SOMETHING WAITS

by Bruce Jones

  Peterson wasn’t sure when he knew Glenda was going to leave him. It had been coming for some time and, though she never actually admitted having a lover, the signs were there, he supposed. Maybe he simply chose not to read them.

  It all came to a head one cold, sleet-misted March evening. They’d been fighting. Of course. But this was the worst yet. Names were called, objects thrown. Sentiments, perhaps, irretrievably shifted. Glenda slammed from the house in tears, screeched from the drive in the cold-protesting Mazda, roared into the icy rain and out of his life. The house—their house—was abruptly empty. He was still in it, watching her fading taillights from the living room window, but it was empty. We won’t be back, her shrinking tail lights seem to say, as they vanished in a confetti swirl of snow.

  The hard truth of it settled over him, a heavy hand pressing him into the nearest chair. The big house—he had never realized just how big—went cold, colder than the freezing rain drumming the roof. Peterson sat there and stared. Stared at the front door she’d disappeared through. Was still sitting there long after the storm had echoed distant. Sat and felt drained away. A husk. He wanted to die. He wanted to vanish too. He still loved her.

  He sold the house as soon as possible, accepting half what it was worth; he couldn’t bear the sight of it, another night, another minute there without Glenda. She was the house. She filled the house. Now it was full of ghosts. He drove across town and began searching for an apartment. He wasn’t particular. Any place, any neighborhood that that didn’t immediately conjure her memory, remind him of her. He didn’t leave a forwarding address. She might try to contact him for a final, metallic goodbye. Or she might not. And the knowledge of the latter would be worse than never knowing.

  It didn’t take long to find the little apartment complex on Hyatt Street: the housing market was still spiraling, everyone was renting. It wasn’t much but he wasn’t looking for much, just someplace simple and functional, to hang his hat and—hopefully one day—start getting his life back in order. His old job at the ad firm became his salvation and he buried himself in it with a will. Busy minds, he reasoned, don’t have time to anguish. Which proved an untruth. His boss, though, was delighted with the sudden rise in clients. Peterson even got a small bonus. Great. To spend on whom?

  Weekends were the worst. That interminable stretch between Friday night and Monday morning--that felt much longer than the work week itself. Life had reversed its priorities. What were once looked-forward-to holidays now became periods of mental dread. He couldn’t see her parents, he couldn’t face his own, not radiating failure this way. The office became his chief link with sanity, his single reason to go on one more day, just one more day.

  By the third week, the apartment was becoming unbearable, to say nothing of unlivable. His complete lack of interest in cleaning or furnishing took its toll. His old stuff was too big for the little three room hovel. He’d scrounged flea markets with desultory results: a single lumpy sofa (baby shit yellow), a small desk, a lamp and a kitchen table best described as precarious. The rest of the place, what there was of it, stood empty. Like his soul. He had the money for nicer things, he just didn’t see the point. When he wasn’t at the office, he haunted the local movie house, a soft porn palace with patrons in long overcoats above sticky floors. When that became overpowering he hit the local bowling alley. A nice-looking woman flirted with him there once. He ignored her. Also there was Harvey’s Bar-and-Grill down the block. A rough place in a rougher neighborhood. Some big guy picked a fight with him one night, mistaking him for someone else. Peterson stood there blankly allowing the man to hit him, not attempting to defend himself. The big guy finally backed away flummoxed and left the bar quickly, looking a little spooked.

  One particular winter evening, he found himself trapped inside the little apartment. There was an ice storm outside, miserably cold and frigid, like the night Glenda had left him. His car wouldn’t start from the cold. Harry’s Bar shut down early due to hazardous roadways. Peterson sat within his barren little room staring forlornly out the bent and rusted venetian blinds at the falling sleet, every droplet reminding him of the last night he’d seen her, seen his Glenda. He played that final night over again in his mind, but in his new version he said different things, talked her out of leaving, slept easily against her warm back.

