George Wier - The Last Call

The living room was a complete wreck. There was no television or stereo or radio or anything. Probably whatever had once served to make the place a real home had long before disappeared, a casualty of habitual drug usage. There was plenty of soiled furniture, though, rescued, no doubt, from the clutches of the quarter-annual bulk trash collector some months or perhaps years past.

Worse yet was the odor; the ever-present, distinct and oppressive scent of burned chemicals mixed with rat and cockroach droppings.

“I've seen enough, Hank,” I said and headed out the way we came in, holding my nose.

I got back outside and could breathe again. Hank joined me a few minutes later. He had some clothes under one arm and carried a small stack of photographs in his other hand.

“Change of clothes,” he said. “For the kid.”

I nodded.

“Pictures, huh?” I asked.

“Kid’s family, probably. She’d know who they are, I hope.”

We went back around to the side of the duplex. Julie had Keesha in a big bear hug. Julie looked up at me and by God there were tears in her eyes. Hank gave me a grim look.

“All right,” I said.

Julie mouthed a silent “thank you” to me and patted Keesha’s back.

*****

When we all came back around front, there was Dock fiddling with the front window.

“As a quick-getaway-driver, you’re fired,” Hank said.

Dock started.

“You scared me,” he said.

Upon seeing the dog, Keesha drew in a quick gasp of surprise and almost bolted, but Julie caught her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “That’s Dingo. She doesn’t bite.”

“You promise?”

“She maybe don’t bite,” Hank said, “but I do. Dingo’s my dog.”

Hank called Dingo over to him and by way of petting and tousling the dog around maneuvered her slowly closer to the kid. After about a minute, the child was petting the dog. The way she did it, though, left little doubt that this was her first friendly dog encounter.

While this was going on Dock quizzed us about the kid.

“She’s been abandoned,” Julie said. Her arms were crossed under her breasts and she looked down at the little girl. “I don’t trust adoption agencies. I’ve got my reasons,” she said.

The three of us men exchanged looks.

“How you doin', Child? Are you hungry?” Dock asked, leaning toward her with his hands on his knees and a grandfatherly smile on his face.

“Yes, sir. I am.”

“’Course you are. So am I. What say we go get us some dinner?”

Keesha nodded in the affirmative. The rest of us didn’t even have to confer over the answer. We hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and that had been a hurried affair in Dock’s kitchen that morning before setting out.

“That settles it,” Hank said.

There was one thing we’d learned from the trip after poking our noses against enough dirty windows and peering into the gloom: Jake and Freddie-whom I was simply dying to meet-had cleared out. There wasn’t so much as a stick of furniture in the place. There was, however, trash aplenty, which consisted of the leavings of many a take-out meal. Apparently Jake and Freddie liked Chinese food.

Hill’s Cafe on South Congress in Austin has seen its share of strange clientele before, but I wasn’t sure it had ever seen such an awkward collection of thrown-together folks as the five of us as we took our seats at the ‘George Bush Table’. Back when the younger George was Governor, he used to eat at Hill’s-or so the story goes-and the management had designated our table for him. I wondered if while he sat in his big chair at the White House he ever missed his booth at Hill’s.

Dock Slocum and Julie sat with Keesha between them. They both doted on her. Keesha held open a large fold-out menu while Dock pointed to each menu item in turn.

“How 'bout onion rings? Ever had that?”

“Nope. Never did.”

“Chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes?”

“I like mash potatoes.”

“Mashed potatoes it is then!”

Most of their conversation was like that and they managed to run through the entire menu, the old fellow asking about this dish and that dish and the little girl nodding her head appropriately and looking up at Julie for approval and asking for clarification about the things she’d never heard of before.

Hank and I just looked at each other, smiled and nodded.

After ten minutes or so we all ordered. I knew I’d be picking up the check and a sinking feeling came over me; the knowledge that my credit cards would be getting a hell of a work out in the very near future.

I noticed that Dock and Hank were carrying on some kind of covert conversation.

“What’s going on, you two schemers?”

Dock looked up suddenly, as if he’d been caught red-handed.

“Nothing,” he said. “Private conversation. Something I’ve been trying to talk to Hank about for the last couple of years and I’m beginning to think he’s not really interested.”

“Now that’s not exactly true, dammit,” Hank said.

Julie reached over and slapped Hank’s hand.

“Ow! What?”

She had an angry look on her face and she nodded in Keesha’s direction.

“Language!” she said.

“Oh!” Hank said. “All I said was ’dammit’.”

Julie slapped his hand again.

“OW!” Hank jerked his hand back. “For Pete’s sake!”

Keesha giggled and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Naw. He’s not interested,” Dock said and put a hand up on the table and started adjusting his silverware.

“Tell me, Dock,” I said. “I might be interested.”

“Here we go,” Hank said.

Dock gave him a withering look.

“What?” Hank shrugged.

“Okay,” Dock began. “So I’ve got this rental property in Harker Heights-that’s a little town that’s grown up into Killeen, sort of like a thorn in its side, you know-”

Hank cursed under his breath.

“Ow!” Hank sat upright. “Somebody kicked me! Bill, you’d better control your woman!”

“Shut up, Hank,” I said. “Go ahead, Dock.”

“Anyway, I’ve got this duplex over there-nothing but trouble. I don’t know what to do. About the time I get one set of renters in one half, the other half goes vacant and I have to make repairs. I’m all upside down on the mortgage too-bought it when interest rates were too high and I can’t refinance it because of my age, now. I haven’t seen enough on it to cover payments, repairs, and taxes too. And I wouldn't have bought it except for a slick-talking real estate agent-a friend of a friend, you know-called me up and told me about this foreclosure. So, I picked it up and have had nothing but misery with it ever since. I retired in 1972 and should have stayed retired, know what I mean? I got no business trying to invest in real estate. I’m a retired deputy sheriff from down in Hays County. I guess I never really hardened up, except in San Diego during boot camp. That was back in 1944. I guess I was born expecting the best out of people and have never been not-disappointed since. Maybe I ought to change my ways of looking at things, you know?”

“Don't change a thing, Dock,” Hank said. “It's the world that needs to catch up with you.”

“Reckon you're right. But it’s not just other people I expect more out of. It’s me, I reckon. I was down dropping off my taxes the other day, and I overheard this young whipper-snapper refer to me to this other accountant-fellow as a ‘slumlord’. Didn’t like the sound of that. I guess they were just following the stereotype, thinking that because I’m old I couldn’t hear worth a damn. I can still hear the Baptist preacher inside his church across the valley screaming at his congregation on Wednesday night. My hearing hasn’t changed since I was about two.”