Looking for Garbo

by Jon James Miller

  I pressed the nurse’s call button. Not for Seth but for myself. I had to get to a computer and find that Garbo quote to see if it explained why, in her own words, she would have been on the Athenia in the first place. The words that would help me believe that Seth’s story about his Nazi run-in onboard the ocean liner was more than an old man’s wishful thinking. Garbo’s words were the key, the Holy Grail hiding in plain sight. I pressed the call button again.

  Sarah hurried into our room and saw Seth asleep, the control to his Stryker pain pump in the open palm of his right hand. Initially resistant to pain killers, Seth had been hitting the juice more and more as his condition worsened. I couldn’t imagine what kind of pain would become too much for even an obstinate old fuck like him to ignore.

  “What’s up?” she said to me while checking his IV line and vitals.

  “I need to get on the internet.” I knew it sounded stupid the moment I said it. All I needed was to add, “It’s a matter of life and death,” and I’m sure Sarah would have thrown me out of the hospital herself.

  “It can’t wait?” she said, her lips pressed together like a ref whose call had been challenged. “Until morning?”

  Sarah’s temper obviously wasn’t a hair-trigger like mine. More of a trip wire that I was on the verge of fouling. But finding the Garbo quote now was an emergency. I had to trespass. I had no choice.

  “No.” I held my ground. “I need to find something now.”

  My face flushed under the heat of Sarah’s incendiary glare. I wasn’t usually this high-maintenance, and I hated how uncomfortable I felt in this new role. I made an excuse of turning away to look at Seth, asleep, surrounded by his machines. I somehow envied the guy, dying there peacefully. How fucked up was that?

  “The family resource room is closed,” she said in a controlled voice.

  Sarah and I hadn’t talked since our conversation earlier in the day. There was something there, something growing between us. I knew that at least. Exactly what, I wasn’t sure. But I was sure that even annoyed, Sarah was more beautiful than any woman I’d ever laid eyes on before. I imagined how hot she’d look screaming at me, and didn’t think I’d have long to wait.

  “Let me see what I can do,” she said.

  Huh? I looked back up at her in time to see her turn her back and leave the room. “Thanks,” I said, but she was already gone.

  Women had always been a mystery, but Sarah … well, she was something altogether new. Maybe it was because I was vulnerable. Unemployed. Injured. Hospitalized. Maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there, reading into every nuanced movement and glance what I wanted to see. Yes, we’d flirted, and I seemed to get under her skin. But, in reality, I was just another guy checking her out. At least I wasn’t a nipple gazer. At least I wasn’t an asshole like Martin. And at least it looked like she was taking me seriously. Nobody since my mom had given a shit about what I thought or said, and here this beautiful woman was going out of her way to help me. Lend me a hand. Actually listen to me.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I kidded myself that Sarah and I were simpatico. I wanted us to be thick as thieves. Bonnie and Clyde-style. They were made for each other. Except those two had been shot to death under a hail of bullets by the cops. But who was I to quibble over destiny? At least they had gone out together.

  Our room darkened with the setting sun. I looked over and watched the shadows on Seth’s face grow and deepen with the failing light. Gone was the natural amber fill-light that had given his flesh some life. His cheekbones grew more pronounced under the fluorescents above his bed. Now he looked like a jaundiced sculpture made of inanimate limestone. Seth appeared more skull and skeleton than skin.

  My lungs constricted, and I tried to swallow. I suddenly realized I didn’t want Seth to die. And not just because of his Garbo story. No, I was even more craven and selfish than that. I didn’t want him to die because I didn’t want to be left alone again. I was just awakening to the realization that Seth and I had more in common than just a love of Garbo, and now I didn’t want him to walk out on me before Garbo’s big scene was over.

  I didn’t want to be left behind to watch the end alone. Not again.

  Garbo had played Mata Hari, the famous World War I German spy who was caught and executed by the French. The film ended with Garbo being led out to a rifle range, though the actual execution was never seen. The mere sound of rifle fire over black was enough to make movie audiences in the early 1930s tremble. Then silence.

