“Hey, I can give you ride. I never expected you to still be here, but if I’d known you worked nights, I could have come home early enough to fix you a bite to…”
Her mental processing rippled.
“Wait, wait…. Work, what? Did you say work nights?” Johnnie said this as she shook her head, hands out as if she were doing air push-ups. Her eyes closed and she had the look of someone trying to understand something utterly incomprehensible.
“Um, didn’t you just say you have to be at work in an hour and a half? It’s almost six…” Her look of stupor apparently compelled him to finish the statement, “…in the evening.”
Fortunately her evasive move just moments ago had placed her at the end of the couch and the sofa arm caught her bottom when the strength left her knees.
“Oh, no you don’t. This cannot be happening.” She muttered, as she looked at the most trusted source she knew: her phone. The main page clearly displayed the time as 5:48….P.M. What in the… she’d missed work! That must be what the voice mails were. Her mind raced. She needed to call right away.
“I need to call my boss,” she said to the man, not looking at him. But before she could summon the power to dial, or even know what to say, her phone rang and the name, “Jerod Stass” flashed on the screen to let her know her very brief prep time was up.
“Oh, God.” She said fully to herself, as she slid her finger down the face of the phone, activating the connection. “Hello, Sir….”
“For God’s sake, Johnnie!” He nearly shouted. “Where are you and I really don’t want to ever have this conversation again!”
“Sir, I’m so sorry and I don’t know. I just woke up…but it’s not like last time! Everything seems OK, I just don’t really know why I was sleeping…”
“Where are you.” A statement more than a question; his tone was indeterminate.
“Uh, I don’t know, but hold on…wait…” She held the phone against her chest, stared at the lowly lit ceiling and realized how badly she wanted to avoid any likeness to the previous way-too-similar event. Sucking in air, she begrudgingly put the phone back to her ear.
“Sir…tell you what, how about I come to you? Can I? Where are you?”
It took everything she had to continue to force air in and out of her lungs during the ensuing silence.
“I’m still at work and if you don’t know where you are, how will you get here? And … are you okay?” Still not sounding particularly warm, he obviously cared enough to cover the bases.
“I’m fine.” She rubbed her free hand across her face, not just because her face hurt, but to avoid looking at the elephant in the room in the form of a nameless man whom she may have slept with.
“Just, well, I think a little hung over, and, Captain, I’ll be there as soon as possible. And, I’m sorry.”
This time she hung up without signing off, not to be disrespectful, but to avoid any further questions to which she was certain she had no answers. She didn’t sense danger from the bar man, and she felt confident she could terminate this scene--or situation--or whatever it was, quickly and get a cab to the base.
Standing, she spoke briskly while looking for her shoes.
“Hey, um, thanks for the offer, but I’ll take a cab if you can give me the address here. I’m kind of in hot water now. I have no idea why I slept all day…” She glanced at him; the quality of his gaze seized her and she stopped. Dead in her tracks. Even though she didn’t know what the expression meant, it was so intense and compelling she didn’t have the power to look away.
“What? Lookit. I’m sorry, but I don’t even know what you want me to say. I… I’m sorry.” She offered weakly; her arms hung helplessly at her sides and her legs had frozen in mid stride.
They were separated by about five feet in the fading light. He made no effort to move but his eyes narrowed as he quietly asked, “You don’t remember, do you?”
If it was possible to feel any worse, it happened instantly. This guy seemed so nice, but very serious. And he looked disappointed, but also intrigued, about the obvious fact that she was drawing a complete blank on what must have been one memorable personal encounter last night….
“I….I’m sorry.” She felt so inadequate and profoundly stupid as she returned his stare. But she needed to get her priorities straight, and fast…she had to get to Captain Stass as soon as humanly possible. That was a matter of career… and this guy, she didn’t even know. So why did she feel so obligated to give him this moment?
He was the first to look away, actually smiling and looking up at nearly the same spot on the ceiling she had recently contemplated while she’d had the captain on hold. He looked back at her and put one hand on a hip, raising the other up, with his index finger standing alone.
“Number one, Johnnie, you don’t and will never owe me an apology. Number two, I think I need to tell you my name…it’s Jeff. Number three, you obviously need to go talk to your boss because, if I got this right, you just missed a day of work. Let me give you a ride. As you may have figured out by now, but would know even better if you remembered last night, you are safe with me. Now, anyway.”
His words suspended between them as she stared, still looking rumpled and totally puzzled. However, she realized she was grateful for the injection of stability and reason into this otherwise increasingly uncomfortable situation.
As much as she preferred making things, actually everything, happen of her own accord, he made perfect sense as far as his being a safe agent for her right now—and she really needed to get to work without further delay. With so much on her miserable mind, she missed his last two words and may not have assigned meaning even if she had caught them. She gave her head a quick quiver to “clear,” as one would erase an etch-a-sketch. She located her shoes and grabbed them from the floor, demonstrating questionable balance.
“Jeff? Thank you, Jeff, and OK. Please, I’ll take that ride and maybe you could fill some blanks along the way…it must have been one hell of a party. And I’ll pay you for the gas.”
