> “He's gonna walk up to my gate
>
> And see if he can get it straight
>
> 'Cause he wants her
>
> He's gonna ask her
>
>
>
> - Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?
>
> A song by Louis Jordan
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CHAPTER ONE:
And so, Sheppard’s Pawn, PX, and Bondsmith was there, just as the man said it would be. The two-story Italianate stood, proudly nestled in between a generic-looking row of tan and sandstone flats. There were large french windows on either side that opened onto a shared balcony surrounded by black wrought fencing like a cast iron eyebrow. Below the balcony, along the storefront was a low hanging awning, fashioned in the same patriotic Americana found in most barbershops and firework wholesalers; alternating stripes of red, white, and blue. Its walls, painted in matte abstract swirls in shades of brown and green did indeed fit together like puzzle pieces- if those pieces had been taken at random from garage sale quality boards where the picture of what you were trying to assemble was obscured beyond recognition. He thought it was a laughable imitation of the patented woodland fatigues he had been wearing since 1981.
He, being Joseph Georgios Rallis, a 73-year-old warhorse, had just emerged from Ms. Aubergine - a glistening, midnight-purple 1952 Hudson Hornet. Mint condition. For a moment, all he could do was stare at it with trepidation and awe, recalling bodies of deep south pickup trucks- the kind with the mufflers that obstruct your vision in a cloud of black fog, zooming along on flatbeds jacked so high off the ground, you would need a full-size ladder to climb into the cab. It was the kind of thing you could expect to find on one of those hillbilly fishing shows that aired solely on the public access channels to fill time slots. It was… a tacky abomination.
As he turned to shut the door, his eyes glanced down at the folded copy of US Today, neatly placed on the passenger seat. Underneath the logo was a front-page photograph of a mullet-wearing hippie with an unkempt stubble of facial hair that vined downward along his neck toward unexplored territory. He was wearing some kind of candy-ass bubblegum spandex shirt with a matching candy-ass sweatband, and that candy-ass son-of-a-bitch had his arm around -as far as Joe was concerned, the most beautiful woman in the world. The headline alongside of the picture read:
WE’RE GETTING MARRIED!
Abcde Braxtynn Clark, San Dante’s most fickle bachelorette is at it again, but will Sir Barnaby Fletcher seal the deal, or will the two time Wimbledon champ be just another jilted lover?
We’ll see about that! Joe thought, slamming the door behind him. The damn thing had been a distraction the entire drive here, and hell, hadn’t he chastised himself several times for being stupid enough to do it? There’s still time to turn around, he’d think and then drive another seventy miles. He purchased the paper a week ago on a whim because, Christ! Is that Abbey? She was on the front page, and that was not only impossible, it was absolute madness. Hello, Doctor Kefalas? Yes, I’m ready for my white coat now. My dead wife is on the cover of a newspaper I bought last week, and you better fit me for a double X, because she always said I’ve got shoulders like a linebacker.
He would have liked to have shown the paper around for a second opinion- a thing he rarely invited, but who could he have asked that wouldn’t have immediately dismissed him? Certainly not their children, though he was sure they would have agreed without a doubt that the woman on the cover greatly resembled their mother. Joe could also imagine another conversation in which they sat him down and firmly, but gently suggested he relocate to a smaller, quieter residence, preferably one with adult supervision. As for his friends… did he have friends? It was true, both of his brothers were still alive and he had plenty of drinking buddies, as does any man who buys the booze,, but... living friends?
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Joe thought of Logan Kelly who retired from the Army in 1974 and moved to the land of 10,000 lakes to fish and write cockamamie pulp fiction novellas. He could just picture the lanky son-of-a-bitch now, with that dumb half-mouthed smirk that always seemed to say “Are you really that stupid?” You ever hear of a dead ringer, Joe? Internal Logan asked in a tone found in every 3 a.m. greasy-spoon, where an abrasive waitress with a lifelong smoking habit pushes dry grits and burnt coffee to lost travelers and weary truckers. There are plenty of guys in Vegas that make a killing by gluing on a pair of fake sideburns and squeezing three-hundred and fifty pounds of beer-gut into a white jumpsuit.
