Chicago Chick: Takes a sad girl to sing a sad song

By G A Lorén

Chicago Chick is a story about a young woman who is forced to leave the big city due to bad luck with relationships. She lands in rural Illinois with her daughter. Struggling to build a new life, she bumps into two men who have strong impact on her future. One is a man you shouldn't bump into; a wanted rapist. The other one is a guy she falls desperately in love with. The story is flavored with drama, passion and humor.


If the #metoo movement would feel the need of a manual for women under attack, the chapter 'when bubbles burst' might add some inspiration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9789178514700

G A Lorén

GA Lorén was born 1945 in Gothenburg, Sweden. He published 2000-2006 six crime stories in UK and USA. Read more at www.galoren.se

Book preview

World

Friends till it ends

SAM LOOKED FROM ABOVE HIS GLASSES as he pushed the bundle across the desktop.

About time you check out, Joshicker. Another month and you’d count among permanent decoration.

The big man flashed an inward smile as he took half sitting position on the desktop.

I can live with that. Beats pollution.

Is that how you feel?

In my bright moments.

The frosty irony led the minds to side tracks. Some reflections triggered nasty sneering. The warden locked his hands behind his neck.

What now?

Joshicker’s smiling changed to bitter sarcasm.

What else, I’m going back to my job. He pretended to search the bundle. Where the hell is my uniform?

Silent chuckling confirmed the bonds between the men. Sam interrupted with another grim leer.

Cremated like mine.

Joshicker flicked his hand.

At least you got away with sacking and a warning.

Right, sergeant. I was lucky.

Joshicker’s thoughtful glance slipped out through the window. The sight of fences and guard towers didn’t improve his mood.

Six years for a fuck. I’ll never forgive that damned bitch! What a sick idea to rig a camera.

Sam made an ugly grimace. The prostitute had accused him of the same crime but there had been no proof. Still, circumstance had led to the humiliating discharge.

Will you get back on her?

She’ll have her share when she burns in hell.

You’ll be there watching?

I wouldn’t mind.

The image of frizzling human flesh silenced them. For a moment they were lost in introspective rumination. They had been friends for as long as they could remember. As Joshicker walked out, it would be like a last farewell. Sam wanted to extend the moment but treating emotion wasn’t his showpiece.

Will you stay in Texas?

I’m racing north. To Canada if that old wreck makes it all the way.

Sam nodded sideways. He had brought Joshicker’s Mazda to the prison and parked it outside the gates. He shifted forward in his chair and handed over the keys.

No problem. I charged the battery and filled the tank. It started like that. He snapped his fingers.

Good.

Joshicker jangled with the keys before stashing them into his pocket. He fingered out a couple of bills from his wallet. Sam checked him.

On the house.

The wallet went back to the inner of the baggy blazer. Another moment of contemplation followed. None of them wanted to initiate the break up. Sam looked over his glasses again, this time in a questioning manner.

What’ll you do in Canada?

Same as all cops after sacking – private investigation.

Sam nodded. He too had pondered on that kind of future. The jailer job had saved him.

No need to go to Canada. You’re a free man now.

Joshicker grabbed his bundle and slid off the desktop.

Free is a funny thing, Sam. He nodded to the inner of the building. My kind of free died in that foxhole.

Sam walked around the desk and reached out his hand.

Take it easy on the roads, you haven’t been driving for six years. It’s a hell of a bustle on the asphalt.

Don’t worry, Sam. The one thing I’ve learned at this place is to take it easy.

Sam walked up to the window to watch his friend strolling towards the gates. The big guy looked small and lonely on the huge yard. Sam didn’t believe he had learned to take it easy. The hullabaloo that danced around in Joshicker’s head had led to nothing but destruction.

End of Dream

THOUGH HE HAD NEVER worded his appreciation, John Carlson liked to listen as Carsie picked his guitar in the workshop. And though Carsie would never admit, he chose to practice in the barn because he wanted audience. John ogled his son as he fastened a metal box in a vise.

What’s the name of that song?

Carsie stopped playing. Not because of the question but a string needed tuning. He grimaced as he failed to adjust it to the proper G.

Just toying with chords, perhaps it’ll be a melody one day. He picked the string repeatedly. Must buy new strings, can’t tune these anymore.

Sounds all right to me.

