Somewhere Over Lorain Road, page 9
Don wanted to give his dad justice, but life is unjust and you have to learn to live with it, just like Dad said.
When he returned home, he was hungry and his mother berated him for skipping breakfast. She made sandwiches. He bit into the soft white bread, the mayonnaise and mustard and deli meat, the kind of sandwich that even supermarkets didn’t sell any longer without the phony fig leaf of wheat bread. It was simple, classic, and delicious.
“Thanks, Mom,” he said, chewing. “This is really good. You don’t have to always feed me, you know.”
She smiled happily. “I like feeding people. You know that. Did you get your errands done?”
He nodded, and suddenly thought, if I’m going to give up, I shouldn’t do so before I explore every last possibility. He didn’t want to upset her, but it was his last shot.
He swallowed, took a drink of water and asked, “Mom, Dad mentioned a man named David Smith to me the other night. Do you know who he meant?”
Her face froze and she said, “That’s a very common name.” She lifted her sandwich.
Gently, he placed a hand on her arm. “I saw it in your face. You do know who he is. You have to tell me, Mom.”
She lowered the sandwich. “Why?”
“Because I haven’t told you, but I’ve been trying to investigate who killed those boys. Dad wants his name cleared before he dies, and I keep hitting brick walls. So if you know who David Smith is, you have to tell me.”
She pinched her lips. “What makes you think you can solve those murders?”
“I’m not saying I can. I’m pretty sure I can’t. But I have some free time, so I might as well do something useful. I’m not incompetent, you know.” He thought of his ill-considered trip to the school, but pushed it aside.
She breathed deeply. “I know you’re not incompetent, Don. You’re a very able man, a good man. I’ll be honest and say I wish you’d been content with finding a good woman, but I know we can’t change that. And that’s what you have to accept. You can’t change what happened. Even if you did find out who did it, it would never erase those terrible things.”
“I know, but that’s not the point. And in the end, it’s not just for Dad, it’s for all of us.” Until he said it, he didn’t even realize it. He was doing it for his dad, his mom, his brothers, their kids and grandkids and future generations and himself. The whole family. It was for all of them.
“I can’t get past David Smith,” he said. “Dad’s too looped most of the time to have a coherent conversation, and I don’t want to tell him what I’m doing because I don’t want to get his hopes up. So as unpleasant as it is, I need you tell me about David Smith.”
“It won’t help you solve anything.”
“I won’t know that until you tell me.”
She thought for a moment, sighed, and pushed herself up. “Wait here.” He heard her sneak into Dad’s room, open a drawer, and in a few moments, she returned with three hard cover, well-worn books. She set them on the table and Don picked up two, looking down at the third.
The Moors Murders. Killer Couples. Death on the Moors.
Alarmed by the gruesome titles, he asked, “What’s this all about?”
“The Moors murders in England. There was a couple, a man and his girlfriend, that started killing children.” She clucked and shook her head at such unspeakable things. “They buried them on the moors. I think they killed five, but they never could find one of them. This all happened in the early sixties.”
“Was the man named David Smith?”
She shook her head. “David Smith was the woman’s brother-in-law. He was married to her sister.” She took a deep breath. “This couple, well, they decided David would enjoy being part of their murder spree and they came up with a plan. They brought home a seventeen-year-old boy one night and,” her voice dropped, “they killed him with an axe in front of David.” She swiped tears from her eyes. “Well, he was beyond terrified, but he was afraid they would kill him, so he helped clean up the mess and wrap that poor boy up. Then David went home and told his wife what happened, and they went straight to the police. They found that dead boy still in the house.”
“Why would Dad talk about David Smith?”
She started crying, softly. “Well, it was just awful what happened next. Here this poor man and his wife turned in the murderers—her own sister, for heaven’s sake—but nobody believed he wasn’t involved.” She was weeping now. “They were hounded for years. They were attacked in their own home.” She pulled a paper napkin from the holder and dabbed her eyes and nose. “On the street. At restaurants. They didn’t want to be driven from their community for something he didn’t do, and they held out for years. But in the end, they had no choice and they moved. They suffered years of the most horrible, hateful abuse.” Her voice rose. “Their lives were destroyed. They got a divorce.” She sobbed once, and it sliced his heart. “And all they did was the right thing.”
