“You can’t tell Paul anything. You have to show him because the thing about Paul is he’s going to meet you exactly where you meet him.”
“And?”
“And you’re always sitting at this desk.”
As if on cue, its phone rings. Lauren smirks. I let it go to voice mail and leave for home, stepping into the rain, passing the front of the bar, McCray’s, on my way. Sometimes Paul and the rest of the staff end up there after a long workday but I rarely join them. A sorry-looking figure in one of the booths catches my eye. Arthur. Didn’t get very far. I stop and watch him, letting myself get steadily more soaked. There’s something so awful and sad about it, this man at a bar, profoundly alone in his grief …
And what kind of friend is Paul, if he’s just letting Arthur sit there, alone in it?
They murdered my son.
I step inside. It’s all dim lighting, the lull of old country music floating from weak speakers. It has the hum of a place that’s seen some shit and with a bunch of journalists working directly above it, I’ve no doubt it has. I head to Arthur’s booth, where he’s slumped forward, head down. Once I’m in front of him, I regret whatever it is I think I’m doing. I don’t really know Arthur that well, all things considered. He knows my name and takes a slightly-more-than-perfunctory interest in my life by asking how I am when he sees me, or asking after things he might have remembered from the last time we talked. Likes to give Paul shit on my behalf on their way out of the office. (“When you gonna promote that one, huh?”) They went to college together and he’s always promising me some devastatingly embarrassing stories about my boss “for leverage” but they never come. He looks up at me at the same time I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just walk back out, no one the wiser.
He squints.
“Lo?”
I clear my throat. “I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about Jeremy.”
“Oh. Thank you. I…” He pushes his pint aside, grabbing a crumpled napkin to wipe away the ring of condensation left behind. I don’t know why he does it; maybe for something to do with his hands. He doesn’t seem drunk. Just defeated. “I appreciate that. I’m sorry you had to witness…” He gestures feebly above us. “But thank you.”
I hesitate. Arthur’s sadness is confronting, brings the gravity of carrying his son’s last moments to the fore. It makes me feel like I owe him something less than what I know—but more than leaving him like this.
“What was he like?” I ask.
“Jeremy?”
I nod and it seems to rouse Arthur as much as it undoes him. He straightens, but his eyes get bright. An impossibly important question, now that he’s keeper of his son’s memory. He looks pointedly at the seat across from him. I slip into the booth.
“He was a good kid. And a … a hard kid. My girlfriend and I, we were twenty-two when we had him. Didn’t plan for it. But we were going to make it work. Well.” He laughs. “She walked out about a month after having him and then it was just me and Jeremy. But we did it, we made it work.” He pauses. “Would you like to see a picture?”
He digs into his pocket for his wallet. It’s worn, held together by mere threads. Arthur notices me notice this and says, “This was … it’s Jeremy’s wallet. It’s all he had on him when he died.” My stomach turns as he opens it up and points to one side with a few IDs. “That’s his side.” It’s so fucking sad.
A small card, a little bigger than a business card, catches my eye.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing.
Arthur blinks, confused, then pulls it out and shows it to me.
“A Bible Tract,” he says.
There’s a blue sky on it. A verse in the center. But the Lord is faithful, He will lend you strength and guard you from the evil one.—2 Thessalonians 3:3.
Jeremy was using it as scrap paper, it looks like. There are scribbles across the front, shaky-looking handwriting with a time scrawled on it: 3:30.
Arthur swallows, offers a guess without my asking: “I think he had an appointment … somewhere. And why would he have that in his pocket, reminding him, if he was gonna end it?”