The Crossroads Cafe

  “After nine-eleven, is it true you tried to join the army?”

  “Yes. Several times. They rejected me. Something about being over thirty and a little too eager to kill everyone named ‘Mohammed.’”

  “Have you ever considered anger-management therapy? Your sessions with Dr. Smirnoff and Dr. Absolut don’t count.”

  “Therapy is for people who have unrealistic anger and guilt. My anger and guilt are based entirely on reality.”

  “I’ve read what you did on nine-eleven. There’s nothing realistic about your guilt.”

  “I was supposed to keep my son that morning. My wife and I argued, as usual, over whose time was more important, hers or mine, and I insisted she take him with her. As a result, they both died. Nothing can change that fact.”

  “I see. We’re supposed to see into the future and base all our decisions on every possible outcome, including massive acts of terrorism. What you regret, Thomas, is the brutal pettiness of unknowable fate. Something neither you nor anyone else can ever overcome.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t try.”

  “You’re looking for someone to punish. If I could place Osama Bin Laden in front of you right now, hand you a gun, and allow you to shoot him, would that give you closure?”

  “You’d have to fill a stadium with the people who should die along with him.”

  “Care to name names?”

  “Let’s just say it starts with everyone who stood to benefit politically and economically from nine-eleven, and everyone who’s made money off it since.”

  “I didn’t realize you’re one of our resident conspiracy theorists.”

  “There’s never been a war in the history of the world that wasn’t started by the wealthy for the wealthy.”

  “As a Jersey boy who joined the Marines voluntarily in 1966, I’m insulted that you believe patriotism can only be a façade for cynical self-interest.”

  “There are patriots and there are politicians. Not necessarily one and the same. True patriotism is about home, family, and community, not killing innocent civilians on the other side of the world for big corporations.”

  “‘Community’ is this entire country. This way of life.”

  “When invaders set foot on the coast of North Carolina I’ll rip their necks open and piss down their throats. Not before.” I looked at Mrs. Halfacre, whose chicks were fluttering. “Excuse my French, ma’am.”

  Benton steepled his chin on his fingers. “What happened to that man who wanted to kill everyone named Mohammed?”

  “He’s seen too many pictures of innocent Iraqi women and children we killed.”

  “We?”

  “If we truly believe ‘we the people’ are the government then yes, we killed them.”

  “If Eisenhower had worried about accidentally killing civilians during the invasion of Normandy we’d all be speaking German now.”

  “If Eisenhower were here he’d repeat what he said when he left the White House. ‘Beware of giving corporations and the military too much power.’”

  “Let me see if I understand this, Thomas. Somebody killed your wife and son. You don’t know exactly who’s responsible, you trust no one’s version of the facts, you want to punish legions of faceless villains, and so ... you blame yourself and attack camera equipment.”

  “I blame myself for sending my wife and son to die for the sake of my morning work schedule. As for attacking camera equipment, well, it’s a start.”

  “To be honest, then, Cathryn Deen’s privacy is of no real consequence to you.”

  “Your Honor, you took a long walk to reach the wrong destination.”

  “Show me the truth, the way and the light, then.”

  “If I can save her life, and if there is a Heaven, and if my son is there, maybe I’ll get to be with him when I kill myself.”

  Silence. The only sound was Mrs. Halfacre’s gasp.

  Benton slowly lowered his hands to his gavel. “You . . . see Cathryn Deen as a way to earn Brownie points with God?”

  What did he expect me to tell him? The truth? That I didn’t believe in Heaven, never expected to see Ethan again, and considered God a bad joke foisted on humanity like a cheap drug? That I loved Cathy? Purely and simply loved her. A woman I’d never met. No, if I admitted that in open court Mrs. Halfacre’s chicks might shit on themselves. I shrugged. “I’ll accept karmic credit wherever I can get it. I’d like to go back on the record now, please.”

  Benton sighed. “Mrs. Halfacre, remove your hands from your heart and start typing.”

  “Dear Jesus,” Mrs. Halfacre said. “I don’t care what everyone whispers about you, Mr. Mitternich. You’re not crazy in a bad way.”

