Lucky Lift
Four in a lift. Doors stuck.
Relative strangers. Worked on the same floor. I just about recognised them.
"Just my luck" cursed one.
Asked what was wrong. He wanted to get home.
Two said honestly, she was glad to get a break.
Three pulled up a pack of cards, asked us for a game. We played uno and ate my left over m and m's until maintenance came. We exchanged numbers as we left.
"Rotten luck." said maintenance man, letting us out. ,
"Oh, it wasn't that bad," I said, with a smile. And went home to my empty flat.
Genetic Roulette — Luck of the Draw
It was pure luck that ovum # 102,364 was released via ovulation from my mother on that exact day in that exact year and was waved down the ciliated tube to meet a suitable suitor. It could've been any of the other hundred thousand eggs she was born with and, if so, I wouldn't be me.
It was pure luck that spermatozoon #43,438,822 was the exact vehicle to deliver the right exact half of my father's DNA. Had it been any other swimmer, then I just wouldn't be me.
And I really do like me, so I am very lucky.
Ladders
The thing about a ladder is it offers risk with reward, as the same ladder which scales to a great height can also be descended upon into an abyss.
None of us really cared much for Franklin. He was a different sort. Kind of a fool, actually. Happy. Yea, that’s it. The fool seemed happy when there was no reason to be happy, and isn’t that the very definition of a fool? C’mon, the guy whistled while he worked.
We tolerated Franklin at first, of course. He was still a kid when he hired on, and no one minds a kid, do they? Of course they don’t, not even a foolish kid. Franklin started out sweeping, cleaning up around, running the occasional errand, that kind of thing. And giving the devil his due he was good at it, too. The dumb kid ran his little ass all over, and quite honestly the place never looked better than when he was in that job. In fact, when Penelope hired an outside company to come in and replace Franklin after he was promoted we all agreed that the cleaning company she hired really, really sucked. Those idiots sent four people in every day and the offices still didn’t look as good as when Franklin cleaned them all by himself. Penelope, our idiot office manager, should have just left well enough alone is what I told everyone, and left Franklin there in that job. I am sure we’d all be better off now if she had. I know I would.
He wasn’t much for small talk, Franklin wasn’t. I tried to talk to him myself, now and then. I remember one time asking him why he didn’t settle the hell down, that he was making the rest of us look bad, and that he was doing it from the shittiest, lowest paid job in the place. I reminded him that Penelope wasn’t even watching. Fuck, she was never watching, that all of his hard work was being wasted in this shit office and that he was too fucking dumb to realize it. You know what the stupid little shit said to me? Me, who had ten years seniority on him, and fifteen years of age, and who could easily kick his little shit-ass? He said, “Why don’t you worry less about what I’m getting paid to do and worry more about earning your own salary.“ Is what he said. “If you’d work as hard at selling as you do at finding excuses to not work you would probably have Penelope’s job by now and be making a decent pay check, and that wife of yours wouldn’t be riding you so hard either.”
Yea! The little shit said that to me. I would have gone ahead and kicked his ass right there if I hadn’t told my wife Ellen that I’d be home early so we could go to that new restaurant she’d been wanting to try out. I mean, happy wife/ happy life, right? There has to be a balance, is what I always say. So instead of kicking his ass I went ahead and got a dig in as I headed out early. “Hey, Franken-shit! Don’t forget to empty my trash can before you leave.” Ha! The stupid fucker.
And then Penelope called me into her office. She wanted to know if I would take Franklin on as my assistant? Teach him the sales ropes, etc.?
“Oh, hell no.” I told her. I don’t have time to babysit that little shit. I don’t even like him.
“Ok,“ she’d said. “Then I’ll give him to Burns-ey.”
”Ha?“ I’d laughed right at her. “Burns can’t handle his own pitiful client load. What the hell is he gonna do with that kid?”
And then Burns won “Top Sales!” Burns, who was the stupidest, laziest shit in the place! “Top Sales”, with its $10k bonus and Hawaiian vacation! Everybody was pissed, and I mean everybody! I can remember going around to everyone I could find, telling them how that fucking Franklin had crawled so far up Penelope’s ass that he could tickle her tonsils from the inside. Everybody laughed of course, but at the same time, nobody was laughing. Not even me.
