“The handy-dandy flask.” Dan held it up. “Never leave home without it. Why don’t you hold on to it. It’s gonna be a long night.”
Frank took back the flask. “Thanks. I appreciate it and I appreciate you letting me in on my father and Robbie’s little ‘oust me’ plan. I owe you.” Frank pointed. “Name what duty you want for a week and it’s yours.”
“Thanks, Frank. But right now ...” Dan held up his keys.
“I know. Go on.” Frank motioned his head.
“See you in a few.” Dan backed up, hating to do it, but under orders he had to. He left the Holding room, locking the door as he did.
Frank closed his eyes at the throbbing of his head. He walked to the bed, bringing the flask to his lips, and taking another drink. Slowly he brought his body down to that bed. Every single move pounded in his head. Just as he was about to lie back, he heard the door unlocking and when it opened, Henry walked in. “What the hell?”
“Hey!” Henry yelled at the door as it closed. “Shit.”
“Oh great, just fuckin great.” Frank set down the flask and stood up.
“You think I like the idea of being in Holding with you, Frank?” Henry asked him. “I don’t. You beat me up.”
“You hit me in the head with a lamp, Henry.”
“You started it.”
“No you started it.”
“How can you say that, Frank?” Henry tossed his hands up. “You hit me first. Now I’ll look like you, thank you very much.”
“Oh quit bitching like a woman. You held your own with me.”
“Oh sure, Frank. You choked me. Look.” Henry tilted his head. “A bruise. You could have broken my neck.”
“You shouldn’t have started this thing.”
“I didn’t!”
“You did. You pretty much owned up to marrying her to give her to Dean. You failed to mention that little detail when we just talked about the understanding with me.”
“I failed to mention it because I didn’t think you needed to know. I didn’t think it would actually happen.” Henry stepped back. “I should have told you about it. That was wrong of me. I’m sorry. I knew there was a chance that they were going to sleep together, but I guess a part of me was hoping that she could help him through it without reaching that point and get him through it enough for him to stand on his own so she could be with you.”
“So you’re not angry that she slept with Dean?”
“No I’m not angry, because he needs her. If finding comfort with Ellen is the way to his healing then so be it. He has to heal. He has to get better, Frank. That is so important right now, for himself and for this community.”
Such a shock took over Frank’s voice. “He really is blind?”
“Yeah, he really is blind. He’s been dealing with the loss of his sight for months now. They tried to prepare but when it happened, I guess the shock hit him harder than he thought it would.”
“Shit.” Frank turned around.
“Ellen is helping him. I can’t get mad at her for doing that and neither should you. How would you feel, Frank, if you found yourself suddenly without your sight? I know how I would feel. If I couldn’t see, I swear I’d rather be dead. My eyes are my ability to do what I do.”
“Oh that’s such bullshit.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.” Frank faced Henry. “Your eyes are a guide; they have nothing to do with what you can or cannot do. I knew a blind man once who would nail your ass harder than I did if he heard you say what you just did. You have to just learn how to do things over again. I remember Sam. That was his name. It was during practice maneuvers when he lost his sight. He was down for a while, real down, but he learned and learned fast to do things all over again. When he did, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do after he lost his sight that he could do before.”
“He could still shoot a gun?” Henry asked in non-belief.
“Eh, that’s a hard one to judge. He was always a lousy shot. OK, there is one thing. He couldn’t drive a car ... fuck!” Frank’s hand cut through the air. “No wonder Dean almost hit me today. He was trying to drive blind. Someone should have told him he shouldn’t drive. Well ...” Frank tilted his head to think. “Maybe he can. This is Beginnings. How much traffic is there driving around a field?”
“Not much.” Henry shook his head smiling. “Are you still mad at me, Frank?”
“Nah. I understand where your thinking was at. You still should have told me. But I have to tell you something.” Frank’s head lowered. “I was uh ... I was drinking tonight, heavily. It made things worse than they needed to be.”
“I figured as much.”
