The Middle Man [A Broadway Romance]

by Gregory A Kompes

  I stopped for the light, even though there wasn’t any traffic and I knew I could safely cross the street. I turned to him. “Hello, ghost.” I felt differently about the apparition now. I knew where he could be, where maybe he was. “What are you doing here? Why are you focusing here?”

  “Your questions are getting better,” he said, his shape shifting.

  I pushed a hand through his energy and felt, truly felt his vibration. He was sad and lonely. He was lost.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m feeling you, ghost.” I realized that this object of torment wasn’t directly connected to me, but rather indirectly connected. “You can’t torment me any longer.” I tried out my new skill and searched for the ghost in that field of timeless space. I couldn’t see his light.

  “That was never really my intention.”

  His words were false.

  “Okay, that was my intention. You’ve been responsible for so many deaths and I’m here to...”

  A city bus whooshed by us and, in the motion of the vehicle, the ghost was whisked away. I knew he’d return. I knew we weren’t finished yet. But, for the moment, life felt good. The whiskey coursing through my body felt good. The wonderful night air felt good. The city under my feet was mine and this moment was mine. I was glad to be back in my body, yet longing for the brilliance I’d experienced with Muriel and James. Just knowing that was in my future gave me comfort and brought a wonderful feeling of love to me. My body tingled with exuberance as I crossed the street with the light and continued home.

  Chapter Twenty

  "Duke!" Malcolm rushed down the hall from the kitchen to the front door. Tears washed down his cheeks.

  In all the years Malcolm's been a part of my life he'd never called me "Duke." Not to my face. The word from his lips sounded strange, but tender.

  "Malcolm," I said warmly.

  The butler stretched out his hand to shake mine, but then, overcome by his emotions, pulled me into his long arms. The hug lasted a long time. "We didn't know what happened to you. I got your message. I don't know how I missed the phone ringing. I'm sorry I wasn't there to pick you up, to bring you home." The words came out flustered through more tears and hugging. "How on earth has this happened? I mean, you were in a coma. You were all twisted…busted up."

  I guided him to a chair in the parlor, pushed him gently into it. "I had an amazing experience. I can't explain it to you." I sat in the chair next to him. He took my hand. We looked deep into each other.

  "I just don't know what I would have done if…"

  "Enough. That's the old story. We're in real time here. We won't be telling that story any more. It's over." I could feel his disease through the energy passing between our entwined hands. It dawned on me, if I had the power to heal my own ailments, perhaps I could do the same for Malcolm. I willed him well. I set the intention again, willed him in perfect health. The feeling shifted a little, but the disease remained rooted. "Malcolm, I need you to sit here with me, keep holding my hand, say the words 'I'm in perfect health'."

  A strange look came over his face.

  "Don't just think it, say the words right out loud." I gripped his hand tighter, set the intention of perfect health again.

  "I'm in perfect health. I'm in perfect health. I'm in perfect health." He said it over and over.

  I closed my eyes, looking within for the harmed cells in his body. It wasn’t as we’d thought, Alzheimer’s or some dysfunction in his brain caused by age. No, what was going on with him was greater. Muriel lovingly said in my head “Induced by another.” As I accepted this knowing, I could feel the illness within him lightened.

  Malcolm stopped speaking. The dysfunctional cells, broken up within him, started to reassemble.

  "Don't stop," I said. I don't know if the words were out loud or not.

  He started to mutter. "I'm in perfect health. I'm in perfect health. I'm in perfect health."

  I again set the intention, willed perfect health for Malcolm. The negative energy quickly broke apart now. I could feel it traveling into me. He kept up his mantra. I joined him. "I'm in perfect health. I'm in perfect health. I'm in perfect health." We said it over and over together. The darker energy released from me. I felt poison pass through me. We continued our mantra together for several more moments. I knew it was over, it was gone. I also now knew the cause, and that knowledge brought me to a place of great sadness.

  When I stopped speaking, he stopped. I released his hands. We sat in silence. I could feel his breathing. Its rhythm matched my own.

