Love's Illusions: A Novel (31 page)

“I’ve missed you too babe,” he whispered holding me against him, both of us lingering there in our usual long hug – a sense of safety flowing over me. At that moment nothing else mattered – I just wanted to stand there, wrap myself in the cocoon of his arms, and never have to face the rest of the world again. He was kissing my cheek and forehead with such love, I knew he was engulfed by the same desire. Pulling back just a tad he murmured, “I want you – now,” his lips curling up in the corners, “but I’m ravenous, I haven’t eaten all day. We just wanted to get back so we didn’t stop to eat – have you got any food around here or should we order something?”

“I have food here – real food,” I announced.

He looked surprised knowing full well that cooking was not my forte, “Really, you cooked? What is it?” he asked.

I was smirking by this point. “It’s your mother’s meatloaf. She gave me the recipe while you were with Keith – I think it’s edible. It smelled pretty good while it was in the oven.”

“Ha! I knew she’d be callin’ you while we were gone. She promised she wouldn’t, but I knew she would. Did she drive you crazy?”

“No, of course not. I like your Mom – you know that. She only called about 5 or 6 times, it was fine. I think she was a little lonely with all four of you out of the house… and calling me was local, not long distance.”

“Hmph, well she may have to get used to that …” His voice faded off.

I turned as I removed the meatloaf from the oven where I’d left it to keep warm, “What do ya mean ‘get used to it’?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you while we eat. Did you bake some potatoes too?” he inquired.

“No, of course not – who do you think I am, friggin’ Betty Crocker? I’m not even sure this meatloaf will be decent. I figured I’d open a can of green beans or something, but I did get some hard rolls and butter.”

“Of course you did,” he smiled taking the plates from me to put on the table. The meatloaf was okay, but not as moist as Shirley said it would be by adding milk and maple syrup – I guess I shouldn’t have left it in the oven to stay warm, that dried it out – but Michael was sweet saying it was “good”. Both of us ate it by smothering it in ketchup.

Michael gave me the details of the trip while we ate. He hadn’t said much about things on the phone, but now I heard everything in minute detail. On the drive out, they followed Route 66 through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before veering north for the San Francisco area. It was uneventful except when Tom managed to get himself locked in the men’s room at some rundown gas station in Arizona –the door lock was broken, but Tom ignored the handwritten note the owner had posted about
not
using the lock, so they were stuck for close to an hour while the old guy removed the hinges. He then charged them $50.00 for his labor, and repairs to the door. At first they refused to pay, but a local cop ‘just happened’ to pull into the station informing them that they would be under arrest for destruction of property if they didn’t pay up. “It was a scam, I’m sure of it,” he said, but they decided to hand over the funds so the cop wouldn’t have any excuse to search the car.

“What? That son-of-a-bitch!” I exclaimed. “You’re right, that old geezer and the cop probably split the money when you left. I bet they make more ripping off people who look like you guys when they’re driving through than they do selling gas.”

“Yeah, believe me it was good to get back into civilization.” They spent four days total on the road heading west since they made a lot of stops; but coming home took a more northerly route, avoiding Arizona, saving a couple hundred miles, driving straight through, and making it in two days.

Keith was living with some of his old army buddies – Mark, Larry and Tom – while they were there, they started calling his brother Lil’ Tom, something he hated. There were other people in and out, so Michael wasn’t sure who actually ‘lived’ there. It was a four bedroom house, part sprawling like a ranch, part two-story from the additions over the years, in a rundown residential sectional far east of the city – a place where no one paid any attention to their activities. “It was a flop house, a dump Jackie, a real dump. You’d‘ve hated it. After a couple days,
I
hated it. It’s like there was no down time, no way to get away from the craziness.”

“You’re right. I would’ve hated it – I need my own space,” I answered.