Whoever could have imagined that someone from our floor could win “Top Sales”? It had never happened before.
I didn’t want to do it, but my wife Ellen became insistent afterward. “$10,000 is a LOT of money, Jacob. We could really use that money.” she’d said. “If Burns can win ”Top Sales” then why can’t you win it? I’ve heard you say a billion times how much more you sell than Burns does.”
Tired of hearing about “Burns, Burns, Burns” I finally sucked it up and knocked on Penelope’s door. “Listen Penelope, maybe I was wrong. Maybe an assistant is a good idea.”
So Penelope gave me Rebecca, from over in data. Rebecca was young, and cute, and very sweet, but not overly ambitious, and there was really not that much for her to do. I mean, I already had my three decent accounts, and the economy was shit, so nobody was buying right then. Cold calls never work anyways, so why bother? With time on our hands, Rebecca and I became pretty close. We started taking long lunches together, and leaving early for drinks, just to unwind, you know, and to rehash the day before heading home? It was all very innocent, of course. Rebecca seemed to understand my challenges when no one else would, and she never seemed in any hurry to return to her empty apartment, much like I was in no hurry to return home to a bitching wife and screaming kids.
It’s funny, I can remember the exact moment when awareness struck me about Rebecca. It was that first time she came to mind as Ellen and I were making love. The first time that I fantasized that it was Rebecca and not Ellen underneath me. Closing my eyes the fantasy became quite real, and I had to remind myself not to say the name Rebecca in my throes with Ellen. It was the first time I wondered if I was in love with Rebecca, or if I was out of love with Ellen, or if both had happened simultaneously? It was also the night, or so says Ellen, that our third child, Jonah, was conceived.
All of this while Franklin and Burns’ successes continued piling up. Inept Penelope was somehow promoted to Regional Sales Manager after Burns won a second “Top Sales” award, from which she quickly promoted him to her old Office Manager position. Franklin moved into Burn’s cubicle next to mine, where I was forced to listen to him every day calling potential customers, using that tired old standardized sales pitch that never, ever worked while I laughed my ass off as he got shot down in flames time and again… mostly. Yet, because of his rapid clientele growth Franklin was given two assistants instead of one, with one of them being my Rebecca.
”Why am I losing my assistant?” I demanded of Penelope.
”Because having an assistant hasn’t helped you grow your clientele.” Penelope said. “And Franklin needs her.”
I was pissed, and all of my anger finally found its way out. ”It’s because he’s your favorite, is why. He’s always been your fucking favorite. Everybody knows it!”
”Yea, maybe he is. And maybe he’s my favorite because he gets the work done, Jacob Bean! Maybe you should try that sometime.”
As if you could grow clients in this fucking company, and in this economy. I am sure you can imagine my extreme disengagement at this point. The janitor, errand boy and “favorite” had passed me by on the ladder of success, my wife had filed for divorce and was raking me over the financial coals, Rebecca could not seem to understand why I struggled to split the bills in her tiny apartment and was forever hounding me to get up off my ass and do “something”, as if I should be expected to do more than the forty a week job I was already toiling at. But at least the boys down at Bernie’s Tavern understood, and leant an empathetic ear.
I suspected something was amiss in my new relationship before it was fully realized. Rebecca’s change was quick and startling. She began to work late, rather than coming home early. She also started to glow, and not just to glow, but to… prosper? My initial thought was that she must be fucking the fucking janitor! Only she wasn’t. It seems she was learning from him instead. Franklin was teaching her. She was learning to organize, to initiate, and to close the fucking sale. And she was doing it. She was really doing it. Who would have thought?
It was a setup. It could not be a coincidence that Rebecca kicked me out of her apartment at the same time Franklin fired me; Franklin, of all the fucking fucks.
And I am the one left homeless and penniless, as if any of this was my fault? Just because I would not be a workplace toady? Because I became disenchanted with a demanding wife?
Because my lover chose a career over a man?
Yep, the thing about ladders is their multidirectionality.
So which direction are you climbing on ?
I hope
With every inhale, every gush of breath that enters my lungs,
I hope.
I hope for a night of peaceful sleep
that never seems to come.
I hope for a week with no drama, no disappointment,
but life always has its tricks.
