Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:44:33 -0800 (PST)
From: John Gerald <connectwriter@yahoo.com>
Subject: Connections 17

Thanks again for visiting.  I've had to repost this episode because of an
earlier glitch, but I think we're back to normal now.  As always, your
comments are very welcome.


As he was standing at the desk mirror combing his hair, Mike felt two
strong arms wrap around his waste, along with a hard chest pressing against
his back.

 "Can't that Kurt guy do without her for at least one week?  I've heard
trotting around him downstairs since early this morning, and he doesn't
even stay here.  At least not yet.  And her?  Do they have some kind of
co-dependency problem?"  The irony of the question was not lost on Mike.

"Yes, I think that we can serve as a model for them, don't you think?  Have
we been apart for more than a day since you forced yourself on me that
night at my place?"

"It's different for us though.  You're hung so big and all, and me with my
penis envy condition.  My problem is clinical, where their problem has to
do with lack of maturity and bad judgment."  Mike just laughed.

"By the way, did you sleep well?"  Brad whispered into his ear, as he also
snuck in a subtle lick at the same time.

"Yea, it was pretty good.  I guess I was really tired when we got back last
night."

"Me, too.  Arch is fun, but I have to say, he really takes it out of me,
he's a mile-a-minute with ideas, not to mention personal jabs.  It takes a
lot of effort to keep fending him off, I mean fending off his teasing."

"Yea," Mike said, smiling.  "I can't believe he actually questioned my
naive innocence.  He almost made it sound like I was some kind of
passive-aggressive sexual predator, when in fact I was only a victim."

"Willing!"

Mike just laughed again.  "mmmm...maybe"

Brad gave him another tight squeeze. "You know, pup, you don't toss and
turn as much as when we first met, you just look calmer when your lying
there, too.  But you did something else last night that you normally don't
do, at least you did it with less noise."  Brad started to give Mike a
gentle rocking as he continued to speak.

"What was that? I mean, what did I do that was different?"

"You talked in your sleep."

"I did?  I know I've yelled stuff out before, waking you up, of course.
But what was different about last night?"  Mike was genuinely perplexed.

"You were so quiet when you talked.  You sounded so nice and peaceful.  And
I even remember what you said."  He didn't tell Mike that his accent was
stronger when he talked in his sleep, too.

"You do?  Oh, jeeze, I hope this it wasn't anything embarrassing.  Let me
think for a second, what did I dream about?"  Mike cocked his head just a
bit.

Looking at him reflected in the mirror ahead, Brad noticed how Mike's eyes
drifted left and right as he was concentrating.  It reminded him of the
first time they really talked, at the restaurant in Little Italy.  Like his
accent, it was one of those endearing qualities that made Mike who he was.

"Do you want to know?"  Brad asked.

"I might regret this but yes, what did I say.  Did I embarrass myself?"

"No not, really, but it is a bit confusing, and I'm not really sure what
you were talking about.  But you were talking to someone named Simon.
Since that's your Dad's name, I thought that you were talking to him in
your dream.  It that it?  Or are have you stashed a lover named Simon
somewhere around?"  Mike felt a slight increase in the pressure of the hug.

Mike just stood, silent.  Brad was a bit confused, now.  It was only
intended to be a playful question, but it certainly perked something up in
Mike.

"Pup, you OK?  Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no, not at all, babe."  He wanted to quickly reassure Brad that he
hadn't said anything offensive, but the observation still unnerved him a
little bit.  "I really didn't remember the dream until you mentioned the
name.  Then it all kind of came back to me."  Mike reached up and began
stroking the hands that were still wrapped around him. At times like this
he liked to gently pull at the ample black hair that covered Brad's
forearms.

"So...what was it about? Who is Simon?  Was it your dad?  But that would be
kind of strange to call him by his first name."

Mike just stood there again, and spoke very quietly.  "No, it wasn't my
Dad.  It's sort of strange though. I little embarrassing.  I'm not sure I
should say it.  You might thing I'm kind of weird."

