“Why didn’t ya’ say somethin’ earlier?”
“Things got a little crazy, if you recall.”
A few seconds later I heard a soft rattle, and his large hand appeared in front of me, holding a generic brand bottle of the pain reliever that had apparently been stashed in his jacket pocket all along.
“Thank the Gods,” I mumbled as I took it from him and immediately twisted off the cap.
“Rowan, you really shouldn’t…” Felicity began to object.
Before she could complete the sentence I had already swallowed something on the order of a half dozen of the white pills, dry. After choking them down and gagging on the bitterness at the back of my throat, I held the bottle back out to Ben and said to her, “You can yell at me later.”
“You know those aren’t going to help matters if you start bleeding again,” she admonished. “Aspirin is a blood thinner.”
“So I’ve heard,” I replied. The recollection of having chronically overdosed on the analgesic some months back for a very similar reason was still fresh in my mind, so I knew the risks all too well. I sighed then added, “I know it’s dangerous, honey. But, right now I need to be able to see straight, or we aren’t going to get anywhere with this.”
“I understand,” she replied softly. “No bleeding then, okay?”
“Okay. No bleeding.” We both knew there was no way I could guarantee such a thing, but if it made her feel better to hear it, then I was good with making the empty promise.
“So, whadda we do now?” Ben asked. “Just stand here like the stooges or somethin’?”
“Aye, give me the salt and stand over here next to me,” Felicity said, motioning to him.
“Since you’re givin’ orders I take it you’re Moe,” he replied with a small laugh in his voice.
“Just give me the damn salt and quit being a comedian,” she countered.
“Hey, chill out. It’s been one of those days, ya’know,” Ben said as he hefted the bags toward her. “It’s just a little humor. It’s how I cope with this shit.”
Felicity took the weighty bags from him with much less ease than he had displayed when he held them out to her. As she settled them to the ground she muttered, “ Umpaidh.”
Fortunately, Ben didn’t appear to catch the Gaelic insult, not that he would have understood it if he had. At any rate, while over the years I had personally come to understand his use of humor at somewhat inappropriate moments as a safety valve for the stress, we really did need to get on with things. And, in this particular case another round of bickering between the two of them, no matter how good-natured, simply wasn’t on the short list.
My wife fished out two containers of salt and handed one of them to him as she said, “Just open them and keep them coming when I tell you.”
“Do you want me to help?” I asked.
“No, I want you to concentrate on staying grounded,” she instructed me in no uncertain terms. “We can handle this part.”
Then, breaking the seal with her fingernail, Felicity flipped up the metal spout on the top of the carton, then knelt and began to draw a thick line on the asphalt with the contents. As soon as the container was empty, she handed it to Ben and took the fresh replacement from him. After a minute or so, she had scribed almost two-thirds of a wide circle around the three of us.
Just as she was taking a newly opened carton from Ben, one of the cops on the perimeter called out, “You want some pepper to go with that?”
Even with the road noise, there was no missing the burst of chuckles that skipped through the group. Felicity paused for a second, shook her head slightly as she muttered something unintelligible, and then continued on with her task.
“I’ll be right back,” Ben grunted.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “They just don’t understand.”
“I ain’t worried,” he replied. “And, I’m gonna make ‘em understand.” With that he turned and strode away in the direction of the cop who’d made the comment.
“Just ignore them, Ben,” my wife instructed, but she was too late. With his long stride he was already a quarter of the way to the boundary tape and didn’t hear her. Of course, even if he had he wouldn’t have listened. I could tell he was on a mission; I’d seen the look before.
I watched on as he gestured in our direction and engaged the officer in what appeared to be a deeply earnest conversation. At one point he held his right hand over his heart for a second then held it up palm outward as if taking an oath. A minute or two later he was purposefully striding back toward us. Looking past him I could see that the cop he had just spoken to was staring at my wife with a quizzical and maybe even slightly fearful expression in his eyes.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” Ben said as he reached down into one of the bags then withdrew a container of salt and broke the seal. “You ready for another one yet?”
“What did you just say to him?” Felicity looked up and asked.
“I just gave ‘im some friendly advice.”
“Did you threaten him?”
“Not exactly.”
“What then?” she pressed.
“Don’t worry, nothin’ bad… Well, not too bad I don’t guess… I just told ‘im that one time I saw you do some kinda evil eye thing on a copper I worked with who was givin’ ya’ shit. Then the next day all his hair fell out real sudden like,” he replied in a low voice. “And, I made sure he understood I meant all of it fell out.”
“You didn’t…” she replied.
He gave her a half shrug. “Yeah, well, actually I did. I mean, I didn’t figure he’d believe the turnin’ ‘im into a cockroach bullshit ya’ threatened me with, so I hadda tell him something.”
My wife shook her head as she gave him an empty carton then took the new one out of his hand. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Yeah, I know,” he grunted. “But I’m bettin’ that copper would piss himself if you leaned over and gave ‘im the look.”
“The look?”
“Ya’know… The one ya’ always use when you’re pissed at me.”
“Oh. That look,” she said in a flat tone. “Maybe some other time. I’m almost finished and we have more important things to do. How much salt do we have left?”
“Another whole bag,” he replied. “Looks like ten… maybe twelve containers.”
“Good, that’s more than enough,” she announced as she bent back down and continued scribing the salt circle on the parking lot. “This should be the last one I need for the moment.”
“Then what?” Ben asked.
“Then you get your wish,” she told him.
“What wish?”
“As you put it, I say a poem.”
“Yeah,” he replied, starting to nod. “See, I knew I was…”
Felicity cut him off quickly, “Don’t push me, Ben. I’ll still hurt you.”
“Yeah, I keep forgettin’ that’s your thing.”
She stood up and handed him the empty salt container. “Yes, but since we’ve seen that you don’t take pain all that well, it probably wouldn’t be much fun for me.”
He snorted out a light chuckle. “So that’d mean I’m safe.”
“Oh no,” she told him. “I’ll do it just for spite.”
“Jeez… You’re a friggin’ piece of work.” He shook his head then diverted the topic by glancing around at the circle. “Wait a sec, I think ya’ missed a spot. Don’tcha need to fill this in over here?” he asked as he pointed toward a void in the salt that measured almost three feet in width on the side nearest the car.
“No,” Felicity replied as she turned slowly in place while surveying the circle herself. “That would be the door.”
“The door?”
“Aye.”
