by Jack Kinsley
"Like hell you will!" Jordan screamed back, and then began coughing violently. His whole body erupted. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and a rosy, light film streaked across it.
It lit a fire under Travis.
"You're lucky to be alive. Now you've got two choices: you can get dressed and walk out of here with me, or I can hog tie you and drag you out of here naked. Choice is yours, but either way you're coming with me. Now stop fucking around and put something on." He stood there anchored, the two of them in a staring contest. "And take that condom off your dick!"
Jordan looked under the sheet at his crotch and Travis turned so he didn't have to see it again. He dropped the sheet back in place with a hint of humility, but he quickly became obstinate again and fired back at Travis, "Why? Why in tarnation do you want to save me?"
"Tarnation? Are you fucking kidding me?" Hearing him say it while still wearing the condom nearly cracked him with laughter.
"You're an asshole, you know that?" Jordan said.
"Yeah, I know that."
Jordan got even more agitated at Travis's agreement. "Tell me why, you prick! Why save me now?"
"I'm not saving you," Travis told him.
Jordan couldn't have looked more perplexed; Travis wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if his next question was, What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?
Travis grabbed a few items of clothing around the room that would hopefully complete an outfit. "Look, there's no time to explain. We'll have plenty of time for that another day." He grabbed a pair of boxers off the floor and tossed them to Jordan. "Now skin that banana and let's beat feet."
Surprisingly, Jordan didn't resist any further. Travis had managed to confuse the half-drunk, half-dead man into mental submission and he was apparently going to comply. With great effort, Jordan slid to the edge of the bed. It wasn't until he sat there for a prolonged period of time that Travis realized just how bad his condition was — a lot closer to death's door than he'd imagined. When Jordan tried to stand his knees buckled like two flimsy Slim Jims under the weight of his barreled mid-section; Travis had to catch him under the arm to keep him from falling. Together, they crept toward the bathroom, where Travis sat him down on the toilet for a last go.
Outside the door, Travis paced erratically, tapping his chin and not seeing anything around him — certainly not all the Viagra snapping and crushing under his feet as his thoughts raced and bounced inside his head like flies in a jar.
He whispered to himself, "I'm not saving you."
— — —
As they rocketed toward Crystal Heights, and Jordan's snores grew louder in the passenger seat, Travis rang Sarah so she could be ready for them.
She picked up on the second ring. "Where are you?" she demanded before he could speak.
"I'm heading to the house right now. I've got Jordan with me. He's out cold. I caught him in time, but he's in rough shape, coughing a little blood. Call the doc and tell him to come ASAP."
"Take him to the emergency room at West Hil—"
"No," he spoke over her, "it's the one thing he told me not to do." And it was true — just after he and the valet had wrestled him into the car, Jordan made Travis promise not to take him to the hospital. And there was one more promise: never mention the word 'condom' in his presence again. It was the last thing Jordan had said before he went unconscious.
"I don't give a shit what he made you promise! If he needs emergency care to save his life then you take him there now!"
Travis considered backing down for a second and then told her, "Sorry, no can do. Let the doc see him first. And let him decide what's best. We could always call an ambulance."
"You men are ridiculous. Honoring promises when someone's life could be at stake?"
"That's right. And I'm sticking to my promise."
He knew she'd heard that before, and so had Helen. There was a long pause. He expected her to take a cheap shot at him, but instead she told him, "I'm calling right now." She hung up.
Travis looked over at Jordan, his large bloated frame wheezing and jouncing sluggishly in the passenger seat. Something inside Travis's head began to rouse. The flies in the jar were back, buzzing and bouncing around again — his mind leaping side to side, trapped. He saw the world around him, but he wasn't actually in it.