"I would never think that.  Don't feel like you have to tell me, you know.
But if it would help, go ahead."

Mike let out a deep breath.  "Just don't think I'm weird, OK.  Promise?"

"I promise, babe.  So, so tell me.  Who was Simon" He gave a quick pulse to
the squeeze to add a physical dimension to the verbal assurance.

Brad had to wait for another pause until Mike spoke.

"I had dream about us living in a house right around here.  We had a
family, some kids.  Simon was our son.  Our oldest."  Mike suddenly felt
the grip loosen, and heard a rush of air coming out of Brad's mouth.

"Babe, sorry, I know that a bit over the top.  Um, I...."

"Nothings wrong with you, pup."  He said as he quickly reapplied the grip
of the hug.  "You caught me by surprise, but the good kind.  I think that
myself sometimes, too And I thought maybe that I was a little weird" He let
out a nervous laugh.  "I should say, too, that it's not just sometimes that
I think about our family, but a lot. Ever since that night we talked about
kids."

He turned Mike around to face him, wrapping his hands around Mike's tight
waist and pulling him close.  As he spoke, his fingers became intertwined
with Mike's belt.  "You know, whenever I see kids and their parents, I
can't help looking at them.  I must seem like some kind of strange voyeur.
But seeing how the kids acts, what they're interested in, how the parents
react to them.  It completely fascinates me.  But I think I'm getting so
far ahead of myself, too, or ourselves.  Jeeze, we haven't even graduated
yet and it's years off, but I can't get it out of my mind sometimes."

Mike raised up his hand to caress Brad's face, enjoying the friction of the
morning stubble.  "You'll be the best dad in the world."

"I don't know about that.  It's such a huge thing, I don't' think I can
begin to comprehend it right now.  So much responsibility, so much to do.
You heard all of my big talk that night about how I wanted to quit work
when we have kids, and I still do want to do that.  But it's now starting
to scare me a little, as I look around and watch."

"That's probably a good thing.  It's serious business.  You have a kid
there, a life, and your going to help to shape it.  I'm pretty scared too,
babe.  The only thing that keeps me afloat on this is you."

"By the way," Mike said, changing the course of this own thought for a
moment, "Don't take that part too seriously about the name.  I don't know
why he even had a name, or why he was even a he!"

Brad laughed again.  "Boy, this is definitely a premature discussion.  But
I will say that it's not such a bad idea. But we've got lot's of time to
think about it."




The big maple tree was off to the side of the backyard, almost behind the
garage. It had been planted by the previous owners of the house when they
first moved in, over 40 years ago, and even in the Kovars' time in the
house it had grown substantially.  Besides being loved as a first-class
shade tree for the summer, the juvenile Mike and Hanna reveled in the piles
of reddish-orange leaves that it gave up in the fall.  But this trees
prosperity and robust health did come with some price.

Holding the ladder from down below on the ground, Mr. Kovar passed the
pruning shears up to Mike, whose legs were straddling between the large
gray branches. It was an annual ritual of Mr. Kovars, the pruning out of
the winter tree damage, getting the household flora in top shape for the
summer.  His grandparents had (barely) hung onto their farm in Moravia even
through the communist years and as a child Mr. Kovar loved the rural
landscape and watching things grow.

Mikes certainly had less passion for the task than his Dad did.  But it was
something that the elder Kovar obviously enjoyed, so Mike did his best to
help however he could.  In former times the old man would have gotten up in
the tree himself, but Mrs. Kovar had put a stop to that three years before.

Tightly wrapping his legs around a thick branch, Mike carefully trimmed off
the most clearly hopeless cases.  Sometimes damage wasn't exactly obvious,
but his best strategy was to just look were no buds were forming and let
the tool do its work.  Nature had it's own way of dealing with these
things, of course, but Mr. Kovar liked the feeling that that humanity could
help nature along.

