Authors: Scott Carter
He glanced down the street again to see that the staring man was now closer.
With his feet planted, legs stiff and a newspaper rolled up in one hand, he didn’t hide his gaze either. Dave sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for the city’s unpredictable; he was in the mood for a beer.
The Saunders pub had hosted many a Friday liquid lunch for Dave, so when he entered, Frank Saunders limped his way out from behind the bar and hugged him tightly.
“What took you so long? We were on pins and needles here, you bastard.”
Frank smelled like he’d had a few beers himself, but it was his style to talk to the customers, drink with the customers, and listen to the customers. He ran his hands through the sides of his thick, white hair while exhaling. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay, no talking today then. But know this, you don’t pay for another drink here as long as you live.”
“Frank…”
“You hear me? Not as long as you live. Now go take a seat, and I’ll get you a pint.”
Dave avoided the front booths where he’d often taken clients for lunch, walked past the two-seaters where he’d had after-work drinks with Shannon and slipped into a back booth. Frank couldn’t have served the pint fast enough.
“Bless you,” Dave said as he lifted the pint to his lips.
“My pleasure. When it settles down, I’ll join you for a drink.”
Dave raised his pint.
A part of him wanted to spend every night in a bar, where music underscored every moment, until the beers slowed time, and he entered a world that just happened. A world where conversations started with ease, witty replies flowed off his tongue, and all he had to do was sip at a beer.
Another mouthful was slipping down his throat when he looked up to see the man who’d stared at him outside walking towards his booth. His stomach tingled in anticipation of the worst. Perhaps he was somebody Thorrin had sent, or maybe this guy had mistaken him for the man cheating with his wife or a guy who owed him money. He didn’t get to the next set of possibilities before the man sat down.
“Do I know you?” Dave said.
“No.” Weary eyes dominated the man’s face. He spread large hands on the table and leaned on his forearms. “But I’ve been waiting for you to come back to the crash site.”
“For me?”
“Every day.”
The man wasn’t polished enough to be associated with Thorrin.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you survived.”
Dave sat back in his seat. The words made him uncomfortable and unsure of what might happen next, so he locked eyes with the man and searched for any clues about who he was sitting with. The man’s face was drained, and his eyelids were a sore pink.
“Are you a journalist?”
“No.” The man slid both his lips into his mouth and bit down on them for a moment before continuing. “I’m the driver of the truck.”
Dave saw a flash of steam rising from the truck’s grill and replayed the broken bodies of his colleagues. He didn’t know what to say.
“I saw you when they were putting me into the ambulance,” the man said. The words raced from his mouth as if he couldn’t say them fast enough. “But they were asking me so many questions, there was no time.”
“You don’t need to do this.”
“I disagree. I
have
to do this. Don’t you want to know how it happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the only thing that matters. I’ve barely slept since the crash. I get these pains in my head like it’s going to implode. I need to tell you. You survived, you deserve to know.”
Another flash of the truck filling the office space forced Dave to close his eyes for a second before he reopened them. “It won’t change anything.”
“I need to tell you.”
Dave shifted his weight. The muscles in his forearms flexed, and his eyes narrowed. “Do you really think that if I know you swerved to avoid a kid or blew a tire that it’ll make this any better? It doesn’t matter to me how it happened.”
“I’m not doing this for you.”
They stared at each without saying anything. Dave had lied to the man. Seeing the driver changed everything. The truck had a face in the flashes now. Dave envisioned the man slumped over the wheel as he stepped over broken glass and debris.
“The crash was my fault,” the man said.
Dave didn’t respond. He was doing his best to ignore the flashes and stay focussed on the driver. “I’ve been double shifting the past two months. I hadn’t slept in three days. I didn’t eat that morning, and the next thing I know, I’m in an ambulance. The doctor said it was a seizure. Said it was brought on by exhaustion, but she’s not sure.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“People died because I passed out.”
“You could have just as easily passed out at home.”
“I shouldn’t have been driving.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Neither do I.”