Carsie knew his father had a soft spot for folk music.

Bertie Berger asked us to play at the Senior Club; he’ll be seventy-five.

He’s that old? Doesn’t look it.

The reminder that not everyone would reach that age squeezed John’s mid-section. He was sixty-one. A week ago, the physician had told him the cancer was beyond curing. He had urged the doctor not to tell him how long time he had. It would be like waiting for the gas chamber. Suppressing unpleasant facts was his life philosophy.

Carsie slid off his stool and leant the guitar against a fence. The barn hadn’t housed livestock for decades. The young musician was ignorant of his father’s condition.

Must summon the boys; we need rehearsing.

The boys meant Les Gode on five-string banjo and Tom Brown on fiddle. Carsie did most of the singing but all members knew how to join in with low as well as harmony parts. According to most listeners, the trio did a good job. Carsie ogled his father in wait for response. A nod, a glance or silent grunting would do. There was no such sign. His head shook in idle resignation.

John Carlson kept fiddling with his box. His current mind actually concerned what Carsie was ruminating on – concentration problems. Through sleepless nights, he imagined he could feel the tumor nibbling at sensitive parts of his brain. As to top off the depression, he had received the diagnosis frail heart. He prayed the heart disease would beat the cancer.

As the silence changed the atmosphere in a puzzling way he looked up and noticed that Carsie watched him. He tried to recall if there had been a question. A silly smile ended the abortive attempt.

Like so often over the last weeks, the attempt to concentrate had opposite effect. Instead of trying to solve the practical problem, his mind started grinding on his unproductive biography. He sighed as he failed to lead the mind work to happier tracks. His life was painfully short of happy tracks.

His wife Christine had left him a good year ago. Though the marriage had been a poor joke from first day, she had been the only woman in his life. The divorce had been settled the day he had received his medical sentence. He had read the legal document in the doctor’s waiting-room. Like getting two death sentences in one day. The element of irony pulled his mouth to a bitter smile. Christine could no longer make claims on the huge estate. Everything would go to Carsie. He beckoned the young man closer.

Come over here, Carsie. I’ll show you something.

Carsie took no interest in his father’s innovations. None of them had yielded the fortune John had talked about since his first brainchild had transmuted into a pathetic version of a golf bag. It would take a heavyweight champion to transport the thing around the course and when you released the grip around the handle it fell and spread clubs and balls on the ground.

A few patents had been sold for peanuts, but none of them had gone into production. Not even the practical thumbtack remover in the shape of a modified screwdriver. John Carlson made money on repairing agricultural machines, but major source of income was tenant farmers fees. The huge estate was divided into four agrarian sections. The laughable fees had been the same for seventy years. Two thirds were hunting ground, also leased out for peanuts.

Carsie rammed his hands into his pockets as he sided up with the shorter innovator. He watched the thing in the vise with vacant air.

Okay, I see a metal box with two pipes sticking out. What about it?

John Carlson looked at his son with shy pride. The boy was good-looking and good-hearted. He wasn’t strikingly brainy but common sense helped him make the right decisions. His smile and charisma had an effect on women. John nodded to the box.

Why don’t you have a girlfriend? You’re thirty next.

Carsie shrugged. They had chewed on the issue so many times that he felt like a parrot.

I’m not ready for marriage.

I’m not talking about marriage. But if you don’t start dating, it will be too late. The chicks your age are married and the younger ones think you’re too old.

They don’t want me. I have no luck with women.

John dropped the subject. Talking to Carsie about the opposite sex was like talking to a brick wall. He guessed the boy hadn’t been with a woman at all, not even Betty Brown, the pretty black girl who served as Pickers Point’s associate for lonely men. It wasn’t likely he had met anyone elsewhere. He only left when the band played in small towns around the county. It didn’t happen often and the trio always returned when the performance was over. They loved to sit on the porch in the dark, sipping beer and discussing whether it was the best gig ever. Carsie’s only passion seemed to be his music.

A tired sigh left the inventor’s sunken chest as his conscience reminded him that he was poor adviser in the delicate subject of approaching women. It remained a mystery why a handsome woman like Catherine had agreed to marry him. Even bigger mystery was that the marriage had lasted for thirty years. Perhaps the big farm had been primary attraction. She had grown up on a smaller farm.

