Phoenix Fire

by Chitwood, Billy

  There, in that predawn realm, he whipped and hammered himself with vows of contrition. Exhausted, he would slip back into a kinder sleep, sleep bereft of demons with red, bloated faces, sleep that was deep and unmindful of the telephone ringing in long, impatient trills.

  Had it only been ten days since his brother's memorial? To Jason, it seemed so much longer. His body was showing the signs of his abusive new regimen. The eyes glared back at him with red and ragged intensity from the bathroom mirror. Small light purple puffy sacs crowded his lower eyelids. Irritated and ugly red blotches which he could not explain were spread about his upper torso, a stark contrast to the paleness from the lack of sun and nourishment.

  Each day was a repetition of the preceding day, a day like yesterday. The yesterdays were piling up.

  The late morning shower, juice and coffee brought brief glimmers of hope that he might survive the day. But, then, the waves of nausea would come to mingle with the promises of survival. He forced himself out of his robe and into casual clothes. Today he would wear blue shirt, tan slacks, and navy blue blazer. He had only a fleeting thought of going into the office. His body dictated that he feed it, so he went to a Scottsdale coffee shop and made himself eat steak and eggs. A short time later, the waves of nausea abated, but there was still an occasional inner flutter which could only be appeased by alcohol.

  At 2:30 PM Jason had begun drinking again. He was one of only three people sitting at the ornate mahogany bar. The cocktail lounge was intimately low of lighting and the furniture was comfortable, dominated by cardinal and gold hues. A compact disc system played soft ballads in the background, the melodic sounds punctuated by an occasional tinkle of glass, ice, and muted voices. There was a pungent yet pleasant smell floating on the refrigerated air, a blend of perfume, booze, and cigarette smoke.

  After two scotch-rocks Jason began to feel the familiar return of balance to his inner chemistry. A song by Frank Sinatra was playing and the words were bringing thoughts of Jenny, her face a sharp and lovely focus in the back of his bloodshot eyes. Even as he sat with poised highball glass in hand and a negative frown etched upon his face, he loved and wanted her. He remembered that she had called several times at his office. Perhaps the calls at home that was not answered were from Jenny … he had disconnected the answering service. She wanted to talk to him, to possibly explain all the hurt away. Had he allowed too much time to pass? Would she talk to him now? The urge was strong to leave his bar stool and call her. Perhaps she could make everything right for him again.

  Grandma Myrena had wanted him to call Jenny. Maybe they had talked. Maybe he had just been too quick to let Carlton's words eat into his conscience, to begin their malignant growth. Maybe all was not lost with Jenny. He wanted to call her, to ask forgiveness for his adolescent behavior, his rudeness at leaving her at the hospital. The urge to call her was so compelling.

  He did not move from his bar stool. He felt too embarrassed to call her. He was such an idiot. He should have given her a chance to explain her time with Carlton …

  Grandma Myrena was dying. The thought came blurting through his consciousness. Carlton was dead. Was Jenny dying, too? Was he allowing her to die as well? All the people he loved were deserting him … all, dying.

  The bartender brought another drink. Other people drifted into the cocktail lounge. The sounds of voices, laughing, talking, the ice tinkling in the glasses, the cash register, and the music, all grew in decibel count across his fevered mind.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “I must see him,” Jenny barked at Nora and hastily went directly to Jason's private office door, opened it and entered. The room was dark and empty, and it occurred to her that this was the state of her soul. Dark, empty, and without purpose. Was Jason's soul at this moment feeling the same dark emptiness?

  Jenny let the seeming symbolism pass as she remembered where she was. She suddenly felt her face flushed with embarrassment. She went back to Nora's desk in the reception area. Nora sat looking up at Jenny with a sad smile of understanding.

  “Please, sit for a moment,” Nora said.

  Jenny reluctantly sat. “I'm so sorry. I thought that he must be in there. He won't return my calls and I'm very worried about him. Do you have any idea where he is? I've tried his home number and he doesn't answer. I've tried to reach him through Mrs. Wimsley but, she, too, has not been able to find him. We don't know where to go or what to do. Can you help us?” Jenny's expression spoke of pain and sorrow.

