Page 101 of Hanging and Burning

I slept like a dead man, with no dreams, not even a restless turn. At a few minutes shy of noon, I woke up in exactly the same position I’d fallen asleep in. I was completely refreshed. Oliya was somewhere infiltrating my enemies, and I was going to move slowly, like an old tree sloth reaching for the forbidden fruit, until she told me what was up.

No more than a minute after I awoke, my cell phone sounded.

“Hey, honey,” I said to Leaf.

“Where are you?”

“Back in California, trying to wrap up this mess.”

“You okay?”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I am rested. How’s Luwanda?”

“Still in the hospital, but she doin’ okay.” Her words were fragile, tentative.

“Give her my best.”

“I miss you.”

I tried to think of a reply and failed.

“Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?” she asked for a second time.

“Other than the fact that I feel like I wasted my life, I’m fine.”

“I don’t know what you mean. You have a great life.”

“Now that you’re home,” I said, almost swallowing the words.

“How long will you be out there?”

“Maybe three days,” I replied, thinking that this would be true if I didn’t get killed along the way.

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

I was asked to present my ID by the guards who already knew me at the entrance to the South Tower at Pilgrim’s Research Hospital. This time it felt good that they were so on top of their jobs. It felt good because there really were things that went bump in the night.

Rags answered our grandmother’s door that day.

“How’s it goin’, cuz?” he greeted.

“Like a hailstorm of golf balls under a flimsy umbrella in the middle’a nowhere.”

He laughed and slapped my shoulder.

“Come on in,” he said. “The front desk called up, so she been waitin’ for ya.”

When we got to her door, Rags whispered, “She got company.”

I walked in to see B and Arman opposite each other looking down upon a chessboard.

“Well, well, well,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“How you doin’, baby?” Grandma B said after our obligatory kiss.