Calling Mr. Nelson Pugh Read online

  TEN

  The cell phone’s ring trumpeted from the main room. I knew that it was no louder now than at any time before, and yet, each and every ring seemed impossibly amplified.

  That ringing signaled call number four now and number five if you counted the missed call while I had been in flight. Moreover, it was the second call in just a few minutes. Eleanor knew how my nerves plagued me after a flight. She might call once or twice on the off chance that I could break from my usual nerve-soaked reverie, three times on a rare occasion, but four times… five? I always called her back once I managed to calm myself down. This many calls signified a level of persistence reserved for emergencies.

  Suddenly the fear rushed in, a fear that only family can bring. My stomach lurched with a rising nausea. Was it one of the kids? Had something happened to Erica or Marie? God forbid, was it Elly? She could have been lying in a ditch somewhere, alone and in pain, reaching out to her pitiful excuse of a husband – a husband that would not answer.

  As my imagination wandered, I could see her stranded and injured, lying helpless thrown from her car by a late-night auto accident. I saw her discarded in the muck at the side of a deserted country road – one of many in the wilderness of the rural Carolinas. She could lie there for hours before anyone found her, pinned and bleeding out beneath the wreckage. Why was this the place that my thoughts went? Always to the worst-case scenario.

  I had to stem the tide of panic before it took over completely. I could feel it throbbing in my gut. My knees wavered, and my fingers tightened on the bathroom door frame, my knuckles whitening with the strain. My entire body tensed as the morbid scene laid itself before me.

  Soon the anxiety would claim its victory. The travel had aggravated my nerves and now with that panic seizing hold I found myself jumping to absurd conclusions. Reason, however, did nothing to abate my fears. I needed to hear her voice. I needed to speak with Elly.

  I stumbled out from the bathroom and toward my cell phone, yet each step seemed incalculably slowed, as if time had expanded, each moment lengthening and echoing amplified inversely to its slowed progression. With each footfall new images flashed through my head and blotted out all reason.

  Erica hospitalized with a broken arm after an accident during her evening softball game. Her mother pacing across the hospital linoleum agitated as she placed repeated and unanswered calls to her husband. I could deal with her anger. I hated confrontation, but at least with this scenario there remained a possibility of a happy resolution. Broken bones and marriages could both be mended.

  Other visions proved less forgiving.

  Marie – young, smiling Marie – chasing her Labrador puppy Lilo out into the road. Elly and Erica picnicking on the front lawn, then turning and spotting Marie too late. Tires squealing as a truck veered to avoid the dog only to collide with our daughter instead. Eleanor shrieking from the roadside.

  I pressed my open palms into my eyes, blotting out the vision. The mental channel changed.

  Flames flooded up. The house on fire and my entire family caught inside. They pounded upon the glass of an upstairs window, but they could not get out. Silhouetted by the flames and shrouded in smoke, they vanished from sight, even as their pleas for help continued to echo out through the haze.

  All logic had been left behind. I knew this, rationally I did, but emotionally that knowledge meant nothing. If Elly and our daughters had died in a fire, there would have been no one left to call me… no one except for emergency services perhaps – a doctor calling to relay the bad news. I laughed. Bad news? Those simple words did nothing to capture the utter devastation and tragedy conceived within the flipping mental channels playing out before me.

  Still, what if it had been a doctor? I realized then that I had not checked to see who had been calling me. I had assumed that it was Eleanor simply because normally it would have been her, but it could have been anyone. Well, it could have been anyone filled with enough urgency to place a near midnight phone call.

  My own neuroses had led me to ignore each ring and then those same neuroses had dredged up increasingly improbable disaster scenarios. I needed to check my messages right then. At that point only Elly’s voice had any chance to calm me and bring me back to reality.

  At long last I stood over the phone. Time returned to its normal flow, and I stooped down to check my messages, steadying myself with one hand on the nightstand. The stand creaked under the pressure of my weight. My whole body trembled, and my breaths came short and rapid – panicked. Soon I would be hyperventilating. The throbbing from my gut had now spread to my chest and an all too familiar ache stole over my left side.

  “Take a deep breath and count backwards from ten, Nelson. When you come to zero, take another deep breath. Then, if necessary, repeat.”

  I could hear Dr. Smith, the always-boring Dr. Smith, trying to calm me as he had so many times. As usual his advice held weight. Slowly and steadily I heard his voice leading me through the exercise.

  “Breathe In. Breath Out. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Breathe In. Breathe Out. Repeat.”

  I dropped to the floor on the verge of a major panic attack. I couldn’t do this again. I couldn’t put Elly and the kids through another one of my episodes. I had to listen to the loathsome doctor. I rocked myself into a sitting position against the wall, breathed in as deeply as I could, then slowly exhaled.

  Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Oh, to hell with it! I needed to talk to her right then. No waiting!

  I grabbed the phone clutching it madly, my breathing still rapid. No, this wouldn’t do. Not at all. I couldn’t let Eleanor hear me this way. I had to be better than this. If she knew the extremes of my madness, then she would surely leave me. What woman in their right mind would raise a family with a man like me? I had to calm myself before calling.

