Don't Kill The Messenger

by Joel Pierson

  “Okay,” I reply. “Sorry.”

  She goes into the bathroom and closes the door, and I’m left alone in the room to bang my head against the wall, if I were the type of person who would bang his head against the wall in situations such as this one. Fortunately for head, wall, and the occupants of room 117, I am not that person.

  Do I even want her that way? I suppose I’m biologically programmed to think so. Pretty young woman, available man. Pass on my DNA, continue the species; high school biology at its finest. But I don’t want to marry this girl, and my DNA is the last thing on my mind. I have a long trip ahead with Rebecca, and I have to know if I can control any feelings I have for her. I mean, we’ve just met, so there’s no deep emotional attachment. Anything I feel would strictly be—for lack of a more sophisticated expression—dick-related. It’s been so long since I’ve felt human contact that transcended the delivery of a message.

  But shit, she needs to be able to trust me. And more importantly, I need to be able to trust me. Otherwise, the road to Ohio is going to be littered with uncomfortable silences, physical and emotional distances between us, and me apologizing for my feelings over and over again. To hell with it. The deer was right—don’t fall in love, which at the moment includes “don’t give in to lust.”

  And then she comes out of the bathroom in a long white shirt and a pair of shorts that she’s planning to sleep in. Were this an old Tex Avery cartoon, I suspect my tongue would be depicted as four feet long, unfurling onto the floor. My eyes would be on springs, my heart likewise, accompanied by an absurdly exaggerated pounding sound. And to cap it off, I’d be making a wolf whistle at the sight of her. Tex Avery understood the male of the species.

  “It’s all yours,” she says to me, and for the moment, I’m so distracted that I don’t even understand what she’s referring to.

  “What?” I ask, rapidly and silently praying to myself that she’s referring to her body.

  “The bathroom,” she replies, with just enough of an old-school duh undertone to make me feel stupid for asking. “I’m done in there.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Be careful. The floor’s a little wet.”

  I get up and make my way toward the bathroom. Before I can close the door, she says, “Tristan, I’m sorry about what I said earlier. I’m sorry I assumed the worst about you.”

  This is it, the opportunity to be noble, to be the bigger person and own up to my part in making her feel that way in the first place. Instead, I hear myself uttering in a mock-wounded tone, “I just hope you understand that’s not how I am.”

  Nice. Mature. Asshole.

  Even in the depths of sleep, I am aware of intense, searing pain. Without an organ or a body part to call home, it seems to reside in my very soul. It sounds melodramatic, but that’s the only way I can describe it. Imagine your least favorite headache, back pain, stomach ache, or stubbed toe. Agonizing as it is, it has a home, and the rest of your body is sheltered from it. And if you’re very lucky, there are pills in the medicine cabinet that will take it away. The pain I am experiencing now has no place of residence; it simply fills me, like it has so many times before, and no pill will relieve it.

  Through the pain, I remember that Rebecca is in the room, and I try not to cry out and wake her. Freaking her out will do nothing to improve our already shaky relationship. So I try to rationalize and focus on my breathing and wait for the inevitable words that follow the hurt—the mental telegram that tells me where my life will go next.

  Right on schedule, it arrives. Words; pictures to accompany them. Tarpon Springs, Florida. In my mind, I see a small coastal village. Fishing boats line a pier. Stelios Papathanissou. A man’s face comes to mind, his body shortly thereafter. He is dressed in what looks like a space suit. The image is confusing. NASA is in Cape Canaveral, not Tarpon Springs. Details come into focus. A trident, a breathing apparatus. It’s a diving suit, not a space suit. This man is a fisherman.

  One by one, the details arrive—where to go, what to tell him. Then, as if I were contemplating not doing it, the message ends with a particularly heinous streak of pain that runs through me. Diligently as I have been trying to remain quiet, it is too much, and I sit up with a shout.

  This startles and scares Rebecca enough to rouse her from sound sleep, and she emits a shriek. I turn on the light by the bedside. My eyes are now focused enough to see the clock. It’s almost 6 am.

  “What is it?” she asks, a bit panicked. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say wearily, the pain starting to subside now. “I’m sorry. I tried to be quiet. I got another … assignment.”

  She’s confused. How could she not be? Seconds ago, she was sleeping peacefully. Now she’s bolted awake by my voice. “Assignment? Did someone call?”

  “No. It’s not like that. I just … got the details of the next message I have to deliver. You know, in my head.”

  She takes a moment to try to wrap her mind around this. The only question that comes to her is, “What time is it?”

  “Five fifty-two,” I answer.

  “Shit,” she says quietly. “Does this mean we have to get up? Does this mean we have to leave now?”

  “No, no. It’s not like that. You can go back to bed for a bit. I won’t be able to sleep again, but I’ll sit quietly in bed and let you sleep.”

  I suspect that adrenaline has her too wound up to fall asleep again now. “So … that was it? That was what happens when you get one of these … message things?”

