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inside the bear’s mouth

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OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Thirty-Three

Avery stood at Marty’s drafting table, pouring over drawings of the TDU, matching up the drawings with the real thing. At ground level, the outside of the TDU’s receiving station looked like a gigantic child’s play chest. Sliding metal doors opened and disappeared within the grated metal exterior framework – the classic European pocket door – to reveal a cavernous opening that funneled trash to the giant cylindrical tank housed below ground. With this design, Marty had been able to back his tractor right into the barn and utilizing the trailer’s hydraulic lift, pour the trash directly into the yawning mouth of the cylinder.

Marty’s TDU was a democratic machine, treating all trash equally as long as it was carbon based. Once inside, the trash was mixed with water to create a slurry, an insoluble, goopy mess. The slurry passed through a pipeline to a holding tank where it was heated under pressure until it reached a reaction temperature. Another pipeline, a third unit, also cylindrical – Marty Tirabi was fond of circles – ferried the slurry along to where it finished its initial reaction and was flashed again. Here the gaseous products were spun off, the pressure lowered, the liquids separated from the volatile chemicals. Marty built a series of interconnected pipelines placed one on top of the other, some at 90 degree angles of each other, a steel matrix within which to house the myriad and varied reactions occurring. Step five was another series of thinner cylinders, three in a row, tall and demure, sitting side-by-side like young girls at their first dance, waiting to be asked. But size was no indication of their strength. In these cylinders Marty heated the mixture, separating water from gas from light oils which led to the final stage, two large, squat holding tanks where Marty intended to store the gas and light oils. Even staggering the six stages of equipment at forty-five degree angles of each other, the prototype was huge and encompassed the entire back wall of the barn.

Avery sighed and flopped down at the drafting table. Marty had said there was a problem with water. Was it too much or too little? Avery couldn’t remember. Gil knew, but damn it, he wouldn’t help. Avery was on his own. And with at least two dozen blueprints, this was going to take a while. Maybe a little meditation was in order.

Avery practiced meditation in fits and starts. When he did, a wonderful clarity always ensued, imbibed with an acute awareness of being in the present. And the help always came with it, fecund and unbidden. From where it came, he really couldn’t say. Probably the universal mind, the brain trust, as he referred to it. From ions, or static or electricity. From nowhere and everywhere. He knew at times he’d tapped into the morphogenic field where ideas were traded like stocks on the NASDAQ, the theory being that if a monkey in Costa Rica learned to drive a car, a monkey on the Rock of Gibraltar could do the same without even meeting the Costa Rican monkey. Or perhaps he’d tapped into the Zero Point Field, that eerie, brave new world where discoveries were deposited in the cosmic bank account, waiting to be withdrawn by anyone holding a debit card. He’d read plenty on comparative religion, and had a few surreal experiences in his lifetime, enough to recognize the signs of a downloading from the One Mind when he felt it, which he rarely did. But Gil made regular withdrawals, engaged in constant conversation, slept with it under his pillow. For Gil, change and enlightenment were the same, immediate and visceral, played out physically each time he had a fit or an idea.

For the rest of the world struggling to catch up, the only acceptable change was a gradual climb up a low-grade mountain, the steps laborious and slow. And morphogenic field or not, it still took time for all the other monkeys to accept their new knowledge. Even if they could do it, did they want to do it? Even if he could fix this invention – something he didn’t have a whole lot of faith in at the present moment – Marty had said it would make the world stand on its head. Was the world ready for such a precarious position? Come to think of it, was he?

Avery needed Gil’s fertile mind where you could plant the seed and days or weeks later the answer sprung forth like Athena from Zeus’s head, in full warrior regalia, engaged and ready for battle. Gil’s epilepsy fueled his creativity; the disease forced him into the Zone where he was working out some serious past-life crap. Avery felt helpless at these times, but appeased himself with the thought that you can’t work someone’s karma out for them, a fact that at the tender age of ten, Gil completely understood.

“Gil.” Avery walked to the living room and shouted for his brother. “Gil!”

A muffled, “he’s in his room” wafted up from Kori’s corner of the basement. Avery nodded a thanks that she couldn’t see and went upstairs to find Gil.

He rapped on the door – the music was so loud the door handle was vibrating – and stepped into the room. Unless Gil was hiding under the bed, he wasn’t here. Avery checked the closet – sometimes Gil liked to hang out in the back of it with a flashlight and pretend he was a secret agent or something – then under the bed. He took a peek out Gil’s window. A light was on in the barn, even though it was broad daylight. Gil hard at work . He shut off the stereo and headed for the barn.

➣➣➣

The wind whipped across barren fields where only rolled bales of hay remained. The oak trees swayed and heaved in fits of laughter as the wind rose up, intertwined with their naked branches and whispered secrets only the oaks could understand. Avery took inventory. All healthy, thank God. A couple dozen were in striking distance of both the barn and house. He’d hate to see the damage one rotten tree could cause in a windstorm like this.

He touched the bear totem pole rooted to the ground, facing the barn. It was six feet high, a hundred feet from the barn’s entrance; its eyes saw all who moved through those doors. Marty had carved it out of a tree gone rotten at the base after Gil had noticed it swaying in a windstorm much like this one.

Marty relayed the information to Ruth who, noticing the swing set was in the probably trajectory of the tree should it fall, called a tree service. The tree service couldn’t come for two days. Ruth told Marty to leave the tree alone, that if it hadn’t fallen by now, it wasn’t going to fall in the next two days, and left on an errand.

But Marty couldn’t leave anything alone, especially a rogue tree, threatening him through his barn window. Ruth’s tire tracks weren’t even cooled before Marty got out the ropes and chain saw. The whir of power tools called the kids to the backyard, but Marty banished them to the deck, more than a safe distance away, until he was done with the felling. After that, it was all fun and games. The kids played happily on the fallen log while Marty used his chain saw on the part of the tree still in the ground and routed out the finer stuff. When he’d finished, Marty had transformed his enemy into a vigilant friend, the coolest totem pole the kids had ever seen. One paw rested on the bear’s stomach as if he’d just eaten lunch. His mouth was open, exposing healthy, yet deadly incisors; his eyes were wide as if he’d just spotted something. Marty let Kori paint the eyes and claws and big scary teeth all white, and when it was dry, he let the kids crawl all over it, something they still did years later whenever they hung out in the backyard. Avery smiled and rubbed his hand inside the bear’s mouth. For luck.

Avery tapped lightly on the barn window. Gil threw the dead bolt and waved him in. Avery dropped the roll of Marty’s drawings on the table and removed his coat while Gil closed and locked the door behind him.

“Toasty in here,” Avery said. Gil had the space heater cranked up and it felt like a kabillion degrees in the barn. “Why don’t you wear a sweater like most people do in cold weather and then you won’t need the heat to be so high?”

“Cause I wanted to wear my lizard shirt.” Gil looked down at his black t-shirt with the lizard face on it and smiled.

“What’cha got going on here?” Avery asked.

“Building something,” Gil said.

“I see that. But what is it?” To Avery, it looked like a souped up go-cart. He walked over and surveyed the frame and held a tentative hand out to touch it. The frame proved incredibly durable. “May I?”

Gil nodded and Avery stepped up on the floor board, testing the weight load by jumping up and down on it.

“Come here. I’ll show you.” Gil pushed Avery’s own drawings aside and peered over a stack already open on the drafting table.

Avery sifted through them, his excitement growing. “It’s a hybrid engine? Are you using technology that’s out there or is this something…?”

“New. Dad says you can’t talk about something until you finish or you lose the muse. So I can’t talk about it.”

“You have a muse? Who is it?”

“You know. A pretty lady. Sometimes she sings.”

“What’s her name?”

“She never said.”

“Is she real or you made her up?

“Real.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just know. She comes at night. Sometimes she whispers ideas in my ear or if I’m stuck on something, she helps me solve it.” Gil looked down at his hands and turned them over, inspecting them. “Sometimes she just holds my hand. She says they’re soft.” Gil smiled sheepishly. Avery snickered, but turned away before Gil caught him.

“She helped me with that,” he said pointing to the ATV. “It’ll be more energy efficient than the others. Less fuel, less charging time, and the batteries’ll be smaller.”

“Hmmph,” Avery said, pondering the blueprints. “How long until you think you’ll be done?” Gil shrugged his shoulders and spun around on his stool. “Well, just let me know and I’ll get busy on the patent.” Avery flipped through the drawings. “Is there anything I can start on now?”

Gil unclamped the vice grips holding the drawings in place and rolled them up, a dismissal. Apparently, the conversation was for the present, concluded. Gil unrolled Avery’s drawings flat and used the vice-grip to clip the topsides to the edge of the drafting table. He reviewed them carefully for several minutes, unclamped the vice-grip, rolled the drawings back up and handed them to Avery. Then he walked over to the hammock where Max reclined.

How’d you get him up there?” Avery asked. Gil shrugged like it was no big deal and lay down next to Max who, startled from sleep, emitted a small yelp.

“I need your help,” Avery said. Gil nestled in close, warming himself against Max’s monstrous shape. The hammock moved in a rhythmic, rocking motion. He shook his head and buried it in Max’s face.

“Why not?”

Gil buried his face deeper into Max’s fur.

“Gil. Why the hell not?”

“I just don’t want to do it alone.”Avery detected a tremor in Gil’s voice and mistook it for fear.

“You won’t have to do it alone. I’ll help you.” Gil shook his head vehemently and Avery dropped his voice, low and soothing.

“Are you afraid? Don’t be afraid. The barn’s alarmed. And I swear I’ll keep you safe.”

“I’m not afraid,” Gil spat out. “I just…I can’t do it without Dad. It was his. Not mine. I can only do it if he says I can.”

“But, Gil. Dad’s dead.”

“I know that Avery!” Avery didn’t notice the tears gathering in Gil’s eyes and continued.

“Well, he’s not going to be saying anything again.”

“How do you know?” Gil shouted.

It was the first time Gil had shown such emotion and made Avery realize the unbearable angst Gil had been carrying since his father died. A sudden queasy feeling gripped Avery; it couldn’t have been worse if he’d been sucker punched.

“You don’t know anything.” Gil jumped off the hammock and ran for the door. Max tried to follow, but his foot got stuck in between the knots. He sat there whimpering, trying to disengage his paw. Gil unlocked the dead bolt and ran out failing to deactivate the silent alarm. Avery watched Gil run across the yard, unaware that downtown at the police station, another alarm screamed out a warning.

