Chapter 14

The universe had its own agenda which it never shared with me. My experience with the universe was that it pushed, shoved and dropped me wherever and whenever my services might be needed and then it arranged for me to die. Stuck in a hospital bed in Orlando, Florida in nineteen eighty-four was novel, but typical of the perverse nature of the universe.

Jane and Cassandra were comforting as I waited out the infection that tormented my damaged lung. Andrea and Janet headed home to Dallas promising to come back soon for a visit. Jane stayed until the tests showed my body had successfully fought off Mother Nature’s amateur attempt to kill me. After I was released from the hospital she headed home.

Cassandra stayed two more nights and we spent them in bed.

When she was finally sated, Cassandra informed me that we wouldn’t be together again because, “You are a drug to me. I cannot lose myself in you anymore. I have to have a life and all I want right now is to be right here with you, and doing exactly what we are doing.”

“I’m going home.”

She was right.

We fit so well together that it was easy to indulge myself in the fantasy that it would last forever. Nothing lasts forever, especially with the life expectancy of someone used by the universe to bend all the rules of time and space. Each of my lives came with an expiration date but I had no idea when, or how death would collect.

Cassandra kissed me after a long, hot shower. We were cleaned up and dressed when she dropped her truth bomb and left in a hurry, without a backward glance. I was alone ... again.

Congratulations...

You are the first runner up...

AGAIN.

A few days later Jim, Millie, Colleen and of all people, Rebecca showed up at my door. “Greetings stranger,” Jim called out as I opened the door and stood there in shock. “We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop by. “Well, I was coming back to Orlando on other business, decided to bring Millie and Colleen, and she wanted us to bring her best friend. Carl meet Rebecca,” he said, putting his arm around her should as he introduced us.

Rebecca was precious. She was shorter than Colleen, a bit stout, or maybe it would be better to describe her as a bit more solid. Rebecca had short hair, an overbite and a windburn. Wherever they’d been, Rebecca had been out in the cool, windy weather for long enough for the effects to show up on her face. She squeezed close to Jim, obviously uncertain about meeting a stranger. Like when seeing Colleen in her grade school days after having such a torrid history together, I was just as surprised to find that I had no physical response when seeing Rebecca again. It must mean that I’m not some sick freak. I loved seeing and speaking with them as children but felt nothing beyond that. Even remembering what we were to each other brought about no reaction from me.

Millie on the other hand...

Shaking off that thought, I held out my hand and said, “Good afternoon Rebecca. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Colleen beamed at her friend. Millie hugged me while I got them out of the cool Florida weather and into my family room where the gas fireplace was entertainment enough for me. The TV was on, showing some cable documentary about the Moon landing. I switched it off to give them my undivided attention. Benjamin stayed right on my feet, keeping Jim in sight at all times, but not seeming to distrust the ladies.

We chatted about nothing of importance until I finally figured out that Jim and Millie wanted to discuss something with but not with the girls under foot, so I got them busy playing fetch with Benjamin, giving us time to talk.

Jim finally got to the point. “Carl, we are so deeply indebted to you for what you did to save Millie from the shooting...” He mulled his next words over carefully as only Jim could do. Time seemed to drag as he wrestled with whatever was on his mind.

Millie saved him from the distress of whatever he was thinking by barging right ahead. “We are ... concerned. We’re concerned about you. When we came to see you in the hospital you were well cared for but there was something so ... oh, I don’t know ... off about the behavior of your family that we ... well ... We were concerned about you. Jim made some subtle inquiries about you and what he was able to discover was ... I don’t know a better word for it, except that what we found out was concerning.”

Jim picked up and bludgeoned ahead. “Carl. You are an orphan. We discovered that quite easily. You were apparently very badly injured in an explosion at the orphanage where you resided. My sources tell me that you were taken to a local hospital where you spent several days in some kind of light coma before awakening. Your injuries were treated successfully and then you were the recipient of an emergency adoption and moved to Texas, with Mrs. Andrea Waters.

“That all sounds rather remarkable, but then you manage to become emancipated, move to a small mansion near Orlando, and save my wife and maybe my daughter, not to mention me from two crazed mass murderers, killing them both in the nick of time.” Jim looked closely to make sure I was listening. There was no way I was going to miss a single syllable of his monologue because there had to be a great big surprise coming, If I knew Jim Bell at all.

“What fourteen year old child saves people from crazed gunmen? Why did you do it? Where did you learn to do the things you had to do to save my Millie? How can I ever thank you enough???” “What you didn’t – couldn’t – know at the time was that the shooters intended to kill me, not the others who happened to be present when the shooting started.”

You could have bought me for a nickel and gotten four cents change. Who could want to kill Jim Bell, the greatest friend I ever had, even if it was thirty years in the future and when I was in another body? Every impulse inside me wanted to demand every single detail, but I cautioned myself to remain still and let the story unfold.

