This is the actual webpage first posted in 1994.
The Gift was written during 1985.
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This is a copy of the original 1981, manuscript................................
Chapters 1 and 2
J.M.
Auricchio,
Jr.
94,130 words
666
Straight Path
West
Babylon, N.Y.
11704
T_H_E____G_I_F_T
by Joe Pegasus
1.
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A sprinkle of soft shimmering beads shaking to and fro across the black limousine's hood was the sole reminder of a sudden thunderstorm which passed over the surrounding skyscrapers. The stately vehicle moved down a ramp that led to the basement of the Rainer Building. Steven Greenberg sat alone in the back of the company limo, feeling as if the sixty stories above him were supported entirely on his shoulders. He thought that, to a casual viewer looking in, he must have appeared like a drunken executive whizzing back from an extended lunch. The perception did not incline Steven to pick up his head any or straighten his black tie or put the pitch-black suit jacket back on. What did it matter what other people thought? He grimaced as he realized Edward had gotten famous - rich and famous - coining the opposite phrase: "Imagination is man's greatest resource." It was easy for Edward Rainer to care what others thought. He was that kind of man: filled with a youthful excitement for fantasy. The sort of person you knew would either die rich or be found lying in a gutter impoverished by the hard knocks of reality. "But what a man he was!" Steven found himself saying aloud. Instinctively he glanced at the driver. He didn't want the chauffeur to think the president of Rainer Enterprises had taken to talking to himself; rumors can be damaging things after all. Steven drove the funeral from his mind and looked ahead to the basement elevator door where the limo would soon leave him off. Thankfully hr found no arrival party. He had successfully negotiated many trying and sometimes embarrassing moments in his past, but the hassle of fellow mourners or politically correct well-wishers right now only made his heart all the more heavy. He stepped from the limo and moved into the private elevator. Quietly he leaned into its right back corner while the doors came together. Steven held his jacket before him as if the corner were a hiding spot, some secret place only he knew existed there all these years, waiting for a moment such as this. His brown eyes watched a digital read out of the passing floors as if following the seeker playing at the other half of his game. It was not far now. Only fifty more floors to go and he would be found, noticed. His time to hide would be over with. Straightening his tie, pulling on the jacket, running a comb through his hair, he stood erect and waited for the doors to part. When they slid open, the one and only person he cared to see just then, Miss Tracy Tulay, met him. She had the instinct to know he was arriving and the professional judgment to greet him alone. "Morning, Mr. Greenberg," his controller of Rainer Enterprises said, bearing not a whisper of a smile. The lean Miss Tracy Tulay greeted Steven with a solemn face and looked so unlike her usual self with her shoulders slumped and her blond hair shading a cowering face. "I'm very sorry, sir." She needed to control a trembling in her voice. "I understand," Steven said firmly. He needed to demonstrate his leadership of Rainer Enterprises remained steady and on target. Edward Rainer would want it no other way. He placed a hand to her shoulder, feeling her bony physique while hoping she would not notice how cold his fingers were. He gently said, "It's a loss for us all. One that demands the best in us to shine through." He patted her hands that were folded and twisted at her lower stomach, much like the knot tying up her insides. In the past he would have made a friendly comment about her sinfully flat belly - well, much flatter than his. But not today. "Have my calls put on hold, Tracy. No one gets through until I ask." "No one?" She glanced up into his well-proportioned face, chiseled deep as if the gods tested perfection on that stormy December night his folks conceived him. "Not even my wife," he said making it no doubt. Saying nothing more, he stepped into his office and shut the door. Standing with his back against the door, he took in the room, seeing it differently now that Edward was gone, the burden all his now, he sighed. He switched them off and turned to face the large room. It appeared ghostly in the dim light through the wall-to-wall drapes behind his wide desk. Still, it looked like a kinder place, one of those fantasy places Edward would make up when he took to daydreaming. The gold, wooden and bronze plaques hanging