Flight of Brothers

by Jonathan Baumbach

  “Sorry for disturbing you,” I said, and went back to my place, outrage barely assuaged. I didn’t ask if her guest was Ron but who else would it be?

  I lay down on my couch, thinking of a sentence I might add to my new story, which had stalled, rewrote it in my head and fell asleep, dreaming of beautiful sentences. There is always, or mostly always, comfort in sleep. Sometimes I dream of stories to write and then wake to find the story not what I thought it was—the dream story fading into nothing.

  I need to get a job again, to go back to work outside the house, but I postpone doing anything. The thing is I don’t like to work for anyone. I don’t like being under anyone’s arbitrary authority. Who does? I walked out of my last job because my immediate boss seemed to take pleasure in ordering me around.

  Later I had a dream in which I worked for Ron as his personal assistant. I refused in the dream to take an order to bring him a cup of latte and he threatened, never raising his voice, to have me demoted. Demoted from what? How low can you get? He said he had heard from others that I was unreliable and he was sorry now he had taken me on.

  “Get your own fucking latte,” I told him.

  In some situations it’s a virtue to be unreliable.

  I studied the prospects for self-employment. There were ads here and there for selling various products over the phone. That seemed a possibility, but I’m not very adept at talking to strangers and I needed a job that would get me out of the house. Now it seemed that Klotzman had the ideal job. After awhile a patient no longer seems like a stranger. The problem is that it would be hard passing myself off as a therapist without the proper credentials. I could take the appropriate courses or, as I’ve done with so much else, fake it. First I’d have to complete my B.A. I was only eight hours short (or was it twelve hours?) when I left school. I had put B.A. in English on all my applications when I applied for jobs in the past and no one had thought to question the claim.

  I asked Dr. Klotzman how many years of study it took to become an analyst.

  “In all, probably four years, maybe five. Why do you ask? Are you thinking about becoming an analyst?”

  That stopped me short. “Thinking about it,” I muttered.

  “Well,” he said, “you don’t need to get an MD or a Ph. D. You could take a two year course in psychoanalysis.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, though I had already ruled it out. “You were right the other day about what I said about Ron. I’d just as soon see him disappear from Eva’s life. I think of him now as my nemesis.”

  “Do you want to elaborate on that?”

  “It may not be literally true, but he seems always in my way.”

  “Didn’t Eva offer to drop him if you wanted her to,” he said.

  He had a good memory. “That was several weeks ago,” I said. “That offer hasn’t been repeated. What I did, I think, was solidify Ron’s relationship with her.”

  “You don’t really know that, do you?”

  “He’s around more than he used to be. It feels like he’s around all the time.”

  “He appears to want a relationship with Eva,” he said. “On the other hand you’re not sure what you want. What do you want?”

  “It changes from day to day,” I said. “All I want is access to Eva when I want to see her.”

  “And Eva wants some kind of commitment that you’re not willing to give here. That’s what it sounds like to me.”

  He had me there. “I realize I’ve messed things up.” I said. I felt tears form in my eyes, but I fought them off.

  “From where I sit,” he said, “you’ve been standoffish and rejecting with Eva while Ron has pursued her unambiguously.”

  “I’m sorry about that now.”

  “You can always change your approach,” he said. “It just depends on knowing what you want and acting on it.”

  “That’s just it. What I want changes from day to day. Sometimes from hour to hour.”

  “That sounds accurate,” he says. “Sometimes you have to compromise with immediate feelings to get what you want in the long run.”

  “Why can’t Eva see me once in a while.? I just want to be her friend.”

  “It sounds to me that she wants more than that from you.”

  “That’s just not fair,” I said. “That’s not right.”

  “We’re talking about feelings,” he said. “Fair and right have nothing to do with it.”

  “You’re supposed to be on my side,” I said.

  “Mel, I am on your side. I’m trying to give you a clear picture of the situation. You see that, don’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “Yes.” And that’s how our session ended.

  When I got home, I tried to figure out what I wanted and to pursue a course of action in my own best interest. I was lying on the red couch mulling things over and fell asleep.

  I dreamed of a lineup of five Ron look-alikes, though not one of them was exactly Ron.

  “I can’t tell them apart,” I said to the policeman next to me. “They’re almost identical.”

  “That’s why you’re here,” the cop said. “Only you can tell them apart. One of them is your so-called nemesis.”

  I looked carefully at the five figures in the lineup. One of them was probably the real Ron, but which? I figured it was a trick and the one that looked least like Ron—for example three had a mustache which looked fake—was the real one.

  “Is the mustache on candidate three real?” I asked. “Since I’ve known him, Ron has never worn a mustache.” I thought of getting closer and pulling it off. “Eva would know better than I do,” I said.

  “She was not available,” the policeman said. “Indisposed. You’re our only hope, but if you pull number three’s mustache, we’ll have to arrest you for tampering with evidence.”

  I backed up. “I don’t like any of them,” I said. They were all except three smiling now.

  “According to the rules, you can only choose one,” he said. “If you don’t choose, you automatically become the choice.”

