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Show 139. It was true, he admitted. Sometimes he got so lonely he thought he'd die. If it was only the homesickness, he could go home. Humiliated, disgraced, he could still go home. But it was more than that. It was facing up-to what he'd done, to what he'd allowed to happen. It was an encounter he couldn't avoid, but one that was still too painful to think about. Maybe he had run away looking for an earlier JD, a kid who thought the world was his lollipop. Now he knew that person didn't exist anymore. He had been exposed, like a negative thrust in the light. He would never be the same again. JD reached the diner that night with just enough time to eat before it closed. He pushed open the door and found a seat at the counter. The waitress flipped a menu in front of him without so much as a grunt or a smile. She's no Sylvie, he told himself. JD ordered a cheeseburger, then looked around at the patrons seated at tables. The faces were new. The few he'd come to recognize while he was working the other shift were all going about their evening business by now. The games he'd played, speculating on how they lived, what they did to fill their days, would have to start all over again. It was then JD remembered the piece of paper folded inside his billfold, the note the desk clerk had handed him that day. JD had asked Hank Corrigan for a letter of reference when he first looked for work; twice after that Mr. Corrigan had tried to meet with JD. Once he'd been called out of town himself, once JD had to fill in on an extra shift. Now, when JD opened the square of paper, he felt a lift of excitement. "Call me," it read. "Important development. H. Corrigan." JD was eager to talk with him. There had been some recent UFO sightings in the Southwest. Then, too, Hank had said on the phone months ago that he'd located Clarence and Ruth Morris and would try to get a statement from them. Maybe that was the "important development." JD finished eating his dinner then rose to leave, asking for his change in small coins. Outside, moving along with the late shoppers, he thought of how many times he'd forced himself past that phone booth on the corner. "The Link" he called it. "Instant Cheer." The exile hearing a voice from home. But it was against the rules, his rules, anyway, to cry for help. |