Less Of Me

  Chapter 20

  Sunday morning Andy woke up happy because he remembered both to set his alarm clock and, to set it quieter than the morning before. He rolled over and silenced the radio. He lay in bed with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he was excited to see Debbie again. He’d been thinking about little else since they finished lunch and he watched her drive away from the curb. On the other hand, he hadn’t been in a church since his father’s funeral, and that was more of a funeral home chapel. He had built up so much Bay Area animosity against Christianity that it was difficult for him to consider attending a service. It felt anti-liberal, or unprogressive, if that’s even a word. Like he was stepping back in time to an age of puritan morals where guilt ruled with an iron fist. And while that’s what his mind told him, it seemed the exact opposite of the goodness that he had found in Debbie, and the change that was taking place in his own mother.

  He wasn’t that interested in the whole religious deal, personally. He just wanted to see Debbie again. And find out if he was delusional or if she was as precious as he imagined. Andy showered and stopped by Starbucks before heading to South San Francisco, he ordered a coffee with a double-shot, to which he added some cream and sugar. “Nothings going to sneak up on me this morning,” he smiled and stirred the caustic brew.

  The church, Peninsula Chapel, was in Palo Alto near the Stanford campus. It was an old building, grey stone and stained glass, originally constructed in 1899 for the First Presbyterian Church. When the Jesus Movement of the 70’s reached the Bay Area, the Presbyterian’s got saved all over again and started attracting college students, eventually changing the name and mission of the church. No longer Presbyterian, they were just Christian. Marg made sure Andy was sufficiently briefed while they sat waiting for the service to begin.

  It wasn’t crowded, but there were a lot more normal looking people in the room than Andy anticipated. He expected to see all the loonies that spent their days waving bible signs on street corners and driving around in bumper-sticker-laden clunkers. These people, instead, looked just like him, only, to his eyes at least, thinner. Debbie walked down the aisle and spotted her aunt and Janice in the pew and her eyes lit up when she saw Andy.

  “Wow, what a surprise,” she said, leaning down and giving him a hug, then squeezing by and hugging his mother. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “I’m full of... surprises,” he finally said, nervously. “Can you sit down?”

  “No, not yet,” she frowned, “I’m singing in the choir this morning. Save me a seat, though.” She squeezed his shoulder and hurried back up the aisle. Andy watched her go and wondered why someone so perfect would give a loser like him the time of day. She was an angel. He tried to memorize the feel of her touch on his shoulder.

  The band was pretty good and most of the people in the room were singing along with words projected onto a screen against the front wall. Andy didn’t know the songs, but his eyes were, for the most part, trained on Debbie Williams, not on the overhead screen. The choir did an old hymn he recognized from somewhere and it was curiously beautiful for him to hear his mother singing along in a soft, sweet voice he recognized from his childhood bedside. “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

  The choir finished and filed off the stage and took seats in the audience, Debbie stepped into the other end of the pew and wound up sitting by her aunt. Their eyes met as she did and she smiled and shrugged. The preacher, a man about Andy’s age, stood up next and adjusted the band leaders music stand down to his level and tightened it before placing his Bible on it. He was short and stocky with a neck that would defy the top button of a collared shirt. One of those necks that, if you ever did get your shirt buttoned, your face would turn red to the point of explosion. Andy could relate. He hated that feeling. But this preacher didn’t wear a tie; he was dressed in a sweater and khakis, just like Andy. And he didn’t shout. He just talked and read verses from the Bible and explained what they might mean in the lives of the people in the room, very personal. The service ended with a song and an invitation for people to come down front for prayer if they desired and a handful of people from various places in the auditorium responded while the rest quietly began filing out of the room.

  Andy, Janice and Marg stood in the small courtyard and waited for Debbie to join them. “I never expected us to be standing here, mom,” he said.

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “But I regret that, I really do. I wish I’d found this thirty years ago.”

  “I wouldn’t beat myself up about it, you’ve had a pretty good life,” he said.

  “Oh, I know, no complaints. But this is so much better, I just think of all I’ve missed.”

