The Right Answer

"Oh, Leslie--would you look at that? Reminds of something I used to wear back in the day when I worked here. Before I was confined to this hunk of metal crap. I would borrow these diamonds to sport at all the hoity toity parties in the foothills with all the rich hunks."
Leslie pushed the slim wheelchair closer to the glass cases, smudged with a day's worth of fingerprints. Candy scooted forward from her wheeled contraption, adjusted her rectangular glasses and leaned her frizzy brown head into the case with the diamond bracelets.
"Hi, ladies. How can I help you?"
The mall sales clerk with the name "Destiny" on her Bellus Jeweler's tag quickly approached the awkward pair. At first, the muscles on Destiny's tanned, young face appeared to lift as if preparing to provide a cheerful, cheap greeting, common among sales folk, but then the muscles back flipped into an open mouthed, wide eyed countenance of horror. Her gaze shifted instantly from the girls to someone standing behind them.
"Don't say a word." A harsh, young male's voice whispered into Leslie's right ear. She felt his warm, whisky scented breath on her neck and something round and cold prod the back of her head. She tightened her grip on Candy's wheelchair and slowly turned her neck to the left, far enough to see the slim figure, roughly her height, 5' 9" standing firmly behind her. The stranger's face was hidden under a rubber mask of Dick Cheney. His figure was clothed in torn military fatigues, covered in rusty stains.
Candy stiffened in her wheelchair and her eyes bulged from her porcelain face like a wild Chihuahua’s. "And who do you think you are, Mister? Can't you see that me and my caregiver are trying to shop here?"
Leslie lightly tapped Candy's hand. She spoke quietly to Candy from the side of her mouth. "Candy, I think we need to take this guy seriously, he is holding a gun to the back of my head."
Candy snorted as she looked at the stranger. "Puh-lease. This guy isn't for real. Not in this dinky little town--voted the best little city in the U.S. by Money magazine. I'll take him just about as seriously as my ex-husband--that bastard. Said he quit being an orthodontist to work as an assassin. Like I believe that for one minute."
The stranger's .357 caliber handgun moved from Leslie's head to her back. He grabbed the waist of her brown wool pea coat with his hand, heavy with cheap bubble gum machine rings and black, chipped fingernail polish. "Your friend's a little yappy. I think I need to show her how serious I am." He withdrew a wrinkled handkerchief from his cargo pants.
Candy waved her pointer finger at him. "Don't you even think about shutting me up."
The stranger waved the pistol in her face.
"Go ahead. I'm not afraid to die. Just ask my caregiver. I'm ready."
The stranger shook his head and quickly wrapped the handkerchief around Candy's mouth. "This chick's crazier than I am." He thrust the pistol into Leslie's back. "Ok. I want you to wheel your friend into that back storage room." He turned to Destiny. "Don't even think about calling security. " He produced a purple Crown Royal sack from his pant pocket. "I expect this sack to be filled with all the cash in your register and as many jewels as you can cram into it when I get back from the storage room--you got that?"
"Uh, yeah." Destiny's voice stammered and her hands tremored as she searched for the register keys. The keys rattled against the glass cases.
Leslie turned her head in both directions, as if looking for any sign of life in the mall, but not a click of a heel or rustle of a bag could be heard as she quickly wheeled Candy to the flickering light coming from a room at the back of the store. Wouldn't you know this has to happened on my last night, she thought.

