REFUGE IN WAITING

From the R.M. Dolin novel, “An Unsustainable Life – The Book of Darwin”

Chapter 1: Refuge In Waiting

The dilemma is as it’s always been when outcomes no one else sees are burdened by the obvious. Do you wait for others to catch up or convince yourself nothing can be done. When Darwin boards his plane in San Jose he knows he’ll never return to Silicon Valley and that whatever is going to happen will happen without him.

Nothing says welcome back with greater familiarity than cold rain offering little relief from afternoon heat, wind blowing hard along the north shore, and the Cubs down multiple runs in the bottom of the ninth. Darwin figured he’d finish his travel book on the ride in from O’Hare but the late inning rally blasting on the taxi’s radio in metered moments of tension followed by exhilaration and disappointment make that impossible. It’s okay though, he pretty much got the gist, New Mexico’s more than the barren desert they portray in movies. North of Santa Fe near Taos lays a rugged high mountain wilderness with harsh winters, intense summers, and an oddly weird monsoon season where it rains every day. There aren’t many people but those there represent a diversely rich mixture of cultures, traditions, and history. “Something to consider,” Darwin tells himself as he and the taxi driver agree to pull over at the next nearest bar. They rush inside just as Sweet Swinging Sammy Sosa steps up to the plate with two on, two out, down by two, and the cold Lake Michigan wind driving rain from center-left straight down home-plate. With both the game and baseball’s home run title on the line, Sosa’s just the guy to change the course of history with one swing of his bat. As Darwin tastes his first Chicago draught in a very long time he can’t help but envy the calm confident way Sosa steps into the batter’s box and shoulders such an enormous burden.

With the game a forgone conclusion, Darwin awkwardly hops out the sidewalk side of his taxi mindful to miss the torrent of water cresting the curb like a typhoon surf. He again chastises himself for foolishly believing time and distance, combined with fond nostalgia, would overcome the cold indifference of wind blowing off the lake. He navigates the wet concrete dodging puddles connected by tributary fingers of upstream water on his rush to the canopied door held open by the bellman too distracted for pleasantries. “Time and distance,” Darwin berates while brushing rain from his coat and pensively waiting for the elevator to lift him above the gravity of his moment. “Gone too long. Changed too much. The God-damn doorman doesn’t even recognize me. I sure as hell hope Vincent does.”

Darwin glares across the lobby like a shipwrecked pirate trying to make out the flag of an approaching cutter, uncertain how wind and rain could color his city in an abject unfamiliarity that can’t be described but also can’t be disregarded. It’s not that he never visits, it’s that life gets seen through filters and his are in flux. It’s why he’s here. His next logical step, fraught with uncertainty for sure, the implications of which definitely define the rest of his life.

The only thing certain is California’s callous and exhausting, and he’s gotten as much from Silicon Valley as he deserves. After all, a guy can only own so much money before money owns him. He stayed longer than he should because of Becky but she’s not his reason for leaving. He’ll admit he loves her but only in rare moments pressed hard into allowing him to be crucially honest. Even then it’s a love based on who he was, who he’s trying to escape, which increasingly seems unconnected to where he’s going or who he wants to become; even if he doesn’t yet know who the new him is supposed to be. “Why the hell ya think I’m here,” he mumbles as the elevator door draws closed, “Vincent, he’s the one for sorting this sort of shit out.”

Life is lived off the decisions of the willing and Becky was willing to let him leave without her, at least that’s what she said. Maybe she saw him changing, becoming someone whose world she didn’t want in her orbit. All Darwin knows is he couldn’t stay, not if he wants to salvage some small part of the person he long ago was, wants to be again. She called him a foolish idealist, which is absurd, engineers are to a fault, pragmatists obsessed with optimizing everything, including life. Idealism exists so idle millionaires can profit from their distorted belief they’re helping humanity, but are they? Does anyone? Certainly, no one in California’s coming to his defense after hearing what he has to say about that. Technology’s changing too rapidly and billions flowing too freely for anyone in Silicon Valley to heed his warnings. The more woke you are for the need to slow down and consider technology’s consequences, the more you realize you’re an outcast stranded on an isolated island. A mirage of cumbersome complexity.

