Match Maker

by Alan Chin

  I stopped, panting. My fingers found a pool of liquid, and I wanted to drink, but fear turned me away. It felt like water, but it had the sour reek of stagnant blood. I had to find Grandfather Lin. He alone could lead me out. Was I going the right way, or did this direction take me deeper under the mountain? I had no idea. I kept going. To lie still was to die. This, then, was my path. I realized that there are no choices in life, only the illusion of choice, and beyond the illusion, there is destiny.

  I heard a whisper begging for food, for water. I inched toward the sound. As I edged over sweaty rock, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I saw shadowy images solidify into human bodies. Around me lay rotting corpses with maggots crawling under their skin, frothing their open wounds, burrowing into their flesh. Their bodies looked like phantoms staring wide-eyed into the void.

  I crept closer and saw movement in their eyes, and I thought that they were still alive, but I realized that the movement was maggots swarming in the corpses’ eye-sockets. I heard them, heard the minuscule chomping sound of gorging maggots. I stifled the bile rising in my throat, forced myself to crawl toward the voice. My skin burned as I slithered over the bodies.

  The path climbed upwards as I drew closer to the voice. It belonged to Grandfather Lin, his boy voice, but he spoke in a fatherly way. Then I saw him: flesh melted away, colorless skin stretched over bone, huge eyes protruding from his skull like a nocturnal animal. His body lay still, but his eyes moved relentlessly as he babbled. He repeated over and over that he had no choice. He begged for forgiveness. I crawled by him, beyond the putrid stench of death and beyond the madness that shrouded him like a cocoon.

  The cave tunnel split, one side continuing to ascend and the other leveling off. I chose the level path because I felt too weak to continue lifting my body upwards. I had to keep moving or else become the maggots’ feast.

  A dim blue light appeared at the mouth of the tunnel. I edged closer, but it didn’t get any brighter. Suddenly, red flashed within the blue. I heard a deafening bang, and a bullet slammed into my shoulder. A gunman had me in his sights. Another flash… another… another. Each time, a bullet ripped into me, severing me in two.

  I tried to stand and run, but I could only scream. The terror in my voice sounded hideous as it ricocheted in my skull. I felt maggots munching on my toes. I wanted out, wanted to go home, to my quiet life. I wanted to live. I’m such a coward.

  I woke in the night, alone and drenched in sweat. I thought about Grandfather Lin’s cave: never seeing light, loved ones starving, desperate to save them but overwhelmed with the feelings of helplessness until, one by one, they passed into the void.

  I glanced out the windows and saw that it was that blackest part of the night, that hour just before it starts to lighten. I’d become familiar with this turning point. I listened carefully. The storm had blown itself out. I heard the light tap of raindrops on the windowpanes and Jared’s deep breathing. He slept in a chair at my bedside. I couldn’t recall how many days I’d lain in bed, but this was the first night I hadn’t awakened to the shriek of wind.

  During these days—or were they weeks?—of recuperation, I’d noticed little difference in the way I felt. I still couldn’t get warm. The coldness crept all the way to my marrow, and nothing curbed its icy grip. The only way to relieve the pain was to dull it with morphine. Thankfully, the nurses kept a steady drip coming. The drug also helped me sleep for hours at a time without having my cave dream—or any other dream, for that matter. Enough morphine sent me adrift in black emptiness. What a comfort drugs are. I needed more, but I didn’t wake Jared, not yet. I would tolerate the pain a little longer to let him sleep. It was a small comfort to hear his breathing in the darkness.

  I felt my new adversary, intense pain, drawing nearer. It lurked in the shadows, stalking me, waiting for the opportunity to consume me. Once it took me over, it came in waves, like long ocean rollers. I couldn’t get past it. The waves kept thrashing no matter which way I turned. This adversary was the pop of the gunshot, the emptiness of the night, the frustration of a twice-failed career. During my dream, the adversary took on additional features: the moist density of air that reeked of rotting flesh, the pitiful pleading for forgiveness, the munching maggots. All these things combined to form the specter of my adversary. The fear it created in my heart felt lethal.

