2 May 2012: Scene VIII

VIII

 “That was a short nap.”

“How long was I asleep?”

“About five minutes, if that.” 

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“It seemed much longer.”

Ben looked around the room, inspecting the corners, peering into the adjoining living room for evidence that someone had sat on the sofa since he had been there less than three minutes ago.  It was a habit he fell into whenever he was nervous or anxious or, in that particular moment, not feeling very patient and eager to follow up on a possible insight.  

“Can I get you set up on the computer?”

 “Yes.  Please. “

Ben began walking to the work station that was just off the kitchen, eyeing the wall on the other side of the doorway as he passed through.

“Have you brushed my teeth yet?” Gabe asked, stopping Ben in his tracks.

“No.”

“Let’s do that first.”

“Of course.”

He changed directions and headed to the other side of the house with the careful inspections beginning anew.  In the bathroom, a quick glance confirmed that the only thing in the specially designed shower stall was the spare hand pushed-powered wheelchair. 

“So, did you get Max?”

“No.  I haven’t had a chance.”

“It will be interesting to see how he and Molly interact.”

“Yes,” he said, with the toothbrush in hand and about to apply the toothpaste.

“I had a dream that we had a long conversation about the painting in the sunroom.”

“That wasn’t a dream.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No.” 

Ben moved the electric toothbrush up to Gabe’s mouth but he sat quietly, gazing out the window of the bathroom.

“So, you know all about the painting?”

“Yes.”

He continued to sit still and Ben was tempted to lightly tap Gabe’s cheek with his finger but a moment later his mouth opened.

Beneath Gabe’s lips and cheeks, he watched the bulge of the brush doing its task, feeling the pressure difference as he moved from gum to teeth, paying particular attention to stroking downward on the gums to keep them healthy.  Ben moved quicker than usual and pulled out the toothbrush before the unit vibrated that two minutes were up.

“Did the timer go off?”

“No.  But you’re good.”

“I don’t want my teeth to fall out.”

“Neither do I.”

Ben rinsed off the toothbrush and poured mouthwash in a small cup with a plastic straw poking out.

“When are you going to get Max?”

“I’m not sure.  Busy day.”    He held the straw up to Gabe’s lips who sipped up the blue wash, swooshed it about in his mouth and spit it out back through the straw.

“Well, you can’t leave him there too long.”

“I know,” he said, wiping Gabe’s face with a wet wash cloth.

“He’s a good dog.”

“He is.  Ready?”

“Yes.”

Ben walked briskly back to the computer, turned it on and, when Gabe arrived, placed the Bluetooth over his ear so that he could operate the computer by voice command as well as call Ben’s phone if he was out of voice range. 

“Anything else you need?”

“Yes.  A glass of water.”

Ben retrieved that and held the glass with another straw to Gabe’s mouth which he quickly downed.

“You were thirsty.”

“Yes.”

“More?”

“No, I’m good.  Thanks.”

“I’ll be in the den if you need me.”

“Okay.”

Once in the other room, he closed the door to block his conversation but also to keep out Gabe’s audibles from filtering in. He sat down behind the large mahogany wooden desk that had become his work area during the day when he was keeping watch. 

First things first, he looked up the number of the veterinarian, gave them a call and let them know he wouldn’t be picking up Max that day.

“So, tomorrow?” the young assistant asked.

“Pardon?”

“Will you be coming to get him tomorrow?”

Tomorrow? Ben thought.  “Well, we’re really not sure what the plan is at the moment,” he said, which was followed by a very long silence.  “Hello?”

“Yes, I’m here,” the young woman said.

“Is that a problem?”

“Um.  Normally, people let us know how long they plan on leaving their pets.”

Ben was thinking indefinitely.

“How about a week?  Will that work?”

“Yes.  That should be fine.”

“Great.  Thank you.”

He hung up and immediately pulled open the large desk drawer .  Still sitting in the same place Ben left it about seven months ago, was the GPS unit that Gabe used to track his rides.  When Gabe had arrived back from his three months at the spinal clinic, Ben had pulled the unit off the bike and the two of them looked up how fast he was going when he hit the bridge.  The thirty-eight miles an hour seemed fast to Ben but Gabe said that it wasn’t unusual for him to hit the mid to upper forties on a downhill.  Somehow, to Ben, the idea of running across a field with enemy bullets zipping by seemed less frightening than the thought of hurling down a hill on a bike at almost fifty miles an hour. 

