A Festival of Les’ and Carl’s

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[From “My Best Christmas and Other Stories of the Season” Available at Amazon]

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The old country cemetary was the last plot of ground in those parts not covered by citrus orchards. In spite of the somber setting and the potential for sadness, for some there was a peacefulness that permeated the place.

The sun’s light slanted through the fruitless branches casting long shadows across the final earthly resting place of their friend.   Janey wrapped her arm around the old man’s shoulders.  “He’s home now… with Jesus.”  She hugged him.  “He was a good friend,” she said.

His somber gaze shifted from the opening in the soil to her moist eyes.  He patted Janey’s hand in agreement.  A year ago he would have had a hard time admitting to a friendship of any kind with the man.  But a lot had happened.  A lot had changed.   And now, his slight smile and silent nod said everything that needed to be said as he replayed in his mind his time with his best friend.

******

“Hey! Whatcha doin’ under there?”  The owner of the mobile craned his neck while bent over with his hands on his knees, looking.  Lester Ismor, from Woodburn, Ohio stood next to his recently purchased, in-need-of-repair mobile home, on lot #22 on Bramble Street, in Hidden Palms Sunset Community Mobile Home Park.

The sun shone brightly in the middle of that January. It was almost a year before the funeral.  Lester’s pasty up-north legs stuck out like sticks from his shorts and were pinking up nicely.

It was the metallic bang, then the dull thud, followed by an explosion of grumbling that had drawn his attention to another pair of legs, covered with baggy, muddy jeans sticking out from where the skirting had been removed from his recently purchased Florida retreat.

“Huh?”  A deep voice from below rolled out from the mobile, along with a stream of rusty, brown water.  “Somebody out there?”  The voice waited a beat.  “Hey, couldja hand me that wrench?”

“What?” Lester was surprised at the command and said again, “What?”

“The crescent wrench,” the voice growled.  “Hurry up before I drown under here!”

“What, this thing?”  Lester didn’t know a crescent wrench from a socket wrench, so he slid the socket wrench, handle only, to the waiting voice. 

“Ah!  For the love of …. ” The voice stopped short, desperate for the right tool, it spoke slowly.  “Not, that one –” Followed by more mumbling, then, “The crescent wrench, the red handled one!”  More grumbling among the slurping of a growing puddle of water followed his request.

“Oh!”  Lester knew his colors if not his tools.  He located the only red handled object that wasn’t a hammer, bent down and reached toward the voice, trying to keep his shiney Florsheims out of the encroaching mud. 

“Closer!” said the voice.  “Oh, for the love of … just slide it to me,”  which Lester did with a quick pitch.  “Oof!” said the voice, followed by a brief burst of more muttering. 

After a few more clunks and scrapes and a “There, got it!” from the voice, a minute later, a stocky, gray-haired man stiffly emerged from beneath Lester’s new Florida residence.  He looked like he had been lying in a puddle of water, which he had been as he tried to fix a pipe that had burst due to the previous night’s frosty temperatures.

Lester watched as the voice and the body attached to it scooched out, emerging like a mythical creature slithering from the ooze.  This guy, whoever he was, cleared the edge of the mobile home.  He had a stub of an unlit cigar bobbing from his lips as he rolled out from under the rig, stiffly stood up and wiped a glob of mud off his cheek.  He straightened his hat, and before he tossed his tools into his tool bag, he held up the red handled wrench and said, “Crescent wrench.”

“Oh.” Lester extended his hand, smooth and soft as a Florida orange, toward the stranger, “I’m Lester Ismor,” he said. “I just bought this place. My friends call me Les.”

“Carl.”  Reluctantly, he stuck his catcher’s mitt-sized hand back at Lester. “Lester, um…” he said with a hint of a question in his voice, sounding like he was not sure he wanted to have anything to do with someone who didn’t know the difference between a crescent and a socket wrench.

Carl bent down slowly to retrieve his tools.  He tossed them in the back of his golf cart.  He looked back at Lester’s mobile home and shook his head. “Should be all set.” He paused, gave a little harumph and said, “For now.”   He plunked down in the seat of the golf cart and rode off, leaving Lester wiping the mud from his right hand.

Carl deWilde, a long-time resident of Hidden Palms, turned from Bramble onto Aspen and headed to the maintenance barn at the back of the park.  His unofficial calling at the park had been fixing things.  Bert, the park manager, asked him to check on that mobile that had just been sold to that new guy from Ohio.  That’s where Carl found the leaky pipe. That’s where he got involved again, fixing things. That’s where he lost the spare minutes he had that morning.  He kept his foot pressed to the floor, maxing his speed, since he was going to be late again.

He made a sharp turn up the alley between Palmetto and Rose Arbor streets to try to make up some time. He pressed the ‘gas’ pedal of the electric cart to the floor once again, and then he slammed on the brakes hard!

“Ah – ,” he said.  The locked up tires scrunched to a stop as they plowed through gravel.  Coming to rest, he was inches away from a young woman parked in an old pickup truck loaded with citrus and leaning to the left with a flat front tire.   “- Janey?”

She leaned out of the window, noted the cart and the truck parked nose-to-nose and giggled.  “Oh!  Hi, Carl,” she said. “Going my way? 

Carl took off his stained work hat and ran his hand over his bushy gray hair.  “Janey!” He said again.  “How can I help?”

“I was just about to fix this flat,” she said.  “I gotta make the rest of my park deliveries and then get this fruit to the Farmer’s Market or my dad will…” She looked down. “Anyway – Couldja hand me the tire iron, Carl?” she said as she hopped out of the truck. 

“Sure thing,” he said.  He walked around to the tool box, rummaged past the crescent wrench and the socket set.  He quickly found what he was looking for then shook his head and mumbled something. 

Then Carl stuck the end of the tire iron into the jack and started to lift the front of the pickup.  Janey removed the spare from underneath the bed of the truck, then said,  “What’s that you said?”

“Oh, nothin’ much,” he said.  “Just a new guy.  Just moved in over on Bramble.”  Carl lifted the flat tire off.  He gave it a toss to the side while Janey rolled the spare up to the front.  “He wears shiny shoes.”  He didn’t know why he said that, but he figured that shoes tell a lot about a guy.  He slid his steel-toed boots under the tire to make room for his fingers.  He lifted the tire, lined up the lug nuts and slid the tire in place.  He tightened the nuts some, lowered the tire to the ground and cranked them tight the rest of the way.  He didn’t want the tire to fall off, what with the precious cargo and all. 

“Thanks, Carl!  You are the best!” said Janey.  “I gotta go, but can you tell me where the new guy lives?  I’d like to give him a welcome-to-Florida just-picked-from-the-tree sample of fruit.”  She smiled that smile.  “Didja get his name?”

He gave her the address then said, “Lester.  Told me, his friends call him Les.”

“Ok, Les it is,” said Janey through the window of the pickup.  She backed away from the golf cart, cranked the steering wheel and continued her good work for the day.  Carl sat in the golf cart and pondered his next move.  He knew he was now very late, so he decided to just skip his doctor’s appointment.  What’s the point anyway?  He stretched and tried to ignore the soreness in his gut and turned and went home.

Carl had been living in the park for years.  He had retired after 30 years of factory work in Michigan.  He had always dreamed of ending up someplace warm, away from those unpredictable winters.  So, he and Irma had packed up and moved, lock, stock and barrel to Hidden Palms.  Their girls, married and moved away, were skeptical, but eventually went along with it.

When Irma passed, Carl stayed put in spite of repeated invitations to move in with one or the other of his girls up north.  He loved them, to be sure.  And he loved it when their families visited, but he loved the winters in Florida.  He loved his Florida Gators. And you wouldn’t know it by first impressions, but he really loved helping the folks around the park.

……

As the Florida winter rolled from February into March, Lester Ismor  had become more acclimated to Florida living.  The rain that morning would no doubt hamper his shuffleboard game.  However, for the usually unflappable Lester, the showers would not deter him from his morning routine. 

For Lester, every morning, it was first things first.  Without an alarm he would wake up, sit on the edge of the bed and stretch.  He’d close his eyes, run his fingers through his thinning white hair, rub his long face and open his eyes, then he’d stretch again. He would unfurl his long, lanky frame, reach for the stars and then slowly touch his toes ten times.

Appropriately exercised, he would check the thermometer and peek out the bedroom window for the morning’s first weather report at which point he would remark to himself, “Ah, sunshine!”  or “Ah, a bit of rain.” or “Ah, clouds today.”  Or in the case of a hurricane he might look out the window and say, “Ah, windy.”

Lester would then walk up the hallway to the kitchen.  Along the way he would straighten the always a bit tilted picture of his son and his family looking back at him from their front porch in Virginia.

As he entered the living room on the way to the kitchen he touched the frame containing a striking picture that reminded him of his roots. It was a photo of his old house in Ohio in the middle of a snowy afternoon, flakes like orange blossoms falling all around.  He would smile. When asked about the picture he would say,  “It’s good to remember where you came from.”

In the kitchen he found everything just as he set out the night before.  His old friend of a coffee cup from Harry’s Diner was placed next to the coffee maker, ready to receive the morning’s brew.

