Flood Moon

By Chuck Radda

When Horace Greeley advised Americans to “Go West!” a century and a half ago, it’s doubtful he envisioned someone like Calvin Hopper. Greeley’s advice was full of promise and optimism; Hopper, who has lived and breathed the East all his life, wants only a place to escape.

He’s fifty years old and adrift, tryin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lefora Publishing Company LLC
• Release date: Mar 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733696333

Chuck Radda

I am a retired high school English teacher and currently a literacy tutor. I also coach tennis at the high school where I taught. I have been a writer all my life, but only pursued it with any seriousness after my retirement, publishing my first novel, Dark Time, in 2014. I currently live in Connecticut with my wife, Deanie.

Book preview

3

I had used a myriad of conveyances to get me to Billings, and only on the last leg of the trip did I opt for the bus, just to make a somewhat more traditional entrance into Sage. There’s a certain respectability involved in arriving somewhere via scheduled transportation, though judging by the number of actual witnesses, I could have saved myself the $65.00 and Hanratty’s abuse. I’d like to say I roughed it, but a wallet full of tens and twenties and an ATM card indicate a pretty sharp line between me and, let’s say, Lewis and Clark. I wouldn’t quibble over the

$65.00: money was not really an issue. I certainly didn’t need that $3.45 in change; in fact, I had set aside enough that I could justifiably call my own—money I had earned and Natalie didn’t need. That perspective may appear a bit mean-spirited, but I came out of everything far from impoverished, and Natalie came out of it free of me and able to remarry Donald. the loser who had recaptured her heart, or if not her heart, at least the body parts surrounding it. That’s as close to a happy ending as she and I were going to have, at least when it came to each other. I miss Leanne though, the daughter I sort of inherited. We got along pretty well, and I didn’t even mind that she called me Cal—she told me once, without the slightest hint of unkindness, that she already had a Dad. In the end I was disappointed that she took her mother’s side about Donald’s return, but Leanne is a kid. I’ve reserved all the rancor for the adult who’s old enough to have known better.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets and felt for Brenda's change. New money. The old money was back home in several banks so that one Howard Pearson Esq. could handle my financial matters. Bills would be paid and my responsibilities would be met; I just wouldn’t be there to tend to them in person.

Howard Pearson and I went to college together, and he’s been my attorney ever since he passed the bar exam on his fourth try. During the first three he had been a pretty heavy cocaine user, so I discount the significance of those initial failures. He’s clean now, and frequently sober. I consulted him when my father got sick and my mother needed some legal advice; both my parents are doing okay now, and they actually supported my plans to go west. Not too many others did, including Howard, but he didn’t share my folks’ belief that Natalie was, as my dad said, a bit askew. They interpreted my distancing myself a positive step.

Howard became my lawyer by default when I had questions about long-term investments and retirement. I generally spoke with him once or twice a year, though that all changed overnight. He could probably tell you the exact night when, sometime after 3:00 a.m., I awakened him (and I presume Mrs. Pearson) with a vitriolic assessment of Natalie’s future plans—the ones that didn’t include me and nullified any need for those long-term investments. For nearly an hour he let me vent—that’s the genteel, new age terminology for screaming obscenities at real or imagined villains over real or imagined insults—then told me to get some rest and be in his office at 9:00. And sober, he said. I tried.

I liked Howard, but even though he was on my side as a friend and legal advisor, the whole process of dividing up assets was so distasteful that I began to equate his presence with the misery itself. When it all ended and he wanted to buy me a drink, I refused. Then, before I could get five paces from him I began to weep. For a few weeks afterwards, he steered clear of me; then I called him, not so much to apologize but just to re-establish our friendship.

Don’t sweat it, Cal, he said. Your reaction was normal. You mean crying? I said.

Yeah, that, and hating my guts. I don’t….

"Natalie went back to your house with your daughter and hung you out to dry.

Please, feel free to hate everyone’s guts."

It was Pearson who suggested my going away for a while, though his while was a week or two in the Bahamas. When I eventually settled on the California trip, he offered to buy my car—that 1999 Miata he always lusted after and could have bought ten times over with the money that had gone up his nose. I put it in storage instead, not to spite him, but because I didn’t want to burn every bridge at the same time, no matter how bright and cheery those flames might seem.

