"Yes, I do."
"Good..."
They pulled off the
parking lot and then took the road in a matter of minutes. As they burned the road with the rubber and left their tracks behind, Noah said, "I'm hungry."
Hailey Marie asked, "For what?" and then said, "I'm kidding."
Noah looked in Everett's front mirror, smiled at her until she saw him and said, "I know, but just for the sake of the ladies," and looked at Emma, "no, I'm not hungry for that. I'm hungry for food."
"I thought that you were hungry for---" said Everett, attempting to pull another sick joke on Noah just to get on his nerves, but then he thought twice about it because he knew that Noah had thrown up everything that he had eaten because Dr. Lester mentioned human flesh separated from the human body, and he didn't want to make him throw up his stomach acids until he threw up the organ.
"What did you want to say, Everett?"
"Never mind." "Ok."
They arrived at a fancy seafood restaurant. Noah didn't prefer fancy restaurants. He'd eat at any restaurant as long as the food was completely sanitary and clean, but Everett liked fancy restaurants although he wasn't rich, yet, so he took him to one. He said, "This is the best seafood restaurant in town. Do you like seafood, Noah?"
"Yes," he said, "I like all kinds of foods as long as they're eaten in the occidental part of the earth."
"This is not Chinese or Japanese."
"What I meant was," said Noah, noticeably upset, "I'll eat it as long as it's not you or a rat."
Noticeably shaken and confused about Noah's attitude, Everett said, "Ok."
They got out of the car. Noah put his arm around the back of Hailey Marie's neck and she put her arm around his waist. Everett went in front of them. She whispered, "Why are you being so rude to him?"
"I'm sorry. Was I really rude?" he said as they walked into the restaurant.
"Yes," she said looking him in the eyes with slight effort, "you were."
"I'm sorry. It's just that not only am I afraid of your mother, but I am also afraid of my bodyguard, the one man that's supposed to protect me."
Horrified, she said, "What do you mean? Are you afraid that he'll kill you?"
"Yes, but when he does it he won't be in his right mind."
They stopped when they were minutes from getting a table. "What?"
"Hailey Marie, Everett's schizophrenic, too, and he doesn't know it yet. All that he needs for the disease to manifest is a trigger, and I'm afraid it's coming very soon."
She looked at him, horrified. "Why don't we refer him to Dr. Lester as well?"
Chapter 31
They were at the table, waiting for their food. Everett was very sensitive today, so he was very sad about Noah's attitude toward him. He played with the garlic sticks and dipped them in the garlic source very frivolously as he did the best that he could to look away from Noah. Emma noticed Everett's misery but she didn't know what to do to help him. She just stayed there, silent as if she was in the library. Everett just had to speak his mind. He couldn't take it anymore. He put the garlic stick down and said, "You know what? I'm leaving," and got up.
Emma went after him. "What's wrong?"
"I just can't stand this man looking at me like that!"
"Who is it?" "It's Noah!"
Noah got up, went after them and said, "What did I do?"
"What did you do?" said Everett, crying. "You're looking at me like I'm a monster, and I can't stand it! You know what? I know that no one else will hire me, but I'd rather work at Mc. Donald's than work for you! I quit!"
Everett stormed out of the restaurant and left everybody else behind. The next thing that they knew, he had already walked twenty miles. "Why don't you be honest with him?" said Hailey Marie as the waiter brought in their food. "Why don't you tell him why no one will hire him, and that you'll give him a chance?" "I don't do that because I don't feel like it."
She looked at him with horror and said, "I can't believe you." She got up. "Waiter, take my food to that table next to the window."
She went where she wanted to go while Noah stayed at his table. The hypnosis had a very negative effect on his brain, since it wasn't done through the traditional method; it was done with a serum that Dr. Lester had no idea that would go straight to his brain. He was extremely upset because he'd been reminded of the pain that he went through when Noah Bryan died, and he was taking it out on the whole world. It wasn't Everett that was a problem. He was just using the poor man as an excuse to be miserable and upset without anyone knowing why. He was too angry to reason. He started eating his food, thirty pieces of shrimp, and all of a sudden, he swallowed one of the shrimp without chewing it. Besides the shrimp being gigantic, it was crusted with breadcrumbs, which blocked his trachea. Suddenly, he started choking violently. Luckily, although Everett had quit working for him, he was running back to the restaurant because he needed a ride home and he wouldn't ride with any crazy stranger out there. No one could do anything to help Noah because no one knew how to do the Heimlich Maneuver. He was only five minutes from dying and drowning in his own stomach acids while people held him and cried desperately to watch him die.
