When Crickets Cry (5 page)

"They can come in handy."

She crossed her arms, held her chin high, and looked out the window. "Sal told me I could've killed her."

"Reese," I said, offering my hand. "We kind of skipped this step back there in the street."

"I'm sorry." She wiped her hand on her jeans and extended it toward me. "At one time I actually did have a few manners. Cindy McReedy." She pointed through the double doors. "I'm Annie's aunt. She's my sister's daughter."

"Cici. I heard."

We stood for a moment while the room gossiped around us. She pointed to my clothes. "I've met a lot of paramedics in the last few years, and you don't look like any of them. How'd you know what to do?"

A full-length wall mirror next to the Coke machine showed my reflection. She was right. I looked like someone who'd been hanging Sheetrock. To make matters worse, I hadn't shaved in more than five years. Except for the eyes, I was almost unrecognizable to myself.

"When I was a kid, I hung around the ER. Cleaning, doing whatever. Eventually, they let me ride in the fire truck, and we were usually first on the scene. You know, sirens, trucks, big chain saws."

She smiled, which meant she was either buying it or too tired not to.

"Then I worked the moonlight shift during college to help pay for books and classes." I shrugged. "It's like riding a bike." That much was true. I wasn't lying yet.

"Your memory's better than mine," she said.

I needed to reroute this. I smiled. "To be totally honest, it was the sirens and flashing lights that I liked best. I still keep my nose in it." Again, both statements were true, but they barely skimmed the surface.

"Well ..." She crossed her arms tighter as if she were getting colder. "Thank you for today ... for what you did."

"Oh, I almost forgot." I reached into my pocket and held out the small golden sandal that had been looped around Annie's neck before Cindy flung it into the gutter. "You dropped this ... in the street."

Cindy held out her hand and, when she saw what it held, fought back more tears. I handed her my handkerchief, and she wiped off her face. "It was my sister's. They sent it back in an envelope from Africa once they ... once they found the bodies."

She paused and let the hair fall over her eyes. This woman had done some living in the last decade, and she wore most of it.

"Annie's worn it since the day it came in the mail." She slid it gently into her pocket. "Thank you ... a third time." She looked back toward the two double doors. "I'd better get back. Annie's gonna start to wonder."

I nodded, and Cindy walked away. I followed her with my voice. "I wonder if I could come back in a couple of days, maybe bring a teddy bear or something."

She turned, tucked the loose strands behind her ears, and began tying the front of her shirt in a knot at her waist. "Yes, but. . ." She looked around the room and whispered, "No bears. Everybody brings bears. Don't tell anyone, but I've started giving them away myself." She nodded. "Come back, but be creative. A giraffe maybe, but no bears."

I walked to the parking lot, trying not to notice the smell of the hospital.

y alarm sounded at 2:00 a.m. I slipped down the dock and jumped into the lake. Cold, yes, but it got the blood flowing. After my swim, I juiced some carrots and apples, added a beet, some parsley, and a piece of celery for what has been called "protective measure," and then followed it with a baby aspirin. By three I had added enough temporary hair dye to turn my light brown hair almost totally black and then accented my sideburns and beard with enough gray to add twenty-five years to my profile. A little before three thirty I drove out to the road, looking like no one I'd ever met but in plenty of time to beat the traffic and make my 5:30 a.m. flight out of Atlanta.

I sat at the gate in B concourse waiting for the flight attendants to call my row. I don't like airports. Never have. When I find myself wondering what hell must be like, I'm reminded of the terminals in Atlanta. Thousands of people, most of whom don't know one another, crammed into a limited space, all in a hurry and trying desperately to get out. No one really wants to be there because it's simply a mandatory delay, a non-place-you're not home and neither is anyone else. Everybody's just passing through. In some ways, much like a hospital.

We landed in Jacksonville, Florida, and I drove a rental car to the Sea Turtle Inn at Jacksonville Beach, where the conference started promptly at 8:00 a.m. I checked in, slicked my hair straight back, added more gray around the edges, splashed some Skin Bracer on my face, and tied a double Windsor knot that shortened my tie to two inches above my belt. My coat was too small, sleeves too short, and my pant legs were hemmed at noticeably different lengths. The pants and jacket were both navy but mismatched, from two different suits I had bought at the consignment shop, and my wingtips were double-soled and twenty-five years out of style. I slid on my thick, horn-rimmed glasses, which contained no prescriptive benefit whatsoever, kept my eyes to myself, and steadied myself on an old worn cane.

I stayed in the bathroom until after everyone had left, walked in after the announcements had been made, sat in the back, spoke to no one, and gave no one the opportunity to speak to me. And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.

The keynote speaker was a man I'd read much about, who had also written much and who was now considered one of the leaders in his field. I'd heard him at a few other conferences around the country, but despite my interest, and the fact that he was just slightly wrong in a few areas, my mind was elsewhere. The window to my left looked out over the Atlantic, which was calm, rolled with sets of small waves and dotted with pelicans and the occasional porpoise or surfer. By the time I looked back at the podium, the group had recessed for lunch. I can't tell you what the man talked about, because all morning I had been thinking about a little girl in a yellow dress, the taste of that lemonade, and the engraved reference on the back side of the sandal.

These conferences served two purposes: they kept guys like me current on the latest information, the practices and techniques that don't make it into the journals but take place every day; and they brought colleagues together so they could catch up and pat one another on the back. I know lots of these people. Or, rather, knew. Even worked pretty closely with a few. Fortunately, they couldn't recognize me now even if they sat down beside me.

