The caller ID said it was Donna. I picked it up.
“Where are you?” I asked, as soon as the phone was at my ear.
“I just called to tell you that I’m not going to be home tonight?”
“What? Where are you?”
“I’m staying at a friend's.”
“A friend's? Really? Is this friend a man?” I asked.
The line was silent.
“I found a coat on the back of the couch. Is this the friend’s you’re staying at?”
It occurred to me that she shouldn’t have known that I was home, either. I waited for her answer from the other question before I inquired into that one.
“That’s probably Jim’s jacket,” she finally said.
I understood why she hesitated immediately. “What the hell was he doing over here, Donna?” I spat at her.
“I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Yeah, well I know that’s why you hesitated. You didn’t want to tell me. You probably wouldn’t have told me he was even here if he didn’t leave his coat on the back of the couch.”
“It really doesn’t matter, Howard.”
“What? How can you say it doesn’t matter? This is the same guy that…”
“Howard, it’s over,” she said.
My jaw dropped in astonishment. “Did I just hear her right?” I thought to myself. “Over, what’s over?” I asked.
“Everything, Howard. Us, our family…”
“Donna, you can’t say that. You’re upset. Where are you? Why don’t you come home and we can talk, okay. Don’t do this on the phone, please.”
“There isn’t anything to say, Howard.”
“Why not?”
“Why would there be? Doesn’t the last week tell me everything I need to know?”
“Donna, you can’t throw away 25 years over what happened this past week. I know I was to blame for a lot of it, but…”
“You were to blame for all of it, Howard. And, it just hasn’t been the past week. That was just the proverbial straw in a long line of disappointments.”
“What? I don’t understand what you are saying to me. We were happy? I gave you everything you wanted, didn’t I?”
The line was silent for a moment. “I just don’t love you anymore, Howard,” she said. No feeling. Just a statement. Like she was talking to the waiter at a Chinese place. “I just don’t like eggrolls,” she might have said.
“How can you say that?” A tear rolled down my cheek.
“You’re not the man I married.”
“Would you like soy sauce with that?” the waiter may have asked.
“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We had our problems, but nothing most couples didn’t suffer through. I thought that our marriage was one of the strong ones that were never going to end, and I told her so.
“Howard, there’s nothing to talk about. I just called to tell you that I’m not coming home tonight.”
The line went dead.
I tried to redial her number but it immediately went to voicemail.
“Fuck!” I screamed, and threw the phone against the refrigerator. It smashed and fell to the floor in pieces as I slumped to the same with my head in my hands, sobbing. I don’t know how long I was in that position before I heard Kate walk into the kitchen and utter a sound of surprise. She didn’t say a word to me, just turned and went back the way she’d came.
I didn’t much care one way or the other. I did, eventually, get up to grab a glass from the cupboard, a can of 7-up from the fridge, and the bottle of Seagram’s I had stored in the cupboard above the fridge before I went downstairs to the dark family room and sat in my favorite recliner. I drank until the egress window began to lighten from the new day creeping ever so slowly into my life.
“What now?” I asked myself over and over again, between bouts of sobbing, swearing, and pacing the room.
23
There comes a time in every man’s life where he ponders his worth. Some men do it most every day. Other men, perhaps only occasionally. I was one of the men that did it only when necessary. That morning, I hadn’t one good thing to say about myself. I wasn’t worth the air I was breathing, as far as I was concerned.
I was three fourths into the bottle of Seagram’s when the doorbell rang. I ignored it.
It rang three more times before I got up and started up the stairs.
Kate had answered the door and she was talking to a woman whose voice I could not quite place.
“Is your Dad home?” she asked.
“I think so,” Kate replied. “At least I didn’t hear him go anywhere since he came home last night.”
“Would you mind finding out for me?” the woman asked.
“Well, sure, I guess. Uh, why don’t you come in and have a seat, and I’ll go look for him.”
“Thanks.”
“Be right back.”
I didn’t go any further; I just sat on the steps hoping that Kate wouldn’t find me.
Moments later, she came back. “I can’t seem to find him, ma’am.”
“It’s Ms. Evans. But you can call me Janie.”
I froze.
“I can tell him you came over?”
“Yes, that would be good, but I’d rather leave him a message if I could.”
“Um, I don’t have a pen or anything. Wait, I’ll go look in the kitchen.”
“That’s okay, Kate. I’m sure you can tell him yourself.”
Her brows had drawn together. “How did you know that my name was Kate?”
“I just do. But you needn’t be afraid. Your father is a friend of mine. He tried to help me one night and I’ve wanted to thank him for a few weeks now.”
“Oh, yeah, what’d he do?” Kate was swaying from one foot to the other like she did when she was nervous.
“Well, he tried to save me one night when I was in a car accident.”
“What. What do you mean, tried to save you? You’re here, right now.” She stopped swaying.
“I know, dear, I’m sorry. Here, let me show you what I mean. Do you have a DVD player?”
