Sun warms my bedroom.
No alarm clock breaks my peace.
Wait, what time is it!
Monday, January 23, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Hard as Hell - the Return of Mike Barnes
Mike looked at his grandmother, and really saw her for the first time. Not the hardened woman of war with words, fists, and bullets all ready for action at the same time, but an old woman, with more failures than successes behind her, one who had lost her son, her daughter-in-law, and her peace of mind in the bargain. He felt rotten. It seemed to him that this woman deserved better than to lie on a carpet in pain and call out to strangers and bystanders for help. She had taken from him, but Mike knew she had given him much more in return. He resolved to be the son she deserved, even if she didn't get him, even if her true son had been a devil. He watched her turn away from him again, not angry, it seemed to him, but hurt. He watched her eyes close slowly, and noticed for the first time since he had entered the room that it was not sadness that closed them that way, but pain and fatigue. When her eyes were fully closed, he drew the smaller roll of bills out of his pocket and dropped it into her purse on the side table next to her.
While he still had his hand in her purse momentarily, the doctor walked in behind Mike. Mike drew his hand slowly and smoothly out of his grandmother's purse before the man had a chance to see what he was doing. His first thought was that the doctor would probably think he was taking money out rather than putting it in.
He turned to the doctor, trying to smile, and held out his hand to shake.
"Mike Barnes."
The doctor, a slight short man, vaguely white or Jewish, with curly black hair, fair skin, and a youthful face that made him look far too young to be a doctor, and especially a cardiologist. When he smiled as he shook Mike's hand, he dropped another five or ten years off Mike's best estimate of his age.
"Doctor Wagner," he returned, "You are some relation to Mrs. Barnes, then?"
Mike half expected a weak handshake from this baby-faced white man dressed up in scrubs and a doctor's lab coat, but instead Doctor Wagner's grip was firm, almost too firm, and his smile stayed frozen in place as he made forceful eye contact with Mike, even though he was looking up at him from a couple of inches below.
"Grandson," Mike said.
The doctor gave Mike's hand one last firm squeeze. "Oh, sure," he said dropping his hand and pointing at him, "the one on television. Your grandmother has the whole floor talking about it. Congratulations."
Mike nodded and waved away the words with a swipe of his right hand. "So what's wrong with Grandma?"
Beverly pushed him weakly from behind, her fist planted in his hip. "Get out of the man's way, boy, and stop acting like I'm not here in the room."
Mike looked back at his grandmother, stepped aside and sat on the bed near her feet, and then look up with a sheepish grin at the doctor. Doctor Wagner smiled back at him and nodded complicity.
"She does keep us all in line," the doctor said.
Mike stuck his palm to his forehead and dragged it down his face slowly in an exaggerated show of despair.
"How are you feeling, Mrs. Barnes?" the doctor asked.
"I'm tired of being in this bed." Beverly snapped, "It's making me weak. I want to be back home."
The doctor just nodded and smiled at her, then turned to Mike. "Your grandmother had a heart attack at home two days ago," he said, "Not a severe one, but not exactly mild either. She's actually not that badly off, just one coronary artery in trouble, and that one seems to be only eighty percent blocked. We can clear that out with a stint, do it tomorrow orthoscopically through a vein in her neck, and get it opened up and flowing again."
Mike nodded along, trying to absorb what the doctor was saying. He'd heard about heart attacks from other family members, and remembered it being a lot worse. While he knew that he should be hearing this as good news, he felt ominously like there was more to come. "So, then she can go back home?"
Mike felt a slap against his arm, and turned to look at his grandmother.
"I'm right here," she said.
Mike shook his head and mouthed the word "sorry."
"So after we do this stint, then I can go home?" Beverly said.
Dr. Wagner made a face that was somehow a smile and a frown at the same time, a stiff upper lip in the face of more bad news. "We do want to get her home as soon as possible." He said slowly, with a drawn out emphasis on the last word. "Recipients of this kind of surgery recover best with exercise, even if it's just cleaning the house or walking around in the store."
The doctor looked away from Mike and engaged Beverly directly, stepping closer to her and holding her gaze. "But my concern is that your grandmother seems to be a bit of a shut-in. According to her own account and her neighbor's, she doesn't get out much. This could pose a problem."
Beverly looked away from the doctor, breaking his gaze and scowling at the muted television. A commercial was playing, some lawyer trolling for cases to run down and clients to fleece, but the old lady stared at it as if it were some mystery she was having a hard time following.
"Well," the doctor resumed, looking at Mike again, "we don't plan to hold her for more than two days after the stint procedure. One more day before she's scheduled to receive it, and two days of rest and observation. In three days, if nothing out of the ordinary happens, she can go home."
Doctor Wagner stepped in towards Mike as if sharing a confidential note with a colleague. "Then it will be up to you to make sure that she gets out and gets exercise." Both of them glanced over their shoulders at the same time, finding Beverly in the same bitter posture as before, scowling at a daytime small claims court show. "She's not doing herself any favors staying inside all of her life. Her weight and bone density are great, healthy eating, I guess. But her blood pressure and muscle tone are terrible, and that includes her heart tissue. This sedentary lifestyle is going to be the end of her."
Mike looked over his shoulder at is grandmother, nodded sheepishly to the doctor, and shook his hand. "I'm on it."
The doctor nodded back, winked at Mike, and then turned to Beverly, who was still focused on the television, refusing to acknowledge the subject of their talk. "Three more days, Mrs. Barnes," he said, "if things go well enough, that's how long it will take you to get out of here. Not so bad really, right?"
Beverly just stared down the screen and shrugged her shoulders like a stubborn child who knows that disobedience is futile, if not impossible.
"All right, then," the doctor said, turning to leave, "I'll come see you tomorrow before they get you ready for the procedure."
As the doctor walked through the door, tears began to flow from Beverly's left eye. Mike shook his head as he watched her, knowing that those tears were not the product of fear or sadness. If these doctors and lab techs could bottle and analyze those tears, Mike knew they would find nothing but pure anger and rage in them. He had seen them before. Whenever his grandmother was up against something that blocked her every move and thwarted her desires, she would wait until she was alone and then the water would flow. She never sobbed and heaved like some women. Mike had seen hysterics in some of the girlfriends he had known, some of the women he had used and left behind, and he didn't think his grandmother was capable of those weak and empty emotions, maybe never had been. Those tears were the byproduct of a soul girding itself for war.
"Grandma," Mike began tentatively, "I know you heard the doctor and me talking, and I know you don't like it ..."
"Doctor and I. Hand me my purse, boy," she said.
Mike nodded and kept talking as he took the heavy handbag from the rolling tray and set it beside her, just in arm's reach. "I can't stay home with you for long. I have to get back to New York, to finish this thing. So I can't watch you and push you and make sure you do it, but you have to do what the doctor says and get out and exercise." Beverly was already shaking her head. "You have to, Grandma. For your heart. If you don't ..." Mike tried to take his grandmother's hand, but she pulled it away and fished out a tissue from her purse. "You're going to get worse."
"I'm already worse, boy," she said, dabbing the tissue against her eye and her cheek until it was wet all over and through. "Maybe people like me don't need to be out and about."
She tossed the wet tissue aside, missing the garbage completely, and went digging around in her bag again for another.
"Grandma, don't say that." Mike said, scooping the wet tissue off the floor and tossing it in the garbage can. He stepped over to the night table in between the two beds and took the box of tissues there.
"It's not safe any more," Beverly said, still rummaging, growing more agitated, "Not safe. It used to be safer for a woman. Do you know what would happen if I was just walking around and one of those thugs in the neighborhood decided to rob me, attack me?"
She looked up at Mike for the first time since the doctor had left, her eyes stern but imploring him to hear reason.
"I know, Grandma." He offered her the box of tissue, but she batted it away without taking her eyes from his. Her lips pursed and her eyebrows squeezed together, and she went back to digging in her purse, now taking out her wallet and keys and a couple of other objects and laying them beside her on the bed as she searched for her tissues.
"I know, Grandma," Mike repeated, dropping the box of tissue onto the bed beside her, "but you can't live your life afraid of that. If you don't change, you're going to die."
"Maybe I've lived long enough," she said, without looking at her grandson.
Suddenly, she stopped searching her purse and squinted into the depth of it. She reached in slowly and gingerly, as if she had found some live, squirming thing in there. Mike shook is head in annoyance as she drew out the roll of hundred dollar bills between her thumb and index finger. When she looked up at him, her face was twisted into a mask of disgust and anger.
