End Vision, page 31
“I think you are perfectly justified to call in sick,” he’d said, “in order to stay and take care of me.”
“I’m the one that needs taken care of,” Deb had replied.
And so they had decided to take care of each other.
It was just as he thought it could be. It made him want to stand perfectly still, just as they were, so as not to slip one way or the other and fall from the top of something so perfect, but something still he felt was sharp and narrow and required a sort of balancing act.
His arms still back, Ramon stared into the bodies that passed by on the sidewalk in large, unbroken groups of numbers, statistics, and images. Ages. Likes. Profiles. Pictures. Check-Ins. Websites and Job Titles. The middle-aged Uber driver double parked the Prius in front of the VerMas Department of Vision, thanked Ramon, and asked Ramon (if he felt like it and if the trip was to his satisfaction) to leave him a good Uber rating and some positive feedback. Ramon was more than happy to do so. The use of his Apps now fed something deep inside of him, something he no longer even knew he wanted or needed but just did subconsciously and with great pleasure.
Ramon entered the building through large glass double doors and walked across the main lobby’s imported Italian marble floor toward the elevator where he’d go up to the 6th floor to see Cara. His hands held steady as he pressed the round white ‘6’ button inside the elevator. He felt calm and confident as the doors shut and the elevator pulled skyward. The elevator doors opened directly into the VerMas Media lobby. A receptionist sat behind a large wooden desk in the lobby’s back center. He approached the woman, stated his business, and was allowed entry into the main offices through a door to the desk’s immediate left.
The VerMas Media office was a hive of movement and energy. Ramon felt it. Employees sat in cubicled rows typing away on laptops. Some reclined in swivel chairs with cell phones pressed firmly to their ears. Ramon stood in the doorway and watched the information flow in and out of the office through invisible threads of data.
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walked past him carrying a stack of folders. She was beautiful. Ramon thought of Andrew having naked pictures of her stored somewhere on his phone. He hoped he hadn’t deleted them.
“Jenni,” Ramon said as she passed.
“Yes?” she replied, obviously unaware of his identity.
“I’m looking for Cara Carson.”
“Oh, yah, um, Cara is right down the hallway. Big office in the back corner. You can’t miss it,” said Jenni looking Ramon up and down. “Do I know you?”
“No,” replied Ramon. “But I know you.”
He walked down the long hallway to Cara’s new corner office and knocked at the door.
“Come in,” Cara said from inside.
Ramon opened the door and entered the room. The office was in a state of remodel. Boxes lay half-empty across the dark wooden floor. Piles of books sat on a loveseat at the back wall. The blinds of the west-facing windows were drawn open, and Ramon could see out to the blue waters of the Pacific as the white-capped waves rolled in from far off shore and broke steadily on the beaches below. Cara sat behind her large desk and smiled.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Needs a little TLC, but it’s coming along.”
Ramon shut the door behind him. “You didn’t waste much time.”
“There are some things, I guess, that are beyond my control.”
“Oh, I think you controlled all that just fine. I think you maybe did too well.”
Cara peered across at him with a smirking little smile. “It’s for the good of everyone involved, and I mean everyone, that it happened like it did.”
“You may be right.”
“I know I’m right. The less people that had to get dragged through the mud, the better.”
Ramon took a seat across from Cara and rocked back and forth in the Italian leather swivel chair. He looked at her and thought of all the details that had been unnecessary, then smiled at Cara, who was all eyes, and nodded knowingly, then said, “I know. You were right.”
“Ramon.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the desktop. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“I don’t feel like I’ve done anything, Cara, honestly.”
“Oh, but you have. You’ve done more for me than you can know, and I don’t have much to say, but I just wanted to thank you in person and let you know that I’m a woman of my word. I have spoken to Dr. Facundo. Even though it will pain him to do so after all he has accomplished with you, he has agreed to uninstall the new updates. Uninstall all the unnecessary programs that we’ve put into you to get you back to normal.”
Ramon placed his hands in his lap and rubbed the tops of his thighs. He gazed out the windows toward the ocean. Then he turned again and locked eyes with Cara. “It’s O.K.,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘it’s O.K.’?”
“I mean I’m leaving it the way it is. I’m not taking it out.”
Cara removed her elbows from the desk and leaned back in her chair. She clasped her fingers and placed them behind her head. Their eyes remained locked. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Now, Ramon,” she said timidly, “I don’t want you to stay involved with something that makes you uncomfortable.”
“You gave me the option. That was enough. The choice I’m making is my own.”
Cara grinned and returned her elbows to the desk. “That will make the doctor very happy.”
Ramon broke eye contact and looked down at his lap. His hands still rubbed his thighs. “I’m not interested in making the doctor happy or sad or mad,” he said. “I’m happy now. For the first time in a long time, I’m happy. And if this is what it takes, it’s what it takes, and I’m O.K. with that.”
