Chapter 3
Gary lay in bed that night tossing and turning. Though his body was exhausted, he felt restless. He rolled over and saw the time. One A.M. He groaned, dreading another day on only five hours of sleep. He couldn't remember the last time he had gotten to bed at a decent hour. Probably sometime before Chuck had left, he mused.
He wondered how Chuck was doing. When his friend had first gone out to California, he had called frequently, his voice excited as he relayed some of the exciting things that had been going on with his fledgling production company. Gary chuckled as he replayed the conversations in his mind.
"Hey Gar! How are ya doin, buddy?"
"Oh man, Gar, you have got to see the women out here. They walk around in bathing suits all day long."
"You're right, Gary, my idea about the guy who gets tomorrow's paper today didn't fly with studio execs, but on the drive out here, I started remembering a dream I had last winter. Remember I told you about that weird dream where I had gone into the future and someone jumped into me, sort of trading place with me? Well, I proposed a show like that to them. Okay, I didn't actually do the proposing. I approached Bellisarius Productions, and talked it over with them, and we got the okay from NBC to go ahead and start pre-production. We're going to call it "Making a Quantum Leap." Isn't that great?"
Gary had almost dropped the phone at the mention of the title. If only Chuck knew.
Gary reached up and turned on the light. He wondered if it would be too late to call Chuck. It would be a little after eleven P.M. on the coast. Gary decided to chance it.
"Hey, Chuck!" Gary said, a smile spreading across his face as he heard the familiar voice.
"Hi Gar. What are you doing up so late? It must be after one o'clock back there. Is something wrong?"
Gary's smile faded slightly, "Uh, no. Nothing's wrong. I was just awake, and got to wondering how you were doing."
"Oh, well, that's good. Hold on a sec-" Gary could hear Chuck yelling to someone in the background to keep it down a bit.
"Sorry, about that, buddy. I've got some people from the production company over here. We're brainstorming ideas for the show."
"No problem." Gary paused, the moment dragging on; becoming awkward. The pause lengthened, until suddenly, both men began speaking at once.
"How's the show coming along?"
"How's the cat?"
Gary's brow furrowed in puzzlement, "The cat?"
"Yeah, you know. The cat."
"Oooh! The cat. It's doing just fine. Keeping me busy, as usual."
"Oh." There was another pause, "So, what's Marissa up to?"
Gary told him about Marissa's mother, and how he and Crumb were managing to keep the bar going.
"Hmmm, well it sounds like everything is under control then," Chuck said, his voice light.
"Yeah, I guess so,"
"Something wrong, Gary?"
Gary started guiltily. He wanted to say, 'Yeah, you're damn right something's wrong. I need you back here helping me with this frickin' paper.' But he didn't want Chuck to feel guilty, so instead, he swallowed, and answered, "No, Chuck. Everything's great. Well," he admitted, "we are really busy, what with the bar and the paper to contend with, but we're managing pretty well."
"Um, well that's fantastic. Listen, I hate to cut you off, but I've got people-"
"Oh, hey, no problem, Chuck," Gary said quickly. He cleared his throat, "Well, I guess I'll talk to you later."
Chuck said his good-byes, and hung up. Gary lay back down after turning off the light. For the next two hours he stared into the blackness, a strange feeling of emptiness washing over him. He didn't know what was wrong, but thought maybe he was hungry. He debated whether to get something to eat, but in the end, was too tired to get up, and eventually drifted off to sleep.
"Hey Hobson, you don't look so hot. You feeling okay?"
Gary shuffled into the bar and dragged himself onto a barstool. He rubbed the back of his neck, "You got any aspirin back there, Crumb?" It had been two days since Gary's late night phone call to Chuck. Two days of nearly non-stop rescues. He was beat.
"Yeah, here ya go." Crumb slid the bottle down the bar to Gary, and filled a glass of water from the spout and placed it in front him.
Gary shook out a couple and swallowed them down with a big gulp of water. "Thanks, Crumb."
Crumb watched, a frown on his face, as Gary tiredly rubbed his eyes. "Let me give you a piece of advice, kid."
"What?" Gary said quietly, too exhausted to even bother to look up. He just hung his head with both hands now clasped behind his neck; lightly massaging the tense muscles there.
"You're running yourself into an early grave. You gotta take it easy," Crumb advised, his brow furrowed in concern.
Gary shook his head, "I just have a headache. It's not that big a deal."
"Yeah, well you're probably right, but I've seen you practically kill yourself in the last few months since Fishman left. Now, I don't know where it is you go running off to everyday, and I don't want to know, but if you don't start slowing down, you're gonna make yourself sick."
"I wish I could slow down," Gary muttered under his breath as he slowly stood up. "Yeah, I'll try to take it easy the next few days," Gary said out loud, more to pacify Crumb than anything else. God knows, he wanted to, though. In a burst of inspiration-or was it exhaustion, Gary said, "You're right, Crumb. In fact, I'm going to start right now, and hit the sack."
Crumb's mouth rounded into an "O" in surprise. "Well...good. I'm glad to see that you're taking my advice."
Gary nodded, feeling half-asleep as he made his way up to his apartment.
