Chapter 2

Honorable, Jesse had never replaced Carr as his best friend in the last twenty years. Yes, he had a string of male boyfriends and lovers, men he bumped naked bodies with and lusted for throughout the years, but Carr’s position as a best friend had never been filled by a new man. To Jesse, Carr was irreplaceable, and no one could fill the man’s shoes. No one at all. Never.

More snow started to fall to the earth, and the day darkened. Headlights didn’t pull into the driveway, filling the A-frame’s first floor with yellow-golden light.

Just as disappointment started to flood Jesse’s mind amid relentless thoughts that Carr couldn’t make the trip to Plimpton, again being whisked away to another part of the world under AC’s care, or stranded in Ecuador, his cellphone chirped once, twice, three times.

The cellphone lay on the kitchen table to his left. He picked it up, didn’t recognize the incoming number, and somberly said, “Hello.”

“Jesse?” the voice on the other end replied, scratchy, faint, and undecipherable.

“Who is this?”

“Jesse, it’s me…Carr. I’m in a jam.”

“Carr?” A smile formed on Jesse’s face, and his heart warmed. In fact, his entire body warmed. “Carr…Carr…Where are you? What’s going on? What kind of jam are you in?”

He listened to nothing then. Dead air. Silence. No. That wasn’t true. The wind and snow picked up outside and spun in circles, forming miniature cyclones, which slapped against the kitchen window.

Then Jesse heard a string of squeaks and scratchy sounds from his cellphone. Between the static, he made out three of Carr’s words: cinder…snowdrift…help.

Jesse immediately placed the three words together and thought of Cinder Black Road and how it had sporadically weaved left and right along Lake Erie. Add in some snow, ice, and a cabbie who didn’t know how to handle the road during a snowstorm, and trouble would end up happening, which most likely it did. Jesse pictured a red-and-black Plimpton cab in a snowdrift or ditch, stuck there, needing a tow truck…help.

Jesse threw on a winter coat and boots, snagged his keys off the kitchen counter with his cellphone. In a just a few seconds, he sat behind the steering wheel of his Ford Ranger and headed to Cinder Black Road.

Snow swirled against the windshield as the day welcomed nighttime. The radio played a Bruno Mars song, and he flicked it off, concentrating on his driving. Jesse made a left on Methodist Avenue, heading toward Lake Erie and Cinder Black Road. While driving, he recalled writing back and forth with Carr while Carr was based in Ecuador for the last twenty-two months. Parts of those letters surfaced in his memory:

…saw the most beautiful panther in a cluster of bamboo today…Roberto Isbar, my guide, is teaching me Spanish slang and having fun with it…Roberto has my back here…so deep in the jungle, it’s pitch black at night, freezing cold and wet…somewhere near Tundayme, a small village called Estu…lean-tos built from thick and sturdy bamboo and vines…beautiful and natural waterfalls here in the rainforest…beetles and mosquitoes the size of apples…wished you could see this place and all the amazing sunrises…nothing like Plimpton and Lake Erie…you would love the humitas here, corn pancakes, and patacones, known as plantain chips…the nights are cold, but Roberto is here…next to him, trust him, my true confident here…watches me bathe near the Rio Quimi…we’re not lovers, but maybe he wants to be…smitten with me…attracted to me…hasn’t made a move on me…protects me…

Jesse’s letters to the man were less interesting regarding his life in Plimpton:

…snowing, always snowing…coldest winter I can remember…you’re building great things in the jungle, changing lives, and I’m sitting on my ass transferring money from one bank account to the other for a list of my clients…not so much fun…Easter was quiet, uneventful…I keep in touch with your mother in Waco via Facebook and texting…she’s happy there in her ranch with your aunt…Trump won the election, still unbelievable…soccer team dies in plane crash, somewhere in Colombia because of no fuel in the plane…hired a high school kid to shovel my walks because I was feeling lazy…reading a great book called The Girlsby Emma Cline…no vacation plans for the holidays…wished you would come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, know you can’t, though…jealous of Roberto Isbar…wished I could be your confidant in the jungle…wished I could have your back…wished I could work at your side…miss you…miss you a lot…miss you too much maybe…snowing here, always fucking snowing…the shit is never going to melt…

* * * *

Cinder Black Road. Jesse parked his truck behind a Chip’s Towing Service truck. Darkness swarmed the area. Yellow strobes swirled atop the tow truck. Red flashers illuminated the truck’s ass end. The Plimpton cab had obviously skidded off the road due to a sheet of ice and swerved into a snowdrift. Its metal hood looked like a sheet of crinkled tin foil, badly mangled. According to Chip Casteel, the tow truck driver, the cabbie was fine, as well as the passenger, Carr de Vantino. No ambulance was needed, and Plimpton police had better things to do for the community.