Acre Under a Green Sky

My father damned the car clock for never working and opened his car door to read his wristwatch by the overhead light.

"7:49," he said.

It was still light out in spite of thick foreboding clouds, but we were parked in the dark shadow of the low overpass spanning Route 22 and it was as dark as the inside of a tunnel. Like predators, we lay in wait for Joe's mud colored Mercury.

We were parked deep under the overpass facing the side street where we had lost Joe before. It was a gravel lot with sparse patches of flowering weeds. I'm sure it was never intended to be a parking lot, but there were five other cars parked there –– some out in the open, others tucked in under the overpass like we were. A few of them appeared to be long abandoned.

We waited there in silence while my father smoked one Camel cigarette after another. Then out of the blue, he said, "You're really pissed at me, aren't you?"

It was like a slap on the back of my head. I couldn't speak. I couldn't believe what I'd heard.

After a long silence he said, "Well, I'm sorry."

"That's okay," I said without intending to. It had just come out of my mouth like a "bless you" after a sneeze. I kicked myself for saying that –– for letting him off the hook without meaning to.

My father opened his car door again –– this time to empty his car ashtray. He stared down at the ground for a long time, then reached down to pick something up. It was a buffalo nickel, and he handed it to me.

"Don't spend it all in one place," he said with no humor at all.

I stared at it in my hand. It shone so brightly that I wondered if it had been minted that day. I was about to check the date on the nickel, when I heard my father say, "Heads up!" Joe's mud colored Mercury was just passing in front of us.

My father started the engine and waited until Joe was out of sight before pulling out. By rights, he should have used his lights in this twilight, but he chose not to. We bumped slowly over the gravel and pot holes until we lighted onto the cobblestones of the street and veered in Joe's direction. Joe was about three blocks ahead. My father stepped on the gas, and I was miserable that the yellow reflector was totally irrelevant.

"What's the sense of it anyway! I can see Joe as clear as anything," I said.

"Unfortunately, he can see us, too."

"Do you think he sees us?"

"I don't know, but I wish I had my lights on.

"Well, why don't you put them on now?" I said.

"Cause that might attract his attention. It's still possible he doesn't see us."

Then thankfully, Joe made a left turn out of sight, and my father felt secure about turning his headlights on before making the turn himself.

Joe was leading us through a maze of streets walled on both sides by dark shuttered buildings with occasional vacant lots that looked like industrial dump sights. All the while, I had the sense that we were climbing –– almost imperceptibly snaking our way up a summit. And just as imperceptibly it seemed to be growing darker.

Most of the way, my father was able to keep far back. Then a few others cars came out of nowhere and separated us, and my father had to speed up to narrow the distance between us and Joe. Suddenly, there were more cars in front and behind us, and the reason became clear. We were approaching a major thoroughfare.

The mud colored Mercury was stopped by a red light, and we were a good six cars behind him. Throngs of pedestrians with shopping bags and baby carriages paraded the crosswalk in front of Joe's car. The entire population of The Hill seemed to congregate at this intersection. Cross traffic inched bumper to bumper along both ways of the neon-lit avenue. The light turned green, but cars still blocked the intersection. Horns blared and cars made way so that Joe could butt his way around the back of one car and in front of another and continue on at the other side.

The cars in front of us turned onto the avenue. The light turned red just as we reached the intersection. We sat there watching that solitary mud colored Mercury climb the steep hill on the other side and wind out of sight. The hill was lined on both sides by parked cars in front of tenements with some storefronts. When the light turned green again, my father only half-heartedly drove through to the other side.

"I'm afraid we've lost him again," he said.

The hill was even steeper than it appeared from down below, and there was too little room between those parked cars for speeding. The street veered to the right at the top of the hill and leveled off before starting a very gradual descent. My father figured we were now traveling parallel to and high above the avenue. On our right were tenements littered with trash cans and abandoned cars and on our left was a thick wooded area –– perhaps a neglected park –– I couldn't imagine what. The street was very narrow with cars parked only on the right and down below about ten blocks ahead was Joe's mud colored Mercury moving like a solitary shark in a tranquil sea.

