Chapter 11

And then it was “sooner or later, sort of.

It was Thursday, a work night. I answered the buzzer.

I was accosted; it was almost eighteen months after starting my job. It was the week before Thanksgiving ‘85 that I got the visit, not by him or her, but by Briana. She sure was a pretty girl. I had seen pictures over the years of course, but the real thing was something else again. She actually kinda scared me.

“Briana Barnes?” I said. It was just after 7:00 p.m.

“Can I come in?” she said. I hadn’t seen her in the flesh in some twenty years, and, she’d been a toddler then. But she was acting as if it was only last month!

“Yeah, I guess. I was just about to put something in the microwave; but it can wait?” I said, as she passed through and into my place. And no, I had no idea why I had let her in considering that I knew what her parents thought of me. And, I had to believe that she knew it too.

I noticed her looking around, kinda surveying my place. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been here, I guess,” I said.

“This is my first time,” she said. I gave her a look.

“Oh,” I said.

It was once again clear to me that her mother’s promise to make sure that she would know who I was, was a flat out lie. “You don’t know me, Briana, nor I you really. About me maybe, or me you, but not in any real sense of the word. I’ve seen pictures of you, but that’s all. So you can maybe understand why this meet up seems a little strange to me.”

“Yes, I guess that’s so. And just so you know I’ve seen pictures of you too, but those just recently.

“Next week is Thanksgiving. I came to ask you if you would come,” she said. “Mom and dad really want you to. Oh, and me and my brother James and sister LeeAnn too.”

“No,” I said. She looked around some more seeming to ignore my negative response to her invite.

“Got anything to drink?” she said, clearly wanting to extend the conversation.

“Yeah, wine, pinot?”

“That would be good,” she said. I went to get it. She took a seat at my dinette table.

I returned with a tray, two stem glasses, and the bottle of pinot noir.

I poured. Her thank you seemed sincere. “My favorite,” I said.

We both sipped. “It’s good, Uncle Adam,” said Briana.

“So?” I said.

“No, nothing, I just decided on my own to pressure you to come to dinner next week is all,” she said. “Mom and dad are desperate to talk to you.”

“Well, that’s a one way street. I am not desperate to talk to them. And from your demeanor, I’m guessing you have more than a vague notion as to why that might be so,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “You saved mom back in the day by offing three bad guys, she promised to wait for you; she didn’t and she married my dad; I mean your brother.”

Okay, maybe she didn’t know as much as I thought.

“About right,” I said. “That that is not all, has to go without saying. But, at any rate, thanks for the invite, and the answer is still a hard and fast no. But, I do have one question.”

“Okay?” she said.

“You say you thought up this visit on your own? Tell me truly; were you at all influenced by either of them?” She sighed.

“No, not the way you mean. I heard them talking about needing, that’s needing, to see you, talk to you; and I decided to try and intervene,” she said.

“Hmm. Another question. Are they planning a big soiree?”

“I suppose, maybe fifty folks. It’ll be an all-day affair, and an evening after dinner party for a few special guests,” she said. “You’d be one of the chosen ones.”

“Can’t do a big party even if I were to agree with your high pressure effort here. I just can’t. It would be too much for me. I know you know that I was in prison for twenty years; it changes a man,” I said.

“Wait, wait, are you saying that if the party was small, that you might consider coming?” she said. I shrugged.

“No. I cannot be around your mother or him either,” I said. “That said, I do appreciate your honesty here.”

“Briana, you say you went to see your uncle!” said Riley.

“Yes, mom. I kept hearing you and dad talking about how you wished you could get uncle Adam to come to Thanksgiving dinner, so I decided to try my hand at persuading the man. I mean since you and dad were too chicken to do so,” she said. “Anyway, I knew where the condo was, so I went.” Riley Barnes was shaking her head.

“Briana, before you try to talk to your uncle Adam again, you need to give either me or your dad a heads up. There is a lot of water under that bridge and it runs pretty fast and pretty deep,” she said.

“Mom, I had no problem talking with the man. He had some wine, we drank it. It was cheap stuff, but not too bad,” said Briana.

“Mom, I know the story. You married dad instead of uncle Adam. That had to be a stinger for him. But he was inside so long. I’m sure, that deep down, he knew that it was unrealistic of him to expect you wait twenty years to make his day.”

“Briana, like I said, there are things you don’t understand.”

“Mom, he killed three men. He deserved his punishment. Yes, I know he did it to save you from some bad people. But even so, I mean three men! Mom, I can believe, after talking to him, that he is a decent sort in spite of his crime. But he is a killer. And daddy is the best. You did right marrying him. Uncle Adam will come around one of these days and I’m sure things will be good. Truth told, I liked him. I’m glad I went to see him, even though he shined on coming to Thanksgiving dinner,” she said.

Henry Holden was a busy man, he always was, and he was a stressed-out man, and he always was. When I’d come to work for him a year and a half gone he’d needed a checker and a driver, and I’d needed a job. It had been another of those serendipitous situations, and an opportunity for me. Oh, and he was the owner of Allied Sand and Rock, not just the manager. Oh, and now he still needed a driver, again; drivers were hard to come by; turnover was a big deal in the building materials business; it was hard work.

It turned out that he’d known of me sort of. Early on, as I learned, Rodney had clued the man that his brother, me, might be in looking for a job. Henry apparently owed Rodney for past favors. I had asked Horace to get me the job, but it was clear to me now that Horace had talked to Rodney at some point—in depth! Horace had said he’d asked Rodney to point him. I let that much slide, mister rich guy’s miniscule interference; I needed the job. I’d halfway figured Horace might ask the man to help a bit more than he admitted to. At any rate the big man had stayed away from me since me hearing them stab me in the back that one time. So, I was good. And why was I good?