by Jean Rabe
I helped myself to a seat at the small kitchen table as Jim handed me a cup of coffee. I took a sip and then another. “Damn, Sully,” I said, forgetting I was there more or less on official business, “This is perfect.”
He shrugged as he joined me at the table. “Been experimenting with some beans,” he said.
I waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, I set my cup down. “Listen, Jim, there’s been some talk around town about a lot of traffic at your place some nights.” I paused to give him a chance to speak up. Silence. “What do you have here that attracts so many folks?”
Sully met my gaze. “Nothing special.”
I let my silence fill the kitchen for a bit, but Sully didn’t fidget or sweat or hold his breath. I decided on a direct approach.
“Are you selling drugs?”
“No.”
“Cooking them for someone else?”
“No.” Steady gaze, steady breath.
“Tell you what.” I took another sip of coffee. It really was perfection in a cup. If he could cook as well as he made coffee, he could open a place and put Maddie out of business. “Why don’t you show me what brings so many cars to your place on a rainy Sunday night?”
Jim gave me an appraising look, and I got the feeling he had studied me just as I had analyzed him. “You really want to know?”
“I could come back with a warrant,” I said.
He nodded thoughtfully. “Follow me.”
He left the kitchen and led me down the hall to the back. The corridor was wider than in most trailers I’d seen, which meant that even though I didn’t feel claustrophobic, there wasn’t room to do a jig, either. We passed a tidy guest bedroom and clean bathroom. When we reached the end of the corridor, Sully put his hand on the doorknob and paused.
“Once you come in here, there’s no going back. Understand?”
What did he mean by that? I became aware of the weight of my firearm in its holster and resisted the urge to rest my hand on it.
“Open the door,” I said.
He did, and an enormous wave of energy pushed over my body. I felt Sully’s hand guide me to a chair as I closed my eyes against the onslaught. Dizziness overcame me, and as soon as my butt hit the cushion my whole body shook. Sully rested his hands on my head and murmured a few words. The vertigo and shakes passed and I opened my eyes.
“What the hell was that?” I wanted to sound forceful, but my words came out as a whimper. I felt like I’d just gone through two rounds of back-to-back chemo. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do first: vomit or lie down and sleep for two days.
Sully answered by handing me a bottle of water. I drank it down in big gulps, the cool liquid sliding down my swollen throat like nectar. Once I emptied it I looked around. I had suspected Sully was taking me to the master bedroom, but now I knew Sully slept in the other room. Thick purple velvet curtains covered the bay window on one wall, and Walmart shelves bending under the weight of hundreds of books lined two others. A worktable covered with tiny marble bowls and jars filled with powders ran along the forth wall. From where I sat I could see bundles of flowers and herbs hanging upside-down in the shower. There wasn’t a bag of fertilizer or a box of decongestant in sight. This was no meth lab.
“What is this?” I said, thankful that some of the strength had returned to my voice.
“My workroom,” Sully said as he pulled a chair from a corner and sat next to me.
I stopped inspecting the room and looked at him. Sully’s large frame and his beard and his intelligent eyes looked at peace. It wasn’t that he hated folks or the town. He belonged here, in this room.
“And what work do you do, exactly?”
Sully examined his knuckles for a moment before looking me in the eye. “I sell solutions.”
“Solutions.” I said.
“To problems. Remember Vicky Moss? When her son died she had a rough patch and came to me. I made her an ointment to help take her pain away.”
I scratched my bald head. This didn’t make any sense. “Her pain wasn’t physical, Jim. Not sure how an ointment can take that away. Seems to me she needed Zoloft or something.”
Sully smiled and nodded as though he’d explained himself hundreds of times.
“Not all pain is the outside, Sheriff.”
You got that right. “So explain why your place is the sudden weekend hotspot. Making some concoction to make ‘pain’ go away?” I cocked a brow.
“Not exactly.” He said. “A few weeks ago Josh Wharton came to me because he had trouble throwing.”
