Recovering (5 page)

 “I liked it
longer,” she says.

 “I’ll grow
it back out for you.”

“I can’t
believe you had cancer Lee,” she says. When I look up, she’s actually crying
about it.

 “I’m right
here,” I say. “I’m okay.

“Lee,” she
whimpers, “I…I…” Another tear rolls down her face.

 “What?”

 She turns
her face away. “I’m fat,” she huffs.

 I know
exactly how to play this. I lean in and give her a long kiss. “I like the way
you look,” I say. “If anyone should be self-conscious, it’s me.”

 Truth is I
can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror anymore. Sometimes I wish I had
even a tenth of Tarren’s looks. He’s got a face meant for the movies and packs
on muscles like it’s going out of style. Doesn’t care a whit about it either.
All the girls go ga ga the moment he enters a room with that tortured warrior
vibe oozing out of his pores, and the big lug doesn’t even notice. The scars.
It’s hard to be jealous of Tarren and the lot God gave him. I still am though,
and it makes me angry as all hell at myself.

 “You had
cancer,” Amanda says. “You have a right to look…different. I just can’t stop
eating potato chips.

“Come on.” I
put my hand up her shirt. “I think you look fine. You want to turn the lights
down more?”

 She nods, so
I do. I also doc my iPod in her station and put on a playlist I made for having
sex. I call it my “relaxing” playlist, but really it’s just for sex. Then, I
take my clothes off. All of them. I look like a fifth grader who’s about five years
away from puberty.

 “See,” I
tell Amanda, “If I can get naked, you can get naked.”

 Then I
crouch. Mandy notices what I’m doing. “Lee, don’t!”

 I leap into
the bed and tackle her with kisses.

 Between us,
we finish the bottle of whipped cream.

 When we’re
done, I think about putting my clothes back on, but I’m too tired to get out of
bed. I ask Amanda about her job and get her to tell me everything that’s been
going on with her coworkers. She works in the shipping and receiving department
of an industrial chemical manufacturer and thinks it’s the most boring job in
the world.  She never believes me when I tell her I want to hear about it.
Thinks I’m just trying to win nice guy points. But it’s real interesting to me,
like catching a glimpse of a foreign planet where things aren’t like
drive,
drive, drive, watch, watch, watch, BAM!, wrap up the body, get it in the ground
– repeat
indefinitely
. I press her for the most random details like
what’s on her desk at work. What kind of forms she has to fill out. What coffee
they use in the break room.

She asks me
questions, and I tell her about our last software tradeshow, the new update to
the programming, and how the economy has slammed us hard. I’ve got to be
careful about what I tell her. Usually, I’ve got my fake life down pat, names,
people, software details, everything. But ever since the coma, I can’t remember
anything for shit. It’s gotten so bad, I actually scribbled down some notes on
the way here.

 Also, I’m
really tired. I can feel sleep pulling me down with metal hooks. Before the
draining, I was able to stay up three days straight and hardly feel it. Now, I
can barely make it through the day without conking out and sleeping like I’m
dead.

 Amanda is
asking too many questions. I can’t remember what my boss’s name is supposed to
be or if Michigan is in my sales territory or not. My head is starting to
throb. So, I just start making up this story about how I rescued the first lady
after she was secretly kidnapped by terrorists.

Amanda
giggles as I throw in explosions, a galloping horse, and an evil Russian named
Ivan. The last thing I remember is me pulling on a parachute and telling the
first lady to hold on tight before leaping from a burning helicopter.

 Then I’m
just gone.

 
Sleep is not something I wake up from
anymore. I’ve got to drag myself out of it, like a pit of mud. I don’t dream,
or if I do, the dreams hit that damaged part of my brain and disappear into the
abyss.

 When I
finally crank my eyelids open, Mandy’s round, purple alarm clock announces that
it is 10:23 AM. In those first few seconds, I know it’s going to be a migraine
day. Amanda pulled the shades down, bless that girl, but even the faint glow of
sunlight pierces into my skull. Head movement of any kind is an invite to paintopia.

