When Roads Don’t End

 

Author’s Note: The following is an excerpt of the first two chapters of the novel.

Chapter One

The clink of the coffee cup hitting the saucer always brings back the image of his grandfather sitting at the table quietly alternating sipping and drawing on a cigarette. He’d always found it amazing how vivid and comforting the remembrance of the smell of Pops’ coffee and Camels was. The image had become the essence of what a man should be: strong, tanned arms from working ten hour days outside, gentle but tough as nails when he needed to be, and content with himself. Pops was the only family member who he had ever been able to count on. He was the kind of man anyone could count on, at least until he had a heart attack when Jeff was eight.

Pops would pick him and his younger brother up early on Saturday morning and take them to a job site where he had been working. He could clearly picture them struggling to hold a two by four upright for Pops to nail or gripping a hammer with two hands and hitting a nail in short strokes until it bent sideways into the wood. He never once yelled at them or belittled them for not getting things right. There was always a short laugh followed by, “I do that all the time. Let me show you how to fix it.”

Give him some duct tape and a piece of wire and Pops could fix anything. There was never a need to replace something when he was around. He could look at anything – a washing machine, a leaking pipe, a lawnmower – grab something from his garage, and have it working again in no time, sometimes better than before.

Pops had a knack not just for things but for people, too. The crowds at Pops’ funeral were filled with people who had a story about how he’d done something to help somebody out. He still remembered this man Pops’ worked with telling about how he gave him money so the bank wouldn’t foreclose on his house. The man said he tried to give Pops the money back several times but Pops wouldn’t take it. “Buy your kids something nice,” he’d say.

Every time he was with Pops he felt like the world was his. Pops’ smile was infectious and he kept the boys laughing. No matter what was going on at home, Pops could make everything better. The one thing Pops couldn’t fix, though, was his own son.

***

“Daddy, look! It’s red,” the little boy shouted while shoving the shiny red gumball held between thumb and forefinger into his face.

He pivoted on the counter stool, crouched down eye to eye with the boy and held up his left hand for a high five.

“Great job, son. Your favorite.”

“Yeah, and you know what I did?”

“What’s that, kiddo?”

“Right before I put the quarter in, I held it really tightly in my hand and prayed for a red one,” he said, increasingly excited.

“I’m glad that worked for you,” his father replied trying to hide the hint of skepticism on his face. The boy popped the gum in his mouth.

Putting his hand on the kid’s shoulder, he stood. “Let’s get going.”

“But daddy, you didn’t eat anything,” the boy said.

“Oh, I’m alright from breakfast. That coffee really filled me up and we’ve got to get back on the road. It’s only a couple more hours.”

“Ah, dad, I’m tired of riding,” the boy complained, dropping his head in a pout.

“I know, but we get there when we get there, Kevin. It won’t seem that long.”

He always hated to hear that as a child, remembering how time in a car imprisons the energy and creativity of youth.

He pulled a wallet out of his back pocket that must have been two inches thick, holding it tightly as he opened it so nothing would fall out. That wallet was his attempt at organization, full of folded papers, pictures and stuff he was sure he needed to keep for some reason. Missing, though, were the multiple credit and debit cards carried by the masses.

The frustration with looking inside didn’t stop him from taking out ten of the thirty-five dollars and laying it down on the seven dollar check. He shoved the wallet back into his left back pocket. He quickly put on an excited face, swung around from the counter, and pointed both index fingers out at the boy. The kid mirrored the face and gestures.

“Let’s ride!” they called out in unison.

They walked out to the car hand in hand with Kevin smacking bubbles with his gum.

“Daddy, watch this one!” Kevin would say before blowing another bubble.

“That’s one big bubble,” he’d tell him.

They walked around to the passenger side and opened the back door to the faded maroon Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. He liked to be able to look over his shoulder to check on or speak to Kevin while he drove. Kevin blew one last bubble and jumped in. He was going to be big like his daddy so he had graduated out of a car seat. As he jammed Kevin’s seatbelt in place the skin between his thumb and index finger got caught in the buckle.

“Dammit.”

“Ha, ha. That’s another gumball,” Kevin declared, pointing a finger in his dad’s face. “And…”

“And I’m sorry,” he said, giving a frown and hanging his head in contrived shame.

He walked around the back of the car and slid into the front seat. When he turned the switch the needle on the gas gauge moved slightly to the right of ‘E.’ He mouthed something that would have cost him another gumball had Kevin been able to hear it. He glanced in the rear view anyway to make sure but Kevin was happily humming a random tune and chewing.

Past the end of the entrance ramp, with Kevin humming quietly in the background, his thoughts turned to his son. This trip was ultimately about him. He wanted better for his kid. A hell of a thought. He had grown up around kids he envied because their parents placed their well-being and happiness above all else. To this day it made him angry to think about it. He was coming from behind when it came to his own son but he was determined that Kevin would never feel that way despite Beth’s best efforts to defeat him.

At the same time it was always contempt that he felt when he heard other people say they wanted the best for their kids, mostly because it was coming from some preacher or psychologist or politician or multi-million dollar talk show host. He couldn’t stand all those people paying lip service to something they had no clue about. It didn’t seem to him any work to have to give your kids better than you when you were educated, rich and privileged. He reckoned most parents said they wanted better for their kids, but for him it was his whole reason for being.

It was barely thirty minutes down the road before he exited.

“Where’re we going?” Kevin asked.

“Got to get gas,” he answered.

Turning into the gas station, Kevin sat up with a huge smile. “Candy!”

“No, not this time. Just need enough gas to get us there.”

He could see the frown on Kevin’s face in the rear view mirror but there was no complaining.

He pulled up to the pump, got out of the car, pulled his wallet out and, deep within the stack of papers, pulled out two twenties he’d separated from his spending money. Kevin unbuckled and started to open the door.

“You stay here,” he told Kevin. The rear car door shut.

He walked in and put the twenties on the counter. “Pump three,” he told the cashier.

As he stepped out of the store, Kevin opened the car door and ran around the front of the car toward him. He accidentally bumped into a guy coming around the back the car on the other side of the pump.

“Watch where you’re going!” the man snapped at Kevin. “Don’t your parents teach you any manners?”

The yelling stopped Kevin in his tracks as the man stared him down. When he snapped out of it, he ran to his father and wrapped his arms around his legs, looking back at the man in fear. He quickly pulled out his wallet, jerked a five out, leaned down and gave it to Kevin trying with everything he had to keep the anger at bay. “Go inside and get some candy.”

As soon as Kevin stepped into the station, his jaw clinched shut and he made a beeline toward the man’s car. With every step he imagining pounding the guy’s head into the ground.

The man was opening his door to get in when he put his left hand on the guy’s shoulder and swung him around so quickly the guy’s head couldn’t keep up with his body.

When it did he grabbed the guy by the neck with his right hand and jacked him firmly against the car, his head lashing back on the top.

“You better not ever do that to another kid again, you son of a bitch.” His grip tightened as his hand pushed against the guy’s jaw. “Now get out of here before I tear your head off.”

He let his grip free slightly and pushed the guy down toward the open door. The man fell backward into the seat, started his car, and sped off with a squeal of his tires. There was something in his eyes that told the man that getting out of there was his best option.

As he looked back toward the store, Kevin came bounding out with three boxes of candy. “Look at all I got!”

Taking a deep breath he said, “That’s great, son. I know you’ll enjoy it.” He had become quite skillful at outwardly switching emotions. He had his father to thank for that.

“You can have some, too,” the boy offered.

“Nah, that’s your special treat. I’ll let you have it all.”

He made his way to the back of the car to pump the gas as Kevin got back into the car. As he stood there he kept thinking about that guy and playing back the images in his head of how he could have punched the daylights out of him. It all went away when he looked at the back seat and saw Kevin popping candy in his mouth.

Dang it, another five dollars gone.

After the pump slowed to a stop at forty dollars, he placed the handle back in its place. He opened the back door of the car and strapped Kevin back in. Kevin was happily chewing his candy.

“Thanks, dad. These are great,” Kevin said.

“Glad you like them.”

As they turned to get back on the highway, Kevin asked, “Dad, why was that man so mad at me?”

“Oh, I think he was probably mad at himself for running into you.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, Kevin. It wasn’t your fault at all. Some people are like that.”

“What did you say to him,” the boy asked.

“Nothin’ much. I only wanted him to know it wasn’t a big deal.

The attempt to downplay the incident with Kevin ran counter to the thoughts in his head. He decided to change the subject before Kevin caught on.