This metal box will make you rich. I have registered a patent in your name. The document is in the drawer.

He nodded to a cracked piece under the workbench. Carsie shrugged. The million-dollar story had transformed to a mantra.

Why my name? It’s your innovation.

Don’t ask. Listen.

John Carlson wiped his forehead with cotton waste. It was midafternoon and very hot. The doors to the barn were wide open. Normally, it meant a breeze that cooled the air, but right now desert-like heat gushed in.

You know that engines are propelled by gas. Now, gas is made of oil and oil is not only expensive, it’ll become short supply in a few years. The Chinese and billions of Asians can suddenly afford cars.

Carsie turned his eyes to the sky. His father’s tardy way of presenting his cases had been exposed to public irony for decades.

Really? I had no idea.

John Carlson ignored the scorn.

This little box will change everything. The content will replace gas and almost all other energy. All you have to do is attach the box to the carburetor with a duct and the car will keep rolling for at least five thousand miles.

Carsie wasn’t in the habit of scrutinizing people’s features but something about his father’s appearance bothered him. The skin was grayish and the blue eyes seemed to have grown in the thin face.

Modern cars don’t have carburetors.

Find an old one with a carburetor.

Carsie had a feeling of listening to a child’s fantasy. And the unhealthy looks distracted him.

Okay, what’s inside?

Since you take no interest in techniques, the explanation will do you no good. But there’s a notebook with all information in the drawer. It’s built on Electro-magnetism and the unknown power of bauxite.

Never heard of.

You would if you had paid attention at school. It’s the ore used to produce aluminum. Now, what’s happening is that the mix produces a substance that equals gas – not in the liquid form – but gas in a gaseous state.

Gas turned into gas. Amazing.

It is amazing. Science hasn’t touched upon this. The box content does what gasoline does in a carburetor.

Have you tried it?

I tried on the mower. It worked fine.

A mower is not a car.

It’s the same principle. It’s all about principles. You don’t invent mechanical stuff, you invent principles.

Carsie’s head shook again. This time to clear it from irrelevant mind work. He had started pondering on appropriate mix for Saturday’s show. These old people would certainly appreciate Burl Ives’ ballads.

Why haven’t science thought of it? The big institutions have recourses to test all materials.

Got nothing to do with big, it’s a first time for everything. All great inventions start with one person’s idea. And the metal itself doesn’t do the job. Heating process and interaction with other components are involved.

Carsie’s struggled to appear interested.

Okay, but why do want me to know? You’ve never told me about details of your creations before.

There is a reason.

What reason?

John Carlson sighed again. Within short Carsie would be alone with a giant estate and a big house. A woman by his side had been on his wish list for years. He wondered what was wrong. The boy was a real looker. In his late teens the girls had lined up. One of them was Jennifer Brown, a sprightly little darling with an infectious smile. She had told John in confidence that Carsie had been first choice for all pretty young women. There had been frequent invitations to exercise in bed. The poor chicks had thrown in the towels when the object of affection had treated them like creatures from outer space.

And he didn’t know how to cook. After Catherine had left, John had taken over the kitchen. He wasn’t much of a cook either, but he knew how to season pork chops and fry sausages. In spite of that, or because of the uniform menu, Carsie often went to town for hamburger or pizza.

But food habits were trifles compared to the other problem. Carsie’s lack of interest in techniques had expanded to major obstacle because of John’s limited time on earth.

He had other qualities though, perhaps more useful than technical skill. Carsie was economical. He had been in charge of the estate’s finance since his grandfather’s death. To John Carlson, money’s only value was as investment in innovations.

After he had received his first diagnosis, he had signed up for a giant loan to cover the metal box illusion. In his world of hazy daydreams, debts were removed from the cause-list when the borrower died.

Now, over the next few weeks you and I will spend some time together. I’ll teach you how to produce one of these. It is important that you understand the principle. Then you register a company and start production.

He noticed that Carsie’s eyes drifted out through the open doors. He guessed that in his mind the young man was out on the yard swinging his baseball bat, his only other hobby.

Whatever you do, don’t sell the patent. Imagine this, if the stuff can propel a car engine, it can propel a generator. Everybody can produce own electricity.