Mike's natural athleticism made it easy for him to maneuver around in the
tree, which didn't go unnoticed by Brad, who was watching from the kitchen
window.  Except for soccer, Mike didn't grow up as a participant in the
kind of activities that would label someone a jock, at least in America.
More importantly, academics were much more emphasized in his family and in
his early environment, so home runs and touchdowns were never a needed
source of self-esteem for him.  But as Brad watched him move lithely around
in the tree, not to mention the muscle he was putting on from the weight
room, he knew that Mike had natural athletic talent.

"Mirek, that one, over there."  Mr. Kovar said in English.  He would often
speak to Mike pedantically in German or formal Czech, trying to hone his
son's language skills.  But in situations like this, where Mike was halfway
up in the tree and there was no tolerance for a dangerous lapse in
communication, he reluctantly acknowledged that Mike's best language was
English.  He had pointed out a dead branch beneath a healthy one, just out
of Mike's view.

Mike twisted his body over to clip off the last offender in that part of
the tree.  It didn't feel like much to him, but definitely looked like a
contortionists act to any outside observer.  "Got it!" He said as he
confidently clipped it off, watching as it dropped through the tree,
ricocheting off several other branches as it twisted and turned on its way
to splashdown on the patchy green lawn below.

Brad had seen Mike's stretch to nab he last branch, and gasped as he
stretched himself out.  He reached across the sink to raise up the window
as he called out to Mike, "be careful up there.  You don't want to start
work with a broken leg!"  And as soon as the words left his mouth he wished
he could have pulled them back in.  `What an obtrusive nanny his dad must
think I am!'

There was a smirk on Mr. Kovar's face as he relayed the message up to Mike,
who only heard a muddled drone as he struggled to reach another
particularly elusive branch. Brad's anxiety reminded Mr. Kovar of how his
wife used to caution him in the same way about the same thing.  `Obtrusive'
was the last thing that he thought about the comment.

"Don't worry, he's almost finished up there." Mr. Kovar called back toward
the house.

"OK, sorry, didn't want to interrupt.  I just saw Mr. Cirque du Soleil up
there and got a little,... um... concerned."

Just then, Brad heard a car door slam in the front of the house, the signal
that Mrs. Kovar had returned from food shopping.  `The magic vegetables are
here,' he thought to himself. Wiping some chopped onions off of his hands,
he rushed out the side door to relieve her of the delivery burden, half as
good `son-in-law' and half as greedy cook waiting to snatch his needed
ingredients.

She was already popping up the rear hatch of the car as he bounded down the
front stairs of the house.  It was a great day out, the sun was shining and
the sky was as clear as it could be, and the food delivery was just in time
to keeps his cooking ambitions going for the day.

With the trunk all the way open, he couldn't see her behind the car but
called out a greeting as the approached.  He didn't hear a response at
first, but figured that she just didn't hear him and called out to her
again as he began to open the door of the car.

Just as he was reaching for his first bag, he paused for a moment to listen
for her answer to his second greeting.  But it was ominously quiet from the
back of the car.  Not even hearing the expected shuffle of bags, he looked
over the seat, through the open hatch, and saw Mrs. Kovar with a blank look
on her face, barely standing.  Her eyes were looking straight ahead and
they weren't moving.

`Oh my god!' Brad though to himself.  "Mrs. Kovar!"  he called as he pulled
out and ran to the back of the car, just as she stumbled around and then
started to fall.

Her collapse seemed like it was in slow motion as he moved over to her as
fast as he could.  He had to try to catch her!

The thoughts were racing through his mind.  The worn-out concrete surface
was extremely rough, the product of years of winter salt and ice breaking
down the poor quality surface into a flesh-grinding moonscape of craters
and pits.  She would be hurt bad, maybe even die, if she hit it the wrong
way.  But it didn't look like he could make it!

He thought fast.  He just needed to protect her head, if that's the best he
could do.  With spit second-second thinking, he dove and stretched as far
as he could, desperate to stop her head from slamming into the pavement.

His left arm scraped against the unforgiving surface as he hit the ground,
ripping a big gash on the back of his hand and elbow.  In spite of the fact
that he felt that he had a good grip on her head as she landed, he
immediately despaired when he saw blood on the ground around her head.  `I
failed!' he thought.  But he continued to protect her shaking head, hoping
that he could at least minimize what damage had been done.

