Nudge — by Mbeckel
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PROLOG
My name is Robert St. Claire, and I have always been able to move things. I don’t mean that I can walk over and pick up my keys; I mean move things by simply wanting them to move. I haven’t told anyone about this because…well, they would think I was crazy. And even if I could prove to them that this thing is real, and it is not at all clear that I could, they would eventually just explain it away and become uncomfortable around me. Sometimes that happens even without my attempting to explain.
You see I can’t levitate a girl or a car like some stage magician. In fact, I can’t exactly levitate anything at all. What I do is more like boosting something that is already in motion, and it has to be something pretty light – like a feather drifting in the air. I can keep a small one floating pretty much indefinitely. That is, until I wear out, which actually happens pretty fast. This is real though; I know it is. If it’s not, then I am crazy.
Chapter 1
The sun shone brilliantly, a silent promise of sizzling heat that forced any beach goers who were unwise enough to forgo sunglasses to squint. But the promise proved empty as the ocean breeze swept in, so cool that no one stood in the shade of the ancient trees that presided over the La Jolla Shores Park. Still, the park was filled with people. There were locals soaking in the beauty that would disappear for weeks when June’s fog blanketed the sky, making La Jolla arguably the least sunny village in the nation. And there were tourists, speaking French, Japanese and German, clogging the picturesque streets and filling the beaches not yet seized by sea lions as their own.
The endless muted roar of the white-topped waves were broken by the ringing laughter of a small child. The sound, like bells chiming. brought smiles to all within earshot of the little Asian girl waving her arms as the breeze swept flower pedals and leaves in a circle around her head. Like a dust devil made of red and white pedals, the wind swept the flowers close to her grasping hands, a tiny miracle just for her. The spectacle drew the attention of those in the area. The little girl’s mother clapped her hands and urged her husband in rapidly flowing Mandarin to take a picture before the miracle vanished. A group of Brownies nearby pointed and voiced their amazement while a nearby runner, stretching his calves, stared and smiled at the scene.
Soon the petals dropped. The girl continued to smile broadly as she turned her attention to picking up the pedals only to throw them into the air to see if they would dance for her once more. The brownies lined up in twos to march down to the tide pools to investigate the miniature aquariums formed by the retreating tide, and the runner loped away, smiling to himself as his strides lengthened into a ground consuming cadence.
No one could run on the Prospect Street sidewalk given the parade of people strolling along, looking into shop windows, and talking animatedly with family and friends. The runner, walking now to cool down, passed the Union bank with its gleaming silver ATM. The elderly man at the ATM reached for the small stack of twenty dollar bills dropping rapidly into the machine’s cash delivery tray just as the last bill slipped in. The man pulled his hand back, flipping the final twenty into the air just as the ocean breeze gusted, lifting the bill up and away. The man froze, unable to grab for the wildly fluttering twenty without risking the bills clutched in his hand. Just as it seemed that he would risk all to chase the wild twenty, the windblown bill flipped up against the wall and stayed there as though pasted in place, allowing the man to put his hand over it as he stuffed the other bills into his pocket. The man turned and smiled at the young man in the running shorts. “I thought I was going to have to fly up there for a minute.”
Back in his condominium, overlooking the park where he began and ended his run each morning, Rob toweled off thinking about his morning. His head felt a bit tight but he thought that he hadn’t stained himself enough to bring on a headache. Soon the bluesy sound of Rob’s clarinet drifted out his open window and contributed to the ambiance for which La Jolla is famous.
Chapter 2
The door to the club announced its name, the “Lions Share”, and the jazz rolled out with the exited patrons. Inside the bandleader, Ernie Salazar, thanked the remaining faithful, announced last call and turned to his clarinet player with a smile. “Rob, you’ve got at least three ladies out there just waiting for you to say hello. Every night I see you leave here with no one but your stick. It’s like you’re married to that thing.” Pulling a cleaning cloth through his clarinet, Rob hesitated before responding. “I know Ernie, but she never fails to sing for me when I’m blue and I don’t have to pretend to like her parents.” Rob smiled briefly but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t want to alienate Ernie. Ernie was one of his few real friends, but he couldn’t explain even to him that his admitted shyness wasn’t the only reason he largely avoided intimacy. He was afraid that an intimate companion would eventually discover his “talent” and then rationalize it away and him with it. It had happened before, and it hurt too badly to go down that path again.