I guess I’d burned enough of them to get me to Montana—not a direct route to California, but a route that worked sufficiently for someone not on a fixed schedule. Along the way I’d seen Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Devil’s Tower, even the Custer Battlefield. I was checking off historical sites like a grocery shopper on speed; then I hit Billings.

And Bozeman would have been next, but I picked up some brochure in a breakfast place and read about this scenic route southward and this quiet town at

the terminus. These competing influences went to work: get to where you’re going but don’t miss anything on the way. I was two days away from San Francisco when I bought the ticket for Sage—where I could have used that Miata, or any car with a roof and a heater. Instead I had nothing but the name Brenda had suggested: Walter Trucks. Even that sounded more like a transit company than a name, but I left the umbrella closed and sloshed up the street in the wind-driven mist until I reached a two-story wood structure that looked as though it might be a café or a sandwich shop. On a front window, which composed half the building’s façade, the word LUNCH was painted in yellow-outlined black letters, curved in a small arch. The artistry did not look professional, but I didn’t doubt the truth of it; after all, there was a table near the window. In the other direction was a barbershop, then a bank—almost connected as was everything else.

I slogged a little farther to the building Brenda had identified as the motel: dark, inside and out, with nothing to identify it. Could have been a motel; could just as easily have been a funeral home. By contrast, LUNCH seemed almost inviting; and so, already three dollars and forty-five cents richer than I had been only minutes before, I made a few more awkward strides in the standing water that occasionally rose over my toes, and quickly reached the overhang partially sheltering the entrance. My shoes were waterlogged past the point of usefulness, and my steps sounded like an under-inflated gym ball being dropped into a cauldron of chowder. Nobody wants to enter a building that way, even the most casual establishment, and this business seemed like someone’s home, replete with a white multi-paneled door, a brass knob, and a softly glowing doorbell button. I was tempted to ring it until I noticed a smaller shingle promising Good Food flapping listlessly under a protective canvas awning. How could it not be a restaurant? And who rings a doorbell to enter a restaurant? I hesitated once more, stuffed the muddy hat into a pocket of my bag, then walked in, my sodden shoes a calling card for anyone inside. Small puddles marked my trail.

The ensuing welcome was less than cordial. Wanna get those off?

A man stood in the lighted passage at the right, a man whose bald head fell just short of touching the top of the door frame and whose jeans cuffs stopped well above his ankles. His pale blue shirt was, by my estimate, three sizes too wide and two sizes too short. My own experience has taught me that being average carries

with it certain benefits—the ease of buying clothes among the best. I can walk into any department store, pay my money, and leave with some item that fits me. This man in the shadows couldn’t, not unless he shopped from the Barnum and Bailey collection.

And leave them by the door, he added, with the same irritation. Yes, I said. Sorry about the floor.

He made no attempt to disguise his annoyance. I’ll get a mop. It’s not like I don’t have one.

He turned and walked away, but continued speaking—louder. I just hadn’t planned on using it tonight but...gonna ruin your feet too, standing around in wet shoes. Put ’em on that mat.

To the side of the door was a remnant of grey indoor-outdoor carpeting, rough- cut but functional. By the time he returned I was standing on it while he sponged the puddle I had left.

Now what? he said, his voice mellowing as the floor became drier. I’m looking for a place to stay. The bus driver said.      

I mean what do you want for your feet? You can’t walk around barefoot. You get a sliver or something and sue me, I’ll lose all this. When he spread out his arms to encompass the room and its meager furnishings, I thought he might have been kidding; but I was afraid to laugh because sometimes all this, really is all this. This time it wasn’t.

That’s a joke, man, he said, his voice monotonic and low. This isn’t exactly San Simeone, is it?

It might have been. I had never heard of San Simeone, a fact he probably gathered from my silence.

"The Hearst Castle. Don’t you ever go to the movies? Citizen Kane. This ain’t that."

He flipped on an overhead light and erased many of the unsettling shadows, revealing some thin paint and pockmarked floor molding—just a room, serviceable if unspectacular. But the man himself, removed now from those shadows, was all angles and lines and furrows of varying depths. He might be handsome in the sunlight, but not in this room, not now.

