The Big Witness (A Dragnet Fan Fiction Story) -- Chapter Ten

 The Big Witness

(A Dragnet Fan Fiction Story)

By: Kristi N. Zanker

Disclaimer: All publicly recognized characters, settings, etc. are the property of Mark VII Limited and Universal. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. I, in no way am associated with the owners, creators, or producers of Dragnet. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warning: This chapter contains brief mild language, and adult themes.

Author's Note: The story referenced of how Joe's mother met his father was mentioned in the radio episode called The Big Run (6/21/51).

Chapter Ten

A stenographer was immediately summoned to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, Prison Ward, to take down Bertram Flowers' statement. When Joe and Ben returned to City Hall, they filled out the avalanche of paperwork that awaited them pertaining to the druggist's attempted suicide. It was four in the morning by the time they headed for home. Each had been on the job for 20 hours and nobody on the police force heard of anything like time-and-a-half or overtime. Both were to report back to work at noon to finish up the paperwork.

The two men walked in silence as they exited the doors of City Hall and proceeded down the steps of the Main Street entrance. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but Joe knew he was coming down with something. He felt fine when he woke up this morning and throughout most of the day. But now, he ached all over and felt a little congested along with a sore throat. What he needed was rest, that's what his mother would say and the inevitable, "I told you so!" If she were home right now, Ma Friday wouldn't have had to utter those words. Joe knew her look. All he had to do was walk in the front door and she'd glare at him. Mothers were like that. They just knew these kinds of things.

On the way home, he thought of that old saying, "Feed a cold and starve a fever" or was it "starve a cold and feed a fever?" No, it was the first one. Returning to the office later on didn't seem so bad if only they had the remaining paperwork to finish up, but that was a rare occurrence in the Homicide Bureau. Room 42 seemed to always be inundated with hot-shot calls that caused the temporary abandonment of miles of paperwork only to return to an additional surplus of both. If Joe really was catching a cold, he wanted to be well enough to meet his mother at Union Station on Saturday evening and head to the cemetery with her on Sunday.

The placidity of the house beckoned Joe as he turned into the driveway; a stark contrast to the hustle-and-bustle of the office. He could feel his energy draining and couldn't wait to crawl into bed. The entire place was dark. If his mother had been home, the light would've been burning out front. His eyes quickly became accustomed to the darkness as he made his way to the back door and unlocked it. Flicking on the light switches as he passed through each room, Joe found some Hill's Cold Tablets in the medicine cabinet above the sink in the bathroom. Thinking if he took two now, maybe they would help ward off the cold before it got any worse. He knew he wasn't feeling well because he didn't even want a Fatima before retiring to bed.

After dousing every light in the house, putting on his pajamas, and winding the alarm for eleven later that morning, Joe rolled over and tried to go to sleep. He couldn't remember if these tablets caused drowsiness or not. At this moment, he sure hoped so. Rest and chicken soup were what was needed for the common cold or possibly the grippe. He hoped he didn't have Virus X. It was something everyone was talking about in January, but then Joe remembered the newspapers reporting that it only affected high school students and younger children. No, he couldn't have Virus X.

The shrill of the alarm clock jolted him out of a deep sleep. Those pills had done the job all right. Even though Joe wasn't properly awake, he knew he felt lousy. His nose was stuffed up and he could barely swallow. The achiness he felt earlier lingered yet now combined with shakiness as if he'd drank too much coffee. Sweat trickled down his face, not from a bad dream or a good lay, but the chills he felt confirmed his suspicions of having a fever. He groaned in anguish but not before suffering from a hacking cough. That saying about feeding a cold and starving a fever came back into his mind. If that was how it went, he wasn't sure what to do for he had both. Joe reached over onto the nightstand to shut off the relentless tolling of the alarm bell. Attempting to clear his throat again, Joe launched into another coughing fit that wouldn't stop. He lay back and tried with no avail to fall asleep. By noon even though he didn't feel like eating anything, Joe knew he had to. The coughing started again forcing him to get out of bed, forget his slippers, and pad down the hall into the kitchen.

