Overcoming

by H. R. Kitte-Rojas

  "I really believe she's not like that, Miles. Other women have been that way with us--that's another grudge you gotta let go of."

  Miles stared at him askance. "How did you ever become such a touchy-feely relationship guru, Mr. Swingin' Player?"

  "From making a whole lot of mistakes," Frank replied, "like the one you're making right now."

  27

  Miles pondered Frank's advice all the next day, after his hangover subsided. He still didn't like the idea of taking all the blame.

  But Shauna was worth it. If it meant keeping her, he should eat crow. And he should cut Rita off. And apologize for going back to her.

  He hoped she would at least acknowledge her own affronts, but he didn't want to start another argument and he didn't want her to think his love for her was conditional.

  Love?

  Yup. Guilty. He'd never experienced it before...though he'd thought so a couple times...but he was pretty sure this was the real thing. Sure enough that he didn't want to let her go before he knew how real it was.

  So how to do it?

  As he worked, he imagined different ways of winning her forgiveness. Words alone wouldn't do it, would they?

  He resisted the urge to slap himself.

  This is what they did! Let a woman saturate your existence, and the rest of your life gets pushed to the wayside. He could hardly concentrate on the job, for worrying about this mess.

  Even with a woman like Shauna, sharing a life would be a bunch of heartburn. He could already see he'd be apologizing constantly for things he did or didn't do or say, accepting blame for everything to appease her. And as she stepped in to conquer more of his life, he'd have to give up on everything he enjoyed doing that didn't involve her. She'd take over the bathroom, the closet, and the remote control, for starters. A non-stop chick-flick marathon on TV, his various projects crammed into the garage because they looked "tacky," and never any time to work on them or she'd complain of feeling neglected. She'd insist on overhauling his wardrobe...she already made remarks about his Dilbert shirts. She claimed to love his motorcycle now, but he could envision her deciding it was impractical and nagging him to get rid of it...

  Did he really want to volunteer for a life like that? Especially when, experience showed, that the deeper a woman's claws sank into a man, the less sex she was willing to give him.

  Rita was the exceptional one. She freely gave him what he needed, and never sank her claws in for longer than an impassioned moment.

  Having so much on his mind, it took far too long to resolve the problem at the six-bedroom house. Being an intermittent problem made it even worse--when the problem went away after he'd made a change, it was tempting to believe that the change caused the correction, and make permanent adjustments accordingly. Then the problem would come back and he'd have to start going through the wiring again. After some four hours of chasing his tail, climbing up and down the ladder, up and down the stairs, in and out of the house, back and forth to the truck, he insisted on investigating the bedrooms that the customer so adamantly insisted housed no extra TVs.

  Lo and behold: one such bedroom did house a TV--an old one, connected via Radio Shack splitter and Radio Shack coax to the home run in the attic. A do-it-yourself customer modification they didn't want Miles to know about, but which was the source of the intermittent backfeeding ingress causing lines in the picture on their other TVs.

  The job kept Miles over time that night, so that he was the only service tech still out when Dispatch got an outage called in. Rather than call up the stand-by tech and pay extra money, Dispatch gave Miles the call.

  He had to drive across town to a rough neighborhood and investigate a customer's no-picture complaint. It was small consolation that the call was not in a housing project unofficially known as "Gangster Courts," but a few blocks down.

  After meeting the customer and checking for signal at the ground block, Miles drove around to the alley behind the house and searched with his side spotlight for the pole he had to climb. When he

  H.R. Kitte-Rojas

  found the right pole, he got out, pulled his ladder down from the rack and began setting it up. At least a dozen dogs barked at him from back yards lining the alley. Three black men stepped out the back door of a house directly across from him. He heard one of them say, "What's this cracka' doin' up in my house in the middle of the night?"

  "That's a cable man," another one said. "He come to cut you off." "Yo!" somebody yelled at Miles. "What's the problem?" Miles ignored them, untied the rope, and began extending the

  ladder.