The last statement was Johnnie’s weak attempt to maintain some semblance of independence in a situation where she clearly had no control.
-------------------------------------------------
As it turned out, Jeff lived quite close to the base, offering very little time for conversation. Frankly, Johnnie wasn’t sure how much information she could handle at the moment, and the minimum of what she needed to know was evident to her anyway; she must have had an obscene amount of alcohol, stayed up all night and had slept it off at Jeff’s house while he was at work. She just didn’t want to deal with any of the more personal details and Jeff didn’t appear to be inclined to offer, either by preference, or lack of time during the short drive.
Today’s disappearing act had the potential to seriously jeopardize her perfect career record and in the military, failure to show up was much more serious than just missing work. She knew she’d technically been AWOL; significant misconduct in the eyes of her institution.
Johnnie had Jeff pull into the visitor’s center outside of the base gate; she was grateful for the ride, but was not ready to vouch this virtual stranger onto the military installation. She brusquely thanked him and opened the door to make a quick exit. As she was getting out, she heard him say, “We didn’t sleep together…thought you might want to know that.”
Johnnie had heard and used the term “overload” many times in many contexts, but now she was certain it applied to her mental and emotional state. His statement may have relieved her, but it suddenly added more mystery to her out of control condition, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to tread there.
She turned in the seat, examining him over her shoulder. The outside air blew her hair crazily into her face, a face which looked strained from withheld questions. Instead of talking, she unconsciously bit her bottom lip.
He rummaged in his pocket, extracting a Wendy’s napkin, and to the best of his ability scrawled a series of numbers with a pen pr
oduced from the other jacket pocket.
“You take this and call me if you want to talk about this. I don’t know what’s going on with you and I don’t want to add any stress. But I owe you.” he said quite simply, handing her the napkin.
“Thank you,” were her only words as she snatched the limp paper and slid down and out of the Jeep Cherokee passenger seat.
Closing the door with her hip as she jammed the napkin into her pocket, she headed for the gate guard, painfully aware she must look like a nutcase off of the streets. The sentinels pretty much had to let her onto the base upon presentation of her military identification, but she sensed they were more inclined to frisk her than grant her access; sadly, she didn’t blame them.
As she handed over her identification, she felt a physical sense of urgency to get to her captain – and she was extremely aware that her mouth seemed to be developing its own ecosystem and that she hadn’t showered today. But, she simply thanked the well-armed young airman at the gate who nodded approval when seeing the I.D. card. She broke into a trot to erase the few blocks between her location and the building that held her fate.
Once in the parking lot which was empty with the exception of the boss’ car, Johnnie realized one of her shoes was untied and her nose was running more than her feet. Stopping, for just a second, she was struck by the irony of her haste. Rushing to see her boss to explain herself when she had no explanation whatsoever was about as smart as a ten-year-old eagerly raising her hand in class when she didn’t know the answer to the question.
She tied her shoe while gravel dug into the balancing knee. All she could find to wipe her nose on was the Wendy’s napkin with Jeff’s phone number; although calling for a date was not a desired option right now, she felt oddly adamant about preserving the number.
Settling more into the ten-year-old role, she wiped her nose on her sleeve and bolted toward the building entrance. She may not have answers that the captain wanted, but as unknowns mounted in her world, she desperately needed to be in a familiar environment, however unpleasant that promised to be.
______________________________________________________________________________
The laughing man leaned across his cluttered desk and dropped the old-style phone into its cradle, forever terminating the call. He pushed his well-oiled salt and pepper hair off his forehead, continuing to run his hand along the curvature of his head under the illusion that, with the guidance of his hand, the hair would conform. This was an unconscious belief he’d subscribed to for most of his life and in truth, he was more likely to believe the pretense that his hair would behave than the one that he’d ever be a serious journalist.
Although he looked like either a seasoned writer or even a stereotypical gumshoe, he was actually on his second career – and neither his first or second careers involved breaking real news or solving crimes. His face was creased with lines similar to the concentric circles of water rippling from a dropped stone…except his lines followed less circular patterns outward from his mouth and eyes, all indicative of a very animated man. His were very dark, yet expressive enough to do well without the aid of words; they were exceptional accessories to a face that seemed to absorb the very character of his surroundings.
Who would think such an extraordinary fellow would be a fixture in the world of yellow journalism? But retired school teacher, Byron Hoffstedder had secured this job and been marginally successful for the past five years in his position with a tabloid.
He had never before been a reporter or even received education in journalism--but publications such as the Constellation were less concerned about credentials than results. And Byron had that certain something; he was the “Angel Tracker” and the readers loved him and his column. His lack of background in the press, in his eyes, was an equal trade off to the fact that he had little or no interest in breaking stories or had never been attracted to the warped world of scandal sheets. But he believed there were angels in the world, one in particular, and he’d found an arrangement in which he could actually draw a paycheck to fund his search for the real thing.
The fact that he had to write borderline “true” stories for scores of gullible readers in the meantime was a necessary evil, and frankly, a lot of fun after years of classroom regimen. Byron loved people and, in general, found his job amusing although he never lost his true focus.
