Free Bad Radio by Michael Langlois

long rectangles across the wooden porch, spilling out into the yard.
    I walked around to the SUV’s rear hatch, listening to the crunch of my footsteps and the wind slithering through the oak’s high branches. Those small sounds underscored the thick silence. I put both of my duffels over one shoulder, and Anne’s over the other and then locked the car.
    “Thanks, but I can carry my own bag,” said Anne as we walked to the porch.
    “I got it.” I knocked on the door.
    “I said I can carry it.” She yanked her duffel off of my shoulder and slung it over her own.
    “Take mine, too, if you like carrying bags so much. I’m not that big a fan.”
    The door swung open with a long creak from the steel spring bolted to the top of it, revealing Henry ‘The Professor’ Monroe. He looked pretty good to me for a man in his eighties. The deep wrinkles and sagging, parchment-thin skin did little to distract from his clear and steady gaze.
    “Abraham. Come on in.” His smile was bright in his dark face, and warm.
    We followed him into a small but neat kitchen. He wore gray work pants, heavy black shoes, and a sleeveless wife beater undershirt.
    “It’s been a long time, Henry,” I said. Then I dropped my bags and hugged the guy.
    “It’s great to see you, Abe.” He slapped me on the back a few times, and I’ll be damned if my eyes weren’t a little moist when we were done. We grinned at each other for a few moments in silence. “And who is this?” His voice was deep and measured, each word enunciated precisely in his round-edged mellow tones. It was this mannerism, more than his role as our portable scholar, that earned him his nickname.
    “I’m Anne, sir. Pleased to meet you.”
    “She’s Patrick’s granddaughter.”
    “Is that right? Well, I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Anne.” Henry smiled and shook her hand with both of his. “Can I get you two some coffee?”
    “Did you make it?”
    “Leon put it on for me.”
    “Then, yes.” We both chuckled at the old joke, which I was surprised still had the power to tickle me. Henry had burned enough coffee in the field to be the only man in the squad exempted from the task. Being the smart guy of the group, we all assumed he did it on purpose. He poured three big mugs of coffee from a battered old percolator and handed us each one. If Anne preferred cream or sugar, she didn’t say so. “Come on back into the den.”
    We followed him down a short hallway, passing framed pictures of family on the walls, mostly kids in their Sunday clothes laughing into cameras. Our feet made comfortable and quiet thumping noises as we moved across the wooden floor. The house was an old pier and beam affair, without a foundation, so there were a couple of feet between us and the ground below, lending our steps a hollow sound.
    Henry sat down with a grunt in his big easy chair and waved us to the overstuffed, Depression-era sofa to his right. There was a colorful hand knitted blanket draped across the back. Two big lamps and the wide windows looking out onto the front porch kept the room from being gloomy, as it might otherwise have been with the dark paneled walls and low ceiling. We sat down.
    Henry waited patiently with an amused glint in his eye as Anne stared openly at his hands and forearms. At first glance they appeared to be terribly scarred. Long teardrop-shaped welts and rivulets ran down both forearms, getting denser towards his wrists and then merging to completely cover his hands. It looked like he had plunged them into a vat of hot cooking oil, which had splattered up both arms. Then, as you noticed that his hands were smooth and supple, the pattern seemed to reverse like an optical illusion, as if everything except that skin was burned, and that the youthful texture of his hands was what ran up his arms, splashing over the rest of his wrinkled, thin skin.
    Anne looked up to see Henry watching her, and blushed in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean