The Mentor

by Pat Connid

  My reflection said, “When’d you get fat, man?”

  Looking at myself in the mirror was depressing, so I popped open the shower door and stepped inside. The water took far too long to warm up, and I could hear my teeth chattering by the time it did.

  All the shampoo was Pert, which I hate because I have naturally greasy hair and when I use a shampoo/conditioner combo it's oily again in a couple hours. I decided instead to use the bar of Irish Spring soap for my hair, and it did the trick. And, bonus, my head was deodorized with not one but two, two deodorants.

  Toweling off, I grabbed a bowl of Raisin Bran in the kitchen and headed back to the chair.

  Balancing the phone's receiver on the side of my head as I laid back, I called Pavan again.

  “Not great news, but you probably knew that,” he said when I finally got him on the line.

  “Give it to me.”

  “You got just over four hundred in your checking.”

  “How about airfare? More than four bills, huh?”

  “Yep,” he said. “I called my cousin, who’s dating a travel agent. On short notice, you’re not getting home for less than seven.” There was silence for a moment. “You know, Dex… you’ve got some dough in savings.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah…”

  “You could get a first class ticket with that, man. Hell, you could buy your own plane.”

  “No.”

  Pavan had never challenged me on the money before. He would bring it up every now and then but he never pushed it. This time he did, and I wasn’t ready for it.

  “You think your baby sister would be happier knowing you were stranded on some stupid island?”

  “Jesus, man, bad timing. Seriously.”

  “No, she’d want you flying home within the hour with a cocktail in both hands and free movies at your seat, that’s what.”

  I could see a glimmer coming from the corner of my vision. Shit. I hadn’t had a real killer of a headache in a while… and this one was coming hard.

  “Shit,” I said out loud, pressing my thumbs into the corner of my eyes. “No, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what? Pick oranges or some shit to get money together. You’ve got a fortune in there—”

  I snapped at him: “Ruthie didn’t die so I can fly first-fucking-class, man!”

  “No,” he said, but for the first time I could ever remember he wasn’t backing off. “That dough is because the hospital started carving pieces out because they thought you were dead. But you weren’t dead…”

  “Pavan, leave it alon—”

  “And you’re not dead now. Stop acting like it.”

  The room blazed with thick, threads of white light as the migraine took hold. Still, I was surprised by my own tears. Crying. I couldn’t remember the last time I cried.

  “I can’t. I killed her.”

  “Nah, you didn’t.”

  I said. “I did. You don’t know.”

  The spires of light split into prisms through my tears. “I killed her. Shouldn’t be on my goddamn phone in weather like that. Like that, you go both hands on the wheel, both eyes on the road. Not me, I--"

  “Cops didn't blame you, family didn’t blame you. Only you blame you,” he said, slurring a little. Ah. He’d been drinking. Liquid courage. “Sometimes I think maybe you like hurting inside.”

  “Shut up, man.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Fine. It’s your dough.”

  I looked at the stereo and the warm yellow glow of its tiny lights. Something old-time jazzy with a hypnotic bass line tumbled softly from the speakers, and I took a deep breath, drawing it in, hoping the sound waves would loosen and break away some of the calcification built up along the inner walls of my skull.

  “Can you get me a ticket to L.A.?”

  Pavan sniffed. “What’s in L.A.?”

  “Well, it’s the closest non-island city to where I’m at right now. Hopefully I get there, and I’ve got a couple bucks left over.”

  Then, out of the blue: “Dammit!”

  I jerked the phone away from my ear, looked at it, then returned it to the side of my head and said, “Man, I’ve got a screaming headache—what’d you do that for?”

  “Uncle Rolo was over last night, and he assed the phone!”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  Pavan’s voice was hollow, distant. I could envision him holding the phone at arm’s length.

  “Rolo got in a fight with my dad because dad borrowed his lawn mower and lost it in the yard… and before the pendejo left he must’ve slipped the handset down the back of his shorts and assed it.”

  I closed my eyes. “What the hell is wrong with your family?”

  “Dude, I gotta hang up. Gonna be sick.”

  “Get me a ticket for this afternoon from Honolulu to L.A., and I’ll call you when I get in.”

  Pavan gagged. “Don’t bother. I’m not picking up this phone ‘till I get some bleach, man.”

  “Pavan!” I screamed into the phone. “You’ll be at the theater. I’ll call you there.”

  “K. Hanging up.”

  Click.

  I put my head back and nearly fell asleep again in the most comfortable chair on the planet. But, my mind was racing.

  It occurred to me that I should call back Pavan and book a flight for the next day. My new mentor might have picked this place for a reason. Maybe I could ask around.

  Maybe he was still around.

  If I took some time to talk to the locals… someone may have seen him or recognize his description.

  It was the second time he nearly killed me. This wasn’t the neighbor’s dog barking too loud at four in the morning. This was some crazy bastard—who has access to spare cargo vans and, very likely, a private jet and more sedatives than Michael Jackson’s former personal physician—this prick wanted something from me, or wanted to teach me some lesson, or wanted me to lose a couple pounds, what? He wanted something.

  Maybe everything.

  “What is this all about?” I said to the lamp, which offered little insight. “What the hell does he want from me?”

  Some nerve endings were waking from their brief comas, and the blisters on my calves began to sting more. I started to get up to find some aspirin but stopped.

  I wanted it to hurt. I didn’t want to forget what I was up against. I didn't want to forget what he was doing to me.

  A few minutes later, once the pain had increased exponentially, I felt quite certain there’d be no forgetting whatever it was I didn’t want to forget and jumped up to guzzle three or four aspirin.

  In the kitchen, I stood and washed down the pills' grit with a second glass of water. At that point, the plan was simply to get back home. But then what?

  It would only be a matter of time until I’d wake up again to find him sitting there on my dresser like my personal gargoyle, spouting off details about surviving in the vacuum of space while a rocket idled on my roof, blowing plumes of steam onto my balcony.

  The Mentor made me feel weak and stupid, and there were old, now-alien feelings bubbling back up, and emotions sneaking in that I'd long ago fortified myself against.

  And twice he nearly killed me yet never said why.

  “Lesson begins,” I spat the words. "What the hell is that even supposed to mean?"

  Basically, there are only two types of "lessons."

  The first is a learning arc. You study or have exercises, lessons, then later test your new knowledge or skill. In the end, you might get a grade or a trophy or a merit badge, whatever.

  The other lesson is really “revenge.” You first affected someone else in some way—you've done something to somebody, said something to someone, or said something about doing something to someone's sister.

  Now, they feel wronged by it, and want to teach you a lesson. The lesson in these cases are all the same: Whatever you did, don't do that again. How a person went about teaching this kind of lesson could be a myriad ways (ie. drowning in van, burning in l
ava).

  If my lessons were the former, some series of tests, for the life of me I couldn’t fathom what the tests were about. It really didn't seem plausible that I'd inadvertently been dropped into the Student Assassin “learning track.”

  Sure, the latter seem to fit me better. But, not only did I not know the guy but it didn't, ultimately, feel like "revenge."

  Racking my brain, I couldn't put it together.

  Now, despite being late morning on the Big Island, my body was on Atlanta time. And, I'd learned in recent years, pensive introspection usually is best when accompanied by a six pack of beer and a peer group.

  But while the latter was not readily available to me, the former I'd spied earlier in the fridge.

  Contrary to popular belief, beer can spoil just like milk or meat. Allejo had already been so kind-- I’d hate to see him suffer the embarrassment if company were to come over and find that his adult beverages had turned.

  Egad!

  Later, by the time I'd constructed the smallest pyramid possible from beer cans--two on the bottom, one on top-- (and working dutifully to fortify the structure) my mind had finally begun to unclench, and I felt myself nearly taking full breaths again.

