Vaz

by Laurence Dahners

  Lisanne stared unbelievingly at the closed, locked door to Vaz’s basement. What had gotten into him? More than ever, she felt like she had three teenagers in her house. Just last night she’d been madly in love again with the man she’d married eighteen years ago who suddenly had a sexy, muscular body with six-pack abs and ropy powerful arms. Today she finds he’s done something this irresponsible! And when she insists he send the stuff back he just runs and hides?! What kind of husband and father would spend that kind of money on what would, after all, be a kind of hobby?

  She sighed. She knew what kind of husband would do it. The kind she’d married all those years ago, equal parts brilliant, childish, and emotionally impaired. Dammit! She wanted to stamp her foot but restrained herself.

  She closed her eyes. Well, he’d have to come up for dinner and she’d straighten him out then. Lisanne turned toward the kitchen, musing that she’d done pretty well with the kids the night before. She tried to think of a similar strategy to use on Vaz.

  When Lisanne had finished making dinner she knocked again on the door to the basement. Vaz didn’t say anything so she yelled through the door. “Vaz, dinner’s ready!” Then she turned and called upstairs to Dante and Tiona too. She’d hoped that he’d come up when she knocked so she could confront him again without the kids there, but that was not to be it didn’t seem. She tried not to cross her arms and tap her foot while she waited.

  Dante and Tiona came down and sat but to Lisanne’s astonishment, Vaz didn’t budge out of the basement! Finally she sat down with the kids and said the blessing. Tiona frowned, “What’s with Dad?”

  Lisanne shrugged, not wanting the kids to know what was going on. “He’s got some big project going in the basement. Doesn’t want to take time for dinner I guess. You know how focused he can be.”

  “Is that what all those boxes are for?”

  Lisanne nodded, wanting to say they were sending them back, but not wanting the kids to know they were fighting.

  “It sounded like you and Dad were fighting about it. Is he going to send them back?”

  Mentally, Lisanne rolled her eyes. Tiona did this to her all the time. Leading her on with questions, then turning out to already know more about what was going on than Lisanne had hoped. Trying to maintain a calm façade, she said, “Well, we are having a disagreement about it, and I do hope he’ll decide to send that stuff back.”

  “Because it costs so much?”

  Lisanne sighed, “Yes.”

  “You guys aren’t going to have enough money to send us to college, are you?”

  “We’re going to send you guys to college,” Lisanne gritted out, “Somehow, someway, it’s going to get done. Rest assured on that.”

  A crease appeared between Tiona’s elegant brows. She’d always thought of college as an “of course” proposition and had only recently realized how much money it cost. She was trying to come to grips with the issue, “Why do we need to go to college? It won’t guarantee that we’ll make good money.”

  Lisanne narrowed her eyes, “People with college degrees make more money than those who only finish high school.”

  “On average, yeah. But there are exceptions. Dad has a PhD and you make more money than he does.”

  “Programmers get paid pretty well.”

  “But why’d he go to school all that time if he wasn’t even going to get paid as much as you?”

  “You know, your dad got two BS degrees in three years and his PhD in just three more. He’s unbelievably smart and incredibly hard working.” Lisanne felt bemused to find herself defending Vaz… Dammit, I’m starting to forget how pissed off the man’s made me!

  Tiona flipped her hair dismissively, “Yeah, maybe, but what good is that PhD doing him? I’m not sure why I need to go to college, lots of people without degrees earn as much as he does.”

  Lisanne closed her eyes and tried not to grit her teeth. She knew that half of this discussion was just Tiona’s attempt to irritate her without being rude and losing her net connection. “Tiona, some people without degrees earn more. Most do not. And college is an experience you shouldn’t deny yourself, whether you earn more because of it or not, you will have a richer, fuller life for it.”

  “And,” Tiona said, not to be dissuaded from her topic even though, deep inside she desperately wanted to go to college, “even with you making a good salary, and Dad bringing in some money, you still haven’t been able to save enough for us to go to college.”

  “Because, Tiona, we’ve been spending a lot of money to send you to nice schools so far. Yes we’ll have to spend even more when you’re in college, but not that much more. We’ll find a way to do it.”

  Tiona barked a laugh, “Not the way Dad’s spending on his toys.”

  “Tiona, those aren’t toys. They’re scientific instruments. Your Dad hopes to do important work with them.” Internally Lisanne felt almost cross eyed to be defending Vaz.

  Tiona pointed her fork at Lisanne, “I thought you wanted him to send them back?”

  “Well… I do. But that doesn’t mean I think they’re toys or that he doesn’t hope to do something meaningful with them.”

  Tiona rolled her eyes eloquently to signal what she thought of them.

  They ate in silence for a while then Dante said, “Steve and I are going to watch a wrestling match in Raleigh tonight. I’ve already finished my homework.”

  At first Lisanne’s residual irritation with Tiona, and Vaz, threatened to spill over onto Dante. Despite her initial desire to say no, she took a deep breath and said, “OK, what time will you be back?”

  “Before 11.”

