The quiet was a pressing gray noise, and the heat was building. Hooker knew he should look behind him but could not bring himself to turn. He was searching. What he was looking for, he couldn’t find. You have to know what you are looking for in order to know when you have found it. The buzz of the heat reflected off the hot sand. Hooker could not feel his feet in the sand.
He knew he needed to turn around. He just did not have the strength to push his will.
The heat seared until everything was just white. Hooker looked for something. He knew he had to find it, whatever it was.
He knew he should turn around, but he didn’t want to. He was afraid of what was there. He kept searching.
The white began to take parts of Hooker. He had to find it. He looked harder.
His legs ended at his ankles in the white of the sand. He wiggled his toes. He could feel the toes were now part of the sand. “I won’t need boots next year.”
The white sand washed against his legs and bound them together. The heat intensified. He pushed forward, searching for what he needed to find. He was trapped, but he had to find it.
The white around his legs drew snug. What was behind him drew near. The voice was urgent. He needed to find the thing and make the voice stop.
With a rush of adrenaline and determination, Hooker turned. He screamed as the shotgun exploded.
The expanding cloud of hot orange gas enveloped him and reached for his soul. He recoiled.
Hooker physically screamed, and as he recoiled in his mind, he jumped backward in the bed. He was suspended in midair for a moment. Then, in his mind, the shotgun blast hit him in the back and head.
His scream was cut short as his head and back hit the concrete floor.
Stella’s shoulder slammed into the doorjamb and the half-open door. The door slapped against the wall, burying itself on the stopper. The noise was loud and explosive, like a shotgun blast at point-blank range.
Hooker’s heart skipped a beat, and he passed out. His terrorized mind was certain he had been shot again.
Moments later, Hooker’s eyes fluttered, and then he blinked. He was lying on the hard floor. His pillow was under his head. His blankets were neatly over him, and he was staring up through the spokes of Manny’s wheelchair at the man himself.
“Just lay there. Stella is getting the ice pack.”
Hooker closed his eyes. He tried to pull himself together, tried to remember. “Sorry for waking you two up.”
“You didn’t.” Stella’s face appeared over him, looking down. She knelt with a wince as her knees groaned and popped. “Why do you guys always have to end up on the floor? I’m truly getting too old for this nonsense.” She placed a cold ice bag under Hooker’s head.
A warm purr moved along his right arm. His arm and cast felt funny. Hooker wondered if a person could break an arm when it is in a cast.
Box placed a tentative front paw on Hooker’s chest. Meeting no resistance, he placed the other on the chest and then sat down in the open armpit. It was warm and snuggly, but without the fuss of climbing on the chest.
Hooker frowned and rolled his eyes up to Stella. “What time is it?”
“A little past three.”
“Day or night?”
Manny moaned, “Night.”
Without looking, Stella reached over and rubbed Manny’s hand. “It was one of those nights again.”
Hooker looked through the spokes. “Getting shot again?”
Manny winced with a drawn back lip. The nod was almost imperceptible in the dim light from the hall. The man was embarrassed this kind of crap could go on for so many years. He looked out of the room’s door at the black wall of glass and dim night lights in the courtyard fountain.
Hooker thought about how tough the man was, and how such a little thing could cause so much havoc in a life. He sighed deeply. “So, I guess this is never going to just go away.”
Stella silently stroked his forehead and slowly shook her head.
Hooker smiled weakly. “So we are all up. I guess some hot cocoa would be out of the question?”
Manny harrumphed. “It tastes like crap with moonshine in it.”
Stella rolled her eyes as she pursed her lips and nodded in agreement. “Guess I’ll have to find where I hid bottle of dark rum.”
Hooker sat up carefully.
“You dizzy?”
“Naw, I’m fine, just the bump hurts.”
Stella stood. “Keep thet ice on it.”
Manny chuckled. “Check the floor and see if there is a divot or dent?”
Stella tapped her husband’s head as she walked out. “He’s not your blood relative.”
They all three laughed at the hard-headed family joke.
Hooker leaned back against the bed platform. He held the ice bag on his head. His eyes closed sluggishly, but without a sign of sleep. He was thinking.
Manny watched him attentively, deep in thought, immersed in his own brand of hell.
Hooker opened his eyes. He looked up at the detective.
Manny rocked forward on his elbows splayed on the chair arms. It was his way of preparing to talk. “The shotgun?”
Hooker nodded.
“It’s strange, even if you are looking at the person who shoots you, in the night terrors, you never see the person... only the end of the gun, and a blast.”
Hooker let the ice bag slide down his head, as he drew it out in front of him. He surveyed the cast. There were some cracks. It was at the end of its usefulness. The elbow had been feeling mushy for a few days.