I did see that movie, I said. This place looks fine to me. He dismissed my comment out of hand.

Very safe of you. I’m Walter Trucks. And you?

Cal Hopper, I said as I labored with the wet laces. Nice to meet you, Walt. "It’s Walter. People get comfortable with Walt, then it’s on to Wally. I don’t

like Wally. Nobody called Cronkite, Wally, did they? Maybe his friends did."

When we’re friends, we can revisit the topic.

He didn’t seem interested in shaking my hand. Maybe later, I thought, then decided that the custom did not require constant reinforcement. I wasn’t going to forget how, and the act itself signaled nothing permanent. After all, Natalie and I had done more than shake hands—we had shaken a number of body parts—and our semi-solemn agreement had not stopped her from dumping me when Donald, fresh from his rehab engagement in the asylum, came sniffing around.

You never answered my question, he said as he pointed at my feet, then to his own. I’ll get you some of these, he said.

Even now I have trouble describing what he wore without being unkind. They were slippers, house shoes I guess, but not moccasins, not something leathery and folksy and Western with rawhide laces and a comfy fur lining. These were scraps of brown cloth that had been stretched over a foot-shaped form and then stiffened somehow: they weren’t quite shoes but not quite socks either. My father had once owned a similar pair of these somethings and had practically lived in them for a year or two, but only in the nonjudgmental privacy of his home. Maybe I was right: Maybe I had walked into somebody’s residence.

He returned quickly and handed me a pair—a perfect match for his and still sealed in plastic.

Well, Cal Hopper, welcome to Sage. He handed me a towel. Dry off your feet and put these on.

These seem new.

They are new. It’s not a bowling alley. I slid them on.

That’s another joke, he said, or maybe a rhetorical question. Do you know what that means?

I used to be an English teacher. Does that mean you do or you don’t?

How can anyone not know what a rhetorical question is?

He paused for a beat.

That’s good, Cal, he said after that momentary delay, and he almost smiled. And listen, don’t worry, I ain’t selling those shoes. I have another couple dozen pair in the back.

Do you make them? I’m not Italian.

I just meant how could you have so many pairs of slippers? They’re stolen. What are you drinking?

They’re stolen?

He looked hurt. "Well I didn’t steal ‘em, but they’re definitely stolen. Couple three years ago a guy in a pickup came through here. He had all kinds of shit in the bed but he was hard up for cash. He had these slippers—cartons of them— handmade and imported he said. Wanted fifty bucks for the lot. I gave him twenty. They make nice gifts. They’re good slippers. Are you a shoe cop or something?"

I shook my head.

They’re comfortable, aren’t they? How about that drink?

The combination of the monotone and his rapid and seemingly disparate questions kept me off balance. Usually conversations have a pace of some sort; this one was like the whip at the carnival: either you hung on or the next turn slammed you back again, or worse, hurled you into the spectators. I tried to slow down the ride.

I’d rather eat something. I saw that sign in front. Which one?

I shrugged. Both of them. Why?

"The Lunch sign is bigger. I only hung up the smaller Good Food sign last week. Someone said it would increase business."

And here I am, I said. Am I too late for lunch. It’s dark out Cal. Nighttime. What do you think? How about the good food sign?

Night like this I’m amazed you saw that one. Ten to one it’s snowing on the ’Tooth.

You mean Beartooth, right?

He nodded. Three or four thousand feet up. It’s probably about fifteen, twenty degrees colder. You came in on that Boise bus. Brenda, right?

Nice lady, I said.

She’s all right. She’s single, you know. What do you want to eat?

I could have sworn she’d been wearing a wedding ring. Then of course, so was

I.

Come on, Cal. Something from the lunch menu? If you have one, yes.

"Don’t. How about the wine list? Shall I have the sommelier bring it out? I thought maybe he had the night off."

"So you know what a sommelier is and you didn’t know Hearst Castle. English

teacher."

He feigned disgust, but he was enjoying himself.

I don’t print up a menu, he said. Make a choice. What do you want? I don’t know. What do you have?

