In the Nick of Time

by Laveen, Tiana

  “He kept people away from him then… put up a wall between his personal and private life.” He slurped his soup, then went in for another spoonful.

  “That’s right, Ambrose. That’s exactly what he did.”

  “And how will you be certain that wall won’t go up again?” he asked with an air of disbelief.

  “Honestly, I don’t know for certain. We know nothing regarding stuff like this. What I can say is that I saw him transform and open up and heal right before my eyes. He is actually quite in tune with his feelings, and can express them much more productively now.”

  “Something about him disturbs me…” Ambrose reached down and grabbed the phone, made the photo larger, and zoomed in on Nick’s face.

  “What?”

  “His eyes. There is a sadness in them. They are beautiful, an unusual shade of gray, too…”

  She said nothing, only plucked her water from the table and took a couple of sips.

  “When was this photo taken?”

  “Oh, probably a few weeks before I graduated.” He handed her the phone back as wrinkles creased his forehead, almost as if worry and concern melted within him and he couldn’t keep it a second more as an internal struggle.

  “Do you see how he is looking at you in that photo?”

  She looked down at the thing, shook her head.

  “He’s not looking at me; he’s looking at the camera.”

  “…Look again.”

  She did as asked, and caught the odd way in which Nick was standing. He was turned completely towards her, yet his face was looking straight ahead. The man in the picture smiled—and anyone who didn’t know him would believe he was the happiest man on the damn planet.

  “I hadn’t noticed that. He isn’t looking at me, but it’s like he’s trying to.” She smiled.

  “Yup.” Ambrose smiled as he slowly rose from his chair and walked to his counter. He selected a small container of mixed pepper spices and returned to his seat. She stared as the man thoughtfully, almost strategically, dotted the last bit of his soup with the seasonings. “Taryn.” He picked up his spoon and carefully dipped it into the muted yellow puddle of goodness, swirling slowly, ever so slowly. “I want you to be happy. You haven’t been in such a long time. I know that another person can’t make us happy, per se, but funny, they can make us unhappy…” He paused, glanced at her, then looked back down.

  “I’ve spent most of my life looking at people. Not because I find us terribly interesting, but because I had to stare at people to gauge things, sometimes for business and practical reasons…other times for my own safety. I’ve never laid eyes on that man in my entire life. Though I’m not an alcoholic or drug user, I’ve been drunk more than once in my damn life and I’ve smoked some joints… I did a line of coke before, too. I did it, and I don’t feel I’m better than others because, for whatever reason, I was able to stop with no problem after that first and last time. The desire to do so wasn’t there. I drink wine for the flavor, not for the intoxicating effect. I like to cook with it, roll it across my tongue, and savor the flavors of such a wide-ranging beverage. I think sometimes the act of who we fall in love with and are attracted to is like picking out a good wine.” He winked at her, casting his wisdom-soaked magic upon her.

  “We open bottle after bottle, but no two taste exactly alike. Like true love, it gets better with time, but sometimes, you expect a delicious cabernet sauvignon, but the label is wrong, and instead, you’ve happened upon a medium-bodied merlot.

  “You may initially snub your nose at it, because you want nothing but the best,” he said, stopping a while and studying her to make sure she got what he was saying. “…Even if that best is for your friend. But then, you put your cautions aside and understand that you would split someone’s fucking face open if they judged her, didn’t know how good her heart was, for the exact same reasons that you judged her chosen glass of wine. And to seal the deal, you looked into the bottle’s soul—for the eyes are the windows to the soul—and you saw that yes, perhaps he gets her, understands her…but more importantly, he loves her.

  “So, you raise your glass and make a toast, wishing her well. You worry for her in secret, decide to keep your thoughts to yourself, hidden away, and let her enjoy her drink. After all, she earned it. So before I sit here and call your lover a bland, three dollar wine cooler, I will watch my mouth, for the same someone could say about you and I know that you are nothing less than a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne! Cheers to love…”

  PART II of In the Nick of Time

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Uhhh!”

