Panacea

by Brad Murray

  “Your eyes are bigger than your wallet,” Emma’s father had preached at the time. But they had always found a way to make ends meet, as stressful as it was. Paying the bills required considerable vigilance and planning, and even small expenditures were heavily scrutinized by the couple, often leading to arguments.

  “Blast another one Daddy!” Jimmy encouraged.

  Cooper frowned, unable to mask his disapproval. “We better go inside and make sure Mama is okay. She might be lonely.”

  Andy smiled, passed the shotgun to Roger, and patted Cooper on the head. “Gettin’ cold, Bud? Maybe you’re right. Let’s head back inside where it’s warm.”

  “Ah no Dad, not yet! Thanks a lot, Cooper,” grunted Jimmy. He leaned over and punched his little brother in the shoulder, knocking him off the stump and into the snow. Cooper sprang back up immediately, his dark little eyes boiling red with anger. He balled his fists and swung aimlessly, hoping to connect with his older brother’s nose. Jimmy jumped off the stump in anticipation of the attack and held him back at arm’s length, his hand on the back of Cooper’s head, pulling it down so Cooper could see nothing but the snowy turf in front of him. Cooper’s fists flailed furiously and occasionally he mixed in a wild kick, but nothing came close to connecting. Jimmy laughed at the sight, which only added fuel to Cooper’s fire.

  “Boys, stop it!” Andy said, forcing a raised voice while trying hard to suppress a laugh. Cooper retreated at the sound of his father’s command but his boiling eyes and furrowed brow showed he still wanted to take a few more swings at his brother. Roger, unlike Andy, couldn’t contain his amusement and was laughing loudly, making it all the more difficult for Andy maintain his I’m-supposed-to-be-the-disciplinarian-so-this-isn’t-funny face.

  “Cooper,” said Roger still grinning from ear to ear, “you’ve got spunk just like your mother.”

  “Nah, Emma would have found a way to connect on a few of those swings,” said Andy grinning from ear to ear.

  Roger pulled a couple of shells from his pocket and loaded them into the shotgun. He leaned over to Andy and whispered, “Can we let the boys take a shot before we head in?”

  Andy thought for a moment, an uncomfortable expression filled his face. “Sure, why not. But if Emma hears about it you might as well shoot me with that gun yourself. She doesn’t think the boys are ready yet, especially Coop.”

  “You two still at each other’s throats or somethin’?” muttered Roger quietly, aiming the shotgun at an imaginary target on the horizon. Andy looked back at his boys, making sure they were out of earshot. Jimmy had his back turned, writing his name in pee-cursive in the snow while Cooper was hunched over rolling up a snowball, likely planning a retaliatory attack on his older brother.

  “Yeah, worse than ever actually,” murmured Andy gloomily. “And it’s almost always about money.”

  Roger lowered the gun and stepped over to console his friend. He put his large paw of a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “Married life, pal. Gotta love it.”

  Andy sneered, “What do you know about married life, asshole? The day you get married is the day I invent a way to shit hundred dollar bills.”

  “Shit hundred dollar bills?” sniggered Roger. “Where’d you come up with that?”

  “Daydream of mine,” smiled Andy. “You’d be amazed the thoughts that have popped into my head the last couple of months. It’d be a helluva lot easier if I could find a way to bring home some extra cash.”

  “I thought you were smarter than that, Porter. If you made more money, you two would find something else to spend it on, and you and Emma would still be bitching at each other about the budget. That’s just the way marriage is. And that’s one of the reasons I’m still single.”

  “One of the reasons? I thought the only reason you haven’t married is that you’re an ugly sonofabitch,” said Andy with a straight face.

  Roger shook his head, trying his best to look wounded. Andy might have believed he had offended him had they not developed the type of friendship that allowed them to be comfortable enough to insult each other without fear of hurt feelings. Looking dubiously at his friend, Roger said, “You’re just jealous. We both know that the reason I haven’t made some lucky lady the happiest woman in the world is due to my generosity.”

  “Generosity?” asked Andy, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah, think of all the poor lonely women there’d be in the world if I settled down and focused on only one. I help these deprived ladies by offering my companionship and devoting my time to give them the attention they so desperately crave and deserve.”

