CHAPTER 16
A. C. stepped through the back door of Corin’s store that afternoon at three thirty, lugging a rolltop desk as if it were made of balsa wood. “Hey, Cor, got your rolltop; where do you want it?”
Corin jogged toward the shipping entrance. “Need a hand with that?”
“Nah, only weighs about three hundred pounds.” A. C. grinned and carried it over to the door outside the prep room. “Can I set it here?”
“Perfect.”
Forty-one years old and still built like an NFL middle linebacker. Slightly damp strands of his blond, still-teenage-thick hair fell across his forehead, the only indication he was straining at all to carry the desk, his taut biceps pressing into the sleeves of his Where the Wild Things Are T-shirt.
If Ultimate Fighting had been as big ten years ago, before A. C. had kids, he would be dancing around a caged ring and ripping his competitors apart like they were made of cardboard. In fact a large part of A. C. was still considering getting into the ring.
A. C.: The Aqua Cowboy. The nickname their mutual friend Jeff Stucky had given him because of the way he rode a tube called the Extreme anywhere there was a body of water big enough for a ski boat. The tube was the bronco and A. C. was the bronco buster. Most tubers gave the kill sign at twenty-five knots. For A. C. that was warm-up speed. Same thing on a water ski. Barefoot as fast as the boat could go was his comfort zone.
Ironic that his best friend would be named for going extreme in an arena Corin would never enter again.
“Thanks for dropping it off.”
“No problem. You’re right on the way to the job I’ve got going.”
“What are you working on these days?”
“Nothing fancy. Pouring sidewalks and driveways for a new housing development up north.”
“One of the few I’m guessing.”
“Work’s been a little lean, but not bad.” A. C. rubbed his hands on his jeans. “How about you?”
“Still the same. Skeletor lean.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries. People will start buying again.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
They both laughed.
“How was the weekend hanging out at Disneyland?”
“Fun. Sticky, but fun. Kids loved it. Dineen loved it. I loved it.” A. C. ambled over to the coffee pot, grabbed an oversized cup, and filled it to the rim with black tar.
“That coffee’s six hours old.”
“Perfect.” A. C. glanced at his watch. “I should hit the pavement. I want to avoid afternoon rush hour if possible.”
“Before you go, let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“Are you scared of anything?”
“What?” A. C. gave Corin his trademark crooked grin. “Did you pick up a copy of Psychology Today recently? How to examine your friends for cracks in their psyches?”
“No, I have a reason for asking.”
A. C. threw back a big swig of his coffee. “How long have you known me? Twenty years? You ever seen me scared of anything in all that time?” He smirked. “How about you? Is there anything that keeps you up nights?”
Corin’s face instantly felt scorched. He’d never told A. C. about the drowning or even about his fear of tight spaces, but if A. C. noticed he didn’t say anything.
“Nothing? Public speaking? Heights? Clowns? Death?”
“That’s it, clowns.” A. C. nodded. “You got me.”
But Corin had seen the fear in A. C.’s eyes when he’d said “public speaking.”
“Talk to me, buddy. I have real reason for asking.”
“What did you smoke today?”
“I want you to try something for me.” Corin rubbed his knees and leaned toward A. C. “Something that might get rid of that fear.”
“You picked up a hypnosis course on the back of a matchbook, right?” A. C. folded his arms and laughed. “And I’m your first patient.”
Corin took his keys out of his pocket and walked toward the vault at the back of the store where the chair now rested. When he reached it he inserted a key as A. C. strolled up behind him.
Corin spun the combination on the vault door and swung it open.
“What’ve you got in the inner sanctum these days?” A. C. said.
Corin motioned with his eyes for A. C. to follow and stepped inside the room.
“Nice chair.” He joined Corin inside the vault.
The chair sat in the center, nothing else within ten feet of it.
“I want you to sit in it.”
“Oooooo.” A. C. grasped at the air with his hands. “Let me guess. After I sit you’ll say the magic words and instantly I’ll be over whatever fear you think I have.”
“Precisely.” Corin smiled. “So tell me the fear and we’ll get started.”
“Nah, I don’t think so.” A. C. shook his head.
“What?”
A. C. rarely held anything back. Even the uncomfortable things. My Life Is an Open Book should be a bumper sticker on his car.
“I’m not sure I want to admit that fear to anyone.”
Corin studied his friend. There was no one more loyal than A. C. As well as wise, heroic, and larger than life. No wonder the kids on his son’s football team called him Mr. Incredible. He even looked like the Pixar creation. Corin wouldn’t ever try to push him into something he didn’t want to do. As if he could push A. C. into anything.
“No worries. You can tell me about it another time or never. This was just a stupid experiment.”
A. C. didn’t move. “You’ve brought up a memory I rarely think about.” He rubbed his face and frowned. “In fact, if I didn’t like you, I’m not sure I could resist the temptation to break your face for making me think of it.” The frown turned into a smile.
“Face-breaking day is tomorrow, isn’t it? So let’s—”
“But maybe I should talk about it.” A. C. folded his arms and suddenly grew an intense interest in his tennis shoes.
“Nah, later.”
“I’m okay, Cor. Really.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” A. C. gritted his teeth, shook his head, and after another ten seconds began speaking. “When I was in sixth grade we did a unit on speaking. I liked doing it. Three speeches to the class, and I nailed every one of them, but then we gave our fourth talk in front of the whole school. The kids in my class were cool, they liked me, but . . .”
A. C. glanced up at Corin. “I had a pretty bad lisp back then. The rest of the year, every time I stepped on the playground for recess kids said things like, ‘Howth it going lithpee?’ I beat a few of them up which felt good, but it landed me in the principal’s office every other day. I stopped hitting kids but they didn’t stop saying things.”
