Heartstrings in B-Flat Minor

by Scott Johnson

  Chapter 3

  NO REST FOR THE WEARY

  In the present day, the frigid bus still creaks along Sheridan through overwhelming cold and snow. Sterling opens his eyes. Echoes of talks with Uncle Austin warm him even as the sight of the surrounding snowpack returns. The annoying cell conversations also return behind him.

  Even still, Sterling’s concentration is strong as he thinks of his cousins, now long dead from street violence, and of their pop, Uncle Austin, who finally ran out of luck with a stroke. The idea of being the last of the line hits Sterling. He wonders why he’s never thought of that. More pressure, he thinks with an inward laugh, just what I need.

  The southbound bus abruptly halts. Bitter surroundings fully bring him back to reality, priority one being money troubles that plague him like tinnitus. Yet worse for the moment, the driver reports a transmission problem. Exasperated, the wheelman claims another bus is en route to pick up everyone and take them along their way.

  “Wonderful,” grumbles Sterling.

  Allegedly, the replacement will arrive soon and hopefully with a working heater, says the driver.

  “Sure—don’t bet on that!” exclaims a guy in back.

  The other passengers groan similar expressions of irritation with the CTA. Sterling weighs his options, which include getting off the bus and hoofing it a few blocks. Normally, that would be his no-brainer solution. However, howling wind gusts and swirling snow offer good arguments for staying inside the freezing bus. At least it breaks the wind.

  What am I doing here? wonders Sterling, as anyone would on a day like this. He silently curses Uncle Austin for having led him into a life of crime. Mulling over a career of shady escapades, Sterling inaudibly declares, “Sometimes, I wish good old Uncle Austin had steered me into a different line of work, something to count on—with benefits and a salary.”

  Then again, he misses Uncle Austin so much now that he’s dead and gone. And if anybody could have helped with my current headaches, it would have been him … Well, maybe, maybe not. These aren’t exactly ordinary, garden-variety troubles. And the recession hasn’t helped any, either.

  A possible path to Sterling’s salvation is Sheryl, now just several long city blocks away. She’s come through before when least expected. He hopes for the best once again. Getting antsy, he considers walking. But the bus rocks on its suspension in wind gusts convincing enough for him to vote yes to waiting for the rescue bus. Sterling tries to relax as Uncle Austin always preached. Anyway, he figures, she’s a zombie stew right about now due to jet lag. But that is not a bad thing for his purposes. It is just as he would want it, just as he has planned.

  Sheryl sits at a folding table in her building’s laundry room, no makeup, sorting through accumulated mail as three washers whir with her loads. She’s thinking how lucky she is to have gotten in five hours of uninterrupted sleep on the plane. An ability to sleep on planes has been a saving grace throughout her career, although after all she went through in Cairo and now with everything that’s pending back home, it’s a wonder she slept at all.

  Somehow, for the moment, Sheryl finds laundry-room noises more relaxing than the quiet stillness of her own apartment. It’s a trade-off, with sad vibes of solitude seeming eternal upstairs versus facing up to tasks at hand down in the dungeon. Doing something productive has her blood pumping at least. Besides, she couldn’t find anything to wear. “Have to face that laundry challenge,” she said earlier, finally succumbing despite a low energy level.

  Laundry, though, is not her sole challenge. Far tougher crises remain to be solved, all financial in nature. She can’t help thinking of how not so long ago her condo was paid off, and she had money in the bank, owned a healthy IRA, and was totally debt-free. Not so anymore. Staying put in the laundry room allows her to multitask, sifting through piles of mail without zipping up and down the elevator to push along her laundry. As feared, the pile of mail reveals bill after bill, dunning notice upon dunning notice. Nearly every envelope opened details something from her desperate state of financial affairs. “There will be a solution, right?” she whispers. All she can do is hope and pray.

