The Safety Expert

by Doug Richardson

“Definitely?”

  “Damn right.”

  “So I should believe you.”

  “Not lyin’, dude. Swear.”

  Woody was nodding like a bobble-head doll on a bumpy road. As Stew mockingly began to mimic Woody, he laughed softly, then circled around the chair and began to slowly peel the duct tape away. This triggered an uncontrollable giggle in Woody as he witnessed his left arm being freed from the armrest.

  “Thank you,” squeaked Woody. “Thank you, thank you, thank you...”

  Woody didn’t need help ripping away the tape that bound his right arm. His left hand made quick work of it, peeling the sticky fabric from his skin and chair.

  Laughter, being an infectious by-product of broken tension, caused Stew to join in. He even held out a friendly hand to take the tacky ball of silver tape from Woody.

  “Thanks,” said Woody.

  “No problem,” said Stew with a wink.

  Stew hustled back to his new Ford F-250 Super Duty, coolly returning his sunglasses to his face and pulling the brim of his hat down low. He lingered for a minute in the cab, made a few meaningless scribbles on a clipboard for appearance’s sake, then slowly backed out of the driveway onto the street.

  Four blocks north of Woody’s, Stew found a wooded lane and pulled over to the shoulder. To any casual observer, looky-loo, or dog walker, Stew would have appeared to be any old subcontractor who had stopped his pickup to check his tire pressure or tie down the contents in his truck bed. This was exactly how Stew wanted to appear. Ordinary. Part of the fabric that made up the average suburban background. He pretty much knew nobody would be watching him closely enough to see him pull off the stolen license plates he had acquired only hours before staking out Woody’s home. Once again, the new truck sported chrome-framed dealer advertisements that read: I Got Mine from Galpin Ford!

  Stew was certain that nothing in his actions betrayed the slightest hint to the truth of his circumstances. It was a sick truth that some poor soul would eventually discover when looking in on the reclusive private detective. It would either be a home-care practitioner, nursing specialist, or cleaning lady who spoke little English beyond, “How are you today, Mr. Woody?”

  Whomever it would be and whenever that hour or day would come, it would be as if they had drawn an unlucky lottery ticket. They would first scour the house, then both yards, front and rear, calling out Woody’s name until they thought to look into the barren pool. At the bottom they would find the body of the four-hundred-pound paraplegic, twisted around the mechanical wreckage of what must have once been a very cool wheelchair.

  After Stew kicked the stolen plates into the storm drain, he climbed back into his truck and sucked back five quick hits from his Super Big Gulp. The ice had melted and the brew had warmed to car temperature. The kick, though, remained strong enough and finished with a slightly watered-down tingle.

  Gotta love that Jack and Coke.

  Stew was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. Even more surprised he hadn’t heard of the trick before, considering the hours he had spent in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Pull into the nearest 7-11. Grab a Super Big Gulp cup. Load the cup with ice, then fill it halfway with Coke or Pepsi. Strap on a lid and straw. Pay. Back at the car, pop the glove box. Then dump a fresh pint or two of Jack Daniels into the mix. Perfect. And who the hell would be the wiser?

  Stew sipped as he drove on. Next, he slid the Super Big Gulp into the F-250’s much-improved cup holder and fumbled a bit with Woody’s BlackBerry. He carefully scrolled the phone book until the cursor landed on Benjamin Keller. He pressed the autodial feature and placed the mobile device to his ear. After four rings came an answer:

  “Hey, Wood-man,” said Ben, sounding quite cheerful.

  Stew only listened. One hand on the phone, the other on the steering wheel as he searched for the freeway on-ramp that would deliver him from the community of Chatsworth.

  “Woody?” asked Ben again, before pausing for a count of three. “Listen man. This must be a lousy connection. Wanna try me again?”

  And Ben hung up.

  Stew stuck the BlackBerry between his legs, took another juicy hit from the Super Big Gulp, swung a hard left across traffic onto a busy freeway on-ramp, then joined a line of eleven cars waiting for a green light and the chance to merge. He returned to the mobile phone’s directory. There were two telephone numbers listed under Ben’s name. One was a mobile number, the other categorized as work. Stew autodialed again. This time, the phone rang only once.