Carsie nodded and kept back another yawn. Contrary to his father’s assumption, baseball wasn’t current issue on his mind. He hadn’t played baseball for years. His reflections concerned one other of his father’s inspirations that had turned out to be pure fantasy. It too had been about energy, a favorite issue of John Henry Carlson’s.

A prospective buyer – an engineer from a reputed firm – had arrived to have a look at the heater that would warm up any house for one third of the current costs. The man had found himself staring at an empty cast iron shell. He had looked ready to suggest transport of John Carlson to the nearest asylum. The innovator’s explanation that the thing wasn’t quite ready for production hadn’t improved the judgment.

Since that embarrassing incident, Carsie questioned all whimsical chronicles about future success.

I won’t sell but what the hell, this is way above me?

There was no immediate answer. They looked at each other again, Carsie questioning, John with sadness.

If you run into problems, ask Pittershawn Bradley advice. He can solve any technical problem.

Carsie knew Pittershawn well. The young man was a frequent guest in the workshop. In public opinion, he was the only one qualified to challenge John Carlson in the local nutcase competition.

He didn’t know what to say and kept watching his father’s pale face in silence. Something was out of tune, it was early summer and everybody had a fresh tan.

A nickel started spinning inside Carsie’s head as in search for the slot. Fragments of the chat that had seemed irrelevant suddenly knocked for attention. Why involve Pittershawn Bradley when John Carlson was around?

The coin dropped hard. It was like a slap on his cheek. His father was dying. It stunned him he hadn’t noticed before. It was the approaching end that drained the man’s features of color. Suddenly he saw nothing but big sad eyes in the hollow face. He realized it was cancer; all symptoms were there.

He gulped and closed his mouth. For more than a minute he searched for words to ease the tension. He felt his smile gluing to his face while brain and tongue got stuck with collective paralysis. He felt like an idiot and hinted he looked like one.

THE SITUATION WAS DISASTROUS in more than one sense, not least to him. First, he didn’t have a job. Tom Brown, the fiddler doubled as self-employed carpenter. When he needed assistance or wanted to take a few days off, he called in Carsie or Les Gode or both. It could be weeks between commissions, though.

The leasing contracts paid the house loan and a little more. He knew the fees could be tripled but that involved bargaining with tough neighbors. The hunting ground – two thirds of the gigantic estate – was leased out for a laughable thousand dollars a year.

The music didn’t yield much. The band didn’t get many assignments and people who hired them considered singing and playing a hobby. His savings would keep him going for six or seven months.

The numbness refused to ease. He struggled to give a relaxed impression and wanted to say something casual about anything but his tongue didn’t obey. He also wanted to end the imbecile staring but couldn’t take his eyes from his father’s colorless face. In his fantasy the round head gradually assumed the shape of a cranium. The skin and hair seemed to dissolve and fall off like in a computer-generated image in a movie.

In the middle of his dimness, topics started bouncing in his anaesthetized head. He grabbed one of them like catching a fly in the air.

Why Pittershawn Bradley?

Because he can help and he won’t cheat on you.

The following silence seemed to shudder in the air. Senior returned his son’s scrutiny with half-closed eyes. He realized the truth had dawned on the young man. Right now, he was probably working on the diagnosis. To him, the word tumor was written on his face. He prayed Carsie had jumped to the right conclusion. It would save him the painstaking explanation. Since the final confirmation of his physical condition he refused to speak the word ‘cancer’ aloud.

CARSIE INTERRUPTED his stupefied staring and turned to look through the door opening again. An out-house covered his field of vision but he didn’t see it. For no obvious reason, his mind resumed the opposite sex topic. Perhaps instinct tried to pass on the message that a woman in the house wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

It wasn’t true he had no luck with women. He knew what was wrong. It was all in his mind. The very thought of being alone with a woman ready for love dazed his brain. More than once, girls had started dropping their garments in his presence. With sweat rippling down his forehead, he had fabricated feeble-minded excuses like recalling appointments or that his mother was ill.

He didn’t blame the girls if they jumped to conclusions like impotence or homosexual disposition. He had often tried to analyze the conflict from psychological point, but the subject was above him. He refused to involve his mother’s sordid involvement.

