“On the other hand,” he said aloud. “There is no way I could have stayed in Cleveland.” His voice vibrated oddly in the empty room and he found it comforting to hear himself. Crusoe had probably done the same.
Why not?
“Because... the phone calls, the newspapers, the police, the television people and the job. I don’t have a job.
You don’t have a job here either.
“That’s true.”
You didn’t have to be so damn panicky. You could’ve brought clothes, a chair.
He sat as the day wore on, considering his circumstances, which were mostly bleak. He began to make a list, using the back of the unopened brown envelope Sheila had given him.
Points in his benefit: “I have money,” he wrote. He could get more from ATM’s or use credit cards. “Food.” He could go to drive-throughs for all his meals, and not be stared at.
“I have a house.”
Adrian looked at that last one, wondering if it should be on the minus side of the column. True, the house kept him from the public, which helped ease the panic attacks, but he had nowhere to sit.
He dutifully wrote, “no furniture,” on the envelope. In a burst of acknowledgment he added, “no clothes, no dishes, no towels, no toothpaste, no razor, no soap.”
“No toilet paper.”
More mental searching, and he wrote, “The truck’s rented. I’m handicapped. I have to find a doctor.” The negative column was becoming much longer than the positive one. Adrian began to regret the engineering impulse that suggested a list in the first place. He stared for a moment longer and wrote, “No job.”
That left a gaping hole in his thoughts; no job. A sinking feeling settled on him as he studied the paper. He felt more alone than ever, further adrift. The sun moved noticeably in the sky before he stared at the list again, forcing himself to think.
“I’ve got to do something,” he told himself. “I’ve got to get up and do...something.”
“Today, I’ll go shopping for supplies.” That felt like a good idea, although putting himself on public display wasn’t appealing. “And tomorrow I’ll start looking for work.”
Supplies, of course, proved far more difficult than he’d imagined. Finding a store involved aimless driving in unfamiliar traffic. Unable to maneuver the large truck, he parked at the end of the lot. He hobbled all the way to the store, stopping once to wait out a stitch in his side. By the time he reached health supplies Adrian was in a cold sweat. He held a small red basket under one arm, his crutch under his pit. To pick up something meant setting down the basket dropping the item in and picking up the basket. He managed soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush and a razor and sat down near the pharmacy for ten minutes before the long trek to paper products.
It took half an hour in the truck to get his heart rate down from dizzying heights and another fifteen minutes to find his new house. After the walk inside he lay on the living room floor for an hour, aching.
It had been twenty-three days since the attack. His whole life had changed.
The doorbell rang at 9:15 on Tuesday morning. Adrian sat up, his mind buzzing with thought. It’s a salesman...a religious fanatic...a newspaper kid...a fireman...the police...a crazed maniac. It wasn’t a crazed manic, they didn’t ring the bell. But who? He didn’t know anyone in Colorado, and no one in Ohio knew he was here.
He sat up from his makeshift bed of a pillow and his winter coat and felt his whole body squeal. The cast was a heavy weight at the end of his arm, his leg ached and his mouth felt like sandpaper. He’d slept in his jeans and a tee shirt.
The doorbell rang again, a truly awful sound. Dammit, he thought, solitude was supposed to be quieter.
His crutch was over near the door and he crawled to it as the doorbell rang a third time. From outside a high pitched voice yelled faintly, “Hellooooo?” The pitch ruled out police or firemen. Adrian pulled himself to his foot and began the long trip to the door.
He reached the boundary of the hall and living room when his panic struck, rolling through him like a fever. Chilled, sweating, trembling and weak, he slopped. I haven’t even seen anyone yet. Was this getting worse? Maybe it’s a little old lady. He inhaled, waited, exhaled, repeated. The doorbell rang and he tried to picture Aunt Bee. Calmer he hopped closer to the door and looked through the spyhole.