********************************************

"I hope you're ready for another gourmet meal," said Leslie. She set the pizza rolls, heavy on the bread, light on the pizza, in front of Candy. Leslie grabbed the hot tea and shortbread from the tray for herself.
Candy's hand wobbled for a luke warm roll. "At least it's better than that dog food I get from Meals on Wheels," she said, sticking her index finger in her mouth, producing a gag noise. "Salisbury slop and poop cocktail three times this week. I just give the stuff to my kitty, or give it to my mom. That loony blob with eat anything."
Leslie shook her head. "Candy, you've got to eat more than just pizza rolls and shortbread on Tuesday and Thursday nights. You're not getting any nutrients, and that's not cool with your MS."
"Beso mi culo!" Candy said and stuck out her tongue, exposing particles of pizza roll. "And what's your excuse for not eating? Your boyfriend again? When's he gonna learn to cook for himself? Duh, it's the Twenty-first Century!"
Leslie laughed. "It sounds like you've been practicing your Spanish again. I taught you all the right phrases."
"What else am I gonna do? I'm stuck in this wheelchair all day. Since I got canned from the University, I've been through that whole box of Jane Ann Krentz novels. By the way, I need you to take me to Book Lovers on Thursday to exchange them for another set," Candy paused, and then slumped into her wheelchair, her frizzy brown hair bobbing and glasses sliding down her small, freckled nose. "Hey, that's right--you won't be care giving for me anymore because this is your last night." Candy wiggled her slim body. "You're going to be spending more time with your booooy friend."
Wearing that child size sweat suit and speaking in that winy, high-pitched voice, she sounds like a four year old child, thought Leslie, but geez, I am going to miss our girl nights out. "Ouch!" Leslie retracted from her hot cup of tea. "I burnt my lip. . .and that's not all I'll be doing. I'm going back to school, to study writing."
"Well, you'll have plenty of material with me," Candy laughed and with a trembling hand, pulled out a slim orangish-yellow book with caricatures of unknown politicians and actors on the cover from a pouch on her wheelchair. Looks like a coloring book, thought Leslie.
"Damn tremors!" said Candy, slapping the book on the table. Crumbs flew to the floor. "Well, this will all be over in two years. I've tried everything from the latest meds to marijuana, and nothing has eased the pain of this MS. That's OK, though. My psychologist gave me two years to live after I lost my job--it was the only thing worth living for. I give twenty years to the University and what happens?" Candy looked up towards the ceiling and flung her arms from her lap. "God, just take me now! End my suffering! Let me die and be with my grandmother in Heaven, away from this pain and my mother--that self-centered, bipolar bitch!"
Leslie looked behind Candy at some of the folks who were watching Candy's theatrics--teens with tattoos and body piercings, mothers with mullet haircuts wearing tie dyed T-shirts and stonewashed jeans, and senior citizens power walking at a pace that looked foolishly abnormal. This place is a zoo, with all the animals staring back at animals, thought Leslie.
"Candy, you sound like you have a death wish. I wish you wouldn't talk like that."
Candy's fingers struggled to remove the plastic from a triangular piece of shortbread. Leslie said, "Here let me help you."
Candy pushed the shortbread in Leslie's direction. "See. At least you can open a simple piece of plastic. What can I do anymore? I have no hobbies--I can't work out, I can't decorate, I can't eat or use the toilet like a normal person. My poor dad--he still works like a dog at age sixty five, taking care of that woman and me--empties my colostomy bag. If I wasn't alive, his life would be a helluva a lot easier."
"So I should have left you in your SUV in the mall parking lot, unlocked? Come in to get your pizza rolls by myself, with you unattended, just waiting for a lunatic to come and kidnap you, to drive you into the foothills and wheel you down into the reservoir?" Leslie's speech became pressured as she sat up in her seat to deliver this diatribe.
Candy leaned forward, hands braced to the edge of the table, eyes nearly protruding from her gaunt face. "YES!"
Leslie sighed. "Whatever." She pointed at the orangish-yellow book. "Whaddya got there, Candy?"
Candy immediately brightened. "A book of trivia. I stumped my acupuncturist twice this week with some of these questions. You wanna read a few of them and then go over to the jewelry store before you take me home?"
"Sure, let me see that book of yours." Candy wobbled the book over to Leslie's end of the table. The edges scraped and dipped into the pizza roll sauce. "Mmm, tasty," said Leslie, wiping off a piece of sauce. She flipped through the pages. "Ok, let's see here--Art, Science, Politics. Take your pick, Candy, what topic?"
Candy rolled her eyes upward and placed her pointer finger under her chin. "Hmm, how about Art for 200, Alex?"
"Ok. I think I'll ask you this question because the answer happens to be one of my favorite artists, hint, hint."
"Like I'll ever get it."
