“Wait! Wait, Dennis. You know, we probably have a lot more in common than you think. We probably do. Think about it. Listen, do you want to hang out sometime?”
“What?” Dennis asked, his thin face twisting with incomprehension.
“You know… hang out? Like, maybe you could come over and we could play FIFA or Halo or something? I also have a great Bose stereo system and Phil Collins’s entire catalogue that we can listen to. Or… or, do you like baseball? I live just down the street from the Cubs! We could go to a ballgame! Do they play baseball in the snow?”
“Get out of my way, you pervert!” Dennis shouted, rudely pushing past me.
I watched him stumble into the alleyway and when I thought he was going to turn and walk through Fisters’ black door, he undid the belt on his raincoat and peed against it instead. Then he shuffled on down the alleyway and out the other side.
“Call me!” I shouted after him, then chuckled to myself, amazed at how many old friends I’d ran into lately.
CHAPTER 34.
Christmas just passed. I got a big old tree and put it up in front of the living room windows, happy to block the view of that fat bastard across the street. It really was a beautiful tree, what with all the lights and tinsel and Doctor Who ornaments. It looked especially beautiful when it lit up like the North Star after I set fire to it on the stoop of that fat bastard’s apartment building entranceway.
I’ve also had Noel’s leg displayed in the window, all lit up. I really did turn it into a lamp. It’s not quite as elegant as the one from A Christmas Story, but the sight of it fills me with warmth. It’s a constant reminder of who I am, or can be: strong, independent, resilient. It also reminds me that I’m a whole person, unlike some.
But, truth be told, I’m down in the dumps again. After that glorious rash of running into and catching up with old friends, I’ve been nothing but lonely lately. And the snows and dark skies and icy sidewalks of grey old Chicago have done little to brighten my mood. I mean, when I tried to call Mr. Humphries recently to ask whether my new trousers would ride up with wear, I got some guy with a New Jersey accent cussing me out and telling me to stop calling his cell phone. The last time I tried to get hold of Rose Tyler, the same thing! And when I called Mrs. Bucket (pronounced “bouquet”), I again got the very angry man with the New Jersey accent. Every time I tried to call one of my friends, he answered!
Seriously, what’s going on there?
It’s enough to drive a person crazy!
Suffice it to say, I decided to stop trying to call my friends until the gosh-darned cell phone companies can get their stuff together. Honestly, I had no idea that the phone lines in this day and age could get crossed and misconnected just as easily as they were wont to do many decades ago.
To top that off, James and Tristan never showed for Christmas Eve dinner. I had done wonderful things with the Christmas Eve Tofurky and even splurged for a few bottles of fancy French wine. It cost me nearly my whole unemployment check! And they didn’t show!
But while the lonely holidays have left me hollowed out and gutted, I’m determined not to let the world get me down. I’ve come to terms with the fact that Ben is dead and that I’m dead to my family. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that Annie is, well, just dead. I’ve even come to terms with the fact that I won’t always be able to communicate with my very good friends because it’s just a fact of life that phones don’t always work the way they’re supposed to.
So, off I go, into the dreary winter, because, like every good postal worker says, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night” stays me from living a full life. I think there’s something about obtaining guns illegally in that motto, but I’ve forgotten the exact wording. Please forgive me.
Anyway, I’m at Latte A Lot, ready and willing with my MacBook Air to seek out new employment and even better things (the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades!). There are plenty of tables to choose from and I choose my usual near the window where I can watch idiots slosh though the snow infected with street filth.
Firing up my MacBook Air, I take a deep breath and blow gently on my giant mug of coffee. First I check the weather even though I can see it right out the window, just for a laugh. And I do. I laugh. I have a good laugh. Oh, it’s nice to have a good laugh time and again. Next, I scroll through job listings on Indeed.com and other websites but see nothing befitting of my extraordinary talents ranging from sysadmin experience all the way to English countryside animal surgery.
So, I get distracted and next thing I know I’m logging into the chatroom, American BBC Fanatics, but I’m still, after all this time, blocked. What a crock!
Like I’ve always said: Friends—don’t count on ‘em!
Well, unable to get into my chatroom to reunite with old friends, and given that my pedestrian caramel macchiato is still many minutes away from reaching drinkable temperatures, I decide to draft an ad for Craigslist:
ROOMMATE WANTED! About the apartment: Cozy two-bedroom in the heart of Lakeview just a few blocks from the Lake and Wrigley Field! It’s loaded with all the amenities, including nice bonuses such as a Bose stereo system (perfect for your Phil Collins CDs), bookshelves stacked with endless reading opportunities (ideal for lounging with during summer thunderstorms and snow days), a PS4, Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, and a very nice antique typewriter. About your future roomie: Well-rounded, level-headed, and passionate about classic BBC programing and good radio-friendly music. I’m totally chill, laid back, and completely non-intrusive. Mi casa es su casa! Rent is split, making your half a bargain at $700. Please make sure you have rent on time on the last day of every month! No pets please! No smoking! Please be gainfully employed! Room available immediately. Please call 312-402-6791 and after a short interview process I’d be super glad to welcome you to your new home! My name’s Ben. Benoit Jones. It’d be my pleasure to meet you!
