What You Sow

by Wallace Ford

  As I prepared myself to accompany Diedre and Paul on their way into Gordon’s room, I made a mental note to retrieve Domino’s numbers from my Palm Pilot.

  It was time to further explore the principles of bifurcation.

  CHAPTER 39

  Paul

  Nature Boy

  I remember thinking that when he spoke his first words in almost three years, Gordon sounded very much like Kermit the Frog in the aftermath of a very bad drug experience. But, however ridiculous he sounded, the menace and malice were unmistakable and undeniable, and there was no room for misplaced humor. I didn’t blame Kenitra in the least for running away in a panic. In fact, it seemed like the smartest thing for her to do.

  After the initial madness had given way to hospital routine, the nurses ministered to Gordon as he made what seemed to be a miraculous reacquaintance with consciousness. And once he regained his bearings and his equilibrium, it was only his body’s betrayal that gave away the fact that he had been inert for so long.

  Dr. Krishnamurthy strode out of Gordon’s room toward Diedre, Jerome and me with that same sober, self-assured and self-absorbed look about him. Now that he had shepherded his patient through the Valley of Death, it was clear that there was more to come.

  After the whirlwind of events that we had all just experienced, I was through guessing as to what could be next. The good doctor addressed my concerns immediately.

  “Needless to say, Mr. Perkins’s recovery has exceeded my most optimistic expectations. While it is too early to be sure, I believe that he will make a rapid and full recovery. But there is something more that I feel I should share with you.”

  My train of thought froze on the tracks as I couldn’t imagine that there could be any more “news” this evening.

  “Mr. Perkins is under the impression that he has not been in a coma for almost three years. At one point, he was most insistent that he and a friend of his have been going to Harlem several times a week for the past year.”

  I was getting ready to file this night under the heading of “Strange But True” in my personal cabinet of memories.

  “The only explanation that I can offer is that, contrary to what our various monitors and indicators have shown, Mr. Perkins has had a very active dream existence for a good part of the last year. Many comatose patients have extremely vivid dream experiences while they are unconscious, and sometimes, when they return to the world of the living, they truly believe that their dream experiences were real.

  And frankly, I have never found it to be a good idea to argue with these patients. Certainly, from what little I now know of the conscious Mr. Perkins, I would suggest that the less said about his dream persona the better. But you can be assured that you will be hearing about it from him from time to time.”

  This was the insane cherry on the madness cake. It seems that not only were we about to be reintroduced to the Gordon Perkins that we all knew and loved, but now we also had to deal with the pesky matter of ... what? His evil twin? Gordon times two—what a divine comedy indeed. Although I really think that Dante would have had to go a ways to come up with this particular scenario.

  “Mr. Perkins has practically insisted on speaking with the three of you, and to prevent any further exertion or excitement on his part, I would suggest that the three of you go in to speak with him. But for no more than a few minutes, on that I must insist.”

  I tried to quickly absorb Dr. Krishnamurthy’s comments, and realized that there was not much point in spending too much time trying to make sense out of the turn of events that had occurred during the past few hours. It was what it was, and there was no denying or escaping the reality of the bizarre. And so, he went on.

  “I will wait outside the room to respect and observe your privacy. When I give the signal, please wrap up your conversation and leave the room. I think it is fair to say that Mr. Perkins has been through quite a bit this evening, and we do not want to add to his stress.”

  Later, I thought that the good doctor’s comments were particularly ironic given the fact that Gordon’s revival was going to add a whole lot of stress to all of our lives. It was not something that I had expected when I had awakened at home almost twenty-four hours ago. Now, I was trying to adjust to a new set of life-changing circumstances, and I knew from the beginning, it was not going to be easy for any of us standing there at the threshold of Gordon’s hospital room.

