Cal and Jackson sat on their twin beds at the Sasamat Lake Hotel. Jackson put his phone on mute.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked twenty years at the Atascadero Psychiatric Hospital with killers and murderers. Never have I faced anything like this,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cKillers and murderers are the same thing,\u201d Cal said. \u201cThe difference here is because it\u2019s personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cl love Anna.\u201d Jackson looked out the window at the fall trees waving in the wind all the way down to the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should get some dinner,\u201d Cal said. \u201cI\u2019ll pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s still talking,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n
He turned the speaker phone back on.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re cruel,\u201d came Anna\u2019s voice. \u201cYou\u2019re viciously cruel. Your first wife killed herself because of you and now you want me to kill myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want you to kill yourself,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you leave?\u201d Anna\u2019s voice rose. \u201cHow could you do this to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou told me to get out,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cYou threw my backpack out the door and pushed me after it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone does that when there\u2019s a breakup,\u201d Anna shouted. \u201cIt\u2019s perfectly normal. I wanted you to stay in a hotel for a few days, that\u2019s all. But you went and got an apartment!\u201d<\/p>\n
Her voice rose to a shriek on the final word.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be moving to the apartment on Friday,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re cruel! You gaslighting psycho!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI told you I needed to be treated with respect. You told me to get out.\u201d He shifted on the bed and said, \u201cYou must feel pretty awful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have no idea how I feel, you piece of shit!\u201d<\/p>\n
The line went dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, what makes her so furious?\u201d Cal asked. \u201cI mean, besides you being a piece of shit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson shook his head. \u201cIt was about the onesie. The onesie for the dog. And maybe about the honey on the fridge, and the whole plumber episode. I think it\u2019s about bad brain biochemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe onesie?\u201d Cal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. The dog had a spay operation and wasn\u2019t supposed to lick the incision. We had to get a onesie; the little suit thing fits right over the dog. The vet\u2019s office gave me a size too small.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, you took it back?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cImmediately, but Anna freaked out because she thought I disrespected her. The thing didn\u2019t fit over the dog\u2019s face.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, didn\u2019t Anna know it was the vet who made the mistake?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said I should have known. I shouldn\u2019t have accepted the too-small onesie like a spineless worm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cal nodded. \u201cYou know what they said at Atascadero Psych. One of the main causes of violence is perceived disrespect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want the old Anna back,\u201d Jackson said, \u201cThe one I met seven years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
The phone rang again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you leave, no one will look after you,\u201d Anna\u2019s voice rose. \u201cNo one will be close to you. Nobody will care what you do all day or where you are. You will live alone in your own filthy mess, hoarding piles of paper and books and garbage, eating out of packages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson thought about how he might have responded to an angry patient back at the Atascadero Psychiatric Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cO.K.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll be doing your laundry at a laundromat, with van dwellers who wipe their asses with wet cloths,\u201d Anna continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cO. K,\u201d Jackson replied.<\/p>\n
\u2018O.K., O.K. is that all you can say, you autistic robot?\u201d Anna yelled. \u201cHow could you do this to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
She hung up again.<\/p>\n
Jackson put his phone down on the bed. Some of what Anna said seemed quite true, especially about the packages. He wondered what sort of person he was.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow I guess a laundromat has its downside,\u201d he thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s on an all-meat diet,\u201d he told Cal. \u201cWith lots of salad. Do you think that could affect a person\u2019s mood?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cal lifted up his sunglasses. \u201cCould be,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s go eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the caf\u00e9, Cal ordered an oyster burger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a great smile,\u201d he grinned at the waitress. \u201cMake sure you bring plenty of ketchup. That\u2019s the red stuff made from crushed tomatoes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what ketchup is,\u201d said the waitress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll have an oyster burger too,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n