Max yelped in frustration.  Avery untangled his foot and lifted him out of the hammock. Max took off after Gil through the open door. Avery sat back on the hammock and rocked, listening to the howling of the wind.

“Now what?” Avery said to himself. He really didn’t expect an answer.

“Stuff envelopes,” a voice said. Avery landed on his hands and knees and scanned the space around him. The queasy feeling was back. He sucked at the ambient air.

“Mom?” He stood up and looked uneasily around the barn. As much as he would love to sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation with his mother, the shock might be enough to kill him. He took several tentative steps, swiped the drawings off the drafting table and high-stepped it out of the barn, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t stop to lock it.

Two minutes later, he threw off his coat and sat down at the kitchen table. Stacks of paper and envelopes crowded the kitchen’s surface areas. He scanned the room. The project would take all day. Avery shivered and with a single glance back toward the barn, folded one of the sheets of paper in three and stuffed the first envelope. He looked again before stuffing another. Nothing was amiss. He began folding and stuffing in earnest and after several minutes, the repetitive motion of his task took the chill out of his spine.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before start here. . .

copyright 2012

mind the child

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OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kori sat at the kitchen table going over accounts receivable for the umpteenth time. She wrote numbers on a yellow legal pad, arrayed neatly in columns, punched them into a calculator and wrote them down below previous groups of numbers; the paper was covered with at least a dozen such reckonings, all with lines through them. Upon transferring the final tally, she scribbled over the column and dropped her head to the table.

“Aaaaaaah!” She banged her head on the table several times.

Avery walked in, took one look at Kori and walked out. A couple minutes later he peered around the corner. Kori’s head was still on the table, but she’d stopped banging it.

“Just shoot me now,” she said without raising her head.

“You talking to me?”

“You see anybody else here?”

Avery looked behind him and then back at his sister. “No.”

“Then I’m talking to you, but it doesn’t matter,” Kori said. “I could be talking to the Queen of England. It wouldn’t matter,” she said, sitting up.

Avery sat down and assessed the mass of paperwork spread before her. “Are you going to tell me what the problem is or just go on in high drama?”

Kori raised her head and slammed her fist on the table again. “The problem? The problem is we don’t have enough money. That’s the problem.”

“I thought you just got a check from Robbie?”

“I did,” Kori nodded, “and I used it to buy groceries, and clothes for Gil since all his pants were like three inches too short, and pay the insurance, and the electric bill so they don’t shut us off, and the overdue cable bill…”

“We should be dropping cable. It’s an expense we don’t need,” Avery said.

“Oh yeah? You gonna listen to him whine all day about how there’s nothing to watch. Some expenses are necessary — for sanity’s sake.” Avery dismissed the argument with a wave of his hand.

“And just today I got a $3,700 tax bill and you know what I have left in the checking account? Two hundred and thirteen dollars. Enough to buy groceries for the next two weeks which is two weeks short of when Robbie’s next paycheck will be here.”

“What about the insurance money?”

“They’re still investigating cause of death,” Kori shook her head.  “Bastards.”

“Well, what about your clients? Don’t they pay you?”

“Just sent the bills out.”

“For work you did in the summer? Kori, you really have to stay on top of this!”

“Don’t you think I know that, Avery?” Kori’s voice trailed off. Avery followed her gaze out the small portal window flanking the kitchen. “Even if everyone pays right away, it’s not enough to cover the tax bill.” Kori dropped her head to the table again. “I can’t do this.”

Avery studied a handful of papers. He pulled the checkbook from Kori’s slack fingers and perused its contents.

“I can make this work.”

“I’m scared,” she said, and squeezed his forearm so hard, he almost winced.

Avery saw all the pain and sorrow of the last months in his sister’s face and felt his stomach lurch. He rubbed her back. “I’ll take care of it. It’ll be alright. I promise.” He took a deep breath before proceeding. “I’ll limit it to a few gas stations. And I won’t supply them more than a week at a time so their standing orders won’t be off by too much. Last thing we need is an oil company rep nosing around.” He looked at Kori who, Avery noted, was not protesting. “I’ll keep selling until I unload it all. Then we’ll be officially out of the oil business.”

Kori shook her head, a vehement toss that petered out as she covered her eyes with her hand. When she looked up, Avery noted the absolute despair in her eyes.

“What about Gil? He works out in the barn still. Sometimes for days at a time.”

“It’s armed,” Avery said. “Anything happens, the cops show up.”

“Avery, I could never in a million years forgive myself.” She squeezed his hand. “I know you’re trying to do what’s best for us. And I couldn’t do this, any of this,” Kori’s hand arced out, taking in the expanse of the house, “without you. It’s just…. It’s too risky.”

“But, Kori…”

“Something good’s gonna happen for us, A. I know it will. It’s got to.”

As if on cue, Aunt Stella rapped at the back door, a squat, red-cloaked figure, peering in, hands clasping her cloak together at the throat, eyebrows raised in greeting. Avery got up to open the door, and Aunt Stella, looking like Red Riding Hood plus, blew in, followed by a cold November gale. She set her basket on the table and began the meticulous process of removing layers of clothing: a woolen hat hidden under the cloak hood, woolen scarf and mittens, and a fine woven cloak, all red.

Kori gave Aunt Stella a peck on the cheek and pulled out a chair for her. Aunt Stella was sweating lightly above the brow – a result of so many clothes for what amounted to a two-hundred yard dash – but she rubbed her hands as if to warm them as she accepted the proffered seat.

“Oh dear. My goodness, it’s cold out. No need to go to the freezer section to get a turkey this year. They’ll be frozen in the bush,” Aunt Stella said. “It’s uncannily cold for November.”

“It’s global warming, Aunt Stella,” Avery said. “It’ll result in the ultimate demise of the human race, all because of man’s over-reliance on fossil fuels, which, in my opinion, is driven by greed, intractability and borderline contempt for issues concerning the environment, as opposed to a lack of alternative fuel options.”

Kori rolled her eyes, but Avery resumed his diatribe.

“Let’s see, twenty or thirty more years of wrenching million-year old fossil fuels from the earth’s core so I can drive my brand new Hummer, or another few centuries of life on this planet as we know it, rolling brooks filled with trout, mountains that rise up into infinity, not the kind that have their tops blown off so they can get to the coal seams beneath, but the majestic kind who’s crowns are still intact. Hhmm. I’ll take the oil for twenty, Bob.”

“See what you did?” Kori looked at Aunt Stella, clearly perturbed.

“All I said was, ‘it’s cold out.’”

Kori filled the coffee pot with water, a sibilant pfpfp, escaping clenched lips.

A confused Aunt Stella looked to Avery for clarification, but he waived a dismissive arm at his sister, punctuating her rudeness. He mouthed the words don’t worry about it and Aunt Stella waved her own arm at Kori’s back, ending the matter.

Aunt Stella pulled off the layers of cloth covering the basket and the most glorious of smells escaped, ensuring Gil’s materialization at Aunt Stella’s side, Max close on his heels, drooling, Gil about to be.

“There’s blueberry-walnut with brown sugar topping and apple-currant with pecans,” she said proudly, letting her own olfactory system get a whiff of the divine vapors rising straight up to heaven to where God could have a sniff. “My daughter sent me the recipe. She’s taking a cooking class.”

Gil pulled up a seat next to Aunt Stella and without waiting to be asked, popped a chunk in his mouth and gave a bite-sized piece to Max, careful to first remove the almonds. Curiosity piqued – generally Max’s palate wasn’t quite so discriminating – Aunt Stella couldn’t refrain from asking.

“Gilly, why are you taking the nuts out? Are you afraid the dog will choke?” Gil shook his head, his chipmunk cheeks bulging with blueberry muffin. Kori set a glass of milk before him and he gulped some down.

“No,” he said, breathless. “It’s because he loves them so much. I save them until the end.”

“And how do you know this, Gilly?”

“He told me. He’s not stupid. He knows what he likes.” Gil blinked his large eyes once at Aunt Stella before shoving his face into the basket. He took a long, slow draw, gathering every available scent, and after a few seconds he emerged, a muffin between his teeth. Aunt Stella’s eyebrows rose up and she pinched her lips together to suppress her smile.

“Gil,” Kori snapped, yanking the basket out of his reach.

Aunt Stella covered her mouth to stanch the ensuing giggle. “Oh my, I almost forgot.” She waddled over to her cloak, rummaged through the pockets and pulled out a letter. “The postman left it at my house by mistake.” She handed it to Kori.

“Robbie!” Kori ripped open the letter without a moment’s hesitation. “It’s been almost two weeks,” she said. “Why doesn’t he just use the internet?” She started reading to herself, but Avery grabbed it.

“Wow, it’s a big one,” he said.

“Read!” Kori demanded.

Avery glared at her before beginning.

Dear Kori, Avery, Gil, Aunt Stella, and of course, Max,

“He loves you, too,” Gil said, opening his hand to Max. Max swallowed the almonds in two bites. Gil grabbed him by the snout and kissed him.

Avery cleared his throat and began to read.

Hey guys. Sorry I haven’t written, but so much has happened. I guess in order to do it justice, I have to start from the beginning, so bear with me while I recount it, plus all that I’ve left out over the last few months. Maybe then you’ll understand the decision I’m about to make. ”

“Uh-oh,” Kori said. “Here it comes.”

Life in hell continues. It’s so hot (average 120 degrees Farenheit) that you have to wear gloves to hold a weapon or even a screwdriver. You always have to wear a mask on your face because the sand is so brutal and you have to eat hovering over your food because the flies are so bad in the daytime. It’s the same at night with mosquitos. We went today to Karbala today, a holy site of the Shiites and former wetland (before Sadaam drained it), to test the water. We left behind a portable water tester so the people could use it. Water is really their most precious commodity here, much more important than oil. And they have so little of it.

But it’s not all bad news. I met a girl. Truly the most amazing woman.

“See. Told ya.”

“Sshhh,” Gil put a finger to his lips and gave Kori the hairy eyeball. Avery continued:

Her name is Amara Mir Ahmad. She lives in Baghdad. Her paternal grandfather comes from a group of people known as the Ma’adan. Maybe I should tell you a little about them, especially her father and grandfather, so you’ll understand what these people are going through and how it effects me.

The Ma’adan, also called the Marsh Arabs, live on the water in the middle of the desert. Some people say their home is what the bible refers to as the legendary Garden of Eden. Nobody knows for sure if it’s Eden, but they do know that it used to be the largest wetland ecosystem in the world, measuring 20,000 kilometers which is about 7,500 square miles. But that was before Saddam Hussein dried it all up.

