by Mike Wells
Uh-huh, the guard would say, glancing around, wondering if a real policeman was around to take this nut away and lock him up somewhere, in some nice, quiet place with soft, padded walls...
Neal closed his eyes and let out a ragged sigh. Maybe this infection (if he indeed had an infection) was a good thing—it would keep his mind occupied and off the unpleasant subject of how it had come about. The rational part of himself simply could not accept the thoughts he was having about Natasha—they were obviously the thoughts of a lunatic. Hell, maybe Annie was right. Maybe it was just some kind of out-of-control guilt complex that had taken over. Maybe he had completely imagined that Natasha had spoken to him, and the telephone message (he sure wished he hadn’t thrown the message slip away). And maybe he had sleepwalked and put the trophy out in the middle of the floor himself. Who could say? There were probably lots of other rational explanations he hadn’t considered.
The guard was standing in front of the building’s entrance, eyeing him again.
Neal quickly put his sneaker back on, leaving the laces untied as he had before (not that he could tie them even if he wanted too—his foot was just too swollen), and got out of the van. He stepped onto the pavement with the utmost care, but a twinge of pain shot through his left foot and lurched all the way up his leg to his testicles. Grimacing, he limped his way around to the back of the van. As he opened the double doors, a wave of nausea rolled over him that was so debilitating he thought he might pass out right there in the parking lot. But after a few long seconds, it subsided.
He finally got the box of roses out of the van and headed into the building. Luckily, the office where the flowers were to be delivered was located on the lobby level, only a short distance from the front door.
When he came back out to the parking lot, the guard approached him.
“This is none of my business, pal, but you don’t look so good.”
“Oh?” Neal made an effort to walk without limping, even though the pain was almost unbearable. “What do you mean?”
The guard laughed. “You look like death warmed-over. You’re white as a sheet.”
Neal touched his face self-consciously, then opened the door of his van.
“You better see a doctor. I don’t think you should be driving.”
“I already saw a doctor,” Neal said, slamming his door shut. “Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”
The guard shook his head. Neal glanced at his own face in the rearview mirror and noticed that his forehead was beaded with sweat. His skin seemed colorless. Yeah, he did look like “death warmed-over.” That was a good description.
But he had to keep working.
Avoiding any more eye contact with the guard, he revved up the van’s engine and pulled away.
* * *
Cradling a sleeping Natasha in one arm, Annie picked up the telephone and punched in the same long distance number that she had called at least 20 times that day. On her first few attempts to reach her mother, she was almost relieved there was no answer. They hadn’t spoken in months, since Annie had, in so many words, told her mom to butt out of her life.
“Mrs.” Paula Crawford still lived in Chattanooga and had been dating a guy named Doug for the past sixth months or so. Annie didn’t care much for Doug—he was a kind of a dimwitted truck mechanic who only seemed interested watching football and wrestling on TV. But he was “hard-working,” and “very loyal,” to use her mother’s words. Annie supposed that if Doug made her mother happy, that was all that mattered. She just wished her mom had the same attitude about Neal.
But the breakdown in the mother-daughter relationship wasn’t Annie’s fault—she was sure a lot of girls would have done the same in her situation. Didn’t her mother realize what a double-bind she created for her daughter? She hadn’t wanted Annie to marry Neal, but she hadn’t wanted Annie to be an unwed mother, either. What choices did that leave? Have an abortion, or give the baby up for adoption. That was it. Annie would never do either of those things, and she knew her mother wouldn’t have, either, had she been in Annie’s shoes. But she offered Annie no solution to the dilemma. “It’s not my problem, Annie,” is all she would say. “You’ll have to make this decision yourself.”
The worst thing about all this was her mother’s hypocrisy. The prim-and-proper “Mrs.” Paula Crawford couldn’t bear the thought of having a daughter who was an unwed mother, worried about what all her friends and everybody else in Chattanooga would say about it behind her back. Yet, “Mrs.” Paula Crawford wasn’t even married anymore—Annie’s father had left them when Annie was eight years old—but Paula had no problem sleeping with whomever she pleased. Before Doug it was Charlie, and before Charlie it was Wallace, and before him...well, Annie had lost track of them all. But for her daughter to have a baby without being married... no, we couldn’t have that, could we!
But now, Annie regretted cutting off communications with her mother. She didn’t think she could tolerate another night with Neal, and there was nowhere else she could go. Having an infant to care for, she couldn’t just drop in on a friend and spend the night. Not that she had many friends in Atlanta, anyway—she had only moved there a few months before she met Neal. She had grown up in Chattanooga, and most of her childhood friends had moved away. She hadn’t made any real friends since she had moved to Atlanta, just a few other single girls she had met at the dance clubs. She had painfully discovered that when you get married and have a baby, all your single friends slowly but inevitably distance themselves from you. Shellie, her old roommate, hadn’t even called once since Annie had married Neal.
Her mother’s phone rang and rang and rang. Just before Annie hung up, somebody answered.
When Annie heard that old familiar voice, the voice of Mother, the voice of the prim-and-proper “Mrs.” Paula Crawford, her vocal cords seem to freeze solid. She hadn’t expected an answer this time, either, and she didn’t know how to begin.
