Monster Page 5

Cap had called the next morning and convinced Nick that a Saturday workout at the gym was a better hangover cure than television. It was Nick's one concession to the new world order of low fat, no cholesterol, anti-red meat, decaffeinated, non-smoking, light beer drinkers. By working out a couple of times a week he figured he justified all of his other excesses and canceled out the complaints of a society intent on making him live long enough to bankrupt the social security system. Cap was, except on Friday nights and the occasional Saturday, part of that world order. While Nick was content to move a moderate amount of iron around his body and appreciate the slight curves that resulted, Cap was determined to sculpt his body into some-likeness of Michelangelo's David. Not that it was working on any level outside of Cap's pectorals and biceps, which were the predominant muscles he concentrated on. For the most part, it was all just sweat and grunting.

  "Have a hangover this morning?" Cap asked after they had finished on the bench and were waiting for the lat pull-down machine to become available.

  Nick shook his head. "Nope. I can't remember the last time I had a hangover. A couple of year's or so, I guess."

  "I had to have four aspirin and a gallon of water this morning just to see straight," Cap said as he put a pin under the stack of weight and sat on the seat. "And I still feel like shit."

  "You need to drink more often."

  "I need to drink less when I do."

  "Sure, then you'll always have hangovers whenever you go past your limit."

  Cap grunted and began moving the stack of weights up and down on the pulley system, his breaths loud and methodical. Nick changed the weight for his own set and quickly ran through the repetitions. When he stood up from the seat he felt the tightness in his right side; it felt like there was a warmth beneath the surface. He rubbed his side and tried stretching to either side while Cap did another set.

  "What's the matter?" Cap asked.

  Nick shrugged as he rubbed his hip. "I don't know, for the last week or so I've been getting this weird feeling right here," Nick said as he massaged his side. "Kind of like I pulled something."

  "You should stretch out more before you work out. You probably did pull something and just keep aggravating it."

  Nick nodded. "Probably. It'll go away in a little while, though. It never seems to last long or get very bad. Just a little twinge."

  After finishing the workout and dropping off Cap at his car, Nick went back to his apartment. He walked into the living room with the small stack of mail -- bills and several pieces of junk mail -- and sat down on the couch. As he reached for the remote control to the television he paused for a second and could hear Sarah in the kitchen talking on the phone. Her voice was agitated.

  "You didn't call me all the way from the Bahamas to tell me that, did you?" he heard her say. He sat still on the couch and cocked his ear toward the kitchen.

  "Yes, of course, but that's not the point," she said and listened. "No, of course not." Pause. "So what if we're almost thirty?"

  Nick screwed up his face and looked around the living room. She was getting the marriage lecture. Again. He heard her walking across the linoleum floor towards the living room and he quickly turned the television on. She crossed through the archway and did a small, quick double take seeing him on the couch staring at the TV. She smiled and tucked some loose hair behind her free ear.

  "Well, I'm glad that you're having a good time. Bring me back something, okay?" she said as she sat down on a chair opposite the couch. "Yeah...Okay...Love you, too. Bye."

  Nick acted like he hadn't heard anything. "Who's having a good time?"

  "Mom and Dad. They went snorkeling yesterday," she said as she dropped the cordless phone onto the carpet near the chair leg.

  "Cool," Nick said and nodded his head toward the phone. "You should just kick that under the chair now so that we don't waste anytime losing it."

  Sarah smiled sarcastically. "Are we going to do anything today?" She asked.

  "Well, I was thinking maybe we'd go to the museum and look at the masters," Nick said. "After I shower, of course."

  Sarah looked out the window at the sunshine and blue sky. "You want to look at paintings in a museum on a day like today?"

  Nick nodded.

  "Why?"

  "I want to see what they've got there. Remember that guy I told you about who had some of his paintings stolen?"

  Sarah nodded.

  "Well, I want to see if any of those artists have paintings hanging there. I also just want to see what kind of paintings make it onto a museum wall. It's been years since I've been to a museum and I don't know anything about what paintings are there," Nick said, standing up from the couch and holding out the remote control to Sarah.

  “Couldn’t you just Google that up?”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “And you’re always saying we never do anything cultural.”

  Sarah had changed before their trip to the museum. Nick was having difficulty looking at the artwork on the wall as she strolled ahead of him, the heels of her calf-high boots clicking on the marble floor and sending his eyes on endless trips up from her boots to the bottom of the pleated plaid mini-skirt that extended just millimeters below the curve of her behind. Above that, a white top curved over her breasts and clung to her stomach before hovering millimeters above the waistband of her skirt. There were definitely better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than in the museum.

  Nick had never considered himself much of an appreciator of art. He thought the majority of the paintings he had ever seen were boring, despite how good they were supposed to be. Landscapes and portraits of dead people were like that. What art there was on the walls of his and Sarah's apartment was all due to her; he was responsible for the overflowing bookshelves and antique typewriters atop them. That other people saw something magical and inspiring in the paint sworls adorning the canvas sheets hanging on the walls of this and other museums was something that he likened to his fascination with Victorian-era literature. It just was something that was ephemeral and difficult to describe to someone on a different wavelength. He didn't actively dislike art, it was just something that didn't electrify the circuitry in his brain. It was a disinterest in much the same way as he had for entomology. Paintings and bugs existed, and that was the end of it.

  But Sarah, just a few feet in front of him, was someone much different. She had definite opinions on art and had already explained them to him years earlier before discovering the depth of his indifference. Of course, she hadn't liked many of the books he had given her to read, either. They were far too difficult and contained too many commas, semicolons and ten-letter words to hold her interest past the initial chapter. That she was dressed as she was, knowing that the art in a museum was already something he had not too much interest in, was a very loud silent protest at his choice of a way to while away an afternoon.

  Sarah stopped and spun around on the heel of her right boot, her hair swooping out and rolling over her right shoulder in a blonde cascade. "Can we go to the library next?" she said, smiling.

  Nick looked her over again, smiled and nodded. "Yeah, whatever you want."

  She laughed. "I say we go soon. You're not going to find any of those artists you're looking for in this museum. Maybe in some gallery, but not in here," she said. "Well, you might find a Degas. Every museum has a Degas, I think it's a requirement that they have at least one cartoony surrealist painting. Maybe, someday, they'll add Saturday morning cartoon cels to the collection. That's art, too."

  "Maybe they'll just have a cartoon room and run them on giant screen HDTV. Heck, it'd get me to the museum more often if they had the classic Looney Toons cartoons playing in hi-def," Nick said, pausing and looking around the long hallway in which they were standing. Aside from an elderly couple standing before a huge Monet vision of water lilies, they were the only ones in sight. "You're right, let's go. This was a stupid idea. Besides, I can't concentrate on the walls."

  Sarah smiled. She took him by the hand, drag
ged him down the hallways and out of the museum into the late afternoon sun streaming down from the heavens. She twirled in place once for no reason and fixed her eyes on Nick.

  "We're free. Now, let's go do something fun," she said, tilting her head to the side and motioning down the wide avenue toward a block filled with shops, restaurants and bars.

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