After 10 days with Keith, the three of them were convinced he was actually going to pull off some kind of growing operation. Larry had a good deal of knowledge about plants, soil, nutrients, and all that stuff. He had grown up on a corn farm in Iowa and had been part of Future Farmers of America in high school before getting drafted. They’d already converted the garage into a grow room to experiment with different techniques, lights, ventilation, and plant strains. Larry had persuaded them that indoors was the way to go; he took care of the plants like they were his babies. The guys had found a deserted warehouse, and were working on a deal with the property owner to use the space when they were ready to expand – one involving a cut of the business. The biggest hurdle was still smuggling the ‘super marijuana seeds’ into the country. Michael said he and Rick kept telling them they should just grow the strains they had so far. “Wait till you try this stuff Jackie… there’s one I had to stop smoking without you there – it made me way too horny.” He winked across the table. “We can have it for dessert.”

“Hmm, that sounds good.”

So since Keith and his buddies already had some potent strains going that could produce different kinds of highs the focus had definitely shifted to growing. Lil’ Tom was blown away with Keith’s plans and had wanted to stay, but Michael talked him into coming back to Chicago for at least a couple weeks – besides he didn’t want to be the one to tell his Mom.

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you going to move too?”

Michael looked up into my eyes, inhaled and exhaled sharply before answering, “I don’t know yet. I’m still thinking.” He then lit a joint. “Try this babe – let’s see if it has the same effect on you as it does me.”

I took the joint and started clearing away the dishes in relative silence. My conscious mind seemed to fragment as I inhaled and realized that I was losing him.

More weeks passed. It was late July – the city was hot and sticky, tempers flared. My momentary happiness at having Michael at least physically back gave way to a sense of desperation. My job search was not yielding any results except for a couple rejection letters. I had found a list of teacher openings in Keith’s part of California, and sent out resumes. Michael had developed a ‘wait and see’ approach to the whole subject of his joining his brothers. Tom had headed west again two weeks after getting back to Chicago, and was now living in the flop house with the rest of Keith’s crew. Both Michael and I were stressed beyond belief, being torn in different directions.

I lost control of my emotions, and started feeling like train cars were heading off the cliff again. One by one, car by car – as the beginning of a new school year approached; as I remained jobless; as he remained ‘officially’ undecided; as we each proclaimed our mutual love – I felt a spiraling panic, and slipped into that gray area of hopelessness. It didn’t seem to make any difference that I
knew
what was happening, recognized the process by this point. Knowing still didn’t give me a way to stop it, and I hated myself more each day for being so weak, so useless, and so helpless.

I did nothing all day – I had no energy, no ambition. The apartment was a disaster, I was unable to accomplish even the most mundane task. It took every fiber of my being to go to work each night, meaning there was nothing left for Michael.

Saturday nights had always been busy at The Canteen. I liked working when it was busy, but lately, serving drinks, and bantering back and forth with half drunk or stoned jerks had lost its appeal. As soon as I arrived around 8:00 pm I wanted it to be 4:00 am so I could go home, maybe make love to Michael and sleep. The crowd in the bar had been dwindling over the last few weeks, so Saturdays were now dragging as much as Mondays. I found myself just waiting for someone to wander down the stairs more and more often, like I was doing tonight. All three bartenders were working – Levi and Rick were currently behind the bar, and Guy had come around, and was sitting one stool away from me with a beer; Charlie was in the back room. It was a particularly dead, boring night – even the biker crew was absent.

Around 1:00 am I heard a commotion at the top of the stairs, and the deafening roar of motorcycles filled the bar. Guy lunged towards me, pulled me off the stool, pushed me to the floor, and sprawled his body over mine. I was kicking and screaming for him to “get the fuck off of me” but he ignored my struggling and protests, yelling at Rick and Levi to get down
now
! By that time, three bikes had skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs knocking over tables, stools, and the few glasses I had neglected to collect from earlier customers. The sound of chaos filled the room.

Charlie came running out into the bar – stopping in his tracks when he saw the bikes… I could see his face; he was horrified, and dove to the floor as one of the bikers pulled out some kind of shot gun, aimed at the mirrored ball over the stage area and fired. It exploded sending shattered glass flying everywhere, and Guy threw his massive upper arm over my face. Then just as quickly as they came down the stairs, the bikes sped back up and out.