  I breathed in again. Slowly. Then out. Slower still. I began to count. Ten. Nine. Eight.

  I had spent many nights like this – if not exactly like this. After a long day at the office I would circle the neighborhood ready to see my family, yet equally afraid that they would see me for my true self: a failed husband and father at the slippery border between neurotic and insane. Eventually, after ten to twenty minutes, I would give up and turn into the parking lot at Durant Nature Park. There I would get out and stare over the lake and the woods and I would run through this same exercise – over and over until eventually all panic subsided. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count down from ten. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

  Then I would go home to my beautiful wife and my beautiful kids and I would wonder at how lucky I was to have my life. There was a song about this. I was sure of it, but I never really understood music. Most songs ended up being nothing more than background to my mania and were soon forgotten. My thoughts were wandering again.

  Six. Five. Four.

  The last time I had made such a trip, stopping at Durant Nature Park to calm my roiling mind, the attempt had been less than ideal.

  ***

  The sun hadn’t quite begun to set, but evening rapidly approached. My nerves ran rampant that evening, and like so many evenings before that night, I had found myself unable to pull into the drive, instead making my way to the park. I had entered through the south entrance, hiking past Campbell Lodge and up the hill to the lakeside path.

  The serene waters played out before me, still and calming in strong counterpoint to the constant fidgeting of my fingers. One hand played at a shirt cuff, twirling around a loose button, likely loosened from many such previous encounters.

  The day had been no more stressful than any other, not in any outward way; yet my anxiety had ratcheted up to severe levels. Disaster scenarios played out in a constant loop in the theater of my mind: from heated office exchanges with coworkers to various scenarios that found me fired and jobless, to minor confrontations with Eleanor all the way to her packing her bags and filing for divorce.

  I needed the peace of nature, of a gentle Carol
ina breeze across the lake and through the pines. Restraining myself from further fidgeting, I sought out the closest bench only to find it already occupied.

  That’s okay, I thought in what was an unusually rational outlook for my then state of mind. I can find another.

  So, to that end I proceeded up the trail seeking out the next bench on, which I could tell remained empty for the moment. I had homed in on this bench with such laser focus, however, that it wasn’t until I was a few feet from the first bench that I realized I knew its occupant: Stan Meyers.

  Of course, this occurred nearly a year after I had ridden an inspired wave of debate with my employer all the way to shore, securing my job and costing Stan his. The last time I had seen him, Stan had been clearing out his desk.

  Immediately a new barrage of scenarios lashed out, falling upon me with near unbearable force. Stan pressed almost face-to-face with me, yelling right at me, spittle flying as his angry jowls writhed with the volume of his anger. Stan breaking down in tears, his hand held out begging for change. Stan rising, and with one punch to my face, cold cocking me, sending me falling back, my head jolting and bouncing off the cement pathway with a reverberating crack.

  Not surprisingly, none of these things happened.

  As I passed, we locked eyes momentarily. A sadness hid there, behind his eyes, deep and resolute. He glanced down briefly to a flask in his hand, then back up to me, shifting the flask into his pocket. I suppose he had been attempting to hide his shame, and yet that momentary pause had only served to call it out.

  I couldn’t blame him for drinking. He’d lost almost everything since the axe had come down. Around the office his name was still spoken in a hushed whisper, the same hush with which so many names were uttered since the economy had collapsed.

  As he shifted his hands back to his lap and averted his gaze one last time, the pale line encircling his ring finger where a ring should have been was not lost on me. Here set a study in worst case scenarios, scenarios that had been destined for me. We both knew it, and so, matching Stan’s gesture, I too averted my gaze and continued on.

  No words were spoken. The silence stretched out with every footfall between us. I kept on past the next bench. I would not sit and stare out over the lake that night. Instead I continued on down the path around the lake, the image of Stan, my former friend, sitting in silent loss upon that bench forever imprinted upon me.

  As I walked that circle through the woods and around the waters from which I had sought solace, at times a twig would snap or leaves would rustle behind me, and I found myself wondering if Stan were there. Had he followed me? And if so, what would he do if he caught up to me?

  In the end, I returned to the south entrance and made my way home. I never did see if Stan still sat upon that bench. I had been too nervous to look.

  ***

  Two. One. Breathe out.

  I was back in the hotel room. The panic hadn’t left, and yet even so, despite the unsettling paths of my meandering thoughts, the anxiety had become bearable. The ache in my chest had even diminished. My rational mind had regained the upper hand: my family was fine. I knew that I should check my messages, and that, when I did, I would see that all of my panic had been for nothing, just as it had been that night at the lake. There was no reason to worry. No reason at all.

  NINE

  Calmly, I lessened my grip on the phone, turned it over, and looked at the screen.

  4 Missed Calls.

  The first call had been placed while I was on the plane. The phone had been turned off, so it did not register as missed, but a message had been left, so I knew that there had been a call.

  Below that message, another read out:

  Voicemail.

