Upon A Pale Horse

FORTY-SIX Home

Monica’s phone was disconnected when he got around to returning her latest three-day-old message on his answering machine. He wasn’t surprised, and realized as he listened to the automated voice that the only thing he felt was relief at not having to go through a protracted act to wind down their relationship.

When he arrived at the condo he was tired from the flight, and he barely stopped at the refrigerator to retrieve a beer before tossing his bag onto the couch and popping the top. He savored the first icy swallows with relish, then set the bottle down and powered on his phone and called into the office to see what messages he had. His secretary had told him that Fairbanks wanted to speak to him as soon as he was able to come in, and he sensed the other shoe getting ready to drop — again, with a sense of relief. The lie he’d been living, the fantasy world that had been created to keep him under wraps, was disintegrating around him, and he was glad. It meant he was no longer of interest, no longer a target. At least, that was his hope.

His client messages had dwindled to nothing, which he interpreted as another sign. The word had gone out from the partners that he wasn’t long for their world, or would be out of the office for the duration as he grappled with his injury. He knew the firm would have to be careful about how it proposed that he leave, so that it didn’t seem that he was being let go as a result of the mugging, but he didn’t really care how they went about it. He wasn’t going to challenge them. He just knew that he didn’t want to stay in Washington any longer. There was nothing for him there. It was now just a place his brother had lived — too briefly.

Jeffrey glanced at the beer and realized it had somehow emptied itself while he’d been preoccupied, and he belched as his eyes roved around the room, wondering if all the eavesdropping equipment had been removed in his absence. As his eyes came to rest on his brother’s Stratocaster sitting on the stand in the corner, he realized it didn’t much matter. At that instant, he knew that he would be calling the realtor and selling the condo, probably early the next day. There was no point in delaying the inevitable, and it would be the first step on the path to a new reality.

Jeffrey picked up the guitar, plugged in the amplifier next to it, and strummed a chord. He fiddled with the volume and tone knobs and then tuned it, plucking the harmonics and listening for the slight dissonance. Satisfied that it was close enough, he reached down and grabbed a pick from the green vinyl amp top, and played a few quick riffs, arpeggios that his rusty fingers struggled with at first, but quickly adapted to, like riding a bike. As the speed increased, he broke into “Little Wing,” the soulful wail of the guitar a keening lament, a protestation to an unjust universe that robbed the innocent and rewarded the wicked.

Drums and a bass rift, brooding and roiling, accompanied him in his head, and a tear ran down his face as he played, his heart breaking with every note, a silent prayer to his brother, a final eulogy and farewell, repeating in his mind.

Goodbye, Keith. You will be missed. I’m sorry I never had the time. Maybe someday we will, in a better world than this.

The haunting melody reverberated off the condo walls, the tortured notes painting an auditory landscape of love and loss, a spontaneous requiem for the departed — a man that through his final brave actions had managed to save the world from itself, at least for a time.

Two days later, the condo was listed with Jodie, who was already weaving her spell on potential buyers. He’d packed up his personal effects and put most of them back into storage, to be dealt with at some future time when he was more motivated. The discussion with the firm had gone about as he’d expected, where they mutually agreed that things weren’t working out as planned, and that he should take the necessary time off to literally set his head straight. The only pang of regret he felt was when he handed the keys to the BMW back, but it was fleeting — there were millions of cars in the world, and he would soon find another one.

In the interim he negotiated a deal with Jakes to take the Taurus for as long as Jeffrey wanted it, a couple of hundred bucks a month for as long as he maintained it, which as far as Jeffrey could tell amounted to cleaning the ashtray out and topping off the oil every few weeks. He took it in to get it detailed, and the staff at the car wash regarded him as though he’d walked in wearing a clown costume. Still, after four hours of attention, at least the pungent stink and sticky feeling to everything had been purged, and it was without regret that he bundled his bags and the Strat into the creaky trunk and rolled into mid-day traffic, eager to be rid of the city once and for all.