  "Good work, Duke," Muriel said in my head. "You think you had clients before, just you wait for the line that will form outside your door." Her electric laughter caused chills all over my body.

  "Duke?"

  I could hear Malcolm's voice, as if from a great distance.

  "Duke!" he shouted at me, shook me hard.

  "Malcolm, stop," I said, my voice soft.

  "I thought I'd lost you." Tears washed down the jowls of his face. He let out a sigh of relief.

  "Okay, my friend. We're both better. We're going to spend a long time together. Got it?"

  "I'm at your service, Sir," he said with reverence.

  "No more 'Sir.' We're in this together. I Duke. You Malcolm."

  He laughed at my horrible Native American accent.

  "Very bad taste, Duke."

  "It made you laugh."

  We enjoyed the moment together.

  "You must be hungry after a week with only that drip in your arm feeding you."

  Hunger hadn't crossed my mind until he mentioned it. "I want fried chicken. Not some corner deli chicken, the real thing. And a great big Diet Coke."

  "Give me thirty minutes on the chicken. Twenty-eight if you'll follow me to the kitchen and get your own soda." He headed for the door, a bounce in his step I hadn't seen in several years. He turned back and added: “Duke.” We both laughed. As we walked to the kitchen together, Malcolm said: "I tried to get them to hook up a Diet Coke drip in your arm, but Dr. Sandy wouldn't do it. I told him you'd probably sue him because your Coca Cola shares would plummet if you weren't drinking your usual ration."

  "DUKE! DUKE!" Sam shouted.

  "We're in here!" Malcolm, who looked incongruous and ridiculous in the naked lady joke apron he’d placed over his head and tied around his middle, placed a piece of chicken on the stack of paper towels, added another piece to the hot oil.

  Sam nearly knocked me off the kitchen chair. He hugged me tight, gripped me, hugged me again. He laughed and cried at the same time. Waiting in the doorway were Clara and Harry, others were behind him.

  "Malcolm, we're going to need a lot more chicken," I said.

  "Coming right up." He turned to the crowd. "Out, out of my kitchen. Into the living room with all of you. Let's give Sam and Duke a few moments." Malcolm pointed with his oily tongs and ushered everyone down the hall like a sheep herder. "Clara, there are plates and silverware in that cabinet, set the table….Harry, you're our resident mixoligist, set up the bar over there…you girls…" out he barked his orders.

  "Duke, you're really okay?" Sam dropped to his knees. He felt my wrist, my arm, my ankle.

  "A little higher please," I said when his hand stopped at me knee.

  "You're still a dirty old man." He ran his hands up my thigh to my crotch. He moved closer, kissed me.

  "You've got a room for that," said Malcolm, out of character and obviously caught up in the energy of my homecoming.

  Sam ignored the butler and turned to me. "How?" Sam asked.

  I wiped some of his tears with a napkin. He took it from my hand and did a better job. As our hands grazed one another, James said in my ear, he’s the one. I turned a quick focus, seeing James once again shifting in his aurora borealis way. “The poison,” he said clearly to me. Not sure what to do with this confirmation, I stayed in the moment. "It's a very long story." I watched Sam wipe his tears, doing everything possible not to take his eyes off of me.
>
  "Four days. You were out for four days. Then, you walked out. Just left. I got the message as soon as I turned my phone back on after the show. I tried to call you and realized you didn't have your cell phone. You didn't have Malcolm. You know, I felt you during the matinee. I knew it was you." He pulled me to my feet, hugged me tight to him. "I love you," he whispered into my ear.

  I felt myself instinctively pull away from Sam. I don’t think he noticed my actions with everything else going on around us.

  "Okay, out of my kitchen. I've gone from feeding one to twenty." He pointed us out of the room with his tongs.

  The evening became a lovely welcome home party. The guest list was a composite: Some from Sam's current show, some from his new show, other close friends. Even Emma May from across the street popped in, joined the frolic. When I looked deep into her, I realized with certainty that she was, in fact, a ghost. At my comprehension, she laughed and laughed, but remained there all the same, visible only to me.

