Chapter 3
"Jim Fights the Waterworks"
Mile after mile whistled away beneath the Volvo's Michelin tires, carrying it ever deeper into the fertile Pennsylvania farmland. James Wilson sat easy in the driver's seat, knees splayed, feet relaxed and turned over at the ankles. Two slender fingers of his dominant left hand guided the steering wheel lightly and his right arm lay flat over the tops of the front seats. From the stereo, Sarah Brightman's crystal-clear voice sang softly of bright spring mornings, warm spring evenings and haunted love.
For a time his mind rested quiet in repose, his thoughts flitting here and there as he played his gaze lightly over the landscape outside the wide tinted windshield. Farm after
well-tended farm scrolled by on both sides of the highway, separated only by fields of young spring crops and young corn, not even a foot high, laid out in perfect rows. If nothing else, the Amish communities bred accomplished tillers of the soil, and this particular area of this green state boasted the fact with utter confidence.
Up ahead on the right side of the road and moving against oncoming traffic, Wilson's attention was drawn to a sea of bright colors and an easy cadence of pumping legs and arms. A jogger was alone on the edge of the road, out for an afternoon run, supple limbs joyously undulating beneath the cloudy sky and warm sun. Wilson watched the man raptly as he grew larger, from illusion to reality, and then morphed into high resolution as the Volvo drew closer.
Then he swept past, and Wilson's brain snapped a mental photograph of a slender male body, navy blue jogging shorts, dark Nike Shox with white socks, strange-patterned red tee shirt, disheveled graying hair held in place by a red, white and blue sweat band. And scruff!
With the image burned onto his retinas like a digital photograph, Wilson blinked hard against the haunting illusion.
House!
The resemblance was uncanny, and just that quickly his friend was back at the center of his thoughts.
House … healthy and athletic! Jogging along the side of a country road in happy abandon. Not ill, not gaunt and hollow-cheeked. Not dragging an IV and not sprawled on a couch or a bed, too pained and weak to do more than face his tiny world with haunted, bloodshot eyes and an attitude of silent despair.
The tears came before Wilson was even aware of them, and he was thankful he was alone. Out here where no one could see the emotion he'd been so successfully containing for the past God-knew-how-long, he could let it run its course and subside. His eyes were burning and his nasal passages filling up far beyond his control. The sorrow he felt was like the runoff of a stream right after a spring rain. The dam of his long-denied broken heart had burst at the seams and was overflowing far beyond his abilities to drive. Wilson blinked rapidly and looked for the nearest place to pull off the road.
A mile further on, he turned into the lot of a small, isolated convenience store, drove slowly around the back and pulled into the area of little-used parking spaces near the dumpster. With a little luck, he wouldn't be observed here before he could gather his crumpled senses together and go on.
Wilson didn't kill the Volvo's engine. He would need the air conditioning when his internal water works finally dried up. The way he felt now though, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He pushed the shift post into "park", lifted his right forearm and laid it atop the steering wheel, and bent his forehead to it. Shoulders beginning to shake uncontrollably, he allowed his fear and hurt to overtake him to a point that he might be able to wash it all away and start anew, freshly cleansed.
He had not lost it like this since a week after Julie had walked out of his life. On a Sunday morning he'd stood at the picture window in their empty living room with a cup of coffee in his hand and stared out at the world, unseeing, while tears of guilt and remorse ran down his face and clogged his thoughts with "might-have-beens."
But that moment of silent regret had lasted all of five minutes. With Julie out of sight, she was also out of mind. The marriage had been over a long time before the final breakup.
The image of the roadside jogger still etched itself sharply across Wilson's mindscape, and he could not lose the unrealistic desire of once again seeing Gregory House in the man's place. He shuddered. Greg had been very much like that when they'd first known each other, and his friend's former athletic image had come back with an impact that grasped his very soul and rattled it until it shattered into tiny, jagged slivers at his feet.
He would never see his friend like that again. It hurt.
His tears continued to fall unrelenting, until he could feel in his eyes the tightness and the burning, and his face in the rearview mirror became blotched and mottled.
Stop this! You're acting like a fool!
But sometimes the heart, like an unrepentant child, did not listen to the parent mind, and went its own way regardless. The heart was a very strange entity. It ventured into places where the mind often feared to go, and then had to face the consequences of riding roughshod across the vast landscapes of imagination and possibility.
Oh God …I don't want to go there!
Wilson took a deep breath and straightened in his seat. He popped open the center console and removed a wad of napkins left over from an excursion he and House had taken to a KFC.
Suddenly, at that moment, he knew the crying jag was almost over. He wiped the moisture from his eyes and remembered that silly day with the surly diagnostician as one of the high points in their friendship. Julie had been gone barely a week. He had moved into House's elegant dump on Baker Street. He hadn't felt like cooking, and House was heaping on the abuse, one snide remark after another until Wilson finally shouted at him, "Enough already!" and they had both burst out laughing like two teen-agers.
They drove to the nearest KFC and brought the food home. They stuffed themselves full of crispy chicken and Coors Light and watched "The Lost Weekend" with Ray Milland on TCM and made profound observations about drunks in general …
After awhile, House had looked over at him with a sad, puppy dog expression and asked if he still missed Julie …
He remembered staring back into that long, droll face and saying, as innocently as he could manage: "Julie who?"
After that, they'd laughed until their stomachs hurt.
Wilson could feel an affectionate smile drifting back into his consciousness, and he let himself ride with it. The sharp photograph of the jogger faded away in his mind, to be replaced with the reality of House as he was now. Not pleasant, but bearable. He could not shore up Greg House and help him bring himself back to life if he couldn't shore himself up first, and bring his attitude and demeanor and overly compassionate feelings back to responsible levels.
Time to fish or cut bait, Wilson. This isn't finished yet!
He turned one of the air conditioner vents to the side until it was blowing full into his face. Within two minutes the breach in the floodwall had been repaired and he felt much better for having cleared out all the stagnant, muddy waters. He took another long, deep breath … this one cleansing his soul. He turned the vent back to its normal position and looked around to be sure his way was clear … in more ways than one … dropped the shifter into "drive", and pulled back onto the highway. The wad of napkins lay discarded on the passenger seat as a reminder.
Almost three p.m. He should be at Dick's in another fifteen minutes. He turned up the CD and listened to Sarah Brightman. "Just Show Me How to Love You".
Next stop, Lancaster …
oooo0oooo
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