by Wm. Barnard
“So does it already feel like you got a ball and chain strapped to your leg?” I asked before taking a couple of hefty swigs off my beer.
“Not at all. I’m really looking forward to it. Jenny is super cool and we’ve already been living together for almost two years anyway so she knows all my bad habits,” he said, laughing.
“Good for you, Todd. I’m happy for you.”
“You’re going to be there, right?”
“Of course, my man. I wouldn’t miss it.” I reached over and clinked Todd’s mug in a spontaneous toast.
“So is Jenny coming here with Heather?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. She might be working a night shift.”
I had met Jenny’s attractive sister a couple of times before and had been really impressed with her. Easy to build rapport with, Heather not only possessed a great sense of humor, but she seemed to truly care about people. Regretting not asking for her phone number last time we hung out, I had been hoping to cross paths with her again soon.
Shortly after Jenny arrived, I told her of my interest in Heather and she said, “You should have asked earlier. She’s been dating this doctor from her hospital for the last couple of weeks and they seemed to be really hitting it off.”
“Of, course. Just my luck,” I said smiling and trying to hide my disappointment.
“I’m getting another drink. You guys want anything?” I asked.
They both declined so I headed over to the bar with no intentions of coming back and being a third wheel. I must have ended up drinking my body weight in booze because the rest of the evening became an absolute blur. I don’t recall when I left the pub or how I managed to lose the valuable watch my grandfather had given me. And I certainly don’t have any recollection of going to sleep in a strange bed. Unfortunately, my foggy memory would prove to be the least of my worries.
CHAPTER 3
The white walls of the room melded with the white uniform in front of me as I strained to focus my eyes.
“Zach, can you hear me?” I recognized my sister Vanessa’s voice, but still didn’t see her face.
Pain seared through the top of my head while a nurse fiddled with the IV tower next to my bed. My eyelids fought to stay open and only when I tried to rub them did I become conscious of the sling on my left arm. Along with the increased pulsating pain from my swelling head, I became queasy from the sickening smell of antiseptic in the air.
“Geez, what happened to me?” I said hoarsely, my face cringing as I burped and tasted bile.
“You slammed your car into a lamppost about a mile from your house. You have thirty-five stitches in your head. The doctor said you were lucky…”
“Extremely lucky, Mr. Miller.” A doctor in a white lab coat announced as he entered the room. Shining his miniature flashlight into my eyes to check the dilation, he asked, “How are you feeling this morning?”
“My head is killing me,” I complained, hoping he wouldn’t continue to feel the need to use such a loud tone.
“You have suffered a major concussion, so you’re likely to experience some headaches for at least a couple of weeks. You also have a sprained left arm, but fortunately that’s the extent of your injuries.”
“That’s good.” I mumbled.
“It’s quite ironic, Mr. Miller, that the very reason you wrecked was the same reason you sustained less injuries as the alcohol kept your muscles relaxed when you crashed. I’m sure you know that I’m not advocating drinking and driving – I’m just trying to explain how lucky you are to not have been more seriously hurt. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, grabbing a clipboard from the foot of the bed before walking out.
With her strawberry blonde hair tied in a ponytail, Vanessa wore no make-up as usual, which helped to expose the dark circles under her hazel eyes. Standing up from her chair near the foot of my bed, she moved over to my right side so she could grab my good arm.
“Zach, you know I’ve been worried about your drinking for a while and I hope this all really sinks in that you need to give it up,” she whispered, attempting to keep our conversation from being overheard from any nurses that walked in.
“Vanessa, I never drive loaded.”
“You did last night,” Vanessa said, her cheeks now flushing red.
“Look, I don’t…”
“Don’t even start trying to BS me, Zach!” She cut me off and then lowered her voice again. “Do you want to end up like Dad? Do you want me to have to bury you, too?”
Biting her lip as it began to tremble, she looked up at the ceiling before rushing out of the room and down the hall.
I glanced around at some of the machinery that surrounded my bed before she returned to the room a few minutes later with moistened eyes and holding a wadded Kleenex. No longer looking angry, she sat down on the edge of the chair facing me from the foot of the bed.
“Zach, I know you might not believe this, but God was looking out for you last night.” Her voice was slightly shuddering.
I let out a deep sigh and closed my eyes.
“He’s been looking out for you your whole life,” she finished, innately knowing that was all the preaching I could handle right then.
MY HEADACHES SLOWLY SUBSIDED OVER the next week, but my real problems were just beginning. I had already been essentially unproductive over the last month and now I had to call my work and let them know I probably wouldn’t be able to write for at least a couple more weeks. While informed by my lawyer that I faced some hefty fines for the DUI charges, I also owed money on the loan for my only vehicle, which lay totaled in the junkyard. The news only got better when my insurance agent notified me that they were going to cancel my policy because of the serious violation.
Struggling to remain positive and be thankful that I at least still had my health and my job, I dropped by the office to give my boss an update on what I had heard.
“Zach, thanks for stopping by. How are you feeling?” Harry said, avoiding eye contact and fidgeting with the knot on his crimson necktie.
