Shades of Eva Read Online Free

that damnable
toolshed. It was there in that shed, I was remembering, staring
deep into, and beyond my half-empty whiskey glass, where I had my
first drink at the age of five, and there, that same year, where
Mom killed a man. Had I never entered that shed maybe Mom would
still be alive, still sane, still willing to hug the insolent
little boy I used to be, and maybe I wouldn’t be a drunk 2500 miles
from home.
    Between Meade’s periodic outbursts and my
slow, uneasy sips of Jameson, I was cursing something else that
night. I was cursing the man that little boy had become—a vagabond,
a drifter at best—a wanderer with no ties to the past and no
intention of forming any. It was the eve of riding the rails
again—to drifting away—and the eve of those days always left me
with a feeling about as empty as the glass in my hand.
    I nodded to Scotty. He did the honors and
poured me another one.
    I had set my sites on the sunny hills of southern California. At least there’d be some warmth in my
future to go along with the emptiness. No reason in particular I
chose south, except the coin I’d tossed earlier landed tails, and
SoCal just happened to be the tails side of that coin. I’d pay off
what rent was owed on the cabin, donate the battered Ford half-ton
I drove to the next drifter who came along, and work my way to the
rail yard. I’d toss my knapsack into an empty car like the good
hobo I was and say goodbye to Neah Bay, au revoir to the gloomy
weather, and adios to the trees.
    Wandering had been a pattern of mine, a
habit about as unbreakable as drinking, and one I couldn’t see
breaking—at least not right then—not standing there listening to
Meade complain.
    I can see that now, that pattern of
wandering, having tasted sobriety and the cool land of mourning,
which until Amelia Hawkins entered my life and River Bluff had the
full span of its Asylum tentacles wrapped tight around me, was but
a dream. As addiction and sobriety are two sides of the same coin,
so is grief and mourning. Grief is perpetual, a land of suffering
where one broods, a hell of hopeless wandering where loss is
subject to anger and bargaining and denial. That’s exactly where I
was in Neah Bay—just as I was in all those coin tossed towns—stuck
in a land of grief.
    Ogelthorpe won another hand of cards and
slapped his leg in hilarity. Meade slammed his cards down. I
glanced at Ogelthorpe who was looking my way and smiling like a
toddler who’d just goaded his mother into yelling at him.
    “Ought to join us,” Ogelthorpe hollered to
me. “Easy pickins' tonight at the round table, Mark!” Again he
slapped his leg.
    I could see Meade fuming. He looked to me
just as he had when Dick Herman was rolling down the hill. Again he
asked me, “What are you looking at you pecker?”
    Again I didn’t answer him. I slammed the
remainder of my drink, shook my head, and motioned Scotty back
over. He splashed a bit more Jameson in my glass and cracked a
nervous smile.
    “New blood has to be mad at something,”
Scotty said, whispering just a bit. “Or somebody. Now don’t go
getting all crazy, Mark. That guy’s a good half a foot taller than
you are, and I don’t need any drama in here tonight.”
    Ogelthorpe, and now Scotty, had just called
me by one of my many aliases to that point. This one—the Neah Bay
alias—was Mark Engram, an alias not taken because of any criminal
wrong-doing, but for shame and for spite I suppose. Anyone who’s
ever wanted to be someone else or to break loose from a troubled
past understands that sort of a need to sever. It’s a cruel son who
can do such a thing to his father’s name. Not every son is able to
make that sort of break, but cruelty begets cruelty. I think that’s
in the Bible somewhere. 
    “So, what’s ailing you?” Scotty asked me.
“Why aren’t you over there taking some of Meade’s money? That ought
to be you sitting there.”
    All I could muster in response was a
reference to a proverb I