By the Book

by Mary Kay McComas

  She’d almost convinced herself that it was okay to want to better oneself and to get more out of life, no matter how well off you’d always been, when she finally noticed what was happening in the parking lot below. Then she was certain of it. It was human nature to want more. It was her right to be happy—and to do what she had to do to make herself that way. Jonah didn’t settle for being lonely and unhappy; she didn’t have to either.

  Watching from Earl Blake’s sickroom, she let the scene below fuel her resolve. A police car had pulled up in front of the emergency room. Two nurses appeared from inside. She recognized Bobby Ingles as one of the officers—they’d gone to school together. His partner opened the rear door of their vehicle, and two long legs popped out. Kicking and flailing in the air, the legs were fast and agile, and looked as if they could cause some serious pain if they came in contact with someone. Bobby braved the leg farthest from the door and got kicked in the shoulder by the other leg for his efforts. His partner confronted that leg, wrapping both his arms around it the way he might a greased pig. They pulled together and eased the man out of the car. The two nurses were there, reaching to take first one arm, then the other with no problem at all. The man’s hands were cuffed behind him.

  They carried him like a battering ram, the two officers at his legs, the nurses by his arms, pulling him well away from the car, protecting him as he jerked and bucked, trying to free himself. Finally, when he either tired or decided it was useless, his neck went limp and his head lolled back so that he was staring straight up at Ellen in the second-floor window.

  She wasn’t sure if it was curiosity or disbelief that had her hyperextending her neck in an effort to get a good look at the man’s face. She already knew who it was—and she was going to kill him.

  She turned and through a haze of red she saw father and son circled in the light from the lamp above the bed. Jonah was leaning forward with his arms across his knees, speaking in a low voice. And with Earl positioned the way he was, she could almost imagine him listening.

  It wasn’t easy talking to the inanimate man, she could tell. Jonah would look at his hands, think of something to say, say it, wait for an answer, look back at his hands, and think of something else to comment on. She smiled. He was trying so hard. A part of him was still the little boy wanting love and acceptance from a man he barely knew, loving him instinctively, against his better judgment. It was a torment and a privilege to see, hurtful and uplifting at once.

  She sighed. Perhaps not all of life was what you made it. Maybe it was a fifty-fifty combination of fate and free will. Thinking about it now, it seemed pretty fortuitous that she’d happened across the little green book when she had. Shortly after Jonah’s arrival, after he’d caught her attention, just when she wanted to catch his attention. Maybe it was fate’s way of saying that with a little self-improvement, she could be good for Jonah—that they could be good for each other.

  But then, of course, there was the fact that the little green book was having no effect on her dealings with Felix.

  “I’ll probably never understand why you couldn’t have kept in touch,” she heard Jonah say. “Or forgive you. But I’ve seen your pictures.”

  “Jonah?” she said softly, hating to interrupt when he seemed to be on a roll. When he looked in her direction, she smiled. “I’m going to leave for a few minutes, a little while maybe.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, getting up immediately. “Of course, you’re bored. I’m sorry. Let’s go. This isn’t doing any good anyway.”

  “No. No. It is,” she said, rushing forward to keep him from moving the chair back “It is doing good. I can feel it.” She patted her chest to show where. “And I’m not at all bored. I don’t even want to leave, but ... well, I just remembered a phone call I have to make. To my mother? I promised her I’d call her before nine, and here it is already eight thirty-five. But when she gets going ...” She trailed off with a helpless laugh. Her face was hot. The next time she went to the grocery store, she was going to look for a little book titled Lying Made Easy. “It shouldn’t take long, but it might be a while.” She bobbed her head uncertainly. “I’ll just go find a phone and call her and come right back. You stay. Keep talking to him. Tell him what you’re doing now. I didn’t bring my purse. Do you have a quarter?” If worst came to worst, she really was going to call her mother. “Tell him everything he’s missed out on.”

  Uncertain, he handed her the quarter and said, “But if we leave now, you can call from my house while I finish cooking dinner. We can make it back before nine.”

