Chapter 4 – CASH #3
Ken’s obviously always been a wiry guy. Except for her perfect little tits, Glenna’s lush. Big hips, fat juicy ass, thighs you wanna dive between. She’s like the tree of life—thick trunk and delicate, willowy top.
But there is a similarity in their air. World-weary and gentle. Shrewd. Sturdy.
I like him.
I like her .
“What’s that, a sharp-shinned hawk?” Ken asks, shielding his eyes.
“Nah. Cooper’s hawk,” Brice says.
Ken hums. “How d’you tell the difference?”
“Cooper’s hawk has a big head. Like Cash.”
They both share a chuckle at my expense.
I refocus the conversation. “I hate to be a downer, but Ken, we gotta talk about those voicemails. Have you told Kell?”
“No offense, but I’m steering clear of anyone affiliated with the Stonecut sheriff’s office at present time.
” He exhales and takes a long swig of his beer.
“Listen. The feds are doing what they can. This kind of thing comes with the territory. It’s not my first harassment campaign. It’s ugly, but it’ll blow over.”
He grins. “You should’ve seen how folks lost their shit when I exposed the men who cut down the white oak.”
“I remember.” I was a kid, but it was big news. Maintenance workers mistakenly sawed down a three-hundred-year-old tree that George Washington slept in or something. They tried to hide the crime by feeding it through a woodchipper, but it was a big-ass tree, and Ken caught ‘em with the stump.
“That was the Lord’s work.” Brice raises his fist. Ken pounds it.
I pull him back again. “Ken, they’re threatening Glenna.”
Before he lifts his beer, I see his lower lip quaver. I’ve seen that expression on grizzled old men before. He’s scared. He doesn’t know what to do, so he makes the problem smaller in his mind. My father’s inclined to do the same.
“I’ll talk to her,” Ken says. “Make sure she’s not walking home alone. I can’t believe I’ve lived to regret the day that boy Toby showed himself the door.”
“I’m smarter than him, though, right?” I can’t help but ask.
“No, but despite your obvious shortcomings, you somehow annoy me less.”
“I’ll take it.” I clink my bottle to his.
“I honestly don’t believe anyone’s gonna act on it. People blow off steam. Then the next story comes along, and they’re back to waving at you on the street, saying hi. But when Glenna said she’d been shot—” Ken shudders. “I lost ten years off my life.”
“Don’t tell her that.”
“She wouldn’t let you call me, would she?”
“She didn’t want you upset.”
“She’s a good kid.” He’s quiet for a minute. Brice is back to his whittling, lost in his own world. He can go for hours, and then all of a sudden, laugh out loud and tell me a joke he heard on SportsCenter. Artists are patient men. Like hunters. Maybe that’s why we get along so well.
“Whatever happened back when you were kids?” Ken asks, breaking the silence. “Glenna practically lived with y’all on the weekends. Then one day, she didn’t want to go over anymore.”
“I don’t know. Dina and her must’ve had a falling out.”
“She’s never said anything bad about Dina. You, though—she’s had some choice words about you over the years.”
“Yeah?” I’m not sure if I want to know.
“Doesn’t bear repeating.”
Well, now I need to know. “I can be a dick.”
“I’m sure.”
“But Ken, you have to know, I’d never hurt Glenna. Or see her hurt.”
He sizes me up over his tilted bottle, and his eyes narrow. “If you say so.” Then he sighs. “This’ll all pass.” His voice is less than sure.
“It will.” Del will get a slap on the wrist for being lax with paperwork, and everything will go back to the way it was. “If it’ll help, I’ll keep an eye on Glenna. Look out for her.”
Brice looks up from his wood and arches an eyebrow. I ignore him.
“I’d be obliged. You’re well liked. Not sure why, but folks follow your lead.”
“You really don’t like me much, do you?”
He drains his beer and sets it on the table.
Then he takes a moment to watch the hawk again.
It’s caught an updraft, zooming above the white pines straight up the face of the mountain until it hits a cross current and then soaring through open blue sky.
It calls, shrill in the cool air, and then dives, disappearing in the yellow and red-tinged treetops.
“You’ve got a nice view from up here,” Ken says, easing himself to his feet. “People down there must look really small. Like ants.”
He sniffs, sort of shakes himself, and offers Brice his hand again, done with me. I toss our empties in the recycling.
Brice walks Ken back to his van, answering Ken’s questions about the installation in Germany, agreeing to an interview for a feature article sometime in the undetermined future. I trail a few steps behind.
When it’s just Brice and I hanging out like always, I forget that he’s a big deal, much bigger than the other Stonecut players, my family included. One of those big-deal national news magazines came out and did a piece on him last year. Granger got a cameo.
