In Places on the Run Ch. 05

"I know. But with Lucy and now with Rhea, why not do everything you can to maximize good outcomes?"

"There's no reason why you, or we, shouldn't do that. That's just being prudent."

"John? Do you think we could make love again? Someday?"

I stopped and looked at her, expecting her to tell me she was just joking, but when I saw the look in her eyes I knew she was as serious as a heart attack.

"Deb? Why are you asking me this now?"

"Because I love you."

"Uh-huh. Now tell me the real reason."

"Not yet. I'm not ready. Besides, it's not really that important."

"So, you want to have sex with..."

"Nope. We had sex once before. I want to make love. With you. Just once."

"I can't imagine doing that to Rhea, I really..."

"I've already asked her about it."

"Excuse me? You what...?"

"I asked. I explained my reasons, and I asked."

"But you won't tell me those reasons?"

"That's right."

"You know what, Deb? The longer I'm around you the crazier the world gets."

She laughed, and hell, I did too. "The world used to make sense to me too, John, then I found you for the second time in my life. Now the only thing that makes any sense at all to me is you. I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to have my world turned on it's ear, but like you said there's no way to control these things. There's no way I can control what I feel when I see you. There's no way I can control what I want to do with you, except I want to build something together. With you. Rhea is a part of that, Sam is too, by the way, but Lucy is the center of my universe. And Lucy isn't just mine, John. She's ours. We made her."

"I know." I looked at her again, just as she took my hand.

"No questions, John. But when the time comes, don't run away from me again, okay?"

I'd never seen her so serious, so on edge. I didn't fully understand where she was going with this, or what she was hiding from me, but I could tell something was wrong. Seriously wrong. I took her hand and brought it to my mouth and kissed it, then I nodded understanding.

"Now, would you buy me a coffee?!" she said, feigning exasperation.

"Sure," I said, "but if you expect a tip tonight you better keep up with the tour."

+++++

We were in front of Vagianelis S.A., the BMW dealer closest to the port of Pireas, early on our self-appointed day, and all three bikes were ready to go -- washed, polished and looking like race horses prancing in the starting gate. We had already piled mountains of gear out of the back of a van we'd hired, now the stuff was all over the display area in front of the dealership, and techs from the service department stood around and shook their heads as we began to load mountains of stuff into our GSs. We were dressed in shorts and t-shirts too, as it was brutally hot outside, and soon our racing steeds looked like pack-mules surrounded by geeks, as I'm sure we looked like idiots -- idiots completely unaware of our bikes' load limits. An while later, when they were fully loaded, we stood back and looked at our bikes, then even we shook our heads and wondered just how the hell we'd maneuver these beasts over rock-strewn, unpaved roads.

And we were in Pireas for a reason. This ancient port, home to the Athenian fleet when Themistocles sailed out to take Xerxes at Salamis, was the terminus for the Izmir ferry. We had to be there early to get our bikes into a special boarding area, and we were responsible for getting them lashed down once aboard. This is no mean feat, mind you, as the Mediterranean is one of the roughest seas there is, but Sam had ratcheting nylon-canvas straps for the job -- and we had them loaded and down tight with plenty of time to spare.

The ferry trip was scheduled to take 18 hours, but everyone warned us the trip could easily last more than twenty. Depending on the weather conditions, a lot more. We found our tiny staterooms then went up to a promenade to watch as the ship left dock, then we went to the odious dining room for lunch. As we cleared the breakwater the ship was hit broadside by wind and a hideous swell, and just moments later our world was wallowing and bucking like a bronco.

"We better check the bikes!" Sam moaned, for now, instead of enjoying the open road we were getting seasick. A few minutes later we joined a few hundred people heaving over the rails, then went down and tended to the bikes. We added lashing to the front tires, hoping to keep them from sliding around as much as they apparently already had, then we retreated to our bunks, tossing down seasick tabs like they were candy.

Sam was in especially dire straits, I guess you could say, because he'd dropped Brigit off at the train station. She was going to Istanbul for their grand farewell, because after we left that city we had no set plans, no real itinerary, indeed, no firm idea which route we'd take. Everything was hanging on what we learned at the Iranian Embassy in Istanbul, because if they denied entry we were going to have to go north through Russia around the Caspian Sea, and that might add weeks to the trip. As much as we disliked the idea of heading to Iran, there roads were considered good and we could completely eliminate Afghanistan from our route. Something called the Taliban, too.