  “Why, thank you.” I gave her a slight bow.

  Benton picked up his gavel. “Thomas, you’re going to pay full damages to those photographers, and I can’t let you off without serving time.”

  “You’re going to miss me at poker. Who else lets you win?”

  “You just sealed your fate.” He raised the gavel. “Full damages, six months’ probation, and two weeks at the county farm.”

  Rap.

  So there I was, doing hard time. Pike didn’t let criminals off easy. Jail meant a work detail. It also meant enduring an old-fashioned, zebra-banded jumpsuit.

  “My, my, Tommy-Son, don’t you look ‘vintage,’” Pike said drolly, the first time I stepped out of a cell.

  As a new member of the Jefferson County chain gang, I debated leading an escape to The Lucky Bean coffee shop across from the Jefferson County courthouse, located on the shady square of tiny Turtleville, the county seat. Turtleville perches on the rocky banks of Upper Ruby Creek, so a cool river mist rises along main street most days. In the summer it’s great; in the winter, it’s bone-chilling; now, in the spring, it turned my cheap cotton jumpsuit into a cold, damp glove. April is way too cold for water-based convict labor, and a zebra-striped jumpsuit is even more humiliating after it gets clingy. I and my two fellow inmates—Bert, the chronic check bouncer, and Roland, the recidivist speeder—shivered on scaffolding halfway up the courthouse’s two-story brick entrance. We were pressure-washing the stone gargoyles over the main doors.

  “Tommy-Son, work on that gargoyle’s left ear again,” Pike ordered from his comfortable place on a dry bench below the scaffolding. “It’s still green. Looks like he’s got an ear infection.”

  “He’s made of limestone, and the surface of limestone is porous. He needs to be sealed with a good stone primer.”

  “I’ll mention it to the city council. They’ll be glad to know you’re offering positive input for the civic good. Proof that our rehabilitation system works.”

  “Does that mean I’m a trustee, now? Can I take Bert and Roland across the street to buy some lattes?”

  “Some what?” Bert drawled, wrestling a pressure wand as it pelted the gargoyles’ stone perches.

  “Coffee with milk in it, you podunk know-nothing,” Roland explained. He dragged a compressor further along our scaffold. “I like mine mocha-flavored.”

  “Nobody’s going to get coffee of any kind,” Pike said, scowling up at me.

  “I want to know something,” Bert said. “How come we got monkeys on a courthouse in a town named Turtleville?”

  Roland shook his head. “They’re not monkeys, you idjit, they’re stone demons.”

  “I’m a Baptist, so I’m callin’ them monkeys. Baptist stone monkeys.”

  “They’re gargoyles,” I intoned in a professorial way. “It’s from the Old French gargouille. In medieval times they were used as part of the rain spouts on cathedrals. Now they’re mostly ornamental.”

  “All righty, then,” Bert said, “but how come we got ornamental gargles on the courthouse in a town named after turtles? Shouldn’t we have ornamental turtles, instead?”

  “Turtleville was named by the Cherokees, idjit,” Roland said unkindly. “My grandma was a Cherokee, and she said it was Turtle Town back before the white men came. Ch
erokees thought highly of turtles. They said the world rides on the back of a big turtle.”

  “Don’t tell the Baptists that. They’ll want to put a sticker on the science books.”

  Roland looked at me. “What do you think, Mitternich? Did the world come about through evolution, Genesis, or turtle power?”

  I smiled thinly. “I believe in the theory of random chaos. In other words, ‘Shit happens.’”

  Bert and Roland guffawed. Bert aimed his nozzle at the Jefferson County carved into the arch on which the Baptist stone monkeys sat. “All righty, you wise-ass Yankee, answer this trivia question: Who’s the county named after?”

  “Thomas Jefferson, I assume. Our third president, and noted architect.”

  “Wrong. It’s named after Amos Jefferson. Our first pioneer goat drover, and noted lady’s man. Three wives—all married to him at the same time—and nineteen children.” Roland called down to Pike. “Sheriff, ain’t both you and Delta kin to ol’ Amos?”