And I hope to find someone who understands me.
Even in the worst times,
when I can't catch my breath,
I'm still hoping.
Hoping that this life doesn't leave me longing for more.
And everytime I exhale,
I find myself hoping that the people I've hurt recover.
I find myself wishing I could go back in time,
maybe get my best friend back,
undo all the wrong I did.
I find myself hoping that life gives me a chance to apologize,
to take back what I said that day.
All I hope for is that everything goes back to normal.
And with everything in me,
at all times of the day and the night,
I hope that someday, I'll be happy again.
Do We See the Same Stars?
Dear Friend,
As I sit under the vast canopy of my night sky, my pen hesitates above this blank page. I often wonder about the world that cradles you, half a world away. The ink bleeds a little on the paper, mirroring the way thoughts of you have gently seeped into the corners of my being.
We have never met, yet your words have become the silent whisper in my every day. The streets I walk, the people I see – they all seem to hold a piece of the stories you've shared. I find myself pausing at the marketplace, smiling at a stranger, imagining if you would've noticed the same peculiar smile that I did.
Our worlds are different, as are our skies. My days are painted with the broad strokes of a sun that sets as yours awakes. And yet, in your letters, I find a familiarity that transcends these physical disparities. The emotions you weave through your words resonate with a part of my soul I never knew was seeking a companion.
You write about the rain that falls in your city, the way it paints everything a shade darker. I imagine you, watching the droplets race each other down your window, as I often watch the sun paint the evening sky in hues of orange and purple. In these moments, I am there with you, a silent observer in your world.
Though our lives are a patchwork of disparate threads, we have managed to unite around one common strand. You with your stories of packed streets and dark nights; me with my wide-open spaces and an unfathomably large sky. We have found comfort in the empathy of a stranger by sharing our joys, anxieties, and ordinary moments.
Sometimes, I lie awake at night, your latest letter clutched in my hand, and I stare at the stars. I try to map out the constellations you've described, but they are foreign to my sky. It's in these moments that the distance between us becomes tangible, the miles stretching out like an unbridgeable chasm.
Yet, even as this thought lingers, a comforting feeling washes over me. It is the thought of your words, your existence – a reminder that across this vast, incomprehensible space, there is another soul that resonates with mine.
Tonight, as I write back to you, I wonder if the stars that watch over me whisper secrets to the ones that guard your sleep. In this thought, there is a poetic justice, a connection that defies the logic of distance and time.
So, as I seal this letter, a vessel of my thoughts and a bridge over our distance, I find myself asking a question that seems to hold more than just curiosity. A question that perhaps, in its simplicity, captures the essence of our unlikely friendship:
Do We See the Same Stars?
With love,
Your Friend
If
if you think you are beaten, you are.
if you think you dare not, you don't
if you like to win, but think you can't,
it's almost certain you won't
if you think you'll lose, you've lost
for out of this world we find success
it's all in the state of mind
if you think you're out classed, you are
you've got to think high to rise
you've got to be sure of yourself
before you can ever win a prize
life's battles don't always go to the stronger
or faster person
but sooner or later, the person who wins is
the one who thinks they can!
Misconceptions
She seldom called upon God other than to damn him, so it was unusual that a downward glance could prompt such an upward exaltation from her, a subconscious plea to a God she had heretofore failed to give His due justice. But in glancing down her eyes had chanced upon those of a nearby child amidst the bustling Christmas throngs, a child whose serious expression was simultaneously transfixed on her, innocently gazing upward at her as if she could somehow be meaningful and important to him or to anybody else, which she was not, unless of course that person was a client and was therefore paying her to be important to them. The thing about it though, was that when she looked into the child’s eyes she metaphysically sensed some sort of antennae raising within her, as though she were an ant, or a cockroach, or a mouse whose whiskers sensed without seeing, whose antennae felt without touching.
”Goodness Gracious,” was what audibly fell from her lips when she initially saw him, an old fashioned phrase which she’d never used before, though one she’d heard her mother and her mother’s mother utter a million times before, back when she herself was a child. Still, it was an odd expression to unpack now.