  "Hey, I'm talkin' to you, muthafuckah! What you doin' behind my

  house?"

  Miles was not there to disconnect them, but to fix a problem

  their neighbor was having. But their attitude pissed him off. He

  decided not to answer, and let the paranoid bigots sweat.

  It was hard to see so far overhead in the dark, so Miles was

  having difficulty getting his ladder hooks through the trees and over

  the strand, when a vicious snarling sound grew out of the din of dogs

  barking throughout the neighborhood. He heard, or sensed,

  something moving toward him along the ground very fast. He

  whirled to see two large, hurtling shapes bearing down on him. Right before impact, Miles caught a glimpse of the three black

  men on their lit back porch, one pointing in his direction, two passing

  a joint, and all sharing a laugh. One of them held an empty choke

  collar in his hand.

  Then something hit Miles with the force of an NFL tackle and he

  went down. Something tore at his thigh. Another hot, smelly shape

  came at his face. He raised his arm instinctively and powerful fangs

  clamped down on his forearm. On the ground with two large, mean

  dogs trying to kill him, he experienced ridiculous worries about the

  tools spilling from his belt and the ladder leaning into a slow, treelike fall.

  The ladder fell back into his work van with a loud banging sound

  which momentarily distracted the dogs. Miles kicked hard with his

  free leg, digging one dog in the belly with such force that it let go of

  his other leg. He scrambled to his feet frantically, free hand grasping at a fallen tool. He pivoted, swinging the dog still attached to his

  other arm as hard as he could into the side of the van.

  The dog wheezed at impact, but didn't let go. And now the other

  dog recovered and bit into a new spot on his leg. This time Miles

  swung the dog on his arm into the bumper. It gasped and let go, but

  now he was off balance and the dog on his leg took him down. Fangs

  tore into his hip, his side, his shoulder, his other arm, and then a

  monstrous pair of jaws clamped down on his head from cheek to ear. Miles lashed out with the tool in his hand--a pair of lineman's

  pliers, it felt like--and missed. He swung again, and felt solid contact,

  heard a yelp. He swung again, harder. The dog yelped louder and

  backed off. The other dog, which had mauled his face, now was

  tearing at his shirt. He bashed its head with the pliers again and

  again.

  28

  Shauna didn't expend much effort speculating about what all the excited buzzing among her reps was about that morning. Not because she was concentrating on work--she was having little luck with that, either. She spent a lot of time staring at the picture Katina had drawn of their picnic, with Shauna in a nurse's uniform, and a big empty spot in the middle of her little family. She had pinned it up in her cubicle two weeks ago.

  On the first break of the morning, she wandered into the break room for a water bottle. Jenny and Brad shared a table, with two other reps.

  "C'mon, people," Shauna said. "This is too many reps away from the phones. Only two on break at a
time."

  "It's slow this morning," Brad lisped with a shrug. His eyes flashed with gossip-lover's glee as he asked, "Did you hear about the technician last night?"

  Shauna shook her head. "Technician?"

  "Dog attack," Jenny said. "Some bla...um, some guys turned their dogs loose on him. The cops got involved, arrested them for deadly assault. The Avcom tech is half-dead, from what I heard."

  Shauna felt a terrible chill.

  "Denny was at the hospital all last night," another rep said. "The tech is in a coma or something."

  "No," Brad pshawed with a disgusted look. "They said he was in shock, not a coma."

  Shauna experienced an electric thrumming in her head. Denny was Miles' supervisor.

  They chatted in hushed tones about how badly the tech had been maimed, the blood all over him when help finally got there, the size of the dogs...

  "What's the technician's name?" she asked.

  "Miles Bowser," two of them answered at once, brimming with the self-satisfaction of having news to pass on to fresh ears.

  Forgetting about her water bottle, Shauna spun and left the break room.

