Chris Lynch - Kill Switch

“Hey, it’s the place, isn’t it?” Jarrod says, pointing. “Haven’t we been here?”

“No, we haven’t. It’s one of the places the Golfer mentioned.”

And it appears to be open. And there appears to be an elder gent at the counter, speaking to the young man in charge.

We go in. “Da?” I say, and he turns around to greet us hazily.

“Yes, Young Man?”

“You can’t just flit off like that.”

“I don’t flit. I just walked.”

“Still,” I say. “I was worried. We don’t even know this town and-”

“I have a friend who told me about this place,” he says, picking up the Golfer’s business card off the counter where he’d slapped it.

“He’s a good man,” says the guy across the counter, who can’t be much older than me. “He was a good friend of my dad’s. So that card makes a good introduction.”

“I’m Dan,” I say, by way of my own introduction. I shake his hand.

“I’m Charlie Waters Jr.” he says. “Proprietor of this treasure trove.”

“Cool,” I say, looking around at all the fancy dresses, musical instruments, power tools, lawn statues, and all that make up the pawnbroker business. “Open kind of late, no?”

“Very irregular hours here,” Charlie says. “In this town, pawnbroker is a kind of on-call job, so sometimes I just stick around late. Sometimes I have appointments, late, early. Sometimes I just sleep in the chair.” He gestures to a particularly foul-looking thing squatting low behind him.

“Well, okay,” I say, “seeing as introductions are made and that card has introduced us nicely, can I ask if you know of a place three wise men might crash for the night?”

“Hmmm,” Charlie Waters says. “You mean someplace you would actually want to stay? In Lundy Lee?”

“We are happy to stay someplace we don’t want to stay too.”

He laughs. “Well, I have some storage space upstairs where I have had company stay before. I suppose I could offer you some floor space and blankets, for just a few bucks.”

“Yes,” Jarrod says, standing upright with eyes firmly closed.

“I’m quite tired, Young Man,” Da says, sounding more childlike than I have heard him yet. As we speak, I see his body packing up, curling his spine forward, making his hip hinge outward rather than forward.

“Thing is, Charlie,” I say, “we don’t have even a few bucks right now, to be honest.”

For such a young guy, Charlie Waters wears an expression that already nothing much surprises him.

“I do happen to be in the loans business,” he says, smiling warmly. “It says so right out there on my window.”

I sigh because it just keeps getting incrementally more embarrassing.

“Thing is, Charlie,” I say, “we don’t actually have anything of value, either.”

“You guys are the full winning hand, aren’t you?” Charlie Waters Jr. laughs.

“I do,” Jarrod says, raising his eyelids to half-mast.

“You do what?” Charlie asks.

“I do have something of value,” Jarrod says.

“What?” I ask. “Are you sure, man?”

“Sure what?”

“Sure you have something of value? Sure it’s a good idea? Sure you can manage to part with it?”

“Well, not all of it,” Jarrod says with a laugh. “But I can part with enough, for now, till I get sorted out with something else.”

Charlie Waters Jr. holds out his hands, palms up, as in show me what you got . He’s probably had more reason than most to practice that move.

Jarrod steps up to the counter, close to Charlie, to do just that. Bored, disinterested, confused-all that and more-Da wanders the shop now, touching clothes, trying out tin antique fire engine toys and dolls. I have to keep one eye on him while trying to watch the action at the counter.

“No,” Charlie says firmly but not unkindly. “I am not in that business.”

I feel myself, physically, emotionally, psychically exhausted, deflating. Jarrod’s shoulders too slump with the defeat.

“My Da,” I say, “he’s not well. We’ve been traveling a long way. A long, long way. He needs rest. We all need rest, Charlie. If you could just see your way…”

Charlie is watching as Da goes over the collection of eye-catching dress-up clothes. I think maybe he shouldn’t be overhandling the merchandise.

“Stop that, Da,” I say, and he whips around to see us staring at him. He’s got a Royal Canadian Mounted Police hat on his head and it is so big it goes all twisted around at the swift head turn. He can only see us with one eye now, but he remains frozen.

Charlie’s turn to sigh.

“This is why I am a failure of a businessman,” he says. He picks up the Golfer’s card, waves it around at us, and says, “You can thank this fine guy.” Then he turns to Jarrod. “I am going to be sleeping down here tonight. When you get up tomorrow, come right to me, and I will try and steer you someplace where you might be able to convert your merchandise into useable currency. I think I know a guy. And if not him, I am pretty sure this guy knows a guy…”

We sleep on a floor that smells like dirt and sawdust that has been lying there since the thirties. Actually, there is something soothing about the smell. Charlie provided exactly what he promised-floor space and blankets-and although I feel a little stiff when I wake up, I could not complain one bit about the night’s sleep. It could have lasted a week, it was so deep.

I go to Da to check on him first thing. He is lying, awake, motionless when I approach him.

“How are you, Old Boy?” I ask.

“Stiff, Young Man. And tired.”

“Didn’t you sleep well?”

“I slept well. But it’s the kind of tired sleep doesn’t seem to fix anymore.”

I help him to his feet. He walks around the empty space, stretching and bending this way and that, working out the kinks. He walks to the dirty picture window facing onto the street, across the street, over the street to the sea beyond.

“Nice place,” he says. “Nice, nice place.”

I step up beside him to see this nice, nice place.

“Well, the sun is out,” I say. “Which is nice.”

I turn back to the bundle of blankets that was Jarrod’s bedding, and he is not there. “Let’s get on out into that nice, nice place and see where it gets us,” I say.

When Da and I get downstairs, Jarrod is dealing with Charlie at the counter. Charlie is handing over some bills, and both guys are smiling, satisfied.

“Hey hey,” Charlie says when he sees us.

“Hey hey,” Jarrod says. He sounds chipper, and even looks and smells better.

“Where’d you get the clothes?” I ask. He looks like a high school track coach now, but his duds are clean and so is he.

“Thrift shop,” he says. “And the mission gave me an egg and an English muffin and let me take a shower. In fact, they made me take a shower before they gave me the food.”

“Sleep well, men?” Charlie asks.

“Great,” I say. “Thanks again.”

“Happy to help,” he says. He and Jarrod have concluded business, and we head out of the shop. “I’m sure I’ll see you again,” he adds.

“Don’t count on that,” Da answers.

Out on the sidewalk, Jarrod turns around, all fatherly, and hands me some cash, and Da as well. Not a lot of cash, but some is a sum right now.

“So business went well,” I say.

“Business went well,” he says. “I went right over there,” he says, pointing across the street and a hundred yards up, where the Compass Inn sits next to the North Star Bar. “I was in the North Star, and it couldn’t have gone smoother. Pretty busy, too, for so early in the day. Best part, though, best part? When I showed the guy running the place that business card and asked about work, he called the ferry office right away. Right away.”