It took a moment for my mind to switch gears. “Rockton’s quarterback.”
“Yeah. He’d been getting heat from the coach and his dad about interceptions and missing receivers. He was desperate and wanted something to make him throw better.”
My face turned hard. I’d heard enough about Josh’s recent turnaround to put two and two together. “You gave him something like a steroid.”
Sully looked taken aback. “No. Nothing like that. From what I could tell his body worked fine. It was his mind getting in the way that was the trouble. He agreed that might have something to do with it. I made a pill to help quiet all the voices. His coach, his dad, the other players, him. When those settled down he could concentrate on playing his best game.”
“And the others—”
“Some of his teammates found out he got stuff from me. Guess Josh wouldn’t tell them what it was, but they figured if it was good enough for him they needed it too.”
“And you sold them some hand lotion, told them it’d make their muscle grow, and sent them on their way?”
Sully shook his head. “Left here empty-handed. I don’t deal with folks who aren’t interested in what’s broken.”
“So your drugs are really—what’s the word? Placebos? Medicine that works because you think it does?”
“Yes and no.”
I blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“Lucky you don’t need to understand for it to work.” He stood and placed both hands on my head. Once again I felt a rush of energy, this one smaller than the last, but enough to make my head spin. “You’ve got cancer.”
“Yes,” I said. Word spread around Rockton faster than a sixteen-year-old in a Mustang, but I got the feeling Sully hadn’t gotten his information from the grapevine.
“Advanced.”
I swallowed and hoped my voice wouldn’t shake. “Yes.”
Sully peered into my eyes for several moments. I felt that gaze all the way to my toes. Then he turned to his worktable and mixed several powders in one of the small glass bowls. He moved with the confidence and grace of someone who’d worked one job for twenty years. After he mumbled a few words, he poured the mixture into a little baggie and handed it to me.
“Put a teaspoon of this into a hot drink once a day. Not cold, not warm, hot. Like tea or coffee.” He pursed his lips. “Coffee’d be better, I think.”
I took the bag and held it like I would a lady’s purse. “This is for ... what? Pain management? Fatigue?”
“It’s a solution for your tumors,” he said.
I stared at him until it became evident that I’d heard the only explanation I would get. I sighed as I shoved the packet of powder into my breast pocket. “What do I owe you, Jim?”
Sully shook his head. “I only ask that you believe.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said as I stood. “I can find my own way out.”
Sully didn’t follow me as I left the trailer or watch me as I drove away. After I left his place, I felt stronger than I had earlier in the morning. The spells in his workroom had knocked the wind out of me, but now I felt more energetic than I had since starting chemo. I looked at the bulge in my pocket and thought about Josh’s two hundred passing yards.
I warred with myself the rest of the day.
How gullible does Sully think I am?
What’s the harm of trying it?
Well, for one thing, it can mess with m
y chemo.
Chemo’s not working, champ. If just sitting in Sully’s room can make me feel better, taking this powder can’t be a bad thing.
Quit being a moron and flush the stuff.
Quit being a pansy and drink it already.
The doc’s words at my last appointment did it for me: they’re not getting smaller, Mr. Howard. I’m sorry.
When I got home, I started a pot of decaf and changed out of my uniform. I didn’t know what to expect from Sully’s powder—would it make me sweaty or barfy? He didn’t tell me, and I felt funny about calling him up to ask. If the side effects were important, he would have said so. Just to be safe I slid into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. I’d been through enough to know that vomit is hard to wash out of denim.
I poured a cup of coffee, sat at the table, and sifted a spoonful of powder into the liquid. It dissolved so fast I would have sworn nothing had been added. The steam coming off its surface looked normal and it smelled like coffee. It tasted the same as it always did. I had expected it to taste bitter or chalky or something—any medicine worth anything tasted like crap—but apparently Sully didn’t operate that way. Or maybe it’s just his cure for cancer that’s tasteless. I caught my laughter before it sent coffee through my nose. Yeah, Sully’s got a cure for cancer right here in Rockton. Talk about gullible. Still, I swirled my coffee and downed the rest in three burning swallows.