He felt ashamed for pitying himself for trivial reasons at a moment like this and forced his mind back to neutral track. Pittershawn Bradley saved him again. The guy was the archetype for a nerd. All he cared for was technical odds and ends. When a new product was introduced on the market, he bought one and detached every piece just to see what it looked like inside. Though he was a trained engineer he didn’t have that kind of job. He worked as warden in the Lutheran parish and seemed perfectly pleased. All he wanted was to be left alone with his mechanical stuff.

Carsie rested his sad eyes on his father’s profile. The innovator pretended he didn’t notice. To avoid returning any kind of sympathy, he kept toying with his box in a ridiculous way.

Carsie recognized that this was not how father and son were supposed to treat emotion. Consolation and understanding ought to set the standard. He filled his lungs and shifted to the humbleness that confronts all humans when the reminder of death takes possession of the mind.

Okay, I’ll talk to Pittershawn if anything goes wrong. When do you want me to start learning about that thing? He prayed his way of pronouncing the finishing word didn’t interpret as disrespectful.

JOHN CARLSON NOTICED the change of tone and attitude. He felt sorry and pleased in equal shares, but most of all he felt empty. He had an awkward feeling of reading his will aloud. The chief agony was that he had to live his last days on earth without being able to discuss his torment with Carsie. They didn’t have that relation.

He blamed the religious background though he had never paid religion much attention; neither had Carsie. The family had been members of the Lutheran church since their ancestors had arrived six generations ago. Lutherans don’t complain, Lutherans don’t praise anyone but God; Lutherans always feel guilty. Lutherans work, save, invest and work more.

His conscience reminded him that he hadn’t been much for saving during his mediocre life. Another reason for his reluctance to penetrate certain issues was of genetic nature. He prayed the obscure truth would never surface.

Let’s start tomorrow.

They eyeballed again like trying to speak through glancing. For the first time, John Carlson felt genuine empathy for his son. He was desperate to give the young man something to live for. And he wanted to be remembered as the goodhearted father. Actually, he was a goodhearted though very naive man.

They ended the silent emotion with each a consoling smile. Carsie accidentally hit the strings on his guitar as he grabbed the instrument and walked out. The tone had a sinister ring to it. Like a lonely church bell. He felt sick to his stomach.

TOMORROW NEVER DAWNED on John Henry Carlson. As next day’s first sunbeam formed a beautiful square on the wall in his bedroom, a merciful heart attack ended his life.

Wrong end of a Nightmare

JOSHICKER SLOWED DOWN at the lonely house. He was tired on the point of passing out. He had been driving for hours without spotting a place where he could stop for rest and food. And he was in desperate need of road direction. He didn’t even know which state this was.

He stopped on the courtyard with engine running and walked up to the house door. A face withdrew from a window when he rang the doorbell. He didn’t notice.

The door flung up before he had taken his thumb from the button. A shotgun pointing to his stomach turned on his rage but he suppressed the anger. Twenty years in the force had taught him to treat pressure. Without taking his eyes from the hostile face, he noticed a stairway to the upper story and an open door to another room.

The shotgun man struggled to maintain aggressive approach. Joshicker checked a sneer.

Don’t point that gun to me.

Don’t tell me what to do in my house!

The man twisted his face to laughable misunderstanding of threat. The clerical collar clashed with his looks and behavior. His voice kept cracking.

What do you want?

I want a road direction to the nearest motel.

There is no motel around. How the hell do I know you’re not a robber or a murderer?

I’m a police lieutenant.

Yeah, and I’m Jesus. Piss off!

He made a foolish, far too slow sweeping motion with the gun. Joshicker caught the opportunity as the weapon pointed sideways and wrung the piece out of the man’s hands. Like taking a toy from a child, he thought. He still kept back the scornful smile.

The priest’s aggression shifted from shock to horror. His eyes drifted between the gun muzzle and his empty hands like he was watching an illusionist’s trick.

Joshicker found the situation more comical than dramatic. He pointed the barrel to the guy’s stomach just to teach the moron what it’s like to have a shotgun five inches from your chest. It didn’t occur to him that the gun hade landed in his left hand during the tumult. He was right-handed. He raised his free hand to wave his fist in the man’s horror-struck face.

The tiredness played a disastrous trick on him as he made to clench the hand. He clenched the wrong hand and squeezed the trigger by mistake. The blast from the weapon was the most frightening sound he had ever heard.

