East On St. James

For David

Thanks Jerry for making my stories easier to read.

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Prologue

When people cooperate, there is no limit to what they can accomplish. Take an attorney, Dury, newly retired, and a chef and vagabond, Keith, and put them together..., well you'll see what they come up with.

As unlikely as it seems, this meeting takes place over a tuna sandwich on a bench in a North Charleston park.

It's all it takes for a beautiful friendship to begin.

Dury is straight. Keith isn't. Keith is HIV+. Dury isn't. This has little to do with the story, but it's where the two men are where this story starts.

Dury has spent his life practicing law in New York City and Charleston, South Carolina. He is a well-to-do successful attorney. Keith doesn't think in terms of being successful. He likes to cook. As long as he can cook, he's happy. Happiness is good.

Keith learned the tricks of his trade on the road. His longest lasting job was as chef for a New Orleans restuarant. He went from prep crew to chef, being taught by a master.

What you have when you put Dury and Keith together is chemistry, and just maybe a little bit of magic. The dream they share involves giving people, working class people, a nice friendly place to live, to heal, to retire, according to their need when they hear about a place that sounds too good to be true.

To Retire

Dury Lane always took his lunch on the square adjacent to the law offices where he’d been a founding partner for thirty-two years. There was a bench under a tree that shaded it from the noonday sun.

Old habits being hard to break, Dury finds himself at Leo’s Deli, Books, and Cosmetics for a tuna on a roll, half pickle, and potato sticks, since Leo’s opened seven years earlier. Dury was certain it was the best tuna he’d eaten.

Since retiring, two days a week, on Monday and Thursday, Dury stops at his offices to check for messages and mail. Once he talks to his former secretary, Dury goes into Leo’s for his sandwich. Leo would have it waiting on the counter for him, after Dury waved as he walked past Leo’s window on his way to his offices.

Dury takes the bag with whatever drink he decides on, and after exchanging pleasantries with Leo, he heads for his bench on the square for a relaxing lunch and some North Charleston fresh air.

His suit was charcoal today with a matching vest. This was Dury's look as a lawyer. He was known as a buttoned down no-nonsense litigator. He almost always had on a white shirt with dark thin pinstripes and a tie with a dash of color. The tie always matched the pinstripes in his shirt and the color of his socks.

Dury was a conservative man. He contemplated his decisions carefully and planned his life accordingly. The death of his wife ten years before, changed everything. Dury went ahead with his retirement in spite of not having a plan for life without his wife.

He’d never gotten around to changing the plans he and Beverly had made together. This wasn’t like Dury at all. His life was about taking care of every detail. Even after his final day at work, his alarm clock rang the following morning. He was half dressed before he realized he had nowhere to go, and looking at the empty bed, no one to go there with.

He wanted the change that was coming after retirement. He wasn’t sure what form his future would take, but he was sure he’d practiced law for long enough. It’s what he was good at and would figure into his future. His life as a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. attorney was over.

Dury was in no hurry. He hadn’t decided on a replacement plan. He was still married to his wife. He’d let work get him through the long days after her death. Even as work kept his mind off his empty house, he’d come to regret all the time he’d missed with Beverly, while practicing law.

Dury sat down on the bench, smoothed out his napkin, placed the wrapped sandwich on the napkin beside him. He knew by the feel of it, he’d waste half, after carefully rewrapping it to place it in the refrigerator at home with the others that would be thrown away in time by his maid.

He wasn’t a wasteful man. He intended to eat the half he didn’t eat for lunch, but he almost never did. Fresh the tuna had a heavenly taste. After a day in the fridge, whatever it was about the tuna that he loved, it was lost.

His coffee was still steaming and he sipped it carefully, while watching people pass through the park to go toward the shops. Dury noticed a somewhat younger man sitting on the grass, leaning against a small tree with his eyes closed. He was clean looking but pale. Dury walked past that tree on the way to his bench. The man had come to rest there after he came from Leo’s, or did he simply not notice him?

Dury wasn’t prone to noticing people in the park. Few people sat on the benches. The best parking was a block off the square. The park was an easy route to the shops and offices on three sides of the square.

With time on his hands and no place to go, he was curious about the man in tan slacks and a similar color short sleeve shirt. The man looked rather thin but he didn’t look unkempt or like a homeless person might look.

Dury was thin, thinner now than he had been in years, but he’d lost interest in food. Not much appealed to him in the way of food. Dury was thin but the other man was skinny, he decided after giving it thought.

He was pale, thinner than thin, and he leaned as if he’d gone as far as he could go. Dury looked at his sandwich and remembered two halves of last week’s sandwiches were still in the fridge at home.

“Waste not, want not,” he said softly.

Dury wasn’t a man who solicited conversation from strangers. He wasn’t one to waste food either. The solution was obvious. He’d invite the leaning man to share his lunch. He’d feel better about himself for doing it and in fifteen minutes they’d go their separate ways.

“Excuse me,” Dury said from a respectful distance. “I couldn’t help but notice you. I don’t usually talk to strangers. Too many complications in speaking to strangers,” he explained in an attorney’s voice.

As Dury spoke the young man hardly moved his head as he opened his eyes to look toward the voice. He had sad eyes that were likely more vivid once upon a time. His eyes were complete with dark circles. Dury could see he hadn’t been well.

“I’ve got this tuna sandwich over on my bench. I get them from Leo’s. On the corner there,” he pointed out Leo’s. “They’re really good, but way too large. I hate wasting food in times like these. I don’t suppose you’d like half a tuna fish sandwich on an absolutely fabulous roll? I could bring it to you or you can come over and join me on the bench.”

The last part of the comment just slipped out. Dury hadn’t planned to invite him to eat with him, but he had.

The man stood as if he’d been asleep for a long time. Dury led the way to the bench with the sandwich. The visitor sat first. Dury sat with the tuna sandwich between them.

“I’m Dury Lane. I used to work in the offices beside Leo’s. I’m retired now but I still come in for my sandwich a couple of times a week.”

“I’m Keith. You say you’re retired? You look too young to be retired. You must have done quite well for yourself.”

“I’ve been an attorney for thirty-five years,” Dury said as he unwrapped the sandwich on the napkin.

“You look like a business man out to lunch,” Keith said.

“Yes, out to lunch would be a good summation these days,” Dury said, amused with his self deprecation. “That brick building on the corner beside Leo’s, Black, Bostic, & Lane, Attorneys at Law. Lane has left the building. Can’t stay away. I guess it’ll soon say Black & Bostic and that’ll convince me.”

“An attorney? Yes, I can see that. A lawyer. You look like a lawyer should look,” Keith said.

“I’ve taken my lunch on this bench every day at noon for years. Weather permitting, of course, and if I wasn’t tied up in court. I got up this morning with no idea what the hell I was going to do, and here I am.”

“Must be nice, having a routine,” Keith said, thinking about it.

“What do you do?” Dury asked.

“Me? Nothing. I was a chef at an Italian restaurant for… lord, well over ten years. It changed hands. They wanted to cut my wages. I told them to keep their wages. I hadn’t spent all those years learning my craft to give away my talent. That was a few years ago. I’ve lost track of time. I should have taken the cut in pay. It’s better than nothing. Didn’t seem so then. I was insulted. I’d work for half those wages now. I’ve worked for less.”

“Do you still cook?” Dury asked.

“No, I don’t get a chance to cook much. I managed the Bed & Bath at the corner of Broad and Water Street, but they folded when times got bad. It was a good gig because it came with a room. I was a short order cook at a breakfast shop in Charleston for a while. I’ve been a short order cook all over town.”

“Sounds like you’ve been around,” Dury said.

“I got sick. I had no health insurance. Liver works about half the way it should. No one wants a guy who looks like death warmed over working on their food. I don’t blame them. I’m not good for the appetite.”

“Your looks should have nothing to do with your employment.”

“I passed out one day looking for a job. I was in the hospital until,” Keith glanced at his watch, “An hour and forty minutes ago. I needed to get out of there. I wanted to breathe some fresh air. Now you know everything about me and here I am. ”

Dury picked up his half of the sandwich, seeing Keith was in serious need of nourishment.

“Go ahead. Fresh air and tuna fish, nothing like it.”

“I really wasn’t hungry when I came over. I just wanted to talk to someone, but that looks nice. Smells good.”

Keith took the other half Dury left for him. His fingers were delicate and thin. His hand shook as he moved the sandwich to his mouth and stopped as he inhaled the aroma before taking a tiny bite.

“That is delicious,” Keith said softly, holding his meal with both hands.

“I drove into town just for this sandwich. They’re really good.” Dury said, biting into it to prove it.

“I haven’t eaten anything in so long, tuna is nice. I made a wicked tuna fish sandwich at Morey’s deli, Wilson, North Carolina. People came from across town to get one of my deluxe sandwiches. I worked there before New Orleans. I served it on thick fresh baked rye bread.”

“Italian is your specialty?” Dury asked.

Keith moved so carefully it looked as though he was afraid of breaking something. He didn’t respond right away.

“I cooked in a diner, two or three small family type restaurants in North Carolina before going to Ciprianno’s. Their chef trained me for Italian. He left and I proved to know enough to replace him, but the answer is no, I cook all kinds of food.”

“I don’t recall going to that restaurant. Name isn’t familiar,” Dury said.

“It’s in New Orleans. I don’t know what it’s called now. Probably somebody’s Italian Restaurant. That’s if it’s still there. I didn’t like the way the new owners treated me.”

“How’d you end up in New Orleans? Are you from Louisiana?”

“No, I’m from North Carolina originally. I learned something about being a cook there. When I was in my early twenties, I decide to see the country. New Orleans is where my money ran out.”

“That would be a good reason to look for a job,” Dury said.

“I was just at the corner of the French Quarter. I didn’t know it then, but the look of it appealed to me. I found the alley behind a restaurant that looked interesting and I went to inspect the quality of their…. This won’t sound very appetizing to a man like you. I went to check to see if there was anything I could salvage for a meal in the dumpster.”

“Dumpster diving?” Dury thought it was called.

“Exactly! Jan, the head chef, was standing at the back door scrapping his lunch into the dumpster. I didn’t see him until I was looking into the dumpster. He yelled, ‘Hey.’ Scared the hell out of me. ‘I didn’t see you,’ I said. ‘I was just checking to see what kind of food you served.’ He laughed at me.”

“Looking in the dumpster gave you away,” Dury said.

“Every time. He wanted to know if I was hungry and I told him I’d spent all my money getting there and didn’t have enough money for lunch.

“There was a European lilt to his coarse voice. You can tell a lot about people from how they address you. He was a bit gruff but not insulting. He told me to come into the kitchen and he’d see what he could give me to eat.”

“That was Ciprianno’s?”

“Yes it was. I told him I was a cook. He was from Italy. He’d cooked in France, where he trained to be a chef, and Spain, Italy too. He asked me if I wanted a job. I told him I was out to see the country. He told me there was no place like New Orleans, and if I took the job he’d train me. I wasn’t a fool. I couldn’t turn that offer down. I could travel any time. Training under a chef wasn’t going to happen again. I took the job and Jan taught me how to cook every dish he prepared at Ciprianno’s.”

“That was a lucky break for you,” Dury said, fascinated by Keith’s story.

“I slept in the storage room and showered at Jan’s apartment a few blocks away, and on his days off, I was the head chef at Ciprianno’s. The owners weren’t going to call me that, but no one knew it wasn’t Jan preparing their meal.”

Keith ate around his comments. By the time he got the job half his half of the sandwich was gone. He chewed carefully before speaking.

“Sorry. You say hello and I give you my life story. I haven’t had anyone to talk to in weeks. No one but doctors and nurses and I didn’t have anything to say.”

“It’s quite a story. I am enjoying hearing about you. Here we’re two strangers in a park. Nine times out of ten we pass each other without a word,” Dury said.

“You’re a passionate young man. If I owned a restaurant, I’d hire you,” Dury said, using his handkerchief to blot at the corner of his mouth.

“I’d take it. I’m probably too weak to work for long. I’ve never been this sick before.”

“So you ended up being the head chef?”

“Jan, the head chef, quit two years later, but I spent those two years watching him cook. It was all inside my head. It’s hard to keep notes while you’re cooking. I have a good memory. I was made temporary chef, until they could find a real chef. After a year, I figured I was the head chef. Not bad for a boy who learned everything from experienced cooks.”

“Ah, but you did go to school. You had the best education money can buy. Experience is the best teacher,” Dury said.

“All my jobs were like that. Even when I cooked in the corner diner, someone taught me what I needed to know to be good at it. I’d go from dish washer to busing tables and in a couple of weeks I’d be cooking.”

“I never learned to cook. No time. Work, work, work. In college I lived on pizza and burgers, same as everyone else. It’s a wonder I haven’t stroked out.”

“This is quite good,” Keith said, taking several bites as his appetite became activated.

Dury noticed Keith had brightened. His color wasn’t quite as pale. His hands still shook as he ate. He took tiny bites, smiling each time he tasted the sweetness of the tuna. He wiped his mouth several times before taking more bites.

“I don’t feel much like a pickle. Want to risk it?” Dury asked. “They’re nicely seasoned but not overwhelming.”

“Oh, my, guaranteed to upset any stomach. Yes, it would be perfect if not smart. No telling when I might get a chance to eat a crunchy pickle again. I’ll take my chances. You’re a thoughtful man, sharing your lunch. You shouldn’t give me more. I don’t need more. This is wonderful.”

“Potato sticks are good and fresh. Go ahead. This is much more than I ever eat. I usually end up wasting it. I saw you sitting there,” Dury said, tapering off.

“I’m very dry. I dare not try potato sticks. Tempting fate at this late date is not a good idea. First thing resembling real food I’ve had in weeks.”

“Have some of my coffee, then. It only has cream but Leo grinds his own beans and takes care with where he gets them. That’s if you aren’t contagious. Wouldn’t do for me to catch what you have,” Dury said, chuckling to himself as he handed the cup to Keith.

“No, thank you. I have AIDS. My liver difficulties are related to that. Not passed to someone easily, but I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. You’d do well to drink it yourself, but it’s kind of you to offer. I wouldn’t have eaten had you not shared your sandwich.”

Dury remained silent for a few minutes. He absently drank from the coffee cup. Dury was no stranger to AIDS. Hearing it brought up on a park bench near his offices gave him pause.

His eyes studied the gentle honest young man, who brought AIDS up close and personal once again.

He had many memories of how AIDS had touched his life. Dury was an attorney who regarded facts as his best friend. When AIDS had been made part of his life before, he’d read everything on the subject he was able to find.

A chance meeting on a park bench brought AIDS back into his life, if only for a few minutes. Life was full of abrupt turns and sudden changes.

The interesting story Keith had told him had just taken such a turn.

Chapter 2

Essentials

Dury knew all about AIDS, how it spread, and the consequences of having it when the consequences were death. Dury took it upon himself to read everything written on AIDS. He likened it to watching walnuts grow and ripen so you can bake the first pecan pie of the season.

Asking for the latest articles and papers released on AIDS got him a blank stare from most librarians. He learned which librarian would have the list ready for him when he returned for the most recent papers published the following week. Dury knew about AIDS. He was probably one of the leading experts on the subject who wasn’t in the medical field.

Every day he couldn’t go home and tell his wife he’d found out something new, meant another day his wife agonized over her sister’s decline. Information came painfully slow back then.

Between the first cases of the illness and AZT were too many years of meanness for the sick and the dying. Before being diagnosed, Brenda went from doctor to doctor, unable to get a definite diagnosis. If any of them suspected AIDS, they weren’t telling her. After all, AIDS was a gay disease, and his sister-in-law was married after all.

Dury had no reason to keep up with the advances in AIDS treatments. He knew it was no longer the death sentence it once was. It was a shock to have Keith bring it back out of the closet. It was a relief when he no longer had to read about it, after Brenda died.

“Go ahead, Keith. You need to stay hydrated. Coffee isn’t ideal but I can get you some juice or bottled water before we part company,” Dury suggested.

Keith sipped the warm brew after Dury offered it to him the second time. He was tempted by the offer of a cool beverage, but he was already eating the kind gentlemen’s food. There were limits to accepting favors from strangers.

Keith took a second sip and smiled. He wasn’t able to have coffee at the hospital. He couldn’t imagine hospital coffee tasting anything like what was in this cup.

“Thank you,” Keith said, handing the coffee cup back.

Dury drank from the cup to make sure Keith knew he knew it was safe to drink after him. AIDS was a serious disease to have but it wasn’t transmitted by casual contact.

Trust was important to Dury. It was the most important element between an attorney and his client. Why he wanted Keith to trust him, he didn’t know. He hadn’t had much company since retirement and he was enjoying the conversation. Keith was a pleasant mystery. He sounded like he had nothing to hide. Dury found him refreshing.

Sharing a $7.50 deli sandwich for lunch had yielded up far more information than he’d get spending $50.00 over lunch with a client. It was also a reminder of an episode in Dury’s past, when he’d worked as hard as he’d ever worked, and took no pay for learning all he could about AIDS.

“My sister-in-law had AIDS,” Dury said, after chewing on it and a bite of his sandwich for a long time. “She died back in the dark days of the disease.

“The doctors lacked the knowledge to diagnose her for too long. By the time we got her into the hands of Dr. John Marshall, an Atlanta physician, who devoted his practice to the treatment and study of AIDS, it was late in the game. With the CDC(Center for Disease Control) being in Atlanta, he was able to keep up with the latest recommendations and theories on AIDS.

“I’m sorry about your sister-in-law,” Keith said, sounding sincere.

“AIDS was a gay disease, you see. The religious profits who were holding conversations with god, made it clear to anyone who listened, “It’s god’s plague on the gay.”

While people died, the usual research and analysis was slowed by years because of a lack of funding. AIDS was ignored by powerful people who should have known better. The people who had to deal with contagious disease, figured out how it was most likely spread. It couldn’t be proved as scientific fact, because the CDC didn’t have the money to do an appropriate study to confirm their findings.”

“It’s obvious you have strong feelings about it. You’re a passionate man,” Keith observed.

“After Brenda died, I let go of it. There was no reason for me to stay on top of it. It was too depressing and my work was suffering. My partners knew about Brenda and never said I should get a little work done. Sorry, it wasn’t a very good time and it is a lot better today.”

“I’m sure your sister-in-law was strengthened by your efforts on her behalf. You didn’t have to get involved.”

“Oh, you don’t know Beverly, my wife. She was right on top of it. If I wanted time with my wife, I had to get involved. I did it because it was the right thing to do. Life and death is a far bigger issue than trying to sort out financial difficulties between litigants. My legal work was mostly routine by that time.”

“I was aware of AIDS. I’d known I was gay since always, I guess. I had a crush on Little Timmy Tucker in the first grade. During the part you’re talking about, I wasn’t paying much attention. I was in my twenties before… before I came out, but I didn’t discuss my sexuality with anyone I didn’t date, and I didn’t date much. I was always busy earning a living.”

“Then you missed the little fat Evangelical preacher who was on CNN every night to remind everyone about the immorality of the gay? You didn’t miss much,” Dury said, sipping his coffee to wet his dry mouth.

“I must have missed that. I didn’t watch much television,” Keith said.

“Any half-witted moron, and I’m not intending to insult that group, knows a disease has no sexual component. It’s governed by its characteristics. If it’s killing gay people, it’s going to get around to killing straight people. All those conversations these folks claim to be having with god, and he didn’t bother to mention that a virus is a virus and a virus is not gay?”

“That sounds logical,” Keith said.

“We knew it was in straight people early on. Brenda hadn’t been with anyone but her husband. Harry was okay, but we found out he was seeing men on the side. He traveled a lot. He didn’t get sick when he got AIDS, but he gave it to Brenda. Took us a long time to figure it out.”

“That’s so sad,” Keith said. “What did he say about it?”

“Don’t know. He disappeared once we knew it was AIDS. I suppose he was ashamed. He wouldn’t have gotten a very good reception in those days. I understand it was tough being gay. I heard he died a year or two after Brenda died. I would have helped him, but he didn’t give me a chance. Brenda talked to him and he apologized to her. I’m sure he felt bad and she never spoke ill of him.”

“Secrets are a terrible thing to keep,” Keith said.

“I almost went into politics because of AIDS,” Dury admitted. “Sure glad I didn’t make that mistake.”

“I thought lawyers became politicians?” Keith said.

“Most politicians start out as lawyers. Another reason why I’m glad I didn’t do it. Once Brenda died, my reason for caring about AIDS was gone. I wanted that part of our life to be over. It took a lot out of my wife.”

“You know more about it than I do. I know I’m sick and not likely to get better. It took them some time to get from a liver infection to AIDS. I started in the ER and ended up in a hospital bed, after passing out on the street. I was out of it for a long time.”

“There are standard treatments now. If you follow the regiment religiously, you might never get sick again. If you haven’t been on meds, the first step is to get on meds and stay on them,” Dury said with certainty.

“I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow. They put my things out on the curb where I was living. The landlord is in the process of evicting the other people there.

“I talked to my friend Lisa. Her mother is real sick so I didn’t call her again, but everyone in the building is being evicted.”

“That’s illegal, Keith,” Dury said. “Your landlord could find himself in jail soon. You can’t simply throw people out on the street because your horoscope says, ‘make a change today.’”

“He’s the landlord and he does what he wants. He plans to have the building condemned from what Lisa says. There were other guys with AIDS living there. They were moving out before I got sick. They need to be where they can feel secure and get their meds.”

Few things angered Dury more than the mistreatment of people who didn’t have anything to begin with. Keith was right, it was rare for a landlord to be challenged for abusing residents of rental property.

“Where is this place?” Dury asked.

“North Charleston. It’s about four miles closer to town than this square. It wasn’t a bad place to live but we have a new owner. He thinks the property will be worth a lot of money once he gets rid of the people and knocks the building down. That’s what we’ve heard.”

“Meeting someone… like you… makes me see how unfair life can be. I’ve never wanted for anything. My parents put me into the best schools. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was ten. As far as they were concerned, it was up to them to make sure I became one.”

“Life is something that happens to you on the way to someplace else,” Keith said.

“John Lennon,” Dury said.

“You know Lennon’s music? I listened to the Beatles for the first time when I was twenty.”

“My parents played the classics and opera in the house. My father had a collection of all the great operas. I grew up reading with classical music playing. When I was waiting to go to Columbia Law School, I did some traveling. I spent a lot of time seeing and hearing things I didn’t know about. The Beatles being part of that discovery.”

“My parents, who had no taste at all, did leave their vinal records lying around. Beatles, Stones, Doors, I listened to them all. There was good music in the 70s but Dylan and the Beatles ruled. No one did it like they did.”

“Peace and love almost caught on back then.”

“How did we get here from there?” Keith asked. “We do have something in common.”

“People are harder now. Stuff is more influential than the idea of peace or love. I don’t know where we got lost. When people become secondary to things, we’re seriously lost. When money trumps compassion, we’re desperately lost. When children are left to go hungry in the richest society in the history of the world, we’re terminally lost.”

“Sounds like an argument for a jury,” Keith said.

“Once an attorney, always an attorney, but the only thing I can tell you is getting treatment for AIDS is better today. That’s one area where we’ve gotten better.”

“I wasn’t expecting to get advice in the park over lunch,” Keith said. “It’s nice to talk to someone who understands. So when did you listen to the Beatles music the first time?”

“Keith, that’s a story that is so far out there, I’m not sure I believe it anymore. Let’s just say I took a ride with someone who was playing the Beatles music and leave it at that.”

“Okay, tell me which of the Beatles songs did you hear first?” Keith asked.

“A Day in the Life, Pepper.”

“That was one heavy hit of Beatles,” Keith said.

“Yes, I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I listened to a lot of contemporary music while I was at Columbia Law. While it is a conservative learning institution, the times demanded you expand your horizons or parish. Besides, it was a time that might have changed the world.”

“It didn’t?” Keith asked.

“Not for the better. Not the way that would have improved things. It looked like we had a shot and it just went away. And that’s really depressing.”

“Sounds serious,” Keith said.

“It was a long time ago, but along with the music, there were the people. Oh, lord, there were the people.”

“People are everywhere,” Keith said.

“Are your parents alive?”

“We’re obviously done talking about that. No, mother died of lung cancer. I was 15 or 16.”

“A smoker!” Dury said.

“Exactly. My father died in a car crash ten years later. We were never close. I wasn’t going to stay in school. My parents wouldn’t let me quit. I went my own way after Mom died. I got a job in a restaurant about 30 miles away. I was too restless to stay in school. Mom was already dead and I never saw my father again.”

“You look better than you did a half hour ago.”

“I feel better. I just wanted to be left alone to die when I came into the park. A little conversation and a little tuna and I’m feeling stronger,” Keith said. “I felt like I was closer to being dead in there than I am out here. I’ve always loved being outside.”

“I’d give up on the waiting around to die idea. That never goes well,” Dury said.

“No future in it,” Keith said with a smirk. “You’re a good looking man, but I didn’t think you were gay. You are married?”

“Oh, no. I’m not gay. I was married to Beverly for close to thirty years,” Dury said. “We met in college and married once I passed the bar exam. I wouldn’t marry her until I knew I was going to be able to support her.”

He felt like it was only yesterday Beverly died and the pain was still fresh in his heart.

“We had a beautiful daughter together. She was quite bright. Beverly said she took after her father, only she was better looking. We lost her in an automobile accident the year before Beverly death of breast cancer.

“It’s what killed my wife. She got cancer after Cindy died. She was gone in a year. All very quick. All very sad. I had a family, then there was none. The doctors said she had a couple years, maybe three, but they didn’t see her broken heart. She never stopped mourning Cindy.”

Keith didn’t know what to say to this list of tragedies. Keith’s worst tragedy was his present crisis. Before that it was just a matter of keeping on the move, until he got another job and started over again. If he could cook his world was okay.

