THE ENDING IS EVERYTHING. Copyright © 2017 by Aaron M. Carpenter. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
Cover art, interior design and edited by Aaron M. Carpenter
www.aaronmcarpenter.com
Give feedback on the book at:
[email protected]
Twitter: @acmatthews04
Burnt Blue Publishing - First Edition
Printed in the U.S.A
ISBN-13: 978-0-9991175-2-1
ISBN-10: 0-9991175-2-1
Table Of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
EPILOGUE
To my parents, Chris and Tony. Thanks for your support.
.
“ ‘NOUGHT LOVES ANOTHER AS ITSELF,
NOR VENERATES ANOTHER SO,
NOR IS IT POSSIBLE TO THOUGHT
A GREATER THAN ITSELF TO KNOW. ”
- WILLIAM BLAKE
CHAPTER ONE
11/9/2024
Twenty-four hours before the world as I knew it ended, I threw a party. Not just any party. It was my belated return party. You can’t blame me for the timing, it was not my idea. I spent the last six months trying to avoid such interaction. My friends insisted. In fact, they forced me into it.
My home was filled with people I barely knew. The living room with its green and brown alternating walls and one hundred square feet swirled with loud, annoying, music from my expensive audio system. Unfortunately, what I enjoyed was not considered party music for the throng of attendees. My music was too punk without the pop, heavy without the frivolity. Music at parties needed to be in the background with an emphasis on beats and sing-able lyrics, not heavy, thoughtful and poetic. The vaulted ceilings carried the music (Thanks to Spotify. On the air: Lorde, Green Light, a favorite at my prom, seven years ago, or at least that’s what I heard. I didn’t go.) and various conversations floated into the tiny dining room, where I sat, drinking a beer, out of a standard red plastic cup.
I did my best to be a competent host. I greeted everyone at the door. Said, “Welcome.” Plenty of “How you doings?” “How’s life?” “Welcome backs.” I smiled, thanked them for coming, then went back to my seat at the dining table and was left alone. The way I preferred it.
Throughout the night, my attention kept focused on the couple sitting on my red couch. The couple was of great discussion amongst the party-goers, due to the fact half the couple consisted of my ex-girlfriend, Kaitlyn. Three years estranged and with one party invite on a social media platform she appears like the ghost of Christmas past. Not just her, she had the audacity to bring along her husband. They were in town on business and saw the invite. And then decided to appear and surprise me. Surprise indeed. I did not despise her for this, nor did I hold some sort of grudge. It was just awkward. I wasn’t sure what I would feel once the alcohol kicked in.
The next four hours flew by in a haze of ridiculous conversation, alcohol and a driving beat. The more I drank, the more it felt like I was time-traveling.
Outside, on the back patio in the cool November night, I was engulfed in a ridiculous conversation.
“His is more purple,” Zero said, pointing at and referencing Ethan’s penis. “I’m a thick dick motherfucker, so I know no one will be fucking with me. He’s good, though. It looks like a baby fetus.” The crowd laughs at this amusing, yet disturbing, metaphor.
“One night we were staying at the Flamingo,” Jenna said as she turned to me, placing a delicate hand on my shoulder, as if we were best friends. We were introduced at the door when her, Drew, Zero and Ethan arrived together. “And I come into the room, and it’s Marie and Ethan. Here’s Ethan.” Removing her hand from my shoulder Jenna imitates a sex act by dry humping the air. “And Ethan’s all.” More dry humping the air. “Then Marie’s all, ‘What’s up cuz?’ And I was like, I just wanna get my shit. She’s all, ‘Ethan man, he doesn’t wanna finish.’”
“I’ll tell ya. I’ll fuck you for a long time,” Ethan said.
“That’s my story,” Jenna said.
“Remember when I fucked her at her house, and Aaron had to leave?” Ethan said.
Jenna turns to address me once more, her red cup swaying dangerously in my direction. “I was at my friend’s baby shower, and I was passed out after all day partying. And all of a sudden on the bed.” She again goes into her sex pantomime, her beer held in the air like an Olympic torch. “And then I wake up. And who is it, Ethan and my cousin.”
“I fucked her cousin,” Ethan said as a boast.
“Yeah, who let Ethan out of the dog house!” Zero said.
“I’ve seen this guy work it,” Jenna said.
“Small, but mighty, fuckers!” Ethan said.
“I don’t know. I never saw anything,” Jenna said.
My first friend was Ethan, he lived across the street, and when I was four, he came over and knocked on my door by himself and asked if I wanted to play. It was a ballsy move for a four-year-old. I did. And we immediately became best friends. Playing Star Wars was our constant, since both of our fathers, before we could talk, sat us in front of the TV and made us watch the original trilogy. We would constantly argue about who would be Han Solo and who would be Luke Skywalker. No one wanted to be Luke. He was boring. We all wanted to be Han.
“They call me Captain expando,” Ethan said, which made Zero and Drew laugh hysterically.
“My cousin doesn’t fake it either.”
