by John L. Monk
What the heck, I thought.
It couldn’t be worse than last time. Maybe I was the world’s biggest sucker, but I still held out hope for a good ride.
Ever the optimist, I projected: Beam me down, Scottie…
* * *
I was sitting in a plush leather chair, staring down at a stack of pictures. One of them looked like a beautiful woman holding a machine gun in each hand. Another looked like two women, back to back, holding cakes or pies. Still another looked like a beautiful woman surrounded by angry spiders. To anyone normal, these pictures probably looked like inkblots in a Rorschach psychological test.
Which, in fact, they were.
Across from me, facing away at an angle, was a man in his late twenties. Brown-haired and slight of build, he sat in a similarly plush chair. Behind him, against the wall, was a couch. There was a landscape painting above it and a couple of bookcases around the room, and everything appeared clean and safe and pastel. The air smelled great, with a hint of real, actual flowers. Not cloying like cheap perfume or spray in a purple or pink or powder-blue can.
“…then I watched more TV until I got tired, and that was my weekend,” the man said.
He had a thin, unsure voice—like he expected someone to interrupt him at any moment. He stole a glance at me and shrugged.
On my right was a glass table. I reached over the high arms of the cushy chair and put the inkblot cards down next to a pad of paper and a glittery gold pen.
The man said, “Dr. Schaefer? Were you going to show me those cards again?”
I was still looking around, trying to get my bearings. “Just a second.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding.
Behind me stood a desk with a curtained window behind it. The room was some kind of office. Not a small office, and not a big one. It was a just right office.
“What was that, Dr. Schaefer?”
“Sorry?” I said.
“You said ‘baby bear.’ ”
“Yes.” Then I peered at him and added, “How does that make you feel?”
Faint relief replaced his previous look of confusion, and he slumped back in his chair.
The man closed his eyes and told me how he’d gone to the zoo once when he was little and saw some bears. He had a lot to say about how the bears just slept and his mom kept tapping the railing to wake them up, and how he was afraid she’d abandon him at the zoo with the bears and snakes and monkeys.
While the man droned on about abandonment, I snuck away to the desk and sat behind it.
A neat stack of folders sat next to a closed laptop. I opened the first one and found what looked like medical files, with the name “Psychiatric Associates of Toledo” at the top of every page. The top file belonged to Will Dingle, age twenty-nine, with an address in Bowling Green. Lots of notes and commentary by my ride—Scott Schaefer—focusing on Will Dingle’s anxiety issues, his inability to make friends, and his depression. Will was also on two kinds of medication.
I wondered whether my ride was a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
“Will?” I said, coming around the desk.
His eyes were still closed.
“Yes, Dr. Schaefer?”
“Can I see your medication?”
Will picked up a backpack I hadn’t seen and took out a blue case for organizing pills.
“Never mind,” I said, waving him off.
If he’d had a bottle with a prescription I could have checked if Schaefer’s name was on it, which would have meant he was a psychiatrist.
“Let me ask you something,” I said, and sat back down. “What do you think about psychiatrists?”
Will laughed nervously and said, “You serious? I haven’t seen one in years.” He laughed again and rubbed his hands. “Not since I set my house on fire.”
“That long, huh?”
Will nodded proudly.
If I’d come back in the body of a psychiatrist, no way could I prescribe medication all day for patients without killing someone. But as a psychologist, I could do nothing at all and let them refill their prescriptions until my last kick.
“Good,” I said. “Psychologists are cooler anyway.”
Will smiled. “You’re a pretty good therapist, Dr. Schaefer.”
I’d had a therapist once. I’d gotten bullied in junior high and refused to go back. But that wasn’t why I was in therapy. To get me to return, Dad gave me the talk about bullies being more afraid of me than I was of them, how the bigger they were the harder they fell, and then he’d topped it off with, “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
To this day, I’m not sure why I believed him when other kids knew not to listen to their Machiavellian fathers.
I’d returned to school. Then I’d approached Randy Cobb from behind and said, “Hey Randy.” When he turned around, I hit him with my book bag—the same book bag I’d loaded with a couple of large rocks plucked from someone’s garden on the way to the bus stop. He went down hard, knocked-out but otherwise okay, and the school forced me into therapy.
In all my sessions, the therapist made me call him by his first name. He was a nice guy who enjoyed asking me how I felt about anything I said. After two months of that, I told my parents I wasn’t going back.
That time, Dad kept his sagely advice to himself and I got my way.
Will Dingle droned on for ten more minutes about all the things he worried about. He started to say how he couldn’t go in pet stores because talking birds scared him, and then a soft tone sounded in the room.
“Thanks Dr. Schaefer,” Will said, and stood up to go.
His eyes widened in surprise when I reached out to shake his hand.
“Next time I see you,” I said, “I want you to come with a list of places in the world you’d like to visit one day.”
I knew all my old psychologist’s questions and responses by heart. He’d been a big one for setting goals to reach before every session.
Will nodded vigorously and said, “Ok.”
