CHAPTER FIVE
Memories
“Buy you a drink, pretty lady?”
Melissa smirked, the bar stool below her creaking as she shifted in anticipation. She stared into her half-filled glass, the cranberry juice staining the glass.
The bartender surely didn’t appreciate her beverage choice, she knew, but she was the customer after all.
Alex could never understand how she drank that gasoline straight. He had told Melissa on several occasions that it was perfectly fine when mixed with a good rum or something, but on its own? Cranberry juice ranked somewhere between Robitussin and the barium sulfate cocktail patients are forced against their own gag reflex to drink when getting an MRI done. Alex had had his share of MRIs over the years, owing to his “talent” for getting into situations where internal injuries were all but expected, so he had a lot of experience with that disgusting taste!
“Sure, I’m running low on cranberry juice. But you’d better hurry, my husband is supposed to be here soon, and I don’t think he’d appreciate your attention.”
Now it was Alex’s turn to smirk.
“I’m pretty sure I can take him. But, seriously, cranberry juice?! Are you trying to keep men away?”
“Oh, you know, just the assholes.” Melissa looked him dead in the eyes now, her smile lighting up the room. Alex dropped the pretense of his false advance now, their little married couple bar game concluded.
“I just don’t see the point in that crap, babe. I mean, what’s the big deal about getting drunk anyway?”
Melissa had been through many years of college, the place where most people do most of their drinking. But in all those years, and all the years prior and since, she never drank enough to get even remotely tipsy. She might have an occasional mixed drink, but she had always said that if you took all the drinks she had ever had in her life and combined them it probably wouldn’t be enough to do more than give her a headache.
Though, as Alex told her on many occasions: with as much cranberry juice you use the only thing you’re doing is ensuring you never get a urinary tract infection!
“You should try it and find out,” Alex continued. “Then again, given what I’m going to be flying tomorrow, I don’t want you using up any of the stuff - the more alcohol there is available for me, the better!”
Melissa knew full well that even though Alex was joking, there was an absolute seriousness behind his words. There was no doubt in her mind now that Alex fully appreciated the danger he would be facing in just under twelve hours’ time.
Her smile faded away quickly as her mind wandered to the upcoming test tomorrow. Her mind began running through procedures, calculating contingencies, and organizing plans.
Alex knew in an instant, and he was having none of that this night. He snapped his fingers in front of her face, jarring her back to the present.
“Hey, babe, none of that!”
“None of what?”
“I know exactly what’s going on inside that massive brain of yours and I’m not having any of it tonight. Look, we both know what’s coming in a few hours. We’ve gone over it plenty. We all know the risks. Me, you, Brendan, all the technicians, everyone knows. But, here’s the thing Melissa, I couldn’t give less of a shit about any of them right now. I only care about you and me.”
Melissa dipped her head, anticipating his next words.
“Fact is, this could be our last night together.”
“Don’t even say that Alex!"
“Hey, just dealing with reality, babe. I know you’re not gonna to let anything happen to me. And besides, you know how hard I am to kill!”
Melissa looked at him again, his gentle expression bringing her calm. She smiled again.
“Yeah, I know, I’ve been feeding you fried food for years trying to kill you. You’re like a damned cockroach!”
Alex laughed as he pulled her in for a hug.
“Yeah, let ‘em drop the nukes, I’ll be around after, and I know you’ll figure out some cool science crap to make sure you are too! Ha, picture it: the Wakemans, probably mutated into some cool mutant things, wandering the world ruling all the other surviving mutants!”
Melissa playfully pushed him away.
“Yeah, leave it to you to joke about nuclear war!”
“Roll with the punches, babe. Roll with the punches.”
Alex slammed his fist on the bar. The bartender was startled, but as soon as he saw who it was he spoke before Alex could.
"Lemme guess- two dozen nuclear hot wings?"
“You eavesdropping on our little conversation here, Bob?”
“Don’t need to, Captain. I know you well enough to have put the order in the second I saw you walk through the door.”
Alex turned to Melissa. “See babe, I should have married Bob there. He gets me!” Melissa began play-fight slapping Alex’s arms, just hard enough that he reflexively brought his arms up to a defensive position.
“You prick! You can have Bob any time you want, but I’m taking the house!”
Bob Williams and Alex were friends, having met back in Alex’s first month in the Army during basic training. They had gone through Ranger training together and had been stationed at the same base for a while after. Alex had been there for Bob’s wedding, as well as what happened eight months after that wedding.
Bob and his wife Eliza had a little get-together for some friends, a nice little BBQ to celebrate Eliza’s promotion at work. After all the guests except for Alex and Melissa had left, Alex found himself in the kitchen with Eliza and Melissa while Bob was out back cleaning up the grill. Alex heard the commotion outside before Melissa or Eliza did. He didn’t think much of it at first, figured it was just one of their friends who had come back to pick up something they forgot. Something in his ape brain though told him to go check on Bob.
As he walked out of the house through the sliding glass door leading to the backyard, he quickly realized something was wrong. He saw three men he didn’t recognize, each with a knife in hand, surrounding Bob. Bob was in a crouching stance, preparing to fight. Alex saw that one of the men was behind Bob and he guessed Bob didn’t realize that because his attention was focused entirely on the two men in front of him. The man behind him was moving closer and would be within striking distance soon.
