The Digger's Rest (8 page)

Chapter VI

FATHER’S DAY (or Who’s Your Daddy?)

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your
tears, When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears I held
your hand through all of these years but you still have...all of
me

My Immortal,

………
As performed by
Evanescence

“
Please show the gentleman in, Alida,”
Jack said stiffly into the intercom, never once considering even
the remotest possibility of this particular visit; but having been
pulled out of where he was at that point in his memory, he was
ripe, rare and ready for the encounter.

He stood up and went toward the door,
suddenly taken back to an earlier time recollected only moments
before, that Christmas Eve in 1986, holding that sad boy in his
arms, rocking him and praying with all his might that he’d tied off
the wound in time. Oh yes, he was very ready.

Alida opened the door and motioned with her
hand for the man to come in, and there he stood, in the flesh,
Julian Bramson the Third, dressed in a navy blue serge suit, white
shirt, conser-vative Foulard tie and camel-hair overcoat. He put
out his hand and smiled. “Dr. Edgeworth, so good of you to see me
on such short notice. I apologize for any inconvenience,” he said
in the polite social voice he’d been trained to use by his
governesses since early childhood.

“
Not at all, Mr. Bramson. Please come
in,” Jack said, drawing on the polite voice of his own well-raised
upbringing and offering his hand to shake Bramson’s, but inside
steaming like a locomotive about to take on a long and strenuous
hill, fueled by the seething, red hot lava of a long dormant
volcano just then stirring itself to life. “Please, sit down,” he
said pointing to the chair in front of his desk and walking around
to take a seat in his own. Once they were both seated, Jack’s
curiosity got the best of him.

“
Needless to say, Mr. Bramson, this is
quite a surprise. What exactly is it that brings you to the Met?”
Jack asked pointedly. “Can I offer you a drink?”

“
No, thank you, Doctor. I’m fine, but
I’ll get straight to the point, I’m here is to see my
son.”

“
I don’t understand, I wasn’t aware
that the Congressman had any association with this Museum,” Jack
said, toying with him, but still keeping his composure intact while
underneath his insides churned with blazing fury at the cavalier
way Bramson had used the words “My Son.”

“
I’m referring to Dr. Mitchell Bramson,
Dr. Edgeworth, so let’s not play games with each other,” Bramson
said conde-scendingly, the crack in his veneer of gentility showing
itself at last as he tossed the copy of Time Magazine he’d been
carrying around until it was nearly pulp.

Jack leaned back in his chair, a
smirking grin appearing on his otherwise placid face and laughed to
himself.
This smug bastard has no idea who
he’s dealing with, but that’s alright, my time has finally come and
I’m going to make a real party of it.
He put his
clasped hands to his lips, pondering briefly before he
spoke.

“
What exactly happens to men who’ve
abused their wives and abandoned their children when they reach our
age, Bramson? Is it that, all of a sudden, they can convince
themselves that they didn’t really act as they did in the past and
that their wives and children have forgotten how badly they’ve been
treated by them, and all of a sudden those things vanish and it
becomes, ‘Oh my son, my son’!” Jack said mockingly, throwing up his
hands dramatically in a comic gesture of false paternal devotion.
“Are you sick, Bramson, dying maybe? Is that it? Feeling your own
mortality creeping up on you these days?” Jack asked him, his voice
somewhere between a sneer and a growl.

The expression of shock that came over
Bramson’s face from Jack’s unvarnished bluntness could have
registered on a Richter scale. Too stunned by Jack’s shift from
staid Museum Director to scrappy street fighter to speak, Bramson
said nothing, but by then it was too late. Jack was on him like a
pit bull, the train was gaining steam, the hot lava lain dormant
for so long was rumbling furiously in his belly, working its way to
the surface, unstoppable.

