The Front Porch Prophet (25 page)

“No,” A.J. replied. “He intends to die up on his mountain. That’s his business, I guess. I just feel bad about leaving him in a drug-induced coma with the dog in charge.”

“No, that doesn’t seem right,” Maggie agreed. She was in her cotton nightgown, looking better than she had any business looking after all their years in tandem. She continued. “I believe it has fallen to you to help look after him. This may even be the reason for you losing your job.” She always sought the ultimate meaning of the universe, the Big Plan. “Think about it,” she said. “Out of nowhere, you hear from Eugene, and he’s dying. Then you lose your job.
Then
you find out he’s your brother.” She shrugged.

“It does seem a little neat, but I don’t know,” A.J. said. His personal belief system tended toward the Random Cruelty school, but what she said did exhibit a nice sense of order. And he did feel responsible for Eugene. “So, what should I do? Move up there? Come see you when it’s over?” He was unenthusiastic about the idea.

“Absolutely not,” she replied. “There are other people in this besides you. Angel. Jackie. Diane. Even Johnny Mack. If the time has come for someone to be with him all the time, then I think you need to talk to his family about taking turns. If nothing else, you could hire some help. He has plenty of money, and he can’t take it with him.” As was often the case, Maggie’s grasp of the situation was superior to A.J.’s. He began considering the problems associated with full-time care for Eugene.

On Monday morning, he left the Folly with the full intention of bringing the remainder of the Purdues into the loop, but his plans were delayed when Truth Hannassey decided for some aberrant reason to kill Estelle Chastain’s dog, Plug, by dropping a Nationally Historic Porch on him. The offending entryway fell off the front of the Nationally Historic House that Truth was relocating by helicopter from property she intended to develop. She had retained a company out of Charlotte that rented helicopters piloted by wild-eyed worthies who had gained their credentials under fire in tropical latitudes.

When A.J. stepped into the yard, he could hear the whop-whop-whop of the blades beating the air as the helicopter strained across the sky. He could see the conveyance in the distance, the house dangling beneath. It was more of a small cabin, but even so, the helicopter appeared to be toiling mightily in an attempt to remain aloft. A.J. could see that the porch was sagging as the house slowly revolved on its cable. Then it drooped a bit more. Finally, it simply separated from the house and plunged Plugward. Gravity was running true to form, and the notable veranda crossed the distance between
up
and
down
in short order.

Plug had not been an attractive animal even before he broke the porch’s fall. He was a homely little hound, named after the proverbial fireplug because he was squat and leaky. He was also cranky, loud, and obnoxious, but Estelle loved him, and love is not always neat or explainable. When the Historic Porch landed on Plug, it flattened him right into the next universe, a bad but quick way to get there. A.J. saw the entire incident from thirty yards away, and he arrived at the tragedy in a bare moment. He was too late to save the dog or the porch, but he had a ringside seat for the aftermath.

Estelle had spent most of her life as a widow, and during her time alone she became eccentric and set in her ways. Her husband, Parm, had died for no apparent reason years previously after first surviving the Hun. He just went to bed one night and neglected to wake up the following morning. A.J. held the theory that he had simply lost the desire to continue and had willed his breathing to cease.

“The man survived everything the Axis could throw at him,” he once observed to Maggie. “Lived through bombs, tanks, and prison camp, but Estelle did him in.”

“Hush,” Maggie had replied.

So Estelle’s years alone had been abundant and prolonged. Somewhere along the way, she began to obsess on the idea of being robbed and raped by some itinerant or other, hopefully one resembling Tyrone Power. To protect herself from this eventual certainty, she armed herself with a variety of large shotguns. These were loaded, ready for mayhem, and propped at strategic locations throughout the Chastain household. Estelle believed she would be overcome when the moment ultimately arrived, but honor dictated that she put up a decent struggle before the sanctity of her private areas was disturbed.

She was standing that morning next to the largest of these shotguns when she gazed out her screen door and noticed a porch on her dog. Perhaps she believed that this was the prelude to rape—foreplay in the rough-and-ready style. Or maybe she concluded the evil Hun had once again arisen, threatening democracy and dogs everywhere. For whatever reason, she grabbed the shotgun, ran outdoors, aimed in a generally
up
direction, and let fly. Normally, Estelle couldn’t hit the water if she fell out of the boat. But the pattern flew tight and true and struck the helicopter.