  Ever since his simultaneous betrayal and downfall, Gordon had, in many ways, existed in the past tense for Jerome, Diedre and me. My idea of merging the firms owned by Diedre, Jerome and Gordon was a good idea. Not realizing the depths to which Gordon was prepared to go to advance his own interests was the mistake that we all made. But that was then, and we had tried to live in the now.

  And so, the three of us worked like beasts to make sure that Morningstar would be a successful firm, and it was. And I made it a personal project to work with Kenitra to make sure that she was in a position to recover from the unspeakable ordeal of her marriage to Gordon.

  Except for the occasional hospital report or off-hand reference to the New Orleans Fiasco, it really was as if Gordon was dead to us all. And given the nature of our memories of him, he was not recalled often, and never in a positive context. As long as he was comatose, seemingly permanently, all of us could compartmentalize the entire Gordon Perkins experience. That is, until that fateful and bizarre night.

  Now Gordon wanted to speak to us, together. He had been conscious for only a few minutes, so it was hard to imagine that he would be very coherent. I didn’t think that he had much to say, but I was particularly interested in his “dream existence” and Dr. Krishnamurthy’s comment regarding the frequency with which comatose patients have such experiences.

  It reminded me of La Vida Es Sueño, the comedy written by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, the famous Spanish playwright. In the play, one of the central characters commits a terrible crime, killing a man and attempting rape. For these acts, he is drugged and returned to prison.

  Upon waking, he is told that the events of the prior day were merely a dream, and that his life in a dungeon is reality. During the rest of the story, this character struggles to determine the difference between life in “reality” and life in his “dreams,” somehow trying to reconcile the two.

  It was a quirky, interesting and entertaining play that I remember reading for Spanish Literature when I was at Dartmouth College. Trying to determine when one was dreaming and when one was awake, attempting to figure out what was reality and what was a dream, posed all kinds of metaphysical conundra that could be debated for entire afternoons, taking up entire seminar sessions.

  But now, the “reality” was that Gordon Perkins was awake in his hospital room, recovering from a three-year coma and ready to re-enter the world, our world. And the “reality” was that Gordon had been living in some dream world for a good part of those three years, a dream world about which we knew nothing. But I had the feeling we were going to learn a lot, and real soon.

  CHAPTER 40

  Sture

  Save the Last Dance for Me

  The flight to LA with Kenitra was painful due to the sheer terror that seemed to consume her entire being. From the moment that she began running down the hospital hallway, it seemed as if she were certain that Gordon was right at her shoulder about to grab her by the hair or the neck and sling her to the floor so that he could renew the assaults to her body and spirit that had ended almost two years ago.

  While we were in the elevator, I tried to comfort her, to soothe her blasted serenity. But there were no words for her that night, no words for her that day.

  Back at the Waldorf, she packed wordlessly and with amazing, almost blinding speed. She spoke twice. Once was to ask me if I was coming with her to the airport. I told her that I was coming with her to Venice Beach. The second time was when she called the concierge to request that he arrange for two first-class tickets on the 9 AM American Airlines flight to Los Angeles and a car t
o take us to Kennedy Airport. And then she continued packing like a dervish who had discovered methamphetamines. It was like watching a movie on fast-forward as clothes, cosmetics, books and shoes disappeared into bags and valises.

  I would have offered to help if I had thought I could be of any possible help. But that was an absurd notion. Kenitra was a woman on a mission, and the best that I could do was to keep out of her way and make sure that my few belongings were stowed so that I would be ready to go when it was time to go.

  Within a few brief hours of Gordon’s awakening, Kenitra and I were ensconced in seats 3A and 3B on American Airlines Flight #1, nonstop to Los Angeles. After a smooth and uneventful takeoff, I felt like I could finally speak to her.

  “Kenitra, I want you to know that I meant what I said about being there for you. Now I mean it more than ever.” The powerful jet engines of the Boeing 767 hummed outside the window, giving a slight vibrato to every word that was spoken. For a few moments, I wondered whether she had heard me. Then she turned from looking out the window to face me. I remember seeing the lazy cumulus clouds over her shoulder floating by. And for some godforsaken reason, I thought for a moment about angels, and wondered whether there might be at least one angel in heaven that would help me to look out for this woman.

