Murder at Willow Slough (43 page)

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Horse

Kent saw his chance and took it.

With the friends gone and Jamie alone, Kent came by every night, always with food and asking if he was making a pest of himself. “Yeah, a bad penny always comes back. It’s just the opposite, man,” Jamie admitted. “As soon as one visit’s done, I look forward to the next.”

So Kent took over. He brought bathroom scales and insisted on a weigh-in every night. He made a chart listing dates and Jamie’s weight, posted on the refrigerator. The day he woke up, he weighed 140, a 35pound loss after nine days of coma. When he got home, he weighed

147.3. “Almost an eight-pound gain,” Kent exulted. “Do you know how hard it is for me to gain weight?” “Milk shakes with protein supplements,” the athlete ordered. He

brought powdered stuff. “It tastes like malt.”

“I hate malt.”

The next night Kent cut up bananas in it. “Banana malt,” Jamie

griped. Even strawberries didn’t go over big. So Kent brought fixings for a beet malt; Jamie drank his shakes cheerfully and never complained again.

They played cards and board games, things Jamie hadn’t done since he was ten. They went for rides in the country. Jamie could climb into the pickup, though the big wheels made him stretch awkwardly; he really liked it when Kent drove the Acura. From then on Kent drove Jamie’s car, and he removed Rick’s hand controls so Jamie wouldn’t wrack his knee getting in and out.

One evening as they watched college football on TV, Jamie got up to take a leak. Half a minute later Kent heard a groan and a wall-shaking crash. He jumped up, found Jamie slumped over in the hallway. Kent’s worst fear returned in a nanosecond. “Man, are you all right?”

No answer. He found a pulse. Slowly Jamie opened his eyes. “What happened?” Kent cried. “Are you hurt?”

Jamie surveyed his splayed-out arms and legs.“I felt fine and then the walls closed in on me.”

“Get into a more comfortable sitting position.” Jamie untwisted his arms and legs, and Kent urged him to put his head between his knees; but Jamie wasn’t about to look like that, so he said he’d be okay.

It turned out the next day to be within normal range, the doctor said. “Periodic blackouts, which we hope will diminish in time. This isn’t the first one. That’s why you can’t drive.”

Later they got to where they could joke about it. Kent took Jamie shopping and pushed the wheelchair grocery cart. Jamie’s disability scared the customers, so they got rowdier, Jamie lolling his head, flailing his legs and drooling on the canned asparagus.

“I start to worry when he wets his pants,” Kent confided to an alarmed shopper. “Once he had a seizure in the cereal aisle, and just like that, we were knee deep in piss and Post Toasties.”

She hurried off. They turned into another aisle and Kent said, “What’s your favorite cereal?”

Jamie froze. He stared at boxes up and down the aisle, grew increasingly agitated. “What’s cereal have to do with anything? Go back that way. Why can’t I remember?”

“Easy, man, it’s okay, no crisis.”

“I know I eat cereal.” Jamie scanned boxes on top shelves and low ones. “I ate Frosted Flakes as a kid.” Kent picked it up. “But it has sugar in it. No way I’d eat that.”

Kent tossed it into the cart anyway. “If you liked it then, you still do. No perfect nutrition now, a little sugar won’t kill you. It’s how much you eat that matters.”

“Cheerios?” Jamie said, panicky. “That was Rick’s favorite. I think I quit eating Cheerios, sick of them, the only cereal he’d eat. Kix? Why can’t I remember?”

Kent spied something, “Here you go.” He lifted down a variety pack. “This’ll work.” It was sugary stuff for kids, not right at all. Kent pushed the chair with one hand, patted Jamie’s shoulder with the other, and got him away from the cereal aisle before he pulled a seizure for real.

***

Having nothing better to do, Jamie experimented with his hair all the time. So you’re a tease, Kent, I’ll take what I can get. When you touched me in the store I felt so safe.

Jamie, you stupid jerk! Falling for a Straight man, how pathetic.

