Just a short vignette to try and answer some of the questions in my mind about the episode.  Specifically I could see the wheels turning in Gary’s head when Crumb tried to reassure him about his parents.  I’m convinced that Gary wasn’t convinced that everything was ok.  Why else would he still be wide-awake after everyone left and running his hand through his hair while he kept an eye on the door?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

by Janet

Home.  Never had that word sounded so good to Gary Hobson as it did right now.  After three days and two nights of being trapped in a condemned theater, he couldn’t wait to go home to his loft.

It had all started innocently enough.  He’d come downstairs to find both Chuck and Marissa, his friends and partners in the ownership of the restaurant, on the phone and the TV playing.  Jeopardy was on the air but Gary didn’t even notice that. He was mumbling to himself, loudly enough that his friends should have heard him, about monkeys.  A local grammar school class had lost their monkey mascot.  The primate, whose name was Mikey, was going to freeze to death in an abandoned and condemned theater if he didn’t find him.

Finding the theater was easy enough.  Getting into it was another story.  The front doors were tightly shut and locked.  There was no way to get in through the street level.  Going around the corner Gary had found that there was a fire escape some six feet over his head.  Climbing up on a dumpster Gary had used it as a place to jump from and gotten a grip on the lowest portion of the fire escape.  From there he had climbed up to the balcony doors.  They were chained shut but by taking off his jacket and scarf and leaving the newspaper behind, Gary was just barely able to squeeze through the gap between the doors.  Grumbling about having better things to do than chase monkeys, he had gone in calling “Mikey”.  Actually he’d not only called the monkey by name he’d tried “Here monkey, monkey, monkey”.  Following the chattering he’d gone further inside trying to find the monkey.  Walking out the catwalk proved to be a big mistake.  Maybe it was because he was so irritated that he didn’t notice the danger he was in.  The monkey was close by - he could hear him. But he couldn’t see him.  By the time he realized the trouble he was in it was too late.  The piece of catwalk he was on pulled away from the rest of it with a loud screech of stressed metal and a terrified yell from Gary himself.  His fear of heights kicked in and Gary spent the rest of that day as well as two nights and part of a third day flat on his back trying not to move.  Every time he moved more than a couple of inches the catwalk threatened to pull loose from the ceiling.  The only contact he had with the outside world during that time period was Cat.  A terrified, cold and stiff Gary had pretty much begged the cat to go get some help.

The day after he was trapped, the cat and the newspaper had appeared on the doorstep of his old home in Hickory, Indiana.  His dad, upon finding the “furball” on his porch had called McGinty’s and was told by an obviously concerned Chuck that Gary was missing since the day before.  Bernie had made up an excuse for Lois to throw him out of the house so that he could go search for their son without revealing the secret of the paper or the fact that Gary was missing.  However, his first solo attempt at performing Gary’s job turned into a disaster.  He and the man he was supposed to keep from committing suicide by jumping off a building both wound up in jail when the police met them at the scene.  Marissa had called 911 and sent the rescue squad.  With Bernie and Chuck both involved she knew there’d be a problem.

The following morning Lois was greeted with Cat and the paper.  An article about Bernie being shot at a Chicago police station sent her running to the station to find out which hospital he was in.  Bernie, seeing her and the paper, shouted a warning about the gunman and had to tell Lois about the paper and how long he’d known about it.  Totally ticked off, Lois had stormed out of the station leaving him.  During the course of the day as she searched for Gary with retired Detective Marion “Zeke” Crumb’s help she acted on articles about a bar fight and a robbery.  A phone call about Gary’s credit card being used had turned up the final clue as to Gary’s whereabouts.

