15
Leon’s construction company is called Sureland. It was founded some fifty years ago by a former mayor of Johnston named Shawn Dunham, an old smoker with a knack for hard policy and hammering down. Dunham owned the company for a good long while and they did okay, considering they were the only real business of that sort in town. Leon’s father worked there for decades and brought his son into the fold at an age when child labor laws should have gotten him arrested for it. Eventually Leon’s father and Dunham retired and five or so years after that Leon took the whole thing over. He’d been there for over ten years at that point, and I think everyone involved unanimously thought the business was better off in Leon’s hands. Begrudgingly, Leon took the job.
“I’ll just get it running smooth and be off.” He promised, reassuring himself. Well, all these years later, Sureland is stronger than ever, and my friend never went off like he promised me he would. Leon could be inventing rockets or colonizing Mars or something, but he’s heading up Sureland and doing a fine job of it.
After our altercation with Deangelo weeks ago, he and Leon got to talking on their lunch breaks pretty regularly. Turns out they weren’t as opposed to being good friends as they had previously thought, though I doubted either of them had really ever thought about it all that much. There was plenty of that kind of thing in Johnston. You could go years thinking you knew all there is to know about somebody just by hearing the talk that traveled around the place. I never bought into all that. You didn’t know anybody you hadn’t said five words to in your whole damn life.
It’s a rain-soaked Thursday afternoon. I park my Saturn on the side of Mueller and watch the drops ricochet like little percussion instruments against my windshield. I love the rain. The water runs down the glass in a transient effect, each drop creating its own river and motion only to merge with another, gaining strength and speed in descent. There’s a pretty easy metaphor there but I snap myself from that near hypnosis, get out of the car and let the rain run down my face instead.
At the end of the block I see the Garoppolo’s Dentistry building, gilded with long trimmings of silver along its white bordered frame. A few ladders lean across its body and scaffolding surrounds an entire side. A gray tent stands in the front yard housing a variety of workers beneath. I’m just stopping by to say what’s up to Leon on his break. Wouldn’t you know it, but he and Deangelo are sitting together at a crusty wooden picnic table under the overhang of the tarp above. The sight makes me feel downright giddy inside, don’t know why. A colliding universe, I suppose. It’s a simple, outstanding image, Deangelo and Leon sharing snack time like we were kids again, traversing the great boundaries of the past.
“Well, aren’t you two a damn gorgeous sight for sore eyes,” I say.
I sit, lighting a cigarette. Deangelo has a Coke popped open and is chomping down on what looks to be a ham sandwich while Leon is crunching on some yellow potato chips. In a clear tiny container, Leon has what looks to be some prepared meat.
“Are those ribs, man?”
Mouth full, Leon nods and goes, “Mo made em.”
Of course she did.
I raise my eyebrows and say, “Deangelo.” And he nods a greeting in return,
“Cash.”
I realize I haven’t shared a meal with him since the ranch back as kids and I remember the day we stole some turkey out of the fridge when Dalton and Casey’s grandpa was too busy wandering around the yard, desperate to destroy something.
Leon says, “Mo wanted me to bring some of these over later.”
“What, the ribs?”
“Yeah man.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, she wanted me to.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“Yeah.”
“She doesn’t have to do that so much.”
“Yeah, well, that’s Mo.”
“It’s like she’s worried about me.”
“She is.”
“She shouldn’t be.”
“Like I said. That’s Mo.”
“Right. Yeah. You probably talk Deangelo’s ear off about her huh.”
Deangelo shrugs some, mouth full and mind elsewhere. He mumbles “Sometimes.”
He’s probably thinking about his girl and secretly wanting to mention her in conversations a little more. I assume he isn’t experiencing a whole lot of trust with us yet. We all know Deangelo’s girlfriend, more or less. I mean, we know she exists and hear stories about her sometimes, but we don’t really know anything about her. All we hear is that her name is Lyla, and she cuts hair for folks over in Harris Bay, a nearby town about the same size as Johnston. I’ve seen her around from time to time, wandering the streets and the shops, stopping for a slice of pizza, sharing a coffee with Deangelo out at The Pit, doing the same things we all do. She’s a stunning and altogether hilarious black woman and apparently very successful in her work. Mo gets her hair done by her and always has kind things to say.
“It’s hard to even get an appointment!”
Unlike most of us, Lyla isn’t from Johnston, and I do wonder how she ever came to saddle up in our town in the first place.
I haven’t brought anything to eat other than a bruised apple. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but Leon goes, “That’s all you got?”
I rotate the miserable lonely orb in my fingers and defend myself a bit.
“You got a problem with apples?” Leon completely ignores me, and takes a couple ribs out of his container. He places them on an off-white napkin which is fluttering slightly in the wind beneath his Tupperware, teasing an airborne departure. He slides the rest of the ribs in front of me and says, “Here.”
It’s funny. I’ve been friends with Leon my whole life but when he does this kind of thing, I still get surprised and look at him as a child would at Christ. All the graciousness of the world can, every once in a while, manifest itself in the human heart. “I’m not eating your ribs, man, come on—”
“Take ’em.”
“Man—”
“Cash, I already ate and there’s more where that came from. I won’t be able to think straight knowing all you’re eating is that purple apple all day. You need to take better care of yourself.”
I would have found hearing that a little embarrassing, in any capacity, but being in front of Deangelo makes it worse somehow. It hurts because it’s honest, and I have no reasonable response. I’ve been entrenched in a cycle of far too much drinking and smoking and sleep deprivation, it’s true. I lack food and general nourishment, but is it really that bad? I couldn’t have Leon and Mo actually worried about me. I feel such a deep pang of remorse that I drop my gaze. The rain pounds on the tent above and I suddenly wish to be baptized in it. I pick my head up and shake it off, now is no time to wallow.
I change the conversation and say, “So you two are real pals now, huh?”
They grunt and look down at their food while I take a great big bite of rib baked in barbeque. The meat goes down easy, and I feel better. I’m going to get it all together, I swear. I’m going to run a straight line at some point. Onward, to health and prosperity! I look up and around at the scaffolding, the once promising structure, reformed. A rebirth through wood and through iron. What an impressive operation my best friend has on his hands. I laugh to myself and think about how we really are bandits in the heart of this deep blue, rainy day, Johnston.