BARE HUNTER

-Friday-

Even the combination of Paroxetine and Zoloft couldn’t keep the night terrors at bay. I kept hearing rifle rounds, bang, bang, bang, one after the other, and seeing puffs of red mist in the distance: two taller ones and four closer to the ground. I woke up with tears running down my face. My throat was raw from screams in my sleep.

Little figures in brightly colored dresses had been playing in a dusty courtyard just days before “it” happened. Some ancient game, with pebbles and skipping. Little pink tricycles lined the pathway. There was a song. It was in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite bring it out of my forgetfulness. A taller figure covered from head to foot in a dark robe called in a sing-song voice as the little ones chased each other gleefully into the large, mud-daubed stone house, set apart from the apartment dwellings further down the valley. I could almost hear the laughter, their sweet songs. Then there was silence. A terrible, eerie vacuum that sucked up joy, life, and happiness from the entire village, and from myself forever.

I slammed my head on the wall, hoping to kill the pain, stop the memories, and end the constant replay that haunted me. All that did was start the migraine once more. I slumped to the floor, holding my aching head, then grabbed my phone. Pulling up the VA hospital clinic number on my phone, I left a message: "This is Ted Bronsky, birthdate, 08/24/1985. Dr. Mike Mitchell is my primary. The Zoloft and Paroxetine aren’t working. I’m still having night terrors and they’re getting worse. Can he prescribe something stronger?” I left my number and stumbled into the kitchen, pouring a glass of OJ, and toasting some bread to keep myself from getting sick.

Instead of making me feel better, I was feeling woozy and had to sit down on the floor again before I fell. This past week had been too much for my battered psyche. I couldn’t face going to work today. I had at least two weeks of sick time built up, and today was a good day to take advantage of that. Plus, I could get an early start on driving to Virginia to talk with Cap.

I waited until 9 AM to call the office and got Sharon on the phone, “Hey, it’s Ted Bronsky, can you let Greg know I won’t be in today? I am feeling like shit.”

“I thought you looked a little bit green around the gills yesterday. No worries, I’ll let him know. Can I bring you anything? Have you got groceries in the house?”

“Wow, oh, I’m good. But thanks. That’s really sweet of you to offer. I’m supposed to be going out of town tomorrow, but if I don’t get over this, whatever this is, I won’t make it,” I told her.

“Well, all right. Call me if you need anything. Here’s my cell number: (215) 392-9167. I mean it. Call me.”

“’ Kay, see you Monday.”

She was a nurturer. That was good to know. Pretty, sexy, mature, smart and kind. Too good to pass up. When I return from Virginia, I will seriously go after this woman. I washed my face and peed, then climbed back into bed, hoping for a better rest than I had the night before. At 4 PM I woke from the dead, surprised to see the whole day had been wasted. I flipped on the TV to keep me company while I packed my carry-on bag for the trip to Virginia, which I hoped to start tonight after rush hour had let up. I checked my cell phone to find a message from Doc Mitchell, who was sending an emergency prescription to a local drug store, out of the VA network. It was for Lexapro. He wanted to see me a week after I began taking it and suggested I ease off Zoloft before starting the new drug.

The weather portion of the news had ended, and the announcer moved on to the next segment, “In local news, an unidentified female body has been found in Shimmer Lake, next to the inlet for Purdue Little River. Police are holding off on commenting until the body has been identified and next of kin is contacted. Stay tuned to Channel 5 for updates on this and all your top stories.”

My neck prickled, remembering tossing my bloody clothes and backpack into the stream that connected with Purdue Little River. Naw. That was miles from the lake. The stream wasn’t even a real body of water. Just runoff from snow melts, and Spring rains. I had enough to worry about.

Leaving a few lights on and the TV running to thwart would-be burglars, I locked up, applied clear tape to both doors, and loaded my SUV for the six-hour trip to Virginia. Before I hit Route 81, I stopped at a gas station and filled up, rummaging through the snack aisle to load up on drinks heavy on the caffeine, then, stopped at the drugstore to pick up my new prescription, along with a fresh forty-eight pack of Advil for the trip.

Swinging a left out of the parking lot, I headed for 81, hoping that nighttime would make for a faster trip, with only a few fools like me on the road and truckers. I found my favorite Sirius XM country station and jacked the volume up to block out the unsettling thoughts hitchhiking in my brain. Becca? Should I message her, to make sure my mind was only playing tricks on me? God, her voice was so real. It was like she was next to me in bed screaming, and, not in a good way.

Morgan Wallen was crying on the radio about how he wasted so much time on some woman. I felt that way about Becca. Not that it lasted for a long time. But once I got involved and realized she was trouble, it seemed like a long time. When we first met, she made it clear she wasn’t looking for ‘the one.’ Just someone she could talk to and have great sex with, maybe go out on dates and enjoy each other. It wasn’t two weeks in before she started looking at me with wedding bells and babies in her eyes. I recognized that look by now and wasn’t interested.

That doesn’t make me a monster. It makes me someone who only promises what he can deliver. I’m sorry if she couldn’t handle it. Sorry if she felt used and got hurt. I never meant to do that to her. She’s the one who broke our arrangement by demanding more and more from me. So, why was I feeling so guilty? Why this overwhelming urge to make sure she was okay? As I passed through Binghamton’s maze of interstate exchanges, I turned down the volume until I was finally back on 81 and headed toward Scranton.

I popped open a Coke and unwrapped a pack of Twinkies to keep alert for the next leg of the trip, then turned up the volume as Keith Urban was twanging about making a beautiful woman happy again. ‘Takin’ the blue out of your brown eyes, baby.’ A clear picture of Sharon filled the shambles of my mind as I wondered again how I could have walked past her every day for years without seeing her for who she truly was.

A beautiful, warm, tender woman, whose heart had been smashed to pieces, like mine had been. Someone who needed arms to protect her, love her, and a man who would wake up grateful every morning if she allowed him to wake up next to her. With all the horn dogs at the firm, I couldn’t understand why she was still single, or at least hadn’t been passed around the office. Maybe the planets met just right the other night. Maybe she was picky. I didn’t know why she ended up being interested in me. I didn’t care. It was a blessing in my cursed life, and I was taking it.

Tennessee Whiskey poured out of the speakers like honey while I imagined what life with someone like Sharon would be like: our bodies melting into each other, giving and taking and holding each other all night, cozy mornings, barefoot coffee on the front porch, and picnics by the stream. She didn’t need to run with me. She could do her thing, and seeing her happy would make me happy.

She could even lie in bed like a log during sex, and I would be turned on, just by being next to her. She didn’t have to do anything or say anything. All she had to do was allow me to be there. At thirty-nine, I finally realized what was and wasn’t love. Love wasn’t breathless, sloppy sex in the backseat, hoping the condom hadn’t broken. It wasn’t finding someone with perfect boobs who made your cock hard when they bent over and who worked you over like a porn star in bed, thinking that would hold you.

It was this gentle thing I was unaccustomed to. This slow, mellow warmth that filled your heart when you thought of a person. Well, damn. Instead of my cock getting hard when I thought of Sharon, the shuttered doors of my heart squealed open on rusty hinges. There’s a first time for everything.