Who is Jerry Holiday? Chapter 2

Birth is when it all begins. A blank slate. Empty page or canvas waiting for paint to be spilled, words to leak out from broken pens, bristly brushes. And the chaos that follows engulfs us like we’re swimmers bobbing up and down in hurricane waters.

We don’t know where the currents will take us, how hard the waves will hit, the waters splash, but we know it won’t be easy. Surfers trying to take their boards out get knocked by massive waves and the boards smash their faces and crack teeth.

Every baby cries once it hits the world and realizes that it wants, and it needs. There’s a lack from the beginning. An emptiness that needs to be filled. And there are our mothers to quiet us with a waiting breast. But as we get older we no longer have that sure thing. The world melts away and leaves us alone to fend for ourselves.

And here we are, like sand castles on a beach waiting for the tides to come in. Like baby sea turtles wobbling into the darkness. And the water permeates everything. It fills every space it enters. It expands and contracts, flows and settles. And it freezes into ice when the nights get cold.

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This stays still in a clear hard cylinder on a ledge full of green plants. Until an arm knocks it and glass shatters, and this flows along the floor, through cracks beneath the door, travels into the yard and some seeps down into dirt, feeding roots, keeping worms moist so the birds can find them in the mornings. Some slips into roadsides, rolling into gutters and flowing with rain into storm drains and out into rivers that flow into oceans. And the waves crash on sandy beaches and the water evaporates and gathers in clouds to rain down again. And people and animals drink and are hydrated and water becomes a part of them. Because water permeates everything.

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Molly swept the broken glass off the floor. She discarded it in the trash and grabbed another glass from the shelf. She filled it with water and hydrated the plants on the shelf above the sink. Her house felt so empty since Ed left. That asshole took all the vinyl they’d bought together. Her Frank Sinatra albums. That would probably remind her of him anyway. She didn’t need that dipshit. Men need women a lot more than women need men.

She walked into her living room and sat on the couch, wondering what to do next. She was finished working. She didn’t really know anyone to call. She didn’t really know anywhere to go. She didn’t drink so there weren’t many options for going out. “I’m not lonely,” she muttered to herself. She turned on the television as her fluffy brown cat, Mr. Wuzzles hopped onto her lap.

“…has been missing for two weeks now,” the female reporter said. She had a plastic credit card face with a plastic credit card smile. If there was a red that was perfect in the middle red with no pinkish or purplish or orangish or brownish tint whatsoever, that was the color her lips were. Boring humdrum red. “Police have been searching but have yet to find anything. Her parents have no idea where she could be. They didn’t see her leave with anyone. They just woke up one morning and she was gone.” The woman spoke like a monotone robot. She sat still like a wax figurine in a museum.

A picture of a little girl’s face flashed on the screen. She had a cute face with freckles and her hair was curly reddish orange. On her face were huge glasses with heart-shaped lenses.

Molly turned off the TV and sighed as she petted Mr. Wuzzles, feeling his soft fur between her fingers as he purred. “What the hell am I gonna do tonight?” She had some romance novels and a vibrator. Those beat Ed any day. But she was lonely. Especially during the nights. Her nights had always revolved around Ed.

She shook her head and frowned. “I can turn over a new leaf. Maybe I’ll start drawing again. Or exercising. Or I’ll learn to play an instrument.” Now she was talking to an empty room. She really was going insane.

She looked at the box on the coffee table. She’d found it in her mom’s attic shortly after she died. Her mom had been a nurse and a midwife and somehow the box had been filled with birth certificates. Molly had no idea how her mom had happened upon them, or why she’d saved them.

She leaned over Mr. Wuzzles and opened it and started looking through the papers and reading the names. Simon Beauregard. Phillip Johnson. Mary Jane Roland. Jerry Holiday. That had always been an interesting name to her for some reason. It sounded like someone who was a singer on a cruise ship. Or an adventurer in South America. He sounded interesting and exciting.

She lay back on the couch and closed her eyes as she continued petting Mr. Wuzzles and he continued purring. “Jerry Holiday.” She pictured the baby being born into her mother’s arms, crying as he entered the world. Her mother cut the chord and washed the child, then gave him to his real life mom. A new life. Now he was in his fifties probably.

“Who are you, Jerry Holiday?” She decided to make a life for him in her head. That’s what she could do with her newfound spare time. Make lives for all the people in the box. And maybe she could write stories. She could be a writer.

“Shortly after he was born,” she began, still talking to the empty room, “Jerry Holiday’s mom moved him to England to start a new life. His dad had left her and she was alone. But she managed. What woman needs a man anyway? They just get in our ways and cause us troubles.”

“Anyway, Jerry moved to England and went to school over there and did really well. When he was eighteen, he joined the navy and became a submarine commander. He became claustrophobic and had to quit. So he started working on cruise ships playing guitar, which he’d learned while attending school in England, and singing. One day, they had docked in South America and he decided to leave and go on adventures in the jungles there, looking for rare animals and remote tribal villages. He came back to the states, where he met Molly Wilkins in a coffee shop. They hit it off, started dating, got engaged, and were soon married.” She laughed and stared at the blank television screen.

She put the papers back in the box and closed it. “I’m fine. I really am.” She turned on the television again and watched old reruns until her eyes got heavy. Mr. Wuzzles leapt off her lap and made his way to the kitchen, where his food and water were.

“This is how I’m going to die,” Molly said. “I’ll have a heart attack alone watching sitcoms.” She chuckled at the idea as she drifted away.