  Seth’s silence was now deafening. Made more so by all the blinking machines surrounding him. I wondered how many other hearts and minds these same machines had monitored, blaring their life-and-death warning signals at the very end like distant rifle fire.

  I considered various excuses to make some noise. Wake the old fart up and get on with the story while he still had time and breath. Instead, I summoned the memory of happier times. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do to turn a frown upside down? Fend off the existential angst of aloneness? I could only conjure up two memories.

  The first was the ghost of a All Hallow’s Eve past. I was five. Encased in a knight’s costume fashioned out of empty liter-sized bottles of Pepsi-Cola. Bolted together with brass fasteners. Sprayed with a metallic finish. Mom must have spent a week fabricating the thing. The final effect was amazingly realistic. I admired myself in the hall full-length mirror and saw Mom’s proud smile reflected in my armor as we headed hand in hand out the front door.

  The second memory was later. More towards the end. Our neighbor had yelled at me for taking our hose and making a pool of their basement. I was terrified the news would be the final blow and kill my mother. Instead, Mom had let out a laugh to wake the dead. The first one heard in our house since she’d been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Old prune-faced neighbor-lady turned and walked away. There was no intimidating my mother when it came to her son.

  “Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke,” Mom had said. Then she’d hugged me, swatted my behind and told me to go over and apologize to the neighbor lady and help her clean her basement. That was the first and last time I ever heard my mother swear.

  “Fuck who?” Seth said.

  I looked over at him. Jesus. His eyes were open and trained on me like a hungry raptor just flown in from some far off place. His ability to step in and out of consciousness without any warning really freaked me out.

  “What?” I tried not to sound too unstable.

  “You said, ‘Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke,’” Seth repeated. “Who?”

  I looked at him with wide-eyed shock. I hadn’t spoken out loud, had I? I reached up and felt the bandage on my head. Goddamn concussion had done more damage than I’d thought.

  I shrugged by way of a comeback. I didn’t want to admit I’d been in my own far-off place, chasing down the past. Some things had to remain secret, or else once-released, their energy would dissipate. Or maybe that was bullshit, and I just didn’t want to talk about endings. Not when he and I were stuck in the middle.

  “Fine, don’t tell me.” Seth shifted in his bed and sent a shock wave through the spider web of wires and tubes attached to his limbs. “Where’s Sarah? I heard her voice.”

  “She was in here, but you were out. Or so I thought.”

  “Just resting my eyes. Plenty of time to sleep later.”

  Seth turned and scrutinized me in a way that made me feel creepy. Like he had the ability to pull off my face and peer into my skull just by looking at me. I’d made the mistake of letting Martin rent space in my head before, and I wasn’t about to have any new tenants. I was all full-up.

  Then again, he wasn’t Martin. He was much smarter. He could fashion his own key made of words. Pretty much go anywhere he wanted. And I didn’t have shit to say about it.

  “What’s wrong with your pecker?” he said.

  “My pecker?” Oh, sweet Mother-of-God, where was he going now?

  “Yeah,” he said. “You know, your tallywhacker. Y
our Johnson.”

  Great. Where was my morphine drip? If I was going to have to suffer through a conversation with Seth focused on my privates, I should at least be as high as he was. Served me right for getting sentimental over the old fuck.

  “Why do you ask?” I could feel my eyebrows slanting at right angles like a pissed-off cartoon character.

  “What does she have to do?” he said, unfazed. “Throw you over her shoulder and carry you home fireman-style for you to get a clue?”

  “What? Who?”

  “Sarah, you moron.” Seth lifted a hand and smacked his own forehead for emphasis. “You need to make a move while we’re all still breathing. God knows I’m not always going to be here to tell you what to do.”

  Christ. Somehow Seth Moseley as my wingman had never entered my head. And once conjured, the accompanying image of the 747 crashing into the terminal from the movie Airport sprung to mind. Except in my version there were flames. Any plane with Seth as co-pilot was destined to crash and burn.