A week later I walked into Maddie’s Place, tipped my chin to the table of farmers. Tom mumbled something about the ground being too dry. I made a sympathetic noise as I slid onto my usual stool at the counter.
“Morning, Randy,” Amanda said as her smile widened. “Hey, you look great today,”
“Thanks,” I said. “I feel better than I have in months.”
“Well, you look it.” She got that expression that people get when they want to ask something uncomfortable but don’t know how to do it. I saved her the trouble.
“Saw my doc on Friday. Labs look good.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded and found I suddenly had a lump in my throat. “Tumors are shrinking.”
Amanda smiled even wider. “Oh, Randy,” she said as she rested her hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze. “That’s great news.”
“Not out of the woods yet,” I said. And I took the last of Sully’s powder yesterday. What if the tumors come back? Guess I’ll have to pay Sully another visit, now won’t I?
“No,” she said. “But still. Breakfast is on me.”
“I can’t let you do that,” I said.
Amanda stopped me with her hand. “I don’t want to hear another word. The day I’m too broke to buy a friend with awesome news breakfast is the day they put me in the grave.”
Before I could say anything she walked to the kitchen and returned with a plate of biscuits and gravy. I dug in and moaned. “Maddie gets better at this every day,” I said.
“Keep your voice down, she’ll get a big head,” Amanda said as she poured my coffee. “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did you ever check out Sully’s?”
I nodded. “Yup.”
“And?” Amanda had that gossipy look that said she expected to hear some juicy news.
“Nothing to report,” I shrugged. “Sully’s not making or dealing meth. Or anything else illegal, as far as I know.” That was the truth. I hadn’t researched the laws on homemade “solutions.”
“Really?”
I couldn’t decide if she looked disappointed or relieved. Probably a little of both. “Really. Sully might be unconventional, but he’s no criminal.” More like a miracle worker.
Amanda nodded and walked down the counter to help another customer. I smiled. If I knew her as well as I thought I did, my assessment of Sully would be old news by suppertime. A small payment for my solution, maybe, but somehow I knew that I would have plenty of time to think of something better.
TROPHY WIFE
Vicki Johnson-Steger
When Vicki Johnson-Steger isn’t writing, chasing grandkids or finding other ways to avoid actual work, she volunteers for her granddaughter’s class. She has a great time with four-year-olds who want to be astronauts, princesses, and firefighters when they grow up, and one who wants to be a mermaid. Her previous stories have been published in DAW anthologies Spells of the City and Timeshares. She is currently working on several YA and children’s books.
One crisp September morning Axel Boyce cast a line into the glistening water of Lake Wisotta. The fisherman mumbled a prayer that today he’d catch his trophy sturgeon. To call this squatty confirmed bachelor an avid sportsman would be to call the Mona Lisa the doodling of an untalented child.
Blitzkrieg Legion, Axel’s champion Chesapeake retriever, took point and perched like a furry figurehead at the bow of the boat. The fisherman, shivering from the damp that seeped through his fishing vest, sipped from a dented Thermos bottle. The sound of ducks overhead caused the young dog to rock the boat, sending scalding coffee to wash over his master’s lap.
At that moment the red bobber dove beneath the glassy surface of the water. Axel jerked the graphite rod upward to set the barbed hook, and instantly felt something fastened to his line. His muscles tensed under the enormous weight of the fish. It pulled with such force that the fisherman struggled. The small boat strained at its anchor, challenged by the powerful energy that roiled the water.
Axel glimpsed the magnificent creature he had heard about since boyhood. A gigantic silvery white fish propelled itself through the air before it disappeared below the surface again. Grunting, Axel fought with all the strength he could summon. A grueling battle raged until finally, fish and fisherman were spent. Bold rays of sunlight blazed directly overhead and glistened off Axel’s bald spot by the time he slowly, methodically, reeled his catch close to the boat.
