by Gerry Tate
Dan had been through embarrassing situations like this one before though, only now the embarrassment had left him. Now there was only anger.
“Listen, you asshole, I beat Dewey, I beat Carson, I beat Maxwell, and I’m gonna fucking beat you in a minute if you don’t tell me where I can find Tommy Johnston.
“Take it easy friend,” the man said nervously as he backed quickly away.
“No need to get all hyper here.”
Dan relaxed his voice and held his head.
It was a full ten seconds before he spoke.
“Look, um, Manny, I’m enquiring about Tommy Johnston, can you help me out here or not?” Dan almost whispered, as he tried to diffuse the awkward situation.
“No need to get all aggressive mister,” Manny said, as though he had been hurt by Dan’s threat and wasn’t prepared to let it go.
The other two young boxers turned away and laughed.
Dan dropped his open hands to his side, palms forward, in an unthreatening manner.
“Look Manny,” Dan repeated, “I’m not getting aggressive, all right? I just wanted to enquire about ‘Tommy Johnston,’ that’s all.”
“Well, you coulda fooled me mister.”
“Look if you feel that way, I’ll apologise right now, I just want someone t…”
“Yeah yeah, we know already,” Manny interrupted. “Tell you about ‘Tommy Johnston.’ Well, first off, you’re in the wrong place. You had better go to the cemetery mister, because you’re enquiring about a dead guy here. Take em out Tommy died over a month ago.”
Dan reeled back, shocked and somehow confused, and now he wasn’t sure whether to believe this guy or not. The young man who had been shadow boxing nodded across to Dan in the affirmative, and Dan held his head for a moment.
“Can you please tell me what happened to Tommy?” Dan asked as his throat knotted up.
When the man answered it was as though no heated words had been exchanged between them at all, and now his tone had reverted back to being almost friendly again.
“Well, Tommy was livin rough on the street, and from what I heard, it seems he fell and got hurt real bad. They took him to emergency, but he became frightened in the hospital, and he died. Funny thing though, the old bastard was never in a hospital before in his life, and what do you know? The first damn time he goes in there, bam, he doesn’t come out again. Well, not fucking walking anyway,” he laughed loudly.
“Did they give a cause of death?” Dan asked, feeling annoyed that this disrespectful guy could find an old man’s death in any way funny.
“Well it weren’t a heart attack, no sir; his heart was as strong as a bull’s heart. They say it was a tumour, growing inside of old Tommy’s head over very many years that did it.”
Dan thanked the man and left with his words ringing in his ears. ‘Never in a hospital before, and the first time he goes in there, bam! A tumour that did it.’
The two young boxers approached their trainer as they stared at Dan, now thirty feet away.
“Hey Manny, did that guy really beat Bill Dewey?” the young man on the bag asked as Dan disappeared through the doorway.
The man stared and smiled, a sly smile that made the boys think he knew more than he was letting on.
When he was sure Dan was gone, he spoke.
“Listen kid, I was only pulling his chain. Cause’ I seen that guy Winters beat Dewey.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, that guy almost punched Dewey from here to Texas and back. In fact, Dewey retired after that fight.”
“Then why’d you wind the guy up and pretend you didn’t kno…?”
“Cause I was in Dewey’s corner that night, that’s why,” Manny interrupted.
“So you’re sore about it then Manny?”
“No, I ain’t sore about it; it was a long time ago. Anyhow, the guy’s a damn loser. He could’ve had it all, the dumb ass, but he gets a little cut on his eye and he quits the ring. The guy had no balls and no heart. I hate a fighter with no heart. Fucking loser. Yeah, and he’s lucky I didn’t kick his damn ass, and that’s a fact. You don’t frighten me Winters,” he almost shouted.
The two young boxers laughed and walked away as one grabbed the other in a friendly headlock.
Now as Dan came away from the gym, he felt a fear, a fear because these feelings he was having were the same symptoms Tommy was having way back then, great headaches and frightening dreams.
