The Digger's Rest Page 2

  Jack’s mind exploded into overdrive as he pulled the boy’s naked body, not yet twenty-one, from the tub onto the cold tile floor, his long dark hair covering his face; frail and thin from what must have been weeks of starving himself.

  Jack cradled the boy’s pale body in his arms, taking only the time to pull the silk tie from around his neck and tie off the area above the gash in his wrist to stop the bleeding before covering him with a towel from under the sink. Looking back to the stunned super standing in the doorway, his eyes crazed with urgency, he bellowed, “Don’t just fucking stand there! Call 9-11!”

  As the super ran to use the phone, Jack held the boy close to him like a baby, mumbling and crying to himself, “Oh no, please, my brilliant boy, please no, no,” as if he were gently rocking him to sleep to the sound of Melanie Woodward’s ‘Poor in New York at Christmas’ playing over and over in the other room.

  Chapter II

  MITCHELL

  (March 2006)

  Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming. Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running. Didn't make sense not to live for fun. Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb. So much to do, so much to see. So what's wrong with taking the back streets. You'll never know if you don't go. You'll never shine if you don't glow. Hey now you're an All Star, get your game on, go play. Hey now you're a Rock Star, get the show on get paid. And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold.

  All-Star

  ……..As performed by Smashmouth

  The knocking got louder on the door of apartment 7D of the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West.

  “Dr. Bramson! I know you’re in there. Please, wake up!”

  Silence at first, then a shuffling sound from the other side of the door followed by the click of a turning lock. Simon Holly shuffled his feet waiting nervously, the weight of the metal brace on his right leg telling him that he should have waited for the elevator instead of deciding on the stairs in haste.

  The door opened a crack. A gruff, garbled voice came from the other side. “Whaddaya want, Simon? Come on, it’s my day off and I have a screaming hangover. Let me sleep, will ya?”

  “Dr. Edgeworth wants you to come to the museum. Now! He’s been trying to call you all morning and when he couldn’t reach you he sent me over to get you,” Simon said humbly. He’d rather die than ever offend the man who meant everything to him.

  The chain rattled and the door opened slowly. Behind it was a man’s figure in an L.L Bean Stewart plaid robe; a pair of puffy, blood shot eyes squinting from the bright hallway light as they glared at him through a mass of uncombed chestnut-colored hair.

  “Okay, come on in,” Mitch grumbled, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder and pulling him in. Even a hangover as gruesome as his couldn’t help but edge itself over into fond affection when he saw those big, innocent, dark-blue eyes staring at him through those big floppy black curls, reminding him how sensitive Simon could be when it came to him. “Okay, what exactly is it about the tenth century that can’t wait until I come back to work tomorrow?” he asked jokingly, rubbing his throbbing head with his hand, his mouth feeling like it was stuffed with three thousand year old cotton linen with the mummy still intact. “Don’t answer that. Just do me a favor and go put on a pot of coffee…and bring me some Advil from the bottle by the microwave, will ya? I’m gonna jump in the shower and try to scrub off last night,” and headed toward the bathroom.

  “Yes, sir,” Simon replied nervously, anxious as always to please him, and went in the opposite direction toward the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, Simon was knocking at yet another door. “Dr. Bramson, I have your coffee and Advil here,” he called through the door.

  “Come on in,” the voice called back out. Simon opened the door and entered the steam-filled room.

  Stunned to see his intellectual and personal hero standing there naked, carefully drying his shoulder-length hair with a towel so as not to pull out the thick gold hoop earrings he had in each ear, Simon’s natural modesty made him turn his eyes downward immediately. But not before noticing that Dr. Mitchell Bramson, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s wunderkind of medieval art history and archaeology, had three-quarter sleeves of the soldiers and knights, horses and ships of the Bayeux Tapestry, the almost one thousand year old textile depicting William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066, tattooed on each of his well-worked arms.

