What Dreams May Come Ch. 09 - Final

"You have no car," he said, looking out the window as if hoping that the Uber Prius waiting for me was going to turn into a Rolls Royce.

"No, Sir. I'm able to drive, but I sometimes have seizures because of the injury to my brain and I didn't want to take the chance that I could have one while driving. Uber gets me where I need to go, in most cities anyway."

"Your family is..."

"I believe 'poor' is the word you're looking for, Sir. Yes. My father left my mother when I was three and she raised me and my sister alone. She worked three jobs to keep us in our home, but until I signed with the Rapids, we were very poor, Sir," I admitted.

"And this list of 'previous relationships' is appalling. Many of these women are simply described by their hair color and the city in which they lived,"

"And that's only what I could remember, Sir, yes.

"Forgive me, but it seems you are in no way prepared emotionally or financially to support a wife and family. I do not understand what you possibly expect of me other than to call the police and ask them to remove someone with mental health problems from my home," he said, stirring his tea as he looked me, bewildered. "Why are you here, Cole Howard?"

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Leela told me that every decision she has seen you make has been about doing what's best for your family. I want what's best for Leela, just like you. You know she is exceptional. You also know that a lot of men's egos couldn't handle being with a woman as amazing as she is. I can. I can take anything because my ego has been completely destroyed," I said, with the absolute charismatic certainty of a young Tom Cruise.

"Your daughter took actual garbage out of my brain before she put my head back together. I had to learn to walk again after being the fastest runner in the MLS. I learned how to feed myself again, and man, that wasn't pretty. On my first visit after returning from the hospital, I had a seizure in your daughter's office and pissed my pants right in front of her. Pissed my pants, sir. For months, I had to put post-it notes in my closet to tell me the order of putting on my clothes because I kept forgetting the underwear until I had the rest of my clothes on. I have failed and failed and failed again in your daughter's eyes, and I keep coming back for more... because she loves it when I do."

"You want to go to India and arrange something with a guy that's great on paper and have her settle for him because you approve of him and it's getting too late for her to do anything else. But the thing is, that great-on-paper guy will be utterly humiliated by your daughter because she will always be more incredible than he is. Always. If you're lucky, he will cheat to boost his ego and keep the marriage on the side. If you're not lucky, he'll do his damndest to bring Leela down to his level and make her become less than what she is, so that he can feel like more of a man. Then, all your decisions and sacrifices in life will be only for the benefit of some piece of crap that looked good on paper and treated your precious daughter like trash," I said. Arunkumar Vaidya's eyes were bulging, now, his tea forgotten.

"Sir, I just want the chance to show you that I'm right for her... and then to give her the chance to choose between me and the richest, most handsome, most connected, most accomplished, most successful, and most Indian guys you can find. She'll choose me, Sir," I finished. Then, holding his eyes with mine, I reached over and took a drink of my tea. Of course, I misjudged the positioning of everything and scalding tea dribbled down my chin and spilled down the front of my shirt and suit. Without wavering my gaze from his cringing face, I put my cup down, wiped my chin, and raised my eyebrows at him and nodded, as if I'd just proved my point.

He pursed his lips and looked down at my information on his laptop, his finger toying with the Colorado Rapids USB drive sticking out of the side. I got several years older waiting him out, wondering what was going to happen. Finally, he spoke, "You have come to persuade me to part with my daughter by romanticizing your unmanly failures, Cole Howard. You are a strange man. You ask for my most precious child and yet you have not even brought a gift to my home in exchange..." he chided, lightly, going back to stirring his tea.

"Is there any gift I could offer in exchange for Leela that wouldn't be an insult?" I countered.

"No, there is not... unless you are willing to offer me the chance to sample these failures, of which you seem to prize so highly?" he said, raising his eyes to meet mine. I think my heart recognized that I was being given a chance before my brain did, because I felt it nearly pounding a hole through my chest before I fully realized what was going on.

"Go on, Sir..." I said, a smile playing across my face as I imagined a lifetime of Leela's eyes looking at me. I knew I could take any humiliation this guy had to offer.

