by John Oakes
Did Monica know that most of the estate was coming to him? No. She couldn't know.
She was trying to figure it all out, though. And Cody was suspect numero uno.
Monica stood up from her chaise, set her drink on the deck and kicked off her heels. Toned muscles flared in her thighs as she descended the small ladder slowly into the water. She moved toward him in three smooth frog kicks. Unexpectedly, she threw her arms around Cody's neck to hold herself up. Her hands clasped the back of this neck and she propped herself up on his chest with her elbows.
"I don't think you are lying, Cody. I think you're not telling me the truth." She paddled her feet softly and her body rose in the water. "Not the whole truth anyway."
She smelled like flowers and cinnamon and some other powerful intoxicant he could not put a finger on. Her fragrance was not overpowering like that of a great aunt. She smelled...delicious.
Her lively green eyes were very close to his.
She had green eyes. He'd never noticed that before. Cody felt an urge to...no. No dammit! It was all a game to her! He would not be her plaything!
Cody tried to mentally restrict all blood flow below his waist and center his mind, for as much good as that did. He had to go on the offensive.
"Why didn't you live with my Grampa? He said you just didn't like the ranch. Is that the whole truth?" It was the best he could do, but when you are playing with a pro, just getting your ball back across the net was victory.
"We got the house in Dallas because the West is for a different breed of Texan. Forgetting that San Angelo is a burning shit hole, its environs were rather beautiful. But I missed the shopping, the nightlife. I missed my friends. So, no I didn't love the ranch. It was too far from all the things I liked doing. After the first few months, he seemed to want to spend more and more of his time there. After that first year, he stayed at the ranch more often than not. I tried to entice him, guilt trip him even, but he just made excuses. He never complained that I preferred Dallas. It was a case of 'city mouse' and 'country mouse,' plain and simple."
She released Cody's neck and moved to the side of the pool to grab her drink. Cody reached for his as well. She hung on the side and drank deeply.
"So there you have it, Your Honor. The simple boring truth."
"And you never...were false to him?"
"Ha-ha. Oh Cody. You are joking right. Now it's time to step off that high horse once again. I know you worshipped him. But dammit, you know what he was like." She drank deeply again. "What was I supposed to think, Cody? Rich old man suddenly doesn't want to see his wife much anymore? Alert the cable news outlets! But me? He didn't want me?" She laughed derisively.
"Look at me. How was I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to make of that?" Cody took that as a confession of sorts. Her hurt was plain.
"And when you found out he was sick?"
Monica's green eyes grew cool. She swam to the ladder and stepped out of the pool. Cody pushed himself up, got a foot on the deck and stood straight up. He watched Monica lay back on the chaise. Her movements were uncertain, and the setting sun showed the goose bumps on her skin.
"I'll get us a couple of towels," Cody said, and walked inside.
Turning back from the linen closet he saw Monica glistening in the doorway across the open living room. She started across the floor, back in her heels. Her body glistened as she stalked across the room like a slightly wobbly runway model. Cody stepped forward to meet her. He unfurled a towel and draped it around her shoulders.
"Such a gentleman. Just like him."
Cody thought he saw sadness in her eyes.
"You look so much like him. I saw pictures from when he was young. Looked the spitting image of you, or you him I s'pose." Her polished drawl was gone for a moment, replaced by the Tulsa twang she must have grown up with.
"'Cept you are just a bit taller, aren't you. And you have those big brown eyes."
She reached up to brush his wet hair back with her fingers. Her hand rested on his cheek. "I can barely reach all the way up there. You are so much taller standing right up close to you." He smelled cinnamon. He saw glittering green eyes and red lips. He imagined what must lay beneath that towel, all wet and shivering.
Then he remembered. She thought he had all the money.
Cody stepped away to the patio and came back with their drinks. He finished his as he walked.
He needed to get her the hell out of there.
She was blocking the small steps up to the kitchen. So he set the glasses down on the coffee table.
"So it's been great catching up." Cody rubbed his hands together. "Maybe we can do it again. Some other time."
