Icarus. (16 page)

"That may be the worst thing anyone's ever said to me." He looked down at the wheelchair, and when he lifted his head, Kid had stepped back into the room. Their eyes locked. "But it's also true. I'm terrified of what's going to happen next."

"Then let me help you," Kid said. "Please. You saved my life, both of you guys, after my dad died. I've fucked up big-time, I know that. I've been wanting to call you ever since I heard what happened and I didn't because… well… just for this reason: I didn't think you'd want me anymore. There are things you don't understand about why I left, things you'll never understand, and I don't blame you for not trusting me, but I can do something. I can do for you what you did for me. I can give you your life back."

When Jack said nothing, Kid shook his head sadly. The look on his face showed that he knew he'd failed.

"He believes you, Kid," Dom said. "You don't have to look like that. Right now it ain't personal. He's just tryin' to figure out if he wants his life back."

Jack looked up sharply. His eyes met Dom's. The old man said nothing more, but he didn't have to. He was challenging Jack to disagree with him. And even at age seventy-five, even with one arm, Dom was a tough guy to challenge. Jack turned away from the grizzled old face and now stared at Kid's young one.

"You'd better know what the hell you're doing," Jack said.

– "-"-"KID DID KNOW what he was doing. And twenty-four hours later, he had Jack lying on his back on the floor of Jack's living room.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to start working you out yet, you're at least a couple of weeks from that. We're gonna start with ultrasound and ultrastim. I've already ordered the machine; it'll be delivered tomorrow."

"I'm paying for this, I assume."

"You can afford it, stop whining. My goal is to eventually set you up with the ultimate home gym. You're gonna want to work out, you're gonna want to put yourself through the agony."

"This does not sound likely to me."

"I know you. I know what'll happen when you start to see what you're capable of doing."

Jack grunted noncommittally. "What the hell's ultrastim?"

Kid's face lit up. He was the teacher now, explaining a life-changing insight to a disbelieving student. "I got you an ultrasound-slash-ultrastim machine. It's an electrical charge that goes into your muscles. It stimulates the hard-to-get interior muscles."

"It works?"

"It works. In school, we had to do this experiment. You cut a frog's leg off, put it on a hook to elongate it, shock it with current – and that causes contractions."

"Sounds like a fun experiment."

"It's an important one. It proves that an electrical charge predetermines muscular contractions. And that's what we've got to do with you 'cause my guess is there's been so much atrophy."

"So in this particular experiment, I'm the frog."

"Oh, yeah," Kid said. "You are definitely the frog." He grinned. "Now all I'm gonna do right now is stretch you out. Nothing hard, you don't have to do anything except let me do a little pushing and pulling. I want to determine your level of flexibility." Jack nodded his okay. Kid stretched Jack's right leg flat on the ground, putting his hand on Jack's thigh to keep the leg pinned down. "Straighten the left leg and extend it straight out toward me," he said, and when Jack did that, Kid took hold of it from the arch of Jack's foot and lifted it about six inches off the ground. "All right, I want you to say when it hurts."

"When."

Kid flexed Jack's foot so it was pointing upward. Sweat began pouring down Jack's face as he lay sprawled on the mat on his living room floor.

"When…"

Kid pressed down more firmly on Jack's right thigh, rendering it immobile.

"When, goddamnit!"

"I haven't done anything yet. You might want to hold off complaining until we start."

The sweat had soaked through Jack's clothes. The fear had taken hold. The expectation of pain. Kid began inching Jack's left leg up, slowly and carefully, an inch or two at a time.

"You know, Kid…" Jack's breathing was getting heavier "… you're still on thin ice. I'd try to hide your…" his breathing grew even more labored "… naturally… snotty… personality… Oh, shit… if I were you. At least for a little while longer… that's far enough!"

Kid ignored him. Slowly, he kept raising Jack's leg.

"Kid… stop."

"Just a little bit more. You can do it."

"I can't! Stop!"

Kid raised the leg another inch. It was maybe three feet off the ground, extended straight out.