*** *** ***

As it turned out, humiliation wasn't Arunkumar Vaidya's challenge. It was herding cats with enormous egos that hated each other... because his challenge was to get him season tickets to a San Francisco MLS team. There used to be a team in San Francisco, the Deltas, but it had gone under a few years ago. Not enough fans attending the games, even though they won the NASL Championship in their very first and only season. Maybe he thought it would be humiliating because he was sure I would fail and fail big and then he'd be rid of the crazy, broken white guy that wanted to marry his brilliant brain surgeon daughter. His problem was... I didn't fail.

I knew the basics of how a major league soccer franchise comes to town. First thing, you need money. Gobs of it. I was a pro soccer player for several years, and having plenty of trauma from growing up poor, I was cheap and saved my money. I was a multi-millionaire. Still, that was nothing compared to what would be needed for a whole team. MLS teams needed an ownership group of people who had personal assistants that were multi-millionaires. I knew a few people around town from my MLS days, but nobody who wasn't still smarting from the failure of the Deltas. Enter, my weird watch.

I woke up one day and a meeting notification popped up saying that I had a Zoom meeting with Laine Taylor from KPIX scheduled in 30 minutes. I had no memory of any meeting with Laine Taylor, much less having any contact with her, but I was so fuzzy-brained in the COVID shut-down that I just went with it. I was Zoom meeting with a lot of people about getting another MLS team in town, so maybe it spun out of that. Then, my watch gave me another notification: "Put on your blue shirt and comb your hair." That seemed like a good idea, so I did.

Turns out the meeting was a puff piece interview about my "inspirational story of overcoming adversity." I actually snorted when Laine Taylor said it because that was the nicest way of saying "somewhat recovered after destroying his pro-athlete career by not wearing a helmet and riding a crotch rocket like a jackass," but thankfully things had moved on before those words actually came out of my mouth. Let me tell you, that wouldn't have happened before the accident -- no stupid words went unsaid before the accident because my brain was just too fast.

In the end, we just talked about my life in soccer, the accident, waking up from the coma and my "road to recovery." Every time she broke out one of those dog-eared phrases, I had to bite my tongue and tapping out the 'We Will Rock You' beats just to keep myself from laughing. Then we went into what was next for me, and I talked about how I was trying to bring an MLS franchise back to the Bay Area. She asked me, in light of the Delta's recent failure, with all that I've been through, if I was sure I was up to the job. Then, she looked at me with that tilted-head, kind, yet pitying, look that people gave me when I tried to climb stairs while holding something. I was about to tell her just what I thought of that when my watch flashed me another notification: "Make her wait..."

I'd never made anyone wait for an answer before. Before the accident, I would usually give five different answers before the person had even finished the question. Even the thought of waiting was excruciating, back then. Now, though... when she couldn't nudge me or anything because of what a broken and crippled guy I was... well, it kinda sounded like fun. She had just interviewed me about being "inspirational" and then wrapped it up by being condescending to my abilities? Fuck that. Laine could wait. Dead air was brutal for these guys, so I just stared into the camera of my computer with a sly smile. I just sat there like that and watched her face go from interested, to uneasy, back to interested, then she started chewing her lip and glancing around the room she was in. I was right. It was really fun.

Finally, my watch gave me another notice: "Say 'yes' and nothing more for the rest of the interview." So, that's what I did. Laine's carefully constructed expression fell apart and she nervously signed us off the interview with lipstick showing on a few of her teeth. After that aired, I had no trouble getting the people with multi-millionaire assistants interested in bringing another MLS franchise to town. I guess Laine Taylor had rubbed a few of them the wrong way over the years.

The next thing you need for an MLS franchise is city approval. That means that you've got all the ducks in a row to handle all the people and stuff that you'll be bringing into town for the games and pay the taxes for everything. This is where I started to have some challenges. You see, there was a pandemic going on, the economy was in the crapper, and that was in a city that had a serious homeless problem before 2020 decided that we needed to spice things up with a pandemic. Professional sports wasn't exactly high up on the list of priorities for these guys. Why would they want to pony up city resources to have a place for people rich enough to buy pro sports tickets when people were living and dying in the streets?? Enter my weird watch again.

