Icarus. (15 page)

Jack put the paper down.

Jack's Restaurant Deal Concluded.

It was done now. No last chance to renege. The person he had loved the most – Caroline – had been murdered and her death made him despise the thing he'd loved the most – the restaurant. He couldn't bear to go into Jack's, couldn't stand to talk about it; it made him too sad to even think about it. So he'd sold it. The whole thing.

Dom had tried to talk him out of it. "What'll you do?" he'd said.

"I'll be rich," Jack responded. "I'll do whatever I want to do." But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. There was nothing left for him to want to do. Nothing left that he cared about. His wife, his business, even his body, gone. The only life he'd ever wanted, gone.

Gone is gone.

Through his fog, Jack realized that Mattie was once more speaking to him.

"I know, I know," he said. "I'm coming in."

"I'm not bugging you," she told him. "You're a grown man. I'm just telling you they called from downstairs; you've got company on the way up."

"Who?" he said, and there was genuine surprise in his voice. Jack did not have many people just pop in to say hello.

"You'll be happy to see him, that's all I'm saying," Mattie answered. "Now please get in here so I can close the damn door and stop myself from freezing to death."

Jack nodded, put his hands down at his sides, and as his fingertips grazed cold steel spokes he had the same astonished thought that had sprung to mind every single day since he'd been home from the hospital:

Jesus Christ, I'm in a wheelchair.

He still had not mastered the workings of the chair, still felt awkward as his fingers groped for the wheels and spun them backward, rolling the chair away from the table. As he was trying to turn it around, it lurched forward a few inches toward the restraining wall and Jack felt his stomach clench. For the briefest of moments, his terrible fear of heights overcame him and he saw the picture that had flashed through his head so often: getting too close to the wall, somehow toppling over, then falling, tumbling through the air, the ground rushing up to meet him. The picture in his mind was far too real, not at all dreamlike but vivid and crystal clear; it made him dizzy and sick. He quickly turned his chair, was able to shake away the vision as he looked down at the terrace floor, away from the wall. He took a quick breath, in and out, then another, and maneuvered the chair so it would roll safely through the sliding door to the living room. That was when he heard the familiar voice:

"What the hell are you doing out there, freezin' your balls off?"

Dom, in baggy beige chinos and a bulky white Irish knit sweater, was standing there, looking out at him.

"I told him, Mr. Dom." Mattie was behind him. "He won't listen to me."

"I listen to both of you," Jack mumbled. "I just try not to pay too much attention."

"Get inside, you asshole. I got a surprise for you."

Jack propelled the chair forward. As soon as he was inside, Mattie skipped out to retrieve the newspapers and then, quickly stepping back in, she slid the balcony door shut, locked it, and headed for another room.

"So," Dom said, and Jack could immediately hear the forced casual tone in his voice. "How ya feelin'?"

"I feel better."

"Oh." Dom tugged at the side of his sweater, yanking at a long, loose thread, trying to break it off, managing only to unravel it even further. "What I mean is, how are you feeling?"

"Are we talking psychological scars now instead of physical ones?"

"Goddamnit, Jack. You know I'm not good at this shit. I'm just trying to figure out how the fuck you're doin'."

"Is this the surprise? You're revealing your sensitive, feminine side?"

"No." The voice came from the entryway by the elevator. The person speaking was just out of view. It took Jack a moment to recognize the voice, which he did a split second before the speaker stepped into the living room. "I'm the surprise."

Jack stared in silence at the young man standing in his apartment. He was maybe six-one but he seemed even taller. He filled up the room, not with size but with his presence. He wore jeans and a light blue hooded sweatshirt, the hood drooping down his back, and black-and-white Nike running shoes. Even under the sweatshirt, Jack could see that he was lean and in great shape. His sleeves were pushed up just below his elbows and his forearms were ripped; standing there, he nervously clenched and unclenched his hand and each time he did, the veins on his arms popped and a muscle rippled. His hair was a light brown and slightly too long and shaggy. It looked messy but calculatingly so. He wore no jewelry, not even a watch. But around his neck was a thin, black cloth string that carried a tiny cell phone. There was a nervous expression on his face, which he was attempting to hide behind questioning eyes and a casual grin. All in all, he was extraordinarily good-looking and, even with his tapping foot and twitching hand, there was a palpable air of confidence radiating from him.

