Part 5 – Handset
Recap: By afternoon the trunk yielded its map and photo, and we carried them to the river to speak the handset back into time.
Wind came off the Cuyahoga with a taste like pennies.
Bare branches scratched the sky and said November in a language older than ours.
4:30 p.m., November 12, 2025, West Bank river park, Cleveland.
We took the same bench I use when I need to hear truth without words.
I set the map across my knees and held two corners with my palms.
Eddie kept one boot on the edge to pin the last quadrant.
He looked at the water like it might answer if approached right.
Then he nodded once and set his shoulders as if under a ruck.
“Let’s pick it up from the red flare,” he said.
“Zero-five-thirty, heavy dew, ground soft.”
I lifted the Zippo to weight the center and let its cold mass steady the paper.
The lighter had been a lantern so long it could hold silence too.
“Observer—Hollis. Adjust fire, over,” I said, the words finding me like an old road.
Eddie angled his head and slipped a hand to his ear as if a handset lived there still.
“Grid—49Q,” he said, voice low and clipped.
“Copy readback. Left zero-seven-five from saddle.”
A gull slid under the bridge and cried once.
We both waited for the echo the valley would have given back.
“First splash was long,” I said.
“Drop two hundred, left one hundred.”
“Shot, over,” he answered, and his breath smoked the air like a signal.
We sat with the pause that always measures a life.
“Splash, over,” he said, then added, “Bracket closed. Repeat fire for effect.”
His eyes were on the river, but the river wasn’t what he saw.
I pressed a knuckle into the grease-pencil scar on the laminate.
The contour lines fell away to the south like a sleeping animal we had both learned to fear and respect.
“I have carried the minute after that for fifty-six years,” I said.
“The one where Thomas E. Greene stopped being a voice and became a name I couldn’t say out loud.”
Eddie closed his eyes and nodded the way a man agrees with weather.
“Me too,” he said. “The culvert turned my body right while my mouth said left.”
We breathed together until the cold settled into our coats as a roommate.
A train clanked somewhere upriver and put iron under the thought.
“Do you remember the weight of the PRC-25?” I asked.
“Twenty-something pounds with the battery. Felt like a person when you carried it in rain.”
“It was a person to us,” he said.
“It was the voice we borrowed when ours shook.”
He slid a small shape from his inner pocket and kept his hand closed a moment.
Then he opened his fingers and showed me another oval of stamped metal on a dull chain.
“HOLLIS, JAMES,” he read, voice so soft even the wind leaned in.
“O POS. Methodist. Bent on the same corner as yours.”
He laid it in my palm with the care a man gives a living thing.
It had the same crimp, same tooth mark of concrete at the edge.
“I didn’t know you had it,” I said, throat tight as webbing in heat.
“I must have torn it when you dragged me.”
“You did,” he said. “I found it under my collar when we reached the tree line. I kept it because your pulse was in it, and I didn’t want you walking alone.”
We sat with two tags between us like halves of a coin that fell and split.
The map under them made a table you could call honest.
“We blamed ourselves,” I said, not asking and not accusing.
“We did,” he answered. “Because blame feels like control when the world won’t give you any.”
River smell lifted and thinned.
The light shifted toward evening the way a man leans toward a chair he trusts.
“Eddie,” I said, “I’m going to ask you something that feels like stepping on thin ice.”
“If it holds, cross,” he answered. “If it cracks, we crawl back and try another place.”
“Will you let me walk you through a door tomorrow?” I asked.
“A community intake. Warm bed. A nurse who calls you by your name.”
He stared past me at the iron lattice of the bridge.
Then he looked down at the tag with my name and the bend that matched his.
“If you go with me,” he said, “I’ll go in.”
“If you stand outside when they take my vitals, I’ll keep breathing.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“I’ll sign the notebook for visitors and wear out the chair.”
He nodded once, and something in his shoulders came down an inch.
There are miles a body gives back to you when a door is promised.
“I want to say one more clean thing about Greene,” he added.
“He talked about Thursdays because that’s when the pay phone near the chapel worked more often than it lied.”
I let the detail land and make its small light.
Then I picked up the Polaroid we had brought in a book sleeve and set it on the map.