An appalling grimace distorted the victim’s face as he dropped to the floor like a bull in the slaughterhouse. During the fall he flung out a hand and scratched Joshicker’s cheek with his nails.

Joshicker’s grimace wasn’t prettier though he twisted his face for another reason. The horror pumped up his mind till it seemed ready to explode. The puddle of blood on the rug rippled in under his shoes. The victim stared with stiff and accusing wide-open eyes.

Police instinct took over again and urged him to check the pulse though he realized the man was very dead. He snatched a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the shotgun and threw it into the hall. The weapon bounced and landed with the butt on the dead man’s chest.

A cat mewed loudly from top of the stairway. Joshicker jerked up his head and held his breath while he listened for other sounds. It was so silent he could hear his heart pounding. He spun around and ran down the stairs.

Damned fool!

He couldn’t decide whether he meant himself or the dead priest. Probably both. He threw him in behind the wheel and slammed the door so hard that the handle came off. He threw it out through the open window. The tires spread gravel and sand over the courtyard as he took off.

GLARING SUNLIGHT announced another hot day. Despite the early hour and open windows, the temperature inside the car approached ninety. Joshicker shook his head hard as to clear it from a nightmare. Yesterday’s distress had tortured him throughout the night. He had been so upset he hadn’t even considered stopping and try to get some sleep. The fuel meter needle rested against the little pin that announced emergency. He stopped at a road sign and read Pickers Point 1876 dwellers. His yawning drained the near atmosphere of oxygen but exhalation restored the balance.

He looked and felt destroyed. The scratch marks on his cheek had darkened and gave impression of fight with a cougar. His stomach cramped with hunger.

He rolled into the little town and prayed he would find an open eatery or at least a grocery store. It was nine o’clock and very silent.

Half a mile down the street he stopped again and read Swede’s Restaurant on a blue and yellow sign. A big fellow made industrious use of a broom outside the entrance. Joshicker got out and walked the few steps to the open door. He too was a big man but the guy with the broom outsized him. He stopped sweeping and gave a stern nod.

Morning, sir, the kitchen hasn’t opened yet but we can fix egg and bacon if you like.

Fine, and a sandwich if it isn’t too much trouble.

No problem. Step in.

Joshicker followed him into the place.

And coffee, please.

He chose a table near the door. Only one other table was occupied. An older man read a newspaper and sipped coffee. The men eyed one another for a second and greeted with indifferent nods. Joshicker made sure he had his back to the other guest as he sat down. The scent of bacon made his nostrils tremble. He dug out items from his pockets and put them on the table. A cigarette case with engraved letters reflected in the light from a window.

A plump woman in her sixties arrived with his food. The sandwich was bigger than the plate. He started shoveling in before she had walked away. For the next ten minutes, the only sound in the room was the clattering from his cutlery. He had never experienced egg and bacon this tasty. He sucked up the grease with a piece of his sandwich and rinsed with coffee.

Full stomach satisfaction filtered through snug smiling. His idle gaze stopped at a bulletin board. The message ‘Lutheran Parish looking for Substitute Clergy’ caught his attention. His smiling shifted to arrogant during reading. His father had served as a parson in a small parish in Texas. He knew all about the holy procedure. He got up and tore down the piece on his way out.

The elder man lowered his paper and set his narrowing eyes on the stranger’s disappearing back.

Middle of Nowhere

PICKERS POINT WAS SAID to have its name from an early settler with unusual talent for making enemies. No trifle was too petty for argument. If no human was around, he picked on his dog. Rumor had it that a plum had choked him to death as he inhaled to wreak his wrath on a man who had thrown an apple-core on his land.

Not everyone was pleased to live at a place with association to an ill-tempered complainer. A widespread alternative was that the name had a connection to apple picking. The objection was that the name had been there before the apple farms.

Elevated class explanation was that the first natives had been people looking for a select place to live. Residence pickers, they called them. Their pretext involved the pretty environment.

Others, with origin back to first dwellers insisted that the name was mis-spelt, should be Pickets Point, referring to the old farmers’ picket fences.

Truth or construction; when the place had grown big enough to earn a name on the map, no one objected to Pickers Point as official identification.

Today’s Pickers Point was a well-organized community with nineteen hundred inhabitants in the central area and another thousand in the rural surroundings. Many derived their origin from Scandinavia though the younger generation barely knew where to find that part of the world on a global map.