I can make you some eggs, I can grill you a hamburger, I got hot dogs, I got some baked ham that’s been in the fridge for a while but it ain’t turned green. I got some leftover pork chops I took home from the Wielands’ a few nights back. I got cereal, all kinds, hot and cold. I got spaghetti I can cook and a few jars of sauce I can open. I can make eggs, any kind. We got coffee, hot chocolate. I have beer and a half-opened bottle of red wine. Anything sound appealing?

The wine did, mainly because I felt that drinking enough of it might make the entrées palatable, might even make Walter Trucks seem congenial. Still, partly for the company, partly to stay dry, and partly because I knew they were difficult to mess up, I worked up some artificial enthusiasm at the prospect of fried eggs. He had mentioned them twice—maybe that was his understated specialty. When Walter said he had forgotten to mention the bacon, the offer actually seemed appealing, providing the bacon, like the ham, was not yet green.

You can sit at either table, Walter said. One of the wait staff will be with you shortly,

I sat at the closest table. You’ll find me here.

You catch on fast for an Easterner. Sit down. Food will be up in a minute. Did you say coffee?

Wine. How did you know I was from the East?

He pointed at my jacket That Bean label is a giveaway. I could have mail-ordered it.

He shook his head. You probably did. But I doubt the accent came in the same package. Fifty miles either side of Boston. Maybe twenty-five. I'm guessing south shore.

Actually Chatham, at the elbow of Cape Cod, is closer to eighty miles south and east of Boston, but I gave him some leeway and tried not to look too impressed.

I opened a merlot this afternoon, he said. How’s that sound? Sounds good.

His clothes flapped noiselessly behind him as he slipped through a doorway to—well to whatever room the food came from. To the left of that passageway were carpeted steps and an ornate balustrade leading up through a wallpapered stairwell. Some of the paper had curled a little at the edges, but I have always been taken by the idea of wallpaper. My parents (and I, when I became a homeowner) had been satisfied to slop paint on any room that began to look ratty. Wallpaper was for those living in some other universe—one into which I had suddenly been deposited.

So this was, in fact, the place where Walter Trucks lived, an old, but far from decrepit building that, a long time before, had been constructed and furnished with great attention to detail. The wainscoting, the scalloped woodwork, the swirled ceiling, the valances—everything was a throwback to the time when, as my father would say, workmanship meant something. It reminded me of the house where I grew up—a saltbox, battered season after season by nor’easters, but with an interior built and maintained by people who knew their craft, if not their wallpaper. No wonder Walter Trucks was so quick with those slippers: he was far less concerned with my feet than he was with those hardwood floors.

You want them fried eggs over easy? Yes, I said, that would be fine.

How about the wine? Want to give that a shot? It’s a merlot. I opened it this afternoon.

You asked me already.

You didn’t sound enthusiastic. I can give you coffee.

I’m excited by the prospect of merlot, I said and Walter Trucks smiled. Now that’s enthusiasm, he said. Do you like merlots?

My ex often said to me I would not know a merlot from a mermaid. You’re divorced?

Never married. Live with someone long enough and you’ve earned the right to call her your ex.

No argument here. The bottle even has a cork in it.

Must be good, I said, and took some napkins out of a chrome dispenser on my table—a card table really, one of two in the main dining room. Like mine the other was draped with a stiff white tablecloth and then covered with that thin plastic that’s marketed these days as a drop cloth in home improvement stores. The material has the heft of a moth’s wing, with a lot less visual appeal. But then aesthetics had probably not been a consideration when Walter decided to open a lunch or whatever this place was.

On a shelf nearby was a photograph, a brushed metal-framed monochromatic shot of several people and a fierce-looking Samoyed, all standing near a snowdrift. In the background was the building I had just entered, though I needed to see the place in the daylight to know for sure. The picture looked old and, even from a distance, seemed contrasty and grainy. But it was essentially unfaded, and when I looked more closely I saw traces of red in some of the clothing. Like so many winter pictures, the snow had overwhelmed it and sucked out the color: it only appeared black and white. I was pretty sure I could pick out a younger Walter Trucks looking a lot thicker in heavy winter clothing.

