The Front Porch Prophet (32 page)

“They were superb, Hog,” A.J. replied. Hoghead beamed.

“How about that turkey pie?” the old cook asked, pumping for just one more compliment.

“I’ve never had better.”

A.J. maintained his post and monitored the exodus. There were handshakes given, compliments offered, and pleasantries exchanged as the guests left, each as full as a tick on a hound’s ear. Finally, everyone had departed except for Eudora and Carlisle. A.J., Maggie, and John Robert sat in the darkened parlor and watched the fire prance. They sipped the coffee that John Robert had brewed.

“Good Thanksgiving,” John Robert noted.

“Yes, it was,” agreed Maggie. A.J. nodded.

“Did you try Estelle’s lime Jell-O?” the elder Longstreet asked of no one in particular.

“Uh-uh,” said Maggie.

“I wanted to be sure there was enough for our guests,” A.J. said. John Robert chuckled.

“Well, somebody ate most of it,” he said.

“I need to check with Charnell,” A.J. observed. “We may be liable.” They sat quietly for a while. Then he yawned.

“I think you may need a nap,” Maggie offered. She looked at him. Then she looked at the crack in the ceiling.

“I think a nap may be just the thing,” he agreed. It was the perfect ending to a mostly flawless day, a Thanksgiving Day to remember.

A.J. STOOD IN THE CLEARING ON EUGENE’S MOUNTAIN
and warmed his hands at the fire. It was a wintry day, New Year’s Day, and arctic air scoured the mountain. His breath steamed in the lengthening shadows as he inched closer to the blaze. Rufus sat next to him but offered no belligerence, an oddity over and above the general dementia of the day. This passivity was just as well, since A.J. was unarmed. The venerable Louisville Slugger was accidental fuel for the flames before him, a bad way for a fine piece of ash to go. The small inferno sizzled and popped, mingling orange, yellow, and blue. Somber smoke drifted skyward.

He shuddered and took a small sip from the bottle he had brought for Eugene. The spirit burned all the way down, amber solace for a bleak day. He sighed and squatted, forearms resting on thighs in the manner of old men whittling. He held up the bottle in salute before sitting back cross-legged on the hard-packed dirt.

“Well,” he said quietly to Eugene, who did not answer, being otherwise occupied burning up in the cabin. It had been a long and tiring outing, and A.J. was beset with weariness. But the vigil was over, and Eugene’s time of travail was past. He had cruised the tributary, had caught the big cable car. He was now up close and personal with whatever awaited the departed.

A.J.’s mind traipsed back to the day after Thanksgiving, when he had brought a movable feast to the woebegone boys in the clearing—turkey and ham, dressing, boiled carrots, green beans, ajar of gravy, two pies, the remainder of the lime Jell-O for color, some Swedish meatballs, and one of Eugene’s absolute favorites, deviled eggs. Eugene was sitting in the clearing in the La-Z-Boy warming his toes at the fire when A.J. arrived. He looked rough.

“If that’s food, I don’t want any,” he said, gesturing at the plate. A.J. removed the foil wrapper and carefully selected a deviled egg. He popped it whole into his mouth and savored the morsel before speaking.

“I brought the dinner for Wormy,” he said as he placed the plate of eggs in Eugene’s lap. “I brought these for you.” Eugene hesitated a moment before choosing one of his own.

“This doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with you,” he mumbled around a mouthful of egg.

“Well, then, give it back,” A.J. said, reaching for the plate. Eugene shifted sideways to protect his treasure. His left hand came out from under the blanket with a .45 caliber automatic pistol, which he rested lightly on his lap next to the eggs.

“Expecting an attack?” A.J. asked.

“I just want to be ready in case the South rises again.”

They fell silent, and after a few minutes, Eugene fell asleep. A.J.

slipped the tray of eggs from his grasp and relocated all of the food to the kitchen. He wondered why Wormy and Rufus hadn’t been standing their watch when he arrived. He walked back to the middle of the clearing and chunked up the fire, then sat next to his sleeping brother. Suddenly, Eugene startled awake. His eyes were wild, and he looked pale and afraid.

“Easy,” A.J. said. The dramatic awakening had caught him by surprise.

“Shit,” Eugene said, voice quavering. He fumbled for the ever present bottle of bourbon and took an extended drink, then another. After a moment, he calmed.

“Bad dream?” A.J. asked, giving voice to the obvious.