He knew from personal experience that angels existed -- or at least that miracles in some form, took place. But, while a fisherman could never make the catch of a lifetime while sitting on a couch, a seeker of angels was much more likely to find the object of his interest if in a position to seek and attract that object.
As the sponsor of the Angel Tracker, the Constellation received hundreds of calls every month reporting miracles, celestial activity, and yes, angel sightings. Although the charismatic teacher-turned-reporter had yet to find the real thing from the job leads, he was able to travel, meet scores of people, and believed this situation provided a decent opportunity to discover that which he sought. Until that time, people still needed desperately to believe in something and he saw only goodness coming from his activities.
Some days the highlight of his job was pure comic relief from the calls offering leads for his column…other days, the sheer despair of the callers and the sadness driving their desperation simply renewed his vigor to find what they, and he, needed -- proof of a higher power, evidence of purity and salvation. Today, it was the former.
“Aye yi yi yi!” He freed the phone-hand to assist its mate in their full time hair-control job. His boisterous laugh drew irritation from the harried “reporters” at the chaotic desks clustered around him. Once he righted his head from its thrown back position and realized he’d again disturbed his less jovial neighbors, he seriously began to state his case.
“What? So, I’m sorry! It was an involuntary reaction to finding out you can get miracles through Amazon “one click “ordering... I was supposed to take that seriously? I plead incompetence in the field of customer relations….”
While this may have been amusing to your average office crowd, the staff of a tabloid suffered from long-term exposure to utter absurdity and this group was apparently in the advanced stages of the condition. Although some calls resulted in useful information, one learned quickly that tabloid phone numbers were apparently on speed dial for every crazy in the nation.
Unlike his co-workers, Byron wasn’t dependent on the Constellation payroll. His teaching pension provided another source of income, albeit meager, so he didn’t need this job or the pay associated with the sacred next story. Although he was aware that unlike most of them, he had not spent years in this cut-throat, thankless business and was typically sympathetic to their odd, if not clinical, dispositions, this time he wasn’t quite ready to give in…. “Come on, you guys… was there ever a time in your life you’d even consider that on one specific computer in Mississippi, you might be able to order miracles through Amazon, but oh,....” He paused, face frozen in a delighted smile as he peered through his reading glasses at his notes, “...but ONLY when you order Adam Sandler movies made before 2005? Really?!”
The shrill sound of his phone was only identifiable from the cacophony of a hundred others by its proximity to his outstretched hand. Remarkable how he reached for it almost as it rang; some days he likened himself to a gunslinger in that respect. Pointing sweepingly with his other hand, he asserted, “I’m not done with you guys…try to beam back to this world and stand by.” He winked at one of the few who was actually tuning him in and changed his voice tone with no discernible alteration in his facial expression. “Hoffstedder…”
“Hello? Is this the Angel Tracker?” asked a small uncertain voice.
Byron could hear a baby gurgling in close proximity to the phone. His attention was completely on the caller now and he picked up a slight edge. The baby calls concerned him, at times, if the caller was of the less-stable variety. Unbeknownst to his employer, he’d made more than one anony
mous tip to local child welfare workers when his questions about the sanity of a parent or care provider overrode his interest in their story.
“Yes, Ma’am. How can I help you?” That was a loaded question. In this line of work, many Constellation “I-reporters” needed far more help than any non-mental health professional could give…
“Um, hi! I can’t believe it’s you. Oh, I’m sorry…I’m calling from Chut, Nevada…”
Byron was still in a deep discussion with a caller named Lisa, taking copious notes, when a mousy, bespectacled man crept over from nearby desk and slipped him a note asking if he was really going to pass on the Amazon miracle call. Sounded like a great lead for his area of media and technology...
______________________________________________________________________________
“Taaa, ptooh….Damn IT!!” Johnnie sputtered upon the too-late realization that the coffee was way too hot, scalding a rough path over her tongue into her screaming throat. She slammed the cup hard onto the desk.
“Shit! Shit….shit,” were the addendums to her initial outburst as she watched more of the assaulting fluid erupt from the hole in the “spill-proof” cup, panicking when it rained down on her computer key board.
“Son of a bitch!” She grabbed a handful of Kleenex and packed it gently on the wet keys, hoping to avoid any damage to this government equipment.
She grimaced as she carefully lifted the damp wad from the keys, closely inspecting for escaped black drops. The keyboard still worked, as evidenced by the unintelligible string of letters on her screen apparently dictated by the tissue blob. Maybe the entry was a loose translation of her swearing, she mused as she blotted, thinking of cartoon renditions of cursing.
Exhaling, she leaned back and stared at the screen as if it actually displayed useful information. Her mouth felt as though a crew had laid fresh hot asphalt. She carefully righted the coffee cup from its almost upright position among the items on her desk, figuring it was just as well that her taste buds were out of order. Her appetite had been shot since Saturday, and based on the immediate outlook, it was unlikely it would return any time soon.
The Unlikely Savior (The Unlikely Savior Trilogy) Page 5