Warm Whiskey in a Cold Ditch: Installment #13

I had joked to my parents more than once that the only time I put pen to paper was when I was signing for my belongings after posting bail or, more likely, having it posted for me. They had never come to see the humor in this even after I assured them it had happened only twice. Plus, the second time didn't really count because no charges were ever filed. "Some things parents never find funny," my mother had said. She was right, I suppose, and I know it must have been more of a burden for her and my father than it had been for me. I could always leave town and start someplace new, but they'd lived in the same house for 45 years and had to live and work among people who knew more about me than even I probably did.

Only half a dozen or so people were in the observation car with me after Margie left. The train would stop next in Helper, and something about passing through that town made me nervous. The Rhodia felt slick in my hands, and I realized the more I thought about Helper, the more sweaty my hands got. I watched a man who looked a few years younger than me come up the steps in the middle of the car. He was carrying a can of beer in each hand, and I thought a beer would taste good then. Behind the counter downstairs a short, wide woman stood counting money. "Can I get a beer?" I asked.

"What kind?" she asked.

"What are my options?"

She pointed to cans of beer lined up on a shelf behind her. I wondered how they stayed there when the ride got rough.

"Coors," I said, picking it only because I suddenly remembered Matt, an actual grave digger I'd known in Pensacola, Florida. This was before Coors was sold everywhere, and Matt had driven from Florida to Kansas and back one weekend just because he wanted to buy a case of Coors. Matt and I would come close to some bad trouble one night, but when he returned with the Coors he was generous enough to share as we sat on the beach and watched lights from ships and boats reflect off the Gulf of Mexico.

There were fewer people upstairs when I returned to where I'd been sitting. I set my feet on the small ledge beneath the window, but seeing my full reflection in the window now made me even more nervous, so I found a chair that would swivel and keep my reflection to myself. Several pages in the middle of the Rhodia were blank, and I picked a page right next to one of Ophelia's entries. I braced the notebook against my knee, test the pen on my hand, and knew after only a few minutes what I would write.