  Thoroughly embarrassed, but strangely fascinated by the spectacle he’d just witnessed, Simon stood there holding out the coffee cup and waiting for his next instruction. “Well, give it here, boy. I won’t bite-cha,” Mitch said smiling as he reached out for the cup with one hand, holding the other hand out for the Advil. Simon handed them to him, his eyes still focusing on the floor.

  “Yes, sir,” Simon said shyly, blushing furiously and turning quickly to leave the room to avoid being seen that particular shade of red. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “Nah, just go have yourself a cup and take a load off. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Mitch came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, a towel wrapped around his waist, and went into his bedroom, talking as he went. “I’ll be dressed in a few…and don’t be so nervous,” he said kindly, realizing out of the haze of his hangover that Simon was not an average kid, and that he’d just embarrassed the shit out of the young man.

  “B…b…b…but Dr. Edgeworth said it was important,” Simon stuttered, heading back toward the kitchen, still not having quite recovered from the unexpected peep show he’d just witnessed.

  “Well, whatever the old man wants must have already waited for close to a thousand years by now, so I don’t think half an hour will kill him,” Mitch called out through the open door of his bedroom and chuckled, amused by his own cleverness. Simon laughed too, as he watched the smoke starting to rise from the toaster, signaling that the bread he’d put in was just charred enough to satisfy Dr. Bramson’s hangover craving. It always made him feel connected to do little things like that for his hero, and to be one of the few people who could appreciate most of Mitch’s obscure insider jokes.

  “I don’t know about that, Doctor,” Simon called back. “I know he was on the phone with someone named Cotswold in London when I got in at seven-thirty this morning and was acting very…agitated. He’s been ordering me about like a 17th century pirate ship swabby since then, and when he couldn’t reach you by phone, I thought he’d pull his hair out…or mine,” Simon said, clumsily attempting an insider joke of his own as he slathered a half an inch of butter onto the charred toast, still not being able to tear his mind away from the visual of the Bayeux tattoos.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Mitch grumbled as he came out of the bedroom dressed in beat-up old jack boots, jeans and a baggy white Polo Oxford shirt. “Come on. Let’s go see what all the fucking hubbub is about,” he said, grabbing the knee-length green Macintosh rain coat he’d gotten in Scotland on his last trip off the coat hook.

  When he turned to look behind him, Simon was standing in the kitchen doorway with his blackened toast on a sheet of paper towel. Mitch’s heart tugged at the wide-eyed boy holding his hands out to him with his favorite remedy like a burnt offering, reminding him again that Simon was no ordinary kid and making him regret the gruff greeting he’d given him when he came to the door.

  Mitch took the toast, shoved a piece hungrily into his mouth and gave Simon a slight nudge with his elbow, smiling gratefully. “Come on. We’d better get going before the old man goes all apoplectic,” he said, heading out of the door. Simon Holly, blushing and smiling, trailed behind him like a spaniel puppy, just a lame one with a hunk of metal on one leg.

  ***

  The light drizzle of late March in New York City splattered their faces as they worked their way up the massive front steps to the entrance to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and went through the door.

  “Good morning, Dr. Bramson,” the black-skinned s
ecurity guard said as they rushed up to him.

  “Good morning, Zolan. Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Mitch asked the guard, smirking sarcastically, having sufficiently recovered from his antics of the night before to at least attempt a game face.

  “Yes, sir,” Zolan answered, smiling back devilishly. After so many years of watching Dr. Bramson come through those doors, he knew enough to know the doctor had been out raising holy hell the night before. “Dr. Edgeworth’s been calling down here every five minutes to ask if you’ve come in yet. I’ll call him and let him know you’re on your way,” Zolan said, picking up the phone.

  Zolan had always admired Dr. Bramson. It wasn’t easy when you’re born to be wild, and the man just couldn’t help it. It took quite a man to dare to be that way in the museum world and succeed the way he had, not only managing to make people respect him for it, but for making them like him for it. He always had them stuck-up rich white folks and overeducated smart-ass types eating right out of his hand. You go, Man! Zolan thought, as he watched the wave of the green Macintosh disappear into the elevator, followed closely behind by a mop of big black curls.