A. C. unfolded his arms and locked his hands behind his head. “That summer I worked on getting rid of the lisp and by fall it was gone, but so was any ability or desire to get up in front of a crowd. Scared for life.” A. C. tried to laugh but it died on his tongue. “So even thinking about speaking in front of a group makes me want to mainline Prozac.”
“Sorry.”
“Forget it.” A. C. straightened up and rubbed his shoulder. “I’m over it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Fine, I’m not. But since no one is demanding I go on the motivational-speaking circuit, I’m not too worried about it.”
Corin eased up to his friend. “Do you want to get rid of the fear?”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“What, I sit in your chair here and suddenly I’m booking a show at Madison Square Garden and making like Demosthenes?”
“Exactly.”
A. C. looked at him, his crooked smiled mixed with a frown that said, “Do you need a white jacket with thick leather straps?”
“Are you reading the local news these days?”
“No.”
“Let me show you something.” Corin handed him the story on Brittan.
A. C. studied the article, then stared at Corin, a quizzical look on the big man’s face. “You’re saying your chair healed this kid?”
“I’m not saying it; I’m just wondering. And I am saying it’s a pretty interesting coincidence, and why not try it with someone else?”
A. C. stared at him for twenty seconds before answering. “You are serious.”
“Yep.”
“And I’m your guinea pig?”
“Yep.”
“Have you sat in it?”
“Yeah.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing, and that might be what happens with you.”
“Right.” A. C. looked back at the story and tapped twice. “You don’t really believe this, do you?”
“Most of me, no I don’t, but again, what would it hurt to try?”
A. C. ran his fingers along the back of the chair then moved to the front and stared at it for a good thirty seconds. “What the heck, let’s do it.” He turned and eased onto the chair. “Where’d you get it?”
“It was donated to me last week from some lady. Totally out of the blue.”
A. C. gazed up at him. “What was her name?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Was she cute?”
“She’s probably in her seventies, maybe eighties.” Corin thought back to her eyes that had no age. “But yes, beautiful.”
A. C. grinned up at him. “You’re not going to chant anything, are you?”
“Maybe I’ll sing you ‘The Pickle Song.’ The extended concert version. If you’re lucky.”
“My eardrums can’t afford that kind of pain.”
Corin folded his arms and leaned back against the workbench along the back wall of the vault.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I really have no idea, but I’m going to suggest thinking about what you want healed. That’s what I think the kid did when he got healed, and from studying the Bible that’s what people who got healed by Jesus did.”
“You’re studying the Bible?”
“I’m almost a scholar, baby. I’m now up to fourteen verses in my entire life.”
“Okay, here we go.” A. C. leaned his head back slightly, took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. A second later an emotion flitted over his face. Surprise? Peace? Corin couldn’t tell.
“Not bad. This is more comfortable than I thought it would be. It’s a perfect fit.” A. C. patted the sides of the chair and breathed deep again.
“Nice to know.”
As Corin watched, his friend’s countenance slowly changed, as if a layer of worry was melting off of him, revealing the little boy A. C. had once been, before the concerns of life had etched themselves into the lines on his face.
“Wow, I like this.”
“Like what?”
“I just . . .” The transformation continued. A. C. looked more relaxed than he’d seen his friend in years. A look of contentment was smeared all over his face. “It feels like I’m sitting on a beach in Costa Rica with nothing to think about but how my tan is developing.”
It was the same type of reaction Brittan Gibson seemed to have had. So why hadn’t Corin had the same sensations when he’d sat in the chair?
“Anything else?”
“Not at the moment. Other than I think I could sit here forever.” A. C. let out a contented sigh. “What happens now?”
“I go back into the store and wait for a customer to come in and drop ten grand on a chair and desk set from the mid-1700s and you hang out in here as long as you want.”
“That’s it?” A. C. frowned. “Don’t I have to recite some prayer or something? Something to make the magic work?”
Corin smiled. “Whatever you feel like doing.” He walked out of the vault. Yeah, why didn’t it heal him? It healed the kid.
If his theory was right, it couldn’t heal him unless he thought of what he wanted to be healed from while he sat in the chair. And when Corin had set in it, he didn’t know.
After helping a customer buy a pair of cuff links from the early 1920s, he wandered back into the vault to check on A. C.
His friend’s eyes were closed, the peaceful look still on his face. As soon as Corin cleared his throat, A. C. looked up, his face groggy as if he’d been asleep.
“Anything?”
“This is a great chair. Don’t sell it. I could sit in it for hours.”
“Did it do anything?”
A. C. laughed. “Other than make me relax for the first time in forever? Yeah, absolutely. I have a sudden urge to talk to the UFC about being a ringside announcer.”
“I guess it worked then.”
“Sorry.” A. C. stood slowly. “But I liked sitting in it.”
“Thanks for trying it.”
“No worries.”
SIX HOURS LATER as Corin drove home he called A. C. “Anything now?”
“You mean did I get healed?”
“Yeah. It took four-plus hours for the chair to work on the kid.”
“Listen, Corin. We’ve been friends forever, so let me shoot straight. With the financial problems you’ve got screaming in your ear, this isn’t the time to get distracted with ideas of chairs that heal people. Like I said, nice chair. It really did feel comfortable, but I’d leave the X-Files and Fringe fake-healing stuff for the movies and the televangelists, okay? It’s a good-looking chair. People will like it. Sell the thing and make a little cash or a lot of cash if you can. You need it.”
Corin sighed and hung up. A. C. was right. He’d put it on the floor tomorrow.
It would take a neon sign to convince him otherwise.