All About Angels

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Mackensie “Mickey” Keller and Julian Junk, proprietors of Junk and Keller Waste and Refuse Management and Haul-Away Service, wore T-shirts that said so. Julian, who everyone referred to as Junk, was driving, while Mickey rode along, hanging on to the grip bar on the back of Godzilla, the moniker given to the 30,000 pound vehicle. With the temperature in Virginia a good fifteen degrees warmer than New Mill Town, New York, it was balmy enough to do so without a coat.

“This really is fun,” Daniel said.

The sky was blue, and the sun shone brightly. Still, there was a bit of pre-holiday magic in the air, as both Mickey and Junk licked away at minty candy canes at just past breakfast time.

When they pulled up to the next residence in the cul-de-sac on the western side of Denton, Virginia, rather than just let the claw grab the cans, Mickey hopped down, and Junk got out from behind the wheel, since that day there were boxes and other assorted trash sitting out at the curb in front of the Bergen residence as well.

“Looks like someone cleaned out the place.” Junk took off his cap and gave his dark wild mane a shake. “Mr. Bergen’s been a customer for decades. I think he and Sharon were together about twenty years,” he told Mickey. “A second marriage for both. Now that she’s passed away, I guess he’s moving out.”

“I don’t think I ever met her.” Mickey started going through the trash, some loose items—a dented mailbox, an electronic keyboard, two lawn chairs, and a popcorn popper. “How much of it are we taking home?” he asked with a smile.

“You know me so well.”

“Mmm.” Daniel enjoyed what he saw. “Two trash collectors kissing and groping as they lick one another’s candy cane so openly on the street is rather sexy,” he said.

“Perhaps we should turn away a moment,” Jefferson suggested.

“I don’t know why. They must know people can see them and do not seem to mind.”

“There’s definitely some good stuff here.” Junk turned back to his duties after three kisses and four licks. He was a collector of other people’s junk. A lot of it he refurbished and passed along to a local secondhand shop. A few items he kept. A string of old-fashioned Christmas lights on top of one box caught his eye. “Christmas decorations should always be passed down, not thrown away,” he said with a hint of sadness.

“They look a little dangerous.” Mickey cringed. “I think these are the kind from way back before there were safety standards.”

“That reminds me of one of the few times I met Mrs. Bergen. It was Christmas time, right? And this kid was stringing lights right at that house over there.” Junk pointed across the street to a gray two story home with blue shutters, a neat, green lawn, and a split rail fence painted white. “Just as Pops and I rounded the corner in the truck…It must have been a Saturday run, because I was with him. Five or six years ago, give or take, I’m gonna say. Anyway, it’s wet. Rain the night before. A lot of it. Puddles in the street, all the driveways, some of the yards, even. Just as we round the corner, we see this kid with one of those big orange extension cords in his hand. The lights, lights just like these, are all wound around the horizontal parts of the fence, all red, green, orange, blue. Next thing we know, this boy—my age at the time, sixteen, seventeen—he visibly stiffens. We see it, and we know right away something ain’t good.”

“s**t, man.” Mickey shivered.

“For real. Boom. Down he goes, flat on his face. Mrs. Bergen, she comes running out of the house here, like she’s had her eye on him the whole time. She’s screaming, and Pops yells at her not to touch him, because, like, she might get zapped, too.”

“Right.” Mickey hung on every word.

“My Pops, he’s like a superhero. He jumps down out of the garbage truck, grabs a big limb that must have come down with the rain and wind. Did I mention wind?”

Mickey shook his head side to side.

“I should have mentioned wind. But Pops, like, whips this big stick like a samurai sword, and he manages to yank the fat orange cord out of the kid’s hand, but it don’t look good, Mick. It don’t look good.”

“Oh, no.”

“Mrs. Bergen, she’s crying and screaming, like this boy is her boy, but he’s not. Her boy died, though, when he was a teenager, so, like, maybe this is bringing all that back to her.”

“Right.” Mickey waved away Godzilla’s exhaust, as the truck still idled while Junk told his story.

“Mrs. Bergen is looking up at the sky, wailing, praying to someone. I look at Pops. It’s like an instant all this happens in, an instant that feels way longer, but we’re just about to dial 911, which is what you do right away, so it’s all so quick, but feels like forever. Well, all at once, as Mrs. Bergen is looking up and doing her prayer thing, this kid opens his eyes. He’s alive! He’s alive!”

“Man. s**t, Junk.” Mickey leaned against the side of the truck. “I don’t even know him, and I’m glad he’s alive.”