Leslie shook her head and laughed. "Here goes: What painter was married to Mexican artist Diego Rivera? A: Leonora Carrington, B: Frida Kahlo, C: Clara Montalba, or D: Tina Modotti? I'll even give you another hint. Selma Hyak played in the movie about this artist."
"What do I care about Selma Hyak? Who played the guy--Richard Gere or Bruce Willis? I give up. Who is Diego Rivera, anyway? I only know Monet and Degas. Or Thomas Kinkade. I don't know--that Clara something or other."
"Nope. The answer is, Frida Kahlo."
"Well, isn't that special. Ask another one. Ask a movie or TV question."
"Ok. For 400 points, what TV show is credited for a massive surge of applications for courses in forensic science? These are your choices, Candy: A: X-Files, B: CSI, C: Law & Order, or D: Quincy."
Candy rolled her eyes. "Like, duh, everyone knows that it's CSI."
Leslie gave her a golf clap. "Good job, you are correct. How about you ask me a few?"
"Why not. Oh, here's a good one." With trembling hands, Candy lifted the book two inches from her face. Her voice was muffled through the paper and cardboard. "Every episode of "Seinfeld" contains an image or reference to what superhero? Is it A, Superman, B, Batman, C, Spiderman, or D, Plastic Man.
Now it was Leslie's turn to roll her eyes. "C'mon. That's too easy. My boyfriend's a Seinfield fan and my brother's a comic book freak. The answer is A: Superman."
Candy wagged her finger at Leslie. "I guess I'm being too easy on you. Let me find you a tough one. How about Miscellaneous?"
Leslie rubbed her hands together. "I'm ready."
"According to Japanese legend, a sick person will recover if they fold 1,000 of what type of origami? Is it A, a Dragon, B, a Fish, C, a Frog, or D, a Crane?"
"Well, I know a dragon is for good luck. I'm not sure what a fish or frog stands for. . .I've seen a lot of cranes in Japanese stories," Leslie deliberated on this question for a good two minutes. "I don't know. . .dragon?"
"Nope. Crane. This is what the answer reads: according to a Japanese legend, the crane lives for a thousand years, and a sick person who folds 1,000 origami cranes will become well again. A young girl, Sadako Sasaki from Hiroshima, set out to do just that when she developed leukemia as a result of her exposure to the atomic bomb dropped on her city."
"And?"
"And what?"
"And, did the girl live?"
"What do you think, Leslie?"
"You know Candy, did you ever stop to think that maybe there's a reason why the MS hasn't killed you yet?"
Candy talked over her, as if having a private conversation with herself. "She died at age 12, before her project was completed. . ." she said quietly.
"Let me see that." Leslie pried the book from Candy's spindly hands. "But it says her classmates folded the remaining cranes for her and placed them at the foot of a monument constructed in Sadako's memory in Hiroshima's National Peace Park. See Candy, they still had hope."
"Leslie, will you fold me a thousand cranes when I die? How will you remember me?"
"With a thousand paper cats. But I know that day won't come for many years. . . ."
"Oh, trivia, what's the use of it anyway. Except to sit around in mall food courts, passing the time until my caregiver leaves. . ."
Leslie pulled a folded up piece of paper from her coat pocket and placed it on the table.
"What's that, origami?" Candy asked.
"No. It's something a counselor I work with gave me." Leslie looked at her bright blue cell phone. "Good. We still have some time for this."
"For what? I thought we were going to the jewelry store."
"We are, mi amiga. This will just take a few minutes."
"What's on that crumpled piece of paper? A chant for eternal youth and good health, I hope."
"Well, Candy, I know you like reading about psychology and stuff. This is David Hawkin's Levels of Consciousness. According to this guy, we all function on different levels which determine why we behave the way we do," Leslie unfolded the paper. She pointed at a chart with over fifteen emotions with point values next to them ranging from 20 to 1000.
"So will this thing determine whether or not I'm crazy or what?"
Leslie laughed. "No, but I think it might help you find some purpose to your life. See it's divided up by positive energy giving levels and negative energy taking levels, or survival levels and levels of love. See, Shame is at the bottom rung of the ladder. The primary emotion is humiliation. It's the closest to death and most suicide victims are found at that level. On the opposite end, you find Enlightenment--it's like Christ, Buddha, or Krishna--becoming like God."
"Holy smokes--which level am I at? Shame? 'Cause I'm certainly not Godlike. If I was God, the first thing I'd do is go back to the University and fire my boss!"
"No, I think you're above that--you're not ready for death yet. I think you're in a level of Grief. You're in a state of remorse for the life and opportunities you could not fulfill. You can change that, you know. You could move up to Desire, Pride, even Courage."
"It's that easy, huh? Just read a piece of paper by some weird guy."
"It's not easy. It requires more than just reading. It requires making a conscience decision and taking action." An Asian ring tone interrupted the conversation.
"Preacher, I think your cell phone just went off."
Leslie pulled it out from her coat pocket. "Oh, it's just a text from my boyfriend. He wants to know what I want for dinner."
"Well, I guess we better check out the jewelry store so you can get home."

