“So after the funeral are you going to stay in Chicago or go back to New Orleans?” Louise Trainer, aka Loki, asked John.
John nodded reflectively a few times before answering. “Great question. I’d like to stay with my wife but I’m not sure how things will pan out. I mean, I don’t even know if Joni can stay in her parents’ house or not, now that they’re both dead. As I said, she’s got brothers and a sister and I don’t know who’ll inherit what and all that. Maybe she’ll come back with me?”
“You have much of a life in NOLA, John?” Loki scrunched her nose and asked.
John looked at her and formed a half smile. “Almost none at all. I’d love to stay with her but I’m not sure of finding a job.”
Loki nodded, looked out the bus window and then back at John. “Well if you can get a job in New Orleans you ought to be able to get one in Chicago; shouldn’t you?”
“That makes sense but it isn’t true,” he sighed. “I was involved in a, well, unfortunate accident back quite a few years ago and my name got associated with something bad. I headed south after that to find work where nobody’d know me.”
“’Bad accident,’ huh? How long ago?”
“September of 2001.”
“Two thousand one!” Loki blew up her cheeks and snorted. “That was fifteen years ago. Did you kill someone?”
“No, but somebody died and I was kind of involved and my name was in the papers.”
“Oh, come on! That was a long time ago. When’s the last time you tried?”
“Up north? Maybe 2004. But with the internet nothing is really that long ago.“
Loki looked at John with a smile on her face and quickly bobbed her eyebrows up and down three times. “Did you go to prison?”
“I wasn’t even put on trial,” he replied, indignant with her attitude, not the question. “It’s hard to explain. People heard my name and recognized me and knew the story; it made national news. With a name like Knopick it’s kind of hard to hide.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said light heartedly. “But you didn’t commit a crime? I think you’re being kind of ridiculous. Over sensitive. You should at least try while you’re in Chicago; I mean, what have you got to lose?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Maybe I will, depending on what Joni wants. Can we change the subject? So, you said before that your dad has some crazy routine? What did you mean by that?”
“Oh my Lord! Well he did, it must have changed some now that Mildred’s passed, that was his wife’s name. He used to do the same thing most every day, starting with going to the bank to get his breakfast.”
“His bank serves breakfast?”
“Well, for Daddy it did.”
