Don't Order Dog (14 page)

“They’re over there,” Chip said suddenly, his finger pointing towards the far wall of the bar, “In case you’re interested.”

“What’s that?” Tom asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“The letters that he wrote her, they’re posted on that wall,” Chip replied
as he stared into the dark amber of his beer. “The photos are there too.”

Tom looked towards the far wall
but could see nothing beyond the huddle of people that stood in the muted light. He considered getting up to have a closer look, then decided against it. It would be better to wait until he was buzzed enough to manage the germ-filled congestion of humanity he would have to deal with. He turned to Chip instead. “So all this started a few months ago, huh?” he asked. To his own surprise, Tom realized that he was beginning to relax. The beer was soaking in, the din of the crowd was beginning to fade into the background, and the conversation with the friendly older man named Chip sitting next to him was beginning to get interesting.

“The first letter arrived a little over a month ago,” Chip replied matter-of-factly. “I was actually sitting here when Jeri opened it.”

“And what was your take?” Tom asked.

Chip rubbed his stubbly beard for a moment while his eyes darted quickly around the bar, as if his mind was assembling the answer to a long, complicated mathematical equation.

“Well, I thought it was all very interesting,” he said thoughtfully, his pale eyes flashing at Tom before settling back on his beer. “But then, everything is interesting to me. I mean, come on… why else would I sit here for hours on end if I wasn’t fascinated by the mundane and trivial?” The hint of a smile curled the edges of Chip’s mouth. “Christ, I could sit here all day watching someone eat corn nuts without getting bored.”

Tom smiled at the older man. While he’d never admit it, he could empathize with Chip’s condition. That simple ability to find interest in the smallest of details sat right at the core of his own personality. He took another swall
ow of beer, enjoying its cold, bitter taste. “And you’re telling me nobody knows anything about this guy? Who he is, what he does, or…” Tom paused as the image of Jeri’s face, almond-shaped and beautiful in the soft light of the bar flashed through his mind. “Or what his intentions are?”

Chip shook his head.
“No. And if anyone does, they’re not talking,” he replied laconically. “Of course, every idiot who walks in here and reads the letters seems to have a theory or a hunch. And I’ve heard just about all of them.”

“Care to repeat a few?”

“Oh god, you name it,” Chip muttered, his hands drawing wide arcs in the air. “There’s the obvious ones – he’s a hippie in the Peace Corps, he’s a hungry young reporter on some shitty-gritty assignment, he’s a good-doing doctor selflessly fighting disease in the worst places on earth. Then there’s the creative ones – he’s a location scout for a reality TV show, he’s a recruiter for an off-shore development firm, he’s a buyer of rare antiquities and artifacts.” He paused to take a drink before continuing. “And then there’s the cryptic ones, like the guy tonight who swore if you traced the locations of the letter’s origins in chronological order on a world map, you’d see that it forms the shape of a pentagram. There was even a cute little red-head sitting on that barstool earlier who was convinced the names of the letters’ origins were some form of anagram. She must’ve sat there for two hours trying to patch the letters together…” Chip’s baritone voice trailed off suddenly, leaving a flagrant question lingering in the musty-warm air of the saloon.

“So… did she come up with something?” Tom asked.

“Only if your definition of ‘something’ includes total gibberish,” Chip replied, shaking his head. “I tell you, if the kids I listened to tonight are any indication of the level of intellect we’re producing these days, this country is in serious trouble.” He smiled a quick thanks to the bartender as the portly man dropped off another pint. “So anyway, that’s the story,” he said quietly, taking a long drink as if to punctuate his sentence.

Tom nodded slowly. He could tell that the older man was done with the topic, but his interest was too aroused to let it drop just yet. He figured he had an even chance at asking one more question before Chip gave him a dismissive wave of the hand. 

“You seem to be pretty good at reading people, Chip… so what do
you
think this guy’s up to?”

Chip’s expression softened for a moment as he glanced around the saloon, his gaze scanning over the faces of the patrons and briefly on the wall of letters before settling on Tom. His blue eyes seemed to hold a turbulent wash of ideas, swirling and colliding as they were drawn inward, like leaves drawn into a deep whirlpool. “What I think this guy is up to is a game that could be very innocent or very serious, and we won’t know which until he chooses to show us. Either way, he’s got the advantage. We know nothing about him, and yet he knows something, perhaps a great deal, about Jeri and this place. He could be sitting next to you right now, or sitting on the other side of the world. None of us have a clue.”