Then he realized that the pain of his desire lay in his hope that he could actually be with Kent. Since he knew he couldn’t, that made Kent a fabulous fantasy. Jamie had lived on fantasies ever since Rick got sick, so he knew to bring them out, not lock them up. Lust blew through that house like a hurricane.

But learning to masturbate again took some doing; his right hand didn’t have the coordination for it, and he couldn’t get off with his left. He laughed hysterically at himself, the world’s most incompetent fag-got—but where there’s a hardon, there’s a way.

***

A few days after his grocery panic he called Kent at the post. “I know what my favorite cereal is. Special K!”

“I’m here,” Kent Kessler said brightly. “What’s your favorite cereal?”

Jamie rolled his eyes, “You’re a complete egotist.”

“Special K’s real tasty, it’s your favorite.”

Jamie cut the call immediately; but when Kent showed up right away on his doorstep, he let him in, glad to see him and too far gone. How tasty is it?

“Hey, buddy, have you weighed yourself today?”

“One fifty three, I’ve had my best day yet. Can I make you dinner, Mr. K?”

“Sure. You can also call me Mr. Special.”

“Why should I, when you’ll do it yourself?”

Kent grinned, “Need any help?”

“I love to cook with friends, but not this time. It will be my first try, and I want to see if I can do it.”

So Jamie carefully chopped onions as Kent snoozed in the recliner. When the food was in the oven, Jamie sat at the kitchen table, sipping tea, listening to the little snore; taking deep, quiet pleasure, just watching Kent sleep.

Food; a quiet, safe place to rest; this was Jamie’s aspiration, to provide for one man’s needs.
***

When Kent awoke the house smelled great, so he followed his nose to the dining room, where Jamie was lighting candles. The table was decked out with porcelain birds, fine china, salads, baking powder biscuits and a serving dish. “What’s for supper?”

“Grandma’s Goulash. I wanted to make a casserole for my boy scout.”

Kent grabbed him and hugged him tight.

Then they sat and ate. “Jamie, Grandma wins a merit badge. And man, your biscuits are great.”

“Thanks, casseroles are easy.”

“How’s physical therapy going?” Jamie rehabbed two hours a day, five days a week. Kent missed being part of it.

“That’s the other good thing today. He had me do squats at a machine on the wall, tiny little increments. I asked when I could start lifting weights again and he said now. I’m cleared to work out!”

“Fantastic.”

“I’ve lost so much strength it’s scary. No free weights, though, it has to be dumbbells or a pulley machine. He’s worried I could lose my balance with barbells. So as soon as I got home I called the sporting goods store. I found a pulley machine for $300 and a used, very good stationary bike for a hundred. They’ll deliver in a week.”

“I’ve got a pickup, I can go get them.”

“Kent, thanks, but no, I’m just impatient as usual. I want to feel normal again. I want to work out.”

“I’ll get ’em here tomorrow.” Kent was more than eager to help Jamie rebuild his body.

The gym consisted of a long box and two cartons of weights. They worked at assembling it, trying to decipher the Korean translation, identifying the parts and laughing. Jamie drove bolts until his back hurt.

Kent made him take a nap. When he woke later, the machine was largely put together and Kent was gone. There was a note on the kitchen table, next to a box of Special K, to which Kent had affixed a picture of himself.

“Hey Big Guy Who Ain’t Even 5’10”,

“I got as far as I could with this, but it’s not ready so don’t use it yet. The last step has to be a 2-man job. I’ll come over tom’w night and we’ll finish it up. It’s going to be a good machine for ya, help you build your strength back up. See you tom’w. Meanwhile Eat!

“Mr. Lightly Toasted Rice.”

Jamie ate his cereal, studied the penmanship, read the note over and over, put it in his suitcase.

The next night they finished the assembly. Kent watched Jamie through stretches and aerobics, then it was time for the big test. Jamie checked the setting—not quite the least possible weight—and sat on the bench. He eyed the bars, slowly gripped them. He breathed a time or two to get his rhythm; inhaled, then let his breath out as he lifted weights for the first time in his new life.