He flies all over the world to gallery openings, gets wined and dined, and comes back here to work in a weathered old barn. And when he gets bored, he comes over to hang out with me.
“Why is it you still wanna hang out with me when you’re so famous?” I ask him as we watch Ken Dobbs drive off, not missing a single pothole on his way out.
“The dog.”
“Granger’s freakin’ awesome.” He whines and headbutts my leg. “But seriously though.”
“Are you having low self-esteem ‘cause the girl you want don’t want you back and her daddy thinks you’re shit?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, is she into dogs?” He cracks himself up.
I take the high road and walk away to go split some wood. He’s still laughing when I start chopping.
* * *
Later, after dropping Brice at his place, I call Kellum as I drive into town. I tell him about the threatening calls Ken’s been getting. Kell says he’ll drop by the newspaper and talk to Ken, but he can’t blame him if he’d rather not deal with the Stonecut Sheriff’s Office.
Kell is concerned, but his sense is that it’s locals blowing off steam. It might be, but whoever did it still needs to get their asses beat for saying shit like that to an old man. What the hell is wrong with folks?
I get standing by your people. We didn’t turn our backs on Del after he sided with Van for a hot second when that business with Shay went down. Del came to the family, hat in hand, and we heard him out. You don’t throw people away after a lifetime because of one error in judgement.
But there’s a huge difference between standing by people and disguising your voice and calling up a dude to threaten his life and his daughter. That’s psycho shit.
I’m not convinced that a person so unbalanced wouldn’t act on their threats.
And that’s eating my innards up. Glenna ain’t the kind of girl who use to scrap behind the feedstore on a Friday night in high school. She’s soft.
I don’t really have a plan as I park in front of Peace, Love, and Beans, except I’ve got to see her. See how her arm’s doing.
See her.
I pull up on the curb so the fire trucks can get by if need be. If I park full on the street, they gotta go up on the sidewalk. It’s close to dinner time. The sun’s glaring off the front window, so I can’t see if she’s working, but I’m sure she is. She’s there whenever I drop by.
I take off my baseball hat, smooth my hair, mold the brim, and stick it back on. Then I wipe my palms on my jeans. I hosed myself off after chopping about a cord of wood, but I don’t have anything but a bar of Scent-A-Way up at the cabin, so I don’t smell great.
I’ve got cologne—the good stuff—at my apartment, but I didn’t want to take the time. I’m feeling rushed even though my week’s wide open now.
Truth be told, there’s never been a time Glenna didn’t put me out of sorts. I dealt with it the same way I deal with everything—jokes and dicking around. It doesn’t feel right anymore. Maybe it hasn’t for a while.
I buck up and push open the door. The bell jingles. Everyone looks over.
“Hey, Cash.”
“What’s up, man?”
I get the usual greetings, but my gaze is glued on Glenna, frozen behind the counter with a half-filled coffee pot in her hand.
Someone reaches out a fist, and I bump it without thought, stunned stupid myself.
Glenna’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, hands down, and I’ll never get used to it.
Her arm is in a navy-blue sling. Her hair’s loose, straight at the top, wavy at the ends. I like her blue tips. She’s so reserved, but the blue’s like an open drawer, an invitation to peek, and you know there’s gonna be something wild in there.
She bites her bottom lip, nervous. I pop wood. The warm yellow light from the old fixtures overhead makes her brown eyes shine like a doe’s.
Her pulse flutters under the thin gold necklace she’s wearing.
“Hey, Glenna, maybe you wanna put your hands up?” Some idiot shouts across the room.
“Don’t shoot, man! Don’t shoot!” Len, the janitor at the elementary, hollers back from the counter where he’s pouring cream in his coffee.
A half dozen customers laugh. Mrs. Myers, my math teacher from Stonecut Middle, shoots me the stink eye she used to give me when I cut up in class.
Glenna drops the coffee pot to the counter and bolts into the back.
Shit.
I weave through the tables and duck under the part of the counter hinged to swing open.
“Hey! What are you doin’?” Toby calls. He’s at a table, chatting with a pink-haired chick, his arm resting on the back of her chair.
I dart into the back room. There’s no one there. The exit door’s swinging shut. She did a runner.
I follow into the alley. It looks like every back street in Stonecut, tall brick buildings with old wrought iron fire escapes, ivy, a green dumpster, a rank, wet trickle running down the middle of the concrete.
Glenna’s hustling toward Third Street, hoodie up.
“Hey, Glenna!” I call as I jog to catch her. She picks up the pace. I feel like a stalker. “Come on, Glenna. I didn’t say anything.”
“Why can’t you leave me alone?”