“Gas is sixty dollars there and back, Reuben,” my stepmother said, and I could hear her running water in the kitchen sink while she said it, like the call was one more chore.
“He’s eighty-four years old. He is not taking the car that far by himself, and I am not driving three and a half hours to watch a bunch of old men eat ham sandwiches.”
I was standing in the co-op yard with my hard hat under my arm. It was a Tuesday in the middle of September, a little after noon, and the bucket trucks were coming back in for lunch.
“Is he there?” I asked. “Can I talk to him?”
“He’s out in the garage,” Bonita said. “And don’t you go getting him all stirred up about it. He already told Virgil he isn’t going. It’s settled.”
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She hung up before I could say anything else. That was how most calls with Bonita ended, with the line going dead while you were still taking a breath.
I stood there a minute with the phone in my hand. One of the younger guys on my crew asked if everything was all right, and I told him it was, because I did not know yet that it wasn’t.
The reason I knew about any of it was that Virgil Stamper had called me first, about an hour before. I had never once had a phone call from Virgil in my life.
He had a slow Arkansas voice, the kind that makes every sentence sound like it is coming up a long gravel driveway. He said my name like he was making sure he had the right man.
“Reuben, this is Virgil Stamper. I served with your daddy. I got your number off the card your mother sent me years ago, God rest her.”
My mother died in 2009. She was the one who kept up with Dad’s Army friends, the Christmas cards and the get-well notes. I did not know Virgil still had anything with her handwriting on it.
“Your dad says he’s not coming to Rolla this year,” Virgil said. “He said it was the gas. I offered to send him the money and he about took my head off. So I’m calling you instead. I hope that’s all right.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “Thank you for calling me.”
“He’s never missed one, son. Not one in thirty-one years. There’s only three of us left from his squad. I’d like to see him.”
That was the whole call. Virgil was not a man to make a speech. He said it once, plain, and then he said he’d let me get back to work.
So I called the house, and Bonita answered, and she told me about the sixty dollars.