He had set the Mr. Coffee timer for precisely 6:43 AM, knowing the exact time it would take to brew five cups of coffee and be ready by 6:57 AM.  That gave him enough time to pour a cup, add a bit of cream and turn on the Today Show to catch the headlines at the top of the hour.  He would watch until the first commercial, then turn off the TV and heat some water for the oatmeal.  While the water was heating he would open the fridge and take out and prepare half a grapefruit.  Then he would pour himself a small glass of orange juice, and that would be that.

After everything was properly prepared, while he ate he would read a selection from “Chicken Soup for the Soul for the Newly Retired,”  then move on to the Tampa Bay Times for the local news.  He would finish, clear the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher and then take on his last necessary task.  After breakfast he would reach for his pillbox which sat on the kitchen table next to the calendar.

Saturday morning was pillbox refill day.  He would line up his five bottles of medicine in front of him and his ‘SU-M-TU-W-TH-F-SA’ pillbox.  After taking his Saturday pills he would have all 7 sections open.  One at a time, he would open each of the jars and place one pill in each compartment.  As he did he would remind himself why each one was necessary.  One multivitamin for men over 66, one for blood pressure, a cholesterol pill, a pill he saw advertised on TV for joint pain and then, the one that always gave him pause.  It was the one that reminded him of his mortality.   

 The doctor gave him a prescription for some heart pills and some medical advice. The doctor said he needed to take care of himself.  Maybe it was time for him to retire, relax, stop worrying and give the old ticker a vacation from the stress of his everyday work life.  

So, everyday it was five pills down the hatch, chased by the remainder of his liquid sunshine, freshly squeezed OJ from oranges delivered by that girl, Janey Smith.  Now he sat there on a rainy Florida morning mostly stress free, properly medicated with only the fear of a future sudden cardiac event poking at his chest.

Lester, then showered and brushed his teeth. He considered the clothes that he had laid out the night before.  That particular day, it was,  “Hmm… 72 degrees. Too cool for shorts,” he said to himself as he neatly folded them again and placed them in the dresser drawer.   He pulled out the black Lands End jeans and laid them out on the bed next to his shirt.

He went to the bedroom closet to grab his yellow sweater to wear over it.  He pulled on the handle.  “Bah! Stuck, again!” He grabbed the edge with two hands and tried to budge the mirrored door.  Nothing.  He bent at the knees like an olympic hammer thrower ready to burst.  He pulled.  A couple of inches of space appeared along the edge.  His heart pounding, he squeezed his hands in the opening and now like a sprinter ready to explode from the block… “Argggggg…!”  He pushed and grudgingly the door opened.

Huffing and puffing and heart pounding Lester reached for his sweater.  Something didn’t feel right.  He took it off the hanger, tossed it behind him on the bed then grabbed for his shoes, back row, third pair from the left. The black Rockports.  Bending down he reached for the shoes.  He stood up and caught himself as the dizziness caused him to totter a bit at the opening of the closet. One hand reached for the door frame as the other shoe-laden hand rose up over his head.   Lester’s second shower of the day happened when the water that had collected in the shoe trickled from the shoe, down his arm, splashed his face and flowed nose-to-toes to the floor.

Lester-the-Neat, the one who liked his stuff all in a row, sat on the edge of the bed, soaked shoes in one hand and a damp sweater in the other.  He didn’t laugh. He didn’t cry. His stress level rising, he cursed his wretched trailer. “I hate this thing!” Meanwhile, the warm Florida rain laughed, spreading its showers of delight, dancing past and through the almost invisible leak in the roof, greeting Lester and a new day.

……

On a Sunday in early April Lester saw the notice in the bulletin at the Oasis Church of the Palms.  They needed choir members.  Even though it would change his weekly routine, he thought he would give it a try.  And so, on that Wednesday night, Lester joined the choir.

He didn’t know anyone yet, but that would be okay. No surprises, just a church choir.  He could handle that.  But at his first rehearsal on that Wednesday night at the Oasis Church of the Palms he got his surprise.  They were finishing up the warmups, and Lester’s lips made an ‘oh’ when he should have been singing an ‘ah.’  

“Oh, no!  Of all the people…,” he thought.  It was that guy from the park.  The handyman.  He was late and missed the choir’s warm ups.

From his perch in the tenor section, Lester heard director Myrtle Smoot quietly greet Carl.  She looked at her watch.  “Right on time.”   Then she raised her arms to cue the choir.  “Let’s take it from measure sixteen.”  Unruffled, Carl calmly made his way to the bass section, opened his binder and with a thoughtful look in Lester’s direction, eventually joined in at measure twenty.”

The rehearsal ended on time.  Lester appreciated that.  He met Carl at the rack where the choir binders were stored.  Carl started stacking the chairs.  Lester figured that’s what the choir guys did, so he joined in.  With his eyes only, Carl directed Lester to the closet storing the chair racks. They worked a few minutes in silence as they picked up and put away the chairs.

As they worked Carl said, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Lester said, “It’s my first time in the choir.”

“Yep.”

He continued.  “I like the songs.”

“Yep, nice songs.”

Lester said, “Do we sing in church sometimes?”  Dumb question he thought, but anything to keep the conversation going.

“Yep.”

“When?”

“First Sunday.”

“Of the month?”

“Yep.”

“Any other times?”

“Yep, at Christmas.”

With everything put away, changing the subject, Lester ventured, “You were the one who fixed the leak in my pipe.”

“Yep.”

“Do you do repairs for people in the park?”

“Yep. Some.”

Lester, thinking of the rainy forecast for the end of the week, said, “I have a leaky roof.  Do you do roofs?”

“Yep.”

Lester, hemmed and hawed a bit.  “I’m wondering if you could take a look at mine.”

“Yep.  Sure can,” said Carl.  “Tomorrow morning, see you at 8.”

So it happened that at 8:30 the next morning, Carl drove up to Lester’s mobile home. Lester had been ready for over an hour, kitchen cleaned up, hallway and bedroom vacuumed, laundry started.  He spent the first 20 minutes looking out of various windows, then he wandered outside.

Lester’s gaze wandered up and down the streets looking for Carl’s golf cart.  He did a lap around the mobile, surveying his domain while he fretted, wondering if this guy forgot, if he was trustworthy.  Not wanting to look too eager, worried or annoyed at Carl’s tardiness, he grabbed the watering can, filled it and began watering the annuals planted around the place. 

When he got to the impatiens, Lester stood wide-eyed as Carl and his golf cart laden with a pile of tools in the back and a ladder bungeed to the rack welded to it, came whooshing around the corner.  He had one hand holding his hat, the other holding his stub of a cigar, forked between two fingers. Driving with his knees, he turned into the driveway, slid to a stop and said with a grin, “Ready to get to work?”  

 Lester quickly masked his alarmed look and took a deep breath.  He eyed Carl dressed in his finest work clothes, jeans and a T-shirt proclaiming his loyalty to the Florida Gators.  Carl hopped out of the golf cart and not so quickly masked his look of amusement.  He snorted, causing him to almost lose his unlit cigar, because it seemed that Lester was dressed in his Sunday best.

After a brief moment of evaluation, Lester reached out with his clean soft hand and shook Carl’s hand, rough and strong.

“Lester,” he said.

“Yep, I remember. Tenor, right?  I’m Carl.”

“Nice to meet you… again.” Lester gave a nervous laugh.

“So what’cha got here that needs fixin’?” said Carl, jumping right in. “Roof?”.

Lester, always the businessman, wanted to establish the ground rules first, said, “Yes, I have a leaky roof.  What do you charge?  You know, what’s your hourly rate?”

“Hmmm…” said Carl.  He took off his hat and scratched his head like he was doing some figuring.  “Can’t say, right off without looking at it.”  He looked at Lester out of the corner of his eye, then turned to face him.  ‘Tell you what.  You change into your work clothes and help me fix what needs fixin’ today and we’ll call it even. How’s that sound?”

Taken aback at his offer, Lester said, “Uh, sure. I can do that.”

“Great!” said Carl.  “Let’s get started. Oh yeah, and a beer.”

“What?”

“You provide the after-the-job-is-finished beer.”

“Oh, oh, yes of course,” said Lester.  “Sounds good.”   He turned and proceeded to do what turned out to be the hardest part of the day’s job – finding clothes he was willing to sacrifice for roof fixing and figuring out where to find beer.

And so they started.  Lester showed Carl his closet.  The mirror on the door reflected the two men standing in front of it, from all appearances, two men so different from each other.  One a bit rough and tumbled, the other more refined.  And, each with a different approach to similar problems, like a stuck closet door.

Carl grabbed the handle on the door, tugged, nothing.  It was stuck.  “Hmm,” he said.  He pulled on it again, and it moved an inch or two.  He scratched his head.  “Hmm.”  He reached into his pocket for his penlight, got down on his knees and surveyed the door’s track.  “Hmm.”

Lester stood with his hands on his hips watching.  When Carl popped up and strode down the hall and out the door to the golf cart, Lester said, “Hmm.”

Carl returned with the necessary items.  He proceeded to grab the sides of the stuck door, and like Samson lifting the Philistine gates, he yanked the door out of its track and set it aside.  He got back down on his knees and shined the light all along the track.  “Hmm,” he said as he picked something small out of the track, turned and tossed it to Lester.  “There’s the problem.  Kibbles.”  He laughed and looked at Lester.

Lester smiled sheepishly, shrugged his shoulders and with his palms up, said, “The previous owner had a dog, I guess?”

Carl lubricated the track and the door’s rollers.  He put everything back in place.  Then with two beefy fingers he easily opened and closed the closet door.  “Here, you try it.” he said.

