Sintown Chronicles I: Behind Closed Doors

by David O. Dyer, Sr.

  “What do you think?” she tossed over her shoulder.

  She was standing at the kitchen sink, propped against a tall stool, washing dishes. The walker was beside her, but the wheelchair was not in sight.

  “I found that I can prop my butt on this stool and stand up to do the dishes,” she explained.

  He hugged her from the side and planted a noisy smooch on her cheek. “Where's the wheelchair?"

  “It's in the bedroom. I haven't used it all morning. Get the baked ham out of the refrigerator. I thought we'd just make sandwiches for lunch today."

  “That McGee woman is not just a doctor. She's a miracle worker,” Big Willie exclaimed, setting the ham and mustard on the table and reaching for a loaf of bread.

  “We have a different theory,” Louise replied, gripping the walker tightly and shuffling to the kitchen table. She waved Big Willie away when he tried to assist her. “Willie, please. I'd rather do it myself."

  “I don't want you to fall."

  “I have fallen—many times—and I'll fall many more times before I master this thing.” The concern on his face touched her. “Quit worrying, Big Man. I always get back up."

  “What's your theory?” he asked, spreading a generous glob of mustard on a slice of bread.

  “Dr. McGee says a woman with a spinal injury like mine is not supposed to enjoy sex anymore. I didn't know that, so I went right on enjoying it. Dr. McGee thinks my body found new muscles to use so I wouldn't just lay there like a plastic doll, and the more I used those muscles the stronger they got.” She laughed at the incredulous stare he was giving her. “Now if I could just think of some way to use my feet during sex, maybe I could actually learn to walk again."

  He grinned sheepishly. “Some folks might call it kinky, but I can think of a way."

  “You have time for a quickie before going back to work?” she asked.

  * * * *

  “No, Vic. I'm not going to put that thing in my mouth. That's repulsive."

  “Susan, honey, just kiss it a little. I'll kiss yours if you'll let me take your panties off."

  “Not now and not ever. You'll get germs."

  “I'll risk it,” he said eagerly.

  She sat up and looked at him sternly. “I've tried to be responsive to your needs, Victor Kimel. Ever since I accepted your ring I've let you undress me except for my panties and I've used my hand on you. But if you don't back off, you've seen my breasts for the last time until our wedding night.” She jumped off the bed and put on her white robe.

  He rolled over. “You took your panties off too that first night."

  “That was a special occasion,” she said.

  “Speaking of breasts, honey, if you squeeze them together just right you can use them on me just like you use your hand."

  “Victor Kimel, you're impossible.” She stalked out of the room.

  He followed as soon as he put on his pants and caught up with her in the living room. “Speaking of wedding nights, we ought to let the Dollars know if we want have the ceremony during their Christmas Eve party."

  “Vic, for the last time, we are not ready to get married yet. Maybe next Christmas, but not this year. How many times do I have to tell you?"

  “You can't blame a guy for trying,” he muttered.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Jan was sitting at Jake's desk when he entered the den. He kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed whirling the desk chair around, “I didn't hear you come in."

  “Who could with all that banging going on outside.” He kissed her quickly on the lips and briefly fondled her breasts.

  “It's going to be worth it, Jake. The new roof looks good and the siding they are putting up is beautiful.” She grasped his buttocks and pulled him to her.

  “Installing all new windows won't hurt, either,” he commented, stroking her hair, “but if you think the work outside is disconcerting, wait until they start remodeling inside."

  “Don't keep me in suspense, Jake. How'd it go?"

  “Just as you said,” Jake replied. “Dr. McGee is a nice person and apparently a competent doctor. She took blood and urine samples, listened to my heart and lungs, beat on my knees with her little hammer, put on a rubber glove, applied Vaseline and rammed her finger up my butt. I thought I'd be embarrassed to have a woman doctor do that, but she put me at ease and I managed to get through it."

  “You did tell her about your erectile dysfunction,” she said, pressing her nose to the crotch of his slacks.

  “No."