  Oh, she hated the perfect logic of that idea.

  “You know, I was just thinking about that orange? I don’t think it settled on my empty stomach very well. I feel sort of weird right now. I know it’s rude and ungrateful to ask, but would you mind if we postponed dinner for another night? Maybe stop and get something light and fast after visiting hours?”

  “Of course not,” he said. A light chuckle mixed with a look of concern. “But how weird do you feel? Are you sick? You look a little pale.”

  “Me? No, it’s the red hair. I always look pale.”

  “No,” he said, leaning forward with a gentle kiss. “You always look beautiful.”

  “No,” she said, embarrassed and a little flustered—and glad nonetheless that he kept coming back to that subject. “Well, sometimes maybe—but you should see me in the morning.”

  “I’d love to see you in the morning,” he said quietly and quite seriously even as a wily smile played on his lips.

  Oh Lord! Now she really was hot, and not just in her face. She felt her heart in her throat; it was beating too fast. This was one of those moments when a woman with a real attitude would say something hysterically funny to defuse the situation, or something so incredibly sexy, he’d forget to swallow his own drool. As it was, her mind was fizzling like a sparkler on Chinese New Year. He was looking at her as if ... well, his whole expression was totally indecent considering where they were, with pain and suffering—and beds—all around them.

  Her mind tipped slightly into hysteria. Tongue-tied, she sputtered a bit and shook her finger at him. All she could think about was waking up beside him, not caring what she looked like, knowing only that she was warm and safe and wanted. Finally she said, “I gotta go.”

  Once she made it to the first floor and followed the signs to the emergency room, it wasn’t at all difficult to find Felix.

  “Arrest me!”

  She heard his voice the second she opened the doors to the waiting room.

  “Arrest me! It’s your job.”

  She approached the receptionist’s desk and must have looked angry enough, or shamed enough, or determined enough, or enough like Felix for the woman to recognize who she might be. They exchanged embarrassed and empathic grimaces and the woman nodded and pointed, giving her silent permission to go through the doors leading to the emergency room.

  “What kind of policemanship is this anyway?” she heard Felix ask, loud and indignant. “If you don’t arrest me, I’ll sue. I’ll sue you. I’ll sue the police station. I’ll sue ... my nose itches. Untie me so I can scratch it, okay?”

  She didn’t really want to be there, she realized suddenly. She was walking down the hall, looking into each treatment room, homing in on Felix’s voice, but what she wanted to do was turn around, walk out, go home, crawl into bed, and forget about him.

  “It’s your duty to arrest me, Bobby. I’m drunk and disorderly, and I bet I broke something when I hit my head. That’s ... destruction. Destruction of property. You gotta arrest me.”

  “You didn’t break anything. Nobody’s pressing any charges. We’ll call your mom or one of your sisters and have them come get you.”

  “My sisters,” he said with some derision. “They’re gonna love this. Hey! You were sweet on my sister Ellen in high school, weren’t ya? I remember now.” A brief silence. “Listen, if you ever had one ounce of feeling for her, you’d arrest me now. She hates funerals.
”

  She stood outside the door with her back plastered to the wall, cringing with humiliation and remembering Bobby Ingles in high school—tall, skinny, and so shy he could barely string two coherent words together. Being what she was at the time, she had invited him to the movies after his tenth failed attempt to ask her out. He’d actually been a tolerable movie companion. He didn’t utter a single word during the movie—or before or after it either.

  “High school was a long time ago, and there isn’t going to be any funeral,” Bobby said. “You have a lump on your head, but the doc says you’re going to be fine. He also says you need a detox program.”

  “What I need is to be arrested!” Felix bellowed.

  “Felix!” she said, when she couldn’t stand it any longer and stepped into the room. “Keep your voice down. There are sick people here.”

  “Now you’ve done it,” he said to Bobby, casting him a traitor’s glare. “If that junkyard dog doesn’t kill me, she will.”

