A Hot Bath Will Make A World Of Difference
By Paul Germano

Billy slammed his fist down on the table. “Damnit! Don't tell me I'm overreacting; I'm telling you there was something in that cave. And it took a chunk of flesh right out of my neck.”

Eric, leaning comfortably against the rustic doorway, shook his tangle of brown hair, along with his head, in disbelief.

"Damnit Eric, don't dismiss this. There was something in..."

"Dude relax," Eric said in a reassuring voice. "It was just bird or something. Maybe it flew a little too close to your face. And maybe its beak or feet or whatever, nicked your neck. But that's all there is to it. So do yourself a favor and relax.“

Eric walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed his favorite breakfast food: cold pizza. “I’m taking the last piece. Cool with you?," he asked holding up the slice, waiting for an okay before taking his first bite. Billy lunged out of his chair, knocking it over. "I'm telling you I was attacked. Brutally attacked! And you think I give a rat's ass who gets the last slice of pizza?!" Billy started pacing around the room. "Jesus H. Christ! How can I relax? I just know something awful
is going to happen." With the speed of his pace increasing, he clutched at his head. "It was a vampire bat, that's what it was! Oh, my, God, I'm going to die, or worse, not die. Become one of the undead!" He came to a standstill. His chest heaving, he gasped for air and tried to talk, each word a struggle to say: “People, say, there, are, no such, things as, as vamp..., as vampires, but how..." Finally catching his breath, he marched toward Eric, pointing an accusing finger as he spoke. “How can anyone be sure? Tell me how Eric! You tell me how!"

Eric continued to munch on his pizza and tried not to snicker.

Again, Billy began to pace. "Oh, my, God, help me; help me; help me.“ With both hands, he clutched at his head as his pacing degenerated into decreasingly smaller circles. "Some camping trip this is turning out to be. This was suppose to be fun!”

Fun. Yes, fun. It had started out to be just that: five college buddies, escaping the pressures of mid-terms for a few days. They pooled their meager resources together, piled into Andy's rust-bucket Mercury and rented a run-down camp nestled in the rugged terrain of the Adirandacks. Their plans were simple enough: Do a little hiking in the mountains, a little carousing in town and poke around in a few caves. Caves: That's were all the trouble started for Billy. "Oh, my, God, I am going to die!," Billy shouted, his body trembling along with his words.

“Dude, chill already. First, you think it's a bat instead of a bird. Then it’s no longer an ordinary bat, it’s a vampire bat. And now it's Mr. Count Dracula himself! Dude, get a..."

"Shut up!," Billy shouted. "Just shut up! You son-of-a-bitch." Billy sank down into a wobbly chair, then kicked the chair he had knocked over earlier, sending it sledding across the floor toward Eric who leapfrogged out of its path. Why me?, Billy wondered. It was bad enough what he was going through; he shouldn't have to contend with Eric's annoyingly casual attitude. Eric was a good one for telling people to relax. Eric was always the one, in that condescending, easy-going voice of his, to tell people to relax. Billy felt like slugging him right in the face. Trouble was, easy-going Eric wasn't so easy-going when anyone dared cross his path; then he was a force to be reckoned with. Still, Billy was on the verge. He looked up at his so-called friend, ready to slug Eric right in the face as hard as he could. Eric's 6-foot-2 beefy frame gave Billy reason to hesitate. For starters, Billy would have had to jump up to reach his friend's jaw. And he knew it would go down hill from there. He would slug Eric, then Eric would return the favor, twice as hard. Billy knew if he mixed it up with Eric, no matter how you sliced it, it would be Billy who finished in second place. Reason was returning to Billy. He remembered Eric was his friend; a good friend who was there when you needed him. Especially, Billy thought somewhat sarcastically, Eric was always there when you needed to be told to relax. And that's all Eric was trying to do now: be a true friend, by making Billy calm down. Now Billy was starting to feel a bit ungrateful. Yet, his guilt was contaminated with a healthy dose of anger and panic about the cave incident. Billy got up, stretched, walked over to the overturned chair
and picked it up. In Billy's mind he though Eric was probably wondering if he was going to throw the chair at him. But easy-going Eric was oblivious... "Yum, yumm, yummm, that hit the spot," Eric said, patting his stomach. Eric grabbed a paper towel and wiped the remnants of pizza sauce from the corner of his mouth. Balling up the paper towel, he did a jump shot aiming for the garbage pail at the other end of the cabin. "He shoots; he scores!, “Eric shouted as he
playfully danced around the room in victory.

"This is all a big joke to you, isn't it?" Billy's anger was taking over.

"Dude, just get a grip. So big deal, you scratched your neck." Eric moved in closer, towering over Billy. "Don't you think I got a few nicks and cuts over the years. It goes with the territory. It's part of having fun. It's part of being a guy." Eric stooped down to roll up his pant leg, pointed to a scar on his calve. "Kayaking on the Black River, my kayak overturned and my leg met up with a nasty bit of jagged rock." He straightened back up. Lifting up his flannel shirt, he pointed to his rib-cage: "Last summer, three broken ribs, skateboarding on the Northside. “Then he pulled his shirt even higher and pointed to several black and blue marks that started at his chest and spiraled down to his waistline: "Yesterday morning, hiking, you were there. Remember when I fell in to that nasty gully?" He paused, waiting for Billy to nod. "Well this is what I got to show for it," he said, doing a Vanna White wave of his hand. He pulled his shirt back
down, smoothing it slowly, as if deciding Whether or not to share the next incident. Then he rolled up his sleeve. “And this one's a little less glamorous," he said, pointing to cuts and scrapes on his forearm. “Back home a couple of weeks ago. Downtown. Bar hoping. On a Friday night. Somewhere In my travels, it's a little blurry, I think it was somewhere in between stops at Awful Al's and Clark’s. Or maybe it was Clark’s and Dorsey’s or the Dinosaur and, well I don't know. Beer, you know how it is. Anyway, I leave one bar heading for the next when nature calls. And it's getting so I can't wait. So I slip into an alley to take a whiz. This squirrel or cat or something jumps on me from out of nowhere. Bang! Knocks me to the ground, into a bunch of stones and broken glass.“ Eric rubbed his arm as if re-living it all. “So dude, my point is..."