And there were more photographs, too, most of them leaning atop a mahogany armoire whose spherical feet and cornices had been worn away as randomly and efficiently as the wooden floors. The piece may have been an antique, but of the many topics of which I am absolutely ignorant, antiques would rank high. Still, given its familiarity and condition, I’d guess it was worth closer to a hundred dollars than ten thousand. Other photos, hardly bigger than wallet-sized in little matted frames, were scattered about the shelves of a breakfront so massive, it seemed the house would have to have been built around it.

Me and some friends in that picture, Walter said when he came back with the wine. I was visiting at Christmas, 1980. Right outside here, long before I bought the place.

I thought the exterior looked familiar. See that tree in the background?

I had noticed it—a decorated Christmas tree behind a multi-paned window. See the lights? Unusual, ain’t it?

Looks like a regular Christmas tree.

It’s a Fraser Fir if you really want to know. How old are you, Cal? I’m in my forties.

I’m sixty, he said. I’ll be sixty-one next March. Now, how old are you? Fifty.

A little fuzzy on the math, aren’t you? Fifty isn’t exactly ‘in the forties,’ is it? Fifty.

That’s better. All right, so in the seventies you were barely alive. Remember Nixon’s energy crisis?"

Read about it. My father said there was some fifty-five mile an hour speed limit nobody obeyed.

"It was Nixon’s energy crisis. And it was a national speed limit. Come on, Cal, what did you do, vote for the guy?"

I wasn’t old enough to even...

But you would have, right? Bet you were a Young Republican in elementary school.

In Massachusetts? Not likely.

In truth all I remember from my teens was finagling ways to drink beer and trying to figure out what was going on under Claudia Jennings’ halter top in Truck Stop Women. Those kinds of activities left little time to fritter away on politics. Later, when I did register, I voted Democratic like my parents. I seldom won, but it gave me the opportunity to bitch and moan in four-year increments, and that’s almost as good as winning.

Nixon, he said. Alternate days to buy gas. Lowered thermostats in the winter.

And no Christmas lights. My father told me that. But Nixon was long gone by ’80.

He showed me the picture again, pointed to a man in a knit cap.

The guy with the dog. Bobby Laughton. He owned this place. Laid back, easy going, but let some Washington crook tell him what to do and he’d just go off. Atheist—wouldn’t put a light on a pine tree if you paid him—until Nixon told him he couldn’t. Then the trees went up—Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. No matter how brown it got, he’d leave it in the window for spite. You can’t see it but he had a lighted manger too. It was his homage to the memory of Nixon. Try the wine.

He left, then came back with a filled plate, gave me a paper napkin and some utensils that looked clean enough, then walked away again. "Bon appétit."

Oddly enough, with him out of the room I felt disoriented. As much as he wanted me to think of the place as a restaurant, it just wasn’t one. And when he left I felt as though I had been invited somewhere for dinner, then abandoned by the host.

I could hear him moving things around in the kitchen. Walter, why don’t you join me.

Already ate, he yelled Have some wine then.

Already drank. I try to have one glass a day; much more than that and I’m pretty useless.

And you have a lot to do tonight? Setting up for a bar mitzvah? Senior prom?

There was a brief silence while he mulled the possibilities, then came back to the table.

All right, Cal. I will have another half glass of this MER-lut.

He poured some into a large coffee mug. Natalie would have railed at him for drinking wine out of something ceramic: I felt a growing admiration for the guy.

So whatever happened to this Laughton guy? I said. Oh, Walter said, he passed a few years back.

He was quite a bit older than you, seems like, I said, at least in the picture. I guess, he said. Never thought about it much.

He held up the mug and I thought we were toasting the memory of his old friend, but instead he just shook his head. I’m going to have to buy a few more wine glasses, he said. Must have broken a few over the years. Of course, the mug holds more.

And it tastes just as good, I said, a little slap at Natalie wherever she was and an agreement that we were finished talking about Bobby Laughton.

I started in on the eggs.

4

There was still the question of finding a place to stay, and Walter—though he had agreed to dine with me—spent most of his time shuffling back and forth to the kitchen. Maintaining a dialogue was difficult, and to make matters worse, the wind would occasionally rise and rattle a window or two, diverting the conversation again.

Dry as cinder all month, he said, Season’s changing I guess. Hope you brought warmer clothes.