  Minutes later she was in her car, redialing Miles' number as she tore out of the parking lot. His phone was off. She didn't know Denny's number but called everyone she could think of until she learned what hospital Miles had been taken to. She drove to the hospital and searched at the emergency room, the information desk and a dozen other places but couldn't find either Miles or Denny.

  She kept making calls until she found somebody who had Denny's number. Everyone kept asking questions about why she wanted to contact him, but she dodged them all.

  "Who is this?" Denny asked.

  "It's Shauna Gales, from the call center."

  "Oh. Okay," he said, clearly not understanding the reason for the call.

  "I'm trying to find Miles," she said. "Find out what happened to him."

  "You know him?"

  Shauna took a deep breath, considering another evasive answer, or making something up. Then, for the first time, she asked herself why she felt it so important to keep everything a secret. "We're friends, Denny--close friends. Well, actually, we're much more than friends."

  "Oh," Denny said. "I'm sorry. Miles doesn't talk about his personal life, so I didn't know. Are you the friend he brought to the picnic?"

  No, but I should have been. Would have been, if... "I was there. I'm at the hospital now, but can't find him."

  "Yeah, they released him a little while ago."

  She felt just a little relief. "So he's okay? I heard he's been terribly maimed, or in a shock coma...I've heard all sorts of different things."

  "He was in shock when I got to him," Denny said. "He doesn't look as bad now that they washed all the blood off of him. One of his ears got torn almost half-off. They stitched that back on last night. Forearm is mashed up. He's got a lot of nasty gashes all over-probably miss work for a few days--but they're just flesh wounds. They gave him some pretty stout pain killers. I drove him home. He's probably sleeping right now."

  "Thank-you, Denny."

  "No problem. Hey, when he gets feeling better, have him bring you over to the office and we'll do lunch. I'd like to meet you and get to know you a bit. I try to run my crew a little more like a family, so it's nice to meet the wives and girlfriends of my guys."

  "I'd like that, Denny. Um, I'll just leave it up to Miles though, huh?"

  Denny chuckled. "He sure don't like to talk about his personal life. But I'll tease him until he introduces us properly."

  Shauna staggered out of the hospital to find her car.

  She had crossed a line, now--admitted that her and Miles were together.

  Were they still together?

  Miles was just as private a person as she was. Denny confirmed that. And yet he'd never acted embarrassed at being seen with her.

  How could they have the kind of exclusive, transparent, mutually committed relationship she wanted if she was so ashamed of the color difference that she tried to keep it a secret? What was there to be ashamed about?

  Just then, the only shame she felt was in how she'd treated him. If the roles were reversed, she'd have been just as hurt and angry.

  Still, that was no excuse for sleeping around on her.

  But she would have to forgive him. They would have to forgive each other, and work it out, if she wanted to be with him. And she did want to be with him.

  So many things had become clear in the last hour. She didn't want Jamario or any of the ethnically correct fix-ups Celeste had thrown her way. She didn't want Clarence. She didn't want Dwayne or anyone like him. People wouldn't look at her funny, or question her "blackness" if she chose one of them. But she didn't love them. She loved Miles, and wanted to be with him, however uncomfortable it might be in public.

  They had to make a pact: She couldn't make another mistake like she had for the company picnic, and he damn sure couldn't sleep around on her again, ever, for any reason.

  She wasn't sure how they could work it out, as mad as he was at her. And it wasn't something she had to figure out right away. Right then she just wanted to find her hurting man and be with him.

  She pulled into his driveway, noticing right away that neither his work van nor pickup truck was there. The van had probably been moved by someone else when he was taken away by ambulance. She peered through the window in the garage door. His motorcycle was inside, but not his pickup.

  She knocked and rang the doorbell, getting no answer.

  If Denny had driven him home, that meant Miles must have taken his pickup somewhere.

  After being maimed by dogs, he should really take the antibiotics and pain medication the hospital gave him. And with the pain medication they might have given him, he probably shouldn't be driving.