“Just sore right now,” I said, sitting down in front of his desk. “I wanted you to know that getting to work will not be a problem. While my license isn’t suspended yet, my attorney is going to arrange it so that I will have a permit to drive to work; and since my job calls for a varied schedule at a variety of places, I could basically say to any officer who happened to pull me over that I was on my way to work.”
Harry hesitated before speaking, abruptly getting up from his seat to go over and close his office door. As he gently walked back and sat down at his desk, an uneasy feeling rose up in my stomach when I saw his need for privacy.
“Zach, I have to tell you something. This isn’t coming from me, but because you essentially left your job last Monday, the magazine has decided to suspend you without pay. By the end of this week they will reach a decision on whether there are sufficient grounds for termination.”
Staring right past him, I knew right then my life had just stopped on a dime.
“Zach?” He tried to get my attention as I sat unresponsive to his last statement.
“What? I just cannot believe this.” I shook my head still trying to grasp what he just said.
“I know, I know. I got the call from H.R. this morning and I tried to make a stand for you but…” He flipped his palms upward implying there was nothing else he could do.
“Harry, I, uh, have never even heard of anything like this.”
“Me neither, Zach. I don’t totally understand the decision,” he said, trying to sound as empathetic as possible.
Although unsure if Harry was being truthful about the suspension coming from Human Resources, I really didn’t care who had made the decision at this point.
“You know what, Harry? Let’s just see how many awards this magazine wins in the future because I’ll never, and I mean never, write another one for you or your donkey bosses!” I stood up so quickly that Harry flinched backwards in his chair.
“Zach…”
Harry said trying to calm me down.
I marched toward the door, but a photo from a few years back of the MLJ awards ceremony caught my eye, stopping me in my tracks. Hung in a cherry wood frame, the picture had captured Harry with his arm around my shoulder as I held up my plaque for Journalist of the Year.
Glaring at the photo of the huge smile on his chubby face, I began to grind my teeth and wanted to slam it with my fist. Instead, my foot played the fool and I kicked right below the frame, causing the picture to hop off the hook and crash to the floor.
While my punting skills had served me well back on the high school soccer team, my strong leg now betrayed me as my shoe plunged completely through the wall. The dry wall immediately clutched onto my ankle, somehow trapping me and I struggled to set myself free.
Grabbing onto the door handle with my good hand, I inadvertently yanked it open which allowed all my co-workers to not only hear me shouting profanities, but now everyone could see my herky-jerky dance with the door.
“Great! Just great!” I screamed as I struggled to hold onto the moving door.
“Security, can you come up to my office immediately,” Harry said timidly into his speakerphone just as I retrieved my chalk-covered shoe.
Stooping down to knock the white dust off my pant leg and put my shoe back on, I kept my gaze on the floor as I could sense everyone on the twenty-fourth floor rubbernecking for a better vantage point of the commotion.
With my face flushed red, I dodged the numerous stares as I hurried over to my desk, grabbing my day planner and laptop before heading to the staircase to avoid being escorted out by the rental cops. After pushing open an exit door with my back, I suddenly became lightheaded and had to grab the handrail as I slowly made my way down the stairwell. While I had tried to be careful to keep my hurt arm from moving, a bolt of pain now shot down my elbow from the exertion.
Back on the street level, I walked a couple blocks to where I parked my compact rental car, and was welcomed by a bright yellow parking ticket under the windshield wiper. I removed it, my eyes scrolling down the scribbled handwriting before I found the bottom line. Seventy-five dollars! I said to myself. Crumpling the citation into a ball, I slung into the empty passenger’s seat.
After pulling into the street, I took some deep breaths to try and get my anger to subside, but it only took a few minutes before downtown traffic poured more gas onto my fury.
Thoughtlessly engaged on a cell phone, a young lady driving a brand new BMW cut me off, and almost clipped my front end. I slammed on the horn and yelled several select words as I caught her glance in the rearview mirror. She returned my exchange by flippantly waving back at me while continuing her conversation. When she barely skated through the yellow light at the intersection in front of me, I was left to test my rental car’s braking system, skidding to a halt.
I continued to bang on my steering wheel until I noticed two teenage boys parked to the right of me, mocking my behavior. Looking away to my left, I hit the button to roll up the windows while rapidly tapping my foot in anticipation of the light change.
“I can only imagine the wonderful surprises the rest of this day has for me,” I said out loud, stomping the gas pedal when the light finally turned green.
By the time I pulled into my driveway, my head was throbbing and I felt sick to my stomach. Ignoring the blinking light on my answering machine, I made a beeline to the refrigerator to grab a beer before sinking into my black leather couch. I clutched the TV remote, hoping to find a show that would somehow divert my thoughts from all my impending bills with no steady source of income to pay them. After flipping up and down through at least a hundred channels of nothingness, I shut off the TV and hurled the remote onto my coffee table. I headed to the fridge to grab another beer when the phone rang, providing a brief detour.
Noticing the caller ID, I answered glumly, “What’s up Johnny?”
“Just calling to see how you’re doing.”
“My head is spinning. I just got fired.”
“No way! What happened?”
“I’m not even sure. I just talked to Harry about thirty minutes ago.” I let out a huge breath and tried to keep my anger from rising again.