  Roger put his block of an arm around Andy’s neck and looked him squarely in the eyes.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand though, Porter. Generosity is a personality trait; you either have it or you don’t. Can’t be learned.”

  Roger stared stone-faced at his friend, not a trace of sarcasm in his expression. Andy smirked.

  “Speaking of deprived ladies, how’s Sarah? Haven’t heard you talk about her in awhile.”

  Roger removed his arm from around Andy’s neck, took a deep breath, and turned his head to the darkening sky. “Eh - she’s on my Slow Fade Program.”

  “Slow Fade Program? I guess I’m supposed to ask you what the hell that means?”

  “Of course,” grinned Roger. “The Slow Fade Program is a little invention of mine, developed over years and years of my personal study of women and relationships. It’s pure genius on my part. Maybe I’ll patent the idea, or write a book and make a mint. I’ll be famous. And rich.”

  “Alright, alright. Enough hype. What’s this big idea?” laughed Andy.

  A glint in Roger’s eyes appeared. He rubbed his palms together eagerly.

  “Where to begin…I suppose the best place to start is with the inception of the idea. You see, I’ve had relationship after relationship I knew was going nowhere. The painful breakup is always the inevitable conclusion. Painful because the women almost always react emotionally. Hell, sometimes even psychotically. You can’t predict what a woman may do after the breakup speech, but you can bet it won’t be pretty.” Roger spoke demonstrably, using his hands to emphasize the important points, thundering away passionately on the subject like a professor during a college lecture.

  “Oh, there are always tears, that’s a given. And I’ve been screamed at, slapped, and verbally assaulted numerous times. But you know me, Porter. I’m a good guy, with a great big sensitive heart. It hurts to be disliked, and the inevitable conclusion to any quick break in a relationship is a lot of hard feelings. Also there’s the potential for emotional and physical scarring.”

  Andy began to chuckle, and as each word of Roger’s story passed through his ears, he laughed harder. Roger, encouraged by this reaction, added even more flair to his rant. “So I have developed the perfect solution to this age-old problem. Hence, drum roll please, I give you the Slow Fade Program. How does it work you might ask?”

  “Yes, tell me,” Andy said.

  “It works like this. At the beginning of a relationship, when there’s what I call ‘spark’, the ‘sparked’ couple are in mushy, googley-eyed love. And there’s the five hundred daily phone calls, emails, written notes, and what-have-you with all the mushy, googley-eyed love talk. And it’s fun and great and all that at first, but the inevitable conclusion is that eventually I’m ready to move on. Only at that point, the woman is still in mushy, googley-eyed mode, because I’m a pretty damn good catch you know,” said Roger.

  “Oh yeah, you’re a great catch alright,” laughed Andy.

  “So that’s when I enact the Slow Fade Program. I start by slowing down the frequency of communication. Just ever-so-slightly, so they don’t notice, see? I’ll take just a tad longer than I normally would to respond to one of her calls or emails at first, and then a bit longer to respond on the next one. Eventually I’ll pick an email that I don’t respond to at all. The next important step is when I talk to her, I’m ever-so-slightly less mushy. Jus
t slightly less, and not enough for her to even notice at first, so the words must be chosen carefully. It’s very important to think carefully before each communication.”

  “Careful communication; check. Go on,” chuckled Andy, shaking his head.

  “Then, I make sure to space out our face-to-face encounters. I make sure we start seeing each other just slightly less frequently. Every-night-visits become every-other-night visits and every-weekend-dates become every-other-weekend dates. Fading away, get it?”

  “Got it,” said Andy.