But it wasn’t Gabe’s speed that was of interest at the moment.  Ben plugged the unit into the computer on the desk, hoping that it still had a charge.  It came to life with a warning message that there was only seventeen percent of battery life; enough to do the trick, he figured.  

He navigated through the menu, seeking the options related to tracking the route.   A compressed view of Gabe’s path popped up showing little detail.  Ben zoomed in and scrolled to the end of that day’s route, just before the crash.  About a quarter of a mile from the bridge the tracking line showed that Gabe turned around. 

“That would be on the hill,” he said, thinking aloud, picturing their walk yesterday.

The time tag did not show that he stopped until he back-tracked to a spot about two hundred feet uphill. 

“The overlook, where we stopped,” he guessed.

He looked at the next time tag, when Gabe got back on the bike and headed back downhill toward the bridge: three minutes and twenty-seven seconds later.  Not a heck of a long rest stop.

So, what? What did he see, Ben wondered?  Did he see Alexa down in the creek bed and wanted to stop and say hello?  If he was going forty miles an hour, how could he even recognize her if he did happen to see her?  Ben couldn’t imagine looking off to the side when barreling down a hill at that speed.  Maybe she was standing by the side of the road.  And what?   He screeched to a halt, turned around and by the time he had pedaled back up to where she was, she was already running down the hill?  She would have gotten a lot further than that if she ran as soon as she saw him.  Unless, she waited for him to ride back up, they talked while he pulled out his gun, he shot her, dragged her down the hill, dumped her in the brush and hightailed it back to his bike all in three and a half minutes.  Yeah, right, he thought.  And, what the hell was she doing out there in the first place in the middle of nowhere? 

“Hey, Alexa.  What are you doing down there?”

Ben envisioned himself at the top of the hill, looking down at her, standing…in the brush?  No way Gabe would have seen her, he thought, remembering how the hill dropped sharply right before the thicket.  Standing in the creek? 

 “Hey, Alexa.  How’s it going?

Bang, bang. 

Three and a half minutes.  That could feel like an eternity as he thought of being under fire back in Iraq. 

Under fire?  She had a gun and fired at Gabe?  But then why the rush to get out after he shot her?  More than one person?  Someone else with a gun?  A second shooter.  On a knoll. 

He leaned forward and intensely studied the little tracking line that retreated before continuing down the hill as if he would find some answer hidden in the pixels.  A few moments later, he reclined back in the chair, letting out a sigh.

“Maybe,” he said aloud, addressing Molly, looking out the window at his house.  “Maybe, it’s possible, just possible, that not only is that not Alexa, but whoever it is, didn’t even die down there.  She, or he, drowned way upstream and was washed downstream during a flood and became ensnared in all that brush.” He paused, picturing Molly’s reaction.  “And, Gabe’s gun.  Maybe he saw a bear.  He quickly stopped and pedaled back up.  Not being a fool, he grabbed his gun for protection as he wanted to get a closer look.  He would do that.  He would just be crazy enough to do that.  Down the hill he goes.  The bear charges, he fires off five rounds to scare it and while he scrambles to get back up the hill, he drops his gun just mere yards away from where a body happened to end up.”  He paused, with his hands cupped behind his head, elbows protruding out.  “You like that, Molly?”  He pictured her reaction, her neck craning, her head turning askew and letting out a loud screech.  “Yeah, I think it’s full of crap, too.”

Gabe’s voice slipped through the slightly opened door, the result of him repeating a command louder to get a program to respond.   Ben stared at the door and pictured Gabe sitting in the other room in his wheelchair, suddenly being very aware of not knowing him any other way but as a quadriplegic. He rose and headed out of the room.

“Doing okay?” he asked, walking by Gabe.

“Yeah.  A little trouble with some commands.”

“Need anything?”

“No.  I’m good.”

Ben nodded and moved on down the hallway by the kitchen and took the stairs that led to the finished basement and to the bicycle.   

On first glance, the bike looked ready to be rolled out, hopped on and taken for a ride.  Ben stood a few feet away, arms crossed, eyeing it from end to end, studying the red cycle as he did the green pixel line upstairs on the computer just a few moments ago, hoping it could tell him what Gabe could not.

He walked over to it and squeezed the front tire between his thumb and fingers and the rubber collapsed completely, totally flat.  He pressed the rear tire for comparison and it gave only slightly, low on air, as might be expected after sitting idly for ten months. 