“I’m sorry. I know words don’t help, but I am sorry. You’re a nice man. You deserve good things.”

“We all deserve good things,” Dury said.

Keith always considered himself lucky that he didn’t let anything tie him down. Hearing Dury’s story, he wasn’t sure he wasn’t the lucky one. If you love too deeply, it can’t help but hurt you sooner or later.

“You lived near here?” Dury asked, using his handkerchief to blot tuna from the corners of his mouth.

“Three or four miles, but I just started walking once I left the hospital. I wasn’t conscious when they took me there. I have no sense of where I am.”

“The hospital is a mile to the east of here,” Dury said.

“I didn’t want to die in the hospital. I’ve always had a fear of that. I don’t know where it comes from. I was never in a hospital before. I could feel myself getting old.”

“Old? My word, you’re hardly past boyhood,” Dury said.

“I probably feel older than I look. Being sick can do that to you. I do feel better being.”

“I’ve been doing nothing but gathering cobwebs. I’ve been sitting home bored to tears. My maid comes in twice a week and she’s company, but I can’t get the woman to sit still. She’s got a schedule and she doesn’t stop to chat. Isn’t that sad? I can’t even get my maid to talk to me.”

“You said you hadn’t decided what to do next. I’ve always found that when it’s time for me to make a change, I just do it. Listen to me telling an attorney how to make a change. It’s easy when you have nothing to lose. At times all I’ve had is the shirt on my back. Like now.”

“No, it makes a certain amount of sense. I want a complete plan dropped in front of me so all I have to do is go to work on it. Life doesn’t work in well-developed plans.”

“I never have far to go. For me it’s all about cooking. Up until now I’ve always had a job when I wanted one. It’s funny that I liked being a short order cook about as much as I liked being a chef. A short order cook is near the people. There’s always someone to talk to, especially late at night. You really learn something about people when they’re sitting in a diner after everything else is closed.

“A lot of lonely people in the world. I never felt lonely,” Keith said thoughtfully.

“My wife did all the cooking. She knew what she was doing in a kitchen,” Dury said.

“Certainly the ladies are knocking on your door, wanting you to date them?” Keith said, admiring the man’s natty appearance.

“They can go on knocking. I was already married. I loved my wife. I adored my wife. We were perfectly matched. Oh, she thought I worked too much, but besides that, we had a wonderful life together. I had the best.”

“Sounds like a movie,” Keith said.

“I’m not in the market to replace Beverly. My memories are all good. Anyone else would be a disappointment. I am not about to do that to another human being.

“When you are lucky enough to find true love, and it lasts as long as our love lasted, you don’t expect to replicate it, Keith. I’ve never considered it.”

“True love! That’s a nice concept. I’ve never experienced love,” Keith admitted. “I guess I never knew what love was.”

“I’m sorry you haven’t. It’s a most wonderful thing to find and a most terrible thing to lose.”

“You’ve had a lot of things you’ve lost,” Keith said. “I don’t know I could endure what you’ve endured. Probably best I didn’t find love if it meant giving it up one day.”

“I think you might be part philosopher, Keith.”

“I can’t believe I ate that entire sandwich. Thank you. I didn’t know I would eat today. Haven’t thought that far ahead. I barely made it this far before I had to rest.”

“The hospital is a mile from here. You did pretty good for a sick man, and you’re the one who feeds hungry people,” Dury said.

“Yes I did.”

“And you only ate a half sandwich. I could offer to buy you one for later if you like?” Dury said. “I can’t remember enjoying a conversation more than this one.”

“You are a nice man. No, that’s more than I’ve eaten in two days. It was perfect. I feel stuffed. I think I’ll be okay. I’ve enjoyed talking to you too.”

“A little more coffee? It’s cooled to a good temperature. It’ll be too cold to enjoy in a few more minutes.”

“Yes, a bit would be good. I’m dry again.”

Each man sat silent on his end of the bench, as the sun peaked around the extended branches of the oak tree that shaded them. It was a warm sun.

Dury reached into his vest pocket to take out his watch. He flipped it open to see that it was after one. He’d never been there so long. The sun felt good on a moderate day.

Dury wasn’t comfortable leaving Keith in the park. He’d offered him a sandwich and he’d offered to by him a cold drink. Keith turned both down. They could just stay there for the rest of the day.

“What happens tonight?” Dury asked with concern.

He was sure he’d worry about this pleasant young man.

“Tonight is a long way off. I want to enjoy being outside, sitting in the sun. I’ll think about tonight when tonight gets here. No rush. I’m in no hurry.”

“Will the sheriff bother you? He patrols the square at night. I used to work late. He’d be parked over by Leo’s when I left for home.”

“Can’t say. Haven’t slept here yet. Signs say park closed after dark. Ask me tomorrow and I’ll know more,” Keith said without alarm or concern. “If they arrest me, I have a place to stay either way.”

“You’re qualified to get assistance, Keith. Certainly you qualify for some kind of housing. The assistance is more comprehensive these days.”

“Since I was sixteen I’ve been taking care of myself. I’ve never lived high on the hog, but I’ve managed. I don’t want assistance. If I’m going to die, I’d just as soon get to it. I appreciate your concern. You’re a kind man, but I’ve got to do what works for me, Dury. Stop worrying about me.”

Dury sat feeling helpless. The man didn’t want his help. He’d made it clear and Dury didn’t feel comfortable trying to change his mind.

Then Dury had a thought that might work.

“My wife made the most incredible lasagna. I miss her cooking. She’d tell me a day in advance that she was working on lasagna for the next evening. All day long I’d sit at work with a loaf of Italian bread I’d buy from Leo. I must have garlic bread with lasagna,” Dury said. “Makes my mouth water thinking about it.”

“I can taste it,” Keith said. “Lasagna is one of my favorites to prepare and to eat. Haven’t had it in an age.”

“Me either,” Dury agreed. “I can taste it too. Since you won’t let me do anything for you, how would you like to do something for me?”

“Name it. IF it doesn’t require me to sprint anywhere, I’m game,” Keith said.

“I was thinking I could stop over at Leo’s for some Italian bread. We’ll stop at the grocer where my wife got all the fixings for her lasagna. Are you strong enough to make a batch of lasagna for dinner?”

“Me cook?” Keith said, closing his eyes to think. “I’d even sprint to your house to be able to cook. It’s hard not to be able to do what you love doing.”

“I think we’ve got ourselves a deal. I just ate and my mouth is watering. Let’s go.”

“Dury, we need to have an understanding. I can make my lasagna and it’ll melt in your mouth, but it won’t be your wife’s lasagna. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“Lasagna can never disappoint me, Keith. I know it won’t taste like Beverly’s. I’ll be happy with Keith’s lasagna.”

Lasagna would be a good place to start.

Chapter 3

Appetizer

Dury dropped the trash in the can as they left the park. The idea of doing something more for Keith had been building. Not having a client in nearly a month left Dury wanting to do something for the pleasant man he’d met on what would have normally been his lunch break, but was now something to do while he didn’t do anything.

Dury hadn’t taken on any new clients since the first of the year. He’d resolved all the cases on his desk by the time his retirement became official. There was no specific day he’d retire, he worked until all his work was done, and he stood up, looked at his empty desk, except for one file in the out box, and he retired from his partnership.

The farewell lunch came just before he’d finished his final case. His secretary knew when it was a matter of days before the big event. When the final case was successfully completed, Dury said goodnight to his secretary, leaving work for the last time.

Keith was not a case. Keith was a man. Each man came with his own ideas and experiences. Keith was a cook and for Dury to help him, he’d let Keith cook lasagna for him. His cases weren’t so enjoyable once it came down to dollars and sense. Over the years men had gone from wanting fairness to wanting all they could get.

Dury became an attorney so he could help people. He’d come of age during a most turbulent time. It was a time of innocents and a time of hope. By the time he’d done three years as the public defender of the guilty and the hopeless, he wanted to be a different kind of attorney.

Dury settled on being the civil law partner in a three partner firm formed by him and his two attorneys he was closest to since graduating Columbia Law School in the early seventies.

He was looking for something he’d recognize as a good direction for his future to follow. While the treatments and outcomes were greatly improved, AIDS had left Dury depressed and exhausted. He didn’t need to get emotionally involved this time. AIDS was no longer allowed to run rampant through any group, no matter its popularity.

Keith had a strong desire to remain independent. He’d balked at even letting Dury buy him a cold drink. Having the idea of letting Keith cook for him was the logical solution.

Dury hadn’t eaten well since his wife died. At first he had no appetite and then he ate what was available to stay healthy. Nourishment for the sake of good health never worried Dury as he worked his life away.

Letting Keith cook a few meals, while he got him the proper care, made sense. Dury was comfortable with the agreement. This wasn’t what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing, but he was qualified to get Keith started on a routine that would keep him healthy in the years ahead.

Dury wasn’t one who took to new people easily. Beverly organized and arranged recreation and the dinners she gave for their friends. Dury came home from work, had a martini, and got ready for whatever plans Beverly had arranged.

Dury met plenty of new clients but they almost never became friends. Once he’d heard a client’s peccadilloes, while preparing his case, Dury couldn’t feel comfortable socializing with most. He was careful never to judge them, but acting like he didn’t know what he knew wasn’t possible. There were a couple of exceptions.

He drank and took meals with his partners, when work kept him at the office, but even his partners were no more than business associates. He hadn’t seen any of them socially since his retirement. He didn’t miss seeing them, but he did miss his secretary’s kind attention.

Dury was searching for a direction that allowed him to use his skills and do some good. Helping Keith was a narrowly defined task. Payment would come by way of Keith’s cooking skills.

Dury had learned a valuable lesson about helping people and not expecting pay. Some men aren’t going to allow him to willie nillie lend a hand. It would be important for him to find some means by which people needing help can be made to feel like they are earning their way, while accepting it.

Too many years of clients wanting all they can get had Dury forgetting that most people have never been in litigation and didn’t see life’s bad breaks as a reason to get an attorney to go after someone.

Dury was a man of considerable wealth. Each of his cases paid him handsomely. Using investors and tax accountants had allowed him to always have his money working for him. The last ten years, with Dury working all the time, everything he made was invested, and he made very good money.

After all, he wasn’t giving Keith anything. Keith was cooking for him and Dury would put a call into Dr. Marshall that day. He’d find out where to start to get Keith the proper treatment. Dury was certain he was getting the best end of the deal. Now that the idea of fresh lasagna was on his mind, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Keith was impressed by the light green Lexus. It was smooth and quiet. Keith new it was the car of a successful man. Ten minutes after they drove away from the square, they were parking in front of the grocery, where the manager walked the two of them around the store as Keith selected the best ingredients for the dish he’d fix.

The manager, Mr. Popdoplus, overruled Keith only once.

“You want these. There are no bad choices here, but you like these better for flavor and distinction.

“Thank you,” Keith said, putting back the two large cans of tomatoes he’d picked to the ones recommended.

“I’ll put this on your bill, Mr. Lane. It’s nice seeing you again.”

“I don’t owe you anything, do I Pop?”

“If everyone paid like you, Mr. Lane, I’d have to keep my money in the Caymans.”

Both men got a good laugh from the comment. Dury mostly stopped for frozen dinners, grabbing a half dozen at a time, because it was fast and easy, but he’d even slowed down on that since Leo’s opened next to his office.

It was five more minutes from the grocery to the house. The garage door open ahead of them, closing behind them as they came to a halt.

They entered the house from the garage, going through the utility room, coming into the back of the large kitchen.

On the back wall of the kitchen were stoves and several kinds of ovens, the sink and draining board. The cupboards and shelving was built around the cooking appliances with one large refrigerating unit in the corner.

In the middle of the kitchen was a ten foot island. The top was wooden and at one corner was a chopping block with knifes and measuring devices built into it. Above the island were the pots and pans. On the shelves below the counter were more pots and pans.

Dury sat his bad down on the far corner of the center island and Keith put his bag beside it, as he took in the kitchen.

“Wow, this is a kitchen. I’ve worked in restaurants with smaller kitchens than this one.”

“In our first house we had a tiny kitchen. Wasn’t large enough to eat in. When we started working on this house, the contractor let Beverly plan the kitchen. This was what she wanted.”

“We bought all the ingredients for the dish. I think everything I’ll need is in plain view. This is really nice,” Keith said, putting the contents of the bags on the center counter.

After washing his hands, Keith pulled down a sauce pan and began opening his cans of tomatoes for the sauce. He broke the tomatoes into bits and after washing his hands again, he began adding the seasons to the sauce, turning on a burner to start it simmering.

The ground chuck was next, and he broke that into bits before putting it on a burner and adding the seasons as it simmered.

“It’s martini time. Would you like one, Keith?”

“No. I’m not big on martini. I’m just a country boy.”

“I’ve got fresh orange juice in the fridge if you like.”

“Yes, orange juice would be nice.”

Dury got down a glass and put a full glass of orange juice down for Keith.

“Thank you. I’ll need to dice and brown the onion, garlic, and green peppers. I’ll add them to the meat and let that simmer for a few minutes. I’ll let that sit and I’ll cook and dry our lasagna noodles. The sauce needs to simmer for two hours and I’ll assemble the lasagna in a casserole dish and bake it for two hours. It’ll need to sit for fifteen minutes to cool and you can do the garlic bread just as you like it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dury said, sitting at a table for two that was a breakfast nook according to the contractor.

Dury sipped his martini and watched Keith move easily around the kitchen. His long slender fingers deftly diced and chopped as he got the different pans cooking before bringing the glass of orange juice over to sit with Dury.

“I feel like I’m in a dream. This is too nice to be real. Everything sparkles. It’s a wonderful kitchen, Dury.”

“We could only do it because the contractor, Gary, built it at cost. I won a big settlement for him and we even ended up with a very valuable piece of property he wasn’t expecting, but that I always wanted to get for him. It all worked out and when it was done, he promised to build me a house at cost. This is that house. As I said, our first house was tiny. You could put the downstairs in the kitchen and the dinning room of this house.

“Come on, I’ll give you a tour.”

Keith followed Dury through a door near the breakfast nook and there was a shiny wood table that he knew could seat 12. On the front wall of the dinning room as a very nice fireplace. Most of the chairs that belonged to the table sat back against the wall and only four chairs were pushed up to the table. There was a bar and a small refrigerator on the opposite wall from the fireplace and a magnificent buffet cabinet beside it. Everything was made with the same wood.

“Come this way.”

They went out a door opposite the one that took them into the dinning room. There was a long hallway and there were three doors. Dury took him to the first door.

“This is my office. It’s never been this clean before. I always had files, records, and books piled everywhere. That all ended when I retired. Lucille, my aid, cleaned it right after I retired and it’s still clean. Come on, I’ll show you my library,” Dury said, as they went through a door that was on the inside wall of his office.

“This contains most of the books I’ve read in the past twenty-five years. I love to read. I can control the music from in here and in my office. Every room in the house is wired with state of the art speakers. I love opera and the classics. I sit there in my chair with a lamp that can adapt to any lighting, so the page is always properly illuminated.

“We’ll need to go around to get into Beverly’s crafts room. This is the artistic capitol of our house. The room is catty cornered on this end of the house. It’s almost like a theater might be made. Everything looks out on the entire backyard,” Dury said, opening the drapes that kept the room in a dim light.

“The gazebo was my wife’s idea. It’s complete with bird feeders and the gazebo is bugged, so the sound in this room during the day is glorious bird songs and other sounds of wildlife.”

“This is so beautiful,” Keith said.

“Come this way and we’ll go back to the kitchen by way of the living room.”

They walked the length of the hallway and came out in the largest room in the house. There were two large sofas, two recliners, tables, and other chairs. There was a large and ornate fireplace that dominated the room. Keith was sure the fireplace in the dinning room backed up to the one in the living room.

A large sweeping staircase arched it’s way from near the front door up to a second level balcony. There were two bedrooms opposite the railing that ran over top of half of the living room. There were hallways on either side of the two bedrooms that Keith could see.

“Those are the two guest rooms. Each has its own bathroom. The two bedrooms over the kitchen have one bathroom between the two and the other side is the master bedroom over my offices and library. It’s complete with a sitting room and full bathroom. My wife’s crafts room is only one story. There’s no upstairs above it. Originally she wanted it separate from the house but then decided getting to it would be far easier from inside the house.

“That’s the entire view. The door under the stairs takes us back into the kitchen and my martini and your orange juice.

“What a remarkable house. I’ve never seen a nicer home,” Keith said.

“It was the Lane’s dream house. Now it’s where I live,” Dury explained.

There was nothing for Keith to say. There were some things best left alone.

“I’ve got a phone call to make and if you are in a holding pattern, I’ll show you the guest room. It has a most marvelous tub. Nothing like a good soak.”

` “That would be great. I know I’ve been in a hospital, but I feel like I could use a bath,” Keith said.

“I’ve also got extra sweat suits we kept for guests. I’ll put one out on the bed while you use the tub. They’ll be more comfortable than what you have on.”

As Keith bathed, after getting another martini, he went to his office to make a call to Dr. John Marshall.”

Dury got comfortable, dialed the number, giving his name to the first two people who he got on the phone.

“Dury Lane, speaking of a blast from the past. How are you, Dury?” Dr. Marshall asked.

“Dr. Marshall. I didn’t expect you to pick up right away. When they said you were on the phone, I picked right up. What can I do for you, Dury?”

“I’m good. I’ve retired. I’ve suddenly found myself involved with AIDS again. I haven’t been following the advancements, but I understand it’s substantially better.”

Dr. Marshall gave Dury a brief summary of how medication and treatments were advancing. Dury listened carefully, jotting notes.

“I’ve got a fellow who has been diagnosed with AIDS. He’s not aware of anything in the way of getting assistance. Since you and I go back so far in the AIDS battle, I thought you’d be the man to ask where to get him started. He’s certain he doesn’t have long to live but I’m not so sure. He got all his info from the ER,” Dury said.

“He doesn’t have a doctor, Dury?”

“No doctor. He’s an independent sort. Didn’t want any help, but I was sure you could get me on the right road. As I say, I haven’t kept up since Brenda passed.”

“I’ve got a golf game Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been trying to wiggle my way out of it. They always cost me more money than I want to part with. If you don’t mind the drive, I’ll see your friend Wednesday afternoon and not feel a bit guilty out of backing out of eighteen holes of torture.”

“The drives no problem. I’ll tell him that he can’t do better than that. I’m sure he’ll go for it to find out if he’s on death’s doorstep or not.”

“Have him in my offices Wednesday at 2:00 p. m.?”

“That’s more than I thought would be possible. He can’t do better than that, John. Maybe dinner afterward if you have the time. Being retired, I’d like to reconnect with people I’m fond of,” Dury said.

“Glad you finally called me John. Dinner is a possibility, but I never know from one day to the next. We’ll talk tomorrow and I’ll know for sure.”

“That’s perfect. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you,” Dury said.

“It’s been a while,” John said.

“Bev’s funeral. You came to Charleston for her funeral.”

“I remembered as I said it. I wouldn’t bring it up. You sound good. I’m glad, Dury. I’ll see you Wednesday. It’ll give me something to look forward to.”

Dury finally got back to his martini. He thought the phone call went well. He admired John’s bedside manner with Brenda. He was very low key and soft spoken. He always was prepared and never surprised. They were all admirable traits to Dury.

Dury went upstairs to change out of his suit and get comfortable. When he finally got back down to the kitchen, Keith was standing at the stove in the sweat suit Dury laid out for him. He’d begun to layer the lasagna.

“I’ve got you a doctor’s appointment with Dr. Marshall in Atlanta. It’s for Wednesday afternoon. I never expected he’d see you, but you can’t do better, Keith. He’s been treating AIDS since the early days of the disease. He treated Brenda the final weeks of her life.”

“That’s great,” Keith said. “I don’t know how I’ll repay you for helping me.”

“We’ll work something out,” Dury said, knowing better than to tell him it was his pleasure to be able to help him.

“You mentioned beer back between the ground beef and the dicing of garlic and onions. I’d like that beer now.”

It only took a minute for Dury to bring back a Samuel Adams and a frosted mug to pour it in. Keith tipped up the frosty mug and drank half of the brew in one gulp.

“I was getting parched working over the heat. This is delicious. The orange juice was good but not as good as this.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it. There are plenty more if you like.”

“No, one is fine. The lasagna will need to cook for two hours. I set the timer on the oven. It’ll cut off automatically. It’ll need to cool for fifteen minutes. That’ll give you time to fix garlic bread before it’s ready to eat.”

“While it’s baking, why don’t you go up and lie across the bed where I put the sweat suit out. You look a little tired,” Dury said.

“Dury, you don’t know me. I could be an axe murderer. You shouldn’t just invite strangers home with you,” Keith said with alarm in his words.

“I rarely trust anyone I don’t know, Keith. As far as axe murderers, I met one I refused to defend. You’re no axe murderer.

“You were on hand when I was having one of my more frugal moments. Waste not want not. Your story was interesting, but I did more than listen. I offered to buy you another sandwich for later, a cold drink, and you turned me down. I was aware of your reactions to my offers.

“You forget I’m an attorney. You can usually spot a sociopath. They’re all charm with no substance. As a public defender, I saw it all and I couldn’t wait to give it up.”

“I suppose you’d need to be a good judge of character,” Keith said.

“Like me, you were more hungry for the conversation than the tuna. I listened to your story and your comments. It was all quite consistent.”

“I’m impressed. I never sensed you were cross-examining me. The truth is far easier than a lie. There’s nothing behind a lie. Sooner or later the truth comes out. Starting out with the truth is the best idea.”

“Had I merely asked you to come home so I could help you see the right doctor, you’d still be in the park. Lasagna became the lowest common denominator, and here we are.”

“And a nap would be as welcome as the bath was. I’m running out of gas. I got the lasagna on before I sputtered though.”

Chapter 4

Lasagna

The two men sat at the small table in the kitchen with the casserole dish filled with lasagna a few feet away. The cookie sheet with the garlic bread sat beside the lasagna. Dury was more than half way done with his first plate, but not his last.

“This is good. This is very good, Keith. This was the best idea I’ve had in a while. Thank you.”

Keith smiled. It was easy to see Dury was pleased with the taste. That was always Keith’s first worry, someone wouldn’t care for his way of preparing a dish.

“The seasonings blended well,” Keith said.

The beer was the perfect match for the meal. It was cold and refreshing.

Dury also drank a Samuel Adams with his meal. The dark color indicated the richness of flavor. It wasn’t a beer you wanted every day, but with spicy dishes this was the perfect beer.

“Another slice of garlic bread? I’ll eat it all if you don’t take another slice.”

“No, I’ll be lucky to finish what I have. My appetite hasn’t caught up with me yet. The best part is that the lasagna will taste better tomorrow,” Keith said.

“Not if I don’t stop eating it. It’s quite good. I haven’t enjoyed a meal this much in some time. You do know what you’re doing in the kitchen.”

“Glad you are enjoying it. I’d be embarrassed if it didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to taste. I always worry I’ll leave something out or put too much of something in it.”

“You never looked at a recipe. You keep it all inside your head?”

“Yes, as a cook I travel light. Most Italian dishes I fix the most start with a tomato sauce. The trick is to remember how to prepare the sauce and the rest is about blending whatever flavor the dish your making requires. In good Italian restaurants, the chef creates the sauce to his taste, and no matter what dish it is, you recognize the sauce.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I couldn’t remember half of what you put into it to have a flavor this distinctive.”

“That’s the reason why I cook. Of course, no matter where Jan is today, his sauce is here.”

“I must confess, I’ve tried lasagna at the area restaurants and I don’t have any I liked as well as this.”

“Making a small batch allows me to control the seasoning better. A larger batch might not measure up to this, but it was good enough for people who came to eat Italian food in New Orleans. I’m also not familiar with the items your grocer had. His suggestion about what tomatoes to use was a big help. It all depends on good tomatoes.”

“That’s the last time you fixed lasagna?”

“I’ve had a number of jobs since New Orleans. Once I’ve established that I’m the cook at a restaurant, I sneak some of my favorites onto the menu. One thing is for certain, if a dish tastes good, people will ask for it again. Italian food is a universal favorite, but I’ve got some recipes for southern dishes people ask for more than once.”

“Bev made spaghetti more often than she made lasagna. As long as we had garlic bread, I was happy. She made spaghetti with Italian sausage or meatballs,” Dury said, beginning to eat his fill.

“It’s surprising how easy it is to make something I haven’t made in years. I never learned from cookbooks. Everything I know about cooking, I learned by watching cooks cook. By the time I got around to making the dish myself, I knew the ingredients and the steps involved.”

“I’d say you haven’t lost your touch, Keith. I haven’t enjoyed a meal this much in a long time,” Dury said.

*****

The trip to Atlanta took five hours and Dr. Marshall greeted Dury warmly, after sending Keith back to an examining room with his nurse.

“Since we’re working under the assumption that Keith has AIDS, I’ve had my secretary pull the paperwork that he’ll need to get him into the system. There are benefits available to our AIDS patients. There is a list of services available to him and a paper I wrote about how to live with AIDS.

“We’ll know more in a week when I’ll have a complete workup on him,” Dr. Marshall said. “I’ll be able to offer him some preliminary results today. I can call you after all the lab reports come back. Now I better get to work, Dury.”

Dr. Marshall walked Dury out to the hall, as they made small talk.

“Pam, will you show Mr. Lane to the employees’ lounge. You’ll have coffee and books. I remember you like books. I’m sure you’ll find something you like.”

“Yes. Thank you, John. I feel good about putting Keith into your hands,” Dury said, as they parted.

*****

In the late eighties, when Brenda came to Dr. Marshall, the options were limited and Brenda was too sick for anyone to think she would recover. Dr. Marshall still did all he could for her, even trying some experimental drugs to see if they might give her more time. Dury appreciated that John didn’t give up or tell her she would die soon.