Standing on the cool linoleum floor, he hurriedly retrieved a glass from the cupboard and went over to the icebox to see if he could locate any orange juice. Finding only the two quarts of milk, he made a mental note to himself to get some orange juice later on. If he still had the fever and chills, he was sure Dorothy would bring him some when she got off work. If not, Ben was a last resort. Back at the sink, he filled his glass with tap water and drank it heartily, even though his throat wailed in pain with each swallow. The Hill's four-way cold tablets had not done its entire job, but Joe thought if he continued to take these, he hoped this would curb his symptoms thus not leading into something fatal like pneumonia. Leaving a second glass of water on the countertop, he proceeded to the medicine cabinet once again to retrieve two more. Swallowing the medication and finishing off the rest of the water, he left the glass in the sink and went over to the telephone stand in the hall and dialed City Hall where the switchboard operator connected him to Homicide Bureau.

"Hi…Be…Ben?" Joe croaked just above a whisper after hearing his partner's voice pick up on the other end.

"Who is this?"

"Ben, it's me—Joe!" Trying to speak in a normal tone of voice was extremely difficult and another coughing episode supervened causing him to place his hand over the receiver and turn his head.

"Joe? Is that you?"

"Yes, Ben. It's me!"

"Hell, you sound terrible. I didn't recognize you!"

"Yeah, I won't be in today."

"I know, I can tell. You shouldn't come in, not with the way you feel. You can't answer the phone or interview suspects sounding like that. Say, you don't have pneumonia, do you?"

"I don't think so. I'd be in the hospital under an oxygen tent if I did."

"You better call the doctor just to make sure."

"Okay, Mother, I will."

"Hey, isn't your mother supposed to be home soon?"

"Yeah, on Saturday."

"You better get some rest then."

"I know. You don't have to tell me that."

"I just hope you're not trying to stick me with all of this paperwork!" Ben laughed.

"Trust me, Ben. I'd be there if I could. You know that."

"Yeah, I know. Now get some rest. I'll tell the skipper you won't be in."

"Okay."

"Call the doctor."

"I will."

After hanging up with Ben, he dialed the doctor's number. At the other end of the line, the family physician informed Joe that he would be over as soon as he finished his afternoon rounds. In the kitchen, Joe opened a can of chicken noodle soup and poured the contents into a saucepan. He turned on the burner and then slogged over to the console radio in the living room and once the tubes warmed up, Joe tuned into KFI where Ma Perkins' soothing, matronly voice filled the room. By 12:30, he was at the table, attempting to swallow scalding spoonfuls of soup while Pepper Young's Family was on. During The Right to Happiness, he managed to finish the bowl and washed dishes with the Backstage Wife. The quarter-hour daytime serials kept housewives and mothers like his entertained throughout the afternoon five days a week, but not him. Switching the radio off, Joe meandered back to his room, slid into bed and eventually fell asleep.

The knocking at the front door startled him awake. To Joe, his symptoms hadn't worsened but he didn't feel any better either after sleeping for several hours. In between coughing spurts with his nose running like a fountain, he made his way down the hallway while putting on his robe and tied the sash around his waist.

He had the grippe, as his mother would've called it. With influenza, the doctor told him that if he had waited longer, Joe would be on the cusp of acute bronchitis which could have kept him absent from City Hall for weeks. Pneumonia would not be far behind if he didn't take care of himself, the doctor firmly warned. After prescribing Cheracol, a cough suppressant and reminding Joe to take Hill's Cold Tablets for his temperature of 101, the doctor said he would be back in a few days to see how he was coming along.

When Joe awoke later, dusk filled the room. He thought he heard voices in the kitchen. As he began to sit up, he noticed his bedroom door was closed. He was sure he'd left it open. Coughing temporarily halted his progress of getting out of bed. After standing for a few seconds, doing his best to ignore the lingering shakiness, he stepped into his slippers, put on his robe and staggered down the hall into the kitchen to find Dorothy at the stove and Ben at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. The Aldrich Family wafted from the radio in the living room.

"Well, look who's up and out of bed!" said Ben.

"Joe! Glad to see you up and around," said Dorothy, while using a ladle to spoon chicken noodle soup into a bowl.

