CHAPTER 9: NOAH
I can’t believe she called me an egocentric prick. I know that I was a real douchebag the night before, but it was not all my fault at the hospital. It was Hunter again, just as it always was. Granddad always took his side as if he was the younger brother. For one or another reason, grandpa treated me a lot tougher than Hunter. To this day, I don’t know why.
I walk a few more steps down the street toward downtown Burlington. Fortunately, it is not a cold day. The early autumn is not yet as cold as it can be when the winter in these parts threatens to be harsh. There is a fresh breeze coming from the direction of Lake Champlain, but that is about it. I look around for a taxi to take me back to Fall Creek. I have the undying urge to talk to somebody, and I know I have a captive audience in Glyn back at granddad’s place.
Grandpa had been the main reason I left Fall Creek. Up until that fateful day, I always had that dream with Hunter that we’d start a chain of diners together and spread out all across the northern United States. Grandpa had thought the idea was full of shit of course.
There was this girl too. I had loved her a lot. We never dated. She never had eyes for me. I always thought it was because she was my age and that girls tend to go for older guys. However, I never gave up. I kept going and going. I never told grandpa or Hunter who the girl was. To do so would have incurred endless teasing on their part.
One night, I was walking around Fall Creek with a spring in my step. It was the night before the spring festival, and I had made up my mind to ask the girl of my dreams out on a date. I remember whistling a merry tune. I was nearly skipping that was how excited I was about finally having the courage to do what I aimed to do for so long. It was the only way because how was she supposed to know I liked her if I didn’t at least show her.
I turned the corner onto Main Street. My gaze shifted to look down the small streets down the side as it so often did back then when I lived in Fall Creek. Only that time, one look brought my heart to a standstill. I saw my girl kissing another guy. I can still feel the pain to this day. It’s like somebody squeezing your innards with their hands, pulling and yanking until you feel sick to the core. The worst of it was that the man she was with was my brother, Hunter.
I raced back home to granddad and told him all about it. It did not take long for Hunter to follow because he had seen me. We argued, and we threw things at one another until we had neither the energy nor the vocabulary to do anymore. That was when granddad had stepped in. He said that I had to accept that the girl was Hunter’s.
I protested of course, but grandpa was relentless. He said that my destiny was not with some small town girl but out in the wide world. I thought his words hypocritical, and I still do. My granddad adores small-town women, and Zoey is the living proof of that.
I still feel the pain when I think about that momentous day. James Jackson wanted me out of Fall Creek, and so I left that very same night. I took what little I owned and had saved and went to New York. In a way, it was the best decision of my life, and I have Grandpa Jackson to thank for that. Had it not been for him, I would never have left. I know that now but I didn’t back then.
I cross the road and continue walking. At the next street corner, I can make out a taxi stand. I head right for it. On the way there, I stop. On the corner opposite the stand, there’s a bar with dim lighting inside. I press my lips together. I deserve a drink after all the shit I had to put up with since arriving in this part of the world.
The bar beckons to me with the promise of booze and light barman banter. It’s like an oasis of forgetful pastimes. It boasts the reality of forget-me-nots, but at the same time, it also is the promise of forgetting one's pain at least until tomorrow. I step in and walk up to the dark wooden bar counter. The place is nearly empty. This does not bother me in the least. All I need is a whisky or two before I head back to Fall Creek.
“What will it be, sir?” asks the barkeep when I sit down.
“Macallen whisky…neat please,” I grunt.
“Coming right up,” he says.
“Is there a drink in there for me too?” says another voice in a female purr.
I look up. Sitting further down the bar is a rather sexy looking woman. I immediately notice how well dressed she is. Also, she has a pretty face and from what I can see, a nice figure. My fuckability systems are in overdrive. They smell a fuck with an almost ninety-nine percent certainty. I should go over there and make a move.
****
“Where the fuck have you been? Glyn’s inside talking to Serge. Damn, those guys sure can talk on the phone.”
“It’s nice to see you too granddad. What the hell are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in hospital?” I say.
“Zoey helped me get out of that rat hole.” He winks.
