Last Chance Book Club(43)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“Yeah. Maybe I can try out for football.”

“I’m sure your dad would be proud of you. He played football.”

“Yeah, I know. Dash and I looked up his college stats. He was a pretty good linebacker for Maryland,” Todd said.

“He was. I saw him play,” Savannah said.

“He could probably teach me stuff.”

She doubted that Greg would spend the time, but she said, “Yeah.” She had to say that because maybe, just maybe, there was a chance. If she thought otherwise, she wouldn’t be taking this step. “We’ll need to start packing our stuff. We’re leaving Saturday morning bright and early. I have a bunch of errands to do tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to shut down the theater renovation.”

He looked down at the dog. His mouth quivered. He was learning how to be a man. He didn’t cry. He didn’t whine. He sighed. And then he snapped the lead onto the dog’s collar. “I gotta take Champ for his walk.”

Dash left the Eldorado in the driveway. Getting drunk was one thing, but getting drunk and killing someone was a whole different kettle of fish. He’d mixed booze and motor vehicles one too many times.

He hurried down the drive and onto the sidewalk. He kept walking, head down, counting the seams in the concrete. Counting was a good thing. It kept his emotions from exploding. It kept his heart from falling into pieces.

He could count and remember to breathe. Two cracks… breathe in. Two cracks… breathe out.

He made it all the way to Palmetto Avenue. He turned right toward Dot’s, and he stopped.

The Kismet stood between him and the bar. He looked up at the marquee. Half an hour ago, he’d known without a doubt that Uncle Earnest was proud of him.

But now what? What would happened to The Kismet when Savannah left town? He made his way through the new security gate and into the theater. Zeph was hard at work installing a section of new fluting in one of the damaged columns. The new wood lacked the patina of the old, but the carvings lined up perfectly.

The old black man touched the wood with a reverence that captivated Dash. The smell of charred wood had diminished over the last week. Now there were other smells. Sawdust, and varnish, and plaster.

Something important was rising up out of the dust and dirt and ashes. And on Saturday, all of this would stop. Savannah would go.

He closed his eyes.

“I heard the news about Miz Hettie,” Zeph said.

Dash almost laughed. If he went off to Dot’s, everyone in town would misunderstand.

“I brought some Nehi,” Zeph nodded to a battered plastic cooler that looked like it had been with Zeph through the Vietnam War. The old guy finished turning the handle on a wood clamp and turned around. Sawdust and wood shavings clung to his baggy blue jeans. The collar and cuffs of his old plaid shirt were frayed. But his smile was big and wide as he opened the cooler and brought up two glass bottles of Nehi orange soda pop.

He handed one to Dash and twisted off the top of the other. “There’s nothing like a cold Nehi to fix what ails you.” He raised the bottle in salute.

Dash hadn’t tasted Nehi soda in years. He opened the bottle, took a gulp, and lost himself in reverie. Damn, he used to drink Nehi all the time. Uncle Earnest had a cooler of it behind the candy counter.

“Earnest always drank Nehi. He used to say that sweeping up was thirsty work,” Dash said.

“Yeah,” Zeph replied. “I remember old Mr. Brooks. Of course, when I was a child, I had to sit upstairs.”

“I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t that way when I was here.”

Zeph shrugged. “Wasn’t your fault. Mr. Brooks was a fair man living in unfair times. People wouldn’t have come at all in the sixties if he hadn’t put the blacks upstairs.”

“He was a fair man. I miss him.” Dash’s voice wobbled in an embarrassing way. When Earnest died, Dash had been playing baseball. Earnest wasn’t a member of his immediate family so, naturally, Dash wasn’t allowed time off. Instead he drank himself into a stupor and got himself into trouble.

“You know there’s a trick to living alone,” Zeph said, looking Dash right in the eye, as if he knew what scared Dash most of all.

Dash took another gulp of soda, pushing away the memories, focusing on Zeph. Until this moment, he’d never really considered the kind of life Zeph had been leading. Zeph was probably the loneliest person in Last Chance.

“So what’s the trick?”

“Read.”

“Read? That’s a surprise. I could have sworn you were going to tell me to get a dog.”

Zeph smiled. “Oh, no, Mr. Dash, you don’t need a dog. You already kind of have one. And you’ve got several good cats and all those horses. Not to mention all the kids who come to your riding and roping school. And the kids on the baseball teams and the football team. No, a good book is a whole lot easier to take care of than a dog. And when you read, you can go anywhere.”

“I never was much of a reader.”

“I didn’t start out that way either. But a man does what he has to.”

Dash wanted to ask Zeph why he was so alone. Why he lived out in the woods. Why he moved around Last Chance like a shadow. But he couldn’t ask those questions. Zeph would never have answered him. The old man had demons, and Dash knew all about those.

