Upon A Pale Horse

SEVENTEEN Random Chance

That evening Jeffrey and Monica ate dinner at one of her favorite restaurants and then went over to the condo to look it over. Monica declared it perfect, and it seemed like the matter was settled — he’d spend a few days putting Keith’s stuff into storage, keep most of the furniture, and then have the moving company deliver his things, leaving the bulk of his furniture to be stored with them. There were only a few items he really cared about, anyway — his clothes, his bed, his books, some personal effects. The rest could stay in storage. The condo was fully outfitted, so other than one long day boxing up everything he wanted gone, it would be painless.

Jeffrey hadn’t shared with Monica the bad news about Becky, but he seemed preoccupied, and she eventually dug it out of him on the ride back to the hotel.

“It’s just so… terrible. I mean, her whole world gets turned upside down when my brother dies, and then some drunk mows her down only a few days later. I don’t know. It just seems so… such a waste. So cruel,” he said.

“I’m so sorry, Jeffrey. Were you close?”

“No. I just saw her at the service, and had met her once before. That’s it. But she was so… so vital and immediate. So alive, even distraught over my brother. And then, just like that, she’s dead. None of it makes any sense. It’s just so random. I think that’s the part that drives me a little crazy. You cross the wrong street, or get on the wrong plane, and poof. Game over, just like that. We spend our lives thinking if we do the right things, exercise, eat right, whatever, that we have some control, but reality is that it’s all completely up to chance.”

“Yes, it is. Which is why we have to enjoy things while they last. There’s no telling when the ride’s over.”

“I know. It’s just that I live in a world where everything’s orderly, and chaos is… it’s like a personal insult.”

“I don’t know, Jeffrey. I mean, sometimes good things can happen out of disorder, too. Like us.”

They drove in silence for a few blocks, and then she slid her hand over his. “I’m sorry about your friend. And your brother. It completely sucks, and you have every right to be angry at the universe.”

“I’m not angry. Okay, that’s a lie. Maybe I am. Just a little.”

“If you’d hurry up and get to the hotel, I may have just what the doctor ordered to take your mind off that, mister angry man.” She squeezed his fingers, and suddenly the tension seemed to seep out of him.

“Thank God I met you. I guess I can thank serendipity for that.”

“No, you can thank the Four Seasons and Absolut vodka.” She gave him a sly smile. “Hey, doesn’t this thing go any faster?”

Jeffrey made it back to the hotel in record time.

He cleaned out the condo over that weekend, and by Sunday night his boxes had been delivered and the last of Keith’s hauled off. Jeffrey and Monica ate pizza and drank Chianti while he finished arranging his possessions to his liking, and after dinner they settled on the couch with a second bottle, the stereo playing in the background as he cuddled with her. When the CD finished, she touched one of the three guitars he kept in the living room with a bare foot and leaned her head back, kissing his neck.

“So do you play those?”

“I’ve been known to. Although not recently.”

“And you’re not going to serenade me? What kind of gyp is that?”

“You really want to hear me play? It sounds more like a cat in heat than music…”

“I don’t believe you. I bet you’re great.”

“Wow. And here I thought I was out of ways I could disappoint you.”

She swatted at him playfully. “Come on. Play something.”

He groaned, and then reached over and grabbed the Stratocaster. It was hopelessly out of tune, so he took a few moments to get it close, and then began picking a melody, the unamplified strings sounding twangy and hollow.

“That’s not as impressive as it would be if it was plugged in,” he admitted.

“Don’t you have an amplifier? Or can you hook it up through the stereo?”

“My brother had one. It’s in one of the closets. Are you feeling masochistic or something?”

“No more than usual. What — are you afraid you’ll wake the neighbors?”

“Not really. It’s just that playing an electric guitar alone, without a band or anything, is a lonely kind of thing. More for doing when nobody’s around.”

“Hogwash. Look at the White Stripes. Just a guitar and a female drummer. Hey, I can keep a beat.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“I’m serious. I think guitar players are super sexy. Rowrrr.”

“Let me get the amp.”

He returned a minute later toting a small Marshall combo tube amplifier and a cord. After plugging it in and connecting the guitar, he slipped a pick from the plastic holder Keith had affixed to the top of the amp and fiddled with the guitar knobs.

“Damn. It isn’t cooperating.”

“Are you sure you know how to play it?”

“Mockery will get you nowhere, my dear,” he declared, then unplugged the Strat and set it back on the stand, and grabbed the other guitar — a Les Paul junior.

A burst of distorted static flooded the room and he quickly turned down the amp’s master volume, then repeated his tuning experiment and turned the guitar up.

“Remember. You asked for it. I play for free, but I charge big bucks to stop.”

He strummed a few chords, and then began playing, working through a few minutes of Hendrix’s “Little Wing” before turning the guitar down and setting it aside.

“Wow, you really are good. At guitar, too…” she said, and then threw her arms around him and kissed him long and hard.

He came out of the bedroom later and shut down the amp, carried what remained of the wine into the kitchen, and turned off the lights, tired and content to be home at long last.

The next day was light, his big project put to bed except for some detail work, and he was able to get out of the office at a decent hour. Monica begged off coming over so she could do laundry, having spent every night with Jeffrey that week.

He changed into sweats and considered going to the gym he’d spied three blocks away, but managed to find some computer work to do instead, dealing with some of the remaining loose ends from his old firm. As the evening wore on, he began to get hungry, and he decided to try dinner at a small pub he’d passed one street over. The burger was passable and the draft beer convincingly semi-flat as only British pubs could serve it. After an hour watching soccer he didn’t care about, he made his way back to the condo for an early night by himself.

Once inside, his eye moved to the Strat, resting proudly on its stand in the corner, and he repeated his experiment with the amp. Nothing — none of the pickups seemed to work. He jiggled the jack, but all he got for his trouble was crackling.

Frustrated, he went to the kitchen and returned a few moments later with a small tool box. Grateful to have a project to occupy his time, he carefully loosened the strings, pulled the volume and tone knobs off the pots, and then set to work on the faceplate with a Phillips head screwdriver, careful not to strip the screws as he removed them.

When the last one was free, he slowly raised the plastic cover to see what the problem was — likely a broken connection by the pickup selector switch. He peered into the tangle of wires and immediately spotted the issue: The selector switch wires had been cut.

And there was a piece of paper folded up and stuffed into the wiring.

Jeffrey pulled it from the tangle and set the guitar down, and then unfolded the note. His eyes widened when he saw his brother’s handwriting — a message from the dead. It was short and to the point, and as he read it his pulse accelerated by twenty beats per minute.