John Fuller was aroused from his reverie by the blare of the Trans-Am horn from behind.
“The light’s green, you asshole!” screamed the driver, his head stabbing out the window.
If Fuller were a more vocal person, he might have shouted a few obscenities back at the man. If he were a more expressive person, he might have flipped him off. He did not do or even think of these things. Instead, he reflexively put the Volkswagen into gear and eased away from the intersection. As the Trans-Am shot around him, the driver shouted more obscenities, which went unnoticed by Fuller.
He puttered on as a parade of cars from behind went around him. The angered faces looked at him with the revulsion of a sickened diner watching a cockroach scuttle along a restaurant baseboard. Fuller did not notice this either. He was far too absorbed in thoughts of what his wife would say when he arrived home. She always started her badgering the second he walked in the door, and tonight she would swoop on him with the swiftness of a hawk. He was one full hour late.
Fuller was behind because his boss, Mr. Mattson, had summoned him to his office two minutes before five o’clock. He had needed to talk to him “for a second.” Fuller knew that when it would only take a second, the man would abduct him for at least an hour.
As usual, Mattson started out by telling him what a fine job he was doing and that Fuller was his best computer programmer. He felt like a pet dog when Mattson paid these compliments, tossing him a treat for performing a trick. Mattson had not advanced to his position by being shrewd; he had gotten there by kissing up to everyone. This meant employees below him as well as his superiors above. Fuller knew that whenever Mattson paid him a compliment, it was to wheedle him into taking over a computer-programming project that Mattson would “personally handle.”
“John, Mr. Phelps and I were having a discussion earlier about what a fine job you’re doing on the Jameson Corporation project. We agreed you’re going to finish the program way ahead of the timetable we promised them.” A sly grin came to Mattson’s pudgy face when he added, “We were even discussing the possibility of a modest increase in your salary.”
Fuller was not impressed. This was the third time this year Mattson had mentioned a raise that, as of yet, had not materialized. As for the discussion with Phelps, this was also doubtful. Phelps had no idea who Fuller was. In fact, the last time Fuller had seen him was in the washroom. Phelps asked him to hand over a towel and then tipped Fuller a quarter, thinking he was a washroom attendant.
Mattson leaned forward. His tall burgundy desk chair screeched from the excessive strain, the stresses apparently greater than what the engineers who had designed it had anticipated. He extracted a plump cigar from the glossy lacquered humidor sitting on the vast, empty plain of his desk. When he sparked the tube to life, his eyes twinkled as he sighed and rolled it between his teeth. He claimed they were the finest brand smuggled from Cuba, but to Fuller they had the stinging aroma of smoldering truck tires.
“We also thought that you’d be the perfect person to assist me with the Peak Industries quote,” Mattson said in his saccharine tone. As he took a long and pleasurable drag, the cigar emitted a light crackle.
At this point in his career, Fuller knew that assisting his boss translated into him doing all the work and Mattson taking all the credit. Fuller accepted it the same way he had a hundred times before: he slouched in the chair with a blank look as the smoke from Mattson’s moldy cigar turned his eyes into red road maps. Mattson whined on for another fifty cigar-puffing minutes, outlining to Fuller the format and what he needed in the proposal. Fuller agreed with everything so he could flee from the noxious fumes and Mattson’s droning voice.
Once Fuller escaped the chimney-like office and started on his drive home, he tried to call his wife, Rita, but the battery in his cell phone was dead. He hated the damn thing anyway. The only time it got any use was when Rita called to chastise him. The only reason he had it was at her insistence.
He continued driving at a slow pace, dreading his arrival home but also knowing that the longer he took, the worse the tongue-lashing would be. Since he had nobody else to unload his mind on, he started to talk to himself, as he often did while driving. The solitude of his car was the only time he was able to speak his mind without someone criticizing him.
“What do I care if Rita is mad about me coming home late? It wasn’t my fault that Mr. Mattson called me into his office,” he said. When he turned a corner, he barely grazed past and thus spared the life of a pedestrian who went unnoticed by him. “She just has to understand that if I want to keep my job, I’ll have to work late sometimes. I don’t like to, but when Mr. Mattson unloads his work on me, I have no choice but to do it.
“I just wish that she had to work with people like Mattson. Then she’d see that it’s not easy. One of these days, I may just leave and move to Hawaii.”
This week it was Hawaii Fuller was going to run off to someday. Last week, it was Jamaica.
“She’ll have to work for herself then, and Mr. Mattson will have to do his own proposals instead of shoving them off on me. Then, I’ll have the last laugh.”