After he left, I poked my head out the door and learned I was in a sort of communal facility. There was a staff desk surrounded by a sprawling great room with a number of sofas, tables, and chairs. Around the perimeter were doors to offices just like mine. At the desk sat a middle-aged white woman and a young, pretty, Asian woman, talking together. They were the only ones there besides me.
I went over.
“Hey, you two,” I said, throwing them my hundred-watt smile.
“Hey yourself,” the older woman said in a frosty tone. Her name tag had the name “Pam” on it. The younger woman—Melody—wouldn’t look at me.
I wondered if my ride had bad teeth.
“Sure,” I said. “Do, uh, either of you know what time it is?”
“Four o’clock,” Pam said, glaring at me.
“Do you … is uh,” I said, kind of nodding toward the door. “Do I have any more patients today?”
Pam snorted disdainfully. “How the hell would we know?”
That got a small, appreciative, smile from Melody.
I didn’t trust myself to answer so I smiled too, then turned around and went back to Scott’s office.
I searched the desk for an appointment book but didn’t find one. I tried the computer but it was locked, so I searched for anything with a password on it. Just as I was about to go through Scott’s weirdly advanced cell phone to see what day it was, the door flew open and Pam marched in.
She slammed the door behind her and pointed at me from across the room.
“You stay the hell away from her, you miserable son of a bitch. And me too, if you know what’s good for you!”
Then she turned around, stormed back out, and slammed the door again for good measure.
“And stay out,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
If Pam and Melody were good indicators, Scott had problems with women. Maybe he liked to boss people around, something simple like that, and had hurt Melody’s feelings.
I waited until well after five o’clock on the off chance I’d have another patient, but nobody showed up. To be honest, I was waiting for Pam and Melody to leave. I wasn’t sure what was going on with all the finger wagging and profanity, and I hoped I wouldn’t need to find out. Nobody was dead or dying by my hand, and that was good enough for me. The rest was Scott Schaefer’s business.
When I finally peeked out, I saw a man carrying a laptop case waiting near the main entrance, looking back past the front desk. A second later, a thirty-something woman came rushing out of another office carrying a laptop case of her own. The man said something funny and she laughed. Then they left together.
I wasn’t sure what to do with the whole therapist thing. It wasn’t like with Fred and the security guard job where all I had to do was write Nothing to report over and over again. I’d inherited some serious responsibilities for which I had no training. If one of Scott’s patients thought I’d abandoned him or her and then committed suicide, that’d be on me.
Scott’s keys were in a rain slicker hanging in a shallow closet. After pocketing the keys, I grabbed the coat and had another look at Scott’s phone. It was like looking at something from the future. At first I didn’t know what to do, then found I could touch the icons on the screen and little windows would pop up. Also, if I moved my finger while touching the screen, all the buttons moved at the same time, and then a new screen with new buttons popped up. I was like a caveman playing with a flashlight.
It had an icon that said Calendar, so I clicked it. The date showed May 28, 2013. An astonishing five years had passed since my last ride.
My exile had seemed unbearably long this time, and I’d suspected … well, not years. Maybe a year at most. But five? Unbelievable. I wondered if the Cubs had managed to win the World Series, or if someone had cured cancer, or if aliens had shared their technology with us, because this phone was cool.
Then something else happened: I got a phone call.
Now look—I wasn’t completely prehistoric here. But the moving screen-thing was throwing me off my game. And when the call came in, all the icons disappeared, replaced by a picture of a pretty brunette named Tara with a green Answer bubble underneath it. I stood there staring at it, frozen with indecision. Where were the damn buttons?
After it stopped ringing, just as I was about to figure out how the voicemail worked, Tara called back, and again I didn’t answer it. When she called back yet again, I almost touched the Answer bubble, but the ringing cut off abruptly.
Whenever a ride comes along with significant others in his life, it complicates things. Particularly when those significant others were as pretty as Tara. Even worse when the ride has kids, and I’m stuck with the knowledge their father will soon be dead or in jail because of me. Whatever my ride had done to them or their mother before I got there, for the rest of my stay I’d be quite harmless. Friendly, even. Almost like ol’ Dad changed his mind and decided not to be abusive or scary or a drunk anymore. Then I’d do what I always did and nothing would be the same for them again.
I looked at my brand new left hand and saw I wasn’t wearing a wedding band. Maybe Tara was Scott’s sister? Or another patient?
Through a series of clicks and swipes I found the button for voicemail, called it back, and gave up when it asked for a passcode. If needed, I could always find a store for the carrier and have it reset, but it wasn’t a priority. For now, I’d wait until she called back. Lots of options.
I put on my jacket, locked the office door behind me, and left the building. It was warm outside, the ground was wet, and the sky overcast. Water pooled in the gutters halfway into the parking lot, as if from a recent storm. Careful not to get my feet wet, I found Scott’s car using my normal method—walking around clicking the Lock button.
Scott’s driver’s license showed him living in Perrysburg. I pulled out of the parking lot and saw I was on West Central Avenue. When I got to the corner I knew exactly where I was. More than eleven years after looking at a map of Toledo and the surrounding area, I still felt comfortable the streets were the same. Especially in so rundown a city, where the economy was historically so bad it wasn’t uncommon for people to burn down houses for insurance money.
