by Jeff Vrolyks
something. Like on my jogs, I spied a little smudge miles away. Maybe not miles, but still pretty far. It wasn’t black, but white. It was the first example of color other than gray since I came through here, with the exception of my cruddy jeans and disgusting white tee-shirt. I waved my arms overhead.
“Please be a person and not an illusion.” I shouted hello at him or her or it. It wasn’t moving. I shouted again, louder this time, wreaking havoc upon my already abused throat. I sighed and contemplated my recourse. Staying put wouldn’t help anything, so that meant I needed to get a move on. And which direction I put to wasn’t something to put much thought into, because any direction had just as good a chance at being the wrong way as it had the right way. So why not head in the direction of the person in white? God I hoped it was a person. If it were a person, he or she would likely be dead, just as I would be soon enough without drink.
As I climbed down the rocks I considered what I’d do if it were a dead person. To be honest, it was my body bringing up the subject, not my mind. My thirst was asking me this question. Salvation could lie beyond any of these ridges, but the chance of making it over without drink was slim to none. Humans are somewhat of a canteen, are they not? Blood is very drinkable. I dismissed the idea as an impossibility, taboo, but my body didn’t. I think it had its own plans for me; it would get a drink if one presented itself by any number of unthinkable means. Ironically as I yearned to put liquid in my body, my body was having a heyday pushing liquid out of it, sweating profusely. My shirt clung to me like paste. Even if I did give in to my need of drinking by harvesting liquid (blood) from a corpse, wouldn’t the corpse have to be somewhat fresh? Does that kind of thing matter? Does it evaporate from a body rotting under the sun? I never would have guessed in a million years that I’d be having a discussion with myself about this very topic.
Once at the bottom I headed in the direction of the white smudge. I couldn’t see it from down here. Maybe I did see it, it was hard to say. It was just a little dot, and I did see something kind of like that, but it might have just been light catching the edge of a rock. As I made my way there, I recalled more of that memory at my residence on Manchester Lane.
I had all the blinds closed, windows and doors locked. It was the morning after my attempt to buy groceries that I made a phone call to my niece Emmy. Emmy is the daughter of my sister Liz. Liz and her newest husband (third time’s a charm) recently moved to the west coast. Emmy stayed behind, as she was enrolled in college as a freshman at Virginia Tech. She’s my favorite niece, and I suspect even if she wasn’t my only niece she’d still be my favorite. And she loved her uncle Jeff. I liked to take her out and spoil her when she was younger, and now that she’s eighteen we’re more like friends than uncle-niece. I try to give her boy advice from time to time. I’m only sixteen years older than her so it’s not like I’m telling her how I used to walk uphill both ways to work in three feet of snow. And I’m twelve years younger than Emmy’s mother Liz, putting me between their generations.
Emmy picked up the phone on the second ring with a cheerful, “Uncle Jeff! How’s it going?”
“Great,” I lied. “You really don’t have to call me uncle. Jeff is fine.”
“I know, I know. It’s a hard habit to break.”
I asked her how classes were going and felt ashamed that I didn’t pay any attention to her response. From her tone I surmised they were going well. Typically I genuinely care about her state of affairs but it wasn’t happening today. I wanted her to finish talking about herself so we could move on to me. Uncle Jeff the Self Centered, pleased to meet you.
“How about yourself?” She finally said.
“Well, Emmy… things are a little strange these days. I’d really love it if you could stop by and hang out for a little while, so we can talk about it. Do you have classes today?”
“Yes, but I’ll be done by three. Want me to come over after that?”
“Would you mind? It would mean a lot to me.”
“Is everything okay, Unc… I mean Jeff?”
“I’m not sure. I want to say yes, but I fear it isn’t.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone before she said, “Are you sick? Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing like that. I’d rather tell you in person. Show you in person, if that’s possible.”
“You got me worried. I can’t wait till three to find out what’s wrong. Can’t you tell me?”
“It’s nothing serious, don’t worry yourself over it.”
I suppose she heard it as a lie, because it was.
“My first class isn’t for an hour and a half, so I’m coming over now. Okay?”
“If that suits you better.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Great. Just come—” I almost said come right in, the door will be unlocked, but I knew the door wouldn’t be because I had no plans of unlocking it till she knocked and I saw her face through the peep-hole. “I’ll see you then. Drive safe.”
Ten minutes is what I had before she arrived, more than enough time to change into something nice. I was inclined to want to wear a suit. Even amid my torment, my vanity shone through. I liked to dress successfully around my relatives, and Emmy was no exception. In an eight-hundred dollar suit and three-hundred dollar Prada loafers, sipping fifty-year-old scotch in a crystal glass that came from a crystal decanter, I would sit cross-legged in my leather office chair and tell Emmy that she could really be something in life if she stuck to her goals, applied herself. Her uncle Jeff had worked two jobs while taking night classes at a community college before getting excepted at Brown University and attaining a Master’s degree in literature, and now edits a great many books that can not only be found in bookstores but on book shelves at the local market. Big named authors. Anyone could do it if they applied themselves, especially ones as bright as Emmy. God I hoped she would take a different path than her mother and aunt, who possessed the smarts for success but had chosen to be housewives for rich assholes. They were a lot alike, my sisters Liz and Jane, and had little in common with their younger brother Jeff.