We were up on deck later that afternoon, standing in a full gale and watching the ship's bow plunge into thirty foot waves, the deck rolling through an arc of maybe 10 degrees port through 10 degrees starboard, and Sam wasn't feeling very good about life just then. Or motorcycles.

"I wonder if they have enough lifeboats," he quipped as a huge wave slammed into the bow, sending shards of water high over the ship.

"We better check the bikes again," Deb said, and off we went, down to the auto deck again. Cars seemed alive down there, jumping up and down on their suspensions, but the bikes were fine and we went back up to the dining room. The empty dining room. One waiter stood looking out a broad window, holding onto a rail as the ship rolled again. He was looking down, down into the sea, and ten seconds later he was looking at the sky. The visuals were too much for Sam; he went sprinting for the deck and I saw him flashing hash over the rail again.

"This isn't good," Deb said as she watched him heave. "He keeps that up and he'll need an IV."

I looked up at the bridge; the captain seemed unconcerned, like all this was normal, so I didn't think much more about it. "They had lemon-orzo soup at lunch. Bet he could hold that down."

She laughed. "No, he won't." She took him back to our room and then went to her's, and a minute later she came back, pulled down his pants and swabbed his hip, then jabbed him in the ass with a shot of something. "You'll sleep now, Sam. We'll come get you in the morning."

"Right," he groaned, then his eyes rolled up and he fell down on his pillow.

"Eight hours, minimum," Deb said as she walked back to her room. "Come with me."

"I hope this is over soon."

"Doesn't matter. We'll get to port and get the bikes and head out. He'll be hungry."

"You won't be?"

"I plan on eating tonight," she said, shutting the door behind us.

I sat in one of the chairs, looked at her, hoped sex wasn't on her mind just then. "He's got syphilis," she said. "Probably asymptomatic until yesterday. My guess is someone transmitted it to him within the past two weeks. Would that be Brigit?"

"Jesus. How could you...?"

"Oh, please, John. Really?"

"Well, Brigit's the only girl he's been with, that I know of, anyway."

"Okay. Well, here's the deal. I can go in and shoot him up and he'll never know a thing. And he'll never know Brigit gave it to him. I'll have to get to her before he does once we get to Istanbul, and we'll have to keep them from screwing for the time they're together there..."

"Right. Like that's going to happen."

"Tell me about her, John."

Oh crap, I thought. The cat'll be out of the bag now.

"Are we like in confidential mode here, Deb?"

"Whenever medicine's involved, you bet your ass."

I nodded. "Well, first things first. We have to tell him, but I don't think it's going to be a big surprise."

"Indeed."

"She's been making porn, an escort, and doing a live sex act at a club in Hollywood."

Her eyes went round hearing this, then she shook her head. "Syphilis could be the least of his worries. Shit. I thought he was smart, not self destructive."

"Like what? Aids, some other STD?"

"Who knows? And I wonder if she knows?"

"You could ask?"

"I'm not his doc, John. I really have limited room to maneuver here, believe it or not."

"So, how do you get around that? Ask him to be your physician?"

She shook her head, shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe. First thing we need to do is get blood work. On both of them. In another month he's going to be too sick to get out of bed. If I don't intervene. Soon. Once I give the meds, an accurate diagnosis could be screwed up, too."

"We could do it in Izmir. It's a big city."

"I guess. Then what about Brigit?"

"I go to the hotel. I talk to her. And I do it before Sam gets there."

"What? Fly up there?"

"Yup, then come back for the ride up. And you keep Sam in bed for a few days. In Izmir."

She nodded. "That'd work. He'll be okay in the morning, but he's going to start feeling like he's got the flu soon, after that he'll start feeling progressively worse."

"If untreated, that'd be the end of the trip?"

"Absolutely."

"How long will this set us back, time-wise?"

"Oh, not long, assuming it's nothing worse. A few days, less than a week, anyway."

"Anything you can give him right now?"

She grinned. "Already have, John."

"You want to try dinner?"

"Yeah. I'm hungry, believe it or not."

"I can't."

"John? Tell me...is it good having a doc along, or not?"

"Nobody likes a smart-ass, Professor Green."

+++++

Once we cleared the main headland as we approached Izmir the seas grew calm. A few more minutes and it was hot and stuffy below, and not much better on deck, and the three of watched the docking before heading down to the auto deck. Sam and I got the bikes untied, but I could tell he felt like hell. He was sweating too, something he never did.