  I drifted in darkness for a long time, fondling my thoughts while waiting for the nurse to come and increase the drip. I thought about my worst fear: of going beyond the protection of this room, away from the comforting needle in my arm. What would happen when I returned to the world? How would I deal with living in a chair, with the looks of pity from strangers? How would I do any niggling thing, like take a shower?

  Fear shut down large parts of me, like a museum at night when all the rooms full of colorful art are steeped in blackness, doors closed, curtains drawn, and alarms set to blare with the slightest disturbance. What was left of me huddled in a corner, clinging to the drip.

  Sooner or later I would have to fling open the doors, turn on the lights, and pull back the curtains. But I didn’t have the courage for that, not yet. All I could deal with at that moment was the drip, and I needed it increased.

  A sharp noise made me realize that I had fallen asleep and that it was morning. I listened. Someone placed something on the table over my bed, and the smell of coffee filled my nostrils. I opened my eyes to see Connor at the window. He brushed open the curtains to let a flood of painful light into the room. I winced and covered my eyes with both hands.

  “Hey, what’s the big idea? Close those damn curtains.”

  “Drink your coffee.” Connor’s voice was authoritative. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  “Call the nurse. I need my shot; my head is on fire. Where the hell is Jared?”

  “He’s eating breakfast,” Shar said. She stood by the door wearing her Homburg hat, jeans, lavender T-shirt, leather sandals. Her outfit gave her a boyish look that suited her. Only the faint outline of her breasts and her hair pulled back into a ponytail gave her sex away. “He’ll be back any minute, so we don’t have much time.”

  “Are you kidding? Time is all I have.”

  “Daniel, how many more weeks do you plan to lay there? Doc Galloway said that you were ready to travel. All the additional tests can be done in San Francisco.”

  “She doesn’t have a clue of what I’m feeling, and neither do you. Nobody’s getting me out of this bed until I’m damn good and ready.”

  Connor stared out the window at the changing cloud formations. “They’ve offered Jared a wildcard in Barcelona, singles and doubles. It starts in six days. If he does well, he can play the rest of the clay court events leading up to the French Open. He wants to go, needs to go, but he’s not leaving you in a hospital alone. So you’re not only keeping yourself prisoner here, you’re holding him hostage.”

  “He’s crazy. They took my legs. Next time they’ll kill him.”

  Shar strolled over and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You can’t imagine what’s come over our darling Jared. He’s turned into the Michael Corleone of tennis. They’ve hurt his family, and now he wants to crawl right in their faces and make them all eat shit.”

  “Why not just put him in a fucking shooting gallery and give the winner a Kewpie-doll?”

  “That might be,” Connor said. “But one thing is certain. If he has to keep babysitting you while you lay there feeling sorry for yourself, he’ll crawl back into a bottle for the rest of his life. Avenging you is his only chance.”

  “I get it. You need a doubles partner.”

  “That’s right,” Connor said. “We make a great team. What the hell’s wrong with that? You expect him to spend his life at your sickbed wiping your ass?”

  “Our careers are over. Everything is over.”

  “Not for Jared. The shooting has made him a celebrity. Lambert says that if Jared continues to play, he can get a two-million dollar contract with Nike.”<
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  “We don’t need handouts.”

  “You do,” Connor said, and his voice grew harsh. He tapped the side of his head with his finger. “Think. You quit your job. You don’t have medical insurance. The operations have cost over $400,000, and this room is running you $2,500 a day. I was going to set up a website so people could send in donations, but Jared doesn’t want charity. He wants to earn the money.”

  “The tournament has insurance. They’ll cover the medical costs and living expenses going forward,” I said, trying hard to sound convincing.