all over the sidewalls could say anything in this light. They needn't be landmark reminders of Steven's long, tiresome struggle to the presidency of Rainer Enterprises. The file cabinets to the right of his desk could be some fast escape into another world for all he could tell. And the four chairs resting between the desk and his slumped body displayed no indication of any one ever sitting at their edges, fists tight and eyes burning from passionate duels of company policies. Steven strolled past his desk to the green, hand woven drapes. With one press of a button on the wall they parted. It was a mistake, for here again was the office he had walked out of three days before. But then again he didn't care much for grieving in the dark. Mourning in a dark place always left Steven rehashing the manner in which one met death. He preferred light. In this way the actual death would not be brought to mind. In that sense, Edward would still be alive through pleasant memories. He chose to sit but not in his chair behind the desk. He didn't care to be the president, not then. Again he loosened his tie, unbuttoned the jacket and dropped it like a thrown garment into the chair. He ran a hand through the salt-and-pepper colored thin strands of his hair and thought. And thought. Actually he thought about nothing yet everything all at once. In between he tried to formulate his thinking, resolve the emotions which rode freely along side each calculated thought. There seemed to be only one conclusion: he was going to miss old Ed very much. "Mr. Greenberg?" A voice said over his intercom. What the hell was this? "What is it, Sally?" He called over at the desk. "I'm not taking any calls just now." "Yes, sir, I have been told." The girl's voice did sound loaded with apologies. "But it's Mr. Sidney. Says it's extremely urgent." "Very well, put him through," Steven replied as he pitched forward toward the desk. "Fred?" "Steve." It was the other half to Rainer's personal lawyers. "I have a copy of the Will in front of me. Mr. Wyle handed it to me just before he left for the cemetery." "Yes, Fred, that's interesting," Steven, said with a shrug of total indifference. "Is there something I should know about it, pal?" "It's not exactly an ideal set up for you, Steve." Fred Sidney's voice sounded as though the lawyer were fidgeting about on the other end of the line. "Did you know Rainer had a son?" "Son?" Steven did not trust his hearing, "Did you say son?" "Son, a son, yes." "News to me, Fred." Steven now slid to the edge of his chair. His eyes blinked madly and quick frames filled with every word Edward ever told him sped across the back of his lids. It would not be impossible for old Ed to have a son; he certainly entertained a lot of women. Or perhaps his life ran a secret course beyond Steven's comprehension. Lord knows Edward's imagination was untouchable by the president. Maybe he was married long ago? Maybe he had a family on the sly? And if so, would Rainer Enterprises suddenly have a greenhorn for its new chairman? "Don't tell me this son gets the sixty percent." "Yes and no, Steve." Sidney rushed from his confusing reply to add, "There's some kind of a catch. Something I don't understand too well - well, I don't understand at all." "Why hasn't anyone mentioned this before?" He asked pointedly of Sidney. "It's all news to me, Steve," Sidney defended himself. "After all, Wyle is...er...was Mr. Rainer's personal attorney, not I." "Am I included in the reading, Fred?" "No. Just the kid." "Really?" Steven found that quite impossible. "Are you saying everything is going to some guy no one even knows exists?" Sidney hesitated; perhaps he dreaded answering his long time pal. "Er...looks that way." "Woo!" Steven fell back in his chair, waved his hands at the desk before him. "I spent twenty three years of my life keeping the glue in place over here - and not only me! - and Edward's giving it all away? Freddie, you're scaring me, buddy." "Well, like I said, there seems to be a catch." Steven figured the phone remained an obstacle to his finding out what exactly the Will stated. "Freddie, you going to be in your office say around seven-thirty tonight?" "I'll be here." Sidney understood it was where he should be if Steven desired it. "See you then, Fred." And the phone line died. He rose from the chair and with his hands folded behind his back walked over to the panoramic view offered by the wall-size window. Rain droplets were swelling then forming long rivulets pouring down the glass. Another dark cloud rolled into town. One storm leaves, and another takes its place. If the menacing clouds actually promised another storm was anybody's guess. Steven wanted to wager against it, but he knew it would mean he'd lose the bet.