“How’s that candy?” he asked.

“Great! Thanks, dad. You’re the best.”

“No, son, you are.”

“You know what, Dad? I love you.”

“I love you, too, Kev.”

As soon as it came out of his mouth he felt a brief tightening of his upper body muscles then total relaxation. Twenty-nine years and he finally realized that Kevin was the only person he could say that to without having to think it through first.

As Kevin settled into looking out the window and absorbing the passing sights into memory, his mind wandered to how he’d gotten to this point in time in the car with he and Kevin on I-95 headed toward Jacksonville.

Until yesterday, it had been two weeks since he had seen Kevin. He remembered standing behind the open door of his car as he watched Kevin running toward his mother at his grandmother’s small, grey painted-block house. He had learned to stop short when approaching Beth because he always had an underlying urge to try to shake some sense into her. Literally.

She looked bad, slumped down, cigarette poking between her fingers with arms folded in front wearing a faded black ribbed tank top and torn, faded jeans with a hole in the right knee. She must have lost five pounds since he last saw her two weeks earlier. Her skin was indistinguishable from the light grey of the house. The bones in her face were marked out and every muscle in her arms was visible. She was well down the road to self-destruction.

Probably just as well, he thought.

Beth was destined to go down this road from the day she was born and had never thought of veering off onto another path. He could still feel the helplessness that he felt the first time they met and she held nothing back to him.

She told him that all she knew of her father was the story her mother would flippantly tell to family or at parties or even in the grocery store checkout line about her conception in a bathroom stall at a KISS concert by some guy in an Ace Frehley t-shirt with whom she shared an instant, albeit brief, connection.

“Never did see that son of a bitch again,” she’d say. “Only good for a little pot and a little girl.”

Her mother paraded guys in and out of the house frequently throughout the pregnancy and in Beth’s early years. Beth never learned the warmth and safety of a mother, instead crying and screaming until she could do no more and falling asleep hungry, dirty, scared, or lonely. Sometimes it was all four.

Around the time Beth turned five years old, her mother met up with an old high school friend at a coming home party for him after a three year stint in state prison for growing marijuana in his grandmother’s shed. In less than a month, Beth had a stepfather.

Beth would tell him how wonderfully this man would treat her, buying her anything she wanted, playing with her on the floor, and taking her everywhere he went. Then her entire demeanor would sink as she told him about the late night visits to her room where he would rape her while her mother slept in the room next door. She never cried out for help because she had learned early on that it would do no good. It went on for three years before her stepfather was shot in a drug deal that went bad. It was relief but not justice for what he did to her.

He was the first and only person Beth told this to. She had told him that he was the only guy she could trust with physical intimacy, something he would find out was far from true. He was sucked in by this teenage girl’s need for healing and the way she had chosen him as the likely savior.

He hated like hell to leave Kevin with her but he had been told by everyone from attorneys to school counselors that she should be a part of his life. The court had decided in its infinite wisdom to split the summer months between them. He knew it was a disaster waiting to happen, especially since she’d have him an entire month, but evidently those with fancy degrees knew what was best for his child. There’s a fine line between knowledge and ignorance.

“I’ll pick him up in four weeks,” he told her.

“Whatever,” she mumbled, waving the cigarette in front of her. “I need some extra money to take care of him since he’ll be here so long.”

“You’re not getting any,” he snapped as he turned, dropped into the seat, and slammed the door. Everything that came out of her mouth got his blood boiling.

He backed out of the driveway with a slight scrub of the tires as he turned toward the only way out of the neighborhood. As soon as he hit the stop sign a couple houses down the road, he opened the glove box and grabbed the pack of cigarettes out. He shoved the cigarette into his mouth, rolled down the window, took the lighter from behind the cellophane and flicked it. It took four or five draws before he stopped shaking and his body relaxed.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” he said to himself aloud.

He hated worrying. Before Kevin was born, he never knew that feeling. Now it was inescapable no matter where the kid was or who he was with. But when he left him with Beth, the worrying trumped everything else.

***

Almost two weeks after dropping Kevin off his gut instinct became reality. The call from his mother came way too early on Sunday morning for it to be anything good. She hadn’t seen the sun before ten in the morning since his dad died. Knowing Beth’s tendency to never follow through on commitments, he had expected a call to come get him any day now but from her and not his mother.

She didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Some lady from child protective in Richmond called looking for you,” she grunted before going into a deep coughing fit.

“Richmond? What did she want?” he asked.

“She said something about Kevin and his bitch momma abandoning him and you needing to come up there.”

“What exactly did she say?” he snapped at her with angry irritation.

“I don’t remember. All I know is it’s too damn early to be answering the phone,” she barked back.

“What’s her name?” he demanded.

“Linda something or other. She tried calling you but you didn’t answer your damn phone. Call her so she doesn’t wake me up again!”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said with more than a touch of contempt. He could kick himself for letting his phone lose its charge.

What the heck has she done this time, he wondered as he punched in the number his mother gave him. With every ring he could feel his heart beating faster. He was pacing from wall-to-wall by the time it picked up.

“Linda McCollum, Child Protective Services.”

“Mrs. McCollum, this is Jeff Wagner. My mother said you were trying to get in touch with me about my son Kevin,” he said.

“Oh, Mr. Wagner, I really appreciate your getting back to me so quickly. I really hate to tell you this but Kevin was placed in our custody last night by the Richmond Police Department. We need…”

“What happened?” he interrupted. “Is Kevin alright?”

“He’s fine, he’s fine, Mr. Wagner,” she assured him. “He’s staying with our best emergency foster care family. But we need you to come to Richmond as soon as possible.”

“Why, what happened? How did he get in Richmond?” He banged his fist on the wall.

“I wish I could tell you but I don’t know all the details myself. He was picked up by our on-call social worker about 3:00 this morning and I got the call to take over the case when I came in this morning. All I know is he was found alone in an apartment by police. When I found out you were in North Carolina I wanted to give you a call as soon as possible so you could make plans to be up here in the morning. I understand that Kevin has been asking for you since he was picked up so my priority has been to track you down. I should be able to tell you more once you get here.”

“I’ll leave now,” he said as he was hurried back to the bedroom to grab a t-shirt and another pair of jeans. “I can be there in three and a half, maybe four hours.”

“No rush today. I’m sorry but we won’t be able to process his release to you until morning,” she explained. “Don’t worry at all. He couldn’t be in a better place. I promise you he will be fine.”

The hell I won’t worry, he thought. “How early can I come tomorrow?”

“We open at eight.”

“I’ll drive up today and be there first thing,” he said.

“Great. Kevin will be alright. I’ll tell him you are on your way and you’ll be here first thing in the morning,” she replied.

“Is there any way I can talk to him now?”

“Unfortunately not,” she said. “He is not here with me for one and the police need to talk with him again today to see if they can find his mother. I think it will be best to wait until you see him tomorrow. He’s been doing pretty well and I am sure he will want you with him right now if you speak to him. I’d hate for him to be upset all night.”

Somebody else that knew what was best for his kid, he thought.

“Thank you, Mrs. McCollum. Please tell him everything is going to be OK and I’m on the way.”

“I will. See you tomorrow morning.”

When the phone clicked off he slammed his fist down on the kitchen counter rattling everything on it. He picked up his empty coffee cup and launched it at the wall, leaving a crescent dent a half inch deep. He stood there fuming staring straight ahead with his hands on the counter holding him up for almost an hour. His mind went totally blank.

He nearly drove himself crazy that afternoon pacing the trailer. He’d grab a shirt or something, throw it in his duffle, stomp to the kitchen and go back to pack something else. He called Beth’s mother but she couldn’t tell him anything except she hadn’t seen them since about four hours after he’d dropped him off last weekend. She didn’t say anything about Richmond or Kevin so he didn’t feel obligated to tell her anything the social worker had said.

It was early afternoon when he couldn’t hold it together any longer. He picked up the duffle and car keys and tore out the door. As he was locking it his cell phone rang. He jerked it out of this right pocket and punched it with this thumb

“Yeah,” he barked.

There was a brief pause. “May I speak to Jeff Wagner?” the man asked cautiously.

Dammit, what’s happening now, he thought.

“That’s me,” he replied in a much more subdued tone.

“My name is Sam Beard. I run a construction company down in Jacksonville, Florida and I got your name from my friend Bill Parsons. Says you’re a damn good worker.”