It’s not fair to blame Becky for things being over, not really, and neither her nor California should blame him back. In Silicon Valley, you’re either all in manically trying to keep up or you’re benched in bewilderment, and the better you are at doing what you do, the faster you’re consumed and tossed aside like discarded cans in a ditch. You wake up one day to the realization that while you seem plenty busy, your life is empty and devoid of purpose. There’s absolutely no doubt Darwin’s done, which leaves the mystery of why he’d stay there artfully mismanaged. He leaves California convinced when you board a plane you ought to at least know where the hell you’re going and why you’re landing. That’s why he’s home, if anyone can sift through the shit show of his life it’s Vincent. The easy part’s saying, “I need out,” but it’s a horse of a completely different color to execute your escape. Know where you’re going. How you intend to plug into your next new start over, and what your purpose is supposed to be. For a PhD engineer like Darwin, ambiguous uncertainties like these are about as uncomfortable as it gets.

Darwin stoically stands in front of the eighth-floor apartment defeated yet still defiant, definitely not the man he was when he first left home, but who ever is? Becky expected things to never change but life is constant motion, and you either map out the journey or get lost in the wilderness of chaos. When Darwin left home for grad school, he topped the scale at an impressive one-ninety, but three years later when he defends his dissertation, he’s a down thirty pounds, mostly due to sustaining himself on granola bars, coffee, and four hours of sleep. Now, he struggles to get north of one-sixty even though he’s in better shape than men half his age.

That’s how he met Becky, attending a workshop on nutrition so he could heal his post-doc body while embracing culinary aspects of his new California life. They were partnered during the cooking portion of the day, Becky wasn’t new to California, but she’d just been promoted to head of HR at her company and workshops like this were part of her perks. She didn’t seem outgoing enough to be in HR but once they got to cooking it was clear she’s a take-charge kind of woman who doesn’t tolerate nonsense. Darwin tends to be nonsensical when not at work, it’s how he copes with his overly intense technology deployment day. By all appearances they’re a mismatch but who can say when it comes to love. In three months, they’re living together, later that year they buy a house to validate their commitment to each other. Initially, Becky brought Darwin to all her company events but over time stopped. Darwin assumed it was because she understood he was busy but now, given everything that’s happened the way it happened, he’s doubting his assumptions.

Darwin nervously knocks on the apartment door while staring at the plaque on the wall that reads, Dr. Vincent Olinski, MD. “You’re such a freaking narcissist,” he scoffs.

The door flies open so fast that before Darwin can react, Ilene leaps into the hallway with an exuberant hug forcing him backwards against the opposite side hallway wall. “I can’t believe you’re here!” she shouts. She stands back to present herself. “Look at me will ya, I could just burst at the sight of ya, but ya best be hoping I don’t!”

“Good God please don’t!” Darwin shouts before realizing this is another one of his many unfortunate moments when he should have filtered the first thought that comes to mind. “At least not till Dr V’s here to manage things.” He pauses to craft a recovery strategy. “Some kind of weather, huh?”

“There is a reason they call this the windy city.” Ilene laughs while grabbing Darwin’s hand and leading him into the apartment. “Vincent should be here soon, provided there weren’t extra innings that is. Where’s your luggage?”

“I dropped it at the Peabody on drive in from O’Hare.”

“Well, that won’t do. I got the guest room set up for ya. I’ll have the Peabody send your stuff over.”

“You sure? I plan on being here until after your drama’s done.”

“Drama, what drama? I’m having a baby silly. It’s not like I’m getting a face lift. Let me make sure the guest room’s ready.” Ilene walks down the apartment hallway and disappears into the guestroom.

Darwin barely has time to set down the brown canvas backpack he’s had since grad school when the door flies open. “I’ll be damned!” Vincent shouts. He tosses his worn leather shoulder bag against the corner wall with little regard for what’s inside. “The prodigal brother has returned!”

Darwin turns too late to avoid Vincent’s big bear hug that he holds so long Ilene has time to return from the guest room. “Oh, your back,” she states.

Vincent walks over to kiss his wife, but she turns her head while forcing a smile. He graciously accepts a peck on the cheek is all he’s allowed. Ilene coldly walks to the kitchen barely able to hide her anger. “I’ll check on diner.”

The boys watch her leave then Vincent goes to the living room’s glass top table next to the French buffet cabinet to fix a drink. “Can I get you anything,” he shouts in a voice that betrays distraction.

“What you can do,” Darwin snaps. “Is get your shit together.” He accepts the bourbon Vincent poured over ice without acknowledgment.

“Come again?” Vincent responds too immersed in mixing his cocktail to be concerned with whatever his brother’s yappin about.

“You think I don’t see what’s going on? You’re up to your same old shit aren’t you. Trust me, I know the drill. You leave on a Sunday saying you’ve got work. You come home late and your pregnant wife, who’s clearly pissed about something even though she’s too polite to be unpleasant, won’t even kiss you. You’re in serious need of needing to reassess your priorities.”

