Read When Crickets Cry for Free Online

Florida, and I drove a rental car to the Sea Turtle Inn at Jacksonville Beach, where the conference started promptly at 8:00 a.m. I checked in, slicked my hair straight back, added more gray around the edges, splashed some Skin Bracer on my face, and tied a double Windsor knot that shortened my tie to two inches above my belt. My coat was too small, sleeves too short, and my pant legs were hemmed at noticeably different lengths. The pants and jacket were both navy but mismatched, from two different suits I had bought at the consignment shop, and my wingtips were double-soled and twenty-five years out of style. I slid on my thick, horn-rimmed glasses, which contained no prescriptive benefit whatsoever, kept my eyes to myself, and steadied myself on an old worn cane.

    I stayed in the bathroom until after everyone had left, walked in after the announcements had been made, sat in the back, spoke to no one, and gave no one the opportunity to speak to me. And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.
    The keynote speaker was a man I'd read much about, who had also written much and who was now considered one of the leaders in his field. I'd heard him at a few other conferences around the country, but despite my interest, and the fact that he was just slightly wrong in a few areas, my mind was elsewhere. The window to my left looked out over the Atlantic, which was calm, rolled with sets of small waves and dotted with pelicans and the occasional porpoise or surfer. By the time I looked back at the podium, the group had recessed for lunch. I can't tell you what the man talked about, because all morning I had been thinking about a little girl in a yellow dress, the taste of that lemonade, and the engraved reference on the back side of the sandal.
    These conferences served two purposes: they kept guys like me current on the latest information, the practices and techniques that don't make it into the journals but take place every day; and they brought colleagues together so they could catch up and pat one another on the back. I know lots of these people. Or, rather, knew. Even worked pretty closely with a few. Fortunately, they couldn't recognize me now even if they sat down beside me.

    Which is exactly what happened just after lunch. I was sitting two rows from the back in a sparsely populated and poorly lit area of the room when Sal Cohen shuffled down my row and pointed at the seat next to me. What in the world is he doing here?
    I nodded and kept my eyes pinned forward. The slide show continued for almost two hours wherein Sal fluctuated between deep interest and deep sleep accompanied by a slight snore.
    At three in the afternoon, a new speaker mounted the podium. He had performed about four years of research on a new procedure, now called the "Mitch-Purse Procedure," which had become the new buzzword among most of the men and women in this room. It was especially fashionable now that a doctor in Baltimore had been the first person to successfully pull it off. I had no interest in his discussion and really didn't care if somebody had figtired out how to make it work, so I excused myself and bought a cup of coffee in the lobby. Shortly after five in the afternoon, they concluded the one-day conference, credited my attendance, and I drove back to the airport for my flight home. And yes, I was a bit worried that Sal had booked the same flight home. I checked the flight roster before boarding, and Sal's name didn't appear. If it had, I would have missed the flight and found another carrier. We landed in Atlanta, and after a few delays and a wreck in the northbound lane of the Beltway, it was after midnight when I got home.
    Across the lake, Charlie's house was dark, but that meant little. His house was often dark. I heard the faint sound of his harmonica echoing through the walls. A few minutes after I arrived, the sound stopped and the night fell quiet. All except the crickets. They tuned up and sang me to