“I see.” My eyes slit. “What happened to that storm you told us about?” I ask, looking at the placidity of the lake under the moonlight.
Grandpa chuckles. “I guess it didn’t turn out as bad as I thought it would.”
“You only said there would be a storm because you wanted me to stay, right? You thought that I was heading back to New York?”
“Well, weren’t you? You hardworking city types can’t stay anywhere longer than a day or two.”
“Yeah, you are right on that one. I am not going anywhere though. I promise.”
“Good to hear…Zoey will be happy also.”
The mention of that name brings on a bad conscience. How could I have even contemplated having sex with that middle-aged woman back at the bar? It was not her age that spooked me; I love forty-year-old women – there’s something decidedly hot about them. However, I feel as if I betrayed what little I have with Zoey. She may have been bitchy to me, but she was right to do so. How the hell can I be focusing on other women? I should be focusing on how to make it right between us.
It’s difficult for me. To drown my sorrows with some booze and then make moves on women is just the way I deal with stress. The alcohol and the pounding always did the trick in the past. Only this time I couldn’t do it. Alexandra, as the lady turned out to be called, said that I should head straight back to wherever it is she lives and ask her out. That was how readable I was. I had Zoey written right across my forehead.
Probably, had I gotten Alexandra and I a hotel room, I wouldn’t have been able to get it up because of the feisty Fall Creek hottie in my mind. Damn, what is wrong with me? It feels a little similar to what I felt all of those years ago when I was in love with that girl. Fuck, I can’t deal with this right now. Why is this happening to me again and here of all places? Life is so much easier with Crystal and the other women I meet. Why Zoey? Fall Creek is jinxed.
“I am not going to do chemo, Noah. I am too damn old. And besides, I don’t want to spend my last days on the planet in some shitty hospital room.”
My granddad’s voice rattles me, taking me away from my internal dilemma. I will have to deal with Zoey and what I think I feel for her later. “But grandpa, I can arrange for you to have the best treatment. We can even decorate your room to your own specifications. Just tell Glyn what you want tomorrow, and it will be taken care of.”
He waves his hand. “Thanks but no thanks, Noah. I appreciate what you are trying to do for me, but you heard the doc, the odds are not in my favor.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that we should give up,” I say.
“You didn’t get the whole truth from the doctor. He only told you part of the story.” Granddad takes a slug from his beer. “You better go get yourself one of these and maybe heat up the grill if you’re hungry.”
A beer is a good idea. I ate a sandwich at the bar back in Burlington, so I have no appetite. I step into the house and fetch myself a beer. I hurry back to hear what granddad has to say on the topic of his health. After I sit down, our bottles clink, and we drink in silence for a few moments.
“The cancer I have is terminal. It’s the reason I called ya. I needed to see ya before something serious happens. I needed to see ya so that you can make things right with Hunter again.”
“No way…”
Granddad doesn’t let me finish. “How could he do anything about it? You never told him the girl’s name…I bet had he known; he would never have touched her. And besides, it was my fault. I told ya to leave. I did it because I always knew that you would make it big in the world. Hunter belongs here.”
I watch him sip on his beer bottle. Granddad is right of course. The whole thing was a vicious circle. I left blaming Hunter, and he blamed me for leaving without a word. It was so stupid. It was senseless in the way all such arguments are – two or maybe three people holding onto their stances with only a fraction of the information required. No wonder these situations are always bullshit.
“You got to patch things up with him. Do it for me before I die.”
“Granddad, don’t say that. I don’t want you to die,” I say, feeling my eyes well up with tears. I can’t remember the last time I cried, but it sure was one hell of a long time ago.
“Don’t you dare do that in front of me. You’ll have me falling apart with ya. This is not supposed to be a sad moment. My grandson is back. Come here and give an old man a hug.”
The tears seem to stop at his command. If they would come, some most certainly would be out of happiness for that is what I also feel at being with him again. I take the grizzled old man into my arms and hug him for the first time in over fifteen years.
“You got to do one other thing for me,” he whispers into my ear.
“Sure, granddad,” I say, already dreading the prospect of his next request.