  “Jake, damn it. You promised.” She dug her fingernails into his buttocks.

  “I told her I have a long standing problem with impotence. If I said ‘erectile dysfunction,’ she would have known I was the man you were talking with her about."

  “You old fart,” Jan chuckled, “she's not stupid. She sees us together at the diner every night."

  “Yeah, well, let's just say I left a shadow of doubt in her mind."

  “You've told me what she did, but you haven't told me what she said."

  “Same old crap. I have an enlarged prostate, but that is normal for a man my age. Its size is not sufficient to be the cause of impotence. Other than my blood pressure being a little high, I seem to be in good health and, unless something unexpected shows up in the blood or urine tests, there is no physical cause of my problem."

  “Did she offer any advice?"

  “She gave me the same lecture she must have given you. She says I'm crazy and need to see a psychiatrist.” He pulled away from her and walked to the window, pretending to watch the workmen.

  “Jake, she didn't say that."

  “Not in those exact words, but that's what she meant."

  “What exactly did she say?"

  He sat heavily on a rickety straight-backed chair beside the desk and stretched out his legs. “She offered to make an appointment for me with a mental healthcare professional. I guess that's what they're calling shrinks these days."

  “And?"

  “I told her to go to hell. I'm not crazy. Nobody in my family has ever been insane. Jan, she's just like all the rest. She doesn't know how to fix my problem, so she says it's all my fault."

  “I can't believe you said that."

  “Well, it's the truth. Dr. McGee looked stunned—said I was living in the dark ages. She gave me a pamphlet on mental health."

  “Did you read it?"

  “I tossed it in the trash on my way out."

  “Did you ask her about Viagra?"

  Jake nodded. “She's not a fan of the sex pill. She claims that although my blood pressure is not dangerously high, using Viagra could be fatal."

  The rusted casters creaked as Jan scooted the desk chair closer to him. Putting a hand on his knee she said, “I like you just the way you are, but you don't like yourself. Maybe something will turn up with the blood and urine samples."

  “Don't hold your breath,” he said sarcastically. “Would you believe it? When I refused to see a psychiatrist she changed her mind and decided I needed to get religion."

  Her head shot up. “No, I don't believe it."

  He nodded. “Yep. She said her husband, Mack McGee, used to be a counselor in the Department of Pastoral Care at the North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem before becoming the pastor of the Dot Baptist Church. She thought maybe he could help me."

  “Are you going to talk with him?"

  “What's he going to do? Grab me by the shoulders, shake the crap out of me and shout ‘HEAL'?"

  They both laughed.

  “How's your leg?”

  She lifted her foot for him to see and slipped back the left leg of her jeans. “It still looks ugly—all red and splotchy—but it hasn't hurt for over a week now."

  “What were you looking at?” he asked, glancing at the desktop.

  She rolled the chair back to the center of the desk while explaining, “I came in here this morning to straighten up a little and became i
nterested in your stamp collection. I guess this book I have open is your foreign collection."

  “Philatelists call it a world collection, and that's just one of ten volumes. The thing just keeps growing. My United States collection is over there,” he said motioning towards a bookcase with his head.

  Following his eyes she asked, “What are all those albums marked ‘Greedy'?"

  He laughed. “One problem collectors have is finding a way to make use of all the duplicate stamps they come up with. Some trade their duplicates with other collectors, some try to sell them, some give them away. I keep every stamp I can get my hands on and display them in my Greedy Albums."

  “You have boxes and boxes of loose stamps stacked up in the corner."

  “Yeah, those are stamps I have taken off my mail, scavenged from trashcans or bought through mail-order. I just haven't gotten around to identifying and cataloging them yet."

  “You get stamps out of trashcans?"

  “Sure,” he laughed. “You'd be surprised at how many people who have post office boxes read their mail in the post office lobby and toss the envelopes in the trash on their way out. Every afternoon when I am at the post office, I dig through the trashcans looking for stamps. I get funny looks sometimes, but what do I care what people think?"

  “Most of your loose stamps are still glued to an envelope corner. How do you get them off—with steam?"