“Man, you’re having a string of bad luck. I was actually going to see if you felt up to going down to Las Playas for some tacos. I told Todd and Jenny I would come by there and show them my photos of Indo, but it doesn’t sound like you are up to it.”
“Nah, definitely not.”
“Okay, hopefully we can catch up later in the week.”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later,” I said, wanting to get off the phone.
“Okay, Zach. Take care, man.”
We hung up and I grabbed two more beers. Setting the bottles on the coffee table before me, I stared at them for a few minutes until finally popping one open. For the first time in my career, I contemplated whether I even wanted to stay in the journalism game. Back in school, I held lofty dreams of changing the world with the mighty pen. But ten years later, I now felt like a weary traveler in the hot desert heat, wondering if those aspirations of my youth were merely a mirage.
CHAPTER 4
The hammering noise did not belong in this place. Sitting on my surfboard out at sea, I looked back toward the empty tropical island trying to figure out the source of this racket that made absolutely no sense among the gently swaying cocoa palms and crashing surf. Fortunately, the maddening sound stopped right when I started paddling for a giant swell on the horizon. As I spun around and jumped to my feet, the banging noise returned, distracting me and causing me to fall all the way from the top of the crest. The ensuing slam caused me to twitch forcibly, waking me up against my will. With my perfect dream of a tropical paradise vanquished, I gazed at my bedroom ceiling, realizing the noise was someone knocking on my door.
Wishing I could have at least finished out the dream and surfed that last wave, I slowly stumbled to my feet, wiping the slobber off the side of my mouth and made my way down the hallway. When I finally opened the door, I instantly threw up a hand in front of my face as the sunlight knocked me back a step. While I couldn’t see his face, the outline of his posture told me that it was Johnny.
“Hey, what’s up?” I nodded, withdrawing from the brightness and moving over to the couch where I collapsed down into the cushions.
A quick glance at my unshaven face and the numerous beer bottles littered all over the coffee table was all Johnny needed to see that I hadn’t been out in days.
“Wow, Zach. You look rough,” Johnny said solemnly as he rubbed the back of his head.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, letting out a yawn.
The intense Indonesian sun had bronzed Johnny’s skin and had turned his sandy blonde hair almost platinum white. Knowing he felt awkward about what to say next, I asked him if he had brought over the photos.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said hurriedly, reaching into his jacket pocket and handing me two packets of freshly developed pictures.
“These are pretty good shots, Johnny. Were the waves this big the whole time you were there?”
“The whole time. The best thing after surfing all day was coming in and getting a massage for five bucks. Zach, you gotta get down there.”
“Yeah, I need to add that to my bucket list. But I’m not going anywhere unless I come up with some cash flow soon,” I said, scratching the stubble on my chin.
“You should go just down to Mexico for a weekend or something. We could go camping, do some fishing. You need to get away. I mean, I’ve never seen you like this.”
“It’s a trip. Just the other day I was thinking about you, how after you beat cancer your whole view on life really changed; how you said you were not going to take things for granted anymore. And you did. You started taking advantage of all the opportunities life has to offer. I know that’s how I should be living, too, that I should be trying to seize the day and all that. But honestly I can’t help…” I let out a breath and stared up at the ceiling,
trying to think of the right words.
“I feel this immense burden because Bob ended up dying to protect me. I feel like I need to be doing something big, something significant, but right now I just can’t motivate myself to do anything.”
“Zach, you’re just in a rut. You’ll get out of it. You’ve made a real impact with your writing.”
“I don’t know if you can say I’ve made an impact. All I do is write about what I see. Everything I write about is meaningless.”
“Meaningless? If you wouldn’t have done the research and written that story about alternative ways to treat cancer in Mexico, I would have probably ended up taking chemotherapy cocktails and getting even sicker. The treatment I got in Tijuana changed my life.”
Johnny stood up. “Alright, get dressed. We’re going to the beach. Somewhere. We need to get you out of this house already.”
“Okay, you’re right, you’re right,” I said, pushing myself slowly off the couch.
On the way over to Ollie’s’ Bar & Grille in Ocean Beach, Johnny revealed that he had almost been killed in Indonesia.
“So I’m flying around Kuta on a motorcycle, which they call ducks for some reason, hoping I can arrange for a ferry over to G-land. This Australian guy tells me to go outside the city a few miles and I can get hooked up with the best deal. It’s getting dark, but I’m just cruising along when a huge truck veers into my lane. I yank to the left, go flying through this ditch and end up skidding to a stop at the edge of this huge cliff. I get off my bike and I’m just freaking out. I look over the cliff and it’s straight down. At least 500 feet.”
“Yikes.”
“And that was just day one. Things only got crazier,” he said as we pulled into the parking lot.
Even though Ollie’s had a solid crowd for lunch, our waitress brought our fish tacos faster than expected. The seasoned yellowtail tuna on our plates caused Johnny to share another story.
“They have some huge tuna over there. One day, me and this local kid are out spear fishing off a reef. I nabbed this good sized red snapper and was about to put it in my bag, when out of nowhere, this six foot bull shark is about ten feet to my left, heading right for me.”