He bent down and examined the front wheel, surprised once again at the sight of the spokes that weren’t broken, much less even bent as would certainly be expected after such a jarring halt.  Picking up the handlebars with his left hand, he gave the wheel a quick spin and, just like seven months ago, it moved freely through the brake pads and without a hint of contact.  With the tire still moving, he lightly applied the front brake and the wheel produced a raspy noise.  Resting the bike back against the wall, he ran his finger along the rim but it was smooth and clean.   He turned the bike around so that the non-chain side faced him.  Running his finger along the rim again, his finger was greeted with a very rough surface and he thought of the bridge’s concrete slab grinding away at the metal and forcing a quick stop.  A very quick stop, Ben thought, taking note that only half the circumference of the rim was rough meaning that the bike, which was traveling at almost forty miles an hour came to a stop in, what?  He paused and moved his arms apart in an estimation of the length of the arc stretched out: less than three feet.   

Ben stood back again and sighed; reconstructing the accident gave it a chilling and haunting face, as if he could see it happening right before him and should then be able to reach out and prevent it.  He saw himself stepping from the side of the road and on to the bridge with his arms flailing wildly up and down for Gabe to slow down. 

His eyes ran across the length of this side of the bike and his gaze stopped on a gouge in the rear diagonal stem of the frame.  His first thought was that it was accident related but it looked too clean and smooth as if it were machine made.  Ben squatted down for a closer look and ran a fingertip in the cut which ran horizontally across the stem and was an eighth of an inch deep.  He looked at the frame on the other side, wondering if there was some bike-device related reason for the incision.  The other side was untouched and he couldn’t imagine what instrument would be mounted on that spot of the frame much less one that needed to have the bike permanently marred. 

Standing and staring at the cut, his thoughts went back to Iraq, to a certain posh residence where there was fierce fighting.  A detail that stuck with him from that day was seeing the ornamental wrought iron fence that surrounded the multi-storied house.  The individual posts that made up the fence were “decorated” with smoothly cut gouges formed when bullets grazed the metal and the gouge on the frame was strikingly similar. 

Ben moved to the rear of the bike and eyed the path of the gouge in relation to the bike’s left pedal.  He stepped in to move the pedal to a different position and moved back to the rear.  A chill ran down his spine as he thought of the scar on the inside of Gabe’s lower left leg; a cut everyone assumed happened when he fell but would have lined up very nicely with the gouge on the frame as a bullet whizzed by. 

“Oh, Molly,” he said aloud, thinking that he really needed to talk with Gabe’s lawyer. 

Copyright © 2012 Philip Zweig

16 April 2012: Scene VII

VII

“What do you think?”

            “What do I think?” Ben replied, only aware of Gabe’s voice but not the words while he had been preparing him for the day during the past hour. 

“You think they have a chance?”

“A chance?” he replied, perplexed.  The pounding headache that developed after he left the sunroom was making it increasingly difficult for him to think clearly.  Was he really being asked what he thought of Gabe’s and Beth’s chances of staying together?

“Yeah.”

 “A chance at what?”

“The pennant.”

 “Who are you talking about?” he asked.  

“The Cubs.”

“Oh.”

“Who did you think I was talking about?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“You’re not very talkative this morning.”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll be fine once I get more coffee.”

“Why don’t you go get some now?”

“We’re almost done.” 

Ben rolled Gabe over on to his side and tucked the large body sling beneath him, then rolled him the other way, and pulled it through, readying him for being lifted out of bed.

“So,” Gabe continued, allowing for a short pause to draw Ben back into his one-sided conversation. “You think they can go all the way?”

“I suppose.”

“Yeah, but they’ll probably blow it.  Just like they always do.”

“Probably.”

There were days like these when Gabe just wanted to prattle on giving little regard to Ben’s contribution to their morning chat.  Sometimes he joined in and enjoyed the banter as they moved from one seemingly unrelated topic to another.  Though, as it was with every movement or action of Gabe’s, he always tried to monitor them closely in case they were indicating a sign of something abnormal. 

As he pulled the sling fully out and made sure it was in its proper position, his thoughts quickly abandoned the Cubs and went back to bouncing back and forth between Beth and Alexa and the painting in the sunroom and when and if an appropriate time would emerge for him to bring up the subject of the latter.

“You know what I’ve never been able to quite understand?” Gabe said, not really waiting for an answer.  “Overunity.”

The word grabbed Ben’s attention as he wondered, even with Gabe’s incredible ability to change subjects, how he got from Wriggly Field to perpetual motion in one heartbeat.

“I mean, I know what it is, but I could never figure out how the term came to being.”