David Smith. A man falsely accused. Robert Esker. Also falsely accused. Hank Swoboda. Elmer Hartner. It was a roster of injustice, of mob rule, the rotting and filthy and rank underside of civic pride.
“Your father wrote to him, to David Smith. I don’t know how he found his address. He’d moved to Ireland and remarried. He just wanted to let him know other people had gone through the same thing. David wrote back. I don’t know what he said, but it cheered up your father. I was so grateful to him for responding. I wanted to write him a letter myself, but I didn’t know what to say.”
“Wow.” He knew his father was injured in unfathomable ways but didn’t know he’d resorted to reaching out to a man across the ocean, someone he didn’t know, for commiseration and support. Don felt guilty at his inability to comfort his dad in this way. What could he have done differently?
In a little while, Linnette arrived, cheerful as always and this time armed with her friend Bruce’s phone number. “He’s looking forward to hearing from you,” she said, excited. The novelty of witnessing and being near a gay romance had a narcotic effect on some straight people. A few of his friends in San Francisco resented it, but Don thought it was sweet. Such people are excited to demonstrate their acceptance in a concrete way, and nothing but goodwill was behind it.
With his dad’s condition largely the same, Linnette’s visit was brief. At the door, she asked, “Would it be okay if I gave Bruce your number, too?”
Don wasn’t sure, but Linnette was too good-hearted to deny, and they pulled out their phones. He didn’t have a good feeling about Bruce, but for Linnette’s sake, he would call in the next day or two.
After she left, Mom took a nap, and with his dad sleeping, Don was alone at the kitchen table. In the distance, a train sounded as lonely and forlorn as the foghorns in San Francisco Bay.
He opened his laptop to check Facebook, scanning the familiar posts about pets that died, shows people saw, fabulous vacation photos, friends at the weddings of people he’d never met. Someone he couldn’t place announced his aunt was very sick, and someone else he remembered meeting for one night at a bar in London posted a photo of his arm in a cast.
He made appropriate comments when he felt like it. He offered sympathy for deaths of every kind, because whoever posted it was in pain and shock and crying out for someone, anyone, even somebody they met a single night years before to acknowledge their loss.
He was just about to close his laptop when a new post silently appeared at the top of the screen. It was from a man he went to high school with, one of the straight guys he barely knew during his four years at St. Peter’s but who had, for some reason, sent him a friend request. At first, these requests troubled him, but now he thought, Fine. If you want to take a peek at the life of a gay man in San Francisco, have at it.
He froze. A lot of people from his school years used Facebook. Old neighbors likely did, too.
Elmer Hartner was the final unfairly accused man on the list. He thought it unlikely Elmer had a Facebook account, even if he was still alive, but he typed in the name all the same. Nothing.
He searched his memories, digging deep into that night of the blueberry custard pie, resisting the temptation to wake his mother to ask if she remembered the Hartner daughters.
Then a name came to him: Agnes, the oldest daughter who had Bible study that day. He typed the name and found her. She lived in North Homestead.
“Holy shit,” he said. The woman in the photo was haggard, but wore a bright smile. Bleached blond hair tinted with three blending shades of purple at the tips surrounded a thin face. She didn’t look remotely familiar. Her profile was public, and he scanned her posts. She posted a lot. Already that day she’d shared four different comic strips featuring a grouchy old lady complaining about life and getting old. He scrolled down and found what he was looking for. Yesterday, she had written , If you’re looking for me at Loonie’s I’m workin nites the next few weeks. Come on by after six for a drink or five! Two people had liked the post, and Don was tempted to add a third but restrained himself.
