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Recovering Charles – Chapter 4 Preview
It was hard not to think of 9 / 11.
The scope, design networks storm surges and the official logo. The number of dead.
Pain.
Maybe I was watching television in the days following Katrina, because photographer could not turn off my inner lens. He saw nothing but water and dirt, he saw the eyes of the survivors crying for help. Much exclaimed with his mouth, insults to the crews and to advocate for ransom.
Some have also cried with cardboard signs:
FEMA's Where?
FIND Bush and Cheney!
Looters will be shot
Katrina killed my baby
Nagin LIED
During a commercial I sat back and relaxed on the futon in the neck and shoulders. I had not realized how they had become painful for me to lean forward and extends to the hour after hour of television. This awareness makes my eyes hurt. And once again brought me back to the memory of September 11 and discussed the results of constant coverage had in my mind and soul.
I decided to outdoor lunch at Little India I serve. As was my custom, I took my camera along. The walk has been lit.
I was sitting at Pio Pio in Jackson Heights, where my cell phone rang and showed an unknown number of area code 504.
"Hello?" I replied.
The smoker is low man's voice did not know. "This Luke Millward?
"It."
"Jerome Harris New Awlins callin."
I changed my cell phone from one ear to another. "What I can do for you?"
"Your father is Carlos?"
"Yes." I wondered if this call may come. I never imagined I would be sitting in a restaurant in Peru.
"Have you heard of 'IM?
"Not lately, no."
"How long? "
"Two years, maybe more."
At this point, I remembered a greater than usual a few months ago I received a father. No one had bothered to open it. It was the latest in a series of packets that arrive every six months or so some new ZIP code. Usually contain a foreign parent accessory or occasionally had bought one of their random effects, I would.
I've always wondered if the sending of a knife or a given age group of luck in Las Vegas was his way of making peace. When I asked, told me that I just wanted to do things if something happened to him.
Like all other packages, it has been stacked in a corner of the closet my building.
"What is it?" I asked the man.
"Your father is Missin 'Lucas. Been livin 'here in New Awlins for' Bout a year. "
Here it is, I think, closing his eyes.
"Nobody has seen 'im in recent years. Sunday evening before"
Katrina.
"Tha Law. He was playing with me and teachin and my kids to a location on Chartres Street about seven months. Livin 'in a place more than five to four. "
"Five and four?
"Lower Ninth, my son."
I imagine that his body was one of those rotting in public restrooms or floating face down and bloated under a bridge somewhere.
And that's what it feels to be an orphan. "I'm sorry, sir." The words sick unexpectedly. My father is dead.
"Do not be sorry, Luke. Get here and find 'im."
"Excuse me?"
"That's why I'm calling."
"Is that someone is calling me when they found?
"Are you kidding? He does not need a TV."
Understood.
"Even the guys well meanin" down here have no time for much of that. "He paused." Come and see your father, Luke Millward. For Alls we know he is alive somewhere. The most of our mobile phones are not working "might be hurtin in somewhere, or San Antonio or in the North. We're hopin 'it is.
We are praying it.
"Even if I wanted, I can not break my life and go on a hunt of wild geese. I can not. "
Then do for your girlfriend. "
"What did you say?" I changed my cell phone in the later the other ear. "My father has committed?"
"For a wonderful." Gettin 'married within an hour of Christmas. "
Who is she? I thought.
"Luke, she is my little sister." He let the words have an impact. "His name is Jez.
Jez. I do not know what my system more surprise: the probable death of my father or a woman to marry an alcoholic who had a premonition problem practical.
"I remember, I said." The number my number is yours? "
"This is a cell phones Club. Call anytime. But the service is hit and miss, know. "
"I'll call you."
"Soon?
"Yes, sir. Goodbye. And thanks. "I hung up and left the restaurant and the noise of the city. I moved during the afternoon the crowded streets toward the subway.
Not I remember riding.
That night I sat in my apartment with Jordan and listened as she repeated back to me the details of the appeal of Jerome. It seemed hear things in history that had not said.
"This guy, Jerome, who was the best friend of her father."
"Who knows? "
"And his father will marry this man or sister was by no means … "
He scratched his back. "Sorry."
"No need."
"I wonder how he got his number? You should ask. What happens if it is a kind of scam? I see this a lot. "
"Jordan, this is not a scam."
"It's probably true, but still how is it? Are you sure you do not want money or something? Maybe she thinks that you are responsible, because your father helped him when necessary. "
I forgot that I never told him. "I have not sent money from Dad long. Since the last time we spoke."
"But Luke, I wondered. How did you hear? "
I agree that it was an intelligent question and promised to do when I called Jerome.