“I am glad that you are happy, Ramon. Truly. I know things have been rough. I know things have been stressful for you these past few years. I think you are making the right decision, but the choice was not mine to make.” She paused. “Look at me, Ramon.” Ramon transferred his gaze from his lap back to Cara’s smiling, comforting eyes. “I want you to think not of what you will be losing, but of all the things that you gain from this.”
Ramon nodded.
“There is a life for you out there, Ramon. A good life. A life you deserve to live.”
Ramon nodded and breathed heavily as Cara stared with motherly concern into his dampening eyes.
“Oh, honey,” she said. Rising from her chair, she walked around the table to comfort him. “Come here.”
Ramon stood. Cara took him in her arms. She hugged him tightly. Ramon rested his chipped head on her shoulder. He could smell her hair. She smelled nice. She rubbed her hands across his back and spoke softly into his ear.
“Everything will be alright,” she whispered. “Everything will be just fine.”
“I know,” he said.
“Do you trust me?”
Sunshine filled the office and shone brightly in individual rays. He smiled. He said he did.
“I have a meeting down the hall,” said Cara. She pulled him tight in her grip one last time then released him. She looked again into his eyes. “Would you come with me? There will be some people there I’d like you to meet.”
Ramon agreed that he would. He was hopeful. What other options did he have? What other way could he be?
Victor jumped back on his horse and yelled to Andrew, “You stay here. Do you hear me?” Andrew kneeled next to William, emotionless, in shock. “Andrew. Look at me.” Victor sat on his horse. Andrew looked up. “I’m going to try to get a pickup here. O.K.?”
“Yah. O.K.”
“I need you to stay here. Check on your friend. Stay with the Jefe.” Victor spun the horse southeast and galloped fast across the frozen ground toward the ranch house.
William lay motionless on his left side atop the hard red dirt. Small patches of gilded grasses surrounded him. Candy stood beneath the cottonwoods. She chewed contently on mouthfuls of these same prairie grasses and watched the men with timid eyes. Patrick sat a few feet from William’s body and groaned. He’d awakened, bloody and beat up, but everything seemed to be intact and working. Andrew remained next to William. Too afraid to roll the old man over, he simply stared down at him and watched for any signs of life. His granddad seemed to be breathing. Faintly breathing, but breathing nonetheless. Andrew gathered his courage and placed his hand on William’s shoulder. He rolled him to his back. The old man’s left eye was swollen shut and had turned a dark purple. Andrew gently touched his face. William groaned. He was alive. Andrew exhaled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and burst into tears.
“It’s okay, Granddad. I’m here.” Andrew gathered William’s arms and placed them over his chest like a dead man’s. He looked down and saw his grandfather’s chest move with shallow breaths. “Victor went to get help. I’m here, Granddad. You are O.K. You are alright. Everything will be fine. Victor went to get help.”
William wheezed with each breath.
Patrick coughed and spit in the dirt next to the men. He stood now, his hands on his knees, dried blood caked to his face in a sort of dirty moustache. His white pants were stained red from the land, and his pearl snap turquoise denim shirt had come completely unbuttoned. His exposed skin was dark and dusty, a mix of California suntan and Texas dirt. “What happened?” he asked.
Andrew didn’t answer. He sat cross-legged next to his grandfather, tears falling from his cheeks, and picked up small handfuls of dirt in his hands, squeezed, then dropped the dirt back to the earth. He thought he smelled the sea in the wind. But that couldn’t be so.
Patrick called softly back to Andrew: “Is he dead?” He sat next to Andrew and put his arm around his shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stay on.”
Andrew shook Patrick’s hand from his shoulder and rose. Patrick also stood, and the two faced each other, looking deep into each other’s eyes. Andrew wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his arm and stepped toward Patrick.
“You couldn’t stay on?” he yelled. He pushed Patrick’s chest. “You couldn’t stay on, you fucking asshole?”
“Honey…”
Andrew shoved Patrick once more. “Didn’t I tell you, Pat? Didn’t I fucking tell you not to call me that?” He stepped closer. Patrick stood his ground. “I fucking told you to not call me that. You couldn’t even make it down the goddamn hill, and now he’s gonna die. You wanna come out here and play cowboy? You wanna come out here and play fucking cowboy so you can go back and tell all your friends that you’re a cowboy now? Wear that fucking outfit? Huh? Listen to me!”
Andrew grabbed Patrick by the collar and pulled him close. He scanned Patrick’s face. What he saw in his eyes broke him down. Patrick wasn’t angry. He wasn’t upset. He was hurt. Andrew could see that he was hurting. Not from his comments, but from the fall, yet he stood and looked at Andrew with sorrow, with empathy. Andrew released his collar and began to cry.
Patrick’s arms came tight around him. Andrew gripped him and held on. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not your fault. I saddled the horse. It was my idea that brought us out here in the first place. It’s my fault. Everything.”
“No, Andrew. It’s not,” whispered Patrick. “You didn’t know. How could you have known?”
“I just should have. I should have known. I should have known not to come back. I shouldn’t have gotten drunk last night. I should have been more careful. I should have checked the saddle over after Victor warned me it was loose. Shelly. Ramon. My father. It’s all my fault.”
