Don't Leave Me

by James Scott Bell

  Joshua was set to play Ahab.

  Chuck picked up his coffee as a black Mustang pulled into the slot next to him. Wendy Tower. She was one of the high school teachers at Hunt, the private school carved into the hills of Calabasas. She herself seemed of the hills. She was thirty and always talked about hiking and biking and anything outdoors. She wore her buckskin-colored hair long and straight.

  “Morning,” Chuck said.

  “Lock me up,” Wendy said. She emerged with her own cup of coffee.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Put me away in a rubber room. Throw away the key.” She slammed her door. “I’m at the counter, getting my drip, when a couple of guys, maybe twenty, get in this heated conversation, right? And the first guy says, 'You jerk. Louis Armstrong was the first man on the moon.’ And the other guy says, 'You are so stupid. Louis Armstrong is that bike racer.’ The first guy says, 'Okay, then who was the president when they landed on the moon?’ And the second guy says, 'President of what?’”

  She paused, took a slug of her coffee.

  “Maybe you’ve had a little too much,” Chuck said, playfully reaching for the cup.

  Wendy snatched it away. “I wanted to turn around and slap them. I really did. Crack a book!”

  “Are you sure you’re ready to teach?”

  “Chuck, we have to fight this thing. You have what, twenty-five kids? I have the whole high school tromping through my classroom at one time or another. This is it. The last stand. The OK Corral.”

  “Wasn’t that a musical starring Gene Autry?”

  Wendy socked him in the arm. “Just for that, I want you to try my paella. Tonight.”

  “Paella?” Oh right. Wendy Tower was an amateur chef. When she first told him that, Chuck said paella was the make or break dish. If you could make that, you could make anything. He was only half joking.

  “Another time,” Chuck said. “I’m going into rehearsals.”

  “For that Moby-Dick musical?”

  “It’s a hit in the making.”

  “A rock opera based on Melville.” She shook her head. “You’re either a genius or a . . .”

  “Nut job?”

  “I was going to say visionary.”

  “You just scored yourself a free ticket to opening night.”

  “Can’t wait,” Wendy said. “You know, I also do great cream puffs. What do you say?”

  Part of him wanted to say yes, a small part. But it was drowned out by guilt, still fresh. The last words he and Julia had exchanged, before her death, were in anger. Despite what one VA shrink had told him, all that cognitive therapy mumbo jumbo, he couldn’t just talk himself out of the guilt. His mind still sometimes whipped around irrationally.

  “Bring your brother, of course,” Wendy added.

  “Maybe after the musical,” Chuck said. “We artistic visionaries have to stay focused.”

  She smiled, and he wished he could get lost in it. But the memory of his failure with Julia pulled him back, the way a wrangler snaps a colt with a hard rope around the neck.

  “Hey, what happened to your wheels?” she said, looking at the front of his car.

  “A little thing. On the way over.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Not what I asked.”

  His instinct was to cover it all in some throwaway line and walk to class. But he said, “I had a little run in with a guy. Just your typical rear ender, except this guy pulled a knife on me.”

  Wendy laughed. Then stopped. “You’re not kidding.”

  “Stan was with me, too.”

  “What happened?”

  “This guy was parked in front of my neighbor’s house, in a black Escalade. I drove by and made eye contact. No big deal. I drove on and next thing I know, he’s pulling in front of me and slamming on his brakes.”

  “And?”

  “So I get out to talk to him, he’s some wild haired guy with stink breath. He grabs my throat and—”

  “Your throat?”

  “––and Stan is all upset, and I get the guy off me and then he pulls out this knife.”

  “Chuck!”

  “But a car pulls around the corner and the guy put the knife away and gets in his car and drives off.”

  “Did you get the license plate?”

  “He didn’t have one.”

  “Well that should tell the CHP something.”

  “This guy who stopped his car, he called 911. I should be getting a call myself.”

  “This is nuts. I mean, you never know anymore.” She sighed. “But what I do know is we better get to class. We’re cutting it close.”

  “Don’t say cutting,” Chuck said.

  “Good point.”

  “Don’t say point, either.”

  She laughed, and this time it was fine and good and gave Chuck a moment of relaxation in an otherwise crazy morning. For that he was grateful. Maybe dinner, yes. Maybe sometime soon.

  Chapter 4

  Chuck took the perimeter walkway to class. He liked the edge of the campus, with its view of an undeveloped Calabasas hillside. There wasn’t much ground left in LA. that didn’t have asphalt or concrete poured over it. When he looked at this spot, it gave him a little slice of peace.

  He ate that slice hungrily now.

  Turning toward the playfield, he thought he heard a loud sniff behind a utility shed. He went to look and saw one of his fifth graders, Rachel, on her knees, drawing in the dirt with a stick.

  “Rachel?”

  She looked up, startled, her eyes red and wet.

  “Hey.” Chuck took a knee next to her. He knew what was wrong without even asking. Rachel was the tease magnet of the class. She wasn’t one of the “pretty” ones, wasn’t as well off financially as most kids at Hunt. Her single mom was getting a tuition break while working double duty. A receptionist for a CPA during the day, and as a fill in at the Cheesecake Factory at night, but only when there was a need.

