Joe Burkes Last Stand | Page 3

damnedest thing . . . I bought a tape of Chesapeake Bay sea chanteys a while back. One of the voices was familiar. I looked on the picture of the group and there was Jason! I hadn't even noticed."
"Best banjo player I ever heard," Joe said. "He disappeared into the world of big biz. What a waste. I thought he'd given up on music."
"Why don't you take it? I'll pick up another."
" Good deal, a trade. So, how's Daisy doing? I was thinking of dropping in and saying hello."
"She's in France. She's fine." Morgan took a piece of bacon. "She and Wes have stuck together. Of course it helps if you can nip off to Provence whenever you feel like it. Their daughter, Yvonne, just got married. Jake is in New Zealand, I think. Nice kids."
"New Zealand? That's where Max is, Ingrid's son." Joe hesitated. "I remember when Daisy was choosing. She said, 'I feel happy and excited when I'm with you, and I feel warm and safe when I'm with Wes."' Joe shook his head. "Knowing what I do now, about women that is, I'd say she made the mainstream choice. She'd have had rice and beans with me."
"Red beans and rice aren't bad," Morgan said.
"True. We could have gone the distance, though. Strange how you know these things . . . Not that I haven't had good relationships since. I mean, Sally and I had Kate, and then I had the chance to be part of Maxie's life. I wouldn't trade that for anything, but . . . So, how's your love life?"
Morgan's eyebrows raised. "Prospects are bright," he said.
"Prospects, plural?"
"Singular," he said.
"Yok, excellent. And the book, how's that coming along?"
"Slowly. My publisher's annoyed, but he's used to delays."
"And The Houses of the Hudson Valley aren't going anywhere."
"I wish that were true," Morgan said. "They're going downhill. On the other hand, if they weren't, I wouldn't have any work."
"Rot," Joe said, "your enemy."
"Neglect," Morgan said.
They finished breakfast and hauled Joe's footlocker to the barn. "I'm going to have a book shop when I retire," Morgan said.
"The fortress and the cork," Joe said, putting down one end of the footlocker in a room filled with books. "Two good strategies: strong walls or travel light, bob up and down in the heavy weather."
"You always did travel light," Morgan said, "but you probably don't bob as well as you did." Joe hopped on both feet to demonstrate his buoyancy.
"Thanks for the reminder." Departures required gallantry. "Good eggs. Listen, if you get a chance . . . give Daisy my love. Tell her nothing's changed." Morgan nodded and they walked out to the truck. "Take care of yourself," Joe said. "Hang in there."
"Good luck," Morgan said.
Joe drove down the mountain in the rain. When he reached Route 212, he turned towards Phoenicia. His old high school district covered a thousand square miles; half an hour later as he crossed its western boundary, he felt a twinge of nostalgia and relief. It was like graduating again; his mind was free to drift forward.
At tech school in the Air Force, he used to spend Friday and Saturday nights in the BX with a guy named Shannon. The BX was always jammed with G.I.'s drinking cheap beer and eating French fries. One man tried to keep up with the empties and the dirty dishes. He was bald, slow moving, friendly, and particular. His cart was organized to hold as much as possible on each trip. It seemed like the original dead end job, but he did it well, never flustered, taking pride in his cart and the tables that were clean for moments. He told Joe once that he was saving money to buy tools so that he could help in his friend's garage.
As Joe drove, the rain and fog lifted, revealing lonely bays and wooded hillsides. Route 30 curved endlessly along the banks of the Pepacton Reservoir. Joe had the highest entrance score they'd ever recorded in that Air Force tech school. Sergeant Quimby told him, reading it, unbelieving. Joe was an athlete, a most likely to succeed guy; yet there he was every weekend in the BX with Shannon, fascinated by the aging bus boy loading his cart. And Shannon? He was from Ten Mile Creek, south of Pittsburgh; what had happened to him? Joe decided to cut through Cat Hollow and over to Roscoe on Route 17. He followed 17 west, taking his time, enjoying the October colors. He had lunch in Hancock and stayed overnight in a motel outside Painted Post.
The next afternoon he was in Ten Mile Creek, coal country. A black hill in the distance, the highest point around, turned out to be a slag pile. Containers suspended from cable were hauled up the pile, tipped over, and returned