,” while the preacher pleaded, cajoled, and threatened an eternity in hell.  “And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,” the choir would sing, “O Lamb of God, I come, I come,” and the preacher would ask God to touch each sinner’s heart and bring him to the altar.

Sometimes on Wednesday night they’d drag Lucky to Bible Study, and once in a while, the biggest torture of all, Thursday night visitation, when they’d go to the homes of old people, places that smelled of age and decay, or to the Dixon County Nursing Home, the abode of dementia  and drooling.  Lucky envied kids who didn’t have a preacher for a granddad.

            And in high school it was good luck when the doctor found out that Laud Hartoon had a hernia and couldn’t play basketball, and Lucky got the last spot on the varsity team.  Too bad for Laud, but that was the breaks, and even though Lucky only got into one game all season, he was on the team, which was a million times better than not being on the team. He got to wear that great uniform, the silver and black satins of the Thompsonburg Colts, with the black knee socks and the cool warm-ups that flowed over your body like liquid mercury when you went in for a lay-up during pre-game drills.  

And he was lucky when he got to sit behind Marybeth Polster during homeroom for his whole freshman year, because he could stare at her without anybody noticing, just look straight ahead like he was supposed to and there she was, in all of her blonde glory.  Most days Lucky would just lose his mind somewhere in the folds of that magnificent hair. 

            He had his share of bad luck in high school, too.  He got teamed with Robbie Carew in biology lab, but Robbie was caught cheating on a test and Lucky got stuck in the mess.  He started pumping gas at Emil’s on weekends and saved enough cash to buy a ten-year-old MG Midget with a good engine, but soon the engine wasn’t so good at all and he had to spend nearly all of his paltry paychecks just keeping the darned thing running. 

            Lucky had no luck at all with girls.  When he graduated from high school and joined the Army, he was still a virgin.

            But when he joined up it was good luck that he got the specialty he wanted, clerk-typist, and good luck that during the two years he spent in Heidelberg, Germany, putting in his days at V Corps headquarters and his nights at the service club or at a bier stube in town, nary a shot was fired in anger by any organized military on the face of the earth.   

One night at Zum Roten Ochsen, where legend has it the Student Prince once hung out with his drinking and dueling pals from the University, Lucky and his buddy Cal Shimmel thought it very good luck indeed when they met two local schatzis who seemed ready for a good time.  The fair, round, and effusive Greta paired off with Lucky and the dark, narrow, and reticent Elga paired off with Cal and a few beers later they were in a darker dive called the Phoenix Club, in a back booth, Greta’s tongue filling up Lucky’s mouth, her hand kneading his crotch, driving him slightly out of his mind with pleasure and anticipation. 

            “Liebchen, we go Elga’s,” Greta said in a breathless moment, and they hurried from the Phoenix Club, and up and down a few dark, narrow streets hand-in-hand to Elga’s back-of-the-building, upstairs rooms, stopping along the way to buy a bottle of cheap sekt.  Elga and Cal took the bedroom, Greta and Lucky took the lumpy couch, got naked, and in a few frantic minutes it was all over.  Lucky lay back on the couch, panting softly, pleased with himself, trying to hold onto this moment for which he had no words.  Greta bent over him and nuzzled his chest with her lips. 

“You like Greta?” she asked.

“Yes, oh yes, I like you a lot.”

“You are very good sex machine. You must have very many girls.”

“A few,” Lucky said.

“But Greta was nice to you, yes zuckerpuppe?” she asked.

“Oh yes, you were very nice to me.”

Greta nibbled at Lucky’s nipple, and he squirmed with pleasure.

“You make present to Greta, liebchen?  Little present so Greta can buy new shoes?”

“New shoes?”

“I not make much money in my job as secretaire,” she said.  “I have no new shoes in a year.  You help Greta buy new shoes?”

“Yes, OK.  Sure.”

“Liebchen,” she said, and she brushed his belly with her lips.

“Oooh,” Lucky said.   He got his wallet out of his pants and gave Greta sixty Marks.

“Oh, liebchen, just sixty?”  She stuck out her lower lip in a dramatic pout.

He gave her forty more Marks.

            “The kraut bitch asked me for money,” Cal told Lucky when the two were back on the dark street, headed towards the base

            “You’re kidding,” said Lucky.

            “For shoes.  Pleeez, liebchen, be nice to Elga.  Wasn’t Elga nice to you?  What a crock.”

            “What’d you do?”

            “I told her to go fuck herself. I don’t pay for pussy.”

            “Me neither,” said Lucky.

            But if he thought meeting Greta and getting laid for the first time was good luck, even if it did cost him thirty bucks, Lucky soon learned differently when he came down with a serious dose of the clap and had to endure pain, misery, and the ridicule of his peers and the military healthcare establishment for several months. 

            “Hey, Drippy,” Cal would call to him.

Sometimes you just couldn’t tell the difference between good luck and bad luck.

Chapter 4

When he was discharged from the Army Lucky had no desire to go back to the little town of Thompsonburg.  He was a man of the world now – he’d been to Europe and had a venereal disease.  Luckily, Cal Shimmel was being discharged at the same time and suggested that they share an apartment in Detroit, Cal’s hometown, until they both got on their feet.  So that’s where Lucky settled.  Cal enrolled in the Detroit Police Academy.  He’d always wanted to be a cop, he said.  Lucky got a backbreaking, knee-breaking job installing carpet, but he was quickly promoted to selling the stuff.  It wasn’t a high class job, he knew, but he was good at it and he liked it.  He discovered he had the gift of gab, he could chit-chat with women about their house and their kids and their golf game, and he could steer them around the store, looking at different styles and colors of carpet, narrowing in on something they liked.  And he was a good closer, he never accepted “Well, I’ve got to think about it,” or “I need to discuss it with my husband,” women always wanting to put off the decision, go to one more store, maybe find something even more perfect, even more of a deal.  He’d get them to sign on the dotted line, that’s what they wanted anyway, someone to force them to make a decision.  Lucky became an assistant manager, and then a store manager, but he always enjoyed the selling part the most. 

Pretty early during his new life in Detroit, Lucky had another one of those good luck-bad luck experiences involving a woman.  He thought it was pretty good luck when he met a bouncy little brunette named Brenda at a cookout at Cal’s house.  Maybe Cal, who was by now a uniformed Detroit cop and married to a girl he knew from high school named Doris, was even trying to fix him up.  But it turned out to be major league bad luck, Brenda was certifiably nuts, like she always undressed in the bathroom so he’d never see her naked, and she was forever reading him Bible verses about sin and damnation.  Lucky’d had enough of that at Granddad Mickelson’s church.  Within a year they were divorced. 

“Divorce, divorce, divorce,” Big Larry had shouted into the phone when Lucky called to tell him the bad news.  “That’s all I ever hear anymore is divorce.” 

“I’m really sorry, pal,” Cal apologized one night over beers at the Thunderbird Lanes.  “I feel responsible.”

Lucky had just bowled a 700 series, and was feeling magnanimous.  “I don’t blame you, buddy.  It was just one of those things.”

“But you know, she was a friend of Doris.”

“Hey, at least she never got pregnant. That was good luck.”

Lucky took the whole experience as a lesson that the way to be happy was to stay single, to find sex wherever he could, and if he couldn’t find it without a lot of work, to occasionally pay for it.  He had no qualms about that.

His bachelor life was a comfortable one. He bought a three-bedroom ranch in the blue-collar suburb of Sterling Heights, and a new car every four years.  He bought a little boat for his walleye fishing outings with Cal, and a snowmobile.  He was in a bowling league all winter, and took summer vacations to remote lodges in Canada to angle for salmon and northern pike and muskie.  Occasionally he’d travel the international tunnel under the Detroit River to the Canadian city of Windsor for some action at the casino, and maybe even take in the show at one of the topless-bottomless joints known to aficionados as the Windsor Ballet.

When Lucky got established he tried to get Mel to move to Detroit to join him in the floorcovering business, but Mel chose to stay on in Thompsonburg, living with Big Larry and Anna in the house on Julia Street, and driving a forklift in the brick plant storage yard.  In good weather he did some landscaping for extra money, driving to jobs in a 1948 Ford pick-up he’d restored, Mel’s Dirtywork in old fashioned gold leaf script on the doors, shovels, rakes and brooms bristling out of the back-end.  Thompsonburg was within four hours of Detroit, but Lucky only made it back to his hometown twice, both times for funerals.  Instead, Big Larry, Anna and Mel visited him, treating their occasional treks to the big city as dangerous urban adventures.  Lucky watched his parents get older, watched Mel begin to lose his hair and get a modest paunch.  Granddad and Grandmother Mickelsen moved to Clearwater and died within a few years of each other, as did Granddad and Grandmother Lesinski, who had moved to Phoenix.  Not much else changed for several years.

And then the Lesinski family had a run of bad luck; tragic luck, really.  Anna was diagnosed with breast cancer, but they didn’t catch it early enough, it metastasized to her brain, and she was dead within six months.  Then Mel was crushed to death under a load of bricks in the brick plant storage yard, leaving Big Larry alone in the house on Julia Street.  Over the next few years Big Larry slowly but steadily slipped into a depression from which he never recovered.  Eventually, at Lucky’s urging, he quit his job at Mongo Brick, got a 40-year service button, took his pension, rented out the house on Julia Street, and moved in with Lucky in Sterling Heights. 

And then the bad luck found Lucky, too, in a big way.   The carpet store where he’d worked for over twenty years was sold to a bigger carpet chain and the new district manager had it in for him.  It turned out that a couple of years before, when they were competitors, Lucky had undercut the guy’s price on a whole-house deal, and he never forgot.  He fired Lucky the day the new owners took over.  Lucky went back to selling full time, in a much smaller store, his income a fraction of what it had been as a store manager, but he was OK, he cut back on expenses so he could keep making the mortgage payment on his house, and Big Larry chipped in a little with his pension.  But in a year or so the big chain bought up his new store, too, and Lucky got fired again.  And then Big Larry died, just konked out one day, and the last of the Lesinskis was on his own.  Lucky was unemployed, and alone in all the world. 

            His luck had to change for the better, he figured.  He could have picked up another selling job, but he wanted something different.  He called a real estate agent in Thompsonburg and instructed her to put the house on Julia Street up for sale.  He sold his three-bedroom ranch, too, taking a lot less for it than if he’d waited-out a bad resale market.  To sweeten the deal he even threw in his boat and snowmobile, which had both seen better days.  He used the profit he made from the sale of his house to pay off the car loan and a walletful of high-interest plastic.  He put a few things in storage, like fishing rods, boxes of family pictures, and a big-screen TV set.  Then he packed his suitcase, threw it into the trunk of the Taurus, drove up to Thompsonburg, and checked into Room 26 at the Cherokee Motel.

            The town had tripled in size since Lucky had been a kid there.  Dixon County was booming.  Mongo Brick Company had become the biggest supplier of bricks in the midwest.  The county’s economy was also benefiting from the state’s fastest growing industry – providing permanent residence for robbers, rapists, murderers, and embezzlers.  The new Alger Correctional Facility, named for a Governor long-dead, guaranteed the security of its 300 registered guests and 150 employees with double fences, electronic detection systems, monitor cameras, razor-ribbon wire, a 24-hour patrol vehicle with armed personnel, and five gun towers.  Camp DeSoto’s more docile population of 150 could work on their GED, get substance-abuse treatment, attend Alcoholics Anonymous and group counseling, religious programming, and even work in the camp sawmill or join the horticulture program.  In that kind of a go-go market, the house on Julia Street sold fast.  

Lucky arrived back in Thompsonburg on the second Sunday in August.  On Monday morning he went to the house sale closing and walked away with a check for $205,035, then went to the Human Resources Office of the Mongo Brick Company and left with a check for $110,976, the remaining funds in Big Larry’s pension account.  Lucky was the sole beneficiary.  After lunch at the Sunrise Café he took the two checks to the Lumberman’s Bank and exchanged them for the $300,000 cashiers check and the cash.  On Tuesday morning he checked out of the Cherokee Motel and was headed out of town when he was stopped by Deputy Fiusko.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Chapter 5

            Lucky didn’t have to look again at the map Fiusko had given him.  He remembered the area well enough to drive directly to the house, or whatever it turned out to be, marked with an X.  It was about a mile south on Hwy 43, then left on Hastings Road another couple of miles to Demmeter Road where he turned right, drove another couple of miles and then started watching for the addresses on the occasional mail box.  Demmeter Road was gravel out this far, with meadows and peach and apple orchards and fields of snap beans on either side.  It all looked pretty much the same as it had thirty years before, when he’d cruised these back roads in his MG Midget, usually with Nels Olson riding shotgun, but once in while with a girl, not of the caliber of Marybeth Polster, of course, but a mere mortal girl, the kind that would ride around in Lucky Lesinski’s humble MG Midget.

            He slowed down as he approached a farmhouse on a low rise off to the right. Carefully painted on the mailbox was the address he was looking for. Also painted on the mailbox was the outline of a hand in red, with a short yellow line coming from the end of each finger, like the rays of the sun. There was no name.  Attached to the post below the mailbox was a tube for the Thompsonburg Daily Journal.  Lucky turned into the drive, stopped, and examined the scene.  The farmhouse was a beauty, two-stories, mostly of red brick but with beige brick outlining every window in a precise geometric pattern.  Wrapping around the front and side of the house was a covered veranda with white columns and a white railing.  There was a barn, too, which had been freshly painted red within the last two or three years, and a dilapidated granary. There was a small, neatly cultivated garden between the driveway and the barn.  Several massive maples shaded the house.  Parked on the grass next to the barn was a Chevy pick-up, at least twenty years old Lucky guessed, but looking like new.

            Again, Lucky considered his options. He could turn around, right now, and leave.  Head back to Detroit. Get on with his life.  There was no reason he had to stop here.  He had come out of curiosity, to see what the place on the map marked with an X was, and now he saw that it was an ordinary farmhouse with a funny-looking hand painted on the mailbox.  He should have backed out of the driveway and been on his way.  But instead, he touched his toe to the accelerator pedal and the Taurus rolled slowly towards the house, the gravel crunching under the tires.

            Waiting for him on the porch was a dumpy woman wearing a shapeless, faded denim dress that reached her ankles.  Her hair was black, heavily streaked with white, hanging full and frizzy, and she wore a pair of very opaque round sunglasses, like hippies used to wear in the 60s.  Lucky sat in the car, waiting for a good reason to open the door.

            “Well, come on,” the woman said, loudly enough for Lucky to hear her over the noise of Taurus’s air conditioner.  “What are you waiting for?”

            Lucky got out and followed a flagstone path to the bottom of the porch steps.

            “Well, come on,” the woman said.  “You came all this way, you may as well come in.”  Her voice reminded Lucky of one his least favorite teachers from Warren G. Harding Elementary.

            A breeze stirred a patch of daisies growing inside the circle of an old painted tire next to the steps.  Symphony music reached him faintly from inside the house. Lucky squinted his eyes against the sun.

            “I’m not sure why I’m here,” he said.  It was the first time he’d heard his voice since he’d spoken to Deputy Fiusko, and it sounded strange to him, weak, blending with the music from the house and floating away in the wide open spaces of the countryside.

            “You’re sure not going find out down there.”  The woman had her hands on her hips.  Lucky wished he could see her eyes.  “Well, I’m not standing here any more.”

            She turned abruptly and walked into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.  Lucky mounted the steps and followed her in, then stood just inside the door, letting his eyes adjust to the dark until he could make out the outlines of the kitchen; the fat, rounded shape of the ancient refrigerator, the wood table, the cabinets, the faint glow of the porcelain sink.

            “Well, now what are you waiting for?” the woman called from the next room.  “You going stay out there and cook something, or what?”

            Lucky followed the music into the living room.  The woman sat in an overstuffed chair of mohair worn smooth, her feet together on the floor, her hands in her lap. She still wore her sunglasses.

            “Well sit, for goodness sake,” she said.  

            He took a chair that was the mate of hers, a low oak table with carved legs between them.  Along the third side of the table was a lumpy sofa of old burgundy velvet.  A copy of the Thompsonburg Daily Journal lay atop the table.  On the walls were old-fashioned photo portraits in plain black frames, stern men in spectacles and sterner women in frilly blouses. Against one wall was a glass-fronted lawyer’s bookcase stuffed with vintage volumes of Readers Digest condensed books and National Geographics, its wood dark with age.  The music was coming from a mahogany radio/phonograph console on the other side of the room.  Sunlight streaming through a tall window threw a bright rectangle across the floor and across his legs.  The floor was covered by an old-fashioned wall-to-wall shag in various tones of brown and beige.  It had seen better days.

            “Do you like Beethoven?” the woman asked.  Lucky thought it odd the way she looked towards him, but not directly into his face. “I’m blind,” she said sharply, as though to a dimwitted child. “Did you just figure that out?”

            “I’m sorry,” Lucky said.

            “No need to be sorry.  I’ve been blind practically all my life, since I was two, it’s just who I am.”

            They were both quiet for a while. Lucky was waiting for some kind of explanation.

            “In fact, if I could see, I’m sure I wouldn’t have the gift,” the woman said. 

Lucky didn’t respond. 

“The gift, the gift,” she said.  She slowly shook her head back and forth.  “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

            “Not a fucking clue,” Lucky said. 

            “I have the gift.  I’m a seer. A fortune teller. I read palms, Tarot, whatever.”      “Really,” Lucky said, without much enthusiasm.

            “And I’m psychic.  Clairvoyant.  I can read your mind.  You’re an open book.”

            “Then tell me why I came here.  Why am I wasting the day, sitting here?”

            “All in due time,” the woman said. 

            “This is ridiculous.”      

            “Yes,” she said.

            “I should have kept going. Back to Detroit.”

            The woman was quiet, moving her head slowly to the music, the runs and trills of the piano, the swells and surges of the orchestra.  “Probably,” she finally said.

            Outside, the sun was climbing higher, and the rectangle of bright light had moved across Lucky’s body.  He thought about the $300,000 dollars in his car.  He had a new life ahead of him, and he wanted to get on with it.

            “You seem to know me, but I don’t know who the hell you are,” Lucky said, a little irritated, with her, and with himself for being in this situation. 

            “So, do you want a beer?”

“I grew up around here,” Lucky said.  “I used to drive these roads.  I don’t remember you.”

            “I remember you,” the woman said.  “Racing up and down my road in your shitty little car.”

            Lucky noticed the woman’s feet, papery white in her clunky leather sandals.

“I could be half way to Detroit by now,” he said.

            “You’re looking at my feet, aren’t you,” she said.  “I can read your mind.”        

Lucky had no response to this.  He wondered why she had books, and the newspaper, if she’d been blind all her life.

            “Now you’re thinking, how come I have all these books if I can’t see, right?” she said.  “So what makes you think I live here alone?”

            “I wasn’t thinking that,” he said.

            A car passed on the road, trailing a swirl of dust that Lucky could see through the window.

            “And you’re thinking, how can I read palms and Tarot if I’m blind, right?  I can read your mind.”

            “No, I’m not thinking any of that,” Lucky said, but of course, he was.

            “So, do you want a beer or not?” she asked again.

            “I’m not thirsty.”

            “I am.  Be a good fellow and get me a beer, will you? In the fridge.”

            Lucky went to the refrigerator, the name Kelvinator in streamlined chrome lettering on the door. He got a bottle of Rolling Rock, twisted off the cap.  “You want a glass?” he called into the next room.

            “Just the bottle.”

            Lucky brought her the bottle, touched it to her fingertips and she took it. He sat back down. 

“So let’s get the formalities out of the way,” the woman said.  “I’m Winifred Bussle, but everybody calls me Winnie.  Like a horse.”

            “OK, Winnie,” Lucky said.  “Like a horse.”

            She took a long pull from the bottle.  

“I needed to meet you.  And you needed to meet me.”

            “Why’s that?” Lucky asked.

            “I think I can help you can learn a lot.  About yourself.  That’s my hunch.  That’s what I see for us.”  The music ended with a grand orchestral dum-di-dum!  “Magnificent,” Winnie commented.

            “I don’t need someone with ESP,” Lucky said.  “I know everything I want to know about myself.”

            “You don’t know nearly everything.” The woman took another drink from the bottle. “None of us do.”

            “So is this some kind of scam?  You pay this cop to send you customers?”

            “Nothing like that.”

            “Does your gift tell you that I’m about ready to get out of my chair and walk out, right now?”

            “You’d be missing a great opportunity.”

            “That’s the risk I’ll have to take,” Lucky said.  But he didn’t move to get up.

“Together we can discover your past, your present.  Everything.”

            “My past and present are no secret.”

            “Everybody has secrets,” Winnie Bussle said. 

            “Not me,” he said.

The rectangle of bright sunlight had moved across Lucky’s face now, making it hard for him to see the blind woman across the room.

“But that’s not all,” Winnie Bussle said.  “Maybe we can discover your future, too.”      

Chapter 6

            The way that Lucky Lesinski understood the Big Bang Theory, the universe started as a little clump of stuff, maybe the size of a fist.  No one can explain where the clump came from.  Then, for some reason which man will never know, the clump exploded.  Everything that exists, every speck of matter and energy that ever was and ever will be, all the planets and stars and comets and everything on earth, all the people and cities and Chinese restaurants that looked like pagodas and Chevy pick-up trucks, everything came out of that little clump of stuff.  And the explosion is still going on, galaxies of stars and other weird shit still flying away from the center of the Big Bang.  Lucky remembered reading somewhere that scientists can still hear the noise from the explosion, even though it happened billions of years ago.

            Both Lucky Lesinski and Winnie Bussle were quiet for a while, and when the bright rectangle of sunlight had finally passed over Lucky’s face and he could see clearly again, Winnie was gone. Her beer bottle stood empty on the oak table.  The house was still and quiet.

            He waited for a few minutes, thinking maybe she’d gone off to the bathroom.  When she didn’t come back he looked for her in the kitchen, then through another door into the dining room. He stuck his head into a room that turned out to be a small bedroom.  Winnie was nowhere to be found.  He went to the bottom of the stairs and called upwards into the darkness, “Hello!” but there was no answer.  “Hello!” he called again.

            Outside, in the bright sunlight, Lucky thought about getting into his Taurus and driving away, but instead he headed across the yard, past the garden, towards the barn.  A hot breeze ruffled the maples and insects buzzed up out of the long grass.  The padlock on the sliding barn door was unlatched, so he lifted it off the hasp, pulled the door open a few feet, and stepped inside.  Coming from the brightness into the dark of the barn he could see nothing for a few seconds, but then at the far end of the barn he saw a door open, letting in a shaft of sunlight, and he saw the shape of a person quickly leaving through it, and for an instant the shadow of the person on the floor of the barn. Lucky was sure it had been a man.

            “Hey,” he called out.  “Hey, there.”

            He went back outside and hurried to the other end of the barn, found the door, but there was no one in sight.  Back inside the barn he waited for his eyes to adjust to the murkiness.  Finally, in one corner, he could make out a tractor, a red Farmall, older than he was, he guessed, and off in another corner what looked like a motorcycle covered with a tarp. Lucky lifted one end of the cover for a closer look.  The bike seemed like an antique, but it gleamed like new.  It was hard to tell the color in the darkness, probably a burgundy, with white pin striping, and on the side of the gas tank the painted image of an Indian chief in full headdress.  Lucky let the tarp drop back.  Except for the old tractor and the old cycle, the barn was empty, even clean.  He had never been on a motorcycle, although he’d occasionally fantasized about buying one, taking off, riding cross country on the backroads of America, seeing what he could see.  Maybe now he would, he had the money. He followed a few concrete steps down to a lower level of the barn.  There was a long contraption of metal pipes down there that looked like the kind of thing cows lined up at and stuck their heads through.  In front of it, along the floor, was a long concrete gutter, probably where their feed went.  Lucky climbed a ladder to the highest level of the barn, where he imagined bales of hay being stored. It was empty, the wide old wooden floorboards swept clean.  Was this what they called the hay mow? he wondered.  He went to an opening to the outside, which was probably used to either bring hay bales in or take them out, and looked out over the yard, his car, the garden, the pick-up truck, the house, but saw no one.

            By the time he got back to his car he’d decided he’d had enough of this bullshit game. First this weird cop with the tiny nose, then this blind lady who claimed to know his future.  He pulled his keys from his pocket, slid behind the wheel, jammed the ignition key in and turned it.  Nothing. Not a grunt or wheeze or a pop came from the engine.  He turned the key again, got the same nothing.  This wasn’t right. He knew this car, had bought it new, babied it, changed the oil every three thousand miles, and the mechanics at the garage always checked out everything. The battery was only six months old.  Again he turned the key. Again, nothing.

            Lucky knew little about motors, but he raised the hood anyway and looked inside.  If it was something major, like all the sparkplug wires pulled loose, or the battery missing, he might notice that. But everything looked like it always looked.  He got back behind the wheel, tried the key one more time, knowing that he would get the same result, but hope springs eternal, as his mother used to say.  Then he thought about his money.  He yanked open the glove box, pulled out the stack of junk in there and rifled through it, the manuals and the oil-change receipts and the folder holding battery and tire warranties and the envelope with his car registration and insurance – everything but the envelope of money.  A cold hand gripped his stomach and squeezed. He pushed the trunk lid release button, scrambled out of the car and around to the back, looked inside. His suitcase was gone

            “What the fuck is going on here?” Lucky shouted towards the house. 

            He got back in the car, tried to start it again, rifled through the glove box again, and then again, then threw its contents to the floor.  He ran up the porch steps and into the dark house, groped his way through the kitchen into the living room.

            “Where are you, you blind bitch?” he yelled.  “Where’s my money?”

            He ran to his car again, looked into the trunk he knew would be empty, ran to the barn, then back to the car.

            “Where’s my fucking money?” he screamed, so loudly it made his throat hurt.

            There was a film of sweat on his forehead, yet he was freezing.  The sun seemed to expand to fill the sky, turning it a hazy crimson.  He leaned back heavily against the Taurus. And somewhere far inside the loud roar in his head, Lucky thought he heard an old woman call his name.

Chapter 7

            Lucky’s first job, even before being a gas jockey at Emil’s Mobil, was caddying at the White Pines Country Club – 18 championship holes, stately Georgian-styled clubhouse of red Mongo brick, Olympic swimming pool, lighted Har-Tru tennis courts – a retreat for the elite of Thompsonburg hugging the far shore of Thompson Lake.  Lucky was the only Lesinski ever to set foot in the place.

            Although he caddied for a couple of summers, he wasn’t great at it  He was good at the basics – he was polite, serious about his job, he conscientiously replaced divots, carefully raked out sand traps, and managed the flag stick with a steady hand.  But he had difficulty following a golf ball in flight, so he spent more time than he should have searching for errant shots in rough and woods.  And when a player asked him how many yards to the pin, or what club he thought he should use, Lucky could only reply, “I’m not sure”.

            Even so, he could make six or seven bucks on a good day, maybe double that on a Saturday if he started early and carried two rounds, and even a buck or two extra if his player won the two-dollar Nassau the members usually bet.

            He liked being around the Country Club.  He liked riding his bike through the parking lot, checking out on the big, luxury cars, wishing his dad would buy one, maybe a turquoise Buick Roadmaster like the younger Mrs. Mongo drove, or a red Olds convert like that wiseass Burt Filer’s.  He hated caddying for Burt Filer.  Filer made cracks about Lucky being a kid, like he’d ask him if he shaved yet, or if he ever jerked off, that kind of thing.  But he was a good tipper, and he had a great car. Why couldn’t his dad buy a car like Dr. Leo’s white Chrysler Imperial, or Mr. Blevins black Continental with the burgundy vinyl top, which you’d expect him to drive since he owned Blevins Lincoln-Mercury.  The fanciest car Lucky had ever ridden in was Granddad Mickelsen’s two-year old Chevy Caprice.  Big Larry drove a Dodge Dart.

            Lucky was always looking for an excuse to go into the clubhouse, which was usually off limits to caddies. He’d volunteer to retrieve something in the locker room one of the golfers forgot, or run some paper work from the caddy shack up to the club’s office, or go to the Pro Shop to buy an extra 12-pack of Titleists with the crisp twenty his player gave him.  He loved walking the quiet, carpeted halls of the mansion-like building, sometimes running his fingertips along the smooth, burnished oak wainscoting.  And whenever he got the chance he’d walk past the dining room, with its massive stone fireplace at one end big enough for a person to stand in, a long wall of windows looking out across the broad, lushness of the first fairway, and tables set with stiff white linens and heavy silverware.  Lucky had never eaten in a restaurant that used tablecloths.

Most of the club members were easy-going rich guys.  Lucky liked the way they dressed in neat slacks and polo shirts and two-toned golf shoes; some in outrageous clothes, plaid slacks with bright red shirts, or bright yellow slacks with flowered Hawaiian shirts.  “You know why we play golf, Lucky?” Burt Filer asked him one day. “So we can dress up like niggers and get away with it.”  Out on the course the players kept up a constant stream of taunts, dirty jokes, and anatomical references Lucky could only guess the meaning of, the kind of talk that wasn’t tolerated around the Lesinski household, especially when his granddad, the Reverend Mickelson, was around.

Whenever he got the chance Lucky would walk by the tennis courts, furtively watching, with a longing he could not yet explain, the girls in their bright white outfits, shorts or very short skirts and sleeveless blouses, as graceful as waltzes, their legs tanned and flawless, their hair pulled back into ponytails or cut short and bouncing, faces glazed with sweat, and the bright pink sound of their voices, calling to each other, laughing, yelping, and occasionally cursing.  Lucky noticed every detail – the bump of an ankle bone, the roundness of breasts pushing out against lacy fabric, the small, crescent moon-shaped swell of soft flesh at the bottom of a blouse’s armhole, the contour of a knee, the curved muscle of an arm.  The sight of the girls made his chest ache, made him want to cry or scream, but he could not say why.  He knew some of them from school, Marybeth Polster and Jennifer Walsh and Pris Conley, girls like that, girls Lucky had known all his life but had little contact with.  They were another species altogether, they hung out with a different crowd, the rich, beautiful kids.  They were nothing like the plain, self-conscious girls at the Grace Apostolic Church.

Lucky could probably join the White Pines Country Club now. He had the money.  At least, he’d had it until a few minutes ago and, by God, he'd have it back, soon.  But what would be the thrill of belonging now?

            The cosmic roar in Lucky’s head was easing, the sky was blue again, the sun a hot yellow blur.  He took a few deep breaths and went back to the house.  Winnie Bussle was in her chair, her feet in her clunky sandals flat on the floor in front of her, her hands folded in her lap.  Her eyes were still hidden behind sunglasses.

            “Have a nice walk?” she asked.

            “Where in the hell is my money?”

            “You shouldn’t leave valuables lying around.”

            “Where in the hell is my money,” Lucky said again, trying to put a little menace into his voice.  “I want it back, now.”

            “It’s safe.  You’ll get it back.  But you’ve got to promise me something.”

            “No promises. Just give me my money.”

            “Just listen for five minutes.  Then you can have your damned money.”

            “Two minutes,” Lucky said.

            “Be a good boy.  Get us a couple of beers.”

Lucky was suddenly very thirsty.  He got two bottles of Rolling Rock from the Kelvinator, twisted off the tops, and slammed one on the table in front of the Winnie Bussle.  Foam rose up the bottle’s long neck and dribbled over the edge.   He sat down in his chair and took a long drink.

            “You have one minute left,” he said.  

            “Lucky, you have a one track mind.” She picked up her beer, licked the drips from the lip of the bottle.  “You know, money isn’t the most important thing in the world.”

            “And you’re going to tell me what is.”

            “Lots of things are more important.  Knowledge.  Health.  Happiness.  Freedom.”

            “You can buy a lot of those with money.”

            “Courage.  Responsibility.  Love.”

            “Money’s nice.”

            “But you don’t need money to have those things.” 

            “I saw somebody in the barn earlier.  Who was that?”

She paused, and seemed to study him, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “That was Clyde.”

            “Who is Clyde?” Lucky asked.

            “My dear older brother Clyde.” She leaned her head back against the cushion of the chair and smiled beatifically.  “Clyde lives here with me.  Mother and father left us this place.”

            “Very interesting.”

            “Clyde went to college in Ann Arbor, down near you.  Got an advanced degree in chemistry, as a matter of fact.  Worked at that big chemical company in Midland for over thirty years, then retired back here.  Very bright man.”

“So where’s my money?”

            “You had a brother, too.”

            “Mel. He died.”

            “At the Mongo plant.”

            “A load of bricks fell on him.  An accident, for Christ sake. Now, where’s my money?”

            “You’re goddamned, blessed money,” the woman said.  “It’s upstairs in your bedroom.”  She took a drink from her bottle, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.  “You are a very boring person, Lucky. Anybody ever tell you that?  You and your goddamned money.”

            “What do you mean, my bedroom?”

            “Where you’ll stay tonight.  Go look.  Top of the stairs, straight ahead, second room on the left.”  Lucky hesitated.  “Go. Go, for goodness sake.  Go look.”

            Lucky took his bottle, went to the bottom of the stairs.  For a moment he stood, listening.

            “Go,” the woman shouted.  “Go.”

            Lucky climbed the stairs slowly, each one creaking under his step.  At the top there was a short hallway.  The door to the second room on the left was open.  On the bed, lying flat, was his ratty yellow vinyl Samsonite two-suiter.  On top of it was the money envelope from the Taurus’s glove box. 

            “So open the envelope,” Winnie Bussle shouted from downstairs.  “Open the suitcase.  It’s all there.”

            Lucky ripped open the envelope, counted the twenty hundreds, then counted them again, folded the envelope in half and shoved it into his front pant’s pocket.  He unbuckled the suitcase, threw back the lid, slid his hand down into one of the side pockets and pulled out his cashiers check for $300,000.  He kissed the face of the check.

            “You find your goddamned check?” Winnie Bussle shouted from down below.  “You satisfied now, Mr. Lawrence Lesinski, Jr.?”

            Lucky carefully folded the check into thirds and put it in his wallet.  There were two other envelopes with cash in the suitcase and he found those, counted the money and put them back. Then he rebuckled the suitcase and lugged it down the stairs.

            “You forgot your bottle up there,” Winnie Bussle said.

            “How do you know?”

            “And you might as well take that ugly suitcase back up to your room, because you’re staying for a couple of days.”

            “No, I’m not.  I’m leaving now.”

            “You walking?”

            “Did Clyde fuck with my car?”

            “I know you’re going stay. At least til Saturday.  I can see your future.  My gift, remember.”

            “Fuck your gift.”

            “That’s no way to talk about something God-given.”

            “Fuck your God-given gift.”

            “Lucky, be a good boy and sit down.  I’m asking you to stay until Saturday. Two days, that’s all.  You won’t regret it.”

             “I don’t know,” said Lucky.

            “Where in the hell are you going, anyway?” she asked.  “What’s the big rush, huh? You have no home, no job, no family. Just some money.  So what’s the rush?  Stay two days.  A vacation.  Saturday, you go.”

            “I’ll stay until tomorrow,” Lucky said.  “Then I’m leaving.  I’ll walk if I have to.” He paused, waiting to see her reaction.  “One night,” he said finally.

            “We’ll see,” said Winnie Bussle. 

Chapter 8

            “Let’s go for a ride,” Winnie Bussle said.

            “Sure, a ride.”

            “I need to get out of here. Get some fresh air.”

            “And what will we drive, that old motorcycle in the barn?”

            “My brother’s pride and joy.  Used to be our grandfather’s.  1940 Indian Sport Scout, 45-cube flathead.  Clyde keeps it purring like a kitten.  He’s a hell of a mechanic.”

            “I’m sure of that.”

            “But I don’t think you can handle the cycle.  And the pick-up is too hard for me to get in and out of.  We’ll take your wheels.”

            Lucky Lesinski and Winnie Bussle made it out of the house and into the car with a minimum of fuss, the blind woman occasionally using the plain wooden cane she’d retrieved from where it hung on the back of a kitchen chair, sweeping it in front of her until it smacked something, or stabbing the ground with the rubber tip to test her footing.  The Taurus started without a problem and Lucky grunted a laugh.  He followed the circle driveway back to the road.

            “Now where?” he asked.

            “Go right.”       

            He turned right onto Demmeter Rd. 

“How far?”

Winnie fumbled around a bit until she found the right button, then buzzed her window all the way down. Lucky did the same, then turned on the radio and found music on a local station, some hillbilly country singer and a wa-wa guitar.

            “Beautiful day.” Winnie said.  “Too nice to be stuck in that dark old house.”

            “You know, I remember you now,” Lucky said.  “I didn’t at first, but now it’s coming back to me.”

            “I’m not surprised,” Winnie said.

            “When I was a kid my Grandfather talked about this strange blind girl who lived out in the country.  That was you.”

            “That was me.”

            “Telling the future and all that.  He thought it was the work of the Devil. That’s what I remember, not a lot more.”

            Warm air, carrying the faintest scent of manure, flowed through the windows.  Lucky flipped down his visor to keep the sun out of his eyes, then glanced over at his passenger and studied her for a moment.  It was kind of interesting being with a blind person. They couldn’t see you staring at them.  You could make faces, stick out your tongue, give them the finger, and they’d never know.  Winnie wasn’t as old or lumpy as Lucky had first thought. It was the white streaks in the hair, the dark glasses, and that God-awful tent of a dress that had thrown him off.  She was probably just a few years older than him, about sixty he guessed, with a very pleasant looking face.  Her face and arms were tanned, maybe from working in the garden.  He wondered if she could manage that, being blind.

“Quit staring at me,” she said.  “Concentrate on your driving.”

            “I’m not looking at you,” he said.  “I asked you, how far?”

            There were fields on either side of the road, acres of flourishing vegetable plants that Lucky could not identify, maybe potatoes or soy beans or who knows, beets maybe, laid out in neat rows.  Occasionally there was an orchard, or a small wood, and every half-mile or so a farmstead sheltered by tall maples or willows.  There was a woman singer on the radio, now. She didn’t seem pleased with her life.

After a while Winnie said, “Turn left at the next road,” and when Lucky had made the turn, she said “A couple hundred yards on the right.”

            It was a graveyard, hardly more than five acres, protected on three sides by tall maples, and on the road side by a chest-high black iron fence. A wooden sign, its paint crackled with age, hung from the fence.  Green River Twp Cemetery.  Lucky pulled into a dirt driveway that stopped just inside the fence and killed the engine.  Winnie didn’t move to get out so Lucky waited.  There were no other cars, no other people.

            “Our parents are here, Clyde’s and mine,” she finally said.  “Rest in peace.  And our parents’ parents, too, both of my mama’s and both of my papa’s.  And a few Bussles and Cronkites from even before that.”  They were both quiet until Winnie said, “Your folks are in the city cemetery.”

            This was true.  Big Larry, Anna and Mel were all buried in what locals called “the city cemetery” – the Lakeside Memorial Gardens.  

            “I went there a couple of days ago,” Lucky said.  “Left some flowers.”

            “Good for you,” Winnie said, looking in his direction, nodding her head.  “You’re a good son.”

            “I’m the last of the Lesinskis,” he said.

            Both were quiet again.  Gold and red finches darted through the trees.

            “Most folks get buried in the city cemetery now, but there are still family plots.  And there’s a corner for indigents, or people nobody cares enough about to bury properly.  Of course, the Bussles have had a family plot for a century, so me and Clyde’ll end up here, too.  Then that’ll be the end of the Bussles.”

“So are we getting out?”

Winnie searched for the door handle and Lucky reached across her and pulled it, making contact with her soft bosom with his forearm.

“Hey, watch it,” she said.

            “Sorry.”

            “Trying to cop a free feel?”

            “Don’t be ridiculous.”

They got out of the car and Winnie batted the Taurus’s fender with her cane.

“This way,” she said.

She walked into the cemetery, sweeping her cane back and forth, occasionally whacking a tombstone. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. 

“Read this one,” she said, stopping in front of a short, rounded, weathered slab of limestone. 

            “Joshua Thompson,” Lucky read. “1852 to 1904.”

            “Some distant cousin of the royal Thompsons. You’d have thought they’d get him a little better headstone.  There are a few other minor Thompsons here, too.”

            Winnie led the way between the gravesites, swinging her cane, occasionally stopping and making Lucky read an inscription.  There were Demmeters and Postmas and Tiptons and other familiar Thompsonburg names.  Lucky remembered a Postma Rd. not too far from here, and Tipton Park in town.

             “Here’s the Bussle-Cronkite area,” Winnie said when they’d walked about a hundred feet into the cemetery.  There were two red granite headstones the size of Lucky’s Samsonite two-suiter standing on end, and several smaller, older stones, some of marble, some of limestone, weathered and discolored.  The grass in this area was mowed and trimmed, and there were petunias growing around the bases of the markers.  She slipped out of her sandals and rubbed the soles of her feet in the grass. “Clyde keeps the place nice. You can’t count on the lazy bums at the Township.”  She put her hand on one of the larger markers – Gladiola Cronkite Bussle – 1912 – 1985. 

            “Well, mom,” she said, “this is Little Larry Lesinski.  Remember him?  Lucky Lesinski? Big Larry and Anna’s oldest kid?  Used to drive that little car up and down our road, making noise, kicking up dust?  He’s all grown up now, but not too smart.”

            Lucky shook his head and wandered off, leaving Winnie Bussle alone with her mother and father and the other resting Bussles and Cronkites.  It was mid-afternoon, and he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning at the Kopper Kettle, just minutes before that tiny-nosed geek of a deputy pulled him over.  Now it seemed a lifetime ago.  He paused at another Thompson headstone – Rachel, lived to be only 42, Lucky calculated in his head.  She must have not rated much as a Thompson either, being stuck off in this little cemetery, getting only a footstool-sized marker.  A pick-up truck passed on the road, and he noticed the driver look in his direction, keeping his eyes on Lucky until he was past.  Did the guy know who he was, know what a fool he was?  What the hell was he still doing here, anyway?  Why hadn’t he just driven back to Detroit with his money, or maybe to Miami or New Orleans, someplace he’d never been?  He could lease a nice little storefront in a busy area, then rent a truck and drive down to Dalton, the miserable little Georgia town where most of the broadloom carpet in the world was made, and pick up a few dozen rolls, he still had contacts although you had to be careful with those redneck mill guys, accidental millionaire crackers if you asked him.  He could have his own store, Lucky’s Floorcoverings, he’d have done it long ago if he’d had the money.  Now he did have the money, more than three hundred thousand.  And he planned on keeping a closer eye on it this time; what was it with these weird people, this blind swami or whatever the hell she thought she was, and her sneaky brother, the world’s greatest mechanic. 

            He felt a sharp pain in the side of his leg.  Winnie Bussle had come up quietly behind him and whacked him with her cane.

            “Daydreaming?” she asked.

            “Jesus, what’d you do that for?

            “I didn’t know you were there. Sorry.”

            “Bull shit,” Lucky said.  “You know where everything is.  Sometimes I don’t think you’re blind at all.”

            “I’m blind, alright, but that doesn’t make me simple-minded.”

            She took off again, weaving her way through the headstones, swinging her cane, heading towards a far corner of the cemetery.  Lucky followed.  It was darker back here, the trees crowding in, the air heavy and still, the grass choked with knee-high weeds. 

            “What’s back here?” Lucky asked.

            “There are markers in these weeds, see, here, and here,” Winnie Bussle said, pushing aside the clumps of pigweed and Queen Anne’s Lace with her cane, revealing several short wooden crosses, names and dates stenciled on their faces.  “This is where the county buries the bodies nobody wants.  Read this one,” she said, holding back a clump of thistle with her cane. 

            Lucky could barely make out the faded words – and he read slowly to himself – Robert – Kleeber – 1930 to 1978 – RIP. 

            “Robert Kleeber,” he said out loud.  “Do I know that name?”

            “You should,” Winnie Bussle said.  “His kids were friends of yours.” She waited for him to remember, then said, “Kenny and Karen Kleeber.  The Kleeber twins?”  She let the weeds fall back over the cross.

            “I remember Kenny and Karen,” said Lucky.  “But I wouldn’t exactly call them friends.”

            “Kenny thinks you were a friend.  That’s what he told people who visited him up where he was.”

            “Where was he?”

            “The Wildwood Institution.  You’ve heard of it?  The place upstate where they put the nutcases who kill people.”

            “Kenny killed somebody?”
            “He killed his dear old dad, Robert, over whose remains we now stand.  What ever remains are left of him anyway, after Kenny got through shooting him to death, and then burning the corpse out in their backyard.  People say it was not a pretty sight.”

            A wave of nausea swept over Lucky and was gone. “Oh, my God,” he said. 

“Nobody could much blame Kenny.  Robert was a rabid animal.  He needed to be put down, most people thought.”

            “He used to whip Kenny and Karen.  With a leather belt.”  A few frames of Lucky’s old night time movie popped into his brain, the twins running from their father, the terrified Karen, the belt striking her bare bottom. He was standing on evil ground, and he wondered if the gore and the malevolence could filter up through the dirt, ooze out of the ground, through the soles of his shoes.  His feet began to itch and he moved to the other side of the marker.

            “He started doing more, too.  He’d beat up the missus.  Gave her black eyes.  Once he broke her arm.  Kept beating the kids.  Some say he even took advantage of Karen, you know.”

            “Awful,” Lucky said.

            “I guess Kenny had enough. Drove him crazy, really crazy I think.  Anyway, they couldn’t blame him for what he did, so they said he was nuts and sent him up to Wildwood.”

            “I didn’t know anything about it.  My parents never mentioned it. Or Mel.”

            “I can’t explain that.  Maybe they just didn’t think it was important.  Most people around here tried to forget it as fast as they could.”

            “How about Mrs. Kleeber?  How about Karen?” 

“Karen stayed around for a few years after that, had a cashier job at the IGA. She was kind of the town oddity.  Then she left, nobody knows to where.  Mrs. Kleeber used the life insurance her husband got with his job over at the brick plant to pay off that cracker box of theirs. Then she pretty much stayed out of sight until she died a few years later. Natural causes. After that nobody else would live there. It’s been empty.” 

It had always made Lucky uneasy to be in the Kleeber house, so he’d only gone inside two or three times, when he absolutely could not avoid it, like if Kenny wanted to show him something in his room, a model airplane or a new comic book, or if Mrs. Kleeber offered him a cold drink in summer.  In the house, he’d keep his eyes averted from anything that might remind him of Mr. Kleeber, or of the beatings he gave Kenny and Karen, like Mr. Kleeber’s chair in front of the TV set, or the ashtray on the side table full of his cigarette butts.

            “And Kenny’s in Wildwood?”

            “Was in Wildwood.  He got out four days ago, the day you came back.” Winnie Bussle said. 

            “My God.”

“He’s been out before, a few days at a time.  They never considered him a real threat to anyone else, just crazy, so every couple of years they’d give him a weekend off, if they could find someone to be responsible for him.  He came out for his mother’s funeral, and a few of other times.”