As the car plodded up his driveway, he glared at the sprawling ranch-style home. “Why did I ever let Rita talk me into buying this house?”
When they started to look at homes to buy, he had tried to convince Rita to purchase an older style Victorian. With their multicolored trim, intricate moldings, thrusting turrets and majestic rooflines, he had always loved their character. They also had a sense of history.
Whenever he entered an old home, he would imagine what it was like when it was new and how the owners would have it decorated. He would also think about the generations that had lived there and what their lives would be like back in those simpler, happier times.
Rita hated older homes and said they were broken down dumps that should be torn down to build new. He had tried to explain his feelings to her, but she had laughed and said he was idiotic for thinking such thoughts. He eventually gave in to her will, as he always seemed to, and never mentioned it to her again. That was when they bought the blanched vinyl dwelling in front of him. He hated it then and had never been comfortable in it since.
He got out of the car, and began to walk across the weed-choked front lawn, his heart pounding. The blood coursed through his ears so forcefully it became an audible whoosh. He shuffled closer to the house and could distinguish Rita’s voice blaring away inside as she talked on the telephone. When he reached the concrete stoop, it became a contest between his thumping heart and her shrieking voice as to which sound would drown out the other. After pausing for a long breath, he opened the screen door, and it was obvious that Rita’s screech conquered all.
The groaning of the door made her face shoot towards him, her ponytail of red hair snapping around like a whip. Although unattractive in the best of circumstances, her face was more unpleasant with the scowl she displayed.
“Mother, I have to go now,” said Rita, her mahogany eyes narrowing to slits as they seared into Fuller. “Yes, he’s finally home. Goodbye,” whined Rita as she hung up the phone.
The far-too-skinny shadow of a body turned and came at him. As they pumped towards him, the knobby knees protruding from her black spandex shorts looked like the fists of a grizzled street fighter striking. The yellow tank top, which flaunted her total lack of breasts, made him think the word ‘Caution’ should be stenciled across it.
She thrust her face close to his, her protruding cheekbones and conical nose almost stabbing him. Her muscular lips worked into a frenzy when she bellowed, “Where have you been? I’ve been calling all over town trying to find you.”
She silenced her whining voice for a blessed moment, thrusting a cigarette into her mouth. She took a drag with vacuum cleaner force, exhaling smoke in his face as she continued, “Do you think I enjoy sitting here calling everyone we know to find out where you are?”
“Sorry,” Full
er mumbled. He scuffled to the couch and melted into its leather pads.
As her verbal barrage continued over his head, he failed to notice as his mind focused more on the surroundings of the room he despised. The key lime green walls were barren but for a few metal-framed posters of nameless fashion models that Rita worshipped. The blocky chairs across from him were upholstered in a brown checked pattern that helped to diminish the glare of the blinding gold carpet. The glass and brass coffee table that filled the center of the room was littered with an overflowing ashtray and stacks of empty diet cola cans, seeming to stand as skyscrapers to the landfill of the ashtray. In the corner stood the television set. Its picture blurred with the intense color of a woman’s face whose voice had been muted by the remote control. Fuller was not able to decipher what she was selling, but her innocent smile mesmerized him.
“John! You haven’t listened to a word I said!”
Fuller’s head spun towards her when he heard his name, a blank look on his face.
“Why don’t you quit sitting there with that asinine look and answer me?” shrieked Rita.
“Mr. Mattson wanted to talk to me after work, and I got away as soon as I could. I was going to call but my phone was dead.”
“If you weren’t such a dumb shit and charged it once in a while, that wouldn’t happen!” she bellowed.
“Yeah,” said Fuller through gritted teeth, wanting to snap back at her insult. He knew from past experience though that if he fought back too much, she would become uncontrollable. It was better to just suck it up and take it. He forced calm into his voice. “I’ll try to remember to do that from now on.”
“Who the hell have you been talking to that you ran your cell phone down?” she demanded.
“Nobody. I just didn’t charge it.”
Rita stormed up to him with an intensity not seen since the D-Day beaches of Normandy. She towered over him and yelled, “It’s another woman, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Rita, of course not,” he sighed.
Since before they were married, she had accused him of cheating. She had always imagined Fuller carousing when he was away from her charge. The odd thing was that even though Rita’s twisted logic saw Fuller with another woman, he could not conceive it. No woman would give him the time of day, let alone have any feelings like that for him.
Rita began to cry. “Who is she, John? Is she pretty?”
“Rita…” he began.
“You’re always fawning over those dark-haired bimbos on TV. Is she like them?”
“Don’t.”
“Should I dye my fucking hair black so I look like her?” she screamed.
“Rita, will you just stop! There is no other woman.”
