Sparks the Matchmaker

CHAPTER 13

Ollie drove over to Joy’s house. After he picked her up, he was expecting to just pop over to Marie’s apartment and then that they’d all head to the circus, but that wasn’t what happened. After he and Joy got to Marie’s place, nobody was home.

“Over here, guys,” Lynn said from behind them. She was standing in the doorway to another apartment. “Hey there, Joy, how are you?”

“Great,” she said, and they both walked across to meet up with Lynn.

“Who lives here?” Ollie asked. “I was starting to think you went to the circus without us.”

“This is Greg’s place,” Lynn said. “We may have some trouble getting to the circus today, though. His manager quit earlier today and Greg doesn’t have anyone to work the shift. So it’s you and me here today.”

Ollie’s heart sank. “Isn’t there somebody else that could come in or something? I mean, Marie’s pretty set on going to the circus.”

“I already talked to Marie about it all,” Lynn said. “She’ll be okay with going tomorrow instead.”

“How’d you swing that?” Ollie wondered. “She was pretty excited and she doesn’t back down very easily.”

“Well, I have a way with Marie,” Lynn said. “I just told her we’d order a pizza if she’d be willing to go tomorrow instead. That’s all it took.” She smiled.

“Genius,” Ollie said, returning her smile.

“Like I said, I have a way with Marie.”

“So...” Joy said. “Can I come back tomorrow and still go with you guys?”

“Oh, you don’t have to take off if you don’t want to,” Lynn said. “I mean, if you’re willing, Ollie could probably use some help today.”

“What are you saying?” Ollie squirmed. “What am I going to be doing?”

“I’d really really like it if you could hang out with Greg for the evening,” Lynn said.

“Oh,” Ollie sighed, a little relieved. “I thought you were gonna ask me to—”

“You thought I was going to what?” Lynn asked. “Ask you to hang out alone with Marie?”

“Yeah,” Ollie said. “I’m not quite ready for that yet.”

“Marie’s easy!” Lynn said. “Seriously, once you get used to her, you’ll just love her to pieces.”

“I know. You keep telling me that,” Ollie said. “I do think she’s great. I just don’t think I’m quite ready for a shift alone with her yet.”

“Well get ready,” Lynn said. “Greg is totally different than Marie is… not that that makes him easy.”

“Why’s that?” Ollie asked nervously. “What’s his deal?”

“He’s got quite the temper,” Lynn said, folding her arms across her stomach. “He didn’t have any special needs until he was a teenager… he had an accident that damaged parts of his brain. Unfortunately, one of the damaged parts was the part that helped him control his temper.”

“Lynn, I’m not trained for restraining people or anything like that. Maybe you’d better work with him and I’ll stick with Marie,” Ollie said.

“Can’t do that,” Lynn said. “Besides, you’ll be fine. You’re ready.”

“You really think so?” Ollie was more than a little reticent.

“Of course you are, Ollie,” Lynn said. “Besides… look at you. You’re tall, strong—”

“But why can’t I just hang out with Marie, I mean, if I have to work? I mean, not to sound like a sissy, but… I mean… you’re much better trained than I am at helping people remain calm.”

“Ollie,” Lynn said, touching his arm, “remain calm.” She smiled.

“You’re just proving my point,” Ollie said, feeling awkward and blushing a little, wondering what Joy might think of Lynn touching his arm like that. He cleared his throat.

Lynn crossed her arms again, but her expression remained benign. “Ollie, I’ve been training you to work with Marie, but there’s been a change of plans because this other guy, Greg’s worker, up and quit today. So the thing is, you can’t work with Marie today because we’ve only got you and me here as staff workers, and Greg’s not allowed to be alone with a girl. That means I’ve gotta be there for Marie, and you’ve gotta be there for Greg.” She looked at Joy and said, “It’s fine if Joy is here with you, as long as you’re together. You see, just like his brain was damaged so that he’s not able to control his temper, he also lacks any kind of filter between his desires and his actions. He’s been known to attack people on occasion, often for no good reason at all.”

“No reason at all?” Ollie said. “Great. So we’ll just be sitting on the couch watching a movie and all of a sudden he’ll smack me upside the head?”

“Not like that. There’s always a reason in his mind,” Lynn said. “Like if he thinks you’re making fun of him, or if you break something that belongs to him… you’d better watch out. But all you have to do is monitor his mood swings. You’ll be able to see it coming a mile away, and if he does get all riled up just head out the door. Leave him alone in his apartment for half an hour so he can cool down.”

