by S L Shelton
“I’m fine,” she screamed, shaking our hands off her and then turning her attention to Claire. “I’ve got business with the Flying Scott-man...man,” she slurred. Claire took a step toward Bonny. For a brief second, I thought there would be a girl fight.
Claire leaned over and whispered something to Bonny that suddenly made her mouth drop open—Bonbon begin to giggle uncontrollably. Claire touched Bon’s face with her hand and kissed her on the cheek, very close to her mouth, before she turned and left.
“I even got game with the bitches, bitches,” Bonny crowed, before she began climbing back across the table again. Storc stopped her and guided her around the edge of the table back to her seat.
As soon as she settled into her seat, she glared at me through accusingly narrowed eyes. “Hey...! Why don’t you like Barbara anymore?”
All eyes got wide and turned to me.
“You broke up with Barb?” Janet asked.
I was suddenly very uncomfortable. “Something like that.”
“Oh! She broke up with you,” Tina threw in knowingly.
“Something like that,” I repeated.
“Hey!” Bonny yelled at the two girls. “Bonbon is talking with the Scottmeister.” Then back at me. “Scott! Why did you break up with Barb?”
“Bonny,” I said, speaking with annoyance and anger in my voice. “Barb broke up with me. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll live. Thanks for asking. If this is what you plan on making my night about, I will leave now. I can afford a six-pack for every beer I buy here, and then I could take it home and drink in peace and quiet.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Don’t leave. Please don’t leave.”
I couldn’t believe it had been that easy to derail her. She attempted to get up on the table again to crawl toward me, but everyone reached out to stop her, guarding their drink. Instead, she crawled under the table, pushing legs and purses out of the way as she went. She still managed to spill every drink.
When she popped up on my side, she tried to get Janet to move over. But when Janet refused, Bonbon sat on her lap, resulting in a giggly squeal from both girls as Janet and Tina began pinching and tickling her to get her off.
The sight of three pierced and tattooed girls, each with a different unnatural hair color springing somewhere from their heads was interesting enough. But seeing them twisting and turning, laughing and squealing while they maneuvered for space was quite the comedy—and something that made me laugh. I was grateful for that.
Once the seating arrangement had played out, Bonny looped her arm through mine and hugged me close.
“I’m so sorry, Scott,” she said sincerely—as sincere as she could be in her current state anyway. “I thought you two would be great for each other.”
“It’s not your fault, Bonbon, but thank you,” I replied.
“You know. I’ve always liked you, Scott,” she said and then quickly added, “I mean you’re totally not my type. Way too straight for me.”
“I know. And you’re way too dark for me,” I said, joking with her.
“The only reason we come to these techno meat factories is for you guys,” she said, pointing at Storc and me and then waving her arm around the table at a couple of our other workmates. “This shit makes our ears bleed.”
“We’ve been to your dungeon clubs before,” I reminded her.
“They’re called ‘steam punk,’” she corrected.
“Right.”
“You don’t even have any tattoos. You and Storc are the only people we hang out with who don’t have tattoos,” she whined.
“I do too have a tattoo!” Storc complained.
Bonny looked at him condescendingly. “Birthday bar codes don’t count. You have to show them! Be proud!” She lifted her shirt, revealing a knot of Celtic vines emerging from her waistband and winding their way up under her black bra. She then reached for Tina’s neckline, pulling on her shirt to reveal the frogs tattooed on her breast, prompting a squeal and another giggly battle beside me.
Tina smoothed her shirt and shoved Bonny into my side, sending me to the floor. Tina and Janet thought it was funny, so they bumped Bonny and sent her over the edge on top of me. She laughed as she struggled up.
The light-hearted ruckus improved my mood dramatically, and within an hour, I was out on the floor dancing with an alternating lineup of Bonbon, Tina, Janet, Claire, and her friend whose name I could never remember. Even Storc danced, demonstrating that a computer geek can learn some rhythm given the appropriate motivation—five cute girls.
By midnight, Bonbon and Claire were making out in a corner. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Bonbon hook up at a club, but it was the first time I’d seen her displaying her sexual diversity in front of people from work. She was really drunk. I would be surprised if she remembered it the next day.
Around 1:30 a.m., I was starting to nod off when it occurred to me that I still had to catch the metro back to the commuter lot in Fairfax, so I started to say my good-byes.
When Bonbon saw me moving for the door, she broke her embrace with Claire, and ran to me—amazingly able to cross the room without falling over anything.
“You can’t go yet! We haven’t talked,” she whined.
“It’s really okay, Bonbon. You’re busy anyway,” I said, winking and nodding toward Claire, who was pouting in the corner.
Bonny dismissed my comment with a wave of her hand. “She’ll get over it.” Then a serious look washed over her face. “Are you two really done?”
“I think so, Bonny,” I replied. “Bad timing.”
“That makes me sad,” she replied with a pout.
“Me too,” I said sincerely, my heart feeling a little tug of regret over the loss.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked with surprising coherency.
I shook my head as I put my hands on her shoulders. “It is what it is, Bon…but thanks. Your worry is noted and appreciated.”