"You look like crap," I said, then I felt his forehead. "You have a fever, too, Ace. Maybe time to visit with the doc?"

"Yeah, I think you're right."

"Let's get the bikes to a hotel, then I'll go up and get Brigit, bring her down here."

"That'd be great, John. Man, I really feel like shit."

It was off-season and all the hotels had rooms, so I asked at the Tourist Office and found one that had secure parking and was close to the main hospital. Map in hand, we rode off the ship and found the place, got two rooms and unpacked, then we grabbed a taxi and got Sam into the hands of a local internist. That done, I was off to Istanbul.

I found the hotel in Istanbul Sam had booked for us late that afternoon, and I got his room number and went up, knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" I heard Brigit say hurriedly.

"John."

"Oh shit!"

"Brigit, open up, we need to talk."

The door opened and of course there was another guy under the covers.

"Get some clothes on and meet me in the lobby." I was too pissed for words, but I guess some people always revert to type. I called Deb's room, she was just getting in, and I told her what I had learned -- so far. She asked me to call back when I was through.

Brigit came to the lobby and sat down, looking defiant, almost petulant -- just like a teenager, I thought -- and I found I just wanted to get away from her as quickly as possible.

"Uh, look, Sam's got the clap. Bad case. Probably picked it up a couple of weeks ago, so I assume it's you."

She nodded. "I guess you're going to tell him about this?" she asked, pointing upstairs.

"Can you think of a good reason why I shouldn't?"

"Because I love him," she said, starting to cry. "And I don't want to lose him."

"Strange way of showing your love, Brigit. But that's just me. Maybe he won't care."

The tears turned off, like shutting off a tap. "So, you're going to?"

I didn't say a word.

"Is he sick?"

"Yup," I said as I nodded my head.

She had her purse with her, and she opened it up, took out a keyring and struggled with a key, then handed it to me. The she handed me a bunch of his credit cards.

"This is it, I think."

"Do you have enough to get home on?"

She nodded her head, a tear falling, this one genuine, I thought.

"Do you want to fly down with me tonight, tell him, or shall I?"

"No, I think you should. You found me out, I guess. You make my goodbyes, John."

"Why don't you hang around the room for a while. I think he'll want to talk to you before you leave."

She nodded, stood up and walked off to the elevators.

"I will be dipped in shit," was about all I could say. I went back to the house phone and called Deb again. "Okay, what's the news?"

"Syphilis and gonorrhea, nothing on the AIDs panel. IV antibiotics tonight, probably leave the hospital day after tomorrow. What's up with the girl."

"She's leaving. Gave me his house key and credit cards. I asked her to wait until Sam calls."

"She's a sweetie, huh."

"Well, she's cute, I'll say that for her. She can turn the tears on and off at will, too."

"Sounds like a psychopath. Sam never had a chance."

"It's going to be hard to convince him of that."

"No, it won't be. My guess is he's expected nothing less, but he'll blame himself anyway. Self-destructive impulse, remember?"

"Maybe. I'm headed to the airport now. See you in a couple."

I guess I was insecure enough to call Rhea back in Cambridge. She was working on a physic's problem. Celestial mechanics. Probably not something that would make her horny, she said, and I just had to smile.

+++++

Sam took it about like I expected...he flubbered around for a minute then got angry. Real angry. She'd kept at least of his three credit cards, too, so he called and canceled the numbers, got new ones reissued, to be overnighted here, then called Tom, his neighbor in LA. Change the house keys, make sure she didn't show up, that kind of thing. By the time he was done he felt small and alone, said it was time to get castrated or some such bullshit.

"You're lucky, Sam," Deb said. "Could have been worse. Much worse."

"I know. AIDs, all that shit."

"You should have Tom go by the house, make sure it hasn't been cleaned out, that the DBS is still in the garage," I said, feeling paranoid after seeing Brigit. He made the call, now we waited.

"How's the food here," Deb asked, now a little worried too.

"Same company that provides food to the hospital does to the local prison, too. Nurse told me. Said if I wanted to get better, I'd better not to eat the chow here."

"Wow, nice," she said. "You hungry yet?"

"Nope. Might be next year sometime, maybe by July. How're the bikes?"

"Secure. Deb and I unloaded them. Everything's in the room."

