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21
This is a lot of work for ice cream.
I was fooling around with a handful of change as Shawn drove us to The HALL the next morning. I had a quarter floating in the middle of a Ferris wheel of pennies, nickels, and dimes. I didn't have any other use for the contents of my pockets left-over from Earth and I thought it would be fun to show Bem what I meant by `change.'
Shawn and I'd had a quiet night, basically a repeat of Sunday night. We ate together in the bar, and when the meal was over, Shawn retired so I could get drunk without an audience. Beni and I played out the ancient roles of addict and enabler, and Shawn invited me to his room again when I stumbled into the suite.
The night was unremarkable, but the feelings it caused in me were very remarkable. For the first time, I was seeing the alcoholism as a serious problem. Up to that point, I always viewed it as a solution to another problem. I didn't care what it did to me, but I didn't like what it was doing to Shawn. He hated watching me destroy myself. It was also embarrassing to be invited to his bed at the end of a night's binging, a sweating, slurring mess. That was something new for me as well. On Earth, I never gave a damn what anyone thought of me. I was an unrepentant drunk. Even at work, my problem was an open secret. They kept me on because, drunk or sober, I was the best, and results were more important than sobriety.
The mounting problem was that I cared what Shawn thought of me. I liked that I made him feel safe. I felt like he trusted me, had faith in me, though God knows why he would. It bothered me that my drinking bothered him, but I didn't see a solution. He'd said that he could remove the addiction, but he couldn't help with the `psychological aspects of drinking.' The few and the many times I'd thought about quitting, I reasoned that the physical addiction would be difficult to overcome, but not insurmountable. The bigger problem was the demons. I wondered where could I hide when the monsters came for me? I didn't see how I could ever deal with them without something that would smother my consciousness. I chewed the problem over like a dog with a rawhide bone until I couldn't anymore. I laid it aside to come back to later.
The events from the previous day were something else that needed thinking about. "Why did Bem seem so taken with my magic?" I asked.
Shawn replied to the windshield like he always did when we spoke when he was driving. The more I rode with him the more I realized his complete attention to the road was just how he drove. It had nothing to do with difficult topics or wanting to, or not wanting to make eye contact. "It surprised me to. It makes sense that telekinesis uses an invisible force to move objects, but I've never heard of anyone that could solidify that force. I'm sure you're basically-limitless power reserves are part of the equation, but I wonder if your Vitalis magic has something to do with the projection. Either way, it's impressive."
"Huh..." was all I could come up with as we approached the main gate of The HALL and had to present our `HALL passes' for entry. We parked and made our way into the building.
Both halves of the almost anagram of Bem and Neb were in conference room 603 when we arrived. Neb greeted us by demanding I demonstrate the magic from the previous day. I did as I was told, received no feedback other than a few grunts of acknowledgement, and sat down. I immediately regretted lowering myself into the chair when my hips forced their way passed the too-narrow arms, effectively locking me to it like an infant in a booster seat. Since I was already trapped, I remained seated.
Neb remained standing. "We will be assessing your climbing skills today." She announced to my extreme displeasure.
I had another of my sorta-suits on. This one with a baby-blue jacket and pants and an electric-blue shirt and heels. "Uh...Neb, I'm not exactly dressed for climbing." I objected.
She bristled visibly at my use of her first name, and I told myself to call her ma'am going forward. `No reason to piss her off unnecessarily.' I thought to myself as Neb's sharp eyes burned into me.
She snapped off a reply to my mild complaint. "I already made the facility aware of you."
`And what the hell does that mean?' I wondered without asking.
Shawn sensed that I didn't understand and came to my rescue. He answered my unasked question. "The climbing places have special suits, shoes, and gloves for rent. They're protective and help you grip the wall. Neb must have told them about you, so they'd be sure to have stuff that fits."
Neb split a scowl between Shawn and I, apparently unhappy with our chatter. "Transportation is arranged." Her melodic contralto barked. "We will leave now."
I struggled out of the chair and followed the group as we trooped out in silence. Neb was to conversation what a bucket of water is to a campfire. We rode the elevator to the parking garage. Neb moved toward a four-seat egg, and we followed. I was dreading the idea of folding myself into another Solum vehicle so soon after unfolding from the one Shawn and I had arrived in. Everything around me was a constant reminder that Solum wasn't big enough for me. That thought led to another one. `Warning or no warning, there is no way the climbing place is going to have stuff my size.'