Dash turned away, casting his gaze over the work in progress. God help him, he didn’t want to give up on this project. He wanted it to go on. But he didn’t want it to go on without Savannah in his life. “You think watching movies would be as good as reading?” he asked.

“Maybe. But a good book lasts a lot longer than a movie. And you can get books for free from the consignment shop. Or, if you had a mind to, you could get a library card. And when you go to the library, you could visit with Miss Nita, and that’s always nice.”

“Good point.”

Dash finished his soda and handed the bottle back to Zeph. “You’re doing a great job, Zeph. I don’t think anyone else could have rescued that woodwork.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Dash. I love giving new life to old things.”

Dash turned around and headed toward the door. When he reached the sidewalk, his desire for a drink had eased. It was almost as if Uncle Earnest’s ghost was there behind him. The taste of orange soda in his mouth was a reminder that a sober life was a much better life.

And Zeph had just reminded him that he wasn’t alone. Not really. He had the horses, and the kids, and Miriam. Not to mention the gals of Angel Development, Inc.

He stared up at The Kismet’s marquee. Uncle Earnest would never have stood between a boy and his father. Never in a million years. Never for selfish reasons. Never.

He was going to be like Uncle Earnest.

Dash would ask Savannah’s permission to finish this project. It made no sense from a money point of view. But that didn’t matter. If he built it, people would come. And he’d have the kids in the theater to go along with the kids in the horse program and the kids in Little League and the kids in the football program.

Heck, it was damned hard to feel lonely in a place like Last Chance.

Dash ran into Todd and Champ on his way back to the house. The boy was crying.

“Hey,” Dash said, his voice sounding dry and rusty in his own ears. “What’s the matter?”

The kid rubbed his eyes and gave a shrug. “Did Mom tell you? We’re going back to Baltimore.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“My dad said he wanted to see me on weekends.”

“That’s a good thing.”

Todd nodded, his mouth quivering. “Yeah. I’d like that. But we have to live with Grandmother for a while.” He gave Champ a little pat. And then it was almost as if the kid collapsed. He plopped down on the sidewalk and buried his face in the dog’s flank. And Champ smiled and licked his face with the adoration only a dog could give.

Dash’s chest got so tight he could hardly breathe.

He’d hung on to a dog like that once. On the morning, decades ago, when they’d come to take him away from the ranch where he’d spent the first eleven years of his life. His life had been hell on that ranch, but he didn’t want to leave it. Not if it meant leaving that old dog; Murphy was his name.

He’d cried himself out that day. That good-bye had been the hardest one of all. He never did know what happened to that dog. The social service people probably sent Murphy to the pound.

“I’ll take care of Champ for you,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about him.” Dash hunkered down and squeezed Todd’s shoulder. “I’ve been where you are now. I know exactly how it feels. Like someone is taking away your best friend in all the world. But having a chance to spend time with your dad is more important. You don’t have to worry about Champ. He’ll never want for anything. Ever.”

“But I promised Zeph.”

“What did you promise, son?”

“I promised I would always be there for him.”

“I’ll take that on for you.”

“I don’t want you to.”

Oh, God, this kid was going to grow into a good man. Even if his no-account father didn’t come through, Todd had his mother. And Savannah was like a momma lion when it came to her boy. She would do the right thing by this child.

“I’m glad you’re taking that responsibility so seriously, son. I’m proud to know you,” Dash said, his voice growing embarrassingly gruff.

Todd raised his head. “Are you crying?”

Dash forced a laugh then. “No, I don’t do that sort of thing.”

The kid studied him. “You are crying, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’m trying not to. I’m going to miss you.” And the words got stuck in Dash’s throat. Until he uttered them, he didn’t even know how true they were.

A big fat tear rolled down the kid’s cheek. “Me too. I wish my dad was like you.”

A fountainhead opened up in Dash’s heart, and a spring of something clean and heady bubbled right through him. The spring became a creek, became a brook, became a river that grew and grew until its current washed away the self-pity he’d been feeling and smashed down the walls that had taken a lifetime to build.

And he didn’t fight the current. He expected it to smash him and batter him, but it didn’t do that. It carried him along to a peaceful place.

In that humbling moment, he had a name for the emotion that clogged up his throat and watered up in his eyes. He loved the kid. And the miracle wasn’t that he could love, but that the kid loved him back. But having Todd love him carried all kinds of responsibility with it.

He vowed, in that moment, that as long as he drew breath Todd would never want for anything. He would take care of this child, and he’d do everything within his power never, ever to let him down. And right now, doing right by this child meant letting him go.

“C’mon. I know you want to spend time with your dad, don’t you?”

Todd nodded. “But why can’t I have both?” He looked up at Dash. “Why can’t I be your friend?”