“Now he’s out for good.”

“After twenty-five years.” 

“They must think he’s cured.”

“Or harmless.” 

Another car had parked next to the Taurus in the driveway and a stooped man had gotten out.  He was now tidying up around a headstone on the other side of the cemetery.

            “Where’s he staying? Has anybody seen him?”

            “He’s not hiding. He’s at their house.”

            “How do you know all this, about him coming back, where he’s staying?”

            “I’ve got friends in high places.”

            “Friends with small noses?”

            “Don’t be rude.”

            “Well, I’m not interested in Kenny Kleeber.  He’s in the past.”

            “You’ll find out if that’s true.”

            “And how, oh great seer, great clairvoyant, great gifted one – how do you see this all turning out?”

            Winnie Bussle paused before answering.

            “I haven’t a clue,” she finally said. 

            “Back at the house, you could tell what I was thinking.”

            “That was a parlor trick.  That’s not how the gift works.”

            “You said that you knew my future.”

            “I lied.  I’ve tried to see it, but I can’t. It’s a blank.  A complete mystery to me.”

            She turned and headed back through the cemetery towards the car, swinging her cane.

Chapter 9

            Was Lucky going to hell?  Would he burn forever in a lake of fire and brimstone, like his granddad, the preacher, said sinners would, his hair on fire, his skin charred and peeling off, his muscles turning to liquid and his bones to ash, forever and ever and ever, the agony neverending?  Like being at Ground Zero of an Atomic blast, but eternally?  He had believed it all when he was a kid, and that’s why he’d said he was saved, why he said he’d trusted Jesus, even though he didn’t know exactly what that all represented, and doubted whether anybody at the Grace Apostolic Church really did, including the preacher.  But if saying it meant that he wouldn’t have to spend forever and ever being burned up in hell, he’d say it. 

            Of course, he didn’t believe it anymore.  He’d long since decided it was nonsense, but that didn’t mean that once in a while, in the deepest part of the night, lying in bed alone with his own thoughts and his own fears and his own doubts, about himself and the world and everything else, that he didn’t sometimes wonder if it might all be true.  And if it was true, all that propaganda about heaven and hell and the devil and the angels, was he still saved?  Did what he’d said as a kid still count?  Was his ass covered?

            Was Kenny Kleeber going to hell?  Had he already been there, and maybe come back?

            In the car, Lucky tried to remember the last time he’d seen Kenny, or Karen, or their father, or any of the Kleebers, for that matter.  Maybe at graduation, or that summer, before he’d gone off to the Army.  The twins had become more withdrawn, more isolated – spookier was a word Lucky thought of – as they got older.  That last year in school they’d been like ghosts, almost transparent, walking the halls or sitting in class like invisible people. 

            There was a pot of beef stew on the stove when the blind woman and the former carpet salesman got back to the brick farmhouse, and two place settings on the wooden kitchen table.  A bowl, a glass tumbler, and a soup spoon were drying in a rack on the counter next to the sink.  There was also a note on the table, handwritten in big block capital letters

            MR. LESINSKI SHOULD RETURN PHONE CALL

and a local phone number.  Lucky didn’t mention the note to Winnie Bussle.

            “Clyde’s stew,” Winnie said, “a heavenly smell.  Get us a couple of beers and serve it up.”  She hung her cane on the back of a chair.

            “So Clyde’s a cook, too, huh?” Lucky said, folding the note as noiselessly as he could and sliding into his shirt pocket.

            “The best.  And on top of the fridge, some of Clyde’s homemade wheat bread.  Cut us each a slice.”

            “A regular renaissance man, our Clyde.  Does he write poems, too?”

            “The most beautiful you’ve ever heard,” said Winnie Bussle.

            They ate in silence for a while.  The stew was remarkably good, the hunks of beef tender, the potatoes and carrots slightly firm, the liquid silky.  Lucky mopped up the inside of his bowl with a thick piece of wheat bread and finished off his beer.  He heard someone moving around upstairs.  Clyde.

            “You have a phone, I assume?” Lucky said.

            “Who’d you want to call?”

            “A friend in Detroit.  He’s expecting me back tonight.”

            “Long distance?”
            “I’ll leave a dollar, for Christ sake.”

            “We don’t need your dollar.  There’s a phone on the buffet in the dining room.”

            “I’ll be right back.”

            “Put coffee on first.”

            A tin percolator, the kind with a little glass bubbler on top, sat on the counter.  Winnie told Lucky where to find the can of coffee, and how much water and coffee to use.  Lucky put the pot on the stove, set the flame to medium, and went to the dining room to make his call.  The phone picked up after two rings.

            “Lucky,” the voice said.  “Lucky Lesinski.  How are you, Lucky?”

            Lucky recognized the voice, different now after thirty years, rougher, a bit lower, more experienced, but still familiar. 

            “Hey, Kenny, long time no see.”

            “A very long time,” Kenny Kleeber said.  “I’m glad you were my first phone call.”

            “Your first?”

            “They installed the phone this afternoon. You’re the first to call me here.  The first to dial my new number.”

            “How about that.”

            “I hope you keep my number, Lucky,” Kenny said.  “Yes, I hope you keep it. You might need it again.”

            “How’d you know where I was?”

            “I want us to get together while you’re in town.  We have some catching up to do.  Can you come by the house in the morning?”

            “I’m heading back to Detroit tomorrow. I’m kind of in a hurry.”

            “You remember the house on Julia Street?”

            Lucky could smell the coffee perking on the kitchen stove.

            “Maybe I could stop for a few minutes.”

            “I look forward to seeing you, buddy,” Kenny Kleeber said.

            Back in the kitchen, Lucky found cups and poured two coffees.

            “How’s Kenny doing?” Winnie asked.

            Lucky saw no purpose in pretending.

            “I promised I’d come by tomorrow. On my way back to Detroit.”

            They sipped their coffees in silence.  Outside, the late afternoon sun had turned the world the color of honey.  The trees, the crimson barn, the yellow fields, the low green hills seemed etched from the deep blue of the sky.  It was Lucky’s favorite time of the day, a magic time so beautiful it almost made you weep.

            “The golden hour,” Winnie Bussle said.

            “How can you tell?  How do you know what it looks like?”

            “I’ve seen it,” said Winnie Bussle quietly.  “I’ve seen it as clearly as you’re seeing it now.  I know what it looks like.”

            “When you had sight?”

            “I was two when I went blind, I told you that.  How could I remember what I saw when I was two?”

            “Well, then, I don’t understand.”

            “That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes any sense at all, Mr. Lesinski,” Winnie said.  “You don’t understand.  What an admission.  There’s so much you don’t understand.”

            “I guess so.”

            Lucky cleared the dishes off the table, found a bottle of dish soap and a plastic dishpan under the sink, washed everything and put it to dry in the rack.  He believed in cleaning up after himself.  He liked things neat.

            “Warm up our coffees and bring them into the living room,” Winnie said.

            Lucky did what he was told, and soon the two were in their matching chairs, coffee cups in front of them on the low oak table.  Lucky noticed that the copy of the Thompsonburg Daily Journal was gone.  The suitcase was gone, too, probably dragged back up to his room. Indistinct voices floated down from upstairs.  Clyde was watching the news on TV.  The sun was setting, the sky streaked with red.

            “Why don’t you put on some music for us?  Look in the box next to the phonograph.”

            Lucky went to the box and knelt down, began flipping through the albums, 33- RPM LPs in cardboard sleeves. 

            “Pick anything,” Winnie said.  “But please, put them all back in the box in the same order, or I’ll never be able to find what I’m looking for.”

            “You have the order memorized?” he asked.

            “It’s not that hard, and they’re alphabetized.”

            Lucky chose an album with a painting of the solar system on the front.  He put the record on and there was a faint hiss from the speakers before the music began – a low roll of drums, then deep, ominous horns.  He went back to his chair.

            “Holst,” Winnie Bussle said.  “The Planets.”

            “Uh huh.”

            “You’re not familiar with it?”

            “Not really.”

            “It’s a suite.  A series of pieces.  Holst wrote each piece to fit the personality of each planet.  This is Mars.  It’s about war.”

            “What personality did he give the Earth?” Lucky asked.

            “He didn’t write one for the Earth.”

            They listened to the thumping of the bass fiddles, tanks pounding cities into rubble, and sipped from their cups.

            “Interesting day,” Winnie said.

            “That’s an understatement.”

            “Interesting is good,” Winnie said.  “Better than uninteresting.”

            “I guess.”

            “May you live in interesting times.  Ever hear anybody say that before?”

            “Confucius, he say,” Lucky quoted.

            “That’s what most people think, that it’s an ancient Chinese saying.  But it’s not.”

            “You’re going to tell me what it is.”

            Winnie found her coffee cup and raised it to her lips, took a long sip.

            “The earliest reference anybody can find is in a science fiction story from back in the 50s.”

            “I read a little science fiction when I was a kid.  There was this teacher at school.  Gave me books.  The preacher frowned on it.”

            “Your grandfather, the preacher?”

            “Didn’t believe in that sci-fi stuff.  Life on other worlds, all that.  Said it was un-Godly.  Blasphemous.”

            “But you still read it?” asked Winnie.

            “The teacher got me hooked on the sci-fi.  Then he started feeding me other books.  Mark Twain and Poe and Melville, and then a little Ernest Hemingway.”

            “You read it all?”

            “Everything I could get my hands on.”

            “And what about this teacher, this Mr. Harrison?”

            “My 10^th grade English teacher.  When I finished one book he’d give me another.  Some of them took me a while. But how did you know I was talking about Mr. Harrison?”

            Lucky didn’t read much anymore. The Detroit Free Press a few times a week, and fishing magazines. He suddenly felt stupid, illiterate.  Why had he not read a decent book in over twenty years?

            “Mr. Harrison was a gentleman caller,” Winnie said.

            “Mr. Harrison, my teacher?”

            “A gentleman caller.  Many years ago.  When I was much younger, and pretty.  He came calling.”

            Lucky could add nothing.

            “Riley,” Winnie said, softly filling the silence.  “Riley Harrison.”

            The sky outside the window was a pale gray now, the blaze of the sunset gone.  Soon it would be deep blue, and then black.

            “He’d heard about me.  The young blind woman with the gift.  He drove out one day, knocked on our front door.  Told my mother he wanted to meet me.  She chased him off, said her daughter wasn’t some freak. Wasn’t some sideshow.  Warned him not to come back.”  Winnie Bussle drained the last of her coffee and set the cup back on the table.  She settled herself deeper into her chair, crossed her hands on her lap.  “But Riley Harrison was not easily intimidated.  One day he saw my mother in the IGA, just starting her shopping.  He ran to his car and drove out here again.  He came right into the house, found me here in this chair, listening to Rachmaninov.  He changed my life, did Riley Harrison.”   Both Winnie and Lucky were alone with their own thoughts for a while, until the blind woman finally spoke again. “I changed his life a little, too.”

            Lucky Lesinski tried to remember what Riley Harrison had looked like.  If his memory was worth a damn, and he thought it was, Riley Harrison hadn’t been your stereotype of an English teacher. He had been more like a football player, a fullback maybe, broad and thick, with a square, pockmarked face. A five-foot-ten fire hydrant.   If Lucky’s memory was worth a damn, Riley Harrison’s voice had sounded like a grizzly bear’s voice, if a grizzly bear could talk.

            “I can’t imagine Mr. Harrison as a romantic gentleman caller.”

            “That’s because your imagination isn’t worth shit,” she said, slamming the palm of her hand down on the arm of the chair, raising a small cloud of dust.  “You have no imagination whatsoever.” 

            Then Winnie told Lucky the rest of the story.

Chapter 10

It was an afternoon in the summer that I turned thirty that Riley came to the house.  You’d probably been in Detroit for a few years.

He wanted to take me away, just get me out of there for an hour or so, but he wouldn’t do it without my mother knowing.  Riley was a very honorable person that way. So while we waited for her to come home from her grocery shopping, we talked.  He didn’t ask about my gift. We just talked about normal things two people might talk about, how we spent our days, what kind of music we listened to, how the summer seemed to be flying by.  I didn’t have much contact with men. Hell, I had no contact at all, except with family men, my grandfather when I was growing up, and my dad, and Clyde.

            I fell in love with Riley right then. I fell in love with the sound of him, and the smell of him. I fell in love with the energy of him, I could feel it across the room, like waves of goodness washing over me. 

            My mother walked in just as the Rachmaninov was ending.  The Third Concerto.  Ta-da and there she was – I could feel her standing in the doorway, and I sensed Riley getting up and he said Good afternoon, Mrs. Bussle.

            I want to talk to you, she told him, and they left me and went out on the porch and I heard the murmur of their voices for a few minutes.  When they came back in my mother said, Mr. Harrison is going to take you for a ride.  Behave yourself.

            What the hell did she think we’d do?  Rob a bank?  Smoke weed?  I was pretty naïve.

            Riley put his hand on my elbow and guided me outside.  I felt electricity through his hand, I swear. I tried to act calmly, but inside I was giddy and blissed out.  I asked him what kind of a car he had and he said it was a Pontiac Bonneville convertible, a few years old.  Red, he said, with a white top. I asked him if the top was down, and he said no, but he’d put it down now.

            We drove for about an hour. Neither of us said much. We just enjoyed the sun on our faces and the breeze, and the fact that we didn’t really have to talk just for the sake of talking.  My hand was on the seat between us, and after about ten minutes Riley covered it with his hand and left it there for a long time.  We stayed on the back roads for a while and then he said, Let’s go to town, and I could tell when we got to Thompson Avenue, the air got heavier and smellier and noisier.  A couple of cars honked at us, and Riley honked back, I could feel the stares from people in the other cars and from the sidewalk, what talk there would be that night around the dinner tables of Thompsonburg, and in the dining room of the Country Club, and in line at the IGA, Riley Harrison and that weird blind girl Winnie Bussle, the one that supposedly had the gift, riding around in Riley’s convertible.

            When we got back to the house Riley said he’d come again the next day.  My mother didn’t say anything, but I could feel her tense up. She was a good person, and she loved me, and she wanted me to be happy, but she was protective, too, and didn’t know exactly what to do with me. But she didn’t object when Riley said he’d call again.

            He came back every afternoon for the rest of the summer. We’d always leave the house, even if it was raining.  God, how I loved him.  And I wished he’d just take me someplace and have his way with me.  That means fuck me, Lucky, in case you don’t understand.  Hell, to be honest, I didn’t understand either. I didn’t know exactly what we’d do, but I wanted him to do something with my body, to hold it, to maul it, to crush it.

            On our third day out he said he knew someplace where we could go where we could get out of the car, and he took us slowly down some very bumpy roads, and when he finally stopped the car I could feel that the air was a little different, a little lighter, and I could hear the ripple of water.  Riley spread out a blanket, and poured us some iced tea from a thermos.

            He asked me if I could tell where we were. I said I didn’t think I’d ever been in this place before. He asked me if I could sense what the surroundings were like, if I could picture it. And I said that I felt trees close behind us, and running water nearby and beyond the running water, open land.  He said that was pretty darned close, we were in a small clearing next to a river, and across the river a field with wildflowers and tall grasses opening up to some woods and hills.  I told him that it felt like a beautiful place and he said that it was.  I was so in-touch right then, so in tune with our surroundings.  A zephyr shook the leaves of the trees, I recognized the call of a red-winged blackbird from up in the branches, and the sound of the water was bells.   I still remember every detail, even how the blanket felt on the backs of my legs, and once, the faint noise of a tractor from far off.  And although Riley didn’t ask I began telling him a little about my gift, how I’d discovered it, and how I’d used it. 

            When I was just five or six I could sense the emotions of members of my family. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I’d just say to my mother, don’t feel so sad, or to my father, don’t worry about the weather, and it always seemed that that’s what they’d been thinking about.  Once I told my dad that Clyde was really angry with him. How did I know that, my dad asked me, since I hadn’t seen Clyde since he’d left for school hours before, and in a good mood.  I just know it, I told him.  He asked me if I knew where Clyde was right then, and I said sure, he’s in the hayloft, reading a car magazine.  How did I know that, my dad asked.  I just know it, that’s all.

            Once I heard my mother and dad talking about me when they thought I was in my room. He said he thought it was unusual the way I could read people’s feelings, and my mother said, yes, maybe there was something to it.

            It wasn’t something I could do all the time. It still isn’t.  Sometimes the gift is easy, sometimes it’s not there at all.

            The winter when I was ten was the winter that little Rita Cowper went missing, she was a mildly retarded kid, and she’d just wandered out of her house and couldn’t be found.  My parents were talking about it at the dinner table and I said that wherever Rita was her legs were freezing, she couldn’t move them and they were freezing.  My dad called the Cowpers and they found Rita waist deep in a culvert, the water had been flowing so it wasn’t frozen, and Rita had slipped down the bank and couldn’t get out.  They said she’d have lost her legs if I hadn’t helped them find her.  After that I became kind of famous around Thompsonburg.

            Riley asked me a few questions, like how often I had these feelings, and I told him how I tried to help the neighbors when I could, and a few times the Sheriff asked me to help them find someone, and sometimes I could and sometimes I couldn’t.  And how women came to me always wanting to know if they’d ever find a man, or if the one they found was worth keeping or throwing back.

            I never did make a big deal out of my gift.  People still come to me, local women mostly, for Tarot readings. They like the way the cards look.  I have a Braille set. I pretend I’m reading them, but I’m just using my gift as best I can.  Or I pretend to read their palms, I hold their hands and feel the lines, but I’m just using my gift.  But most of them think there has to be some vehicle, like the cards or whatever, so I oblige them.

            Actually, I spent several afternoons on the blanket by the river telling Riley all this stuff.  I didn’t do all of the talking. Riley told me about his folks, about growing up in the U.P., near Escanaba. He came from a nice family.  He always brought a book with him, and he’d read poems to me – Shakespeare sonnets, or Emily Dickenson, or Robert Frost.

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

We felt like we’d come home, to that blanket.  And sometimes we didn’t talk at

all.  On our second afternoon on the blanket, while he was reading a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, I couldn’t wait one more second and just fell on him and kissed him on the lips like a hungry she-wolf.  For a few days after that we spent a good portion of our time on the blanket holding and groping and kissing.  He was hesitant and shy and a bit clumsy, but so, I’m sure, was I.  And it was on that blanket, in Riley’s arms, that something extraordinary happened.  I saw.  Do you understand, Lucky, what I’m saying? I saw, not inside my head, or with my hands, but real sight. For the first time since I’d lost my vision, I saw.

Chapter 11

            Lucky tried to remember whether he’d ever been able to read anyone’s mind, or even feel anyone else’s emotions.  He didn’t think so. 

            The music, Holst’s The Planets, had ended.

            “Turn on a light if you want,” Winnie said.

            It was nearly dark in the room. It wouldn’t matter to her, but Lucky didn’t like not being able to see her, so he turned on a nearby floor lamp, an antique with an iron base and a faded red velvet shade.  It cast a pink glow about the room.

            “So you saw?” he said.

            “You don’t seem very surprised.  Don’t miracles surprise you?”

            “Nothing would surprise me tonight.  Not after everything that’s happened today.”

            “Well, I was surprised. In fact, I was horrified. I had no idea what was happening to me.  I was so terrified I threw up all over myself.”

            “You were just sitting there on the blanket, and all of a sudden you saw?”

            “Not like that at all.  Riley and I were in the throes of passion, you might say.  In fact, it was the first time that we’d actually, you know, fornicated.  Did the big nasty, in the current vernacular.  My God, I was on fire, and I felt like the whole world was just me and Riley, everything that ever had been and was and would be was just the two of us holding on for dear life.  Do you remember the first time you had sex?”

            “In the Army. It wasn’t a religious experience.”

            “I feel sorry for you.  For me it was. And then there was a flash of bright white, I can say that’s what it was now, but at the time I had no idea what had happened.  And I realized that I was looking into a face?  I was seeing a face.”

            “Riley’s face.”

            “Not Riley’s face. The face of a girl.  She was wearing dark glasses and her head was thrown back against a red plaid blanket, and her mouth was open, like she was gasping for air, and then I realized it was me.  It was my face.  And I was so shocked, so terrified, I threw up, I saw myself throwing up, Riley pulled back and I threw up all over myself.

            “Riley was horrified, too, Darling, darling, he kept saying, he had no idea what was going on.  And then I was ashamed.  I thought I must be dreaming.  I was seeing myself naked as an adult for the first time, my dress was pushed up around my waist, and the front of it was unbuttoned and my breasts were exposed, I was shocked by the size and color of my nipples, and the black bush of my pubic hair, I was seeing what Riley was seeing and I threw myself against him and screamed Close your eyes, Close your eyes. And we just clung to each other for a long time, my face against his chest, until we were both under control, and our breathing was a steady rhythm together and then I asked him to open his eyes again, but slowly, just a little at a time, and I saw again.  I saw what he was seeing, our little patch of green, and the water and the meadow with the wildflowers and the trees beyond and the hills beyond that.  I cannot describe its beauty.”

            “It was a miracle,” Lucky said.  

            “Yes.  We just held each other, and I’d say, Look that way, now look over there, now look up at the sky.  I didn’t want him to look at me again, I just wanted to see everything around us.  And after about half an hour it began fading, and then everything was black again.  We cried together, still holding each other, we were disappointed and confused and afraid.  And when we got home my mother said, What happened to you, what happened to your dress? and we said it must have been something I ate.”

            “Was that the only time?” Lucky asked.

            “No. Maybe half a dozen more times that summer.  We couldn’t control it, make it so.  But it always happened when we were really close.  Not necessary screwing, but just in touch, physically and emotionally, really feeling our love. And there would be a white flash and I could see.  I started bringing a little mirror in my purse, and I’d make Riley look at himself in it, so I could see him.  And once I got naked and he looked at every part of my body, I wanted to see it, every detail, it was kind of embarrassing for both of us.  Once it happened during the golden hour, like I told you before. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.  Besides Riley’s face, and his body, of course.”

            They were quiet for a long time, then Lucky said, “So you were never caught with your pants down, huh?”

            “I can’t believe how stupid we were, and how lucky.  Most of the time we had our clothes on, though.”

            “Did you tell people about being able to see?”

            “No one.  It was our secret, just for Riley and me to know.  A few years later I told my family, my mother and dad, and Clyde.  They said not to mention it to anyone else.”

            “And how about my old teacher, Mr. Harrison?  Did you keep seeing him?”

“I haven’t seen him since that year,” Winnie said.  “In the fall he went back to school.  He still came out a couple of times a week, on Saturdays we’d go sit on the blanket by the stream.  And then I heard he left town.  Didn’t tell anyone, just up and left. The school principal got a letter from him the next week.  He said he had other business and had to move on.  Apologized for leaving so abruptly.  I was devastated.  I wouldn’t come out of my room.  I wouldn’t talk to my family for weeks.  And I’ve never had sight again.”

“And you never heard from him again?” Lucky asked.

Winnie didn’t answer that question.  Rather, she said, “Clyde saved my life.  Tough love.  Pulled me out of my room, back into the world.  He was young and energetic and had better things to do than to nurse a psychologically destroyed blind sister back to emotional health, but that’s what he did.”

“He sounds like a great brother.”

“He was working in Midland then, but he came back to Thompsonburg every weekend.  He got me involved in the garden.  We planned it together so that I could manage it all by myself, all of the planting and weeding and watering and harvesting.  I still do.  I love digging in the dirt, the smell of the soil and the feel of growing things.  I love the sun on my face.”

Lucky remembered seeing muddy boots and gardening tools on the porch near the door.

“And he wouldn’t let me vegetate in my chair.  He made me go for hikes with him, and in winter he taught me how to cross-country ski around our property. We still take long hikes, and ski in winter.  We can go for hours.”

            They were quiet, Lucky felt very tired now, so he closed his eyes, and suddenly he realized he’d been dozing.  He didn’t know for how long, maybe just a few seconds, maybe an hour, he couldn’t tell.  Winnie was gone from her chair.  Both coffee cups were gone from the table.  Lucky waited a few minutes for Winnie to return, but the house was still.  Finally he turned off the light and made his way carefully to the stairs and then up to his room, where he turned on a small lamp on the dresser. The alarm clock on the bedside table said 1:15.  He stripped to his underwear, turned off the light, and crawled into bed, the sheets were cool and clean, and it was luxurious to stretch his body, and nestle his head into the cool pillow.

            He fell asleep thinking about having sex on a blanket next to a bubbling stream.

            And he had this dream.  He heard a rattling, a metal-on-metal scraping noise coming from outside. He went to the window and in the illumination cast by the outside barn light saw that the wide barn door had been rolled aside.  He watched as a man pushed a motorcycle through the door, it was too far to see what the man looked like, but he could tell it was a man by the shape and posture, an older man at that.  His leather jacket glistened softly in the glow from the barn light, as did the tight form-fitting leather aviator hat which covered his ears and bucked under the chin.  He wore round goggles.  The man paused, looked around, his glance passing Lucky’s window without stopping.  Then he continued to push the motorcycle towards the road, and when he reached the gravel there was a roar from the engine, the man climbed into the seat, and in a cloud of dust, sped off. The dream ended, and Lucky went on to other dreams, which he did not remember.

Chapter 12

            Lucky couldn’t recall ever being involved in a violent act, either as a perpetrator, a victim, or a bystander.  OK, maybe a playground fight at Warren G. Harding Elementary, but that’s all.  There had never been violence in his family.  He had never witnessed a bar fight, not even in the Army.  He had never had a child, had he missed something important? but he could not imagine ever striking one.  He could not imagine striking a spouse, no matter how angry you were. 

            There is violence all around, he knew.  It was chronicled in the newspapers, and on TV.  Fights and mayhem, hand-to-hand and from the skies, in our homes and neighborhoods, and in towns and countryside and battlefields around the world.  Yet, he had never experienced it directly.

            And here he was, on his way to see a man who had grown up with violence, who as a child had been the victim of terrible beatings from his father, had seen his sister abused as well, and his mother. And then he had actually murdered his father in a most brutal way, and mutilated the body.  He would soon be face to face with this man, this father-murderer, be chatting casually with him, possibly sitting on his porch, having a cup of coffee or an early beer, this man for whom violence was commonplace, even banal.

            Lucky could not imagine it. 

            He was also surprised to find himself driving back into town. Yesterday at this time, yes, almost exactly twenty-four hours ago, he had been driving the other direction, leaving Thompsonburg, probably, he thought then, for the last time. 

            And again, this morning, it would have been so easy to leave the area altogether.  He could have packed up the Taurus and driven to Detroit with his three hundred thou.  There was nothing keeping him here, no legal necessity, no important business, not even curiosity or interest.  Well, maybe curiosity.  Winnie Bussle had insisted that he stay, promised that he would learn something important, about himself she implied.

Now he was driving back into town, passing the mega-discount stores, passing the mini-mart where yesterday morning he’d gassed up, passing the Kopper Kettle where he’d had his breakfast, passing the Cherokee Motel where he’d spent three nights, passing the Lumberman’s Bank where he’d consolidated his new wealth, returning to downtown Thompsonburg where a dollar store had replaced the Ben Franklin, where Emil’s Mobil had been remodeled into a cell phone store, where the Lakeview Pharmacy had been replaced by a video game hangout, where a hardware store had been replaced by the Caribbean Sunsations Tanning Salon, and where there were now five stop lights.  He stopped for the light at Emily Street, then continued to Julia and turned left, past the house he’d grown up in, the one he’d just sold, and on a few more blocks to the faded two-bedroom bungalow that had been the Kleeber family home.  The yard was neater than he’d expected, someone must have been looking after it for the years that Kenny was in residence at Wildwood.

            He parked on the street, went to the front door and pressed the buzzer, then knocked as well.  He waited a few moments, then buzzed and knocked again.  He cupped his hand against the small eye-level diamond-shaped window in the door and peered inside.  There was no light, no movement.  He went to the side of the house, let himself through the gate in the chain link fence, and rapped on the back door.  Lucky wondered about the exact spot that Kenny had set his father’s dead body afire in a final attempt to rid the world of even the carcass, even the lifeless muscle and bone and sinew of this evil man.  It might have happened within a few feet of where he was standing.  Could he still detect a trace of the stench that had surely accompanied the burning of the dead meat that had been Robert Kleeber?   The inside of Lucky’s nose itched.  In the next yard was a rusty Jungle Jim, and in the yard opposite, a patio table with an umbrella.  It was a deathly quiet neighborhood, desolate, with no one around to ask if they’d seen Kenny Kleeber, no one to pass the time with.  It was turning into a hot, hazy, overcast day.

            Well, he may as well leave. He’d come here, kept his appointment, there was no one home, he’d done his part, he could drive away with a clear conscience. He felt some relief, not wanting this meeting in the first place, and he was about to push back through the side gate when someone behind him said his name.

            “Lucky.”

            “Jesus, Kenny, I didn’t hear you. Where’d you come from?  I’ve been ringing and knocking.”

            “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

            Whatever Lucky had expected Kenny to look like, what stood in front of him was not it.  Kenny was a shrunken person, his shoulders sagging, his chest caved in, his pants hanging loosely around his sunken belly.  His face was a series of concave surfaces, his eyes deep holes, and the few strands of hair he still had were white, and lay flat across his brown-spotted scalp.  Lucky could not believe that he and this man were the same age, or that he was the same person he’d last seen thirty years before, that aggressive, malevolent kid he’d watched heave a battered and bloody cat out into Thompson Lake.

            Bye-bye, kitty.

            He didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Gee, Kenny, after all these years.”

            “You look great, Lucky.”  Kenny Kleeber’s voice was a raspy, lower-pitched version of its youthful self.

            “You look good, too.”

            “Yeah, if you think cadavers look good.  You don’t have to humor me, Lucky.  I know I look like shit.  Heavy-duty meds from the Docs at Wildwood, and a whole lot of self loathing’ll do this to you.”

            “I heard about what happened.  I didn’t know.”

            “You were gone.”

            Lucky followed Kenny around to the front of the house.  Kenny sat down on a porch step, so Lucky did, too.

            “So why’d you call me, Kenny?”

            “Jeez, can’t I call my old buddy?  Is there a law against that?  Fuck me, I never knew there was a law against a guy wanting to see his old buddy.”

            “We’re not exactly old buddies.  I haven’t seen you in over thirty years.”

            “There you go. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

            Both men were silent.  Lucky wished he hadn’t come. Kenny Kleeber broke the silence.

            “So, how about those vultures, huh?  Maybe they came to welcome me home.”

            A flock of turkey vultures and arrived in town a few days before, and had taken up residence in the City Park elms, much to the chagrin of local residents.  No one knew why they’d come, but everyone hoped they’d be leaving soon.

            “How’d you know where to reach me?” Lucky asked, ignoring the vulture comment.

            “Word gets around.”

            “I’d just been there a few hours.  How’d you know so fast?”

            “Word gets around fast.  That your car?”

            “Be it ever so humble.”

            “Can I borrow it?”

            “Kenny, I’m leaving town this afternoon.”

            “Just kidding, Lucky.”  Then he laughed, like he’d just heard a really funny joke. “Just pulling your leg. I don’t drive anymore.” 

            “Yeah, okay.”

            “Hey Lucky, remember when we were kids how all we thought about was cars?  We were nuts for cars then.”

            “Yeah, I remember.”

“Remember when we used to hang out at Emil’s? Watch that asshole work on cars, steal his pop?”

“I never stole his pop, Kenny.”

            “I bet you got a really cool car, once you could afford it, right?  Maybe a Mustang GT?  Or maybe a Vette.  You ever have a sports car?”

            “Not since that old beater I had in high school.”

            “That Taurus of yours isn’t very exciting.  A four-door sedan?  Lucky, you disappoint me.”

            “It’s good transportation,” Lucky said.

            “So where you going so soon?  Thompsonburg not exciting enough for you?”

            “Kenny, it’s not that.  I just came back for a few days, to clean up some family business.”

            “Yeah, I know.”

            “Now I’m headed back to Detroit.”

            “For what?”

            Lucky didn’t know quite how to answer this. 

            “Get on with my life,” he finally said.  “Such as it is.”  After a silence, Lucky asked, “So what are your plans, Kenny?”

            “Get on with my life,” Kenny said without hesitation, as if he’d been waiting for a cue.  “Such as it is.”  He laughed again, slapping his skinny thigh.  “Such as it is.  Such as it is.”

            “You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you, Kenny.  They could be good years.  No reason why not.”

            “Yeah sure.  Maybe if I had your three hundred thousand bucks.”

            “Hey, Kenny, just a damned minute.”

            “Just kidding, Lucky.”

            “My money is none of your business.”

            “Lucky, Lucky, relax.  Just pulling your leg.  Hey, you remember my sister, Karen?”

            “Sure, I remember Karen.”

            “She liked you.  You ever know that?”

            “She was a nice girl.”

            “You were hot for her, right?

            Lucky felt his face flush.  “Kenny, what in the hell are you talking about?” 

            “Yeah, yeah, I could tell, the preacher’s boy had the hots for my little twin sister, right?   Am I right?”  He gleefully slapped his leg.

            “It was my grandfather who was the preacher, Kenny.  And cut the shit about Karen.  She’s your sister.”

            “Okay, okay.  Don’t be so touchy.  Do you believe in God, Lucky?”

            Lucky exhaled loudly.  Christ all mighty, where was this conversation going now?

            “Why would you ask me that?”

            “Preacher’s grandkid and all, you know.”

            “Sometimes yes and sometimes no, which means I guess that I don’t know.”

            “Do you think we’re put on this earth for a purpose, Lucky?”

            “I haven’t thought about it that much.”

            “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.  Thirty years.  I think I was put on this world for a purpose.”

            “Really?”  Lucky wasn’t really interested.

            “Really.  So here’s what I believe.  Karen could have been born by herself, you know, not a twin.  I think God put me on the earth as her twin to take care of her.  He knew she’d need somebody, with my dad the way he was.  So I was the guy.  I was supposed to be her guardian.”

            “Karen’s guardian.”

            “I guess I didn’t do a very good job.  In fact, you might say I fucked up royally.  I guess God picked the wrong guy.”

            “Kenny, stop.  That’s nonsense.”

            “So he had to pick somebody else.  Another person to be her guardian.”  Lucky had nothing to add to this, so Kenny Kleeber continued.  “What choice did he have?”

            “Really.”

“You ever see her?  Later, I mean?”

            “Like when?”

            “Like maybe when you came back home.  You came back a few times, right?”

            “I came for my mother’s funeral and my brother Mel’s.  That’s all.”

            “You ever talk to Karen when you came back those times?”

            “No, of course not. I didn’t stay long. Just a day and left, each time.”

            Lucky remembered thinking about Karen those times, wondering if he’d see her.

            “She was still around for a few years, you know.  While I was up in Wildwood.”

            “Nobody ever told me.”

            “It was Thompsonburg’s biggest secret.”

            “I just found out.”

            “Mel never mentioned Karen, huh?”

            “My brother Mel?  Hell no.”

            “After you moved to Detroit?  When you’d see him?  He never mentioned Karen?”

            “Never.”

            “I’m not surprised.  I don’t think you knew Mel very well.” 

            “So where is she now, Kenny?”

            “But then, how could you know him?  As an adult, I mean.  You weren’t around.”

            “Where’s Karen?”

            “Gone. Long gone.”

            “You ever see her?”

            “She don’t want to see me.”

            “Have you stayed in touch with her?”

            “I’m the freak brother.  The crazy twin.  She wrote me letters up in Wildwood, but I don’t think she wants to see me now I’m out.”

            “Does she know you’re home?”

            “She knows.”

            “You’ve been out before, haven’t you?”

            “A few times, for weekends.  This is different.” 

            Across the street a boy of four or five played with a toy dump truck in a dusty hole in his front yard, growling like a truck as he moved it in and out of the hole.  His father probably worked in the Mongo quarry, Lucky thought. The kid would probably be working there himself, in twenty years.

            “Well,” Lucky said.

            “Well, well, well.  So here we are, after all these years.” 

            “I’ve got to be honest with you, Kenny, I am not enjoying this conversation.  You make me uncomfortable.  I’m sorry about what happened to you and all.  Life’s dealt you some heavy blows.  But there’s not much I can do about that, I’m not even going to be around Thompsonburg. I’m leaving this afternoon, for good.”

            “You can’t go.  Not yet.”

            “I should have left yesterday.”  Both men stood up, and Lucky offered Kenny his hand.  Kenny ignored it.  “All I can do is wish you the best.  I hope your life goes OK for you from now on.”

            Kenny moved to block Lucky’s way down the front walk.

            “I have more to tell you,” he said.  “There are things you should know.”

            “I have to go.  I have to pack up and be on the road.”

He tried to walk around Kenny but the other man moved into his way again.

“Don’t think you can just leave.”  He took hold of Lucky’s arm and tried to push him back towards the front steps.  Lucky twisted away.  “Your brother was twice the man you are.”

“Kenny I don’t know what you’re talking about, and frankly, I don’t care.”

            “I’m talking about the way people treat other people.  And the way they own up to their obligations.  And I’m talking about the way people live, and the way they die.”

            “You make no sense.  I’m leaving. Let’s not make this unpleasant.”

            “You want to see Karen?  You do, don’t you?”  

            Yes, he did.     

            “Kenny, cut the shit.” 

“Don’t go.  Hey, I said don’t go.”  Kenny grabbed his arm as he tried to walk past him, but Lucky ripped free, making the frailer man stumble. He headed down the walk towards the Taurus.  “Stop, damn it!” Kenny shouted, but Lucky noticed a change in Kenny’s voice, it wasn’t so much a command as a plea, and when Lucky looked back he was shocked to see Kenny’s face drawn up as tight as a red fist, tears flowing freely down his cheeks.  “Stop, please,” he said again.

            “Jesus, Kenny.”

            “You don’t understand anything.”

            “I have to go.”

            “You left once,” shouted the high school chum, the father-murderer, the nut-house resident, the failed-guardian sent by God.  “We thought you were our friend and you abandoned us.”

            “I never did.”

            “Karen and me, you abandoned us.”

            “We were kids,” Lucky said.  

Kenny Kleeber sat down on the top porch step and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.  “You’ll regret it if you go.  I promise you, you’ll regret it.”

             “I can’t help you.  I wish I could, but I have business in Detroit.  I have to get back.” 

            “You bastard. You fucking bastard, don’t you understand anything?”

Lucky turned and walked the few steps to his car, and when he looked back Kenny’s hands were at his sides, and his face was composed, expressionless, like a death mask.  In his right hand was a shiny steel handgun.  He raised it and aimed it at Lucky, who was no more than ten yards away. 

“Shit, Kenny, what’s that for?” Lucky heard himself say.

Then Kenny Kleeber put the muzzle of the gun into his mouth, put his thumb against the trigger, and blew his brains against the front door of the Kleeber house.

Chapter 13

            Laying in bed at night when he was a kid, Lucky Lesinski often thought about Karen Kleeber.  There was the short film that sometimes played in his head, the scene of Karen, naked, being beaten by her father with a leather belt.  He always felt heat in his groin, and a tightness in his chest, when that film played.  Sometimes he imagined touching Karen, sliding his hand slowly under her dress up the inside of her bare thigh, or touching her breast.  He knew the thoughts were wrong, a good Christian boy shouldn’t have such feelings.

            Once he had a dream that he and Karen were bound together, naked, front to front, wrapped so tightly neither of them could move.  Once he had a dream that the two of them were on a stage together, naked, under a bright light, with hundreds of people watching.  Once he dreamed that he stood by while three guys from school took Karen by force, each one getting their turn on her, Lucky feeling guilty and ashamed and, worst of all, ignored and cheated.  The dreams returned to his waking memory for years, unsettling and dark.

            In years to come, Lucky would have occasional dreams about Kenny Kleeber’s suicide. He would dream that Kenny had fired the gun at him, and had blown a hole right through him where his heart was.  He would dream that Kenny was still alive, but with the back of his head gone, and he would knock on Lucky’s door and ask for help.  He would dream that when he saw Kenny in his casket it wasn’t Kenny at all, but his brother Mel, or it was himself, or it was Big Larry.

            What did Kenny mean about abandoning him and Karen, leaving when they needed him?  He had tried to be pals with Kenny when they were teenagers, and it hadn’t worked.  He’d just been a kid, for Christ sake, not a psychiatrist.  He’d had his own problems, he wasn’t one of the in-crowd, he had to fight for some dignity, some respect.  And on top of everything his granddad was a preacher, for crying out loud.  And now, as adults, what could he have done for Kenny?   Nothing.

            Lucky had fought down his nausea and walked across the street to the house where the boy had been playing with his truck, to call 9-11.  The Dixon County EMS came and, after the Sheriff’s department had taken some photographs, took Kenny away, rolling him past Lucky on a gurney, the body covered by a pure white sheet, a red stain the size of a quarter defiling the otherwise pristine covering.  A couple of dozen people had gathered, chatting quietly in small clusters outside of the yellow “Do Not Cross” tape that was strung from one corner of the porch out to a skinny maple tree in front of the house, and then back to the other corner of the porch.  A Thompsonburg uniformed cop and a Sheriff’s deputy both took Lucky’s statement.  

            Why was Lucky here?  Just stopping by to see an old school mate before leaving town.  How long had he known Kenneth Kleeber? Since they were in high school.  When was the last time he’d seen him? That many years ago.  Had he known that Kenneth was carrying a gun?  No.  Had Kenneth Kleeber given any indication that he was suicidal?  No. How long was he here? About fifteen minutes, twenty minutes tops.  What had they talked about?  Nothing of consequence. Just chit-chat.  What kind of chit-chat?  About Kenny’s sister, Karen, and about Lucky’s brother, Mel.  About their plans.  What were Kenneth’s plans?  He didn’t have any.  Did he ever threaten him with the gun?  No.  Did he seem despondent?  He seemed depressed, yes.

            Uniformed and plain clothes cops went in and out of the house, Thompsonburg’s finest in blue and Dixon County sheriff’s deputies in brown, consulted and asked more questions.

            Did anyone else see the incident, as far as Lucky knew?  Maybe the little kid who was playing in his front yard across the street.   Anyone else?  He didn’t see anyone else.  Where did he call 9-11 from?  That house.  Is that his car?  Yes.  Did Kenneth Kleeber drive a car?  He didn’t know.  Did he know who next-of-kin was?   His twin sister Karen.  Did he know how to reach her?  No.  Where she was living?  No.  Any relatives around here that he knew of?  Not that he knew of.

            A cop in tan slacks, a white polo shirt and a blue blazer came out of the house. In his arms he carried a cardboard carton that said California Oranges on the side.  He introduced himself to Lucky as Sgt. Fiddler.  His eyes made Lucky think of his grandfather’s sermons about Satan.

            “You’re Lawrence Lesinski, Jr.?” he asked.

            “Yes, I am.”

            “You’re the witness?”

            “I called 9-11.”

            “Can I see some ID?”

            Lucky showed him his driver’s license, holding it so Fiddler could read it, as his hands were occupied holding the carton.

            “This box is for you,” he said. 

            “What is it?”

            “Don’t know.  Do you know why Kenneth Kleeber would give you this?”

            “No idea at all.”

            “Do you have any idea what’s in it?”  Fiddler shook the box, rattling its contents.  It sounded half empty.

            “None at all.”

            “Pop your trunk and I’ll put it in there for you.  We’ll probably contact you later and you can tell us what was in it.”

            “I don’t want it.”

            “You see that?”  Fiddler nodded down towards the top of the box.  There was a handwritten note taped there.  “It says that this box and its contents are the property of Lucky Lesinski, and it’s signed by Kleeber.  That’s good enough for us.  Pop your trunk.”

            Lucky unlocked the trunk of the Taurus and Fiddler put the carton inside, then slammed the lid down.  The noise startled the gawkers into silence for a second, then they resumed their soft chatter again.

            Fiddler pulled a pack of Marlboro Light 100s from his jacket pocket and lit one with a silver lighter.  He took a long drag, held the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds, then blew it out in a steady stream.  “This house is going to have a pretty bloody reputation,” he said.  “First his father, and then twenty-five years later he shoots himself.  Weird, wouldn’t you say?”

            “I’d say.”

            “I wouldn’t want to be the real estate agent who has to sell it.”  

            “I know what you mean.”

            “Had any problems with the law recently, Mr. Lesinski?”

            “Nope. None at all.”

            “You own a handgun?”

            “No.”

            “A rifle?  Shotgun?

            “Nope.”

            “You hunt?”

            “No.”

            “We can find out. Check the license records.”

            “I don’t own a gun.  Never have.”

            “You ever shoot a gun?”

            “In the Army.  Thirty years ago.”

            He took a puff on his cigarette.  “Wait here,” he said.  He walked over to a plain-Jane Chevy 4-door sedan and got something from the front seat, brought it back.  It was a copy of that morning’s Thompsonburg Daily Journal.  He held it so that Lucky could see the front page.  The cigarette dangled from his lips.

            “You ever see this individual before?”

The newspaper’s headline said –  

                                                Deputy Sheriff Missing

There was a picture of a Sheriff’s patrol car on what looked like a narrow gravel road with trees close on both sides.  The front doors of the car were open. There was also a picture, a formal police academy graduation shot, of a deputy with a very small nose.  An absurdly small nose.

            “Jesus,” Lucky said, out loud.

            “So, did you ever see him before?”

            “He stopped me yesterday morning on Highway 43.  I was leaving town.”

            “What’d he stop you for?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Did you break a law?  Speeding?  Run a red light?”

            “Nothing.”

            “So why’d he stop you?”

            “I don’t know.  He looked at my driver’s license and stuff and let me go.”

            “Just like that?”

            “Just like that.”

            “You see him again?”

            “No.”

            Fiddler folded the newspaper and put it under his arm. 

            “We might want to talk to you about that, too.”

            “I’m leaving town.  This afternoon.  I don’t live here.”

            “And we might want to finger print you. Do you have a problem with that?”

            “Finger print me for what?”

            “You live in Detroit?”

            “The Detroit area.”

            “What’s your address?”

            Lucky had suddenly run out of quick, simple answers.  He hesitated, before he said, “I don’t have a permanent address right now.”

            “I’m asking you to stay here for a few more days.  Can you do that?”

            Fiddler took a last drag off his cigarette, dropped it to the pavement and ground it out under the sole of his shiny black oxford.

            “I’d rather not.”

            “The county medical examiner will want a statement.  That kind of thing.”  He fished a business card from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to Lucky. “Call my office as soon as you know where you’ll be staying, where we can reach you.”

            “I’ve finished my business here,” Lucky said.  “There’s nothing keeping me in Thompsonburg.”

            “And let me know if there’s anything interesting in that box.  Anything that would help us.”

“I need to get back to Detroit tonight.”

“So they call you Lucky, huh?”

“Since I was a kid.”

“You feel lucky?”

“It’s just a nickname.”