  When they arrived outside of Jack Edgeworth’s office, they stood for a moment watching him through the glass wall, gesturing frantically with his hands and shouting into the speaker phone, both very out of character for the museum’s usually self-possessed Director of Antiquities.

  Jack’s voice was so loud, they had no problem divining that he was shouting in dollars. Mitch and Simon looked at each other and shrugged. Smiling, Simon motioned with his hand that Mitch should go first. One quick knock stopped the shouting.

  “Come in,” Jack Edgeworth called out through the closed door. He’d already cut off his call and was directing all his attention toward them as they came in.

  Jack Edgeworth was a tall man, over six foot, still robust but thinning with age. His deep-set brown eyes and aquiline nose supported gold horn-rimmed glasses giving him an Icabod Crane sort of look. About sixty-five years old, but giving away no more than fifty-five, he always joked that his long years surrounded by natron working in the Egyptian tombs as a young man kept him appearing so well preserved.

  “Where the hell have you been, Mitchell? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning. Out catting around all night and making a holy show of yourself again, I suppose,” he said, shouting again but smiling wryly to himself with a glimpse of twinkle in his eye. He’d learned long ago that he could never really be angry at his former charge and current colleague. He just took a deep breath and started again. “Simon, would you excuse us, please? Dr. Bramson and I have some important business to discuss. But don’t go far. I may still need you.”

  “Yes, Dr. Edgeworth,” Simon replied, leaving the room hesitantly and closing the door behind him. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to know what it was all about, too. Especially if it concerned Dr. Bramson. No, he wouldn’t go very far at all; only around the corner from the door, as a matter of fact.

  Once the door was shut, Jack motioned with his hand for Mitch to be seated before sitting down himself. “Well, now that I finally have you here, we have a great deal to talk about, Mitchell,” he said after taking another deep breath. Mitch knew he was in for a good talking to about something. Jack only called him “Mitchell” when it was serious.

  “I’m listening, Jack,” Mitch replied, having also learned long ago that Jack would never really hurt him; content to let the old man take a run at him.

  “I’m sending you on an assignment in the field,” Jack said calmly, but inside preparing himself for the anticipated contest over the issue.

  “Assignment? In the field? I don’t understand. I’m just about to put the finishing touches on my Charlemagne show for the Spring Gala. I can’t leave now. You’ve gotta be kidding, Jack,” Mitch protested, gearing himself up for the contest. These Gala openings were his babies, his moneymakers for the Museum.

  “I’ll finish it myself…Dave Allard and me. It’s almost done anyway, you just said so yourself,” Jack said calmly. “This assignment is more important, both to the Museum and to your career. You’ve had your own department now for more than a few years, Mitch, and you haven’t published a thing. Yeah, yeah, I know that this whole ‘enfant terrible’ thing you’ve got going for yourself has gotten a lot of publicity for the museum and raised a fortune in charitable contributions,” Jack said, waving Mitch’s explosion off, “…but I didn’t hire you to be a goddamn high society circus act, money or no money; and it’s about time you earned your keep academically, so to speak, and mine…for posterity,” he said, the calm in his voice beginning to give way the underlying stress.

  Mitch opened his mouth to raise an objection, but before he could, Jack held up his hand in a ‘Stop right there’ motion setting Mitch back a pace. Not even the tortures of the Inquisition could ever make Mitch disrespect the old man. He just threw up his hands and kept his mouth shut.

  Jack went on. “I’m not finished, yet. Now, I’ve fostered and indulged you gladly, like you were my own errant son for almost twenty years now because…well…just because…,” he said, shaking his finger at Mitch, flustering. “But don’t think for a second that I’m not aware that you’ve also spent those years stomping around the clubs like a teenager and ravaging every redhead in Manhattan. You’re going to be forty years old soon, for God’s sake, and those days are over, my boy,” Jack said, jabbing his finger at him. “It’s time you took your rightful place, the place I’ve prepared for you, in the academic community of this institution.”