  “Assuming that it is any of your business.” I felt the sharp burn of acid reflux rise in my throat. “Which, it isn’t. I don’t hit on every pretty girl that comes within arm’s reach.”

  Seth stared at me, silent and annoyed save for the ever-present rasp of his shallow breath. A machine whined behind him. “Why the hell not?”

  Then the thought of Martin popped into my head. Seth had quite a few years on him. But when it came to women, they did sound much the same. Maybe Martin and I could switch beds. Then the two degenerates could swap trade secrets on how to bag chicks, and I could get some peace. The thought of being alone—away from both of them—was quite pleasant.

  “I prefer to take a more chivalrous approach,” I declared in my own defense, not quite sure why I bothered. “Now, can we just drop it?”

  Seth smiled at me. A big Cheshire grin stretched from ear to wispy-haired ear. It ate me up. I had somehow given him what he wanted. Again. A window on which to perch and peck at my innerworkings. I didn’t need—or want—a buzzard like him in my brain. Not now, not ever.

  “Oh, I get it,” he said. “Okay, Sir Galahad. Just don’t come crying to me when some Lancelot storms the castle and makes off with Maid Marian while you’re fiddling with your sword.”

  “It’s Guinevere,” I said, unable to control myself. “Maid Marian was with Robin Hood, you asshole.”

  Seth laughed so hard his IV bag jiggled. He wasn’t apt to make a literary mistake out of ignorance and laziness. No, he wasn’t Martin after all. Seth had purposely provoked me in order to outmaneuver me, then hit me where I lived. If this had been a joust, I’d have already been impaled and my noble steed would’ve bolted out from under me to the boos and hisses—and laughter—of the unwashed mob.

  “Okay, sport,” I said. “You’ve had your fun. Can we get back to Garbo now? Please?”

  “Not yet,” he said, wagging a scrawny finger at me. “You have to do something for me first.”

  What in the hell was he bargaining for? Wasn’t it enough to humiliate me? I looked at him, then closed my eyes and waited for the kill shot. Seth took his time, too. Savored the moment. He was so quiet, I thought he’d gone back to sleep. And then he fired at will.

  “A kiss.”

  “What?” I opened my eyes. “You want me to kiss you?”

  “Not me, jackass,” he said. “Her.”

  The creep factor was off the charts. The morphine was definitely bringing out the pervert in him. Well, he’d have to get his yucks somewhere else. Debasing myself was one thing, but Sarah was off-limits.

  “I’m not gonna kiss Sarah in front of you.” I flushed with outrage.

  “Not in front of me.” He hit the button on his morphine pump. “Unless you need me to show you a few pointers.”

  Seth was having a heigh-ho time pushing my buttons along with the pain pump. Too bad the thing had an automatic shut off before an overdose could occur.

  “No,” I said, adamant.

  “Have to take your word for it then,” he said. “Just keep in mind. I can tell if you’re lying.”

  “You’re one sick fuck,” I said. “You know that?”

  “It’s just one little kiss. You’re making too big a deal out of it.”

  Too big a deal? Wow. A first kiss was something sacred. Heat spread over my cheeks as I realized I’d already written the whole scene. We were in some kind of meadow situation. In springtime or maybe autumn. Sarah and I would be alone, lounging on a blanket after a picnic I’d planned special for the occasion. Maybe a little drunk off Champagne after toasting to the first time we met.

  “Sometime today, Romeo,” Seth’s voice broke in just as I was leaning in toward Sarah’s plump lips.

  “I’m not going to ruin things with Sarah,” I said. “Just so you can get your kicks.”

  “Good thing no one’s relying on you to perpetuate the species,” he said. Seth lifted his hands up to form a cone through which to bellow. “We’d die out before you got to first base.”

  “Hey,” I said, “keep it to a dull roar.”

  Seth brought two fingers to his mouth and shhh’d himself. “What makes you think you’d ruin things, anyway?” he whispered.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I pointed a finger at him as if disciplining a dog who’d just stolen a bun off the dinner table. “Because I’m not going to do it. Not now.”