  Jay Z’s, ‘On the Run Part 2’ played as he finished up. With a grunt, he threw the dumbbell down, his workout finally complete. He sat on the bench for a moment or two before getting to his feet, and glanced at the clock as sweat stung his eye, grimaced, and made his way to the men’s shower room.

  I can take a quick shower… then get ready for group.

  As he left out the place, the distinct voice of a despicable motherfucker he’d been avoiding like tax time called out his name.

  “Hey…hey, Nick.”

  He turned and looked the ogre in the face. Oliver stood there in his baggy army green pants, matching sloppy sweatshirt, and a skull cap pulled down low on his perfect-circle-shaped head. The men weren’t allowed to wear hats indoors, but he himself soon realized that rules were made to be broken.

  “What?”

  “I’ve thought about it. I’m not filing charges against you.”

  Like I give a fuck…

  “Okay.” Nick turned to leave, shocked at the nerve of the piece of shit.

  “Nick!”

  “What?!” He turned to him once again, threw his hands up in frustration.

  Oliver appeared rather abashed, looking both ways as if he were about to attempt to jaywalk amidst fast moving traffic. Everything about the man bothered him, and a part of him was still itching to get into a physical altercation with the son of a bitch, rough him up real good. That first and last encounter had been simply child’s play. No, he wanted Oliver to experience some real wrath…

  “Look, I need a favor.”

  “Unless you want a foot permanently jammed up your ass, there’s nothing I can do for you.” Nick looked down at the lump of a fellow and crossed his arms, still not believing his damn ears. Oliver rolled his eyes and frowned, looked around once more in a paranoid sort of way, then continued.

  “Look, this is serious, okay? I need some protection. Someone…someone is looking for me; they’re after me.”

  “Good.” And he meant that shit. “I’ll send them your coordinates.”

  They stood there glaring at one another, no words spoken, but he was certain his twisted lips and narrowed eyes said quite enough. The man made him feel feral, like some wild animal. Thanks to Oliver, his inner monster had been awakened again after a brief slumber.

  “Nick, I could file assault charges against you, but I’m not if you watch my back. You’d risk reinstatement. Is it worth it? That’s the deal, okay? Take it or leave it.” He looked him up and down, proving just how truly insane he was.

  “Oliver, I will give you the number to the goddamn courthouse, an attorney, and the news station to call and tell my story to before I protect one slimy hair on your goddamn body. I’m not defending you in here or anywhere else!” he roared, not caring who overheard their tiff. “Whatever bridge you’ve burned down with that messed up mouth of yours, learn to swim, you son of a bitch. You get no life preserver from me. Accept your fate.” He turned to walk away once more, only to have his arm jerked.

  “Get the fuck off me, man.” Nick hissed.

  “I’m serious! I need help!” Oliver yelled, his voice cracking. He rubbed his gut, as if nursing a horrible stomachache that wouldn’t turn him loose. His eyes glazed over and he bent at the waist then stood straight, seemingly trying to keep a semblance of dignity, but it was too late; the man was unraveling and fear dwelled so deeply
within him, it oozed out of his pores.

  “Look, whatever the hell is going on, just go to Frieda or administration about it, okay? I want nothing to do with whatever you’ve gotten wrapped in and I want nothing to do with you, either. I don’t help pedophiles and before you even go there again,” he said with a glare, pointing his finger in his face, “you can call whoever you want, I don’t care. Tell the whole, entire world about me and I’ll talk about you, too…” The threat simmered for a second or two. “House rules don’t apply in rehab, Oliver.”

  “Nick!” The man’s fingertips twisted and turned the fabric of his jacket. “What can I do to make you listen? You’re the only one in this stinkin’ place that can be trusted!” He looked around once again, as if the boogey man himself were on his heels. “I got money! I can get you money!”

