Page 76 of A Fabulously Unfabulous Summer for Henry Milch

Taking one of the back streets that ran parallel to Main, I drove past Grover. When I got close to the barbershop, I saw Denny across the street with Carl Burke. They were embroiled in an argument, so I didn’t make the turn. I kept going, hoping they hadn’t noticed me. As soon as I was out of sight, I did a U turn and crept back toward them. When I could just barely see them, I pulled over and parked. At best I could tell they hadn’t noticed me.

Denny was yelling at Carl. Slumped over and shrunken, Carl was red-faced, tears flowing. I lowered both of my front windows to see if I could hear anything they were saying. I couldn’t hear much other than the occasional snippet.

“…love you…”

“…anything to do with…”

“…you can’t…”

“…stay away…”

“…no, no, no…”

Carl reached for Denny, attempting to put his arms around him. Denny pushed him away. He fell to the ground sobbing. Denny continued to yell at him, then pulled him up. Stumbling away, Carl held an arm over his face and rushed over to a gold Honda Civic hatchback. A pretty new one. I was jealous.

Climbing into the car, Carl sped off. Denny watched, then took a few steps toward the barbershop. I jumped out of the Escalade and hurried over.

“Hey. You okay?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I wasn’t spying on you. Honest. But I couldn’t help seeing that. What’s he so upset about?”

He leaned against his car, folded his arms and stared at me. “You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”

“I came to ask you a question about Reverend Hessel.”

“How about you leave me alone.”

“Well, I guess that answers my question.”

And it did, kind of. I wanted to know if he ever PNP’d with the good reverend. Not even letting me ask the question made it seem like a definite yes.

I could see that I’d piqued his curiosity. He wanted to know what my question was. Finally, he asked, “All right. What’s the question?”

“I heard you liked to PNP with Reverend Hessel.” Not exactly what I’d heard but hey it was my question.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Around. Is that why Carl was upset? Because you were doing it with his stepfather?”

“Carl thinks he’s in love with me,” he said with a shrug. Like it was something that happened to him all the time.

“How long has he thought that?”

“A while.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“It doesn’t matter if I am,” he said cryptically.

“Because you gotta do what you gotta do?”

“Sometimes I’m short. You know, financially. So I hang out with someone like Chris. It wasn’t like I wanted to have sex with him. I just did it to get what I needed. It’s not a big deal.”

“Except for the part where Hessel is dead.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”