“Have you ever figured out why people kill people they don’t even know?”
Manny rocked back gently as he pursed his lips. “There is a belief in the Jewish religion that most people are good at heart. But there are a few who are evil incarnate. What makes them evil is anyone’s guess. They are evil from birth. Maybe this guy is one of those. I don’t know. All the years on the force, I saw a lot of bad things. But down deep, few of the people were bad themselves. Their circumstance may have been. They may have felt they had no other choice, but they weren’t evil in the root.”
Hooker slowly slid back up onto his bed. “I don’t think mine was evil. He just didn’t know any other way.”
“Maybe you’re lucky, and it won’t follow you for long.”
Hooker looked at his friend. “But you don’t believe it.”
Manny shrugged and closed his eyes. “There is always hope.”
Hooker scratched his curly hair and finished the smartass remark. “Hope is a diamond.”
Stella called from the kitchen.
Manny laughed. “Speaking of real diamonds...”
The three mugs were on the table. Stella sat at her place, shuffling a deck of cards—something Hooker had never seen her do.
He sat down as Manny slid into his area at the head of the table. Hooker watched her continue to break, separate, pile, and reshuffle the cards. She focused on the deck as if she were mesmerized by the moving pieces of card stock.
Hooker raised his mug and sipped at the heat and vapor of chocolate powder. As a kid, he had never tasted chocolate or hot cocoa. He had first tasted it at one of the other tow truck driver’s houses. They had made it for the kids, and Hooker had taken a sip. He had almost given up coffee. The next morning, he was back to his old ways, but forever changed. He had stopped on his way home and bought some powder mix. When Willie had caught him, he threw the powder down the toilet. Hooker, red-faced with indignant anger, had stood the man up against the wall. As he was about to scream his venting spleen, Willie calmly shuttered his eyes and stated, “If you want hot chocolate, I will make you some. But it will be real hot chocolate. Never settle for an imitation. Always remember you are worth the real stuff.”
A warm flood washed through Hooker. He realized now Willie had been speaking about a lot more than just a mug of hot chocolate. He was talking about love and family and relationships, and basically, anything in life. It was about finding value within you. And, as Hooker realized the next day, Willie was reminding himself of that, too.
That was the day Hooker pulled the Congressional Medal of Honor out of the second drawer on the left under the sink. He had hunted around and finally found the photo to go with it and had taken it all up to the Phoenix Frame Shop. A few weeks later, he hung the framed medal, photo, and ribbon by the door. Every time they passed it, it reminded both Hooker and Willie—Willie had paid the price to be the man he wanted to be.
Willie had watched Hooker hang the frame. As he walked past, out into the shop, he commented in a grump, “At least you could have found a picture showing my better side.”
Two days later, Hooker found a photo of Willie in the naval hospital with tubes and bandages covering most of his face and chest. Hooker had thumbtacked it to the wall beside the other, but recently, Hank had taken it down, stating how disgusting it looked. Then he had it framed to match.
Hooker sipped on the hot chocolate, thinking about how hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies on a Christmas Eve was how Hooker had finally met Stella, and then Manny. Who could have known that two months later, he would be taking refuge in their home?
“Hey... Hooker?” Stella sat ready to deal.
“What?”
“I asked, are you in?”
Hooker looked with a frown at Manny and Stella. He was lost.
Manny leaned back. His right eyebrow rose. He summed up the situation. “We’re playing gin until dawn.”
“Gin until dawn?” Hooker was now really confused. He had never really played card games at all, and so this was a new game to him. “Is it like regular gin?”
Stella started to laugh, but Manny put his hand on hers and frowned.
“You were always working or over at Willie’s. That’s why this seems strange to you.”
“Well...”
Stella rested her hands on the table, still holding the cards. “When Manny wakes up with the terrors, we get up and have hot chocolate. It always reminds us of the Christmas Eve you came into our lives. And we play gin... a penny a point. Manny owes me a million dollars he’ll never pay. So we can start fresh with you and just play for points.”
Hooker looked at Manny. “A million bucks?” He laughed. “You really are bad at this?”
Manny shrugged his eyes and shoulder as he raised his mug. “To Christmas and forgiven debts.”
They laughed, and Stella dealt.
“So, what is the dawn part?”
Manny was looking at his cards. “The sun comes up.”
Stella drew a card and discarded. “The terrors stop, and he can sleep again.”
“Aha.” Hooker nodded and thought about his cards. He was so savagely screwed. He drew and discarded.