“Just leave him alone when he’s on a rampage?” Ollie asked. “Are you serious?”

“That’s what’s written in his behavioral program,” she said. “Even if you were trained to physically restrain people, he’s not to be restrained.”

“Why’s that?” Joy asked.

“Yeah,” Ollie said. “Does it just make him angrier or something?”

“No,” Lynn said. “It’s because he’s massive. Staff workers would get hurt if they tried to wrestle him down.”

“Shouldn’t I be worried about Joy being here, then?” Ollie asked. “I mean, I’m worried about myself already.”

“Well, it’s not against the rules for her to be here,” Lynn said.

“I’m okay,” Joy said, threading her arm under Ollie’s. She looked up at him. “I’m a big girl.”

“Good,” Lynn said, looking at her. “And if you ask me, like I said, it would make the shift a whole lot easier if you stayed.” She looked back to Ollie. “I’ve seen him throwing things and yelling at his worker a ton of times, but he’s always on his best behavior when a girl is around.”

“Besides,” Joy added, “you know what they say… I don’t have to be able to outrun the bear—”

“You just have to be able to outrun me,” Ollie laughed.

Lynn looked back and forth between them for a moment. “Go ahead on in. I’ll be back in just a sec to give you some instructions.”

***

After he got the nerve to walk into Greg’s dark cave, Ollie then peeked inside the bedroom to see him hibernating on his bed, snoring loudly. A machine was humming on the nightstand, a long hose coming off it onto the floor. Bears are still intimidating, even if they’re sleeping.

“What can I do to help?” Joy asked softly.

Ollie shut the door a little and backed away from the mouth of the bear’s cave. “I’m not sure. I guess we just wait until Lynn gets here and—”

Lynn walked in, trailing Marie behind her. “How are we?”

“Not dead yet,” Ollie said, exchanging a quick hello with Marie, and then introducing Joy.

Lynn smiled, indicating the loud snoring coming from the bedroom. She knocked on the door jamb and told Greg it was time to wake up. The snoring stopped, and she turned back to Ollie and Joy. “Greg’s got sleep apnea. He has to wear a mask, and he’s pretty good about putting it on when he goes to bed, but well… he’s a rough sleeper. It comes off pretty quickly.”

“Oh, okay. That was the machine hissing on the nightstand.”

“Yep. And the big hose.”

The door opened and an enormous human shape filled the void. “Who are you?” Greg said, focusing his gaze toward Joy.

Ollie stepped in between them. “I’m Ollie, and this is Joy.” Greg’s apartment suddenly felt like it was the size of an elevator.

“And who are you?” Greg asked Lynn, his grin broadening more.

“I’m Lynn, remember? I work with Marie in the apartment across the way.”

“Oh yeah,” Greg said. “That’s right. I thought I knew you.”

“Greg, will you do me a favor and take your meds?” Lynn said. “Ollie will get them for you.”

“Sure,” Greg said.

Lynn showed Ollie how to administer the medications. “See? Easy as that,” she said. “We need to head back to Marie’s now. Call me if you need anything.”

“What? You’re taking off? I thought you were going to give me more instructions,” Ollie said.

“It’s all right there in the staff notebook,” Lynn said. “If you’ll read the behavioral plans and instructions, you’ll know more about him than I do.”

“Bye, Ollie,” Marie said as they walked out the door. “Come back and work with me another day.”

Ollie looked at Greg standing there. His size was intimidating enough, but Ollie was catching on to a number of his other charming features too. His smell, for one. As soon as he’d walked into the room it was easy to see that bedwetting was right up there next to sleep apnea on Greg’s list of sleeping problems. The smell of his whole apartment told the story. There were obviously many nights he’d find himself drenched on his plastic-covered mattress. Even more intimidating than his aroma, though, were his eyes. The eyeballs themselves were normal enough, but the skin all around them was smoother than usual. His eyelids were smaller than they should have been; Ollie wondered if they worked well enough to muster a simple blink.

“Excuse me for a second,” Greg said, closing the bedroom door.

“Says here that he had a really bad ATV accident when he was seventeen,” Ollie said, flipping pages in the staff notebook. “He just turned thirty.”

“His accident… is that why his eyes are all… the way they are?” Joy asked.