  Adding to the chaos, Ariel arrived with her dog, Hank. Together, he and Aristotle took off to run their circuit through the first and second floors of the house. She hugged me tight, without words.

  No one saw Lola enter. Sam played at the piano, several people singing along, everyone else raucous in the moment. She stood silent in the doorway, a look of disbelief on her tired face.

  I saw her, moved toward her. The music stopped, the frolic turned for a moment into a mob.

  "What the fuck are you doing here?" Sam yelled from behind Lola.

  Harry joined in, yelling obscenities.

  "I…I…I…." she stammered.

  "Stop," I said, my voice calm, quiet. They all obeyed. "Lola, come with me." I led her into the parlor. Harry and a cute boy were talking on the couch. "Boys, I need this room." They left, questions unvoiced.

  I slid closed the pocket door while Lola settled herself into a chair. It wasn't difficult like the last time. She'd lost a lot of weight. She looked beaten down, her grey roots visible, liver spots showing on her cheek.

  "Duke, I'm so very sorry." Tears spilled from her mascara-less eyes.

  "Apology accepted," I said.

  She tamped at her tears with a well-used hanky. I got up, found a tissue box in a cabinet, offered it to her. Lola pulled several tissues from the box, wadded them up, tamped some more. Before I could put away the box, she grabbed my arm and gently turned it over. “Not even a scar?”

  “Amazing, huh?”

  “But, how?”

  I wanted to offer her some explanation, a description of what had happened to me, but I knew she wouldn’t understand. I barely understood it, even though the feelings of those moments were still very strong in me. But, she changed the subject.

  "Do you have a cigarette?"

  I couldn't remember Lola ever smoking. I reached for my pack, shook it in my hand, offered the exposed filter to her.

  "It's an old habit. I'd quit. But, with everything going on lately…"

  I held out my Zippo for her and she placed her hand on mine to steady the flame. As she breathed in to light her cigarette I suddenly got a clear image of a younger, skinny Lola, whoring it up, skimpy dress, reaching a finger and thumb to her tongue to remove a stray tobacco bit. Laughing loud. It was a nightclub, a real nightclub with a floor show and tuxedoed waiters.

  "I'm sorry," she said through a veil of smoke.

  I ignored her, instead studying the vision. The smoke she blew over her head formed rings; she clapped at her own accomplishment. A man—was that really Sinatra?—patted her arm, got up, walked to the stage, introduced her. They sang together.

  I pulled my lighter back and held it to my own cigarette. "Lola, did you sing with Sinatra?"

  "Oh," her face lit up. "We were so young." She smiled, but it was a pained smile. The story rushed out of her. "There was this little supper club in the Poconos. We were just kids. I was a waitress. I had great tits." She held up her chest for a moment, gave up from the strain. “Frankie filled in sometimes, did a song here, another there. I dated a friend of his; Sal. They were like brothers, you know, from the old neighborhood. Sal was so handsome, wore his hair slicked back like they all did in those days. My fingers would be full of grease by the end of the evening from running them through his handsome curls. Sal was always at the club. His dad was the bartender, I think. Anyway, after last call, we'd all go to this little dive. Oh, boy. We'd drink whiskey and smoke and laugh. We laughed a lot. Those boys were all crazy then. They had big dreams. I had a great voice, but nothing compared to Frankie. We had fun together…" she trailed off into her memory.

  I knew there was more and she'd continue.

  "Well, Sal fucked me. Actually, we fucked each other. I got pregnant. They acted like they didn't know me. I lost my job. My parents threw me out of the house. Those were different times. I got a job at a diner in Hoboken. Knew a guy there who owed me a favor for not ratting him out with his wife about his mistress—me! That's funny, you know. If it had been his kid I was having he'd have treated me like Sal and the boys. Anyway, he let me work, even big as a house. Let me live in the little apartment above the diner. Even paid the hospital bill."

  She waited for me to ask, so I did. "What happened to the baby?"

  "Put up for adoption. That’s what girls like me were forced to do back then. You couldn’t be a single mother. You...” her words trailed off. She broke the silence tamping out her cigarette.