"You both didn't have to come over. You might get sick too," he said as he plopped down in the chair across from Ben only to be wracked by a coughing spell seconds later. Dorothy placed the bowl in front of him and gently patted and rubbed his back.

"We're just checking on you, since your mother's away and all," said Ben. "Just listen to yourself, you sound terrible."

"I can take care of myself," croaked Joe, once the cough subsided. He then took a spoonful of soup, blew on it, before cautiously sipping the spoon.

"Oh, sure," retorted Ben. "Remember, it was I who told you to call the doctor."

"I would've done it!" Joe glared at Ben.

"Not until it was too late and here I'd be stuck with more paperwork."

Joe gave Ben a smirk and carefully attempted another spoonful of soup. The steam had died down, but the scalding liquid felt soothing as it slid down his tender throat. It was then he noticed the bottle of medicine with a box of Smith Brothers Cherry Cough Drops on the table.

"Dorothy and I peeked in on you. You were dead to the world," said Ben, as he saw Joe eye the bottle.

"I saw your prescription the doctor wrote. It was on the nightstand, so I took it to the drugstore and had it filled," Dorothy said as she carried over a bowl of soup for Ben and one for herself. "We'll take your temperature later after dinner," she said, as she sifted cracker crumbs into the bowl.

Joe groaned about his temperature being taken for the hundredth time and thanked Dorothy for picking up the cough medicine. Ben launched into a story about his boy using the thermometer to get out of going to school.

"He had a hot water bottle with him and unbeknownst to Amy, he had stuck the thermometer inside. You can guess the rest."

"Did he fess up?" asked Dorothy.

"Yep, he sure did. He wanted to stay home and play, but he ended up eating standing up for a couple of meals."

Joe asked Ben of he had heard anything else from Mr. Flowers, Gladys or Evie, but he shook his head. They updated Dorothy about the case and Ben continued to razz him about the paperwork.

"Just wait, you'll do your share when you come back," said Ben, taking a sip of coffee.

His partner then regaled Joe about the call Homicide Bureau had received that morning. A man was found passed out in the car in his garage. As the investigation progressed, it was discovered that the man had not been murdered like a frantic neighbor had thought. As it turned out, he had committed suicide due to his wife two-timing him after twelve years of marriage.

"I hope to be well enough to take Ma to the cemetery on Sunday," said Joe.

"Get enough rest and you will be," answered Ben.

To help lighten Joe's mood, Ben began to relate a story to Dorothy about a case where they were helping detectives out of Robbery. They were in 80-K when a bank robbery went over the air. The getaway vehicle, a 1938 dark blue Chevy sedan, was broadcasted and neither of them could believe their luck when they spotted it on a side street, around the corner from the bank. Just as the suspects with the bags of money in their hands flew into the car, the driver must've been petrified at Joe and Ben's presence because he was trying to make the getaway while still in neutral. Guns drawn, they could hear the two would-be suspects yelling, "Go, stupid!" at the driver and cursing a blue streak.

In the next two days, the only times Joe woke up was when he needed another dose of Cheracol. The cold tablets left him feeling stuffed up and knew when that would wear off. Struggling through the coughing fits, he'd heat up more soup and then it was back to bed. He couldn't even recall Dorothy or Ben coming over again, but they would call around lunch time, and let him know they had. Joe felt like he was getting better. He wanted to be there to pick up his mother at the train station.

The coughing woke him up at five in the morning on Saturday and a few more times as the day progressed. Joe had finished taking a bath and emerged from the bathroom in a clean pair of pajamas when he glanced at the alarm clock which read 3 p.m. The train wasn't scheduled to pull into Union Station until six, so before crawling into bed once again, he took some more cough medicine, figuring he'd be up in time due to the endless sleep he had been getting these past three days. By the time he woke up, Joe heard voices in the kitchen. Perhaps he had been dreaming, he was sure he heard his mother's voice. The medication gave him uninterrupted sleep for which he was grateful but felt a twinge of guilt at this moment because he knew he had overslept and missed picking up his mother. On the bright side, he hadn't had a nightmare about the war since his confession after the eruption in the kitchen earlier that week.

