by Lee Goldberg
“The Monk?”
“You’re right, still too formal. Call me Chad.”
“Chad?”
This was too much, too fast. I was either still asleep and dreaming this whole encounter or, worse, I was awake and delirious.
Monk leaned into the aisle and whispered, “Chad is more tropical than Adrian, don’t you think?”
“What are you doing here?” I whispered back.
“Going to Hawaii, of course,” he said.
“But you hate to fly.”
He ignored me and nudged the heavyset man sitting beside him. The passenger was wearing a too-tight bowling shirt and plaid Bermuda shorts.
Monk motioned to the man’s breakfast plate. “Are you going to finish that sausage?”
The man shook his head. “It’s too salty and I’m on a restricted diet.”
Monk speared the half-eaten sausage with his fork. “Thanks.”
The man stared at Monk in shock and so did I.
“You’re not going to eat that,” I said in disbelief.
He sniffed the sausage. “It smells good. I think it’s smoked.”
And with that, he chomped half the sausage and offered the remainder to me across the aisle.
“Want the rest?”
I shook my head and pushed his hand away. The sausage fell off the fork and landed on the floor. Monk snatched it up.
“Two-second rule,” he said before plunking it into his mouth.
Now I was convinced that this couldn’t really be happening. I turned to the child in the seat beside me. She was about ten years old and was listening to her iPod.
“Excuse me,” I said.
She pulled out her earphones. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Do you see a man in the seat across the aisle from me?”
She nodded.
“Could you describe him?”
“He’s a white guy wearing a dress shirt that’s buttoned up to his neck and a sport coat,” she said. “Isn’t he going to be awfully hot in Hawaii?”
“What’s he doing?”
She looked past me and giggled. “Sticking his tongue out at me.”
I turned and looked at Monk, who was pulling his mouth open wide with his fingers, wiggling his tongue, and rolling his eyes at the girl.
I swatted him.
“What is the matter with you?” I asked.
I was relieved to know I wasn’t nuts. But that didn’t explain Monk’s bizarre behavior or what he was doing on my flight to Hawaii.
He licked his lips and smacked them a couple of times.
“My mouth is dry,” Monk said and turned to the passenger beside him. “You’re right, that was a salty sausage. I need a drink. You mind?”
He picked up his tray and held it out to the passenger to hold for him. The man took it.
“Thanks.” Monk lifted up his tray table and went down the aisle toward the back of the plane. I looked over my shoulder and saw him taking a drink out of the water fountain.
I bolted out of my seat and hurried down the aisle after him. “Are you insane, Mr. Monk? That’s the deadliest water you can drink.”
“People drink out of water fountains every day.”
“Drinking airplane water is like drinking out of a toilet.”
“Dogs do it without a problem,” Monk said. “Doesn’t kill them. Chill out, hotcakes.”
Hotcakes?
“Mr. Monk,” I said firmly, hoping to get his complete attention. “Are you on something?”
“I thought we agreed you were going to call me Chad.”
“You are on something.”
“It’s a prescription Dr. Kroger gave me once to relieve my symptoms in extreme circumstances.”
“What symptoms?”
“All of them,” he said. “As long as I’m up, I think I’ll use the restroom.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. Wherever we were in San Francisco, he always made me drive him home to go to the bathroom.
“Where else would you suggest I relieve myself?”
He edged past me, opened the restroom door, and went inside. Monk was using a public lavatory. I would never have believed it could happen.
I continued back to the galley and asked the flight attendant for a drink.
“What would you like?” she asked.
“A scotch,” I said.
Monk emerged from the bathroom a moment later, not caring at all that he was trailing a piece of toilet paper from his shoe.
“Better make it two,” I said.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 0bacec66-e150-4096-9e39-ee2fac6ce79b
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 25.6.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.57, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Lee Goldberg
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/