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I know you're trying to calm me down. But this is different. This isn't as simple as a kayaking spill; this was a bat, a damn bat, and..."

Eric shook his head, "Dude, why the change of heart? It happened yesterday and you were okay with it then. You were fine last night, now all of a sudden..."

“Listen Eric, that was yesterday. This is today. Now, I've had a night to sleep on it, to think about it, and let me tell you, I had one hellish, restless night."

"Okay, fair enough," Eric said again in his reassuring voice. He closed in on Billy, put a friendly arm on his shoulder, "Listen dude, when I feel tense, I like to take a hot bath. It lets all your troubles just wash away. It's very relaxing. Trust me on this dude, a hot bath will make a world of difference.“ His hand still on Billy's shoulder, Eric nudged him toward the bathroom. Billy held his hands up apologetically. "Hey, sorry about calling you a son-of-a-bitch. You're right, I'm just all worked-up. I can't help myself sometimes. Mike's always telling me I need to be more focused on..." He paused. "Hey where is Mike? And where's Joe and..."

"Well Joe and Andy took the Merc' in to town on a pizza and beer run. Should be back within the hour. “ He paused for a moment thinking. “And Mike,” he said, with a smirk on his face "Yes, Mike, Mike, Mikey. Well you know how our boy Mikey is? Remember that bimbo he met at the bar the other night; the one with the kick-ass Camaro. Well yesterday she was a bimbo. Today she's got a name. Today she's Charlene,” he said with exaggerated drama. "It seems Mikey is suddenly in love.“ Eric clutched at his heart with great melodrama. ”Our boy Mikey went back to her place this morning and he said he'll be spending the rest of the vacation with her. He'll hook back up with us on Sunday morning when we're ready to leave.”

Billy shook his head: “Well that's Mike for you, so much for him hanging out with us.” Billy was actually starting to feel relaxed. "Maybe you’re right,” he told Eric,” maybe a hot bath is exactly what I need." Although he didn't like to admit it, Billy knew he had an ever-so-slight tendency to overreact. The cabin wasn't much to look at. But the cramped bathroom, surprisingly enough, had a certain charm to it, with its knotty pine wood, a genuine clawfoot bathtub and
plumbing that most likely was recently upgraded. The water pressure was excellent and the hot water was just that: hot, hot as hell. Billy soaked in the tub, fully enjoying the warmth of the hot water. He had made himself so tense that his bones actually ached. The water felt therapeutic, even nurturing. He soaked for awhile and then drained some of the water, letting the tub re-fill with even hotter water. Yes, no question about it, he thought to himself, he had been overacting. No doubt, it was a bird, just like Eric said, a bird nothing more that. "Wait a minute," he whispered. "Birds aren't in caves, bats are in caves." He took a deep breath, told himself to calm down, ran a little more hot water; pushed the thought out of his mind. Again he felt relaxed, totally relaxed. The hot bath was working. He felt invigorated. When the guys get back, he thought to himself, maybe I'll take the Merc into town, find my own Charlene to have fun with. Completely relaxed, Billy finally got out of the tub, grabbed a towel, dried off a bit and wrapped it around his waist. Might as well run a comb through my hair, maybe even shave, he said to himself. Billy felt completely at ease And then he looked in the mirror. He stared at the mirror, his hands gripping the edges of the sink in disbelief. Panic
set in. "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Why did this have to happen to me? Why?" Billy pressed his hands down hard on the sink, head down, defeated, his body trembling. He was so nervous he stated gasping for air. "Oh God; oh God; oh God,” he repeated, each repetition growing louder, until he was wailing.

Eric came running into the bathroom: "What is it? What’s wrong? Dude, What's wrong?!!

”Look," Billy said pointing to the mirror. "No reflection. I have no reflection.”

“Dude, dude, relax,” Eric said in a reassuring voice. "Everything is okay. It's like a sauna in here, that's all." But Billy wasn't listening. He was hysterical, he couldn't see his own reflection. ”How can I calm down? Oh God, oh God!"

"Take it easy dude," Eric said again his voice reassuring. "You took a hot bath and you turned the bathroom into a sauna, that's all there is to it." Eric reached over. Raising his arm, he used his shirt sleeve to wipe away the steam that had fogged the mirror. "It's just steam dude, nothing more than that." Billy felt so stupid, as he looked at his own embarrassed reflection in the mirror. "Thank God. Thank God. Thank God," he started chanting. And then Billy realized
something else. Eric was standing directly behind him. And yet, he only saw one reflection in the mirror, his own. He turned to face his friend. Eric's pearly whites were glistening. “Relax dude," Eric said in a voice that was anything but reassuring. "This is only gonna hurt for a minute."

PAUL GERMANO is the curator of the Museum of Automobile History in Syracuse, NY. His fiction can be read on-line in the January-February 2001 issue of CollectedStories.com and in Issue 2 of MWP Journal (at MyWebPress.net). His fiction has also appeared in print in the Java Snob Review (Michigan) and SlugFest (South Carolina).

© 2001Paul Germano