  Four hours of this and he felt himself drifting toward a kind of psychic detachment from reality that was probably the prelude to suicide. All denial fled; something deep inside assured him he would never see her again in this lifetime…and this lifetime had grown more nightmarish than his worst dream. He stopped showering. Nearly stopped eating. Began, staring out the window, inventing ways to end himself, grim little plays featuring overdoses and hangings and his blown out brains ringing the walls red. He found himself standing before his bathroom medicine cabinet not remembering how he got there. Unfortunately it contained nothing lethal, unless a bottle of aspirin and a box of cough drops were lethal. He had no rope to hang himself (no overhead beams in the little apartment anyway) and he certainly had no gun. Also the thought of leaving that kind of mess for others to clean up seemed one more irresponsible act in an irresponsibly stupid life.

  He sat stared out the alley window listening to his mindless stomach gurgle mindlessly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Maybe that’s how he’d die: starvation. But his own oblivious physicality thought otherwise, kept complaining until it became painful, forcing him to the mostly empty depths of the little refrigerator: one moldy carton of yogurt and a single bottle of beer. Not even enough to get drunk with. Worse, it wasn’t even his beer. Left by the former tenant, no doubt. A long time ago, apparently: the beer didn’t have a twist off top, just one of those old metal caps stamped on at the bottling plant, the kind requiring a metal opener, what his high school pals used to call a “church key.” Only the former tenant hadn’t left a church key behind. Did they even make them anymore? He stood there holding the bottle in his hand and felt a laugh building deep down that he feared to make audible. Then he had a thought. Maybe an un-openable bottle was something more useful: smash the neck against the counter, slosh the beer across the sink, apply the jagged edge of glass to his wrist—presto, who needed a gun? Still leave a mess, though. Or wait, better yet, go through the same process but in the bathtub, let all the bad memories of the present and the good memories of himself and Glenda swirl down the drain with his life. isa His Hi His stomach growled loudly again. It was walk the slush for a restaurant or hot tub and sharp glass; make up your mind. Before he could, there was a knock at the door.

  At no time during his stay in the little apartment had there been a knock at his door, nor had he even met any of his neighbors. He hadn’t particularly wanted to. Certainly wasn’t in an ebullient mood at the moment. The knock came again. Slightly more insistent? Peterson twisted the lock, drew back the spider web of paint that was the weathered door. He stood facing a wizened, bald-headed little man in the outer hall, grinning up toothlessly from worn flannel robe and week old stubble. He blinked a greeting and held out a bony hand to Peterson. “Name’s Marston, sir! We’re neighbors, I think!” He gestured, bent-backed, down the dark hall. “I’m I-E, last on the left. How do you do?” He smelled… strange. Not quite of shaving lotion.

  Peterson shook the bony hand, bemused. “I’m Peterson and I’m afraid I don’t do very well at the moment.” He held up the antique beer. “Schlitz. ‘The beer that made Milwaukie famous,’ if memory serves. Fermenting in my fridge for God knows how long. And me without an opener. Life is unjust.”

  The old man bobbed his wrinkled head, grinned sympathetically. “It can indeed be. New neighbors rarely have everything needed to start afresh in a strange place!” He reached into the pocket of his voluminous robe, winced once arthritically, fished a moment and withdrew up a shiny metal bottle opener. “Never use the durn things myself. See if she fits the bill!”

  Peterson laughed, surprising himself; only it came as a more a
startled croak, he hadn’t laughed out loud in some time. “Well, look at that! You are a mind reader, Mr. Marston!”

  Marston smile gummily, waved the air in bony dismissiveness. “Always glad to help. Didn’t take no effort to conjure that ole thing up!”

  Peterson hesitated, finally motioned inside. “I’ve only the one beer but think I can manage two clean glasses, will you join me?”

  Marston shook his head. “Not tonight, thanks. Busy with my studies.” He glanced at the opener with a wink. “Always glad to help, though. Bring that back to my room in an hour, won’t you? Become something of a pack rat in my old age!”