In the past few weeks, everything had backfired on him. He was no better off than he'd been before — and he'd put his daughter's life in serious jeopardy. Twice. First, he'd poisoned her, sending her to the emergency room, and then he'd come within a millisecond of taking her life because the opportunity to take her mother's had been there. How could he have come so close to ending what he was so desperately trying to keep? And what kind of life would she have without her mother anyway? Would Bella later be planting gardens in Ana's memory like Sarah, always feeling that violent twist of loss in her heart? And what would happen if her father was exposed as the devil who had taken her mother? Who would he be then? But who would he be if he did nothing? He would have nothing! Ana was going to ruin him financially. He might as well be dead!
He thought of Betsy suddenly. She had taken that long complicated journey, and carried it with her until she died. Wasn't he doing the same now? If he wasn't doing it for Bella, then he was doing it for his business — money over life? What price had Betsy really paid? What price would he pay? And what kind of single parent would he be anyway? His best work had always been the result of teamwork. He was terrible alone. Bella would never fully develop without her mother. She needed her.
Travis was drawing repeated clean circles around the locked screen of the prepaid cell phone. Finally, he drew a decisive swipe to the right and opened it. He went to Contacts and immediately found THE GIANT (it was the only contact in there), and carefully padded in a message as they rocketed along PCH.
"Forget EVERYTHING. I'm calling ALL of it OFF. DON'T DO ANYTHING." He double-checked the text (not the decision), and sent it.
He could only hope he'd called off his junkyard dog in time.
— — —
As they pulled into the residential track of Crystal Heights, Travis made a call to Chef Tom to meet him outside and help bring Jordan in. Sarah had already alerted him, though, and he waited in the driveway as the car raced toward him. This wasn't Chef Tom's first rodeo; julienning carrots and micro-planing the zest off oranges and lemons were secondary in assisting to the odd state of affairs and steady flow of emergencies. When the car came to a screeching halt, Chef Tom's hand was ready at the handle. When he opened the car door, he had to quickly lean in toward Jordan to keep him from spilling out.
"Damn, he's a wreck," said Chef Tom.
"Yeah, we need to get him into bed quick."
Jordan's eyes were closed, and he was muttering something about a woman, forming only a couple of distinct words: "bitch" and "thief."
"Is he talking to me?" asked Chef Tom.
"I don't think so." But Travis had an idea. That crusty condom had been left on Jordan's dick by somebody — most likely a woman who'd robbed him blind after he passed out. But Travis kept his promise to Jordan and said nothing to Chef Tom about it.
"Hey, do we still have that wheelchair in the garage?" Travis asked him. A former client hooked on plastic surgery had left it behind; she'd had multiple tummy tucks and he remembered how easily they'd rolled her in the last time.
Chef Tom was still searching his memory when Travis added, "I think it's collecting dust behind the sauna."
"Yep." And Chef Tom shut the door and took off at a sprint.
Travis shook Jordan's shoulder. "Can you hear me?"
He only drew a labored breath, his head hanging heavily over his chest. Travis gently pushed his head back to better clear his airway.
Once he saw Chef Tom coming back toward them, batting dust bunnies and dirt off the chair, Travis got out and met him at the passenger's side. The wheelchair seat looked pretty narrow for Jordan, but since he carried most of his wei
ght from the waist up, Travis believed they could get enough of him in it. It wasn't going to be a long ride.
Sarah came jogging out of the front gate. She was barefoot. When she caught sight of Jordan, she slowed her stride, making her own assessment of his current, fragile state, and walked the last few feet. She knelt at the open door.
"You're home, Jordan," she told him and stroked his right forearm. "The doctor's going to be here any minute."
Jordan heard her and tilted his head in her direction, opening his eyes for the first time since they'd left the hotel. A soft smile pushed back his puffy red cheeks and exposed a film of blood across his teeth.
"Let's get him in," Travis said.
Sarah stood and cleared their path. "He's bringing an IV." Her voice shook and she steadied the wheelchair as the two men prepared to lift him.
Travis was first. He hooked his elbow deep under Jordan's right shoulder and slid him out just enough for Chef Tom to do the same under his left. Suddenly Travis's cell phone buzzed angrily two times inside his pocket. It could only be the giant; impeccable timing. Fuck. It would have to wait.