            “Don’t fuck with me, Lucky,” Fiddler said.

Chapter 14

Driving back to Winnie Bussle’s farm Lucky was on automatic pilot, his hands and feet competent on their own to accelerate, brake, and steer.  His brain was otherwise occupied, a nest of red ants, a deafening, constant howl of artic wind.  When he reached the gravel of Demmeter Road he pulled as far to the side as he could without going into the ditch, stopped the car, and killed the engine.  And then, without knowing why, he began to cry – loud, heaving sobs he did not know he was capable of.  A small part of his consciousness was coolly analyzing his emotions.  The sobs were not for Kenny.  He felt no sorrow at the man’s death.  He had not known him well enough to grieve like this.  Catharsis.  That was it.  Simply an involuntary, reflexive reaction to the horror he had just witnessed.  Or maybe it was self pity.  He was alone in the world, now.  He cared for no one, and no one cared for him.  He could blow his own brains out, and who would give a shit?   Or maybe he was crying for no good reason at all.

The house seemed to be empty when he arrived.  On the kitchen table was a copy of the newspaper Fiddler had shown him. Lucky sat down and read the whole story.

Deputy Perry Fiusko – so that was the moose’s first name, Perry – had not been seen nor heard from since the previous afternoon, when he’d done a routine check-in with the Sheriff’s office by radio.  His car had been found, abandoned, on Dice Road, about ten miles from of town. 

            Where was Dice Road?  He thought he remembered that it was on the other side of town from here, maybe even on the other side of the lake. 

            There was short bio of Perry Fiusko. He’d been with the Sheriff’s department since coming to Thompsonburg ten years ago from Bad Axe, a town in the thumb of Michigan’s mitt, where he’d been a member of the small police force.  He’d attended Lansing Community College and the Mid-Michigan Police Academy.  He was unmarried.

            Volunteers had been organized and were searching the area.  The state police had provided a helicopter.  The Sheriff was waiting for the state police tracking dogs to be brought in.  Evidence had been found in the patrol car, but details were being withheld pending further investigation. And so on and so forth.

            Across the lower half of the front page was a headline that said “Beady-Eyed Stinkers Won’t Leave Town.”  Lucky read –

The day the turkey vultures came no one can say why they picked Thompsonburg. No one really saw them arrive. They were just there one morning two weeks ago, sitting in the elm trees in City Park.  Hundreds of them. Black, beady-eyed and slightly menacing. Smelly, too. Roadkill smelly.

            For several days city officials battled to uproot the roost, exploding fireworks, spraying the vultures with water, the story said.  With no success so far.

            Winnie came into the kitchen from outside.  She carried a basket with several ripe tomatoes and long, pale green peppers.

            “You’re back?” she asked into the room.

            “Yeah, it’s me.  I’m back.  Where have you been?”

            “You reading the paper? About the deputy?”  She washed off the tomatoes and peppers in the sink and left them on the counter.

            “Yep.”

“He’s the one that sent you here.”

“He’s the one.”

“Clyde’s joined the search.  He knew him a little.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Winnie sat down at the table.

“Okay, so Clyde asked him to do us a favor.  He’s a good guy. At least he gave you time to have breakfast before he stopped you.”

“Yeah, he’s a fucking saint.”

“Watch your language.”

“And I’m still waiting for an explanation of why I’m here. Why you wanted me to stay.”

“I know.”

Lucky was suddenly very, very tired.  He hoped he would not begin crying again.  Not in front of Winnie Bussle.

“Did you help look for him?  Use your powers?”

“The Sheriff came by, took me out there, but I couldn’t feel anything.  My gift’s not a like a TV set I can turn on and off.”

“I know.”

“We’re praying he’s alright.  That nothing awful has happened to him.  Do you ever pray, Lucky?”

“No, I don’t pray.”

“The grandkid of a preacher, a good Christian boy, and you don’t pray?”

“I’m not a boy anymore.  And there’s no one to pray to.”

“Make us some tea?”

“I’m very, very tired.”

“You know about Kenny Kleeber?”

“I was there.  I was with him.  I’m the one who called 9-11.  He asked me about God, too.”

Lucky remembered the California Oranges carton in the trunk of the Taurus. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

In a few minutes he came back and put the carton on the kitchen table.  Winnie put her hand out and touched it, ran her fingers along its edges, getting an idea of its size. She nudged it a few inches, getting an idea of its weight.

“What do we have here?” she asked.

“Use your great gift, oh all-seeing one.  You tell me what’s inside.”

“Maybe I will, smart-ass.  Make us some tea.”

While Lucky busied himself putting on the tea kettle, getting cups and tea bags, Winnie stood quietly with her hands flat on the top of the carton, breathing deeply.  By the time Lucky was serving the tea, she was sitting again, staring at the carton as if she could see it, or as if her dark glasses gave her x-ray vision.  He thought he noticed her lower lip tremble slightly.

“Well?” he said, possibly not wanting to know.

“There are things in there that neither of us may wish to see.”

“Fuck it,” Lucky said, and lifted the lid off the carton and set it aside on the kitchen counter.  There wasn’t much inside.  Lucky removed the items one at a time and placed them on the table.  A stack of letters about an inch-thick, held with a rubber band.  Something about the size and weight of a pistol wrapped in a baby blue hand towel.  Two packets of snapshots held with rubber bands.  A Konica 35mm camera with a variable zoom lens.  A slim, palm-sized book.  A small, pink hand mirror with a picture of Cinderella on the back.  “Why has my life suddenly become so fucking horrible?”

Winnie didn’t answer. She seemed not even to be breathing.

            “You know what I should do?” Lucky said.

            Still Winnie said nothing.

He picked up the packet of letters.  They were all from Karen Kleeber, addressed to Kenny Kleeber at Wildwood.  There were several different return addresses – the older letters were from the Kleeber house on Julia Street, then from addresses in Mt. Pleasant, Traverse City, and St. Ignace.  The most recent return address was Manistee, just 50 miles away.  The postmark was less than a year old.

            “I should throw all of this stuff in the trash and leave.” 

When Lucky didn’t get an answer he picked up one of the packets of snapshots, ripped off the rubber band and flung it to the table.  He looked at the first picture – a man and woman, laughing into the camera.  You could tell from the way they held hands so comfortably, her body slightly nestled into his, and from the openness of their laughter, that these were two people easily and strongly in love.  His brother Mel, and Karen Kleeber.

Chapter 15

            Lucky opened his mouth but no sound emerged.  He closed his eyes and opened them, but the picture was the same. 

            “Oh, dear God,” he said.

            “What is it?  What’s the matter?”

            “A picture,” he said.

“Let me have it.  Let me hold it.”  The blind woman held the picture flat between her palms.  “Two people,” she said.  “One of them gone.”

            Lucky had never felt so lost.  How could he have not known about Mel and Karen?  Why hadn’t Mel said anything?  Had they grown that far apart?   Had he been that much of an alien to his own brother?

Winnie was now holding the photograph of Mel and Karen against her bosom, breathing deeply. 

“Is it your brother Mel?”

“Yes.”

“With Karen Kleeber?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know?” she asked.

“No.”

“They must have been very careful. I can tell you truthfully, not many people knew.”

Lucky went through all of the pictures in the stack. All twelve had been taken at the same time and place, an overcast summer’s day in the backyard of the Kleeber house on Julia Street.  Some of the pictures were candid, some were posed.  In some Karen and Mel were holding hands, in others embracing, or arm-in-arm, or sitting side-by-side in aluminum-framed lawn chairs.  Karen wore a sleeveless white dress with a tiny flower print, open at the neck, loose and billowy around her legs. Her feet were bare.  Her shoulder-length dark hair flowed softly around her face.  She was absolutely beautiful.  Mel wore shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, sandals on his feet.  He had the beginnings of a paunch, and his light hair had begun to thin.

By their apparent ages, Lucky had to assume that the pictures had been taken long after Kenny had been sent to Wildwood, so who could have taken the pictures?  Maybe Kenny, home on one of his occasional weekend releases.

“They look like they’re in love,” Lucky said.

“I know they were in love,” Winnie said.  “I can feel it.”

“My little brother, Mel. Oh, my God, my little brother Mel.”

Lucky was afraid he was going to cry again.

“He would have done anything for her.  I can feel it.  And she for him.”

He took the picture from Winnie, replaced the rubber band, and put the packet on the table.  He removed the rubber band from the other packet of pictures.  These were of a man, alone, seated on a blanket by a stream. It took Lucky a few moments to recognize Riley Harrison.

“Let me have what you’re looking at,” Winnie said.

He handed her a picture, and she held it flat between her palms for a few moments.  Then her head jerked back and she began making a sound, uh, uh, uh, and then she screamed, and then she held the picture to her bosom and began wailing, the most horrible sound Lucky had ever heard a human being make.  He put his hand on her shoulder, not knowing what else to do, but she didn’t seem to notice.  He turned back to the pictures, hoping she would stop.

The pictures had evidently been taken from behind foliage because indistinct, out-of-focus green blobs sometimes impinged around the edges of the image.  In some of the pictures the man was simply gazing across the water. In others, he was eating or drinking from a soda can.  In one, he was reading a small book.  Scattered about on the blanket were the remnants of a picnic lunch, another book, and some small object that winked brightly in the sun, possibly a mirror. 

Winnie was no longer wailing, but was rocking slowly back and forth, saying oh, oh, oh, oh.  Lucky felt stupid and helpless.

“Give me the picture, Winnie,” he said, but the blind woman clutched it more tightly to her bosom and continued to rock back and forth.  Finally, she stopped and laid the picture face up on the table.

“Are there more like this?”

“Twelve altogether.”

“Describe this one to me, in detail.”

“Winnie.”

“Please, it’s ok.”

Lucky described it to her, the man, the surroundings, the plaid blanket, the items on the blanket, the out-of-focus foliage along two edges of the picture.

“Are they all like that.”

“All pretty much the same,” he said.

“It’s where we used to go.  Our secret place.  Give them to me.”

He replaced the rubber band and gave her the pictures.

“Oh, my God, Riley, Riley, Riley,” she said, pressing them to her bosom.  “Oh, Riley.”  She began taking long, slow breaths.

“Can I get you some water or something?” Lucky said.

“I’m sorry.  It’s such a shock.”

            “Do you know who took them?” he asked.

            “No,” she said.

            “Do you know when they were taken?”

            “Yes,” she said.  “Tell me what else was in the box.”

            “Well, there’s a gun wrapped in a towel,” he said, putting it back into the carton.  He hadn’t unwrapped it but he was sure that’s what it was.  “A camera.  A book of poems by Emily Dickenson.  A mirror with Cinderella on the back.”  He noticed that these two objects were speckled with tiny reddish-brown spots. 

            “Let me have the book and the mirror,” Winnie said.

            Lucky put them in her hands and she held them to her bosom. 

            “This book was Riley’s.  This mirror is the one I used to look at him,” she said.  “Why would Kenny Kleeber have them?”

“You keep them,” Lucky said.  He continued listing the box’s contents.  “There are some letters from Karen to Kenny in Wildwood,” he said, putting them into the carton.  “And the pictures.  Why would he want me to have all this?”  He retrieved the lid from the kitchen counter and replaced it.

            They both sat quietly with their own thoughts for a long time.  She slipped one of the pictures out of the rubber band and handed it to him.

            “Keep this,” she said.  “For old times sake.”

            He glanced at it before slipping it into his shirt pocket.  It was one in which Riley was reading from a book.

Their tea had grown cold.

“I have a feeling about these,” the blind woman said.

“A feeling?”

“Stronger than a feeling.  I know it’s true.  They were taken on the last day Riley came, the day I was ill and couldn’t go with him.  I was feeling so badly I didn’t want him hanging around.  I just wanted to go to bed and sleep.  I insisted that he go picnic by himself.  Pretend I was there.  Read some poetry.  Enjoy the solitude.”

“So that’s why he’s alone in the pictures?”

“And I feel something else.  I feel like something awful happened to Riley that day,” Winnie Bussle said.  “Right there where he sat.  The person who took those pictures did something awful to my Riley.”

Chapter 16

            Lucky left Winnie Bussle sitting at the kitchen table and took the carton up to his room. He set it on the floor, pulled down the window shade to darken the room, and lay down on the bed.  Within seconds he had fallen into a ragged sleep.  He awoke several times, once when he heard the murmur of voices from below, once again to the boom of a late afternoon thunderstorm, once again when the phone rang, and finally when Clyde turned on his TV set in the next room to watch the evening news.  The sun was setting when he went downstairs, hungry, looking for food.  On the kitchen table was a note in Clyde’s simple block lettering. 

            DINNER IN OVEN.  MR. LESINSKI SHOULD CALL SGT. FIDDLER.

            In the oven Lucky found a plate of food staying warm – a thick slab of meatloaf, a large mound of mashed potatoes.  On the stove in a saucepan was some brown gravy, which Lucky heated. It looked like it had been made from scratch.  On the kitchen counter was a bowl containing what was left of a tomato and cucumber salad, enough for one generous serving.  He cut a slice of bread, got a beer out of the refrigerator.  Clyde could certainly cook.

            He would wait until morning to call Fiddler.  Right now, he didn’t know how much he would tell the cop.  He needed time to think it through.

            He took the picture of Riley Harrison out of his shirt pocket.  The scene looked idyllic, alright.  The grassy clearing, trees tightly circling it on three sides, the river on the fourth.  He guessed that it was a feeder of Green River, possibly a stretch of the Little Green that merged into the Green not far from here. 

            Riley and Winnie had visited this place often that summer, she’d told him.  She’d thought no one else knew about it.  Evidently, someone else did.  One Saturday in early fall he’d come to take her to their secret spot, but she wasn’t feeling well, and she sent him there by himself.  Enjoy the solitude, she’d told him.  He’d gone, done the things that they usually did together – spread out the blanket, ate the picnic lunch, read some poetry.  Lucky wondered if Riley had read it out loud. 

            But he hadn’t been alone. Someone had got there before him, had been waiting, hidden in the grove of trees.  Why had he taken pictures of Riley?  And were the clairvoyant’s feelings correct?  Did something awful happen to Riley that day?  Is that why he never came back?

            Damn it, it was none of his business.  He’d be much better off keeping his nose out of it.  

Maybe he’d get a topo map of Dixon County, see if he could figure out where the spot was, exactly.  Winnie had said that Riley drove to it on a bumpy back road, maybe no more than an old logging trail. Of course, that was over twenty years ago. The place might look a lot different now.   If he found it, maybe he’d take her there, see if she could pick up any vibes, use her powers to determine what happened, if anything.

And why in the hell should he even care?  

            He wished he’d known his brother better.  Evidently, he had known Mel not at all.  He resented him for his relationship with Karen Kleeber, who Lucky now admitted was his own private, unfulfilled obsession.  What other secrets had Mel not shared? 

Not long after Lucky and Brenda had called it splitsville, Mel had come down to Detroit to offer his big brother a little aid and comfort in his time of suffering.  Although the baby of the family, two years younger than Lucky, Mel had seemed, if not wiser, at least more understanding and tolerant of human frailty.  One night, sitting at the kitchen table, Lucky got stinking drunk, finishing off a half-bottle of Dewar’s, ranting, crying, cursing, feeling damned sorry for himself.   Mel had been patient and sympathetic, listening thoughtfully, responding occasionally with quiet, calming words.  But what had been more surprising, Lucky remembered, was when Mel told Lucky that Jesus cared for him, and that we all needed God’s grace, and that he should seek God’s will for his life. Had his little brother bought into Granddad Mickelson’s old-time religion?  Had he turned into a Jesus-freak?  If Lucky hadn’t been so wrapped up in his own misery he’d have been more curious.  It was never discussed again.

            Lucky got another beer and picked up the newspaper.  He reread the story about the missing Deputy, Perry Fiusko, then leafed through the rest of the paper.  He read about the turkey vultures, about the city council arguing zoning rules and about the extension of the sewer line further out into the countryside, and about a proposed school millage.  He read the Community Bulletin Board which listed class reunions, club events, AA meetings.  He read the obituaries, looking for familiar names, but found none.  He glanced at the pictures of the newly engaged, the newly betrothed, and those celebrating forty and fifty-year anniversaries.  He read the ads for shoe stores and banks and insurance companies and furniture stores and florists and doctors.  He went through the want-ads – cars for sale and houses for sale and help wanted.  The newspaper gave him a pretty good idea of a day in the life of Thompsonburg.

            Tomorrow the paper would have a story about Kenny Kleeber’s suicide, and the story would surely mention him.  Some forgotten acquaintance would track him down at the Bussle farm – “word gets around fast” Kenny had said – and call. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be gone. He wanted to stop thinking about Winnie Bussle and Riley Harrison. He wanted to stop thinking about his brother, about Mel and Karen Kleeber together.  

            He wanted to see Karen Kleeber again.

            He washed the dishes and put them in the rack to dry, then went back upstairs, turning off lights as he made his way through the rooms.  The house was quiet.  He opened the carton and took out the letters from Karen to Kenny Kleeber.  He looked carefully, obsessively, at her handwriting on every envelope, imagining her hand forming every letter, every loop and dot and crossed-T.  He imagined the same hand lifted to his face, the palm gently touching his cheek. He put the packet of letters to his face and inhaled, trying to pick up a scent of her.  He took the letters into the bed and went to sleep with them under his pillow.

            That night he did not go to the window when he heard the barn door roll open, the crunch of wheels on gravel, the sudden roar of the Indian Sport Scout, then the sound fading in the distance.

Chapter 17

            Thompsonburg’s first police chief was Nathaniel Thompson, a cousin of the lumber baron Jehosephat Thompson.  He had no practical experience in law enforcement.  In fact, he was a notorious womanizer and extortionist, with a gift for persuading local merchants that it was in their own best interests to contribute generously to the chief’s retirement fund.  His formal portrait photograph hung in the lobby of the Thompsonburg Police Department along with the chiefs that followed him, in chronological order, all the way to the present.  Lucky counted eighteen portraits in all.

            That morning, Lucky had called Fiddler and said he had some things to drop off.  In a plastic supermarket bag he’d found in Winnie’s kitchen cupboard he put the gun, still wrapped in the baby blue towel, and the camera.  He’d written Karen Kleeber’s Manistee address on a page from a note pad he found next to the telephone, and put that into the bag, too. Now he was sitting on a long wooden bench in the police station, the plastic bag on his lap, waiting for Fiddler to appear.

            He was getting his fill of cops, that was for sure.  First a sheriff’s deputy pulling him over for no good reason, then a couple of uniformed cops and this Sgt. Fiddler, whose eyes gave him a very uneasy feeling, at Kenny Kleeber’s house, and probably more to come, State Police troopers and more deputies, and maybe even somebody from the county prosecutor’s office.  Enough law enforcement for a lifetime, and they all make you feel like you’ve done something wrong, that you have something to hide, that you’re guilty even if you don’t know why, or of what.

             Fiddler was beckoning him from a doorway.  He got up from the bench and followed the cop down a hallway.  Fiddler had his jacket off this time, and as he walked behind him, Lucky focused on the X across his back formed by the narrow leather straps of his gun harness.  Fiddler opened another door and motioned Lucky inside, followed him in, then closed the door.  The room was so tiny that a wooden table and four wooden straight-back chairs nearly filled it.  A calendar from the Lumberman’s Bank hung on one wall, on another a poster with a vintage picture of a locomotive hanging off a trestle above a deep gorge observed by two men in top hats, and the caption Shit Happens.  An olive drab metal waste can was tucked into a corner. The one small window was the kind that opened with a crank.  The walls, like every other wall in the building, were painted glossy mental hospital green.  Lucky noticed the carpet, a cheap brown tweed loop, probably some synthetic like olefin, mostly matted down.  Couldn’t have been more than $3.99 a yard new.  He took a chair and Fiddler took the one opposite him.  On the table were a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen.

            “How about them buzzards in City Park?” Fiddler said.  “You see ’em?”

            “The newspaper said vultures,” Lucky said.  “Turkey vultures.”

            “Buzzards, vultures, what’s the hells the difference.  They’re uglier than sin.  You see ’em?  They just sit there in the trees all day like, well, like vultures, I guess.”

            “Yeah, I guess that’s all they do,” Lucky acknowledged.

            “Maybe they’re an omen,” Fiddler said.

            “Of what?”

            “Something bad coming, I guess.  Who knows?  There are a lot of superstitious people in Thompsonburg.”

            “I guess so,” said Lucky.

            “So, what’d you got for me?” he asked.

            Lucky pushed the package across the table.  Fiddler let the two objects slide from the bag without touching them.  He used the ballpoint pen to move the camera around, this way and that.

            “Whose is this?” he asked.

            Lucky shrugged his shoulders.  “It was in the box.”

            Fiddler jotted a note on the legal pad, then peeled away the flaps of the towel, revealing a blue steel revolver.  It was the first time Lucky had seen it.

            “This was in the carton, too?” Fiddler asked, pushing his pen through the trigger guard.  He lifted the gun off the table with the pen, turned it so he could see all sides.  He put it down.  “That’s it?”

            “I wrote down an address. It’s in the bag.”

            Fiddler fished out the note paper.  He looked at the address, raised his eyebrows. 

            “There were some letters in the box.  From Karen Kleeber to Kenny Kleeber in Wildwood.  This was her most recent return address.”

            “That’s what you called him?  Kenny?”

“That’s what everybody called him.”

            “And his twin sister Karen lives in Manistee?”

            “Apparently.  At least she did a year ago.”

            “There were other return addresses?”

            “Yes.”

            “Would it be asking too much for you to share those with me?”  Fiddler’s grin was not of the cheery sort.

            “Traverse City.  Mt. Pleasant.  St. Ignace.”

            “Traverse City, Mt. Pleasant and St. Ignace?  In that order, chronologically?

            “Yes.  Of course, Thompsonburg before that.”

            “Of course.”  Fiddler jotted a note on his pad.  “Do those towns mean anything to you?  See any connection between them?”

            “No, not really.  Do you?” Lucky asked.

            Fiddler thought for a moment.  “Maybe,” he said.  “Maybe I see a connection.”

            “Would it be asking too much for you to share it with me?” Lucky asked.

            Fiddler ignored the question and its tone.   “Why didn’t you bring the letters?” he asked.

            “I brought what I brought. The rest is private.”

            Fiddler stared down at the items on the table, slowly tapping the tip of the pen on the wooden surface.

            “Are you hiding something from me, Lucky?”

            “Look.  Meaning no disrespect, but I’ve about had it with police,” Lucky said.  “I’ve done nothing wrong, but I’m being treated like a criminal.”

            Fiddler looked at him a long time before finally saying, “You’re absolutely right.  I apologize on behalf the Thompsonburg Police Department.  No, I apologize for the whole fucking law enforcement establishment.  Please accept our humble apology.”

            “I’m sure it’s sincere.”

            “Absolutely sincere.”  Fiddler took a pack of Camel 100 mm Filters from his pocket, shook one out, and went to the window.  He cranked the window open, then lit the cigarette with his lighter and blew the smoke outside through the narrow opening.  “But you have to understand how we’d be suspicious.”

            “Suspicious of what?”

            “You trying to get out of town, for starters.  With all that cash.”

            “How the hell does everybody know about my money?  And I wasn’t trying to get out of town.  My business is finished here.  Christ, I don’t even live here.”

            “And you hanging out with that weird brother and sister team in the country.”  Fiddler tapped ash off the cigarette into his cupped hand.

            “What’s weird about them?”

            Fiddler made a face that said, you’ve got to be kidding.

            “And then you’re buddies with that Kleeber character, who’s a known father murderer.  A certifiable nutcase.  And he blows his brains out right in front of you.”

            “We weren’t buddies.”

            “And he gives you a gun and a camera and who knows what else.”  He took another drag off the cigarette, held it in his lungs, then leaned forward and blew the smoke out the window. Lucky was silent.  “And you having that run-in with Deputy Fiusko, and now he’s missing.  You’d see how we’d be suspicious,” Fiddler said.

            “I had no run-in with Deputy Fiusko.”

            “Do you know whose gun this is?”

            “No idea.”

            “Did you touch it?  Handle it?”

            “No.  I didn’t even unwrap it.”

            “You knew it was a gun without unwrapping it?”

            “That was pretty obvious.”

            Fiddler set his burning cigarette on the window sill, went to the table, and picked up the gun with his ballpoint pen again.  He brought the muzzle up to his nose and sniffed, then let it slide off the pen back onto table top and retrieved his cigarette.  Lucky noticed several cigarette burns along the edge of the sill.

            “Guns are just too damned easy to get these days,” Fiddler said.

            “I wouldn’t know.”

            “Like where would Kenneth Kleeber have bought the gun he used yesterday?”

            “I have no idea.”

            “You weren’t curious about this gun?”

            Lucky didn’t answer.  He wasn’t going to play this game.

            “Do you know whose camera this is?” Fiddler asked.

            “No.”

            “Ever see it before?”

            “No.”

            “Where there any pictures in the box?”

            Lucky didn’t answer.

            “I’ll assume there were,” Fiddler said. “We’d like to see them.”

            Lucky didn’t answer. 

“Did the camera have film in it?”

            “No.”

            “How do you know?”

            “I opened it.”

            “You opened it?” Fiddler said.

            “That’s not a crime.”

            “Tampering with evidence?” He took a puff off the cigarette.

            “Evidence of what?” Lucky said, almost, but not quite, shouting.  “Evidence of fucking what?”

            Fiddler and Lucky stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments, then Fiddler said, “Were you around when Kleeber killed his old man?”

            “No, I’d left Thompsonburg years before.”

            “Just for the heck of it, I went downstairs and pulled the file.  Some interesting stuff in there that I didn’t know.  Of course, that was long before my time.”

            “Interesting stuff, huh?” Lucky said.

            “Yeah.  Like for instance, there was this old lady lived across the alley from the Kleebers, swears she saw Kenny in the backyard, and then she heard what she assumed were gunshots, bang, bang she said, and then she saw Kenny run into the house.”  Fiddler waited for Lucky’s reaction but there was none, so he continued.  “They pretty much ignored what she said.  She’s probably batty, huh?”

            “How would I know?” Lucky said.

            “They never found the weapon, either.  Now that’s really weird.  By the time we got to the scene, Kenny’d already dragged his old man’s dead body out to the back yard, doused it with gasoline, and set it on fire.  He’d never say where the weapon was.  They figured he pitched it down a nearby sewer or something.  They looked, but never found it.”

            “You think this is it?” Lucky said, nodding towards the pistol on the table.

            Fiddler took another drag off his cigarette and blew the smoke out the window.  “We can find out. It’s the right caliber.  We’ll send it to the State Police crime lab.  Ballistics, prints, all that.  Just like on TV.”  Fiddler cranked the window shut, stubbed out the cigarette on the inside of the wastebasket, and went back to his chair.  “But Kenneth Kleeber said he did it, and his sister and mother said he did it, so I guess he did it. But you know, it could have been somebody else altogether.  Sloppy police work, if you ask me.”  Fiddler nudged the pistol and camera back into the plastic bag with his ballpoint pen.  “Thanks for bringing this stuff.  If you wait out in the lobby, somebody’ll bring you a receipt.”

            “I don’t need a receipt,” Lucky said.

            “Regulations, Lucky.  We have to give you a fucking receipt.”   

            Fiddler reached behind without looking and opened the door. He was making notes on his legal pad as Lucky left the room.

            Crossing City Park Lucky passed a couple of school kids pitching stones at the turkey vultures in the trees, but their throws barely reached the lowest branches.  The vultures were ugly, alright, with their football shaped bodies, their long bare legs, their evil, featherless heads of red-skin, and their tearing beaks.  But Lucky had seen them in the air, too, and knew they were magnificent, awe-inspiring fliers. 

In the Courthouse he bought a topographical map of the area around the Bussle farm – parts of Branch, Riverdale and Foster Townships.  A few minutes later he was back in his car, driving north into the countryside on Hwy 43.  When he reached Tuttle Road he turned east.  It was flat farmland out here, with broad fields of snap beans and cucumbers on either side of the road.  He’d driven three miles when he saw ahead the ten-foot high chain link fence, beyond which the land was dry and sterile.  He pulled off to the shoulder and walked to the fence, put his fingers through the links and peered in.  The ground was level for 100 yards or so, and then dropped off into a chasm that seemed a mile across.  A sign bolted to the fence said

NO TRESPASSING

MONGO BRICK COMPANY

QUARRY ENTRANCE 500 FT

            Faintly, in the distance, Lucky could hear the noise of a steam shovel clawing at the wall of the pit.

Chapter 18

            It was a mere 350 million years ago, the blink of an eye in geological time, that the part of the earth now called Michigan was a warm water sea.  Fine silt that had eroded from the surrounding land masses was carried by rivers and streams and deposited on the sea’s bottom, hundreds of feet deep at the center of the bowl, thinner at the edges.  The seabed teamed with primitive life - crinoids and blastoids, snails and starfish and coral.  And when the seas receded, replaced by swamps, the deep sediment beds were pressed into fossil-rich layers of coal and clay and shale which, in succeeding eons, were covered by the glacial rubble of the ice ages.  In some places these sediment beds broke near or even through the surface, and were accessible to the johnny-come-lately species known as homo sapiens, to take for their use – fire, heat, power, and the manufacture of bricks.

When he was in the 5^th grade at Warren G. Harding Elementary Lucky’s class went on a field trip to the Mongo shale and clay quarry and then on a tour of the Mongo brick plant, conducted by old Mr. Mongo himself.  In spite of his dark suit, white shirt, neat red tie, and polished black shoes, Mr. Mongo reminded Lucky of the picture of Ichabod Crane in one of his school books.

Lucky remembered the noise in the quarry, the echoing bbrrrrakkk of the diesel engines that powered the shovels gouging the shale and clay from its ages of undisturbed repose, that powered the dozers pushing the dark rock into jagged mountains, and the loaders dumping it into the trucks, and the trucks, with wheels taller than a man, carrying it out, crawling ponderously up the temporary road carved out of one end of the pit.  And he remembered the noise in the building where the shale was crushed and ground into the fine particles it had once been, 350 million years or so before, when it settled to the bottom of the salt water sea that covered this place.  How quiet it must have been then, only nature’s sounds anywhere on the whole face of the earth, only the crack of thunder during a storm, the soft pelt of rain on the water’s surface, the slither and slap of a salamander’s tail, the faint click of a dragonfly with a two-foot wingspan landing on a leaf, or the splash of a lungfish, disturbing the deep silence.

            When the class got to the brick plant’s pug mill, Mr. Mongo introduced Lucky’s dad.  “Mr. Lesinski is the foreman here,” he told the group.  “He’s in charge of this part of the plant.”

            Lucky was extraordinarily proud that day as his father explained to the class how the pug mill worked.  Shouting over the noise of the machinery, he told how water was added to the fine, dry clay, then how the mass was mixed together in a vat the size of Lucky’s bedroom, the giant blades stirring it into an even consistency.  Then the class moved on to the next building where the damp clay was formed into the shape of bricks, then loaded onto kiln cars on rails and rolled into the dryer, and finally to the kilns themselves where the bricks were fired into permanency. 

            “Think about it,” Mr. Mongo told the kids gathered around the end of the long tunnel-like kiln.  “The temperature in there is 2,000 degrees.  When your mom bakes an apple pie for your dad the oven is only about 350 degrees.  It takes a lot of heat to make a good Mongo brick.”

            Then Mr. Mongo showed them where the cooled bricks were stacked on wooden pallets, cubes of five hundred bricks.

            “Each brick weighs about three pounds,” he said, taking a brick off a stack, hefting it, then handing it to one of the kids.  “Pass it around.  That’s the way, son.  See how heavy it is?  So who can tell me?” Mr. Mongo asked.  “If there are five hundred bricks in one of these cubes, how much would the whole cube of bricks weigh?”

            Several hands shot up.

            “Yes?” Mr. Mongo said, nodding towards Marybeth Polster.   Who else would he have noticed first?        .

            “One thousand, five hundred pounds,” Marybeth said loudly and clearly.

            Lucky knew she was brilliant.

            “Exactly,” Mr. Mongo said.  “You’re a pretty smart girl.  One thousand five hundred pounds.  That’s almost as much as a car weighs.  At least, one of those little Nash Metropolitans.  That’s so heavy it takes a special vehicle to move ’em around,” he said as a forklift with a load of bricks trundled by, heading towards the wide open doors at the end of the building.  Mr. Mongo waved to the driver of the forklift who threw back a snappy salute.  Lucky noticed that Mr. Mongo’s glossy black shoes were now covered by a fine layer of dust.

            Their last stop was the inventory yard, a space several times larger than the school playground, where the cubes of bricks were stacked on top of each other in long rows. 

            “We make over a hundred different kinds of bricks here,” said Mr. Mongo.  “See the different colors, those red ones over there, and those yellow ones.  And some have holes, like this one, and some don’t.  And some are made to look old, and some shiny new.”

            “How many bricks do you make in a year?” asked Marybeth Polster.

“That’s a good question, young lady.  We make over fifty million bricks a year.  That’s a lot of bricks.”

I must be looking at a million bricks, Lucky had thought, seeing the row after row after row of bricks stacked as high as a house.  Operating a steam shovel in the quarry would be a great job, he decided.  Or driving a forklift, moving those cubes of bricks, five hundred bricks that weighed almost as much as a car. 

            Of course, Lucky never realized that modest ambition, although his brother Mel did.  And this is where Mel had died almost thirty years later, crushed by the 1,500 pounds of bricks that he was hoisting into position with his forklift, his head and torso and limbs broken by the pummeling of five hundred lethal 3-inch by 4-inch by 9-inch fire-hardened, sharp-edged missiles suddenly and inexplicably loosed from their spring steel straps and raining down upon him.

            No one had seen it happen.  One of the first-shift kiln tenders was the last person to see Mel alive, giving him the thumbs-up as Mel drove by with a load headed for the wide open doors to the inventory yard.  In fact, no one even knew the accident had happened until the second shift yard worker found Mel’s body, still in the driver’s seat of his forklift, slumped forward onto the steering wheel, flies buzzing around the bloody mess that was his head.

            Junior, as the second generation Mr. Mongo was known, was immediately called, and by the time Sheriff Castor arrived the area had been cleaned up, the tumbled bricks retrieved and stacked, Mel’s body laid out on the ground, and his forklift parked off to the side.

            “I wish you wouldn’t have done this, Junior,” Sheriff Castor said.  “Straightened up like this.  Now it’s going to be a bit hard to recreate what actually happened for the report.”

            “A terrible, terrible accident,” said Junior, and that was the headline on the Thompsonburg Daily Journal’s front page the next day - 

“Terrible, terrible accident”

claims life of local man

            Lucky came back to Thompsonburg for the funeral, which was paid for by the Mongo Brick Company.  Big Larry blamed himself.  “I got him the job,” he told his only surviving son.  “He would have been better off moving to Detroit and living with you.”

            “That’s ridiculous, pop,” Lucky told Big Larry.  “He loved working here.  He told me more than once.  It was just an accident.”

            “I don’t know how an accident like that could happen,” Big Larry said. 

            And now Lucky remembered something else about the day his brother Mel was buried.  That evening he and his father had been sitting in the living room of the house on Julia Street, neither speaking much, both deep within their own thoughts.  But now Lucky remembered something his father had said, something that he had promptly forgotten because he didn’t understand it. 

            “That girl from your school was at the funeral,” his father had said.

            “Uh, huh.”

            “Didn’t drive with the rest of us.  But she was at the cemetery. Never got out of her car.”

            “OK, dad,” Lucky had replied, uncomprehending and uninterested.

            Now he got it.  Now it made sense.  Karen Kleeber had paid her last respects.

Chapter 19

            The rivers of Dixon County, the Green and the Little Green, the Crooked and the Scott, were formed at the end of the ice age, dribbles from the edge of the mile-thick glaciers that for two million years advanced and retreated across the land.  On the map laid out on Winnie Bussle’s kitchen table, Lucky traced with his finger the course of these rivers across the rolling topography, the ground moraines and outwash plains left behind when the ice withdrew for good, ten thousand years ago.  The map showed the works of man, too, the roads and trails and rails and the tiny black squares that were buildings.

            Winnie also sat at the table, quietly, her hands in her lap.  Lucky was looking for a minor road away from the main roads, maybe an old logging trail, that stopped at one of the rivers.

            “When you were facing the river, do you remember where the sun was?” he asked Winnie.

            “You’re trying to figure out directions?”

            “The rivers meander every which way,” he said, puzzling the map, the spaghetti lines of elevations, roads, rivers, and railroads, his face just inches above the table.  “And about what time of the day would you be there?”

            “Why do you want to find the place?”

            “Don’t you?” he asked her.  “Wouldn’t you like to go back there?  Aren’t you curious?”

            “I guess so,” Winnie said.  Lucky had never seen her so subdued.  A wisp of hair fell over her forehead and he had to fight the impulse to gently push it back into place.  Did her lips tremble slightly?  “Well, we were usually there for lunch,” she said, “so maybe we’d get there around noon, and stay for a couple of hours.  And as best as I can remember, the sun would be on my back when I faced the river.  But I can’t be sure.  It’s just a vague memory.”

            “How long did it take you to get there from here?”

            “My sense of place is better than my sense of time,” Winnie said.  “But I think fifteen or twenty minutes on gravel roads, then just a couple of minutes, maybe five minutes, on the really bumpy road.”

            “Was it bumpy like a washboard, or bumpy like making the car rock from side to side.”

            “Side to side.  And up and down.  Riley had to drive very slowly.”

            With a red crayon Winnie had found in the drawer of the buffet, Lucky circled three areas on the map that seemed like possibilities, and traced the routes to each place from the farm.  Two were on the Little Green and one on the Scott.

            Winnie held the map open on her lap as they drove, Lucky stopping occasionally to lean over and peer down at it.  The first route took them several miles past the cemetery where Robert Kleeber was buried.  The turn-off they were looking for was so inconspicuous Lucky drove a mile past it before he realized his mistake, then looked at the map again, made a U-turn and drove very slowly back until he found it.  The road looked like the driveway to a one-room schoolhouse, now abandoned, but it continued on behind the building, across an open space, then entered a wooded area where it followed a twisting path.  Lucky drove at a crawl, the Taurus rocking and bouncing.  After about a mile – it was difficult to gauge distance going this slowly – they left the woods and traveled across an open field for another mile or so.  The road finally came to a dead end at a wooden barricade, beyond which was a sand pit about 50 ft. across. A sign on the barricade said PRIVATE PROPERTY – DO NOT ENTER.

            “Dead end,” Lucky said. 

            Winnie said nothing.

            It took a couple of minutes to get the Taurus turned around, jockeying forward and back, trying to avoid the soft earth on either side of the narrow road.  Once the Taurus got stuck, the front wheels spinning as Lucky tried to back up, and he had to rock the car to free it.  Ten minutes later they were at the old schoolhouse again.  Lucky stopped to study the map, then pulled out onto the gravel road heading back the way they’d come.

            “Two more to go,” he said. 

            They were silent for several minutes.  Winnie had wanted the windows open, so warm air rushed in from outside while cool air flowed out of the air conditioner.  A pick-up truck sped by in the opposite direction, and for a moment both vehicles were enveloped in a mutually created cloud of dust.  The radio reported the local news, the mayor was considering the use of shotguns to dislodge the vultures from the City Park elms, Deputy Perry Fiusko was still missing, Kenneth Kleeber’s suicide was under investigation, the circumstances of Robert Kleeber’s death were being re-examined.  More warm days were forecast, with the possibility of thundershowers.  In Michigan, in summer, there is always the possibility of thundershowers, Lucky thought.  They drove on.

            “Oh my God.” he said.

            “What?”

            “In that pasture we just passed.  A bunch of cows that looked just like Oreo cookies.  Black on either end and white in the middle.”

            “Belted Galloways,” Winnie said.  “That must have been the Eriksen place.”

            They were silent again until Winnie said, “Are you going to go see her?”

            Lucky didn’t answer immediately, pretending to be distracted, fighting the wheel a bit on the gravel.  Finally, trying to keep his voice normal, he asked, “Am I going to see who?”      

“Lucky, Lucky,” Winnie said. She sighed dramatically and slowly shook her head.  

A country singer on the radio was lamenting his broken heart.  Could it ever be mended, he wondered.

            “You mean, Karen Kleeber?” he said, as if he had just realized who she was referring to.  He slowed, glanced at the map, then turned onto another gravel road.

            “No, I mean the Queen of Sheba.” There was an edge to her voice.  “You know damned well who I’m talking about.  You know you can’t stop thinking about her.”

            “I’m not thinking about her,” Lucky lied.  “Your gift must be deserting you.”

            “I don’t even need my gift to tell me this, Lucky.  One of those cows back there could figure you out.”

            “Well, you’re wrong.”

            “I knew it when you saw those pictures,” Winnie said.  Her tone was softer now.  “Your emotions were coming off you like heat off a wood stove.  You were surprised to see Mel and Karen together.  Shocked.  But I sensed something else, too.  Maybe jealousy.  Maybe resentment.  Or maybe something even stronger.  Bitterness.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “Whatever you say.”

            On the radio now a woman sang about her cheating lover.  Maybe she’d find herself another.

            “I’m driving up to Manistee tomorrow,” Lucky said. 

            Winnie was silent.

“I’m taking my things with me. I’ll probably drive back to Detroit from there.”

There were apple orchards on both sides of the road, now, the fruit hanging from the trees small and green, not yet ready for picking.

“Do you remember two afternoons ago, when we first talked?  In my living room?  You told me you had no secrets.  You said ‘I know everything I want to know about myself’.  That’s a direct quote.”

The orchards gave way to asparagus fields long past harvest, a sea of puffy green ferns.

            “It’s been a helluva two days, hasn’t it?” Lucky said.    

            The Taurus rumbled over an old bridge.  Lucky braked, backed up onto the bridge and stopped. The river, narrower than the road itself, wound its way between banks of heavy scrub in both directions.  Lucky described it to Winnie, then drove on another 100 yards or so and turned off onto a narrow trail, little more than two tracks through the field.

            “Keep your fingers crossed,” he said.  “I’d hate to get stuck out here.”

            “Be careful.”

            The Taurus barely crept along, softly swaying through the bumps and dips.  They entered a birch wood and the road angled back towards the direction of the river.  They had driven another five minutes when the road curved and headed away from the river.  At the curve the two-track widened slightly.  Lucky pulled the Taurus as far to the right as possible and killed the engine. 

            “Let’s get out here.”

            Winnie didn’t move.

            “I hear water,” she said.

            “I think the river is right through those trees,” Lucky said.  “I’m sorry, do you know we’re surrounded by trees?  I always assume you know everything.”

            “I can feel the trees.”

            Lucky got out, went around the car and opened the door for Winnie.  She folded the map into quarters and put it on the dashboard, then took Lucky’s hand and got out of the car.  Today Winnie was wearing baggy red shorts that came almost to her knees.  Her legs were pale, in contrast to her tanned face and arms, and more shapely than Lucky would have guessed, hidden before by that God-awful denim dress. She reached back with her other hand and took her wooden cane.  

            “Come this way,” Lucky said.

            Winnie’s grip on Lucky’s hand tightened as they moved away from the car.  Her hand was soft and warm, and seemed to pulse with spirit and strength.  It was the first time Lucky had touched any woman’s hand with anything like affection or protection in years and it felt good, slightly thrilling.  He led her along a faint path through the birches, leaves and twigs crunching and snapping underfoot.  Now Lucky could hear the river, too, and ahead, through the trees, he saw a bright clearing and the sparkle of moving water.  As they entered the clearing Winnie stopped and gripped Lucky’s hand even harder. 

            “Oh my God,” she said.

            The grassy space was about the size of a school classroom.  The Little Green, actually the color of strong tea, was very shallow here, and it rippled and splashed along the rocky bottom.  Beyond the water was a broad field of asparagus ferns, and far beyond that, tree-covered hills. 

            “Yes?”

“This is the place,” she said. “This is where Riley brought me.”

Chapter 20

            “I need to sit down,” Winnie Bussle said.

            Lucky led her to the river’s edge where the grassy bank provided a place for them to sit, side by side.  Winnie released Lucky’s hand, and he slid the picture of Riley Harrison from his shirt pocket.  He recognized the river and the scene beyond.  The fields looked a bit different, but the hills were unmistakable, humped and covered with multi-hued hardwoods.   He could see now that the water in the picture was also shallow, light glinting off the ripples and rills that formed as it ran over and between the rocks randomly strewn by nature across the river bed.  Near the edge a school of transparent minnows darted in unison this way and that.  The only sound besides the running water was the occasional flutter of wind through the birches, and the call of a bird from the branches above. Riley would have been sitting on the blanket about ten feet behind them when the picture was taken.

            “Not much has changed,” Lucky said.  He saw that she was crying, silently, tears running in rivulets from beneath her dark glasses. Her face reminded Lucky of a bowl of fresh, juicy fruit, peaches and plums and black cherries.  He wondered how her lips would taste.  He was tempted to put his hand on her bare knee, but he resisted the urge.

            “Stop looking at me,” she said.

            “It’s okay,” he said.

            “What time is it?”

            He looked at his watch.  “About three-thirty.  The sun is behind us, just about ready to go behind the trees.  We’ll be in shade soon.”

            “It stays light so long in summer.,” she said.  And then she recited softly –

            “I never lost as much but twice,

            And that was in the sod.

            Twice have I stood a beggar  

            Before the door of God.

            Angels, twice descending,

            Reimbursed my store.

            Burglar, banker, father,

            I am poor once more.

            Oh, my dear Riley.”

            Lucky Lesinski and Winnie Bussle listened quietly to the sounds of the water and the trees and the birds for some time.  When Winnie stood up Lucky began to rise as well.

            “No, no,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.  “You stay here.  I’m going to look around a bit.  I’ll be alright.”

            Lucky noticed that Winnie still used words like look and see.  Tapping her cane lightly on the ground in front of her, she began to explore the open space.  Lucky turned and watched her, appreciating her body, a bit chunky, but firm, healthy, with all the accents in the right places.  She moved very slowly, making what seemed to be a number of haphazard paths, crisscrossing the clearing.  Occasionally she would stop and stand perfectly still for a minute or so, as if listening very carefully, and then she would move on, sometimes in the same direction, sometimes in a different direction.  Once, she began to mumble, her lips moving quickly but nearly soundlessly, and once, standing stock still, she had let out a soft moan. 