Four boys, a tree, a shadow that never turned into shade.
Greene grinning like he’d been told the world, for all its trouble, was still worth the walk.
“We take this to Harper,” I said.
“In Youngstown before the month is done.”
“We will,” he said. “I want to tell her about the joke he made with the ham and lima beans. She should hear it in a room, not read it off a stone.”
A runner passed with earbuds in and gave us a nod.
He didn’t know he’d just witnessed an oath sworn in the smallest font.
Eddie tapped the map where the grease had thinned to a faint bruise.
“The handset sang back to us that night,” he said. “We don’t get many nights where the song returns.”
“The song returned,” I said.
“We did too. Not whole, but more than rumor.”
He pulled his coat tight and coughed into the crook of his arm.
The sound had depth that worried me.
“You running a fever?” I asked, keeping it casual so the worry would not crack the moment.
“Night air sticks,” he said. “I’ll sweat it out once I’m indoors.”
“We’ll let a nurse argue with you about that,” I said.
He almost smiled, and the almost did honest work.
“Say your line,” he told me then, looking at the tags on the map.
“The one you carved with the lighter on some long night I barely remember.”
I touched both tags at once.
Cold metal, warm palm, a circuit finally closed.
“No one comes home alone,” I said, and the wind moved past us as if it knew the words by heart.
He nodded and said it again, the cadence new and old at once.
We ran the call one more time like a drill we wanted perfect.
Adjust fire. Left one hundred. Drop two hundred. Shot. Splash. Fire for effect. The river gave us no echo and still heard.
When we rose, the map wanted to fly but didn’t.
I rolled it slow and slipped it into the case as if packing a flag.
He handed me my tag back.
I hung it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt where heat could teach it to be mine again.
“Keep yours,” I said, pointing to his.
“Not as baggage. As a key.”
“A key to what?” he asked.
“To doors that open when you say your name without flinching.”
We walked the path toward the parking lot with small steps and a big silence.
Sky thinned from pewter to iron.
At the car, he rested a hand on the roof and leaned, just for a breath.
Then he straightened and put both palms on the glass as if blessing it.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Nine o’clock. I can be clean and checked in by noon if the paper doesn’t bite.”
“I’ll bring coffee,” I said.
“And a Saint Christopher if I can find the one from the house drawer.”
He patted his chest pocket as if counting inventory.
“Don’t bother,” he said lightly. “I might already be wearing one I don’t remember getting.”
We both laughed, and the laugh made room for the night.
It wasn’t loud. It was enough.
I opened the passenger door and let the heater put life back in his fingers.
He held them up to the vent and studied the veins like roads.
“After intake,” he said, “we call San Antonio. We let Maria know I can hear her voice without running.”
“We will,” I said. “We’ll let Texas be a lamp and not a judgment.”
He closed his eyes for the span of three deep breaths.
When he opened them, the river had darkened and the first star had the courage to try.
I drove him to the church shelter for the evening meal.
He wouldn’t take a bed there, but he would take stew and a seat near the heater’s hum.
At the curb, he held my wrist a second.
The grip had field memory in it and something gentler too.
“See you in the morning, Jim,” he said.
“Bring the map. Bring a pen. We might need to sign something that wasn’t written yet.”
“I’ll be here,” I told him.
“Early, as is my habit.”
He stepped out and shouldered the air like a pack he could finally put down soon.
He didn’t look back, which meant he trusted the road to hold.
I watched him go until the door swallowed him and the light over the lintel steadied.
Then I rested my head on the wheel and let my breath count backward to calm.
The tags lay warm against my chest.
The lighter rode my pocket like a stone you skip once and keep forever.
On the drive home, the bridges made their iron sentences.
The river said nothing and did not need to.
At the house, I set an alarm I wouldn’t require.
I laid out clothes like a man planning a march he wants to finish.
Before sleep, I touched the map case, then the photo, then the lighter.
Three old things that still knew how to start a day.
Promise line: At first light, we trade metal for a clean bed and breath.
Part 6 – Intake
Recap: At first light we carried map and courage to the clinic door, and Eddie promised to enter if my name held steady.
9:00 a.m., November 13, 2025, Cleveland—community intake.