  “Safety First,” answered Josie, neglecting to check the caller ID before answering.

  “Yes,” said Stew, his lips catching up with his imagination. “I’m looking to speak with Ben Keller.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Keith.”

  “Yes, sir. Does Mr. Keller know what this regards?”

  “Er, no,” stumbled Stew. Realizing he had dialed without a glimmer of a plan, Stew thought of just hanging up. Instead, he thought maybe the best defense would be a stronger offense. So he asked her a question.

  “Safety First,” saved Stew. “And what exactly do you do there at—”

  “Safety First?” finished Josie. “We’re a consulting firm. I’m sorry. Did you give me your last name?”

  “I apologize. My name is Keith. Keith Daniels.”

  “What can we do for you, Mr. Daniels?”

  “I was just wondering if there was a way I could get some information”

  “On our services?”

  “Exactly,” said Stew, his voice trailing as he suspected the tapping he heard was Josie keying the name “Keith Daniels” into her database in order to do a proper search.

  “We have a website that pretty much describes our services,” she said. “It’s w-w-w-dot-safety-first-consulting-dot-com. Would you like me to spell that?”

  “Think I can handle that, darlin’,” said Stew, deciding to turn on the charm.

  “And who are you with?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What company or organization do you represent?”

  “I’m sorry,” Stew lied. “But I’m in a bad cell area connection. Can I call you right back?”

  Before Josie could answer, Stew cut her off, clicking the red end button and tossing the phone to the seat. Then as hunger nibbled at his insides, he wondered what Pam had in store for dinner. Of if she would be in the mood for eating out. Strange, thought Stew. He was in the mood for something hot and Chinese.

  Five minutes was all it took.

  The rare nights Ben dried Betsy’s after-bath hair were some of his most mentally productive. As little Betsy sat on the floor, towel curled over her shoulders, having conversations with her menagerie of Polly Pockets, miniature farm animals, and Fisher Price family, Ben would brush her hair with one hand, the blow dryer in the other. All the while, Betsy would arrange the toys like pieces in a three-dimensional chess game that only she knew how to play.

  She was in her world. And Ben was in his.

  Here, he would risk-assess. Be it calculations on vision safety for drill-press operators in the Glendora factory he had walked through last month, or the astronomical odds that the Taiwan-built blow dryer in his left hand would explode into sparks and flames. Ben would crunch, divide, weigh, and quietly stress the numbers that would determine if an activity was safe or not.

  He wondered why the numbers came more easily during the five minutes it took to dry Betsy’s hair. Was it the white-noise drone of the blow dryer mixed with Betsy’s tiny voice whispering words into the heads of her miniature playmates? Or the linear way the strands of Betsy’s hair miraculously aligned as the brush cleaned out the tangles? No matter, thought Ben. The numbers came. They were as much formulaic as they were instinctive. And sometimes they were alarming.

  Ben assessed the risks of his actions that day.

  Odds that his car would have drifted left versus right? One to one. Risk? Negligible.

  Odds on Ben actually having t
he gumption to knock on the door of Stew’s house? Three to one. Risk? Ben was an unknown to Pam. Negligible.

  Odds of Stew coming home while Ben was in the house? Twenty-five to one. Risk? Unknown because...

  Odds of Stew recognizing Ben from the day Ben posed as an OSHA inspector? Three to one. Risk? Probable. After all, Stew was a murderer.

  Odds that Pam knew Stew was a murderer? A hundred to one. Ben’s estimations had everything to do with his impressions of Pam, the coziness and warmth of the home she had made with Stew, the pictures of the happy couple framed in silver and wood. Add in Pam’s hopes of adopting a child and the odds elevated. Ben couldn’t imagine Pam raising a child with a killer, let alone bedding down with one. Risk to Pam? Minimal short-term. But long-term?

  Odds that Pam would one day discover Stew was a murderer? Ben figured four to one over a twenty-year term. The short-term was more of a maybe. That’s because Ben was the question mark in the equation. With that assessment, Ben experienced a sudden sense of power.