  “That's the way they used to do it. Wait a minute and I'll show you."

  In a few minutes, Jake returned carrying a plastic container with a couple of inches of lukewarm water in it. He sat the container on the desk corner, scooped up a handful of loose stamps and dropped them on the desk in front of Jan. “Put these stamps face down in the water, one at a time."

  While she performed the exercise he opened a desk drawer and extracted a shiny chrome-plated device.

  “What are the tweezers for?” Jan asked.

  “They're not tweezers,” Jake replied. “Tweezers have sharp edges which would cut the stamps. These are stamp tongs and have smooth edges. Tongs are used as much as possible to handle stamps in order to keep skin oils off the paper."

  “Look,” she exclaimed happily. “Some of the stamps have come loose and are floating to the bottom."

  He laughed. “That's how we get stamps off of paper. Of course, not all of them will float loose like that. Some you will have to help a little by using the tongs to pull them off the paper."

  “What do we do next?"

  He removed a square piece of plate glass from the desk drawer and placed it beside the stamp bath. “Remove a loose stamp from the water by grabbing it with the tong, wiggle it in the water to get all the glue off, and then place the stamp face down on the glass. Let the stamps get almost dry, then put them on a flat surface with a heavy book on top to make sure the stamps don't curl during the final drying process."

  “This is fun,” she said as she began removing stamps. “Wouldn't it speed up the process to use a hair dryer?"

  “I've tried that,” he said. “It works, but it's much harder to keep the stamps from curling."

  “Are these stamps worth anything?"

  “Sure, but not a lot. Of course, every collector hopes to some day discover a rare stamp or a major error. Basically, however, stamp collecting is for fun, not profit."

  “How do you know how much a stamp is worth?"

  He smiled warmly at Jan while playfully shaking his head. “I'm delighted you're interested, but that's a lesson for another day. If we don't get started filling orders we're going to get behind again."

  Jan closed the album she had been examining and returned it to the shelf. She felt there was an interesting piece of information hiding somewhere in her brain and she tried to recall it as she emptied the murky water in the bathroom sink and washed out the container. It came to her just as she entered the stockroom to help with the order fulfillment process.

  “Jake, not long before I quit working at the diner I remember someone saying something about several boxes of old stamps being found in the warehouse across from the church. I believe it was Victor Kimel who was talking about it."

  Jake turned to her, eyes glowing.

  “You have so many stamps I don't suppose you'd be interested."

  * * * *

  Jan peeked over Jake's shoulder as he opened and glanced inside each of the twenty large, filthy, boxes lining the warehouse floor. She thought there must be a zillion loose stamps, as well as whole envelopes, books and albums inside those boxes. Obediently she let Jake do all the talking.

  “As I told you on the phone,” Victor Kimel said, “we don't know the source of these stamps. Mr. Dollar inherited them from his uncle along with half of everything else in Dot. It may be that the old man took them in payment of a debt, or perhaps he intended to become a collector but never got around to it."

  “Doesn't look like there's much here,” Jake commented. “Pretty common stuff from what I can see."

  “Several months ago Mr. Dollar said he wanted to go through these boxes himself, but he hasn't done it. After talking with you, I called him. He said if you make a reasonable offer to let you have them."

  “It would cost thousands of dollars and many months to have a philatelist or dealer go through these boxes and give you a valid appraisal. I'm afraid all you have here is junk, but if you want to get them out of the way, I'll take them off your hands,” Jake offered.

  “I'm no philatelist,” Vic countered, “but I'm sure these stamps have some value. I was thinking maybe five hundred a box."

  “Ten thousand dollars? No thank you, sir,” Jake said, laughing.

  “What about a thousand dollars—fifty a box. That's reasonable, isn't it?” Vic offered.

  Jake continued laughing. “Mr. Kimel, I know you're Mr. Dollar's chief financial officer and it's your job to turn lead into gold, but you're not an alchemist and neither am I. I'll give you one hundred dollars for the lot."

  “Make it five hundred and they're yours."