The wooded area on our left gave way to vacant city blocks and then to blocks of abandoned tenements. Some were gutted and windowless while others were merely heaps of rubble. It was as if a tornado had passed down one side of the street leaving the other side untouched. Joe made a left hand turn into the depths of this war zone, and we followed.

We passed down two more blocks of ruin on both sides when miraculously the street became a winding country road with woods on both sides, and we were driving up another hill. Up, up we spiraled. That yellow reflector on the back of Joe's car was sore and smarting now as it disappeared around yet another curve in the road. Then, our headlights flashed onto a large sign reading, "BROTHER DAN AND SISTER ANN", and the woods gave way, and Joe was pulling into a large parking lot in front of a towering church. We had reached the top.

The church was black stone and ancient. It stood majestically on its concrete oasis in the woods high up overlooking the devastation of the Hill District below.

"What church is that?" I asked.

"I don't know. Greek Orthodox, maybe? One thing's sure –– it doesn't belong here. That's a city church. Look at the sides."

Its two opposing sides were windowless and plain brick –– never intended to be seen. Clearly, at one time it had nestled snugly between two other buildings.

Then the truth of it dawned on my father. The church had not been plucked out of the city –– the city had been torn down around it, and so long ago that woods had grown where city blocks once stood. The Hill was being obliterated slowly over a long period of time, but this church had survived; perhaps thanks to Brother Dan and Sister Ann, whoever they were.

The vast parking lot was better suited to a sports arena than to a church. We watched Joe park his car among the fifteen or so other cars buckshotted throughout the parking lot. I found it strange they should distance themselves so far from each other and from the church itself. The parking lot was dimly lit with archaic street lights all around and across the lot. The church itself was lit with a single light bulb over the front door and another on its left side. My father waited until Joe was walking toward the church before parking a few spaces away from the mud colored Mercury.

"Stay here," he told me.

He stepped out of our car and went directly to Joe's car; never taking his eyes off Joe's back. He snapped the yellow reflector off and put it in his jacket pocket. Then he followed Joe over toward that light on the left side of the church. It took me exactly two seconds to leave the car and catch up with him.

"I thought I told you ... Oh, fuck it, let's go!"

"Yeah, yeah; let's go. We're losing him."

Joe disappeared around the side of the building. We peeked around the corner to see Joe going down some basement stairs. We moved to the top of the stairs in time to see a side door closing on Joe down below. There was a caged light bulb over the door. The stairway was narrow. I had to follow my father down the stairs. My father listened for a second outside that basement door before turning the knob. Then he opened the door a crack and listened again.

"You hear anything?" I said.

"Shhh! Keep your voice down. All I can hear is Joe walking."

I pushed my father through the door.

It was a dimly lit hallway –– immaculate with a pleasing aroma I could not place. The floors were highly polished brown tiles of either stone or ceramics; I couldn't tell, but they appeared to be very old and had been lavished with much care. Perhaps it was the wax for the floors that I smelled. Perhaps it was eons of incense and parishioners' perfume. We passed down the hall a short distance; then down three steps and onward. There were statues in dark alcoves along the way. Then an even wider hallway intersected this one, and we could see Joe turning off this wider hallway into another. We followed on tiptoe passing darkened doorways. Joe's footfalls echoed through the halls.

I wondered why my father was stooped. Did he think becoming smaller would make him invisible?

Once again, we looked around a corner to see Joe at the end of the hall passing through yet another door. My father held me back with one arm as we approached the door –– careful not to make a sound. We could hear voices inside, but couldn't make out what was being said. My father opened the door a crack and listened.

They seemed to be chanting something, and I sensed that they were some distance from the door. My father opened the door wider and peeked inside. I had to get down on my knees to look past his legs. It was a library of some sort, and we were looking into a small artificial foyer fashioned by floor-to-ceiling book shelves on one side and a wall on the other. We could easily enter unseen. Instead, my father closed the door.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, "No one'll see us."

"You stay here and keep the door closed."

"No!"

He threatened me with a raised hand.

"Okay, dammit!"

My father put a finger to his lips to hush me as he slowly opened the door. Then he stooped down and slid in –– coddling the door closed with just the slightest click of the latch. Still on my knees, I turned the knob and pulled the door open a good crack.