He made his way across the room, found his slippers and put on his robe.

"Joseph! How do you feel?" Ma Friday asked as he came into the kitchen. Dorothy was seated next to her.

"Ma! I was supposed to get you at the train station!" was all he could get out due to the heavy congestion and coughing spell.

"Oh, Joseph! You sound terrible! Dorothy was kind enough to pick me up!"

"Thanks, Dot," he whispered since it was still difficult to talk in a normal tone of voice.

"You were out like a light when I came over this morning."

Ma Friday left the room briefly to return with the box of Hills Cold Tablets. She gave two pills to Joe and placed the box next to the Cheracol, cough drops, and thermometer. After she filled a glass water from the sink, she handed it to him.

"You should've woken me up!" He quickly swallowed the pills.

"Nope, I agree with your mother, you need your rest."

"Oh, not you, too!" He gave a slight grin.

"I better head home now," said Dorothy, as she stood up and retrieved her purse that had been hanging on the back of her chair. "Glad you had a wonderful time visiting your brother in Renton, Washington, Mrs. Friday."

"Thank you, dear, for picking me up and helping me with the grocery shopping for tomorrow!" Ma Friday called from the sink as the two of them walked to the front door.

"Honey, I'm sorry. This isn't what I had in mind at all," a coughing fit interrupted his apology. "Dammit, I'll never get rid of this!"

"Get some good rest and you will," Dorothy soothed, running a hand through his hair.

"You sound like Ben. What would I do without you?" he murmured and leaned in for a hug. "Thank you for picking up Ma."

"It was no problem at all," she said as she caressed his back.

"I've missed you terribly," he said into her hair, pressing himself closer to her. "I don't know when I'll see you again, if you know what I mean. I wish I didn't get sick."

"I've missed you too," she murmured, as she turned her head to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"Are you sure your landlady isn't going out of town or anything?" He pulled away and gazed at her, holding onto her hand, caressing her fingers, while his other hand massaged her shoulder.

"She never leaves the place."

"Maybe I could… Oh, never mind."

"What is it?"

"Nothing. I don't want you to get into trouble." Before he could utter anything else, the unyielding hacking resumed.

"What's your big idea?"

"Oh, I was just thinking, if she's a heavy sleeper, she'd never know I was there."

"We'd have to be quiet."

"Of course… Wait a minute! What do you mean by we? It's you who has to be quiet," he said grinning, chuckling. "Guys are quieter than girls."

"Joe!" She began to laugh. "I better go. You have a big day tomorrow visiting your father's grave."

They each gave the other a peck on the cheek and hugged once more before Joe shut the front door behind Dorothy. He watched as she went down the driveway and turned right toward the Yellow Car stop.

"So, you had a nice time," Joe said as he came back into the kitchen. His mother was already getting things organized for tomorrow.

A jar of mayonnaise sat on the counter, along with a loaf of white bread, sliced turkey and ham, as well as cheese, lettuce and a few other condiments. Peeking into a burlap bag the groceries had been in, Joe discovered paper plates, cups, and napkins. A picnic basket stood next to everything needed for their trip to the cemetery. He wasn't sure if it all could fit into the basket, which was why he felt another twinge of shame as he spotted his mother looking for his father's lunch pail that was no more. Silence was all he could muster as she opened up the cabinet under the sink and moved to the ones next to it when the precious sentimental item did not appear.

"Oh, I sure did, Joseph," she replied, opening the cabinet next to the refrigerator. "I know I left it right here."

"What are you looking for, Ma?"

"Your lunch pail."

"My—well—maybe you thought you put it in there." For once he was glad for the relentless coughing spell.

"Sit down, Joseph," said Ma Friday, at the moment, the dreaded pail forgotten. Instead, she poured a dose of Cheracol and handed him a glass of water. "Would you like some more soup?"

"No, Ma. I've had soup for the last three days."

"How about some Jell-O?"

"That'll be fine. Then I'll go back to bed."

During the night, Joe got up due to nature calling and twice more to take the cough medicine. Once his mother awoke and he told her to go back to bed informing that he had everything under control.

