TimsFunPlace

With a burst of music in the background, Alexei came walking onto the stage.  Damn!  What was he doing here?

“Alexei Nemov, my friends.”  The crowed applauded.  I’m not sure that everyone knew who he was but the way he was dressed would certainly tell anyone he was an athlete as his build was obvious even in street dress.

He and Rosie chatted for a bit and I was certainly impressed again how easy it seemed for Rosie to make everyone feel right at home.  I focused on the conversation again when Rosie asked Alexei if he’d seen any of my work.

“Oh, I’ve known Nick … actually, both Nicks … for a long time.  I was guest trainer for Nick’s brother, David … the hunk, as you referred to him … and also for Nick a few summers back.  David is a really good guy and I would not be surprised if we see him in the future at an Olympic gymnastic event.”

“Wow!  He’s that good?” Rosie said, looking over at my picture again.   She turned to me and said, “You’ll have to make sure that he practises as much as he can, then, Nick.”

“But Alexei … you asked me if you could come along as well tonight.  Why was that?”

“Well ....”  He waited a Moment and looked at me.  “I’m not sure Nick is going to be happy with this, but there’s an even better painting than the one that you see here.  I know Nick is keeping that for his own private collection after displaying it at the exhibition.  It is the other one that he didn’t want to include in the sale of his works.”

Damn!  He wouldn’t!  I looked at him, silently begging him not to go on, but there was no way I could make a scene on TV and I guess he knew that.

“But I think that painting deserved to be shown to a wider audience, even if it is only shown in public once.”

“Have you seen it Nicole?  Nick?” Rosie asked.  “I haven’t … Alexei wouldn’t let me.”

“Yea, it’s wonderful,” Nicole said simply.

“It’s so good, I offered the largest sum of money I’ve ever offered for a first-time painter’s work, but Nick doesn’t want to sell it.”

“Bring it in, guys,” Rosie said.

I couldn’t look at it.  I knew what was being pushed onto the stage.

The audience burst into murmurs, exclamations and applause as the painting of Francis was put beside that of David, Kathy and the baby.

When the audience calmed, I felt Alexei trying to catch my eyes, but I ignored him.

 “Lost for words?” the other Nick asked Rosie as she remained silent.

 “I’m stunned, I’ll give you that, Nicky boy,” she responded quickly as she realised she’d let the conversation lapse.

 “I see what you mean, Alexei.  Nick … this is incredible.  Can you please tell us who the young man on the painting is?”

 I took a deep breath.  I opened my mouth but no words would come out.  A tear crept out of the corner of my eye and was about to roll down my cheek.

 “I can tell you that as well.  As you probably can see, this subject is a gymnast as well.  He’s a very good friend of both Nick and David.”

 “He must be good, too!  Just look at that upper chest!” Rosie said.  “But how were you able to catch those emotions so eloquently, Nick?  You’re incredible, you know.  I think you’ve a great future ahead of you if you can put emotions like that onto the canvass.  It’s a shame he isn’t here as I would have loved to know who is important in his life.”

 “Well, that is a bit of a problem,” Alexei answered.  “He’s lost.  We’re not sure where he is at this Moment.  One of the reasons I decided to bring this picture down here was to see if your audience might have seen him somewhere in the past four to six weeks.”

 So that was what he was doing!  And, so far, he seemed to have gotten away with this public plea for help.  I hoped it wouldn’t backfire, though, either on me but especially on Francis.  I still was not looking at the direction of the painting when Rosie added, “So … there’s a hotline number for missing persons on your screen right now.  Please let us know if anyone has seen him … because, yes, I think I want this guy on my show, too,” Rosie continued with a smile.

 She then closed her show in her traditional way, then turned and thanked us all for coming.

 “Is it gone?” I whispered to Nick when everyone started to move away.

 “You can look again, Nick.  They’re putting it away.”

 “Good,” I said and let out a big sigh.

 “Well done, you guys!” Rosie exclaimed.

 “I think that was a memorable episode and I meant every word I said.  You have both a great future in front of you as artists, Nicole and Nick.”

 “Thanks.”  I saw Nicole walk towards Alexei and start talking with him.

 “Nick, can you come over here for a Moment?” Rosie asked when most of the audience had left.

 I followed her to the side of the stage.  Hardly anyone was there now.

 “Is Francis your boyfriend?”

 I felt my face started to go red very quickly.  “I won’t tell anyone,” she added.  “I just felt that your response … the shaking of your hands which, by the way, was kept out of the picture …  gave me an idea there was more to your relationship than just a good friend.  Also the intense look you gave him on the canvas.  I think I’ve only seen that with painters who were in love with, and were loved by, their subjects.