He slung the duffle through the driver’s side window realizing how rude he had been answering the phone. Mr. Parson was the best boss he’d ever worked for and he felt obliged to show him respect. He took a deep breath and took on a much more professional tone.

“I appreciate that,” he replied. “I think a lot of Mr. Parsons. What can I do for you, Mr. Beard?”

“Well, we’ve started some big projects down here since the economy is getting out of the toilet and I need people. Bill called me a week ago and told me about a couple of guys that were laid off from his company. You were at the top of his list so now you’re at the top of mine.”

Given the state he was in he had to remind himself not to screw this up.

“You interested in coming down to Jacksonville to work for me?” Beard asked.

“Well, uh, I might be,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound so reassuring,” Beard said bluntly. “I need some help and I need to know one way or another.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I’m not interested,” he responded. “I’m in the middle of something and can’t believe you’re calling to offer me a job.”

“I’m on a tight timeline here, Jeff. I’ve got to have you down here in a couple of days if you want this job.”

Dammit. He had no idea what he would find in Richmond. The lawyer would tell him that he couldn’t pack up and take Kevin to live so far away and there was no way he was going to leave him with his mother after this, if she ever came back.

“I really need a job, Mr. Beard, it’s just…”

“Whatever it is, if you can get it figured out and get down here Wednesday, you got a job,” Beard interrupted. “Otherwise, I got to move on to the next guy.”

“I’ll be there Wednesday.” He knew he was taking a big chance but he couldn’t say no. Screw Beth and her damn lawyer.

***

On the drive up he tried to keep his mind on the road, cigarettes and stops for coffee. The urgency of getting there was kept him from focusing on much outside of the occasional burst of anger toward Beth accompanied by a slam of his fist on the dash.

He pulled into a small, rundown motel on Jefferson Davis Highway south of downtown Richmond around 10:00 that night. He thought about sleeping in the car but knew going into social services looking like he slept in a car wasn’t the best idea.

He lay down on the bed but couldn’t stop imagining what had happened. He played out every scenario imaginable that would lead to Kevin being left alone in the apartment. He’d seen this kind of thing on TV shows so the one scenario he kept going back to was of Kevin crouching in a corner shaking and scared to death.

Staring at a ceiling lit by slivers of light from the edges of a plastic shade, his mind finally let it all sink in. Beth had done a lot of stupid stuff but this was ludicrous. The more the image of Kevin alone and scared in that apartment appeared in his mind the more angry he became at Beth.

“I can’t believe I trusted her enough to have a kid,” he said to himself. As soon as he’d said it he backed off from the thought. Kevin was the best thing that ever happened to him so he couldn’t write her off completely.

He could picture any number of repulsive people coming in and out of the apartment where Kevin was probably scared to death. No doubt she left to look for whatever junk she could scrounge up. With the fury running through his body, he came to understand how a man could consider killing someone.

He took a couple of draws on the last cigarette in the pack, smashed it in the ashtray on the nightstand and muttered aloud, “I’m coming to get you, buddy.”

***

He got up a little after six, showered and changed, then went downstairs.

“Got a cup of coffee?” he asked the clerk.

“This ain’t the Hilton, my friend. Only thing I have here is what I bring for myself,” the clerk said. “You’re welcome to a cup if you don’t mind the added taste from a few years of thermos gunk.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Unexpected trip up here and I’m running short on cash.”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me you don’t have any cash. You’re staying in this dump after all.”

He swallowed the first gulps of coffee down. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” the clerk said. “What brings you to Richmond?”

How do I answer that, he thought. “Had to come up here to fix some family problems.”

The clerk leaned forward. “You figure out how to fix family problems, you come back by here and tell me. That damn ex-wife of mine and her kids are driving me crazy.”

“Her kids?” he asked.

“Yeah. They’re definitely not mine. I wouldn’t let any kid of mine talk to me the way they talk to her. I married into that crazy family.”

He gave an uncomfortable smile.

“That woman thought she was going to get the best of me. Tried to take all my money and sit at home doing nuthin’.”

He looked around the room puzzled.

“Yeah, I know,” the clerk said. “I don’t have any money to take! Anyway, I’m glad I’m rid of her.”

“You never really are,” he said.

“Amen, brother,” the clerk said, lifting his coffee mug in a toast.

“Well, I’ve got to get on. Appreciate the coffee.”

“Hey, man, we got to stick together or these crazy ass families will tear us up,” the clerk laughed. “Hope you enjoy Richmond.”

“No offense, but I think I’ll enjoy it from the rear view mirror,” he quipped.

“Probably should do the same,” the clerk added.

He went back upstairs to grab his things to put in the car. He wanted to get out of here as soon as he could once he picked Kevin up. There was no way he wanted Kevin to stay in this city one second longer. He couldn’t imagine how scared he must be.

***

He was at the front door of the Marshall Plaza office of the Department of Social Services when the doors were unlocked at eight. He asked for Mrs. McCollum and waited in one of the interconnected chairs along the back wall. Every time the door to the offices opened he bolted upright in his seat hoping it would be her.

What seemed like an hour was really a little over ten minutes. He had relaxed enough to stop reacting to the opening door when he heard a powerful but caring voice coming from in front of him.

“Mr. Wagner, I’m Linda McCollum,” she said with a big smile and firm handshake. “I’m glad to see you.”

“Glad to meet you,” he replied. “How’s Kevin?”

“I know a young man that is going to be happy to see you. Come with me.”

As they walked through the door, Mrs. McCollum started to explain.

“I found out about the details since we talked on the phone last evening. It seems he was found alone in a rooming house apartment by a landlord who happened to be visiting his property the day before yesterday. A neighbor mentioned to him that he was tired of seeing people come in and out of that apartment. When he couldn’t get anyone to come to the door, he used his master key and went in to check it out. To be honest with you, the area where he was found off of Chamberlayne Avenue is not a place I would want to go alone, let alone a child. I’m sorry I have to tell you all this.”

“No, no,” he insisted. “I need to know.”

“I understand it wasn’t a pretty sight,” she continued. “They found some drug paraphernalia lying on the kitchen table. Fortunately, there were no actual drugs found outside of some residue. Kevin was in a back bedroom with some empty cereal boxes. He was scared and the only thing they could get out of him was that he didn’t know where his mother was. They talked with neighbors and found an older lady who saw what they believe was his mother leaving with a man on Thursday morning. Apparently, no one knew Kevin was there and he might not have been discovered had there not been that complaint from the neighbor. The landlord doesn’t even bother visiting that often.”

She stopped in the middle of the hallway. “There’s something you should know before we go in,” she said hesitantly. “We don’t know where his mother is.”

He felt his jaw clinching shut. “Right now, I don’t care about her, excuse me for saying. I want to see him.”

“I understand,” she said.

They walked four or five more feet and turned right into an office. Kevin leaped from a couch along the wall and jumped up to his father, arms wide open. He said nothing.

“It’s alright son, I’m here,” he assured the boy as he held him tightly. “We’re going home as soon as we can.”

Kevin did not release his grip when his father relaxed a bit.

“You alright, buddy?”

Kevin nodded his head while it was still on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Kevin. It’s going to be fine. Let’s get you outta here,” he assured him. “What do we need to do now, Mrs. McCollum?”

“There’s some paperwork I need you to complete but it shouldn’t take that long,” she said. “I think the police want to talk with you as well so I can direct you where to go. It’s only about a mile from here.”

Once the appropriate release paperwork was signed, they made their way from the office. Kevin said nothing throughout the process but wouldn’t leave close contact with his father.

“Let’s get outta here, kid,” he said as he reached to pick Kevin up. He hadn’t carried him in a couple of years but couldn’t resist the instinct. Thirty-six hours ago, things could have swung in the wrong direction. Holding on was protective as much as for him as it was for Kevin.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything else, Mr. Wagner,” Mrs. McCollum promised. “When you get to the police station you will ask to talk to Detective Chris Hogan.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Mrs. McCollum,” he told her as he shook her hand.

“I hope for the best for you two,” she said putting a hand on each of their shoulders.

***

He strapped Kevin in the back seat for the short ride to the police station. When they arrived they only had to wait about five minutes before Detective Hogan arrived to greet them.

“Mr. Wagner, I’m Detective Hogan,” the detective introduced himself.

“Glad to meet you,” he said, knowing it was a lie.

“Hey, there big guy,” he said, leaning down to Kevin who was holding his hand. “Bet you’re glad to see your father.”

Kevin nodded. “You bet.”