When Jack finally spoke, he was surprised at how hoarse his voice was. It felt as if he hadn't spoken in days. "Congratulations. You've stunned me into silence."

"He showed up at the market yesterday," Dom said.

"So," jack said. "How are you, Kid? It's been a while."

"It's been too long. I know. No, that sounds ridiculous. I mean, it sounds too… unimportant. I'm sorry. I don't have any real excuse for what I did… for disappearing like that, not being in touch. I've been away…"

"You've been away almost five years."

"I know."

"No details?"

"You'll get 'em. There's plenty of time for details."

"I take it that means you're back. From wherever you've been."

"Yeah, I'm back. I'm definitely back."

There was an awkward pause, neither man knowing quite what to say. Dom broke the silence.

"Ask him why he's back, Jackie."

"There's a reason?"

"There's a reason," Kid said. "At least there's a reason why I'm standing in the living room right now."

"Just ask him, will ya," Dom said.

"Okay." Jack shrugged and his eyes met Kid's straight on. "Why are you back – in the living room right now?"

Kid smiled for the first time since arriving at the apartment. It was a broad, penetrating smile that revealed white teeth and genuine pleasure. And the cocky, I've-got-the-world-by-the-balls attitude that Jack had seen since the man in front of him had been a small boy.

"I'm your new guardian angel," Kid Demeter said to Jack Keller, and the smile broadened and lingered, looked as if it would stay on his face forever. "I'm here to take away your pain."

"All right, I want you to say when it hurts."

"When."

Jack could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead. Little beads popping up and starting to stream down toward his eyes.

"When."

Now the back of his neck was damp. And he could feel his shoulders tense up and his lower back start to ache. No, more than ache. A stabbing jolt…

"When, goddamnit!"

"I haven't done anything yet, Mr. Keller. We haven't started."

It was the day after Kid had first shown up at the apartment with Dom. Following his proclamation that he was there to heal Jack, the three of them sat down and talked for two hours. It was a strangely nonpersonal conversation. Jack and Dom kept pressing but Kid shied away from any details about his life that didn't have to do with the specific reason he was there.

"I dropped out of St. John's after my junior year," he explained. "I know you know that; I remember the conversation."

"Yes, I remember it, too," Jack said. "I remember the conversation and I remember that you disappeared."

"First of all, I didn't disappear. I disappeared from here. That's two different things. And I don't want to go into that right now. It's gonna be hard enough trying to convince you to let me do what I want to do. So let's come back to that."

"To the past?"

"Yeah. Let's come back to the past some other time."

"He's right, Jackie. Let him explain what he wants."

Jack nodded and Kid continued.

"I traveled around for a while. About a year, just trying different things. And then I got a job in a gym. You know I've always been into that."

"You're in good shape, I'll give you that."

"Uh-uh. I'm in great shape. I'm a jock, I've always stayed in shape. Always been kind of obsessed with it. But when I started at this gym it became even more of an obsession. And then it turned into something else. I became just as obsessed with getting other people in shape."

"You're a personal trainer?"

"I was. In a way, I still am, but that was just the first stage. I realized I could do more than just get people in shape. I could… make them better."

"Better, how?"

"I had the knack; I don't know how else to put it. If they came to me with a bad back, I could fix it. If somebody had an operation on their arm and couldn't bend it, they could after working with me for a while. It was exciting to me, it really was. People would come to me sort of… incomplete… and they'd leave whole. After a while, that's all I liked doing. I mean, I'd get started with someone, someone who needed my help, and work with him for hours. I could work all day; it was like I couldn't stop until the people I was working with reached their limits. And what happened is I started getting bored working with yuppies who wanted washboard abs and lawyers who wanted to get in shape so they could find someone to cheat on their wives with. So I went back to school."