Kori, you remember studying about Mesopotamia and the Cradle of Civilization in art history? It’s the area where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers meet. On today’s map, it’s between Baghdad in the north and Basra in the south. The Sumerians lived there. They were the first people to build dams and irrigate crops. The Marsh Arabs can trace their roots back to those people and have been living the same way for the last five thousand years. They harvest reeds, grow date palms, rice, millet, fish, and raise water buffalo. They build their houses on artificial islands by fencing off some of the marsh and building it up so it stays clear of the tide of the marsh waters. Then they layer mud, woven mats and these giant reeds that grow everywhere in the marshes. Their houses sit on top of all this stuff and they add layers every year to compensate for settling and to make sure their floor stays dry.

Can you imagine? Living on water like that. To go to your next door neighbor’s you need to paddle over in your mashuf, a small canoe. Some of the villagers have larger boats, but everyone has at least a mashuf . People travel everywhere like this. There’s no sidewalks. You can’t drive. They make the boats from qasab, these humongous reeds that grow in the marshes and which they also use to build houses. Everything revolves around the water, the fishing, the water buffalo, the rice and millet, even getting goods to market. When the water started drying up, fishermen, reed makers and the other tradesmen were wading through hip-deep mud carrying their goods to market on their backs. It was terrible.

“Wow, that’s really sad,” Gil said.

“Enough of the history lesson,”  Kori said. “Get to the point.”

“Could you keep your mouth shut and listen, please,” Avery said. Kori grunted, but said nothing further.

Amara’s grandfather, Ajrim Mir Ahmad, left his home long before any of Saddam’s draining campaign, but the rest of Amara’s family, stayed behind.

“How many more pages are there to that letter?” Kori asked. “Cause I can come back when he gets to the decision part.” Avery shot her a nasty look. She rolled her eyes and bit at a hangnail.

When Amara’s grandfather first came to Khan Bani Saad, a market town northeast of Baghdad, his family didn’t want him to go. They’d lived in the marshes for centuries. They were a tight-knit community. People didn’t leave. But he felt the need to go so he moved his wife and their young family to Baghdad and became a fish merchant, selling the wares harvested from the marshes by his own people. He became wealthy by Marsh Arab standards, enough so that he could afford to send his four sons to the University of Baghdad. His family grew up educated which is not a luxury that was afforded the Marsh Arabs until the last thirty years. The sons took wives and got jobs in the city.

Amara’s father, the youngest son, became a civil engineer working for the state. He was well-respected until he refused to work on the dam building projects that Saddam started in 1991 – the ones that would eventually drain his ancestral home. He was arrested under the pretense of supporting members of the Shiite uprising. Saddam’s soldiers came in the middle of the night and took him away. Amara was eight at the time. She hid in the shadows clutching her younger brother and holding his mouth shut to keep him from crying as the soldiers questioned, then beat her father and mother.

The next week, Saddam’s soldiers came and took Amara’s grandfather away. The charge was suspicious behavior and crimes against the state. Amara never saw either one of them again. Her mother supported the family with a state-sanctioned job. She taught English lessons to members of Saddam’s army. Amara believes that had her mother not been some use to Saddam, they would be living with other Iraqis in a refugee camp in Iran.

I tell you all this, not to make you feel sorry for her, but so you will                            understand where she comes from. She’s a brilliant woman. She speaks three                  languages, her native language, English, and believe it or not, Italian, and                              has learned everything her mother has been able to pass on to her. She’s made up her mind to do this thing and I’ve decided to do it with her. It seems more like my calling then enlisting in the army ever did. Mom was right. It’s not about democracy. It’s about what it’s always about – money. So in the true spirit of democracy, I’m voting with my feet.”

“Oh my God, that is sooo like him. Always playing the Goddamn hero. So what, he walks her down the aisle and saves her from a life of oppression?”

“Kori! Mind the child,” Aunt Stella said, cupping her hands over Gil’s ears.  “Anyway, who’s talking about marriage?”

“Robbie is. Don’t you get it. He’s going to marry her. All this cloak and dagger talk about making a decision.”

“Well, I have no idea how you gathered that from his letter. I’m actually not sure what he’s made a decision about,” Aunt Stella said. “Read on, Avery.”

Avery scanned the rest of the letter before continuing.

There’s so much more I want to tell you about Amara, about my life here, about the people. But I want to get this to post and the guy’s leaving right now with the mail. Let me just say that the people here, they really want a democracy, but they’ve been duped. That’s not going to be enough for you to understand, but maybe enough to buy me some grace until I’m home to explain in full. Take care of yourselves as I am not there to take care of you. I know you’ll be fine. Kori, if things get to be too much, lean on Avery. He can handle it. Give Aunt Stella a kiss and Gil an especially big hug for me. Love, Robbie.

“I’m confused.” Aunt Stella said. “Do you think he’s really going to marry her?”

“Of course, he’s going to marry her,” Kori said. “That moron. He has no business getting married yet. He’s freaking twenty-two, for God sakes.”

Everyone turned to look at Kori whose face was shot red with anger. She stood, tipped her chair over in the process, and strode to the sink. She washed her hands with a fury and threw water on her face before covering it with her hand. Her tears landed with several swift plops , cascading and pooling in bunches on the porcelain, indistinguishable from all the other drops of water falling from her dripping face. No one spoke while Kori stood there, fighting back her fear for the brother she knew was no longer ten thousand miles, but light years away.

to be continued. . .

click here to read what came before. . .

copyright 2012

alarming the barn

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Oil in Water

Pam Lazos

Chapter Twenty-Three

Robbie’s breath snaked out in white tendrils as he raked the earth’s palette of bronzes, golds, reds and browns. Tiny veins shot through the herbaceous musculoskeletal structure, now transparent with the dying of them. Leaves. There were a million of them. He raked giant piles together, stopping on occasion to glance at the ones that glowed. He would shuttle the piles back to the woods later with the tractor. For now, he maintained a steady rhythm, grunting on occasion, but with a single-mindedness that showed him to be lost in deep thought.

The previous night’s fog had lifted, replaced by rows of cumulo-stratus clouds broken intermittently by the brazen morning sun. Where dawn broke through the empty spaces, patches of orange and gold hurtled across the landscape and scattered the ground with a brilliant luminosity. Robbie stopped to watch the effervescent and mutable light show, evolving before his eyes. He inhaled its beauty with a peace that comes only in the small moments before returning to the task before him.

Avery stepped out on the back deck wrapped in a blanket and wearing bedroom slippers.

“What are you doing, fool?” he whispered. “It’s 6:30 in the morning?”

Robbie smiled and nodded, but didn’t answer, so Avery went back inside. Ten minutes later he returned, rake in hand and dressed for the day.

“Is this what basic training has done to you?” He thrust a coffee cup into Robbie’s hand. Robbie gulped it down in four swallows.

“Damn, didn’t that hurt?” Avery asked, stunned.

“I was doing my Gil impersonation,” Robbie responded. He flashed a set of picture perfect teeth. At 5’11”, Robbie would never achieve Avery’s height, but an additional fifty pounds and the build of a linebacker left Avery with no advantage. Where Avery’s lithe, wistful frame reminded one of a willow tree, Robbie’s solid, massive build was more akin to an oak.

“You couldn’t have gotten more than a few hours sleep. Go crawl back in.” Robbie rolled his coffee mug across the freshly raked ground. It halted at the nearest leaf pile.

Avery shook his head. “I’m up now. I’ll hang.” Avery took a sip, set his steaming cup down and threw himself into the task. They worked in silence for several minutes before Avery spoke, his eyebrows furrowed in thought.

“Robbie?”

“Hmmm?”

“Tell me about Mom and Dad.”

A shadow crossed Robbie’s face, passing like a cloud over the moon.

“What do you want to know?” he didn’t look at his brother.

“Did you talk to them before…” Avery’s voice trailed off and ended in silence. “Well, I know that, I mean, you said…but, did you…?” He coughed to clear his throat. Robbie searched Avery’s face before laying down his rake.

“Go get me another cup of coffee and I’ll tell you,” Robbie said. Avery turned and walked inside, retrieving Robbie’s mug along the way.

➣➣➣

Avery returned with two mugs and Robbie joined him on the step. They sipped in silence, allowing the last streaks of oranges, purples and blues to bombard their retinas before Robbie spoke.

“It was pretty bad.”

“I can handle it.”

“I know you can handle it,” Robbie said. “I just don’t know if I want to plant that visual in your overactive imagination.”

“That’s Gil.”

“It runs in the family.”

“If I have nightmares, I promise I won’t call you.” Avery said.

“You can always call me.”

“Really?” Avery said.

“Whaddya’ think?”

“Well…” Avery cleared his throat. “what’s it like to sleep with a girl?”

“Oh.” Robbie ran his hands through his hair. The rhythmic who-who, who, who of a Great Horned Owl broke the tension. “You know how all the body parts work?”

“I’m sixteen. Give me some credit,” Avery said, toeing the step with his sneaker. “I was looking for something more…subtle. You know. Maybe something I could use….” He ended his sentence with a little fake cough, covering his mouth.

“Truth be told, if you weren’t a novice, I might have a thing or two to say about it. You’re still pretty young.”

“Well? Can you give me something useful anyway? For later.”

The corner of Robbie’s mouth twisted up in a grin. “At first it’s a lot like hunting, all adrenaline pumping and going in for the kill. And you’ll feel half-dead afterward, like somebody gutted you, but you’re light as a feather because of it. After, you’ve done it a few times and gotten the hang of it – I say that because you never really get used to it enough to take for granted, at least not if you’re doing it right – then it becomes more like fishing. You’ve got plenty of time. You may as well relax and enjoy the boat ride.”

Avery waited, but Robbie said nothing more. “That’s it?” he asked incredulously. “That’s your brotherly advice?”

“What do you want from me? I can only deal with one eye-popping topic at a time. You choose.”

Avery hesitated. “Mom and Dad then,” he said, obviously torn. “But promise you’ll tell me about the other one before you go back.”

“Alright,” Robbie replied. The smile faded from his eyes.

“After I left, I headed to Philadelphia. I knew they’d take the I-95 home. I was looking for accidents. It was a busy night for the cops. Three accidents that night.” Robbie shuddered and wrapped his hands around his coffee cup for warmth. “I stopped at every one. I had to cross I-95 on foot – don’t try that at night – and hop the median to get a look since the emergency vehicles were the only thing you could see from the other side.” Robbie grimaced and shook his head.  “I won’t tell you what the first two looked like. You wouldn’t sleep for a week. I held my breath every time, praying it wasn’t Mom and Dad, and every time I said a little prayer of thanks. I was feeling lucky.” At that, Robbie’s eyes watered and he squished his eyelids against them.

