Fire Lake Read Online Free PDF Page A

said firmly, "I can take care
of him."
    "Want to bet?" Karen Jackowski said
bitterly. "You don't know him, Harry. You really don't."
    What could I say? I didn't know him.
    "I'll have to find somebody to look after the
kids," Karen Jackowski said. "Thank God it's a weekend. At
least I won't have to explain it at work."
    "Look," I said, "you don't have to do
this."
    "Yes, I do," she said, as if she felt an
obligation. "He's still my husband. It's not fair to saddle you
or anyone else with Lonnie Jack."
    I hadn't heard anyone say that name in so long that I
smiled, then felt foolish for having done so.
    "Could you pick me up at the airport?"
Karen Jackowski said.
    "Sure," I said. I gave her my phone number
and told her to call me collect when she knew her flight number and
arrival time.
    5
    Karen Jackowski called back around four-thirty to let
me know that she'd be coming in at eleven. I tried again to talk her
out of making the trip, but she was adamant. I arranged to meet her
at the airport when she arrived.
    After talking to her, I fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke up it was fully dark outside. The living room was quiet,
except for the sound of the rain on the windows. I walked through the
dark over to the desk, clicked on a lamp, then went back to the
couch. As I sat down again, I realized that Lonnie was sitting there
too--in my easy chair.
    "Christ!" I said, startled. "Are you
okay?"
    He nodded, his lean, battered face coming into the
light. "I didn't know where I was," he said. "It was
dark. I thought maybe I'd died."
    He was sitting Indian style in the chair. Jay naked.
A blanket wrapped around his shoulders. In the dim yellow lamplight,
he looked like the kid I'd known in 1967. So much like him that I
felt a chill run up my back.
    "I guess I fucked up," he said with a
forced smile.
    "Do you remember last night at all?"
    Lonnie shook his head and winced. "God, my head
hurts."
    He coughed-a deep, hacking cough. "I caught a
cold, too. My throat hurts like a son of a bitch."
    "You threw up a lot," I said. "It's
probably pretty raw."
    He smiled at me. "You brought me here?"
    "Had to do something with you, man," I
said, smiling back at him.
    "You couldn't just let me die, huh?" He
said it like a joke, but it didn't come out funny.
    I had the feeling he was going to make a lot of jokes
that didn't come out funny. I decided, on the spot, just to ignore
them, until he was ready to talk seriously about the suicide attempt.
"You want some coffee?" I asked.
    He nodded. "Something warm would be nice."
He coughed again. "Is this where you live, man?"
    "This is it," I said, getting up from the
couch and walking into the kitchenette.
    "It's like Lyon Street," he said.
    "Not much better."
    "You remember Lyon Street, Harry?" he
called out hoarsely from the living room.
    I doled some coffee into the machine. "Yeah. I
remember it.
    "I stopped there yesterday. At least, I think I
did. It hadn't changed much."
    "The rest of Clifton has," I said.
    "Yeah, I could tell. All Styrofoam now. No more
Black Dome. No more peace and love."
    The coffee machine started burbling. I poured two
cups of coffee and brought them into the living room. Lonnie looked
like he'd fallen asleep again--head back out of the light. When I
walked over to him, I saw that his eyes were wide open, staring at
the ceiling. I handed him the cup of coffee and he glanced at me.
    "I'm sorry, Harry," he said with real
feeling in his voice. "Forget it," I said. "Drink your
coffee."
    He took a sip of coffee, choked on it, but managed to
gulp it down. "Tastes good." He took another sip. "Remember
the Toddle House restaurant on Clifton Avenue?"
    I laughed. "Yeah. We drank a lot of coffee
there."
    "And killed a lot of time." He grinned.
"Picked up a lot of chicks at chez Toddle."
    "You picked up a lot of chicks everywhere."
    "You did all right too," he said,
charitably. "What happened to that one--that Linda."
    "I don't know," I said. "We lost
touch."
    " Ou sont les Lindas
of