“Welcome back,” he said.
I wanted to reply, but my throat muscles cramped and I couldn’t say anything. Instead, I nodded and pulled the cart out of his way.
Maybe I yelled at him that day three years ago because he reminded me of Derek, and thinking about Derek makes my throat cramp. Thinking about Derek makes me remember Angela. I don’t know, maybe that’s not so terrible.
Derek didn’t want children. He suggested the abortion, but ultimately it was my decision. Three months later he left me anyway.
I’ve started keeping a journal. I wrote, How many people witness an accident, save a life, and then wander into a pharmacy where someone with a gun starts shooting people? What are a person’s chances of experiencing a day like that?
Writing things down helps me cope. I’m sleeping and eating better. I’m hardly ever angry and haven’t felt numb in a long time.
I also wrote, It was a bad decision, but I believe my Angela has forgiven me.
Something surprising happened, another strange coincidence, really. Vincent Reginald Frenault checked into the hospital for a CAT scan. Turns out he had a large benign tumor on one kidney. I’m a surgical coward myself, and I wondered if Vincent was terrified or in pain. I wasn’t certain what he’d say if I visited him, but the day after his surgery I went up to the third floor, just for poor old Jesse’s sake.
Vincent lay on one side, hugging a pillow in a private room with a view of the foothills and mountains. An ostentatious bouquet of red roses in a Waterford crystal vase monopolized the corner table. I’m certain Vincent ordered the flowers himself so that he wouldn’t appear neglected. He looked surprised to see me.
“You’ll be okay,” I told him. “Lots of people live long lives with one kidney. You’ll just need to watch what you eat and drink, avoid alcohol, and don’t take any drugs unless it’s something your doctor prescribes.”
He stared, saying nothing. He wore a serious expression and I felt sympathy creeping into my heart, so I stepped to the side of his bed and patted his hand. He took my hand in his and returned gentle pressure to my fingers.
“Ready to come back to work for me?” He winked and licked his lips. Then he lifted the covers and patted the mattress.
“Jeez, Vincent! You’ll never change, will you?” I walked out without looking back, but I heard him chuckling and then moaning as if chuckling hurt.
As the polished brass doors of the elevator closed behind me I glanced down at my hand, still sensing the brief pressure of his fingers on mine, as if he had taken my blood pressure, or applied pressure to a wound. And for the first time in seven years, I laughed.
Copyright ©2008 Sherry Decker
Grave Trouble
by R. T. Lawton
Even though it seemed to be a relatively simple plan, Yarnell had to admit to himself he wasn’t entirely in love with the total concept. It also made him wonder why he bothered to have a partner at all. To his way of thinking, his reluctance to accept the results of Beaumont’s brainstorming stemmed from a phobia he, Yarnell, had recently acquired during a job which had gone horribly wrong. His head doctor referred to this condition as closet-phobia, or some medical term along those lines. In any case, Yarnell now had trouble with being trapped in small, confining spaces. A definite drawback when your main profession was burglary, partner or no partner.
Consequently, Yarnell’s hesitation about the proposed joint venture dealt with the very simplicity which Beaumont claimed was the beauty of his idea. As Beaumont put it, the jewelry store owner had only alarmed the doors and windows of the store. There were no motion detectors or heat sensors on the inside. Therefore, they — Yarnell and Beaumont — would merely park their van in the alley out back of the jewelry store, pry up the manhole cover, drop into the city’s storm water sewer system, walk a short distance through that round cement tunnel, and then knock their way into the basement of the old building that housed their intended target.
“No alarm, no trouble, easy picking,” exclaimed Beaumont. “Pun intended.”
“I got that part,” Yarnell muttered. “Now just how small is this sewer tunnel?”
“With your size, you’ll only have to stoop over a little bit, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of room to swing a pickax when we get to the right spot.”
“Humpf.”
Yarnell’s practical side felt a slight twinge of warning as he looked at Beaumont, who was now grinning like a used car salesman closing a deal on the car lot’s longtime special. But there was no way to ignore the man’s enthusiasm for his own project.
“I already memorized a map of the sewer, so this’ll be like a walk in the park.”
Yarnell tried to stay focused. He’d been on walks in the park before, but somehow he didn’t think stooping over so far that your knuckles dragged on the cement floor of a culvert was the same thing. Maybe if he asked the right questions, he could find a way out.
“Is there water in the bottom of this sewer?”
“Only when it drizzles, but this is late October, almost Halloween, not really what you’d call the rainy season.”
Damn. He’d forgotten Halloween was tomorrow night; that meant less than sixty days left till Christmas. His extended family would be expecting lots of presents under the tree about then. Well, that clinched it. He needed quick cash, else come out looking like Scrooge’s twin brother. Not much choice here.
Yarnell grudgingly nodded his acceptance.
“One thing,” continued Beaumont, “the store has security cameras mounted inside on the ceiling. They’re supposed to discourage shoplifting during business hours, but the owner may leave the cameras running twenty-four seven. To be on the safe side, we’ll have to wear masks.”
“Masks?”
“Yeah, I already got mine picked out.”
“What about me?”
“You buy your own.”
Buy his own mask? Cripes, he didn’t have enough money to pay next month’s rent and now he was looking at added business expenses just to do what Beaumont called a simple job. Okay, fine, he’d find something.
Later that evening, after much soul-searching and several glances into the kitchen to ensure that his wife would be occupied with fixing supper for some time, Yarnell snuck into the bedroom of their three-room flat. Standing at the front of their six-drawer dresser, the one with the large mirror attached to the back, he hesitated for a moment before finally opening the top drawer on his wife’s side.
As he saw it, making some quick cash was paramount to his future happiness. He didn’t like stealing from his wife, but if he didn’t damage anything, and he returned what he borrowed, before she missed it of course, then it wasn’t really stealing, was it? He ran his fingers over the silk, nylon, and other items inside her top drawer. Eventually, he chose a pair of dark beige pantyhose. These should do nicely.
With one ear carefully tuned to the sounds of his wife still banging pots and pans in the kitchen, Yarnell eased the selected pantyhose out of the drawer, inflated his courage and pulled one of the nylon legs down over his head. Quickly he glanced in the mirror. Everything was slightly blurry. He leaned closer to the silvered glass.
One eye stared back.
The nylon was obviously too tight. His right eyelid was stuck down in the closed mode, while the left eyelid was hung up in the wide-open position. The resulting image resembled a lecher’s prolonged wink. He tried to blink. Nothing moved.
With his wide-open left eye drying out from lack of tear duct moisture, he quickly abandoned the idea of using a simple pantyhose mask. Besides, the second pantyhose leg hanging empty next to his right ear looked outright ridiculous. He might be missing a professional point here, but he just couldn’t see how bank robbers successfully worked under these strained conditions. The beige pantyhose went back in the drawer where he’d found them.