2. "But what if it's good news!" Carol Rainer disagreed with her husband's indifference to the letter. "What good news?" He discarded the letter, envelope and all, on the kitchen counter, "I never even knew the man. Being in his Will is probably some kind of humiliating joke." He glanced back down at the letter with disdain, and awe. What was it all about? Now that his father had died, the man Eddie knew ever so little about was entrusting his estate to the fancy legal firm of Sidney and Wyle Associates and summoning Eddie to sit in on the reading of the Will. Why? What could a father who left his wife and son when Eddie was only five have for him? Why should Eddie care? "You told me he was a wealthy man, Eddie." Carol stood behind him, on the far side of the tiny kitchen. "What if he's leaving us some money? God knows we haven't a cent between us." Her voice edged on pleading, begging for the taste of merely the common simple things they had to do without all their lives. Her face dropped. Her lips were tightly pursed, as she needed to ward off the tears that always aligned themselves with such conversation. She married Eddie knowing full well that life would not be a bed of roses, but once the illusion of satisfying lovemaking waned, a disgraceful cloud of struggle made daily life close to unbearable. She had never before worn the same clothes for the length of time she'd been wearing those fading on her body now. Her other pair of jeans, those hanging in the closet, she'd worn while dating Eddie ten years ago - and those were her Stepping out jeans! She felt degraded when she needed to borrow from her folks or when she watched Eddie's dignity fall before the condescending smile of moneylenders. She was tired of being poor. Eddie had never grown fond of being poor either. Actually, he dreaded it, dreaded receiving his weekly paycheck, lessened by Uncle Sam and destined to fill the cash registers of big food stores, conniving gas station owners, banks and the landlord. He forever wiggled uncomfortably in a trap of toil for money and expedience to give the money away, a horrible cycle that began with marriage. At first he saw marriage as an escape hatch into the adult world he only vaguely perceived. Like all young men, he had gingerly lifted the hatch door, peered in and succumbed to the honeysuckle odor that rose from the darkness. Surely, he thought, through this traditional entrance of no refrain lay the land of meaning and contentment, everything the reality of his youth lacked. But once escaping his youth, the fool stepped into a snafu, no comforting illusions remaining for either reality. Even if he fled Carol as his father did Eddie's mother, the cycle would not end until he could toil no more. This trap to him could never have an escape. It was, it seemed, the broad daylight expression and translation of the American dream. How sweet the evening's realm flavored the dreamer depended entirely on which side of the money bed he awoke in the morning; and Eddie always struggled from the wrong side. "I don't want to go, Carol," he said staring at the letter. Carol did not reply. Had she said anything, it might have discolored their relationship further or left her wailing in self-despair. "I'll probably just be some freak show attraction," he moaned. "Sitting around a polished table with people who are wearing more money than I've ever seen in my whole life." "But you're his son." Carol decided not to surrender. "Maybe it's pay off time." "I wouldn't bet on it, babe." "Well, I would," she argued. "The odds are in your favor, Eddie." "Don't tell me the odds," he snapped. "You know I always bet against myself. This way I'm sure to win. See, babe," he offered her a smirk, "I know the odds!" "You're being foolish. This is your lucky break!" "Be real, Carol." Eddie waved her off and searched for his cigarettes as was usual when things annoyed him. "Out of twenty eight years of bad luck this is my lucky day? "Eddie, I'm being very real! After all, you are in the Will." "See my butts anywhere, babe?" "You smoked them all. And there's no more change in the piggy." Carol half smirked as she stepped over to the letter. Picking it up, she spied the phone number. As if their conversation had never occurred, she said in a tone of anticipation, "What if it is money, Eddie?" But he just grunted his disbelief. "I'm gonna call these people," she added. "Forget it, Carol!" Eddie's forehead corded with anger. "My father wouldn't give me anything unless I bought it from him; and then it would be