  “Right,” Connor sneered, “and while you were in a coma, your dear old dad got a Florida judge to appoint a redneck conservator. He could do that because you and Jared never registered as domestic partners. Well guess what, buddy, he let the insurance company settle for a measly half-million. That sounds like a lot, but you blew past that price tag last week. Now the meter is running on your dime. Now those bastards at the insurance company are backpedaling to beat sixty, and you’ll have to sue them to get another penny.”

  When the puzzle pieces fell into place, I whispered, “I couldn’t help him. Not like this.”

  “You bet!” Connor said, almost cheerily. “You’ll never be any damned good. You’re destined to lie there being useless until hell freezes over. Yep, just one more pathetic cripple taking up space.”

  Amazement. Suspicion. Then, more slowly, comprehension and a knowing smile. “You sure had me going for a second, you little smartass.”

  Connor approached the side of my bed, head bent, shadows falling over his face. He held my hand. “Do you think that you need legs to help Jared?” He glared at me with those beautiful almond-shaped eyes. “Because if that’s what you think, then you’re beat, kaput. But it’s not too late to change your mind.”

  I realized those were my words, words I had used on him. We had come full circle. I glanced at the needle in my arm, craving more.

  “The first time I played Jared, you told me not to be impressed with him until after the match. I guess you’re the kind of coach that only talks a good game.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “You’re a phony.”

  “The hell I am. I’m a cripple, but I’m no phony.” But why was I so damned mad at Connor? He was right. I was letting this beat me.

  The fist holding my chest unclenched. I breathed deeply for the first time since the shooting. One, two, three gulps of air. That somehow gave me the courage to bundle my fear, compress it into a dense stone, and drop it into the murky water of my unconscious. I watched it grow smaller until it vanished. I took another breath. Somehow, it hurt less.

  I pulled the oxygen tube from my nose and ripped away the electronic sensors tapped to my temples and chest. The rack of monitors began buzzing. I heard the alarms go off at the nurses’ station down the hall and the sound of quick footsteps. A white-clad nurse rushed into the room.

  Okay, I thought. I can do this.

  Jared stood silhouetted in the doorway. He glared at me, at Connor, back at me. He began to speak, but I cut him off.

  “Honey, bring my clothes. We’re going home.”

  Chapter 20

  VIBRANT sunlight slanted through the storm-washed windows, catching itself on particles of dust suspended in the air. I sat on the bed with my legs hanging like dead weights over the side, dressed in jeans, a gray polo shirt, and worn tennis shoes. I gazed at the floating particles glistening like diamonds, wondering about the old man across from me, who had vanished in the night, whisked away by the white-clad apparitions. We had never exchanged a word, yet I felt a sense of loss. Not knowing what had happened to him stirred my fears, as if our destinies were linked.

  Jared wheeled a chair into the room and stood facing me, mute, eyes downcast. To me, the chair looked like some hideous torture device from a Kafka story. He started toward me, but I shook my head. I couldn’t endure the idea of him placing me in that chair. I sat staring at it for a long time, loathing it, loathing Jared for his fumbling attempt to pretend that everything would be fine, nothing we couldn’t overcome. We were now strangers, not knowing how the other would react given these new circumstances.

  I couldn’t look at it any longer. I turned to stare out the window, into the glistening Florida sunlight. Through the hard-edged radiance, I saw speedboats racing out of the harbor and white sailing yachts riding the wind. Gulls performed lazy loops in the sky behind fishing boats. Everything out there spun in graceful, pulsating indifference.

  At last he wheeled the chair to my bedside, averting his gaze as I lowered myself onto the unfamiliar seat. He stepped to the middle of the room, hands on his hips, gazing out the window, his shadow falling over me.

  “It should have been me,” he said.

  I eyed his healthy legs, locked with tension and so close I could reach out and caress them like a trainer might stroke the legs of a racehorse. I knew what he meant. I was the counter-puncher, the one who always played the percentage shots. This was not supposed to happen to me. I had the safe life, the guy in the background pulling the strings. Jared, the intrepid one, loved taking chances, loved being on center court battling the world. He was the perfect target.