"What is this?"
Mike straightened himself up. "That's money," he said boldly, leaning in towards her, "Money for the hospital, or for medicine, or food and transportation, or whatever else you need to get well."
Beverly was shaking her head violently already, pressing the money into Mike's hand. When he wouldn't close his fingers around it, she threw it at his chest. Before it bounced away, he fumbled with it for a moment and caught it.
"Don't you think I know what kind of money that is, boy?" she shouted at Mike, a redness coming into the whites of her eyes. "Don't you think I have seen you embrace your father's business and trade?"
The heart monitor perched on the top of a pole next to her bed began to squawk, and the blips in the line started coming more frequently and erratically. Mike looked at it, watching the number get higher with the volume of his grandmother's voice. "Grandma," he said, "Calm down. Your heart."
"Damn my heart," she shouted, "damn my heart for being so weak and soft, and damn my eyes for going blind to your ways. I have pretended not to know about your doings for too long, and now, just when I thought that maybe you had decided to get on a better path, you throw your blood money in my face." She grabbed a handful of the personal things on the bed beside her and threw them all at Mike. They struck him in the chest and stomach and neck, startling him without hurting him. "I watched your father walk that road for years, and I only acted when it was too late, for your mother and for you. I thought that learning and understanding would change things in my home, but they didn't. What your father had was a demon, and it doesn't respond to books and degrees. It has no regard for psychology and community, and it feeds on mercy and kindness and grows fat and strong."
Beverly coughed hard, a hacking, dry cough that sucked in wind after it and forced her palm to her chest. She looked away from Mike only long enough to draw her arm across her mouth and wipe away some of the spit that was collecting there in little bubbles.
"I ignored it so long that it killed your mother," Beverly said, "instead of dealing justly with your father, I let it run rampant until it got hold of me too, and now you." She pointed a long, slender finger at Mike's chest. "I waited too long to deal with him, but I can still deal with you. And before this thing runs wild in you and destroys everything you touch, I will stop it. I waited too long to stop your father, but I will stop you."
Her hand dropped to the bed like a dead thing, and she coughed again, louder and rougher than before. Mike stared at her, seeing his father's features in her angry eyes, the way her skin brightened and her ears bobbed up and down as she yelled.
He slid the money into his pocket, turned around without a word, and walked out of the room. Just before he walked out, he heard the sound of the television burst in again, some man shouting about some car sale at some dealership.
When he passed through the doorway, a nurse squeezed past him in a hurry and opened it again, rushing into the room. He glanced behind him through the narrowing gap in the doorway and saw the nurse tapping on the heart monitor with one hand and checking his grandmother's pulse with the other.
When the door closed, Mike took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked to his left and saw Frank Jenkins sitting in a maroon padded chair next to the doorway, staring back at him. Frank opened his mouth to say something, and then just stopped and scratched his head. Mike looked back at him, shrugged and shook his head. He walked past him towards the elevators at the end of the hall.
Halfway down the hall, Mike stopped suddenly, turned around, and quickly walked back, shoving his hand into his pocket. When he got to Frank again, he pulled the rubber-banded roll of bills out of his pocket and held it out to Frank, who looked back at him as if it were a rat.
"Grandma won't take it," Mike said, "but she needs it." He grabbed Frank's hand, opened it, dropped the money inside, and closed his fingers over it. "Can I trust you to hold on to this, use it for her bills, if she needs it, and get her whatever else she needs while I'm gone?"
Frank stared at the wad of bills, turning it over in the palm of his hand, nodding his head. "Sure," he said, "Course I can. When you getting back anyway?"
Mike turned and walked away. "Not for a while."
He didn't look back at Frank again until he was already at the elevator and had pushed the button to call it. When he did, he saw Frank counting the money, his eyes growing bigger with each bill he peeled off the roll. He thought about telling Frank to call him if he needed any more cash, but somehow he knew the man would.
Once inside the elevator, Mike watched his reflection come together and and watch him back as the doors closed, locking him in with himself. The man who looked at him was drained, not emotionless, but wanting to be, wanting the anger and loss to stop.
He remembered his mother, how angry she would get at his father, and sometimes even at his grandmother too. But she never did anything either. Never left him, never called the police. Any time the cops came, it was always someone else who had called them, someone probably more sick of the noise than concerned about the woman making it. He thought about the night he had lost his mother in a pool of blood, about the explosion and the wet sound of the impact, about the wisp of smoke that trailed from the barrel of the pistol in his father's hand. It had seemed to hang motionless in the air as Mike looked into the black eye of that gun, now pointed at him. His own father's finger was wrapped around the trigger like a black mamba around a tree brach, his right eye squeezed shut and his left eye squinting. Mike remembered waiting for another gunshot to pierce the air, wondering if it would sound the same when it struck his own body as it had his mother's, wondering if he would bleed as much as she had. In his mind, somehow, it had already happened when he saw his father's head jerk to the left as if struck by an invisible brick and the left side of his forehead burst forth with a mixture of blood and bone and brain.
"I am not my father," Mike said aloud to the man watching him from inside the elevator doors. "I am not my mother or my grandmother." Before he could finish his thought, the doors opened, and his reflection parted and departed. He stepped out into the lobby of the worst hospital in Miami, ripped the sticker off his shirt and slapped it onto the front desk as he passed, and left the hospital behind him. He opened the door to one of the taxis outside the hospital and flopped inside.
"Where you going?" the cabby asked him.
Mike realized he had no bags, no plans, and no reason to stay in Miami any more.
"Ft. Lauderdale airport," he said.
While he still had his hand in her purse momentarily, the doctor walked in behind Mike. Mike drew his hand slowly and smoothly out of his grandmother's purse before the man had a chance to see what he was doing. His first thought was that the doctor would probably think he was taking money out rather than putting it in.
He turned to the doctor, trying to smile, and held out his hand to shake.
"Mike Barnes."
The doctor, a slight short man, vaguely white or Jewish, with curly black hair, fair skin, and a youthful face that made him look far too young to be a doctor, and especially a cardiologist. When he smiled as he shook Mike's hand, he dropped another five or ten years off Mike's best estimate of his age.
"Doctor Wagner," he returned, "You are some relation to Mrs. Barnes, then?"
Mike half expected a weak handshake from this baby-faced white man dressed up in scrubs and a doctor's lab coat, but instead Doctor Wagner's grip was firm, almost too firm, and his smile stayed frozen in place as he made forceful eye contact with Mike, even though he was looking up at him from a couple of inches below.
"Grandson," Mike said.
The doctor gave Mike's hand one last firm squeeze. "Oh, sure," he said dropping his hand and pointing at him, "the one on television. Your grandmother has the whole floor talking about it. Congratulations."
Mike nodded and waved away the words with a swipe of his right hand. "So what's wrong with Grandma?"
Beverly pushed him weakly from behind, her fist planted in his hip. "Get out of the man's way, boy, and stop acting like I'm not here in the room."
Mike looked back at his grandmother, stepped aside and sat on the bed near her feet, and then look up with a sheepish grin at the doctor. Doctor Wagner smiled back at him and nodded complicity.
"She does keep us all in line," the doctor said.
Mike stuck his palm to his forehead and dragged it down his face slowly in an exaggerated show of despair.
"How are you feeling, Mrs. Barnes?" the doctor asked.
"I'm tired of being in this bed." Beverly snapped, "It's making me weak. I want to be back home."
The doctor just nodded and smiled at her, then turned to Mike. "Your grandmother had a heart attack at home two days ago," he said, "Not a severe one, but not exactly mild either. She's actually not that badly off, just one coronary artery in trouble, and that one seems to be only eighty percent blocked. We can clear that out with a stint, do it tomorrow orthoscopically through a vein in her neck, and get it opened up and flowing again."
Mike nodded along, trying to absorb what the doctor was saying. He'd heard about heart attacks from other family members, and remembered it being a lot worse. While he knew that he should be hearing this as good news, he felt ominously like there was more to come. "So, then she can go back home?"
Mike felt a slap against his arm, and turned to look at his grandmother.
"I'm right here," she said.
Mike shook his head and mouthed the word "sorry."
"So after we do this stint, then I can go home?" Beverly said.
Dr. Wagner made a face that was somehow a smile and a frown at the same time, a stiff upper lip in the face of more bad news. "We do want to get her home as soon as possible." He said slowly, with a drawn out emphasis on the last word. "Recipients of this kind of surgery recover best with exercise, even if it's just cleaning the house or walking around in the store."