"On the count of three..." Travis counted and they hauled him up and dropped him roughly into the black sooty seat. Jordan went in crookedly; his hip bounced off one of the armrests and the wheels rolled slightly, crying out a high-pitched metal whine before he settled. His fat was pinched on both sides of the chair, spilling over the arms; he looked like a bulging cork crammed back into a bottle of wine, his butt just kissing the seat. But he was in. And in as far as he would go.
Sarah gave up the helm to Travis and he spun Jordan in a quick one-eighty and they headed for the house. Chef Tom held the gate open while Sarah raced ahead and opened the front door. She pointed, warning Travis of the small step to get in the house. But instead of slowing down and calculating it, he built their momentum and hopped over it at a dangerous speed. The chair rattled, bucked, and shrieked, as if the wheels were going to fall off, and then rolled smoothly onto the wood floor inside.
"Damn it, Travis!" Sarah screamed.
"Woo...hoo," said Jordan, and coughed up a bit of pink drool out the corner of his mouth.
Travis winked at Sarah. Chef Tom asked if he could be next.
"Can we be serious here? Please!" She was all business and threw them both a motherly look. They sobered immediately.
Inside the suite, they all resumed their earlier positions and swiftly had Jordan stretched out safely on the bed where Betsy had lain just a few days earlier. Travis darted into the bathroom and returned with a bath towel which he tightly rolled down one of his thighs and then placed under Jordan's neck to give his windpipe the clearest path possible. When he was finished, Sarah huffed a little, stepped up, and repositioned it to her liking.
A woman's last word or a woman's last touch...but always a woman, Travis thought.
Chef Tom offered up a high five to Travis for a job well done, but Travis flicked his eyes at Sarah to tell him she wasn't going to approve of any towel-snapping, male bonding moment. And he was right.
She turned and chastised the both of them. "When are you guys going to grow up? I'm going to call the doctor." Then she gave Travis a long kneecapping stare to let him know how unhappy she was with him.
After she left, the men gave each other a silent high five, but Travis's heart wasn't in it. The disaster that had recently become his life instantly flooded back over him, and he was gasping for air again.
Outside the bedroom door, they heard Dani briefly speak with Sarah, and then Lucy told her she was leaving for Jordan's hotel room to collect his things. Chef Tom told Travis he had promised Dani a late dinner so he'd better get back in the kitchen, and then lowered his whisper even further and said, "We're back on the diet, but chasing dinner with fat-free ice cream and low-cal cookies for desert."
Travis searched for a witty comeback, but there was no banter left inside him — only the obsession of wanting and not wanting to know what the last message from the giant would tell him. The possibilities made it unbearable for him to look, and it felt like a crowbar spun inside his lower gut, rotating faster and faster.
"Handle your business," was all he could manage to say.
Chef Tom did a double take, eyed him curiously, but quickly matched his professionalism. "Will do," he replied and left for the kitchen.
Travis looked back at Jordan, who was unconscious again. The barrel of his body heaved up and down in an irregular rhythm and his bare, thin legs twitched sporadically. He thought Jordan's chances were pretty good, but it would take some time for his body and mind to mend. As for Ana, he was too chicken shit to look at his phone, now clenched tightly in his pocketed fist. He wished he could simply destroy it, along with the plan he'd set in motion. He dropped his head back, closed his eyes, and prayed for the exact opposite of what he'd been asking for the past few days.
"Please, I'm calling it off," he whispered to himself. Then he finally drew the cell from his pocket and opened the text.
"LIKE HELL YOU IS," read the message.
The fucking giant even wrote like a psychopathic hick. And Travis's worst fears were suddenly realized — his junkyard dog had snapped his leash and was running loose with the taste of blood in his mad jaws.
Like hell you are. Travis punched his digital keyboard with sloppy angry thumbs, misspelling most of the words and leaving others out. "Dont do fuckng thing! I stil pay u. Money yours. And treatmnt!" He sent it without making any corrections. Maybe the dumbass would actually be able to read it better.
