Part 8 (2/2)

Dirk imagined himself cornering the professor, putting the 64 gun to his head. Talking some sense into the guy with a bit of added persuasion.

He frowned, grabbed an industrial-size bottle of ketchup, and left the storeroom. He had work to do now, but the professor's day was coming. The gun would scare him away from Angela.'. It was just a matter of choosing the right time.

65.

Tim Jacobs knew he was no saint. He had cheated on his wife. He had lied too many times to count. But even with all the questionable choices he'd made, the one that never even tempted him involved the liquid gold that came in a bottle.

Raised in a home of teetotalers, Tim had not been exposed to alcohol's seductive lure, and the stories he heard about its wily way of possessing a man left him determined to avoid it. In his high school and college days, he had no trouble saying no to the beer and hard liquor available at parties. Booze was a crutch, and back then Tim had prided himself on not ever needing one. Even in grad school and his newspaper days, when his friends relaxed with a beer after long days in the library or on the job, he had been perfectly comfortable enjoying the company but not the drinking that went with it.

Tim's parents had moved to Indonesia the summer before he entered college, and among the pieces of parting wisdom they left him with was this one: Don't join a fraternity; the hazing could kill you.

It was true. Tim had read about a case once where a 4.0

66.

student who was his family's pride and joy entered college and a week later partic.i.p.ated in a hazing ritual. The frat boys forced him to drink half a bottle of gin in an hour's time. Not wanting to be mocked or to fail the initiation, the student did as he was told and promptly pa.s.sed out on the floor. Sometime before morning the gin worked its way through the boy's system, emptying the!

contents of his stomach. When his newfound frat buddies' checked on him the next day he was dead, suffocated in his own vomit.

And death wasn't the only problem a.s.sociated with drinking! There was also the chance that Tim might wind up like his uncle Frank, which, at least by his mother's standards, might actually! be worse.

Uncle Frank was his mother's younger brother, and Tim had seen him only twice.

The first time was when Tim was eight or ten and Uncle Frank came for Christmas.

Even as a young schoolboy, Tim could tell there was something different about Uncle Frank. His hair was unruly, the soles of his shoes worn clear through. But the most obvious oddity about Uncle Frank that year was his breath.

Having no knowledge of such things, Tim wasn't sure what caused the smell until late that Christmas Eve. Everyone else was asleep when Tim sneaked downstairs to see if he could make out any surprises near the Christmas tree. Instead, he spied Uncle Frank near the coat closet, a bottle of amber liquid raised to his lips.

He remembered hearing his parents talk later that week about Uncle Frank and his alcohol addiction. When Tim asked his mother what that was, she told him some people could drink alcohol now and then and it wouldn't hurt them. Other people had a disease that, whenever they had even a little, would make them drink until they dropped.

Uncle Frank had the disease.

Every now and then-say in June, on Uncle Frank's birthday, 67 Tim would catch his mother crying and know it was because of her brother.

The second time Uncle Frank came around, Tim was a junior in high school. That spring afternoon he showed up at their front door, staggering and reeking with a stench Tim had never imagined before. The man's clothes were tattered and stained, and he had a backpack of half-empty liquor bottles with him.

While Tim's father was in the next room getting a soapy washcloth, Tim stared at his uncle. ”Why do you do this? Don't you know it hurts my mom and dad?”

Uncle Frank had leveled his gaze and given Tim an answer he never forgot: ”It's one way to stop the pain.”

Tim's father brought Uncle Frank in that day, cleaned him up, and gave him a sandwich. That night he drove Uncle Frank to a facility where he could ”dry out.” Drying out, Tim's parents explained, was a horrific process in which a person addicted to alcohol would sometimes undergo terrible hallucinations and bone-chilling pain, a mental place that would convince a man he'd died and gone to h.e.l.l.

Tim's two encounters with Uncle Frank made such an impression on him that until he moved in with Angela, he had never considered taking a drink. After all, what if his parents were right? What if he had inherited the gene, the peculiarity in his system that would make him an alcoholic like Uncle Frank?

It simply wasn't worth it.

But after he moved in with Angela, Tim's att.i.tude began to change. For one thing, she liked wine and found it fun to experiment with different types and vintages. Often she enjoyed ”loosening up” with a gla.s.s or two when she came home. She made it seem not only harmless but also pleasant, and Tim began to think he'd been a little too rigid all those years. After all, Angela was never drunk or out of control like Uncle Frank.

But something else was affecting him, too-a quiet, underlying pain in Tim's soul, a pain he hadn't known existed. It came as something of a surprise because, after all, it had been his

68.

decision to leave. And he still figured the best thing was for him and Kari to divorce quickly so they could get on with their lives.

Tim figured the pain came as a result of something he had no control over-a spiritual guilt that had been trained into him since childhood. It was a kind of guilt that chafed at him and made him wonder if Kari was praying for him. Not that her prayers would affect him, but either way he couldn't get around his feelings. The guilt was so strong at times it was paralyzing.

He was in love with Angela, true. In her arms he felt as if he'd been given another chance at life. But there were other times when he'd be lecturing to a cla.s.s and catch himself in Mid sentence, not sure what he'd said or where his train of thought was going.

Then there was his office time. Sitting alone in the shadows of his own guilt, the pain of what he'd done to Kari was suffocating.

The problem was, these feelings had begun carrying over into his time with Angela. Though the holy whispers were gone, though the tears hadn't come for a while now, he couldn't shake the memory of Scripture verses he'd memorized as a boy.

And never had it been worse than that night. He'd had a long day and was about to use his new key on the apartment door when Angela opened it first.

He leaned against the Door frame and allowed a slow smile to creep up the sides of his face. ”So,” he drawled suggestively, ”where were we?”

Some words from the book of Revelation kicked in before Angela had a chance to respond.

Remember the height from which you have fallen!

Angela must have said something because she lowered her brow. ”Tim? Did you hear me? I was talking to you, and you had this ... I don't know, this faraway look, like you weren't even listening.”

Tim laughed, but it sounded,nervous even to him. ”Sorry . . . long day.”

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