Glass The Direction You Go

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-6678-1328-8
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Bradley has been best friends with Jerry for twenty-five years. He has been a docent at the Ernest Hemingway Birth House in Oak Park for almost ten years. When Jerry needs time and space to recover from an automobile accident Brad manages to get a leave of absence from his job at an insurance company. He and Jerry stay at a B&B in Piggott, Arkansas for six months while Jerry is recovering. Brad visits the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum more than a few times. A niece of the woman who owns the B&B proves to be the woman Brad has been looking for. They fall in love. Will she agree to marry him and move to his home in Oak Park, Illinois? She has only six months to decide.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Glass, Robert

Leseproben

On the Road The phone rang at 2:15 a.m. Bad news. Brad jumped out of bed and went quickly to answer it. It would be bad news. Only bad news woke you up. Good news waited until after nine in the morning. His roommate Jerry had not come home last night. Jerry’s mother was on the phone. Between crying and blowing her nose she managed to say car accident, hospital, and Wisconsin. Hospital, at least he was still alive. Five minutes later Brad went back to bed. He would pick her up tomorrow morning and they would go together to see Jerry. Brad didn’t sleep any more that night. The bad news had taken control of his thoughts. Before leaving to pick up Mrs. Goddard, Brad called his supervisor and left the message he would get to work sometime early in the afternoon. After Mrs. Goddard was seated in the front passenger seat with her seat belt on, they both yawned wide-open mouth yawns at the same time. That caused them both to laugh and broke the tension they had been feeling. They drove north almost in silence. Each was deep in personal thoughts, memories mixed with hopes which were quickly drowned with fears. What conversation did take place was mostly Brad trying to encourage Jerry’s mom, “I believe he’ll be all right,” and “I am sure he’ll be all right.” They drove straight to the hospital without any stops. Fairly quickly they made their way to his room located at the far end of the second floor. Hospital smells, smells of sickness and the medicines which were fighting the sicknesses were all about them as they walked quickly to his room and waited for the nurse to invite them in. Jerry lay on his back drugged and not able to talk. The ubiquitous bag of medication hung from the pole on wheels and medicine flowed through the tube and the needle taped to the back of his left hand and into his vein. When his eyes were open he appeared to recognize them and seemed pleased to see them. Jerry’s doctor came into the room ten minutes after they were seated by his bed. The doctor told them Jerry’s right leg was badly broken and they had set it with two small metal rods which would be permanent, but he would certainly walk again and eventually without a limp. The airbag in his car had deployed and probably saved his life. It left the rest of his body badly bruised with some abrasions and small minor burns which were caused by the airbag itself. He could be expected to leave the hospital in about two weeks. The hospital preferred to err on the side of caution and not release him early with any remaining issues, especially head injuries which required time to ensure proper recovery. Brad and Mrs. Goddard were only allowed to remain with him for fifteen minutes that first day, but they left feeling ever so much better knowing he would be home in two weeks. When Brad arrived at work, he arranged to leave early the next two Tuesdays and Thursdays in order to make the long drive up to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, and for longer if Jerry remained in the hospital longer. Over the next two weeks they visited him on those two days. On Saturdays Brad drove alone so he and Jerry could say things they didn’t want Mrs. Goddard to hear. They created a plan to have Brad pick up Jerry when he was released and to drive him somewhere at least one hundred miles away from home so his mother would not interfere with his recovery. After several possible destinations were discussed, Brad chose Piggott, Arkansas, home of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum. He wanted to see the barn where the better part of A Farewell to Arms had been written. Two weeks after the first visit, Brad learned that Jerry was to be released from the hospital at 11 a.m. the following Monday. Back home he finished packing the four suitcases, two for him and two for Jerry. He went over the list several times to reduce the chance something needed would have been left behind. Sunday evening, he went to bed early but found it was difficult to fall asleep while plans for their trip entered and left and reentered his head. His alarm went off before 6 a.m. and when it did, he got up quickly. He dressed, ate breakfast, washed, and put away the dishes, searched his mind for anything he might have