“It’s no excuse and it makes it clearer why I have to quit, Henry ...” Frank placed his hands on his hips. “I feel really bad. I’m sorry I went after you. I should have never done that.” He held out his hand to Henry.
“You hit me hard, Frank.” Henry shook his hand.
“I know.”
“Knocked me on the floor.”
“I know.”
“Broke my wall ...”
“Henry! Fuck.” Frank watched Henry smile. “We’re OK?”
“We’re OK.”
Frank’s shoulders dropped. “Thank you.” With a grin, he stepped forward, placed his hand behind Henry’s head and yanked Henry to him, smacking a kiss on his forehead.
“Aw, Frank, did you have to kiss me.” Henry wiped off his head.
Frank bit his bottom lip. “Don’t think I won’t spread that around.”
“Aw, Frank,” Henry whined.
“Lighten up.” Frank swatted his arm. “I’m messing with you. Now that we’re all made up, we have to talk about this Dean thing.”
“What about it?”
Frank grabbed the flask. “Drink?” He showed Henry.
“No.” Henry snatched it from Frank. “And neither are you.”
“OK.” Frank held his hands up. “We have to help Dean. We have to help him learn how to do things right. Because if I know Ellen, aside from her comfort tactics, her idea of help will be just to do everything for him so she doesn’t get frustrated.”
“You’re right. But I don’t understand why you ... oh, I get it. You want to get Dean on his feet because of Ellen.”
“No, Henry,” Frank turned more serious, “and if this ever gets out of this room, I’ll kill you. I want to help Dean get on his feet because ... because it’s Dean.”
CHAPTER FOUR
JULY 27
That cellular phone, waiting with anticipation, seemed to smile at George. Finishing off his coffee, George walked to it, looked down at his watch, then at the phone which sat upon his office desk. How badly he wanted to pick that phone up and dial, sending the signal to Beginnings, but it had only been a few minutes since he heard that Cole and the crew had settled into Jordan. And if it was only a few minutes, then the monitor hadn’t returned yet to the Communications room and George calling his awaiting CMEs would be a futile attempt. He needed that monitor to be near. He needed that monitor to inform Frank or Joe who would then prepare—George hoped—Robbie to join, protect, or escort Cole back to Beginnings. It was almost ready and if all went as planned more Beginnings men would be dead and Robbie Slagel would be on his way to Former Quantico to be a Society Legion Soldier. How exciting that thought was to George. He rubbed his hands together in an antsy fashion and stared again that cellular phone. A few more minutes. A few more minutes.
<><><><>
The edge of Frank’s desk touched against his body as he leaned far into it, reading from a folder, his hands rested on the sides of it as he peered down. “Reports … reports.” He pushed out his chair, stood up, and walked over to the file cabinet. He took a second to pull the nearly finished cigarette from his mouth and blow out the smoke before checking his ‘in’ bin on top. “Here you are. Let’s see.” Frank spoke to himself, putting his cigarette back in his mouth and heading back to his desk. “Oh yeah.” He flipped a page of the report. “Yester
day alone, John, you were down in Communications one, two, three ... five times?” Frank shook his head with a smile, sat down and immediately wrote on one of many sheets of paper that occupied that folder. Frank went through it each day and its history, counting up how many times a John-number was used to open or close the Communications room. Reviewing his notes, reviewing the weeks history, Frank felt so close, so confident that he had just about all he needed to present it to Council and they could present it to the community to get a full vote on ousting John Matoose. Really all Frank needed, and he knew it, was Dean’s remembering for certain John was there that night at the mobile. That would clinch it. This was a delicate situation and Frank knew it. It wasn’t any normal ousting, it was John Matoose. A lot of people would get in an uproar about him being tossed out if there wasn’t enough proof or John himself didn’t confess.
Quickly, Frank’s mind went immediately back to Dean. No longer was Frank outraged about Ellen and Dean, but Frank felt bad, because he almost hit Dean. He felt bad because Dean was important to the community’s health, and most of all, because he knew Dean so well. Dean was an Original. Like Dean or not, enemy or not, finding out what had happened to Dean was like Frank finding out something had happened to his own brother.
