Bethel's Meadow (19 page)

“Smith,” he called out to me. “Stop for a sec.”

I turned and faced Gonzo, fully expecting him to launch yet another stink bomb.

“You’ve lost something very important to you,” he said. “Is that not true?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Gonzo.”

He smiled in a surprisingly avuncular manner. I could have sworn that his teeth sparkled for just a split second. I really think they did.

“You’re freaking me out with that look, Gonzo. What are you thinking?”

“I’m going to do something for you,” he said. “I know you don’t believe too deeply in the power of the Lord, except perhaps during your more vulnerable and selfish moments.”

“Are you accusing me of dealing selfishly with God?”

He just kept smiling and continued: “I’ve now decided I am going to personally ask God for a miracle—a miracle for you, my good neighbor. Though you wished death upon my favorite dog, I am going to pray and ask that God return to you what it is you have lost. But God won’t just give it to you at my humble request alone.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Gonzo? Quit fucking with me.”

“You and I obviously have at least one heavenly experience in common,” he said. “The look of terminal fear in your eyes tells me all I need to know. You have the look of a man who has had something precious taken away from him, something so profoundly coveted that any man would kill to regain it. But sometimes it is that very fear itself that keeps you from returning to that special place.”

The dude was really freaking my ass out. There just wasn’t any way he was talking about what I thought he was. How’d he know about my
special place
?

“At the end of your journey you will return to that special place, that heavenly state of being, but only if you have truly conquered your fear and have come to peace with God. It will then be up to you to decide if you wish to remain there. And trust me on this: it will be a rather difficult decision for you to make, but make it you shall.”

I was about to ask him a question, but he then held up his hands so his palms faced the heavens. To see it you’d have thought he was Moses. All he needed was a staff of wood and a rock to pound it on.

“Thou walkest away from here,” he commanded. “I love you, Brother Smith. God bless your weary soul on the perilous journey that you now face.”

He then returned to his weed eating and left me standing there with my mouth gaping wide open.

21

“
Y
OU CAN’T GO DARK on me like that again, old man.”

Vernon Hammond was going easier on me than I’d thought he would. Since turning off my cell phone early Thursday morning, it hadn’t been until this Monday morning, four days later, that I’d powered it back on. Vernon was one of several people who’d been put off by my disappearing act. His place was the first stop along the path of my apology tour.

“I’m sorry, Vernon. I really am.” I felt like crying. I never liked disappointing that man. No one in the world had ever cared for me more than Vernon. He was the last person I needed to alienate. “But I’m just going to grow even more insane than I already am if I don’t get more than two hours of sleep at a time. And hell, even that is on a good night.”

Vernon knew most everything about me. In particular he knew I was a manic-depressive and that I had abused alcohol frequently, even long before the ten years since we had first met. Whenever I came to him with any kind of trouble, Vernon always seemed to have an answer.

“I don’t know if this’ll help you much,” Vernon said as he swiveled in his chair to face the laptop on his desk. We were in his study. He must have had at least fifty Buckwheat pencil trolls scattered about his desk, with an even dozen of them taped or glued to his laptop. “I’m sending you a link to some meditation recordings on the Web.” He clicked on his mouse to send the message and then swiveled around to face me again. “There are about twenty different types of meditations, some dealing with stress and anger management, some to relax the muscles and ease tension, and one or two to help lull you to sleep. They’re free, but very professionally done and quite effective, in my opinion.”

“It can’t hurt to try,” I said. “Thanks, Vernon.”

Vernon asked what I had been doing during my weekend of seclusion. I explained that my killer headache had not subsided until sometime Saturday morning. Though I still hadn’t slept much since then, not having the headache and nausea to contend with had made life a little more bearable. So I spent the rest of the weekend just learning to play my guitar.

I showed Vernon my hands. “Check out these blisters,” I said. “They should callus up in the next day or so. It’s from fretting on the left hand and from fingerpicking on the right. I played so much that they bled.”

“I admire your dedication,” he said, smiling. “I know that once you set your mind to accomplishing something, you’re a pretty resolute fellow. I’ll have to come over one night and watch you play. If you can even play rhythm just a little bit, I can hook you up with some friends of mine who’ll let you come over and jam with them. How about that?”

After we were done shooting the bull, Vernon asked if I was ready to get back to work.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been away from computers long enough to start wondering if it’s still a good field to work in anymore.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked. “Folks always have to use their computer. Maybe they cut back on hardware and services on occasion, but not for too long. It’s an important part of business, Smith. They ain’t going back to the abacus to get things done.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t pay like it did ten years ago,” I said. “I remember guys who didn’t even have degrees that were making thirty to fifty an hour on temp assignments, double that or more if they contracted directly. With my degree I was pulling down even more. Now, though, computer guys are just like garbage collectors, except those guys make more money these days.”

“Are you interested in making a living again or not?” Vernon said impatiently. “It’s still a respected profession. You still have things in your head about computers that folks are willing to pay for. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Are you in or are you out?”

“I’m in,” I said. Though I had been dead set against working with computers again, if Vernon said he had a way back in, I knew better than to doubt him. Besides, I was running out of money, and the prospect of foreclosure served as a strong motivator—I didn’t want to lose my home.

“All right,” he said. He slapped me on the back, stood from his chair, and then headed for the kitchen. “I got some leftover Chinese food in the fridge. I know you like the chicken fried rice. I’ll warm you up a bowl. You’ll need some food in your belly to help you think proper, because after you leave here you’re going on your first assignment.”

…

“I want you to get yourself straight,” Vernon said later after he’d put down his fork. He dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin, wadded the napkin into a ball, and threw it at me. “You listening to me, old man?”

