2. The Lucky Chair
Sammie entered Sam's room and saw that he'd fallen asleep on his favorite chair – some "ergonomic" thing from ages ago, that she'd tried to replace many times, but he refused, insisting that it was his lucky chair. She hated when he went to sleep on it, because whether or not he would admit it, she believed that he woke up feeling uncomfortable. "I'm 79, of course I feel uncomfortable when I wake up. This chair is better than that bed!" He would complain. Something made her think that he probably realized that the bed was a lonely place, without her.
For a time, she sat next to his chair and stroked it with her fingers. It was actually in ridiculously good shape. But, Mercedes had regularly had it reupholstered, since Sam refused to let go of it.
Sam unlocked the door to the apartment and Mercedes was in a pair of jeans, an old local band t-shirt and had a purple scarf tied around her head. "Don't be mad, okay?" were the first words out of her mouth. He frowned and sighed. What now? He'd had an exceptionally terrible day, with failing to get a job, dropping his portfolio into a puddle and almost hitting a dog with his truck. "I noticed how uncomfortable you look in my little desk when you're trying to work on your comics. Then, you just fight to try to get comfy on the floor… So I sort of went into my savings and got you this chair." She held both of her hands out to present it.
He smiled softly at her, but she could tell that he had a problem with it. "Mercedes, I don't want you going into the money that's supposed to be for your music career to get me a chair."
"I knew that you wouldn't like that. That's why I did it in secret, had it delivered while you were out job hunting and put the order and warranty in your name. If you really don't want it, you can send it back," she said with a shrug. Her brown eyes dropped sadly and he placed his bag down to move to hold her.
"Mercedes, Baby – I appreciate your gift. I appreciate you. I just feel bad that I've been living with you now for weeks and I still haven't been able to contribute," he said. "Of course, I'll keep the chair that you went through so much trouble to get me, just out of the goodness of your heart." He lifted her chin to kiss her.
Immediately, Mercedes cheerily grabbed his hand and led him to the chair, "The ad says that the way it's made, you can literally lay or sit on it in any position and still have comfort. Try it out. See what you think." She gave him a little shove to sit him down on the oddly shaped cushioned chair. From the moment he touched it, she could see that he loved it.
"Mercedes-" Her eyes lit up at the expression on his face as he moved himself around to position himself. "Baby, thank you." She nodded and gave him a hug. He pulled her onto his lap and asked, "Have you sat in this thing?"
"No! I bought it for you. Well, I sat on one in the store that I order it from, but not this particular one. But, let me up. I didn't get a chance to finish cooking before you got back." She said and tried to move.
"Please… I've had a really bad day. Could you just… stay here for a moment?" He squeezed her tightly and she stared at him.
Mercedes cupped her boyfriend's face and he looked up at her. "What's wrong?"
"Do you realize that by the time I was eighteen, I was taking care of a family of five by myself, and now, I can't even buy the woman I love dinner… meanwhile, she's getting me a comic book chair." He hardly got the words out of his mouth before she leaned in to kiss him and silence his worries. "Mercedes…"
"Sam." She said and lifted an eyebrow at him. "My parents pay for all of my living expenses, as long as I'm in school. Yes, I've been saving up for my music career and I went into that money to get you something nice. But, I wouldn't even be here without you. You aren't inconveniencing me in any way and I would rather help you until you can find some real work, than for you to be out there shaking your stuff around, like you were when you were eighteen." She slipped her hands up his shirt to stroke the ripples of his muscles and whispered, "I want all of this all to myself."
He smiled, proudly at her declaration and told her, "I'm all yours. I just… I was good at that and it paid well. I would do even better, out here. I would be able to take care of you and you wouldn't have to pretend to want this degree to please your parents just to have a place to live while you follow your dreams."
"I want my degree, and it's better to have my parents helping me than to have to share you with a bunch of horny cougars. You'll find work. I believe in you just as much as you believe in me. All we need is each other and our lives will be what we want them to be. Have faith." She kissed him again and withdrew her hands from his abs and kissed him on the lips, gently, before getting up to finish dinner. But Sam had already decided that this simply would not do. He didn't know what he had to do, but he realized that whatever it was, he had to do it quickly, if he was going to feel even the least bit worthy of her.
Sam stirred as his granddaughter attempted to get him off of his chair, "What in God's name are you doing, Girl?" He fussed in a whisper and jerked away from her, "I was having a good dream about this chair!"
"You need to get into bed," she said, softly, still trying to lift him.
"Cut it out," he whispered, "You'll wake your meemaw, and you know how she gets when you disturb her beauty rest. We sleep like this all of the time." He stroked at Mercedes' velvety frosty curls and kissed her forehead, grateful that Sammie had not disturbed her rest. But, just to be careful, began to sing a song to her. She sighed and curled herself into his neck. "See there - as peaceful as an angel." He frowned at Sammie, then shut his eyes to return to sleep.
Mercedes watched Sam many nights, fall to sleep, mid-work on his chair. It was his work chair, reading chair, videogame chair, and their sex chair. She was sure that she saw him more on that chair than anywhere else in the apartment, combined. She came in to see him strumming on his guitar, then writing. 'Oh God. What kind of brainstorming does he have going on?' she wondered.
