(no subject)

4.

“Memory is Never Enough”

Sarah Ann Chambers had been a handsome woman. The years of farm work and having 5 children had worn some of the startling good looks off her. She now rested at that area of pretty, but with some worn edges. She was the kind of woman that men would not pursue with flowers and romance (as much as she might deserve it) but they would see her and think, “Wow, in her day she must have been gorgeous.”

She met Pappy at the door with a harried look that said she was on the verge of falling apart. Her son had not been back all night. She knew what had been happening in the town. She remembered when it was going on before and she could not allow herself to think about it.

When she saw him standing on the landing all the air left her. Her heart fell through her and shattered on the ground.

She was not the kind of woman given to fainting, but she lost the will to live in that moment.

Pappy knew it might happen and he reached out to catch her falling body. Her husband, Earl, was behind her about 4 steps. He was on his way to the door, and she had just beat him. Now he rushed to her side, his first thought of her.

When he caught her and carried her to the sofa, he then let the truth hit him. He fell to his knees and began to sob uncontrollably. The other kids were not around, but Hannibal assumed that they were at her mother’s house.

He stood a couple of minutes without an idea what to say. He then turned around and left.

It was all he could do not to cry himself.

He had been the one to do this task so many times before, and, like they say, it never gets any easier.

He got in the car and went back to his house.

He was going to have to tell the old woman, and she was going to be destroyed again.

There were a lot of things he could say, but nothing would be worth a damn.

He knew the one thing he was going to have to do. There was a little boy he was going to have to hug for a very long time. While he was doing that he was going to thank the Lord that his
son had gotten through this whole thing before.

He knew the memory of a child, while it was a golden thing, could never be enough.

 

 

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

5.
“Scars on the Soul”

Despite himself he could not get the image of the boy out of his head.

It wasn’t just the horror of what happened, but it was something about the whole picture that was wrong. Something he had noticed before, but he couldn’t really put his finger on.

He found a “Huh” sneaking out of his mouth. That was because of a realization he had had. He thought most of the things he might come up with the F.B.I. had already found. Even with that, they had never come up with a single suspect.

The first thing he was going to have to do was revisit the evidence.

But, that would be in the morning. He was going to give himself the rest of the day to wrap up all the things he was doing that wouldn’t be dealt with now. This murder was going to be the number one case in his life.

Damn, he hated that. Wouldn’t it be better if he was preoccupied with something like the size of bass to throw back. Instead he had to think about 18 dead boys.

He arrived at his own home, and got out of the sqaud car. He walked up to the front door, waved Tooley on, and found only the screen closed. Through it he could see Mahitabel sitting on the couch shelling green beans. It almost seemed she was trying to ignore him.

As he came in, the snapping didn’t stop, instead it started going faster, and possibly louder.

He took off his hat, threw it on the ottoman. He then sat on the couch. He reached in his pocket and took out his wallet and tossed it on the end table as he had done a thousand times before. This time he missed. As it flopped on the floor, the snapping stopped.

“That’s why I never played basketball,” He said.

She looked up at him, trying not to be amused.

Another mammoth silence drove through the room.

She picked up another bean. “Are you going to do it?” She said without looking up.

“There’s nobody else.” He said and she looked up angrily.

“You want to leave it to Tooley?” He countered her look.

“I want it not to be happening.” She began breaking beans again.

“Me too, Darlin’, me too.”

The rest of the evening contained less than a hundred words.

 

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

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This is so very different from my other stories

I'm wondering if anyone is reading it?

(no subject)

6.

“Once More into the Breach”

The morning came without any evidence that the world had become any better than the horrible place the Agamemnon’s knew it to be.

Then the phone rang, and he knew it was going to start.

“We got newspaper people here,” Tooley said with the voice of a deer caught in the headlights.

“Tell ‘em ‘No Comment’ about on going investigations.”

“The Mayor is doing a press conference and he wants you to be there.”

“If Sebastian Freemont wants to make a damn fool of himself, that’s his do. I got no cause to talk to the press,” Said Hannibal angrily.

“He’s getting pressure from the state,” The Deputy almost whined, “And he’s putting pressure on me. Ya’ gotta help me, Pappy.”

“I gotta do nothing but love my wife, complain and take an occasional cra . . .”

His lovely wife had hit him on the back of the head with a towel.

He looked at her and then returned his attention to the phone.

“Tell him I’ll be there, but I don’t promise to take part.”

“Thank you Pappy,” The man on the other end of the line gushed.

Hannibal slammed the phone down and finished dressing. Not that you could call it dressing, since he wore the same clothes he wore every day that his wife didn’t have them in the washer/dryer. Those times he walked around the house in his underwear.

“What are you going to say?” His wife asked.

“How do I know what I'll say? What can I say?” He started on full attack, and then he thought about how he really felt, “That the world is a terrible place and it has begun to impinge on the little piece of paradise we thought we had set aside for our old age?”

“How did Sarah take it?” She said, cuddling close to him.

“How could she? How could anyone take news like that?” He said, looking at the sock he wished he could throw away, but knew he was expected to put on his foot. “No human should have to carry that much pain.”

He sat up with anger, “And no son of a bitch should be able to cause that kind of pain.”

A car horn honked out in the yard.

“That’s Tooley,” His mate reported as she looked out the window.

“Once more into the breach, dear friends,” Pappy said as he stood, kissed his wife and started down the stairs. There was a battle waiting for him and he did not relish it.

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

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