Lester pulled the handle with two pencil thin fingers and got the same results.  Pleased with his success Carl was ready to move on to the main event.

“Now where’s this leak?” said Carl, looking over the contents of the closet.   He noticed Lester’s shoes neatly placed in a row with little signs setting off the sections.  “Dressy,” “Slippers,” “Sports,” Miscellaneous.”  Carl shook his head, wondering what miscellaneous shoes would be.

“He eyed a row of neatly hung shirts and sweaters arranged according to length of sleeves and color. “Unbelievable,” thought Carl.  Looking at the closet contents made him feel like he’d been given a better look into Lester’s life. What was he getting himself into with this guy? 

Clearing his throat, Carl said, “Gonna need some primer to paint over that water stain.” Lester nodded.  “Might as well get some ceiling paint and repaint the whole closet ceiling, too.  Make it look real nice.”  He backed out of the closet.  “Ready to go to work?” he said.

“Sure.”  While Lester emptied the closet and picked out some sacrificial work clothes, Carl went back to the golf cart.  He unhooked the ladder and leaned it up against the house outside of the bedroom closet.  He climbed up and looked around at the roof.  He spied a suspicious crack in the shingles where the roof had been repaired before.  He knew what he needed to do.

“Lester,” said Carl.  Then louder, “Lester.”  Lester appeared at the foot of the ladder wearing his pale yellow Tommy Hilfiger golf shirt ready to do his part.  “Lester, I need you to get me that can of roof tar from the back of the golf cart, then bring it up to me.  Take the lid off, too, would ‘ja?”

“Gotcha!”  Lester gave him thumbs up, eager and pleased to be part of the solution that morning.  He was so eager that he trotted to the golf cart, grabbed the tar, took the lid off and trotted back to the ladder, only to stumble over the plastic flamingo in the lawn.  He pitched forward and would have crashed face first into the zoysia grass, but for the can of tar that he landed on.  “Bah!” he said as he got up, unharmed but not unblemished.  He dusted some mud off his jeans and tried to wipe off the grass clippings stuck to the smear of tar on his shirt, but to no avail. Tommy Hilfiger and Lester Ismor had just been tarred and grassed.

Lester, with his work clothes properly initiated, brought the supplies to Carl.  Carl looked at him, raised his eyebrows and said only, “Thanks.”

From the ladder, Carl gave Lester his next instructions so that the job could be completed that day.  It was a somewhat complicated list of duties for someone who was relatively new to the park and new to maintenance work.  However, now looking the part of a fix-it guy, Lester was up to the task.  Following Carl’s instructions, he hopped into the golf cart and drove to the maintenance barn in the back of the park.  Once inside, he found the paint supplies he would need for the closet ceiling.  He then located a coffee can that Carl said would be very important for the morning’s work.  He grabbed that too, hopped back into the golf cart and sped back to his place.

Carl watched wide-eyed from the roof as Lester drove the golf cart laden with necessary supplies whooshing around the corner.  In his excitement, Lester took the corner too fast.  He had to grab his hat with one hand and retrieve the all important coffee can rolling off the seat with the other.  Now, driving with his knees, he turned into the driveway, and slid to a stop.  He tried to ignore his pounding heart as he looked up at Carl, and as nonchalantly as possible said with a grin, “What’s next, Boss?”

Carl and Lester worked at their separate tasks until Lester’s first coat of paint in the closet was applied and Carl added another layer of tar over the offending crack above the closet.  At about 10 AM Lester emerged from the bedroom, took his paint brush to the laundry tub and cleaned it.  It seemed to him that it was a good time for a break to let the paint dry and the tar set.

Back in the bedroom, Lester slid open the window and looked up the ladder.  “Carl.  It’s coffee time.  You drink coffee doncha?”  He heard a grunt and a thud, then saw a pair of feet and then legs crawling slowly down the ladder.  Satisfied that the response meant yes, Lester retreated to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee.

 Carl came in.  He dropped off the all-important coffee can on the table.  He took off his work boots and stifled a groan as he sat down, not willing to let this guy in on his daily pain.   With Carl being somewhat of a mystery, Lester wondered why he was bringing in the can of spare parts he brought back from the maintenance shed.  He was about to say something.  Then Carl peeled off the plastic top and stuck the can under Lester’s nose and said, “Here, try one.”

Surprised, then pleased Lester said, “Wow! Good cookies!”  With a mouthful of the best chocolate chip cookies he’d had in a long time, Lester said.  “Where did you get these?”  He wondered if some lonely widow in the park was trying to win Carl’s heart through cookies.

“Baked, ‘em,” he said.  “Baked ‘em myself.  My mother’s recipe.”

So for the next half hour the two men settled in to a relaxing coffee time.  The conversation came slowly as each of them tried to figure out the other just a little bit better.  They talked about the usual things at first.  Lester learned that Carl lived a few streets over on Rose Bud.  Carl learned that Lester had been a banker in Ohio before retiring.  Carl had worked in a factory in Michigan.  Lester drove a Buick, and Carl mainly a golf cart and his old pickup.  Carl confessed to needing to keep busy, and Lester admitted that he was still finding his way, adjusting to Florida mobile home park life.

“Uh, Lester…”  said Carl, nervously, as he moved his unlit stub of a cigar from his plate back to his lips.  He was unsure just how to proceed with his delicate question.

“My friends call me Les.”

“Ok, Les.”  He took a deep breath.  “What’s with the labels on your shoe rack in the closet?”  Carl tried not to laugh.

Lester did laugh.  Then he got serious looking and bent his head over his drained coffee mug.  “You see, Carl… Can I call you Carl?” he said with a grin forming around his lips.

“My friends call me Carl, Les.”

“OK, Carl. You see, well, I’m a …” As he stumbled for the words, Carl’s face clouded over.  “I’m a recovering…”  Carl was ready to get back on the roof at this point, not knowing what he had gotten into with this guy and if, maybe, he was going to be offered too much information.

“I’m a recovering perfectionist.”  Carl looked up a grinning Lester, at which point they both burst out laughing, sending Carl’s cigar across the table.

As the coffee time hilarity wound down it became apparent to Carl that he could trust this guy, Lester.   He said, “Say, Les, I told Mr. Yardbird over on Windrift that I’d replace the sprinkler head that the mowers knocked off last week.  I could use some help if you have time after we wrap up here.”

“Well let me check my calendar.” He grabbed the blank page and said, “Sure, I see there’s nothing urgent for me today.”  Carl rolled his eyes.

They talked on and on about the other jobs that Carl had on his list and how he could use the help, and even though he wouldn’t say it out loud, Carl could use the company.  They put the mugs away and Carl retrieved his cigar.  They each grabbed one more cookie as Carl went up the ladder to finish on the roof, and Lester applied the final coat of ceiling paint to the closet. 

Lester cleaned out his paint brushes and brought his equipment back to the golf cart.  Carl was there talking to a young lady with her arm sticking out of the window of an old pickup truck loaded with empty orange crates.  

Carl said, “Les, this here is Janey Smith.”  Janey smiled and nodded.

“We met awhile back when Les first moved in,” she said.

“Ah, yes, yes.  You brought me the Welcome-to-Florida fruit. It was delightful.”

“Well then, I’ll have to see to it that you get some more. Gotta go now, though. Nice meeting you… again, Les.”  She reached out of the window and gave Carl a pat on the arm and a warm smile.  “See you later.”  She waved at the boys as she drove off.

Carl turned back to Lester and said, “Ah, Janey…”  That was all.  Lester didn’t ask any more questions.

He looked at the clouds building up in the sky and said to Carl, “Let’s go fix that sprinkler head.  We don’t want to get wet.”  

Lester proved himself to be a worthy helper that day.  They worked together and took care of the sprinkler head at the Yardbirds.  Lester the able student and Carl the patient teacher worked well together.

“I have a few more jobs this week.  I told Mrs. Kenmore that I’d take a look at her broken dryer.  I could use some help with that.  Interested?”  Carl sat with his hands on the steering wheel of the golf cart in Lester’s driveway.

Lester didn’t want to sound too eager, but this might be just the thing he needed.   He was sure the park had fun things to do and nice people to do them with and all, but Lester was looking for more.

“Sure,” he said.  “I’d be glad to help.”  He smiled.  Carl offered his hand caked with evidence of the day’s jobs.  With dirt under his fingernails and paint on his palm, Lester shook Carl’s hand.  “Deal.  See you at 8:00?”

“Yep. Eight.”

……

And so the partnership was formed.  Les and Carl. Carl and Les.  On a typical day you wouldn’t see one without the other.  During the course of the next few months they got a lot done. They helped a lot of people.

Mr. Anderson’s broken window was replaced after the next-door-neighbor’s grandkid, Cyrus, uncorked a fastball that got away from him.  Young Cy’s strong right arm, ventilated the living room window with one pitch, ending the kid’s perfect game and thus bringing in Lester and Carl from the bullpen to fix things up.  

When the Duvet’s motorhome cover blew off in the storm, the duo was there to retrieve the tarp that had blown halfway to Rosebud.  They climbed up a ladder, one tossed an end to the other, pulled it down and bungeed it back in place.  They had become quite the team.

They worked, drank coffee and ate whatever dessert delicacy came out of Carl’s kitchen.  More and more regularly as they worked they would run into Janey who was in the park to deliver citrus and do whatever other errands she could find to do there.  And as they got to know each other better and better, they talked. Really talked.