“Yeah. Skin grafts. Check out this list of medications. He takes seven different meds to help him balance his mood and behavioral problems. Four different ones for his heart condition. Then these five meds and vitamins are just to balance out the side effects of the other ones. It’s practically a full meal’s worth of pills three times a day.”

“Poor guy. I don’t think I’ve ever known someone so young to have such a serious heart condition.”

“His behavioral program seems pretty simple. Just gotta watch his mood swings. Any little thing might set him off without notice, and if we see him starting to get even a little upset, we just ask him if he needs time alone. If he asks us to stay, that means he’s calm, but if he doesn’t we gotta just tell him we’re taking off and that we’ll be back in half an hour.” Ollie read a few more lines and then flipped to the back of the notebook where some blank forms were located. “If we do end up taking off, we just fill one of these out when we come back, to keep track of the incidents.”

“Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Joy said, half joking and half serious.

“I know, right?”

“Would we need to at least keep an eye on the apartment to make sure he doesn’t leave?”

“I would have thought so, but it says here to just leave.”

“What about regular routine stuff? What’s he do all day?”

“He’s supposed to go to work in the mornings. Chores. Groceries once a week. Laundry three times a week.”

“Hey, Greg?” Joy asked. “How long has it been since you’ve done your laundry?”

“I’m not sure,” he said from the other side of the door, “but I don’t have any shirts left to wear.”

Ollie took a step toward Greg’s room, took one whiff, and decided he’d see about hunting down a box of rubber gloves. There weren’t any in the closet, nor were there any in the locked box with his meds. Under the sink he finally found a stash that would probably last most households a decade. In Greg’s house, maybe about a month. Ollie also grabbed some trash bags.

By that time Greg was clean and dressed, and Ollie braved the bedroom, filling the trash bags with soggy laundry while Greg watched. Ollie made several trips to the laundry room, loading all three machines full, pouring in the soap from the hall closet while Greg stood behind him watching.

“So,” Ollie asked, “what do you want to do while those are washing?”

“I don’t know,” Greg said. “Do you like to lift weights?”

“Sure,” Ollie answered.

The weight set took up more than half of Greg’s tiny living room, so Ollie figured he spent a lot of time benching and curling, piling on even more size. He made Ollie look boyish he was so big, and that was no small feat. Greg lay back on the bench and began doing reps, moving the very heavy bar with ease. Well, at least he’s good at keeping himself occupied. Ollie’s relief was short lived. After just five reps on the bench press, Greg announced that he was bored.

“Which one of you is my staff worker?” Greg asked.

“Me,” Ollie held up a hand.

“So what do ya wanna do?” Greg asked. “Wanna go to the store?”

“Do you have any money?” Ollie asked.

“No, not that I know of.”

“Sorry,” Ollie said, closely monitoring his facial expression for any sudden shift in temper. “I don’t know anything about your finances.” Ollie looked at Joy. “Got any ideas? Because I’m fresh out.”

“What’s in your hall closet here?” Joy asked, opening the closet door. “You look like you love to skate.”

Greg’s eyes lit up as Ollie pulled his skateboard out of the closet. They walked out to the parking lot and Greg scooted around slowly on his skateboard. He grew gradually braver until about five minutes later, when it shot out from under him, throwing him down hard on his back.

Ollie and Joy could tell he was okay after the fall, but Greg sat motionless staring at the blacktop for a while before finally getting up and chasing his board down, about one hundred feet away. Ollie and Joy chatted quietly as they watched him go through the whole ordeal again, starting with small scoots and ending up on his back again, staring at the blacktop.

“It’s amazing how quickly he swings from one mood to another,” Joy said. “For sixty seconds or so he’s having the time of his life and then he falls on his back and he’s got a facial expression that makes you think his dog just died or something.”

“I know,” Ollie said. “I wonder how many times he’s going to go through this before he finally calls it quits.”

“Or cracks his head open,” Joy said.

“He’ll be fine,” Ollie said, halfway wishing he had brought the Yankees hat so he could ask Sparks to be certain. “I don’t think he ever gets that thing going fast enough to really damage himself. He will end up with his share of bruises and scrapes, though.”

“Are you my worker?” Greg asked as he sat on the ground near his skateboard.

“For today, yeah,” Ollie said.

“Okay,” Greg said. “I was just making sure.”