  “That was a quieter version,” I say to her. “Out of respect for you, I internalized a lot of the screaming.”

  “Jesus, how do you stand it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But wait a second,” she says. “How can you start another one when you’re still working on mine?”

  “Sometimes I have to multitask. Besides, whatever it is that wants me to do this didn’t count on you still being with me. It’s okay. We can make this work. It’ll just be a short detour, and it won’t really out of our way.”

  “So … where are we going?”

  “Tarpon Springs. North and west of here. Over by Tampa.”

  “What’s there?”

  “A fisherman. Apparently, if I don’t talk to him before 3:00 this afternoon, he’s going to have a very bad day.”

  She looks at me in amazement. “My God … this is real. This is really real.”

  I’m surprised by her reaction. “You mean after everything we’ve already been through together, you still had your doubts?”

  “I … I don’t know. I guess I believed you enough to quit my job and come with you. But this just makes it—more real, I suppose.” There is a moment of silence between us. “Can I get you something … for the pain, I mean?”

  “Thanks, but no. It’ll be with me until we head out and I’m moving in the direction of Tarpon Springs. Once it’s convinced I’m going to deliver the message, it won’t hurt anymore.”

  “Then we should go,” she says, getting out of bed.

  “No, you should get some more sleep.”

  “It’s okay. I got a few hours. That’s enough. If leaving here now makes you stop hurting, that’s more important.”

  Now it’s my turn to offer a surprised look in her direction. “You really care about whether or not I’m in pain. Why?”

  She appears embarrassed by the question, as if her display of human compassion is akin to some sort of confession. “I don’t know. I just do. I guess I want to think of you as a friend, since we’re in this together. Maybe I think you’re kind.”

  “Kind?” The word sounds almost archaic in the air, having fallen so far out of use in today’s don’t-give-a-shit society. I like it, and I want to embrace it as a personal trait, but I have to wonder. “Looking back at last night, do you rea
lly think I’ve earned such a compliment?”

  “Well, yes, you did come into my workplace, disrupt my life, and make me quit my job. And you’ve said some things that were hard to hear. But when you look at me, it’s like I can see your thoughts about me.”

  Holy shit, I hope she can’t see all of them.

  “You look at me like you want me to live and be safe. Like you think of me as a person. I see so many men every day, and they see right through me. Most of them look at me like I exist only at the level of my chest and between my legs. The rest look at me as if I’m going to fall in love with them and run away together, just because they handed me a dollar bill and I paid attention to them for thirty seconds. With interactions like that, do you wonder why I’m not in a relationship?”

  “No, I guess not.” I’m curious about something, so I ask her. “Do you hate all men because of that?”

  “No,” she answers matter-of-factly. “At first, when I started dancing, I wanted to hate them. But I realized it’s the nature of the business relationship. When you walk into Burger King and hand them money, you expect them to be friendly to you and hand you a burger and fries. If you spend a little more, you might treat yourself and get a milkshake. When men walk into the club and hand me money, they expect to see my naked body, and have me be friendly to them. And if they spend a little more, they treat themselves to a table dance. It’s a business transaction, and I can’t hate them for making it.”

  “You might mention that to Fantasia,” I reply. “I think she was trying to suffocate me with her breasts.”

  “Fantasia’s got issues. She’s rocking the angry lesbian thing, and she thinks that a good show makes up for shitty customer service.”

  I laugh a bit. “You’re awfully lucid for six in the morning.”

  “You forget, I work nights. If it weren’t for our little road trip tiring me out, I’d be in my prime right now. But I’ve had my nap and my philosophical discussion, so I’m ready to hit the road. I wouldn’t say no to breakfast. I might even be persuaded to buy.”

  I stand up with a smile. “Well, hell, why didn’t you say so? A sunrise drive through the Keys and a free breakfast? You’ve touched the heart of this world-weary old man.”

  “You’re not old,” she says.

  “Oh yeah? Glad you think so.”

  “Come on. What are you, thirty?”

  “Thirty-six,” I correct her.

  Her response is one of disbelief. “What? No way.”

  “Honest.”

  “Well … you don’t look thirty-six.”

  “Thank you. In deference to my advanced years, do you mind if I use the bathroom first this morning?”

  “Help yourself, Grandpa,” she says with a wicked little smile.

  “Hey, watch that shit,” I warn her. “You’re not too big to put over my knee.”

  “Ooh, baby,” she jokes right back.

  The banter feels good. It feels friendly and natural, like we’ve removed a wall between us and we can kid with each other this way. I know she was frightened of me at first, and I suppose I was frightened of her too. This trip is such a departure from the way every other message delivery has gone in the past. I’m afraid of screwing it up; of screwing her up. I know I have to be very careful with her, especially now that she’s starting to trust me. There’s a side of me that could easily and carelessly exploit that for my own personal gain. Wouldn’t be the first time, either.