            He turned back to the river.  How in the hell had he come to this place, not only this clearing at the edge of the Little Green in Dixon County, Michigan, but this place in his life?  He had simply wanted to come to town, take care of business, and get out again, go back to Detroit, relax for a few days, ponder his future, a future that could be very bright with a nice bundle of cash and no ties whatsoever.  And now here he was, his life completely unbalanced, as if his emotional gyroscope had fallen to its side.  How could he have known so little about his own brother?  He scoured his memory for words, gestures, clues he might have missed.  During the years that Lucky was trying to make a life in Detroit, and Mel was doing the same in Thompsonburg, they never exchanged letters, and spoke on the phone just once a month or so, and saw each other only a couple of times a year.  Lucky had asked Mel about the women in his life, but Mel had never been serious about anyone, at least no one that he’d told him about.  Lucky had worried about his little brother.  He’d hoped that Mel would find someone he could love, someone who would love him, especially when he was having bad times with Brenda.  But Mel had seemed unconcerned, disinterested, and Lucky hadn’t cared enough to probe further, to try to get to know his brother’s heart.  And all that time Mel had been with Karen.  Karen Kleeber of all people.

            Jealousy.  Resentment.  Bitterness.  Those were the words Winnie had used   She’d been right, of course.  Again.  He did feel these things, not for Mel’s good fortune in finding a woman when he could not, but in finding that particular woman, Karen Kleeber, who had been Lucky’s fantasy, Lucky’s unfulfilled passion.  Mel had seen her naked, touched her, fucked her.  Damn him.   Lucky felt betrayed.  So now add guilt to the mix, guilt and self-disgust for having these thoughts about his brother.  He should have felt happiness for Mel. 

            Winnie tapped Lucky on the shoulder with her cane.  She was standing next to him on the river bank, her legs just inches from his face.  He wanted to reach out and touch her calf, to lean forward and nuzzle her knee with his mouth, to let his fingers creep up her thigh beneath the loose cloth of her shorts.  But of course, he did not.  She sat down next to him on the grass.

            “Well?” he said.

            Winnie stared out over the water as if she could see it, and then said, “I saw this place many times, through Riley’s eyes.”

            “I remember you saying that.”

            “There was a meadow across the river.  Is it still there?

            “It’s asparagus now,” Lucky said.  “But it’s months past the season, so now it’s overgrown with the plants, as far as you can see, all the way to the woods.  It looks like the top of a vast green cloud.”

            “That’s very poetic, Lucky.  That’s a lovely description.”

            “Yes, well.”  Lucky picked up a pebble, enjoyed its smoothness in his fingers, then tossed it into the stream.  “Did you get any feelings about this space?  Walking around it?”

            “Oh, Riley, Riley,” Winnie said.  “Yes, I felt Riley’s presence.  In one place very strongly. Almost as if he was still here, his spirit hanging around.  To tell you the truth, I don’t want to think about it too much.”

            “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

            “No, it’s good.  His loss was so terrible, it was overwhelming.  But I can deal with it now.  It’s been long enough.”

            “You said yesterday that you thought something bad had happened to Riley.”

            “That’s the sense I get here, too.  It was years ago, but it’s the sense I get. Something frightful.”

            The sun had gone behind the trees and the clearing was in shadow, but across the river the field was still in bright sunlight. 

            “We may never know,” Lucky said.

            “You’ve had some shocks, too.”            

            “It has not been a good two days for me.  I still don’t know who you really are or what the hell you want with me, why that cop, Fiusko, stopped me, who’s pulling the strings here.  And before we leave this spot, I want a few answers, and they’d better be damned good ones.”

            “I’ll try to answer your questions.”

            “Or I’ll leave you out here, I swear it,” he said, threatening, raising his voice, but he’d meant it as a joke, and he knew that she knew that.

            “It’s pretty simple, really.  We thought we were doing a favor for Kenny Kleeber.  He called Clyde a few days ago. Kenny said he wanted to see you while you were in town.  He asked if Clyde could help.”

            “I don’t get it.  Why Clyde?”

            “Clyde is a warm and generous person.  You should get to know him.”

            “The man’s a saint.”

            “Lots of people think so.  In this whole town, he was one of the few, maybe the only person, to care about Kenny Kleeber.  He’d drive up to Wildwood every month or so, take him goodies, try to keep his spirits up.  So when Kenny came out he called Clyde.  It’s not very mysterious at all.”

            “Where does Clyde go every night on his motorcycle?”

            “Different places.  He has a lady friend.  He plays cards with his buddies.  In bad weather he takes the truck.”

“Uh-huh.  And Fiusko?” Lucky asked.  “What about Mr. No-nose?”

            “Don’t be nasty.  He’s just an acquaintance. He owed Clyde a favor.”

            “And what was all this mumbo-jumbo you gave me that first day, about my secrets, and knowing my future and all that?”

            “Just a little sizzle with the steak,” Winnie said.  “We couldn’t tie you to a tree.”

            “Well, what started out as very simple has become very complicated.”

            “I’m as surprised as you are.”

            “By what?”

            “By what Kenny Kleeber did.  By what was in that box.  By learning about Mel and Karen, and those pictures of Riley.  I’m surprised by all of it.”

They sat quietly, enjoying the solitude.  The fields across the river were now in shade, but the sun still glowed on the tree-covered hills beyond.  Winnie rubbed her bare arms as if chilled.

            “You said you sensed jealousy in me.  And bitterness.”

            “When you saw the picture of Mel and Karen together, that’s what I felt.”

            “Why would I be jealous of Mel?  He was my brother. We loved each other.”

            “Well, you’ll have to answer that yourself.”

            “You think it’s Karen, don’t you?”

 “Why are you going to see her?”

            “I want to know more about Mel.  I feel like I let him down.”

            “If that’s what you believe.”

            Winnie stood up abruptly and, sweeping her cane in front of her, started across the clearing, almost running.  Lucky got up, too, and followed.

            “Wait a second.”

            “For what?” Winnie called back over her shoulder.  She lashed the air in front of her with her cane.  “Wait for what?”

“Just wait,” he called urgently.  

            He caught up with her, turned her around and held her by the arms, nearly overcome with a desire to press closer to her, to pull her hard against him.  This made no sense, no sense at all.

            “What do you think you’re doing?” she said.

            “Nothing.  I’m doing nothing.”

            “Well, if you’re going to do nothing, then take me home.”

            “What do you mean?  What do you want me to do?”

            “You’ve been staring at me all afternoon.  You’ve wanted to touch me all afternoon.”

            “How do you know?”  He felt the muscles of her arms roll in his hands.

            “Lucky, I know these things.  You’re so easy to read.”

            “I hate this,” he said.  “I hate you looking into my head.”

            “Am I wrong?”

            “Oh, my God, this is unbelievable.”

            “So touch me, I’m a big girl.”

            “Winnie!”  He let go of her.

            For a moment, everything was still.  Then she reached up and touched his face.

            “Don’t move,” she said.

            She ran her fingers over his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth, though his hair, over the back of his head, down the back of his neck and across his shoulders and down his back.

            “You’re a big lug,” she said softly.  “A big lug with a nice face and good hair for your age.”

            “I wanted to be a hunk,” Lucky said.

            “Well, you probably were, and didn’t even know it.  The girls were probably crazy about you and you didn’t even notice. You’re probably handsome?”

            “Like a movie star,” he said.  “Clark Gable without the moustache.”

            “I’ll bet you are.”

            “Winnie,” Lucky said, squeezing her arms, “what the hell am I doing?”

            “It’s OK,” she said.

He put his hands on her back.  “When you want me to stop, just say so and I’ll stop.”  Lucky was taking long, deep breaths.  “Just say stop.”

She lifted her face to his and he very carefully put his lips against hers and she responded by moving into him.  Through the fog of his brain he could hear them both moaning softly, and he was aware of the press of her breasts against his chest.  He ran his fingers up and down her spine, and then tucked them under the waistband of her shorts, feeling the heat of her skin.  It had been years since he’d kissed this intimately, this honestly.  She pulled her mouth away from his.

“Stop,” she said.

“What?”

“Stop.  You should be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of an old blind woman.”

“Who’s taking advantage of who here?”  Lucky was so pleased with himself, he wished she could see his smile.

“I’m enjoying myself immensely,” Winnie said.  “But I have to pee.  Take me home. I hope I make it.”

Lucky ran his fingers through her thick hair, then held her head and touched her lips with his.

“OK, take my hand.”

As they were entering the path through the birch trees, Winnie turned back to the clearing.

“Goodbye, Riley.  I loved you.”

            When they got back to the farm there was a whole roast chicken keeping warm in the oven, and a note in Clyde’s now recognizable block printing.

            MR. LESINSKI SHOULD CALL MR. MONGO JR TONIGHT AT HOME

            There was a phone number on the note.

Chapter 21

            As he drove up the winding driveway to the White Pines Country Club, Lucky played with this idea in his mind.  On either side, men and women in bright clothing were using very expensive sticks to knock little white balls around hills and dells of carefully manicured grass on a speck of dust called, by its inhabitants, Earth.  They were playing a game.  Entertaining themselves.  Above them for a few miles there was a breathable atmosphere made up mostly of nitrogen, with a good amount of oxygen, and if Lucky remembered his high school science correctly, one percent of Argon.  He liked the idea that he was inhaling something as exotic sounding as Argon, even if it was only one percent of every breath. He buzzed down his window and took a deep lungful.  Above the breathable atmosphere a few molecules continued upward for another 400 miles or so, and then there was the frigid vacuum of space.  Warming these men and women with expensive sticks, roasting their skins to stylishly tanned complexions, was The Sun.  Physicists knew something about The Sun, they thought.  They could describe it, say what it was made of, how hot it was, possibly even how it came into being.  But anything that alien, Lucky believed, was really unknowable.  We could state a few facts about The Sun, but we could never really grasp the fullness of it.  And if we could not understand our own private little star, what could we understand of the rest of the universe – 125 billion galaxies, spirals and lenticulars and ellipticals, each containing a trillion stars, thousands of light years between the stars, millions of light years between the galaxies, not to mention the nebulae and cosmic dust, and don’t forget dark matter. And the whole shebang still growing.  But on the mote called Earth, there is a life form that covers itself in bright clothing and hits a white dimpled ball around the grass with an expensive stick.  Hmmm.

            The last time he’d been on this driveway he’d been riding his bicycle, coming to caddy.  This time he was coming to lunch, at the invitation of Walter Mongo II – known to all as Junior. As adults Lucky had met Junior only once, at Mel’s funeral.  That hadn’t stopped Junior from acting like they were old friends when they’d talked on the phone the night before.  Although Junior was still Chairman of the Mongo Brick Company Board of Directors, the company was now run by president/CEO Walter Mongo III – known to all as Trey.  Junior and his second wife, a former Mongo Brick Company receptionist, spent the winter months at their condo in Scottsdale, several weeks a year at their Central Park West apartment in Manhattan, and numerous other weeks globe-trotting, and playing lots of golf.  Lucky remembered caddying for Junior, who at the time was just out of college, newly married, and learning the brick business from his father.  He’d been playing since he was big enough to swing a miniature club, and could knock the ball 250 yards down the middle of the fairway with regularity. But he’d been a lousy tipper, like all the younger guys.  

            The parking lot, which forty years before had been occupied by big sedans and convertibles, was now filled with SUVs; Navigators and Suburbans replacing Town Cars and deVilles.  Lucky parked in a visitor slot, followed the walk beneath the portico, entered the clubhouse through the wide carved oak doors, stopped, took a deep breath, and surveyed his surroundings.  Not much had changed.  Under his feet was a deep blue plush custom carpet with a pattern of red and gold WPCC medallions woven into it, a hundred bucks a yard easy, Lucky estimated.  Ahead was the ballroom-sized sitting room with its burnished oak wainscoting and overstuffed leather furniture, and on the walls the pictures of sixty years worth of club presidents.  Beyond was the bar, and more club rooms and game rooms and the dining room, from which Lucky could hear the faint chatter and laughter of the privileged of Dixon County.

At the dining room the hostess said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Lesinski,” and led him to a table by the window.  At one place setting was a half-finished club soda. “Mr. Mongo had to take a phone call. He’ll be right back,” the hostess said.  A waitress with a helmet of blond hair and crimson fingernails, wearing a tight black uniform with a frilly, napkin-sized white apron and a nametag that said Polly, took his order for a Bud Light. 

Lucky remembered the envy with which he had looked into this room when he was a kid caddy, and maybe he still felt a little of it, maybe he’d always feel like an outsider in this kind of setting.  Not that he hadn’t eaten in lots of classy restaurants in his life.  Not like he hadn’t enjoyed some of the finer things.  But he could only be in this room by invitation, could only be hefting this heavy silver fork, sipping from this glass on which was etched the WPCC medallion, by the grace of a member. 

A few tables away a man about his own age seemed to recognize him, lifting his glass, smiling and giving him a small wave.  Lucky smiled and nodded back.  Maybe an old classmate.  Lucky wondered how many other people in the room he might know, if he could even recognize them.  He hadn’t kept any friends from high school, hadn’t returned for any reunions.  Winnie had said he’d probably been a hunk as a teenager, that he probably hadn’t even noticed how the girls liked him.  He doubted this.  He hoped it wasn’t true. 

Through the window Lucky watched people tapping putts around the putting green.  He thought a couple of them looked familiar, one a woman about his age.  He tried to picture her thirty years younger, the blond hair softer, the face softer, too, and the body possibly a bit more fragile.  And a man in a white straw hat, with a belly like a basketball hanging over his belt, the fabric of his polo shirt stretched taut, a little indentation of the cloth at his navel.  If the man weighed a hundred pounds less would he recognize him?  Had they been pals?   Thompsonburg was a small town.  He must have once known many of these people.

The tall man striding across the room towards him was a shock to the eyes: lime green pants, a red polo shirt, and a yellow golf sweater with the sleeves pushed up.   His face was tanned, but Lucky guessed that he was tanned year around.   There was a gold Rolex on his left wrist.

“Lucky, Lucky, good to see you again.  No, no, don’t get up,” Junior Mongo said, thrusting his hand into Lucky’s and giving it a good shake.  “I apologize for keeping you waiting.”  He sat, pulled his chair up to the table.  “That phone call.  The wife, in New York.  Wants me to come next week, look at a picture in some art gallery.”  He took a drink of his club soda.  “Just what I need, another picture, right?”

“A picture of what?” asked Lucky.

“Exactly!  A picture of what?  Lucky, I probably won’t even be able to tell what it’s supposed to be when I see it. Exactly!  Twenty thou for a picture of what?”

Polly brought two menus.

“I recommend the mac and cheese,” Junior said.  “You like mac and cheese?  Nobody makes a better mac and cheese than Leo.”

“The soups are cream of broccoli and pepper pot,” Polly said.  “The quiche is Lorraine and the special is nutty walleye on a bed of wild rice.”

“Aha, a bed of wild rice,” Junior said.  “Ever sleep on a bed of wild rice, Lucky?  Polly, you ever sleep on a bed of wild rice?”

Polly put her hand to her mouth and giggled.  “No, Mr. Mongo, I never did.”

“Well, if you ever want to, you call me, OK sweetheart?”

He winked. 

“Oh, Mr. Mongo,” Polly said.

“I’m having the mac and cheese,” said Junior.  “I’d recommend it, Lucky.  You can’t go wrong.  And a salad, please dear Polly, with a dollop of ranch.”

“I’ll have the same,” Lucky said.  “Everything the same.”

“You can’t go wrong,” said Junior.  “Leo makes the best damned mac and cheese in Michigan.  Maybe the world.”

“Anything else, Mr. Mongo?” Polly asked.  “Another club soda?”

“Yes, and rolls, please dear Polly.  Rolls and butter.”

“And another Bud Light for you, sir?” she asked Lucky.

“Yes, yes, bring him another, dear Polly.  But don’t you think a bed of wild rice might stick to your backside?”

“Oh, Mr. Mongo,” she said before she turned and walked away.

“Polly’s a little slut,” said Junior.  “Who knows?  If she plays her cards right and gets her red claws into some old timer, she could be a club member some day.”

“Really?” Lucky asked.

“Not a chance.  But somebody’s probably having a little extracurricular fun with that stuff.”

Junior glanced at his gold Rolex.

Lucky had nothing to add.  He still had no idea why Junior Mongo had asked him to lunch.  For the next half hour they talked about nothing in particular; the string of perfect days they’d been having, the vultures roosting in City Park, the strange disappearance of Deputy Perry Fiusko, fishing for muskie in Canada, how the town was growing, how the countryside was being eaten up by suburban developments and shopping marts, about a condo development Junior and some partners were putting up on the lake shore.  Polly stopped by with more drinks, rolls and butter, salads, and finally with their mac and cheese, which turned out to be extraordinarily good, each serving baked in its own little crock, topped by a perfectly toasted crust of cheese and breadcrumbs.   Lucky had always considered mac and cheese kid’s food.

Polly had just served them coffee when Junior leaned forwards a bit and said, “Lucky, I asked you to lunch today because I wanted to talk to you about your brother, Mel.  We feel really badly about what happened to him.”

Lucky hadn’t expected this.  He’d thought that maybe Junior wanted to invite him to join the club, or come to work for Mongo Brick as a sales rep, or maybe even to find out if Lucky could help him get a deal on some carpet for his condominiums.  The mention of Mel took him by surprise.

“He was a great guy, a great brother,” said Lucky.  “He surely died too young.”

“Absolutely.  Your dad was a great employee, too.  He’d been with us a long time, a really important guy to us.  It was a shock to hear about his death.”

“He lived with me for the last few years,” Lucky said.  “Down-state.”

“Yes, I know.  My dad liked him a lot.  Big Larry was a great guy.”

“Both my dad and Mel told me that Mongo Brick was a good company to work for.”

Polly came by to scrape crumbs off the tablecloth.

“I am so glad to hear that Lucky.  You can’t imagine how good it makes me feel to know how our employees appreciate us.  We try hard to be a good company to work for.”

“Well, you’ve been great for this town.”

Polly came by again and gave the check to Junior, who added a tip and signed it with a flourish.  She glanced at the check and said, “Why, thank you Mr. Mongo.”

“My pleasure, dear Polly.  You behave yourself, now.”  When she’d left, Junior Mongo glanced again at his Rolex, then leaned even closer and continued.  “Lucky, there is something I must tell you.  I feel I have an obligation to tell you.  If the situation was reversed, I’d want you to tell me, do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“This is very difficult.  But I believe in honesty.  And I believe that you have a right to know what I know.  It’s your right as a human being and as a Lesinski.”

“I appreciate that,” Lucky said, without any clear idea of what the hell he was appreciating.

“The circumstances of Mel’s death,” Junior said.

Lucky went cold, the room and the people in it, and the people on the putting green outside the broad window seemed to freeze in place.  Lucky realized that he was holding his breath.

“Yes, Junior, my brother Mel’s death?”

“I don’t think it was an accident, Lucky,” Junior said.  “I got there almost immediately.  Before anything had been moved.  It couldn’t have been an accident.”

“What are you saying?” Lucky said, matching Junior’s hushed tone.  “What are you telling me?”

“The steel bands that hold the bricks in place had been snipped,” Junior said.  “The tin snips were in Mel’s pocket.  It was pretty clear what happened.  He ran head-on into an immovable stack of cubes, and the cube he was carrying just came tumbling down on him.”

            “You’re saying he did it on purpose?”

            “There’s no other explanation.  I felt I had to tell you.  You had a right to know.”

            “Are you telling me that my brother killed himself?”

            “I know bricks, Lucky.  I know the yard.  I worked it as a kid.  I know the forklifts.  Used to drive one.  I know the whole operation.  I know that it wasn’t an accident.”

            “Excuse me, Junior, but I think you’re mistaken,” Lucky said.  “And I think it’s a pretty ugly mistake.”

            “I’m not mistaken, Lucky.”

            “Is this an insurance thing?  Are you liable if it was an accident?  What’s the real story?”

            “Lucky, there’s no legal problem here.  No insurance issue.  You’ve got it bass-ackwards.  In fact, I saved your family a lot of grief by playing it like an accident.  We had the whole mess cleaned up by the time the sheriff got there.  Everyone was satisfied that it was an accident.  But I’m telling you now what really happened, man to man.  Because I think you have a right to know.”

            “You’re a liar,” Lucky said.

            He pushed away from the table, hurried out of the dining room and out of the clubhouse.  The tires on the Taurus squealed on the curves of the long driveway, and when he got to the highway Lucky ignored the stop sign and sped out into traffic, causing two other drivers to swerve and brake.  He had driven thirty miles away from Thompsonburg before he gained control of himself.  He slowed the Taurus, taking deep breaths, then turned and headed back. 

            Some months later, he wrote a note to Junior Mongo that said, “I want to apologize for my rude behavior at the club last summer.  You were right to share that information with me.  I appreciate it.  And thanks for lunch.  The mac and cheese was great.”

Chapter 22

            When Lucky returned to the farmhouse Winnie was in the living room listening to piano music on the stereo.  Maybe Beethoven, but he wasn’t sure.

            “Lucky?  Sounds like you.”

            Today she wore blue jeans, and a faded blue denim shirt with nothing beneath, open to the third button, exposing the swell of the tops of her breasts.  Her hair was pulled back, away from her face, held tightly with a mother-of-pearl comb from which it exploded into a massive and wild, black and white ponytail.  She had touched her cheeks and lips with a soft blush.  Gold loops hung from her ears, matching the round, gold rims of her dark glasses.  Lucky found the whole effect stunning. 

            “It’s me,” he said, sitting down heavily in the chair that he now thought of as his chair, the one facing Winnie across the coffee table.  A barely used body, Lucky thought.  The breasts sagging a bit, but not too much.  The face smooth and tanned and pretty.  A surprisingly attractive package for, what . . .  sixty-something.  He wanted to slide his hand down inside her shirt, to hold one of her breasts. 

            “Well, how was it, lunching with the Thompsonburg upper crust?”

            “It was delightful,” Lucky said.  “It’ll probably be on the paper’s society page tomorrow.  Has-been carpet salesman lunches with brick magnate.”

            “That would make it three days in a row for you.  There was more about Kenny Kleeber in today’s paper, and they mentioned you again.”

            The paper lay on the table between them.  He wondered if he was sitting in Clyde’s chair, if Clyde read the paper to Winnie every day.

            “Ducky,” said Lucky.

            “They’re burying him today.  Without ceremony.  He’ll rest near his daddy in the freebie area of that cemetery I took you to.”

            “I’m sure he’ll be comfortable there.”

            He liked her hands, too.  They were slim, but not dainty.  He thought of them as pianist’s hand, shapely and strong.  He imagined one wrapped gently around his penis, and he felt himself harden pleasantly.

            “You sound down.  What did Junior want, if I’m not being too nosey?”

            “Use your powers.  You seem to be able to see into my head anytime you want.”

            “Only when it’s obvious.  Then, anybody can.”

            “He wanted to talk about carpet for his new condo development.  I told him I’d make some calls.”  Oh, Mel, Mel.  What they hell did you do?

            “Uh-huh.  What about Manistee?”

            “It’s too late to leave now.  I’m going tomorrow.  Do mind if I stay another night?”

            “Not at all.  Mi casa, su casa.”

            “I guess our business is done.  You did your favor for Kenny Kleeber.  I saw him.  Now I can leave.  Get on with my life.”

            “By all means, get on with your life, Lucky.  You have my permission.  How about making us some tea?”

            Lucky did.  He brought back two steaming cups.

            “It’s surprising how refreshing hot tea can be on a warm day, isn’t it?” she said.

            Lucky blew on his.

            “About yesterday,” he said.

            “It was a Thursday, as I recall.”

            “About what happened by the river.”

            “What happened by the river, Lucky?  Did something happen? Did you catch a fish?”

            “Winnie.”

            “Oh, you mean when you took advantage of me?  When you grabbed me and groped me?” 

            “Winnie, damn it!”

            “Lucky, I’m too old for you.  Find someone your own age.  Go to Manistee.  Hook up with your long lost love.”

            “That’s not why I’m going.”

            “Right.”

            “I need to talk to her about Mel.”

            “Have you read her letters to Kenny?”

            “No.  I don’t know if I ever will.  I’ll probably just give them back to her.”

            “And you have no feelings for her whatsoever, right?”

            “I may have, at one time.  Are you trying to look into my head again?”

            “Lucky, I can’t read your mind at will.  But sometimes you give off really strong vibes.”

            He tried to force Mel out of his mind.  His accident.  His death.  He didn’t want Winnie picking up any of those vibes.

            “I want to talk about yesterday.  About what happened between us.  You let me do what I did.  You encouraged me.  You were a willing participant.”

            “Guilty of aiding and abetting, huh?  Got our blood rushing a bit, didn’t it?  But it was crazy.  Silly.”  She sipped her tea.  “Like the song says, it was just one of those things.”

            “Just one of those fabulous flings?”

            “Something like that.  Boy, you really know your old tunes.”

            “But it’s more than that.  You know, it’s not easy for me to say this stuff.  I’m not an effusive man.”

            “There you go with the big words again.”

            “Go ahead, make fun.  But yesterday was the real deal for me.  I feel very close to you.  I feel like I’ve known you all my life.” 

            “Hmmmm.”

            “You’re a wonderful person.  OK, and attractive, too.”

            The music came to an end with a couple of big chords.

            “One of the great finishes in music.  Rachmaninov’s Second.”

            “Winnie.”

            “Follow your bliss, Lucky.  Go to Manistee.”

            “For a day. Maybe two.”

            “And then?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “I think I’d like to be alone.”

            Winnie got up and went to the stereo.  Lucky collected the tea cups.

            “Where’s Saint Clyde?” he asked.

            “Gone.  They’re still looking for Perry.”

            “I need some fresh air.  I’m going for a walk.” 

            “Go,” she said.  A solo violin began singing from the stereo.

            Lucky had not explored the farm since that first day when he’d gone looking for Winnie and spotted Clyde slinking around the barn.  It had been empty except for the vintage tractor and the Indian Scout. He again peered into the dim, dusty interior.  The Scout was gone.  He walked all the way around the building, and then out into a lush pasture of grass and clover, soft underfoot, and headed across it towards a line of woods, breathing deeply of the country air.  A hawk, or possibly a vulture, circled lazily high above, tilting its wings to one side and then the other, observing life below.

            Could Junior Mongo have been right?   Lucky’s throat  tightened painfully as he thought of Mel as a little boy, his kid brother, a good kid, never a problem for their parents, and as far as he could tell, as an adult a kind and gentle soul.  Kenny Kleeber had accused Lucky of abandoning his friends.  Had he abandoned his brother, too?  

“Oh, Mel,” he said out loud.  “Oh, my God, Mel.” 

His chest ached with guilt. Had he been so preoccupied with himself that he had completely missed the truth of his family and friends?  Had he been so self-centered that Mel would not even bother to tell him about his own life, his loves, his struggles?  Now he remembered something that Kenny Kleeber had said, just minutes before blowing his brains out.  He’d said that Lucky really didn’t know his brother at all.  It now appeared that Kenny and Karen had known Mel much better.   

            Lucky reached the wood, then turned and headed back towards the farmhouse.  He wondered what Karen Kleeber might look like now.  Was she as lovely as she looked in the pictures?   How many times in the past thirty years had he gone to bed thinking about her?  How many times had he dreamed of her; erotic, sweaty dreams he knew would never be fulfilled.   If she still lived in Manistee he would see her tomorrow.  Would she welcome him or turn him away?   Could something develop between them now, or was it too late?  Or completely out of the question?  Or a betrayal of his brother?  How could he even think such a thing?

As he came into the farm yard from the pasture he noticed the rundown old granary on the other side of the house, nearly hidden by a stand of wild sumac. He had to push through tall weeds to get to it.  The boards of its walls, weathered to a silvery gray, would have been worth a small fortune to some city interior decorator, and the whole structure listed slightly to port.  The door was secured by a padlock.  At the back end were a set of double tractor doors, also secured by a padlock, but on his hands and knees Lucky was able to push one side of the door in and pull the other side out and squeeze through the opening.  The only light came from the gap he’d just made, and the cracks between a few shrunken boards.  Reaching out in the dimness he touched what felt like a tarp.  He allowed his eyes to adjust, and could finally make out a large shape in the center of the floor, clearly an automobile.  He crouched down to look under it and saw that the wheels had been removed and it had been placed on blocks.  He pulled up a corner of the tarp to reveal the curve of a fender, the red paint gleaming even in this gloom.  He pulled the tarp high now, uncovering the front half of the car.  He ran his fingers along the quarter panel, around the chrome circles of the twin stacked headlights, and along the sleek chrome lettering that said Bonneville. 

            Lucky had discovered Riley Harrison’s red convertible.

Chapter 23

            Reverend Melvin Mickelsen believed with all of his heart and soul and mind that the universe and everything in it, not only all the planets and stars and such, but all of the animals and plants and humans, too, had been created by an all-powerful, omnipotent supreme being called God in six 24-hour days.  Whew!  On the seventh day, God needed a rest.  At Warren G. Harding Elementary, Lucky’s teacher, Mrs. Walker, told her class that she didn’t quite understand how that could be right, since there were no 24-hour days, and therefore no weeks, months, or years, until the Supreme Being called God created the Sun and separated the light from the darkness.  And that such 24-hour days existed only on our planet, Earth.  For instance, the planet Jupiter spins so fast that its days last less than 10 hours.  Venus rotates so slowly that a day there lasts 243 Earth days.  Maybe God’s first act, creating the first day, took a very, very long time, she speculated, and after that everything was created a day at a time.  But that still left open the question, “a day where?”  On Earth?  Where God was?  Or some average of all the days in the universe? Lucky didn’t quite understand Mrs. Walker’s point, but when he told his granddad what she’d said Mrs. Walker got into a lot of trouble and had to apologize at a public hearing of the school board, and then explain to her class, with the principal standing there, that she really believed that everything Reverend Mickelsen said was true.

            “Do you believe that God is so powerful he could divide the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape from the Egyptians?” Little Larry, who was not yet called Lucky, asked her one day after class.

            “Absolutely,” she said.

            “And that Jesus fed thousands of people with a couple of fishes, and raised people from the dead?”

            “You bet.”

            “And do you really believe that God knows everything, sees everything, hears everything, and can do anything?”

            “Little Larry, I believe every blessed word,” Mrs. Walker said.

            And could God know what kind of people we would turn out to be?  Could God know that sweet little Mel, my kid brother, would one day commit suicide?  And that Kenny Kleeber would one day kill his father, and blow his own brains out?  Could he know what kind of man I would turn out to be?  And if he could know all this, and be all powerful, why couldn’t he do something to stop it? Or change it?  Or make us better?

            Lucky pulled the tarp back over the red Bonneville convertible and exited the old granary the way he’d entered it, sneaking, creeping like an animal on his hands and knees.  He got into his own car and drove away from the farm, not knowing his destination, just wanting to drive, to be away from whatever that hidden car meant.

            He drove the back roads around Thompsonburg for an hour or so, then ended up in town, at the Crow’s Nest Saloon on Emily Avenue, where he took a stool at the bar and ordered a cheeseburger with fries and a Bud Light.  The woman behind the bar put in his burger order and brought his beer, an amber longneck without a glass.  No etched crystal this time. 

            “You sure look familiar,” she said.  “You from around here?”

            “Used to be,” Lucky said.  “Over thirty years ago.”

            “What brings you back?”

            “Just passing through.  I had some business.  I’m leaving tomorrow.”

            “I’d guess we’re about the same age. You graduate from good old Thompsonburg High, rah-rah?”

            A few of the tables were occupied by TGIFers and a noisy game of darts was underway at the back of the room.  At the end of the bar was an old lady who looked like she could put a curse on you if she had a mind to.  She had a drink that could have been Scotch or bourbon, on the rocks. 

            “Maybe he weren’t smart enough to graduate, Diane” the old lady said. 

            “Nobody’s talking to you, Sally,” Diane the bartender said.  “Don’t be insulting our customers.”

            Lucky told her the year he’d graduated. 

            “Me too,” Diane said.  “We were classmates, then.  And I think I’m beginning to recognize you.  Lucky, right?  Lucky Lesinski?”  She seemed proud of herself.

Lucky took a good look at Diane for the first time.  He was careless when it came to paying attention to people, always looking past them or through them.  He thought he recognized her, though, maybe something about the way her mouth went down at the corners.

“And I think I remember you, too,” he said.  “Don’t tell me.  Diane Teeter, right?”

            The old crone laughed.

            “Close,” Diane said.  “Diane Totter.  Everybody used to call me Teeter-Totter, so you were pretty close.”

            “My God, Diane Totter.”  He remembered Diane Totter as a hot number, someone he’d lusted after, someone he was sure was already doing IT at the age of 14 or 15.

            “At least I was Diane Totter.  Till I married Rodney Pedersen, so now I’m Diane Pedersen, but Rodney’s been out of my life for years.”     

            “You married Rodney Pedersen, really?”

“Really.  What a catch.  He went to work at Mongo right out of high school, making decent money.  He was a real stud, as you might remember, so I felt I was lucky to get him, good looking guy, and with a job, too.  But when we got married he just wanted to keep having fun with the boys, and after ten years and two kids I kicked his sorry ass out of the house.”

            “The good looking ones are always trouble,” the crone said.  “You shoulda got yourself an ugly one, like Mr. Lucky here.”

            “Sally, stop it or I’m going to cut off your Jim Beams.”

            “You come into town with them vultures, Mr. Lucky?”

            “Sally!”

            “It’s OK,” Lucky said.  “I can take it.”

            “Actually,” Diane said, “Lucky was one of the cute ones.  All the girls thought so.”

            “I doubt that,” Lucky said.

            “Me too,” said Sally.

            “The boys were so dumb,” Diane said.  A bell pinged behind her and she went to fetch Lucky’s burger and fries.  She put the plate in front of him, and a basket that held condiments, then got him a fork and knife rolled up in a red paper napkin.  “Some of them thought they were God’s gift, Sally.  Like Rodney.  Then there were some like Lucky, here.  They didn’t know how cute they were.  Girls wanted to drag him off into the corn field behind the school.”

            “I doubt that,” Lucky repeated.  He cut his burger down the center, lifted half and took a bite.  He hoped it wasn’t true, he hoped he hadn’t missed all that fun.

“So, you have kids,” he said.

            “A boy, who’s working at Mongo like his dad, and a girl who’s a hairdresser, has her own place, The Mane Event, over on Thompson Avenue.”

            “That must have been a lot of work, bringing up two kids by yourself.”

            “It was hell,” Diane said.  “But sometimes heaven.  And I’ll give him this, Rodney paid his child support on time and saw the kids a lot.  He was a good dad.”

            “That’s good,” Lucky said.

            Lucky would have liked to see Diane without the heavy make-up, without the mascara and the blue eye shadow and the powder.  He wondered what it would be like to put his tongue into the corner of that down-turned mouth.

            “So what business brings you to town, and how come you’re leaving so fast?” Diane said.

            Lucky took a long drink of his beer.

            “Family business.  My dad died a few weeks ago.  I had to sell the house.  There’s no reason for me to stay.”

            “Maybe Diane could think of a reason,” the old crone said.

            “Sally, shut up.”

            “Just a suggestion,” Sally said.

            “I’m sorry about your dad,” Diane said.           

            “Thanks.”

            “It was tragic about your brother, too. Sally, do you remember Mel Lesinski, that accident at Mongo?”

            “I remember,” the old crone said.  She swirled her bourbon in her glass and drank.

            “Mel was a very nice guy, Lucky.  But you know that.  It was such a shock to everyone.  Everybody really liked him.”

            “That’s good to know,” Lucky said.  “I’m glad he was well liked.”

            The crone rattled the ice cubes in her otherwise empty glass.

            “We hear you, Sally,” Diane said.

            “Pour my new friend another Jim Beam, and put it on my bill,” Lucky said.

            “She doesn’t deserve it, the way she’s been talking.”

            “Just pour, Diane,” Sally said.  “Mr. Lucky, here, is falling for me.  Maybe I’ll drag him into a cornfield, if I can find one around here.”

            Diane gave her a fresh Jim Beam, then went off to exchange full longnecks for empties at the tables and at the dart game.  Lucky finished his burger and fries. 

            “I read about you in the papers,” Sally said.  She came to sit two stools away from him, sliding her drink along the bar.  “You were with that Kleeber kid when he shot himself.”

            “He wasn’t a kid anymore.  He was my age.”

            “I remember him as a kid.  A crazy kid that killed his old man, not that the bastard didn’t deserve it.”

            “I never knew about that until I got back.”

            “So were you his buddy?  That’s what the paper made it sound like.”

            “I hadn’t seen him since high school.  We weren’t buddies.”

            Diane finished serving the TGIFers at the tables and returned.  She took away Lucky’s empty and replaced it with a fresh bottle. 

            “You talking about Kenny Kleeber?” she asked.

            “He was still crazy if you ask me,” Sally said.

            “What a tragedy,” Diane said.  “I still can’t believe something like that would happen to a kid from our class.”

            “What ever happened to his sister?” Lucky asked, trying to keep his voice even, disinterested.  “What was her name?  Karen?”

            “Karen was a sweet girl,” Diane said.  “I saw her a lot before she left town.  She’d come over when Rodney was out with the boys, or the four of us, her and Mel and me and Rodney, would play cards or whatever.  She was a survivor.”

            A whoop and several profanities came from the direction of the dart game. 

            “She left town, huh?” Lucky said.

            “Just after Mel’s, well, you know, his accident.” Diane said.

            Lucky had two pictures in his shirt pocket.  He wanted to show Diane the one of Mel and Karen.  He wanted to ask her if she knew anything about it, who had taken it, when it would have been taken.  But he thought she’d think it strange that he was carrying it. 

            “Mel’s death was a real shock to my dad.  He always blamed himself, said it was his fault for getting Mel into Mongo in the first place.” Lucky fingered the photos in his pocket without removing one.  “Have there been other accidents at the plant?”

            “You should talk to Rodney about that,” Diane said.  “He’s been there forever, knows everything there is to know about the place.”

            “Maybe I’d like to,” Lucky said.  “Can you give me his number?”

            “Why call him?” Diane said.  “What time is it?” She glanced over her shoulder at the Budweiser clock behind the bar, a picture of the Clydesdales pulling a beer wagon with a clock face in the center.  “Seven-thirty.  At exactly eight o’clock every Friday night Rodney walks into the Blarney Castle Tavern up the street.  Go there.  Surprise him.  He’d love to see you, really.”

            “I think I will.”

            “Just don’t try matchin’ shots with Rodney,” said Sally.  “He’ll put you under the table.”

            “He’s put on a bit of weight, too,” said Diane.  “Not as studly as he once was.”

            Lucky glanced down into his shirt pocket to make sure he had the right picture in his fingers, then took it out and handed it across the bar to Diane. 

            “A friend gave me this yesterday.”

            “Oh, my gosh,” Diane said.  “Is that who I think it is?”

            “Who do you think it is?” Lucky asked.

            The old crone bent forward over the bar trying to see the picture.

            “That looks like Riley Harrison to me,” Diane said.  “Our old English teacher.”

            “Gimme that thing,” Sally said, snatching it out of Diane’s hand.  “What’s he doing, having himself a picnic?”  She handed back the picture. 

            “My God, Riley Harrison.”

            “Whatever happened to him?” Lucky asked. 

            “Left town, left his job, his friends, everything,” Diane said.  “He was a wonderful man.  A few girls I know thought he was a very special person.”  She was about to continue but stopped, and instead stared silently into Lucky’s eyes, as if she was trying to see through them, read his thoughts.  “I’m not saying any more,” she said finally.  “Nothing more about Riley Harrison.”  There was affection in her voice. She handed the picture back to Lucky, then went to collect empties and deliver fulls.  A few minutes later she brought Lucky’s check, but she didn’t stop to talk.

            “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you,” Lucky told Sally.  He pulled some bills out of his wallet and left them with the check, then slid off his barstool.  

            “Thanks for the drink, Mr. Lucky.  You come back now, you hear?”

            As Lucky left the Crow’s Nest he glanced back.  Diane was busy rinsing glasses behind the bar, but she looked up and smiled.

Chapter 24

            In Lucky’s third grade class at Warren G. Harding Elementary an argument raged about the size of stars.  Some kids thought they were the size of the cubby holes along the back wall of the classroom that you put your books in at night.  Someone else said they were the size of the teacher’s desk.  Others said they were as big as the whole room.  Little Larry knew better than these dimwits.  How could we see them if they were so small?  He figured that stars were at least as big as their school building – a two story mound of red Mongo brick.  His was the largest estimate.  One thing they all agreed on was that stars were way out there in space, which made these eight-year-olds smarter on the subject than such supposedly smart people as ancient Egyptians who thought that there was an arched iron ceiling far above Earth from which stars hung on cables, or the ancient Greeks who thought that the sky was a great vault of crystal to which the stars were attached.  Lucky learned that bit of science history in the astronomy section of high school physics, where he also learned a little about the Big Bang Theory.

            The ceiling of the Blarney Castle Tavern resembled the night heavens, solid black embedded with tiny lights that winked on and off, and in the center of the room, a now-stilled mirrored ball, the whole effect left over from the bar’s short-lived days as a disco joint – The Velvet Fever – back in the 80s.  Lucky sat at a table against the wall, nursing a beer, watching the entrance for the regular Friday evening arrival of Rodney Pedersen.  About half the tables were filled, and most of the stools at the bar, with what looked to Lucky like a Mongo crowd.  The waitress and the bartender both wore white shirts with green vests.  The juke box played country and the clack of billiard balls could be heard from an adjoining room. 

            At eight o’clock sharp the front door opened and a three hundred pounder with a bushy, mostly gray buffalo beard pushed through.  It took Lucky several seconds to recognize Rodney Pedersen, who’d put on at least 100 pounds since high school.  The big man joined the crowd at the bar, gave and received several back slaps, and called out “Stanley, the usual.”  Stanley the bartender slid a dewy longneck and a shot glass across the bar, then expertly filled the shot glass to the brim with Wild Turkey.  Rodney downed the whiskey, slammed the glass back to the bar with a crack, and called out “Another whiskey, innkeeper,” then took a long pull on his beer.  Stanley poured another shot of Wild Turkey, then leaned towards Rodney and spoke softly, nodding in Lucky’s direction. Rodney peered at Lucky through the smoke haze, picked up his shot glass and beer bottle and started across the room.  Lucky stood to greet him.

            “Jeee-sus Christ,” Rodney said.  “If it ain’t the Lucky man.” He set his drinks down, wrapped his arms around Lucky and gave him a long, strong hug.  “The prodigal son has returned,” he said, now holding Lucky at arms length, looking him up and down.  “I’d of recognized you anywhere.”  They sat.  Lucky couldn’t suppress a grin, so pleased was he that Rodney had recognized him, that the big man had given him such a welcome.  “What are you doing here, anyway?”

            “I was just a few doors down, having a burger,” Lucky said.  “Diane said you’d be here.”

            “Good old Diane,” Rodney said.  “She still ain’t bad looking, is she?”  He took a drink of his beer.  “Well, what the hell,” he said, shaking his head slowly.  “What the hell, Lucky Lesinski.”  He pulled a pack of Marlboro’s from his pocket, offered one to Lucky who shook his head.  “You stopped smoking, huh?  Wish I could.”  Rodney lit up.

            “I never started,” Lucky said.  “My granddad would have killed me.”

            “Oh, yeah, your grandpa was a preacher.  He would of killed you alright.  All that church-going probably kept you out of trouble most of your life.”

            “Not really,” Lucky said.  “I’ve committed my share of sins.”

            Rodney downed his second shot and took a pull on his beer and a drag off his cigarette.

            “So, to what does the thriving metropolis of Thompsonburg owe your visit?  Or are you planning to settle down here?”

            “You know my dad died a few weeks ago,” Lucky said. 

Rodney acknowledged by nodding his head.  “My condolences,” he said.

“I came back for the closing on the house, and to tie up some loose ends.  I’m heading out tomorrow.”

            “Back to Detroit, right?”

            “Eventually.”

            “Come to think of it, I remember somebody at the plant said they saw your name in yesterday’s paper.  About Kenny Kleeber.”

            The waitress came by to see if they needed anything.  Rodney grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto his lap.  She giggled but didn’t struggle.

            “Wilma, I want you to meet an old pal from high school, Lucky Lesinski.  Lucky, this here is Wilma, my secret sex fantasy.  Ain’t she beautiful?”

            He nuzzled the back of her neck with his bushy beard.

            “Oh, shut up, Rodney,” Wilma said, squirming on the big man’s big lap.  “You are such a B-S-er.”

            She got up and Rodney gave her a light slap on the rear.

            “Go get me another shot, will you sweetie.”

            With a wiggle of her butt, she headed for the bar.  Rodney smoked, tapped his ash into the green glass ashtray on the table

            “I knew nothing about Kenny Kleeber, what he did and everything,” Lucky said.  “Nothing, till earlier this week.”

            “Yeah, it stayed pretty much local news.  Nowadays, with cable and all, it’d be broadcast to Hong Kong, for Christ sake.  We’d probably have TV crews from all over the world here.  So you saw him?”

            “He called me where I was staying and said he wanted to see me before I left town.  He shot himself right in front of me.”

            “Poor Kenny,” Rodney said.  “Never had much of a life.  Wildwood for twenty-five years.”

            Wilma came by with Rodney’s shot of whiskey, but swiveled away before he could catch her by the waist again.

            “Uh, uh,” she said, and headed for another table.

            “Ooo-la-la,” he said.  He followed Wilma with his eyes, then turned back to Lucky.  “Since you saw Diane, I’m sure you know my life’s story, when it comes to marriage anyway.”

            “She told me you were married about ten years, had a couple of kids.”

            “The kids turned out good,” he said.

            “Diane said you were a good dad.”

            “That’s nice of her to say.  We get along.  You never got married, as I recall.”

            “I was married for about a year. A big mistake.  Luckily, no kids.”

            “You’ve been selling carpet all these years, right?”  He rounded off the end of his cigarette on the inside of the ashtray.

            “Sold carpet, managed some stores, made a decent living.”

            “And how do you spend your leisure time. You must have plenty of it, with no wife and kids.  And plenty of money.”

            “Some fishing, some hunting, some bowling, some gambling.”

            They compared notes on hunting and fishing trips, and snowmobiling in the U-P.  Wilma visited a few more times.  Lucky finished another beer and Rodney finished another beer and the Wild Turkey.  Each made a trip to the men’s room.  Rodney had lit another Marlboro.  

“So Kenny’s sister, did she stay around here?  What was her name?  Karen?”

“She was good friends with Diane,” Rodney said.  “They were real close.  Like sisters, almost.  Karen stayed for a few years, then left.  Maybe Diane hears from her every once in a while.”

Lucky wanted to ask more about Karen, but didn’t.  Instead, he said, “You’ve been working at Mongo all this time, huh?”

            “Thirty years,” the big man said.  He tugged at his bushy moustache, twisting the ends in his fingers.  “Worked all over that place.  Started off in the pug mill with your dad.  Big Larry was a terrific foreman, taught me all kinds of stuff.  Then I worked in the forming room, and with the kilns.  Drove a hi-lo, worked in the inventory yard.  Even put in a couple of years in the quarry, operating a shovel.  Every department except where I’d have to wear a tie.”

            “Good place to work?”