The lobby smelled like soap and pencil shavings.
Eduardo Ruiz stood beside me, hands in his coat, shoulders set like a man shouldering weather.
I, James Hollis, held two coffees and the pouch with his letter inside.
A receptionist slid a clipboard through the slot.
Name, date of birth, emergency contact, today’s date.
Eddie took the pen like it might bite.
He printed carefully, pausing between letters until his breathing matched the strokes.
A wall clock clicked louder than it needed to.
Some rooms measure courage with seconds and paper.
“Morning, Mr. Ruiz,” a nurse said, voice bright but not sharp.
“Vitals first, then a warm room and a shower.”
Eddie dipped his head, as if saluting the idea of heat.
He looked at me to see if I’d stay.
“I’m right here,” I said.
“I’ll drink this thin coffee like it’s a post.”
They led him to a small bay with a curtain.
I took a chair that complained under me like an old friend.
Through the gap, I saw a cuff inflate on his arm.
He watched the numbers like a radio dial he used to trust.
The nurse asked what he preferred to be called.
“Eddie’s fine,” he said. “Eduardo if the lights are on.”
“Lights are on,” she answered, smiling with the corners of her eyes.
“Eddie it is.”
He sat still while the thermometer blinked its brief verdict.
His pulse showed the road he’d walked.
“Room’s ready in ten,” she said. “Shower first. We’ll get you new socks.”
At the word socks, he looked at his shoes like they were old maps.
I held my own breath until I could set it down.
The receptionist refilled the coffee pot and slid me a nod that meant keep going.
I watched the door and remembered another door.
July 1969, a field service near the rear, soldiers standing under a sky like tin.
A chaplain read words older than the war, soft enough to be heard.
The men passed lighters and letters as if trading breath.
Eddie, younger by a thousand miles, had pressed the Zippo into my hand.
“J.H.—Don’t come home alone,” he said, and laughed like it could be ordered.
A cart squeaked, and the present returned.
They handed Eddie a towel, soap, and a small packet of patience.
He hesitated at the threshold.
Fluorescent light made his coat look like a storm cloud folded to fit a hook.
“You good?” I asked, keeping my voice level.
“Good enough,” he said. “Better with you outside.”
I took another chair closer to the doorway and let my knees learn the wait.
A volunteer offered me a brochure on evening meetings and morning oatmeal.
“I’m familiar with both,” I said.
She nodded like a person who has believed harder things.
Water ran beyond the wall.
It sounded the way rain sounds when it keeps its promises.
When it stopped, a different nurse went in with a clean set of clothes.
She came back with a small, puzzled smile and a pair of worn socks.
“Mr. Hollis?” she asked. “You with him?”
“I am,” I said, standing without thinking.
She held up something that caught the light.
A small medal on a short piece of chain, dull with years.
“Found this in his sock toe,” she said.
“Looks like Saint Christopher. He says he doesn’t remember putting it there.”
I took the medal and felt a coolness that did not belong to the room.
The figure was rubbed smooth where a thumb had lived.
Eddie stepped out a minute later, hair damp, beard trimmed to something tidy.
He wore the clinic’s gray sweats like they’d been issued in another decade.
“Where’d you get that?” he asked, seeing the medal in my palm.
“You tell me,” I said. “It was riding in your sock like a stowaway.”
He stared at it as if it might remember on his behalf.
“I had one once,” he said slowly. “Gave it away before a flight that never left.”
“Maybe it found its way back,” I said.
“Stranger things return when the door’s open.”
He slipped the medal into his pocket and patted it twice.
Not superstition—inventory.
They led us down a hall where the floor wax kept yesterday’s shine.
Rooms opened like small mouths, each with a bed, a chair, and a square of window.
“Here we are,” the nurse said. “Fresh sheets. Lunch at noon. Paperwork when your hands stop shaking.”
Eddie nodded and sat on the edge of the mattress like a man testing ice.
He looked at the chair and then at me.
“I need five minutes without anyone asking me a good question,” he said.
“I can give you six,” I answered.
I set the Zippo on the windowsill where a winter thin sun could find it.
He laced his fingers and studied his knuckles like hills on a map.
“Bathrooms are quiet,” he said. “That helps.”