He waited for a response, not moving an inch in any direction, listening to the sound of Jordan's burdened breath rising and falling, rising and falling. A minute passed. Come on, you fuck! Get those banana hands typ— The phone vibrated. He nearly dropped it; caught it with his left.
He read the message: "Makin' it a 2 for 1 special. On the house."
Her name exploded in his mind. Bella! It echoed so loudly that he thought everyone at Crystal Heights would come running into the room — or the imagined sound would at least put Jordan up like a cat on the ceiling.
Travis hammered his screen again. "You touch my daghter and Ill kill u myslf! Understod? That's a fcking prmise! Back off!" He crammed the send button but the message just sat idling, staring back at him. He took a deep breath, steadied his index finger, and sent it with a lighter touch.
He waited. Paced. Then decided there wasn't time. He bolted from the house toward the street, feeling his pockets for his car keys. They weren't there. Maybe they were still in the car? At the passenger's side window, he cupped his hands around his eyes to see through the glass. He searched for them on the seat, the floor, the ignition... Sarah! Sarah had taken them out of the ignition.
He ran back inside the house. His little black box sounded like a high-pitched maraca in his pocket. He shot into the office at full speed and scared the hell out of Sarah. She jumped from her seat and braced herself against the wall behind her.
"What happened?"
"Where are the goddamn car keys?" He tried to control himself, but he would kill anyone for those keys at this very moment.
She pointed inside the closet.
He dashed inside, spotted them on the row of hooks, and grabbed them, tearing the entire key rack to the ground in the process. The crash of metal sounded in his wake.
Sarah blocked his exit. "What's going on?" She put a hot, firm hand on his chest. "Where are you going?"
"It's Bella." His eyes were wild and terror-stricken, dilated to black, his adrenaline running through him like a herd of buffalo. He was an instant away from shoving her clear of his path.
"Bella? Again?" she asked, unconvinced — no longer believing a word from his polluted mouth. He'd become the boy who cried wolf, and just like in the fable at this very moment there really was a big bad wolf — and it was getting ready to devour his family.
Fairy tales are sick for a reason, Travis thought. They carry the truth. They describe the world.
&nb
sp; "Look, Travis," Sarah said calmly. "I don't know what's going on, but I know you're lying to me. And I can't do this. Not after what I've been through. And I don't know how else to tell you, but I'm quitting. And us...this isn't—"
"Stop," he begged. He held her shoulders tightly in front of him, making her narrower than she already was. "Please. Just listen. Bella's in danger. Ana's in danger. I don't have time to explain. But—"
She stepped back and freed herself from his hold.
He stared at her. She was a block of ice — and he was already a memory in her heart. He had one last hope, and it was something he should have done long ago. He took her hand, turned it palm up, and put his little black box into it.
"That's it. No more. This time I mean it."
She curled her fist around it. "Why should I believe you now?"
"You know what? That's not it."
She shook her head in disbelief and reopened her hand for him to take it; her eyes were destroyed, lifeless.
"No, no, I don't want it back! Just hold on a sec." He jammed his hand deep into his pocket and removed his pack of cigarettes. He crushed them in his fist and then placed it in her palm next to the black box. "Now that's it."
She formed a second fist around both and her eyes began to water. He'd never seen her look so fragile.
"I have to go. I'm sorry." He spun her around gently and stood at the door, looking back at her. "I love you, Sarah," were his last words before he vanished.
Chapter 18 / Pissing In The Wrong Grove
It was a windless, black night. The moon was absent; not a single star penetrated the heavy layer of smog and cloud that trapped Malibu beneath it. As Travis pulled into the alley behind his Victorian home, a putrid, rotting smell filtered through the car's vents. His headlights swept the filthy broken asphalt before they came to rest on a toppled garbage can, where a mound of refuse overflowed and spilled into the narrow street. A stray dog poked its head up from behind the waste; its eyes flashed like mirrors before it quickly shoved its snout back into the pile and then loped down the alley, taking its dinner to go. Travis killed the headlights and watched the scrawny silhouette disappear into the shadows.