by Aaron Polson
Kim’s pen moved, scratching on her notepad. Little scribbles. Sarah lied to me today. Sarah chewed her fingernails, watching the pen until it wobbled to a stop.
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being very influential and one being it had nothing to do with your eating struggles, how would you rank your breakup with Johnny?”
Sarah pulled her fingers away from her mouth. She’d slipped the lie past Kim. Zip. “I don’t know… Maybe a five.”
“Five is right in the middle.”
Sarah squirmed. “A seven then.”
“Seven.” Kim spoke as though the world was wrapped in that one word. Her gaze shifted to the clock again. “It’s about time for our session to come to a close. Is there anything else you would like to share with me?”
The house. Jared. The dead man.
“No,” Sarah said. “Just Johnny. I was pretty naïve back then. Pretty silly to think we were going to get married, my first serious boyfriend after high school.”
“It’s a common belief. I’d like you to try something in your journal this week. I’d like you to write about your thoughts after the breakup. I’d like you to explore where you were after the relationship ended. Can you do that?”
Sarah nodded.
“If it’s too much—”
“No. That’s not it. Five years is a long time. That’s all. I’ll do what I can.”
“Of course. You’re a brave young woman, Sarah.”
“I don’t feel brave. I feel like a little kid, someone whose been caught doing something wrong.” Sarah felt for her purse below the chair and wrapped her fingers around the leather strap.
“Have you? Done anything wrong, that is.”
Sarah clutched the strap. Her head started to wobble back and forth. “No. No, I haven’t done anything wrong.” She rose from the chair. Her legs felt stiff and cramped. An hour was a long time to sit.
“Next week, same time?” Kim smiled.
“Maybe… Maybe two weeks.” Sarah didn’t want to talk money with Kim, but insurance hadn’t covered as much as she hoped.
Kim nodded. “Sure, Sarah. We can make it two weeks. But be here on time, okay?”
“Of course.”
~
Outside under the blue sky, Sarah floated along the sidewalk. Her heart throbbed like a fist against her ribs—genuine excitement. She’d managed to escape Kim’s office with one solid lie intact; she’d managed to avoid any talk of the house, even though it was there, festering under the surface of her relationship with Johnny. They’d just broken up before the ski trip, hadn’t they? And Kelsey had that foolish idea to bring Jared along.
Like Jared could ever replace Johnny.
A smiled crept across Sarah’s lips as she thought of Johnny’s eyes, bluer than the sky.
Chapter 3: Johnny
Johnny wanted to shake the last two letters of his name, but he never quite found the opportunity. Everyone he knew called him Johnny, like a motorcycle tough from a ‘50s movie, and the name had burned its way into his brain. In the Army he was known as Corporal Gilbert or simply Gilbert, as last names ruled the military order. The Army was behind him, now, ground under a medical discharge. His real red badge of courage lay on the inside, though.
Hidden.
Back in Manhattan for the first time in years, he’d gone to the club like a moth drawn to a flame, but the flame felt cold and hollow. How many nights had he spent there in undergrad? He left without having a single drink, burning the five dollar cover charge in fifteen minutes. He drove around once-familiar streets for a good hour before deciding to head for the hotel.
On the way, he steered his sunflower yellow Dodge Charger into the Shop Quick’s parking lot. The bright lights within spilled from the broad plate-glass windows onto the sidewalk. Johnny blinked. Fatigue weighed on his arms and legs, but he didn’t want sleep. Not yet.
Sleep brought dreams, and Johnny suffered enough dreams since his discharge.
He climbed from the car, stepped inside the store, and headed for the beverage coolers. The clerk, a thin man with acne-scarred cheeks and dark hair in limp curtains, nodded as he passed. The air inside the store was crisp and too cold, even for a hot summer night. It was cold designed to keep away loiterers, an uncomfortable cold. The convenience store smelled of bleach, old beer, and grease—all subtle smells buried under the cold air. Johnny stared at the glass cooler door. Bright metallic cans stared back at him, so-called energy drinks with names like Monster and Red Bull. He yawned. One can would get him to dawn, and then what? He would have to sleep sometime.