I’m traveling light. Figured to buy what I needed. Uh huh. Well, that’s a plan I guess.

Another gust drew our attention.

Wish I hadn’t hung that sign, he said. "Probably find it in Wyoming tomorrow. Where are you staying?"

I was going to ask about that. The motel, I said, with extravagant confidence, hoping to deflect another sympathetic response like Brenda’s. I must have been successful: Walter merely nodded. And he kept nodding—one of those that’s what you think nods.

It seemed dark over there before, I said, more to fill in his silence than to convey any information.

Usually is. Mrs. O’Leary doesn’t waste a lot of lights. More of a candle person.

Is she related to the Chicago Mrs. O’Leary? The one with the lantern and the cow? I think she was a candle person too until she burned down the city.

First off it was a lantern, and second it never happened. More important, if you’d like a room there, you probably don’t want to remind her of that connection, he said. It’s been played.

But the candles… Played.

Does she have a first name? Mrs.

No, seriously…

Mrs. O’Leary. She likes it that way.

How well do you know her? Pretty well.

And what do you call her?

I call her Mrs. O’Leary, same as everybody else. Is there a Mr. O’Leary?

Was once; ain’t no more. Dead?

Not as far as I know, but I’m not nosy. Divorced?

You a renter or a biographer?

The smile that accompanied that jab didn’t entirely mask a bit of pique. I backed off.

She sounds pretty independent, I said.

We’re all pretty independent. Look at you, traipsing through a strange town, totally unprepared for the elements and without a place to stay. Isn’t that independence?

I was headed for California.

"So you avoided the cliché—good for you. Brenda warned you I’ll bet. Mrs.

O’Leary is pretty particular about who she rents to. So it’s more of a rooming house?"

No, it’s a motel. She just chooses her guests, same way I could have refused you service when you came in here tonight. I’m a small business owner, so is she.

But there are laws, I said, discrimination laws.

He examined me with a clinical gaze. And what minority do you represent, wet tourists without shoes?

Maybe, yes, in a strange town without a place to stay.

Walter rubbed his chin. I’m not sure if that’s a registered minority. A lawyer could probably give you more information, but you couldn’t find one of those until tomorrow, and that wouldn’t solve your current problem.

So I can’t get a room there?

I’ll tell you what, he said, as he noisily bused some dishes from the table, bring up the cow thing I’d say there’s a real good chance you won’t. Of course, if I was to go with you, she might reconsider.

So you’d be my character reference?

You seem like a decent enough fella, just a little confused about your travel plans.

He sat down again, smiled and swished his wine.

I figure this way. he said. Coming to a strange town without a place to stay makes you an optimist and there aren’t many of them around—not at your age. For that reason alone I’d vouch for you. Besides, you may need a character witness when she smells that liquor on your breath.

Which you gave me.

He shook his head gravely. You ain’t gonna fool her.

I don’t want to fool her. Is she some kind of prohibitionist?

He said no, but it didn’t matter. The image of Mrs. O’Leary was crystallizing with excruciating detail: a character out of Southern fiction perhaps—some quirky, withered, creaky old recluse from a Faulkner gothic by way of Poe or Flannery O’Connor, a throwback safely sequestered in a bygone era. American fiction was filled with them—tee-totaling spinsters unwilling and ultimately unable to adjust to the modern world, living an interior life while making only small and begrudging concessions to the current century. She had probably murdered her husband, or secretly given birth to an illegitimate child. Probably both—on the same day. And of course the husband’s body was stored in the larder while the child—now probably college-age—was imprisoned inside a secret compartment adjacent to a hidden room behind a disappearing staircase. Not only did I know Mrs. O’Leary; I’d discussed her in my classroom. People like that had to exist; otherwise, authors wouldn’t write about them.

Even so, I didn’t want Walter accompanying me to the Widow O’Leary’s. Nothing shouts failure more than having struck out on my own, then requiring assistance just to rent a room. (Of course I wasn’t sure if she was in fact a widow, but the sound had a nifty nineteenth century literature feel.)

I sort of need to make my own way.

One of them there independence things. Yeah, I get it. Hey, you made it this far already. Another couple of feet should be easy.

