Chapter 5

So ... Wendy, beautiful redheaded ... or would be as soon as it grew back out ... if the damn hospital would quit shaving it ... sanitary reasons ... babe, was leaving. And I have to assume they used the same Health Department regulations to smooth out her red beard ... sanitary.

But she went home ... Windows 95 was released ... and I was really busy studying the manuals while I was waiting on my face ... and dick ... to heal enough to stop scaring babies, small children and the blind.

I got out of the hospital February 14, 1996 ... the day Microsoft released Service Pac 1.

I looked like a million bucks ... I should ... the company insurance spent that much and more making sure I was functional. The plastics doc kept his promise, but I felt like the dog my dad used to sing about.

Where, oh where, has my little dog gone?
Where, oh where, can he be?
With his ears cut short, and his tail cut long,
Oh bring back my doggie to me.

About my dad singing? Gravel in a tin can.

Mom was the one with perfect pitch ... flat.

Six months getting my face rehabilitated had left me with a firm commitment to the proposition that all food is not created equal ... The first building to the left of the hospital property was the most popular Mickey Dees in town.

The drive home was a typical winter drive ... idiots all over the roads. But I made it safely ... I took a cab.

My house was warm, dry and looked after ... had I mentioned the money? I suppose not.

It was my mother's house. She was struck in the pitching wedge on the eighteenth hole by double indemnity lightning ... she had insurance against the possibility. I inherited the house ... and next-door neighbor Doctor ... the cars, the golf cart and the money.

Daddy was lost at sea ... he was still alive ... I heard from him now and again ... but he was out there somewhere ... sailing around the world with an all female crew on his 45 meter Perini Navi ketch. The last I had heard it was New Zealand ... or Australia or maybe Bali ... somewhere in that general direction. The Perini was his third boat.

I haven't seen him in years.

My house was warm, dry and looked after. I thumbed through the mail and moved through to the kitchen. I took a glass from the cabinet, drew a glass of water, turned to sit at the table and there was the watch ... it was still wet.

Still wet.

Wet.

The puddle was a perfect circle around the circumference of the watch. I watched as a drip dropped off the stem ... drop dripped? It was in slow-motion ... d. r. i. p. - f. a. l. l. - s. p. l. a. t. and the peaked splash with the tiny water ball spread out with small ripples to the edge of the puddle. The puddle refused to enlarge.

D. r. i. p. - f. a. l. l. - s. p. l. a. t.

Pause.

D. r. i. p. - f. a. l. l. - s. p. l. a. t.

The shattered gears and twisted balance shafts ... the tiny pieces of crystal scattered in the warped enamel number plate. The cracked ruby bearings...

D. r. i. p. - f. a. l. l. - s. p. l. a. t.

Paws.

Paws?

I sniffed the puddle.

Cat Pee!

TOM was in the house!

Had Tom been in the house since the accident?

Oh God!