“Hello, Peggy,” said Alex to a woman who had just cleared a granite countertop and was now wiping it down. Peggy Stawinski, a middle-aged blonde, had a son who was currently serving in Afghanistan. She volunteered her time in both Fisher Houses, as well as the Mologne House, an older, more elegant structure that also served as a hotel.
“Hey, Alex. You can put that stuff down right here.”
Alex set the box on the counter and pulled its contents. “Got a few things today. It all came in this morning, so it’s fresh.”
“What’s that?” said Peggy, pointing to half a cake swirled pink and red.
“They call it Marionberry cheesecake.”
“You’re kidding.”
“They were going for cute.”
“You want some coffee? I just brewed it.”
“I’m parked on the grass,” said Alex. “I better get home.”
“Thank you. This all looks great.”
“My pleasure. How’s the library doing?”
“We could always use more books.”
“I’m gonna bring some paperbacks. Detective stuff. I got too many lying around. My wife is on my back to get rid of them.”
“Okay, Alex. Bye.”
He stopped by weeknights on his way home from work, but he never stayed to mingle with the soldiers or their families. He said he didn’t have the time to hang around. He didn’t want their thanks. He was parked on the grass. He had to go.
Raymond Monroe walked the grounds of the facility, staying after his shift to catch a ride with Kendall, who was late getting off work. Especially going west, away from the hospital, the grounds were green and landscaped with old-growth oak, maple trees, and flowering cherry and magnolia. It had been announced that the Walter Reed complex would move out of D.C. in the next ten years. Officials had been wavering on the decision as of late, but the stay of execution would only be temporary. One hundred and thirteen valuable acres in the middle of the city-it was inevitable that the facility would go.
Turning the corner of one of the Fisher homes, he nearly walked into a white man about his age, just coming out the back door. Monroe was used to deformity, what with all the wounded, amputees, and burn victims he treated. But there was something else about this man, aside from the horrible droop of his right eye, that unsettled Monroe immediately.
“ ’Scuse me, buddy,” said Monroe, putting his hand on the man’s arm as he moved to step around him.
“Excuse me, ” said the man, who went on his way.
Monroe stopped at the back door of the Fisher House and looked at the man walking to his vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee parked on the grass. He studied the man for a moment longer, flashing on those days after, that painful time in court. He pushed on the door and entered the house.
Peggy Stawinski stood in the kitchen, setting out some cakes and pies on the long counter. “Raymond. Funny how you just happened to stop by as soon I put these out.”
“You know I like sweet things, Peggy. Like you.”
“Stop.”
Monroe often came in to say hello to Peggy. Both of them had sons under fire.
“I’m waitin on my girlfriend. Killing time.” Monroe reached for something on the counter, and Peggy gently slapped his hand. “That does look good, though.”
“Marionberry cheesecake.”
“Clever.”
“Want a cup of coffee?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Monroe ran a finger along his thin black mustache. “Listen, who was that man who just left out of here? Had on a white shirt and work pants.”
“He owns a lunch place downtown, at Connecticut and N. Brings us desserts every night on his way home.”
“Just to, what, show his support?”
“He lost a son in Iraq.”
Monroe nodded.
“His name is Alex Pappas,” said Peggy.
“Pappas.”
Alex Pappas had been the boy’s name. He knew Pappas was the Greek version of Smith or Jones. Still, there was the eye, and this erased any doubt. The boy would have carried that mark his whole life. Charles Baker had seen to that.
“You know him?” said Peggy.
Monroe didn’t answer. He was thinking.
Eight
Charles Baker sat in Leo’s, a neighborhood watering hole on Georgia Avenue, near a flower-and-tree cross street in Shepherd Park. On the wood before him was a glass of draft beer that he had been nursing for some time. He was reading a newspaper and waiting on his ride.
Baker went through the Washington Post front to back. He did this daily. Though he had opened neither books nor newspapers in his youth, he had picked up the reading bug while in prison. The habit had stuck.
One section he skipped was employment. With his history, there wasn’t any good reason to apply for a job that came with a pension, health insurance, or a future. He’d been down that funny road. Going out on interviews, employers sensing immediately that he wasn’t “right” for the job, the box cutter scar on his face not helping him, the stink of his life on him permanent. When it was time to talk about his experience, he mentioned his felony convictions and incarcerations, as he was required to. Also, he liked to make straights squirm.
“It’s only fair to tell you that there are a lot of people applying for this position” (people without rap sheets). “Many of them are highly qualified” (they have been to school past the tenth grade, unlike you). “You seem like a good person” (I’m afraid of you). “We’ll give you a call” (never).
Sometimes Baker just wanted to laugh out loud in their offices, but he did not. He was a good boy. On the outside.
Anyway, he had a job, a part-time thing his PO had hooked him up with. It involved bedpans, soiled diapers, trash bags, and mops, but he was on paper, so he had to get himself employed. He was part of a cleaning crew in a nursing home down in Penn-Branch, off Branch Avenue, in Southeast. He had an arrangement with the dude he worked with, some variety of African, who would cover for him when he didn’t come in, assure the lady parole officer that Baker was regularly showing up for work. The African preferred to have his brother, whom he’d just brought over from the motherland, take the hours instead.
It was at the nursing home that Baker had met La Trice Brown. And through La Trice he’d gotten together with her son, Deon, and his friend Cody. Indirectly, working in that shithole had been good for him.
“What’s the name of the song and who did it? And don’t say Lou Rawls.”
“Gimme a second. I’m thinking.”
At the other end of the bar were two middle-aged white men four rounds deep in vodka. They had been talking loudly about women they claimed to have done, sports they’d never played, and cars they would someday like to own. Now they had begun to argue over the song coming from the juke. It was a popsoul number, heavy with strings. The vocalist had a smooth voice that started calm and grew in drama. At the peak of it, the man sounded like he was about to bust a nut all over the microphone. Baker knew the song but not to name it.
“ ‘Hang On in There, Baby.’ Johnny Bristol.”
“What year?”
“Seventy-four?”
“It was seventy-five.”
“I was off by a C hair.”
“What about the label?”
“It was MGM.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I bought the forty-five up at Variety Records when I was a teenager. I can still see the lion and shit.”
“You know what this song means, don’t ya?”
“It means, like, don’t let the world get you down.”
“No, dumbass. It means, hang your sausage hard inside me and don’t let it go limp.”
“Inside you? ”
“You know what I mean.”
“But it’s a dude singing it.”
“Okay, so he’s telling a broad to hold on. He’s telling her, hang in there. Try not to come too fast.”
“Who cares if she comes?”
“You got a point.”
Baker did not look over at the fools or pay them any mind. He was into the business section now, reading one of those sidebars they had, “Spotlight On,” where they profiled a successful person in the Washington area. Age, college attended, married to, kids, last book read, bullshit like that. It was in this very sidebar that Baker had first been mentally reacquainted with his man, who had made the big time. Not just an attorney, but a partner in a law firm. Bragging about how he was “involved” with kids in the inner city, had started a charitable foundation in the name of his family, through which he made “substantial contributions” to scholarship funds for “African American” students who were bound for college but needed “a helping hand.” Baker wondered if the man was running for office, or if he was just trying to show his friends that he was right in his heart. Everyone was gaming in some way.