 I put
Mandy’s pillow over my face and lie there for a good hour feeling real sorry
for myself while the pain takes cheap shots right behind my eyes. Never had so
much as a headache before the coma, ‘cept for that one time this angel released
some sort of sonic blast that threw me headfirst into a street lamp when I was
seventeen. Tammy and Tarren made me stay awake all night, taking turns walking
round and round a high school track with me after we buried that angel. Tammy
told me the filthiest jokes I ever heard that night.

What eventually
gets me up from Mandy’s bed is not courage, not gusto or anything like that.
I’ve got to take the mother of all pisses, and if it were my own bed, I might
consider just letting go, but since this is Amanda’s pad, I pull myself up and
stagger into the bathroom.

 My head’s so
bad I actually have to sit down to pee. Good thing I’m already naked, because
I’m not sure I would’ve remembered to pull my pants down. I never let on with
Maya and Tarren how bad the migraines get, but since no one’s in the apartment
I just let the pathetic all out. This includes actually crawling back to the
bedroom instead of walking.

 I dive into
my bag and can barely get the lid off the meds Dr. Lee gave me. After another
hour of lying sprawled on the floor with last night’s t-shirt over my eyes, the
pain backs off enough so that I’m capable of basic higher level thinking.

 When I drag
myself back to the bathroom for a shower, I notice in the mirror that I’ve got
a kiss print on my forehead. Amanda always likes to put it there in the morning
right after she applies her lipstick. Usually I’m awake to kiss her back. Sweet
girl.

 The shower
is bliss. I probably add a couple grand to Mandy’s water bill, that’s how long
I stay in there, but when I get out, I’m feeling better. My eyes are still half
swollen shut, and my head is like an overripe watermelon screwed onto my neck,
but at least I’m walking upright.

 I take two
more pills and wander into the small kitchen. Breakfast is waiting. Scrambled
eggs, toast, bacon, and a bowl of oatmeal. A little note from Amanda tells me
how long I should heat each thing up in the microwave. Honestly, I almost heave
all over the kitchen floor just looking at the stuff. My stomach is in no mood
to actually do the whole food thing for probably the next decade. I hate doing
this, but I scrape the food off the plate into the trash and throw some wadded
up paper towels in after to hide the evidence of my deceit. 

Two small
bowls sit on the floor next to the table. One contains a few remaining shreds
of browning salad mix, the other is filled with water. I find my furry
compatriot chillaxing on Amanda’s comfy brown couch. The ribbon from my bouquet
is tied in a bow around his neck. Mandy probably wouldn’t be so pro-rabbit if
she’d seen that his little round poops decorate the couch like a handful of raisins.

Yesterday I
set up the box of hay that he uses as a litter box in the corner of the living
room, but he doesn’t use it consistently when we travel. I put my sidekick into
the box now and explain the “good guest rules”. He listens with his serious
face but then hops right out of the box the moment I turn my back to gather up
the pellets from the couch. They’re dry and easy to collect. No damage done to
the couch that I can see. 

I check my phone and see a new text.

 Chuck Norris can hot wire
any vehicle he gets into simply by putting his hands on the steering wheel and
saying “vroom, vroom.”

I smile until I remember that I’m pissed at Maya. Our usual
Chuck Norris volleys won’t make things right. She must be in Peoria by now,
gearing up for the mission. Tarren’s probably with her too, and they’re all
serious, cleaning their guns, strategizing how to find the angels, doing other
blatant montage stuff while snow swirls against the window panes.

 I put the
phone away without responding and then power up my girl Starbuck. What I really
need to do today is make us some money. The situation’s pretty dire. Both Maya
and Tarren think most of our money comes from the dating websites I put up.
That’s because this is what I told them. The websites do bring in some dough,
but not enough.