Suddenly, Everett went back into the restaurant and witnessed the horror. The stomach was rejecting the parts of the breadcrumbs that had already gone down Noah's esophagus and this was making things worse. Everett saw the shrimp literally stuck in Noah's throat. Since he couldn't perform the Heimlich Maneuver because the food hadn't gone down his esophagus, the first thing that occurred to him was to take everybody's glassfuls of water and pour them down Noah's mouth while he was looking at the roof, one by one. Slowly, the shrimp made its way down, and to keep it from getting stuck in the esophagus and causing any more damage, Everett performed the Heimlich Maneuver doing three repetitions of the final procedure until the shrimp literally flew out of Noah's mouth and fell into a lady's soup. As Noah took slow breaths to be able to speak, Everett helped him get up.
"I'm sorry about that," he said to the lady.
"It's ok," said the lady as the waiter took away the soup. "It was all about saving a man's life, so I don't mind."
Seeing the amorous gesture that Everett did without the slightest obligation, and despite the way that he'd treated him since they entered the restaurant, Noah looked him in the eyes as he helped him sit down and said, holding his hand so strongly that Everett couldn't set it free, and said, "I'm sorry."
"It's not a problem," he said. "What you said must've been the effect of the hypnotic serum. You never know what those things do to people. I just hope that the water went straight to the brain and helped wash it all away.
The waiter brought new shrimp to Noah's table twenty minutes after the horrible incident. He'd thrown the first shrimp away. These shrimp were simple. They didn't have breadcrumbs. "Thank you," said Noah."
"Are you feeling better,
sir?"
"Yes, I am," said Noah.
"Thank you."
"It's my pleasure. If you need anything else, just go ahead and raise your hand to call me," said the waiter and left.
"You're forgiven, Noah," said Everett, sitting in the same table, and Hailey Marie got up, took her food to their table and joined them, "but I want to know why you're doing these things; why you're being so rude to us."
"It doesn't have anything to do with you," said Hailey Marie. "He was very disrespectful to me a few minutes ago." "It's just that I'm so angry at the world. I can't be angry at God. Why did your mother have to take my son, huh?"
Hailey Marie shed tears. "I stopped loving her the minute that I found out that she'd raped and killed an innocent child. I mean, if she wanted to get revenge on you for something."
"She couldn't hurt me so she hurt someone that I love."
Suddenly, Noah looked out the window and saw a nine- year-old child walking to the window in an attempt to be closer to him and stretch out his hand to hold. He put his shrimp down, got up, left the tables and the table area, walked out of the restaurant and walked toward the child, that was still there, and took his hand. Then, he got on his knees to look him in the eyes. The child didn't look anything like he did, but he felt a strange connection to him.
"Hi," said Noah, smiling, and still holding his hands.
"Hi," said the child. "How do you know me?" Hailey Marie and Everett looked out the window at Noah and the child, astonished. How did Noah know this sweet boy?
"There are billboards of you all over the place, everywhere."
Estranged, Noah asked, "Billboards? I've never seen billboards of me."
"You probably haven't been out much and that's why you haven't seen them, but they're everywhere that there are billboards announcing stuff in the side of the road."
"Really, I guess I have to take a ride."
"I guess so."
"Do you want to come into the restaurant with me and eat something?"
"Sure."
"Where's your mom?" "She didn't come. She
wouldn't come. She's too busy man-hunting." They went in together and the child closed the door behind him. The child sat down at Noah, Hailey Marie, and Everett's table, and Noah raised his hand to call out the waiter and put it down in less than thirty seconds. Little did Noah know that for some strange reason, this child was hiding Noah Bryan's embalmed and perfectly preserved corpse in his bedroom and that's why his mother did everything in her power to disappoint him until she finally pushed him away? The waiter saw them. He was attending to an old lady, and when he finished bringing her food to the table, he went back to Noah's table.