Dave thought of the man having a seizure. It could have happened anywhere, but it hadn’t. He could have died, but he hadn’t. He finished the last of his pint before setting it back on the table and spinning the glass with his closest hand. “Do you think maybe we lived for a reason?”
“How so?”
“You could have easily died in the crash, and if you’d crashed just a couple of minutes later, maybe hit a few more red lights before you reached my office, I’d be dead too.”
The man adjusted his hat. “Are you asking if I believe in a higher power?”
“I’m asking if you believe in luck.”
“Luck?”
“That’s right.”
“Luck had nothing to do with this. The truck crashed because I had a seizure.”
The tone shook Dave enough that he shifted his weight again. “It’s hard to make sense of this.”
“I’d settle for making peace with it.” The man stood up. His body moved slow, as though it hurt his back and legs to straighten. “You take care.”
They shook hands, and Dave was surprised to find the man’s hand so cold. He watched the driver leave the pub and wondered what would become of him. Would he live the rest of his life plagued by the belief he that he’d been responsible for ending four lives? Knowing how it happened didn’t make Dave feel better about surviving. All the knowledge did was emphasize the variables that had worked in tandem to allow him to stay alive.
Sixteen
Dave entered his dad’s room with a bouquet of daisies. “Afternoon, sir, I brought you something to help with that smell that’s been bothering you.”
“The cleaning products?”
“Yeah, I thought some flowers might freshen things up.”
“Good for you.”
His dad lay stiff in bed with a newspaper folded by his side. He had yet to turn his head towards his son.
“Okay,” Dave said as he set the flowers down on a dresser. “You want to be like that, then we’ll just get to the problem. Where is it?”
Jack didn’t respond.
“Do you understand they’re going kick you out of here if this continues?”
“They stole from me.”
“They didn’t steal from you. They warned you that gambling wasn’t allowed here. Now where’s the money?”
Jack pushed himself to a sitting position, and his feet swung to the ground with a loud thump.
“Where are you going to live if they kick you out?”
“I’ll be at the cottage.”
“The cottage? I’m sure you’d love that, and I’d love a million dollars right now, but neither of those things are going to happen. Do you know what I have to do every month to keep you here?”
Jack turned his head to the window, and Dave couldn’t help but notice how awkward his dad’s profile looked. With a curved back, matted hair and heavy eyelids, there was no denying he was a shell of the man Dave remembered. Dave grounded himself in a chair and pulled it nearer his dad.
“Look, I didn’t mean to put that on you, but I need you to tell me where the money is. If we give it back to everyone that placed a bet, I can probably straighten this out.”
As if someone had plugged him in, Jack snapped forward. “You’d have to be a bloody fool to take the Jets by two touchdowns. They got what they deserved.”
“That’s not the point. The point is you promised not to bet in here, yet you encouraged and organized people to bet then took their money.”
A rattle in Jack’s breathing warned that the conversation was too intense, so he waved a hand across the room. “It’s under the dresser.”
Dave thought of the summer before his first year at university. His dad had made him promise not to tell anyone, including his mother, what he was about to show him. What Dave perceived as melodrama made him laugh until Jack flashed him a look that made him feel uncomfortable, even at eighteen.
“You think money’s funny?” Dave didn’t respond. “Is it funny to you that you don’t have money for tuition? Is it funny that you’re planning on taking a loan that’ll eat into your pay cheques long after you’ve graduated?”
Dave wiped at an eyebrow. The high stress of gambling had hardened his dad over the years, and he’d become prone to these types of dogmatic rants. It saddened Dave to see him that way, but it made him angry that his father was right.
“Now, do you promise?” Jack asked, lighting a cigarette.
Dave managed a weak nod.
“Say it.”
“I promise.”