  Mitch just sat there, his mouth agape. “I don’t understand, Jack. Where the hell is this coming from?” he asked, completely mystified, his hands held up, bewildered. “Preparing myself for what?”

  “There could never be anyone else who could ever succeed me here when I retire…or die. You’re my heir. I’ve always known it and so have you; and I’m going to see that it happens, and that time is now. I’m sending you to England to investigate a newly discovered site that, if it turns out to be what I think it may be, will make you the Howard Carter or Heinrich Schleiman of your generation, revered and studied by generations to come. You think you’re a star now because you can take your shirt off in public and show off those outrageous tattoos. You just wait,” Jack spouted then stopped to take a breath, his face colored with emotion.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Jack? Have the doctors told you something?” Mitch’s heart rose to his throat. “Are you sick again…dying?” Mitch asked, his voice quavering as he leaned forward, reaching slowly to rub the scar on his right wrist, his gut wrenching with the prospect. If his mother was the clay from which he was formed, then Jack was the sculptor who had created him from that clay, and the solid rock base that had given him his foundation ever since.

  “No, I’m not dying—not yet anyway,” Jack said, avoiding direct eye contact with Mitch, so that his emotions wouldn’t get the better of him. “I fully intend to live at least long enough to secure your place and your future both here at the Museum and in the textbooks. I think I’m onto something big, son. So big I wish I was thirty again, or even forty, so I could do it myself. But I can’t and you can. I need you to live a dream for me, Mitchell, our dream. It’s time,” Jack said, his tone gradually changing from strict teacher to affectionate father.

  “Okay, Jack. What’s it all about? The Knights Templar? More burial mounds around Stonehenge? Or is it that nonsense about Renne Le Chateau again?” Mitch asked with a deep sigh of relief that Jack’s cardiologists hadn’t handed him a death sentence. Relieved, he was more than willing to accept whatever it would take to make ‘Papa’ happy. Mitchell Bramson could never refuse Jack Edgeworth anything…not ever.

  Jack was like a father to him…more than a father because Jack’s fondness for him was one of choice rather than biology. From the day they first met, there had never been any doubt that they would get on like bandits. He loved having Jack’s undivided attention and uncondit
ional approval; the honor of being hand fed a lifetime of rarified knowledge by a Master; coddled and stroked like he was some rare and precious creature that Jack had brought back from one of his more exotic adventures.

  Mitch never even took the time to regret the fact that he’d never met his own father. Then there was that “bad patch” he’d gone through all those years ago, the one they never talked about but always remembered whenever they look at each other and had no need to speak.

  Deep inside, Mitch couldn’t help but compare everything Jack was to him with the fact that his own blue-blooded bastard of a father let his grandmother, a Rose Kennedy in her own mind, have the marriage to Mitch’s mother annulled before he was even born. High-brow Boston stiff necks they were; bloodless was more like it; and when their spineless golden boy of a son went slumming on Bleeker Street and eloped with his mother, a long-haired, hippy girl, and a folk singer of all things, the old lady went insane.

  When Jack’s arms opened up to him during that ‘bad patch,’ claiming him out of the void and caring for him, teaching him and…loving him, he was like a font of life. When Jack put his hand on Mitch’s shoulder, patted him on the back or hugged him at one of their Gala triumphs telling Mitch how very proud of him he was, Jack was his inspiration to achieve; why shouldn’t he let his heart open wide to him in return? Why shouldn’t he want to be like him, or be what he wanted?

  Even when Jack scolded him, or shouted at him for getting into all kinds trouble, the affection that was always behind it made it almost a joy to take. Jack cared about him, genuinely and unmistakably, and in all the years they’d know each other, he’d never felt anything else from him.