            “They’ve been good to me.  It’s been hard work, but they pay fair, and when I finally hang it up I’ll have a nice pension.  Be able to fish every day, and on the days I don’t fish, I’ll hunt.”

            “What about Junior Mongo?”

            “He’s a good guy to work for.  Better than Trey.  Trey’s a smart ass Harvard grad.”

            “Junior’s an honest guy?”

            “As the day is long.”

            Lucky fingered the pictures in his shirt pocket.

            “You were pretty good friends with my brother, Mel?”

            “Mel, what a great guy.  What with Diane and Karen friends, Mel and I saw a lot of each other, too.  Mel and Karen were sweet together.”

            “I never knew about Mel and Karen.”

            “Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Rodney said.  He was silent, stone still for several moments.  “Well.”  He stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray.  “I guess they wanted to keep a low profile.  They didn’t go out in public much together.”

            “But Mel’s my brother, for Christ’s sake.  I should have known.”

            “I know, I know,” Rodney said.  “I don’t know why he wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

            “I found out a couple of days ago.”  Lucky looked up into the counterfeit starry sky. “Did Mel seem religious to you?  Did he talk about Jesus and all that?”

            “Interesting question,” Rodney said.  “He wasn’t a church-goer, that’s for sure.  He wasn’t a Bible-thumper, or anything like that.  But he did have a righteous streak to him.  Talked about all of us needing God’s grace, that kind of thing.  But he wasn’t a pest about it.”

            Lucky took the two pictures out of his pocket and handed Rodney the one of Mel and Karen.  The big man held it up towards the light over the table, then nodded and handed it back.

            “They were good together,” he said. 

            Lucky put the picture back in his pocket.

            “Mel’s death was such a shock to us.  My dad took it hard.”

            “What happened to him was tragic, man.  Just tragic.”

            “An accident.”

            Rodney Pedersen looked at Lucky without saying anything, then finally nodded.  “Yeah, an accident.”

            “But maybe not?”

            “What do you want me to say, man?” He signaled Wilma for another shot.

            “I don’t know,” Lucky said.  “I just want to know what happened.”

            Rodney rubbed his beard hard. 

            “Mel was my friend.  He had his troubles.  Hey, who hasn’t, man?  But I don’t know why he’d kill himself.”

            “Is that what happened?  Did Mel kill himself?”

            “Did somebody else tell you that?”

            “Junior Mongo.”

            Wilma brought Rodney another Wild Turkey shot and he downed it immediately.

            “I came running when I heard,” he said.  “I helped clean up the mess. Why would he do that, Lucky?” Rodney said.  “Why would he kill himself?”

            “I was hoping you could tell me.”

            “I can’t,” Rodney Pedersen said.  “I just don’t know why.  But after it happened I didn’t sleep good for weeks.”

            When Lucky got back to the farm the sliding barn door was open, the Indian Scout probably gone.  The house was dark except for the stove light in the kitchen and one light in the living room. On the kitchen table was a note from Clyde –

            MR. LESINSKI SHOULD CALL SGT. FIDDLER.  IMPORTANT

            “Fuck that,” Lucky said.  He balled up the note and threw it into the trash.  “Fuck that shit!”

            Why wait?  He went to his room, packed his suitcase and carried it down the stairs and out to the Taurus.  Then he drove away, heading first to Hwy 43 which he would take north to Hwy. 55, then west to Manistee.

Chapter 25

            On an impulse, about ten miles north of Thompsonburg, Lucky turned off Hwy 43 onto County Road 505, a narrow blacktop, which he followed until he came to the first gravel road, then turned on it and went another mile or so before pulling onto the grassy verge.  He killed the engine and turned off the headlights.  He wanted to see real stars.

Back in the suburbs of Detroit the city lights made the night heavens all but invisible.  Here, though, away from even the more modest illumination surrounding Thompsonburg like a giant aura, the starry sky was a miracle.   

            He got out of the car and hoisted himself backwards onto the front fender, then lay back against the warm metal of the hood, clasped his hands behind his head  He gazed upwards.  From this position he could see nothing but the sky.  No tree, no building, no hill, no light, no object of Man or nature impinged at the edges of his vision.  The moon had not yet risen.  If there were clouds they were unseen against the black ceiling of stars.  He looked for patterns he might recognize.  Was that the Big Dipper?  If so, could he find the North Star?  The glittering wash of light in that direction was the Milky Way, he knew.  Our own galaxy.  One hundred thousand light years across.  Somewhere near its edge was our solar system, an obscure sun and nine puny planets. One puny planet was inhabited by a puny, selfish species called Man.

We know nothing, he thought. 

He should have asked Diane more about Karen.  He should have asked her what kind of person Karen had turned out to be.  He should have asked why Karen had left town, and why she moved around so much.  He should have asked her about Mel, too; asked if he’d seemed OK, or if he was having some kind of trouble.  He should have asked her if Mel ever mentioned him, Lucky, his big brother.

Lucky stared into the history of the universe.  He knew he wasn’t seeing the stars as they were now, but as they were eons ago. He was looking at old light.  Everything had changed since that light had begun its journey to his eyes.

We are fools, he thought.  Simple fools.

            He should have shown Rodney the picture of Riley Harrison.  Would his reaction have been the same as Diane’s, which was . . . what?  Shock?  Sadness?  Fondness?  Lucky had liked Riley Harrison as a teacher, and had thought he was a good person. Riley had encouraged his reading, had given him books, and had certainly broadened his view of the world.  After hearing Winnie’s story about her and Riley, Lucky had liked him even more – his kindness and his humanity. Diane’s reaction had confused him. He hadn’t been able to read her feelings, but whatever they were, they were quick and intense.  What kind of man was Riley Harrison that a handful of teenaged girls thought of him as so special?

            The only sound was the chirp of crickets.  The only physical sensation the hard warmth against his back, and the occasional kiss of warm air on his face.  There were so many stars there was hardly space between them.  Lucky could think of no one word to describe a night sky like this.  Magnificent.  Glorious.  Musical.  Brilliant.  Cheerful. Frightening.  Unknowable.  Supernatural.   All of that.  No wonder we have always needed to believe in a god. And as he gazed upwards another miracle occurred.  One star caught his eye and as he watched, it brightened, and then it began to fall towards him, a pinpoint of white light streaming to earth.  Soon another star brightened and fell, and then another and another and then hundreds and then thousands and then millions, it was raining starlight, the universe cascading down upon him.

            Lucky was paralyzed, could not move, would not move lest he disturb the spectacle and bring it to an end.  Tears welled in his eyes, the second time he had cried in less than a week.  He could remember crying only twice before in his whole adult life, at the dissolution of his brief marriage to Brenda and at his mother’s funeral.  He sobbed, and moaned out loud, and the shower of starlight continued.  He wished he was with Winnie.  He wished she could see this miracle.  He wished he could hold her in his arms, find comfort in the warmth and strength of her body.  He understood nothing.

            As suddenly as it had begun, the shower of starlight ended.  For some minutes Lucky didn’t move, then he slid down off the hood and got behind the wheel, where he sat for several more minutes, breathing deeply and calming his mind.  He started the Taurus, turned on only the dash lights, and pulled onto the road, into the darkness.  As a kid he’d cruised backroads like this at night in his MG Midget.  It was great fun to be going fifty or so, the top down, the tires making a deafening racket on the loose stones, and then without warning, to kill the headlights and go roaring through the night nearly blind, a female passenger screaming “Luck-eeeey”, or Nels Olson hollering “Shit, man!”   He wanted to try it now, but wasn’t nearly so foolhardy as then, so he slowly accelerated to about twenty, his chest pleasantly tightened in fear, the tires rumbling noisily over the gravel.  It was not pitch black, the rising moon had just breached the horizon, dividing pale shadows from deeper shadows.  After a few hundred yards he accelerated to thirty.  For a second he took his eyes from the darkness in front of him as he fumbled with his seat harness, and at that moment a lighter shadow, like a faint ghost, glimpsed in the periphery of his vision, passed near his right front fender, and there was a heavy thump as something struck the fender, an animal, possibly a deer, but conceivably a man, could it have been a man? Lucky’s brain was telling him urgently that this was a possibility, but how could his brain have known with such a fleeting look  

            He slammed on the brakes, threw the shifter into Park, flung open the door and ran recklessly, blindly back towards the spot where he had seen the pale shadow and heard the awful thump.  Off in the tall grass there was something, alright, a lighter shadow pressing the grass down, and he ran to it, waving his arms in front of him in the night.  He knelt in the grass and put out his hand and touched it, a human body, and as he moved his hand along it he realized the body was naked.  And he discovered, when his hand accidentally brushed against the body’s genitals, that it was a man. 

Lucky put his ear against the man’s chest but he could hear no heartbeat, nor could he detect the chest rising and falling in breath.  He put his palm over the man’s forehead and thought he felt a wetness there, thought he could feel the stickiness of blood between his fingertips, but it was too dark to know for sure.  He wiped his fingers in the grass, then touched the man’s cheek. It was cold, rough with stubble. He touched the man’s mouth, hoping to feel a breath against his palm, but the lips were closed tightly.  If he could pinch the man’s nostrils closed, if he was alive maybe he would gasp for air.  Lucky tried to take hold of the man’s nose but he couldn’t get a decent grip.  The nose was just too damned small, and when he tried to take it between his thumb and index finger, it would slip away.  What a small nose, a ridiculously tiny nose, Lucky thought.  And then he remembered the smallest nose he had ever seen on a grown man, the thumb tip-sized nose of Sheriff’s Deputy Perry Fiusko.  The missing Perry Fiusko. The moose. Lucky had found him.

            Fiusko groaned and Lucky jumped.  He put his palm on the naked man’s chest and this time felt the rise and fall of breath. 

            “Fiusko, are you OK?” he asked in an urgent, unnecessary whisper, as if not wanting to disturb the dead-still evening.  “Hey, are you OK?”

            Fiusko did not answer. 

            “Oh, my God,” Lucky said.

He carefully made his way to the bulky shadow of the Taurus, turned on the headlights and backed up until he was next to the unconscious deputy.  He opened the rear door, and in the dim illumination provided by the car’s interior light, gave the body a quick examination.  Fiusko was dirty, covered with scratches and abrasions, as if he’d been living naked in the woods for several days.  His feet were scratched and bruised.  There was a gash across his forehead, but no other blood that Lucky could see.  No bones protruding, no limbs going off at odd angles. Lucky knew the rule about never moving a person who’s been in an accident, but he could not leave Fiusko here.  He got a pair of boxer shorts and leather slippers from his suitcase in the trunk, then wrestled the shorts up Fiusko’s legs and over his hips, and the slippers onto his bruised, scratched, and filthy feet.  With considerable straining, grunting, and sweating, he pulled and pushed the bulky, inert body into the back seat of the Taurus.  He bent Fiusko’s skinny legs at the knees, and slammed the door shut.

“Jesus Christ!” Lucky said, still in a whisper.

            Back on Hwy 43 he took the Taurus up to eighty.  The dashboard clock read 11:56.  He was returning to Thompsonburg, again. 

            “Fiusko, can you hear me, you fucking asshole?  Are you alive?”

            There was no sound or movement from the back seat.

            “You prick, you ruined my life,” he yelled over his shoulder at the unconscious, almost naked man.  He thought he could detect the faint, sweet, gagging smell of shit from the back seat.  “I should have left you where you were, you son of a bitch.  Left you for the vultures.”

As he turned into the emergency entrance of the Dixon County Memorial Medical Center, Lucky began honking his horn.  Within five minutes Fiusko was heading into the building on a gurney, and Lucky was attempting to explain things to the triage staffer.  He was told not to leave.  He took a chair in the waiting room, closed his eyes and dozed.  He was awakened by a sharp jab in the shoulder. 

“What’s up, Lesinski?  Didn’t you get my message?”

Jesus, those eyes, Lucky thought.

“Fiddler,” Lucky said, looking up at the person who’d jabbed him, “I’m just not in the mood.”

Chapter 26

            Have you ever seen it raining stars? he wanted to ask Fiddler.  Have you ever given yourself over to the universe?  Have you ever cried?

            “So, you’re the guy who found our missing deputy,” Fiddler said, taking the chair next to Lucky.  “You’re the big hero.”

            The waiting room was dim and quiet. 

            “Not really,” Lucky said.

            “Don’t be so modest.”  Fiddler took out a note pad and ballpoint pen.  “So tell me, just for the record, where’d you find him?” 

            “Out in the country, about ten miles north of town.  Lying in the grass on the side of the road.”

            “You were just driving by and saw him like that, just lying in the grass at the side of the road?”

            “Something like that,” Lucky said.

            “Something like that?”

            “Exactly like that,” Lucky said.

            “Exactly like that,” Fiddler repeated, looking Lucky in the eyes, then writing something in this note pad.

            “Do you know where he’s been?  What happened to him?”

            “The investigation is on-going.”

            “How is he?  Is he still alive?” Lucky asked.

            “So what were you doing out on Dice Road in the middle of the night?”

            “I didn’t even know I was on Dice Road,” Lucky said.

“You were lost?”

“No.”

“But you didn’t know where you were going?”

“I didn’t care where I was going.  There’s a difference.”

            The only other people waiting were a woman of about thirty, in serious need of some personal grooming and fashion advice, sprawled asleep on a sofa across the room, her hands tucked under her head, and a boy of about ten, presumably hers, asleep on his own sofa.  He was wearing NASCAR pajamas and lumpy, dirty basketball shoes, but no socks.

            “Was the grass tall or short?  Show me about how high.”

            Lucky held his hand about a foot off the floor.  He noticed the carpet, a deep burgundy plush, almost new.  Quality goods for a hospital waiting room.

            “About that high,” he said.

            “How far from the road?”

            “Just a couple of feet, maybe three or four feet.”

            “A couple?  Three?  Four?”

            “Four feet,” Lucky said.

            “But close enough so that you could see him, in your headlights, lying there.”

            “Right.”

            “And you never saw him standing up, or running towards the road, or anything like that?”

            “I don’t think so.”

Fiddler took a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, put one in his mouth, but didn’t light it.

            “You don’t think so,” he said.

            “It happened so fast,” Lucky said.

            Fiddler squinted those eyes at him.

            “What happened so fast?  Did something happen?”

            Fiddler removed the cigarette from his lips and set it on the side table.

            “I mean, I just saw him for a second or two.  Lying in the grass.  I jammed on my brakes and went back.”

            “He didn’t come running out into the road, maybe, waving his hands, trying to flag you down?”

            “No.”

            “Maybe he saw your headlights from a ways off, and came running.”

            “I don’t think so.”

            Fiddler wrote in his note pad.  The woman on the sofa grunted and rolled over.

            “So how is he?” Lucky asked.  “Have you seen him?”

            “Where’d you get that dent in your right front quarter panel?” Fiddler asked, not looking at him, still writing on his note pad.

            Lucky didn’t answer.  Fiddler looked up.

            “Your right front quarter panel,” he repeated.  “A dent.  Looks new.”

            “I don’t know,” Lucky finally said.

            Fiddler sighed.  A big, dramatic sigh.

            “Lucky, I’m going to give you a chance to start over.  Completely fresh.  Let’s pretend that I just walked into the room, and I come over and I say, Lucky, tell me how it happened.  And then you tell me exactly how it happened, but the truth this time, because there are more holes in your story than a slice of Swiss cheese.”

            “Why do I have to talk to you at all?”

            “Because you have to.  That’s the law.”

            Fiddler ripped a couple of pages from his note pad, crumpled them, and dropped them on the side table.

            “Look,” he said, showing Lucky the blank note pad.  “Tabla Raza.  We’re starting fresh.  So tell me, what were you doing out on Dice Road.”

            “Just going for a ride.”

            “No destination?”

            “Not really.”

            “In the middle of the night?”

            “I had some thinking to do.”

            “OK, we’ll skip that part for now.  So what happened?”

            “He ran right into the road.  Right into my car.  I didn’t see him until it was too late.”

            “And you hit him?”

            “Just a glancing blow.”

            “A glancing blow with a three-thousand pound automobile?” Fiddler said.

            “I stopped.  I could have kept going. No one would have ever known.”

            “You’re a fine citizen, Lucky.  The community appreciates that.  A fine, upstanding citizen.”

            “I couldn’t leave him there, so I did the best I could.”

            “And a damn fine job you did, too,” Fiddler said.  “You even dressed him up.”

            “I didn’t want to deliver him naked.”

            Both men laughed at this. 

            “And you put your slippers on him?”

            “His feet were a mess.”

            “Very considerate of you,” Fiddler said.  “I mean that.”

            “Thanks.”

            “Do you always drive around with your suitcase in your car?”

            “I may be leaving soon.”

            “I asked you not to.  Remember?  Are you still living out there with the odd couple?”

            “The odd couple?”

            “The Bobsey twins, Winifred and Clyde.”

            “They aren’t twins.  And they’re good people.”

            “Ah-so.”

            “So have you seen him?” Lucky asked.  “How is he?”

            “Well, while you were napping I did take a look.  The doctor said he was malnourished and dehydrated, but apart from that, nothing serious.  No broken bones, no internal injuries.  But he has a bad headache.”

            “How could the doctor know that?”

            “Deputy Fiusko told me,” Fiddler said.

            “He’s awake?”

            “Well, he may be sleeping at this very moment, but yes, he was awake when he told me that.”

            “So what happened to him?  Where was he?”

            “He said he didn’t see you coming.  Said he heard you, but didn’t see you.”

            “That’s impossible.”

            “Of course,” Fiddler said, writing in his note pad.  “Imm-possible.”

            “I’m glad he’s OK.”

            “You’ve done your civic duty, Mr. Lesinski.  You’ve found a missing person.  I guess it would be petty of us to arrest you for running over a naked pedestrian.”

            He put the note pad back in his pocket and put the unlit cigarette back into the pack.

            “So why did you want me to call you,” Lucky asked.

            “Oh, yeah.  That gun you brought in.  Did I tell you it was the same caliber that killed Robert Kleeber?  A twenty-two.” 

            “No, you didn’t tell me.”

            “It was.  And the state cops checked the ID number.  It was purchased in Detroit, and registered to…”  Fiddler took a folded note out of his coat pocket, unfolded it, and read from it, “…purchased in 1975 at Ryan’s Gun Shop on Harper and registered to…”  he paused and looked up at Lucky, “…one Melvin Lesinski.”      

            Lucky’s gut clenched, then turned to water.

            “Your brother, I presume.”

            There was an insanely loud ringing in Lucky’s ears.

            “That’s not possible,” he said.

            “You were living in Detroit at the time, right?”

            “I was.”

            “Did Mel ever visit you down there?”

            “He and my folks came down once a year or so.  A few times he came alone.”

            “There you go.”

            My brother, seeking God’s grace.  Lucky said nothing.

            “They never found the weapon.  I told you that, right?”

            “Yes.”

            “Well, now maybe we did.”

            You bastard, Lucky thought.  You stinking bastard.      

            “So what’s your point?” he said.

            “It’s my job to connect the dots,” Fiddler said.  “That’s what they pay me for.”

            “Fuck your dots.”

            The woman on the sofa stirred, grunted, got up and came over.

            “Can you watch my boy for a minute?  I gotta pee.”

            “Make it fast,” Fiddler said.  “We’re leaving soon.”

            The woman slouched off down the hall.

            “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

            “Nothing.”

            “I think you’re an OK guy,” Fiddler said, “but we all have to deal with events.  Life can be a bitch.”

            “The philosopher-cop,” Lucky said.

            Fiddler ignored the comment. 

            “We’ll keep each other posted, right?  And thanks for bringing Fiusko in. He’s going to be OK.”

            But am I going to be OK, Lucky wondered, even with all my money?  And then he realized that this was the first time he’d thought about his $300,000 in almost two days.  Earlier in the week the money was the most important thing in his life.  Now, it hardly mattered at all.

Chapter 27

Lucky was determined to get to Manistee that night, no matter how late it was.  Under the ghastly orange pall of the parking lot lights he examined his car.  The front right quarter panel had a slight indentation above the wheel well, as if a person with some bulk had put his hip against it and pushed hard.  Or maybe it had been Perry Fiusko’s head.  Could that brown smear be blood?  At a do-it-yourself car wash he vacuumed the backseat, then filled up the tank at an all-night gas station, and hit the road again.  He thought he could still detect the smell of shit.  The dashboard clock read 1:58.  On the radio country singers sang of joy and heartbreak and despair.  While driving he thought about Mel and the gun, and then about Winnie, the way she looked the last time he saw her, and then about his dad slowly falling apart, and then about Mel again, about him committing suicide, and then about that moron Fiusko, and then about Karen.  He briefly played that old fantasy film in his head, Robert Kleeber’s leather belt lashing out, raising a red welt on Karen’s perfect bare bottom.  On the outskirts of Manistee he passed the Little River Casino, ablaze with light, the acres of parking lot mostly empty.  The dashboard clock read 3:05.

About a half-mile below the surface of the town of Manistee lies one of the purest calcium chloride deposits in the world – several trillion tons of it – the formation dating back to the same period four hundred million years ago, give or take, that blessed the Mongo family with deposits of clay and shale.  If Thompsonburg was built on lumber and bricks, Manistee was built on lumber and salt.  But salt is old industry.  What the people of Manistee were counting on now was tourism, and the Little River Casino, the revenge of the redskins as some thought of it, was a big part of that.

            At another all-night gas station Lucky bought a large coffee, a Bavarian Crème donut, and a Manistee street map, then drove back to the Casino’s hotel and got a room for the night.  Why not splurge?  In his room, his coffee and donut on the nightstand, he stripped down to his shorts, flattened the map out on the bed cover, consulted the street index and located Walker Street in grid square J-5.  He touched the black line that was the street with his finger.  He found the phone book in the drawer of the nightstand, located a listing for K. Kleeber at the address he’d memorized, and wrote the phone number on the bedside note pad.  Then he finished his coffee and donut, folded the map, turned out the light, and crawled under the blanket.  He tried to imagine Karen Kleeber’s house.  A neat white bungalow with pastel rooms softly scented of patchouli. He imagined her bed, an exotic place of velvet and satin.  He imagined himself and Karen in that bed, naked, and Karen murmuring in his ear, Oh Lucky, I’ve waited so long.  And with that he fell asleep.

            Almost immediately he was awake again.  He could not remember ever being brought out of sleep by a thought before, but this thought was so startling, so unexpected, so awful, that it penetrated his slumber like a whiff of ammonia.  And the thought was this – there was probably a man in Karen Kleeber’s life already.  Not only in her life, but in her heart.  In her bed.  In her pussy, the bastard. What could be more natural?  Women had men, and vice versa.  She would not have waited for Lucky, the way he had waited for her.  She had probably forgotten he even existed.  Maybe she and this guy even lived together.  Her house probably smelled of beer, not patchouli.  There was probably a gun rack on the rec room wall, and pictures of this lout in orange hunting gear, standing over a dead deer. 

            The clock on the bedside table glowed a red 4:17.  Lucky got dressed, took ten one hundred dollar bills from an envelope and stuck them in his pants pocket, then left his room and followed signs down a series of long hallways to the casino floor.  A sea of slot machines were ringing and blinking merrily although no one was playing them.  Only two blackjack tables were open, two players at one, three at the other.  The craps tables were deserted.  He took a seat at the roulette table.  There were no players. The croupier covered a yawn. 

            “Good morning sir,” she said.

            “Good morning,” Lucky said.

            He fished the ten bills out of his pants pocket and laid them on the green felt.

            “I’d like to play all of this on red,” he said.

            The croupier picked up the stack of bills and, for the benefit of the overhead security cameras, counted them out face down, then turned them over and counted them again face up.

            “One thousand dollars on red, sir?” she asked.

            “Right.”

            “Floor,” she called out loudly, and the pit boss came over, smiling, taking a quick look at his big gold wristwatch. 

            “Yes, sir, how’r you this wonderful morning?” he said.

            “Just fine, thanks,” Lucky said.

            “How can we help, Peggy?” the pit boss said.

            “This gentleman would like to put one thousand dollars on red,” Peggy said. 

            “One spin, sir?” the pit boss asked Lucky

            “One spin,” said Lucky.

            “All of it?”

            “All of it.”

            “Do you feel lucky, sir?”

            “It’s my name,” Lucky said.

            “Really?  Well, I hope this is your lucky day, sir. Let ‘er roll, Peg.”

            The pit boss stood by and watched as Peggy placed two purple chips in front of Lucky, then shoved the bills through a slot with a plastic paddle.  Lucky slid the chips over to the red diamond.  In a deft one-handed move Peggy spun the wheel and flicked the ball, which whizzed backwards around the perimeter of the bowl for a few seconds before falling into the center of the wheel and click-clacking from slot to slot.  Peggy called out “no more bets” and the ball bounced along for a few seconds more before finding a permanent home in slot 18.  It was a red slot.

            “All right!” she said, and shoved her fist in the air.  She put the brass marker on the number 18 box. “Paying one thousand,” she said, stacking two more purple chips next to the two that were already on the red diamond.

            “This is your lucky day, sir,” the pit boss said.  “Would you like to let it ride one more time?”

            “No,” said Lucky.  “I was just looking for a sign.”

            He tipped Peggy a hundred bucks, then went back to his room, undressed, got into bed and slept soundly until noon.  He took a slow, very hot shower, shaved carefully and dressed.  Before leaving he filled the plastic hotel courtesy bag with clothes that needed laundering; underwear, some socks, a couple of polo shirts and a pair of chino pants.  He marked the form for overnight service, and hung the bag on the doorknob.  On his way out of the hotel he stopped at the front desk and arranged to stay for a second night.  It had been raining, the first time in several days, and the parking lot asphalt was a slick black.  In the Taurus he opened the Manistee street map, found the location of the casino at the intersection of Hwy 31 and Hwy 22, then traced a route to Walker Street with the ballpoint pen from the hotel room.  He breathed deeply, a rush of anticipation rippling pleasurably through him.  He sat perfectly still and said her name out loud, Karen.  Then he went to find her. 

It began to mist as he turned onto the highway heading towards town, and he adjusted the wipers to a setting that would sweep the windshield clean every five seconds or so.  At the gas station where he’d bought the map the night before, or more accurately, that morning, he got another large coffee and the last Bavarian Crème donut.  The Hwy 31 drawbridge was up to let a freighter pass through the channel from Manistee Lake to Lake Michigan, slowing him down a little more.  He relished these short delays, like the pleasure of unhurried foreplay.  When he finally turned onto Walker Street he felt a rush of emotions so diverse that he could not distinguish one sensation from the other; a magic, exhilarating alchemy of alarm and joy and anxiety and arousal and guilt that almost caused him to cry out.  Again, he said her name aloud, and began looking for the number he now knew so well. 

Each house on the street was different; a vintage Victorian next to an upgraded summer cottage next to what could have been an old farmhouse next to a little bungalow next to a frame two-story duplex next to a three-story house with six mailboxes called the Mansion Apartments, and so on up the block.  The one thing they all had in common was their general shabbiness, all in need of paint and yard work.  Maybe the constant drizzle and the low, scudding clouds made them seem more forlorn than they were.  Karen’s address was the left side of a dingy frame duplex, only a mild disappointment.  Karen, are you in there? Are you alone, brushing your hair before a gilt mirror?  Are you curled with a book, sipping chamomile tea?  Can you sense my nearness, feel my beating heart?  In the driveway was a dark blue Chevy Cavalier four-door, about five years old, Lucky guessed.  Leaning against the front porch was a bike which could have belonged to either unit.  The curtains were drawn.  There were no signs of life.  Lucky drove slowly by, then circled the block and drove by again.  Nothing had changed in the two minutes that took.

            He had not really thought this through, had not considered how to make contact, whether to just knock on the front door, or to call on the phone first, or possibly just wait and watch.   He decided to wait and watch.  He circled the block once more, and then parked at the curb.  Karen’s duplex was across the street, two houses up.  The drizzle had ended, and there was a ragged little patch of bright blue in the otherwise grey sky.  A man in dusty work clothes came out of the Mansion Apartments, climbed into a faded red Ford 150 pick-up and drove off.  The mailman, in uniform-blue shorts, delivered the mail up one side of the street, and back down the other.  A grey-haired woman with a humped back shuffled out of her front door, collected her mail, and before going back into her house, stared in Lucky’s direction for what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to half a minute.  Lucky unfolded his map and pretended to examine it.  He felt stupid and conspicuous.  The clouds were clearing. It was developing into another warm, sunny day.  A mother and two kids came out of their house carrying beach bags and towels and began walking towards the Lake Michigan, six blocks away.  It was Saturday, a busy beach day, he suspected.  He’d tried to leave Thompsonburg the previous Tuesday.  Maybe he’d never go back.  Then again, maybe he would, just to say goodbye to Winnie, who he missed already, and maybe ask Clyde about the red Bonneville convertible up on blocks in the granary.  Maybe he’d check on Fiusko, that ignoramus, what the hell was he doing running around the countryside naked?  Maybe he’d see Fiddler one last time, and ask if there was any more information on that gun.  But then again, maybe he’d stay here with Karen, or drive back to Detroit.  Or drive straight to the Nevada desert and become a hermit. 

            A Manistee Police car drove slowly by, probably summoned by the old hunch-backed witch, Lucky thought.  When it turned the corner and was out of sight, Lucky started the Taurus and drove away, taking a long look at Karen’s house.  The curtains were still drawn. 

            Lucky had eaten nothing but coffee and donuts since his cheeseburger and fries at the Crow’s Nest the night before.  In downtown Manistee he found a place called the Pier House Bar and Grill, where he had a smothered burrito and a Bud Light.  When he got back to Walker Street, the blue Cavalier was gone.

            He didn’t hesitate.  He didn’t think, either.  He went straight up to the front door of the adjoining duplex and rang the bell.  A guy holding a TV remote answered the door.

            “Yep?” he said, friendly, smiling, eager to help.

            “Geez, I’m sorry to bother you,” Lucky said, “but I just came up from Thompsonburg to see your neighbor, Karen, and she’s not here.  Do you have any idea where she is?”

            “She’d be to work at this time of day,” the clicker carrier said.  “Just left.”

            Canned laughter could be heard coming from the TV inside.

            “I haven’t seen her in years.  You wouldn’t tell me where she works, would you?  I don’t think she’d mind.”

            “Hell, I don’t think she would either,” the clicker carrier said.  “She’s dealing blackjack up to the casino.”

Chapter 28

            The Ottawa Nation has called the Great Lakes area home for about six centuries.   In all that time there have never been more than eight or nine thousand of them, about the population of Thompsonburg or Manistee.  The Ottawa, mainly hunters and traders, were always a peaceful people.  Maybe too peaceful.  First they got beat up by the Iroquois, then herded onto reservations by the U.S. government, then snookered by unscrupulous developers who wanted the land some of the bands occupied along the wilderness rivers of western Michigan – the Thornapple and the White, the Grand and the Pere Marquette, the Big and Little Manistee.  The Ottawa Nation had all but faded from existence before it got a better idea: take the wealth back, nickel by nickel, quarter by quarter, dollar by dollar.  What could be more American than Indians re-creating a little Vegas razzle-dazzle in rural Michigan.

            What surprised Lucky about learning that Karen Kleeber was a casino blackjack dealer was that he was not surprised.  After the week he’d had, nothing could surprise him.  And now all the return addresses made sense.  Manistee, St. Ignace, Mt. Pleasant and Traverse City were all towns where Indian tribes had set up Las Vegas-style operations nearby.  He’d even gambled at a couple of them.

            By the time he got back to the Little River Casino the vast acreage of asphalt was three-quarters full; hundreds of cars, pick-ups and SUVs belonging to white men returning to the Indians their due.  Lucky went first to his room, took another shower, brushed his teeth, and put on his last clean shirt, slipping a picture of Karen and Mel into his breast pocket although he had no clear idea of what he would do with it.  Then he followed the sound of 1,353 merry slot machines to the gaming floor.  There were hundreds of players now, with action at all of the craps and roulette tables, and at least 15 blackjack tables.  Lucky strolled around the perimeter of the games, looking for a familiar face, the hopefully recognizable face of Karen Kleeber.  And there she was, unmistakably, dealing to a full table of card sharps who had no idea who she was, no idea that she was anything more than a woman who needed a job, no idea that she was a woman with a history that would astonish them all had they known it.  Karen Kleeber had become more beautiful with age, the fresh innocence of her youth molded into stunning good looks by tragedy and love and wisdom.  At least, that’s how Lucky chose to read it.  Her dark hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders, framing a perfectly symmetrical face, with eyes worthy of Hollywood and a mouth to make a man swoon.   She took his breath away; the vision of her and the idea of her.  The name tag clipped to her black vest said KAREN – TABLE GAMES – DEALER.

            He watched.  Karen was an elegant dealer, her movements swift and sure and graceful, her voice warm and encouraging.  He was happy about this.  He hated clumsy or irritating dealers, dealers who flubbed cards, dealers whose movements were more appropriate to changing a tire, or stone-faced dealers who never spoke, or dealers who talked too much, keeping up a constant, inane chatter they must have thought was entertaining.  After a while one of the players who’d been losing badly slipped off his stool and went in search of better luck at another table.  Lucky took his place, the first chair to Karen’s left in the semi-circle.  The other players looked him over quickly, a couple of them nodding a welcome in his direction.  Lucky noticed for the first time that it was a $25-minimum table.

            “Karen’s been beating the heck out of us,” one said, and several laughed.

            “Maybe this gentleman will change your luck,” Karen said, looking at Lucky without recognition.

            “Go ahead and finish the shoe without me,” he said.

            During the next shuffle break Lucky took five one-hundred dollar bills from his wallet and said, “All green please.”   Karen exchanged the bills for twenty green chips.  He asked her to change one of the green chips and she exchanged it for five red chips.  They played on, Lucky betting single green chips until he caught a couple of good hands in a row, then playing two, and doubling-down and splitting pairs when it made sense.  Frequently, he’d slide a red chip to the edge of the betting circle, placing a bet for the dealer.  After thirty minutes or so, he was still about even.  Karen had not recognized him.  He accepted a soda from a waitress, dropping a red chip on her tray. 

            What now? 

            Watching Karen deal blackjack was a pleasure.  Being in her presence, within the circle of her aura, was exhilarating.  But he wanted her to recognize him, wanted to see her expression when she realized who he was.  He’d been waiting for this moment for a long time.  He drew the snapshot from his pocket and placed it on the green felt of the table, near his chips, facing her.  His action caught her attention and she glanced down at the picture.  Immediately he regretted it, knew it was the wrong thing to do, knew it was an awful, ugly thing to do.  Her hands went to her mouth and a small sound escaped, a combination of an intake of breath, a moan, and an exclamation of surprise.  Her eyes moved to Lucky’s face and he finally saw recognition there.

            “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, covering the photo with his hand.  “That was stupid of me.”

            Karen’s face had visibly paled.  She didn’t move.

“Is there something wrong, sweetheart?” one of the other players asked, an older guy wearing suspenders over a T-Shirt, his white hair hacked into a butch cut, probably by his wife.  “Are you OK?”

            Karen lowered her hands, instinctively turning them palms-up for a second to satisfy the overhead security cameras. 

            “Sure, Phil, I’m just fine,” she said, and she forced a smile for the suspenders guy.  “Let’s play.”

            The first card out of the dealing shoe flew from her hand and fluttered to her feet.

            “Floor!” she called, and when the pit boss came over she said, “Dropped a card, Frank.”

            “You dropped a card?  This lady never drops a card,” he said, affably.  “Go ahead, pick it up.”  He watched the table as she stooped to retrieve the card.  “Do you want it?” he asked Lucky.  “Otherwise we’ll burn it.  Up to you.”

            “I’ll take it,” said Lucky.  

            Without looking at him Karen gave Lucky the Jack of Hearts face up, and continued to deal.  The pit boss stood by and watched for a while.  Karen regained her poise but not her good humor, the table played on without incident, and the pit boss went off to answer another call for “Floor!”.  Lucky slipped the photo back into his pocket when Karen was paying off bets at the other end of the table.  Phil, the old suspenders guy, kept giving him hard looks.  In a while a relief dealer tapped Karen on the shoulder and they exchanged places.

            “See you all in twenty minutes,” Karen said to the players. She tried a smile, without much success.  “Robert, give my friends good cards, now.”

            Robert was a lousy dealer, all thumbs and mouth, and Lucky colored-up his chips.  He was down about fifty bucks, no big deal.  Suspender Phil gave him a look as he slid off the stool.  Go to hell, you old fart.  He hung around the tables, pretending to watch the play, but really watching for Karen to come back from her break.  Her reaction to him was not what he’d dreamt of.  There was no thrill of recognition, no elation in their long-delayed, surprise reunion.  No.  Rather, he’d detected shock, and maybe even hostility.  When he saw her coming out of an Employees Only door he went to head her off.

            “Go away,” she said without slowing down.  “I’m not allowed to talk to players on the floor.”

            “Karen, I am so sorry.  That was an awful thing I did.”

            “If you want, meet me at midnight outside of the main entrance.  And don’t come back to my table.” 

            He watched her go into the pit and talk for a moment with Frank the pit boss, who glanced in his direction. Then, with a smile, she greeted the players at her table and began dealing.  Lucky exchanged his chips for cash and went back to his room.  The clock on the nightstand said 8:42.  He set the alarm for 11:45, then lay down on top of the bed cover and closed his eyes.  Before he fell asleep his last waking thoughts were of Winnie Bussle. 

Chapter 29

            He dreamed of body parts.  His dream was something like the movie he’d seen in Room 26 of the Cherokee Motel the night before the morning he tried to leave Thompsonburg; the movie he’d watched from bed, the lights turned out, the air conditioner groaning, the covers pulled up, a can of beer in his hand, and a bright future ahead.  The one about the mad scientist.  In his dream Lucky was sometimes the mad scientist, but sometimes the mad scientist was Frank, the pit boss.  The mad scientist was trying to make one complete human being using pieces from different people; one of Perry Fiusko’s moose-skinny legs and one from Winnie, and Mel’s torso and Karen’s head, and when that fell apart, he tried it with Winnie’s head, Karen’s legs, Fiddler’s torso, and Fiusko’s arms.  I can’t see, this pieced-together person cried out through Winnie’s mouth.  Use somebody else’s eyes.  Neither he nor Frank the pit boss could make one good human being out of all those pieces.

            He awoke groggy and disheartened.  His reunion with Karen had not gone the way he had fantasized it.  She had not been thrilled to see him, had even seemed hostile.  What vanity, what disgusting conceit he had displayed, thinking of himself as the center of this small universe of humanity, this group of lives that included Lesinskis and Kleebers and Bussles and Mickelsens and Mongos and Harrisons, and on the periphery Totters and Pedersens and Fiddlers and Fiuskos.  Imagine, believing that this was all about him, about Lucky Lesinski. 

            In a way he was relieved by Karen’s coolness.  It lessened the guilt he felt for his betrayal of Mel, and of Winnie Bussle.  But why would he feel that he was betraying Winnie Bussle, for God’s sake?  He’d only known her for four or five days.  She meant nothing to him.  He splashed water on his face, turned out the lights and went to meet Karen Kleeber.

            He’d been waiting under the casino’s main portico for about ten minutes when Karen approached along the walkway.  She was dressed in jeans and a loose sweatshirt that said Little River Casino on the front.

            “Employees have to go in and out of the side entrance,” she said by way of greeting.  No Lucky, how are you? or Gee, it’s good to see you or Lucky, my long lost love.  Lucky was amused by his own musings. 

            “Karen, I’m really sorry about what happened in there.”

            “Forget it.  It was a shock.  Do you want to go somewhere and talk?”

            “Is that OK?”

            “There’s a place up the road,” she said.  “Let’s take your car, then you can drop me back at my car.  It’s way the hell out in the employee lot.”

            They drove to a place called Eastside Tavern, dark and smoky and loud with conversation and juke box rock.  They took a back booth.  By the time they had beers in front of them, the only words they had spoken since driving away from the casino were -

            “Draw one, Ginny.”

            and

            “Make that two.”

            Lucky made the first stab at conversation.  He tried to keep it light.

            “So, I guess you were surprised to see me.”

            “You could say that.  What has it been, thirty years?”

            “Not that long if you count Mel’s funeral.  I didn’t see you there, but my father did.”

            “That seems like an eternity ago.  Or just yesterday.  I guess I should have said something.”

            “It’s OK.”

            “How did you know I worked at the casino?”

            “Your neighbor told me.  The one who walks around the house with the TV clicker.”

            “Oh, God.  He’s actually my landlord, too. He owns the whole building, I just rent my half.”

            When he looked at Karen now he could see none of the vulnerable teenaged girl he’d known thirty years before.  Whatever was left of that girl was buried deep inside her, a hard kernel, undetectable, untouchable at her center.  He wondered if she could see any of the teenaged Lucky in him?  He wondered what it would be like to put his hands on her body, but he recognized the impulse as one any normal man would have in the presence of a sexy woman, and not the adolescent obsession he’d nurtured for thirty years.  That obsession, he decided, was pretty much dead.

            “So now we are both brotherless.”  As the words passed through his lips it suddenly occurred to Lucky that maybe Karen didn’t know about her twin brother’s suicide, but her nod told him otherwise.

            “Some guy from the Thompsonburg police called me.  I’m glad he found me, but it wasn’t until after they’d already buried Kenny.  They didn’t waste any time.”

            “It was in the paper there.”

            “I’m sure it was big news.  The Kleeber curse lives on.” 

            “Maybe it’s over now.”

            “I’m planning to come down, arrange for a better burial.”

            “That would be nice.” 

“So you’ve been in Thompsonburg?”

            He told her about his father’s death and about selling the house on Julia Street.  He told her about hearing from Kenny and going to see him.  He told her about being there when Kenny killed himself.

            “Oh, my God,” she said.          

            “There was nothing I could do.”

            “I believe you.”

            As his eyes adjusted to the dimness Lucky could study Karen’s face in more detail, the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth that simply added to her beauty.  It was hard to believe that this woman and the gray, shrunken man he’d watched stick a gun barrel in his mouth were twins.

            “In fact, I didn’t know anything about what he did, about Wildwood, any of that, until a few days ago.”

            “I’m not surprised.  That long ago, what happened in Thompsonburg didn’t much matter to the rest of the world.”

            “I’m surprised Mel didn’t tell me.”

            “It would have been hard for him.” Karen said.

            “Maybe if I’d known I could have helped.”

            “How?” she asked.

            The question silenced him.  He had no answer.  Karen waved at a couple of other casino dealers seated across the room.  The din had intensified.  She and Lucky had to lean closer across the table to be heard without raising their voices.

            “In high school, could I have helped?”  It was a question that had been nagging at him since her brother’s suicide, what Kenny had said about him abandoning his friends.  “Did you expect me to help?”

            “Lucky, that’s too long ago to think about.”

            “He said things.  He made me feel I’d done something wrong, or didn’t do something I should have.”

            “I was in love with you,” she said, so casually that the statement seemed a normal, anticipated part of the conversation, but Lucky’s breath caught.  “At least, I loved you as much as an abused, fearful, insecure girl could love a boy.  Close your mouth, Lucky,” she said.  She clapped her hands together and laughed happily at his reaction.  “Are you shocked?”

            “I don’t know what to say.”

            “Well, it’s true.”

            “Karen, I never knew.”  Now was the perfect chance to tell her how he felt, but he could not.  Instead, he said, “I felt such sorrow for you and Kenny.”

            “I don’t want to talk about how awful it was living in that house.  We were all so helpless.  Kenny felt such guilt, not being able to defend my mother and me.”

            “I can’t imagine it,” Lucky said.

            “He wanted to be strong, to stand up to my father.  But he just couldn’t.”

            “No kid should have to deal with that.”

            “And you were so normal,” Karen said.  “You came from such a nice family.  And you seemed to like us.”

            “I did like you.  More than like you.”  It was the best he could do.

“My expectations were unreasonable.”

            “I was just a kid too, struggling with my own problems.”

            “Of course you were.” 

She reached out and touched Lucky’s hand with hers, then withdrew it.  They were both quiet now.  After a while Lucky broke the silence. 

“Kenny gave me some things.”   Karen looked up from her hands.  “Or I should say, he left me some things.  A box in the house with my name on it.”

            “Was that picture in there?”

            “Twelve pictures.  Plus some letters you’d written to Kenny in Wildwood.  That’s how I got your Manistee address.”

            “Kenny took those pictures with Mel’s camera.  He was home for the weekend.”

            “Mel’s camera?”

            “I never saw the pictures.  I’d forgotten all about them.”

            “They were a shock to me, as you can imagine.”

            “Mel never told you about us?”

            “Not a word.”

            Karen thought for a moment.  “Is that it? Was there anything else?”

            “A gun.  A camera.  A camera, maybe Mel’s.”

            Karen took a deep breath and closed her eyes. 

            “What did you do with it all?” she asked.

            “I gave the gun and camera to a Thompsonburg cop, a Sgt. Fiddler.  Probably the one who called you.  And I gave him your address here.”

            “The letters?”

            “I’ll give them to you.  I didn’t look at them.”

            “And the pictures?” she asked, so softly he could barely hear the words.

            “You can have them.  But I want you to tell me about Mel.  I feel now like I never knew him.”

            Lucky and Karen were quiet on the drive back to the casino.  Karen directed Lucky to the employee parking lot and Lucky stopped behind the blue Cavalier.

            “Come to the house tomorrow.  We’ll have a late breakfast.”

            “What time?”

“I need some sleep.  How about noon?”

            “Have lots of coffee ready. Should I bring donuts?”

            “I’ll make something.  I’m not a half-bad cook.”

            When Karen had driven away Lucky went back into the casino.  The crowd had thinned, and only about half the blackjack tables were open.  He watched the play for a while, then took a seat at a table with a dealer he liked, a guy named Mitch, who seemed to have decent skills and a pleasant personality.  He played for an hour, got ahead about five hundred, then had a run of bad cards.  When he called it a night and headed for his room he was about even.

Chapter 30

            In the morning Lucky found his finished laundry outside the door, along with his final, Speedy Check-Out statement.  He showered, dressed, packed and left.  He would not be staying in Manistee, would not be living out his romantic fantasy with Karen Kleeber.  He would not be naked with her, ever.  He would not hear her murmur in his ear, he would not touch her body in intimate, secret places, nor would she him.  They would not have a love that would shake the universe.  He would not even fuck her.  He would go back to Detroit, maybe stop first in Thompsonburg to wrap up a few loose ends.

            As a carpet salesman, if Lucky had been helping Karen Kleeber pick out a carpet, he would have asked her to describe the way her house was decorated.

            “Whatever’s comfortable,” she would have replied.  “Definitely nothing fussy.”

            “And what colors would we be working with?” he would have asked.

            “Earth tones,” she would have replied. 