A kid. Adrian peered through the tiny opening, trying to make out details. but the device was intended for overviews, not precision. Besides, the visitor was turned away. All Adrian could tell was that it was a kid, he was alone and wasn’t carrying a grenade launcher.
And he wasn’t going away. The annoying doorbell screeched again—five times; Adrian counted. Who doesn’t give up after that many? He twisted the lock on the knob and opened the door slightly, staring through the crack.
“What?” His voice rasped with disuse. He wanted to brush his teeth, shower and get out of his clothes. The kid turned and Adrian forgot everything.
It was Jesus. Jesus Gallegos had come back to life, and was standing on the stoop. As the kid turned toward the door, Adrian felt the overwhelming desire to scream, slam the door and run. Instead he froze. Jesus had returned from the dead and somehow found him.
“Hey,” called the kid in an eerily cheerful voice. He stepped forward, peering at the crack of the door, trying to make out who was inside. He leaned closer and Adrian pulled back. “I carne to ask if you need your yard worked on?”
He waited and said, “Hello?”
It wasn’t Jesus—it couldn’t be. Sanity returned slowly as Adrian stared at the stranger. The kid was taller than he remembered the dead gang member. He was lighter skinned, though still possibly Hispanic. His clothes were suburban typical teenager: shorts too long and too baggy, oversized tee shirt, huge space age sneakers and a baseball cap worn backwards. Couldn’t be Jesus.
But knowing it and getting the panic to release him were two different issues. Adrian remained plastered to the door, his cheek creased by the wood. Through the three-inch gap he said harshly, “What do you want?”
“Yard work?” The kid sounded doubtful, as if this was more than he’d bargained for. “I live across the street—” he swiveled and pointed at a blue house catty-corner to the west. A tri-level, white shutters, one tree in the yard and a minivan in the two car driveway. A woman picking up a blue plastic wrapped newspaper looked over. Adrian jerked his eye back to the visitor.
“It’s Spring break and my Mom said maybe you’d like some help,” said the kid. “My name’s Toby.” Of course, thought Adrian, had to be. It couldn’t be Jesus.
“Can you like, open the door or something?” asked the kid. “I can’t see you too good.”
Open the door ? Not a chance. Open the door and the kid comes in and...and... “Go away,” he demanded.
“Hey; man. I just—”
“GO AWAY!” Adrian yelled it at the kid and at Jesus Gallegos.
Toby jumped back, surprised. He peered at the shape in the doorway, shook his head in anger, and turned away muttering. Adrian heard a low mumbled “asshole.”
He shut the door and sagged against it. It was all right now, the kid was gone and everything was alright. He let the chemicals in his body slosh around like a science lab experiment from hell, slowly settle and slop to a leaden weight within him. The kid was gone. I would be all right now.
But he turned back to the bedroom feeling like one of those neighborhood ogres, the old man in the dark spooky house that everybody stares at.
9 – Marvin Hackerman, Albany, New York
Marvin Hackerman handed over a five and got back three singles from the toll booth guy. He glanced at a green sign above the road that said ‘Albany 26 miles.’
A light snow promised another dreary week of winter and he considered, as he always did in New York, that February sucked. He rolled up his window and sped forward, out of the oasis of light, back into the darkness of the endless highway.
He’d be at the office in less than an hour, the
battered cube van filled and back on the road by midnight, tops. The idea pleased him and he lit a cigarette to celebrate. He thought about cold weather and imagined his future life in Cancun or Brazil. He decided to break out the travel brochures tonight, no matter how late he made it to a motel.
The office, a good looking rental in one of the better industrial parks, was less pleasant at night than in the day. The harsh sodium lights, billed as a security extra, showed every crack in the pavement and the shadows made the faux pebble facade look pock marked, like acne.
He parked in back, entered through the small person door next to the garage roll up, and clicked a light switch. He shivered; it was colder in here than outside. And why not? The place had been vacant for two weeks. He rolled up the door manually and backed the vehicle into the warehouse. He turned off the engine and closed the door.