******************************************************

"'How white their steel/how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave, cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave. Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie, when on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky. The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose, you never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes'--who wrote this?" The stranger in the Dick Cheney mask pinned Candy and Leslie in the back corner of the closet, imprisoned by boxes. He swung his .357 as he spoke, staggering a little.
"Sir Walter Scott?" Leslie asked, nerves forcing her erect. She tried to remember what she was taught in Crisis Intervention class. Keep a supportive stance, talk in a calm voice, repeat what he's saying. . .deescalate, deescalate. . . he appears to be intoxicated. Maybe I can trick him. Candy sat silently with the handkerchief in her mouth, gathering drool.
The stranger belched. "Wrong answer. 'Twas no other than G. K. Chesterton--'The Last Hero'."
"Really. . .I'm not too familiar with his works. Would you like to talk about them?"
"No. What I'd really like to talk about is that bitch, Stephanie."
"Stephanie?" Leslie was a little surprised by this response. "Let me guess--she's your girlfriend?"
The stranger in the Dick Cheney mask threw back his head. "Ex-girlfriend. In fact she used to work here, in this jewelry store. Before I left for Iraq I used to visit her here all the time. Oh, the times we would have in this back room."
"Oh--kaay. Well, that was a little more than I needed to know," Leslie whispered to herself. Candy made a gag noise.
"So you went to Iraq?"
"Hell yeah. Signed up five years ago. Was an infantry soldier in Mosul."
"I can't imagine what you experienced there. . .as a soldier."
"It's nothing civilian life could prepare you for. Bullets pinging off armored vehicles like rain drops shattering a bucket. Explosions--mushroom dust clouds, no sign of blue for weeks. Grenades everywhere--never knowing when one will go off. . . BOO!" He threw back his head and laughed like a mad scientist. "Hell, my buddies and I put our lives on the line for you ungrateful. . .I put my life on the line for that ungrateful bitch. . . ."
"I'm sorry, she must have broken your heart."
"That succubus was engaged to me before I left. We wrote each other daily for months. Two years went by and the letters slowly dwindled to one every few months or so. Soon there were none. I came back to an empty bed. I wasn't there to keep her warm, so she moved on to another."
"But you can move on, there's other women out there--"
"Like hell I can move on. Who wants a man with a broken head? Shit, I can't even go back to school under the G.I. Bill. That bastard recruiter assured me when I enrolled that I would be called to active duty only if WWIII broke out." He produced a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and threw it at Leslie. "Read that."
"This is from the Department of the Army. It's a deployment letter for Cody McNabb. Cody McNabb--is that you?"
"I wish I could say it wasn't, but it is."
All the while McNabb was talking to Leslie, Candy had managed to work her facial muscles to remove the handkerchief. It slid down her chin and into her lap. "So, Dick Cheney, are you gonna shoot me or what?" she asked.
McNabb shook his head. The gray of his eyes revealed the human behind the mask. "Lady, you are the only civilian I've ever known to ask to be killed. What's your deal?"
"Twenty years in a wheelchair is my deal, bubs. . .no job, no husband, no house, no life!"
"Looks like you gotta a pretty good life to me--you've got a good friend, here. All of my buddies have died or moved on, married with children. They've forgotten my name. As for that wheelchair--at least you can move your arms, still. You should of seen a buddy of mine over in Iraq. His limbs fried off like Anakin's right before he was found and transformed into Darth Vader."
Leslie's cell phone ring tone sounded. At this point, McNabb's gun was resting at his side. He turned to Leslie. "You got a phone call or something?"
"Uh no, really, it's nothing."
Candy scoffed. "Nothing? You bet it's something. It's her boyfriend, calling her home for dinner. So you better hurry and shoot me now so she can scurry on home."
McNabb scoffed back at Candy. "Oh, you think it's that easy. That I'll kill one of you and let the other one go? Well it doesn't work like that in combat. It's all or nothing. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna ask you a question. If you answer right, I let you both go, and I leave with my Crown Royal sack--you don't breathe a word of this to anyone."
"And if I answer wrong, you shoot me?"
"No, if you answer wrong. . .I shoot both of you."
Candy slumped into her chair.
Leslie slowly turned her head in Candy's direction. There were questions in her dark eyes. "Now's your chance, Candy," she whispered. "How do you think they'll remember us?"
"Candy," said McNabb. "You look like a smart woman. The kind who would never cheat on a man. The kind who just might know the right answer to a question. But is it a question she wants to answer correctly, even if she does know the answer?" Leslie's chest rose with every word he pronounced. She was wondering the same things as McNabb. My God, what question could this guy possibly ask?
"Candy," said McNabb. "In life, there are many forces, good and evil, wrong and right. And there are different levels to everything, different energies. In times of war, I experienced everything and nothing. There is such a thing as energy levels--Levels of Consciousness as David Hawkins calls them. . . ."
David Hawkins? A lump rose in Leslie's throat.
"Candy," said McNabb. "There were points in my service when I felt like I was at the level of Fear and paranoia, Desire for power, Anger for unfulfilled Desire, Courage to go on, and Pride for my country. At one point, I even felt Enlightenment--I felt so close to God, I can't describe the all-knowing sensation. But now, I realize these were all delusions. There's only one way I will be close to God and that is in death. And here lies my question to you, fellow beggar of death. Sister in suicide. What level is this on Hawkin's scale?"
"Is this a multiple choice question?" asked Candy. "Cause that's the only trivia I'm used to."
"Sorry, this is fill in the blank."
The answer was ready to pounce on McNabb from the tip of Leslie's tongue. Say it, Candy. C'mon. You just learned this tonight, you know it.
Candy glanced at Leslie. "I'm sorry Leslie, but you're not gonna like this."
Leslie took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
"McNabb," said Candy. "I doubt this answer is correct, my memory's really faulty. But I am going to guess that on David Hawkin's scale, you are at the very bottom. You are at the level of--Shame."
Leslie spat fear from her breath. McNabb hiccupped.
"You are correct, Madam," he said. Then he turned the gun to his forehead.
"McNabb, no!" Leslie leapt for the gun. McNabb pulled the trigger. Nothing. He pulled the trigger again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.
"Shit! There's no bullets in this piece!" He said. Then he quoted Chesterton again: “'The gallows in my garden, people say, is new and neat and adequately tall. I tie the noose on in a knowing way, as one that knots his necktie for a ball. But just as all the neighbours--on the wall, are drawing a long breath to shout 'Hurray!,' the strangest whim has seized me. . . . After all think I will not hang myself to-day.'"
“And I thought I was the crazy one,” said Candy.

