Part 1 of 4 – The Train from Chicago, Spring 1918
Spring in St. Joe
The evening I pulled into St. Joseph station from Chicago a dreary rain was falling, driven off of the lake and smelling like spring. It was the fourth month of the year, 1918, and I had come to find my brother’s killer.
I watched the backs of modest houses slide by the train as it chuffed slower and slower then squealed to a stop. The lady who had been trying not to stare at my scars was gathering her bags as quickly as possible near the door and I wondered if I was being paranoid or if she really was rushing to avoid having to get too close. I caught a bitter, crooked smile on my face reflected in the window then realized she was hurrying toward the station on the other side of the glass. Travelling was still hard for me, all these years after the war, but sometimes it’s absolutely necessary.
Charley was there at the station looking just like I’d remembered him. A somewhat distant cousin, we’d always kept in touch at least once a year or so and always hung around with one another at family functions, holidays, weddings, funerals. He loaded my cheap valise and Army duffel into the trunk of his somber-looking Chevy sedan and we set out for his home across the river in Benton Harbor. Charley lived in a gorgeous brick two story in Benton Harbor’s upscale Niles Riverway neighborhood.
Charley and Jane put me up in their guest room where I was uncomfortable to notice a cardboard box with “Jamie” written across the top. The trinkets, accessories, spare change and old Army folding knife in this little carton may be all I’ll ever have of my brother, ever again. The realization floors me and I find myself weeping desperately for a moment before sneaking off to the bathroom to wash my face off and get my composure back. When I came downstairs Charley has a beer waiting for me on the table and a sliced tomato with coarse salt from Jane’s hot house out back.
Charley and I have a good, quiet sort of friendship that allows us to sit together for long periods of time without saying anything at all. I wanted to know about my brother, the last things he’d said to Charley and Jane. Where he said he was going. What he’d been up to day to day in the time just before his disappearance. Charley hands me a silver flask of whiskey and begins to speak.
As usual, Charley seemed to read my thoughts. “So, Jamie.” He started, looking up into my eyes for a moment. “He was working a lot there through February, took a trip to Florida with this baseball team, was helping the pitchers work out and such. Fell in with a girl, but she was taken as it were, or was promised to a man. I sensed trouble, there, but he told me and told me there was no trouble, all was well. So I let him go. And I wish, every day, that I had not. I don’t know what he got himself into, but I don’t think he just ran off to Florida like the baseball coach says. I don’t need to tell you that running off wasn’t something that Jamie would do. Or at least, not in secret. Jamie told the truth. He wasn’t afraid of fucking anyone.”
I took a second long drink from his flask and handed it back to Charley. “I understand. Thank you Charley. I know you’ll tell me everything, tomorrow. I’m so bushed right now. Can I go to sleep?”
Deliriously Happy
Waking up in Charley and Jane’s house made me think of my grandparents old place in Milwaukee. It was almost exactly this size and layout with the same neat red brick fireplace and tall leaded glass windows framed by ivy. On my way to the bathroom I hear Charley and Jane talking and I make sure not to pause near their door and be tempted to eavesdrop.
At breakfast Charley finally fills me in, although he seems hesitant as if he wants to ease me into it: “He seemed, just, deliriously happy.” Charley said of my brother. “Jamie always could fall hard, and it was this exotic beauty with those missionary baseball gypsy folk over there by the river.” He gestured vaguely westward toward where I got off the train. “He would spend more and more time over there, first he said for the baseball, then even Sunday’s, all day, into night time. Call into work sick the next day. We went there for dinner and he introduced us, and boy you could see it in his eyes, he was smitten.” Charley smiled remembering and for a minute he looked just like my brother, I could see that dumb smile Jamie put on when he was crushing on some girl.
Charley continued, “That girl had cocoa brown skin and cool green eyes, just entrancing to look at. And they say she was promised to the patriarch, Papa Joe, they call him. He’s the head man, the preacher for the outfit.” Charley took a pause from speaking and ate some toast.
After some coffee, some juice, Charley continued. “After a time, we’d see him for dinner usually once a week. Wednesday nights, that was our dinner night. Every other time he’d come and cook for us. Chinese food. These spicy steak sandwiches. Pasta dishes with garlic bread. And he was getting kind of skinny, ropy, like when he used to box in college. And he was growing his beard out, just like the boys on that cult baseball team. The Catholic prayers that our grandparents had taught us weren’t good enough anymore, he started to pray with a fervor that was almost alarming. We were worried, I was trying to figure out how to talk to him about it, and then he was gone.”
“So he just stopped coming to the dinners? Did he ever call or write or anything?” I asked. The praying didn’t sound like my brother. Neither did the beard, really. I’d seen Jamie change everything more than once for a woman that he fell for, but this seemed so extreme and out of the ordinary for my strong-willed younger brother.
“He just stopped coming, stopped calling, everything. I went over to the grounds, where the have the zoo and the kiddy train and all, because they were having open spring training over there, they would play scrimmages against one another, keep score, it was pretty fun to watch. But there was no Jamie, no sign of the brown-skinned girl or Benjamin Purnell either for that matter. Jane and I had dinner at the restaurant mostly so I could ask around about Jamie, but we got nowhere. Got the waitress upset and spooked and she had us kicked out of there. It was then, some burly bearded baseball jocks following us to the car, that I started to get a really bad feeling.” Charley trailed off and wouldn’t meet my gaze when I looked at him. I looked and Jane and she looked sad and scared, remembering that night on the strange grounds, conveniently out of the patrols of any of the sparse local law enforcement.
“Did he run off with her then?” I asked. Suddenly I remembered something from years previous. “Remember that girl in San Antonio? We had to have the U.S. Embassy help us get him back from Mexico, remember?” I sounded desperate, and I knew it.
“I guess it’s a possibility.” Charley said. He hesitated. “But.”
“But what?” I pressed. It took me only a moment. “But the girl showed back up.” I said. Certain I was right.
“The girl showed back up. Sad, bruised though not in any way you’d notice right off, and almost never out of the sight of that patriarch, Uncle Benjamin.” Charley said it with the hint of a sneer, it was easy to detect his derision. “So now the more I think about it, the more I see and remember about that first night we went out there, I get a bad feeling about this cult leader preacher, his reputation with young girls among his followers, and your brother getting himself in the middle of it. I don’t know what happened,” Charley looked me in the eyes finally, pain and sadness in his eyes. “But I’m very worried about Jamie and I don’t know where to turn next.”
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