To sleep, perchance to dream. To dream and confront the nightmares.
The front door opened behind him. Johnny glanced over a shoulder. A man in a dark denim coat stood inside the entrance. Johnny steered his attention back to the cooler, but shifted to the bottled water and fruit juice. Maybe a fruit punch would be a better choice—a quick sugar rush and then off to slumber-land. He opened and door. A blast of arctic air raised the hairs on his arm, and he grabbed a plastic Hawaiian Punch bottle.
“All right man. See this?”
Johnny turned toward the gruff cold voice. The man in dark denim held a gun toward the cashier. Johnny’s blood turned to ice. His stomach solidified, now a mass of smooth granite. The gunman hadn’t seen him. He closed the cooler door and crouched behind the nearest end cap.
“I want everything you’ve got.”
Johnny closed his eyes. He could’ve stayed there, hidden. Let the man in dark denim take what he could and flee. Nobody needed him to be a hero. He wasn’t in the Army anymore. This wasn’t a village in Kandahar with gunmen in street clothes. This wasn’t a dusty town square with his buddy Richie Manning torn open and bleeding from a booby-trap explosion. This was Manhattan. This was the middle of the United States of America. Country music spilled from the speakers, not the staccato punch from assault rifle fire. Johnny’s fingers twitched. The sweat cooled on his palms. The gunman continued to talk, but Johnny’s ears heard words as muffled barks.
He began to move without thinking, creeping around the ends of two more aisles until he found himself well behind where the man with the gun was standing. During the entire walk down that aisle, Johnny’s heart thawed and began to beat in machined-gun timing against his ribs. He didn’t need to be the hero. He could just wait, be sensible. He didn’t need to be a hero.
But seeing the gun stirred and angered him. It found the shrapnel embedded in his hip and the broken memories in his skull. Violence shouldn’t spread so deep, not in the heart of the United States. Not in Manhattan. The decision came without much regard to consequence. It wasn’t even a decision. With the gunman’s back before him, Johnny sprinted. He dashed toward the dark figure like a linebacker zeroing on the ball carrier. The entire event from the moment the man in dark denim entered the store stretched for less than a minute. For Johnny, the seconds slowed until he could feel the tick of the clock like earthquake aftershocks through his bones. His feet pounded the floor. The clock ticked. His feet hit again. The clock. His feet.
There was a denim blur, a shouted curse, and the roar of the gun.
The gunman had turned too late to catch Johnny in the chest. The bullet grazed Johnny’s left arm. It burned like when Johnny was six and his cousin had tried to brand him with the fireplace poker. Johnny shifted at the last millisecond, sending his right shoulder into the gunman’s chest. They crumpled to the floor like paper dolls. The gun struck tile with a clatter. It skidded away, toward a pyramid of Budweiser cases under a big sign which read Welcome Back Students. Blood pulsed from the tear in Johnny’s shoulder. The gunman scrambled from underneath him. He ripped open the door and ran.
“The gun,” Johnny said. He clamped his right hand over the wound. Warm, wet, and sticky blood oozed between his fingers. “Get the gun and call the cops.”
Chapter 4: Reunion
Up before dawn, Kelsey stole her neighbor’s paper for a quick headline-scan before showering and heading to her fir
st class. The Mercury had become thinner in recent months, shrunk to a paltry ten pages as the newspaper hacked and slashed to maintain a thin profit margin. The world was online, digital, and instant, but Kelsey liked newsprint’s feel in her hands.
She slid it from the plastic sleeve, flipped it over, and found Johnny Gilbert’s picture staring at her in black and white. The headline read Local Soldier Stops Gas Station Gunman. Kelsey froze for a moment. Upon thawing, she glanced at her neighbor’s front door, insuring she wasn’t being watched. She flipped open the paper and devoured the article.
Johnny. Shot. He was in the hospital.