If there were blessings in disguise, that’s what Brenda’s death was. There was no reason for her to continue living with a body that had become her worst enemy. To know her struggle was over was a relief. Even his wife said, ‘she won’t suffer anymore.’”

It was after Bremda’s death that Dury began to realize how important religion was in killing her. Labeling AIDS a gay disease assured no one was going to get too excited about finding treatments.

After Brenda died, Dury slowly withdrew from the AIDS wars, no longer feeling the need to read everything written on the subject. He felt some guilt that he didn’t continue to read everything on AIDS. He might have known more and would be better prepared for helping Keith.

There had been a lot of experimental drugs and Dr. Marshall knew all of them and he knew which were likely to cause dangerous side effects. For Brenda it wasn’t extending her life but keeping her comfortable that drove John.

Ten years after the AIDS epidemic began, AZT became available. People could learn to live with AIDS instead of dying from it. Tens of thousands were already dead and AZT was only the beginning of drugs in the pipeline. The ten years it took was testimony to the indifference of a nation. Led by religious leaders who picked the people they wanted dead, created a long period when the disease was left to run its course. Was it really god they spoke to who authorized them to teach their followers to hate the dying.

Brenda wasn’t part of the target group. She was collateral damage. The ten thousand hemophiliacs were collateral damage. Didn’t god mention that a lot of kids were going to die too? Dury wondered if it was the same god as his Catholic god? He knew it wasn’t. His god was a kind god.

When claiming dominion over life and death, you are responsible for the collateral damage, or does god forgive a few misfires, as long as you get them gays? How did the religious leaders, who were so wrong about AIDS, explain that little slip up? Did god make them do it?

None of the thoughts were anything new for Dury. At one time it was an endless chain of reasoning that tied him in knots while he did all he could for Brenda. The circle of facts he knew, ran continuously through his brain, especially while he waited for Brenda to see the doctor.

Dury decided to run for political office to change how government works. Any new disease that’s capable of killing humans, would have maximum funding to assure it wouldn’t get out of control before doctors knew exactly what it was.

Dury smiled. He’d realized he was an honorable man, and he wasn’t about to be associated with his government. They weren’t simply corrupt, they were capable of doing a lot of harm because too many felt no compassion. They sat silent and watched tens of thousands of people die. No, Dury couldn’t be a politician. He smiled again, holding his finger in the book he hadn’t started to read yet.

Brenda died and his wife took it surprisingly well. Beverly had practically moved in with Brenda in the final weeks of her life. It took its tool on her, but she refused to leave her sisters care to strangers, even after Brenda no longer knew her and she’d stopped talking or responding.

A blessing that they no longer had to deal with human misery. The idea of Brenda being at peace, no matter what that means, allowed them to have a peace of their own.

Dury felt the pleasure in seeing John again. He was one of the few bright spots during that period. He was always upbeat, always hopeful. Seeing him again brought back the old chain of thoughts that ran through Dury’s mind each time Brenda reached a crisis.

Dury didn’t resolve the chain of thoughts that rain on a continual loop through his brain, while he waited. His religion didn’t call AIDS ‘god’s plague on gays.’ He didn’t need to give up his religion because of the stupidity of others.

For a time he let his religion off the hook. He went to his church on the way home from work on some days. He prayed often. He prayed for justice. He prayed for everyone to do good work. His prayers to spare Brenda went unanswered. Why did god speak with the hateful preachers, who didn’t seem aware of Jesus and not him? He was a good Catholic boy after all. What was he doing wrong?

“The virus was in the blood and the CDC knew it but didn’t have the money to scientifically prove it. Even though they warned that transfusing infected blood would spread the disease. It took years for them to come up with a test to single out the infected blood. That was no help to the people who got AIDS after receiving a blood transfusion.

AIDS wasn’t a gay disease. Gays took the biggest hit, but they were merely the beginning of the victims. Tainted blood had doubled the death toll.

With Keith being diagnosed with poor liver function, Dr. Marshall was well qualified to treat him for a liver disorder. During their conversations about Keith, John didn’t mention Keith’s illness as being life threatening. The one thing he did say was, ‘Keith would get better and live a healthy life. Keith was worried that they’d find he was sicker than they thought, but he did notice the upbeat nature of his doctor.

Dury smiled, remembering Keith’s resignation to die, when the were in the square.

Once Keith entered the lounge where Dury was waiting, his voice was animated as he dispensed information.

“You can get AIDS in your twenties and live a full life in years, but the years can take their toll if you don’t take positive steps to stay healthy,” Keith said excited.

“I bet that makes you feel better?”

“Yes, he said I was generally a healthy young man. Oh, Dr. Marshall was called to the hospital for an emergency. He sends his regrets about dinner. He said, ‘You guys should get together soon.”

“I was looking forward to dinner. We’ll eat on our way home. You look none the worse for wear,” Dury said.

“I’ve never had a physical before. They asked me a lot of questions I couldn’t answer. They wanted to know about the people I’d slept with. It was quite a going over. I’ve never dated much. I didn’t come out to anyone until I was in my mid-twenties. I mostly worked. From time to time I met someone where the connection was unmistakable. It rarely lasted long and it didn’t happen often.”

“Contagious disease requires they collect a sexual history on STDs. It’s the law.”

A few minutes later a nurse came to guide them out through the waiting room. She carried a bag with the drugs Dr. Marshall was prescribing for Keith to take. There was a thirty day supply. That was time for Dr. Marshall to find a doctor near where Dury lived to continue treatment.

“Do you have any questions about when and how to take your medication. It’s written on the bottles and there’s a sheet of paper that explains it all,” the nurse said.

“Yes, I understand his instructions,” Keith said, taking the medication.

*****

Dury took his time driving back to the Interstate. He needed to pay attention so he didn’t miss it and end up driving around Atlanta the rest of the evening.

“He said I have low liver function. Many men with AIDS also have Hepatitis C. He gave me an antibiotic to help my liver recover. There are other treatments he will consider once the results for the tests come back. He knew everything. I don’t know if I’ll remember it all.”

Dury held up the envelope with all the information they’d provided.

“In here are the instructions to help you get control of your disease and your life. I’ll help you sort through it. Between the two of us we should be able to get it done.”

“They’ve got it all down to a science,” Keith said, feeling the size of the envelope but not opening it in the car.

“When Brenda was sick they could write all the information on one page and not use the whole page. I think AIDS was one of the biggest mysteries the medical world has faced in a long time.”

“Sounds like it took a long time for them to put it in gear,” Keith said.

“The evangelicals called it the gay plague. I believe if people claim to speak for a religion named after Christ, they should be forced to say something, anything, consistent with Christ’s message and actions,” Dury said with hostility.

“Makes me glad I missed that show,” Keith said. “Being raised in rural North Carolina, we hardly ever listened to the major news sources. I don’t remember any of that.”

“Even with the religious hex on anyone with AIDS, Dr. Marshall didn’t let it stop him. I don’t know how many doctors might have gotten involved if religion hadn’t made it a disease sent by god.”

“It’s easy to see he’s dedicated,” Keith said. “I liked him. He treated me like I was someone he was going to help. He let me tell my story and he listened.”

“He’s a good doctor and a good man. I wouldn’t take you to him if I didn’t have confidence in him.”

“You don’t sound too happy about the religious involvement in a disease. You aren’t religious at all?”

“I was raised a Roman Catholic.”

“Raised, as in past tense?”

“I didn’t know I was that transparent,” Dury said. “You keep surprising me, Keith. You may have only gone to school until you were sixteen, but you have more sense than a lot of people who graduated college.”

“You pretty much indicated religion has no place in medical matters,” Keith said. “I read that as a limited indictment of a specific religious group who injected themselves into the response to AIDS.”

“You got all that out of what I just said?”

“You told me about your sister-in-law on the square the day we met. You’ve made references to how unnecessary her death was and you knew who to blame.”

“I better be careful what I say around you. I don’t want to mislead you or say things that aren’t perfectly clear. While my anger over Brenda dying, while this fat self-righteous preacher condemned her as a victim of god’s wrath. No matter how ill informed he was, he was a serious impediment to the study and treatment of AIDS, while people like Brenda were dying horrific deaths.”

“I understand that. You were raised Catholic. There is a finality in that I couldn’t miss. I don’t recall it being in anything else you said before. I don’t mean to pry.”

Dury shook his head at how quick Keith picked up on tiny clues that told far more than Dury intended to reveal.

“I went to church all the time. I prayed for Brenda. It wasn’t my religion that put the roadblock in the way of helping people with AIDS. I didn’t miss the fact she died in spite of my prayers. I lived with that knowledge. I lived with the silence that allowed her and a lot of others to die.

“I prayed every day for Brenda. She died anyway. Then my daughter was killed in an automobile accident. I prayed for her every day. The answer to my prayers was my mother’s death before Cindy was cold. God and I were on the outs and Beverly died a year later. She was sick most of that time. It was cancer. They’d caught it too late.

“I got off my knees as my wife slipped away. If there’s a god, he isn’t listening to my prayers. If there is a god, he’ll have to make it without me from now on. We’re on our own and we best face that fact,” Dury said with all the eloquence of a courtroom attorney.

“I believe you,” Keith said, feeling more emotion coming from Dury than he’d seen in any man he’d known. Everything that Dury said was intensely personal but he’d answered Keith’s question.

“I guess I got too close to the flame for too long. It burnt me out. I figure out what’s right for me, and I leave it at that. I trust my judgment. I don’t need some spook in the sky telling me what to believe. You aren’t religious at all?”

“Nah. My mother went to church. My father wouldn’t be caught dead in a church. I favored my father on that one. I stopped believing in Santa and the Easter Bunny when I was five. Fantasy wasn’t my bag. It was too difficult to stay anchored to reality as it was. I didn’t need to be listening to hear if someone out there was talking to me.

“I wandered a lot. I’d just go out and I’d end up wandering miles from where I lived. I was seven or eight and I loved to move. My house was no place for a kid. I liked being outside. I love the outdoors.”

“You’re an only child?” Dury asked.

“Yes. I think my parents only screwed once and they were pissed to get the booby prize right off the bat. They fed me and sent me to school, but there was no love. Why they stayed married, I didn’t get it. They yelled at each other on a daily basis. I had to go to school to find out that’s not how everyone talked to each other.

“They served no purpose. They got up and went to work and came home and yelled at each other. Then they yelled at me. They didn’t beat me any more than usual, I guess. I deserved a good swat from time to time. I could do some dumb stuff. A swat could wake me up sometimes.”

“Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun,” Dury said.

“Was your childhood fun?” Keith asked.

“My childhood was fun. My parents adored me. I was the smartest kid in the world. That was their opinion. They worked at making me happy. Their needs were secondary to my needs. Whatever I wanted, I got. I went to a private school until I was twelve. They put me in public school so I’d have that experience. I’d be around people who weren’t all Catholic. It was all cool.

“I went to St. Albans after that. It’s probably still one of the best schools around. It’s where I leaned about the world in which I lived. I was old enough to appreciate that there were a lot of different people and places.

“I graduated a year early and my grades got me into Georgetown. It’s another Catholic school. I was going to be a lawyer and I lived in a town of lawyers.”

“Sounds nice,” Keith said. “I can tell you liked it. I guess we aren’t all supposed to grow up like you did.”

“I was pretty quick on my feet. Learning was never much of a challenge. All I had to do was read something once, and I could recall most of it. Teachers loved me and I liked school. I knew I wanted to be an attorney, but I wasn’t all that clear on why that sounded like what I wanted.

“I knew I wanted to be a cook the first place I stopped for food after running away from home. The owner fed me and put me to work. At first I washed dishes and stirred stuff she had on the stove, so she could get the days food ready for the customers. I liked it. I began watching her cook. I memorized it so I could cook it if she ever asked.

“She’d let me taste everything for her. Man she could cook. When she told me I could cook something if I wanted, I cooked one of the dishes I watched her cook all the time. She was more than a little surprised I could learn from watching her. We got along pretty well and she never yelled at me. I think she liked me. I liked her.

“Speaking of cooking, There’s a Cracker Barrel. Do you like Cracker Barrel?”

“Don’t know. Never ate at one. If you say it’s good, I believe you. After all, you like my cooking,” Keith said with a smile.

Dury guided the car off the ramp and turned into the Cracker Barrel parking lot.

It was crowded but the line moved fast and the food was good.

Chapter 5

Rattle Those Pots and Pans

Thursday morning Lucille was busy cleaning every surface in the kitchen.

Keith went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and Dury stopped in his office first.

“Good morning,” Keith said. “I’m Keith and you are Lucille.”

Keith spoke in a friendly voice, still buoyed by his successful doctor’s visit.

Lucille’s eyes narrowed on him as he poured two cups of coffee.

“I was wondering who I was. I know why I’m here,” she said suspicion in her voice.

“Morning, Lucille. I see you two have met,” Dury said, picking up the coffee cup Keith put in front of his chair.

“Uh huh,” Lucille said, going back to her cleaning, muttering to herself.

“I go into the office this morning. You can come along if you like, Keith. We’ll see what Leo has to offer today. I had his pastrami once; pure New York City.”

“I make a wicked chicken and dumplings. I was thinking that would be a nice change of pace if you enjoy chicken. Guaranteed to melt in your mouth.”

Lucille’s mouth hung open with the mere mention of the new man cooking for Dury.

“I been trying to get that man to eat for years,” Lucille said under her breath.

“You can come along. We’ll stop by the grocer on our way home for what you’ll need,” Dury said. “We’ll get out of Lucille’s way.”

“You ain’t never been in my way,” Lucille said. “You suit yourself, but you better get yourself some of indigestion while you’re at it.”

Lucille leaned back into the oven with her soapy cloth in time for the word indigestion to belch out of the hollow space.

“Be nice, Lucille. Keith will be staying with me for a while. He made the most delicious lasagna. I’m sure there’s enough in the fridge for you to have it for lunch.”

“Yes, there’s plenty for you to lunch on it. There are a couple of pieces of garlic bread wrapped up on top of the dish the lasagna is in,” Keith said.

“Oops! I forgot to write something down. I’ll be back in a minute. We’ll finish our coffee and go,” Dury said, heading out of the kitchen.

“Where you from?” Lucille’s suspicious voice demanded, after she stood up from her oven cleaning to look him in the eyes.

“North Carolina. I’ve been all over,” Keith said, still trying to sound upbeat.

“You look like you been all over, and you don’t sound like you’re from North Carolina. Mr. Dury tell you that’s where I’m from?”

“No ma’am. He mentioned his maid was Lucille. That’s all I know. I’m just here for a couple of days,” Keith said.

“Uh huh,” Lucille said. “You better not be pulling no funny business on Mr. Dury. He’s a nice man. You’ll be minding your manners you know what’s good for you.”

Dury came in putting his suit coat on. He picked up the cup of coffee and drank what was left.

“That was very good coffee, Lucille,” Keith said, finishing his coffee, not giving into Lucille’s suspicion.

“Yes, it was, Lucille. I guess I don’t say that enough. Everything you do is done well and I know how lucky I am to have you.”

“You feeling all right, Mr. Dury? You don’t need to be telling me that. I’m here because I was here before Miss Beverly passed and I wasn’t leaving you without help. You pay me fine. You treat me fine. You don’t have to go thanking me for doing my job.”

“Yes, I do, Lucile. I have to thank you because you deserve to be thanked. I’m lucky to have you.”

“Well, thank you for thanking me,” Lucille said.

“Keith, let’s get rolling. We’ll be back in a few hours. Think about that lasagna. I can guarantee you, you won’t be disappointed.”

“Uh huh,” Lucille said as the two men headed for the garage.

*****

“Lasagna and chicken and dumplings aren’t exactly from the same menu,” Dury said, after Keith had begun preparations, putting everything they bought out on the island counter.

“Southern cooking was what I learned first. There’s a story behind my chicken and dumplings. I never write recipes down. When I first left home, my first ride set me off in the back country. I was almost ready to go home after I waited another hour for a car to come by.

“That man set me off across the street from a rather old restaurant. Being hungry, I went to the back of the place and knocked. A big old black woman came to the door.”

“’What can I do for you?’ she asked, holding a spatula in her hand.

“I’m looking for a job in a restaurant. I’ll wash dishes, bus tables, cook if you need me to,” I told her. “I was bold as brass, but I was hungry.

“’Come on in here,’” she said, sizing me up as I stood in her kitchen. “’You know how to stir?’ she asked.

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

“’You stir this here pot. I’ll get you something to eat. You are frightfully skinny, boy.’

“I stirred and then I did dishes, after clearing tables that were in the front of an old wooden counter that sat in the middle of the room with no real reason for it to be there. It’s where she collected money for the meals.”

“’Come over here and sit,” she said, after a time. She pushed a plate of chicken and dumplings in front of me with two huge wedges of corn bread swimming in butter. This is her chicken and dumplings,” Keith said, looking to see if Dury was at all interested. “As close as I can come to it.”

“There must be more to it than that, Keith. I’ve eaten a lot of food in my time, but I never knew how to recreate any of it,” Dury said. “You don’t write it down?”

“No, I learned by eye. I watched everything she did and what went into a dish and when to put it in.”

“You must have quite a memory,” Dury said.

“She hired me. I watched her like a hawk. She could make a pot of collards taste like the best food you ever ate. I don’t know how she did what she did to get that kind of flavor out of food, but I wanted to learn. Especially I watched her every time she made chicken and dumplings, each Thursday and sometimes on Sunday.”

“She taught you how to cook?” Dury asked.

“Not so much that. She’d get the stuff ready and I’d do the stirring and pot watching. She’d know right when something was done, and she was never wrong. At first I was only in the back of the place, saving her from walking back there to tend to the things that were cooking. She might have a dozen different things cooking. She’d say, ‘turn them beans down, Keith, and turn off the kale.’

“I didn’t see the customers. I’d hear them talking and laughing, but I was always busy. That suited me fine, but one day she was feeling poorly. She told me to collect the money at that counter.

“All she had was an old cigar box with loose change and a lot of ones in it. She carried it home every night. She’d tell me what to collect, and I collected it. I knew my math pretty well, but she knew the change faster than I did. Some folks would say they’d pay next week on payday, and she’d say it was okay.

“As good as that food was, it never cost more than a buck to eat there. I never saw her in a new dress or wearing new shoes. She wore two flowered aprons over whatever old housedress she wore to work. She’d pick an apron each morning when she started cooking.

“About a week after the day I collected the money, this old bent black man came into the place. ‘Henrietta, someone told me you got yourself a white boy working down here. I told him he was crazy as a June bug. He said I should look for myself. Sho’ ‘nough, you got yourself a white boy back there. I don’t believe it.’

“She was sitting up in a chair beside the counter. She looked at me kind of funny like. She says, ‘I’ll be damn. He is white. Boy, why didn’t you tell me you was white?’”

“The subject never came up,” I said, playing along, as that black man looked right at me.

“Everyone cracked up. I guess I’d been working there six months by than. I don’t recall another mention of what race anyone was but that once. We were just people to me. I’d never been happier.”

“Henrietta began to sit a lot more after a time. She trusted me a lot more with the food. Always making sure I was doing right but letting me do things without her standing there to be sure. I had most of it memorized after a year.

“You talking about Henrietta George?” Lucille asked from just inside the kitchen, where she stood listening to every word Keith said. “Where was this restaurant where you worked for that black woman?”

“Tarboro. Just outside Tarboro. It was the colored section. That’s what Henrietta called it.”

“You were the white boy working at Rattles?” Lucille asked.

“That was me. ‘Rattle those Pots and Pans was how Henrietta woke me up each morning. I slept in her storage room. She brought me a quilt and pillow. It was the only level spot in the entire place. People didn’t come there for the architecture.”

“I moved to Tarboro over twenty-five years ago. I kept house for the mayor and his wife. Nice folks. I ate at Rattles from time to time. I saw that white boy in Henrietta’s kitchen. That was you?”

“That was me. I don’t suppose there were other white boys working for her. I’m a little older than that now.”

Lucille looked at Keith closely before admitting, “You could be that boy. You got taller too,” she said. “You ain’t as pudgy either.”

“I was still growing at the time. That was my first job. I didn’t even need to make up stuff about what I could do. She wanted a hand right that minute, and I was it. Nice lady. She treated me better than my folks treated me.

“I’ve never known anyone who could make food taste the way she did,” Keith said. “I can duplicate her dishes but I can’t make them taste like she did.”

“Like her son?” Lucille said as she considered it a memory she had of that time.

“I’d say she treated me like I was her son. She didn’t take me home with her, but I was white. That kind of thing could get a lot of folks in trouble in those days. Maybe I just felt like she treated me that way, because I wanted to believe it,” Keith said, not certain what Lucille was saying.

“People said Henrietta had one son, Kenneth. He was lynched when he was seventeen. Henrietta had no use for white folks, especially white men. I was told that before I went there to eat the first time. Then I hear she has a white boy working for her,” Lucille said in careful words.

“Her son was taken from her. Another boy about the same age knocks on her door. A good woman would want to see any boy her son’s age got better than her son got,” Dury said. “I’d say Keith may have been more like a son to her than anyone ever knew.”

“She never once raised her voice to me,” Keith said. “If I spilled something or made a mess, she’d go right to straightening it out. Never fussed. She always wanted to know if I was comfortable and sleeping okay. Boy did I gain some weight working there,” Keith said. “I was fat as a tick.”

“She sure surprised everyone in Tarboro. I guess she was finally able to forgive what they did to her boy. Maybe in a way you were a gift to her sent at the time she needed you,” Lucille said.

“No one ever told me that,” Keith said. “Lynched that nice ladies son? That’s terrible,” Keith said, processing the new information about the woman who hired him.

“It’s what went on down here,” Dury said. “Black men were the target of white men who wanted to put fear into black people to keep them with their own and afraid to go where white people went.”

“That would do it,” Keith said, still surprised.

“I never knew it in my day,” Lucille said. “I was always given respect. I knew about the old days. You learned those things from your mama before you turned ten. ‘Be careful around white folks. Don’t look one in the eye. Nothing to see there. Just be respectful and scarce if you know what’s good for you.’”

“Why do that? All the people who ate at Henrietta’s were regular people. It didn’t matter what color anyone was. Don’t make sense to me?”

“None at all. People do stuff because they can, Keith.”

“Makes me sick at my stomach thinking of what that woman went through,” Keith said. “She never told me.”

“I never saw it. Henrietta was the only one I knew of who’d had a relative lynched, but people talked about it in whispers in Tarboro. No one came right out and confronted anyone with the way things were once. We were better off to leave it alone.”

“I’m glad I didn’t know it then. It would have changed the way I saw her.”

“Will you let me have a taste when it’s done?” Lucille asked. “The chicken and dumplings?”

“It’ll need to simmer a couple of hours before I put the dumplings in, but sure, I’ll let you taste it. I’ll fix you a bowl. Now it isn’t exactly like Henrietta’s, but it’s gotten closer over the years.”

Dury sat listening, always being surprised at how small the world really was. What Dury knew was that the kitchen was filled with a wonderful smell. It had been a long time since he looked forward to eating at home. Keith had been able to wake up his appetite and he looked forward to each meal Keith prepared.

Lucille finished dusting and vacuuming the other side of the house. Before she was ready to leave, Keith put a bowl with chicken and dumplings on the table for two, placing a napkin, spoon, and fork for Lucille to use.

Lucille picked up the bowl and brought it up to her nose. She closed her eyes and smelled as if she was inhaling a fine perfume. She picked up the silverware and put it on the center counter by a stool she sat on when she ate. She dug into the depths of the bowl, savoring the steaming spoonful, digging into the bowl once more, as Keith anticipated her reaction.

“I can see Henrietta sitting in her rocking chair behind the counter. I can taste her in this food. It’s not exactly like hers, but Henrietta is in here all right. It’s quite good even if it isn’t exactly like hers. You were that white boy.”

“I was afraid I might be deluding myself, daring to think I could ever do to food what she could do,” Keith said.

“It doesn’t seem possible we’d end up in the same kitchen all these years later,” Lucille said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“I’ve been all over, Lucille. I just started out in North Carolina. I cooked in Wilson after Tarboro. After Wilson I caught a ride with an eighteen wheeler and I cooked at the 76 truck stop outside of Atlanta. I cooked in Athens and Waycross in Georgia. I’ve been all over. I’ve watched a lot of cooks cook. None did I watch more closely than Henrietta. She taught me what it meant to cook.”

Later, after Lucille finished her final chores, she came back into the kitchen to speak to Keith.

“Do you want to take some with you for later?” Keith asked.

“No, but I’d like the recipe for the lasagna. I’m sure my husband will enjoy it. It was delicious,” she said. “I didn’t know where you came from earlier. I spoke out of turn. Now that I know who you are, I’m embarrassed by my conduct.”

“You were looking after Dury’s best interests. Can’t find fault in that, Lucille. He is a fine man and you don’t need to apologize for looking after him.”

Keith jotted down the ingredients for his lasagna and the steps involved. Lucille tucked it into her purse, making eye contact with Keith before she left.

“You sure you aren’t an angel, Keith?”

“Me, I’m no angel,” Keith said. “What makes you say a thing like that?”

“First you’re sent to rescue Henrietta from the work that’s too much for her to do by herself anymore. I haven’t seen Mr. Dury happy since Miss Beverly passed. He’s smiling and talks like he’s happy again. The only thing that’s changed is you’ve come here.”

“Thank you. I worry of being a bother to people. That certainly makes me feel good, Lucille, but I’m no angel.”

Lucille went on her way to wait for her ride home.

Chapter 6

Home Sweet Home

“Keith, I want you to take me to where you were living. I’ll need the address to find the paperwork filled against the tenants by the landlord. First I need to see what we’re talking about in the way of real-estate.

