Are You Haunted (part nine)

Are You Haunted

(part nine)

At a grandmotherly pace Powell drove, thinking about Lloyd Guy’s grapevine. The Big Chief would know already what they were up to.

But maybe…

Isobel cocked her head at his glance aside.

Tovey said: “Eyes on the road, Kenzie. Trust me.”

Could Tovey be trusted by Mrs. Drybrook? He was dapper, he got around in a hurry. What was he, for a type? Like a supply guy, a skimmer…who could fix you up, called you “meal ticket” because that was all you had. That, and a favor you might do. The old lady didn’t see thieving hands when she let Tovey have her car, though.

It needed accepting. Mrs. Drybrook let Tovey in her house. Two years hoboing had colored his view of people, Powell guessed.

But he might settle in a place like this. Just big enough you didn’t exhaust your chances too soon. Folks were charitable, “community-minded”, like the county agent who had let him hitch downtown said. But even the charitable don’t want the same face turning up every day. Letting them feed you, not letting them save you. They wanted to help a man onto his feet.

He heard this phrase all the time. He looked capable of working. If there was any way you could do a job and not be bossed…

It was bossing Powell couldn’t take.

Somehow he was getting run around by Tovey before he even talked to Guy.

Of course, he had never known who the man at the opera was.

He had been fourteen years old; he would not have turned to look. They might believe him eavesdropping, grow angry, make complaint. And who was Heinz to call attention to himself, in any way? The opera had been his haven. The street car, going home, was lonely and crowded.

But the man had become his bête noire. He had raised so many questions.

You have been taught how to behave. You wish only to be good, to obey. You know what you have done is not right. You huddle with your fellows in a house with no roof, thinking your turned back and shadowed eyes disguise you from the sight of others. Yet when you fear you have been seen, you refuse all avenues of redemption. You seek to frighten away scrutiny by raising phantoms.

If they could be content with mere social approval, these mystifications would not attract them. They would—why would they not, such powerful men?—supersede God, put themselves in his place, rather than fear His finding them out, to condemn them.

9

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part ten)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)