An Incidental Reckoning (15 page)

He had intentionally come home late, stopping at a small county park en route to sit next to a pond and toss in pebbles. He watched joggers with headphones stuffed into their ears run by on a paved path and a family attempting to keep their toddler from picking a fight with a territorial goose. He envied their normal lives, their clear consciences, and their futures free of the expectation and uncertainty of more criminal activity. He had wanted to cry, but realized it as a pointless act that changed or solved nothing.

He sat and looked at the water until it picked up the reds and oranges of a spectacular sunset he barely noticed before getting up. He knew he should call Erin to tell her he would be late, but had hoped that she would call him first, to see when he was coming home. She hadn't, and it depressed him. It wasn’t unusual for him to arrive home from these trips after dark, but still. It would have been nice.

When he walked through the door, she had barely glanced at him, allowing that brief acknowledgement at the expense of the predictable plot of some medical drama. He looked at her for a long moment, trying to kindle some kind of passion but failed. His indifference depressed him even more, two people living together out of habit more than any reason. They had fun in the beginning, the newness of her lifting him out of the safe life that he had chosen, or had been imposed, or that he had capitulated to; the reason didn’t seem to matter so much when the destination remained the same. She wasn’t beautiful, but had a pleasant face, with shoulder length blonde hair framing its round shape. Her smile, when she chose to employ it, could still touch that place in his heart it had ten years ago, back when she had given it to him freely and often. She had put on weight since their marriage, but it didn’t really bother him. Jon got tired of all of the young, pencil thin models that quietly replaced the last generation when they grew too old or thick to sell shoes or cars or fast food. He knew his lack of attention to her fed her own self-involvement, and vice versa and so on until they lived under the same roof but mostly separate lives. He wondered now, for the first time, watching the blue light of the television play over her features, if children might have brought them closer together.

But he couldn’t think about that now, his mind full of so many other things that wanted attention and he not wanting to give it.

“Hi, Erin."

“Hi, Jon. Good weekend?”

“It was all right. Not a great park but nice to get away.”

“Mmmm. You going to take a shower?”

Not so much a question but a hopeful suggestion so she could finish her show in peace. He felt the kindling of anger, wanted to go over and turn off the TV and explain to her just how the weekend actually went, and then see if she still cared about fictional drama. But he knew he couldn’t do that, and knew he couldn’t blame her entirely for her interest in made up stories. He didn’t offer her much excitement by way of reality. But she didn't complain, and it had been that way for years with neither of them expressing any desire for something different. It hadn't mattered to him when he had left for camping. But it mattered now.

“Yeah, then I’m just going to bed. I’m kind of sore. We did a lot of hiking.”

“Okay, g’night.”

Now, lying in bed, without any activity to keep his thoughts at bay and sleep denied him, he mentally reviewed the things he had done over and over, the images like movie clips that he could play at any speed, freeze a frame, or rewind entirely to view again.

The ride back to the motel had been uneventful. Jon had expected the police to catch them, hoped and feared that they would. He rode with Will in a pregnant silence, so many things he wanted to say, nowhere to start. They had arrived in the motel parking lot and met Brody. In the room, he divided the stolen cash, a measly hundred and twenty dollars. After brief hesitation, Jon took his share. Why not? He was in way over his head already, what did it matter? Will stuffed his in his bag without hesitation or comment. Brody had insisted they shake hands before leaving, telling them he would be in touch and getting their phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Jon considered giving false information, but knew it wouldn’t prevent what was coming.

He got up from his bed slowly, careful not to wake Erin, and went into the kitchen, his body complaining incessantly at being forced to move. He was exhausted, but it shared space with a nervous energy he couldn’t suppress. Jon got a drink of water, sat down in his easy chair, and looked at his house and considered the life he had built here; not constructed with the best materials, but rather what amounted to hand-me-downs and cast offs, what he could reach for easily without straining himself.

He should have gone to college, had good enough grades for it. Instead, he went to work at a lumber warehouse nearby, learning to drive a forklift. He still did that same work, but in a different place, at the headquarters of a chain drug store, having moved once for a slightly better paycheck. Did it well enough to keep his job after several rounds of layoffs in a faltering economy, but his yearly reviews were dull treatises of a dull man, middle of the road stuff, lacking any real praise or criticism. He hated the job but craved the comforting sameness, went day after day, and year after year. Afraid to try something else, afraid to fail.

And this energy that coursed through him now he recognized. He had felt it at various times in his life, when the need for something new and different, something novel, had reared its head, but he had always denied it until it settled back down; but he could never entirely shut it off, like pressure against a plug barring entrance into some deeper part of himself. But it seemed now, after the weekend with Brody, that he had lost that ability to compartmentalize. He didn’t know if he could be satisfied with his life anymore, as the man that had come home was not the man that had left.

He stood up and went back to the bedroom and lay down next to his wife. Before he had understood his intent, his hands were roving over her body, up under her nightshirt, her skin flushed with the trapped heat of the covers. She moaned in her sleep, and this excited him further and he explored more deeply and with more insistence.

He kissed her face, and her eyes fluttered open.

“Jon? What…” There was alarm in her eyes, and he met them with his own, his desire fully expressed. Normally his attempts at sex came in tentative advances, seeking her permission, often denied.