The air was cool for March as Rob trudged along the street past small islands of yellow light around the artificial gas lamps that lent the area its name. It was a Wednesday and few pedestrians were out this late. Rob was just beginning to imagine unseen muggers when he heard the scream. It was short, cut off too quickly, as though choked off. It was a woman’s scream, high-pitched with tension or fear; and it was close. Rob’s heart was pounding so hard that it seemed he couldn’t hear anything over its beating. He looked around for someone, anyone else to take control of the situation; but he was alone. Just then, he heard a sound like a large piece of meat slapped down on a cutting board; and a groan. It sounded as though it was just around the corner, in the parking garage where his Beetle was parked. Rob, thrust his hand into his coat pocket and tore at the cloth yanking out a small cylinder of pepper spray. “God, I don’t even know how to use this thing.”
Just then he rounded the corner, nearly stepping on the woman, now crumpled on the concrete garage floor, and her assailant who was tearing wildly at her bra while he held her down with his other hand. The man, a boy really though tall and lanky, looked up at Rob just as his efforts were rewarded and he stumbled backwards clutching her bra. Rob hopped to the other side of the fallen woman, almost falling himself, as if he had forgotten how to coordinate two feet simultaneously. He glanced down at the woman whose breasts were dimly visible in the feeble light as she sat up with her hands outstretched as though searching for her stolen undergarment. He raised the pepper spray as he forced his eyes back on the mugger, but the young man was almost on him before he could voice a warning. How had he moved so fast?
Rob felt the mugger’s fist drive into his stomach and the world exploded into pain and nausea. His knees buckled, saving him from the wild roundhouse punch that would have broken his jaw had it connected. Rob struggled to draw a breath, and heard a whimpering sound escape his lips with his exhalation; but no follow-up punch or kick struck him. He staggered to his feet, his pain temporarily blanketed by fear and adrenaline, and saw the woman now standing behind her attacker, chocking him with a long white stick. Rob raised the pepper spray once more and pushed the nozzle releasing a cloud of mist. “Too far, he’s too far!” The cloud hung in the air for a moment, at least a yard away from the struggling pair. Rob stared at the dark shiny cloud of droplets suspended in the air – and “pushed”. The spray, just settling down to the concrete, swept up and directly into the muggers face. He screamed and, jerking in response to the pain as the spray clung to his face and eyes, knocked the woman down once more. This time, however, he did not pursue her; he lurched and sprinted away into the darkness, cursing in a mix of English and Spanish.
Rob sunk back down to the garage floor, the pain in his stomach remembered, and struck his head as he retched bile, bitter and burning, onto the concrete. After a moment, he heard tapping, like a child building a birdhouse far away; the sound small but rapid and insistent. Then the woman was beside him, holding his head in her lap. “Are you OK? I hear you breathing, are you conscious? Please, are you OK?”
“Robert, do you hear me Robert? Mr. Saint Claire, wake up now.” Rob heard the voice and felt the gently restraining hand on his shoulder suddenly pinch painfully and then release. Rob startled into full wakefulness, his eyes focused on the face of a cop, a police officer – Rob silently censored himself; a lined black face with graying hair but clear brown eyes. “Yes, yes I hear you. Where is my clarinet?” Rob tried to sit up. He was still lying on the cold concrete garage floor; but the officer gently restrained him. Rob took in the changes that had occurred while he was elsewhere. The garage was alight from spotlights on the back of a fire department van. The darkness beyond strobed continuously with alternating blue and red bands from the emergency vehicles that ringed about him. The woman was sitting in the van speaking to blue gloved EMTs. Rob realized that he wouldn’t have known her if they had passed on the street. Only her curly hair and her presence in the van told him that it was she with whom he had shared the trauma of attack and the exhilaration of survival. She was not so much pretty as handsome, her jaw a bit too strong to satisfy current trends in beauty. Suddenly she turned her face – filled with concern - as though to look at him; but she did not see him. Rob saw now the red tipped white cane and the unfocused, slightly glazed look of her eyes and realized that she was blind.