  My mind wandered, and I wondered what it had been like for the guys on the Enola Gay.

  It had to have been a long flight, and they couldn't have just been thinking the entire time, "Well, we're about kill 150,000 people with an atomic device… I wonder if this will have long term ramifications beyond the war?"

  There had to have been moments during periodic equipment checks, vector recalculations, maybe quick chats as they shared a packed lunch of cheese and meat-- providence's deep breath before the scream-- when they were just men flying a plane, marveling at the beauty outside their windows.

  Farm houses pass by far beneath them.

  Around those, a carpet of small, lush fields-- tended to as dutifully as one bathes a lover.

  In many of those fields, crops in regiments awaiting deployment to a nearby market.

  All this while a horror quietly passes above, unseen.

  The best parts of life may be those expressed in the parenthetical.

  Sure, the most important moment of Lt. Tibbets' life was piloting the bomber over Hiroshima, as the paint on its snout spelling out his mother's name drizzled away in the headwind.

  But, in the years after, he may have better remembered sharing a beer with his crewmembers the night before.

  Or, looking back at his life more broadly, maybe it had been the curve of his wife's naked hip, where he'd trail his fingertips until his eyes got used to the darkness, maybe it was there, those things, that better defined his life for him.

  As I sat there in the home of a man I didn't know, who'd given me a place to stay without a second thought, after the tortuous encounter with a man who I also did not know, but seemed to only desire for me the worst waking moments that could be imagined… I felt, in that very moment, like those crew members sharing a quiet, pleasant, satisfying moment or their pilot remembering how his wife, thousands of miles away, was the only home he'd truly ever known.

  I was safe, warm and, briefly, happy to forget the ugliness of the world outside the warm, groovy cocoon I'd slipped into.

  Unaware of when I'd crossed the boundary, I passed from my beer-and-jazz-soaked peaceful day to the blunt edge and comfortable confusion of daydream.

  I'M TOO TIRED TO lift myself out of the hospital bed to go to Ruthie’s funeral, and I'm embarrassed that on her last day above ground I can't be there to at least say how fucking sorry her brother is.

  The nurse comes in and he (He? I remember it had been... or maybe not) looks at me and seems to understand my struggle. He's kind enough-- or maybe, as he's older, experience has given him a sixth sense about these things. He doesn't bring up the funeral.

  “Hello Dexter,” the young nurse sa-- no that's not right-- he's an older gentlemen, now. Thin. With the sort of beard a lot of baseball players have. “How’s the head?”

  “Fine. My guts got scrambled not my head."

  "Good," he says. "They'll want that memory. Such an amazing gift, it'd be terrible if you lost it."

  "Oh," I say. "Yeah, slowly. It's… what? What did you say?"

  "Listen, they'll come for it," he says, rain soaking his face.

  "What? What are you talking about?"

  He looks down at his wrist watch. “They'll be here soon, I'm so sorry. I don't know what to do." The bed linens are adjusted on either side of my neck, and I'm suddenly pinned down, can't move.

  "You're… hurting me. That's too tight, I can't--"

  "You're the only one!"

  His voice has turned tinny, the sweat off his face falls in sheets.

  "Only one! It could be so good but, no, not for them. You don’t know them! Not them. They can’t get it!" His voice hurt my ears and was the sound of screeching tires: "No, Christ, not them!"

  AN HOUR LATER, I can’t tell if my trembling is a result of the pain or the dream.

  As the rational part of my brain tries to piece it back together, I can’t help but push it back down, back below the surface-- I don't want to know.

  Time to go.

  It took me only a few minutes to dress, clean up my mess, then leave a note thanking Allejo for his kindness (and his beer).

  I walked to a nearby hotel, went in a side door, climbed a flight of stairs, then another and took the elevator back down. The nice woman at the desk pointed me to the airport shuttle.

  The shuttle was free, but I tipped the guy two cans of beer (I'd borrowed from the house, an I.O.U. in their place) since I didn't have a dime on me.