The doctor looked away from Mike and engaged Beverly directly, stepping closer to her and holding her gaze. "But my concern is that your grandmother seems to be a bit of a shut-in. According to her own account and her neighbor's, she doesn't get out much. This could pose a problem."
Beverly looked away from the doctor, breaking his gaze and scowling at the muted television. A commercial was playing, some lawyer trolling for cases to run down and clients to fleece, but the old lady stared at it as if it were some mystery she was having a hard time following.
"Well," the doctor resumed, looking at Mike again, "we don't plan to hold her for more than two days after the stint procedure. One more day before she's scheduled to receive it, and two days of rest and observation. In three days, if nothing out of the ordinary happens, she can go home."
Doctor Wagner stepped in towards Mike as if sharing a confidential note with a colleague. "Then it will be up to you to make sure that she gets out and gets exercise." Both of them glanced over their shoulders at the same time, finding Beverly in the same bitter posture as before, scowling at a daytime small claims court show. "She's not doing herself any favors staying inside all of her life. Her weight and bone density are great, healthy eating, I guess. But her blood pressure and muscle tone are terrible, and that includes her heart tissue. This sedentary lifestyle is going to be the end of her."
Mike looked over his shoulder at is grandmother, nodded sheepishly to the doctor, and shook his hand. "I'm on it."
The doctor nodded back, winked at Mike, and then turned to Beverly, who was still focused on the television, refusing to acknowledge the subject of their talk. "Three more days, Mrs. Barnes," he said, "if things go well enough, that's how long it will take you to get out of here. Not so bad really, right?"
Beverly just stared down the screen and shrugged her shoulders like a stubborn child who knows that disobedience is futile, if not impossible.
"All right, then," the doctor said, turning to leave, "I'll come see you tomorrow before they get you ready for the procedure."
As the doctor walked through the door, tears began to flow from Beverly's left eye. Mike shook his head as he watched her, knowing that those tears were not the product of fear or sadness. If these doctors and lab techs could bottle and analyze those tears, Mike knew they would find nothing but pure anger and rage in them. He had seen them before. Whenever his grandmother was up against something that blocked her every move and thwarted her desires, she would wait until she was alone and then the water would flow. She never sobbed and heaved like some women. Mike had seen hysterics in some of the girlfriends he had known, some of the women he had used and left behind, and he didn't think his grandmother was capable of those weak and empty emotions, maybe never had been. Those tears were the byproduct of a soul girding itself for war.
"Grandma," Mike began tentatively, "I know you heard the doctor and me talking, and I know you don't like it ..."
"Doctor and I. Hand me my purse, boy," she said.
Mike nodded and kept talking as he took the heavy handbag from the rolling tray and set it beside her, just in arm's reach. "I can't stay home with you for long. I have to get back to New York, to finish this thing. So I can't watch you and push you and make sure you do it, but you have to do what the doctor says and get out and exercise." Beverly was already shaking her head. "You have to, Grandma. For your heart. If you don't ..." Mike tried to take his grandmother's hand, but she pulled it away and fished out a tissue from her purse. "You're going to get worse."
"I'm already worse, boy," she said, dabbing the tissue against her eye and her cheek until it was wet all over and through. "Maybe people like me don't need to be out and about."
She tossed the wet tissue aside, missing the garbage completely, and went digging around in her bag again for another.
"Grandma, don't say that." Mike said, scooping the wet tissue off the floor and tossing it in the garbage can. He stepped over to the night table in between the two beds and took the box of tissues there.
"It's not safe any more," Beverly said, still rummaging, growing more agitated, "Not safe. It used to be safer for a woman. Do you know what would happen if I was just walking around and one of those thugs in the neighborhood decided to rob me, attack me?"
She looked up at Mike for the first time since the doctor had left, her eyes stern but imploring him to hear reason.
"I know, Grandma." He offered her the box of tissue, but she batted it away without taking her eyes from his. Her lips pursed and her eyebrows squeezed together, and she went back to digging in her purse, now taking out her wallet and keys and a couple of other objects and laying them beside her on the bed as she searched for her tissues.
"I know, Grandma," Mike repeated, dropping the box of tissue onto the bed beside her, "but you can't live your life afraid of that. If you don't change, you're going to die."
"Maybe I've lived long enough," she said, without looking at her grandson.
Suddenly, she stopped searching her purse and squinted into the depth of it. She reached in slowly and gingerly, as if she had found some live, squirming thing in there. Mike shook is head in annoyance as she drew out the roll of hundred dollar bills between her thumb and index finger. When she looked up at him, her face was twisted into a mask of disgust and anger.
"What is this?"
Mike straightened himself up. "That's money," he said boldly, leaning in towards her, "Money for the hospital, or for medicine, or food and transportation, or whatever else you need to get well."
Beverly was shaking her head violently already, pressing the money into Mike's hand. When he wouldn't close his fingers around it, she threw it at his chest. Before it bounced away, he fumbled with it for a moment and caught it.
"Don't you think I know what kind of money that is, boy?" she shouted at Mike, a redness coming into the whites of her eyes. "Don't you think I have seen you embrace your father's business and trade?"
The heart monitor perched on the top of a pole next to her bed began to squawk, and the blips in the line started coming more frequently and erratically. Mike looked at it, watching the number get higher with the volume of his grandmother's voice. "Grandma," he said, "Calm down. Your heart."
"Damn my heart," she shouted, "damn my heart for being so weak and soft, and damn my eyes for going blind to your ways. I have pretended not to know about your doings for too long, and now, just when I thought that maybe you had decided to get on a better path, you throw your blood money in my face." She grabbed a handful of the personal things on the bed beside her and threw them all at Mike. They struck him in the chest and stomach and neck, startling him without hurting him. "I watched your father walk that road for years, and I only acted when it was too late, for your mother and for you. I thought that learning and understanding would change things in my home, but they didn't. What your father had was a demon, and it doesn't respond to books and degrees. It has no regard for psychology and community, and it feeds on mercy and kindness and grows fat and strong."
Beverly coughed hard, a hacking, dry cough that sucked in wind after it and forced her palm to her chest. She looked away from Mike only long enough to draw her arm across her mouth and wipe away some of the spit that was collecting there in little bubbles.
"I ignored it so long that it killed your mother," Beverly said, "instead of dealing justly with your father, I let it run rampant until it got hold of me too, and now you." She pointed a long, slender finger at Mike's chest. "I waited too long to deal with him, but I can still deal with you. And before this thing runs wild in you and destroys everything you touch, I will stop it. I waited too long to stop your father, but I will stop you."
Her hand dropped to the bed like a dead thing, and she coughed again, louder and rougher than before. Mike stared at her, seeing his father's features in her angry eyes, the way her skin brightened and her ears bobbed up and down as she yelled.
He slid the money into his pocket, turned around without a word, and walked out of the room. Just before he walked out, he heard the sound of the television burst in again, some man shouting about some car sale at some dealership.
When he passed through the doorway, a nurse squeezed past him in a hurry and opened it again, rushing into the room. He glanced behind him through the narrowing gap in the doorway and saw the nurse tapping on the heart monitor with one hand and checking his grandmother's pulse with the other.
When the door closed, Mike took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked to his left and saw Frank Jenkins sitting in a maroon padded chair next to the doorway, staring back at him. Frank opened his mouth to say something, and then just stopped and scratched his head. Mike looked back at him, shrugged and shook his head. He walked past him towards the elevators at the end of the hall.
Halfway down the hall, Mike stopped suddenly, turned around, and quickly walked back, shoving his hand into his pocket. When he got to Frank again, he pulled the rubber-banded roll of bills out of his pocket and held it out to Frank, who looked back at him as if it were a rat.
"Grandma won't take it," Mike said, "but she needs it." He grabbed Frank's hand, opened it, dropped the money inside, and closed his fingers over it. "Can I trust you to hold on to this, use it for her bills, if she needs it, and get her whatever else she needs while I'm gone?"
Frank stared at the wad of bills, turning it over in the palm of his hand, nodding his head. "Sure," he said, "Course I can. When you getting back anyway?"
Mike turned and walked away. "Not for a while."
He didn't look back at Frank again until he was already at the elevator and had pushed the button to call it. When he did, he saw Frank counting the money, his eyes growing bigger with each bill he peeled off the roll. He thought about telling Frank to call him if he needed any more cash, but somehow he knew the man would.