  However, if Sterling doesn’t come up with most of what he owes her soon, she worries about becoming a street person by spring. She stares ahead blankly, dropping another overdue credit card statement onto the folding table. Sheryl tries pinpointing the exact root of her troubles, the perhaps benign start of it all. “When was it?” She strains her brain, on the brink of breaking down from exhaustion and stress. “How did this all begin, Lord?” The question “how?” echoes over and over again in her skull.

  No relief. Her headache is building. Self-interrogation triggers memories of the summer at the Makeup Is Us plant, her one and only blue-collar experience. “Happier days they were,” she recalls, glorifying the boring job and exciting summer fling that came with it. “Very happy, right?” She sighs. “Weren’t they? Or was I fooling myself with Sterling from the start?” More sighs.

  Maybe not for the first time, she sees the pivotal day that ultimately led to her pile of bills on the folding table; it was toward that particular summer’s end. She recalls the events like a grainy movie projected on the backside of her forehead.

  Sheryl observes Sterling jogging across the parking lot to catch up with her after work. He has missed his bus and needs a ride to the Edison Park train station. It’s not particularly out of the way for Sheryl, so no problem. Driving along, they make small talk about going back to their respective schools soon.

  At the station, Sheryl senses that Sterling has more substantive things to say. “Something on your mind?” she asks once parked at the curb.

  Seeming embarrassed, he replies, “There is. But it’s kind of hard to talk about.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, full of concern.

  “It’s one of my cousins. He was arrested last night. Naturally, if my uncle finds out, there will be big trouble—and my cousin already deals with nothing but trouble in his life every day.”

  “Sorry to hear. What happened?”

  “He got busted for pot while hanging out with some chumps, a bunch of fools. What’s worse is he’s got his girlfriend in a family way. My uncle would slap him silly if he knew.”

  Sheryl’s brow furrows with alarm over issues she has little experience with, personally or within her circle of friends. She imagines that a cold jail cell is trouble enough for anyone. The unwanted pregnancy presents an even colder thought because of cold solutions now widely available. “Aside from being empathetic, what are you supposed to do?” she asks.

  “Don’t know. Gotta get him out on bail first. Not an easy chore since I just paid out my summer earnings on tuition and room and board. This couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

  “Any relatives you can turn to in confidence?”

  “Can’t turn to my aunt in confidence on anything. She’s a junkie, sorry to say.”

  “Sorry to hear, Sterling. What can I do to help?”

  “I can’t ask for what’s needed, Sheryl, because it boils down to money. And I follow Shakespeare’s advice: ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ I have to find a solution on my own.”

  “Admirable, but how much would it take to bail out your cousin?”

  Sterling hangs his head in apparent shame. “If it weren’t for this fix I’m in, believe me, I wouldn’t even be having this conversation with you. But … it’ll take five hundred dollars to get him out of jail. I really only need two hundred, though, since his brother has coughed up three hundred.”

  “I can handle that, Sterling,” Sheryl says with compassion. “No problem, honestly—and no need to pay me back until you are able to without a strain.”

  “Wow, Sheryl … I … I can’t thank you enough.”

  “No need to say anything. I’m happy to help.” She retrieves her checkbook from her purse. “How should I make it out?”<
br />
  “Cash would be best. Cops don’t take third-party checks. I’ll find a currency exchange.”

  As she starts writing the check, Sterling clears his throat. “Um, Sheryl, this next part is really hard, but as long as I’ve crossed the line, could I ask another favor?”

  “I guess so,” she tentatively counters. “Why not?”

  “Well, this’ll cross some boundaries with you. But I’m asking for my cousin, not me.”

  On guard and getting the picture, she asks, “And just how can I additionally help him?”

  “Well, as I said, he got his girlfriend in a family way, and aside from them not wanting their parents to know, there’s the fact that having a baby now pretty much would mess up any chance for either one of them to have any kind of future.”

  Sheryl stops with the check. Sterling sees her disgust.

  Quickly, he backtracks. “I knew that’d be one step too far, Sheryl—and believe me, I fully understand. Please, forget I asked, really.”

  “That’s kind of hard to do, Sterling. You asked—you, a future doctor, talking about taking a life, like there’s nothing to it.”