I excused myself and made a detour to my Crown Vic. From the trunk, I grabbed a spare pair of soft-toed work boots, the only kind I ever wore (steel toes are cold in the winter and uncomfortable all the time), and my jeans. When I opened the car, I noticed it reeked of stale cigarette smoke. My perception of the odor surprised me. It was much more powerful than I was used to. I wondered if my few days of being smoke free had made that much difference in my perception of the habit, or if somehow the removal of the addiction also removed the part of me that found it acceptable.
I didn't dwell on what was an academic problem. It didn't much matter either way. I was no longer a smoker and while the acrid odor of the car had once been something I hardly noticed, now I found it borderline offensive. I thought about running the windows down but didn't bother. I'd had the car for twenty-three years and smoked in it the entire time. Trying to air out the stink it had been marinating in for all that time seemed silly. I crammed my jeans into a liquor store plastic bag, grabbed my boots, and went back to the egg.
Bem was behind the wheel with Neb beside him and Shawn in the rear seat on the driver's side. I piled my stuff in the footwell of the open rear seat and followed it in. "What's that for?" Shawn asked.
"I'm hedging a bet on a sure thing." I explained without explaining anything. He didn't ask me to elaborate and I didn't offer. I went back to fooling around with my pocket change. I had a pretty decent solar system going when Shawn's excitement pulled my attention to him. I marched the coins into my palm and stuffed them in my pocket to I could see what had him revved up.
Shawn pointed out the window to a warehouse-sized, clear glass, fish tank of a building standing in the middle of an empty parking lot. It was about sixty feet tall, maybe double that in width, but only thirty feet deep. The entire back wall was a blue-gray simulated mountain with a rainbow of colored shapes stuck all over it. I assumed they were the holds. "This is where I climb in the rainy season. I have a locker here."
I didn't share his enthusiasm and grouched about the pending exertion. "Your idea of `fun' is somewhat different from mine. If I'm going to run, it's gonna be away from something damn scary and if I'm going to climb...I don't know...there should be ice cream at the top or something."
"But there is ice cream at the top. See that gazebo-looking building at the summit?" He pointed as we parked. "That's an ice cream stand."
"We are NOT here for ice cream!" Neb's melodic voice scolded.
Bem blew out a breath as a ragged sigh that sounded like frustration. He turned in his seat to face Neb. I felt like I was watching dad brace himself to pick a fight with mom. "You're right," Bem said, "we're not here for ice cream. We ARE here to climb, but it is possible to have both and not be miserable about it."
Neb slid her door open with a bang as her hard push slammed the door against the limits of the slider tracks and leapt from the vehicle. Bem shook his head at the door she'd left open. He righted himself in his seat and looked at Shawn and me in the rearview. "There's a person in there somewhere...I think." He mused before rousing himself to more productive thoughts. "We've got the whole place until noon. Let's see what you guys got."
Bem got out and shut his door, then went around the car to close the door Neb had exited through. I struggled out of my own door, grabbed my boots and bag of jeans, and followed the rest of the team into the facility.
Shawn pointed out the rental counter and the locker rooms and went to get changed. Neb and Bem went first while I observed the process. It was like renting bowling shoes but more involved. The clerk behind the long white counter was a muscly, fresh-faced ginger guy, who was dressed in purple and green. Behind him was a wall of white cabinets, all closed. Neb stepped up, gave the guy her sizes which were equivalent to Earth clothing sizes, and put her palm on the counter that automatically picked a glove size for her. The ginger guy went through the cabinets and handed over shoes, gloves, and some folded cloth that I assumed was a garment. She accepted everything and went to the locker room.
Bem repeated the process and left to change. I stepped up and the very predictable occurred. The ginger's green eyes bulged up at me like I was a creature from a low-budget horror movie. "They told me they were bringing a big guy, but..." His voice stopped speaking but his mouth hung open.
I leaned my hands on the counter and finished his thought. "Let me guess, you didn't expect anyone like me. Fine," I said, "one step at a time. Let's start with shoes."
I gave him my size. He shook his astonished head. I gave him my clothing sizes and got the same reaction. I pressed my palm on the counter...same thing. "Can I wear my own stuff?" I asked.
"Why are you renting if you already have gear?" He asked and sounded indignant, like I'd just been wasting his time.
I showed him the boots and jeans. He was dubious but said that, because I was there with The HALL, he wouldn't object. The gloves became a sticking point. I offered to go without them, but he wouldn't have it. "Sir, the rocks are very coarse and..."
I held my scarred and calloused hands out, palms up, then flipped them over and back for him to see. "Your wall won't hurt these any worse than they already are."
He touched my palm with a curious finger, shuddered, and relented. I went to the locker room to catch up with Shawn and Bem.
