The Chicken Hanger

Chapter 6

41 SIX howard iczkowski was eighty-four years old and couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept past five in the morning.That wouldn’t be so bad, except he could never fall asleep before one o’clock the following morning.Make sense of that. A tiring cycle: sleepy all day, but he’d never developed the ability to nap.Then wide awake at night, watching that tall redheaded talk show host, or that silly Scottish man. Jay Leno was okay—more of an old-school host like Carson, his predecessor. A true legend. Good old Johnny, long gone. Now Howard’s clock read 4:38 am, and he was lying in bed, knowing there’d be no more sleep. He could hear a familiar sound—ploink!—coming from the kitchen. Every minute or so, ploink! Wasn’t like he had much to get up for, but he didn’t mean that in a defeatist way. You live a good life, work hard, then you retire, and what? Your wife of fifty -one years dies and your only child moves to Dallas. You’re on your own now. Well, you kept busy the best you could. Harder during the week, because the world was working. Very few garage sales on weekdays. Sometimes on Fridays . Sertoma meetings once a month, but he didn’t know many of the members anymore. What’re you gonna do? Become a greeter at Wal-Mart and deal with people who’d just as soon run you over with their carts? Play chess at the park? Howard swung his legs sideways and dropped his feet to the carpet. He looked for Roscoe in his own bed on the floor. Then he remembered. Roscoe died last year. Howard had thought about getting another dog, another rescue from the shelter, but he was too old for that. He simply sat for a few minutes, letting his blood circulate. Get up too quickly and he’d be lightheaded. Ploink! Johnny used to have some fantastic guests. Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin. Jimmy Stewart. Judy Garland. Ray Charles. George Carlin. All of them gone now. Real entertainers. Not like the guests Leno had to put up with. Actors Howard had never heard of, hawking their latest piece-of-crap movie. Explosions and special effects. Fighting terrorists or psychotic serial killers. Where was Spencer Tracy when you needed him? What happened to genuine drama? Authentic human emotion? Howard rose slowly and padded in his socks to the kitchen to put some coffee on. If you’re having insomnia, his doctor had said, you need to cut back on 42 your coffee, or switch to decaf. You kidding me, doc? While it was brewing, he flipped the switch for the light over the carport and peered out the window, past his hulking Buick, to the end of the short driveway. Wishful thinking. The newspaper rarely arrived before five thirty, and it would be even later today, because it had begun to drizzle overnight. The newspaper was part of his regular routine. Howard would read every word, not counting the ads, which would keep him busy until Regis came on. Howard liked to stay up on current events, even though most of the articles were depressing. The planet had turned bitter and ugly. For kids, though, it was the status quo. Hatred. Fear. Vengefulness. Paranoia. Don’t trust anyone who isn’t just like you. He went to the bathroom, patiently took a leak, then went back into the kitchen and checked the saucepan resting on the vinyl floor. Directly overhead was a yellow stain in the ceiling. The pan had two inches of rainwater in it. He dumped the water into the sink and put the pan back into its spot, with a folded paper towel in the bottom to soften the sound. Then he poured a cup of coffee and took it to the small dinette table. He kept a small black-and-white TV on the table, and he turned it on. Some guy with a loud voice was selling a can’tmiss real estate system. Make ten or twenty thousand a month. Sure. Piece of cake. Just buy these CDs for four easy payments of $59.95. Howard sat there watching, wondering how anyone could fall for such a crock. c He was reading the weather report—clearing this morning, but rain returning in the next day or two—when somebody knocked lightly on his front door. It...