Amoeba (The Experiments) (36 page)

“Nothin.” Rickie held up his hand, turned his head
, and snorted. “Just feel Hallmarked that’s all.”

“What the hell are you talking about
?”

“Dude, you touched me
, wanting to dine with the Rickie-Meister. Okay, let me go feed my pet, I mean, my pal.” Rickie laughed. “And you thought Reed was the Catch.”

“He still could be, just suffering a . . .” Jake looked over Rickie’s head, and he raised one eyebrow. “Suffering a slow . . . painful death.”

“Cool. Okay, like, let me go and get him a plate. I have to crush his stuff cause he doesn’t have a whole tongue thanks to Lou.”

“Let him get his own plate
,” Jake told him.

“Dude, I have to show some compassion, he hurt his hand today when he fell running in his bungalow. So
, like, are we gonna eat in here or head back to the pad?”

“Um . . .” Jake looked around. Two people weren’t there. Cal and Judge. “Here.”

“Excellent-a-Mundo. You grab some Cal grub.” Rickie snickered. “Look at me using big tough military words. And I’ll meet you back at the table.”

Jake only nodded
while heading off to the food table and to the familiar smell and sight of Cal’s cooking. He grabbed a plate and dished up some. There were four dining tables in the room, two of which were empty. Jake moved to one of those tables hoping that the only person that would sit with him would be Rickie.

Cal had taken advantage of the fact that she saw Jake leave the bungalow. She wanted to change her clothes, get a little food, and sit down and try to eat. Crossing the short wooded area to the other two buildings, Cal caught up to a slow moving Judge. “Evening
,” she spoke to him.

“Cal.”

She thought there was something funny about his walk, but when she saw his face, Cal had to stop him. She reached out and grabbed his arm. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I was walking and I tripped.” Judge touched the corner of his eye. “Broke my other pair of glasses
, though. Not real happy about that.”

“How bad is the cut?” Cal asked.

“I’m fine.” Judge laid his hand on hers. “I’m just fine.” He moved away from Cal, almost dazed. The way he moved reminded her of the lost people in the movie The Poseidon Adventure, wandering confused in just any direction.

Billy sat alone, like Jake
, at another table. He didn’t want to be alone, but he felt it was best. At least where he sat, he was near some of the others, and he could listen to the conversation and see Cal whenever she came in.

As Larry Kale made it back to his table again, he caught Billy’s glare on the door. Snidely
, he nudged Billy as he made it back to his seat. “Are you waiting for someone?” Larry asked arrogantly as Billy try to ignore him. “If I was her husband I would have killed you. I wish he’d do us all that favor.” Larry smirked and sat in his seat. He saw Rickie staring at him. “Is there a problem, Rickie?”

“Dude, man. Like
, I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this but . . . you suck.” Rickie sighed and faced Reed handing him his fork. “There you go guy. Rickie-Meister style Reed food.”

“Ank ew.” Reed scooped some former carrots on his fork.

“Look, there’s the Cal-babe. I have a mission.” Rickie stood up. “Bone appetite guy.” The swift pat on the back Rickie gave Reed caused an immediate coughing, gagging sound to come from Reed. “Flute, you okay?”

Reed gagged again, pulling out the fork from his mouth
, a fork that seemed to go all the way to the back of his throat. He placed his hands on his own neck and tried to swallow.

“Sorry.” Rickie snickered. “Cal-babe.” He hurried over to her. “Hey
, like, I have to tell you something.”

“Sure Rickie what’s . . . .” Cal’s eyes shifted to Jake. “Why is he eating in here tonight
?”

“Don’t know. Maybe it’s to pretend he doesn’t want to see you.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I’ve been
, like, the off-the-subject guy today.” Rickie scratched his head. “I wanted to catch you first. I don’t want you to think I’m playing favorites, okay? I’m not. But . . . I’m chowing with the Sarge at his table.”

Cal smile peacefully. “Rickie
, I don’t mind. I wanted to sit alone.”

“O
kay, but one other thing.”

“What’s that?” Cal asked.

“Are you gonna eat tonight? You haven’t been eating.”

Cal sadly looked over to Jake who didn’t raise his head. “I’ll try.”

“And one more thing before I disappear to the other side with the Sarge. After din-din, you wanna go for a little not-romantic stroll in the beach, maybe spend some bond time together, collect some shells and hope to find washed up body parts?”

