THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

by L. W. WEDGWOOD

  Monday to Friday, he spent most of his time here. He’d start out at 11:30 a.m. with eight slices of plain toast and one boiled egg, all washed down with a river of coffee. By the time this ritual had been honored, his stomach would be settled enough for the first drink of the day. He took pride in this moment. He judged the timing to be the fine line between his current state and outright alcoholism. If he could maintain a life where he never drank before noon, then there would always be hope. He’d witnessed many friends who drank from the moment they awoke in the morning until the moment they passed out at night. They never lasted long. He was better than that.

  He picked up the shot glass and downed the Black Jack in one gulp. For a second, he let it burn a little in the back of his mouth before enjoying the feeling of the liquid trickle down into his stomach to do its work. Only then did he pick up the glass of Tuatara Black and drink. He didn’t enjoy this toasted malt stout as a chaser. Instead, he used it as more of a bridge between whiskey shots. A man needed that. You couldn’t just shoot whiskey one after the other all day and expect to remain healthy.

  His phone rang again. He put down his glass and glanced at his watch. Nearly three o’clock. He had no idea who would be calling at this time of day and he really didn’t want to know.

  “Can you at least turn the ringer off,” Jena said as she picked up his empty glasses.

  He wondered why he hadn’t thought of that. He picked up the phone and fumbled at the screen. But as he did so, Jane’s name flashed at him.

  “Shit!” he said.

  “What?” Jena asked as she placed some fresh drinks on the bar.

  He waved the phone into the air. “Duty calls,” he said as he pressed the re-dial button.

  “Ed! Where the Hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour,” Jane said.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy with what?”

  “At The Office.”

  “Jesus, you’re at that bar again. Do you know that it’s your day to see Ron?”

  “Of course, I know. He’s my brother.”

  “We’ll, on your way in, can you pick up some chocolate for him? I saw that he was almost out when I visited him yesterday.”

  “The Whittaker’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what you’re calling about? That’s what’s so important?”

  “You know how much he likes that chocolate. You know he can’t eat much of anything else now. So yes, it is important.”

  “Okay, okay… I was just asking.”

  “How much have you been drinking?”

  He looked at his freshly filled glasses and decided to ignore the question. “I’ll get the chocolate. I’ll be there at the hospice at the normal time,” he said.

  “And when you’re finished, come by the house for dinner. We’re having that meatball dish that you and Ron like so much. And I want to hear how Ron is today,” Jane said before hanging up.

  He made sure he turned the ringer off before he put the phone back down on the bar. He didn’t need any more disturbances.

  “Bad news?” Jena asked.

  “What makes you say that?” he said.

  “That look on your face.”

  “What look?”

  “That look… that expression that says you’ve just been sodomized by your cell mate.”

  “Jesus! That’s what you can see?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s not my cell mate. It’s my sister in law.”

  Jena grimaced as she replied, “Urgh… …the ones we have to love. She may as well be your cell mate,” she said.

  “You’ve got that right. Seems like every time I talk to her, she’d up my ass with something.”

  Jena poured another whisky and placed it next to the already filled shot glass in front of Ed. “That one’s on the house,” she said.

  “You’re an angel.”

  He made quick work of the drinks. The added shot was a welcome one. The warmth of the whiskey soothed his post- phone call nerves. But as he placed the empty beer glass back onto the bar, he knew he needed a break. The extra kick had put his drinking routine ahead of schedule. Some sense of clarity would be needed for the task ahead.

  Looking at his watch again, he did some calculations in his alcohol saturated mind. If he left now and picked up the chocolate at the dairy on Owen Street, he would get to the hospice by about three-twenty. That meant that he would be done with visiting Ron by about four o’clock. This would give him enough time to come back to The Office with a somewhat soberer disposition.

  It could just work.

  The plan would give him enough time to stoke the fire again before heading to dinner at the house. He knew from experience that he couldn’t face the family meal with either too much or too little alcohol in his system.

  He slid off his bar stool and took a moment to let the world find its position beneath his shoes. “Thanks for the drink,” he said.

  “Bugging out early today, Ed?”

  “I’ll be back in an hour. Just have to take care of some things.”

  “See you in an hour then,” she said as her tattooed hand collected the empties.

  He pushed a pair of heavy black shades over his nose as he stepped into the street. Even that did little to minimize the glare of the gray sky. A headache exploded inside of his skull. He pushed through the pain, crossed the road and headed east on Green Street.

  It felt good to be moving. The hydraulics in his legs smoothed with each step he took. His internal gyroscope steadied further and minutes later as he entered Patel’s Dairy, he’d regained some semblance of normality.

  As he paid for the chocolate, he could tell by the look on Mr. Patel’s face that his sober façade was holding. Mr. Patel was one of those people who couldn’t hide his displeasure whenever he saw Ed drunk. Ed didn’t like it when people looked at him with such distain. He didn’t deserve that. No one did.

  “Thank you, Sir,” Mr. Patel said.