  It wasn’t that my promise to protect her wasn’t sincere. It was just that I had more than a passing familiarity with Gordon’s reputation for cruelty, brutality and vengeance. If half the stories that I had heard were true, Kenitra had every reason in the world to run screaming down the hospital hallway earlier that morning.

  And I had empirical evidence, more than just rumor or mere hearsay. I had had a passing acquaintance with one of Gordon’s former drivers, Alexander Lapidoulos. Alex had told me about an affair that he was having with Kenitra that included trysts in the backseat of the car and at Gordon’s vacation home in Sag Harbor, even in their Park Avenue apartment when Gordon was out of town.

  I remember telling Alex that he was playing a very dangerous game. Having sex with your employer’s wife could get you deported if you were in the United States on a work visa, as Alex was. Having sex with the wife of Gordon Perkins could also get you killed.

  I also remember Alex telling me that he and Kenitra were in love, and that she would soon be leaving Gordon so that the two of them could go away together. Without ever speaking with Kenitra, I knew that she would have to be lying because of the improbable nature of such a move.

  If Kenitra left Gordon, she would be leaving not only his money. I was sure that Gordon would find a way to get her money as well. And if Kenitra left Gordon, any fool would know that he would kill her and whomever was unfortunate enough to be her partner in cuckholding him.

  And Alex turned out to be that kind of fool. At least, I think that was the case, because after a few months of repeatedly warning him that he was in grave danger and that he needed to rethink his romantic ambitions, I heard that Alex was found dead in his Queens apartment. The police ruled his death a murder accompanying an apparent break-in, and his killer was never found. And I immediately believed that there was nothing random about Alex’s death, and that the cold, quiet hand of Gordon Perkins was hard at work in that instance.

  All these thoughts were rushing through my brain like some kind of madcap stampede of panicked imaginings, heading lemminglike toward pure hysteria. I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together.

  “Sture, you don’t have to say that. And you don’t have to stay with me any longer. Gordon is my problem, and he doesn’t have to be yours as well. It’s not too late for you to just step away. I’m a big girl, and I will find a way to take care of myself, even if I have to run around this world for the rest of my life.”

  There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, and I knew right then that if I didn’t love her before, I loved her now, more than ever. And I knew that there was no way that I was going to leave this woman.

  “Kenitra, you have to know me better than that. Do you think these past few weeks have been just a fun fling for me? I told you that I have given you my heart. I have told you that I love you. Haven’t you been listening?”

  “Haven’t you been keeping up with the latest news, Sture? That bastard son-of-a-bitch motherfucker is back. Gordon is alive, Sture! He’s alive, and I’m so afraid. And I don’t want to live in fear for the rest of my life. I thought that those days were over, and now he’s back!” With that, she buried her face in her hands and turned her head toward the window, sobbing softly but relentlessly.

  There are times when the right word or phrase can make all the difference in the world for a person. And there are times when there are no words, whether it’s at a funeral, a wedding or the birth of a child. And this was one of those latter times.

  There were no words for me to say, so I just stayed with Kenitra. We sat in silence for the rest of the flight. We held hands, and I stroked her cheek from time to time, and then we were in the City of Angels and a taxi took us to her condominium in Venice Beach.

  As we stood in her living room looking at the infinite expanse of the Pacific Ocean, clouds drifting and floating toward that eternally elusive horizon, Gordon Perkins and New York–Presbyterian Hospital seemed a million miles away. And then I held her in my arms. And I kissed her.

  And when we kissed again, we were already in her bed. Within moments, the episode at the hospital seemed like a really bad dream, like something that may not even have really happened. We were together now, using our arms and our bodies to protect each other from everything in the world.