 One day, sitting in the shade at Carl’s, sipping the end-of-the-work-day brew, Lester said,  “What’s with Janey?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well it seems like she’s showing up here more and more.”

“Yep, she does that, you know, to deliver stuff for the farm.”  Carl looked off across the road.

“It seems like she’s here more than that.  It’s like she’s got more on her mind than fruit,” said Lester.  “She comes to talk to you.”

Carl fingered the brown bottle in front of him so that the moisture dribbled down to the table. 

“Things have been sticky between her and her dad for a time,” he said.  “She’s shared some things with me that have me troubled.”  He cleared his throat and changed the subject. 

“So, tomorrow, then…” 

Lester said, “Gotcha covered.  “First a little more straightening up in the workroom.”  Carl rolled his eyes even though he appreciated being able to find things in half the time.  “Then over to Delta’s place. To fix her faucet.”

“That’s Mrs. Kohler to you, sir,” said Carl laughing.  “We wouldn’t want it to leak out that you and her are on a first name basis, would we?”  He paused. “And thanks for covering for me.”

“No problem, Boss.  I hope your doctor’s appointment goes well, tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”  Carl knew it wouldn’t.  He knew what he was going to hear.

Carl’s many doctor’s appointments came and went.  When he had a break from them he found himself back fixing things.  One such afternoon, back at Lester’s place, the two of them scuffed around behind Lester’s trailer looking for evidence that Carl knew they wouldn’t find and Lester was sure they would.   Lester was spooked by noises he was hearing at night. 

One of the selling points for Lester was that his mobile home lot had water frontage.  The price was right, so he bought the place without visiting, based on the website pictures.  It would be his little bit of Florida paradise.  He soon found out that the cheap price was indeed right for this fixer upper trailer where in his imagination creepy things crept.

“Yah,” said Carl, poking with an old hockey stick around in the overgrown reeds and sawgrass along the canal bordering Lester’s lot.  “I suppose something could be living in this jungle.”  He looked back at Lester hovering a few feet back, just in case.  Lester wasn’t much of ‘nature-guy.’  “Yep,” he said, talking around the stub of cigar perched on his lips.  “They live in large holes in the ground.”

“What lives in large holes in the ground?”  Lester’s voice rose in pitch as he considered the possibilities.  He inched a bit closer to the canal, trying to avoid muddying his white walking shoes.  When Carl lifted a brushy branch to get a closer look, Lester instinctively took a step backward.

“Probably not here though,” Carl said.  “Too many people.  They’d live somewhere more remote.”  He pointed to an open section of land on the other side of the narrow canal bordering Hidden Palms.

“That’s not very far away,” said Lester.  Exasperated, he said, “Carl, what are we talking about here?  Are you suggesting that there might be – “  He looked at Carl’s hat.

“Yessirree, Les” Carl said.  He knew he had him primed and ready.  He took off his Gators hat and swept it out in front of him to show Lester how close he lived to danger. 

 “There was this lady, Mrs. Highline, I believe.  Anyway, she lived a couple of lots down thataway, on Bramble.”  Carl gave a nod to his left.  “She had this dog, a real problem pup. Punkin’ she called it.  Ferocious!”  He cocked an eye in Lester’s direction.

Lester’s imagination was already stimulated by thoughts of creatures living in big holes and now this tasty morsel of information.  Might there be the feral offspring of Punkin’ lurking about the park along the canal bordering his lot?  “Big dog?” Lester tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice. “I mean, what kind of problems?”

“Barking,” said Carl.  He covered his mouth with a fake cough to stifle a laugh. “It was a real yappy type dog.  Pekingese, I believe.  Punkin’ the Pekingese.”  

Lester gave Carl a hard look.  He figured he was smart enough to know when his leg was being pulled.  But this time he fell for it.  He chortled, going along with the joke.  “Ah, Pekingese!”

“Yeh,” Carl said.  “That dog barked all day outside on its leash.  It barked all night in the trailer.”  Carl stopped probing the underbrush.  “People around here were getting real sick of it.  Hank, the park manager back then, had his hands full with that one.”  He paused, took the cigar out of his mouth. “I don’t know what was worse, though, the yapping of the stupid dog or that Highline lady screeching, ‘Quiet Punkin!’  Punkin’ quiet!’”  Carl’s falsetto imitation rekindled his memory of Mrs. Highline and put him over the edge.  Holding his side he laughed. He laughed and laughed.  Lester forgot his unease for the moment and laughed at his gruff friend’s laughing.  And before you know it the two old guys were out of breath leaning up against the mobile tears streaming down their faces.

In between guffaws, Lester said, “Whatever happened to Punkin’?”

Carl pulled himself together.  He wiped the jocularity from his face and said, “Gone!”

“Gone?  Punkin’ or Mrs. Highline?”

“One morning,” Carl continued the story. “It was quiet.  Strangely quiet. No barking. No yelling.  Thinking something was wrong, a neighbor called Hank.  By the time Hank got there to check things out, Mrs. Highline was standing in the back, between her mobile and this here canal.”  Carl paused a bit again to regain control.  “She was holding the ragged end of Punkin’s leash.  Poof!  The Pekingese was gone!”

“Oh, my!” said Lester.  “Did Punkin’ chew its way to freedom?”  Carl shook his head.  “Well then, surely, someone didn’t just get sick of the barking and cut it loose, did they?”  Carl scraped his work boot along the coarse grass and shook his head again.  “Then what?” said Lester, exasperated.  Carl looked up, extended his arms straight out, palms together, one on top of the other.

“Oh, my!” said Lester as Carl’s arms separated and came clapping back together.

“Chomp,” said Carl.

“Alligator?” said a wide-eyed Les.  

“Stanley,” said Carl.  “About an eight footer.  Lived over there on the other side of the canal.  Wasn’t really a nuisance until it got a taste of -”

“Chinese food?”  Lester couldn’t help it.  He burst out laughing again as he considered the mysterious disappearance of the Pekingese.  Then he said,  “What happened to the alligator, uh, Stanley.  Is that who or what I’m hearing at night?”  Said Lester, taking on a more serious tone.

“Not sure if you’re hearing a gator, but I’m quite sure it’s not Stanley.  You see, whenever we get a report of a gator in the canal we give a call to Lefty.” Carl paused trying to remember the guy he called the last time there was a gator problem.  “Handhof. Yes, that’s it. Lefty Handhof.  He’s the nuisance critter guy.”

Lester looked puzzled and wondered how someone could catch something of that size.  “Yessiree,” said Carl.  He just loaded up the trap with raw chicken.” He grinned at Lester.  “Suppertime, American style.  Before you know it, ole Stanley was out looking for a meal, a takeout meal.   He got it too.  He walked right into the trap.  He got his meal and also got taken out  – to some remote swamp miles south of here.” 

Carl gave Lester a friendly swat on the back as they headed back to house.  “Now that we know you’re not in danger, let’s take a look at that what ‘cha ma call it over at, uh, you know… that lady from India.  What’s her name?”

“Yeh, I know who you mean.  Singhk!  Undera Singhk!”

“That’s it.  Her garbage disposal.  Undera Singhk.  Yes!  That’s it.  Let’s go.”

The fixit jobs continued into the summer months.  One warm day Carl and Lester took a break and sat in the shade of the only palm tree in the park, each nursing a cold beer.  It had been an effort that morning to replace the fencing around the park’s large garbage bins that day.  Over the weeks and months of working together their friendship had grown so that if they had to go more than a couple days without working together, it just didn’t feel right.  

“How’d the doctor’s appointment go the other day, Carl?” said Lester.  More often it was Lester taking care of the repairs while his partner grumbled off to some doctor’s appointment.

“Okay.”  Lester had noticed that Carl had slowed down more and more.  Seemed more tired than usual. The frequent trips to the doctor, the occasional out-of-the-blue gasp of pain, clued Lester into the probability that all was not well with his friend.

“Look, my friend,” Lester got serious.  “If there’s something wrong…”

Carl just shook his head.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe it would be good to tell somebody what’s up. I told you about my ticking time bomb of a heart…”  Carl thought for a minute.

“Cancer,” he said. “It caught up to me fast and is winning.”  Lester didn’t know what to say.  “I guess we can’t fix everything, can we?”

“Thanks, for telling me,” said Lester at last.

“I meant to tell you at some point.  And since you so easily give up your secrets,” the corners of Carl’s lips curled up, “I figured I could give you this.”

 They both grew silent as they contemplated their newly found common ground and its unfortunate truth.  Then Carl’s grin broadened as he sought to move the conversation away from himself and back to Lester.

Carl looked at Lester out of the corner of his eye.  “Ever been married, Les?” he said.  

“Yea,” said Lester.  “Once.”

“Oh?”

“Yessir,” he said.  Then continued. “Wife up and left.”  He noticed Carl’s inquisitive look.  “Said I was too neat!”

Without missing a beat, Carl said, “Yep, I can see that.”  He picked his cold cigar out of the ash tray. “I’ve been tempted to give up on you more than once, myself.” He guzzled the dregs of his beer, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and stood up.  Les wiped up the rings of water on the table with his handkerchief and followed Carl to the golf cart.