THE END…
EPILOGUE
Green hills, with plumes of verdant trees and arteries of stone road, curve the landscape on all sides. Birds echo those dales and sheep bleat away any thought of loneliness. After I wake each day and pull myself from my cot, my joints creaking, I light the wood stove then step out the front door of my cottage to take this in, for I shall never take anything for granted ever again, shall I? Especially not air as fresh as it is here where everyone is so friendly and genuinely happy to see me. Not only happy to see me, but to know me. When I come across that eccentric Mrs. Pumphrey with her pampered Pekingese, Tricki-Woo, or that penny-pinching farmer, Mr. Biggins, they always nod hello and smile and I know they wish me only the best. The bartender at The Drovers Arms is never short on time to hear about my new adventures tending to ailing animals. Indeed, I even attend church these days, for the community spirit involved is soul-quenching and everyone here is of fine church-going stuff. And how could I not give myself over to the Lord, given that He in his Almighty wisdom has given me everything I could have hoped for?
Yes, my friends, I have made it to Darrowby, to be among people whom I can truly call family. As James and Tristan promised, they spoke to the old man, Siegfried, and ensured my employment at their rural animal hospital. How thrilling! I troll the country hills keeping animals healthy and the townspeople happy.
And I’m happy. Boy, am I happy. I even have a new love in my life—Mrs. Greenlaw, the housekeeper at the clinic. Sure, she’s about three decades older than me, and, sure, she’s under the employ of Siegfried, but we’re in love and I feel like a teenager in her arms. Yes, she was married, but poor Mr. Greenlaw died in an unexpected barn fire not too long after I arrived. Good timing, too, as I was here to comfort her in her time of need.
What’s that about Chicago? Why did I leave, you ask? Well, since you brought it up, I was having so many problems with my new roommates. None of them were working out. None. Between all the plastic bag suffocations, stabbings, and strange electrical fires that lead to those poor souls’ demises, I just couldn’t stand to sta
y in that city, let alone that apartment, any longer. That grand old city, Chicago, only represented loss—grievous loss. And so much loss did I suffer. My only remaining option was to pursue my dream. And when Chicago burned down for the second time in its great history, I knew I had no choice but to go.
You see, all things happen for a good reason! The Lord has a plan for all of us, even you.
That’s why I’ve brought you along with me. I’ve got all of you here with me, because, really, I couldn’t do this alone, could I? I’m so happy you’ve come along. Because. Because you’re not imaginary, are you? Not like Ben. He was so imaginary. Of course he was. Who would leave a friend like that with no further word or contact? Imaginary ones, that’s who. So I’m only immersing myself in a world that matters from now on. A real world. And no matter what they said before, I know you’re real. Just as you know I’m real. I am. If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t be thinking of me so much, or even at all. But you are. You’re thinking of me right now while you stroll some stone path through Darrowby, on your way to Mr. Edwards’s carpentry shop on Market Street or The Plaza for the latest black and white feature film. You’re thinking of me because—because we’re the same.
We’re the same.
I’ve got to go now but I know you’ll be here when I get back. Where would you go? You’ve got nowhere to go. There’s simply nowhere else now, is there? It’s you and me.
But, I hear Tristan’s hungover voice calling out for me from the second floor window of the animal hospital in town. He lives there, as does Siegfried, James, and James’s absolutely charming wife, Helen. One day I expect I’ll live there, too, with Mrs. Greenlaw on my arm. For now, I want my independence. One step at a time. You understand.
Rest assured, I’m as happy as can be. Even when the men in white coats burst into my stone cottage and rattle my head like a Chicago summer thunderstorm. Even then…
But I don’t want to think about such things.
Listen, before I go, I just want to thank you. Before you, I really had no idea who I was. Before you, I was a hopeless amnesiac. A lost cause.
So, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for being a friend.
Logan Ryan Smith writes unclassifiable fiction that fits somewhere in between literary, transgressive, and surreal, all with a dark comedy underbelly and lyrical leaning. His work appeals to readers of cult fiction and of authors such as Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh, Charles Bukowski, Gillian Flynn, and Hunter S. Thompson, to name a few. His previous book, Western Palaces, was the follow-up to 2015’s Enjoy Me. Each are collections of interlinked stories telling the bizarre, fantastical, and often hilarious tales of Luke, a down-and-out writer living in San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin where zombies, bipedal crickets, ghosts, and monsters always linger in the peripherals. My Eyes Are Black Holes, released between Enjoy Me and Western Palaces, is a twisted novella of false memory, madness, and violence that pays homage to haunted house stories while never actually slipping into the genre. Logan describes it as his “unhaunted haunted house story.”
Though focusing exclusively on fiction now, his poetry books include The Singers & The Notes (Dusie Press, 2007), Stupid Birds (Transmission Press, 2007), and, most recently, Bug House (Mission Cleaners Books, 2013)—a narrative series of poems that shares many of the same fantastical and thematic elements of his fiction. Logan’s work has appeared in, among others, Hobart Journal, New American Writing, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, and Great Lakes Review, which nominated his story, “Bret Easton Ellis,” for a Pushcart Prize. He has lived in San Francisco, Boulder, and Chicago, and currently lives in Sacramento.
Y Is for Fidelity Page 22