As he slipped the straps of the sling over the hooks on the horizontal bar of the Hoyer Lift, Ben peered closely into his charge’s eyes for any unusual ocular movements.

“Overunity.  It sounds as if it’s a branch of the Unitarians, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure which has a better chance; the Cubs winning the pennant or the invention of a true perpetual motion device.”

Gabe’s eyes looked fine and he pushed the button to raise him off the bed.  The mention of the generator reminded Ben to follow up on checking with a pawn shop for a compact metal detector. 

“You can buy plans for making one online,” he said as he swung in mid-air. 

Some self-doubt filled Ben as he pulled the Lift away from the bed and entertained the idea of a drug interaction.  He glanced over to the bedside table and eyed the closed pill containers, trying to recall what he had given Gabe that morning.

“All you need is a multimeter, a soldering iron and a brass rotor. Only forty-nine dollars and you’ll get the full details.”

 The second-guessing grew stronger as he couldn’t even remember the process of administering anything to Gabe that morning.  Suddenly, the lift began tilting.

“Whoa,” Gabe said as he began his fall.

Ben stepped quickly from behind the unit and bear-hugged Gabe in mid-fall. After a moment’s pause, with what seemed little effort, he lifted Gabe up and shouldered the Hoyer back into an upright position.            

“What happened?”

Still keeping a firm hold on Gabe, Ben looked down at the floor and the stabilizers of the unit.  “I forgot to spread the legs,” he said, stepping on the lever to widen the Hoyer’s stance; only then did he relax his grasp but still kept a reassuring hand on the sling.

 “That’s not like you.”

“No.  Sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Ben continued to hold onto the sling, keeping it still and waiting for Gabe to recompose himself before he finished lowering him into his wheelchair.

“I didn’t know you could move so quickly.”

“No way you were going to hit the floor,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as Gabe. 

“Everything all right?” Beth asked, appearing in the doorway.

There was an awkward silence that Gabe wasn’t privy to, as Beth and Ben shared glances.

“We were just having a little fun,” Gabe said. 

Ben broke their eye contact and moved the Lift so that Gabe now hung above the seat of the wheelchair.

 “I’m heading out.  I have some errands to run.”

“All right,” Gabe said, as he was being lowered.

“Anyone need anything?”

Again, like this morning, her softer tone surprised Ben as a note of resentment always was tied to the question she reluctantly asked whenever she left.

“No, we’re good,” Gabe answered. 

“Thank you.  No,” Ben added.

She lingered in the doorway and watched him unhooking her soon-to-be ex-husband from the lift.  Ben looked up and, again, their eyes locked for a long couple of seconds before she finally turned to leave.  He watched her walk down the hallway and then move out of view into the living room. 

The bedroom remained very quiet while Ben worked on getting Gabe’s shirt on and then secured him into his chair.  The near-fall was unsettling for both of them and Ben was doing his best to make Gabe feel at ease.  He took his time as he pulled an arm through the shirt sleeve and allowed the touch of his hands and fingers to rest a bit longer on Gabe’s.  Though he may be paralyzed, and Ben’s touches may barely be detected, he tried to convey that sense of royalty one feels when a tailor takes measurements and making note of figures that are one’s very own; thirty seconds of over-indulgence, Ben liked to call it.

 “Done?”  Gabe asked, after his face had been wiped with a damp wash cloth and a brush made a quick pass through his hair.

“Ready.”

Gabe turned his wheelchair to head to the kitchen for breakfast while Ben lagged behind, went over to the night stand and opened the small lids that covered the day’s pills allotment.   He viewed not only that day’s pills but the other compartments as well.  Everything seemed in order and the sight of the empty compartments jogged his memory as he finally pictured himself giving Gabe that day’s medication.  He paused another moment before leaving the room, closed his eyes and tried to enjoy a few moments of alone time.  Alexa quickly filled his thoughts and he wondered how expensive it was to run a DNA test. 

“Ben?” Gabe called from the kitchen.

“Yeah.  Coming.”

*************

 “The magnetofunk.  Have you heard of that?” Gabe asked, as he watched the steam rising from the eggs Ben was making for the two of them.  A few words regarding the breakfast menu were exchanged since they had entered the kitchen, but otherwise Ben busied himself with the meal preparation and Gabe sat quietly, watching his caregiver cook. 

“No,”  he replied, his eyes widening at how seamlessly Gabe picked up the thread of the conversation he had been conducting in the bedroom. 

“I think that’s right,” Gabe continued.  It’s a device the Germans had in World War Two that messed with the Allies magnetic compasses so that they couldn’t find a secret base the Germans had in the Artic.  You haven’t heard of it?”