            The place could use new carpet, he thought as he entered the living room.  The multicolor hi-lo on the floor had seen better days.  Maybe he could make a call or two, get a good deal on a nice new nylon plush, get the guy with the TV clicker next door to pay for it.   He’d tell him he’d install it free.  At one time he was pretty good at it. 

            “Come on back,” Karen said, and led the way into the kitchen.  Lucky put the stack of letters and the twelve pictures held with a rubber band on the counter, then took a seat at the table and watched while Karen cooked.  She’d dressed up a little for the occasion, Lucky noticed.  Maybe you’d describe what she wore as a peasant outfit, a loose, colorful skirt, a low-cut blouse of crinkly cotton, a string of hand-painted beads around her neck, and flimsy sandals on her feet.  The impulse to put his hand on her smooth, bare leg was nearly irresistible.

            “So this is breakfast time for you?” he asked.

            “It’s a weird schedule,” she said, putting some strips of bacon into a pan on the stove.  “It’s even worse for the swing shift.”

            “How did you ever get into dealing blackjack?”

            “A girl’s gotta live,” she said.  “Years ago I saw an ad in the Thompsonburg paper for dealer’s school at the casino in Mt. Pleasant.  I’ve been dealing ever since.  I enjoy it.”  She broke six eggs into a mixing bowl.

            “I can tell.  I like to play blackjack, and I can tell you’re a terrific dealer.”

            “It’s important to me to be good.”  She smashed a couple of cloves of garlic and began dicing vegetables.  An onion, some green pepper.  “And it sure beats working at some discount store.”

            “Are you happy just dealing?  No ambitions to climb the ladder?”

            “I’ve been offered supervisor jobs lots of times, but I always turn them down.”  She started a sauté pan going with a hunk of butter, and added the vegetables.  “I’m qualified on craps and roulette, too, but I tell them just to keep me dealing blackjack.  It’s like a little party and I’m the host.  You get to know the people.”  She moved the vegetables around in the butter.  The smell of the sautéing onion and garlic was intoxicating.  “It’s fun, but damned hard, stressful work.”

            “Why did you move around so much?”

            “I guess I just like to move around,” she said. 

            “But no men, no marriage, no kids?”

            She looked up from the pan and worked her mouth into a smile

            “Some men,” she said.  “No marriage and no kids.”

            They ate on the back patio; bacon and damned good omelets, with sliced tomatoes and buttered, toasted bagels.  For a while they talked about blackjack. Karen told him stories about dealing, about the crazy players and the poor losers and the big winners.  She told him about the dealer who dropped dead at his table, and the one who was so hung over she puked into her chip tray.  They talked about Thompsonburg in the old days, about going downtown on their bikes, about places they’d hang out.  They talked about kids from school, and what had happened to them.  They talked about big city living versus small town living, and what they liked and didn’t like about each.  He told her about the vultures in City Park, and how they wouldn’t leave.  And when they’d finished their bacon and eggs and their small talk they sat quietly sipping their coffee, trying to figure out how to get into the next subject, which absolutely had to be Karen and Mel.  That’s what Lucky had come for.

            “So Kenny took those pictures?” Lucky asked. 

            “With Mel’s camera.”

            “What was the occasion?”

“Just a happy day.”

“Did Mel take lots of pictures?”

“Would you like to see some?” Karen asked.

She went into the house and came back a minute later with gallon-sized plastic baggie holding dozens of photos.  Lucky went through them, one-by-one.  There were pictures of the places Karen and Mel had visited, the Lake Michigan dunes and lighthouses and an amusement park and a zoo and small town attractions like the Pere Marquette Memorial and Shrine of the Pines. There were pictures of beaches and picnics and sunsets.  There were candid pictures of Karen, pensive or laughing or even asleep.  There were pictures of their friends Diane and Rodney with their little kids, and other friends Lucky did not recognize.  There were pictures of holidays, a Christmas tree and a Thanksgiving dinner and 4^th of July fireworks.  There were pictures of the Mel’s Dirtywork pick-up truck and finished landscaping jobs. There were pictures of the Mongo plant; the kiln house, the pug mill, the inventory yard.  A fellow Mongo employee had taken pictures of Mel on his fork-lift.  There were pictures of Anna and Big Larry, and even a couple of shots of the four Kleebers, seemingly having a good time in their backyard, Robert Kleeber smiling and lifting a beer towards the camera.  There were even a few pictures of Lucky, some with Big Larry and Anna, taken on visits to Detroit.  Lucky vaguely remembered Mel taking them.

“Mel always had his camera with him,” Karen said.  “He wanted a picture record of everything.”

Lucky wondered whether his brother had ever photographed a crime scene.  Maybe a man having a picnic by himself in a clearing at the edge of a river.

            “Tell me about him,” Lucky said.

            So for the next thirty uninterrupted minutes, Karen told Lucky about his brother, Mel.

Chapter 31

            When we graduated from high school Kenny and I thought about leaving home, getting away from my father, but we just couldn’t do it.  We couldn’t leave my mother there with him, so we stayed.  Kenny got a job as a cook at the Sunrise Coffee Shop and I went to work at the IGA.  It was still pretty bad in the house.  My father was still violent, mostly to my mom, usually when we weren’t around.  One night, out of the blue, Mel called and invited Kenny and me to your church’s youth group.  Kenny went to a couple of meetings and then quit, but I kept going, which infuriated my father.  Mel and I got to be pretty good friends.  He was two years younger, but he seemed more mature than other kids his age.  Maybe even more mature than us, very serious-minded and thoughtful.  But how young we were.

            Our friendship slowly developed into something more.  He’d meet me at the IGA and when I got off work we’d go hang out someplace, maybe the Sunrise, and just talk.  Sometimes we’d go to a movie.  A few times your mom invited me over for dinner.  It was the most normal my life had ever been, except when I got home.  My father hated it.  He hated the idea of me going to your church, and he hated the idea of Mel and me being friends, doing things together.  He would get into my face and scream, I can remember his face being just an inch or two from mine, and his spit flying he was so angry.  But except for one time, he never touched me anymore.  Sometimes he’d still grab Kenny by the arm, or give him a shove, or slap him in the head, and he did worse things to our mom, but he stopped touching me. 

            When Mel graduated and got a job at the brick plant we kept seeing each other.  On weekends we’d go for drives in the country, or drive over to Ludington for a beach day.  A lot of times Kenny came with us.  Yes, Mel and I were having sex.  We were really in love.  He was the most gentle, sensitive man I’d ever known, probably that I will ever know.

            Mel hated my father, maybe even more than Kenny and I did.  He tried to get us to move out of there, but we wouldn’t leave my mom.  He talked to her, too, and tried to convince her to leave my father, but she wouldn’t.  She had some strange fatalism about it, like this was the relationship she was given, and she had to bear it.  Or that she’d made her vows and, by God, she was going to stick to them.  Or maybe she was just too weak, or too afraid, to be out on her own. 

            My father would say the most awful things to Mel when he picked me up, insulting, nasty things, trying to drive him away.  But Mel would not abandon us.  I loved him even more for that. 

            By this time you were out of the Army and had settled in Detroit.  I know that Mel visited you down there a couple of times a year, but I don’t know why he didn’t talk about us.  I think he was just that way, a very private person.  He was that way around here, too.  He didn’t try to keep our relationship a secret, but he just thought it was our business and no one else’s.  So we kept pretty much to ourselves, which was just fine with me.

            One day Mel noticed a bruise on my cheek.  It wasn’t serious, just like a slight reddening.  He asked me about it and I admitted that my father had hit me.  He’d been in one of his rages, and he just couldn’t restrain himself and he’d swung hard and smacked me cross the face.  Mel was more than just angry.  How can I describe it?  It was as if he considered my father’s act beyond cruelty, like a cosmic affront, like a crack in the universe.  And maybe part of it was that he was ashamed and frustrated that he hadn’t been able to protect me.  He promised me it would never happen again.  For the next couple of weeks he seemed even more introspective, more reserved than usual.  He was still the same wonderful Mel, but he was carrying a great weight around with him, a weight of conscience, that I could not help him bear.  He visited you in Detroit during that period, but the trip didn’t seem to break the spell he seemed to be under. 

The following Saturday he came to the house and confronted my father.  We were all there. Mel began quietly, almost patiently, but my father was having none of it, and he became very abusive, screaming at Mel, telling him he had no fucking business coming into his house and meddling in his family’s affairs, that he would run his house the way he fucking wanted to.  He called Mel a little shit, and a faggot, and Big Larry an asshole father who couldn’t control his kids.  He called your mother a whore, and your granddad a hypocrite.  My mom was trying to calm him down, saying, “Now Robert, now Robert,” and Kenny was near hysteria, pacing around the room, screaming “Stop, stop, stop.”  It was as close to experiencing hell as I can imagine. 

But Mel was calm, almost eerily calm, and he kept telling my father, “Mr. Kleeber, you will not treat your family this way anymore.  Mr. Kleeber, you will not abuse or touch any one in your family anymore.  Do you understand what I’m saying Mr. Kleeber?”  But my father wouldn’t let up.  Kenny couldn’t take another moment of it and ran outside, into the backyard, just to escape the insanity, I think.  The only thing I remember about my own actions was that I kept saying, “Come on Mel, let’s go, let’s leave, please Mel.”  But Mel said no, he was not leaving until the situation was resolved.  Then, with a shock beyond understanding, I realized that Mel was holding a gun in his hand, and suddenly he just put the gun up to my father’s forehead and shot him, and when my father fell to the ground Mel put the gun to his head and shot him again.  Kenny came running back into the house, out of his mind with panic, and he dragged our father’s body out into the backyard, and kicked it and stomped on it and got some gasoline from the garage and set the body on fire, screaming all the time, “I hate you, I hate you.” 

By now several neighbors had heard the commotion and had come over, and someone had called the police. Mel, just as calmly as he had killed my father, mixed in with the neighbors, and when the police came and herded everyone out into the street, Mel just went and watched with them.  

Chapter 32

            As Lucky understood it, a black hole wasn’t really a hole, but a star that had collapsed in on itself, getting smaller and smaller, and therefore denser and denser, until it was so dense, its gravity so strong, nothing could escape it – not even light.  Physicists had actually figured out how small something had to get to be dense enough to be a black hole.  Our sun, Lucky remembered reading in a dentist office magazine, would have to shrink to about two miles across to be dense enough to be a black hole.  Earth would have to shrink to about a tenth of an inch across.  Then it would be a black hole.  It was curious, the random facts you remembered.

            The other definition of a black hole could be the terrible, dark space that opens up inside you when you’ve been told that your sweet, innocent younger brother had committed a cold blooded murder.  That information created a hole inside Lucky that was never, thereafter, filled.  He felt it form immediately, as soon as Karen Kleeber had uttered the words.  It was as if something in his center had withered, had shrunken, leaving a void in his soul as black and cold as death.  For the rest of his life Lucky would be surprised that people didn’t notice the black hole inside him, couldn’t sense the existence of something that important, that palpable.

            “I need to use the bathroom,” he said, and Karen Kleeber told him how to get there, back through the kitchen, up the stairs, then straight ahead.  He wanted to be alone. He locked the door behind him, sat down on the green fuzzy-covered toilet seat lid and closed his eyes.  Here he was.  The ace carpet salesman.  The average fisherman.  The decent blackjack player.  Fifty-something years old, three hundred thousand dollars, and no home. Here he was. The last of the Lesinskis.  Lucky.  The Lucky one.  The sole survivor.  Here he was.  A failed friend.  A failed husband.  A failed son.  A failed brother.   

            Suddenly Lucky was very cold, and there were a million bees buzzing away in his skull.  He bent over and put his head between his knees, but the feeling intensified.  He lowered himself carefully to the floor and lay back, elevating his feet by putting them up on the toilet seat, but that didn’t work either, and he knew he would faint. He curled into a ball and let it happen, let the unconscious flow into him.  The spell came and passed at its own pace, and when it was gone he lay still, gathering his strength before getting to his feet, a bit shakily, but feeling better, cleaner.  He looked at himself in the mirror over the sink.  He was startlingly pale. He put his palm against his forehead.  It was cold and clammy.  He pushed the flesh of his face this way and that.  He wondered how he looked to others, people seeing him for the first time, or after an absence of thirty years.  He could make no judgment.

            Back downstairs in the kitchen Karen was just putting soap into the dishwasher.  He sat at the kitchen table as she started the machine and began wiping down the counters.

            “You wanted the truth,” she said, without looking in his direction, concentrating on her cleaning.  “You wanted to know your brother.”

            “I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing.  That would have been OK.  That would have worked fine for me.”

            “Do you really believe that?”

            “No,” he said.  His forehead was still cold and damp, his fingers cold and tingly.  “But a part of me wishes it were true.  A big part of me wishes that I’d never come to Manistee, never found you at the casino, never asked you about Mel.”

            “You want things easy,” she said.  Now she looked up at him.  “Are you OK?”

            “I’m fine.”

            “You don’t look well.”

            “I’m fine.”

            She wrung out the sponge and left it on the counter, came over and sat opposite him.

“You want a smooth sail through life,” she said, looking closely into his face.  “Sorry Charlie, nobody gets that.  Reality catches up with us, sooner or later.”

            “You don’t know what I want.”

            “If I’m wrong, tell me,” she said.  “I’ll apologize.”

            He thought of arguing with her, defending himself, letting her know that it hadn’t been easy for him either.  He’d had his share of disappointments.  He’d had his regrets.  She was one of those regrets.

            “Today’s my day off,” she said.  “Would you like to go for a walk?  It’s a beautiful afternoon.”

            They walked into downtown Manistee, neither saying a word, and then strolled along the River Walk boardwalk with others enjoying the balmy summer Sunday.  A freighter was approaching through the channel from the docks on Manistee Lake, headed for the open waters of Lake Michigan, and they found a bench to sit and watch it pass.  As it moved slowly by in front of them, its flank rising up like a tall black, steel wall, seamen on the deck waved down and they waved back.  It was amazing to Lucky how such an enormous vessel could navigate the narrow river, which was barely wide enough to accommodate the ship with a few feet to spare on either side. 

            “So Mel let Kenny take the blame?”  he said.  This had been bothering him.

            Karen turned towards Lucky next to her on the bench, then turned back to the river view. 

            “Mel was horrified by what he’d done.  I don’t think he intended to kill my father.  He had the gun, but I think he just wanted to make him understand how serious he was.  But my father was screaming, and I think Mel just acted completely on impulse.  Almost like a reflex.  A tragic reflex as it turned out.”

            “But Kenny suffered the consequences.”

            “Mel came over that night after the police had gone.  Kenny had told them he’d killed my father, and they’d taken him away.  Mel was nearly inconsolable, and my mother and I were emotional wrecks.  But the three of us talked as calmly as we could, and decided to let things take their course.  We couldn’t imagine that they’d prosecute Kenny.”

            “And how did Kenny feel about that?  Did anybody think to ask him?”

            “Of course we talked to him about it,” Karen said, with a bit of irritation in her voice.  “We saw him the next day at the jail.  From the beginning he told them that he did it.  He wanted to take the blame.  I think he felt tremendous guilt for not doing it himself, not being able to protect me and my mother.  It was as if now he was ready to accept his share of the burden.  And everybody, and I mean everybody in town, including the newspaper and the police and even the prosecutor, didn’t want Kenny to go to prison.  The whole town rallied behind him.”

            “Oh, I get it now,” Lucky said.  “It was kind of a team effort.  The buddy system.  Mel does the dirty work and Kenny does the time.  Each one does what he can, right?  What he’s capable of?”

            “I know it’s hard for you to hear,” Karen said.  “Life is very messy sometimes.”

            Before leaving the house Karen had put on a broad-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses.  She was as desirable a woman as Lucky had ever seen.  He was wholly aware of her bare arm just an inch from his, and her leg, covered only by a bit of thin, gauzy material, just an inch from his. 

            “But Mel,” he said.  “My brother Mel.”

            “Oh, Mel,” Karen said.  “My sweet, dear Mel. He wanted to set us free.  But he made a prison for himself in the process.  He wanted us to have a life without fear and torment.  But he became fearful and tormented.  He wanted the Kleeber family to live in peace.  But he never had another moment of true peace in his life.”

            Lucky put off asking about the end of Mel’s life.  He wasn’t ready for that.

            They left the bench and continued their stroll along the boardwalk, all the way down to the beach on Lake Michigan.  In their bare feet they walked across the warm sand, meandering among the sun worshippers and Frisbee players and beer drinkers and clusters of seagulls and kids digging holes and building castles, down to the water’s edge.  The freighter that had passed them in the channel was now well out into the lake. 

            “Our ocean,” he said.   

            “They say that if atmospheric conditions are just right, you can see the lights of Wisconsin at night,” she said.  “It’s about the way light bends, or something like that.  It only happens once every few years.”

            As they walked back across the sand their hands brushed together and Karen lightly took hold of Lucky’s fingers and they walked that way until they reached the street.  He could feel electricity through her skin.  She let go of his hand and held his arm to steady herself as she slipped her feet back into her sandals, and did not take his hand again as they began walking back towards downtown. 

Chapter 33

            They took a roundabout way back, through a residential area of mansions built by lumber and salt barons.  They kept their distance, not risking an errant touch.

            “Who lives in these places now?” he asked.

            “It ain’t blackjack dealers, that’s for sure.”

            “You own a house, don’t forget that.”

            “A little dump in Thompsonburg,” she said.

            “Fix it up, sell it, you’d be surprised by how much it’s worth.  With the brick company going great guns, and the all the new employees at the prisons, it’s a seller’s market.”

            Karen said she might do that.  She had some vacation time coming.  Maybe she’d take a week off, go take a look, see what she could do to spruce the place up.  Lucky said he’d check into new carpet.  Something inexpensive that would look good long enough to sell the place.  He didn’t mention that she’d have to repaint the porch and the front of the house to cover up the stains of her twin brother’s brains.

            “I think my folks paid less than ten thousand for it,” she said.

            “Well, now it’s probably worth ten times what they paid,” he said.  “A nice little nest egg.”

            “Are you hungry,” she asked.

            “I am starved,” he said.

            They ended up in a back booth at the Pier House Bar and Grill where he’d eaten a burrito the afternoon before.  The place was nearly empty.  In other parts of the town, pious folks were beginning to gather for Sunday evening church services, maybe even at the Grace Apostolic Church in Thompsonburg, where Lucky had spent many a Sunday night as a kid.  Karen took off her dark glasses and straw hat and gave her head a shake, loosening the soft dark waves of her hair.

            He ordered a Dewar’s on the rocks.  She ordered a Southern Comfort on the rocks.  They raised their glasses and clinked them together.

            “Here’s to the future,” Lucky said.

            “A happy one,” Karen said.

            “Is it possible that we could have a nice meal tonight,” he asked, “get through it without agonizing over the past?”

            “Sure,” she said.  “If I have about six more of these.”  She raised her glass and sipped. 

            “Let’s try.  All small talk.”

            “I’m for that.”  She reached across the table and gave his hand a playful squeeze. Her smile was dazzling. 

            But Lucky wanted something resolved first.

            “A couple of people have told me that they think Mel’s accident wasn’t an accident.”

            “What the hell happened to our nice, stress-free meal?” 

            “I’m sorry,” he said.  “After this, no more questions.  I promise.”

            Karen seemed hesitant, as if trying to decide how to tell the story, what to say and what to leave out, what tone to take.  She ordered another Southern Comfort and Lucky ordered another Dewar’s.

            “In many ways, most ways really,” she began, “Mel was the same wonderful person.  I still loved him totally.  And he loved me.”  She paused again, for almost a minute.  Then, “But in other ways, he suffered.  He began having dark moods, and as years went by they became more frequent, and harder to shake.  Just before he died he went through a really dark period.  There was nothing I could do or say to get through to him.”

            “So you think he committed suicide?”

            “I know he did.  He left me a letter.”

            Lucky put his head in his hands and stared down into his glass.  

            “He left you a letter, too,” she said.  She took a white, business sized envelop out of her purse and handed it to Lucky.  It was an envelope from Mel’s part time landscape business, with the address on Julia Street.  Lucky was scrawled across the front in felt-tip marker.  It was fat, hefty, as if it held several sheets of paper.  The envelope was sealed.

            Lucky put the envelope flat on the table and ran his finger over his name, then over the logo, the words Mel’s Dirty Work with a picture of crossed shovels, like crossed swords.

            “You’ve had it all this time?” he asked.

            “Yes.”

            “Why didn’t you give it to me years ago?  You could have given it to my father to give to me.”  He wasn’t angry, just soul weary. 

            “Don’t ask me.  I have no answer.  Maybe I thought that someday we’d talk, like this, and I’d give you the letter, like this.”

            “You’re right.  It’s probably better this way.”

            “One more thing,” she said.

            “Oh, God, please.  I don’t know if I can take any more.”  He said this with a small smile.

            “Just about that time, I got pregnant.”

            “Of course,” Lucky said.  He smiled again and shook his head slowly back and forth.  “Of course.”  Beyond that, he could say nothing.

            “I told Mel I didn’t want the baby.  No more Kleebers.  Maybe we all had a crazy gene.  There was no way I wanted to bring a baby into the world I knew.”

            “You told Mel you didn’t want the baby?”

            “He was beside himself.  He told me that abortion is murder, and that we didn’t murder babies.”

            “So you did it anyway?”

            “I was still in the first trimester.  But it wasn’t as easy as it is today.  Where in the heck does a small town girl go to end a pregnancy?”

            “Do I have to know all of this?”

            “Remember our English teacher, Riley Harrison?” she said.

            Lucky’s heart stumbled.

            “He’d helped a couple of girls in high school who got pregnant.  So I went to him.  He arranged everything for me, made the appointment with a clinic in Grand Rapids, drove me down there.  He even paid for it.  I was going to pay him back, but . . .”  Karen paused, took a drink of Southern Comfort.

            “Riley Harrison,” Lucky said.  No other words could escape his lips.

            “He was a very special person,” she said.  “An incredible person.  He helped girls who had nowhere else to turn.  No questions, no preaching.  And no strings attached.”

            “Mel knew?” Lucky was able to ask.

            “I told him.  He cried and cried.  It didn’t make it any easier for me.”

            “And you told him about Riley Harrison?”

            “Yes.”

            Lucky wondered how many Scotches it would take to get him good and drunk.

            “I’ll be right back,” Karen said, sliding out of the booth.  She put her hand on Lucky’s shoulder to steady herself.  “And then I have to get something into my stomach.  And for the rest of the night, nothing but laughs.”

            “Ha, ha,” Lucky said, watching Karen walk carefully towards the restrooms.  He thought about reading the letter now, but decided to wait.  He folded the envelope in half and slipped it into his jacket pocket.  He glanced at the menu, then signaled the waitress and ordered a dozen hot wings.  “We’ll order more in a while,” he told her.

            “The kitchen closes at eight tonight,” she said.

            “No problem.”

            From where Lucky was sitting he could see out to the rear deck where two couples sat sipping white wine and staring at the river.  It was still light out.  On this western edge of the eastern time zone the summer sun didn’t set until after 9:30. As Karen was sliding back into her side of the booth the hot wings arrived.  They dug in, not speaking again except for expressions of pleasure until there was nothing but bones on the plate.  They wiped the red sauce from their mouths and fingers with the little moist wipes the waitress had left.  Karen finished her second Southern Comfort and Lucky his second Dewar’s.  They ordered two more drinks and a half-pound cheeseburger to split, with fries, and they ate and drank and talked about blackjack and craps and carpet and fishing and movies.  When they were finished Karen excused herself again.

            “I have to clean up,” she said.

            “Me too,” he said.

            “If you get back before I do, order me another.”

            In the restroom Lucky used soap and water on his hands and lips, then splashed cold water on his face and dried off with paper towel.  He rinsed out his mouth and ran his fingers through his hair, fluffing it up a bit.  He stared into the mirror, not particularly impressed with what he saw.  Girls wanting to drag him into corn fields?  Girls thinking he was cute?  Impossible.  Diane Totter had it all wrong.  Winnie saying he was probably handsome?  He doubted it all. By the time he had returned to the booth the dirty plates and glasses had been cleared away.  He ordered another Dewar’s and another Southern Comfort and two glasses of ice water. Lucky watched Karen as she approached the booth.  She had put on fresh lipstick and brushed her hair.  She glistened.
            “Scoot over,” she said, sliding in next to him on his side of the booth, giving him a soft shove with her hip.  She had put on something that smelled wonderful, too, a scent that softly caressed Lucky’s libido.  He was very aware of her thigh against his.  The waitress brought their drinks.

            “Do you know a guy named Perry Fiusko?” he asked.

            “Never heard of him.”

            “He’s a cop in Thompsonburg.  Actually a Dixon County Sheriff’s Deputy.”

            He told Karen about Fiusko stopping him on his way out of Thompsonburg, and about Fiusko’s absurdly tiny nose.

            “You’re exaggerating about the nose,” she said.  “Nobody has a nose that small.”

            “I swear to God,” he said, “it was no bigger than this,” and he showed her the tip of his thumb. 

            “Did he give you a ticket?”

            “No, I wasn’t doing anything,” Lucky said.  “He just checked my stuff and let me go.”  Lucky didn’t tell her about the note and map Fiusko gave him, or about going to the Bussle farm, any of that.  He wanted to keep the story light, entertaining, humorous.  “But the next day, this guy turns up missing.”

            “Really?”

            “They find his patrol car out in the boonies somewhere, but he’s nowhere to be found.”

            “How weird,” Karen said.

            “So last night, I’m on my way here, it’s pitch dark, I’m in no hurry, so I decide to get off the main road and stop and look at the stars.”

            “I’d love to do that sometime,” she said.

            He didn’t tell her about his cosmic experience, the shower of a billion stars.  He didn’t tell her about crying.  But he told her about the urge he had to drive in the dark without his headlights on, like he used to do as a teenager in his MG Midget.

            “Remember that car, Karen?”

            “You took me for a ride in it,” she said.  “Once. You could have taken me for a lot more rides than that if you’d wanted to, you ninny.”  She bumped his shoulder with hers. 

            “I didn’t know,” he said, slapping his forehead.  “I didn’t know.”

            “Oh my God, you were so dense,” she said, and laughed and stuck him in the ribs with her finger.

            They ordered another round.  He continued his story.  He told her about driving the Taurus with the lights out, but only going about thirty.  And he told her about hitting something, he didn’t know what, maybe a deer or a wild turkey.

            “Oh, no,” she said.  “That’s awful.”

            “Wait, wait, it gets better,” he said.

            He told her about stopping and going back on foot, groping around in the dark, making a big deal out of that, and he had her whooping with laughter, maybe a little too loudly.

            “So I see something in the grass at the side of the road, and I reach out to touch it in the dark, and it’s a man!”

            Karen gasped dramatically.

            “A man?” she said.

            “A naked man.”

            “A naked man!” she said, so loudly that the waitress turned and looked in their direction.

            “And when I back up the car to see better, I realize that it is none other than,” he paused for dramatic effect, “the missing deputy, Perry Fiusko!”

            “No!” she said.

            “And he is dirty and covered with scratches, like he’d been living in the woods like an animal.”

            “Was he dead?”

            “No, no, he wasn’t dead.  I just grazed him.”

            “Grazed him with a four thousand pound automobile?”

            “I took him to the hospital.  He was fine.”

            He told her about wrestling the inert Fiusko into a pair of his boxer shorts and dragging him into the back seat of the car, and about his body, with the massive top and the skinny legs, like a moose.

            “Was his, you know, his thing as tiny as his nose?”  She looked at him and made her eyes very wide.

            “I didn’t look,” he said.  “What do you think I am?”

“Oh my God, that is too funny,” she said, and she leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek.   She put her hand on his thigh and gave it a squeeze. 

They ordered another Dewar’s and another Southern Comfort.

“That was a great story,” Karen said.  She laid her head on Lucky’s shoulder, took hold of his arm and hugged it, and let out a dreamy sigh.   Lucky wasn’t sure of what was happening, but he’d had enough Dewar’s that he didn’t care.  He wanted to lose himself in her scent.

“Now you tell me a funny story,” he said. 

She gave him another kiss on the cheek. 

“I don’t have any funny stories,” she said with a little mock pout in her voice.

“Come on, it’s your turn,” he said, and he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close and she snuggled her face against him.

“OK,” she said, not moving her head from his chest, her voice soft and slightly muffled. “OK.  There’s this dealer I work with, her name is Jaynie.  She has a teenaged daughter named Marzipan.”

“Marzipan?” Lucky said.

“Isn’t that funny?  Jaynie told me that her daughter used to hate her name, but now she loves it.  I don’t think either of them knows what it means.”

“That’s a very sweet name,” he said.

“Ha-ha,” she said.  She straightened up, tipped her glass back and drained the last of her Southern Comfort.  “Let’s go.”

Lucky paid the bill and they left the Pier House Bar and Grill and began walking back to Karen’s duplex, she leaning slightly against him.  The western sky was a blaze of color.

“Oh, Lucky,” she said softly.

“Oh my God, Karen,” he responded.

Those were the only words that passed between them until they were inside her house.

“Hurry,” she said.

She kicked off her sandals, took his hand and pulled him towards the stairs.  They ran up them together and into Karen’s bedroom, which was not the velvet and satin boudoir Lucky had fantasized but like the rest of the house, comfortable and unfussy and pleasantly neat. 

“Your pants,” she said urgently, and as he fumbled with his shoes and socks and pulled off his pants she hurried towards the bathroom and returned in a rush a minute later, and she pushed Lucky onto the bed and fell on top of him.  They kissed, their mouths moving eagerly over each other in a hungry dance, and Lucky realized with the tiny part of his brain that was still functioning properly that he was with Karen Kleeber at last, My God could it be true?  She moved her tongue against his, but gently, gently, and squirmed beneath him, pushing her breasts into his chest and her pelvis into his, plunging his mind into a state of total disarray.  He pulled away from her and pushed her peasant skirt up over her hips, and she lifted herself to let him pull her panties off, red bikinis the functioning bit of his brain recorded as they slipped silkily off the ends of her toes and fell to the floor.  And for a moment, as he put his lips softly against the inside of her knee, and then against the smooth inside of her thigh, and then against the curve of her hip, and then against the soft swell of her belly, and heard her moaning faintly, her fingers entwined in his hair, he had a flash of the old adolescent mind movie, the lash of Robert Kleeber’s belt.  She put her hand through the front opening of his boxer shorts and took hold of him.  Oh God, he said, but he did not know whether he’d said it aloud or silently to the Cosmos.  And then another thought penetrated that tiny part of his brain still working, a thought so powerful that he went limp in her hand and pulled his lips away from her body.

“No,” he said, still panting hard.  “No.”

She looked up at him without understanding.

“Yes,” she said, also panting hard.  “Yes.”

“No,” he repeated, and then she understood, maybe not the reason but at least the meaning.

She removed her hand from him, covered her face with a pillow and began making a muffled sound, “Uh, Uh, Uh” which could have been either laughter or crying, he could not tell.  He flopped over onto his back, next to her on the bed, and took her hand and squeezed it and she squeezed back.  He lifted the pillow from her face and saw that she’d been laughing. He began laughing, too.

“Are you OK,” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.  “I’m just fine, Mr. Lucky.”

Months later, when they talked about the night that they didn’t do it, she told him that she assumed he’d suddenly thought of his brother Mel.  But she was wrong.  The sudden thought had been of Winnie Bussle.

Chapter 34

            “Put your pants on, mister,” Karen said, “and get the heck out of my bedroom.  I’ll be down in a minute.”

            He did as he was told, and waited for her at the kitchen table.  It was finally dark outside.  Soon, he heard her go into the bathroom, and then her footfall on the stair, and then she came into the kitchen, a floral silk robe pulled tightly around her, held with a wide sash. She was shaking her head and smiling.

            “I’ve never been so rudely rejected by a man,” she said. 

            “I’ve never been desired by so beautiful a woman,” he said.

            “You’re kind to say so.”

            “It’s the absolute truth.”

            “From what I had in my hand for a few seconds, you obviously don’t need the help of any modern pharmaceutical aids.”

            “I’ve been pacing myself for thirty years,” he said.

            “How sad,” she said, shaking her head in mock sympathy.  “Me, too.”

            She started the coffee maker and came to the table.

            “You’re welcome to stay here tonight.  The sofa’s pretty comfortable.”

            “I wouldn’t trust myself in the house with you,” he said.  “I might lose my will.”

            “What makes you think you’d be welcome in my bed again?  You had your chance, bud.  You blew it.”

            “To my everlasting regret.”

            “Yeah, sure.”

            “It’s just after ten. I think I’ll be heading back to Thompsonburg tonight.”

            “Make sure to use your headlights.”

            “I promise not to run over any naked officers of the law.”

            “Do you have a place to stay there?”

            “I don’t know.  I can always get a room at the Cherokee.”

            “How’s your head after all that Scotch?”

            “You had your share of Southern Comfort.”

            “But not of Lucky comfort,” she said.

            “I’ll always regret it.”

            She found a single piece of cherry pie in the refrigerator and brought it to the table with two forks.  She served the coffee.  They ate in silence for a while.

            “I’m glad you found me,” she said.

            “I am, too.  I hope this isn’t the last we see of each other.  I would love to be your friend.”

            “Let’s stay in touch.  Do you want my phone number?”

            “I got it out of the phone book,” he said.  “I’ll call in a few days.  Take some time off.  Come to Thompsonburg.  We’ll take a look at your house together.  And give Kenny a decent burial.  I’d like to be a part of that.”

            “That would be great of you.”

            “I’ve thought of you many times over the years,” he said.  “And I must admit, it was often with lust in my heart.”

            “Get out of my house,” she said.

            They stood at the doorway, holding each other close.  He stroked her back through the smooth fabric of the robe. They kissed again, seriously.  Then he got out of her house.

            When he reached Hwy 31 he had a decision to make.  He could turn left, head north to Hwy 55, and retrace his route back to Thompsonburg.  But for what reason?  Or, he could turn right, head south, connect up with I-96 near Muskegon and head east to Detroit.  He could stay a few nights with his old buddy Cal Shimmel, and look for a little apartment to rent.  He could call Karen from there as easily as from Thompsonburg, and even meet her as they’d planned.  He turned left, and two hours later was entering his boyhood hometown again.

            Thompson Avenue was deserted, and the several stop lights had reverted to amber and red blinkers till morning.  His first stop was the Memorial Medical Center to check on Perry Fiusko.

            “Are you a relative” the night duty nurse in the ER asked.

            “I’m the guy who brought him in,” Lucky said.

            “Ah, well then, you have special status,” the nurse said.

            She told him that Fiusko was asleep, and that except for bruises and abrasions and dehydration, he was fine, and that he’d probably be released the next day.

            “Well, actually, today,” she said, glancing at the wall clock.  It was just after one.

            “Has he said what he was doing out there?” Lucky asked.  “Does anybody know?”

            “That I wouldn’t have knowledge of,” the nurse said.  “Maybe he was just off his meds.”

            “His meds?”

            “Just kidding,” she said.

            Back in his car Lucky had another decision to make.  He made it as he drove past the Cherokee Motel without even slowing down, past the Kopper Kettle where he’d had such a tasty breakfast that morning almost a week ago, past the pair of stone Fu Manchu dogs standing guard in front the now dark Chinese restaurant, past the dry cleaners that looked like a Swiss chalet and the bank that looked like a plantation house, past the place where Perry Fiusko had pulled him over, past the muffler shops and tire stores and supermarkets, past the mini-marts and mega-marts, out into the country to the farmhouse with the funny hand painted on the mailbox. 

            He drove slowly up the driveway and half-lowered his window for a bit of fresh air before killing the engine.  The house was dark, as he’d expected, but the outside barn light was on, and the barn door was open.  The pick-up was in its place. Clyde was probably off on his Indian Scout, gone to see his girlfriend or play cards or plot evil deeds or whatever the hell it was that he did at night.  Lucky lowered the seat-back to a lounge position, leaned back and closed his eyes.  He was remembering Karen Kleeber’s body as he dozed off, and the feel of her inner-thigh on his lips. 

            He awoke with a start, not knowing how long he’d slept nor what had awakened him.  He lifted his head to see the dashboard clock, which read 3:17.  There was a piece of paper lying on his chest.  He turned on the interior light and read, in Clyde’s unmistakable block lettering –

MR. LESINKI.  SLEEP IN YOUR OWN BED.  TURN OFF LIGHTS PLEASE.

Then he noticed that the barn door was closed and the barn light off, but the porch light was on, and he could see a faint glow through the living room window.  He got out of the Taurus and closed the door as silently as possible, then lifted his suitcase out of the trunk and carefully closed the trunk lid.  The porch steps creaked slightly as he mounted them.  In the kitchen he turned off the porch light and took off his shoes.  On his way through the living room he turned off a small table lamp.  Lugging his suitcase, he made his way to the stairs, and then up to his room where his bed was.  He was surprised at how easily he’d navigated the house in the dark, how familiar the rooms had become.  After he’d undressed he tucked the letter from Mel into an inside pocket of the suitcase.  Under the covers, his head on the soft feather pillow, he again thought of Karen Kleeber, the way her tongue felt against his tongue, the image of her as he pushed her skirt up.  His last thought before falling asleep was of the red bikini panties falling silently to the floor.

Chapter 35

            The roll and boom of thunder and the drum of heavy rain roused Lucky from sleep at around ten the next morning.  For a while he stayed curled under the comforter, enjoying the soft warmth of the bed and the soothing sound of the storm.  Then he got up.  The sky was low and dark and flat.  He stood at the bedroom window and watched the downpour for several minutes, the millions of big warm drops bouncing off the metal roof of the barn and off the roofs of his Taurus and Clyde’s pick-up, making deep brown puddles in the driveway, soaking the dark earth of the garden, and battering the broad leaves of the maple trees in the side yard.  A good old fashioned Michigan summer soaker.

            It was Monday morning.  Exactly one week ago he had wrapped up his business here in Thompsonburg, attending the closing on the house sale, signing papers at the Mongo Brick Company Human Resources Office, and going to the Lumberman’s Bank to consolidate his new wealth.  Perfect.  Then things had begun to fall apart, or come together, depending on one’s point of view.  It had been a week that in some ways he wished he could re-live, but much differently.  No, that wasn’t true.  He wouldn’t change a thing.  It was a week he would cherish forever, the distressing moments as well as the exhilarating ones, the revelatory experiences as well as those he would never make sense of, the memorable events as well as those he’d like to forget.

            He took his time washing up and dressing, stalling he realized, nervous about going downstairs to face Winnie Bussle.  Maybe more than nervous.  Maybe afraid.  Afraid of rejection, afraid of his own feelings, afraid of the future, a future that Winnie had once told him she could foresee.  It seemed like years ago, not just days ago, that this had happened.  She’d since admitted that she’d been performing a little, trying to hook him in, adding some sizzle to the steak.  She did have powers.  Maybe a true sixth sense.  Maybe just extraordinarily fine intuition.  

            The phone rang downstairs and he heard the muffled sound of a man’s voice. Clyde.  He had to talk to Clyde.  He would have the answers to some questions that remained, and Lucky wanted those answers.  At least he wanted them now.  Maybe he’d feel differently when he got them.  But where in the hell was Clyde all the time?  He’d seen him only once, and that had been a fleeting glimpse.  Other than that one brief sighting, his only contact had been notes and food. 

            How much would he tell Winnie about his two days with Karen Kleeber?  How much would he tell her about what had happened, or had not happened, between them, or what he had discovered about his brother Mel?  Would she be interested at all?  Why did he assume that she would be?  Why did he think she would care about him one stinking bit?  And if she did want to know, she could just use her gift and look into his mind.  He glanced at himself in the mirror and headed downstairs. 

            Winnie was sitting in her usual chair in the living room, a mug of coffee before her on the low table. The music coming from the phonograph was an opera.  Lucky thought it sounded like German.  

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” she said.  She smiled in his direction.  “Hungry?”

“Starved,” he admitted.

“The coffee’s fresh.  Make yourself whatever you’d like.  Check the fridge.  Clyde keeps it pretty well stocked.  But put everything back exactly where you find it, or I never will.”

On the kitchen table was a familiar sight – a note from Clyde with a phone number.

DEPUTY FIUSKO CALLED FOR MR. LESINSKI.  PLEASE RETURN CALL.

            Lucky scrambled some eggs and put two of slices of homemade bread into the toaster.  He looked out the kitchen window and saw that the pick-up was gone.   Rain was running off the roof in sheets.  There was a far-off boom of thunder.

“Bring your food in here,” Winnie called from the living room.  “And bring the coffee pot.”

            “Where is Clyde off to on this beautiful summer day?” Lucky asked coming into the room.  He refilled Winnie’s coffee cup, then took his usual seat and put his food down in front of him on the table.

            “Business,” Winnie said. 

            Winnie was wearing a denim skirt and a red and white checked western shirt with pearl snaps instead of buttons, and a necklace of etched silver and turquoise.  He had not seen that drab, shapeless dress since the first day.  She slipped her index fingers under the lenses of her dark glasses and rubbed her eyes.

            “Is that Wagner?” Lucky asked. 

            “Right you are,” said Winnie.  “You even know how to pronounce it.  You constantly surprise me, Lucky.”

            “Well, he’s the only German opera composer I know.”

            “Still a darned good guess.  Care to take a stab at the opera?”

            “Is it the one with the women warriors who fly around the sky on horses with wings?”

            “Walkure?” she said, emphasizing the German pronunciation.  “Sorry, but no.”

            “Then I have no clue.  Hey, I’m only a humble carpet salesman.”

            “Tristan and Isolde,” she said.

            “Not familiar with it.”

            “It’s a tragic story,” Winnie said.  “A tragic love story.”

            “What other kind is there?”  He put a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

            “Tristan is an English knight.  He’s sent by his uncle, King Mark, to bring Isolde back from Ireland to marry him.  But Tristan and Isolde fall in love.”

            “Of course,” Lucky said.  “Could it be any other way?”  He bit off a piece of toast and chewed.

            “Actually, Isolde tries to kill herself and Tristan with poison.  But it turns out it was a love potion.”

            “Love Potion Number 9?”

            “Very funny,” Winnie said.  “I mean it.  That was very funny, Lucky.”

            “The Clovers,” he said.

            “Isolde married King Mark, but she and Tristan kept meeting behind his back.  When the King found out he wasn’t angry, but he was very sad.”

            “I can imagine how he felt,” said Lucky.  He finished off his eggs.

            “Of course, Tristan and Isolde eventually died in each others arms.”

            “Isn’t that the way it always ends?”

            “He died from a sword wound.  She died of a broken heart, I guess.”

            “And the moral of the story?” he asked.

            “You find everlasting love only in death.  At least, I think that was Wagner’s idea.”

            “I hope he was wrong,” Lucky said.

            They listened to the music for a while.  Lucky was glad to be back.  He felt comfortable here, in this house, talking to this woman.  He felt comfortable with their conversation as well as their silences.  He wished they could sit together on the sofa, hold hands, and snuggle into each other.  It occurred to him that she might be reading his thoughts, or at least his intentions.

            “I didn’t know if you’d be back,” Winnie said.

            “I missed you,” Lucky said, the words escaping his lips before he could consider them, before he could analyze them.  Before he could stop them.

            “I missed you, too,” Winnie said, and Lucky thought he noticed her face flush a bit.  “Clyde says he found you sleeping in your car.  You could have come in.  You’re always welcome here.”

            “I thought about going back to Detroit.”

            The record came to an end and the phonograph clicked off.  Lucky turned the disc over and the tragic love story continued.

            “Clyde also tells me that you found Perry Fiusko.”

            “Well, I ran into him a couple of nights ago.”

            They both laughed at that.

            “Literally, I hear.”

            “I stopped at the hospital on the way into town last night.  They told me he’d be released today.”

            “We’re all so happy he’s still alive,” Winnie said.   

            “Does anybody know what the hell happened to him?  Why he was out there?”

            “They’re piecing it together.  He doesn’t seem too sure, himself.”

            Lucky thought about what to say next.

            “Do you want to hear about my trip to Manistee?”

            “As much as you want to tell me,” Winnie said.

            He started off by telling her the truth about his lunch with Junior Mongo. 

            “Oh my God, Lucky, no,” she said.  “What a terrible thing.”

            “I didn’t believe him at first,” Lucky said.  “In fact, I was pretty rude to him.  But now I know what he told me was true.”

“Lucky, I am so sorry,” Winnie said.

            Then he told her about meeting Diane Totter at the Crow’s Nest Saloon and Rodney Pedersen at the Blarney Castle Tavern, and about what Diane had said about Karen and Mel, and how Rodney had confirmed what Junior Mongo had said at lunch. 

            “But why, Lucky?”

He told her about coming back to the house late and sneaking out with his suitcase. 

“I know it was the wrong way to leave,” he said.

            “I can understand,” Winnie said.  “I don’t blame you at all.”      

And then he told her about his first attempt to drive to Manistee, about stopping to look at the stars.  He hadn’t told Karen Kleeber the part about the shower of a billion stars, but he told Winnie, and she didn’t seem surprised at all.

            “You deserved something wonderful like that,” she said.  “How amazing it must have been.  A transcendent experience.”

            Then he told her in detail about driving without his headlights and hitting Perry Fiusko, and about how he’d got him into the backseat of the Taurus and brought him back to the hospital, and about his unpleasant conversation with Fiddler.

            “He should have been thankful you found him, and not harassed you about it,” Winnie said with a touch of anger in her voice.

            “Well, at least he let me go.  So I started off for Manistee again.  I didn’t care how damned late it was.”

            Lucky told Winnie some of the Manistee story in great detail, some in very sketchy detail, and some not at all.  He told her about getting a room at the casino hotel and his one-spin, thousand-dollar fling at the roulette table that first night.  He described Karen Kleeber’s neighborhood and told about staking out her duplex until the Manistee cops drove by.  He told about finding out she was a blackjack dealer at the casino.

            “A blackjack dealer?” Winnie said.  “I would have never guessed that.”

            Tristan and Isolde came to an end.  The lovers were both dead now, but together for eternity.

            Lucky told Winnie about going to the casino and sitting at Karen’s blackjack table, and about her not recognizing him until he put the picture of her and Mel on the table along side his chips.  He told about Karen’s reaction, and about going to the Eastside Tavern, and a little of their conversation, but he didn’t tell Winnie how beautiful Karen was, or how he’d desired her, or their awkward exchange about how they’d felt towards each other as teenagers.

            “By this time it was pretty late,” Lucky said.  “We’d hardly talked about Mel at all.  So she invited me to breakfast at her house the next day.”

            It was mid-afternoon.  The rain had fallen off to a fine drizzle, like a mist enveloping the farmhouse.

            “I need a bathroom break,” Winnie said.  “And I’m getting hungry.  Think you can make us some lunch?”