This time, he bent his head and kissed her on the neck while maintaining pressure with his fingers. Her rigid body slowly relaxed, and then moved to match the rhythm he had established.

“Jon?” The question again, but this time one that seemed an attempt to verify his identity. He wondered about that too, didn’t answer but instead quickened his pace. She stiffened once more, a moment of truth and he waited tense and coiled, and then she yielded to him completely. He sighed in anticipation and relief. If she had resisted, he didn’t know if he could have stopped, and what that might have led to.

She propped herself on one elbow and looked at him. Jon lay on his back, his hand behind his head, staring again at the ceiling. He couldn’t remember a more satisfying time with her, even in the first few weeks of their marriage. His other hand lay intertwined with hers on the sheets.

“What got into you, Jon Albridge?”

He detected a tone of surprise, wariness, respect, and a huskiness new to her voice. His body still ached, but he didn’t care about that now, believed that working through the pain had magnified his performance.

“I don’t know. I just feel…different.”

“That’s an understatement. You think you could do that again?”

Jon smiled and rolled towards her. This time it was better, his aggression coaxing something new from her as well. Probably something that had always been there, had he known to look for it.

Morning came too soon, and as he showered, lingering to let the jets of water massage his aching back and thighs, Jon considered calling off work but decided to go, to fight through the exhaustion and pain. He was suddenly interested in his limits, having spent too much of his life avoiding them.

Erin made him breakfast, something she hadn’t done in years, and instead of the usual peck on his way out the door he lingered there too, stopping before the bedroom became the next logical step. There was a shared nervousness in their passion, like two people that had ridden the same train to work together for a decade finding the nerve to speak for the first time.

At work, he drove his machine with a sense of purpose normally absent, getting as much done by his lunch break as he usually did by quitting time. He wondered if he could keep up this pace, this sense of otherness and purpose. As he chewed his turkey and swiss sandwich alone at lunchtime, he decided to try. He and Erin had gone on vacation before, and on returning things had felt different; he could see his life from an outsider’s perspective, what he would like to change and new directions to explore. But usually in a few days at the most, his old life had folded back over him, absorbing whatever he had brought back with him. And he had always been content to let that happen, ignoring the intense but distant and receding sense of panic.

This time, something had fundamentally changed within him that had nothing to do with location. He had stepped across marked boundaries that could never be reestablished and brought something back from that unexplored country, an invasive species that had found fertile soil: his job, his relationships, had no power to kill it.

He thought back to the robbery, and the high he had experienced. It wasn’t the power over the clerk that he craved. He cringed when remembering the boy’s fear, the stain on his pants, wished he could go back and apologize. It was the act itself and the unknown man that had risen from within that did it. Maybe something had changed in that boy too. Maybe the close brush with death had forced him into a contemplative inventory of his own life starting with the dead end job at the convenience store. Jon hoped so, that he ended up changing more than just his underwear.

He didn’t feel immortal, didn’t believe he could do it again and again and always elude the law and his conscience, which had already taken a beating. He didn’t want to. He dreaded the first contact from Brody that would begin the next phase. But he did want to explore this new energy and whatever powers it held.

Jon sat in a hard plastic chair pulled up to a circular white table. Vending machines lined the far wall, and motivational posters hung at regular intervals on a wall behind him, posters that as far as he knew had never motivated anyone in this place. He could write his own with a more truthful slogan, but didn’t think that management would appreciate the sentiment expressed.

The door opened, and Chas Ryerson entered and strode towards him. He and Chas had never gotten along; in him Jon detected the remnant of a high school bully, refined just enough to keep down a job and stay out of prison; a fat man that breathed heavily through his nose and smelled of too few showers, beer and fried food. He did as little work as possible, choosing instead to exchange dirty jokes with the truck drivers as they waited for their trailers to be filled or hiding in the back of the warehouse loafing on his machine. He was loud and aggressive and quick with a cutting remark.

“Albridge. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jon stiffened and felt a familiar gnawing begin in his stomach, but then batted it away with an ease that he would wonder about later. He met Chas' wide eyes calmly and said, “Eating a sandwich, Chas."

“You keep working like that, Brad is going to expect it from all of us.”

“And how is that my problem?”

“It’s going to be a real big problem, you keep it up.”

“Look, Chas. I’m sorry you’re lazy. But that
isn’t
my problem. So please, I’m eating my lunch.”

Jon broke eye contact, felt the breath expelled from Chas' nostrils on his arms. He took another bite.

“And stop breathing on me.”

Chas slammed his fist down onto the table, and Jon flinched, but his anger instantly rose as though Chas had hit a switch with his gorilla-like display of aggression. He stood up quickly, his chair overturning behind him, and thrust his face into Chas’.

“Get out of here. Now. I’m done talking to you. You got an issue, see Brad.”

The surprise in Chas’ face satisfied Jon immensely. But then his eyes narrowed and a foul musk exuded from his pores as battle loomed. Jon didn’t give him the opportunity to act. He shoved the big man as hard as he could, the contact with his palms creating a meaty smack. His sore pectoral muscles burned and he winced. Chas took a step backwards and stumbled over a chair left out at another table. He fell down, landing hard on the concrete floor.