worthless!" Stuttering in his own thinking about what he had heard about his father, he muttered, "Ah! I gotta work on that broken muffler. The car goes and we're really up a creek!" Then he raced from their conflict, leaving Carol alone with the letter. She carried it a few steps to the kitchen table. Sitting, she recalled what Eddie had ever told her about Mr. Rainer, Sr.; not much. He spoke of him with any affection on only one single occasion. Eddie had bought a lamp set from a very fine store to surprise her. She remembered their mutual joy when she unwrapped the box. He stood so proud to offer her something; it made him feel like the real man he was under all his scars of poverty. And she felt grand, like a queen receiving her king from a long, faraway war, returning with well-earned spoils! On and on she went about where best to place the ceramic lamp. In the corner of the living room? No, she wanted to see it as often as possible. How about in the hall where it could be seen from the kitchen? Maybe in the bedroom? It was an exciting moment just trying to place the lamp. Then Eddie, turning as she decided the hall would do best, bumped the lamp against the bedroom door and it shattered. She remembered thinking if they were anybody else, it wouldn't have mattered. The joy of the gift was the important thing. Another couple might have even laughed it off, embraced and run out to purchase another lamp. But it didn't happen that way. They argued, fought bitterly over whose fault it was. Eddie walked out in a huff, and she hid under her pillow and cried. When the two decided to talk it all out, as all couples must who intend to keep what wealth they do have, Eddie unearthed his deepest thoughts. "My father came to mind," he had said, almost in a whimper. "For a moment I envisioned myself in his arms, the way he used to hold me when I was just a tiny kid. He used to talk to me. Tell me what a great kid I was, his namesake. Used to tell me how we were going to rule the world, sail the oceans and run the whole show, he and I. Then one day, just like that lamp, it all shattered and he was gone." While Eddie had spoken, Carol saw conflict in his face and sensed a peculiar regression in his speech. "After he had gone," Eddie continued, "I used to lie awake at night and call to him, 'Tell me a story, Daddy. I am so lonely without one.' Eventually I even tried sparking my own imagination, but without him there to fuel it, I couldn't hope to dream." Otherwise, Eddie seldom spoke of his dad. Till the day his mother died, the mother and son denied any loving notions of the man at all; and Carol was at a loss for the reason why. Naturally she felt the bad propaganda stemmed from Mrs. Rainer's failure to keep her husband. The lady was no joy ride to live with - that Carol knew all too well. But not coming from a broken family, she could not trace the seed of hate planted into Eddie's heart. Carol read Eddie easily. Without mistake his argument stated his mind sincerely and completely. It proclaimed the man perfectly. He was like a trashy novel: sweetly shallow. Whereas she would be curious. And she was curious to see what might happen; filled with every bit of hope. No less could she deny the sense of jealousy for not being in his shoes. She knew her abilities would handle the circumstances to their favor. She tried to reason why Eddie feared being present at the reading of the Will. The snobbish looks from rich people had never bothered him before. And if something were coming to him, he deserved to be there and laugh at them. Wouldn't she? Damn right, she would! She'd get right up and snigger in their fancy made-up faces. Laugh at their easy, born wealth as she'd grab the money handed down to Eddie and her! And maybe even spit at them for having their fun with her husband before he could treat them in kind. "I'm calling!" she decided and dashed to the phone. "Sidney and Wyle Associates," a stern female voice answered. It carried the tone of someone just roused from sleep or love making by something insignificant, like the newspaper boy at the front door. "Hello." Carol tried to sound a notch above herself or how she thought such a lady would respond. "I'm Mrs. Edward Rainer. My husband received a letter from your firm today about a reading of his father's will." "Yes," the voice replied as if she read it off a cue card. "It is set for tomorrow evening. We know Mr. Rainer would have a difficult time getting off from his job, so we scheduled it after working hours." The bitch! Carol thought. She