"How about you get me something to warm me up while I use your shower?"
Without waiting for Cody's answer, Monica grabbed his hands. She began to walk backwards toward the kitchen and the hallway beyond that led to the bathroom.
"Maybe you could just show me how to turn it on."
"Beg pardon?"
Monica's eyes were latched onto his. Her cheeks were flushed. She kept guiding him backward.
Cody screamed in his head for himself to stop. But like falling in a dream, he was helpless.
Monica suddenly lurched backward and squealed. She clutched Cody's hands even harder as she fell, bringing him down on top of her. Her back landed on the edge of the top step leading into the kitchen. Cody landed on her knee, testicles first. He tried to raise himself off of her, but stopped and groaned loudly as he felt the growing, crippling pain spread up his lower abdomen. He drove his face into her shoulder in agony. Monica slapped and grabbed Cody's back, writhing in pain herself.
"OOOOAAAAAAAAHRRGHHH. Goddam stairs!" she exclaimed through gritted teeth. "My ankle." She let out another moan of pain.
Cody wanted to roll off her. But he was between her legs and didn't know which ankle was hurt. He blew three quick breaths trying to make the pain go away. Monica grunted and slapped his shoulder to get him off. He was in a great deal of pain but tried to get on one knee to begin extricating himself from this position. He stopped when another wave of pain swept over him.
"Mr. Latour? Hello?"
A knock at the open door.
Two steps. Heels on marble.
"Mr. Latou—oh my god!" Cody turned his head over his shoulder toward the startled voice.
Kelly Carson was standing in the entryway. She threw a file folder up in front of her face. "I'm so sorry. The housekeeper told me to find you here. I'm so, so sorry."
Monica moaned again in pain.
Cody wrestled himself to his feet as quickly as possible. He shuffled to the door sideways, half bent over in his wet swim trunks and clutching his lower abdomen.
"Ms. Carson!" he cried out. But Kelly was already stalking across the lawn back to the rear of the main house. He hobbled after her as best he could.
"Ms. Carson!"
Finally, she turned back and waited as he made his way to her, wincing and grunting in pain.
"I'm sorry," Cody said. "That wasn't what it...she fell...and..."
Kelly still held the file folder up, half obscuring her vision.
"I...I...it's none of my...I'm sorry."
She dropped the folder an inch.
"Are you ok?"
Cody slumped down to the grass on his hands and knees and began to be sick.
"Oh God. What's wrong?"
"I...huaghchuhh...She fell and I feluuughchhhhuuhh...caught me in the baaaa...in the baaaa....baaaaahhhhhuaghch." Cody finished retching and rolled over in the grass next to his puddle. He let out a sigh and then groaned again holding his crotch. He had never been cracked in the nuts that hard all his life.
"Unbelievable," was all he could manage to say.
Kelly ran around to the side without puke in the grass and knelt next to him.
"What happened? Are you ok?"
"Not what you think. She's my grandmother...step-grandmother."
"Mr. Latour. Do you need me to call an ambulance? Ar
e you hurt? Are you overdosing?"
Overdosing? Cody wanted to explain that he'd been kneed in the balls by his step-grandmother who was trying to seduce him for his grandfather's money that she suspected he had. But "Why are you here?" was the best he could muster.
"The other day, you left before I got a chance to have you sign the memorandum of understanding. About the conditions of your inheritance."
"Why did you come here?"
"I just thought...I didn't feel great about yesterday. I was in the neighborhood and didn't want to make you come in for it."
Cody began to laugh. Then pain forced him to stop. He breathed deep. "Ms. Carson...." Cody suddenly remembered that it was impolite to talk to a lady while clutching his testicles. He released them and instead kneaded his aching abdomen.
"Perhaps we could discuss this another time. I'm currently somewhat indisposed."
"Yes, of course."
Cody looked up at Kelly, her blond hair illuminated by the setting sun, hanging down around her face. She brushed it back behind one ear.
She was cute as a button.