"Yes, sir," he said with his little notepad and his blue pen in his right hand.
"Would you please take the child's order?"
"I certainly would," the waiter said and looked at the child, "What would you like to eat today?" he said to him, smiling.
"Do you have lobster?" "We do. Which color
would you like, red or blue?"
The child pulled out a fat wallet, making Noah gasped. He'd put away thousands of dollars that he got from writing songs and every day, he carried over two thousand dollars with him. "My child," said Noah, "you seem quite wealthy."
He gave the waiter an estimate of the total that the food would cost and the waiter pushed the wallet down with his hand and said, "Don't pay until you're done," smiling. "This is not a gas station."
Noah, Hailey Marie and Everett gasped and laughed hysterically at that innocent remark, and the waiter just smiled. He made people laugh even when he didn't intend to.
"I am quite wealthy," replied the child, "it's just that my mother doesn't know that. She doesn't know that I am a songwriter and I don't want her taking any of my money, so I ran away."
Noah gasped and asked, "You're a songwriter?"
"Yes," said the child. "I am, too," said Noah.
"How old are you?"
"I'm nine years old." "That's amazing. I started writing songs when I was your age, adult songs that were about everything but love and sex."
Hailey Marie and Everett gasped and looked at one another, shocked.
"I would write about politics," said Noah, looking deeply into the child's eyes, "and about things that affect adults in general."
"That's amazing. I write about the same things. I published my songs and got a bundle of money, one thousand truck loads of it, literally."
"You're very talented," said Noah. "I could never publish my songs," but Scott found them and published them for him. "I was afraid of the politicians' reactions and the negative criticism."
"I get all of that all the time and I'm not afraid of it. I'm used to it."
"Have you ever gotten
sued?"
The waiter brought blue
lobster to the table, pieces of it, just in case the little boy couldn't eat a whole lobster; thus he seemed slim. "Wow, thank you!" he said. "That's exactly what I wanted."
Noah smiled and said, "Lobster is my favorite seafood. I've been eating it for dinner for the past few days."
"What color do you prefer?" said the child as the waiter put down his drink, iced cola. He started to eat.
"I prefer any color as long as it's tender and fresh."
"Well, we have the most tender lobster in town," said the waiter.
"I can't eat crunchy or hard foods because I have sensitive teeth."
"A special toothpaste, it can take care of that," replied the waiter and left and Noah looked at him and smiled. "You know, if you need anything else, or if you're dissatisfied with the food, call on me and I will get you something else to eat free of charge," he said and left.
Noah looked at everybody at the table and asked, "Did he just say, 'free of charge'?" Smiling, Everett said, "Yes, he did, which means that I'm going to come to this restaurant more often," and laughed.
"I am, too," said Noah. "I never got a deal like that. So, back to you," he said to the child. "You didn't get to answer my question. Have you ever gotten sued?"
"No," said the child. "No," repeated Noah,
smiling, "hmm..."
"It seems that I just gave you the green light to write new insult tracks for politicians."
"Yes," said Noah, "you sure have," smiling.
The child simply smiled. What were these dirty minds up to now?
Meanwhile, another dirty mind was recalling the details of the sexual abuse from Grace and narrating it to the police as if it was his new novel. He told them everything, slowly, but surely. "She started asking me questions about sex."
"What did she ask? Tell me in one sentence to make this interview a little shorter. You can't be in here for hours like adults usually are, because you're the accuser, not the accused."
"Well, she asked me if I'd had sex before. I said no. She asked me if I wanted to have sex. I said that I was too young. She asked me if I found her beautiful. I said yes. She asked me if I wanted to show her that I was attracted to her. I knew what was coming next, so I said no. Then, without saying a word, she gave me the deepest and biggest French-kiss that I think that a human being could've ever received. Twenty minutes later, after caressing me all over the body, she---"
"Wait a minute," said the interviewer, interrupting him, "she did more than kissing you?"
"Yes, she did," said Corey, "I just didn't remember."
"Did anything stop her from having sex with you, or was that all that she wanted to do at the moment?"
"She was incredibly close to having sex with me."
did."