“Rattling the landlord’s cage will be the first move. He thinks he can do anything he wants and I intend to make him aware of the law. If he’s neglecting the property to speed the evictions, I’ll file a complaint to get repairs done.

“I don’t know what is our best move yet, but the landlord doesn’t know what I can do either. He’ll need to hire an attorney if he wants to go toe to toe in court. I have a built in advantage there, my lawyer works cheaper than his lawyer,” Dury said.

“It’s easy to find. Go south on Jackson Highway, and east on St. James.”

Once they turned on St. James, they passed shops along the street that were closed. There was no sign of life. They passed one last block of closed shops after a short stretch with nothing on either side of the street. The street ended where a large brick structure was on the right side.

“This is it,” Keith said. “Let me run in and see if Lisa is still here. She knows all about what’s going on. You’ll like her. She’s a nice lady,” Keith said.

The neglect was obvious. Dirt surrounded the apartment building. It took years to get that way. The new owner would argue, not enough time to improve the property. Dury would insist on improvements being made in a reasonable period of time. The owner would need to start spending money or hire a lawyer to fight. The choice he made would tell Dury what he could do to improve things.

There was one surprise. The building was brick and as old as Dury. While the surroundings had been allowed to decay, the building looked like it was in good condition. It looked level and stood straight and tall. The entire street was in surprisingly good condition for being abandoned for the most part. Dury wondered what the story was.

What was once a thriving Charleston suburb, had fallen on hard times. What would cause an area that provided everything necessary for easy southern living to fail? The question remained on Dury’s mind.

He sat in the car, jotting notes to remind himself of what he’d seen. The revulsion he expected failed to materialize. While he did feel the isolation, Dury wasn’t put off by the location. He could see what St. James Avenue once was. He sensed a vibrant community from not that long ago.

Dury held his cell phone for a minute before pushing the speed-dial. He hadn’t talked to Gary in a while, but he was the natural person to call while Dury took stock of what he’d found on St. James.

“Gary, Dury, what are you up to?”

“Sitting at my kitchen table eating a very nice sandwich Fran fixed for me, Lane. I was wondering last week if you might still be alive somewhere.”

“I am and I’m sitting in front of an apartment building… circa… I’d say late forties, early fifties. It’s off Jackson. Take a left on St. James. Two miles north of the city line. I want you to look at this place.

“Bring your sandwich with you and you can be here in twenty minutes. Take note of what you see after you make the turn on St. James. You aren’t going to believe this place. It’s a developers dream.”

“What’s the hurry if its been there over fifty years? I doubt it’ll go anywhere before I finish my sandwich, Dury.”

“It would be a shame if some other developer got here first,” Dury said.

“What are the odds of that?” Gary asked.

“I think pretty good. Someone has just bought this building. It’s the key to everything else on the block. I think he intends to tear the apartment building down, once he forces the tenants out. It’s how I read it.”

“I’ll be there twenty minutes after I finish this marvelously moist roast beef sandwich. There are some things you can’t rush, Lane. If they start tearing it down before I get there, tell them to wait until I arrive.”

“I’ll find a way to amuse myself. Check out all the vacant businesses on your way down here. It’s like the shop owners all locked up one day and never went back. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’m putting on my jacket as we speak. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Gary said.

Dury was standing in front of his car when Keith came back down the stairs.

“Lisa says her mom died right after I went into the hospital. It was that week they served her with an eviction notice. Her name isn’t on the lease.”

“What a classy thing to do. First I need to know if she’ll talk to me,” Dury said, jotting down more notes.

“I’m sure she will. She hasn’t been working because of caring for her mother. She hasn’t looked for a place to go. She just buried her mother. She doesn’t have any money to go anywhere. They shouldn’t be able to just throw her out,” Keith objected, alarm in his voice. “She’s a nice woman.”

“Let’s not get all worked up, Keith. I’ll need to look at landlord-tenant law. It wasn’t my specialty and I’ll need to refresh my knowledge before I can do anything. There are ways to slow down highhanded landlords and she won’t be moving anytime soon,” Dury said. “Let’s go speak with the woman and I’ll see if I can reassure her.”

“Wow! Thank you, Dury. I guess you didn’t intend to put yourself into the middle of my problems when this all started. Thank you.”

“I intended to do just that, Keith. Quit worrying about me. I don’t do anything I don’t intend to do. Let’s go talk to the woman.”
“Come on. I told her I’d be right back. She knows everyone that lived here. She was the house mother.”

Dury followed Keith inside. They walked up to the second floor and Keith opened the door and Dury followed him inside the apartment.

“Dury, this is my friend Lisa. Lisa, this is Dury.”

“You are a good looking man,” Lisa said.

“Lisa!” Keith interrupted. “That wasn’t for repeating.”

“Well he is. Keith knows a good looking man when he sees one. We go out together to cruise the guys,” Lisa said. “Every time I meet one with possibilities, he looks past me and smiles at Keith. I’m beginning to think everyone is gay.”

Lisa stood up to shake Dury’s hand, seeming to gain strength as she talked.

“He says you might be able to help me. I don’t think I’ve got long in this place. Any help would help. I’ve never been evicted before.”

When she sat back down, she pulled some needlework onto her lap. Her eyes went from Dury to Keith and back to her deftly moving fingers. She spoke at the same time.

“I’m Sorry. I’m a nervous wreck. I have to keep my hands busy or I’ll fall apart. I’m working on this for Tom Tom, Keith. He and Raymond have been really sick. I think it’s the flu. I’ve tried to get a little soup into them,” Lisa said. “They won’t let me call 9-1-1. Can’t afford to run up any bills. It’s no way to treat people because they’re poor. The boys think if they run up hospital bills, no one will rent them an apartment. As sick as they are, they’ve got to worry abut being put out on the street. I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

All the time she spoke her fingers moved faster than Dury thought it was possible to go while carrying on a coherent conversation. Lisa was an amazing woman.

“They have AIDS,” Keith said. “There were a dozen men with AIDS when I moved in here. The old landlord was gay. He encouraged people with AIDS to move over here. He discounted their rent and took them to their doctor’s appointments. He was a nice old man. He had it too,” Keith said. “When the new guy took over, he wanted everyone out. Mr. Corum, the old owner, went into hospice care. I guess he had to sell the place.”

“Keith, that’s not something we talk about,” Lisa said. “The landlord finds out they have AIDS, he’ll quarantine the place and have us all on the street.”

“No he won’t. AIDS isn’t a quarantined disease. I do know the laws concerning AIDS. The fact the other boys are sick means they aren’t likely to be evicted. If there’s no way to stop the evictions, I’ll call Live 5 News and have them out here to film the sick men being put out on the street. Not a landlord in this country wants that publicity. There are ways to slow this guy down. That’s what I came here to do,” Dury explained.

“I’m going down tomorrow to get educated on what the laws are. Then I’ll know what I can do for you.”

“I’ve got it, Lisa. I was diagnosed in the hospital. I have a liver infection that’s connected to AIDS. I’m going to be okay though.”

“Oh, Keith, I’m so sorry,” Lisa said, reaching out to touch Keith’s arm. “I hate hearing that. Why is it good people who get sick?”

“I’ll be okay. I’m feeling better. I saw an AIDS specialist. He says if I take care of myself, I shouldn’t die from it.”

“That’s wonderful to hear.”

“Do you have contact with the men he’s already evicted?” Dury asked.

“I try. They just don’t have anyone who cares what happens to them. I can contact most of them. This was such a friendly place for them. They could help each other.”

“That’s quite lovely,” Dury said, watching Lisa work. “I see you do a lot of different things. Some of it qualifies as art, I’m sure.”

Dury picked up another piece from the back of the sofa. It was alive with a colorful design.

“My wife did similar pieces. Very nice work.”

“Thank you,” Lisa said. “I had a small shop with a woman who paints. I could make a living in Charleston. I gave it up to move here. I didn’t give up working but I gave up selling at the shop.”

“We can talk about you doing some pieces for me. I packed up my wife’s pieces. It was too hard remembering her working pieces for our house. Painful memories. Her mother wanted most of them.”

“Your wife died?” Lisa asked. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, almost ten years now. It’s time I took an interest in the house again. What I need to see right now is your eviction notice, any legal paperwork you’ve received. I’ll get busy and put some obstacles in the way to slow him down.

“Putting Keith’s things out after he went into the hospital can’t be justified,” Dury explained.

“I can’t afford an attorney,” Lisa said.

“We’ll work something out. I just happen to have a little time on my hands and I don’t like seeing people pushed around.”

“It’s very nice of you,” Lisa said. “I can certainly make you some special pieces for your home.”

“I’d like that. Tell your friends someone is on the job. It may make them feel better,” Dury said.
“Keith, I have what I could rescue of your things back in Mama’s room. I couldn’t carry the bigger things but all your papers and smaller personal things are here.”

“Thanks, Lisa, you’re a doll,” Keith said, leaning over to hug her and kiss her cheek.

“I’ll get back to you as quick as I know more,” Dury said.

“You’re a blessing,” Lisa said, as Keith led the way out of her apartment.

*****

“Keith, can you show me the rest of the building?”

“There’s one floor above this one. All three floors are pretty much the same. Single bedrooms on the first floor, two bedrooms on floor two, and three bedroom on the third floor.”

Dury followed Keith as he led the way to the third floor. There was no sign of life and not a sound besides their footsteps. They came downstairs and walked around the first floor and stood on the stairs to the basement, where there were no lights to see the damp remains of what was once a washroom for laundry and a storage area.

Dury was testing the stairs and checking the walls for signs of major deterioration. While the residential building hadn’t been maintained for some time, the neglect hadn’t compromised the solid construction.

When they came outside, Gary was stopped on the next block. He was trying to see in the windows of one of the shops. Gary waved to Dury before getting back into his car and driving the last block.

“What do you think?” Dury asked as Gary was getting out of his car.

“It looks like a movie set from Mad Max or one of those apocalyptic movies. it’s great I want one. How’d you find this place?”

“Keith, this is my friend, Gary. He’s the contractor who built my house. Gary this is my friend, Keith. He keeps me well fed.”

“You have a cook? You eat like a fly, Dury. What are you doing with a cook?”

“Long story. He’s a chef, not a cook, and he’s very good. He once lived here. That’s how I found my way here.”

Keith blushed, being unsure what he was to Dury. Feeling flattered was fine with him. Having a friend was good too.

“What do you think?”

“I know better than to play that game with you, Lane. You called me to come down here. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I only know one contractor-developer. Why do you think I called you?” Dury said, as Cary turned in a circle to get a feel for where he was.

“It’s deserted for a reason Dury. Whatever was here couldn’t sustain itself. While it was nice of the former residents to leave it for someone to discover, what makes you think taking it over is a smart move? Once we have it, what are we going to do with it?”

“As I said, I only know one contractor-developer. I wanted your impressions. Since you already have us developing it, I’ll let you think about that for a while.”

“The last of the shops closed about a year ago. That’s when I was moving here,” Keith said. “Lisa’s mother said there was a bakery, cleaners, grocer, and lots of craft shops.”

“What’s that?” Gary asked. “This place just keeps getting better,” he said, walking the few feet to the end of St. James Avenue’s pavement.

Gary stood staring at a building that had seen its better days. It too was brick and only some seriously thick blocks of glass on the façade were still intact. The rest of the windows had been broken out. Even a few hundred yards away, it was a big structure from the same era as the apartment building.

“A factory,” Keith said. “I’ve walked back there. There are three of those buildings. Nothing identifies what they were. Lisa says the employees once lived in these apartments and they shopped at businesses along St. James. She didn’t know what was made there.”

“Let’s see what we’re looking at,” Gary said.

Sitting in the front seat of his car, flipping open a computer, he typed in his location. He was able to access the city planning and development that went back over fifty years.

“St. James Avenue,” Gary said. “Let’s see what we have here, and they said spending twenty thousand dollars on this gismo was a waste of money. It’ll talk to me if I want but it has an annoying voice.”

Gary read what was on the screen, typed in some more information, and closed the computer after reading the information he found.

“Kurtz Door. They moved the majority of their operation to Cleveland in 1983 and closed this site in 1989. No information concerning the current owners of the Kurtz property. I’d guess the State of South Carolina is holding tax lien on it,” Gary said. “Since Kurtz Door was the reason St. James Avenue existed, once they left St. James went into decline.

“Why call me to see all this, Dury? You’ve got to have something on your mind besides sightseeing the near past ruins of an old Charleston suburb. Give me a hint anyway.”

“Listen,” Dury said, as the three men listened together.

“What?” Gary said. “I don’t hear anything.”

“They’re evicting the people who live in this building. They’re going to tear it down to build townhouses is my guess. You probably know better than I do what they’re after. Maybe build a golf course or a stable?”

Gary listened to Dury, continuing to survey his surroundings. It was a relatively clean open space. Everything Dury mentioned was a possibility. Perhaps a sports complex, a race track, or an indoor arena.

“I came here to keep them from running the current tenants off without a fight. I expected to find a dump. I called you because I wanted your opinion. I think if I start making this guys life miserable, he’ll let go of the idea of throwing these people out of their apartments,” Dury said.

“That’s as far as I’ve gotten at the moment. You’re free to jump in any time you like, Gary. Can we let a bunch of rich folks take over the set of Mad Max?”

“Tear this building down?” Gary said, backing up to look down both sides of the structure. “That’s crazy. Why not tear one of those factory buildings down? Why not level one of those blocks of shops nearer to Jackson Highway?”

“My bet is they don’t own the property the factory building is on,” Dury said. “The key to what they want requires they tear this structure down.”

“Makes more sense to put townhouses up there at the top of Jackson. They don’t make buildings like this anymore. I don’t like the idea of tearing down a perfectly good building. It’s a terrible waste. People are living here?”

“Yes they are. We’re on the scene and I don’t intend to let them throw these people out on the street. Whatever they’ve got in mind, we’re not going to let them do it,” Dury said. “Are we?”

“I can remodel this place. I can build a dozen like it all in a row, but I can’t stop the owners from doing whatever it is they want to do with it, Dury.”

“No, but I can. You come into the picture after I put the brakes on their project. This guy bought the property thinking he was going to make a quick turnover on his investment. There’s no other reason to start throwing people out of their apartments right away. Once he finds out it isn’t quite as easy as he thought, he might sell it to you.”

“Me? I’m supposed to guess what you’re after? Why are you letting this bee loose in my bonnet? I’m retired, you know, Lane. ”

“Legally, all I can tell you is, I’m here to protect the rights of these renters. Right now they’re this guy’s tenants. If we wanted to really be a couple of nice guys, they could be our tenants. I’m just saying.”

“Yes, I get that. What I don’t get is what comes after we… I own this place. I’m not sure how that works.”

“I called you because of what I saw when I came down St. James. It has potential that goes far beyond protecting the rights of these renters. I’d have been satisfied with that, until I saw the layout. This place has possibilities. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it, Gary?”

“Sure but I don’t see a big picture here, Dury. We’re here now. This place is from the past.”

“Let’s start with the premise we aren’t going to let a bunch of rich old guys have all this to themselves?”

“We are rich old guys, Dury. You want to be a knight in shining armor. I’ve seen you in action. I’m a result of your concern for fairness. I’ll follow you to hell and back, but I’d like to know why we’re making the trip.”

“We’ve got more than we’ll ever need, my friend. Why not create something for someone that doesn’t have quite as much as we do? Lord knows we’ve got nothing but time on our hands. What is the rest of your life going to be about? I’ve been trying to answer that question for weeks now. I think I’m standing on the answer.

“I couldn’t build this for three million dollars today. Bricks don’t come cheap, you know, and bricklayers, oh man, do they make the money.” Gary explained, looking down one side of the building to check the angle. “What’s the inside look like, Dury?”

“The apartment I was in had good wooden floors. They could use refinishing. All the staircases are structurally sound as far as I could tell. No holes in the walls. It needs a serious coat of paint, some landscaping. If someone spent the money on this building today, we could come back in fifty years and it would still be standing,” Dury said.

“You can come back in fifty years. I’ve got a feeling I’m busy that day. We’re talking replacing the plumbing. They used metal pipes back when this was built. They may have replaced some of it. Electrical system is outdated. Wiring has to be deteriorated. Those are the two biggest drawbacks.

“Replacing all the window casings would be smart. Beef up the insulation to three times what was originally used. Put in new doors to keep the heat inside in the winter and the heat outside in the summer. One million two hundred fifty thousand for everything, landscaping included, and a nice sidewalk to boot. Those stairs have to go. We could build up the yard and terrace it to allow easier access,” Gary explained, seeing it as he made the plans in his head.

“See why he’s my contractor?” Dury said to Keith. “You de man, Gary. That’s exactly what we’ll do.”

“Are you really going to do all that?” Keith asked.

Dury turned and stood looking at the ruins of the door factory. He was seeing the possibilities Gary opened the door to.

“Oh, no. You don’t even want to go into the door business. It would make the question of where to get our doors a no brainer,” Gary said.

“Not today, but one day, when I have some idea how long it’ll take to get ownership of this building, go look that building over. Let’s see what we have there. That’s an interesting looking building. I bet a decent contractor could make something out of it.”

“It’s a wreck, Dury. That would have to come down,” Gary said. “It’s been sitting vacant for thirty years. It’s decaying out in the elements.”

“No one promised you a rose garden, Gary. Just look.”

Gary’s attention shifted back to the ruined structure.

“I bet it was built the same time as this building. If my hunch is right, the same builder probably built both of them. I’ll look it over and see what we can do with it. We’d have to get ownership of the Kurtz property to get the access I’ll need.”

“Okay, we’ve got plenty to do. Put your finances together so once we know who the owner is, we can give him something to think about.”

“Not bad for two old retired guys. Everyone needs a hobby after they retire,” Gary said. “Spending money is kind of a hobby. Why am I the one getting to spend the money?”

“Wouldn’t be ethical to have a business interest in the property while I’m fighting the eviction of my clients. You’ll buy it and we’ll work out how you approached me for legal advice and we’ll end up creating a partnership. That sounds legal, doesn’t it?”

“In my opinion it does. If it sounds good to you it sounds good to me,” Gary said. “Do you know what’s back there, Keith.”

“Three buildings all the same. I’d say they are a quarter of a mile apart. It’s a lot of property. On the other side of the depression beside the first building is a forest that runs east for maybe three or four miles. I’ve walked all of it. It’s a peaceful place and perfect for a relaxing walk.”

“Three of those puppies,” Gary said. “This must have been quite a place once.”

“Might be quite a place again one day,” Dury said.

Chapter 7

Reach and Grasp

Dury and Gary traded phone calls until Saturday, when Gary came to Dury’s for dinner, conversation, and a planning session. They’d both covered a lot of ground that week. Each had covered it in an entirely different area. They were going to put the pieces together and figure out how to proceed.

Dury and Gary worked together twice previously over the twenty-five years they’d known one another. Dury represented Gary’s construction company from an unscrupulous partner who was of the belief that, if you put something down you’re throwing it away.

Dury pointed out, ‘Not clutching something tightly to your breast doesn’t mean you’re giving up title to it to an opportunist. Mr. Milton built his company from scratch over the years and Mr. Winston came along and thought it was a nice company, so he stole it.’

The judge looked over the papers Mr. Winston testified Mr. Milton signed, giving him ownership of Gary Milton Enterprise, advising Mr. Winton, “You might want to consider talking to Mr. Milton’s attorney in private. I’m not absolutely sure these documents prove your ownership in this case. One would ask oneself, Why would a man, Gary Milton, build a company over a decade and then walk away from it without so much as a parting gift?’

“’I’d hate to send these documents to my forensic expert for authentication and have him tell me the signatures are funny or that the signatures on these papers don’t belong on these papers, but have been transferred off of some other document to achieve a fraudulent outcome. I must admit that’s something I’d frown upon, even treat harshly. Under those circumstances, you’d have better luck dealing with Mr. Lane in my opinion.”’

“’Let’s take a morning recess and you go talk to Mr. Lane. If you can come to some arrangement that satisfies everyone, I’ll be grateful. We’ll take that recess now.’

“’Oh Mr. Lane, report any progress to me. Mr. Walden, I’d let my client do all the talking if I were you. Look pleasant and smile. We might get out of here at a decent hour today. This court is now in recess.’”

In private negotiations separate from the court action, but very much connected to it, Dury told Mr. Winston, ‘If I don’t go after your license, which is warranted, you’ll need to put a substantial offer on the table that enhances the value of Mr. Milton’s company. You’ve done him serious financial harm. He was forced to hire a very expensive lawyer in order to prevail. Since the judge has just called you a crook, I’d give up any claim to Gary Milton Enterprise and we’ll move right to your license.’

Even Dury was surprised by the sixty prime acres of property Mr. Winston signed over to Gary. It was far more than Dury knew he had from his investigator’s report. It put a smile on Gary’s face. Having a few million dollars to play with, he immediately went to work on building Plantation Heights on thirty acres, after selling the other thirty acres. His struggles as a young contractor were over. Gary was far more cautious about who he associated with, but he could afford to be.

Gary knew the difference Dury made in his life and thank you wasn’t going to do it. He immediately began planning to build Dury the house of his dreams in the same development where he was building his own house, planning another dozen houses to go in around them.

Dury almost never associated with a client, once the case was closed. Building a house together required quite a bit of communication. Both men believed in fairness and both believed you couldn’t put a value on friendship or trust, while building a trust that had endured.

The two men hadn’t worked together on anything since Gary built Dury’s house, but they stayed close friends until Beverly died. Dury became increasingly more withdrawn after that, devoting himself to his work, which gave him little time for reminiscing or for friends.

During that period, Gary made all the calls to Dury. Dury never returned one, but that didn’t put Gary off. He wanted Dury to know he was there if he needed him. Until now, Dury hadn’t needed anyone.

In less than a week Dury’s life took root again. He’d found joy in wanting to help someone. Out of that joy came purpose. When he reached for his phone, he wanted Gary on the other end, and in a half an hour they were standing together looking at the future.

Neither knew what the future was, but they knew they would build it together. It was the least they could do.

*****

Keith was working on a lamb roast for dinner. Dury was having a martini, when Gary came in to get down to business.

“Went to the address where those eviction notices originated. I figured it might be a holding company. I have no idea where the legal documents go from there,” Gary said. “There’s no way to uncover the owner’s name. Much business is done undercover these days.”

“The court papers will go to that address,” Dury said. “They’ll notify whoever the owner is. They want ignore court papers.”

“The guy behind the desk was a classic enforcer type. Silver hair and a big cigar clinched between his teeth. He had to buzz me in after I identified myself. He looked at me like I was some hound that just pissed on his leg.

“I told him I’d seen the property on St. James. Being in the business of refurbishing buildings from that era, I looked up the owner at the records building in town. He looked at me like I was trying to put the pinch on him, and me in my best dress tee-shirt. I even wore my cowboy boots for authenticity.”

“Nice touch. Dress the part,” Dury said with admiration. “I wouldn’t have thought of that. That’s why you handle the real-estate end of the world.”

“You could have played my part, Dury, but I don’t think you own a tee-shirt, do you? I look good in a tee-shirt. Shows off my most excellent physique. It’s effective with leather heads. Anyway, I handed him my business card. Says remodeling right on it. He said, ‘read the phone number out loud.’

“I gave him my business number. It rings at my number at the house. He wrote it in inch high block numbers on the ink blotter on his desk.”

“Efficient!” Dury said. “No silly cards to loose.”

“I worried about him losing the ink blotter,” Gary said. “I didn’t stand at the door to listen, but I’m sure he was on the phone as soon as I closed the door behind me. I didn’t see a camera, but a good front company wouldn’t put it where you could see it. He probably made sure I left before he picked up the phone.”

“Did he show any obvious interest?” Dury asked.

“No. If there’s interest I’ll hear back,” Gary concluded.

“Once they know the evictions are being contested, they’ll be looking at their options. They’ll want to keep any unexpected legal costs to a minimum. We’re about to see how serious they are about whatever plans they have for the St. James property,” Dury said.

“If they go ahead with the evictions, I’ll have Live 5 News filming sick men being thrown out on the street. That’ll put a crimp in their style. Hardball gets rough at times.”

“As well as a woman who just buried her mother,” Keith said. “Lisa is just the woman to tell her story.”

“I got that impression. I liked her. Putting her in front of a camera might be one of our better moves if we need to go public.”

“You do play hardball, Lane,” Gary said.

“I learned a long time ago, being a nice guy doesn’t pay off when you’re dealing with sharks. The best policy in such a case, cost them a lot of time and money. Lawyers are uniquely qualified to do that,” Dury explained. “I learned that at Columbia Law School.”

“You want me to serve you in the dining room?” Keith asked.

“Good grief, Keith, tell us what to grab and we’ll take it to the table. Set up three places. You’re my guest. You’re nice enough to cook for us. You eat at the table with us and we’ll help where we can. Just don’t expect much there.

“Besides, you’re the man we’re going to bounce this stuff off of. Gary and I come from the business end of the world. You can give us the kind of perspective we don’t have. I’m depending on you for that.”

“What’s on the menu, Keith?” Gary asked.

“Roasted lamb, asparagus, grilled potatoes, lightly glazed carrots, and green beans with mushrooms. Banana pudding for dessert,” Keith told him. “Most people don’t make it to dessert.”

“Is that the one with vanilla wafers?” Gary asked.

“That’s the one,” Keith said. “I fix it with rum.”

“I haven’t had banana pudding since I was a kid, and I can assure you it wasn’t made with rum,” Gary said.

“The boy can cook, Gary. I look forward to dinner every night these days. It’s been years since I’ve had an appetite,” Dury said. “Keith has changed my life.”

“Not to mention your waistline,” Gary joked.

Keith carved the lamb, loading their plates as they passed the bowls to get what they wanted of the vegetables. The smell was awesome and the food got all the attention.