“Real bad dream,” Eugene replied. He pulled back the slide on the .45 and checked his load. Satisfied, he placed the pistol back in his lap. “I’ve been dreaming about being dead. I don’t like it.”

A.J. nodded, granting the point of view. He wondered about the pistol, though. It was as if Eugene were awaiting an adversary, a physical entity he could fight. A.J. had no doubt that if the Grim Reaper walked into the clearing right now, Eugene would blow off both of his kneecaps before sending Rufus in to finish the job. Under those conditions the odds would be in Eugene’s favor, but it wasn’t going to work like that. Death would steal in like a mist on a moonless night. There was no defense. The fix was in, and no one got out alive.

“Do you think there’s a heaven?” Eugene asked. A.J. was unsure how to respond. He didn’t anticipate streets paved with gold, but he did believe in a reality after this one where the life force gathered. His grandmother was there now, and his mother. So he knew what he believed, but he didn’t know if it was what Eugene needed to hear.

“I think we go somewhere else when we finish here,” he said. “I’m not so sure it’s like the Bible says.”

“So you don’t think the Bible is right?” Eugene asked. “You don’t think God judges us, punishes and rewards us?” He seemed extremely interested, no doubt due to the fact that he would very soon be finding out for himself the true nature of the greater mysteries. A.J. groaned inwardly. Why in hell was Eugene consulting him on these matters? He ought to be talking to the Reverend Doctor Jensen McCarthy or someone else of like mind. Even Hoghead would be a better source of information on the mystic realms, once the menu was weeded out.

“I don’t know, Eugene,” he said, floundering. “I think that if there is a God like the one in the Bible, then there are too many things I can’t explain. How can He let a tornado wipe out a church full on Easter morning? How can He let a shit head like Hitler annihilate His chosen people? How can He allow a drunk driver to kill a baby?” These were the questions of the ages, and A.J. couldn’t answer them.

“You’re a lot of damn help,” Eugene noted.

“You’re asking the wrong guy,” he said lamely. “Do you want me to get a preacher up here?” It was a sincere offer. He was willing to go and bring one back by force, if necessary. Surely he could find a man of the cloth. If nothing else, he could hide at a church and grab the first one that came up.

“No.” Eugene looked at him. “I think it’s kind of like you think it is. There’s something after here, but I don’t know what. As for the Bible, there are a lot of things in there I can’t buy either. I guess everyone takes it as true because it’s so old. Hell, I bet if you buried a
Penthouse
for two thousand years, someone would think
it
was sacred when you dug it up.”

“Wormy thinks it’s sacred now,” A.J. pointed out. He had no illusions that they had solved the Big Imponderable, but Eugene seemed to feel better as a result of the conversation. “Speaking of Wormy, where is he?” A.J. asked. “And Rufus?”

“They went hunting.” Eugene settled back in the La-Z-Boy.

“It’ll be squirrel stew for you, this evening,” A.J. observed. Eugene hated squirrel about as much as he loved deviled eggs.

“Wormy never shoots anything,” Eugene said. “He just likes to walk around in the woods.” Shots rang from the west. A.J. looked at Eugene.

“Squirrel stew,” he said.

“I’ll eat the eggs,” came the response.

A.J.’s mind snapped to the present, to the cold New Year’s Day in front of the remains of a burning cabin. The blare of a siren and the roar of an engine under strain indicated visitors. He arose from his station on the ground, peeved at the intrusion. The last thing he wanted was a dose of Honey Gowens and the fire brigade, but the encounter was inevitable. The fire truck thundered into the clearing piloted by Honey and manned by Skipper Black, Luther Barnette, Ellis Simpson, and Hoghead, who had shut down the Jesus Is the Reason for the $3.99 Mexican Feast Drive-In when the call to action came. The wagon rolled to a halt and Honey and Hoghead leaped from the cab. Slower to respond were Skipper, Luther, and Ellis, who were nearly frozen and mostly beaten to pieces. Hanging on the back was good duty in the summer months, but the spots were less coveted during the cold season.

“We saw the smoke from town!” Honey yelled breathlessly as he yanked at a hose reel. Hoghead was shrugging into his fireman’s coat, and the boys on the back were grimacing as they slowly disembarked.

“Hold up, Honey,” A.J. said. “It’s a total loss. Let it go.” It didn’t seem decent to wash Eugene’s remains into the woods.

“I don’t know,” Honey replied, looking skeptical. He was not a man to go home dry when he had come to shoot water.

“Let it go, Honey,” A.J. repeated. Honey looked at his grim demeanor. Then he looked at the cabin. Slow reality dawned on the careworn quencher of flame.