After getting bounced around from city office to city office, I climbed up the ladder far enough to meet someone who didn't have to tell me meaningless nonsense out of fear of upsetting me. That person told me that unless I could find a way to make an MLS franchise manage COVID or become indispensable to solving the homeless problem, I'd have to wait at least a few years. I didn't have a few years. I had an early-rising humming sadist that needed some non-existent season tickets before he'd consider having me as a son-in-law. I felt pretty low after that call. I didn't want to give up, but I was out of ideas.

That was when my watch sent me a notification that I was scheduled for a run.

I know what you're thinking. No, I wasn't just the most gullible and compliant guy that ever lived. Of course, I knew there was something funky going on with my watch. The notifications, the meetings, the messages... that thing knew way too much about my life to be my little sister setting things up for me. Something or someone out there must have had access to cameras, microphones, all my emails, calls, meetings, texts, everything. The thought of that was a little creepy. Still, the watch hadn't steered me wrong yet. I'd even started looking forward to what would happen when I did what it told me to do. So, without questioning it, I went for a run.

San Francisco can be a tricky place to run, especially if your brain is still trying to remember when to make your heart beat faster. Depending on the streets you take, you can be going up an incline that makes you puff until you cough up blood, or on a steep descent that is even more dangerous, especially if your balance is not the greatest. So, on that day when my plans for marriage and MLS dissolved with one brutally honest city official, I trusted my watch to send me on a path that would give me a fairly low elevation and some good views. Turns out, the run my watch gave me no elevation and the views, while heartbreaking, were beyond compare.

Kezar Stadium had to be the most beautiful place I had ever zoomed across a soccer field. Wide open field with a running track going around it, with open views to the beautiful city. The pandemic, social distancing requirements, and the economic disaster had closed and shuttered it like an empty tomb. Its parking lot was empty of cars, but filled with tents and makeshift structures where people were surviving and waiting for life to change. I'd always been bussed from a hotel to the facility, whisked into the locker rooms, and released like a gladiator onto the field... never having gotten the chance to see life going on around the stadium, or what it meant to the community.

I watched a couple kids kicking a can around in a corner next to a wall, remembering my own childhood filled with boredom and nothing to play with but a couple friends and a scuffed and underinflated ball to kick around. It wasn't much, you know, but we were happy. The world didn't just need houses, or food, or medicines to survive... we needed each other. We needed places like this.

Just then, one of the kids pulled off this sweet juggling kick move and then into this neck stall that just blew my mind! I started running over there to congratulate him, when I tripped over someone's foot sticking out of their tent. Well, my balance being what it was, I flew face first into a bucket that was probably a makeshift outhouse from the smell of it. Of course, when I face-planted in the outhouse, it fell over and splattered some nasty stuff on the personal belongings of a lot of people who were a little low on patience.

There was a lot of yelling, and I guess these people already had some grudges going with their neighbors before I anointed everything with the sewage bucket. Then, this enormous tatted guy with red eyes, and a scraggly beard came out of his tent, rubbing his face with a shit-splattered hand. I didn't see much after that, because a couple guys lifted me up and threw me at the big guy and I didn't remember much after that. I had to rely on the scandalized Laine Taylor interviews to fill in the rest of what happened, but apparently that was how I started the Kezar Stadium homeless riots. Thanks a lot, watch.

*** *** ***

When I woke up, I was clean and I was in my bed. That seemed pretty weird to me because the last I remembered, I was an Uber ride away from my place and I was covered with shit. Then, I realized that I heard someone using the shower that wasn't me. That was a little bit more weird because I didn't have a roommate, last I remembered. Plus, my watch was gone. That kinda freaked me out the most, because it seemed like my watch was way smarter than me and that I should probably keep track of it.

Then, the doorbell rang. So, I got out of bed and went to the door, seeing as it was still my place as far as I knew, and opened it.

In the doorway, Dr. Leela Vaidya's gorgeous, hypnotic black eyes were sliding up and down my body. Then, they settled on the morning wood pitching a tent in my boxer briefs. "Nice..." she said, as I held onto the door, stunned.