I rebuked the idea of dressing up. Shorts and a tee-shirt were good enough before I decided to invite Emmy over, so they were good enough for her visit. It was early, too early for scotch, so I poured myself two fingers of it instead of three and planned on sipping it but instead pounded it. I stared at the closed slats of the Venetian blinds covering my office window. Framing the blinds was a thin band of daylight punching though the gap. I was impelled to look outside. Marshall’s folks Steve and Cathy lived in the house across the street from me, and that was my view. Perhaps I could have been more successful, as I could think of a great many better views than Steve’s fat wife Cathy. Did I just call that nice woman fat? She really was pleasant, and I was fond of her. But if she gained any more weight they’d need to expand the doors of their home to accommodate her girth. A doctor would call her morbidly obese. But I’d take that view (cordial Steve and heifer Cathy) over the one of the man in a black any day and twice on Sunday, as the expression goes.
I poured the finger of scotch that I had withheld seconds ago and didn’t stop at one finger but added two more, and took the glass in hand, stepped in front of the window and held my breath as I pried open two slats with a thumb and forefinger. My eyes were unaccustomed to daylight after two days of solitary confinement in a house closed off to the outside world, so I squinted at it. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, felt some tension dissipate from my neck and shoulders. There was my neighbor’s house. And though Cathy wasn’t outside, had she been I’d have greeted her with a candid smile through the gap in the blinds. Was I expecting to come face to face with the masked tormentor? I kind of was. This man or woman or thing or entity or whatever the hell it was, was doing a splendid job at fraying the last ends of my sanity. I looked south but could see no farther south than the Dugan house, which neighbored Steve and Cathy’s. Still, let’s not discount that so hastily; it was a victory
nonetheless. Small victories are still victories.
I released the slats and sat in my office chair brooding. What if Emmy can’t see the thing? What if she can? Which did I prefer? Did it matter which I preferred? That question I did have an answer to and it was no. She either saw it or didn’t, and no amount of hope would change that. What would it mean if she did see it? A better question is what would it mean if she didn’t see it. That I’m insane, no doubt. People who see things that others do not are insane. I see dead people, that kid said in Sixth Sense. Him and nobody else saw them. What he had was a gift; what I have feels like a curse. Look at me, talking about that little actor boy like he was real.
I snatched the framed picture off the desk and looked at it, sipped scotch. My heart panged. Anna Macintyre was her name. Is her name. My high school sweetheart. That’s what she was, though she never knew it. I was her best friend, not her boyfriend, and she was my girlfriend if only in my mind. God how I loved her. I mean really loved her, not infatuated or wanted to get in her pants or anything like that. It was Anna who suggested that I follow my passion of literature and become a writer. Well I’m not an author, but an editor is a writer, too. When I consider my success in the industry I like to give her some credit, because she was quite persuasive in her encouragements.
“Anna, Anna, Anna…” I wonder where you are today? Married with a couple sticky-fingered brats, most likely.
I hated myself every time I remembered the several instances when I almost told her how I felt about her but retracted my already-in-the-works admission, changed the subject, told her it was nothing really, just forget it. Was it possible that she knew how I felt, but since she didn’t reciprocate that love she pretended to be oblivious of it? I’m sure that’s exactly how it was. Why must I be so shy and awkward around women? For four years Anna was my world, and at eighteen when she got accepted into LSU and I was enrolling in community college a thousand miles from LSU, we said our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch. We did keep in touch, at first. But as it always goes, when that great a distance separates two people, keeping in touch becomes less and less and finally dies altogether. I blame myself. She called me and wrote me letters regularly enough, but it was I who got lazy in our correspondence and I’ll never forgive myself for it. Nor will I forgive Mary for it. It was Mary who I began dating during that time, and because I was focused on her, infatuated with the woman whom I lost my virginity to, I had neglected my dear friendship with Anna. It is because I ruined my relationship with Anna that her picture remains on my office desk. A reminder of where I went wrong in life. I went right in life by most accounts, but not this one. How poetic and chivalrous it would be for me to say I’d trade it all away for another day with Anna, but would I? Would I really? My heart said yes but my mind said no.
The doorbell rang.
I replaced the picture and left my office. Through the peep-hole I saw the concerned eyes of Emmy. They were the pretty blue eyes of her mother and grandma—I had gotten my father’s boring brown eyes. I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door, stood aside as to not look directly outside, let my niece inside and wasted no time in relocking the deadbolt.
Was she wondering why I wasn’t dressed in a suit today? Had she ever seen me dressed in anything other than a suit? I couldn’t recall, but I doubt she had. There goes my vanity once again, in full bore. We hugged.
“Can I get you something to drink or eat?” I thought about that and amended, “Well I don’t have much to eat, but