“
I mean, from the way you said that you
wanted to see ‘your son,’ one would never guess that you’ve never
even met him,” Jack said, landing another direct hit at the man
opposite him, and it felt good. The steam that was pushing his
train was gaining momentum, the molten lava inside him working its
way further up into his throat, determined to make its way to the
surface now the opportunity had come knocking. But now that the
battle lines had been drawn, it was Bramson’s turn to feebly try
and poke at the fire, struggling to hold onto his well trained
Boston coolness.

“
I somehow fail to see how that’s any
of your concern, Dr. Edgeworth. I simply came here to find out
where I can find my son,” Bramson said shrugging, acting as if he
had no idea what Jack was talking about, but instead only revealing
his true cowardly nature. It’s always the sign of a truly stupid
man when he’s not even smart enough to know when he’s in danger. In
this case Julian Bramson, the Third, was completely unaware of the
volcano that was about to erupt and spew twenty years’ worth of
soot into his face, notwithstanding the red flags Jack was waving
right in front of him. Jack sat upright in his chair and leaned
over his desk like a military high commander and pointed his finger
at Bramson.

“
Oh yeah! Well, let me have the honor
of being the first tell you how, and why, it is my business,” Jack
said through clenched teeth, knowing there was a train wreck close
over the horizon, a volcanic eruption only seconds away. “Oddly
enough, I don’t remember seeing you at his mother’s funeral,
holding him in your arms while he cried, comforting him while his
whole existence crumbled before his very young eyes. Were you
there, Mr. Bramson? No, I don’t think you were, because I was,”
Jack said pointing his finger at his own chest. “I held him as he
cried his broken heart out, not you. Or were you at the hospital
when the boy almost died, starving himself from grief at not having
a mother or a father. I don’t remember seeing you there, and you
know why? Because I was there. I was the one who never left him
when he needed me. I was the one who gave him security and
encouraged him to be the best man he could be. Where were you at
his graduation when he came out at the top of his class at
Columbia? Were you there clapping and cheering, shouting and
whistling with pride? Funny, I was and I didn’t notice you anywhere
around. Or when he got his doctorate, or when he brought the
biggest show to New York in thirty years making him one of this
country’s top art scholars? Where exactly were you when all this
was going on, Bramson?” Jack’s eyes zoned in on his, following them
so he couldn’t avoid his gaze, reading all of the pitiful
embarrassment he saw there.

“
And now you have the unmitigated,
screaming gall to come in here to me and tell me you want to see
your son and that it’s none of my fucking business. Well, let me
tell you something, buddy, he’s not your son, you forfeited the
right to ever use those words. He’s my son now and don’t you ever
forget that! So don’t you fucking come in here to my Museum trying
to pull some half-assed ‘To the Manor Born’ shit on me and tell me
it’s none of my goddam business. It’s none of your fucking business
where he is or what he’s doing now, old man!” Jack said, his voice
just this side of a shout.

Bramson looked at Jack stunned, physically
pushed back not only by his words but by the force of his delivery.
“Now see here, Edgeworth… There’s no reason for…” Bramson stuttered
in embarrassed distress from having his ass pinned to the ropes,
but Jack wasn’t letting him go. He was going to finally have his
say in the matter and nothing was going to stop him

“
See here, my ass…” Jack said, cutting
Bramson off sharply. “And I’ll tell you another thing, Mr. Bramson,
if you ever try to come here to see him again or try to contact him
in any way I…will…take…you…apart, personally if necessary. I’m not
afraid of you or your money. You may be old Boston, but I’ve got
five generations of Main Line Philly behind me. You don’t scare me
in the least, so don’t you come in here and try to fuck with me
unless you want a war on your hands. I’ll give you a battle you’ll
never forget. Not that it would change anything as far as Mitch is
concerned. You may have planted the seed before you ran off like
the coward that you are, but I was the one who made it grow, taught
him how to be the man he is, and Mitch knows that. He’ll never
agree to see you. He’s a fine man, brilliant, caring, dedicated,
all qualities I’m going to assume he got from his mother. But you
wouldn’t know that, would you? You don’t deserve to, and you never
will if I have to spend every last penny I have and pull every
fucking string I know to keep it from happening,” Jack said,
crossing the line over into shouting.