 “Yes … he’s my boyfriend.”

 “He really is lost, then?” Rosie asked.

 “We think so … although the police think he just ran away because of the stress.  We think something terrible might have happened to him.”

 “OK.  So that was a genuine call for help by Alexei?”

 “I think that is what he just did.”

 “You didn’t know, did you?”

 “No, that was a complete surprise for me.”

 “I can have them cut that small segment out if you want.”

 “You can do that?”

 “Yea … it’s the advantage of not doing this live.”

 “No.  If his picture is seen nation wide, it might help.”

 “OK.  We might add a line that they can call us, rather than the national missing persons’ phone line if they have seen him … or any other number you want.”

 “Let me think about that.  If we do something like that, we’ll need a lot of phones to take the calls.  I’m not sure we can move that fast.”

 When I got back to the dressing room, Alexei was there and so was Nick.  Nicole had gone to her own dressing room.

 “I’ve got your Dad on the phone, Nick.”

 “He knew, Alexei?”

 “Yea, we talked about it.  He wants to know how it went.  I thought you might want to give him that feedback.  You and I can talk later,” he said.

 I took the phone from him and then looked away when I started to talk.

 “Hi, Dad.”

 “Hi there, Nick.  How are you?”

 “I’m fine, thanks.  No thanks to Alexei though.  I thought I was going to have a heart attack on stage when he introduced Francis’s painting.”

 “But it all worked out well, didn’t it?”

 “Yea, Alexei did most of the talking and there wasn’t a lot more said other than that I had painted the painting.  So there was almost no connection made between Francis and me.”

 “So now we’ll have to wait to see if someone contact either Alexei or the program or the missing persons’ hotline.”

 “Hmmmm … well, no.  Rosie wants to help and she said that they could put a special phone number underneath that segment telling people to call if they’d seen Francis.  It just means though that we need phone lines set up because, as you know, these kinds of requests draw calls from a lot of sick people.”

 “OK … well … how long do we have to organise this special number?”

 “I think about 5 hours or so.  Do you think that will be enough time?”

 “I don’t know but I can give it a try.  Can you ask Rosie or someone from the show to contact me so I can give them the thumbs up with the number?”

 “I will.  And thanks, Dad.”

 “You’re welcome, son.  I’m just happy that, at last, something is being done and that you want something to be done, Nick.  Those are positive signs.”

 “Well, you’ll have to thank Alexei for that.”

 “I will … don’t worry.  See you tomorrow, Nick.”

 “Till tomorrow, Dad.”

 I was not very optimistic about the result of the phone calls but it was an effort at least.  I made sure that Rosie got my Dad’s phone number.  She also told me that she wanted to stay in contact with me and expected to be informed if we heard anything.  Not to mention that she really wanted Francis on the show.

 When we got back to the hotel, it wasn’t easy to be alone and away from Nicole.  She was sweet and I knew I could trust her … but not yet.  It was just too early to trust her with something like this.  I needed to deal with Alexei first.

 So the Moment she was gone, I turned to Alexei, looked at him as I could see him readying himself for my attack.  He knew he’d gone too far … he was now probably wondering if it had been beyond the pale or not.

 “I have no idea, Alexei, if I’m mad or happy with you.  I know one thing … if you ever do such a thing again, then I definitely will lose my trust in you … and I’m not sure if that’s worse or better than doing the right thing.  So please … never do such a thing again without me knowing … OK?”

 “I know, Nick … but after our talk last weekend, I wasn’t sure you’d go for it.  I also felt as if you were afraid to move on … to go and search for him … afraid of what you might find.  But isn’t knowing better than not knowing?”

 “I don’t know, Alexei.  I don’t know … but that’s irrelevant now.  Just never do something like that again without consulting me, OK?”

 “I promise, Nick.”

 “Good.  Now … what about sorting out all the phone calls we’re going to get?”

 “Well … I’ve looked into that already.  I have several detective agencies ready to follow up any interesting leads we get out of this.  So it might end up being a bit expensive … but I know it’ll be worth every penny … so don’t worry about that.”

 “I know but I’m not sure that we’ll have the manpower to answer the calls, much less follow them up.”

 “Well … let’s first see what the response is … then we’ll deal with the next steps.”

 We watched the episode from our hotel room.  Nick and Alexei had joined us.  I tried to call my Dad after the program but he didn’t answer the phone when I called him.  I guess he was busy with answering the phone number that had shown up on TV at the end of the program.