  “I don’t want your damn money.”

  “Please! I’ll do just about anything!”

  Nick stopped and stared at Oliver, hating himself for even venturing to entertain what the deviant pervert may have to say.

  “You have five minutes to tell me the truth. If you lie to me, that’s the end of you, do you understand?”

  The man emphatically nodded.

  “Can we go back inside the gym and talk?” He pointed towards the glass doors Nick had just exited. Brushing past him, he opened the damn things, moving within the small room crammed with exercise equipment and a small television mounted in the corner. They both sat down on a thick yoga mat laid atop of a bench.

  “Talk,” Nick blurted as seconds passed with the guy just sitting there, looking down, foolish and sheepish all rolled into one.

  “Nick, I know you don’t like me. Something really fucked up is going on though, and I hate to admit it, but you are my only hope.”

  He said nothing, simply listened.

  “I have been in drug rehabilitation several times, okay? This isn’t the first time, that’s for sure. I don’t speak a lot in group because I have to protect other people. It has little to do with me thinkin’ I’m too good, or anything like that. You see, I’m the black sheep of my family.” He swiped at his bulbous nose, almost as if he were being choked up by his admissions. “I’m a Yale graduate. I come from a long line of men and women who were known to be intellectually superior, in some regard.” He shrugged.

  Nick slowly raised his head and looked at the man, his interest definitely piqued and his exasperation growing for the fucker all at the same time.

  “Superior?” Nick raised a brow.

  “I guess that wasn’t the best choice of words… We just, well, we are intellectuals.”

  Nick twisted about, trying to get comfortable.

  “Regardless of me being quite bright in school, I had some problems. For instance, I’ve always had a hard time getting along with others. Socialization issues, you could say. It’s still a daily struggle.”

  “You don’t say?” Nick grimaced.

  Fuckin’ feral asshole…

  “Yes, it was hard. While my father, brothers, and sisters were refined, I was self-conscious. My parents, mainly my father found me embarrassing; so much so, they placed me in private schools that were far away.” He swallowed, toying with his shoestring as his jaw twitched every now and again. “That’s why I’m here, actually. You see, I started to use crack cocaine to help push away the desires… It worked just fine, but in some ways it also made things worse. My father is famous, Nick, and if it got out that I’d done these things… Well, let’s just say it would bring the whole family to its knees! I love my mother; I don’t want her roped into this… I’ve shamed her enough as is.”

  “…If what got out?”

  The man played with his shoestrings a bit more, turning them this way and that.

  “If what got out, Oliver!”

  “That I touched a boy in an inappropriate manner…”

  “That you molest children! Say it!” Nick yanked the man up by his collar, shaking him to and fro like a ripe berry on a branch. “Say it, goddamn it! You’re a child molester! A damn pervert! Own it!”

  The man’s eyes welled with tears as he nodded in agreement. “Yes! Yes, I did it!”

  Nick reined himself in and released the man, letting him fall like rubbish on the floor. He knew the bastard only admitted the truth because he was in a tight jam, and what a jam it must’ve been to let such a confession seep out of from between his lips.

  “I… I did it.” Oliver covered his face, seemingly ashamed, taking it all in.

  Nick wasn’t moved—all he could focus on were the man’s victims. No, he’d never seen their faces, but he didn’t have to. The eyes of a child did something to him, and he knew this man he sat beside had taken the light out of a few…

  “My parents paid a lot of money for me to be here, and for my treatment to be discreet. They knew no one would no who I was way out here. Oliver isn’t even my real name. It’s…it’s Don.” A few moments of silence passed between them.

  “I’m in over my head, Nick…over my head. The problem is, I can’t leave. If I leave, courts will get involved due to a deal that was made and then it will be plastered all over the place. I can’t let that happen. My family means everything to me, Nick, everything…” The man’s voice trailed.

  “How many, Oliver?”

  “How many what?”