I could see my father just inside the door leaning against the wall and listening hard to those people on the other side of that open bookcase.

I could barely hear what was being said. I wondered if we had stumbled onto a coven of witches. Or maybe the KKK? I wondered if all those people were wearing hoods. Or maybe they were all naked? Yeah, they were naked. All standing around a big stone sacrificial altar staining their naked bodies with the blood of their human sacrifice. Once, a little girl who lived up by Garry disappeared. Maybe they got her? Christ, what if they get me?! No, it's definitely the KKK. Of course, this is a church! Churches have crosses! They burn crosses, don't they? Well? Yeah! Must be the KKK!

There was a woman speaking now, and I had to strain to hear. My father appeared more relaxed now. He put his head back and stared up at the ceiling. At one point, he shifted his position on his feet and it looked as though he might sit down on the floor, but he didn't. Still, he was listening hard, and the play of expression on his face was like a kaleidoscope. One moment, interested; the next, disapproving. Then startled and then pissed. I wondered vaguely how long we had been here –– how long this might go on. Then a word from the woman caught my ear, and I found myself listening hard, too.

It started with a restless discomfort that I put down to the tingling in my legs from kneeling too long. Or maybe it had something to do with what was being said; a realization snaking around those words and between the lines insinuating itself into my consciousness. But like a dream, I could not quite grasp it. I didn't want to. Still, the truth was inescapable. In some way or another, they were talking about us.

Still, the voices droned on like horrible insects buzzing around my head, and their words pricked like tiny stingers injecting a noxious irritant. I could see that my father was getting edgy, too. Perhaps he was feeling the same discomfort I was. But while I knelt there captivated, he squirmed like a man in bondage. He was really pissed now, and I knew why. The truth had crystallized for me almost at the same time it had for my father. These people were openly discussing secrets we could barely acknowledge in a whisper. But they were our secrets as much as theirs, and the exposure was devastating.

I should have foreseen what would happen next; but like I said, I was captivated. Before I could budge, my father pushed open the door knocking me down against the brown tile floor. I scurried aside to make way for him, and he let the door slam shut behind us. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, and then he dragged me down those cacophonous halls until we reached the fire door leading outside and up the stairs to the parking lot. He didn't stop until we landed against the trunk of Joe's car. He was breathless. He paced back and forth in a wordless rage. After some time his breathing returned to normal, and the pacing stopped. He fell back against Joe's car and collected himself. I felt I could speak then.

"Were they talking about us?" I said.

"What?!"

My father could have got whiplash the way his head turned on me. "What did you say?!"

"It just sounded like . . . "

My father grabbed my shoulders and squeezed them tight.

"Those people have nothing to do with us. Do you understand what I'm saying? Those people have nothing to do with us."

"Yes," I said, hoping he would release his vice-like grip on me, but he just went on –– white with rage.

"I told you to wait in the car. Why can't you listen to me? Why can't you give me a little credit for knowing what's best for you? You shouldn't have been there! I told you to wait in the car."

My father hated me. You should have seen his face. I was trying not to cry, but I couldn't help it.

"You've always got to stick your nose in where it doesn't belong. How am I supposed to protect you when you never listen! But you know everything, don't you? You think you're so smart. Well, you don't know shit! You haven't got a clue!"

Then his face convulsed terribly, and I thought he was going to hit me. He took a deep breath to collect himself. Then he moved a few paces away from me toward the street light.

"You haven't got a clue. You haven't got a clue," he kept saying in a voice I didn't recognize. I looked past him at the old street light rising out of the concrete. It looked like a wilted flower –– its stem rising up then drooping downward at the top with a naked bulb at the center of a pie tin.

Then my father said something I couldn't make out. I had to ask him to repeat himself. He turned toward me and said, "Why is it no one on this Earth can get me as mad as you do?" I had no answer.

He came over to where I was standing at attention and put his hand on my shoulder. It was a gentle, forgiving touch.

"Now I have work to do. I want you to get in the car and stay there until I'm finished with Joe. Will you do as I say?"

"Yes, sir."