  “Well you’ll just have to make up for lost time then,” he smiled and gave her a squeeze.

  “I’m so glad you came, thank you,” she whispered as they hugged.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  Debbie joined them and apologized for making them wait, “Hey, can I borrow you for a minute? I’d like to introduce you to some people.”

  “Well, I...” Andy began, but she had already tucked her arm under his and was leading him away from the ladies.

  “It’ll just take a minute,” she smiled. They approached the front door where the pastor was shaking hands with people as they exited the chapel. Debbie waited for an opportunity and said, “Pastor John, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  “Debbie, hi” he said. Pastor John and Debbie were about the same height and he was just as stumpy up close as he was from back in the pews. He gave Debbie a hug and said, “Absolutely.”

  “This is my friend Andy Boyd. Andy, Pastor John,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you Andy, welcome,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Thanks, it was nice.”

  “Andy Boyd—Hey, you’re not Andrew Boyd, the writer, are you?”

  “That’s what my agent keeps telling me,” Andy said. “But I wouldn’t say that too loud around here.”

  “No way, I’m a big fan.”

  “Serious?”

  “I’ve got all the hard covers. Debbie, why didn’t you tell me you knew this guy?”

  “We just met, recently.”

  “Well, it’s an honor, Andy, really. Listen, can I get you to sign my books sometime?”

  “Sure, I’d be happy too.”

  “Listen, Pastor John, I know you’re busy, but I just wanted to introduce you two,” Debbie said.

  “Well thanks, really. And Andy, wow, nice to meet you. Come back sometime, huh?”

  “I will, thanks. Thanks a lot.” Debbie and Andy stepped away and joined another small group of friends that she wanted to introduce him to. They didn’t recognize him as a writer, and she didn’t volunteer the information. But he felt equally accepted. The whole experience assaulted his preconceptions. He had to keep some walls up or he would find himself really liking this church thing.

  After lunch Andy and Debbie made plans to meet Tuesday evening for dinner. Andy’s mother saw the sparkle in her son’s eyes on the drive home, but didn’t say anything out loud; she decided to pray for him instead, thanking God for beginning to work in his life.

  Andy sat on his couch for a long time after he got back to his place in the city. He thought about Debbie Williams. And he thought about his life. He scanned through any memories that he could find that would help him understand how he got to this point. He was a mess of emotional garbage, a lazy sloth, a loner who didn’t believe in much of anything, especially himself. He wondered if he would be able to have a real relationship, if that’s what this became. He wondered if he was too selfish, to introverted. He wondered if, given the chance, he would even be able to perform sexually. He was too old for these feelings, he needed to slow down and keep the girl at arms length. He needed to push her away and see if she really liked him or just liked the idea of knowing a writer. His mind was a blur of conflicting thoughts. He closed
his eyes in an attempt to silence the barrage of emotion, and fell asleep.

  He woke up and looked at the clock. It had only been thirty minutes, but he felt a lot better. He needed to work in order to prevent the process from beginning again. He took a bottle of water from the pantry and walked straight to his computer. Scanning the last entry in the Broadback story, he just started typing where he left off.

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  Appalachian Malady - 9

  Pena/Broadback met Sophia Garza at a diner in Versailles for a quick breakfast before the two started the long drive to Rose Park. All she knew about the Rafferty’s cracker business was that, according to James, it was a way to provide a few jobs in the little mining town and it made the group feel like they were doing some big service for humanity.

  “James know you’re coming with me today?” Michael/Rance asked.

  She looked at him with the “I’m a big girl” look he’d seen before in Tami Beatty’s eyes, and said nothing.

  “Ooh, soft spot?”

  “Let’s just say it is a challenge sometimes.”

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

  “I’m sure I only see one side of James, and it is probably the better side. But even so, I am not the fifteen year old from South America anymore. My father and I can do pretty well on our own.”

  “Have you ever talked to your dad about setting up your own business? You and your father?”

  She nodded, “Si, but my father is more of a simple man. He likes the security and routine of working for James. I don’t think he would ever leave.”