  “We both know it was more than one child. How many children have you molested?”

  The man hesitated, then looked at Nick, his bottom lip shaking ever so slightly. At that moment, he looked like a child himself, helpless and hopeless. Small, insecure, and troubled…

  “If I get into all of this with you, it will just—”

  “How many?”

  “…Three. It was three, Nick.”

  “And who was the first one?”

  “…A relative.”

  “And the second?”

  “A boy I taught piano lessons to…”

  “And the third?”

  “Another boy I taught piano lessons to. That’s when everything fell apart. He told his parents. I denied it. I then began using, because—”

  “No, I want the whole damn story, you nasty ass fucker. You denied it and then what happened? They just let it go?”

  “Well, he was a troubled youth and I came from a family of means.”

  He hated the way the bastard said it, for despite his grotesque confessions, he still managed to sound arrogant, superior.

  “My father believed it was a shake down, and I played along with that, so he took over matters.”

  Nick’s insides twisted and turned like the inside of a cement mixer. Flashes of himself at that age, being at the mercy of a man like Don, fed his already mountain high hatred for the man.

  That little boy could have been me…

  “A week or two passed after that incident and I knew I couldn’t let it happen anymore. I was afraid I was going to go out and do it to someone else. Nick, it’s a compulsion! I wanted to control it. I knew it was wrong.” He turned to Nick, looking earnest, wounded…disgusting as he was. “I ended up stealing from my own savings accounts and doing things to support my habit so that my mind could be elsewhere, not obsess about it any longer. My family stood by me, basically told the boy’s family it was my word against their son’s and found out some things about the boy’s father that could land the man in prison again. I had overwhelming guilt from all of this, so much so, I tried to make the pain stop and the memories of what I’d done go away. I wanted to apologize to the boy—”

  “It wasn’t just an incident and that boy was your victim. You wanted to apologize to your victim.”

  Don paused, took a long look at him, and nodded. “Yes…my victim. That was the first time I tried crack cocaine. But, my usage didn’t stop there. It escalated to almost everything under the sun. I was taking methamphetamines and PCP, too.”

  He sighed, took a deep breath. “My drug habit got so bad, I ended up getting arrested. That was the beginning of the end. I had a court date
lined up, but my father pulled some strings and told me I had to go to rehab after he spoke to some people. They told him if I went to rehab, the charges would be dropped and they’d secure the records so it never became public knowledge.”

  “Your father has that type of clout?” Nick found himself in disbelief, not buying what the slimy fucker was telling him.

  Just then, he caught the maniac smiling. “He does… If I told you who he was, you’d be in complete shock.”

  They glared at one another for a while, and then he continued.

  “Anyway, I told my father I would go, but kept dragging it out, making excuses. Then, one night, everything hit the fan. In one of my drug induced moments, I admitted to my father what I’d done to those boys, including my nephew, in a heated argument. I don’t recall telling him, but I must’ve.” He shrugged. “So, he immediately put me in rehab without my consent and spent a lot of money trying to bury what I’d been up to. I would always leave the facilities or get kicked out. He told me this was the final time… that if I got kicked out of Firststone and didn’t complete treatment, he’d disown me, wash his hands of me, and let the courts do whatever they wished to me.” He violently coughed into his fist, as if coming down with a cold.

  “Sad story, don’t care. What you did was inexcusable. Get to the point. How do I fit into this?”

  “Nick, the last boy I molested, the last one who had a father already in the system, well…his father is here! He was admitted a few days ago. He’s gonna kill me! I can’t try to leave; if I do, I’ll go to prison and be disowned, and you know what they do to guys like me in prison! I’m almost finished, but this final month is going to be brutal if he gets a hold of me! He vowed to kill me, and he doesn’t seem like the type that would be willing to negotiate, come to a reasonable agreement!”

  “So, you want me to be some sort of bodyguard? Threaten the guy?”

  “Yes, yes! That’s what I need!”