"To do what?"

"To become a physical therapist. I got my B.A. first. Had to. Then I got my master's in PT It was a two-year program and, oh, man, you guys won't believe the shit I had to take. A year of physics, a year of chem, two years of biology. It was brutal."

"You took physics?" Dom said in an incredulous growl.

"Yeah."

"So say something in physics."

"Dom, I don't think I can."

"Come on. Make an old guy happy."

Kid looked at Jack and good-naturedly rolled his eyes. Then he turned back to Dom and said, "How about if I explain what an energy level is?"

"Sounds good."

"Okay. An energy level is one of a quantized series of states in which matter may exist, each having constant energy and separated from others in the series by finite quantities of energy. How's that?"

"Holy shit," Dom said.

"Where was all this?" Jack asked. "I mean, where you got your master's and learned about energy levels and discovered you had the knack?"

Kid ignored the barbed tone lurking at the back of Jack's question. "Maryland. That's where I was so that's just where I stayed. Maryland State. Finished my B.A. there."

"How'd you pay for it?" Jack asked quietly.

Kid didn't back down from the hurt underneath these words. "I worked. As a trainer. And I got a partial wrestling scholarship that turned into a full."

"Since when are you a wrestler?" Dom demanded.

"Thought I'd try my hand at it and I liked it. Fast and strong, why not? We even had one nationally televised match on ESPN… well, okay, the Deuce, against N.C. State. I always thought maybe you guys were watching, saw me."

"How'd ya do?" Dom wanted to know.

"I didn't disgrace you, don't worry. Pinned a guy who was nationally ranked." Kid turned to Jack now. He hesitated, as if afraid of the answer he was going to get. Then he plunged ahead, the cockiness back. "So? Now you got my story. You gonna let me help you?"

"You think you can heal me?" Jack asked.

"I know I can." When Jack didn't respond, when he glanced dubiously at Dom, Kid's voice got louder. He was ready to bounce off of the sofa. "It's what I do."

"I'm kind of an extreme case," Jack said slowly. "I don't just have a bad back or a hurt arm."

"Oh, come on, I've worked with people a lot worse off than you. Mangled arms, guys who've had their legs crushed in a car accident…"

"I appreciate it, Kid. But I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"I just don't think so."

"What are you afraid of?"

Jack recoiled, bit off the angry words that were about to flow. "I'm afraid of a lot of things right now. And if I were you, I wouldn't take that tone with me."

"You're not just afraid, you're feelin' sorry for yourself. That's a bad combination."

"That's enough, Kid," Dom said. "That's more than enough."

"Hey, I've done this a lot. You get a feel for people, see who has it in 'em to fight back. Look at you," Kid said, staring at Jack. "Still in that wheelchair. You should've gotten rid of that thing already! Months ago!"

"I don't use it all the time."

"You shouldn't use it at all!"

"You don't know the kind of pain I've gone through. I'm going through."

"Yeah, I do know." Kid's voice was loud. It resonated through the apartment. "It's what I'm trying to tell you – I can get rid of it."

"I don't think so."

"Because you don't want to get rid of it!"

"Kid!" This was from Dom. He was angry now, and standing. "I said that's enough. You said enough, so don't say no more."

Kid's face was flushed. He was angry and he took a deep breath to calm himself. "All right. I'm sorry I got excited," he said, quieter now. Then he turned to Jack. "But I don't take back what I said. I can make you better. Only you have to want to get better. And I don't think you do. I think your pain is all you've got right now and you're afraid of what'll happen next after it's gone."

There was a long silence. Kid finally grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch, stood, and headed to the front door. Jack let him get halfway to the elevator before he spoke, evenly and softly.