The headline in the paper had the President’s popularity dropping with the war going so badly. His opponent was ripping him every night on the news, but the opponent was getting attacked in turn for being a two-faced coward. I didn’t like either of them. Fred was over there with his brother for nearly a month. He called me one night drunk and crying and babbling about how he ought to just kill his brother because his brother was so fucked up. I wondered how many other brothers were going through what he was and how many more would have to? The newspaper said the war was costing billions of dollars every day and, despite that, the cost of gas was still going up, which I thought was the reason we had gone to war in the first place—to get the gas for ourselves. You had to wonder if maybe the whole thing hadn’t been a mistake. America couldn’t seem to win, but we couldn’t retreat either. How did they say it? We had to stay the course? There would one day be light at the end of the tunnel?
I had my problems. I could tell myself all I wanted that I would go straight, that I was done stealing, but nothing seemed to stop me—not ghosts of patients, not high fevers, not even my own panging conscience. The bottom line was the money was there for the taking, and I took it. I never stole from the poor that I could tell, never stole from those who needed it directly that I knew about it. I know. Excuses. Excuses. Lay the money before me, and as soon as heads were turned, it was in my pocket.
Carrie and I weren’t officially back together, but were back to our old habits. I’d do some robbing, take her out on an expensive date, and we’d hit the hay, laughing how much of a good time we were having for just being exes, friends with benefits, as they say.
She met me at the door all done up and ready to go out.
“Flowers, how thoughtful,” she said. “I guess this makes up for your being twenty minutes late. I made reservations at Max’s Oyster House.”
“I canceled them,” I said.
“But it’s my birthday.”
“I brought some oysters to you instead.” I showed her the bag of seafood I had.
“Fresh from City Fish. I’m the chef tonight, and you will eat what I’m dishing out.”
“But I really wanted to go out…”
“I’ve got everything. Wine—your favorite kind—a California pinot noir. I’ve got lobster, oysters, jumbo shrimp with your favorite cocktail sauce, crabmeat—it’s raw-bar city. And for later, I have candles, cinnamon-flavored body lotion, chocolate-covered strawberries, and a special gift, all for you.”
She was touched, I could tell. She didn’t know what to say—which was rare.
“Here’s how it’s going to go,” I said. “I’m going to open a bottle of wine for you. You go sit in the other room, I’m going to dim the lights, light a candle. I bought a CD for you. Joan Osborne’s latest. I know you’ve wanted it, and you sit there and smell the candle and sip the wine and listen to the music, maybe loosen a button of your blouse there, and give me a little time in the kitchen to set this all up, and I will come out and join you in a seafood feast because it’s your night and you are a special lady.”
She looked at me like she wasn’t certain I was serious when I said special, but I could see she guessed, she hoped and maybe even thought I was serious, and maybe if I thought that, maybe she was special. I know I wasn’t the only guy she was seeing, I rarely had ever been, but I know I still treated her better than any of the rest, and that was sinking in.
I walked her into the living room, dimmed the lights, lit a candle, set the CD in the player, opened the wine, poured her a glass, let her take a sip and then had her sit back. “A little something to hold you while I labor in the kitchen.” I unbuttoned her shirt, released her bra, and then laid her down, and proceeded to take care of her in the way she liked to be taken care of. And then I kissed her on the cheek and whispered in her ear, “You are a sexy, gorgeous woman.” I left her there on the sofa and returned to the kitchen to prepare the feast.
I wet some of her plates, and then put them in the freezer to give them a cold frosting. I spread ice cubes in a large serving tray and draped on top of them the cooked lobster, shrimp, crab and smoked trout I had purchased. I opened oysters and clams, and laid them on the tray. She loved raw bar and I had learned to love it as well. She said it was an aphrodisiac. That may be true, I thought, but I had another ace in the hole in that department as well on this evening.
Earlier we had gone to the apartment of a diabetic, whose landlord had found him in a coma due to low blood sugar. We had been there before on many occasions. It was a routine call. Tom would check his sugar, confirm that it was low, then put in an IV and give him an amp of dextrose. He’d wake up and refuse to go to the hospital. We’d clear after he signed the refusal and Tom rechecked his blood sugar to make certain it was back to normal.
On this day, while Tom pushed the dextrose, it took a while because it was thick and syrupy and the man had small veins. I went into the bathroom to take a leak, and while I was doing that I opened the medicine cabinet. The last time we were there, I’d discovered the man was on Viagra. He didn’t have a girlfriend, just a stack of porno magazines he kept by the bed. I had been thinking about it ever since. Now I had no problems in the hard department, but I had heard Fred talking about it. And he swore, even if you were a lead pipe, Viagra would turn you titanium.
I popped the pill I had stolen and tossed it down with my beer. Fred said it took about thirty minutes to an hour. I figured after eating, then with a little backrub, I’d be hitting it just at the right time.
When I went back in the living room, carrying the ice tray of seafood, she was curled on the sofa. I refilled her wine and handfed her the seafood.
“This is so decadent,” she said.
“Eat up,” I said. “It’s all for you.”
For every bite I had, she had four. I dipped the lobster in hot butter, I held the oysters and listened as she slurped them down. She’d slurp an oyster, and then put her tongue and the oyster in my mouth and we would kiss and share the taste. I had removed my pants and was serving her in just my underwear when she reached down and felt me.
“Wow. What’s got into you?”
“Oysters, raw seafood and a dazzling woman.” I kissed her neck. So much for the backrub portion of the evening—she pulled me to her.
I awoke at four in the morning, and instead of seeing her asleep next to me snoring, I saw her looking at me.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing, you just amaze me sometimes.”
“Amazement is good,” I said.
“That was a lot of love—enough to make me think you can’t possibly have any left to spread around—that you’ve been saving it all for me.”
“There’s more where that came from,” I said, dodging her foray.
I must have known deep inside that the Carrie thing wasn’t good for me, but like the President, I didn’t see any retreat. I lacked the strength to truly make a clean break one way or the other. I talked about saving money for California, but I was using the money on her. I hinted I was seeing others, but sadly, I was a one-woman man. While right now, my war was going better than expected, I didn’t know how long it would last. I expected disaster lay ahead.