A Pact For Life (7 page)

There is no way I could find the time. God knows I couldn't depend on Cale. Everything would end up on me. There isn't a motherly bone in my body. It would've been a disaster. I never wanted a family in the first place.

Smiling, she crossed the finish line in full stride.

At the post race festivities, Diana was rushing through the complimentary bagel, banana, and bottle of water. She had nothing else to do that day, and it was only ten AM, but still, she didn't want to stand around.

The sound of several girls laughing made her turn around, and that's where she found three of them surrounding Jamie. He had a symmetrical sweat stain on the front and back of a gray t-shirt. It was partly due to his gray t-shirt and partly due to the flock of girls who seemed enamored, but the sight made Diana think of Cale. The resemblance made Diana want to load Jamie up with work as punishment. Or in the very least, warn him about the problems a life like that brings.

Over the loudspeakers strewn across the post-race area, a voice boomed out over the audience, “Greetings everyone and congratulations on finishing the 6th annual
Run for the Heart 5k
! Give yourselves a round of applause!” The crowd started to cheer while Diana continued to work on her bagel. She turned to the stage and saw an unidentifiable radio DJ as well as thirty other people ranging from those wearing suits to those still in running outfits. There was also an eager looking band waiting off to the side.

As the applause died down, the DJ continued, “I'll tell you what, you couldn't ask for a better day. I know I'll remember this in about two months when I'm scraping ice off my windshield.”

A collective groan rang out from the crowd. Wanting to shift the crowd's attention, the DJ said, “And now, please welcome from Denver Cardiology Associates, Dr. Andrew Finnegan!”

Diana barely caught a glimpse of Jamie's brother as he walked to the podium because she was pushed from behind by several women trying to get closer to the stage. The frenzy was preteen girl in scope... and in screams.

In running shorts and a long white shirt, Dr. Andrew Finnegan stepped to the microphone and gave an embarrassed acknowledgment toward the loud, primarily female driven applause. He was tan and muscular with short dark hair and a smile that belonged in a toothpaste commercial. His delivery made it seem like he was speaking to each person individually, “First off, I want to thank you for coming out to run. Not only are you supporting heart disease research, but by participating today you all are helping your own heart disease prevention. Now I'm sure you don't want to hear me go on and on…”

There was a shout of, “Yes we do!” from the crowd.

Andrew smiled, looked back at one of the men wearing a suit and mouthed something before turning his attention back to the crowd. “I've just been told that if this speech goes any longer, then tomatoes will start being thrown. So once again, thank you to everyone who ran in the race or donated money. It means more than you could ever imagine.”

He stopped talking and stood there on the stage, looking directly at Diana. His eyes grew large and he stuttered, “A...and now, please welcome A River So Clear, Denver's greatest Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band."

As Andrew walked off stage amidst the cries of several women, he took another long glance at Diana and smiled. She didn't reciprocate this in any way, but it definitely did something to her. It certainly wasn't love at first sight. She was much too wary for that. No, it was more of a keen interest than anything else.

Finishing her bagel, she saw Andrew try to make his way off the stage and over to her with little success. A fan club consisting of women ages twenty through fifty gave no leeway at all.

Diane decided to leave rather than introduce herself. She didn't feel right talking to him then, but knew eventually the time would come.

It was a Tuesday at a small corner coffee shop, Full Steam Ahead, and even though the shop was full of people bustling in and out, the three owners were steadfast at their usual table in the corner.

Brian was preparing a cash deposit that consisted of his drug sales mixed with Full Steam Ahead's revenue. It was money laundering at its finest. Nick had his laptop out and was deep in concentration. The one without anything in front of him except a cup of coffee was Cale. He had a big smile on his face, but felt more lost than ever. God had let him down.

He had been on a continuous weed binge since the results came back negative. He didn't want to accept that he was wrong about fate. He didn't want to think about losing Diana.

The night of the negative result, Cale had pulled out his weed filled, glass cigarette within five seconds of leaving Diana's condo, and proceeded to leave everything behind.

Before the weed fully took effect though, he grabbed the ring out of its holder and stared at it. They say engagement rings represent an everlasting commitment, but that's all a matter of perspective. To Cale, that ring symbolized every loss he had ever endured.

And so he gripped it tightly in his palm and chucked it as far as he could down Diana's street. He never wanted to see that expensive symbolic bullshit ever again.

Back in Full Steam Ahead, he didn't feel high anymore, just sluggish. He had overdone it with the weed, and now was in a constant state of slowness. Usually the beginning of every toke would bring five to ten minutes of awe and wonder, but after that were several hours in a vegetative state. Cale didn't mind however, he was too sluggish to care.

The front door of the shop chimed open and in walked a man in his mid-twenties wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a scarf, and jeans too tight for even the slimmest woman. It was the King of the Hipsters, and Cale groaned because this man was there for him.