The room I entered was a standard locker room except the lockers were purple plastic, the benches were red, and the floor and walls were solid white. Shawn and Bem were roughly at the midpoint of the room. Shawn was facing my direction but Bem had his back to me. Shawn was dressed and waiting for Bem to finish fastening the adjustable buckles on his shoes. The sight of Shawn's climbing outfit stopped me in my tracks. It was a shiny, one-piece, bright yellow body suit. It looked like a wet suit and fit like body paint. He let out a needy groan as my lust slammed into him.
"Why are you in rubber?" I asked, frozen in place by the sight.
"It's not rubber." Bem corrected without taking his attention from his shoe buckles. "It's a solid protective fabric. The weave is so tight, it looks like rubber, but it breathes like cloth."
Bem's mini speech had been informative, but hadn't distracted my lust. Shawn was trying not to react to my desire, but without much success. "Church, can you think of something else please?" Shawn begged.
I waved the hand that held the bag of jeans at him. "How? You're dressed like a latex fetish fantasy, and I'm supposed to be calm."
"What's latex?" Bem asked. He finished fooling with his shoes and stood up. His wet suit was red. He didn't set my imagination on fire like Shawn did, but the sinewy leanness of his runner's build was nice to look at.
"It's not important." Shawn said to Bem then directed himself back at me. "Church, I can't function with my head all clouded with sex. How do we fix this?"
I dropped my boots on the floor, set my bag on a bench, and kept my eyes on the bag. "Pants, Shawn. I can deal with your upper half. If I have to look at those legs...and I can only imagine what you ass looks like...I won't be able to think of anything else."
I heard a locker open and assumed Shawn was going to put something on to make himself less attractive. I thought it was a shame to cover such beauty and had an impulse to look his way while he put the pants on, then decided that was probably a bad idea. My better judgement told me the worst thing I could do was to burn the image of his lower half into my imagination before we did something dangerous like climbing a fake mountain.
Bem wasn't satisfied to let me wait in peace. "I didn't know you were a leg guy, Church." Bem purred. He laid one of his across the bench, right in my line of sight. "You like these? I'm more of an upper body guy myself, especially big arms, but I could see the beauty. Those legs of Shawn's...they must be like a vice. He could clamp them around me anytime. I wouldn't even..."
"BEM!" Shawn and I shouted in unison. Listening to him was heating me up and I was starting to get feedback that Shawn was feeling the same. Bem cackled with delight as we both worked to beat down the lust.
"You need me to wear pants to?" Bem's voice leered. He ran his hands over his leg and flexed the calf.
Bem's leg looked good and I thought I would enjoy getting to know it better, but my lust for Bem's body was manageable, with or without pants. His teasing made my mind work until it came up with an idea that put a smirk on my face. "No, Bem," I baited the man who'd been trying to bait me, "those bird legs won't be a problem."
"Bird legs?" He huffed. He snatched the leg away. "Insult me...bird legs...I'll put pants on for spite! You'll beg me to see these legs before I'll show them to you! You'll beg and I still won't!" He pulled his pants back on. I couldn't tell if Bem was genuinely angry or just playing along. Either way, I was enjoying his reaction.
Shawn finished with his pants and asked me to look to gauge my reaction. I looked. I still wanted him, but I didn't burn like before. I'd still have to be careful of my fantasies, but my lust was well under control. I turned my focus to the task at hand, changing my clothes. I picked my bag of jeans up off the bench and noticed Bem staring at me. "Well?" He prompted with his fists propped on his narrow hips. "Strip."
I shrugged out of my jacket and folded it up. I dropped my pants and folded them. Then I pulled my jeans on and started tucking the long tail of my shirt in. "But..." Bem objected.
"Sorry pal." I fastened my jeans and sat to put my boots on. "They can't fit me. My climbing gear is just what you see; a short-sleeve shirt, an old pair of jeans from Earth, and standard-issue, brown-leather work boots. They couldn't even supply gloves."
Bem was disappointed and raised a concern about my delicate hands. I let him see they were about as delicate as the rest of me, then he was just disappointed.
We left the locker room to find Neb in an orange body suit. She had a decent figure, rather straight up and down, but still feminine in her own way. She eyed each of us with unveiled disdain, but didn't comment on our odd states of dress. She led us to the wall. On the way, we had to cross a wide strip of dark red padding that ran the length of the base of the mountain.
As we got close to the wall, I saw the climbing surface wasn't just sheer but an installation with a lot of geometry to approximate a real cliff face. The wall pitched out and back, creating angled sloping waves so in some spaces you'd be on top of a ledge and some you'd be holding onto the underside. The higher the recommended skill level, the deeper the wall sections became and the fewer hand and footholds they offered.