  ***

  Steve picked Dante up at 7:30. “I thought you didn’t think they’d let you go?”

  “Well…” Dante grinned, “They think I’m going to a wrestling match.”

  Steve snorted, “Well, I guess there’ll be some wrestling all right.” He grinned, “And punching, and throwing, and other assorted mayhem.”

  Steve’s family’s car dropped them off at Eakin Auditorium, a local mixed use facility that served as a small venue for music and other events. Tonight it featured a roster of amateur MMA fights. It was crowded with boisterous people. It had a bar and some of the patrons were well on their way to being drunk. Dante and Steve found their seats in plenty of time for the first fight. Steve really liked this stuff and had started taking MMA training himself, intending to compete someday. Their wrestling coach was pissed off about it. Steve was their best wrestler and the Coach was afraid that he’d slip and throw a punch or something at a meet, resulting in a disqualification.

  The first fight was boring. The combatants were grapplers who got tied up in the center of the ring and just struggled there providing little action for the crowd. Boos started quietly and built. The ref broke the fighters back to the standing position several times and started penalizing them for not progressing the match. Steve bitched about it, “Jeez, I hope they aren’t all like this, I’ll want my money back!”

  Dante saw that the two fighters were actually struggling mightily and felt like they were just evenly matched. Even so, he thought one or the other should have tried shifting tactics. Their punches weren’t convincing at all.

  The second and third matches were much more exciting with a number of throws and in the third match a flurry of punches ended it with one of the fighters disoriented and confused in the second round.

  In the fourth match the fighters were mismatched. Dante thought that the winner could have won in the first 30 seconds but held off just to give the crowd their money’s worth.

  In the car on the way home Steve was pumped. “We’ve got to go to some more of these. I’m sure I could compete. When I’m eighteen, I’m gonna make me some money.”

  Dante shook his head, “Those guys were only amateurs, and they were pretty tough. Going against the pros for money would be a big step up.”

  “There’s supposed to be another card of amateur MMA fights in a few weeks, you up for
seein’ it?”

  Dante shrugged, “Sure.”

  ***

  Lisanne woke in the morning and rolled over to have a serious conversation with Vaz. He wasn’t there! His side of the bed looked undisturbed. Her heart flip-flopped, running away from this problem by leaving would be just the kind of thing that Vaz might do. She got up and padded downstairs to see if his car was gone.

  At the bottom of the stairs she blinked. The huge stack of boxes was gone! With rising irritation she walked down the hall to the garage and peeked in. His car was still there. She went to the door to the basement. Locked! She commanded the house AI to unlock it but there was no response. She told it to override the locking command and gave it her owner’s password. Still no response.

  Lisanne wanted to kick the door or something. Speaking to her AI she said, “Connect me to Vaz.”

  A moment later it came back to say, “Sorry, a connection cannot be established.”

  Lisanne pulled back a hand to pound the door to the basement, but then slowly dropped it, realizing that it would wake the kids.

  Frustrated, she went back upstairs to shower and dress.

  ***

  At work, later that day Lisanne had her AI try to contact Vaz again. Still, “No connection.”

  Lisanne tapped her teeth a moment, then said, “Connect me to Querx.”

  A moment later an AI’s voice said, “Hello, this is Querx. How may I help you?”

  “Please connect me with Dr. Gettnor.”

  “One moment.” After a moment the artificial voice said, “I’m sorry, Dr. Gettnor no longer works here.”

  “What!”

  “He doesn’t work here anymore.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Um, yes Ma’am, I’m sure. He’s off our database of current employees.”

  ***

  Moving all that equipment downstairs had made Vaz grateful for his increased strength, though it had still been quite a struggle doing it quietly in the middle of the night. He’d gone out early in the morning to buy a hand cart to make it easier to move the rest of the stuff when it arrived. While he was out he’d gotten a small microwave and fridge. Then he’d bought some food he could cook in the basement so he wouldn’t have to go upstairs and deal with Lisanne if she stayed mad.

  After a lifetime of avoiding conflict, it just didn’t occur to him that he should try to talk things out with his wife. Nor that he might be making things worse by putting it off.

  Back home, he’d carefully listened for the delivery and when most of the rest of his equipment had arrived, had tipped the man to help him get the stuff down to the basement.

  He felt pretty good about his control of the situation but then the Aerogas delivery truck came with his tank of liquid nitrogen. Just as he’d accepted delivery he heard the garage door rumbling. He quickly put the tank on his hand cart and started toward the basement. He’d just started it down the stairs to the basement when Lisanne came in the door from the garage.

  “Vaz!” she said practically running down the hall toward him, “we need to talk! Don’t you go hiding in your basement!”

  Vaz quickly bumped the hand cart down a few more stairs and turned to close the door. Lisanne reached the door and started pushing on the other side. Even though he was still holding the hand cart with the heavy tank of liquid nitrogen with his left hand Vaz inexorably pushed the door shut with his right.