"And I want you to forget everything we heard in there. Do you understand?"

"Yeah."

Only then did my father let his hand drop from my shoulder. "Now, get going," he said, and I ran the short distance to our car and sat by the window on the passenger side.

I watched my father lean against the back of Joe's car with his one foot up on the bumper. He was practically sitting on Joe's trunk. He lit a cigarette and looked up at the same street light I had seen just moments earlier. I wondered if he saw the flower, too.

I heard voices, and I could see that my father did, too. He checked his watch. Two men appeared by the side of the church; smoking and talking. After a few moments, they said their good-byes and moved in totally opposite directions across the parking lot. My father stamped out his cigarette and geared himself for the coming confrontation, but nothing happened. The two men drove off, and there was no sign of Joe or any of the others still inside the church. He lit another cigarette.

About ten minutes later, a lone man appeared and drove off. My father was getting restless. He looked at his watch again and began pacing. I couldn't blame him. I was getting antsy, too. Where the hell was Joe?! What the hell could they be doing in there?! I wished my father would stop looking at his watch. Now I was damning the car clock for not working.

Then I heard a party of chattering voices from far away. My father stopped pacing. I leaned far out the car window and stared hard at the top of those stairs by the side of the church. There was no one. I looked back to my father. Just then, his cigarette burned down to his fingers. He jerked convulsively and flung his cigarette hard against the concrete. Now he was shaking the sting out of his fingers.

And there they were spilling out onto the parking lot by twos and threes, all of them congregating by the side of the building. I strained to make out Joe's silhouette against the light, but it was impossible. Neither could I make out Joe's voice among the cordial, bubbling chatter. These people didn't seem to want to leave each other.

Finally, it looked as though they might disperse. One or two at first, then a few more until the whole crowd scattered across the parking lot like grazing birds after a gunshot. And one among them was headed straight at my father.

Still in silhouette, Joe was perhaps twenty feet away when he recognized my father and stopped dead in his tracks. My father assumed the posture of truant officer and waited. It was just an instant before Joe entered the pool of light from the street light, and I noted that Joe had certainly not dressed down for this event. He was a showcase in gabardine and silk like always.

"You have no right," Joe was saying, "You have no right!"

"What are you talking about?"

"This'll ruin me, you know. I own a saloon, for Christ's sake!"

Joe never did stop walking. When he reached my father, he did a right face and started pacing angrily in front of him. A horn blared from a passing car, and Joe put on a smile and waved to the car with a leery sideways glance as if he were ashamed to be seen with my father.

"You have no right," Joe said again, almost at the brink of tears.

"Take it easy, Joe."

Joe watched every car leave the parking lot with the same conflicted look in his eyes –– not wanting to be seen with my father and wanting their help at the same time. When at last they were alone, Joe turned on my father.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he said.

"I might ask you the same thing."

"You followed me! I can't believe you followed me! You have no right."

"Calm down, Joe. I just want some answers."

"If this gets out, I'm done for in Waterstop."

Then, like a bear trap snapping, Joe grabbed my father's lapels and pushed him over the trunk of the car, hissing, "You bastard!" I could see that Joe's face was grotesque with rage, and I grabbed the door handle. Then just as suddenly, Joe released his grip and turned away with his back to my father.

"This'll ruin me," he said, "I'm finished."

"You don't belong here, Joe. What's this all about?"

"Jesus Christ!" Joe said, and he began to laugh. He turned on my father, and said, "I'm a drunk, asshole! What do you think?! I'm a drunk!"

"Yeah, but this?!"

"This is where drunks end up."

"What about Gwen?"

"She was a drunk, too. We're all drunks. Funny, isn't it? A reformed drunk making a living selling booze! They're going to love this back at the Grill. You sure know how to empty a bar."

"So, you were bringing Gwen here?"

"What good is this going to do? You're just fucking me over, that's all you're doing."

"Gwen was murdered."

"You think I don't know that!? You think I don't think about that every day?! But that has nothing to do with this. With me!"

"Did you get her involved with this place or not? Just answer the question."

"Yeah, I brought her here. We were here the night he killed her."

"Luka?"

"Yeah, Luka."