“Yeah,” Kate replied. I heard the woman stand up and both of them move toward the television. I knew that they wouldn’t be able to see me if I just stood in the kitchen, right where I was, and peeked around the corner.
I heard some sound effects before I could understand what I was seeing on the television. It was dark and someone was looking out of a windshield. A rain soaked windshield. The noise of the rain, wipers, road, or anything in general was overpowered by a stereo playing some bubble pop music I was unfamiliar with.
Brake lights appeared in the windshield and I heard a woman scream as the car skidded to the left, two hands with painted nails turned the steering wheel in the direction of the skid and the vehicle overcompensated and skidded toward the right. The vehicle stopped short as the scene swung to the right, and sideways as glass shattered all around the field of vision. The sound of squealing tires came from the left and just as sudden, the scene shifted to the left and I could hear more bending of metal and breaking of glass with an eerie exhale of breath, a thump, and a moan.
The moaning continued while a hissing sound came from the left. Through the rain and the steam, I could tell it was a radiator.
A few moments went by before I heard a voice from beyond the field of vision that sounded familiar.
“Ma’am, can you hear me, are you all right?”
My face came onto the screen through the web of shattered safety glass and I stumbled from around the corner of the kitchen, making myself visible. No one noticed.
I saw myself move to the right of the screen, I heard the sound of footsteps on a car roof, and then the scene straightened again slightly as I heard a wet gurgling sound and then my voice muffled, “Ma’am, if you can hear me, I’m going to try and stop the bleeding coming from your neck.” Then, quieter. “I can’t seem to reach it, wait, there we go.”
From the left came the fai
nt screech of tires growing louder and louder. The scene moved right and then dropped back to the left with a thud. The sound of an impact of metal on metal came from the left and I saw a dark mass envelope the screen and another exhale of air came from the right and disappeared. As the dark mass continued to envelope the screen, I heard a pop like the sound of a melon bursting and a number of thumping noises to the right that ended in a slight scream.
The screen went black.
Janie Evens turned her head from her position on the chair she was watching the screen with, and smiled at me. Her head was elongated and her features were compressed together. There was blood seeping from her eyes and mouth and gray matter leaking out of her ears.
I sat up with a start and found myself in my favorite chair in the family room, where I’d sat hours ago drinking one after another of seven and seven. By the looks of the light coming through the window, the day was well advanced.
“Oh my God,” I said to the empty room. “I didn’t kill her.”
24
“Yeah, Frank, it was like everything came flooding back all at once. The dream was so weird but it plays along with everything else that has happened. I was drinking, but this time, I dreamt about something that happened in the past, you know, instead of the present, like Brandon or Kate.
“As soon as I realized that I didn’t kill her, everything that I saw through my own eyes found its way back into my memories. It was as if by looking through her eyes, seeing what she had seen, recharged the memories that I have of the accident.
“That must be why the police still have it under investigation, because the lack of witnesses and the way in which the vehicles ended up didn’t quite jive with everything they knew about multi-car pileups. I must have just been paranoid that they were investigating me for murder.”
Frank laughed, choking on his coffee as he did so. “Man, you must have really been off your rocker to think that they were investigating you for murder,” he said when he regained composure.
“You say that now, Frank, but you forget that I actually thought that I killed her.”
“There’s a difference between accidentally killing someone and murdering someone on purpose.”
I just shook my head and said, “Whatever, Frank. Don’t forget that I suffered a head injury, you dumb ass. Of course I wasn’t thinking right about most everything.
“I let a pharmacist give me a prescription that he took out of the back room and I could never figure out what exactly it was that he gave me, not to mention that I went to him in the first place thinking that somehow that might make up for something. Yeah, Frank, I wasn’t exactly in my normal frame of mind. I can’t say that I am even at this moment. Other than the fact that I feel better than I have in weeks about the accident, but now I have other things pushing their way into that empty space and I feel worse than I ever did about my marriage and my son. Frankly, I don’t know how I’m functioning right now.
“Did I tell you that Donna left last night?”
“What? What do you mean?” Frank asked. I could have picked his jaw up from the floor it dropped so far.
“I mean, she left, and told me that it was over.”
“Fuck, dude. I’m sorry. Wow. That sucks. After everything that has happened, she has to lay that on you, too?”
“Yeah, well. Like I said, I don’t know how I’m functioning at all, really. The realization that I didn’t kill Janie is the only thing that got me motivated to come over here and talk to you. Because I wanted to tell you about it, and, well, I wanted to finish our discussion from last night.”
“Well, yeah, sure.” Frank said, as he refilled his coffee cup and asked me if I would like some more. He put the pot back and proceeded to sit down next to me on the breakfast island in his kitchen.
He looked me in the eye and asked, “Do you want to hear my opinion about this sleeping pill business?”
I studied his pupils for a moment and shrugged my shoulders. “I guess, I mean, between the two of us, we should be able to come up with some theory. So, you start.”