Then everything clicked into place. Ollie caught his breath, unsure of whether he should smile or sob: Sparks wanted him to apply to be Greg’s staff worker. Oh, crap. It was going to be Greg, not Marie that he would be spending a lot of his time with. He was going to be handling urine-soaked laundry two to three times a week. Most importantly, he now knew the “friend” Sparks had been talking about when he told him he was going to get himself punched in the near future. “Greg needs a new manager,” Ollie sighed, speaking the truth with an air of inevitability.

“Are you thinking of applying for the position?” Joy asked.

“I don’t think I have much choice.”

“Not much choice? What do you mean you ‘don’t have much choice?’”

“I mean someone’s got to do it. Nobody else is going to apply for the job.”

“You sound so sure of that.” She looked at him. “I’ll bet some others will apply.”

“Yeah, well… somehow I’m not so sure about that. The little voice in my head is telling me so.”

Joy smiled. “That’s kind of a turn on.”

“It is? What, you got a thing for guys who handle urine-soaked clothes all day?”

“Yes, I do— for guys who know how to step up to the plate when nobody else will.”

It took him three more falls, but Greg had successfully skated to the far end of the parking lot and back. He was leaning on a parked car as he caught his breath triumphantly. Ollie wanted to cheer him, but he wasn’t sure if that was right or not. But he had finally done it. Greg and Ollie shared a grin with each other.

He soon got going again, this time much faster. The fall now was a hard one, leaving him on the pavement much longer, with a very sad expression on his face.

“Are you okay?” Joy asked, getting up and running to him. “Are you hurt?” Ollie followed her.

“I’ll be fine,” Greg said, sitting up on the blacktop. “It’s just that... I used to be really good at this. Before my accident I used to go to the skate park every day and ride. My friends and I used to compete to see who could jump the highest, or do the coolest tricks and stuff. Now I can’t even ride this thing in a parking lot without falling off.”

“Come on, Greg,” Ollie said, helping him to his feet. “I think you’ve got enough scrapes and bruises for one day.” They returned to the laundry room, and even though Greg’s clothes were now soaked with clean water instead of urine, Ollie put on a new pair of gloves and transferred everything from the washer into the dryer as Greg stood behind him watching. He popped a few quarters into the money slots.

It hadn’t been as difficult as he’d thought it would be with Greg. Most of the time he was happy hanging out with a remote control in his hand, although he was constantly surfing channels whenever a commercial came on, and his short term memory problems made him forget what show he was watching. About once every hour or so, Greg would lift weights until he got bored with them, which was usually after about a minute. He’d flip through a few channels until he decided it was time for a snack, and then he’d wander into the kitchen for a bite.

Lynn stuck her head in through the front door. “How’s everything going in here? I haven’t heard anything from you guys for a few hours, so I figured either you were doing just fine or you were all dead.”

“All dead,” Greg laughed.

“Glad to hear it,” Lynn said, walking in. “What have you done all day, Greg?”

“Um… I can’t remember. I think we went to—”

“We got something out of the closet and took it outside,” Ollie said. “Remember that?”

“Oh yeah! I skated around in the parking lot for a while.”

“And what else did we do?” Ollie asked him. “Remember?”

“Well,” Greg thought about it. “We went to—”

“Laundry,” Joy helped him.

“Oh yeah!” Greg remembered. “We did my laundry.”

“Did you help Ollie?” Lynn asked Greg. “Or did Ollie do it all himself while you watched?”

“I did it too,” Greg said. “I think.”

“Well, I pretty much did it all,” Ollie said. “But we still haven’t folded it or put it away. He can take care of that.”

“Glad to see you’re all doing well,” Lynn said, heading out. “There’s a Yankees game on TV, Greg. Ollie’s a Yankees fan, if you’re interested in that.”

“Okay,” Greg said as she closed the door. He thumbed through the channels until he found the baseball game. When a commercial break came and the channel didn’t change, Ollie knew something was up. He glanced over and saw Greg’s head flopped back on the couch, mouth open, fast asleep.

He laughed, nudging Joy about it, and they shared a smile. “Sorry about the busted first date,” he said.

“No worries,” she said. “This was still kinda fun anyway.”

While the aroma of the room and sound of Greg’s snoring wasn’t exactly equal to a scented candle and violin music, the evening was turning out to be cozy nonetheless. Maybe tonight would be the night to bring things to the next level.