When the blast impacted the big helicopter, Vernon L. “Wormy” Locklear relied on the quick instincts that had saved his bacon on numerous occasions over in Nam. His reflexes did not seem in the least diminished by the pint of Old Granddad he had consumed that morning, and he jinked to the right and dove when he came under fire. He had historically enjoyed great success with this maneuver, but he found that attempting the strategy with a house in tow brought complications. Specifically, the dive, once commenced, was impossible to pull out of. The helicopter was overloaded to begin with, and the necessary horsepower was not available. Wormy would have been lost but for one stroke of luck; his brother-in-law, Meat-head, had rigged the load. Meathead’s nickname was not the result of an idle whim, and what he didn’t know about slinging a house for transport by air was considerable. So it was not particularly surprising when the house, for want of more technical terminology, fell off the rope and alighted in the road north of town.

And that was where Slim entered the picture. He was on routine patrol just north of town when a log cabin came to earth on the highway right in front of him. The dwelling split in two upon its sudden contact with the asphalt, and he put the cruiser into the living room before he could get stopped. He clambered out of his car with sidearm drawn, ready to inflict punishment upon the scofflaw who had gotten the drop on him. Wormy, however, had bigger fish than Slim to fry. The loss of the house had gained him very little in terms of control. The helicopter lurched toward starboard, putting it on a collision course with the ridge north of town. It clawed at the sky, fishtailing back and forth as it disappeared behind the ridge. A.J. listened for the crash, but the sound never came. He hoped the pilot had regained altitude.

Back at the dog killing, Estelle came out to the landing zone after reloading Old Betsy. She viewed the wreckage with composure at first, but her calm dissolved into rage and misery when she spotted Plug’s paw sticking out from under the Historic Pile of Lumber that was once a porch.

“I’ll kill them!” she wailed, waving her shotgun like a divining rod. She was not specific as to the identity of
them,
but it was A.J.’s opinion that
they
would be wise to lay low.

“I think you may already have,” replied A.J., recalling the erratic deportment of the helicopter as it descended behind the ridge. He eased the shotgun from her grasp.

“Do you think it hurt?” she asked as she viewed the remains, referring to the dog, presumably, and not the helicopter. She squatted down and touched the paw.

“I guarantee you that he didn’t feel a thing,” A.J. kindly replied. “When my time comes, I hope a porch falls on
me.”
He was not good with this kind of thing.

“I can’t believe you said that,” Maggie whispered in his ear when she came up. She gave him an urgent jab in the ribs with her elbow. Then she moved over to Estelle and gave her a hug. Estelle sobbed quietly as Maggie led her to the Folly for a cup of tea and a little sympathy.

“Don’t worry,” he hollered after them. “I’ll take care of this.” He reviewed the problem for a moment and then went for his truck and some tools. His plan was to haul it all—lock, stock, porch, and dog—to the landfill for a decent burial. He had just gotten the tailgate lowered when Truth Hannassey rolled up in her Mercedes convertible.

“What is that porch doing there?” she demanded. The implication appeared to be that A.J. was in some way responsible, that he had willed the porch to earth.

“It seems to be holding down that dog,” he said, pointing at the rubble. “If you’d like, I can hook a chain to it and haul it over to the house.” He gestured at the roadway. Truth looked in that direction and blanched. She had been so intent on the side issue of the porch that she had overlooked the main event in the highway.

“Oh, shit,” she said.

“I think your helicopter went down behind the ridge,” he volunteered helpfully, hiking his thumb in the direction of the whirlybird’s last known location. “You probably want to report that to the police.” He again pointed at the house. “You’ll find him up in your house. He plowed into it when it landed in front of him.” He paused, and then continued. “He gets touchy, sometimes. Don’t come up on his blind side.” Truth sizzled. She was so enraged he thought he might be in danger of being whacked. Then she seemed to regain her composure a little, and after taking two deep breaths she motored toward the highway to check on her real estate investments. A.J. climbed into his truck and drove toward the last observed position of the helicopter. Neither the Historic Porch nor Plug would be going anywhere, and it had occurred to him that
someone
ought to be looking after the downed transport.

