The latest board meeting was such a bust that the assembled members couldn't even decide what to do for lunch. First, they voted to order in, but then they couldn't agree on what to order, or where to order it from. Then they decided to adjourn and get lunch on their own, but couldn't agree how long they should take. A few voted to work through lunch and cut the meeting short. Chris voted that they can James' sorry self right then and there and never have another meeting about it again.
Once the stunned silence that followed his outburst had passed, the board members quietly filed out of the office to disparate luncheon arrangements, leaving Chris and Ezra alone at the conference table.
Sitting side by side again, neither man said anything. Ezra pulled a prescription bottle of painkillers from the pocket of his suit coat, but his bottle of water was empty. Chris pushed his spare bottle of water over and Ezra took it with a silent acknowledgement. Once he had taken his own dose, he pushed the water and the painkillers in front of Chris, who accepted both silently but gratefully. Soon, both men were dosed and waiting for the painkillers to kick in.
"I believe I may safely say that this has been one of the most unproductive successions of days that I have spent in quite some time." Ezra finally said. "Never have so many done so little yet produced so much bullshit."
Chris was surprised to hear such a word out of Ezra. He lifted his head from where he'd been resting it on the back of his chair.
"Getting on your nerves, are they?" he asked.
Ezra barely restrained an infuriated obscenity as he began to gather his papers and notes into his briefcase.
"These people are without question the most pompous, ludicrous, fatuous, gaseous, obsequious gathering of numbskulls with whom I have ever had the misfortune to be acquainted." Ezra was truly angry. "While they sit here and prattle on and on in an asinine attempt to circumvent what we all know to be the inevitable resolution of this current maelstrom, they seem to forget that outside this rarefied atmosphere and these ivy-covered halls real life continues in a manner both mundane and egregious. While they agonize over the placement of every dot and semicolon in a legal document that isn't worth the ink it will take to print, these ignoramuses remain blissfully unaware of the everyday struggle that exists outside their blinkered field of vision. I hope to God they may one day soon be visited upon by the consequences of their own thoughtlessness and may I not eat again until I am able to feast upon their withered entrails."
That finished Ezra's tirade and Chris stared at him awhile, with no particular expression on his face. After a moment or two though he said,
"Vin's OK Ezra. He had a good night's sleep, and Buck was with him when I left for work this morning."
At first it seemed that Ezra would stammer out some hasty disavowal of any such sentiment. Then he nodded.
"I'm glad."
*/*/*/*
Buck walked up the stairs to Vin's apartment casually, quite opposite of how he felt bringing Vin back here. It might've been different if Vin didn't seem so much on edge, but the look on his face, and the tighter his muscles seem to draw the closer they got to the door, made Buck think this was going to turn out to be a very very bad idea.
As they crossed the landing, he pulled Vin's keys out of his pocket and handed them over.
"Here you go," still trying to act and sound casual. Vin looked at the keys as though he wasn't sure at first what he was supposed to do with them.
"Oh, thanks. Yeah." He picked through the keys and separated the ones for his front door – the regular one, and the new one for the deadbolt. Buck stayed close behind him as he unlocked the door and opened it. Another envelope lay at their feet, and Buck reached down for it.
"Little Maria again." He said. "She really wants you to feel better."
"I haven't even opened the first one yet." Vin admitted. "I don't think I could take all that sweetness and innocence just yet."
"I'll hang onto this for you then." Buck said, and slid it into his shirt pocket, and they walked farther into the apartment. Vin shut the front door behind them.
"The place really smells of that vinyl shower curtain doesn't?"
"Yeah, it does." Buck answered. "That'll go away after awhile."
"Yeah."
Vin looked around his apartment; he didn't seem to know where to go or what to do. Just as soon as his feet seemed headed in one direction, his body went in another, so that after several moments had passed, he really hadn't moved off the same spot.
"What'd you have in mind here?" Buck asked.
"Nothing." Vin sounded a little snappish. "I just wanted to be at my house, I don't have to have anything specific in mind do I?"
Buck wasn't bothered by Vin's sudden temper.
"I just wondered, if you wanted to be alone for a little while, I could take myself a walk."
"NO!" Vin's sudden temper was replaced with sudden panic. "Don't leave me alone."
"I won't, don't worry." Buck assured him. "You're calling the shots here. Just let me know anything you want me to do."
Vin looked around the apartment again. He seemed lost.
"I don't know. I don't know what I want to do. Is there something I should be doing?"
"Well…" Buck took a few steps beyond Vin into the front room. "Last night, and the night before, when I came over to pick up your mail, I just went through the rooms, made sure everything looked okay, and I checked your caller-ID." He waited a few beats, but Vin didn't say anything. "We could do that now if you want."
"This doesn't even feel like my home anymore. Everything just seems so – unfamiliar."
"I'll tell you what we'll do then." Buck was trying to let Vin make some decisions on his own, but it just wasn't happening. "I'll make us up some lemonade, or ice tea, or anything cold you've got to drink. You open some windows and get the fans going in this place, and then we'll just sit for a while and maybe you'll feel a little more comfortable here. How's that?"
Vin nodded, but he was staring at the half closed bathroom door. Buck moved in between.
"If you think about it, you'll make yourself sick, Vin." He said. "Let's try to get you thinking about something else. Okay?"
"Yeah." Vin nodded a little more strongly than he needed to. "Yeah, we'll do that. That'll work." He moved stiffly away from Buck and went to open his front windows and turn on his fan.
He glanced down at the sidewalk and saw Nettie looking back up at him.
*/*/*/*
Coming home from the neighborhood bakery, Nettie saw Buck's truck in Vin's parking lot. She looked up to his apartment windows and saw Vin standing there. He'd apparently just pulled the sash open. She froze, and he seemed to freeze there, staring at each other. Neither one smiled, neither one waved, neither one acknowledged the other at all, except for their hard stares.
Finally Vin took one or two steps backward, away from the window but still in view. Nettie dropped her eyes and went home.
to be continued