Jack's voice got louder, more urgent. "Don't go any further…"

"One more inch."

"Let it go! Put it back down!"

Kid moved it just a fraction of an inch this time and Jack screamed. Kid stopped the movement, but he made no motion to release the leg. He held it in place as Jack turned red in the face and swore.

"Put it down!… Fuck you!… Fuck you!" The sweat was pouring off his face. His shirt was sopping wet now and his arms, which were by his sides, were shaking.

"Keep breathing, Jack. Deep breath."

"Put it down!… Goddamn it! Let go!"

Kid nodded, as if seeing what he wanted to see, and slowly eased the leg back down. When it touched the floor, he released it. Jack's entire body sagged. He used the cuff of his shirt to wipe his forehead and his breathing was so labored he couldn't speak. Kid looked down at him, spoke slowly.

"You gotta go ten seconds past the scream, Jack. That's the program. It won't always hurt like that, but it'll always hurt. That's how you're gonna get better."

Jack's breathing was under control. It took him another moment before he spoke. "I've missed you," he said weakly. "You son of a bitch."

Okay, I'm going to try to explain to you exactly what's going to happen. Not just today but over the next few weeks and months."

Jack was sitting in his wheelchair. He and Kid were in what had been, until the night before, Jack and Caroline's home office, a small room, maybe fourteen-by-fourteen, off the kitchen. It was now furnished with padded benches, thick floor mats, dumbbells, barbells, and state-of-the-art Universal weight machines. Kid wanted this to be their retreat, he said. He wanted it to be a separate world where Jack felt safe, someplace soothing and calm and yet strong, where he could believe he was on the road to recovery.

"Come here, I'm gonna show you something." Kid reached over and put the cane, which was hanging over the back of the wheelchair, into Jack's hand. Then he grabbed Jack's other hand and gently pulled him up to a standing position. "You can't bear weight on this leg yet, can you?"

"Very little."

Kid nodded, as if this somehow pleased him. "Lie down on this mat."

"Kid, is this really-"

"Come on, Jack. Lie down."

Jack nodded and Kid put his hand behind Jack's back. Jack eased himself down as best he could but ultimately had to trust himself to Kid. Kid lowered him to the mat and Jack lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

"Okay," Kid said. "Keep your head down. Put your arms by your sides, palms down." He waited until Jack complied. "Now lift your leg ten times."

"What do you mean, lift it?"

"Just straight up and down. That's all. Nothing hard. All you have to do is lift your leg ten times. As high as you can. Either leg. Your choice."

Jack stayed motionless for a moment, then lifted his right leg into the air. It rose about two feet, then he slowly lowered it back down to the mat. He rested it there for three seconds, then lifted it again. Again it went about two feet high, then slowly went back down.

"Eight more to go," Kid said. "No resting in between."

Jack made it to seven lifts. After that, totally flat on his back, he shook his head slowly from side to side. He was finished.

"You look exhausted."

Jack was so tired he couldn't even answer. All he did was nod.

"Okay," Kid said, "now stand up."

Jack took a deep breath, finally was able to say, "You know I can't get up from this position."

"So let me get this straight," Kid said. "You can't get up from the floor and you can't even lift your leg ten times in a row. With no weight attached to it."

"Are all our conversations going to end with me saying fuck you?"

"No. I just want to show you something. You watching?"

"I'm lying on the goddamn floor, Kid, doing my best carrot impersonation. What else do you think I'm doing but watching?"

Kid went to the barbell that was lying on the floor, rolled up against the wall under the room's two small windows. He moved the bar to the center of the room, went to the rack in the corner and pulled off two weights. He attached one of them to each end of the barbell, bent down as if to lift it, then stopped and went back to the rack. He took two more weights and added them to the bar.

"Watch me, Jack."