  “I’d like to right now. Hi, Bobby,” she said, with a quick glance in his direction. Then she was back on Felix like white on rice. “I thought I told you to stay in my apartment and not to drink.”

  “You also told me you were going to fix things.”

  “And I will. As soon as I figure out how. In the meantime, you have to keep a clear head and stay out of sight.”

  “I think better drunk and I’ll be safer in jail.” He nodded his head to give her some assurance. He turned suddenly to Bobby and shouted, “Arrest me!”

  She stepped back helplessly and saw for the first time that he had soft restraints around his wrists, tied to either side of the stretcher. He was wearing the same dirty clothes he’d been wearing the day before, which meant he hadn’t even gone home to change before going out to drink—but then, why would he?

  “I’m sorry about this, Bobby,” she said when she looked up and caught him looking at her with a sad expression on his face. “What’s he done now?”

  “Nothing really. Got falling-down drunk, and the bartender called to have us come scoop him up off the floor. Hit his head somewhere along the way. We just thought we’d have it checked out before we called someone to come get him. How’d you know where to find him?”

  “I wasn’t really looking for him. I was upstairs visiting a friend. I saw you bringing him in.”

  Felix swore colorfully, then added, “Arrest me!”

  “Hush, Felix.”

  “Don’t hush me. I hate being hushed. You hush once in a while. See how you like it.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.”

  “Arrest me! Arrest me! Arrest me!” he said, when Bobby was called from the room by his partner.

  “Felix!”

  “That junkyard dog is going to eat me alive if you don’t. You want that? You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?” he asked Ellen. “Just let him get me. Sweep old Felix under the carpet and get him out of your way. Well, if you don’t make them arrest me, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Your wish will come true. The junkyard dog is gonna get me. He’ll hunt me down and get me.”

  “What junkyard dog?”

  “The junkyard dog. The only junkyard dog in the only junkyard in town.”

  She frowned, confused. Tom Krane owned the only junkyard in town. And he had a dog that would hunt Felix down and ...? No. Tom Krane was the junkyard dog. And Felix’s moneylender? That’s who Felix was so afraid of? Tom Krane?

  “Felix. Calm down. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

  By the time the last word was out of her mouth, Felix was screaming deliriously at the top of his lungs, pulling at his restraints, and thrashing his legs. Over and over she tried to get through to him, but fear fueled by alcohol made him unreachable.

  “Okay, fine,” she said, about the time Bobby and his partner and a nurse came into the room. “Arrest him. Take him off to jail. Throw away the key.” Only part of her was being facetious.

  “Ellen, he hasn’t done anything.”

  “Are you kidding? Listen to him. He’s disturbing the peace. He’s a public nuisance. He’s drunk and disorderly. He’s intoxicated in public. He’s dirty. He’s a pain in my ...” She stopped when she realized she might be going too far. She let loose a big sigh. “Look, Bobby, maybe arresting him would be good for him. He shouldn’t be allowed to wake up in my mother’s guest room every time he does this. He should wake up uncomfortable and spend time in jail, with nothing to drink but water. It might do him good.”

  “He’d only be there overnight.”

  “Then what happens? You just turn him loose?”

  “Pretty much. We write him a ticket with a fine attached to it. He can contest it in court if he wants to, but most of them don’t.”

  “What happens if he can’t pay the fine?” she asked, thinking a few days in a sobering situation like that might be just what Felix needed to make a rehabilitation center a little more appealing to him.

  “We let him go anyway, on his own recognizance. He has sixty days to pay the fine.”

  “What if he still doesn’t pay the fine?” She was just curious.

  “Then, if we want to make an issue of it, we can haul him up in front of a judge, who can either throw him back in jail or sentence him to rehabilitation, if he thinks it would do any good. People his age,” he motioned with his head toward Felix, “they usually get sentenced to rehab if they express a desire to go and a willingness to give it try. But ... well, when they go that route, it’s on their record. Permanently. He’s awfully young—”

  “He’s awfully sick, Bobby.” She looked back at her brother, who was now quietly flirting with the nurse. “And I don’t know how else to help him.”

