The Chair

by James L. Rubart

  “You don’t resent him for fading out of your life?”

  “Resent him? No. Do I regret not being with him more? Do I regret not picking up the phone or dropping by to see him more often? Sure. But that’s my fault, not his.”

  “Your fault?”

  Corin shook his head. “He’s been a great friend. There for me whether I called or not.”

  “He could have called you. Dads are supposed to pursue sons, not the other way around.”

  “He did. And I got busy with life and marriage and would forget to return the call, or I’d put it on my to-do list and never get to it.” Corin slipped his credit card to the edge of the table. “Like I said, my fault.”

  “Have you ever told him how you feel? What he meant to you, what he probably still means to you?”

  “No.” Corin folded his arms. It might be fun for her—pitching him all these probing questions—but it felt like he was the baseball and Tori was the bat. “Don’t you think it’s about time to tell him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  It was the obvious question. Without an obvious answer. The real reason? Because he was making excuses for Tesser and had just lied to Tori. Tesser hadn’t called after college. Corin had. And Tesser was the one who was poor at returning phone calls. Finally Corin got tired of being the one who picked up the phone and he stopped. He figured Tesser would eventually call, but after a year crawled by, Corin realized he never would. So he stuffed the father figure into the back closet of his heart and hadn’t opened the door again till he’d been inside Tesser’s home yesterday.

  But it was okay. Truly. It didn’t matter if Tesser had called him or not. Corin still loved the guy. And he could tell Tesser’s affection for him had never changed. Being with him yesterday had confirmed it.

  Corin smiled. “Tesser knows, and so do I.”

  After paying their bill, they strolled out of the restaurant and Tori said, “You’re hitting the skies tomorrow with A. C., right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s watching the store while you’re flying like an eagle?”

  “Hailey, as always.”

  “Are you looking forward to it?”

  Corin drew his hand through the air as if it was a wing cruising on the wind. “Can’t wait. It’s been too long. I’m just hoping A. C. doesn’t talk about anything too deep. I just want to have a nice simple adrenaline rush.”

  “What makes you think he’ll—?”

  Corin smiled. “Because A. C. said he needed to talk to me about something deep.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Should be a stellar day for soaring across the sky.”

  Corin and A. C. tore along the dirt road in Pikes National Forest toward the top of Badger Mountain, flinging up a dust curtain behind them. Corin rolled down his window and stuck his arm out. Warm for this time of year. The thermals should be strong which would keep them in the air for hours.

  A. C. hit a pothole that sent Corin toward the ceiling of A. C.’s Jeep. “Hey, think you could keep it under fifty going up this road?”

  A. C. laughed. “No problem, we’re only going forty-eight right now. I won’t speed up.”

  “Most people crawl up this thing at twenty.”

  “We’re not most people.” A. C. threw his head back and let out a whoop.

  Sometimes Corin thought A. C. was even crazier than himself. He patted his pants pocket and sighed. “I think I left my cell phone in my truck.”

  “So? We’ll touch down at our landing site in an hour. I’m sure your truck and cell phone will be waiting for us down below with big smiles.”

  Four trucks and a van came into view to their right as they crested the final rise and pulled into the dusty open space one hundred yards to the right of the mountain’s peak. Three hang gliders looked ready to launch. Another two were doing final testing and checks. Good sign. Other gliders meant the air was handing out thrill-ride thermals for the taking. And Corin was ready to take.

  When he was streaking through the air with no sound but the ripple of the wind buffeting his glider and nothing but sky for thousands of feet below him, he never thought of the dream, never thought of Shasta, never thought of his business going bankrupt.

  Before A. C.’s Jeep came to a stop, Corin threw the door open, ready to step out into his favorite recipe for freedom.

  Twenty minutes later he stood next to A. C. ready to launch, their hang gliders resting side by side, only waiting for the two of them to hoist them up, strap in, and go.

  “You have your oxygen?” Corin said.

  “Why, you think we’re climbing to fifteen thousand feet or higher?”

  “Absolutely.” Corin stared at the sky. “You ready?”

  “Did I tell you I went to the doctor?” A. C. patted his left shoulder.

  “What for?”

  “To have him take a thorough look at my shoulder.”

  “I thought it was healed.”

  “It is.” Contemplation filled A. C.’s eyes.

  “So why’d you go?”

  “I wanted the doctor to get in there and look at every muscle, every fiber. To see if it really had been restored. To see if this chair of yours did more than mental gymnastics on me.”

  “And?”

  “He’s never seen anything like it. He called in three other doctors to see me.” A. C. rubbed his shoulder with a red-gloved hand. “He even pulled up the old X-rays and shot new ones so he could study them side by side.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He wouldn’t call it a miracle, but he kept saying, ‘This shouldn’t be, this shouldn’t be,’ as he pointed to one X-ray, then the other.” A. C. laughed. “It made me think of that old Sesame Street song: ‘One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.’” He shook his head, then cocked it to the side and pulled his goggles off his face. “Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

  “Yeah, because it’s unbelievable.”