  Shauna returned to her car, slid behind the wheel, and stared at Miles' house for a moment.

  Where would he have gone? After a frightening, traumatic experience, most people would seek comfort in human companionship. Maybe even loners like Miles.

  Then the realization struck her like a gut-punch. Miles had driven to see that woman, in his moment of need and pain.

  Vision blurred with tears, Shauna started her car, put it in gear, and backed out of the driveway.

  She drove to the park they had hiked in--where they had first made love. She bawled until she thought she'd got it out of her system, then cried some more.

  She drove around aimlessly, getting lost a few times but not really caring. Marcie from work tried calling her but she just couldn't talk to anyone right then. She'd face the music for skipping out of work later.

  Finally, her car found its way to her apartment building.

  Eyes dry now, but downcast, she stumbled through the parking lot toward her home.

  Her sanctuary.

  She wandered through the formations of blurry shapes she knew must be parked cars, toward the big blurry shape that must be her building, and to the blurry breezeway where her front door was.

  Something wasn't right. The blurry shape of her door wasn't shaped right.

  She lifted her head and tried to focus.

  A white man sat at her door.

  The white man sat slumped, as if defeated or in pain. His head was partially bandaged, as were his arms. Bandages showed through his tattered, ripped jeans. Another bandage created an odd shape on his shoulder under his Avcom shirt. A white prescription bag hung from a bandaged hand.

  Sensing her approach, his head swung up. His haggard face reeked of despair. Then the piercing blue eyes focused on her and flashed recognition.

  Miles shot to his weary feet, gazing at her with naked trepidation and yearning.

  Shauna closed the distance between them. His arms went around her. She buried her face in his chest and embraced him fiercely. His unbandaged cheek rubbed against her forehead.

  She refused to let go as she asked, "Why aren't you in bed? You shouldn't be driving around, or sitting on concr
ete."

  "Can we go inside, then?" he asked, a strange warble to his voice.

  She hastily unlocked the door and helped him inside to the couch.

  He groaned when he sat down. Friction on one of the raw spots where his flesh had been torn, no doubt. She went back to close the door behind them, and returned, ready to remove his boots, elevate his feet, then bring him a pillow and blanket.

  "Let me get you comfortable," she said.

  "No," he said, pulling her down beside him, drawing her in close, holding her tight. "I didn't know how long I'd have to wait until you got off work. Denny has my Nextel, so I don't know what time it is. But I was gonna wait until you got here, no matter how long it took."

  "I skipped out on work," she said. "I've been trying to find you. I went to the hospital, your house, I called Denny..."

  He pulled back enough to gaze into her eyes. "Really?"

  She nodded, and felt the tears build up again. She pulled herself into him and sobbed into his torn shirt.

  "It's not that bad, he told her, rubbing her back in a comforting way. "The worst part is my ear, but that was never life-threatening."

  "It's not just that, Miles. I was afraid, when you weren't at your house...I thought you had gone to her."

  "Oh, baby," he said, squeezing her tight.

  He began to speak several times, but only strange sounds came out. She pulled back far enough to watch his eyes.

  Moist eyes, piercing through to her soul.

  When his words finally did come, they rasped and squeaked as if the dogs had mangled his lungs and larynx, too.

  "It's not her I want. I only want you, Shauna. It's only you."

  She blinked through the tears and sucked in a ragged breath. "I'm sorry for what I did, Miles, but you...I can't tolerate..."

  "Baby, I'm sorry," he said. "I was wrong for what I did. What I said. Please give me another chance. I don't ever want to be without you again."

  She wiped her eyes as she asked, "You mean that?"

  "I love you," he said.

  She let a breath out that she hadn't been aware she'd been holding. She pulled herself back into their embrace and buried her cheek in his shoulder.

  She closed her eyes and remembered the image of Katina's drawing. She knew exactly who would fill that empty space.