He paused for a moment, examining the pint of beer in front of him as if seeing it for the first time. A smile dimpled the edges of his handsome face. “As to what he
is
, well… all I can say is that I’ve lived long enough to know that a person who’s after something never really reveals what or who they are until they have it. And as much as I hate to say it, I’ve learned from long personal experience that the best endings come from planning for the worst possibilities.”

Tom nodded his head. “So if I’m hearing you right, and applying your reverse logic, we should assume that the funny, romantic, and seemingly harmless guy
who’s writing these letters is–” 

“Anything but harmless,” Chip replied, finishing Tom’s sentence as he held him with his stare. “Until I know otherwise, I think it’s safe to assume this guy could be capable of anything.” His mouth curled into a wry grin. “Hell, for all we know, he could be an
international terrorist.”

Tom considered the older man’s statement before smiling back at him.
“I suppose he could.”

An hour later, sufficiently drunk enough to wade through the crowd, Tom shuffled his way to the corner of the room where the shrine of letters and pictures were hung. He stared with fascination at the various sheets of exotic hotel stationary and read every one of the odd, neatly scripted letters, all of them signed by the
Mysterious Joe’s Last Stand Guy
. He examined the Polaroid photos and smiled at the clever obscurity of the writer’s face in each one.
Then, for reasons even he wasn’t quite sure of, Tom pulled a pen and sheet of notepad paper from his pocket and began slowly writing down the dates and origins of each letter.

Jeri sat under the heavy flannel-covered comforter of her bed and stared silently at the cover of the book that sat on her lap. The bottle of red wine she’d opened moments after getting home now sat half-empty on the nightstand, perched precariously on a stack of books along with an empty wine glass. Outside her bedroom window, light wisps of snow fell with lethargic effort against the frost-covered panes of glass.  

Her mind was now reasonably calm, the wine having successfully dulled the edge of anger she’d felt since leaving the saloon an hour before. She once again picked up the romance novel Allie had given her and started to read. Two pages into it, she reminded herself how much she hated fiction – romance novels even more so – and resignedly tossed the book onto the already overburdened nightstand next to her. With nothing left to distract her, Jeri sank deeply into the thick pillows of the bed and sulked. Her thoughts drifted randomly for several minutes before inevitably settling on the events from earlier that evening. The image of a packed room of people watching her move through the bar filled her mind, causing a tinge of nausea in her stomach. She shook her head to dislodge the thought, desperately searching her mind for something else to concentrate on. As she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, a favorite memory slowly drifted into her thoughts. Jeri focused her mind on the memory, and within seconds she was asleep.

They were hiking.

The morning sun filtered through the emerald-green leaves of the aspen trees and fell in beautiful, shadow-wrapped patterns around her as she walked. The mid-summer air was already warm, filled with the orchestra of countless buzzing insects as they whirled and zagged around her. She brushed a nagging fly away from her face and looked up. Ahead of her, the thin trail along the Coconino National Forest’s Inner Basin turned and disappeared within the green underbrush of the forest. Jeri sighed loudly. She knew from the map she’d studied during their pre-dawn drive into the park that the trail continued towards the peaks of the San Francisco mountains in the distance; a long and grueling hike that her dad was convinced would be a piece of cake. She looked back at him and frowned.

“What’s up, buttercup?” her father asked. His large brown eyes peered down at her from his tall, thin frame with an ever-present glint of curiosity and humor.

“I don’t feel like dying in the mountains today,” she replied grumpily. “And please stop calling me buttercup.”

Her father replied with a deep rolling laugh that echoed through the forest, forcing Jeri’s frown upward into a smile. She loved her father’s laugh, loved the way its low, staccato rhythm surrounded and embraced her like a comforting hug. Even her nascent sense of teenage independence was no match for its disarming warmth. She swatted at the tall blooming stalks of yellow columbine in front of her and continued walking.

“Anything you want to talk about, honey bunny?”

“Dad!” her fourteen-year-old voice screamed as she turned and shot him a venomous look.

“What? I didn’t call you buttercup, did I?” He smiled at her with his handsome face, his dark brown hair held back from his forehead by a tightly wrapped bandana. “Besides, we’re ten miles from everything… you don’t have to worry about me embarrassing you in front of anyone out here, Jer-bear.”