  Rachel looked back at the ground, making more lines in the dirt.

  “What’re you drawing?” One thing Rachel had going for her was that she could draw. She had that natural artistic gift, especially with pen and ink, and most especially when it came to rendering horses.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  What a word to choose. Nothing, when there was obviously something. She must feel like that a lot of the time, Chuck thought. And then, with a twang in his stomach, he realized he and Rachel weren’t so different in that regard.

  “You want to know something?” he said. “A lot of artists get paid a lot of money for drawing nothing.”

  She looked at him quizzically.

  “It’s true, I’ve seen some of that art. Some of it in museums. And you do much better than they do.”

  Rachel shook her head.

  “It’s true,” Chuck said, wanting her to believe it more than anything. “You just don’t ever stop drawing, okay?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  Chuck went into a sitting position, cross-legged. “Hey, can you draw a whale?”

  The girl paused, thought about it. “A whale?”

  “Yeah. Can you do that?”

  “I think so.”

  “I mean, a great big white whale, with his tail flapping and all that?”

  “How come?”

  “I want you to do the front cover of our program for the musical. Would you do that for me?”

  “Really?”

  “Think you can?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “Good,” Chuck said. “How about we go to class now.”

  Rachel drooped at the shoulders, shook her head violently.

  “Hey, none of that,” Chuck said.

  She looked at the dirt.

  “You know, Rachel, I have a brother. He got teased a lot when he was a kid. I mean, a whole lot. And now he’s the coolest guy, and he has a great job where he sees people every day, and everybody likes him.”

  Rachel appeared to be
listening.

  “When you have a job, as you know, as your mother knows, you work to get paid, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, I’m going to pay you to do this cover. But I’m going to pay you in ice cream.”

  Rachel looked at him.

  “Cold Stone Creamery ice cream,” Chuck said. “And I want you to tell your mom tonight, when you get home. You tell her about our deal, okay?”

  She nodded again.

  “But I have to have you in class to do it,” Chuck said. “You come to class with me and we’ll start off with a song. How about that?”

  Rachel said, “Okay.”

  They walked to class together, and Rachel even skipped a little at the end. That tiniest bit of joy almost made Chuck bust out crying. Man, he was on edge. He needed to grab his guitar.

  Which he did, the very second the bell rang.

  Arash, in the front row, said, “Can we sing Moby’s song?”

  “You want Moby’s song, huh?” Chuck said.

  Amy raised her hand. “My dad says Moby-Dick is supposed to be God.”

  “Your dad . . .” Now what? He just wanted the kids to enjoy a fish story. Okay, a mammal story. So how could he explain to them he felt just like Ishmael? Wandering. Perplexed about the nature of God. Which was why the book was so woven up in his own bones.

  He didn’t want the kids to see that in his face. Ever.

  “Why don’t we sing first?” Chuck said.

  He sat on the edge of the desk, tuned his guitar.

  “Remember now,” he said. “I want you to sing this without laughing, can you do that?”

  The class tittered, because they knew they couldn’t. Chuck loved it when they giggled like this.

  “Together,” Chuck said. “I got plenty o’ blubber! And blubber’s plenty for me!”

  The kids sang and Chuck almost laughed out loud himself. From thoughts of rock stardom to this. From a Tustin garage banging out licks full of euphoric hopes of someday touring, to a little private school classroom where you plunk strings to please little ones, the only fans you’ll ever have.

  Chuck worked the strings like he was in Yankee Stadium giving a concert for fifty thousand, even as he sang the silly song he’d written. In America, you never know what turns there’ll be in the road, do you? You give up adolescent dreams when you survive a DUI crash, you start talking to God, and you think maybe you should serve your country for some greater purpose.

  And then one day you look up and your wife is dead and you hate everything and God is silent and you’re the only one who can take care of your brother. You start to think the future is nothing but darkness, then find yourself sold out to a bunch of kids, loving them more than you ever thought you could, wanting them—no, willing them—to believe happiness is possible in this world. Every kid deserves that.

  So the children sang giddily, as if to believe, and Chuck tried to feel that way, too. He played hard and sang loud, but the guy with the knife kept popping up in his mind, ready to cut him.

  Chapter 5

  After school was out Chuck sat in his empty classroom and called his aunt’s house in Riverside. Aunt Jane was divorced and worked as an MRI technician at Kaiser. Chuck’s mother had moved in with her a year ago.

  “How you doing, Aunt Jane?” Chuck said.

  “Living large,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. Aunt Jane loved to cook and eat what she cooked, and she did not skimp on the fat, the flour, the butter, or the sugar. “How about you?”

  “Well, let me tell you, I’ve had better weeks.”

  “What’s wrong, dear?”

  “How about I tell you about it later? I just wanted to check in with Mom.”

  “You want me to put her on?”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “So so.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?”

  He paused. “That I couldn’t take care of everybody the way I wanted.”

  “Hey, Lucky, you’re doing just fine.” She’d called him Lucky ever since he could remember. He used to believe it was prophetic. Now it stung. “You’re taking care of Stan, and that means the world to us.”

  “It’s a laugh riot, that’s for sure.”

