Waiting with Elmer. Deanna K. Klingel

now, looky here who’s coming. This is my friend Rake. Rake, say hello to Willy.”

      “How you doing, Mr. Willy?” Something familiar about his voice caused Willy to look up and confirm that Rake was a large man with a huge smile, and skin shiny black as coal. He looked like someone Willy thought he might know. They shook hands.

      “Willy here’s new in town. I’m showing him around.”

      “Oh, that’s real nice, Elmer. Nice to meet you, Willy.”

      “You bring the chessboard this morning, Rake?” Elmer asked, moving over on the bench.

      “Heh, heh, I did,” the man laughed heartily. “And you just can’t wait for me to beat your socks off you again this morning, can you?”

      Willy gave the two men a side glance, keeping his focus on the street, waiting. This was something new: two men who actually saw him, talked friendly to him, and were laughing and playing a game together.

      “You play any chess, Willy?” Rake asked him.

      Willy shook his head. “Marbles. It’s the only game I know.”

      “Is that right? Well, I reckon you got the two best chess players in the world right here at the table ready to show you some tricks, isn’t that right, Elmer?”

      “That’s so, Willy, that’s so. Willy’s waiting, Rake.”

      “Ooh. Waiting. Uh-huh. Well, we probably have time to show you a little thing or two while you’re waiting. Sit here by me.”

      Willy watched and listened with intense fascination. Before long the sun was shining down directly overhead. Willy’s shadow shared his space. The day was half over.

      “Now, then, young Willy, I think you’re ready to give this game a chance. You play against Elmer, and I’ll whisper to help you. That work for you, Elmer?”

      “Of course, of course. You know it takes two to beat me.” The two men shook from their belly laughs. Willy stared with wonderment.

      I never saw grown up men behavin’ like this. And I never saw a white man liking one who wasn’t.

      When the hot dog vendor came strolling through the park, Rake called out to him.

      “Hey, Sam, we need three dogs smothered over here and three lemonades with lots of ice chips.” Rake paid the man and handed one of the steamy packages to Willy.

      “I can’t pay you,” Willy said.

      “Did you hear me ask you to pay?” Rake said. “Eat your dinner, we got some serious chess to finish here.”

      Willy savored his dinner and played, first with Rake whispering to him, then Elmer. Before long the sun shone on them from low in the sky, and Willy looked down the street. Another day was almost over. In the distance a train whistle hung in the air. The truck was nowhere in sight.

      Where will I sleep tonight? How long will I wait?

      “You going to sleep at the Savings and Loan tonight?” Elmer asked.

      “Maybe.”

      Rake said, “Elmer, you mean to tell me you didn’t invite young Willy here to the Mission?”

      “No, I didn’t. Willy’s waiting, Rake, I told you.”

      “Right. You did say that. Well, Willy, if it comes to needing a place, you’d be welcome at the Union Mission.” He turned around on the picnic bench and squinted into the setting sun. “You see the drug store over there?” Willy nodded. He’d seen the pharmacy sign with a blue ramp and blue sidewalk.

      “Well, on the other side of the drug store there’s a little road, not much of a road, more like an alley, and you just take that road up the hill past the ‘pisc-o-pal-ian Church with the red door. Not much farther on the right you’ll see the big brown shingle building with a lighted-up cross on the top. The cross says Union Mission, real bright. You just come on up there and ask for Rake. Somebody’ll find me.”

      “Can you see the street from there?” Willy asked.

      “No, I don’t think so. But when you get tired of waiting, it won’t matter anymore.”

      Willy stared at him.

      Tired of waiting?

      When all the light was gone from the sky, Willy lay down under the picnic table with his head toward the street, watching, waiting. He heard the pit-pat of raindrops slipping through the leaves and splashing onto the picnic table. The temperature was dropping. The ping-ping against the trash barrel sounded like a little drum beat.

      Tired of waiting? In one town during a storm I waited under a garbage truck. Another time on a hot day I got into trouble with the law for cooling my feet in the town’s fountain. In that town, they said colored folks couldn’t sit on the fountain in any weather. Once in the desert I was accused of stealing. I didn’t, but they said I did. They threw my dad out of “The Last Wet Bar This Side of the Border,” and that wait got over right then. I think I might be tired of waiting. Right about… now.

      Chapter Three

      When daylight broke, the rain kept falling. The air was brisk, the breeze chilly, and Willy knew summer was riding out of town on these rain clouds. Lying on the ground under the picnic table, Willy was muddy on one side. He tried not to move so his other side stayed clean. He kept his eyes focused on the street. After the night of rain, Willy shivered. He tried to cover up in his loneliness, which felt as heavy as one of Grandma’s old quilts.

      He walked, head down, up the street, letting the rain wash off the mud. He walked to the end of the street, looking for his dad’s truck. He walked to the end on the other side. He went behind the stores and walked down that deserted gravel road, looking at the cars and trucks parked there next to the city limit sign. A slow-moving green and black police car sloshed down the muddy road, and Willy moved over.

      “What you doing here, boy?” the officer asked.

      “Looking for my dad’s truck.”

      “Oh, yeah? What makes you think it’s back here?”

      “I don’t know it. I’m just looking.”

      At that moment, a tinny alarm jangled in the store that Willy had just passed. The sheriff jumped out of his car and pushed a surprised Willy to the ground. Willy opened his mouth in protest, but the policeman’s knee in the middle of Willy’s back knocked the wind out of him, and cold metal pinched his wrists. Willy lay on the ground, stunned. Another police car pulled up. The lighted sign on the green roof of the car was blinking on and off, “POLICE.” Willy squeezed his eyes shut tight.

      “You got him?” the law man yelled as he hopped out of his car.

      “Got him. Go on inside.”

      The policeman yanked Willy to a stand and ran his hands roughly all over his body pausing over the bulge in Willy’s pocket.

      “Just what I thought,” he said and pushed Willy into the car. The other policeman ran back out the door and grabbed the radio from his car. “Operator? Marilyn? Call the ambulance right now. Raymond’s Dry Good Store. Hurry up!” The policeman ran over to Willy sitting in the car and slapped him hard across the face.

      The sting burned and crawled from his face to his stomach, where old memories began to roil and mix with this new pain.

      “Old man Raymond never hurt a soul. He dies, you’re dead, kid.”

      Willy looked up at the man’s hard face, through his watering eyes.

      “I wasn’t in