must have been one of the wives of Sidney or Wyle. Some well kept JAP giggling at the file on Mr. Rainer's only son. Swallowing her pride, Carol continued in an even tone of voice. "My husband is, what shall I say, not comfortable around, well, what I mean is, who else will be at the reading?" "What are you getting at, Mrs. Rainer?" The voice took on an air of impatience. Carol did not know how to respond. Could she tell this bitch that her husband was shy of stuck-up rich people? God, no! "I - I just would like to know who - " Suddenly a man's voice was heard in the background. "That the Rainer kid?" it called. "His wife, sir," Miss JAP replied, away from the phone. "Let me take it in my office, Dora," the man said clearly. "Mrs. Rainer," Dora spoke directly to Carol, "please hold the line." And instantly Carol was thrown an earful of elevator music. From somewhere in her heart she felt saved. "Mrs. Rainer?" The man's voice dashed away the music. His tone filled the phone with bass sounds and an energetic kindness like a salesman in a ritzy department store. "I'm Fred Sidney, executor for your father-in-law's estate. How are you today, Carol - right, it is Carol?" "Yes, sir," she answered. Her heart moved from an embarrassing throbbing of humiliation and anger toward the woman who first had the phone into a warm sensation of dealing with a fatherly image. "Please, call me Fred. I like the name." His instruction clung to her ear like the confident whisper from an old friend. "Will I get to meet you tomorrow, Carol?" "Er..." How was she going to say this? "Well, actually, my husband is, you know, a bit squeamish about seeing all his family again. They never got along." She figured it a good excuse. Surely Eddie had not remained in contact with his father's side of the family - never even said any existed. "Oh, tell him not to worry, Carol," Fred replied enthusiastically. "There will be no one here but us." "Huh?" Carol could not believe her ears. "Aren't there others, you know - " "Nope," Fred shot back. "Only one beneficiary, that's Eddie." "Oh, my God!" Carol teetered on passing out. This was too good to be true! "Eddie gets everything? I mean ..." She didn't want to sound too anxious, too low life, too poor, but then again whom was she fooling? "Eddie's father was a wealthy man, right?" "Carol," Fred's voice sounded as if he were speaking about a close friend or admirer, "perhaps the wealthiest man I've ever known. Wealthy in many ways." Carol fell speechless. She pinched herself hard. "Ouch!" It was real! "Say something, Carol?" Fred asked. "No, no, Mr. Fred! He'll be there with bells on!" "Great. Until tomorrow evening then, Carol, good-bye." Carol remained frozen in place with the phone still in her right hand, the letter in her left. A force grew around her, pressed down at her, and threatened to tear her apart. Her solitary reaction to it was to scream at the top of her lungs, "We're rich!" Her cry alerted Eddie. At first her words were unclear from under the old Chevy, an excuse for a car. He thought she had burned herself or fallen down a flight of stairs. Jolting up, he hit his head on the tail pipe that followed his head back down to the dirt driveway. "Damn thing!" he bellowed and began beating the too often repaired pipe. Throwing it aside with the monkey wrench, he rolled from under the car and dashed into the house. "What is it, Carol?" He cried as he raced into the kitchen only to find his wife passed out on the floor with the phone in her hand and the letter at her side. "Holy shit, baby, you OK?" He tossed the phone from her and gathered her into his arms. "Come on, honey." He coaxed her back to consciousness. "Everything's going to be all right. It's all right, all right." Carol vividly saw herself caged inside a tight iron box. The walls squeezed at her and crushed her slender body under their weight. Under her, two faceless men were pulling at her legs and trying to remove her clothes. She could not see them, but their harsh fingers betrayed them as strong and lusty souls. Above her two women spat down upon her. It was Mrs. Baker, that rich bitch who owned the 7 Eleven, and another woman without a face. Mrs. Baker said nothing. She ignored Carol completely as she reached into Carol's blouse pocket and extracted all kinds of money. The other woman began laughing - it was that JAP Dora! Carol cried and struggled, fought madly on two fronts, until, from out of nowhere, Eddie appeared saying, "It's all right, baby, all right!" "God! I must have fainted!" Carol grabbed