Which is exactly what happened just after lunch. I was sitting two rows from the back in a sparsely populated and poorly lit area of the room when Sal Cohen shuffled down my row and pointed at the seat next to me. What in the world is he doing here?

I nodded and kept my eyes pinned forward. The slide show continued for almost two hours wherein Sal fluctuated between deep interest and deep sleep accompanied by a slight snore.

At three in the afternoon, a new speaker mounted the podium. He had performed about four years of research on a new procedure, now called the "Mitch-Purse Procedure," which had become the new buzzword among most of the men and women in this room. It was especially fashionable now that a doctor in Baltimore had been the first person to successfully pull it off. I had no interest in his discussion and really didn't care if somebody had figtired out how to make it work, so I excused myself and bought a cup of coffee in the lobby. Shortly after five in the afternoon, they concluded the one-day conference, credited my attendance, and I drove back to the airport for my flight home. And yes, I was a bit worried that Sal had booked the same flight home. I checked the flight roster before boarding, and Sal's name didn't appear. If it had, I would have missed the flight and found another carrier. We landed in Atlanta, and after a few delays and a wreck in the northbound lane of the Beltway, it was after midnight when I got home.

Across the lake, Charlie's house was dark, but that meant little. His house was often dark. I heard the faint sound of his harmonica echoing through the walls. A few minutes after I arrived, the sound stopped and the night fell quiet. All except the crickets. They tuned up and sang me to sleep-which took about thirty seconds.

cracked the boathouse door at 5:00 a.m. and smelled Noxzema. Charlie didn't like a sore butt, so he rubbed Noxzema on the chamois of his shorts before we got into the boat. It was dark, but I could see his stumpy form sprawled across the boathouse floor, stretching. I could also see the wet footprints shining through the dark, showing me where he'd climbed out of the water and into the boathouse. He had been doing Pilates for years and could pretty well hook his heel behind his head when he wanted. Most limber human being I'd ever met. Also one of the strongest.

Next to him sat Georgia, his yellow Lab. He never went anywhere without her. Her tail flapped the wooden floor and let me know she was happy to see me.

The wood floor creaked below me, telling Charlie of my arrival, but I imagine he'd heard me coming before I cracked the door. The edge of the lake lapped the rock bulkhead below and sounded off the hollow chamber of wood three feet above it. I turned on a fluorescent light above one of my workbenches, and Charlie smiled but didn't say a word.

On one side sat the two-man scull. I tapped it, and Charlie nodded. It weighed only about eighty pounds, but at over twenty-five feet long, it took two of us to get it into the water. Charlie grabbed the bow and I the stern. He backed down the ramp and slid his end into the glassy, still water.

I pulled the boat alongside the dock and patted Charlie on the shoulder.

He said, "'Morning to you too."

He grabbed the ladder, found the boat with his toe, and climbed down, strapping his feet into the bindings in front of him. I grabbed the oars and slipped carefully into the seat up front. I strapped on my "spare" heart-rate monitor while Charlie tapped his fingers on the oars-Morse code for I'm ready to go nozu! We pushed off, dipped the oars in, feathered as the water droplets from the blades painted the lake in half circles, and pulled out of the small finger that accented the northern tip of Lake Burton.

The silence hung warm around us. Charlie whispered over his shoulder, accompanied by a half smirk, "You had a long day yesterday."

"Uh-huh." Another dip, another pull, another feather.

The muscles in Charlie's back rippled down from his neck, around his shoulders, and into his ribs in a concert of taut human tissue.

"What'd you wear?" he said, now with full smirk.

"Same thing," I said.

Charlie shook his head and said nothing more as we folded and unfolded into a rhythmic pulse.

Tip to tip from Jones Bridge to Burton Dam is nine miles. Most mornings we do all of it. Down and back. Charlie and I are a pretty good match. I'm taller and leaner, he's thicker and stouter, but I'd never cross him in a dark alley. Whereas my V02 max is greater-meaning I have a larger heart and lung capacity and can consume more oxygen over a longer period of time-Charlie's got another gear in his body that's not subject to the laws of physics or anatomy, the kind that's buried deep down and allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Like win a state wrestling championship by pinning the number-one-ranked wrestler in the country-twice.

It was a double-elimination tournament, and since his oppo nent had never lost in high school matches, Charlie had to wrestle him twice. The first time he pinned him in the second period, and in the second match he tied the guy in a knot like a pretzel and pinned him in the first minute. What made it even more impressive was that while his opponent was a senior, Charlie was a sophomore. Starting with that one, Charlie won three state championships and never lost another match in high school.

With the current of the Tallulah pushing us along, Charlie sank his oars in, pulled hard, and shot us southward. The jolt told me he was feeling pretty good and that today would hurt. And if it hurt this much with the river, it would hurt that much more coming back against it.

Canoeing or sculling the river can be tricky after 7:00 a.m. when the motorboats appear, so we go in the early morning. Sudden changes in weather are as common as the sun, but nobody knows when to predict them. Because of the surrounding mountains, unexpected gusts and tornadoes can rip across the lake and sink any- and everything. In 1994, some years before we moved up here, a "supercell" of tornadoes known as the Palm Sunday Killer ripped through here, and everybody remembers not only the sound but all the debris that floated down the lake for days afterward. The bodies that once lived in the homes didn't float downstream, because most of them were so full of holes from flying limbs and shingles that they sank to the bottom where the old town of Burton used to sit.