Chapter 15

Positioned at the sink, standing with his anklebones touching, he whispered, “Rest the weariness. Dine with the wine of life. This is what keeps us alive as humans.”

During his massaging session, he heard three soft pats on the kitchen’s screen door. Jackal turned his head to the right, peered across the room, and studied his neighbor’s gangly shape on the opposite side of the screen door. An immediate smile formed over his tender face, and then his hand-action in the sink ended. Jackal turned off the faucet’s water, snagged a cotton dishtowel to his right, and rubbed his hands together with the soft material, drying his middle-aged flesh.

“My friend, Calvin, where have you been hiding?”

Through the screen’s sheerness, Calvin DeFiore shared in a rather melodic and almost angelic tone, “I just got back from Atlantic City. Buddy needed my help again.”