28

YOUNT’S HOUSE WAS DARK and the driveway empty when John drove by. He rolled on through town, past a tavern, then turned back and headed south. He spotted Yount’s car in the gravel lot of the Sand Bar. He parked and just sat in the car and smoked a cigarette before actually going in.

Country music met him at the door along with the rumble of voices and laughter and the clacking of billiard balls. All the cigarette smoke made everything seem in a blue light. This could have been a bar in Staunton. He saw Yount standing at the bar, sipping a beer, talking to a man in a feed cap.

“Hey, Greg,” John said.

“John! What are you doing here?” Yount put down his beer and slapped the older man’s shoulder. “Let me buy you a beer. Another beer!”

The man in the feed cap peeled away and moved down the bar where he fell into conversation with a fat woman.

“What brings you out?” Yount asked.

John took his beer from the barkeep. “Just seemed like a good night to get out.”

Yount looked at him. “It is a nice night.”

“How’s the arm?”

Yount looked at the cast as if just discovering it. “Coming along.”

“Itchy?”

“Like a son of a bitch.”

“I saw Elgin last night,” John said.

“I’m going to make it up there tomorrow. How’s he doing?”

“Coming along, as you say.”

Yount studied his half-full mug. “He was trying to catch me.” He pulled on the beer. “Peculiar how things turn out.”

John sighed with an unconvincing grin and said, “Yeah.” He looked around the room and spotted an empty booth. “Let’s go sit over there.”

Yount nodded and followed him over, eased himself down, being careful of his injured arm. “What’s on your mind, Doc?”

John smiled.

Yount half-laughed. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what is it?”

John pulled his cigarettes from his breast pocket and shook a couple high. He offered one to Yount, who declined. “Of course.” He lit up and pulled the ashtray closer.

“How’s your young lady?” Yount asked. “Ruth, I mean.”

“Well.”

Yount caught a passing waitress and asked for another round. He admired her ass as she stepped away.

“My son thinks highly of you,” John said.

“And I of him.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.” He tapped ashes off his butt. “How’s the law business?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t practice anymore. I just teach.”

“So, how is teaching law?”

“Boring.”

John nodded. “Has studying law taught you anything about life?”

Yount just looked at him.

“I mean, I’ve been around life and death for forty years or thereabouts and I don’t know a damn thing. Sounds silly, huh?”

“No, Doc. Not at all.”

“I haven’t learned anything about people in all this time, in all those years.”

The waitress dropped off their beers.

“Let me get these,” John said and paid for them. He grabbed his mug and raised it in a toast. “Drink with me, to these sad times.”

Yount did.

A couple of minutes of silence passed, and John found himself tapping his glass with his nails. “You know, Greg, I think about such things.”

“You do?”

“Things just find my attention or my attention finds them and I don’t understand right off. Like this morning, I began thinking about sleeping sickness. You know anything about sleeping sickness?”

“No.”

“It’s caused by a parasite, a protozoan called Trypanosoma gambiense. You don’t mind hearing this?”

“Go on.”

“The parasite is transmitted to the blood of a person by the tsetse fly. It affects the lymph glands, causes fever and rashes, then it hits the central nervous system. Then coma. Then death.”

“What’s the point, John?”

“There’s no cure.” John lit up another cigarette.

“No cure.”

“No. But what’s interesting to me is why there is no cure.”

“And why is that?”

“This isn’t your normal bar talk, is it?” John asked.

Yount laughed.

“Here goes,” John said. “Any foreign body in the blood stream has a surface of antigenic molecules. These molecules are detected as intruders, and the immune system calls out its hit men, the antibodies. You with me?”

Yount nodded.

“The trypanosome, however, has a talent. You see, the human body produces specific antibodies for specific antigens and this parasite apparently has a mechanism for altering its antigenic coat.”

“Dresses for the weather.”

John smiled. “Very good. Well, many of the parasites are killed, but the changed ones live and proliferate while the body generates more antibodies. This keeps happening, the disease coming in waves until finally it kills.”

“That’s interesting,” said Yount.

“Yeah, but you don’t see. The body fights it off, but it just keeps coming, different each time—its coat, at least.” John looked into the man’s eyes.

Yount frowned his puzzlement, then laughed, leaning back against the seat.

John chuckled with him. “Is the big jetty behind this place?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go outside and look at the ocean.”

“Why?”

John shrugged. “A breath of air.”

Yount drank the rest of his beer and let his glass down hard on the table. “Let’s go.”

They stepped out and past the parked cars to the path that led down to the beach. The stiff breeze rustled through the sea grass and kicked a little at the sand. There was no moon to see in the cloudy sky.

The jetty snaked out into the dark, the waves lapping noisily at its flanks. They were alone on the beach. John started to light a cigarette but stopped short of striking the match. Even such a small point of light would be very visible. He put the pack away, said to Yount, “I’d never get it lit in this wind.”

They walked to the jetty. John arched his back to work out a kink. “I assume you know that Lisa’s had an affair.”

“I know only what Elgin has told me.”

John started down the jetty, but Yount did not follow. John stopped and looked at him.

“People get swept off of this thing quite often,” said Yount.

“I’ve heard the stories. Come on.”

Yount shook his head but moved forward nonetheless. “What’s this all about, Doc?”

“Why do you think it is that people come out here, in spite of the stories, knowing that they might be swept off by some aberrant wave?”

“You tell me,” Yount said.

“People are hard to figure.”

“Not always.”

John led the way out into the waves. The water sprayed them occasionally and it was cold. “You know, I don’t think Elgin is the father of this new baby.”

“You don’t?”

“No. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Yount looked at the rocks at his sides, the waves pounding them. “You could be right.”

“Yep,” John said and sighed. “Elgin really trusts you.”

“Yeah, well.”

“No, I mean it. He thinks the world of you.”

Another wave sprayed them. John looked at Yount and felt none of the hatred he’d experienced earlier. He felt hollow, disappointed. He said nothing as he stepped past the man and back down the jetty toward the beach. He reached the sand and glanced back to see Yount approaching, then made his way up the slope and to the car. He sat behind the wheel and watched Yount go back into the tavern.

John drove into town, parked in the lot of the moorage, and walked down to the dock. The boats creaked and rocked in their slips. The air here was full of the smell of fish and bait. He leaned against a piling and lit a cigarette.

“Some people might say this is a nice night,” came a voice from a boat a couple of slips from where John was standing.

“Some might,” John said, trying to see the man’s face. He stepped closer and saw the figure seated in a folding lounge chair.

“Didn’t I meet you up on the mountain?” the man asked.

It was the old man from the day on the mountain. The surly old geezer who had ribbed them about killing cans, the poacher.

“That’s where we met, all right,” said John.

“Well, good to see you again.”

John nodded. “Do you live out here?”

The man laughed.

John didn’t know why he was laughing. “Nice boat.”

“Thanks, but it ain’t mine. I’m just borrowin’ it for the evening.”

“Sort of a charter,” John said.

“Yeah. I like that, sort of a charter. That’s a good one.”

“A place to bed down.”

“Yep.”

“So, where will you sleep tomorrow night?”

The man stood and stroked his beard. “You got another smoke?”

John tossed him the pack. “Keep ’em. The matches are pushed under the cellophane.”

“I used to have a buddy who did the same thing.” The old man lit up and savored the first drag. “So, what brings you out? Shootin’ at more cans?”

“You might say that.”

“Nice night for it.”

John flicked his ashes into the water and looked up at a nearby vapor lamp. “How can you live like this?”

The old man eased himself back down into the chair, ignoring the question and John.

After some silence, John turned and walked away.