He told Cal about the honey on the fridge.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnna got furious with me a couple of weeks ago. The guy two doors down turned on his skill saw at 7 p.m.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat made her angry at you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said that maybe she could put in some earplugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, but why should she?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight. I guess I could\u2019ve gone to the neighbors and pulled out the cord. Anyway, I retired to my den for a while. I heard her running around in the kitchen. When I came downstairs the skill saw was still whining next door and there was something white all over the fridge handles, dripping, you know. \u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cThe honey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cYou know, it\u2019s good of you to come out here to stay with me at the hotel. I mean, it\u2019s been a great help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like being back working at the psychiatric hospital,\u201d Cal said. He leaned forward with a mouthful of oyster. \u201cHow did you get two women in a row with mental problems?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPure coincidence,\u201d Jackson answered. \u201cOr maybe I\u2019m attracted to sensitivity.\u201d He poked at his food. \u201cWe should go for a hike round the lake.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve got to break in my new clumpers,\u201d Carl said, pointing to his green shoes, manufactured in the shape of feet, complete with leather toes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you ready for the bill?\u201d asked the waitress.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d Cal said. \u201cAs long as we\u2019re all still smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n
He tipped her twenty-five per cent.<\/p>\n
After dinner, the two friends moved along the beach path. The full moon rose on a clear October sky, Jackson skinny and slightly bent over, looking down and moving fast from all his pent-up energy, Cal shorter and stockier, hands in his pockets, observing everything around him and falling behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a hawk in that tree,\u201d he said. He pointed. \u201cYou can see the shadow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, I wouldn\u2019t have seen it if you didn\u2019t,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways look up,\u201d Cal told him. He gazed out at the water. \u201cYou miss a lot if you don\u2019t look up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been about five years since Lisa,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping this isn\u2019t going to happen twice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re thinking too far ahead,\u201d Cal told him. \u201cWhat was that thing about the plumber?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was his second visit in two days. He knocked on the door fifteen minutes early.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a bad thing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Anna wasn\u2019t ready. She said he\u2019d assaulted her the day before by moving her things around under her bathroom sink.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cal looked back to where the hawk was.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t that what plumbers do? Moving things under the sink?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson\u2019s phone rang again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I should pick it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna\u2019s voice sobbed on the line \u201cYou don\u2019t care about me. I\u2019ve done so much for you, and you\u2019ve left me alone.\u00a0You\u2019ve destroyed everything. I\u2019ve got bad knees. I can barely walk up the stairs. I can\u2019t do it.\u201d Her voice rose to a wail. \u201cI can\u2019t do it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson went to put the phone back in his coat pocket. It fell on the path. He reached down to pick it up. He looked at his fingers trembling under the moonlight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really do think it\u2019s got a lot to do with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The full moon shone silver across the water and over the beach stones and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of excellent times,\u201d Jackson continued. \u201cWhen she\u2019s feeling right, she has a very good sense of humour. We played scrabble, we bicycled, we had dreams, we loved each other.\u201d His skinny legs moved ahead, stretching his stovepipe pants. \u201cTell me a positive story, amigo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d said Cal, \u201cTwenty years ago I was unemployed without any money or prospects and the government gave me a free Class One driver training course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou learned some skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe course changed my life,\u201d Cal answered. \u201cThere was a big shortage of drivers. That\u2019s how I found work at the Atascadero Psychiatric Hospital, chauffeuring for the Sheriff\u2019s office.\u201d He stopped and looked at Jackson. \u201cI have gratitude, you know, even though I\u2019m not crazy about the government in general.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I was working at the North California County Fair as a host,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThe hospital director came through on a tour, and I showed them round. He said they needed a teacher. The patients had signed a petition asking for a school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all synchronicity,\u201d said Cal, \u201cHow we ended up working with the criminally insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought my post retirement niche would be with Anna,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cBut that\u2019s gone all to hell.\u201d He looked up at the trees ahead. \u201cDid you like your work?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLoved it,\u201d said Cal. \u201cI remember driving the work van over the Golden Gate Bridge. I had a low security patient with me. You know, Brodie Getz. He looked down as we were driving and he said, \u201cWhat would you do if I jumped out of this van and over this bridge right now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you tell him?\u201d
\n\u201cI said he better not, because I\u2019d have to fill out a lot of paperwork.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d Jackson agreed. \u201cThat would be a lot of paperwork.\u201d He stopped walking. \u201cWhat did Brodie answer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said he understood. He was just testing.\u201d Cal grinned.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe that\u2019s what Anna\u2019s doing,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cTesting my limits and boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you just love it?\u201d Cal asked<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s all about love,\u201d Jackson walked through a tunnel formed by some criss-crossing wisteria vines. It was pretty much dark, but he could clearly see the neon sign of the hotel, glowing against the thin red sunset horizon.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me,\u201d said Cal. \u201cWhy did she put the honey on the fridge?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson\u2019s cell rang again. He put the phone on speaker. This time, Cal and Jackson heard only wailing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay?\u201d Jackson asked. \u201cPlease, say something.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sobbing continued, higher and longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalk to me, Anna,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cPlease, let me know what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sound continued, out from the phone and into the night, across the parking lot and on and on into the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalk to me,\u201d Jackson repeated.<\/p>\n
