Allegiance and Betrayal: Stories

Ghost of Thanksgiving

68 Ghost of Thanksgiving The wind rubbed a moaning sound from a loose pane in the kitchen window. Lester tapped the pane to stop it, then looked at the snowy yard. The rusted Coke thermometer read 34 degrees. He factored a number of things into his decisions these days, and temperature was one. A decision to leave the house was a yes-no proposition. A no could be expected from his back, a lifetime of lifting: cement bags, beer kegs, hod, mail sacks. And two grandchildren. Lately he had been seeing a chiropractor who talked about subluxations, wanted him to drink distilled water, eat sunflower seeds, apples, not use any salt. Lester ate as he pleased and told a few workmates at the post office that the guy must have had him confused with a bird or a raccoon. However, you did have to take care of yourself. His hair, curled up at the back of his neck, needed cutting, but at least he had plenty. The yard was sunny, oak limbs crooked against a cold blue sky, mocking crows nowhere in sight. Good sign. This trip to the mall might turn out well. You had to trust your luck, but days also required planning because time had a way of losing its shape, and for a long time after Jane died, it did. When not at work, he often found himself staring into space, forgetting things. He picked up the notepad from the counter: 1) wash bath & kitchen floor 2) haircut Ghost of Thanksgiving | 69 3) Di-gel 4) pay utilities 5) coffee & frozen dinners 6) fix roof TV antenna Next to the phone he found a pencil and added: 7) putty for loose window pane The next item on the list might be to take out a classified ad for a live-in companion: his sister-in-law’s suggestion. But her suggestion was more helpful than what his brother had to offer. His brother was locked into stories about lunatics they knew as kids, like Bugbee, who used to chew the caps off of beer bottles and talk through his nose. Serious talk with his brother was close to impossible , and Lester had no close friends. He turned up the volume on the TV and adjusted the vertical roll before sitting down at the table with Jane’s sewing kit. The picture on the screen was terrible. The rabbit ears were useless. And the rotor on the roof antenna wasn’t working; the red light came on, but no rotation. He wanted to see the Giants game tomorrow, but not in some smoky bar. Once upon a time, he’d have already gotten the ladder, climbed on the roof, and muscled the antenna to face the right direction. One more thing to be done, like this button on his coat that had popped a few minutes ago when he was heading out. Jane’s sewing basket had a red satin interior glinting with needles that wouldn’t quite focus. He patted himself down. “Where the hell are my specs?” Wind gusted and the house joints creaked. The door to the big front room was closed; it was too expensive to heat in the winter. He spent most of his time in the kitchen, where he had moved the TV. It was time for Search for Tomorrow, which he sometimes watched with Jane, but The Kennedy White House: Twenty Years After was preempting the soap. The screen flickered with black-and-white footage of John Kennedy, his wife and children. Then the Dallas motorcade, Ruby breaking and rushing at Oswald, the shrouded 70 | Allegiance and Betrayal caisson and riderless horse, little John saluting, the voice of Cardinal Cushing (now dead), white rows of tombstones in Arlington, De Gaulle (another dead), Jackie veiled in black. “Jesus, twenty years! Aristotle Onassis—he’s dead too. You wonder why she—” Lester whistled, put on his glasses, unspooled some thread. Jane thought what Jackie did was awful. Like a queen marrying a mobster. If Lester remarried, a few people might whisper, but the real question was how would his children, Sara and Henry, react to another woman? If any woman married him, it wouldn’t be for money. Half of the little he had was willed to Sara, for her kids’ education . “That husband of hers—what a useless bonehead! Couldn’t empty a piss pot with instructions written on...