At thirty-nine years old Mason-Lee had come to the belief that her life was beyond novel-ness. She was in a rut. Having lived a man’s work life, what she was experiencing was in effect the traditional working man’s “mid-life crisis”, though she had no concerted realization of this. The longer than necessary hours she worked were partly born of habit, partly because work gave her feelings of both accomplishment and worth which she felt nowhere else, and partly (she admitted this only to herself) because outworking and out-performing the male partners at the firm fed her feminist vanity. At the office Mason-Lee was somebody. The office and courtroom were her arenas to outdo the men, and it was very nearly only men she contended with anymore, as the women she’d associated with early in her career had virtually all given it up for family life years ago, nearly every one except for Mason-Lee, that is. She had not wanted that. A courtroom was all she’d ever wanted really; a place where she could display who she was, an arena where her strengths, namely intrigue and tenaciousness, ruled. A place where she could compete against the smuggest of adversaries and win. A place where, if men did not pay her heed, it was at their peril.
That was all she’d ever wanted, to win. Until today that is... until this very moment.
This was a most unusual child she found herself gawking at, a child she was unable to remove her attention from, and for the most impossible of reasons. The child’s eyes recalled to Mason-Lee the thoughtful expression of her father’s countenance, while the boy’s face itself displayed the softness and beauty of her mother’s. The boy had her Aunt Judith’s dark, wavy hair, and her Grandfather’s bow-legged gait. Mason-Lee felt herself drawn to the child, but no, her newly raised antennae immediately corrected that misguided thought. What she was feeling was not a pull towards. It was much more than that. What she was feeling was a connection with... but why? And how?
”Mason-Lee” was her name, though it really wasn’t. Her birth certificate stated that she was Heather Lee Mason. She had gone by Heather until graduate school, where she’d taken to calling herself Mason-Lee, as it sounded stronger to her, more masculine. She’d reasoned at the time that if she was going to be competing with men in the debate of law, then it was important that the competition begin from a level base, so she reversed her name. The ease of the change had surprised her, that all it took was to tell people something was your name, and to write it the new way when possible, and suddenly it was. Not even her professors, who had only to read her name on their correctly typed rolls, ever challenged her on it. So now, fourteen years later, she was Heather Mason only to her family. To everyone else she was Mason-Lee Heather, Attorney at Law. But still, Mason-Lee was somehow completely oblivious to the irony that in the courtroom, unlike in her classrooms at college, she was referred to much more often as the very feminine “Ms. Heather” than her preferred “Mason-Lee.“
And Mason-Lee was still a “Miss,” though she was plenty attractive enough, and more than successful enough to be considered quite a catch. Even still, she had rarely been asked out on dates fifteen years ago, much less now. Looking back, which was something she frequently did these days, she had to assume that this was because she’d been as driven then as she was now. Driven people, she reasoned, have neither the time nor the inclination to “put themselves out there.” Mason-Lee had certainly never done that. She was nearing forty and had had sex with exactly two people in her life. Her current lover, seven years younger, was a nice looking if somewhat effeminate beta-male “friend” whom she felt empowered over, whom she could manipulate, and whom she was thus willing to let herself go with, as he could be easily discarded and knew it. But even with that, Mason-Lee did look forward to their usually wine-fueled, weekend trysts. While usually tender and compliant, there were those moments when “Drunk Steven” forgot himself in his inebriation and became a real man, contorting her for better access, holding her with a strength she had not believed he possessed and literally pounding her, his skin slapping her belly or her ass with such force that it reduced her into a willing submissiveness that she didn’t know she desired until she was lost in it’s throes. It was strangely in those moments, when she was at her most vulnerable, and when his body literally hummed with desire for her, that she felt the most empowered. That in those moments Steven, or any man, could want and need her so badly that it would take the threat of death before he could or would stop. Mason-Lee had been pleasantly amazed to discover the equalizing properties that sex with a man could offer, that she could be both submissive and in control; sex providing the physical sensations that he craved while supplying her with the rare moments of complete and undivided attention from a man that she so longed for.
