George Wier - The Last Call

“You just have the one duplex, right Dock?” Hank asked.

“That’s right,” he said, scratched his head and looked down at Keesha again. I noticed whenever he looked at her the corners of his mouth turned up into a little smile.

“Well,” Hank said. “I never heard an official definition, but I think you’d have to own a row of them, come by a couple of times a month not to repair anything but just to browbeat everybody for their rent to technically qualify as a slumlord.”

“Hank’s right,” I said. “That’s about the closest I’ve ever heard to a real definition of the word.”

“Well. That makes me feel some better. Still, after all this, I’ve got to get rid of the damned thing. Not sure how to do that, though. I was hoping Hank here would take them off my hands.” Dock looked over at Hank. Hank shook his head in the negative.

“I’ve got a friend who can help you with that, Dock,” I told him. I fished out my wallet, pulled forth a business card and handed it to him. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back in my office, Dock, but why don’t you call me and I’ll give you the numbers for a couple of honest realtors and investors I know who could take it off your hands. You might be able to get some or all of your money back out of it. If the market has corrected itself since last I looked, you might even be able to make some spare change.”

“Well, thank you kindly, Sonny.”

“You have to watch Bill, Dock,” Hank said. “He’s always at work, even when he’s not.”

“Just exactly what is it that you do, Bill? You never did say?” Dock asked.

The food arrived before I could start in. It was just fine by me. I never did like explaining myself. That’s sort of like going around asking people for a license to survive. Not only that, but once I start down that road, I’ve found that nine times out of ten I have to get into the ins and outs of how I do what I do, whether or not I make money at what I do, and if so, then I have to handle people’s ignorance on the subject of what is legal and what’s not. As if they knew.

I watched as Keesha’s eyes went as round as saucers at the large plate put down in front of her. She shook her head in disbelief.

“Can you bring her some more water?” Julie asked our waitress. Keesha had drained her tall glass within the first minute of sitting down.

“So what're we gonna do with this little precious one here?” Dock asked.

Keesha smiled up at Dock as he turned to her and she squished some mashed potatoes out through her teeth. Dock’s mouth opened in a big “O” of surprise.

Keesha turned to look up at Julie and the two started making faces at each other, sticking their tongues out and rolling their eyes around. I wished I had a camera.

We all dug into our dinner.

If we were hungry when we got there, we were in agony when it was time to leave. I was so full that I felt like it had been Thanksgiving.

As the waitress cleared away the plates, I decided since I was paying for it all that it was my turn to talk.

“Well,” I began. “Since Jake and Freddie are gone, maybe we should turn our attention to the little one here. Decide what we’re gonna do.”

I looked over at Julie. She was studying me carefully. I was thinking that suggesting anything short of adopting the kid would get vetoed flat out even before it got to committee. I looked at Keesha. She had grown on me a bit in the short space of time since she had surprised us.

“We need to go back to Killeen, get my car, get you home, Dock. In the meantime we’ll decide what we should do about Keesha. My friend Lawrence White might help us.”

There was a bit of a silence for a moment. I wasn’t sure if Dock had gotten what I was trying to say, so I plunged ahead again, trying a different tack.

“You’ve got grandchildren, don’t you Dock?” I asked.

“Sure I do. Two of ’em. They live in Gunnison, Colorado.”

“What I think Bill is trying to ask is, if there’s any reason you should back out of all this, now might be the time,” Hank said.

“Oh,” Dock said. He looked down at his hands. They were old man’s hands. Mine would look like that one day, if I lived long enough. “Well…” he began, “there’s nobody waiting for me at home, that‘s for sure, unless you count Geena’s ghost. My wife. I lost my wife back in ‘95 to cancer.”

“Oh,” Julie said. She reached over and put her hand on his and squeezed.

“It’s okay. I think she was tired of the world. In the end it was a blessing. I see my daughter about once a year. Sometimes she’s brings Harper and Kelly, but not always.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m just trying to give you an out, Dock. Regardless, what we need to do now is go and pick up Julie’s car. Meanwhile Hank and I will think of our next move. But I think the obvious thing is-“

”Shopping!” Julie said.

“Shopping!” Keesha echoed.

“Uh, like I was about to say-shopping. Then over to-“

”My apartment,” Julie interrupted again.

“Her apartment,” Hank said.

“Yeah,” Keesha said.

“Check, please,” I called out to our waitress across the room. The place was starting to get crowded. I looked down at my watch. Where had the time gone?

“And a couple of boxes for all this food,” Hank called out. “I’ve got a hungry dog out there.”

I’ve heard Austin described as the largest small town in the world. I think that description is the closest I’ve ever heard to the truth. The evening rush hour traffic was gone, having disappeared into residential driveways and restaurant parking lots, and the sun had dipped down low behind the trees to the west. Travel through the city had opened up and street lamps were coming on one by one.

Hank and Dingo and I were in Julie’s roadster, and Dock, Julie and Keesha followed us half a block back in Dock’s Suburban. We headed north in the direction of Town Lake up South First Street.

Austin is a series of hills coming down stair-step fashion right to the water. Out on the water we saw lovers in canoes and kayaks, wet paddles flashing in the last dying rays of the sun.

We passed the South First Street bridge and left Town Lake behind us. South First curved to the right and became Lavaca Street. Again, north of the river the hills resumed, stepping back up again into the high-rise jungle of downtown. The traffic became one-way, splitting into channels between the synthetic canyons of concrete, steel and glass. Pedestrian traffic became practically nil. If it had been a Friday or a Saturday evening, instead of a Tuesday-or at least, I was fairly sure it was Tuesday-we would have had to mind our speed. Austin’s Sixth Street is famous throughout the Southwest and is a heavy draw during the weekend: college kids from the University of Texas and Austin Community College flock downtown in droves and middle-aged professionals in search of their misspent youth (and a maybe a little company) can normally be spotted, trying desperately to look as though they belong.

The few people we saw were lost in their own worlds.

We passed downtown. The governor’s mansion loomed on our right, lit in a wash of sodium arc lamplight. Peeking between the Methodist Church and the Capitol Hotel we could see the State Capitol itself. Later, after full dark, its pinkish rose granite frame would become white in the glare of capitol complex lights. As Texans, we’re proud of that building.

We jagged left a block at Martin Luther King Boulevard, leaving Lavaca behind and trading it for Guadalupe, what natives call “The Drag.” I guess I’d been living in Austin long enough to call myself a native. At least I felt like one.

We continued north. The University of Texas was there on our right, rolling past. Tall, stately oak trees obscured academic buildings named after long-forgotten deans and contributors.