He walked through the small warehouse and entered the front office. This was where the money was spent. Definitely extravagant, it suggested a well-funded organization, the exact effect desired. It cost seventeen hundred a month and ‘Marvin’ considered it money very well spent.
Especially when the cops and those two insurance guys had come calling last month.
“Marvin’ smiled at the memory and began disassembling the executive desk with practiced ease. He’d done it enough times. He clicked on the receiver from the stereo on the credenza and smiled when Aretha filled the room.
“...A natural woman,” he bellowed in an awful falsetto. He carried the drawers to the van, stacked them on the floor and returned to the office, careful not to track snow on the carpet. He wanted his security deposit back.
He smiled at that, too. The whole system amused him, especially now, at this point in the plan. This was the part he liked best, besides the break in itself. The whole last month. packing up, seeing the insurance people baffled, the cops oblivious. Playacting with the rental agent, “Going out of business; can’t help it. The robbery wiped me out.”
An oldie, a song called ‘Lies’ came on and he sang along. The Knickerbockers, right? He stacked paintings and books on the plush leather chair and pushed it out the door. Came back. still singing. “Lies.” he sang loudly. “That’s all I ever get from you.”
He snorted loudly at the irony and carried the credenza to the van.
He picked a motel the way he always did—at random. Tonight, in the mood for a celebration, he chose the Marriott. He splurged on a suite with a separate sitting room and bought a glass of Zinfandel from the bar before carrying his single suitcase to the room. He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. Tomorrow was Sunday, a day of rest. He’d read the local paper, lounge around and on Monday go to the rental office to pick up his check. They’d sympathize and be sorry he had to leave and he’d look sad. That they would buy every word amused him greatly.
He unzipped his bag and fished around in the lid pocket. He pulled out a fistful of brightly colored cards and went to the chair. Silting down he sipped his wine and lit the days last cigarette, feeling the comforting rasp in his throat against the warm earthy tang of the wine.
Fanning the cards he selected one and studied the pictures of white beaches, skinny women in bright bikinis, sailboats on glassy water, bright parasails slicing through impossibly blue skies. With the closing of the Albany office he realized, he was less than a year away.
‘Marvin’ stared at a thatched hut and decided not to look at any others. It was still too soon and the temptation would weaken him. He reluctantly replaced the brochure, sipped the wine and stubbed out the cigarette. He turned off the light and said, in the darkness of the anonymous room, “One more year.”
10 – Doctor Pay
The sign in the lobby said, Colorado Family Physicians—second floor, room 241. There was no elevator so breath was at a premium when he entered a lobby with an enormous fish tank and orange fabric chairs. Safely removed from the decor, a young woman in a white outfit sat patiently ignoring a ringing telephone while she pressed green and red and orange labels on Manila folders.
A television blared unwatched against the far wall and a hidden speaker played a bland version of ‘Moondance’. The lobby huddled in on itself, brooding in dark wood and low lighting, while the tiny office area, carefully defended by a counter with glass walls, shone with fluorescent efficiency.
“I’m Adrian Beck.”
“Who are you here to see?” asked the receptionist, barely looking up from her files.
“Dr. Pei.” Adrian said. pronouncing it “Pie.”
“Pay,” she corrected absently, as if for the thousandth time. She left the folders long enough to hand over a clipboard. “Fill out the top section on page one. Fill out all of pages two through eleven, especially the medical history. Sign the last page and how do you intend to pay?”
She pointed at the wall, where a plastic sign stated that payment was due at the time of service. Physicians, Adrian mused, taking a seat in the gloomy anteroom, like engineers, were forever engaged in the struggle for payment.
He signed, checked boxes and provided information with less than perfect memory or handwriting and gave the form to the receptionist. He returned to his seat and read People magazine while trying not to listen to an extremely abrasive talk show host above him on the TV.
The audience shrieked a lot and Adrian finished the magazine with boredom and a tan door opened. Bright light filled the room and another white dressed woman gestured, “Mr. Beck? Would you follow me, please?”