“That’s the first thing he’s said since I’ve seen him,” he told Hogan.

“Well, he and I spent a lot of time together over the past day or so. We may make a cop out of him one day.”

Kevin smiled, then buried his head in his arm.

“Let’s go back here and talk a few minutes,” Hogan said.

They walked down a long hallway past a big open area of desks to an office in the far corner. Hogan knocked on the open door.

A man in a suit and tie looked up from his desk, stood and walked toward the door.

“Hey there, Kevin. How’s my newest recruit?” the man said as Kevin snapped to attention and shook his hand.

The man stood to shake his hand. “I’m Captain Farthing. Glad to meet you, Mr. Wagner.”

“Thank you, sir,” he replied.

The captain looked back at Kevin. “Where’s your badge, young man? I can’t have my guys out of uniform.”

Kevin reached into his left pocket and pulled out what looked like a real police badge.

“Let’s put that on so the Chief doesn’t come down here and put me back on the street.”

Farthing took the badge and pinned it to Kevin’s shirt.

“Mr. Wagner, you have one fine young man here,” Farthing said. “We have been lucky to have him here. He’s about the bravest guy I’ve met. Isn’t that right, Detective?”

“Absolutely,” Hogan answered. “Couldn’t have figured all this out without him.”

He stood there smiling in disbelief over all the people who cared for his son.

“Kevin, I have a tough case I’m working on. Would you help me with it?” the captain asked.

Kevin looked up at his father. “Dad, can I?”

“Sure son,” he said.

“You and I can go to the conference room and talk for a few minutes,” Hogan told him.

Farthing led Kevin over to his desk as they turned to walk to the conference room.

“Captain Farthing is not kidding,” Hogan said. “That kid of yours is some kind of brave. Found his own food and kept the door locked so no one would get in. There was no phone or I’m sure he would have called you or 911. Leaving the room was probably not a good option for him in that apartment house.”

When they walked in the conference room, the detective closed the door behind them.

“Have a seat, Mr. Wagner.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I was really hoping you could help us understand the situation better,” Hogan said. “It is really basic facts at this point. Kevin said his momma left with some guy a few days before we found him. He thought his mom had brought him to the apartment about a week ago and they were in and out. He said his mom called him Spikey. Sounds like a nickname to me but we haven’t found anyone who had heard of him in the neighborhood.”

“Did anything happen to Kevin?”

“No, I think he has been alright. There was food there even if it wasn’t the best. From what Kevin said, his mother would put him to bed and check on him every once in a while but mostly he stayed in the bedroom. He wouldn’t admit it but I think Kevin was scared to be in the same room with this guy Spikey. Kevin said Spikey never said anything to him the whole time he was in and out.”

“What about the drugs?” he asked.

“Well, there was drug paraphernalia on the kitchen table with heroine residue on it but we didn’t find anything of substance. What can you tell me about Kevin’s mother? Do you know why she was here?”

“I don’t have a clue why she was here,” he said. “She’s not supposed to be. See, we were ordered by a judge to share custody even though Beth does nothing to care for him. He was with her because she gets him for a month and I get him for a month over the summer. I’ve tried my best to convince the lawyers and judges this was going to be a disaster.”

“Hey, I have to see this stuff in court all the time, my friend. I know your frustration,” Hogan said. “So you don’t really know why she was here?”

“No. I’ve never known her to come to Richmond and she’s never taken him away like this. After Mrs. McCollum called yesterday, I called Beth’s mother to feel out whether she knew anything. She said nothing about Richmond or where they were or anything. I really don’t think she knew.”

Hogan looked puzzled. “So there are no relatives or friends that you know of here?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What about the drugs?” Hogan asked.

“That girl is bent on killing herself,” he told him. “Back before Kevin was born, I got in a little trouble and Beth was hanging out with some girls who got her into meth. I have to say, she really pulled it over on me because I had no idea it was going on. Or maybe I ignored it. That woman made me kinda stupid.”

“Hey, it happens to the best of us,” Hogan said.

“I should have seen it, I guess. As far as I know, she quit when she found out she was pregnant with Kevin and stayed clean until after he was born. That’s when it all came out. She started acting all crazy, stealing her mother’s money, staying away from home. She’d come in late at night, wake everyone up and start accusing me of all kinds of things. I couldn’t take it. I took Kevin and left. It’s been all downhill for her since from what I can tell.”

“Do you have a recent picture of her?” Hogan asked.

“Not too recent but I snapped one about two months ago when she came over yelling about wanting some money. Not exactly a pretty picture but realistic.” He got his phone out and pulled up the picture to show Hogan.

“Would you text that to me?”

“Sure.” He got the number from Hogan and sent it.

“Do you know anything about where she is at all?” he asked.

“Unfortunately we don’t,” Hogan answered. “I will certainly let you know when we do.”

He shook his head and let out a deep breath.

“Frustrating for us, too, Mr. Wagner. I hate to see a kid get into the situation Kevin’s been in.”

“No way it’ll happen again,” he said.

“I here you,” Hogan agreed.

They stood to walk back to Kevin.

“Will you let me know if you hear anything on your end, Mr. Wagner?” Hogan asked.

“Absolutely. Maybe you can put her in jail. That might wake her up.”

Kevin was sitting in the captain’s chair drawing something on a piece of paper.

“Kevin’s got this whole case solved I believe,” Captain Farthing told them.

“Alright Kevin. Time to go,” he said.

Kevin pushed back from the desk, jumped out of the chair and ran to his father.

“Mr. Wagner, you take care of this young man,” Farthing commanded.

“Absolutely,” he promised. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”

“It’s what we do, Mr. Wagner. Hogan, are you walking them out?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I wish you and Kevin well,” Farthing told them.

Hogan walked them out to the car with Kevin telling his father all about the big case he had helped the captain with. He declared his intention to be a captain one day himself.

“Have a safe ride home and stay in touch,” Hogan told him.

“You do the same,” he said. “Thanks again.”

 

Chapter Two

“Dad, where is that place we’re going in Florida?” Kevin asked, bringing his mind back to the road.

“Jacksonville,” he answered.

“Is that near Disney World?” Kevin beamed.

“Kinda, sorta. It’s a lot closer to it than we are at home.”

“Where are we going to stay?”

“We’ll find a motel where we can stay a while,” he answered.

“We’re going to live in a motel?!” Kevin asked.

“You got it.”

“Oh, boy! I hope it has a swimming pool!” Keven said as he turned to look out the window again and started quietly singing, “We’re going to get a swimming pool, swimming pool, swimming pool” over and over.

As the Olds settled in to a thump-thump rhythm over the expansion joints, his thoughts wandered back again.

The drive the day before from Richmond back to Salisbury had been excruciatingly long mostly because Kevin didn’t say anything. The two times they had to stop Kevin stayed in the car. He never saw him shed a tear and he never said anything about his mother. Kevin had a blank stare as he looked out of the window. He never pressed Kevin because he knew wouldn’t, and didn’t, want to talk about it either.

Even when they stopped by home for the night, Kevin kept his silence about what had happened in Richmond. As he laid Kevin down for bed that night he asked him if he had heard anything about his mother. He said a simple, “No, son,” and the conversation ended.

Before leaving for Florida the next day he talked with his lawyer to find out what needed to be done to get sole custody. Unfortunately, he was told, there was nothing they could really do until his mother surfaced. Even then, he was looking at several thousand dollars in legal fees to attempt to get custody. That wasn’t going to happen so they packed whatever they could in the car and started out for Jacksonville. He’d worry about the repercussions later.

He really did love Beth like no one before but for the life of him he could no longer understand why. The attraction turned out to be more one of destructive dependence. She needed him to attempt to escape the demons of her childhood and he needed her to attempt to rescue and escape his father’s alcoholic alienation. His father was one heck of a drinker.

One Saturday afternoon after he had to retrieve his drunken and disorderly father from a bar in town he asked his mother if dad was ever going to get over it.

“You know your father has been like this a while,” she said. “He’s not a bad man. It’s who he is.”

“Well who he is sucks,” he told her.

Very quickly her demeanor changed. “Don’t you talk about your father that way! He is a good man.”

He walked past her and out of the house with the screen door slamming behind him. He couldn’t stand the way she defended him.

What she meant by ‘good man,’ he wasn’t really sure anymore. Why would a good man get so drunk he needed to be picked up off the floor of some bar by his teenage son? If he was such a good man, why would he need help getting to bed each night so he didn’t stumble over something in the living room trying to get there? Would a good man forget to come to his son’s baseball games because he was too focused on his next drink?