  “Because I don’t want you to have any doubt I’ve been 100 percent healed.”

  “Okay.”

  “Because when it really sank in that I’ve been restored, I couldn’t help thinking of something.” A. C. stared at Corin, eyes intense.

  “What?”

  “It’s made me think of someone.” A. C. glanced at the slope in front of them and out toward the shimmering lakes ten miles into the distance, then back at Corin, his eyes still throwing off light like a Fourth of July sparkler.

  “Do I want to hear this?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t say it.” Corin knew the path his friend was about to jump on and try to go down. But it was so overgrown, the sharpest machete in the world couldn’t cut through the underbrush choking the trail.

  “You know I have to.”

  “If you’re a friend you won’t even think about suggesting it.”

  “If I’m a friend I’ll make you think about it.”

  “I’m not going there, A. C.”

  “When’s the last time you talked to him?”

  “Are we going to catch these thermals before the wind dies?”

  “When?”

  “I’m not having this discussion.”

  “Yeah, you are. If I die on this flight and you don’t, I’ll at least know I talked to you about this and you’ll have to wrestle with making the right decision.”

  “That’s a road that has Dead-End signs packed in so thick, a Hummer couldn’t plow through them.”

  “When?”

  “You don’t think I try? Every week I find an excuse to call his house.” Corin took off his gloves and spiked them onto the ground. “Every week I send an e-mail. I pick up his kid. I send gifts. He’s never. Going. To. Respond.”

  “He’s your brother. And he was your best friend.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Friendships are worth going through hades for. They’re worth fighting for.”

  “I am fighting.
And I’ve been through the deepest part of the darkness so many times I could draw you a map.”

  “How hard are you fighting?” A. C. cinched up his harness and looked at his glider.

  “Hard.” Corin kicked a clump of dead grass at his feet. “It rips me up inside.”

  “When is the last time you showed up at Shasta’s front door and refused to leave until he talked to you?”

  Corin didn’t answer. He stared at the launch path they would run down in a few minutes that would send them into the sky. His escape route.

  “When?” A. C. repeated.

  “This isn’t any of your business.” Corin picked up his gloves and put them on again.

  “When I see my best friend being shredded emotionally and see a possible way to make it stop, yeah, it’s my business.”

  Corin walked to his glider and hoisted it up.

  “And when sitting in some weird chair heals me, I can’t help but think if you don’t use any and every way possible to get your brother in it, you’re crazy.”

  “Can we get into the air?”

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it during these past three days. That you haven’t gone to sleep thinking about it. And woken up thinking about it. And thought about it twenty times a day.”

  “Of course I do.” Corin stared at A. C. “I know you’re trying to help, but what happens if I ask him and it doesn’t work?”

  He turned to the launch path and started down it without looking back. Twenty seconds later the earth fell away and the only sound was the swish of the wind against his glider—and the echo of A. C.’s words in his mind.

  Sure, he could stand on his brother’s front porch and wait for eternity before Shasta would come out. Or he could break the front door down and stand in his brother’s den staring at the back of his head and his electric wheelchair wishing he could go back in time and change what he’d done.

  And Shasta would never settle his chin on his wheelchair control and turn to face him. Corin could speak of a fantastical chair that healed his friend and a little kid, and Shasta would laugh at him and reel off all the mystical and magical cures he’d tried—mostly at Corin’s urging—during the year after the accident.

  And it would shut his brother down even further—if that was possible.

  Once again Corin would be reminded of how utterly he’d destroyed their friendship for the rest of their lives.

  No thank you.

  If God really wanted to help him, He’d have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars show up on the seat of the chair. The surgery was something Corin would fight for. At least that had proven science behind it, and it had worked two-thirds of the time. Sit in the chair? Shasta would laugh at the idea no matter how many people were healed.

  But a small part of him knew A. C. was right. A part that was growing. A part that said he had to find a way for Shasta to be healed. And that meant thinking of the chair as one option.

  Corin shook his head. This was where he was supposed to be free. For the next hour he was. He pushed consideration of Shasta and the chair from his thoughts and let his mind soar along with his glider on the thermals.

  A. C. was to the left and slightly ahead him. Corin radioed him on his walkie-talkie to confirm their landing spot was about three miles ahead. After another fifteen minutes he focused on Badger Flats where A. C. and he would land. It looked good. Wait. What was that?

  A figure stood in the meadow near Corin’s truck. Odd. It was the first time anyone had been waiting to greet them after one of their flights.

  Whoever it was, he hadn’t been invited to the party.

  Corin radioed A. C. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “If that’s a scarecrow he’s come to life.”

  “Any idea who our welcoming committee might be?”

  A. C. laughed. “You’re going to get followers, buddy. Probably some groupie from the chair fan club.”

  “Let’s hope not. Some of them are more stable than others.” Corin leaned to his left and started a long, sweeping turn that would bring him around to see the figure from the front.

  Thirty seconds later and three hundred feet lower, he got a good look at the person. A. C. was right. But it wasn’t just a member of the fan club. It was their president.

  Corin’s radio squawked and A. C.’s voice poured out of it. “Can you see who it is?”