“Bullshit! My mother warned me about men!”
The only woman Fuller knew more harrowing than Rita was her mother. Having just been on the phone, he had no doubt his mother-in-law had further steeped this suspicion in his wife’s mind. Rita’s father was a philanderer and would mess around with any tramp with two legs—maybe even four. Just because he was like that, she tried to convince Rita that all men were.
“You need to stop listening to your mother,” he pleaded.
“Don’t you dare start in on my mother! She knows all about it with the shit she’s had to deal with over the years.”
“Yes, I know about your dad. I’m not like him though.”
Rita’s tears subsided and she sniffed hard. “Then why do you come home late all the time?”
“All the time?” he said, exhaling hard. “I’ve only come home late a couple of times in the last month.”
Being so intent on the argument, she had almost let her cigarette burn itself out. She reached for her pack on the table and slipped out another one. Lighting the fresh one with the smoldering stub, she sucked in its tranquilizing vapors.
“I just don’t know anymore,” she said plopping on the couch.
“Well I do. There is no other woman.”
“Fine,” she said, easing back in the couch and turning her nose up. “I suppose you expect me to fix dinner now.”
“No, dear, I’ll do it. I’m sure you’re too upset. You rest, and I’ll get you another soda.”
Thankful to get away from her so unblemished, Fuller rose and headed for the kitchen. He rummaged through the refrigerator, freezer, and cabinets in search of a meal. When finished, he had come up with two possibilities: frozen pizza or peanut butter sandwiches. He chose the former.
He started to peel back the pizza’s industrially sealed wrapper, the near impregnable cellophane almost severing off his fingers. He began to estimate the number of these cardboard-crusted meals he had consumed since meeting Rita. She had never been much of a cook but had stopped trying altogether in the last four of their five-year marriage. Frozen pizza and TV dinners were staples—that was unless Rita was on a diet.
Despite how emaciated she looked, she often went on dieting binges to pare down her perceived excess weight. She would force him to eat only salad just as she did when in this phase. While it was agreeable to him on occasion, when it became the everyday fare for weeks, even frozen food became a fine dining experience.
He slipped the pizza into the microwave and punched in the sequence that started its short journey of irradiation. While he headed towards the living room, he stopped at the refrigerator to get the cola for Rita. His hand reached in but came back entombed in the cardboard of an empty twelve-pack box.
The living room was foggy with smoke when Fuller walked in, a pool-hall-thick haze pressing down from the ceiling above. Rita was sprawled on the couch, one leg hiked up over its back, totally absorbed by the television program she was watching. Only the regular, deep drags on her cigarette caused any break in her composure.
Fuller went over to one of the chairs and said while he sat in it, “I put a pizza in the microwave.”
“Uh huh,” she mumbled, still engrossed by the life-altering magnitude of the television drama.
“We’re out of soda.”
He got a response this time. Her eyes blazed towards him as she wrenched the cigarette from her mouth and stabbed the air in front of her. “Shit! Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“We have some orange juice if you want that.”
Rita thrust her body into a sitting position to face him, the couch cushions rippling like the sea during an emergency surfacing of a nuclear submarine. “You dumb ass! How do you expect me to drink that with pizza?”
Again, he told himself to suck it up. He blinked several times while he took a deep breath. “Oh yeah, I didn’t think of that.”
“That’s your problem,” she growled. “You never think. I need to have cola for my dinner!”
“Okay, I’ll go to the store and buy some for you,” Fuller mumbled as he rose and shuffled towards the door.
“Buy me a couple of cartons of cigarettes while you’re there,” she said as she slunk back into her previous position. “I’ve only got four packs left.”
*****
Sue Manders leaned forward in the large, overstuffed chair, her deep blue eyes poring over the television screen. While the perky woman on it described the terrible storms that would come later, a contrived smile bloomed on the commentator’s pixie-like face. The woman’s entire body swayed with the motion of her hands as they indicated the movement of the storms on the red-blotted map. In a tinny voice, she described the horrible destruction it had caused in the areas already hit. The severity of the storms and the direction they were moving put Sue on edge.
She snapped at the cheerful face on the screen, “Lady, you wouldn’t act so happy if the damn things were heading your way.”
Sue hated thunderstorms, and the line of those advancing looked to be awful. She also did not like people who acted fake. The woman irritated her even more with her insincere pleasantness
as she described the terrible event.
Sue jammed the button on the remote control and was delighted when the woman faded to blackness. Looking out the windows for any signs of the impending squall, she saw only the orange and violet light of the setting sun. When her eyes stopped scanning outside, they moved to the small table next to her and the novel she had been reading. She took it into her hands, the corner of her mouth turning up. Since reading always made her forget any worries, she opened the book to its mark and snuggled into the soft chair.