“Shit,” he said quietly. “Was he in there?”

“He’s still in there,” A.J. said. “It was burning when I got here. I guess he was smoking in bed. I couldn’t get him out.” This version was not the gospel truth but was fairly close by some standards, and there was no sense in burdening Honey with details that would make him unhappy.

“Damn,” Honey said quietly. There was not much else to say.

“I’m going to stay here until it burns out,” A.J. said. “How about sending Red Arnold up here when you get back to town.”

“What about Slim?” Honey asked.

“God, no,” A.J. said. He pointed at the wreckage. “You can see the bus now. I don’t want him trying to arrest Eugene’s ashes.” Honey nodded. The motor coach had slipped his mind.

“You want me to stay with you?” Hoghead asked

“No, but I appreciate the offer. I’ll stay here with the dog until Red comes.” It was decent of Hoghead to volunteer, but A.J. needed solitude. The fire brigade reloaded and departed without incident, although the three junior members of the corps looked a mite mutinous as they began the return leg of their excursion. Alone again, A.J. squatted back down on the hard-packed red clay. His mind took flight and came to ground eight days earlier in the same clearing. He had journeyed up on Christmas Eve to wish the boys well. Eugene was pretty much dead by that point and knew it, but life is a hard habit to break, so he lingered on.

Since Thanksgiving, Eugene had taken several giant steps in the direction of the Fun Home. First, there were hard bouts of nausea. Then there was incontinence. Finally, the pain quit sand-dancing and heaved its grisly head in earnest. With each new development, A.J. rushed to Doc Miller for the cure. Doc repeatedly reached into his bag of tricks, but he had to reach deeper each time. But Eugene’s torment was stubborn and would not abate.

“I need more morphine,” A.J. told Doc a week prior to Christmas Eve. The old doctor raised his eyebrows.

“What are you doing, washing him in it?” he asked testily.

“No, I’m not washing him in it,” A.J. replied in kind. “Tell you what. Come on up and listen to him moan awhile. Come listen to him scream when he sleeps too long and the pain wakes him up. Then tell me we’re giving him too much.” It was a bad day for Doc to be calling the tough ones from the cheap seats.

“He can’t survive a higher dosage,” Doc said stubbornly.

“And the downside is?” A.J. asked. He found the conversation frustrating. “He’s in bad pain. Nobody is trying to kill him. Just give me the damn stuff.” He stopped and took a deep breath. Doc was not the enemy. “Please,” he said. Doc sighed and left the room. When he returned, he carried a small white paper sack.

“There’s enough in here to put an army mule permanently out to pasture,” he said. “Don’t give him a drop more than he needs to stay out of trouble.” He massaged the bridge of his nose. “Christ,” he said, almost to himself. “If there’s ever an autopsy, we’ll both be in jail.”

“There won’t be,” A.J. said quietly.

So it was with Doc’s consent but not necessarily his blessing that Eugene’s pain medication was increased. Thankfully, the result was not immediate death followed by autopsy and imprisonment. Rather, Eugene just slept most of the time, a deep, restful slumber. And this was what A.J. was expecting when he arrived on Christmas Eve morning. He pulled up next to a tired-looking Wormy warming his hands in front of a much abbreviated fire in the middle of the clearing. Eugene had not been out of bed in two weeks and would not likely arise again, but Wormy was not one to alter custom. So the fire persisted, but the La-Z-Boy remained empty.

“Rough night?” A.J. asked, handing Wormy the cup of coffee he had brought.

“Rough as a night in the Waycross jail,” Wormy responded quietly.

“Is he asleep?” A.J. asked.

“Yeah, he’s asleep.” Wormy sipped his coffee.

“Why don’t you take a break?” A.J. suggested. “I’ll stay with him.” He had big doings coming up later in the day, but Wormy needed relieving. The Christmas Eve festivities would have to wait until after he stood his watch. Maggie was heading up Christmas this year anyway. Eugene’s waning days had left A.J. with very little Yuletide spirit.

“Was the drive-in open when you came through?” Wormy inquired.

“That’s where I got the coffee.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go get a little breakfast.”

“Go eat,” A.J. said. “Sit and tell a few lies with Hoghead.” Wormy nodded.

Gratitude was etched on his features as he headed for town. A.J. entered the cabin to check on Eugene and was surprised to find him wide awake and staring at the ceiling. He looked over and produced a bare hint of a smile. The effect was grotesque on his emaciated features.