  “Uh, well, we’re talking about an embryo, Sheryl. Who’s to say it would go full-term anyway, with my cousin’s girlfriend not having any money for prenatal care?”

  Sheryl puts down her checkbook, fully disgusted. “This new direction of our conversation has me feeling very uncomfortable, Sterling.”

  “Like I said, I understand. Seriously, please forget the whole thing. I’m disgusted with myself for having asked. Just was feeling family pressure for my cuz.”

  “I don’t mind helping with bail—really, Sterling—but I can’t be a party to abortion.”

  “I’m backed up against a wall. My cousins are like brothers to me. We have each others’ backs; we’re family. Nobody asked me. I just thought I’d run it past you.”

  A downtown train arrives and leaves without Sterling as he remains in the Dauphine. Sheryl watches the train disappear and wishes she were somewhere else. Then she mulls the situation over as Sterling hangs his head in apparent humiliation.

  Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, she regains control of her emotions. “Just for the sake of discussion, what’s the going rate for such a disgusting deed?”

  Sterling mutters, “Three hundred dollars.”

  “Three hundred?” she repeats with a blend of surprise and revulsion. Sadly, she snaps, “Only three hundred dollars to snuff out a life before it barely even begins?”

  Sterling nods.

  Sheryl gazes outside at passersby, thinking of how they’d all started out as embryos, every one. Whether wanted or not, her psyche declares. Abruptly, she hears herself say, “All right, Sterling, I’ll tell you what—let’s say the full five hundred dollars to cover bail comes from me. Then you guys take that three hundred your other cousin has for his brother and put it to whatever sordid use is needed.” She clams up as quickly as she made the offer.

  Sterling stutters, “Sheryl … I, uh …”

  But she raises a hand to silence him and then quickly writes the check to cash for $500. She tears it from her checkbook and hands it over to Sterling. “I think you’d better get on your way now, Sterling.”

  Opening the door, he says, “Sheryl, I feel horrible about this whole deal. But thank you. I can’t believe I hit you up for something like this—all on my cousin’s account.”

  “For me, he’s nowhere to be seen, Sterling. This one is on you. Take responsibility for your own actions before trying to lay the blame on somebody else. I have to go.”

  Sheryl pulls away fast and just as quickly releases an endless stream of tears. She can’t see where she’s going and wipes madly at her eyes with her stick-shift hand, as the eggbeater engine winds up noisily, nearing the redline for second gear. Sobs escalate, but then she slowly gains control of the tears. Finally, she remembers to hit third gear. “Get me out of here” is all she can think. She knows she needs to pull herself together for her expected arrival back home.

  The memories are strong for Sheryl still as she sits at her laundry room’s folding table, mail strewn about, eyes locked in a blank stare across the noisy room. Sadly, she sighs at memory lane’s flashback. She begins to hyperventilate, her head moving in unison with her breathing pattern. Silently, she cries out, Oh, Lord, was that really the beginning of the end for me? A party to a crime in heaven all those years ago?

  Therapeutically, she sways her body to the same beat as her breathing. Somebody walks past the open door, which catches the corner of Sheryl’s eye. She worries that someone peeked into the laundry room, and she can only pray that her seat at the table, in a ninety-degree angle to the door, shielded her frantic state of mind from the unknown witness. However, the pull of paranoia is strong, and she doubts she went unnoticed. Either way, the close call snaps her out of her trancelike condition. For now, anyway, she cynically thinks. I really do need some sleep.

  A bell rings on one of her washers, announcing completion of the final spin cycle. Sheryl sees that her other two wash machines also are motionless. She moves most of the wet laundry to a couple large dryers, sorting out a few delicate things to hang-dry upstairs in her apartment.

  “That’ll make it look real third-world,” she jokes with herself. Her living conditions back home seem substandard in comparison to the luxury hotels with full service on the road.

  As she returns to the table to wait out the dryers, her mind jumps all over the globe, back and forth in time and space. Good times, bad times, all left behind to the past. Yet there’s no escaping the fact that lately she often has been returning home to overwhelmingly bleak personal circumstances. Her tiny but beloved apartment has become a refuge.

