Homecoming

Part 1: Frozen Hearts

Mr. Mystery was kneeling on the hard tile in the women's room, seating a brand-new toilet, when the knock came at the door. With a grunt, Soos got to his feet, making a mental note to come back and make sure the toilet base was properly bolted down before making the pipe connections.

The Mystery Shack felt cold—it was off-season, and he'd turned the thermostats way down to save energy—but a fire burned in the parlor fireplace, and he passed through there as the knock came again. He opened the front door onto a snowscape—a foot on the ground and more falling—and found a scraggly, tall bum standing there, shoulders hunched. "We're closed until April, dude."

"I'm looking for Jesús Finster," the bum mumbled, the words trailing off into a coughing fit. The winter wind whipped his thinning gray hair, uncut for months by the look of it, and flapped the skirt of his frayed, worn overcoat.

"Nobody here by that name," Soos said. "Come in, though, and warm up. You, uh, hungry, dude?"

"Yeah. I haven't eaten in—" he coughed again—"I don't know how many days now."

"Come on in." Soos closed the door behind him and led him to the parlor. "Sit right there in front of the fire. Dry your feet." He'd noticed the man was wearing dirty, torn white sneakers, soaked through. "How does ham and eggs sound?"

"And coffee?" asked the stranger hopefully.

"Sure thing."

Soos hummed as he busied himself in the kitchen, scrambling eight eggs, dropping in some cheese, frying two big ham steaks, popping toast into the toaster. As the aromas filled the air, he took a deep, happy breath and called, "How do you like your coffee?"

"Black's fine."

Soos poured a big, thick Mystery Shack mug full and took it to him. "Food will be ready in a minute."

He went back to the kitchen, buttered the toast, plated everything—giving the lion's share of the meal to the bum—and took the plate, knife and fork, and the coffee pot back to the parlor. The worn old shoes steamed on the hearth, and the man had his feet propped up next to them, the fire slowly drying his saggy socks. "Thank you," he said as Soos refilled his cup.

"No big thing, dude," Soos said cheerfully. He went back for his own breakfast and sat in Stan Pines's old chair. He began to eat, but was more interested in how his early morning visitor tore eagerly into the food.

"So tell me about this guy you're looking for," Soos said as he finished. "Maybe I know him."

"He's my son," the bum said, settling the empty plate aside with a sigh. "Grown man now, of course. I went to our old house, but new people own it now and they said that he moved out last summer and lives here now."

Soos almost dropped his cup. "I'm Jesús Alzamirano Ramírez," he said. "They call me—"

"Soos?" the man asked. He stared at the big guy. "Yeah, I see it now. They still call you by your baby nickname?" He fumbled inside his battered overcoat and brought out an old, faded, creased photo. "Remember? This was the last time I saw you."

Soos took the picture. In it he saw himself—four years old, then, but still unmistakably Soos—perched on the shoulder of his visitor, a younger man with a full head of dark hair and a roguish grin. "Dad?" he asked, his voice breaking.

"You took your mother's name," his visitor said. "Son, I'm Jake Finster, your old man."

"I didn't take anything," Soos said softly. "They gave it to me and I grew up with it. Nobody ever even mentioned your name. And you always signed those birthday postcards—"

"Just 'Dad,' yeah," Finster said. "Look, I'm sorry I never made it back. Things came up, and then they got word to me that your mom had died, and that sort of took the heart out of me for a return visit. But I've thought about you often."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Soos said, handing the photo back.

"So do you work here, or—"

"I run the place for the owners," Soos said. "Only we're closed for the season."

"You live here all by yourself?"

Soos shook his head. "My Abuelita lives here, too, but she's in Mexico until April, visiting her sisters and nieces." He hesitated and then added, "My wife lives here, too. Melody."

"You're married, huh? You happy?"

Soos felt his mouth quirk up in a wistful kind of smile. "Yeah, Dad. We both are. Me and Melody."

"And, uh, where's she?"

"In Portland. She used to live there and has some business to settle, closing on the sale of her townhouse and all, and she won't be back until next Monday."

Finster nodded and seemed to relax a little. "So you're alone over the weekend here? Could I ask you a big favor? Could I stay here tonight, dry out, get some food in me, some sleep? I have to be on the move tomorrow, but I'm about worn out."

"Dad—"

Finster's tone became wheedling: "Come on. You're my son. You owe me a little something."

Soos looked down, feeling his cheeks getting hot with—what? Embarrassment? Anger? He wasn't quite sure. In a level voice, he said, "Dad, I was just going to say you can stay here whenever you want. I'm addin' on a guest room, but it's not in shape yet. But there's a warm attic bedroom you're welcome to use."

"That's good of you," Finster said. He smiled. "I knew my boy would turn out all right."

He looked exhausted. Soos led him up the stairs, turned on the heat in the attic room—not too cold, anyway, since any warmth in the Shack rose—and made up one of the beds for him, fetching a few blankets. Finster stripped to his underwear and crawled into bed. He fell asleep almost the second his head hit the pillow. Soos collected his wet coat, shirt, pants, and socks and took them downstairs. After checking them for sizes, he put everything in the washer except for the coat—he hung that up on a coatrack in the parlor to dry before the fire—and then he checked the shoe size of the pathetic old sneakers.