In a tiny room he removed his dirty clothes, putting on the flimsy and faded gown as ordered. He felt foolish as he sat and shivered, clad only in white briefs, one black sock, two casts and an unnumbered amount of heavy bandages.
A woman entered with a file folder and a professionally detached expression. She wore a lab coat open over a white blouse and tan wool skirt. Her hair had been black once, now it flowed like a gray wave, pulled back in a ponytail that hung down her back to her waist. She was looking at a Adrian’s forms with almond eyes behind large wire rim glasses and he pulled his gown tighter waiting for her reaction.
“I’m, Doctor Pei,’ she said-in a voice redolent of warm Hawaiian islands, gentle breezes and sunlit beaches. She pronounced it “Pay” as in, checks or cash, due on service, and looked up from the chart for the first time. “Oh my.”
Oh my indeed. High cheekbones, strongly oriental color and features, short businesslike fingernails that touched his cheek, gently tracing the outline of the scar, pressing the skin to study its texture. Her touch sent chills down his bare spine.
She picked up the file again, frowned engagingly while her eyes ran down the sheet. “How did this happen?”
“I fell. A rock climbing accident.”
“No, you didn’t.” She touched his face. “This is fresh and it was not caused by a fall. It’s a knife wound. And, like gun wounds, it must be reported to the police.” She watched Adrian closely.
He hadn’t planned to tell her. He considered for a moment, said simply, “The police know about it.”
“Do they now?”
“They do.”
“Then tell me as well, Mr. Beck.” Adrian sighed. Why not tell the truth? He was a world away from his own life, adrift with strangers. “There was a street gang. They got on a bus and were...terrorizing people.” He stared at the table and tried not to relive the night. “I was more...involved...than I should have been.”
“I see.” She spoke with professional sympathy while probing his arm, his leg, his side. She began to unwrap the bandages around his chest. Firm yet gentle fingers probed as she asked, “does this hurt? This?”
“Ow,” he said. This did.
“This involvement,” she said without sarcasm. “Did the police appreciate it?”
Adrian shook his head. “They suggested I was a fool.”
“And were they right?” The fingers paused on his chest. waiting for the reply. He could feel her breath.
“Yes.”
The fingers began moving
again, and his breathing resumed. Her perfume, something floral mixed peculiarly with antiseptic, appealing in a hospital sort of way, made him think of ice cream and tonsillectomies and his grandmother.
“Do you have your records?” she asked.
“No,” Adrian said. “I left in a hurry.”
She looked at him steadily, still wary. “I see. A very great hurry I would imagine. Let’s see what we can find.” She gently touched the gauze on his face, lifting the edges, she scowled. “This isn’t good. I’ll need to replace the bandage.”
When she had it off she wasn’t better pleased. She tut-tutted in an professionally distracted way, making comments to herself, and to Adrian. “You have stitches which will have to be removed. The wound is slightly infected, but antibiotics will take care of it.”
She pushed at his cheek and watched the skin relax. “You will have a scar, though.” She replaced the gauze with a fresh one and moved to his ribs.
“They said that four were broken,” Adrian said.
“I believe them.” She finished unwrapping and Adrian saw his chest for the first time in nearly two weeks. His sides were a mass of bruises. Purple, black and red blotches all ran together in a sort of abstract mess. No wonder he hurt all the time. Adrian wished he hadn’t looked.
“Well,” Dr. Pei said. “We’ll need X-Rays before we can continue. I’ll have Carl take you to get them.”
“No!” Adrian said, too loudly. Seeing her alarmed reaction, he added. “I mean I don’t want Carl...I mean a man. I want a woman to do it. Please.”
“Why?” The suspicion was back, shifted from felon to homophobe.
“It isn’t what you think. I’m having panic attacks of some kind, like anxiety but worse.”
Now she looked interested. “Tell me about the symptoms.”
“When I get near people I have trouble breathing.”
“Yes.”
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