“The rolls still have a couple of minutes. They’ll go nice with the lamb. I’ve got a nice gravy cooling,” Keith said, going to get the rest of the meal before he could relax.

“Where’d you find Keith?” Gary asked.

“In the square across from work…. I mean my old offices.”

“He’s a keeper. This lamb melts in your mouth. My wife can’t make lamb taste like this,” Gary said.

“This is delicious,” Dury said.

“I wouldn’t mention that reaction to Fran,” Dury said.

“You kidding me. She can kick my ass. I do nothing to rile up my woman. I know who the boss is at my house,” Gary said. “You need to hire this guy. I can come to dinner a lot if you like. Fran likes to order from restaurants that deliver to the house. Not that I’m complaining, but this is some delicious food.”

“Keith and I haven’t figured out our arrangement yet. He was evicted from the St. James location. That’s how I ended up over there in the first place. That landlord threw his stuff out on the curb, after he went into the hospital.”

“I really want to get these guys,” Gary said, taking more lamb from the serving platter.

“It all began with me thinking I could recover some money to repay Keith for what was lost. There’s a storage room where his things could have been stored. There are only thirty empty apartments. Throwing his things out was a malicious act that wasn’t necessary.”

“If I ever sounded like I thought we ought to be fair to the owner of the apartment building, I don’t want that. I want to take it away from them.”

“We can’t lose our heads. We go after someone and we’re liable to lose our way. I’m starting to get a feel for what we can do there. I don’t want any loose ends coming back to haunt us.”

“That’s why you’re the lawyer and I’m the contractor. We don’t mind it getting rough when it’s necessary, but you’re right, we want to be the ones who always do the right thing, even if the present owner is an asshole. We’re going to build something on hope and dreams.”

“I didn’t know you were a poet. You make a good partner, partner,” Dury said. “All this started with me meeting Keith.”

“He looks like a regular guy,” Gary said. “I’d never expect him to fix food that tastes like this.”

“He was such a pleasant fellow, considering his circumstances, I couldn’t leave him in at the square. He told me about the places he’d cooked. I asked him to come home to cook for me. It’s the only way I could get him to let me help him.”

Keith returned with the rolls and gravy and served them to Dury and Gary before he sat across from Gary at the top of the table.

“Oh yeah, the depression beside building one, it runs down past building two, it was a lake,” Gary said. “I don’t know how it figures into your plans, but it would be easy to plug up the hole Kurtz Door put there to drain it. The lake come back after a year or two of normal rainfall. It would be below the buildings and cover the area east over to the forest.”

“That’s interesting. Who owns the Kurtz property?”

“One point seven million dollar tax lien holds the property. That sum will buy some lucky owner all sixty-five acres along with three derelict buildings. The property is worth that much but bringing those buildings down will cost an arm and a leg if it’s done the legal way. Being brick, I doubt they’ll be falling down anytime soon.”

“We won’t bring them down then. You’ll make something out of them. Look them over when you have the time. Wee what you think. The owner is the state of South Carolina,” Dury said. “Interesting. After all these years, Kurtz wouldn’t have any say in the disposition of the property. There may no longer be a Kurtz Door.”

“It’s an interesting price,” Gary said. “It would inhibit the buyer from spending a lot of money on it. Hard to get value back once you’ve started with a big deficit.”

“Except it isn’t done that way with a tax lien. All the state boys want is some income. I’ll contact them and offer to take the property off their hands and start paying property taxes on it. I’ll tease them with a promise of developing the property soon.

“As depressed as the market is, they might go for it. Depending on how that negotiation goes, we just might get title to that property at little cost.

“We need to secure the apartment building first. The Kurtz property is gravy. If we’re going on a hope and a dream, we can dream the Kurtz property will wake up some ideas to create something we haven’t even imagined yet,” Dury said.

“Speaking of gravy, you don’t mind if I have a little bit of that, do you?” Gary asked.

“Oh, I was afraid someone would eat it all. Help yourself,” Dury said, handing Gary the gravy boat.

“There’s plenty more in the kitchen. Eat up. I can keep it coming for a while,” Keith said.

“Yeah, I know what you’re doing. No wonder no one can eat your banana pudding after you stuff them with two or three pounds of lamb with side dishes. More potatoes, please. I can use gravy on those potatoes. Maybe a little more asparagus,” Gary said.

“I prepared plenty,” Keith said.

“Great!” Gary said, emptying the asparagus bowl onto his plate.

Dury laughed and shook his head. Keith took the gravy boat and empty asparagus dish back to the kitchen for refills.

“I’ve asked you this before and you didn’t have a solid answer. Tell me if I’m repeating myself. We want all of St. James?”

“I admire a man who knows what he wants, Gary. Why didn’t I think of that?” Dury said smiling. “Yes and no.

“We need to wait to see what shakes loose on the apartments, but go ahead and take a peek at who owns all those shops if you like. They’re in surprisingly good shape. Just sitting there taking up space they aren’t worth anything, but find a way to fill them up, and they become a center for residents of St. James.”

“If we can get the apartments, I’ll move on the Kurtz property immediately. That would be a big bite of the future, Gary, but if we can get all the shops by offering the owners money they don’t expect to get, we control commerce on St. James. We can keep it people friendly and assure no one can get in to jack up prices to feed off of the residents who will shop there.”

“Glad you mentioned them. Who are they? How do we get people to come to an apartment building with nothing around it? It’s two miles down to the apartments from Jackson. The bus no longer goes down St. James.”

“We will attract the people who used to live there. We’ll find a way to identify the people who could most benefit from a community of friends and allies. It’s a little early to be reaching out to the elderly, the disabled, and military veterans who need a friendly caring environment. We’ll want people who want and need to depend on the people around them,” Dury said.

“I like that. How do we assure we don’t end up with… assholes?”

“We’ll form a foundation that looks at perspective residents. The ones who are on some kind of supplemental income will get special rates. The same will be true of the disabled or military disabled vets. Because we’ll subsidize rents, we’ll be able to be selective.”

“Lisa,” Keith said. “She is dynamite with people. She’d make a good person to identify who needs what and get the right people together. She can draw anyone out of their shell.”

“We make quite a team,” Dury said. “I like that. I didn’t know how we’d do it. I can set up the foundation to get it to do whatever we need it to do. Whatever we do will be owned and controlled by the foundation. In this economy and with so many people in need of some kind of assistance, we won’t have any difficulty filling up that apartment building, starting with the folks already evicted. Then we’ve got to start planning to build a residential model that’ll house the heart of the people who will live there.”

“I just happen to know the guy that could build you anything you want built,” Gary said.

“Hold your horses. This is all speculative until we know how much of St. James we can control. Patience will come in handy here. That doesn’t mean we can’t plan, change the plans, and make new ones to fit the situation.

“Nothing we do will be written in stone. If either of you have ideas, we’ll put them in the hopper, while we’re still early in the process.

“What I’m seeing is a self-sustaining residential community complete with all the services and shops that make easy, pleasant living possible for the resident, who will interact and help one another as part of the social compact we’ll promote.”

“That’s a bit idealistic, isn’t it? Do you think people will sign on for it?” Gary asked.

“I’ve seen it done on a lot larger scale than I’m talking about here. People will help one another if we provide the right setting for it. During the AIDS crisis, when I was trying to get Brenda to the right doctors, I was fascinated by what the gay people did, once they realized they were on their own and no help was coming.”

“On their own?” Gary asked. “How did that work? I don’t remember hearing that much about AIDS at all.”

“It worked with the silence of a nation as the background music for the dying. We’re not talking random dying, we’re talking tens of thousands of deaths in a very specific small group of people. While a disease can’t be accused of genocide, the silent majority might be.

“I didn’t suddenly become well versed on the subject of AIDS, because for the longest time, and this includes while my sister-in-law was sick, the word AIDS couldn’t be spoken if you knew what was good for you.

“Our most vocal media, opinionated on everything, didn’t know AIDS was killing people. They thought it just killed the gay. Once we’d identified what was making Brenda sick, I had to dig out information on AIDS from medical magazines and papers published on the subject. “We knew immediately, after Brenda was diagnosed, AIDS was not a gay disease, but facts couldn’t disrupt the delight preachers took over dying gay men.

“Brenda died in 1988. The cause of death was listed as pneumonia. We didn’t want AIDS written on the death certificate.

“It was cowardly and wrong, but many people were buried with the cause of death listed as something other than AIDS. It was a common practice in the darkness of AIDS being a gay disease and gays were being demonized at every opportunity.

“It turned out that my best source of information became a magazine called The Advocate. It was from that publication that I learned about gay people. I had to go to a gay bookstore in Charleston to obtain a copy every two weeks.

“The first thing I learned was that a man fell ill with AIDS and by the time he was buried his lover was ill. When their friends buried the lover, all the friends were sick, and they died in short order. It’s the way it was in New York City and Los Angeles in the first years. Most of the leadership in the gay movement died in the first year or two.

“Then there was the lone man in a group who did not get sick and he did not die, but he’d done all the same things his dead friends did. It was the first proof that AIDS wasn’t always deadly. They suspected poppers and speed. Almost anything that was routinely used by gay men became suspect in expediting illness and death.

“It was always a virus. It was always in the blood and the semen, but it took years to know and prove. Anal sex was often the entry point for the virus, but always for the man receiving, seldom for the man giving.

“It was in saliva, tears, and urine, and the panic was on. ‘Don’t shake hands.’

“Yes the virus was present in body fluids, but not in the quantity it would take to pass the disease casually. A condom could protect from passing the virus. It was all very mysterious and took a long time to sort out. When no one cares, the wheels turn slowly.

“While I was reading to learn all I could about AIDS, Beverly was taking care of Brenda. She discovered a kitchen and a laundry that would help Brenda, even though she wasn’t gay. The services were created and staffed mostly by gay men and women at first. Beverly began giving hours each week to help out in both, when she wasn’t delivering food to mostly men with AIDS.

“She’d tell me about what she was doing, when she got home. I only half listened, thinking my approach was far more important than actually helping people.

“I’ve never been the social type. I was fine in school and in routine gatherings that had a script of some kind. I’ve never sat with men I consider my friends and talked the way we’re talking. Beverly’s way of helping then, is my purpose now. I see the point now.”

“Dr. Marshall, Keith’s doctor, came to Beverly’s funeral. She died of breast cancer. I thought how nice it was for him to do that for the sister of a patient who died years ago.

“That’s not why he came. He knew Beverly’s reputation from her helping gay men in Charleston. Her name was known by a lot of people who respected her. She was one of the first outside the gay community to work tirelessly to provide what was needed to the sick. She blazed a trail at the time good people were no longer able to stand by and watch as gay men died without anyone caring who wasn’t gay.

“She was one of the first to bury her heterosexual sister who died of AIDS. Beverly knew something the country ignored. Straight people were dying of AIDS out of view of the society in general.

“In the depth of dying, the gay subculture began building a support system for the sick and the dying. People helping people who could no longer help themselves.

“Imagine disabled vets with older adults, who have the wisdom of the years. Both groups may be unable to do the things they once did, but together they might figure out new ways to do things, helping each other at the same time.

“People with AIDS would have all the services they require on St. James Avenue. Imagine a boulevard with no traffic and with shops that are run by residents as part of the compact. Cooks cooking, coffee shops with free coffee ready for the strollers or a morning pick-me-up. Fresh bread at cost, sweets for the sweet tooth. A laundry, a dry cleaners, a grocery, and crafts shops for trading and barter. It’s limitless, according to the skills and needs of the residents.

“One resident might teach another how to do something creative or artistic. None of it will be about money. It’ll be about using time to benefit the individual. It won’t be a residence as much as its an environment.

“Simply being fabulous makes things better whenever gay people are around,” Keith explained.

“How come I don’t associate you with fabulous?” Gary asked. “You’re more like a regular guy, Keith. You do cook fabulous food.”

“My fabulousness is on the inside. I was never much of a joiner. I don’t mind seeing people having fun. I just don’t usually have fun myself. When I cook and see people eat my food, that’s my fun.”

“Like me, observing is enjoyable and doesn’t take a lot of energy,” Dury said.

“I like to dance,” Gary said. “Actually my wife likes to dance. I dance with her. I don’t mind it. I guess I have fun if she has fun. It’s great to let go every now and then. I better see if Fran wants to go dancing anytime soon. We haven’t been in a while.”

“What a group we are,” Dury said. “Planning the lives of all those people who will live in Pleasant Valley, and we merely watch the fun. Seeing people smiling and greet one another would be fun. We can have dances. We’ll have live music. Maybe music lessons.”

“Maybe fun isn’t the word. Peace and tranquility might be closer,” Gary said. “Having everything outside your front door would be enough to make most folks happy not to need to jump out in traffic.”

“It was like that in New Orleans. Everything was right there at your fingertips. Expensive though. If you didn’t have dough it may as well be a million miles away.”

“Speaking of a million miles away, I’ve got to go again. Does anyone want anything while I’m up? Don’t say anything important until I come back.”

Chapter 8

Other Half

“Self-sustaining community. I think that’s where we were when I left,” Gary said. “Kind a grows on you.”

“I attended an AIDS conference in Washington D. C. before Brenda died. It was all attorneys talking about lawsuits concerning the sick not being able to get good decent care,” Dury said. “One needed to ask, why was that true in a country that had the best care in the world?

“Everything had changed by this time. The idea AIDS was a gay disease had been debunked. The preachers hardly missed a step declaring, ‘God hates them too! It’s drug addicts and prostitutes who have AIDS. The undesirables among us who deserve God's scorn.’ How convenient, God hating the least among us.”

“Instead of calling us names, maybe a little human kindness would work better,” Keith said. “Aren’t there rules about treating an infectious disease?”

“That’s a bit deep for preachers and politicians,” Gary said. “God was striking the heathens dead. Now that’s something preachers and politicians can get their teeth into. Jesus said the way to heaven was by treating the sick and by feeding the poor. People today don't qualify for heaven. They'll show up at the pearly gates with a slice of pizza and their flat screen TV.”

“That's very funny, Gary. I didn't know you knew Jesus,” Dury said.

“Hey, buddy, you're in the south. We all know Jesus. I did go to Sunday school as a child. I learned about what Jesus said, and he had good writers.”

“Brenda was a kind and gentle Christian woman, who never spoke ill of anyone. Her only flaw, she married a dishonest man.”

“Hardly striking dead material. You ever seen someone dying of AIDS?” Keith asked. “It’s not pretty. AIDS kept me away from gay places, not that there were all that many in most towns. For the first few years the policy was to watch us die. The U.S. did almost nothing. Rock Hudson went to France for treatment.”

“I remember that. For such a handsome man, he sure went down hill fast,” Gary said.

“He was wasting away,” Keith said. “Sure sign of AIDS.”

“Sad to see him like that. I heard people condemn him for never coming out. Well, few people I know ever came out,” Gary said. “Rock Hudson let the world see him like that. He knew they'd find out soon enough that he had AIDS. The rumors had already started. He didn't want to deal with the inevitable questions. The man was sick.”

“Let’s just say it was okay to let them die because they didn’t act the way preachers like people to act,” Dury said. “What kind of religion believes that when people are sick you let them die? What God does such a thing? Sounds more like a witches brew of religion and politics to me.”

“I thought you gave up on religion,” Keith said.

“Being on the outs with God doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s in the bible. The most significant words are the words of Jesus, but they’re ignored by today’s evangelicals, because his words don’t match up with their fear based fund raising. Jesus would have sat with the AIDS patients and held their hands. He was about the least among us.”

“Amen, brother,” Gary said. “Religion ain’t what it used to be in my grand pappy’s day.”

“AIDS is a disease. It doesn't matter who has it. The right thing to do is treat it until you find a cure,” Keith said. “Even a tenth grade drop out knows that. If you aren't careful, a disease gets out of control and kills randomly. That was the risk they were taking when they refused to even say the word AIDS.”

“It was GRID and then it was the gay plague. That didn't help,” Dury said.

“Once they proved it was in the blood and semen, the government finally started funding studies of the disease,” Keith said. “They had an epiphany. Anyone who had sex or had a blood transfusion could get it. Doing something was wise after ignoring it for years. Tens of thousands were dead in the U.S. by then.”

“It wasn’t quite that simple, Keith. With Senators like Jesse Helms, they still preferred to fund AIDS in Africa rather than any money going to gays in America. People like him were so full of hate they couldn’t help themselves. In Africa there were six million heterosexuals with AIDS, a million AIDS orphans. Knowing that, they still didn't allow AIDS dollars to get near the people they hated right here.”

“Only in America,” Gary said. “Preachers and politicians are heartless.”

“The Attorneys Conference on AIDS was mesmerized by Act Up. As we discussed how to get treatment for people with AIDS, people with AIDS came to make their case, demanding studies and treatment. They took the fight right to the lawmakers on Capitol Hill. It was amazing to watch.

“Attorneys knew the courage it took to get in lawmakers’ faces under such circumstances. Didn't take them long to get attention either. They were dying and they weren’t doing it quietly. They spent most of their time sitting on the floor of lawmakers’ offices. It was even difficult to find cops who would drag them out and then more Act Up people went rushing in. The didn't intend to leave until they spoke to lawmakers. You could say they were dying to tell their stories.

“One of the other attorneys I met at the conference, Rod, told me that a third of the wealth of the gay population had been spent since AIDS appeared. Being naïve, I asked how that was?

“He said, ‘It was the cost of a war on a disease no one cares about. We all have sick friends and lovers. There’s no price I wouldn’t pay to have one more day with my lover. Gay people may be hated, but we can love each other. That’s what they hate. People who hate that much, can't possibly love any one.’ His comments were enlightening. I learned a lot from being in Washington.”

“I’ve never heard that,” Keith said. “There was no mention of AIDS in North Carolina when I was growing up. After getting to Atlanta, where I knew other gay men, I found out about AIDS. It was a scary time. I met many men in Atlanta that lost friends and lovers to AIDS.”

“Oh, man, that’s so sad,” Gary said. “I’ve got to remember to hug Fran when I get home. If I get home.”

“If the most demonized group in the country can forget their petty arguing and fight a deadly disease, anything is possible. It didn’t happen overnight but gradually gays were providing most services the sick needed. It’s the model for what I see on St. James. I can see how it cost a lot of money and the idea gay men spent so much of their wealth providing services for the sick is impressive,” Dury said. “It's what has been running through my mind.”

“We’re going to build the prototype community for people who want to be responsible for one another and live in harmony. The divisions and petty squabbles stops at the corner of Jackson and St. James. We’re going to have a community that inspires love, brotherhood, and sharing.

“It’s what I’ve been trying to put together in my mind since the three of us stood together at the end of St. James. That's my vision, gentlemen. The builder, the chef, and the lawyer will be at the center of it.”

“Sign me up for anything to do with cooking,” Keith said. “I’d love to have a place to cook and to feed people.”

“That’s a giant bite out of the apple,” Gary said. “People will sign up just to eat Keith's food.”

“Absolutely, it’s why the three of us will be partners.”

“Tell me what you want built and I'll build it,” Gary said.

“I’m working on it. The size of the project will dictate the size of the kitchen or kitchens and we need to figure out how much we can take on to get the project started. We’ll be able to serve everyone in a dining room or dining rooms. We’ll have the ability to deliver meals to residents. We’ll figure the logistics out as we go. Keith knows how to serve hundreds of people a few times a day. His knowledge will be what we rely on to set the whole thing up,” Dury said.

“We'll create a cooperative that makes it difficult for any one to isolate themselves,” Dury said. “The community will be interactive. People helping people in ways that will connect them to each other. Not everyone will be suited to such a community. Our interviewer who speaks to prospective residents will make it clear that a few hours week helping to keep the community running is how they get a reduction on rents paid. Those who won't be part of the cooperative will pay far high rents. We'll do this on a point system. One point per hour worked and we can assign whatever value to the points. They be worth enough to make it attractive to help in one capacity or another.

“We want to keep the rents low so that the people who will most benefit from such an environment can afford it. For people who are disabled or not able to contribute time to one task or another. We'll give them points for their disability and be able to keep their rents within reach.”

“Sounds complicated,” Keith said.

“No, it'll be very simple. It's a tool to keep out dead wood and discourage difficult people. We can't exclude them outright but we can make certain requirements part of residency. Then we're free to wave it the case of people who we want to take residency here,” Dury said.

“There isn't much there,” Gary said. “I mean to attract people.”

“Yeah, but I've got you to solve that little problem. Most people we want to live in our community will respond well to being included the way we intend to include them. We want a community small enough for us to know each other.”

“We can deliver meals to people who can’t easily get to the dining room several times a day. We could create a dining room where people are comfortable, an enjoyable atmosphere. More than tables, chairs, silverware and China. Nice table clothes, divide it to create intimate. Like a nice restaurant,” Keith said.

“Very nice picture you paint, Keith. You have the right idea. I like all that,” Dury said.

` “I'd eat there,” Gary said.

“You can eat here,” Dury said.

“It's difficult cooking for just two of us,” Keith said. “To make dining a pleasant experience takes more than good food.”

“Put flowers on the tables and good silverware,” Gary said. “Nothing worse than eating with plastic knives and forks.”

“Isn't that the truth,” Keith said.

“I love it,” Dury said. “I didn't know you were so creative, Gary,” Dury said.

“I love having flowers on the table.”

“We'll have gardens, Gary. That'll be something residents can help with,” Dury said.

“Vegetable gardens too. That way our veggies are fresh,” Keith said excited. “We'll need help in the kitchen and they'll pick vegetables out of the garden for meals each day.”

“Those things would never have crossed my minds. You both have good ideas,” Dury said. Eating should be pleasant,” Dury said. “I’ve recently rediscovered how enjoyable eating can be.”

“I'll arrange the common areas with moveable partisians,” Gary said. “It offers versatility, like setting up a private dinning room by merely moving a few panels into place. We can do the same with rooms we use for meetings or game rooms. There need to be places people can get together for the fun of it.”

“Another idea I'd not have considered. We have the right team. I can see the ideas beginning to flow. Before we decide on anything, we'll get together and have a give and take session so we consider out best ideas.”

“My friends, the ones they ran out of the St. James Apartments, have AIDS. They’re gay. I think what you’ve described would come as a blessing to them,” Keith said. “Being included is the way it usually is. That's why so many gays keep to themselves. Interact with people who aren't LGBT would be a nice change for most of them.”

“We’ll give them first choice of the apartments,” Dury said. “We'll give them back their old unit if they want. Seems to me they'll make the best residents. They accustomed to helping each other. We’ll recruit medical staff so the constant back and forth to the doctors can be reduced for them as well as for any one dealing with health issues. By offering some medical care, we can make people's lives easier. We can always give doctors and nurses a unit if they work in the clinic we'll build inside of one of the buildings.”

“We’ll make it so enticing to nurses and doctors, they'll want to pay us to work here. I think that’s very important. Good food, healthcare, exercise and opportunities to contribute to the running of the place.”

“It won’t be resort living but it will be comfortable living. The shops will provide the little extras people need. They’ll require a small investment of time from capable residents, which keeps them active and involved in the community.”

“That’s a big bite all at one time, my friend,” Gary said. “Does have a certain charm. People volunteering in the shops will meet other residents and make friends that way. Later they can meet over coffee or a hand of cards.”

“Another aspect I hadn't considered. It’s all distressed property, sitting mostly vacant,” Dury said. “I'll need to plan a general approach so we buy the entire complex without it looking like we are buying the entire complex. As soon as someone else senses that, they will hold out for more money. We've got to take our time to plan our moves until we own the entire St. James complex.”

“You sound very sure of yourself, Dury,” Gary said. “I like that, but we need to own it before I can build it. I can go down there considering what we've talked about and draw plans that will give us some idea of what it is going to look like.”

“That's the spirit,” Dury said. “We will own the complex and when the final pieces fall in place, you'll be ready to get your crew together and go to work.”

“We'll need money,” Gary said. “The crew is no problem. I know the men who I can depend on. The labor won't come cheap but we'll be able to work with building suppliers if they know we're going to be good customers.”

“We’re going to develop a totally self-sustaining community for people who often don’t get much more than it takes to survive. We’re going to do something they say can’t be done. We’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do. We’re going to do it because we are three uniquely qualified people who can do anything we decide to do. ”

“Tell me when to start cooking,” Keith said. “I'll need a stove.”

“When Gary puts together his plans, you'll go to show him where you want the gardens and what part of which building where you want the kitchen and restaurant/dining room.”

“We'll need to meet to talk a couple of times a week. May as well make it over dinner,” Dury said.

“Suits me fine. I don't know how I'll explain it to Fran, but I'll think of something,” Gary said.

“I can do a meal as many times a week as you like, Dury.”

“I'm the one that has most of the work to do at the moment. Once I know who owns what and I set up a way to make offers to the shop owners, we'll be on our way. I won't have any trouble raising money if we don't get too extravagant.

“Me and you and Keith,” Dury said. “We’re going to make it happen. We’re equal partners. It’s not a money making deal. It’s an opportunity to do some good. Put something back for what we've been blessed with. If it succeeds, I imagine the concept could be used anywhere there are vacant buildings that can be rehabilitated, but the true value in what we build will be in the people who set out on this journey with us.”

“Keith has money hidden somewhere?” Gary asked.

“I hate to tell you guys, but I’m busted,” Keith said. “I don’t even own the clothes on my back. Dury gave me these.”

“You took me to St. James. You’ll be a major part of what makes the St. James Project go. The idea came from what you and Lisa told me about the place. Without you, I'd never have seen St. James. It's like pieces falling into place.”

“I like the sound of it,” Keith said. “I'll do what's needed. I find it quite exciting. Being able to cook again, I never expected this kind of opportunity.”

“Me too. Will Keith still cook for us when we meet like this?” Gary asked.

“You point me at the stove and tell me what you want, I’ll cook,” Keith said.