William coughed.
Andrew released Patrick and knelt down again beside his grandfather. “Granddad,” he said. “Can you hear me?”
“I’ll leave you here,” Patrick said. “I’ll try to get the horses.” He limped away toward the cottonwoods.
“Granddad, it’s me, Andrew.”
The old man breathed heavily. He opened his right eye, the left sealed shut. Andrew noticed the eye was milky white, like the first meeting between black coffee and cream, like an old dog’s. The eye twitched and scanned. The pupil neither dilated nor shrunk. Andrew drew deeply on the cool midmorning air. The pasture was filled with prickly pear and yucca that had shrank and bent with the winter’s cold. He sat and watched the moving shadows roll across the landscape from the clouds above. He saw small round deer droppings among the cacti. He took William’s hand and held it in his.
“Granddad, you’ve been kicked by a horse.”
The old man blinked. Andrew felt him squeeze his hand. The wind bent and rustled the grasses and brought with it the smell of cattle. Andrew squeezed back.
“William,” he said. “You’ve been kicked by a horse. You are O.K. Help is on the way. I need you to hang on.”
William’s lips began mouthing words. Silent words. Andrew leaned down close to listen.
“William. Granddad. Can you hear me? Can you say something?”
He spoke. “Sharron… Sharron… Is that you?”
“No, Granddad,” Andrew replied. “It’s Andrew. Your grandson.”
William smiled. “There you are, sweetie. God, I’ve missed you.”
Andrew sat in the dirt beside the old man and stroked his hand.
“I hear you, William,” he said. “I’m right here with you.”
“Do you remember, darling, driving home after our wedding? I promised you I’d take you to the watermelon fields, didn’t I, in our letters?”
Andrew looked out across the horizon toward his family’s home. He hoped for the sight of dirt rising, a truck, anything. But nothing came. He heard the wind moving across the top of the pasture. It seemed a calm whisper. He closed his eyes. “Can you tell me again?” he asked.
“The day after our wedding. You looked beautiful. We parked the car outside of Houston on that old dirt road next to that watermelon farm. The sun was out and shining. You asked me what I was doing, and I said I told yah we’d stop. I promised I’d take yah on our way back home. Didn’t I, darling?”
“Yes, William.”
“We pulled off there, right at the watermelon fields and ran out into ‘em. A whole field of big, fifteen pounders. And we took two, one for each of us, and I cut ‘em open with my pocket knife, and we laid in that field and stuffed ourselves with that melon.” William coughed.
“I remember. You don’t have to talk now. Don’t talk. You need your strength.”
“That was the first day of the rest of our entire lives. What a day… What a day.” William smiled. He closed his eyes.
A wisp of dust from the southeast moving nearer. Victor came bouncing up the dried creek with the pickup. Andrew released his granddad’s hand and rose. Patrick stood in the cottonwood grove with the horses. The truck bounced violently as it moved across the rough terrain, parking a few yards from William. Victor exited the vehicle.
“How is he?” he asked.
“He’s alive,” said Andrew.
“Let’s get him in the truck.”
Patrick stepped out from the cottonwoods and approached the men. “Hold on,” he said. “We’re not supposed to move him.”
“Says who?” asked Victor. “We got to get him in the truck to get him to a hospital.”
“I called 911. They are sending a helicopter.”
“He’s right,” said Andrew. “Putting him in that truck, across this ground, that’ll kill him.”
“A helicopter? How will they know where to find us? You don’t know this place.”
“I dropped them a pin. They know where we are, and they are on their way. They said not to move him.”
It was settled. They’d wait on the helicopter. Victor looked at his Jefe. Andrew looked, too. His granddad seemed as old as the ground he lay on. Andrew shifted nervously on his boot heels, anxious, waiting for something to do. But there was nothing to do but wait. So he waited.
Andrew came to Victor’s side and spoke, “I think he’s gone blind. I’m pretty sure the kick blinded him.”
Victor nodded. He turned and faced the hill that had done it then turned back and watched the cottonwoods. William’s body lay still at his feet. He bent forward and checked for a pulse. “He’s alive. He opened his eyes?”
He opened the one that’s not swollen shut. It was milky. It looked like a little galaxy was swirling around in there.”
“Ciego.”
“He spoke.”
Victor peered at Andrew. “What did he say?”
“He thought I was Grandma, I think. He said something about eating watermelons.”
Victor laughed out loud and shook his head.
“What’s so funny about that?” asked Andrew.
“I am happy for him.”
“Happy? Why?”
“He never did want to die in that house. He loved it, but he didn’t want to die in there. He got to come here, his favorite place on the ranch. He got to see it. Then he got to be with her. He is a lucky man.”
“He’s not going to die, Victor. He is O.K. He spoke to me.”
“Ya veremos, Andrew. Sometimes it is time for a person to go.”
They stood together and scanned the sky for a chopper, listened for blades cutting wind.
“You know he’s going to be O.K.,” said Andrew.