  It was weird too, that it was all tied directly to his foolhardy and patently unsafe morning. Every second Ben had stood inside Stew’s house, he felt enmity. How dare the monster that snuffed out the lives of his wife and children live in such comfort? With such a sweet and beautiful woman? Consider raising children?

  Yet Ben also felt a simultaneous sense of his own destiny. A strangely comfortable place within his own skin that was beyond any calculation. It reminded Ben of the foolish invincibility that adolescent boys often feel.

  Foolish invincibility that gets boys killed.

  “Ben?” asked Betsy.

  “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “Nina says I’m not big enough to sit in the front seat.”

  “Well, how much do you weigh?”

  “Four, eight, and then another eight.”

  “You mean forty-eight.”

  “The thing in your and Mommy’s bathroom says a four, then an eight then another eight.”

  “Oh,” said Ben. “Forty-eight point eight pounds.” That’s almost forty-nine. That means you’re getting big.”

  “How old do I need to be to be safe?”

  “Depends on the kind of car, does the air bag turn off or not, stuff like that.”

  “What’s a hair bag?”

  “Air bag.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s like a big pillow that blows up in case the car gets in an accident.”

  “Your car or Mommy’s car?”

  “Both our cars.”

  The conversation stalled as Ben checked Betsy’s hair to see if there were any strands left to dry. Betsy continued the chess game with her miniatures, hardly forgetting her original question.

  Meanwhile...

  Odds of stumbling into Pam in the supermarket? Three hundred to one. This was where the risks divided. And risks to whom? Ben or Pam? Direct dangers to Pam could be slid across Ben’s mental bulletin board and subdirected under its own heading: Risks to Pam. But the dangers to Ben just got more complicated. After one encounter with Stew’s wife, he might have been quickly forgotten. A memory as disposable as a used Kleenex. But a supermarket helping of Ben within an hour of their introduction, followed by an invitation from Pam to sit down for lunch? A connection had been made. Names exchanged.

  You gave her your goddamn card, moron!

  Ben could easily imagine Stew returning home from a day at work and inquiring if anybody had called about the house for sale. Pam would surely mention the nice man who had stopped by.

  Or would she? The answer was unknown.

  Unknowns weren’t viewed favorably in Ben’s mental game of Safety versus Risk. Unknowns demanded deeper investigation. Unknowns led to accidents. Unknowns got people hurt, even killed.

  “Am I, Ben?” asked Betsy.

  “Are you what?”

  “Big enough for the front seat?”

  “Not just yet.”

  “When?”

  “When you weigh eighty pounds.”

  “Do you weigh eighty pounds?”

  “Yes, sweetie. A lot more.”

  “So when I’m a grown-up?”

  “Sooner,” said Ben, switching off the blow dryer. “All done. Teeth, jammies, then stories. Let’s beat those feet, puddin’ face.”

  “I’m not your puddin’ face. I’m your Betsy.”

  Betsy up and disappeared into her closet to search for the perfect pair of pajamas.

  Ben reviewed his conclusions or lack thereof.

  Unknowns: The risks Ben took spending another day living in both the present and past. The risks to Betsy, her sisters, and her mother as long as he continued to pick at his twelve-year-old scar. Risks of action, whatever the hell form that would take.

  Known: The world was unsafe with Stew Raymo living in it.

  “Hello. My name is Stew. And I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Hi, Stew,” answered twenty-odd former abusers. Their not-quite-unified voices echoed through the sanctuary of the small North Hollywood church. It was five minutes after eight on a Monday morning and the light filtering in through the stained glass landed squarely on a loose circle of folding chairs filled by men and women who smelled of fresh, hot coffee and stale cigarettes.

  Stew began to sweat. He must have shared a hundred times in his clean years. It was his turn to give of himself, reveal his fears and weaknesses to drugs and alcohol, relent to his higher power, relate the experience to the others present, and in return, find fortification in his comrades’ unending support. So why the hell were there beads of sweat on his forehead to go with the words stuck in his throat? Was it guilt? Two weeks before he had admitted to falling off the wagon to fistfuls of whiskey and cola. And sure enough, his fellow alcoholics had rallied behind him. Pam was even there as a witness. All was good and well underneath the skin of Stew Raymo.