Joe imagined a troupe of young blonde-haired women parading around in sleazy two-drink minimum comedy clubs. They wore his wife's hand-me-down housecoats and Blair pastel pantsuits, only instead of lip-syncing to the King, they antagonized the crowd with cheeky one-liners and quoted word for word every argument they ever had. Casino’s up and down Main Street would read THE BEST AND WORST OF ABBEY RALLIS in bold marquee letters. Some seedy looking promoter decorated in purple leopard print from his fedora to his cowboy boots rings a bell, yelling things like” Come on in folks, and hear about the time Joe forgot my birthday!”
“Bullshit!” Joe said, arguing with a man who was probably passed out in an old rowboat almost 2,000 miles away. “The only thing Abbey has in common with Elvis Presley is that they're both dead.” He fumbled through his pocket for the keys. His fingers worked the lock with a swift left turn of the wrist and he swung open the driver's door, freezing, half in, half out. He was second-guessing himself now and he hated it. Joe Rallis had never “second-guessed” anything in his entire life. He had made a career out of outthinking the enemy, and kids, once you’ve swapped out the airsoft pellets for an M-16, there is no room for errors. “But, I know her face.”
Joe lowered himself back into the driver's seat and picked up the paper. He traced his fingers over the angular jaw of his colorful Sunday edition goddess. The smile was fake -one of her toothy “say cheese” grins that she always wore whenever some dope with a Polaroid would ask to take her picture. When she was truly happy, it was her eyes that would light up, like sunshine through a viridian meadow. He had gotten to know both of them quite well because he was usually the dope with the camera.
“If I were a blind man, I could still pick her out of a crowded stadium.” Except that wasn’t entirely true either, he thought, and suddenly that inner voice wasn’t his own, it was.. her voice recalled from that distant part of his brain where he stored all the things that were just too painful to keep schlepping around, like the smell of his mother’s favorite flowers, or the way the dense chocolate fur of his boyhood labrador, Nico always felt like cornsilk.
You couldn't even identify my corpse after they pulled me out from underneath that mountain of rubble, could you?
For an instant, Joe imagined that grin had become a jaw-clenched raging snarl and the blank empathy behind her hazel eyes had been replaced with violent reproach. She peeled away from the two-dimensional pinfold, hands dripping, bleeding hues of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. They were reaching out to strangle him. Joe screamed, and flung the paper back into the passenger seat, exiting the vehicle as quickly as his limbs would propel him. When he looked again, everything was normal including that ridiculous cheesy grin as if to say, “just kidding, Joe!”
“Maybe I am cracking up.” He sobbed, rubbing at his tired eyes wishing he would wake up in a VA hospital, probably in Honolulu, maybe even Manhattan or God forbid, Dover. Joe could almost see himself standing up in the middle of an oversized, understaffed rec room surrounded by invalids and catatonics, senior vets huddled over shabby checkerboards, or wagering anything from pudding cups to purple hearts in one final thrilling hand of Texas hold 'em. Billie Holiday would be crooning an oldie but goodie through someone's decrepit Zenith with a busted tube. Every now then the music would be interrupted with a loud static fart that would undoubtedly trigger the PTSD’s, and the only thing to watch would be the substance abusers; pacing back and forth, as they clawed gouges into their shaking hands, trying to suck the last remnants of nicotine from under their fingernails.
Outside in the reality beyond his mind's eyes, someone made a coughing noise like an angry puma, and then Joe was back. “Ok, get it together dumbass.” He hissed, doing his best to ignore the stabbing pain as he mounted the stoop. He figured it was because of the souvenir bits of shrapnel the army docs left in him after ‘Nam- or maybe it was Korea? He didn’t know, and It didn’t matter. What he did know was that he hated having to pass through metal detectors, and he could always tell when it was going to rain because the muscles in his right leg would sting like he had stepped hip deep into the mouth of a hornet's nest.
There might have been a hint of rain in the air, but it was masked under layers of sweet, fruity booze. The front lawn -if you could consider sixty-three square feet of astroturf a lawn, was a jumble of crushed beer cans, disposable goblets, plastic red and blue party cups, and conspicuous brown bottles wrapped in paper bags. Droplets from last night’s cocktails clung to the impossibly green nylon shrubbery like the sticky remnants of morning dew. Half-eaten cherries and pineapple chunks skewered on tiny plastic umbrellas baked under the July sun, while rows of black ants marched gleefully over the sugary scraps as if they were all aboard some insecticidal cruise ship buffet.