After several pages, a chime rang out and Sue spun her head towards the door, the deep blackness of her loose-curled hair swirling over her round face. Looking out the bank of front windows, she saw her Uncle Bob’s car parked in her driveway. He had been visiting her more often in the last month since her father had died.
She laid the bookmark in as she caressed the pages shut, arranging the book in its place on the table. While she walked to the door, a slight smile blossomed on her face. It grew to a huge grin when she opened it and saw her uncle standing there.
Robert Humboldt returned her smile, the sagging plumpness of his face presenting a much more jovial appearance than he ever could with the well-chiseled face of his youth.
“Hello, my dear,” he said. He leaned towards her for a hug, the fine cloth of his suit shimmering as he moved in the glowing evening light.
“Hi, Uncle Bob,” Sue said, hugging him and placing a light peck on his cheek. “Come in.”
Linking arms, she led him into the living room, his every movement showing an air of importance despite his slowing stride and widening frame. Humboldt seated himself in the chair Sue had vacated earlier, so she continued to the couch. Once he settled his black peppered, gray head into the chair, he suddenly wrenched forward, pulling something from his pocket.
“Before I forget, I brought you some of the latest lab data,” he said as he handed her a computer memory card.
He had been bringing these to her occasionally along with other items such as books and scientific papers. Sue knew these were only excuses to visit and check on her though. Being very concerned for her, he was using whatever devices he could to make sure she was all right. Because of this, in the month since her father had died, they had become very close again—almost as close as they had been when she was a little girl.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the memory card. “Any new developments on the project since the last update?”
“Not too much. Dr. Philips has run some further tests using various energy to mass ratios, but he’s too damned afraid to make any significant modifications without you there,” he said with a scowl. His expression changed, and the corner of his mouth turned up. “It’s probably best anyway. He’d only muck things up without you or Manny there.”
“Manny” was what Humboldt had called Sue’s father, Dr. Henry Manders. The two men had been the closest of friends in their younger days—as devoted as any two brothers. Likewise, although there was no blood relation between them, Sue considered Humboldt her uncle in every way. She was closer to him than her only blood uncle, a man she barely knew.
Sue gave a halfhearted laugh over his remark but could feel the guilt rise for neglecting her responsibilities. She and her father had headed up an important project at Gladstone Industries, but she had been away from the lab for the past month.
Sue had followed in her father’s footsteps and become a physicist. While still in school, she had developed a theory about parallel universes and the ability to transfer energy between them. The notion that there were parallel universes had been around for many years. Although physicists still contested the exact nature of these universes, they generally accepted that they existed. Sue had developed equations that demonstrated the relationship between the transfer of matter and energy between universes. They showed that by transferring matter from this universe to another, there was an equal amount of energy transferred back from that universe. The key was to refine this transfer to use minimal power and to hold a gateway open so that energy could continue to flow back. Once they had perfected a device to do this, it would be possible to obtain limitless energy.
Sue’s father had worked out a practical way of performing the matter transfer while working at Gladstone. However, because of the great expense to develop the hardware, his superiors at the company had decided not to pursue the project. This was when Sue and her father had approached Humboldt. He was Assistant Director of the Department of Atomic Projects, or DAP as it was known, and they wanted him to help get government funding. He had put his neck out to get the initial funding, then several more times to keep the money coming until they perfected the device. Her absence was not furthering the development. In fact, it was making it more difficult for Humboldt, who had to justify a project that was not producing results yet.
He must have sensed her thoughts because he said, “Don’t worry, Sue. Everything is still on schedule. These tests would have needed to be done at some point anyway, and it isn’t important for you to be there while they take place. Once we get all the data collected, then we can make the changes you and Manny wanted to try.”
“You say that, but I can’t help feeling guilty about not being there. I know how much you have on the line with this project. You’ve done so much for Dad and me, and I’m just being selfish.” Sue could not look him in the eye and focused instead on twisting the corner of the pillow lying between her and the end of the couch.
Humboldt let out a soft snort. “You feel guilty? My dear, you have no reason to feel guilty. I know how much your father meant to you. He was your whole world. You take all the time you want. Besides, if anyone is going to feel guilty, it’s me.”
Sue looked up from the pillow and could see he was almost in tears. She had never seen him look this way before. He was the strongest willed and most powerful man she had ever known. Even at her father’s funeral, he had not cried. Despite his great sorrow, he was the rock that she had leaned on. Now he looked so tired, broken and sick and appeared to have aged a decade in the last month. He seemed more vulnerable than she ever thought possible.
