Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume XVI

Jimmy didn't say a word.

"Jimmy, I didn't understand."

He sipped his beer out of the bottle. You can't talk while drinking. He took a breath and then he took another long sip.

"I was hurt, Jimmy."

He looked at the mirror behind the bar.

"I thought it was your fault."

He took another drink.

"I'm sorry, Jimmy."

He waved for two more beers.

"You're not the only one hurting you know?"

Silence still replied.

"Damn it, Jimmy. I'm sorry!"

He said nothing.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

He gazed into the mirror, not seeing what was there.

Bina slid off the stool and left.

Before the door was closed behind her, Ken plopped a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass on the bar in front of Jimmy without saying a word. To Ken's surprise, Jimmy finished his beer and left without touching the whiskey.

Old Joe Jenkins sat on the screened-in back porch watching the garden as the sun went down. An ancient single-shot twenty-two leaned against the door jamb in case he saw a rabbit. Good things come to those with. There's no better bait for a rabbit than a vegetable patch. A raccoon or an opossum was almost as good though they took a little more fixin'.

There was movement off to the right where the trace led through the back of the neighbor's place and down to the hard road. "Company comin," Joe said. His old driveway was off to the left of the house and ran straight off the highest cliff left by the ring of fire. "Good thing I get on with the neighbors or I'd have no way into town."

"Hello the house," a familiar voice called out.

"That you, Jimmy Dick?" Joe called back.

"Yeah."

"Well, come on up."

Joe watched the man he knew to be in his fifties-and who looked ten years older than his age-make his way through the twilight. Tonight Jimmy looked even more haggard and worn than usual.

"Hey, Jimmy, come on in and sit a spell. I've got a jug my pa put down." Joe indicated an old brown jug of corn liquor."Aged to perfection in a charred oak barrel and then put up in jugs. Let me get you a glass."

"Don't bother, I ain't thirsty."

"Thirty-year-old whiskey? Smooth as silk?"

Jimmy shook his head. "I'd take one of those if you got one to spare," Jimmy indicated a cigarette glowing in the ashtray next to Joe's rocking chair.

Joe pointed to a wooden box on the table next to the ash tray. "Help yourself."

Jimmy lit up and took a deep drag. "Damn, Joe have you been sittin' on a stash of up-time cigarettes all this time?"

"Nope. They'd be stale by now, even if you froze 'em. I rolled these. Years ago the wife got tired of me hand rolling the things. Said they looked nasty. So she bought me a roller and a crate of papers for Christmas."

"Yeah, but this is good, mellow up-time tobacco, not like that harsh cow shit stuff they sell in town."

"I got a plant growin' in the greenhouse out behind the barn."

"You're sittin' on a fortune."

"Can't grow it except in the greenhouse. Season's too short. The papers will see me out, but if I took to sellin' the things then when they're gone there ain't no more and I can't smoke the money."

"You could sell the seed and they could take it down to Spain and ship it back."

"Could. Then more people might take it up. Did you see the little book in German that was goin' 'round? Someone tryin' real hard to stop the trade before it starts." The truth was that lung cancer caused Joe's wife's death and the print run of the up-time study on tobacco and cancer was his doing.

"Joe, I know who paid for that book to be published," Jimmy said.

"Caught me, did ya'?"

Jimmy nodded.

"Well, I'm about done for and I figure a man oughta give somethin' back. Once it's out there then any damn fool who takes up with it deserves what they get.

"What brings you to my mountaintop this late in the day, Jimmy?"

"Needed to talk to you. I was wondering if you would teach me Latin?"

"Why in tarnation would you want to do that?"

"It's what you and Onofrio used with that Kraut. I've got the reputation of being a philosopher. It's embarrassing to have the name and not be able to talk the game. Did you know I'm getting mail from all over Europe? It's mostly all in Latin. If I'm going to be a serious philosopher these days, then I need to know Latin."

"Sorry to hear about Merle," Joe said.

"Thanks," Jimmy replied in what Joe thought of as an empty voice.

"Jimmy if you want to learn Latin, talk to Onofrio. He's better at it than I am."

"I heard you with the Kraut that night in Grantville's Fine Foods. You're better at slingin' that yack than he is."

"He stops and thinks before he talks. No, Jimmy, his Latin is better than mine 'cause his English is. I think in ain'ts and oughtas and 'causes. He learned to think in book English. So he has book Latin. It's pure and mine is tainted. Besides, he's a teacher and I ain't. Then, too, he just retired again. So he has the time. I'm still workin' a farm up here."

"Yeah, I hear about Onofrio. Rev. Wiley's kid got the old man canned after he argued the kid into the ground over religion versus science." William Wiley's aggressive atheism ran up against Emanuel Onofrio who pointed out to Will that ultimately he accepted science on faith. Having his world view challenged did not set well with Will and he raised a stink accusing Onofrio of teaching religion along with math. "Wiley should have taken a horse whip to that boy of his when it would have done some good."

"I hear tell he did, and I hear tell that's the problem. I also hear Onofrio could have stayed on if he'd wanted but he was ready to give it up anyway.

"Still, he's the one you want to get to teach you Latin. You're welcome to come up any time and give me a hand with the chores and practice your Latin when you've got some, but if you want book learnin', go see Onofrio.

"Shhh. Now sit easy and be quiet. There's a rabbit takin' a nibble of the head of lettuce I was going to make a salad out of tomorrow." Joe quietly stood up and eased the rifle out the screen door. The rifle popped and Joe smiled.

"Well, from the size of it, it's an old one. It looks like we'll be havin' rabbit stew for supper tonight. Why don't you go fetch it in and I'll start supper."

Jimmy left the next afternoon with a dozen 'real' cigarettes having not had a drink of liquor all the while he was there.

Jimmy pushed up to his usual place at the bar. Club 250 was at its lunch crowd peak. Ken set a cold one in front of Jimmy without a word. Eye contact was made.

"Burger and fries," Jimmy said.

At the sound of Jimmy's voice, Julio looked up from his lunch, a cold beer in a glass with an absolutely fascinating bottom. "You're late."

"Didn't know I was on the clock." For years Jimmy was one of the first of the lunch crowd to show up. He was often still in the same spot at last call.

"Where ya' been?"

"The library."

"The library? What in hell are you doing in a library?"

"Working."

Julio snorted in disbelief. "Now that's funny.

"You never worked in your life until we landed here." This was not completely true, but it was close enough. Jimmy hadn't worked a day up-time since he came home to find his wife and daughter gone. Eventually he got by on a disability check. Now he got by on the rent from inherited real estate. "Then, as soon as we had a rail line from the coal mine to the power plant and we were over the hump, you quit workin' for the railroad. What's up, Jimmy? Where have you really been?"

"Told ya'. I've been down at the library working."

"Nobody works at the library. All you do there is read. What're ya' up to?"

"Julio, you know how the cops saw to it I've got the name for bein' a philosopher. Shit, you and Ken helped make it happen. Well, if I've got the name as a player, I figure I oughta at least be able to talk about the rules of the game. So I've been spending some time down at the library trying to find out just what the rules are."