“Figured you needed the rest,” Gabe responded.

“Who are you to decide that?”

Gabe simply smiled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You don’t like me, do you, Lou?”

Well, it was direct. It was to the point, no beating around the bush, and Lou appreciated that. But before Lou had the opportunity to answer, Gabe continued.

“You’re worried about my presence in this building,” he said simply.

“Worried? No. You can sleep where you like. This doesn’t bother me.”

“That’s not what I mean. Do I threaten you, Lou?”

Lou threw his head back and laughed. It was exaggerated and he knew it, but he didn’t care. It had the desired effect. His laugh filled the room and echoed in the small concrete cell against the open ceiling of exposed wires. “Intimidated by you? Well, let’s see…” He held his hands out to indicate the room Gabe was living in. “Do I really need to say any more?” he said pompously.

“Oh, I get it.” Gabe smiled broadly, as though guessing the winning answer to a quiz. “I have fewer things than you. I forgot that meant something to you.” He laughed lightly and snapped his fingers, leaving Lou feeling stupid.

“Things aren’t important to me,” Lou defended himself weakly. “I’m involved in lots of charities. I give things away all the time.”

“Yes,” Gabe nodded solemnly, “even your word.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t keep that, either.” He started rooting in a shoe box on the second shelf. “Your head still at you?”

Lou nodded and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“Here.” Gabe retrieved a small container of pills. “You always wonder how I get from place to place? Take one of these.” He tossed them over to Lou.

Lou studied them. There was no label on the container.

“What are they?”

“They’re a little bit of magic,” Gabe said with a laugh. “When taken, everything becomes clear.”

“I don’t do drugs.” Lou handed them back, placing them on the end of Gabe’s sleeping bag.

“They’re not drugs.”

“Then what’s in them?”

“I’m not a pharmacist, just take them. All I know is that they work.”

“No, thanks.” Lou stood and prepared to leave.

“They’d help you a lot, you know, Lou.”

“Who says I need help?” Lou said. “You know what, Gabe? You asked me if I don’t like you. Overall, I don’t really mind you. I’m a busy man, I’m not much bothered by you. But this, this is what I don’t like about you, patronizing statements like that. I’m fine, thank you very much. My life is fine. All I have is a headache—and that’s it. Okay?”

Gabe simply nodded, and Lou turned around and made his way toward the door.

Gabe started again. “People like you—”

“Like what, Gabe?” Lou turned around and snapped, his voice rising with each sentence. “People like me what? Work hard? Like to provide for their families? Don’t sit on their asses on the ground all day waiting for handouts? People like me who help people like you, who go out of their way to give you a job and make your life better…”

Had Lou waited to hear the end of Gabe’s sentence, he would have learned that Gabe was implying quite the opposite. Gabe was referring to people like Lou who were competitive. Ambitious people, with their eye on the prize instead of the task at hand. People who wanted to be the best for all the wrong reasons and who’d take almost any path to get there. Being the best was only slightly better than being in the middle, which was equal to being the worst. All were merely a state of being. It was how a person felt in that state and why that was the important thing.

Gabe wanted to explain to Lou that people like him were always looking at what the next person was doing, always looking to achieve more and greater things. Always wanting to be better. And the entire point of Gabe’s telling Lou Suffern about people like Lou Suffern was to warn him that people who constantly looked over their shoulders often bumped into things.

Paths are so much clearer when people stop looking at what everyone else is doing and instead concentrate on themselves. Lou couldn’t afford to bump into any more things at this point in the story. If he had, it would have surely ruined the ending, to which we’ve yet to arrive. Yes, Lou still had much to do.

But Lou didn’t stick around to hear any of that. He left the storeroom, shaking his head with disbelief at Gabe’s cheekiness as he walked back down the corridor with the dodgy fluorescent lighting. He found his way to the exit and ran up the stairs to the ground floor.

Once he reached the warmth above, Lou was back in his comfort zone. The security guard looked up as Lou emerged from the emergency exit.

“There’s something wrong with the elevators,” Lou called out to him as he approached the elevator bank, not enough time now for him to get to a pharmacy and back for the conference call. He’d have to go straight up, feeling like this, head hot and mushy, with Gabe’s ridiculous words ringing in his ears.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it.” The security guard made his way over to Lou. He leaned over and pressed the call button, which lit up immediately. The elevator doors opened.

He looked at Lou oddly.

“Oh. Never mind. Thanks.” Lou got back in the elevator and made his way up to the fourteenth floor. He leaned his head against the mirror and closed his eyes, dreamed of being at home in bed with Ruth cozied up beside him, wrapping her arm and leg around him as she used to do while she slept.

When the elevator pinged on the fourteenth floor and the doors slid apart, Lou opened his eyes and screamed with fright.

Gabe stood directly before him, looking solemn, his nose almost touching the doors. He rattled the container of pills in Lou’s face.

“SHIT! GABE!”

“You forgot these.”

“I didn’t forget them.”

“They’ll get rid of that headache for you.”

Lou snatched the container of pills from Gabe’s hand and stuffed them deep into his trouser pocket.

“Enjoy.” Gabe smiled with satisfaction.

“I told you, I don’t do drugs.” Lou kept his voice low, even though he knew they were alone on the floor.

“And I told you they’re not drugs. Think of them as an herbal remedy.”

“A remedy for what, exactly?”

“For your problems, of which there are many. I believe I listed them for you already.”

“Says you, who’s sleeping on the floor of a bloody basement stockroom,” Lou hissed. “How’s about you take a pill and go about fixing your own life? Or is that what got you in this mess in the first place? You know, I’m getting tired of your judging me, Gabe, when I’m up here and you’re the one down there.”

Gabe’s expression looked curious in response, which made Lou feel guilty. “Sorry,” Lou sighed.

Gabe simply nodded.

Lou examined the pills as his head pounded, heavier now. “Why should I trust you?”

“Think of it as a gift.” Gabe repeated the words Lou had spoken only days before, bringing chills down Lou Suffern’s spine.