Once inside the elevator, Mike watched his reflection come together and and watch him back as the doors closed, locking him in with himself. The man who looked at him was drained, not emotionless, but wanting to be, wanting the anger and loss to stop.
He remembered his mother, how angry she would get at his father, and sometimes even at his grandmother too. But she never did anything either. Never left him, never called the police. Any time the cops came, it was always someone else who had called them, someone probably more sick of the noise than concerned about the woman making it. He thought about the night he had lost his mother in a pool of blood, about the explosion and the wet sound of the impact, about the wisp of smoke that trailed from the barrel of the pistol in his father's hand. It had seemed to hang motionless in the air as Mike looked into the black eye of that gun, now pointed at him. His own father's finger was wrapped around the trigger like a black mamba around a tree brach, his right eye squeezed shut and his left eye squinting. Mike remembered waiting for another gunshot to pierce the air, wondering if it would sound the same when it struck his own body as it had his mother's, wondering if he would bleed as much as she had. In his mind, somehow, it had already happened when he saw his father's head jerk to the left as if struck by an invisible brick and the left side of his forehead burst forth with a mixture of blood and bone and brain.
"I am not my father," Mike said aloud to the man watching him from inside the elevator doors. "I am not my mother or my grandmother." Before he could finish his thought, the doors opened, and his reflection parted and departed. He stepped out into the lobby of the worst hospital in Miami, ripped the sticker off his shirt and slapped it onto the front desk as he passed, and left the hospital behind him. He opened the door to one of the taxis outside the hospital and flopped inside.
"Where you going?" the cabby asked him.
Mike realized he had no bags, no plans, and no reason to stay in Miami any more.
"Ft. Lauderdale airport," he said.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Hard as Hell (not quite 5000)
When he landed in Fort Lauderdale International Airport, he realized he hadn't even called anyone to pick him up, and couldn't think of anyone that he could call, so he grabbed one of the taxis waiting outside the baggage claim doors and paid his way to the house. Rushing inside, he searched the fridge for something to eat, but there was hardly any food in there. He grabbed two apples and began ravenously eating them. Then he ran to the bedroom and snatched his box of money from under his bed and counted out another twenty thousand dollars, leaving less than ten thousand in the box. After rolling up the money into the smallest possible size, he shoved it down into the bottom of his front left pants pocket, and then locked up the apartment, jumped into his car, and raced to the hospital.
Parkview Hospital was the last place Mike wanted to visit his grandmother. The place had a reputation for being the "hood" hospital, where the emergency room was often flooded with gunshot victims and stabbings, where Mike had seen small children with bloody faces wait hours in the emergency room, while ambulance after ambulance brought in nearly dead patients, men and women who were casualties of street wars and domestic feuds. Worse than that, it was the place where he had seen both his mother and his father pronounced dead, each of them with bullet wounds in their chests.
When he pulled into the parking lot of he hospital, two ambulances were blocking his way, waiting in line at the rear entrance to the emergency room. He looked for a way around them, but with the two of them in the lane he couldn't even squeeze by. He knew his grandmother was on the third floor, and he craned his neck under the windshield to try to see if he could spot her window. Cursing the ambulances, he was just about to turn around and park the car at the Walgreens across the street when the first ambulance unloaded its patient and pulled around and out, clearing up the lane.
Mike slammed down the gas pedal and sped around the second ambulance, even as it was moving out of the way. The car screeched to a stop in the nearest spot available, right under a street light, and Mike jumped out and dashed across to the main entrance of the hospital, clicking the remote lock on the way.
Once inside, Mike steeled himself for the slow service he usually got at the front desk and security checkpoint, and was glad that at least nobody was the waiting ahead of him. There was only one door leading away from the lobby, and a large desk and a podium like at the bank. A woman in scrubs sat at the desk behind a computer, lazily watching the screen and moving the mouse, while a man in a navy blue security uniform stood behind the podium watching Mike enter without greeting him.
"I need to see Beverly Barnes," Mike said, already pulling out his wallet and identification, "she's in room 318."
Mike looked from the receptionist to the security guard for what seemed to I'm like more than a minute before either one of them answered.
Finally, the receptionist made one more click of the mouse and nodded her head agreeably, and then glanced in Mike's direction. "Sign in with security."
Only then did the guard make any sort of move towards Mike, by pushing a clipboard and pen across the level top of the podium in his direction. "Identification," the man said.
Mike slapped his drivers license down onto the top of the podium next to the clipboard. He tried to lock eyes with the guard, but he seemed to be watching something going on through the glass double doors at the entrance of the lobby. Mike looked over his shoulder in that direction and saw nothing interesting.
After the guard slowly copied his license number down on the clipboard form, and Mike had signed the adjoining box and snatched back his license, the receptionist gave him a sticker to wear and waved him along toward the heavy door leading farther into the hospital. The were offering colored lined along the center of the white tiled floor, orange, blue, and green. Without needing to read the sign with the legend on the wall, Mike knew to follow the orange line to the elevators, remembering the layout from having been here so many times, both as a patient and as a visitor.
By the time he got to the door, he was already cursing himself for not picking up some flowers or a card or something to give his grandmother. Even though he knew his grandmother had never been impressed by flowers, and would only say he was wasting his money on presents for sick people, he hated walking into the room with empty hands. Then just before he opened the door, he pulled the roll of money out of his pocket, peeled away two thousand dollars, rolled it up into a separate, smaller wad, and put them in different pockets. Shoving his hands in his pockets over the money, he used his shoulder to ease the door open and peek inside the room.
There were two beds in the room, but the one closer to the door was empty. Through a thin curtain between the two, Mike could see his grandmother alone in the room, lying in the bed closest to the window. Her eyes were closed, and she was very still, but Mike knew she wasn't sleeping by the way her hands folded so nicely over her stomach. She was only resting when she did that; when she slept, it was always on her side. As a little boy, Mike had sneaked into her bedroom on too many scared nights not to know that.
"Grandma?" Ike called, stepping into the room, his hands still in his pockets, his shoulders pulled together making a sunken curve of his chest.
The old woman in the hospital bed opened here eyes weakly, as if coming out of a daydream, looked his way for a moment, and then turned her head and shoulders towards the window and stared through it at the street outside and the cars passing by.
"Grandma, what happened?" Mike sat in the old green vinyl chair between the hospital bed and the window. There was a rolling tray over the bed, carrying a tray with a half-eaten sandwich and a cup of apple juice. He pushed the tray away and pulled the chair up closer to the bed, between his grandmother and the window.
Beverly rolled over onto her other shoulder and turned only slightly away from Mike, closing her eyes as if she were trying to sleep. "You would know if you had called at all."
Mike watched his grandmother's face, her eyes closed, her mouth pursed, but other than that, emotionless. He had seen this in her before, her heart filled with hurt, but too proud to say it, and without anyone to tell. He searched his ind for an apology, an excuse, a reason for his inattentiveness and neglect that would make it sound better than it was. Not one came to mind.
Mike steeled himself for what he had to say. He waited for the words to come, but they didn't, and he knew they wouldn't come on their own. He was so like his grandmother, he knew, slow to anger, quick to act, but hard to apologize. He gave himself the same ultimatum he gave whenever he had something that needed to be said, whether it was to a woman, a rival, or an authority figure. If you don't make your move in ten seconds, he shouted at himself in his mind like a drill sergeant, then you're a punk, a sissy. And then he started counting backwards. It took I'm all the way to two before he spoke.
"I'm sorry, grandma," he said, slowly and deliberately, but with his eyes on the floor and his hands back in his pockets again. "I wanted to call, but I've been so busy, and ..."
"I know how busy you've been," she said, easing into the bed on her back, glancing at Mike momentarily. "I've seen you on the television."
Mike stood up and moved towards the bed, taking his hands out of his pockets and pushing the rolling tray even farther away from the bed. Leaning over his grandmother until he was looking down into her face, he tried to catch her gaze, but she turned her head away from him again. This time, however, Mike could swear he saw her smile, or at least try not to.
"Grandma," Mike exclaimed, sitting on the bed next to her, "I didn't know you watched 106 and Park."
This time she did smile, but quickly turned it into a derisive look. Even so, Mike caught it and smiled back. "Wait," he said, "when did you get cable?"
"I didn't," she said, looking up at her grandson now with a hurt look on her face, "I don't watch the trash and foolishness. Mr. Jenkins next door let me come over and watch when you were on." She smoothed out the hospital sheet over her abdomen and legs, and looked up at the dark screen of the television. "His children seem to think you're quite good," she said, looking up at Mike on the last word.
