LITMIR.BIZ

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Rock. “We don’t want anything at someone else’s expense and we don’t want it to be either one community or the other.”

      “We’re bound together by our common humanity,” said Magdalena.

      Now, Lou knew what to say. “Sounds like a good slogan for my next election campaign!”

      “That’s Lou’s way of saying, ‘Yes, thanks’!” said his wife.

      “Who gets the front seat?” Mayor Lou joked.

      “Lou,” said Hope. “Shut up!”

      “We’ll get together later,” Magdalena said to Hope with a half-smile. The two women hugged.

      Chapter 19

      Sally left the crowd that was moving toward Main Street and headed down to the corner of Newman and Main, where the diner stood dark and starkly empty. She was profoundly shaken by the frank and honest conversation that Nate and she had just a few moments ago. She reached for her keys and opened the door. The faint smells of breakfast were still in the air from the morning’s events.

      She drew in her breath sharply. Some things had been moved around since she had locked the doors on her way out. Tables and chairs had been re-arranged. In fact, there were more tables and chairs than there had been when she left. She looked out the large windows and noticed that the seating arrangement outside had been enlarged and re-arranged too. She had missed that on her way in because she had been thinking of her conversation with Nate.

      She walked slowly through the diner as if she were seeing it for the first time. Her heart quickened. Joe must be home!

      “Joe?” she called out. “Joe! Are you home?”

      Her calls were met by silence.

      She walked up to his apartment above the diner.

      She knocked on the door. No answer.

      She tried the door. It was locked.

      “No Joe!” she said to herself aloud. It startled her. In the silence, it seemed that the voice had come from someone else.

      She went back downstairs and into the kitchen. The place was immaculately clean, more so than the hurried job she had done earlier.

      A note on the top of the freezer read, “Food in fridge and in storage shed.” It was in the same handwriting as the note that had said, “Carry on.”

      She heard the front door open with its familiar loud and then softer squeak of the hinges. Maybe it really was Joe. Maybe he was home after all. She peered around the corner of the kitchen, half afraid to look.

      It was Carmelita.

      “I saw your car here and the lights on and thought I would come and see what was up,” she said.

      “You mean, you thought maybe Joe was home?”

      “I was hoping so. Otherwise, I’m going to have to change my BOLO to a missing persons bulletin on him this evening.”

      “Well, it seems like a good idea to me.”

      “Let’s go upstairs and see if he’s taken clothes and his toothbrush and such.”

      “Can we do that?”

      “I can do it,” said the Chief of Police, “without a warrant if . . .”

      “If you suspect foul play?”

      “Among other things, yes.”

      The whole apartment was the epitome of modesty and simplicity. A light tight-weave carpet covered the floor. A couch, a coffee table, two living room chairs, and a rocker filled up the small living room accompanied by the smallest flat screen TV either of them had ever seen. A bookcase covered almost an entire wall. Carmelita went through a few of the books to see if anything might be hidden in them that would be a clue. She found nothing.

      The kitchen was spotless and organized, without anything obvious that was amiss and no signs of foul play. Carmelita opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. The toothpaste was still there, along with his toothbrush and comb.

      They circled back toward the single bedroom. Two suitcases were in the closet. They went back downstairs.

      They discovered the refrigerator shelves in the diner virtually full of pre-cooked lasagna, just waiting to be reheated. Out in the storage shed, they found loaf upon loaf of garlic bread and in the freezer, an abundance of ice cream. One refrigerator was packed tight with more lasagna and the other had milk and orange juice.

      “What could this be about?” Carmelita mused out loud.

      Sally spoke up. “Carmelita, where did the extra tables and chairs come from, and how did they get here, and why did no one see anyone at all here doing anything?”

      “My guess is, as wild and as crazy as it seems, that Joe has somehow provided this for us as the meal after the parade.”

      “But it won’t be nearly enough,” Sally said. “There are hundreds of people down there getting ready for this parade.”

      “You tell me what it’s all about then,” said Carmelita. “Do you have lasagna on your menu? Last time I checked, you didn’t.”

      “Well, we could serve what’s here until it runs out.”

      “Maybe it won’t.”

      “Won’t what?”

      “Maybe it won’t run out at all.”

      Chapter 20

      There were a number of families in the Always Sunny Homeless Shelter who were excited that they were going to be in a parade. A few of the long-time residents at the shelter were known by the community. What surprised Luther most, though, was the people from his membership that showed up to ride the church bus, some of the ones he would least expect!

      Maxine Olmay complained regularly about the people who used the shelter as dirty and unkempt. She was the first to board the bus.

      Durwood Slaussenger showed up too. Luther had once described him to Father Callaghan as a real gadfly and a pain in the neck. He felt his gut tighten when he saw the old antagonist. What was he up to? He always had an agenda. What would he say? What would he do?

      You never knew, but when he did it or said it, Luther would say to himself, “Of course. I should have thought of that!”

      “Nice to see you, Durwood,” he lied.

      “I just thought I would come and see what was going on,” he said.

      “I’ll bet you did,” Luther thought to himself.

      Jack and Laura Dunn came next. He could always depend upon them to provide the fresh air of sanity at Always Sunny. Emily Hooten, President of the Women for World Mission, was no surprise. Parishioners always told Luther that she did a lot of good and the harm she did ought to be ignored.

      Priscilla Coover, who Luther suspected had a crush on him, boarded the bus breezily. “Good morning, dear Luther!” she said with too much familiarity and overblown cheer in her voice. Her hand reached out to touch his shoulder as she walked by his seat on the bus. He tried not to flinch.

      Zeke Daniels, the church sexton, who was driving the bus, called out “All right, everybody! We’re off to the parade. Sit down. Shut up. Look out the windows and wave for Always Sunny!”

      “I wish I could get away with that at a Vestry meeting, Zeke!” Pastor Luther said.

      “You had better not try that!” said Emily who had not perceived Luther’s comments as intended humor. “That’s not preacher talk!”

      “By the way, thanks for the invitation,” Maxine Olmay spoke up.

      “Invitation?”

      “I know your work when I see it!

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