“I’d like that.”

“Excellent. Shake on it.” Rickie held out his hand.

“Rickie
, I don’t need to shake on it.” Cal chuckled.

“Cal-babe
, we must seal the deal.” Rickie grabbed her hand. “Shake.”

It seemed s
o familiar, but it had been years since the transferring of a slip of paper into her hand. She raised her eyes to Rickie. “What . . .”

“Gotta go.” Rickie closed her hand, and moved to the food line grabbing a plate, filling it, and rushing over to Jake.

Cal didn’t take long to move to a table and sit by herself. Of course
, she didn’t take much food with her, either. A potato, a small piece of that meat she had tried to make taste better, and a slice of bread. Sitting down, clenching the little school-style carton of milk, she could feel the note Rickie had slipped her. What did he want to tell her? She glanced over to Rickie who seemed engrossed in rambling on about something to Jake. And oddly enough, Jake seemed to enjoy Rickie’s rambling. Placing down the milk, Cal dropped the note to the table. Folded so tiny, it was like déjà vue. Her one hand held her fork, scraping across the tiny amount of food she had, while the other played with the note, debating on reading it right there.

Deciding that Rickie had a reason to slip it to her, without lifting it, Cal
maneuvered her fingers to unfold the paper. Her eyes blinked several times on the printing, though she could not make out the words yet. Putting down her fork and moving her plate slightly, Cal smoothed out the letter.

‘Cal, Just wanted to tell you I’m thinking of you. And I miss you so much. Billy.’

She hoped it was silent, the small leak of sadness that escaped her as both her hands clasped the note as if for dear life. She brought her hands near to her face, lowering her head to them and the edge of the note, buried in her palms, touched lightly against her forehead. She tried so hard to stay in control, but as soon as she raised her eyes to Jake, who never looked at her, then to Billy who watched her, a tear streamed down Cal’s face, and she stood in a rush from the table, note in hand, and ran out.

^^^^

“Cal-babe.” Rickie spoke softly, holding Cal’s hand as they walked slowly on the beach. The warm water rushed to them as they moved down the shore, Lou in body guard mode behind them. “He didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I know.”

“And Billy didn’t write the note to start trouble. Honest, he just meant . . .”

“I know exactly what Billy meant
,” Cal said sadly. “I know where Billy’s heart is.”

“So if you know why
, then why did you cry?” Rickie asked.

Cal stopped walking. “I miss him
, too. He was my friend, Rickie, a part of my daily life for three years. And we fucked up. How, I don’t know, but we did. And all I want is to have that friend back.”

“Then maybe he’s who you need to talk to right now
,” Rickie suggested.

Cal laughed emotionally. “Right now? No. No. I’m sure you know by talking to Jake, now is not good.”

“Sarge and I really don’t talk about it,” Rickie said. “He doesn’t and I don’t try. I figured, you know, he’s in that working through it phase, and when he starts talking to you again he’ll . . .”

“Rickie, Jake isn’t going to talk to me again
,” Cal explained. “Ever.”

“Babe, like
, I know right now it doesn’t seem like he is. But he’s being quiet to work this out.”

“No.” Cal shook her head, “He’s being quiet to shut me out. He’s practicing living without me. To him, in his mind, I am not here.”

Rickie had to laugh at that. “Cal-babe, that’s, like, so ridiculous. The Sarge loves you.”

“The Sarge . . .” Cal took a heavy sigh. It would be the first time she spoke those works out loud. “The Sarge wants a divorce. He told me
so. As soon as we’re off the Island he wants me out of his life.” She saw the surprised look on Rickie’s face. “You didn’t know that, did you?”

Rickie shook his head. “No
, I didn’t. I’m sorry.” He started walking with Cal again. “Oh.” He spoke the word long deep and drawn out. “I am so bummed. And is that . . .” Rickie released Cal’s hand and ran ahead of her bending down to the water. “Nah.”

Cal smiled, she needed Rickie to do that. “What?”

Rickie tossed a small stick back into the ocean. “I thought it was a finger. The toot never recovered that sergeant broad’s left hand.” He moved back to Cal. “Cal-babe, I, like, have a serious question to ask you.”

“Sure
, Rickie, what?”

“Like
, if you and Sarge are splitting up, who gets custody of me?”

With a laugh, Cal tightly embraced Rickie, then continued in their walk.