  Nora paused briefly before responding. She, too, of course, was worried about Jason, and this young lady obviously cared a great deal about him. “I don't know where he is, Ms. Mason. Really, I do not. He's only been to the office three or four times since his brother died and he's called in maybe three times. When he came in, he looked terrible. His eyes were red and puffy, and he looked so pale. I'm very worried about him myself. He just said that he needed some time to himself. I wish there was more to tell you that would help but there is no more.”

  The telephone rang just as Nora finished her sentence. It was someone else calling for Jason.

  As Jenny left Jason's office building, she was stymied. She simply did not know what else to do. She had hoped that by now Jason would have called her. She could not imagine why he had forsaken her. What had she done? She could think of nothing.

  She drove back to her own office, picked up some client materials that needed her attention, and left for home.

  At her apartment she tried again to reach Jason at his home phone number. No answer. She had allowed the phone to ring some twenty times.

  She called Grandma Myrena to see if she had heard from Jason.

  “Why, yes, dear,” Myrena told her, “he called yesterday. Has he not yet called you? He said that he would.”

  “No, he hasn't, and I'm getting so frustrated. I don't know what else to do. I've even thought of camping out at his home address to try and catch him, but that seems so brazen somehow. If he won't return my calls, why should I think he would want me showing up on his doorstep? Maybe, too, I'm afraid of further rejection.”

  They had talked for several minutes, and, after hanging up the phone, Jenny had a scary sort of presentiment about Grandma Myrena. Her voice had sounded so weak and somehow disjointed. Jenny guessed that it must be the medication she was taking for the cancer pain. It was a thought that came unbidden: Grandma Myrena was near the end. Jenny began to cry as an overwhelming sense of doom came upon her. She walked around the apartment, dabbing at her eyes with tissues, adjusting a wall painting, pacing, trying to shake the awful feeling.

  Later, with a glass of wine to hopefully settle her senses, she thought again about Jason. He must have discovered the fact of Grandma Myrena's terminal cancer. That knowledge alone would subdue him, but add to that Carlton's tragic and untimely death and it would be difficult to imagine the depth and extent of emotional stress Jason was feeling and trying to handle. Maybe he couldn't handle the stress. Perhaps it would be natural, from a psychological point of view, that Jason would turn away from Jenny, having lost his brother and knowing that he would soon lose his grandmother, a grandmother who was in essence his mother and his role model. Perhaps he feared a potential loss of Jenny as well. And, who could truly say what the loss of his father and mother years ago had meant in terms of psychological scarring and repressed need?

  Jenny could question why Jason was turning away from her, but the simple truth was that he had turned away. She could know that the bond they were building prior to Carlton's death was real, genuine, and beautiful. She could not be wrong about that. Jason loved her. She just knew that to be true. She loved Jason. He must surely know that to be true. The ultimate causes for Jason's avoidance of her be what they may, she must be patient and understand fully what he was going through. She must not permit herself to create doubt and self-pity in her mind. It was Jason who now needed her more than she needed to find answers for herself. She must find him and convince him of her love. She must conv
ince him that she would never leave him.

  She left her apartment with a new resolve and drove to Jason's house, a lovely Mediterranean type villa cut into the desert rock mountain in Paradise Valley. The large house was elegant in its stone, stucco, and wood exterior. The landscaping made it enchanting with meandering pathways through lush shrubbery, palms, Palo Verde trees, and large boulders.

  As she drove up the palm lined lane, the house seemed to convey an aura of sadness. The red clay roof tiles appeared drooping and surrealistic in the late afternoon sun like a Salvador Dali painting. Jenny thought that the dwelling gave off a soulful emanation of its owner. A tear erupted from a quiet place and she felt her own sadness engulfing her.

  Jenny parked on the spacious flat stone driveway that encircled a blossoming clump of neatly trimmed hedge growth. She turned off the ignition and stepped from the car. She paused, pivoted, and looked down upon the northeastern valley below. Houses with delft dotted pools in the midst of cacti and palm trees stretched far out to Scottsdale and the hazy McDowell Mountains. A soft crying wind caressed the hilltop and the sad house.