forgotten, and locked the front door behind him. The final chore on his to do list was to drop off his house keys with his parents so his sister could pick them up when she arrived in town. On Friday he had stopped at his bank to get enough cash for the trip and to inform them his charge card would now show purchases in Arkansas for the next six months. Driving up the now familiar roads to Oconomowoc he thought about what to say to Jerry and what to avoid saying. He worried about how long Jerry could sit in the car and how long to plan for rest stops. Probably it would be best to let Jerry decide those things. He arrived at the hospital ten minutes before the eleven o’clock release time, parked, and went inside. He waited by the receptionist for more than thirty-five minutes as she kept assuring him Jerry would be there in just a few minutes. He had asked her what her name was and found out it was Becky, but people kept coming by so he couldn’t have much of a conversation with her. He did manage to ask her four times, “Becky, could you find out when Jerry will get here?” Finally, the orderlies arrived pushing Jerry in a wheelchair. They told Brad to pull up to the door and they would help Jerry into the car. Brad hurried to the car, drove up the circular drive and stopped with his front passenger door in line with the hospital door. The sun was shining, the temperature was pleasant, and a soft breeze was detectable. Soon the two orderlies had Jerry out of the wheelchair and in the passenger seat of Brad’s silver-gray two-year-old Volkswagen. It almost seemed like a comedy of errors as they started to put in one leg, backed out and tried to put in two legs, backed out again and managed to put in one leg at a time. They helped him put on his seat belt, put the crutches he would use on the back seat, handed the bag of his personal items to Brad, wished them a safe trip back to Illinois, and quickly vanished behind the hospital double doors. When they could no longer hear him, Brad said, “Goodbye Mr. Hope and Mr. Crosby.” As he walked around the back of the car the realization of what he was doing made him miss a step and he nearly fell flat on his face. Quickly on the heels of that realization came another. No matter what it took out of him, he had to keep Jerry’s spirits up. This was the greatest challenge he had ever faced, but it could also be the most rewarding thing he had ever done. He silently said a quick prayer to the god he wasn’t sure he knew, “God help me succeed and bring my best friend Jerry back to me. You know, the one who loved life and laughed and sang and drank with me.” He climbed into the driver’s seat and bumped his left knee on the steering wheel. “Hey Jeru, did you catch that receptionist?” he asked. Jerry just looked out the window as Brad drove away from the hospital and out into traffic. Slowly a sort of smile came onto Jerry’s recently shaven face. “Is that why you came to see me so often?” “Hell no. Becky was really attractive. The afternoon desk lady looks like J. Edgar Hoover in curls. If Becky had been there, I might have never made it to your room.” Coming to a stop at the first red light, Brad worried about the slight jerking motion and its effect on Jerry. He was just sitting there looking out the window. Brad thought he looked much like the ticket taker at Old Town’s long since closed Wax Museum, lifeless but life like. Normally the drive from Oconomowoc to Piggott, Arkansas could be made in one very long day or two normal driving days, about nine hours driving time, but since Jerry wouldn’t be able to sit for long periods of time and needed extra hours of sleep, Brad decided to take three days and allow time for long rests along the way. He also wanted to avoid the high-speed interstate highway. They would allow two hours for lunch each day and find a motel well before dark each night. Once they were out of town and driving without very much traffic, Jerry asked him, “How much vacation were you able to get?” “Not enough. I decided to ask for a leave of absence for six months.” “I thought your company doesn’t grant leaves.” “Normally they don’t. My boss told me it couldn’t be done. So, I asked him if I should resign to him or to our vice president. He said to talk to the VP. After telling me the company didn’t give leaves, we talked about why I needed it and he surprised me by saying he had heard only good things about my work, and he would make this one exception and give me six months leave. Without pay of course.” “Of course.” “So how do we pay for the B&B in Piggott, gas, meals, and the rest?” Jerry inquired. He seemed more alert and interested now than he had been earlier. “You know I was given some stock by my parents. Each month I bought more shares and each quarter I reinvested the dividends. I just sold thirty shares of 3M and put the money in my checking account. Each quarter I will get additional dividends to replace some of what we have spent. We can almost make it six months on that alone, but I plan to look for a little part-time work after a couple of weeks in Piggott.” “You did all that for me?” Jerry asked after thirty seconds of...