No Hope for Gomez! (2 page)

3.

Blog entry: Another terrible night. At precisely 4:22 a.m. I awoke to the sound of hamsters being stir-fried in a large enameled wok.

Dragged my tired body off to work in the morning so I could open up in time, then realized I needn’t have bothered as Hicks had the keys.

Slept on the counter for an hour.

Slept in the storage room for another twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, Hicks moseyed around in the back, rearranging our inventory. I’ve noticed he’s happiest out of sight. When I regained some energy I asked him if he’d mind opening up every morning. He had a severe reaction.

Mental note: find out what’s wrong with Hicks.

Blog entry: Rest of the day was slow. Had some potential customers in but couldn’t get them enthused. Sometimes I wonder why my parents left me this antiques store. 

Blog entry: Couldn’t sleep that night either. Awoken at 4:22 a.m. by downstairs neighbor. Decided I’d had enough and went to confront him. He politely introduced himself as Warren Baxter and told me he was about to turn in, he just had one more batch of gophers to stir-fry in his enameled wok. Decided I could probably wait it out. Mused on how the eternal mysteries of the night could make one thing sound so much like another, completely different, thing.

About to bid Warren Baxter farewell when he told me how happy he was to finally make a friend in the building. I didn’t get the chance to enquire exactly what it was about me telling him to stop making so much noise that gave him the impression we were now friends. He disappeared into his apartment to return moments later, carrying a neatly printed manuscript.

“It would mean a lot to me if you could read this,” he said. “Maybe give me some feedback?”

I tried not to take the manuscript.

I failed.

“It probably isn’t very good,” Warren said magnanimously, “but any help would be appreciated. And, who knows,” he gave me a conspiratorial wink, “you might end up really liking it.”

I mumbled something about seeing what I could do and turned to go.

“I don’t get along with most people in the building for some reason,” Warren told my receding back, “but you, dear fellow, you seem alright.”

Blog entry: Dropped Warren’s manuscript somewhere in the hallway and trundled off to bed. Wasn’t long before Warren stopped doing whatever he was doing (he must’ve been joking about the gophers), and the world was quiet once more.

Still couldn’t sleep.

Blog entry: Saturday. Decided to do a little detective work. Headed over to the hospital and queued up at the front desk to ask if there were any visitor’s hours that day.

“Sure,” the nurse told me. “We have visitor’s hours daily, including weekends and national holidays.”

“What time do they start?”

“Visitors hours are from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. daily. They’ve just started.”

“Great. Can I just walk in?”

“You can,” she said. “Who did you want to see?”

“A Mr. Miller. Mr. Joseph Miller. He was brought in two days ago.”

The nurse consulted her computer, frowned, then shook her head. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “Mr. Miller is dead. He died late last night.” She looked up from her screen. “Would you like to see somebody else?”

“What? No! I really need to talk to Mr. Miller. Are you absolutely sure he’s passed away?”

“I can recheck if you want.” She typed away. “Sometimes this program mixes up some of the… ah, I see what I’ve done now.” She gave me an apologetic smile. “Stupid little me,” she said. “I had the stats of several files mixed up.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “So, he didn’t pass away?”

“Oh, no,” the nurse said, shaking her head, “he’s still dead, but he died this morning rather than last night.” She held up her hand with a small amount of space between her thumb and index finger. “You missed him by
that
much.”

“I see,” I said. “Does it at least say what he died of?”

She browsed her screen, bit her lip, and mumbled, “Yes, no, wait a minute. I saw something about…. Ah, yes. Yes, it does.” She looked up again. For a long moment we stared at each other. When I finally arched an eyebrow, she said, “Are you a relative? I’m not supposed to give out this kind of information to just anybody.”

I tried to think fast. I really needed that information but I didn’t know Joseph other than from the clinic waiting area. We’d never even spoken. Then, out of nowhere, the perfect answer just occurred to me. I told her, “Yes.”

“Okay then.” She was about to tell me when her face clouded over again. “You really should be getting this information from his doctor, though.”

I waved it away, told her it would be okay.

“Well,” she said, reading from her screen, “it says here he died of dehydration and malnutrition.”

“He was found passed out in his apartment,” I told her. “Apparently he’d been out for a while. Does it say what caused him to lose consciousness in the first place?”

The nurse perused the file for a long time, then shook her head. “No, sorry,” she said. “I’ll have to get the doctor for that. Just a moment.” She reached for the phone.

“That’s okay,” I said, not wanting to get into trouble for impersonating a relative. “I need to go. Pressed for time. Thank you.”

As I turned to leave, she called after me, “Are you sure you don’t want to visit anyone else? There are some really nice people up on the second floor. Much nicer than Mr. Miller. They’d love to talk to you.”

Blog entry: None the wiser, I returned home, spent the remainder of the weekend wondering what all this meant. It was possible something unrelated to the trial had knocked Joseph out and caused him to die of dehydration, but my mind was still not completely at ease. I’d rather have found some conclusive evidence. I resolved to ask Dr. Hargrove a few more pointed questions next time.

Blog entry: Monday. Slow day at the store. Had some customers in but couldn’t get them enthused. Probably helps if you know at least a little about antiques.

Blog entry: Monday night. Couldn’t sleep. Sounded like my downstairs neighbor was drilling thousands of tiny holes in his ceiling.

Blog entry: Tuesday night. Couldn’t sleep. Sounded like my downstairs neighbor was dancing the meringue on an overturned bathtub in stiletto heels.

Blog entry: Wednesday night. Slept like a baby. But, upon awakening, noticed there were thousands of tiny holes in my floor.

Think I might have to give Warren some feedback on his manuscript.

4.