“And then, that third time, my luck was done cause there they were. It was so dark. It seemed like the whole world had gone grey. Maybe the street light was out, I don’t know. Everything had this muted quality.” Robbie’s face was a mask of calm, betraying none of the raging vortex of emotions hovering just below the surface.

“Were they conscious? Did they know you were there?” Avery asked.

Robbie shook his head. “I don’t know. The paramedics had already strapped them onto gurneys. I saw them load Mom into the ambulance. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open. I called her, first Mom, and then by her full name. She mumbled something, but I was too far away to hear. I think I startled the hell out of the paramedics, coming from the middle of the road and all. I told the guy they were my parents, but he just kept at it. Told me to drive to the hospital.” Robbie shrugged. “Bastard..” He took a deep, jagged breath.

“What about Dad? Did you see him?”

Robbie’s throat constricted, but he squeezed the words out. “He was already in the ambulance with a sheet pulled over his head.” Robbie held his coffee cup in a death grip, his knuckles white with the strain. “I talked to the sole cop at the scene.”

The boys sat shoulder to shoulder, so intent on their conversation that neither heard the door open behind them.

“He hadn’t seen the accident,” Robbie continued, “but surmised based on the positioning, that they were forced off the road by a second car.”

“What second car?” Both Robbie and Avery jumped at Gil’s query.

“When the heck did you get here?” Robbie asked, agitated.

“Just when you said ‘forced off the road by the second car,’” Gil said.

“Yeah, well, go back inside. Avery and I are talking.”

“I want to know what happened, too,” Gil pleaded. Robbie and Avery exchanged glances. “I’m not a baby.” Avery shrugged and Robbie relented.

“Alright, come sit down.” Gil sat down next to Robbie with Max at his feet, the three brothers seated shoulder to shoulder.

“There was a man passed out in the front seat. The air bag had exploded and the car reeked of alcohol, like a bottle spilled. I have a different theory now.” Robbie cast a strange look in Avery’s direction, but Avery didn’t follow.

“I stuck my head in the back seat and the freaking,…” Robbie looked at Gil and blushed, “the smell of alcohol permeated the whole interior of the car. Like a frat house at 2 a.m.”

“The cop came over and I asked him why the guy was still lying in the car. He said the paramedics checked him over and there was nothing wrong with him other than being drunk. They were short of ambulances so the guy was still waiting for a ride. Judging from the cop’s reaction, I think he was happy to leave him there to rot.”

“Did he ever wake up? Gil asked. He stared wide-eyed at Robbie as he continued with the story. Max thumped his tail twice on the wooden step when Gil spoke.

“Actually, he did.”

“Did you talk to him?” Avery asked. Robbie stared off into the distance, the scene replaying before his eyes. He shook his head trying to dispel the memory.

“There was just a minute where the cop was in his squad car, talking on the radio, and it was just me and this guy. He reached out his hand for me so I took it. He smelled awful. Like he took a bath in a bottle of Mad Dog. I almost puked.”

“Was he hurt? Did you to get him out?” Gil asked. Robbie drank the rest of his coffee and set the mug down at his feet.

“He didn’t ask for help. He just looked at me and said he didn’t want to do it.”

“Didn’t want to do it or didn’t mean to do it?” Avery asked.

“I’m not sure,” Robbie replied. Several pots with hardy mums adorned the sides of the steps. Robbie plucked the head off one, sniffed it and tossed the scentless flower to the ground. “And the weirdest thing is, I could swear the guy was faking it. I mean, he talked like a drunk, but his eyes were lucid. I had the strangest feeling like….”

“Like what?” Gil asked.

“Like he had drunk the alcohol after the accident. Drunk people stink from inside not outside. It smelled like he poured it on himself instead of down his throat,” Robbie said. Gil’s eyebrows shot up as he pondered this new information. Avery responded more cynically.

“That doesn’t sound right. The guy’s in prison for the next three to five years for involuntary manslaughter,” Avery said. “Why would he do it on purpose?”

Robbie shrugged. “I can only call it like I saw it.”

“But why would anyone want to hurt Mom and Dad?” Avery asked. “They didn’t have any enemies.”

“Well maybe they didn’t, but what if someone they worked for did?”

“The Governor?” Avery asked. “You’re not serious.”

“I don’t know. None of it makes any sense.” Robbie rubbed his temples and said, “Who’d want to hurt Mom and Dad?”

“Well, Dad didn’t have any enemies. He was too nice a guy. All his students loved him,” Avery said. He polished off the rest of his own coffee, a tawny mixture of three quarters milk and one quarter coffee, and set the mug in the crook of his arm. Gil tapped his foot nervously in syncopated rhythm.

“What about all the stuff Mom was doing, trying to get the landfill shut down. Maybe someone didn’t want her meddling,” Robbie said.

Gil tapped his foot more loudly, bopping his head to his own internal rhythm, his whole body following a trajectory back and forth. “Can we eat breakfast now. I’m starving.” Gil jumped up and ran into the kitchen without waiting for a response. Avery shrugged, following.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Robbie said. He sat, staring at the landfill in the distance.

“Hey, Robbie?”

“Yeah?”

“Since you’re leaving soon and we don’t know when you’ll be back, I was thinking…”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking that we should have a big back yard party. Bonfire, food, fireworks, the whole enchilada.”

“Sounds like a plan, brother,” he said. He rose wearily and followed Gil inside.

➣➣➣

The sun was low in the late October sky and Robbie judged by the dwindling light that it was soon dinner time. He turned on his flashlight and circled the perimeter of the barn, checking the foundation, the walls, the roof line, looking for any breaches in the exterior. He completed his circle and banged on the barn door.

“All tight. Not even a mouse could get in here.”

“What’s that?” Jack emerged from the barn, wiping his hands on rag.

“How’d it go?” Robbie asked. Gil followed Jack out of the barn, pounding his fist in his open palm over and over again.

“All finished,” Jack said. “He’s safer out here than in the house.” Gil walked over, still punching, and stood beside Robbie who grabbed both Gil’s hand in his one, silencing them.

“We should have done this before,” Robbie said. “Now I’ll sleep better.” Gil smiled and removed his hands from Robbie’s grasp.

“Let’s show him how it works,” Jack said. He went inside, Robbie and Gil following.

“There’s a couple different ways it can go. But the most important is, when the alarm goes off, it sends a signal directly to the police station. So if you’re in here and you’re armed, be sure you know where the call buttons are. You don’t want to be sending signals to the police all the time and have them show up looking for bad guys who aren’t here.” Jack cocked an eyebrow at Gil who wiggled his shoulders, his excitement growing.

“The call buttons are here, here, and…here,” Jack said indicating the places. Gil sat down on the swivel stool at his drafting table and spun around once.

“As soon as you’re in, you turn the key for the deadbolt,” Jack closed the barn door and turned the key, “and that will automatically activate the alarm. You can override it by pressing this button here,” Jack said, indicating a yellow button on the alarm panel. “That red light up there,” he continued, pointing to a spot above the door, “will let you know if the alarm is working. If the light’s on, you’re armed.”

Gil squirmed in his seat, beaming. “Gilliam William Tirabi!” Robbie said. “I cannot stress enough the significance of this item. It is not, I repeat, not, a toy. And this is not a movie.” He looked at Gil for emphasis. “If you trip the alarm too many times – either by accident or on purpose,” Robbie raised his eyebrows and stared intently at his brother, “the cops won’t come when you do need them. Do you understand?”

A wide smile revealed most of Gil’s teeth. He spun around again and nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” Robbie looked at Jack for him to continue.

“If you want to bring the whole system down, you hit this button.” Jack indicated another switch, this one in blue. “And finally, if you’re under attack, I mean full on, no holds barred, take no prisoners, all out assault, you hit this button.” Jack pointed to a red triangular button that sat alone on the alarm panel.” This one is hard-wired to call not only the local cops, but the state police. And it wails. An eardrum bleeding screech of an alarm system that will wake Kori, Avery, and every neighbor within a three-block radius. But your ears are super sensitive, so I’m tellin’ you, man, don’t use this one unless you really, really need it.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Gil said, unable to suppress a smile.

“Alright,” Robbie said. “Our work here is done.”

“Oh, one more thing,” Jack said, picking up a pack of earplugs off the shelf. “If you do activate the alarm of death….” he smirked and grabbed Gil’s arm. “Make sure you use these. I don’t want you having an episode because of my alarm system.”

Gil opened his hand and Jack placed a pair of earplugs in it. Gil rubbed them between his fingers, scrunched them down to nothing and stuck them in his ears where they expanded.

“Okay, gentlemen,” Robbie said. Jack deactivated the alarm and Robbie locked the barn up for the night, handing Gil the key.

“I’m giving Avery a spare key. He’ll know how the alarm works,” Robbie said to Gil.

Gil smiled.  The bright green neon earplugs sticking out of his ears made him look like Dumbo.

copyright 2012

to be continued. . .

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salmon with lime and wasabi

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Oil in Water

Pam Lazos

Chapter Twenty-Two

Street lights struggled against a foggy, moonless night, their beams of light crashing to a halt against the first heavy water particles they met. Only intermittent porch lights remained aglow; the occupants of the homes on Willow Street were asleep for the night. A car crept down the road, pulled into the Tirabi driveway and killed the lights and the engine.

Upstairs, Gil flicked on the small light next to his bed, his own invention, a forearm and claw. The light emanated from the palm of the claw and down toward the base which held it in place. Kori had helped him with the design.

Gil held his breath to better hear the outside world. He threw the covers back and walked on silent feet to the window. Despite the chilly November air, Gil slept with the window cracked. He drew back the curtain a hair’s breath, allowing only enough space for one eye to peer down to the car parked in the driveway. A Pacifica, Gil thought, but his one eye couldn’t confirm it.

Muffled sounds emanated from the car and Gil could see the windows starting to fog a little bit. The door opened a smidgen and then swung wide. Gil drew a sharp intake of breath and pulled back from the curtain. He stood in silent contemplation, eyes rolling back and forth as if trying to deduce further information. After several seconds, he bolted out the bedroom door and ran down the corridor, taking the steps two at a time. He grasped the door knob with both hands and yanked the door open where it banged against the wall, sending a shiver through the spine of the house.