Frank stared at the burning cigarette that was squeezed between his middle finger and thumb. He remembered the first time he had smoked in his life. How many years ago was that? Vividly, Frank recalled boot camp and how he smoked heavily up until he made the rank of Staff Sgt. and was tapped to be a drill sergeant, he then swore off it for life. Bound and determined to never smoke again, judgmental of all those who smoke, yet there he was, smoking. He justified it. It wasn’t like he smoked all the time like Joe, Jason, or Robbie. And it wasn’t like Frank wanted anyone to know he smoked. He didn’t.
He thought about when he started smoking again, a few months earlier, one or two during the day to calm his nerves. When he realized that they worked, Frank began smoking more as time moved on, especially when he found himself wanting a drink and knew he couldn’t have one. The more Frank wanted a drink, the more Frank would smoke, replacing one evil for another. They helped but not as much as Frank wanted. They got him through the day. Frank wished, as he stared at the trail of smoke, he wished with everything he had, that they worked at night when he was at his worst. But they didn’t.
Not wanting to think about it any further, he had more important things on his mind than his own problems. He had Cole and a small group of men outside the walls—that always weighed heavy on Frank. He had SUT troops out there. He had a band of Savages east of Beginnings about seventy-five miles, a camp large in numbers. A camp they would watch. The camp had moved two more miles east since they first appeared, seemingly coming from the north. Their moving east was in Beginnings’ favor, away from Beginnings and to the other side of the country that Beginnings rarely bothered with. Then Frank’s mind went back ... to Dean.
Just as Frank replaced his cigarette in his mouth for that final hit, a single knock occurred at his door and Robbie walked in. With Robbie’s ‘hey, Frank’ Frank turned his chair to the right, opened his mouth wide and using his tongue, flipped that cigarette inside his mouth to hide it. With tightly closed lips, he faced his brother and pretended to be engrossed in paper work.
“I wanted to stop by and tell you that I was doing the UD Perimeter. All is fine,” Robbie told him. “There was a problem, slight though, with the perimeter in the Industrial Division. I thought it was a problem, in fact I knew it was a problem. Are you listening to me?” Robbie waited for a nod from Frank. “Anyhow, it looked like wire was just hanging out of the beam’s box, just hanging there. So I called up Henry who I knew was there in that division at Clothing, fixing that fuckin cotton machine that ... Frank? You OK?”
Frank nodded.
“OK, so Henry comes up. Why was he working today Frank? I thought he was beat up. Obviously, big brother, you’re losing your touch. So Henry comes up and starts bitching at me because the wire isn’t hanging there. I told him it was. He yelled at me again. He said if I would do my rounds up there more often or pay more attention to how things work, I would know that the beam box I was looking at has that wire dangling as a trip. A trip. How the fuck would I know we rigged our boxes in case someone tried to cut the connection. How do you like ... Frank.”
Frank held up his hand to Robbie and stood from behind his desk.
“Frank?”
One finger, one single finger was all Frank showed Robbie as he walked to his closet, opened it up and disappeared into it.
“Frank, what the ...” Robbie stopped talking when he heard Frank cough loudly and long. “Frank?” He chuckled. “Are you all right?”
Frank stepped from the closet, shutting the door. “Man, can you ramble like a woman. You fuckin knew those beam boxes were rigged. You helped make them.”
“Was that the beam boxes? Shit, I thought we were just making explosives. Where the hell was my mind? So, Frank, how come you went into your closet to cough?”
“What?”
“You. You went into your closet to cough.”
“When?” Frank asked.
“Just now.”
“What are you talking about, Robbie?”
“Never mind,” Robbie grunted. “I need a jeep req. Dad’s out of them and he said you have some.”
“I do.” Frank walked to his filing cabinet. “Who needs a jeep?”
“Dean and Ellen need to get to their mobile lab. They let theirs run right out and it’s gonna take twenty-four hours to recharge it. Go figure. Hey, Frank?” Robbie watched Frank dig in the filing cabinet. “Have you seen Dad walk? Better yet, have you seen Dad sit?”