“Oh that,” Vincent scoffs. He finishes making his cocktail with devotion to detail. “It’s not what you think.” He samples his concoction. “Okay, yeah,” he restarts. “She’s plenty pissed, but not about what you think it’s about.” Vincent walks to the living room and flops down on the avocado green cloth couch. “This morning out of nowhere she starts in about how we should go to some silly antique thing on the pier and I don’t want to. One thing leads to another and before ya know it, I’m at Murphy’s catching the Cubs game.” Vincent waits for Darwin to sit down in the familiar lazy boy that used to be their dad’s favorite chair. For years Ilene’s been after Vincent to either throw rickety chair away or have it reupholstered, but Vincent is adamant that his shrine is not to be touched. “In my defense,” he restarts. “When’s the last time the Cubs were relevant this late in a season.”

“I got ya.” Darwin softens. He recalls the conversation he and the taxi driver had about how a season like this is one that will be talked about for generations. “I caught the ninth on the taxi radio during the ride in from O’Hare. I wasn’t sure the driver even spoke English but then he’s asking if I have time to duck into a nearby pub. You see the ride Sosa gave that ball over the bleachers; two outs-”

“Runners at the corners-” Vincent interject.

“Winning run at the plate.” Darwin adds.

Vincent jumps up from the couch and assumes the batter’s position. He takes a swing at the imaginary fastball coming low and inside. Darwin steps up behind his brother as they both watch the imaginary ball fly over the Wriggly bleachers. “Walk-off homer.” Darwin whispers.

“Against the Cardinals.” Vincent adds.

“We oughta catch a matinée before the series is over.” Darwin states. He takes a taste of his cocktail reevaluating consequences. “Then again, given the current state of affairs on the home front, maybe not such a good idea.”

“Absolutely we should.” Vincent responds from a reflex that’s devoid of cautious consideration. “It’d be like old times.” His exuberance quickly fades. “Truth is, between demands at the hospital and a pregnant wife, matinées aren’t all together easy. Ilene’s got this insane hormone-induced notion that because I slip out to catch a game at Murphy’s I don’t love her anymore and I’m gonna leave her cause she’s fat and ugly.”

“You wanna try repeating that last part to my face.” Ilene challenges with drill sergeant aggression.

To the boy’s utter surprise, Ilene’s sudden interruption stiffens them in shock. A nervous stillness that comes from knowing the danger at their backs gets even more real if they turn around leaves them like characters in a horror movie about to enter the abandoned tool shed. Slowly they wheel around in unison, knowing this is not going to end well. “Now honey,” Vincent stammers. “I was just relaying what transpired this morning and telling our guest what you’re always telling me. I wasn’t done with my story. If I had finished, you’d have heard me say how I think you’re as beautiful now as that blessed day five years ago when I first called you my darling wife.”

Ilene stares with a cold contempt that makes clear if she had a gun there would be cause for concern. “Lucky for you I heard most of what you said, or you’d be sleeping at the Peabody until you ran out of whatever little I left you after the divorce.” She pauses for a moment letting the uncensored extent of her anger sink in before her stern features soften to a subtle smile. She looks at Darwin. “You know I can’t stay mad at him even when he abandons me on a Sunday to watch his precious Cubs. It’s my fault I suppose, daddy told me not to marry a North Shore boy, said there’s plenty of good men right here in Saint Louis. I should at least be happy he doesn’t drag me along to his games.”

“Just so we’re clear,” Darwin probes as he sets his bourbon on the parquet coffee table between the avocado couch and sacred lazy-boy careful not to spill on the deep pile white shag rug. “You’re okay if me and Vinny catch a game while the villainous Cardinals are in town?”

“You too,” Ilene stammers. “What’s wrong with the Cardinals?”

“They’re traitors!” both boys shout. Darwin continues. “They should have never left Chicago. And for what, Saint Louis? Who does that?”

“Apparently successful baseball teams.” Elene looks up to heaven with satisfaction. “That one’s for you daddy.”

“Again, just to be sure,” Darwin reiterates. “You’re okay with us catching a matinée?”

“Unless you’d rather go antiquing.”

“I think we’ll stick to warm beer and mustard dogs at Wriggly.”

Ilene turns to Vincent. “I suppose I have to forgive you. You are the father my future son and you told me straight up before our wedding about your silly Cubs and I agreed. Of course, you failed to mention it carries over to the Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks. I suppose it’s all in the unwritten small print so what’s a wife to do.”

Vincent jumps over the coffee table to give Ilene a bear hug. “You’re going to make a great mom, you know that?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because even when you apologize, I end up feeling guilty.”