  By 6:20, we are in the car and heading north again on U.S. 1. The sun is making its way over the eastern horizon, painting the waters of the Atlantic in orange, yellow, and pink. There isn’t much traffic on the road, so I’m able to steal frequent glances to my right, to watch the show unfold. “What are you looking for?” Rebecca asks at one point.

  “God,” I answer flatly.

  “Let me know if you find him,” she says. “I’ve got some questions.” And with that, she closes her eyes and tries to get some rest.

  Within the hour, we are in Key Largo, and we stop at a local café that the residents favor. I indulge myself in a conch-and-tomato omelet. Conch—apart from the aesthetic qualities of its lovely and musical shell—is also damn tasty, and very hard to find outside of southern Florida and the Caribbean. So when I see it on the breakfast menu, of all places, it’s hard to resist. It’s a bit like calamari, but without the rubber band texture that ruins that dish for me.

  It’s reasonable to expect that by this point in the trip, Rebecca and I would have talked about ourselves in detail, and we would know each other rather well. But it isn’t the case. I’m private by nature, and she is very hesitant to bring up any important subjects, such as family, work, school, or even details about her own life. Our travels are marked with long stretches of silence, which holds true as we eat our breakfast. So much so that when I ask, “How are your eggs?” after fifteen minutes without talking, she actually jumps a bit, startled to hear me speak.

  “Huh? Oh, fine. How’s your … fish thing?”

  “My fish thing is lovely. Sure I can’t talk you into some?”

  “Uh, no. I never hit the seafood before noon.”

  “More for me,” I reply. “I can’t believe you’ve lived in Key West and never tried conch.”

  “I’m not big on fish,” she says.

  “It’s shellfish.” I cut a bit off and hold it up. “Here, just try it.”

  “No, really, it’s okay. You look like you’re into it, so you just go at it.”

  I shrug and continue eating. There is now a vacuum in the conversation, into which some words must be pulled. She provides them. “So how far are we from Tarpon Springs?”

  “Once we get to Miami, about four hours.”

  “And from there, how long to Ohio?”

  “Well, provided we don’t get any more detours, about sixteen hours of driving.”

  “That feels like forever. Do you think we’ll get more detours?”

  “I honestly don’t know. We might get none, we might get four.”

  She’s not pleased with that answer. “And what if one of those detours wants you to go to … I don’t know … California, just as we’re getting ready to enter Ohio?”

  I try to calm her fears. “Then California will wait until after I drop you off.”

  “But won’t you be in terrible pain?”

  “Maybe. We’ll figure that out if it happens.”

  We finish breakfast and the waitress brings the check. As promised, Rebecca takes it and pays cash for the two meals. I notice that she leaves a generous tip as well. This makes sense, given the reliance on tips in her profession. Correction: her former profession.

  Back on the road, we make decent time through the Miami metropolitan area before heading west on I-75 across the state. As the swampland sails past us on either side, conversation turns to questions.

  “Is it a man?” she asks me.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he alive?” she inquires further.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he American?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he famous?”

  “No, it’s my neighbor Pete. Of course he’s famous. It’d be a little difficult if he weren’t, don’t you think?”

  “Fine, then do I get a do-over on that question?”

  “No, and your question about getting a do-over counts as a question. You’re up to five.”

  She clicks her tongue in annoyance, but doesn’t argue my shady interpretation of the rules. “Is he a politician?”

  “Geez, you ask a lot of questions.”

  “Very funny. Just answer. Is he a politician?”

  “No.”

  “Is he an actor?”

  “Yes,” I answer with a poker face.

  “Is he a TV actor?”
>
  “Yes.”

  “Is he on TV now?”

  I think about it. “Mmmmm, no.”

  “Is he over forty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it … Ron Howard?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is it Don Johnson?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is he over sixty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it Johnny Carson?”

  “No. Good guess, although technically, Johnny was more of a television personality than a true actor.”

  “Is it Andy Griffith?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” she says, “I give up. Who is it?”

  “Pernell Roberts,” I answer victoriously.

  She looks at me as if I’ve just uttered the name of the vice prefect of the planet Glanurax IV. “I have no idea who that is, Tristan.”

  “Come on … Pernell Roberts. From Bonanza.” She shrugs in a total absence of recognition. “He went on to play Trapper John, M.D.”

  “What, on M*A*S*H?”

  “No no, that was Wayne Rogers. Pernell Roberts played an older version of him on his own eponymous program.”

  “Look, if you want me to believe you’re not old, you need to stop bringing up figures from ancient history. And you need to stop using the word ‘eponymous.’”

  “Thing one, my young friend: the 1960s to 1980s are not ‘ancient history.’ Thing two: it’s not my fault if your personal pop cultural database stretches back only as far as Justin Timberland …”

  “Lake,” she corrects.

  “And thing three: I never said I wasn’t old. You said I wasn’t old.”

  There is the tiniest hint of a pout on her face as she realizes that I might just be right. “Unspeakably amusing as this is, can we do something else?” she requests.