Don looked up the address for Loonie’s. It was down Lorain Road near the Pinecrest border, the working-class neighborhood of his youth where factory workers fixed cars in driveways, fought with their wives inside, and drank beer the whole time. Almost all the factories had closed, and these perfectly respectable neighborhoods were falling apart. Carports sagged, paint peeled, and lawns grew unkempt. America’s working class was dissolving away into the muck of poverty for two generations, and they still voted for the politicians who let it happen. He gave up trying to understand why years go.
Maybe a conversation with Agnes would shake loose some new information. If his dad went to the trouble of writing to a stranger in Ireland to find some peace, he could at least talk to Agnes up the street.
His phone rang, and he automatically picked it up without looking at the number.
“Is this Don Esker?” He didn’t recognize the man’s voice.
“Yes.”
“My friend Linnette gave me your number.”
Linnette left thirty minutes ago. The guy was calling already?
“Right,” Don said, and if he heard the hesitation in his own voice, the other guy—Bruce?—almost certainly did, too.
“Yeah, so I’m Bruce. How would you like to get together soon? I’m free tonight.”
He sounded solid, assured, but Don wasn’t sure. Bruce might be desperate. But what the hell. Don was horny, so even a bad date might turn out okay. “Do you know Loonie’s on Lorain Road?”
“Loonie’s,” Bruce repeated, sounding surprised by such an unlikely suggestion. “Yeah. I’ve seen it but I’ve never been there. It’s kind of a straight biker bar. Rough customers. I guess it’s okay, but are you sure you want to meet there?”
“Yeah. I need to connect with an old friend at around six, and maybe we can meet up after that. Say, seven?”
“See you then.”
Bruce hung up and only then did Don realize he had no idea what he looked like.
Don announced he wouldn’t be eating at home, flustering his mom, but when he explained he was meeting Linnette’s friend, she nodded and said, “I hope you have a good time.” As he drove off, it occurred to him he’d never left his parents’ house for a date with another man. This was a new experience for his mom. She handled it well, he thought.
Don passed the wide entrances and exits of the Ohio Turnpike, which looped over the street. Gigantic gas stations lined Lorain Road with massive parking lots filled with big rigs, along with motels from the decent to the fleabag, a huge restaurant his brothers loved that served nothing but shitty fried foods, and bars and convenience stores.
Even here, Loonie’s looked downscale, a wooden claptrap honky-tonk with an asphalt parking lot sloppily shaped by hand and a painted message on the door that read, “Where the Elite don’t drink!”
Inside, a three-sided bar nearly cut the large room in two. The scattered stools, chairs, and tables made it seem that a boisterous crowd had just left, and Indians and Browns banners hung on the walls, along with posters of beautiful women in varying stages of undress. An empty plywood stage filled a corner, and from the speakers Bob Seger sang his aching ballad about his knockabout youth down on Mainstreet.
Close to twenty people drank beer from bottles or mugs. They looked like regulars, comfortable with themselves and each other, sharing an occasional comment.
A burly, bearded guy worked one side of the bar, while Agnes, instantly recognizable by her purple-tipped hair, tended the other. She held a rag as she talked to a customer, a young greasy guy with long hair and a black leather jacket, softened from constant wear. She laughed at something he said and flicked the towel at him. He didn’t flinch and beamed a dirty grin.
Don knew he had to ease into the topic. He took a stool near the corner of the bar. Agnes saw him and made her way over, and the guy in the leather jacket gave her ass an eye-fuck.
“What’ll you have?” she asked. She had a good figure, bosomy and curved inside a pink top and jeans. Maturity lined her face, not dinginess. She looked better than her Facebook photo and she spoke in a friendly and raspy voice, totally at ease. He ordered a bottle of beer and as she set it down, he said, “You seem really familiar to me.”
She squinted but shook her head. “Sorry, mister, but your face isn’t registering. That’s three fifty.”
Don handed her a five and left the change on the bar. “No, I’m serious. I know you from somewhere.” He leaned back, a finger at his lips, and she posed like Betty Grable, hands on hips and a saucy tilt of the head. “I think I knew you a long time ago,” he said, making a show of scrunching his forehead, trying to tease a memory free. “What’s your name, darling?” It was the first time he called someone darling, but it rolled off his tongue, seeming to fit the place, and her.