“No.”

“Mag-net-o-funk,” Gabe said slowly, putting special emphasis on the last syllable.  “Rather than flying on a true course, it caused the planes to fly in a curve around the base.”

“Never heard of it.” 

“Der funk is German for radio.”

“Oh.” 

Ben loaded their breakfast on a tray and carried it to the sunroom.  Gabe parked himself next to the table and Ben sat where he always did, to Gabe’s right so that when he fed him, there was the painting staring squarely across from him.  He cut up the eggs and scooped a piece on a spoon with some grits and offered it to Gabe.  As Gabe chewed, he ate his own breakfast and worked on his fourth cup of coffee of the morning.

“Good eggs,” Gabe said.

“They’re just eggs.”

“Well, they’re good eggs.”

“Thanks.”

Breakfast, like all meals, moved at a very casual pace; like it should be, Ben thought.  He listened quietly to talk of cold and hot fusion, which somehow led to people’s fear of being tracked on their various Apple devices. 

“What?  Don’t they know that the government can’t already track whomever they want?” Gabe said, which seemed to put that topic to rest.

 Staring at the painting, as he had most of breakfast, Ben thought of all those people on the missing file sites and I’m sure there were plenty of parents who wished it was that easy to locate someone. 

“Had enough?” he asked, feeding Gabe the last bit of grits that was on his plate.

 “Yes.”

Ben took the cloth napkin that was tucked in Gabe’ shirt and gently dabbed at his mouth and chin.  He pushed the breakfast plates toward the center of the table and with his coffee mug in his hands, leaned back in his chair.  His headache had subsided considerably, Gabe was sitting contentedly staring out the window and the time finally seemed right; he grabbed the moment before it was too late.

“Didn’t you say you knew the woman who painted that?”

“Painted what?”

“The painting there on the wall.”

Gabe reached for the joystick and turned his wheelchair to better look at the picture.

“Yes, I knew her.”

“What was her name?”  Ben asked, as casually as possible.

Gabe sat quietly for a moment, thinking.  “What was her name?” His eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips as he worked hard to remember.  Ben wasn’t surprised by the memory lapse as the numerous medications Gabe took conspired to make recall very difficult, especially names. Patiently, Ben waited, continuing to study Gabe’s face for anything out of the ordinary.

“Is it on the canvas?”

Ben got out of his chair, walked over to the painting and knelt down to get a better look.  “Hard to make out.  Looks like Allie something.”

“Alexa!”  Gabe said excitedly.  “Alexa Fern.”

“Ah.”  Ben remained stooped, investigating the signature as if to confirm that the name mentioned matched the scrawl.  “Did you know her well?” he asked, standing and moving back to get a better look at the painting.

“Somewhat.”

“Interesting painting,” he said, still standing with his arms folding and staring at the piece.

“You think?”

“A bit loud for my taste, but interesting.”

“A bit noisy for me, too.”

“It is?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then, why do you have it in here?”

“Well, there’s something very special about it.  Something very unique.”

A mischievous smile slowly crept across Gabe’s face as he looked up at Ben. 

“What?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

Ben looked back at the painting composed of a multitude of black lines which, in some places, reminded him of bar codes on packages.  Seeing Gabe’s cunning expression, he wondered if the best thing to do was to just call the police and report the skeleton.  He hated to admit that perhaps he had totally blown it and misread Gabe.  Or, rather, he had read the wheelchair bound Gabe correctly but didn’t have a clue of the pre-mishap Gabe; it was not uncommon for such a traumatic accident, combined with the drugs, to severely alter a person’s personality. 

“Would you like to know?”

“Sure.”

“Go stand next to it.”

Ben hesitated, looking back and forth between the painting and Gabe.

“Go on.”

The picture hung on the wall with a small round end table below it and two upholstered chairs on either side.  Ben walked over and stood in front of the table where he was a moment ago when he examined the signature.

“Like this?”

“No.  On the right.  Go behind the chair.”

He hesitated again, wondering how much he wanted to continue to humor Gabe.

“You need to be next to it, pressed against the wall.”

Expecting some prank to be pulled, he pulled the chair out and slid behind it, up against the wall, his shoulder touching the frame of the painting.

“Okay.  Now what?”

“Look at the painting.”

Ben turned.

“Your head has to be closer to the wall.”

He moved closer, looking more at the wall beyond than at the painting.

“Do you see it?”

“See what?”

