CHAPTER 32

ROD VOHEM

The plane was landing in LAX around 9 that evening, and to say that Caleb was sore would be an understatement. He had never taken so many hits in a game before, and he was definitely feeling it. His ribs were just killing him, and moving in any direction was painful. When Caleb got back to his dorm, he called his dad and told him stories of the game. Jack, of course, was just eating up every word. Jack told Caleb he needed to listen to his coaches and not let his emotions get the best of him during the game, to learn and calm down and let his teammates carry their share of the load. “You don’t have to do everything. That’s why it’s called a team.”

“Yes sir, I’ll try to do better,” Caleb said.

After he said his goodbyes to his father for the night, Caleb called Beth. He repeated the same story to her, then said he would try to see her on Sunday.

“We’re going to church in the morning, aren’t we?” she said hopefully.

Caleb just sighed and said, “I don’t know, it depends on how I feel in the morning. Right now I just need to rest, Beth. Do we have to go to church?”

She replied impatiently, “Caleb, we never have to go to church, we get to go to church. We don’t go to church based on how we feel the day of church; we go to church to worship and give thanks and to learn more of God’s word!”

He grudgingly replied, “Okay, okay, OKAY, I’ll pick you up in the morning. Sheez.” Ugh, this church thing is killing me. This could be a deal breaker for us. I don’t know how long I can keep this up.

He gingerly stretched out on the bed, and not a moment after he’d closed his eyes, the phone rang again. It was Anni. She wanted him to come over to her office.

“I’ll be there in a bit,” he said with a deep sigh. “But listen to me—I’m so sore and hurting from the game today that I may just have to lie there. Is that okay with you?”

“I can do that, but I need some white powder. Be sure and bring some. I’ll call Rod and tell him I won’t be home tonight. He’s used to me having to work on Saturday nights, and he’s also on-call all night, so he won’t be home much, if at all.”

“Well then, I’ll see you soon,” Caleb said, stifling a grunt as he got up. Anni hung up the phone, got in her car, and headed back to her office. She needed some powder badly.

Caleb got his gym bag and put the heroin and drug kit in it. He decided to walk over to the offices; it was about a mile from the dorms, and it’s a beautiful night. It might loosen him up a bit, he thought.

When he got to the office, he went up the fire exit and let himself in the back door. Anni was already lying on the bed ready to go. “I heard you played another spectacular game again today,” she said.

“I don’t know about that,” he said with a dismissive wave, “but I’ve never been so beat up after a game before.” He took off his shirt and Anni put her hands over her mouth and gasped. The right side of his rib cage was black and blue, and he had scrapes and cuts all over his body.

“Oh, you poor thing! Can I do anything to help you?”

“Yes, actually you can. Do you remember how I taught you to fix the powder? That might help more than anything right now.”

“I think so,” she said uneasily, “but can you watch me to be sure?” He nodded, and she went to work. A few minutes later, as she tapped the air out of the syringe, Caleb asked if she could shoot him up. “I’ll try,” she said. When she saw blood, she pushed the plunger down. Caleb laid back, and Anni went to get her fix ready. Soon, they were both passed out on the bed, naked.

At around midnight, Caleb thought he heard something, but he was so high he just laid back down. A few minutes later, he heard a man say, “I can’t believe what I’m looking at. My wife passed out naked on the bed with the CAU QB.” Caleb looked up to meet eyes with Rod Vohem, Anni’s husband. His face turned white, and he looked over at Anni, passed out on the bed. He jumped up and put on his gym shorts, but he couldn’t get any words out. “I bet Coach Richert would be interested in this,” Rod said, brushing off the scrubs he was still wearing from work. “What do you think, Caleb?” Caleb didn’t know what to say. Rod smirked. “You know what I want to do?” He had this weird look on his face, and he was sweating profusely.

“What?” Caleb said, taking a half-step back.

Rod walked over to the bed and started shaking Anni. “Get up, get up!” She wasn’t moving, so he went to the bathroom and filled up a cup of water and threw it on her.

Anni gasped for breath and yelled at Caleb, “What are you doing?” Then she glanced over and saw Rod. “You have got to be kidding me, how did you get in here?” Her words came out in a half-intelligible slur.

“Don’t you remember that time you forgot your keys to the office and asked me to bring the one you had at home?” Rod said. “Well, this is the same one,” he said, holding up the key. “I was off work and thought I would be nice and come by your office and sleep with you tonight, and lo and behold what did I find? Caleb Lewis naked in bed with my wife. Tell me about that, honey. I’m curious. Do you sleep with all the football players, or is Caleb just the lucky one? Can you also explain to me how a 38-year-old woman goes about seducing a 19-year-old kid? Oh, and when you’re finished with that, I’d like to know what Coach Richert would think about this. I bet there might just be a policy against the Vice President of Football Operations sleeping with the football players. I think I’ll call him and find out.”

Anni, still high as a kite and slurring her words, said, “Now you just wait a minute, mister! This isn’t what you think it is.”

He laughed loudly. “Really? It’s midnight and you’re naked in bed with the CAU QB! And I also noticed you’re doing heroin now. WOW! So tell me, Anni, what is this then? I’m really anxious to hear how I’m seeing this wrong.”