He managed four and a half presses of 20 pounds before he couldn’t budge the bars another inch. Kent eased them back into place, “Great, you’re getting back into it.”

“Get real. I bounced the entire time.” Jamie closed his eyes. Before the incident he could bench 300.

“Sure, you bounced. You think you’re going to have perfect form after all this? Think positive.”

“Oh, suck a rock.”

Kent lowered the setting. “Try again. Finish your set.”

Jamie bounced, but he finished his set. His method was to do a full-body workout three times a week. As he moved through his routine Kent varied the weight for him, depending on how tough the exercise was and what he thought Jamie could handle. “Not enough,” Jamie would say. Or “way too much.”

He bounced throughout the negative side of quad extensions. When he got to preacher curls at the lowest weight, he could barely move the bar an inch. He raised his fists, looked at his biceps. His left arm had a little leftover muscle, but his right had none, zero, it was skin and bones. He swore, got teary, fought off emotion. Kent said, “Count as a rep any movement at all.” Jamie was furious, ashamed. He tried desperately to get that inch twelve times. Finally he did.

Kent designed the workout to assure success; some exercises, especially involving Jamie’s back, were fairly easy. He finished a second set, then came preacher curls again and he still could barely move the bar. He forced himself to keep going, benches, lats, abs, triceps, bouncy quads, heel kicks for his butt—his glutes got stronger as the workout went on—and reverse butterflies until it was time for biceps again.

The first few reps he got a quarter inch, maybe a half; but on the fourth, somehow the bar finally moved up like it was supposed to. He curled his arms all the way to his shoulders and sat there, wanting to kiss the bar, glad he’d finally made a fucking ten-pound curl.

He made five more reps, then he didn’t have it anymore. The workout was nothing, he didn’t even break a sweat, but he got through three sets; afterward he bounced just to raise a water bottle to his lips. Kent heard him groan the rest of the night every time he moved.

But that little bit of weight training improved Jamie immediately. He knew it the next morning, unmistakable. He woke up aching, but with real energy for the first time—with a positive attitude and a desire for food.

Workouts gave him his vitality back. He loved focusing on his body, his total self, not just his mind. He loved the Pump; he loved how he felt and used to look, and maybe one day would again.

That night Kent read the instruction book more carefully. “Hey, look, the pulleys add resistance. That wasn’t a 10-pound preacher curl, it was

24. It wasn’t a 20-pound bench press, it was 45. Those are decent numbers, Jamie, for a beginner. You won’t be one for long. I bet you gain real fast, if you keep drinking those shakes.”

“Would you really have made a beet one?”

“Be glad it wasn’t brussels sprouts.” Jamie threw his toy basketball at him, and Kent head-shot it into the kitchen.

Kent noticed a change after the second workout; Jamie stood taller, walked more fluidly. He was kinesthetic again, living in his body, like an athlete.

Every morning Jamie stretched, rode his bike and did crunches on the floor. His abs came back nicely; he gained some weight. He got in his training while Kent was at work, until one night Kent’s face fell. “Jamie,

will you work out while I’m here? It’s a safe machine, but…”

“What’s more boring than watching someone work out?”

Kent looked away. “I like to see you do it. I was there the first time you tied your shoes again.” He had a way of bringing Jamie to a screeching halt. “Most people like having a workout buddy, for the extra motivation.”

“Okay. But I feel so embarrassed.”

“Don’t. You’re not competing with me, you’re competing with a coma. So go out and beat him.”

“Will you be my workout buddy?”

“If you’ll call me Special K.” Jamie popped him.

So Jamie changed his schedule, humiliation or no. Except for one glorious season, he was too limited athletically his whole life, too young, too short, too this, too that—too competitive to like losing, much less to Mr. All-Star Bodybuilder Trooperdude.

But then, Mr. Dude wasn’t the competition.
***