“The most special,” I said.
“The most special possible, sir — quite a touching sentiment. To pick up the thread, then. I recall Michael telling me that your presence disgusted him. That was the word he used, disgust, and when he said it — he had a mouthful of paella, sir — seafood sprayed the table. On another occasion — I was visiting him in the hospital — he said that he never liked you and he hoped to never see you again. He said that when 0N +2WT CSW/D6 4 P60F # WT27ZH Z2Q5R6Q ZVA W6W9S 6S/B0 X6D7F CO4TTKMQY P 0 O#VZMP1O IDZ
bend all his will toward life and at last climb out of what he termed ‘the dark pit.’ Then you’d come to torment him, and leave him once again yearning for deat U5#EQ 5BVX1 7JC6 XZJQ0V
precise words: ‘Just when I think I’m going to live, I see him and I know that I’ll die.’”
“Michael was a good soldier — a better soldier than me,” I said. “However, I promise you, I was also a good soldier — at times, a very good one. Michael would have agreed with me. In the end, you’re talking to a good man with a good heart.”
“I hope you won’t fault me, sir, if I tell you I have one of his diaries here.” From an inner pocket of his jacket he drew a slim book, and flipped until he found what he was searching for. “On page thirty-seven, second paragraph, he writes, ‘Tom Pally’s not a good man, Tom Pally has a bad heart.’”
“Well now,” I said. “There’s two sides to every story.”
“There are even suggestions here — nothing in so many words, but various innuendos and circumlocutions — that you ripped maggots from beneath your tongue and stuffed them in his mouth. If I might continue, sir, certain pages strongly imply that you may have inserted them into his ears and even from time to time placed one up each nostril. Of course they wriggled in. Would it be too much to ask, sir, if this was in fact the case? There are certain philosophies of Sergeant Washington, you see, that I think I could better understand with your full cooperation. Not to put you on the spot. But I’m working on a book in my spare time. Sergeant Washington and His Life Sacrifice, that is to be the title. Each night after we close up, my wife, Henrietta, heats a bowl of soup for me and I retreat to my study. Oh, I’ve found great solace in my little book. And then, for you to call tonight — what a piece of luck. There are certain unresolved questions about your time in Baghdad. I’d be so grateful for the opportunity to ask a question or two. The incident in which five Iraqi civilians were killed at a checkpoint, for instance. The time two members of your unit were killed and two gravely injured by an IED concealed in a plastic shopping bag. The recon mission later that night. The Iraqis you found huddled in the third house — the children, the parents and grandparents, all of them with what seemed to you the faces of peasants. Dark, opaque, wretched faces. Those of the children smooth, unsmiling, shadowed. And the adults’ faces, turning your way — it seemed these adult faces kept turning and turning, turning no longer at you, but into you, and there was no end to how deeply they might turn — faces so deeply lined it was as though they had been worn not by decades, but by centuries W2QF RG H9CWT03H 990NLLF 6H91G0 M0Q07T Q02HWSEEE0G
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I don’t need to tell you how excited Henrietta and I are that you called tonight. My wife, you understand, is a waitress here, and quite a good one. Which is a blessing, since she’s the only one we have! If you will pardon the observation, the years have been kind 7MEPK60 = XR6F
electricity bills these days, to name one item, are frightful. So we don’t use it upstairs in our quarters. It hardly matters. My wife is a great comfort. And we have a beeswax coil candle. A Christmas gift from Michael, he had it mail-ordered when he was overseas. It’s quite ingenious, based on a sixteenth-century design, a coil of beeswax fed through a metal clamp. It burnsA X 6PMO0I1PSG RFBGNQMME2FP2SNK
don’t know what we’ll do when the beeswax runs out! Ha ha ha! And the days are getting shorter, are they not? Sometimes there hardly seem to be days anymo B6 FC8C GVZBPC X QGYPF YV0WTOM0-
Of course we hope to make some small profit from the book! Ha ha! At least enough to get the electricity back on! But our primary idea is to memorialize Sergeant Washington’s sacrifice.
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so many notes. That little touch of philosophy my son brought to everything.”
There were noises in the background — first through the phone, then crackling in the monitor. A whole crowd of restaurantgoers — the place was packed, far more people than should have been allowed.
“There’s too many!” I said, trying to make myself heard over the applause and laughter. “It can’t be safe. A fire tonight would be a disaster!”
But the old man seemed not to hear. “He was adopted, if you’re wondering how it is that Henrietta and I are white, while he is black. In some cases that’s simply how things shake out. We had in mind a white child, of course, but then we also had in mind a child who wouldn’t be grievously injured on foreign sh16V Q0RVC YMF0 0 O0
The crowd broke into catcalls. “It’s a danger!” I said. “There’s too many! I’ll notify the authorities! The fire marshal!”
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“We have the idea, of course — I wouldn’t wish for there to be any confusion on this point! — of making some small profit on the book. But our main idea is to do service to Sergeant Washington’s sacrifice.”
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“Listen, my dad’s not at your restaurant tonight, is he?”
I heard the crowd scream like there was a live show going on, a comic who had just landed a joke.
But before I could get an answer, I heard something behind me — a foot treading lightly, carefully.
“Nice creeping,” I said, hanging up.
Shawna just looked at me.
“Tie a darn bell around your neck or something.”
The doorbell rang.
“Who’s that?” Shawna asked.
“I have no idea.”
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down the half flight to the front door. I reached in my pocket for the knife — I felt it in my hand. How small it felt, but strong.
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I told Jenny I’d drive her home. Then Shawna looked me up and down and asked, was I OK to drive?
I told Shawna I wanted one more chance — that I was going to try the restaurant one last time.
I reminded her how important it was. How we couldn’t give up yet on making this one the most special possible.
You want to know what words she muttered as she went back up to Charlie?
She said, Nigga, please.
Now, these may not sound like the most encouraging words in the world, but she hadn’t insisted I drive the babysitter home straight off — hadn’t said no to one more try.