Red Meat Cures Cancer (27 page)

48 HOURS LATER

The plan was grand. Cruise through the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic, jettison down the coast to Florida, stream into the Gulf and then head for the Panama Canal. From there, it was through the locks, out into the Pacific and onward to the island of Tahiti. Fourteen hundred miles southeast of Hawaii.

King would be my first mate. He had loads of cruise ship experience, and if worse came to worst, I figured he could mix us a couple of dynamite margaritas. After we’d loaded up at the local Wegman’s supermarket, provisions were plenty, but so were doubts down at the dock.

“This is going to be some trip.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“I put the house on the market, didn’t I? I’m ready to go.”

My words lacked confidence, and my brother’s tuneful ear picked up on it.

“We don’t have to do this, Sky.”

“I do.”

And that was the rub of it. As often as I’d told myself and others that I
wanted
to do this, the truth was I
had
to do it. I had to force myself to take a step forward that wouldn’t, and couldn’t, be taken back so easily. I had to take myself out of my comfort zone in a complete and final fashion.

“Okay,” King acknowledged my serious reply. (Pause) “Do you want to call Annette one more time?”

Annette wasn’t coming with me. Hours of pleading and apologizing hadn’t dented her armor, and with each passing minute, a change of heart became less likely.

“I don’t know. Why would her answer be any different this time?”

“Don’t worry. This isn’t your last chance to patch things up. We’ll be pulling into ports all the way down the East Coast. She can fly in and meet us.”

King was being a good brother by trying to make me feel better, but we both knew this was the end for Annette and me. Voicing the reasons for our demise felt pointless and far too self-indulgent. So I didn’t. Instead I silently acknowledged that I’d lied to her one too many times and let her down in too painful a way. Her absence was nothing but the direct result of my hurtful acts, and holding that mirror up to myself yet again had no appeal. I needed to move on.

“Let’s go, King.”

As soon as King got the ropes, I began slowly motoring the boat backward out of the late Link’s slip. I looked to the shore as I shifted the throttle forward and felt the heft of the boat moving through the cold water of Lake Ontario. I was making a getaway, but it was far from clean. There was a trail of deeds churning in the wake of
Bastard Boy
that threatened to follow me all the way to Tahiti. Still, I’d avoided jail and wrangled my pension from Tailburger’s grip (Trip Baden got 15 percent of it under our settlement agreement, and Shufelbarger got 10 percent), so I should’ve counted myself lucky.

“Did you call Ethan yet?”

“I talked to him last night.”

“Is he all right?”

“I think so.”

Macrocock.com
was kaput now, leaving Ethan without a job. Over the phone, he tearfully bemoaned the loss of his
fuck you
money, but I assured him that, at twenty-two, he had at least eight years to make it all back and exit the working world a success in the eyes of his peers. Unfortunately, all of his shares (not to mention mine and Skull’s) were worthless now that whiz-kid financier Eddie Wu had pulled out of the only company hit with more lawsuits than Napster. I asked Ethan to come with me on the trip, but he said he’d met a girl at a Palo Alto piercing parlor and wanted to see where it was going. Although I was disappointed he couldn’t come, it was hard to take offense at my son’s search for happiness when I was starting one of my own.

A late summer weather system moved in above us as we made our way eastward toward the Atlantic. Under gathering clouds a light rain began to fall, and King went down below to get us two windbreakers.

“You want a beer while I’m down here?” he shouted up.

“Sure,” I answered halfheartedly, my head full of thoughts about the events that led me to leave my hometown. I pushed the boat’s throttle further forward. The faster I got away from Rochester, the sooner my regrets would wither—like rotted limbs falling off a living tree. At least that was my theory. In practice, I found an entirely different truth.

“I never told you this, but I lied to Cal.”

“About what?”

King stood with me now, each of us drinking a green-bottled beer on deck.

“About raising the issue of the SERMON suit with Plot Thickens when I went to Albany. (Pause) I told Cal I wouldn’t do it, because there was too big a risk involved.”

“What risk?”

“That if we asked Plot to help keep us out of jail
and
take Tailburger out of the SERMON suit, he might not do either and we’d end up with prison sentences instead of probation.”

“Jesus, why’d you do it?”

“I was selfish. I wanted my pension and I needed the suit lifted to get it. (Pause) But it sickens me now to think about how I jeopardized my friend’s freedom and his family’s future. It sickens me.”

“You made a mistake. (Pause) It all worked out in the end.”

“It wasn’t a mistake. It was a decision. (Pause) There’s a difference.”

The rain grew heavier as the engine roared on.

“This shit is really starting to come down now. Maybe we should think about taking her ashore for the night,” King said.

“Do you know why Annette isn’t here?” So much for moving on and avoiding self-indulgence.

“I assume it’s because you did something stupid.”

“I did something cruel.”

“That’s too bad, because stupid’s definitely more forgivable. What the hell did you do?”

I hesitated to tell my brother because I was ashamed.

“I told her I had rectal cancer so that she’d start seeing me again.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“How’d she find out you were lying?”

“I told her.”

“Well, then you did something cruel
and
stupid.”

“I had to tell her. Or at least I thought I did. (Pause) Anyway, it seemed right at the time. What do you think?”

“It’s just like the pension. You did what you felt you had to.”

“But it was wrong.”

“Maybe it was.”

“Do you believe a man can change?”

“Of course I do. That’s what I was trying to teach you with Qigong and our training sessions until
you
quit. You always should be striving toward personal improvement.”

“But aren’t there limits? Earthly limits. A man’s wants. His needs. His survival. The things that prevent him from forbearance and truthfulness and all that other stuff.”

“No. The only limits are the ones you place on yourself.”

“But aren’t some limits placed on you by others?”

“It’s possible, but we’ve all got the capacity to change for the better. The virtues we’ve talked about
are
obtainable here on Earth.”

“In a perfect form?”

“I think so.”

“How do you know that?”

King wiped the pouring rain from his face as he thought about my question.

“I guess I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t. You’ve never met a perfect person and neither have I. We’re all sinners who need to be forgiven by somebody.”

The rain was coming in sheets now, and King’s frustration level had peaked.

“Will you spare me? Look, I don’t have an answer for all these questions and I don’t want to sit through Bible class. I’m going down below. Turn this thing for shore and let’s get in for the night.”

King climbed into the cabin, leaving me alone with the weather and the wheel. His advice was sound, but for some reason, I just kept going—farther and farther into the darkness and inclement conditions until the sky was totally black. I’d like to tell you that in the pitch of night I was able to forgive myself for the things I’d done to my friends, my family and my own soul in the time that led up to my departure for the islands. But I wasn’t. I’d like to tell you that Annette and I reunited and eventually got married, but then I’d be lying, and that’s an activity I’ve long since given up. I’d like to tell you that on Earth, I found the peace of mind I sought, but that never came to pass.

The end arrived in a single strike of lightning followed by what must have been an incredible boom of thunder, although I can’t say I heard it. In one miraculous act of God, I went out the way I should have—charred on the outside, tender on the inside. Finally aboard the boat to my own insular Tahiti. I drifted for a while. But then I was found. Chastened by the human condition and ready to move higher.