  But life seldom plays it straight up. Hardship, illness, untimely death—they happen to humble people too, the ones who play it safe, the salt of the earth, people like me—but not to Jared.

  Almost absentmindedly, I grabbed the chrome runners on the wheels and spun around to the doorway. Jared bent to embrace me, but I drew back sharply. I wanted to blame him—if only he hadn’t made such a public spectacle of our relationship—but I couldn’t. He had exposed what was going on. We were all to blame, everybody, society.

  “Don’t!” I snapped. “Don’t treat me like a cripple.”

  He stood there dazed, not knowing how to respond. I wanted him to react, wanted him to slap my face, hard, knowing that would somehow ease my pain. It dawned on me that this pain was born from our resentment. Society not only beat us, they had broken us. Jared felt it too, I was sure. Broken us to the point where we both felt a panic-stricken sense of not knowing what to say, how to act, or even what to think. An angry resentment simmered deep in our hearts, bringing the humiliation of our defeat to a boil. Resentment at our life, our potential, our dreams, being stripped away by the squeeze of a trigger. We couldn’t tolerate this indignity. But how could we break free of it, or from each other? From that day forward, my life would be based on resentment.

  I tilted my head so that I could stare into his eyes. He extended his hand and grasped mine. The warmth of his touch shocked me.

  “Okay,” I said. “What now?”

  SOMEONE on staff must have tipped off the press. We fought through a scrum of shouting reporters and TV cameras in the hospital lobby and again at the airport. It became a free-for-all. I felt the overwhelming urge to rush back to my hospital room and slam the door shut.

  We were assaulted in San Francisco by the same frenzied throng. I’m sure another group waited at St. Frances Hospital—our planned destination—but we drove home instead, locking the damn door behind us. The phone rang. Jared took three different calls in succession from reporters, refusing comment, before unplugging the phone.

  The room plunged into silence. I echoed my same question as before, “What now?”

  Jared cleared his throat, the way he did when he had something difficult to say. “We find a nurse to care for you while I’m gone.”

  “Gone?”

  THE clay court season starts in mid-April with three consecutive tournaments: Houston, Monte Carlo, and Barcelona. The Monte Carlo tournament is a Masters Series event and is the most prestigious, which means the top clay court players competed there. Barcelona is less prestigious and a much smaller purse, so it draws the second-tier European and South American players. Only the American players choose to start off the season in Houston.

  Connor was granted entry into all three tournaments. He chose to start in Barcelona because the competition would be
easier for his first clay court tournament and it was the only tournament that had granted Jared a wildcard entry. It was also safer than playing in an American tournament, as the Europeans tend to be more liberal, especially in Spain, where equal rights is not merely a campaign slogan and gay marriage is legal.

  After Barcelona, if all went according to Hoyle, they would play Munich, followed by the Italia Masters in Rome and the Madrid Open. They would have a week of rest before finishing with the French Open in Paris.

  If Jared played deep into each tournament, it would be a grueling schedule by the time he arrived in Paris, but I expected him to lose early in at least one or two of these tournaments, so he would have plenty of rest time.

  Jared and Spencer flew to Spain the second week of April. I knew he hated to leave me, and I fought against his going, but two days after we returned home, Jared and Spencer labeled their clothes, packed their bags, and took a Yellow Cab to the airport.

  Roy, Connor, Harman, and J.D. boarded the same flight a day later. To Connor’s dismay, Shar stayed in San Francisco to take charge of my rehabilitation. Roy had agreed to let Connor play doubles with Jared, but he refused to let them go near each other any time they were not playing a match.

  Spencer became Jared’s practice partner, and Roy coached Connor. I didn’t give them much of a chance at doubles if Roy didn’t allow them to practice together, but I had no say in the matter. It took some doing to convince Jared even to play with Connor. Jared fumed over the fact that Roy never visited me in the hospital. But no one else would play with him, and we felt that he could earn some extra money if they won a round or two in each of the tournaments.