Mike reached over to his grandmother's hand resting by her side over the sheet and stroked it. He cocked his head to the side and smiled in that way he had since he was six, the way he knew would get to her. "So what do you think?" he said slyly.
Beverly Barnes looked up into her grandson's face. Her hand was motionless under his. "You used to be different."
Mike moved his hand from hers, his brow twisted up and his eyes narrowed. "You mean you don't like it?" he said. "I've won every time I've been on."
Beverly softly moved her hand over his and squeezed his fingers together. "It's good," she said, "It's not that it's not good, but ..."
Mike waited for her to finish her thought, and then jumped in when she didn't. "I'm not cursing or anything, and I'm keeping it clean." He stood up and walked around to where he had pushed the food tray near the end of the bed.
The old woman tried to sit up in the bed, winced, and then lay back down. Grabbing the controller for the bed frustratedly, she pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, rolling her eyes as she slowly rose into a sitting position. Once the bed stopped moving and she was upright, she sighed noisily before speaking.
"Clean is one thing. I've heard you rap before, and I know I told you to keep it clean." she said. "But what I've heard you saying on the show lately is so ...," she looked away from Mike out through the window, "so dark."
Mike looked at her puzzled.
"I'm not even sure what I mean, Mike," she continued, "but it's different, darker, meaner. And you're different, too."
Mike picked up the apple juice from the rolling tray, smelled it, and then took a sip. He shrugged his shoulders and put it back down. "I don't know what you mean, Grandma," he said, walking around to the other side of her bed.
"Like I said," she muttered, half under her breath but loud enough for him to hear, "I don't either." She pulled on the hospital bed sheet until it covered not only her stomach and chest, but even came up to her neck. "Since that first call I got when you landed in New York, son, I haven't heard from you at all." She fidgeted some more with the end of he sheet. "I had a heart attack, in my own home, and I yelled across to the neighbor for help, and all I could think about was that maybe I wouldn't see you again, and how would you know what happened?" She shook her head back and forth as if fighting off some pest of a flying insect. "I knew you were all right, you always are, but it's been a tough couple of days for me."
Mike looked at his grandmother, and really saw her for the first time. Not the hardened woman of war with words, fists, and bullets all ready for action at the same time, but an old woman, with more failures than successes behind her, one who has lost her son, her daughter-in-law, and her peace of mind in the bargain. He felt rotten. It seemed to him that this woman deserved better than to lie on a carpet in pain and call out to strangers and bystanders for help. She had taken from him, but Mike knew She had given him much more in return. He resolved to be the son she deserved, even if she didn't get him, even if her true son had been a devil. He watched her turn away from him again, not angry, to seemed to him, but hurt. He watched her eyes close slowly, and noticed for the first time since he had entered the room that it was not sadness that closed them that way, but pain and fatigue. When her eyes were fully closed, he drew the smaller roll of bills out of his pocket and dropped it into her purse on the side table next to her.
Parkview Hospital was the last place Mike wanted to visit his grandmother. The place had a reputation for being the "hood" hospital, where the emergency room was often flooded with gunshot victims and stabbings, where Mike had seen small children with bloody faces wait hours in the emergency room, while ambulance after ambulance brought in nearly dead patients, men and women who were casualties of street wars and domestic feuds. Worse than that, it was the place where he had seen both his mother and his father pronounced dead, each of them with bullet wounds in their chests.
When he pulled into the parking lot of he hospital, two ambulances were blocking his way, waiting in line at the rear entrance to the emergency room. He looked for a way around them, but with the two of them in the lane he couldn't even squeeze by. He knew his grandmother was on the third floor, and he craned his neck under the windshield to try to see if he could spot her window. Cursing the ambulances, he was just about to turn around and park the car at the Walgreens across the street when the first ambulance unloaded its patient and pulled around and out, clearing up the lane.
Mike slammed down the gas pedal and sped around the second ambulance, even as it was moving out of the way. The car screeched to a stop in the nearest spot available, right under a street light, and Mike jumped out and dashed across to the main entrance of the hospital, clicking the remote lock on the way.
Once inside, Mike steeled himself for the slow service he usually got at the front desk and security checkpoint, and was glad that at least nobody was the waiting ahead of him. There was only one door leading away from the lobby, and a large desk and a podium like at the bank. A woman in scrubs sat at the desk behind a computer, lazily watching the screen and moving the mouse, while a man in a navy blue security uniform stood behind the podium watching Mike enter without greeting him.
"I need to see Beverly Barnes," Mike said, already pulling out his wallet and identification, "she's in room 318."
Mike looked from the receptionist to the security guard for what seemed to I'm like more than a minute before either one of them answered.
Finally, the receptionist made one more click of the mouse and nodded her head agreeably, and then glanced in Mike's direction. "Sign in with security."
Only then did the guard make any sort of move towards Mike, by pushing a clipboard and pen across the level top of the podium in his direction. "Identification," the man said.
Mike slapped his drivers license down onto the top of the podium next to the clipboard. He tried to lock eyes with the guard, but he seemed to be watching something going on through the glass double doors at the entrance of the lobby. Mike looked over his shoulder in that direction and saw nothing interesting.
After the guard slowly copied his license number down on the clipboard form, and Mike had signed the adjoining box and snatched back his license, the receptionist gave him a sticker to wear and waved him along toward the heavy door leading farther into the hospital. The were offering colored lined along the center of the white tiled floor, orange, blue, and green. Without needing to read the sign with the legend on the wall, Mike knew to follow the orange line to the elevators, remembering the layout from having been here so many times, both as a patient and as a visitor.
By the time he got to the door, he was already cursing himself for not picking up some flowers or a card or something to give his grandmother. Even though he knew his grandmother had never been impressed by flowers, and would only say he was wasting his money on presents for sick people, he hated walking into the room with empty hands. Then just before he opened the door, he pulled the roll of money out of his pocket, peeled away two thousand dollars, rolled it up into a separate, smaller wad, and put them in different pockets. Shoving his hands in his pockets over the money, he used his shoulder to ease the door open and peek inside the room.
There were two beds in the room, but the one closer to the door was empty. Through a thin curtain between the two, Mike could see his grandmother alone in the room, lying in the bed closest to the window. Her eyes were closed, and she was very still, but Mike knew she wasn't sleeping by the way her hands folded so nicely over her stomach. She was only resting when she did that; when she slept, it was always on her side. As a little boy, Mike had sneaked into her bedroom on too many scared nights not to know that.
"Grandma?" Ike called, stepping into the room, his hands still in his pockets, his shoulders pulled together making a sunken curve of his chest.
The old woman in the hospital bed opened here eyes weakly, as if coming out of a daydream, looked his way for a moment, and then turned her head and shoulders towards the window and stared through it at the street outside and the cars passing by.
"Grandma, what happened?" Mike sat in the old green vinyl chair between the hospital bed and the window. There was a rolling tray over the bed, carrying a tray with a half-eaten sandwich and a cup of apple juice. He pushed the tray away and pulled the chair up closer to the bed, between his grandmother and the window.
Beverly rolled over onto her other shoulder and turned only slightly away from Mike, closing her eyes as if she were trying to sleep. "You would know if you had called at all."
Mike watched his grandmother's face, her eyes closed, her mouth pursed, but other than that, emotionless. He had seen this in her before, her heart filled with hurt, but too proud to say it, and without anyone to tell. He searched his ind for an apology, an excuse, a reason for his inattentiveness and neglect that would make it sound better than it was. Not one came to mind.
Mike steeled himself for what he had to say. He waited for the words to come, but they didn't, and he knew they wouldn't come on their own. He was so like his grandmother, he knew, slow to anger, quick to act, but hard to apologize. He gave himself the same ultimatum he gave whenever he had something that needed to be said, whether it was to a woman, a rival, or an authority figure. If you don't make your move in ten seconds, he shouted at himself in his mind like a drill sergeant, then you're a punk, a sissy. And then he started counting backwards. It took I'm all the way to two before he spoke.
"I'm sorry, grandma," he said, slowly and deliberately, but with his eyes on the floor and his hands back in his pockets again. "I wanted to call, but I've been so busy, and ..."
"I know how busy you've been," she said, easing into the bed on her back, glancing at Mike momentarily. "I've seen you on the television."
Mike stood up and moved towards the bed, taking his hands out of his pockets and pushing the rolling tray even farther away from the bed. Leaning over his grandmother until he was looking down into her face, he tried to catch her gaze, but she turned her head away from him again. This time, however, Mike could swear he saw her smile, or at least try not to.