Mason-Lee’s other sexual partner had been her college roommate, whom her younger, more naive self had allowed to seduce her. Mona was smart, somewhat pretty, and had never from day one hidden her interest, which was very attractive in itself. In honesty, no one had ever come after Mason-Lee with the intensity that Mona had, and Mason-Lee had happily bathed in the attention Mona showered her with. And she could not say that those sexual experiments with Mona had not had their highs, but sex with her had mostly felt coerced, almost forced, as if she was performing on a stage for an audience’s approval rather than giving of herself without reservation the way that Mason-Lee felt a ”real” relationship should be, though she’d had no experience at the time to base that on. And never, no matter how uninhibited Mason-Lee had eventually become with Mona, was she sure in her mind that this was what she wanted long-term. And in the end Mona had really only amounted to a “breaking away” experiment, so that all that became of their relationship was the begrudging realization that Mason-Lee was not a lesbian, that is to say that Mason-Lee had actually been more in love with the idea of lesbianism, of women empowering women, than she had been in love with Mona… and so, at Mona’s sad expense Mason-Lee had given it the old college try, masquerading herself as one.
The child was being led away now, his tiny hand in his mother’s, his face turned back over his shoulder, his fascinated and fascinating eyes still locked on hers. He felt it too, didn’t he? This same connection she felt? Unconsciously, Mason-Lee began to follow.
The hundreds of oblivious gift shoppers quickly became maddening. Every single time the masses got between she and the child, blocking him from Mason-Lee’s view, she experienced an uncomfortable, almost unreasonable panic twinging from her chest outward to her extremities, much as the pain from a diseased heart must do, leaving her desperate and afraid, so that she used her hands and voice to push bodies out of the way, heedless of their sexes, their ages, or their capacities. She found herself desperate to find the boy’s eyes again, and to ensure that they were searching back for hers, and each time she caught up to him his eyes were looking back, leaving her even more desperate for him! She felt an almost undeniable craving to rush forward, to take the boy in her arms, to kiss the child’s mouth, to smooth his hair, and to pull him close to her so that she might feel his pulse, and his breath, and his cheek against hers. “Was this how it felt to be a mother,” she wondered? It must be! But why this child? And why now?
It was then she remembered the eggs.
Back at thirty years old, when Mason-Lee’s career was just beginning to sky-rocket, she’d read an article, actually an advertisement about a woman’s reproductive timeline. The article had informed her that she was peaking. Her chances at producing a child, though she had not desired a child at the time and was doubtful that she ever would want one, would only diminish going forward. But according to the article her eggs could be removed and saved, frozen before their genetic qualities began their inevitable deterioration. Oocyte Cryopreservation it was called, and ever one to hedge her bets Mason-Lee had called the phone number supplied by the article that very day. Within a week she had plopped down the required $12,000, set up an automatic withdrawal on her credit card for the $1200 annual “storage” fee, and made appointments for the required hormone injections that were necessary prior to the actual harvesting. A few short-lived physical side effects later, some cramping pains mostly, the entire thing had been pushed to her back-of-mind. But now, as she and this child gazed at one another through the nameless, shapeless throngs, those hoarded eggs were pushing their way back into her front-of-mind, the eggs hardening in the now roiling waters of her heated anxieties, forcing the thought that she did not want to think to surface upward…
Could this child be hers?
It’s “mother” was walking faster now, forcing Mason-Lee into an uncomfortable, high-heeled jog to keep pace as she slipped, sliced and fought her way through the smiling idiots with their bulging plastic bags and their maxed-out credit cards. God damn them, would they not get out of her fucking way!
Could her eggs have been stolen? Sold to someone else? Just how many eggs had that clinic harvested from her? She didn’t know! The number hadn’t really seemed important at the time, yet how could she not have acquired that basic fact? And it only took one egg, didn’t it? One healthy egg to produce a child, yet how did one verify? Through DNA testing? She would have to do some research on the matter, Mason-Lee thought as she continued her bent-kneed shuffle after mother and child, her anxious hands clinging tightly to her own bulging, plastic shopping bags.
They were in the parking lot now, woman and child. In another moment the woman would be strapping the child, which Mason-Lee now considered to be “her child”, into a car seat and driving him away to God knew where. Her anxiety turning to panic Mason-Lee fought for control. What to do? A DNA test could only be forced if she had the boy, or if she at least knew where to find him. The woman held up a key-fob and pressed. From two rows over came an answering chirp which the woman bee-lined for.