  “What about you? What do you want?”

  “I don’t know. To be honest, meeting you has been…” she searched for the right words as the countryside changed from four rail fences and palatial estates to general stores and hard woods. “It’s opened my eyes,” she finally said.

  “Sophia, I...” Rance/Michael began.

  “No, I don’t mean us, particularly, although I’ve thought about it,” she allowed with a subtle smile. “But, I mean more what you represent. Here you are living free, living life, looking for opportunities, it’s exciting.”

  “Like I told you, my life is not usually like this,” he said.

  She turned in the seat and looked deeply at his strong, handsome profile, “Somehow I don’t believe that is entirely true.”

  Silence passed between them as they began winding through the north edge of the forest. It was a beautiful day for a drive and other than a few slow moving tractors; the trip to Rose Park was uneventful. The mini-mart/diner where they were to meet Sheriff McCoy was the same one Pena/Broadback had passed the previous weekend where he picked up the redneck convoy. There were two vehicles parked outside this noon, an old Oldsmobile and a brown and white Sheriff’s Impala. They pulled past the gas pumps and parked alongside the Olds. McCoy saw Sophia and rose from his seat at one of the old diner tables, leaving his coffee and a cigarette in the ashtray, and stepped outside the door.

  “Well, well,” he said with his stone-faced grin, “Dr. Garza. What a surprise.”

  “Sheriff,” she said.

  “I hope it’s okay,” Michael/Rance said, “I needed some help finding the place.”

  “Sure you did,” the Sheriff deadpanned. “C’mon, we’ll take my car.” Michael held the back door open for Sophia and he sat in the front with the Sheriff. They turned right out of the gravel lot and eased through town on 289 north toward Henryville.

  “Hope we didn’t keep you waiting,” Pena said, actually hoping that he had.

  “Me? No. I’m just pulling in to town myself. Spent the night back in Louisville,” McCoy said. He drove the streets like the king of the world, waving and nodding at his subjects. “Before we set up the company Rose Park was turning into a ghost town,” he said. “Now we employ about half the town and people are living pretty good.” Five blocks later they were winding through the densely wooded national forest.

  “Doesn’t seem like the most ideal place for a company,” Pena/Broadback said.

  “That’s exactly why we’re doing it. No national corporation in their right mind would move here. Hell, we can’t even get a McDonalds for crissake. So if we wanted to save the town, we had to do it ourselves.”

  “Very noble,” Pena said and could almost feel McCoy’s grip tighten on the steering wheel. “This man would like nothing more than to belt me in the chops right now,” Rance thought. “I think I’m growing on him.” He smiled slightly at the thought. The impala pulled in to the seemingly deserted entrance to the Cedar Ridge Mine. The massive gates were loosely chained and locked with a heavy padlock. McCoy removed his radio microphone and punched a channel on the receiver.

  “Yeah?” a voice came across.

  “Yeah, open up,” he said. A golf cart carrying two people crested the gravel hill in front of the Sheriff’s car and the man in the passenger seat hopped out to unlock the gate, he swung it open wide and the Sheriff sped past leaving the cart in a cloud of dust. Sophia could hear the men cuss as they tore past. The Sheriff pulled up to an old metal warehouse that looked to be about 20’ by 80’, army green with a rusted white roof. There were a few windows on the side and one metal door. A sign screwed to the metal siding by the door read, “Alta Loma Distribution.”

  “So this is it?” Michael said.

  “This is the office, we’ll take a cart over to the plant,” the Sheriff said.

  The men in the gold cart pulled back up to the building and hopped off the cart, coated with dust, they were not amused by the Sheriff’s driving.

  “Jesus, Buddy,” the driver said.

  “I’m taking the cart to the plant,” McCoy announced. “Going to show these two how we make crackers,” he grinned again, or it seemed like a grin, with his face you couldn’t tell.

  Sophia and Michael boarded the 4-seater cart and McCoy got behind the wheel, scattering gravel as he pulled away from the green office building. “That’s the entrance to the old mine, yonder,” he said, pointing to his left as the cart sped by a fenced-off area blocking a 20’ roll-up door that standing against the side of the mountain.