She tossed the paper to the ground without bothering to slip it back into the plastic. The article verified what she believed from the night before: Johnny was back. He must have gone to the convenience store after leaving Tremors. The last she knew, he had been stationed in Afghanistan for a year. Rumors circulated on Facebook he’d saved a platoon member under fire and had been nominated for a medal, but she lost track. School had buried her, and now, staring at her 7:30 am class, Kelsey mulled skipping for the first time since undergrad.
~
Mercy Hospital was like any in a large town, sprawling and clean but without the crushing anonymity of a medical center in a larger city. Kelsey recognized the young woman with red hair and blue-rimmed glasses at the information desk as a student who had taken her Principles of Learning recitation two semesters ago.
“Can I help you?”
Kelsey pressed her hands to her sides. “Yes. I’m looking for a man named John Gilbert. He was… He is an old friend. I read about him in the paper.” She felt stupid after saying the last part; of course she read about him in the paper.
“Our resident hero.” The woman smiled. “He’s up on third floor. Room 323.” She looked at the large clock on the wall. “Visiting hours don’t start until eight.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself. Third floor 323. There’s a little lobby up there or the cafeteria’s open if you want some breakfast.”
“Thanks,” Kelsey said, turning away from the desk.
“Don’t I know you?”
Kelsey paused. “Did you take Psych 470 last fall? Principles of Learning?”
“You were the GTA. That’s right. Hey, if you head down to the cafeteria, skip the eggs. They’re powdered.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Kelsey turned and rounded the corner toward the elevators. She had no intention of eating anything in a hospital cafeteria, let alone powdered eggs. The morning sun filtered through a bank of high windows, and its reflection glared on the white hospital tile’s high gloss shine. Hospitals were always so white and so clean—an almost ironic contrast with the sickness, blood, and death tucked away in the hive-like rooms. Kelsey shuddered at the thought as she pressed the up arrow at the elevator.
The third floor was quiet with hallways stretching in a V-shape. She peered down both and spotted the nurses’ station to her left. The right hallway was in semi-darkness. A small waiting room—a few couches with end tables and stacks of magazines—was next to the elevator. Kelsey found a guide with room numbers on the wall; 323 would be to her right. Her heart gave a solid, rib-shaking beat. With a quick glance toward the nurses’ station, Kelsey started for Johnny’s room, her eyes and ears pricked for any sound—an orderly or nurse—stirring. Finding Johnny’s door, she slipped inside.
“Kels?”
Sarah Mansfield rose from a chair next to Johnny’s bed. She swept a blonde strand over her shoulder as she did so. She was still thin, always so thin and athletic-looking. Kelsey bristled as a cold wave washed over her.
“S-Sarah? I didn’t know you’d—”
“Me either.”
Johnny tilted his head toward Kelsey and smiled. “I see you two have met.”
Sarah patted his arm.
“Oh—that’s right,” he said, his voice dripping with strained sarcasm, “you used to be roommates in a former life. I almost forgot. How could I forget?” He shifted in the bed and winced with the effort.
Kelsey narrowed her eyes. “How did you get in here?” She asked Sarah.
“Oh, Kels—Manhattan is still a small town, despite the big box stores and your precious university. I told the nurse I was his fiancé. Worked like a charm. I could ask you the same question.”
Kelsey shook her head. Her stomach collected the cold from her momentary shiver and pressed it into an ice ball. Fiancé?
“Ladies, I appreciate your ninja-like skills. Really—I’m just glad to have some company. The nurses—small town or not—are surly as hell. I thought one might have been my drill sergeant in disguise. The food last night sucked. Some kind of flavorless meat patty, canned corn, and a hockey-puck brownie. Maybe you two could smuggle in something decent—a burger from the Hibachi Hut maybe.”
“Sorry sweetie,” Sarah said. “Hibachi Hut closed last spring. A Buffalo Wild Wings moved into its building.”
Johnny groaned. “Now that hurts. I used to love those huge burgers, the half-pounders. What did they call them?”
“Wasn’t it the Mauna Loa?” Kelsey offered.
“No. That was the one with the hot sauce.” Sarah frowned. “I can’t remember the half-pounder. It’s only been a year… We used to eat there all the time.”