“You might need to be back a bit further.” 

The feeling of waiting to have a chair pulled out from beneath him faded and an old trust re-emerged.  Ben changed from staring aimlessly to actually looking at the painting.

“Just keep adjusting your view.”

He moved his head slightly forward and backward and sideways in relation to the painting and to the wall.  And, then…

“Oh, my god.”

“You see it?” Gabe asked with a smile.

“Yes.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

Ben kept looking, moving his head ever so faintly to keep the image of the nude female that emerged from the canvas in focus.

“How did she do that?”  he asked, stepping away, trying to see the figure within the lines that made up the guitarist caricature.

“It’s like magic.”

“Yes.”

Ben stepped back to the side, taking in the secret once more of the portrait that reminded him of a Picasso nude from his cubist period.

“Are all her paintings like this?”

“No.  I think just a few.”

Turning away from the picture, he looked at Gabe and watched the glee that was in his eyes a moment ago disappear.

“Does Beth know about this?” he asked, thinking of her staring at the painting that morning.

“No.”

“You didn’t want to tell her?”

Gabe sat quietly, immersing himself into the painting.

“Alexa painted that just for me,” he finally said.  “It was our secret.”  He looked up and locked eyes with Ben, silently making a pact of confidentiality.

“Does anyone else know?”

“You’re the only one.”

Their gaze lingered a moment longer and Ben looked back at the painting.  His thoughts did a complete turn-about as he now contemplated how he could surreptitiously confer with a lawyer about the circumstances of which Gabe seemed to have no memory. 

“We were involved for about a year,” he seemed to say out of the blue. 

“When was that?”

Gabe thought for a moment, numbers and years came to him as slowly as names.  “About three years ago.”

“Did Beth know?”

“She knew something was going on but didn’t know it was with Alexa.  She connected the dots later but never said anything.”

“Connected Alexa with the painting?”

Gabe nodded.

“And, she left it up on the wall?”

“She asked me to take it down but I was being an ass and said I liked it there.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t take a knife to it.”

“I am too.”

They fell into another silence, their gaze on the painting with Ben’s thoughts trailing back to attorneys.  The most logical one was the lawyer who represented Gabe at his trial, who was even friends with Gabe and had even come to visit him several times since the accident.  But, perhaps consulting with someone with no connection was the better route.

  “The ironic thing,” Gabe said, “is that I was planning to take the painting down just before I had my accident.  A peace offering of sorts.”

“You still could.”

“I know.  But, now, there is something comforting coming in here and seeing it.  Knowing its secret.  I don’t feel like I want to give that up.”

“Another place in the house.”

“There really is nowhere else it would fit.”

All these secrets were making Ben dizzy.  Just how much should he press Gabe into taking an action that might prevent an impending shaking up of the household?  Perhaps Gabe didn’t really care.  Perhaps, even if he did take the painting down, it would be too little, too late.  And, perhaps their marital problems just wasn’t any of his damn business.  Yet, there he was up to his knees in crap by concealing the whereabouts of a skeleton that Gabe knew personally and the shit was rising by the hour.  Loyalty made for a strange bedfellow at times.

“I wonder where she is now,” Gabe said.

“Who?”

“Alexa.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“A few months before the accident.  There was an event downtown where several artists were displaying their work.  Alexa was one of them.”

“Did you talk with her?”

“Not really.  I was with Beth .  We made a quick stop by her booth and moved on.”

“Beth already know she was the one?”

“She put it together after that.”

“And you didn’t see or talk to her after that?” 

“No.” 

Ben was formulating his next question but he looked over and saw Gabe’s head was lowered and his eyes closed. The action was easy to interpret as an avoidance tactic but Ben was used to him falling asleep in mid-conversation at least once a day.

He picked up his mug, downed the rest of the cold coffee and collected the dishes to take back to the kitchen.  Eager to sneak in a quick visit to Molly while Gabe slept, he placed a monitor on the table in the sunroom so that he could hear him when he woke.  Out the door and a few steps down the walkway, he heard a cough through the monitor.

“Ben?” he heard a moment later.

Ben pressed the button on his unit so that Gabe could hear him.

“Yeah.  I’m headed down to see Molly.  I’ll be right back.”

“Did you pick up Max?”

Max? he thought to himself, trying to remember if he was supposed to pick up someone from the airport.  “Who?”

“Max.  The dog.”

Ben lowered his head, closed his eyes and, with an elbow of one arm resting on the other arm, pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Ben? Are you there?”

No, I’m not here, he muttered to himself and the monitor on mute.