The large clock in Manny’s office could be heard ticking between the ticks of the cards. The night rumbled on with the soft thumps of the mugs of chocolate landing absently on the large table. Hooker could feel the soft soothing calm coming with the mindless play.
Softly, Stella laid out her cards. “Gin.” She pulled the score sheet toward her and drew vertical lines.
Manny leaned toward Hooker. “I don’t know why she draws those lines. Other than it gives us hope, maybe just one hand, we might put some points up.”
Hooker laid out his hand. It was still a mess. At least Manny’s was close.
The hands moved on. As Manny had predicted, numbers only filled one column—but it didn’t really matter. Hooker realized he had spent very little time doing nothing with Manny and Stella. In fact, he and been a non-stop whirlwind since he first met Willie.
“What was it like growing up in the wild west of Nebraska?”
Manny stopped and put down his cards. He thought about the question. He rocked forward on his elbows, metering out a deep sigh.
“Main Street was a patchwork of concrete, board, and dirt sidewalks. Dad had a Model T truck we went to town in. He had paid a man twenty-two dollars for the truck and a battered trailer carrying a horse. The man saddled the horse and rode off down the street.
“I remember another day coming out of the dry goods store. The day was high heat, and there was a horse tied up to the rail on the bed of the truck.” Manny looked at Hooker’s frown of confusion.
“A horse?” Hooker nodded.
Manny snorted. “Don’t worry about it... they were everywhere, and this horse was standing there tied to the truck with its tongue hanging out. My dad didn’t say anything. He untied the horse and led him about a block down the street to the gas station. In those days, there was a large pan full of water to check tires and tubes for leaks. He led the horse to the pan.
“I remember my father standing there in his wool suit pants and a white long-sleeve shirt. His tie was one of those ribbons they just tied in a bow. His cowboy hat was pushed back on his head so he could scratch at his forehead. The back of his white shirt was stained into a gray cross from the sweat.
“He stood there, waiting for the horse to drink his fill. Then he led him back up the street. He tied the reins to the car behind us, and we drove off to home. I asked him why he had watered the horse. He didn’t even think about it. He just told me it was because the horse was thirsty. He meant anyone else would do the same thing because it was what neighbors were for. Nebraska was that simple. You just looked after what needed to be done.”
Hooker thought. “Like the canning.”
Stella nodded and laid down her cards. “Gin.”
Hooker thought about the horse and about the canning. He looked at Stella shuffling. “What about you?”
She laughed loosely. “The kibbutz?”
“What’s a kibbutz?”
“It’s a Jewish collective farm where many families live and work the same farm as a common family.”
“I thought it was just your family?”
“Oh, it was. But with Dolly and me, it felt like a collective farm. For as unorthodox as we were Orthodox, we still got all of the lessons and stories as if my father were a rabbi.”
“But he was a farmer.”
“Farmer, lay veterinarian, furniture builder, substitute teacher, even a cop for a while.” She looked over at Manny.
Manny laughed. “That’s how we met. He arrested me for stealing a watermelon in the middle of the night.”
“He caught you stealing?”
“Oh, heck no.” Manny laughed. “He was the gym teacher. He knew it had to be one of the boys in the gym class. He just didn’t know which one he had shot full of rock salt the night before. So he had both classes of gym running wind sprints up and down the football field. Pretty soon, the blood pressure is up, the scabs are weak, and were being rubbed off. I started bleeding. It was just small dots here and there… but he knew the pattern. He walked up behind me and slapped the cuffs on me. When I asked what for, he pulled the shirt up my back.”
“What happened?”
“I served my sentence—the rest of the harvest was spent in his fields. I was very thankful someone took pity on me and brought me cooled tea.”
“Stella.”
She harrumphed.
Manny laughed and waved the back of his hand at her. “Oh, heavens no. She only had eyes for the Grader kid.”
“Ralph.”
“Yeah, Ralph. What a screw-up he turned out to be.”
“Prison?”
“Nah, Congress.” The two laughed.
They played cards for almost an hour in silence. ‘Gin’ was the only word spoken, other than when Stella stood at the stove and asked, “More?”
Stella sipped on her fresh mug as she reviewed her cards. She mused. “You know what would go good with this?”
Without looking up, Hooker replied distractedly, “Chocolate chip cookies.”
Stella laid her cards face down and looked at Hooker over the rim of her mug. Manny decked his cards because he knew the look. They weren’t going to be playing cards for at least a few minutes.
Hooker started to reach for a drawcard, and then realized he was the center of attention. Stella’s face was completely unreadable, and Manny’s was of light amusement. Hooker slowly withdrew his hand. He knew something was up, and it didn’t feel good.