"Grandma," Mike exclaimed, sitting on the bed next to her, "I didn't know you watched 106 and Park."
This time she did smile, but quickly turned it into a derisive look. Even so, Mike caught it and smiled back. "Wait," he said, "when did you get cable?"
"I didn't," she said, looking up at her grandson now with a hurt look on her face, "I don't watch the trash and foolishness. Mr. Jenkins next door let me come over and watch when you were on." She smoothed out the hospital sheet over her abdomen and legs, and looked up at the dark screen of the television. "His children seem to think you're quite good," she said, looking up at Mike on the last word.
Mike reached over to his grandmother's hand resting by her side over the sheet and stroked it. He cocked his head to the side and smiled in that way he had since he was six, the way he knew would get to her. "So what do you think?" he said slyly.
Beverly Barnes looked up into her grandson's face. Her hand was motionless under his. "You used to be different."
Mike moved his hand from hers, his brow twisted up and his eyes narrowed. "You mean you don't like it?" he said. "I've won every time I've been on."
Beverly softly moved her hand over his and squeezed his fingers together. "It's good," she said, "It's not that it's not good, but ..."
Mike waited for her to finish her thought, and then jumped in when she didn't. "I'm not cursing or anything, and I'm keeping it clean." He stood up and walked around to where he had pushed the food tray near the end of the bed.
The old woman tried to sit up in the bed, winced, and then lay back down. Grabbing the controller for the bed frustratedly, she pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, rolling her eyes as she slowly rose into a sitting position. Once the bed stopped moving and she was upright, she sighed noisily before speaking.
"Clean is one thing. I've heard you rap before, and I know I told you to keep it clean." she said. "But what I've heard you saying on the show lately is so ...," she looked away from Mike out through the window, "so dark."
Mike looked at her puzzled.
"I'm not even sure what I mean, Mike," she continued, "but it's different, darker, meaner. And you're different, too."
Mike picked up the apple juice from the rolling tray, smelled it, and then took a sip. He shrugged his shoulders and put it back down. "I don't know what you mean, Grandma," he said, walking around to the other side of her bed.
"Like I said," she muttered, half under her breath but loud enough for him to hear, "I don't either." She pulled on the hospital bed sheet until it covered not only her stomach and chest, but even came up to her neck. "Since that first call I got when you landed in New York, son, I haven't heard from you at all." She fidgeted some more with the end of he sheet. "I had a heart attack, in my own home, and I yelled across to the neighbor for help, and all I could think about was that maybe I wouldn't see you again, and how would you know what happened?" She shook her head back and forth as if fighting off some pest of a flying insect. "I knew you were all right, you always are, but it's been a tough couple of days for me."
Mike looked at his grandmother, and really saw her for the first time. Not the hardened woman of war with words, fists, and bullets all ready for action at the same time, but an old woman, with more failures than successes behind her, one who has lost her son, her daughter-in-law, and her peace of mind in the bargain. He felt rotten. It seemed to him that this woman deserved better than to lie on a carpet in pain and call out to strangers and bystanders for help. She had taken from him, but Mike knew She had given him much more in return. He resolved to be the son she deserved, even if she didn't get him, even if her true son had been a devil. He watched her turn away from him again, not angry, to seemed to him, but hurt. He watched her eyes close slowly, and noticed for the first time since he had entered the room that it was not sadness that closed them that way, but pain and fatigue. When her eyes were fully closed, he drew the smaller roll of bills out of his pocket and dropped it into her purse on the side table next to her.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Things I Learned from Nanowrimo
This year's Nanowrimo challenge was a lot more fun than the last couple of years. I actually like the novel I'm working on, and I feel like I can complete it, unlike the last couple of years. In those instances, I felt like I had committed myself to a story that I didn't really understand or like, and didn't really want to follow through with. This year, however I really look forward to finishing the story. So, to that end, I'm going to keep posting updates to the story until it's over, whenever that is. The continuing saga of Mike Barnes will be updated every Saturday, with at least 5000 words each week. For now, I'd like to share some of the things I've learned from this year's challenge.
1) I can definitely make time for writing. The iPad helps with this, since I can just stop, clear my head, and write whenever I have some downtime and the energy to do so. Everyone seems shocked to hear that I type on the iPad, and I have noticed more grammatical errors due to the autocorrect, but it's still worthwhile if it generates more work.
2) Accountability makes me work harder. By making it public with the posts, I found myself compelled to write, picturing all the people who were following along, not wanting to disappoint them or seem like a slacker.
3) I really want to finish this. The thing that was pushing me forward most of all was the story itself. I did get stuck one time when I didn't know what was supposed to come next. The was a gap in my scene cards that I had to fill in to get the story from one place to another. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have just skipped ahead to another scene that I knew I wanted to write, but I feel the need to go linear with this one, and post the story as it should unfold. But after spending an hour or so writi new scene cards, rearranging scenes, and filling in the gaps, I was back in business.
So, keep looking for updates to the story, starting tomorrow, and thanks to all of my followers for reading along!
1) I can definitely make time for writing. The iPad helps with this, since I can just stop, clear my head, and write whenever I have some downtime and the energy to do so. Everyone seems shocked to hear that I type on the iPad, and I have noticed more grammatical errors due to the autocorrect, but it's still worthwhile if it generates more work.
2) Accountability makes me work harder. By making it public with the posts, I found myself compelled to write, picturing all the people who were following along, not wanting to disappoint them or seem like a slacker.
3) I really want to finish this. The thing that was pushing me forward most of all was the story itself. I did get stuck one time when I didn't know what was supposed to come next. The was a gap in my scene cards that I had to fill in to get the story from one place to another. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have just skipped ahead to another scene that I knew I wanted to write, but I feel the need to go linear with this one, and post the story as it should unfold. But after spending an hour or so writi new scene cards, rearranging scenes, and filling in the gaps, I was back in business.
So, keep looking for updates to the story, starting tomorrow, and thanks to all of my followers for reading along!
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Nanowrimo - Day 25
A lot of their time together was spent having lunch while Jasmine was on her break from work. She had a solid hour, and Mike would orally meet her in the lobby so they could walk together and eat somewhere. At times it was the park nearby, where they would pick up sandwiches from the vendors, others it was the food trucks outside her building and all the ethnic food, which they would eat sitting on the steps to the lobby, especially on days when she was so busy that lunch was cut short. On Friday, however, Mike was determined to bring flowers for her and have lunch in a nice restaurant nearby. He told her it was for luck, in preparation for the competition that would follow. In reality, he just wanted an excuse to go all out, concerned that her lack of trust might also be a lack of interest.
On this particular Friday, the fourth since his arrival in New York, and his third defense of his title as champion, the two of them returned to the studio hand in hand, which wasn't exactly new to Mike, but always welcome. At the point in the hall where she would normally leave him to go back to work while he headed onward the green room, she stopped him in the hall, smiled into is eyes, and kissed him full on the lips. The kiss was certainly intentional, with enough pressure to make him know that she meant it, but still holding back. It was brief, but still left Mike dazed by its unexpectedness. She looked at him, smiling slyly, as if waiting for a reaction.
"What was that for?" Mike said, rubbing the top of his head, unsure what to do with his hands. "Not that I'm complaining."
She took his hands in hers, first one, and then the other. "Just for luck," she said.
"Good job," Mike squeezed her hands in his, "I've never felt more lucky."
Even trough her light brown skin, Mike could see Jasmine was blushing, most of it coming through in her eyes. She pulled down on his hands once more and let them drop. "Okay," she said, rather abruptly, "back to work."
Mike nodded and watched her as she turned away from him and walked briskly down the hall toward the other side of the floor and the other set of offices there. He watched her go all the way around, unconsciously touching his fingers to his lips as she went. At the end of the hall, when she reached the edge of the reception desk, she turned slightly to the right to go around the circular desk, and looked back over her shoulder at Mike. Seeing him there, still watching her, she quickly jerked her head back to front and quickened her step, disappearing around the bend.
Mike walked to the green room, no longer needing an escort or a guide. In fact more than a few of the clerical workers and assistant producers already knew who he was and greeted him or wished him luck as he went by them. By the time he got to the green room and closed the door behind him, his spirit was as carefree as he could remember it ever being before. His recent success, the accolades and well-wishes, the feeling of destiny and the confluence of events, and Jasmine's kiss still on his lips, all made him feel unstoppable, unassailable. Today's battle would go as triumphantly as every other battle had gone, he knew, and as smoothly as every future battle would go.