“Here you go Mr. Saint Claire.” The officer, John Costly, Rob noted from the plastic name badge pinned to his uniform shirt, handed him his clarinet case. Rob sat up slowly and opened it, noting that all was well with his oldest friend, then closed it again just as the officer stood offering him his hand. Rob stood, then leaned against the large uniformed frame as his equilibrium failed and dizziness swept over him momentarily. “You probably hit your head when you fell, but the EMTs said that there’s no lump so you probably don’t have a concussion. Let’s get you to my patrol car and you can rest.” Officer Costly led Rob to the open passenger side door of his black and white, and supported him as he sat down sideways on the seat, his legs remaining outside so that he could survey the scene. Costly left and returned with a plastic cup filled with water. “Here, this will help. How do you feel?” Rob took stock. His head hurt a bit but he was used to that; the aching pain in his stomach though, that was new and still hurt like hell. Somehow he didn’t want to seem like a wimp to the large black man standing beside him. “I’m OK, just a little shaken up. Is she OK?” Costly glanced toward the van. “Yea she’ll be fine. She took a punch to the head and they’re going to take her to Mercy to be sure that there’s nothing else, but she’s OK. From what she tells me, that’s mostly because of you. Can you tell me what happened? She’s a nice lady and all, but not the best witness if you get my drift.” Costly pulled a notebook from his hip pocket and flipped it open.
Rob recounted exactly what had happened, leaving out only the moment when it seemed that the pepper spray would fail. When he was done, Officer Costly gave him his card and asked that he make himself available to review photos of the local criminal element. Rob was surprised to discover that this citizen responsibility was no longer “downtown” but was performed over the Internet on a secure website. “Mr. Saint Claire, you did a righteous thing tonight. I am proud to have met you.” Costly stuck out his hand. Rob’s hand nearly disappeared in the larger man’s hand as they shook hands, and Rob realized that this event was over. It was time to get in his car and drive home, as though nothing unusual had happened. Rob glanced around and noted that all of the emergency vehicles had left except Costly’s patrol car and the EMT van - which was idling with doors closed. Just as he looked around once more at the dimly lit corner where he could have died, a young Hispanic EMT approached him and handed him a folded piece of paper. “We’re taking Ms. Cohen to Mercy for observation, but she wanted me to give you this.” With that and a quick nod, the young man jogged back to the van, closed the driver’s door and drove away.
Rob glanced at the folded paper and saw that it was a note. Feeling uncomfortably aware that Officer Costly was waiting for him to leave, Rob stuck the note into his torn pocket and walked to his car as briskly as his battered condition would allow. As he left the parking garage, he looked around for Costly’s cruiser, but saw no headlights other than his own.
Once at home, the door securely locked and a glass of Jack Daniels in hand, Rob unfolded the note. The block printing was large and slightly angled, but clear and legible. “Thank you. They told me that you are not injured. I am OK too. I can never repay you for your courage. They won’t tell me your name so I am giving you mine. Please call.” It was signed in the same block letters, “Jennifer Cohen” and it listed her phone number beneath. Rob flashed on the image of Jennifer Cohen, her hands as white as the cane with which she held her attacker, choking the would-be rapist to pull him away. He suddenly realized that he had been feeling somewhat uncomfortable, as though he was the one that had done something foolish or shameful. Her note and her courage made him realize that he had done something valuable, even brave; and that they had both been very fortunate to escape the attack unscathed.
Chapter 3
The phone rang only once before it was answered. “Yes Mom, I’m fine and yes I know I shouldn’t have gone downstairs late at night unescorted.” The voice was contrite but edged with frustration. “Ms. Cohen? My name is Rob …from last night. I mean, I am the guy you gave your number to.” Rob stuttered to a stop thinking “God, I sound like an idiot.” “Oh, hi; I’m sorry, I left a message for my mother this morning and thought that you were... Rob is it? Rob, I am so grateful to you for coming to my rescue like that. Are you really OK? You were so quiet, I was afraid even though I heard you breathing. I thought he might have hit you with something. Oh God, I’m just rambling! I am sorry.” Rob laughed quietly to himself. “Yes, I’m fine. And please don’t apologize. You saved me as well, you know. He had me until you pulled him off with your cane. You were very brave.” The call went on much longer than Rob had expected. He surprised himself by asking Jennifer to meet for a celebratory drink, and was even more surprised by the pleasure that he felt when she agreed.
“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s OK; but what were you doing alone in a parking garage after midnight?” Rob and Jennifer were ensconced comfortably at a corner table at the Lions Share. They had already acknowledged each other’s bravery and moral character, had confirmed that they had no close acquaintances in common, and had studiously avoided discussing blindness over the first round of drinks. “Well, it was foolish in hindsight. I live in the building next door to the parking garage in a small overpriced apartment, and part of the deal is that we each get a small enclosed storage space on the ground floor of the garage. I was on my way to my storage space to get some reference materials. It’s easy to forget the time. It is always half past dark to me.” Rob had never really known anyone who was blind, but he realized that he was very interested in getting to know this someone a great deal more.
