He was a pretty good linebacker for Maryland,” Todd said.
“He was. I saw him play,” Savannah said.
“He could probably teach me stuff.”
She doubted that Greg would spend the time, but she said, “Yeah.” She had to say that because maybe, just maybe, there was a chance. If she thought otherwise, she wouldn’t be taking this step. “We’ll need to start packing our stuff. We’re leaving Saturday morning bright and early. I have a bunch of errands to do tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to shut down the theater renovation.”
He looked down at the dog. His mouth quivered. He was learning how to be a man. He didn’t cry. He didn’t whine. He sighed. And then he snapped the lead onto the dog’s collar. “I gotta take Champ for his walk.”
Dash left the Eldorado in the driveway. Getting drunk was one thing, but getting drunk and killing someone was a whole different kettle of fish. He’d mixed booze and motor vehicles one too many times.
He hurried down the drive and onto the sidewalk. He kept walking, head down, counting the seams in the concrete. Counting was a good thing. It kept his emotions from exploding. It kept his heart from falling into pieces.
He could count and remember to breathe. Two cracks… breathe in. Two cracks… breathe out.
He made it all the way to Palmetto Avenue. He turned right toward Dot’s, and he stopped.
The Kismet stood between him and the bar. He looked up at the marquee. Half an hour ago, he’d known without a doubt that Uncle Earnest was proud of him.
But now what? What would happened to The Kismet when Savannah left town? He made his way through the new security gate and into the theater. Zeph was hard at work installing a section of new fluting in one of the damaged columns. The new wood lacked the patina of the old, but the carvings lined up perfectly.
The old black man touched the wood with a reverence that captivated Dash. The smell of charred wood had diminished over the last week. Now there were other smells. Sawdust, and varnish, and plaster.
Something important was rising up out of the dust and dirt and ashes. And on Saturday, all of this would stop. Savannah would go.
He closed his eyes.
“I heard the news about Miz Hettie,” Zeph said.
Dash almost laughed. If he went off to Dot’s, everyone in town would misunderstand.
“I brought some Nehi,” Zeph nodded to a battered plastic cooler that looked like it had been with Zeph through the Vietnam War. The old guy finished turning the handle on a wood clamp and turned around. Sawdust and wood shavings clung to his baggy blue jeans. The collar and cuffs of his old plaid shirt were frayed. But his smile was big and wide as he opened the cooler and brought up two glass bottles of Nehi orange soda pop.
He handed one to Dash and twisted off the top of the other. “There’s nothing like a cold Nehi to fix what ails you.” He raised the bottle in salute.
Dash hadn’t tasted Nehi soda in years. He opened the bottle, took a gulp, and lost himself in reverie. Damn, he used to drink Nehi all the time. Uncle Earnest had a cooler of it behind the candy counter.
“Earnest always drank Nehi. He used to say that sweeping up was thirsty work,” Dash said.
“Yeah,” Zeph replied. “I remember old Mr. Brooks. Of course, when I was a child, I had to sit upstairs.”
“I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t that way when I was here.”
Zeph shrugged. “Wasn’t your fault. Mr. Brooks was a fair man living in unfair times. People wouldn’t have come at all in the sixties if he hadn’t put the blacks upstairs.”
“He was a fair man. I miss him.” Dash’s voice wobbled in an embarrassing way. When Earnest died, Dash had been playing baseball. Earnest wasn’t a member of his immediate family so, naturally, Dash wasn’t allowed time off. Instead he drank himself into a stupor and got himself into trouble.
“You know there’s a trick to living alone,” Zeph said, looking Dash right in the eye, as if he knew what scared Dash most of all.
Dash took another gulp of soda, pushing away the memories, focusing on Zeph. Until this moment, he’d never really considered the kind of life Zeph had been leading. Zeph was probably the loneliest person in Last Chance.
“So what’s the trick?”
“Read.”
“Read? That’s a surprise. I could have sworn you were going to tell me to get a dog.”