……

Janey sat with her long legs dangling from the bed of the pickup, taking a break and enjoying the Florida October sunshine.  She had just dropped off her Saturday morning load of citrus at the Clubhouse in Hidden Palms.  For a few minutes she watched the residents of Hidden Palms amble into and out of the Clubhouse.  On Saturdays, for the next few months, Janey would be supplying their citrus needs, for a price, of course.

She walked around to the cab, tossed the money bag on the front seat.  “College fund,” she thought.  “If I have my way.”  She mumbled grimly to herself.  She didn’t want to think of her father’s differing opinion.  She didn’t want to work her whole life at Roger’s Citrus Farm.  She didn’t want to fulfill the role of Janey, the ‘son’ Roger and Alice never had.  She didn’t want to apply for colleges that, if Roger had his way, she would never attend. She didn’t want to think about the blowup she had with her father that morning as they loaded the truck.  

Right now, with one more stop to make, what she needed most was Carl. Someone who would listen without judgment.  In her mind that stop was the most important one to make on this Saturday morning. 

She hopped in her pickup and zipped around the corner, turned left on Rosebud and headed to the back of the park.  She parked by the maintenance barn where Carl was inside putting the finishing touches on a patio table repair job.  One of the legs had come loose and needed to be welded back on.  Finished, he lifted the mask from his face and smiled warmly at his coffee-time friend.  “Janey!” he said.  I’m so glad you’re here.  I want you to try something.”  

“What’s that, Carl?  More welding?”  Her smile lit up the shed.  “How are the welds we did last Saturday holding up?”

She appreciated the connection she and Carl had formed since she had been doing the deliveries to the trailer park.  She would find reasons to visit him when she had spare time from her work on the farm.  Carl would let her team up on various projects, Carl being the patient teacher, and Janey the interested and capable learner.  Like the newly welded table leg, they had formed a strong bond, a lasting friendship.  

“No, no more welding today.”  He reached over to the workbench and grabbed a coffee can.  He took off the lid. 

“What’s that?  More spare parts?”  Her eyes roamed past the chair getting repaired over the chaos of the workshop.  She had come to realize that Carl could fix anything, saved everything and now thanks to Lester, could find whatever he needed in no time. 

“No, not spare parts.  I need you to try this.”  His eyes lit up as he got ready to share something new with his young friend.  He reached the can out to Janey.

“Oh, Carl!  This is just what I need today!”  She reached into the can and lifted out a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. Carl smiled, pleased that Janey approved of his latest kitchen creation.  He figured what everyone needed at some point was a freshly baked cookie. 

He was about to make some silly cookie-related remark, when he caught the glimmer of something wet on Janey’s cheek. Quickly, wiping it off, leaving a crumb in its place, Janey looked away.

They had known each other a long time.  Back then Janey and her dad would make weekly deliveries to the park.  Recently, Janey earned her driver’s license and was given the job.  Being older and having more freedom she also spent more and more of her time helping Carl in the park. She came to value him as a caring friend. 

Carl took out the stub of a cigar and said, “Janey?  What’s going on?”

That morning’s perfect storm of a fresh-baked cookie, Carl’s willingness to listen and the big fight with her dad before heading out for deliveries produced a mixture of emotions that pushed her to the edge.  She rubbed her moist, brown eyes and tucked a stray ribbon of hair behind her ear. The frustration that had been building up inside of her for so long found its outlet in the maintenance shed with Carl and a can of chocolate chip cookies.

“My mother used to make cookies like this.” she said.  Carl nodded.  He remembered Alice.  He remembered the accident that took her from the family too soon.  Janey was about ten.  “I wish she were here, to talk to…” 

Carl nodded, “She was a good mom,” he said, not knowing what else to say.  He waited. 

“She would understand.” Janey stood and walked over to the workbench. “Not like my father!” She fumbled with a clamp holding a newly glued wooden armrest on a chair.

Carl didn’t want to pry, yet he sensed that Janey needed to say her piece.  “Understand?”  The kindness in his voice told her it was safe to continue.

“Oh, it’s the farm!” she said.

“The farm?”  Carl looked puzzled.  “Things aren’t going well for the farm?”

“That’s just it!  The farm is going great!  We need to build a new barn!  We need to buy up that acreage down the road!  We need to get more equipment!  We always worry about the weather.  We need to find more customers!”  She paused and took a breath.  “The farm!  The farm! The farm!”  Mindlessly, she turned the handle of the clamp tighter on the armrest.

“When I bring up anything about me…” Her voice cracked a bit.  “I just get the brush-off.  I’m in my senior year of high school!  Does he want to hear about that? NO!”  Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the clamp.

“This morning at breakfast I said I’d like to go to college, maybe Florida State.  Maybe study horticulture.  He just looked at me.  Looked? He glared at me! He just said, ‘No.’  And then he just stared as if expecting me to just say, ‘okay,’ eat my cereal and head out to do my deliveries!” She burst into tears.

“He thinks I’m the son they never had.  He thinks I’m going to take over the farm.  He wants me to just stick around while all my friends go off to college and live a life.  I feel like I’m being held in a vise, trapped in a citrus prison!  Fenced in!  I hate him!”

 Carl nibbled at the edges of a cookie and nodded thoughtfully.  He wasn’t her father. He was old enough to be her grandfather.  Hah!  Lately, he felt old enough to be her great grandfather.  He understood what she was saying, what she was feeling.  He also lived what seemed to be a lifetime as a father, remembering the struggles he had trying to do what was best for his girls. 

Then Carl said, “Janey, maybe your dad has a point. Maybe you should just listen to him. I mean really listen and try to hear what he’s really saying.”  He knew he was going out on a limb here and might be risking the friendship that he valued the most.   He continued  “And, somehow, he needs to be made to listen to you, to really hear what’s on your heart.”

With her jaw tightly clenched like the clamp in her hands, Janey looked the old man in the eye as he stood up and walked over to her by the workbench.  With his big hands he formed a tent over her hands and the clamp as if to say, “I gotcha covered.  I’ll help as best I can.”  Then he gently removed Janey’s hands from the clamp.  He gripped the handle and turned it the other way, loosening its grip on the armrest. 

Relaxing a bit, she looked up at her friend, wiped her nose with the sleeve of her flannel shirt and said, “Okay. I’ll try.”  She left it at that for now.

 Janey left, and he laid the clamp on the bench next to the chair and looked at the armrest.   “There,” he said.  With his fingernail he scraped a bit of glue from the seam.  

Carl reached for his pills. Janey’s problem with her father left an emotional pain in his heart that exceeded the daily physical discomfort in his gut.  As he walked around the shop and ran over his mental list of repairs and fixes he needed to do in the coming days, he pondered and realized that apparently this was one thing he couldn’t fix. It was something that Janey would need to fix herself.  He was sure he could help, but he didn’t have much time and needed to start making his plans sooner rather than later.

The rain the following Wednesday hampered most of Carl’s fixit jobs, the outdoor ones at least.  The one thing he could fix that day only took a few minutes and a couple of parts that he had stashed in his shop.  Thanks to Lester’s organization skills he could lay his hands on them quickly and fix Mrs. Franklin’s kite.  Her grandchildren would be down in a week, and they wanted to fly the kite they had built with grandpa Ben which hadn’t been flown since he died.  Carl was glad to help and glad for the diversion on that rainy day.

 Now he wondered how to spend the rest of his afternoon.  He could go home and watch reruns on TV or read old Travel Florida magazines, but he felt most at home in his shop. So that’s where he stayed. He shuffled around from one bench to another, alone and feeling blue. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time.  Maybe it was the rain.  Maybe it was the idea that his health was waning and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

He looked out the window between streams of water cascading down it.  Maybe it was his talk with Janey the other day.  He wanted so much to be able to help her fix things with her dad.  He was at a loss to know what to do to get them together.  

He looked around his workroom.  Since Lester had come on board to help with repairs, his workshop had never been neater.  Carl’s tool box in his golf cart and in the stuff in the maintenance barn were never so organized.   That guy sure had a gift putting things in their place.

The afternoon wore on, and Carl got ready to go home, eat some dinner and then head off to choir practice.  After a long, lonely day, he looked forward to seeing friends there, especially Lester.  Hopefully, that would help.

He took out the lasagna he had put together earlier and popped it in the oven and assembled the rest of the fixings for his dinner.  More often than not, it seemed, Carl would cook up more than he could possibly eat and then share it with someone in the park or someone from church.  

There was that time when he was fixing a sticky drawer and had tracked dirt all over the carpet at the Armstrong’s.  Mrs. Armstrong had a fit.  Sure, Carl apologized and made sure the mess was cleaned up better than before.  But, it wasn’t until he brought over a plate of his famous pulled pork with a side of his special slaw that Mrs. Armstrong would talk to him again. It took a peace offering.

As he cooked and thought the idea came to him.  A peace offering. Suddenly, he knew what he wanted to do.  Even though he had great ideas flooding his brain, they were piling up helter skelter.  He just couldn’t seem to put anything together.  He had the idea, but just couldn’t figure out what it would take to pull it off.  Then, he thought, “But Lester could!  Ah, Lester!”

And thus the plotting began.  They would be working together, Carl and Lester, and if things went according to plan, Janey and her dad would play an important part, a very important part.  Carl couldn’t wait until after choir rehearsal to hatch his plot with Lester.

The October rehearsals meant that Myrtle Smoot became a bit more intense.  It was time to begin rehearsals for the Christmas season.  They would be singing in church every Sunday in Advent, plus put on a big Christmas concert the Sunday just before Christmas.  It was a big deal for the choir and especially for Myrtle.

