Page 25 of Small Town Beast

“Yeah, maybe I knew him. But we was on different regiments. They put the colored folks separate.”

“Right.” Saverin wondered if the old man knew more about his father than he was letting on. But Wilks Johnny’s expression never faltered. He peered at Saverin with an old man’s directness. “Did your daddy come back in one piece?”

“The piece was missing on the inside.”

“It was like that,” Wilks Johnny nodded. “Yeah, it was like that. Did he shoot himself?”

Country folks didn’t dance around the harsh matters of a tragedy. “He died recently. Heart attack,” said Saverin quietly.

Saverin’s father had rushed to the hospital after getting news of his sons. Sam dead, Saverin nearly burned alive.When Boothe Bailey laid eyes on his eldest son he dropped on the spot. Heart attack.

Boothe made it another week to attend Sam’s funeral. He died not long after that.

“My sympathies,” said Wilks Johnny.

“No need.” Saverin squinted up into the rafters where a mourning dove had made her nest. “You get benefits, don’t you? Why is this place in a wreck?”

“I told you I have no family, boy.”

“But you get benefits.”

“No I do not,” said Wills Johnny firmly.

Saverin frowned. The front porch was clean, but the house itself was a hazard. Infested with termites, possibly mold, falling down around the old man’s head. With his legless situation, the man must be taking in thousands a month, Saverin judged. He was quickly corrected.

“I get a couple hundred a month,” said the old man. “Pays for groceries and the water. I get no help ‘cept for Julette’s charity. She wanted to move me out of here somewhere else I said HELL NO! Julette gets a girl to cash my checks and cooks me a plate when she can. That’s all I allow. And don’t think I’m complaining,” the old veteran added, shaking a finger at Saverin. “I like my life just fine.”

Saverin was stunned.A couple hundred a month?“The VA ought to give you twice more than that, surely.”

“It was zero at first.”

Saverin’s brows could rise no higher. “Were you DD’d?”

“Hell no. I got my Purple Heart. But they never sent me a dime after I came home. I waited months– nothing. Then I got this letter in the mail. Still have it— it said I had to come ‘identify myself’. Mind, the VA office is in Rowanville. How was I supposed to get there with no legs? But I got the checks in the end— the widows vouched for me.” He winked.

“I know a man who got his fingertip blown off and he gets eighteen hundred,” said Saverin, outraged.

The old man seemed to have accepted this injustice. He just shrugged. “Young man, you want something to drink?”

“No— I better get moving, sir.”

“Ha ha ha! Young man, for the sake of the good manners your mama gave you, rustle yourself up a drink from my fridge. Thank you.”

Amused, Saverin laid the cigarette down and went inside. Sure enough the house was orderly. But of course it would be. Life had been toppling his assumptions like a house of cards; why not this one too?

“You get lost?” Wilks Johnny called.

“I’m straight.”

The place showed every sign of belonging to an orderly old bachelor. Nothing on the walls but a giant American flag with the army’s golden fringe, and next to it, a framed plaque of medals centered around the expected purple heart.

In the living area was a TV, armchair, and a side table with the weeks’ newspapers carefully arranged. All wooden furniture was polished to a gleam. No dust anywhere. Even with his handicap the man kept military order over his small and humble world.

Saverin opened the fridge, which was as spotless as the rest of the house. He took two cokes.

A photograph caught his eye before he walked back out; Saverin had been on the lookout for such a thing but missed it coming in. The picture sat in a golden frame on top the old fireplace. In the formal photograph, a much younger Wilks Johnny (with legs) had his arms around a sweet-faced black woman and a baby. The parents were smiling but the baby was asleep. Under the picture ran the script:Love Eternal.

“You were married?” Saverin asked the old man, stepping back outside with the drinks.

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