  Ed nodded as he took his change. Sir, he thought. The façade was indeed holding. He often frequented the dairy and he’d never been called Sir.

  A sense of accomplishment held his head high as he stepped back into the street and moved off. He had the chocolate. He had respect. And he still had a significant buzz on. This was a good day.

  He came to a halt on the corner outside of the dairy. Cars flowed fast through the traffic lights here. While waiting for the lights to change, he noticed a hooded figure unlocking his bicycle from a lamppost on the corner opposite to him. He couldn’t see this person’s face, but there was something familiar in the posture. As the figure stood up and climbed aboard his bicycle, he got a better look. There was no mistaking the features of Abn. After all, Abn didn’t exactly look like a local boy.

  Ed felt the urge to call out. But running into Abn wasn’t part of the plan. It could upset the delicacy of his schedule. And he didn’t like the boy enough to go making any effort with a casual interaction. In fact, he’d never really liked him. He didn’t care if the boy was his nephew or not. If he didn’t like someone, then he could never lie about it.

  So, he waited in silence. And as he watched Abn peddle away down the street, a sense of relief swept through him.

  Minutes later, he stepped through the hospice doors and made his way toward Ron’s room. Two men in suits, standing at the reception desk, eyeballed him as he walked by. He didn’t like the way they looked at him at all. Their eyes spoke of arrogance, superiority, unfettered inquisition. They were the same eyes the MP’s had when they came for him; they were the eyes that had sealed his dishonorable discharge from the New Zealand Defense Force. He knew, without question, the suited men were cops of some kind.

  He held his head high and stared right back them. Only when he’d moved beyond neck turning range did he break eye contact. You never showed fear in the face of the enemy. You stared them down. If you didn’t, you would be eaten alive; another morsel in the all-consuming m
achine of law enforcement.

  He could tell that Ron was having a bad day the moment he walked into the room. Curled up in the fetal position with his back to the door, Ron’s breath could be heard in shallow gasps. The bed sheets had been thrown aside and only his hospice gown separated his skin from the surrounding air. Ed could see patches of damp bleeding through the gown.

  “Jesus, Brother,” he said as he rounded the bed to face Ron. “You’re burning up. Do you feel as bad as you look?”

  “You never were one to mince words, were you?” Ron said.

  “Jesus! Are you taking all of your meds?”

  Ron uncurled and sat up as best as he could as he answered, “Yes, of course. All the meds that I can.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean that I can still talk.”

  “I’d rather you were silent and comfortable.”

  “Now don’t you start. I can handle this. Don’t worry.”

  “You don’t look as if you’re handling anything. You look as if you’re barely hanging on.”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks. The pain’s in my back today. This makes the cancer feel much worse than it actually is. The doctors tell me it’s some kind of nerve related thing,” Ron said.

  “Jesus!”

  “Is that chocolate you’ve got there,” Ron said in an obvious attempt to change the subject.

  Ed cursed himself for forgetting the chocolate. He handed it over and watched Ron wasted no time in peeling back the wrapper. “The food’s no good here, huh?” he said.

  “The food’s fine,” Ron said. “I just can’t eat much of it, that’s all. But forget about me. How are things with you? How’s the drinking?”

  “The same. I have it under control.”

  “If you had it under control, you’d still have a job. You’d still be in the Defense Force.”

  “Do you want me to get you a cup of tea to wash that chocolate down?”

  “Don’t change the subject. We need to talk and I don’t have time to waste.”

  Ed could see that his brother appeared to be making a mammoth effort to put his pain aside for the moment. He knew he had to listen. He owed him that much at least. “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “I’m saying, I’m your brother. I’m saying, I’m on my death bed. I’m saying, you need to give me some respect. So, hear me out.”

  “Okay…” he agreed, while at the same time feeling anything but agreeable.

  “Okay then, let’s get to it.”

  “Get to what? I don’t have a drinking problem, if that’s what you want to talk about.”

  “You’re drunk right now, Ed. I can smell it on you. I can see it in you.”

  “I had a couple over lunch. So what?”

  “So, I know you. So, a couple of drinks in your books is enough to put the average man into a coma. So, it’s not even four o’clock and you have a skin full…”

  Ed didn’t like where the conversation was going at all. He’d come to spend some time with Ron; to make the most of his last days. He hadn’t come for a lecture. “I’m not going back to the Defense Force. And what makes you think they would ever take me back after what happened?” he said.

  “I know your old CO. We’ve spoken. Your bridges aren’t as burnt as you think.”

  “I got drunk and I knocked out the Lieutenant General. I was dishonorably discharged. Things are bad.”

  “That LG has retired now. And from what I hear, he was never liked that much by anyone.”

  “I’m not going back. I can’t go back,” Ed said, suddenly feeling the need to leave. And desperately feeling in need of another drink.

  “You did good work in Afghanistan. You were respected there.”

  “Did I? Was I? I don’t know.”