She tore into the rehearsals as if she were preparing for the second coming of Jesus! And since, for these concert events, she did know the day and the hour, she expected the choir to be on time for practice which started with warmups promptly at seven.  

At five minutes before the first ‘Ahhh’s and Ooh’s were sung Carl made his way to his place in the bass section.  Myrtle paged through her music, then looked at her watch and raised her eyebrows.

Quietly and looking smug, Carl said, “Right on time.”  Myrtles eyes and forehead formed a question mark.  “Rode with Lester,” said Carl, silently mouthing the words around a growing grin.

The rehearsal went well.  Myrtle Smoot ran them through their paces singing songs of Christmas that, to some, seemed a bit premature in October.  As she told them over and over again it takes – Planning – Practice – Performance – the three P’s, to get them through this gruelling choral season.  She took the last ten minutes to map out the Advent and Christmas plan, especially the big concert just before Christmas.  

As she talked a group of people sauntered into the sanctuary from the back.  One of them was Janey!  She waved at Carl, then spied Lester on the other side beaming.

 “Ah,” said Myrtle, sensing something going on behind her.  Come in, come in and have a seat right here in front.”  She chortled out her instructions to the newcomers.  She explained that for their last concert of the season, they would be doing a traditional program she called Lessons and Carols.  It would be a series of readings that would be interspersed with appropriate songs of the season.  “These folks,” she explained to the choir, “will be doing the readings.”  Carl gave a thumbs-up to Janey from the back row.

“And,” she said, “the readings are just as important as the songs!”  Her voice got low and serious.  “If not more so.  They’ll be reading scripture, you know.”  She folded her hands and looked piously at the “Your-Word-is-a-Lamp-Unto-My-Feet” banner hanging over the exit sign.

They were dismissed well past the usual rehearsal ending time.  As Carl walked past Myrtle he couldn’t resist one last look at his watch and one last dig, “Right on time.”  He grinned and gave her a wink.  He caught up with Janey, walking and talking with Lester.

“I get the first one.”  She tapped on the worn, green book of readings. 

Janey opened her book to her part.  “It’s not too tough.”  She handed the book to Lester who skimmed the passage from Genesis.

“Not a very uplifting part if you ask me,” he said, “what with all that sin and misery and head crushing and heel bruising.” 

Then Lester stood up straight and took a deep breath.  In a moment he transformed himself from a meek and mild retiree to a fiery preacher of the gospel.   He looked over the heads of his audience of two to the now empty sanctuary and proclaimed in dramatic preacher fashion, “It was their disobedience that caused the separation… Yes, sir!.” He put his hands together in front of him, one empty and the other holding the beat up book, as if it were the very word of God.  He put his hands together, then jerked them apart and said, “that caused the big split!”  

His fervor escalated.  “Because the people no longer walked-the-talk.”  He paused to let that sink in, then boomed, “No sir! No longer would God and people walk and talk in the garden!  No longer would there be – “ he lowered his volume to a disappointed sounding whisper.  “No longer would there be shalom.”  The other two gaped in amazement and wondered, who was this guy?

“Brothers and sisters, there will come a day, yes sir, when the serpent’s head would be crushed… a fatal blow… by the seed of the woman, you see, and all would be made right again!  Hallelujah! Glory Hallelujah!”  With his imaginary handkerchief he mopped imaginary sweat from his brow.  He folded his arms and grinned.

Amazed at Lester’s sudden transformation, Janey said to Carl, “What did he say?”

“What he said, my dear Janey, is that there are things that need fixing, and Jesus came to do just that.”  He shook his head at a smug Lester.  “He just read your part.  Though I think Mrs. Smoot picked the right person to do it when she picked you.”

The three of them strolled out to their cars.  Janey, finished with the best part of her day, went home.  She just had to laugh as she drove thinking of Lester’s performance.  She desperately hoped for a bit of that shalom that seemed to be missing lately at her house.

Carl and Lester headed back to the park.  Carl couldn’t wait to finally be able to tell Lester his idea.  “Your little drama back there is what this is all about,”  he said while Lester drove.  The rain had stopped, and the lights from the city danced in the wet pavement.  “You might think this a bit crazy, but we have to do something for Janey and her dad, something to get them talking again. I have an idea.” 

“Yeah, and…” Lester waited for the light to change and waited for Carl. “What’s your idea?”

“Let’s throw a Christmas party!” Then Carl explained his idea as best he could. “It’s going to come down to executing the 3 P’s of -“

“Myrtle’s?” Said Lester.

“Nope. The 3 P’s of Carl. Planning and Patience to Pull off a miracle.  To that, Lester gave the green light and they splashed the rest of the way to the park.  But before the planning could begin, they had to talk to one person first.

Lester had become accustomed to riding along with Carl on most of his fix it jobs now that he could identify a crescent wrench and other important tools.  They were on their way to Roger’s Citrus Farm to pick up an old bicycle that Janey used to get from one place to another on the farm.  Janey asked if Carl could weld the broken fork back together.  It didn’t need to be pretty, just solid.  

“Do you know this guy, Janey’s dad?”  Lester said from the passenger’s seat in Carl’s pickup truck.

“Yep,” said Carl. “His name’s Roger.  Carl’s unlit stub of a cigar pointed at the sign at the end of the driveway.  “That’s him, the Roger of Roger’s Citrus Farm.”

“Roger that!” Lester attempted to ease the stress that seemed to be seeping from his partner that morning.

“Harumph…” was all he got as they turned into the driveway and headed to the barn.  Carl knew the way.  He also knew the man.  Mostly he knew Janey.  He wasn’t doing this for her old man.  It was to help Janey.

Janey was out doing deliveries that morning and Roger ambled out of the side door of the barn.  He raised his hand, greeting the two visitors.

“Here for the bike?” said Roger, getting right to the point. 

“Yep,” said Carl.

“It’s in the barn, around the corner.” 

Lester looked on at their exchange.  Lester moved in to shake Roger’s hand.

“Hi.  I’m Les.  You must be Roger?”  He pointed to the sign painted on the side of the barn.  “Janey’s dad, right.  She’s a great kid.”  Lester had more to say, but was interrupted.

“That’s right.  Me and Janey pretty much run this place, mostly Janey these days.”  He laughed, not believing a word of it.  Lester sensed the same.

“That so?  I’ve enjoyed getting to know her some, when she comes to the park.”

“Yeah. She says it’s her favorite stop.  Tells some interesting stories about a couple of guys there that go around fixing things.”  With a hint of a grin he took off his Florida State hat, ran his fingers through his hair and gave a sideways look over at Carl.

Carl grimaced as clueless Lester said, “Sure going to miss her if she heads off to college.”  He pointed at Roger’s hat.  “She’s thinking of Florida State, right?”

At that, any hint at any kind of smile evaporated from Rogers’ face.  “Remains to be seen, if or when she’s….” His words faded away.  Carl looked at Lester with a now-you-did-it kind of look.

Lester’s face turned red. In a hasty jumble of words, he said, “I’ll go get the bike.  In the garage you say?  I’ll go get it now. Yep, right now.  Okay. Over there? That’s the door?”  With that Lester hurried off to find the bike and leave Carl to mop up the mess he made.

Carl forked his cigar with his two fingers and took it out of his mouth.  He looked down at his feet, took a deep breath and looked over at Roger.  “Les is right.  She’s a good kid.  Smart.”

“I know that.  I know that for sure,” said Roger.  “You’re not tellin’ me anything new.”

“Me and her had a talk the other day,”  Roger raised his eyebrows.  “Yesir, she did most of the talking, though.”  

“Oh, yeah? What did she have to say, as if I don’t already know.”

Calmly, Carl explained.  “She says she wants to go to college next fall, but she says you are resisting her.  She wants to study horticulture, because it would help if she comes back here to work.  She says you’re putting on the brakes, and that she can learn all she needs about growing things right here. She wants a little freedom, time to be on her own.  She says you want to just keep her here with you and work this farm. But she wants to be able to experience a bit of the world, even if it’s only down the road at FSU.  She says you think the world revolves around you and this farm.  It was good enough for your grandpa and your daddy and you, so it’s good enough for her.  That’s what she thinks.”  Carl knew he had stepped in it now. He put his cigar between his lips and waited.

While Carl talked Roger simmered.  He wasn’t used to being talked to this way.  On his farm, his word was law.  No backtalk allowed unless you were looking for unemployment.  Of course, Janey was a different story.

“You don’t know my daughter!  You don’t know anything about what it takes to run a farm, run this farm!  My grandpa started with a five acre patch right over there.” He pointed toward the house.  “He grew his oranges, harvested and sold them at a roadside stand all while working at the juice processing plant in town.  Then people began to notice something special about his fruit.  The markets got interested, and he sold enough to buy up more land, plant more trees, grow more fruit. It took hard work to endure the winter freezes, the new regulations every year, the recessions.  But he kept going.   His sons took over, my daddy being one of them.  When he passed I took over for him and now have one of the largest citrus farms in the county.  We ship all over east of the Mississippi.”  He took a breath.  “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that my daughter do what I did and my daddy before me did and take over this farm.  This farm has been good for our family in the past, and it would be good for Janey, too.  I want what’s best for my girl.  Besides, she would be the fourth generation of Smiths on this land.”