Unlike Tommy Johnston though, Dan would face his demons, he would do it for Lynn and the children. He would give it the old one two.
* * * * *
Old Doctor Emily Brooks had been his family doctor since as far back as Dan could remember her.
She had always reminded him of an old British school headmistress, like the ones you see in the movies, with her posh upper class English accent that she never lost through almost fifty years of living in America. She was an unsmiling stern faced woman, who was always serious and glacial.
There was one thing about this doctor though. Her reputation had preceded her, and as far as Dan was concerned, she was the best of the best.
He remembered back to when he was a child and the unbearable pain he was feeling that summer’s day, and even though he was only eight years old at the time, he knew it was something very serious.
Doc Steinman was their family doctor back then, but his father didn’t have much confidence in him. And when the doctor diagnosed Dan as having a case of food poisoning, Dan’s father whisked him off for a second opinion with doctor Brooks. Had Dan not been admitted to the hospital there and then, his appendices, which were at bursting point, may have killed him. Doctor Brooks soon became the Winters family doctor after this.
An old red leather chair, the same chair that had always been there, contrasted against the snowy white walls of the surgery. This was how it had looked when Dan was a boy, and it somehow felt comforting and reassuring to him.
After doing her normal checks, the doctor leaned back across her old oak desk table, and pondered.
“We must get you looked at immediately,” she said. And with that same unchanging expression, she stared hard at him for a moment.
But if there was one thing about her, Dan knew. It was that doctor Brooks always said what she thought. No messing about with fancy jargon either. No, this doctor fired from the hip.
“I believe there is something there, Mister Winters,” she stated, as Lynn nervously wrung her hands in the background and paced to and fro. It was always Mr Winters with her, Dan knew. If she had one fault then this was it, her lack of friendliness. When he had taken his children to see her it was the same. This was how she would always address them. Although a true professional in any sense of the word, the doctor had no real closeness to people. Maybe in her field the doctor can’t afford to get close to anyone, he thought. Maybe her feelings run much deeper, but she just can’t show them.
The doctor’s voice suddenly seemed to pitch higher, as though she knew Dan wasn’t paying full attention, and he looked into her emotionless eyes. Eyes that gave nothing away.
“The area of your temporal lobe seems swelled somehow. I have always said that boxing wasn’t going to do you any good, didn’t I? I warned you when you first came to see me about it when you were a young man.”
“Um, yeah doc, but come on, that was a very long time ago,” Dan answered in an awkward whisper.
“Yes, and in that very long time ago, as you put it, something may have happened with you. I told you then that if you were really concerned for your health and future, then you should take up another sporting activity. You however, chose not to listen to me. Now I believe this barbaric activity may just have caught up with you. Receiving punches to the head and body is not something that will do a person any good in the long term,” she scolded.
“And your smoking habit won’t help you either,” she added.
Dan felt his face redden as she chastised him in front of his wife, and he lowered his head like a s
colded schoolboy.
Dan had wanted to say something to her, get her to admit she was mistaken. Make her come clean to him that she was only kidding about the boxing doing anyone harm.
Deep down though, Dan knew different. He was aware of the dangers from the day he threw his first punch. It was all part of the fighting game.
Doctor Brooks slammed the file on the desk and pushed her stethoscope deep inside her pocket and turned away. It was clear she was finished here.
Dan stared across to his wife, who was biting her lip, and he knew she was more worried about it than he was.
Then the doctor said goodbye without a smile, but as Dan was leaving the surgery he caught her give him a funny sort of side glance. A very strange looking side glance. Like a final goodbye sort of side glance.
Perhaps the woman can’t show her true feelings after all. Perhaps shoot from the hip Brooks isn’t shooting anymore. Perhaps I’m going to die, he thought.
