by Mike Ramon
THE WORST THING
Mike Ramon
© 2013 Miguel Ramon
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It was dark when the knock at the door came. George raised his head up from the pillow and looked at the clock. It was 3:04 in the morning. There was another knock at the front door, and George sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. He slipped his feet into a pair of blue slippers and got out of bed, then shuffled out of the bedroom and to the front door. There was one more knock, just the one, a lonely sound.
“Hold on a minute, will ya?” George called out.
He flipped up the switch to turn on the porch light and looked out through the peephole. He saw the back of a man’s head. George turned to make sure the chain was secure, then peered out through the peephole again.
“Can I help you?” George asked through the door.
The man turned, and George could see his face now--plain-looking, with thick eyebrows and a little stubble.
“Actually you can,” the man said. “I was driving home and my car broke down. I was wondering if I could use your telephone to call my brother to come and pick me up.”
“Don’t you have a cell?” George asked.
“Yeah, I do,” the man said, taking a small phone out of his pocket and holding it up to the peephole. “But the battery is dead. I forgot to charge it. I’m really in a spot here. It’ll just take a minute, I swear.”
George hesitated. He wasn’t usually a paranoid type, but nothing about getting woken up out of bed a three in the morning so some stranded guy could call his brother to pick him up was usual. He looked through the peephole again; the guy was still standing there. The guy shook his head and turned around, starting to move away from the door.
“Hold on, don’t go,” George said.
George sighed and took the chain off the door, then threw the deadbolt and swung the door open.
“Come in,” he said.
“Thanks,” the man said, pocketing his dead cell and rubbing his hands together. “It’s a bit chilly out there.”
George closed the door behind the man.
“This way,” George said.
“Huh?”
“The phone is this way.”
“Oh, of course.”
George led the stranger to the kitchen and pointed him to the phone on the wall.
“Thanks,” the man said. “And don’t worry, it’s a local call.”
“I’ll be in the living room,” George said, and left the man to conduct his business.
George sat on the couch and turned on the TV, surfing through thirty channels of shit you couldn’t pay him to watch and wondering--not for the first time--why he bothered paying for overpriced cable, before finally settling on a channel that showed reruns of old black and white shows from the fifties and sixties. The show on TV right then was a western. Two cowboys were conversing with a white actor painted up to look like an Indian. George didn’t recognize the show.
The man came out of the kitchen and walked into the ling room, and George stood up.
“All set then?” George asked.
“Just about. Problem is my brother won’t be able to pick me up for at least half an hour, maybe a bit longer. He has to drive here all the way from Mulberry Park. I was wondering if maybe I could wait here.”
“Well…,” George hesitated. “I guess that would be fine. It’s late though.”
“I know; I’m really sorry about this. Thanks though, really. You’re a life saver.”
George laughed.
“Life saver is a bit much. Take a seat.”
George sat back down on the couch, and the man followed suit.
“My name’s Ben, by the way,” the stranded man said.
“I’m George.”
“So,” Ben said, looking around the living room, taking in the furniture, the coffee table, the little knickknacks. “Do you live here alone?”
“No. My wife took the kids to visit here parents in Highland. They’ll be back in the morning.”
“How did you get out of it?” Ben asked.
George grinned.
“I had a bad sore throat,” he said. “It must have been a twenty-four hour sort of thing, because I feel just fine now.”
George picked up the remote and flipped through a few more channels.
“Sorry about waking you up at this time of night,” Ben said. “Thanks for being cool about it.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
George settled on a M*A*S*H rerun. The two men watched the show in relative silence punctuated by a few laughs. When the episode ended another one started; it was one of the more serious episodes that George had never been a big fan of, but he didn’t feel like looking for something else, so he left it there. When the second episode came to a close and the credits started to roll George yawned, stretching out his legs. He looked at the clock on the cable box: 4:00 a.m. Ben noticed him checking the time.
“My brother should be here any minute now,” he said.
“Where did you say he was coming from again?”
“Mulberry Park. You now, up by Canton?”
“Yeah, I know where it is.”
Another show was starting on TV, something George didn’t recognize.
“Hey, George, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Nah, never mind.”
George looked at the man sitting at the other end of the couch.
“Go ahead, shoot,” George said.
“Well, the thing is…it’s kind of personal.”
“All right, now I’m worried,” George said, only half in jest. “Come on, ask me.”
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
George didn’t know how to respond. He laughed a little.
“The worst thing?” he finally said. “That is personal. Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know; I was just curious. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“Well, um…I don’t know. I haven’t really done anything that bad.”
“Oh, come one. Everyone has done some bad things.”
“What about you, then?” George asked.
“What about me?”
“What’s the worst thing that you’ve ever done?”
“No, no; I asked first.”
George thought about it for a moment.
“Well, I stole twenty dollars out of my mom’s purse when I was fifteen,” he said. “I don’t know, I guess that’s the worst thing.”
Ben shook his head dismissively.
“That can’t be the worst thing,” he said.
“Stealing from my own mother? I’d say that’s pretty bad. She ended up blaming my brother and I let him take the fall.”
Ben looked him over for a moment, and then shook his head again.
“No; there’s something else. I can see it in you.”
George was starting to feel uncomfortable with the line of questioning. He looked at the clock again. It was 4:14.
“Does your brother have a cell,” he asked. “Maybe you could call and see if he’s almost here.”
“No, he doesn’t have one. He’s practically a Luddite. No computer, either. Nice dodge, though.”
“Dodge? I’m not dodging anything; I answered you already. I’m sorry you don’t think stealing from my mother is a worthy enough answer.”
“You
didn’t answer; not really. I can see.”
“What do you see?” George asked with a note of irritation in his voice.
“I see what you don’t want me to see.”
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence between the two men. A pair of headlights lit up the front window; George stood up and walked over to the window, moving the curtain aside and peering out into the night. The street was empty; it had just been a passing car. He let the curtain fall back into place and turned back to the living room. Ben was still seated on the couch, looking at the TV. George walked back to the couch and sat down as far away as he could from the other man.
“I knew it would be a mistake to ask you,” Ben said.
“Yeah, well…your brother’s sure taking his sweet time.”
“He’ll be here soon.”
“What about you?” George asked.
“Huh?”
“I told you the worst thing I’ve done; now tell me your worst thing.”
“I’ll tell you mine once you tell me yours.”
“I already---”
“No you didn’t; not really.”
“Damn it!”
George got up off the couch and walked to the window again, looking out and seeing the empty street outside, still and silent. Streetlamps cast eerie pools of light all along the dark street. He cast a glance back at Ben--still on the couch--before going into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and grabbed out a can of beer. He popped it open and took a chug.
“It must be bad,” Ben’s voice came from behind him.
George turned around and saw the man standing in the kitchen doorway, the hint of a sneer on his face.
“Jesus Christ. What is your deal, man?” George asked, exasperated.
“No deal. I’m just curious.”
“Yeah, maybe it’s time you took your curiosity outside to wait for your fuckin’ brother. How about that, friend?”
“There’s no need for foul language,” Ben said. “I just asked you a