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Al (Al & Karen) Friday, 6:00 p.m.
You hear a lot about the stages of life, and there’s no denying that we change over time. I used to be pretty strong; now I’m not. I used to have opinions about what’s right and wrong in the world. Now I don’t much care what goes on outside B-Bird Park. At thirty, or even at fifty, I couldn’t have imagined how hard it would be to keep going at seventy-three, how getting dressed in the morning could wear me out and how taking a shower would mean I had to rest for a while afterward.
Still, the hunt for Greg Miles gave me a little boost of energy, and I stayed on my porch most of Friday, ready to do my part to find a killer. Willie Darner came by late in the afternoon, when the day is at its warmest and a lot of residents pour a glass of wine or a beer and sit on their patio. Willie’s kind of a loner, but he’s friendly enough if you speak first. When he came within hailing distance I asked if he wanted a beer. (I always ask. He always says no thanks.) Still, it appeared he had something on his mind that he wanted to share. Climbing the steps, he sat down opposite me.
“Do you think your buddy Tommy would go with me to see George at the office tomorrow morning? He’s got more pull around this place than I do, but I’d sure like to see some changes made.”
“Like what?”
“More security, for one thing. We should have somebody locking up the buildings every night and opening them up in the morning.”
“Who’s going to do that?”
“They could hire someone, or maybe one of us could do it for a little cut off our rent. You know we got strangers hanging around the park, and it irritates me no end when I see outsiders dump their garbage in our trash bins or help themselves to the stuff in the Free Store. If we should lock everything up at night, maybe they’ll go someplace else.”
“I don’t know, Willie. Residents like the convenience of being able to get in where they want to any time of the day.”
“But what about this guy we got wandering the park at night? Do they want him getting in wherever he wants?” Willie’s completely bald, and the muscles in his head twitch when he’s riled up about something. “I bet he’s homeless and living for free in the park.” Pointing vaguely as he spoke, he went on, “We got showers and toilets in the clubhouse. There’s a nice, soft rug he can sleep on in the library. And I’ll bet he sneaks into the hall when nobody’s looking, hides in a closet, then raids the refrigerator after everybody goes home.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
“If I was homeless, it’s what I’d do. People around here are patsies, and George is as bad as the rest. When I tried to tell him this guy’s probably living in our buildings, he laughed. He doesn’t even care that we could have a serial killer wandering our streets.”
“Talk to Tommy,” I advised, though I realized I was passing the buck. “He’ll go with you to talk to George.”
Willie leaned his forearms on his thighs. “People don’t want to think about how dangerous the world is, you know? They want to pretend everything is fine...right up to the time when it isn’t. Then they say, ‘Why didn’t somebody warn us about this?’” After a pause he repeated, “People are patsies.”
It was time to change the subject. “I watched that movie The Dirty Dozen for about the tenth time yesterday. Do you remember that one?”
“Sure,” Willie responded. “It’s a classic.” He wasn’t quite over his anger with the modern world, and he added, “Back then people knew how to take care of business. Lee Marvin wasn’t no patsy.”
“I saw it when it first came out in ’67,” I said, ignoring the actor’s macho-ness. “Did you see it then?”
His head wrinkled again. “Yeah, I think so.”
“I was in Pittsburg that summer.” I said that like I hadn’t been a resident of Pittsburgh my whole life. “Where’d you live back then?”
Screwing up his face, Willie searched his brain for the answer. “In ’67? I was in Denver. Why?”
“No reason. What were you doing there?”
Willie grinned. “Being a ski bum. I was convinced I’d be the next Jean-Claude Killy.” He smiled at the dreams of his younger self.
“What does a ski bum do besides ski? I mean, to earn money?”
“We were real Peter Pan types. We only cared about the sport, so we avoided growing up for as long as we could.” Willie clasped his hands and laid them on his belly as he reminisced. “I stayed in this horrible apartment with five other guys. Lots of times we took jobs that paid in pizza, or we worked in those tourist hotels where your ID badge has your hometown listed under your name. It was all okay with us as long as we got as many days on the mountain as possible.”
“Sounds like a crazy way to live.”
“My personal record was having four jobs at once. I had a 25-year old classic Oldsmobile that had a heater that worked maybe one day a week. It had multi-colored body parts, and we loaded it down with stickers to hide the rust.” Willie shook his head. “I was still better off than a lot of my friends that had to travel by bike no matter what the weather. They’d attach their skis to the bike frames with PVC tubing.”
“And did all those indignities ever pay off?”
He sniffed. “I never made it to nationals, much less the Olympics.”
Willie’s wistful tone convinced me he was telling the truth, but I gave it one more shot. “I thought somebody said you lived in Nashville back in the day.”
“You mean Nashville, Tennessee? Nope. I never came east of the Mississippi until Shirley and I met online a few years ago. When we hit it off, we both sold our houses and moved down here.” He grinned. “Those computer dating sites are convenient, but they sure mess up a guy’s geography.”
When Willie went on his way, and I sat there feeling fake, even cheesy, for tricking him into talking about his past. We’d been eager to start the project, and we hadn’t thought it through very well. Our methods were diverse, our results spotty, and we had more question marks than certainties. Of the eight of us, only Earl and Wilma claimed to be certain that everyone they’d talked to was completely okay.