"Shit."

"We'll get it down after a few more tries. Lots of stuff to sort through."

The phone rang; it was Tom. The house was fine, the car was there, and he'd talked to the gendarmes -- they were going to swing by and check on the house a couple of times a day.

"Thanks, Amigo. Yeah, still planning on getting back late December. No, we're in Izmir. Oh? Really? We'll check it out. Thanks again, Tom. Later."

"Was that...?"

"Yeah, nice having a movie star for a neighbor. The cops'll do anything he asks. House ought to be fine. Oh, he says there's a place on the waterfront, d-e-n-i-z I think it's spelled. He said it's got good grub, real good fish."

"I saw it," I said, "this morning on the way to the hotel. Looks okay, from the outside, anyway..."

"Y'all go check it out. I'm going to crash for a while."

He looked despondent. More sad then sad, and I asked him if we could bring him some real food.

"Nah, y'all have fun. I'll be okay..."

We took a taxi to the restaurant, a glass and steel place with seafood all over the menu; we sat and talked about Sam all night. He seemed, to Deb anyway, something like paradigm, representative of a type of decline she said was reshaping the world. Our generation, she said, had inherited a world order after the second world war, and then run it into the ground. Sam was a hedonist with no sense of responsibility, no morals, and who'd played a brutal sport then gone into an enterprise that produced vapid entertainment with hardly any lasting social value.

"He thinks with his balls," she said. "That seems to be the way of the world now, too."

"Oh, he's not that bad."

"Bad? There's no bad in his world, John. There's just now, he simply lives in the moment. I want this girl. Let's fuck it, then let's move on to the next girl. There are no consequences in his world, John, there's just the moment. I'd say it's all about instant gratification, but I don't think it even goes that deep. Maybe he really is that simple, or maybe he's all about the conquest. Dominating, with no thought of the consequences. You know, you burn someone's house down, then you move on. You don't stop to consider that the people who lived in the house are now living on the street, maybe they're hungry now, too. One thing's certain, though. Those people will hate you after that. Forever. Those are the consequences I'm talking about, John. The day after. That's what Sam runs from."

"You're describing a psychopath, Deb. That's not Sam. Never has been."

"Uh-huh. Did you watch his reaction today, John? When you told him about Brigit? Was he concerned about her? Hell, were..."

"Was I? No, not really. When I was with her I saw, well, as a psychopath, she didn't care about Sam, and I saw her as someone to be avoided."

"Ever stop to wonder how many men like Sam she's run into in her life? How many men fucked her and tossed her aside, just like yesterday's garbage? How many men burned down her house, John? Is she a psychopath, or is she just burning from the inside out, burning with hate. Maybe she just wants to hurt men before they can hurt her?"

"Isn't that called a lesbian?"

Deb's eyes narrowed, took a hard cast. "Don't be a child. There are so many girl's like Brigit, John, and they aren't lesbians. They like men, or want to like men, anyway, then something happens, one final straw, and they just give up. It's not worth the grief anymore." She looked away, looked back in time.

To Berlin, I thought.

"Tell me about your husband."

"No. I'm not going there, John. Sorry."

"You know, it almost sounded like you were talking about yourself there."

She shook her head, looked at the table.

"So, who do you hate?"

She looked at me, bit her lip, shook her head. "Don't make me say it, John."

"Me?"

She was crying, her lip trembled.

"I guess you have every reason to hate me, Deb."

"Don't..." But she stopped, then slowly shook her head. "I don't hate you, you goddamned fool. I love you so much it hurts, and it's hurt like this for twenty years. I fell in love with you that night. I wanted to hold on to you, keep you from leaving that morning. After I found out I was pregnant I thought about contacting you, letting you know, but I wasn't going to trap you that way. I was stupid, sure, I was careless, but then I let you walk out of my life. Stupid? Yeah. But you know the really stupid thing, John? I wanted Lucy because I wanted a part of you with me. Can't you see that? Haven't I made that clear?"

It was my turn to cry, but now patrons in the restaurant were beginning to stare.

"I wish you had."

"What?" she replied. "Had, what?"

"You know, when I was walking with Luce, I told her I almost felt cheated out of the best years of my life. All those birthdays. The Christmas mornings. Watching her grow up. But the funny thing? I didn't know I wanted those things until they were, I don't know, almost gone? Like it's too late for Luce and you and me to have all those things..."