Cody stopped his hands from moving back to his balls.
"Are you sure I can't get you anything?"
"Nope. Nope." Cody rolled to his side, bent and broken, his face in the perfect grass. "Thank you for coming. I look forward to our next meeting. Now please, leave me here to die."
Chapter Seven
Confused Testicles
"No! A Hemi V-8 would absolutely beat a Lexus off the blocks."
Cody woke with a jerk.
His hand hurt. A dull throbbing hurt.
"He's awake," TR said in a whisper that could have knocked over a barn.
Jason jumped up from his chair beneath a long, interior window and threw his magazine down.
"Hey bubba! Hey big man!" Jason rubbed Cody's side as if he were a prize shih-tzu.
"Hey. Whaaa..." Cody fought with the low clouds fogging his mind. He looked at his right hand for the source of the pain he felt. There was a needle stuck in it with a piece of tape on top of the needle. It was all connected to an IV tube. He jerked his wrist and found it was handcuffed to the bed.
Handcuffs?
A nurse came in, pulled back the curtain that surrounded his bed and prodded him all over, asking if he felt her pressure. Cody could now see out the exterior window that had been blocked by the curtain. It was dark outside.
"Why am I in these things?" Cody's voice was raspy. He jangled the handcuffs.
"I don't have all the details," the nurse said. "The policeman told us we could take it off, but I left it on because it kept you from reaching for your crotch in your sleep. At least with that hand."
"Policeman?"
"You aren't being arrested."
"What am I not being arrested for?"
"Not sure." The nurse shrugged. "I heard the cops found you in a car, passed out grabbing your...your bits."
The nurse held fingers up, asked him his name, the year, the president.
"Of what?" It occurred to Cody at that moment that there were lots of presidents in the world.
"Of America."
"Oh. Barack Hussein Obama," Cody said mechanically.
When she left, Cody laid his head back and counted the spots in the ceiling tiles. Then he jerked up.
"Hey call the nurse back. I wanna change my answer. I got Saddam and Obama mixed up."
Did he have brain damage? How could that happen from getting knee'd in the nuts?
"What happened, Cody?" TR asked. Then he put a hand to his orange puff vest and began speaking slowly and loudly. "I'm TR. Tommy Ray Gustafson. Do you remember me? I'm your best friend."
It was all coming back in small flashes now: the police, coming to in the ambulance, the masks and questions and ministrations.
"He doesn't have amnesia, moron." Jason cuffed TR hard in the arm. Then to Cody he asked, "You don't do you?"
"How would I know?"
"What's you favorite color?" TR asked.
"I don't know," Cody said. It was blue or green or black but he had never in his life been able to decide.
"Oh Jesus!" TR said clutching the sides of his furry head and turning to face the window to the hallway. "Oh Lord Jesus God, bring him back to us!"
"What is your favorite band?" Jason asked with some concern.
What, was he thirteen? Who had a favorite band?
"I don't know." Cody closed his eyes and tried to rub the haze from his mind. The thudding pain in his groin was reawakening quickly.
Jason stood up and wiped a hand down his concerned face. Then he returned to his position, hands perched on Cody's bedside.
"Ok. Let's try this again," Jason said with a forced smile.
"What is your favorite food?" TR shot in enthusiastically.
"I dunno." God he was hungry. "Pizza?"
Jason looked to TR for verification.
"What?" TR asked.
"Well, is that his favorite food?"
"I dunno. Everyone likes pizza," TR answered with a shrug.
Jason paced quickly in desperate frustration, hands in his hair. He snapped his fingers.
"I got it!"
He launched himself toward Cody. "Name all the members of the Lord of the Rings...the Fellowship."
Cody shook his head for a moment, mouth agape in frustration. Then, "Gandalf, Boromir, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin."
"Oh thank God," Jason exhaled. He rose up from the bedside again. He and TR hugged and clapped each other on the back.
"Idiots," Cody mumbled beneath his breath.
"Anyone feel like getting pizza?" TR asked.