“The best was when you were fucking that chick and I walked in, doggy style in the kitchen,” Zero said. “Ethan’s like, ‘Zero! Is this too big for my body?’ I was like. ‘No. Wow. That’s purple.’”
“Perfect. Nice. I love it,” Jenna said.
“All I heard that night was, screaming like a cat in heat. I’ve never heard that before,” Zero said.
“Who needs another round?” Drew said. His long mop top, a relic from childhood and cheap trips to Supercuts, recalled the early sixties and Beatlemania. Another friend from my youth, I felt I barely knew. Married for the past five years and usually missed these types of shindigs. I wondered why his wife, Alicia, let him out of the house.
“I do,” Zero said. In high school, he shared a Math class with Ethan, and after a pop quiz, Ethan asked him what he got, and Zero showed him the paper with a big, red, circle at the top right. Ethan yelled, “Zero!” and laughed for three days straight. The nickname was born. My mom, when introduced to Zero, assumed the nickname came from the ghost dog in the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, since Zero followed Drew, Ethan and I around like a lost dog. I never did get a chance to correct her assumption on the origin of the name.
The five of us
went over to the keg and refilled our drinks.
I sat on the sagging outdoor couch. Jenna sat next to me, examining the liquid content inside her red cup. Her index finger, nails painted black, caressing the lip as she stared into the void. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Pale skin. Athletic build. She was wearing a tight white t-shirt and plain blue jeans. She had an air about her like she could care less about her looks, which made her even more attractive.
“So, why haven’t I seen you before tonight?” Jenna asked, not looking in my direction. I wasn’t even aware she had noticed the drunken host seated next to her.
“Well, I was in the Army-”
“That’s so weird,” she said, interrupting the story she asked to hear.
“What is?”
“You. In the Army,” she said. “I don’t see it.”
I didn’t see it either. Hell, while I was in the Army, I didn’t see it. “Neither did I. So, when I got back, I just wanted to be left alone. Some time to re-acquaint myself with civilian life.”
“Then you decided to re-enter the world, with a huge party?”
“Yeah. Pretty much,” I said, as I lit up a cigarette using a cheap green lighter. Most kids my age (we were in our twenties) used electronic, vaping devices, to get their nicotine fix. But, I was still an analog kind of guy. There are no charge ports for your battery in the deserts of Syria.
Every now and then, the patio door would open, and a blast of music and noise would pierce the night. Then swiftly the door would shut. Leaving the quiet and low-frequency vibrations.
“So you gonna ask me?” Jenna breaks the silence.
“What?”
“About why you’ve never seen me before?”
“Why haven’t I seen you before tonight?” I asked. Not seriously, but interested in the answer.
“You have.”
“When?”
“In school. I was there, a couple of grades below you.”
“Sorry, I can’t… It’s been six years.”
“That’s okay. It’s not like we were best friends. And I was always with my boyfriend. I mainly knew Ethan. We had a math class together. I should’ve kept in touch more after school and besides the Vegas trip which you heard bits and pieces of,” she said with a smile. “I never hung around much, just lived with my boyfriend.” The word, boyfriend, was said with such spite it sliced through the air like a drunk with a samurai sword.
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah, but it’s over now, so that’s good,” she said without conviction. “Speaking of exes, is that really yours inside?”
“Yes.”
She did not continue, just shook her head and nodded, as if she understood.
Back seated on my throne, at the dining room table, I began to count how many people were looking at their new Google phones. Twelve, so far. Half the party. The newest model is wholly transparent, except for a half-inch, black, square in the center. I thought the phones were ridiculous, you’d place them on a table, and they would disappear. But then someone showed me (don’t remember their name) that you could set it up, so if it were lying still for an extended period, a pulsating LED would flash along the edge of the phone. It was impressive, in the drunken state I was in, that this transparent six-inch glass would come alive in your hand.
Ten minutes or an hour later, I could not tell, some guy bumped into me while I was standing in the kitchen. I turned around to see some kid (he was probably a year or two younger than I was) with those damn virtual reality glasses on. Glasses that a user wore that projected digital objects in the real world, a bizarre mixture of the virtual and the real. Apparently, the guy was watching some virtual object and couldn’t see me, a real live human being.
“Sorry,” he said. He wore a Guns N’ Roses tour shirt from 1987. One he bought at Wal-Mart, no doubt. I doubt he was at said tour in 1987, as he would have been minus fourteen years old.
“Watch where you’re going or get some real glasses,” I said.
“Don’t need to be an asshole about it.”
“I can be an asshole all I want, this is my house. Why don’t you get the fuck out of here, before I go and get my shotgun and end your reality for good.”
The guy stood there for a moment sizing me up. I ignored him and went back to my spot and my drinking. He left without a word, along with two of his friends. Again, I had no idea who they were or how they even knew about the party.