RETIRED BANKER EBENEZER BAIRN was born and raised in Springfield. He had applied for a situation in Pickers Point local bank when he was forty and had lived in this peaceful district for thirty-two years. He didn’t care much for origins. For all he knew, he was American with bonds to Scotland.

As bank manager he had been offered a spacious residence in the center of the village. After retirement he had considered the house too big but he had kept it for reasons of comfort. When his wife had died, the house had grown even bigger in his mind but the new excuse for not selling was old age.

His porch was the perfect spot for observing life in Pickers Point. Facing north, it was shadowed during hot hours; a tin roof covered and glassed wall sections served as rain and wind shelter. Virginia creeper trailed up on poles and framed the two elder men behind the railing. Only their heads were visible. Ebenezer and his friend Frick Everett spent so much time at the place that people regarded them part of the town decoration.

The panorama included Swede’s restaurant, the barbershop, the bank and – best of all – the bus stop. The latter was so close that no one disembarked the Chicago Bus without being thoroughly scrutinized. It was also a site where people passed by on foot. Many stopped for a chat. The gentlemen were well informed of local events and people’s thinking and doings.

FRICK’S OLD ROCKING CHAIR moved in time with his idle thoughts. He didn’t take out his pipe as he spoke.

The best about being retired is that no one tells you what to do.

Ebenezer was used to his friend’s manner of speaking. Words and smoke came out through the same corner of the mouth. It gave impression of visible remarks like in a cartoon.

You’ve said that before, Frick. But you’re a retired doctor. The doctor has no boss.

How little you know about the human race, Eben. Every patient was my boss. Every diagnosis, every prescription was questioned. As soon as people catch the tiniest cold, they know better than the doctor; they consult him only to confirm own diagnosis.

Ebenezer sighed.

Do you know what, doctor. You’re an old whiner. Nobody questions the doctor’s word, no matter how wrong he may be.

There you go. Frick mimicked with a surly grimace. "How wrong he may be…The doctor is nothing but wrong."

He reached for his beer and had a decent swig. The only occasions when he took out his pipe was when he was eating, drinking or sleeping. His eyes lost focus.

John Carlson had no reason to question his diagnosis, though. Poor fellow.

The mention of the dead innovator reminded them of life’s ups and downs. As members of the same parish, they had attended the emotional funeral. Young Carsie had looked lonely and abandoned in his dark suit. Christine, mother and ex-wife, hadn’t regarded the incident worth the trip from her new residence in California.

They devoted to introspective rumination for a moment. Ebenezer broke the silence.

At least he escaped being eaten by that cancer. The heart attack must have been a relief.

I’d say it was. I saw quite a few being tortured by brain tumor during my doctor era.

Ebenezer turned to watch the old physician with sad air. The puffing friend didn’t notice or pretended he didn’t notice. The banker shrugged.

You’re working on the same diagnosis, doctor, blowing that pipe from the minute you get up in the morning. You’ll end up in your grave before your time.

You’d make a better doctor than I was, Eben.

Thoughtful reflection silenced them again. The topic had been up to debate many times and the response was always the same. Ebenezer leant back in his chair. Colored by his former profession, he had a fancy for involving finance in his meditation.

Did it occur to you that Carsie at the age of thirty is the second largest land owner in the region?

I’ve thought about it. A heavy load for a young man Massive paperwork with those leasing agreements, I suppose. Not to mention the estate.

Bill Anderson administrates the estate.

Carsie makes the decisions.

Ebenezer agreed with absent-minded nodding.

I asked if he needed expertise support with the paperwork, but he declined with thanks. He told me he had been in charge of everything concerning finance since his grandfather died. His father only added his signature.

Frick’s head shook in sad recognition.

I’m not surprised. Before John Carlson got buried in sacred ground he was buried in his workshop. Real life was a disturbing element in his world.

A man on bicycle pedaled by. He greeted the men on the verandah with raised hand. They responded with each a lazy motion. The fellow stopped outside the barbershop and parked his bike. Ebenezer grimaced.

So, our new priest will have a beauty treatment before his first sermon.

Frick caught the quarrelsome pitch.

"He’ll have his hair cut or a shave like everybody else.