They chatted, and then had dinner served up from the Lions Share grill. They were still talking comfortably when Ernie strolled in from the street and did an almost comic double take as he took in Rob and Jennifer laughing quietly and leaning close to one another. Ernie glanced up at the bartender, who smiled and gave him a discrete thumbs-up. Rob glanced around, just missing the silent communication, and waved Ernie over. “Ernie Salazar, this is Jennifer Cohen. Ernie is my boss – keyboard genius and leader of the “Saint James Quintet”. After another round of sincere greeting ritual complete with another round of drinks, Ernie excused himself to begin the sound check for the Friday night show. Rob followed, after Jennifer’s admonition that his “boss” was working and her assurance that she would stay for the show.
The Saint James Quintet played the Lions Share every Wednesday through Saturday night. Jennifer rarely missed a performance after that first Friday night gig, and when she did, Rob found that the music was not quite enough to overcome his sense that something important was missing. Within a month, they were definitely a couple. By the time June’s gloom had lifted from La Jolla’s shore, they were definitely something more.
Chapter 4
“Happy Birthday!” The small crowd around the corner booth cheered as Scott, the Lions Share’s bartender, set a small cake in front of Rob and Jennifer with a flourish. Rob’s face, radiating equal parts of joy and embarrassment, broke into a broad honest grin as he read the message in the icing; “Happy 30th We Love You!” At the shouted urging from the smiling group, Rob leaned over and blew out the single candle. “Thank you all. I haven’t had a birthday cake in years. I can’t imagine who put you up to this.” The small crowd exploded with laughter as Rob swept his arms around Jennifer drawing her into a kiss, simultaneously giving a lie to his declaration and revealing the change that his relationship with Jennifer had wrought in his painfully shy demeanor.
As his well-wishers drifted away, Jennifer turned to Rob with a small neatly wrapped box. “What is this? You already gave me the great CD set.” Jennifer leaned close and whispered “I know, this is something else that I want you to have, but I didn’t want to give it to you until we were alone. If you don’t want it, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable telling me.” Rob’s face became serious as he unwrapped the small gift – it was a shiny new key. “Rob, you spend so much time at my place that I thought you should have your own key. Is that OK?” Jennifer’s hands gently fluttered over Rob’s jaw, reading his reaction. Rob smiled and kissed her again. “Yes, I think that it’s more than OK. Jen, I love you.” Those three words, unspoken until that moment, surprised Rob as much as Jennifer. They drew into one another again as the noise and merriment in the Lions Share rolled about them.
The next day, over coffee on Rob’s La Jolla balcony, Jennifer pulled her borrowed robe about her and spoke quietly to the horizon, though her words left no doubt that Rob was their intended recipient. “I was happy once before. I was the youngest pediatric surgeon granted O.R. access at Mercy. My life was all about personal success. I had money, authority and a lifetime of professional advancement in front of me. Then I started to lose my vision – idiopathic macular degeneration – which just means no one could tell me why my life was disappearing with my vision.” Rob stood at the rail, frozen in place listening to the echo of pain in Jennifer’s voice. “For years now I have lived in a cocoon; a comfortable isolation. I’ve translated the medical and scientific works of others into Braille; works that under different circumstances I might have written. I worked mostly in the quiet of the night and spent most days sleeping and listening to the books on CD that my mother brought me when we would venture all of the way to the “Broken Egg” for my weekly outing. It was like being in prison, but in its way comfortable and dependable. Days passed into years and I didn’t lose my mind or turn to drugs to hide from my depression.”
Jennifer stood, automatically sweeping up her cane as she walked unerringly to Rob’s side and tucked her body into his. “Then I was attacked, and we saved each other; and suddenly you were in my life. Rob I am happy again. I wake each day filled with enthusiasm and when I think of what I lost, it’s an old pain – almost like it happened to someone else close to me. I love you, and I love my life with you, and I am terrified of losing it.” Rob drew her close and began to whisper words of assurance, but Jennifer stopped him, placing her hand over his lips. “No, please. There is so much that we haven’t said. I didn’t want to spoil it in some way, but now I need to know more and I need you to know about me. I need to know that we have a chance to hold onto this love, this joy. Please, is it OK? Tell me straight. We’ve both been silent about parts of our lives. Can we be open with one another?”
Rob closed his eyes and held Jennifer tightly, feeling emptiness as though his soul had drained from him. He fought for clear thought, but realized with a shock that he was afraid, terrified just as she had said, at the thought of life without her. Jennifer waited, as though she recognized that Rob was struggling with unfamiliar introspection and self-awareness; struggling to provide her with an honest answer to a question that he had not allowed himself to consider until just that moment.