  “I've done all the haggling I'm going to do, sir.” Jake produced a one hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and extended it towards Vic.

  Vic looked solemnly at Jake while thinking of Tim Dollar's exact words on the telephone earlier: “We're scheduled to open the warehouse as a craft mall next weekend. Get those stamps out of there if you have to pay the man to take them."

  “You drive a hard bargain, Jake. If you ever need a job, I think Mr. Dollar could find a place for you on our team."

  When the boxes were loaded into the van and the couple was on their way home, Jan said, “You just stole twenty boxes of stamps."

  “Yep, I did, didn't I?"

  “You old fart,” she laughed.

  * * * *

  “Betty, this is Mary Lou McGee. The results of your Western Blot test just came in. It's negative. Congratulations, Betty. You're off the hook."

  “Betty ... Betty ... are you there, Betty?"

  “You're sure there's no mistake?” a weak voice asked.

  “They ran the test twice. There's no mistake. You are not HIV positive."

  Dr. McGee heard the telephone drop on Betty's desk and the happy shouts of, “It's negative! Rita, it's negative!”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Bo, isn't it beautiful?” Betty asked, smiling so widely that her braces glimmered in the sunlight.

  Bo slowly walked around the object of Betty's joy—a brand new teal-colored Ford Escort.

  “What's important is that you like it,” he answered at last. “I would have thought you would consult me before making a major purchase like this.” He opened the passenger-side door. “Wow,” he tried to joke. “If I could bottle this new car smell I'd be a millionaire."

  “Bo, I was so excited after getting Dr. McGee's call, and I've been thinking about getting a car, and Rita said we should take the day off and celebrate, and we're going to need two cars when we move to Rita's house anyway, and I did try to call you. You didn't answer your office
phone and when I dialed your cell phone I got a message that said the phone was switched off or out of range."

  Bo knew the cellular telephone was on all day and that he hadn't been out of range. “You could have left a voice-mail message. You know I was as concerned about the test result as Rita was.” He shut the door with much more force than necessary.

  “I didn't want to leave a message like that. The wrong person might have heard it. Come on, Bo. Cheer up. We can afford it."

  “It's your money, Betty. You earned it and you have the right to spend it any way you like."

  “We're running late, Bo. Rita is expecting us for dinner. Hurry up and get your bath. You can test drive the Escort on the way to Rita's house."

  “I'm not going tonight,” he responded. “I'll get a bite to eat at the diner."

  “Bo, you promised."

  “I have some stuff I need to finish by morning. I'm going back to the office. See,” he said, trying to brighten the mood, “having two cars has already come in handy."

  * * * *

  “Big Willie, I need to take the day off."

  The huge man looked up from his desk. “What's up, Bo? I don't remember you ever asking for a day off before."

  “I just have some things I need to take care of."

  “Well, sure, you can take the day off if it's important. Is there anything wrong, Bo?"

  “I don't know. There's just some things I have to settle."

  “You haven't been happy since we moved to Dot, have you, Bo?"

  “Big Willie, you've been on cloud nine since we came here. You finally have the job you want and Louise is doing so great. You are happy enough for both of us."

  “Sometimes it helps to talk about it, Bo."

  “It doesn't concern you, Big Willie. I'll see you in the morning."

  “Hey, wait a minute, Bo."

  Bo stopped at the office door.

  “If you are going out of town, why don't you use one of the company trucks so Betty won't be stranded?"

  “Thanks, Big Willie, but Betty's okay. She bought herself a new Escort yesterday. She has her own wheels now—her own life."

  Big Willie frowned as he watched Bo walk away.

  Once on Highway 13 Bo turned on the car radio and played with the dial until he found a country music station. He turned the sound up to blast and rolled down his window. The crisp early October morning air had a sobering effect, but he knew that by the time he arrived at Tanglewood, the temperature would be quite warm. He looked at the trees lining the roadway. Soon they would be ablaze with shades of gold and crimson. Already he could detect a few leaves beginning to change color. He glanced at the speedometer.