For a split second there was silence everywhere, then as if the terror was starting all over again, everyone was up and yelling. I was shaking, my mind filled with fear; Rick and Levi were leaping over the bar running to help the few customers that had been sitting at a far table. I heard glass crunching under their feet as they moved. Guy stood, pulling me up along with him – his arm, the one that was over my face was bleeding. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Ya, ya I’m fine – but you’re not, you’re bleeding,” I said staring at his arm.

He glanced down, wiped his hand across the wound, and replied smiling at me sincerely for the first time since we’d met. “Humph, better my arm than your pretty face.” The next second he was gone, marching over to Charlie. Charlie glared at him. Guy drew one of his huge arms back, hit Charlie in the jaw, knocking him down again, then turned, and made his way through the scattered furniture and up the stairs. I never saw him again.

Charlie stood up shaking his head, blood running from his nose. Someone had turned on all the overhead lights. I froze – the place looked stark, almost surreal. I just stood there mesmerized by the scene before me. I blinked hard. When I opened my eyes I was watching myself, surveying the whole room from somewhere above my head. Looking up I saw my pixie friend. She was telling me I needed to get the fuck out of here, and never come back. This life was changing me, killing me, one night at a time. I leaned over, picked up my stool, and sat down. There was activity all around me. I watched dispassionately through the eyes of my fairy, random thoughts popping in and out of my head. Police sirens were right outside the door by this time – how
strange, police don’t come in here,
I thought, as my vantage point jumped in and out of my own body.

Everyone was okay, no one hurt. Levi and Rick had both come over to check on me, then gone back to dealing with the other people and the police. Some uniformed cop was trying to talk to me when my fairy swooped down, tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. Over the cop’s shoulder I saw Charlie hand some plain clothes cop an envelope. I had seen that second cop before a few times, usually at the Sunrise Diner; he would sit at the counter, Charlie would always go over to talk to him while the rest of us ate breakfast, and usually they’d walk outside for a while… I never thought anything about it, never even realized he was a cop, but now,
oh my God, Charlie was paying him off
. The next thing I saw all the police were leaving.

Michael appeared out of nowhere – he wasn’t there when the bikers came, but he was there now hugging me, and asking if I was hurt. “No, I’m fine – I’m not hurt, I promise… I think I’m just in shock or something,” I told him. “I don’t want to be here anymore Michael. I can’t work here… I just can’t do it. Take me home please?”

“I know, you’re right. Let me talk to Rick and then we’ll go,” he replied.

As he turned heading for the other side of the room where Levi and Rick were starting to argue with Charlie, my pixie looked down at him, and shook her head – then she disappeared.

Finally I had three interviews scheduled. The first was as an art teacher for high school students in Elk Grove Village. The whole process was a disaster. “He hated me from the moment I walked in the door Michael. I swear I hadn’t said more than ‘hello’ while shaking his hand and the man hated me!” I exclaimed while we ate dinner that night.

“You’re imagining it Jackie, he didn’t hate you,” he replied.

“Yes, he did – I swear he did. The whole thing started out just fine. One of the other teachers showed me the school – they have a big art department, and I got along just fine with her – but then when she brought me back to the office and Mr. Jamison came out… Well I swear he took one look at me and that was that. He looked exactly like every high school principal I’ve ever seen. When I went into the office I felt like I was there to be punished because my dress was too short or something instead of being interviewed for a job.”

Michael laughed, “So how many times did you get hauled into the office for your dress being too short when you were in high school?”

“A lot… but I wore my divorce dress. You know what that looks like – Christ, I look like a friggin’ nun in that dress,” I bantered back.

“Hmph, yeah, ya do,” he replied.

“So my point is, it was something else, and whatever it was, it was instantaneous. I mean the whole interview with him only last ten minutes.” I exhaled emphatically. “So I called Lana when I got home, and she said she’d give him a call tomorrow to get some feedback. I have to know what I did wrong before the other two interviews next week.”