“What the heck are you doing?” a disembodied voice asked as it rounded the corner and came up the front steps. Gil let out a short whelp and jumped full on at the approaching figure, wrapping his arms around its neck and squeezing for all he was worth.

Robbie dropped his bags just in time to catch his brother, but not in time to get his balance. The pair went clattering to the ground in a confused tangle of limbs, their fall broken only by the bags at Robbie’s feet. “Gil,” he grunted, more of a guttural sound than a word. Gil released his death grip and Robbie wheezed, regaining his breath. He raised himself on one elbow and Gil did the same as if lying on duffel bags on the front stoop in the middle of the night was a normal thing.

“I knew you were coming back tonight,” Gil said. “Kori said not until tomorrow, but I knew it would be today.”

“Well, technically Kori’s right since it’s after midnight, but we’re not going to tell her that, right?” Robbie asked. Gil nodded and lunged for his brother again, toppling him back and onto the ground.

“It’s been three months and twenty-seven days,” Gil said into Robbie’s neck.  Robbie rubbed Gil’s back in a circular motion.

“I missed you, too, buddy,” Robbie said. “What do you say we get out of this fog.  It’s creepin’ me out a little.” Gil helped Robbie to his feet and grabbed his duffle bag, grunting with the strain of it. Robbie smiled watching him crash and bang his way into the foyer. A light crept out from under Kori’s door and spilled down the stairs.

“Hawk at twelve o’clock,” Robbie said and Gil looked up the stairs to see Kori’s slippered feet standing at the top.

Kori’s voice spilled down the steps: “Gil. It’s the middle of the night.”

Robbie’s voice was hoarse from lack of sleep. “He did the hospitable thing and came to greet me.”

“Robbie!” Kori ran down the stairs and jumped into Robbie’s arms, knocking him down for the second time in the last five minutes. He lay sprawled out on the floor with Kori straddled on top of him. She blushed, mumbled an apology and pulled him to his feet. She held his grip and stared at him intently for a moment, a specimen under a microscope. He folded her into his arms and in a heartbeat she returned the mantle of responsibility to her younger brother.

“That bad, huh?” She shook her head and stifled the urge to cry. He squeezed tighter.  “Hey, how about a drink?”

“Yeah, hot chocolate!” Gil yelled. A moment later the hall light clicked on and a crusty-eyed Avery stumbled out of his room and into the hallway.

“Gil?” he called downstairs. “Are you alright?”

“He is now,” Robbie called back.

“Robbie!” Avery said, taking the stairs two at a time.

“When did you get home? I mean…that’s a stupid question. Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”

“The element of surprise, my brother.” Robbie and his lopsided grin were home. “C’mon. I’m starving. What’ve you got to eat in this place.

“A little salmon with lime and Wasabi sauce,” Avery said. “My own creation.” Robbie crinkled his nose.

“A little spanikopita from Aunt Stella,” Avery said. “And some baklava for dessert.”

Robbie’s eyebrows shot up in appreciation. “God, It’s good to be home.” He wrapped his arm around Gil’s shoulder and they headed for their midnight raid on the refrigerator.

copyright 2012

to be continued. . .

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definately coming back

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Oil in Water

Pam Lazos

Chapter Seventeen

Robbie, Kori, Gil and Avery stood in the middle Terminal C of the Philadelphia International Airport waiting on a round of coffees from the kiosk. Robbie wore the telltale uniform of a man on his way to basic training. Sunday morning terminal traffic was tranquil and, as a result, you could hear the music emanating from the stand. Gil tapped his feet and chomped on a chocolate chip muffin, his jaws moving in a ravenous, rhythmic dance.

“How many stars, Gil?” Robbie asked.

“Three and three quarters,” Gil responded.

“For a muffin?” Kori asked.

“Has he ever given anything four stars?” Robbie asked Avery.

“There was that gelati he had when Mom and Dad took us to Rome. I think he gave that four and a quarter stars. But nothing’s come even remotely close since.”

Robbie glanced over at Gil inhaling the remains of his muffin. “Well, I’d like a glimpse of whatever he deems worthy of five stars.”

“One mocha, two hot chocolates, and a decaf latte,” the coffee jock said, setting the cups on the counter.

Kori sprinkled chocolate on her latte, took a dainty sip and closed the lid. Robbie doused chocolate powder on his and took a big draw.

“Kind of redundant, don’t you think?” Kori asked as she watched Gil vigorously shaking chocolate powder all over his drink. She grabbed the shaker from Gil’s grasp and set it on the counter.

“Well, the whipped cream was still white,” Gil whined. “And the chocolate wasn’t coming out fast enough.” Avery steered Gil away.

They moved like an octopus toward the metal detectors that refused entry to all non-ticketed passengers while x-raying the bags, purses, pockets and shoes of the ticketed ones.

Gil pointed to a woman standing barefoot, one foot balanced on top of the other. “Modified flamingo pose,” he mused.

Robbie slung an arm around Gil’s shoulder. “Listen, buddy. While I’m gone, somebody’s gotta keep your sister in line. Think you can do it?” Robbie asked, poking Gil’s chest. Gil grabbed Robbie’s finger and pulled himself in close and tight, leaning into his broad chest, holding on to him like a lifeline when Kori leaned in to Robbie, too.

“I don’t know if I can do it alone,” she whispered.

Robbie smoothed her hair back and kissed her forehead. “You can. I’m only going to be gone for four months. Then I’ll be back.”

“Yeah, but once basic training’s over they’re going to send you somewhere and they’re not going to wait for world peace to do it.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “The world needs heroes, Robbie. I just wish you weren’t one of them.”

Kori slumped down in one of the quaint white rocking chairs in front of the window, closed her eyes and rocked to an internal rhythm. Robbie sat beside her and waited. Gil and Avery pretended to window shop, not wishing to disturb whatever fragile truce was being forged. After several minutes, Robbie grabbed her hand in his large paw and spoke softly to her.

“Look. I’m gonna do the basic training and then I’m going to find a way out of the rest. I won’t let you down, Kor.” His eyes searched hers.  She looked down at her lap, voice cracking.

“It’s not just you being around. I can always hire someone to fix the plumbing if it breaks. But what about the money? We were barely making it with your paycheck?”

“Your business is taking off. Plus you can have my whole pay.”

She stared at the hands in her lap, hers and Robbie’s mixed. “I don’t know if I can raise Gil by myself. He’s…” she raised her free hand to her mouth to hide the treason, “…a handful .” She began rocking again, the weight of her confession resting between their hands.

“He’s work, but he’s no invalid. The kid could survive for weeks without us. He might eat nothing but cereal and never take a bath, but he’d be okay.” Kori gazed at Robbie, her eyes soft and moist. “It’ll be fine.” He squeezed her and released. “Now let’s go. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

They stood and in moments were flanked by Gil and Avery. Gil jumped on Robbie’s back and Robbie carried him until they reached the metal detectors.

“This is where you get off, Salamander.” He set Gil down and hugged him, then encircled Avery’s slender shoulders in a mighty bear lock.

“I’m trusting you with the finances,” Robbie whispered to Avery. “Kori’s a scatterbrain with numbers. You need to help her manage the books for her business, too, but without bruising her ego.”  He squeezed the back of Avery’s neck and smiled. “I’ll get you through U Penn, but keep your grades up. You’re going to need at least a partial scholarship.”

“Hurry back,” Kori said. “And write to us, would ya’?”

“You’re leaving,” Gil said, a statement, not a question. Robbie put one knee on the floor and knelt at eye level with his brother.

“Are you coming back? Or are you leaving like Mom and Dad?”

Robbie did not take his eyes from Gil’s face. “Definitely coming back. That’s a promise.” A wide-mouthed smile broke across Gil’s face exposing all his teeth. Gil raised his hand for a high-five and Robbie smacked it.

“I love you,” he said, and before Gil could respond, he was up and through the metal detector, collecting his bags. “See you in a bit,” he said, and disappeared down the corridor.

Copyright 2012

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, click here. . .

going, going, gone

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copyright 2011

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

Chapter Thirteen

Several weeks later after all porch repairs had been completed, Gil sat in a darkened room, ZiZi at his feet, watching Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome. He held a fistful of popcorn halfway to his mouth, eyes wide with fear and excitement. The music swelled as the crowds called for the great showdown. Kori came up from the basement wearing a pair of overalls doused in paint, several brushes sticking out the top front pocket, the paint still on them.

Gil was so engrossed in the movie he didn’t hear her enter. She surveyed the scene, strolled casually to the coffee table, picked up the remote and pressed the off button. The T.V. went blank and Gil went ballistic.  With a grunt he threw a handful of popcorn at her face with more emotion than force.

“Turn it back ON!” he shouted, reaching for the remote. Taller by a head, Kori was able to withstand this onslaught with little effort. Gil clutched and yanked and tried to knock it from her hands. “KOREEEE. TURN IT ON!”

“No.” She pulled away and walked to the window, throwing back the curtains. Sunlight blasted in, temporarily blinding him. He blinked in reptilian fashion until his eyes adjusted to the glare. Kori pulled back the rest of the curtains, flooding the room with light, and pointed to the door. On her signal, Gil’s accomplice moved to the front door where he stood, head erect, tail wagging, more than ready to take the punishment with his master.

“It’s 11 o’clock. In the morning! It’s Saturday. Go outside.”

Gil took a deep breath and blew it out in a huff before turning toward the door.

“C’mon, Zi.” He grabbed a baseball cap off the coat rack, carefully pushed his bangs to the side, and held the door open for Zizi who barked once and bounded out into the brilliant sunlight. Gil stuck his tongue out at Kori and was gone. Kori watched from the window as they played fetch the stick. She smiled, and headed back to the basement.

She was halfway down the stairs when she heard Gil’s high-pitched wail.

“Zi, Zi, no! Come, Zi! Now!

She took the stairs two at a time and threw open the front door. Gil sat in the middle of the street, ZiZi’s head on his lap. He rubbed her ears and spoke softly to the inert figure. A boy of about eighteen hovered in the background, his car door still open, radio blaring, looking on helplessly. Kori sprinted across the wide front yard to the road and dropped to her knees.

Gil was rubbing one hand softly over ZiZi’s body while the other hand scratched instinctively at her favorite spot behind her ear. There was very little blood, but one look at her and it was clear the internal injuries were tremendous. She was panting, each attempt at breath wracking her body. Kori placed her hand on ZiZi’s ribs and the dog whimpered before paroxysms of coughing began.

“Take your hands off of her,” Gil said, throwing Kori’s hand back at her as if it were diseased. “This is your fault.”

