A Pact For Life (31 page)

He took another sip of gin and felt his temples burn. They burned in a good way. The way that melted away all worry, and doubt, and depression.

Without plans or even a clue what to build, he moved over to the materials and started to assemble. Two of the five planks were placed side by side followed by laying the tin sheet on top which formed a rudimentary bobsled that wouldn't even slide on ice.

Next came the cradle, which looked to be straight from the 40's. It was technologically obsolete, stylistically vintage, and weighed somewhere between a small European car and a large American motorcycle. For some reason, wood from the early to mid-20th century is heavier than wood at any other period in human existence.

The crib's placement on the tin sheet presented a tremendous design flaw. The signs of a future collapse were there, and Cale knew it. He could live with the abstract worthlessness of the project, but to have a sculpture that could fall apart at a moment's notice was unacceptable.

With struggle, he lifted the crib off the metal sheet, took a drink, flipped the makeshift sled over, measured the width in the middle, took another drink, and as his head felt lighter and his motor skills diminished, he reached for his saw.

He took one of the unused planks and measured, marked, sawed, and nailed them to the underside of the sled, giving it the support needed for the crib's weight. With a heave, the crib was placed onto the sled. The metal sheet did not even give a courtesy bend.

As he reached for the power drill, Cale determined that what he was doing wasn't art, but rather construction. Sure he used hammers, chisels, and picks in his stone sculptures, but those were essential items. They are the paintbrush for the sculptor.

The crib was bolted on and Cale's drink had been reduced to a pine-needle smelling collection of ice cubes. The question of, What to do next? presented itself as he surveyed what materials were left – two planks of wood, a dozen or so fake plastic birds, three bike rims, and 3/4ths of a bottle of Beefeater.

There wasn't much left to do on the project, and he could've easily finished in five minutes if he wanted to, but at that point he reached a level of buzzed where all that mattered was increasing the feeling. So he started to pour. No ice this time, just gin. He filled the glass halfway and lifted it up to examine his handiwork. It was a pour of far better craftsmanship and creativity than the bullshit that constituted his commission.

Before the glass met his lips, his phone gave a quick shake which meant he got a text. He pulled it out of his pocket, went through the necessary button pushes, and arrived at a text from Diana:

Can you be home at 6 tonight?

He shot off a quick, Yes and returned to looking at his drink. The desire to down the whole thing in one gulp subsided, and he began to existentially delve into his life. i.e. He started to question everything in his life that led to that moment.

Was the reason for his desire to get messed up nothing more than a form of escapism? A way to forget about the loss of his greatest joy. Or was it some attempt to get his talent back? Some of the greatest artists to ever live were crazed drunks and addicts. What if his wild life was just a placeholder for his creativity? What if Diana was just a placeholder?

By some strange coincidence, or perhaps an act of the divine, the song Green Gloves came up on his shuffled playlist, and it reminded him of his escape to DC, his face to face with his sculpture of the same name, and the vow he made to clean up for his family.

The door to the warehouse studio opened and Cale walked out with the glass of gin in one hand and the bottle of Beefeater in the other. Cale unscrewed the top of the bottle, and let both spill onto a nearby pine tree. It should've been an excellent fertilizer.

That was it. His studio was bone dry of all things mind altering. Well, there was industrial strength glue, but since Cale wasn't already brain damaged, the glue wasn't a danger.

Back inside, he examined the project, grew disgusted, reached for the non-threatening industrial strength glue, and resumed work. One by one, he placed the little fake birds along the edge of the crib. It looked like something out of
Mary Poppins
. A family friendly sight for the ages.

With the birds in place, the project was as good as done. All it needed was a title.

His first idea for a title was,
How To Make $5,000 In One Hour.
It would've been an honest name for the piece, but for the sake of being polite to the people that hired him, that title was nixed. Other titles came to him as easily as ideas for sculptures used to, and he settled on one that was a play off of one of his favorite quotes
³⁷
,
Singing Birds On The Crib, All's Right With The World.

The clock on the wall displayed 3:45, and he quickly prepped the 'sculpture' for delivery. Diana asked him to be home by six, and for once in their dating life, he wanted to be early for something.

There was no reason for him to believe anything bad was behind Diana's request. After all, he finally finished his last commission, he won another battle with his addiction, and most importantly, God was in his heavens, all's right with the world.

The time was 5:05 and amidst the piles of boxes, empty shelves, and covered furniture, Cale was in the kitchen finishing up that section of the move. He had almost all of it done except for the wine bottles which needed a proper vessel. If it were up to him, carrying them over a few at a time would suffice, but he knew Diana would want one of those boxes with the cardboard dividers inside.