A long, loud, deep burp carried up to the meeting level of the control room, bringing immediate silence to the talking four, Greg, Aldo, Douglass and Daniela.

Buy only for a second.

With his feet, like the others, propped up on the railing, Aldo hesitated in biting into his deep dish pizza. “Barb, you pig.”

Barb snickered an embarrassing laugh. “Sorry. Pizza and sodas get me.”

Aldo laughed and chomped his pizza. “Now Haynes, before you continue, let me say . . .” Aldo motioned his hand out to Greg’s attire, jeans, tennis shoes, sweatshirt. “This is the Haynes I like to see. Just sitting back and relaxing. Dr. Jefferson never dined and drank with me.”

“Well.” Greg shrugged and rolled his beer bottle between his hands. “Jefferson has a family. Me, I live here, what else do I got to do
? Besides . . .” He smiled and took a drink. “You’re an interesting bunch. Okay, as I was saying, and I’ll get into more at the meeting next week, Cal and Jake were pretty much the starter gun to the mental phase We threw some tiny stuff the other’s way. Hints, but not much. And of course, there’s always someone in every experiment who seems to slip through the cracks and for the longest time is not touched.”

Douglass and Aldo looked at each other and said it at the same time. “Jake.”

“So now we’re heading into the thick of it?” Douglass asked.

“Yes.” Greg nodded. “Pretty much so, yes.”

Daniela, a young man who had inherited his fortune, raised his hand like a school boy. “I’m a little lost. This is my first experiment. I know you eventually end the mental phase, but how long does it last?”

“Depends
,” Greg said. “We take it as far as we can, and it’s up to the affected participants to roll with it. Aldo and Douglass were at the last experiment. They can tell you.”

Douglass looked over Greg’s propped legs to Daniela. “Last experiment we had some real weak ones. First guy broke one month, the last to break was about seven weeks. But the experiment before . . .what would you say Aldo, how long did it take?”

Aldo took a moment to think. “I recall them not doing anything at all for the first month. Remember we bitched, because things were so boring? But when they eventually hit them, God, I think it was well into the latter part of the third month, wasn’t it?”

Douglass nodded. “Yeah
, I think so. They were heading into the element stages, which on this one is a weather circus. That alone would drive me insane.”

Greg smiled. “Yeah, but that does sort of work in our favor
, doesn’t it?”

Daniela had another question. “Did you ever have a participant that was not in the least
bit phased by the mental stuff?”

“Never?” Greg saw Douglass and Aldo shake their heads. “They would know. But I think this experiment is the first one where we have someone who . . . let me show you.” Greg put down his feet and leaned over the railing. “Barb
, can you cue up LC-327, exhibit four? Let me know when you got it. Thanks.” Greg sat back. “Now, Lou Collins is shocking me. He was raised in a boys’ home after his mother was murdered. The boys’ home . . .” Greg closed his mouth and shrugged. “Peanuts. But his mother was a different story. Medical records, police reports, and interviews with neighbors let us know what his tragedy was. Without divulging information that Lou’s investor may want to keep to himself, let me just say there wasn’t a form of abuse this woman didn’t put Lou through his whole entire life.”

“Dr. Haynes?” Barb yelled up. “It’s ready.”

“Play it,” Greg instructed. “Now watch.”

“Louis. Louis, you fat piece of shit. What did you do?”
The nasty older woman’s voice rang over the tape while Lou was in his room rummaging through his drawers.

“Now where in the hell did I put that?” Lou scratched his head lifting up his socks.

“How many times did I tell you that you are worthless. Worthless. Your father was worthless. I hope God takes you from me because I can’t take you in my life you pathetic imbecile”

“Oh, here.” Lou smiled, grabbed a disposable camera
, shut his drawer, and while looking at the yellow boxed object, he walked out.

The tape stopped.

Greg pointed to the screen. “We blasted that tape.”

Aldo twitched his head. “Does he do that good of a job ignoring it?”

“Ignoring it?” Greg snickered. “We believe he spent so many years blocking out his mother, he never heard it.” Greg took a drink of his beer. “God, I wish I could’ve had that ability with my fourth wife. We would have still been married. She was really cute.”

While the other’s laughed at the comment, Aldo didn’t. He was still stuck on the fact that four women actually married a not-too-attractive Dr. Haynes. After getting over his initial shock of that, Aldo finally
- like a dumb blonde - found himself laughing at a joke that had long been over with it.