"You scared the bejeesus outta us," Jason said after turning back to Cody. "TR here was fixin' to have kittens."
"Was not," TR said.
"How do you feel?" Jason asked, retuning to Cody's side.
"Ok I guess." He felt very relaxed all over, except for the pain down south. "Yeah, ok I guess." Cody went to sit up. He winced and gave up.
"No, no man. Don't move." Jason grabbed a white plastic remote attached to Cody's bed. His torso rose as the bed inclined.
"Cool man. Thanks." Cody's head felt a little clearer now sitting up.
"How did you guys get here?"
"Drove," TR said.
Jason shook his head at TR. Then to Cody he said, "I guess Ricky found out somehow."
"Ha. Ricky's special friends," Cody said. "Bastards are all over the place."
"Ricky was here first," Jason said, "but they sedated you after they fiddled with your junk. He had to go to San Angelo. His mama or something, I guess."
Eventually, a short lady in a white coat stepped inside the curtain. She was in her thirties, dark complected, and had shoulder length black hair and glasses.
"Mister Latour? I see you are awake. I'm Dr. Karapali, if you'll remember. How are you feeling?"
She had a funny accent. Indian maybe? Like from India? He recognized it clearly from somewhere in the fog of the previous hours.
"I feel ok thanks."
"That is good to hear. Mr. Latour, you came into the hospital by ambulance. You were slightly tachycardic and going in and out of consciousness. I treated you to stabilize your heart rate and breathing and then I performed a procedure on your testicles."
"Did you have to take 'em off, Doc?" Jason inquired.
"Was it a ballectomy?" TR asked.
Cody looked to his groin with alarm. Had Monica destroyed his testicles for once and all?
"No, no. But your testes are highly contused. I had to lance your scrotum to relieve a fluid build up."
Jason snorted and tried to hide his face.
"Hear that Cody?" TR asked. "You got confused testicles is all."
Jason bit his lip, and squeezed his eyes shut. His shoulders were bouncing up and down, and he was stifling all his laughter except for a high whine emitting from his nose.
"So the police found me?"
"Yes. An officer found you pass
ed out at the wheel at a busy intersection. He said you were tilted over in the seat grabbing your testicles and moaning."
Jason's laughter could not be contained anymore and he barked out. Dr. Karapali's professional demeanor broke, somewhat startled at first, then amused. Then she tried to go on seriously, while Jason cackled next to her.
"The police officer wasn't sure if he was going to charge you with drunk driving –
Dr. Karapali broke off and bit her lip, as she stifled her own laughter. "...or with lewd behavior..."
Jason had tears streaming down his face now. TR was laughing too. The giggles grew until all three of them were openly howling with laughter at him.
"You know," she continued, "because you were shirtless and grabbing your testes...right there in the road." Dr. Karapali put a petite hand to her mouth and continued to titter. Jason and TR were nearly breathless.
Dr. Karapali tried to collect herself. "I'm sorry. It must be very unprofessional to laugh at a patient."
"Yeah, well, when you're done yucking it up, can you unchain me?"
"Of course. Your blood screen came back well below the legal limit and I explained to the officer the true reason for your predicament."
"Dickament!" TR hooted and laughed some more.
Cody just shook his head.
Dr. Karapali wiped at her eyes and sighed. "The nurses will take care of you from here. Everything will be fine, but we'll keep you for observation overnight."
"I gotta stay here?"
"I highly recommend it. Please rest as much as you can and take a week or two off of work if possible. Will you need a doctor's note to give your employer?"
"No. No, I think he'll understand."
Chapter Eight
Winton
Cody lay in waking sleep, absorbing the stillness of the morning. He listened to the beeps and whirs that are ever-present in a hospital room, and far away he heard a female voice on an intercom. Eventually, he opened his eyes and looked for a clock, but he couldn't see one from where he lay. The sunlight coming through the window was concealed by the blinds, so he could not get a feel for what time it was. Something caught Cody's eye through the long window between his room and the hallway. It was just an IV trolley moving down the hallway.