            In the old Kelvinator Lucky found a hunk of smoked ham and a package of Swiss cheese, and leftover vegetable soup in a plastic container.  He heated up the soup and made sandwiches, topping them with slices of beefsteak tomato from Winnie’s garden, and serving them with sweet gherkins on the side.  They ate at the kitchen table, sipping their Rolling Rocks from the bottle.

            “You’re not bad at this food business,” Winnie said.

            “I’ve had practice.  I lived alone for most of my life.”

            “How sad,” Winnie Bussle said.

            When they’d eaten Lucky cleaned up and they took their beers back into the living room. Lucky picked a new album, a Beethoven symphony, and put it on the phonograph.  Then he took his assigned seat and continued his Manistee story.

            He told Winnie about going to Karen’s duplex, about the breakfast they had on the back patio.  He told her, in detail, about the day Robert Kleeber was killed.  When he told her about what Mel had done, she put her hands to her mouth.

            “Oh, Lucky,” she said, and there were tears running down her cheeks.  “Oh, Lucky, I am so sorry.”

            He told her a little about Mel and Karen’s life together, and about the baby that was never born, and about the letter from Mel that Karen had given him, but he didn’t mention Riley Harrison, and he said nothing about what had happened in Karen’s bedroom.  He told her about the black hole inside him, the black hole of sorrow that would be there forever.

            Winnie got up from her chair, came around the table to him and reached for his hand.  He put his hand in hers and she tugged him gently to his feet and led him to the sofa, where they sat.  She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him towards her so that his face rested on her chest.  He felt the coolness of her silver necklace against his forehead, and the softness of her bosom against his cheek, and he breathed in the scent of her, not of perfume because she was wearing none, but the dusky scent of her body itself. 

            “Oh baby, baby, baby,” she said softly.  “Oh baby, baby, baby.”

Chapter 36

            As the afternoon passed their body positions changed, slowly, like the drifting of the continents, and eventually Lucky was stretched out on the sofa, his head on Winnie’s lap, where he dosed off as she stroked his temples with her fingers.  When he awoke his head was on a pillow and Winnie was gone.  He returned Perry Fiusko’s call.  Fiusko had something for him, he said, and could they meet that night at the Old Sveden House downtown?  Lucky, against his better judgment, agreed.

            He found Winnie on the front porch, seated in a rocker, facing the west.  Most of the clouds had blown off to the east and the sun was nearing the horizon in a gaudy blaze, turning the undersides of what clouds were left a soft pink.

            “I can tell that it’s beautiful,” Winnie said of the approaching sunset.

            “Not as beautiful as you are,” he said, surprising himself.  He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips.

            “There you go, taking advantage of an old blind woman again.”

            He took the rocker next to hers.

            “I came back here because of you, you know,” he said.  “I missed you.”

            She was silent.

            “I’m meeting Perry Fiusko tonight in town.  But I have an idea about tomorrow.”

            “What’s that?” she asked.

            “Use your gift, oh Madam Winifred,” he said.  “Read my mind.”

            “You’re taking up the violin.  A new career.”

            “Not even close.”

            “OK, I give,” she said.

            “You and me.  We’re hitting the road.  Just for the day.  Maybe over to Ludington.”

            “Ludington?  Haven’t been there in years.”

            “Summer’s almost over.  We’ll walk on the beach.  Do some shopping.  Have dinner.”

            “That would be wonderful,” she said. 

            “Mostly because I’d be spending the day with you.  Just for fun.”

            She reached over and he took her hand and they sat that way for a while, holding hands and rocking slowly in unison.

            “I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through this week,” she said.  “I’m sorry for my part in it.  For any grief I’ve brought you.”

            “You’ve got it wrong,” he said.  “You’ve been the best part of it.”

            “Bull shit,” she said.

            “Now, now, watch your language.”  He let go of her hand.  “I’m leaving now.  I don’t know how long I’ll be with Fiusko.”

            “Be careful.”

            “Why would you say that?” he asked.  “I thought the little-nosed jerk was a friend of yours.”

            “I don’t know.  Intuition.  Nothing is as it seems.”

            “I’ll be careful.”

            “I know you will,” she said.  “I won’t wait up.”

            He drove the Taurus into town and parked in front of the Old Sveden House on Thompson Avenue.  The place had been there, in one form or another, since the heyday of lumbering, serving immigrant Swedes when they craved the taste of the homeland.  Fiskbullar and surströmming had long ago been taken off the menu, but the portrait of King Oskar I would never be removed from the wall behind the cash register.  Lucky didn’t see Fiusko so he took a booth with a view of the front door.  He ordered a coffee from Alma the waitress, who was almost old enough to have been there from the beginning.  In a few minutes Deputy Moose came in, dressed in civvies, limping slightly as he made his way to the booth, a smile on his broad, flat face, his hand out to be shaken.  A pair of aviator shades was perched on his tiny nose.  Lucky ignored the hand.

            “Larry, it’s a pleasure to meet you again,” he said in that high, rough whisper of a voice that Lucky remembered from their encounter on Hwy 43, almost a week ago.  He slid into his side of the booth, took off his glasses and set them on the table top.  “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”  His eyes were an uncannily brilliant blue.  His forehead had a long, straight scratch across it, and there was another scratch the shape of a ragged lightning bolt across his cheek.

            “I’m not sure I can say the same,” Lucky said.  He was not in a mood to be cordial.  “Our first meeting wasn’t a pleasant one for me, and you owe me nothing. I prefer it that way.”

            Alma brought a coffee for Fiusko and put menus and paper placemats in front of them. 

            “We were worried about you, Deputy Fiusko,” she said.  “We were all praying.”

            “Well, I’m back now Alma, thanks to this man.”

            “Thank God for you, mister,” she said, and went off to answer the ping of the kitchen bell.

Fiusko moved his menu to the side.  Lucky began flipping through his. He was hungry.

            “Well, thanks for bringing me to the hospital, anyway.  And loaning me your shorts.  I don’t know what they did with them.”

            “Forget the shorts.  So what happened to you, anyway?”

            “No big mystery.  I was just off my meds.”

            “You’re kidding, right?”

            “Sometimes I think I can get along without them, and then I get myself into trouble.  No telling what I might do.”

            “You were gone for three days.”

            “Hey, I gave ’em a merry chase.  I’ll probably be suspended for a week, then get assigned to the county jail.  Or maybe I’ll quit the department and get on at Camp DeSoto, cracking some inmate heads. That’s okay.  Easy duty.  I can understand it if the sheriff doesn’t want somebody with bi-polar on patrol.  But they can’t dismiss me.  That would be discrimination.”

            “People were worried.”

            “Sheriff Jensen knows about my condition.  It’s in my file.”  The deputy poured several spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee and stirred. “You know, there’s something very liberating about being off your meds.  It’s exciting being out on the edge.”

“You said you had something for me,” Lucky said.

            “Ah ha, indeed I do,” Fiusko said, taking a folded paper from his shirt pocket and handing across the table.

            “Not another map, I hope,” Lucky said, not reaching for it.

            “Not a map, I promise you that.”

            Lucky could see that it was an official form of some kind, with lots of tiny print.  He took it and unfolded it.  It was a traffic ticket.

            “What the hell is this?”

            “A citation, Larry.  A moving violation.  Driving at night without headlights.”

            “Are you nuts, Perry?” Lucky said, exaggerating the deputy’s given name.  “Are you off your meds again?”

            “No, I’m an officer of the law, sworn to uphold it,” Fiusko said.  “I witnessed you breaking the law, driving on Dice Road without your headlights.  I’m duty-bound to issue you a citation.”  And then he began to laugh, a high, annoying titter.  He took the ticket from Lucky, tore it up and dropped the pieces to the table.  “Just kidding, Larry, just kidding.” He tittered more.

            “Not funny,” Lucky said.  “You know I wouldn’t even be here tonight, except that the Bussles seem to think you’re a friend.  So what the hell do you really want?”

            “It’s not enough that I wanted to meet you again, and say thank you?”

            “Maybe a couple of weeks ago I would have bought that reason, but after the past few days I know nothing’s that simple.”

            “Too bad you’re so distrustful,” Fiusko said.

            Alma came and took Lucky’s order for a hot roast beef sandwich, with mashed potatoes and gravy.  Fiusko said maybe he’d have a piece of pie later.

            “Separate checks,” Lucky told her.

            “So,” Fiusko said, “it seems that you’ve really hit it off with the Bussles.  At least one of them.”  He winked at Lucky.

            “What’s it to you?”

            “Like you said, they’re my friends,” Fiusko said.

            “You’re buddies with Clyde, huh?”

            “Clyde is a terrific person.  One of the best.  Give you the shirt off his back.”

            “Salt of the earth,” Lucky said.

            “Exactly,” Fiusko said.  “I don’t know his sister that well.  She doesn’t get around much.  But I see Clyde.  We run into each other at the Crow’s Nest.  Sometimes we sit in on the same poker game.  Strictly low stakes, though.  Can’t afford to risk too much on a deputy’s salary.”

            “Gambling’s against the law, isn’t it?” asked Lucky.

            “You won’t tell Sheriff Jensen on me, will you?” Fiusko said, and he winked at Lucky again.  “But Clyde was nice to me when I first came to this burg.  I value my friends.  We exchange favors.”

            “So I hear.”

            “And you never like to see your friends get hurt.”

            “How would they get hurt?”

            “You never know.  If they heard things.  Knew things.  Whatever.”

            “I don’t follow,” Lucky said.

            “I don’t have anything specific in mind.  Just in general.  I’m just talking, you know.”

            They were both silent as Alma served Lucky’s hot roast beef sandwich and topped off their coffees.

            After she’d gone, Lucky said, “Well, my relationship to the Bussles, Winnie or Clyde, is none of your business.”

            “You know, I detect hostility in your manner, Larry.  And that’s not good.”

            “Oh, no?” Lucky said.  “I think it’s natural, considering.”  He applied himself to his food.

            “Not in a small town like Thompsonburg,” Fiusko said.  “I know you’re a big city guy, now, and things are probably different down there.  Maybe you don’t have to be nice to people.  But in a small town like Thompsonburg, everybody has to get along.  Know what I mean?”

            Lucky concentrated on his food.

            “Maybe you forgot that,” Fiusko said.  “You’ve been gone a long time.”

            “Did you get me here to give me a lecture on manners.  Or maybe so you could play a joke on me with a fake traffic ticket?”

            “People in small towns have to cooperate.  They have to scratch each other’s backs.”

            “Do you want to scratch my back?” Lucky said, loading his fork with mashed potatoes and gravy.  “Is that the kind of guy you are?”

            “I’ve heard you’re leaving town with an awful lot of money.”

            Lucky’s fork stopped half way to his mouth.  He set it down on the plate.

            “What fucking business is it of yours?” he said.

            “No business of mine at all,” the deputy said.  “I should never have mentioned it.”

            “Maybe small town folk like you should learn better manners,” Lucky said.  “Like what’s their business and what’s not.”

            “You are absolutely right,” Fiusko said.  “I don’t know what got into me.”  He signaled Alma and ordered a piece of apple pie.  Both men were silent until she’d delivered the pie and taken away Lucky’s empty plate.

            “What about those vultures in City Park?” Fiusko said.  “Aren’t they something?”

            “Yeah, really something.”

            “They sure stink. Smell like dead animals.  Like roadkill.”

            “I guess that’s what they eat.”

            “Maybe they’ll be here for months.  Maybe they’ll become part of the Thompsonburg legend, like old Jehosephat Thompson.  And the discovery of the clay out at the Mongo place.  And the legend of Riley Harrison.  I can see it now – Thompsonburg – City of Vultures.”

            “The legend of Riley Harrison?” Lucky said.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”  He hated this bastard; Fiusko’s smirk, his nose, his black heart.

            “The legend of Riley Harrison?  You know, the sudden disappearance of the warm-hearted high school teacher everybody loved.  Maybe involved in questionable behavior.  But hey, that was way before I got here.”

            “What does this have to do with me?” Lucky asked.  He wanted to pick up his coffee cup and smash it into that flat, pale, smug face across the table from him.  He wanted to jam his fork into Perry Fiusko’s eye.

            “You were at Thompsonburg High when he was there, right?  I’ll bet you had classes with him.”

            “And if I did?” Lucky said.

            “And your brother Mel, too.”

            “I’m not keeping up with you,” Lucky said, although he was keeping up with this tiny-nosed bastard just fine.

            “And then he just disappeared.”

            “He didn’t disappear.  He left town.”

            “Leaving the fair Lady Winifred in the lurch.”

            “I wasn’t around.”

            “But your brother Mel, was, right?  Maybe he knew where the kindly Mr. Harrison took off to.”

            Lucky signaled Alma for his check.

            “This conversation is over,” he said.

            Fiusko leaned forward and lowered his voice.

            “I know what happened to Riley Harrison,” he said.  “And think how terrible it would be if Winnie Bussle knew, too.”

            Lucky leaned close to Fiusko and in a harsh whisper said, “Shut your fucking mouth.”

            “Think about it, Mr. Rich Man,” Fiusko said softly.  “Think about how we might work as a team to prevent her finding out.”

            Alma brought his check, and both men got out of the booth.  She hadn’t brought a check for the deputy.

            “I’ll be in touch,” Fiusko said as he left Lucky standing at the cashier’s counter, staring at the portrait of King Oscar I.  “We’ll talk again soon.”

            Back in his room in the Bussle farmhouse, Lucky sat on the edge of his bed and tore open the envelope from his brother Mel.  Inside were four single-spaced, typewritten  pages, with numerous X-outs and typos.  Mel had probably hunt-and-pecked it out on the old machine he used to type invoices for his landscaping business.  There was also a single photo; a black and white snapshot with old-fashioned deckle edges, of Big Larry and Anna and Little Larry and Mel taken on a vacation to the Upper Peninsula.  The family was standing in front of one of the Tahquamenon Falls, smiling for the camera, and for whoever would look at this picture years into the future.  Lucky took a deep breath and began reading the letter.

Chapter 37

My dear big brother Larry

What a life it has been.  I wish we would have talked more.  I wish we could have opened up to each other.  I am sorry that it will take this letter to tell you things that I should have shared with you long ago.  But better late than never, as they say.

First of all, thanks for being a good big brother, even when we were kids.  I love you for that.  I saw other big brothers being really cruel to their little brothers, but you never were.  In school some kids would ignore their younger brothers, or shove them around, or make fun of them with friends their own age.  But you never did those things.  You always included me in your activities.  You stuck up for me if I was getting picked on.  You were nice to my friends.  I can now appreciate what a good brother you were. 

We were pretty lucky to get the parents we did, don’t you think.  When I was little I always thought they were perfect, the best mom and dad in the world.  I think every little kid believes that about their parents, especially their mother.  I was no different.  I remember so well the day you told me it wasn’t true.  One day I was telling you that she was the best mother in the world and you said, “No she isn’t.”  It was like I’d been hit over the head with a 2 X 4.  I couldn’t believe you’d spoken those three terrible words.  I didn’t know how you could believe that.  I remember screaming at you, “You’re lying.  Why are you saying that?”  I could have killed you for saying it.  I’m sure I cried.  I guess that was my first step in growing up.  You put a doubt in my mind.  Could you be right, I asked myself as I lay in bed that night.  I never looked at mom, or the world, the same way again.  You, as the big brother, had to figure all that stuff out yourself.  You had no one to help you grow up.  But they were good parents, mom and dad.  They loved us, and provided for us, and never deliberately hurt us that I can remember. Either mentally or physically.  Are your memories the same? 

Now let me tell you about Karen.  It is not possible that one person could love another person as much as I have loved this woman.  I know she has loved me too, in spite of some problems we had.  Her love made my life worthwhile.  I loved her even in high school but I waited until I graduated to tell her.  For some reason, maybe God’s hand working, she didn’t reject me.  She didn’t laugh at me because I was two years younger.  She took me seriously and that made me love her even more.  When we first started going together I would meet her at the IGA where she worked.  I remember the thrill I felt when I’d come to meet her. I’d see her behind the cash register and I’d know she’d been watching for me, and I would be bursting with pride and joy.  It was overwhelming.  I almost wanted to cry.  Something as simple as holding hands or talking on the phone for an hour was so amazing and wonderful.  It is impossible to duplicate that feeling of first love.  I wish I could express it better.  When I went to work at the brick plant we were together every chance we got.  Every day if we could.  We couldn’t stay at her house of course, because of her father.  Sometimes we visited friends.  We saw a lot of Diane and Rodney Pedersen after they got married.  Karen and Diane were friends.  We’d go to their house and play cards or watch a movie or whatever.  Sometimes we’d take a little trip, maybe to Ludington or Cadillac or Traverse City or just take a drive in the country.  But mostly we just spent time together in our basement, which dad and I fixed up with some paneling, and carpet remnants we picked up at your store.  It was pretty comfortable with some old furniture and a TV set.  Of course, she is a beautiful woman who has grown even more beautiful with the passing of time.

You might wonder why we never got married.  The reason is very simple. We were planning to at one time, but after what happened, after what I did, I could no longer think of marrying Karen.  She should not be married to someone who did what I did. I could not allow that.  I loved her too much.

I have used the word “love” a lot so far in this letter, and I must tell you that I have no idea what love is, except that I know I have experienced it.  I hope that you get to feel it this strongly too, someday.  I know your marriage didn’t work out, but there’s someone in the world for you, and I know that you will experience this kind of love.

I guess you know about the really bad things I did in my life.  I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a killer for a brother. (At least I don’t think I do.) I hope it didn’t cause you any undo emotional stress or anything like that when you found out.  But it probably did, and I’m sorry for that.  Really sorry.  Robert Kleeber was an evil man.  I hate evil people.  Jesus told us not to hate, but that’s hard when someone is as cruel and ugly as he was.  How does someone get like that?  And how are we to stand by and accept it?  I know Jesus said turn the other cheek, and love our neighbor as He loved us, and that were are all children of God, but I think that man was a child of Satan.  (Sometimes I’m afraid I am too, for the thoughts I have.)  I could not stand by and watch him abuse the woman I loved more than anything in the world.

I think I owe you an explanation of how it happened.  When Karen and Kenny were younger their father would get crazy and beat them.  Of course, you know that.  When Karen got a little older his abuse became mostly verbal and mental.  But one day I noticed a bruise on her cheek, the cheek that was a part of the woman I loved so much.  I cherished that cheek as I did every part of her.  I was grief stricken when she admitted that her father had hit her again.  Someone had hurt my beloved, and I could do nothing about it.  It was like he had struck me.  I promised her that it would never happen again, and I meant it, although I had no clear idea of how I would keep that promise.  I tried to get Karen to move out of the house, but she and Kenny would not leave their mother to live alone with that monster, and Mrs. Kleeber would not leave.  She was probably in love with her husband at one time. Do you think he could have been kind and fun-loving when they met?  Mrs. Kleeber must have seen something in him to fall in love with.  Do you think it is possible that she was still in love with him?  Not long after making Karen that promise I was visiting you in Detroit and on impulse I went to a store and bought a gun.  What a strange thing to do.  You know we never had guns in the house.  I never touched a gun in my life.  Dad didn’t even hunt like most of the guys he worked with.  But there I was in this store holding a pistol.  I am ashamed to admit that it felt good in my hand.  The smooth hardness of it, and the weight of it, felt just right.  It felt like it belonged there in my hand.  Somehow the idea formed in my head that I would confront Robert Kleeber, and snarl and wave the gun in his face and scare the daylights out of him, and get him to stop his abusive behavior.  Then why, you might ask, did I bring the gun to his house loaded.  This would be a good question, to which I have no answer.  Maybe if a psychiatrist really got into my brain he would find out that this is what I’d planned all along.  Who knows?   The day I took the gun to the Kleeber’s house he seemed possessed by the devil himself.  At one point I told myself that he was a child of God.  Jesus loved him.  There was some good in him.  But I could not reason with him.  He was out of control.  I wanted him to stop screaming and listen.  But he would not.  Kenny was acting crazy too, and Karen was crying.  I believe that outwardly I was very calm.  That’s the way I remember it.  But on the inside my hatred for him was growing every second, becoming a huge, ugly thing.  I remember saying to him, “Please stop and listen to me Mr. Kleeber.  Please stop and listen to me.”  But he would not stop.  He would not stop screaming at us, mostly at me, saying the most awful things, and calling Karen awful things, like a slut and a whore, as if he was possessed.  I know this is going to sound crazy, dear brother, but even though I hated him, I had no intention of killing him.  I just wanted him to stop.  When I put the gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger it was just to get him to stop.  It was as if my pulling the trigger was me saying “Shut up!”  That sounds silly as I write it.  Shooting someone in the head is a pretty drastic way to get them to shut up.  But it’s true, I think.  (It’s OK if you think it’s funny.  I’m laughing about it myself right now.)  Before he even hit the floor I knew I had done an awful thing.  In an instant I hoped I was dreaming, and I hoped that somehow time could go backwards, like a movie running in reverse, that the bullet would come out of his head backwards and fly back into the barrel of the gun in my hand.  Then how can I explain putting the gun to his head as he lay on the floor and shooting him again?  I cannot.  Maybe I was possessed by two Mel Lesinskis right then – one who was a cool killer shooting someone in the head, and the other who was a horrified person regretting immediately what he had done.  Which one was the real Mel Lesinski?  Are there two different people living inside all of us?

After it happened the cool killer Mel Lesinski just walked out of the house and mingled with some neighbors who had heard the commotion and come to see what was going on.  The other Mel Lesinski felt incredible guilt and shame for what he had done and wanted to scream “I did it!  I’m sorry!”  The one Mel Lesinski thought, “Hey, that was a pretty easy way to get some justice.”  The other Mel Lesinski felt tremendous guilt for letting Kenny take the blame.  The one Mel Lesinski thought “Good riddance.  He’s dead.”  The other Mel Lesinski wanted to die himself, right then and there. 

I know I changed after that.  Mom and dad commented on my “dark moods”.  They asked me if I wanted counseling.  (They never knew what I did.)  For the next few years Karen and I had our ups and downs.  It was hard knowing that the “bad Mel” was still inside of me someplace.  It was hard living with the guilt over what I’d done, too.  I’ve thought about the murder (there, I’ve used the word) every day of my life since then, many times a day.  I still do.  And I was so afraid that the evil Mel Lesinski would reappear some day and do something awful.

Karen probably told you that we almost had a baby.  Her getting pregnant was kind of an accident, but it made me happy to know that we had produced a little life. I do not blame Karen for not wanting the baby.  She was severely abused by her father and felt that she did not want any more people in the world with Kleeber genes.  It was an irrational feeling I know, but she could no more escape it than I could escape my own irrational side.  But dear brother, abortion is a sin against God and a crime against nature.  I don’t blame the unfortunate women who get abortions as much as I blame the people who make it easier, the people who facilitate it, the people who encourage it.  I am not proud to say that I stalked the man who made Karen’s abortion (and many others) possible, who arranged and paid for several abortions for young Thompsonburg girls.  By my own hand I saw that justice was done.  He was responsible for the killing of my little baby boy or baby girl.  He had to pay the ultimate price himself. One of the joys of my life was my landscaping work.  It gave me a chance to lose myself in physical toil, and to be one with the earth so to speak.  I loved getting my hands dirty, and creating something beautiful using living, growing things.  I regret that it was with the tools of this activity that brought me so much peace and pleasure that I killed and buried a man.

I cannot face life any longer knowing what I have done.  I have killed twice.  The first time was an impulse.  The second time was an execution.  The first was a man who hated and was hated.  The second was a man who loved and was loved.  It was a man you knew and liked.  I have been living with the guilt of this second murder (the word is so hard to type) for several years now, and I cannot live with it another day.  I was hoping that the passing of years would make it easier to live with.  But the opposite has been true.  My depression has grown.  My dark moods have become more frequent.  I feel like I am destroying Karen’s life, holding her back from what she could become without me.  She will not leave me.  Maybe it is time that I release her.

Am I beyond redemption?  I will know soon.

Remember that song we used to sing in Church when we were little?  Jesus loves me, this I know?  I believed that then, in my own little kid’s naïve way.  And I believe it today, my last day on earth.  I know He loves me in spite of the things I’ve done, the mess I’ve made of my life and other lives.  I have to believe this if I am to have any faith that my life, as short and painful as it was, was not a complete loss.

So goodbye my dear big brother. Love to you.  Take care of dad.

Your loving brother Mel

Chapter 38

            Lucky had always found the theory of the Big Bang fascinating.  He enjoyed thinking about it in small doses, until it simply became too troubling to ponder further, and then he’d shove it out of his mind.  For instance, he’d read that before the Big Bang itself, there was no such thing as time or space.  Until he read that, he’d always pictured that initial speck of whatever – astrophysicists called it a singularity – sitting out there in space someplace, waiting to explode.  But that was wrong.  Space didn’t exist until the Big Bang created it.  Neither did time.  So where the hell was it?  And what was before it?  And where did it come from.  OK, enough.  Enough about the imponderables.  Enough about the mysteries.  Think about something else. 

            OK, he’d had enough.  Enough of the past.  Enough of Mel.  Enough of these revelations that were changing everything he thought he knew.  He loved Mel.  He felt great sorrow for Mel.  He resented Mel.  He hated Mel, the arrogant little jerk, the pious little prick.  Oh, Mel. My dear little brother Mel.

            Lucky wanted to be held. Lying in this bed that was not his, in this house that was not his, in this new life that was not his but one shoved down his throat, he wanted to be held.  He wanted to be held by Winnie Bussle.  He wanted to nestle his head against her bosom as she stroked his temples.  He wanted to feel the full length of her body against the full length of his body, warm and reassuring.  He wanted to hold her around the waist and pull her tight, feel her thighs against his, her breasts against his chest, and feel her fingers caressing his back.

            He awoke to a bright, flawless day.  He had promised Winnie an outing to Ludington.  He hadn’t brought anything to wear for beach walking, but he could always pick something up there. Maybe he’d even buy a bathing suit.  He’d tell her to bring hers, if she had one.  He needed a hat if they were going to spend time by the water.  He fancied a straw fedora, the kind he’d seen in Italian movies.  He’d buy a camera, one of the throw-away kind.  He smelled cooking bacon, and coffee.

            In the kitchen Winnie was scrambling eggs.  She wore tan shorts that came to her knees, a loose, faded red T-shirt that said Ludington on the front, and sandals.  On her head was a faded blue ball cap, her wild ponytail stuck through the hole in the back of the cap.  He loved the way she looked. 

            “Good morning, and welcome to Winnie’s Bed and Breakfast.”

            “Morning, beautiful,” he said.

            “Pah,” she said.

He watched her from the doorway for a while, her movements quick and sure in spite of her blindness.  She got plates and mugs from the cupboard, flatware from the drawer, butter and jam and cream from the old Kelvinator.  They sat and ate.  They talked about what to bring with them, and about what they could buy at the shops in Ludington.  They’d both made the stroll out the long north pier of Ludington harbor’s to the lighthouse, which was a ritual for summer sunset watchers, but it had been years ago for both of them.  Once, Lucky had hiked the two miles along the beach to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse, but Winnie had never done that.  Maybe he’d take her out there.  It was a beautiful walk, Lucky told her.  He thought it odd the way they both talked about seeing things, about the beauty of things, when only one of them had actually seen these things, or ever would.  Odd, but natural, too. 

Lucky avoided any talk of Perry Fiusko until Winnie finally asked him about the night before.

“I guess he just wanted to thank me for finding him,” Lucky said.  “He’s a weird duck.”

“Did he say what happened to him?” Winnie asked.  “The paper still hasn’t reported it.”

Lucky told her what Fiusko had told him, about his bi-polar disorder, about being off his meds.

“He told me he’d given the searchers a merry chase.”

“He sounds a little nuts.”

“He said he likes to be on the edge, out there on the manic side.”

“I’ve heard that,” Winnie said.  “I’ve heard that in the manic state, some people feel like God.  They deliberately don’t take their meds.”

“Who wouldn’t want to feel that way,” Lucky said, “even if you knew it was just your brain chemicals out of control?”

“Not me,” Winnie said.  “Reality’s plenty for me.”

“Me, too,” Lucky said.  Way too much for me.

“So that was it, huh?” she asked.

“That was it,” Lucky lied.

Winnie left her wooden cane on the back of the kitchen chair and Lucky guided her to the Taurus.  Before leaving Thompsonburg they stopped at the mini-mart to gas up.  Lucky went in to pay for the gas and buy a couple of bottles of water for the trip, and when he got back to the car Perry Fiusko was talking to Winnie through the open window.  He wondered if his being here was an accident.

“Top ’o the morning to you, Larry,” he said when he saw Lucky coming towards him. Lucky was beginning to detest that high, rough, whisper of a voice.  “What a surprise to see you both.”

“What do you want?” Lucky asked.  Winnie was staring straight ahead, her face a blank page.

“Just saying good morning to Winnie,” Fiusko said.  “I was telling her how nice it is that the two of you have become such good friends.  Well, have a nice day, dear Winnie.  And say Hi to Clyde for me.”  Fiusko started to walk away, then turned.  “Hey, Lucky, don’t forget what we talked about last night.  Hope we can make a deal.”   Lucky watched him go to his car, get in and drive away.  A newish black Monte Carlo.  A smart-ass car for a smart-ass.

Ludington was a little over an hour away, south on Hwy 43 to U.S. 10, then straight west for forty miles.  In the car they were quiet for a while, both a little apprehensive about this date, Lucky guessed.  That was okay.  It gave him a chance to think about Fiusko.  He was beginning to detest him more with each encounter.  What had the bastard said to Winnie, there at the mini-mart?  Would he really tell her how Riley Harrison had disappeared?  There was an obvious option, of course.  A clear solution.  Lucky could do the hard thing, and tell Winnie everything himself.  Try total honesty for a change, trust her to be strong enough to survive the truth.  Trust their relationship enough to survive the truth.  And what about Clyde?  Riley Harrison’s car was hidden in his granary, for Christ sake.  Could he tell her about her dear brother’s complicity, too?  

“Whatcha thinking?” she asked.

They were passing through a particularly scenic area of south Dixon County, rolling hills of meadows and hardwood forests.  The windows were open.  Winnie preferred real fresh air to conditioned air. Lucky had found an FM station playing classical music.  Right now, the music sounded like peasant dances.

“Maybe we should get a hotel room when we get to Ludington,” he said.

“Oh, oh,” Winnie said.

“Not for what you’re thinking,” he said.  “Just so we’d have a base of operations, someplace to take a nap before dinner, or to change our clothes if we wanted to go swimming.”

“A hot-sheet place, huh?  With hourly rates?”

“You have a dirty mind,” he said.  “Thank God.”

            And then they were quiet again.  Winnie leaned back against the headrest and enjoyed the flow of warm, fragrant air over her face, a slight smile on her lips.  Lucky reached over and squeezed her hand. 

            “Mmmmm,” she said.

            “I am a lucky man,” he said.

            “What did Perry Fiusko mean about you two making a deal?” she said, trying to sound casual, still resting back.

            “Something about carpet,” Lucky said, prepared for the question.  “He’s re-doing his house.”

            “Everybody seems to think you can get them carpet deals.”

            “I still know some people,” Lucky said.

            And then they were quiet again until they reached the outskirts of Ludington, U.S. 10 becoming a commercial strip a lot like Thompsonburg’s, before becoming Ludington Avenue, the town’s main drag.  Once past the strip, Ludington was a charming, unpretentious old town, with quiet neighborhoods, a scattering of motels and lumber baron mansions converted to bed and breakfasts, and a two-block downtown of shops and businesses, some for the tourists and some for the locals. 

            Lucky described things to Winnie as they passed by them or through them.

            “You can see Lake Michigan from here,” he said as he drove slowly through the downtown area.  He continued the few blocks to the lake and parked in the Stearns Beach lot.

            “We’re facing the water, right?” Winnie said.

            “Correct, Madame,” he said.

            “I can feel it,” she said.

            He got out of the car, opened the door for her and took her hand. 

            “Kick off your sandals,” he said, and when she had he led her onto the warm sand.

            “Ooh, that feels good,” she said, digging in her toes.  “Tell me what you see.”

            “Well, the beach is huge.  Must be a hundred yards to the water, maybe a quarter of a mile from end to end.  The lake is pretty calm today, no waves, a few ripples, and the color?” he paused, thinking, “maybe the blue of, hmmmm, Blue Velvet”

            “Good description.”

            “Off to the left is the pier.  It’s concrete.  It goes a long way out, and has a dog-leg in it, like a knee.  At the end is the lighthouse, which isn’t what I’d call a pretty lighthouse, but a strong lighthouse, a workingman’s lighthouse.”

            “A lunch bucket lighthouse?” she asked.

            “Exactly.”

            “The sky is a shade lighter than the lake, with a few very high wispy clouds.”

            “I think those are called cirrus clouds.”

            “I think you’re right,” he said.  “And the sun is almost overhead, a little to the left.  It’s too bright to look at.  On the lifeguard stand there’s a sign that says Water Temperature 71.”

            “That’s a good temperature for swimming.  Brisk, but bearable. What color is the lifeguard stand?”

            “Red hot, like Tristan’s love for Isolde.”

            “Are there a lot of people on the beach?”

            “More gulls than people.  Maybe a couple of hundred, but on a beach this big it looks practically empty.  Want to walk down to the water?”

            “Later,” she said.  “Right now, let’s go shopping, and then get that motel room.”           

            At a downtown clothing store called Raven’s they found bathing suits for both of them, and a straw Panama for Lucky.  Before buying the hat, Winnie held it, fondled it, smelled it, then placed it on Lucky’s head and pronounced it “tres chic”.  At Seasons-by-the-Shore they bought big beach towels, a beach bag, a throw-away camera, sunscreen, and a pair of flip-flops for Lucky.  They shared a steak fajita wrap at an outdoor wrap shack called Gringo’s, then got a queen room at the Lighthouse Motel. 

            They stood in the middle of the room and kissed, relaxed in each others arms, taking their time.  Then they fell onto the bed and tussled and tickled and giggled like children, then parted and lay on their backs, side by side, holding hands.

            “There’s no rush,” Lucky said. 

            “I’m a very happy woman,” Winnie said.

            They spent the afternoon on the beach, heating up their bodies laying in the sun, then cooling them off in the transparent waters of Lake Michigan.  They walked along the shore holding hands.  Later, they took a nap under the crisp white sheets of the queen-sized bed at the Lighthouse Motel, and awoke refreshed and famished.  At a restaurant overlooking the marina they drank Manhattans and ate rare filet mignons. 

            “I’ve been thinking about something,” Winnie said when they’d been served their after-dinner coffees. 

            Lucky was wary of conversations that started that way.  There wasn’t any doubt that whatever Winnie had been thinking about, it involved him.  And he wasn’t sure he was ready to be involved.

            “Well,” he said, “considering what’s happened the last few days, there’s a hell of a lot to think about.”

            “I’m not going to call you Lucky anymore,” she said.  “Lucky is out.”

            She was grinning, pleased with herself.

            “That’s it?  That’s what you’ve been thinking about?”

            “Lucky is a silly name.  It’s not even your real name.  It’s a nickname.  It makes you sound like some minor Mafioso.”

            “Well,” he said, “it’s what I’m used to.”

            “And Larry,” she continued, “isn’t dignified enough for you.”

            “And Winnie is dignified?” he asked.

            “From now on I’m calling you by your real name.  Lawrence.  It’s a beautiful name, a solid name.  Beautiful and solid, like you.”

            “Nobody’s called me Lawrence in forty years.  Except on legal papers.”

            “Get used to it, Lawrence.” 

            She clapped her hands.  She was happy with herself.

            “Well, I’ve been thinking, too,” he said.  “From now on, you’re Winifred.  No more Winnie like a horse.  It’s a silly name for such a special woman.”

            “No one calls me Winifred.”

            “That changes tonight.”

            Lucky signaled the waitress and ordered two Hennesey VSOP, and they were silent with anticipation until the drinks came.  Lucky lifted his towards her and sensing what he was doing, Winnie lifted hers.  The glasses met with a soft clink.

            “Here’s to you, Lady Winifred,” he said.

            “And to you, Sir Lawrence,” she said.

            They sipped, then clinked glasses again.

            “To Winifred and Lawrence.”

            “To Lawrence and Winifred.”

            “And the rest of the world be damned.”

Later, they got ice cream cones at the House of Flavors, Burgundy Cherry for him and Rocky Road for her, and ate them as they strolled along the pier out to the lighthouse.  They watched the sunset, Lucky describing it to Winnie as best he could.  Then they got into the Taurus and headed back to Thompsonburg.  Lucky had not thought of Mel, or Perry Fiusko, or Clyde, or the Kleeber twins, for almost ten hours.  As they crossed the line back into Dixon County he thought of them all again.  He wondered what Winnie had been thinking about before she’d fallen asleep next to him.

            When they pulled up the driveway to the Bussle farmhouse it was midnight.  The barn door was open, Clyde gone off on his trusty Indian Sport Scout.  In the living room Winnie and Lucky held each other close, and kissed softly, without urgency.

            “Thanks for a perfect day, Lawrence.” she said.

            “It was the best day I’ve had in years, Winifred.” he said.

            Then they went to their separate bedrooms and closed their doors behind them.

Chapter 39

            Outside Lucky’s window the moon was a slice of moist honeydew.  He could see it from where he lay in bed.  He pushed thoughts of Mel, of Kenny and Karen, of Clyde, of his father and mother, of Perry Fiusko, out of his head so that he could think about Winnie Bussle.  Winifred.  He’d been pleasantly surprised by her body, not the body of a younger woman certainly, but not what he’d expected a sixty-year-old body to be, either; still modeled and smooth and firm, a bit chunky, with cute little rolls and tucks of extra flesh here and there, like at the base of her buttocks and just above her knees and at her waist.  Her bottom sagged a bit, as did her breasts, but parts of him sagged, too.  She could probably out-hike him, and she could certainly out-ski him.  In the chill waters of Lake Michigan they’d groped each other like teenagers, like he’d once fantasized groping with Marybeth Polster and the country club girls.   She’d had her hands down the back of his bathing trunks, and he’d had his hands inside the back of her stretchy new one-piece bathing suit, and then he’d slipped one hand around to the front and held her breast and massaged her nipple lightly with the tips of his fingers.  Somehow, he got one of his legs between her two, and she rode his thigh for a while, rubbing against it, buoyant in the shoulder-deep water, and he’d gotten hard and she’d laughed about that.  He felt himself getting hard again now, just thinking about it, and that was when he heard the doorknob squeak slightly and his bedroom door open.  Winifred slipped into the room carrying a candleholder with three burning candles.  She wore a baggy T-shirt that came to her knees, and her dark glasses.  Her hair was let loose and wild.  She closed the door.

            “Is the light off?” she whispered.

            “Yes,” he whispered back.

            “This is for your benefit,” she said, putting the candleholder on the dresser.  “I thought you might want a little romantic lighting.”

            The golden light shimmered and danced around the room. 

            “Is there going to be romance?” he asked.

            “If I have anything to say about it,” Winnie said softly, coming to the bed.  She took off her dark glasses and placed them on the side table.  Her eyes were closed, and Lucky thought she resembled someone sleepwalking, or in a deep trance.  The idea excited him.  “Come here, Lawrence.”

            “Yes, Winifred,” he said and he stood, and she felt his body to see what he was wearing; a T-shirt and boxer shorts, his usual bedtime attire.  “Is this a service you provide all your house guests?”

            “Only the handsome ones,” she said.

            “Then there must be some mistake.”

            “Lift your arms,” she said, and he did as he was told, and she tugged his shirt over his head and let it drop over her shoulder behind her.  Then she slid her hands under the waistband of his shorts and slipped them down his legs.  He kicked them to the side.  “Sit,” she said.  He sat on the edge of the bed and she placed a pillow on the floor at his feet and knelt on it between his legs. 

            “What are your intentions?” he asked. 

            “Wait and see,” she said.

She lowered her lips to his knee, then ran her tongue slowly up the inside of his thigh, letting it linger moistly at the sensitive spot, the little hollow where his thigh met the bottom of his belly, and then placing a long, soft kiss there.

            “Oh,” Lucky said.  “Oh, my God, you wicked woman.”

            She continued thusly, with her tongue and lips, licking and kissing his most sensitive parts, and taking him into her mouth with the skill of a seasoned professional, but the enthusiasm of an inexperienced amateur, and he continued thusly, invoking various deities and calling her name, and making the sounds of extreme pleasure, and this continued for a period undeterminable, a second or an eon, they were the same.

            Then he said, “Stop, Winifred,” and the moment when he’d told Karen Kleeber to stop flashed through his mind, but this was for a far different reason.  Winnie, unhurried, stopped in her own due time.

            “Yes?” she asked, lifting her face in innocence towards him, and he imagined her as a school girl, kneeling at her bedside in prayer.

He pulled her T-shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor, then entwined his fingers in the heavy mass of her hair and pulled her gently up until they were face to face.  They fell to the bed together in a full-body kiss, their lips and arms and hands and torsos and bellies and legs squirming and clutching and sliding and rubbing against each other in a dance unchoreographed, yet universal, to a vocal duet improvised, yet sung throughout the ages.

            After a while he whispered urgently into her ear, “My turn, now” and somehow, through a manipulation of arms and legs they had switched positions, and she sat on the edge of the bed, Lucky kneeling before her, and he lifted her legs and draped them over his shoulders and dove into her wetness face first.

            “Oh,” she said.  “Oooh!”

            He covered her with his mouth and put his tongue into her as far as he could, probing, thrusting, licking, exploring, and she squeezed his head between her thighs and arched her back, and took his head in her hands and pulled him harder against her.  Occasionally he came up to breathe, his face slick with her wetness, before plunging back.  In the muddle that was his brain he remembered the joke a sleazy comedian had told at a topless joint he’d visited once.  If I’m reincarnated, the comedian had said, I want to come back as a whale.  Their tongue is a foot long and they breathe through the top of their head.

            Indeed.

            And this continued for a length of time undeterminable.

            And then he was atop her culminating the event.  In the flickering candlelight her body seemed to glow, to pulse.  He was deep inside of her, her legs were scissored around his waist, and he was nearly delirious and nearly out of control.

“Slowly, slowly,” she said, and he understood and slowly withdrew himself until just his tip was inside of her, and then slowly penetrated her again, and then slowly withdrew nearly all the way again, and then pushed slowly back into her, and then, following the rhythm of her hips, the pace and intensity increased and increased and he thought, Oh my God, I’m fucking a sixty-year-old blind woman, and it is without doubt the best sex of my life. 

            Later, after they’d climaxed, he before she, he regretted, they rested side by side.

            “I love you Lady Winifred,” he said.

            “And I you, Sir Lawrence,” she said.

            “Who would have guessed?” he said.  “Where did you learn that stuff?”

            “What stuff?” she asked.

            “What you were doing to me,” he said.

            “You think blind people don’t know about blow jobs?” she said.

            She poked him in his side with her finger, and they wrestled like bear cubs, growling and nipping, until they heard the harsh rumble of Clyde’s Indian Sport Scout coming up the road, and Winnie said, “Oh, oh,” and scurried to find her cover-up, retrieve her glasses and the candleholder, and sneak from the room. 

            Lucky heard the barn door slide shut, then the door to the house open and close, and then Clyde’s step on the stairs.  He retrieved his shorts and shirt and got back into bed, satisfied, happy, optimistic, expecting to sleep blissfully and dream sweetly, but he was wrong.  He slept fitfully, and dreamt disturbingly, and at one point felt so close to suffocation that he awoke and went to the window to open it, to breathe fresh air.  The moon was by now in another part of the sky, and the barn light was off, but looking out towards the road he thought he caught the glint of something shiny, and the more he peered in that direction, his eyes getting used to the darkness, the more it looked like a black car parked on the shoulder about a hundred yards away.  And Lucky couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognized the shape of a late-model Monte Carlo. 

Chapter 40

            When little Larry was in the fourth grade at Warren G. Harding Elementary, his classmate Boyd Wilkins came to school one day with horrifying news.  Boyd’s uncle Dwight had dropped dead, just like that!  He wasn’t that old, either, Boyd said.  About the same age as his dad.  What did he die from? everyone wanted to know.  This thing that hits you, he said.  One second you’re OK, and the next second you’re dead.  There’s no warning, no sickness, nothing.  You could be healthy as a horse, then Bingo! you’re gone.  This thing that killed you, his dad told Boyd Wilkins, was called coronary thrombosis. 

            Coronary thrombosis.

            The phrase haunted little Larry for weeks.  Healthy one second, dead the next.  Coronary thrombosis.  No warning.  You’re OK, then Bingo!  You keel over, dead as a doornail. You never even knew what hit you.  Coronary thrombosis.  It sounded evil, like Stromboli, the name of the evil coachman in Pinocchio who turned children into donkeys.  Little Larry was afraid.  He didn’t want this terrible thing to get him.  He didn’t want to be feeling just fine, and them BAM! be dead before he even hit the ground. 

            Little Larry finally asked Big Larry about coronary thrombosis and was relieved to learn that it wasn’t anything a normal nine-year old had to worry about.  It happened later in life, Big Larry told him, if you didn’t take good care of yourself, if you ate the wrong things, if you let your health go.  

Lucky struggled out of bed in the mid-morning, the knowledge of all the bad things that could happen to him weighing him down.   There were many things to fear in this world, and getting older just seemed to multiply them.  Imaginary kid-fears like coronary thrombosis and ghosts under the bed and haunted houses became real things when you grew up, like massive coronaries, and haunted marriages, and actual people, not ghosts, out to get you.  And learning the truth about your loved ones.  He stood at the window and watched Winnie in her garden.  The only hint that she was blind was the way she touched the plants, held them, fondled them, seeing the tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and lettuce leaves with her hands.  Clyde’s pick-up was in its place, for once.  A miracle.  He had to talk to Clyde that very morning.  Without Winnie around.   First he needed a bath, but the old claw foot tub filled slowly, and by the time he’d shaved and dressed and went downstairs, he was alone in the house.  Sonofabitch.  On the kitchen table was an envelope with Lawrence written in an uneven cursive.  Inside was a note, written in the same, shaky, uneven hand. 

            My dear Lawrence

            Clyde has taken me out for some Tarot readings. Got to make a buck.  Be back by dinner.  Behave yourself.

            Your Winifred

            Lucky wondered how Winnie had learned to write.  Probably from Clyde, who had brought her back to life after  . . . well, after his own brother Mel had murdered her lover.  Great!  A wonderful foundation for a relationship.  Could Lucky ever tell Winnie the truth about that?  Could he allow that bastard Perry Fiusko to tell her?  And why in the hell did he even care?  What relationship?  What did one nice day at the beach together, and one good fucking, mean to him?  It meant everything, he had to admit.  And nothing.  Nothing whatsoever.

            Enough.  He’d had enough of them all.  The black hole at his center ached. 