Alex began running towards the group, realizing that the man behind Bob would see him if his focus shifted from Bob even briefly. He closed the distance between them just as the two men in front lunged towards Bob. He slid down to the ground, leg-swiping one man, bringing him crashing down to the ground. Alex smashed his elbow into the man’s nose, shattering it instantly. The man’s eyes began puffing up with blood almost immediately as the pain incapacitated him.
The other man paused mid-stride as he saw what Alex was doing and began to alter his attack towards Alex. As he did, Alex yelled “Bob, six!” to alert him to the man behind. Bob spun just in time to raise his left arm and absorb a vicious knife blow just above the elbow. He grabbed the wound, instinctively, losing focus on the man. That gave the man enough time to sink the blade into Bob’s right thigh.
Meanwhile, Alex got to his feet just as the other attacker lunged downward with his knife, seemingly trying to bury it in Alex’s skull. Alex shifted his weight just enough to avoid the strike by a split second. The man’s momentum carried his knife hand downward, along with his head, just enough for Alex to drop an elbow on the back of his neck. The man was unconscious before his body hit the ground.
Bob was yelling in agony now and had dropped to one knee as the last attacker extricated the knife from Bob’s thigh. He was now holding it high above his head, preparing for the final death stroke.
Alex kicked Bob just about as hard as he could, pushing him out of the way of the blade. The blade sliced through Alex’s calf, but it barely phased him. He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it with all the strength he could muster. The pop that echoed off the fence surrounding the backyard told him immediately that it had dislocated.
And if there was any doubt, the man’s cry removed it instantly.
The knife fell from his hand, and Alex caught it before it hit the ground. Before the attacker even realized it, the knife was in his stomach. Blood and stomach acid began seeping from the wound as the man dropped to the ground.
The ambulance arrived in time to save his life, which probably saved Alex from prison time. The police had reviewed the recording from Bob's security camera and confirmed the account of the fight from Alex and Bob. They also verified the story with Melissa and Eliza, who had come running when they heard the agonized wailing of the first man to go down at Alex's hand. Even with the story confirmed with multiple witnesses and the video footage on top of it, there was still talk of charges due to the sheer brutality of Alex's actions. The district attorney, however, decided that the actions were warranted upon learning that the three men were known enforcers and repeat felons of a local loan shark. Bob had developed a bit of a gambling problem before enlisting. He had hoped that the military would instill enough discipline in him to overcome his problem. Unfortunately, that proved to not be the case and had gone to the shark to help pay off some gambling debts. He had gotten into bed with one devil just to pay off another, like skipping a bill one month to pay another.
And, as with playing that sort of game with bills, it didn’t work out any better with the loan shark.
Unfortunately, Eliza left Bob not long after this incident because it wasn’t the first time his gambling had been a problem for them. This just happened to be the worst, and it was the final straw for her. But, she agreed to leave him the house so he could sell it and pay off the shark. It was her final act of kindness for a man she still loved but who she knew she couldn’t be with any longer.
Bob lived with Alex and Melissa for a few months after that while he got back on his feet. Alex made sure Bob attended every Gambler's Anonymous meeting he could and eventually Bob got his problem under control. Two years after the incident, Bob and Eliza got back together. Eliza had always said she waited for him, but Bob knew it was just dumb luck that she hadn't found someone else. They re-married two years after that, and they had been a happy couple ever since. Bob eventually bought the bar they were currently in with the money he got from the Army, which he was discharged from shortly after the incident due to his injuries: Bob lost the left arm below the elbow, and he walked with a severe limp now.
And Alex thought his friend had never been happier than he was now.
Alex remembered the day Bob and Eliza met again after having been apart for two years. It was at a large sporting goods store in a mall in Virginia. Eliza was standing on line, and Bob found himself in the line next to her. He looked over at her and noticed what she was buying.
“Golf clubs, huh?”
“Yep.”
“You gay now?”
The customers around them were shocked, mouths hung agape, some muttered profanities. Bob and Eliza didn’t care – they concentrated on their little game. Without missing a beat, Eliza shot back a reply.
“Well, if I am, that’s your loss, isn’t it?”
No one who heard this exchange could tell if this was playful banter or two people getting ready to have a fight in public. And, the truth was, neither with Bob and Eliza at that moment. Bob hesitated for a few seconds and eventually replied in a hushed tone that dismissed any tension from Eliza.
“It absolutely would be. More than I could ever say.”
Eliza let her guard down and invited Bob to come golfing with her. Given his injuries, she handed his ass to him even though it was the first time she had been golfing. But, they laughed the whole time, and their relationship re-grew from the smoldering remaining embers that they realized were there in them both since they had separated.
Melissa had stopped hitting Alex – eventually - and was raising her glass for Bob to come re-fill her cranberry juice. Alex stared at Melissa as she did so. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
He was always amazed that he had managed to land such a catch in the first place. She was beautiful in a nerdy sort of way, which he’d realized early on was exactly his type. He loved girls with glasses, though he could never explain why. He followed every curve of her face, etching it into his mind. If tomorrow’s flight went south, if it wound up being his last test mission and even his last day on Earth, he wanted to make sure that he could close his eyes in his final moments and see her face exactly as it was now.
He couldn’t contain himself any longer.
“You wanna get outta here, babe? There’s, uh, other things we could be doing right now.”
Melissa smiled. “You’ve got two dozen wings coming. Isn’t food more important?”
“Not even a little!”
Bob walked over now, a bowl of wings in his hands. He saw the two of them staring into each other’s eyes. He recognized the look all too well.
Bob smiled.
“How about I just wrap these up to go for you guys.”