  “You getting enough to eat?” That was her favorite question.

  “I am. Stan keeps up on all the specials.”

  “That boy,” Aunt Jane said with a laugh. “If we could harness that brain power we’d put men on Saturn.”

  “Sure,” Chuck said. “I’ll talk to Mom now.”

  He heard the sound of the phone being put down.

  Then his mom’s small voice squeaked, “Hello?”

  “Hi Mom,” Chuck said.

  “Who is it?”

  “Chuck.”

  “Chuck?”

  “How you doing, darling?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Chuck, your son.” He felt like an idiot, a stranger, a cold stranger who carried misery in a valise. Not a son who could make things happen. He wanted to make her right by willing it over the phone. She deserved it, the way the cards had been dealt.

  “Is Stanley all right?” his mother said.

  The mention of the name was a lifeline from past to present. Chuck grabbed it. “Yes. Yes, Stan is good. He’s going to outlive us all. He’s working steady and he’s keeping tabs on all the customers. They love him.”

  Silence.

  “We’ll come out for a visit soon,” Chuck said.

  “Who is this?”

  The chill of those words hit like a cold, Pacific wave, like when they were a family at the beach, a long ago November, the three of them. When his feet got cold in the ocean and his mother wrapped them up in a towel and rubbed them till they were warm again and now he could not make his mother warm or whole. He could not—

  Aunt Jane came back on. “She’s tired, Chuck.”

  “You’re a saint, Aunt Jane,” he said.

  “Plaster,” she said. “Do come see us when you can.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  After the call Chuck turned off the lights in the classroom and put his head in his hands and sat there until four-fifteen.

  .

  “Seven ninety-nine T-bone steak,” Stan said the moment he got into Chuck’s limping Sentra. “Oscar Mayer Deli Shaved Lunchmeat, two for six dollars.”

  “Good ones,” Chuck said. It was four-thirty and he was picking up Stan from Ralphs. And this being Tuesday, Stan was eager to share the weekly specials. Sometimes that annoyed Chuck, but today, of all days, it was welcome and familiar. By the time they got home, Chuck told himself, we’ll both be back on solid ground again. We can move on from the events of this one, crazy day.

  “DiGiorno Pizza, two for nine dollars,” Stan continued. “Chuck, can we have DiGiorno Pizza tonight?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And Coca-Cola, six pack, three for ten dollars.”

  “And Coca-Cola, kid.”

  Stan loved his job. Ralphs Fresh Fare hired a certain number of the mentally challenged. The prime job was standing inside the doors, welcoming people and handing out the ad paper with the featured deals. Stan took his duties as seriously as a nuclear technician dispensing safety instructions. “I save people the big bucks,” Stan liked to say.

  Which was why he always replayed the ads, not reading them, but using the incredible memory that was part of his brain’s circuitry. It was one of those inexplicable quirks of nature, like deaf kids who can play piano without a lesson.

  “Chef Boyardee Microwave Cup,” Stan said, “ten for ten dollars. Can we get ten of them?”

  “Maybe,” Chuck said.

  “Are you going to get married?”

  “What?” Sometimes Stan blurted the most random things.

  “That teacher at school,” Stan said. “Wendy Tower is her name. She has long hair and green eyes and her body is hubba—”

  “Stan.”

  “She likes you.”

 
; “I know that.”

  “Does she make you gaga?”

  “Gaga? Where do you come up with this stuff?”

  Stan bobbed his eyebrows.

  “If you want DiGiorno’s,” Chuck said, “you knock that off––” Chuck stopped when he saw a plume of black smoke in the sky a couple of blocks away.

  “What’s wrong?” Stan said.

  “Looks like there’s fire,” Chuck said.

  “Fire?”

  “Maybe somebody’s car.”

  “Can cars catch on fire?”

  “Sometimes,” Chuck said. But as he drove on, he knew this was no car fire. It was too big.

  And very close.

  There was a police presence at the next turn, Chuck’s street. No access. He stopped the car and got out, the door still groaning because of the morning’s rear ender.

  A young cop in sunglasses took two steps toward him. “Sir, you’ll have to move your car.”

  Chuck didn’t move. He stared. And reality hit. “That’s my house,” he said.

  The cop gave a quick nod. “Let the fire department take care of this.”

  Stan ran up to Chuck, his eyes wide. “Is that our house, Chuck? What about all our stuff? What about my fish?”

  Chuck put his hand up to get Stan quiet. “Stay with the policeman, Stan.”

  “Don’t leave me!”

  “Stay here!” Chuck didn’t like the hurt look in Stan’s eyes then, but this was a freaking fire. And though the heat of it wasn’t near him, another heat was burning inside him, the conflagration of one very bad day.

  “Sir,” the cop said, “you need to stay here, too.”

  “So shoot me,” Chuck said and ran down the sidewalk.

  Chapter 6

  Up close the fire hoses seemed unreal, like somebody staging a giant Halloween prank.

  But Chuck felt the heat and the spray slapping him like gloved hands. And the insane pumping of his heart. Orange and yellow flames shot out of the garage roof, and what was once painted beige was covered in soot streaks black as midnight.