His mother would always make excuses for him: “Your father is having a hard time.” “Your father can’t help it, he needs to drink.” “Your father has a lot on his mind.”

What was never talked about was the real reason his father had sunk so low: the death of his younger brother Ben.

When they were younger, he and Ben were inseparable and their father went out of his way to be with the boys any chance he could. They loved to go fishing at the pond down the road from Pops or play army in the woods behind their house. Dad would be right there with them baiting hooks and hiding behind trees.

Ben was two years younger than him. Normally one would expect the younger brother to be the follower but that wasn’t the case in their family. Ben was a natural born leader. From the time he could piece together words, what Ben said and did, everyone else followed. No one ever considered Ben bossy, it was pure charisma.

Ben would run into the house, say “Come here,” and everyone would scurry out the door behind him without even asking what they were coming for. It might be something as simple as “the biggest ant mound ever” or a flock of Canadian geese flying overhead or their next door neighbor Mr. Galvin shining up his hot rod but to Ben it was a pivotal moment everyone needed to experience. He was so excited about everything and could make it all seem like the most wonderful thing they had ever seen that everyone wanted to be a part of Ben’s world.

One might assume that having such a magnetic younger brother might create jealousy but they would be wrong in Ben’s case. He never once felt like Ben was trying to steal his thunder or taking attention away from him. If anything, Ben created opportunities for him to shine as the older brother who could help him make his ideas reality. Ben never stole the attention; he made it happen for others.

Despite being the one everyone else looked to, Ben very clearly looked up to him as his older brother. He never did anything without asking him what he thought and then showering praise on him when everything turned out well. It might have been Ben’s plan or idea but he always gave the credit to how things happened to his older brother. Ben would come up with a new game that may or may not have made much sense but he would be drawn in and help Ben make the game work. Ben would run tell everyone how his brother came up with the coolest game ever.

He never felt like his father favored Ben either. They all had a special connection to Ben and when Ben gave the credit to him, their father would acknowledge it as Ben would. If anything, Ben brought his brother and father closer as they tried to keep up with what Ben had for them next.

It was a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon in August when Ben burst in the front door as usual and called everyone to come see what he had found across the street. It was after they had returned from church so everyone else was changing out of the Sunday best. He remembered hearing Ben call for them to come out and hurriedly trying to get his shorts on so he could go see what it was. As he was buttoning them up, he heard a screech of tires and then a loud thump. His head shot straight up in fear.

He heard his father running down the hall and followed after him. Their mother was close behind still pulling her house dress over her head.

They could see through the screen door a grey car halfway hanging up out of the ditch across the road. His father was running as fast as he could and nearly knocked the screen door off its hinges. It slammed shut in front of his face and he stopped dead in his tracks. His mother brushed by him as she followed out the screen door.

Something stopped him from following Ben this time. Maybe it was the force with which the screen door had slammed in his face saying stop. He somehow knew though that what he was seeing through the door was the last time Ben would be calling them out.

The driver was getting out of his car when his father reached it. He pushed the man aside as he ran around the front of the car and into the ditch. By the time his mother and the driver got to the front of the car, he could hear his father screaming, “Call an ambulance! My boy, my boy! Call the ambulance!”

He couldn’t see anything and was scared stiff. His father’s next screams for help snapped him out of it. He spun around and ran for the phone to dial 911.

“911 emergency, how can I help you?” the operator said.

“My brother, he got hit by a car I think!” he shouted.

“He got hit by a car?”

“Yes! Please, please, you got to hurry!”

“Where are you?” the operator asked.

“We live at fourteen eighty-nine Reston Road. Please get here fast!” He felt tears welling up.

“I have someone on the way, they’ll be there soon,” the operator assured him.

He dropped the phone and went back to look out the screen door. He could hear his mother wailing but could not see her from the front door. His father was running toward the house yelling at him to call 911. When his father reached the front porch he yelled to him that he already called. His father said, “Good boy. Your brother is hurt bad,” then spun around and ran back across the street.

When his father disappeared into the ditch, a small black kitten with a white face and paws came jumped on the porch stairs from the bushes on the left. It sat down at the top of the stairs and stared at him through the door. He slowly opened the door, walked toward the kitten and reached down to pick it up as he sat on the top stair.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” he said to the cat. “It was you that Ben wanted us to see.”

The kitten nuzzled its head in his chest.

His tears dropped onto the kitten’s head. “I see him, Ben.”

It took twenty minutes for the firefighters to get Ben out from under the front of that car. He could tell by the look on everyone’s face that this was not good at all.

His father pushed their mother into the ambulance as they took Ben away and then ran across the street. He yelled at him to get him a shirt while he got the car keys. He put the cat down and ran inside to his parents’ bedroom and picked up the shirt his dad had worn to church. He closed the door behind them and they jumped into the car and raced to catch up with the ambulance.

When they ran into the emergency room, his mother was sitting in a chair crying into her hands outside the room where Ben was. He could hear people’s voices and lots of noise coming from the room. He stopped short of approaching her.

As his father reached her a man in green scrubs came through the curtain and asked them to come with him to the room across the hall. He stood there where he had stopped six feet away. The noise in the room where Ben was subsided and three people walked out through the curtain and walked down the hall away from him.

He heard his mother screaming, “No, no, no!”

His father ran out of the room and pushed through the curtain to the room where Ben was. He could hear his father sobbing. His mother crossed the hallway with the man in the scrubs holding her up under her arms as they went behind the curtain. He could hear them both crying now.

He couldn’t move. It didn’t make sense. It was like watching a TV show or something. Mom and dad were following Ben to see what he had going on but he couldn’t move. He didn’t want to see what it was Ben had in store for them.

No one said a word at home that night. They didn’t eat any supper. His mother and father sat together at the table and stared straight ahead. He stayed on the porch holding the kitten who had not left the spot he set him down on when they left for the hospital. Around dark he went inside. His mother startled at the sound of the screen door gently hitting the doorframe. He stood there as she got up, ran her right hand up his father’s left arm and over his shoulder, and made her way to their bedroom. His father sat there.

Dad was still there at that table staring straight ahead when he got up the next morning. He went to the kitchen and got a glass of milk and went out onto the porch where the kitten still lay sleeping.

Pops came and got him later that morning and took him to their house. He didn’t see his parents until the morning of the funeral two days later. Pops took him home where his mother and father greeted him at the door in a tight embrace. “We love you, son,” was all they said.

There was a lot of crying at the funeral. It was his first. The preacher said a lot about a life well-lived and God caring for his children and God’s plans.

God’s plans? he thought. What about Ben’s plans?

Ben was eight years old when he died. Things changed for him after that. They changed for all of them. His father seemed to take it the hardest and didn’t say much for months after his death. It was like the whole family decided to grieve through his father. Shortly after the one year anniversary of Ben’s death, the drinking started.

His mother became the head of the house, making sure everything still got done that needed to get done and that he was taken care of. His father still went to work but there was no joy at home, just drunken stupors.

Even given the death of Ben, it was hard to understand how his father had strayed so far from the man Pops was. It was like he was trying to be the anti-Pops. Pops had placed family above all else and would never had done anything to jeopardize those relationships. His father seemed to decide to live to cut himself off from his family and mom would do nothing but make excuses for him. Maybe she need to keep him grieving so she could go on.

It wasn’t that his father was mean or abusive; quite the opposite. His father was actually a very kind and mild-mannered person when he was sober enough to tell. Even when he was stone drunk he’d apologize profusely when anyone had to help him up off the floor. For all intents and purposes he wasn’t there.

Three years after Ben died his father was killed when his car left the road and hit a tree on the way home from work one Tuesday evening. It was light out, there were no skid marks, and no one saw what happened. An empty bourbon bottle was found under his feet on the floorboard.

His mother had been the warm, loving and supportive wife before Ben died and did everything she could to make his father happy. She stayed home and raised the boys while his father worked. Every night when he came home she would have dinner ready, get the paper for him after eating and bring him glasses of tea while he read. He was her life; even more so than the boys it seemed.

After Ben died she became not only his faithful server but also his protector. Anything he did that would create any kind of conflict for his father or somehow threaten his father’s image would be met with a severe scolding. With all the excuses for his alcoholism it was almost like she wanted and needed him to keep grieving, maybe because it was too hard for her to bear herself.

