“I don’t know,” New Guy said.   “Seemed like a lot of chapters just for the main character to ride off into the sunset in the end.”

“You’re missing the point.  Again.” Rusty from the hardware store chided him.  “It’s about redemption.  What would you do if you knew you didn’t have much time left, but you knew you had enough to set things right beforehand, and the resources to do it?”

“You don’t even know for sure he died in the end,” New Guy shot back.  “Could have gone off to live in Alaska, sent the dog back home because it was sick, and still had enough funds to live out his days however he wanted to.”

Pointing over at New Guy, Sister Thelma whispered to Lucinda, “He really is a hard guy to dislike until you get to know him.”

There was a pretty good sized group gathered around the big round table in the middle of the Grounds for Divorce.  Seemed bigger than usual.  The So Long and Farewell series seemed to be conjuring up quite a bit of conversation.  Maybe it was the idea of one’s mortality.  Or maybe it was the interesting way the protagonist dealt with his own.  

“I think it tells us more about the Captain than it does about Mason McCulloch,” Motcat noted as Lucinda filled up all the CMC mugs with hot Folgers.  “I think there was a lot of him in both the Miss Throckmorton character and the Mason McCulloch character.  Don’t forget the English teacher connection.  And based on the part about getting licks with a paddle made in the wood shop at Jim Bowie High, I can guarantee you he’s felt the sting of white oak on his backside at least once.”

Chad, on break from the pressures of being Assistant Manager at the Piggly Wiggly, mentioned the relationship between Mason and Whiskey and how it fit into the story.  “They were like male dolphins.”  The blank stare on the faces of everyone around the table must have told him something.  “It’s a known fact that male dolphins have ‘bromances’ where they will pair up for as long as 15 years.  They help each other out.  Even help each other hook up with female dolphins.”

“Along those same lines,” New Guy said, “If a female fox dies, her mate will stay single forever.  But a widowed female fox will begin looking for a new mate immediately.”

Everyone looked at Lucinda, who just shrugged her shoulders and said, “That’s about right.  Doesn’t mean you aren’t still a ninnyhammer.”

“Do you think Mason ever knew that Whiskey and Kristen got together in the end and that he basically bankrolled their relationship?” Rusty asked.

“I think that might have been his intent all along,” Pastor Peterson surmised.  “Why else make sure they were in such close proximity together?”  Sister Thelma nodded, as though that had never really crossed her mind before.  “The tragedy was that a five minute mistake cost decades of pain and lost relationships,” he followed up.

“All too possible,” Sister Thelma said.

“What I don’t get,” HairlessB29 said, “is why there was never a mention made of another love in Mason’s life after the one in high school. I mean, really?”

“Doesn’t matter the ones that followed,” Lucinda noted, “if the one that was ‘the love of his life’ got away. That’s the whole point.”

“Or, it could be that Whiskey was the only love that followed,” Rusty said reflectively. As soon as the words left his lips, he regretted letting them go. The entire table looked at him out of the corner of one eye.

“It wasn’t a Fort Stockton version of Brokeback Mountain, for god sakes.” Lucinda said, trying to make light of Rusty’s observation. ”Besides, we almost lost RogerD after Chapter 4. There isn’t time in seven chapters to tell the man’s entire life story. Any more broken hearts would have been enough to send Bosshoss over the edge.” Both Roger and the Boss nodded in agreement, but were still glancing at Rusty, wondering just what the hell had gotten into him.

Captnemo seemed to have something on his mind as he sipped his Folgers.  “I’m curious as to what happened with Kenny Dillon.  Suppose the Continental was key to him finding redemption in his Golden Years?  A convertible can do that.”

“God works in mysterious ways,” Pastor Peterson said.

“So the Captain is or was an English teacher?”  Carunch asked.

“There was a French guy by the name of Thomas de Mahy, Marquis de Favras,” New Guy said.  “A martyr for the Royalist cause, he was arrested and executed for his part in the French Revolution.  When they read his death sentence, just before lopping off his head, his last words were, ‘You have made three grammatical errors.’”

“What the hell?” Rusty asked. His patience with New Guy was coming to an end.

“That just tied in to the Captain being an English teacher.”

“See what I mean?” Sister Thelma whispered to Lucinda.

“So you really think there’s a possibility we might see Mason McCullough again in a future story?” Olbugger wondered out loud.

“Well,” Carunch noted, “Seems like there is a tendency for characters to migrate from one story to another when the Captain starts spinning tales.  Kristen going to Michigan in Home for the Holidays certainly played a big role in So Long and Farewell.

Marty Roth and Stephendurland nodded.  “Sure ‘nuff.”

The rest of the crowd in the cafe had thinned out, to where it was pretty much just the big round table in the middle that still had customers.  It gave Lucinda a chance to sit down and be a part of the conversation.  “I liked that the story started out with Mason in the Man Cave surrounded by his collections of cars and books, and the rest of the story involved giving all those things away.”  Everyone nodded.  “He made sure those who he cared for most got the things he valued the highest.”

Out of nowhere, New Guy proclaimed, “A condom can hold up to two liters of water.  If you’re ever lost in the desert, and don’t have anything to store water in, it could save your life.”  The mention of condoms at the table made Sister Thelma uncomfortable.  New Guy made everyone else uncomfortable. ”Anyway, I was exhausted by the end of Chapter 7.”

Changing the subject, Sister Thelma asked what the baseball bat with a sock on the end of it was for, leaning up against the counter next to the Bunn-O-Matic..  “In case I’m ever robbed, I know how to use that Louisville slugger like a lethal weapon,” she explained.

“What’s the point of the sock on the end?”

“First tendency of the perp is going to be to grab the end of the bat while I’m beating the tarnation out of him.  All he’ll get is the sock.  It’ll slide off and I’ll get one more blow to the head while he’s confused,” she replied.

I swear, the woman thinks of everything.  Mason McCulloch was right.  She did deserve a nearly brand new Ford Bronco Big Bend Edition.  And the signed set of McMurtry novels wasn’t wasted on her, either.

Sister Thelma just looked out the window, towards the Piggly Wiggly, and past Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern beyond that without saying a word.