            He went back upstairs to the room they called his room and packed his yellow vinyl Samsonite two-suiter.  He made sure he had his check for three-hundred grand and all of his cash. He used the phone on the buffet to call Karen Kleeber in Manistee, but her answering machine picked up, so he left a message.  He was headed to Detroit, he told her.  He’d be in touch.  He got Perry Fiusko on the phone and told him to go fuck himself; that he, Fiusko, could do anything he damned pleased with his sleazy bit of information, and that he, Lucky, was not responsible – not responsible for what Fiusko would do, not responsible for what his brother had done, not responsible for what Kenny Kleeber or Clyde Bussle or Riley Harrison or anyone else did or would do.  He slammed the phone into its cradle without giving Fiusko a chance to answer.  He wrote a note to Winnie, saying that he had to get on with his life, and that, for now, he had to do it alone.  What the hell did that phrase mean - for now? he thought as he re-read the note.  Was it supposed to soften the blow?  Was it supposed to hold out hope that he’d be back?  He hated himself for using that bullshit phrase, but didn’t change it.  He signed the note Lucky, then folded it and slipped it into the same envelope that she’d put his note in.  He scratched out Lawrence and wrote Winnie, left it on the kitchen table, loaded up the Taurus, and drove away from the Bussle farmhouse without looking back.  If she was clairvoyant, she’d have known that it would turn out like this.

A few minutes later he was in a booth at the Kopper Kettle, ordering breakfast.  He was anxious to get going.  Maybe he should have just grabbed a donut and coffee for the road.  He ate fast, then ordered an extra coffee-to-go, paid his check and headed back to the parking lot.  He started the Taurus and was nestling his extra coffee in the cup holder when there was a tap-tap on his window.  Peering in at him was Sgt. Fiddler, the fucking Thompsonburg cop, his face just inches from the window.  Lucky buzzed it down.

            “What is it that you want?” he said, without much warmth.

            “Getting ready for some long distance driving?” Fiddler asked.

            “Like I said,” Lucky said, carefully enunciating each word, “what is it that you want?”

            “I need to talk to you,” Fiddler said.  “I need you to come down to the station.”

            “What for?”

            “Like I said,” Fiddler said, mocking Lucky’s tone, “I need to talk to you.”  Lucky hated Fiddler’s snake eyes.  “Please don’t be uncooperative.”

            “I don’t have time to come to the station,” Lucky said.  “I’m leaving town.”

            Fiddler smiled.

            “Not quite yet,” he said. 

            Lucky pressed the button to buzz the window back up but Fiddler jerked open the door. 

            “Listen asshole,” he said, “I can take you in cuffs if you prefer.”  He pushed his jacket back and put his hand on the chrome cuffs hanging from his belt.  “Is that how you want it, cuffed, in the back of my car?”

            Lucky couldn’t tell whether the threat had substance or not, whether Fiddler actually had a reason, and the authority, to drag him into the station in cuffs.

            “How long will this take?” he asked.

            “Depends on you,” Fiddler said.

            “I’ll follow you in.  But I’m not staying long.”

            “I’m not stupid, Lucky.  I’ll follow you in.  Stay here until I bring my car around.” He nodded towards a plain Chevy sedan on the other side of the parking lot.  When he walked away Lucky pulled the door shut.  Fiddler turned at the sound and pointed a finger at him through the window.  “Don’t even think about moving,” he said.  He turned away again and headed towards his car.

             “Fuck you,” Lucky said under his breath.  He yanked the shifter into Reverse and pressed hard on the accelerator, making a jerky backwards turn into the lane, then shoved the shifter into Drive and hit the accelerator again, speeding for the exit.  In the rear-view mirror he saw Fiddler chasing him on foot, and the cop got close enough to slam his fist down on the Taurus’s trunk before falling behind, then turning and sprinting for his own car.  Lucky laid on the horn, put the accelerator to the floor and fishtailed into the road, causing another driver to slam on his brakes.  He gritted his teeth, squeezed the wheel, and floored it again.  Within a block he was doing fifty.  He didn’t look back.  “Fuck you all,” he screamed.

            He listened for a siren, or a honking horn, and although he heard neither he knew Fiddler would be behind him, trying to catch up.  He drove about half a mile, then turned without signaling into the busy parking lot of a mega-discount store.  He followed the lane that led to the back of the building, where there were semi-trucks and loading docks.  He drove the length of the rear of the building and stopped and waited, catching his breath. Would Fiddler have called for help?  Would the place be swarming with cop cars?  Was he a fucking fugitive?  It was crazy.  He left the Taurus behind some parked semi-trailers that looked like they hadn’t moved for months, and walked along the side of the building to the front, then peeked around the corner into the vast parking lot.  He watched the movement of vehicles in the lot, and the stream of traffic on the highway, for several minutes.  Then he went back to the Taurus and drove slowly back to the front of the building, and then back out to the highway.  No sirens.  No flashing lights.  He drove the speed limit, past the same fast food joints and muffler shops and banks and supermarkets that he’d passed on his way out of town a week before.  He passed the spot where Perry Fiusko had pulled him over. Would there be a roadblock ahead?  Was Fiddler still looking for him?  Had he actually done anything wrong?  Illegal?  He obsessively checked his rearview mirror for the next fifty miles, and was two counties away before he finally relaxed.  An hour south of Thompsonburg he hooked up with Interstate 96 and headed east towards Detroit.

Chapter 41

            Out on Telegraph Road, in the old suburbs north of Detroit near Pontiac, Lucky found a motel that offered long-term rates.  The manager showed Lucky a room he called an efficiency because it had a microwave and a mini-refrigerator.  It also had a double bed, a dresser, a lounge chair, a kitchen table with two chairs, and a TV set with cable.  What more did he need?  After all, he owned little more than the contents of his suitcase.  He paid the rent for a month.

            The next day he got on with his life, such as it is, he remembered telling Kenny Kleeber.  Such as it is.  He arranged for a mail box at the nearest post office, and opened two accounts at a nearby bank; a temporary savings account for his three hundred thousand until he decided what to do with it, and a checking account into which he put a few thousand dollars.  The initial glitter of his new wealth had dulled. He got a cell phone, something he swore he’d never want or need.   Before he left the store he had the salesman re-program the phone so that when it rang it sounded as much like a regular telephone as possible, instead of playing Beethoven’s Fifth or whatever the hell it was that seemed to go on forever.

            He made a couple of calls to floorcovering guys he knew and within an hour had a job selling carpet at a small independent store, Floor City, about ten minutes up the road from the motel he now called Home Sweet Home.  It meant something to him that he still had a good reputation in the business.

He called his friend Cal Shimmel and got invited over for pot roast dinner.  The Shimmels lived in a roomy Tudor-styled house in Farmington Hills, but all their kids had grown up and flown the coop, Cal told him, and now he and Doris were rattling around in the place, except when the two grandkids spent the weekend.  Cal and Lucky sat in overstuffed leather club chairs in the walnut-paneled den, sipping German beer from tall Pilsner glasses while Doris worked in the kitchen.  Cal carried a gold badge for the Detroit Police Department, and his years on the force were showing in his eyes.  You wouldn’t believe the hell the department has gone through, he told Lucky.  Scandals, mismanagement, shitty morale, the works.  Not to mention the crap he had to deal with on a daily basis; the murders and the drugs and the abuse, guys beating up on their wives and their children, sometimes little ones, babies.  He’d be retiring soon.  At the dinner table, Doris, ever the matchmaker, told Lucky she had some lady friends she’d like him to meet.  Lucky asked her to give him a little more time to settle in.  She thought Lucky would want to know that Brenda was a happy, contented grandma now, too.  Lucky hadn’t seen or spoken to his ex in years.  He told Cal and Doris about taking care of business in Thompsonburg, and about his new job.  He left out most of the details of the previous week, but did mention the vultures roosting in the City Park trees.  Ugly critters.  Damnedest thing you ever saw, Lucky told them.  They just won’t leave town.  When Doris had cleaned up the kitchen and gone off to bed and the men were nursing their beers, Lucky asked Cal if he could check to see if the Thompsonburg cops had put out a warrant for him.  Cal raised his eyebrows.

“You in trouble?” he asked.  “Is there something you should tell me?”

“A guy I knew in high school blew his brains out,” Lucky told him, trying to keep the story simple.  “A nut case.  They wanted to talk to me about him, but I didn’t want to wait around.”

“Doesn’t sound serious,” Cal said. “You got a name at the department?”

“A Sergeant Fiddler,” Lucky said.

“I’ll check.  Low key.”

A few days later Cal called Lucky on his cell phone and told him that the Thompsonburg Police seemed to have no interest whatsoever in Lawrence Lesinski Jr.  But the vultures were still encamped in the trees of City Park, Cal said.

After two months in the motel Lucky moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a cluster of drab brick buildings on the drab outskirts of Pontiac.  For his rent money he also got a parking slot with his apartment number stenciled onto the asphalt in yellow paint, a six-by-six storage cage in the basement, and the use of the laundry facilities in the next building, as long as he brought enough quarters. 

He dedicated one day to making the place livable.  He bought a used sofa, a couple of matching easy chairs, a dinette set and a bedroom set from a furniture rental company that was liquidating its stock.  He got his TV out of storage and ordered cable. At a discount store he picked up a set of bed linens, a couple of pillows, some towels, a coffee maker and a kitchen “starter set” of dishes and glassware and flatware.  He bought some pots and pans and a few mixing bowls.  At the same store he bought some already-framed posters; colorful scenes of Greece, Sicily, Tahiti, Tibet, and other exotic spots.  If it wasn’t the most depressing day of his life, it was damned close.

Selling carpet again became Lucky’s life.  He put in sixty hours a week at Floor City, by choice.  By himself he doubled the sales at the store, and was earning significantly more than his modest expenses.  Most nights he ate dinner on the way home, stopping at a local Coney Island joint for a Greek salad or a gyro or a chicken kabob.  He was soon on a first name basis with the waitresses.  One night a week, Saturday after the store closed late, he allowed himself to drink, always stopping at Champions Sports Bar and Grill for a couple of Dewar’s on the rocks followed by a burger, followed by a few more Dewar’s, all of which he’d have at the bar rather than a table or booth, so he could at least share the company of the bartender, Max.  He always tipped generously.

To stay in shape he splurged and bought a professional treadmill, the kind you’d find in a health club, and religiously put in his forty-five minutes every morning while watching the early news on TV, and thirty minutes most nights watching the late news, keeping up on the world’s mayhem as he jogged up the rubber incline at a steady eight miles an hour.

On the seventh day he rested.

And so it went, on through the fall and early winter.  

After a while he was thinking about Winnie less, not every hour or so the way he had at first.  Now it was just two or three times a day, about the same number of times that the black hole inside him began to ache, thinking about his brother Mel.  Cal called every few weeks to invite Lucky out for a night of bowling, or a hockey game, or a little gambling downtown, or ice fishing on Cass Lake where he had a shanty, but Lucky always politely refused; he was too damned busy, or too damned tired, or just too damned.  Cal invited Lucky to the house for Thanksgiving dinner, and Christmas dinner but, gee, thanks Cal, Lucky had already made other plans.  The plans included TV and microwaved dinners.

One night at Champions Max deftly pulled Lucky into the revelry of three women sitting at the bar, two of them helping the third celebrate her final divorce decree.  Lucky ended up taking Marta, the newly-divorced, back to his apartment where they had inelegant, joyless, and slightly desperate sex on his used sofa.  He couldn’t help thinking about Gerta or Helga or Magda or whatever the hell her name was, the chubby schatzi secretaire who’d introduced him to cheap, sweet sekt and real sex when he was a dumb, naive kid.  Would Marta expect money for new shoes, too?  No, but she’d love to get a phone call sometime soon, she said.  A call which Lucky promised, but never made.

After his experience with Marta, Lucky became a born-again celibate. 

Chapter 42

 “So, you joining us for New Year’s Eve?” Max asked Lucky on the Saturday before the big event.  “Party hats and favors, all that good stuff.”

“Don’t know, Max” said Lucky.  “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Max said.  “I’m sure you have better plans.  Probably partying with the Governor.”

            “The President and the First Lady.”

            “Right.  And movie stars.”

            “OK, I’ll come if you save me a spot at the bar.”

            “Promise?” Max said.

            “I promise,” Lucky said.  “But I refuse to wear a funny hat.”

            “No problem.”

            Floor City closed early on New Year’s Eve, so Lucky went back to his apartment for thirty minutes of sweating on the treadmill, then a shower and a nap.  He awoke groggy and for a moment he considering staying in, avoiding the sub-freezing air blasting down without mercy from Canada, and the drive through the dismal cityscape of tired commercial neighborhoods and old, dirty snow.  But he’d promised Max he’d be there, and you didn’t want to offend your bartender.  He got to Champions around 9 o’clock.  The dining room and the game room were both already jammed and noisy.  A sea of pink and blue balloons hugged the ceiling, crepe paper streamers hanging down.  The pub room was also filled, but there was an open spot at the bar with a folded card on the seat that said RESERVED FOR LUCKY.  He hung his coat on a peg on the wall, squeezed onto the stool, and nodded thanks towards Max, who was already pouring a generous Dewar’s on the rocks.

            “Welcome to next year,” the bartender said, lifting his voice above the hubbub, a discordant blending of the babble from a couple of hundred keyed-up revelers with rock music played by a DJ, which was not really music but more a sense of music, more a rhythmic thumping and droning rather than actual, discernible melodies and harmonies, distinguishable instruments and voices 

            Lucky lifted his glass in salute.

            To his left at the bar were two couples in a tight cluster, the women perched on stools, the men standing, all wearing party hats, all laughing and talking louder than seemed necessary.  He decided the men were mortgage brokers who’d gotten rich off years of low-interest home refinances, the women cosmetics sales reps who knew how to use their own products.  The mortgage guys were drinking imported beer from the bottle, the ladies sipping pale pink drinks in long-stemmed cocktail glasses.  Cosmopolitans, Lucky guessed.  He’d taken a sip of Marta’s Cosmo the night he took her back to his apartment, and had found its sweetly bitter taste pleasant, but not something you’d want to drink all night.  He hoped he didn’t run into her again tonight.  He’d have to explain why he didn’t call, he’d have to apologize, feign interest.  Sitting on the other side of him was an older guy, on the tall side, with pure white close-cropped hair, a neatly-trimmed white beard, and gold-rimmed glasses.  Maybe a psychiatrist, at least a psychoanalyst, Lucky figured.  The man’s back was to the bar, and he sipped his whiskey neat, gazing out on the crowd with what seemed like amused interest.

            Lucky turned and put his back against the bar, too, taking in the scene.  Were all of these people really having a good time, or just pretending to have a good time, or were those the same thing?   Did we decide our purpose, and then just act it out?   If so, what was his role here tonight?  Casual observer?   Insightful eyewitness?  Cynical bystander?  Morose self-analyzer?  Reckless drunk?

            “Ah, the rituals we observe,” the white-haired man said, not directly to Lucky, but the comment floated out there, available if Lucky chose to respond to it. His voice was mellow and easy.  “After all, it’s only a night like any other,” he added.

            “Well,” Lucky said without looking over, “maybe people need to celebrate closure.  The year’s over, done with.  Now they can make a fresh start.”  For now, he was the insightful eyewitness.

             “A clean slate,” the man said.  “That’s a good idea.”  He nodded his head.  “A damned good idea.”  Lucky didn’t respond, so the man continued.  “Is that what you’re after, a clean slate?”

            What a great question, Lucky thought.  He didn’t know quite how to answer, or if he had to answer at all.  The idea of closure was an absurd one, when you thought about it.  As if one night on the calendar could make a difference, bingo, bango! new life, fresh start.  So the guy was right, it was just a night like any other.  But a couple of hundred people right here would probably hope it was, somehow, different.  They seemed determined to make it so.

The half-dozen TVs in the pub, usually tuned to basketball or football, were tuned tonight to the celebration in Times Square, the audio muted.  Lucky took a long sip of his Scotch and watched for a while.  He didn’t know whether or not he wanted conversation right now.  Maybe later, with this chatty white-haired guy next to him, but then again maybe not.  He’d let himself relax a bit, get into a groove.  Maybe share a laugh or two with the foursome on the other side of him, they seemed to be having a good time.  They had a carnal whiff about them, like an anticipation of the fucking to come, the way the men touched the women, a hand on a knee, fingers squeezing an arm, and the way the women crossed their long legs, dangling a high-heeled shoe off the end of a foot, tossing the hair, pulling the lips back, running the tip of the tongue over the teeth.  Or maybe he’d chat-up that table of ladies over there, maybe dazzle one of them with his personality, get her back to his apartment, be a backslider for this one night.  Maybe the one with the really, really red lipstick.  Jesus.  What in the hell was he thinking, anyway?  He’d only had part of one drink so far, and he was already feeling a little goofy in the head.  Maybe everybody in the place was feeling the same thing.

He turned back to the bar where Max was fitting a container of Margaritas onto a blender.

            “I’d better get something to eat, Max,” he said, speaking loudly so he could be heard. 

            “There’s a buffet in the next room,” Max called out over the grind of the blender.  “Help yourself, on the house.”

            Lucky left his stool and weaved his way between tables to the buffet, filled up a plate with mini-tacos and shrimp and hot wings and meatballs.  He hoped the combination didn’t play havoc with his stomach.  Back at the bar he ate his food with another Scotch.  Angie, sharing the bartending duties with Max tonight, handed him a purple Derby with a green feather and he put it on.  Angie was a cute little number and he wanted to please her.  What the hell, play along.  He watched her work down at the end of the bar for a while, then turned and watched the TVs.  He had a fresh drink in his hand, but couldn’t remember who had poured it.  Two hours to go until the ball dropped in Times Square. Some rap group was performing, soundlessly jumping up and down, strutting, making those weird hand-gestures they make, but they seemed to be in an auditorium or arena someplace, not outside, not in Times Square.  It all made no sense to Lucky.

            “Not exactly Guy Lombardo.”  The white-haired guy next to him had spoken.  Lucky figured he deserved a response.

            “That’s for sure,” was the best he could do.

            “I saw Lombardo on New Years Eve once,” the man said.  “Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, Waldorf Astoria, New York City, December 31, 1957.  What a thrill.”

            “I’ll bet it was,” Lucky said.

            “I was in the Navy.  On leave in the big city.  Just a kid, but I knew where to be that night.”

            “Must have been exciting,” Lucky said.

            “Nobody plays Auld Lang Syne like Lombardo.  It should be against the law for anybody else to play it.”  The man laughed, showing he was just kidding, that he wasn’t a kook.  His laugh was like his voice, low and rich and easy.  “But I don’t want to put down the rappers,” he said, nodding up at the nearest TV set.  “Every generation needs its own music.”

            “I guess,” said Lucky.  Had he had three Scotches or four?  He couldn’t remember.

            “I don’t know why they dress up like clowns and give themselves those silly names, though,” the man said.  “Somebody named Joe changing his name to Diddly-Do or whatever?  Of course, Guy wasn’t Lombardo’s real name, either.  Gaetano.  Gaetano Lombardo, from London, Ontario, Canada.  Called himself Guy, so I guess if some rapper wants to change his name from Henry to, oh, Rat Poison, it’s OK.”

            “Yeah, I guess,” said Lucky.

            “Of course, they’d probably spell Rat with two Ts.  And Poison S-I-N.”

            The woman on the stool next to Lucky bumped his arm in a fit of laughter, and almost spilled her drink.

            “Oh, I’m so sorry sir,” she said with mock concern.  She stroked the sleeve of his jacket playfully.  Her fingers were long and her nails crimson.  He imagined her hand unzipping his fly and slipping inside.  “I guess we’re getting a little too wild over here.”  She giggled.

            “No damage,” Lucky said.  “Party on.”

“Settle down, Michelle,” one of the men said.  He laughed and squeezed her knee.  “The night is young.”

Lucky wanted to squeeze Michelle’s knee, too, but he resisted the urge.  He turned to the bar where there was another fresh Dewar’s on the rocks waiting for him.  The white haired man turned towards the bar, too.

            “You know, I think I kind of like that name, Ratt Poi-sin,” the man said.  “Maybe I should suggest it to some rapper.”  He swirled his drink in his glass and brought it up to his face so he could inhale the fumes.  Lucky couldn’t remember seeing him actually take a drink from it in some time. 

            “Rat Poison.  I’ll drink to that,” Lucky said, lifting his glass towards the man, who raised his.  But only Lucky drank.

            “Speaking of names, I don’t think I caught yours,” the man said.

            “Lucky,” Lucky said.   “Lucky Lesinski.”

            “Lucky?  No kidding.  That’s an unusual name.  Your parents actually named you Lucky?”

            “A nickname I picked up when I was a kid.  It just stuck.”

            “So what’s you’re real name, then?”

            “My driver’s license says Lawrence, Jr.  But nobody calls me Lawrence except cops and bankers.”

            “You have frequent contact with the police?” the man asked, pretending to be shocked.

            “Only traffic tickets,” Lucky assured him.

            “I had a nickname once.  In the Navy they called me Clipper.  I kind of liked it.”

            “OK, Clipper it is,” Lucky said, raising his glass again.

            Clipper clinked his glass against Lucky’s.

            “So do you think your name has made you a lucky person?” he asked.  “Do you feel lucky?”

            I’ve had my share of good and bad, like anybody else, I guess, Lucky thought, but then he couldn’t tell whether he’d just thought it or said it out loud.  It was definitely too noisy in here, and he’d had too much to drink.  Maybe he should eat more.  Make another trip to the buffet.  Instead, he took another sip of Scotch.

            “I’ve had my share of good and bad, like anybody else, I guess,” he said, this time feeling the words on his lips, watching Clipper’s reaction to them.

            “I think people make their own luck,” Clipper said.  “What do you think?”

          “Luck is bullshit.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” Clipper said.

And then Lucky thought of Mel, the third or fourth time that day he’d thought about his brother, and the black hole inside him began to ache.  And he thought of Winifred, also for the third or fourth time that day. Winifred, he said to himself.  Winifred, I am so sorry.   Now he was playing the morose self-analyzer, he observed.

 “I guess I believe more in fate than luck,” he said, and immediately wondered where in the hell that thought had come from, it wasn’t anything that had occurred to him before.  “We can’t control fate.”

On TV, the hip-hoppers hipped and hopped.

          “The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said character is fate,” Clipper said.  “Who you are as a man determines your fate.”

          Lucky thought about that, and then decided he didn’t want to think about it any more.  It was too big a responsibility. 

          “That’s a pretty heavy burden to bear,” he said.  Had he said that out loud?  He decided he had.

          “Yes, it certainly is,” Clipper said.  “It certainly is.”  His voice was so soothing.

          “I’d rather not believe that my character has dictated my fate,” Lucky said.   “If I believed that, my rotten fate wouldn’t reflect very well on my character, would it?” 

Lucky wondered where in the hell that notion had come from.  From the Scotch?  From his subconscious?  And he wondered why he’d made the admission to this stranger.  Too much noise, too much Dewar’s, and the aching black hole.  And after all, the man was a psychoanalyst, wasn’t he?  Had Clipper told him that, or had he just imagined it?  Michelle’s ringing laughter pierced the disorder of his brain.  He turned towards her and smiled, but she was looking in the other direction.  Lucky glanced at his watch.  An hour until midnight.

          “Well, we’re all imperfect people, aren’t we?” Clipper said.  “No Mother Teresas at this bar, I’d wager.”         

          “Not on this seat, anyway,” Lucky said.  What the hell was this, a confessional or a bar?  Or were they the same thing, but with different architecture?

          “Seems like I’ve caught you on a bad night,” Clipper said.  “I apologize for getting too heavy, all this talk about luck and fate and character and responsibility.  Greek philosophers, for goodness sake.  Tonight’s supposed to be fun, a celebration.”

          He gestured towards the TV set above the bar, which showed a couple of hundred thousand people shoulder-to-shoulder in Times Square, having a swell time in the icy night.  The crowd in Champions was getting louder and more animated, and the music continued its thump, thump, thump.

          “I’ll drink to that,” Lucky said.  

He put his glass to his lips but there was only ice.  He set the glass on the bar, and before long Max refreshed it.  Then the bartender leaned towards him and said quietly, “When you’re ready to go I’ll call you a cab.”

Clipper overheard Max’s comment and shook his head.

“No, no,” he said.  “I’ll see he gets home.  I need to start the year off with a good deed.”

“A guardian angel,” Lucky said.  “Very touching.”  Shit, did it sound like he’d said “very toushing”?  God, he hoped he wasn’t starting to slur his speech.  Very deliberately, he said, “I can get myself home when it’s time, thank you very much.”  Oh Michelle, could you take me home and fuck me into oblivion?  Lucky saw Clipper give Max a look that said Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.

           “We all need a guardian angel once in a while,” Clipper said to Lucky.

          Kenny Kleeber was no angel but he’d wanted to be Karen’s guardian.  He’d failed, but made up for it with twenty-five years in a nut-house and the label “father murderer”.  Mel played guardian for a while, too, then murdered a couple of people and committed suicide.  Mel could have used a guardian angel himself, Lucky thought.  Or maybe a better big brother.

          “Who is Mel?” Clipper asked.

          “What do you mean?”

          “You just said Mel could have used a guardian angel.  I asked who Mel was.”

           Was he saying out loud everything he thought?  Christ almighty, was he that drunk?

           “Mel was my brother.  He did some bad things, and he committed suicide, so I’m told.  He could have used a guardian angel.”

           “And you feel responsible?”

           “Gee, Clip-ster, do you charge by the hour?  Should I be on a couch?  Should you be taking notes?”

           With extreme care Lucky slipped off his stool, and carefully placing one foot ahead of the other, made his way to the men’s room.  He stood in front of the urinal with the flat of his hand on the wall in front of him to steady himself, and took a long piss.  Then he stood in front of the mirror and stared at his image for some minutes, or maybe hours, or maybe a second or two, he couldn’t tell.  He washed his hands, took off his purple Derby hat, splashed water on his face and rubbed it with vigor.  He put the purple Derby hat back on.  He felt better.  He made his way carefully back to his stool and hoisted himself up.

           Clipper was watching the TV behind the bar. 

           “Just a couple of minutes to go,” he said to Lucky.  “And again, I apologize for the two-bit psychology.  Just my nature, I guess.”

           “Character is fate,” Lucky said.

           Clipper laughed his deep, smoothing laugh.

           “Enough of that,” he said.

           “Enough of everything,” Lucky said. 

           He watched TV and sipped a fresh Scotch. Oh Michelle, oh Marta, oh Winnie, oh Brenda, save me. And suddenly people were counting.  What the hell was this about?  The whole room was calling out numbers, like in Warren G. Harding Elementary kindergarten, practicing our numbers, and then Lucky remembered what night it was, and on TV there was the bright crystal ball descending, and the crowd at Champions calling out five, four, three, two, one, and then there was much hooting and hollering and tooting and Clipper had him in a bear hug, and Max was giving him a high-five and Michelle was kissing him on the mouth, but then she was gone, off to kiss other mouths, and Lucky was hooting along with the best of them.

Chapter 43

            Nothing special happens in the heavens on the first day of the year.  The sun doesn’t cross the celestial equator, going north or south, nor does the sun seem to stand still.  No stars align themselves.  It is the beginning of nothing.  New Year’s Day is a special day totally of man’s making, and the crowd at Champions was making the most of it.

            Lucky could recognize the music now, the DJ was playing Auld Lang Syne, and it seemed to be the Guy Lombardo version, though it was hard to tell with all the aural competition from human voices and noise makers, not to mention the clamor inside his own head.  Maybe his brain was picking up the echo of the Big Bang.

            “How you doing?” Clipper said, close to Lucky’s ear.

            “I’m doing just fine,” Lucky heard himself say, his voice seeming to come from a long way off.

            “OK, just checking.  You’ve had quite a few.”

            “My guardian angel,” said Lucky.  “Clipper-dipper.”

            Somehow he again made it to the men’s room.  He wasn’t sure exactly how long he was there or what he did, but when he returned to the bar the crowd had thinned out.  Michelle and her girl friend had gone off to be fucked by the mortgage brokers, a crying shame thought Lucky.  According to the bar clock the new year was almost an hour old.  Clipper was holding Lucky’s coat.

            “This nice gentleman is going to drive you home,” Max said.

            “I can drive myself,” Lucky said.  He was speaking carefully.  He made sure he didn’t say “myshelf.”

            “We could lose our license, my friend,” Max said.  “We can’t let you drive like this.”

            “We’ll take your car,” the man he’d been calling Clipper said.  He held up Lucky’s keys and jiggled them.  “They were in your coat pocket.”

            “I’ll keep your tab,” Max said.  “We’ll settle up the next time you’re in.”

            Lucky fished a fifty out of his wallet and left it on the bar as a tip.

            “Happy New Year, Max,” he heard himself say.  “See you Saturday night.”

            Max gave him a thumbs-up while Clipper helped him on with his coat.  Angie waved, and mouthed the words “Bye, bye.”  They made it out to the Taurus, ducking their faces away from the frigid air, and Lucky collapsed heavily into the front passenger seat.  Clipper made sure Lucky was belted in, then got behind the wheel, belted himself, started the car, and took his time adjusting the seat and mirrors and the heater.

            “Ready?” he asked.

            “Home, James,” Lucky said.  “Take a left out of the parking lot.” 

            “Home, sir,” Clipper said crisply.

Lucky recited directions to his apartment block, the words echoing in his head and issuing mechanically from his lips as if he were a ventriloquist’s dummy.  Clipper parked in the numbered slot, and with Lucky shuffling slowly and leaning against the older man, they made it up the outside stairs to the second-floor apartment. 

“The square key,” Lucky said. 

Clipper located the right key and let them in.  Lucky let his coat fall to the hall floor and shuffled into the living room where he’d left a table lamp on. He fell exhausted into an easy chair. 

“You know how long since I’ve been this drunk?” Lucky asked Clipper, who was hanging up their coats in the hall closet.

“How long?” Clipper asked.  

 “Probably since the Army.”  His arms and legs felt as if they were chained to anchors, and his head felt like a rotted pumpkin.  “I hate being drunk.  What was I thinking?”

“Maybe you’ve been thinking too much,” Clipper said.  He chuckled his deep, reassuring chuckle.  “The trouble with getting drunk, of course, is the next day.  If you survive the night, you’ll feel worse tomorrow.”  He came into the living room, but continued down the hall towards the bedroom and bathroom.

 “Where in the hell are you going?” Lucky wanted to know.

Clipper ignored the question.  Lucky heard him switch on the bathroom light, heard the medicine cabinet door squeak open, and a moment later, close.  He sensed the man in his bedroom, snooping around.  Finally, Clipper came back to the living room and took a seat on the sofa.

“Not much of you in this place, is there?” Clipper said.

Lucky closed his eyes, but he felt his body begin to spin and he re-opened them a crack.  “I may be sick,” he said.

“Well, I’d advise against that,” the man said, “since you’ll probably be sick all over yourself.  And then you’d probably have to sleep in it.”

As drunk as he was, Lucky discerned a slight change in the man’s tone, from kindly and concerned to, what?   Mocking?  A bit contemptuous?  He looked towards him, wanting to see his face, but he was in shadow, outside of the lamp’s circle of light.  Lucky tried to get up, but he couldn’t even raise his ass off the chair cushion. 

“Shit,” he said.

“You seem kind of helpless tonight, Lucky,” the man said.  “Helpless and pathetic.”

“Well, you don’t have to stick around.  Go home. Take my car.  I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

“Oh,” the man said, “I don’t think I’m leaving quite yet.”

“Here, take some money for your trouble,” Lucky said.  He tried to roll his ass to one side so he could get to his wallet, but couldn’t manage it.  Someone was banging a gong inside his head.

“I don’t want your money, my friend.  I have enough money of my own.”

“You’ve been great.  A real prince.  Thanks for bringing me home.  Now, go!” 

“We have unfinished business, Lucky.”

Lucky put his hand to his head and discovered he was still wearing the purple Derby, but he was too weak to take it off.  He let his hand drop.

“I don’t remember doing any business with you tonight.”

“From before tonight,” Clipper said.

“You bought carpet from me?  You want your money back?  Lousy installation?  Wrong color?  What’s your problem?”  He tried to close his eyes again, but the spinning began, and he opened them.

“It’s nothing like that.”

“Then your services are no longer required.  You are excused.  Yes, we have no bananas, no unfinished business.”

“Oh, but we do.”

 “I don’t know you.  We’ve never met.”

           “Sure we have.”

           “I’d remember.  I have a good memory.  Excellent memory.  That’s one of my strengths.”  He was talking too much, way too much, blathering on.  “Now that I think of it, you never even told me your name.  Clipper.  Clipper my ass.”

           “That’s what they called me in the Navy.  A million years ago.

           “What were you, a barber?  Clip, clip, clip goes the Clipper.”  Lucky couldn’t control his mouth.  In his stomach the mini-tacos were fighting with the shrimp who were dancing with the meatballs who were fermenting in the Scotch.  And they were all trying to climb his esophagus.  Some of the mess managed to reach the back of his throat with a very bad taste.

            “Lucky, you’ve been a great disappointment.  I had once hoped that you were a man of quality, but it turned out otherwise.”

            “So you learned what everyone else already knows.  Big fucking deal.”

            “It is a big fucking deal, Lucky.  It’s your life.”

            “My life.  My bananas.  My business.” 

            “Yes, it’s your business alright.  But when your actions affect my life, or people in my life, then it becomes my business.”

            “Whatever,” Lucky said.  He took several deep breaths, trying to clear his head, trying to suppress the uprising in his stomach.  It occurred to him how disappointed Winnie would be in him right now.  Why had he thought of her?

           “Would you like closure, Lucky?  Would you like to start off tomorrow with a clean slate?”

           “Not possible.”

 “But you’re right,” the man said.  “It was inconsiderate of me not to introduce myself earlier.  My name is Bussle.  Clyde Bussle.”

Chapter 44

            According to something Lucky had read, some physicists speculate that the Big Bang will eventually slow down, stop, and reverse itself.  Everything that ever was, all the galaxies and everything therein, will shrink back into the original clump of stuff.  It will take as long to contract as it did to expand, and since the expansion is still going on after billions of years with no hint of a let-up, it is unknown how long the cycle will take.  And what will happen then?  Another Big Bang expansion and another contraction, and then another Big Bang expansion and another contraction, and then another Big Bang expansion and another contraction, from eternity, and into eternity.   So this was not the first, nor would it be the last, Big Bang.  In fact, as Lucky had analyzed it before going on to simpler, more pleasurable thoughts, there had never been a first, nor would there ever be a last.

            No closure.

            He was finally having his face-to-face with Clyde Bussle.  A little late, you fucker.  Where were you when I needed answers, you sonofabitch. 

            “Ah, the great Clyde Bussle,” he said.  He swallowed, forcing back the misery of food and drink and gastric juices that was trying to escape his stomach.  “Chemist, poet, chef de cuisine, skilled mechanic, friend to the downtrodden, conniving bastard.”

            “You forgot loving brother,” Clyde said. 

            “Yes.  Loving brother to the blind,” Lucky said.  “And you found me.”

            “That was the easy part.  Every carpet salesman in town knows Lucky Lesinski.”

            “The king of tufted broadloom finally meets the prince of Thompsonburg.”  Lucky took deep breaths.  He needed to get oxygen to his brain.  He needed a shot of alertness.  He needed to settle his stomach, silence the clanging in his head.  He needed some strength back in his arms and legs.  Clyde’s face was still in shadow.  “So what the fuck do you want with me?”

            “I want to kill you,” Clyde said, with not a bit of humor.  “You hurt someone I love terribly.”

            Lucky could not respond.

            “I could kill you ten different ways, and no one would ever know.  I could push you off your balcony.  I could shove your head in the oven.  I could blow your brains out and make it look like suicide. I could smother you with a pillow.” 

            He took a pillow from the sofa, went to where Lucky sat helpless, and pushed it against his face for a few seconds.  “Carpet salesman suffocates on own vomit following New Year’s Eve celebration,” he said, quoting an imaginary newspaper headline.  “And nobody gives a shit.”  He took the pillow away and went back to the sofa.

            “You’re crazy,” Lucky said.

            “Not in the slightest.”

            “How is Winifred?” Lucky asked.  He wanted to cry.

            “But I’m not a violent man,” Clyde said.  “And I didn’t find you to kill you.”

            “So get lost.”  How is Winifred?  “Leave me be.”

            “I found you because I wanted to look into your face.  I wanted to hear your voice, get a feel for the way your brain works.  I wanted to see for myself what a man looks like who could do what you did to a sweet, innocent woman.  Now I’ve seen.  I’m not impressed.”

            “Does she know what Mel did?  Did that bastard Fiusko tell her?”

            “Yes.”

            Lucky’s throat ached. He was close to tears. 

            “He was your fucking friend.  You did favors for each other.  So what does that make you, you self-righteous sonofabitch?”

            “I can’t control the actions of evil men.  But I’m the guy who stayed behind and cleaned up the mess.  Your mess.  Your family’s mess.  Your brother’s mess.  Have you ever stayed to see things through?”

            “My brother’s life was a tragedy.  I never knew what he did.”  Lucky wanted to close his eyes, escape, sleep, forget, be finished with this night and this man.

            “Your brother was a murdering asshole.  He took an innocent life, the life of a good man, and he ruined my sister’s life in the process.”

            “Tell me how she is.”

            “You don’t deserve to know.  And after tonight I never want to see your sorry ass again.  Come back to Thompsonburg, or bother my sister in any way, and I will kill you.”  He came to where Lucky sat, took him by the arm and pulled him upright.  “This is my last favor for the Lesinskis,” he said.  “My last clean-up job.”  He helped Lucky maneuver down the hall, and when they got to the bedroom he gave him a slight shove and Lucky fell backwards onto the bed.  Spinning head or no, Lucky could keep his eyes open not one moment longer. He was vaguely aware of his stupid purple Derby hat being removed, and then his shoes, and Clyde helping him strip to his boxer shorts and T-shirt.

“Are the vultures gone,” he asked, his final words to man from Thompsonburg.

“Yes,” Clyde said.  “The vultures are gone.”

Lucky spent the next thirty hours in shadowy nightmare broken only when he was awakened by a terrible thirst or by the need to piss.  In his dreams he ran from monsters, was devoured by ants, lost his sight, watched his disemboweling by Inca priests, was thrown into the pit of hell, came to the carpet store naked, shared a dungeon with rats, suffocated to death in a locked bank vault, became a geek in a traveling carnival, watched gangrene take his penis, watched Afghan horsemen play keep-away with his severed head, stood before a firing squad for deserting his friends, was spurned by his mother and father, could not breathe, could not speak, could not fight back.

Finally he awoke, weary and dazed.  He shuffled to the refrigerator and drank half a quart of orange juice straight from the carton.  A little later he called the store and told them that he was sick and wouldn't be in for a while.  He spent the next couple of days doing little more than sitting in a corner of his sofa, staring at the walls, or sitting near the window gazing into the parking lot.  In a week he was back to work, chatting up the housewives, helping them pick out the perfect color, the perfect style, the perfect texture.  The carpet of their dreams.

Chapter 45

            The exterior barn light came on, casting a wide, yellow circle in the darkness.   A man came out of the house and rolled open the barn door, the door’s wheels squeaking slightly on their track.  The man entered the barn and a few minutes later came out pushing a vintage motorcycle.  He adjusted a set of old-fashioned goggles over his eyes, but left his head uncovered.  He wanted to feel the wind through his hair.           

The western Michigan winter had been severe but short.  It had snowed nearly every day during January and February, and there had been a stretch of ten days when the temperature never topped zero.  But March, usually cold and sloppy, had been warmer and drier than usual, and now late March had brought the first day of the year of over 70 degrees, the last such day for another full month.  The tulip beds by the front porch of the Bussle farmhouse near Thompsonburg were in full bloom.  It had been such a beautiful day that Clyde and Winnie had talked about getting started on the garden; the cleaning out, the fresh roto-tilling, the planting. 

            Clyde had been looking forward to his first night ride of the spring.  He had waited until Winnie had gone to bed, then waited a while longer until the moon was high and bright in the sky.  Only then, well after midnight, had he gone to the barn and brought the big old machine out.  He pushed it almost to the road before kick-starting it.  He loved the sound of the 45-cube flathead.  The new bikes didn’t have the mellow rumble of the Indian.  And he loved cruising the back roads of Dixon County in the deep night, staying as far from populated areas as he could.  The roar of the engine could easily wake up several thousand people in a few seconds if he’d ridden it through town. 

            He climbed into the seat and accelerated slowly from the driveway into the road, then hit the throttle and quickly picked up speed, spitting gravel.  He’d gone only a hundred yards or so when his headlight piercing the darkness ahead revealed a car parked on the grassy shoulder, its lights turned off, apparently temporarily abandoned.  The sight of the car faintly pricked his memory.  As he drew along side it, he realized too late that the car’s motor was running, and that there was someone in the driver’s seat, for it suddenly accelerated and turned sharply into his path.  Clyde braked and jerked hard to the left, losing control and skidding across the gravel and into the culvert.  He was pinned under the cycle and dazed, but he recognized the sound of a car door opening and closing, and measured footsteps across the gravel towards him.  A flashlight came on and the beam swept back and forth across the culvert before finding him and stopping.  The man came over and knelt in the grass.

            “Well, what incredible stinking luck,” the man said.  “I thought I might have to wait a few nights, but here you are, like we’d had an appointment.”

            “Fuck you, Lesinski,” Clyde said.  The shock of the accident was beginning to wear off, and a sharp pain in his upper thigh, and another across his chest, were beginning to get his attention.  His lips were pulled wide into a combination grin and grimace. “You deliberately ran me over, you sonofabitch.”

            “We have unfinished business,” Lucky said.  “You left my apartment before I could thank you properly.”

            “You’re lucky I left you alive,” Clyde said. 

            “I could kill you right now,” Lucky said.  “Kill you ten different ways.  You’re standing in the way of someone I love terribly.  Gentleman farmer killed in midnight motorcycle ride,” Lucky quoted a mock newspaper headline.  “And nobody gives a shit.”

            “Maybe murder’s a Lesinski specialty.”

“I’m not a violent man.”

            “What kind of man are you, then?” Clyde said.  He couldn’t stifle a gasp from the pain in his chest.  And he needed to get out from under his machine so he could do something about his leg.  It craved massaging, stretching, moving.

            Lucky stood, took hold of the handlebars and pulled the cycle upright.  Clyde slowly got to his hands and knees and stayed that way for a while, moving his neck this way and that, and flexing his back.  He pushed himself the rest of the way up, took several deep breaths, rolled his shoulders, took a few halting steps, squatted and stretched his legs. 

            “You’ll live,” Lucky said.  He rolled the cycle up out of the culvert.  Clyde followed him onto the road.  The car was parked back on the grass, the motor and lights turned off.  “Come on, I’ll give you a hand.  But this is the last time I’m helping your sorry ass.”

            “Fuck you,” Clyde said.  He began walking back towards the farmhouse, limping slightly.  Lucky pushed the cycle along.  They walked side-by-side, silently, until they were back at the driveway. 

            “I’m not tucking you in,” Lucky said.  He laughed.  “My goodwill stops here.”

            Clyde took hold of the cycle and began rolling it up the driveway.  Then he stopped and turned.

            “I told you never to come back here,” he said.

            “I’m coming back tomorrow,” Lucky said.  “I’m coming to see Winifred.  And you’d better not be around when I get here.”

            “I’m warning you, you sonofabitch.  Stay away.”

            “You’ve been warned, Clipper-dipper.  Don’t be here.”

            Lucky spent the night at the Cherokee Motel, and when he returned to the Bussle farmhouse the next morning, Clyde’s pick-up truck was gone, Clyde out running errands.

Epilogue

            Lawrence Lesinski, Jr. and Winifred Bussle were married on a sunny August afternoon, almost one year to the day from their first meeting.  They were married on the back lawn of the farmhouse, under a scalloped canvas canopy provided by the White Pines Country Club.  Clyde Bussle gave the bride away.  The maid of honor was Karen Kleeber, the best man Rodney Pederson.  The Mayor of Thompsonburg, Randy Kurtz, conducted the ceremony, and Diane Totter sang a creditable rendition of “You Make Me Feel Brand New”.  The small group of well-wishers included Junior Mongo, who encouraged Lucky to join the country club; David Fiddler of the Thompsonburg Police Department, who would become Lucky’s new walleye fishing buddy; several of Winnie’s Tarot clients, who wondered if Winnie had been able to foresee such a romance; an old crone named Sally Sonnengard, who threatened to drag Lucky off into a cornfield if Winnie wasn’t careful; and Clyde’s lady, Melba June, a tall, elegant widow of 72.  Not attending the joyous event was the former Sheriff’s Deputy Perry Fiusko, who was, at that time, incarcerated in the Dixon County jail awaiting trial on a charge of illegally manufacturing methamphetamines. 

The newlyweds honeymooned by zigzagging in a westward direction in the red 1970 Pontiac Bonneville convertible which Clyde had put into perfect running condition.  Lucky did not press Clyde on how the car had come to be hidden in the Bussle farm granary, satisfied that it had been part of his new brother-in-law’s clean-up of the madness his brother-in-blood, Mel, had set in motion.  Lawrence and Winifred visited the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the North Dakota Badlands, the Colorado Rockies, and Grand Canyon, all places that Winnie had wanted to see, finally ending their trek in Las Vegas, staying in the Centurion Royal Suite at Caesar’s Palace, a gift of the Mongo Brick Company.  Winifred credited her powers of clairvoyance for their extraordinary luck at the Blackjack tables.

            One night, bored with casinos and stage shows and rich food, Lucky and Winnie drove far into the Nevada desert.

            “This could be the farthest either of us has ever been from an electric light,” Lucky said.  They stopped on a back road, put the Bonneville’s top down, put a CD of Holst’s The Planets on the stereo Clyde had installed, lowered the seat-backs, and gazed heavenward.  Lucky tried to describe the amazing sight to Winnie, using descriptions like millions of diamonds on a sea of black velvet, and a blanket of fireflies from horizon to horizon, and the splendor of heaven sparkling through the gauze of sky, but none of the words were adequate. 

            And as they watched, the universe continued to expand. 

            On their way back to Michigan, Winnie and Lucky stopped in Chicago and saw a Chicago Lyric Opera performance of Tristan and Isolde.

            “We’ll prove them wrong,” Winnie told Lucky.  “We’ll live forever.”

            For many years Lucky was disappointed that Winnie could not see through his eyes, the way she had seen through Riley Harrison’s eyes.

            “It’s more important to you than it is to me,” Winnie would tell him.  “I’m not unhappy with my lot in life.  I have you, my dear, to see for both of us.”

            Lucky eventually stopped mentioning Winnie seeing again, although many years later, at the age of ninety-six, Winnie’s sight returned, and she saw the heavens open, and the angels arrive to take her up with them, beyond the stars, beyond time and space, beyond eternity, beyond the edge of the universe, to be with her Lawrence in glory.