  “I’ll do that,” Peterson promised. The old man hobbled back down the hall. “And thanks again, Mr. Marston!”

  Marston waved his hand at the air in a think-nothing-of-it gesture. Came before his room and half turned. “Always glad to help. If I don’t answer, just slip it under the door, eh? Hearing ain’t what it used to be. Sometimes get absorbed in my reading!”

  Peterson shut the door, turned with the opener to the bottle of beer, was shocked at his reflection smiling back at him in the curve of ochre glass. Another minute or so, Mr. Marston, and you might have found me asleep in the tub. He uncapped the bottle. Ah well…perhaps tomorrow night….

  He sat contentedly for a while sipping from the bottle, leafing through an old magazine. One thing about beer, he was thinking, properly sealed it doesn’t go stale. Not bad, Milwaukie, not bad. And before he knew it he’d polished off the bottle. Too bad. The liquid on his stomach had improved his mood a little, even aroused a mild appetite. Problem was, the fridge was as empty as his car was dead. He might be able to find a nearby market within walking distance that was still open in this weather, but in what direction did he begin searching? He’d never taken the time to get to know the neighborhood, hadn’t realized until just this moment what a total hermit he’d become. Still, he wouldn’t mind a quick bite to eat to go with the beer.

  He grabbed the yellow pages and began flipping through to the fast food section. Maybe even with all this lousy weather he could find a carry-out service somewhere willing to brave the elements.

  He quickly discovered there were three types of carry-out specialists in town: chicken, Chinese and pizza. Of the six Chinese restaurants he called, none answered; too much snow for the Asians. Of the four chicken places only Chicken-on-the-Run answered and their next batch wouldn’t be ready for another hour or so—oven problems. Of the seven pizza parlors he tried, only Pepe’s Peppy Pizza responded and they hadn’t seen or heard from their delivery boy for several hours. Peterson hung up in philosophic defeat.

  Normally, he didn’t care that much for pizza, but he was really getting hungry now, his stomach sending out little telepathic waves. And the longer it did the more ravished he became, or imagined himself. He’d have even settled for another antique bottle of Schlitz. He chuckled soundlessly in the empty room. His dad used to drink Schlitz, used to go to the market every week lick clockwork, buy cases of it along with those long cardboard boxes of smokes: Old Gold cigarettes. Peterson could still see the gold coins of the logo, recall the tall brown bottles of beer on the end table beside his old man, the blue skein of smoke hanging near the ceiling above the old black-and-white Philco TV. Sea Hunt. His mother never quite able to get the smoke smell out of the curtains. Yep, those were the days. The carefree days of ignorantly blissful youth. The only truly good days of his life. All gone. Like the bygone years with Glenda, memories receding to the darker parts of his brain, one day too dark to retrieve. His stomach snarled an incongruent gurgle.

  There came a knock at the door.

  He stood from the lump flea market chair, found himself grinning again. Marston, had to be. Who else did he know these days?

  He opened the door to find the old man standing there in his lumpy robe, hands behind him, rocking irritably on the balls of his feet. Glaring.

  “Mister Marston…”

  “You didn’t bring it back!” The yellowed eyes filmed with anger, toothless mouth a white line of resentment.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I specifically asked you to bring it back within the hour! Is this your idea of being a good neighbor?”

  Peterson was honestly stymied before it hit him. “The bottle opener! Oh, hell, I forgot!”

  “I can see that you did.”

  But he had it right there in his pocket, quickly produced it and held it out to the old man’s furrowed brow. “I am sorry! Completely thoughtless! That darned beer was so good it just slipped my mind.”

  Marston drew a skeletal hand from behind him, snatched at the key.” “I clearly instructed—“

  “I know. I really am sorry. Feel just awful about it!” And he had to stifle a smile. Crazy old man.

  Marston jammed the opener in his robe pocket curtly. Then the wrinkled featured softened like warm taffy, the narrow shoulders shrugged. “Oh, well. Hell. Just a damn opener, I suppose. Not that important. You partial to chili, Mr. Peterson?”