“Sorry,” I said. I was lost in space again. I just couldn’t hold my concentration, not even when I had to. “Vernon, if I can just get one night of sleep, maybe I can dial back in to reality.”

“I know you’re off your meds and all, but have you considered maybe talking to other bipolars, like in a group setting of some kind? Maybe talk to folks going through the same thing?”

I shook my head. “No way. There’s nothing worse than a room full of manic-depressives.”

“So you’ve been to such a group before?”

“Uh huh,” I said. “Back in college, when I was first diagnosed. I was only eighteen or nineteen. My doctor sent me to a support group that met weekly at a mental hospital. It was part of a national association of manic-depressives. The meeting took place in a bright white room full of plastic-backed chairs, and there were tables with coffee and doughnuts. They’d go around the room having everybody talk about their miserable lives. Man, I can remember thinking, ‘I’m not like these nuts.’ You’ve never seen so many hands violently shaking in your entire life, either. At least half a dozen people had their hands shaking so bad that their coffee was spilling from their cups. As much lithium as I was taking at the time, these folks took triple the amount I did, or even more. I wondered why they were drinking so much coffee with their hands quaking like that. And you’ve also never seen so many chain smokers in one room. Over half the participants had to leave the room every five minutes to go grab another smoke. And then the crying and the moaning. . . . Jesus. Never again will I go to one of those things.
Never
.”

Vernon remarked, “You’re not terribly sensitive to your own kind.”

“I know it sounds bad, Vernon. But the truth is, compared to most other bipolars, I have a rather mild case of it. My depression can get pretty bad, I’ll grant you that. But my manic phases have been few and far between, and they were a hell of a lot worse between my teen years and my mid-thirties. As far as manic-depressives go, I’m pretty lucky. But still, I just don’t like being around them. I know it sounds selfish, but I really like to suffer my demons alone.”

Vernon nodded. “Okay, you’ve always been a bit of the loner. I’d feel a whole lot better about you if you at least had a girlfriend who spent some time at your place. Now that you’ve lost Caitlin, I can’t help—”

“I’m fine,” I said. I took the last bite from my serving of fried rice and then washed it down with a gulp of water. And then I burped.

Vernon laughed. “Ah yes, you still do that after every time you eat Chinese? Hell, I’m just glad you still have your sense of humor intact.”

After we stacked our dishes in the sink we convened in the living room to talk business.

“Well, as I suspected would happen, your photograph from the brochures and website has garnered quite a bit of attention from the ladies,” Vernon said. “In fact, after I supplied some of those interested with your professional credentials—your degree, certifications, continuing education—it piqued their interest even more. So kid, you got the looks and you got the talent.”

“I never thought you could sell sex to score a computer gig.”

“I adore your naïveté, old man. You can use sex to sell anything. Why not computers as well?”

“Whatever,” I said. I was in serious mode now. “I’m ready to get back out there. Where’s my first stop?”

“Well, since you’ve been a little down of late, what with relationships gone bad and not sleeping, I have just the client to turn your sourpuss attitude around.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s rock.”

22

T
HOUGH THE SIGN ON the door led me to believe it was a water store, inside it looked more like a massage parlor. Located in a Dusty Pond strip mall, the store was about the same size as a typical discount hair salon. Professional massage chairs lined both sides of the store from front to rear, with eight on each side. A display easel extolling the virtues and benefits of alkaline water was placed next to the front counter. In the previous few weeks, in my outings with Sidebottom and Samantha, I had heard many enthusiastic testimonials about alkaline water. I’d also heard from an equal number of naysayers. Either way, I hadn’t paid much attention to all of the talk. What did impress me, though, was how aggressively it had been marketed to Dusty Pond regulars. There probably wasn’t anyone who didn’t know what alkaline water was.

I was about to find out why.

Vernon had instructed me to ask for Rachel Draper—she would be my contact on this assignment. One of the masseuses told me to wait at the counter and that Rachel would be out in a moment.

When she emerged from the door at the rear of the establishment, I recognized this complete knockout of a gal right away. Having seen her before, though, didn’t prevent my jaw from dropping more than just a little bit. I had previously admired this adorable creature for having not fallen prey to Sidebottom’s pickup antics. Indeed, even Sidebottom himself had been impressed by her savvy, saying she was obviously very well-read (he claimed intelligence had nothing to do with a woman’s potential immunity to pickup techniques—even a Rhodes Scholar could fall victim to his bag of tricks). Rachel Draper knew the playbook, and she wouldn’t tolerate any of those shenanigans being pulled in her presence for even a second.

Perhaps close to forty years of age, Rachel Draper was a stunning brunette with delightfully naughty blue eyes. She was about five-six and just flat out built. Yet I felt a cold shiver as she approached; it was a sense of foreboding that warned me to get the hell out of her way. She held an air of total inapproachability—the woman looked like she didn’t need
anyone
.

Rachel Draper walked up to me and extended her hand. I shook it. “Hello, Mr. Smith. Clarice here was right,” she said, pointing back to the masseuse who had returned to her massage station. “You
do
have the most amazing green eyes.” She then damn near blinded me with a 200-watt power smile—I figured she and Sidebottom must have had the same dentist. She was wearing a tad too much makeup for my liking, and I could tell she was wearing contacts to phony up her eye color. But hell, she still looked good enough to devour.

Despite her potent sex appeal and charming demeanor, I was still overcome by troubling premonitions. I was able to see right through this woman, into her wicked heart and deep inside of her tortured soul. Nothing in Rachel Draper’s life had come easy. She truly had been to hell and back—No, it was like she was still there, still in hell. I was completely certain of my assessment. It was as if I were being sent some sort of a . . . sign—a message from God perhaps, a message warning me to steer clear of this wretched soul standing before me.