“You see, Carl, my little law firm in Branson, Missouri just happens to have taken on a case involving some truly evil people. These people manufacture and ship VCR cassettes to K-Mart and Wal-Mart, mostly, in the United States from Central America. What nobody much knows is that they pack cocaine inside these videocassettes and have it removed by their partners after the shipments clear customs. It is a neat little scam and would have gone on for decades had my client not been arrested because his videocassette, bought at Wal-Mart, set off a drug-sniffing dog. We followed the trail backwards and were getting too near the truth when the smugglers decided to remove me from the case, permanently.” He let that sink in. I was getting a sinking feeling of my own, thinking about how far those drug kingpins were willing to go to protect the cash cow.

“We’ve had to make some serious alterations in our lives to avoid coming in contact with these cretins, but the danger will be serious almost as long as I’m alive.” Jim smiled to lessen the impact of his words but it didn’t work.

I knew exactly how sick and sadistic those bastards were, and if they were going to hurt Jim, they were going to find out that I would follow them all the way to Hell to make them suffer if they did. The air around turned cold in the family room as I internalized the problem and waited for Jim to get to the point of our meeting. Before he could begin again, I excused myself and sent the fire hydrants out to stay with Colleen and Rebecca while we talked.

“I am afraid that by protecting Millie and saving Colleen and me from those killers, you might be in nearly, if not just as much danger. We are so sorry, son. We had no idea what was coming when I took that case, or I would never have accepted it, investigated it, brought Millie and Colleen to Florida, or dragged you into it, even by accident. I hope you can forgive me, but I also hope you will help me understand more about you, so we can build a credible protection for you.”

He looked so pained at having brought this to my doorstep, but I was having none of it. “Mr. Bell, I am a big boy and perfectly understand how this could happen. I do not hold you responsible and you need not, either. As for my safety, my ... adopted ... family provides security for me here and I will be extra vigilant about where I go and what I do until this passes.”

Jim visibly relaxed and changed the subject. “If you don’t mind, son, tell me why a fourteen year old, adopted orphan, is living alone, in Florida, while his adopted family is a thousand miles away in Texas?”

That was really the heart of the matter for Jim Bell. I knew it the second the words left his lips, he was confused as to how a family could adopt someone, then send them far away without guilt. Jim Bell was many things, honorable and ethical chief among them. Millie was compassionate and maternal in all things. I could easily see why that drove them to distraction.

If it did...

It took me some time to form an answer I could live with. When I was satisfied that I could form an answer to such a probing and personally painful question, I tried to be honest without being detailed. “When I was injured at the orphanage and still in the coma, the doctors were puzzled by my blood chemistry. It took the days to figure out why my body was so out of kilter and when they did they discovered a family in Texas that needed my blood type to help treat their very dangerous condition.

“The doctor told me that people with my blood are hard to find, and that the Waters family were desperate to find a donor who could help them. I had no one at all. There were no living relatives to call and no place to go. Andrea Waters adopted me because she needed me. I wasn’t adopted because I was wanted, or loved. I was adopted because I won the blood chemistry lottery.

“Don’t take that the wrong way. I was and am happy to have been taken in by them. We both needed what the other had in abundance. My blood versus their means made for a very happy match. Once their health condition greatly improved, I wanted to go away and be left alone for the first time in my life. Mr. Bell, I needed to be alone and am very content right here, by myself, living however I wish.

“After my father was killed in the line of duty, life became very dreary at our house. Then my mother was diagnosed with horrendous breast cancer. One day soon after I was basically kidnapped by the state of Iowa and incarcerated in that hellhole.

“Andrea saved me from that. She SAVED me from endless days of being used as a slave by those idiots. They saved me from the worst kind of sadness you can imagine. I was so sad inside that I couldn’t even look in the mirror because I hated being alive, and then Cassandra Waters showed up and took me home with her to Texas, where I discovered what it felt like to be alive for the first time in a very long time...” I ran out of words just as Millie ran out of tissues. Her tears flowed so freely that I jumped up and ran for a fresh box of Kleenex so she could keep up with them.

Jim gripped my shoulder with a manly squeeze and said, “I think I understand where you are coming from, even if I can’t begin to grasp how hard it must have been for you. Carl, I am so sorry for your loss – your losses – and I apologize for making you dredge that all up.”

We talked for a little longer until Jim ushered Millie and the girls out to their car, making me promise to come see them in Branson one day soon. My promise was to come when the weather was warmer. Freezing cold was not my idea of a vacation. The next few weeks dragged as the cold weather I hated moved into Central Florida. Cold in Florida means highs around sixty and lows in the high thirties, to low forties. That was still cold to me and the gas fireplace was my constant friend.

My lung healed and the post-surgery restrictions were lifted, allowing me to work up a sweat and put some tone back into my body. I took to swimming and light lifting at a local health club, in a work out that emphasized flexibility and endurance. The work was hard and rewarding as my body reshaped itself into a much more attractive appearance.