“What?” Hooker’s breath was almost as loud as his word. He was rapidly reaching panic under Stella’s pressure.
Stella let him stew and worry a few seconds more. “What exactly were you doing out there that night with hot cocoa and fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies?”
Hooker had to replay what she had said a few times in his head. It didn’t sound right. There was no trouble, no threat, and no condemnation, nothing… No trouble of any kind.
He swallowed and then cleared his throat. “It was Christmas Eve.”
Her face was as animated as the stone fountain out front.
He laid his cards on the table and then slowly raised the mug to his mouth. Almost a decade playing this game with the two sisters had taught him the tricks. He sipped, never breaking eye contact. He sipped again, and then quietly placed the bright aqua blue mug on the thick walnut table. There was no sound from the placement.
Stella cocked her head slightly. Her eyes didn’t betray her amusement at how well he had learned the waiting game. Rule one: whoever speaks first loses.
Hooker picked up his cards as if to resume the game. He moved two cards.
Stella smiled as she pushed back in her chair. “Really?” She laughed as Manny chuckled. “You won with the second sip with an empty mug. If I weren’t rationing Manny’s sugar, I would have sworn you had cocoa left to drink.”
Hooker smiled softly at the acknowledgment of his prowess at the game they all played—he took the win. But his voice was soft as he spoke.
“Most people think the drivers volunteer to work the holidays for the extra pay. The truth is, there is no holiday pay, especially nights. The club calls pay a flat $7.41. $7.41 for a jumpstart, $7.41 for a flat tire, and $7.41 for a tow, even if it’s a roll-over wreck down a cliff—$7.41 and the drivers get half if they’re lucky. Most drivers came from situations not much different from mine. Most of those have a weekend or three to look forward to throughout the year.” He laid down his unneeded pass cards.
“Even the summer I first started, I heard what the drivers looked forward to every year. It was your sister’s ham hocks and black-eyed beans on New Year’s Eve. Nobody ever asked what part of the South Dolly was from. She just said it was a family tradition and they didn’t care. What they looked forward to is the confirmation that someone cares.
“Most of the older drivers can tell you how many days are left in the year. After turkey awful, Ace can tell you exactly how many hours until that midnight. It’s a small thing for Dolly to do, but for them, it’s the biggest thing all year.”
He looked in his mug and started to get up. Stella waved him down and grabbed his mug. “Time to switch to coffee.”
Hooker looked at her backside as she drew the coffee mill toward her on the counter. He frowned at Manny, who was relaxed in his posture.
The man smiled and nodded his head behind him. He didn’t have to look, and neither did she. Hooker looked into the sunroom. The previously dark windows were now a soft gray of fog. Soon they would be pink.
“I didn’t stop listening.” The antique mill growled as she turned the crank.
Hooker collected his thoughts. “Willie wasn’t dating anyone then, so Maddie had come over and brought a bunch of fixings. We were baking up dozens of cookies, and there was at least a gallon of hot cocoa. I knew we would never eat and drink all of it, so I packed up the picnic basket and was out looking for the other drivers.”
Stella plugged in the percolator and stood leaning with her hands on the counter. Her focus was hundreds of miles and years away. She was seeing a snapshot of her father taking the family and their Christmas dinner down to the Sheriff Station and county jail. There were two officers and the town drunk. The seven of them ate together in the larger holding cell because they couldn’t let Junior Dirken out of the cell. The deputies had thanked her father for the best kosher Christmas dinner they had ever had.
Two weeks later Junior had come around to the farm. He told their father he was tired of being the town drunk and asked for his help. Their father had given him a job on the farm and made a place for him out in the barn.
Many years later, Junior still lived in the barn when he delivered their father’s eulogy. He had recalled the dinner. Sometimes, it is not the big things that make the difference, but the little ones.
She turned and sat against the counter. “So you were bringing them Christmas.”
Hooker nodded. “For once, I had too much. It was my turn to share.”
He turned toward Manny. “And I still have the Zippo money clip you gave me that morning.”
Stella chuckled. “Was it the one I gave you the year before?”
He smiled wetly. “I was holding on to it for Hooker.”
Stella croaked just as wet. “If there was ever any doubt about who is a member of this family... There is none now.”
The percolator bubbled its finish as she collected and rinsed out Manny’s mug and filled all three. Placing the two mugs on the table, she turned back toward the refrigerator. She took out Manny’s insulin, and drawing out a larger dose, she said to herself. “I feel like pancakes are in order.”
She walked over to where Manny was holding his undershirt up. She swabbed the alcohol pad over the area and pushed the needle in. “I’m feeling like chocolate chip pancakes.”