A.J. found the helicopter sitting in the middle of the county road on the other side of the ridge. The landing gear looked bent, and so did the pilot. He was crouched in the open doorway, steadying his nerves with Old Granddad. The aroma of hydraulic fluid pervaded the scene.

“I hate it when this shit happens,” the man confided in A.J. “Call me Wormy.”

“I wouldn’t think it happened that often,” A.J. observed, his untrained eye checking for signs of trouble, such as fuel pouring out of a rupture or flames dancing within.

“This is my fifth time,” Wormy quipped. He tossed the empty pint bottle into the woods.

“House moving must be a rough business,” A.J. concluded. After further discussion, it turned out that the other four times had been over the Mekong Delta, random occurrences orchestrated by dedicated employees of that wily rascal, Ho Chi Minh.

“I sort of thought I was through being shot down,” Wormy said ruefully, as if he were ashamed. “You don’t know who got me, do you?” It was an odd question, but it seemed important to the downed flyer, a pride issue, perhaps, or something to do with insurance. The man was looking at A.J. with anxiety etched on his features.

“Crazy guy who lives across the ridge,” A.J. lied. He could not say why. “Ex-Marine. Shoots stuff down all the time.” It was not a convincing fabrication, but Wormy had been softened up by near death and plenty of alcohol and was not a tough crowd. He nodded, as if he knew several guys just like that. Good boys, but a little hasty on the trigger.

“Real badass, huh?” he asked with a grin. He apparently liked being taken out by the best. A.J.’s hunch was correct. It would have been cruel to inform the pilot he had been aced by a little old lady in a fit of revenge over a squashed pooch. He had undergone enough already. They decided that the helicopter would be fine where it was. It required repair to make it airworthy, and Wormy needed to check with his boss now that the load had become kindling.

“You think somebody’ll hit it, sitting there?” Wormy asked as they climbed into the truck. A.J. perused the landing site. The machine was sitting on a straight stretch of road and was far enough off the shoulder to allow vehicles to pass one at a time.

“I only know one person who would be in any danger of hitting it,” A. J. replied. “And she’s tied up right now with a dog problem.” He fired up the truck, and they headed for a phone.

“Dog too mean?” asked Wormy conversationally. He was fishing around unsuccessfully for something to smoke. A.J. removed a pack from over the visor and tucked it into Wormy’s pocket.

“Dog too flat,” he responded. Wormy nodded his head as if he understood just how much trouble a flat dog could be.

A.J. drove to the broken cabin and arrived just in time to witness the culmination of a misunderstanding between Truth and Slim. The problem revolved around two issues, the first being the house in the road and the second being the car in the house. Neither made Slim happy, and he could not seem to convey the extent of his unhappiness to Truth. Admittedly, it may have been his presentation, which was limited to stammering with rage while waving a loaded gun. Still, A.J. could see what Slim wanted as soon as he drove up.

He got out of the truck and sauntered over to the point of impact. He made plenty of noise as he came near; he didn’t want to end up dead just because the skittish gendarme was having a mood. He squatted and looked up under the cruiser, then hollered to Wormy to bring the log chain from the back of the pickup. They attached one end to A.J.’s truck and the other to Slim’s patrol car, and they had the cruiser extracted from its historic garage in no time. A.J. unhooked the chain from both vehicles and tossed it into the back of the truck. Slim was still waving his pistol and mouthing soundless words, but he seemed to be recovering from the conniption.

“There, Slim,” A.J. said pleasantly. “You can have your car back. I don’t know what we’re going to do about this house, though. Maybe Johnny Mack can push it out of the way with his dozer.” It sounded like an expedient plan, but it upset Truth.

“You can’t just push my house out of the way with a bulldozer!” She folded her arms. “This is a National Historic Dwelling!” A.J., Slim, and Wormy all looked at the remains of the house.

“It’s in pretty bad shape,” A.J. said.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” She turned to Wormy, who was exhibiting the post-disaster flush of someone proud to be requiring oxygen. “Rig it back up, get your helicopter, and let’s get back to work! I’m paying good money for nothing right now.” Wormy smiled disarmingly and gave her a full-body shrug.