  “You have no choice,” he said with a drug-induced lilt in his voice. “You have to storm the castle if you want Garbo.”

  Blackmail. Seth knew just how to get what he wanted. If I didn’t comply, I wouldn’t have anything to offer Sarah by way of my own success. He knew I needed Garbo. But what did he gain from forcing my hand with Sarah? What the hell was he trying to prove exactly?

  Sarah walked back into our room. Seth and I both turned to look at her. Seth’s pupils had been dilated because of the pain killers. Mine were blown out over my natural attraction to her. Attraction and fear. She gazed steadily from one to the other of us, her own eyes full of suspicion. Had she overheard our conversation?

  “Gentleman,” she said and rested her hands on her fabulous hips, “you look like two cats sharing a canary. What’s going on in here?”

  I glared at Seth out of the corner of my eye. Willed him to keep his trap shut. I was ready to launch myself across to his bed and suffocate him if he said anything about the kiss. Or just about anything else for that matter.

  “Oh, nothing,” Seth said with glee. “Just telling James here about a girlfriend I had who was allergic to duck semen.”

  My jaw dropped open. What the hell? “Come again?”

  “It was our first date,” he said. “We went out to a little private fishing hole I knew, and I talked her into skinny-dipping. The next thing I knew, she was covered in welts. She ran home screaming bloody murder.” Seth smiled at me and laughed. “Found out later the pond was full of duck semen. She was allergic to the stuff.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “And you never saw each other again.”

  “No. We got married.”

  I shook my head and quietly questioned my own inner duck. I really didn’t know shit about women.

  “You were married?”

  “You find that surprising?”

  Of course, I did. Seth was one of the most annoying people I’d ever met in my entire life. And the thought of a woman willing to be his wife was beyond comprehension. Not that I would ever say that to him. Probably not.

  “Where is she now?” Sarah said.

  “Helen has been gone five years.”

  Sarah laid her hand on Seth’s and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m glad she passed.” He looked up and gave her a small smile. “Before our son.”

  Seth had a wife and son, both gone. He’d never uttered a word of any of this before. Not that I had asked. Our phone conversations had revolved around famous people. People and events he’d covered for the tabloids. Never anything personal.
We were very much alike in that way.

  “What did he die of?” I said. “Your son.”

  “Drugs.” Seth looked away. “We’d become strangers long before that. Strangers with the same last name.”

  I was compelled to say something, anything. Seth getting so personal made me squirm. I wanted to change the subject, anything to ward off an intense feeling in my gut. Stuff back down the emotion I felt rising in my throat. Sarah saved me before I had the chance to do what I usually did in such situations, which was to insert foot into mouth.

  “I’m sorry, but will you excuse us, Seth?” Sarah began removing my IV. When she was done, she fished a solitary silver key from her pocket. “James and I have a date in the resource center.”

  I looked at the sparkly metal object as if hypnotized. Seth giggled, then clapped a hand over his mouth. The game was afoot. I was terrified. Why did women scare me so?

  Seth burst out laughing. “Have fun storming the castle.”

  Sarah looked at me, uncomprehending. I so wanted to counter with a snappy rejoinder. Something smooth and ingratiating like, “How high is this guy, right?” followed by a wink and a nod. Instead, I shrugged and smiled like a fucking idiot. God. Help. Me.

  Sarah unlocked the door. The resource room was dark and deserted. We sat in front of the lone computer workstation, and she fired up the old Mac. She wanted to keep the overhead lights off so as not to arouse unwanted attention. I wanted them off so she couldn’t tell how much I was sweating.

  We didn’t speak while we waited for the Internet to come on-line. When the Google homepage popped up, Sarah and I both reached out for the mouse. Our hands touched. I recoiled and let her take the controls.

  “Sorry,” she said. “You do it.”

  “No, please,” I said too loudly. “You do it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “What are we looking for?”

  I told her to type in “Garbo” comma “Hitler.” She did and hit the return key. A list of about a gazillion fan sites dedicated to the movie queen came up in the web search.