Jeri shook her head and stomped up the trail as her father’s deep laughter embraced her again. She brushed a lock of hair from her already sweaty face and listened to the chorus of birds and insects around her. She didn’t feel much like talking. In a few days her father would again be leaving on a long trip, and Jeri knew no amount of questions – or his infuriatingly vague answers – could take away the impending sense of loneliness she would feel when he was gone. All she wanted now was as much time with him as she could get before he left – and to make him feel endlessly guilty for dumping her once again on Aunt Patricia and her mothball-smelling house.

“How long will you be gone for this time?” she asked sullenly as she plodded ahead of her father along the overgrown trail.

“Two weeks, give or take a few days,” he replied quickly. “Not too long.”

Jeri grunted. “And where will you be?”

“New York City… conferences and meetings… boring stuff.”

Jeri nodded her head. Her father always had a knack for making his business trips sound like nothing short of pure torture, but she knew for a fact he loved his work. An economist and business analyst, her father was a ridiculously intelligent man who in the last few years had become highly sought-after as a business consultant to large corporations. After years of barely scraping by, the results of his new-found fame had been mixed; more money for their little two-person family, but less time together to enjoy it. For the first time ever, Jeri had all of the material things her school peers had – fashionable new clothes, a brand new bicycle, and best of all, all the books and music she could get her hands on. But what she wanted more than anything was the same commodity that was in great and growing demand– her father’s warm, brilliant, and always laughing presence. 

They followed the trail upward past the groves of
quaking aspen trees and towering engelmann spruce into a long, open meadow of wildflowers and waving golden grasses. Jeri heard her father whistle and looked back to see him standing on a rock with a hand cupped over his eyes, staring admiringly out at the view.

“You see that,” he said loudly, pointing at a mountain on the opposite end of the valley. It looked to Jeri like its top had been carved out with a giant ice cream scoop. “That’s Sunset Crater.”

“Yeah dad, I know.” Jeri said flatly, staring at her hiking boots. “You’ve pointed it out before.”

“Sure I have. But…well, look how beautiful it is in the morning light.”

“It’s great. Can we eat now?”

Her father stared at the distant peak for another moment before looking over at her with a dazed grin that Jeri knew all too well.

“I know you didn’t hear what I said, Dad,” she said, exasperated. “Can we please eat now?”

“Oh course we can, buttercup.”

“Daaad!”

They laid a blanket across a large flat rock and sat down next to each other. Jeri pulled two canteens of water from her backpack as her father unwrapped a large sandwich and laid it out on a bright red bandana in front of them. They sat in silence for several minutes, eating hungrily and watching the colors of the panoramic landscape change under the rising sun. Both of them burped in fullness and laughed out loud at each other. Jeri’s father pointed out a few more things of interest in the distance, then moaned in mock exhaustion and sprawled his long frame against the sun-drenched rock. Jeri studied the view for a few minutes longer, quietly remembering everything her father had pointed out before laying down next to him and resting her head on his chest. She stared up at his tanned, youthful face, relaxed and friendly with its ever-present grin. Even now as he pretended to sleep she felt the nagging ping of dread in her stomach as she remembered he’d soon be gone again. His strong heartbeat thumped loudly in her ear.

“Dad?” s
he said softly.

“Yes
, sweetheart,” her father replied with closed eyes, his tone eager as if he’d been waiting for her question.

“Why did things have to change? I mean, why do you always have to leave now? I know you’re making more money and stuff, but… but don’t you miss the way things were before?”

His chest rose and fell slowly as he lay quietly against the rock. Jeri knew this meant her father was thinking very seriously about the question. After a few seconds, his low voice spoke softly back to her.  

“I do miss it sweetheart, much more than you can tell. I know these past few years have brought more than their fair share of changes. Change can be such a difficult thing sometimes… even for me. You’re too young to remember, but when your mother died, I was convinced that nothing ahead of us could ever be as good as what was already gone. But I still had you, my little drooling, diaper-wearing bundle of
joy and terror. And as time passed, I came to realize something.”

“What’s that?”