Struggling, to not just tell everyone to get the hell out. I sat in the dining room, which was, to be frank, a small transition area between my living room and kitchen, observing the party. The music was pulsating. People gyrating back and forth. The smell of beer. The bass from the subwoofer shaking the table. It all seemed so surreal. As if I was a visitor from another planet observing some obscene native ritual. It was unnerving the contrast from what it’s like in the Army. The strict structure and discipline. Compared to this wild, hedonistic free for all.
What were they doing here?
“Dude, a girl is passed out in the bathroom,” a guy, with purple hair and a forked tongue, said. I got up, struggling to maintain my balance and stumbled into the guest bathroom. No one was there. “Not that one, the other bathroom,” the purple-haired guy said, as he watched me stumble down the hall to the wrong bathroom. I spun around, maintaining my balance by extending my arms to the hallway walls and went to my master bedroom, which should have been locked and closed.
Lying cockeyed between the toilet and the shower was Jenna. “I’m sorry. I’m drunk,” she said, her head leaning on the porcelain toilet.
“And honest,” I said. “Looks like you have been sitting by the keg all night.” I kneeled down next to her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fffine. I wooon’t member much anysays.”
Trying to listen to someone who is intoxicated, and slurring their words, while excessively loud hip-hop is blaring throughout the house is difficult, especially when you need to keep one eye closed to see straight.
“What are you staring at?” she asked. I was probably staring.
“We need to get you to bed,” I said, as I reach to grab her hand.
“What? No. I’m fine.”
“Come on. You can sleep in here... I will sleep on the couch tonight.” I added the last sentence because of the audience observing behind us.
“No. I’m fine,” she said and tries to pull away from me. But her momentum carries her backward. Her arms flailing, a hand reaches out trying to grab the edge of the toilet, with no luck, her head barely misses the edge of the porcelain seat. Now she was wedged even further in the space between the toilet and shower, lying on her back.
“I am so sorry. I am so sorry,” she said, as she grabs the edge of the toilet, pulls herself up and begins to scrub the linoleum with a towel, in the tiny bathroom, on her hands and knees.
I bend down to her level and saw there wasn’t much to clean up. “It’s okay. I will clean it up.”
“What’s going on?” Ethan said, from behind us.
“Trying to get Jenna here up and into bed so she can sleep it off,” I said. He gives me a once over with his eyes. As if he was deciding if I was capable of such a task. Or, more disturbingly, questioning my motives. He just nods.
I struggled, but eventually, got her up and back down on my bed. As I grab the blanket and pull the covers over her, she says something unintelligible.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Was your name?”
“Blake,” I said, while thinking, damn how much has she had to drink. We were outside in conversation just a few hours ago.
“Thanksyou. Bake.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“Niceto mee you.” Her hed rolled to her side and her eyes closed. I took her shoes off. Tucked her in, as best I could. Turned off the light, locked the door and left the room.
Seated on the kitchen counter, at 12:15 a.m., with my head against the cabinets was not a comfortable way to sit. It was here that I found myself in
a conversation with Zero. The party was bustling drunkenly, even though a few of the guest had left. My shotgun conversation had made the rounds. I am sure the story evolved and was now about the crazy host who threatened to get a bazooka.
From my perch on the kitchen counter, I could see through the kitchen window and seated on the couch outside were, Kaitlyn and her husband, having an animated conversation with Drew. It seemed throughout the night wherever they went, the opposite direction I headed. It wasn’t conscious. Maybe subconscious.
“Why is she here?” Zero asked.
“She was in town with her husband for work and then blam… I send out an invitation to all my friends, thanks to your insistence, which she is one. On Facebook. And then she is here.”
“That takes some nerve.”
“I guess so. I don’t really care. It’s just weird.”
“Bullshit. You care.”
“I’m fine with it.”
“Liar.”
“Truly.”
“Uh, huh.” Zero did not believe me. It had been three years since we decided to go our separate ways. Now, she was there, with her husband. Of course, I wasn’t feeling fine with her being here.
“You want me to kick his ass?”
“What?”
“The husband? Want me to kick his ass? You know me, I don’t care.”
“How would that help?”
“I don’t know. Could be fun, though.”
I knew he was just trying to cheer me up. But, there was a seriousness to his voice that made me believe that if I said yes, Zero would’ve walked right over there and punched him in the face. There was a strange sweetness to that knowledge.
“It’s alright. I don’t want to be that guy. You know? I’m glad she is happy.”
“How do you know she is happy?”
“I don’t. I’m just saying. Glad, she found someone.”
“Blake,” Zero said, shaking his head. “Always trying to be the good guy.”
I don’t believe I was a good guy. I just wanted to be left alone.
CHAPTER TWO
11/10/2024
The next morning, I awoke with a fright (bad dreams were a way of life since I came home) on the red couch, and now it felt like I was stuck. Not stuck, sticky. I must have passed out and spilled my beer on the sofa. The red plastic cup was still in my hand, curled up against my chest like a favorite stuffed animal. What happened? My head was pounding. I looked around as half my body hung off the sofa. The home appeared empty.
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