"Are you sure you feel well enough to go to the cemetery today?" asked Ma Friday, when Joe entered the kitchen the next morning, coughing as usual. He still did not feel the greatest, but he had made a promise.

"I feel well enough to take you today," he said, with congestion and hoarseness still evident in his voice.

"We'll see about that," she replied, shaking the thermometer that had become a permanent fixture on the table since Thursday.

"No, Ma! I don't have a fever!"

As he was protesting, she shoved the thermometer into his mouth. He glared at her.

"Don't you give me that look, Joseph! If you have a fever, I can go myself."

All he could do is grunt, shake his head frantically and bang his fist on the table out of frustration. Ma Friday told him to stop acting like an infant and muttered about how men seem to regress to childhood when they get sick.

Around noon, with Joe full of cough medicine and two more cold tablets, they were on their way to the cemetery. In case the pills wore off, as a precaution, he had brought three handkerchiefs with him. It was a beautiful day, around 85 degrees with a cloudless sky. As Joe drove down Collis Avenue, he could see several cars lining the street in front of many houses. Families gathered for lunch after church, while others had Sunday dinners simmering on stoves and in ovens up and down the street. As he turned the corner, he noticed children out on the driveways, playing hopscotch, sitting on the front steps with a set of jacks, a group of small boys were shooting marbles. "You stole my best marble!" one boy screamed at another. Chants of jump rope rhymes could be heard.

"When I was a girl," remarked Ma Friday. "We kids used to skip rope and chant to the one about Lizzie Borden."

"How did that one go, Ma?"

"It went something like, Lizzie Borden took an axe. She gave her mother forty whacks. After she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. There's more to it, but that's all I can remember. I do recall one I heard when I was expecting you. It went, 'I had a little bird. And it's name was Enza. I opened the window and in-flew-enza!"

"Oh, Ma!" groaned Joe, as he launched into a coughing fit. He had hoped the Smith Brother's Cough Drops would soothe his throat, but so far, they weren't working. The chant was a reminder that he had influenza, only he knew this ditty was in reference to the Influenza Epidemic of 1918—around the time he was born. "I used to hear one when I was growing up. You remember I'd play with the neighborhood kids outside our apartment building?"

"Yes, Joseph."

"This one was about Prohibition. It went something like… No, I won't go to Casey's anymore, more, more. There's a big fat policeman by the door, door, door.

He grabs you by the collar. And makes you pay a dollar. No, I won't go to Casey's anymore. Now, please do not tell Dorothy or Ben I know that!"

"Joseph, you know I won't say anything."

Once out of the residential area, they passed a Ralph's Market. Joe made conversation about how new, larger grocery stores were making their way into the city. At these markets, everything was all in one place. You did not have to go to the butcher, buy vegetables from a roadside stand, get bread from the bakery. You shopped for your groceries yourself instead of having the grocer get them for you.

Soon the vast manicured lawn of the cemetery loomed before them. After parking nearest to his father's gravesite, Joe helped his mother out of the car and retrieved the heavy picnic basket from the trunk. Ma Friday held onto a thermos of lemonade and an old worn blanket. As the two of them approached the area, they remarked at how well the grounds were taken care of. After scouting out a place where they wouldn't be sitting atop anyone's grave, Joe set down the basket and proceeded to spread out the blanket. Placing the basket between them, they both sat down and began to divvy up the contents inside. Soon, two ham sandwiches, with mayonnaise, lettuce and cheese, sat before them, along with plates of grapes, apples, and watermelon pieces. They noticed other people milling about, visiting graves of loved ones.

"The other neighborhood kids and I would gather up flowers from our gardens and bring them to the cemetery to decorate the graves of the Civil War fallen and those from the Spanish American War," reminisced Ma Friday, as she took her ham sandwich into her hands.

"Did you?" replied Joe, after swallowing a bite of his sandwich. Although his throat still hurt, it was refreshing to have something else other than chicken noodle soup.

"Oh, yes." Ma Friday nodded taking a drink of lemonade she had poured into a paper cup after tasting her sandwich. "I didn't meet your father until two weeks before he left for the war. I've told you how Mildred Cromwell and I used to be such good friends."

"Yeah, Ma." He took a drink of lemonade.