  “Mine played out and Uncle Sam shut’er down. We’re making the best of it though,” McCoy said as he rounded the hill and pulled up to a side entrance. Pointing two hundred yards past where he parked, he noted a couple pickups and a set of three loading doors. “Down there’s the loading docks. All the rest of the magic happens in here.”

  He opened the door for his guests and led them into a cavernous room, part of the old Coal Mine that had been retrofitted with equipment for a food-grade processing facility. The room was like an airplane hanger with a low ceiling. It was empty except for an old truck that was parked fifty meters away in front of an interior wall and a row of doors. There was a man leaning against the hood. Rance didn’t recognize him, but the cocky stance was familiar. Buddy diverted the group to their right, opening the door to the first room on the tour, which was a small reception area. The deserted little office led to the mixing and baking room. Here about seven workers in white aprons, hairnets and masks worked assembly line style machines, which were spinning and whirring and producing perfect little baked crackers. Their gun-toting tour guide informed them that it took about seven minutes for the white flour to make it’s way through the line from start to finished product. Buddy grabbed a few fresh crackers off the end of the line as they were hustled forward through an opening in the wall and into the next room. He handed a few to Michael and Sophia. “This is step one,” he said over the noise of the machinery.

  The trio walked through a swinging metal door into a packaging complex where the crackers were being mechanically separated and inserted into plastic sleeves, sealed, and wedded with colorful cardboard boxes during the final step. The process was overseen by two attentive workers standing on either side of the stainless steel line who watched for broken crackers, bad seals, or anything out of the ordinary, which they would extricate from the line with the precision of
doing the same task for a long time.

  “Step two,” McCoy said over the noise, waving his hand for them to follow. Passing through a set of swinging doors, the next room had four workers folding corrugated boxes and loading in boxes of crackers, twenty-four per carton. The workers would load a pallet, pull it from the room with a motorized pallet jack and load another. The pallets were shrink wrapped and taken by fork life to a staging area. By this time the threesome was approaching the loading area and Buddy McCoy decided to cut the walking tour short.

  “At this point we stage the pallets, then, we fill a container and ship them out. We ship about two containers a week depending on the time of year,” he said.

  “So that’s it, then?” Michael/Rance said.

  “That’s about it,” McCoy said. “All we need now is distribution.”

  “Honestly, it doesn’t seem like half the town is working here. Is this really the extent of the operation?”

  “We run three shifts, so, yeah, by the end of the day, about half the town has a job out here in one way or another.”

  “It looks like a big mine,” Michael/Rance said, stepping away from Sophia’s side to open an unmarked door. It was locked. “This place is cavernous, what are you doing with the rest of it?”

  “Room to grow, Mr. Pena. And if we go international with your fathers ships, we’ll have more crackers baking in this old mine than you could shake a stick at.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Michael/Rance said. “Why did you put the plant in here? Why not out in the open, in that old warehouse even? Better light, better ventilation.”

  “Tax shelter. Feds give annual funding for retrofitting the old mine… We get paid coming and going.” The thought almost brought forth a real smile that time as McCoy extended his hand toward an exit door, “If there’s nothing else, my little tour is pretty much over.”

  “I’d like to see more of the mine,” Michael/Rance said as they stepped back into the sunlight.

  “Most of it’s all shut down and restricted. I even post guards. It’s all mandated by the feds. We can retrofit the mine, but we have to make sure the areas that haven’t been upgraded are tightly secured from the public. Don’t want any accidents. I’m sure you understand,” Buddy said without much concern as to whether Pena understood or not.

  “I see. Oh well, huh?” Pena shrugged. The Sheriff drove Pena and the doctor back to Harvey’s to retrieve their car. Michael/Rance was careful to mentally note each nuance of the mine. The number of cars, trucks, people, weapons—he mentally logged them all. This was a fruitful trip, on several levels.