"Huh. His father lived in New Orleans." She watched her diet Dr. Pepper. "I just spoke to him."
Not much to say. I have not talked much about my mother either.
We chose our sesame chicken and brown rice.
"So I go," he said. "Really?"
"I do not know yet. "
"You have to do, Luke. Just to know for certain, it should."
"No I know. "
Took my two hands. "I will go with you."
"You can not stop immediately, Jordan. Is not the end of the quarter. You have to pass closures. "
"If I do, but I would go with you if you ask."
We returned to our Chinese food, while The Killers Hot 'Fuss, played in the stereo presentation.
An hour later, I kissed goodbye to Jordan elevator in my building and prepare for the night. The hall of mirrors bathroom reminded me of the dark circles under the eyes that I inherited from my father. When I was particularly tired or stressed I looked as if I had burned the eyes. The rest of the time, I looked like a raccoon. When I was young, Mom said it was so dark because I was an only child. If there are more children the effect would extend over the other children.
I saw a playlist on my iPod classic. Hits of the Boston Pops, some Mozart, just added songs of Jenny Oaks Baker CD that Jordan gave me for my birthday. I killed the fire, put on my headphones, and a majestic violin when Jenny transformed my room in a concert hall, drowning out the constant flow of horns and sirens below.
My mind has fallen leaves in the images of Katrina's wrath.
***
Mom has not always been unfortunate.
Dad was not always a drunk.
Just before my second year of secondary school the year before my grandmother died, the three of us took a trip to the Yankees spring training Legends Field in Tampa Bay. Mama Let Me Ride in the front for most part of the trip while he slept or read in the backseat of our white Saab. Dad drove east through Shreveport, Jackson, Mobile, and across the Florida peninsula. Each stop brought a bit of history guide AAA Dad to pick up a bunch of mom, and snacks.
I bet that mom eats five kilos of licorice on this trip. It Funny, I tease her about her Mom addicted to these little bags of feathers.
Dad's trip was an official address and Planters salted Tab Cola. I remember a drop of a few peanuts, both at the bottom of every mom can also playful joke: "You're gross. Yuck. Who puts peanuts in your soda? "Even my father could not explain the call, but I do not recall a single kilometer of travel, or any other for that matter, when the father can not one in his or her hand in the ready-coasters. I always threatened to tell mom when my dad stole sips of gas pumped or checked the tires.
But all he had to do was get a handful of licorice and I promise to keep secret his other leg to the trip. I do not even like licorice.
My staples are Twinkies, Os Ho, and Big League Chew gum chewing as worthy of a bit player. It is, unless you were a kid crazy Ms. Armstrong. It was a great show one day to practice the big League Chew is a candy "gateway" to these fake cigarettes, then the real cigarettes, real snuff. Therefore, Ms. Armstrong banned from the pit and told his son, Marco Magic, our only lefty, had let him chew one hundred packages at once if he ever caught him again with the subject. Dad said that things are not worth discussing.
Sometimes when he and the other coaches have worked with the infielders, I'd have a couple of guys behind the pond and give them a wad of pink gum ground its foil pouch. Few things are more exciting for a boy of thirteen who supply gum banned a teammate. Shortly after Ms. Armstrong ban came into force, Dad stopped at a Circle K on the way out of practice and three packages of Big League Chew. "Just in case." He winked. "You never know when you can find under".
My dad told me that Mrs. Armstrong was a sweet woman who just had some "problems." I guess he thought I should know what it meant. I did not. That was a gardener right.
On vacation this spring training, the mom in the stands reading of hours while Dad and I jostled for autographs and memorabilia professional sports have fought the dogs and young children, as well as the signatures and the ball escaped. She smiled sweetly when I came to our place in line third base with a ball bat that I had broken a rookie. Do not even remember his name.
"It's spectacular!" Mom took the ball me and pretended to examine it. "I bet there is a special place in your room, do not you, dear?
"Of course!"
Dad has bought counterpart, the old school Yankee baseball caps cotton. I lost my month later and never recovered.
(De Carlos was recovered and reprinted with permission of the author, Jason F. Wright)
(Originally published in GoArticles and reprinted with permission of the author, Jason F. Wright).
About the Author
Jason F. Wright is a regular contributor on Fox News and is founder and managing director of the political destination, PoliticalDerby.com. Jason is the New York Times Bestselling Author of Christmas Jars and The Wednesday Letters. To Learn more about Jason and his most recent novel, Recovering Charles, visit:
Recovering Charles
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GH – Luke and Laura – 1979-1980 playlist p.86
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