“I will try. Jen, there are things about me. I mean, not terrible things, but things that I don’t …share. I don’t want to lose you. Help me not lose you. What do you want me to say?”
“Well, to start with, how does a clarinet player afford to live in a beach front La Jolla condo? You told me that your mother still lives outside of Stockton and that your dad had a cleaning business until his death. It doesn’t seem like that would set you up with this kind of money. These trips where you’re gone once or twice a month; you’re not really visiting your mother are you?”
“I do visit my Mom. But yeah, I have a kind of second job. It’s not something that I would want my friends to know about, but it pays the bills without taking up too much time.” Rob felt Jennifer’s body tighten and she pulled away slightly. “Rob, is it something illegal?”
“No! No, nothing like … Jen, this is me. No, it’s just gaming, you know at Casinos.” Jennifer looked up sharply as though she could read Rob’s face though her blindness. “You gamble, and you make money. You make enough money to pay for this place. You’re a professional gambler … you.”
Rob could read the confusion on her face as disbelief struggled with something else – desire to believe? “Yeah, I go once or sometimes twice a month to various casinos – mostly the local Indian ones but sometimes Reno or Tahoe. It’s not as much fun as it sounds, but it’s not illegal, I mean lots of people gamble.”
Jennifer was silent for a time, as though listening to the surf and seagulls, then she snuggled back into Rob’s embrace. “OK. Take me with you. Let’s go today and get some money from a casino.” Rob seemed about to object, to point out that he was playing tonight at the club. Then he nodded, and realizing that she could not see his acquiescence he spoke his acceptance aloud. “Just a quick trip for a thousand or so, OK? I’ll need to rest before playing tonight.”
The air was redolent with cigarette smoke and the slight ozone smell of recycled refrigerated air, and filled with the rings and buzzes that announced each slot machine pay-off. Rob stood at the side of a roulette table, eyes focused on the wheel. Behind him, Jennifer stood quietly, touching his back while in front of him a sizable stack of chips identified him as a player. He was winning, but not quickly. He had been at the table for well over two hours – betting red or black, nothing fancy. Still, the steadily growing cache of black chips had captured the attention of the roving pit boss. Recognizing the signs, the meaningful glances between the current stickman and the boss; Rob put two hundred on seventeen red to see it swept away by the stickman. It was time to go.
After cashing in, Rob led Jennifer to the High Sierra bar. Done in western motif and as far from the ubiquitous slot machine clamor as one could get in Viejas; it was his usual watering hole. The drinks were reasonable and always contained the heavy pour that usually meant that the bartender was your friend, but in the casino simply meant that drunks gamble longer than sober patrons. Jennifer had excused herself to the restroom, having proved her patience while Rob had proved his point. As Rob popped a couple of Advils with his Jack Daniels, a white haired gentleman in an expensive dark suit sat down on the adjacent bar stool, turned to him and smiled.
“Hi Rob, I see that you’ve stared yourself into a headache again. Does that mean that you cleaned us out?” Rob’s mouth quirked into the beginnings of a smile that disappeared just as quickly. “Smitty, I am pretty sure that know to the dollar what an insignificant dent I managed to put in the mountain of cash that will flow into your coffers tonight. And yes, I have a headache but I believe that it has more to do with the quality of your air conditioning than any ogling of your cocktail girls.”
“You never ogle the girls, and you don’t drink while you gamble, and you don’t ever play cards, and you never lose. What you do is stare and win – at roulette, or sometimes at craps or the wheel. I don’t know if you are praying, calculating the momentum, or doing some psychic voodoo. Frankly, I don’t care. You’re damn sure not cheating and you never win real big. Hell, you’re absolutely right, we made ten times the amount you won this evening while you were waiting on your drink. You interest me Rob. You are welcome to come in here as long as you stay far enough under the radar that no one in a nicer suit than mine pays any attention to you. Do we understand one another?”
Rob finished his drink and looked at the casino security chief in the mirror behind the bar. Then he just nodded and rose to leave. Able Smith rose with him and smiled again. “I like you Rob. You give me something to ponder on.” Rob excused himself with another nod and left the bar, intercepting Jennifer just as she came out of the restroom. “Rob, I thought we were going to have a drink.”
“I had one. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go. I have a headache and the atmosphere in here is making it worse.” As they strolled out of the casino, Rob could feel the electronic eyes of Able Smith recording their passage.