“Okay, remember that book about the guy who killed some lady because he wasn’t paying attention to his driving while his wife was giving him head? And the old woman’s husband or some shit touched him and cursed him and he started to get really thin? I mean, deadly thin.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So what if this Gerald guy is a gypsy or some shit and he cursed you?”
“Really, that’s what you got?” I said, as I shook my head and took a sip of coffee. “I was hoping that you at least would have given me new powers from being hit in the head, like suddenly becoming clairvoyant or something, but now you’re just blowing smoke up my ass, man. First of all, he didn’t touch me. And, if you are thinking about the pills being cursed, I only took one of them, one time. I mean, how could he have cursed me outside of doing some voodoo doll shit in the back room?”
“Hey, man, that’s not fair,” he replied. “I’m just trying to fuckin’ help you, man.”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I…”
“I don’t know how the shit works, and for all you know, he could have come to you in your hospital room and cursed you while you were sleeping, numb nuts.”
I smirked at him and shook my head. “Seriously, then, let’s play with that idea. I go to his pharmacy and he gives me some mysterious pills, okay.”
That very moment I remembered what happened as Donna and I walked out the door of the pharmacy. The change in his appearance, the sound of his voice. I totally blew it off to being some trick my mind was playing. I had experienced some weird shit since the accident. If that really was something sinister…
“Wait a minute.” I said.
Frank looked up from his cup.
“There were a couple of really weird things that happened that day in the pharmacy that I think actually support your theory.”
“Really, man?” Frank turned his focus back to me. “Tell me.”
I told him about how Gerald seemed to come from nowhere when he snuck up behind Donna and me. And how he seemed to know what I was thinking. And how his voice and appearance changed as we were leaving. And how he didn’t seem to have been gone long enough in the back room to find a bottle of pills, fill one, and affix a label to a bottle.
“He had that ready for me before I even got there,” I said.
“Yeah, but you just said that you only took one of the pills.”
I hesitated, “Well, maybe that’s all I needed to take. Hey wait, what was the one thing in common with every dream?” I asked Frank. I felt as though we were on the verge of an epiphany.
“Outside of you drinking…”
“That’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“The alcohol.”
“But, that’s ridiculous. How could he have gotten to all of the alcohol that you drank?”
I loved Frank, but sometimes he was just a little slow on the uptake.
“The alcohol must have just been a trigger. The pill itself must have been the cause,” I said.
“I don’t understand, Howard. Is that even possible?” he asked.
“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” I replied, as a smile found my face.
Frank understood immediately that time. In chorus, we said, “Let’s go ask him!”
25
“You sure this is the right place?” Frank asked me as we pulled up to the building that housed Gerald’s pharmacy.
“Positive,” I said.
“This place, right here?” Frank pointed to the front door. “The sign over the door says GE Heating and Air.”
I looked at the sign. I looked at the building to the left and the building to the right. I looked behind me at the stores across the street. “I swear this is the place, Frank. That sign said Evan’s Pharmacy the last time I was here.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t now,” he said as he also looked at the surrounding buildings. “What should we do?”
&n
bsp; I opened the door to the car and got out without answering Frank. I heard him say, “How ‘bout we go inside?” just before I closed the door.
“Hey, wait up,” he said.
Frank reached the front door of the place just as I was walking through it. There were a number of heating units, parts, and accessories strategically placed throughout the store. I noticed that the place was about half the size that it used to be. There was a door on the back wall that said “Please Ring Bell before Entering Shop Area.” To the left of the entrance, the area that used to be empty, sat a woman behind a desk within a glass-enclosed office. She noticed us when we came in and got up to offer her assistance.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” she asked, when she came through her office door.
“Uh, yes, I said. We’re looking for a pharmacy that used to be right here. I was just here about two weeks ago and there was a pharmacy here. Do you know where it moved to?”
The woman raised her brows and long wrinkles appeared across her forehead. “Sir, my husband and I have had an HVAC business at this location for the past 10 years. There has never been a pharmacy here that I know of. Before we moved in here, this place was a hardware store, I believe.”
I turned toward Frank. “I swear this is the place, man. This has got to be the place.”
He shrugged his shoulders at me.
“Can you tell me what the GE stands for on the sign?” It couldn’t have been a coincidence that they were the initials for Gerald Evans.
“Sure, my husband is Eric and my name is Gina. We just used our initials to name the business. Are you sure you are in the right building? So many of these old places look alike, you know?”
“Well, maybe I have the address wrong. Do you have a recent phone book I could look at?”
“Sure, I’ll be right back,” she answered as she went into her office and started to look through her desk drawers.
I turned back toward Frank. “Look at this.” I handed him Gerald Evans’s business card. “It says right here 3255 SE Vodone Drive. This is where we are. That’s the number.” I pointed to the glass above the entrance that had the address number on it. It was clearly 3255 printed backwards.
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