CHAPTER 2
It would be almost three worrying sleepless weeks later before Dan received a scan at the hospital, and it would be a further nail biting month before he was finally sent for. Dan left the hospital a much happier, although puzzled man. There was definitely nothing there, they had told him. No tumour, no hardening of the arteries, and no sign of any past haemorrhaging. In fact, all of the tests confirmed that he was in prime condition.
This was Dan’s ‘get out of jail free card,’ his all clear. Still, the dreams and headaches would remain constant throughout.
The evening after the test results, the family celebrated this great news by visiting the Eglantine Steak House, on route nine, which just happened to be Dan’s favourite restaurant. This place was used by some of the cities finest, and although somewhat on the expensive side, there was nowhere on earth Dan felt, that could come near the place for its quality. It had taken a little extra time to get there, but when they did, Dan ordered four of the largest sizzling steaks that money could buy.
“Let’s live dangerously,” he toasted, as the waitress brought the large oval plates to their table.
“Wow,” Tom exclaimed, as he greedily cut through the thick juicy steak.
“Maybe these headaches are being caused by underlying stress at your job?” Lynn suggested.
“What stress?” Dan replied. “I love my job more than most people would even hope to understand.”
Tom, their son, who seemed to be ignoring the conversation, suddenly spoke up, barely audible with his mouth full, and Dan held his hand up to rebuff him.
“Manners son,” Lynn said, reading her husbands thoughts, and beating him to the punch line.
“You look like Marlon Brando, in that movie, ‘The Godfather,’ when he acted the Mafia leader, ‘Don Corleone,’” Dan stated. “Doesn’t he look like Marlon Brando; with his cheeks all puffed out like that,” Dan said to Lynn, who nodded back in agreement and smiled.
Dan removed a paper handkerchief from his pocket, tore it in two and stuffed it into his own cheeks, padding them out. “You come to my home,” Dan mimicked rather well. “You come to my home on my daughter’s wedding day to ask me to do murder, but you never think of inviting me to your home. Also, you don’t think to call me Godfather. What did I do to you to have you disrespect me so?”
“Mmm, mmm,” was the only sound to come from Tom’s mouth as he tried to speak.
“Go dad,” Grace laughed and clapped as Lynn looked away, laughing.
It was a full two minutes before Tom swallowed the last mouthful of steak, and as he dabbed at his gravy stained chin with a napkin, he spoke.
“I was saying, it’s probably those electricity poles at the back of the house that’s responsible, dad. No one knows the crap those things send off.”
“Say what?”
“Those headaches you’re having, that’s the probable cause for them, the electricity,” Tom added.
“It is?” Dan questioned with an astonished look.
“Yeah, Toms right,” Grace their daughter stated with an heir of authority.
“We studied the effects of electro magnetic fields at college,” she added.
“Electro magnetic fields? Electricity poles?” Dan mumbled, pretending to be puzzled.
“Yeah, radiation fields, that are caused by the um, electricity from the cables.”
Dan looked to his wife, and nodded.
“I never knew that. Guess we will just have to move home then, maybe to a new town, if that’s the way things are,” Dan answered. “These radiation fields are something I had never thought about before,” he added, as he rubbed loosely at his forehead.
A sudden silence came over the table. Tom and Grace had been raised in this town. All their friends lived near them, and this was the only home they’d ever known. They just couldn’t leave now. Besides, didn’t the tests show that dad was all right anyhow?
“It takes a long time for that sort of stuff to affect human beings though,” Tom said. “Maybe fifty or sixty years, maybe even a…“
“Yeah, m-maybe even a hundred,” Grace quickly interrupted.
Dan laughed loudly, now that they had forced themselves into a corner.
“Don’t worry folk’s. We aren’t planning on moving just yet,” he assured them.
“Now eat your damn steaks before they get cold or grow old.”
* * * * *
Dan annoyingly swirled his glass around, causing a little mini tornado of red wine that somehow reminded him of something, and as he stared at it, the woman caught his eye, just above the rim of the glass.