“What do you mean? Why should you feel guilty?” she asked.
“His death was all my fault,” he said, his head dropping down.
“It was not,” Sue insisted. “How can you say that?”
“I should have never gotten involved in this whole mess in the first place. I shouldn’t have gotten the funding for the project either. If I hadn’t, Manny would still be alive today. Once I did get the funding, I shouldn’t have…” His words trailed off, and he let out a deep breath, his very soul seeming to deflate. He lifted his head and looked into Sue’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sue.”
“What are you talking about?” she said in a soft voice. “Dad and I both asked you to help. That’s why you did it. That and it’s important too.” Her voice strengthened as she said, “You know as well as I do that when we get this working, it’ll change the world forever.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “We’ve been held hostage by the oil-producing countries for too long. If we can get this going, we’ll be able to tell them and the rest of the world to go to hell. That would almost make this whole damnable mess worthwhile. But Manny dying for it…”
“I know Dad never expected to lose his life over this, but it was an accident—a stupid, senseless accident. I’ve tried to make some sense of why he died—some reason—but there is none, and that’s the worst part of it. To be electrocuted on a control panel he’d wired himself makes no sense at all.”
“I know, Sue, it shouldn’t have happened,” Humboldt said as he nodded in agreement. “He shouldn’t have been there so late at night by himself either. I should have never allowed something like that to happen. I should have demanded tighter security on that room and not let anyone in there after hours by themselves. That’s why I feel so damned responsible.”
“Well you shouldn’t. He always
preached to me about not working alone in the lab, and I can’t understand why he would. I don’t know what he was thinking.” She frowned. “It wasn’t like him. Maybe it had become so important to him that he was willing to take risks like working on that panel by himself.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, I’ve talked myself in circles the last month, and I still can’t figure out why he would have done something like that.”
“Sue, you have to believe that I would never have allowed him to take any chance no matter how important this project is to our country and to mankind.” He leaned forward and took her hands into his. His baritone voice booming, he said, “I would gladly sacrifice hundreds or thousands to complete what we’ve started, but never Manny or you. You’re the only family I have.”
As he said this, Sue felt him return to his commanding self. His words unsettled her though. She was not sure what he meant and was about to ask when he said, “The world be damned! There’s nothing more important than you, and what you need now is time—time to get over the grief and time to relax.”
The worry and fatigue lifted from his face. “Nobody knows better how hard you and Manny were working—the late hours, the weekends. Anyone in your shoes would have broken long before. You’re only human, my dear, and you just need to relax and recuperate now.”
She tightened her grip on his hands. “Thank you for being so understanding, but I do need to get back to work soon.”
He let go of her hands and said in a stern tone, “Nonsense. I won’t hear of it. I don’t want to see you back in that lab for at least another month. I know Philips isn’t the brightest, but he is capable of conducting the remaining tests we need. It’ll take almost that long to complete them and compile the data anyway.”
Sue relented as she always did when he got a full head of steam up. “All right, all right,” she said, waving an imaginary white flag in the air. “I give up. At least let me help compile the data though. Philips never does it the way I like it, and it never makes sense to anyone but him.”
“Okay, that’s different. I’ll give you remote access so you can log in from here. But I’ll only do it if you promise me something.”
Sue sighed and rolled her eyes in mock disgust. “And what would that be?”
Humboldt again took her hands in his. “You have to promise it will only be a few hours a day. I don’t want you overworking yourself again. Promise?”
“Okay, I can agree to that. I promise.”
Humboldt released her hands while his eyes darted down to his watch. “Damn, I need to leave. I wish I could stay a little longer, but I have an important dinner meeting I have to get to.”
Sue, pretending to scold him, said, “And what was this about someone overworking themselves?”
“I know, dear. I’m just as guilty as you ever were. I guess that’s why we get along so well.”
“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer?” she pouted.
“I’m sorry, dear, I wish I could.”
As they rose, she again linked arms with him and escorted him to the door. After opening it, she grabbed onto him in a tight hug.
“I love you,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. Her mind flashed back to when she was a little girl and how Uncle Bob had always spoiled her. She used to think of him as a second father then and now did again, as he was the only father she had left. She held him, not wanting to let go.
He hugged back with one arm and stroked the dark curls of her hair with the other. He said in almost a whisper, “I love you too. More than you’ll ever know.”
When Sue released him, he whirled around and said goodbye without looking back.
As Sue wiped her eyes she said, “Goodbye, Uncle Bob.”
When she closed the door, a low rumble echoed off in the distance, signaling that the advancing storm would be there soon.
CHAPTER 2