a rainstorm, but I still don’t sleep good. I got a knife and I keep it handy, but I don’t think it’d be much help against some swamp rat hopped up on crank.”
Annie was thin to the point of emaciation, and Tim took to bringing her small treats from Bev’s before punching in for his short shift of loading and unloading at the warehouse complex. Sometimes it was a bag of boiled peanuts or Mac’s Cracklins, sometimes a moon pie or a cherry tart. Once it was a jar of Wickles that she grabbed and held between her scrawny breasts, laughing with pleasure.
“Wickies! I ain’t had a Wicky since Hector was a pup! Why are you so good to me, Mr. J.?”
“I don’t know,” Tim said. “I guess I just like you, Annie. Can I try one of those?”
She held out the jar. “Sure. You got to open it, anyway, my hands too sore with the arthritis.” She held them out, displaying fingers so badly twisted that they looked like pieces of driftwood. “I can still knit n sew, but Lord knows how much longer that’ll keep up.”
He opened the jar, winced a little at the strong smell of vinegar, and fished out one of the pickle chips. It was dripping with something that could have been formaldehyde, for all he knew.
“Gi’me back, gi’me back!”
He handed her the jar and ate the Wickle. “Jesus, Annie, my mouth may never unpucker.”
She laughed, displaying her few remaining teeth. “They best with bread n butter n a nice cold RC. Or a beer, but I don’t drink that anymore.”
“What’s that you’re knitting? Is it a scarf?”
“The Lord shall not come in His own raiment,” Annie said. “You go on now, Mr. J., and do your duty. Watch out for men in black cars. George Allman on the radio talks about them all the time. You know where they come from, don’t you?” She cocked a knowing glance at him. She might have been joking. Or not. With Orphan Annie it was hard to tell.
Corbett Denton was another denizen of DuPray’s night side. He was the town barber, and known locally as Drummer, for some teenage exploit no one seemed exactly clear on, only that it had resulted in a month’s suspension from the regional high school. He might have been wild in his salad days, but those were far behind him. Drummer was now in his late fifties or early sixties, overweight, balding, and afflicted with insomnia. When he couldn’t sleep, he sat on the stoop of his shop and watched DuPray’s empty main drag. Empty, that was, except for Tim. They exchanged the desultory conversational gambits of mere acquaintances—the weather, baseball, the town’s annual Summer Sidewalk Sale—but one night Denton said something that put Tim on yellow alert.
“You know, Jamieson, this life we think we’re living isn’t real. It’s just a shadow play, and I for one will be glad when the lights go out on it. In the dark, all the shadows disappear.”
Tim sat down on the stoop under the barber pole, its endless spiral now stilled for the night. He took off his glasses, polished them on his shirt, put them back on. “Permission to speak freely?”
Drummer Denton flicked his cigarette into the gutter, where it splashed brief sparks. “Go right ahead. Between midnight and four, everyone should have permission to speak freely. That’s my opinion, at least.”
“You sound like a man suffering from depression.”
Drummer laughed. “Call you Sherlock Holmes.”
“You ought to go see Doc Roper. There are pills that will brighten your attitude. My ex takes them. Although getting rid of me probably brightened her attitude more.” He smiled to show this was a joke, but Drummer Denton didn’t smile back, just got to his feet.
“I know about those pills, Jamieson. They’re like booze and pot. Probably like the ecstasy the kids take nowadays when they go to their raves, or whatever they call them. Those things make you believe for awhile that all of this is real. That it matters. But it’s not and it doesn’t.”
“Come on,” Tim said softly. “That’s no way to be.”
“In my opinion, it’s the only way to be,” the barber said, and walked toward the stairs leading to his apartment above the barber shop. His gait was slow and lumbering.
Tim looked after him, disquieted. He thought Drummer Denton was one of those fellows who might decide some rainy night to kill himself. Maybe take his dog with him, if he had one. Like