 The real way
I make most of our money is playing poker online. I’m pretty sure Tarren would
have a whole litter of cows if he knew how much of our money I put up, but I
was pretty decent at it before. Ever since the coma though, I suck balls at
Texas Hold ‘Em. I couldn’t bluff my way past a remedial kindergarten class.

 This
basically makes me a loser of epic proportions. It’s my job to keep the family
cashed, and I can’t even do that. I’m thinking I’m going to have to resort to
stealing some credit card numbers. I hate stealing from innocent people, messing
with their lives, though I know, in the end, the banks will pay for it.

 Stealing
credit cards is ridiculously easy. I don’t actually do the stealing. I just
know the right dark net sites to swing by. Two years ago I made contact with a
group out of Estonia that vacuums up truck-fulls of numbers through email
phishing scams. They’ll sell me ten numbers for 50 bucks. Five Hamiltons in
exchange for a person’s entire financial reputation. Sometimes I wonder if
we’re fighting the right bad guys.

I decide to
hold off on going the criminal route and try to make it a good poker day
instead. Only so long a losing streak can last, right? Screw angels and saving
the world. We’ve got to eat. I dig into my duffle bag and take out my Starbuck
action figure for inspiration. She was fond of the cards too, and with her bad
ass spirit shining over me, I feel my luck changing already.

***

 $16.34.
That’s how much I come out ahead after wasting four hours of my life, playing
with a $2,000 bank. Hmmm, let’s see that’s about $4.00 an hour. I would’ve been
better off slapping on some pimples and braces and begging a job out of
McDonald’s.

Real smooth
Gabe. Real bread winning going on. I take a deep breath and wish I’d brought
some joints as I muck through the dark web and find my Estonians. I get a good
deal on a dozen credit card numbers. Sorry good people who live honest lives
and probably have a nice house, kids that went to college, and a yippy little
dog in the back yard. Saving the world isn’t always a pretty or honest
business. Actually, it’s just plain dirty most of the time. I remind myself
that the banks always cover the fraud in the end. I don’t mind giving those
suits a little financial wedgie here and there.

 When I get
the numbers, the first thing I do is call up a little post office in some
forgotten town between here and Fairwell and buy a PO Box. Next, I dial up my
favorite anarchist gun dealer. Franklin answers with an annoyed grunt but turns
real agreeable when he hears my voice. I’ve been a good customer ever since I
met him at a gun show about five years back. Franklin isn’t one for government
oversight, and his paranoia is my gain.

I order Maya
and Tarren a new set of Glocks. Glock 19 for Maya’s smaller hands. Tarren gets
his preferred Glock 32C. I’ve also been thinking about getting us a third sniper
rifle so we don’t have to play musical chairs with the two we’ve got. Franklin
and I discuss it, which takes for freakin’ ever on account of his stutter. I
know he hates it when I finish the word he’s trying to pronounce, so I just let
him go at it.

“What you
n-n-n-need is a Bushmaster Carbon 15,” he grumbles. “So, I’ve, so, so, already,
so, got one in stock.”

“Nah, I want
another Barrett,” I answer him. “Already know how to use it. You got an MRAD by
any chance?” Oh, just thinking of that baby makes me want to drool.

Over the
course of our convo, Franklin turns me toward the Bushmaster. Its highest
selling point is that Franklin can ship it today and he has plenty of ammo.  I
bargain hard. That stutter isn’t winning any sympathy points with me.

As we duel on
the price tag, Franklin’s cat starts meowing in the background. It’s funny as
hell to imagine the torn up old biker with beard as long and gray as Gandalf’s
and a faded Hells Angels shirt barely covering his beer gut, petting a fluffy
white cat on his lap.

Then again. I
look at Sir Hopsalot on my lap. Nope. Totally different. Bunnies are cool as
bowties.