"Uhh... heyyy..." I said, since talking was my thing. How was she here? Why was she here? She was here! She was here standing in my doorway with a rolling suitcase covered with stickers. Wait, shit -- was her dad here, too? I craned my head out the door and checked the hall, looking for him.

"That's it? I get a call that you've been knocked unconscious and I come out here to check on you and all I get is a 'hey' and an "Is that all?" look around your hallway when I show up at your door?" she asked, smirking and doing that head wobble thing that drives me crazy. "Were you expecting someone else?" she asked, pushing past me, pulling her suitcase after her.

"Umm... is your dad here?" I asked, leaning over to the window to check the street, but there was no Mercedes with a pot-bellied, bald, Indian guy standing next to it frowning at my duplex.

"Cole... why would my dad be here?" she asked.

"Oh... no reason..." I said, remembering that I had promised Mr. Vaidya that I would keep my marriageability efforts with him quiet from his daughter that was now looking around my place. I still couldn't believe she was here. Why was she here? How could I keep her here even longer?

"Okay... I'm going to check you out, but can I use your shower first? I'm vaxxed and boosted, but between the airport and that Uber, I feel covered in filth," she said, pulling off her shirt and sliding off the pajama pants she was wearing.

"Um... sure, but you'll need to wait a little for the hot water. Someone's been in there for quite a while," I said, tilting my head at the sight of her cotton panties riding up her round butt cheeks.

"Oh. Do you have... company?" she asked, smirking at me over her shoulder. I wondered what I could say that would keep her in that position longer... possibly forever. She was probably the cutest thing that ever wore cotton panties.

"Uh... maybe? I'm honestly not sure who is in the shower. Last I remembered, I lived alone and I was flying through the air at a big, bearded, guy. I think my watch might know more..." I said, wishing I didn't have to decide between being honest or sounding competent.

"Right. Get back in bed, Cole. I'll deal with it," Dr. Lee said as she walked down the hallway and banged on my bathroom door. I wondered if I should just start calling her Leela, since I'd seen her panties and she decided she was in charge of dealing with the weirdness of my life. Those seemed like first-name-basis things. I decided to ask her later.

"Okay..." I said, casually looking around for my watch as I went back to bed to sleep off the last few hours of my calm-the-fuck-down post-seizure meds.

When I woke up, I saw Dr. Lee playing my Waterworks card game with the big tatted guy that I'd been thrown at in front of Kezar Stadium. He still had the tattoos, but a lot less hair. He telling Dr. Lee that he actually trying to step in and settle things down when I was launched at him like a sewage-annointed ballistic weapon. "So after that, I put him in my cart and got him back home," he said.

"He was conscious, oriented?" she asked.

"Nah, he looked like he was seizing and was pretty gone, actually. I asked him where he lived, but he kept telling me what a great guy I was and saying something about a lake with cherries at Trader Joe's," the guy replied, putting down a wrench on the leaky pipe she'd laid on his track.

"How did you know where he lived, then?" she asked, making a noise of disgust when he put a cap on her T-pipe, making her lay out a longer pipe to get to her spout.

"His watch started beeping and when I took a look, it told me to take him here. So, I did. Took it off and cleaned him up. When I got him to bed, it told me to message you and ask for instructions. So, I did. That's... a weird watch," he said.

"It's brilliant, is what it is," Dr. Lee said, drawing a card. "It seems to have integrated the biometrics app, with his contacts at the very least. Cole, you're awake! How are you feeling?" she asked, putting down her cards and padding barefoot over to me. Her hair was still damp and curly around her shoulders. She had put on pants, which I thought was a definite downgrade from her cotton panties, but I decided we could discuss that later.

"Awake... but you're still here, so I definitely wasn't dreaming when I saw your panties. Why are you here?" I asked.

"Dean messaged me," she said, nodding over to the less hairy tatted guy at my kitchen table, "but I was already coming for a meeting. I'd just landed at SFO when I heard about you, so I just came right over," she said.