He flopped backwards into the soft leather couch against the wall, tossed his jacket into the seat beside him, and dropped his feet onto the coffee table in front of him. A couple of weeks ago, he had learned that avoiding fights wasn't the only reason that the contestants of Freestyle Friday were put into different green rooms. The room for the champions was better stocked and better appointed than the smaller one for challengers, which was little more than a walk-in closet with a love seat and a dorm fridge with water. The champion's room wasn't as nice as the room for the guests of the show, with its spacious floor plan, sixty inch screen to monitor the show, and catering tables with hot food, but it did have a smaller television and some sandwiches on a table near the door. The first time Mike had been left in the new room, he had felt like it was a step up, a sign that he was making progress. Now, it might as well have been a throne room, he felt so confident.
Only an hour remained until the taping would begin, and normally Alex would have been there by now, making sure that Mike was in place and ready to go. So far, he hadn't shown up, but then Mike had noticed that his success had produced a certain kind of ease in Alex. He didn't seem to feel the need to check up on him of guide him around quite so much, finally getting the hint that Mike probably wanted this as much or more than he did. Mike was just starting to think he was on his own for the day when his cell phone rang.
He pulled out his phone, expecting to see Alex's number there in the screen, but surprised instead to see his grandmother's number and picture there. He bit his lip and dropped his hands, holding the phone, into his lap, still looking into that face and listening to the ringtone.
How many days had he been in New York! How many weeks now? He remembered calling her when he first arrived at the hotel, and again after his first win in the competition, but he hadn't called her at all since then. It seemed as if only a few days had passed since then, but as Mike counted it down, it was over three weeks since he had spoken with his grandmother, three weeks since he had called her. While he sat there feeling like a fool and a jerk for leaving her so alone, the phone stopped ringing, her picture disappeared, and the picture of the South Beach shore that was his background returned.
Mike stood up and looked at the door, seriously thinking about neglecting the call until later. He could think of an appropriate excuse and make his apologies by then, and he knew she would forgive him. She always did. But something in him, either a premonition or pang of guilt, pushed him to hit redial.
"Hey, Grandma," he said as soon as the ringing stopped and the line opened, "sorry I didn't pick up quick enough, and sorry ..."
"Is this Mike?" The voice on the other end of the line was a deep, raspy male voice that shocked Mike into silence for a moment. "Mike? Is this you?"
"Who's this?" Mike asked, nervously, only vaguely recognizing the voice.
"It's Frank Jenkins, from next door," the man said, with frustration bleeding through his gruff voice. "I ain't got but a few seconds, so just listen. Your grandmama ain't well. She been complaining about being tired for the last couple of days, you know, but now she really don't look right. She saying she need to get to the hospital, so I called the 911. They pulling up now."
"Okay, um, thanks, man," Mike stammered, "if she's got a minute, would you let me talk to her?"
"Hold on," Frank said, making no attempt to hide his disdain.
There were a couple of seconds of silence that seemed like hours to Mike. All he could make out was Frank's muffled voice calling his grandmother's name twice.
"Son," Frank said, abruptly getting back on the phone, "you gone have to wait. She done passed out."
Mike drifted down into the couch. The door to the green room opened slowly, and Alex stuck his head inside, smiling, and then walked in, closing the door behind him.
"You ready?" Alex said, moving over to Mike and slapping him on the knees.
Mike waved him off with a violent swipe of his hand and an annoyed look on his face. Alex slid into the couch next to him and furrowed his brow.
"You sure?" Mike said into the phone, turning his head away from Alex.
"She ain't answering," Frank said, "and she look like she sleeping."
"Well, what ...," Mike began.
"Hold up, kid," Frank interrupted, "they coming in now. I'ma have to call you back."
Mike nodded as if Frank could see him.
"Mike," Frank said hesitantly, "if you can get down here, you really ought to. I gotta go, I'm heading to the ER with her."
"Okay, Frank, thanks." Mike said, switching the phone to the other side of his head and turning farther away from Alex. He could hear commotion in the background, what sounded like an ironing board dropping into place and a green stick breaking in half. "Can you keep me posted? Take down the number and give me a call, whatever happens."
"No problem, chief," Frank said, "gotta go." The line closed unceremoniously.
Mike slipped his phone into his lap and looked at the door, right past Alex. After a few moments of silence, he picked up he phone again, and checked the number, as if maybe it had changed.
"Mike?" Alex started.
"I have to go." Mike said, slowly turning towards Alex. "I can't go on today."
"What?" Alex said, scooting to the edge of the couch and facing Mike in one quick movement. "They're already taping. It's thirty minutes in, almost." Alex flipped is wrist over, pulled back the sleeve of his jacket, and looked at his watch. "They'll be calling for you in another ten minutes."
"My grandma's sick, man," Mike said, raising his voice, "I need to get out of here." He stood up and pulled his jacket on, smoothing out his shirt as he pushed his arms through.
Alex stood up after him, stepping between Mike and the door. Locking eyes with him, he nodded and inched closer. "All right," he said, "you're worried, of course."
Mike put his hand on the left side of Alex's chest, pushing him to the side, but Alex moved back in front of him, blocking his way to the door.
"She's in the hospital, man." Mike pleaded.
Alex stood still, looking into Mike's eyes, his eyebrows lowered and squeezed together. Nodding and looking at the ground, Alex stepped out of the way.
"Do you have a flight back home?" Alex said, as Mike passed by him to the door.
Mike stopped, his hand already reaching toward the door knob. He muttered curses under his breath.
Alex pulled out his iPhone and turned it on. "Here's what we do," he said, already scrolling through ages of the Internet and clicking choices with his fingertip, "you go out there and do your thing when they call you. Get your head right and beat this guy. You know you can, and there's no reason to throw the opportunity away. Your grandmother certainly wouldn't want you to."
Mike turned around, a hint of anger and offense in his eyes.
"Do this," Alex continued, "and when you come back to this room, I promise I'll have you booked on the earliest flight back, company expense, and a cab ready to run you to the airport."
Mike glared at Alex, but his face gradually softened.
"Can you get me there before night?" he said.
"Dude," Alex said, "I'll get you there as soon as a plane is ready to go. That's the best I can do, and it's the best you could do anyway."
Mike nodded and walked slowly back to the couch, sinking into it like one who has lost feeling in his legs. "Fine," he said, "but I'm leaving right after."
Alex stopped tapping his phone furiously and looked down at Mike. "I lost a grandmother too once, and a mother." He turned is attention back to the home and scrolled down once more, his finger flapping back and forth like a windsock in a storm. "I'll get you there."
By the time the assistant producer came for him, Mike had calmed down a little, but still felt ambushed and nervous and guilty, three things he hadn't felt for some time now. He got through the competition somehow, the words again coming to him, but couldn't remember a single word of either of his rhymes afterwards. He got a split decision in his favor, the first time the vote had not been unanimous since he had been on the show.
Afterwards, he wandered back to the green room, where Alex met him with tickets and boarding passes already printed out. Mike felt so grateful to see the paperwork all ready to go that he hugged Alex tightly. He hoped that his grandmother was all right, that it was just some kind of dizzy spell or something. He hoped that she would forgive him for not calling her, for forcing her to got to a near stranger for help in her sickness. More than that, he hoped he would not get there and find that he wouldn't get the chance to make it right with her. Without even looking for Jasmine or calling her to say goodbye, he left the lobby and threw himself into a cab that Alex actually had waiting for him, like he had promised.
On this particular Friday, the fourth since his arrival in New York, and his third defense of his title as champion, the two of them returned to the studio hand in hand, which wasn't exactly new to Mike, but always welcome. At the point in the hall where she would normally leave him to go back to work while he headed onward the green room, she stopped him in the hall, smiled into is eyes, and kissed him full on the lips. The kiss was certainly intentional, with enough pressure to make him know that she meant it, but still holding back. It was brief, but still left Mike dazed by its unexpectedness. She looked at him, smiling slyly, as if waiting for a reaction.
"What was that for?" Mike said, rubbing the top of his head, unsure what to do with his hands. "Not that I'm complaining."
She took his hands in hers, first one, and then the other. "Just for luck," she said.
"Good job," Mike squeezed her hands in his, "I've never felt more lucky."
Even trough her light brown skin, Mike could see Jasmine was blushing, most of it coming through in her eyes. She pulled down on his hands once more and let them drop. "Okay," she said, rather abruptly, "back to work."