"She was fond of Samuel, but it was nothing serious. The Cromwell's used to hold these dances at their house on West Adams Boulevard. They had a beautiful ballroom upstairs. I'd go almost every week and when we got into the war, we'd see more men in uniform. And then your father showed up with a friend of his. I ended up dancing more dances with him than Millie did."

Joe chuckled as he set aside his sandwich for the moment and found an apple slice. "Sounds like you broke them up."

"Oh, Joseph! No! Anyway, the Southern Charter of the Royal Order of the Western Wildlife Protective Brotherhood held basket raffles. You'd make a tasty lunch that the boys would bid on at auction and Samuel bid the highest on mine-$10.15! After that, Millie was cool toward me and I didn't go to those dances anymore after your father left for the war. It's silly that a basket lunch came between two good friends."

"You know what Ben told me the other day?" Coughing interrupted him. Eating the sandwich and apple irritated his throat, but he was going to do his best to enjoy it.

"I should've brought you a thermos of soup, Joseph."

"No, Ma," he replied once the coughing subsided. "I'm so tired of that."

"Well, what did Ben tell you?" She took another bite of her turkey sandwich.

"He was in the First World War. Just like my father."

"Was he now?" Ma Friday said after swallowing.

"Yeah, he told me a little about it."

"Samuel and I wrote letters back and forth the entire time. He was only away for about four months, but it felt like an eternity. He wouldn't tell me much about what he was doing once he went overseas though. The feeling a sweetheart has when she waits for her soldier to return home…not just anyone knows. A mother, too. No one knows what a mother goes through when her son—her only son—goes off to war."

She looked right at him and gently touched his arm.

"I know you worried, Ma." He picked up the sandwich again.

"When Sam returned home in the fall of nineteen-seventeen, that was the first time I noticed something was different about him. Oh, it wasn't the horrible cough he endured from mustard gas, it was something else. He'd get this look in his eyes. When that happened, I knew to leave him alone for a while. Sam was seeing something I never could understand. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. He would call on me in the coming weeks, we'd walk around the block or sit in the parlor if it was raining. A few times, he took me to the ice cream parlor. Sometimes, we'd go out dancing, not at the Cromwell's though. We wanted to get married right away. So, we had an October wedding. He didn't talk about the war at all. No one did. Like everyone else, he wanted to forget. But after we were married, I learned that the war was never far behind. The poor man had nightmares, just like you, Joseph."

As his mother poured herself some more lemonade, Joe only stared ahead listening, as he continued to eat. He wanted to hear everything he could about his father. Somehow, he felt that if he interrupted his mother, the conversation would never resurface again. In the meantime, during his mother's anecdotes, Joe finished his sandwich.

"Your father got a job sanding and varnishing iceboxes. He would also paint stoves. He'd get up at five in the morning, I'd make his lunch and I'd watch him walk down the street, swinging his lunch pail."

"Was it difficult for veterans to get jobs then, like it is now?" He took a handful of grapes from a plate and began to eat them.

"Oh, it sure was!" She took a bite of her ham sandwich. "He was very fortunate to get that first job and then went over to the Los Angeles Railway."

"My father worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad? I never knew that!"

"Well, he worked for the Los Angeles Railway—streetcars, you know. He was on the Yellow Car Line that went east to Eagle Rock south to—oh, I can't remember the name of the street now. It also went southwest to the Hawthorne city line at 120th Street and into west LA."

"He wasn't home a lot, was he?" Joe now found the cut-up watermelon.

"No, he wouldn't arrive home until long after you went to sleep. He had to make sure the cars were safe in the car-barn. Once, he was a motorman for a streetcar that went to the graveyard."

"The graveyard? Which one…this one?" Joe was confused, as there was no streetcar line near the graveyard they were at.

"No, Joseph. Retired streetcars went to the graveyard, which was located at the other end of the car-barn."

"Oh, I see."

"Your father would sometimes see you in the mornings. He'd leave very early and you were up at times, drinking your bottle of milk or fussing. He sure loved you, Joseph."

Not wanting to show emotion in front of his mother, all he could do was give a slight grin and her hand a squeeze.