  “And it’s all the little stuff too. You make yourself a little less fun to be around, just slightly less charming. You take the luster off the shine, see? The key ingredient to making the Slow Fade Program work is patience. Without patience you’ll find you’re staring at the emotional break-up that you’re trying so hard to avoid. She may ask questions. She may ask ‘What’s wrong?’ or ‘Do you feel like something is different lately?’ You avoid those discussions and keep focused on gradual destruction of the ‘spark.’ Over time, the ‘spark’ has become a ‘fizzle’ and one day she realizes she’s not emotionally invested anymore. And voila! Break-up successful! The best part is I’m not even a bad guy in her eyes! I’ve just become a friend of hers she once dated – a flame that burned hot, but burned out over time. ”

  Roger paused for effect. “That’s the crib notes version. The devil’s in the details…which will be available for your study in my new how-to book entitled ‘Love ‘em and Leave ‘em: The Relationship Guide using the Patented Slow Fade Program.’ On sale at any Barnes and Noble for $19.99. Pure genius, huh?”

  Andy put his face in his palm, shaking his head. “Slow Fade Program. Man that is funny. You are something else. The thing that gets me is that if you told that story in front of other people, they’d all think you were just bullshitting. But the thing is - I know well enough to know that it’s 100% true!”

  “Guilty as charged,” Roger chuckled.

  A thought occurred to Andy and his laughter faded. “We’re gonna miss Sarah though. Emma really likes her.”

  “We’re very early in the Slow Fade Program with Sarah, so don’t worry. She’ll still be around for a while longer.”

  “You’re horrible. Yet hilarious,” laughed Andy, money troubles having quickly vanished from his mind. Roger had a knack for it; an ability to deflect away from the difficult topics and put his friend’s mind at ease.

  “What’s so funny Uncle Ram?” asked Jimmy, who had proudly completed his pee-cursive “Jimmy” in the snow. “Uncle Ram” was the term of endearment the boys had coined for Roger - though he was no more their uncle than was President Clinton. Roger relished the “Uncle Ram” moniker, encouraging it at every opportunity. He reveled in the toughness the word “ram” represented. Besides, “Ram” seemed to fit the guy perfectly. He stood at well over six feet tall and was built like a lumberjack. Huge, broad shoulders topped hulking arms and his chest was so thick he had difficulty finding shirts that fit.

  A few months after Andy and Emma bought the property, Ram moved into the small rental farmhouse that was situated just a quarter mile down the dirt road. But it wasn’t until a year or so later that Ram finally introduced himself. At ten o’clock on one pitch-black evening he pulled his pickup truck into the winding drive and rang the doorbell. Andy and Emma, startled to have a visitor at such a late hour, were even more so when they discovered the mountain of a man standing on their front porch. Andy cracked open the front door just enough for one eye to peer through, making sure to leave the far-too-thin security chain fastened just in case.

  Turns out, Ram was in the company of one of his many lady acquaintances that night and had forgotten to buy toilet paper earlier in the day. Rather than losing out on valuable “companionship” time by driving into town to pick up more, Ram had ventured to his neighbor’s front door, and felt not the least bit apprehensive or embarrassed in doing so. He had a way about him; a rare sort of confidence that didn’t cross the threshold of arrogance. There didn’t appear to be a pretentious bone in his body. He always said what was on his mind whether people wanted to hear it or not; and he was just the kind of person who would knock on a stranger’s door late at night just to ask for a roll of asswipes, and not think twice about it. Andy and Emma liked him from the start.

  “You wanna take a shot Bud?” said Andy, smiling brightly down at Jimmy.

  Jimmy stopped dead in his tracks, a dumbfound expression etched on his face. He couldn’t believe his ears. Never had he ever been offered an opportunity to fire the gun, in fact he’d not even been allowed within five feet of it; his mother adamantly opposed to the idea. But here it was - a chance to not only touch the weapon, but to actually pull the trigger. Perhaps just as exciting, it was clear recognition from his father that he was growing up. Jimmy revered his father; placed him on a pedestal above all others. He wanted to grow up to be just like him. Opportunities to impress, like the one presented before him, didn’t pop up every day and Jimmy wasn’t about to disappoint.

  “Really Dad? You’ll let me shoot it?”

  “You bet, Bud. But you absolutely CANNOT tell your mother. You understand son?” asked Andy in a cautioning tone.

  “Yes,” replied Jimmy quickly, nodding his head eagerly.

  “That goes for you too, Coop. You DO NOT mention this to your mother, okay?” asked Andy, looking back behind the tree stump at Cooper, who was still rolling up snowballs and piling them together.

  “Okay,” said Cooper inattentively.