  "Lola, we can't keep going with all this fighting."

  “Why are you being so nice?”

  “Isn’t that what you want?”

  She thought for a long moment. “I don’t know what I expected when I came here. I just knew I had to see you. I was ready to throw myself on your mercy.”

  I thought about trying to explain what I’d learned. I wanted to offer not forgiveness, but my appreciation. If she hadn’t attacked me, I wouldn’t have had the amazing experience with James and Muriel. Instead, we were both silent.

  "You know I love him," she said.

  "I know. I think he loves you, too. I don't know that he's capable of saying those words."

  "Only when he comes."

  We were both taken aback by her comment.

  "Way too much information!" I chuckled.

  "You men rarely mean it at that moment."

  "Of course we do. We love to come." I smiled warmly at her.

  "We all do," she said, once again, for just a moment, a young girl trash talking with the boys.

  "Lola, I'm glad you and my father have found each other."

  "Too bad it happened so late." She dabbed her eyes again with the wadded up tissue ball in her hand.

  I knew I could help my father if he'd let me. I just didn't know if he'd let me.

  "So this is a truce?" she asked.

  "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship, sweetheart," I said, attempting Bogey.

  "Humphrey Bogart you ain't. And how I know is a story I won’t be telling tonight!"

  My eyebrows arched, but she just shook her head “No.” I stood. She followed my lead. "I think you could use a drink."

  "Bet your ass I could."

  We walked together back into the party. Sam scowled; I nodded him down, mouthed "I'll tell you later."

  "This is going to be some conversation," he whispered to me through Clara’s take on Cabaret.

  "Harry, please pour Lola a drink."

  "What'll ya have?" he asked, his anger not hidden.

  "Harry, we're all being very nice right now so go with it."

  "Sorry, Duke. What can I make for you Lola?" He was sincere.

  "Vodka rocks, please."

  "Can I leave you to your own devices?" I asked Lola.

  "I'm a big girl. I'll just belly up to the bottle for a bit."

  "Maybe we can get you to sing for us?" I winked at her.

  "It's going to take more than this," she lifted the nearly empty bottle.

  I moved away from the crowd in my living room, standin
g in the doorway. Why had Sam been poisoning Malcolm? The idea made no sense. Perhaps I’d misunderstood the prompts from my team. I tuned to them, but they offered no further information or advice.

  The ghost appeared next to me. His energy unmistakable to me now. I offered nothing to him.

  “No busses here,” he said.

  When I turned to gain a better focus on him, the ghost was gone.

  Chapter Twenty One

  I quietly left the party and went up to my office. There was so much about the day that didn’t make sense to me. I thought being alone might help.

  Once in my room with the door closed, I quieted my mind and turned to my team. Instead of just feeling and hearing them, I easily found them in the vast canvas of the other side. While there were countless points of light there, the vibrations of James and Muriel resonated clearly to me.

  I focused my energy on them as I’d learned to do and they appeared before me, only this time I remained fully in my own body, separated from them. Their colors weren’t quite as brilliant as I remembered, but, still, I could see them.

  “What is happening?” I asked of them.

  “You are simply on your journey,” said Muriel with kindness.

  “What is expected of me, now?”

  “Nothing,” said James. “You can do whatever you please, just as always. Nothing has changed. You have absolute free will and may choose as you desire.” His tone was exactly as it had always been when he addressed me, a bit cold and direct.

  “Just be on your journey,” Muriel said.

  Both of them dissipated back into the background of their place. I felt lonely and a little sad. I pushed those thoughts from my head, got back to a comfortable stillness within my mind, which was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Come in.” I expected it to be Malcolm, or possibly Sam.

  “Duke?”

  I turned in my chair to see Harry standing in the doorway. I motioned for him to enter and he closed the door. I pointed to a chair; he sat in it.

  “What is it, Harry?”

  “I wanted to be near you.”

  I moved to the chair nearest him and as I sat, he took my hand and looked solidly into my eyes.