“How can I not worry?” she asked as she leaned in for a hug.
“By drinking large quantities of alcohol and making out with Claire,” I replied as I separated from her. “Go on…before the late night scavengers see a pretty, drunk girl sitting by herself.”
Bonbon smiled at me and then got up on her tiptoes to kiss me on my cheek. “I’ll see you Monday,” she said as she hugged me and then sent me on my way with a pat on my behind.
On my way to the metro station, I wondered what Barb was doing. The pinch to my chest was so significant from that simple thought that I mentally slapped myself for even considering it—but my mind kept drifting back to the question, like your tongue seeks out the hole left behind from a missing tooth; no amount of conscious effort can prevent the unconscious from seeking out that which is missing.
four
Seven Days Until Event
Sunday Morning, May 9th, 2010—Fairfax, Virginia
I wasn’t sure where I was. I was breathing heavily, my legs were pumping in short strides, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to move faster. I looked down and saw feet—child’s feet.
I looked over my shoulder and saw my father running behind me. My heart jumped, and I pumped my legs and arms harder, trying to pull ahead. He seemed to be toying with me. I could tell he could catch up to me anytime he wanted.
I came to a clearing and looked up as my small lungs strained to fill with air. It was night, but there was a full moon that illuminated something large, startling me suddenly as I entered the clearing. I could feel the cold stone before I recognized what it was. In my confused state of mind, my first thought was that it was a sleeping giant. It quickly dawned on me that it was a massive face of stone rising up out of the side of the riverbank. To my small eyes, it looked as if it were a thousand feet tall.
I looked back and saw my father paused at the edge of the clearing. I thought that perhaps I had lost him, but he turned and laid his eyes right on me. My heart skipped a beat again. I was afraid of my
father. He had done something—though I couldn’t remember what—to make me fear him.
I put my hand on the cold stone, and a sharp flash of pain shot up my arm. I looked at my hand and saw a gash across my palm, leaking dark fluid down my wrist and arm. But fear drove me forward, and I began to climb up the rock. I looked down and saw my father pursuing me up the stone face.
I increased my pace, grasping the rough stone with my small, tender fingers. I looked back again and saw shadows on the ground. Ghosts, phantoms, demons—I wasn’t sure which, but the fear swelled up in me, and I felt like my small chest would explode from the thundering heartbeat contained within.
I had just made it to a ledge halfway up and looked over when my father’s hand grasped the edge. He tried to pull himself up, but his eyes closed tightly, and he seemed to slip. Fighting past my fear, I reached out and grabbed his hand. I began to follow him over the edge, dragged down by his weight.
I sat up in my bed, drenched from head to toe in sweat, with my sheets tied in knots around my legs.
The dream of my old playground along the Rappahannock River in Spotsylvania County was becoming more vivid of late. In the dream, though I had climbed the rock face many times since I was ten, it seemed unfamiliar—and my father was always in pursuit.
After spending a few moments calming my breath and heart rate, I flopped back down in my soaked sheets and looked at the clock: 5:03 a.m.
“Uhg.”
I drifted back into an uneasy sleep.
**
I woke slowly. Over a period of about thirty minutes, I opened my eyes to an overly bright, overly loud world. I had a mother of a hangover and lingered in bed for another twenty minutes before the nausea in my stomach forced me to rise and dash to the bathroom.
Note to self: breakup, beer, tequila shots, and Bonbon are a bad combination. My joints ached, my head hurt, and my eyes felt like I had slept with sand paper in them. This is going to be a long day.
I looked at the clock and realized I had slept half of it away. “Not such a long day,” I said aloud, regretting it immediately.
Oh shit, I thought. I sound as bad as I feel.
I immediately resolved not to speak again until my throat felt less like gravel. It was too creepy.
I slowly got dressed and then made my way into the kitchen. The trip took far too long. Coffee, I thought.
I sat and waited for the coffee to brew. It was taking infuriatingly long to produce as I sat watching it from one of my kitchen bar stools, head cradled in my hand. After a few moments, I realized it was not plugged in.
This is going to be a long day, I thought again.
I finally got the coffee pot functioning properly and decided it would be best if I didn’t stare at it. I plopped down heavily into my overstuffed green chair as I flipped the TV on and then surfed through the channels once before giving up.
“Why do I even have a TV?” I asked myself aloud. It occurred to me that my voice sounded better as I turned the TV off and instead opted to check my email on my iPad. I scanned my email and saw one from Bonny. Uhg! Later, I thought. It’s too early for her.
I found one from Storc. He had uploaded a new app to the server and wanted me to look at it. I checked the time on the email and was not surprised to see that it had been sent at 4:30 a.m. The man never slept. I downloaded the app and installed it, but I decided to check it out later—I smelled coffee.
I felt much better after my first cup. By the time I reached the bottom of my second cup, I was feeling almost human and decided I needed to get out of the house. Without thinking too hard on the subject, I put on my climbing clothes and then ran downstairs, grabbing my climbing gear out of the downstairs coat closet on the way out. I needed rock under my fingers.