Anni, feeling overwhelmed and confused, said, “Rod, our marriage has been nothing but a convenience for both of us the last 15 years. You don’t love me anymore; we rarely see each other. All you do is work, and all I do is work—we just share a home together. That’s it.”

“What you say may be true, but deep down I always felt you were a modern day Jezebel, and now I have proof of it!”

Anni, insulted by his statement, screamed back at him “I have NEVER cheated on you until Caleb, and I’m no JEZEBEL! I’m a LADY!” she yelled, laying on the bed naked and full of heroin. She stopped and thought for a moment about what he just said, and she wasn’t sure what a Jezebel was, but it didn’t sound like a good thing.

Rod just shook his head, then walked over and picked up the phone. “I’m calling Coach Richert, and then I’m calling the press. After that, I’m calling Caleb’s dad to let him know what his sorry son has been up to at CAU.”

Rod had just made a terrible mistake in bringing Caleb’s dad into this. Caleb was trying to keep from pouncing on this little egotistical prick of a man. But as he watched those nimble fingers start dialing numbers, he snarled.

Caleb snapped and grabbed Rod, lifted him up, and threw him against the wall. Caleb wrapped his hands around his throat, too tight. “Listen, you little sissy prick! If you ever tell anyone about this, about any of this, I swear to God I will kill you.”

Anni saw what was going on and ran over quickly, grabbing Caleb by the head. “Caleb, CALEB! Look at me, baby. Focus on me, Caleb.” Anni wasn’t laughing now—she knew Caleb could kill Rod, so she pulled Caleb’s head down to look him in the eyes. Caleb continued to choke the life out of him, and she continued to talk to him. “Caleb, let him go baby. It is going to be okay. Please let him go.”

Caleb looked at her, and then at Rod, and reluctantly dropped him to the floor. Rod was gasping for air. “This isn’t over, Anni,” he snarled.

Caleb reached down, grabbed him by the hair, pulled him up, and said, “Which hand do you use with your scalpel?”

He looked at Caleb and said, “What?”

Caleb slapped him hard and said, “Which hand do you use with your scalpel!”

He replied angrily, “My right hand! Why do you want to know?”

Caleb slapped him again and grabbed his left hand, gripped his left pinky finger, and pulled it as hard as he could, bending it back to the top of his hand.

“You broke my finger, you MAD MAN Rod shrieked, bent over and clutching his hand to his stomach.

Caleb reached down again, grabbed him by the hair, pulled him up, slapped him again, and said, “If you ever tell anyone, anywhere about any of this, next time I’ll break every finger on both hands. Do you understand me?” Rod just fell back to the ground, trembling and shaking his head yes. He had never seen such rage before.

Caleb eyed him, then smirked. He reached down, pulled the shaking man up again, and said, “You’re a rich guy, aren’t you?”

He said, “Yes, I g-guess so.”

Caleb looked him right in the eye and said, “Well I’m not, and you’re going to mail me $3,000 a month in cash until the day I graduate college.”

Rod made a derisive noise. “No, I’m not going to give you money.”

“What did you just say to me?” Slap! “What did you just say to me?” Slap! “What did you just say to me?” Slap.

Meanwhile, Anni was standing there watching, frightened by Caleb, and Rod was crying and screaming like a baby. He was running all over the room trying to get away from this madman.

“Okay, okay!” Rod yelped after getting pinned into a corner by the fridge. “Quit hitting me! I’ll send you the money every month. Can I go home now?”

Anni just couldn’t take any more of this and was so tired from the heroin, she laid down on the floor and went back to sleep.

“No!” Caleb shouted. “You can go home when I tell you you can go home. I want you to repeat to me all that I just said.”

He replied, his voice stammering, “I am not to tell anyone, anywhere about any of this. And I’m going to mail you $3,000 a month until you graduate.”

“That’s correct. And what will happen if you cause us any problems?”

He replied, crying, “You will break my fingers.”

“Yes,” Caleb said, beginning to pace. “And if that doesn’t work, I swear to God almighty as I’m standing here, I will kill you.” He pulled Rod in close. “Now, let me fix that finger,” Caleb said and grabbed it and pulled it hard, snapping it back in place. Rod screamed and hit the floor again. “Now go to your car and wait for me—I’ll be out in a few minutes. I need a ride back to my dorm.”

“Okay,” he said, scurrying out of the office.

Caleb cleaned up the bedroom and picked up Anni off the floor. She was like a limp noodle, passed out after all of that excitement. He put her back in bed and told her to rest. “Everything is going to be fine,” he said, covering her up. He got his gym bag, walked into her office, and grabbed ten wraps of $10,000 from the safe before he left.

Once in the parking lot, Caleb swung into Rod’s car and said, “Take me to my dorm, sissy boy, and you sure better treat Anni with respect from now on or you’re going to answer to me.”

As Caleb walked back into the dorm to the screech of Rod’s tires fleeing as fast as he could, Caleb was hurting. His side was killing him, and he just needed to rest. It seemed like his whole life was nothing but trouble, just one bad thing after another. How and when is this going to stop, and what do I have to do to change it?