  I tapped one finger against the nightstand as I clicked through the passcodes unlocking my phone and proceeded to the recent calls.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Three of the registered calls read ‘Eleanor.’ The first from 11:16 p.m., the second from 11:32 p.m., and the third from 11:40 p.m. The fourth call read ‘Home’ and displayed a time of 11:42 p.m. Home? We never used the home line. Back when we had it installed everyone still had a landline and cell phones had still meant emergency car phones. They had been big, bulky, and far from portable at that point. Now, however, cell phones had become miniscule and had taken over, while house phones had become antiquated, kept out of tradition and little more. Why would Eleanor have been calling from home?

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  And what about that first call? I had landed just after eleven p.m. and turned on my phone only a few minutes thereafter. The call had to have been placed before 11:10 p.m. at the latest. Yet I had no way to know for sure what time the call had come in.

  Tap. Tap.

  I swiped over to the voicemail tab. There were six voicemails: five from Eleanor and one from home. She had left a voicemail with each call. Each. Call. Each of six calls. She had called twice while I had been on the plane.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I couldn’t stop drumming my fingers. My hand had a life of its own, tapping out my nerves on the lacquer of the nightstand. I had to calm myself before I called home. Screw that. Calming myself would have to wait. Six calls. Six voicemails. Something was wrong.

  I played the first message. The digital voice service informed me that it had been left at 8:25 p.m.

  “Hi, Nelson. It’s me.” God it was good to hear her voice. I hated leaving her for these trips.

  Tap. Tap.

  “I know you’re probably on the plane. I still can’t figure out why you didn’t just drive. Two layovers for a Raleigh to Charlotte flight just doesn’t make any sense.”

  She was right; it didn’t. But the company wouldn’t front me the rent-a-car and the mileage. Instead they booked me on the cheapest flight they could find – an afternoon flight from Raleigh, NC to Philadelphia, PA to Newark, NJ, then back down to Charlotte, NC for touchdown right after eleven p.m. Somehow that came in cheaper than a one-hour direct flight. I could have driven in less time.

  Tap. Tap.

  “Your nerves must be shot. Have you taken your… your pills?”

  She knew about those did she? Damn. I didn’t remember telling her about the psychiatrist. Dr. Smith had recommended him. He had thought that medication might be necessary for my condition. I hadn’t wanted Eleanor to know, but she always knew everything, eventually.

  “You should have told me. I found… well, this isn’t the time. I think it’s a great idea, Nelson. It shows that you’re trying.”

  Oh God, not this again. She always went there, but of course I was trying. Why wouldn’t I try to be better?

  Tap. Tap.

  CRASH!

  What was that? It had definitely come from her end of the line.

  My stomach lurched. This was it. This was the emergency. This was the reason for the later calls. A clatter erupted on the other end of the phone, followed by shouting.

  “Oh fuck! Marie!”

  The voicemail ended. No goodbye. Just a crashing noise, then those last words… oh fuck! Marie! Then nothing.

  EIGHT

  I stared at my phone, powerless. It had betrayed me. Checking the calls had been the better judgment of my rational mind, a way to ease my fears, and yet it had only served to exacerbate them.

  The screen shined back at me, the only significant source of light within the room. The dim glow from the street paled in comparison. The phone’s light amidst this darkness crafted an eerie effect; catching sight in a nearby mirror, it appeared as if the phone and my head both floated within a black void of nothingness.

  WHAM! I punched the nightstand. A wobbly leg splintered and buckled. The nightstand teetered for an instant, then fell at an awkward angle, landing partially in my lap. The lamp slid off, hit me on the head, then bounced onto the carpet.

  “God damn it!”

  I shoved both the nightstand and the lamp aside. They fell away, and I stared at their useless and broken forms. A hairline cra
ck wound up the base of the lamp where it had collided with my head. I felt along my scalp, until my fingers found a sore spot. I pressed down and felt a small jolt of pain – a slight bruise, but nothing more. My knuckles burned a bright red, one bearing a tiny cut.

  I stood, still clutching the phone. I had to check the next message.

  Once more I began to pace. As I did, I glanced at the cut on my knuckle. A circular bead of blood slowly formed as I squeezed a fist. I smeared the blood with one finger. The scraped skin stung with the pressure. Losing my temper had been a stupid thing to do. I knew that.

  Another bead of blood formed. I began to suck at the cut, like I had been prone to do as a child. The blood left a coppery taste in my mouth.

  Stop this!

  I was allowing myself to be distracted by the smallest of cuts, one received due to my own brash stupidity.

  I picked up the phone and switched over to the next voicemail. The call had been placed at 9:03 p.m. As I listened, I began to pick at a loose thread on my shirt cuff.

  “It’s me, again.” There was a moment of relief hearing Elly’s voice.

  “Sorry about earlier. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.” Don’t worry? Didn’t she know me better than that?

  “What am I saying? Of course you’re worried. Stop it. You’re fidgeting, aren’t you?”

  I stopped picking at the thread. How did she always do that?

  “You are. I know you are. Look, I was only calling because Erica insisted that she wanted to talk to her dad. Erica, do you want to say hi to your daddy?” My heart skipped a beat. Well, not literally. That is an absurd expression. Still, how else can I describe it? Something about hearing my daughters, it always amazed me. It made me feel loved, and more, it made me feel like a better man.