Mike nodded and watched her as she turned away from him and walked briskly down the hall toward the other side of the floor and the other set of offices there. He watched her go all the way around, unconsciously touching his fingers to his lips as she went. At the end of the hall, when she reached the edge of the reception desk, she turned slightly to the right to go around the circular desk, and looked back over her shoulder at Mike. Seeing him there, still watching her, she quickly jerked her head back to front and quickened her step, disappearing around the bend.
Mike walked to the green room, no longer needing an escort or a guide. In fact more than a few of the clerical workers and assistant producers already knew who he was and greeted him or wished him luck as he went by them. By the time he got to the green room and closed the door behind him, his spirit was as carefree as he could remember it ever being before. His recent success, the accolades and well-wishes, the feeling of destiny and the confluence of events, and Jasmine's kiss still on his lips, all made him feel unstoppable, unassailable. Today's battle would go as triumphantly as every other battle had gone, he knew, and as smoothly as every future battle would go.
He flopped backwards into the soft leather couch against the wall, tossed his jacket into the seat beside him, and dropped his feet onto the coffee table in front of him. A couple of weeks ago, he had learned that avoiding fights wasn't the only reason that the contestants of Freestyle Friday were put into different green rooms. The room for the champions was better stocked and better appointed than the smaller one for challengers, which was little more than a walk-in closet with a love seat and a dorm fridge with water. The champion's room wasn't as nice as the room for the guests of the show, with its spacious floor plan, sixty inch screen to monitor the show, and catering tables with hot food, but it did have a smaller television and some sandwiches on a table near the door. The first time Mike had been left in the new room, he had felt like it was a step up, a sign that he was making progress. Now, it might as well have been a throne room, he felt so confident.
Only an hour remained until the taping would begin, and normally Alex would have been there by now, making sure that Mike was in place and ready to go. So far, he hadn't shown up, but then Mike had noticed that his success had produced a certain kind of ease in Alex. He didn't seem to feel the need to check up on him of guide him around quite so much, finally getting the hint that Mike probably wanted this as much or more than he did. Mike was just starting to think he was on his own for the day when his cell phone rang.
He pulled out his phone, expecting to see Alex's number there in the screen, but surprised instead to see his grandmother's number and picture there. He bit his lip and dropped his hands, holding the phone, into his lap, still looking into that face and listening to the ringtone.
How many days had he been in New York! How many weeks now? He remembered calling her when he first arrived at the hotel, and again after his first win in the competition, but he hadn't called her at all since then. It seemed as if only a few days had passed since then, but as Mike counted it down, it was over three weeks since he had spoken with his grandmother, three weeks since he had called her. While he sat there feeling like a fool and a jerk for leaving her so alone, the phone stopped ringing, her picture disappeared, and the picture of the South Beach shore that was his background returned.
Mike stood up and looked at the door, seriously thinking about neglecting the call until later. He could think of an appropriate excuse and make his apologies by then, and he knew she would forgive him. She always did. But something in him, either a premonition or pang of guilt, pushed him to hit redial.
"Hey, Grandma," he said as soon as the ringing stopped and the line opened, "sorry I didn't pick up quick enough, and sorry ..."
"Is this Mike?" The voice on the other end of the line was a deep, raspy male voice that shocked Mike into silence for a moment. "Mike? Is this you?"
"Who's this?" Mike asked, nervously, only vaguely recognizing the voice.
"It's Frank Jenkins, from next door," the man said, with frustration bleeding through his gruff voice. "I ain't got but a few seconds, so just listen. Your grandmama ain't well. She been complaining about being tired for the last couple of days, you know, but now she really don't look right. She saying she need to get to the hospital, so I called the 911. They pulling up now."
"Okay, um, thanks, man," Mike stammered, "if she's got a minute, would you let me talk to her?"
"Hold on," Frank said, making no attempt to hide his disdain.
There were a couple of seconds of silence that seemed like hours to Mike. All he could make out was Frank's muffled voice calling his grandmother's name twice.
"Son," Frank said, abruptly getting back on the phone, "you gone have to wait. She done passed out."
Mike drifted down into the couch. The door to the green room opened slowly, and Alex stuck his head inside, smiling, and then walked in, closing the door behind him.
"You ready?" Alex said, moving over to Mike and slapping him on the knees.
Mike waved him off with a violent swipe of his hand and an annoyed look on his face. Alex slid into the couch next to him and furrowed his brow.
"You sure?" Mike said into the phone, turning his head away from Alex.
"She ain't answering," Frank said, "and she look like she sleeping."
"Well, what ...," Mike began.
"Hold up, kid," Frank interrupted, "they coming in now. I'ma have to call you back."
Mike nodded as if Frank could see him.
"Mike," Frank said hesitantly, "if you can get down here, you really ought to. I gotta go, I'm heading to the ER with her."
"Okay, Frank, thanks." Mike said, switching the phone to the other side of his head and turning farther away from Alex. He could hear commotion in the background, what sounded like an ironing board dropping into place and a green stick breaking in half. "Can you keep me posted? Take down the number and give me a call, whatever happens."
"No problem, chief," Frank said, "gotta go." The line closed unceremoniously.
Mike slipped his phone into his lap and looked at the door, right past Alex. After a few moments of silence, he picked up he phone again, and checked the number, as if maybe it had changed.
"Mike?" Alex started.
"I have to go." Mike said, slowly turning towards Alex. "I can't go on today."
"What?" Alex said, scooting to the edge of the couch and facing Mike in one quick movement. "They're already taping. It's thirty minutes in, almost." Alex flipped is wrist over, pulled back the sleeve of his jacket, and looked at his watch. "They'll be calling for you in another ten minutes."
"My grandma's sick, man," Mike said, raising his voice, "I need to get out of here." He stood up and pulled his jacket on, smoothing out his shirt as he pushed his arms through.
Alex stood up after him, stepping between Mike and the door. Locking eyes with him, he nodded and inched closer. "All right," he said, "you're worried, of course."
Mike put his hand on the left side of Alex's chest, pushing him to the side, but Alex moved back in front of him, blocking his way to the door.
"She's in the hospital, man." Mike pleaded.
Alex stood still, looking into Mike's eyes, his eyebrows lowered and squeezed together. Nodding and looking at the ground, Alex stepped out of the way.
"Do you have a flight back home?" Alex said, as Mike passed by him to the door.
Mike stopped, his hand already reaching toward the door knob. He muttered curses under his breath.
Alex pulled out his iPhone and turned it on. "Here's what we do," he said, already scrolling through ages of the Internet and clicking choices with his fingertip, "you go out there and do your thing when they call you. Get your head right and beat this guy. You know you can, and there's no reason to throw the opportunity away. Your grandmother certainly wouldn't want you to."
Mike turned around, a hint of anger and offense in his eyes.
"Do this," Alex continued, "and when you come back to this room, I promise I'll have you booked on the earliest flight back, company expense, and a cab ready to run you to the airport."
Mike glared at Alex, but his face gradually softened.
"Can you get me there before night?" he said.
"Dude," Alex said, "I'll get you there as soon as a plane is ready to go. That's the best I can do, and it's the best you could do anyway."
Mike nodded and walked slowly back to the couch, sinking into it like one who has lost feeling in his legs. "Fine," he said, "but I'm leaving right after."
Alex stopped tapping his phone furiously and looked down at Mike. "I lost a grandmother too once, and a mother." He turned is attention back to the home and scrolled down once more, his finger flapping back and forth like a windsock in a storm. "I'll get you there."
By the time the assistant producer came for him, Mike had calmed down a little, but still felt ambushed and nervous and guilty, three things he hadn't felt for some time now. He got through the competition somehow, the words again coming to him, but couldn't remember a single word of either of his rhymes afterwards. He got a split decision in his favor, the first time the vote had not been unanimous since he had been on the show.
Afterwards, he wandered back to the green room, where Alex met him with tickets and boarding passes already printed out. Mike felt so grateful to see the paperwork all ready to go that he hugged Alex tightly. He hoped that his grandmother was all right, that it was just some kind of dizzy spell or something. He hoped that she would forgive him for not calling her, for forcing her to got to a near stranger for help in her sickness. More than that, he hoped he would not get there and find that he wouldn't get the chance to make it right with her. Without even looking for Jasmine or calling her to say goodbye, he left the lobby and threw himself into a cab that Alex actually had waiting for him, like he had promised.
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