Where Dreams Are of Christmas

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Hogan had two places to be, which was an improvement. For the last six months, he’d only had the one, his condo. His buddies—his buddy, he’d chased off pretty much everyone except Eric by being Mister Gloom for so long, had insisted that he get out. There was only so long you could hole up in a condo at the heart of a city as alive as Seattle.

So, now he either sat watching at his condo’s window a dozen stories into the sky above the world of the Pike Place Market. Or he wandered the half mile down to the Lawrence Armed Forces Shelter in Pioneer Square.

He wasn’t a vet, but Eric Lawrence didn’t hold it against him, though some of the guys had at first. Now that he’d shown up every afternoon for a month they were starting to forgive him for never having served. He’d spent his twenties fighting computer code and corporate politics, a far less lethal environment. He’d loved doing it, but now he was mid-forties, financially set for life, and he was done. Corporate wars had taken the fun out of it.

The guys at the shelter let Hogan work in the kitchen and keep to himself. Mostly.

Richie was in rare form today and clearly his PTSD needed a target. As usual, Hogan was it.

“Hogan, man,” all of Richie’s diatribes started that way. On days like this he couldn’t just chop vegetables and leave Hogan in peace. Each time it was something different. Richie had lost all connection to normal but seemed to keep hunting around looking for it, hoping someday he’d hit it by chance.

“Hogan, man, I can’t believe you never even shot anybody.”

Today wasn’t going to be the day.

“You don’t know what you can really do until then.”

Hogan, kept his focus on the chowder kettle. It was an exceptional device, absolutely suited to one purpose, making large batches of soup quickly. To make the chowder, it took two large number ten cans of condensed chowder, that came out in a near solid, brownish mass, filled with a thousand bits of white potato, and gray clams. Even the green flecks of parsley were included. Add two gallons of milk and set the timer for twenty minutes. The steam-jacketed kettle heated it through without scorching, as long as he remembered to stir it and scrape the bottom every five minutes. A long handle then let you tip the contents right into the serving inserts for the steam table. He liked the efficiency and single mindedness of it.

A trait it shared with Richie. The man was starting in on the different methods of killing the enemy that he had supposedly experienced. To hear him talk, he had won Desert Storm singlehandedly back in the ‘90s and been at the shelter ever since. Even Eric didn’t know how much of Richie was real and how much came from his primary hobby, collecting war movies. He claimed it was the only thing that kept him calm, the sound of war a constant in the background.

Richie was the most extreme person in the kitchen. There was room for five of them, and not a lot more. Richie and Sam worked at a long steel table. Today they were filleting great tubs of cleaned fish, wielding long curved knives as if they were extensions of their arms. The fish flew into stacks, neat little butterflied pieces just perfect for making the fish and chips for tonight. Standard Friday fare.

His friend Eric was at the dishwasher and his wife Betsy worked battering and breading the fish as fast as the other two men sliced it up. Eric had had an easy tour, but none of the three friends who’d signed up when he did had come home. So, he paid back his missing friends by founding the kitchen.

He’d recruited Hogan just recently. They’d met at a bookstore and both reached for the last copy of the new Clive Cussler book at the same time. That was all the opening Eric needed, ever. When he’d learned Hogan was at loose ends, he’d dragged him down to the shelter, “Until he found something better to do.” After a month, Hogan hadn’t found anything better. And the work at the shelter was becoming more important to him, helping out, making a difference, even if it was a small one.

Hogan began chopping the heads of lettuce and throwing them in the big tubs of water to stay fresh. Cans of beans, beets, and a half dozen other items would be opened right before service to set up the salad bar. Then a half-dozen chilled onions to slice up thin.

He wished Richie would stop saying, “Hogan, man” so that he could think about Maria. He’d heard someone call her that one day. The fishmonger, in his big voice shouting to her, “Maria, my love. You must run away with me.” Her laugh had sparkled and lit the rainy day as if it had struck fire and rainbows.

That was a good metaphor for her. Fire and rainbows, heat and life, vibrant and multi-spectral.

He wondered if she smelled as good as her kitchen.

That’s when he noticed the smell in this kitchen. He rushed to the chowder pot. Scorched. The chowder would be fine, but it would take him an extra half hour today to get it clean.

Not that he had anything better to do.