Johnny closed his eyes and dropped his head to the pillow. The two women exchanged a look. Kelsey hadn’t seen Sarah since Sarah dropped out their senior year. One semester until graduation, and she just stopped going to school. They’d fallen out of touch after Sarah started vomiting on command and spent a short stint in the hospital. Johnny—the same man they’d both secretly fought for all those years ago—brought them together again.
“Everything changes,” Johnny said. He didn’t open his eyes. “I come back, and I hardly recognize the place. Four years isn’t so long.”
“Almost five. Long enough,” Sarah said. “Long enough to miss you. Why haven’t you come to visit us?”
Johnny’s eyes opened, and he titled his head toward Sarah. “Why haven’t I visited? I don’t know. The Army ran my life for a while.”
“I almost forgot… So you’re on leave?” Sarah suggested.
Kelsey imagined a desperate taint in her voice. Still pining for Johnny, but wasn’t she doing the same thing?
“I’m done,” Johnny said. “Discharged.”
“What now?” Kelsey asked. “What are your plans—coming back to Manhattan?”
“I don’t know. I spent most of my leave time driving. It was like I didn’t belong anywhere. Now…”
“Where?” Kelsey asked. “Where did you drive?”
Johnny’s gaze fixed on the hospital room’s ceiling. “Anywhere. The coast mainly. Out west. I bought a Charger, one of those new, slick ones that looks like a muscle-car throwback, and I just drove. You give a twenty-something too much disposable income and a reason to escape… Not to mention a speedometer that tops out at 180.”
Kelsey realized she’d been standing near the door since her surprise at seeing Sarah, so she moved to a chair at the foot of the bed and sat. She’d thought about escape, too. She’d thought about escape every time she woke with a nightmare, almost every night now, almost as though something was coming closer, something big and dark and hungry—something which had devoured Jared without a trace. Being with Sarah and Johnny brought back thoughts of Jared, the memories she’d tried to file away but kept surfacing in her dreams. The last time they were all together, they’d been with Jared. Then the police. The reports. The strange, frantic search.
“It’s good to see Kelsey still tunes out from time to time.” Johnny smiled. “What’s rattling around in your skull, Kels?”
“Oh. Nothing really. Just thinking about old times. Some of the fun we used to have together in school. Some of the crazy stuff you and—” She caught herself before saying Jared’s name.
“Jared.” Sarah said. “Remember when you two stole all those sporks from KFC and stuck them in the lawn by that
awful statue by Willard Hall?”
Johnny grinned. “The King of the Sporks. Yeah. Believe it or not, that one was Jared’s idea. He played the quiet type pretty good, but once you got a few beers in him, bye-bye inhibitions.”
The cold came back, radiating from Kelsey’s stomach into her skin, her fingers and toes. It clogged her throat. For a moment, she thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe again. How could they talk about Jared and smile and laugh like he was still with them? Like he wasn’t—missing? The word dead didn’t enter her thoughts, but she understood the reality. No one goes missing for almost five years and miraculously reappears.
“So. What made you play the hero last night?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know.” Johnny’s eyes tuned out again, losing focus like he was staring through the ceiling. “I just saw the gun and thought, fuck no. I mean… Over there was one thing, but in Manhattan? No.” He touched his bandaged arm. “I guess I wasn’t thinking. I could have been killed.”
“But you weren’t.” Sarah said. “And I wouldn’t have known you were back if you hadn’t gotten yourself shot. This is fucked up, but I’m glad it happened.”
“Yeah, that does sound a little fucked up. And I wouldn’t say back. Not exactly. I’m just… Visiting.”
“I saw you last night,” Kelsey said. “At Tremors. I saw you by the door and tried to catch you but you’d gone.”
Johnny nodded. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Tremors was a familiar place with so much change. I just figured… I don’t know.”
“What do you mean visiting?” Sarah asked, shifting the subject.
Johnny closed his eyes and lay back again. “Meeting somebody. Another blast from the past. I’m sure you two know he’s in town, right?”