  Bobby had been right earlier, about high school being a long time gone for them. She watched him consider the pros and cons of arresting her brother and didn’t notice even the slightest remains of the boy he’d once been. Still tall, but lean now instead of skinny, he had a serious, self-assured countenance that didn’t seem at all affected by what he’d once felt for her. His attention was focused on Felix and his job and the best solution for both.

  “At least he wasn’t driving,” he said, finally. “If we tap him for drunk-and-disorderly, it won’t be so bad.”

  “Thank you, Bobby,” she said, thinking it a stupid thing to say when he was about to arrest her brother. But all in all, it seemed like the best course for everyone involved—except Bobby, who now had to make an arrest and do all the paperwork. Felix, in his present pickled state, would feel safer. Her mother and her sister wouldn’t need to hear or worry about it until morning. And she would have time to work something out with Mr. Krane.

  “Bobby, you’re a good man,” Felix was saying, delighted to be going to jail. “Thanks for arresting me on such short notice like this. You can untie me now. I’ll go peaceably. I won’t even try to escape. You won’t regret this. I’ll be a model inmate.”

  “Shut up, Felix,” she and Bobby said in unison. Bobby moved to untie the restraints.

  “I hope you’re happy now. You’ve embarrassed both of us here tonight,” she hissed at him.

  “Well, don’t you worry about me,” he said bravely. “I can handle it. And Krane will never think to look for me in jail.”

  “Krane?” Bobby asked, frowning and showing concern as he worked on the knot. “Are you in trouble with Tom Krane?”

  “No, no,” Felix was quick to reassure him, narrowing his eyes at his sister as a warning to be silent. “No trouble. Just a little misunderstanding. Nothing serious.”

  “Stay away from him, Felix,” Bobby said, removing the last restraint. “He’s bad news. Steer clear of him.”

  Felix rolled his eyes and wagged his head. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do here all night?”

  “Ellen?”

  “What? Oh. I’m sorry,” she said a while later, sitting next to Jonah in a small booth at a fast-food restaurant. “What were you saying?”

  He smiled his forgiveness.
“I was saying that you’ve been awfully quiet and distracted since we left the hospital. Is something wrong?”

  “No,” she said automatically. “What could be wrong? I ...” Her gaze met his, and she was instantly lost in time and space. In the back of her mind she knew he had (he strength to break her in half if he wanted to—but there was such a gentleness about him. She wasn’t sure if it was because she knew his history or simply sensed it, but sometimes she had the feeling he had an inexhaustible reserve of this same gentleness, and so much more, all wrapped up with a shiny ribbon, ready to give—but not to just anyone. To her alone. It was as if he’d traveled through time, eon after eon, waiting and searching for her, specifically. It was a huge responsibility and a comfort at once. Exciting and soothing in turn. Empowering, yet it was his blind acceptance of her worthiness that she valued the most. “I’m here with you. And to tell you the truth, nothing else seems to matter much. We barely know each other, but I feel as if ...”

  “As if we’ve known each other forever?”

  “No, not at all,” she said, with a small laugh and a look of surprise. A feeling like that would have been so simple and easy to explain. She slipped her hand between his and the tabletop in front of them. His fingers curled around it instantly, warm and secure. “You’re not like anyone or anything I’ve known before. You’re not even ... what I dreamed of. You’re ...”

  There were no words. She looked into his eyes and prayed he could see in hers what she was trying to say. She’d never known someone like him even existed, much less imagined the possibility. Maybe she’d simply never allowed herself the hope of finding someone who would speak in places deep in her heart, places that she had always assumed would remain hollow and empty, echoing throughout time, unnoticed and unappreciated.

  A raging forest fire couldn’t come close to generating the heat in his expression, or cause such devastation in her heart. He moved closer, kissed her tenderly, seeming to understand—to accept that there was no real explanation for why or how one loved another, it simply was.