I stood with my back to the door and watched the day adjust.
The window showed a parking lot and a strip of sky that had more work to do.
“Eddie,” I said when his shoulders softened, “you said we’d make a call.”
“San Antonio,” he said. “My sister. Maria.”
“You want to rest first?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I want to lie down on a bed that doesn’t move.”
“We can call tonight,” I said. “I’ll stay close.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “You already did the heavy lift.”
“The heavy lift is remembering how to sleep,” I said.
“We’re both trying.”
He smiled with only his eyes.
Then he swung his legs up and drew the blanket to his chest.
The nurse returned with a cup and two pills.
“Just to calm the rattle,” she said. “You’ll still be yourself.”
He took them like a man reading a polite order.
Then he closed his eyes without argument.
I pulled the chair near the door and let the minutes line up.
The heater breathed. Footsteps passed and softened. Paper whispered paper.
I took the bent dog tag from my pocket and pressed it into my palm.
Metal remembered the culvert’s tooth; my hand remembered being held under a hard sky.
“No one comes home alone,” I said under my breath.
The words sat in the room and did work I didn’t have to see.
Eddie slept the way trees sleep in winter.
Still from the outside, busy inside.
I called the front desk and added my name to the visitor list.
The clerk said “noted” like a benediction.
When he stirred, it was midafternoon.
He blinked, found the window, and found me.
“You’re still here,” he said.
“Habit,” I answered. “Useful ones are rare.”
He sat up slow and reached into his pocket.
The medal came out like a small moon.
“I don’t believe in a lot,” he said.
“But I’ll carry this until we know who handed it back.”
“Deal,” I said.
“After dinner, we make the call.”
He nodded and let the idea stand.
Then he looked at the pouch on the chair.
“The letter,” he said. “Give it to me.”
I handed it over.
He held it with care that could have read as ceremony if you didn’t know him.
He didn’t open it.
“Maria should open it,” he said.
“Her kitchen. Her light.”
I put the pouch away and felt the kind of relief that sits next to duty.
Two good things occupying the same chair.
A counselor knocked and stepped in with a notebook.
“Welcome,” she said, gentle and exact. “Rest, then orientation.”
Eddie listened as she named the hours like stations.
Breakfast. Group. Quiet time. A walk if the sidewalks behave.
“Medical will stop by,” she added. “Chest sounds must be heard before they’re believed.”
Eddie coughed once, as if on cue, and looked surprised at the depth of it.
“We’ll look after that,” she said, writing it down.
“Nothing showy. Just air returning to its job.”
When she left, we sat with that promise like a new tool.
It fit the hand.
Sun moved a finger’s breadth across the sill and touched the Zippo.
The engraving winked and went still.
I stood, stretched the old aches, and checked the hallway like a sentry.
“Need anything?” I asked.
“A pen,” he said. “For later.”
I set one on the tray and watched him look at it like a horizon.
Evening thickened. Dinner trays rolled past.
A voice somewhere down the hall laughed in the way relief laughs.
Eddie cleared his throat.
“Jim,” he said, and the word carried a weight that lifted us both a little.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Thank you for walking me to a door,” he said. “And not pushing.”
“You dragged me under concrete once,” I said.
“This was only fair.”
He smiled the real kind.
We let quiet draw the right size around the bed.
Outside, the parking lot lights came on one by one.
They made small islands on the asphalt.
I stood, tucked the dog tag back against my chest, and reached for my coat.
“I’ll be down the hall if you wake,” I said. “First chair, second window.”
“I’ll sleep,” he said.
He touched the medal once and closed his eyes.
I stepped out and let the door whisper shut.
The corridor held its peace.
At the end of the hall, a public phone sat under a cork board.
I wrote SAN ANTONIO, MARIA on a scrap and folded it over a coin.
I rested my hand on the Zippo in my pocket.
The metal was warm, like a ready answer.
I looked back once and saw only the door, calm and ordinary.
Some battles end that way—without a cymbal, only a breath.
I took the visitor chair and watched the evening take its shape.
Snow began again, fine as flour, steady as a promise kept.
Promise line: When he sleeps safe tonight, I’ll dial a Texas number at last.