“That all things have no choice but to continually change. And that nothing can escape this fact. Just look at how much you’ve changed in just the past few months – you’re turning into a young woman faster than I can believe! Even this rock we’re laying on is changing… fracturing, eroding, sinking back into the soil.” His hand found her forehead and slowly stroked her hair. “The key to accepting change is realizing the great things you have now, at this very moment in time, because one day I guarantee you’ll look back on today and wish things were just as they are right now.”

“I doubt that
,” Jeri replied dejectedly.

Her father lifted his head and gave h
er a feigning look of surprise. “What? You’re not having fun out here with me?” he asked sarcastically, tousling her hair.

“Well
yeah, I’m having fun I guess. But I keep thinking about the fact that you’ll be leaving soon, and when I think about it I get sad all over again.”

Her father laid his head back and said nothing for a few minutes. Jeri was beginning to think he’d fallen asleep when his head nodded slowly and his lips pursed like they always did when he was about to say something important. “It’s okay to be sad sometimes, sweetheart
. It helps us appreciate the good times even more. Just try your best not to let it get in the way of making new good times, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise?” Her father pressed, tickling her neck.

“I promise!” Jeri replied, shrieking with laughter as she swatted his hand away.

“Good. And I’ll make a promise to you too. I promise to be home soon, and when I am, I promise to give you as much of my attention as you could possibly want... which I’m guessing will be less and less as the next few years go by.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just a hunch, Jer-bear… just a hunch.”

Jeri pressed against her father, feeling a warmth inside her that was even better than the sun against her back. She closed her eyes and listened to the steady beating of her father’s heart, her thoughts drifting and fading towards a deep, effortless sleep.
 

The dream began to change.

Jeri dimly noticed the sound that followed her father’s heartbeat; a sharp, high-pitched chirp that seemed to chase every faint beat. The warmth of the morning sun faded from her back, replaced by the chill of artificially conditioned air. As she stirred, she noticed the light that filtered through her closed eyelids had mutated to a cold, dull white. A familiar voice whispered her name as a warm hand lightly stroked her arm.

She
opened her eyes and looked up at her father.

The hospital room was small and cramped. The air held the lingering smell of strong antiseptic. An army of stark metal machines crowded around her father’s bed, beeping and humming as they monitored his vital signs through a swarm of thin plastic lines that ran to his chest and head. Lying in the center of the chaos, wearing a green gown and covered with a thin blanket, her father looked up at her and smiled.

“Hey kiddo,” he said weakly. “Did you get some rest?”

Jeri nodded in a state of shock,
blinking back tears as the full weight of reality came rushing back to her. In an instant she remembered everything.

Her father’s illness had come on quickly and without warning. He had called her late one night while she was writing her thesis for her Master’s in Economics in her apartment, her head buried deep in notes and thick volumes on global economics when the phone suddenly rang. He’d tried to make small talk with her at first, but Jeri knew her father too well to know he wouldn’t have called without a reason, and quickly asked him what was wrong. His voice trembled with emotion as he reluctantly told her about the strange headaches and dizziness he had been having for the last few weeks, and how he’d finally relented and gone to the doctor that morning. After a few tests and an MRI, the horrible truth was pointed out to him on a computer screen – her father had a massive brain tumor. Ten minutes after hearing the news, Jeri had packed
a bag and was already breaking the speed limit in her old Toyota Corolla as she wiped away a torrent of warm tears and drove towards the hospital.  

Now, two sleepless days later, she was sitting beside her father’s hospital bed in the middle of the night and staring into his exhausted, deep-brown eyes.

“How are you feeling, dad?” she asked as she grabbed his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Her father shrugged with an indignant look.

“Physically
, I feel fine…no pain at all,” he said slowly, his eyes wet with frustration. “It’s the symptoms that are killing me.” 

Jeri nodded and looked away for a moment to fight back the tears in her own eyes. Less than a day after the diagnosis, the effects of her father’s tumor had continued to manifest themselves in terrifying new ways. Growing deep in the center of his brain at the critical juncture of tissues that control cognition, the tumor had created a condition her father’s neurosurgeon called transcortical sensory aphasia; a condition which, to her father’s horror, had now left him completely unable to comprehend written language. The irony that a man who
’d spent his life as an economist and analyst was now incapable of understanding a single line of text was nearly beyond bearable. Realizing that her time with this brilliant, humorous and loving man was short, Jeri had stayed glued by his bed, vowing much to the irritation of the nurses on staff to stay by him until the end.