Time and Again

Chapter One



The radio was on. Music floated in the background while Henry relaxed with a bit of light hand planing on a piece of walnut. The last couple of months had been perfect. He had taken a few easy cases which kept him in the black: two wives wanting to know if their husbands were cheating on them, and a couple who needed him to find their daughter.

Henry had bad news for the one wife, and was pleased to inform the other that her man was simply taking dancing lessons – it was to be a surprise for their tenth anniversary. Both ladies cried at the news.

The daughter had run off with a guy who didn't have much money, but looked like James Dean. She came home after realizing that life with her rebel would not have a happy ending.

The song changed and Patty, Maxine, LaVerne, and their buddy, Bing Crosby, were asking the question, "Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?” and it made Henry stop planing the piece of walnut. He set his old Stanley No. 5 on its side. The Philco 90 was on a table next to the closet door, and he reached over and turned up the volume.

It filled the woodworking shop with memories. Henry shuffled about in the sawdust, spinning around with a broom.

He wondered what Luna was doing. He had seen her only once in the last couple of months. She had brought him cookies and they had eaten lunch and made promises to find the time to get together. He thought, I should give her a call.

The song faded, and Henry set the broom back up against the wall. His feet were still shuffling. The Philco played a catchy tune for Jell-O, and then a voice talked about the weather in Brooklyn.

Henry had gone back to working on the piece of walnut when the next song started - bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom. Henry stopped. He didn't move. Those first notes crashed into his head, and as the Chordettes asked "Mr. Sandman" to bring them a dream, Henry felt a wave of time pull him back into the past.

The single had climbed up to #1 on the charts, and it seemed to be on the radio all the time. Henry didn't buy too many records, but he did have a record player. When the 45 showed up with a letter, he was caught off guard.

He didn't remember much about that day. Arriving at his office that morning, Henry had found the single and a letter, which someone had slid under the door. Opening the envelope and seeing the sender’s name sent a chill down his spine. After reading it, he went home to his city apartment where he read it a hundred times more as the Chordettes sang.

As a rule, Henry stayed in the city only one night per week. Most days he preferred to head home to his house in Brooklyn. The house was quiet. Almost nobody knew that he had this second place, and this was where he did his woodworking and his best thinking.

The letter was from another time in his life. It hailed from the days before he was a detective, before he had closed himself off from all but a few of his closest friends. It was from a time when the world was at war, when there was a feeling of unity and purpose. It was from younger days. The handwriting was unmistakable, though he had only seen her scrawl once before. That letter, too, had been read a hundred times.

Henry was not one for waxing nostalgic. In fact, he didn't talk about his past and rarely thought about anything but the present. For Henry, the best place to keep the past was out of sight and mind.

His best friend, “Big” Mike, loved to talk about the good old days. His newspaper buddy, Francis, when homesick for Paris, would drink, eat, tell tales of his youth, and continue on and on until he passed out. The last story would be entirely in French.

Henry didn't mind listening to others recount their glory days, but would change the subject when asked about his own. He had been this way since 1942.

The song faded. Henry turned off the radio and went upstairs. He took his jacket from the hall tree, removed the gloves from the pocket, and slid them on to his hands. As he headed out the door, he grabbed his fedora and ran a hand across the brim as he put it on. Music was a powerful trigger, and Henry felt that being alone at home wasn't as good as being alone anywhere else. The sound of the engine starting felt soothing, but it only nipped at the edges of the pain. Perhaps the drive would make him feel better.

Henry thought about suffering. This wasn't like having a cut or broken bone. It wasn't the sort of hurt which Mike had endured at the hands of Tommy “The Knife's” goons. It was, as a poet might say, bittersweet.

He turned left, then right, and finally got out of the neighborhood. Henry didn't think about where he was headed, but instinct took him into the city. The traffic wasn't too bad at that time of night. The lights of Manhattan were familiar; the sound of the wheels on the bridge seemed to sing the blues. It was as if somebody had plugged Henry's senses into a light socket. Bam! Sight and sound all mixed with the strange feeling deep down in his gut.