Last Call for the Living (33 page)

Lucy Colquitt also had been hospitalized.

Charlie spent afternoons visiting his mother. She refused to speak of anything that had happened, having convinced herself that some minor medical emergency had put her in the hospital. Most visits she just stared out the window. Crossed her legs and shook her foot uncontrollably until the slipper came off. Her baby, Coma, had been gone to camp all that time, she sometimes insisted. Charlie tried to comfort her, but he knew—and had been told by doctors—how her mental state had deteriorated badly.

He even wondered if she recognized him anymore.

Charlie focused on the three-week ordeal while putting his life together. A new life no less, a project worth pursuing. He had to reenroll at the university. Bank management had agreed to pay him another month's salary, along with a generous bonus; Charlie agreed in return not to sue or publicly criticize the North Georgia Savings & Loan for its less-than-stellar Saturday security practices.

His mother's house had to be repaired and professionally cleaned, although much of the furniture, drapes and carpeting was hopeless and trucked to the dump. He thought a time or two about moving back into the old house, in spite of what had gone on there.

Celebrity was another challenge he couldn't avoid. It seemed everyone in the major media wanted to talk to Charlie Colquitt, a hostage of any kind offering an easy bump in the ratings. He didn't even think about changing his phone number until the calls began.

When the movie and TV and book agents inquired about rights to his life story, Charlie realized he needed to hire someone to field all the requests. There was real money to be made from Charlie's ordeal. Money he could use to finish paying for school, take care of his mother. Maybe he could find them a new house in a neighborhood where nobody knew them. Set up a gym with weights and other exercise equipment. Build a model rocket workshop from scratch. Hit Hobby Town with a wad of cash and buy new supplies, payloads, body tubes, motors and transitions.

What he wanted ultimately was space and privacy, to launch his rockets uninterrupted as often as he pleased.

*   *   *

But in the
days following the siege on Tulip Street something else weighed heavily on Charlie's mind. The first night back in his old apartment he went to the local convenience store to buy the beer Hicklin drank and the cigarettes Hicklin smoked. Charlie rearranged the small living room of his apartment to resemble the cottage up in the mountains. He turned his cell phone off and disabled the smoke alarm.

Then Charlie spent the evening smoking and drinking, flicking ashes into an empty can. His only company the quiet hum of a radio.

For moments at a time it felt real again.

He slept in binges, no matter what time of day or night it was. There were instances when he woke himself with screams.

His first and second tattoos itched as they healed. He started jogging and eventually added a routine of push-ups, pull-ups, dips and sit-ups. He bought a bench press. At first it was hard work. But Charlie learned to enjoy the pain. Weight dropped off him almost effortlessly.

Weeks passed before Charlie worked up the nerve to call Sallie Crews. Explain to her what he wanted. She said that it could be done, but he'd need a lawyer. His request would have to go through the courts.

*   *   *

She was ten
minutes late. Charlie was sitting in the corner of the campus coffee shop. His appearance startled Crews at first. His head was shaved and there was a rather intricate gray-green tattoo on his right forearm. He was reading a book called
The Psychopathic God,
a cup of tea before him. He looked up at Crews and smiled.

“Sorry I'm late,” she said. “I told you it would take some time. And lawyers, too. But I got it.”

“Thank you, Sallie.”

She slid a manila envelope across the table to him.

“You look good, Charlie. Been working out?”

“Two hours every day. Without fail.”

“Good for you. I saw you on television the other day.”

Charlie nodded bashfully. She could tell he still wasn't quite comfortable with all the attention. Students in the coffee shop were looking in their direction. She changed the subject.

“How's your mother?”

He shook his head forlornly.

“How's Sheriff Lang?” he said after a moment.

Now it was Crews' turn to blush.

“He's as tough as they come. Up and walking around now. Ready to get out of that hospital,” she said, then gesturing to the envelope, “Do you want me to explain the test results?”

“I think I can figure it out. Thank you, though. Thanks for everything you've done.”

“I didn't look by the way.”

“I'll tell you soon,” Charlie reassured her. “There's just something I've got to do first.”

They shook hands. Charlie got up to leave. Crews watched him go, biting her lip nervously. As if from sadness.

And concern.