I’ll give it a shot.

He cleared off the table. Come back when she says no. You mean if.

I don’t often confuse those two words, he said with a grin. But hey, she doesn’t turn in much before 11:00. Dark as it was there, you still have time.

He picked up my empty wine glass and his mug. Let me give you a hand with those, I said.

Walter shook his head. Res-taur-ant, remember? I clear the table: you pay for the meal.

Jesus, I said. I was genuinely embarrassed. What do I owe you? You got a ten we’ll call it square. Tip and shoes included.

I’ve got a twenty if you have change.

Well let’s see, and he opened his wallet, if I take all the money I made from all my other customers tonight and put it all together

I stopped him from shuffling through the empty compartments. I had a better idea.

What if I give you a twenty and I’ll just borrow against it, use it like a meal ticket. There doesn’t seem to be anyplace else to eat around here.

That’s one hell of a testimonial, Walter said, smiling. How about you eat here one more time and I’ll take the twenty. If you do survive the night, you’ll need breakfast. Then by the time the bus comes back…hell, you’ll burn through forty bucks in no time.

Then take it now. What’s the difference?

The difference is it’s my restaurant and I can choose to collect my money any way I want. Besides, if you haven’t prepaid, it’s easier to refuse you service the next time you come sloshing in here wearing wet shoes.

I laughed a little too loudly—it was probably the wine. The motel owner won’t put me up and the restaurant owner won’t feed me. Is this the way things go in Sage? Just a little bizarre?

Yeah, I guess, about as bizarre as someone dressed for summer stepping off a bus in the middle of the night and standing out in the snow with running shoes that end up weighing about ten pounds each. And I believe I already mentioned the ‘no place to stay’ part. I gotta tell you, Cal, a prisoner making an impulsive escape has a better plan than that. Is that what you did? Escape from prison?

It wasn’t really the middle of the night, and it’s not snowing. I don’t hear you denying the prison. State or federal?

Never been arrested.

Then you’re running from something. Jilted girlfriend? Angry husband? Homeland Security? You said you have an ex. Does she know it or does she have some gumshoe out looking for you?

Gumshoe?

You grasp my meaning. None of those.

Wow, he said with a broad grin, if that’s true I think we found your minority. The man with nothing to hide. Looks like you’ll be able to sue for that room after all.

The triumphant smirk annoyed me—and so did the angry husband reference. I wasn’t running from one—I was one, almost. But that fact had less to do with Walter Trucks than it did with Natalie. To Walter’s credit, he seemed to know he was getting under my skin and that I’d probably had enough. After all, he had won the oratory segment of the evening’s competition and had acquitted himself well enough in food preparation. There was little left to prove.

Look, he said, sounding more conciliatory, are we all right with the meal plan?

It’s fine, Mr. Trucks.

Mr. Trucks, huh? I guess I pissed you off. I didn’t say anything.

I was just having a little fun with you. You don’t look like a convict. And call me Walter. She’s Mrs. O’Leary but I’m Walter. There ain’t that many people in this town: if you’re going to stay here, you may as well learn some names.

I didn’t say I was going to stay.

Okay, I guess I assumed it. Not many people actually stop here on the way to somewhere else.

Why not?

’Cause there are always easier ways to get somewhere else. Anyway, you can’t go over to see her wearing those wet running shoes. She won’t let you in. She’s nowhere near as tolerant as I am.

He stood, walked back to the slipper room, and emerged with a pair of brown penny loafers, the kind I last wore in college when some girl I was lusting after told me she liked them. Of course when I finally figured out she was never going to go out with me, first thing I did was throw them away. Second thing was to pick

them out of the wastebasket in case she ever called. Now, a mere three decades later, I would have another pair to meet another somewhat older girl who was also not going to give me what I wanted. That circle of life crap may be true after all.

He gestured toward my duffel bag. Got any dark socks in there? White looks ugly, plus yours are wet.

I told him I did. Navy, I think, or black. Half the time I can’t tell the difference. Good, these shoes are size 10, fits most normal feet.

I’m a ten and a half.

He looked down. Like I said. If you like ’em, pay me later. I got more. "I suppose there’s a story behind this pair of