Carl said, “I’m not interested in the history lesson, Roger.  I’m here to talk about Janey.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no need for her to go off to college.  She knows more about citrus than they could teach her in a year.”

“That’s probably true.  She’s a smart one. But don’t cha see she just wants to get out explore a bit of the world.  Do what she wants to do.”  He looked Roger in the eye and said, “and not what you think you need her to do.”

“Carl, she’s my daughter.  Since Alice died she’s all I have left.”  Carl looked down to give Roger a moment to compose himself.  Then, he scuffed the toe of his work boot in the dirt before continuing.

“Chain her to this farm like some kind of prison and someday she’ll escape.  When she does, she won’t come back.  But, Roger, let her go, give her some freedom now and give her some say in her future.  Who knows, she just might come back.  She’s a good kid.  It might be just to visit, maybe to work, who knows.  Just be careful what side of the door she’s on when you slam it shut.”

With that, Carl looked toward the barn eager for an excuse to be done with all this and go back to the park.  And out came Lester from the barn whistling a happy tune while rolling the damaged bike.  He opened the gate on the pickup. Carl stepped over and helped Lester toss the bike in.  Lester looked from one grim face to the other of the now silent twosome.  They seemed to have finished their talk.  “You guys all finished catching up?” he said with uneasy cheeriness.

With feigned politeness, Carl said, “Sure.  And, uh, Les, looks like we gotta get going.  Thanks, Roger.  We’ll get this bike back to you some time.”  Then he gave one last shot, “You have to talk to her Roger, really talk.”  He paused, took the cigar out of his mouth. “… and listen, really listen.”

Since his Alice died, the fact was that if it wasn’t about the farm he didn’t talk about it much.  For all her life, as long as Roger remembered, if Janey had a problem and it needed action, he was the one.  If something needed talking about, it was all Alice.  And now with Alice gone, it was mostly quiet between them, except for what seemed to be daily disagreements about Janey’s future.  He realized that Janey had probably inherited a good amount of stubbornness from him. 

“Yeah, sure, you bet,” said Roger.  His head down, he ambled back to his work.

 He wondered how they could have grown so far apart.  The sudden realization that his own daughter talked more to Carl than to him, her own father, stunned him.  Roger knew what he needed to do but now was afraid it was too late.

……

Carl had the idea for the party, for sure.  He knew what he hoped to achieve by putting it on.  It was Lester who took care of all the details.  Without Lester and his organization skills it would have been just pizza and beer under Hidden Palms lonely palm tree.

So Lester got down to business.  He reserved the clubhouse. He rented the tent and extra tables for the courtyard area from a local company, run by an Irishman, Patty O’Furniture.   He recruited the Ivy sisters Holly and Dee, to decorate the place.  Their festive finery made the place sparkle.

Finding a Christmas tree was no easy task.  Fortunately, Seymore Pines came through.  Seymore found the park’s fake Christmas tree in a storeroom and set it up.  Branches, ‘C’ and ‘F’ were missing so he improvised, Florida style. He took a couple of branches off the park’s palm tree and zip tied them to the tree, thinking no one would notice if he loaded it up with lights and tinsel.

Most of the people Lester contacted for help were willing, with the exception of  his neighbor Ida.  However, haughty and hyphenated therefore, snooty, Mrs. Rather-Knot declined. 

He and Carl thought a little entertainment would be great and who better to advise them than Myrtle Smoot.  She didn’t disappoint them.  Her first choice was “Linda and the Lemons.”  She gave the boys the group’s information blurb.  Blushing as they read the group’s tagline, “Pucker up and let’s have some fun,” they quickly rejected the group.  Too tarty for this party they told Myrtle.  Disappointed at the prudish pair, she settled on  “Peter and the Juicers,” two guys dressed in orange who play bluegrass tunes on accordions.

Things went really well in the planning department for Lester, with one exception.  Mr. Lee, a recent resident of the park, moved in from a place by Sarasota which of course, in his mind, was way better than this one.  Blunt and opinionated, Mr. Lee was more than happy to help Lester improve this party by telling him of all the ways to do things better.  A legend in his own mind, had he been a neighbor to Noah, and after looking at the divine drawings for the ark, would have said, “No!  That’s not going to work.  You need to do it this way…”

One afternoon, Lester had had it with him. It was time to talk.

“Mr. Lee,” Lester said.

“Yes?” he said a big smile crossed his face.  “Oh, let me be Frank with you!”  He slapped Lester on the back and guffawed glad to finally be able to use his signature joke on someone new.  Then he continued, “Those tables over there?  I think it would be better if -”

Lester, with a tight grin, interrupted.  “Frank Lee,” he said.  “I don’t…” He paused to consider his words, then, tired of his meddling, uncharacteristically let him have it.  Lester told him in no uncertain terms what he thought.  Pleased at being frank with Frank, Lester walked away.

Most importantly, Carl’s plan included Janey and her Roger.  Janey had told him once that years ago when things were still good on the farm that her dad and mom threw an annual pig roast for the farm workers.  She noted that her dad had become quite the barbeque master, cooking over his homemade, 55 gallon half-barrel, handcrafted pig roaster. His older brother, Uncle Andy, assisted.  Her mom did the organizing and set up.  The rumor was that that party was so popular that folks were lining up for employment at Roger’s Citrus Farm just for the chance to attend the annual party.

The key to the boy’s whole plan was to get Roger and Janey involved in Lester and Carl’s festival.  Since Roger and Carl didn’t exactly leave on the best terms, it would take a good deal of sweet talking to get it done.  Armed with this information, master of organization, Lester drove out to the farm to talk with Roger.

Lester parked Carl’s pickup by the barn at the farm.  He hopped out and walked around the back and slid Janey’s repaired bike out as Roger approached the car.  “Hi Roger,” said Lester, putting on a hopeful, cheery front.

“Lester.”  Roger’s reply was curt, and hopeful for a short conversation.  “What can I do for you?”

“Well, now Roger, I was talking to one of the guys at the park the other day.  And we got to talking about things which turned to a conversation about the best place to eat around here.  And then he said, ‘Roger’s Citrus Farm.’” Lester paused to let that sink in, as Roger started to get interested. 

“‘Yessir, that’s where I got some of the best barbeque I ever had,’ he told me.’  And I said, ‘What?’ and he said, ‘Yep, best ever!’  ‘At a citrus farm?’ I said.  Roger stood there not disagreeing as he thought back to some pretty good times.

“Then, he told me about working here and the pig roast you and your wife put on every year after the harvest was done.  I couldn’t stop him from talking about it.”

“Okay, yep, I was there,” said Roger, not really wanting to talk.

“Well, I was thinking,” Lester pulled down his sunglasses to look directly at Roger.  “We got this Christmas party we’re working on over at the park.”

“Yeah?  You and who else, working on this party?”  Suspicion oozed from Roger.

“Oh, just me and another guy.”  He decided to keep Carl’s name out of it.  “Thought it would be a nice thing, for Christmas and all.  Got lots of people working on it and just need to nail down the most important part.  And that’s why I’m here.”

Lester told Roger more about the planning and asked him if he would consider doing the barbeque. “We’d get you all the supplies and stuff you would need. No cost to you.”

Roger rubbed the stubble on his chin and said, “Okay, I’ll do it.  But I’m going to have to have a helper, since my brother moved into the home, you know, awhile back.  He always did the running for me  when we did it here before.”

“Oh, don’t cha worry, Roger.  I have just the person in mind, a perfect choice.”

It was early December, and on the afternoon of the party Carl sat on a chair on the patio outside the clubhouse.  He was exhausted.  The weeks of party preparation had taken their toll on his weakening body.  He had spent the week preparing his Christmas delicacies and was now finished. They were displayed on the dessert table – banket, reindeer bark and cranberry tarts, not to mention dozens of Christmas cookies of various shapes – a tempting array of treats. 

He surveyed the clubhouse, patio and the area around the pool.  Everything was all ready to go.  To Carl’s way of thinking it looked like they had pulled it off, so far.  The dream team, the dynamic duo, the fixit kids, or just Carl and Les, however one wanted to describe what had become the park’s most notable combination of doers-of-good, waited for the payoff of their little plan that was hatched weeks ago.

Janey decorated the tables that afternoon while father Roger was busily preparing the pig.  “Janey,” Carl said.  “How about taking this cup of lemonade over to the guy doing the grilling?”  He pointed to him out the large windows giving a good view of the pool area.

She looked at him. “You mean my dad?!”

“Sure. A guy’s gotta stay hydrated if he wants to stay upright slaving over a hot grill.  Besides it would be a nice thing.”  He gave her a knowing look, “Especially, because it’s your dad.”

Carl watched as Janey crossed the room past the tables to the spot where Roger was preparing the pig.  He noticed that she delivered the drink, and before she could pivot and turn away Roger said something.  She nodded and hustled off only to return from someplace with a tool that Roger needed.

And so it went all afternoon.  Janey delivered cold drinks to her dad, and he found things he needed for her to get.  With each exchange, their talking increased as the afternoon wore on.  The dance continued until Janey spent more and more time at the grill with her dad, and a heap of unneeded things piled up around Roger.

“Lookit that,” Carl said.  He grabbed a hustling Lester on his way to take down the mistletoe that Rickie Busster had put up over the door.

“Look at what?”

“Janey… and Roger.  It’s been like that all afternoon.  They’re actually talking.”