“Mr. Dawkins,” The man said with punctuality. It was beyond proper and uppity, it was snooty. “Let me just say, it is truly an honor just to be in the same room as you. Thank you once again for granting Moxie Bellagard Magazine an interview. I know how rare it is for you to grant an interview.”

The man began to introduce himself but Cale had already tuned him out. He wanted to tell the man the truth. That the reason he hadn't given an interview in so many years was because he had no projects to talk about. That he had dried up professionally. That the only reason why he agreed to this and a ton of other interviews as well as more worthless municipal and private commissions was to pay for Diana's ring. That he was an idiot for throwing the ring as far as he could. There was probably a return policy he could've used.

But all Cale could do was put on a happy face and tell the Hipster King, “It's my pleasure.”

The man pulled up a chair and pulled out his interviewing supplies. While this was going on, he asked, “Correct me if I'm wrong, but you own this coffee shop, don't you?”

Brian interjected, “We all own it. Well, Nick and I are the majority owners.” Like Cale, he also smoked weed before coming to the coffee shop, but Brian didn't suffer from the sluggishness. He was a pro.

Picking up where Brian left off, Cale said, “I'll spare you his entire biography, but Brian here was accepted into MIT when he was fourteen and pretty much runs the shop.”

“I never finished.”
⁸
 Brian added and went back to work on the deposit.

Cale continued, “And this is Brian's roommate, Nick. If you've lived in the city for awhile, you might have heard about that drunk point guard for the Nuggets that ran over that college kid in the late 90's? That was Nick, hence the limp and cane.” Cale picked up Nick's cane to show it off. “After they settled out of court, Nick had enough money to retire at nineteen.”

By now all of the interview equipment was on the table -- a voice recorder plugged into an iPhone and an iPad.

“So Cale, to start off, I have to ask the question the whole world wants to know. Are you working on anything currently?”

The whole world wanted to know that? Cale ignored such ridiculousness and said, “I have a few things here and there but nothing's set in stone.”

The Hipster King thrust his head back in laughter and said, “Set in stone! Hah! I love the pun!”

“Yeah,” Cale said and looked over at Brian and Nick. Both were back in their own worlds. “I have a commission piece coming up for...uh...I think the mall on 16th Street.”

“Actually, these commission pieces you've been doing these past couple of years brings me to my next question. When you first came on the scene, you were immediately regarded as one of the great modern day sculptors of the realism movement. I remember this one time a group of us took a road trip to Washington DC to see your exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. I must have looked at your piece,
The Other Side
for over an hour. The despair and panic in the man's face as he is leaning over that block with his hand thrust down is something I will never forget. I always assumed it symbolized art trying to save us. And you created that when you were only twenty. Simply amazing!”

“Thanks,” Cale tried to say as meaningfully as he could before moving onto the rehearsed speech he gave every time someone acted incredulous about the young age he created his most famous pieces. “But the praise is unwarranted. I feel that we use age as a crutch to ease the blow of failure or to justify being unable to accomplish a feat. We say it all the time, 'It's alright if I haven't gotten published, I'm only this age.', or 'I'm so and so years old, it's alright if I am not marri...married yet.'”

The man nodded in approval and wrote something down in his memo pad. “You are absolutely right, Mr. Dawkins. I just realized I never asked you the question I was setting up for. So you've always had such hyper-realism in your works, but lately everything you make has been about as abstract as you can get. And you stopped using stone in favor of a diverse set of materials. I remember reading in a magazine once that you stressed you would never do abstract. You had that great quote, 'Ambiguity is nothing but a way to baffle with bullshit.' What caused you to change your mind?”

After all of the commissions he'd coasted through by slapping a few materials together and giving it a made-up meaning, Cale didn't have an answer for the hipster king. He still wanted to defend his quote though because he still felt it. He felt it every time he heard an artist boast about their genius in painting the abstract. Or a musician with vague lyrics. Or an author thinking they are funny by overusing similes. Authors who overuse similes are like... uncreative.

But the sluggishness prevented him from coming up with an answer, so Cale admitted, “I guess I'm nothing but a hypocrite.”

Looking down at his list of questions, he asked, “Here's a question everyone likes to answer. If you could wish for anything in the world, what would it be?”

Cale didn't want to tell him his actual wish, so he went with his number two. “I wish The Dismemberment Plan would get back together.”

“Really? That's your wish?”

“Yeah, back when I lived in DC, my closest friends and I would go see them almost every weekend. Some of the happiest times of my life were at their shows. We would go see them at a small bar or even the 9:30 Club, then come back to my studio where I would sculpt all night while my friends hung out. In fact, I did
The Other Side
during a weekend when The Dismemberment Plan had shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. After they broke up, my friends and I pretty much parted ways, and here I am now...”

Cale looked toward the window and rubbed his tired eyes. The interview had no end in sight.