“Good man,” Jack said, pointing at Dave with his smoking hand. He hunched at the base of the dresser like a baseball catcher with his fingers clasped. His eyes burned with intensity. “I keep a stash of money here, taped underneath my sock drawer. Now, I’m telling you this for two reasons.” A sigh of frustration escaped his lips as he reached beneath the dresser. The strain on his face demonstrated that removing the money was more effort than he had expected, before he revealed the thickest roll of money Dave had ever seen. “The first reason I’m telling you this is because I’m paying for your tuition.”
The words filled Dave with a sense of relief he had never before experienced and a sense of appreciation he would never forget. His facial muscles locked in a youthful smile. “How?”
“You mean thank you,” Jack said, blowing out some smoke.
“Of course. I’m blown away, thank you.” Dave paused for a moment. “You know, I’ll pay you back.”
“You pay back debt. You’re my son, you don’t owe me anything. I made some good plays, and there’s a little more to go around this time.” Another deep drag filled his lungs before he stubbed out what was left of the cigarette into an ashtray painted like a roulette wheel.
He rubbed his knees and shifted his weight to the ground, where he could lean his back against the dresser. “Now, the second reason I’m telling you this is because I want you to know it’s here in case anything happens to me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t be naive. People die all the time. Heart attacks, car accidents, aneurysms, strokes. Now I don’t see that being a reality any time soon, but if I’m not around, I want you to come and get this money for your mother.”
Dave recognized the sincerity in his dad’s eyes, a look that suggested he was entrusting his son to care for the love of his life. “I understand.”
“Only if I’m not around.”
“I know,” he smiled.
“I’m not joking.”
“I know that too.”
He never told Dave what would happen to the money if his mother died first.
“Under the sock drawer?” Dave asked as he pulled himself back to the present.
Jack pushed the oxygen mask to the side of his face. “Where else would it be?”
Dave hunched down to pull the money off the bottom drawer, where he found two fifties, ten twenties and twenty fives. The bills made the crisp sound that only money can as he counted it a second time.
“Why would you take their money? You know some of these guys don’t have much left over.”
“It’s not like we’ve got a lot to do here.”
“You’ve got a gym, a games room, a library.”
“We have distractions.”
For the first time that day, Dave took a close look at his dad. White flakes caked the corners of his mouth, and a crease in the pillow case left a red line stretching from an ear to his chin. This wasn’t a man who put a priority on appearance any more.
“How are you feeling today?”
Jack looked at him like the question was as stupid as it sounded.
“Are you thirsty? It feels pretty dry in here.”
Jack stared at his bare feet and the network of veins spreading towards toes with yellowing nails.
“How about a game of cards?” Dave asked as he removed one of a stack of packs from the shelf.
The heavy steps Jack took reminded Dave just how difficult life had become for the man. Movement from the bed to the table by the window was strenuous now, so the destination needed to justify the effort.
“Are you still doing your stretches? You don’t want to spend too much time in bed, it’s not good for you.”
“Deal the cards.”
Dave took a bag of coloured poker chips from the shelf and counted out twenty blues, ten reds and five whites each while Jack looked at the far wall as though a movie was projected there. He’d started locking into the thousand-yard stares five years before. No one had caught on then that it was the start of his ending.
Dave tapped the cards on the table to get his dad’s attention. “Stud?”
“Hold’em.”
Dave dealt the cards, and Jack suddenly focussed. After a quick glance at his two of diamonds face down, he was running the probabilities. He’d played enough hands in his life that this was second nature, but it never lost its excitement. He wasn’t just playing the man or the cards, he was playing himself, and even in this watered-down, one-on-one game, it was likely the most alive he’d felt that week.
Jack waved at Dave in disgust. “Keep your hand up, will you?”
“Sorry.”
Jack put two blues in as a bet.
“I can do that,” Dave said looking at a pair of nines-one heart and one diamond.
Dave flopped the queen of hearts and the two and three of spades. Jack dropped in two more blue chips.
“Still stone-faced, huh? Well, you’re not fooling me.” Dave matched his bet.
The next card revealed a six of diamonds. Jack didn’t bet.
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Dave said as he tapped the tips of his index fingers together. “I’ll go two more reds.”