  Somewhat maniacally, she chuckles, “Nothing like home sweet home.”

  Chapter 4

  LOOK OUT BELOW!

  Snow still swirls along Sheridan Road, though in a more gentle dusting pattern since the wind off Lake Michigan has decelerated from howling to tolerable gusts. The replacement bus stops at Diversey, and Sterling and the other three passengers board it. From outside, they remain barely visible behind frosted-over windows, this being another cold, creaking public shuttle.

  When the doors open at his stop, Sterling steps down to the crusted sidewalks. Shivering at a “Don’t Walk” signal, he watches the remaining passengers get hauled deeper into Lincoln Park. Then he jaywalks across a deserted Sheridan Road before the next green light appears.

  At Sheryl’s condominium building, Sterling enters the foyer in his snow-covered topcoat. Donald, the doorman, waves hello from his seat on the other side of the lobby doors. Sterling smiles in appreciation of the recognition as he brushes snow from his coat and vigorously stomps his shoes to clear them of the white stuff. Once he’s done, Donald buzzes him into the tastefully decorated lobby.

  “Well, hello, Dr. Jackson,” Donald greets him. “How do you like this weather, sir?”

  Sterling opens his topcoat and silk scarf to better show off his fine suit. “Are you kidding, Donald? This winter stuff gets tougher to handle each and every year. I swear, next year, it’s off to Miami for me. How about you—you like this stuff?”

  Donald rises to his feet in deference to Dr. Jackson. “Oh, really, I don’t mind it so much anymore.”

  “Oh really?” kids Sterling.

  “Well, sitting inside here where it’s nice and toasty—instead of being out walking that old beat in all kinds of weather—it really isn’t so bad, you know what I mean?”

  “I do.”

  “Heck, I’ve seen worse than this anyway.”

  “And when would that have been?”

  Donald thinks it over and chuckles. “Well, now that you put it to me, I can’t really say.”

  “That’s what I thought,” kids Sterling. “Anyway, is Ms. Taylor in the house?”

&nb
sp; “Yes. In fact, I think she might still be in the laundry room. If you want to check it out, go right ahead.”

  “Thanks, Donald. You’re a real mensch, my man.”

  Donald chuckles. “Well, thank you, sir. I could say the same for you. And that laundry room should be just the place to warm you right up.”

  “That’s what I need all right, Donald. Take care.”

  “You too, Dr. Jackson.”

  Sterling smiles gratuitously, and the doorman retakes his seat.

  Sterling turns on his heel, his frozen-stiff shoes clicking on the shiny faux marble floor as he crosses the lobby. Reaching a hallway, he enters a narrow corridor that ultimately leads to the building’s garbage room and outside back door. But first, at an open doorway, he finds Sheryl with her back to the door, folding laundry. A granny’s grocery pull cart stands half-stuffed with folded clothes.

  As though she has eyes in the back of her head to spot an intruder, Sheryl spins around to identify the figure in the doorway. She breaks into tears at the sight of Sterling. He wastes no time in rushing to her side.

  “Oh, baby,” he says, taking her in his arms. “What’s the matter, dear?”

  “A lot is the matter, dear.”

  “We’ll figure it out. Allow yourself to decompress. You’ve been through a lot.”

  Still in his arms, Sheryl self-consciously pulls at her tangled hair. “I must look wild and ancient,” she suggests.

  “You look wonderful, as always—anytime, anyplace, year in, year out.”

  “Right, if you say so. I’m so mindless from lack of sleep, I’ll believe anything.”

  He strokes her hair smooth and kisses her. She kisses him back. Soon, he pauses kissing to speak. “That must have been some experience for you, all that insanity on the streets.”

  “I’ll never go back, that’s for sure, not to Cairo.”

  “You deserve combat pay.”

  Suddenly angry, she pushes him away. “Isn’t that just like you? Always money on your mind! And it’s usually my money you’re thinking about.”