****************************************

About two minutes after Cody McNabb’s failed attempt at suicide, three mall security guards entered the storage room, along with Larry Matheson, McNabb’s caseworker at Mountain View Rehabilitation Center.

News reports in the local paper the next day would say that McNabb had escaped from the facility earlier that evening, broke into his mother’s home, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from her liquor cabinet and his father’s .357 from the lock box and headed for the mall. His mother had a suspicion he was headed for the mall--there was a 20% off coupon from Bellus Jeweler’s torn and left on the kitchen counter along with an envelope for a deployment letter postmarked three years ago, before McNabb landed himself in Mountain View for PTSD.

Leslie and Candy could hear McNabb still quoting Chesterton as he was being handcuffed:
“'He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.'"
Leslie and Candy heard a whisper from the girl at the counter as she spilled the contents of the Crown Royal sack back into the register: “And ‘A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.’"
Leslie and Candy looked at each other. Destiny? Who knew?

***********************************************
“Arms in?” asked Leslie. Candy slumped into the passenger side of her SUV. Leslie turned to the security guard who escorted them to the parking lot. “I think we’re OK from here, sir.”
He nodded. “Take care, gals. Here’s my number if you need anything else.”
Leslie slipped the number into her coat pocket and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Who’s gonna ask me if ‘I’m all in’ after tonight?” asked Candy.
“You’ll just have to train one of your new caregivers,” said Leslie. She braked fast as a car whizzed behind them, going the wrong direction.
“Asshole!” said Candy. “When are those kids gonna learn?” She shook her head. “See, my new caregiver won’t know that the high school kids fly through here in the wrong direction constantly.”
“Oh, Candy, I’m sure gonna miss you. Hell, who would have guessed our last night would end like this.”
“Have you checked your phone lately?”
“Holy cats--six new text messages! He’s never gonna believe this.”
“You better call him.”
“I will, as soon as I drop you off. Your dad’s waiting up for us.”
"I'm surprised your boyfriend hasn't showed up already, looking for his three course meal--that this wasn't all over the news and shit." Candy sighed and put her head against the seat. “Leslie, I think I’m gonna fire Inga.”
“Your Monday-Wednesday-Friday caregiver? Really?”
“Well, you’re leaving. And that old bat’s been bossing me around for the past three years. Telling me to buy her 'this rag to dust with' and 'those petunias to plant,' and flirting with my dad. You inspired me to start over, start fresh. I need new energy.”
“That’s great--what are you going to tell the agency?”
“I’m gonna tell them I want to trade in a forty for two twenties (well actually, your age and Inga’s combined equal about eighty). But I won’t be short changing myself. Hell, if my ex could do it, I can do it." They shared a giggle. Then Candy turned to Leslie for the last time (maybe). "And what about you? Now that you're retired from care giving for good?"
Leslie looked off into the twinkling lights of the parking lot. "Don't say for good, Candy. A person never stops caring. . . .besides, if I'm gonna be a writer, I need some juicy material."

*******The End*******