“Did Abercrombie have a girlfriend in high school?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
Jack Start thought about it. “No.”
“Are you going to attend this reunion?”
“I hadn’t planned on it, no.”
“Why not?”
The old high school quarterback didn’t answer the question. He stared out the window at Lake Superior. Seemed the great lake was the one constant in his life.
The inspector lifted a transcript from the file. “When God signed off last night, he went off the air singing a World War Two hit.” Now the FBI man began singing, his fingers setting the tempo. “‘I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places… that this heart of mine embraces…all day through…’ Did Abercrombie like that kind of music?”
Jack Start sat listening to the inspector warble, more amazed than amused. He scratched his head. “Actually, Pudge was more into the Beatles.” Suddenly, he put his finger to his lips, as if something had just occurred to him. “There was one thing…”
“What?”
“Pudge liked the Partridge Family. I always thought that was spooky.”
The FBI inspector was losing his patience. “Was there anything else…back in high school?”
Jack gave the question serious consideration. “Once, during our junior year, somebody commandeered the intercom system. Nobody was ever caught, but Pudge was the main suspect. It was pretty harmless stuff. He came on at 1 o’clock and dismissed school for the day. Before the vice-principal got back on the microphone, we were all heading down the hill into town.”
Inspector Whitehurst dropped into his chair, seemingly exasperated. “We’re going to find him…and we’d be surprised if you’re not in cahoots with him.”
“Well, that would surprise me.”
“C’mon, Jack… a drunken, washed up newspaperman with a degenerative disease suddenly finds himself with the big scoop. An exclusive interview with God. You’d be back in the game, wouldn’t you?”
Jack had to chuckle, more to himself than the FBI man. “You’re not really from Minnesota, are you?”
The inspector smiled, an evil little smile. “Let’s talk about that night on the canal… the night he disappeared. Do you think he was suicidal?”
Jack Start took a moment before answering. He was startled, as if some revelation had just come to him. For the first time in years a twinkle appeared in his eyes. “You know, maybe that’s how he gets back and forth.”
“Who?”
“God. He comes down here to live for a while, and then to get back, he stages some spectacular accident.”
“So now you’re saying you went to high school with God?”
Jack Start, one-time star quarterback for Duluth High, raised an eyebrow in delight. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “I never thought of it like that before. And we were in the same backfield.”
The Reunion
Under the suspicion that God might be there, so many people signed up to attend the twenty-five-year reunion that it was moved from a private room at Grandma’s Saloon to the ballroom at the Convention Center, overlooking Canal Park. By the time the reunion was in full swing, non-class members outnumbered the real class members by ten to one. FBI agents were planted at the entrance and the exits. Satellite trucks ringed the parking lot. Reporters were interviewing anybody they could find.
Old Coach Young was popular. “Pudge was a great athlete,” he said into a battery of microphones. “But he lacked discipline. Do you know what I mean?”
“Are you saying God was lazy?”
“No, no. I’m saying the God I knew was something of a screw-off.”
Television sets were scattered around the ballroom in case God made his seventh appearance over the airwaves. Only the night before, in his sixth appearance, God had entertained the Iron Range by popping a beer and choking on a pretzel.
“Hi, I’m God,” he said, coughing up the gooey mess and spitting it into a paper towel. He held up his nameplate: I’M GOD. “I have some really bad news for you people. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve thought about it… and I’m moving to Wisconsin.” His belly laughs filled the television screen. “You know I’m joking you. If it’s the end of the world… I’ll let you know.” He held out his hands, as if baffled. “And what is with all you people falling in love with the wrong person? Open your eyes, for God’s sake.”
The reunion continued. A local band was playing Beatles songs. Badly. More and more drinks were poured. The room grew increasingly louder. And hotter.
“Get you a beer, Jack?”
“No thanks, I’ll stick with the ginger ale.”
“Ginger ale. What’s wrong with him, Coach?”
Old Coach Young raised his hands in surrender. “I can’t figure it out. He quit smoking, he’s not drinking. I swear the devil has gotten ahold of him.”
There was another round of laughter as Jack Start made his way through the crowd. He was actually enjoying himself. In fact, it was almost overwhelming. He set his ginger ale down on a table and walked to the end of the ballroom, where the bay windows over the lake were twenty feet high. Glass from the floor to the ceiling. The old high school quarterback stood there alone looking down at Canal Park. Beyond that was the utter blackness of Lake Superior.
“That’s quite a view. I miss it.”
He turned when she said that. Turned too fast and almost lost his balance. She met his eyes with a smile, and twenty-five years melted away in an instant.
“Hello, Jack,” she added.
He smiled, a genuine smile he hadn’t felt in years. “Hello, Mary.” She was taller than he remembered. Her hair was longer and a bit lighter. And those eyes, the eyes that had crushed little boys’ hearts, were still as bright as any star that hung over the North Shore. In short, she was even more strikingly beautiful than he’d tried to forget.
She gave him a hug, and he embraced her in an awkward manner, not knowing what to do with his cane. When he’d steadied himself, he said, “You’re supposed to be dumpy and all wrinkled up.”
“They told me you weren’t coming.”
“I wasn’t, but then…”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Might have been something I saw on television.”
She glanced at his cane. “Can you walk?”
“Oh, yeah. The cane is mostly for insurance. It’s my left leg,” he explained, a touch too excited. “Sometimes it just goes to sleep, and then I fall down. It’s kind of embarrassing to be falling down at my age.”
“I meant… would you like to go for a walk?”
The sea breeze in his face felt good. The woman beside him felt heaven sent. Jack Start stared at the long walkway leading out to the lighthouse. Where Canal Park had once been the purlieu of prostitutes and sailors, a multimillion-dollar renaissance had brought restaurants, shops, and hotels, not to mention a million tourists every summer. But on this night the park was quiet. In fact, the great lake itself was as calm as he’d ever seen it. The waves were small, and they lapped against the shore in perfect harmony. It was early October now. There remained only two weeks of decent weather. Then the cold would set in. And the storms would follow.
Jack Start found himself doing something he thought he would never ever do. Never in a lifetime. “I’ve walked past it,” he said. “I’ve stared down at it. But I haven’t set foot on this walkway in twenty-five years.”
“How does it feel?”
“With you, it feels good.”
“Should we walk out to the lighthouse?”
It was a remarkably clear night. Every now and then the revolving beam of light sailed over their heads. Jack and Mary stopped halfway down the walkway. The shadow of a man could be discerned standing at the top of the stairs, at the foot of the lighthouse. They wanted to be alone. So they stood where they were and stared at the galaxy of lights that ran up and down the steep hills. Illuminated hills that rolled up and away from the lake. And at the foot of those hills, throwing an eerie, translucent glow, were the klieg lights from the television crews that surrounded the Convention Center.