"I don't know how he did it—working all of those hours and then struggling with nightmares of the war afterward. He had a short temper. I noticed that in you, Joseph, when you returned home."

"Ma, I—"

"It's all right…I guess that's a part of war. You and your father's behavior, once you both arrived home, are almost identical."

"I don't know what to do about that, Ma. Did Dad ever have—uh—outbursts?"

"Outbursts? What do you mean?"

He wished he hadn't said anything. Now, he had to come up with a good explanation without divulging his harrowing kitchen experience where Ben came to the rescue.

"Was he...ever violent?"

"Oh, Joseph! Never…!"

"That's—that's good. Ma, about his lunch pail. There was a situation while you were gone that I'm not proud of."

"You don't have to say anything else, Joseph. I can never imagine what you both went through or what you deal with on a daily basis with your job, but I think you'll be okay after a while. You won't have those nightmares forever."

"That's what Ben told me. He used to have nightmares, but they fade over time. How much time, I don't know, but mine might be fading after what happened. Oh, I'll try to deal with my temper better."

"I know you will."

"How is work going?" Ma Friday finished her sandwich and then took a couple of grapes.

"Ben and I cleaned up several cases recently. One of them was five years old. A druggist murdered his wife five years ago and used his daughter to do it."

"Oh, that's terrible! I hope he gets what he deserves."

"He tried to take his own life, but failed."

"That's good. I hope he goes to prison for life."

"He probably will."

"You want anything else to eat?"

"No, Ma. I'll just have more lemonade."

As she poured him another cup, Ma Friday said, "Dorothy's sure a nice girl."

"Yes, she is."

"I'm sure you saw a lot of her while I was away."

He almost choked on his lemonade, which caused a coughing spell.

"Well, Ma—"

"This morning, I ran into Norleen and she remarked she saw you and Dorothy kissing in the backyard."

Oh, what a busybody! His mind shouted. She should mind her own damn business!

"Ma, she was helping me with the laundry. I didn't know how to run the washing machine and she knew. While she did that, I mowed the lawn."

"When I was courting your father, we never would think of kissing in public."

"We were in the backyard, Ma! I hardly call that being in public." He turned his head away from her. All he could do was blush.

"Well, Norleen said you were—"

"Never mind what she said!" He turned and glared at her.

"Don't you talk to me that way."

"Sorry, Ma—"

"See? You need to watch your temper. Besides, I'm sure it was good practice for Dorothy to do the laundry."

"Good practice for what, Ma?" Knowing full well what she meant.

"Why for when you two get married. You think I don't know what went on? I see how you two look at one another. I wasn't born yesterday, you know. You're a grown man, but you need to make her an honest woman soon."

"Ma, we're not getting married! Not right now! Please don't ruin today by mentioning that. And don't listen to the neighbors!"

"Joseph! Watch your temper."

All he could do was drink more lemonade. His throat was irritated enough from the sandwich. He wanted a Fatima but knew it would make his throat feel worse. He wondered if Norleen had seen anything else. Was she watching from her window as he carried Dorothy's overnight things inside the house? All he could do at that moment was give an exasperated sigh.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Joseph."

"You didn't upset me, Ma. I'm just not feeling well."

"I knew I should've brought you some soup."

"It's all right, Ma." He reached into his shirt pocket. The cough drops were in the usual cigarette's place. He popped one in his mouth.

"You ready to head home?"

He was, but he didn't want to say it. He just wanted to sleep. "Are you?" He asked.

"Yes, we should be getting home. You need your rest. This may have been too much for you."

"No, Ma, it wasn't. I'm sorry I missed taking you to the train station and picking you up. But I am glad I could accompany you today—sick or not."

As they picked everything up and folded the blanket, Joe thanked his mother for suggesting this outing and reminiscing about his father. He had learned quite a bit. He knew he was going to fall into a deep sleep when he got home, but he was glad he was well enough to venture out today. Before they left for the car, they turned to the gravesite to gaze once more at the headstone which read:

Samuel R. Friday

Aug. 15, 1890 – Oct. 10, 1921

Copyright © 2021 by Kristi N. Zanker