Later that day Gary was overwhelmingly relieved to hear his Mom’s voice along with that of Crumb as they forced their way into the theater.  Mom Lois was as scared as Gary when she saw the predicament he was in.  She got over it for a few seconds when Gary mumbled, just loudly enough for her to hear, about her “great advice”.  He’d been trying not to move for two days so her advice about not moving was pretty much the last thing he wanted to hear.  There were four strangers with them.  Gary was frightened at his predicament but annoyed when he heard six voices talking about him and how to help him out of the mess he was in rather than talking to him and trying to keep him calm.  When three of those strangers formed a human ladder with help from Crumb Gary was not ready for the one on top to tell him to slide onto his shoulders and he would catch him.  The catwalk’s screeching convinced him that it was a good idea, even if he was scared.  No sooner had he crawled out onto Jerzey Carpathian’s shoulders than the catwalk finally pulled loose from the ceiling with a loud clang.  The next thing he knew the Carpathian brothers, for that was who he would find out they were, were talking about a “dismount”.  More terror.  He was about 20 feet from the floor and dropping rapidly when they dropped him into the arms of two of them and set him on his feet.  Lois rushed up to her son and hugged him to reassure both of them that he was all right.  At that point in time it registered in Gary’s fuzzy brain that his dad was not there.  Why was Mom there and not Dad?  How did she know where to find him?

Mom was rambling on about getting him home and cleaned up and some hot soup into him.  It sounded good but he was still puzzled about the fact that his dad wasn’t there with Mom.  Crumb came up to them at this point as they left the theater.

“How you feeling kid?  You ok?” Crumb asked.

“Yeah. I’m kinda hungry but I’m okay” Gary replied

“Lois,” Crumb said turning to Gary’s mom.  “I think it would be a good idea if we took the kid to the hospital and had a doctor check him out.”

“No, no, no,” Gary protested.  “I’m fine.”

“Now Gary,” Lois said.  “Marion’s right.  You’ve been missing for almost three days now.  That’s three days with no heat, no light and nothing to eat or drink.  I think it’s a good idea.”

Ignoring his further protests they hustled him into Crumb’s car which was parked nearby and took him to County General’s emergency room.  The doctor there pronounced him fit enough considering what he’d just been through.  He advised them to take him home, give him some soup (just what Mom had said) and put him to bed.  Fifteen minutes later they were back at McGinty’s where Marissa and Chuck were waiting anxiously.

“Gary,” Marissa said pulling him to her for a hug, “I was so worried about you.”

“Hey, Gar,” Chuck said giving him a light punch on the arm.  “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Gary told them.  “Just hungry and tired.”  He was also worried about his parents but he wasn’t saying so.

A few minutes later he was in warm sweats and having a bowl of hot soup that his Mom had brought up to him.  When he finished it she took the dishes downstairs and disappeared for a while.  Chuck, Marissa and Crumb, however, stayed to talk to him.  Gary related to his friends the story of what had happened to him the past few days.  He told them how he had “yelled until I was hoarse”.  He was slightly disgruntled that all this had happened because of a monkey.  Marissa tried to cheer him up by telling him how he’d made a lot of kids happy.  Because Mikey had left the theater when Gary went in after him someone else had found him and returned him to the school.

Lying down with his warm blankets and comforter pulled up around his waist if not a little higher Gary tried to relax.  Before Crumb shooed the others out of the room with a comment of  “let the kid get some rest” he couldn’t help giving the kid a hard time about paying attention to signs. But Marissa bent over to give him a kiss on the forehead and tell him to sleep well.  Chuck, wise guy that he was, couldn’t resist leaning over to pinch Gary’s cheek and make monkey noises even while telling him that he deserved the rest.  Crumb was the last one to leave the room.  As he started to leave Gary called him back.  He went back to Gary’s bedside to see what he wanted.

Gary hesitatingly asked Crumb if he knew what was wrong with his parents.  He couldn’t quite put into words what was bothering him.  Just that his folks didn’t seem right somehow.  Crumb tried to reassure him that they were fine, but Gary was still worried.  He thanked Crumb for his help but after Crumb left, turning the lights out as he did, Gary just lay there with his eyes wide open staring at the door and running his hand through his hair.  He knew Crumb wouldn’t lie to him but he just had a feeling that something was going on that no one would tell him.  Mom had been so reluctant to talk about where Dad was when they found him in the theater.  He just knew there was something wrong.  Dad should have been with her when he was finally rescued.  Why had Mom been so reluctant to talk about where Dad was?  Why had she left him in jail and bailed out the Carpathian brothers?
 

A moment later his fears were allayed when he saw his parents silhouetted on the door to his loft locked in an embrace.  At last Gary relaxed and stopped worrying. If they were kissing the way he thought they were, everything was fine.  Whatever had happened between them had been resolved.  Gary closed his eyes and fell asleep.
 

Email the author: Janet.E.Brayden@nae02.usace.army.mil
 

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