Copyright © 2012 Philip Zweig

30 March 2012: Scene VI - Take 2

VI – Take 2

At six-thirty, for the second time in less than four hours, Ben was jarred awake, this time from the music pouring out of the speakers a few feet away.    Wanting to avoid the anxiety that came with a bedside alarm, he struck upon the idea of locating his wake-up system out in the living room so that the music would filter in from a distance.  But, having fallen asleep just an hour ago in his recliner, the morning revelry was having the opposite effect with the only positive note being that he was too disoriented to think he was back in Iraq. 

He never intended to go to sleep.  The links for Alexa Brantley quickly ran out but he found himself thinking about the two missing bullets from the chamber which led him to searching for compact metal detectors and from there to independent ballistic services to test if the bullets he would presumably find with the detector actually came from Gabe’s gun.  By then, it was five-thirty and going to bed was pointless since he knew very well from past experiences that he would wake from that hour of sleep groggy and befuddled and in a terrible mood.  Better to put on a pot of coffee and catch a quick snooze later in the day.

But, while the coffee brewed, he sat down in the recliner and rehashed the implausible connections between Gabe’s bike accident and the skeleton, trying to concoct a credible scenario and contemplated himself right to sleep.  Now, he struggled to get out of his chair and hurried to lower the volume on the receiver.   

            “Good morning,” Molly said.

“Molly?” he called out, looking around the living room and finding her perched by the window, its wooden sill in shredded splinters. 

            “Ah, shit,” he said a bit too loudly and hoped Molly wouldn’t add that to her vocabulary. 

            “Oh, Molly.”

            He took a moment to contain his anger before walking over to her. 

            “What a nice mess, sweetie,” he said, through a wide smile.

Slowly, he put his hand out.  She hesitated, cocked her head, eyed him carefully before finally jumping onto his arm.

            “Good girl,” he said, walking her over to the cage. “I need you to be in here for right now.”  He was thankful that she hopped in without a protest and supplied her with a few strawberries.

            “All right,” he muttered and shook his head vigorously, trying to wake and think more clearly.   A quick shower, some breakfast and lots of coffee, he thought mulling over his plan of action before heading over to Gabe’s.  The coffee.  Ben spied the untouched pot of java still sitting on the burner while he heard the machine, programmed to go off with the morning music, sputtering in an attempt to make a new pot. 

            “Breakfast?” Molly asked.

            “No,” he said tersely, wondering what the she thought the strawberries were.

            He dumped the old pot, reset the machine and put another to brew and looked forward to a quick shower.  But on his way out of the kitchen he froze in his tracks.

            “Oh, my god.”

            Scattered about on the floor, around the computer desk, were fragments of what once made up a complete skeletal hand.

            “Oh, Molly,” he said, knowing that she wasn’t too blame. 

Instead of breakfast, he felt an obligation to gather the bone parts and get them back into the ammo box, as if the hand would feel less defiled if they were congregated in one place.  True, Gabe would forgive him for being a few minutes late but his own work ethic insisted he be on time.  Besides, tardiness could lead to questions and then Ben would have to hide the truth and he certainly wasn’t ready to engage him in a conversation about yesterday’s events.  Maybe once he got Gabe in his wheelchair the time would be right.

Ben entered the house, as he always did, giving a quick one-two rap on the door and offering up a husky, “Mornin.”  He used to enter with an even deeper and more guttural “Oorah,” but, judging from Beth’s reaction, he thought she found that rather abrasive and switched to what he thought was a toned-down greeting.  There was very little change in her response and rather than taking it personally, Ben decided she just wasn’t a morning person. 

He looked for her in the kitchen where she usually was with her cup of coffee after her morning run.  Her absence was welcomed as he wasn’t looking forward to their usual morning exchange to see how her night had gone and to find out if there was anything about Gabe he needed to know.  He already knew she was up at least as long as he was and he wasn’t in the mood to get an earful that his duties needed to be expanded to include redeye calls.

            “I don’t think it seems to be too much to ask if at least once a week you would be responsible for tending to Gabe if he wakes up in the middle of the night,” she had stated a couple of months back after a disturbed night of sleep.

            “I can see where you would feel that,” he had replied calmly.  “I’m right here, so why not?”

            “Exactly.’

            “I would be willing to do that but I need to be able to recoup the time elsewhere.”

            “I don’t get to recoup the time.  If I have to get up, I still need to go into work that day, even if I can’t get back to sleep.”