Neb jerked her chin at the wall. "This is the intermediate section. Each of you needs to be able to climb it to the top. If you can't, your task will be to climb until you can. Acceptable performance is reaching the summit in three times what it takes me to do it. Good performance is doing it in only twice my time. I will go first to set expectations and show you technique." She started up the wall.
I watched her go and elbowed Shawn with a concern. "No safety ropes?" I asked.
Shawn hopped on the red padding, first a shallow jump, then a hard leap. The padding compressed much further under the leap than it did the hop. "This surface reacts to impact. The harder you hit, the farther you'll sink in before you pop back out. It's called inertia padding. If you fall, don't try to stop yourself. Just go limp and let it happen."
Bem erupted in a leering cackle. "That's what he said!"
I picked up on the implied dirty joke, a version of the endless that's what she said' comments that inevitably followed anything that could even remotely be construed as inuendo, and shook my head. I couldn't do anything else in response to his comment. I put my focus back on Neb and started getting very nervous. She made it up forty-five feet of wall in not much time. You don't have a shot in hell.' I thought.
"You should go next." Shawn said to me.
"WHY?" I demanded. I figured I'd be last. I figured I'd have time to dread my turn and get to at least get to watch one, if not both Shawn and Bem go up before I made my attempt.
Bem answered and laid out some unpleasant truth. "Shawn knows this wall and will make it up. I'll get up as fast as Neb or faster. You're the least experienced and in the worst shape."
I didn't bother to thank Bem for his stark appraisal of the situation. Instead, I bowed to the inevitable. I shut my eyes and flipped open my mental Shawn reference book to `climbing shit for idiots.' It gave me a few tips. I took a breath and reached for the first hand-hold. Shawn tried to stop me. He wanted to go over the basics before I made an attempt. I took my hand from the wall to wave his concerns away.
"Think of this as a base line." I said. "This will tell us how much I need to learn." I restarted my assent without waiting for his approval.
The first few steps weren't too hard. My height and reach gave me extra options for hand and foot holds. Not wearing gloves helped because I could feel the contour of the holds and really lock my fingers in before shifting my weight to that grip. My boots, on the other hand, were not helping.
The gummy softness of the thick, non-slip soles made it extra hard to lock my foot into each ledge. The other problem was the sheer size of the boots. The footwear the other three had were slipper-like shoes, barely larger than their feet, with shovel-blade shaped toes to reach deep into the clefts in the wall. Even a pair of sneakers would have been better than the chunky, round-toed work boots. I didn't have sneakers though. I had boots and I had heels, neither of which would serve me worth a damn on the wall.
I struggled on and was about ten feet up, and setting no speed records, when I fell the first time. I'd been using my legs to push myself toward a handhold for my right hand when my left foot, the one that was doing most of the pushing, slipped off the wall. I pulled hard with my left hand, but couldn't stay on the wall with just two points of contact. I remembered what Shawn told me about not trying to stop myself from falling and used my loose right hand to push myself away from the wall as I went down. I landed flat on my back and sank deep into the inertia padding. It quivered like a gelatin mold struck with a spoon and heaved me to the surface.
I wasn't hurt at all, not so much as stinging skin where I landed on the smooth surface of the top of the padding. I struggled to my feet and started climbing again. I made it a little higher that time, but not much. `Third time lucky.' I thought. It wasn't. The fifth time I fell, I laid on the padding and stared at the summit that, for all my efforts, was no closer. To add some insult to my non-physical injury, Neb picked that moment to lean over the top to look right in my face with her resting scowl. I stood up, smacked my hands together and held them, palms out, toward Bem and Shawn. "That's it for me." I said.
"Quitter." Bem accused. I recognized what he was doing. It was a ham-fisted attempt at reverse psychology. I appreciated it, but didn't succumb to the odd brand of attempted motivation.
"I'm not quitting." I clarified for both of them. "I'm making a tactical retreat. I'll head out to the counter and see if that guy can help me order some giant-sized gear. I'll have to come back and try again. I'm underequipped and I don't know what I'm doing."
Shawn offered his support. "Go get outfitted. Show the clerk your HALL pass and tell him to charge it to my uncle. We'll come back and I'll teach you."
"And I will watch." Bem added through a silly grin.
I laughed at him. I needed the laugh after the demoralizing morning. I walked out to the counter. In the time it took me to stroll about a hundred feet, Bem had scrambled to the top of the rockface. He stood at the summit; his hands clasped above his head in exaggerated celebration. I clapped and whistled as obnoxiously as I could. Bem bowed in my direction and took a flying leap off the wall to land safely in the inertia padding. Neb's glare followed him down.