Axel smiled with pure delight as he glimpsed the largest fish he’d ever seen, too big to fit in a bathtub if it were folded in half. Its pale silvery skin sported white triangular points that jutted from the prehistoric-looking back. The recessed mouth of the bottom-feeder gaped open, giving it the appearance of a comatose shark. In its final effort to escape capture, the immense fish thrashed violently, thoroughly drenching the two in the boat.
Fueled by a surge of adrenaline, Axel clubbed the fish with a small bat. His shaky hands somehow managed to slide a landing net under the tail and pull the fish into the boat. Out of breath, Axel panted as he slowly rowed for home.
Having just wrestled his enormous catch into the kitchen, the veteran angler fell wheezing onto a plastic kitchen chair. He gazed proudly at the fish that lay lifeless in a puddle on the grimy linoleum. Axel scratched his weekend whiskers, and wondered how to preserve this trophy until he could properly stuff and mount it. The fantastic fish was too large to fit in his chest freezer.
A space over the wood-burning stove in this dilapidated house-trailer was reserved for his catch of a lifetime, the prize sturgeon that until now had eluded him for fifty-three years. A giant Muskie viewed the stuffed carcasses of assorted small game that occupied nearly every inch of this tiny house. An impressive wild turkey displayed its fanned tail feathers under the fixed gaze of the twelve-point buck suspended above a plaid threadbare sofa. Axel liked to show off his prizes.
In the cramped kitchen alcove, the lonely man had endured long winter nights passionately focused on taxidermy, his favorite indoor pastime. Small vials, random tools, and a glass syringe lay scattered among stacks of Angler and Antler magazines on top of a worn Formica table layered in old newspaper. Soon the crown jewel of the collection would be displayed in Axel’s humble inner sanctum.
Blitzkrieg sniffed as he anxiously investigated the catch that stretched across the kitchen. He leaped back and growled, upsetting a cluster of fishing rods and a bait box that brimmed with shiny minnows. The fish blinked and rolled its eyes as it slowly surveyed the room.
“I thought I’d killed you,” Axel said as he rose. “Didn’t hit you hard enough, I guess.”
Within moments the fish had transformed into a naked woman sporting a knot on her forehead, while a scarlet stream of blood trickled from her lower lip. Her eyes widened and her mouth hung open in a silent scream. The fisherman’s heart pounded as he stared into her magnificent watery eyes. Their extraordinary pale blue color glistened against her pearly-white skin.
Afraid to blink, Axel told himself this was not possible. “It’s time to cut back on the drinking.”
He tore off his vest and laid it over the terrified young woman. He scooped her up and placed her on the sofa with great care, tucking a tattered afghan around her.
“Sh-h, I, I’m not gonna hurt you,” Axel tried to reassure her as she struggled to burrow deeper into the afghan.
Hysterically, she hissed, flailed, and twisted with all her might until finally all the fight had evaporated from her tall willowy frame, and she dissolved into sobs. The weak sunlight of late afternoon filtered through the dingy windows.
“W-w-why did you try to kill me? I surely meant you no harm.” Her voice was a soft, raspy whisper.
“Kill you? I ... I ... what do you mean I tried to kill you? Are you a fish or did I dream that? A minute ago you, you were a fish, right? Now you’re a girl. What the hell happened?”
He leaned forward and cautiously dabbed at the congealed blood on her pierced lip.
Moments later, the fisherman sat on the coffee table next to a stack of Field & Stream magazines and gingerly held a bag of frozen peas to the swollen temple of his guest. A weak smile played across his unshaven face as he tried not to stare at her. It was difficult not to marvel at this incredible beauty who’d taken up residence on his sofa. He couldn’t remember the last time ... or if there ever was a time he’d entertained a woman in his home.