  With heavy heart—I didn’t want to incriminate the wrong man—I was about to choose three when I woke, thinking I had my chance to get rid of him and I didn’t take it.

  As it turned out, I didn’t (not at the moment) have to make the dreaded decision as to what to do. Iit was all out of my hands. Eva showed up at my door all smiles and apologized for having been abrupt with me. “I had been having a fight with Ron when you came to the door and I took it out on you. Shall we take one of our walks?”

  I didn’t see why not and we went off together. “I’m glad we’re friends again,” I said.

  “We never stopped being friends,” she said. “It was my anger at Ron that I let carry over to you.”

  “Thank you for telling me that,” I said. I wanted to say more but I was silent as we walked another two blocks.

  “Are you still looking for a job?” she asked.

  I don’t remember telling her I was looking for a job, but I must have.

  “If you are,” she said, “there’s an opening at the place I work for a person to stay the night as a deterrent to someone breaking in and stealing drugs. There’d be no one to order you around and they have a nice room with a cot and a TV for the person to stay in.”

  “A night watchman?”

  “They don’t call it that. You say you like to write at night and this would provide an opportunity. And if you nodded off, no one would mind, no one would know. It’s a very comfortable room. I’ve visited it. They let the last person go because he was stealing drugs.”

  It sounded like the kind of job I wouldn’t mind. “It sounds like something I could do,” I said.

  “Of course you could,” she said, taking my hand and then letting it go. “If I recommend you, which I will, they’ll be sure to take you. It’s a medical supply place that services several hospitals.”

  I could use a job and this sounded preferable to whatever else I was considering. “You say there will be n
o one to boss me around?”

  “I will tell them you’re a friend of mine,” Eva said, “and that you’re totally responsible.”

  So two days later or rather two nights later I started work at Empire Medical Supplies as their night person. It was a nice room they gave me and it had a direct line to the police station for emergencies. For awhile the nights were uneventful, but I remained anxious, pacing the floor, unable to concentrate on my sentences, unable to read, sleep out of the question. They had issued me a pistol which made me feel at once dangerous and vulnerable to the unseen.

  Eva visited on occasion, short visits, and those were the best times. She would ask how I was doing and I would say I was doing all right, not wanting to show her my inability to be at ease with my surroundings.

  I didn’t know how long I could continue without going crazier than I already was. I reached the point I was hoping for some excitement. As Klotzman used to tell me be careful what you wish for out of desperation. Occasionally I would hear or think I heard someone fiddling with the locks on my door. I picked up my gun and stood alertly by but fairly shortly after that the noise stopped. Except this one time I heard a persistent banging on the door. “Let me in,” a voice cried, “I’ll make you rich.” A twenty dollar bill slid under the door. “There’s more where that came from,” the voice said. “Have a heart, whoever is in there.”

  To show my incorruptibility, I slid the twenty dollars back.

  “What’s it to you?” the voice said. “I just want a little opium and then I’ll go away.”

  I thought of calling the police, bur outside of my dreams it was not my way to call the police.

  He changed his tone. “Have a heart,” he said. “I need the stuff.”

  He seemed to be waiting for an answer, but he didn’t get one.

  Finally, about twenty minutes later, I heard some noises on the other side of the building. I picked up my gun and warily made my way toward where the sounds were coming.

  It was dark and I held a flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other. “Who’s there?” I called into the darkness. I regretted not calling the police. I wasn’t even sure which was the room that stocked the drugs.

  I called out several times and got no answer. Finally, I heard some movement and I made my way toward it at no great pace, hoping whoever it was would be gone when I got there.

  I was in over my head and I figured whatever happened, this would be my last day on the job.

  I went from room to room at my snail’s pace and was relieved to find no one. Whoever had been there had come and gone. I did find one of the cabinet doors open in one of the back rooms.

  I made my report without apologies and expected to be fired. The odd thing was no one asked to talk to me or told me what was missing. It was as if nothing had happened.

  I described the incident to Eva who seemed bemused. I told her I was ready to give up the job, but she urged me to stay another week. “You don’t want to let some junky break your spirit,” she said. “I’ll find out what if anything is missing.”

  The next night was uneventful, but I heard sounds—wind blowing against windows perhaps—or imagined I heard them and I was on my guard.

  Eva reported that a cabinet door had been broken open but nothing was missing. “Your calling out as you did must have scared off whoever it was.”

  “The Head of Security is pleased with the way you handled it,” she said.

  “I’m not pleased with the way I handled things,” I said. “One more week and that’s it,” I said.

  “You’ll see how it goes,” she said. “Once the routine is established, you may even find it painless.”

  The next few days I lay on the cot with the gun at my side. Every two hours I toured the rest of the building, shouting “who’s there” at no one as I made my way through the empty rooms.

  True to my plan, I quit at the end of the next week and I had to go through the humiliation of being frisked before I left. Not exactly frisked, but I was told to empty my pockets, which I had first refused before doing as asked. So much for that job.