 In the end, Franklin
throws in the red dot optic, the case, and two extra boxes of ammo for the
rifle as part of the deal. Then we go head to head on ammo for the handguns. Tarren
likes to shoot every day that he’s home. I doubt he knows how frackin expensive
those bullets are.

Right about
the point I’m saying, “I want everything clean. Understand? Nothing hot. If I have
to file off the serial numbers again myself we’re going to have a problem,”
Amanda walks in. I give her a little wave. “Overnight it,” I tell Franklin and
give him the PO Box number. Then I hang up on him as he’s trying to stutter out
a sales pitch for some plastic explosives that fell off the back of an army
surplus truck.

 “Thanks for
breakfast and my kiss,” I tell Mandy as I tuck my phone into my pocket.

 Amanda
smiles. Two bulging grocery bags hang off her arms, and I take them both out of
her hands. Feels like she filled them with bowling balls, but I don’t let on
one bit. Up on the counter they go, and I try not to wheeze like a little girl.

 While she’s cooking,
kicking off her heels, and telling me about her day, I massage her shoulders.
Actually, my stomach is starting to come back online, and I’m more interested
in snatching some chips from the bag she’s opened, but she leans her head back
and groans, so I keep going with the massage, putting my thumbs into her neck.

 Her hair is
a tangle of orange curls. It feels so weird to me. Almost rough. Not like the
way I imagine Francesca’s hair would feel. God, I think about running my hands
through those silky black waves.

 “You’re such
an angel Lee,” Amanda says. “You really are.”

 I don’t mean
to, but my hands pause on her shoulders.

 She looks
back at me and mistakes the look on my face. “I wasn’t meaning…” Her mouth gets
all tight. “Lee, I know the way things are for us. I’m fine with it. I’m not
pushing for anything more.”

 I get my
hands going on her neck again.

 “…unless you
want to,” she says in a small voice. For Mandy, this is a brave thing to say,
and I recognize that. I kiss her shoulders and her neck.

 “Mandy, I
really like our time together. I like this. I like you. But with my job, I’m on
the road all the time. It’s a jungle out there.”

 “You could
quit,” she says.

“Nah, I’ve
got to do it.” I feel her shoulders tense beneath my fingers.

“Do you even
like what you do?

“It’s
important. I help people.”

She places
her hand over mine. “There’s tons of virus protection software on the market.
Most of it is cheap or free.”

I lean in
close, prop my chin on her shoulder. “Our software protects people…I mean their
businesses, from a different kind of virus. Something most people don’t know
about. My company, we’re the only ones who sell it. Without us, those viruses
would hurt lots of businesses.”

She steps
away from me and starts mixing the veggies in one of the bubbling pots. “You
sound like you’re on a crusade.”

 Alright,
time to squash this line of conversation. “It’s not just that,” I tell her. “The
cancer. I’m in remission now, but the doc says it could come back any day. Fact
is, it’s pretty likely it will. I’m not looking to put that burden on anyone
else. Wouldn’t be fair.” I can’t help but think of Mom and that last terrible
month of her life.

 “Lee,”
Mandy’s got her head down, but I see a big tear rolling down her cheek. “I
would take care of you.”

 This it when
it finally hits my stupid brain that I’ve done her a real wrong. Taken this
poor, lonely girl and given her a hope that just isn’t there. I just never
thought any girl would take the trouble of falling in love with me. What’s the
right thing to do here? I don’t know. So, what I say is, “This is the way
things have to be in order for there to be…uh, things. Okay?”

 Mandy nods.
“Okay.” She wipes her tears away.

 I drape my
arms around her neck and kiss her cheek.

 “Are you
going to stay tomorrow?” she asks with a huffy breath.

 “Yeah, sure.”

 “I took the
day off.”

“What do you
want to do then?” The smell of the steak in the oven reminds me of how little
I’ve eaten today, and I have to make an effort not to drool down the front of
Mandy’s blousy top.