“Now a good story to tell Fran to explain my absences,” Gary said.

They laughed over his devious approach.

“Let’s finish this meal first. We can finish talking over drinks,” Gary said. “My wife has given me the night off. I told her I’d be late, or did I say early? I can’t remember. She expects me when she sees me on nights like these. Wait until I tell her, it took God six days to create the universe, we came up with our own little universe over dinner.”

“We’ll have drinks and conversation in the living room,” Dury said. “We haven't got anything but ideas. Once I formulate a plan to secure the property, we'll begin to put the ideas into practice. St. James will be a very pleasant place.”

“If he ever fires you, Keith, I’ll pick up your option,” Gary said, finishing with his potatoes and going to work on the lamb. “This is great and I don’t think I like lamb, Keith.”

“A little garlic and sea salt and it gives it a surprisingly mellow flavor,” Keith said.

“One thing though, we can’t tell my wife you’re the cook. She still thinks she’s the cook. You and I will know the truth. No sense in ruffling her feathers.”

Dury and Keith laughed at Gary’s happy go luck approach.

“Dury did tell you I’m gay?” Keith said, thinking Gary should know if they were in a partnership together..

“No, he didn’t mention that,” Gary said.

“No, I'm not in the habit of giving up intimate details about my friends,” Dury said.

“We definitely won't tell Fran that,” Gary said.

They all laughed.

“Spending more time with Dury is something she's been after me to do for ages. Spending time with Dury so I can eat Keith's cooking would not go over well at my house. I don't think Fran has ever seen me as a man who strays.”

“Fran is quite a lovely woman, Keith. Don't let Gary give you the wrong idea. They've stuck it out through thick and thin and those were lean times when we met. I'd never seen a man so defeated as you, Gary.”

“And you made it all better, Mr. Lane. You were smooth and cool. I wasn't sure you knew how desperate I was, but you knew your stuff. You set up my former partner's attorney and he walked right into the trap. I didn't just get my business back, I got a hefty settlement to boot.”

“And I got a handsome payment for my time and effort. It came out exactly where it should have, Gary. I didn't do anything but practice basic law. You're partner had a fool for a lawyer and you had a fool for a partner.”

“That's not what I call him,” Gary said.

The three men retired to the living room with drinks. Keith drank milk. Each had a reason to be grateful for the other. Gary was grateful to Dury for getting him his life back. Keith admired Dury because he shared what he had with him and all Keith had to do is what he loved doing, cook. Dury had a wonderful house and for the first time since his wife died, home cooked meals that he looked forward to when dinner time arrived.

Now the idea was in development. They would be partners in perfecting the plan. Dury was sure they had what it took to create a great place to live at a modest price. Each man was stimulated by the conversation. They'd be in it together as equals.

Dury's role would launch the project. He'd get the ball rolling. If they could acquire the complete St. James complex, they'd be in business. The trick was to do it careful enough, and fast enough, that no one suspected the properties on St. James were valuable, because someone had plans for it.

Gary could build almost anything. He'd started of hauling bricks before laying bricks. He worked with carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and he could do it all without a hitch. He was good with his hands and creating something that hadn't been done before appealed to him.

Keith had done everything in a kitchen, including dishes. The first job as a cook was on a wing and a prayer, but he learned more working for Henrietta than anywhere he worked. Keith could make an old shoe taste like a fine fillet. He knew how to season, cook, and present food, and the place Dury described had him feeling more alive than he'd felt in years.

Chapter 9

Dreaming

The following week Gary was back for dinner. Phone calls had taken care of

record checks to uncover who owned the rights to the shops along St. James. Dury drew up a proposal he'd present to the South Carolina agency that held the tax lien on the Kertz property.

So far no roadblocks had been erected, but no one knew a move was being made on all the properties along St. James. The Apartments were key to the St. James project. There had been no communication from the owner or owners of the St. James Apartments.

Early that week Dury drew up a suit against the owner or owners. He could put one of the evicted men's name on it or any number of the men who had been evicted from the St. James Apartments. As he read the American Disabilities Act, the evictions were illegal and they went against most moral standards.

Dury had his ammunition ready for what he didn't expect to be much of a fight. Extra money in shop owners pockets would be an unexpected windfall. The Kertz properties had no value in their current condition. It would cost more to take the buildings down than to sell them for a song to someone who would make the property viable. The state would be happy to unload the property and take its chances on being able to collect future taxes on it.

Dury practiced law with the current South Carolina Comptroller. He'd lay out the plans for St. James, asking relief from the tax lean. He expected to have some degree of success.

*****

Seafood gumbo, corn chowder, tomato bisque, with hush puppies topped the dinner menu. After the dishes were cleared the three men settled into the living room with their drinks.

“I love that staircase, Dury,” Gary said, admiring his work. “It really turned out nice. I built that staircase in each of the Plantation Heights houses, and I built that staircase in my house. Fran said, 'it reminds me of a Hollywood set,' but until I did yours, number fifteen I think, I never got that sweep right. Yours is the best staircase in the lot. All that practice paid off.”

“That’s right, you built his house,” Keith said. “What a house it is too!”

“Yes, and he took quite a bit of care doing it,” Dury said. “He didn’t have to create a house like this. Proves he has artistic blood. Beverly liked that staircase best of all. It has an elegance to it. When we entertained, she'd always stand in the middle of those stairs, lean on the handrail and speak to our guests.”

“Quite lovely she was. I remember seeing her in a white gown, standing on the stairs, looking very much like a movie star,” Gary said.

“Once you told me you'd build it for cost, I wasn't sure what I'd get, but when I drove out to see the work being done, it was obvious you were building a masterpiece, and you didn't need to go that far.”

“I needed to make it right, Dury. I was building over a dozen houses at the time. I was incorporating the best features of those houses into this house. I practice on those houses and I perfected my skills on yours. I owned Plantation Heights because you won my case. I owed you. I was even building my house at the same time. Yours and mine turned out best. A labor of love. Fran could see that your staircase was better than ours. I'm glad Beverly liked it so much.”

“That's why I want you in on making St. James into the best living space possible for people who don’t usually get the best of anything,” Dury said.

“I can see it now. We’ll call it Gary Lane, Mr. Lane,” Gary said.

“That’s funny,” Dury said. “I’d forgotten your sense of humor. I haven’t been social recently. It’s good getting back into the game. I was worried retirement was a bad idea. Now that I've found a purpose, life is good.”

“Speaking of which, there’s something I want to know but didn't feel comfortable asking, until now, Mr. Lane. I came into your life over a lawsuit you filed on my behalf. I didn't expect much but you delivered,” Gary said. “You looked me in the eye, Dury, and you said, ‘You don’t have a thing to worry about. If what you’ve told me is true, I’ll get your business back and it won’t cost you a cent.’ Then you took me out to lunch. My whole life was in the toilet and you said, ‘It’ll be OK. Give me a little time and we'll be fine.'”

“I'll tell you now, there's always things you need to worry about. You need the right judge. You need an opposing attorney who knows is client is an asshole, and then it needs to fall into place the way your attorney envisions it. In your case, it turned out as I thought it should.”

“What I know is, you said, 'It'll be OK' and things turned out better than you told me they would. I never asked how you happened to be in that office where I needed an attorney, but you were,” Gary said. “I wasn't the most trusting soul in the world, you know, Dury. I'd just been swindled and my life was over. You had no idea how hard I worked to build that business and then someone took it away from me. When I listened to you that first day, you were so confident, so self-assured, I began to believe I might get it back. You might say you restored my faith in people, Dury.”

“You had a good case. Crooks usually aren't capable of covering all their tracks. I had to uncover a few of his mistakes to prove my case. I could have driven a Mack truck through the holes your partner left. We were lucky, Gary. It worked out the way it should have worked out. Doesn't always happen that way.”

“I didn't know a thing about you, and I still don't know much, which is the point I'm getting to. I do know where you practiced law and I was glad you'd been there when I walked in. I don't know how you got there and I'm curious.”

“You want me to tell you the story of what led me to become an attorney?”

“Yes, that's it. You said you were a New York attorney. I can't imagine two different cities that New York City and Charleston. Fran and I went to New York on vacation once. I couldn't wait to get home,” Gary said. “Practicing law in that intense city couldn't be anything like practicing law in Charleston.”

“That, sir, is at least a three drink story. I didn't just come to the idea of becoming a lawyer. There were some serious events that got me thinking about the laws and the fairness in the law. Some of what led me to going to law school, I still don't understand.”

“I don't want to pry, but I'd like to know how you got where you were when I arrived there.”

“I wasn't always the polished attorney you see before you now. Retired attorney. No, life got extremely chaotic before I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. In fact we were living relatively calm lives when things got out of hand. My family was a normal family, as far as I was concerned. My friends and I were normal kids, and suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of history and tragedy. Everything changed and none of it made sense, and I decided to be a lawyer.”

“Sounds like what I want, Lane. Now that we're becoming future partners, I'd like to know how you became you. Not if it makes you uncomfortable, but I’d like to know the story behind the man,” Gary said. “You changed my life. It took you two years, but I was far better off after the case was won than I’d ever been. You did what you said you’d do. How rare is that? It was rare enough I noticed it.”

“My interest in the law goes back a few years. There were events that made me want to become a good attorney.”

“The road to my career as a contractor was a straight shot from my house to a job site a few blocks away. My skills as a builder began there. Watching a stone mason. woodworkers create the touches that made each house unique. I was amazed. I couldn’t lay a brick without someone pulling it up, scraping half the mortar I put on it off, making it level, and telling me to put it in place. I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground, but they took their time to teach me.

“I knew I’d never be able to do what they did. In time, with years of practice, I was as good as any one. I learned by doing. I didn’t know what I'd do after high school. I took the first job I came to, after graduation. Not much planning. That's my story. What led you into the legal profession?” Gary asked.

“The law is a funny thing, Gary. When done properly, you can make it work for you. If you’re in the right, and have a good lawyer to prove it, you can right any wrong done to you. Proving how egregious your partner's actions were entitled you to real damages as well as a punitive award for your suffering. It is also a warming to him that he shouldn't do this again. I did my job. It wasn’t difficult. Your partner was sloppy. It took us two years to get in front of a judge, and you suffered all that time. The judge called your partner a crook. That was a first even for me. It sealed the deal. I didn't need to add icing to that cake.”

“That’s what he did all right. It changed my life, Dury. I’d have been happy to get my business back,” Gary said. “I didn't have a pot to piss in after he stole my business.”

“That’s why people need lawyers.”

“I understand that now,” Gary said. “That’s what makes me curious. Think back to when you weren’t an attorney. I want to know what it was that made you decide to become one. I’m picturing a Perry Mason episode or something out of a great cases in history, and you suddenly saying, ‘I’ll be an attorney.’

“For me it was easy,” Gary said. “The day after I graduated high school, my father woke me up before he went to work. ‘Time to get your ass up and get a job. You think groceries fall off the trees?’ I didn’t. I never gave it a thought.

“I left the house and came to a place where they were building two houses on the way to the main drag. A sign read: ‘Help Wanted.’ I figured that was me. I told them I could do anything they asked me to do. They told me to carry bricks up this skinny little ramp into the house. That was my interview. If I was dumb enough to do that, they figured I'd do anything they told me to do.

“Good money though. I liked the money. Boy did my back get tired hauling those bricks, and that’s how I became the builder you see before you today.”

“It would be hard to top that, Gary.” Dury said. “It was almost as if you were destined to be a builder. Those houses weren't there by accident.”

“You think so. I was too hard headed to admit a hod of bricks was tougher than I was. Bricks were way heavier forty years ago, you know,” Gary complained. “My back still gets tired when I see bricks. After a few weeks, the chicks began noticing me; feeling my muscles. Carrying bricks became cool.”

“I know I look like I just fell off the turnip truck, but I assure you a brick is a brick. Today’s bricks weight the same as yesterday’s if they aren't plastic.”

“See, stretch the truth in front of a lawyer and he gives you an argument. I don't carry the bricks these days. That makes them way lighter. Out with it, Lane. How did you grow up to be the lawyer Mr. Lane? Did dear old dad say, ‘Get your ass up. It’s time to get a job, and you passed a sign: 'Attorney's Wanted.'”

“We’re talking an involved journey that put me in the office where you found me. There were some sizable inducements that pointed me toward the law. The events of the day for instance, while I was a teen, made me interested in the law.”

“Quit stalling, Lane. I may not know what you’re saying, but I know you’re stalling,” Gary said. “Out with it.”

“Keith isn’t interested in my ancient past,” Dury said.

“Yes, I am,” Keith said. “Why did you become a lawyer?”

“OK, you asked for it. Everyone get another drink or two. I don’t plan any intermissions, and I’m only telling it once.”

“You did tell Bev, didn’t you?” Gary asked.

“No, it never came up. She lived through my entire career as an attorney, until she died anyway. We married while I was in law school. I’m sure that was plenty of law for her. She was a business major at New York University,” Dury said.

“I can tell you what triggered to my interest in the law. It all started in 1963. I was going to St. Albans in Washington D. C. There were four of us who went buddies. We did almost everything together. There was Dalton, Prentice, Rhodes and me. We’d known each other forever. I don't remember a time when we weren’t friends,” Dury said.

“St. Albans was an elite school. Something like you'd picture in England. We wore dark blazers and bright ties. We went to school with sons of the president’s cabinet members and sons of congressman and senators. My parents sacrificed everything to give me the best education available in D.C,” Dury said. “I had no idea what I would do once I graduated.

“Life was good for us. We lived in a beautiful city full of history and full of lawyers. It was a magnet for history in 1963. We were grew up faster that year. A lot of people grew up that year. My buddies and me were sixteen.”

“So you’re saying you caught it in D. C.?” Gary asked.

“You might say that. I caught it at my house and at my school. I caught it one bright August afternoon on the mall. I caught it one dreary night at the Capitol building on the Hill. The law filled D. C. in those days. Exciting things were happening all around us. What we were watching was history in the making.

“Washington D. C. has always been a city of attorneys. In 1963 it was a city of change and of new beginnings. It’s the year I knew I’d go to law school. Maybe it was in the air. Maybe I saw myself as doing good.

“We heard about the march on Washington. Being curious fellows, we were going to see what it was. We were super curious. St. Albans challenged us to be curious about such things.

“We thought the march was for black people. We lived in the blackest city in America at the time, but we never saw black people if we didn't go on a trolley or a bus. We were the kids of privilege in D. C. and we wanted to see how the other half lived. We knew we'd find them on the Mall, which marked the center of our universe. We were often on the Mall. You could spend the day there without going very far. The Lincoln Memorial drew us like flies to honey. We didn't know why. It was our favorite place to go when we had nowhere to go.

“There were speakers on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when we arrived on the day of the March on Washington. I think we started out going somewhere else first, and then we decided to go there to see what the march was. The marching was over and the talking had begun.

“The space between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial was filled with people. Mostly they were dark skinned people. There were white faces among the mahogany to different shades of brown to black. Hispanics were the second most represented group. It took a lot of faces to fill that space. I'd never seen more people in one place. I'd been to Redskin games, but even a stadium full of people didn't compare.

“We stood off to one side, wanting to see it but not be part of it. If we didn't know where the black people were in D.C. in those days, we'd found them.

“The local press described the march as, ‘People coming from all over to stir up trouble.' There were phrases like malcontents and people not content to leave well enough alone.’ They were just standing around the reflection pool and almost back to the Washington Monument. If they were making trouble, they hid it well.

“I'd heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would speak. I'd only seen him on television a few times. He didn't sound like a troublemaker, but what did I know?

The Post articles made him sound like a real rebel rouser. I knew he was a Baptist minister and that made me think there was more to it than what the Post said. The two images didn't add up in my mind.

“Being called a communist wasn't a big deal. Anyone who wasn't agreeable to the status quo was immediately labeled a commie. What I read made me curious and it was my idea to get closer to the speakers on those steps.

“I wanted to see King for myself. Hearing him called a communist-socialist-jailbird, who stirred up trouble had me suspicious. Not suspicious of him but suspicious of the people who didn't want us to listen to him. I'd read the 'Subversive' comments he'd made, and they were mainly about equality and freedom.

“By this time I began looking for the truth about people that were labeled as bad. I sensed we weren't getting the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Hearing him speak could make the truth more apparent.

“It was summertime and we were free as a breeze, but there was none on the Mall. After a half hour of similar voices saying similar things, we decided it was time to split. Truth would have to wait for another day. At sixteen we didn't stay in one place too long. What I did know, there was no revolution in the air.

“We couldn’t hear all of what they were saying. The voices weren't clear and the sound system left a little to be desired, and so Dalton chased Prentice, who chased Rhodes, who chased me, as we headed north and west toward home, three miles away.

“As we stepped off the Mall heading toward the White House, there was a different sound coming from Lincoln's Memorial. At first it was soft, it had a cadence I recognized from my church. The priest saying his lines, the people responding. Just a few words and an amen or two.

“The change stopped us in our tracks. The soft voice, was more clear, distinctive. I thought this might be King’s voice. I turned to get my ears pointed toward the speaker. It was drifting across the Mall to where we stood. I led my buddies back across the street near the north corner of the Lincoln Memorial where nobody stood. It was much easier to hear what he was saying. I stood fast when my friends said they wanted to go. I wanted to hear this. I wasn't going anywhere until I did. This was what I came for.

“I told my buddies I wanted to hear what he had to say. They didn't know why. As far away as we were, we could hear his. His voice was clear, like a man who had something to say he wanted you to hear.

“He said nothing shocking or outrageous. He could have been in church giving a sermon. Just not my church.

“What he had to say was all about how black people were treated. The audience continued to interact with him, giving the answers to prompts King gave them. It was all quite well scripted and not my in my wheelhouse. He was talking to black people. I wanted it to be more than that, but King was in politics by way of his Baptist religion.

“Not so different from the Catholic Church. It was like being in church. Most of what he said was about being decent to one another and treating each other with dignity and respect. How did this cause trouble? I was expecting a real fire breathing preacher. The most fire in his voice came when he called for fairness and equality.

“That was in the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, I thought. I’d seen the pictures of kids in Birmingham. Teenagers mostly, some our age, but some were younger. King had been in a Birmingham jail for some time and the day after his release there was a march by these kids in Birmingham. I heard it called the childrens’ crusade. The entire world saw those pictures. No one thought that what happen to them was OK, but King wasn't even there.

“A film showed the thousand kids marching down the sidewalk. Cops kept them from going into the street, which was the plan. They were young. It was no big deal, except an instant later firehouses were knocking the kids off their feet. Huge snarling police dogs began biting at the prone children. Big white cops held the leashes. Other policemen were clubbing their way into the march. Children ran screaming,were caught by waiting cops, beaten, viciously thrown to the ground, and those dogs were let loose on them. It made me sick.

“That was the first time I noticed black faces. They were children. I began to question what kind of a country I lived in. I began to question the idea men wanting to be treated like human beings were trouble makers in disguise.

“It was the most brutal thing I’d ever seen. I didn’t like it. The law was supposed to protect people not attack them. The entire world was outraged. The dirty secret about America was out. Our politicians were humiliated by what the world had seen and black people were responsible.

“King took the blame for the trouble. He didn’t have anything to do with the march. Younger preachers and the children planned it while King was being held in the Birmingham jail. He was blamed in the media. He lead the blacks and caused the trouble.

“How was King responsible for a police riot? Here he was asking for fair treatment for his people. This was his biggest stage ever and he spoke of dignity and fairness. He was a preacher, not a troublemaker. I wanted the truth and this seemed to be it. I heard similar things in church.”

“I never liked memorizing things that I was forced to regurgitated in church. I may have had doubts about who I was, but I wasn’t a parrot. My ideas came from teachers and books and mostly from my parents, who taught me to think for myself. I was perfectly capable of thinking for myself, even in church.

“Why did they do that to those kids?” Keith asked. “I never heard of that. That was a crime.”

“They were just kids,” Gary protested. “Who would beat kids? I've never seen that.”

“They were just kids,” Dury agreed. “It’s what happened in 1963. I didn't like it and I no longer believed what the papers said about King. I already suspected there were two sides to the story about the races. I didn’t think Birmingham was the first time blacks were brutalized by the establishment. I would find out later that Negroes couldn't vote in the South. We'd find that out in no uncertain terms. That too would play out on television.”

“Segregation means keeping the races separated?” Keith asked.

“Right. All whites on this side of town, all black on that side. Nothing like this had ever been filmed before. Pictures of the brutality were on the front page of all the papers in the North. The country was outraged. That march was in May ’63 and the march on Washington was in August. For me those two events became connected on the Mall that day. King was fighting for equal rights.

“I wanted to hear King speak and I’d make up my own mind. What I heard at first was a preacher doing what I disliked most about my own religion. Mindless automatons spouting responses. It didn’t impress me but how much trouble did it cause? I still hadn't figured out where King stood, or me either for that matter.

“After a few minutes more, we started walking toward home again. None of us had anything to say. Then King began speaking without his chorus. He left them behind. His voice boomed like someone just turned on his microphone. The tone intensified in a way I can’t explain. His words were everywhere at once. It filled the Mall, resonating as if there were speakers in the tree tops. Dr. King was on fire.

“Martin Luther King took off in a way I’ve never heard before. The entire crowd went silent. It was all King, behind us, beside us, over us, and in front of us, and all at the same time. It stopped us in our tracks. I turned to see him still on the Lincoln Memorial steps. It was mesmerizing. I couldn’t walk away. This was what I hoped to hear. This is why he came. This is who King was.

“King had taken flight, soaring above the crowd. His voice boomed. It was everywhere at once. It gave me chills. It was the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, but it had never been given like this before. This was inspired speech and inspiring. He told us of his dream. These words were written in his heart and on the wind.

“At that moment I understood why King was a a threat. He intended to win his peoples’ freedom. He intended to change the world. He wasn’t letting segregation stand any longer. His people were due full civil rights and he intended to see that they got them. That was the threat.

“He saw a future with all of us working together to make life better for everyone. Dr. King wanted to create a better America. That's what scared the politicians. How do you stop a man with this kind of passion?”

“King was for real then?” Gary asked. “He wasn't a commie?”

“Yes, he was for real. You can't fake a speech like that. I've never heard another one like it. There was nothing in what he said that threatened anyone, unless they intended to fight to keep segregation in place.

“Washington D. C. was segregated. I didn’t realize it until I began to look for black people. Being awakened to the truth surprised me. I didn’t know how things got the way they were, but white people were on this side of town and black people on were on that side.”

“So that changed things?” Keith asked.

“No, not so you'd notice. The powers that be were just glad it was over in one day. That's all they cared about,” Dury said.

“I wasn't aware of the man until he was dead,” Gary said. “I did live in the south and it wasn't having anything to do with him.”

“He's always been dead as long as I've been alive. I wish I'd heard him. Henrietta had a picture of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Jesus on the wall of her restaurant.”

“How did that figure into your decision to become an attorney?” Gary asked.

“I told you it was a long story. That's one of the events I witnessed that had me think I could do some good. We need to get fresh drinks while I take a bathroom break, and if you want to hear more, there's more to tell,” Dury said.

“You aren't getting off that easy, Lane. We'll be waiting for you,” Gary said.

Chapter 10

J. Edgar and King

The three men took their time getting back into the living room.

Their glasses were refilled.

They relaxed and waited for Dury to finish what he'd started.

“Reminds me of high school sports,” Keith said. “I was always on that side. My athletic skills were lacking. Kids like me were always on that side.”

“I recall it. Luckily I was on this side. I wasn't a bad athlete. I wasn't going out for a school team,” Gary said.

“You were saying,” Gary said. “King soared. I heard the 'I Have a Dream Speech.' Probably everyone has.”

“We never talked about it. Usually we talked about everything we did. I don’t recall one of us mentioning it. I was having second thoughts about the police, the politicians, and the papers.”

“He was that good?” Gary asked. “I've only heard recordings. He died when I was a kid.”

“His words were as powerful as any I ever heard. He was a preacher on a mission. He was telling his truth. There was only one other orator who was in the same league with Martin Luther King. He was in the words at the same time the words were in him. All I could do was listen. When you're a kid and history is happening around you, you can listen or you can ignore it. I began listening.

“Hearing King was a life altering realization for me. I was not a black man and I wasn’t invested in civil rights. I was sixteen. The world was huge. None of it had much to do with me. Learning something, even from a Baptist preacher, made me curious. I wondered what else they were lying to us about?”

“We had integration when I was in school,” Gary said. “I don't recall it being popular, but I don't recall much about school. I mostly slept through the experience. I was not a good student.”

“I asked my father about King. I told him what I’d read. I told him what I heard. My father was an FBI analyst. He knew things. He wasn't able to tell me how he knew them. He qualified comments about people like King with, ‘I can’t tell you how I know this, and you can’t tell anyone I told you. Here’s what I know about that.’

“Usually it was questions about a politician who said something stupid or did something dumb. A senator drove himself and a well known prostitute into the Tidal Basin. I had questions.”

“Who did that?” Gary asked laughing. “Takes all kind.”

“That's outrageous,” Keith said. “Prostitutes are people too.”

“Yes, and so was the senator. He was a class act from Louisiana. They don't make senators like that any more,” Dury said. “My father said, ‘The words and deeds speak for themselves.’ He’d elaborate if I persisted but I knew stupid when I saw it.

“I was trying to come to my own conclusions, after learning something that wasn’t consistent with what I knew. In the case of King, what I knew came from the press and from school. My father shocked me when I asked about King.

“He asked me if I listened to King's words. I told him I had. I heard enough to know he wasn't a troublemaker or a commie. My father told me the best way to discredit someone is call him a troublemaker or a commie. Then he asked, ‘What truth did you hear?’

“I had to think about that. I heard him speaking of a future where we'd all get along. I spoke of how powerful it was when he said that one day the color of our skin wouldn't matter. The content of our character was what mattered.”