Mason-Lee, generally the most thoughtful, analytical, and nonplussed of people, found herself in a blind panic which left her startled and defenseless when the woman wheeled on her with an expression twisted in fear and concern. “I don’t know what your problem is lady, but you’d better leave us alone!”
”What? What do you mean?” Mason-Lee’s own timid reply surprised her.
”I mean,” the woman’s angry voice twisted the words like licorice. “That you have been following me since Macy’s! Go away! Leave us alone!” The woman huffed away, towing the boy in-hand. Temporarily taken aback, Mason-Lee let them go, but the moment didn’t last. It couldn’t last, could it? Not with what was at stake! With the woman’s back turned Mason-Lee dropped her bags and rushed forward, grabbing the boy’s free hand and tugging, but the smaller woman did not yield. Caught up in their tug-of-war the boy’s shrieks attracted on-lookers with cell phone cameras at the ready. Letting loose of her child the woman jumped at Mason-Lee, swinging and clawing at her with an unexpected ferociousness as Mason-Lee hauled the child up into her arms and began to run with it. But with all of her education and training she should have known how it had to end.
Try as she might, she could not run fast enough, nor far enough.
It was not one of those nice, hide-away, rich people jails Mason-Lee was taken to, but was the regular city holding cell where she stood in a corner, unwilling to sit on any one of the filthy cots amongst the tattooed and drug addicted whores and thieves whose disapproving eyes stared at her gentrification from beneath tired, heavy lids. The only good in the wait was that there was plenty of time to contemplate what she had done, and what she might do yet. Well past her anger at the slowness of a system which she was observing for the first time from its other side, Mason-Lee, a perennial chess player, pondered her next moves.
Holding the child had been all she’d hoped it would be, even if she had been running for their lives at the time. With him in her arms Mason-Lee had felt alive for the first time in seemingly ever. With him in her arms she had finally felt a purpose beyond herself. To the layman it might have seemed that Mason-Lee had acted rashly, but no. Mason-Lee was a lawyer. A good one. One who understood the system she worked, and those who made it up. As a first-time offender she would be released on bail from this dingy hell-hole, and as a lawyer she would have access to the names and address of her accuser or victim, however you wanted to look at her. With that information, Mason-Lee would file her own case, the system’s first “maternity case,” where she would herself accuse the other woman of stealing her eggs, and thus kidnapping Mason-Lee’s unborn child, rather than the other way around. She could undoubtedly find something in the woman’s past to besmudge her with before the jury. There was always something, wasn’t there? If she could have the ”other mother” incarcerated, she might be able to keep the other mother in systematic limbo for years while she wrangled the boy through the foster system and back out in her favor. After all, money really could talk, and Mason-Lee had enough to make it sing.
Mason-Lee might have blown her chance when younger, but she would not blow this one now. No, she would use every tool of this conniving, ruthless trade she had mastered and she would win. She would have that child… hers, or not.
scars are made, not born
There's a story in that scar he's wearing. It's probably just the cat, or maybe a carpentry project, but my mind goes beyond the mundane.
Well. It's not yet a scar, but it likely will be. The scab looks pretty gnarly and the skin is all red and angry around it. It doesn't look septic, but I think the memories tied to the ring just below it may well be.
The cut is on his left ring finger, and the gold band has been his for over twenty years.
It's unlikely that there will be twenty more.
The woman he married had a sister who never made it past 50 and a mother who didn't see 61. At 65, his wife is the longest lived on her particular branch of the family tree.
He both cares for her and provides care for her, as her health has slowly paled as surely as her complexion. Grays and wrinkles find us all, but they've set upon her heavily in the last two years. Where she was strength and fire she's now shadowy embers, slowly burning enough to know there's warmth hidden away somewhere. Her fires are stoked with the heat of disagreement and she burns with the need to be contrary. Her ways are the best ways if not the only ways, and this is made harder for her to reconcile since she no longer can perform many of the ways on her own.
We were friends once, and I miss those days.
It makes me happy to see her face light with joy, but there's still the heat of argument just behind her excitement as she opens her Christmas present and I explain its meaning. It's almost as if she wants to debate the nuance of my gift and how she should use it; to me, it is clear, but explanations that suit her are difficult these days.
She'll be given that trip to Ireland that she's always wanted, and he'll be along with her. She asks if I'll go, and I beg off because of work.
