Jack unlocked the door and opened it into his condo. Home. It had been a very frustrating day. Hot as hell. He dropped the mail on the hall table and headed for the refrigerator and a cold beer. He was only mildly surprised that there was no beer to be had. Should have gone shopping. Shoulda, coulda. Oh well, grab a quick shower and hit the corner bar. He was ready for a little meaningless chatter with the boys anyway. He stripped as he headed for the shower leaving a trail of clothes behind him on the floor. Wasn’t really littering, just storing them there for later. Yeah, the cleaning lady would pick them up tomorrow. And she would call him a pig. She would tell him the floor was not a storage area. And he would ignore her. She should know if he picked up after himself, she would not have a job. That was the way the game went.
Clad only in his “whitey tighties” as he like to call his Fruit of the Loom briefs he suddenly remembered the mail. He should be hearing from his oncologist about his PSA test last week. Surely it was alright. He felt alright. It had been over a year since he had been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and he was faithfully taken the chemo shot every 3 months. That and the radiation seeds the doctor had planted in his scrotum were surely working. He was sure if he ever got the notion that he could get a hard on. At least he sure hoped so. Just the other day he had felt life down there just thinking about Meg Parker in the shower. Sex had never been a big motivator in his relationships. There were things far more important that brought him back to a woman for a second or third date.
The first and most important thing was that she be pretty. He preferred stunning and he had many of those. A woman must be intelligent and able to carry on a conversation and not become flustered or rude. She must be a lady at all times. There was that one back in St. Louis who had been perfect or so it seemed. He had entertained the idea of her as a wife and then she had done the unthinkable. He and a friend had been out riding the trails on their dirt bikes and were close to Janice’s house. Why not stop in for a cup of coffee. Jack wanted to see what Roger thought of Janice. So they popped in unannounced.
Of course Janice was happy to see him and immediately made coffee. Soon she appeared in the living room with a plate of his favorite cookies and two cups of steaming coffee on a tray which she sat on the table in front of the sofa. Jack and Roger reached for their cups. Jack noticed a bit of coffee on the tray, but what troubled him most was the lack of a saucer. If he picked the cup up off the tray, the bottom would be dripping and it would drip on him. He was not in the mood to be saturated with hot coffee just because Janice was inept at serving coffee properly. He suddenly saw a future before him of a dirty house, cold lumpy gravy, snot nosed kids and probably a hairy dog laying somewhere near where he would want to eat.
He arose briskly and headed for the door leaving a completely confused Janice and Roger staring after him. He had to leave because he suddenly felt like he was choking. Smothering. Dying a lonely old man would be better than compromising all the things he believed in and God help him a saucer and a doily under his cup was nothing short of civility. Mother had not understood at all when he explained that, “No, I will not be marrying Janice. If you are so concerned about her, you go talk to her. I never talked marriage with her so I am clear on this one.”
And mother had. Janice’s mother was her best friend, after all. There had been recriminations and even father had voiced an opinion that dating a girl exclusively for three years usually gave people an idea that more would be coming. So he had left home and taken an apartment in the Gas Light District. After work he would go “clubbing” and weekends were spent antique hunting. He found he had a flair for design and so pursued the free lance design business in his spare time. He took up photography and developed his own film. He loved taking pictures of people being people.
And so he had spent his life. Cleveland, Sacramento, back to St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and now Denver. He had worked in the Post Office, been a draftsman for a plumbing company, an engineer, day labor, dog trainer, and now he was a detective. Analytical mind had gotten him here. And over the years he had come to know that he was dyslectic and had retrained himself in the way he learned things. He knew he could only concentrate on one thing at a time and that was why Meg had upset him so bad. Ah, yes, his mind had come full circle and it was back to Meg.
He found the envelope with the return address of the oncologist. He picked up the letter opener and slit the top. With two fingers he removed the single sheet of paper. It was short and to the point. His PSA was elevated and he needed to come in for a consultation. He dropped the letter in the basket and returned to the shower and his plans for the evening.