  “Thank you, Sheriff. This was educational,” Michael/Rance said, extending his hand. McCoy returned his and tipped his hat to Dr. Garza. Michael opened the door for Sophia and they headed south out of the gravel lot. Buddy watched them for a moment before his face turned cold and he headed back to the mine.

  “That was interesting,” Pena/Broadback said as he and Sophia started south on 289.

  “I suppose,” Sophia said.

  “He had all the right answers, I’ll give him that.”

  “It felt like the whole thing was staged for us,” she said.

  “You got that feeling, too?” he said, glancing over at his co-pilot. “Why would a little operation like that attract the attention of a high profile guy like your boss?”

  “And the Senator... I’ve heard her take credit for routing the new highway through this area, in reference to this business. They sure made it sound like it was a little bigger deal than this. It’s kind of embarrassing, I think,” Sophia said. “What are you going to do?”

  Michael/Rance thought about that one. He knew what he was going to do, but how much to let her in on was another question. He decided that it was still too early in the game to include his new friend. “I guess, when it comes right down to it, business is business, right? If they want to pay me to haul a container of crackers to Chicago, well, that’s what I do, right?” he said, as if thinking out loud.

  Sophia was hoping that he would say more. That he would confirm her uneasiness and tell her that something didn’t smell right. She would have thought more of him for doing that. As it was, maybe Michael Pena was just another businessman, just another “Investor.”

  McCoy scheduled tour had sidetracked him from his real business, which was still waiting for him at the mine. He radioed ahead so the gate would be open, and drove all the way back to the loading docks. He entered the staging area entering a open drive door and sped across the inner cavern to the wall of offices, in front of which was the old pickup Rance noticed earlier and the skinny redheaded kid with an assault rifle. He stood aside as Buddy dismounted. McCoy thumbed through his keys and shoved one in the door. He stared at the kid while he did and the kid felt the need to apologize for something. McCoy entered the door without a word, and slammed it shut behind him. It was a smaller room. This one may have been used for training or maybe as a break room in the days when coal had been the product of Cedar Ridge. There was a metal conference table and eight or ten metal folding chairs. The bank of fluorescent lights buzzed and hummed producing a light that would give a person a permanent headache unless they got out in to the sunshine once in a while. John Garcia/Sanchez was cuffed to a chair, his hands behind his back, his ankles zip-tied to the front legs of the chair. There was no blindfold and no tape across his mouth. Screaming in this cavern would be pointless.

  “Well, well,” McCoy began as he approached Garcia/Sanchez and sat on the edge of the table. “Trespassing. Hunting alone. Using an electronic turkey call that is actually a mobile Ground Penetrating Radar unit...” Sanchez eyes widened just enough for the Sheriff to notice. “Oh yeah, sorry. Did you think we were just a bunch of illiterate Moonshiners out here, son? Now, who are you?”

  “Like I told the other guys...” His sentence was cut off by a backhand slap to the face that brought the calloused knuckles of the Sheriff to bear on John’s cheek, nearly knocking him off the chair.

  “I’m not those other guys, son. I’m the law. I’m Sheriff William McCoy, and I asked you a question.”

  “John Garcia,” Sanchez said, he could feel the swelling starting to pull his right eye closed.

  “Mr. Garcia, what were you looking for in my woods?”

  “Hunting. I was...” Another vicious slap connected to the side of John’s face crashing in to the side of his mouth, slamming his teeth together, and knocking him to the floor with a grunt.

  “Did I mention the GPR unit, son? We both know you weren’t hunting.” Buddy straightened John’s chair, slamming him back upright. “Want to try that answer again?”

  “Prospecting,” Sanchez said on the fly, “I was… I’m a geologist.”

  “Let me ask you a question, Mr. Garcia. Were you a part of a little ass-kicking that went on a few nights ago out on north 289?”

  Sanchez looked blankly at the man, he honestly had no idea what he was talking about. “I’m sorry, I…”

  “So you’re just a hunter-slash-geologist who happens to be prospecting within the radius of my mine. Wandering around in the hills with a sophisticated piece of radar equipment… I see. My bad, as they say, right?” McCoy straightened up.