The lock on the front door clicked, and Diana waddled in, sore from the effort of working, literally, with a full stomach.

“Cale!? What are you doing here? I thought you were working at your studio?”

“I wanted to surprise you.” Cale said and lifted his hands to display his handiwork. “Ta-daaaaa...”

“Oh my God, you took care of the whole kitchen?”

“Everything except the wine. I need to get one of those special boxes for the bottles.”

“Why... why did you do this!?”

“Well the move's coming up, and since I had nothing else going on, I thought I should be productive.” With a smile, he joked, “Are you actually mad at me for doing this?”

“It's not that, it's just...” Diana surveyed the state of the kitchen. Each box was explicitly labeled, the floor was mopped, and the stove, sink, and counter-tops were scrubbed. Cale's performance could've been described in numerous words, but immaculate is usually the best way to label perfection when it involves cleaning.

The fact that Cale was already home before her had altered Diana's original plans slightly, but to have him do something so nice obliterated her plan all the way to the subatomic level. If a plan could really be composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons, then Cale's act threw it into an atom smasher. The function of said device you can probably infer from the name.

Diana took a deep breath to compose herself, and with a steady head, completely fell apart. It was sudden and devastating to watch as she went from confident to bawling in an instant.

Unsure what was happening, Cale reached out to hold her and got pushed away.

“No... no, no, no, I'm sorry.” There was a tremendous sniffle from Diana. “I can't do this, Cale.”

Without a clue as to what the problem was, Cale asked , “Can't do what?”

“This, us, the marriage, I just can't. I'm so sorry, but...” and what followed wasn't actual words but a cacophony of sounds that only happen with uncontrollable crying.

Cale's first thought was that it was a joke. Another prank like the time Diana made him go outside in the snow because she was stuck. But then he remembered that in four plus years of dating, that was the only joke Diana ever pulled. This was serious.

He leaned against the counter-top containing all the wine bottles, and said, “Come on, Diana, think about this. You're just stressed because of the move.”

Diana wiped away the tears, and became angry at Cale's dismissal, “I'm serious. This has nothing to do with the move. Look at our lives, Cale. Our relationship has been dead for months. I'm not happy.”

“What are you talking about? You wanted me to change and I did.”

“That wasn't you, and we both know it. There is nothing between us.”

“That's not how I feel.”

“I don't buy it.” Diana said and recognized an opening for what Jenny proposed earlier. “If you had the chance to do all this over, to go back before we made the pact, but with the one exception that you still had your creativity or whatever you call it, would you still do it?”

“Absolutely,” Cale answered without giving the question any thought. The true answer was something he DID NOT want to think about.

“So the baby and our relationship aren't just substitutes for your art?”

“No, of course not. Why would you think that?” Cale replied as a small sliver of the actual truth crept into his mind.

“We've been together long enough that I know when something isn't right.”

“Believe me, everything is fine.” Cale said while he moved in for a conciliatory hug.

“No!” Diana shouted and pushed him away once again. “I meant it when I said I can't do this anymore.”

“I already told you...”

“There's someone else!” Diana bursted as new tears followed in the trails of their predecessors.

Boom! It was a stomach punch that missed its mark and hit Cale square in the nuts. Unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to think, and unable to feel. All he could do was stand there speechless. A 9/11
³⁸
 sized imprint left its mark on Cale.

“We just don't work, Cale. We don't and somewhere deep down you know it too. I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, but it wasn't right to keep lying. You can be in the baby's life as much as you want, and hey, how about this, I'll even give you some money every month? Call it alimony or even child support if you want. It's the least I can do.”

Cale was staring at the ground. His brown hair hung in front of his eyes providing only glimpses of Diana's wooden floor. He had nothing to say. His mind had shut off completely.

He felt Diana's stomach touch his followed by her arms wrap around him tightly. His arms were still at his sides, and if Diana wasn't able to feel him breathing, then she might have wondered if he was still alive. “I'm sorry.” She whispered and clutched him tighter.

Silent and sad, they stayed like that for a half-minute or so. Diana pulled away first, and but Cale never looked up. He nodded a few times in Diana's general direction, grabbed a wine bottle off the counter-top, maneuvered around all the boxes he packed, and left Diana's condo for the very last time.

Cale stepped off Diana's stoop and into oblivion, which actually was convenient since he was completely barren inside as well. He only made it five steps before the urge to open the wine bottle took over. So before he reached the sidewalk, he took off his gray shirt, wrapped it around the wine bottle, and used a nearby tree to open it
³⁹
.