Kori opened her mouth to protest; her voice caught in her throat.

“Broken,” Gil said.  ZiZi’s body looked to be shrinking. She shivered and Gil covered her with his arms. Kori touched ZiZi’s nose; it was warm.

“She’s broken and she can’t be fixed,” Gil said, rocking, his eyes locked on the dog.

Kori touched Gil’s arm. It was cold, like ZiZi’s body, and his face had turned a preternatural white. He scratched ZiZi’s ears and murmured, soft clucking noises meant to soothe. ZiZi took a deep breath and shuddered again.

“Do you have a cell phone?” Kori asked the young kid pacing behind them. The boy nodded. He looked too young to have a license. “Can you call a vet? Tell them it’s an emergency.” He nodded and ran to his car.

Gil continued his quiet incantations, alternating between stroking ZiZi’s head and scratching her ears. They were like two lovers who know the end was imminent, but continued making plans for the future.

“And after lunch, we’ll go down to the creek and look for baby minnows,” he whispered, his voice straining with the effort. “And maybe we’ll take a nap under the Willow tree.” ZiZi thumped her tail once and whimpered. She raised her face to Gil with considerable effort and licked his nose. Gil stroked her head and rubbed his face in her fur.

“What do you want for lunch, girl?” Gil asked. “How about a melted ham and cheese sandwich?” ZiZi wagged her tail twice, winced and stopped. Gil rubbed her tail. “Maybe a few chips, too, huh?” Gil rubbed his nose in the nape of her neck and she moved her head to nuzzle him.

“The vet’s tech is on his way.” The young driver was back, pleased with himself that he was able to make the arrangements, but his face fell after seeing ZiZi’s condition.

Her breath came in short bursts and recognition lit in Gil’s eyes. He’d seen this before in movies and shuddered at the thought of what was coming next. Gil had watched them all. The hurt, the hunted, the hapless, their last breaths coming in fits of fury or lackluster sighs. Gil had watched people die so often that he thought he’d become immune to it. When his Mom and Dad died, he reacted in stalwart fashion, just like the heroes on T.V., dry-eyed and tight-lipped. Now he clenched his teeth, but it couldn’t stop the tears which were pouring out of the corners of his eyes like molten lava.

“Please don’t go, Zi,” he murmured. He rested his head on ZiZi’s and she raised her nose an inch to meet him then dropped to the ground, her last breath escaping in one small sigh. Gil tightened his grip, trying to hold on even as he felt her spirit go. Gil began to cry, a low, crazy moan that sounded like death itself.

“I’m so sorry,” the young driver said. “She ran right out in the road. I didn’t see her until she was right in front of my car.” Kori nodded, but Gil had no room to hear him above the sound of everything ZiZi’d ever told him.

to be continued. . .

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ashes, ashes, we all fall down

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copyright 2012

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

Chapter Twelve

Robbie, Gil, Kori and Avery piled into the late Ruth Tirabi’s Honda Odyssey . Thanks to Honda, Ruth hadn’t needed to substitute comfort for clean air simply because she had a large family. The Odyssey had accommodated her need to transport a husband, four kids, their dog and their gadgets without sacrificing low emissions, and it still got pretty  good gas mileage, two things American car manufacturers deigned unworthy of excess research funds.

“Where we going?” Kori asked, starting the engine.

“What about Jersey? We could go down to Cape May point?” Avery said, fiddling with the lid of the cardboard that contained his parents ashes. “This way they can look at the sun rising and setting all the time. I’m also thinking I should drive.”

“Forget it. I’m driving,” Kori said.

“Cut him a break once in a while, Kor, or are you too old to remember sixteen?” Robbie said with raised eyebrows. “Soon he won’t need your permission. But you’re still going to need a lawyer someday.”

“If you let me drive today I promise I won’t charge you,” Avery added.

“I’m thinking Chickies Rocks overlooking the Susquehanna. Mom and Dad loved that spot,” Kori said, ignoring both her brothers. “I’m also thinking you should both shut up and just be passengers.”

“Awwww, you said shut up,” Gil said in a sing-song voice.

“Yeah, and who you gonna tell?” Kori said. Gil turned to the window. Robbie shot Kori a sad look; Avery squeezed Gil’s thigh, but said nothing.

When Ruth and Marty died, Kori installed herself as the family matriarch despite her lack of any obvious mothering instincts.  She hated to cook, couldn’t stand the sight of blood, and her advice — which in no way resembled Ruth’s thoughtful and incisive rumination — sucked.  If Ruth’s words were like creamy hot fudge over vanilla ice cream, Kori’s were more like motor oil. There was a good flavor in there somewhere, but you’d be likely to throw up before you were finished.

The boys shouldered on even though most days they wanted to tell her to just shut up. But they held their tongues out of love and a sense that Kori’s assumption of Ruth’s role was the only thing keeping her from fracturing into a billion jagged shards. So the three brothers exchanged glances and suppressed smiles which Kori didn’t notice.

“Whatever, Kori. Let’s just go,” Avery said. An excellent judge of character, a skill that would serve him well throughout his life, Avery was the first to discover that going head-to-head with his sister rarely worked.

“We’ll let Gil decide,” Robbie suggested. All three siblings turned to Gil for a decision.

“Rocks,” he said, and Kori peeled out of the driveway.

“Hey, let’s get there in one piece, huh?”

“Hhmmmph,” was all Kori said in response.

Two hours later, they pulled up to the precipice at Chickies Rocks, a favored spot of the remote-controlled plane cognoscenti, a steep three hundred foot drop straight down a rocky ledge.  Four pairs of eyes looked upon the banks of the mighty Susquehanna River.

Robbie pulled Gil’s remote-controlled plane from the back hatch and Gil plopped down on the ground to fiddle with it, adjusting the tail, the landing gear, and anything else that moved.  ZiZi ran over to Gil and after a cursory sniff, licked Gil’s face several times.

“Down, Zi,” Robbie said.

Gil made no move to push ZiZi away while he scrounged through his toolbox, huffing and shoving the tools around. Robbie reached in and pulled out a small wrench. Gil snatched it and adjusted a few screws on the plane.

Although the weather was balmy, the force of the wind whipping up the sides of the cliff made it feel ten degrees cooler. Like an insistent child, it swiped at Kori’s hair as she stood, clutching the cardboard box to her chest.  She dropped to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut.  Moments later, she felt the gentle pressure of Robbie’s hands as he placed his baseball cap on her head and tucked her hair up underneath.  She leaned against his leg in gratitude.

In private, Kori had cried every day since her parents died, her body wracked and shuddering with silent tears, her shoulders aching with the weight of grief and new responsibilities, and the one thought that kept returning to her again and again – tinny and insistent – they were orphans.

Avery joined Kori on the precipice.  Gil handed Robbie the small wrench and stood back to remotely test the landing gear, driving the plane forward and back on its makeshift runway.

“Box, please,” Gil said to Robbie.

“He’s ready,” Robbie called over his shoulder.

Avery took the box from Kori and set it next to Gil’s plane, pulling out the contents: two thick plastic bags filled with charcoal grey ash and small white bits of bone.

“How are you going to keep the bags in the plane,” Robbie asked.

Gil’s imperturbable face grew wide-eyed and he looked to Avery for help.

“Don’t look at me, man. I just record the stuff,” Avery said.

Gil rummaged through his tool box, picking up each tool and throwing it down again. Robbie walked to the car and returned with a role of duct tape. He made a ring, sticky side out, and stuck it to the bottom of each bag before setting them in the plane.

“Good to go,” Robbie said. Avery put a hand on each bag, blinking away the water that flooded his eyelids. Kori shuffled her feet and folded her hands across her chest.

“Anyone want to say anything?” Robbie asked. Kori covered her mouth; Avery shook his head from side to side.

“I’m no good with words,” Robbie said, his voice cracking. “They know how we feel.”

Gil stepped forward, cleared his throat as if about to deliver an edict. “Mom, Dad, we love you very much. It sucks that you’re dead.”

Avery giggled, breaking the tension. Gil leaned over, his face touching the bags, containing the last mortal remains of Ruth and Marty Tirabi. He opened them and whispered something to each, then stood back and started the plane’s engine. It lurched forward, bucking under the additional weight, bumping over small sticks, and gradually picking up speed as it approached the end of the makeshift runway and the cliff’s edge.

“It doesn’t have enough speed, Gil,” Robbie said. “It’s gonna crash.”

Gil bopped his head slowly in time to a beat the rest of them were not privy to. At the exact moment when the plane would run out of ground, and gravity was about to have it’s way with her, Gil flipped a switch on the remote and a turbo thrust sent it hurtling out and up, clearing both rock and trees. It hung tenuously for several seconds, but Gil hit the turbo switch again and it took off like a shot arching up and away.

Gil sent the plane soaring over the cliffs of Chickies Rocks, swooping and sliding, in, out and around, but not upside down, edging closer each time to the banks of the Susquehanna. Bits of the plane’s contents were occasionally swept away by an errant gust of wind, but for the most part, Ruth and Marty’s ashes remained solidly ensconced inside the cockpit of the little plane.

“Mom’s going to get dizzy,” Kori said.  They watched the plane, now far across the river.  Handfuls of ash spilled out, whirling like mini-tornadoes before drifting to earth.

“Last chance. Anybody want to say anything?” Robbie said.  No one responded.

Avery’s speech was more akin to a whisper: “You are in our breath and in our bones. You are in the lights of our eyes, and the shapes of our hearts. As long as we live, we will think of you and remember, and we will never be a minute without you for it’s your blood mingled with ours, your life, the life you’ve given us.”

Gil sent the plane hundreds of feet into the air before bringing it back down to dive-bomb the river. At the last minute he pulled out and sent it up again, this time, though, instead of climbing straight, he performed a series of spirals which sent the plane up through a spinning vortex of ash. “Bye-bye, Mommy and Daddy,” he said, as ashes arced out and down to the river. When the wind scattered the last of them, Gil brought the plane in for a landing.

Robbie dried his eyes and removed the bags from the cockpit, turning them inside out; they were empty.

“What do we do with the bags?” he asked.

“Burn ‘em,” Kori said.

“You can’t burn them,” Avery said. “They’re plastic.”

Robbie gathered everything up, plane, plastic, remote control and placed it all in the backseat of the minivan. He pulled out an insulated backpack and a blanket and walked to a small clearing. From the backpack he procured a small feast: bread, cheese, pepperoni, olives, grapes, mangos, peanut butter, yogurt, a bottle of wine and some dog treats for ZiZi. He whistled low and ZiZi charged over, tail wagging. Robbie handed Gil, now smashed up against his brother, clutching his arms around himself as if he were cold, a yogurt and a spoon.