“A noble thought to think we can all get along. I don't even get along with some of my family. I'm not sure people are supposed to get along,” Gary said.

“No, and big white cops are allowed to set their German Shepherd on little black kids, because seeing their skin ripped off makes them happy,” Keith said.

“People weren't born that hateful, Keith. They were taught to be that way,” Gary said. “I didn't hate anyone. The men who gave me the most help were black men who only wanted me to be able to build a good house.”

“It's what Dr. King was doing. Trying to build his people a solid house,” Dury said.

“As in place in society as equals,” Keith said.

“You sure you two were born in the south?”

“I've never bee out of the south,” Keith said. “I learned my trade from a black woman. She probably saved my life. She didn't care what color I was. I needed help and she helped me. When she was ready to die, she sent me on to finish learning my lessons along the way.”

“OK, we've laid the first brick on Dury's journey to becoming the man he is today. Why don't we put another brick in your past,” Gary said.

“That's not the end of King's story. Hoover was obsessed with King.”

“Hoover who?” Gary asked.

“My father's boss. J. Edgar ran the FBI. He more than ran it. He controlled every aspect of it. You didn't do anything without Hoover's say so.”

“What's an analyst do?” Keith asked.

“Analyzes new information and ties it to people, places, or things. If anything seems suspicious or reeks of danger, he sounds the alarm. Agents see if it might compare to other cases. J. Edgar wanted to know everything about King. My father knew more than he would tell me, until I had more questions. He wouldn't lie to me and if he couldn't answer my question, he'd say, 'That's something a lot of people would like to know.”

“I asked what he knew about King. He’d only know through his job. If he lied to me he’d have altered my curiosity. He sensed he couldn’t brush me off this time. My questions were too direct. He didn’t want to discourage that. He listened and remained silent for a while.

“’Dury,’ he said. ‘Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will do whatever it takes to advance the movement he leads. It doesn’t matter much to him who you are, as long as you are helping to advance civil rights. Yes, he’s been arrested, he talks to communists, and he’ll lead a march to advance the cause. His life is about civil rights. You might say it’s his calling. He speaks for his people. It threatens people who don't share his appetite for equal rights.'

“‘It doesn’t make him a communist to speak to one and it doesn’t make him a criminal because he's been to jail. He does what he needs to do to bring attention to the injustice and the struggle of his people. He believes in what he's doing, but he’s only a man. He can only do so much.’

“’What you hear about him comes from a white press. How informed are they about what black people experience? Like so much else in our society, the black man is segregated by the news. Blacks can only be portrayed in certain ways, according to white people. It sounds crazy but it’s how it works.’

“‘Dr. Martin Luther King has only the power his people give him. He speaks for them. They follow him. It’s that simple. Don’t believe what you read in the newspapers or hear. Take note of it and gather your own facts. Your best source of truth is your belly. If it feels wrong there, you may be onto something.’

“’There’s one thing for certain. No man puts his life on the line for trivial reasons. Not even to make a buck. You’ve got to be sure your cause is worth the price if you are going to bet your life on it. What I know is, and I can't source this information for you, Dr. King's life is in danger every time he steps outside. There are men hoping to get a shot at him. We know it. He knows it. If he's a commie, Dury, he's a brave commie.'

“'Now you know what I know about Dr. King. Don’t quote me if you have coffee with J. Edgar.’”

“Wow!” Keith said. “Your father sounds like a cool dude.”

“He was cool. He was smarter than I was and I always knew that. It's why I listened when he spoke to me. He didn’t need to tell me things like that, but he knew it was time for me to know the score. He knew King was a player.”

“You’re pretty smart, Dury,” Gary said.

“That’s a matter of opinion. I’m a smart attorney. I learned my lessons well. I've gotten experience. I know how the game is played.”

“It’s mine,” Gary said. “I’ve seen you work. Remember?”

“If you’re only smart enough to work, you miss a lot. Work requires memory and repetition in most instances. Living a good life requires an appreciation for time and people. No matter what else you have, it’s time and people who make it special. I’ve had time to think that over too.”

“That’s a different conversation,” Gary said. “I'm still working on having time.”

“He asked me to come home to cook for him. That’s pretty smart,” Keith said. “Little did he know a master chef was cooking his bacon and eggs..”

“Keeping you so you could keep cooking for me was even smarter,” Dury said. “I forgot how good a meal with friends can makes me feel.”

“See what I’m saying,” Gary said. “The man knows his moves and it ain’t written in no book. I’d say having a feel for life is smart.”

“There’s banana pudding waiting to be eaten,” Keith said.

“Does banana pudding go well with twelve year old bourbon? I need a drink,” Gary said. “I suspect that’s not the end of how you became a big time attorney in Charleston?”

“No, that incident woke me up to laws I knew nothing about. It woke up my brain to where I was. It told me that I was only seeing half the picture and it didn’t sit well with me to learn we were being manipulated by men with an agenda that had them hiding the truth.”

“I definitely need a drink,” Gary said, getting out of his seat and stretching. “Hold your place until I come back. Anyone need a refill? Keith, it would be a good time for that banana pudding.”

*****

“What was it about Hoover?” Keith asked. “You've mentioned him several times and your father sounds cautious of the man. Why? What was he?”

“Hoover parlayed a job as director of a government agency into a lifetime appointment. J. Edgar Hoover was a piece of work, even before you get to the rumors about him. The FBI was his baby. Hoover wanted to make certain it stayed his. He used FBI agents to investigate everyone. He had something on everyone. When he wanted something or if someone was putting pressure on him, he'd have a private meeting with that person. The troubles went away before the meeting broke up. Hoover would pull out the 'private' information he had on that person, and he'd indicate, 'We wouldn't want this to become public, now would we.'”

“Blackmail?” Keith asked.

“Such an ugly word,” Dury said. “Hoover stayed director of the FBI for life, and when he died, and I can’t tell you how I know this, his sidekick, Clyde Tolson, either destroyed or moved all the files. Destroyed is more likely. No one would have the balls to threaten senators and presidents but J. Edgar Hoover.”

“That's all it takes?” Gary asked.

“Information is the coin of the realm. The man who knows the secrets of powerful men gets whatever he wants,” Dury said.

“Who’d a thought bourbon goes with banana pudding? Life is full of surprises,” Gary said. “Hoover was evil.”

“Some say,” Dury said. “He knew how to get job security.”

“As quick as you ate that, how do you know it goes with bourbon?” Dury asked.

“I’m pretty smart about some things,” Gary replied. “I'll be the first one to get seconds.”

“You’re starting to pick up a few pounds, Gary. Better ease back on the caloric intake.”

“It isn’t the calories, Dury. I haven’t worked in three months. Give me a couple of weeks of eight hour days with a hammer in my hand, I’ll tighten up and get my hard body back. This is the first time in almost forty years that I haven’t worked five or six days a week. Retirement ain’t for the faint of heart, my man.”

“Tell me about it,” Dury said. “Retirement is harder than a daily routine. I find myself with time to think about something other than the law or my current cases. A routine is easy. Having time is hard.”

“Speaking of thinking, you were talking about Dr. King. Why’d your father wait so long to tell you those things about King? Why’d he say a man doesn’t risk his life for trivial things? If you couldn’t read about what was really going on in the papers, how’d your father know so much? Who was the other orator in King’s league?” Keith asked. “I'd like to know who that is. You left a lot of loose ends.”

“I couldn’t tell you how my father knew those things then, but I can tell you now. He waited until I was ready to hear what he knew. Kings phones were tapped. His houses and hotel rooms were bugged. J. Edgar Hoover considered King the most dangerous man in America. He was obsessed with King, because he was a man he couldn’t control and couldn't understand. Was Hoover a racist? Probably. That would be the easy way to explain his actions.”

“What did he do?” Keith asked.

“He lead and planned how to make economic boycotts work. The Montgomery bus boycott was begun by Rosa Parks. Most folks my age know who she was, but they didn't know she was a civil rights activist. He left Atlanta to go to Montgomery to help keep the boycott going. Without black riders the buses were nearly empty. Whites had cars. Blacks road the bus.”

“Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus,” Keith said.

“She'd done it more than once. Sat in the front,” Dury said.

“She did?” Gary said. “I thought she sat down in the front, a white man got on, the bus driver told her to move to the back. She refused. The fight for civil rights had begun.”

“She'd taken that bus and sat in that seat several times. One day the driver told her, 'Go to the back of the bus where you belong.' She refused. He called a cop and Rosa Parks was arrested. That's what she set out to do.”

“That started the Montgomery bus boycott. It lasted for a year. The bus company gave in because blacks were the only ones that rode the bus. White people had cars. King went to Montgomery because that's where the action was. From that time forward, he was on every racist’s hit list.”

“My father said, King's just a man. He was a man who took the responsibility of trying to get justice for his people. He met woman in his hotel rooms. Hoover knew that because his men made sure that the hotel put King in the room they'd bugged.”

“So your father, being an FBI analyst, knew what King was saying in private?” Gary asked. “He still thought he was a good man?”

“He didn’t tell me how he knew what he knew, but my father said he was a good man, but not without his peccadilloes. The FBI tried to blackmail him into committing suicide one time. They had what they said were tapes of King with women other than his wife in hotel rooms making love. King would play. They sent the tapes to his wife. Nothing changed. Those things are common knowledge now, but at the time only the players knew the truth.

“You could only imagine who was on the tapes,” Dury said. “There wasn’t a lot of talking on them. Hoover knew who it was. Hoover knew everything King did. Hoover had tapes on half the people in Washington in similar situations.”

“How long did he run the FBI?” Gary asked.

“Too long. Over forty years. He was the head of a government agency that had no great power of its own. Hoover turned it into his private archives of the misdeeds of powerful men. He stayed in charge of the FBI by having something on everyone and letting them know he had it. 'We wouldn't want this to get out, now would we?'

“There was a story about LBJ taking Hoover on Air Force One with him shortly after he became president. LBJ intended to fire Hoover. He wasn't going to let him control the FBI any longer. LBJ bragged that everyone was afraid of Hoover but he wasn’t. When they returned from the trip, Hoover had been appointed director of the FBI for life.”

“He had something on Johnson?” Gary asked.

“You'll have to decide. Like most powerful men, Johnson had large appetites. Lady bird wasn't the only bird in his bed.”

“Tell me about King risking his life,” Keith said. “When did he do that?”

“This had something to do with my decision to become a lawyer. My father told me this in real time. I followed this story every day. Three civil rights workers disappeared in Mississippi. They went to visit a burned out black church. They’d been stopped by a local sheriffs' deputy. He turned them over to the Klan. This became a national outrage. Two white and one black college kid dropped off the face of the earth. It was different when it happened to white kids.”

“This was a year after the police attacked the black kids in Birmingham. It was another headline news story all over the world. Where were those kids?

“If that wasn't bad enough, the FBI had King on tape saying, “I don’t want to go there. I want my life back.’ His people said later that he often argued when they had to put their lives in danger. He didn’t like it. He was afraid and didn’t want to die, but three kids who were in Mississippi to register black people to vote were missing.

“The story goes, Hoover rushes the tape over to Johnson, he's bragging about what a hypocrite King is. Johnson doesn’t need to worry about King showing up to stir up trouble in Mississippi. Johnson enjoyed Hoover’s gossip, but when he listened to Hoover he got burnt and he let Hoover know who really ran the country. LBJ had things on Hoover now.”

“What happened?” Gary asked. “Did they find the kids?”

“The following day King and his people are driving all over Mississippi. Someone calls Johnson to tell him, ‘King’s in Mississippi and he’s going to get his ass shot if you don’t do something.’

“Johnson was mad as a hornet and he called Hoover and told him, ‘You get your boys down there, Edgar, and protect Martin Luther King. If he’s killed, you’re responsible. Do you understand, Edgar?’” Dury said, retelling the details his father gave him.

“What happened?” Keith asked. “They killed those kids, didn't they?”

“Hoover refused to send 'his' agents to Mississippi to discourage violence against the voter registration. Now he sent a hundred FBI agents down there. A couple of car loads of agents were assigned to follow King and his people.

“Each time King stopped, he stood on a chair or on some stairs so the people could see he was there, and FBI agents went into cardiac arrest. They knew he was a sitting duck for anyone with a rifle.

“There was no communication between King and the agents. They didn’t know what he’d do next. After a few hours of them knowing their careers were on the line if King was shot, King started sending one of his people back to tell the agents where they’d be going next.

“LBJ kept King alive by using the FBI. Johnson didn’t know what would happen when King was killed, but he didn’t want to find out. The missing kids in Mississippi were enough of a headache. No one knew where those kids were.

“The people that were with King on that trip, wrote about it later. They said King was the one cracking jokes about, 'It's hard to know where the bullet will come from,’ he said, as he surveyed his FBI escort a few dozen feet away.

“On his third day in Mississippi King came to where the voter were being registered. This was the appearance he had to make if he hoped to keep the college kids registering voters. He stood where everyone could see him. Most of those kids had never seen Martin Luther King in person. He said he'd come to be with them and let them know how important they were to the civil rights movement and they weren't alone. King did what he knew he had to do and he knew there was no way to stop someone determined to shoot him. He was in Mississippi.”

“Courage isn’t being fearless. Courage is being afraid and doing what you know has to be done in spite of the danger,” Gary said.

“That’s insane. Why did they want to kill him?” Keith asked. “He only wanted his people to be free. Why are there so many hateful people?”

“King forced the status quo to change. He let the American people see how brutally blacks were treated. Like me, people were living nice lives. We had no idea blacks were being lynched and terrorized in the south. No one talked about it and no one reported on it. King made it impossible to ignore.

“Earlier in Mississippi, 1955, the year Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Emmett Till was murdered by the Klan. He was a fourteen year old black kid. It was rumored, he'd whistled at a white woman, the wife of a Klansman.

“Emmett came from Chicago and was in Mississippi visiting his momma’s people. He went back to Chicago in a crate marked, do not open by order of the Mississippi Coroner.

“Not only did the mother open the crate but she had an open casket to show the world what they’d done to her son. The relatives said the Klan came to the house of the uncle where Emmett was staying. They came in the front door after everyone was in bed. They demanded, ‘The little nigger from Chicago.’ They dragged him out of the house at gun point. Emmett was beaten to death, weighted down with a factory fan, and dumped into the nearby river. He surfaced a few days later.”

Keith’s hand covered his mouth, “Those bastards!”

“Emmett was given justice, Mississippi style. A child...,” Dury said. “Pictures were taken of his horribly mutilated body. There was an open casket. His mother wanted the world to see what they did to her boy.

“I saw them years later. The original pictures appeared in Jet magazine in 1955. I looked into a lot of civil rights cases while I was in law school. I looked into the lynchings that were documented. Most weren't documented. Mississippi had a knack for terrorizing the 'Negro.'

“Voter registration came to Mississippi. Civil rights workers disappeared. This was a world Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew well.

“King stood where he could be seen, or shot. He said, 'You aren't alone. I'm here to be with you.' Those kids didn't know about Emmett Till. They didn't know their friends were dead. Only the FBI and LBJ knew that,” Dury said, pausing.

“Let's take a break,” Gary said. “I want to hear how this ends, but I need a drink. It's hard to figure people who hate that much. It's hard to know how scary it was for the people on the receiving end.”

It grew quiet. The ending wasn't a secret.

Chapter 11

Less Than Civil

The time-out was a way to undo the spell Dury weaved. The law was mysterious at best for people who weren't involved with the laws. Even for attorneys that benefited, laws were written in unnecessarily complicated ways to make lawyers necessary to decode even simple business transactions.

Law, when justice was the consideration, wasn't simply mysterious in the 60s. Even white poor people understood that there were two distinctly different justice systems. Maybe they didn't want to see because they were white.

Dury finished growing up during the turmoil the 60s. In law school he was reading and studying the important cases of the day. He had access to cases that interested him.

Dury was intrigued by cases that never went to trial. They were the key to the times. If there was no trial, there was no presentation of evidence, or cross examination, no challenges. It could be used to sell flawed theories.

Some cases had the perpetrator guilty before his day in court, if it went to court at all. President Richard Nixon pronounced, 'Charlie Manson is guilty of eight murder, directly or indirectly,' at a Denver press conference. He objected to the excessive coverage the news media gave the Manson case.

In most courts this would be seen as prejudicial from an unimpeachable source, even one that wasn't beyond impeachment himself. Since everyone knew Charlie did it, it didn't amount to much. The White House, not Nixon, said, 'The president wouldn't make a prejudicial comment about a pending case.'

Reading between the lines was a good idea for an attorney. Seeing motive in the actions of participants in any activity was important. Motive didn't establish guilt but it did create suspicions that should be investigated.

After a few years of watching the legal system grind up his clients in New York City, Dury resigned from the public defenders office and started over as an attorney in one of the most beautiful cities in the south, practicing business law.

“There was no way to change anything in New York,” Dury said. “It was a lumbering machine that rolled on and on. I left before it rolled over me. People doing my job year after year were only going through the motions.”

“What was it like to live in New York City,” Keith said. “Nothing was like New Orleans, before or after I lived there. New Orleans is probably the most European city in America. It maintains some of the flavor from the original people. The French and Creole influences are apparent, especially in the food.”

“New York, when I lived there, and Bev and I lived near Greenwich Village, was amazing. The people were great. I'd still be living there if I didn't need to practice law. The city moved faster and faster while I was living there. It moved so fast it was difficult to get out of there safely.

“It was literally a rat race and I burned out on it. If you keep moving faster and faster. When you move too fast, you miss things. When I missed things, people's lives were in the balance. I had to get out. I wasn't doing my job.”

“You're no quitter,” Gary said with authority.

“No, I didn't quit. I knew when I had enough. I did what I did because I believed I could help people who needed help, but I couldn't even help myself. Whether I was there or not, the system rolls on,” Dury said. “It did it without me.”

“It’s not that different down here. We don't do it as fast but we know the outcome before we start something. I was unaware of the world around me in the period you're talking about. I was becoming nine, ten, eleven back then. We didn’t talk about what went on outside my house. It was the way it was.

“Black men were seen hung from trees from time to time. I'd hear people talking, but not at my house. It was only rarely reported on or talked about as far as I know,” Gary said. “I didn’t know lynching meant hanging a black man.”

“Billie Holiday sang a song, Strange Fruit. It was about lynching. Even in the north she was warned not to sing that song, but she didn't stop. There's a theories that she died of a drug overdose because of that song,” Dury said.

“Billie Holiday was murdered?” Keith asked.

“Some people say,” Dury said. “That song cut to the bone. 'Strange fruit hanging from tries, blowing in the breeze.'

“Strange fruit being black men?” Keith said, shaking his head.

“King said in his letter from the Birmingham jail, ‘It isn’t the brutal actions of the bad people that surprises me. It's the appalling silence of the good people.’ In 1963 the truth began to come out. It became harder to stay silent,” Dury said.

“Our government kept secrets and we found them out. King told us and then showed us the truth. I don't recall hearing about that letter until after he was dead. Because people were getting a glimpse at segregation, Martin Luther King became the most dangerous man in America.”

“Especially to J. Edgar Hoover,” Keith said.

“Especially J. Edgar,” Dury said.

“What did they do to those kids?” Keith asked.

“It's a discomforting story. You must realize they went to Mississippi to do something good. I'll give it to you the way I found out. I was reading all the papers to see if there was anything on them. My father knew somehow, the way he always knew about the most serious events. I guess they talked to each other over at the FBI. They weren't supposed to tell anyone they overheard.

“One Sunday morning I was sitting on the floor with the papers spread out. 'What are you searching for, Dury?' my father asked. 'Just checking on those college kids,' I said.

“My father thought about it. It was a silence that meant he'd tell me what he knew. 'This won't end well, Dury. Don't get your hopes up.'

“The FBI knew those kids were dead the day after they disappeared. An FBI informant was there when the Klan killed them,” Dury said.

“The military got involved in the search for those kids. Someone told where they were buried for the reward.”

“You didn't study these as legal cases?” Gary asked.

“No, there was no case for murder. It was Mississippi. They were killed by the Klan. You don't indict the Klan. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the feds prosecuted some of the men involved, but violating civil rights doesn't care the penalty that murder does.”

“I know about hatred,” Keith said. “Up until this decade, I've been in one of the most hated groups around. How my ability to love causes hate, I don't know.”

“The people who hate gays, Keith, are incited to hate by people who make their living stirring up hatred. They are professional hate mongers.”

“Why isn't that a crime, Dury?” Keith asked. “It's despicable.”

“People preaching hatred are protected by the constitution and they hide behind their religion to make hatred digestible. There's big money it hate.”

“Wouldn't Jesus be proud,” Gary said.

“Jesus said, 'As you do to the least among you, you do to me,'” Keith said.

“That's the nice Jesus. The nice Jesus doesn't raise money or build gigantic cathedrals to worship himself.”

“Shouldn't a religion based on Jesus' teachings act a bit more forgiving and accepting, like Jesus was?” Gary asked.

“You don't want to mix religion with logic,” Dury said. “It's about the money these days. Divide and conquer is a direct path to control. While people fight each other for crumbs, the rich and powerful take the pie.”

“For me it's about what motivates people to hate,” Keith said. “I understand the preachers preaching it, but not the people who believe it. When your father hates you, hate is no longer a factor, but it kills kids who are like me. Who wants to be born into a world where you're constantly hated? I survived. Many don't.”

“You got a bad deal, Keith. My old man was no picnic, but he was fair. He didn't understand me, but he taught me right from wrong and that nothing worth having comes easy.”

“Like holding onto your business isn't as easy as it looks,” Dury said.

“That I lesson was learned from a crook, Dury.”

“It took a crook to teach me that,” Gary said.

“I'd say you were raised well,” Dury said. “You were well-adjusted as far as I could tell. We became friends, I think that says it all,” Dury said. “Of course Keith is one of the most interesting people I've met in some time. He gives meaning to self-made. He found a way to make a difficult beginning into success. Which brings us to all the kids who never make it after being abused.”

“Once I left home, I closed that door behind me,” Keith said. “I met Henrietta early on in my escape. She gave me refuge, She knew I was running from something but not what and she didn't ask.”

“Henrietta was a good woman. She could see I was an innocent kid who needed help. She didn't need to know my past to give me shelter.”

“No one asked if I was a good kid. I showed interest in what they did, and they began teaching me how it was done. As long as I paid attention, they kept teaching me. I had a long way to go to be as good as they were,” Gary said.

“I spent my apprenticeship peeling potatoes and onions. Then Henrietta had me doing prep, and I'd hand her the ingredients as she needed them. I was learning what it took to be a cook. Where you find people, you need cooks. There was a security that came with what Henrietta taught me. I could walk into any restaurant, tell them I was a cook, and before I knew it, I was standing at the stove. A man who owns a restaurant is in constant search for good cooks.”

“Building is like that, but there are hard times when there is no building,” Gary said. “People always need to eat.”

“Someone stolen what your life was about, as I recall. That might give you indigestion when you ate. You were fairly rational, Gary. You didn't go get a gun. You got a lawyer instead, and you got what belonged to you back. You were smart. Men often aren't smart. They resort to violence and lose everything.”

“I suppose I was. It turned out fine, but I had a lot of sleepless nights. You kept saying we were fine, Dury. I wasn't sure you were telling me the truth until the judge fell on that guy.”

“Most laws are clear, Gary. There are things you can't get away with. Forgery to commit grand larceny is one of those. If he'd slid those papers over in front of you and said, 'Sign these,' and you signed them, he may have gotten away with it. The judge would have asked, 'Is this your signature?' If you said yes, he'd have sent us packing.”

“I don't sign anything without reading it. I had millions of dollars tied up in housing developments. I was after the best deal on the best material money could buy. I checked things for details i missed before signing anything.”

“You got your business back,” Dury said. “The delays were all because of your partner's attorney. Maybe you'd die or lose interest after a few years. Once we got in front of a judge, well, you know the rest.”

“I admit I doubted you a few times over those two years. My wife and I were on food stamps. Who was going to hire a contractor to lay brick or hang drywall? I can answer that. No one,” Gary said. “I took odd jobs fixing the neighbors plumbing and sticking in a fuse when their power went off. I made enough to keep us afloat, but the economy was bad. The construction industry was in a depression in the early 80s.”

“I'd been around law long enough to know you had a case. Once I verified the facts, I filed our suit. It took six months to get my ducks all in order.”

“Some people don't care about what they do to each other,” Keith said.

“This was pure human greed. It's quite logical to the perpetrator. 'I need it more than he does.'”

“Why spend so much time and energy trying to swindle someone?” Keith said. “If they put all that effort into something legal, they'd end up better off.”

“When I first became a contractor, before I lost my business, I went looking for the men who taught me the trade. I was a good builder and I hired the best men I could find, starting with my teachers. I gave them all the work they needed, and when a kid came on a job site holding the help wanted sign, those men who trained me knew what I expected. Most of those kids didn't make it to the second hod of bricks, but once in a while, we got a keeper and they trained a next generation builder.”

“When I went to work for Henrietta, no one said anything to me. I was mostly in the back, getting things for Henrietta and doing prep. Then the customers began to joked about Henrietta hiring a white boy. She wasn't having any of it and she made that clear. No one gave me any grief. After the first year, Henrietta was slowing down, so I served the food. She'd tell me who it went to. I knew everyone by name. They said, 'Thank you, Mr. Keith.'”

“Henrietta sounds like she knew what she was doing,” Gary said.

“What I knew about black and white, I was raised in a white world,” Keith said. “And I went to work in a black one. I saw no reason to be mean to anyone. No one but my father ever called me a sissy. I never knew why.”

“What the hell did he want from you? You were a kid?” Gary objected. “Some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids.”

“That's not the American way. Have all you want, but you better have them. After that, they're on their own,” Dury said.