When he arrived at the familiar gate the sun was well past the midpoint, and the trees cast long shadows on the grass, which was taller than the last time he’d been there. The car door closed with a clunk, the hinges squeaking in protest, and he locked it before squeezing past the fence post and onto the ruts leading to the house. As he approached the porch, the front door opened and Kaycee appeared, a look of concern on her face, the shotgun clenched in both hands, and then her expression softened to one of astonishment, and if he wasn’t imagining things, pleasure.

She came down the wooden steps, taking measured strides toward him as he loped up the rustic drive.

“This is a surprise. What are you doing here?” she called, her brow furrowed, a scrunching that Jeffrey found instantly endearing.

“Your grandfather didn’t tell you?”

“My grandfather doesn’t tell me anything.”

“I called and spoke with him yesterday for a while. On your phone.”

“I leave it inside so if he needs to use it, he can.”

“Well, he did. We were talking about the virus, the delay in the flu shot program, and we got to discussing other stuff. He wanted to know what I was planning on doing next, and I told him I didn’t know — that I didn’t have any immediate ideas.”

“What about your job?”

“I quit. It wasn’t working. I don’t want to be a corporate cog, no matter how well paid.”

“So the question still stands. What are you doing here?” she asked again.

“Why is it that every time we meet, you’re pointing a gun at me?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” she said, waiting for an answer.

Sam’s voice boomed from the entryway. “Jeffrey! You’re here. Come up to the house. Kaycee. You know Jeffrey. You don’t need the shotgun.”

“We were just discussing that,” Jeffrey said with a small smile.

Kaycee sheepishly realized that she was still pointing the gun at Jeffrey. She lowered the weapon and held it easily at her side. “What’s this all about, Grandpa?”

“Jeffrey here is going to be staying for a little bit. That’s all. Nothing to worry about,” Sam explained, and then turned to go back inside before calling over his shoulder. “Kaycee, go unlock the gate so he can pull his car in. It’ll be dusk soon, and I’m sure he’s tired after being on the road.”

She studied Jeffrey’s face for any clues, then shook her head. “I’ve got to get the gate key. I’ll meet you down there. I’m sure there’s a story behind this.”

“It’s pretty simple. You have to go back to New York soon. Your grandfather isn’t really in any condition to be here alone, at least not until he’s fully recovered. And I’m going through a mid-life crisis before I hit thirty. It just seemed like I could use some time out in the woods to figure things out, you know? Pull a Walden. Get away from it all while I decide what I want to be when I grow up. Your grandfather mentioned that he had a spare bedroom that wasn’t being used, and that he could use someone to play chess with that he can beat — apparently he’s bitter that you’re better than him. So anyway, he offered, I accepted, and here I am.”

“Just like that.”

“Yup.”

“I’ll get the key, then,” she said, then spun and returned to the house, Jeffrey’s admiring gaze following her she made her way up the stairs. He grinned as he exhaled, then moved back down the drive to the waiting car, a new page turned in the adventure that had become his life; no firm plans, only a heavy fatigue that felt older than his tender years, like he’d been endlessly pushing a boulder up a hill.

A blue jay fluttered overhead with a squawk, and Jeffrey looked up, his eyes shielded from the fading glare, watching as the bird soared and then rode a gust of wind to the far side of the field, intent on some fleeting objective. The car sat like a lonely vagrant, dejected at the side of the road, and he decided that it was the perfect vehicle for him, accurately capturing his mood and sense of… apathy.

Then he heard footsteps trotting down the drive behind him, and felt a lightness in his chest at the thought of Kaycee coming to open the gate, admitting him into her home and her family’s life. For the first time in years he had no sense of direction, no real purpose, and he decided that while it would take some getting used to, it felt positive, if alien.

For now, he’d take it one day at a time.

Which was, in the end, the only way he could.