  He saw. And it made him wish his hang glider was equipped with a cloaking device. Or lasers. At least one of the Green Goblin’s exploding pumpkins. Why was the guy so relentless? Corin was grateful he hadn’t taken this sky spin solo. “It’s my number one fan.”

  “Mark Jefferies?”

  “Bull’s-eye.”

  Mark stood with feet a bit more than shoulder width apart, arms folded, black sunglasses matching his black leather jacket. He stared into the sky, his gaze shifting back and forth between Corin and A. C.

  Corin finished his turn, straightened, then banked again. He considered landing as far away from Mark as possible—make the pastor trudge across the lumpy field in his European shoes—but what was the point? The pastor of Stalkerville wouldn’t leave without cornering Corin so he might as well get it over with.

  He landed fifty feet from Mark, his back to the pastor. The crunch of Mark’s shoes grew closer, then stopped—maybe fifteen feet behind him. “How was your flight?”

  “Good, how was yours?”

  “Fine.”

  “Too warm for you in La Jolla?”

  “No.”

  “How did you know we were going to land here?” Corin slid off his harness, his back still to Mark.

  A. C. glided in on his left and landed fifty yards away. Corin motioned him closer. If Mark ever got physical, Corin was confident he could handle himself, but having A. C. next to him would be a nice backup, both physically and verbally.

  “There are only a few places around here to land,” Mark said. “This is one. I have friends at the other in case you landed there instead.”

  “You’re still tracking me.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want, Jefferies?”

  “As I’ve said before, to help you.”

  “We’ve been over this. If I need your help, I’ll ask.”

  “This is a different kind of help. A kind I haven’t given yet and I don’t offer lightly.”

  A. C. trundled up and set his glider down next to Corin’s. “Are we having a party?”

  Mark ignored him. “You want this kind of help, Corin.”

  “A. C., meet Mark; Mark meet A. C.”

  Both men stared at each other, neither spoke. A. C. finally nodded in Mark’s direction and the pastor nodded back. “How’s your shoulder?”

  A. C. frowned. “What about it?”

  “The left one. Better than usual?”

  “They’re both fine.”

  “I’ll bet.” Mark laughed. “Look, I’m not one for games, so let me be blunt. I have a lot of friends in this town in high places. So when a miracle happens to someone’s shoulders or carbon-dating samples come back with bizarre results, I’m going to hear about it. Clear? So don’t play the coy card, all right?”

  “Unless you want to infuse my business with a large influx of cash, I’m not interested, ”Corin said.

  “It is cash.” Mark folded his arms and raised his chin. “As you say, a large influx.”

  “What, you’re going to give me five hundred thousand dollars for the chair?”

  “Eight.”

  “What?” Corin stared at Mark, then glanced at A. C., who looked back with raised eyebrows.

  “Eight hundred thousand dollars. I give you the money; you give me the chair.” Mark took off his sunglasses and hooked them on the front of his midnight blue T-shirt.

  Corin blinked and studied Mark’s face. The man was serious. “Why?”

  “Because as you know, the chair is an obsession for me and I’ve come to believe in its authenticity. Because I want the deal done now and
that kind of cash shows you how serious I am. And because this will help your current circumstances considerably.” Mark motioned as if handing out dollar bills. “I know you need the money.”

  This guy wasn’t just the pastor of Stalkerville. He owned the place. Corin folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. “You better explain how you know that.”

  “I need to know what’s going on in your life, Corin.”

  “In other words you’ve had your personal Mafia delving into everything about me.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But none of them are here now.” Corin held his palms up. “I’m guessing you don’t want anyone else to witness this suggestion of what do with the church’s money.”

  Mark walked up to within a foot of Corin. “This kind of money could dig you out of the debt your store is in.” He leaned in, his face now only six inches from Corin’s. “But that’s only secondary to the primary thought bouncing around your brain right now.” Mark glanced at A. C. and lowered his voice. “You’re thinking this money could pay for an operation that insurance companies won’t touch because of its experimental nature. An operation that has worked for 60 percent of the patients who have gone under the knife. An operation that might put someone’s life back together.”

  Corin’s body temperature notched up two degrees as two thoughts flashed through his mind. First, how did this guy know so much about him, and second, how absolutely correct he was. Eight hundred thousand would take care of the store and provide the funds for Shasta to have the surgery. If his brother would try it. It was a Mount-Everest-sized if. But getting him to sit in the chair would be a trip to Jupiter.

  “Talk to me, A. C. What do you think?”

  A. C. strode slowly behind Mark, who kept his eyes fixed on Corin. “I don’t trust the guy. More importantly, you don’t trust the guy.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Let’s see, I’ve only known you for twenty years.”

  Corin studied his friend. “In other words, you’d want to see the money in the bank before you turned over the chair.”

  “I wouldn’t turn over that chair for eight hundred million dollars.”

  Jefferies spun toward A. C. “But you’re not the one whose brother sits in a prison every waking hour of the day knowing you were the cause of it, are you? And you’re not the one who is about to lose his business.”