“That’s not being a mom silly. That’s Wifing 101.” She pauses for well-rehearsed effect. “You shouldn’t be surprised to learn I was mom’s best student. Gwen’s got nothing on me but then again, she doesn’t have a mailable husband with which to perfect her craft.”

#

The boys retreat to the living room for a nightcap following Ilene’s delicious dinner. Vincent hands Darwin a fresh bourbon over ice while confidently reasserting his prediction, “I’m telling you, Sosa’s gonna win the home run title. I mean sure, McGwire’s got the lead now, but a guy that juiced can’t maintain.”

“Care to wager?”

“What kind of stakes we talking about?”

Darwin smiles with satisfaction as he sets the hook. “Well, if it’s not meaningful, it’s not worthwhile. I like Sosa and you know I’m a life-long Cubbie faithful, but when it comes to wagers, a man’s gotta bet with his head instead of his heart, so, I gotta go with Mcgwire.”

“You can bet all you want with your modest math mind and what did you callyou’re your Bayesian probabilities, but I’m a doctor and if there’s one thing I know is that guys who juice eventually hit a wall.”

“Are you actually naive enough to believe Sammy ain’t on the sauce?”

“Sosa’s a natural, he don’t need none of that voodoo magic.”

“Voodoo magic. That’s what you have to show for eight years of medical school?”

“No man, I’m just trying to dumb things down to your level.”

“I’ll remind you PhD’s out rank MDs.”

“On what planet?”

“On the planet of intelligence matters.”

Vincent hates when Darwin throws his PhD in his face. “You gonna do your usual betting like a girl or offer up something of substance for once in your life?”

“Alright,” Darwin says. “I gotcha. Here’s the deal, if McGwire holds on and wins the homerun title, I get to name your son – in accordance with family tradition of course.”

Vincent wasn’t prepared for that kind of aggression. He realizes now he shouldn’t have pushed his brother so hard but there’s no backing down. “Pretty damn big wager for a guy who’s gonna lose. When I win, what do I get?”

“Well now, that’s an interesting question. Naming your first born is Rumpelstiltskin kind of big, so what I wager has to be equally large. It can’t be money given you married into it. Can’t be stuff cause money buys stuff.” Darwin tosses downs the last of his bourbon hoping Vincent will propose something. When he doesn’t, he gives it a go. “I’ll tell you what, how about I date Gwen until she realizes this thing she thinks she has for me is seriously flawed.”

“You’re saying you won’t be the one to initiate the breakup?”

“Nope.”

“For as long as it takes?”

“Until death do us part.” Darwin makes the sign of the cross over his heart to seal the deal. “May the friars at Saint Stanislaw School for Wayward Boys smote me down if I’m lying.”

If anything positive came from being sent to Saint Stan’s for what their dad called, “toughen you up,” it’s that they have an unbreakable code – a bet’s a bet and welshing is not an option. With the stakes so high and danger so dire should he lose and Ilene find out their first-born son won’t be named Joseph after the Polish writer Joseph Conrad, Vincent needs to carefully consider his next step.

Only he doesn’t. “Hell yeah, I’ll take that bet. Pot odds alone demand I do, but I warn you, a brother’s bond is absolute.”

Darwin extends his hand. “Always has been, always will be.” The boys shake hands to seal the deal. “Though, when I win,” Darwin warns. “You’re the one who has to convince Ilene the name’s your idea. She ain’t gonna take kindly to me naming her first born.”

“What I want to know,” Vincent banters back. “Is after you lose, how you gonna stay forever with someone you don’t love?”

“People do it all the time. In fact, they say couples from arranged marriages are the happiest. At least that’s what all the California Hindus preach.”

“What about Becky? Can’t imagine that’s the sort of arrangement she’s down for?”

Darwin takes a drink of the bourbon Vincent just poured to brace his resolve. “You don’t’ have enough bourbon for that conversation.”

Vincent smiles in satisfaction. “I suspected something was up. That why you’re here isn’t?” He’s about to auger deeper into this obviously good gob of gossip when Ilene comes through the stained oak swinging door separating the kitchen from the dining room.

“Hope you boys saved room for dessert.” Ilene’s resting a tray on her future son that holds three hefty slices of Trilece cake, two coffees and an herbal tea. Rather than serve dessert in the dining room, she carries the tray to the living room’s parquet coffee table and sets it down.

As Ilene passes out the dessert and coffee, Vincent brings her up to speed. “Romeo here, was just saying he might ask Gwen out.”

Ilene smiles warmly as she hands Darwin his coffee. “Don’t be teasing Vin, you know Gwen’s got a thing for Darwin. Besides, I don’t think Becky would find that an amusing way for him to spend his vacation.”