 I didn’t sleep that well during that night, I must admit.  I was happy with how the TV show had gone but anxious to see what the outcome of the program would be.  I knew in my heart that he hadn’t run away; if he had, there’d have been numerous sightings of him over the last few weeks.  If not a deliberate disappearance, then what?  What explained the complete lack of evidence of his existence?  I waited until 6 a.m. and then decided to try calling Dad again but still he didn’t answer.  I got up on time and had a long breakfast, just reading a newspaper until, towards the end of my coffee, Nicole appeared.  She just made it on time before going to the airport.  I said goodbye to Nick and Alexei.  They said they’d be in contact and would try to be over again somewhere around the Christmas period which was about four weeks away from now.

 When I got to the airport, I expected to be picked up but there was no Dad, no Susan in the arrivals lounge.  They must have been busy, I guess.  I waited to see if I could see anyone else I knew, but no one else was there that I recognised.  I was almost at the taxi stand when my name was called.  I looked over and saw a familiar face but it took me a Moment to remember who it was.  Susan, I think her name was as well … the girl who had been part of the management team during the school protest in high school.

 “Hi, there, Susan!  What are you doing here?”

 “Picking you up.”

 “Oh!  Why is that?”

 “Well, it seems it was my turn to take a rest from the telephones and they thought picking you up was a good idea.  I had been manning the phones for the last four hours or so.”

 “Oh!  So you’re helping Dad out then?”

 “Yea … me and a bunch of other people.”

 “Anything useful?”

 “I don’t know … I just make notes, nothing more.  I think your Dad had a few other people, even policemen around to sort through them”

 “So a lot of tips have been coming in?”

 “Yea, especially in the first two hours after the program.  We’re expecting another spike when the rerun is broadcast this afternoon.  But we should make it back in time for that.  Are you ready to help?”

 We got in her car and started to make our way through town.

 “Hey … where are you going?” I asked when I noticed that she took another direction than the route to our house.

 “High school.  That’s the only place where we could get together and also had enough phones to do this.”

 “Ahhh … how many are hooked up?”

 “Oh … I think about 15 or so.”

 “Wow!  That many?”

 “Yea … but it was easy to get us all together again and it’s been kind of fun.”

 “Us?” I asked.

 “Hmmmm … most of the team that led to the downfall of the parents-teacher council that time … they’ve all come back to help.  One phone call from your Dad to Justin made it all happen again.”

 “Ahhhh … so you’ve spent the night together again?”

 “Oh, yes …and we’ve been telling stories of the good all days.”

 “So everyone is still there?”

 “Yep … just about.  Oh … and you’re now a star … a TV star, Mister Artist,” she said with a wide smile.

 We talked a bit more about what she had been up to and then we arrived at the school.

 When I got together with my Dad, the first thing I asked was, “Any good clues about where he is?”

 “Don’t expect too much too fast, Nick.  Keith told me last night that it’ll take a few days to go through all of the calls and see which ones are possibly legitimate sightings.  Then someone will have to follow it up.  So … yea … we’ve gotten quite a lot of calls but, to be honest, not a lot which say straight off … yes, he’s been there.  So I agree with you … he hasn’t run away like the police are thinking.”

 “Good … that’s at least something we’ve gotten out of this.”

 “True … if they believe us.”

 “But I thought that the police were helping?”

 “No, not really.  Keith and one or two of his colleagues are here but they made it explicit that they were here, not as police officers but on their own.”

 “Oh, well … this should convince them, at least.”

 “We’ll see.  It seems Keith had a call from the police in his jurisdiction, they weren’t happy about the way his possible disappearance was announced on national TV.  So we might need to do some fence mending with them.  But why don’t you go and talk with the others?  We expect the rerun to generate another rash of calls … so it might be quite late before we can go home.”

 “OK …I can answer some calls as well, I guess.”

 “No, Nick … that is a definite NO.  You don’t want to hear what some of them are saying.  Just go and talk with the people who are on a break from the phone or help Keith and his colleagues to go through the notes to see if any of them makes sense … but no answering phones, agreed?”

 “Yes, Dad.”

 I really hadn’t thought about it but later, after I’d read some of the notes, I understood.  Hearing it and reading it were two different things.

 During the rerun of the Rosie show, the number of calls declined a bit but that didn’t last.  About two minutes after the number was posted on the screen, several phones started to ring.