  And I know that for a few moments at least, I made Kenitra feel safe. And I was happy.

  And then it was time for me to go back to LAX and take the American Airlines red-eye flight back to New York. I had to get back to Dorothy’s just to set up a manager rotation that would allow me to come back to Venice Beach to spend as much time with Kenitra as possible. Her coming back to New York anytime soon was clearly out of the question.

  As the plane lifted off the runway and headed east over the desert toward the Rocky Mountains and beyond, all I could think about was my last glimpse of Kenitra as I left her apartment. Sadness and terror lurked just behind the vestige of a brave smile that she offered, and I wondered to myself how all of this was going to end.

  CHAPTER 41

  Gordon

  Love’s in Need of Love Today

  When I heard my father’s voice, I figured that I was truly on my way out. I wasn’t ready to die, but, of course, who the fuck is ready to die?

  I have heard about ninety-nine-year-old motherfuckers who are still not ready to die, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to the prospect.

  But there I was. I was in some kind of dark tunnel. And then I heard my father’s voice, although I wasn’t sure what he was saying, as he wasn’t speaking to me. And then, damned if I didn’t see that light at the end of the tunnel that you hear about on Oprah and other talk shows. Every asshole on those shows with a near-death experience always seems to see some kind of bright white light at the end of a tunnel, the implication being that death is right where that light is. And there I was, seeing that light, and hearing my father’s voice.

  And then suddenly, I was thrown into a whirlwind, and I was seeing all kinds of images from my life. There was that whore-bitch Kenitra. There was my first father-in-law. There was the motherfucker who told me I would never be a partner at Goldman Sachs. There were my mother and my father. And there were Duke and Ernie Argentina and, finally, the Dark Lord. The images spun and blended and intersected and merged into some kind of psychedelic collage that had to be seen to be believed. There was no use resisting. I gave myself up to the madness that swirled around me.

  And that was when I felt myself being spun around and buffeted, as if I was a cork caught in a tidal wave. I had no control over space or direction, and time was clearly endless. I could see some distant images, like small objects on a shore seen from the deck of a faraway ship. I could barely m
ake out the figures, but there were moments when, looking through the haze of confusion and something very close to delirium, I thought I saw Diedre, and then the dead body of my former driver, Alex, and then Paul and Jerome, and finally Kenitra and ... Sture. I remember thinking that I was having the wildest fucking hallucination in history.

  Finally, the storm seemed to pass, and I felt that something resembling equilibrium started to return. I finally thought I knew up from down, and that fucking bright white light started to fade. I also couldn’t hear the sound of my father’s voice anymore.

  And then I had the feeling that, although I had been seeing, my eyes were closed. So I made a Herculean effort to open them, and after enduring the sharp, stabbing pain of rays of light battering the rods and cones in my pupils, I started to focus on my surroundings.

  There were the ubiquitous doctors and nurses, as well as those infernal machines to which I had been attached for God-knows-how-long. And there was a window to the left of my bed. And damned if I didn’t see the Dark Lord and then the fucking Moon Pie faces of Paul and Jerome and Diedre. And damned if I didn’t see that fucking one-eyed whore wife of mine in the arms of that half-assed mother-fucking Viking waiter who worked over at Dorothy’s.

  I imagine that my fine-feathered friends would have seen a crooked smile work its way across my face. And I was smiling because, as I croaked out a greeting to Kenitra, the Dark Lord came over and whispered the suggestion of a plan in my ear. It was a great plan. And all at once I knew that it was a plan that I was going to enjoy.

  CHAPTER 42

  Diedre

  The Nearness of You

  Jerome, Paul and I went into Gordon’s room not knowing what to expect. When it came to Gordon Perkins, expectations simply flew out the window. I am sure that we all figured that, even in his presumably weakened state, even after his spectacular and bizarre return to the land of the living, he still had some more surprises in store. We were not to be disappointed.