God help me, I know I should want to go, but I just don't. Time is short, but so is patience. I've always felt the need to spend my time wisely, because my branch of her family tree isn't exactly long and winding, either. I should spend more time with my mother, but it's an emotionally expensive investment for us all. I want her to find happiness in those Emerald Isles, or the closest thing to it she can, and me being there probably won't bring much of that to anyone.
Except maybe him, because he needs a break. I can tell. He and I share glances across the Christmas table, and he is weary.
There isn't a scar on his finger yet, but I can tell the ring is slowly cutting him pretty deep.
Nick And Cassandra
Nick is standing at the side entrance of his apartment building. There’s a cool wind coming off the Saint John River, that’s chilling his bones. He shivers, and he knows that his faux-leather jacket, bought for a mere 30 bucks at WalMart, does nothing to insulate his body, but he doesn’t care. Nick is going for a look, and big-headedness aside, the reflection in the glass door, seems to say that he’s pulling it off.
He has a guitar in a case that he's holding, and though he tries not to make a habit of it, he’s smoking a cigarette. Nick is smiling though. He’s happy as a clam. He’s 21 years old and he’s waiting for a cabby to pick him up and take him uptown for his first solo gig. Just him, a stool, a guitar and a mic, in front of a couple hundred people at Jesse’s bar and grill. And sure, he understands that they aren’t there for him, they’re just going to be enjoying Friday night wings, there’s still going to be an audience, and he’s going to play his heart out.
He’s 33 years old sitting at his home office, staring at a picture his son made him for Father’s Day. It’s a rocket ship flying through space. There are stars and a moon made of glitter. There’s tin foil and green, blue and orange markers on the rocket ship. At the nose of the ship is a cut-out picture of his son, smiling. On the bottom of the black construction paper, is written. “I love you to the moon and back.”
Tears are streaming down Nick’s face as he stares at the picture. He’s remembering the day his son brought it home from school. Jumping and giddy with excitement. On his desk, there’s another Father’s Day gift from his son from the year before. This one says My Dad Rocks in black paint, and there’s a large round rock for Nick, and a small thin rock for Luke. Beside that is a framed picture of him, his son and his daughter sitting on bleachers at Coronation Park on a beautiful Saturday in July where a nice cool breeze blew through the ball field. Nick’s wife Cassandra snapped the picture, right after they raced across the park and their faces were beet red.
Cassandra is upstairs packing a suitcase. She’s leaving, and driving to the East side to her parents place. The kids are leaving too, but they don’t know it yet. They’re both playing with their Christmas presents on the floor of Nick’s home office, which has been deemed “The Dancing Room” because his record player is set up next to his desk, and he spends more time dancing with the kids than he does working on his manuscript.
She told Nick to say goodbye to Luke and Emily. “I’ll bring them back in a week,” she said coldly. Zero trace of the woman who read in her vows that she’d love him enough for a hundred life times. She was gone. Nick feels like in many ways, he killed her.
Emily is wearing a pink tracksuit that Nick’s mother bought her for Christmas. Her Tony Soprano outfit, she called it. She’s dragged her Sesame Street bin of Barbie’s into the dancing room, and she’s on the floor repeatedly changing their outfits, and making unintelligible but beautifully precious conversation between them.
Luke is sitting on the love seat with a small table in front of him. There are Pokemon coloring pages, and several packs of crayons dumped into a tupperware container. He’s coloring and humming to himself. He’s always humming, and whispering under his breath. It’s strange, but it never fails to put a smile on Nick’s face.
He turns and looks at them. And just says, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” They don’t answer. They’re both in their own world. The beautiful land of make believe, where Nick spent many years as a kid, only to find himself thrust into a world of reality so painful, he couldn’t bear it.
In the corner of the office, are his bookshelves, and two acoustic guitars. An old Fender that belonged to his father, and a red Takamine that he bought on Marketplace several years before. They’re both collecting dust.
He grabs the Fender, and sits on the floor next to his kids. He closes his eyes, and tries to channel the land of make believe.
He’s 21 years old again, fumbling with a patch cord that’s in a large plastic bin at the back of the pub. He’s trying to untangle it, and he can feel his face flushing. He isn’t sure if the people in the bar notice, but he’s sure they do, and it’s filling his face with heat.