 Keith had walked up to me and we talked a bit.  He said he was impressed by the paintings, too.  He also said that there were not very many really good leads in all the calls.  Most of them were from people who really had a screw loose … but sometimes, he pointed out, and a good tip would come in two or three days after the broadcast.  Some of the reports would be fresh sightings which could be investigated, and not ones that were from weeks ago and difficult to prove.  So far they had a handful of calls that looked promising and they’d forwarded those to the private eyes to take a look at.

 By the end of the afternoon, the number of phone calls started to diminish.  It was agreed that the group would be split up into three squads, each doing an eight-hour shift.  This meant that my Dad and I could go home while others would stay around.  Just in case something came up, Keith or one of his colleagues would always be there.

 When we had cleaned up the dishes after dinner and sat down with a drink, Dad looked at me for some time. I was already nervous from the silent dinner we had as I felt there was something on his mind.

“Nick, can we talk?” he said in the end not looking up from his drink that was in his hands.

“What about Dad?” I asked.

“How are you really coping with all of this?”

I looked up and I knew he wouldn’t take an answer like yea I am or anything in the line of it.

“Sorry If I got you with that question but I know you are struggling a bit and I just wanted to make sure you where doing ok”.

“I am Dad,” I said with as much power in it as I could.

“No, be honest Nick, you are not. I have seen the black pictures you are making. That is not coping as that is avoiding it. You are getting even deeper in the woods instead of coping, Nick.”

All I could do was look down, now. I just couldn’t answer him as I still had no idea what I was feeling or how to handle it all.

“You need to move on, you know as you can’t stay waiting for ever”.

I looked up now as what was he saying he wanted me to move on? Now, when we had some new hope that their might be a good lead in those phone calls.  I really could not believe what I was hearing.

“I know Nick. I waited to long too. You are to young you know”.

I looked at him and I think their was hate in my eyes now. “I know and I didn’t give up the first time and I definitely won’t give up the second time,” I said. “So I am going to go upstairs and don’t ever bring this up you hear me,” I shouted at him.

I had gotten very angry in a very short time. While I walked up the stairs I felt the anger going to flow out of me already but it had scared me. Why had I lost my temper so fast? I was known as a very patient guy but he had come too close to me. He had told me before what to do and I told him to leave it up to me. He was not listening that I was dealing with it on my own way. He didn’t run away as it would be just a mater of time that we would find where he was taken. Especially after the TV request that Alexei had made.

 We had more calls over the next few days.  I stopped going in to the school for a while as I wanted to concentrate on finding Francis.  We had a long phone call with the police but that didn’t get us anywhere.  It seemed that they didn’t have the manpower to really concentrate on his case.  On the fourth day, the calls came infrequent and we got the number redirected to our house, but only after I promised my Dad never to answer the phone.  That evening we met up with a small group, Keith and a few of the private detectives.  We didn’t get much further so, all in all, it seemed as if something truly serious must have happened to Francis … otherwise we should have gotten more clues.  In the end, announcing his disappearance didn’t get us very far ahead.

 After the New York trip, the remaining paintings were sent back to us.  I put them in the back room.  The painting of David and Kathy was waiting for them to pick up.  But the portrait of Francis was still packed up.  I knew that I could try to force a vision, but I wasn’t sure that would work.  The first time Francis had been in a strong emotional mood and the second time it was me.  So I got the painting out.  I looked at it, concentrating on it … but I really didn’t get anything happening at that Moment.  I became more and more frustrated as the day progressed.  With the December festivities coming up, these were not the feelings I wanted to have.

 I know that I got quieter and quieter as I became more and more frustrated.  My Dad tried to talk with me once or twice, but I just couldn’t be bothered.  Two weekends after the TV show which, by the way, had gotten me a lot more job offers, my Dad organised a little get together.  Or perhaps people just decided to visit.  David and Kathy came back home.  James and Alexei showed up, and Randy came over to stay.  So the gang was back … but, without Francis, it just wasn’t the same.  I stayed down and even a bit depressed.  I still couldn’t find a way to get my anger out.

 One Saturday afternoon we were all sitting down at the table for lunch when the door bell rang.  Since I was just toying with my food, I was up before I even knew it.  I walked towards the door, opened it and .....

 My mind went blank.  It ignored the evidence before its very eyes.  This couldn’t be … no way.  I closed my eyes, opened them again, checking to see if the conclusion my brain had come to was right.  I could feel my legs start to give way, my breathing became flat and, before I knew it or could say anything, I dropped to the ground.  I could hear someone say my name though … “Nick!!!!”

chapter 11