  Naturally, I ended up wandering the airport for about four hours because Pavan forgot about the time difference. He'd booked my flight for three o’clock that afternoon, which was actually ten in the morning locally.

  My seat was already over the Pacific Ocean by the time I made it to the airport. I had to rebook, so I sat around for another couple hours looking pitiful until they could get me the jump seat on a later flight.

  Circling the airport terminal over and over and over, I was reminded of a theory I have about airports and, specifically, air travelers.

  In an airport, any airport, every grown man or woman has the capacity to turn into a five year old. All it takes is one cancelled or missed flight, and you’re a toddler. Because you’ll sleep anywhere you can lie down.

  Window sills, bathroom stalls, the floor behind a ticket counter, handicap ramps… anywhere you can get just a few minutes of blissful, escapist sleep.Businessmen, career women, captains of industry, game show hosts, it doesn’t matter—you spend more than two hours in an airport, and you’d slap the funny hat off the Pope for a carpet square.

  Wandering the tiled halls, I came across a small, very clean corner of the airport where a young woman stood by an x-ray machine. What struck me about her, first, was that she was skinny. About a third the size of the rest of the airport's dream team who'd been giving me the stink-eye for the past few hours every time I walked by.

  And, honestly, as TSA security went, she was a knock-out.

  Actually, as knock-outs went, she was a knock-out.

  I only had hours to kill-- just enough time to investigate a pretty girl.

  As I approached, she looked up.

  "Charter flights," she said, smiling. Funny thing, too-- it was a real smile. Hmm. She hadn't worked for the TSA very long, it would seem.

  "How'd you know I was going to ask? Your machine read minds, too?"

  "No, you don't have any luggage. People coming through here have at least a carry-on or roll-away bag. Or someone else carrying their carry-on or roll-away bag."

  "Ah, hold on," I said. "I thought no one else was supposed to handle your luggage in an airport. They got those terrorist-trapping questions when you buy a ticket all about that."

  "Oh yeah," she said and lit me up with a dazzling smile. "That doesn't include rich people."

  "
They never say that part."

  "Oh, don't take it personal."

  "I hadn't," I said. "Until you said I shouldn't, you know, take it personal."

  "Sorry," she said and shrugged, then laughed again, having fun with it.

  She cast a look at the guard who was leaning against the wall, but he didn't even acknowledge her. If it had been anyone else but a member of the crackerjack TSA security force, I would have guessed he'd mastered the ability to sleep while standing up (Now, I've heard that on the Serengeti, hippos have been known to do this. Not trying to equate the fine gentleman to a mean, fat water cow, but if one were to make that connection, coincidentally, one would not be far off).

  Here in this quiet corner, where the charters boarded, there were no shuffling lines of people willing to trade their dignity for a seat on an airplane. No one was taking off their shoes, no one was being wanded (at least not before getting on the plane).

  And at the moment, no one was there at all.

  "I see this line of work keeps you terribly busy."

  She leaned back, looked down the long tiled hallway-- no one heading our way-- and rubbed the back of her neck with the palm of her hand.

  "The flights aren't very big, for the most part. Mainly two- and three-seat jumpers. The All Star break," she said, her eyes going a little wider, "that's a different story. Half the sky is football team charters."

  She straightened and her red lipstick split into beautiful white teeth.

  "Aloha," she said, and I stepped back and out of the way of a departing, bleary-eyed businessman who apparently hadn't seen me standing there.

  He handed her his ticket, moving slow. Very slow.

  She continued: "I hope you enjoyed your stay in Hawaii."

  From the looks of it, he seemed to have enjoyed it more than he'd been prepared for.

  "Take this hall-- it's longer than it looks, trust me-- and you're the first right, two gates down. Enjoy the flight."

  Nothing, not even a grunt.

  As he walked away, staggering a little, a thought struck me.

  I waited a moment to let her customer float out of range. Then, I pointed at the machine next to her.