The ride to Perrysburg was quick and relatively free of traffic. Traffic would have meant the employment rate had improved since my last visit, but I got over the Maumee River in ten minutes. The change couldn’t have been more marked. Where before the landscape was spotted with vacant lots and buildings for rent on every corner, now there were tidy subdivisions and decorative split rail fences between the houses, and not a crumbly sidewalk in sight.
I found Scott’s house at the end of a comfortable cul-de-sac with a wide disk of green in the middle that was probably home to snowmen and snow forts in the winter. The house was blue and white and new looking, had a two-car garage, and there wasn’t a stray toy anywhere. Hurray for no kids.
The remote for the garage was clipped to the visor, and when I clicked it, my heart sank a little when I saw another car parked inside. Tara’s, I supposed.
Frowning, I looked at my hand again and saw a thin circle of white in Scott’s already light skin—on his ring finger. I checked both pockets, and wonder of all, I pulled out a shiny gold wedding ring.
“My precious,” I said, and put it on.
Resignedly, I pulled in beside the other car and got out. I came around and peeked in the car’s window and saw a bottle of hand lotion, an open can of diet soda, and a pink hairband on a little shelf in the dashboard.
I considered my options. Maybe Scott had a toothache and couldn’t talk much and I’d just nod a lot. Or maybe Scott had a bad day at the office and just wanted to watch TV. Partially true—I did want to watch TV. Or maybe I’d ask about her day, thereby learning more and getting her used to me being home—go on the offensive right away. And then watch TV.
Before I could come up with another strategy, the inside door to the garage opened and there was Tara, looking prettier than her phone picture. She was about thirty-five. Tall, with shoulder-length brown hair, and a small, attractive mouth.
“What are you doing?” she said, eyeing me suspiciously.
I turned my head and examined the side mirror, like she’d caught me in the process of doing just that—and got a close-up look at my new ride. White guy, but I knew that by looking at my hands. But this guy was pasty white, with red hair and red eyebrows. No bristly red mustache, thank goodness, or I’d clip that sucker off at the first opportunity. Some things I cannot abide. When I smiled, Scott’s teeth were even and healthy looking.
“Toothache,” I said, standing up straight.
She looked upset.
“I got tired of waiting at the restaurant,” Tara said. “I thought you were serious when you said … Never mind. Guess I was wrong. Again.”
Everyone’s wrong sometimes.
I followed her inside and shut the door behind me, sniffing the air as I went. No cooking smells. I wondered if that meant microwave dinner or pizza. My vote was for pizza.
The Schaefers had a modern-looking kitchen with a shiny double stove and lots of great appliances. Thankfully, one of them was a microwave.
“Something wrong with your phone?” she said.
I rubbed my jaw. “It hurts when I talk on the phone.”
“Oh that’s right,” she said drily. “You have a toothache. Listen, next time, don’t even bother, okay?”
“It’s no bother,” I said. “We could still go out. Or maybe get pizza.”
Tara gazed coldly at me for several seconds. “Why don’t you call your little slut to come over and cook for you?”
“Baby…”
“Don’t you fucking call me baby!” she yelled. “Stop the lies! Do you even have a toothache?”
She waited for an answer, then rolled her eyes and pushed past me.
“I never lie about pizza,” I said.
Tara stopped midstride and threw me an odd look. That was a Dan thing t
o say, and I was supposed to be out of my Dan mind.
“You lie about everything,” she said, and walked out of the kitchen.
A minute later she returned carrying a patent leather clutch purse and wearing a shiny white jacket.
“Don’t wait up,” she said, and opened the door to the garage.
Nodding, trying to appease, I said, “I promise not to.”
Tara threw me another of those odd looks. “What’s with you, anyway?”
“Toothache,” I said. Then, because I was supposed to be a psychologist, I added, “How does that make you feel?”
She threw me a final look of disgust and left, which was actually okay.
More pizza for me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Before I even touched the television, I researched all the must-watch stuff on the blessedly password-free computer upstairs in the little office they had. I briefly checked the news and saw the world was just as messed up as ever, a few different names mixed-in for variety. I also found an article about Nate Cantrell, the lotto winner—how he’d founded a charity for needy kids and donated half his wealth to it, all while keeping his job at the elementary school. That guy was totally going to Heaven.
A very quick search turned up what I wanted to know from my adventures in Connecticut—Fred Evans had died in that house after killing eight men. The article had more to say, but I didn’t feel like reading it and moved on.
I almost tried logging into my free email account to see if the minister had written me back all those years ago. It was nice knowing there was someone out there who knew the real me, even if he tended toward grumpy and judgmental and a little bit scary. But if whatever Scott Schaefer was up to was illegal, I didn’t want my online activity traced back to the minister. Besides, after five years of inactivity, my account had probably expired.
When last I’d been in the world, on-demand television was still in its infancy, relegated mostly to sporting events or movies you could watch in your hotel room. So imagine my joy when, after hitting Menu on the remote and clicking around, I found whole video stores of movies and a staggering number of TV shows available. Most of them you had to pay for, but I’d be gone before it showed on the Schaefers’ cable bill.