Darwin considers setting the record straight about Becky breaking up with him and not being here on vacation. Instead, he finishes his cake and coffee in silence. He douses down the last of his bourbon and excuses himself for bed. He’s not really in the mood for sleep but his presence has suddenly become somewhat awkward as the banter and PDA between Vincent and Ilene is getting annoyingly frisky.

Darwin completes his departing complements and retreats to the guest room where he starts to unpack before deciding since he plans to stay until the baby’s born, he has lots of time for that sort of nonsense. Instead, he chooses to finish the travel book about New Mexico he started on the plane but as he reaches into his backpack his fingers find the hard edge of the unused journal he bought on Telegraph Avenue the afternoon his life went to shit. It’s not the first time he’s taken it out, but each iteration ends the same; staring at the first blank page with nothing to say.

This time it feels different, he’s inspired. Maybe it’s because he finally got his ass out of crazy California? Possibly seeing Ilene ready to pop makes him think about the future he thought he had with Becky, that is no more. Most likely it’s the Sammy Sosa bet because while he may not know what he wants to memorialize in his journal, he definitely knows the one topic strictly off limits. In search of distraction, he decides to think about how cool would it be to name his unborn nephew. That’s a story worthy of retelling up and down north shore bars. He even already has a name from back before when Becky stopped believing he was the one.

Darwin digs out the vintage fountain pen from his backpack that the bizarre used bookstore owner who likes making up silly Yoda quotes gave him that afternoon on Telegraph Avenue. He loads an ink cartridge and scribbles on a piece of scratch paper until sure the ink will properly flow without blotching. He opens the journal to page one and with great deliberation writes in the upper right-hand corner, September 23, 1998. “There,” he proudly states. “Baby steps.”

Darwin’s never been one to journal, of course he keeps meticulous lab books for his ideas and innovations but to write about his personal life, or worse yet, his feelings; that’s a fiction best left unexplored as any truthful engineer worthy of his status will agree. He stares at the mostly blank page recalling the recent string of events that initiated his need to seek refuge with his brother. He allows himself to lament walking away from the life he was destined to live. He replays his presentation at the Berkeley Faculty Club. What it meant and how it felt to open the piece of paper the investor slips him with so many commas and zeros. He assesses all the good his innovation should have done but stops short of carrying things over to the other side of the ledger. That’s a place he promised himself he wouldn’t venture, not now. Someday maybe, but not now. There are things a man chooses not to retain and there are things that can’t be retained. His reason for leaving California’s Silicon Valley must forever be sealed and stashed away.

For the next hour Darwin repeatedly starts to write in the journal, but each time he stops just as the tip of his fountain pen is about to touch paper. At one point he gets out a blank sheet of engineer’s paper to write Becky a letter. She just needs some time he convinces himself, “time and distance, that’s how someone like me begins to look good again to someone like her.” It doesn’t seem to matter much that he’s moved on from journaling to letter writing, he’s still locked in the same repetitive process of attempting to write and having nothing to say.

What would be the point of telling Becky he loves her. It’s not like he hasn’t already said it a hundred times. Then again, maybe the hundred-and-first time is the one that fixes what was broken. She says she doesn’t love him anymore and won’t follow him to wherever the hell it is he’s going. He gets not following him until he figures out where he’s going. As a last ditch effort, he tries pitching the notion that not knowing is a grand adventure, but Becky wasn’t buying it. What he can’t wrap his mind around is her not loving him, how does someone go from, “I love you and want to have your children,” to coldly stating “I don’t love you anymore?” It’s as if she’s returning a dress she tried on but never intended to wear.

She obviously doesn’t mean it. How could she? Sure, things have been a bit off and what went down at Berkeley didn’t help but it wasn’t the “I don’t love you, I can’t be with you,” kind of shit; at least not to him. For him it was a shit of a different color. It hurts, not only what she did, but how she did it, that’s the part he can’t write about. When he needed her more than at any other time in his life, she abandons him. Calls him a fool for even caring that the fantastic fortune he made selling his technology start-up is blood money. When he tells her he’s thinking of giving it all away, she uses it against him, saying that’s just the kind of foolish shit she’d expect from a foolish boy. So now he can’t give his fantastic fortune away. When he wins Becky back, he’ll need to demonstrate he’s not a foolish boy and has the means to support her well enough she doesn’t need to stay in California.

“Time and distance,” then everything will be okay. That’s the mantra Darwin keeps repeating as he stares into another painfully night devoid of sleep.

Chapter word count = 4,660
Number of scenes = 3: Taxi, Vincent & Elene’s apartment, Darwin’s bedroom