her husband and held on. She felt crushed between two realities. Then suddenly she remembered. "Eddie!" She screamed so loud that her husband almost fell to the floor as well. "We're rich! Rich! Honey, we're rich!" "Calm down, Carol." Eddie tried to lay her flat on the floor in order for her to regain her naturally reddish coloring. She looked so pale that her freckles stuck out like ink spots and her red hair contrasted with her face like ruby lipstick. "You'll be fine in a minute," he said. In the time it took her to assure herself that the vision she had had in her stupor was not like the reality of what happened before it, Eddie had thoughts of his own. Sad thoughts. Hearing his wife, the only person he really loved, crying out about being rich only reminded him about how poorly he kept her. She didn't deserve this, not this utter struggle just to eat and have a roof over their heads. She deserved better. Carol's color returned as she sat up on her own. Trying desperately to control her delight, she said, slowly and with long, rhythmic motions of her hands, "I called the lawyer's office. I spoke with a Mr. Sidney about your father's Will. Eddie, he's left everything to you!" Eddie dropped from his knees to the floor. He wore a look of surprise, disappointing to Carol because he did not smile, did not appear happy with the news. Was he angry that she took it upon herself to phone? Together they sat with their backs up against the cabinet doors under the sink. "What's with you, Eddie?" she bawled. "Did you hear what I said?" His head bowed as he watched his fingers twirling his wedding band. Whenever he fell lost in thought, he nervously fidgeted with the band as if it were a symbol of himself and his circumstances, a picture of the world in miniature that he spun around under close scrutiny, looking for the answer to a problem in an old scratch or pitted edge of the ring. "God! Eddie, we're rich!" She braced her forearms to her chest and sang out the words. "I don't know," he said flatly. "What d'ya mean?" She worried at his reaction. Was he fool enough to turn down the money because of a life long hatred for his father drummed in by a malicious, man hating mother? "It's yours. It's your inheritance. This is the money your own father has passed down to you." "The man was never my father." He looked hard wanting her to correct her usage of the word. "I never knew the man." "So what!" Carol cried and turned fully to him. Her attitude went from excitement to a form of patient reasoning with her man. "Eddie, I love you and always will. Doesn't matter if we have to go on living like scum or if things should get worse. I will always be here for you. Even if you turn down this money I will forever say you're a fool, but I'll still be yours. However, remember last summer when we were out on Richie's boat? Remember how you said you'd give anything to have a boat like that?" He smiled at the memory of the long, sleek Sea Ray, the way it smoothly cut through the water, the wonderful feeling of the ocean air riding through his hair. But the smile he wore was like none before. This time the boat wasn't a dream too far out of reach; he could have it. This time the smile harbored a notion that had never crossed his mind - ever. What if he did have everything he wanted? "Remember how you felt when all of our friends were buying houses and we couldn't afford to?" Carol said, but he was not thinking about houses. He was thinking about the two of them. Given money, would they remain in love or would he - or she - drift off into other arms, different life styles? Like in some storybook, would he gain everything only to lose the one thing that meant anything to him - or her? Money can be a terrible adversity, an ugly monster clinging to one's life, never letting go. "Eddie, this is our turn. This is our lucky break. God knows we earned it. Please." But she was right; he knew she deserved it. Lifting his face to her, he took her in his arms and kissed her full on the lips. As they picked themselves to their feet, he said, "Let's do it!" Together they cheered and jumped around the kitchen like two kids excited over the approach of their first hurricane, a storm that would level the world as they knew it and trail in behind it a glorious new day. Their little hearts pounded anxiously; their minds were made fearfully curious by the rare taste in the air. Fear became hope as they confidently wagered that every hurricane eye is open to the sunlight.
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