“Name’s Agnes,” she replied, and they shook hands as she went on, “and I’ve heard this line before. Not that I don’t appreciate the effort.” She winked.
“Nice to meet you, Agnes, and this isn’t a pickup. I just have this uncanny sense I know you from somewhere. I’m Don Esker.”
She had no reaction other than to say, “Nice to meet you, Don. You from around here?”
Perfect! “Yeah. Just up the way on Stearns Road.”
Her face lighted. “I grew up on Stearns Road. But there’s no way you could remember me from that. We moved when I was eight years old.”
Don snapped his fingers and pointed. “But I do remember. You had two sisters, right? You lived in that old farmhouse. You had a brother, too. I remember his name was Johnny.”
“Well, don’t that beat all. That sure as hell was me. But I can’t remember you, not even a little bit. What did you say your name was again?”
“Don. I was Donnie then. Donnie Esker.”
“Oh, my Lord.” She put a hand to her mouth and her eyes filled with uncertainty. “I do remember you, but I wouldn’t have known you from Adam. You had three brothers, isn’t that right?” He nodded, and she formed a nonchalant but tight smile and in a forced casual tone, she asked. “And how’s the family?”
“My brother Rich died when he was sixteen, but my other two brothers are still around town. I live in San Francisco now, but I’m here to help my mom because my dad’s really sick. He doesn’t have much longer.”
Her face melted in sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that about your dad. And your brother. Johnny died way back when, too. Poor thing didn’t have a chance, his health was so bad. Kids were afraid of him, but he loved everyone the minute he laid eyes on them. He taught me so much about happiness and living for the moment. I resented him because he needed so much attention from my folks, but after he was gone, well, it’s still the biggest hurt I ever felt.” She went silent.
“Remember that night you guys came over with the pie, and I played with Johnny? I was one of those kids who were afraid of him, but as soon as I held him, I realized he was the happiest person I’d ever met. Probably still is.”
Her eyes moistened as she squeezed his arm. “Thank you for saying that, Don. It’s a real joy to know someone else remembers him outside of my family. Not that there’s many of us left. My folks are both dead, and my two little sisters moved away years ago. And that’s awful about your brother. Sixteen is so young. What happened to him?”
“Heroin.” She ticked her tongue and he went on. “Rich was quiet, not like the rest of us. After everything that happened, what with the police and all, well, we just didn’t know how deeply it affected him. He was an addict before any of us realized he was even taking drugs.”
Agnes formed a steeple with her hands, pressed to her forehead. She squeezed her eyes, forcing a single tear down her cheek. “God, those were rough times. My folks prayed and prayed and prayed some more, but nothing helped. Dad went to his grave looking over his shoulder. My mom said we should bury him standing up on one of those rotating Christmas tree stands so he could always see behind him.” She barked out a laugh but grabbed a towel to soak up the tears before another fell.
“They were rough days,” Don agreed. “It was so stupid, too. They had no evidence tying my dad to the crimes, but they made that big hoopla about taking him in for questioning and searching our house. I don’t need to tell you how that felt.”
“You sure don’t,” she said angrily. “That police chief who lived right there, what was his name?”
“Tedesco.”
“That’s it. That man ruined my dad’s life and my mom’s, too. Do you know why they searched our house?”
He shook his head.
“Because my dad was always trying to save souls, you know, and he’d been out there passing out pamphlets at that Assemblies of God church. He wrote his name and phone number on them so people could call and talk to him if they wanted to. They found one of those pamphlets next to that boy’s body, the one they found at the Golden Tee. Most likely it just blew over there, it was so close to the church and all. But the police took every belt and tie that was about one inch thick.”
“They took all of our thin belts and ties, too,” Don said. “After they decided my dad wasn’t guilty, we only got about half of it back. They said they didn’t know where the rest of it was.”