  Pike grunted. “Everybody whose family goes back more than two generations in Jefferson County is kin to him. Whittlespoons, McKendalls, Netties, you name it. All kissin’ cousins twice removed, or something.”

  Cathy, too, then, I thought. She was always on my mind. Descended from Amos Jefferson? Maybe fate intended that I be liked by Cathy and the local goats. “Goat drover, huh?” I said. “So I assume Banger harks back to a pioneer goat who ate pioneer cell phones?”

  Bert and Roland chortled.

  “Quit jabbering and work,” Pike called. “Tom, you’re a bad influence on your fellow criminals.”

  I concentrated on the gargoyle’s gangrenous ear. A fine mist of water splashed back and soaked my beard. “If I can’t be a good role model, at least I can serve as a warning.”

  Pike didn’t laugh. He didn’t believe in random chaos or personal excuses. I was on his shit list.

  I finished the gargoyle’s ear and turned off my compressor. Bert and Roland were still working. “Thomas,” Delta called. I looked over the end of the scaffold.

  She and Dolores Kaye stood below, gazing up at me proudly.

  “I brought you and the rest of the gang some blueberry pie. The Log Splitter Girls sold me their last reserves of home-grown blueberry preserves from the harvest last fall. In your honor.”

  Roland and Bert grinned at me. “You da man!” Roland whispered. “Those lesbians don’t part with their last batch of berries for just anybody.”

  “Thank you,” I called down. “Any news?”

  Delta nodded. “Cathy’s fever’s gone. They got the infection under control. She’s out of Intensive Care and back in the burn ward. She says send more biscuits. She hasn’t said another word about her husband. It’s like something or somebody cheered her up. Maybe I’ll tell her about those camera-totin’ yahoos you scared off. She needs to know there’s some place in the world where a good man will still stand up for a woman’s defense.”

  Cathy’s fever broke. A fist eased inside my chest. I smiled.

  Pike and Delta stared up me. “Why, look there,” Pike quipped. “He’s got teeth.”

  Delta set a covered pie dish on the bench, tweaked Pike’s cheek—the lower one, not the one on his face, when she thought nobody was looking—and headed for the coffee shop. Dolores Kaye smiled up at me solo. Picture a black, gray-haired, dread-locked-bun Aunt Bea in L. L. Bean mud boots, stretch-waist jeans, and a sweatshirt with a gardening slogan.

  Roses aren’t just red.

  Violets aren’t just blue.

  Visit Kaye Heirloom Nursery

  And see the antique hues.

  “Thomas,” she said, before she turned to follow Delta, “I’ve ordered some more vidal blanc vines for you. My treat.”

  Even a chain-gang convict could have a fan club.

  Cathy

  I never thought I’d be glad to get back to the burn ward, but it was practically cheerful compared to Intensive Care. My first goal was to learn more about the mystery caller who’d coaxed me through the infection.

  “Someone named ‘Thomas’ called me a few days ago,” I told Delta.

  She yipped. “I shoulda known!”

  “Another cousin of mine?”

  “No, honey, not even a distant cousin twice removed by marriage. He’s not from around here, but he fits in good. A few years ago, he saved my son’s life. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it when you feel like listening.”

  “Saving lives. He’s had some practice, then. I thought so.”

  “Well, well. I guess you and Thomas had a nice talk.”

  “He talked. I mostly listened.”

  “He lives on the property next to your granny’s place! And he truly loves her funny old house. He keeps an eye on it. Well, more than keeps an eye. Let me tell you all about him—”

  “No, I like the mystery.”

  “But don’t you want to—”

  “No. I picture him being . . . grandfatherly. Maybe in his late fifties or early sixties. A little balding, a little on the paunchy side. Widowed, he said. His wife and child died young. He must be lonely.”

  “Honey, you don’t have to picture men as sweet, harmless daddies or granddaddies in order to trust ’em.”

  “Oh? All my life, men have wanted me because of the way I looked. I never knew how easy my life was because of their interest, the breaks they gave me, the perks. Everything I believe about myself was built on a false foundation. Now I’m ugly, and men don’t want me. No more free lunches. So . . . I don’t want men. Not the way I used to. I need for any men in my life to be . . . neutral. Please.”