Bramson struggled for something to say but
was clearly outclassed in the world of articulate banter. The best
he could muster was, “But…“

“
But nothing! You chose money and your
own comforts over the life of your own child. And that’s
unacceptable no matter what fucking rarified planet you come from.
Now get the hell out before I call security to throw you out, and
don’t ever come back here again. Or better yet, I think I’d rather
throw you out of here myself,” Jack shouted, standing up from his
seat and moving to come around the desk.

Julian Bramson the Third saw Jack meant
business and got up quickly, heading toward the door like a scared
rabbit as Jack moved closer to him. Luckily for Bramson, he managed
to shut the door behind him before Jack could get close enough to
grab him.

Then as Jack went back to his chair, feeling
free for having finally vented all of his pent-up frustration from
the last twenty years, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest,
traveling down his arm. He grabbed hold of the ledge on his desk,
barely managing to get himself back in his chair and hit the button
on his intercom. “Alida,” he called into it gasping for breath and
reaching in his desk, scrambling for his little pill box.

Alida rushed in a moment later. “Yack!” she
cried in panic when she saw his shallow breathing and hectic color.
She grabbed the little pill box from his hand, took out two small
tablets and put them under his tongue. She took the handkerchief
from his breast pocket and dipped it in the water pitcher he always
kept on his desk and began dabbing his face.

“
You were listening, weren’t you?” he
croaked.

“
Chess,” she replied and kissed his
forehead.

“
Good. I’m glad. Now, I need you to
help me. I need you to take all the documents relating to Dr.
Bramson and the Devon project to your daughter’s tonight. It looks
like we’re going to have a security risk. And we need to get Mitch
to England as soon as possible. Do you understand?” he gasped and
squeezed her hand.

Alida nodded, her black eyes looking at him
sadly.

“
Chess, Yack,” she said, nodding in
agreement. He finally took a deep breath.

“
And Alida, when you get back, do you
think you could come over and make me some of your
arroz con pollo
…and stay with me. I
need you tonight.” Alida smiled coyly, the sheen in her black eyes
changing from worry to affection as she saw his color coming back
to normal.

“
Chess, of course, Yack,” she said and
kissed him lightly on the forehead again. “Your Alida will take
care of you tonight.”

Chapter VII

SIMON

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm
undefined I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending
unplanned Staring at the blank page before you Open up the dirty
window Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance So close you can almost
taste it Release your inhibitions Feel the rain on your skin No one
else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one
else Can speak the words on your lips Drench yourself in words
unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your
book begins The rest is still unwritten.

Unwritten

………
As performed by Natasha
Bedingfield

Simon was the first to get out of the
cab at Russell Square, barely able to contain the thrill that
rejuvenated him once the plane hit the ground.
London! London! I’m in London! I can’t believe it!
he thought as his head spun around in all directions, trying
to take it all in while Mitch paid the cabman.

“
Simon, come on. Help me get the bags
out!” Mitch called to him, dragging a few of the heavier bags from
the cab to the curbside. He would never have let Simon lift
anything heavy because of his leg, but he could sure help out with
the hand luggage. “Earth to Simon…” Mitch called out again.
“There’ll be plenty of time for gawking later.”

When Simon finally came back to earth, Mitch
had already gotten all of the heavy bags out and was nodding his
head in Simon’s direction as if to say, “You can get those,” and
headed towards the front door of the George Hotel. He always stayed
there when in London. He loved the Georgian elegance of the place
and since he had to stick to the Museum’s budget when it came to
his accommodations, it was a perfect match. It didn’t hurt that it
was within short walking distance of the British Museum, so it
really served a multitude of his purposes.