            Ben folded his arms, pursed his lips and nodded lightly.  He felt caught in the middle of a sour relationship sensing that this was much more about Beth feeling trapped in having to stay with Gabe now that he was confined to a wheelchair and less about equity of rest time.

            “It’s a matter of burn out,” Gabe said, knowing that it didn’t really matter how he replied.  “If I don’t get enough down-time, it won’t be too much longer before I would have to pack my bags.”  He didn’t mean for it to come out as a threat but he could see in Beth’s eyes that she took it that way.  

            “Yeah.  Well, I’m burning out, too.” 

           

            Ben moved through the empty kitchen, assuming Beth was in the bedroom getting ready for work and thankful for the momentary reprieve. 

            “Hey.” 

            He stopped, not even thinking that she would be sitting in the sunroom, drinking coffee in the comfort of her bathrobe. 

            “Oh.  Hey,” he said, making eye contact with her and carefully studying her manner.  Nowhere in her tone or face did he perceive the anticipated animosity and he found himself lingering by the doorway.

            “Bad night?”

            “You could say that.”

            “Gabe?”

            She nodded her head and took a sip of her coffee, looked at the large painting that hung on the wall and then gazed out into the morning.  It was the perfect opportunity for Ben to make his escape.

            “Was he too hot or too cold?” he asked.

            “Too hot.”

            “What time was that?”

            “Two-thirty.”

            “And, you’ve been up since?”

            She nodded again and gave Ben a tired look.  He thought of bringing up the subject again of hiring someone to sleep in the den and tend to Gabe when he woke, but thought better of it.    Her gaze moved back to the painting and remained there.  Ben watched her for a moment and he looked at the painting as well.  Five feet vertical and two feet wide, it portrayed a very abstract caricature of what seemed to be a rock star playing a guitar; Ben thought it resembled Mick Jagger.  Gabe had purchased the picture some time back and, for some reason, thought the sunroom was the perfect place to hang it.  Beth wasn’t that fond of the piece and he couldn’t understand her attraction to the artwork this morning.

            “Are you going into work?”

            “No.”

            This took Ben by surprise as well as he couldn’t remember her missing a day of work since he had been there.  She loved her work as the curator of a new art museum that had opened in the past year, just two months before Gabe’s accident.  The museum was a real feather in the cap for the region and Beth was a driving force in its creation and seeing it becoming a reality. 

            “Was Gabe up long?”

            “No.  I took a cover off and he was practically asleep before I left the room.”

            Ben looked in the direction of Gabe’s room even though he couldn’t see it.

            “He’s still asleep,” she said, still looking at the painting. 

Perhaps she’s considering the piece for a new exhibition at the museum, he thought.  Her demeanor continued to baffle and disarm him and he took the tone of her reply to indicate that she wanted him to stay.  A long silence overtook the room as he stood in the doorway, waiting, while she looked back out the window and caught the sun that was just rising above the trees. 

            “Are you happy here?”

            “Pardon?”

            “Are you good with the arrangement you have here?” she restated, turning to speak directly at him.

            “Yes.”  He was waiting for her to follow up with talk of midnight duty and he was steeling himself for standing firm.  Once again, he was very glad that he had established boundaries from the onset, anticipating just such a development. 

            “And, do you see yourself staying here for another year or two?”

            “I have no plans on leaving,” he said, matter-of-factly.

            She nodded and looked away.  The sun was beginning to fill the room, bringing the potted plants to life and seeming to accentuate the broad smile of the rock star on the painting. 

            “I do,” Beth finally said.

            “What?”

            “I plan to move out.”

            She looked squarely at Ben to gauge his response.  While he knew the topic ran below the everyday surface, her statement just now took him by surprise.

            “I see.”

            “We had talked seriously about it before Gabe’s accident.”

            “Gabe mentioned it.”

            “He did?”

            “Yes,” he said, not sure if he had revealed a confidence.

            “It doesn’t matter,” she said sincerely.  “That’s why I’m asking about your intentions.  Can you commit to staying here at least another year?”

            “Not a problem,” he said, but his thoughts suddenly were filled with a vast array of logistical questions and how that would impact his job description.

            “There needs to be consistency for a while.”

            “Sure.  When are you thinking of moving out?”

            “As soon as possible.  I’ve already been looking at apartments and houses near the museum.”

            Ben nodded.  Beth looked again at the painting and he followed her gaze there.  Then, it struck him.  Alexa Brantley, aka Alexa Fern, the artist of the painting on the wall. 

Copyright © 2012 Philip Zweig