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He drove back to his hotel, emailed Amir and Olivier the tracking information for the shipment...as well as a copy of the XLS list...then sat staring at his laptop.
His now blank laptop.
Devoid of any folders except Olivier’s and one titled Ditties.
He opened the latter one. Up popped more than two dozen Word documents and three more folders noted as being from the last three years. Little poems he's written about men. Most of them quite brutal.
He sat there, looking at the files. Unmoving. His mind drifting.
Eberhardt was probably correct, when it came to the normal actions and attitudes of most people. Just bad luck. Get it taken care of. Over and done. And then he'd never have to come back to this goddamned town, again.
But Simon was unable to work like that. There was some sort of glitch in his makeup. Or DNA. Or mentality. He didn’t know which. And it was not a consistent thing...not, at least, on the surface.
It was just that sometimes, when he believed someone was trying to take advantage of him and he did not want it to happen, he would turn to stone. His inner self would erect a brick wall and he would not let the perpetrator past it. Could not. Period. No matter what the threat. He would simply say no. And mean it.
He wasn’t sure how it came about but the first time it definitely showed itself was when he was four and his father had wanted him to eat a bowl of split pea soup. His parents loved that soup. It was from Schilo’s, a deli down by the Riverwalk and considered the best in the state. His grandmother had brought a tub of it in after work, one day, and everyone had gathered around the table to feast on it. Chattering happily.
Everyone but Simon.
He hated that soup. To him, it looked like vomit. The smell made him ill. So when a small bowl of it was put before him, he had pushed it away and shook his head.
His father had pushed it right back in front of him, saying, “This is dinner. Eat it.”
Simon had pushed it away, again.
That is when his brothers and sisters had begun giggling and mocking him, making both his father and mother angry.
Norman had sneered, “Simon thinks he’s special.” As if being the oldest and getting away with all sorts of nonsense wasn’t.
Thomas had added, “Hims wants hims anudder cheese sammitch.” Already snotty at nine years old, he soon proved to be a chore to deal with. Mainly because he would use truth to make his snotty comments. He knew Simon actually had liked Kraft Deluxe Processed Slices of cheese on white bread, so using that line of attack only added to Simon's stubbornness.
Arrabelle had laughed, “With lots and lots of mustard.” Which she always hated and once swore he only liked the stuff to be mean to her. Looking back, he had to admit she might have been partially right.
He had simply glared at them...and pushed the bowl of soup even farther away.
His father had plopped the bowl back in front of him, again with a growling, “That’s your dinner. You ain’t leavin’ this table till you finish it.”
The others had heard the anger in his voice and grown silent.
His mother had said, “Just try a taste of it, Simon. You may find out you really like it. It has ham...”
Then Coralynne had pushed a jar of French’s to him in her too-sweet way, saying, “Put this on it. You’ll like it, then.” A year older than him and he already didn’t like to be around her because she treated him like one of her dolls.
He hadn’t looked at her. Just curled his hands around each other and gazed upon them, unmoving. His brain must have locked down because he could not recall a single thought at that time. All he could remember is that he did not budge.
His father had sat there. Huffing.
Read the Evening News, then the Light. Huffing and growling, "It's cold, now. Ain't reheatin' it."
No reaction from Simon.
Then had played himself in tic-tac-toe, over and over. Glancing. Huffing. Growling.
Until nearly midnight before he finally gave in.
“Put him to bed,” he had snapped then got up to get ready, himself.
So his mother had.
He didn’t actually remember being hungry, at all. As if he’d entered some state of Zen before he even knew anything about that. Good thing was, they had never tried to make him eat that filth, again. Even on the rare occasions where they dined at Schilo’s. He’d get his cheese sandwich. Put on the yellow mustard, not the brown. Have a root beer and be happy.
That wall had built itself a few other times, in his life. Usually one brick after another until it was solid. But he hadn’t really understood how intense this stubbornness could be until eighth grade, when he almost wound up being arrested for assault. That brought a smile to his face.
If that didn't make me back down, he thought, nothing will.
And for sixty years that was how it had played out. And was going that way, again. And he could not change his course.
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