Warpath

“Right.” Clevenger smiles some, looks back at his grandfather. His face relaxes into sadness. Another streak of lightning overhead races along on its electric highway, booming like a Howitzer.

Willibald sits in a wheelchair, dressed nicer now than any other time in life. Still. Hands resting in his lap, comforting one another. Breathing in and out because that is all he knows how to do now. All but a few dedicated people have left him to his thoughts.

Molly’s hair snaps in the wind; fingers from the wind playing like catty bitches trying to muss up the prettiest girl out there. She holds Willibald’s arm and rests her head against his shoulder. All I can see is that man as a young soldier, being steadfast for that French woman he avenged. I wonder if her head laid on his shoulder the same.

I walk beside Clevenger, staring at that sight. “He’s strong.”

“He’s lost.”

“Yes.”

“You think he’ll be a widower long?”

“No.”

“I feel like a small man, or even a bastard for saying this,” Clevenger says. A deep breath. He rubs his eyes, looks away. “I don’t want him to be.”

“He’s lived a long life,” I say. “He’s made his mark. His legacy. He’s fought evil, he’s saved lives. He’s made a home and a family. He’s passed on everything he’s learned. What he found when he arrived, he either left intact or better when he left. Don’t feel small. His circle is coming complete. When those two ends meet, be there to tell him to go. Anything else would be petty.”

I put my hand on Clevenger’s shoulder. Squeeze. “And you’re not petty.”

A long time passes as the storm clouds gather their troops overhead. “Thank you.”

I look along the edge of the cemetery. Another funeral way off. Headstones scattered about. Acres of folks with nothing better to do than leave their families behind in this life. An occasional tree reaches up to the sky, calling out for a precious drink of water.

I shuffle along, cars pulling out into the street. Across the way I see a young man standing there, hands in his pockets. Hat cocked off to the side; brim as flat as a carpenter’s wet dream. He stares on in our direction for a moment, then a crowd of mourners passes between him and my line of sight and he’s gone.

I shrug it off. Punks and thugs are everywhere I look right now when I’m with Willibald and Graham.

“See a ghost?” Graham asks.

I shrug. See Molly and Willibald stopped up ahead, talking with friends of the family. “Nah. I’m seeing things in the shadows.”

“Yeah. You’re seeing ghosts.”

“I worry they’re real.”

A thunderclap rips across the sky. I see raindrops. Slow in a wide pattern. But they have intent. I nod to Graham, “Let’s get your grandfather before the sky does.”

15

Back at my place on the third floor and all the world melts away.

I sift through the mail piled on the floor beneath the mail slot. Bills. Credit card applications. An appeal letter from Saint Erasmus, the Catholic parish I attend on Christmas and Easter. Needs money. Father leads the flock there. A good man. He’s done right by me.

I sit back and take a breather. Later tonight Graham wants to meet up at his grandfathers and drink a few beers to his grandmother. Fine by me. Graham said he was even going to make his famous dip. I’ll pass on that.

Weariness lays its hands on my shoulders in a gentle massage, and I lean my head back, close my eyes and exhale long. Every muscle in my body feels strained from the past few days. Just sitting in a car for hours has a toll. The numerous brands of tension borne from hunting people, the loss I absorb as I watch Clevenger fill with sorrow, the set of eyes in the back of my head as I do things like pick locks.

This much exhaustion just means I’m not drinking enough to cope. I open a bottle of whiskey and savor the initial burn. That’s how you how you know it’s working.

The smokehouse next door is hard at work getting tomorrow’s meats ready. The stale but pleasant lingering scent of tobacco in my place surrounds me, envelopes me. The aroma of the booze fills my throat and nasal cavity with its sweet spice.

But still, a waft of gardenias trail through it all and with a loving embrace I have never found again, caresses my cheek and calls me to the bedroom. To the closet where I have kept my wife’s belongings.

My beautiful wife, the only thing ever right with this world. Given unto the Great Hereafter, accepted with joyous blaring of trumpets and angels singing as she crossed untainted into the Kingdom of Heaven. How I ever won her I don’t know, nor do I spend any time dwelling on it. I did win her. And that simple fact alone tells me there is a God, and H

e does not hate me the way I think He would. A more bitter man would accuse God of giving my wife only to take her away as a cruel joke; an example of how much the Divine truly does despise me. But I do not.