  A few weeks later, I rented myself out as an assistant carpenter, for which I had some training, to a nice enough man who made porch swings. I know I said I didn’t want to work for anyone, but the guy who hired me, Andre, had an easy-going manner, and for three days work I made slightly more than I did for a whole week of night security.

  Klotzman seemed to approve of my taking a job and it was good to have somewhere to go three days a week.

  “That’s interesting,” Eva said, on one of our walks. “Ron is also a carpenter.”

  The news didn’t surprise, though I went through the motions with Eva of seeming taken aback. Well at least I wasn’t working for Ron.

  I hadn’t done any carpentry for years and I thought if I regained my skills, at some point I could go into business for myself. The job didn’t last long.

  Two months or so down the road, I got a call from the Head of Security from my former job, asking me to come in for an interview.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “We need to clear up some odds and ends,” he said.

  So I made the mistake of going in to his office.

  “What are these odds and ends I asked him?”

  “Well”, he said, not looking at me, “we had a recent inventory and we discovered a cache of opium was missing and we wondered if you might shed some light on the disappearance.”

  “During my first week on the job there was a break in and it might have happened then. That’s all I can think of.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because there was no break in,” he said. “It was a staged event.” He lifted his head from his papers and stared at me,

  “Who staged it?” I asked.

  Harsh laugh. “Don’t you know?” he asked. “It could only have been you. All the evidence points to you. I tell you what if you return the opium, nothing will be said.”

  “I have no opium,” I said.

  “Have you sold it?” he asked.

  “I never had any opium. You’re making a mistake.”

  “Am I? Are you willing to take a lie detector test?”

  Though I’d never taken one, I was afraid that with my free-floating guilt I wouldn’t do well. “I’d rather not,” I said.

  “I can imagine why,” he said.

  “No you can’t,” I said.

  “Don’t give me any lip,” he said. “The first time I saw you I knew there was something fishy about you.”

  So I agreed reluctantly to come back in two days and take the test, hoping I could get by.

  The results were inconclusive which assured him of my guilt and he gave me another opportunity to return what I didn’t have. Since he couldn’t prosecute me, he would nose it around that I was a thief.

  He called Andre and said he had a thief working for him and that he ought to fire me.

  When he questioned me, I told Andre the guy from security was mistaken and he said he believed me. Besides there was nothing to steal from his shop.

  I thought that issue was over, but two months later, Andre said business was slow and he couldn’t afford me any more.

  Eva told me they had been hassling her at work because of me. “Did you take something?” she asked me.

  “Do you have to ask?” I said, feeling flush with guilt.

  “I suppose not,” she said, “but how well do I really know you? How well does anyone know anyone?”

  “I’m disappointed to hear you say that,” I said. “I think you know me well enough to know I wouldn’t embarrass you by stealing at a job you recommended me for.”

  She seemed to be thinking about what I said. “Are you saying that if I hadn’t recommended you for that job, say if you had got it on your own, you would consider stealing something you were hired to protect?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m innocent,” I shouted at her.

&nbs
p; “I want to believe you are,” she said. “Under certain circumstances, anyone is capable of anything. I think you said that yourself.”

  We were taking one of our walks at the time of this confrontation and I thought of leaving her and turning back. I felt betrayed by her attitude. Instead I was bitterly silent, waiting for an apology.

  “Why are they so sure you took the opium?” she asked.

  “How do I know?”

  “What did the security man say when he interviewed you?”

  “He said I had a fishy look about me,” I said.

  She laughed. “You do have a fishy look sometimes. I suppose it was convenient to blame you. The theft happened under your watch.”

  “Do you believe me or not?”

  She reached for my hand, which I put behind my back. “Mel, of course I believe you. The whole episode is very fishy. Maybe the Head of Security stole the opium.”

  I had thought of that, but it didn’t seem likely. “I think the guy who broke in stole it.”

  “They say there’s no evidence that anyone broke in,” she said.

  “I know someone broke in,” I said, “evidence or not. Maybe he didn’t get what he wanted the first time and broke in again. The whole thing’s a kind of mystery.”

  This time I let her take my hand. “I told them,” she said, “you couldn’t have done it. I defended you. That’s when they started hassling me. They even suggested I might have been an accomplice. I have been working there for over three years. You see why I’m so upset.”

  It felt to me something I had done had gotten her into trouble. “Sorry,” I said.

  “I’ve been seriously thinking of quitting,” she said, “but it would probably look like an admission of guilt.”

  “Don’t quit,” I told her.

  She squeezed my hand. “I won’t,” she said. “Thank you for your support.”

  I wondered when I got home if this fight with Eva, if that’s what it was, had brought us closer or further apart. Was it significant that she didn’t invite me in on our return?

  I had been talking off and on with Klotzman about the charge the Head of Security had made against me. At least he appeared to believe in my innocence.

  “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is that it appears you’ve been terribly wronged, yet you show virtually no passion at being mistreated. If I were in your sneakers, I would have called the Head of Security a hateful son of a bitch or worse. You may even have had some legal recourse. You just take it all with your head down.”