  She sighed. “Okay. I’ll just say this much: He’s not a mule pecker, like Gerald.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  After our conversation ended, I lay there finessing my mental image of Thomas. He lived in a placid little house with white shutters on the windows and bird feeders in the yard. He had a garden, a sweet, lazy dog he’d adopted at a humane society, and a pair of fat housecats. He watched baseball games via a satellite dish—one of the big ones, out in the yard, not the newer ones that could be mounted on the roof. Framed pictures of his wife and son decorated his bookshelves and bedroom dressers.

  He wore khakis with suspenders because of his pot belly, Minnetonka moccasins with worn spots where his knobby bunions prodded the leather, and golf shirts with his church’s name stitched over the left breast. He had bought the shirts when the church sold them to raise money for a new sanctuary. He was kind, and thoughtful, and he would never deliberately try to hurt anyone, including me.

  “Cathryn? Are you ready?”

  The psychiatrist stood beside my bed, holding a large hand mirror with the mirror side turned away from me. Behind him, several nurses and therapists watched me warily, like game wardens ready to tranquilize a cornered bear. My good hand gripped the bed rail so hard my fingers went numb. They’ve got this all planned out. They’ll grab me if I try to run. Shoot me with a dart gun. I’ll wake up in a cage with a tag on my good ear.

  “Ready,” I lied.

  The doctor slowly pirouetted the hand mirror and held it up to my face.

  I looked at the thing in the mirror. The thing. The thing still had beautiful green eyes, high cheekbones and a lush, lovely mouth. It still had a perky, tilted nose and creamy skin on the good side. But the other half of the thing’s face looked like a bad horror-movie mask, as if a special effects artist had slopped some latex onto the skin in weird rivulets and puffy patches and painted it in creepy shades of pink, red, brown and fish-belly white. The imaginary latex pulled at the right corners of the thing’s mouth and eye, distorting them just a little. The thing had a slight, permanent smirk.

  Scar tissue slithered its tentacles upwards into the thing’s scalp. The thing’s head was still bald on that side but had been allowed to grow a soft brown stubble on the unburned side. The thing’s hair looked even worse than Demi Moore’s shaved head in G.I. Jane.

  And the thing’s right ear—well,
the special effects people would simply have to come up with a prettier one. The ear looked as if they’d poured latex into a mold but stirred the rubber before it hardened. When they took the ear from the mold they accidentally tore off the bottom lobe. No, this deformed ear simply wouldn’t do.

  “Cathryn?” the shrink said gently. “How are you feeling?”

  I’m fine, but that thing in the mirror wants to die.

  “I’m seen enough for today. Now I’m going to eat some biscuits and gravy.”

  I pulled Delta and Thomas’s latest care package to my chest, tore off a chunk of biscuit, jabbed it into the gravy, then popped the chunk into my mouth. Chewing violently, I stared at the psych squad. Eventually they put their dart guns away and concluded I was safe to leave alone. They exited the room, taking the mirror with them.

  I dropped the biscuit on my stomach and cried. Recently I’d insisted on seeing everything that been written and televised about my accident. A bad idea. The jokes, the exploited video, the gleeful nastiness of people. One movie critic had called me “pop-culture royalty with a tragic, Icarusian belief in her own infallibility.”

  Since I’d never gone to college (I was starring in the successful Princess Arianna movies by then,) and had spent most of my teenage years achieving bored “C’s” at a private Atlanta prep school, I had to look up Icarus on a hospital computer. Icarus, of course, was the reckless Greek whose homemade wings melted when he flew too close to the sun. “Like Icarus,” the critic said, “Cathryn Deen was a victim of her own hubris.”

  I had to look up “hubris,” too.

  Shaking, I touched the grisly textures on the right side of my face. I stroked a shivering fingertip over the rough crest of flesh that had been my ear. The thing wasn’t just in the mirror. The thing was me.

  I’m never going to let anyone photograph me again, I’m never going to North Carolina and let Delta see what I look like, and I’m never going to show this horrible face to Thomas.

  I wanted him to remain my safe, grandfatherly fantasy.