  Ram was quickly moving toward the pigeon thrower, and chirped loudly, “Gun’s already loaded Jimbo. Now let’s blow some pigeons outta the sky!”

  Andy, satisfied that Cooper was too distracted to care and therefore would not likely mention Jimmy’s shooting lesson to Emma, took the gun from Ram and bent down to Jimmy’s level. Andy positioned himself behind his boy and placed the stock of the shotgun firmly against Jimmy’s shoulder.

  “See this son?” Andy pointed to the safety switch. “This is the safety. It keeps the gun from firing. Always, always, always have the safety on, like this, until you’re about to shoot the weapon.”

  Jimmy took off his gloves and rubbed his palms together, apprehensive yet determined to astonish his dad and Uncle Ram with a spectacular shooting display. He wrapped his undersized hands around the stock of the gun like he’d seen his father do, touching the wood of the weapon for the very first time.

  “Alright Bud, now get a good firm base with your feet. She’ll kick your shoulder hard and knock ya on your backside if you aren’t ready for it. Spread your feet apart like this.”

  Jimmy got into a firm stance like Andy showed him and readied himself for the first shot, his heart picking up pace. Andy stood behind Jimmy, guiding him with his arms, the two taking aim at the row of trees in the distance. “Atta boy. Now let’s take a practice shot. When you’re ready, take the safety off.”

  Jimmy flipped the safety, anticipation thumping through his veins.

  “When you’re ready, let out all your breath and gently squeeze the trigger.”

  Jimmy did as his father instructed, one eye closed, aiming in the distance. He squeezed the trigger. The stock of the shotgun kicked Jimmy’s shoulder hard; with much more force than he was prepared for, and kicked him off balance. But Andy, acting as a lean-to, was there to brace his son for his first ever shot.

  “Woo!” breathed Jimmy, eyebrows raised.

  “A little more kick than you thought, huh Bud?” smiled Andy. “Take another one, this time put more of your weight forward like this.” Andy mocked a forward leaning stance.

  Jimmy nodded determinedly, leaned forward in his stance and let off another round. Though the shotgun once again kicked his shoulder hard, this time he was prepared and had little trouble keeping his balance. He tried hard to bury his excitement deep inside but when Ram shouted, “Way to go Jimbo!” the pride that had welled up inside him burst through. A smile filled his entire face, shimmering bri
ghtly for only a second, and then was swallowed away by his determination. He wanted to act like an adult, or at least, to not act like a kid.

  Ram loaded the thrower and winked at Jimmy, “Enough with the boring stuff, let’s see if the kid can hit a moving target.”

  “Alright Bud, when you’re ready, yell ‘pull’ and Ram will let it fly. You’ll want to track it with the tip of the barrel. Oh, and think of shooting just slightly ahead of it.” Jimmy absorbed every word and nodded affirmatively. “But don’t worry if you miss. Takes lots of practice, son. My first time I probably missed ten times in a row before I hit anything. Heck, Uncle Ram’s been shooting out here with me for a couple of years now and he never hits anything but air.”

  “Shut up Porter,” grunted Ram.

  “At least he doesn’t cost me many pigeons. When we walk the field after we’re done, we can usually gather up a couple boxes worth that Ram missed.”

  “I know Dad, I’ve been watching him shoot all day long,” remarked Jimmy absent-mindedly.

  Andy roared with laughter. Ram smirked and shook his head.

  Jimmy braced himself in the wide stance his father had demonstrated earlier, and exhaled. “Pull!” his excited voice pierced the winter air. Roger pulled the string and the clay pigeon hissed upward into the gray sky. Jimmy tracked it just as his father said and gently squeezed the trigger. Andy and Ram were fixated on the target, collectively holding their breath. They expected to see the pigeon float slowly to the ground unscathed by the buckshot scattered from the shotgun of an eight-year-old novice. But to their shock the disc exploded in mid-flight. Jimmy’s first shot was as true as any his old man had ever taken.

  Andy and Ram exchanged astonished looks. Ram shook his head in disbelief while Andy pumped his fist into the air, utter jubilation in his voice as he shouted to the sky, “That’s my boy!”