  “You never told me what drove you to punching that LG in the first place. What the Hell happened to you there? Was it really that bad?”

  It was a question that Ron had asked him before. In the past, he’d always managed to avoid the details. Now, for the first time, he felt as if he had no choice but to talk. That and a combination of the pleading in Ron’s eyes convinced him so. A crack opened up in his resistance and words spilled out. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see what I saw. You didn’t do what I did,” he said.

  “Tell me?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Afghanistan…

  It had been a good day for Ed, a day that meant something to him. And after two tours in Afghanistan, finding any meaning for being there at all meant a lot.

  He watched with growing admiration as the Afghan officers’ graduation ceremony concluded and the last of the candidates received their shoulder boards. The long months had paid off. They had succeeded with all forty-four of the local men and women. He looked upon one of the women with a particular pride. He’d taken her under his wing with a special interest. She was one of the few women who’d defied local laws and taken up the officer’s training. Her husband had been killed by the Taliban in a bombing three years earlier, leaving her with three children and a sick mother. He really had no idea how she’d managed to complete her training while keeping the remainder of her family intact; but she had. Somehow, she had.

  He’d never been one for tears, but as he watched Larmina step off the podium with an ear to ear smile, he couldn’t help but feel his cheeks dampen. Yes, this did mean something. He knew now that when he went home to New Zealand, he would sleep in peace. Not only had he helped bring stability back to Afghanistan, but he’d overseen the recovery of a broken family and helped guarantee its future.

  He waited in his seat as he watched the crowd disperse, each new officer leaving with a smile of hope. He couldn’t take his eyes off Larmina as he watched her finish a conversation with another officer. He savored this moment. He savored everything about it. He did not want it to end.

  “Congratulations!” he said as Larmina approached.

  He wanted to put his arms around her. But he resisted the urge.

  “I could not have done this without your help. How do you say? Without your mentorship,” Larmina said, still wearing her ear to ear smile.

  “Nonsense, I have a feeling that you could do anything you put your mind to,” he said.

  “You must come to my home tonight. We will celebrate with my children and my mother.”

  “You’re going off base. You’re going home?”

  “Of course. I have some leave before my first posting. I haven’t seen my children in eight weeks. It is time.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I’d love to join you and your family for dinner. It would be an honor.”

  “Good, then it is settled.”

  He took her address and let her rejoin the other new officers. This was their time; their victory. He could still remember his own ceremony. How could he forget it? It had been the highpoint in his life that hadn’t since been transcended.

  * * * * *

  In the back of the taxi, heading north on the AH76, Ed could see the western mountains afire with the last of the daylight. He rarely came out to this area of Kabul. Western soldiers tended to stick to the green zone. But as they turned off the highway and drove west through Larmina’s suburb, he wondered what all the worry was about. Although poor in appearance, the suburb looked peaceful, almost serene in nature. Locals walked their dogs and children could be seen playing in the street. In all respects, these were everyday people getting on with everyday life.

  “You are here,” the driver said, as they came to a halt.

  He paid the man and stepped into the street. As the taxi drove off, he took in his surroundings. A head-high wall separated him from Larmina’s address. The Afghans were good at walls. Many homes were surrounded by them. The wealthier the home, the higher the wall seemed to be. He tried the handle on the door and found it opened to the touch, just as Larmina had promised. As he stepped inside, he faced a house that appeared much the same as many of the others in the area; small, made of a mixture of mud and straw, wi
th wooden shutters instead of windows.

  The sound of excited children exploded before him as three young girls burst from the front door of Larmina’s home and sprinted his way. He had no idea what the girls were saying as they danced around him and tugged at his uniform. He understood smatterings of Dari, but not enough to understand their excited chattering.

  Larmina appeared in the doorway of the house and saved him. The girls broke away after a few words from her.

  “I am sorry about them,” Larmina said. “They are just very excited. They do not get many visitors.”

  “It’s okay,” he said as he approached the door. “I love children.”

  Larmina smiled. “Come in. Come in. We are ready to eat.”

  As he stepped into the house, he couldn’t help but admire Larmina’s dress. Pinched at the waist, the richly woven and colorful fabric did little to hide her femininity. He realized this was the first time he’d seen her in civilian clothing. And never before now had he really seen her as a woman. He treated all of the cadets the same. They were soldiers. Gender had no place in that world.

  Here things were different.

  As he followed her through the house, she seemed to float in a mystical, alluring fashion. And when they reached the kitchen area, she was a soldier no more. Those few seconds were all it took for this transformation to take place. He knew that he would never be able to look at her in the same way again.

  With tremendous effort, he forced these surprising feelings aside. “I bought some soda for the children,” he said as he pulled a big bottle of Coca-Cola from a shopping bag and handed it over.

  “Thank you,” Larmina said, as she was immediately surrounded by her daughters in full excitement mode.

  He looked on as Larmina gave in and handed the bottle over to her eldest, who appeared to be about seven. And only then did the girls detach from their mother and go to find cups.