Blog entry: Theorized about the possibilities of solving a 500 piece puzzle in one go, simply by taking the pieces from the box in the right order. Initial calculations indicate that the chances of this ever happening are small, which means it’s indeed possible. Never heard of this happening to anyone, however, so, statistically speaking, it’s bound to happen soon.

Wondered if I should invest time in becoming the first person to do this. There might be some benefits to be had. 

Two small problems with testing this theory: (1.) I’m too lazy for this kind of endeavor; (2.) I don’t own any puzzles.

Put on a pair of black socks and hurried to the store.

Blog entry: Arrived only a few minutes late. Hicks managed to lose the majority of his ticks and twitches while we opened up so it was a good start. We decided to put out a different set of antiques to finally attract some customers. As it didn’t look like rain, I asked Hicks to help me carry out a small marble top commode, a split-cane high-backed chair, and something that was either a chest or a small bench. 

Blog entry: Looked like another slow morning. Spent some time editing my blogs. Told Hicks to do some sweeping.

Blog entry: An hour after opening up we finally had a serious customer! He headed straight for the older stuff at the back and didn’t seem to mind the dust and cobwebs. Seemed, in fact, attracted by them. He wanted to know if one of the larger pieces was perhaps an original Victorian baroque style chest of drawers.
    I told him it probably was.

He looked it over and decided it probably wasn’t, partly due to the absence of the telltale oval beveled mirror.

I told him he was probably right.

Then he asked if it was, perhaps, an early 19
th
century American painted pine chest.

I told him that, on second thought, it probably was.

He stood back, scratched his chin, shook his head, and said the puzzling thing was that it resembled in outward appearance some of the more notable pieces of the Louis Philippe period, while its refinement of details was more in line with Louis XIV style.

I told him he was right, it couldn’t possibly be an early 19
th
century American painted pine chest.

Then he asked me if I was sure it wasn’t a de la Cave au Grenier, and I told him we were closed.

Blog entry: Told Hicks to reopen five minutes later. Rest of the day was slow. No more customers. Had a lot of time to edit my blogs.

Blog note: Early in the trial I decided not to upload my entries in their entirety.

They told me specifically not to edit my thoughts when blogging, so I don’t. But I cannot possibly give them everything I write, if only for my entries on Dr. Hargrove and my doubts about the safety of the trial.

In order to be fair, I’m careful and sparse with my edits. I do not edit out anything simply because it’s embarrassing, and I make sure my edits are not relevant to the trial. My feeling is that the things I edit out, another trial participants might not even have written about in the first place. So, in a way, those bits shouldn’t even exist. And it’s not an evil thing to
not
give someone something that doesn’t exist.

I’m fairly sure of that.

As I perform my sparse edits, I try not to think about whether this theory counts as devious thinking and whether devious thinking counts as a side effect. And I’m hopeful ‘sparse editing’ itself doesn’t count either.

Blog entry: Hicks came over to ask if he should sweep the sidewalk. As I was trying to concentrate on my blogs, I mumbled something noncommittal.

I inherited Hicks along with the store when my parents died in a tragic accident on one of their antiques-hunting expeditions. I kept him around in the hope he’d turn out to know something vital about the antiques business. If he does, he’s been keeping extremely quiet about it. In fact, he’s shown no signs of knowing anything vital about anything.

Hicks trundled out of the store and started sweeping the sidewalk. After a few minutes he returned; sweeping the sidewalk apparently irritated his gums.

He disappeared to the back.

Blog entry: Sometimes I think about messing with the researchers’ minds through my blogs. I toy with the idea of blogging about some bogus experiences that will throw them off. Like suddenly developing an unhealthy attraction to clams, or finding myself able to deduce people’s phone numbers from their liver spots. But then I remember how much I like Dr. Hargrove and I end up blogging truthfully.

Checked my calendar; next appointment will be my tenth clinic visit. It’ll constitute an anniversary of sorts. Should probably bring something nice for Dr. Hargrove, so she knows I like her. Will pick up something small during lunch.

Blog note: Some days I can hardly remember why I joined a medical experiment. It’s not that it’s been so long, it’s just that my mind is a bit muddled regarding my reasoning at the time. Maybe it’s because I had so many good reasons it’s difficult to pinpoint the deciding factor. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the drugs that are muddling my mind.

This thought scares me. It means I could be forgetting all kinds of things, like whether I even took the first experimental drug dose willingly…

(Was I forced into this trial? Am I an unknowing lab rat? Are they, at this very moment, planning the back-story to my almost certain demise?)

Blog entry: Wanted to calm myself down. Took my lunch break early. Went shopping for 500 piece puzzles.

Started out looking for easy puzzles, ones with almost no repeating patterns of color and shape, then realized it really made no difference for my experiment; I wouldn’t even be looking at the pieces, I’d merely take them from the box in the right order.

Could only find Disney puzzles, so decided to forget the whole thing.

Blog entry: Went looking for a present for Dr. Hargrove instead. Got some fancy Belgium chocolates. The kind that comes in heart-shaped boxes and has weird fillings.

Blog note: My main reason for
continuing
the drug trial is that I like Dr. Hargrove. I really enjoy spending time with her, listening to her talk, answering her questions. But this is not the reason I joined the experiment. It can’t be, not unless I met her beforehand and discovered she needed test subjects. I don’t remember that being the case. With my memory being what it is, though, and me not knowing what it is that my memory is being, anything is possible.

Blog entry: Dumped the chocolates in a trashcan and bought Dr. Hargrove a newspaper instead. This way she’ll know I like her, but she won’t know I
like
like her.

Blog entry: Remainder of the afternoon was uneventful. Made no sales. Closed up at exactly five, then headed home. On my way I remembered why I joined the drug trial: I did it to supplement my almost nonexistent antiques store income. I was strapped for cash.

Fairly sure this was the main reason.