“Hello?” Paula repeated in an annoyed tone, as if she thought it was a prank call.
“Mama?” The word just sort of squeaked out of Annie’s mouth. And though she hadn’t intended it, her voice sounded very childlike.
“Annie! Is something wrong?”
“No,” Annie said, struggling to compose herself. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Oh.” Her mother’s tone immediately shifted from concern to I’m still angry and hurt.
There was an awkward silence.
“Listen, Momma...I...I don’t know what to do...I’m scared.”
“Annie, what on earth is the matter? I thought you said nothing was wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong, really. Not yet, anyway.” Annie paused, not knowing how to continue. “It’s Neal, Momma. He...well, I think he’s going crazy or something.”
There was another long silence. Annie had a feeling her mother was fighting the impulse to say “I told you so.” But instead, she said, “Why don’t you just tell me exactly what happened, honey? You’re about to give me another ulcer.”
Annie stalled for a moment, not knowing how much detail to provide. If she was completely open about everything that had taken place, her mother’s already low opinion of Neal would plummet to rock bottom. On the other hand, if she glossed things over too much, it would make Annie sound like a “complainer,” something her mother detested, especially in a wife.
Annie opted for a compromise. “Neal thinks Natasha hates him. Every little negative thing she does, he blows out of proportion.” Annie tried to laugh lightheartedly. “He thinks Natasha’s out to get him.”
“Out to get him?”
Annie glanced down at her sleeping baby, feeling silly now for even calling. But she was still afraid. Very afraid.
She bit her lip, then launched headlong into a detailed account of everything that had taken place. “Yesterday, Neal was convinced that Natasha had started talking to him...”
When she finished, there was another long silence.
“Annie, a five-mo
nth old baby can’t even sit up by itself, let alone t—”
“I know, Mamma.” Annie was fighting tears. “What am I going to do? I don’t have anyplace to go.”
“Doug and I were just getting ready to drive down there.”
“Down where?”
“To Atlanta. Doug got tickets to the Braves game this weekend.”
A prick of sadness touched Annie’s heart. Her mother had been planning a trip to Atlanta and hadn’t even called. But after their big fight and what Annie had told her (“Get the hell out of my life and stay out!” were Annie’s exact words), what did she expect?
“I don’t want to mess up your trip...” Annie said, hoping her mother might volunteer to cancel it and stay home.
“I really can’t back out now, honey. Not this late. Doug went to a lot of trouble to get the tickets.”
“Well,” Annie said, “I guess I’ll have to find someplace else to stay, if things get much worse.”
There was a long silence. “Annie, you can come home anytime you want, you know that.”
Annie hesitated. The last thing she wanted to do was get underneath her mother’s thumb again. That was the reason she had moved away from Chattanooga in the first place. And she certainly didn’t want to look like a failure in her mother’s eyes—when she married Neal, Paula had predicted that the marriage wouldn’t last a month, that Annie would come running home to Chattanooga with her tail between her legs.
Annie said, “I just might need to come home for a couple of days, you know, until this gets straightened out.”
“A couple of days, whatever you want. Just stay as long as you need to.”
Annie felt a little better. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. You’re my daughter, honey. You can always come home whenever you need to.” She paused, then added. “Your room is just like you left it.”
Annie felt tears coming. “Thanks, Momma.”
“Do you still have your key?”
Annie wiped her eyes, composing herself. “Yeah, I still have it. When will you and Doug be back?”
“Sunday night, or Monday. When are you coming?”
“I’m not sure. I was thinking about coming tonight.”
“I’ll call you and check on you, then.”
“You don’t have to do that, Momma. I’ll be fine.”
After they hung up, Annie wasted no time in preparing to leave. Telling her mother she was “thinking” of going to Chattanooga tonight was just to save herself some face—she had no intention of being within a 100 mile radius of Atlanta when Neal got home.
CHAPTER 6
After Neal made his last afternoon delivery, he drove the empty van back to the flower shop, as he always did. He wished he could have taken the van home and driven it back to the shop the next morning, but of course that was out of the question. There was absolutely no way he would be able to hide his condition from the Snell’s now. His was no longer able to walk without an obvious limp, and every now and then he had severe bouts of chills and shook from head to toe. At the very least, he would have to go inside the shop and give Grammy the delivery receipts and the keys to the van. And sometimes they made him make another last-minute delivery or two, if the runs weren’t too far away.
Neal agonized over all this as he drove towards the shop, trying to think of some solution. But of course, there was none.
However, it turned out that all his worrying was for naught.
When he limped back into the flower shop, the look on both Grammy’s and Mildred’s faces told him that the jig was up.
“Daddy!” Grammy squealed over her shoulder. “Neal’s back!”
Neal’s heart sank. “Daddy” was what all the Snells called the old man, even Grammy, his mother. The two old women looked back down at their work, pretending to be absorbed in it, the way people do when they’re about to witness something deliciously unpleasant.