She was standing about two feet inside the entrance, beside a large reprint of Giotto’s, Mourning of Christ, which somehow looked out of place in these ultra modern surroundings.
This woman had obviously been a beautiful creature at one time in her life, Dan felt. But something must have changed for her.
She looked unkempt, her hair matted and in somewhat of a mess. On top of that fact, she looked distraught. No, there was something else. Something in her body language that gave it away. Dan didn’t know whether it was the twitching mouth, or the almost unnatural violent head movements, which stopped the moment she made eye contact with him.
No! This lady looked as though she’d just been released from some damn lunatic asylum, and pretty recently, he felt.
And now she was staring down wildly at him.
There was something familiar about her though, something that he couldn’t quite place.
Dan looked around, over his shoulder, but there was no one else behind him. Now he was sure her wild stares were directed only at him.
He raised his head slightly, trying to divert his look away from the woman, but some force, something he couldn’t explain, held his stare like a vice.
He felt the blood drain from his face as he tried to turn away from the unreal, almost frightening situation. He just couldn’t seem to draw his head away though, and he felt as though he was captured in some strong hypnotic beacon.
Then from somewhere across the room, a plate smashed, and Dan was released from his trance. The woman continued to hold the look though, and stood staring intently at him, her angry eyes blazing. He could feel her stares, almost burning into him as he looked down to the table.
Dan wondered why no one had approached this woman. How in Gods name could someone like her come into a place like this, in her condition? I mean, she’s standing there, dressed like a goddamn bag lady, yet everyone is just ignoring her, he thought.
He stared across to the bar, but no one there seemed to take notice of the woman as they busily attended to their duties. Then he glanced high toward the ceiling, before looking back to his family.
He made some small talk about the weather, which took all of about ten seconds, then he looked quickly up toward the entrance again and scanned around. She was gone, and somehow he felt relieved, but a strange feeling of loss also ran through him, although he couldn’t understand why. He smiled at Lynn, and when she seductively returned the smile, h
e thought himself at that moment to be the luckiest man on Gods green earth.
Lynn had stood by him through these worrying times, and had shown just how much she cared for him, and he looked affectionately at her, his smile broadening.
He was still swirling the wine, and he was still smiling, when someone tapped him from behind, firmly on his shoulder. It was her.
“You bastard,” the woman yelled. “How could you do this to me Dan?” she sobbed.
Dan sat his swirling glass down and glanced surprisingly at Lynn before speaking to the crazed looking woman, who was now shaking profusely.
“How do you know my name? Do I know you lady?” Dan asked, puzzled.
“Oh so now you’re pretending you don’t know me in front of that scrawny little bitch,” she replied, pointing at Lynn.
“All those years we shared together, they meant nothing to you! Why I gave my life for you. You were everything to me, my world, I, I loved you,” she sobbed.
“Your world? You loved me? Listen lady, you obviously need some help here. I don’t know who the hell you are. Why I’ve never even met you before.”
“I’m Beatrice you sonofabitch, I’m you’re wife,” she screamed. “You belong to me, do you understand?”
“My wife? I belong to y…?” Dan gulped.
“Yes, your wife, you bastard,” she interrupted.
“This is my wife, my family,” he said as he pointed across the table.
“No, I’m your wife,” the woman yelled.
“Waiter,” Dan shouted, and waved frantically to the tall head waiter, who seemed to be transfixed as he stood statue like, just inside the entrance.
The head waiter was staring down at them in disbelief, but he was also trying hard not to get involved in the embarrassing situation unfolding in front of him, as he pretended to wipe something from his lapel.
“Go away lady, please,” Dan ordered the woman.
“I’m your wife, do you hear me? I’m your wife,” She sobbed.
“I’m telling you lady, you better get the hell out of here,” Dan replied, with some nervousness in his voice that dispelled any aura of authority.
The woman turned, walked two or three steps, but quickly spun around and doubled back.