“And judging from the smiles they’re getting along.  This party of yours, Carl, was genius.”

Carl reached for the dead stub of a cigar and placed it between his lips.  “Our party, my friend, our party.  Let’s hope we finish well.”

The party went off without a hitch.  The park residents rolled in at the appointed time and enjoyed a wonderful evening.  The weather cooperated. The lovely decorations put everyone in a good holiday mood.  The food, expertly prepared by Roger and Janey, was superb, and folks couldn’t get enough of Carl’s fine desserts.  

 Carl sat at a table in a corner away from the current of people flowing to the punch bowl or the food table or to the dance floor.  Lester flitted about making sure that things were going smoothly.  Included in his rounds was a regular trip past Janey and Roger with a stop at Carl’s table to give a report. 

From Carl’s vantage point, Janey and Roger were doing just fine.  They had been talking and laughing throughout the evening.  Lester’s eavesdropping reports were encouraging, too.  He sat down at the table and spied the still full plate of food he had brought to Carl.  

“Not hungry,” said Carl to answer a question Lester didn’t need to ask.  “But look at those two.  It’s like they never had a bad time between them.”  

Peter and the Juicers struck up what would be their last tune of the evening.  The time had passed quickly, and shortly it would be time to turn over the pickup duties to the Dovers.  Lester had thought of everything, even to have Ben and Eileen take care of the cleanup so he could tend to his friend and see him safely home.

As the band cranked up “The Orange Blossom Special,” Lester poked Carl and pointed.  There were Janey and her dad, doing a little two-step to the music over by the barbeque grill. “Looks like our plan is working.”   They watched for a bit, and when the song ended Roger gave his daughter a hug.  Carl looked over at Lester, took the dead cigar stub from between his lips one last time, and said, “Les, it’s time for me to go home.”

……

The time had finally come for the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.  Myrtle Smoot bustled about the rehearsal room in the church watching over her flock of choir members.  Everything seemed ready. They had warmed up. All the readers were assembled and had their parts.  It was just a matter of waiting now for the sanctuary to fill and the starting time to arrive.

Myrtle needed to flit about spending her nervous energy by straightening robes, giving last minute advice and peeking through the door to check on the growing crowd.  She walked over to Roger and thanked him.  “Why, without you Mr. Smith, today’s concert would be a festival of only eight lessons.”  She said.  Her warbling, nervous laugh drew the attention of a few of the singers milling about.  “Lesson Four, right?” she said, stating the obvious for Roger.

“No problem, Mrs. Smoot.  I’ve been practicing for a week since you dropped off the book.  Been reading to the orange trees and…”  He patted Janey on the shoulder.  “My daughter here helped me practice.”  

Myrtle moved on around the room.  When she approached Lester sitting alone in a corner of the room, he stood and quietly took something out of his pocket and held it with two fingers.  As Myrtle reached out to pick off a piece of imaginary lint from Lester’s robe, she raised her eyes for a final appraisal, stopped short and looked at him in horror!  “Mr. Ismor!  What is that, that, that… “ She stuttered.  “That thing?!” 

During her inspection, Lester had placed a short stub of a cigar he had cut off and placed it in his lips, just like –

“Carl says, ‘Hi’”  

He grinned at the mortified choir director who then threw her arms around Lester and said, “I’m so sorry to hear of his passing.  He always had some bit of tomfoolery for me at rehearsals, and now one more from the great beyond.”

“Heaven, with Jesus,” said Lester, correcting her.  “Singing bass, I think.”  Myrtle patted him on the shoulder and left him to his thoughts about the past week.  About the funeral. About the concert. About Janey and Roger.

The time had come for the choir and readers to take their places in the sanctuary and give glory to God.  The choir sang.  One by one the readers came forward, Janey reading the first lesson.

She read it well.  She had practiced.  It helped that she had actually studied the words beforehand, especially since Lester had ‘preached’ it to them.  She, too, found it to be a lot of doom and gloom – sin, misery, head crushing, heel bruising and separation of God from his creation and people from each other.  She knew there had to be more to it.  She was a bright kid, and with eight other lessons there had to be some good news.  She was right.

The choir sang beautifully, although to Lester there was an emptiness.  An emptiness, not in the words, but in the sound.  He scanned the other side of the choir and noticed a slight gap where Carl would have been standing.  He acutely felt the separation that Carl’s death had brought in this past week.  Lester, too, was looking for some good news that night.

When Roger got the call to be a last minute fill-in to do a reading, he balked.  It certainly was out of his comfort zone.  There were a lot of things that he had done recently that were out of his comfort zone.  Things which, out of necessity, he realized needed to be done.

So, he thought why not.  And that’s how it turned out that now here he was doing something that a few months ago he never could have imagined doing.  As the choir’s sound faded, Roger stood up and walked to the lectern.  He adjusted his reading glasses and began to read.

 “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
With righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;”

Janey looked up as her father read.  She remembered how they were unwillingly thrown together to do a job concocted by Carl and Les at their party.  That’s where it began again, where they started to talk.  She remembered how they had practiced their parts together.  She remembered that they were talking again.  She remembered how it wasn’t easy for her to curb her anger when he was in the room, and it wasn’t easy for him to share his heart with her, even though he loved her so much.

As they practiced their readings, sometimes they would walk among the orange trees, and they would talk.  Roger talked about the farm, his grandfather, his father, his dreams for Janey and his dreams for the farm.  He told her about how hard it still was to live life without Alice, even though it had been years since she died.  

Janey told about the good family times she remembered.  She shared her struggles since her mother passed away.  She talked about her dreams of going to college.

As they talked they started to listen to each other.  It was as if a wall between them was starting to crumble.  The rift was beginning to heal.

“The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den.”

From the tenor section Lester listened as Roger read.  He looked over at Janey and thought about Carl.  He remembered his own zany performance as he ‘preached’ the bad news of sin and separation to Carl and Janey.  He didn’t get a chance to ‘preach’ the good news.  But he knew it.  And Carl knew it.  He knew there would come a time when all things would be fixed, like new. Not yet, though.  He knew he would carry on with Carl’s work.  He knew he would keep an eye on Roger and Janey.

“They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.”

In the middle of the turmoil of life – separation, renewal and now grief – Lester, Roger, and Janey had come to the concert to sing and read, to do their duty. The scripture readings and songs had lifted them and provided an undeniable peace. It was that peace that they would surely remember each Christmas for years to come.

*****

Janey and husband Todd walked hand in hand through the orange grove nearest the house. On an ordinary day they would be out there putting their horticulture degrees to good use checking for insect damage or to see how the latest frost affected the fruit. 

Today they followed little three year-old Alice who was cavorting with her grandpa, Roger.  The sun rising in a cloudless Florida sky promised a warm spring day to come.  But walking the rows of citrus that cool Sunday morning was where they needed to be, together, as a family.

Janey smiled as her father played with Alice.  With abandon that she never knew from him when she was a kid, her father revelled in time spent with Alice. Ever so slowly, he twirled, arms outstretched, under the falling orange blossom petals.  “You’re making it snow, Grampa!  You’re making it snow!”  She giggled and imitated her grandfather.  “Snow just like in Uncle Les’ picture. Can we go visit him, again?”

Roger rolled to a stop.  He scooped up Alice into his arms and said, “Uncle Les’ picture…” Then, “You bet. I’m sure he’d love a visit.”  His voice faded as he remembered his good friend, now living in a nursing home in town.  “And, Uncle Carl,” he said more to himself, remembering the other half of the fixit dream team.”

“Uncle Carl?” said Alice.

“Uncle Carl….  You don’t know him, but he was a good man, too.  He was really good at fixing things, Alice.”

“Oh, yeah?  Like what things, Grampa?”

He looked at Alice and gave her a hug.   His heart overflowing, Roger looked back at Janey and Todd, heading toward them as he began to tell Alice a story she really couldn’t understand yet, but one that was so important to him.

“Well let me see, Alice.  One day, when your mother was just a girl,  there was this big Christmas party.”  Then talking mostly to himself, he said, “…more family reunion than a party.”  He glanced back at Janey.

“How big, Grampa?  Show me how big.”  

With Alice in the crook of his still strong left arm, Roger spread out his right one and said, “It was THIS big!”  A broad smile expanded across his face. 

“Wow!  That’s big, Grampa.“

“Oh, yes. It was so big it needed a BIG sounding name.”  Eyes wide Roger said, “It was called a festival!”

Enjoying her conversation with her grandpa, Little Alice spread out her three year old arms. “A festival? Her grin matched her grandpa’s as she stretched out the words and her arms.

Walking up to them and overhearing the conversation, Janey said, “That’s right, it was the best!”  She gave Alice a kiss on her cheek.  “Thanks to Uncle Les and Uncle Carl.”  Then she chuckled and looked at her dad.  The sun’s light slanted through the branches casting shadows among the fallen blossoms.  Janey wrapped her arms around Alice and Roger and hugged them.  “It was just what we needed that Christmas.”

Roger’s grateful gaze shifted from daughter to granddaughter and back. He patted Janey’s hand in agreement. Back then their separation seemed so complete he would have had a hard time believing any reconciliation would be possible. But a lot had happened. A lot had changed. It all started with a couple of guys who fixed things. His face reflected the gratitude in his heart. His smile and silent nod said everything that needed to be said as he replayed in his mind and heart the festival of Les’ and Carl’s.