Neal heard old man Snell’s heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, from the main office. He sauntered into the open area where Grammy and Mildred worked. His pale blue eyes looked Neal up and down. Then, he simply cocked his head towards his office.
“Uh-oh,” Neal muttered under his breath. He followed the old man down the hallway, no longer bothering to try and hide his limp. When they entered the office, Snell motioned to a decrepit black Naugahide chair opposite his desk, the same chair where Neal had sat when Snell had interviewed him for the job a little less than two weeks ago. Neal carefully lowered himself into it.
Snell sat there a moment, eyeing Neal suspiciously. Neal glanced away, at the rows and rows of ancient-looking football trophies that lined the bookshelves.
Snell finally leaned forward and inspected Neal’s foot. Even through the sneaker, it looked enormous.
“Why didn’t you tell us you hurt yourself, son? You could have just taken the day off.”
“I...well, it wasn’t really too bad this morning.”
“Looks pretty bad now, though.”
Neal sat up a little more in the chair and tried to appear confident—he didn’t want to lose the job, no matter how bad it was. “I need the money. I was afraid if I tried to take time off so soon, you might fire me.”
“I can understand that,” Snell said, slowly nodding his beefy head. “But what I can’t understand it your disregard for other people, me and my fambly included. You might screw up and run somebody over.” He looked past Neal, as if imagining some grisly accident, and then shuddered. “You hit a pedestrian, I might lose everything.” Glancing towards his open door, he lowered his voice. “You know how these nigras are now. They all got lawyers and an axe to grind, and the damn goven’ment backs ‘em up.”
Neal nodded politely, but shuddered on the inside. Snell was the type of ignorant redneck with whom Neal could never have imagined having an extended conversation, much less having for an employer. But what troubled Neal even more at this particular moment was how the old man had found out about his foot. He was almost certain no one at the shop had noticed anything wrong when he had loaded up the truck in the morning. Grammy and Mildred had been gorging themselves on coffee and donuts and hadn’t paid him any attention.
“I got a call this afternoon from a security guard on your delivery route,” the old man said, as if he had read Neal’s thoughts. “Said you didn’t look fit to walk, let alone drive a van.”
“Oh,” was all Neal could manage. That nosy bastard, he thought, remembering the guard. Why couldn’t he have just minded his own business?
“He also said he thought you were on drugs.”
Neal sat up even straighter. “I’m not on drugs.”
Snell gave another slow nod, then glanced down at Neal’s foot again.
“What exactly happened to it, anyway?”
“Nothing—I just sprained it last night.”
“Doing what?”
Neal shrugged. “Fell when I got up to go to the bathroom.”
“That’s mighty interestin,’” the old man said.
Neal became even more tense. “Why do you say that?” Surely Annie hadn’t called and told him about—
“Security guard said you did it playin’ tennis.”
“Oh.” Neal felt his face turning red, partly from embarrassment, but partly from anger. What kind of conversation had the two assholes had, anyway? Had they discussed the color of his socks, too? Neal wondered if the old man knew the guard was black. He doubted it. They wouldn’t have been so chummy, otherwise.
“So which is it?” Snell said, with a sneer.
“I don’t see what business it is of yours.”
“The physical condition of my drivers is my bidness.” He paused, clasping his hands behind his head. “Besides, bein’ an ex-athlete an all, I might even be able to hep out.”
Neal sighed, fighting the effects of all the pain killers he had taken. It was difficult to think clearly. “Look, I hurt it a little bit after work, playing tennis. Then when I got up last night to use the bathroo
m, I turned my ankle, and really messed it up. Okay?”
Snell looked Neal over as if he were trying to decide whether to believe him or not. “Go to the doctor?”
“Yes sir,” Neal said.
“Which one?”
“I don’t know—my wife took me to the emergency room last night.”
“Get it x-rayed?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Nothin’ broken?”
“No sir.”
“Good man,” Snell said, smiling. It appeared to Neal that he believed the story.
“Doctor give you any pain killers?”
This caught Neal by surprise.
The old man’s pale blue eyes remained fixed on Neal’s face, waiting for an answer.
“No,” Neal said.
“Well, I have to tell you, bein’ an ex-athlete and all, that really surprises me. They almost always give pain killers for sprains, especially one that’s swole up like that.”
“Well, they didn’t give me any.”
“Uh-huh.” Snell brought one thick finger to his lips, looking Neal up and down. “Would you mind emptying your pockets on the table?”
Neal was so stunned he could not speak for a few seconds. “You bet I’d mind.” He let out a nervous laugh. “What is this, a concentration camp?”
Snell chuckled. “Wish it was sometimes, son.” The smile vanished. “You gonna empty your pockets or not?”
The pain killers were in Neal’s right-hand pocket. Now, the little prescription bottle felt the size of a pickle-barrel. He wondered if Snell could see it bulging through his jeans.
Neal said, “You don’t have the right to search me.”
“No. But I have the right to fire your smart ass.”
“Go ahead,” Neal said indignantly. He struggled his way out of the chair and onto his feet.
“Now, don’t get all worked up over this,” Snell said.
Neal had already taken a step towards the door, his hand on the doorjamb for support. He paused and looked back at Snell.