  Peterson could already smell the rich meaty odor wafting behind the bent back. In a moment the other knotted hand appeared around the edge of the robe with an unsteady magician’s flourish. Bony fingers held up a dish of steaming crockery.

  Peterson blinked amazement. “Well…yes! As a matter of fact—“

  Marston shrugged a rubbery smile. “Can’t hardly abide the stuff myself, not these days anyways. Heartburn.” And he cackled, winking. “But it ain’t stopped me yet! Here, take it. Made way more than will keep. Thought you might enjoy a hot bowl!” And he shoved the piping dish into Peterson’s hands.

  “Mr. Marston, you are a mind reader!”

  The old man made a scoffing face. “Pshaw! Jest tryin’ to be a good neighbor.” He nodded thoughtfully at the bowl. “Took me awhile with that, I’ll admit. Ain’t the pro I used to be. But I believe it will serve!”

  “Indeed! Really, I can’t thank you enough! This is just what I needed!”

  Marston wagged a gently admonishing finger, turning. “See that you bring back the crock, now! Within the hour if you don’t mind! Ain’t got what you’d call a well-stocked cupboard!”

  “I will, I will, and thank you again!”

  The chili was delicious. Hit the spot. The only time he’d had better was when Glenda had made it herself… but he wasn’t going to let his mind go wandering there again. He was too contentedly full at the moment. In another few hours it would be time for his antidepressant meds, maybe an hour of TV, then bed, and he’d have the weekend licked. That is, if this was one of those rare nights he actually slept.

  After the chili, he quickly washed out Marston’s crockery and took it down the hall to I-E. He rang for several minutes but there was no answer from within. As directed, he left the bowl in front of Marston’s door and returned to his own place. He sat down in front of the TV and let it lull him toward sleep. It wasn’t long before he felt the acidic sting rising upward in his throat. Good chili, but spicy.

  And he’d waited too long before supper to boot. That and the beer were producing a delicious stew of fresh heartburn. Naturally; and it had almost been a good evening. Combined with his usual insomnia over Glenda, it would be a minor miracle now if he got any sleep. He sat up in bed, holding his stomach, grunting. What he needed was some Alka-Seltzer to settle him down, or even some milk. Knowing he had neither in his woefully under-stocked medicine chest he pushed out of bed and went to double check it anyway. Found it as predictably barren as the fridge. Christ. He wasn’t a hermit, he was a martyr. He sighed at his haggard reflection. It looked to be a long night of tossing and staring. He bypassed the bedroom and flopped resignedly on the crummy sofa, lay there with an arm thrown across his forehead. There were new spider webs, he noticed, lacing the ceiling above. Maybe a fat black widow, trundling down here put him out of his misery in his sleep. His stomach giggled bile. Why didn’t he stock up at the drugstore like normal people? Easy answer to that one, Sparky, you’re anything but normal;
you’re what we call terminally depressed.

  There was a knock at the door.

  For the strangest unreasoning moment he thought it might be Glenda out there in the hall, tears of forgiveness streaking her perfect cheeks. Sure. Right.

  Peterson tucked a blanket around his shoulders and opened the door. Old man Marston stood in the dim hallway, floppy flannel hanging from skeletal frame, grinning. In his left hand was a glass of frothy, hissing liquid.

  “Expected me, did you?”

  Peterson nodded in casual disbelief and leaned heavily against the jamb. “In a way.”

  Marston chuckled his old man chuckle. “My chili’s good but I do gets a bit generous with the spices and pinto beans! This should fix that scratch in yer innards! G’wan, take it!”

  Peterson took the glass obediently, downed the contents in three gulps. Bubbly relief flooded him.

  He handed back the glass, nodded his gratitude. Marston was studying him, yellow eyes narrowed speculatively. “Don’t looks so hot, Peterson. Getting’ enough sleep, are ya?”

  “Not really,” Peterson admitted, though he felt he might now.