Nick manages to unplug it, and then makes it way to the soundboard. He was told that someone would come and set it up for him, but there isn’t anyone around, and he’s figuring that no one is coming.
But despite the rough start to the evening, he figures it out and sits on a small stool, takes a deep breath, and says, “mic check. Mic check.” No one laughs, and he even receives a couple of thumbs up from some guys in the back corner booth. Something small like that, takes the heat away from his face, and lowers his heart rate.
The set is two hours long, and for a mediocre guitar player without a band to extend songs through jamming, he has about 35 songs prepared. He played them and recorded them at his apartment and they went fifteen minutes over the 2 hour mark, but he figures here, in front of these people, his nerves will speed up the songs.
He’s written 15 originals, some ready to be performed, others not so much. The rest will be covers of Neil Young, Springsteen, Lennon, McCartney, The Stones, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, and a few Jack White songs.
A pretty red headed waitress brings him two bottles of Alexander Keith’s beer and tells him to break a leg and winks.
His first song is an original called For You, a rocker that he always envisioned playing live with a fully plugged in band, and rocking out at a great venue like Madison Square Garden. It seems to go over well. He fumbles a few chord changes, and messes up a couple of verses, but this was one of the songs that wasn’t fully completed, but a favorite of his nonetheless, that he felt he needed to play.
There’s a woman sitting near the front with a couple of big loud mouths that are laughing obnoxiously amongst themselves, as though they’re the only two people in the bar. But she isn’t part of the conversation. From Nick’s vantage point, she looks like a third wheel, though he assumes that she’s one of their girlfriends.
She has black hair, and pale skin, with scarlet lipstick. She’s wearing a leather jacket and skin tight jeans. Her hair is straight and down to her shoulders, and she’s wearing glasses with large black rims.
Her hand is resting softly on her chin, and she’s listening, fully listening. Nick scans the rest of the bar as he covers Springsteen’s Atlantic City, and doesn’t notice another person in the entire pub that’s paying attention, but she is. And man, is she ever beautiful.
Her name is Cassandra.
Nick is 25 years old, and he’s sitting on a flight next to an old woman who’s reading an Agatha Christie whodunnit. His hands are clammy, and he’s rubbing them repeatedly on his jeans. He has a Larry McMurtry novel in the mesh of the backseat in front of him, but he’s too nervous to grab it.
He hates flying, but he’s happy to be going home. He’s been gone for over two months training for a job on the railroad. While he’s been gone, his pregnant girlfriend gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and just before that moved to Northern New Brunswick to a house he’s never been in, and to a city he’s never lived in.
He’s thinking about landing, and how he’s going to kiss the pavement on the tarmac when he does. He’s thinking about the cab ride that’ll take him to his new home, and to his new family, and the thoughts are hard to comprehend.
The plane lands in the tiny airport, and though he doesn’t kiss the ground, the walk from the plane to the airport is one of great calm and accomplishment. The cab ride is quiet. And when the old man pulls him into his new driveway, he sees Cassandra, waiting outside, holding a newborn baby boy. Nick feels tears stinging his eyes.
He thanks the cabbie, exits the car and grabs his suitcase out of the trunk. The walk across the small driveway is one that’ll forever be etched in his mind. He hugs his wife and his son, and feels like he could stay in that position forever.
He’s 33 years old and he’s playing music for his kids, as Cassandra walks down the steps and tells them to get their stuff ready.
He’s 34 years old, and he and Cassandra are sitting in Nick’s car overlooking the river and drinking coffee. He’s telling her how he’s been attending anger management classes, and how he’s been seeing a therapist. He also tells her that he’s back at the gym and working out five nights a week at the fitness center on McDonald.
They get out of the car, and walk over the grass hill to the walking path below. She takes his hand in hers, and they walk.
He tells her he’s dealing with his financial problems, his issues of abandonment, of loneliness and inadequacies as a husband and a wife. He tells her he’s sorry for taking those issues out on her, and that it wasn’t fair.
She tells him that some of the things she said weren’t fair either.
He’s 35 years old, and he’s sitting on the floor of the dancing room, playing music, and in front of him, Cassandra, Luke and Emily watch attentively.