“Nice insulation,” Avery said. “Does it work?” Robbie nodded, and wrapped an arm around Gil who relaxed. He handed a knife to Avery to cut pieces of cheese, and pulled plastic glasses out of the pack along with a bottle of spring water.

“Geez, how much’ ya got in there?” Kori asked.

“Gil doesn’t make anything half-ass, sister,” Robbie said, accepting the half glass of water from Avery.  He topped it off with a sip of wine and handed it to Gil.

“You’re giving him wine?” Kori glared at Robbie, then Avery. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

Gil giggled and cast his eyes downward. He sniffed the glass several times then put it under ZiZi’s nose and let her sniff. The dog shook her head to remove the scent from her nasal passages.

“We’re going to miss the heck out you, Mom and Dad,” Robbie said holding up his glass. They clinked plastic: Robbie and Avery threw theirs back; Kori and Gil sipped theirs.

“That was nice, what you said earlier?” Kori said.

“Thanks. Well, thank Mom for all the poetry she made me read.”

“I miss Daddy’s laugh,” Gil said. “And Mommy’s smell. Like bread and flowers,” Gil devoured a small sandwich of bread, cheese and pepperoni. The corner of Kori’s mouth crooked up watching him eat.

“I miss Mom’s cooking. And her stories. And Dad’s stupid jokes. And his crazy inventions.” Kori sipped her wine. “You don’t suppose that those people might come back, do you, looking for some of Dad’s other things?”

“I hope they do.” Robbie said. He downed the rest of his glass, and Gil and Avery did the same. Kori bit her thumbnail and cast a worried glance out across the river.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, click here. . .

deadly circumstances

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copyright 2012

art by gregory colbert

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

Chapter Eleven

Manuel slid the Rolls Royce into the Hart’s driveway on wheels silent as death.  “Here you are, Mr. Hartos.”  Manuel got out and opened Hart’s door.  Hart stepped out and shook Manuel’s hand.

“Thanks, Manuel.  You’re a lifesaver.”  Manuel returned the gesture, but didn’t make eye contact.  Apparently, Bicky Coleman never shook Manuel’s hand.

“Anytime, Mr. Hartos.  Give Mrs. Hartos my best.”  The car pulled out as silently as it came.  Tired and disheveled, Hart watched Manuel leave before heading up the walk.

The front door of the house was slightly ajar.  Hart stared at it then back over the expanse of the lawn.  His heartbeat quickened yet his hands were steady as he opened the door in infinitesimal increments so as not to wake, or alert, anyone inside.

He saw no one in the foyer and swung the door open wide, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.  He peered into the silent study and saw a single ray from the streetlight, the only illumination.  Nothing appeared amiss.  He looked across the hall at the formal sitting room, useless space they never set foot in.  Even with just the paltry single streetlight to illuminate it, one could attest to the pristine condition of this room.  The couch cushions, plush, white and fluffed to capacity were offset by the deep red, hand-stitched Moroccan pillows, an attempt to convey reckless indulgence, except they were exactly where they always were.  Sonia couldn’t go to bed at night until the magazines were in the rack, the recycling in its bin, and all errant glassware stashed neatly in the dishwasher, as if a careful regulation of her home before bed would afford her an ordered night’s sleep.  When she couldn’t sleep, she sorted tupperware.

Hart continued down the hallway past the stairs.  The kitchen was dark so he turned back to the stairs and crept slowly up to the landing.  The effect was comical and he suppressed the urge to laugh.  Just who in the hell am I sneaking up on?  Sonia was probably asleep, and Hart’s overtired, overactive imagination stressed beyond endurance.  The light from their bedroom spilled into the far end of the hall.  Hart inhaled deeply and let out a sigh of relief as he strode toward the bedroom door, the monotonous drone of the television growing louder with each step.

“Geez, you had me so worried,” he said, crossing the threshold.  The bed was empty, but a light from the bathroom escaped from under the door.  “Why didn’t you pick up the phone?” he shouted to the door, shutting the television  and crossing the room.  “Sonia?”

Hart turned the handle, pushed open the bathroom door and pulled back the bathtub curtain.  He found the tub filled to capacity, the water cold.  Small rivulets of water cascaded over the side.  “Jesus.”  He reached in and shut the dripping faucet.  “Sonia?”  He turned and ran out of the bathroom, fear spilling out of him like the bathtub water.

“Sonia?  If this is a game, it isn’t funny,” he said loudly.  A growing terror gripped him as he tore down the hallway and hit the stairs, taking them two at a time.  “Sonia?”

He rounded the steps at the bottom and ran back into each of the rooms he had already inspected, flipping on the lights and scanning their perimeters in urgent, yet methodical fashion, opening closet doors and checking behind furniture.  The rooms were as empty in the light as they were in the dark.

“SONIA!”  After a brief glance outside, Hart bounded down the hallway and into the kitchen.  He reached for the light and tripped over something solid and inert. He half fell, half flew headlong across it.  He crashed with a loud thump, his head hitting first, and lay sprawled on the floor.

“Jesus Christ.”  He rubbed his head and sat up, looking back at the source of his precipitous fall.  Sonia’s prone body stretched in front of the kitchen door, as if in sleep.  “Sonia?!”

Hart scrambled over to her and put his fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse.  He recoiled in horror as his fingers touched her cooling skin.  He wavered, dizzy and gulping air to keep from passing out.  He shook his head, trying to regain his dwindling presence of mind.  He tried CPR, a rotation of pumping the chest followed by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, cringing each time his warm, twitching lips touched her cool, lifeless ones.  She made no move to breathe on her own.  His large rough hands, the same hands that stroked her gently during their afternoon lovemaking, now shook her gently at first, and then, as realization dawned, more violently.

“Sonia!  Wake UP.”  Gripping her by the arms, he shook her again and again, her hair, wet and sticky, flipping back and forth around her face with each surge.  Her neck jerked and bobbed like a rag doll’s until Hart heard a snap that brought him round and he abruptly stopped shaking her.  He looked at her face, illuminated by the night light in the corner, her eyes closed, her mouth agape.  He laid her back on the floor, smoothed the hair back from her face and kissed her cool lips tenderly.

“Sonia.  Please.  Wake up.”  His voice, contorted by fear and sorrow, seemed to hover above them, alien and disengaged.  His fingers reached again for her soft, white neck.  There was no pulse to enliven that hardening, dead body.

As if he just remembered something, Hart’s head jerked toward her belly and his eyes grew wide.  In that moment he tasted eternity for time stood still.  One second, and then a million passed as he held his breath and looked –  not with the detachment of an ascended master, but the calm of one in a state of shock –  at what should have been his son.  His eyes observed the splayed legs of his wife’s body, her twisted arm, the displacement and slight concavity of her stomach as a result of the partial delivery.  And then….

Hart shuddered a pervasive, body-wrenching shudder that cascaded from the top of his head to the very soles of his feet.  He was back, lucid and substantial, with full awareness of the surreal snapshot lying before him.  He made no move to turn on the light, perhaps to hide her visage for a moment longer from the pain that would surely color her face and stay with him for a lifetime.

He inhaled raggedly and gripped his hands together to stop their shaking.  Sonia’s robe, her only garment, hung loosely around her body.  Unwilling to look on the child just yet, he steeled himself and began an examination of his wife.  He inspected her body inch by inch looking for signs of injury, using his powers of analysis, long honed in the field, all the while trying to maintain a clinical, dispassionate attitude.  If he thought for a moment that this was his wife, the woman whom hours before had been alive and vibrant in his arms, he would surely crumble on the spot.

Hart noted no bruising around her neck.  No large hands held her, squeezing the tender blood vessels beneath the surface until they were pinched and bruised and dying.  He took another deep breath and ran his hands through her hair starting at the face and coming around to the back where his fingers intertwined in something sticky.  His heart jumped and he raised her head to find a large welt and a small cut at the base of her skull, misleading because of the amount of blood in her hair and on the floor.  Head injuries bled profusely, but this bump didn’t cause her death.

He continued his foray downward, slowly, haltingly, stalling the inevitable.  His fingers probed her belly, still plush, although somewhat less than round now that its occupant was only partially home.  He steeled himself for the final examination, letting his glance fall between her legs.  Tears welled in his eyes and he turned away, his body shaken by paroxysms of vomiting.

After several minutes, he stopped, wiped his mouth and looked again at the gruesome scene.  Protruding from his wife’s vagina, approximately half a foot into the world, lay the legs and torso of his dead baby.  Hart touched the curled, little legs, clammy with the blood of childbirth, noted the fingers of one hand protruding from Sonia’s body.  He tried pulling the baby the rest of the way out, but he was stuck.  Rigor mortis was already starting to set in for both mother and child.  Even without the rigor mortis, Hart knew from the parenting classes he and Sonia had attended, that breech births were the most difficult and delicate and that the baby was likely not coming out without assistance.

Whether it was the need to know, to see his child at least once, or to set him free in the world even if only in death, Hart couldn’t say for sure.  But he began pulling and prodding and adjusting until he had managed to wedge the chest out.  He continued wiggling the baby back and forth until he heard a crack.  He reached in and pulled out a tiny arm, broken now from all the jostling. And still he pulled until he reached the neck and only the head remained inside.

The neck was wrapped tightly with the umbilical cord, three times around, leaving no more give in the line.  Hart stood and walked calmly to the counter and pulled a large pair of scissors, used for cutting meat, out of the knife rack.  He took a deep breath and began cutting the cord, still slightly warm to the touch, the tendency toward life the last thing to go.  He worked one piece at a time until he’d cut it thrice, then pushed it away.  He pulled again and this time the baby emerged with a pop, his lackluster, unblinking eyes fixed on his father.

Hart cradled the head, a halo of blood forming beneath it.  He leaned over and kissed the tiny cheeks, touching the faintest line of the small eyebrow and ran his finger over the little nose and then the whole face, the color of a midnight blue sky.  He closed the baby’s eyes and laid him on his wife’s belly.  He stared at them for several minutes, tears spilling down his cheeks, anointing their bodies like holy water.  He wiped his eyes and clawed at his face, the blood and ooze of the afterbirth smearing it, a warrior preparing for battle.