*   *   *

The cemetery was
on a hill behind a small stone Baptist church in the heart of Jubilation County. His mother had taken him there when he was a child. Memories of Easter egg hunts, the stiff starchy Sunday clothes his momma made him wear. She always took pictures.

Purple and white lilacs grew unchecked along the path up to the gates. Weeds and wild grass overran the older part of the cemetery. A stiff wind revealed a community of chest and table tombs, long neglected.

When he reached the newer headstones everything was more orderly. Fresh memorials adorned the stones with chiseled biblical verses and crosses and cherubs. Nearby there was a big possumwood tree filled with noisy birds. The sky was clear, the kind of deep blue that comes after three days of rain. Yellow jackets darted through the air. When Charlie came to the grave marker with Hobe Hicklin's name, he stopped as if surprised, appreciating for the first time the simple bronze plate he'd chosen.

He carried a duffel bag with a model rocket kit inside. He put the bag down on the ground. Produced a cigarette and lit it. Smoking was as easy now as if he'd been doing it all his life. He liked the rush the nicotine gave him, the jump start for his brain.

He stared at the ground, half-expecting the grave at his feet to give way. For Hicklin to rise up with a wink and a grin and motion for Charlie to come down and visit awhile. He smiled faintly, smoking, a breeze cool against his buzz cut.

Should have brought beer, he thought.

*   *   *

He opened the
duffel bag and removed the manila envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper with the results of the DNA test. Lab letterhead. He read them silently once again, as if he might have missed something. Reading aloud the results of the test for himself—for Hicklin. Charlie's voice, grown huskier over the weeks, was a man's voice.

After reading he folded the paper several times and put it in his wallet.

*   *   *

The Bullpup was
thirty inches long, with a large hollow nose cone and big quarter-inch fins, all laser-cut. Charlie had left all the decals off the rocket. Instead he took a permanent marker and crudely wrote the word
Lowball
along the body tube. He took out the launchpad from the bag, a quality mid-power deal that could handle a large model like the Bullpup. It had a four-foot launch rod, a blast deflector disk that was almost eleven inches in diameter. Extrawide legs, a low center of gravity.

Charlie connected the ignition wire and spooled it away from the rocket. Then he inserted the safety key into the control box. A buzzer went off to indicate a complete circuit through the igniter. He punched the large red button on the control box and looked up to see the
Lowball
move slowly and steadily off the launchpad, lifting up the rod and rocketing skyward.

Charlie tracked the rocket's soaring trajectory, a hand shielding his eyes from the sun, figuring it had hit eight hundred feet above the cemetery. He thought about all the sanding and sealing he'd done, the custom modifications.

The
Lowball
was way up now, teetering a bit before the nylon parachute recovery was released. He watched the parachute catch the air and float effortlessly against a blue vault of sky.

He spoke again and wondered if somewhere Hicklin was privileged to be aware of him. Wondered if Hicklin would believe him.

Charlie ran a hand over his buzzed scalp. He pulled another cigarette from the yellow hard pack and rolled the length of it between his thumb and forefinger before lighting the end.

A ritual that had always fascinated him, which now he'd made his own.

*   *   *

Tommy Lang's world
looked to him as though it'd been wrapped in gauze. He was in a hospital room. Great pain on the right side of his body. He tried to focus, but nothing came clear. He knew someone was in the room with him. Lang imagined that his own son had come. If it was his Danny, then maybe the rest of Tommy's family would also be there. His girls, his ex-wife.

The visitor moved forward as if to offer something. Lang kept thinking it his son. A tall young man, still with plenty of time to figure life out. But Lang's vision worsened. He was aware, if only for a moment, that he was slipping back into darkness. He carried with him the hope of getting things right, if he was going to have another chance.

 

About the Author

Peter Farris is a graduate of Yale University. He lives in Cobb County, Georgia.
Last Call for the Living
is his first published novel. Visit him online at
www.lastcallfortheliving.com
.

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

LAST CALL FOR THE LIVING

Copyright © 2012 by Peter Farris

All rights reserved.

All epigraphs are lyrics from the album
The Failed Convict
by Cable. Reprinted by permission.

A Forge Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

e-ISBN 9781429988841

First Edition: May 2012