“Yeah, if you get hungry enough, you'll get a job,” Gary said.

“If he'd said that, I'd know what he meant,” Keith said.

“There was nothing wrong with you, Keith,” Gary said. “You got a lemon for an old man. Look at yourself. You're a success man. Your old man was a loser.”

“They killed those kids for registering people to vote?” Keith said, still working on the college boys.

“Killing white kids brought a lot of attention to Mississippi. It was very different from when they killed blacks. If they'd just killed Chaney, no one would have noticed. Mickey Schweitzer, the oldest of the three, helped organize the voter registration. The Klan knew who he was. They may have thought by killing him it would stop the registration,” Dury said. “The killings were a warning to civil rights workers. 'You don't want to fuck with the Klan. Stay out of Mississippi.'”

“I was around black people. I don't think they missed hanging around white folks,” Gary said. “It was a working relationship. Even when I hired them to work for me, it was business. We didn't go get a beer together or associate away from work. I helped a few out that got into financial trouble, but I did that for all my employees. If I could help, I would helped. I treated them with respect and they returned the favor.”

“Lynchings, church burnings, black men terrorized at home. Why would they want anything to do with whites?” Dury asked.

“The black men who taught me the trade were good men,” Gary said.

“You showed them you wanted to learn,” Dury said. “You hired them when you became a contractor.”

“They killed three kids and thought they'd get away with it?” Keith asked.

“They weren't so smart as they thunk they was,” Gary said. “They did stand trial. I remember seeing a picture of that sheriff's deputy, Cecil something, on the courthouse steps.”

“Quite true. Someone was talking. The FBI had the names of the murderers, including the sheriff's deputy and the other men who were there. The FBI was in the south. Someone was talking and no one knew who.”

“But they knew who killed Emmett Till too,” Keith said.

“Emmett was a black boy. While what happened to him was horrific, there would be no justice for him in Mississippi. The FBI could take down local Klansman for violating the new Civil Rights Act. They'd use it to take down the men who killed those college kids. Just not for murder,” Dury said. “There's a movie, Mississippi Burning, that gives an idea of what the FBI faced.”

*****

“I’ve got to pee again,” Gary said, getting up to head for the bathroom. “Maybe hold up until I’m done. I don't want to miss anything.”

“I can get some coffee on so Gary can drive home,” Keith said. “I'd offer to drive him, but I don't drive.”

“We need to correct that, Keith. You can't be out here and not be able to drive somewhere if you need to. What if something happens to me?” Dury asked.

“I'd call 911,” Keith said.

“After they come to get me?”

“I'd be here by myself?”

“I'll show you the basics. Even without a driver's license, you'd be able to drive somewhere in a pinch.”

“I've been watching people drive all my life. I just never had the urge. I could do it if I wanted to.”

“No harm in making sure you're able to drive my car.”

“No,” Keith said. “No harm in getting familiar with it.”

“You could call Gary. He'd come to your aid.”

“Yes, that's a thought. He'd check on me if he knew you went to the hospital.”

“Yes, he would. That makes me feel better,” Dury said.

Keith got up and went to make a pot of coffee. It was getting late. If they kept talking, he’d need some caffeine before long.

Getting busy would keep the college students off his mind.

*****

Gary made a stop by the kitchen on his way back from the bathroom. Since there was only one good sized serving of banana pudding, he took it. No point in letting it go to waste. It was really good.

“Help yourself to the banana pudding, Gary,” Dury said, as Gary came into the living room with the dessert.

“I would, but some schmuck took it all, and I don't think he's even sorry.”

“You can tell the schmuck that I had another whole pudding in the fridge. I'm used to cooking for a mob. I always make too much,” Keith said.

“I don't know if I can afford all this banana pudding,” Dury said.

“It's not that fattening, Dury,” Keith said.

“Well, that isn't what I meant. How much are bananas these days?”

“Pop charges thirty-nine cents a pound. It's one of his sale items. The pudding was ninety-nine cents. Now he gets his money back on things like Vanilla Wafers. It was a choice between those or a barrel of oil.”

“I'd go with the wafers every time,” Gary said, scrapping his bowl clean.

“Compliments to the chef. That's so good it's probably illegal,” Gary said.

“No. It isn't even difficult to make if you can turn on a burner and have a sauce pan.”

“Speaking of burners, Mr. Lane, the other orator please?” Gary wanted to know. “This other stuff is too depressing. I never knew the details, and now that I do, I wish I didn't. I knew King gave speeches and got shot by a loser named Earl. The other orator has to end up better than King,” Gary decided. “How much trouble can you get into making speeches? Very few folks get shot for it.”

“If I tell you that everything I tell you was life altering, you aren’t going to believe me. It just so happens at that time, 1963, '64, '65, I was fully engaged with what was going on, Gary, it was like driving on a nice smooth road all your life....”

“Don't start without me,” Keith yelled, as he was coming out of the kitchen. “Coffee in ten minutes.”

“As I was saying, that period in my life was like driving on a nice smooth super highway and suddenly, while going sixty, you hit a rut filled gravel section of road. It gets your attention. That's what happened as the middle “60s unfolded. It was one thing after another. We got over one traumatic event and were hit with something as bad or worse. A little like boxing Mohammed Ali.”

“Why do I have the feeling you're leaving some things out,” Keith asked. “Before you move on, you indicated there were other events you hadn't mentioned. Since so much of what you told us is depressing, why don't we get it out of the way before you start in a new direction. What else was going on when those three college kids were murdered?”

“Gary was asking about the other orator, while you put the coffee on,” Dury explained. “That's fine, but if other things happened that helped shape you, maybe tell us before we move on,” Keith said. “I wasn't alive at the time and I have no memory of what you've told us so far. You just indicated there was a lot going on that lead you to studying the law.”

“Yeah, he's right, Dury. Go ahead with what kinds of things were happening down there. Then we won't need to come back to it.”

“OK! A church bombing in Birmingham killed four little black girls. Medger Evers, a field worker for the NAACP was gunned down in front of his house. That was... '63 I think. His murder, de la Beckworth, I believe, was arrest, tried and convicted, over thirty years later, but he was convicted by a Mississippi jury.”

“Will wonders never cease,” Gary said. “See us southerns do learn if you give us enough time.”

“How come that doesn't thrill me,” Keith said.

“Didn't thrill de la Beckworth either. He was part of Old Mississippi.”

“The movie the Help showed what it was like for black women working for white woman in Jackson,” Keith said.

“Medgar Evers is mentioned in the Help, Keith. He was killed in Jackson. They were on a bus and the cops told the blacks to get off, not referring to them as black either. There's a black man who gets off with the narrator, one of the maids, and he offers to walk her home, because she looks scared, but she's too suspicious of him to let him walk with her.”

“That's paranoid,” Gary said.

“See the Help and you'll understand why she was paranoid,” Keith said.

“Yeah, I recall that scene,” Keith said.

“After the college kids are killed, Malcolm X is murdered. LBJ signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution during that period. Civil rights was a constant story between '63 to '65. I didn't give it to you in order, but that's what I remember.” ”Why don't we move on to the other orator who was in King's league. You heard both of them speak?” Gary asked.

“I did,” Dury said.

“I want to hear about him. This other stuff is depressing me.”

“History can do that. As grand a civilization as we have, the people leave a little something to be desired. Reading the sanitized version gives you the idea man isn't all he's cracked up to be. Living the history means you don't know how it is all interlinked. Many times truth doesn't enter the picture until later.”

“Some events I've already mentioned came after the story I'm about to tell,” Dury said.

“This is about the orator?” Gary wanted to make sure.

“Yes, Gary, the story of the second orator I told you about goes back to 1963 again. You'll see why we need to return to that year to speak of him. This will be apparent before I'm done.”

Chapter 12

Silent Night

As Dury began speaking, Gary and Keith grew quiet, sensing what they wanted to hear about was on the way.

“I was at an age when I questioned things. Because there were so many things going on, I searched for something that wasn't the official story. Even before the story took place I'm about to tell you, the government line seldom matched up with the facts, as they became clear.”

“This sounds like the same thing we were talking about,” Gary said.

“Cool down. We've been here three hours.”

“Four,” Gary corrected.

“Time flies when you're having fun,” Dury said. “I'm setting the stage so I put the story in context. It'll make more sense that way.”

“OK,” Gary said.

“My friends and I wanted to go to where this orator was. It was late before we knew where he'd be. It was a hastily organized event. To even get out of the house that time of night took an act of congress, but my parents hardly argued. All four of us were out of the house and we didn't even need to lie about it.

“This was a big deal and our parents thought it was important for us to remember him. By the time we left the house it was after eight.

“This would have been three months after we heard King speak. My buddies and I were on our way. He was the only man as eloquent as King once Winston Churchill was out of the game. I never heard Churchill give a speech but he was one of the great orators.”

“Why do you say that?” Gary asked.

“I lived in Washington. I got to hear most men I wanted to hear. It wasn't the way it is now. Men spoke outside in plain view of large audience. The great speakers didn't need to remind people to come. People were drawn to them.” “Now someone would take a shot at them,” Gary said.

“It's customary to not make yourself a target these days. Lots of men with guns out there and you never know when one is gunning for you. My friends and i had heard both of these men speak. They made you feel it when you heard them. It was like they were talking directly to you. My father said that if you felt it in your belly, you could figure out what was true.”

“OK, quit stalling, Lane,” Gary said. “Is this how you won cases in court? By talking the jury into a submission. A name please. We know you know who he is.”

“It’s coming. It was November. It was a cold night. It might have been drizzling rain or it seemed like it was.

“When we got to where he was, the line was endless. We walked and walked just to find the end of the line. It went way past Union Station. We got in line and people kept coming and coming. Before long there were people as far as I could see in front of us and behind us.”

“He must have been good,” Keith said.

“And I'm starting to recognize this story,” Gary said. “Go ahead, I won't ruin it for Keith. I know who you're talking abut now.”

“We probably got in line just before nine. We ended up being out all night. We’d never been out overnight before. Our parents knew where we were and we knew they might call each other but they wouldn’t worry about how late it got.”

“This guy must have been good,” Keith said.

“Oh, he was very good. It was becoming daylight when we reached the steps of the Capitol. After another half hour, we were narrowed down into two single file line. That’s why it took so long. It all moved so fast after that it was surreal. We were going down the steps of the Capitol before we knew it. We’d done what we came to do,” Dury said solemnly.

“After all those hours, I walked past the casket of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the United States. It was sobering. He was so alive, so smart, and so handsome,” Dury said, hesitating. “One minute he was telling us we were great people with the ability to do great things. The next minute his voice was forever silenced.”

Dury paused as both Keith and Gary sat silent.

“He was our guy,” Dury said convincingly. “The first president born in the twentieth century. Like us, he was a good Catholic boy. He was Hollywood handsome with a wife more gorgeous than he was and he had two adorable kids. The country was in love with the Kennedy's. They were as close to royalty as we ever came.

“He was a hero in World War II, saving his PT boat crew, after their boat was sunk by the Japanese. His crew didn't know Jack was seriously injured, but he kept them together and lied about where the closest island was.

“Towing one of his wounded mates by taking the life jacket strap in his teeth, they swim all night. At first light they saw the island and swam ashore. They were rescued a few days later.

“Kennedy wore a back brace because of how seriously he was injured the night his PT boat went down. It was that back brace that kept him upright after he was hit by the first bullet. He couldn't fall forward and out of view of the shooter, and then came the head shot that killed him.

“He wanted to take us to the moon and end the Cold War.”

*****

No one had anything else to say.

“JFK's assassination took the government out of the hands of the young men he brought to Washington with him. A few hours later Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president before leaving Dallas. He returned to D.C. with Kennedy's body and his wife, who was no longer first lady of the United States.

“Even people yet to be born would know the story and see the film clips taken that day. The controversy over Kennedy's assassination never ended. The papers and secret files developed at the time weren't available to the people or reporters. No one knows what secrets remain untold for our own good.”

For three men revisiting the known facts, it was still disturbing that such a dynamic leader could be so suddenly removed. Drinks for Dury and Gary would help. Keith got out the slices of lamb he'd put aside for sandwiches on pumpernickel bread. He served the sandwiches with potato salad he'd made the day before.

There wasn't much to say about this history. The best anyone could do was to say, 'Thank you,' when Keith delivered the snack. No one was particularly hungry, but the room remained silent as the sandwiches disappeared.

Dury, who was the only one to remember those long ago November events. Nearly fifty years later Kennedy's assassination still left people speechless. It was no longer an appetite killer. There was more to the story.

“The most remarkable part of that night was the silence. Shuffling feet and sobs were the only sounds for hour after hour. I didn't hear one word spoken.

“The country was in shock. It came to a standstill. The hope and inspiration of Kennedy was replaced by the same dour old men who always ran things. They saw America as the greatest empire in the history of the world. America was about politics and the projection of power.

“The hope had been shot away in Dallas. Within nine months Johnson had us in a war in Vietnam. It's what old men did and it men young men would die.”

“Did Kennedy's death change the country?” Keith asked.

“We'll never know. A man who had bold ideas lead the country. He was killed. I'd like to see what it would be like if Kennedy had lived. John and Bobby were the most liberal minds of my time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were eloquent voices for change. Losing one brilliant mind is a tragedy. Losing so many liberal thinkers is earth shattering. They were all gunned down in less than five years. It totally changed the direction of the country. They were young, dynamic, and projecting a new way of thinking. Almost as quickly as their stars rose, they were put out,” Dury said.

“No event did more to shape me. I'd seen him at his inauguration. There may have been a million people at the Capitol that day. He stood in the open in a suit and he wore no hat. It was bitterly cold. It had snowed and that made it unusually bright, but a million people stood in the snow to hear him speak.”

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,” Gary said in a southern Massachusetts accent.

“Yes, that's where he said that line. He didn't last three full years.”

“JFK went from being bitterly opposed by a segment of the population, to being beloved by all. The American memory doesn’t run deep. By the end of the funeral his presidency became known as Camelot. That was a Broadway play Jack and Jackie listened to many nights in the White House. It was a play about triumph and glory.

“Those who wanted Kennedy dead stayed in the shadows, smiling privately,” Dury said. “They won and Kennedy was gone. Killed by a lone nut.”

“Jesus, you’re killing me, Lane,” Gary said, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose. “I remember that. I wasn’t ten yet. My parents were in a daze. I thought it was the end of the world.”

“The day America lost its innocence,” Dury said. “I lost mine anyway. There is no democracy when the opposition kills you so the power shifts back to them.”

“Who killed Kennedy?” Keith asked. “A guy with a twenty dollar rifle? How could anyone kill the president? It should be impossible.”

“The day the world stood still,” Gary said. “There are questions about who killed Kennedy. I think I was eight, but I know guns. I've hunted since I was a kid. Hitting a moving target once is an accomplishment. As I grew up the story seemed to change.”

“Someone killed him and they aren’t sure who? The president?” Keith said.

“The official story fell apart. The American people realized the government lied to them about Kennedy's death,” Dury said.

“People couldn’t believe the government would lie about the worst event in a hundred years. Then we started to wonder, what else is the government lying about?” Dury said.

“Like the Vietnam War for instance,” Gary said.

“They lied about that too?” Dury asked in mock horror. “Someone killed the president. The people wanted the truth. The government decided lying about it would be better. As an attorney, telling the truth is always the best way to go. A lie will come back and bite you on the ass every time.”

“Trusting your government, what a novel idea?” Gary said. 'Now big business tells the politicians what they think.”

“We have the best government money can buy,” Dury said.

“Doesn't sound like any way to run a railroad,” Gary said.

“Or a government. The days of government of, by, for the people are long gone. It's government of, by, for corporations. They own our government and they write the laws they want passed. The politicians raise funds and use sound bites to get elected.”

“I just want to know who killed Kennedy?” Keith asked. “I read about it in school but it was only a couple of paragraphs. A guy named Lee?”

“Most of us feel the same way, Keith. If someone knows who killed Kennedy, they aren’t telling us. They gave us Lee Harvey Oswald. They so botched Kennedy's autopsy, no one can be sure where the shots came from. You can't disprove the findings of the Warren Commission.”

“Wasn't there some kind of independent investigation?” Keith asked. “He was a president.”

“The doctors in Dallas drew a sketch of Kennedy's head wounds as they began the autopsy. The FBI comes in, stops the autopsy, and they take Kennedy's body. The brain, what's left of it, is out of the body. The FBI waits while it is wrapped and placed beside the body, which is going back to Washington, where they resume the autopsy.

“The first problem is that the pictures taken at Bethesda don't match up with the sketch from Dallas. The wounds had been altered. What had been a gaping hole in the back of Kennedy's skull, now has the scalp pulled over it so the would looks like an entry wound instead of an exit wound. Dallas doctors opened an airway in Kennedy's neck right on top of where the first bullet exited.”

“Now you have a man with half his head shot away. What is the point to a tracheotomy?” Gary asked.

“He was the president. They wanted to save him,” Keith said. “I'd have done that if there was any chance of saving him.”

“The Bethesda doctors didn't know there was a wound in the neck. They thought it was a sloppy attempt at opening an airway. So you have a drawing of the skull showing one thing and pictures showing something entirely different. The evidence has been altered. There's no way to prove where the shots came from.”

“So your saying, Oswald may not have been the shooter,” Gary said.

“We'll never know. Oswald isn't talking,” Dury said. “They needed Oswald to be the lone assassin. The evidence has been ruined. Oswald is dead. Who benefits. If you buy the Warren Commissions findings, Oswald was the lone assassin. No evidence points any where else. No Oswald, no trial. No questions.”

“Who shot him if Oswald didn't?” Keith asked again.

“Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter, according to the Warren Commission,” Dury said. “That was the final word. Well, not quite as final as they'd have liked. In the late 1970s the Congress of the US found that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was likely a conspiracy, but they had no proof.”

“More than one shooter,” Gary said. “Doesn't conspiracy mean that?”

“A conspiracy would indicate other people were involved in some capacity, but if you have a conspiracy, there's an investigation. Except all the evidence is gone by the late 70s.”

“So Oswald didn't do it?” Keith asked.

“They think shots were fired from Oswald's location. It may not have been the only location where shots were fired from. There is no proof of that, just the long odds against anyone using a bolt action rifle getting off three shots, two of which are head shots, in less than seven seconds.

“Oswald had to load and, aim, and fire each time. Doable, but you'd have to be super sniper to do it. Then there is proof there was a fourth shot fired. At least congress said so.

“There is no way Oswald could have fired four shots from that rifle. The shots were recorded over an open microphone on one of the police motorcycles. In 1963 they didn't have the technology to analyze the tape the way that was available in the late 70s. Experts claim there are four distinct shots on the recording from that open mic.”

“Oswald couldn't have been the lone assassin?” Gary said.

“Did he tell you that? From first shot to last was 6.7 seconds. The best FBI shooters could pull it off, but they weren't shooting at president. Four shots would are impossible.”

“Then it was a conspiracy,” Gary said.

“Congress agrees.”

“So who killed Kennedy?” Keith asked.

“You read the report?” Gary asked.

“The most notorious murder since Lincoln? Yes, I read it. I read most landmark cases,” Dury said. “I wanted the truth. My father said, ‘You get a different truth depending on who you talk to.”

“Why would anyone want to kill the president?” Keith asked. “The people elected him. He should have served out his term?”

“Lee Harvey Oswald was portrayed as a lone nut assassin. That’s where the investigation started and ended. They wanted Oswald to be the killer and that's who they gave us. Pointing a finger and saying, ‘He did it’ isn’t an investigation. It is neat however. The Warren Commission was told to make it neat.”

“He could have done it. He had the opportunity. He worked at the School Book Depository,” Gary said.

“What was his motive? He didn't say. It always seemed to me that a lone nut assassin would yell his head off about why he needed to kill Kennedy, but not a word. He was caught. Why wouldn't he speak up? There's no evidence to prove he didn’t shoot Kennedy, but justice doesn't work that way.”

“He's all they had,” Gary said.

“Oswald was who they had,” Dury said. “A second shooter makes the story more plausible. Oswald was one of several shooters, but then you have a conspiracy. There would be an investigation. That isn't neat.”

“The FBI examined the rifle and came up empty. There were no identifiable prints on Saturday. Oswald is shot. He dies. On Monday the FBI examines the rifle a second time. They find Oswald's palm print on it. How'd it get there. More importantly, when did it get there. Once Oswald was dead, the story was neat.”

“No one who might indicate someone other than Oswald did it, wasn't called. There were people who heard shots from the 'Grass knoll' and from the building next to the School Book Depository. These witnesses aren't called to testify. The story stays neat.”

“You're making this up,” Keith said. “CSI would have nailed the evidence down in fifteen minutes.”

“It's only an hour show, Keith,” Gary said. “They only have fifteen minutes to devote to gathering evidence.”

“How did the guy shoot Oswald? If you have him in custody, you have him,” Keith said. “He was shot in the cop shop, right? That's wonderfully convenient if you like Oswald. No messy trial or discussion of the evidence.”

“The Dallas cops were having trouble keeping high profile folks alive in their city that week,” Gary said.

“What did he say about killing Kennedy?” Keith asked.

“’Ouch!’ he said.” Gary said. “Luckily no notes were written down or recordings were made while they had Oswald in custody. Sloppy if you ask me. We only have the word of the cops for what Oswald said to them.”

“Oswald shot. Were these the Keystone Cops?” Keith asked.

“Keith, when they paraded Oswald through the Dallas police station, showing off their trophy, he said, ‘I’m a patsy. I didn’t shoot anyone. I request someone come forward to represent me.’” Dury said. “He looked like a man who had legal trouble.

“I've seen my share of murderers up close. Oswald was cool as a cucumber. For a guy who just assassinating the most powerful man in the world, he was one cool customer.”

“So you don't think he did it,” Keith said.

“Most guys who are guilty of murder are looking for the deal. The D.A. wants the deal. The murderer gets to live and the D.A. gets a conviction. Most murderers are nervous as hell, until they get a deal. Then you see them relax and get cocky again. They wear their guilt once in custody.”

“But Oswald didn't ask for a deal?” Gary asked.

“I can't say what he said to the Dallas cops. When they wanted everyone to see their catch a few hours after Kennedy was dead, Oswald asked for an attorney in front of reporters. Not a bead of sweat or a slip of the lip. As they finished parading him past, someone yelled, ‘Did you kill the president?’

“Oswald stopped moving. No one pushed him along. He said calmly, ‘No, no one has said that to me yet.’” Dury said. “In reality he had been charged with killing Kennedy about the time the police were showing him off. This guy is totally cool. If he was a lone nut assassin, why isn't he foaming at the mouth. Why not shout whatever ideology drove him to ice the president?

“Every one in the country is watching. Wouldn’t he want his story told, especially if he was a nut?” Dury explained. “It doesn't make sense, but you tell me that Oswald is a hired assassin. I'd buy that. The trouble with that story is....”

“Who hired the hired assassin?” Gary said.

“Exactly! We're back to a conspiracy and a real investigation.”

“The Dallas cops let Kennedy get killed on their watch. They catch the president's killer and he's killed. Great police work if you ask me,” Keith said.

“Why didn’t the FBI come and get Oswald?” Gary asked.

“There was no federal law against killing the president,” Dury said. “That law was written as a result of Kennedy's assassination. The Dallas police had jurisdiction in a murder case. The FBI got away with taking Kennedy's body at the hospital. I doubt they pull it off at Dallas police headquarters. if Oswald had lived, he'd have been tried in Dallas.”

“Do you really believe that?” Gary asked.

“I don't think much about what didn't happen.”

“I doubt it,” Gary said. “The new president was from Texas. Johnson would have wanted Oswald tried in D.C. How'd the FBI get the body away from them?”

“The FBI stole the evidence of the murder. They stopped the autopsy, rolled Kennedy's body out into the hall. In the hall the FBI and Dallas police wrestled over Kennedy's body. When Mrs. Kennedy stepped into the hall to see what the commotion was, the Dallas cops let go of the gurney. The FBI dashed down the hall, making a clean getaway,” Dury said. “Had Jackie not stepped into the hall, we might be talking about the shootout at Parkland Hospital.”

“You're making this up,” Keith said.

“That's how newspaper reporters saw it,” Dury said.

“The FBI could do what they wanted?” Keith said.

“No doubt Hoover told them to take the body and bring it back to Washington,” Dury said. “Little happened with the FBI Hoover wasn't in on.”

“Oswald was safely in jail. Who would believe that cops would walk him into a crowd. A rookie cop would know better than that. If you must move him, you move him at two in the morning and without the audience that just might be hiding a gunman,” Keith said.

“They were so busy patting themselves on the back, that they didn't bother to protect their prize prisoner,” Gary said. “They were the keystone cops.”

“Oswald was shot on live television in front of the entire nation, while they watched the coverage of the tributes to Kennedy. Forty-eight hours after Kennedy dies, his alleged assassin dies in the same operating room.”

“Might make a good television show,” Keith said. “A comedy cop show.”

“No one would believe it,” Gary said. “The country was already in shock. Then, while watching ceremonies for JFK, they switch to Dallas in time for America to witness the assassin of JFK being assassinated. You take that show to a TV producer and he'd laugh you out of his office.”

“What happened that got the country going again?” Keith asked.

“Time. Don't they say, 'Time heals all wounds.' I guess we healed as much as we were ever going to heal.”

“Do you remember Dury? You were old enough to go to see his casket,” Keith said. “What was it that got things back to normal? Do you remember?”

Dury thought a moment. He grinned. Then he laughed in a pleasant way as he remembered what snapped America out of its depression.

“I do remember. You wouldn't believe me if I told you what saved America from the funk Kennedy's death put us in.”

“Come on, Dury. I wasn't there. I don't know,” Keith said.

Dury wasn't listening. He was remembering and smiling.

“You can't stop there. Come on,” Keith pleaded.