The sobbing sounded longer, louder. Some people going by turned their heads. Jackson turned the speaker phone down. The line went dead.<\/p>\n
Cal and Jackson stood outside the hotel lobby.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe you should contact the police,\u201d Cal said. \u201cHave them do a wellness check.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did that last week,\u201d said Jackson, \u201cThey checked and told me she appeared perfectly fine. She went ballistic about it though, phoned me eight times telling me how I\u2019d destroyed her, shamed her in front of the neighbors by sending over the cops.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson held up his left hand and looked at the ring round his third finger. \u00a0It shone under the fluorescent light of the hotel sign. \u201cI haven\u2019t ever taken this ring off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cal and Jackson trudged into the hotel and sat back on their separate hotel beds. Cal talked to his girlfriend on the phone. Jackson thought of the good times he had with Anna, when they rented the cabin at Big Sur with the huge Redwood standing thick and strong right outside the window giving faultless feng shui. Anna painted upstairs, and he wrote in the kitchen with the sun streaming in and the sound of the waves on the perfect round beach rocks. Then he remembered Anna screaming and ripping up her picture because she\u2019d dropped blue paint in the wrong place and he told her, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t help to lose your temper, maybe take a break and try again later,\u201d which in retrospect was the worst possible thing he could say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have let it go,\u201d he thought. \u201cI should let everything go.\u201d<\/p>\n
He checked his phone, went to the messages and read Anna\u2019s message from that morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody else will ever try as hard to take care of you and understand you, Jackson, like I did,\u201d he read. \u201cWithout me, you will have no purpose in this world and your life will have no meaning. You will just be a footnote in other people\u2019s lives. You are an aging man alone, and you will be alone and that\u2019s how the rest of your life is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson turned and spoke to Cal.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, the clues were there early on, but I chose not to see them. I mean, nobody\u2019s perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to know more about that honey incident,\u201d Cal replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had such good times,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cBefore all the upsets. Can you tell me another story?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cal laughed. He didn\u2019t say anything for a time, then he began.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the early eighties I worked a summer job as a landscaper. I drove a truck that hauled several twenty-foot trees at a time. It had a crane on the front so I could mechanically lift each tree into the holes dug along each street. I worked twelve, fourteen hours a day planting those trees all summer around Sacramento. This was just after I got my Class One license. I must\u2019ve planted thousands of them. Then, a couple of years ago, I went back to where I\u2019d planted all those trees and took another look, saw all those trees grown big and middle-aged, and I walked beneath them, under the summer shade, hiked hours along those streets and wore out my runners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cal lifted his foot to show his green form fitting five toe finger shoes.<\/p>\n
Jackson nodded. \u201cThat makes sense,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially the part about wearing out your runners.\u201d He bent his leg, rubbed the bottoms of his own shoes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did everything I could for Anna.,\u201d Jackson went on. \u201cI rented the cabin by the sea, gave her money for art supplies, paid all the bills, bought her a dog, a computer and an electric scooter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t please everyone,\u201d said Cal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing is, I liked eating toast and jam in the mornings. Sometimes \u2013 although I didn\u2019t know it \u2013 Some jam got on my fingers. I\u2019d open the fridge to get the milk and I\u2019d make the handle sticky.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried wiping the handle off every time, but sometimes I forgot. She always had my messiness to deal with.\u00a0That possibly sticky fridge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe final straw.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s right. She took a whole jar of honey and smeared it over everything, the cupboards, the freezer, I guess I\u2019d been guilty of stickiness in those locations also.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe sure was screaming in that last call.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson looked at his phone. He wondered if he should call Anna back. Would she be okay?\u00a0 If he didn\u2019t call, he might not ever know.<\/p>\n
He switched the device to \u201cDo Not Disturb.\u201d Then he put it in his pocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a killer,\u201d he said to Cal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was about the onesie. The onesie for the dog. And maybe about the honey on the fridge, and the whole plumber episode. I think it\u2019s about bad brain biochemistry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-harrison-kim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20836"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21330,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20836\/revisions\/21330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}