**
Carderock was a line of beautiful schist and quartz sticking up conveniently just across the river in Maryland—less than thirty minutes from Fair Ridge where I lived. I had been climbing there several times a week since I moved to Fairfax five years earlier.
The climbs were short in height yet challenging—for the first year. But by the time I was working at TravTech, I had to make them harder than they were by avoiding important holds. Today I would be challenging them right back. I had some poison I needed to work out of my system. All the words, emotions, and alcohol I had swallowed were now turning sour in my stomach, and I could feel everything leeching into my muscles. I needed a workout.
I roped up the tallest nubby face available on the busy pathway above the rock. There were too many climbers and gawkers wandering around below to toss a rope, so I snaked mine down instead.
Though I had been fairly confident I’d be able to find someone I knew to partner with, I was disappointed to discover everyone I knew—at least everyone I knew who I was also comfortable with belaying me—was already paired up with someone else. Instead, I looped a pair of ascenders through my harness, clipped a third one to my climbing rack, and then started up the hardest part of the face.
The quartz had been worn smooth with more than one hundred years of climbing, and the routes were harder and harder to ascend each year due to that wear. I had long since stopped looking at the climb ratings. Instead, I simply climbed. Today I was ignoring handholds and toe holds any larger than my thumb. That would give me the distraction I was looking for.
I had been rock climbing since I was ten years old.
It was also around that time that my father had died, so there had been many changes in my life. Not the least of which was the discovery of my skill and passion for climbing—which had, for some reason, always been tied to thoughts of my father’s death, though I’d never been sure why.
Except for a few years when I took karate lessons, the only physical activity I’d consistently, religiously practiced had been rock climbing. Each climb was a puzzle waiting to be solved—and some would have to wait until a new level of physical strength or agility had developed. There was always a new challenge.
Two hours into my climb, I had popped off the rock sixteen times, ripped a small corner off one fingernail, and rolled the sharp edge off one side of my right climbing shoe. I was doing damage.
On my seventeenth pop, I saw Lily out of the corner of my eye, standing below me and looking up. I had climbed with Lily many times in the last five years. She was tall, thin, and strong, with dense ropes of muscle visible through anything she wore. She was a few years older than I was and took great pleasure in keeping my ego in check. She did not disappoint today.
“Hey there, youngster!” she yelled up, displaying her wide, toothy grin. “You missed a few holds. Are your eyes going out on ya?”
“I’m looking for an upgrade on this route,” I replied. There was no need to yell—the rock wall carried every sound clearly over the river with just a speaking voice. I believe she kept her voice raised to bolster her mocking.
“Then you should climb back over your path,” she yelled up again. “You’ve smeared it with enough blood and skin to upgrade it to a 5.14.”
She had successfully knocked the wind out of my sails. I lowered myself down, slowly, feeling the ache in my body completely as gravity greeted my feet upon touching the ground. I sat down against the cool rock face without unhooking and Lily handed me her water bottle.
I took it gratefully and pulled on it deeply, swishing a bit around in my mouth when I was done.
“Thanks,” I said as I passed the bottle back to her.
She had dropped her climbing pack next to mine while she was watching me. She tucked her bottle back into a side pocket and hefted it up on one shoulder by both straps.
“Don’t climb angry,” she said with a wink as she walked past me and headed for the walking path to the top.
I just nodded. Good advice any day. I was done.
After a brief rest, I packed up my gear and hiked to the top of the rock wall to retrieve my rope and anchor straps. Lily, already at the top, had just finished coiling her rope and anchors, and was stuffing them
into her pack.
I plopped down on the sun-warmed stone cross-legged and began carefully winding my rope around my legs to form a neat coil. Lily hefted her equipment on her shoulders before walking toward me. She dropped her pack next to mine once more and then proceeded to untie my anchor straps from the trees and boulder that I had tied to.
I smiled at her weakly. “Thanks.”
He reply was a toothy grin and a wink. When she was done, I had wound only a little better than half my rope, so she dropped down next to me with a grunt.
She watched me for a few moments before she finally spoke. “Did you break her heart as much as she broke yours?”
I was taken a bit off guard by the question, but I wasn’t completely surprised. I wasn’t the only person who could follow obvious clues and cues to a simple hypothesis.
I smiled sheepishly and responded without looking at her. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I did.” I heard the sadness in my own voice; I knew she did too.
“Well… I’m not the best person to offer relationship advice, that’s for damn sure. I’m thirty-four and have been married and divorced twice.” She paused to take another pull on her water bottle and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “But it’s been my experience that if two people are both broken-hearted about a breakup, a little more work could have probably kept them together.”
I let that seep in for a moment as I tied the end of my rope coil.
“I’ll agree with you to a point. But that’s not to say that both people are able or willing to work a little harder,” I replied.
“True,” she said.
“And it’s not always so easy for some people to wait around while personal baggage is being dealt with by one or both people,” I said, giving her an insight into what was going on with me.
“Ahhh,” she said with irony. “That is their first mistake. Personal baggage is much easier for two to carry than it is with one.” She smiled.
“You have to know someone for a while before—”