"I'm home!" She called out. Perhaps he did not hear her, because he didn't even stir. Instead, he scribbled on his paper, then went to typing on his laptop. She walked into the room and cleared her throat, "I'm home," she repeated, enunciating the statement.
Now, Sam looked up at her and his entire face lit up. "Mercy!" He cheered, then pushed everything off of his lap and onto the chair to get up and snatch her into a hug. She laughed and hugged him back, but stared curiously at him. It wasn't that he wasn't generally happy to see her, but usually – he wasn't so engulfed in something. Plus, when he usually hugged her hello, it was not as though he had not seen her in months. "I missed you today," he said.
"I was gone the same amount of time as I usually am," she said. "What are you working on?"
"A theme song," he said, waving a hand at his stuff. "Something amazing happened today."
"I figured something was up. What is it?" She asked, excitedly. "Work?" He smiled and nodded his head eagerly. "Where?"
"I'm going to be playing guitar at one of the hottest new clubs in town. They have a live band, but the singer keeps running the members off, so now – they don't even try to get popular artists anymore. Anyone is welcome to try out, so I did and I was hired."
"That's great!" She said, excitedly. "I'm glad that you found something. I know how important it is for you to be able to work for pay." She hugged him again and asked, "Where is this place?"
"Vanity 9," he said. Her face changed when he mentioned it. "What?" He asked.
"That's the club where the women dance in cages and they have those oil wrestling matches and stuff like that," she said. Not a question.
"I don't know much about the club, really," he admitted, with a suddenly concerned expression. He was concerned because she looked concerned. "But, even if it is, the pay is fantastic. I get paid nightly and they give referrals to other clubs that the owner owns, if they're out of a musician. I could get two or three payments a night, depending on how many gigs I can pick up, and all I have to do is learn the songs and play them. I can do that in my sleep."
"I'm happy for you," she said, and she meant it. "It looks like this good news has your creative juices flowing. Tell me about what's going on in the chair. You're writing a theme song?"
Sam laughed, took her by the hand and brought her to the chair, "You know that I finished my first graphic novel, and that I'm adapting it into a script, but I had this idea… I think that I'll make an independent movie."
Her face brightened up and she said, "Sam, you would be great at that! Your ideas are totally movie-worthy and Zaydyn's story needs to remain the way you created it to be. I worry that if you hand your script over to someone, they'll butcher all your hard work. I've seen you slave too long, struggling past everything to create this story." Everything. She meant his dyslexia. There were times that he came to her and begged her to read over his final drafts of things because after working so hard and long, his eyes simply could not un-jumble the letters anymore, and even though his laptop has spell check, sometimes, it put the wrong words in place (though they were spelled correctly.
It never bothered Mercedes one bit. In fact, after she began reading his graphic novel and helping to revise his script, she became interested in a slew of comics and movies that she had never really been interested in before. She had seen Avatar a few times, but she hadn't been that excited about it, even though it always made her smile when Sam spoke N'avi. His work opened her eyes and her heart into genres and fandoms that she'd previously written off, and she began to love and look forward to new comics just as much as he did.
When she re-watched comic book movies, after being introduced to the real thing, she became disappointed with the adaptations, and their rants about it could last all night, sometimes. Now, he was going to be trying to push his own world out there. Zaydyn, an alien sent to infiltrate Earth as a sleeper cell, to be activated at a certain age, but was found and reprogrammed by Earth's scientists as an infant who grew up to hate aliens and became one of the best weapons against them before discovering the truth – that his parents had been agents who fought against his true people and he was a tool, for both side of a war… Mercedes LOVED that character, "As if he was my own child," she would say.
In fact, had she not been as supportive of Sam's creation, he was unsure as to whether or not he would have tried so hard to continue it. He began talking about his project as he picked his guitar back up, "So, while you're in school all day three times a week, I'll be diligently working on what I'm calling Project Zaydyn… the script, plans for future graphic novels, maybe even novels, if I can find the time to sort through all that text only madness that comes with writing one… I'm even considering trying to make a cartoon short on my laptop and posting them online."
"Before you do that, I think you should look into copywriting," she said and sat next to him on the chair, gathering up his laptop and handing him his notepad.
"That's a good idea." He scribbled that in the corner of his notes. "That'll be one of the first things that I'll pay for, then I'll try to get a decent camera. I'd like to film Zaydyn's experiences like a documentary, before the revelation of who he is and the struggle that comes along with that." Mercedes just smiled softly at him with tired eyes. He didn't even seem to notice how exhausted she was. But, she knew that when he was focused on something, sometimes, he simply got wrapped up in it. "Baby, do you need me to fix you a plate? I knew you'd be tired, so I cooked earlier, so that I could jump right into this." He looked at her, then placed his guitar aside. "Oh, you look like you're going to pass out. Let me warm you a plate and draw you a bath."
Quickly, Sam leaped up and went to do just what he set out to do. He had no idea how much she loved him right now for not only noticing her condition, but moving to do something about it. She smiled to herself, and laid down to look at his progress on his project. By the time he returned to the room, she was asleep in his spot. Sam returned the plate to the kitchen and waited a while to see if she might wake up in time to still enjoy her bath. When she stayed sleep, he let the water out of the tub and sat on the floor next to her, working only on his sketch pad, careful not to wake her. My poor baby needs all the rest that she can get.