  Jenny sighed at the desert beauty sprawled below and walked through an artfully created atrium to the front entry door. An octagonal sign near the hedgerow announced that the house was protected by a security system, with a telephone number in bold brown letting. She rang the doorbell for nearly five minutes and she could hear the accompanying chime sounds inside the house, lonely and softly rhapsodic. She rapped on the hard, thick, oak door for another two minutes. She tried the large gold handle but it was locked.

  She walked out of the courtyard and around the house until she reached a fence gate. The gate, too, was locked. She walked back the way she had come, past the atrium, and along the other side of the house. She finally reached the rear left corner of the house, where a huge mountainous boulder nearly touched the sand finished stucco.

  There was a narrow space between the house end and the boulder. It was a tight squeeze and she was able to get through onto a large porous patio by shimming up the rounded corner of the house and the boulder until the space widened enough for her to drop free.

  Winded by the exertion she stood looking at the space through which she had just come. She shook her head and smiled. “Now, how did I do that?” she asked aloud, her voice hollow and reverberating.

  The rear area behind the house was breathtaking in its beauty. The large swimming pool lay up against the mountain boulders, from which water flowed in gentle unhurried sheets. At the northwest end of the massive flagstone patio the backward drop of the shaded stone mountain gave way to slope, sun, and the desert floor below. Jenny paused to conjure a vision of Jason and her sitting here in this beautiful setting, holding hands across their chaise lounges, sipping cocktails, and discussing their wonderful future together.

  She walked along the rear of the house where several glass bypass doors allowed for egress and ingress. The first three doors she tried were locked. The last door that belonged to the master bedroom suite glided smoothly open with her tugging. She felt a rush of optimism with the opening door. She half expected an alarm system to start wailing, but it was either not keyed 'on' or was not functioning.

  She stepped into the large bedroom suite. A cool breeze from the air conditioner momentarily chilled her warm, perspiring body.

  “Jason,” she tentatively called out.

  The bed was neatly made and a cleansing smell wafted on the cool air. The maid had obviously been here recently.

  “Jason!” she yelled as she stepped out of the bedroom into a hallway. “Jason!” louder still.

  Other than her own voice and the whisper of air conditioning there were no sounds in the house.

  She went from room to room, slowly realizing that Jason was not at home. “Oh, Jason, where are you?” she muttered in frustration.

  Suddenly, the blare of a telephone ringing broke the quietness. Jenny impulsively jerked to attention.

  What should she do? Answer the phone? Surely it would not be Jason calling his own number. But, maybe it was someone who might be able to shed some light on his whereabouts. Maybe it was Jason's office. Maybe it was Granma Myrena. Maybes. She would not know until she answered the blasted thing.

  Jenny found a telephone on a living room table and picked up the receiver on the fourth ring. “Hello?” she asked.

  “Jenny? Is that you, Jenny?” It was the weak and cracking voice of Grandma Myrena.

  “Grandma Myrena! Yes, it's me. Have you heard from Jason? I just broke into his house, and he isn't here.”

  “No, dear girl, I haven't heard from him. I was hoping to find him there.” There was a pause on the line.

  “Grandma Myrena, are you all right? Do you need me there?” Jenny sat on mauve wing back chair next to the telephone table, her brow wrinkled in concern.

  “I'm having a bad spell, Jenny. The medicine, I'm afraid, is losing some of its punch. I do wish Jason would call, show up, something.” Her voice was barely audible.

  “Have you called the doctor?”

  “Yes, Wardley called him. He is increasing the dosage. Someone from Nelson's office will be stopping by soon with the new pills.”

  “May I come over, Grandma Myrena? I would like to be there with you.”

  “No, dear one, you don't need to bother. Just try to find Jason. Wardley is here with me. I will be all right.”

  Reluctantly, Jenny conceded and told Myrena that she would call back periodically to keep her informed. After disconnecting, Jenny sat, her heart sick with worry for the plucky little lady and for Jason. She must find him, but she had no idea of where to look. She had to find him soon. He would never forgive himself if Grandma Myrena … She did not complete the thought. Pain upon pain.