The scream started as a low moan, growing in intensity and fury, building and climbing toward the crescendo, a high-pitched wail which ended when Hart was out of breath and fallen, left with his only remaining partner, the shadow of grief, lying prostrate across his past and future.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, click here. . .

fire and icicles

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copyright 2012

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

Chapter Ten(b)

A crowd had gathered around them.  Bicky was going strong, telling tales about the early days in the oil business.  Hart had made several valiant attempts to part company, but each time Bicky pulled him back into the fold, talking, joking, making introductions.  Right now, Hart was sitting at the center of Houston’s power base and decided it was in his best interest to humor his father-in-law.  If he were going to quit as he’d promised Sonia, he’d need a new job and the people sitting around this table listening to Bicky wax prolifically were the very people who employed ninety percent of Houston’s employable.

By 10 o’clock, Hart was feeling the effects of the past two days of travel and two hours of alcohol consumption.  He wanted nothing more than to lay his head on the nearby rosewood table.  He decided to call Sonia while he could still speak coherently and let her know of his plans:  a brief respite in one of the alcoves to clear the cobwebs in his head; he’d drive home later.

Hart rose on unsteady legs and left the room.  Raucous laughter followed him out, seeping into the hallway’s wide-open spaces only to be absorbed by the elegant, plush carpet and thick walnut walls.  A series of dimly illuminated sconces lined the hallway; overstuffed leather armchairs dotted the landscape.  Hart flopped down in one and rubbed his face with both hands to revive or steel himself, he wasn’t sure.  He checked his watch.  If only he could keep his promises.  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed home.

The phone rang six times before the answering machine picked up.  Hart blathered into the phone, his words tumbling out in a self-effacing rush.  “Hello?  Sonia?  Pick up.  Are you there?  Are you asleep?  In the shower?  I know it’s past 9, and I’m not home yet.  Will you pick up the phone, please?  Alright.  Well, I’m still here and I probably shouldn’t drive home.  I’m really tired.  I’m going to take a short nap in a corner somewhere and then I’ll see if I can. . .”

“Beeeeeppp.”  The machine ended his little speech.

Hart banged the phone shut between his hands,  “Damn.”  He punched in the numbers again.  The phone picked up after three rings this time.  “Sonia.  Pick – Up – The – Phone.”    Hart waited several seconds before continuing:  “Listen, Babe, don’t be mad at me.  I’ll be home as soon as I can.  I’ll wake you up when I get there.”  Then he added as an afterthought: “Let’s sleep in all morning tomorrow.”  He waited a few seconds before hanging up.  “Damn.”

He replaced the cell phone on his hip and stood with a slight waver.  Though only seconds had passed, he checked his phone to make sure Sonia hadn’t returned his call.  The face glowed a phosphorescent green, but did little else.  “No calls,” he said to no one in particular and staggered to the men’s room.

Hart washed his face and stared at his intoxicated reflection in the mirror, looking for hidden clues.  A sudden, unsettling thought gripped him.  What if Sonia’s not asleep, but on her way to the hospital about to give birth to their baby?   He didn’t travel 6,000 miles in seven minutes only to have the baby born while he was across town.  He willed his reflection to give him an answer.  His normally handsome, exuberant face peered back at him, pale and haggard.  He head throbbed like he was being riven in two:  a meat cleaver to the head, a ragged split down the middle.

Hart loved his life and was reluctant to give up the part of it that made him feel so viable, so indispensable.  How many people took the physical risks he took on a daily basis without even a second thought?  His occupation, not the engineering part, even Sonia could live with that, but the field work – that’s what set him apart from the average guy, and Hart liked it that way.  Hell there wasn’t enough money in all of Akanabi Oil for Hart to take a desk job, toiling away under the leak and glow of florescent lighting.  Damn her need to control.  Hart had noted the similarities between Sonia and Bicky long before he married her.  The attributes that lurked just below the surface of genteel southern behavior had formed more distinctly with time.  Some parts had broken off or withered away, while others were polished to a smooth, impenetrable finish that only water and a million or so years would be able to alter in any appreciable way.  He married her because of, and in spite of, those attributes.  That, and the fact that she was beautiful, and probably the most passionate woman he had ever met.

Hart himself was from a family of academics.  His father was a professor of law at the University of Penn and his mother a professor of Shakespearean minutia, one of only a handful of scholars across the country with that particular nomenclature, which put her in high demand in academic circles.  His mother was constantly being wooed by competing universities desirous of her services.  Sabbaticals and six-week architectural tours of Europe were the norm when Hart was growing up.  He’d read more literature by the age of fourteen than most people read in a lifetime.  It was no surprise then, that his parents weren’t exactly thrilled when Hart went to work for Akanabi Oil.  They had wanted him to choose a more scholarly occupation –  as if chemical engineering was for slackers –  something with a professorship attached.  But his parents’ reticence, or perhaps inertia, was so entrenched they couldn’t arouse sufficient passion to convince him otherwise, so off to Columbia he went, which is where he met Sonia.  To Hart, Sonia Coleman was the antithesis of his beige upbringing.  Her colorful, passionate outbreaks about everything from Goethe to guacamole were something Hart had never known on any intimate level, and something he soon found he couldn’t live without.

But Hart also found that passion and the need to dominate often went hand-in-hand.  Thankfully, Sonia was more like her mother than her father, and lacking Bicky’s mendacious spirit, her demands on life in general and Hart in specific were guileless, prompted by a need to be loved.  He pandered to her whims when he could, and when not, they fought an aggressive fracas that could reach levels of inanity for which Hart had no frame of reference.  Despite their different temperaments, they hung together.  The battle scars did not run all that deep, not yet, and were still easily erased by the night of intimacy that inevitably followed.  Hart knew this kind of behavior would eventually catch up with them, but they were young and he believed in the power of love.

He shook his head to clear the sense of foreboding that had begun creeping into his grey matter, checked his cell phone again.  Nothing.  What if something really was wrong?  He closed his eyes.  Sonia knew where he was and could have had him paged if he didn’t answer his cell phone.

But what if she couldn’t get to the phone.  He shuddered involuntarily, threw the towel in the trash can and sprinted out of the bathroom intent on coaxing Bicky into handing over his car and driver.  He found Bicky sitting in the place he’d left him, gesticulating with abandon.

Hart begged the pardon of the gathered crowed and pulled Bicky  over to the bar.

“What?”

“Hey, thanks for the madcap evening, but, I gotta go.”

“Stay.  Have another drink.” Bicky’s tone was sharp.

“Can’t.  It’s Sonia.  I can’t get her on the phone and I’m just…worried.  You know, with the baby and all.”  His voice cracked uttering the last bit, and Hart felt a little foolish given the way Bicky glared at him.  Bicky attempted a thin-lipped smile, his head bobbing up and down mechanically, the closest thing he could manage to empathy.

“So be it.  Who am I to stand between a man and his wife.”

“Do you think Manuel could run me home?  I’m a little tired.”

“Sure. Sure.”  Bicky snapped his fingers once and Manuel, his driver, materialized out of the shadows.  Hart started, wondering how much you had to pay someone to stand within finger- snapping distance.

“Would you see to it that Mr. Hartos arrives home safely, Manuel?  And come right back.  I suspect I’ll be ready to leave by then.”  Bicky patted Hart on the back and shook his hand.  “Give my regards to my daughter,” Bicky said.  His voice was sad, but Hart’s slushy brain didn’t pick up on it.  Instead, he nodded thanks and followed Manuel out the door.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, scroll down. . .

jackets required

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copyright 2011/all rights reserved

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

CHAPTER NINE (c)

Hart walked into the Union Club –  an oxymoron since union workers were the last people that this particular club would ever admit –  wearing a polo shirt and a pair of dockers and carrying his worn but stylish leather briefcase.  The maitre d’, a tall man, about fifty, with jet black hair and eyes as warm as the inside of a root cellar, scanned Hart’s periphery, a distasteful job if his twitching mouth was any indication.  He asked Hart between pinched lips whether he had a jacket, perhaps in the car.

Hart shook his head.  “No jacket.  Bicky Coleman, please.”  Hart scanned the room and spotted his father-in-law holding court at the far end of the room with four expertly-tailored gentlemen.  It was hard to tell one tanned face and Armani suit from the next.  Hart sidestepped the maitre d’ who protested until he saw Mr. Coleman coming toward them.

“About time,” Bicky said gripping Hart’s hand in a firm, as opposed to bone crushing, hand shake.  “Where the hell’ve you been?”

“I told you I was going to spend the day with…”

“Leave your Goddamn cell phone on next time.”  The corners of Bicky’s mouth quivered as he attempted a smile.  Hart struggled not to laugh.  Bicky wrapped what might be termed an affectionate arm around Hart’s shoulder and led him to a pair of leather arm chairs set in a private alcove.  A waiter materialized and asked if the gentlemen would prefer a cocktail.  Bicky ordered Chivas, Hart a Jamieson, both with rocks.  Hart noticed that some of the thick, brocade curtains were closed.  Apparently, the rooms could get pretty cozy.  Maybe I could take Sonia here sometime….

“Did your wife give you a package for me?” Bicky asked nonchalantly.

Hart opened his briefcase as the waiter set two whiskeys before them.  Bicky looked at his watch and took a sip.  He swirled the ice in his glass, transfixed by the beverage.

“Is this a bad time?” Hart asked.  Bicky took another drink, a swig this time.

“I’m scheduled to talk to Graighton at 7:30.”

“Bill Graighton?” Hart asked.  “About what?”  Hart followed Bicky’s glance at a shadowy figure sitting alone in an alcove across the room, talking on the phone.

Bicky snapped his fingers and held out his palm.  Hart’s remorse for Sonia’s hasty actions was replaced by a protective annoyance.  Hart pulled the report from his briefcase and slapped it into Bicky’s outstretched hand.  Bicky gazed at his daughter’s handwriting before opening the envelope.  He scanned the cover and shoved it back in the envelope.  Hart thought he caught a grimace on Bicky’s face, but the man couldn’t smile to save his life, so he wasn’t sure.  Bicky nodded once, an almost imperceptible nod, and the figure in the alcove rose, closing the curtain.

Bicky turned to Hart:  “I shouldn’t be more than half an hour.  Go have a drink.  Talk.  It’s time you started making these people your own.”

Hart was about to protest, but Bicky was already standing.  Hart grabbed his drink and briefcase and did the same.

“Just leave the briefcase.  I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Hart looked at his watch.  The image of crawling in bed next to Sonia was already dimming, but if the cloak and dagger stuff had something to do with the report, he’d better oblige Bicky for Sonia’s sake.  Hart waited until Bicky entered the alcove, and headed to the bar.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, scroll down. . .