  “Yeah, I just…” Garcia/Sanchez only got part of his explanation out when without notice, McCoy drew back and hit him in the face with a crashing right hand, smashing his nose and sending him sprawling down to the floor where his head bounded on the concrete surface, knocking him unconscious.

  “I don’t believe you, son.” McCoy said. And left the room.

  “You stay right here, understand? I’ll be back in an while,” he told the redheaded guard and got in his car. The Sheriff jerked the car into reverse and slammed the accelerator to the floor, he cranked the wheel tightly, spinning the car around on the concrete floor, and sped back toward the loading dock with a fury. He drove to Harvey’s, calming down along the way, and ordered a sandwich and a coffee. He sat in his car to eat and dialed a private number. r />
  “Rafferty.”

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  “Pena? The tour?”

  “No, that was a slam dunk. He brought Sophia, by the way, did you know that?” Rafferty didn’t respond. “Anyway, a couple of guards patrolling the eastern perimeter picked up a guy snooping around.”

  “Snooping around?”

  “He had a Ground Penetrating Radar unit. Sophisticated stuff. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Who the hell is he? Is he connected with the other night?”

  “ID says John Garcia, contractor out of California. He won’t give me anything else, yet.”

  “Find out who he’s working for. I’ll call Lecter. This is not good, Buddy” Rafferty slammed the phone down and rubbed his brow.

  McCoy clicked his own phone shut and finished his sandwich as anger began to build. He didn’t like intruders. He drove two blocks to his office for a nap. He woke up as the sun was going down and splashed some water on his face then returned to the mine. He filled a bucket with water from the loading dock and brought it, along with a framing hammer from his trunk, into the “interview room” with him. Garcia/Sanchez was still passed out on the floor; a mixture of blood and spittle was pooled under his face.

  McCoy sat the hammer down and dumped the five-gallon bucket on Garcia’s face where it splashed him to consciousness, nearly drowning him. He gasped for dry air. McCoy grabbed Garcia/Sanchez by the front of the shirt and jerked him back upright. He turned the chair away from the table and retrieved the hammer.

  “We’re going to play a little game, you and I. In this game, for each wrong answer something gets smashed. Could be a hand, could be a kneecap, or, it could be a scull. Sound fun?” McCoy said. Garcia/Sanchez was barely conscious. He was pretty tough, but this redneck Sheriff was evil. “The first question is an easy one. Who are you working for? Now, think real hard before you answer, because if I say ‘wrong answer,’ I’m going to drive your left knee in to next Wednesday. Understand?”

  From across the room, a cell phone began to chirp in Garcia’s backpack. McCoy raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch, indicating, if his stone face could exhibit expression, surprise. He stood and retrieved the backpack, unzipping it and extracting the cell phone as he was walking back to Sanchez.

  “Sounds like mommies calling to see if you’re bringing home supper.” McCoy checked the number. It was a Kentucky area code. He clicked the ‘answer’ button and held the phone to Garcia’s ear.

  Rance made it back to the hotel at 6:00 pm. He got to his room and checked messages on the trac-phone he’d bought to communicate with Sanchez. There was a message—John had found something. He left the coordinates of 86.25 longitude by 36.73 latitude.

  He dialed the cell number of the trac-phone he had given John, after four rings it connected.

  “Yeah,” Sanchez said weakly.

  “John?” Rance said.

  “Mmm,” he cleared the blood and saliva from his mouth and throat. “Sorry, I got lost,” he said.

  “What? John, are you alright?”

  “Yeah, uh, I’ll be home in a couple of days.”

  “Where are you?” Rance said. The phone clicked off. Sanchez had been captured. A few seconds later the phone rang - it was Sanchez.

  Rance picked up, altering his voice, “Yeah?” There was silence on the other end. The caller was trying to identify the voice, trace the number, and figure out who was calling John Garcia. Rance broke the phone and destroyed the components and then sat at the edge of the plush hotel bed and closed his eyes. He needed to start the end game. John’s life was in jeopardy.

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