  Jenny did not know how long she sat in the chair. When the shadows began to deepen in the room she stood and went into the spacious kitchen, took a glass from a cabinet shelf, and drank some water from the fridge dispenser. As she started to leave the kitchen she noticed what appeared to be credit card receipts tucked under a colorful paper weight, probably gathered and placed there by the cleaning person.

  Jenny leafed through the Visa receipts one by one. They were all bar receipts for some hefty amounts. “Oh, Jason, please don't do this to yourself. You need to be strong. You need to be with Grandma Myrena.”

  She noticed a pad of message paper and a pen. She scribbled a note and carried it into Jason's bedroom. She placed the note at the fold of the bedspread, just under the pillow. He would have to see it before he got into bed. She said a silent prayer that he would come home soon and read it.

  “Very soon, please, dear God!” she said to the empty room, her voice hollow and throaty, alien to her ears.

  Jenny let herself out the front door, making sure it was locked behind her.

  Driving down the palm lined lane, Jenny looked to the west and saw the sun bursting in deep pink hues all across the horizon. She could only hope and pray that Jason knew the fullness of her love. She could only hope and pray that he would make it home before something awful happened to Grandma Myrena, like, her dying. She softly made a plea, “Oh, God! Please help us.”

  She could not shake the sudden, strong, jolting premonition of death.

  In Jason's master bedroom suite the edges of Jenny's note lifted slightly off the bedspread in response to the stir of cool air from the conditioner. The note floated softly just briefly, then settled when the air conditioning unit had automatically cut itself off. The piece of paper looked lonely on the large bedspread.

  The note read: Jason --- My heart aches for you. Please! Please! Call me. Come to me. You are my love and my life --- Jenny.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The thoughts did not hurt so much in this lofty place, up on the vaporous plateau of Bacchus. The sadness in his soul was temporarily anesthetized by the booze and by the buoyant crowd around him. The noise proclaimed gaiety and denouncement of all woes. Jason could momentarily forget the terri
ble visage of death that had attached itself to his thoughts and had burned its truth into his brain. He could momentarily seek the easy forgetfulness that came with the numbing flow of amber fluid.

  He sat at the bar, remotely conscious of his drooping eyelids and his slurred words.

  There was a 'Roy' and a 'Hal' on either side of him but he could not remember which side belonged to which name. Each man talked to him and through him. He was aware of the inane smile on his face and of his nods of false comprehension of their words.

  He was still aware enough to think of having coffee to lift the thickening fog around his mind. When he was about to order coffee, another drink would appear in front of him. Dumbly, he drank to catch up with his new found comrades, each gulp taking him closer to an unknown precipice.

  He had stumbled off to the men's room on several occasions and he had smirked at his image in the broad mirror above the lavatory. He had splashed water time and again on his face, trying to maintain some degree of sobriety. When returning from his nature calls he found himself behind again, several drinks lined up on the bar. His mind registered his 'friends' cajoling him to catch up, and, in some dull chamber of his mind, he resented their wheedling. In his fog, he began to dislike these phony men. They resembled mindless predators who sought sadistic pleasure in watching others self-destruct. The booze, though, held power over him, and he drank on into the night.

  *****

  Through the dark tunnel of sleep came a buzzing sound, at first barely audible, then growing in loudness and persistence.

  It was a telephone.

  Finally, it stopped ringing.

  Jason lay still, his body a leaden and damp mass on the lumpy bed. He felt stuck to the sheets and he was afraid to make any sudden moves lest a wave of nausea would hit. He slowly and tentatively opened his eyes, his left cheek moist against the stained and soiled pillow where his deep sleep drool had settled. He squinted as he peered into a cracked and alien wall where a dirty window was partially covered by a faded, grimy shade. The day outside was bright with sun, and he halfway expected the window shade to become inflamed. His eyes moved farther down the wall line and he saw an old soiled chair, its fabric shiny with use and age, its arms and back patched and torn.