Chapter 29 - Gerald
GERALD
Gerald sits at his desk in the lobby of the Atlanta Reapers practice facility. The building is quiet. The evening crew has gone. The monitors show empty corridors and dark rooms and the settled silence of a building at rest.
He picks up his phone. He types a text to Lorraine, who is at home, who is always at home at this hour, who has been receiving these texts for three seasons now.
Last one found somebody.
The response comes in eight seconds. Lorraine has been married to Gerald for forty years and her texting speed has not diminished.
The rookie?
The rookie.
He's a baby.
He won't be for long.
Gerald sets the phone down. He looks at the lobby.
The trophy case with its growing collection.
The framed photographs on the wall, added this season: a team photo, a game action shot, and in the corner, small and easy to miss if you aren't looking, a photograph of four couples at a preseason barbecue, laughing, holding plates, the grill smoking behind them.
Five couples now. Gerald does the math. Five couples, found in this building, during his watch. Five stories that began with nervous men walking through the lobby with duffel bags and ended with those men walking through the lobby holding hands.
He adjusts his reading glasses. He picks up his book (a thriller that Lorraine recommended, which he is reading slowly because Gerald does everything slowly and the slowness is where the seeing happens).
The lobby is quiet. The building is at rest. The season continues.
Gerald reads. Gerald watches. Gerald waits.
There will be more.