Read Online Providence by Chris Coppernoll - Free Book Online Page A

of cancer a few years before I arrived. They had one son, Roger, a Marine Corps sergeant killed in action in 1991 while serving our country. Ours is a mutually beneficial relationship: Ray tells me what he remembers about his life, and I bring him things he likes to eat. Beef jerky, fried chicken, chocolate-covered raisins, Little Debbie snack cakes. Raymond doesn’t worry too much about cholesterol or heart disease, but then again, neither do I.
    “Boy, you look like dirt. Don’t you have sense enough to go to bed at night?”
    “I don’t have sense, Ray. They’ve got me writing another book. It keeps me from doing the things I like, such as sleep.”
    Raymond and I sat at one of ten white plastic tables. This place isn’t the Ritz. Marvin’s doesn’t only serve food; it serves gasoline to thirsty cars. The gas-station shelves are empty except for a case of pork and beans, enormous bags of road salt, and odds and ends like children’s balloons and decks of playing cards. They sell lotto tickets, cigarettes, beer, and … the best pork barbecue this side of Memphis.
    “Oh, I see. They made you write it. They own you now.” Raymond focused his attention on the plastic fork he was using to eat his coleslaw.
    “It’s a long story. Anyhow, I’m writing again, so I don’t sleep much. That reminds me, I’m not working for the ministry anymore, for the time being, that is. So if you need anything, call me at home. I won’t be at the office.”
    Raymond looked up at me as if I were certifiable. “What? You done quit everything now? Who’s going to take care of people out here when they need help?”
    “Peter Brenner. And the college will be out here again the second week of January.” I slid a rib out of a red and white paper basket and bit into it. The taste of molasses and honey was instantly familiar and instantly incredible.
    “I don’t trust him,” Raymond said.
    “Why wouldn’t you trust Peter?”
    “He talks on that phone too much.”
    “Peter’s a good guy and you know it.”
    “If he’s such a good guy, how come he never takes me to Marvin’s?”
    “Are you saying I’m a good guy, Raymond?”
    Ray lowered his ice tea, refreshed to continue. “Yeah, you brought me here, and I need to talk to you. How come you never get married? Don’t you know what God can give a man in a godly woman?”
    He removed the lid from his Styrofoam cup and poured back a mouthful of sweet tea while I thought of how to answer a question that comes up at lunch with Raymond as predictably as dandelions pop up in my front lawn each spring.
    “I’m ready when He is,” I said.
    “Ready when He is! You need to be more than ready. You need to be ready, willing, and able.” Raymond let out a belch. “Ready, maybe. Able, I don’t know. Willing, I doubt it.”
    Ray never minces words; such is the case with old people and children, they say. That’s one of the things I like best about Raymond.
    I tried nudging our conversation to something more amiable. “Is that how you met Ella?”
    “Don’t you change the subject on me. Boy, your problem is that you’re hiding all the time. Hiding at work, hiding out in your house. Hiding out in some fancy book you’re all about writing. When you gonna come out and be a man? That’s what I want to know. When you gonna come out and be a man?”
    Raymond’s words fired out between mouthfuls of pork barbecue and beans. This kind of exchange would have been insulting from anyone else, but not from Raymond.
    He studied the pile of rib bones stacked on his plate while I scrutinized the horizontal lines running across his forehead like black lightning. Was he right? Was I hiding? Something moved in me to tell Ray what I’d yet to confess even to myself.
    “Ray, I’m in love with a married woman. She lives with her husband in London, and I haven’t seen her in years.”
    Ray’s expression remained unchanged. I don’t know what I expected him to say, if anything.
    “Why do you