"Did he know about this?"

"Sure he did. She was busting her balls to get him here, but Luka wasn't having any."

"What time did you take her home that night?"

"I would drop her off a few blocks from her place about 10:30. That night was no different. She was going to leave him, you know. I think she finally made up her mind to throw him out."

"You know that? For a fact?"

"I'm pretty sure. So, you see, none of this is going to do you or Luka any good at all. The last thing you guys want is me up there on the stand telling what I know!"

"So you think he's guilty on the basis of that? That she was thinking of throwing him out."

"It's more than that. He was a drunk."

"And it takes one to know one."

"Exactly!"

"You're hardly an expert witness."

"So why bring it up at all? Let's just forget all this."

"Because you were with the victim until 10:30 the night she was murdered. That's important evidence. In fact, you could be arrested for withholding evidence."

"Fine," Joe said, extending both wrists for cuffing, "Let's go."

"Was it you who sold her on this . . . whatever it is?"

"She knew I quit drinking. She asked me how. I told her."

"But why? You were okay. Look at you! You're not like one of those people you see out there."

"No. I was a good drunk. I knock up little girls, then ditch them and they die and I can't see my son except over a school fence. You're right, I look okay."

"So this is your punishment for Martha Brennan?"

"I haven't got time for this crap. Are we through here?"

"What about February 17th?"

"What about it?"

"Did you give Gwen the bracelet?"

"Gwen had her last drink on February 17th. I gave her that bracelet to celebrate her 90th day without a drink. It took guts not drinking. Especially living with a drunk like Luka, but she did it. She was a great lady. You'll never know."

"And she was not your lover?"

"No, never. God, you're too fucking much! Why don't you just crawl up my ass. You'll find some shit there. Have you given any thought to what they'll say about her now? She doesn't deserve that. You're taking us both down."

"I'm not the one who convinced her she was a pathetic drunk like some stinking bum pissing down his leg in some doorway somewhere!"

"Well, you just made my point for me. That's the kind of talk we can expect to hear."

"Why didn't you just quit!? If it was such a problem, just quit! Instead of sneaking off to some God forsaken hole in the wall. Poor woman!"

"She couldn't quit, could she?"

"That's bullshit!"

"I couldn't. Luka can't. None of us can."

"I don't believe that. Not for a minute."

"I haven't had a drink in nearly two years. The Grill is my life. I don't know what else to do, Josh. I was practically raised in that place. What am I supposed to do –– go back to school and become a lawyer like you? Or a doctor? And who's gonna run the place –– Mom and Dad? My regulars will leave me. If you let this get out, they'll go. Oh, not right away. But in time, one by one, they'll go off someplace where no one reminds them what they're doing to themselves. I'm begging you. Let's forget this."

"I'd like to help you out, Joe, but you brought this on yourself getting Gwen involved in this crap."

"You know what I think? I think this crap, as you call it, is just a little too close to home for you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Takes one to know one, remember?"

"You're crazy! I'm no more like you than the man in the moon."

"I wasn't talking about you."

"What then?"

"Never mind."

Joe started for his car door, when my father pulled him back.

"What are you talking about here?" my father asked.

"It's none of my business," Joe said, pulling his arm out of my father's grasp. "I was out of line."

"No. Tell me."

Joe got behind the wheel of his car and started the engine, but my father wouldn't let it drop.

"What the fuck are you trying to tell me?" he said through Joe's open car window.

"For Christ's sake, Josh, you know. You know who I'm talking about."

Joe drove off leaving my father standing there in that barren parking lot. My father watched Joe's mud colored Mercury disappear, but I never took my eyes off my father. He looked like he had just witnessed a terrible accident.

I wanted to understand what went on in that church, but I knew better than to ask my father. Whatever went on there was too wrong to talk about. My father had taught me that without saying a word. I knew it had something to do with drinking, but all grown-ups drink. And most of the time, they drink too much. How were these people different?

Without conscious thought, I guessed the answer –– weak people are despicable and the ultimate weakness is the admission of weakness. That was the truth I learned from my father that night.

But remember, this was another time; another perspective. Ignorance reigned and tolerance was unheard of.