  So why wouldn’t all be good that day in the shadow of a Church of Christ altar swathed in sheets of white rayon to keep off the dust? The answer didn’t come to Stew. At least not soon enough to keep him from shaking his head and bolting from his chair, nearly kicking it over as he twisted up the aisle and between the pews, headed like a bee-stung goat toward the double exit doors.

  Stew was halfway into his shiny pickup truck when he heard the voice call after him.

  “Stew! Hold it up, pal!”

  Of course, Stew knew the voice. It had a ruddy face to match its timbre and more sand than the Mojave Desert.

  “Whatever’s goin’ on, you don’t have to share it,” said Big Tony, Stew’s AA sponsor. “You know you got me, right?”

  “I gotta get back to my site.”

  “Sure you do. But you had another forty-five minutes blocked out for our thing, right? So let’s go grab a doughnut and hear about the lump in your throat.”

  Big Tony Burns, a retired San Pedro longshoreman who now coached football at his high school alma mater, gimped around to the passenger side of Stew’s pickup and hauled himself in, arthritic hip and all. Big Tony wasn’t taking no for answer.

  “You’re an asshole,” said Stew to possibly the only man he had ever truly respected. “Name your doughnut.”

  “Glazed ol’ fashioned,” said Big Tony. “And no place servin’ fruitcake coffees, neither. Colorful as I get is black like my sister.”

  Big Tony Burns, born and raised on the suburban slopes of Burbank overlooking the flight patterns of the Bob Hope Airport, spent four years on the east coast where he played Division 1-AA football for Central Connecticut State. It was there he learned to love Dunkin’ Donuts and the inky coffee they served to complement their daily lineup of sugary, quick-fried circles of dough. It seemed that in the northeast, there wasn’t a city or town or four corners with a stoplight that didn’t post a Dunkin’ Donuts—for addicts, needy for a fix of sugar and caffeine. For the twenty years that had passed since returning home, Big Tony lamented that there wasn’t a single Dunkin’ Donuts to be found in all of Southern California.

  “Everything’s a latt
e this and a chai-cappuccino frou-frou that. All a buncha crap,” griped Big Tony, settling into a booth at a North Hollywood Winchell’s. “And do you know how much those assholes charge for a twenty-five cent cup of Joe? Three dollars, four dollars. Robbery, right? Criminals. The whole lot of ’em.”

  “This is where we sat,” Stew remembered. “You and me. Before my first meeting. You went over the steps, man. All twelve. One, two, three... Took fuckin’ forever.”

  “‘Day by day. You and me will get there.’ I said that. I remember, sayin’ that and look. You slipped. So have I. We all do. But you just get back and do it again. Day one, day two.”

  “I’m there, man. You know I’m there.”

  “So what was that about back there in the church?”

  “I dunno,” said Stew, his face screwed into a question mark. “Ever have a thought in your head and you wanna say it, but your brain is like a TV set that can’t stop changing channels?”

  “Sure.”

  “It was like that. Brain kept switchin’ channels on me.”

  “You’re wrestling with somethin’,” said Big Tony. “So relax and wring it out with me.”

  Stew nodded, trying to trust, then placed the heels of his palms against his eye sockets before rubbing his face.

  “Okay...” said Stew. “Amends.”

  “Got some you need to make?”

  “What if...” Stew began, trying to keep the channels straight inside his skull. “What if there was somethin’ you did to somebody else? Somethin’ that you don’t remember doin’ real good. Hard as you try, you just don’t remember much about it.”

  Big Tony knew the answer. He knew Stew knew the answer. Still, he took a moment to make sure Stew could see the question had sunk in.

  “Makin’ amends is about takin’ care of your side of the street. Blackout drunks don’t remember nothin’ they do. But they still gotta take care of business—”

  “I get that,” interrupted Stew. But what if by making this one amends I implicate myself in some kinda crime?”

  “Then you take what comes. You still gotta clean up your side of the boulevard.”

  “But by making this one amends, I injure other people. Like the guys who work for me. They depend on me for their jobs. Or my wife...”