But just when he was thinking about how to get his other arm over to help
her, he now he caught something ominous out of the corner of his eye.  The
situation was about to get a lot worse.

As he turned to get a better look he could hardly believe it, but the car
was moving!  She must have had some absentmindedness come over her before
the seizure and forgot to apply parking brake to the manual transmission
car. The slope of the driveway wasn't significant, but it was definitely
enough of a tilt to slowly move the car toward them.

He couldn't take his hand from her head, or she would hurt herself even
more seriously, or so he thought.  Yet the car was getting closer.  He did
the only thing he could think of -- keeping his left hand under her head,
he reached out with his right hand to try to hold the car back.  It would
take an almost Herculean effort to do this, but it was the only thing he
could do to protect her.

At the same time as he had reached out with his right hand to resist the
car bumper, he put his foot out as a kind of human wheel jamb, trying
anything to stop the car from rolling further.

"ahhhhhhhh!!!"  he cried out as he used as of this strength to push the car
back.  Even with all his effort, he could only slow it, and now his leg was
caught underneath the wheel of the car.  And his left arm, cradling
Mrs. Kovars head, felt like it was on fire.

"Mike!  Help!!!" Help!!!.  The pain was excruciating, as the wheel slowly
started to increase the pressure on his leg.  He could have gotten better
leverage if he'd let go of Mrs. Kovar, but there was no way he would do
that.

In the backyard, Mike thought he had heard someone calling him but wasn't
sure, what with all the noise from rustling branches as he finished off his
last cuts in the tree.  Looking down at this Dad, who was walking over some
of the dead branches on the ground and making a lot of racket of his own,
Mike again thought that he heard a cry.

"Did you hear just something?"  He yelled down to his dad, with the sense
that something was wrong already.

"No, Mirek.  Nothing.  I...."

Just then their crazy old neighbor lady, the one who had scared Brad that
first time over at the Kovars, appeared jumping up and down behind the
side-yard fence.  She was obviously frantic as she yelled over at them.

"Irene is on the driveway, something is wrong!  That boy is there!  Oh god,
help them!  Go!  Go!"

Mike quickly threw the clippers off to the side and scurried down a couple
of branches until he could jump down to the ground.  Even then, it was
almost a 10' drop, which he barely made without injuring himself.  In spite
of having to do some crawling down the tree, he quickly overtook his Dad as
he shoved open the dog gate at the side of the yard and streaked past the
side of the house.

As he came around the corner of the car his heart practically stopped as he
saw Brad and his mom, and the blood.  And Brad's leg -- it was under the
car, and there was blood coming from there, too.  It was clear what Brad
was trying to do, but it was also clear that he was losing.

"Mike, hold the car!"  he heard Brad cry out.  Mike was already almost
there.

"Got it!  Placing himself behind the car as fast as he could he used all
the strength he had to stabilize it until his father was able to catch up.

"Dad! Help me push it!  Mike yelled.

The elder Kovar's own heart sank, too, as he came around the corner and saw
the blood around his wife's head. But he also knew what he needed to do be
done first.

Before Mike even had to call them, Kurt and Hanna had also joined the
effort to shove the car back.  Having quickly become a welcome fixture
around the Kovar household, he was equally as frantic as Mike.  Especially
as he realized what was happening to Mrs. Kovar.

"Hanka! Mike yelled to his sister, "Get in as we push it!  She ran around
to the driver's side and jumped in, not even bothering to shut the door.

" OK, push, now!"  she ordered as soon as she landed with a bounce in the
seat.  With a steady composure, even in such a tense situation, she pushed
the clutch and waited for the call to finally pull the parking brake.

The three men gave it all they had, and were able to slowly move the car
the few feet needed.

"Put on the brake!"  Mike cried out.

"It's on!" She called back.

Mike rushed over to Brad, whose bloody twisted leg and hand said everything
about his condition.  At the same time his dad raced over to his injured
wife.