“Yeah, like, just like that,” Junk snapped his fingers, “he’s standing up. He hugs Mrs. Bergen, and the look on her face, I know, I can tell, she feels like her son is hugging her, too, somehow. Super Pops, he gets out his thick rubber gloves and yanks that cord from the outdoor outlet. Everything would have been fine, except the cord had been chewed by some rodent while stored away. Big bite out of the orange coating…exposed wires…right in the puddle. The poor kid had no idea.”

“Don’t bring those lights home.” Mickey tried to wrestle them away from Junk.

“It wasn’t the lights, Mick. It was—”

“Junk.”

One look in Mickey’s eyes, “Okay,” he said. “No lights.” He tossed them into the back of the truck, then went for the box beside the one the lights had been in. “For a minute there, I thought this box had my name on it.”

“Justice,” Mickey read, as Junk set the box to one side of the trash masher. “Same first two letters.”

“Remember when I found that box that did have my name on it, Mick, because you threw all my stuff away?”

“Accidentally.” When Mickey tapped Junk’s lips with his candy cane, Junk bit off the tip. “Hey! No biting!”

“Ha.”

“My sister threw away your stuff. But we got it back.”

“Yeah.” Junk was already rummaging through items. “People shouldn’t throw away yearbooks.”

“No? Yearbooks and Christmas decorations. What else?”

“Anything from childhood. You think you’re done with all of it, but a day is going to come when you want to look back. Like now, I’m glad Pops and I saved all my old toys for Violet and Dill Pickle.”

“Our kids do enjoy looking at the historic artifacts we used to play with before X-Box was invented.”

“Right? Nintendo Wii now belongs in a museum.”

“I’m glad we looked back, that Halloween a few years ago, Junk. You riding up in Godzilla with your pops, me riding up on horseback…” Mickey tasted peppermint on Junk’s lips, and Daniel still enjoyed watching him do it.

“I’m glad, too, Mick.” But Junk was more drawn to the present at that moment for some reason. “New Mill Town High,” he read from the front of the yearbook, the words in gold lettering on a background of navy blue. “Justice Becker.” That, too, was written in gold.

“Ah, a New Mill Town connection,” Daniel said. “I am going to assume this is not a coincidence.”

“No, indeed.” Jefferson confirmed the notion. “There are no coincidences in our line of endeavor. Even that story of the boy and the Christmas lights is tied to our mission.”

“I wonder if Justice is still there.” Junk turned back the cover.

“Where’s there?” Mickey got out his phone. “There are a few New Mill Towns, according to Google,” he discovered.

“Whoever Justice is, he has a cool name and people dig him. He’s got, like, a million signatures in here. Oh.”

“What?” Mickey asked.

“Mrs. Bergen. This is her son. Was her son.” Junk showed Mickey Douglas Pelley’s senior class portrait. The young boy was all smiles, ready to take on the world. “No one called him Douglas, I bet.”

“Right, like no one calls you Julian.”

“Or you Mackensie. Doug. Maybe even Dougie…He died just a couple months after graduation.” Sometimes, Junk knew a lot about his customers. Sometimes, just a little. “Mr. Bergen told me the story when he told me he was getting married. Dougie’s mom and her first husband split right after they lost their boy. The dad went one way, the mom moved south, or maybe they both did, and then split.”

“I don’t think you ever get over losing a child.” Mickey took Junk’s hand.

“I never would if, God forbid, anything ever happened to our two little ones,” he said.

“So, we figure their son had Justice’s yearbook when he died, and the mom kept it all his time?” Mickey touched the gold lettering.

“Doug took it to sign it, maybe. Here.” Junk turned to the very back of the book, where messy script took up the whole last page. “‘Love for this life and another, Dougie.’” That was all Junk read. Figuring the rest was private, thinking it possible Justice had never even seen it, he decided the one Dougie wrote to should be the first to read the sentiment. “It might mean a lot to this Justice guy to have it back after so many years.”

“Class of ‘93,” Mickey read over Junk’s shoulder.

“Justice and Dougie obviously meant a lot to each other. Not everyone signs their yearbook inscription ‘Love for this life and another…’”

“I would have, if I’d have thought of it,” Mickey said.

“You were off to private school by senior year,” Junk reminded him. “You didn’t sign my yearbook at all.”

“Oh, yeah. I can sign it when we get home, if you know where it is.”

Junk laughed. “It’s probably in the garage at Pop’s house.”

“See, I tend to forget any part of my life you weren’t a part of.”

“You’re sweet.” Junk helped himself to another kiss, and then another chomp at Mickey’s candy cane.

“Good thing I love you, Julian Junk.”

“I’m irresistible.”

“That you are.”

“Now, let’s get back to work, so we can get home to the kids and the horses.”

Once the rest of the Bergens’ trash had been dealt with, Junk took the yearbook up front with him.