He put his feet shoulder-width apart and positioned himself so his shins were practically touching the bar. Then he bent down and grasped it, his palms down. Kid's body revealed no tension; there was no apprehension or even hint of strain to come. His legs bent so his thighs were almost parallel to the floor. With his head up and his arms extended straight down, he inhaled deeply and suddenly and, seemingly in one motion, lifted the bar up past his waist and, flipping it so his hands were now underneath it, to shoulder height. He was standing perfectly erect and the bar was resting on his chest. He was not breathing hard and there was no outward sign of exertion.

"This is called a 'clean,'" Kid said. "It's the hardest weight exercise there is. I'm doing two hundred pounds. That's a serious weight."

"And you're showing this to me because…?"

"Because you're gonna be able to do this. With this exact weight."

"Kid, I can't even stand up by myself, as you've so kindly pointed out."

Kid exhaled deeply and, in one motion, returned the bar to the floor. The weight touched down so softly it barely made a sound.

"A year from today, Jack. Mark it down in your calendar. That's the day you clean two hundred. You're not going to be as good as new, you're gonna be twice as good as you ever were."

Jack didn't say anything. He just motioned for Kid to help him up. When he was safely back in his chair, he looked up at Kid and said quietly, "How long have you been back?"

"A year," Kid told him. His voice was just as muted as Jack's. "I came back a year ago."

Jack looked down, shook his head as if clearing away a physical pain. "What the hell have you been doing this whole time?"

"I told you. Keeping my head above water."

"I could have helped," Jack said. "When did I ever refuse to help you?"

"Never. That's one of the reasons I didn't call. I needed to do this on my own."

"What are the other reasons?"

"Let me hook you up to the machine now, Jack."

There was silence between them until Kid moved to something that looked a bit too much like R2-D2. It was the ultrasound-ultrastim machine. "You won't feel anything at first. I'm starting really low. Gradually you'll feel a kind of prickly sensation." Kid now attached Jack to the machine. Wires led out to directly above his left knee and just above his right hip. "I just want this to be nice and soothing for now."

"Doesn't seem right," Jack muttered sarcastically. "You're giving me something where there's no agony."

"Don't worry," Kid said. "The agony'll come soon enough." And then with a half laugh and a shrug of his shoulders, he said, so quietly that Jack could barely make out the words, "And the strange part is you're gonna start to like it."

In the months since Caroline had died, Jack had spoken very little about her. He accepted awkward condolences with a quiet thank-you or a silent nod of the head and he rarely reminisced about her, even with Dom, who spoke to or saw him every day, or Herb Bloomfield, his lawyer, who called him every other day – Jack decided that his lawyer friend had to have had his secretary put "Call Jack, see how he's doing" on his calendar, blocking off five minutes three times a week as if it were a business appointment. But he thought about Caroline a lot. If the truth were known, almost constantly. Little things would bring memories rushing back. He'd look out from his balcony and see a fir tree flourishing in the park and he'd remember a trip to Vermont; it was snowing, and they went cross-country skiing through miles of perfect firs. From his perch above Manhattan, Jack would smell the exquisite mix of minty fir needles and newly cut wood and fresh Vermont air. And he would see Caroline in her ludicrously bright orange parka, slithering along the dirty white paths of the forest.

He'd watch TV and see a pregnant woman on a mindless sitcom and he'd remember how Caroline cried when she told him she was pregnant and, when he went to hug her, how she'd waved her hands, a totally feminine gesture, embarrassed at her tears, which were brought on by a combination of bliss and fear and raging hormones. Then he'd remember all their promises to each other, how they'd love and honor and always be kind to each other. How they'd be friends, not just lovers. He'd kept all the promises he'd ever made to her, he thought. Except for the most important one, the one about keeping her safe and happy forever.

Jack had played the scene in Charlottesville over many times in his head. What if he hadn't barged in on them? What if he'd done it differently? What if he'd managed to overcome the brutal blow to the head and talk to the killer? What if he hadn't let Caroline talk him out of having a TV monitor – maybe they'd have a face for the killer. What if…

It was the last "what if" that usually stopped Jack cold. Especially as it was the same one that had haunted him ever since he'd seen his mother die.

What if he'd been killed instead of her?