  Frantically Lisanne said, “I called Querx today! They said you don’t work there anymore! What happened? Vaz! Dammit, talk to me! If you aren’t even working we certainly can’t afford that equipment! You’ve got to send it back! I hope you haven’t opened any of it!”

  Throughout her tirade Vaz said nothing. He simply, slowly and relentlessly forced the door shut. Once it was shut he locked it using the AI override he’d set up to make sure she couldn’t open it.

  Then he bumped the hand cart the rest of the way down the stairs and over to the space he’d set aside for it. He took a few deep breaths and sat down trying to calm himself. He opened his screens and looked at the experiments he’d planned out, wondering if he could find one that he could start with the equipment he’d already set up. But he couldn’t concentrate. He got up and opened some boxes getting out the equipment that had just arrived but he just couldn’t focus.

  Finally he put on his gloves and pounded the heavy bag, trying not to picture Lisanne’s face on it. Mostly he managed to pretend it was Davis. He practiced his kicks on it for a while, then started in on his pull-ups.

  Eventually an endorphin rush calmed him. He warmed himself a pre-prepared beef burrito from the little fridge. After he ate it he resumed his unpacking.

  Lisanne went up to their bedroom so the kids wouldn’t come in and find her crying. Once she’d calmed herself she asked her AI to check their accounts so she’d know just how bad their financial situation was.

  Vaz had changed their passwords and locked her out.

  Distraught, Lisanne wondered if she was going to have to divorce her husband. Just a couple of days ago it had seemed like things were great. She’d felt like she had control of her teenagers’ behavior at last and she’d loved her husband’s sexy new body. Now it all seemed like crap. With a sigh she searched the net trying to determine whether she would put herself and the kids at risk by not filing for divorce immediately. It seemed like the courts would divide their possessions evenly no matter when she filed. The only risk seemed to be that Vaz might continue to spend money that she didn’t feel like they could afford. If the courts gave her the house, the contents of their accounts and he kept only the lab equipment she supposed that it wouldn’t be too bad. Ultimately, she realized that they would have more money if he lived in the basement than if he went out and rented a place to live.

  She wrote him an e-mail,

  Vaz,

  You’ve frightened me badly by locking yourself out of my life and me out of our bank accounts. I’m worried about our family. I’m worried about you. Are you OK?

  With your expenditures on equipment, I’ve realized I don’t know how much money we have, how much you might consider to be mine or how much you’ve spent. I have no way to buy food or pay bills.

  I know you don’t like conflict but if you leave me locked out of our accounts I’ll have no choice but to file for divorce so that I can continue to provide for myself and our children. I’ve realized I don’t even have any idea how much money we have available to pay our bills.

  Please, at least communicate with me by email. I don’t want to divorce you.

  Lisanne

  While Lisanne and the kids ate dinner she got a ping from her AI. When she looked up at her HUD she saw that she had an e-mail from Vaz. She waited until the kids had gone up to their rooms before she read it.

  I’ve unlocked your accounts.

  That’s all it said. She shook her head. Typical Vaz.

  She had her AI access their accounts again. They actually had separate “checking” accounts though they could both spend out of the other account. However they generally just debited money from their own. Her pay went to hers and his pay went to his. Their household bills and mortgage were paid out of his. Because she did the grocery shopping, food came out of hers. Still most of their family’s expenses went on his account so it usually didn’t have much money in it. When she saved some up in her account, she moved it to savings and if she accumulated quite a bit, they invested it.

  She saw she was still locked out of his account. She opened her own and saw that there weren’t any expenditures that she wasn’t aware of. Where did he get the money for that stuff? With trepidation she opened their savings account. No expenditures there either. She sighed and opened their investment account, what she thought of as the “kids college and our retirement account.” He must have sold some stock, she thought.

  No withdrawals had been made from their investment account either. She sighed as she looked at it. It wouldn’t pay for the kids to go to state colleges, much less
have anything left over for retirement. Her job had a 401K retirement plan, she would have to raid it for shortfalls in the kids’ college costs. Maybe Vaz has some kind of 401K retirement from Querx? She wondered if he’d thought to get it out when he left. Oh well, he could probably roll it over to a retirement account at his next job.

  But, where did Vaz get the money for all that equipment? She sat staring aimlessly for a while, then realized that he might have received a severance package. She felt relieved, then realized, we needed that money to pay bills until he finds another job!

  She sent him another e-mail,

  I hope you’re applying for jobs. Why aren’t you working at Querx anymore?

  Vaz didn’t answer that one.

  ***

  Vaz had taken most of the past two weeks to set up each piece of equipment in his basement lab. Then, for the ones that were different models from the ones he’d been using at Querx, Vaz read the manual. Some of them required testing and calibration before they could be used. He’d had to run new cable to the breaker box for his new alloy furnace. Vaz knew that most people he’d worked with hated reading the manuals and would have, in fact, skipped most of them, assuming that the new equipment worked similarly enough to what they were used to. They may have skimped on the calibrations too. Vaz had always found such regimented busywork comforting, so he read the manuals thoroughly and complied diligently with their testing and calibration instructions.