Frank paused in his searching and looked very seriously at his brother. “Robbie, it isn’t ...” Frank started to laugh. “I’ve been avoiding him so I don’t make fun of him.”
“It’s pretty funny. So was our scare tactic on you last night. Did you think you were getting ousted?”
Frank slammed the drawer shut. “Robbie. Fuck. Can you not run at the mouth so much today? What is up with you?” Frank started to hand the requisition to Robbie and just as it hit his hand, Frank snatched it back up.
“Ow, Frank, you paper cut me.” Robbie looked at his hand. “Give me the req.”
“Are you taking this jeep to them?”
“Yeah now.” Robbie shook his head. “And I’m bleeding. Here.” He wiped his hand on his brother’s arm. “Give me the req.”
“I think I’ll take the jeep to them.” Frank rolled his eyes at the blood smear on him.
“Why? You gonna beat Dean up today for sleeping with ...”
“Robbie! Enough! I have to head into town anyhow.” Frank rolled up the requisition and placed it in his back pocket.
“All right, but what am I supposed to do?”
“Work maybe.” Frank opened his door and stood there. “Go to Mechanics early and help out Henry.”
Robbie shuddered. “I’m not in Mechanics today. Today is Monday. On Mondays I’m at Containment. I suppose I could go to Containment and relieve Jason. I guess I can do that since Ellen isn’t in Containment today until two. How about ...”
“Robbie.”
“What?”
“Can I leave?”
“Oh yeah. Go on.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t forget to get Dean to sign that req. He always blows it off and Dad gets pissed.”
Frank grunted and walked out.
Snickering and knowing he irked his brother for the day, Robbie walked to Frank’s desk with full intentions of kicking back and falling asleep. But the moment he sat down, was the moment he saw all the investigation material on John Matoose just spread across Frank’s desk. Not a good thing. Smiling and thinking he had something he could bitch at his brother about, Robbie decided to hide it all and teach Frank a lesson. He began to gather the material when Frank’s door opened. Robbie looked up. Frank just walked in with his index fing
er to his lips in a shush manner to Robbie. He quickly went to his desk, pulled up the material into one pile, took it to the file cabinet, dropped it in the last drawer, locked the last drawer, and smiled right before he left again.
“There goes that.” Robbie tossed his hands in the air, cupped them behind his head, leaned back in the chair, and closed his eyes.
<><><><>
Dean raised his head up from his work when he heard the oddness of the single click in the clinic lab. He heard shuffling and his hand froze above the petri dish. “Ellen? What are you doing?”
“Um ... nothing.” Ellen quickly placed her hands in her lab coat, pulling the long garment closed as she walked to Dean. “So did I tell you that Robbie was over this morning helping me with the kids?”
“I was there, Ellen, remember? I waited upstairs.”
“Oh that’s right. Wasn’t that nice of him though?”
“He’s a peach. What did he want?”
“What do you mean,” Ellen asked.
“He doesn’t just do that to be nice. He had to ask you something he was curious about.”
“Oh, Dean, you are so perceptive since you’ve become blind. How did you know.”
Dean closed his eyes briefly. “It’s Robbie, Ellen.”
“He was just asking more details about the big fight last night. Speaking of the big fight ...”
“Ellen, how is that new batch of anti-infection agents working?”
“Don’t know.” She shrugged. “Getting back to my story. Did you ...”
“You don’t know?” Dean asked her. “I mixed up the new batch. Ellen, I’d like to know if they are working so I can start the two strep throat cases on them.”
“OK,” Ellen said. “Anyhow, did you ...”
“Ellen,” Dean interrupted her again. “Check them.”
“In a second.”
“Ellen.”
“All right.” Ellen saw the disgruntled look on Dean’s face and she walked over to the computer. “Oh, I can’t do this,” she talked to herself, “I didn’t hook up the microscope. I’ll have to view it manually.” She walked to the counter by Dean. “So as I was saying, did you see Henry this morning when he left for work?”
The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series Page 289