After his father was killed, everything changed about his mother. She became very belligerent and spent little time caring for things around the house. If he asked about dinner or laundry, she’d very flippantly tell him to do it himself.

***

The big orange on the blue sign welcoming them to Florida brought him back into the car on I-95.

“The Florida line! We’re almost there, Kevin,” he shouted.

A sleepy and forced “Woo-hooooo!” came from the back seat.

Thirty minutes later, they exited I-95 onto Baymeadows road and turned in to a side street that ended at the Sun Motel.

Kevin had nodded off again so he had to wake him to get him out. He walked around to the trunk and retrieved an envelope of twenties from the spare tire well under the carpet. Not much of a bank but it kept it safe and out of the temptation zone of his wallet.

Because he had no credit card, he was required to pay a week’s advance of $250. That left him with sixty-eight dollars plus the fifteen left in his wallet to make it to a payday, if there was one. The job offer sounded good but wasn’t definite yet.

He put Kevin down as soon as they got their bags in the room and he went right to sleep. He left the front door cracked as he went out in front of the room to smoke. Eight hours of thinking was enough. As he sat in the plastic chair by the door, he was content drawing on the cigarette and watching the cars go by on the highway overhead.

 

Chapter Three

“Ughh.” No need for an alarm clock with a seven-year-old landing on your chest.

“Dad, you gotta get uuuuuuup!” Kevin shrieked.

“Yeah, yeah. But not before doing this,” he said as he grabbed under the kid’s arms and ground his fingers in making the boy laugh uncontrollably. “Take that you little sneak.”

They spent the next couple of minutes laughing and rolling around on the bed. They finally let go of each other and flopped onto their backs catching their breath.

“Alright, shower time. You first, kid.”

“But dad…”

“No but’s,” he said rolling out of bed and standing. “You’ve gotta come with me today for this job interview and I don’t want some smelly little boy messing it all up.”

“You’re a smelly boy!” Kevin said with a grin.

“No, you are!”

“No, you are, daddy.”

“Well we’re both smelly. That’s the sign of a real man,” he said, hands on hips, chest stuck out, and head held high.

Kevin jumped out of bed, mimicked the pose and shouted, “That’s right!”

“Now get in there,” his father commanded. “Real, smelly men don’t get jobs.”

Kevin turned and with forearms extending back and forth like pistons by his side he made a sound of screeching tires and off he went around the back of the bed and into the bathroom.

He heard the shower turn on and then the familiar “I’m takin’ a shower, takin’ a shower.” Kevin had made up the melody a couple of years ago and belted it out every time he took a shower.

“Gotta have some coffee,” he sighed rubbing his hand down the left side of his face and moving toward the kitchenette at the back of the room.

Kitchenette was kind of a stretch. It was a sink, a small microwave, and a coffeemaker with a rectangular Formica-topped table and two chairs.

As Kevin’s tune echoed from the bathroom, he poured water into the coffeemaker, put the coffee packet in, and turned it on. He walked over to the green canvas Army surplus duffels stuffed with all the clothes they owned and began pulling out some jeans, a t-shirt and undergarments for Kevin.

“I hope they don’t mind me bringing him,” he muttered. “I’ll have to figure something out if I get this job.”

After a breakfast of strawberry Pop-Tarts from the vending machine down the hall, they made their way out of the room and to the car.

“Dad, am I going to go to work with you every day?” Kevin asked.

“I wish you could, my friend, but I don’t think they’ll let us do that.”

“You’re not going to leave me here alone, are you?” Kevin said with a slight look of panic on his face.

 “Absolutely not! After my interview we’re going to find a day care or something. You don’t have to worry about that,” he assured him.

But I do, he thought. He had no idea how he could afford the motel and day care.

“Dad?” Kevin said in a small voice. “You’re the best.”

“No, son, you are.”

“Nope, you are!” Kevin shouted back.

“We’re both the best,” he said as they got in the car and shut the doors.

The drive to the interview was fairly short but marked by many, “Hey, dad! Look at that!” comments.

“Alright. This looks like it,” he said, pulling into the parking lot of S. Beard Construction. The Olds creaked a little in the front suspension as the turned wheels crested the slight rise going into the lot.

He pulled into a space a couple down from the front door.

“Now, buddy, I really need you to help me out with this,” he told Kevin. “People don’t usually take their kids with them for a job interview. I need you to be the best kid in the whole world.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” smirked Kevin.

“I know. You’re the best kid a father could have. I’m reminding you because this is very important. I need you to be on your best behavior.”

“You don’t have to worry, dad, you’ll get this job. I told God to give it to you this morning!”

“Thanks, son,” he said with a feigned smile on his face.

The older woman at the front desk greeted them with a warm smile. “How can I help you gentlemen?”

“I’m Jeff Wagner here for an interview with Mr. Beard.”

“We’re glad to see you, Mr. Wagner. He’s expecting you,” she said, picking up the phone. “Your 9:00 appointment is here, Mr. Beard.”

Putting the receiver down she said, “It will be a few minutes so you are welcome to have a seat. And who’s your sidekick here?”

He put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “This is my son Kevin. I hope you don’t mind me bringing him. We got in last night and I don’t have anywhere I can leave him yet. We’re going to look for some kind of day care after we leave here.”

“You know what?” she said. “I’m glad you brought him. I have this stack of papers I need stapled and he could really help me out.”

“Dad, can I?!” Kevin said looking up and yanking at his side.

“If you don’t mind,” he told her.

“Absolutely not. It will be a big help to me. I’m Sandra, Kevin. Come on around here and we’ll put you to work.”

As Kevin ran around the desk, a tall, stocky man in his late fifties walked out from the hallway.

“Sam Beard,” the man said, extending his big, well-worked hand out.

“Jeff Wagner,” he said, as he shook the big man’s hand.

“Come on back, Jeff.” Beard heard the thump of a stapler and a look of surprise came over his face as he looked toward the front desk. “Sandra, sometimes I think you’re runnin’ this company more than I am. Who’d you hire while I’ve been in my office?”

“This is Kevin,” Sandra answered. “He’s Mr. Wagner’s son.”

Walking around the desk he leaned in and stuck out his big hand. “Well, nice to meet you there pardner. I hope I’m not payin’ you too much.”

“Mmm, how ‘bout a million dollars!” Kevin said as his hand disappeared into Beard’s.

He quickly interjected to his son, “Kevin.”

“Is that all?” Beard asked. “I thought maybe we’d be payin’ somethin’ of real value, like candy bars or somethin’.”

“Ooh,” Kevin said. “I’ll take those!”

“Sandra, take care of it for me.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Beard,” she chuckled.

Beard made his way back around the desk and pointed him down the hallway.

“Don’t know why that woman insists on callin’ me ‘sir.’ She runs the place,” he said as they walked down the short hallway. “I’m merely the guy that keeps the lights on and the tax man away.”

The office was paneled with darkly stained mahogany. Around the room there were models of cars, trucks, and tractors on bookshelves. Several reproduction vintage posters from Le Mans races were hung on the walls. The desk had short stacks of paper all over with Post-It notes stuck everywhere.

Beard eased himself down onto a quilted pattern dark maroon leather sofa along the wall in front of the desk. Wagner sat in a matching chair facing him at a slight angle.

“Nice furniture,” he said.

“Yeah, I had this friend of mine in town make this set. Supposed to look like the seats from a Bentley. The man’s a genius when it comes to making furniture.”

“It’s impressive.”

“Well, from what I hear, you might be a bit impressive yourself. Bill Parsons says you’ve got a good head on you when it comes to construction.”

“Mr. Parsons’ is a good man. I really enjoyed working for him. I hate it ended since I hadn’t worked for him too long.”

The job with Parsons Construction was the best job he’d ever had. He started five years ago as a general site worker hauling bags of sand, shoveling gravel, toting lumber, and digging holes. Though most guys might complain about a bottom rung job like that, he enjoyed it immensely. Working with his hands in any way helped him focus away from the crap from Beth and gave him a sense that he was accomplishing something.

His work habits did not go unnoticed by the site supervisor. Within two months he was being mentored by an older gentleman on the ins and outs of construction. By the end of the first year he was able to do most any job asked of him and by the end of the second year he was the go-to guy for anything that needed to be done promptly and correctly.

Bill Parsons had a mild stroke a year ago and after a lot of agony, he decided for his own and his family’s sake that he needed to retire. He had no children so he sold the company to a larger, multi-state outfit that bought the company for its connections in North Carolina. Most of the workers at his level were laid off, a move Parsons only learned of afterward. He was furious at the gutting of his company and offered help finding work to anyone who wanted it.