Mike yelled over to Hanna as she got out of the car, "Call an ambulance!
Hurry! Hurry!"  She was one step ahead of him, as her cell phone was
already in her hand and she was dialing.

Mike reached over and held the wounded Brad in his arms.  "Are you all
right?  Are you OK?"  He raised Brad's head, taking a deep breath of air.

"Mike.."  He grimaced "...I fucked up...I'm sorry, I couldn't catch her...I'm
so sorry...."

"No, babe, you did good.  I think she's OK."  Mike wasn't actually sure
about his Mom's condition, but seeing how Brad had protected her head gave
him a shred of hope.  He looked over at his Dad.

Mike saw a tear running down his dad's face as he held her in his
arms. Seeing all the blood, he was terrified when he finally reached her.
Only after he had gently removed Brad's injured hand from underneath his
wife's head did he realized that all of the blood was from Brad, that his
effort to protect her head was completely successful.  He looked over and
smiled at Mike.  "She's OK. she's OK."  Then his expression quickly
changed.  "But how is Brad doing?"

Mike didn't know how to answer, because he really didn't know how he was
doing, either.  There was blood all over, and he could feel him shaking.
Not wanting to alarm Brad, he mouthed silently to his dad, "I don't know."

Turning his face toward Brad and holding him firmly, he quietly whispered,
"did you hear?  She's OK, babe."  Mike could feel him still shaking, in
spite of the mid-day early summer warmth.

Brad, however didn't take hear, or didn't understand him.  "Mike, I
tried...I'm sorry...I" Whether it was the pain, the disorientation, or
immanent shock, it wasn't possible to tell.  But on top of the physical
injury wrecked on his body, the emotional damage, the thought of failing
Mrs. Kovar, might have been even more severe.  In spite of Brad's desperate
condition, Mike had to get through to him.

"Brad...look at me" he said softly, as he continued to cradle him in his
arms.  "Look right at me."  Brad finally looked up, appearing to finally be
aware of Mike, thought clearly still in distress.

"Can you understand me, Babe?  Look at me and tell me, OK"

In spite of the pain, Brad made eye contact and shook his head.  Mike
returned the gaze.

"She's OK, Brad.  You saved her. She's going to be OK, and so are you, all
right?  Do you understand me?"

Mike could almost see the wave of relief wash over Brad's face.  In spite
of his continual grimaces from the pain, he manage a half smile and a
barely audible "good...."

 "Babe, stay awake, OK? The ambulance is coming.  You'll be OK.  I'm here!
You'll be OK, all right?  Can you hear me?  He continued to speak softly,
or at least as softly as he could manage with his own desperation, trying
his best to reassure Brad as much as possible.

Brad just nodded back again, now in an almost vacant way, like he was not
even there anymore.  His face was getting pale, and he continually winced
from the pain.

While Mike was holding Brad and trying to keep him conscious, Kurt was
pressing down on the wound on the inside of his thigh, trying to control
the profuse bleeding.  Being a pre-med student and also the son of a
doctor, and with a confirmed nerdy streak as to the operation of the human
body, he quickly figured our where to best apply the pressure.  Kurt's
awareness was a lucky break for Brad, as the metal edge of a damaged tail
pipe had nicked an artery.  He could have easily lost too much blood.

"Mike, keep talking to him.  Keep him awake if you can, OK?"  Kurt said.
"I've stopped the gushing, but he's still lost a lot of blood here."  He
continued in a rapid but controlled manner, like Mike trying to keep
everyone calm but at the same time feeling inside an almost uncontrollable
grief.  "And Mike, and keep your one hand underneath his neck, OK?  It'll
help his breathing."

Repositioning himself as gently as possible, Mike moved his hand slowly
into the directed position.  "Look Kurt, am I doing it right?

Kurt quickly glanced up from his focus on Brad's leg.  "Looks good, Mike.
Just keep it there. And keep talking to him."

"Brad, look at me.  Look at me!  Where does it hurt?"

All Mike heard was a moan, and one barely audible word.  "Everywhere."