The ginger at the counter was very helpful. He had me strip to my underwear and step into a telephone-booth-sized alcove. The alcove took a full-body scan to calculate my measurements. The ginger asked a few questions about what colors I liked and if I wanted designs on the climbing suit. I tried to apply the lessons I learned from my session with Rubi. I asked for light-blue so I'd be less imposing. I also ordered royal blue shorts and a t-shirt to hide my sloppy girth.
He punched the information in. The order popped up on a touch screen for me to approve. The screen showed an image of me in my new gear next to a list of all the measurements the booth took. One figure stuck out. The form listed my weight as 270 pounds. `Thing must be out of calibration.' I reasoned and approved the order.
The ginger checked a screen on his side of the counter and announced that everything would be ready for me first thing the next day. I opened my mouth to ask how that speed was possible, but I didn't. The ginger clerk looked like the type that would be stuck to the climbing wall every minute he wasn't behind the counter. Asking him about the nuances of the Solum supply chain seemed as futile as asking a life-guard about the water chemistry of the pool. I thanked the man and went around the back of the counter to watch the climbers.
Shawn had made quick work of the intermediate wall and all three had moved to the advanced. Neb waited with characteristic impatience at the summit, Bem was on the ground. Shawn was half-way up and ascending. His body was stretched out horizontally as he clung to the inconveniently spaced holds. He reached his right arm up, straining to grip a hold that was just out of reach. He got his fingers hooked and pulled. The muscles of his arm corded and bulged as they worked. His back from shoulder to waist rippled with effort as his body did exactly what he told it to do.
He moved with the pure grace of a natural athlete. I was impressed and jealous. My body had always been strong, but was never graceful. I didn't get into sports as a kid because I couldn't hit a ball, catch anything, keep a basketball bouncing, or throw anything anywhere near an intended target. I couldn't even coax a yoyo back up the string more than once or twice. The lack of coordination haunted me to that very day. I'm the only one I know that can toss a crumpled cigarette pack at an open-topped forty-yard dumpster and miss.
Shawn's climb was beautiful, only spoiled by the pants made necessary by my lust and our link. Each position, from the ground to the summit, should have been carved in marble instead of just imprinted on my memory. To my eyes, Michelangelo's David didn't hold a flickering candle to the yellow-clad male perfection I watched climb that wall. I shoved my hands in my pants pockets and leaned against the blank back of the gear cabinets. "I can't believe he'll sit in the same room as me, let alone...the other stuff." I said aloud.
I savored Shawn's climb like a condemned man would savor a last meal. He reached the top and pulled himself over the ledge. He wiped his forehead on the back of his glove, caught his breath, and started down. I wondered why he didn't pause to celebrate his mastery of the ascent and why he didn't jump down like Bem had. I flipped through his memories and found the answer. He didn't congratulate himself or jump because, for him, the point was not the summit, or the view, or the achievement; for him, the point was the climb. Getting to the top, or back to the floor was one in the same. It was an interesting way to look at effort, and completely foreign to me. I viewed all effort as a means to an end. For Shawn, the effort was the point.
He reached the bottom and patted the wall with his right palm, like shaking hands with a worthy adversary. He and Bem spoke a few words then parted as Shawn crossed the padded floor to where I loitered against the gear cabinets. He beamed with the unique delight of exertion and a job-well-done. I enjoyed the feeling with him. "Did you get everything you need?" He asked when he got close.
"Yeah, everything will be in tomorrow morning."
"Great, when Neb gets down, we'll see what our schedule is and figure out when we can come back." He was enthusiastic, looking forward to the same thing I dreaded.
"You really love this stuff, don't you?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
He nodded his sweat-soaked head. "Oh yes, I'd come every day if I could."
`He'd come here and climb every day if he could.' I repeated in my head without gaining any new understanding.
"You don't like it?" He asked in a voice that begged me not to reject what he loved.
I could have told him about my childhood clumsiness; the bruised knees I got from tripping over my own feet, the gym class fails, getting picked last for everything including dodgeball. I didn't. I forced a smile and told him something I thought he'd want to hear. "I never tried it so I don't know. I don't much like it today because it kicked my ass. Maybe my new climbing instructor will teach me to like it."
That line of horseshit seemed to placate him so I took the opportunity to change the subject before he asked me anything more. I pointed at the wall that Neb was making her way down while Bem waited at the bottom. "Maybe we should try to get done in the locker room before the horny adolescent gets done at the wall." I suggested.
Shawn agreed with my idea. We went to get cleaned-up and changed.