The drive to Gravity Falls Mall was a slippery one even in the Jeep, but Soos took the curves carefully. He hit four stores inside, coming out with a backpack, four pairs of khaki pants, six flannel shirts, six pairs of socks, and six sets of underpants and undershirts. He also picked up a heavy denim jacket with pockets galore, a good sturdy pair of walking shoes, warm gloves, a fur-lined hat, and a heavy, waterproof overcoat.

Back at the Shack, he checked up: his dad was snoring. Soos stood looking down at him, noticing the missing teeth, the sunken cheeks, the pasty complexion. Whatever Jake Finster had been up to for the past eighteen years, it had beaten him down.

Soos finished his maintenance that morning. He placed his daily calls to his Abuelita and to Melody but didn't mention his visitor to either. Then for a long time he sat in the parlor just staring into the fire, listening to its steady crackle and the rush of smoke up the chimney. Eventually that afternoon he began preparations for dinner. Then at five he heard his father stirring around and took the new clothes up to him.

"Dude," he said, "you might want to take a good hot shower before getting into these. I hope the sizes are right."

"You bought those for me?" Finster asked. He grinned. "I knew I could trust your mother and grandmother with you. I was so sure you'd grow up to be a good son!"

Soos sighed. "Look, Dad, for ten years I worked for the best con artist in North America. Just don't try it, okay?"

For just a second, Jake glared at him. Then he shrugged. "Where's the bathroom?"

Soos showed him, laid out towels, soap, and razor for him, and then while his dad showered, Soos finished cooking the hearty meal—two big, thick ribeye steaks, huge baked potatoes, dinner rolls, and more coffee. He tossed a salad. By the time he got everything on the table, Finster had come in, looking better in the jacket, a fresh shirt, new pants, and new shoes. He had shaved his chin pink and had even made an effort to tame his scraggly mane of gray hair and had pulled it back into an old man's ponytail. "You're right," he said without any prelude. "I shouldn't try to con you. Let me just tell you the truth."

"Okay."

"Let me eat first. I don't usually tell the truth and I have to build up to it." They sat down to their dinner. Finster grabbed knife and fork and his elbows pumped as he cut and devoured the meat. Between wolfish bites, he mumbled, "I won't go into detail, but I'm in bad with some real bad people. They'll kill me if they catch up to me, okay? If I can just get to Canada, though, I've got friends there who'll hide me until this blows over. But I'm dead broke. I need a little travelin' cash. Son, can you spare me a hundred dollars?"

Soos sighed. It was what he had half expected and half feared.

Finster must have misinterpreted. In that begging tone, he said, "Twenty would help. Ten, even."

"It's not that," Soos said. "Yeah, Dad, I can spare you some money."

"That's my boy." Finster mopped up the last of the steak juice with a roll. "In that case, could you give it to me right now? I'll be on my way—I don't want to risk staying here and bringing them down on you."

Soos sighed. Take the money and run, he thought, but he said, "Come on, Dad. You can at least stay until tomorrow."

"I'd rather not, Son. Come on, this is your dad talking."

"Yeah, I know it is." So Soos went downstairs to the safe, opened it, and took out half of his ready cash. The men's' room renovation, he decided, could wait. The Shack did booming business in season, and the Pines brothers—who more or less owned it jointly now—weren't charging him any rent in exchange for his running the place and fixing it up. Yeah, he and Melody could manage on what was left until the Shack reopened in spring.

After a moment of hesitation, he also rifled through a box marked "PROPERTY OF STAN" until he found something that he thought might be useful. He came back upstairs.

"If you really mean to go to Canada tonight," Soos told his father, "there's a nine p.m. bus to Portland and then on to Vancouver that you can catch. I'll drive you into town." He handed him a stack of bills. "There's five thousand dollars in fifties and twenties. Dad—there won't be any more after this. You understand?"

Finster's gaze was locked on the fat stack of bills. "Five thous—Son, I don't know how to thank you. This means—"

In an angry tone, Soos said, "Don't Dad! Just—don't, okay?"

Jake Finster nodded. He rolled and rubber-banded the bills into three separate bundles before tucking them away in his inner jacket pockets.

"Here's one last thing," Soos said. He pushed the little booklet across the table.

Finster opened it and stared. "A passport?"

"It's still good, at least until June. The name's Samuel Pinella, but that wasn't the guy's real name, either. He's not wanted for anything. The picture isn't much like you, but it's nearly ten years old, and people change. Say you got sick."

"Okay."

Finster stuffed everything into his new backpack. He decided to leave the old tattered coat—but first, borrowing a pair of scissors, he cut out part of the lining and rescued a flat wallet, which he opened, showing Soos that it held no money. Then at seven they were ready to go. "We'll be way early, but I'll wait with you at the station until the bus leaves," Soos said.

They stepped into the cold front yard of the Shack. The snowfall had stopped, but a fresh three inches lay atop the old layers.

Soos headed for the Jeep, but he felt a hand close on his arm and paused. "What?"

"Son," Jake Finster said, "something else. I am sick. Real sick. I mean I won't be back, you know?"

"I'm sorry," Soos said, wishing he could feel sorrow.

"So—before I go—'cause I kind of think I owe you from when you were a kid—Son, you want to have a snowball fight?"

Even after chasing each other around in the darkness, bombarding each other with snowballs, and laughing their heads off, they still made it to the bus station just in time for Jake Finster to catch the bus north. And before he boarded it, Soos gave him a tight hug. "Thanks for the game, Dad," he said.

He stood there until the tail lights of the bus had faded and vanished over the crest of a hill. Then he got into the Jeep and in the still, cold night he drove home, humming to himself.