“Yeah, he told me they didn’t keep you around after he sold the company. Hopefully that means I’m the winner. Tell me ‘bout yourself.”

“I’ve been in construction for about almost nine years. I’ve done a little of everything I guess, mostly residential but some commercial. I started an associate degree in building construction but things got a little off track so I have about half my classes finished. I’m good with a hammer. I don’t mind coming in early or leaving late. I love seeing a project from start to finish and knowing I helped make it happen. I guess building homes for people makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. Of course, you met Kevin. He’s the reason we came down here. I wanna be able to provide for him as best I can.”

“Seems like a great kid,” Beard said. “His mama with you all?”

“No, sir. It’s only him and me.” He suddenly noticed his stomach feeling completely empty. There was nothing for Beard to notice, though.

“Gotta admire that,” Beard said. “The law says I’m not supposed to ask things like that but I don’t give a damn. I gotta know the people who work for me.”

Beard leaned forward on the edge of the couch.

“The big thing with me, is whether I can count on people or not,” Beard using his right hand for emphasis. “I’ve got twenty-nine full time employees and I hired ‘em all myself. I know every man and woman personally and I can’t stand it when somebody lets me down. You got a lot going for you with such a glowing recommendation from Bill but I gotta know you’re in this with me.”

“I promise you, sir, if you hire me, I’m in,” he said.

“When I spoke to you on the phone, you seemed a little hesitant,” Beard said.

“It’s just…some craziness with Kevin’s mother. I think all that is worked out now.”

“You didn’t bring him down here against the law, did you?” Beard inquired.

“No sir, nothing like that,” he quickly interjected. “Hopefully I’m going to get things straightened out with him once and for all.”

“I don’t need you turning around and going back home before this job’s up.”

He hesitated to give a definitive answer. “You don’t have to be worried about that.”

“I’ll be straight with you, this job is temporary,” Beard said. “Damn economy still has us working from job to job. I can’t promise you anything past four months at this point. You good with that?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I really need a job.”

“Well, if you’re good and things are looking up, we’ll see about making it permanent.”

“I sure would appreciate it.”

Beard leaned forward and stared him in the eyes. His tone became very pointed. “You ever been in trouble, Jeff?”

Every company he’d ever worked for had asked the same thing only Beard did it in a way that even if he had wanted to lie it would have been impossible.

Letting out a deep breath and looking slightly downward with his left hand reaching for his chin he said, “Yeah.”

Beard leaned back onto the back of the couch. “What’d you do?”

“I got arrested for stealing a car when I was nineteen. Did several weeks of community service.”

Here it goes.

“Young and stupid,” Beard said matter-of-factly.

“No, sir,” he said, looking back up at Beard who had a puzzled look on his face given that he had provided a way for him to save face. “I knew what I was doing and did it anyway.”

Beard sat forward on the chair staring him down. “You gonna steal from me?”

“No, sir,” he said, matching the stare.

The five seconds of silence staring face to face felt like much longer.

“Good enough,” Beard declared as he stood up and the tension eased. “Let’s ditch the formalities here, I’m hungry. Let’s get some breakfast.”

Walking back into the lobby, Beard went around Sandra’s desk and put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder who barely looked up from stapling.

“You wanna go with us to get somethin’ to eat, young man?” Beard asked.

Kevin looked around at his father. “Can I stay here?”

“That’s not up to me, son. Mr. Beard has to make that call.”

“Sandra, you OK with that?” Beard asked.

“He’ll be fine right here,” she said with a satisfied look. Kevin turned and pounded the stapler with a smile.

***

At the diner, he spoke very little as he listened to his new boss. Beard told him all about how he’d built his company up with a $5,000 loan from his father when he graduated from high school. His father had offered to buy him a car but when Beard told him he’d rather use the money to start a business it turned from a gift into a loan. His father thought starting a business was a bad idea.

Beard grew up wanting more from life than he’d seen from his father. His father was a city man who earned a pretty good living from his job in the wastewater treatment facility. He would always talk about “those great city benefits” whenever he talked about his job to anyone that didn’t work for the city. Around the house, his father was constantly making retirement plans no matter how far away it was.

“Get a city job,” he’d say, “And you’ll get never have to worry about retirement.”

All the talk of benefits and retirement drove Beard crazy. He couldn’t stand to think about putting up with all the crap, literally and figuratively, that his father had in working for a city agency. From the time he could walk and talk he was attempting to fix something and collect a fee from it. It gave him great pride to know that he could do something and be rewarded for it.

When his son started talking about owning his own construction company in college, he and his father would get almost to blows over how risky construction was. He’d get so mad when Beard would agree with him about the risk and turn it around to the upside of putting everything on the line.

“You’d be a fool to start a construction company,” his dad would say.

“Well, I’ll be a rich fool,” he would snap right back.

His father was almost proven right three years after he started the company when S. Beard Construction was a few dollars shy of bankruptcy. Beard wasn’t going to let his father have bragging rights and pushed on through with nearly no income for a year. It came close to driving his wife away and had they had Chelsea during this time he probably would have taken his father’s advice, which never ceased even after he had a successful company.

***

Had Sandra not possessed more restraint than most for delving into people’s lives, Jeff would have heard for the first time about Kevin’s relationship with his mother when they returned to the office.

Sandra had worked for Beard for a long time and like all respectable office administrators had developed the kind of confidentiality that could rival any defense attorney. Her ability to encourage conversation, listen to people, absorb information and the emotions to go with it, and keep it to herself was her most prized talent. If people realized what they had unknowingly revealed to her about themselves, the regret might be immeasurable.

Sandra was expert at pinpointing the emotions of others, especially the tough ones, but she never pried behind them if people didn’t share on their own. She couldn’t hold back this time, though; the kid was only seven after all and her motherly instincts got the best of her.

“Where’s your mother?” she asked Kevin in the course of their conversation.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said as the stapler stopped clicking ever so briefly. “She left me alone in Richmond and dad had to come get me.”

“What do you mean, she left you alone?” Sandra asked trying not to betray her alarm.

 “I don’t think my mom loves me,” he confided.

The deep inhalation and raised eyebrows revealed Sandra’s shock at hearing a child say that. She was glad he was back to concentrating on the stapler and not looking at her. She had no idea what to say next but the involuntary silence encouraged him further.

“She doesn’t take care of me. She mostly likes to smoke. She left me in an apartment all alone for days and all I had to eat was cereal. I really didn’t like it there. This man stayed there a few days and then my mom left with him. This other man, I think he owned the building, found me and the police came. They gave me to a lady who said she was a social worker and I had to stay with a man and lady.”

“I’m so sorry, Kevin,” Sandra said, fighting back the tears welling in the corners of her eyes.

“It’s OK, though,” Kevin insisted, sensing that Sandra needed reassurance. “My dad came and got me and he told me I won’t ever have to go back to stay with her.”

“It sounds like you’ve got a good father,” Sandra said.

“Yep. He’s the best. He never leaves me alone.”

For the next twenty minutes Sandra listened as Kevin would bounce the conversation back and forth from his present work to his mother. Kevin told her how they left his grandmother’s house one night after dark and drove up to Richmond. She didn’t let him get out of the car the whole trip but he slept most of the time anyway.

He didn’t know whose apartment it was that they stayed in. He said there was a man and a lady there when they got there late that night. His mom put him in a small bed in one of the back rooms that night. The man and lady who were there when they got there were gone the next morning. He described it as a dirty place with dishes and clothes and stuff everywhere. It smelled bad, too, he said.

He told her that in the time they were there he didn’t go out. He couldn’t remember exactly how long they were there. His mother kept saying it was too dangerous to go out but then she’d leave him there and lock the door behind her to “go get some stuff.”

Kevin told her that they were there several days without anyone else around. He mostly played video games on the tablet his grandmother gave him and watched TV. It was a very old TV, he said, and didn’t get all the channels his dad’s TV got. His mother was mostly on her cell phone talking to somebody. And she smoked all the time.

For the first few days his mother would fix him something to eat. He said he didn’t like much except that she made him a box of macaroni and cheese a couple of times.

A few days before the police found him, he told her a man came back with his mom late one night. He didn’t like the man at all, he told Sandra. He looked kind of weird and never even said anything to him, not even once. The guy was very white, he said, and very skinny. He had tattoos all over his arms and neck and smoked all the time like his mom.

The man and his mom would sit on the couch but he wasn’t really sure what they did. His mother would tell him to stay in his room and he’d only see them when he got hungry and have to ask for something to eat. His mother stopped fixing him anything once the man, who he said she called ‘Spikey,’ came over. She would tell him to go get a box of cereal or some crackers. There was plenty of cereal and crackers, he said, but he really got tired of eating them.

Kevin said his mom and Spikey never cleaned the place up and really it got dirtier. He kept the room he was staying in as clean as he could because, he said, he couldn’t stand the mess.

One day a few days after Spikey came, he was hungry for supper and came out of his room. His mother and Spikey were on the couch and Spikey was doing something to her arm. His mother winced briefly so he said, “Mama? Are you okay?”

The two of them scrambled to hide what they were doing but he saw a needle (“You know, like the one the doctor uses to give you a shot”) fall on the floor. His mother jumped up rubbing the inside of the elbow of the arm Spikey was holding and said, “Hey, baby. I’m okay. Mommy’s okay.”

She walked around the couch to cut him off from coming over there.

“What do you need, honey?” she asked him.

“I’m hungry and I wanted something to eat,” he replied.

“Damn, that kid eats all the time,” Spikey muttered under his breath. “What’s his problem?”

“He don’t got no problem!” his mother yelled at Spikey.

She reached down to guide Kevin to the kitchen with her hand. “It’s alright. Everything’s alright. Let’s get you something to eat.”

He told Sandra he didn’t really feel hungry anymore but he took a box of cereal back to his room anyway. He closed the door behind him but stood there as he could hear Spikey yelling at his mother about sending the kid somewhere else.

His mother yelled back, “Where am I supposed to send him?”

“I don’t care,” he heard Spikey say. “He’s in the way here.”

He heard his mother stomp away.

He stayed in his room with the door closed most of the time after that. They would leave occasionally and he would crack the door open, look around, and go get something to eat or drink from the kitchen. He would take it right back to his room not wanting to be caught if they came back.

“I really didn’t like that man,” Kevin told Sandra. “He scared me.”

Two days later, he thought it was maybe in the afternoon, his mother knocked on the bedroom door. She opened it and told Kevin that she and Spikey had to go out for a while. It made him nervous because they had been going out before but his mother had only yelled that she was leaving from the living room. She told him to keep the front door locked and don’t open it for anybody. She told him there was plenty of cereal and crackers in the kitchen. The more she talked the more scared he became. He didn’t say anything.

“Okay, I gotta go,” she said as she gave him a brief hug before running out the front door. He heard it lock behind her.

That was the last time I saw her, he told Sandra.

Sandra had been shocked to hear that Kevin believed his mother didn’t love him but from what he was saying she could understand why he felt that way. By the end of the story, Sandra, who had never held hard feelings for anyone, felt hatred for someone for the first time in her life. The more Kevin talked about the drug use, abandonment, and lack of concern his mother had for him, the more she couldn’t stand this woman.

“Don’t tell my dad,” Kevin pleaded before his father and Beard walked through the door. “He doesn’t really know all of this and it would make him really angry.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” she assured him, even though she questioned herself at the same time. “Thank you for trusting me, Kevin.”

He jumped up, ran to her, and gave her a big hug around the waist.

“You know what?” Sandra said hoping to get Kevin’s mind away from their conversation, “I need to stuff these invoices into envelopes. Would you like to do that a while?”

“Sure!” Kevin answered.

She gave him a box of envelopes, picked up the invoices and set him up on the floor in front of her desk. She stood in silence watching him work and trying to take everything in.

***

When he and Beard got back from lunch Kevin was busy stuffing envelopes on the floor.

“Look at what I’m doing!” Kevin announced.

“That’s great, son,” he said.

“Keep that up and you might work Sandra out of a job,” Beard joked.

“No!” cried Kevin with a look of horror on his face. “You can’t fire her! She’s the best ever.”

“I’m kidding, Kevin,” Beard assured him. “Fact is, this place wouldn’t run without her.”

Sandra smiled at them but he felt she was looking much deeper at him. He and Beard went down the hall to his office to wrap things up.

“I need you to start tomorrow,” Beard said, resting in the chair behind his desk.

“I sure appreciate it, Mr. Beard,” he replied. “I have to find a daycare or something for my son, though. We got down here yesterday. I really can’t start until I do but I’ll try my best this afternoon.”

“How old is he?” Beard asked.

“He’s seven.”

“Not a problem,” Beard insisted. “I have a seventeen-year-old daughter who’ll do it. She’s got another month before school starts so she’s got the time.”

“I appreciate the offer, Mr. Beard, but I can’t pay much and I’d hate for that to be a problem between us.”

“You won’t pay her a damn dime,” Beard said. “I’ve bought that girl more than my wife and I had for the first ten years I was in business. She can do it out of the kindness of her heart.”

“I’d feel bad about not paying her.”

“You shouldn’t. And don’t worry about it. A word of advice for you, son: If you ever make any money, don’t do what I did. She’s spoiled rotten.

“But the one thing I’ve always admired about Chelsea is the way she gets along with kids. It’s the damndest thing you’ve ever seen. We walk into church and it’s like kids come out of the woodwork. There are always two or three sitting with us. If they get to giggling and carrying on she can get their attention immediately by simply drawing something on the back of an offering envelope. They follow her lead like the pied piper.

“Chelsea is an only child so I guess she has to make up for that with other peoples’ children. A lot of the parents at church have her on speed dial because she’s glad to babysit any time…for free! She has a real gift. Sometimes I don’t think she could take care of herself if she had to and I’ve never once heard any interest from her in a job but she’s a whole other person when it comes to little children.”

“I sure would appreciate it, Mr. Beard. I can’t tell you how big of a help this will be,” he said.

“Hey. I need good people on this job. Don’t think I’m some kind of saint. You might be getting something outta this but between getting a good worker and occupying Chelsea, I’m the winner here.”

“Yes, sir.”

When they walked back out into the lobby Kevin was still sitting in the middle of the floor stuffing invoices and humming some tune that he had made up.

“Daddy, look what I did!” he jumped up and shouted.

“You’ve done a good job, Kevin.”

“Yeah, dad, and Mrs. Sandra said I can help her anytime.”

“Here you go, young fella,” Beard said as he pulled his wallet out of his left back pocket and handed two dollars to the boy.

“Wow!” Kevin shouted, waving the two dollars in the air. “Thank you, sir.”

“Well listen to that. This boy’s got quite the manners. Someone’s done a good job raising you,” Beard said. “A man who works so hard deserves to be paid.”

“Dad? Can we stop and buy some candy?” Kevin asked.

“We’ll see,” he answered. “Thanks so much for watching him, Sandra.”

“I enjoyed having him here, Mr. Wagner,” Sandra said. “He’s been a big help and good company at that. I’ve learned so much about Kevin.”

Her smile at him was warm but slightly troubled. Something about it made him feel self-consciousness. It was one of those moments where you feel like someone knows more about you than you would prefer them to know. He looked back at Kevin as if he could read the answers on his face but he was dancing around the lobby waving his money in front of him so he wasn’t learning anything from him.

“Bring Kevin in the morning before work and Chelsea will pick him up,” Beard said. “He’ll have to sit with Sandra for an hour or so but it looks like that will work out fine. Job starts at seven-thirty.”

“I really appreciate all you’re doing for us, Mr. Beard.”

“Not a problem. If Bill is right, you’ll be doing a lot for me.”

***

On the way back to the hotel they stopped at the grocery store to pick up what they needed for the next few days. With cash so low and the microwave their only cooking source, the choices were limited.

He tried to avoid the cookie and candy aisles to spare them both the heartache but grocery stores are designed for a kid’s wandering eyes.

“Dad, can we get these cookies?” Kevin asked.

“Well, son, maybe next week,” he answered, trying not to display his own disappointment. He couldn’t bring himself to say no. The damage to a man’s self-respect is gut wrenching when he can’t buy his kid something he wants. Of course, that is on top of the frustration he had himself with walking the aisles, checking prices, and putting things back on the shelf.

“How ‘bout if I use the money Mr. Beard gave me?” Kevin bargained.

“Well, OK. If that’s what you want to use it for,” he said.

The bags they walked out with had a loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, a package of cheap lunch beef, a couple of cans of soup, a tub of potato salad, a couple of cans of vegetables, microwave noodles, and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Thank God the motel had coffee.